SWIHA Blog

It took Lindsey Gemme a few years of mulling over what she wanted to do with her life before officially starting in the Holistic Nutrition Specialist program at the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA). She discovered SWIHA while on her original search for a school to study herbalism. Once she explored all of the degrees and certificate offered at the college she was in love. “SWIHA had programs for all of the healing disciplines I was interested in: Herbalism, Yoga, Reiki, and even Nutrition.” After choosing to specialize in nutrition, she chose to take the Transformational Life Coach program as well, realizing how hand-in-hand coaching and holistic nutrition go.

As a recent Great Graduate from the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA), I was a bit nervous about getting my first client for a flower essence session. It all started when a client learned about my services online and wanted a spiritual reading. As the reading began to unfold, Spirit shared some spiritual visions and insights that wowed the client. It was very clear that she was a ‘Lightworker’ who had gotten out of touch with her true spiritual self. I asked her if she had ever heard of flower essence and she said “no, however, I’m open and willing to try them.” It was the perfect opportunity to explain what flower essence was and how it worked. Therefore, I mailed her flower essence brochure to share with her all about flower essence, how it worked, and the type of flower essence services we offered at our healing center.

Marci DeBord was divinely led to the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA). “After asking for guidance from the Creator to assist and guide me to the answers I sought, I was directed to SWIHA.” During her time at SWIHA, Marci experienced a beautiful transformation -- she discovered an occupation and passion that she feels privileged and honored to be doing.

Marci first enrolled in the Mind Body Wellness Practitioner program and right before she completed the program she felt led to complete the Mind Body Transformational Psychology Associates program, which she graduated from April 2015. Through-out each program she maintained a 4.0 grade average, was passionate for each class.

“From each class I learned valuable information for self-transformation and how to successfully guide others. What stands out the most would be the complete acceptance of myself and my abilities, and how to effectively serve others for their highest good.”

Life Coaching was Marci’s original goal when she enrolled in the program. However, during her studies she discovered a passion for Hypnotherapy. Ultimately, she discovered that both Life Coaching and Hypnotherapy work very well together.

• You are highly sensitive to the emotions of other people.
• You have the ability to feel the energies of people, places and objects.
• You experience feelings of anxiousness associated with social situations.
• You experience general feelings of anxiousness.
• You experience general feelings of sadness.
• Being around negative people is overwhelming or unbearable for you.
• You experience exhaustion, or feel mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually depleted after being around certain people.
• You frequently experience heightened senses or feelings of sensory overload.
• Your emotions and thoughts are easily influenced by music, tv and/or movies.
• You feel things that you just can’t explain and which you can’t pinpoint the source of where it comes from.

The number one skill to becoming an Empath Master is: to first know yourself. This might sound like an obvious answer to an obvious problem, after all how can you know the difference between what feelings come from “out there” and what feelings come from yourself, if you don’t first know yourself?

Zoey Greco was wrapping up her studies towards a Bachelor’s degree in sunny, Southern California back in 2012 when she began to feel a bit lost about how she was going to move forward in her life. “I knew I wanted to be a healer, yet I had NO idea how to enter into such a metaphysical field. I pondered how could I tell my family who had poured thousands of dollars into my education that I wanted to be an intuitive channel and energy healer?” All of her friends were applying and receiving acceptance letters to graduate programs or Fulbright scholarships and Zoey was wondering how she could possibly make her dreams a reality. Other careers have more clear paths to success—formal internships, graduate programs, the rat race. Zoey knew that those paths were not for her.

If you were to pinpoint Nancy Santana’s philosophy on life you could use her Pinterest description: “I am an empowerment lifestyle spirit junkie -- loving anything mind-body wellness! I love holistic… intuitive…spiritual! I am the founder of the #chooseLOVE movement and The Lotus Wellness Center. Follow me!”

Nancy Santana was going through some major transitions and shifts in her life when a friend first told her about SWIHA. “I had transformed my body . . . yet something was missing and that was the mind-body-spirit connection,” shared Nancy, who recently completed the Mind-Body Transformational Psychology program at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts. Her passion for this program developed from deep within her soul. She recalled how she lit up when first saw the list of Spiritual Studies courses that were part of her program:

It was in the wee hours of the evening that Spirit spoke to Sarah Senst. “I was unable to sleep one night feeling depressed and anxious about my future. A late night TV commercial for the Life Coaching program at SWIHA was shown! The commercial, the program and the school immediately spoke to me!”

What fueled Sarah’s passion and consuming interest in the Life Coaching program, stemmed from her position as the ultimate life coach – parenting! “I've always enjoyed engaging with people and learning their 'stories.’ This strength has allowed me to connect with many different people from many different backgrounds. People really do care that you care – they don’t care as much about what you know. I think people can feel that I care when they are around me. My passion became more focused after my own personal experience of raising three children in a one-adult home; I realized others could also benefit from support, non-judgement and acceptance in their own parenting experiences. I came to understand that society can be very critical of parents and it is not an area we are highly trained in or prepared for, yet it is perhaps one of the most important jobs in existence. I wanted to create a place where people could talk about the fears, resentments, anxieties, hopes, dreams, frustrations and blessings that accompany raising healthy children. Hence my coaching business, No Perfect Parents, was born in 2005.”

Sarah’s passion has evolved and has spread to many different venues for her to help others while using her gifts and graces. “I work as part of a small private group practice seeing individual clients. In addition to that, I am an independent contractor facilitating parenting classes, coaching juvenile offenders, and providing individual coaching for parents, teens and mature women.”

Like many SWIHA students, Kristin Apodaca’s path to SWIHA was full of trials and tribulations. Nearly seven years ago, Kristin and her family moved to Arizona for her husband’s new job, leaving her family and old life behind in Boca Raton, Florida. On the outside, she had it all: a loving husband, four beautiful and healthy children, a large home and many friend -- and yet, as Kristin revealed, she felt like she had no idea who she was as a person. Seven years of being a stay-at-home-mom took their toll on her.She spent that time feeling very resentful towards her husband for having to work such long hours, taking him away from their family and herself. All of these factors led her to a breaking point. “I had lost my identity,” confessed Kristin. After briefly using anti-depressants to help cope with her anxiety and depression, she knew there had to be a more holistic route available.

Jennifer Csajko was so miserable at her job and she needed a little ‘divine intervention’. She didn't know what she wanted to do with her life. “I started learning about the Law of Attraction and I attracted SWIHA (Southwest Institute of Healing Arts) into my life. My yoga teacher liked the SWIHA Facebook page and when I clicked on it, I knew that this was what I was meant to do. I had to be a part of the program. That was in October and by January I had quit my job and was enrolled. Best decision I ever made!”

During her time at SWIHA, Jennifer said that the most valuable thing she learned was to be her authentic self, to find her voice and share it with the world. "I learned that everyone has a unique gift to share.”

Jennifer enrolled in the Holistic Wellness Practitioner Online Program. While she was taking the Life Coaching portion of the program, she discovered that she has always been a life coach. She just didn’t know what that was. “I've always been curious about people and relationships so it was a natural choice for me. As soon as I started taking the coaching classes, I knew I had come ‘home.’ This was for me. This is what I had been waiting for. I am so passionate about helping people and helping them to create better lives, all I wanted to do was be a part of that.”

After graduation she launched her business, Jennifer Csajko-Life Coach for Your Love Life. She has made it her job to help women figure out what they REALLY want in a relationship. “I support them as they take action towards creating the relationship of their dreams and getting the love they want. I help women who are single (and done mingling) or who feel stuck in their relationship move forward. While working with me I help my clients gain clarity and create a plan of action towards getting the relationship they REALLY want.”

Paul Smith is the epitome of a SWIHA #GreatGraduate, displaying the reverent and resilient balance between action and stillness. Paul is a life-long student who has used every ounce of his experience to expand his own personal growth and empower that in others.

He shares that he has found his life purpose through integrating his past experiences and observations: “Human beings have the capacity to be so healthy and so happy. All people can have a very loving connection between family, friends, colleagues and teammates. I have been observing and studying throughout my entire life so that I could help others. Unfortunately a few tragedies have occurred: my grandfather died of cancer, my high school head football coach died of cancer, my little cousin overdosed on prescription medication and my little brother took his own life. I've observed so many other tragedies and challenges - and numerous disheartening news stories are aired every day.

With each event, my heart was broken and my awareness was opened. I witnessed the harmful effects that conventional medicine and therapies can sometimes have on peoples’ lives so I set out to learn about - and provide - healthier alternative options. I decided to leave everything and embarked on a pilgrimage throughout India and Nepal to study Ayurveda and Buddhism. I returned and graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology and was determined to keep momentum and learn more. I was looking into becoming a doctor and going to either Naturopathic or Chiropractic school when I discovered SWIHA and decided that it was a much better fit for me personally. It was a great choice!”