Hello, this is changing the face of yoga. I have a great guest today. Her name is Beth Spindler. Beth has over four decades of experience in utilizing yoga as a healing modality plus the highest certification in her field. Her book -Yoga therapy for fear, treating anxiety, depression and rage with the Vegas nerve and other techniques - is recognized in the yoga therapy community as a text for those studying in the field. She is frequently a featured writer and presenter for Yoga International and leads retreats worldwide. And this is the thing I didn't know. Beth also has a long history of using sound as a healing modality and was a professional jazz vocalist for 35 years. Welcome Beth. And I'm very excited that you are a jazz vocalist. That sounds so interesting.

01:40                                     Thank you, Stephanie. I'm glad to be here. Yeah. I'm not performing a lot of late. I do get to jump back in occasionally now.

01:56                                     I think that's exciting. I'd love to hear that someday. This month is the more subtle aspects of yoga and as Beth is an expert in using the sounds, of her voice and other issues, she's going to talk to us about chanting and how that helps in the healing efforts of yoga. Do you actually use it in class or is it more just using the concepts of the sound to help in the healing of Yoga?

02:42                                     Yeah, when appropriate. I do incorporate chants and use techniques like Bhramari breath, humming the bumble bee breath a lot. That's a good way to introduce people to it. And certainly what I'm doing in groups that I sense there might be an allergy to things of a spiritual nature. I keep it pretty secular, you know, I'm not going to be introducing the names of theories and that kind of thing that might ruffle some feathers initially. But I find that people love the practice once they loosen up a little bit about it, but I'd like to start with just humming and sometimes I'll do that even when they're in Shavasana or lying down for Shavasana just to help them hum away any tension. It's a nice way for people to relax and they don't know that this is Nada Yoga. Nada Yoga is an ancient Indian metaphysical system and it's philosophical. It's a medicine and it's a form of yoga., Nada is its own own category. because of the powerful nature of using vibration, that helps ground and center people and helps them connect with sound energy that is individual and can heal issues. I think it's very important part of yoga that often we'll worry that we're going to put people off so we avoid it.

04:52                                     I think that's true. When you decide to do chanting do use the Indian chants or do you ever use one in, in English or something like that?

05:04                                     Generally I'll use Sanskrit because of the nature of Sanskrit. The words themselves are vibrational in nature. And for instance, when we're going through the sounds of the chakras, even names of the Chakras have the vibrational quality of, when we say Muladhara it reverberates at that point in the body of the root Chakra. People can really get a handle on how that feels, by taking the eyebrow Chakra, which is actually located more toward the center of the head and use the sound Ajna, Ajna, Ajna. Ajna. They'll repeat that. You're going to feel that vibration right above the soft palate, right in the center of the mind where that sound vibrates and I invite people listening to try repeating it in that way. Ajna, Ajna, Ajna and setting up that vibration because it's a good way tune in. Also we use sound in ways like Ujaii breath. Ujjai breath is another way to help set up that vibration there above the soft palate that impact areas of the brain that may need stimulation. I also work with a friend of mine is a sound therapist and the things that she can pick up from voice analysis, she uses computer and voice analysis. So I'll plug Andy Palmer. She uses voice analysis on the computer and she can pick up things in your voice, like hormone imbalances. She can tell you what medications you're on. Based on the sound of your speaking voice. She can, she can pick up osteoporosis. I mean, it's just remarkable what she's able to discern from the sound of the voice. But we become so disconnected from using the voice for healing. Historically, every culture has used singing and music as a healing modality. And we're disconnected.

08:12                                     We are all kind of with our I phones are really looking at that and typing with our thumbs, but that we don't speak as much as we used to. Do you start the class with some kind of vibration work or is that working through the whole entire class?

08:35                                     When I'm teaching workshops more often, I'll start with something like, the teachers student prayer and have the group join me in three ohms at the beginning and three ohms at the end. Most of the time they know the teacher student chant. I invite them to join. People often respond really well to it.

09:12                                     Do you find that you do have some pushback, shall we say in a general yoga class to chanting. Obviously yoga is kind of different for everyone and so it takes a while to get everything going. But do they like the chanting? I personally have absolutely no musical ability. So I hate chanting because I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just wondering if you're like me, if you have no musical ability, do you suggest just using the ohms and Ujaii breath.

09:56                                     Bhramari again is a really good way just giving people the cue that changing that the tone doesn't have to match the one I'm singing. Start with something in a comfortable register for you and and people find it very interesting an exercise I'll often do, especially in a workshop setting, but it amazes people. If groups are comfortable with a partnering situation, which not every group is. And certainly if I'm working in a trauma setting or whatever, we're not going to probably do partner anything. But if people are usually in with groups of teachers who were a little more open and I've done it with public groups and they loved it, especially if it was kind of a friends group that's been together for a long time. taking one partner and having placing fingers on either side of the chest and inviting them to find a tone that rumbles in their chest and then try to center that tone, bring it to the middle of the body Have the partner say to work toward the front, toward the back.

11:16                                     You're getting it and they can refine that tone until it vibrates in the center of the chest then And then move to the throat area and notch of the throat, in the back of the neck, and have them vibrate there or up in the head. Now the head tone often sounds like a mosquito and, but it doesn't have to be a perfect B flat. Each person can find that and see if they can set up that vibration in the head. And I was told, when I was doing teacher training I had a neurologist who would come to the class and all of her lectures, sometimes. Dr Sripada and he was an Alzheimer's specialist and he said, if I can get people, if I could get my patients to use vibration and find that vibration that moves up into the head that way. And he said they wouldn't need Aricept. He said you can break up plaques in the brain with that tone. Yesterday an article came out that details how they are eliminating Beta amyloid plaques in the brains of mice with a combination of sound and light.

13:10                                     How exciting.

13:10                                     We have this ability to heal and release those Beta amyloid plaques. I think it's pretty, pretty exciting, especially at my age and I have a family history of Alzheimer's. And so it's one of those working little fears there in the back. I do that. But you were asking about introducing sounds to the group. More often I'll use Bija Mantras or seed mantras. There are Bija mantras for the chakras like the lum bum brum yum hum sa Hum Hum Sa be. The Bija mantras for each of the major chakras. Of course there were more chakras than the seven. But those are the tones and I'll use those. Then there are also sounds like 'chants' Those are also connected to the Tantric mantras used for stimulating the chakras. People are not as afraid of those I'd say as they would be say 'chants' or 'chants' . People are less threatened by sounds that sound more like humming, more like just syllables. But what a Bija mantra does, it's like an amplifier, when you place them in a mantra. For instance, if you were chanting a sort of chant , you might use the bijas ohm and ihm like, chant. Ah, that kind of amplify. It's like push forward that , an intensifier. So Bijas themselves are said to contain a lot of the power in the universe. Bijas are very powerful in and of themselves.

16:38                                     Do you explain to the students or to your workshop participants about why or how powerful chanting vibrations are to healing?

17:21                                     I do. They want to know the science end of it. They'd want to hear Western medicine proof of what we're asking them to do. And I think it's incredibly important for teachers to keep up to date on current research and studies being done because there's everything is being proven, , that, I mean, we used to think , that you couldn't ever find the Nadi's - the Meridians in the body. We thought that those weren't actual things. And then we find out about the interstitium that this is a, an actual layer that runs through the Fascia of the body. And there's a little fluid filled compartments that they couldn't see because they were looking at dead tissue. And you could only see those in live tissue. So they had to use microscopy and endoscopy too. They had to move through the body with a scope in a live human body to find these, but they exist. Here we thought they were metaphysical things, they were just something that we talked about. We knew something was going on but the ancients knew and so a lot of what we are we're doing is gaining western understanding of the whys of why yoga does work. There is a lot of research going on about sound.

19:23                                     You're saying that your students or your participants are very open to something that has a bit more familiarity with Western medicine context.

19:36                                     Yeah If I encourage people with a way of saying, this is what we're doing and this is why we're doing it, here's what research has to say about it. You ready to give it a try? I rarely have an have someone just sit there and , not give it a go, people, people are interested. So, definitely the audience is where and when to use to use it; it takes a little discernment to know which group is gonna dig it. If you go into for instance, if I'm going into work in a recovery center or something like that, I am not as likely to start bellowing ohm the minute I walk in the door, but I might introduce humming to them at the end of the class. I might do that because it's not super threatening. It, particularly if they're not looking around at each other. They're lying down and starting to relax and, and they've already done some practice in their bodies feel better. They're more likely to enjoy playing with some, some vocalizing at that point. And as you know, and we say, no, my stay at the end and people that sound people resonate with it makes them feel more a part of what we're doing.

21:25                                     If I'm kind of iffy on ohms, maybe it's just the way people present it to me or something, but they, sometimes they are really very comfortable and you like doing it and sometimes you don't. Is that the vibrations or is that the context or, and I know I'm asking you to guess here, but what would be your best guess on that?

21:57                                     Yeah I mean, we all have moods where we're receptive and moods where we're not. And I think, it's okay if you don't, if you just want to listen, sometimes if you don't feel like, like opening up and doing that but you still get benefit even if you're not participating in things, they get the benefit. You mean as a teacher?

22:38                                     No, it's a student or a participant. Now, if I don't do ohms as a rule, of course I'm not teaching right now. But I just, I just feel like sometimes it feels really, really comfortable to do it and sometimes it feels really, really uncomfortable to do it. Now if it's just me, that's fine because I have this musical issue. I just wondered if sometimes the class really responds and sometimes they're do we have to do this ?

23:10                                     Yeah. There's, I think ebb and flow. Everybody has days when they're feeling really yogaful feeling in the Yoga groove and times when you're just kind of there to stretch. I think what they are, and I there are times I don't ohm at the beginning of the class, there are times that I just say here's what the class is about. We're going to lie down and, and, , constructive risk position, take a moment. And, I've often said and use the breath as mantra. Using the breath itself as mantra and internally because internally hearing the sound of the breath, which is so hum which is also the mantra for the Ajna Chakra, the one of the Bijas but hearing so on the inhale and hum on the exhale internally can be as powerful. That's, , what we call, the on the Anahata which means unstruck sound. It's the sound that reverberates inside of us. Whereas external music is Ahata Anahata is the heart chakra it is sound the unstruck sound that reverberates inside of us.

25:13                                     You obviously work with people in rehabilitation places or something like that. those people also, I'm sure not knowing anything about what that means about rehabilitation can also use this sound? Do they seem to feel like it's a good idea or are they more, cautious than say a just a general yoga class?

25:51                                     They'll often flat out laugh and I've learned, especially working in recovery anything can happen and they will, they often will ridicule poses. They'll laugh at whatever we're doing. So you have to be cautious. And a lot of it is because they've been through trauma and anybody in addiction has also also been through trauma. You can, you can be certain that they've experienced a lot of stuff. They'll want to pull away from weird parts of the practice especially, or they'll want to pull themselves out. It's that, this association that that will happen in that group. So same with vocal things. They kind of like Namaste because they've seen it in movies and they've heard it on commercials. Yoga all over the possible advertising world. If I get to work with a group for a long period of time, which is rare, usually you have sometimes two weeks sometimes, which is not enough time in recovery, but that's all Medicaid would cover often. I used to be able to be with them for a month at a time and, and then they start asking question. Do we get to do that? Are we going to do that Huffy puffy breath? Are we going to do this thing? And they become more interested. But when I have people for a short period of time, I'll keep it pretty western and pretty clinical in terms of we're going to do this this is specifically for this is something that can benefit sciatica. And I know some of you have have issues with that or we're going to do back care yoga today or we're going to do, and that perks interest. Can you help me with my pain? Later on if we want to refine it to things that are more subtle like breath practices and sound practices, then, they'll connect with them. But I want to give them in those groups especially, I want to give them something really tangible that they can see. I feel better. my neck doesn't hurt anymore. My jaw is more relaxed. Sometimes sound can help those things. Eventually I can get them to play.

29:21                                     Just take some patience. Do you ever, not in your recovery classes, but in your general classes, do you ever do a full chant?

29:31                                     Oh, sure. Yeah. And then I'll do workshops at studios on Nada Yoga on, on the yoga of sound because there are many who are very interested in learning more about Sanskrit, learning more about how to use I used to do a lot of kirtan. I don't do that a lot right now because I'm not working with musicians,. Occasionally people are really liking something. We'll do a little call and response in kirtan style. I don't have, I mean bring any instrumentation usually. I think it's wonderful when teachers do, right. Hmm. Come in with their harmonium or whatever. I think. Very cool.

30:39                                     So is there anything that you feel we haven't covered in enough depth or we didn't cover at all that you would like the listeners to know about? Chanting or sound therapy or, or in this area we've been talking about?

30:58                                     I think people need to note that this is I would like to reiterate that this is a science, that this is considered medicine as well as just a fun part of Yoga and that we can direct sound to really any area of the body that is needing vibration and vibration is the origin of the cosmos. which sounds a little woo, but its sound energy in motion rather than matter and particles that's the building blocks of the cosmos. And, it’s said that everything originated from sound. So when we connect to sound I can remember when I was a little girl and I loved to sing when I was a little girl and if I was down and I would get very depressed during school and I'd come home and if my mom saw I was really blue, she would go over to the piano and play something. And, if I could get over and sing, my mood would change. And she knew it helped me with dealing with depression and, and I can't tell and tell you how many times when I had gigs, when I'd be going out and I'm, maybe I'd have a horrible sore throat or, , I'd have an awful runny nose and I think I am just going to have to cancel. And as soon as I would get to the job and start singing by the end of the first set, I was, I wasn't sick.

33:16                                     I mean sometimes it was an exploration of whose voice is this rumbly voice with a cold. But I would feel well and it would help me heal. Even young like that, I recognized the healing qualities of vocalizing and, and not just vocalizing, listening to music. I mean, why are they playing those music tracks in every grocery store and every place we go? If they don't help people so, and attract people and help us relax and elicit a response, you know, that's the type of music they play may make us buy more stuff. But I think that we haven't even fully recognized the power of sound and music.

34:30                                     Thank you. Because that makes sense to me. I guess with my western science background where, yeah, the vibrations of it make it, I can understand that because to me, given my lack of any musical ability, it just was in a very embarrassing kind of thing. but I can understand that if it's that the vibrations could be very healing, have a friend who does healing and she talks about vibrations a lot. And I think that it's, that's a really important point here is that that is a healing modality along with much, much else of yoga if you use it correctly.

35:12                                     So I really want to thank you, Beth. I think you've really added considerably to my knowledge. I'm sure to the rest of the listeners

35:26                                     Contacts: if you want to get a hold of a bath and see maybe if she's going to have one of these workshops.

35:31                                     Her website is teach to inspire dot com

35:38                                     Its www.teachtoinspire.com otherwise it won't go there for some reason, Facebook is Beth Spindler yoga therapy and also teach to inspire yoga education. And I have something called at Yoga chant. Is that okay? Is that a net? Yeah, that's the Facebook. Okay. Teach to inspire Facebook.. So at Yoga Chant and Beth Spindler yoga therapy. Thank you so much for this. I think you've just done a great job of explaining this and, and I have a much better idea of why adding sound to our classes. It's a really good idea

36:41                                     Even if it's just spoken, spoken chant, it's helpful.

36:47                                     Or what was it on ahata where it's inside channel where you don't make a sound but you think about it. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

37:01                                     Thank you, Stephanie. I enjoyed it.