Why I Became a Sound Practitioner as a Latina Mental Health Therapist

As a Latina mental health therapist, my journey into sound healing wasn’t just about adding a new modality—it was about reclaiming ancestral wisdom that colonization tried to silence. My certification wasn’t just professional; it was profoundly personal. Through this process, I found a way to bridge ancestral practices with Western psychology, especially in support of communities—like mine—who’ve long been marginalized in both.

Sound as Ancestral Wisdom, Not Alternative Healing

Long before the term “therapy” existed, our ancestors used sound—drums, chants, bowls, bells—to move through grief, honor life transitions, regulate emotions, and stay connected. In West Africa, the djembe drum called communities together to grieve, celebrate, and heal through rhythm and movement. Across Indigenous cultures in the Americas, sacred songs and drumming were central to ceremonies, grounding the body and invoking spirit. In Latin America, curanderas used bells, rattles, and chants in limpias (spiritual cleansings) to clear energy and restore emotional balance. Tibetan singing bowls and mantras offered vibrational healing for the nervous system and spirit.
In cultures like Mexico’s, grief isn’t something to suppress or pathologize—it’s sacred. It’s honored through rituals like Día de los Muertos, where love continues to live beyond death. Grief is not quiet; it’s vibrant and communal. It moves through music, color, food, and shared remembrance—reminding us that connection doesn’t end, it simply transforms. These weren’t “alternative” practices—they were our original medicine.

Yet colonization painted these traditions as “primitive” or “unscientific.” Western psychology became the “legitimate” norm, while ancestral wisdom was erased or monetized. Today, we’re still navigating that legacy. Healing has been gatekept, branded, and commodified—distancing people, especially People of Color, from the practices that once nurtured them.

Honoring the Courage of Holistic Practitioners

I have so much respect for holistic healers—sound practitioners, reiki workers, acupuncturists, herbalists—who create spaces of cultural safety and embodiment, especially where traditional therapy has failed to reach. In Latinx and other communities of color, many seek these forms of care long before considering therapy, because there’s cultural trust and familiarity there.

And yet, while these practices are powerful, holistic healers are often not trained to hold the full complexity of trauma or mental illness. That’s where I believe my dual role becomes meaningful—not to replace either form of healing, but to bridge them. To honor holistic work while also providing clinical support when needed.

Why Sound, and Why Now?

My first sound bath experience in 2023 was nothing short of life-changing. I had never felt such deep rest—like my body finally exhaled after holding so much for so long. It was the best sleep I’d ever had.

Since then, I’ve experienced sound baths in many forms—honoring the First Gen experience, integrated into yoga practices, during CEU presentations on sound healing, and as part of celebrating the Hispanic experience during Hispanic Heritage Month. Each one revealed how deeply sound can reach places that words cannot—offering connection, release, and embodiment.

But it wasn’t until I attended a sound healing session with ARY Retreats that everything clicked. I felt a deep knowing—I had to become a sound practitioner. In that moment, I recognized the missing piece in my clinical work: helping clients feel safe in their bodies after years—sometimes lifetimes—of being in survival mode. Sound offered a way in.

I didn’t pursue sound healing as a trend—I pursued it because trauma lives in the body. It shows up in how we breathe, how we sleep, how we connect. And sound interacts with the nervous system in ways that talk therapy alone cannot. Vibrations help regulate the vagus nerve, invite safety into the body, and create space for emotional release beyond language.

From a polyvagal and attachment-focused lens, this work supports healing not just cognitively, but somatically. And that’s what many of us—especially adult children of immigrants and emotionally immature families—have needed: a way back to our bodies.

Integrating sound into my practice has been profoundly powerful—not just for me, but for my clients. I knew I couldn’t keep this to myself. I want to share this with my community—because healing should be embodied, accessible, and rooted in something deeper than talk alone.

Behind the Certification: My Sound Healing Training

Decolonizing Mental Health Through Sound, Community, and Culture

To decolonize mental health is to stop treating Western psychology as the only valid path to healing. It’s about remembering that healing didn’t begin in clinics or textbooks—it began in community, in ceremony, in rhythm, in the body. It’s about removing the shame around grief and trauma, and seeing them not as “disorders” to fix, but as sacred responses to life’s complexity.

We already know, deep in our bones, how music heals. Think about a carne asada with family—when someone hires mariachis and suddenly, generations are singing at the top of their lungs. Or when the DJ drops a classic cumbia, bolero, or old-school reggaetón, and we find ourselves expressing through our hips and our voices. That is nervous system regulation. That is emotional release. That is ancestral medicine alive in the now.

These moments aren’t just fun—they are healing. They give us permission to feel, to move, to connect. In those spaces, we are allowed to be fully human. We grieve, celebrate, remember, and reconnect—all through sound.

My dream is a future where more of us—especially BIPOC practitioners—reclaim these forms of healing and transform the mental health field from the inside out. A future where therapy and ancestral practices don’t live in opposition, but in relationship. Where healing feels like home, not like a cold institution.

My Intention Moving Forward

As both a therapist and sound practitioner, my intention is to offer spaces that feel human, embodied, and ancestral. To normalize therapy without abandoning the wisdom of our roots. To remind my community that we don’t have to choose between science and spirit—we can honor both.

Sound has reconnected me to my lineage. It’s given me another language to hold pain and resilience, to meet clients where words fall short, and to create culturally rooted care that heals deeper than diagnoses ever could. Because healing isn’t just about understanding our past—it’s about remembering who we’ve always been.

With Deep Gratitude

I want to honor Annette with ARY Retreats for teaching an ethical, trauma-informed approach to sound healing that centers both safety and sacredness. And heartfelt thanks to Boheme Kreative for capturing this vision so beautifully through video.

Stay tuned for upcoming offerings where sound, therapy, and ancestral healing come together. Click here to explore upcoming events and workshops.