Cary Ballou’s Tibetan singing bowls are part of what you’ll hear if you attend one of her sound baths at her Scottsdale studio.
Sound baths are something of a buzzword right now — with more people taking the plunge past yoga and into the sonic world of sound baths. And, for Ballou, it was life-changing. She spent most of her career working in corporate America before turning her life upside down and training in this ancient practice.
The Show's Lauren Gilger visited her at her studio recently to learn more about it — and her story.
Full conversation
CARY BALLOU: I was in all different types of corporate environments from accounting to marketing and advertising, eventually made my way into the construction industry, which was a really, really stressful time.
And over those years of corporate work, corporate environments, I had really gotten to a point where I had so much anxiety, depression, trouble sleeping, just a massive amount of unhappiness. So this was something that was introduced to me, sound healing because I desperately needed something to make a change.
LAUREN GILGER: What was that like that moment in your life, like you're suffering from a lot of mental health issues. What made you turn to sound healing? I mean, that seems like an out of left field kind of solution. Had you tried everything else?
BALLOU: I was definitely into my yoga practice, but I had never embraced meditation. And I don't think a lot of people do. I think it, it has to come to you. I was in Los Angeles for the weekend and I was just getting some downtime by the ocean. And a friend of mine, a childhood friend of mine had relocated out there and she'd been healing herself from a lot of emotional turmoil. And she asked me if I'd ever had a sound bath before and I said no, but whatever that is, I, I need it, I'll, I'll try it.
So I got back to town. I live in Scottsdale and I was, you know, I kind of looked around and then I kind of lost track of it and life got busy again. And then on the yoga schedule, I saw gong meditation show up on a Sunday at two o'clock. And I'm like, that's gotta be what it is. I'm gonna go try that out and I went and I laid down and I just said, all right, whatever this is going to be, this is gonna be, I'm, I'm interested.
And basically one hour later I was sitting there on the floor just saying what just happened because I felt the most calm and the most peaceful and the most disconnected from all of the noise and the stress and the distraction that had become my normal for so long that it was just unbelievable to me how different I felt after that one hour.
GILGER: So tell me about the other people in your life and their reaction to this because it sounds like that was quite a life change. I mean, it, it sounds like it happened over a couple of years and then you eventually did leave corporate America and now you're running your own studio. You've really dedicated your life to this. But what did people in your life say when you were like, I'm gonna become someone who runs sound healing sessions.
BALLOU: Well, you know, it was definitely different. Now, this wasn't a change of religion or religious practice. This was just opening my mind to a different way of seeing life entirely. And what I learned as I went through my training is that sound healing is the most ancient form of medicine. Yeah. I mean, I had some family members that were like, this is kind of loco, this is kind of out there, but it didn't bother me because I was getting better.
GILGER: OK. So like we said, we're in your own studio now, you run a studio now doing this, you spread the gospel of this it sounds like and have people in here for classes. It looks sort of like a yoga studio, except in the front, you have quite a setup here of instruments. It looks like bowls of different shapes and you've got some candles, you've got things made of different materials. Of course, the gongs, is that a bell? So describe for us, just like the setup, the array.
BALLOU: First of all, I have an array of Tibetan singing bowls, as you see, they're made out of a multi-metal alloy. Those are going to have more of a tone of a range of different frequencies when I'm, when I'm striking them and playing them.
The crystal ones that you see, these are made of quartz, are more like a straight-up laser beam. They're going to have more of a very uniform tone as it absorbs into the body. Each of them are also tuned to the different chakras in the body. The seven energy centers that we have that go from the crown at the top of the head to the root chakra at the base of the spinal cord and just like the octave scale, which goes from the node of C all the way to the node of B. That is the same lineup as the root to the crown chakra.
GILGER: Let's hear it. Can you play it for us?
BALLOU: The root chakra bowl.
[SOUNDS OF BOWL]
BALLOU: This is called the Solar Plexus bowl, the E.
[SOUNDS OF BOWL]
And the seventh one is the crown chakra represented by the note of B.
[SOUNDS OF BOWL]
GILGER: That's really beautiful. So there's a, a bell back there and the gongs, of course, what do you use these for? And what do you use the different instruments for as you're, you know, sort of immersing people in a sound bath.
BALLOU: I usually will start with some combination of the bowls. They have a more harmonizing effect on the body because the goal is to drop the brainwave state out of that beta brain wave state, which is the active thinking, doing, can't turn my brain off. Achieving what have I got to do next brainwave state. That's when we're, we're on the go and we're, we're getting our day done.
The meditative state is right between sleeping and waking, it's called alpha theta or theta brain wave state. So the number one goal that I have when I'm relaxing people into their sound bath experience is to change that brain wave state and to facilitate that relaxation.
The gongs have a tendency to start to release the stagnant emotional energy that's caught up in the body. And I've had a lot of people have quite a bit of emotional release during a sound bath. And even afterwards, that's a really good thing because I know that what happened in that one hour was very effective.
GILGER: Can we hear them?
[GONG SOUNDS]
GILGER: I wonder so as you do this, I'm sure you get a lot of people like you who come for the first time who have never experienced this before and maybe are a little skeptical. Do you ever get folks who are just like, what is going on here and just think this is crazy.
BALLOU: I do. I think there's a lot more curiosity now naturally, just like a few years ago when you didn't see any men in yoga classes, that's changed a lot, but in here you're going to see a lot less men showing up than women. Sometimes it's the husbands that come along and they're like, OK, what is this? So those are actually the people that I get the most gratifying feedback from.
GILGER: So why, I mean, did afterward you have people telling you or crying or, you know, really seem affected?
BALLOU: Yes, I have heard everything now. Not everything because I've got a long way to go and a lot more years to do this and a lot more people to meet along the way.
Some people have visual experiences when you're deep into the subconscious into the meditative state. I saw a lot of colors flashing. Other people have told me that they had a spouse or somebody really close to them pass on and they felt like that person was right there. You know, a lot of times people tell me just from an emotional standpoint, I feel 1,000 pounds lighter.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The story has been updated to correct the spelling of Cary Ballou's name.
