Mikaële Lagadec Patten
Listening as a way of life
Some paths unfold in a straight line. Mikaële’s has followed a different logic: one of attention, of encounters, and of a deep fidelity to what sound reveals. A French pioneer of sound therapy, she has spent more than a decade exploring how the vibration of an instrument can open, in the body and the mind, a space of stillness in which something new can take shape.
From beauty to sound
Before sound became her life’s work, Mikaële was a beauty expert for L’Oréal Luxe. Those years taught her a refined understanding of the skin, of touch and of the rituals through which we care for ourselves. They also left her with a lasting conviction: true radiance begins far beneath the surface. Sound became the natural continuation of that intuition. Where a cream reaches the skin, vibration travels further, into the tissues, the breath and the nervous system. Her Sound & Glow facial ritual, built around the tuning fork, is born from this meeting of two expertises.
A lineage of masters, a path of shared teaching
Mikaële trained over many years with some of the great figures of contemporary sound work: Dr John Beaulieu and Dr Joseph Schmidlin for therapeutic tuning forks, and Don Conreaux and Richard Rudis for the gong.
Her journey has also been one of shared teaching. At Lerab Ling, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the south of France, she organised and co-taught a training in singing bowls alongside Diáne Mandle. Between 2020 and 2022, she co-led several sound therapy retreats and trainings in France with Philippe Garnier. In parallel, she has trained practitioners in the therapeutic art of tuning forks through a progressive programme in five stages, which now forms the heart of the Sounds of Stillness collections.
The way of Reiki
Mikaële’s spiritual path also led her to Reiki, in its traditional Japanese form. She trained with Hyakuten Inamoto Sensei, a Japanese master whose teaching belongs to a direct line of transmission from Mikao Usui, the founder of Reiki. Within his school, Komyo ReikiDo, she received all the initiations and was certified as a Master Teacher. She has since initiated many people in France into this art. Reiki brings to her sound work a quality of presence and a gentle attention to energy that runs quietly through every session.
Her approach
At the centre of Mikaële’s work is a simple observation: the body knows how to find its own balance when it is given the right conditions. Sound offers one of the gentlest of those conditions.
Her approach draws on natural resonance, binaural beats, precise frequencies and the rhythms of biological cycles to invite the nervous system to slow down, to settle, and to rediscover its own capacity for regulation. She works with the tuning fork, the gong and the therapeutic drum, Himalayan and crystal bowls, and the voice. She brings them together in protocols of her own, sometimes enriched by other energetic signatures such as essential oils, crystals and sacred geometry. For the gong, often played in dialogue with the drum, she has developed a distinctive method of rhythmic phrases modelled on the biological cycles of sleep, which gives each session its structure and its natural progression.
This work is held within an ethical frame inspired by Carl Rogers’ person-centred approach: empathy, authenticity and unconditional positive regard. The practitioner does not impose a direction; they create a safe space in which each person can reorganise their own resources. Behind it all lies the contemplative framework of Tibetan Buddhism, which has guided Mikaële for many years and gives her practice its depth and its quiet.
Today
Mikaële’s work has been featured in Elle, Marie Claire, Vogue and Madame Figaro. Today she shares her time between Paraguay, Nepal and India, where she continues to practise, teach and write. Through Sounds of Stillness, she shares this experience with practitioners and seekers from around the world, through ebooks, soundscapes and live trainings.
The content offered by Sounds of Stillness is educational and designed for relaxation and well-being. It is not a substitute for medical advice or treatment.