Anna Haas
Life can get loud, and many of us have grown accustomed to tuning out the noise.
But for Nashville resident Kayce Laine, it’s all about embracing sound, the impact it has on our bodies, and how we can use it to improve our overall well-being through one of the fastest-growing health and wellness trends: sound healing. As a full-time certified sound, crystal, and reiki practitioner, Laine works to help her clients with stress, insomnia, anxiety, creative block, and much more through this healing modality. She offers private one-on-one sessions as well as group sessions, and has a roster of impressive clients including Soho House, Grand Hyatt, Lululemon, and The Recording Academy’s MusiCares, to name a few. Laine also travels across the country offering sound baths and teaching sound healing trainings for the International Sound Healing Academy. She was even featured on Lifetime’s hit show Married at First Sight facilitating a sound bath for the finale of the show’s Nashville season.
Laine chatted with us about her work, the benefits of sound healing, and her hopes for its impact on the Nashville community and beyond.
Initial Interest: There were a couple of experiences with crystals that really got me started down the energy healing rabbit hole. Specifically, I was called to purchase the book “The Ultimate Guide to Crystals and Stones” by Uma Silbey back in 2018 at High Garden (an amazing tea shop in East Nashville that we lost in the 2020 tornado). In it, there are several different exercises to experience the energy of a crystal, and they actually worked! Once I had the experience of physically feeling the crystal’s energy in a way that couldn’t be denied I was hooked. I wanted to learn more and ended up getting certified as a crystal healer and buying my first crystal bowl within a year.
Growing A Business: The story behind how I got into this field of work really began when I first moved to Nashville. While I was earning my music degree from The University of Virginia and while I lived in New York I worked as a musician full-time playing in different bands and teaching private music lessons, which allowed me to write music almost anytime I got the urge. Once I moved to Nashville, I ended up getting my first day job as a publicist and for the first time in my life I had to put creativity on the back burner. I had to schedule time in the calendar to write with my producer (now fiancé), which made things more difficult. To help get me in the right headspace with these new parameters I started exploring different types of meditation techniques like transcendental meditation and more general sound meditation to help me slow my brainwave state down a bit and allow creative thoughts to flow in. I realized that these tools were really helpful not only for my creativity, but also my overall well-being. All of this was happening around the same time that I was finishing my Crystal Healing Certification, and I ultimately ended up going through the Level 1 and Level 2 Diploma Trainings through The International Sound Healing Academy over the next 18 months to learn more. Because of the intensity of the certification process, by the time I was finishing up the Level 2 training, I felt ready to take it from a side hustle to my full-time work. I work with all types of people, but a big focus for me has and always will be to help other musicians and artists with their own creative block and performance anxiety.
The Basics: Sound and crystal healing are vibrational healing techniques based off the fact that on a cellular level our bodies are made of vibrations, aka, sounds. Our tissues and organs each have their own vibrational frequency, and I love to imagine that our bodies’ various sounds create a beautiful symphony together. When we experience disease or illness, some of these vibrations go out of tune, so we can work with strong frequencies like sound healing instruments or crystals to bring things back into harmony. My sound healing practice is the primary focus of the work I do and my personal favorite part of it. There are so many ways to work with sound to bring peace into your life, and I work with sound both in my 1-1 sessions as well as with groups from two people to 102 people. My specialty in this field is crystal singing bowls, which create a gorgeous, pure frequency that you feel in your body as much as you hear in your ears. Their frequencies trigger the relaxation response in the body, help to calm the nervous system, improve mood, focus, clarity, sleep, and so much more.
What To Expect: My 1-1 sessions are typically 90 minutes long, with the first 30 minutes set as time to chat about what is present in your life over an herbal tea. Typically, people book sessions during times of transitions, when they need clarity about an aspect of their life, or just want a little balancing.The discussion portion of the session is really valuable and gives clients the floor to share what’s on their heart without judgment. Once we get into the session, the client lays on a heated crystal-covered infra mat which emits infrared heat and helps with circulation, inflammation, and provides negative ions to the system. Then, with an eye mask on, they relax while I move through scanning their energy field for any centers that feel imbalanced and facilitate hands-on reiki. I then play a Himalayan bowl, practitioner vibrapoint-touch bowl, and weighted tuning fork directly on the body to balance the field. As I move through each energy center, I place a crystal down to create a crystal grid. Once the grid is in place, I let the crystals do their work while I play my crystal singing bowls for a 15-to-20-minute personalized sound bath to integrate. When the crystal bowl time is up, I will re-scan the field, taking the crystals off as I go. I’ll bring the client back into the room gently and then we have 10 to 20 minutes to chat about what they experienced (visuals, memories, or messages) and my interpretation of their energy field. Finally, I always send a follow-up email with a photo of their unique crystal grid and recommendations for staying balanced between sessions.
Sound Soothes All: Everyone can benefit from sound healing. Our nervous system is so easily affected by sound; think about that rush of adrenaline you get when you hear a sound that startles you. Taking some time with relaxing sounds to counteract the stressors we encounter in a typical day, from our alarm going off in the morning to the email notifications at work, can be incredibly beneficial. That said, the biggest benefit from sound healing is stress relief, and with stress being the number one underlying cause for major chronic diseases and illnesses that’s a big deal. Outside of stress, common issues that can be helped and addressed with sound healing include sleep issues, creative block, focus, and even pain relief. The effects of a sound bath or 1-1 session extend far beyond the time we spend together. People typically feel a sense of peace, balance, and relaxation that lasts for hours and sometimes days after we part ways. (kaycelaine.com)