The Gong Journey
The Gong Practitioner Course that I run for the College of Sound Healing is a training Course that teaches you how to become a Gong Practitioner, for both individual client sessions and group gongbath sessions. We cover all the material you need to set you on the road to a therapy practice with the gongs at the centre. However, there is another, equally important side to the training, which cannot be underestimated : the self or spiritual development that happens automatically as you open yourself up to the healing power of Sound – in this case, mainly gong sounds.
As the students connect with the gongs and start working with them, we find, certainly by the second session if not before, that a lot of their own stuff is coming up to be cleared – physical issues, old injuries, old patterns, conditioning and belief systems, perceptions that are no longer serving our best interests, buried trauma from the past – it all begins to surface from the sub-conscious as we work more closely with the gongs. The first session of the Course is an introduction – we cover all the basics. During the second session we start on the work needed to give one-to-one sessions to clients – a preparation for the students’ case studies. By Session 3 we are going much more deeply into the gong work, and I usually find that if anyone is going to drop out of the Course because they are not ready or can’t hack it as the heat ramps up in the Gong Space, it usually happens between Sessions 2 & 3. I lose very few students on my Course – they are mostly totally ready for the work, and very committed. Hence the Gong Practitioners who make it through are of a pretty high standard – some of them absolutely outstanding. And through their own personal development work which has happened naturally during the Gong Course, they have done a large amount of healing work on themselves as well as on their case study subjects. This means they are well placed to begin helping others.
The clearing work we do with the gongs has become much deeper of late. We are getting reports of, to mention a couple of examples : bone/muscle adjustments happening during gongbaths, and people with neurological complaints like Parkinsons and Fibromyalgia having relief from tremors and pain, at least temporarily. My students have to do 36 case studies on at least 12 different people, to graduate from the Course as fully fledged Gong Practitioners. As I read through their Coursework (and it’s coming in steadily at present, as they are due to graduate in October), it tells me that this form of Sound Healing, with gongs, is really getting down to the nitty gritty of addressing deep issues that need sorting now in these turbulent times of personal and planetary transformation.
Certain case study client comments stand out : “I didn’t realise I was so comfortable with my own discomfort until the gongbath”... “I saw a long spindly finger point straight at my left ankle and a hot poker-like pain went straight through my ankle and through my left hip – I’ve been having a lot of pain with my ankle”.... “I was told to eat healthily as it was important what I put into my body for it to cleanse”... “I could feel blocks in my body but my body was desperate to keep hold of them. Once I allowed my body to release them it was like the sound blasted them away”... ”as the treatment carried on I felt the energy move up my body and back down – it felt like an energy scan to see if the blocks had been removed; if they hadn’t they had another blast – this happened at least four times”... “feeling of being energetically fortified”... “I felt the physical flow alter and felt a shift from the left to the right side of my body as it balanced”.... “hard to come back this time – felt I’d been taken apart and put back together again”.... “I had the best night’s sleep I’d had in many years”. We are getting some quite profound healings with the gongs at a very deep level at this time.
By the time we reach Sessions 4 & 5 of the Gong Practitioner Course, the personal transformation in the students is very apparent, and wonderful to see. This is my real reward – to see how people grow in awareness during the Course in their work with these amazing sacred healing instruments. For some it can be life-changing, leading to a different way entirely. For others it’s less dramatic, but all are clearly benefitting, and the changes and growth in everyone are clear to see each time we meet. And lastly I just want to say that this is work of empowerment – the gong work is raising people’s energy vibration and empowering them to be the best version of themselves that they can be. It’s giving them the self worth and confidence to go out there and live life to the full, doing something they love and making choices which serve their highest potential. And who could ask for more than that.
Sheila Whittaker 10/5/19
