SWIHA Blog

Sharon Rose made the trek out to Arizona following an opportunity in her previous career of hospitality and to experience a much-needed change in scenery. Attending a school like Southwest Institute of Healing Arts was far from her mind. At the time, she had no idea that her recreational and self-preservationist interests in yoga would become such huge components of her life path, and ultimately, the fulfillment of her life purpose.

After four months here in the desert, a sinking feeling began to creep into her soul that something significant was missing. Looking back, she shares, “I became uninspired and mentally checked out. I started practicing yoga at Spirit of Yoga around this time. I realized then that I wanted to pursue yoga full time and decided to look into SWIHA.”

Meet Cameo Rose of Foxy Fruit Açai Bowls & Smoothies! This girl is serving beautiful bowls to beautiful souls and changing lives through her passion for and knowledge of Holistic Nutrition.

This dream life wasn’t always her reality, though. To hear Cameo talk about her sheer fervor and zeal for Holistic Nutrition and Urban Farming, you would never believe that just a few years ago before attending SWIHA, Cameo found herself trapped in a cycle of negativity. As she puts it, “I knew something had to give, or else I would feel this way forever.” She decided to dive in and begin researching how to live a more healthful life.

From there, she was exposed to a seemingly infinite fount of information about healthy eating. She talks of this time fondly; as if her life burst open, made colorful in the presence of organic options after living for years in the black and white world of processed foods and unconscious living. “I started falling in love with healthy eating, creating delicious vegetarian recipes, and taking care of my mind, body, and soul for what seemed [to be] the first time in my life.”

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.

Taylor Grace is one of Southwest Institute of Healing Arts’ inspired Toe Readers who remembers watching KC Miller do this healing work: “My first Toe Reading was by KC Miller. Watching her work through other people was an amazing experience. She helped me with quite a few things on my personal journey, and it’s the inspiration people get with her that inspires us.” Taylor found a connection to Reiki back in 1996, and then attended one of SWIHA’s Gifts and Graces for the first time, eleven years later in 2007. She knew she wanted to become a student, and so the program she initially signed up for was Life Coaching, then found herself on our conscious college community in the Mind-Body Wellness Practitioner program, in which she studied Hypnotherapy, more Reiki, and Toe Reading. She reflected on the Toe Reading classes: “I remember noticing how respectful of an art it was, yet the truth in it was mind-twisting. It made me feel uncomfortable! You get to know yourself really well when you study healing. This is a process.”

Several years ago, I first discovered toe reading at a Celebrate Your Life conference in Scottsdale, Arizona.  I had flown to Arizona a day early to take an all-day workshop from James Van Praagh, a clairvoyant, spiritual medium, and New York Times bestselling author of Talking to Heaven.

While autographing my book, he told me that I should get a toe reading and that I should do it that day while the lines weren’t very long because tomorrow the lines would probably be a three hour wait!  To be honest, I silently rolled my eyes and thought, “Good lord.  Toe Reading?  What will they think of next?”  Little did I know that one little decision would affect my whole life!

I got my first toe reading and was blown away.  In 10 minutes, the Toe Reader revealed to me more about myself than my family would have been able to!  Being a natural skeptic, I thought that maybe she was just psychic, or a good guesser.  So I went to a Celebrate Your Life in Chicago and received another toe reading.  With the same result, I was beginning to think that it would be difficult to have two good guessers in a row.  Not to be deterred, since I still was not convinced, I went to yet another Celebrate Your Life conference, and this time my reader was Barney Cannon.  He was so accurate that I decided right there I had to find out more about this.  So I rearranged my conference schedule so that I could attend the short workshop from KC Miller, the author of Toe Reading: Are You Walking Your Destined Path.

The position and shape of the toes say a lot about their owner. By observing someone’s toes you will know a great deal about their past and the experiences they have lived through.  Toes reveal how a person copes with their feelings, as well as their thoughts.

Toe Reading is a metaphysical art based on the belief that your body holographically records the story of your life in your feet. An experienced Toe Reader knows toes tell the truth, even when the person themselves may not even be aware of how deeply their life experience has effected them. An over-simplification of this technology would be to say that well-balanced people have beautiful, evenly shaped and spaced toes. The toes of people who have had more challenging lives will appear ‘toe-tied’, depicting the lumps and bumps of the personal and emotional lives they have lived up to this point in time. 

Critics of Toe Reading are of the opinion that bruised and battered toes are simply caused by wearing the wrong shoes, injuries, or disease.  They scoff at the thought that a person’s inner life could create such patterns in toes. There is a very close connection between character, behavior, and attitudes in life, and have you ever considered the personalities and thought processes of the person who chooses and buys certain footware and the effect they can have on the feet?

The exciting alternative programs that Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA) has for holistic health is what brought Shannon Coleman to the school. She enrolled and graduated within one year with a Mind-Body Wellness Practitioner diploma. “This program has opened my eyes to many things such as staying more positive, having confidence, facing my fears, and to just do it. Many of these tips have helped me already, and continue to help me be a better mother, wife, and business woman.” The most valuable thing she learned at SWIHA was to stay positive and face her fears. A quote she loves sharing is, “Release the negative, and truck on with the positive.”

Shannon’s passion for holistic health started when she spent many hours and thousands of dollars on doctors to treat an unknown illness that was leaving her incapacitated. “I met a holistic doctor that saved my life and changed it forever. I am passionate about what I do because I have lost family members, including my mother, to cancer. I know from experience that taking care of the mind, body, and soul as a whole, works! And, I want to educate others who are interested.”

We all know what it’s like to have someone be critical of us; some of us take it with more grace than others. However, instead of looking at a comment as negative or demeaning, imagine considering the critics in your life as ‘Messengers of Courage’. For you to face whatever comment or criticism they toss out, takes courage on your part, and it gives you an opportunity 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.

Kelly St. Claire was looking for something more in her life prior to becoming a Holistic Wellness Practitioner at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts. Her story, her words:

I had wanted to raise the level of excellence in my life and finally break-through in my business. There were so many missing pieces that I needed to find and I was on a search. I was online in one of my discussion groups and someone mentioned SWIHA and becoming certified in different forms of coaching.  I heard it, and filed that away. I eventually ended up searching online for continuing education in the areas I was passionate about, and SWIHA was one of the first results.

I was at a point in my life where nothing was working.  Old things no longer fit the same way, and new things felt out of reach. I felt so stuck and stagnant in body and whole life, yet I do have the kind of spirit that will never give up... Most of the coaching and holistic nutrition certification programs were not in my budget at the time, however I decided to talk to admissions at SWIHA and was pleasantly surprised at how easy, accessible and smooth the process was. They also seemed invested in my success… Support… I’d been craving that kind of support. 

In 2015, Gena Hailey and her family were going to the doctor a lot for colds, to the point where they were spending a lot of money on co-pays and prescription drugs. Most of the time, the treatments didn’t even work. She had been doing internet searches on home remedies, and now and then, she would accidentally come across articles that mentioned holistic healing. She admitted that at the time, she wasn’t even sure what holistic meant. She ended up seeing an ad for the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA). “I was like (imagine a soft, high-pitched voice), ‘What is this magic they speak of?’ Ha! Within that next week I had researched the school, the programs they offered, and spoke to an Admissions Coach - and I was absolutely ecstatic to enroll in the Mind-Body Wellness Practitioner program with a focus on Urban Farming & Conscious Living, and begin the journey that would eventually teach me that ‘magic’ and end up a #GreatGraduate.”