SWIHA Blog

SWIHA graduate Shashirekha Banavar, affectionately called “Shashi” by friends and family, is described by those who know and love her as sophisticated, sassy, shy at first, sensitive, and super committed to whole food cuisine. Shashi lives in India, where for the past 30 years she has served as a lawyer and a consumer activist, written a book entitled Shashi’s Recipes – Authentic South Indian Vegetarian Dishes, and received the President’s Guide Award for top performing Girl Guides (similar to the Girl Scouts in the United States) from the President of India. Shashi is a superstar by many standards, although she will blush hearing it said!

As one of the first students to graduate from the online 750-hour Holistic Nutrition Wellness Practitioner diplomas, Shashi actually flew to Tempe, Arizona, to attend the September 2017 Gifts and Graces event, where she was recognized as being a one of SWIHA’s Great Graduates!  She easily gets the award for traveling the furthest to attend graduation on campus!

Having recently completed a two and a half week assignment of being granny-nanny to my three youngest granddaughters (ages 10, 8 and 3 years old) while my daughter in-laws served in Africa, the words to the LEGOLAND theme song “Everything Is Awesome” will be forever etched in my brain. Nominated for Best Original Song at the 87th Academy Awards, the LEGO Movie song is infectious with its catchy rhythm; it’s difficult to not start shaking from side to side as if your body has turned into a little block-like-structure, bouncing around uncontrollably, when the words flow through your mind:

Everything is awesome, everything is cool when you’re part of a team!

Everything is awesome when you're living out a dream!

Was I living out a dream while spending 16 non-stop, action-packed, emotion-filled days dedicated to childcare… days which could easily be likened to one of the roller coasters at LEGOLAND, where we spent part of a week? Certainly… if this adventure was designed to assess and define the progression of my mindfulness practice!

How did I not lose my mind? By consciously and mindfully choosing to use as my sanity mantra the words, “Everything Is Awesome!”

Way up in Anchorage, Alaska, SWIHA Graduate Kris Hwang comes from a family of entrepreneurs whose business has been running strong for 40 years. Growing up with that background had fostered a strong entrepreneurial spirit in her, as well as a desire to be her own boss and do what she loves on her own terms.

Kris’ work as a bartender had left her feeling emotionally and spiritually drained. As an empath and highly sensitive person working in the service industry, it can be easy to give too much of yourself and take on the energetic and emotional baggage of your customers. Kris found herself seeking balance and looking to grow, and so she began practicing meditation exercises and nurturing a personal yoga practice— her first steps towards beginning a new chapter of her life.

As a licensed massage therapist, I can’t imagine why more people don’t choose the career of massage. According to a very reliable source*, the massage industry has boomed in the last ten years, doubling its yearly revenue from $6 billion to over $12 billion since 2005. Yet, while this is true, skilled massage therapists are still hard to find. I often hear from those who work in the SWIHA Success Center that there are many more listings for massage therapists positions than graduates actively seeking those positions. 

With this in mind, let's consider the top five ways a career as a licensed massage therapist can help you create a life you love:

#5 - You get to create own schedule!

One of the reasons I became a licensed massage therapist is because I needed a career that had flexibility so I could be more present for my son. I now have the luxury of creating my own business and setting my own schedule. This is not to say that being an entrepreneur hasn’t been challenging; however, I have found that all my hard work and determination has made the experience worth it. Having more time with your family or being able to shuffle things around in your schedule to better suit your needs is certainly more appealing than a 9 to 5 job! When you own your own business, you get to call the shots.

Entrepreneur and Life Coach Sheera Gersh has been in the beauty industry for 20 years. Her business, Addicted to Nails, has a huge clientele of ladies that trust her with their nails and their personal stories, dreams, fears, and problems. Sheera has the privilege of working on someone’s outside while getting a glimpse into what’s going on inside of them. Remembering one such conversation, Sheera recalls, “I had a client whose husband was terminally ill. We talked for a long time during that session about death and mourning and what life would be like for her after he passed away. When we were done, she told me that I have a gift and should go to school to become a life coach. This conversation stayed with me, and I thought about it a lot. After a while, I did some research about classes and that’s how I found SWIHA. Soon after that I made an appointment with an admissions coach, and signed up for classes!”

Have you ever found yourself standing with your index finger pointed at the heavens, demanding an answer from the divine? 

To be perfectly honest, I have! There have been times that I have looked up in total frustration, as if to say, “Could ya just give me a clue?” Other times, I can be found more gently pleading, “Oh come on… just give me a little sign! Help me to understand what I already know!”

If you’re wondering if there actually is a way to harness the energy of “wanting to know,” the answer is YES— and it’s called Spiritual Kinesiology! This practice is a form of muscle testing that will allow you to pretty clearly know what you believe deep within. It involves your right index finger–your pointer finger–which I refer to as the “god finger.” It is called the “god finger”  because when we come to a crossroads where we really need to have clarity about something, many of us pray to God and look for divine signs of guidance and confirmation.  Your index finger could just as easily be called the “divine finger” or the “finger of knowing.”

Alaska native Sabrina Hargrave had been working in finance for most of her life. She has spent fifteen years climbing corporate ladders, moving from position to position, increasing her salary… yet not her happiness. Stressful jobs had left her feeling disconnected from herself, and although she had meaningful bonds with other people, she didn’t feel like she was following her purpose. She was living a life created by belief systems that had been embedded in her since a very young age. Talking about that corporate grind, Sabrina shares, “We’re taught that these are the types of jobs that you can do that you will be successful and make money at, yet often our hearts are over there with these more passionate, creative jobs. I was a very creative person when I was younger, and I shut it all down to follow the route of ‘this is where you’ll be happy because you will make the most money.’ I pushed really hard and was good at it, yet felt like something was missing.”

Often, the only way Sabrina could find some respite from the stress of her job was by receiving a massage. However, after being injured during a deep tissue massage, Sabrina found herself afraid to get another massage and risk being injured again. “I was so upset because previously, massage had been the only thing that could really get me to relax and calm down. Then a friend suggested cranial unwinding, and I never looked back. It worked perfectly for me,” she says.

By definition, a dream is described as:

a series of thoughts, visions, or feelings that happen during sleep an idea or vision that is created in your imagination and that is not real something that you have wanted very much to do, be, or have for a long time

Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary

More often than not, each new day in our modern lives comes with an overwhelming number of responsibilities and duties that have to get done: work, school assignments, childcare, cooking, cleaning, doctor appointments... the list goes on and on!

Unfortunately, our contemporary fixation on being busy leaves very little room for dreaming. Whether we aspire to find a better job, meet the love of our life, be the first in our family to pursue a post-secondary education, or even to open our own business as a holistic entrepreneur, the reasons we all desire success are as numerous as the stars in the sky. 

Many times, however, the stark reality of our current lives keeps us fixated on our fears, causing us to avoid our futures and to stop dreaming. Dreaming requires the intentional devotation of time to a vision of a better life and self; it is, in itself, part of the process of change. 

Michael Sclafani had always known he was into the mystical arts. While growing up in New York and attending Catholic school from pre-school through seventh grade, this passion always made him feel like an outsider. “I liked going to church and singing in the hallways, and I was also the kid with the Ouija board out at recess,” he says. “I always felt a sense of Magic.” His first real entrance into the world of the mystical was when one of his mom’s friends left her tarot deck at their house when he was 10 years old.

"If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands! If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands! If you're happy and you know it, and you're not afraid to show it, clap your hands!"

If you know these words, you've probably either been in Sunday school at some point in your life, been to one of my yoga classes, or you know my grandkids! This is one of my favorite theme songs…

And they are also the words that broke me wide open recently.

“If you’re happy and you know it…”

At our household, we sing all of the verses and variations! “If you're happy and you know it… stomp your feet, say AMEN, scratch your head, rub your belly, pretend you’re jelly!” And we often run through all of the emotions of the Pixar movie Inside Out: Joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and many more, often resulting in hold-your-belly laughter!

After a particular round of singing, laughing, and hilarious antics, one of my granddaughters spontaneously said to me, "What’s gay, Granny? What does gay mean?"