Alison Mills-Long - Helping People Heal

THROUGH SOUND & TOUCH

By Natalie Downey

She sits on the floor of a dimly lit room, surrounded by bowls of various sizes. Moving her arm serenely to one bowl and then another, she gently strikes them with a mallet, and a frequency fills the air, flooding the

room in vibrations of confident calm. Patients exhale, relax their shoulders, close their eyes, and settle in to listen and appreciate the music of Certified Therapeutic Sound Practitioner Alison Mills-Long.

Growing up, music was always a part of life for Alison. She began formal training during childhood and continued even through her college years, starting with piano and then eventually decided to switch to the organ. “I realize now that it was about the vibration, but at the time I didn’t know the term ‘sound therapy’,” Alison explains. Drawn to the vibration of music and sound at an early age, Alison remembers standing beside speakers at college parties. “Feeling the bass was amazing,” she recalls. Alison received her B.A. in music from Agnes Scott College. While she had a strong foundation of love for music, Alison had no idea exactly how integral sound would be in her future.

In 2006, Alison experienced her first Reiki session.

“It blew me away,” she says. She recognized the power behind Reiki, a Japanese healing technique which uses hands-on techniques to move energy through a patient’s body to encourage both physical and emotional healing. At the time, Alison was volunteering with hospice patients and saw the potential for using Reiki with them. With a passion for helping people, she was able to use Reiki as a means to extend a hand to those around her and completed training to get her certification as a Reiki Master/Teacher and begin the practice in her own life.

At first, Alison practiced Reiki in her volunteer sessions with hospice patients, but a growing interest in private sessions led to her branching out and building clientele, and with it, continuing to gain experience with hands-on healing.

In 2009, Alison attended a conference on sacred sound and music led by the Edgar Cayce Foundation. Known as “The Sleeping Prophet” and the Father of Holistic Medicine. Her interest in Edgar Cayce, a popular writer and figure in the clairvoyance and dream analysis movements, can be traced back to an ice storm she experienced when she was young. During this storm there was no power, so her mom gave her a book to read about Cayce, and she became fascinated with the topic of dream analysis. Fast forward to the conference Alison found herself at, and she was brought face to face with sound therapy.

Naturally interested in sound and vibration, as well as alternative healing modalities, Alison found herself drawn to sound therapy, and not long after the conference she attended, she began adding Himalayan singing bowls to her Reiki sessions. “The singing bowls are kind of like cats,” Alison laughs, “You start out with one and then you keep collecting them.”

Sound therapy uses crystal and Himalayan singing bowls, chimes, tuning forks, and other soundproducing tools to help a person reach a deeper state of relaxation. As the rate of breath slows, the heart rate also slows, and then brain waves finally slow down. “A lot of people are stuck in their heads,” Alison explains. “When the body relaxes, it can do what it needs to.” While Alison believes she cannot personally heal another person, what she does believe she can do is create and hold space for them by creating the environment and offering prompts, coaching them, and being there for them as they do their own healing work. She is trained and skilled in how to use the healing techniques she offers, and guides her clients through the process as they open themselves to relaxation and healing.

For a while Alison offered her Reiki and sound therapy sessions on the side while she operated in the corporate world during the work week. In 2021, she accepted the opportunity to take early retirement. This opened up time to spend more on doing what she was passionate about. “This is where my heart is, in helping people,” she says.

Not long after retiring, Alison took an opportunity to set up a space in the office of her chiropractor, Dr. James Crawmer. “It has been an amazingly supportive environment,” Alison says. She had been raving about the healing power of Reiki and sound therapy to Dr. Crawmer for years, and the opportunity to collaborate with him in offering her services was the right next step. Alison and Dr. Crawmer often refer their patients to each other and Alison has recently begun playing her singing bowls in the therapy room of the chiropractic office.

While Alison loves using her skills to help individuals, she also has a heart for making changes within the corporate world by introducing her techniques there. As people return to the office after working from home for an extended period of time, Alison believes that this is the perfect time to make changes for the well-being of employees.

“The work environment doesn’t have to be stressful or inefficient,” she explains. With a background in project quality, and vendor management, as well as business continuity, Alison has experience in the corporate world that gives her the understanding of what kinds of changes are needed and possible. She is booking well-being workshops for the corporate environment and looks forward to seeing a shift in the corporate culture to embrace holistic health and wellness amongst employees.

Alison hosts monthly workshops, sound meditations, dream analysis workshops, and offers life coaching and neuro-linguistic programming. She also has a shop in her office where she sells Himalayan singing bowls, tuning forks, chimes, spiritual/wellbeing books, crystals, journals, and essential oils. “It’s like a metaphysical bookstore,” she explains.

At the end of the day, for Alison, it’s all about helping people. “When I’m able to bring peace to someone and send that energy through the room, it’s all worth it,” Alison says with a smile.

Contact alisonmlong@empoweredbysource to book an appointment or workshop.