SWIHA Blog

What has the power to monopolize your time, relationships and even your thoughts? You’re probably holding it in your hand right now.

The science of how an abundance of technology influences us as human beings is still in its infancy, so we actually know very little about the long-term hazards of a screen-to-screen existence. However, we can inuit that constantly monitoring our email and posting Facebook status updates is making us less productive, more disconnected from our real lives, and less satisfied with ourselves.

Living mindfully comes with many benefits, and none of them are limited to just adults! Mindfulness has the ability to provide children with simple tools to understand their nervous system, make healthier decisions and regulate their feelings.

By helping children to learn to focus on a single thing, such as a sound or their own breath, they can calm their mind and develop emotional fortitude. Consistent mindfulness practices for children leads to less impulsivity, refined concentration skills, and more awareness of how to respond thoughtfully to tough situations.

With incredible tenacity, Nyla Jones, a graduate of Southwest Institute of Healing Arts’ Yoga & Mind-Body Wellness Practitioner programs, states: “In my mother’s death, she gave me life.”

At the tender age of twenty-four, Nyla stepped in to the role of family matriarch. Cancer had claimed her mother, placing Nyla as caretaker to her youngest siblings—her two-year-old brother and her three-year-old sister who was born with Down syndrome.

Instead of allowing herself to be consumed by anger and self-pity, Nyla felt that her mission was to become a vessel of compassion and help her family thrive—not despite the hardships—rather, inspired by them.

Everyone remembers their first love. For Audrey Washington, that love was massage therapy.

In 2007, with eleven years of massage and entrepreneurial experience under her belt, Audrey moved to Phoenix, Arizona, from Detroit, Michigan, to start her own massage business, ALW Massage Therapy. Once in Phoenix, she found that she preferred to hire graduates of SWIHA’s Massage Program to work as Licensed Massage Therapists on her staff. Although she was not yet formally acquainted with the school, she could tell that the curriculum taught there was strong. “They had more knowledge of anatomy, as well as the ability to do energy work and follow their intuition when working with clients,” she says. “I trusted the school and how they trained their LMTs.”

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.

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.

I still remember the first time I took a yoga class. It was February 2007, and my husband had presented me with a gift certificate for classes at a local studio. He had hoped that yoga would release my anxiety over being a new mom and alleviate the constant state of stress that overwhelmed me with every breath. I, too, was excited to try this new way of exercising. My daily workouts had left me feeling physically strong, so I had myself convinced that I would be “great” at yoga. Little did I know that my ego would be knocked down on its knees as soon as I stepped on the mat!

As I huffed and puffed through the poses in that first class, I struggled to understand the foreign guidance to “allow your breath to guide the movement of your body.” Finally, after much shaking and panting to force my hunched over body into triangle pose, the teacher approached me and gently asked, “Where are you trying to get into? Please come down into child’s pose and breathe.” Reluctantly, I listened. As soon as I followed her instructions, I was hit by a wave of peace and a softening in my mind. “What?!” I remember thinking. “I can rest? I’m receiving permission to rest, relax, and breathe?” In that moment, I knew the practice of yoga was going to change my life.

For Tory Dube, life before SWIHA was a matter of constant performance. As a struggling professional dancer, actor, and comedian, Tory found herself trapped in the cutthroat entertainment industry, constantly facing the judgment of strangers. “I was an anxiety-ridden people pleaser who was hiding a nasty eating disorder,” she recalls. “My self-worth was defined by the people who decided whether or not I booked a job.”

Desperate for a change, Tory booked a space on a yoga retreat in the Bahamas, where she was introduced to meditation. While she found the demand of being totally present painful, it was exactly the spark she needed to start pursuing a new way of life. It was time to conquer her anxiety and food obsession once and for all.

Deena Gregory has always been a “seeker”—a woman with a self-described “natural curiosity about self and spirit” who in quiet moments often found herself gazing upward at the night sky with a deep sense of awe. Yet, after years of looking to institutions—from organized religion to the halls of academia—for the answers that could only be found within, Deena got caught in a spiritual drought, convinced that there was nothing else bigger “out there” than the humdrum of everyday human life.

“With a new reliance on my own thinking came what the Buddha referred to as ‘Dukkha,’ or suffering,” she explains. “I have always been hailed as a ‘critical thinker.’ Now I laugh and say, ‘Yes, as soon as I start thinking, things get critical!’”

According to Life Coach and meditation teacher Bill Gisclair-Sullivan, authenticity requires practice: “It is a conscious choice that we must make about how we want to live our lives every day. It is a collection of our choices and decisions, and it requires us to show up, be present in the moment, and to be honest with ourselves.”

The truth is that authenticity usually has to be re-learned because so much of our lives have been spent mastering the many masks we think we must wear to be approved of or to fit into what we imagine is expected of us. A quote from Coach Bill’s website captures his life coaching mission, which emphasizes how we can step into our truest self: "Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and embracing who we truly are."

Bill is so passionate about this work because it mirrors his own life journey. “It took me many, many years to discover my authenticity,” Bill explains. “I spent most of my adult life working in management in the hospitality field. After making some dramatic mistakes and trying to climb the corporate ladder, I lost some important parts of myself along the way.”