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Nurturing Mindfulness: Sound Baths, Presence, And Inner Calm
Episode 22 • 5th September 2023 • Mindful You • Alan Carroll
00:00:00 00:20:38

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Alan interviews Blanca Ainsworth about the importance of mindfulness in this week’s episode. Blanca explains how sound baths helped her heal deep trauma. We must learn the difference between reacting to things and responding to things. There are so many breathing exercises we can do to become more calm and still.

About The Guest:

Certified in Nutrition and Licensed Real Estate and as an Insurance Broker. I am bilingual. I am running a marathon in Bordeaux, France next month. I went through a soul retrieval spiritual journey recently to overcome Complex and Compound Trauma. I want to cover all things health in my future podcast. Interest in Metabolic, Functional Health, Healthier Lifestyle, Mental Health and alternate Modalities like Hypnotherapy, Soul Journeys, Financial Literacy. Want a 2nd Podcast in Spanish too!

About Alan:

Alan Carroll is an Educational Psychologist who specializes in Transpersonal Psychology. He founded Alan Carroll & Associates 30 years ago and before that, he was a Senior Sales Training Consultant for 10 years at Digital Equipment Corporation. He has dedicated his life in search of mindfulness tools that can be used by everyone (young and old) to transform their ability to speak at a professional level, as well as, to reduce the psychological suffering caused by the misidentification with our ego and reconnect to the vast transcendent dimension of consciousness that lies just on the other side of the thoughts we think and in between the words we speak.

Personal: https://www.facebook.com/alan.carroll.7359

Business: https://www.facebook.com/AlanCarrolltrains

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aca-mindful-you/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindfulnesseminar/

Web Site: https://acamindfulyou.com/

Transcripts

Alan Carroll:

Welcome back, everybody, to the mindful U

Alan Carroll:

Podcast. I'm Alan Carroll. I'll be your host. As we explore

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together this fascinating, exciting, dynamic, present time,

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awareness consciousness of this thing we call mindfulness. And

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many people have taken journeys into mindfulness and presence.

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And today we have a a healer, Blanca Ainsworth's. And she was

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a involved in the healing business involved in the health

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business. She did work with the US agricultural, Department of

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Nutrition, working on balanced diets working on physical

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exercise, and at the same time she's traveling down her own own

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journey, her own soul journey, her own journey of discovery,

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using a lot of shamanic exercises and tools. Several of

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the American Native American Indian work with sound baths and

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flutes, which is just fascinating to hear, talk about

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those things. So please welcome to the mindful you podcasts.

Alan Carroll:

Blanca Haynesworth. Blanca, welcome. Welcome to the mindful

Alan Carroll:

you podcast. How are you today?

Blanca Ainsworth:

Thank you, Ellen. Glad to be here.

Alan Carroll:

Well, it's wonderful to have you. I was

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reading a little bit about your background. And I'd like you to

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share some of your background with our audience. So we have an

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idea of, of the ground from which you are growing from.

Unknown:

Sure. Thank you for that, Alan. So my background is

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in the entrepreneurial space. I used to co own several

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businesses, specifically in the restaurant industry that went

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sideways with different partners learned a lot along the way. I

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got into the financial services industry, specifically life

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insurance. And to qualify, I had to find out about my client's

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health because that's how you qualify for life insurance. And

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just working in that space. I saw so many individuals with

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lots of health issues, lots of medications. It really shocked

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me, I'm very physically active. I'm actually running a marathon,

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my bucket list marathon in Bordeaux, France and a couple of

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weeks. And I'm just seeing how so many individuals are on so

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many medications when I am not on any just really made me deep

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dive a little deeper. I ended up moonlighting with USU extension

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and they're on Department of Agriculture nutrition program,

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teaching better health eating and encouraging physical fitness

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with individuals that had poor health compromised as well as

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had food insecurities. So it was people on tighter budgets that

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were not necessarily making the best food choices because of

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money constraints. And I'm somewhere along all of this. I

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actually embarked on my own quest, soul journey. I was

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navigating a lot of trauma with a capital T had a horrific loss

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that impacted our family for years. On that quest on just

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what traditionally was suggested was not working for me. I what I

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ended up doing hypnotherapy I started doing lots of spiritual

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work. I was going to lots of sound baths

Alan Carroll:

did a lot of shamanic to sell sound baths.

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Sound bath, what's the sound bass.

Unknown:

So if you've ever seen if you've ever been to any

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meditation groups, or any kind of meditations, a lot of the

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practitioners have these bowls that are made of glass. They'll

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have different instruments as as well. Like sometimes they'll

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have different flutes or a lot of them could be Native American

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type flutes and they'll just give you a bath with sound is

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where the name comes from. They use lots of instruments. It

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brings up different vibrations, and it's just meant to get your

Unknown:

body and spirit and mine in a state where you can relax and

Unknown:

calm and just really ground.

Alan Carroll:

So the vibrations of the music or the vibrations

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of the instruments, create a harmony and you and are able to

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settle down the nervousness and anxiety and calm yourself. Is

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that Is that what it does?

Unknown:

You know there are there's different kinds of sound

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baths and depending on the instruments that the

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practitioner uses, the ones I attended were meant for shamanic

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journeying. So there was a lot of Native American type flutes

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to lots of other indigenous and Peruvian style type of

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instruments. But yes, the whole goal is to get your body with a

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certain resonance because the instruments are vibrating, and

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it just really helps calm you down. You know, sometimes they

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use just balls as well. Singing balls, if you've ever heard of

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those are sure whether they're metal or glass. And so it really

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is a bash with sound.

Alan Carroll:

That's great. That's great. And when and now

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we talked about the shamanistic journeys, we talked about the

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American Native American Indians. Is this did you do this

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by going somewhere? Or did you do it online?

Unknown:

You know, I started by attending events that had these

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different healing modalities. It really resonated with me. Just

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different. Native American practices have always resonated

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with me. A lot of my friends are Native American. I happen to

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make

Alan Carroll:

Can you show us something? That's great.

Unknown:

Okay, to make my own. You made. I made this Yes. Yes,

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this sounds like buffalo skin. I have friends that ethically

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procured the different skins on. So everything on my path just

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just led me to just going deeper and deeper into the soul journey

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of different shamanic practices for trauma healing, I'm actually

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doing a course right now. To help with that. And what I

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learned along this is that, um, I think a lot of times alternate

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ways of healing are not taught for trauma. I also did

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hypnotherapy and put me on my own path, to just become a

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healthier me, not just through my physical exercise, the food I

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eat, which is nutrition, but just things that feed my soul,

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that traditional mode modalities, traditional therapy,

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or not really addressing or helping with,

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wow. And what are some of the practices so that my

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audience is listening to your talk? And they said, Wow, what

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can I do, sitting here in Washington, DC, to help me

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become more present and mindful? Or do you have any tips or

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tricks or exercises?

Unknown:

What really helped me is just being out in nature,

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because I'm very physically active. It's just part of what I

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do. It's part of my lifestyle. But I would just say, regardless

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of whatever your level of physical fitness is, I'm just

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being out in nature being with trees. You know, being on the

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grass, if you happen to live by the live by the ocean, you know,

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just getting out and really being a nature. It's very

Unknown:

calming, it's very peaceful. For me, running is very meditative.

Unknown:

I get into a zone. I feel like, all my problems are left behind.

Unknown:

And I really do have to be present. I trail run. So if I'm

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not in that moment, I can really, Bev and fall. So it

Unknown:

really makes me just think of what I am at that present

Unknown:

moment, not about my past, not about the future, just where I

Unknown:

am.

Alan Carroll:

So mindfulness, you're talking about

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mindfulness, you're talking about presence. Absolutely. How

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would you define mindfulness in your in your point of view? But

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Blanca, what's mindfulness mean to you? And my.

Unknown:

So mindfulness for me just means being very aware of

Unknown:

where I am in the present moment. A lot of times it

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involves just taking, talking to myself asking where I am

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emotionally. In the past, I did not always have the best habits

Unknown:

about you know, taking stock and became very reactionary versus

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just really calming myself and responding with calmness versus

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reactionary, so So just really taking a deep breath, a lot of

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breath work goes into these sound baths, as well as running

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makes me breathe, walking, just being in tune with my own

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breath. But mindfulness and just knowing I'm thinking about what

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I'm going to do at this present moment, and how that is going to

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leave me feeling, or others that are around me how it will make

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them feel. So just really being aware of how I can affect others

Unknown:

for good, or for negative if I don't choose to be calm, and

Unknown:

respond, and instead I'm reactive.

Alan Carroll:

I like that a lot. Because in that's a big

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distinction, you're pointing to Blanca, where the, there's an

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automatic reaction based on your conditioning. And then there's a

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pause, breathe, relax, center, ah, respond to what's going on.

Alan Carroll:

And so you said the word react, and you said the word respond.

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And there are two different two different words that are

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important. So go ahead and, and talk to our audience about the

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differences between reacting to things and responding to things.

Unknown:

Sure, so I'm just for my own healing journey, I really

Unknown:

delve into trying to heal myself from trauma. And a lot of what I

Unknown:

learned whether it's the Body Keeps the Score, I listened to a

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lot of Dr. Levine's teachings as well, on different modalities on

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just the fight or flight response. And I know a lot of

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times, I was an either fight flight freeze, just, you know,

Unknown:

my my brain functioning, just completely went to the lizard

Unknown:

brain, because that's what we do when we survive. And as I went

Unknown:

on this journey to heal myself, on through exercise, through

Unknown:

eating through mindfulness practices, just really calming

Unknown:

myself first and knowing that I'm not in that danger zone,

Unknown:

right now, I'm out of it, I don't have to react, the bear is

Unknown:

not hunting me. So just really calm me and being present on not

Unknown:

being reactive. Reactive is when it's a life or death situation.

Unknown:

And a lot of it is just, you know, getting to that place

Unknown:

where you're not living in the trauma anymore. And that was a

Unknown:

journey in and of itself. But just knowing the difference

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between you're under attack right now, or, and all that

Unknown:

happened. Now, you're just healing and calming yourself. So

Unknown:

you don't need to be reactive.

Alan Carroll:

And the, the the quality of the behavior, in

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terms of no mental health, I suspect that the quality of the

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behavior, if it's responding to something, it comes out of a

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more calm space. Whereas the reactive, as you said, comes out

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of more, I'm agitated, I'm upset, something is threatening

Alan Carroll:

me, my identity is being threatened. I'm upset about

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something and out of that space, I want to talk to you. So what

Alan Carroll:

what I hear you saying is that you've learned that, you might

Alan Carroll:

want to do that. But take that breath. So let's talk about

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breathing. Because you mentioned that a couple of times. Do you

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have any breathing exercises that you found very useful, and

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in becoming more calm and still.

Unknown:

And you know what, thank you for asking this

Unknown:

because I sometimes still fall into patterns where I forget to

Unknown:

do those things, which is why I find it so helpful to often go

Unknown:

to meditative groups with practitioners that remind me how

Unknown:

to breathe again. So I just actually even recently did that.

Unknown:

And I know a lot of what they say is how you breathe in

Unknown:

through your nose, and breathe out through your mouth and

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through your nose and through your mouth. I know sometimes my

Unknown:

breathing pattern changes. When I run, I catch myself breathing

Unknown:

a lot in and out through my mouth as well. And I know for

Unknown:

calming purposes, I'm just even sitting down and just really

Unknown:

trying to be present. Just the cycle of the breath. And there's

Unknown:

different modalities of like breathing I've done several

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different I guess it down healing session so the

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practitioner will have us breathe differently. When I'm

Unknown:

consciously just trying to calm I actually do either put my hand

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on my heart and calm. And another thing and my other hand

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on my belly to breathe. And that helps me. Other things that have

Unknown:

helped me what else like that? Thank you. The other things I

Unknown:

learned that have helped me is I became a practitioner of the

Unknown:

tapping method. I had my hypnotherapist helped me through

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that. And Nick Ortner and his sister Jessica Ortner are the

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people that pretty much introduced me to the health

Unknown:

benefits and Cami benefits of tapping when I'm in that

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reactive mode. My hypnotherapist introduced me to that modality

Unknown:

but just the tapping. And I know there's lots of science

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speeches, and yes, it just really comes. And a lot of times

Unknown:

that you say different mantras. For example, if I'm stressed

Unknown:

right now, I'll say I am calm. This doesn't have to worry me.

Unknown:

Nothing's to worry, this doesn't have to worry me, I am calm.

Unknown:

This doesn't have to worry me. I am calm. This doesn't have to

Unknown:

worry me. I am calm can be calm. This doesn't have to worry me. I

Unknown:

know how to calm myself. I can I can be calm. I know how to. But

Unknown:

just tapping on the different meridians that really helped me.

Unknown:

And that was part of what also facilitated just not being so

Unknown:

reactionary. When I was not in a good state.

Alan Carroll:

Yep, yep. The the, you're pointing to the

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unimportant part of mindfulness is that aware witness observer

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of what's going on. And the problem with the awareness

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observer and witness is that requires you to have a space

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between the event that's going on outside of you and the

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observer. And if there's no space, then you are the event

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you are the thought you are the emotion. But if there's a space,

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then you can observe the event, you can observe the emotion, you

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can observe your mental reaction to it, and you don't need to

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act. But most people don't take the time to practice one step at

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a time creating a little space, a little space, a little space.

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So every day you have a practice, you have a time every

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day, where you sit down for 510 1520 minutes, sighs closed,

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just calming the body and practicing. So when when stuff

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shows up, you've done your push ups, you've done your exercises,

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you catch yourself. You take that breath. You don't vote like

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that you catch yourself and realize boom is not what my ego

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wants to boom, but I know it's not going to handle the problem.

Alan Carroll:

So it sounds like you've done a wonderful job and in dealing

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with your own trauma, dealing with your own emotions dealing

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with your own mental and physical issues. And that's

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congratulations on your journey. And I wish you success as you do

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your do your marathon in France. That's what's a wonderful

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memory. And people who who listened to us today Bellanca

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wanted may want to reach out and connect with you. And we'll put

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your information you send to us that mindful you will put them

Alan Carroll:

in the show notes. Yet right now, what would be ways that

Alan Carroll:

people could connect with you if they wanted to have another

Alan Carroll:

continuing conversation?

Unknown:

Thank you, Alan. Um, the best way for people on your

Unknown:

podcast to mind for you to connect with me would be through

Unknown:

you. I am still in the germination stage of my podcast.

Unknown:

Hopefully what this product Palooza event, it will launch

Unknown:

soon. But I'm just here to really connect with wonderful

Unknown:

individuals like you who are already getting the message out

Unknown:

there. And I'm just very appreciative to be here and

Unknown:

connect.

Alan Carroll:

Wonderful. Do you have a title for your podcast?

Unknown:

I do. It's your health is your greatest? Well,

Alan Carroll:

I do have greatest wealth. Your

Unknown:

health is your greatest wealth. Yes. And I do have that

Unknown:

as a domain. So I'll see it coming soon.

Alan Carroll:

Wonderful. Well, thank you very much for being a

Alan Carroll:

wonderful guest on the mindful you podcast. And I wish you a

Alan Carroll:

happy mindful day Blanca. Thank you, Alan. You're welcome. Thank

Unknown:

you. You're welcome.

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