SWIHA Blog

“We all have the inborn ability to heal, to maintain, and to grow.”

This is the premise of Suzie Emiliozzi’s business, Living Joy LLC. Suzie launched Living Joy shortly after graduating from the online Associates of Mind-Body Transformational Psychology Degree program at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA). Since then, she has helped hundreds of clients change, heal, and discover themselves.

Let’s start at the beginning…

Years ago, Suzie was diagnosed with a terrible case of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Even with medical care, her condition was debilitating. Everyday tasks such as brushing her teeth, walking, or getting in and out of the bathtub were nearly impossible. Eventually Suzie was introduced to a form of energy healing called BodyTalk™. This holistic healing modality addresses the whole person: emotional, physical and environmental. Due to additional emotional and situational issues Suzie was experiencing at the time, BodyTalk™ was successful in her path to healing; she experienced immediate and profound changes within her body.

By Janet Lee, Guest Blogger

February is a month associated with love, so it’s appropriate that February is National Heart Health month. Due to the Valentine’s holiday, February also brings lots of chocolate or sweet, sugary desserts to show others or ourselves how much we are loved. While it’s perfectly fine to enjoy sweets, it’s also beneficial to realize how much sugar we are putting into our bodies. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the average American consumes between 150 and 170 pounds of refined sugar a year.

Interestingly, less than 100 years ago, the average American consumed roughly four pounds of sugar a year. Needless to say, that our consumption of sugar has skyrocketed. The World Health Organization (WHO) and American Heart Association states that women should consume only 20 grams of sugar a day or 5 teaspoons. For men, it is 36 grams or 9 teaspoons a day. Children are at 12 grams or 3 teaspoons a day. 1 soda = 40 grams of sugar or 10 teaspoons.

After 18 years of working in the mortgage industry, Casey Grant was stressed, and sick of feeling stressed. She disliked her job because that’s what it felt like – a job. She didn’t enjoy what she was doing, and wanted to find a way to create a good income doing work she loved. Casey’s lifelong passion for health and nutrition sounded like a way out of the mortgage industry...the question was, how?

Casey began to research schools for nutrition education, and Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA) immediately resonated with her. Although she lives in Chandler, Arizona, a town close where the main campus of SWIHA is located, Casey decided to enroll in the SWIHA’s online Holistic Wellness Practitioner program because it was convenient for her busy lifestyle, and allowed her to still be available for her family.

The entrepreneurial attitude and atmosphere of SWIHA is what appealed most to Casey. “SWIHA’s mission is to inspire and support people in opening their own businesses, if that is truly their dream. The college is committed to the success of their graduates,” Casey explains. “All my instructors encouraged me to go after my dreams and goals, and they guided and inspired me from an entrepreneurial point of view.”

By Dee McCaffrey, Guest Blogger

One of my natural health heroes, Dr. Ann Wigmore, said “the food you eat can either be the safest and most powerful forms of medicine or the slowest form of poison.” This wisdom is reflected in my book The Science of Skinny, the premise of which is “whole, natural foods are perfect packages from nature uniquely designed to nourish our body” and that “food additives don’t honor how our body is designed; they are catalysts for poor health and should be avoided.”

As a chemist, formerly obese person, and now a nutrition educator, I teach people that whole foods provide powerful nutrients that work synergistically to provide our body’s 75 trillion cells with the necessary elements for building long term health. Nearly every common plant food, and many animal foods, have been scientifically proven to offer one or more therapeutic benefits—from alleviating everyday aches and pains to providing powerful protection against cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity and autoimmune diseases.

The ‘earth’ without art is just ‘eh’ . . .

. . . according to Holistic Wellness Practitioner Heather Krompacky, who works in the town of Talkeetna, Alaska, at the base of North America’s tallest mountain, the magnificent Denali.

Imagine . . .

. . . entering a room for a holistic session with a new practitioner, someone you have never worked with before. There are colorful candles burning, the light is low due to the salt lamps placed strategically around the room. Soft music is playing and a lovely, aromatic fragrance is wafting through the air. You begin your session with your practitioner; maybe you experience hypnotherapy, nutritional coaching, or aromatherapy, all as an aspect of a holistic life coaching session with a competent and caring practitioner. You feel a sense of comfort due to the open and honest space from which the ‘Change Artist Extraordinaire’, as the practitioner is known, works. At the end of the session, you are offered a soul-coaching card, to provide continued insight and affirmation.

Wow! Mind-heart-soul expanding, right!

Yes, the above is a small example of what a session would be like with Heather Krompacky, owner of Sunshine Wellness, a dual business -- part wellness center, part organic health food store. The wellness center is housed above Sunshine Organics, her organic health food store, located at the confluence of three Alaskan rivers, the Susitna, Chulitna and Talkeetna.

Like many massage therapists and massage enthusiasts, Ronna Everhart found massage after decades of discomfort and chronic pain. At 12 years old, she chipped her tailbone in an accident. “I broke my bum!” she exclaims with a laugh. Although she is full of laughter and smiles now, most of her life consisted of pain and discomfort. Between the ages of 19 to 24, Ronna gave birth to three children, which really did a number on her low back. She became dependent on over the counter medicine, such as Ibuprofen daily, to alleviate her pain, yet it wasn’t enough. Chiropractors, and even the occasional glass or two of wine, to relax the muscles proved futile as well.

By the age of 30, Ronna had tried almost everything to help her pain: TENS units, decompression, pain clinics, physical therapy, pain creams, shots…the list goes on!

After 32 years of dealing with the after effects of her tail bone injury, which caused chronic arthritis due to the persistent low back pain, Ronna’s life started to become negatively affected in all areas: mind, body and soul. Her finances were suffering from the out of pocket chiropractic costs, in addition to other health related expenses. She reached a point where she was “fed up with doctors, once and for all!”

Mise en Place, with the French pronunciation of mi za plas means "putting in place", as in "set up"

Mise en place is used in the kitchen to “put into place” or “to set up” all the ingredients used to prepare a dish, before we start cooking. The purpose is to have everything ready, all in order for cooking, so when we cook, it is much easier. All ingredients are ready, sliced, diced and measured before we start cooking. Mise en place is a great cooking technique to incorporate into your kitchen for both more complex and simple recipes.

Mise en Place Makes Cooking Easier

“With mise en place we do not scramble around our kitchen when we are in the cooking process, looking for that one ingredient we really need, or we are not quickly chopping food right in the middle of cooking. Instead, we are methodically enjoying cooking with all of our ingredients ready for us to use,” advises Melanie Albert, Southwest Institute of Healing Arts Holistic Nutrition & Whole Food Cooking Instructor.

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!