This Sunday is Imbolc, marking the beginning of Celtic spring – that threshold moment when winter hasn’t quite let go but spring is already pushing through.
Tomorrow I’m co-leading a community ceremony centred around the shift from Cailleach (the winter goddess, which I’ll embody) to Brigid, goddess of spring and midwife of new things. It’s a powerful symbol of transition, not a competition or a fight, but of of one energy bowing out gracefully so another can arrive.
The symbol that captures this time of year for me? Snowdrops.
These delicate, tiny flowers, push through dark, cold, frozen ground when nothing else dares. In French they’re called perce-neige (snow piercers). That’s exactly the energy of Imbolc: gentle but coming through anyway.
I’ll be bringing potted snowdrops to gift to people at the ceremony, I’ll bring some snowdrop essence too, and we’ll do a meditation with the drum connecting with the courageous “I’m emerging whether the conditions are perfect or not” snowdrop energy.
Here’s what I’ve learned from 6 years of co-creating Wheel of the Year ceremonies:
It’s changed how I experience the passing of time. Instead of fighting the seasons (I used to really hate winter) or barely noticing them pass, I’m actually in them. I know the wisdom of winter’s rest. I recognise spring’s emergence. I can feel the turn.
This isn’t about being more spiritual, it’s about being more present. More connected to the natural rhythms happening around and inside us. Learning from them, especially in a world that never seems to restā¦.
If bringing ceremony into your own life speaks to you:
There’s a whole chapter in The Beat of Your Own Drum on drumming and ceremony – including Wheel of the Year rituals, stories, and a blueprint for creating your own ceremonies, whether you are on your own or with others.
You can attend gatherings, or you can mark Imbolc (or any threshold) with a small altar, a small ritual, a drum, five minutes, and your own intention.
What’s trying to push through for you this Imbolc? What’s your snowdrop?
For over a decade, I’ve been teaching closing the bones, a traditional postpartum ritual involving rocking, massage, and wrapping with rebozos. I’ve worked with hundreds of women, trained over 1,000 students both in person and online across 30 countries, and continuously evolved my practice through experience, training, and intuition.
Now, I’m making a significant shift. I’m moving away from teaching the full traditional sequence and focusing on what I’ve discovered is most powerful: the wrapping combined with drumming. I’m calling this new approach Wrapped in Rhythm.
This isn’t abandoning the ritual, it’s distilling it down to its most accessible, intuitive, and transformative essence. Here’s how I got here.
The Evolution: From Complex to Simple
I started teaching closing the bones in 2014. Since I first started, the way I teach has evolved continuously, not only because I trained with a wide range of people, but because my own practice evolved over time, and is still evolving.
In the early days I taught a simple hip rocking, abdominal massage, and hip wrapping process. Over time I learnt more massage techniques, and adapted some of them to make them more effective, and learnt to wrap the entire body rather than just the hips.
By practising this ritual with hundreds of women, teaching it to over 1000 students, and continuing to train with a wide range of teachers of this ritual and bodyworkers, I developed my own unique way of offering it.
Fairly early on I added drumming, because, even before I understood the way drumming slows the brain down and modifies our state of consciousness, it felt right.
There were several defining moments in my experience that changed the way I practiced. For example supporting new mothers post cesarean, and finding out that I could adapt the technique, and omit the lower abdominal massage and still provide deep healing. Another one was first during the 2020 lockdowns, when I supported new mothers in pain (read more about this here), I realised that just rocking and wrapping could still be immensely helpful (this led me to offer my closing the bones online course), and more recently when I trained with Mexican Midwife Naoli Vinaver, whilst going through a mental health crisis, I discovered how incredibly healing the wrapping alone could be. I started sharing the wrapping more widely with my local community, and this led to the ritual being done often on peopleās birthdays.
I see a similarity between this evolution and how I originally practised when I first learnt Reiki in 2003: I thought it would only work if I had at least 30 min, had the person lying down on a couch and did all the hand positions in the right order. Then I read an article from a teacher who encouraged people to do just 5 min on someone sitting on a chair if thatās all that time allowed, and discovered that it could still be powerful.
Over the last 4 years, I have done a lot of impromptu closing the bones, sometimes having no rebozos with me, and borrowing peopleās scarves, sometimes doing workshops, sometimes doing just a 10 min taster by wrapping the hips in women circles. Last year I attended a local retreat. I only had one rebozo, and I hadnāt planned to demonstrate anything but I ended up doing some impromptu wrapping because people asked me. I was amazed when a man had a very powerful emotional release when I wrapped his shoulders, and I think he was as amazed as I was. These experiences have taught me that 5 min of wrapping can be powerful in their own right.
The Drumming Deepens
I started adding drumming to the ritual in 2014, because I did a group ceremony during which a woman was drumming in the background, and it just felt right. Over the last 13 years my drumming practice has grown exponentially, from drumming during closing the bones, to training to become a Reiki drum practitioner then teacher, to drumming during births (read about that here), to publishing a article on the effect of drumming during birth in the international journal of birth and parenting education. All of this led to the writing and publishing of my second book, The beat of your own drum, the history, science and contemporary use of drumming as a path for womenās wisdom, health and transformation. As I write this Iām in the process of starting some research with Prof Joyce Harper, Professor of Reproductive Science at the Institute for Women’s Health, University College London, which we will publish.
The Power of Simplicity
In 2022, when I was in the middle of a mental health crisis, I attended a 3 day long rebozo training with Mexican midwife Naoli Vinaver. She showed us how to the closing the bones wrapping with 7 rebozos, something I was already doing. However, she showed a slightly different version of what I had been teaching. In particular she wrapped the head and eyes like a cocoon (I had been avoiding wrapping the eyes until then, believing that it might make people feel claustrophobic), and she also instructed us to tighten each rebozo until it was tight enough for the woman, then hold it until she said it was ādoneā for each wrap. The combination of the tight wrap around the head, helping me to go deeply inwards, and being wrapped and waiting until it was ādoneā felt incredibly powerful, and healing.
A couple of weeks after this training, I shared this experience with 30 of my friends in a local community retreat, and I could clearly see how powerful it was for everyone.
After this I shared it as widely as possible, and I changed the way I taught closing the bones workshops to reflect my new knowledge.
Towards the end of 2025, I got the sense that change was afoot again and that I was probably teaching the last of the current version of closing the bones in its current inception.
You see Iām someone who loves doing new things, and I like what I offer to reflect my evolution. Iāve modified my teachings to reflect my evolution countless times, forever creating new teaching plans and handouts as the practice evolves.
In November 2025, I led a large workshop at the convention of women drummer. Being aware that closing the bones can lead to big emotional releases, I has asked to limit my group to 30 women. However, due to venue constraints, I was asked to take half of the attendees (50 women), whilst the other half did a drumming workshop in the other hall. I asked my friend Malwina, who is also experienced in teaching closing the bones, to join me in holding the space for the workshop. It was no mean feat, and I had to bring my entire teaching stock of 47 rebozos, and ask Malwina to bring 10 extras. In the end we had 55 women attending the workshop. I shouldnāt have worried because it was utterly magical. I led women in groups of three, to wrap each other with 3 rebozos (shoulders, hips and lower legs), and then to drum over the wrapped woman. Was it because most women there were already drummers, and skilled at holding space? The energy in the room was so beautiful and healing as they worked. Thanks for over 15 years of facilitation experience, I was able to respond in real time and make changes according to what was happening in the room. I also drummed, played the flute, and sang whilst women were being wrapped. It went better than I could have imagined. We even had time to show all the women how to wrap their own hips, and we finished singing and swaying in a big circle. Not only did it feel magical but I lost count of how many women came to see me after the workshop, and the following way to tell me it was life changing.
Why Wrapped in Rhythm Makes Sense
So Iāve decided to change the way I teach closing the bones, to make more room for the wrapping and the drumming. Instead of teaching a sequence of rocking, abdominal massage and wrapping, Iām going to teach the wrapping in more depth, with more options, and make more room for the drumming.
There are several reasons for this:
With my drumming work, Iām very keen to encourage women to drum intuitively rather than using set rhythms. This is because I use the drumming as a tool for self expression rather than a performance. When being asked about rhythms, I always answer that the best rhythm is an intuitive one that responds to the energy of the person drumming, or the person for whom you are drumming.
This is similar to what Naoli Vinaver said when people asked āHow fast, how long, at what amplitude should you rock or wrap the rebozoā and she always replied (something Iāve always done too): you just ask the woman!
Everything in my work currently is leaning towards more simplicity and accessibility, towards the fact that we already know what to do, we have just forgotten how to do it. In my drum circle, during one of the rounds of drumming, I ask if anybody is particularly in need of healing, then I suggest there people lie down, and that the rest of us drum over them. I purposefully do not give any instructions and people (including people who have never drummed before) always know what to do, and report that they found it incredibly powerful to find out that they can do this.
With the wrapping is it the same: contrary to the abdominal massage, which requires skill and correction, and a lot of practice to become confident, everyone can immediately do the wrapping, after just a few minutes of demonstration.
Combined together the wrapping and drumming are powerful. The wrapping provides a deep sense of nervous system safety, brings you back into the present and into your body. The drumming adds to this by putting you into a deeply relaxed state of consciousness (like a deep meditative state), and from this place, the body and mind can reset into a place of calm and grounding.
In the workshop I also want to cover both working on a mat on the floor and on massage tables so people can discover what works best for them.
With my desire to support more women to go from a place of intuitive knowing rather than structured learning,this new modality, which I called Wrapped in Rhythm, makes a lot of sense.
Moving Forward
The essence of healing doesn’t require complexity. It requires presence, intention, and trust.
By focusing on wrapping and drumming, the two elements that are most accessible, most intuitive, and most transformative, I’m honouring what I’ve learned from over a decade of practice and countless moments of discovery.
This feels like coming home to what the work has been trying to tell me all along: we already know how to heal each other. We just need to remember, to slow down, and to trust our hands and our rhythm.
The wrapping holds us. The drumming carries us. Together, they help us return to ourselves.
Why the Drum Reviews Your Year Better Than Bullet Points Do
It’s that time of year again.
You know the drill: grab your journal, make yourself a cup of tea, and write down your reflections on 2025.
What went well? What didn’t? What did you learn? What are you grateful for? What will you do differently in 2026?
And if you’re like most self-aware women, you’ll fill pages with thoughtful, articulate insights about your year.
You’ll make beautiful lists. You’ll identify patterns. You’ll set intentions for next year that sound really, really good.
Then you’ll close the journal, return to your life, and somehow… nothing actually shifts.
You’re trying to access body-held wisdom through the thinking mind.
And your thinking mind is the last place that knows what this year was really about.
Your Nervous System Has Been Keeping The Score
While you were managing 2025, your body was tracking everything:
Every transition that rattled your sense of identity
Every loss you tried to process while still showing up for everyone
Every moment of overwhelm you pushed through because you had to
Every boundary you crossed or failed to hold
Every time you felt joy and second-guessed it
Every rage you swallowed
Every grief you postponed
Your nervous system has a detailed record of this year. But it doesn’t speak in bullet points.
It speaks in:
Tension patterns in your shoulders and jaw
The way your breath shallows when you think about certain topics
The exhaustion that sleep doesn’t touch
The restlessness that has nowhere to go
The numbness that protects you from feeling too much
Journalling exercises asks your thinking mind to report on what your body experienced.
It’s like asking someone who watched a movie through a window to write the review. They saw some things. They missed the audio. They have theories. But they didn’t experience it.
Your body experienced 2025. Your mind just watched.
Why Cognitive Reflection Keeps You Safe (And Stuck)
The thinking mind is brilliant at many things:
Making sense of complexity
Identifying patterns
Planning and strategizing
Sounding articulate and insightful
But it’s also brilliant at:
Keeping you comfortable
Avoiding what’s actually true
Controlling the narrative
Protecting you from feelings you’re not ready to feel
When you sit down with your journal and ask “what did 2025 teach me?”, your thinking mind immediately curates the answer.
It gives you the lessons you’re READY to hear. The ones that make sense. The ones that don’t threaten your self-concept. The ones that feel manageable.
It won’t tell you:
The grief you’re still not acknowledging
The rage that’s calcified into resentment
The pattern you keep repeating because facing it would mean changing everything
The gift that’s sitting right in front of you that you can’t see because it doesn’t match your story
Your thinking mind loves you. It’s trying to keep you safe. But safety does not equal truth.
What Happens When You Bypass the Thinking Mind
This is where drumming becomes revolutionary.
When you drum, or when you listen to drumming, especially in a guided journey with intention, something neurologically fascinating happens:
Your brainwaves shift from beta (normal waking consciousness) to alpha and/or theta (meditative/trance state).
Alpha and theta are where:
The analytical mind quiets
The body’s wisdom becomes accessible
Symbols and images emerge instead of words
Truth that’s been stored somatically can surface
You access knowing that thinking can’t reach
It’s the same state you’re in during REM sleep, deep meditation, or moments of creative flow.
In this altered state, your body can finally TELL you what 2025 was about.
Not what you think it should have been about. Not the sanitized version. Not the narrative that makes sense.
The actual, embodied, messy, often surprising truth.
Why This Matters for How You Move Forward
The thing is about unacknowledged truth: It doesn’t go away just because you wrote a different story in your journal.
It stays in your body:
As tension
As exhaustion
As patterns you can’t quite break
As vague dissatisfaction with your life
As a sense that something’s missing but you can’t name what
And then you carry all of that into 2026.
You set beautiful intentions based on the curated story. You make plans based on what you THINK happened. You commit to changes that don’t address what’s actually asking to shift.
And then you wonder why nothing actually changes.
The body truth you bypassed? It’s still running the show.
The Neuroscience of Why This Works
Let me put on my PhD hat for a moment.
The thinking mind lives primarily in the prefrontal cortex : planning, analysing, narrating.
Body wisdom lives in:
The limbic system (emotions, memory)
The brain stem (survival responses, core regulation)
The vagus nerve (gut feelings, somatic knowing)
These systems don’t speak English.
They don’t respond to “tell me what you learned this year.”
But they DO respond to:
Rhythm (the drum)
Repetition (the steady beat)
Resonance (vibration in the body)
Trance states (alpha and theta brainwaves)
Symbolic language (images, metaphors, sensations)
When you drum with intention, you’re literally creating the neurological conditions for non-verbal knowing to surface.
You’re giving your body permission to speak in its own language.
Your body has been waiting to tell you things your mind wasn’t ready to hear.
This Isn’t About Drumming Being “Better” Than Journaling
Both have value. Both are powerful. Both have their place.
But they serve different purposes:
Journaling is phenomenal for:
Processing thoughts and making meaning
Tracking patterns over time
Articulating insights once you’ve HAD them
Planning and strategising
Integration work
Drumming is phenomenal for:
ACCESSING what needs to be known
Bypassing the defensive mind
Letting the body speak
Receiving insight rather than generating it
Dropping into truth that thinking obscures
The most powerful practice? Use both.
Drum to ACCESS the truth. Journal to INTEGRATE what came through.
Not the other way around.
How to Actually Do This
If you’re reading this thinking “okay, I want to try this, but I don’t know how” – start simple.
You don’t need to be a “drummer.” You don’t need a fancy drum. You don’t need to know what you’re doing.
Here’s a basic practice:
Set an intention: “Show me what 2025 was really about” or “What gift am I meant to receive from this year?”
Find a rhythm: Just a steady beat. Doesn’t have to be complex. Think heartbeat.
Drum for 5-10 minutes: Keep the rhythm going. Close your eyes. Let yourself drop in.
Notice what comes: Images, sensations, memories, emotions, knowing. Don’t judge it. Just notice.
Journal afterward: Not to make sense of it. Just to capture what came through.
That’s it.
The sophistication isn’t in the technique. It’s in the willingness to let your body speak.
Or Let Me Guide You
This is exactly why I’m offering a free drum journey workshop next week.
Not because I think you need another thing to do. But because I KNOW that bullet-point reflection isn’t touching what 2025 actually asked of you.
(and frankly because I find drumming a whole lot more appealing and fun than sitting down to write)
We’ll do two guided drum journeys together:
Journey 1: The Spiral – Walking back through 2025 with a guide who shows you what actually happened (not what you think happened). You’ll receive a gift or lesson.
Journey 2: Meeting Your Future Self – Traveling forward to December 2026 to meet the transformed version of you. She’ll show you what you need to know right now.
Between journeys: journaling, sharing, and space to actually FEEL what this year was about.
No drum required. Just curiosity and willingness.
Not because I’m promising magic. But because your body already knows what you need to know.
The drum just helps you hear it.
The Invitation
What if 2025 has a gift for you that you can’t see yet?
What if there’s wisdom in your body that your thinking mind keeps bypassing?
What if the reason you feel stuck isn’t because you haven’t reflected ENOUGH, but because you’ve been reflecting in the wrong language?
Your body knows.
Put down the journal. Pick up the drum. Let it speak.
Told us to be quiet, to speak when spoken to, to lower our voices, to stop making a fuss.
They took our drums and replaced them with clocks and beeping phones and metrics that measure everything except the beating of our hearts.
They took our drums because they knew: a woman with a drum cannot be tamed.
We used to drum to women into labour, our rhythms matching contractions, our beats saying you are not alone your body knows
We used to drum the dying home, steady beats that said it’s safe to let go we are here you are held.
We used to drum for the moon, for the harvest, for the grief that had no words, for the joy that was too big to fit inside our chests
The drum was our medicine. Our technology. Our prayer.
Then they took them.
Banned them first, when they wanted control. They called our drumming witchcraft. Burned the women who wouldn’t stop.
They removed rhythm from birth and replaced it with sterile rooms and beeping machines and women flat on their backs told to push on someone else’s schedule.
Made us forget that our hands once knew how to call forth the soul
And here’s what they knew that we forgot:
Drumming drops you out of your thinking mind into your body, into that place where you cannot be sold to or marketed at or convinced that you are not enough.
Drumming connects you to rage (call it hysteria, lock her up) intuition (call it irrational, dismiss her) power (call it threatening, silence her) boundaries (call it difficult, punish her).
Drumming makes you uncontrollable
And when women drum together?
When our hearts synchronise and our brains entrain and we remember bone-deep remember that we are not alone?
That’s when the systems shake.
Because isolated women compete. compare. comply.
But women in sync? Women whose heartbeats match? Women who remember what they are capable of when they move together?
Those women cannot be controlled.
So they told you: you’re not musical you can’t keep a beat you need training you need permission you need to be quieter smaller less.
They told you drumming is: New age nonsense Hippy bullshit Something only men do
They told you this because your drum is dangerous.
But here’s what I know:
Your hands remember.
Even if your mind forgot, even if you think you have no rhythm, even if you’ve never touched a drum
your hands remember.
Your grandmother’s hands. Your great-great-great-grandmother’s hands. The hands of every woman who came before you, drumming in the dark, drumming in the light, drumming the world into being.
So pick up your drum.
Pick it up and know that every beat says: I will not be silenced.
Every rhythm claims: I take up space.
Every pulse declares: I am here, I am connected, I am powerful, and I am done asking for permission.
They took our drums thinking they could keep us quiet.
But the drum lives in our blood, in our heart, in the pulse that moves through every woman who has ever lived.
They can take the drum from our hands.
But they cannot take the drum from our bones.
So drum, sister.
Drum like your grandmothers are listening
Drum like your grand-daughters are watching
Drum like the revolution depends on it
Drum until you remember who you were before they taught you to be small.
Drum until the ground shakes with the sound of women remembering.
Have you ever noticed how hard it is to think your way into calm? The more we try to stop the mind from spinning, the louder it seems to get. The drum offers a different path, one that bypasses the busy mind and leads you straight into stillness.
Every one of us carries within a deep well of wisdom, shaped by our unique histories, experiences, and bodies. While teachers and mentors can guide us towards possibilities we may not yet see, true transformation begins when we are supported in accessing our own inner knowing.
There are many doorways to this inner wisdom: journaling, creative expression, meditation, body awareness, mindful movement, being in nature. All of these practices share one thing : they bring us back to the present moment. They quiet the mindās noise so we can hear the whispers of intuition and connect to the bodyās intelligence.
Iāve explored many of these doorways myself : daily walks in nature, year-round wild swimming (even with water near freezing cold), 5Rhythms dancing, doodle journaling. Each of them opens something valuable. But none have taken me as deep as the drum. As a woman with ADHD, my brain usually has too many tabs open, and nothing calms my brain as fast as drumming does.
Drumming feels different. It asks for no words, no technique, no analysis ā only presence. With every beat, the mind stills and the body listens. The drum entrains brainwaves, gently shifting consciousness, much like breath or meditation ā but faster, more effortlessly. It grounds us through movement and vibration, making it easier to stay in the now.
Why does the drum reach us so deeply? Here are ten ways drumming slows your brain down and opens the door to inner peace and wisdom:
Brainwave Entrainment ā Repetitive rhythm synchronises brainwaves from gamma and beta into slower alpha and theta states, the frequencies linked to meditation and dreaming.
Automatic Presence ā The steady beat naturally anchors you in the now. You donāt have to force mindfulness; it happens.
Physical Grounding ā The vibration and movement of your hands on the drum connect you to your body, shifting focus from thinking to feeling.
Heartbeat Resonance ā The drum mirrors the rhythm of the heart, signalling safety and relaxation to the nervous system.
Stress Release ā Hitting the drum provides an outlet for built-up tension and emotion, literally shaking stress out of the body.
Non-Verbal Processing ā Sound and rhythm move what words canāt. Drumming lets emotions and insights flow without overthinking.
Right-Brain Activation ā The rhythmic, creative side of the brain awakens, bringing intuition, imagination, and new perspectives online.
Community Regulation ā When drumming with others, your nervous systems sync through rhythm, creating calm and connection.
Ancient Memory ā The drum speaks to something deep and timeless within us ā a wisdom older than language or logic.
Playfulness and Joy ā The simple act of play lightens the mind. Joy is one of the fastest ways to calm an overactive brain.
Drumming isnāt about performance or skill. Itās about rhythm as medicine ā a way to return to yourself, to peace, and to the wisdom that was always there.
Iād love to hear from you: Have you ever used drumming to calm your mind and access your own wisdom?
Share your experience in the comments, even a few words about how it felt, or what you noticed. Letās start a conversation about the many ways rhythm can guide us back to presence, peace, and insight.
The first time I held a drum, I felt something ancient in my body. A recognition. Something that said: you know this.
And I did, or rather, my body did. My hands knew the rhythm before my mind. My heart knew this was medicine before I had language for why.
This was so strong that it led me to acquire my own drum soon after. Drumming grew in my work and life, leading to today: I drum daily on my own, weekly with two other women, monthly in my drum circle, and every 6 weeks in the wheel of the year ceremony (and many other times in between). It has taken such an important role in my life, my path and my growth that I have written a book about it, and that I’m actively working to bring more women to the drum
But what I didn’t know then was that my drum was dangerous. That the act of picking it up was an act of rebellion. That by drumming, I was reclaiming something that had been deliberately taken from women for centuries.
The patriarchy didn’t silence our drums by accident.
āThe many women I have drummed for during pregnancies, birth and postpartum, during difficult life transitions, loss, trauma, grief, illness, accidents, changes of circumstances, end of relationships and more, have told me that the drum spoke to something deep within them, something they recognised: a remembering. They spoke of feeling like they were inside of a temple, of feeling their ancestors around them, of being reminded of their strength, of receiving powerful messages of guidance from within, including messages from goddesses and the divine feminine.ā Sophie Messager
The Drums That Went Quiet
For thousands of years, women drummed.
We drummed women through birth, our rhythms matching the contractions, guiding them into altered states where their bodies knew exactly what to do. We drummed for the dying, easing their passage with beats that said you are not alone. We drummed for healing, for ceremony, for grief, for celebration, for the turning of seasons and the marking of life’s thresholds.
The drum was our medicine. Our connection to the sacred and to each other.
Then the drums went quiet.
In matriarchal societies, priestresses of the goddess used the drum to enter alerted states and communicate with the spirit world. The rise of patriarchy saw spiritual roles move to men, and with this, objects of power like the drum were removed. When the church consolidated its power throughout Europe, it called drumming witchcraft and heathenism. When colonisers wanted to control indigenous peoples, they banned the practice of traditional religions and drumming. When birth moved from home to hospital, natural rhythms were replaced with machines and protocols.
This wasn’t cultural evolution. This was systematic suppression.
Because those in power understood something crucial: women with drums are dangerous.
āAs we drum, we donāt just think differently ā we experience the world differently. This altered state of being opens doorways to new perspectives, allowing us to imagine and embody alternatives to the limiting narratives that have been unconsciously programmed into us. In essence, drumming doesnāt just challenge the system ā it transports us beyond it, offering an experience of what true autonomy and connection feel like.ā Sophie Messager
Why Your Drum Threatens the System
The patriarchy has a vested interest in keeping you in your head.
Overthinking. Analyzing. Doubting yourself. Seeking external validation. Second-guessing your intuition. Being “reasonable.” Staying small. Questioning whether you’re “too much” or “too loud” or “too intenseā.
When you’re trapped in mental loops, comparing yourself to others, wondering if you’re good enough, waiting for permission, you’re manageable. Controllable. Easy to market to, easy to exploit, easy to keep in line.
But drumming short-circuits all of that.
Within minutes of drumming, your brainwaves shift from beta (the thinking, analysing state) to alpha and theta (embodied, intuitive, present). You literally cannot overthink while drumming. Your thinking mind has to surrender to rhythm, to body, to the present moment.
And in that space, that drumming space where thinking stops and being begins, you access something the patriarchy desperately doesn’t want you to find:
Your own knowing.
The Wisdom They Don’t Want You to Access
Your body holds truths that the systems of power have spent centuries trying to make you forget:
Your intuition. That deep, bone-level knowing that they dismiss as “irrational” or “emotional.” The knowing that tells you when something is wrong, when someone is lying, when you need to leave, when you need to stay. Drumming connects you directly to this wisdom.
Your rage. The righteous anger at injustice, at being diminished, at having your voice taken, at watching other women suffer. You’ve been taught that anger makes you “difficult” or “hysterical.” But your rage is information. It’s power. And drumming lets it move through you instead of hurting you.
Your power. Not power over others, but power as life force, as creative energy, as sovereignty over your own body and choices. The power to take up space, to be heard, to say no. Drumming reconnects you to the power that you’ve been taught to fear in yourself.
Your boundaries. The “no” you’re supposed to soften, explain, apologise for. The needs you’re taught to suppress. The space you’re told not to take. The fawning. Drumming teaches your nervous system that you can be loud, take up space, make demands on the world, and survive.
This is why they took our drums. Because women who are connected to their intuition, their rage, their power, and their boundaries cannot be controlled.
āOne of the most powerful aspects of drumming and the reason people have done it since the beginning of being human is that it changes people’s consciousness. Through rhythmic repetition of ritual sounds, the body, the brain and the nervous system are energized and transformed.ā Layne Redmond
The Threat of Women in Circle
But there’s something even more dangerous than a woman with a drum.
It’s a group of women drumming together.
The patriarchy’s greatest tool is isolation. Keep women separate. Keep them competing with each other. Keep them comparing themselves. Keep them too busy, too tired, too convinced they’re alone in their struggles.
Because when women come together, when we sit in circle, when we drum with each other, something magical happens.
Our brains synchronise. Our breaths synchronise. Our rhythms entrain to each other. We remember, viscerally, that we are social animals. That we are stronger together. That we are not crazy, not alone, not too much.
We remember what power feels like when it’s shared rather than hoarded.
And we become ungovernable.
This is why women’s circles were suppressed. Why gatherings were made suspicious. Why female friendship has been trivialised as “drama” or dismissed as “just chatting.” Why we were made to believe that women are bitchy and not to be trusted.
Because synchronised women, women who trust each other, support each other, drum together, cannot be controlled by systems that require our disconnection and our compliance.
The Fear That Lives in Your Bones
Iām sure many of you feel it when you think about drumming, because I hear almost every women I speak to about drumming say this. The anxiety, that voice that whispers youāre not good enough, you’ll look foolish, you’ll be too loud, someone will be angry.
This fear isn’t yours alone. It’s ancestral.
It lives in your bones because it lived in your grandmother’s bones, and her grandmother’s before her. It’s the fear of the woman who was called a witch and lost everything. The fear of the woman whose drums were confiscated and burned. The fear of the enslaved woman who was beaten for making rhythm.
This fear was taught to us through violence, through shaming, through punishment. And even though you may never have been directly persecuted for drumming, your body remembers. Your nervous system carries the imprint of what happened to the women who came before you.
And today? The persecution is more subtle, but it’s still there. It’s in the eye roll when you mention spiritual practices. The “that’s a bit woo-woo, isn’t it?” The suggestion that you should focus on “real” things, that you’re not being a āgood girlā, that youāre being ridiculous, too much, taking up too much space, making too much noise.
It’s in the way we’ve learned to apologise before we speak. To lower our voices in meetings. To second-guess our knowing. To ask permission before we take up room. To shrink to make others comfortable.
The fear of drumming isn’t about the drum at all. It’s about the deeper terror of being seen, being heard, being powerful, and facing the consequences that powerful women have always faced. And are still facing.
But something is different now: the fear isn’t ours to carry anymore. We can acknowledge it – honour it as evidence of what our foremothers survived, and then choose differently. We can pick up the drum with trembling hands and drum anyway. Not because we’re fearless, but because we’re done letting ancient persecution dictate our present silence.
I can see it everywhere in how many women are being called back to the drum.
āThe rhythmic pattern of the motherās heartbeat is linked to feeling safe, nourished, and calm. Rhythm is regulating. Patterned, repetitive rhythmsādrumming, dancing, or swayingāare central to healing rituals across all cultures. ā Dr Bruce Perry
You Don’t Need Permission
Here’s what the patriarchy taught you about drumming (and most things):
You need to be “musical.” You need training. You need to be “good at it.” You need expensive equipment. You need a teacher’s approval. You need to earn the right.
All of this is designed to keep you doubting yourself. To keep you from starting. To keep you seeking external validation instead of trusting your own heart, your own rhythm, your own voice.
But you don’t need any of that.
You need a drum. You need five minutes. You need the willingness to make sound, to take up space, to let your hands remember what your mind forgot.
That’s it.
No one can give you permission to drum, and no one can take it away. The drum doesn’t care if you’re “musical.” Your nervous system doesn’t check your training before it responds to rhythm.
Drumming signals safety to your nervous system because this is something humans have done since times immemorial, together, to release trauma and connect with each other.
Every time you pick up a drum, you are voting with your body for a different way of being. You are saying: I claim space. I claim voice. I claim the right to be loud, to be heard, to take up sonic real estate in the world.
āThis physiology (the polyvagal nervous system) is not impacted through traditional ātalk-basedā therapies [ā¦] non-verbal therapies using rhythm, movement, entrainment are more often able to restore equilibrium. [ā¦] Many indigenous rituals employ drumming to stimulate the vagal brakeā. Simon Faulkner.
Drumming as Protest
Make no mistake: your drumming is political. Every beat says: I will not be silenced.
Every time you drum, you reclaim:
Space ā refusing to stay small and quiet
Time ā prioritising your practice over productivity
Voice ā being heard, not just seen
Body ā trusting its wisdom over external authorities
Lineage ā connecting to the women who drummed before you
Community ā choosing connection over competition
This is why the establishment will try to dismiss your drumming as frivolous, as “just a hobby.” They’ll tell you it’s new age nonsense, hippy bullshit stuff. They’ll suggest you’re being “too loud” or “disturbing the peace.”
Good. Disturb the peace.
The peace you’re being asked to keep is the peace of your own oppression.
What Happens When We Remember
I think about what the world would look like if women remembered how to drum.
If we taught our daughters to pick up drums instead of dimming their voices. If we gathered in circles instead of competing for scraps. If we trusted the wisdom of our bodies instead of outsourcing our knowing to experts and algorithms.
If we let ourselves be as loud as we actually are.
The systems that profit from our doubt, our silence, our smallness would crumble. Because those systems require our compliance. They need us believing we’re not enough, that we need fixing, that we should wait for permission.
Drumming teaches the opposite. It teaches: you are enough. Your body knows. You don’t need permission. You are powerful. You are not alone.
This is remembering, not learning. Not acquiring a new skill or becoming someone different. Just remembering what they made you forget:
You are powerful. You are wise. You have a voice. You deserve to be heard.
Pick Up Your Drum
So here’s my invitation: pick up your drum.
Your ancestors are waiting. The women who drummed for birth and death and healing and ceremony ā they’re waiting for you to remember. Your body is waiting to drop out of overthinking and into knowing. Your voice is waiting to be heard.
The patriarchy will tell you it’s silly, that you’re not musical, that it’s just a trend, that you should be quieter, smaller, more reasonable.
Drum anyway.
Because every woman who picks up a drum is a threat to systems that require our silence.
Every woman who drums is a reminder that we are powerful, connected, and ungovernable when we remember who we are.
Every woman who drums is reclaiming what was taken, speaking what was silenced, and becoming what they feared most:
Free.
āWhat we need most at this moment in time, to heal ourselves and to heal the earth, is to support women to stand in their true power. The power that resides within us, in our ability to trust ourselves and know whatās right for us, rather than abdicating knowledge and power over to the system. What we need is to support a feminine way of accessing knowledgeā¦ Drumming offers a way back in through the layers of parenting, education and societal conditioning that have eroded our self-knowing. Reclaiming this knowing is critically needed in a culture that conditions women from childhood to seek truth outside rather than within.ā Sophie Messager
Join Me: Drumming as Medicine
If this stirred something in you, if you felt that ancient recognition, that feeling of you know this, I invite you to join me for Drumming as Medicine: a 4-week live online women’s circle starting October 29th.
This isn’t about becoming a drummer. It’s about reclaiming a practice that regulates your nervous system, processes stuck emotions, and reconnects you to your inner wisdom, all in just a few minutes a day.
In this circle, you’ll:
Learn drum microdosing: a simple 5-minute daily practice that creates real shifts
Experience guided drumming journeys in community
Move through resistance with support (not alone)
Build a sustainable practice with accountability
Connect with women who understand
What’s included:
4 live weekly circle calls on Zoom (Wednesdays 4pm GMT)
Lifetime access to all recordings and extra course materials in my online course platform
Private Facebook community for ongoing support
Drum microdosing practice guide
Exclusive drum journeys
We start on Wednesday the 29th of October and the course costs Ā£195
You don’t need to be musical. You just need to be willing to remember.
“Imagine a practice that calms the nervous system, soothes body and mind, deepens connection and empowerment ā that’s drumming.” – Jane Hardwicke Collings
The Permission You’ve Been Waiting For
Since sharing my research on women and drumming and publishing The Beat of Your Own Drum, I’ve heard the same thing over and over from women everywhere – podcast hosts, conference attendees, random conversations in the street:
“I’ve tried drumming, but I’m not very good.”“I have a drum but don’t dare play it.”“I feel like an impostor.”“I don’t have enough rhythm.”“I’m too embarrassed.”“I don’t know where to start.”
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. I used to feel exactly the same way. Now, drumming is as natural to me as breathing, and I want to help you get there too.
Why You Think You’re “Not Good Enough”
The biggest block to starting a drumming practice isn’t lack of ability – it’s believing you need permission or training to make noise.
For most of human history, music-making, dancing, and singing were communal activities, integral to daily life. Nobody questioned whether they were “good enough” to participate. From African drum circles to Native American powwows, from European folk dances to Asian temple chants, music belonged to everyone.
The discomfort we experience today is recent – the result of a society that professionalised creative expression. We’ve moved from a culture of participation to one of performance and perfectionism, where fear of judgement overshadows the joy of creation.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth: for centuries, drumming belonged to women – until it was systematically stripped away along with our spiritual authority and leadership.
It’s time we took it back.
A Solution for Modern Overwhelm
Exhausted from overthinking everything? Seeking advice, reading books, trying to think your way to clarity while your mind spins endlessly?
Drumming bypasses mental chatter. Within minutes, the rhythm shifts your brainwaves, drops you into your body, and opens a channel to inner wisdom that words can’t reach.
It’s not about becoming “good at drumming.” It’s about remembering a language your body already speaks.
How to Start (It’s Simpler Than You Think)
There is no “right” way to drum. All you need is a drum (a frame drum with a beater is easiest, but any drum works) and a willingness to play intuitively.
Commit to just 5 minutes a day with intention, and you’ll see shifts within weeks. Earlier this year, I led women through a 4-week “drum microdosing” practice – 5 minutes of intuitive drumming daily. Every participant reported 50-70% improvement in the wellbeing aspect they’d chosen to focus on.
Ready to Begin?
Join my free workshop: “Start Drumming – A Workshop for Women’s Wellbeing & Inner Wisdom” on 15th October.
You’ll discover:
Why drumming was deliberately removed from women’s hands (and why reclaiming it matters now)
How rhythm bypasses mental chatter and connects you to inner wisdom
The science proving drumming reduces stress and shifts consciousness
Simple ways to start a practice – even if you think you’re “not musical”
How 5 minutes daily can transform your relationship with yourself
No drum required. No sense of rhythm required. Just curiosity and willingness to explore something ancient our culture forgot.
My new book The Beat Of Your Own Drum, the history, science and contemporary use of drumming as a path for womenās wisdom, health, and transformation, is now available from Womancraft publishing.
I want to share with you why I wrote this book.
Ā
The beginning
My journey with the drum is deeply rooted in my doula journey. I was first introduced to shamanic drumming at a doula retreat in 2013. I was utterly sceptical about drumming, convinced that it wouldnāt work (I even thought it was bullshit), until I experienced a shamanic drum journey during the retreat. I had such vivid visions, and loved how the drum made me feel so much, that I instantly wanted one of my own. My mother gifted me an Irish Bodhran, and the rest is history. As I write this, I own close to 30 drums, and I have been running drum circles for 5 years, I have drummed during births and written an article about drumming and birth in a scientific journal, drummed at 2 midwifery conferences, delivered talks at drumming conventions, and of course Iāve written this book.
There is so much to share, and I cannot fit it all in one article, so Iāll be writing more in the runner up to the pre launch and over the summer until the book becomes physically available in September. Iām going to share a brief version of my story and also some of the wonderful effects that drumming provides for women going through transformation (such as, but not limited to), birth.
After I got my first drum, the most challenging aspect was overcoming impostor syndrome, something I see in almost all of the women who start their work with the drum. We live in such a patriarchal society, where we are unconsciously made to believe that there is a ārightā way to do something, and that we cannot do it unless we have been formally trained in it. This leads to not feeling good enough and not daring to drum. Add to this the systemic historical suppression of womenās expression (including drumming) and voices, itās not surprising that drumming does not feel safe for a lot of women.
Looking back Iām really glad I experienced this because it gives me a lot of empathy and understanding for the women who come to me to grow their drumming skills, and who experience the same. 12 years down the line, drumming feels as natural to me as breathing. You can read part of that story in more detail (up to 2020) in my article called Drum healing, bullshit?
It all started with birth
Drumming became a part of the work I did with women as a doula, first during postpartum closing the bones massage rituals , then during pregnancy rituals and healings, and finally during births. I started yearning to drum for women during labour and births, eventually doing so in 2019, and then getting hired specifically for this purpose. It came completely from within, as I could not find anything written about it at the time.
When I decided to start writing this book, in the summer of 2022, I first intended it to be about drumming and birth exclusively, and planned to submit the proposal to the same publisher as my first book, Why Postnatal Recovery Matters. I am very grateful to my friend Bridget Supple, who not only suggested I broaden the topic of the book, but also suggested that I attend a zoom meeting for prospective authors hosted by Lucy Pearce of Womancraft Publishing. Not only did I absolutely loved Womancraftās ethos, but I felt a deep resonance for Lucyās approach. I wrote 4 chapters in a month to meet the proposal deadline, and both this and Lucyās feedback confirmed that the book needed to be much broader than just birth.
Since I left doula work, Iāve started to see in a crystal clear way how the coercive behaviour we see in maternity care is just the reflection of a deeper, society wide issue.
Hereās an excerpt from the introduction chapter of the book.
āSince stepping away from doula work a couple of years ago, Iāve come to the stark realisation that not only is the current maternity care system beyond repair, but that the thread of disempowerment weaves through every stage of a womanās life. Its pervasive narrative that begins in infancy, winds its way through our experiences of parenting, education and careers. This insidious message ā that we are somehow ignorant of our own needs and should defer to those who āknow betterā ā isnāt confined to any one sphere. It permeates politics, the medical and education world and is woven into the very fabric
of our society. From the moment weāre born, weāre subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) taught to doubt our own instincts, to question our inner wisdom. Itās as if society has conspired to whisper in our ears, āYou donāt know whatās best for you.ā This message echoes in the halls of schools, reverberates in workplaces and finds its way into the most intimate moments of our lives.
The result? A deep-seated, often unconscious belief that our own knowledge ā especially when it comes to our bodies, our choices, our lives ā is somehow inferior to the āexpertsā. This belief chips away at our autonomy, erodes our confidence in our own experiences and intuition. And itās a belief that Iāve come to recognise as not just false, but deeply harmful to the wellbeing and empowerment of women everywhere.ā
The heart of why the bookās message is: the drum provides us with a path back to our innate ways of knowing.
āDrumming, because of its ability to modify our state of consciousness, can help us get out of a rational, masculine-centric way of thinking and re-learn how to access a more intuitive, more feminine way of knowing. Drumming can provide an antidote, not only to the ever-increasing speed and business of our world, but also to the systematic destruction of womenās power and autonomy.
What we need most at this moment in time, to heal ourselves and to heal the earth, is to support women to stand in their true power. The power that resides within us, in our ability to trust ourselves and know whatās right for us, rather than abdicating knowledge and power over to the system. What we need is to support a feminine way of accessing knowledgeā¦ Drumming offers a way back in through the layers of parenting, education and societal conditioning that have eroded our self-knowing. Reclaiming this knowing is critically needed in a culture that conditions women from childhood to seek truth outside rather than within.
āAs we drum, we donāt just think differently ā we experience the world differently. This altered state of being opens doorways to new perspectives, allowing us to imagine and embody alternatives to the limiting narratives that have been unconsciously programmed into us. In essence, drumming doesnāt just challenge the system ā it transports us beyond it, offering an experience of what true autonomy and connection feel like.ā Sophie Messager
Here are the chapters of the book
Foreword
Introduction: The First Beat
1 ā Rhythms of Awakening: My journey with the drum
2 ā Echoes Through Time: A short history of women and drumming
3 ā Vibrations of Wellbeing: The science of drumming and physical health
4 ā Percussion and the Psyche: Drummingās resonance in brain, nerves and healing
5 ā Diverse Frequencies: How drumming supports people who are neurodivergent
6 ā Beating the āShroom: Drumming as an alternative to psychedelics
7 ā Sacred Circles: Drumming, rituals and ceremonies
8 ā The Rhythm of New Life: Drumming to support the birth journey
9 ā Tuning into Your Instrument: Finding a drum
10 ā Rhythmic Practices: Ways to work with the drum and drumming
Conclusion: Echoes into the Future
Appendix
I had the drum below made to carry the energy of the book, and women back to the drum.
I’d love to hear from you: What resonates with you about this message? Have you ever felt that disconnect from your own inner knowing? Or perhaps you’ve found your own path back to trusting yourself ā whether through drumming or something else entirely?
Write a comment below and share your thoughts with me. Your stories and reflections help shape this work, and I read every response personally.
Throughout history, women who made themselves heard, whether through drumming, speaking out, or simply taking up space with their voices, have faced silencing, ridicule, and even persecution. From ancient prohibitions against women using drums in various cultures to the labelling of vocal women as hysterical, to the recent banning of women singing by the Taliban, women have been systematically discouraged from creating sound and expressing power through noise.
Despite these restrictions, women have continued to find ways to make themselves heard.
The conversation series
Iām delighted to share nine powerful conversations with extraordinary change-making women who have experienced this tension between silencing and expression.
Our conversations explore how women can reclaim their voices and power through drumming, sound and through overcoming societal conditioning that has taught us to suppress our natural expression.
These intimate dialogues explore the questions that have been on my mind throughout the writing of my book:
How have you experienced the freedom or restriction to make yourself heard?
What relationship do you have with creating sound, whether through voice, music, drumming, or other means?
How has cultural conditioning around āappropriateā feminine behaviour affected your expression?
What has helped you reclaim your right to make noise and be heard?
The voices in this series
Iāve had the honour of speaking with nine change making and pattern disrupting women whose work and lives embody the spirit of making noise and claiming space:
Jane Hardwicke CollingsĀ
Rachael Crow
Lucy PearceĀ
Melonie Syrett
Kate CodringtonĀ
Liz Childs Kelly
Joyce Harper
Carly Mountain
Coco Oya Cienna-Rey
Ready to join the rebellion?
Starting September 19th, I’m releasing these conversations as a daily email series. Nine days of raw truth about what it means to make noise in a world that wants us quiet.
This isn’t just about drumming. It’s about reclaiming the power that’s been stolen from us, one voice at a time.
Click here to sign up and prepare to be inspired to make some beautiful, rebellious noise.
You may have heard of microdosing of plant medicine, a grassroot movement, driven by communities rather than corporations, where people take sub-perceptual amounts of a psychedelic plant or plant substance (for example psylocibin or LSD) without experiencing hallucinogenic effects. People who microdose report benefits such as improved mood, energy levels, cognition, creativity, and reduced depression and anxiety. Scientific research on microdosing is emerging, with some studies showing improvements in mood and mental health.
I microdosed psylocibin for a couple of years to support my mental health during a time of struggle. It had very positive effects very quickly, when antidepressants had failed me. It allowed me to become aware of negative thought patterns I was not previously aware of, and modify them. I wrote about this in my article Dancing with chaos: my review of 2022.
About a year ago, deep into the process of writing my book about women and drumming (the book will be published this year by Womancraft publishing), I started a practise of beginning my working day with 5 minutes of drumming. I simply set an intention, put a timer on my phone for 5 min and drummed.
Within a couple of weeks, I noticed the exact same phenomenon of awareness and reframing of negative thought patterns I had noticed within 2 weeks after starting to microdose plant medicine. I noticed a negative, judgmental voice in my head, but this time there was an immediate reframing of the negative thought, which had not happened before.Ā
One morning, whilst sitting down having breakfast, I started feeling grumpy because my husband had not expressed gratitude about the many things I had organised for him on his birthday the day before. In the past I would have verbalised this disappointment to him, and, as you can imagine, it would not have been received well. Nobody responds to criticism by being grateful. This time, as soon as the thought of unappreciation appeared, I heard a voice in my head saying āwhatās really happening here is that you arenāt appreciating yourselfā. The truth of this resonated so deeply that I sat there for quite some time digesting it. As I did this, I noticed that the tension and unpleasant feelings created by the negative thoughts had evaporated, as if by magic. Then, my husband appeared in the kitchen, and told me how much he appreciated all the things I had organised for him the day before.
In the process of preparing for a talk about drumming and womenās wellbeing I gave at theĀ convention of women drummers and makers in Colchester, UK, I came up with the term drum microdosing, to describe this practice I had discovered.
How drum microdosing works
When you drum (or listen to drumming-but I find drumming myself more powerful), your brainwaves entrain to the sound waves created by the drum. It is a phenomenon known as auditory entrainment. Put simply, when you listen to the drum, the speed of your brainwaves align with the speed of the drumming. The type of drumming I use, known as shamanic drumming, at around 3 to 4 beats per seconds, results in brain waves slowing down. That slowing down is associated with meditative states. With the sound of the drum, I can enter this deeply aware yet relaxed state very quickly and effortlessly, contrary to when I try to sit still and meditate. Students of mine have reported the same effect, including people who, like me, find meditation difficult, and people who are skilled meditators, who report going much deeper into their meditative state when accompanied by the drum.
For me, what clearly happens is that not only does it calm my brain and nervous system down from a stressed to a calm state, but it then also leads to an immediate loosening of my thought patterns, which results in creativity and solution finding. You know when you are looking for a word and cannot find it, and the more you scramble and try to find it, the more it eludes you, only to find that it often appears once you stop trying? Thatās what the drum does for me. I liken it to having a massage, but inside my brain instead of my body.
There is plenty of scientific evidence demonstrating this, so much in fact that the chapter on the science of drumming I wrote for my book was so big that the publisher asked me to subdivide it into two separate chapters!
If you want to see a cool example of this, watch this video which shows the effect of shamanic drumming on brainwaves, by drummer and researcher Jeff Strong, who has been studying the effects of drumming on the brain and wellbeing since the 1990s.
How to get started with drum microdosing
There are two ways you could do it: either drum live if you have a drum (or get a drum), or listen to drumming tracks designed to change consciousness. I find the live drumming more powerful, I suspect it is something to do with the more active aspect of it, and the involvement of movement, rather than the passive listening.
If you already have a drum, set an intention to drum for just 5 min each day. Set a timer on your phone for that time and drum.
If you do not have a drum, the drums I use are frame drums (drums that are made of a wooden hoops with a natural or synthetic hide stretched over it, and played either with a beater or by hand). It works with any drums, but these are easiest to use technically.
A really affordable frame drum option is the Remo Fiberskyn or Rennaissance frame drum. Anything from 12 to 16 inches diameter. They cost about Ā£30 to Ā£40. They do not come with a beater, but you can play by hand or make a beater by wrapping a couple of socks around a stick and securing them with string or an elastic band. Or you could look on Ebay or Facebook Marketplace for a second hand Irish Bodhran, some are available for about the same price. If youād like to explore drum options more widely, I have written an article called How to choose and buy a shamanic drum.
If youād like to try the drumming tracks: there are plenty of shamanic drumming tracks on YouTube or Spotify, and the best resource by far is Jeff Strongās Brain Stim Audio website, which has a wide range of tracks to change your brain state at will (free for 2 weeks without entering payment details, and around Ā£9 a month if you decide to carry on using it after that).
Regardless of how you do it, youāll get a more powerful effect if you commit to doing this practice mindfully, with clear intention setting and conscious integration, very much like it is done with microdosing substances.
How to drum mindfully:
Set an overarching intention for a cycle of about 4 for 6 weeks. What do you want to improve/feel better about? Perhaps emotional balance, creativity, clarity, or focus. Be specific.Ā
Choose a dedicated time each day for your drumming practice, for example the start or the end of the day.Ā
Before each session, take a moment to ground yourself, set an intention for this specific session, one that naturally flows from your overarching intention. Create sacred space in whatever way feels authentic to you (it could be as simple as lighting a candle, a stick of incense, or diffusing some essential oils).Ā
Keep a simple journal to track your experiences: note how you feel before and after drumming, any insights that arise, shifts in your energy or mood, and patterns you observe over time.Ā Like any medicine, drumming works best when approached with respect, consistency, and awareness.Ā
After each session, take a few minutes to integrate – sit quietly for a few minutes, or journal about your experience. This mindful container will allow the healing benefits of drumming to work more deeply in your system.
Conclusion
Drum microdosing offers an easy, powerful, accessible, and natural path towards better mental health, emotional balance, wellbeing, and personal transformation. Unlike plant microdosing, it’s legal, easily accessible, affordable, and has no physical side effects.Ā
With a small consistent, mindful practice, the drum is a wonderful tool for consciousness, expansion and personal growth. Whether you’re seeking alternatives to Western mental health approaches, plant medicine, getting unstuck, wanting to explore new ways of working with your mind, drum microdosing provides a simple path forward.Ā
If you would like to explore this further:
One-to-One Drum-Assisted Mentoring : personalised guidance combining drumming with transformational mentoring. These sessions offer a sacred space for deep insight and personal breakthrough, tailored to your unique journey.
Group Drum Microdosing Circle starting on the 23rd of July.Ā Join an intimate circle of women exploring this transformative practice together. Meeting weekly on Zoom over 3 weeks, we’ll develop our practice, share experiences, and support each other’s growth. The course will provide structure, accountability, and a sacred container for your journey into drum medicine.Ā message me if you have any questions.
My new book, The Beat of your Own Drum, the history, science and contemporary use of drumming as a path for womenās wisdom, health, and transformation, is available to preorder from Womancraft publishing
