SWIHA Blog

Worrying about money can be a tremendous stressor in one’s life. Scientific studies have shown that extreme stress can adversely affect our mental health and can decrease the function of our immune system. Because mind and body function together, worrying about money may cause physical and emotional symptoms. You might feel helpless or depressed. Possibly you experience headaches, digestive problems, or frequent infections. You may feel anxious, irritable, and have difficulty sleeping. 

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! 

Tiffany DeLancy does not quite remember how she originally heard of Southwest Institute of Arts (SWIHA), yet she does know that it was her interest in becoming a yoga instructor that was the original reason for attending the school. She went on to enroll in and graduate from the Yoga Teacher Training 600-hour program with Aromatherapy and Hypnotherapy as her electives.

In 2010, Gisele Marasca-Vargas had to close her graphic design and publishing company and file for bankruptcy (mostly due to the 2008 economic crisis). She lost her home in the process and had to practically start from scratch. She got a temporary job at the U.S. Census Bureau and went through a phase when she was feeling lost and confused about her next steps. At a certain point, she realized that she needed to reinvent herself.

During her years as a graphic designer and publisher, she had worked on the side as an “energy healer”. She felt that the challenges she had gone through were a sign from the Universe that it was time to change the course of her life -- to find her true path. Gisele decided that her “on the side” work was going to become her main career and life path.

“That’s when I started researching schools from all over the country for a degree in energy healing and other holistic practices. I was attracted by the AOS degree in Holistic Health Care (Concentration in Mind-Body Transformational Psychology) that Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA) offered. I was also very intrigued by the fact that it’s very rich curriculum included Hypnotherapy and Life Coaching. The facts that SWIHA offers online programs and is nationally accredited by ACCET and is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education sealed the deal,” shared Gisele.

Zoey Greco was wrapping up her studies towards a Bachelor’s degree in sunny, Southern California back in 2012 when she began to feel a bit lost about how she was going to move forward in her life. “I knew I wanted to be a healer, yet I had NO idea how to enter into such a metaphysical field. I pondered how could I tell my family who had poured thousands of dollars into my education that I wanted to be an intuitive channel and energy healer?” All of her friends were applying and receiving acceptance letters to graduate programs or Fulbright scholarships and Zoey was wondering how she could possibly make her dreams a reality. Other careers have more clear paths to success—formal internships, graduate programs, the rat race. Zoey knew that those paths were not for her.

Is your head filled with a gazillion ideas of what you want to do? Do you have a hard time figuring out where to start? Are you passionate about so many things that you end up depleting your energy doing a bunch of little things?

Are you seeking clarity? I found this definition of clarity that I believe will speak to you:

Clarity is a noun meaning: Clearness or lucidity as to perception or understanding; freedom from indistinctness or ambiguity.

Ah, freedom. You are seeking freedom from your vision not being clear. You are seeking freedom from having your efforts lack proper focus and intention. Others have been in this situation before and have moved forward. So can you. Here are some ways you can begin to create clarity around your business and your future.

Healing Stones

Tigers Eye is used to focus the mind. It will cause the mind to have feelings of oneness and feel more direct in all thoughts. Place several stones in your workspace to help you focus your mind and benefit from this stones calming and clearing properties. You can find these at our Healing Pages Store on-campus or online.

Six years ago, Lisa Hecke felt lost. More than that, she was frustrated, angry and unhappy. No longer satisfied in her day job, Lisa found herself hunched over her knees, crying, sobbing, and seeking a new path. She recalls asking aloud for help, gasping through tears and heart wrenching sobs.

“Please show me how to be happy again,” she begged the universe. “If I am meant to stay at this job then please show me how to be happy there, but if I am meant to move on then please show me where to go.”

Suddenly, Lisa says, in one breath her entire body relaxed. A sense of calm washed over her, and she was finally able to surrender. This surrendering and asking for change was the first step on Lisa’s journey to career transformation. Almost immediately, Lisa began to see great opportunities open up before her very eyes, in the areas of interest she always wanted to pursue.

One such opportunity was Yoga Teacher Training. The days and times of the training program aligned perfectly with Lisa’s schedule, so she knew she couldn’t pass it up. Even though the cost of the training was a big financial investment for her, Lisa put her deposit down and as if out of nowhere, the rest of the money presented itself.

“Everything was flowing and it was a clear indication that this was the right thing to do,” Lisa shares.

Once her yoga teacher training hours were complete, Lisa began pursuing other interests, such as Aromatherapy. During her yoga teacher training, she learned a little bit about

Aromatherapy, and used essential oils to help soothe her body from all of the new and different physical movement that goes along with teacher training. “The oils helped to soothe my muscles and at times my spirit,” Lisa says. She wanted to learn all about this time honored healing modality, so she enrolled in the 100 hour Certificate of Excellence Aromatherapy program at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA). “I saw this as another example of my spirit guiding me toward my interests,” says Lisa.

by Liz Dose, Clinical Aromatherapist, Cht, LC

“Smell is a potent wizard that transports us across thousands of miles and all the years we have lived. The odors of fruits waft me to my southern home, to my childhood frolics in the peach orchard. Other odors, instantaneous and fleeting, cause my heart to dilate joyously or contract with remembered grief. Even as I think of smells, my nose is full of scents that start to awake sweet memories of summers gone and ripening fields far away.”Helen Keller

Since the dawn of time humans have been under the spell of perhaps the most mysterious of the senses – the sense of smell. Our ancestors relied heavily on this gift to find food, detect a predator in the area or alert them of a nearby fire. But on another level, our sense of smell has blessed us with the ability to experience the intoxicating aroma of a freshly opened blossom, coffee brewing first thing in the morning, or fresh baked cookies straight out of the oven. Our sense of smell provides so much more than instinctual protection mechanisms. An aroma can’t be accurately described by simply comparing it to another, yet a familiar scent can act like a time machine transporting you back to another time or place. Because our sense of smell was so crucial to our early survival, the Olfactory System that starts with the nose takes these aromas on a journey through the brain, and affects every part of our body almost instantly.

What is a aromatherapy?

Aromatherapy is the use of essential oils for therapeutic purposes.Essential oils are the plant’s “life blood”, as they protect the plant from infection, attract pollinators, repel harmful predators, and assist the plant in healing and repair. The term aromatherapy is a bit of a misnomer as the essential oils are not used solely by inhaling them. Essential oils are used aromatically (inhaled), topically (applied to the skin),and some use the oils internally (orally, pessaries, douches, suppositories).

The use of essential oils has been around for centuries. Pictographs have been found in Egyptian tombs along with vats of expensive oils such as Frankincense. Throughout history and across cultures, the use of essential oils for health purposes has been recorded.

Essential oils have many therapeutic properties based on the plant’s chemical components. Commonly essential oils are bactericidal, antiviral, immune supportive, and analgesic. Dr Jean Valnet , a French surgeon, effectively used aromatherapy in World War II to treat wounds when he ran out of antibiotics!