SWIHA Blog

Dr. Paul Bernitt, a Board Certified Doctor of Holistic Health and founding member of Trivita Clinic of Integrative Medicine in Scottsdale, has worked in a wide variety of health care entities including long-term care, OB/GYN, children’s hospitals and family medicine since 1998.

“My life was all about how much I could get done,” he says, “raising my family, being active in my church and trying to ‘get ahead in life’.”

In a turn of fate, Dr. Bernitt fell ill. He was diagnosed with metabolic syndrome and, at age thirty-six, was already experiencing atherosclerosis, a hardening of the arteries. The traditional allopathic doctors he spoke with told him that he would have to reduce sugars and carbohydrates from his diet, increase his physical activity and that he would need to take medications to help him manage his condition.

In 2008, Natalie McGovern met a woman who, in retrospect, seems to have been an angel…

“I was working at a psychiatric hospital, and I was in my 90-day grace period when the hospital decided whether or not I was a good fit,” she shares. “I was on psychiatric medications myself, so I knew what it felt like when interactions with the drugs were going wrong. In a couple of the small groups, patients were complaining about side effects. I told them to talk to their doctor and that they had a right to NOT take the medications that weren’t working for them. My employer didn’t like that, and I was very quickly let go…”

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.

Reine Matthews is a SWIHA graduate both doing great things and writing great things! Her first book, Thriving After Diagnosis: Instead of Merely Surviving, was just published… and she is already working on a second! Hailing from Northern Idaho, Reine received an AOS Degree in Mind Body Transformational Psychology from SWIHA, with concentrations in Holistic Nutrition and Wellness, Life Coaching, and Urban Farming and Conscious Living.

Reine chose to get into the field of holistic wellness because of her personal journey of being diagnosed with (and thriving beyond!) Lyme Disease. According to the CDC, Lyme disease is the fastest growing vector-borne, infectious disease in the United States, with 25,000 new cases being reported every month for an estimated 300,000 new people being affected per year (25% of which are children). This illness is typically transmitted through a bite from an infected deer tick and has been reported in all 50 states and on every continent, excluding Antarctica.

Michael Sclafani had always known he was into the mystical arts. While growing up in New York and attending Catholic school from pre-school through seventh grade, this passion always made him feel like an outsider. “I liked going to church and singing in the hallways, and I was also the kid with the Ouija board out at recess,” he says. “I always felt a sense of Magic.” His first real entrance into the world of the mystical was when one of his mom’s friends left her tarot deck at their house when he was 10 years old.

Maureen Ihle has always been dedicated to helping people, and yet it wasn’t until she enrolled at SWIHA that she realized that doing so was her life’s purpose (INSERT: www.blog.swiha.edu/life-coaching-corner-are-you-brave-enough-to-be-an-entrepreneur). Maureen shared that before she firmly found her path at SWIHA, she was struggling both personally and professionally. It took clearing away some of those personal cobwebs to ultimately see where her path was leading her.

“I was working at a job that was very unsatisfying. I had gained 30 pounds the year before I enrolled and was at my highest weight ever. I didn’t know where I was going in my life, and I certainly had no idea of how I was going to get there. I knew I needed to do something different with my life, and I knew I wanted to help people, so I started looking at psychology programs. I looked at a lot of programs at other schools, and nothing seemed to quite fit until I found the program at SWIHA. As soon as I saw the program, I knew that this is what I needed to be doing with my life. I am so passionate about life coaching and helping other people find their purpose.”

High in the mountains of Northern Arizona, in a little town called Pinedale (population: 588), you’ll find SWIHA graduate Lisa Kaiser carving out her dream of a self-sustaining community.

In 2015, Lisa graduated from Southwest Institute of Healing Arts with a degree in Mind-Body Transformational Psychology and a diploma in the Mind-Body Wellness Practitioner program. The focus on body energy work, Ayurveda, aromatherapy, urban farming, raw food preparation—as well as the tools and support she got from entrepreneurial classes—provided the foundation of success that led to the beginning of Lisa building her dream.

Before attending SWIHA, Deborah Brown was a professional college student in Maryland, a Community Health and Wellness Facilitator, and a Minister. After going through what she refers to as a “Damascus experience,” she felt a calling to seek something bigger— the pursuit of the “missing piece” keeping her from delivering her gifts to the public. 

While Deborah had served as an entrepreneur in various shapes and forms for most of her adult life, the business journey had not always been completely satisfying for her. She had always had SWIHA in her sights, originally in the form of the Natural Aesthetics program at SWINA; however, Spirit had other plans for her and led her to the Mind Body Transformational Psychology Degree Program at SWIHA, where she would learn how to serve as a holistic healer and entrepreneur. “The Mind Body Transformational Psychology Degree called out to my Spirit because it had the components to feed me and fine tune my life's work in Ministry, Health and Wellness, Spirituality, and Entrepreneurship, as well as foster my leadership qualities,” says Deborah. 

By 2014, Angelica Belmar was happy in many areas of her life. Her family, kids, and husband made her feel proud of them. She was grateful and humble for all she had in her life, however her only frustration was that she didn’t have a career, and that feeling was strong in her heart. She knew that she wanted to study, yet she didn’t know what she wanted to study. “My entire life, I have been inclined towards kindness, gentleness, compassion, and diplomacy. I like to help others. The holistic field sounded very fascinating to me, so I started researching it, and I found Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA).” She enrolled and graduated with an Associates degree of Occupational Studies in Mind Body Transformational Psychology specializing in Hypnotherapy, Holistic Nutrition, and Life Coaching. Within the program she also studied Aromatherapy, Flower Essences, Prayer Therapy, Ayurveda Introduction, Energy Anatomy, Psychology of Addictions, Developmental Psychology, Ethical Consciousness.  She calls SWIHA one of the best schools in the world because it is a school that gives holistic education, and therefore they care for each one of their students. She experienced their support during her program, and now that she is graduated, she feels that her success is important for them. “I’m so grateful.”