TRANSCRIPT - 163 - The Secret to Unlocking Your Authenticity with Courtney Tyssen

If you are new to the concept of sound healing, you are in for a treat tonight
because I am going to be joined by the beautiful Courtney Tyson from Heart
Resonance. Now Courtney is going to be joining us at the Exhale Retreat, she is
going to be guiding us through a beautiful sound healing journey on one of our
evenings and I've kind of described it like a lullaby because when you have
experienced this, it is really magical, it connects with you on a really deep,
intimate and personal level and I want to get Courtney to explain to us what it is
that actually happens when we are in a sound healing session,
how it affects our body, how it actually helps us release tension, release stress
and how it helps us actually reconnect back into our bodies because this is what
it's all about for us coming into exhale. It's about reconnection, reconnecting with
our bodies, reconnecting with ourselves, reconnecting in with Mother Nature and the
elements in the beautiful Tweed Valley where we're going to be hosting exhale on
October 23rd to October 26th and it's going to be three very magical transformative
days and I can't wait to share it with the beautiful women that are coming along
to experience this because I know firsthand for myself just how disconnected I had
actually gotten from the world around me and even for myself and just a personal
story while we're waiting for Courtney to join us here is that when I went to see
my acupuncturist when I was deep in the midst of my burnout he was putting pins
into my toes and I couldn't feel them. That's how disconnected I had actually become
from the sensations in my body. It had completely removed myself and that connection
from myself. So here comes Courtney including
my toes and so I had to go back on this journey of reconnecting and listening back
into myself to actually hear what I had to say again. So here is the beautiful
Courtney. Courtney, thank you so much for joining us. - No, thank you for having me.
It's great to chat. - Yes, it is. Now, Courtney, you are an integrated sound healer,
a meditation trainer. Like you've got a lovely list of beautiful things that you
give to the world. Do you wanna just introduce yourself and share some of your
gifts with us tonight about what you do and then we'll have a chat about what
you're doing for us at exhale. - Yeah, beautiful. So yeah, my name's Courtney and
I'm from Heart Resonance and I guess what I'm passionate about is helping people to
reconnect to their hearts and who they are and finding their authentic selves. So I
do that a few different ways, but the main area that I'm really drawn to is sound
healing, sound therapy and the power of vibration and energy, right, because we're
all made up of energy and vibration. So, tuning into those subtle, yeah,
the subtle energy in all of us. And also just moments of stillness through
meditation, maybe through yoga or deep breathing practices and connecting to ourselves
in that busy life that we lead we need to kind of slow down and reconnect so I
try my best to offer spaces where people can do that. Yeah and look we don't slow
down and we don't connect to ourselves very much just as you were coming in I was
sharing an experience for myself where when I was deep in the midst of my burnout
was so I just connected for myself that my acupuncturist was sticking pins in my
feet and my toes and I couldn't feel them and it was I had just completely shut
down and my homework from him was to go home and put my feet in some Epsom salts
and to try and get that circulation and that connection back to my feet again. So
that's just an example of how disconnected we can actually become from ourselves. But
I'd love to know how does sound healing help us find that reconnection and obviously
I don't know how it finds the stillness 'cause we're still and we get all that but
how does the the vibration help us reconnect back to ourselves? There's a few
different ways. I think the first way that I connected to myself the most was I've
always had heard about the benefits of meditation and I'd always wanted to be a
good meditator so to speak but I just really struggled to quiet my mind, to connect
to my body and I was really disassociated from my body and I found that when I
started to dabble with sound, healing and the power of sound to connect to that
stillness, it was just a different world. It was like the sounds cut through all
the thoughts for me and really helped me to find that focal point where I could
then come back to my body and come back to myself. So I feel like sound in that
way helps to cut through all the noise. It gives you a really strong point of
focus, which is really special. And I think as well, sound just has a really
profound impact on our nervous system. So if we're stuck in that vital flight
response, the vibrations really help us to come back down into that parasympathetic
nervous system state. And I think it's when we're in those places of rest and
digest and stillness that we can actually reconnect and get out of our busy brains
or the to -do lists or the stressful, even like the stress that we're holding from
past traumas and past life events, you know, when we finally come back down into
that rest and digest mode, it's when we hear those subtle whispers of what's going
on for us and what we really need to start to tune into. Yeah I couldn't agree
more and I love the fact that you referenced the fact that having that sound if
you do struggle to meditate because I know that there are people who do you know
really struggle to quiet down the mind and to get to that really focused state and
I know from time to time that happens for me as well like it's the the thoughts
are pinging off in the head whereas yeah the sound actually helps you kind of gives
you another pathway, I suppose, to actually find that sense of relaxation. And I
like what you touched on there about the nervous system and how getting back into
that rest and digest state, because I think, again, I know from my own experience
and what I see happening in other women around me is that we are very much in
that heightened state all the time we were in that fight, flight, freeze. And that
is not allowing our bodies to function in an optimal way because they get up ready
to, you know, run away or fight or, you know, do the as it suggests fight, fight,
freeze because we are, you know, ready to react to everything that's around us and
having that moment where we can just let it all go come back to that, you know,
to ourselves back to that moment and really enable us to reconnect back into our
bodies I think is just such a magical opportunity for us as well. Yeah and for
some people it's such an aha moment when they finally do do that it's like oh my
gosh I've been missing this for so long you know it's like they're finally returning
home to themselves and there's there's so much power in that I think yeah absolutely
and what is it about you know I have an understanding of the vibration but I'd
love to hear your version of it and how that actually helps within the body to
create this alignment and this reconnection. Yeah so the first thing that I love
that does is brainwave entrainment. So the different frequencies maybe through the
crystal bowls or drumming or whatever it might be helps us to entrain the brainwaves
into like a dreamlike state. So we're lowering the brainwaves so rather than being
in that heightened stress response the brainwaves drop down and we're in even like
some people drop down into they feel like they're dreaming or they feel like they're
really getting into that subconscious level which is really special and so that's
probably on a scientific level you know it's really lovely to be able to see
studies that prove that the brainwaves are dropping through just simply being at a
sound bath and you're reconnecting to yeah a more calm relaxed state of mind and
then also I think it just connects like I said at the very beginning with the fact
that we're all vibration we're all frequency we all hold a different energy and so
it's like the vibrations get into all of ourselves all of our nooks and crannies
and help us to remember that who we are and and really raise our vibration,
I think. The vibrations help us to kind of re -sync all of our mechanisms and just
make us feel more in tune, which is really special. Yeah, and you know,
as you said, we are all vibrational beings, like we made a water vibrates and we
react to the things that are around us. So by having that immersiveness of being in
that sound bath is really helping to kind of recalibrate. And that's what I'd love
to understand a little bit more about is in terms of the way that you conduct a
sound healing session, the types of instruments you use and how you kind of curate
and orchestrate that experience for someone. What are the types of things that you're
thinking about when you're bringing this all together because I'm sure people are
fascinated and we've had conversations. I've done a couple of these sessions now with
different facilitators that are going to be joining us and supporters of of the
exhale retreat and you know we've been talking about it because you know some people
might see this a little bit woo -woo or a little bit. You know you've already
explained some of the science behind it but I'd like to understand you know what
kind of inspires you as you create these experiences for people.
I think it's But if for me, I think I'm very much led by the group that I'm
facilitating for. And I can really sense the energy in the room and sense what
needs to be played and when. In terms of like a general structure, there is more
to it, which we learn through the courses that we do and it's important not to,
you know, get people into a really deep state and then startle them by any strange
noises or whatever and kind of wake them up so there is there is a flow to it
and each instrument really does hold a unique element a unique quality to it so for
example when we're playing the frame drum we're really tuning into the earth element
and we're grounding the body we're also releasing energy so that there's a flow of
how you can use different instruments to create different shifts through the body,
which is really special. I like to try my best to create a really beautiful kind
of, if you can imagine, like an up and down journey or a sine wave.
- Yep. - Where you start and you feel really mellow and very soft and relaxed.
And then things might get a little bit more intense but only a little bit and
that's where you kind of explore the deeper levels of what's going on and try to
release energy in the body that might be stuck and then you bring that up to a
level and then you come back down to a state of relaxation and deep breaths. So
there's this constant ebb and flow and so that's where the idea of a sound journey
comes from I guess you could say because everybody goes through this journey of
different sensations through the body, different elements, different sounds, different
feelings, so to speak. And it is really interesting to having experienced this,
what does start to arise, whether it's you know, niggles or sensations or you know,
tingling and things that do move through your body or emotions that start to come
up as well. It's kind of like, you know, you think about things, you know, kind of
shaking it and you're shaking all of this stuff to the surface and helping it move
through and like you said that that's stuck energy and sometimes it might be a
little bit of an abstract concept for people to kind of understand but if we think
about any experience that we have or we have that emotional response if we're not
processing that through our body and we're holding onto it and kind of trapping it
that does get stuck in our system and it's layers and layers and layers of this
energy that gets trapped in our body. And as you mentioned earlier, like it could
be from trauma or any sort of, you know, incidents or things that are accidents
that have happened in our bodies over our, over our lifetime, that we haven't been
able to kind of process and move through. And I know that this is a way of doing
that. And the reason that I wanted to really bring this to exhale is because a lot
of the women that are going to be experiencing this retreat will be new to sound
healing, it's not something they're likely to have experienced before because of the
type of work that they're in in the corporate world that they live in. And the
intention for this retreat was to start to bridge that gap a little bit, to just
sort of give them a taste of what are some of the other modalities that exist in
the world, to support our nervous systems, to support our bodies, to process and
release things that we have been carrying around for so long. And they're the things
that actually layer in and make us feel heavy and that impacts our capacity. It
impacts that energy, it impacts so much things. And as business leaders and owners,
we need as much capacity as we can to do all the things that we need to do. And
as we're running our households and everything else that we've got to do. So that
is exactly why I wanted to have yourself come along and Give people this gift to
show them that what is possible With some of these other sort of different and
interesting modalities that they potentially have an experience before Yeah, I love
that there'll be people who are experiencing it for the first time It's always
amazing to see how they respond and it's always positive people really really love
it And what I do love the most about the sound healing experience is that it is
very gentle and it is very safe. It's very accessible for people. It gets you into
that state where you feel like you're nurtured and nourished and you're just held in
a little cocoon and your body feels really heavy and relaxed and then I think it's
from these places where we feel safe where we can actually go a little bit deeper
and we can start to actually release those deeper layers of things that are holding
us back, right? So that's what I love about it. It's the safety that comes with
the sound. - Yeah, and if we don't have that sense of safety, then our nervous
system is gonna stay on alert. So having that sense of safety enables us to come
back into that rest and digest state, which is where our body starts to work in an
optimal way. As it says, we're able to rest and we're able to digest because when
we're not, that's when we have gut issues and and skinny shoes and you know I know
so many women are experiencing that but we don't quite understand what does it mean
to come back to rest and digest how do I actually get there and you know this is
just another way that people can experience that and feel that sense of calmness
that sense of safety that you know they probably haven't experienced for quite some
time I know when I was going through this journey for myself it was such a foreign
idea to be in a sense of calm and safety and You know it took me a while to
really understand and connect to this idea and then when I did I'm like oh my god
I haven't been like this for years like this was such a new sensation and new
feeling for me and so I just I can't wait for these women to experience it and
We've got you coming later in the evening. So it's going to be after dinner. So
it's going to be like a little gentle lullaby It's a pretty good body of sleep
That's not sleep of their life it's going to be fantastic. Absolutely, absolutely.
And you know some of the things that we spoke about too is that you use sound to
connect to different parts of the body and you know as part of this retreat is for
business women I wanted them to really reconnect with that creative centre within
themselves and kind of reconnect to that passion, that fire, that's within them. Can
you talk us through a little bit about how you might approach that within the sound
journey? Yeah the element of fire is it's an exciting one it's really beautiful but
I think creativity also comes from really trusting in our authenticity and being not
afraid to speak our truth or be who we are and then we kind of really develop our
own creative flair so to speak and that fire within in. It's all connected through
these different chakras, right? So I think that first place is to reconnect to the
heart and who we are and our soul's essence. And then from there, just like stoking
that fire within, really allowing,
you know, there are different instruments as well that can be used to help fuel the
fire in terms of like a really vibrant drumming beat can be quite fun, especially
if you're playing around the fire and your dancing and as you can imagine and also
like sea crackers and shakers and things to just kind of stimulate that internal
flame but like I said I do think that more importantly it's about really resting
into the heart space for me. I think everything stems from the heart and so
allowing people to explore their own authenticity and reconnect with who they are
will help to fuel that fire even more. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's great
'cause that's the entire theme of the entire weekend is firstly being able to let
go, to let go of that breath that we've been holding and exhale as the name
suggests is kind of just like, I can finally relax. And then but to connect back
into our own essence because it doesn't matter where you are, whether you're, you
know, whatever it is that you do, whether you're running a business or you're not,
you're in a leadership position or you're not, if you're not connected back to your
heart and your true essence, it doesn't matter what you're doing, nothing is ever
going to feel fulfilling, you're always going to feel like you're searching for
something that you're not quite measuring up, that things aren't quite ticking all
the boxes for you because you're chasing the wrong dreams. And that's what this
weekend is going to be about, is about reconnecting with yourself so that you know
that the direction in which you're taking your business or your career or your
leadership skills are all in alignment with that deeper inner purpose that you know
within you. And that is where we're going to be spending a lot of the weekend, you
know, through these different somatic practices, we're going to be creating space and
clearing all of that stagnant energy and really enabling our bodies to take and hold
more of that beautiful atmosphere that we want to create within our businesses and
our lives and then finding ways to reconnect back into and find what our true
essence is before that we can then progress forward and go okay, so where are we
going with our business or where are we going with our leadership and that's the
essence of this weekend is to create the space so that we don't have the clarity
to be able to move forward with real purpose and real direction. Sounds amazing,
I love it. It's going to be such a magical weekend, it's truly going to be
something special. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. I'm so glad that you're
going to be joining us and taking us through this experience. It's going to be one
of the highlights for me, absolutely, and I'm really, really looking forward to it
And, you know, I'm really curious to see the instruments you're going to bring and
like you said, the inspiration that you're going to take from the room and the
women that are going to be gathered there because, you know, we're all going to
bring in different energies and it's going to be, I would just say, I'm really
excited. So nice. I can't wait to meet everyone there and it's beautiful for me to
see every time I go somewhere new and meet new people, it's always a different
experience, it's always a different, yeah, some different feedback from people because
we're all unique beings on our own unique journey. And so I just love connecting
with new people and seeing how they respond to sound. I'm really looking forward to
it. Yeah, it's gonna be magical. So, well, thank you so much for joining us
tonight, Gautney. Absolutely. And for explaining and giving us a bit more of a
background around what sound healing is and what people can experience from exhale.
So exhale is happening on the 23rd to the 26th of October. It's going to be held
in the gorgeous Tweed Valley hinterland. It's going to be a mix, as I've said, of
beautiful somatic healing practices and also business and leadership exploration so
that you can return to your life and your business with so much more clarity, with
so much more purpose and that real deep commitment to both yourself and to the life
that you want to create. So I'm really excited about it. If you want any more
information about it, head over to the link in my bio, jump into the website. It's
melissamarston .com .au and you can find some more information there and you can save
your space to join us and exhale the retreat. So thank you so much, Courtney.
Lovely to meet with you. Thank you so much. Thank you. We'll see you soon. See you
soon. Bye.