Welcome to episode 43 of the Curiously You Podcast where we are speaking with musician and life-long peace-seeker Tahlee Rouillon.

Tahee shares her story with us of illness, anxiety and depression and how peace and relief came in an unexpected form, a special combination of music and meditation called Meditones, sometimes known as binaural beats.

Dropping into curiosity mode, I dive into the power of meditones and how it created such a profound shift in Tahlee’s life. We discuss what meditones are, how they work on your brain waves and how you can add them effectively to your peace-seeking tool kit.

Tahlee also goes on to share her journey into and acceptance around transition and how she is learning to embrace the feminine in her work and life. 

This episode is perfect for you if you:

-What to add some variety and depth to your meditation with a practice that has scientific support to its relaxing effect on brain-waves.

- Have heard about Meditones of Binural beats before but would love to find out more, and just how it might serve you.

- Are interested understand how you can more effectively manage change and transition in your life.

Time Stamped Notes 

05:05 Tahlee has been in love with music since she was a child, and it has been a life-long passion. She started singing when she was a toddler, playing the flute when she was 7, and playing the guitar when she was 16. At university, she completed a bachelor of Music and developed her love of electronic music and ambient music. 

In her teens to her twenties, Tahlee struggled with mental illness, anxiety and depression. She became so sick and tired of living with a feeling of constant dread of panic and worry that she became a peace-seeker and dedicated herself to becoming more peaceful. In an desire to understand how she was feeling she went to therapy, practised yoga, took medication, and read books. 

Through yoga, she started to learn how to meditate in its more traditional form. Life gifted her a beautiful synchronicity and she was introduced to the concept of meditones, which are essentially musical sounds and tones that help you meditate (Binaural beats is the scientific term for them).

She found the experience effortless, and it helped her to find calm, inner peace and relaxation every time she put her headphones on. She was healing herself through music and helping others do the same – it was so powerful that she wanted to tell everybody about it!

09:15 Meditones are two very precisely tuned frequencies of sound that when listened to through headphones help your brain waves to slow down and put you into a state of relaxation. The difference between the two sounds creates a humming vibration, which your brain responds to by producing waves that match the vibration. This means that you can tune the brain in to whatever brain wave state you’d like it to be in.

Meditones help you to reach that relaxed brain state quicker and more effortlessly than without, so you can experience the lovely, restful and relaxed states when you are in R.E.M sleep.

11:47 When you listen to meditones in speakers, you can move your head around and your ears will start processing sound normally and the humming sound will be cancelled through the movement of the head. You can’t move your ears to try to locate the sound and that is what stimulates a totally different response in the brain to regular sound.

12:52 Our brain waves are measured in hertz, just like soundwaves. If you wanted to take somebody into a theta brainwaves state, which is between 4 hertz to 8 hertz, you would need to make the meditone vibration at 7 hertz. This will stimulate the brain starts to theta, which is considered to be the bridge between waking and sleep, or deep meditation. This state often creates a weightless feeling. 

14:47 There are 4 dominant brainwave states, beta, alpha, theta and delta. All of these brainwaves are produced all the time, but your state of consciousness is dependent on which one is dominant.

When you are alert, you are in beta. Alpha is chilled out and day-dreaming where your mind is wandering. Theta is a little bit deeper and that is in REM sleep. And the delta is very very deep unconscious dreamless sleep. This final state is important to regulate the autonomous functions in your body. You can take the mathematics of sound to stimulate the hertz that you want.

17:14 Theta is the state we seem to inhabit the least. It tends to be the state that Buddhist monks create for themselves naturally when they are meditating. Being in theta brain state while you are still awake is an incredible sensation, meditones can help you reach this state which can take monks years of practice!

The meditones will guide your brain to start stimulating those brainwaves. It takes about five minutes to kick in and you will feel the difference.

19:03 Meditones (or binaural beats) can enhance guided meditations, but Tahlee likes to give people an opportunity and really surrender into the music as much as possible. Generally those offering Meditones will let you know which tracks and which albums will be stimulating which brainwave state. This will help you choose, and also mean you don’t need to remember the purpose of each.

For a beginner once a day is fine – Tahlee uses it before she goes to sleep for 10-30 minutes. Some people use them twice a day.

21:50 Tahlee adds in some mantra work and mindfulness to enhance the breath during her meditones meditation. They are perfect for experienced and beginners in meditation, in fact, the more Tahlee used meditones, the faster she got to go into that relaxed state naturally. She built a more peaceful brain overall.

Whatever meditation practice you already have, try listening to meditones during, as it can enhance the experience.

24:26 Tahlee first discovered meditones in 2001, so she’s been engaged in it for a while. As she integrated meditones into her daily practice as much as possible, it changed her mental and emotional well-being for the better. We each have a tool box that we use for centring and relaxation, meditones can be added to this array so you have a selection to choose from.

For Tahlee, she finds meditones the easiest. She threw herself into the research and experience and it gave her resilience, self awareness, and a tool she could use in moments of intense pain and grief.

 27:27 Meditones had an impact on Tahlee from the very first listen. Her resilience grew over time, and personal growth happened in different spurts. She found that she felt fantastic after meditones, and so this meant she stopped using them until she realised she needed to listen again to bring her calmness, and so a cycle began. That’s when she realised that the practice had to become a lifestyle in order to maintain it.

Having been through so many personal transitions, this is a topic that is so close to her heart. They say that change is the only constant a constant and she feels that we are never taught or equipped with the tools and knowledge to manage this.

For Tahlee, her biggest transition was her divorce, it was deeply painful and not of her choosing. She relied very heavily on meditones to get throughout that period. She was at a point where she couldn’t leave the house without crumbling into her pile of tears. And so she would always put her headphones on first thing in the morning.

31:13 The first step in any transition is to acknowledge that change is happening, and it’s a big deal. It helps you take stock of what you need to do next.

When change hits, your body freaks out and starts producing toxic chemicals which will flood your system in order to fight or flee from danger. In order to take your nervous system offline and be able to remind yourself that you are safe now and be calm and peaceful, you really need to soothe the nervous system. Meditones is a way to do that combined with putting your hands over your belly, relaxing, and taking a few deep breathes and focusing on the exhale.

34:29 When Tahlee talks about the divine feminine, she talks about the state of being. Similar to Ying and Yang – being versus doing. She was very much that lived by the mantra “bite of more than you can chew and chew like hell.”

We live in a culture that values productivity and getting things done and we undervalue the importance of rest, rejuvenation and simply “being”. Learning to tap into her divinely feminine side was unchartered territory. Even though Tahlee feels there is nothing wrong with being ambitious, she is more balanced now, and honours her need to rest and takes time out of her day, weeks, months and year to have pauses to slow down.

37:49 Tahlee works for herself and doesn’t have to be at an office at a certain time, yet she has a morning routine which she finds helpful. Even back when she was working in a corporate job and music was on the side, she would still take just ten minutes in the morning to meditate. This would set the mood for the entire day, allowing her to approach her work from a more relaxed and grounded place. How can you design a routine that works well for you, so you can remain in this peaceful state throughout the day?

Tahlee honours her body’s need for rest. Sometimes this looks like having a nap, or going to bed a little bit earlier. She tries to consciously create pauses in her day so she’s not just working constantly, skipping lunch lunch and barely got up from her desk. Taking the time out, pausing, having a cup of tea and lie down, and going for a walk outside.

 The third important aspect for peace is to have a night-time routine. Take small steps, like a skincare routine, watching something, or reading a book. Because she works for herself, she sometimes feel like she could keep going and going, which isn’t healthy for her. She has good boundaries around her time and her energy for work.