It is officially autumn and we hope you are starting to experience some cooler temperatures. As we transition from summer into fall it as always nice to slow down. This time of year often makes people begin to think about pumpkin patches, leaves changing, and, of course, apple cider!

We are sharing a simple recipe that will be perfect for chilly evenings, while studying, or by the fire. We are also including a complementary printable for you to cut out as a reminder to make this warm beverage plus a few extra to give to friends, family, and neighbors.

Can you imagine, one day looking back on your life of over seventy-five years, and realizing you have walked a parallel path with extensive history? It is so important for every human being to realize that with life comes the constant ebb and flow of change, and if you are the type to resist it….maybe find a Life Coach and do some work around your resistance, if you’d like to experience more ease! Said in jest, but this week’s graduate has a compelling story of change, dreams, and blessings that created a lifetime of memories and experiences. This is the epitome of “living life”.

Llewellyn D. Howell grew up on a farm in western New York where hard work was the only mode of life he and his family knew. His father always worked a minimum of two jobs, which required him to work days and nights, so sometimes he wouldn’t even see his father. Although Llew developed many life skills as a farm boy, by the time he was seventeen, he was ready to move to something else.

His first dream was fulfilled when he earned two college scholarships, including one from Bakery Confectionery Workers Union of America, one of the few union scholarships given in the country at that time. This allowed him to escape to the University of Michigan! While he was there, he realized his next two goals. One was to teach abroad and the other was to find the small town of Bavaria. He shared a memory of keeping a photograph in the back of a boring German book, and he would often come to that page and hold the photo and think, “Someday, I’m going to go there.” At the beginning of his junior year, he transferred to the State University of New York at Brockport. He developed another dream: “I wanted to be a teacher. I loved being in the classroom, being with children all day, helping to shape their lives. I finally developed some steam in my academic work.”

Today we are sharing a breathing technique taught in our Yoga Teacher Training programs! It is commonly used during yoga practice and meditation. It can also be a great way to start your day, recharge midday, and unwind at the end of the day.  

It is the Ujjayi Breath or Victorious Breath. Ujjayi (pronounced oo-jai) breath creates a sound that helps synchronize the movements with the breath during a yoga practice. In the Yoga Sutra, Patanjali suggests that the breath should be both long and smooth.  

Begin by sitting tall and comfortably and you can close the eyes for more focus. Start to take deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Then, start to exhale like you are trying to fog up a mirror. Continue breathing like this. Notice the contraction you are creating in the back of your throat. Half way through your next exhale, begin to close your mouth while still exhaling like you are trying to fog up a mirror. 

Lauren Doyle walks through the door in a bright, royal blue dress, as cool and fresh as she is. I had the opportunity and honor to sit and talk about her experience of finding SWIHA after ten years of being immersed in the corporate world, which she says wasn’t a bad place, but she had the feeling she could do more with her life. I can also verify that Lauren is very funny— we laughed the entire interview— however, humor was another element that was missing from her life in this line of work. Down the road, doctors later diagnosed her with early onset arthritis and told her she wasn’t to do any strenuous exercise. After months of little standing, no cooking, and stuck in a bed, she realized she needed three things to be ‘full’.

“I need to be creative; I need mental nourishment, and physical activity.”

Lauren loved healing and working with tinctures and aromatherapy oils/options and she found herself asking one day,

“I love these earthly things. Why am I not doing that?”

 “I felt like my soul was dying.” [She laughs.] With her infectious smile and bright eyes, she continues, “Yes, I love being dramatic. But it was true: I called it ‘Soul-scouting' for the Soul that’s dying. [We both laugh] I was surrounded by people working the corporate ladder, and I just watched them live in fear and stress. That’s when I knew I could better serve my community. I was inspired to help people in this field, and the thing was, I knew I could help them.”

As Arizonans, most of us don’t have the luxury of a four-season year.  In fact, I am convinced we only have three seasons, Hot-Hotter-Hottest! We’re winding down from the scorching summer and will be transitioning into, what most of us call, the most beautiful time of year. It reminds me of the holiday lyric, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” How lucky are we, to have the most wonderful time and the most beautiful time, of year, at the same time!

Energetically, some of us are in alignment with the farming season. Maybe you feel like you’ve spent all summer working diligently, making changes, letting go of negative patterns or people you no longer align with. Even if you were able to spend all summer goofing off and you didn’t work on one introspective task, this is absolutely ok! However, on some level you are also in transition, making small shifts to get ready for the winter. At a molecular and soul level, your Being is preparing, even if the brain and ego are in auto-pilot.

There are so many tools out there, especially on the internet, that are uplifting and supportive for every personality out there. Grouped together below my top three favorite bloggers who share priceless insight for people of all ages, professions, gender, and interests! Maybe you are in need of receiving some extra encouragement, a laugh, or maybe you would simply enjoy some fresh information to keep you going through this time of transition and change! Remember, no one can support you as good as you!

Georgia Nelson spent over thirty years in the medical industry and remembers, as a little girl, that she wanted to be a nurse when she grew up. While in this field, she noticed she always got pulled back in to dermatology. When her sister was seventeen years old, she was in a horrible head-on collision that split her face open, leaving her face severely scarred. Georgia shared how this trauma affected both of them. “When you’re a teenager, damaging your face can seem like the end of the world.” Though her sister continued to have surgeries and as a team of doctors worked to diminish the scarring, Georgia noticed a transformation in her sibling that inspired her to help others with their skin problems. She has wondered if this was one of the reasons she found herself working in the dermatology departments throughout her career. Georgia became intimate with her own physical struggles, as she was diagnosed with cervical cancer and then later, basil cell carcinoma. This struggle also made her passion for oncology and hematology grow, as she came out a cancer-survivor!

At the age of 50, the pull toward dermatology and skin took over. Georgia decided to take a leap of faith and follow her dream into aesthetics. Her journey began with searching for a beauty school in Arizona. She had four schools lined up to tour, and Southwest Institute of Natural Aesthetics (SWINA) was the first one on her list. Commuting forty-five minutes from Cave Creek, she showed up at SWINA and remembers this, “I walked into the school and immediately knew my search was over. The staff offered me a facial and that experience was the solidifying factor that showed me I was where I belonged. That was September, and by December, I was enrolled, going to classes, and graduated in June 2016 with a Natural Aesthetics Practitioner diploma!”

It is back-to-school time all around the country, and we want to share a couple essential oil blends that will help make the school year a success! If you’ve never experimented with aromatherapy before, not to worry! It’s easy and we’ll help you find the things you need at the bottom of this blog! Remember, you can reap the rewards of a healing plant through ingesting it or smelling the aroma. Just be sure the way you choose is safe, and the plant form your decide on is meant for the way you’re using it. Some oil is topical only, while other plant material can be made into oil, brewed for tea, or just picked and inhaled! 

Learn from Great Graduate, Laura Hightower

Laura Hightower was told about Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA) when she expressed interest in wanting to learn more about herbalism to someone she knew. That led her to enroll and graduate from the Associates in Holistic Health Care with concentrations in Western Herbalism and Holistic Nutrition, 300-Hour Clinical Hypnotherapy and 100-Hour Transformational Reiki programs.

Herbalism was an interest of Laura’s ever since she walked into an herb shop at age 16. “I just found a natural connection to using herbs in order to heal naturally.” Reiki was something she had been doing since she was 9 and the attunements she received in her program helped amplify that. “I love how pain and excess energy just seems to effortlessly flow out of the body.” Pain is simply trapped energy and Reiki was the vehicle she learned to move it out. She had been interested in hypnotherapy ever since she went to a hypnotherapist when she was 20. She was guided by an ex-classmate who told her that her guides said she needed to take the nutrition program and learn a lot of valuable skills. It was that experience that led Laura back to school again for her Associates Degree.

After graduating, Laura created her business, Magickal Heart. Its focus is on inspiring others to grow and move past the things they have long-held onto so they can be empowered to change their lives to a whole, new level. She currently travels the Valley and beyond to see clients throughout Arizona.

The first word of the ancient Yoga Sutras is atha, which means NOW. In Sanskrit, atha is pronounced ah-tah.  In the yogic tradition, atha consists of two of the sacred sounds of ‘a’ and ‘tha’,  which are thought to be vibrational keys that unlock our chakras  -- the spinning wheels of energetic consciousness we all have within us.  When we say, or mindfully chant, atha the sacred language is said to unlock the portals of Truth (our 6^th chakra) and our Divine connection (the 7th Crown chakra).  

Not only does atha means NOW, it indicates a conscious decision to start something that will be practiced with a deep commitment, over a sustained period of time.  Often when translating the word atha it is explained as a term indicating an auspicious, or significantly special, beginning.

Atha could easily be compared to the decision one might make to do something as committedly as deciding to stop drinking alcohol. It doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes practice and a daily commitment.  The well-known phrase ‘One day at a time’ exemplifies Yoga Sutra 1.1.   

Forbes.com posted an article in 2011 that a new Gallup survey shows that 71% of employees hate their job. I’ve heard myself quote before, “So many Americans hate their work; why don’t they do something about it? I cannot be stagnant for long. If I’m unhappy, I zero in on the problem and implement change. I am a problem solver.”  Two years later, Forbes posted another article on why two million Americans quit their jobs every month, according to the US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. These are the top reasons:

• They don’t like their boss.
• There is a lack of self-empowerment.
• They don’t the like the drama of internal politics.
• There is a lack of recognition.