SWIHA Blog

Yoga Teacher Training: A Life-Saving Miracle for Stefani Skilton

Posted by Jade Marvin on 6/13/24 4:00 PM

Yoga quite literally saved my life. I began my journey at SWIHA after a serious struggle with depression.” Yoga is widely known for its profound impact on physical health, mental well-being, and overall quality of life. By integrating the body, mind, and spirit through breathwork, physical postures, and meditation, yoga offers a holistic approach to personal transformation. This transformative power of yoga emerges in the physical realm and extends deeply into the mental and emotional landscapes of those who practice it regularly. Stefani Skilton, a SWIHA Yoga Teacher Training graduate, saw this transformation in her own life as well, this is her story.

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Topics: Great Graduate, Yoga Teacher Training, YTT, spirit of yoga, Registered Yoga Teacher

Annual Fall Festival at SWIHA: Yoga Classes, Massage Championship, Local Vendors, and More

Posted by Jade Marvin on 10/5/23 4:00 PM

Southwest Institute of Healing Arts is all set to host their annual Healing Arts Fall Festival. This year, the festival is a celebration of Mind, Body, and Spirit and will take place on the greenbelt next to their beautiful campuses. The festival is a complimentary, community, and family-friendly event that aims at promoting wellness through yoga, healing arts modalities, and UNITY!

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Topics: Sound Healing, Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, SWIHA, entrepreneur, yoga nidra, healing arts, spirit of yoga, Tempe, yoga classes, SWIHA Events, Fall Festival, Healing Arts Fall Festival, Vendors, Local Business, Small Business, Arizona Massage Championship, Holistic Health Gathering, Arizona Events

Fall Festival at SWIHA: Yoga Classes, Sound Healing, Massage Championship, Local Vendors, and Kids Camp

Posted by Jade Marvin on 10/6/22 4:00 PM

Southwest Institute of Healing Arts will be holding a celebration of Mind, Body, and Spirit on the greenbelt next to our beautiful campuses. The Healing Arts Fall Festival, previously known as the Holistic Health Gathering, is a complimentary, community, family-friendly celebration of yoga, healing arts modalities, and UNITY! SWIHA invites you to join us for a full day of yoga classes, meditation, sound healing, a massage championship, and over 50 vendors! Bring your entire family to enjoy the Kids Camp Collaboration with Luna Mind Body Spirit, who will be hosting kids yoga, a somatic kids experience, a bouncy house, and face painting. This full day of activities is open to anyone and everyone! Come be a part of our conscious community.

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Topics: Sound Healing, Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, SWIHA, yoga nidra, Arizona, healing arts, spirit of yoga, Tempe, yoga classes, vibrational healing, SWIHA Events, Entrepreneurs, Arizona Massage School, Massage Championship, Fall Festival, Healing Arts Fall Festival, Vibrational Yin, Drum Circle, Vendors, Local Business, Small Business, Arizona Massage Championship, Holistic Health Gathering

30 Years and Thriving — It Takes a Village

Posted by KC Miller on 9/15/22 11:13 AM

30 years ago this year, with a prayer and a small loan from my husband, Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, came into existence. Starting with two classrooms and 6 students, the college has grown to 16 classrooms, in three buildings, serving nearly 600 on-campus students, and nearly as many online students across the country.

As a longtime student of A Course In Miracles, one day long ago I prayed in earnest what is known as the ‘miracle prayer’: “What would you have me do? Where would you have me go? What would you have me say, and to whom?” From that prayer came the vision of creating a place where individuals could come to discover their gifts, where education would not be a “cookie cutter” experience and where individual expression and diversity was encouraged and honored. Starting as a massage college, SWIHA is striving 30 years later by offering 16 Certificates of Excellences, 10 different diplomas, Associates in Healing Arts, and over 300 individual continuing education classes.

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Topics: Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, SWIHA, KC Miller, Massage School, Southwest Institute of Natural Aesthetics, Arizona, spirit of yoga, Tempe, Yoga studio, Holistic Education, Arizona Yoga Studio, Arizona Massage School, Thirty Years, ACCET, Massage Clinic, Thirty Year Anniversary, Thirty and Thriving

How a Love for Coffee & Yoga Fueled Holly Cavanaugh’s Entrepreneurial Dreams

Posted by Jade Marvin on 8/11/22 4:00 PM

In 2018, Holly Cavanaugh sat down with SWIHA Admissions and shared her vision of becoming a yoga teacher and a coffee roaster. Holly asserts, “In August 2018 I set out from Michigan to Arizona on a leap of faith that this would be the next step toward making my dreams a reality. I have been looking forward to continuing to grow my business ever since”. Long before finishing her 600-hr yoga program, and joining the Online Team as an Academic Advisor, Holly had an entrepreneurial spirit and was willing to work hard to make her vision a reality. “Has it been easy? No. I have had an image of what I wanted to create within my life and I have had to release control in order to stay open to the opportunities in front of me” states Holly.

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Topics: holistic entrepreneur, SWIHA, Yoga Teacher Training, Arizona, yoga teacher training 600 hour program, YTT, spirit of yoga, Tempe, Arizona Yoga Studio, Coffee, Private Practice, Academic Advisor, Online Advisor

From Hobby to Career, Nikki Cordell Utilizes the Power of Yoga to Support Women Building Confidence

Posted by Jade Marvin on 7/28/22 4:00 PM

The corporate 9 to 5 job is not for everyone. It certainly wasn’t for SWIHA Great Graduate Nikki Cordell. Nikki recalls her life before SWIHA by using words such as “busy” and “hectic” as well as recalling the feeling of constantly longing for something else. Nikki Cordell wanted a way out of her corporate job…and she found one. Nikki was introduced to Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, and the rest was history! “I wanted to follow a dream, doing something that I love. A dream I always had was to own a yoga studio. Yoga has been a hobby of mine for many years, that one place I would allow space to take time for myself” asserts Nikki. She found that even though her days were still long and full, as she went to the evening program right after work, she came home feeling different. Nikki came home feeling refreshed, and always enjoyed her time in class, constantly looking forward to her next class, which was quite the opposite feeling of dreading her next day at her corporate job.

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Topics: Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, Great Graduate, SWIHA, Meditation, Yoga Teacher Training, yoga nidra, Chair Yoga, yoga, Arizona, spirit of yoga, Tempe, yoga teacher, Yoga Retreat

The Making of a Yogi — The Incarnations of Will Zecco

Posted by KC Miller on 5/26/22 4:00 PM

As youngsters, we are often asked, “What do you want to BE when you grow up?” The question being asked is really what do you want to DO for a living?

For Will Zecco, he knew in middle school he wanted to BE a hairstylist. And yet his dad wouldn’t hear of it! He wanted Will to do “college”. So Will attended a community college and became a Fashion Designer, doing costume design for a local theatre group. He was good at what he was doing, including singing and dancing in the local productions, yet he still had a dream of being something else.

A hometown newspaper did an article featuring Will with the headline “Local Boy Becomes Designer.” A state Senator sent Will a letter congratulating him and offering that if there was ever anything he could do for him, to let him know. As Will often says, “We only get what you’re brave enough to ask for!” Will boldly asked the Senator about a grant and got a full ride to go to Cosmetology school.

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Topics: SWINA, Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, Aesthetician, SWIHA, yoga, 200 Hour Yoga Training, Yoga Teacher Training, Southwest Institute of Natural Aesthetics, YTT, spirit of yoga, Yogi, Safe Space, Holding Space, Trauma-Aware, Hairdresser, Makeup Artist, Esthetician School, SOY

Life Lessons Mario Jiannino Learned in Yoga Teacher Training

Posted by Jade Marvin on 2/24/22 4:00 PM

Holding Space for myself means permission to feel what I need to feel, space to just be here, exactly who and how I am, and to find my way forward - gently.” - Unknown

Before coming to SWIHA, Great Graduate of the 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training program, Mario Jiannino, was swept up in the whirlwind of life. Always go, go, going, and not really breathing through life. Mario explains, “I was really reactive to everything around me. I really thought that what I was reacting to before was so important. I realized that while taking Yoga, I have the ability to slow down and analyze things before I create my reaction.” Rather than experiencing and witnessing things, Mario found himself in a place of reaction. Having known and worked with KC Miller, Founder of Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, for several years, she finally approached Mario about the Yoga Program. Mario’s reflection was, “KC is insightful - she saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. Somebody out there believed that I was capable of doing something beyond myself, and she was right. I am passionate about this specific modality because Yoga taught me to breathe. I thought I knew so many things about life, until Yoga. Then, I woke up and witnessed so much beauty that was always with me.”

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Topics: Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, transformational, SWIHA, Mindfulness, 200 Hour Yoga Training, KC Miller, Yoga Teacher Training, yoga, Arizona, Breath, YTT, spirit of yoga, Tempe, Yoga studio, yoga teacher, Holding Space, Holistic Modalities, breathing, Personal Development

Postures of Consciousness — A Gateway into Meditation in Motion

Posted by KC Miller on 9/30/21 4:00 PM

For over 20 years Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA) has been offering a 200-hour yoga alliance approved yoga teacher training under the banner of Unity Yoga”. Students are encouraged to find their own authentic expression of yoga, with an emphasis on cueing safe, anatomically correct asana-based studio classes. Weve successfully graduated hundreds of students over the years that have found their own voices and adapted what theyve learned into compelling and creative studio classes that they offer all across the country.

As we have sought to enrich our Advanced Yoga Teacher offerings we have begun to focus on the deeper aspects of yoga including meditation in the form of Yoga Nidra —a guided yogic sleep system refined by Kamini Desai, PhD.

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Topics: Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, Mind Body Wellness, SWIHA, Certified Yoga Teacher, 200 Hour Yoga Training, Guided meditation, Advanced Yoga Training, Meditation, KC Miller, Yoga Teacher Training, yoga nidra, Breathing Techniques, yoga, YTT, spirit of yoga, Namaste, chakras, Wellness Industry, Amrit Institute, Yoga Philosophy, Postures of Consciousness, Amrit Yoga, Amrit, Meditation in Motion

A World Away: Teaching Yoga Nidra in India

Posted by Laura McKinzie on 5/7/18 2:25 PM

India gets into your soul. Seeing it is like meeting again with an old friend—a re-acquaintance with a land that is transformative, inspiring, and pure magic.

India is also vast and profoundly diverse in its landscapes, languages, customs, and clothing.  The big cities, and even some small towns, bustle with activity 24/7. It is said that India can be an assault on the senses and can lead to a feeling of “culture shock,” yet I feel otherwise. India touches a place within you that is as old as time itself. It reminds you that you are infinite. It reminds you of your Truth.

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Topics: Yoga Teacher Training, yoga nidra, yoga, spirit of yoga, India

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