About Shira
I have been blessed by spiritual experiences throughout my life. I felt a loving presence around me at times in my childhood when I was feeling a lot of emotional pain. This love lifted me up, and for those moments I felt joyous and expansive. These spontaneous spiritual experiences gave me the motivation and inspiration to do the deep emotional healing work necessary to feel that joyousness as my norm.
My personal healing journey taught me there are three parts of healing from emotional pain and trauma; feeling the feelings instead of running from them with the help of a skilled and loving therapist, sharing these feelings with other brave souls in a group to discover how un-alone I was with the shame/self-criticism/insecurities, and direct and personal experience with Spirit that loves us now and forever with unconditional love and acceptance.
Sound healing came to me unexpectedly in 1988 as I was doing a bodywork session with a friend who asked me to do something different. I opened up to see what would happen, and I suddenly was making Tibetan bowl sounds that I had never heard of before. At the same time these sounds were coming out of my mouth, I saw myself in an ancient amphitheater. Everyone in this amphitheater was making the same sounds I was, and I was directing these sounds to a person lying in the middle of the circle. It became clear to me at that moment that this was my path.. I started experimenting with people individually and in groups and was blown away by how powerful sound is for healing.
I got my M.A. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Humanistic Studies. I became licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist in 1992. I completed a four-year training in Bioenergetic Therapy, as well as training in EFT (tapping), Focusing, Non-Violent Communication, and healing trauma through Hakomi. I did bodywork for 15 years (massage, deep tissue work, and Trager) which gave me an on hands understanding of the connection between the body and emotions.
I have worked in psychiatric hospitals, been a program director for traumatized people in the inner city, team leader for a case management program for the mentally ill, and brought sound healing to various cancer facilities and psychiatric hospitals.
The Sounding Heart work was created out of all these experiences. It brings together the three elements I have found healed me and those I have worked with over the last 30 years. The Sounding Heart helps my clients do the deep inner work of facing their feelings, being with like-minded brave souls in a healing group, and having direct and personal contact with the Divine through the sounds of the voice and crystal singing bowls.
It would be my honor to share this work with you.
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