SoundMind Institute

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Wellness and Centering in Times of Crisis: A SoundMind Series for Solidarity


Thank you, to everyone who participated on Sunday, June 14th for our inaugural event! It has been a month since our first broadcast, and the positive feedback has been inspiring! We are thrilled to have the privilege to continue to provide free and accessible content from such an impressive roster of compassionate people.

To recap our first broadcast, we kicked off the series with an interview with Dr. Nicole Christian-Brathwaite, a Boston-based Board Certified Child, Adolescent and Adult Psychiatrist, about mindfulness in Black communities and how these tools can be used to combat some of the negative effects of racial trauma and microaggressions. She also discussed how mindfulness can help white allies look into themselves in a truthful way to better understand their own biases. We then spoke with Medium Cindy Kaza about how connecting with our lost love ones in the spiritual realm through meditation can help to restore us in times of grief. Following these interviews, we were able to then focus on how to actively engage in listening to other people, with the help of Mindfulness teacher Michael Baime. He then leads us through a restorative guided mediation session that prepared us for an hour of transformative breathwork with Aubrey Howard. Our first installment was concluded by Ian Sims, who offered us the healing harmonic frequencies of his rejuvenating sound bath. If you missed the last series, all of the videos are available on our Solidarity Series Webpage for you to explore and share.

“It is really special to have access to teachers on the Internet, during these isolating times. I felt so grateful to be able to feel as though Aubrey was right there in the room with me, leading me through Breathwork. And she was! I really felt as though she was there. In the past I thought, this would be something that I might not want to do alone, and I really felt as though I was not alone.” - Sue, 69, New Hampshire

Now, we are so excited to announce our next installment in the SoundMind Solidarity Series: SOLIDARITY SERIES SESSION II: SLEEP, DREAMS, AND PSYCHEDELICS DURING A PANDEMIC

This next installment will air in early August. It is sure to be a fascinating and informative installment that you will not want to miss. We have an exciting lineup of speakers to expect. Check out our list of confirmed speakers and topics:

Phil Gehrman: Insomnia and Sleep Disturbance During a Pandemic

Sarah Cohen: Integrative Medicine for Sleep Health

Jeff Guss: Dreaming, Psychedelic Visions, and the Unconscious

Robin Hall: Mindfulness for Sleep and Penn POC-Mindfulness Initiative

Aubrey Howard: Breath Work and Sleep Health

Make sure to add this event to your Google Calendar to be sure to receive the time and date announcement.

As always, we will also be posting the recordings of these sessions to our website, so that it can be accessible at any time. If you know someone who would benefit from this free content, and who might not have access to reliable internet, please reach out to us with your request and we will work with you to find an accessible solution.

We hope this series will provide an opportunity to recharge and reflect. We aim to provide time and a virtual space to explore the complex emotions many of us are having at this time. We will also interview experts to learn more about health disparities and equity concerns during COVID-19, how psychedelic medicine may be beneficial to heal racial trauma, and ways we can take direct action and be better allies. 

If you have the privilege of resources, please donate to help us continue to offer free and accessible content to Philadelphia, and beyond! Any donations received over the next 3 months to SoundMind will go exclusively to providing free and accessible tools for BIPOC, and other marginalized communities in Philadelphia and the surrounding areas.

We will be announcing more dates soon! Please explore our roster of guests, and review our first broadcast on our Facebook Page. Our individual sessions are now available on our Event Page.,