SWIHA Blog

For 25 years, Delana Gosa built her career in conventional healthcare, working in medical billing and healthcare administration. While her career provided stability and valuable insight into the healthcare system, Delana eventually felt called toward a different kind of work—one centered on mindfulness, personal transformation, spiritual growth, and helping others reconnect with their own inner wisdom.

That calling led her to Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA), where she enrolled in the Holistic Health and Wellness Coaching program, specializing in Holistic Nutrition.

Now having recently graduated, Delana is taking what she has learned at SWIHA and turning it into a private practice designed to help clients explore the patterns, beliefs, and experiences that may be keeping them from living authentically.

Sometimes the most transformative journeys begin not with certainty, instead emerging from a quiet sense that something more is waiting. For Seyoni Smith, that inner knowing surfaced during a season of transition—one that ultimately led her to Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA) and the completion of the Integrative Healing Arts Practitioner Program.

Before SWIHA, Seyoni was working a traditional 9–5 job after taking a gap year from college—one she never returned from because full-time work became a necessity. During that period, she found herself navigating her own spiritual awakening alongside mental health challenges. While she was doing what was expected, fulfillment remained out of reach. She recalls knowing, deep down, that “there was something more waiting for me, both spiritually and physically.”

At Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA), we often say that every student carries a spark—a calling that draws them to healing work not just for others—for themselves too. For recent graduate Isea Natalie Reid, that spark has become a radiant flame. A proud Jamaican mother, healer, entrepreneur, and survivor, Isea’s journey through SWIHA’s Integrative Healing Arts Practitioner program with a concentration in Spiritual Coaching and Earth Ceremonies has been one of profound transformation, both inside and out.

Before stepping into her healing journey, Scherrie Blake found herself navigating a season of loss—romantic breakups, family fractures, and friendship fallouts. “I was desperate for answers,” she recalls. “I needed to understand why I had to experience so much pain, even though I was a good person.” That search for meaning led her to shadow work—and eventually to the Integrative Healing Arts Practitioner (IHAP) program at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA).

When Desarie Lee first found SWIHA, she wasn’t seeking a certificate—she was seeking spiritual alignment. Already practicing Reiki and deeply connected to the metaphysical world, Desarie had read Journey of Souls and felt called to guide others toward the magic and depth of the spirit realm. After a transformative “life between lives” session with a hypnotherapist who happened to be a SWIHA graduate, Desarie’s path was clear. Spirit said “YES,” and so did she.

I came to spiritual coaching not through a textbook or a plan—rather, through an experience that awakened something deep within me. While working as a massage therapist at a yoga retreat, I found myself surrounded by healing energy. I received Reiki sessions, participated in guided meditations, and experienced powerful hypnotherapy sessions. I didn’t know it at the time, however, something inside me was shifting. I felt myself opening, softening, and connecting more deeply with parts of myself I hadn’t accessed in years.

At some point in life, many of us feel a deep inner calling—a whisper that says, “There’s more for you out there.” For Paulette Brown, a retired police officer with a lifelong passion for helping others, that call came with a desire for a new beginning. She knew she wanted to live a more meaningful life, one aligned with spiritual purpose and healing service. That calling led her straight to Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA), where she enrolled in the Integrative Healing Arts Practitioner (IHAP) program with the dream of becoming a Spiritual Life Coach.

Have you ever felt a quiet nudge from within… an inner knowing that you’re here for something more?

In 2025, more people than ever are answering that nudge. They’re waking up to the truth that fulfillment doesn’t just come from financial success or status. It comes from alignment. From purpose. From spiritual connection.

At the heart of every healer is a calling—a gentle nudge, a sudden synchronicity, or a deep inner knowing that there’s more to life than what we can see with our eyes. For Nicole Santoro, that calling was never a singular, dramatic event. Instead, it was a series of divine nudges—a trail of synchronicities marked by resonant goosebumps, repeating numbers, and perfectly-timed encounters that let her know she was exactly where she was meant to be.

“Before SWIHA, I had been studying psychology and sociology and had been looking at a career in clinical psychology. At the same time, I started going through a spiritual, awakening and Covid all at the same time and realized that I did not want to deliver traditional clinical psychology. I wanted to work more with people, mind, body, and spirit, and help them live fulfilling wonderful lives.”