How Bedside Nursing informs my Sound Immersion facilitation
Once a nurse, always a nurse. When you are one, you hear this all the time and it really is true. There are obviously reasons why I became a nurse, left nursing and then transitioned into my most authentic role of giving rest to the nervous system through sound immersion. I’ve considered titling myself a “rest specialist” or “rest facilitator”; but, alas this is not fully comprehensive. It is exciting and relieving to share in what ways bedside nursing translates into my current role offering sound.
Illness stems from Spirit and lands lastly in physical manifestation. This is something I have witnessed and spoken to since I was a nurse aid over 10 years ago. Whenever I would receive report as a registered nurse and look at all the numbers and data to the case of the individual, it never tied fully together until I walked into the room and felt the energy of the patient. What is more-or-less exempt from nursing school is how often an effectual nurse needs to interpret the silent and subtle cues from his/her patient. This is largely how I formulated my personal nursing care model with no help from any guide but Spirit. It isn’t a surprise, as Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass indicates so eloquently and earth-shatteringly: Spirit is null and void to Western Science when it is the majority of what is. It is so evident and palpable from where the direction the dis-ease landed, be it emotional, mental or spiritual, when you are in the presence of the patient. In nursing, there are many regulations limiting what you are able to share beyond describing the pharmaceutical medications you are administering or post-op restrictions, which is very disempowering to so many that are attuned to the truth of the whole picture of the person and holistic lifestyle awareness shifting and (gasp!) eradicating illness. This is probably why nurses everywhere in the Western medical model, at least in the states, are prohibited from speaking far beyond the immediate script we are enforced to follow. That was a tangent and probably one of the many significant reasons I left nursing, but all to say sickness does not appear without first breaching the Spirit of a person. Since speaking of this to so many after I could pinpoint and verbalize it, I learned that it is a major tenet to Traditional Chinese Medicine, an ancient intuitive medical model. Imagine that! What most intangibly influences and connects with ether and spirit? That with which we are made: Intentional Loving Energy and Vibration aka Sound Immersion! I have repeatedly expressed how Intentional Sound is the most potent, immediate, effective and very low-to-no side effect “medicine” I have ever administered. Routine soundbaths provide lasting, effortless change and accumulative, deepening benefits. Think of it in terms of the two forms of frequencies: dissonant (chaotic and fracturing such as construction and traffic noise or, dare-I-say, beeping of IV pumps, call lights and rushed medical professional voices) and coherent (a flowing stream, chirping birds, the tonality of gong resonance). Coherent frequencies build-up and allow for reconnection in the nervous system through being able to dive into a deep parasympathetic state. In an over-burdened,taxing world, rebalancing the nervous system, which innervates every other bodily system, is POTENT. We are meant to exist inherently in parasympathetic states and then respond in fight-or-flight. Our society lives in the opposite. Transitioning from nursing where I was essentially administering what I personally deem to be externalized, ineffective bandaids to people that are so deeply entrenched in the system that they believe they need pills and will not change any aspects of their lifestyles to orchestrating peaceful sound immersion to soothe the spirit of the conscious recipient looking to return to a natural, harmonious state and optimize their overall wellness is a huge sigh of relief to say the least. The recipients that are open, receptive and in trust of my “care” are the ones that receive the deepest impact from the sound immersion which leads me to my next observation.
Rapport is another huge piece of bedside nursing that also exists immensely within sound facilitation. You are only able to go so far with a patient, or living human, as much as they trust and respect your competence, insight and personal investment into their wellbeing. This relationship deepens the more you show your patient that you have their back and best interests at heart through advocacy and consistency of word and action. The same is true for a soundbath recipient, especially in a private setting. It is so vulnerable to shut out the sense of sight by wearing an eye pillow or closing your eyes and to totally disengage on every level which happens almost effortlessly while receiving a private session ~ when you trust your practitioner. The more I develop a trusting relationship with my routine private soundbath recipients, I notice the more refined the sessions become and the more the recipient effortlessly dips into that rest and digest state, reaping deeper and deeper subconscious repair and rewards. Realistically, a person is unable to truly tune in, return to wellness and clear what is not serving without feeling safe and comfortable in one’s immediate surroundings and in trust of those under one’s care. It is a position I take with total seriousness and awareness. The deepening of the relationship with the recipient also stems from the gift/skill I have sharpened of being able to read the energy being presented that day, which enters into a whole other realm.
“Reading the room” is akin to deep listening and recognizing what is beneficial and what is not to say or do for a patient, a private sound bath recipient or a public group sound session. In a broader sense with group sound sessions, my ability to “read the room,” which I mentioned previously about first meeting a patient at the bedside, comes into play. This is something that I enjoy immensely because it leans heavily into the mystical, making it very hard to put into words and verbal explanation. This brings into Light how nuns and the religious devout were previously the majority if not only nurses of the world. Once when I was the nurse for a former nun (whom left her convent due to abuse of the children at the school where she worked, very sadly, yet feels very directly akin to my situation), we discussed how nuns are meant to be pure conduits and beacons of God, wherein his, her, their Light may shine through the sister directly onto the patient in every facet and lens of their healing. Nursing was always a form of spiritual practice to me, an opportunity to put into action the wise, age-old teachings through a pure-hearted channel. Speaking to this fellow sister who has devoted her life to highest intention brought me into full awareness of how I viewed myself as a spirited nun of sorts, removed and detached from the person and outcome (as much as humanly possible, of course), yet optimizing my care for them, no matter their background and what would be my personal opinion of it. This way of being in the light and eyes of providing goodness for all is a way in which one “reads the room” by stepping into source consciousness, higher power awareness, whatever you want to call it and allowing one’s actions to be informed from that lens. This lens is one that makes your efforts and movements almost dreamily automatic without any analytical thought from one moment to the next. All is happening at once in one fluid motion, just as in nature and just as in everything that is channeled through the stream. This is also where the interpretation and response of silent, subtle cues arises. From this place is where every soundbath I have ever given has originated. Same goes for my patient care, albeit fragmented in this scenario from the botched current course of the healthcare system.
In reality, nursing is meant to provide a comfortable, safe, warm bed for one who is weary to restore and remember their wholeness and with loving guidance, returning back to whole health. The truth sadly is the role of the nurse has been devastatingly desecrated to satisfy the needs of insurance and pharmaceutical companies while working under duress of chronic understaffing and high demands. Hospitals are businesses and no longer safe havens for those in dis-ease. Being able to remember the ancient roots of nursing in the form of administering soothing sounds in an infinitely more conscious, preventative, calming and sustaining way has provided for my own deep nourishment. It is my honor to be able to morph my gifts and skills that are innate and also learnt through nursing into a means of providing deep, genuine and supportive restoration during such a demanding phase in human history to so many beautiful souls, also remembering how life is meant to be: enjoyed in freedom of health and happiness.