Soul Body Blog
Timely articles and ideas for your health and wellbeing…
Tara is now on Medium!
Tara Matthews, our founder and spaceholder here at Soul Body Ojai is now a contributor on medium.com
Check out her first article and give her a follow for more articles on healing and wellness.
The Power of Sound
Soul Body Ojai is a sound therapy and healing mecca. Why? Because it works! Most of our teachers are also sound therapists. We offer soundhealing trainings, community soundbaths, weekly gong yoga nidra, and private customizable events for those wanting individualized experiences. We have an in house sound therapy room designed to make all of our classes into healing zones with mulitple instruments, including the largest gong collection in the Ojai Valley. What benefits might you expect from such an experience?
One study published in the Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine found that an hourlong sound meditation helped people reduce tension, anger, fatigue, anxiety, and depression while increasing a sense of spiritual well-being. The sound meditation used a range of Tibetan singing bowls, crystal singing bowls, gongs, Ting-shas (tiny cymbals), dorges (bells), didgeridoos, and other small bells. People who had never done sound meditation experienced significantly less tension and anxiety afterward, as well as those who had done it before.
There are many different theories that attempt to explain why sound experiences can be linked with deep relaxation and physical pain relief.
Sound-based vibration treatment has been shown to help people with pain from arthritis, menstrual pain, postoperative pain, knee replacement pain. Sound-based treatment has even been found to improve mobility, reduce muscle pain and stiffness, increase blood circulation, and lower blood pressure.
Another theory on the benefits of sound rests on the concept of “binaural beats” or “brain entrainment” which hypothesizes that listening to certain frequencies can synchronize and change one’s brainwaves and brings about healing states in the body. Whatever the reason, it works! Book a private session here , come to a sound healing , or experience a weekend training event and spread the magic! We are here to spread the joy of sound.
Here is a short sound session with Tara!
Community Sound Bath
Community Sound Bath
Saturday, May 21st at 6 pm
Join River and Shiva for this monthly Sound Bath offering. Experience the “Wall of Gongs” and so many more sacred instruments for your soundscape journeying pleasure.
For maximum comfort bring pads and pillows. Yoga mats will be provided upon request.
To sign up: $30/ticket
https://venmo.com/JuliaRoseShivaPreet
paypal.me/shivapreet
The Confident Healer Certification Program
Have you been called to be a healer, to learn energy healing, or Reiki?
Sharmila Mali is drawing in people just like you, who are answering their calling to help others and want to learn how to be an effective, confident energy healer.
This is a process to understand yourself, understand the energy and how you work with energy. It’s fun, challenging and so incredibly rewarding.
This is a 9 month training where you will learn all three levels of Reiki plus learn what your intuitive gifts are, and learn energy healing techniques that were “downloaded” while I was working on people.
That’s the exciting part, the more you work on people, the more people you can help them and the more intuitive gifts that come through. Gifts you didn’t even realize you had, or maybe had some sort of faint idea but dismissed them.
TRUST THE PROCESS
Sharmila teaches you to trust the process, which you are a part of, so essentially, you learn how to trust yourself.
Sharmila walks you through how to trust your intuition and help your client move through blocks, hold sacred space and clear energy while staying grounded.
A glimpse inside the 9 month training
Sharmila takes you step-by step on how to:
- Accept and work with your dark/shadow side.
- Love and accept yourself, developing self-compassion, and self-confidence.
- Conduct a Reiki intuitive healing session.
- Address when a client is in distress because of a past trauma.
- Ground yourself and your client.
- Create sacred space.
- Contact and work with your guides and your client’s guides.
- Practice trusting your intuition.
- Clear yourself after every client and self-care practices.
- Identify when you are taking on someone’s energy and stop being drained when working on someone.
By the time you finish, you will be transformed and feel more confident about creating a Reiki business and working on clients.
Hand-holding & Being in Community
Sharmila will be there for you, holding your hand throughout our 9 month journey together, plus you will be in a small cohort of 10 other healers. This will be our Confident Healer community. By having other students by your side, you will learn so much from each other and have support. It’s important to have other people doing the same thing because, let’s face it, it’s hard to find others that understand you, that just get you.
These are my intentions for this program: to create a loving, supportive community of confident healers.
Sharmila Mali: Why work with me?
I have been teaching Reiki and intuitive energy healing and working with clients for 19 years. The only way to learn is to practice, practice, practice. It takes 18-254 days to form a habit according to a study in the European Journal of Social Psychology. However, it’s not just the quantity of practice, it’s also the quality of practice that creates a deep, holistic understanding of what you are doing when it comes to energy healing.
Over the years, I have learned by practicing Reiki and intuitive energy healing. I have learned from each client, and each time someone worked on me. I wished someone had told me how to protect myself when working on someone, the subtle energy of how that happens. As I worked with clients, just by trusting my intuition, working with their guides, new techniques came through that were effective, helping clients have incredible breakthroughs.
Join me!
If you would like to join me on this journey of a lifetime, please fill out the application to join, once you fill it out, and I review it, I will reach out to connect and we will go from there.
What is the schedule for the Confident Healer Training? Is this virtual only?
Hybrid. We will meet *live virtually* 3x each month for 9 months. Each session is 2 hours. There will be a 3 day workshop the first month.
It breaks down like this:
- Meet on Zoom, 2 hours for the first 3 weeks of the month, for 9 months.
- 1st month, we will meet in person 3 day workshop.
- All classes are recorded and easily accessible.
- There will only be 10 spots to ensure everyone gets attention.
Practicing Reiki outside the class:
Clients: You will need to find 3 people to work on regularly for 8 months, take SOAP notes, and conduct at least 30 minutes for each person a month. This
Spring-ing Into Action!
The hills are green and dusted with yellow, the air is alive with vibrant life. And EVERYTHING is blooming! This is Spring in Ojai. We received a wonderful rainstrom a few weeks ago and it reinvigorated all of us….the trees, the flowers, the birds, the bugs, and the humans, too. Spring energy wants to rise up, push through, and get things done. It’s active and energetic, and supports vision, creativity, new endeavors. The themes of the season are growth, rebirth, and renewal. Our job is create room, increase circulation and go with the natural flow of expansion that is happening all around us.
So, what happens when this expansiveness isn’t allowed to blossom?
The last two years have been like that. Staying at home, curtailing travel and get-togethers, and restriction of expression has been something we have all bee with. Constriction of natural growth can lead to stagnation.
In Chinese Medical theory, stagnation feels like anger and irritability, depression, mood swings, migraines, pain, tension and tightness (especially in the neck, shoulders, and sides of the body), PMS and worsening cramps, excessive sighing, and indigestion. For the creative types- you may be experiencing “writer’s block” or lack of direction/ vision/ focus.
The wood element belongs to the spring season and its related meridian system pair is the Liver and Gall Bladder. Together, these organs are responsible for the smooth flow of qi and blood in the body and regulates emotions. They manage energy flow, but are affected by stress. The wood element teaches us about flexibility and adaptability.
So, how do we help the season help us?
1.! Get Moving! Energy likes to move and transform. Outdoor exercise and being in nature is even more beneficial. Movement that destresses the body and mind is also wonderful. Join a Yoga Class!
2. Change Up Your Diet. Similarly, lemon, apple cider vinegar and peppermint or chamomile tea will help move stagnation in the Liver/Gall Bladder channels. The wood element likes sour food (like kimchi and yogurt) as well as light meals with lots of greens (the color of the wood element). Bitter greens (dandelion, nettles, and arugula ) are particularly cleansing for the liver and gallbladder and promote better digestion. These food choices compliment the ascending, regenerative qualities of spring and keep the liver and gall bladder clear and healthy. Join our SPRING ATTUNMENT CLEANSE for more information.
3.Get Creative. Plant out your garden, Invent a new smoothie. Paint a picture. Spring is about Rebirth and seeing things from a new perspective.
4. Self-Care. Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine is designed for seasonal shifts. Body Talk, Massage, and Ayurveda is fantastic for addressing stagnation in the physical body. See what Soul Body Practitioners are offering!
5. Vision. Revise and Renew your life plans.