SWIHA Blog

By Jenna Zizzo

When the word ‘core’ is used in a yoga class, thoughts of six-pack abs often come to mind, a picture of what most people often refer to as the ‘outer core’ or the ‘superficial’ abdominal muscles. While anatomically correct, there’s another core, our ‘Deep Core Line’, which is more of aligned with the purpose in our yoga practice.

A new type of yoga is beginning to sweep the nation. This yoga, called Core Strength Vinyasa, is a unique perspective on the overall practice of yoga. Founded by New York-based yoga teacher Sadie Nardini, Core Strength Vinyasa (CSV) focuses on our ‘Deep Core Line’, allowing us to practice and bring awareness to the core of each yoga pose. The process of CSV is drawing inward, becoming empowered through the poses and learning to move from our deep center – the core of our being!

The Deep Core Line that Sadie refers to in Core Strength Vinyasa is a myofascial line or meridian that begins in the arch of our feet, and travels up our mid-line, through the oh-so-important psoas muscle, into our torso and up and out through our tongue!

Core Strength Vinyasa is its own expression of Hatha yoga, as well as a set of physical and energetic alignment principles, core postures and even core philosophies that teachers or students can use to boost the benefits of any style of yoga. It has been said that Core Strength Vinyasa is one of the most effective yoga practices for creating changes both inside and outside the body.

At the age of 41, Sierra Byers’ plan was to live in Los Angeles, and continue work in the music industry, with all its allure and excitement. The Universe laughed . . . the company she worked with was down-sizing, so with a grin and smile in her heart Sierra took it as a sign to make a change.

Her initial plan was to move from LA to San Francisco, attend massage therapy school and start a private practice.

Prior to her move, Sierra visited Sedona, Arizona. While meditating in the red rocks, she received a powerful message showing her she should move to Scottsdale because something different was waiting for her there. Sierra didn’t know how to take this message, and she wasn’t she wanted to move to Scottsdale. The next day she got very quiet again, in a completely different spot than the day before. Lo and behold, the Universe was winking! She received the very same message as before, yet even more powerfully! Sierra laughed, listened, and moved to Scottsdale.

As Sierra began to research massage schools she had a feeling that when she found the ‘right’ one she would just know! As she walked through the doors of Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA) she felt as if the Universe was welcoming her home. “From the moment I saw owner and founder, KC Miller, and heard her say ‘Welcome!’ I knew I had found my school,” remembers Sierra. “I signed up immediately and started classes the following week.”

The concept of juicing has been around for a few decades! Most recently more people have started to pay close attention to this beneficial method for enhancing health and wellness. Juicing, which can be a form of detoxing the body, can be a healthy and safe way to rid the body of toxins, along with a variety of other physical and mental benefits.

What Causes Toxins?

There are many causes of toxins in the body. Some common causes are alcohol consumption, food additives, prescription drugs and intestinal build-up in our bodies. Other causes of toxins include chemicals and solvents such as certain cleaning products, cosmetics and air fresheners. Pollution in our environment is another cause of toxins, in addition to metals. It’s been said that toxins can even be caused by negative thinking patterns!

At age fifteen, Erica Vucich discovered the healing benefits of yoga. She initially began to practice the ancient art form as a way to manage and reverse her scoliosis. After years of practice and healing, Erica came to Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA) for yoga teacher training. Going through the teacher training program was a transformational experience. For someone who was shy as a child, teacher training helped Erica learn to open up. “Learning to lead fellow students and eventually actual yoga students through a class was invaluable,” she says.

Erica finished her teacher training in 2008, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to teach. She initially took teacher training for her own personal development and knowledge, to deepen her practice and help her heal. She credits SWIHA with giving her the confidence to go out and teach yoga. “Had I not been a SWIHA student, I don’t think I would be at the same place I am today and I couldn’t be happier about that,” she claims. “It gave me the practice and confidence to go out and teach.”

Go out and teach she did! Erica began teaching regularly, and continued to enhance her yoga teaching toolbox, taking additional trainings and workshops even after completing her teacher training. She is passionate about gaining knowledge and learning more about yoga and teaching.

Thirty years ago, Melanie Albert stopped eating meat. This wasn’t a decision based on politics or personal beliefs about animals. She simply didn’t like the way her body felt after consuming meat. “My body was feeling full when I ate meat and I felt as though I could not digest it,” Melanie says about her longstanding decision to eliminate meat from her diet. Shortly after eliminating meat, Melanie began to focus on intuitive eating; listening to the cues her body was giving her about food and making decisions about what food to consume.

Little did she know that a few years later, nutrition and intuitive eating would be a daily part of her life and her work. After leaving meat behind, she began to eat organic, “way before it was popular in the media,” she says. Although her decision to go organic baffled some of her friends and family, Melanie enjoyed the results too much to listen to the naysayers. In 1995, Melanie started to educate herself about the true power of nutrition.

It was her mother’s breast cancer diagnosis in 1995 that spurred Melanie to focus her attention on food and nutrition. Her mother was given six months to live by allopathic doctors, so Melanie moved to Florida to care for her.

A spiritual alchemist, Aubrey Mohandessi’s work centers around transforming people, helping them move forward and empowering them to be their best selves. While the term alchemy or alchemist is often associated with chemistry and metals, the action of transforming or transmuting is the same, whether it's mineral based or with people. Aubrey’s business, Aubrey Mohandessi Life Coaching & Spiritual Coaching, offers life coaching, spiritual counseling, hypnotherapy and toe reading to people looking to discover the deeper meanings of life and truths within themselves.

As a graduate of the online Mind-Body Transformational Psychology program at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA), Aubrey developed a vast amount of skills and tools that prepared her to bring her spiritual gifts out into the world. “Everything I’ve learned while enrolled at SWIHA helped me to develop my own business as well as broaden my understanding of what it means to live a well-balanced life mentally, physically and spiritually,” Aubrey says.

By Jenna Zizzo, Guest Blogger

It’s no secret that yoga and all things holistic are on the rise in America. Once considered esoteric by some, and often perceived as being practiced only by those who fell into the category of “hippie” or “granola,” recent decades have demonstrated how yoga has catapulted into mainstream society, becoming a popular way for people to stay in shape, relax and connect with their higher selves.

It is widely known that the history of yoga dates back to ancient India. While there isn’t any official written proof as to the exact date that yoga began, there are many accounts online and in books about the birth of yoga, and how it came to America from India. However, what is even less documented is the history of yoga teaching.

It’s been written and recorded that one yogi taught another who then brought those teachings to another individual or group, and the tradition and philosophy was passed down from person to person, group to group. From old school yoga masters such as Patanjali and his yoga sutras and B.K.S. Iyengar’s alignment instruction, to contemporary instructors like Tara Stiles and Sean Corn, the influence of yoga in America is an essential part of today’s culture.

How Great Graduate Kelly T. Smith Created a Successful Holistic Wellness Business

Intuition. We all have it, and some of us might be more in tune with it than others, but it’s there. It’s that gut feeling, that little voice inside our heads, the answers that live within our hearts and souls.

As a natural intuitive and trained Life Coach, it makes sense that Kelly T. Smith created a life coaching business that helps clients look inside to reach their fullest potential. A graduate of Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA) Associate of Mind-Body Transformational Psychology program online, Kelly combines the many tools she learned in her program into the work she does in her business, Intuitive Life Coaching With Kelly. “I feel my intuitive abilities really came forward because SWIHA was a safe place to honor this side of me,” Kelly says about her journey with SWIHA. “I am a life coach, intuitive and hypnotherapist and I use all these tools together to work with people to reach their fullest potential, discover their spiritual gifts, and move past their limitations to live life to the fullest.”

Kelly says that she found the online program at SWIHA through a series of “synchronistic events.”

Every year, about 45 percent of Americans make a New Year’s resolution. It’s safe to assume that of that number, many people make resolutions concerning dieting and eating healthy. However, there’s a more holistic, intuitive method for maintaining weight and eating healthy.

This year we invite you to reach your nutrition, food, and even weight loss goals by eating and cooking intuitively. Make 2015 the year to get away from dieting and discover intuitive eating!

To begin, let’s examine a few definitions related to intuitive eating:

• Intuitive: Using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive.
• Conscious: Aware of and responding to one's surroundings; awake.
• Mindful: Conscious or aware of something.
• Cooking: The practice or skill of preparing food by combining, mixing, and heating ingredients.
• Intuitive Cooking: With these definitions, we define Intuitive Cooking as: Being aware and conscious in the practice of preparing food by combining, mixing or heating ingredients.

It has been called it Destiny or Fate. Some describe it as the Dharma and Karma process. Paulo Coelho, author of one of the all-time besting books, The Alchemist, has taught millions that each person must discover his or her own personal legend—the unique path that leads to an individual's destiny. And well known motivational speaker, Anthony Robbins, advocates that we must “awaken the giant within!”

One of the great graduates of Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, James Patrick, describes this internal phenomenon yet another way. He calls it our ‘Life Sentence’!

James is an impassioned Life Coach, motivational speaker and ordained minister who knows from personal experience that we cannot escape the workwe are “sentenced” to do here on earth. He believes we are intrinsically linked to our personal calling.

To describe the great human search as a Life Sentence may sound a little dramatic at first, yet once you understand what James Patrick is suggesting, it is hard to see it any other way. His foundational belief is that we are all born with a sacred contract that we agreed to live out on earth. It is not something we can run or hide from.