Brussels, Belgium - 16 November 2019
1. Gong Practitioner, Fiona Crossley, playing the gongs during sound bathing session
2. Pan left sound bathing participants laying on floor while Crossley plays the gongs
3. Participants wearing eye masks, laying still on floor
4. Crossley playing the gongs
5. Participant laying on floor while gong music is being played
6. Crossley playing gong
7. Participants laying on floor while gong music is being played
8. Various Crossley playing gong
Brussels, Belgium - 8 November 2019
9. Crossley talking to man at EU quarter's Cinquantenaire Park
10. SOUNDBITE (English): Fiona Crossley, Gong Practitioner, Soul Sound Yoga Brussels:
"With stress, trauma and a lot of work our optimal frequency gets depleted. So what the sound does it aims to bring us back to our optimal frequency and it does this through entrainment – through rhythm, through frequency."
Brussels, Belgium - 16 November 2019
11. Close of mat and gong instruments
12. Crossley playing gong while participants are laying on floor
13. Close of participant during gong session
Brussels, Belgium - 8 November 2019
14. SOUNDBITE (English): Fiona Crossley, Gong Practitioner, Soul Sound Yoga Brussels:
"When you address yourself to a doctor, generally speaking they will maybe offer you some antidepressants, some sleeping pills for these types of syndromes: sleeplessness, insomnia, anxiety, post-traumatic stress syndrome. The problem with those drugs is that it's very difficult then to get off them, there are secondary effects. So more and more people are reading up on how they can heal themselves through herbal medicine, alternative therapies, homeopathy."
Brussels, Belgium - 16 November 2019
15. Various Crossley playing bells and walking through room at the end of gong session
16. Gong session participants rubbing their hands at the end of gong session
17. Gong Bath participant, Angelique De Clercq, talking to another woman
18. SOUNDBITE (English): Angelique De Clercq, Gong Bath participant:
"It has for me specifically a very relaxing effect. And I always feel very much balanced and relaxed when I come out of a gong bath."
Brussels, Belgium - 10 November 2019
19. Priest welcoming church-goers at Domenican church
20. People listening to organ music concert at Domenican church
21. Musician playing the organ during organ meditation
22. Various people listening to organ meditation
23. Tilt-down musician playing organ
24. Man listening to organ music at church
Brussels, Belgium - 6 November 2019
25. Brussels Dominicans Community Prior, Mark Butaye, speaking from church library
26. SOUNDBITE (English): Mark Butaye, Brussels Dominicans Community Prior:
"I thought for our celebrations on Sunday evening it would be nice to have a meditation with organ before Mass so that people who want to go to church on Sunday - but many people do not go to Mass but they want to go to church, so to be silent, to hear, to listen, to be comfort (comfortable), to be relaxed, to pray - so that they would have the possibility to listen to the organ."
Brussels, Belgium - 10 November 2019
27. Wide people listening to organ meditation at Dominican church
28. Close of paper in listener's hand
29. Musician playing the organ
30. Close of church candles
Brussels, Belgium - 6 November 2019
31. SOUNDBITE (English): Mark Butaye, Brussels Dominicans Community Prior:
"Music is a beauty. It helps us to transcend ourselves, to come out of ourselves and to listen to what a composer gives us."
Brussels, Belgium - 10 November 2019
32. Various musician playing the organ
33. People listening to organ meditation. Among them is Dutch tourist Groenwold (this is his surname; name not given)
34. SOUNDBITE (English): Groenwold, Dutch Tourist:
"That's a good idea and I think it was for me also a good thing on this moment. I was half an hour in contemplation, in meditation and the organ music was very, very nice so I was at a good moment here."
35. Woman standing in front of burning candles at Dominican church, bells ringing
Brussels, Belgium - 15 November 2019
36. Psychotherapist Roberto Biella speaking at his studio
37. SOUNDBITE (Italian): Roberto Biella, Psychotherapist in Brussels:
"There's a great need for spirituality. There's a great need to go beyond the rational dimension. We've come to realise that rationality and technique alone are not enough. And so there's a growing need to access other dimensions that aren't necessarily immediately measurable or understandable but that would bring and promote well-being in all its forms."
38. Close of Biella's hands holding paper
39. SOUNDBITE (Italian): Roberto Biella, Psychotherapist in Brussels:
"All mind-body activities don't have counter effects. However they're certainly not the definitive answer against serious ailments that require a different approach and about which science has been progressing and evolving for decades. I'm thinking about serious psychiatric conditions such as psychosis, in particular, and obviously about all types of organic illness."
Brussels, Belgium - 16 November 2019
40. Gong bath participants chanting "om" meditation during session
LEAD IN
Time to de-stress in 2020.
In Brussels meditation sessions are now being accompanied by gongs and even organ music.
Marrying music with meditation is one of the latest ways that people are trying to cope with common stresses, such as anxiety and insomnia.
STORY-LINE
At a yoga studio in Brussels gong practitioner Fiona Crossley looks like she's the only one awake in the room.
She plays two oversize metal gongs while all others around her lie on the floor wrapped in warm blankets, eyes shut and covered in eye masks.
Being lulled into a relaxed state by vibrating sounds has become a familiar way to spend an evening in Brussels.
More and more people are choosing to attend a class like the one offered by Crossley, a gong practitioner and yoga teacher who runs Soul Sound Yoga Brussels.
Studios across town compete with each to offer what are known as "sound bathing" sessions.
Sound healing is an ancient practise boasting a long tradition in China, Himalaya, Nepal, Tibet and India. According to some studies gong playing dates as far back as 3,000 or 2,000 B.C.
Sound therapists in the West have rediscovered the practice for what they say is its unique ability to rock humans into a tranquil state of mind.
Crossley, who's been practicing gong therapy for the past five years and yoga for 12, explains the idea is that everything in life produces vibrations and the human body – with its high content of water - is no exception.
Whenever a stressful event occurs it disrupts the ideal mind-body frequency, so sound healing is necessary to synch back our brainwaves and stabilise them, a process some refer to as entrainment.
"With stress, trauma and a lot of work our optimal frequency gets depleted. So what the sound does it aims to bring us back to our optimal frequency and it does this through entrainment – through rhythm, through frequency," Crossley says.
Professionals and those juggling busy lives are turning to sound therapies as a way to manage stress and anxiety, says Crossley, whose clientele includes many expatriates to Belgium.
Sound bathing offers a gentler approach to well-being, without the side-effects of traditional medicine, the gong therapist says:
"When you address yourself to a doctor, generally speaking they will maybe offer you some antidepressants, some sleeping pills for these types of syndromes: sleeplessness, insomnia, anxiety, post-traumatic stress syndrome.
"The problem with those drugs is that it's very difficult then to get off them, there are secondary effects. So more and more people are reading up on how they can heal themselves through herbal medicine, alternative therapies, homeopathy."
Angelique De Clercq attends sessions regularly.
"It has for me specifically a very relaxing effect. And I always feel very much balanced and relaxed when I come out of a gong bath," she says.
In the same European quarter where Crossley holds her gong sessions, organ music soars to the high ceiling of the Dominican's church in Brussels.
Every Sunday at six in the evening anyone can sit on the church benches and enjoy the organ concert offered by a professional organ musician.
The concert is open to everyone, Catholics, non-Catholics and non-religious people. For a full half an hour organ music is being played at the Dominicans church to help people find introspection and peace of mind.
Mark Butaye is the Community Prior of Dominicans in Brussels. It was his idea to open the church to the weekly organ meditations fifteen years ago.
"I thought for our celebrations on Sunday evening it would be nice to have a meditation with organ before Mass so that people who want to go to church on Sunday - but many people do not go to Mass but they want to go to church, so to be silent, to hear, to listen, to be comfort (comfortable), to be relaxed, to pray - so that they would have the possibility to listen to the organ," Butaye explains.
Week after week the public keeps on coming and enjoying the music by organists who come from all over Belgium.
The organ meditation offers a peaceful time to be alone with oneself, the prior says.
"Music is a beauty. It helps us to transcend ourselves, to come out of ourselves and to listen to what a composer gives us," he adds.
Some participants live in the neighbourhood and leave after the concert. Some stay on to attend the evening Mass that follows. Others are tourists like Groenwold, a Dutch organ music lover who's visiting Brussels with his wife.
"That's a good idea and I think it was for me a good thing on this moment. I was half an hour in contemplation, in meditation and the organ music was very, very nice so I was at a good moment here," Groenwold says.
Roberto Biella is an Italian psychologist and psychotherapist who works with patients in Brussels in Italian, French and English. He says the need for introspection is not at all surprising and responds to a pressing human demand to push beyond the limits of science.
"There's a great need for spirituality. There's a great need to go beyond the rational dimension. We've come to realise that rationality and technique alone are not enough.
"And so there's a growing need to access other dimensions that aren't necessarily immediately measurable or understandable, but that would bring and promote well-being in all its forms," Biella says.
Biella notes that anxiety is widespread in Western societies where competitiveness and the drive to succeed are pushing many to the edge. So to cope with such demands some may turn to a psychologist while others explore alternative therapies.
The psychologist says he welcomes the idea of sound therapy and other natural healing methods whenever they help individuals feel better. But he warns that alternative healing cannot be the definitive answer and that very serious illnesses must be addressed by traditional medicine.
"All mind-body activities don't have counter effects. However they're certainly not the definitive answer against serious ailments that require a different approach and about which science has been progressing and evolving for decades. I'm thinking about serious psychiatric conditions such as psychosis, in particular, and obviously about all types of organic illness," Biella says.
The psychologist warns that - although sound bathing may generally be beneficial - it should be avoided by those suffering from psychosis as it could have adverse consequences.
