“Everyone has a story to tell, a lesson to teach, and wisdom to share… Life is a beautiful masterpiece bound together by your experiences. Open up and share your story; become an inspiration to others. You can make a difference because you matter. You were created with purpose. Live your life with intention, go out there and make a difference by being the difference.” - Melanie Koulouris
Great Graduate, Robert Pruett shares his story of high highs and low lows that ultimately led him to Southwest Institute of Healing Arts. Robert asserts, “Mine is a story of extremes - I came from a place of trauma, abuse, and resulting depression - to being very successful and actualized.” After some very turbulent times, Robert encountered some very unlikely teachers that ultimately changed the course of his life. Robert apprenticed under a yoga master and learned musical theory, as well as guitar from two notable musicians. Robert explains, “I was a software developer, and unfulfilled. I felt like I had missed my calling. I kept encountering the word ‘Reiki’ and I didn't know what it meant. One day at a party some of my friends were talking about a Reiki program at SWIHA and I perked up. The next day I saw an admissions counselor. I quit my job and enrolled that very day.”
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Topics:
Sound Healing,
Southwest Institute of Healing Arts,
Life Coaching,
myofascial,
Massage Therapy,
Great Graduate,
SWIHA,
massage,
Myotherapy,
Reiki,
Ayurveda,
yoga,
Arizona,
Tempe,
LMT,
Non-Profit,
Lumi Lumi,
Lumi,
Deep Tissue,
Ayurvedic Massage
“Effective life coaching provides relief, restores hope and offers ease so that life feels manageable and meaningful,” says Suzanne Wigginton, “The work helps to clear the way, connect the dots and align clients with healing pathways and perspectives.”
Suzanne served as a Massage Therapist for many years after getting her education at Southwest Institute of Healings Arts. Before her venture into the healing arts, she worked as a paralegal and knew that she was destined for more.
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Topics:
Sound Healing,
Great Graduates,
Life Coaching,
national life coaching month
Before her time at SWIHA, Kimberly Balzan found her life at a standstill. She was going through the motions but not moving forward, fearful of life and what change may bring.
“I felt like I had no direction,” she describes, “I just happened to be at a friends Melissa Corter who was leading this meditation called Yoga Nidra. I honestly had never heard of it and didn't know what we were going to do. Well, when it was over I sat up and thought ‘That was the coolest thing I have ever experienced’. When I got in my car, I said to myself out loud: ‘I am going to learn this and teach it!’ I knew at that moment something incredible had happened.”
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Topics:
Sound Healing,
Great Graduates,
Holistic Nutrition,
Reiki,
yoga nidra,
yoga
“It is our Soul’s divine journey into a still point, a quality that is filled with a richness of rhythm and harmony,” is how Jennifer Emperador, a SWIHA admissions coach and holistic practitioner, defines the practice of sound healing.
Jennifer has graduated from SWIHA’s Hypnotherapy, Life Coaching, Yoga and Yoga Nidra programs--just to name a few!--though, the modality she most has a passion for is sound healing.
“What’s there not to love?! I was introduced to sound healing back in 2010 and hooked ever since!“ says Jennifer, “All of my instruments emanate energy and I named them based on the energy they hold. For me, they are ‘alive’ and have developed a status of their own.”
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Topics:
Sound Healing,
Great Graduates,
hatha gong,
Massage Therapy,
Polarity,
Reiki,
yoga
Crystal Valentina Price knows that personal growth is a lifelong game—and, often, that game involves some pain. “They say that all suffering has a noble purpose,” she explains, “and it wasn’t until I was completely exhausted of being the victim of my own story that I truly stepped up into owning my story and creating my own reality.”
For Crystal, this process of letting go intersected with a new aspect of her identity: parenthood. “When I became a mother, I felt like I had lost a sense of who I was and was really yearning to rediscover my sense of Self,” she reflects. Through her yoga practice and yoga teacher training, she was able to do just that: “I have realized through this practice that all we have to do is show up! Energetically holding space for ourselves and others has the power to heal!”
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Topics:
Sound Healing,
Herbalism,
Urban Farming,
Yoga Teacher Training,
yoga nidra,
yoga,
Motherhood,
Fabulous Faculty
You know the drill. It’s 8:00 AM and already 96°F, the sun is beating down mercilessly through your window, and you can’t remember a time before you woke up feeling like a pajama-clad puddle of perspiration…
Ah, yes, summer is here! And with it comes the best of times—dreamy sunsets, the smell of fresh-cut lawns, road trips to memorable locales—and the worst of times—like heat waves so abysmal they can make even the most enthusiastic Coppertone babies flee from the sight of the sun.
If you’re facing oppressive heat this summer, you may be tempted to lock yourself inside, crank the ceiling fan, and post up on your sofa with Netflix as your sole companion. Not so fast… While summer IS the ultimate time for relaxation, try not to forget that a world exists outside your living room— a world just as scorched, sweltering, and sticky as you!
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Topics:
Sound Healing,
yoga coaching,
Yoga Teacher Training,
yoga nidra,
Hypnotherapy,
yoga,
Hot Yoga,
Warrior Flow
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.
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Topics:
Sound Healing,
hatha gong,
yoga,
Meditation,
Yoga Teacher Training,
healing arts,
Illness
As a child, Jennifer Sanders was endlessly seeking a place where she belonged in this world. She grew up witnessing the difficult paths of her parents, who were both addicted to drugs and looking for answers of their own, leaving Jennifer to navigate this process of self-discovery by herself. Jennifer reflects on this sometimes painful process, stating, “I often struggled with my own self worth, identity, value, and, later in life, drug addiction. I always knew deep down inside that I had something significant to offer the world and a purpose greater than anyone thought I was capable of. I would find myself with the outcasts of society, ministering the truth of God and the infinite universe. Yet, still I was incomplete, and the wounds of my childhood were still raw 30 years later.”
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Topics:
Sound Healing,
Life Coaching,
Polarity,
cranial unwinding,
Polarity Therapy,
Addiction
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!
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Topics:
Vegetarian,
Sound Healing,
Toe Reading,
Holisitc Nutrition,
holistic entrepreneur,
Holistic Healing,
Nutrition Coaching,
Hypnotherapy,
chakra,
Intuitive Guide,
intuitive guidance,
South Indian Cuisine,
hospitality,
chakras,
Nutrition Coach,
Singing Bowl,
intro to gong
Nereyda Varias was a passionate seeker of wellness who wanted to share her gifts with the world and expand her knowledge. Before enrolling in the Integrative Healing Arts Practitioner program, she dreamt of learning the skills, scripture, and wisdom utilized by great sages, mystics, and scholars. She felt that she was meant for greater things and that helping others was her path. Nereyda knew she would be part of something bigger that would help to aid the world. “I knew deep within I was a part of a movement to aid our world and all of its brilliant divine human and non-human beings upon it— to be a catalyst of transcendence and evolution,” she shares.
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Topics:
Sound Healing,
aromatherapy,
Toe Reading,
Floral Essences,
flower essences,
Guided meditation,
Holistic Healing,
Reiki,
Hypnotherapy,
Intuitive Guide,
Restorative Yoga,
Holistic Healer,
integrative healing,
integrative healing arts practitioner,
hero's journey,
spiritual ministry,
crystal therapy,
intuitive guidance
