SINGAPORE – “In the last five to six years, I’ve been enjoying acting more than before. I see life through a completely different lens now,” says Singaporean actress Cynthia Koh.
What has changed for the silver screen veteran with well over 30 years of acting experience? In one word, it is “consciousness”.
talk to Yahoo Southeast AsiaCoe talks about her innovative two-week sound healing course in Spain, how stumbling on a wellness journey changed her, and how self-healing has positively impacted her acting career. He talked about Taka.
Koh’s Sound Healing Adventures in Spain
Ms Coe’s most recent adventure was a trip to Alicante last month to complete a Diploma in Sound Healing with her friend Yvonne. Before going to Spain, Ms Coe had traveled to Scotland to attend a group session of tuning fork sound healing.
She recounted one of the most impactful lessons of the course, an activity called “Sounding Your Name,” where she experienced a lot of emotional release and energy shifts.
“Our names contain so many vibrations. When we add our last name, it’s called the ancestral vibration.”
This activity requires you to keep calling your name. After ringing out their names throughout the morning, participants were asked to line up in two lines in the afternoon. The group then chimes in the name of a designated person who walks around the group as if in a choir.
This process involves having a conversation with oneself, which Ko found particularly difficult. As someone who has struggled with her negative thoughts, her self-esteem and self-justification, a lot of emotions came up for this actress.
“How many times do we say ‘I love you’ to ourselves? Very few, right?” she said.
“I realized that I don’t give myself credit for what I’m doing. I’m always telling myself that I’m not good enough, that I can do more. Even at this age, I’m always pushing the limits. I was very strict with myself, but during class I realized that I didn’t really value myself.
“My voice has become louder and clearer. I have also become more aware of my worth and my ears have become sharper and more sensitive to sound.”
Coe emphasized that for this process to work, one must be able to “be open to receiving healing.” During the course, she witnessed an elderly woman in her 60s who was suffering from mobility issues be able to stand longer and walk better.
How her self-healing journey helped her persevere
Koh first embarked on a journey of self-healing in 2011, and recalls being cautious about sharing her interest in energy healing techniques such as Reiki.
“I’ve always been a very impatient person. I can’t work with people who are slow. I have to do everything quickly. I used to interrupt conversations and try to finish other people’s sentences. “I had a habit of doing that,” she said.
Depending on the situation, Mr. Ko would sometimes get irritated before he understood. To control her impatience, she had tried the Bach flower remedy ‘impatiens’.
“I still get irritated sometimes. I still have a short temper, but I’ve changed. When something happens and I feel sad, I sit and meditate and ask myself, ‘Why am I sad? Why am I disappointed?’ ‘Will you?’
She now tries to understand the situation first before getting frustrated. Noticing positive changes in herself, Ms. Koh decided she wanted to learn more and she took her correspondence course until 2016. She also returned to practicing Reiki in 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the years passed, her intuition grew stronger, allowing her to tune into the energy fields of those around her and occasionally having premonitions.
She experimented with different techniques and cleverly shared nuggets of wisdom and personal reflections before sharing them publicly through social media platforms.
How energy healing benefited her acting career
Ko is currently a certified practitioner in healing practices such as Reiki, Bach Flower Remedies, and most recently, Sound Healing.
She describes her journey of self-healing as a “personal ecosystem” that allows her to add depth to her acting.
Every time Ko worked on a new script, she looked at the 38 Bach flower remedies categorized into seven emotional areas and asked, “Which Bach flower would be appropriate for this role?” She finds the process enjoyable, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.
“I’m so happy to be able to do this healing work. Sometimes I just talk to the universe and say, ‘Okay, I’m going to do this role. I wasn’t inspired, so show me something.'”
Ms. Ko also draws inspiration from her work as an energy healer and therapist. She sometimes referenced stories from her clients when building the characters for her roles.
Or the 49-year-old would go to a cafe with a book and sit and observe her surroundings, or sit by her window and watch robins fly into her planter box. Moments like this always inspire me.
“Some people feel guilty about not doing something, but I don’t feel guilty at all. I think it’s an obligation.”
