June Community Partner: The Coup
May 31, 2017
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July 4, 2017

Meet Alison DuRussel

SEPTEMBER 1, 2017

Meet Alison DuRussel

Healing can come in many different forms, a concept that Alison DuRussel has been playing with for several years now. You may know her from the very popular ‘Relax and Restore’ workshops hosted at Yoga Santosha, but as of late she is embarking upon something new.

Alison can now be found lugging what look like giant hat boxes, but inside actually contain impressively large crystal singing bowls. 9 bowls in total – of different sizes and sounds – the singing bowls are tuned to resonate with certain chakras to the listener. 

On Sundays, you can find Alison playing these bowls in what she calls a ‘sound bath’, referring to a beautiful session of being submerged in the resonating sounds that she produces. The sound bath is preceded by a restorative yoga practice, to relax the mind and open up the body to the shifting vibrations that the bowls have to offer. “Most of us are walking beings of stress.  This class on Sunday is mostly focusing on [the] restorative and slowing down,” explained Alison.

“So many of us in regular life [focus on the] to do list – instead of being in a place, and working on all aspects of the chakras and the sense of starting with the physical body.” Alison speaks profoundly about how she is able to help people in doing what she does. Offering up a litany of different therapies and lessons, Alison is a registered massage therapist, cranial sacral therapist, reiki master and yoga teacher.  She has now added sound healing to that list. 

“I work a lot lately in the sound healing aspect,” said Alison. “Working with the physical body and the emotional body through energy work and now incorporating that with sound as well.” She mentioned that in the state of playing the bowls, or teaching or massaging – she can often observe the subtle, yet powerful, changes that can occur in people. “I have noticed great shifting with my clients, first as I use the physical massage techniques, but even deeper more with sound, and even deeper in incorporating affirmations with that sound.” Alison remarked that the majority of the tension she sees are within the neck, shoulders, and especially hips. 

Her intuition has developed from an interesting background – Alison had originally embarked in a career as a pharmaceutical technician.  She worked in a few hospitals as well as a methadone clinic. “Seeing that aspect of western medicine and seeing a lot of even seniors coming in and seeing their health get worse, as opposed to better.

“Seeing young people in their 20s really getting frustrated and having anxiety attacks and depression. That is a majority of what you would fill.  Antibiotics and antidepressants.  And pain, there is so much pain that you fill prescriptions for.” She knew that she could help people on a deeper level. “It almost became my mantra, I know there is something better out there, I know there is something more out there and I just need to step into it.”

“I never thought I would be on this path, and I am so blessed for the opportunity to be here, to be doing this work.”