Healer Q&A: Infusing sound healing into holistic practices with Jessica Cross & Julie Afsahi
The following interview is a transcript excerpt from The Heallist Podcast episode. Listen to the full audio version below and subscribe to get notified of new episodes.
Join us on this insightful episode as we sit down with Jessica Cross & Julie Afsahi Afsahi, two trailblazers in the yoga and sound healing community in Austin, Texas. They'll introduce us to their book, "Seasons of Sound: Sound Healing for All of Life’s Seasons," an inspiring yet practical resource for beginners, enthusiasts, and experienced sound practitioners alike. Explore the transformative power of sound healing as Jessica and Julie break down practical techniques that you can easily integrate into your daily routine.
Peek behind the scenes of "Seasons of Sound" as Jessica and Julie share their collaborative writing process. They turned extensive certification workbooks into an accessible and beautifully illustrated book. This episode also highlights their experiences as women leading in the sound healing industry, offering empowerment and encouragement for others to incorporate sound into their lives. Tune in for an inspiring conversation that promises to deepen your understanding of sound healing and its incredible benefits.
Moment of Realization of Sound Healing Benefits
Jessica Cross: Selfishly, sound for me was my own practice. It was so changing, it's such a different way of being from when I was moving through every single day, and it was simple, it was applicable, it was approachable and I was desperate to know more for myself. When I first began and I think that was kind of the antithesis of my own journey my own practice through sound was completely evolving with the sonic energy that I was using through my own personal meditation and practice and I started being curious about oh, let me, can I pair it with my yoga classes, which is perfect for our infusion talk today. Is how can I give everybody just a little bit of this wide range of sound healing in a short little bite-sized box? And I started doing that at Julie‘s studio and we started chatting more about sound and spending more and more of our energy kind of researching and through this our trainings kind of became an interesting thing. We wanted to give our own voice and our own experience too, and it has obviously continued on into the book and, to into other ventures as well. So it's been kind of an interesting journey that I honestly had no idea.
Julie Afsahi: I think that's pretty common too for people who are seeking a higher state of wellness, that oftentimes, we come to these healing modalities yoga, meditation, sound healing because we're seeking also for ourselves some type of healing. And I've practiced meditation actually my entire life, and growing up to chanting was a part of my household, and then I had left that piece of my life because once I no longer lived with my parents my dad is Iranian and I would wake up with chanting in my house. I didn't realize how much I missed it until I was reintroduced to sound healing through yoga and realized my body was craving this, my mind was craving this and then also living in an anxious body, I needed a little bit more to be able to truly calm the frequencies of my mind and body. So I needed a little bit more to be able to truly calm the frequencies of my mind and body. So I needed a little extra help. I think other people are incredible at just bringing the awareness to the breath and calming the nervous system, and for me, I just needed some extra tools to help me in decreasing this level of anxiety and sound healing, especially for me, the gong, and, of course, other instruments too. But the gong just really resonated with me and I was like I am having a hard time feeling any stress while listening to the gong. So, yeah, so that was pretty, pretty life-changing for me. So when you, when you can't even try to make the stress happen for yourself, then it's like okay, this is the practice I have to share with others.
Incorporating Sound Into Your Holistic Practice
Yuli Ziv: If you are a practitioner, what would be the easiest way to start incorporating sound into your practice?
Julie Afsahi: Jessica and I talk about this a lot with people, so to step back a bit as well is sound healing doesn't require any instrument. You have the instrument of the voice. So it could be as simple as taking in a deep breath and humming, taking in a deep breath and humming, and taking in a deep breath and humming, so three rounds that will create a shift in the body, right Tapping, into a deeper state of rest and restoration. Also, if you do have an instrument, so let's say you purchased a $20 metal singing bowl and it's so cute and pretty, but you have no idea what to do with it you might do something as simple as the same exercise, but instead tapping the singing bowl. So taking in an inhale, striking the singing bowl, letting it resonate and play out to its fullest, and then inhaling, tapping the singing bowl, letting it resonate and play out. So it can be very, very simple integration of these sound healing tools, starting with your own voice, moving to other instruments and aligning it with the breath and really just bringing your mindful awareness to the present moment by listening to the sounds of the bowl. And there's lots of practices that we have in Seasons of Sound that are very accessible, but there is something to be said to for just playing intuitively.
The Empowering Story Behind Seasons of Sound
Jessica Cross: So we were hosting our sound healing certifications and each time we were creating these massive workbooks for our students, pouring love into them each and every time and constantly adding to them. And each time we did the stack of the workbook would get a little heavier and a little sicker. And as our practice grew, as we learned more and we continued to infuse the different modalities of yoga, our trauma-informed practices, our restorative yoga practices that are in Seasons of Sound, we really wanted to kind of encompass all of that and into this workbook and we were being reminded constantly it's like you should write a book, you should write a book. We were being reminded constantly. It's like you should write a book, you should write a book. And especially in the healing space and especially in sound healing, a lot of authors are men and I was like you know what? Maybe we should write a book. So we were preparing for our next, our last year, we were preparing for our upcoming training and we just decided we looked at the timeline and we had a very short amount of time to compile the book and to get it to press before our training. But we basically decided how we do all things, which is a little crazy, a little fast, but a lot of fun. We just completely dove in and made the book a thing. We dedicated hours and hours and hours in a very short amount of time to make it easily understood, very user-friendly, full of practices that we personally use so that anyone can pick it up and then also to really speak to our experienced sound healers that are in the space to fill them up with inspiration, additional practices to consider trauma-informed spaces and ways to support rest. We've really shared our heart in this book and we're so glad we did it, even as crazy as it felt at the time. And we're so glad we did it, even as crazy as it felt at the time.
Yuli Ziv: That sounds amazing and I love your process. So you basically took the binder of all of your workbooks. I'm simplifying but I think so many people don't realize that they already have materials. Probably that can be a starting point that makes it just so much easier than just sitting and staring in this blank screen with that first page and not knowing where to start.
Julie Afsahi: Yeah, in the arena that we are in with yoga, meditation and mindfulness I tell people this all the time they have so much that they especially trainers that they've created over the years. But really any yoga teacher, any sound healer, just pulling together all of the sequences that you've created, all of the wisdom that you've gained over the years, it's just organizing it and then also moving away from my hand-drawn drawings of gongs, being away from pretty bad drawings and things that I was using, and hiring an illustrator, I think was the thing that needed to happen for a long time. So that was exciting too, with the book, to have an illustrator was amazing actually.
Being the Community’s Source of Support
Julie Afsahi: For me, too, it's like years of slideshows and all sorts of things that were used to help compile this book as well. So, yes, big shout out to just taking the time to pull it together into a book. It's good for you as well, just for your own growth to see like, “Oh my gosh, I was able to do this, and it's such a fulfilling feeling.” But also, it's as you said, it really inspires others, like I can't tell you how many people in my yoga community now want to write books or are working on books because they're similar to me and, having taught yoga for a while now, have led training and they are also pulling resources together. So, yeah, I think that's part of to this whole conversation today. That's so, so wonderful is we're meant to also just be a source of like cheer and support for everybody else out there that we we actually were on to be transparent.
Final Thoughts for the Listeners
Julie Afsahi: I think the biggest message is really you can do it. So, as an entrepreneur myself, it's unbelievable. You know the growth that we've had in the past six years at SoulStrong and then also with Seasons of Sound and the sound trainings. Now we are traveling with our sound trainings, taking them to other places and studios, creating online courses as well. And if you were to have asked me seven or eight years ago what I thought my yoga business might be, I think maybe I thought I would have 60 regular members or something like that coming to the studio and I had no idea the many pathways that would be created because of collaborating with other entrepreneurial people. So really just opening yourself up to others, asking for help, but also like seeing what opportunities are out there with others who are also interested in creation and co-creation, and I know it's kind of trite, but just saying yes as well to opportunities. I think living in that space of just saying yes has been extraordinarily helpful for me and my own growth. So sound healing aside, I think it's like if you believe in what you're doing, just going for it and also like never in any way limiting yourself and all of the possibilities.
Jessica Cross: Yeah, and I love everything Julie said and for me, I think I would offer trust. Trust the process, trust where you are right now, and everything that you have experienced before is preparing you for where you're headed, even if you're not sure exactly where. That is just trust each day, continue to get up, continue to maybe work the job that you don't love so that you get a few hours to experience the thing that you do love, and that is a ripple effect. So the trust is very much the underpinning of it all. So trust the process and just keep showing up.
