The Transformative Power of Sound with Raphael Joudry

In this episode we get curious about:

On "Curiously Wise: Practical Spirituality in Action," Laurin dives deep into the world of sound therapy with Raphael Joudry, an expert who's built upon the Tomatis method. Raphael's expertise reveals the transformative potential of this approach, from addressing hearing loss and promoting brain plasticity to alleviating conditions like ADHD, insomnia, and Parkinson's. Their dialogue enlightens listeners on the science, personal stories, and holistic perspectives surrounding the auditory and neurological benefits of sound therapy.topic

• The therapeutic power of classical music and its impact on the ear.
• Benefits of sound therapy on brain function and conditions like ADHD, autism, and insomnia.
• Rafael's family's serendipitous journey into sound therapy.
• The role of the vagus nerve in sound therapy and social engagement.
• The synergy of music and nature sounds in therapy.
• and so much more!

To learn more about our guest:

Website: https://mysoundtherapy.com/us/

FB: Sound Therapy International Pty Ltd

Raphael's Joudry's Books:

Why Aren't I Learning

Sound Therapy: Music to Recharge Your Brain

Triumph Over Tinnitus

Recommended Books:

The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks

Credits

Audio Engineer: Sam Wittig

Music: Where the Light Is by Lemon Music Studio

Photography & Design: https://ashamclaughlin.wixsite.com/tejart

To learn more about Laurin Wittig and her work: https://HeartLightJoy.com

Copyright 2024 Laurin Wittig

Interview Episode with Rafaele Joudry

And that's the greatest loss. Because we are heart driven people. We need to connect with social beings and our language and our hearing and our brain. These are the ways that we connect with each other and really, really have that contact with another being. And we need it all to function well to help us to do that.

So in helping other people connect, I feel we really have made a big difference to so many

She is the founder of sound therapy and international keynote speaker. She holds a master's in psychology, specializing in sound therapy, a program created from the tomatoes method. I hope I'm saying that correctly, which has treated many thousands of clients for conditions, such as autism, ADHD, stroke.

Brain injury, insomnia, Parkinson's, tinnitus, depression, Alzheimer's, and many other conditions. Raphael is a passionate advocate for taking your health back into your own hands. And you know, I am too. She is also an author of dozens of articles, plus three bestselling books, sound therapy, music to recharge your brain, triumph over tinnitus, and why aren't I learning?

So welcome to curiously wise Raph. It's very nice to see you. I hope Raph is okay.

Rafael: no. Everyone calls me Raphael. Sorry, Laurin. That was a mistake. It's Raphael. Yeah. Hi. Delighted to be here.

And I had a friend on wow, a long time ago now towards April last year, I think who is a sound healer and she's does the music, but you have a different methodology that you use. So. Tell us about what you do.

So what we're really about is brain plasticity. And there's a lot of hard medical science on this and how brain plasticity can be enhanced through the right sort of sensory stimulation. So with our form of sound therapy, we are enhancing brain plasticity. And improving our function in so many areas, but we're doing that through the organ of the ear, which is just the most phenomenal organ when you explore it, its capacity and its ability to recharge and improve our brain function.

And with our system, we actually use classical music to [00:04:00] enhance our ear and brain function.

Laurin: So that's really fascinating to me. I love classical music and I know that when my kids were little, they came out with studies about how Mozart, for example, helped you focus better when you were studying and that kind of thing. And I used that a lot when I was writing books, I would play classical music in the background and it really would help me to focus.

So how is it that that changes the brain or changes the ear, which is it?

Rafael: Well, you see. The classical music we use is different. Well, the music itself is, you know, standard music, but it's what we've done to the music that makes it into sound therapy. So it's not just listening to any classical music. Dr. Tomatis, the ear specialist who I mentioned, developed a way of filtering the music so that it's actually causing a gymnastic effect in the ear.

So we're activating many different brain centers, but it's because of the filtering through a device called the electronic ear, which Dr. Tomatis has developed. So you're getting an intensive program of high frequency sound stimulation in the form of classical music. So it sounds like classical music when you listen to it, you can still hear that it's music, but you hear some slight differences because of the filtering, but it's actually opening up the brain pathways and enhancing our performance in so many different areas, which is.

Quite remarkable. It continues to amaze me what we can do with this method.

Rafael: That's right. And that's showing the impact that music has on the brain and memory, because memory works differently with music than it does with spoken language. And if any of your listeners have ever read the book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks, a

Laurin: I haven't read it, but I, I know it. Yeah.

Rafael: It's a great book.

I really recommend it. And it was about all sorts of different interesting stories of people with varied brain disorders, which allowed us to learn and understand the brain. And one of the learnings was that we use a completely different part of the brain for music because that's drawing on melody and harmony and rhythm, not just language.

We facilitate memory. So people who are beginning to lose their memory, the beginning of dementia will find, or even just normal memory loss that happens with aging. You can't remember people's names. You're, you're not as sharp. It sharpens that up. It enhances that. So for everyday people who are just wanting to sharpen up their brain, it makes a big difference because it's rebuilding connections.

When we say brain plasticity, you're actually rebuilding connections. You're actually physically improving the way the brain works with the right sort of stimulation.

Laurin: So it's like taking your brain to the gym.

Rafael: Well, yes, absolutely. Yes, we always say it's like taking your ears to the gym because it is, because you're exercising the muscles in the ear, and you know, they have all these processes called brain gym that people can do and go and learn to do,

Laurin: I've, I have a friend who,

Rafael: Yes, and this is. This is great brain gym too, but you don't have to do exercises.

Laurin: Right. So how did you come to this work?

Rafael: Well, I came to it through my mother. She had difficulty with hearing. And this is where we help people in the, in the hearing field because it helps you to hear better in a, in a noisy room with background noise. It helps people with sound sensitivity. It helps people with tinnitus, ringing in the ears.

So we have a huge avenue, which is natural hearing improvement that helps with all of those conditions. That. People can't get treated. They can't get help from their audiologist or their doctor, you know, chronic blocked ear, chronic dizziness, all of those things. Then we have this other whole side, which is the, the brain plasticity and the emotional intelligence where, you know, it's, it's using the ear to enhance the brain.

And people just find their daily performance improves. Their stress goes down. They can do what they want to do. It's just like a natural revitalization for the whole nervous system.

Laurin: Wow. That's lovely. That's lovely. So how does this work? I mean, it's, it's, you've got a machine you said you

Rafael: How do you use it? Yes. Yes. We deliver it on a small device, not much bigger than a matchbox with headphones. So you need to listen with headphones, but it's played very quietly. When people hear headphones, they generally think, oh, well, I'll be shut off, I won't be able to participate. I'll have to sit still and just do that.

It was a big investment of time and money. Whereas with our system, it's portable. So you have the headphones on, you go about your day. It's played very quietly. So you can still have a conversation, watch TV, drive the car. You can do anything really with the sound therapy on. And the music's just there quietly.

You're not really aware of it, but you can pay attention to it if you want to. And it's just gradually working your brain and rebuilding your brain and repairing the kind of damage that happens in today's world. With all of the noise and the stresses and the chemicals we're exposed to, we're seeing a great increase, I believe, in many different types of brain disorders.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. Dyslexia. Yes.

Rafael: All of these things seem to be increasing. And we've seen people where they turn around, where parents use it for their children or even adults use it in later life.

And it turns those conditions around and the anxiety goes, the stress goes, language starts to happen. You know, I've had parents say to me, my child wasn't speaking until he did sound therapy. And then he started to speak because it woke up those pathways.

Laurin: Yeah. That's remarkable. Yeah. And I'm, I know because it runs in my family, I'm, I, I, you know, try to stay up to date on dementia things. And that one of the things that they're correlating, I don't think it's cause of they showed it causal yet, but they're correlating loss of hearing with increased dementia.

Rafael: Yes. Yes.

Laurin: two aunts with hearing loss. And so it's and you know, it's that side of the family that it runs in, but they, one of them's got dementia. One does not, but,

So your brain isn't getting the same stimulation that it needs to get. And that's a great time to introduce sound therapy during those early times when your hearing's down a little bit, you may not be ready for hearing aid yet, but you need that extra stimulation. And sound therapy gives you a level of high frequency stimulation, which is different to what you get in your normal day or through a hearing aid.

and their memory and just their ability to deal with the world and to process things. And so, for instance, those who have autism, who have difficulty processing language and relating to others in the way that they may want to, that processing, develops and it becomes easier. And those who might have had a stroke and having to rebuild and recover brain pathways, the sound therapy helps to rebuild those pathways and it helps to, to reconnect the pathways for memory.

Laurin: That's amazing. That is just amazing. So even if, if say in the, the. Just use my one aunt, my youngest aunt who has dementia, came on pretty fast and pretty hard, and, and she's a lot younger than my mother was. She, her hearing has been terrible for years. She's had hearing aids, so even without being able to necessarily hear well, this would still stimulate the muscles and, yeah.

Rafael: yes, yes. People with hearing loss can use and benefit from the program tremendously. Anyone who's got any kind of hearing loss. Oh, I so much recommend that they get onto sound therapy because it will probably improve their hearing to a degree. We can't of course, completely reverse hearing loss.

It's very difficult, but for nearly everyone, there's some improvement in that. And at the same time as improving hearing, we're improving that brain stimulation. So even people with hearing loss will benefit from the stimulation. We've had people with moderate, severe, and even profound hearing loss have used the program and benefited.

We don't want to lose our memory because it's who we are. And I think there are very many chemical causes of that as well. You know, I think there are so many environmental toxins causing all of these difficulties we're talking about. And so that needs to be looked at as well with a good integrative doctor.

But at the same time, if you use sound therapy, you know, the body works both biochemically and electrically. And this is working on that electrical system, the neural stimulation system. So it's a complement to anything you can do with a biochemical treatment. And it really has quite profound effects.

I'm good at language but it does help with my energy. It helps with my sleep. It helps to reduce my stress. And I know that I'm giving my brain the best kind of maintenance program that I could with that daily recharge with the music to help reduce the likelihood of any degeneration in the future.

Laurin: Yeah.

Rafael: So for people who've got degeneration, absolutely essential, but for those who want to prevent it, essential too.

Laurin: Yes.

Rafael: we all want to stay healthy and functional and have quality of life, not just length of life.

Laurin: Right. Right. And we are, as human beings generally living a lot longer than we used to. And so we need to be functional, you know, well-functioning for a lot longer.

So this is a great way. adding to that and just enhancing the whole value of our life.

Laurin: Yeah. Okay. I, this is fascinating. I love learning new things like this. So you had said something to me before we started about your mother and a spiritual aspect to that. So , since I'm in the more woo area, can we talk, can you tell us a little bit about her?

Rafael: Absolutely. Yes. Look, my mother was a, a remarkable woman, really. I was very blessed to have this life with her and she was deeply spiritual her whole life in her childhood. She, you know, she explored. Catholicism and Protestantism and, and, you know, the different options that were there. But later, as a young adult, she started exploring Buddhism and transcendental meditation.

You know, all the decades that I knew her, she would practice that as a writer, she used inspiration, not transmitted writings. Earlier on, she did a bit of that, but then she became more grounded. And rather than saying, well, I'm transmitting someone else, she just honed her intuition to be able to transmit.

But in everything that she did in life, she was Aware of the guidance

Laurin: Huh.

Rafael: spirit and the universe and where we're going. And I do feel that there was a serendipity in the evolution of our sound therapy journey, because I just had a chance meeting in Paris with someone who was training there with Dr.

And it was in Saskatchewan that we came across an order of Benedictine monks who were using the tomato sound therapy at their monastery.

Laurin: Oh, my goodness.

Rafael: of that, they gave her access to it. And the story is all told in, in her book sound therapy, music to recharge your brain, which I'm holding up for those of your viewers who are watching visually, this is a fascinating story of her journey into sound and healing of her sound difficulties and the monks there in Canada.

Helped her to make the program portable. I do feel this was a guided journey that for the first time ever, the program was put on cassette. It was when the Sony Walkman had first come out.

Laurin: Yeah.

Rafael: made portable. And that has enabled us to make this available to people all around the world who who otherwise couldn't have afforded it in a clinic.

Laurin: remember those.

Rafael: And they were just wonderful. Yes, that's right. We all remember them. People of that age

Laurin: Before that, you had your little, your little radio that you carried around with you sometimes. But

Rafael: Yeah, that's right. We have it on a much, much smaller device now which is just about, you know, the size of a matchbox that big, which is so convenient. But, but when it was first on the walkman, that was, that was amazing. It was portable and this was how we got it out of the clinics. And my mother just had this mission always to help others, to try everything herself for better health and then to help others access it.

So our purpose always has been to make this affordable and accessible and people order it from us all over the world. It doesn't matter what country you're in. Our website is international. You get the program you use it at home. And, and I do feel that I feel blessed in continuing on this work that my mother is with me.

I've got her photo there behind me on the

Laurin: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

I've been using, I use the tapes now I want to get the new one. It's just lovely to be part of a network where it really does transform people's lives and give them access to their full potential. It's just extraordinary.

Laurin: That's lovely. Isn't it, isn't it such a beautiful thing when you can pay it forward like that? When you can, you can take what you've learned and really help other people with it. It's why I do what I do.

Rafael: Yes, yes. And I was really I was really heartened when I heard that the the North American Indians, they're not called Indians anymore, are they? But the,

Laurin: depends on the tribe. Yes.

That was their gift to the world. And I realized that this is true for all of us. We are given challenges in life. We rise to them. We work out an answer and then we find we can help so many other people. And that has certainly been the case. You know, we grew up with our mother thinking, why can't she hear in a noisy room?

Why is she so sensitive to sound? You know, why does she have all these weird problems and she can't socialize normally? And now we've been able to help everybody else to do that. Because, you know, it's such a big problem when you can't hear and connect and use language in an easy, fluent way, you are isolated from others.

So in helping other people connect, I feel we really have made a big difference to so many

Laurin: Yeah. Just, just eliminating the isolation that so much of those, so many of the things that you said, this helps are really isolating sort of you inside yourself.

Rafael: They are. They are, yes. It's all about connection and communication. Everything that sound therapy does, those are the, really the areas. The language, the brain function, and the hearing. And think of all those conditions, autism, stroke, memory, hearing. They're all to do with being able to connect with others.

And we facilitate that process.

Laurin: Yeah. And that's, that's something we need so much more of in this world right now is just people to be able to connect with each other at a heart level.

But one of the cranial nerves that's so interesting, that's been receiving a lot of focus recently is the vagus nerve. which travels right down through the abdomen and the thoracic cavity. It's the only cranial nerve that goes right down through the body. It's the longest nerve in the, in the human body.

And one branch of that, the social engagement nerve, which I'm sure you're aware of Laurin, maybe not all your listeners are, is so important because it helps us sense connection with another, helps us to feel safe and connected when it's turned on, we're in a state of peace and trust. And the research has shown, really interesting research by Stephen Porges, has shown that when you activate the middle ear muscles, it turns on that social engagement nerve.

Rafael: And so this explains why listening to sound therapy automatically calms the nervous system and removes stress. Because people do use it for anxiety and depression and stress and sleep, all of those things. It's just a really natural antidote to stress. It's, it's better than a medication. Although it's not as much like a, you know, hit it on the head with a hammer.

But it's free of side effects. You can use it every day. You can use it for your life. It only does good. It doesn't do harm. So

Laurin: Yeah. That's what I was thinking earlier is it's not a pill you have to take that it then changes the chemistry of your body. It's actually

Rafael: right. Yeah, it works naturally with the body. It works with the nervous system. And what I've realized in doing this work, particularly when I wrote my third book, which is Why Aren't I Learning, which is all about using the program for children and for learning difficulties and brain development.

There's aromatherapy, there's color, visual therapy. There are many, many different tactile and touch therapies and many different sound therapies. So we're working with the senses. The pathways are there. We can send healing through those pathways.

Laurin: yes.

Rafael: We can also send damage through those pathways. I mean, loud noise is damaging.

Of course, touch and physical contact can be very damaging and looking at boring gray skyscrapers and freeways is probably damaging as well. It's not inspiring, is it? We need color, we need beauty, we need nature. And the sounds of nature are very healing. The natural sounds, they're high frequency sounds.

Laurin: Yeah. I was, I was just reading probably a month or so ago. I never quite remember where I read things because I kind of collect them, but I don't, I don't track them. But how that if you add calming music and nature sounds together, which often people like me or, you know massage therapist, that sort of thing to have that kind of sound in the, in the room.

That the combination is stronger than either one on its own, that there's a

Rafael: that's right. And so often, yeah, yeah. So often combining different therapies is strong too. They found in research that if you, if you are using medication, if you have counseling with that as well, it's so much more powerful. And then if you were to add a sensory therapy in as well, and you know, in science, we like to separate things out and find out which thing was it that worked.

And so combined therapies are great. And we recommend combining sound therapy with other things. So you can have it on while you're doing your exercise or while you're having a healing conversation or while you're sleeping and resting, you can combine it. And it will be even more powerful that way.

Rafael: kind of like cheating. I think when we use medication, because it's so, so strong, it's like, we're going to attack that symptom and fix it. But often there's collateral damage when you do that. Whereas with using the sensory pathways, you're working with the body, you're helping the body really to heal itself and the capacity of the body to heal itself amazes me.

It really does.

Laurin: It wants to be in homeostasis.

Rafael: It does. That's right. Yes. It's doing everything it can. And if you just give it that little bit of help, so much healing can happen. And brain plasticity has been such an amazing discovery. You know, when we started this work with self-therapy, they didn't believe in brain plasticity.

Oh,

Laurin: Oh, I've heard of that one too.

Rafael: book. Yes. It was written by a doctor who brought together stories from all of these different practitioners who had found ways of actually, Helping the brain to recover after stroke or, or sensory loss or all sorts of damage, many, many different therapies that could help people recover.

And he actually wrote a second book, The Brain's Way of Healing, in which he had a chapter on Dr. Tomatis and his sound therapy, because that is. definitely in there with these really interesting cutting edge therapies of allowing us to rebuild function in the brain. And one of the discoveries is that if one area of the brain has been damaged, say by a stroke, different areas of the brain can take over some of that function,

Laurin: Yeah, that's fascinating.

It's just extraordinary.

Laurin: That's what happens when somebody loses, say, their sense of sight and their other senses become stronger, isn't it? That the brain sort of allows the other senses to come in and use that space that the eyes aren't using anymore.

Rafael: That's right. Yes.

Laurin: That's it. We are fascinating creatures, I have to say.

Rafael: Oh, when you think of how we evolved and the, the complexity that we have in the human body compared to the amoeba and those first organisms, it's just astonishing,

Laurin: It's amazing. It's amazing. All right. Well, let's if you would let the listeners know where they can get in touch with you, where they can find your work and, and let them know

And it's this book. It's the book my mother wrote, Sound Therapy Music to Recharge Your Brain, which she wrote it back in the 80s. And I updated it 10 years later and wrote the second half. It's a fascinating read. Tells her story of her journey. And it has a whole chapter of listeners stories in the middle as well.

So they can download that as an ebook. Many people like to get the actual book as well. And if they buy the program, it comes with it, or they can just order it on our website. So, but that will lead them to all the other information on all the conditions, because we'll, we'll be in touch with people after they just put the details there and tell us what, what area they're interested in.

We'll be in touch with them. But if they go to that page initially, that's the best way to get the free ebook, read that and the other information we send and we'll be delighted to offer them, you know, whatever journey they want to take.

Laurin: That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Thank you for that. That free book. That's a, that's a beautiful thing to get started with.

Rafael: Yes. Yes. Well, that is a good read.

Laurin: All right. And yeah, so that's your, your website. You gave that to us in there too, my sound therapy. com so you can go and look at that as well.

Rafael: Yes, but I'd encourage them first to go to that page, mysoundtherapy. com slash podcast in order to get the free offer, so they should

Rafael: I know. Yes, it is really great. It's just like being in the same room together. Yeah. Technology's amazing and we can do good things with technology and bad things. And, you know, we've done an awful lot of bad things with technology and sometimes I wish we'd stop. And yet we can do such good things with something like sound therapy.

And. And the communication that we have that, you know, one of the good things, I suppose, about the pandemic was it got us communicating more on zoom and we all learned to use it. And that has been a fantastic thing. Although I still love space when I can do it.

Laurin: Yeah. It's, it's, it's incredible. I, I just, yeah, I talked to people all over the world and I just love it. It's amazing.

Rafael: Yes.

Laurin: I want to thank you for being with us.

Rafael: for inviting me. Yes. Thank you for inviting me to speak to everyone in America. I really appreciate

In the meantime, stay curious.

Thank you so much for joining us today on curiously wise If you enjoyed this episode. Please be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future fabulous conversations. And if you had any ahas, please share them in a review on Apple Podcasts so we can continue to pay forward the unique wisdom we all have. If you want to know more about me or my intuitive energy healing practice, Heartlight Wellness, please head over to my website: www.heartlightjoy.com.

I'm Laurin Wittig. Please join me again next week. For another episode of Curiously Wise. From my heart to yours, may your life be filled with love, light joy, and of course, curiosity.