Sense of Soul - Sound and Frequency Healing

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

Today we have with us, Ian Morris, Sound Alchemist and the Founder of Listening to Smile. Listening to Smile is a unique sound wellness/healing modality, and original collections of music and meditations for personal growth and well-being. Ian is a multi-instrumentalist, artist, and intuitive healer who has been working in the creative arts field for over 15 years. Ian creates healing sacred frequency minded music and meditations.  He creates a new album EVERY SINGLE MONTH AND HAS BEEN FOR THE LAST 5 YEARS!!!   With affiliates and members all around the world who work professionally with his music. They utilize his music and meditation to help their clients heal from many different physical and mental health conditions and to enhance the practices of deep release work.   This music is very diverse as it is utilized by not only the mainstream conventional arena, but also the spiritual, alternative community of healers. Ian and his team also work one on one with coaching clients to help integrate frequency combined with mindfulness exercises, breathwork, and intention setting into their daily lives to help accelerate their healing and growth. This is not just music! This is a program that incorporates mindfulness techniques, with the science of sound healing and truly powerful music!  Go to his website and listen here:  https://www.listeningtosmile.com Follow them on Social Media  https://instagram.com/listeningtosmile?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCgKg8GohfyirzZeOW92Aeag www.mysenseofsoul.com Join our Sense of Soul Patreon!! Our community of seekers and lightworkers who get exclusive discounts, live events like SOS Sacred Circles, ad free episodes and more. You can also listen to Shanna’s new mini series, about the Goddess Sophia! Sign up today and help support our podcast. As a member of any level you get 50% off Shanna’s Soul Immersion Healing Experience! https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart and soul. It's time to awaken. Today we have with us Ian Morris, a sound alchemist and the founder of Listening to Smile, which has a unique sound wellness healing modality with original collections of music and meditations for personal growth. Ian is a multi-instrumentalist, an artist, and intuitive healer, and we are super excited to talk about his amazing work. Thanks so much for being with us, Ian. Hi, Shannon. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? I'm good. Sorry for the time confusion for a moment on my end. It's okay. No problem at all. I need to take a moment and go listen to some of your sound

healing and pull myself together for the day. Okay. No problem. Yeah. No problem. I just wanted to say that I really love your podcast and I'm really excited to be here with you guys. Thank you. That is so kind of you. Thanks so much. That is awesome. Yeah. And I appreciate it as well. You align perfectly with Sense of Soul because you yourself have been through a lot in your life. Thank you so much for coming on today to share your story about your sound healing. So thank you so much.

Yeah, thanks so much, guys. Yeah. Shanna, tell him about what sound did for you on this journey. Yeah, it tricked me. The old beaten switch. Yeah, I was taking some mindfulness classes and I was researching a little bit years ago on how I could do mindfulness because I felt like I sucked at it at the beginning. And it wasn't that I sucked at it actually, you know, I mean, I became the witness of my thoughts, which was a vital part of my journey and still is.

But I still felt like I really was trying to not have all the monkey mind. And so I made a mala because I had researched. And back then, they didn't have malas like everywhere for like 20 bucks online. I mean, I had to go and make my own. And I was looking for mindfulness music of some sort. And I came across this one. And at the time, I was still really loyal to my religion. I was Christian. And so I found one that said, God is love, loves God. And I said, well, I can listen to this one. This one's safe. And it ended up being some ancient Hindu chant. And before I knew it, just my mind was expanding and I was curious and seeking. And I also was finding many

opportunities to just have space in my mind too. You know, I was like, I felt like I was in the middle of a hurricane and really it was, think, what kind of broke me open. That's awesome. Yeah. You know, I didn't know what was happening, but my soul did. So like that vibration. Now I realize that everything is vibration. Sounded so very interesting.

So I'm excited to have you on and learn more about it. Oh, cool. Yeah. I grew up Christian. I was raised in like church of God. I went through that exploration with my mother and father. And then as I was older, I played in like church bands and played in Christian bands that toured the country. And like we played it on Cornerstone. It's a big Christian music festival in the side of Chicago and played

with like, that was awesome. Yeah, like switch foot and six pence none the richer and all those bands like we played, you know, it was fun. And I have a lot of friends who still play one of my friends, you know, when I started getting into sound healing, he called me up and he said, Do you still believe in Jesus? And I said, Why would you ask me that? And he said, Because you're doing all this sound sound healing you're getting into all the like buddha woo woo stuff and so he was like i feel like you have left god and i said no i feel like i found god in a larger broader sense than what i was focusing on inside the church because i was going through a middleman and i wasn't having a direct experience. And I told him, I said, I feel like when I started praying harder and having more direct conversations with God that my relationship opened up in a way that made me have to explore other things. And also like testing my faith, finding what was true in that relationship for me and God. And so he got really upset. I lost a lot of friends. I thought that was such a great answer. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I think

a lot of our listeners need to hear that because we've all kind of gone through it. It was really hard for me. I'm very vulnerable with my story around everything in my life. And I post a lot about my near death experiences and fighting addiction. And I have to tell you, I can so relate to losing people because when I was using a lot of the Christian language, they were telling me to like write a book and how much they enjoyed me. And they were sending me constant like affirmations and motivating me and telling me how much they enjoyed it and really wanted to learn more. And then when my mind started kind of opening and I started exploring other areas, my language and my religion evolved just like yours did. And now they've all gone ghost on me.

It's and that's okay. That is okay. But it was like they were comfortable with it before, but now they're not. So they no longer are there to cheer me on. Yeah. In that space that once you kind of just are connecting without limited beliefs or anything there's like this place where there's no diversity or separation in that space there's no box yeah are you guys into astrology at all yeah love it okay so i was just wondering what signs you guys are we're both tourists or is okay and do you guys know your moon and rising mantis of pisces and um i am a sagittarius yeah so i just wondered so i'm a leo sun sign and i'm an aries moon and i'm a cancer rising oh yeah did you guys see every month for

the last six years i've put out an album based in the current events and the astrology a lot of people in the holistic community are using music from like spotify and when they're charging people money they really should be using music that they have the rights for. Like so that when I was in Pittsburgh, we were working with Carnegie Mellon University and a woman came to the event. She brought a paper where she was getting sued by BMI for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars because she had six yoga studios and fifty four teachers, yoga teachers. And all of those teachers were using spotify playlist and the classes and so bmi sent in like an undercover person to like document all the music that they were using without paying for it and so then she got sued and so she was asking me like i'm paying

the ten dollars a month i I don't understand. And I said, well, that $10 a month is for your car and your house. It's like for you personally, not for a commercial setting or multiple teachers, you know, to be using. So I feel like the new paradigm is businesses that are working together. And that's what we're trying to do with listening to smile is to approach the holistic community and say like, we want to work with you and you can support us directly and we'll support you directly. And we'll give you multiple revenue streams with our music where you can

actually make money back on your investment into our company so that you can, you know, sell music to clients. You can put it in your commercials your social media you can create branded products that you can sell to your community from our products it's like a white label kind of thing with the music and so like we've tried to really with the music create something that's unique and different and then also something that adds value to the people's practice to the businesses, and also protecting them from getting sued from those places. You know what, that's so great, because so many times, Shanna and I have put together

meditations of our own. And we're constantly searching to make sure that the music that we might use, even at the beginning of our podcast, you know, making sure that someone's not going to come back on us. And obviously, we don't create music. So, you know, that's a really interesting point. I mean, do you know how many times I've been to Orange Theory, and they're plugging in their personal phones and using their Spotify in there? Yeah. Well, and you know what, it if when you do that though you everyone ends up with the same sounds too it's like there's so many there's only so many out there you know that are white labeled that you can use and so then everyone has the same sound so you don't have anything unique you know what's really interesting is my girlfriend was telling me that at yoga class that she went to

there was people that would like cry when songs came on and she was telling me that at yoga class that she went to there was people that would like cry when songs came on and she was telling me that the yoga teacher came and talked to them and they were saying that the song triggered them because of memories associated with it so i always thought it was really interesting like our music is made new every month so there's no association with it and so it like it makes it like every month there's a new album and it's created for that month and so like no one has any ties to it and it's like geared towards that month's energy and so it's like a new experience each time that they're listening and i never thought about it in a way that people could be triggered by a song from their past like hearing it in a class or a workshop. And it's just really interesting. I think this approach for me has

been like when I first started recording this, you know, a new album every month. I was like, oh, this is fun. And then like, after like the first year, I'm like, man, this is a lot of work. You know, it's like, and then I I was like is there anyone listening now we've grown into like nine different countries and there's over 200 affiliates worldwide and um a lot of people using it in like hypnotherapy and yoga and like counseling and neuroscientists and you know it's just it's really neat um that it's grown so much but I never really thought about it in that way until I heard people's perspectives about how you could be triggered by certain music, just because like, maybe there was, it was like a boyfriend's song with you. And then you heard it and it brought up

those painful memories. Or, you know, maybe there was something like, I remember when my sister and mom got in a car wreck, my sister passed away. And I went to a record store and I listened to Miles Davis. And every time I would hear it, it would remind me of that time period, you know? Yeah. So it's just, it's interesting how music can be like a time transport too, you know? Wow. So true. I have a song like that too.

I lost a sibling as well. And I'll never forget, like a few days after he passed away, Tim McGraw came out with a song. They just kept replaying and replaying and replaying. And it was about the soldier who had died and never got to meet his daughter. And he wrote a letter to his mom and told her, you know, that he was going home and to spread his ashes at the end of the town. It was like my brother's story because my brother,

my brother was coming home in a few days for the birth of his daughter. And I still, to this day, cannot listen to that song. It just completely triggers me, which I will say when you're triggered, it means you just still need some healing. Right. But something like losing a sibling, do you ever really actually heal from that? I don't know. Yeah, it's tough. Yeah, yeah. I'm so sorry for the loss of your sister. I'm sorry for the loss of your brother. Yeah, we're so one of the things that's been one of my favorite things to do is we're working with a group in Seattle called veterans veterans rights like r-i-t-e-s i think that you i

think you would love looking they have a movie on itunes called a veteran's journey home and it's basically how all these guys are coming back from battle with ptsd and severe traumas and they're taking them out into the wilderness and teaching them to let go like one of the things i thought was the coolest thing in the video is they dig a hole in the earth and they have the soldiers like scream and yell and spit and cuss and you know everything into the hole and then they cover it up and they say earth's taking that from you now you don't have to carry that yeah i love that yeah so the whole movie is amazing yeah oh my gosh i can't have to carry that. I love that. Yeah. So the whole movie is amazing.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. I can't wait to watch it. And actually my brother's master sergeant is in North Carolina right now. He's been assigned to specifically run a program for PTSD for soldiers that are having suicidal thoughts. So I'm going to have him listen to it and watch it too. Thank you for sharing that. That's powerful. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very cool stuff. You would like the episode that we did with him almost two years ago, but it was, it's pretty amazing. He

talks about just that. And he even does standup comedy now for troops, but uses his, you know, his PTSD experience. I think it's definitely needed. I think that's awesome that you even are aware of that because there's so many people that aren't. Yeah. Well, one of the guys that works with us, Boyd is an air force veteran. He has pretty severe back issues and we've worked with him with sound healing and he's really the one during um covid that pushed us to work in the veterans communities and when we did that it ended up opening up other doors to like hospice and the humane society and working with animals working with people in transition so i really love what i do because i'm able to take the painful experiences and

traumas that I've been through and able to share some of the things that helped me with other people in those areas. You know, you just had me thinking about something. This is so random, but when you were talking, I was thinking about animals. I mean, so sound, sound healing, we, you know, of course, when I first hopped on here, I'm thinking just for humans, but I just had this vision in front of my eyes of like, even it would be so healing for like veterinarians to use sound healing inside of, you know, their offices or when they're having to put

an animal down or even when a human's transitioning to the other side you know I bet that sound is probably so powerful and calming for them you know I know when my dad died they had put on a specific channel in the room and it was very heavenly music actually the whole time he was passing but you know we had on Karen Newell who is the founder of Sacred Acoustics, wife of Eben Alexander. I wanted to ask you about that. I mean, Mandy had a near-death experience, as did Eben Alexander. And so did the amazing David Ditchfield. I don't know if you've ever heard of him.

He experienced this sound in these NDEs. That is just absolutely heavenly. Yeah, it's so cool. The guy that wrote the book Saved by the Light, do you guys remember him? Damian Brinkley. He wrote a book called Saved by the Light. He was struck by lightning and was in a coma for like months. And when he came out, he had a very similar experience like Alexander.ander yeah and he ended up building these beds i think he's in south carolina where you can like lay in the bed and you can experience the same kind of music and feeling that you know he worked for years trying to create it so people

could experience it here wow um yeah it's there's just so much cool stuff in this field. You know, sound is like, we're just at the tip of the iceberg, you know, for what sound can truly do for people. Yeah. Well, you know what, if you don't mind, let's visit, let's visit what it did for you. I mean, you have been through a lot. And I think that, you know, sharing with our listeners, how it helped you and your journey was sound. Yeah, so in 2010, 2011, I started developing health issues. And it was from literally just suppressing grief and trauma. In a 10 year period, I lost about 15 people in my life, my sister, my dad, best friends, people I played in bands with, the bass player in my band committed suicide. It was just a really rough, you know, 10 year period. And I think in society, men are taught to be tough, shake it off, you know, rub dirt on it, keep going, keep going. And don't cry, don't, you know, that's weak. And I think

that I tried to be strong for other people. And so I just kept suppressing and suppressing and suppressing. And finally, you know, that my dad passed away in 2001. So from 2001 to 2011, there was just about 15 people. And then there was just a lot of hardship around the area of life that I was wanting to focus on, which was music, art, and poetry. And as you know, it's tough in this society to go after that dream. It's get a real job. You'll never make it. And that's constantly what you hear growing up in that field.

If you're wanting to study something in school or college, people try to deter you from it, because there's not a living in that. And I think that it's a lot of lack mentality and projection from other people. And so you grow up with years and years of dealing with that. And so I think like, for me, it just came to a head and, you know, 2011, 2012, where, you know, ultimately I was diagnosed with MS and colon cancer. I was going through a lot of physical trauma to the body. You know, I was having digestive issues, muscle spasms, shakes, chronic headaches. I was having blurred vision and lights in my vision.

And I was having just, you know, skin rashes breaking out with foods I had ate my whole life and never had problems with and just massive, the body saying, hey, there's a problem here we need to deal with. And so it was something that just really, I think it was the third or fourth emergency room trip that year. When I left, they were wanting to do the same test that they had already done, you know, two times before, and hadn't really been able to tell me anything different. And so, you know, I remember getting really frustrated with the doctor and saying, you know, do something different, like show me, you know, that that you're worth your position, like, like, play jazz, do something that, you know, be intuitive,

show me something that's going to actually help me because I don't have money to pay three, $4,000 per test, and, you know, not have any kind of data that's helping me to move forward. And so I went home that night and picked up a book, Louise, Hey, You Can Heal Your Life. And it was on my bookshelf for years. My mom had given it to me. And she's like, you got to read this book. And I was like, sure, mom, I'll read the book. I never read it. You know, it was just like sitting there for a long time. And for whatever reason, spirit just really guided me to pick that book up. And when I started reading it, probably about the second, third chapter, I just started really getting engaged in that book.

I guess, you know, perfect timing, you know, just like you were saying, Quiet of the Storm. It was just like the perfect time that it got my attention. And so I started really diving in and read that book in a few days and also was simultaneously reading The Healing Power of Sound by Dr. Mitchell Gaynor. And he was a doctor that was a traditional cancer doctor that was treating a monk that had a heart condition. And they became friends. And it really opened him up to, you know, singing bowls and all these other experiences that the monk put in front of him. and he started seeing benefits to his clients. And so, for me, those two books were like the monumental shift for me to be more open-minded and to journey into the holistic approach. And from that point, I started doing breathwork, meditation, and getting into sound healing. And I got into YouTube and was listening to the sound

healing tracks. And I could tell that the binaural beats were really having an effect on me and that they were helping me, but they were just so boring. Like I was like, so bored by the music offerings that were with a lot of it. And I was a musician. And so I started challenging myself, like, what would you, instead of complaining about it, what would you do differently to add something for yourself? And, and I started really seeing benefit in that creative process that there was a release and healing just in being creative. And it was the tones and the frequencies were having effects. So it was like a double mint gum, you know, like, yeah, double the value. And so it was just really fun going through that process. And then friends started seeing like within before the end of that year, I lost 100 pounds, I was about 315 pounds, I was overweight. And it was coming from years of depression and suppression of trauma and

pain and grief. And so when I started losing the weight, my skin tone changed, my weight started changing, my persona and my energy started changing. And people started noticing and saying, hey, what are you doing? And I said, it's the frequencies, man. And so I started sharing the music with people and they started being affected. And so it was just a really powerful experience to be a part of. And then when family and friends started experiencing the same kind of ripples in their life, I was like, okay, there's something to this. And it took me a few years, but I dove into creating a company. And so for the last six years, I've been doing listening to smile and turning those experiences that I shared with myself into family and friends, and then growing it into the holistic community, yoga studios, holistic practitioners, massage therapists, acupuncturists, counselors, life coaches, you know, that kind of thing. So that's awesome. For me, I'm a massage therapist, too. So God, we had the same freaking stuff for like years. My daughter complains about that, too. She works

in retail. She's like, Oh, my God, you know, you end up singing the same songs in the same so I love that you have something original coming out monthly and I also love you do a lot of chakra sounds those different vibrations those different hertz I was fascinated when I discovered that like 432 hertz was like the vibration that a person is when they're inside a brainwave. And it's the same, you know, as like they measured, I think the earth. I mean, there's so many synchronicities when it comes to these vibrations, very intentional with the sound that you put out.

Yeah. So Nikola Tesla, Wilhelm Reich, Royal Raymond Reif, all these guys have done work with frequencies and around sound and vibration. You know, I love like Dr. Joe Dispenza, Bruce Lipton, Greg Braden, Michael Beckwith, you know, all these guys that are in this thought movement and Louise Hay and the Hay House and all of those published authors, you know, are amazing. And I wanted to take those kind of philosophies and apply it to the music that I was creating. And so to get really intentional with the frequencies where, you know, I was utilizing body organ frequencies from like the studies that Royal Raymond Reif was doing with like

body organ frequencies. And he was learning how to target cancer cells and destroy cancer cells with sound and, and viruses and bacterias with it. And so I really loved all the books I read on him. And I started incorporating that into my music. But then I started getting into chakras and with the astrology started getting into planetary frequencies and then got into like the Schumann resonance and the sulfageo scale. And so there was so much wealth of knowledge and growth in those frequencies for me that I didn't want to like pinpoint and stay in just one school of thought. So with listening to smile, we just opened it up to where every month we work with astrologers

and then look at the overall collective energy and then try to create specific for that month based on all of those frequencies, which one would best be suited for helping to alleviate some of the heavier, denser energies and kind of, you know, accentuate the more playful and joyful energies to help people create more balance in their life with the music that we're giving. In pop music, one of the things that is so amazing about it is that it's so repetitive. But the thing that's also so detrimental about it is that it's so repetitive. And what I mean by that is you have this really catchy tune.

And then if you really pay attention to the lyrics and you're singing it over and over again, is it really what you want to be putting in your conscious mind as an intention? You know, because that's really what you're doing when you're singing something over and over and over and over again. And, you know, there has to be said for something about release work and healing that takes place through music, and sometimes crying and grieving is part of that process. But I think for the most part, when people are listening to music, we're wanting music to be uplifting and adding positive vibration in our life, you know.

And so people are always like, well, does that always have to be sound healing? And I'm like, no. But I said, like, when you listen to Bob Marley, right? At some point, everything's going to be all right. You know what I mean? Like, it's always positive and uplifting. And it's like really joyful. And so I think that we have to be more conscious about the kind of things like media, news, and books and friends and people that we're having around us. It's not just the food we're eating that's a part of it but it's all of this stimulation and all the things that we're digesting with our eyes and our ears and our mouth and in just our bodies you know so do you think shanna and i are screwed because we listen to a lot of tupac and eazy-e so i went to a beatles tribute concert the other day it was just so neat because it made me start listening to all the beatles music again because i had kind of taken

yeah so good so so many good songs and like you just start thinking about music over the years and how much it's changed and evolved. And I don't think that people are causing huge amounts of damage to their bodies by listening to music that is from their, like, high school, college, and going back to, you know, older music in the 50s and 60s. And music is definitely a different frequency in that, you know, but I think when it's just like anything else, like eating ice cream isn't going to, you know, everyone needs a treat, we need things that bring us joy. But I think if you're eating ice cream two, three times a day, every single day, it's going to start causing problems for your body. And I think it's the same thing with a lot

of the mainstream music is, if you're just listening to that all hours of the day and you're not really taking time for mindfulness or conscious thought and then getting really intentional about what you're putting in your ears as a balance to that then I think that's when it can get out of alignment it can cause you know because there's a lot of intentional lyrics that are being delivered. And it's telling stories and sharing perspectives. But I think there's so many perspectives and that we have to really stay mindful about being positive as much as we can, you know. Yeah, my daughter seemed a little depressed. And they said a way that you can maybe find out what's going on with her, you know, if they're not talking to you is what's their favorite song.

Cause a lot of times they're going to be listening to what they're experiencing or going through in their lives. And her favorite song right now was kiss of life by Sade, which I was totally fine with. I'm like, Oh my God. I was like, what are my favorite songs? And, Oh my God, it's like one of my favorite songs. Yeah. And so but yeah, it's it is true, because you're going to be listening to your vibration, like energy attracts like energy, right? And so it's very interesting. Yeah, for sure. After my near death experience, my ears changed. I couldn't listen to the same music anymore. It literally was like nails scratching down a chalkboard. My nervous system would react. It was insane. I would feel little prickles and almost like red ants biting my legs, listening to things that didn't resonate with my soul. Yeah. At the time I thought it was just trauma. But then once I started talking to

people like David Ditchfield, he had unfortunately been thrown under a train and, you know, severed his arm and, you know, had this crazy near death experience, then came back and started producing music. And he had never even knew how to produce music, just a beautiful story. But once I started talking to him, he said the same thing happened to him Evan said the same thing so I think it's so interesting it's like almost as we evolve and open our minds we find that even the old Tupac that I used to love so much to be honest does not resonate with me anymore it actually sounds different different. Yeah, yeah. You know, it what's really interesting is if you've ever talked to someone that's been in like a toxic relationship,

when they get out of that, and they do the healing work, whenever those vibrations present themselves again, it's almost like their body has a very strong reaction to it, like walls go up. And like, they're also very conscious of boundaries with people and that energy. And I think like the same type of things, like people that have been involved in traumas, like car wrecks, or things like that, they get very sensitive. And also, I think people that have gone through those types of things also get more in tune with their body. And when they get more in tune with their body, they start reading energies that are starting to come into their field, like registering it where they're really able to get open with themselves about, hey, this does not feel good to me anymore. And it's like so much so I can't even be around it or sit in it anymore. Like I need to go where things feel more in more resonance with where I'm at at this point in my life. And so I look back like I played sports my whole life. I was a baseball pitcher. Yeah, yeah. And it's just really interesting because people say, Do you watch sports anymore?

And I'm like, No, I don't watch sports anymore. And they're like, really? And I'm like, not at all. And I'm like, yeah, not at all. It doesn't. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. My son is a pitcher. He's very into music. He's a very old soul. His playlist shocks me. It's so much of just everything. It's actually really beautiful. That's cool. Yeah. I mean, we're talking from opera to hip hop to, you know, the Beatles to Bob Marley to country to jazz. I mean, it's just super fun to be in on a road trip with him and listen to his playlist. That's cool. but it is interesting to see how they use their walk-up songs as their hype you know yeah yeah yeah you know my son who is autistic he's the same like his music is not trendy at all so everything he listens to is based off of like

um like a morning song that's what so right now his new morning song is louis armstrong the song is about a great morning and so i'm like everybody plays it and i'm listening i'm like what are you listening to to his defense he's probably trying to drown out that horrid song you went in and sang to him every single morning good morning Vietnam I was playing good morning Vietnam every morning so he likes everything the same so every morning I'd hold my phone

in his gym and go good morning Vietnam you know and then after that he was he wanted me to play happy trails every morning oh i love it and it was one specific version he wanted to couldn't play a different one and like he changes but one day he was super pissed at me because he signed up for yoga or they put him in yoga and he was dancing around with like

his like middle finger up and it was like this fuck you song I mean he literally only finds songs based on his google search and his emotions right what he's feeling and his yes but he he plays music all day all day no matter what he's doing. Even if he's watching WWE, if he's watching whatever Marvel, he always has music going. And one of his favorite Pandora stations, actually I don't know the name of it, but what it does is it plays the violin to like pop music, even rap music. He loves it. it that's cool that's cool uh well to touch on what

you guys are saying though one of the things i always tell people about music is that obviously it's a mood enhancer first but like when you get into other things like movies right like if you took a like marvel a marvel movie and you turned all the music out right you took the music out there would not be these epic suspenseful parts in the movie it's like such a huge part of that movie and it really evokes emotions in the film right so what i try to tell people yeah yeah yeah what so what i try to tell people is the other side of that coin is like your healing practice, you know, things that you're finding lack of motivation on, you can play some upbeat songs and do some yoga, right? Or you can listen to meditation tracks that are really powerful and

connected with you. And you could go into a deep meditation and it will help you like adding that sound to the practice yeah so it's just very similar yeah tina turner has the best mantra like album it'll knock your socks off i play it loud in my house sometimes i love it it's powerful powerful but you know what here's an interesting thing. I went to, I'm from New Orleans, my cousin and I, we went to the Myrtles plantation. So we're getting ready to leave. And all of a sudden I'm humming something and I can actually even still hum it. And I don't know where it came from. I like channeled it and I could never get rid of it and I hummed it for like a month and you know I definitely I mean it had to have been channeled because we I even asked my cousin

like what am I humming where does this come from did we hear music in the gift shop and we went back in the gift shop they were playing like some Louisiana jazz yeah I'm like, where, you know, but it was, it was embedded in me and coming out and it was this vibration in this hum. And I swear to God, I had to have channeled it. I mean like their vibration or memory or residual energy, whatever it was, but it was amazing. That leads me to a question for you it do you feel like sometimes your music is being channeled from some sort of divinity yeah well so the process

that I go through when I'm doing the albums is I go into meditation first and basically I just asked God's spirit to have me create an open channel for me where it's not my will, but that the music is expressed through me. So all the music that I create for these albums is all spontaneously generated. There's some times where I get to go back and work on stuff, but a lot of times things are recorded in one or two takes. And it's just it comes through, there's times where I'll be like, man, this track sounds really good. And I'm all excited about it. And then it'll just get deleted on my computer, like it'll just be gone. And yeah, yeah. And so then I was I was I remember getting really upset because you put so much time and energy into that. But then when I started really letting it go and like exploring, like maybe this is God's will to have this move. This isn't what

needs to be delivered at this time. A lot of times, not all the time, but a lot of the times, the music that would come through after the new creation that would come through, I would feel like would be like 10 times more in alignment with what needed to happen for that month. I mean, sometimes drastically, like, I create a lot of different music. So like stuff that's in pop, stuff that's in folk, stuff that's in like curtain and shamanic drumming and, you know, new agey kind of music. And so like, I might have something like that was pop.

And that's what I felt have something like that was pop. And that's what I felt moved to do for that month. And it might just get erased or just not work out at all. And then I just kind of try to do a meditation and clear and come back to it. And it might be a shamanic drumming. And it just comes through so clear and so loud. And so yeah, it's definitely something that I have to know that I'm helping to create, but it's not solely my own creation. It's something that's really coming through me. This whole war in Ukraine is really weighing heavy on people. Yeah. So do you take current events and like astrology, and then that that meditation that channeling all of it and then

come up with the music to knowing people are going through that that kind of stuff and that heavy pain yeah and the people i have a really awesome team graphic artists and astrologers and people that working with listening to smile that help to give perspectives outside of what I'm seeing. And they, they also help with the writeup. So when someone becomes a member of listening to smile, they'll get a monthly album.

They'll get two free albums when they sign up and then they'll get a new album every month. But when that album comes to their inbox, it has all the astrology information for the month. It has all the frequency information for the month, it has all the frequency information for the music, and then it kind of has descriptions about why the songs are titled that and it talks a little bit about the energy for each of those astrological events and kind of things that they need to be focusing on with their intentions and also just kind of

mindset. So it's like a it's kind of like a follow the bouncing ball for the month, it gives them the music as a tool to kind of use in that. And then they have this like PDF file that gives them an idea of like, where to kind of put their intentions and why the energies are there. And it's just it's yeah, yeah. So Shanna and I could become members and then use your music like in this video, here's the album, you can purchase it. And then you guys would make 40% of every sale that comes through that way. And it also gives you guys the ability to create music with your own meditations on them and be able to resell those to your community. So we try to add value to the holistic community in addition for the support they're giving us with our company i have people ask me all the time where did you get your music i'm like i don't know it's so hard

i was like just search like free yeah i don't know or i i've actually bought some but like i just like you just said about that one lady i I just so I don't know because nobody was telling me that there was a guarantee that I could have it. You know, I just purchased it. So who knows? The one thing I absolutely love about all of our guests and you is the intention. It always goes back to the intention, like the intention of of what you're doing, of your team, of the kind of music. You know, Shanna always says to me that she's in a place in her life now where, you know, she goes to a place and you can buy a crystal that's six bucks.

But this other place has a crystal, the same exact one for $2. If this over here has like this beautiful intention, and people have like cleared it and it's and it's was bought and loved by someone, she's going to take the one more expensive one over the other one any day, you know, because of the intention behind it. And it sounds like even the name listening to smile, that is, it's so simple, but so awesome. Talk about it. How'd you guys come up with that? So when I first started doing the music, one of the things I did for myself was I took a massage table and converted the table into a vibration, you know, table. So I put speakers underneath it and created like a little resonance chamber. And when I would lay on it, the bed would

vibrate and it would just feel so good that I ended up just sleeping on the bed a lot of times, just sleeping on it when I was going through my healing. And yeah, it was really fun. And then I started family and friends wanted to come lay on it and experience it. And so when they would lay on the table and I would turn it on, they would just start smiling as soon as it started because they were just like so surprised, I think, that it felt like that. And so in that process, I think probably the fifth or sixth person, I was like, that's the company name, Listening to Smile. It just like, you know, kind of clicked together there. But that's where the name came from. You know, my son has like a really amazing system in his car. What am I might go like lay on the roof. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well, you know, I had discovered that vibration, how very healing it was because I too had some stomach issues and we happened to have someone on at the time that had said, you know, you can activate your vagus nerve and then that might said, you know, you can activate your vagus nerve, and then that might help, you know, with the inflammation in your body, which it did.

We have the ability to heal ourselves, but it's the last place we look. Yeah, yeah. I think that for me, I was a person that could never meditate. I couldn't sit still. My mind was always going. I'm a creative person. I'm a visual artist, a poet and a musician, play a bunch of instruments and just love so many different styles of music that my mind is constantly in creation mode. So it's always hard for it to step down because it's always wanting to do, do, do. And so when I introduced frequency music with headphones, and would actually be able to close my eyes, I remember crying the first time just tears pouring down because it was the first time that my brain had shut off, probably in my mid 30s when that happened. So it was a very powerful experience I shared with my mom and sisters and a lot of my friends and tried to get them to try it. And some of them were open to it and some of them weren't. But it's something that had a dramatic impact on

my life, being able to sit without the mind running in the monkey mind and being able to unplug from my body in the world for 20, 30 minutes or an hour. And when I came back, I was so much more refreshed. I think that's the biggest disconnect is that silence is needed, you know, with the mind and the body. But one of the things that I think people don't think a lot about is how powerful conscious breath is, that when you're breathing in deeply and holding intentions and breathing out and taking your time and being conscious with intention and conscious with your breath, you're introducing more oxygen to your blood flow, the circulation of your body. It means that the organs are operating and getting higher function because they're operating at optimal oxygen levels because you're actually breathing.

Most of us forget that we stop breathing. We tense up most of the day. So for me, the music was the ultimate tool to help lead husband, that are scared of stillness because all they've ever known is the monkey brain. And for some reason, a lot of the men correlate being still as not being productive. Yeah. Can we talk about that for a minute? Because as you know, we're in the age of Aquarius and this new energy is coming in with a lot of men are starting to explore this feminine energy and are really, we're seeing a shift all over even corporate America with all these guests we've had on where men are wanting to explore this stillness, but there's still a lot of fear.

I mean, let's, let's just talk about that because you said you cried, you cried. I mean, we've conditioned our whole lives that men don't cry, you know, and you cried and then you shared it with your mom and your sister. I mean, that's powerful. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's two things I would love to talk, speak on, on this topic, which is one, I think we are coming into the age of feminine energy rising, you know, um, and you're seeing more women take leader leadership positions. You're seeing more women get notoriety and recognition in movies and films. You're seeing it in documentaries. You're starting to see more books and published authors that are women. You're seeing more communities being formed around women. And as a male, there's a lot. I grew up with three sisters, I grew up with a very strong mother, her mother was a very strong figure. It's interesting, because I feel like I was taught a little differently about masculine and feminine energy. happening right now where men are needing to get more in touch with vulnerability and feelings

and heart openings. And I think that it's very challenging for people because a lot of men see that as a weakness to be able to do that. And one of the things that I've been trying to share with a lot of brothers and my community is that if I'm in a metal band, right, it's so easy to get on stage with four other dude bros, right? And rock out and scream and cuss and play music, right? But if I were to give any of those guys an acoustic guitar and heartfelt lyrics to sing to that crowd on stage by themselves, that would be much harder for them to do. And so I asked them, which one is tougher, man? Which one is more masculine and more tough to do? I think it's being vulnerable and crying. If you can do that in front of people and not have a problem with it and just be like, this is who I am. That's strength to me. Like,

that's a power that you're starting to stand in. And then nothing can really touch you once you get to that point. You know, like, if you're not afraid of what people think of you, and you're not afraid to express yourself and to get in touch with your body and to be in touch with your heart, there's not much anyone's going to say or anything that's going to happen in the world that's going to affect you in that way. And so I'm trying to learn and open to that more myself every day. But then I'm also trying to teach that to a lot of men that I see that are just so tightly wound and shut down. And I want to speak real quick on the second thing I want to talk about, which is, I get into these conversations with women a lot about men, and there's a lot of men bashing that

goes on these days, you know. And the thing I want to speak on on that is that there is this moving goalpost of what a man should be in a lot of society's eyes. Whether people realize it or not, there's this expectation for men to be supermen, to always know what to do, to always know what to say, to never be afraid, to never cry, to be tough and strong. And people will say, no, that's not what I want. And then I'll start going into conversation with them deeper. And they'll say, well, yeah, I guess you're right, you know, and then I'll say, once the man finally obtains that place where you're wanting them to be, it'll shift to a new thing now that you need that person to be. And so I think it's one of the things that men are so they have such a hard time opening up is because they feel like it's never good enough. And I think that there needs to be two things that happen in

the man's mindset and the modern man mindset, which is one, realizing what is true strength, which I think is opening your heart, being vulnerable and being able to not care what people think about you for being who you are in that moment. And then to the side of being able to have real open forgiveness, love and compassion from the women in the world to know that men have all been raised by women, right? Men have been raised by society just as women have these views on them. And I'm not taking away from women in any way. I know that minorities and women have had complete hardships and that there is just complete unfairness and injustice and the world for the way that those people have been treated. But for men, I think for the real

awakening that women and society are wanting from men, there's going to have to be a meeting in the middle where the other brothers in the community are reaching out to each other and supporting each other and being vulnerable and opening up their heart and their mind and being able to look at what does this new evolution look like. And then I think it's also going to be the divine feminine embracing with forgiveness, compassion and love and knowing that a lot of the hurt and trauma that is in the typical man's life right now was beyond his control. And they might feel like they don't have the tools to process and to heal what needs to be healed to move forward. And I think that mindfulness is a huge tool in moving forward meditation, breath work and intention settings. And I think a lot of men right now are going through life in an unconscious setting. They're just kind of like life happens to me and they're not really taking control or have learned the mind over matter movement. And I think that it's something that's so vital to introduce into that world, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Or you keep telling they're going to come back as a woman. That's right. Oh my gosh. I think a lot of people are afraid to to say what you just said and you said it very beautifully with love and intention so thank you thank you for saying that that's what I want for

my husband and for my son for my father I just want them to be able to experience what you said that just true authenticity of knowing you are exactly who you are and that you are enough. Yeah. My, my oldest son has shifted into the place where, where you are. And I think that the outside world sees it so differently, right. Then what he was before. And I think that he battled with that. And I think he's like really in an authentic place. And it is a place where he is emotional. And I think that people automatically assume that emotional means depression. Emotional means weakness. Emotional means something's wrong with him.

Where I've sat with him and talked to him about like all of these things actually are okay. Yeah. And he's a cancer. So, yeah, but I mean, those things are okay. I mean, like you don't have to go around the world pretending you're okay, because that's actually not okay. And I think women have become more masculine, which, you know, we had this guy Kiko on and he said something I'll never ever forget. Basically that women have stole even the opportunity for a man to get in touch with this feminine by us women being so dominating in like the nurturing part of like raising children and stuff like that.

And so I can see how, you know, we've stepped on each other's toes. And I think that I agree with you 100%. It's all about, you know, finding where we can be united together and meet together and as equals. I'm definitely not perfect by any means. And I've definitely hurt people. I was a Leo and Leos are known for being arrogant, cocky and full of themselves. And when I was younger, I was definitely more in anger and had a lot of, you know, things that I had to learn to overcome. And as I'm getting older, like I was telling you before, I'm like a cancer rising and an Aries moon, right? So it's like, you start learning a little bit about astrology and like the Enneagram and human design and all these different things that are just there to

tools to help you kind of map your existence, right? And so what I find really interesting is having these conversations with my girlfriend or just different friends that, you know, are in the holistic community, talking about the rise of the feminine. And what's really interesting is the rise of the feminine is definitely needed. But in a lot of areas in life, I just would love to speak on, there's a lot of women who are rising to power, or positions of power, and they have this bitterness towards, you guys had your turn, you ruined the world and messed everything up. Now it's my turn, get out of my way. And I think that when you really get into that energy, that is a masculine energy. It's a feminine energy rising in a masculine energy way and telling us that

they're going to do it better. And I think like, a humble, compassionate, loving, forgiveness energy needs to be moving into but also a protection energy, you know, by taking that position and realizing what was done wrong, and what could be done better, but doing it in love and compassion, and having a protection around it, I think that is where the real divine feminine energy is. And I think that men would do well to learn from that energy and to learn how to balance themselves, but they're going to do so from example. They're going to do so from people taking those positions of power and doing it in love and compassion. And that better example, I think, is going to start opening people in a way in this new paradigm that will really start changing the world. And I

think that women that are taking those positions of power have a huge responsibility. And it's not fair what they're stepping into. It's like a president that steps into an old president's shoes that has trashed the country. Right. And then just like you're starting from this very low point. But women are taking this position where hundreds and even thousands of years of oppression and injustice. And, you know, so there's a there's a lot of responsibility there. So I don't think that it should be taken lightly. But I think that that's what's going to need to happen for the for them to start seeing that shift in the men, if they challenge the men with that same masculine energy, it's just going to be this kissing contest of egos, you know?

And yeah, so I think like, it's really important, this work that we're doing, like what you're doing podcast and putting out all this information to challenge people's mindsets and perspectives. And I think like with me with my music, trying to open people up to a new way of breathing or a new way of thinking or even turning off the mind for a little bit to get some perspective and quiet you know it's just so important right now so love what you said and you know i mean i'm so in deep with the divine feminine been like my study over the past like year the one thing that i say that has been the most valid was that when it comes to creation you cannot just create with a masculine energy i'm sorry this one was not created just with with a masculine energy nothing can be created

with just a feminine energy they have to unite and come together for something to be created whether that creation is love you know whether it's you know peace harmony you know all of it yeah totally agree we've had fun with you today and we appreciate what you do you're such a great gift to the world. So are you all healed from, you know, the cancer and everything? Yes, I have gone through a lot. And then even recently in 2019, I was diagnosed with diabetes. My dad was diabetic. So I had to go through some changes with my diet, even though I had gone through a lot of changes before, you know, it took me a year and a half, but I didn't do insulin or any medicine. I just did a diet change. Dr. Neil Bernard has a book called reversing diabetes with diet. And it was monumental. I did it for a year and a half and

reverse diabetes. And now I'm eating a metabolic balanced meals, and my blood sugar is fine. And it's been awesome. So it's been a big change. But yeah, everything's going well and still moving forward. I think it's so amazing that you have literally been putting out music every month for how many years? Six? Six years. Yeah. I mean, talk about dedication for the intention of healing and helping others. I mean, that's beautiful.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you guys so much. I'm so glad that you're healthy. And you are what people need to hear. Because as we know, we're an over medicated society, you guys, there's other options good on you. And, you know, could you just please send me some sound healing that will cure my allergies and asthma. A lot of times people will say, what is the listening to smile music do? And I said, the easiest way to answer that is target the stress response of the body. And so if you can lower your heart rate, get your brainwave state and you know, the intention that you're going for, a lot of times the things that we're dealing with whether it be allergies like i had dyslexia growing up so i had to go through a lot of i would read the same page in a book seven eight times to try to be able to retain that

information when i started doing the frequency music within the first year i noticed that my memory and retaining information was like off the charts from anything I had ever experienced before. But I think it's because I got my brainwave state, my heart rate lowered. I started doing more breath work, circulating. My organs were operating at more optimal levels. And it just really changes your baseline. When you change that baseline, anything that you're targeting or going after makes it much easier to do and now it's time for break that shit down what i would want to tell people is that sound healing is a valid tool for release work and healing and that it's easy to do that

all you need is a pair of headphones and 20 minutes a day 10 minutes in the morning 10 minutes at night it's that simple it's not a huge time commitment and if you give that a two-week trial 10 minutes in the morning 10 minutes at night you know every person that we've ever worked with has had huge breakthroughs in their life with the intentions that they were working with based on that time commitment, 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes at night. So I just want to encourage people to try, you know, whether they're dealing with sleep problems or some kind of physical ailment or it's mental issue that they're trying to tackle. That I really believe that sound can be a great tool with breath work and intention setting to be something that could help them create movement and that

stagnant energy. Awesome. Where can they find listening to smile and find out more information or sign up for a membership? Yeah, so listening to smile.com is the website. And at the top of the page, there's services and you'll see the affiliate. It's the meditation affiliate program. And that would be becoming a member where you get into the monthly albums, and you're able to learn all the information. And then we also have on the services, you'll see a personal frequency coaching, and that is a place where people can go

to learn more about sound healing. They can ask questions. It's a 45 minute zoom call and they'll get a personalized soundtrack created for the intentions that they're wanting to target. And so, yeah, so we have those two things that we offer. And then we also have some albums that people can buy for personal use that are on listening to smile, the number one listening to smile one.bandcamp.com. And there's albums on there at $25 that you can buy and use personally at home. And there's a whole plethora like for sleep for pain relief for anxiety it's like really easy to pick you know the album to go with there's samples you can listen to on there as well oh gosh i love it so much good juicy stuff like i love the the ones that are directed to like

personalize exactly what you're going through awesome well tell dana thank you for connecting us she was awesome thank you so connecting us. She was awesome. Thank you so much for coming on. This has been great. Our listeners are going to absolutely love you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed being here today. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe. Thank you. We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening.