About Our Guest- Dante Baker & Monique Derfuss – Sound Therapy
Dante Baker was first exposed to sound healing at a Home Organic Farm in 2010. The owner used crystal bowls and chanting to support the health of his plants and to facilitate group meditations; He facilitates sound meditation events all over the east coast in yoga studios, holistic wellness facilities, festivals, and corporate settings. He has a unique style that combines the use of crystal bowls, Tibetan metal bowls, wooden and metal chimes, and polyphonic throat singing. He’s a licensed massage therapist and certified yoga and qi-gong instructor
Monique Derfuss is a 300 hour KRI-Certified Instructor and gon practitioner offering both Kundalini Yoga classes and gong sound meditations to groups and individuals. She studied Kundalini under students of Kundalini Master, Yogi Bhajan, and the gong under Mehtab Benton, originator and author of Gong Yoga. She also holds a Reiki Level 2 Ceritification and integrates this knowledge into her teaching and sessions. Focusing on the needs of her students and clients, she provides an inviting and supportive atmosphere to her classes and private sessions.
Full Podcast Transcription
Diva Nagula 00:00
It’s amazing to me we can actually recreate the same frequencies that are typically seen when we’re in meditative states by just passively listening to these different frequencies. Welcome to another episode of From Doctor to Patient. Today I have the pleasure of having a panel of experts Dante Baker and Monique Derfuss. Dante was first exposed to sound healing at a Alma organic farm in 2010. The owner used crystal balls and chanting to support the health of his plants and to facilitate group meditations. He facilitates sound meditation events all over the East Coast in yoga studios, holistic wellness facilities, festivals, and corporate settings. He has a unique style that combines the use of crystal bowls, Tibetan metal bowls, wooden and metal chimes, polyphonic throat singing, he is also a licensed massage therapist and a certified yoga and Qi gong instructor. Monique is a 300 hour KRI certified instructor and gong practitioner offering both Kundalini yoga classes andgong sound meditation to groups and individuals. She studied Kundalini honors under students of Kundalini master Yogi Bajan and then Gong under Mehtab Benson, originator and author of Gong yoga. She also holds a Reiki level two certification and integrates this knowledge into teaching and sessions, focusing on the needs of our students and clients. She provides inviting and supportive atmosphere to her classes and private sessions. Welcome, Monique, and Dante, thank you so much for being here with us today.
Monique Derfuss 00:46
Great, thanks so much. Good to be with you.
Dante Baker 00:47 Thank you.
Diva Nagula 00:47
Today, I really want to focus on taking a deep dive into sound meditation and how it has healing properties for people. Today, in our Western society, we have a lot of people who are suffering from mental health problems, or just run of the mill anxiety and depression, and just types of things that they seek primary doctors for and end up having been placed on multiple medicines that may not necessarily be needed. And it’s my feeling that therapies such as sound healing, have a role in which can help these types of people and can avoid the whole dependence on medicines. And they’re able empower themselves and heal themselves using various modalities like sound healing. So could you guys walk us through as to how sound meditation and sound healing actually does help with the mental mind and how it works?
Monique Derfuss 01:06
Sure, I’m happy to jump in and share from a perspective of the gong as a healing instrument, and then would love to turn it over to Dante, since they’re in the same family. But certainly, I think very distinct. It’s interesting that there hasn’t been a ton of research done on the benefits of the gong. But if you look at the the family of instruments, what clearly has come through from universities in Canada, as well as in US, particularly UC San Diego, and they really kind of come together around four categories. It’s clear that physical benefits include relaxation, we’ll also bring the mind to a meditative state. So actually changing the frequency of the brainwaves. And the part that I find particularly interesting is this idea of bringing the mind to this altered state, which on the one hand, allows that relief from or that disconnect a little bit between the brain and the body, and really helps us get out of our heads. And in seeing how successful I think because of that approach that the gong was particularly been starting in the 70s for substance abuse programs, because it gives you that out of body experience or that kind of escape that people who are abusing substances say the reason why they do it, but then it does it in obviously in a more supportive and in a healthier way to one, give you that escape, but then also to build on that escape I’ve been bringing in the talk therapy and nutrition and so on, on top of it and just to step back in terms of the actual process, the vibrations of the gong actually stimulate the dermatomes, which are the nerve endings on the skin. So you literally are just laying there, which is I think, again, the nice part in today’s society when everyone’s so super busy. And not everybody wants to learn to meditate, right? It’s like, “don’t tell me do another thing to learn how to do another thing, could you just please take care of me, can I sit here or just lay here.” And so it’s just that wave and wave of vibrations that are stimulating the dermatomes. And then coming into the central nervous system, and then into the vital organs, and then bringing that relief or really that support to the nervous system. It’s also working in the ethereal body. I don’t know if you want to talk about that separately?
Diva Nagula 01:49
We can go into that a little bit later. And yeah, that’s great, but the science behind it, and you talking about the dermatomes. And so I take it that the sensory input is where we’re able to take in the vibrations from the gong, and that’s the input that delivers into our central nervous system. And then that gets dispersed throughout all of our body and through our vital organs. Interesting Dante anything to add to that?
Monique Derfuss 06:15
Absolutely. And then the other thing is also interesting, I think, when it comes to perception of sound, because the gong is so unique, the closest thing to the sound of the gong are actually church bells. So as you are lying there and getting wave after wave of introduction of new strikes of the gong, it starts to create these very complex envelopes, and there’s a lot of sound in the air. And because our active minds want to understand things, so we want to label them but at some point it takes you back to memories and so on, because you’re trying to understand what it is that’s actually coming in through your ears, even though you do experience most of it through the skin.
Diva Nagula 06:57
Right. And I want to go into that a little bit later about how it effects thte subconscious. But I want to give Dante a little bit of time here and chat about how the Tibetan bowls working, from your perspective?
Dante Baker 07:09
Yeah. I really like to work with the Tibetan bowls. And also the crystal bowls. The difference between crystal bowls and metal bowls is the crystals are mostly like quartz crystals and containing glass to keep it together. And there’s different notes to different quartz crystals involved. And so each note, if you think of sound, it moves in a wave, and the sound, it can really, I would say, create some like harmony, like when you’re hearing different sound frequencies. It’s very harmonic to the brain. You’re listening to the sounds, it’s very harmonic very melodic. And then your brain starts to almost like recalibrate. We live in a society where there’s like cell phones, and there’s a lot of noise and things like that. And so that messes up the calibration in our brain. And so hearing things like simple sounds, but also at the same time, it’s very… you hear like the acoustics around the room, your brain begins to relax, the parasympathetic, it begins to turn on, your breathing begins to slow down, you really do get to relax. And on something that’s very cool about the Tibetan bowls is you can put water inside of them. And when you ring, the mallet around the bowls, then what happens is when you put water inside, there’s something called cymatics, the water will actually change into different geometrical patterns. It’s really cool. There’s a specific business caught up, his name was Hans Jenny. And he basically was studying cymatics. And he used different instruments. Something that’s very easy to do is if you put a like sand on a metal plate, if you take a violin, and you string it, the sand will actually move. And so there’s lots of… you can actually see physically see how vibration begins to move and effect.
Diva Nagula 09:20
And since sound has so many frequencies, and it’s able to modulate according to a specific frequency, my understanding is that our chakras are also functioning on a specific frequency. And sometimes these frequencies that are emitting from the gong, and the crystal balls and the Tibetan metal bow
Monique Derfuss 09:51
Yes, we actually have two different types of guns. We’ve got the symphonic Gong, which has a wide range and you can actually prove Use those different frequencies playing different parts of the gong for different chakras. And then there are actually different planetary gongs and different planets are aligned with specific frequencies that also aligned to two different chakras. So you can definitely be more targeted, which is nice when you’re working either with a private client, or with a small group that comes together for a particular purpose. And then you can also actually bring in… if we’re talking about sound more broadly and thinking about mantra, that sound wave as well. And you can actually combine sound wave of mantra together with gong to target a particular chakra or two chakras since they obviously work in tandem, like one and seven and two and six.
Diva Nagula 10:30
So it’s endless, and people are always looking for a challenge. Well, I don’t want to do this, I want to try something new. Well, Kundalini Yoga allows you to do different things, and it achieves a different purpose. So it’s depending on your intention and what you want to work on. It allows you the ability to do so.
Dante Baker 10:52
Yeah, with the metal bowls, I have an F note. And that will connect to the heart chakra. And so working with private clients, you can either put the F note onto the chest or next to it, I usually have about seven or eight different metal bowls that work with a particular client. And yeah, you can just arrange them either on the lower part of the body near the head, it creates those binaural beats around the head.
Diva Nagula 11:18
Can you talk a little bit about the binaural beats and how that works?
Dante Baker 11:22
Yeah, so I would say, the binary is just two frequencies coming together, let’s say you have like 100 hertz, and 110, you cancel those out, you get 10 hertz. And so your brain also works with frequencies. And so the, I would say, starting with beta, when you’re getting like really rambunctious or you’re driving in traffic, and you’re really stressed out that we get into those frequencies, those brain frequencies, the beta, and then alpha and theta; alpha is when you’re like focused, or you’re doing something you’re concentrating, you’re in that state that brainwave. And then once you get into the theta, you’re more relaxed, you can be in a meditative state. And also people can sit in meditation, and go into that delta state. And so what I use… I use, more deeper sounds, and then I start with that, and that can bring people into that meditative state. I’m using like deeper sound frequencies, because they’re much slower, the waves are much slower.
Diva Nagula 12:24
And it’s amazing to me, we can actually recreate the same frequencies that are typically seen when we’re in meditative states by just passively listening to these different frequencies. So everyone has a hard time with, oh, I can’t meditate, because my mind wanders, it’s just too hard. I don’t have the time for this, literally like putting these type of frequencies, these binaural beats and listening to them, whether it’s either to the sound bowls, or through actual binaural beats, you can get into that meditative state because you’re in that frequency that corresponds with the alpha, delta and theta waves that’s been seen to be waves that are seen when you’re trying to sleep or in the meditative state, as you were alluding to earlier, that, to me is so fascinating, because you’re meditating, and it’s the frequencies are forcing you to be in that meditative state. So you kind of surrender to it.
Monique Derfuss 13:22
Yeah, I can’t take credit for it, but I did read it somewhere. And I always repeated all the time that the gong, and I think more broadly to the broader family of instruments, it’s really the smarter lazy person’s meditation, because you get the same benefit, but you just need to lay there, you need to sit there and just allow that, that vibration to come into you. Yeah, it’s huge. And I think in today’s society, more and more people want to be taken care of. And sound is just one of the easiest ways to do that. I will say that, at least gong and then meditation, if you are open to meditating, even just for three minutes, that the gong will put you in that frame of mind and in the vibratory space that will take your meditation to a deeper level.
Dante Baker 14:18
I definitely agree. I agree that it’s good to do both when you are like doing some meditations. Say people start coming in more and more to my classes, they start to open themselves up to other variety of different meditations. So I think that’s really important. Because like they experienced something that they’ve never experienced before. And they’re like, oh, like, what is that? So I think sound healing is a good gateway and opens people up to other forms.
Monique Derfuss 14:51
Yeah, sorry, if I could just add to that, even starting a class with a little bit of chanting, even if it’s like three long OMs. People getting in touch with their voice and the power of that internal vibration. Again, talking about making things easy, having that recognition of how easily you can take care of yourself simply by chanting and just having that awareness. So I completely agree with Dante, when you finally have kind of a captive audience, you’ve got that small group, there’s those small things that you can introduce to one to bring in more tools for self care, that greater awareness, and then two that complementarity to again, produce even better results.
Diva Nagula 15:34
Yeah, I think it’s a great gateway into the spiritual ethereal realm that’s, that we were kind of talking about previously. But more importantly, before we go on to that topic, it’s it’s very important to understand for people that it is an introduction to a meditative state that allows immediate results. I mean, I’ve done both the gong, and the sound bowls, I literally go in with my mind that is running like crazy. And that’s how people are wired these days, because during the day, we have to get stuff done. And we don’t have the ability to shut it down to go into a meditative state. So by achieving or going through a gong meditation or any type of sound meditation, it puts you into that state. So it automatically does it for you, we don’t even have to think you just sit there and lay and relax, and just invite and surrender to the beats and the music and the vibrations. And you’ll feel infinitely better the anxiety that you might be experiencing is gone. The constant ruminating that you might be having going on in the mind is definitely diminished. If not gone all together, I’ve often found myself after these sessions, where I feel like I just took a nap. Because I know how deep I went in. And often thirsty and I guess that’s the result of just having so much energy moving and being transferred back and forth. Is that correct?
Monique Derfuss 17:04
Yes. So the the quietness of the mind, we call it being in a gong state of consciousness, where the mind is very quiet, you do feel rested. And most people actually feel that they’re more productive afterwards, right? Because you don’t have all the chatter of the subconscious. In terms of the thirst. I always encourage people to drink water or to drink kombucha afterwards. And I’ve never read any science, it would be interesting to know if Dantes’ read anything. Because I was always wondering, attributing to the fact that we’re 75-80% water. And if you’re moving energy, and you’re moving those blockages, and people tend to have to run to the bathroom afterwards. What the connection is there in terms of thirst or part of a detox?
Dante Baker 17:53
Yeah, I would definitely say that. It is a form of detox. I know that anytime that you rest and relax, you are healing in a way because I think most people are turning on that fight or flight mode. And so when people are in that state, they’re not focused on their soul or using the bathroom or anything like that. They’re just focused on go, go go. And so I think when people are really, really relaxed, either using gongs or symbols, then the body is able to “oh, I can relax now I can focus on what I need to attend to inside the organs.”
Diva Nagula 19:29
Another thing that I think I’d like to talk about is how this sound meditation kind of transmutes us into the more ethereal state, you know, whether it’s tapping into our subconscious whether it’s tapping into some sort of spirituality that’s ingrained in us as a human. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Monique Derfuss 19:50
I’m happy to at least to start from the science that I’ve read the British Academy of Sound Therapy actually did some research and include gongs and bowls of crystal and singing bowls. And it was interesting. They came up and talked about this idea of an altered state therapy. And at least for the gong, because our active minds are always trying to label things as there’s more and more sounds and things that you just… they can depending on the at least for gongs depending on the gongs that you’re using, I mean it can literally sounds like a recording from the NASA website, right? Because particularly the tuned gongs, let’s say if you’re tuned to Jupiter, it will sounds like what has been determined by the Swiss mathematician Cousteau who actually figured out the position and the rotation of each planet, and mathematically came up with a frequency. And so it is other life-like if you will, right. I mean, it does sound… it’s not earthly. That just I think gives the mind that opportunity again to relax and, and just expand.
Diva Nagula 21:13
Yeah, and I think what you’re alluding to is the non ordinary state of consciousness. And I think that’s what we’re tapping into when we just let ourselves go and allow our conscious minds to expand. And Dante from from Tibetan metal bowls and crystals, is that something that can occur with the frequencies that are emitted?
Dante Baker 21:36
Yeah, absolutely, I would say that. With each metal that’s connected to a certain chakra, I would say that the sounds are so more in harmony, and more pure. And so for example, let’s say I’m playing an F note You’re just like really feeling love and connection. And so those when our like minds and bodies are more in that, say, a jealousy state, or hatred state, you can like, you can feel that’s not good for your body. And so even our thoughts have such a huge effect on our on our physical body. But when you’re listening to like these sounds that are more balancing, then it can definitely take you into a whole nother state of consciousness. I would say like, putting different bowls like below the legs, you can help ground people, if they feel like too flighty and things like that. Usually, like if I have a conversation with the person, and then we’re just like, look at them and see what they’re, like, even sometimes, like the movement of their body, or like how their body’s like position, their posture, I can kind of tell like what’s going on energetically. And so I’ll know like where to move the bowls. Because again, everything is frequency… we know that everything is a vibration. And so yeah, these these bowls are super powerful in that way, just helping you realign.
Diva Nagula 23:18
Yeah, can either one of you share any transformative stories of people who have undergone the sound bath, sound meditation any stories that come to mind that just immediate transformation of anybody?
Monique Derfuss 23:37
I’ve had a few people… in general, what what comes up either whether I’m dealing with an individual client or in groups, because if you’re affecting the heart chakra because there’ll be tears. There’s, there’s that rebalancing there. And so I’ve heard everything from, oh, I felt that little jolt, and there were a few tears, and I took a breath. And then I just had a big smile to other people that really had to sit down with their therapists. And I always say to people, this might just be a nice deep relaxation session for you. But depending on the intention that you set, and where you’re drawing that vibration, this can be a very serious tool. And you can really move energy. So I always encourage people afterwards, whether you have…. you journal, you have a good friend, you have your therapist, just have them on speed dial so that when things come up for you, instead of doing what we do in this fast paced culture that we live in, where you just push things down, it is an opportunity to let it go. People have shared stories of working with their therapists and you know, having past life, trauma come up for them. It really runs the gamut has been my experience, we’ll call
Diva Nagula 25:14
Dante, any cool stories you can share with us?
Dante Baker 25:17
I think getting group sessions, it’s been a wide variety of people saying how they’ll feel the vibration moving through their body. Sometimes if I’m just striking or ringing a particular bull, then some people will feel it on one side, or hear on one side. Others I’ve definitely had people who feel like they’re very sensitive, then they may begin to have different visual experiences, or they’ll see different geometrical patterns, like I was talking about the whole cymatics. Because, again, vibration is what really created our whole reality, if you think of, patterns of like, I was said, like turtle shells or flowers. Those were created just through sound. And so like, when people like close their eyes, and they see different spirals, I think they’re tapping into, I would say, another sense, we call it, the sixth sense. And yeah, they’re just sometimes higher frequency colors like purple, or blue will come up for them. Sometimes the lower frequency colors like red or orange, will show up in their third eye, like the ajna chakra. And so I just say, just sit with that, sometimes I tell people write down their experiences. And to reflect on it too. Like Monique said, she said that the intention is super important. So now, when you’re, when you’re feeling the vibrations, I would say sometimes things begin to like bubble up. So because everything moves in a wave. So if you have like emotion stuck down, then the ripples, there’s gonna be more and more ripples to bring whatever is down there up.
Diva Nagula 27:20
It all surfaces, right? And that’s the stuff that might be buried deep in the subconscious that
might come up that needs processing?
Dante Baker 27:28
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it’s, it’s a positive thing, I would say it’s all good, whatever the experience is, if just relaxation, or cry, or sort of memory that comes up, I always tell people to breathe with it, we’re able to really breathe from your diaphragm, then you’ll be able to process it, you become more the, the observer into just observe what’s happening. And it becomes less of like, “this is happening to me” but more of the conscious observer of what’s happening of the experience. So yeah, you can take that perspective, from to any any area of your life, like into relationships to friends, just be the observer first, and then you can begin to engage.
Diva Nagula 28:23
Interesting. We were talking previously how sound meditation can be construed as a gateway to other modalities. And this is a perfect segue into some of the modalities that each of you also are trained in and also offer. So, Monique, that you’re a Kundalini teacher, and yoga teacher. And a lot of people are familiar with the yoga as a modality, we see yoga studios on every corner. But what’s specifically unique about Kundalini Yoga?
Monique Derfuss 28:56
So Kundalini Yoga is actually what introduced me to Gong so I’m very grateful to the science and to Yogi Bajan who brought the technology to North America in ’69. So, simply put, I always like to explain Kundalini Yoga as the yoga of acupuncture, because our focus is on very efficiently moving energy in the body. So it’s not always necessarily as much of a cardio workout, if you will. I think in our culture, that’s what people are starting to think of yoga as, it’s like another form of workout, right? But instead, in Kundalini Yoga, we do integrate postures that you may do in your hatha or your flow class, along with activating acupressure points through through your fingertips also through your different eye positions, you can move energy in a very efficient way. They say like one year of yoga is like 20 yearsof… So depending on what it is that either the client or the class, if there’s a theme, so you can do everything from, let’s say, you want to connect more deeply with source energy, no, so you can work on the on the crown chakra. But you can also take care of your adrenal glands, or you can take care of your kidneys. So it’s that very prescriptive, very efficient series of exercises that does normally include gong during deep relaxation. And then we always end the class with meditation. So you’re moving energy further moving, moving it with your postures, further, moving it with the gong, and then again, making that meditation, I think, more profound, and more therapeutic.
Diva Nagula 30:57
And also, I think it’s important to point out the differences that for like yoga, there is a specific exercise pattern that you follow. And it may vary from practitioner to practitioner, but for Kundalini, there’s hundreds of different kriyas.
Monique Derfuss 31:13
Thousands, yeah. Absolutely. Well said thank you.
Diva Nagula 31:34
And Dante, it’s interesting, you also have another modality that you’re an instructor for, and that’s Qi Gong. Qi Gong is been around for 1000s of years, and a lot of people are maybe familiar with Tai Chi, but I’m not familiar with the larger parent umbrella. Qi Gong. So can you dive into that a little bit of what Qi Gong is?
Dante Baker 31:55
Yeah, absolutely. So Qi means energy. And so we’ve been talking about energy and vibration. It’s all around us. And Gong means the practice of, and so you’re practicing or manipulating Qi, that’s all around you, and you’re moving it inside of your body into your organs. In Chinese medicine, they connect the organs to the five elements. And what you’re doing with Qigong is you’re either like releasing, there’s different movements and practices that release stagnant energy. And so there’s the idea that if there’s a blockage in your meridians, so the meridians are on the outer layer of your body, I’m also inside connecting two organs, but there’s a blockage there, due to either thoughts, or food, or the environment or trauma, then that can be stuffing or cause illness. And so with Chee Gong, what what you can do is do different movements that release that energy/blockages so if you think of like a river, and there’s like a dam, like being built, it blocks that energy. And so you’re just removing the dam, letting the water flow. And there’s different practices that say in the morning to wake up the body, and to bring more energy into different places that was more asleep. And then there’s nighttime Qigong to help relax you, it’s more like soothing, more calming, the whole practice is very calming. It’s a pretty powerful practice and now way, way back then. Different practitioners of acupuncture, they would teach you QiGong first as a preventative medicine, and, you know, teach them how to take herbs and things like that. And then if they really like needed acupuncture, then they would do that. So it’s really long, especially with the Tibetan bowls, because… you’re focusing on energy, vibration, and you’re moving it in your body. It’s a very beautiful practice.
Diva Nagula 34:25
And I don’t know if it’s commonplace, but it seems like both of you are using the sound meditation technologies along with the energy movement practices. So yours is with Kundalini Yoga, commonality with Dante is obviously with the Qigong so it’s very interesting so to me, it seems like they work in unison together.
Monique Derfuss 34:45
Very much so. Yeah, they can be done separately and can be done together for more profound
benefit.
Diva Nagula 34:54
If someone is curious, what is involved in signing up for you There are a Kundalini class or a Qigong class or sound meditation. Let’s just talk with sound meditation first, like, what’s involved? I mean, you have to sign up for X number of classes in order to achieve a result. Or can you just take a class here and there and expect some benefits?
Monique Derfuss 35:16
I would say for gong, the the science that I’ve seen the research is that individuals did weekly or had a session every few days for X number of weeks for the the length of the study. And that was beneficial. I mean, you can certainly be curious and come once and see what it’s like. Most people have said that in terms of reduction in blood pressure, that it can last a few days, other people longer than that. But I think certainly to start it in terms of maintenance, if ideally, if you can join a class, right, so if it’s not in your budget to do private sessions, but certainly doing something once a week, and whether it is Gong, or it’s a bowl concert, something like that, just to balance out all of the the sounds and the the pressures on the nervous system, just given the world that we live in, would be hugely beneficial.
Dante Baker 36:24
I would agree with that. I would say that, if you think of any practice, or anything that you’re learning, you want to do it at least weekly. And you’re basically retraining your own brain, going back to the science of neuroplasticity, you’re rewiring your brain. And if you come to a class, like at least twice or three times a week, and also you do like a simple meditation practice either 5-10 minutes or listening to binaural beats through the headphones, to help retrain your brain to get to those different states of consciousness, then you’ll be in really good shape. It’s a lot of this stuff is just to allow you to to handle the world out there.
Diva Nagula 37:17
Without having to rely on a pill.
Dante Baker 37:20
Right, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Diva Nagula 37:23
Or chemicals, like drugs or alcohol.
Dante Baker 37:26
Yeah, absolutely. I haven’t personally haven’t had alcohol in years. It’s been very long since I was like, 21, I’m 31 right now. And it’s because I’ve used different practices to help me deal with stressful, stressful time, that doesn’t mean that I never get mad or never get sad. But it’s the way that I’ve been able to handle it. And yeah, that’s what these really practices are for is, it’s to help you cope with the stresses in the world. And a healthy stress is good, like, it helps you push helps you grow, just like a muscle. But if you’re creating more stress, like the repetition of our thoughts, like over and over, reliving it, reliving it, thinking about it over and over, that’s the part where we really get unhealthy. And then when you’re like putting yourself in a hectic surroundings to then that creates disease in all areas. And so yeah, doing something that’s like, weekly, a good practice will help you, it will strengthen your resilience. Exactly. Your resilience, your shield. And in yeah, it’s really beneficial.
Diva Nagula 38:59
I think that’s just hugely important. And that’s kind of what I’m trying to do with having these podcasts. I want to bring education to different modalities that have healing capacities and potentials for various people. And a lot of it is just getting the word out and the education and what the two of you bring is just to a great wealth of knowledge in each respective fields, and the passion that I see that both of you have in the fields that you’re definitely experts in. It resonates obviously, when we’re talking and having this discussion. So thank you for that. As we’re winding down here, we’re running close to out of being out of time here, but I wanted to, if my listeners are interested in reaching out to either one of you to experience either some sort of sound bath, sound meditation or Kundalini or Qigong. I’ll start with you, Monique. How can my listeners or anyone get in get a hold of you?
Monique Derfuss 39:54
Yeah, so the easiest way is give me a call or send me a text. My number 202-355-8136 and they can obviously if they want more information can check out my website, which is www.soundwellness.biz. And yeah, I would love if anyone has a question, you know, anytime anything is new people feel uncomfortable asking questions. There’s no stupid question. And yeah, I welcome talking to anyone who has an interest, or is even just curious. Yeah, reach out.
Diva Nagula 40:32
Thank you, Monique, and Dante?
Dante Baker 40:34
Yeah. So one thing you can do is you can go on my website, it’s www.soundsbydante.com. And I have a category or a tab that says schedule. And so you can see all my classes when I teach, I teach at least five or six classes a week. And you can check out my workshops too. So I’ll have workshops where I do either simple Hatha Yoga, and then an hour of sound meditation, or I’ll do Qigong and sound meditation. So I’m in the DMV area. So I’ll go to different yoga studios, and offer workshops. And so yeah, that’s a good, good way. And I also want to add just one more thing too. When it comes to, like how, I would say, universal, this practice is, like sound healing. It’s not, like tailored to a particular like religion, or, like a particular dogma or ideology. It’s super unique. You don’t have to, like have any affiliation… sound is, it’s so universal. And if anyone’s having any questions about that, it’s very diverse. And again, super universal. So yes, again, it’s just all about just being open. And I think, when I start my classes… I do like a simple guided meditation. And that helps get people into like, focusing on their breath, focusing on their body relaxing different parts of their, of their body. And so yeah, it’s it’s super, super simple, easy and available to all people, everyone.
Diva Nagula 42:34
Thank you any additional final thoughts? Monique?
Monique Derfuss 42:37
I would just say looking and going forward, if your listeners, anyone working in the field of research, where I think there some work has been done, but where there could be really exciting collaboration is really looking at disease specific treatments. Because there’s been some work done on identifying frequencies of the cells, let’s say, for particular types of cancer, but it’s very, very nascent. And I think there’s huge… to think about wellness, beyond just, you know, not popping a pill, what other kinds of traditional medical treatments could we potentially replace with sound therapy? So if there’s any interest in that research, or maybe people already doing research, and would be interested, I don’t want to speak for Dante. You know, but we’d be interested in bringing in gong. Yeah, please reach out on that level too.
Diva Nagula 43:44
Wonderful, I think it’s a great idea. And I think there’s so much to explore in the years ahead of us in regards to sound meditation, and how it can affect the body in positive ways and heal disease. And I’m looking forward to when that’s going to be a prescription from a doctor. And that will be phenomenal. If we can see that over the next few years, I know it’s gonna happen. It’s just as my net is, I don’t know yet.
Dante Baker 44:08
Yet, but I would, I would definitely say that I think that’s super important. And there are just a few people who are incorporating that I know, there’s Dr. Michel Gaynor. He’s done. He’s written many different books about incorporating sound healing and metal bowls. And for simple meditations, I know he works with different cancer patients. And so he’s brought that in, and there’s a couple others if I if I think of any, I can definitely send you some links.
Diva Nagula 44:40
Yeah, we could add that to the show notes. Definitely. I want to wrap this up. Thank you both for taking time out and being on this podcast with me and, again, a warm thank you for the work that you individually both do and I applaud your passion and really bringing in this time. type of healing to many people that need it. So thank you so much.
Monique Derfuss 45:04
Thank you grateful for the opportunity. Take care.
Dante Baker 45:07 Take care