SWIHA Blog

Advanced Professional Hypnotherapy Graduate April Avalos shares her story of loss, and how living with intention and purpose brings happiness to her life day by day.

What was your life like before SWIHA? What led you to SWIHA and to your particular program of study? Why are you passionate about this modality?:

Before SWIHA my life was on autopilot I was literally living each day just to survive the struggles I was having at the time and not enjoying the moments of calmness because I didn’t even recognize them at the time. I started seeing my daughter's hypnotherapist to help me with my stress and anxiety and when I saw the results which brought sanity back into my life, I was amazed and wanted to learn everything I could about hypnotherapy so that I can use this holistic approach to continue to help myself and at the same time help those in my inner circle. Now my heart, my desire, especially after my daughter died, is to help others.

Victor Terrazas has been a Licensed Massage Therapist for twenty years, and spent much of that career as a program director for a Massage Therapy school. While he enjoyed facilitating the health and healing of others, a few years ago he was called toward change.

“I started noticing that I was feeling extremely stressed,” Victor tells us, “I had very low energy and motivation. I was also feeling extremely irritated most of the time and walking the line between negativity and anger. I started becoming more and more aware of this, and I started thinking that I needed to make a change from my day job as a massage school director. I didn't know what or how to do it. Although I had my clinic operating with a team of therapists, I had many attachments to the ‘director’ title.”

Many view their jobs as ‘just’ forty hours per week. However, when you actually do the math, the average American spends a collective thirteen years and two months of their life at work.

So, why are three quarters of Americans reportedly unhappy on the job? And why should we be okay with spending so much of our life in a discontent state?

According to The American Institute of Stress, one in four people surveyed had been driven to tears due to work-related incidents and 65% reported that job stress caused difficulties resulting in decreased productivity. It’s not just a mental/emotional problem, though: job stress has been demonstrated to be associated with increased rates of heart attack, hypertension and other disorders, and 62% of people reported leaving work experiencing stress-related neck pain.

Keeping afloat in this fast-paced world means that each day we face challenges—whether it’s finances, family, career, or relationships—and it can be easy to go, go, go! until suddenly we’re running on empty, our self-esteem is plummeting and we feel disconnected or numb.

Consider that when you’re feeling exhausted, uninspired or just plain ‘off’, it may be your mind, body and spirit sending signals  to ‘check in’ with them!

Meditation is the practice of diving deep within yourself to access the wisdom we inherently possess. With guided meditation, you’re effortlessly directed to your subconscious mind to harvest the raw, ingenious ideas that are calling out to be manifested!

When asked about their favorite instructors at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, many students exclaim “Linda Bennett!” without hesitation. She’s a prolific Hypnotherapist and, what many don’t realize, a Life Coach as well.

“I had my first experience with Life Coaching back in the early nineties,” says Linda, “The process really helped me when I was developing my own business. I found that my coach asked great questions that I hadn’t thought of. It made a big difference in my business.”

Mindfulness is an ability we all possess. Just like a muscle, the more often that we choose to utilize it, the greater the ability grows. At its most basic definition, living mindfully is making the choice to be fully present in each moment. By bringing awareness to what you’re directly experiencing (sounds, scents, sensations) you can reduce ruminative thinking, improve your memory, and find a greater appreciation for both positive and negative experiences.

Meditation is a tool for becoming more mindful. It is an exploration of our internal landscape, where we unleash our natural curiosities and suspend our judgement. Often times, we’re not even aware of how busy our brains are, so by making the time to “check-in” and observe our thoughts, we can learn to better problem-solve and discover the root cause of our daily stressors and discomforts.

Dana Marie Greenwood has officially gone full circle: from her roots as a middle school and high school teacher to her exploration as a student at SWIHA, she is now returning once more to the world of education as a Life Coach!

With 13 years of classroom experience backing her up, Dana intuitively knew that a relaxed state was necessary for her students to effectively absorb new knowledge. Yet, it wasn’t until she trained in a diverse spectrum of specialties at SWIHA—including massage therapy, yoga, aromatherapy, life coaching, mindfulness, guided imagery, and hypnotherapy—that Dana found an appropriate name for the phenomenon she was encountering. “I became consciously aware of the importance of returning to the parasympathetic—or “rest and digest”—state as often as possible,” she reflects. “So many of the body, mind, and spirit’s important functions take place in that state!”

According to Life Coach and Clinical Hypnotherapist Stacia Aashna, one of the best ways to start the New Year is with a detox of body and mind. In fact, she is offering a perfect prescription for wellness in 2018 with Hypnosis, Meditation, Booch at The Kombucha Room in Chicago in mid-January.

For those who don’t know, “booch” is the term for a fermented tea beverage that detoxifies the body and builds the immune system. It is an ideal companion for those brave souls who are ready to detox their mind of old “personal lies”– that inner dialogue of unconscious, reinforcing statements that keeps you from evolving into your best, most confident, happiest self.

Yet, drinking tea is not the only way to “clear” yourself internally in preparation for what 2018 will bring! This graduate from SWIHA’s Life Coaching and Clinical Hypnotherapy program firmly believes that hypnotherapy is one of the oldest proven detox tools available today and an incredible asset for life coaches to use with their clients.

Jewel Blackfeather always knew she was intuitive, although she didn’t fully acknowledge it until she became a Life Coach. In fact, during the first 20-hour weekend of her Life Coaching program at SWIHA, Jewel felt intuitively called to volunteer as the demo client for a fear-related exercise being led by master instructor Richard Seaman in front of a room of nearly fifty people. While there was a part of her that didn’t want to be put in spotlight, there was also a part of her that knew she was being compelled to step up and face her fears!

A Lion Among Wolves

And face her fears she did! During the demonstration, Richard asked her a series of potent, probing questions–which is one of the most powerful skills a Life Coach learns–that caused her to stop and look at what was stopping her. Once she shared a bit of her story, Richard used yet another incredible coaching tool–Transformational Listening–to weave a metaphoric visualization based on what she had shared:

If you, or someone you know, is a caregiver, it goes without saying that you could probably use more sleep. You are not alone! The statistics are staggering: there are approximately 43.5 million people in the United States who identify as caregivers!  

Approximately 8.5 million of these primary caregivers are single mothers and 2.5 million are single fathers. These numbers don’t include the 1.7 million veterans who have returned home in the last ten years and who are now suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or some form of depression—individuals who also need a great deal of support and care.