Being Sound

Picture from Davin Youngs' sound bath performance in Charlotte, July 18th, 2026.

Life often hits us like waves. Sometimes, small waves gently lick our feet, whispering "Did you notice this," or "Did you feel that?" Other times, the waves wash over us completely-knocking us off our feet, pulling us into an uncontrolled undercurrent of uninvited change.

Most of us meet these heavy emotional waves with resistance.  The uneasiness leaves us reaching for ways to return to comfort, to what is familiar, or to numb ourselves: mindlessly scrolling through social media, emotional eating, losing sleep.  We may seek ways to stop the feelings, only to realize the resistance hurts us more than the wave itself. Eventually, either by choice or happenstance (because sometimes life has a way of helping us slow down through unplanned means,) we eventually find stillness and begin to feel.  

I experienced this firsthand during a recent sound bath by Davin Youngs (https://www.theresetsoundexperience.com.)  He opened the session by reminding us of one definition of the word sound: to be safe, whole, and undisturbed.

As the immersive sounds washed over the room, feelings of release and opening began in my body, and then into my mind. Inviting sounds eventually morphed into what was more like cacophony. My body tensed. My mind felt resistant. But the sounds continued, just like the uncomfortable sensations of an unwanted change. Waves and waves continued until I felt a sense of trembling, unearthing, and an unmistakable breaking loose. I found that if I didn't resist those feelings, they began to move me. Sounds of literal waves came through the speakers, and I visualized myself being seaweed in the ocean-deeply rooted to the sea floor, yet entirely fluid, moving with the waves rather than fighting them.

In that surrender, I found the definition of sound: I was safe, whole, and undisturbed.

When we open to those feelings of awakening, discomfort, and unearthing, we break the cycle of avoiding uneasiness.  We invite movement, insight and change- the change that is sometimes sought after, but also those times of change that hit us like a tsunami which sweeps away life as we know it.  When we stop running from emotional discomfort, we open ourselves to the exact movement we need to heal.

This week in yoga class, we are exploring Santosha or “contentment.”  True contentment is not expecting the sea to always remain calm. It is the ability to let life’s unsettling changes move through us rather than against us.   As the poet Kahlil Gibran beautifully wrote in The Prophet:

     “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

     Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

     And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

     And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

     And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.”

As the waves of life inevitably impact us, may we continue to breathe through them, find our roots, and embrace the flow.