A Chat with Neda Boin (24.04.25)
Neda Boin offers a powerful reminder of the healing potential within our own voices in a world where performance and perfection often overshadow authenticity. Through a unique blend of music, intuitive guidance, and emotional exploration, she helps others reconnect with their truth, release deep-seated blockages, and find freedom in self-expression. In this interview, she shares the roots of her journey, the transformative power of sound, and the profound lessons she’s learned.
OSR: You describe yourself as a Voice Liberator. What does that term mean to you, and how did that path begin?
Boin: Voice Liberation is a powerful method of using the voice to release subconscious blockages and emotions. Using music as a tool, I intuitively guide people into a trance-like state where things that have been stuck for ages can easily be released. With Voice Liberation, we move out of the thinking mind and into the heart. We give voice to the suppressed parts of us so that what no longer serves us can be healed.
I think it began for me because I myself as a kid never felt the space and safety to really express all that was alive inside of me. This continued as a young adult, where I didn’t really dare to be honest and vulnerable in my relationships. I would keep everything in and would only share my joy. At the age of 21, when I was studying for my Bachelor’s of Music at the Conservatory of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, I had a lot of resistance towards the intellectual approach in music they had there. I felt a longing to really sing from my heart and truly feel the music alive inside of me, instead of just trying to perform perfectly.
After my second year of Conservatory, the Voice Liberation Academy came into my path. I first thought the purpose of Voice Liberation was just to free up my voice and reconnect to the joy of singing. But I soon found out that freeing my voice meant freeing my soul. Connecting to what my voice really wanted to express brought me to very deep layers within myself that I had been suppressing for a very long time. The song ‘I Release’ tells about the journey of releasing everything that was blocking my connection to myself and my heart.
OSR: ‘I Release’ touches on themes of generational trauma and emotional healing. How has your own healing journey shaped your music?
Boin: My songs are like a diary of my own healing journey. And I know it’s not just my journey. I know that when I go through something, it must mean that there are more people who experience something similar. So I write about it, not only to process my own feelings, but also to be able to support others going through something like that as well.
OSR: What was the moment you knew your voice could be used not just for art, but for healing?
Boin: I was 17 years old when I did a tour through Kenya together with a group of Kenyan and Dutch youngsters. We made a beautiful show about HIV and travelled through slums, orphanages, schools, festivals and even the Masaï tribe, to break the taboo of HIV by using music as a tool to connect. I think it was there that I already saw the power of using music not as an end but as a means. I saw the power it had to bring people together and start a conversation. What eventually got me fully over to the side of wanting to use my voice solely for healing and spreading love was when I was participating in the big TV show The Voice. There was this one moment where I was standing in my expensive designer dress, live on stage for millions of people, that I realised how every choice that was being made on this show was motivated by money. I had a long enough glimpse of fame to realise how empty that motivation was. I didn’t want to use my voice for that purpose. I realised so strongly that I only wanted to use my voice to remember and extend the love we truly are.
OSR: You’ve worked with prisoners using your Voice Liberation method. What has that taught you about the human spirit?
Boin: I always used to call prison a “boot camp for my mind”. I’ve learned so much from the prisoners I’ve worked with. They reflected everything that I needed to see and heal in my own mind. It’s been a very important classroom for me to see the true essence, and with that, innocence, of the men I met in prison. I remember one time when I was working in a highly secure prison in Bogotá, Colombia. We were singing a Spanish version of one of my mantra songs, ‘I Am Worthy’. I invited them to bring up all of the resistance and “proof” the ego might come up with, why this is not true. At some point, we changed the words into “you are worthy”, and one by one, I looked them in the eyes as we sang this for each other. They all broke down in tears. At the end, there was one guy who I saw was trying to hold himself together. I kept looking into his eyes and singing the mantra for him. At some point, I could see he was finally able to open his heart and let in the truth of this mantra. He completely broke down in tears, and it looked as though something extremely heavy was lifted off his shoulders. He thanked me so much afterwards, and that’s when I learned that this was his final day in prison. Isn’t that beautiful? For me, that was such a wonderful symbol of how we don’t leave prison by walking out the door. We leave prison by remembering our worth.
OSR: What advice would you give to someone beginning their healing journey through music or sound?
Boin: Give yourself permission to feel all that is alive inside of you. Don’t judge what is going on. Talk to yourself as you would to your best friend. Really become a safe space for yourself to feel it all. As another song of mine says, “You gotta feel it to heal it!”
OSR: How do you spiritually prepare yourself before recording or performing music intended for healing?
Boin: I become silent and turn inward. I then mentally step back and just hand over my voice. My intention is just to be helpful, so I know that when I step back and let love lead the way, all I have to do is listen and follow. For my retreats and workshops, I never prepare a set program. Most exercises just come to me in the moment. I notice that the less I am minding Love’s business, the more profound the sessions get. In my concerts as well, I never really have a setlist. I just feel what wants to be shared in the moment, and sometimes that is completely new songs that come up in the moment, or the words just fall away, and there’s only sound. Whatever it is, I know that when I let love lead the way, it’s always going to be incredibly magical and healing for everyone involved, including myself.
OSR: In your experience, how can music help us release what no longer serves us on an energetic or emotional level?
Boin: Music has the power to bring us from the head into the heart and truly get to the core of what wants to be released. In my retreats, for instance, I often do a type of exercise in pairs where we will first explore a topic in words. There’s always one space holder and one person who gets to really give words to what is alive inside of them. Even though I think it can be very helpful to use words, there’s always a huge shift when I invite people after a certain time to let go of the words and express the topic further solely in sound. When we move into sound, we are not expressing from our mind anymore, we are expressing from the heart. The pain they tried to intellectualise now has the freedom to express itself in authentic cries, shouts and whatever else wants to come up. We often end in laughter. It is so beautiful.
OSR: What does “liberation” mean to you personally, and how does it manifest in your day-to-day life?
Boin: Yeez, these are good questions. Liberation to me means to be who you truly are. To liberate means to release all that is blocking who you truly are. Who we truly are has always been there. It’s like the sun that is always shining. But when there are a bunch of dark clouds hovering over her, we won’t experience her warmth and light. The more we liberate, the more those dark clouds evaporate and the light of who we truly are is able to be experienced.
OSR: Have there been moments during your retreats or workshops that profoundly impacted you?
Boin: Honestly, every workshop and retreat is another deep dive where I’m always like, “Wow, this was powerful”. It’s different every time. There’s one workshop I did recently in Japan that comes to mind now; I never cried so much myself during a workshop! It was just so heart-touching to see how incredibly ready they were for this work. Japan tends to have such a timid and introverted culture, but these people came ready to break the silence that had been felt there for ages. From the first moment I started to play the piano and invited them to express what was moving inside them, they went for it in a way I had not seen before. It was like all of the suppressed emotions, not just from them but from many generations before them, came flooding out with full force. I get goosebumps thinking back on it. They finally got the permission to feel it all and release it all, and that’s exactly what they did. It was really one of the most touching things I had ever seen. Their rawness, authenticity and readiness touched me deeply.
OSR: What’s one lesson you continue to learn through your healing work and music?
Boin: That I’m already good enough and that Love has never left me.
Many thanks to Neda Boin for speaking with us. Find out more about Neda Boin on her official website, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and Spotify.
