SWIHA Blog

“If you see me walking around,” says Michael Anthony Suszczynski, a graduate of SWIHA’s Mind-Body Wellness program, “I can gladly give you ten miraculous stories.” The key word in that invitation is walking, because a debilitating back injury twenty years ago left Michael unable to do anything except crawl.

In an attempt to repair the damage to his back, Michael underwent a surgery followed by six months of intensive physical therapy – three hours a day, three days a week. Despite the attempts of the doctors, physical therapists and Michael’s own dedication to his health, his body was not responding in the way that they’d anticipated. He had no strength in his left leg and began to lose hope that he’d ever walk normally again. 

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Too often, I meet people on their spiritual path who are fed up with their lack of progress, lack of knowledge, lack of you-name-it... Often, these are the same people whose every inch of last spring’s vision board has already come true, who have grown leaps and bounds in the past year, and who have a long list of achievements already under their belt.

Despite the “bigger picture” of their overwhelming success, these folks tend to fall into a pit of despair in reaction to their recent missteps or scattered goals. They devote more time to suffering over their mistakes than creating, learning, healing, and growing. They open the door to self-criticism and, in doing so, slam the door shut on universal guidance. And, on top of it all, you can bet that these rock stars are painfully aware of their self-sabotaging behavior… and are adding that, too, to their growing catalog of “weaknesses.”

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For Tory Dube, life before SWIHA was a matter of constant performance. As a struggling professional dancer, actor, and comedian, Tory found herself trapped in the cutthroat entertainment industry, constantly facing the judgment of strangers. “I was an anxiety-ridden people pleaser who was hiding a nasty eating disorder,” she recalls. “My self-worth was defined by the people who decided whether or not I booked a job.”

Desperate for a change, Tory booked a space on a yoga retreat in the Bahamas, where she was introduced to meditation. While she found the demand of being totally present painful, it was exactly the spark she needed to start pursuing a new way of life. It was time to conquer her anxiety and food obsession once and for all.

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If you find yourself on the home page of Life Coach and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist Sandy O’Neal’s website, you’ll notice a single quote printed across a beautiful lavender and pink sky:

“If you want to change your reality, then it’s time for you to change your mind…”

Changing minds and realities is indeed what Sandy is all about as she serves the world through her coaching and hypnotherapy business, appropriately called A Transformed Life. Her objective is to help her clients deepen and expand their lives through her specializations in fertility support, anxiety/stress reduction, weight reduction and movement, fears and phobias treatment, and pain management. She offers private sessions in-person at her Mesa, Arizona, studio and remotely via phone and Skype, as well as weekly and biweekly meetup groups which focus on managing anxiety, stress, and depression, promoting well-being and mindfulness, increasing self-confidence, and practicing healthy habits.

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As our understanding of mental health continues to evolve, it’s becoming clearer than ever that postpartum struggles with depression, anxiety, and trauma can have a significant impact on entire families, from the new mothers who are wrangling with the challenges of having a baby to their partners’ aiming to adequately support them. Stepping in to serve in this sector is Jillian Holper, a life coach and hypnotherapist with a passion for providing guidance to women throughout some of the hardest parts of their lives. “I knew from the get-go that supporting moms with postpartum anxiety and depression was something I wanted to do and was passionate about,” Jillian explains.

What Jillian didn’t anticipate was having a secondary specialty show up in her practice. “Smoking and weight management clients just kind of fell into my lap,” she recalls. “It was never part of the plan, yet I realized this is something my clients are seeing significant results from and that feels just as good as the shifts I am facilitating with my mamas!”

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From a young age, Stephanie M. Bjarnson already admired life coaches. A counselor taught her self-hypnosis techniques, which she then used to bring herself out of a severe depression during her youth. Her hometown wasn’t the most accepting of her approach to holistic healing, as she shared with me.

Stephanie feels that this fear is due to the mainstream medical establishment that pushes pills, therapy, and rehab on to people, rather than promoting self-love, meditation, and holistic methods of healing. Stephanie sums up healing and wellness succinctly, saying, “It all starts with the self - that is where we truly evolve.”

Though the fields of life coaching and hypnosis may differ in their approach to healing, these were the two areas that Stephanie desired to learn about the most, dating back to her highly beneficial childhood experiences with them. It comes as no surprise that Stephanie eventually enrolled in the Mind-Body Wellness Practitioner ONLINE program, where she specialized in Clinical Hypnotherapy and Life Coaching.

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