SWIHA Blog

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.

Nereyda, like so many other students before her, was drawn to SWIHA because of the global impact she was witnessing its graduates making. The online Integrative Healing Arts Practitioner program embodied all she hoped to learn and accomplish, and it touched upon what she already saw lying dormant within herself, waiting to be nurtured into being. She saw the work of current students and past graduates and wanted to join in their legacy.

When asked why she chose the Integrative Healing Arts Practitioner program and why she is passionate about her newfound skills, Nereyda was overwhelmingly positive: “I am passionate as a seeker of wellness and have the intention to share these gifts with the world. This is my purpose.” It takes a special, gifted individual to be willing to act from the heart so openly, to put so much effort into serving and healing others, and to provide others with guidance and inspiration.

Nereyda refers to her growth and transformation in the Healing Arts Practitioner program as her Hero’s Journey. She acts from the heart and hopes to guide and aid the growth of others. SWIHA prepared her for her own personal journey of healing, as well. Thinking of some of the changes she has experienced personally during the program, she says, “SWIHA has given me the tools required to promote self-healing, stillness of mind, and self-compassion and encouraged me to be active in self-care!”

At present, Nereyda is in the middle of a four-month Spinal Fusion recovery. Nereyda says that the skills and techniques learned in her courses are something that affect her recovery profoundly every day. She uses hypnotherapy to aid in her own healing and meditations. Speaking of how hypnotherapy has helped her, she says, “My personal self-hypnotherapy sessions have helped me to heal. These deep trance meditations assist in my pain management, ease anxiety and stress, encourage relaxation, promote better sleeping patterns (which had been disrupted during my hospitalizations), and create a significant change in my mobility.” Her lessons in spiritual studies helped her to guide herself and encourage her own development. She acknowledges that through all the things she has learned, she has become a great asset to her own growth. She will be returning for an additional procedure to address complications that have arisen, and she is using this time to spiritually and metaphorically reconstruct her core while her body heals.

Nereyda says that her biggest inspiration is humanity. In her private practice, she wants to help people to all themselves to feel love and compassion at their most vulnerable states of transformation. “I find individuals seek clarity and acceptance when moving through theses stages of change, and that is when we cross paths,” she says. Nereyda feels compassion for others in all walks of life and inspires self-expression in those who are suffering emotionally and physically. Whether they are recovering from medical procedures or emotional trauma, she wishes to provide opportunities for communities to be filled with self-healing and inner transformation within the sacred space that she holds for each and every person. Nereyda says, “I aim to encourage the body's natural healing process through movement and compassion and through the combination of the transformational modalities I have learned.”

Nereyda has learned a LOT of modalities. The services that she offers are: Restorative Yoga, Guided Meditation, Hypnotherapy, Aromatherapy, Flower Essences, Reiki Energy Work, Sound Healing, Binaural Beats Music Therapy, Spiritual Life Coaching, Tarot and Oracle Reading, Chakra Balancing, Crystal Therapy, Toe Reading, and Ritualist and Spiritual Caregiving as an Interfaith Minister with the Universal Brotherhood Movement. “Through SWIHA, I have learned to live without shame, to live in authenticity, to be vulnerable, and to share community with all who are willing,” Nereyda says. “When we sit quietly, the universe speaks in ways we can clearly see and hear. Inspiration and imagination are what moves the spirit in creating the reality of dreams.”