A music bath… sound bath… basically the same thing, but also very different.
I’ve written about music baths before & let me tell you: they’re amazing. Especially if you do them right.
Music baths literally pulled me out of the dark so many times. During my time on chemo & getting treatment, a silver lining was finding SUCH a connection with music. Obviously I always like music, but I found myself drowning in lyrics & melodies in ways I had never done before.
Throughout today, however, I found myself in sound baths.
The first one was this morning, on my walk with Ace. After we got the kids off to daycare, Ace and I took a jaunt around the neighborhood together. The quiet of the lake; a defining silence, so much so, I heard a fish jump, practically on the other side. The obvious bird songs; their happy chirps & tunes echoed through the leaves in the trees, almost so perfectly that I swore they started singing in the same beat as my shoes hitting the pavement. Ace’s light, pitter-patter; his white, little paws clicking away on the concrete have a way of changing whatever mood I may have been in previously, to a more joyful one.
I took in each of these sounds with the biggest belly breaths, all the while leaving my phone on the counter at home, as well as any worry about my approaching scan tomorrow morning. I let each sound soak into the anxieties forming in my head & pit in my stomach, [as always when scan-time rolls around].
My next sound bath was this afternoon. As I finished up the tasks for work, I took 15 minutes to myself on the deck. I sat in the warm, sunshine [thank goodness, it feels like spring/summer is finally here], shut down my computer, and listened.
The rhythmic lapping of the waves on the beach is a sound that never gets old. It’s a sound that instantly travels my mind to a stress-free zone & immediately let’s me forget the growing to-do lists or the piles of laundry not being folded. This afternoon wasn’t any different.
As I let the sound of water take over, the waves grew. A single dock-boat created such a wake, that soon, large, rolling, white-caps were crashing on our sand. The loudness grew so much that it awoke Ace from snoring on the deck beneath my feet [another sound bath that I had been listening to]. Even though the high rolling waves caused such a change in atmosphere, in minutes they were gone.
It reminded me that tomorrow [and tonight’s worry], will bring what it will bring. I can’t change the outcome & I can’t promise myself there won’t be a change in the future. But what I can do focus on the present; bit by bit, and take things one baby step at a time.
I’ve been through it before & I would/will get through it again.
My last sound bath of the day, are the giggles of my little ones.
Because that sound… that sound, ugh. It really gets me, right in the heart. And regardless of what’s happening in the world around me, being present with my babies and hearing those belly laughs, not much can top it. It really is the most extraordinary sound that’s ever existed.
So, I’m off my friends, to probably not sleep, but I will breathing deep for whatever tomorrow may bring.
