Using Silence as sound healing

This week I had the opportunity to sub one of my favorite classes—a yin and sound class. The premise is simple and beautiful: we move through a full yin sequence, and then close with an extended savasana bathed in the healing tones of sound bowls. Normally, I might play gentle meditation music in the background during yin postures, letting it hold space while participants sink deeper into stillness. But this time, I felt called to do something entirely different.

Instead of filling the room with music, I brought out the sound bowls early. My intention was to weave sound into the yin postures themselves—using vibration and resonance to help energetically shake loose the things we’ve been holding onto. I also wanted to explore the dance between sound and silence, much like positive and negative space in art. For some postures, I guided participants into sensation with the bowls; for others, I let silence take the lead. No playing, no speaking, no movement—just the pure presence of stillness, as silent as we could be in the heart of downtown Loveland.

At first, the silence was awkward—honestly, even difficult. I know how much it takes for me to surrender into empty space, how much effort it takes to quiet the distractions of daily life. But after that initial resistance, something began to shift. Thoughts arose: When was the last time I truly sat uninterrupted in silence? When was the last time I held space for both others and myself in this way? When had I last turned my phone off, stripped away every distraction, and allowed myself to be truly unreachable?

And then came the realization of what silence really is—the subtle hum of the universe, the ambient static that exists beneath everything. Hearing it again transported me back to a time before constant notifications, before I was accessible 24/7… back to when life felt simple. From there, silence unfolded into pure being. At one point, as I rested in posture alongside everyone else, my mind stilled completely. The chatter ceased, the noticing stopped, and time itself seemed to bend around me. I wasn’t doing anything—I was simply existing, beginning to understand, in some small way, the spaciousness of the observer.

We closed with a symphony of sound bowls, guiding everyone back from that deep inner space. I could feel the lightness in the room—the way participants carried themselves afterward was softer, clearer, freer than when we began.

This practice revealed to me just how loud the world has become, and how easy it is to lose connection with ourselves in the noise. It challenged me to create more moments of silence in my own life, and it inspired me to go deeper into my personal practice and exploration.

So I’d love to hear from you:
✨ When was the last time you experienced true silence?
✨ How can you invite more of it into your life?