SWIHA Blog

She is excited! We are excited! And the world will soon be excited for one of SWIHA’s #GreatGraduates, Brianna Bedigian.  She is releasing her first book this next week.  It’s entitled Healing Footstep to Footstep.

Brianna is a highly trained and gifted healer, and a graduate of the SWIHA Hypnotherapy program.  After being diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, Brianna dug deep to create and undergo her own healing process, and chronicled it through journaling and photography. After her recovery, and years of optimum health, Brianna looked back and reflected on the narrative that unfolded.  One step at a time, footstep to footstep, her healing occurred over time. Brianna realized her recorded journal entries can now serve as an abstract primer-of-sorts for others suffering from any type of illness.

As an author, artist, teacher and healer, Brianna utilizes her personal journey, years of formal training and her personal practice to guide students and clients locally, nationally and even remotely. Brianna explains, “The reality is that healing begins one step at a time, often slowly and with acceptance of the self.”

Over the past 15 years, Melissa Kim Corter, a graduate of Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, has extensively studied many facets of intuition, including science, metaphysics, and various energetic practices. As part of her diploma program at SWIHA her completed various specialties – Life Coaching, Hypnotherapy, Yoga Teacher Training, Yoga Nidra and Transformational Yoga Coaching to name just a few.

On her journey she has mentored and worked with shamans, metaphysicians, psychics, and even law enforcement to hone and perfect her own gifts of intuition. Now stepping into her power, Melissa has launched a successful business as an author, psychic medium/coach and shamanic practitioner, weaving the world of spirit into her daily life and taking that gift out into the world to share it with others.

It is through the sharing of these gifts, Melissa has taught others how to drop-in deeply, to connect to that place where their inner spirit speaks to them. To bring forth insight, information and physical and emotional healing to those she touches. While her path has been filled with many obstacles and challenges Melissa has chosen to turn these into opportunities and possibilities. She now uses sensitivity and compassion as a gift instead of seeing it as a burden as she once had.

"How may I best serve? Make me an instrument of Spirit!" was my prayer and my plea!  And all the sudden toes started showing up everywhere!

I began to notice all kinds of people wearing sandals or flip flops -- and for some reason I would find myself just staring at their toes.  People around me were stubbing their toes and asking me what I thought it meant. At the time, I had a very active massage practice, and the clients coming to me wanted reflexology above anything else I offered. The moment I touched their feet, it was as if I could see dimensionally -- like some special power or ability had come over me, and I could see beyond the physical foot  into the metaphysical.

After about the tenth session of having god-bumps appear while I was working on someone's feet, I sat back remembering my question:  "How may I best serve?"  On one level, I began to feel that this toe thing was somehow the answer to the prayer I had uttered with deep sincerity.  With this realization, there was just a little bit of momentary disappointment too, with me thinking, "Are you kidding me? The most you’re going to trust me with are toes?" 

Worrying about money can be a tremendous stressor in one’s life. Scientific studies have shown that extreme stress can adversely affect our mental health and can decrease the function of our immune system. Because mind and body function together, worrying about money may cause physical and emotional symptoms. You might feel helpless or depressed. Possibly you experience headaches, digestive problems, or frequent infections. You may feel anxious, irritable, and have difficulty sleeping. 

‘Happy Father’s Day’ does not always seem to fit for some people who had less than an ‘A+’ experience with their fathers.  The ‘A’ often stands of Abusive, Abandonment, or Awfully-emotionally-unavailable.

Long ago, I learned to celebrate the lessons my father gifted me as a child of an Alcoholic father.  Yes, I have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility; yes, I highly prefer to be ‘in control’, and yes, I tend to ‘do it myself’ because I can predict the results.  While I have had to learn to temper and refined all these qualities I inherited as a result of who my father was, in the end, they have served me well.

The last lesson my father taught me has most shaped my life.  It is the importance of being able to imagine. 

My father’s birthday was June 13 and often fell on Father’s Day.  In late December, 20 years ago, my father had just returned from an AA meeting with a burning desire to work the 5^th & 8^th steps:

Lorrie VanPelt Smith confides that she struggled with acne when she was in high school and was always searching for things that worked.  She found that many products and treatments were costly, and didn't always do what they claimed they would do. After working in the legal field for years, Lorrie admits that she felt burned out, so when a co-worker said she was looking into aesthetics, Lorrie felt like this could be a career path that would be challenging, as well rewarding by helping others achieve their skincare goals.  And she was right!

“I am passionate about what I do, as I want each person who walks into my studio to see and feel the beautiful person that I see in them.  There is so much negativity in our world these days, and everyone trying to keep up with the Joneses, that my passion is for my client to see their own beauty, embraces it, and love the skin they are in!”, explained Lorrie enthusiastically.

‘This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home’ is a rhyme we hear as children, playfully explaining the significance of each toe. While the elementary explanation may be a little nebulous, the concept that each toe represents something is true from the point of view of reflexology.

Reflexology is a natural healing art based on the principle that there are reflex points in the feet, hands, and ears which directly correspond to every part and organ of the body. Through application of pressure on these reflex points by a skilled practitioner’s hands, along with the use of tools, lotions and aromatherapy, tension and dis-ease can be relieved or eliminated.

Practices resembling reflexology can be traced as far back as 2450 BC to ancient petroglyphs on the walls of an Egyptian tomb. In fact, Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, wrote about the curative effects of this modality.

In more recent times, Dr. William H. Fitzgerald, an ear, nose, and throat doctor, introduced this concept of ‘zone therapy’ in 1915. With ‘zone therapy’ the body is divided by vertical lines into five zones on the left side and five zones on the right side of the body. These zones relate to all parts of the body within each zone. The fingers and toes affect corresponding parts of the body and are the primary areas of treatment.

Growing up as an only child with a single mother, Quintin McCain has seen his fair share of struggle. He candidly shares how he chose to hang out with gangsters in his adolescent years. As a result, Quentin found himself involved in activities ranging from selling drugs to carrying weapons.

Although Quentin attended four different high schools, he succeeded in completing his high school diploma. At the age of eighteen, he fell asleep at the wheel of this vehicle and crashed into a light pole, leaving him with a broken femur, fractured ribs, a punctured lung, and a new lease on life. It was this unexpected incident that helped him to realize he was put on this earth for a reason—to change the world for the better.

The next event that forever impacted Quentin’s life was the birth of his beautiful daughter, Alyssa. Upon her birth, Quentin vowed to be a positive role model for his daughter and be someone she could be proud of. The journey to his destined path would not be easy; there were many challenges such as anxiety, the absence of a true purpose, and the lack of a mentor or role-model in his life.

By KC Miller, SWIHA Success Center Blogger

Every one of us has a critic or two in our lives. They may be close friends, family members or the casual unconscious, cavalier, would-be-comic that offers up a caustic comment that momentarily cremates our self-esteem. Imagine considering the critics in your life as ‘Messengers of Courage,’ because to face whatever comment or criticism they toss out takes courage on your part. Facing whatever expression of disapproval or perceived fault someone else has of you is an opportunity for you to do a moral inventory of who you really are, where you stand in the world, and exactly what the truth is about yourself!

One of my biggest moments of courage in facing a critic happened a few years ago during a Celebrate Your Life event in Scottsdale, Arizona. For years, Mishka Productions, created by Ariel Wolfe and her daughter Liz Dawn, have been bringing best-selling authors and new-age thought leaders together for a weekend of intense spiritual growth. It has been my honor to be a part of the conference from almost the beginning, partly because long before the Celebrate Your Life events began, I was friends with Ariel Wolfe.

It was at these amazing conferences that my soul work, Toe Reading, really found a life of its own. From the first time Toe Readings were offered to conference participants, long lines of people would form just to have a piece of their life path analyzed and honored. The messages stored in the tissue of their toes proved to be extremely accurate and divinely guided messages were offered to the conference seekers. Hundreds of people received deep transformative information about themselves and their soul-path, creating tremendous healing and release from past pain from the Toe Readings they received. These readings are based on a soul coaching system I was able to teach a whole team of Spirit-directed practitioners.

By KC Miller, SWIHA Success Center Blogger

It has been said to own a business you must have a lot of backbone.

According to the Small Business Administration, three out of five businesses fail in the first three years. Michael Gerber, author of The E Myth – Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About, says their failure is not because the owners are under-skilled or under-trained in the performance of their professions; the failure rates are due to ‘hardening of the attitudes’ and losing sight of their mission.

The word ‘Osteoporosis’ usually refers to a disease where the bone strength has been compromised, resulting in chronic pain and a decreased ability to carry out normal activities. Metaphorically speaking, ‘Business Osteoporosis’ is where the strength of a business has been compromised due to premature degeneration of its mission, which causes chronic painful detours and hardship to the business owner.

Bottom-line:

A successful entrepreneur has a strong mission that serves as the backbone to everything they do, yet has an attitude flexible enough to adapt to the changes that come their way.

Motivational speaker and best-selling author Brian Tracy states that you generally accomplish your written goals, dreams, plans, and vision. Writing them down lends power and commitment to their accomplishment. This is especially true when writing a mission statement.