We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Laura a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Laura, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What was your school or training experience like? Share an anecdote or two that you feel illustrate important aspects or the overall nature of your schooling/training experience.

My certification and diploma program for Sound Healing took a year and a half. Towards the end of training, one of the most important parts was completing case studies. For case studies, you had to see 5 participants for 4 sessions a piece. This process had to be finished in a 1-2 month time frame.

It was a logistical feat getting this all scheduled as all of my participants are parents, and I am a parent. But the first two weeks came off without a hitch. Unfortunately, going into my 3rd round of sessions, my daughter got quite a nasty respiratory infection – she was so congested she ended up being out of school for a week which had never happened before. In addition to being worried about my child, I was also extremely worried about getting sick myself — because if I had to break the schedule at all — let alone need to take extra time to recover (if i lost my voice), I would have had to start the entire case study process over again which was next to unthinkable. It was such a lift coming this far.

That said — getting sick seemed unavoidable. My child is small, we share the same bed and parents and children pretty much share all germs anyway — hahaha. In the past, I had always gotten whatever bug she had picked up. But, with all the new tools I learned in school, I decided to rely on my training in a very practical attempt to stay healthy during this crucial time. I committed myself to the 10 step process I learned in my training working my intention, visuals, mantras, tones and other sounds — focusing specifically on the sinus, throat and respiratory area.

Although, of course, I had believed in the power of sound — this took my belief to a whole new level. I never got sick — in spite of being directly exposed to all the germs. I absolutely attribute this to sound — it works. I was able to make it through all my case studies as planned and graduate on time!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My entry into sound healing came from the convergence of many paths, or the weaving together of many threads. I have a musical background, studying music in one form or another for most of my life. My love of song and theatre led to a bachelor’s degree in music, and many years working as an actress (theatre, tv, film, commercial) in Chicago and regionally in the midwest. (I still love music theatre!!)

Though along with this love of art and theatre, through my life I have also been very drawn to nature and spirituality –= but I never knew how to weave these threads together! Ten years ago, I was sitting on a tour bus of a musical I was with, starting to feel a sense of longing for a deeper connection to nature and the mystical side of life that I wanted, but just couldn’t access as a performer. While on that bus, I searched creatively on google and found a Masters Program through the University of Wales (in Wales, UK), that studied the crossroads of Ecology and Spirituality. It seemed PERFECT — but, it also seemed completely impractical, at the time, to pick up on a whim and move to Wales — I was a performer after all. And I had already ‘left’ one life to try and recommit to my early goals to be a performer.

Fast forward to a few years later and I gave birth to my daughter. We were still living in Chicago, but I knew I wanted my daughter and I to have a different life than city life, so we moved closer to my sister in Louisville, KY. I had lived here once before and LOVED all the green space. It had also been the homebase of an earlier spiritual awakening when I been in a yoga teacher training for nearly a year around a decade before. Less than two years after moving, COVID struck – and although I hate saying there were benefits to COVID — one of the gifts was that the Ecology and Spirituality program in Wales converted to a fully online program! I never thought I would get accepted as I didn’t have a bachelor’s in science or theology, but I was overjoyed to learn that – unthinkably – they were particularly seeking students who had a background in music and the arts. PERFECT!!

I applied, was accepted and this program changed my life. There was a great deal of study of quantum physics, the field of consciousness and how these align with indigenous cosmologies. The academia and peer-reviewed scientific research in this program finally gave me the ‘hard’ language to understand and describe the ‘soft’ aspects of my spiritual experiences and understandings — which previously had been all too easily dismissed as ‘woo-woo.’

The paradigm shift of seeing energy — and vibration — in this way gave me a whole new relationships to sound, what the power of sound is, and how it is all pervasive as nature’s primoridial energy.

This opened the door to sound healing, and suddenly all my different ‘loose threads’ finally seemed to have a way to come together.

At my practice, Charm Sound Healing, I specialize in individual Transformational Sound Journeys – using the power of sound to enable harmonization and integration of energies within the field (physical, emotional, mental, soul and spiritual). Sound can work powerfully, yet non-invasively address many health challenges through all levels and frequencies of the field enhancing coherence and wellbeing.

I am also passionate about using sound energy as a medium for earth connection and healing.

Sound is such a terrific modality as it tends to help people get ‘out of their heads’ and into their hearts. It is incredibly scientific, and yet the profound spiritual and soul opening experiences that happen in the room are remarkable. Working with sound energy is working with the primordial energy behind the creation of structure and form.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I’ve pivoted multiple times in life. Or that’s what it seemed like at the time. Now, with where I am at and what I have learned, I would no longer describe these as pivots, and instead describe them as crucial brances of the journey where I’ve had to pick up key bits of knowledge. We tend to be such a linear culture that we tend to see things as either ‘forward or backward,’ ‘pass or fail,’ rather than seeing our experiences as a collaborative and cooperative whole.

I had early dreams of being a performer, and had some early successes, but needed to adjust to make financial ends meet. Through this discovery, I learned web and graphic design skills that have served me very well financially when I need them – and serve me remarkably in my practice! I have been married and very amicably divorced and have learned a great deal about the nature of love, friendship and all the shades around and in between. I had the good fortune to find success in the arts and traveled the country, I’ve also had the marvelous blessing of (single) motherhood and have learned first hand about grounding, making a home, a sanctuary, and the responsibility of raising and protecting a human.

My life has taken many forms – which can seem unconventional in our culture that tends to be very attached to form, and things taking a singular, predictable shape…… Though, there has been a place for nearly everything I have learned — and now — I see it less as ‘pivoting’ as weaving in the fibers I have created into my tapestry.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

Piggy backing on what I described above, I grappled with the regret implied in this question for years when I didn’t have the ‘weaving’ visual and instead, seemed to perceive my life as a collection of false starts. In fact, in 2023, before I found and began my sound healing practitioner training, I had told someone that I wished I had chosen a different major in college. That I didn’t understand how my music degree fit into my life. Now it’s so obvious! But that sentiment, at the time, had seemed to apply to so many other ‘broken threads.’

Now, I see how all these elegant threads weave together. There is absolutely no way I could have known that at the time. Our interests and curiosities often can feel like these stray pennies that we throw into a jar and forget about — but if the day ever comes that we do take the jar out, we may be surprised at what we’ve actually collected.

Many of our ‘specialities’ are so narrow – but the magic happens when we are able to integrate all these specialities into a complex web that is greater than the sum of its parts.

I think we can get ourselves into trouble when we think or expect that we’re supposed to choose ‘one thing’ and stick with it – and if we diverge, then we must have made a mistake………rather than being in flow with that concept that there is a season for everything, and current of timing really does matter. Sometimes something is in the foreground, then maybe it needs to flow to the background or even become dormant for a while — but that doesn’t mean its dead. Keep flowing, stay curious, and as best you can aim to balance the needs of the body, the head, the heart and the soul.

Following curiosity (within reason) can have big payoffs.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://charmsoundhealing.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/charmsoundhealing/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61564843850113
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/laura-charm-sound-healing
• Other: https://www.louisvillenaturalhealth.com/

Image Credits

I took all of these myself, except for the shot of my doing group sound in what looks like a yoga studio. That photo was taken by Ana Paliza-Brown (leader of the yoga nidra.)