Speaker 1: Good morning. It is five forty five am. My alarm
Speaker 1: is set for six fifteen am. But my dog Ha's
Speaker 1: other plans for me this morning. Just letting him out now,
Speaker 1: and my plan is to lay back down with him
Speaker 1: until my alarm actually goes off at six fifteen and
Speaker 1: then we'll make some coffee and sign on to work.
Speaker 1: Be at work by six thirty am.
Speaker 2: This is finally a show about a sound bath practitioner
Speaker 2: in a strip mall in Los Angeles. All the sounds
Speaker 2: that you hear in this episode that aren't people talking
Speaker 2: are created by her, recorded during one of her sessions.
Speaker 1: My name is Kylie Augustine and I am a bath practitioner,
Speaker 1: but I have a full time job. So I grew
Speaker 1: up in Greenwich, Connecticut. My father is an electrician and
Speaker 1: owned Augustine Electric until he recently retired. My mom was
Speaker 1: a stay at home mom, and my whole family pretty
Speaker 1: much came from that region. My parents grew up as
Speaker 1: next door neighbors across the street from where I grew up,
Speaker 1: and my dad's family built the houses that they're still
Speaker 1: living in. So it's a little Augustine Empire in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Speaker 1: It's a silly place to live because of the income disparity.
Speaker 1: There are immensely wealthy people and then people who have
Speaker 1: been there forever like my parents and going to school there,
Speaker 1: like growing up there is just really it was a
Speaker 1: weird thing to navigate, and I really felt very free
Speaker 1: once I got out of it and went to college.
Speaker 1: I went to college in Boston. I went to Northeastern University,
Speaker 1: and my husband, Joe, went to Emerson College, and Emerson
Speaker 1: is also in the city of Boston, so it was
Speaker 1: very close in proximity, and that's where we met and
Speaker 1: we've been together ever since, and that's twenty years. Northeastern
Speaker 1: is a co op school, so that means you go
Speaker 1: to school for six months and have an internship for
Speaker 1: six months, so when you graduate, you have a lot
Speaker 1: of work experience, which is awesome and that's why a
Speaker 1: lot of people go there. They teach you how to
Speaker 1: write a resume and like really help you to connect
Speaker 1: with employers an interview and things like that. So for
Speaker 1: one of my internships, I went to New York City
Speaker 1: to Departures magazine, which is for Platinum American Express card members,
Speaker 1: and I interned there in the marketing department. And it
Speaker 1: was fun. I went to the events that they put
Speaker 1: on in New York and really learned what publishing was
Speaker 1: all about. And then once I graduated from college, I
Speaker 1: went to Travel and Leisure Golf Magazine. So right out
Speaker 1: of college is where I started my career in publishing. Hello,
Speaker 1: good to see you again. Nice to see you again
Speaker 1: as well, Nice to see you. Does anyone need to
Speaker 1: use the restroom before we get started? Okay, okay, yes,
Speaker 1: you can take your shoes off, put all your stuff
Speaker 1: over on the side, and just make sure your phones
Speaker 1: are on silent. So I moved to New York City
Speaker 1: with Joe right after I graduated in two thousand and
Speaker 1: six and was working at Travel and Leisure Golf Magazine
Speaker 1: as a sales assistant, and it was it was basically like,
Speaker 1: you know, making appointments for them, doing their expense reports
Speaker 1: and things like that. I was more interested in the
Speaker 1: marketing side of things, and that team allowed me to
Speaker 1: help them put on events and make marketing materials, and
Speaker 1: so that's more of what I was attracted to. But
Speaker 1: then in two thousand and eight, Travel and Leisure Golf
Speaker 1: Magazine folded and we had about I think it was
Speaker 1: three or four months of notice where we were still employed,
Speaker 1: but we didn't really have anything to do because the
Speaker 1: last issue was pretty much done, so we were all
Speaker 1: just looking for other work, which is kind of the
Speaker 1: best position to be in to be getting paid, have
Speaker 1: a place to go to look for work, and have
Speaker 1: that time to do it. I then moved from that
Speaker 1: position to the finance department in American Express Publishing, where
Speaker 1: I was the executive assistant to about six executives. But
Speaker 1: I quickly knew that I wanted to find something else,
Speaker 1: so I stayed in that position for about a year,
Speaker 1: and then I went to the American Kennel Club. They
Speaker 1: had two magazines at the time, the Gazette, which was
Speaker 1: for like show dog people, and Family Dog, which was
Speaker 1: for the everyday person who has a pet in their life,
Speaker 1: and I sold ad space for them and I also
Speaker 1: wrote articles. It was really fun. It was a really
Speaker 1: fun place to work. It was full of like really
Speaker 1: cool people on the publishing side, not on the like
Speaker 1: show dog side of things, and it was just kind
Speaker 1: of this like little little family that just loved dogs
Speaker 1: but also loved writing and being in publishing. So in
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, the Gazette folded and they had to let
Speaker 1: people go, and because I was one of the last
Speaker 1: people hired they had, they let me go. I got
Speaker 1: like three months notice, so I had a job, I
Speaker 1: had a place where I could go, and I was
Speaker 1: still getting a paycheck, but I was able to look
Speaker 1: for other work and I went a completely different route
Speaker 1: and found a job at the ASPCA. Welcome. So have
Speaker 1: either of you done a soundbath before?
Speaker 2: Yes, I have.
Speaker 1: I did do the Integatron did do that once. Also, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just there last month and it'll be a
Speaker 1: very different experience than that. And for you, what are
Speaker 1: you expecting from today? Do you have any idea of
Speaker 1: what you're in for?
Speaker 2: I will probably cry Okay, cool.
Speaker 1: And that's great, That's totally fine. That's happened before. The
Speaker 1: ASPCA is the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
Speaker 1: to Animals. It's animals, but it's like the opposite of
Speaker 1: the AKC. It's an animal welfare organization, and the American
Speaker 1: Kennel Club is more about breeding and showing your dogs
Speaker 1: and making a profit off of dogs, and there is
Speaker 1: not a lot of oversight over the breeding that they certify.
Speaker 1: So I started at the ASPCA as a senior coordinator
Speaker 1: in the development department, so I was working on fundraising.
Speaker 1: People most know the ASPCA or recognize the ASPCA from
Speaker 1: the Sarah McLaughlin commercials, but most would be surprised to
Speaker 1: know that they haven't aired since twenty ten. So that's
Speaker 1: just how much it sticks in your mind and how
Speaker 1: much it's impacted her career. Poor Sarah hi at McLaughlin,
Speaker 1: Will you be an angel for a helpless animal?
Speaker 2: Every day innocent animals are abused, beaten and neglected and
Speaker 2: they're crying out for help.
Speaker 1: But she did, she did. I mean, it was a
Speaker 1: phenomenal partnership and made so much money for us. So
Speaker 1: now I'm overseeing the fundraising content across the website, emails,
Speaker 1: direct mail, canvassing, telemarketing, DRTV. It was a lot of
Speaker 1: things that I had my hands in. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I really liked I really like fundraising and it's honestly,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's so rewarding. Everybody relates to animals and
Speaker 1: it's not a hard thing to fundraise around, Like I
Speaker 1: can't imagine fundraising for education or arts or Yeah, animals
Speaker 1: are pretty universal. I was seven years into this position
Speaker 1: at a nonprofit and I had zero work life balance.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a hobby. I didn't have like yoga
Speaker 1: or working out or anything that I could do to
Speaker 1: make me feel better. And it was just it felt
Speaker 1: very high stakes because it's such a big organization. And
Speaker 1: in January of twenty eighteen, I had my first panic attack.
Speaker 1: My first panic attack was in my chest. It felt
Speaker 1: like it was I was having a heart attack. It
Speaker 1: lasted a few days and it got worse and worse
Speaker 1: over the course of time. My husband, Joe had to
Speaker 1: travel for work, so I was alone, and I remember
Speaker 1: being in bed and not being able to physically move.
Speaker 1: I could not I couldn't move my body into a
Speaker 1: seated position. I had to roll out of the bed.
Speaker 1: And so Joe was like, go to urgent care, like
Speaker 1: figure that out. And I was like, all right. So
Speaker 1: I went to urgent care and they did an EKG
Speaker 1: and I think that's all they did. And they were like,
Speaker 1: you should go to the hospital, like you should go
Speaker 1: to the er if you're having chest pains, and I
Speaker 1: was like, ugh, all right. And I had two dogs
Speaker 1: at the time, and I had to like figure out
Speaker 1: boarding for them and drive them to boarding, which was
Speaker 1: not safe to do in my condition, so I ubered
Speaker 1: to the er. There were no rooms available, so I
Speaker 1: was in a bed in the hallway and so many
Speaker 1: blood tests. They kept a thing in my arm because
Speaker 1: they just kept taking blood, and I got a chest
Speaker 1: X ray and the nurse who did it was like,
Speaker 1: are you stressed out? And I was like yeah, and
Speaker 1: she was like stress can do weird things to you,
Speaker 1: and I was like okay, so she knew. I was
Speaker 1: there for like seven hours. I was crying the whole time.
Speaker 1: It was very emotional. I was very scared. I had
Speaker 1: never been to the er, and I was by myself
Speaker 1: and like texting friends and being like, I think I
Speaker 1: should tell someone i'm here, Like I don't, Joe's away.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do, and they obviously couldn't
Speaker 1: find anything wrong with me, so the doctor prescribed me
Speaker 1: pain meds and said I probably had a pulled chest
Speaker 1: muscle and sent me home. Also, the weird thing about
Speaker 1: that er trip was the moment I stepped into the hospital,
Speaker 1: the pain was gone, and I was like, I think
Speaker 1: I have to stay because I couldn't physically move earlier,
Speaker 1: But I feel okay now. So I was in such
Speaker 1: a weird emotional headspace. And then after that, through therapy,
Speaker 1: I was able to come to terms with the fact
Speaker 1: that it was a panic attack, which was really hard
Speaker 1: for me to do because it was such physical pain
Speaker 1: and I couldn't believe that my mind could do that
Speaker 1: without there being like a physical reason for it. I've
Speaker 1: had them since, and they have been similar, where it's
Speaker 1: pains in my chest or pain in my back, and
Speaker 1: they don't last as long as the first one did,
Speaker 1: and I know that's what it is when it's happening,
Speaker 1: and so I can sympathize with myself a bit more
Speaker 1: and take care of myself a little bit better. Now.
Speaker 1: Whoever I talk to about this is like, yeah, that
Speaker 1: happened to me. I went to the er. I thought
Speaker 1: I was having a heart attack, and it just blows
Speaker 1: my mind how common that is because it hurts so much,
Speaker 1: it's so scary, but it's so universal. There was no
Speaker 1: indication that this was coming because I'm a very calm
Speaker 1: person and I present like a very calm person, and
Speaker 1: even at work, like if I'm super flustered, I'm still
Speaker 1: like very solution oriented and I'm like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: let's figure this out. I'm just very calm, and I
Speaker 1: think that makes my head a mess because it's in
Speaker 1: there somewhere, and this was the way for my body
Speaker 1: to be like, help, help, help, help, all right. So
Speaker 1: I will be playing the bowls, the gongs and the
Speaker 1: chimes for about forty minutes. There's any combination of bowl
Speaker 1: sounds that sound weird to you, just know that it'll pass.
Speaker 1: I won't stay on anything for more than a few
Speaker 1: minutes at a time. It can be a relaxing experience.
Speaker 1: It can be emotional, visual, physical. You might feel the vibrations,
Speaker 1: so just let whatever happen happen. It's okay to fall asleep,
Speaker 1: but that's not the goal, so just try to stay
Speaker 1: present with the sound. There are other people on the
Speaker 1: floor and there's a street behind us, so you might
Speaker 1: hear some other sounds, but the instruments will hopefully dron
Speaker 1: it out. At the end of the forty minute, I
Speaker 1: will bring up some nature sounds and then help guide
Speaker 1: you guys back up. So after the er, I went
Speaker 1: back to work, and my dear friend Sarah was like,
Speaker 1: let's take a weekend away somewhere. So we went to
Speaker 1: the O High Valley Inn. It's a beautiful spa in Ohi, California,
Speaker 1: and it was my first time being there. I don't
Speaker 1: like getting massages, so at the spa. On the spa
Speaker 1: menu was a sound bath, and I didn't know what
Speaker 1: it was, but I thought to myself, it's a spa,
Speaker 1: it's going to be relaxing, and it's oh High Valley In,
Speaker 1: so it's going to be professional. So I checked it out.
Speaker 1: It was in like this beautiful corner room. There was
Speaker 1: a crackling fire. I'm in my comfy spa robe and
Speaker 1: I go in and she has me lay on. Her
Speaker 1: name's Elizabeth. She has me lay on a massage table
Speaker 1: on my back and she put a weighted blanket over me.
Speaker 1: And then the soundbath started. And honestly, because I had
Speaker 1: never done one before, I didn't know what I was hearing.
Speaker 1: Like I can't even identify what instruments were used at
Speaker 1: this time. I remember a whirling noise, maybe like a rainstick,
Speaker 1: maybe some drums, probably singing bowls, but I honestly can't remember.
Speaker 1: And it lasted about an hour. During the sound bath,
Speaker 1: I remember feeling like I was almost going into sleep,
Speaker 1: but coming out of it, I was very relaxed. I
Speaker 1: was very warm because of the blanket and the robe
Speaker 1: in the fire, but just like one hundred percent relaxed.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the soundbath, Elizabeth like physically
Speaker 1: helps me to sit up and she was like, do
Speaker 1: you hold stress in your chest? And I said yes,
Speaker 1: and she was like, she said to me, it's really
Speaker 1: important that you get yourself rose quartz and have it
Speaker 1: with you whenever you can, and also get sage and
Speaker 1: those things will help you. And I was like done.
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely interested in healing in whatever way that comes,
Speaker 1: whether it's soundbaths or acupuncture or reiki. I kind of say,
Speaker 1: why not. If it makes you feel better, then it's
Speaker 1: doing no harm. I love crystals mostly because I like
Speaker 1: looking at them. But when she said I needed rose quartz,
Speaker 1: I was like, sure, okay. I came out of that
Speaker 1: sound bath feeling so drunk, like so physically out of
Speaker 1: my body and just like my mind was wiped. I
Speaker 1: truly have no idea how I got back to my room.
Speaker 1: I like floated there and I got back and my
Speaker 1: friend Sarah was there and I was like, Sarah, I
Speaker 1: don't know how I got here. She's like, what are
Speaker 1: you talking about and I was like, Sarah, I gotta
Speaker 1: get rose quartz and She's like, let's go, and so
Speaker 1: I got rose quarts and age and it just was
Speaker 1: like it was kind of a life changing moment because
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, like my body just a couple months
Speaker 1: ago was saying help, help, help, and here my body
Speaker 1: was like, oh thanks, And it was just like a
Speaker 1: really nice It was really nice to feel that kind
Speaker 1: of healing, really and I didn't know I could feel
Speaker 1: that way without drugs. I come home from O high
Speaker 1: and really start thinking hard about what the stressors in
Speaker 1: my life are because I'm having a very physical reaction
Speaker 1: to it. And that panic attack really scared me. And
Speaker 1: Joe is incredibly supportive and was like, do what you
Speaker 1: have to do. So in the next couple months, I
Speaker 1: psyched myself up to quit. I just knew I was
Speaker 1: burnt out and it wasn't healthy, and I'm a completely
Speaker 1: capable person. I could find something else, and I allowed
Speaker 1: myself three months to kind of decompress and figure out
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do. In that three months, I
Speaker 1: had another panic attack, actually at a sound bath. I
Speaker 1: was really exploring sound baths around LA because I wanted to.
Speaker 1: I wanted to feel that again, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: understand more about it. And the thing is, they're all different,
Speaker 1: and I am glad I started out in Ohi with
Speaker 1: one because it was a very professional type atmosphere. There
Speaker 1: wasn't aside from Elizabeth kind of going rogue and telling
Speaker 1: me I needed to get a crystal. But that's not
Speaker 1: what you might discover around Los Angeles with soundbaths. So
Speaker 1: I was kind of shopping around and I found when
Speaker 1: I really liked, an eagle Rock called the Soundbath Center,
Speaker 1: run by a woman named Jamie who's amazing and she
Speaker 1: offers classes. So in twenty eighteen that October I signed
Speaker 1: up to take her soundbath class, which was over a weekend,
Speaker 1: and she, I believe, used to be a biologist and
Speaker 1: so she approached it from a very scientific angle, which
Speaker 1: was really helpful for me. Like she taught us about
Speaker 1: sound waves and how they impact your nervous system and
Speaker 1: things like that, and really kept chakras and spirituality and
Speaker 1: all that stuff out of it. And so it felt
Speaker 1: to me that I really understood what was happening physically
Speaker 1: to me in a sound bath, and I really I
Speaker 1: appreciated that from that class. After I took that class,
Speaker 1: I bought some singing bowls. I bought three singing bowls
Speaker 1: are made of silica quartz. They could also be made
Speaker 1: of gemstones. They look like a big bowl. They can
Speaker 1: be different sizes, different weights. They're all tuned to notes,
Speaker 1: and they are played by running like a rubber or
Speaker 1: silica mallet around the edge, similar to if you have
Speaker 1: liquid in a wine glass and you rub your finger
Speaker 1: around the rim makes a noise. And was just playing
Speaker 1: them at home for myself and for Joe and honestly
Speaker 1: my dogs. If you knew my dogs, they are psychos.
Speaker 1: And whenever I started playing, they would come into the
Speaker 1: room and lay down, and it was really cool to
Speaker 1: see it, like transcend species. They just send right out,
Speaker 1: take a deep breath in.
Speaker 3: Notice how your head and your shoulders feel, there's any tension,
Speaker 3: just to release it.
Speaker 1: Shortly after, I bought a huge gong. We played one
Speaker 1: similar during the class. And what's really interesting about this
Speaker 1: hobby is that I'm a very introverted, quiet person, and
Speaker 1: to take up so much space with such large, loud
Speaker 1: things is really like a departure of everything I knew
Speaker 1: about myself. But like I felt. So it felt so
Speaker 1: natural to do and so fun, and it was just
Speaker 1: a really fun thing to discover and explore. It was
Speaker 1: fun to discover that I liked making a lot of
Speaker 1: soothing noises. I never thought of it as an option
Speaker 1: for income, and I honestly still don't. It's something I
Speaker 1: just really love to do. I love doing it for
Speaker 1: people and having that interaction with them and meeting new
Speaker 1: people who are curious about it. But I'm still working
Speaker 1: at the ASPCA, and it's still a very rewarding job.
Speaker 1: I love knowing that I'm helping animals every day, and
Speaker 1: it's an organization that I am truly proud to work for.
Speaker 1: And I think that's because I am much more distanced
Speaker 1: from my job than I was the first time around,
Speaker 1: and I really have been able to leave my work
Speaker 1: at work, and I work eight hours a day and
Speaker 1: I do the best I can. But that's it. The
Speaker 1: main goal for me is for people to have their
Speaker 1: own experience, whatever that is. I always want to hear
Speaker 1: about it after and if anything, you're laying down for
Speaker 1: forty minutes, and that's time for yourself, that's something you
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't do otherwise, And it's comfortable and it's peaceful.
Speaker 1: I am in bed now. It is around ten thirty.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 1: I will be trying to finish the New York Times
Speaker 1: Spelling Bee today. I am currently at genius level, but
Speaker 1: aimed to get Queen Bee and then I'll do some
Speaker 1: reading and go to sleep. But it's the end of
Speaker 1: the month and I've been thinking a lot about the
Speaker 1: sound baths that I performed this month, and they were
Speaker 1: all really great. There was one for Mother's Day where
Speaker 1: someone brought their mom, which was really nice. A lot
Speaker 1: of people who had their first sound baths, some who
Speaker 1: were more experienced, but all had a great, great time.
Speaker 1: And I am especially grateful for being able to give
Speaker 1: one to my two nephews, who are thirteen and ten
Speaker 1: and happened to be some of the most supportive, curious,
Speaker 1: loving people I know, So that was really wonderful to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm just really glad that I can do this
Speaker 1: work and feel grateful.
Speaker 3: M