SWIHA Blog

Crystal Valentina Price knows that personal growth is a lifelong game—and, often, that game involves some pain. “They say that all suffering has a noble purpose,” she explains, “and it wasn’t until I was completely exhausted of being the victim of my own story that I truly stepped up into owning my story and creating my own reality.”

For Crystal, this process of letting go intersected with a new aspect of her identity: parenthood.  “When I became a mother, I felt like I had lost a sense of who I was and was really yearning to rediscover my sense of Self,” she reflects. Through her yoga practice and yoga teacher training, she was able to do just that: “I have realized through this practice that all we have to do is show up! Energetically holding space for ourselves and others has the power to heal!”

Many of us will agree that one of the best parts of Winter is getting to cozy up to a nice bowl of soup on a chilly evening. So, it’s too bad that it is far too hot to enjoy such a dinner on a summer night, right? Wrong!

A Lighter, Cooler Soup—And Diet!

If you have a craving for soup, yet don’t want to overheat or overindulge, look no further than The Plant-Based Diet Meal Plan: A 3-Week Kickstart Guide to Eat and Live Your Best. This tome—which is part instructional guide on the merits of becoming a vegan and part cookbook—was penned by Heather Nicholds Rhn, a Certified Holistic Nutritionist whose self-described mission is to help “newly minted vegans (or veg-curious) fully nourish their bodies so they have the energy to enjoy their lives.”

Ask Cameron Belanger for some words of advice, and she’ll simply tell you this: believe in the process.

It was believing in the process that first led her to embark on her healing journey. It was believing in the process that helped her survive an abusive relationship and learn to parent more resiliently as a result. And it was believing in the process that shifted her focus from a lengthy career as a public-school educator to a new entrepreneurial venture as the founder and owner of her own private practice, Peaceful Healing.

“Anything can be achieved and can continue to get better by practicing the process,” Cameron explains. “I have learned and practiced teaching, mothering, breathing, and pushing my body. Every day allows me to refine myself in my professional and personal life.”

You know the drill. It’s 8:00 AM and already 96°F, the sun is beating down mercilessly through your window, and you can’t remember a time before you woke up feeling like a pajama-clad puddle of perspiration…

Ah, yes, summer is here! And with it comes the best of times—dreamy sunsets, the smell of fresh-cut lawns, road trips to memorable locales—and the worst of times—like heat waves so abysmal they can make even the most enthusiastic Coppertone babies flee from the sight of the sun.

If you’re facing oppressive heat this summer, you may be tempted to lock yourself inside, crank the ceiling fan, and post up on your sofa with Netflix as your sole companion. Not so fast…  While summer IS the ultimate time for relaxation, try not to forget that a world exists outside your living room— a world just as scorched, sweltering, and sticky as you!

Spiritual awakenings don’t come easily. Just ask Stephanie Gangi, who in 2010 found herself facing exactly the kind of trauma that is so often the hallmark of emergence from a metaphysical slumber…

After a three-way car accident left her with a severe heart arrhythmia, anxiety, panic attacks, and depression. Stephanie was determined to eliminate the source of the emotional and physical chaos within her life. Although she had long been fascinated with the inner workings of the mind and the way that it dictates human behavior—even graduating in 2012 with bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Arizona State University—she felt that an intellectual approach was simply not comprehensive enough to resolve her distress.

For Nicole Fonovich, life was looking increasingly bleak. Born with two autoimmune diseases, a softball-sized fatty benign tumor between her shoulder blades, and a degenerative disc ailment, Nicole was struggling to tread the gray waters of her faltering health. Not only were her maladies causing her immense physical strife—including two surgeries on her lower back, another two surgeries to deal with the tumor, and a spinal fusion—they were also creating immense personal and emotional loss in the form of two miscarriages.

Too often, I meet people on their spiritual path who are fed up with their lack of progress, lack of knowledge, lack of you-name-it... Often, these are the same people whose every inch of last spring’s vision board has already come true, who have grown leaps and bounds in the past year, and who have a long list of achievements already under their belt.

Despite the “bigger picture” of their overwhelming success, these folks tend to fall into a pit of despair in reaction to their recent missteps or scattered goals. They devote more time to suffering over their mistakes than creating, learning, healing, and growing. They open the door to self-criticism and, in doing so, slam the door shut on universal guidance. And, on top of it all, you can bet that these rock stars are painfully aware of their self-sabotaging behavior… and are adding that, too, to their growing catalog of “weaknesses.”

Thalia Ayres Randolph wants to set the record straight: she never set out to do any of this. Not the international travel, not being featured on one of the most popular reality television shows in America, not the dedicated work as a spiritual leader and teacher…

Exit, Stage Right

As a young woman pursuing a career in musical theatre in Toronto, Canada, Thalia was convinced that the performing arts were the foundation of her identity and would always serve as her path. Yet, performing on a professional level wasn’t exactly leaving her with a lasting sense of happiness, and she found herself pursuing solace through yoga and Reiki; as she strived toward the spotlight, her spiritual gifts were coming to light as well.

In 2007, I was introduced to yoga by a friend who directed me to take a class in Kundalini. Little did I know that the place where I would first step foot on the mat would be the same place I would train to become a yoga teacher myself nine years later: SWIHA.

A Rough Start

Back then, it felt like so much was happening physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually that I was not sure what to do or how to process what was coming up for me. While I dabbled in yoga since that fateful class in 2007—taking an occasional class and attempting to join Instagram yoga challenges—it wasn’t until 2015 that I finally committed to seeking yoga as a way of healing.

If you could get a glimpse at your past lives, would you? Would you be brave enough to face the struggles and triumphs, the pain and the glory, the tears and the laughter of another you? And if you could bear witness to the past, would you change how you live your current life knowing that another lay before you?