Julie Jewels Smoot

Listening does not need to be directional to be valid. Sound can be present without asking the listener to go anywhere, see anything, or arrive at a particular experience. You are allowed to remain exactly where you are. Trauma-informed listening prioritizes choice.

With shamanic drumming, repetition is often used with an intention to induce a state or lead the listener into a particular experience. That is not the approach here. In this series, repetition is offered without expectation. It is not a technique. It is simply sound repeating itself. You are not required to listen in a certain way. You are not asked to follow the beat. You are free to stop listening at any time.

Many people are told, “There’s nothing wrong anymore,” while still experiencing very real pain. Scans come back clear. Tests look normal. And yet the pain remains. When the nervous system has learned that the world—or the body itself—is unsafe, it may continue to send danger signals even after tissue has healed. This is not failure. It is conditioning.

I do not use music to fix my Post-Traumatic Stress or my grief .I use music to stay in relationship with myself while healing unfolds. For me, sound has never been about bypassing pain or transforming it into something more palatable. It has been about creating a space where my nervous system is allowed to respond honestly — without pressure, without urgency, and without expectation.

Sound is often used to move us somewhere else. Toward calm. Toward clarity. Toward a different state. But sound does not need to create change in order to be supportive. In this work, sound is allowed to remain with what is already here. It does not pull the body forward or ask it to soften.

When sound is released from the need to make a statement, something else becomes possible. There is less effort in listening. Less reaching. Less searching for meaning. Sound does not ask to be understood. It does not require attention, analysis, or translation. It does not need to be followed from beginning to end.

Trauma teaches the body to stay alert, even when the mind wants rest. Because of this, practices that ask the body to override its signals — even gently — can feel unsafe. My listening philosophy does not ask the body to cooperate. It asks the practitioner to listen longer.

Many people arrive at sound healing with prior experiences of guided meditation, visualization, affirmations, or spoken instruction. For some, those experiences felt supportive. For others—especially those with trauma histories—they felt overwhelming, intrusive, or simply not accessible.