Episode 61 - Ashana - Unlocking Your Creative Wisdom with Healing Sound

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EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode, we dive deep into the transformative power of sound and creativity with the renowned musician and healing sound artist, Ashana. Ashana shares her personal journey from being a classically trained singer to pioneering her unique genre of healing music with crystal singing bowls. Through her music, Ashana creates a space for listeners to connect with their inner selves, tap into their creativity, and unlock their full potential. From discussing the importance of sound frequency in personal growth to the role of intuition in the creative process, Ashana provides invaluable insights and practical techniques for incorporating sound healing into daily life. Ashana performs a live healing sound meditation for us at the end of this episode!

A storyteller of the heart, Ashana has lived, and loved, and learned, and today she generously shares the bits of her life that have been the most transformative with us. Ashana performs a live healing sound meditation for us at the end of this episode!

SHOW NOTES

Ashana is a true pioneer in the world of healing music. With her celestial vocals and the enchanting resonance of crystal singing bowls, Ashana has crafted a luminous sonic tapestry that transports listeners to realms of deep peace and inner harmony. Hailed as one of the premiere healing music artists of our time, Ashana's music has been described as "breathtaking" and "a Gift from Heaven" by listeners worldwide.

Ashana is a classically trained musician who grew up in the Bronx.  After a lifetime of being a professional musician and teacher, she unexpectedly found herself trailblazing an entirely new genre of music that has since garnered international acclaim.

With renowned producer Thomas Barquee by her side, Ashana has pioneered a sound that resonates with listeners worldwide. Her albums, from "All Is Forgiven" to "Celestial Sleep," are more than just music—they're gateways to spiritual awakening and vibrational healing.

And she isn't just a musician; she's a storyteller of the heart, she's lived and loved and learned and today, she generously shares the bits of her life that have been the most transformative with us.  

So grab your earbuds head out on that walk, or curl up on the sofa with your favourite beverage and tune in to this week's episode of The Creative Genius Podcast as we unravel the captivating story of Ashana.

Ashana's journey to becoming a renowned musician and sound healer was not a conventional one. Growing up in the vibrant streets of the Bronx, New York City, Ashana discovered her musical calling at a young age. From singing in churches to exploring a wide variety of musical genres, Ashana's eclectic style evolved over time and finding her way to the music she creates today involved a lot of ups and downs and surrender. 

Pioneering Healing Music:

Driven by her passion for yoga, chanting, and mantra, Ashana embarked on a deeply personal journey of self-exploration and sound healing. It was during this transformative period that Ashana pioneered an entirely new genre of healing music with crystal singing bowls. Blending Western and ethnic instruments with the unique drone of the crystal bowls, Ashana's music creates the ultimate transcendent experience for healing, relaxation, and meditation.

A Beacon of Light:

Today, Ashana travels the world, offering concerts, workshops, retreats, and crystalline activation ceremonies that have been hailed as "powerful" and "deeply transformative" by attendees. With her intuitive vocal improvisations and crystal bowl playing, Ashana continues to inspire and uplift audiences, guiding them on a journey of self-discovery and inner healing.

Main Takeaways:

1. The Power of Sound Frequency: Ashana explains how sound frequency works and directs listeners through an exercise to raise their vibration, highlighting the profound impact of sound on our emotional and spiritual well-being.

2. Reclaiming Your Voice: Through her healing music and vocal improvisations, Ashana emphasizes the importance of reclaiming our voices as a means of self-expression and healing, particularly for women who may feel pressured to suppress their voices.

3. Navigating Creativity: Ashana shares her journey of navigating creativity and the importance of inner child work in unlocking creative potential. She emphasizes the need to create space for authenticity and self-expression to allow creativity to flow freely.

4. Healing Through Expression: The voice is identified as a powerful instrument for healing, allowing individuals to express their emotions and release suppressed energy. Ashana encourages listeners to embrace the full range of their emotions and give voice to their innermost feelings.

5. Connection to Higher Vibrations: By connecting with higher vibrational frequencies through sound, individuals can experience profound shifts in consciousness and tap into their innate creativity and inner wisdom.

Transformational Impact:

Listening to this episode offers listeners a transformative journey towards reclaiming their voices, unlocking their creativity, and connecting with their inner selves. Through Ashana's guidance and insights, listeners are inspired to explore the healing power of sound, embrace their authenticity, and embark on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth.

By tuning in to this episode, listeners will discover how to harness the power of sound to elevate their vibration, reclaim their voice, and unleash their creative potential, ultimately leading to a deeper connection with themselves and the world around them. Get ready to embark on a journey of self-exploration and transformation through the healing sounds of Ashana's music.

So, grab your headphones, find a cozy spot, and join Kate and Ashana as they unlock the secrets of creativity and healing through the power of sound.

Join Us:

Access a very special healing sound meditation from Ashana and other amazing resources to plump up your creative factor by signing up for the newsletter.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Hello, welcome back to the creative genius podcast. I'm your host, Kate Shepherd.

Ashana Is a renowned musician and healing sound artist. Her music has been listened to by millions of people around the world and today she sits down to talk to us about her personal journey from being a classically trained singer. To pioneering her own unique genre of healing music , with her beautiful crystal singing bowls. Through her music.

Ashana creates a space for listeners to connect with their inner selves. Tap into their creativity and unlock their full potential. The conversation you're about to hear today was particularly powerful for me.

Because there are actually quite a few ways in my life that I've been feeling a little bit blocked and stuck for quite a while. And some of the things that Ashana shared about her experiences with this really, really hit home for me. In particular, we talk about the tendency. We can have to misinterpret what it can mean when we keep hitting dead ends in our life.

And another way to look at it. When doors seem to be closing in our faces more often than we're comfortable with.

We also have a really beautiful conversation on how to cultivate a relationship with unseen beings. This is something that I've yearned for for a long time

to believe in something beyond my senses, Ashana has an incredible connection to angels and what you refers to lovingly as her team. And that's something I've really yearned for in my own life. And haven't been able to genuinely cultivate in a way that has had a lasting presence in my life. Her musings on that we're powerful for me. .

I often Marvel at how so much of what my guests share with me inside our conversations on this podcast. And up being medicine, my own soul deeply needed. My hope. Is that in listening to these conversations, The same is true for you.

-1: For a lot of my life I didn't let myself believe that I might have a purpose. And as soon as I started doing the creative genius podcast, I realized this is what I'm born to do. To have these conversations to give voice to this wisdom and this intelligence that is bursting at the seams to try to find its way back to us. It is an honor for me to do , this work.

And it's my gift to you. It takes me. I realized the other day sometimes 30 hours. To create one episode, , finding a guest reading their book pouring over the questions and having the time on the phone with them and then editing it and then mastering the sound and creating show notes and social media posts and newsletter articles, and sitting down and recording these intros and the outros for this. I mean, it's just a huge job and I love doing it.

And like I said, it's what I'm born to do. part of what I'm learning, how to do is how to lean into support from my community to support me, to create the thing that supports you. So I'm asking you, if you listen to this show and it touches you and it feeds you and you receive something from it. Please consider signing up for my Patrion.

There are multiple different levels that you can join. , there's the $5 Patrion, which would be brilliant. You get all of the episodes a week early.

You'll get a bonus episode. You'll get extra bit of content here and there. And it is a wonderful way of supporting me to keep creating this show for you. And there are other levels too, there's the colorful community where once a month I do, uh, in depth hour long live workshop on how to activate our intuition and creativity. There are other ways to, you can help. You could buy my artwork or jewelry on Kate Sheppard, creative.com or on love.

Morning, moon.com. Those are fantastic ways of supporting me and there might be other ways that I haven't even thought of yet that you might think of to support me, to keep growing the show.

So if there's a way that you want to plug in and help, please know that. I'm open to receiving that support from you now, so if you want to get in touch to discuss any of those things, you can email me@katesheppardcreativeatgmail.com or you can send me a direct message on any of the social media platforms. And wherever you are in that, please know that I'm so grateful to be in this relationship with you. And I really actually can't do it without you.

Uh, Shyla explains to us how the power of sound frequency works. What its role can be in personal growth and in developing our -intuition and in freeing up our creative processes. , there's a lot of talk in new age circles about raising our vibration, but I didn't really understand what that meant really until this conversation with Shauna.

We talk about reclaiming our voices. And she shares her thoughts around how she believes the voice. Is one of the most powerful bridges to the soul. And a way of not only self expression, but also really understanding who we are and what our purpose is and how to let all that out.

I feel like this episode is one of those episodes that has real. Potential for transformational impact in our lives.

Ashana is generously gifting. Every creative genius listener with a free copy of one of her Seminoles singing bowl meditations.

It's a beautiful meditation. Make sure you're signed up for my newsletter on Kate Sheppard, creative.com. And we'll send you the link for that.

And I want you to stick around to the end, because Ashana. Plays us out. With her beautiful crystal balls and sings to us to close out the episode.

I'll also share with you the big epiphany that I had as a result of this conversation.

And.As always at the end of the show, I'll leave you with something to ponder. And this one could be truly life altering. So I hope you stick around right to the very end.


Track 1: Your music is so incredibly beautiful. it also feels, it feels like more than, than just music. And when I say just music, I'm not diminishing what music is. Music is magical, but there's something specific about the music that you create that I feel like somehow, Transports us to a place inside of ourselves that feels somehow it's inside, but it feels somehow expanded at the same time.

And it can feel like a spiritual experience. what is your intent with creating this beautiful music that you make?

Ashana: know, there's always the intent of my human self And the connection to the team, right? The team in the etheric. And my human =self= is going, Oh, I want this to be an experience. I want to convey the authenticity of my heart and my soul. And I want to, um, create this environment, this spacious place where the listener can go to connect with that which is inside of themselves, which is the essence of love. And so there is that that's in place and what happens is in the recording studio or in the live performance or whatever, there's a greater thing that ultimately takes over and, and I, I feel this deep connection to presence and inside that presence. I am listening. And inside the listening, there is a, oh, what I, what I'm seeing when I say this is like, there's a, there's a soundscape.

There's a landscape. There's a landscape of color and light. And there are, there is the feeling of the presence of Of beings of light that literally are, are vibrating, riding and co creating these frequencies. That's what it feels like to me. And there's a, there's this place where I, I go through this process of just stepping away and stepping away and stepping away.

So there's less and less. of my mind engaged, there's, there's always a part of my mind that's engaged. You know, you gotta, where's my mallets and, you know, is,

you know, all that kind of stuff but you know, there, there's like the, the technical piece that you gotta be mindful of. And then there's. The, the place of just stepping away really from, Oh, you know, am I breathing deeply enough? Am I, you know, where's this, where am I coming from inside of myself? And so there is this going deeper and deeper and deeper into the interior, into the womb, into the heart, into the earth and opening up and in an, in to the expansion and, and then we ride, you know, together. Me and the angels, you know, or the beings, right? There's this like ride and it feels like this, you know, and, and there's, you know, they send me little messages like, you know, joy and light and, um, and sweetness and power and, and, And it comes through, you know, it comes through the arms, it comes through the hands, it comes through the intention without intending. I know that sounds really weird, but it's like, I'm not consciously thinking about, Oh, I want the sound to be really healing. I, it's extraordinary because I never think about this. should heal. I'm simply, if I'm doing anything, I'm loving on the sound. And inside that love, there is this expression that comes as a gift to my, to me and to the listener. It's like the gift that, that we all get. Because it's, it's, um, it's uninhibited giving. It's unconditional

giving that's coming in through, those multidimensional realms. did,

Track 1: Do that. Like, I

so you.

hear a lot in the sort of personal growth circles, new age circles about frequency and sound and energy and raising your vibration and, and to me, everything that you just said, like, I don't know if you saw my face the whole time you were talking. I was just like, I felt like I was glowing in the, like in the just.

The, I could feel what you were saying as true, even though I don't have those experiences.

And I, also know that it's true, like I can feel it, but I don't understand how frequency does that. How does it draw us into that? What does it do to our. physical being to be in the presence of these frequencies and the sounds that you create in your music? What, what's actually happening?

Ashana: First we have to start at a foundation point, and the foundation point is that everything is vibrating. And everything is vibration. Now, for some people that are kind of just walking into this world, you know, they're going to say, well, the microphone's not vibrating and my carpet's not vibrating. And my, you know, my table isn't vibrating. It's made of wood. It's made of metal. But when you get down to that That scale of, you know, particle and wave physics, quantum physics, we know science knows now that everything is energy and all energy is in motion and the motion of all energy creates a vibration and everything. Everything in the world is vibrating at its own innate rate of frequency. That's how fast or slow the vibration is. And then what happens for us when we move into states of expansion, states of joy, states of contentment and peace, is we are shifting our vibration to experience. That particular vibration.

Now, so here's a real simple way of doing this. So if we ask everybody in the audience right now to close your eyes and just bring to mind something that makes you incredibly happy . . could be your puppy dog greeting you when you first walk in the door and they're jumping all over you and their tail is wagging. It could be sitting by the ocean. And the waves are just, humming this soothing rhythmic pulse. It could be your face in the wind. It could be the sight of a dear beloved in your life. A friend, someone who is an inspiration to you. A spouse, a partner, a parent. And you see? Now just notice that feeling. Now you've changed your vibration in less than 60 seconds. You've gone from a vibration that was maybe a listening vibration or a thinking vibration of, you know, concentrating on, what I'm saying or what Kate is saying. And we're, we're in this, in a more mind place. But now just in the space of 60 seconds, we shifted our vibration completely to happiness, pleasure. to a delight, to quiet joy. And it was a matter of our attention going towards that vibration. Now what happens in sound that we become entrained to the sounds that we are listening to that become dominant. In our environment, at any given point. And so, let's say if I start playing a crystal bowl. And I began to sing.

I'm not going to do that right in a second. But if I did, then I would become the dominant vibration. In that moment. Or you change and you start listening to other kinds of music. Or you put the television on and there's a, a disturbing. Show. Honor. Notice the moment I said that, could you feel inside of yourself? how your vibration shifted, right? It literally took a nanosecond for me to redirect your attention to a lower vibration. all the cells in our body on the molecular level, they have these little receptors on the outside of the cells. And our cells are constantly taking in information and our cells, interestingly enough, communicate through frequency. So you could say our cells are constantly communicating through a certain level of sound and vibrational frequency. So as we introduce, A sound of joy, a sound of hope, a mantra of peace, a, a prayer of love, a spoken, spoken language that, that, that speaks encouraging, inspiring, um, hopeful positivity. And we, and we speak that with a, with truth into ourselves, ourselves are just like. Oh, okay. I'll take that. And, and our mitochondria actually responds to light and our, and when we're, when we're encouraging, we're bringing more and more higher, higher, faster vibrational frequency in there. Our mitochondria literally on a certain physical level are becoming brighter and brighter and brighter. And then one cell gets it. And then because the cells are all connected in our human organism, it's just like this whole wide, interconnected communi organism. Well, the cells start talking to other and they go, Ooh, you like light. Hey, I like light too. Okay. Pass it along. Pass along. It's going all over.

And before you know it, your whole body starts vibrating at a higher vibrational frequency. Now this happens really, really quickly. Right? Because as we just saw in our little example there, you know, I could say one thing or we can have an experience and you go right to the other direction. The beauty of sound is that we begin to entrain to these higher vibrational frequencies. We begin to teach our body, mind, and spirit what this feels like. And we recognize it. So now we have a bigger contrast. Oh, wow. This makes me feel amazing. This helps me feel peaceful. This helped me feel quiet. This gives me hope. This, this is like a promise of goodness. And then we go back to that other frequencies and we look at that and we go, wow. So now we have beautiful contrast. How do I want to feel? Let me think about this. And the interesting thing is because I believe we're, we're entrained and then conditioned to these, especially now these lower, lower vibrational frequencies. And these are the vibrational frequencies of fear, doubt, suspicion of divisiveness.

We've seen a lot of that these days, right? sound healing is right now. I think so important because people are under such extreme levels of stress right now. It's chronic, epidemic stress throughout the world right now. And so we're seeing this

contrast more and more and more.

So, you know, I believe the, the, the beings of light and our inner beings, you know, our, our, our divine selves are offering us ways where we can remind our souls and remind ourselves and as humans in this life experience, what this higher vibrational plane feels like. So we establish it more and more and more and more as the baseline for our being. So now when you get to that place where, oh my goodness, you know, we've dropped. Or we've responded to circumstances or reacted to circumstances in such a way where our energy has dropped. We know what the contrast is and we can raise it back

Track 1: When you look back and reflect on your life, was there a time when you were younger when you were living in a lower place where, like, was it a journey for you to get to this place? It seems to me like you're probably kind of vibrating at a higher level just as your baseline now.

But I'm imagining that many, many of us have, we're operating on a lower kind of baseline and we can bring ourselves up, but, but it just, our set point see intuitively, this is just what I'm sensing is that the set point is a little bit lower. Was that, is that true? And was that the case for you? And did you, what did you do to, to raise your own vibration in your own lifetime?

Ashana: Well, I, I have to agree with you that the set point was definitely very, very different for me growing up and through probably, you know, most of my adult and young adult life. And so it was this really, in some ways up and down and up and down, but up and down with like a steady incline.

Okay.

and now it's still up and down and up and down, but my set points higher. Right. So, whereas I might have stayed down like 30 years ago when I got lost in, in challenging emotions and I got stuck there, that stuck could last for days and days and days, sometimes weeks. Right. And where I am now, that stuck place might last. 20 minutes. It

might

Track 1: a cell, there's a cellular memory, right? Your cells are like, yeah, okay, that, it's not like things stop happening to you. Till our dying breath, things are going to keep happening to us, but it's our reaction and our set point to them. What was your journey like do you remember the hard parts of, of, of, it feels like we have to make a choice at some point.

Ashana: I think we make lots and lots and lots and lots of choices. And the choices that we make, on a daily basis, influence how long we're going to stay in that place. my experience is that we don't move and shift until we've learned the lesson.

Whatever is being presented and sometimes the arc of those lessons are years

Track 1: Yeah.

Ashana: and, and, and that's the tough place, I think, because especially when we're in the middle of it. I mean, I, I could, I like everybody else. I could tell you stories about choices that I made. That, you know, when I look back at them, they were grueling. They were, um, they were so void of love. They, they left me in, um, in places where literally, you know, I'm thinking of one particular period in my life where I did everything I could to erase myself.

Track 1: Hmm.

Ashana: And, and I was so full of pain and I saw so little and I was so hungry to be loved and accepted that I literally, I mean, if I just took an eraser and erased myself. And the interesting thing was I had people in my life around me at that time that were going, can you see what you are doing? And I, I would go, yeah. But right, and then I would keep repeating it and I repeated that cycle for about 5, 6 years. Couldn't even been longer until I absolutely got to a point where I said. That's it. No more. I'm done. And literally in the space of like 24 hours. I was like Finished I'm out of here and I and and it shifted and I've done that several times in my life where I've looked at a talk I you know reached a toleration point and said I cannot do this anymore and I shifted and at the same time what happened over the course of my lifetime is That shifting has, has less to do with blaming somebody else than saying in a very empowered way, I love myself so much. I respect and care about myself so much that I need to not be in this situation anymore. And then I will shift. And that's when you're free. You go, I made the decision based on, you know, caring on authenticity on what's true and real and right for me. And so these are. You know, these are like these, you know, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down. But I love to see it as a, as us going up, down, up, down, up, continuously up, growing, continuously, expanding, continuously opening to new, to new ways of being and thinking, and sometimes it's most times it's just hard.

Track 1: Yeah. I, I see it as a, almost a spiral that's going upwards. Like sometimes I'll, I'll feel like I've, I've gone through great periods of personal growth and I'm like, Oh my goodness, I've tried, I finally transcended that pattern. And then I find it here it is again, what, but I realized I'm here it is again, but I, but I'm older and I'm wiser and I know this now and I no longer react that way now.

the point is never to not. To get to a place where nothing ever happens to you anymore. But the point is to just sort of be wiser about how we react to those things when they happen, right, by getting the lesson

Ashana: Yeah, and , that's what I've come to is

not wanting to, stay in a place that is constricted

and contracted. You know,

one of my dear, dear mentors, has this saying, which is like a mantra inside of me now. And that is contraction is no longer an option.

And it was, you know, she said it for years and years to me. And I was like, okay, okay, okay. And still, when the times come when I would feel my energy contract, I knew it was contracting. I knew that it wasn't a good thing that it was contracting and I was unhappy with the contracting, but I was so committed to the contraction that I wasn't gonna let it go. And then what's happening now after just these, you know, years of, of layering, layering goodness into my. Layering thinking, layering, um, kindness into my thinking, layering, understanding, layering, that it's way more fun and delicious to feel good than it is to feel judgmental and divisive and jealous and greedy and it's like, you know, and I know the contrast in this and I look at that

when it shows up in my life and of course it shows up in my life and I go, I really don't want to be there.

I really don't want to do this. This just doesn't feel good anymore. You know, the sensation of this simply doesn't feel good.

Track 1: I used to think there was something wrong with me because I forgive very easily. And I used to think it was because I also don't have a very good short term memory and I used to think they were connected like, and I'm a little bit lazy. Like I have a lot of projects and I'm always doing lots of things and it's too much energy for me to remember why I'm mad at you or upset with you or annoyed with you.

Like honestly, it's not, I'm. And I used to think, oh, there's, I better work on holding grudges better. And I'd like, I just can't because I'm, I'm too lazy to, but I think it is a choice, you know,

like you do get to, you do get to decide you, had, what you call a musical calling at a really early age.

Will you tell us a little bit about that?

Ashana: Well, when I, when I call it a calling, you know, it's the, um, at the stirrings for being very young, we're always directed towards music. And it's interesting for me, the stirrings were directed towards music and towards healing. So I loved them both and I could have gone either way and I ended up going to music and it really, really was 50 50.

Could it

Track 1: When you say, when you say healing, do you mean like medicine?

Like, like

Ashana: wanted, yeah, I wanted to be a bio, I mean, there was a point in time where I was just absolutely, utterly fascinated with cell biology. And, uh, and I was a candy striper for quite a while. And I was really planning on, I was going to go into nursing and my father was like, why doesn't, why don't you want to be a doctor?

You know, I mean, my dad, you know, back in like 1967 was like, why don't you want to be a doctor? And I was like, My mother's like, she can be whatever she wants, you know, and then there was this You know, go to music and, and I started playing guitar. I was playing piano. I was, I couldn't, I wanted to sing, and I just kept following that trajectory because it was a trajectory of, of fun and immense joy and pleasure. I loved singing. I loved the theater. I loved acting. I loved dancing. And I just kept going in that, in that direction and I stayed pretty solid there. Um, I ended up going to, uh, a conservatory of music in New York City and got a degree. classical singing and voice. And then I sang all kinds of different stuff, you know, pop and jazz and opera and operetta and early music.

I was more or less a specialist in early music and that influences what I do today. Um, but there was just, I loved singing standards. I loved being in shows. I mean, it was just part of my happy place, you know, and, uh, and I just kept going with that.

Track 1: And then how did you transition from that being classically in that classically trained kind of world of mainstream, for lack of a better term, music to the work that you're doing now?

Ashana: it was an interesting thing that came a certain point in time in the classical music training where I absolutely had had it, I'd had enough. It felt too constricting for me. And I discovered the, joy of, of improvising. And once I, stuck my nose into, um, jazz and pop improvisational singing and music.

And I, I approached that just the same as I was, you know, when I would learn an aria, you know, I mean, it's like people thought I was crazy, but I would like take. Whitney Houston licks and I would write them out. , and I would learn it You know note for note wrote for out until I could sing it Absolutely the way that the artist that I was, you know, interested in was singing it and and I was doing that for a while and then I left New York City and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I started getting into children's music.

I became a teacher for early childhood music and that was. Absolutely freeing. That was like, I had the opportunity to deconstruct everything I had learned as a classical artist to its bare bone components when you first start learning. And I had some amazing experiences doing that . I did that for about, and 11 years. And then there was this place inside of me that said, Okay, you're done. Now, make your, make your first album. And I, I didn't even know what I was going to do. I had the bowls by that point in time. I'd been playing them for several years. and I, I knew it was time. I knew it was time to stop teaching. And, um, and I did. I sold my business. I literally had one buyer. And all, and I keep telling people, listen, hey, all you need is one, you know, you only need one person. I put it up for sale. I sold my business, , my music teaching business, and I took all the money. And I said, great. Now I can make my first album.

Track 1: Were you scared at that point?

Ashana: yeah,

Track 1: Well, you sound so confident when you like, you just knew that that was all going to unfold, but that sounds terrifying. What was going on for you in those days?

Ashana: you know, it was just that is that place inside that's just like a clarity,

You know, It's

like, It's

time. Yeah. And it, and it, and it's, it's actually happening to me now on another level. Um, but it's that same place that goes, this is over. And I don't really know exactly what this is going to turn into. I just know that I need to walk in this direction.

Track 1: How did you navigate the fear and all the things that were coming up for you in, in, in those days when, when you were, when you sold it all and you sold the business and you were going to make your first album, can you, can you take yourself back to those days for a minute?

Ashana: You know, I, I knew I, because I told the business, I knew I had enough money. To, live on for a certain number of months, I had every confidence in myself that no matter what happened, I could always put a roof over my head and food on the table. And I also knew that, well, because the music di industry was very different at that time.

You know, this is like 2005,

so in terms of the, you know, the, the music industry as we have it today. So, you know, at that time we were still, we were still playing CDs. It was hard copy everything, you know, we were not in the digital world. At all, uh, except for digital recording.

That was the extent of it. So I knew that there was a certain process that I was going to have to go through as an artist. There was no guarantee that if I made this album and I didn't even know what was going to be on the album, basically, I just thought I was going to go in there and well, I had two directions I could have gone in.

I was a songwriter and I was going to like, just do a whole bunch of songs and sing songs and write. And, or. You know, yeah, I was kind of doing this a little bit, you know, with the bowls, and I thought that would be cool, right? And I met my producer, Thomas Barkey. And he said, if I was going to be your producer, I would put you in healing music.

And I was like, okay, you know, why not? Let's go. And it was, I mean, I'm being flippant. It wasn't flippant. I was very much, um, at that time kind of going, all right. You know, and, and there was this, I can't explain it to you. Really. There was a place of, I trusted, but I, I, I had this vibration inside of my being that just said, this is the next step.

This is what you're going to do. And thing. And, you know. Batten down the hatches. We're going and, and that's exactly what I did. I mean, I met my producer the same day I closed at the bank on my business. I literally met him the same day and I heard his music in a, in a yoga class. That I was, I was attending and I said to the yoga teacher, I kept thinking, well, everybody's in Shavasana. They're supposed to be quiet and you're relaxed and you're not thinking about anything. I'm listening to the music and I'm going, that's the guy, , he'll totally get the crystal balls . Right. And I went home and I called up my yoga teacher and I said. Who's the producer on that album? She grabs the album and she goes, Oh, Thomas Barkley, she goes. That's it. I looked up his name on the internet and I'm like, oh my god, he's going to be in Santa Fe in two weeks. That was the last time he ever went to Santa Fe. Two weeks in green Santa Fe and he's doing a big concert. So, I, I, I ordered the tickets. It was two weeks, and it happened to be the day that I was closing on the bank. So, I, what I'm, you know, long story, and it was a beautiful story, the whole unfolding of him and me, and then, you know, literally three months later, I was in the studio with him. And six days later, we'd written and recorded Ave Maria, which is like, Become

iconic and millions and

millions and millions and millions of people were in the world and listen to that song. And

It's still like, you know, 23 years, 24 years later, that song is a fricking classic in the field now. Oh, everywhere in the world. And, and, but you don't know. Right. And that was the first song we ever wrote together. I mean, if you can imagine that, it's like Okay, open your mouth Lashana, what do you want to do? I said, ah, I was thinking about it, I don't have any more in my mouth. Okay, try this, start singing.

. It just fell out of my mouth. It fell out of Thomas's. Right? And it just, you just go, you, you do this process, and I know your show is all about creativity and creative genius. And I think what I want to really say to people here who are listening, you follow the breadcrumbs. You go one tiny foot in front of the other. You take one toenail and you put it in front of the other. You just trust. It's like, wow, where's the impulse taking me? Where's the idea taking me? You know, and, and we have, we're creative people. I mean, oh my God, we're so creative. You might have 60 ideas that never amount to anything. But the process of creation is the allowing everything to come up, to be tried, to be tasted. You, you, you give it some wings. You go, no, this really isn't the direction I'm going to, but those wings over there, take you to the wings over here, take it to the step here and here and here and here. And before you know it, you look back and you go, oh my God, I just wrote a book. And, and that's how I, I, I wrote a book last year and, and it's best selling for the crystal singing bowl community world globally. Right. And it started out because, oh, you know, my students could use like. a little ebook, you know, and then how to play a crystal ball. Well, that's a good idea. I think I'll write something on that. And, and I had my, one of my business mentors going, you're going to write a book of Shauna. And I'm like, you're out of your mind. I'm not, I mean, I'm a musician. I'm not a writer. And she's like, you're going to write a book. So I started with a little ebook. And then before, and I do the outline of it and I go, Oh my God, I have 29 chapters. How can that possibly be?

Track 1: Have you, have you ever felt lost? Have you ever had parts of your pathway where you just felt lost and you didn't have breadcrumbs for a long time

in

Ashana: yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, that, that period of time I told you about , that was like five years. And I was doing stuff and I was doing music, but I had abandoned myself, , I'm 67 now and I can look back at, , 50 years of being a professional musician and I have had plenty of times where I felt empty where I wasn't sure and see, this is the other piece of it. When the joy empties out and you're not certain and it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on, that's an indication for me that something is out of balance and it doesn't necessarily mean that, Oh. Maybe this is a sign from the universe that I shouldn't be singing. Maybe it's a sign that I shouldn't be writing my book. it may not have anything to do with that. It may have to do with, maybe I need to clean up my relationship with so and so. Maybe I need to. I need to stop giving away parts of myself to , X, Y, and Z. Maybe I need to change my diet. Maybe I need to get more exercise. Maybe I need to be mindful of what I'm watching on television. . Maybe I need to start looking at things in a new way. Maybe I need to, fill in the blank we get stuck sometimes on our journey because. It's a journey. It's not about the end point. It's the journey. And art, and creative art, is a spiritual practice . is incredibly demanding, that we look and sense and move into deeper, the deepest states, I believe, of authenticity that we can be. And we have to be willing to allow that to come up. And when you do that, as we do that, and I've experienced this so many times in my life, that the more I extricate the things that are pulling on my energy, the more I can empty that out, clean that up. Make amends, , with myself, with others, then the energy now is free to come back into the creative process. And you have space now and inside that space, you know, cause the universe of pours a vacuum inside that space. And now you open it up because you're lighter. You can breathe more. You have, you can love yourself more.

You can love others more. That's like optimum space for the creative to flow.

Track 1: I've had for about a year now,

I kept having this voice that was saying, you're creating some really big things.

we need you, but you have to clean up your house, your house, like literally, literally my house. Like literally my house and I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know I'm an artist, right? Like I have like baskets of, I love baskets. I love bowls. I love rocks and I love driftwood and I live near the ocean and the forest.

I love collecting things all the time. My house is this, people come over and it's like, You know, oh, you get lost in all the little piles of amazing, beautiful things, but it's, it can be a little bit too much. There's a lot of stuff here. And I kept hearing this voice saying, sweetheart, like clean up your house.

Like you want to know why you're stuck. Clean up your house. Cause I kept saying, I'm stuck. I don't understand why the next breadcrumb isn't coming. Like why isn't the next breadcrumb coming? Clean your house. And I was like, no, there's gotta be like a bigger. More cosmic answer to the clean your house.

Like it really just keeps coming back to me So I'm so glad you said that because I think we do sometimes fall into this trap of wanting fancier answers about what's wrong and sometimes it really is like you just need to Make that phone call and clear the air with that person because it's draining your energy unconsciously You don't even realize and it's the image I had when you said that was that it's like fixing the leaks of a boat

Ashana: yes, that's exactly right,

because if you're out of integrity with yourself,

you know, and like, I'll go back to those five, yeah, five year period, I was so out of integrity with myself,

like the most ever in my entire life. And how can you make music from that place?

You know, I mean, not the kind of music that I want to make.

Track 1: Yeah.

How did you navigate that? What, what happened for you? You talked to, I don't, you talked a little bit about, the importance of healing childhood trauma or maybe inner child work in, in some of the writing that I've read from you, in unlocking creativity specifically, but was that part of that journey for you?

Ashana: No, at that time it wasn't about that. It was really about me getting out of a very toxic relationship and it took me many years actually to fess up and own up to how I created that.

Track 1: Mm

Ashana: you know, but step one was. Get out of the relationship and close the door and, and, uh, you know, I, I had to do a lot of self inquiry But the very first thing I had to do was like extricate myself and stop living like that I had to clean up my own house,

Track 1: hmm.

Ashana: internally and put myself in a good space a better space we learn as we go along. you know, a lot of the inner child stuff that I really appreciate and love doing. Is related to the voice and singing and allowing that little kid to come out and express herself and also allowing the, you know, the, the wounded. Not wounded. I don't want to use that word. The, the parts experiencing feeling wounded, much different than what I just said first, right? So where there's stuff that needs to be expressed, you know, the anger, the frustration, the despair, the No, no, no, no, no, no. I mean you just like go down the list of things. Then, and we have to get that out. That, that the voice for me is the most powerful, bridge to connecting with our souls. And it also allows us, it is the vehicle. That we have, it's the most healing sound making that all of us have as we can open up the voice and give ourselves the freedom and the space to give sound, give expression to that which we are feeling and, and so much of, chronic illness, whether it's mental, whether it's emotional, whether it's spiritual, is the suppression of our ability to express ourselves and to give voice, to give speech, to give sound to that which we are feeling emotionally. And when we do, and when we really go in there and start doing this, holy smokes, you know, get out of the way. She's coming out and she's got something to say, and it is like this, you know, the doors when they finally start opening, they don't just open, they rip off the hinges and there is this massive tornado of wind that comes sailing through the doorway and out she rises, you know, and it is This fullness that now has permission to live and exist and be and express, and we can do that.

Everybody can do that with their voice. And can you imagine what this world would look like if we had safe? Places to express our anger, our fear, our despair. We learned how to give that voice and there's this transition. What happens inside that space is you, you start expressing that, which you're angry about that, which you're frustrated, that which makes you feel depressed or less than, or, you know, all this stuff we tell ourselves and. You start rising out of that like a Phoenix coming out of the ashes. And then all of a sudden you go, Oh, here's the sound of, I am powerful. Here's the sound of my joy. Here's the sound of my peace. Here's the sound of my love. Here's the sound of my brilliance. You know, here's the sound of my life. Here's the sound of life. And, and then I swear to you, you know, all the little angels, they just start coming around you it's that gift of expression and we all can do it. And this is why, you know, we have music for. As humans, we've been making music for since the dawn of time, right? And we, and we gathered together as communities and we drummed and we prayed in through sound and we visioned through sound and we don't do that anymore.

Oh

Track 1: as you're saying all this, I mean, I'm beaming from the inside out because it's just, there's so much resonance with what you're saying. And I'm also imagining many listeners right now hearing this, who is told, I was told directly as a child, you shouldn't sing.

You don't.

You sound, You sound terrible. You should be quiet. But then there's also, especially as women, so many ways that we are directly, but indirectly told to be quiet, to quiet our voices, to, so as you're saying that, and I just feel like this glowing radiant potential of what's possible for us and what's possible for the world if we were to step into that, like how things would change.

There's a step before that that needs to happen for people. So, I'm, I'm just practically speaking for the, for the person listening to this right now going, that sounds amazing, uh, how do I do that? Because I, I don't know, I don't, I don't even feel like I'm really allowed to make sound or or have a venue to do it or people around, like where, where, where does she or he start to, to do that?

Hmm.

Ashana: the simplest way possible and the way that the most easy and the most accessible. for you. You find the music that you love. So it could be, Oh man, I want to sing like Beyonce, right? It could be, wow, I love Native American powwow music. It could be, you know, Oh my God, such and such on the radio, things like that. Well, I mean, for me, step one, and this was what I was doing when I was a kid. Was I loved Donovan. I love Joni Mitchell. I love Joan Baez. I love Lauren Nero. I love Janice Ian. I love John Denver.

And I would, I have memories of myself, you know, Singing up a storm with my little record player in my room.

And, and it was okay. And there was, there's this place now where we've gotten so, Oh no, we're not allowed to

sing because now, you know, there's a perfectionism in recording. That is. is, is beautiful on the one hand, on the other hand, it's insane because, you know, what happens to artists is, Oh, well, that note is out of tune, well, we'll just tune it up.

Well, this note is out of tune, we'll just tune it up, you know? And sometimes, and believe me, I know this because I know producers , you know, an artist will go in there to sing and there will be, you know, 40 to 500 corrections. On, on the vocal track to make sure that he or she's saying every little note, exactly the way it's supposed to be now, when you did recording 30 years ago, that didn't exist . You showed up and you sang and you got pretty much the real deal of whatever happened in that moment.

So our conditioned perfectionism around, around, um, electronic sound now is infused. It's everywhere.

Kate Shepherd: And our expectation

what singing is,

Track 1: is, is unrealistic. It's,

Ashana: It's,

totally unrealistic.

Kate Shepherd (2): me realize that it's like the way we've airbrushed

Track 1: women's bodies and people. It's kind of the same, the audio, right? Like it's just not, not how we sound.

Ashana: Yeah. And now there are singers really seriously. I watched this documentary few months ago about singers who are now using computer generated like AI and it makes their voice sound right. It's the weirdest thing. I listened to

it. I'm going, Oh my God, you know, that's so strange sounding, but that adds this other sort of robotic, unreal quality.

Kate Shepherd: It's weird. And I feel like we pick up on that on a cellular level. I'm a jeweler by trade. That's my, that's what I mostly do. I make these silver bands that are really full of texture for, I use tree bark tech to make textured bands. And then I do these gold 22 karat gold bezels with gemstones in them.

And them to look like they came from like an archeological dig, like you found this relic of the past. That's what I want you to feel like to nature. and. and. I, I, if something's too perfect, I'm like, Ooh, how can I, how can I bang that up a little bit? Like, I don't, like, I don't want things to be too perfect.

I feel like on a, we, there's something that we pick up on where it's like, you know, there's a realness that's missing that we actually really need.

Ashana: Yeah, we do need it because we need it so we know that we're, we're absolutely okay being who we are,

Track 1: Yeah.

Ashana: you know, and, and a lot of that's been, been taken away, uh, from our, from us in terms of our confidence of just exploring our own creativity,

you know, and we don't have to be perfect.

We just we just have to like explore so can I'm back to your question. So what do you do? Well, you just you just go for where you want to go. Oh, I want to learn how to be a drummer Great. Go to a drumming circle. You want to dance? Good. Go to a dance. You want to sing? You do you like yoga? Do you like kirtan? Go to go go chant. Do you want you like church? Okay, go join a choir you like, you know And it's just this like follow these tiny little breadcrumbs and start with what you know You know If all you know is to get in your car when nobody else is around and turn up the radio and I'll tell you why you're driving down the road, do it. And just pay attention. You ask your team, you ask your guides and angels, show me the way lay open the path for me to open and express my voice and discover my voice, my voice, my authentic healing voice, whatever way, shape, or form. Show me, lead me, guide me, direct me. I know you've got this. You've got this, my soul.

I know it. You've got it. I know you're going to show me. I know it's there. And then just. Make that announcement, make that proclamation, and keep your eyes open . You don't have to keep asking for it, but just keep your eyes open. Gee, that sounds like fun. And when you hear that, that little twinkling in your heart that goes, Wow, that sounds really cool, that sounds like fun. It could be like, super quiet. It could be like, Oh, I wish I could do that. That's it. That's the voice. Listen to that voice. I wish I could do what over there. Go there, you know, follow a, Oh, somebody is doing a class on that. Somebody's got a recording on that. Somebody's, doing a podcast on this. Just follow it. Listen to it. It's that simple. You don't even have to spend money for it.

Kate Shepherd: Yeah. You're so right. you've talked a couple of times about the team and I personally feel like I've longed for a team. I've both longed for a team and also had moments where I really felt like there's a presence that walks with me.

And it comes and goes, but I, I don't experience, like I've heard a lot of people talk about a connection to their ancestors or to angels or to other beings. And so I guess I, I would love for you to say a little bit to somebody like me who sort of would want that, but doesn't actually feel that that's present in my life.

And how do I. How do I bring that into my life or maybe it's about suspending my disbelief or maybe, I don't know, like what it is that's, am I blocking it or does it really exist? How do you know that they're real?

Ashana: cause I feel them, and I understand the contrast of when I don't feel them. You know, the, uh, the story that I like to tell people is that many years ago I was working with this, a, a, a spiritual mentor, and she, she was like, oh, you need to go get a Ian, what do they call those? Cur curian photography thing done.

Kate Shepherd: Is that like your

yeah, it's like your aura? reading.

I was like, oh, okay. I never had that done. Okay, I'll go. Right. So I did it and the guy who was on the other end of the. He looks at this picture and he goes, my God, I've never seen anything like this. And I'm like, Oh yeah, how cool. And it was really eyeopening for me because you could see all this green and all this, you know, red, yellow, all around here.

I went up to here and on the top was a band of black right across and all above it was white light And I was like, what's that? And, and, my mentor goes, I don't remember who told me, he says, Sean, that's how much you've been blocking your guidance system. It was like, I made this decision or choice or whatever.

I don't even know where it came from. That's like, no, I don't want this. And so I was walking around the world feeling very isolated and very alone and very lonely for really, really long time . And when I saw that, it was like, wow, okay. And so began this process of Just being willing to be willing to be willing to be willing and I will never forget the day that I You know, I have one of my first alchemy crystal singing bowls and it was it's a rose quartz sitting over there And I and I would play it Every day and I would just ask, I was like, all right, mother Mary, if you're there, show me, it was kind of like that. Really. I was pretty sassy, but, um, but there was this like longing and wanting. I was so wanting to feel that connection. And so I would just say, you know, I'm here. I'm, you know, show me, show me. And I would just keep playing, you know, and playing. And one day it was like three weeks of this was going on and on and on. And all of a sudden it was like I was playing. And it's like the top of my head just like broke open . And I felt this. Like my whole heart went into this state of feeling unconditional love and, and like I was drunk and I knew it was Mother Mary. That was pretty clear. So I think we have to ask. You know, the team is always there, but we have to and we have to be interested and we, you know, create that relationship. It's a relationship. And so when you, when you open the door to that relationship regularly, I promise you, you know, just give it time and show up like you can't make a friend and keep a friendship.

Let's say you got somebody like my best friend, she lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And if I don't call her or she doesn't call me You know, we don't have a, I mean, we know each other, we love each other, but it's a relationship. You got to pick up the telephone and say, so what happened? How's your son?

Where's the guy? Blah, blah, blah. Right? It's the same thing here.

Track 1: right?

Ashana: Right? So I'm here. I'm listening. I love you. Even though I'm not sure that I love you because I'm not sure you're really there, I'd be amazing to feel you and me together in some, in the love,

Track 1: Mm-Hmm.

Ashana: And we do that in the best way we know how, even if it's the tenderest way, which just says, you know, I don't know if you're really there, but I'm really willing to be willing to be willing to feel you. Show me that you're there. Just give me a tiny scent and it could be like something that you, something that I'll recognize. Show me like. A white feather or a, or a, you know, somebody, somebody looks at you and beatifically smiles at you and then, and you go, Oh my God, that looks just like my mother, you know, and it's like it can happen in a million little ways

and it's right there.

Track 1: Thank you. I was tearing up when you were saying that I needed to hear that. Thank you.

I wanted to ask you about, celestial alignment for healing, which is, uh, sounds incredibly transformative and I maybe selfishly want to know more about it. If you tell us about that,

Ashana: Yeah, this is, um, this is my, uh, my baby, my new baby. we've been, I've been working on it for a number of years. Uh, it is called Celestial Alignment for Healing. We're getting ready to release our second beta test on this and then it'll be released to the general public. It, I, I wanted to create the ability for. Anybody, anywhere to have a full on sound healing experience, you know, um, even though sound healing is trending, sound healing is not always accessible to everybody. And certainly, you know, the kind of bowls that I play are not accessible for everybody. and I wanted to be able to, to, to create something that covered that gap. So even if you go to sound healing once a week and you're, you're working on things, you're working on a health challenge, you're, you want to feel more connected spiritually, you you're maybe working with anxiety or depression or struggling with something, you know, it's fine to go to a sound healing once a week, but what about all the days in between? You know, how do we stay entrained to those higher vibrational frequencies? And how do we learn to navigate healing sound? And when I say videos, I'm talking about like, you know, music videos with, with, uh, with And so I created this program. It's a seven week online program. You get to spend an hour and a half with me and my husband once a week in a community of, of souls that are on, everybody's on their own sound healing journey. And you get amazing support with incredible music and videos. We are watching people, and this is no promises to everybody.

I can't do anything, but I can just anecdotally tell you what's happening to people that are taking the class. We have people that are, uh, that have, uh, Gotten off medications that they've been on for years. People that have shifted from intense depression and anxiety to, oh, my God, I can't wait to get out of my bed every day because I'm having such a great life. We have people that are in touch with more joy inside of themselves, more clarity of purpose, more connection with the team . . So we're doing our second beta test. And then as soon as that's done, we're going to launch the full program to the general public.

Track 1: Is it live?

Ashana: Yeah, it's live, Yeah. The music. No, you get the music for yourself. You get everybody in the program gets to download it. They watch the videos that all of that is self directed and this is kind of bonus stuff in there. There's, there's bonus meditations and, you know, there's, there's instructional videos. If you want to watch them, there's a whole library of instructional videos on what is sound healing? What are crystal bowls? What is it doing? What's my pineal gland? You know, you've got all of that,

Uh, if you want it as a resource, it's available to you. What we're finding is, is that, um, it's the live classes.

People are like, Oh my God, you know, because we do, uh, we do intentional meditation with sound in the live classes. There's always, uh, some kind of teaching about the application of sound, uh, to, into your life. Uh, So we're, we're, we're working with sound to let go, to release, to open up the voice, to expand our awareness to, uh, and our ability to receive. So it's about deep listening. I mean, there's just, people have said to us that they never dreamed that sound healing could be like this. And, and then one person had said that, that their entire way of listening has changed.

Because of this, so, you know, so I, I'm, I'm super stoked about it. And I think what we're doing is, um, for your program is we're giving us a free download to anybody like this, one of the seminal meditations from this is a

free gift. And so all you have to do is just sign up, and then you'll find out when the, um, the beta test is, or we only take a certain number of people for the beta test. So, um, but the, the full program will be launched this year.

Track 1: . Amazing. congratulations.

And also thank you for, that sounds like a tremendous amount of work that you've put into creating that. I can't even imagine. I really get the feeling that a lot of people will deeply benefit from it.

Ashana: Yeah, yeah,

Track 1: you're going to play us

out. going to play you out?

Ashana: welcome.

Track 1: That was so beautiful. Thank you.

Ashana: Just a little sweetness.

​
I don't know about you. But for a long time. I've yearned to connect with unseen beings. I'm a very scientific person in some ways. And I haven't always believed that there are beings out there that look out for us

guardian angels ancestors or any other kind of angel. It sounds really great. And I've yearned for it, but it hasn't been something I've been able to create in my own life. What Ashana shared about how to invoke that kind of relationship. In such a practical and loving way, you know, the idea of you want to have a relationship with somebody you've got. Uh, you got to put in the work, you got to show up, you got to let them know that you're there. And I just imagined her sitting there for those three weeks playing her bowl, saying, I'm here, I'm here. Please show yourself to me.

It was very inspiring.

But the takeaway that has left me reeling a little bit from this episode. Is the realization that.

The stuckness I've been experiencing. The feeling that I just keep hitting dead end after dead end. As I try to bring various parts of my work and life. To a path that feels right.

May not be for some fancy cosmic reason.

We're storytellers by nature. We're meaning makers. And I think when things aren't working out for us, we often look for. meaning. Behind, uh, why things aren't working out. But sometimes there's just a really practical reason. That part of the conversation where Ashana and I were talking about. No, what is it that I need to do and address? To free up that energy so that I can be more in my creative flow. It was really powerful for me because as you heard, I realized what's been whispering to me is I need to clean my house.

It's not fancy. That is not a spiritual side quest. That is a very practical grounded of the world. Thing that I need to do to free up that energy. And I intuitively know that that is actually probably the biggest thing holding me back. So I'll leave this with you today. What is the thing that your soul has been whispering to you? That you have been ignoring. What's the thing you? need to address and deal with and tie up. Complete and create some closure on in your life. That you've been avoiding and what might be available to you if you just took a deep breath? Sat up straight. Put your hands on your hips, breathed in some bravery and tackled it with love and joy and grace.