SWIHA Blog

Reine Matthews was diagnosed with Lyme disease four years ago and decided to treat it naturally. Having felt and seen firsthand how taking the natural holistic route really worked and helped inspired her to share it with others so they, too, can find health and wellness inside and out. “I researched holistic schools online and found Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA) and it just felt like a perfect fit for what I wanted to do and learn.” She went on to study Mind- Body Transformational Psychology specializing in Holistic Nutrition, Urban Farming, and Life Coaching.

During the eight-week holiday season—Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve—we are constantly surrounded by sweet treats and other foods we normally do not eat. However, in the grand scheme of things, two months is minute compared to the rest of the year when many people are not paying attention to what they are consuming on a regular basis.

Sugar is a sneaky crystalline substance that is in nearly everything we eat. Trying to avoid it is like trying to avoid getting hit by a raindrop while running to your car during a rainstorm! Almost all processed, canned, fast, and restaurant foods contain sugar or high fructose corn syrup (fructose). Companies know that adding sugar to their products will make them taste better to our Western-tongues. If you find you get a craving for certain foods from restaurants or grocery stores, it is very possible you have adopted a sugar addiction because your body is craving the sugar within the food.

Kara Schaal had been feeling led to go back to school and she knew she wanted to do something holistic. She just wasn’t sure exactly what path to take. A friend recommended checking out the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA). After researching different programs and talking to one of the guidance counselors, Kara felt that SWIHA was the best fit for her to begin her journey!

It is officially autumn and we hope you are starting to experience some cooler temperatures. As we transition from summer into fall it as always nice to slow down. This time of year often makes people begin to think about pumpkin patches, leaves changing, and, of course, apple cider!

We are sharing a simple recipe that will be perfect for chilly evenings, while studying, or by the fire. We are also including a complementary printable for you to cut out as a reminder to make this warm beverage plus a few extra to give to friends, family, and neighbors.

In today’s society, most Americans are used to treating any illness or disease with some lab-created pill in hopes of healing or prevention. A few years ago and after several visits to my doctor, I learned that my blood pressure was high and he was recommending that I start taking daily medication to help stabilize it. After going home with a prescription, I decided to do some research on side effects. It seems easy enough to just take a pill, however after reading the long list of common reactions, I was scared to take it. Plus, thinking about having to take it for life left me wondering what my other options were.

Being curious about natural remedies, I began to do a little research. I wondered if there were options that did not include chemicals, or the “band aid” approach: I wanted to lower my blood pressure, but I wanted to change the root of the problem, not just mask a symptom. I knew my diet wasn’t where it should be. In holistic wellness, we look at the body as a whole organism and consider the ways to treat it in its entirety, not just individual parts. I knew holistic nutrition was a huge piece and by focusing on the foods I put into my body, I hoped I would see some positive changes, including my blood pressure. If we supply our bodies with the necessary things to support our intricate body systems, we can and will heal most illnesses. It made more sense to me to simply eat well, in order to lower my blood pressure, rather than changing nothing and popping a pill. More than two years later, I still have normal blood pressure and I wanted to share how I healed myself with wiser food choices.

Becci Rusinko was searching for a flexible Yoga Teacher Training program that she could do in the evenings and found the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts’ (SWIHA) YTT program.

She initially graduated in April of 2011 with her 200 hour YTT certificate. Then she came back in October of 2011 and completed her 800 hour yoga therapist program, which included holistic nutrition certificate.

Throughout the program at SWIHA, Becci felt that almost every class was her favorite and filled with so much valuable information. “I learned so much that I use daily in all of my classes.”

She felt that she had such fantastic teachers that taught her so much. “My most memorable teachers would be Dr. Henele and Dr. Mahdi and Chef Rachel from the nutrition program and Mary Bruce from the yoga program.”

The knowledge that Becci felt to be the most valuable was to be authentic to her true self and not to try and be someone who she isn't. Becci said, “I hold that so close to my heart every day.”

There was a part of Becci’s life when she was in search of the right thing and she re-found yoga.  “Not only did yoga help cure my physically, it also improved my mentality and made me a different/better person.” After a few years of practice, she looked back at her old self and saw how incredibly different she was. “I decided I needed to share with others what had changed me into such an amazingly different person.” Her passion for sharing yoga comes from having total faith and love for the whole practice. She loves knowing how yoga can help anyone who is open to allow it to transform their life.

When we talk about gratitude, we are talking about the act of truly being thankful. Thankful for the blessings we have in life -- the simple pleasures, the gifts of nature, health, happiness, family, friends, etc.

Gratitude shifts our focus from what we want to what we have.

It allows us to look at the ready abundance of all that is great in our lives. When we are truly grateful there is a profound change in our attitude towards life. Truly giving thanks makes us happier, healthier, and more resilient. It makes our relationships stronger and improves our overall health by reducing stress in our lives.

We all sometimes take for granted, the little things in our lives. The things someone else would and have given their lives for: freedom, food, a place to live, an education, a bed to sleep in, clothes on our backs, etc. What about simple things others don't have like sight, touch, smell, and hearing? I know most of us just take those things for granted. Just for a second, imagine your life without them. Think how your life would change and then you will truly be thankful.

Mark Flory thought he had it all -- family, job, house, and lots of friends. Then at age 44, things started to change. “I guess you can say I had a mid-life crisis of identity. At the time of my decision to go to Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA), I had just sold a business that I thought was going to be my retirement plan.” Mark was feeling like a failure and that he let his family down.

To top it off, Mark applied and interviewed with a company for a position that seemed like it was written specifically for him. After several interviews and feeling really good about getting the new job, he met with the owner and president. Remembering the shock and disbelief, Mark shared that he bombed the interview and didn’t get the job.

Mark now realizes that he was having a spiritual awakening. “My intuitive abilities had been activated and I was starting to awaken to the possibilities of helping people with these new found gifts. During this process, however, many things came up for me that challenged everything that I was. It is never easy to one day say to your friends, ‘Oh by the way, I see dead people and can read your energy.’ Most of them thought I was crazy and really didn’t want to associate with me anymore. Because of this, I isolated myself and I started to question who I was and what I was really put on this earth to do. There is nothing like being 44 years old and not knowing who you are anymore.”

Maria Kalamas opens up to how purposeful her path has been and how her attendance at SWIHA was intended all along. “January of 2010, I was working in a doctor’s office employed as an office manager. The doctor was an MD, yet practicing alternative medicine, specializing in bio-identical hormones. He was helping people heal through proper supplementation, healthy nutrition, bio-identical hormone replacement, Chelation - which is a very effective way to treat heavy-metal poisoning - coaching and outsourcing them to various healing arts therapies, from massage to spiritual coaching and other various holistic practices that he had tried and believed were effective. I soaked in all the information he was giving me because I wanted to help heal people physically, mentally and emotionally,” shared Maria.

Thirty years ago, Melanie Albert stopped eating meat. This wasn’t a decision based on politics or personal beliefs about animals. She simply didn’t like the way her body felt after consuming meat. “My body was feeling full when I ate meat and I felt as though I could not digest it,” Melanie says about her longstanding decision to eliminate meat from her diet. Shortly after eliminating meat, Melanie began to focus on intuitive eating; listening to the cues her body was giving her about food and making decisions about what food to consume.

Little did she know that a few years later, nutrition and intuitive eating would be a daily part of her life and her work. After leaving meat behind, she began to eat organic, “way before it was popular in the media,” she says. Although her decision to go organic baffled some of her friends and family, Melanie enjoyed the results too much to listen to the naysayers. In 1995, Melanie started to educate herself about the true power of nutrition.

It was her mother’s breast cancer diagnosis in 1995 that spurred Melanie to focus her attention on food and nutrition. Her mother was given six months to live by allopathic doctors, so Melanie moved to Florida to care for her.