Our fourth session fell on Valentine’s Day. I don’t know if that was coincidence or design, probably a bit of both. What I do know is that Ethan arrived to this session a different person than the one I’d met a few weeks earlier. Not unrecognizable, he was still Ethan, but something fundamental had shifted in how he carried himself.

The Progress Report

In the week since session three, Ethan had written fifty pages. Fifty. He described the writing as “unusually easy”, the words flowing in a way they hadn’t for months. For someone whose ADHD and chronic fatigue had been conspiring against his creative output, this was remarkable.

He mentioned some pain returning a couple of days before our session, but he’d traced it himself. He’d been out with his girlfriend and had overdone it, drinking, pushing his body too hard. He was starting to notice the connection between specific behaviors and symptom flare-ups. That kind of self-awareness doesn’t happen when you’re just trying to survive the pain. It happens when you have enough space from it to observe it. The sessions had given him that space.

Over the past three sessions, the arc was clear. An emotional release he hadn’t expected. Fourteen hours of the best sleep in years. Coffee intake dropping from seven cups to one without effort. Tai-chi picked up again. Healthier boundaries set. Creative productivity surging. Pain levels dropping from an average of 8 to something manageable and, importantly, becoming something he could correlate with choices rather than something that just happened to him.

Session 4: Closing the Container

I assessed his energy field one final time. His solar plexus was overactive again, it had been a persistent pattern and his third eye was depleted. But his heart was normal. After being depleted in sessions one and two, overactive in session three, it had found its center. That single data point told me the most important story of this case study: the heart was back.

By this session, I had developed a technique for remote work that I want to share, because it made a profound difference. Before connecting with Ethan, I used a mirror to create what I think of as a doorway. I invoked Hekate, keeper of thresholds, holder of keys and traced a door on the mirror’s surface three times clockwise, speaking Ethan’s name. Then I unlocked it with a consecrated key and opened the door. The moment I did, the room changed. It felt as if Ethan had stepped in.

This isn’t stagecraft. It’s a technique I developed through practice, and it serves a practical purpose: it establishes the energetic connection firmly before the session begins, and, equally important, it gives me a clear way to sever that connection afterward. At the end of each session, I close the door, lock it, and retrace the lines counterclockwise three times. The mirror gets cleansed with the instruments. This way, the healing cord is established and then safely released. Neither of us carries the other’s energy beyond the session.

Ethan’s intention for this final session: “I complete my work with excellence and ease. I enjoy and experience my days with comfort and ease.”

I began with the grail and the ocean drum again, that combination had proven itself in session three. The drum’s oceanic quality grounded us both, and I used the counterclockwise motion to clear residual energy before moving into the precision work.

Then the E bowl, targeting the solar plexus one more time. Tapping to the left, working through the familiar progression: minor second, major second, minor third, major third. Each session, these intervals had done their work. Each time, the release came a little faster, a little cleaner.

For this session, I was guided to the E major triad, a brighter, more resolute harmonic structure than the minor triads of previous sessions. The affirmation was: “Balance. I see the light.” I played it for several minutes while holding a visualization of golden light flowing from the solar plexus, transmuted and clean, replenishing his third eye, then streaming down through his entire body to his feet and into the earth.

From there: the fourth (E-A), grounding. The fifth (E-B), with Ethan reciting his intention three times — “I am able to complete my work with excellence and focus. I enjoy and experience my day with comfort and ease”, pausing between each repetition, breathing, letting the words settle into the harmonic field.

The rainstick. A final spoken intention. And silence.

What Ethan Felt

He came back from the silence and told me his pain, which had been present when we started, was gone. Not reduced, gone. He felt lighter and “very fuzzy energetically.” I’d heard him say lighter before, but fuzzy was new. It suggested his energy field was still actively reorganizing, still in motion even after the sounds had stopped.

I gave him his final recommendations: continue the bija mantras, 108 repetitions of Ram for the solar plexus and Om for the third eye, once daily. Visualize the golden light with each chant. Silent meditation before the mantras. Keep journaling. Keep breathing.

The Bonus Session and What Came After

Because of the audio quality issues in our first two sessions, the learning curve of getting Zoom to properly transmit crystal bowl frequencies, I offered Ethan a bonus fifth session. Before we began, I did one more energy assessment and was pleased to find him in balance. He told me he’d been chanting the bija mantras regularly and using his shruti box to accompany the chants with corresponding notes. He was doing the work. Actively, creatively, in his own way.

During the bonus session, we toned together using Jonathan Goldman’s chakra sounds. Ethan said it was incredibly powerful, the most powerful part of all the sessions. Something about co-creating the sound with his own voice, not just receiving it, hit differently. I think this is the direction my practice is moving. The client isn’t just a recipient. They’re a participant. When two voices meet inside a harmonic field, the healing belongs to both of them.

The Full Arc

When I look back at Ethan’s case study, what I see is someone’s body remembering how to be well. Not cured, but reorganized. The chronic pain didn’t vanish forever, but it dropped from an 8 to something livable, and more importantly, it became something he understood instead of something that just happened to him. The fatigue lifted enough that a writer who’d been struggling to focus was suddenly producing fifty pages in a week. The emotional holding patterns shifted enough that he could set boundaries, cry when he needed to, and open his heart to an affirmation he initially couldn’t say.

What I Learned

This case study changed me. It was my first sustained remote healing series, and it taught me that distance is not a barrier when the connection is real. Five thousand miles, a screen, and a pair of headphones, none of it diminished what was possible. The sound found its way because the intention carried it.

I learned that triads with affirmations are one of the most powerful tools I have. Not just for releasing but for transforming. When Ethan struggled to say “I love myself” and then gradually found it in his voice, that wasn’t me healing him. That was him healing himself, with the sound holding the space for it to happen.

I learned that co-creating sound, toning together, chanting together, is where the deepest work lives. In the bonus session, when we toned the chakra sounds together, Ethan said it was the most powerful moment of all five sessions. I believe him. And I think more toning, offered when the client is comfortable, will be a central part of my practice going forward.

I learned to trust my intuition. There were moments across these sessions, choosing the fire koshi to match his excitement, playing the A bowl to the right for replenishment, sensing when the E minor affirmation had broken through, where the guidance didn’t come from my training manual. It came from somewhere quieter. These sessions helped me hear that voice more clearly.

And I learned, again, to take care of myself. The sessions are nourishing for me too, but they don’t replace my own practice. I’m at my best when I’m also doing the work on myself, all the ways, in all the layers. The healer has to heal, too.

Ethan’s story isn’t over. He told me he’s hoping to continue working with me. I’m hoping so too. But even if these sessions were all we ever did, what happened was real. The sound traveled. The healing landed. And a writer in England is walking easier, sleeping better, and filling pages with words that flow.

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This is the fourth and final post in a series documenting a real client case study. The client’s name has been changed for privacy, and he has given permission for his testimonial to be shared on our testimonial page. If you’re curious about sound healing , whether in person, or remotely, you can learn more about working with me on the SoundMend website.

Read the full series:

• Part 1: Across the Ocean — A Remote Sound Healing Journey Begins
• Part 2: What Changed Between Sessions
• Part 3: The Reversal
• Part 4: Across the Ocean, Into Himself

By session three, Ethan had been doing the work between sessions. His coffee consumption had dropped from six or seven cups a day to one in the morning. He’d been writing prolifically. He’d picked up tai-chi. He was sleeping better, moving better, feeling better.

But healing isn’t always a straight line upward. Sometimes the body reorganizes in unexpected ways, and that’s exactly what showed up when I assessed his energy field before our third session.

A New Pattern

His chakras had shifted. The solar plexus, which had been overactive in both previous sessions, was now normal. The third eye and crown, which had balanced after session one, remained normal. But two things had changed: his heart, which had been depleted, was now overactive. And his third eye, which had come into balance, was now depleted.

This kind of reversal can look alarming on paper, but it’s actually a sign that energy is moving. The heart had been starved for the first two sessions. The release work, the emotional processing, the affirmation “I love myself”, had opened something. Now the heart was flooding with energy it hadn’t had access to, and it hadn’t yet found its equilibrium. Meanwhile, the third eye was temporarily depleted, as if the system had redirected resources to the heart’s recovery.

The body’s energy system is a whole. When one center opens or shifts, the others respond. It’s not a problem to solve, it’s a conversation to listen to.

What Ethan Reported

Before we began the sound work, Ethan shared what had been happening in his life. He said that since we’d started, he hadn’t felt the need for caffeine the way he used to. Six or seven cups to one, not through willpower but because the craving simply wasn’t there anymore. He was more motivated to write and had been very productive.

He also mentioned something that I think is one of the most important outcomes in this entire case study: he’d noticed a couple of people in his life who were pushing his boundaries, and he’d decided to cut them out. At least temporarily. He was stressed about it, but he’d done it anyway.

This is transformation in action. Not the dramatic, cinematic kind. The quiet, difficult kind, where someone recognizes a pattern that’s been draining them and chooses to change it. The sessions didn’t make that decision for him. But they gave his system enough clarity, enough energy, to see what needed to happen and act on it.

He said it himself: “It’s working in ways I never thought it would.”

Session 3: A Different Approach

With the heart now overactive and the third eye depleted, this session needed a different architecture than the previous two. Instead of the E bowl work targeting the solar plexus, I began with the F bowl, corresponding to the Heart chakra, tapping to the left to gently address the excess energy there.

His intention had evolved again: “I am focused and energized. I am nourished and well balanced, and complete my work with excellence.” Each session, he got more precise about what he was asking for. The vague hope of session one had become a specific declaration.

I started with my grail, as always, to establish the connection. Then I introduced the ocean drum, something I hadn’t used in the previous sessions. The drum creates a wash of sound that mimics the sea, and I played it with a specific intention: starting soft, as if Ethan were walking toward the water from a distance, then building as if the waves were engulfing him. I alternated between gentle and strong, and moved the drum counterclockwise to help break up blocked energy.

The ocean drum became a bridge into the release work. I transitioned to the F bowl, working through intervals — the minor second (F-G), then the major third (F-A). With the third eye depleted, I made an intuitive choice: I played the A bowl to the right instead of the left, directing energy toward replenishment rather than release. Sound isn’t just notes, it’s direction, intention, and awareness of what each center needs in that moment.

The Triads Deepen

I checked with my pendulum again before the session, and it swung strongly for D minor. So after the releasing intervals, I introduced the D minor triad and guided Ethan through the affirmation: “I am able to change. It is safe. In love, I open like a flower.”

He repeated it three times, and with each repetition, I could hear his voice settling. Not softening, settling. There’s a difference. Softening is withdrawal. Settling is arrival.

From D minor, I transitioned to F minor — allowing the D and A to fade naturally while the F continued to hold the space. The affirmation shifted: “Aum. The return to the Source.” This was a different quality of work than the previous sessions. Session one had been about first contact. Session two had been about going deeper. Session three was about integration, gathering the released, recycled energy and directing it toward wholeness.

I moved through the grounding intervals: the fourth (C-F), the fifth (C-G), the sixth (C-A), and the octave (low C to high C). At each interval, Ethan chanted Aum in harmony with the bowls. The sound of a human voice finding its place inside a harmonic structure is something that never stops being beautiful to me. It’s co-creation in real time.

What Ethan Felt

He sat in silence for ten minutes after this session, the longest yet. When he came back, he described the experience differently than before. He said it felt like this session was meant to “button up” or complete some things from the last two sessions. It wasn’t the intense, dramatic releasing he’d felt before. Instead, it was nourishing and supporting, reinforcing the work he’d already done.

He described it as getting a few moments of “Well, that’s that, and this is this.” A kind of quiet resolution. Things clicking into place.

I told him to keep chanting, keep journaling, and spend some time in silent meditation. The body was doing good work, and it needed space to integrate.

What This Session Taught Me

I learned to trust the ocean drum more. I’d been using it tentatively in earlier work, but in this session it proved itself as both a relaxation trigger and a release instrument. Moving it counterclockwise while breathing deeply created a quality of energy clearing that the bowls alone don’t quite achieve. It’s a different kind of vibration, chaotic, organic, oceanic and sometimes that’s exactly what a session needs before the precise work of intervals and triads.

I also learned something about the rhythm of a healing series. Not every session is a breakthrough. Some sessions are about consolidation, the body integrating what’s already shifted, confirming the new patterns, letting the nervous system know it’s safe to stay here. Ethan’s description of “buttoning up” was perfect. The earlier sessions opened things; this one organized them.

And I learned to experiment with octaves. I discovered during preparation that my F3 and F4 bowls sound incredible together with the grail. Three different expressions of the same note, each carrying a different quality of energy. I made a note to incorporate that octave layering in future sessions, especially during step 8, reforming patterns of wellness, where the goal is nourishment and wholeness.

Session four would be our last planned session. Ethan had already changed more than either of us expected. The question was: how do you close a container you’ve built across an ocean?

Continue reading: Part 4 — Across the Ocean, Into Himself

A week passed between Ethan’s first and second sessions. When he appeared on screen for session two, something was different. Not dramatically different, he wasn’t a new person. But lighter. The word he kept using was lighter.

What Happened Between Sessions

The first thing Ethan told me was that he’d cried. A lot. Not from sadness, exactly, but from something he couldn’t quite name. “I would cry for no reason and all the reasons,” he said. That phrase stayed with me. I told him to let it come, whatever his body was asking for, to be gentle with himself and allow the tears to fall. This is release. It doesn’t always look the way we expect.

After the first sound healing session, he’d slept for fourteen hours. He told me it was the best sleep he’d gotten in years. Not just long, but genuinely restful. After that, falling asleep became easier. Staying asleep became easier. For someone with chronic fatigue, this alone was significant.

But it went further than sleep. Ethan picked up tai-chi again, something he’d dropped. He found it easier to move, to pick up his feet, to walk. He bought a cane he’d been contemplating for a while, not out of defeat, but out of self-care, a tool to help him enjoy longer walks through the countryside near his home. His psychic readings improved, he said. The connections with his clients felt clearer. And he’d been more productive with his writing in one week than he had been in months.

He was also chanting. The bija mantras I’d recommended, Ram, Yam, Om, Ah, all had become part of his daily practice, along with the fourfold breathing technique from the session. He’d taken the homework seriously. He was actively participating in his own healing, and it showed.

Session 2: Going Deeper

I assessed his energy field before we began. The shift was encouraging: his third eye and crown had come back into balance — both normal now. His solar plexus was still overactive, and his heart was still deficient, but the upper centers had settled. The chanting and breathwork were doing their job. Now we could go deeper into the core imbalance.

His intention for this session evolved slightly: “I can walk with comfort and ease. My mind is clear, I am focused, and my chakras are balanced.” More specific. More grounded. He was learning what to ask for.

This session was different from the first. Where session one had been about breaking things loose, a first contact with stuck energy, session two felt more intentional, more precise. I started with the grail, then moved into something new: triads with spoken affirmations.

I’d consulted my pendulum before the session to ask which triads could best serve Ethan’s healing. One of the things I’ve learned to trust is divination as a diagnostic tool alongside the structured techniques from my training. The pendulum swung strongly for certain combinations, and I followed its guidance.

After the C major triad with the affirmation “I am relaxed and well balanced. My head is clear,” I moved into the release work, the E bowl again, tapping to the left, working through seconds and thirds. But this time, I introduced the E minor triad, and asked Ethan to repeat an affirmation that I sensed was important:

“I love myself. I love the world. And everyone in it.”

The Moment Something Moved

I watched Ethan’s face change as he tried to say those words. His voice shifted. There was tension, not resistance exactly, but a place where the words met something inside him that wasn’t ready to let them through easily. I could hear it. I could feel it.

I didn’t push. I reminded him to breathe. To accept whatever was arising. To hold his intention loosely, like an open hand rather than a fist. I kept playing the E minor triad, letting it hold the space, and when I sensed he was ready, I offered the affirmation again. This time it came easier. The third time, it was his.

When the energy lightened — and I could feel the moment it did, I transitioned to E-flat major, a triad that carries a completely different quality. Where E minor opens and releases, E-flat major grounds and empowers. I asked him to repeat: “I stand on my own feet and transmit the light to others.”

For someone whose deepest wish was to walk with ease, those words carried a weight that went beyond metaphor.

I closed with the grounding intervals, the fourth, the fifth, high C to low C, all while visualizing the transmuted energy flowing down to his heart, filling what had been depleted, then continuing down through his legs into the earth. Seeing him walking through the English countryside. Comfortable. Strong.

What Ethan Felt

He sat in silence for about six minutes after the session ended. When he came back, he told me the triads and affirmations had been really powerful. He said he could feel energy moving through him in a way that was different from the first session, less like something being broken open, more like something being rearranged. He mentioned specifically that E-flat major had resonated with him. He really enjoyed it.

I asked him to continue his bija mantra practice and review the aftercare recommendations I’d sent.

What This Session Taught Me

Two things. First: check your bowls after cleaning them. I’d accidentally swapped two of my sharps bowls when I was reorganizing after a cleaning session, and a couple of notes weren’t right when I went to play them. I fixed it quickly, Ethan didn’t seem to notice, but it was a good reminder to run through the setup before the client connects. Play the bowls. Verify positions. Don’t assume.

Second, and more important: the combination of triads with spoken affirmations is powerful in a way I’m still learning to appreciate. There’s something about the harmonic structure of a triad, three notes in relationship, that creates a container for words that a single tone or interval can’t match. When Ethan struggled to say “I love myself” over the E minor triad, and then gradually found his way to it, that wasn’t just him repeating words. That was his energy field reorganizing around a new truth. The triad held the space for it to happen.

I made a note: use more triads. Trust the ones the pendulum selects. And don’t rush the affirmations, let the client find their own timing.

Session three would bring something unexpected: a reversal.

Continue reading: Part 3 — The Reversal

Not all healing happens in the same room. Ethan lives in London. I live in the Pacific Northwest. When he reached out about working together, the first thing we had to figure out wasn’t his chakras, it was Zoom audio settings.

He found me through a mutual connection. He’d had a sound bath before, a group experience with a friend, and it had left an impression. But he hadn’t done anything like a series of one-on-one sessions, and certainly not remotely. He was curious, a little skeptical, and in a lot of pain.

What Ethan Was Carrying

Ethan has fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, both consequences of long COVID that hit him in 2020. Before that, he’d already been managing lifelong gut issues. The aftermath of a serious medical event in his younger years that left lasting damage. Layer ADHD on top of all of that, and you get a picture of someone whose body and mind had been working overtime just to get through a normal day.

His pain, on average, sat around an 8 out of 10. On the worst days, a 10. He’d learned to function through it the way people with chronic conditions do, not because the pain got better, but because he got used to carrying it.

He was drinking six or seven cups of coffee a day just to stay productive. His mornings started with walks around his neighborhood, guitar in the afternoons, and psychic readings for clients at a local shop. He was a writer, too. He had been working on complex philosophical ideas, but the words came slowly, weighed down by fatigue.

When I asked what he wanted from this, his intention was grounded and clear:

“I am strong, healthy, and can walk with ease and endurance.”

He wanted to walk without pain. He wanted to feel like his body was his own again.

The Distance Question

People ask me about remote sessions, whether sound healing works when the client isn’t in the room. It’s a fair question. Sound is physical. Vibration is physical. How does that translate through headphones and a video call?

What I’ve found, through Ethan and through other remote clients, is that the connection is the container. The sound is the instrument, but the intention, and the energetic link between practitioner and client, is what makes the work land. I prepare for remote sessions the same way I prepare for in-person ones. Singing the Orphic hymn to Hekate while burning a special blend of incense. Cleansing myself, then my instruments and the room. I then connect with my healing spirits, set the space, and focus my own intention, to facilitate healing and transformation for Ethan’s highest good and good of all.

Ethan used deep-meditation headphones on his end and laid down with a mask to cover his eyes. We were 5,000 miles apart, but once the session began, the distance became irrelevant.

Session 1: Finding the Frequency

Before any bowl was played, I assessed Ethan’s energy centers using a pendulum. What I found told a clear story: his solar plexus was overactive, his heart was depleted, and both his third eye and crown were overactive. Too much energy running through the mental and power centers. Not enough reaching his heart.

It made sense. Someone who has spent years managing chronic pain through sheer willpower, pushing through, figuring it out, getting things done despite the body’s protests, often develops this pattern. The doing centers are in overdrive. The feeling center gets starved.

We set his intention together using what the Sound Healing Academy calls the transformation crucible, it is a guided process where I ask the client to see themselves already healed, to feel it in their body, to breathe that vision into every cell. Ethan’s phrase was simple and powerful: “I am strong, healthy, and can walk with ease and endurance.” I asked him to visualize it in vivid detail as I played my F4 Grail and F3 bowl, creating an octave with overtones, together, they help create a space for grounding and openness. Not as a wish but as if it were already true.

I started with my fire koshi chime. Ethan had come in excited, energized, optimistic and my intuition told me to meet him there instead of trying to slow him down too quickly. The chime’s bright, dancing tones matched his energy and gave it somewhere to go. From there I transitioned to my grail while working through the crucible, and my crystal bowl tuned to F3, playing it with soft taps and gentle drones. The overtones of the grail create something I can only describe as a feeling of oneness, a vibrational field that wraps around the connection between practitioner and client and makes it tangible.

Throughout, I was visualizing golden healing light flowing into every layer of Ethan’s being, focusing particularly on his legs, seeing him walking with comfort, with strength. This is co-creation. I hold the vision. He breathes with it. The sound carries it.

For the releasing work, I moved to the E bowl, the solar plexus, tapping it gently to the left to begin loosening the overactive energy. I worked through intervals: the minor second (E-F), the major second (E-F#), the minor third (E-G), the major third (E-G#). Each interval goes a little deeper, breaking up stuck patterns layer by layer. Since his third eye and crown were also overactive, I added the A-B and G-B intervals to address those centers.

For grounding, I played the C-F interval, then the octave, high C to low C, before closing with the rainstick and a moment of spoken intention: “Now let go, move aside, and surrender to the power of the universe.”

Then, silence.

What Ethan Felt

When Ethan came back from the silence, he was amazed. His legs, which usually hurt, didn’t. He told me he’d been waiting for the cramps the ones that always came, but they never showed up. He looked at me through the screen with a gratitude that was quiet and real, and said: “Thank you. I think this will take some time to truly reflect, but thank you.”

I gave him his homework: chant the Bija mantras, Ram for the solar plexus, Yam for the heart, Om for the third eye, Ah for the crown, while visualizing golden light entering with each sound. Simple practices, but ones that keep the work alive between sessions.

What This Session Taught Me

I’ll be honest, the Zoom setup was a challenge at first. Figuring out audio routing, making sure he could hear the bowls properly, managing the technical side while staying present energetically. It wasn’t seamless. But the healing was. The technology was imperfect; the connection was not.

What I learned from this first session is that sound is an incredible force for healing and transformation, even with remote clients. It felt just as potent as if Ethan were in the room. The key is the envisioning, the connection. You have to hold both at once, the practical and the spiritual and trust that the sound will find its way.

I also learned to give myself more time to prepare. Don’t rush the technical setup. Breathe.

Ethan went home, well, he was already home and the real work began between sessions. What happened over the next week would surprise us both.

Continue reading: Part 2 — What Changed Between Sessions

After the cord-cutting in session 3, Maya sent me a message. She said her energy had been feeling lighter all week …noticeably, unmistakably lighter. She attributed it directly to what had been released.

She also made a significant decision. After listening to her body during meditation, she had her IUD removed.

She told me that she realized, once the pain began to lift, that the device she’d been using to manage her endometriosis symptoms hadn’t actually been making a difference. The difference had come from what she had learned and experienced from these sessions. She was ready to move forward in a new way and she and her partner were beginning to talk about starting a family after her upcoming wedding.

Session 4: Arriving Different

Maya arrived for her fourth session still carrying some physical discomfort, jaw tension, lower back pain, but her self-assessment before the session told a different story than it had in week one. Her sense of purpose was high. Her faith and connection ratings had climbed. Inner peace was sitting at 7 out of 10. She had been meditating and journaling consistently.

She was a different person than the woman who had first walked through my door.

The Session

We moved through the familiar opening, grounding, connection, intention. Her solar plexus was still running overactive; her heart still depleted. The body takes time to fully reorganize around new patterns. That’s not failure, that’s just how healing works. It moves in layers, and it moves at the pace the nervous system can integrate.

During the releasing work, I began using my practitioner bowl directly, moving it into Maya’s energy field at specific locations, spiraling out to disperse excess, spiraling in to nourish what was depleted. This is more hands-on work, and it requires a quality of attunement that I’d been building across all four sessions with her. I knew her field now. I knew where the patterns lived.

At some point during the nourishing intervals, Maya fell asleep.

I kept playing. Sleep during a sound session is not unusual, it often means the nervous system has finally found enough safety to fully let go. I held the space, continued the work, and let the sound do what it does.

A Memory Surfaces

When Maya woke, she immediately checked her sore spots. No pain. Gone.

Then she told me about a memory that had come up during the session, a friendship from years ago that had ended badly. A woman who had been like a sister to her, whose jealousy had eventually turned into something that broke the bond and damaged her reputation in their friend group. Maya had never fully processed it. She carried it quietly.

As she described it, I noticed something, the memory had surfaced during intervals focused on her heart and solar plexus, the exact chakras that had shown up depleted and overactive throughout all four sessions. The body keeps score. And sometimes sound creates enough space that what’s been stored there can finally rise to be seen.

I gently reflected back what I noticed. Maya agreed, that old wound was likely contributing to the patterns we’d been working with all along. She left with something new to sit with, journal about, and perhaps return to in future work.

Where Maya Ended

The self-assessment Maya completed after her fourth session tells a cleaner story than I can:

Pain: down. Fatigue: down. Anxiety: almost gone. Depression: zero. Fear: nearly zero. Inner peace: 10 out of 10. Connection: 9. Hope and faith: 9. Overall wellbeing: 8, up from where she began.

What Four Sessions Can Do

Maya came in carrying chronic pain, a grieving nervous system, and an attachment she didn’t know she had. She left with her pain dramatically reduced, a spirit freed, a major life decision made from a place of clarity, and a foundation of inner peace that her numbers had never reflected before.

Sound healing isn’t magic in the theatrical sense. It’s something quieter and more real than that. It works because the body is fundamentally vibrational, and when you give it sound that invites coherence, intention that orients toward wholeness, and a practitioner who is genuinely present and listening, the body knows what to do with that. It remembers how to heal.

This case study was Maya’s story. But the arc it traces, pain, attachment, release, integration, new beginning, is one I see move through people again and again. The details change. The terrain is always recognizable.

If you’re curious what this kind of work might look like for you, I’d love to talk.

Reach out here to schedule a conversation.

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Read the full series: Part 1 — First Contact | Part 2 — What the Sound Revealed | Part 3 — The Cord-Cutting | Part 4 — Integration and New Beginnings

Some sessions announce themselves before they begin.

I had been preparing for this one all week, talking with my tutor about what had happened, studying cord-cutting, learning the use of sound to open and close portals, working with Hekate in my own practice to be ready for what might come. I wasn’t certain it would happen in session 3. I told myself I was ready for a normal session if that’s what was needed.

Then Maya knocked on my door, and there was a bird clinging to the door.

An Omen

Maya looked up at the bird, then at me, and said: “Uhm… there’s a bird just hanging onto your door.”

We both knew it was a sign. I welcomed them both in, Maya and the presence that had been walking alongside her since session 2.

Maya told me, quietly, that today was the sixth anniversary of her stepfather’s death.

Consent, on Both Sides

Before we began, I spoke with Maya about the cord-cutting I had been preparing for, what it would involve, how it would be done, and what it was intended to accomplish. I made clear that both she and her stepfather’s spirit would need to consent or the energy could get wonky. She agreed without hesitation.

His consent took a little longer. I sensed hesitation from him. Fear, not of punishment, but of losing her. I told him, and I told her, that the process would happen organically and that it might not happen today. There was no rush. I told him he was not going to be punished. That the fear he was carrying was the thing binding him, not his love for her.

The Session

We moved through the opening steps, grounding, intention, energy assessment, resonance. Her solar plexus was overactive, heart depleted, throat overactive. The same constellation as before. The body holding its familiar pattern, waiting for release.

During the releasing work, the heat came again and with it, his voice, urgent and clear: “Ok, ok, do it. I am ready. She needs more time with you, and I now see how I am not helping her. I’m ready. Do it.”

I stopped playing. I looked at Maya and said: “Your stepfather is here. He says he’s ready for the cord-cutting. Are you ready?”

She nodded.

I took my consecrated Hekate athame from the altar and, with clear intention, cut the cords I had seen in session 2, one connected to her solar plexus, one extending across both shoulders, where she had been carrying so much pain. I moved with care, never close to her physical body. When it was done, the heat left me. He took a seat quietly at the far edge of the room.

Opening the Portal

After the cord-cutting, I followed my intuition through nourishing intervals and two triads that felt chosen rather than chosen by me. The affirmations that came with them seemed to be speaking to both souls at once.

When the moment felt right, I played the combination that opens a portal, holding the intention for Hekate to guard it, for it to serve the highest good of both Maya and her stepfather.

The portal appeared in my inner vision as deep blue, like the night sky. He approached it, then stopped. He turned to me and said: “I am afraid. Not because of what’s waiting for me on the other side but because I feel if I leave her, I won’t be able to see her again.”

I asked Hekate to show him what it looks like to be a healed, empowered guardian for the ones he loves, what that relationship could become once he was free. She showed him. The energy shifted. The deep blue of the portal moved through pink and gold. I felt goosebumps.

He stepped through with confidence.

After the Crossing

I moved into the nourishing and grounding intervals, holding space for both of them. At one point, I heard him from the other side: “Woooow, this is so kool, you go girl!” Pure joy. Pure relief.

I closed the portal when the time felt right, and brought the session to a gentle close.

What Maya Experienced

When Maya opened her eyes, she told me she had physically felt where the cords were, and that when I cut them, she felt a cool, light wind moving not just across her body but through it.

The athame is a tool of the air element. I found that quietly perfect.

She said she felt content. At peace. The pain in her shoulders was gone. The stomach pain from her digestive issues had also dissipated.

What This Session Taught Me

Spirit attachments are not always malevolent. Sometimes they are simply love that doesn’t know how to let go, grief that hasn’t found its way through, or shame that convinced someone they weren’t worthy of rest. The healing in this session was for both of them. And sound, the vibration of crystal bowls, the breath, the intention woven through the music, created the conditions for that healing to happen.

I brought this case study into Hekate’s presence, deeply grateful for her witness.

Continue reading: Part 4 — Integration and New Beginnings

If you’ve been following Maya’s story, you know that her first sound healing session ended with something unexpected: her physical pain nearly gone, and a quiet sense that something deeper was beginning to move.

Session 2 was where things got extraordinary.

A Better Week — and One Beautiful Sign

Maya arrived for her second session with mixed news. Life stressors were still present… financial worry, fatigue, the ongoing background hum of anxiety. But something had shifted. She mentioned, almost shyly, that she’d had comfortable intimacy with her partner for the first time in a while. For someone dealing with endometriosis-related pain, that was not a small thing. She was hopeful.

She kept the same healing intention from week one. That consistency matters — it gives the work something to orient toward, a steady north star across sessions.

Into the Session

We began the same way we always do: grounding, connection, intention. Her energy field showed a similar pattern to before — solar plexus overactive, throat overactive, sacral and heart depleted. Chronic stress tends to cluster in the power centers while the relational ones run low. We moved into releasing work.

And then something happened that I wasn’t prepared for.

What I Saw

While working through a releasing interval, I became aware of heat building in my body, a signal I’ve come to recognize as a kind of spiritual alert. And then, clearly, in my inner vision: a tall, dark masculine figure standing beside Maya’s right shoulder. His energy was chaotic and dense. I saw dark spirals knotting outward and those spirals were connected to her solar plexus and shoulders, the exact areas where she’d been carrying pain.

I kept playing. I stayed with it. When the session ended and Maya sat up, I told her what I’d seen.

She went wide-eyed. She told me she’d had a psychic reading some time ago where she’d been told the same thing, that there was a masculine presence attached to her. She asked me to describe what I saw. I described the spiraling chaos, the dark energy, the absence of a face. She told me it sounded exactly like her stepfather in the years before his death. A downward spiral. Alcohol. Shame. And a traumatic end … she told me he had died by suicide.

Perhaps that was why I couldn’t see his face.

A Moment of Grace

After she confirmed what I had seen, I felt his presence shift. Something came through, not words exactly, but a clear impression: tell her I’m sorry. I could feel the weight of his shame.

I told her. She said, quietly: I forgive you.

In that moment, the candle I keep lit for Hekate on my altar grew taller and its flame began to dance.

We both sat with that for a moment.

What Maya Experienced

Before I shared any of what I’d seen, Maya had already reported that her anxiety had completely dissolved during the session. The pain in her abdomen, shoulders, and jaw.. all of which she’d arrived with… was gone. She described a warm buzzing sensation throughout her body and a feeling of calm that felt different from ordinary relaxation. Deeper. More settled.

The body knows before the mind does. Her nervous system had already registered that something had changed.

What This Session Taught Me

Sound moves through more than the physical body. In my experience, it reaches into layers we don’t have precise clinical language for — energetic, emotional, ancestral. What revealed itself in this session wasn’t something I sought out or planned for. I followed the work where it led, stayed open to what I was perceiving, and reported honestly what I found.

That willingness to be present…to not dismiss what the inner senses offer … is, I believe, part of what makes this work more than sound therapy. It’s healing in the fullest sense of the word.

Session 3 would be the one we’d been moving toward all along..

Continue reading: Part 3 — The Cord-Cutting

Some healing journeys begin quietly. A woman.. we’ll call her Maya, came to her first sound healing session carrying a weight that had settled deep into her body over many years. Endometriosis. Digestive pain. Childhood trauma and PTSD. A nervous system that had learned, through necessity, to brace.

She arrived hoping to feel a little more centered. What unfolded over the next four sessions was something neither of us expected.

Before We Begin: What Maya Was Carrying

Maya filled out a wellness self-assessment before her first session. She rated her physical pain at a 6 out of 10. Her digestive discomfort — an 8. She was stressed, worried, running on empty between a demanding job and the quiet ache of chronic pain that had become so familiar she’d almost stopped noticing it.

Her intention for the work was clear and beautiful in its simplicity:

“I am well-balanced and whole. I am healed for my highest good and good of all. I am at peace and enjoy myself, within all layers of my being.”

She wanted to feel more aligned, motivated, and grounded. She wanted relief from pain that doctors had managed but not resolved. And she wanted to begin healing the childhood experiences that she suspected — rightly — were living somewhere in her body alongside the physical symptoms.

Session 1: First Contact

We began gently. Before any sound was played, I guided Maya through a grounding meditation.. inviting her to breathe in golden light from above, drawing it through every layer of her being and letting anything held in tension flow out with the exhale. A simple practice, but one that creates a quality of presence and openness that the deeper work depends on.

From there, we set her intention together, the same words she’d written down and I assessed her energy field before beginning the sound work. Her root and solar plexus were overactive, her sacral and heart depleted. A pattern that made sense: someone who has been managing chronic pain and stress often over-relies on survival energy while the softer centers, creativity, emotional warmth, get quietly starved.

The session moved through cycles of releasing and nourishing, using crystal singing bowls, an ocean drum, and a wind gong. Sound works in layers. The releasing intervals help break up stagnant or excessive energy; the nourishing ones invite the body to reorganize around something more harmonious. Throughout, I held her intention.. well-balanced, whole, healed as a kind of tuning fork for the work.

What Maya Experienced

When Maya opened her eyes at the end of the session, she described feeling energy moving in her pelvis, a warm, swirling sensation. The pain in her lower abdomen, which had been present when she arrived, was almost entirely gone. Her wrist, which had also been bothering her, felt better. She said she was still feeling gentle energy sensations as she gathered her things to leave.

Something else happened during the connection phase that I want to mention, because it became a thread throughout this entire case study. When I synchronized my breath with Maya’s and set the intention to facilitate healing for her highest good, she began moving spontaneously, her body responding to the energetic connection before I had played a single note. It was subtle, but striking. I recognized it as the kind of involuntary movement that can accompany the awakening of kundalini energy, the body’s own intelligence beginning to stir.

I made a note of it. I had a feeling we were just getting started.

What This Session Taught Me

I’ve learned to trust what happens in the connection phase. Before I play anything, before the formal work begins, there’s already a relationship forming between my intention as a practitioner and the client’s energy field. That relationship is the container. When it’s strong, the healing that follows tends to go deep.

Maya left her first session lighter than she came in, with physical pain significantly reduced and a look in her eyes that I’ve come to recognize..a quiet surprise, like someone remembering something they forgot they knew.

Session 2 would bring something neither of us anticipated.

Continue reading: Part 2 — What the Sound Revealed