Conroy said she would play them a little from time to time, but not seriously. Then, she said, she went to her first relaxation session.
“I just never felt anything like that in my life. And I went to that quiet place,” she said. “And I was just amazed that it’s just quiet there. It just felt like this warm salve like warm honey, or just something just coating and calming and relaxing my head because it does affect your entire nervous system and calms and relaxes it.”
In her sessions, participants lay around a dimly lit room in a circle while she causes the wide, crystal quartz to vibrate and emit a low frequency sound.
Conroy said she has been referred to as the Led Zeppelin of bowls, playing them more intensely than some.
“Everybody plays them differently, and that’s fine,” she said. “The way I play them isn’t for everybody, either. “Not only are they healing and balancing and relaxing and all that, but my main mission and sharing them is to take people to that deep meditative state, to that space where it's just like, this little chatter just goes away, and you're just left in this quiet and it's amazing place to be in. And not many people get that kind of a timeout in their life.”
Aside from leaving the stress of everyday life behind, Conroy said she has heard other benefits her clients have received from a bowl session.
“I’ve gotten so many comments and testimonials over the years, everything from the miraculous happening in one session to ‘it just makes me feel happy’” she said.
For instance, she said she recently did a session for a group of eighth graders at a middle school in Lexington who are learning different ways to meditate and relax. After the session she said one of the students who had an injured leg reported less pain walking.
Conroy’s clients have also reported finding relief from ailments affecting their vocal cordsand lungs.
She said when playing the bowls she intends for the vibrations to find the areas in each person that are in an imbalance or disharmony.
“It’s almost like a little seek and destroy mission, like hot spots,” she said. “That’s what I envision as I’m playing the bowls, is that they’re just going out and finding those areas, whether it’s physical or emotional–it can be very emotional.”
Conroy said sometimes after a class people might cry because the time out can bring up past memories or trauma, but also can bring up creativity.“
“It’s the good, the bad and the ugly that can come up,” she said. “I tell people, something unpleasant does come up, just look at it as an opportunity to clear it, because that's why it's coming up, it's giving you that opportunity to release some of it.”
