SWIHA Blog

“Holding Space for myself means permission to feel what I need to feel, space to just be here, exactly who and how I am, and to find my way forward - gently.” - Unknown

Before coming to SWIHA, Great Graduate of the 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training program, Mario Jiannino, was swept up in the whirlwind of life. Always go, go, going, and not really breathing through life. Mario explains, “I was really reactive to everything around me. I really thought that what I was reacting to before was so important. I realized that while taking Yoga, I have the ability to slow down and analyze things before I create my reaction.” Rather than experiencing and witnessing things, Mario found himself in a place of reaction. Having known and worked with KC Miller, Founder of Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, for several years, she finally approached Mario about the Yoga Program. Mario’s reflection was, “KC is insightful - she saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. Somebody out there believed that I was capable of doing something beyond myself, and she was right. I am passionate about this specific modality because Yoga taught me to breathe. I thought I knew so many things about life, until Yoga. Then, I woke up and witnessed so much beauty that was always with me.”

When Micah Lunassential speaks, she immediately commands your attention. Warm, kind, smart, and engaging, she brings experience, understanding, and enlightenment to people with her successful YouTube channel Ms.Micah. With a focus on love and relationships this channel embraces the discussion of uncomfortable topics that so often hold us back, like fear, forgiveness, addiction, and trauma.

Micah grew up knowing trauma, having PTSD as a child from a serious accident and later getting complex PTSD from abuse as an adult. These experiences dramatically affected her view on love and on herself. After years of feeling hopeless and being trapped in a victim mentality, Micah went to a Holistic Gathering at SWIHA in October of 2012 where she had a Toe Reading that would change her life.

“I was being mentored by the then Director of the Psychology department at Ottawa University for a class I was taking entitled Trauma Psychology,” Micah shared. “The Toe Reading reminded me of what I was avoiding because I was trapped in a victim mentality. True healing was learning to feel safe in the body after trauma or domestic violence.”

In 2013, Niki Meadows gave herself a metamorphic birthday gift that would ultimately change the course of her entire life. In order to ensure that 2014 would be the year she would stop wishing for change and start working for a more fulfilling reality, she quit her corporate job and enrolled in SWIHA’s life coaching program.

A natural-born life coach to those in her life, Niki chose to complete our 100-hour Life Coaching program to help her sharpen her skills so she could extend her gifts to others in a more professional capacity. Now the proud owner of Niki Meadows LLC, Niki identifies as a Women’s Worthiness and Authenticity Coach, working with women to heal the relationship they have with themselves. “I love to connect with people! I’m now able to serve people and it’s incredibly fulfilling to do something that has meaning and purpose. I’m also able to use the gifts and talents I was born with instead of trying to find creative ways to incorporate them into an environment that didn’t have room for them.”

Mathina Ross has always been a healer and philanthropist at heart. Though her background is not necessarily one you would expect from someone who now has a bustling career offering signature massage experiences, throughout her life she has mastered the art of caring for others. In fact, before attending SWIHA and completing our 1000-hour Massage Therapy Program, Mathina cultivated a profoundly rewarding career in cosmetology, in which she chose to specialize working with children who experienced spectrum disorders toward the end. She shares that the work was fulfilling to her soul, yet left her feeling drained. “I loved the work, [however, I] got ‘burned out.’  Given my specialized status, when I chose to move on, my options were very limited.  Prior to specializing, I had worked in hair, skin and nail care, and had been massaging much of the body, so the transition to massage seemed an appropriate one.”

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.”

Many of you know me as the Copywriter and Editor at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, and part of my job is coordinating/writing our blogs which post on Mondays and Fridays. It is my responsibility to find graduates who are using their SWIHA education and holistic gifts out in the world in incredible ways. January was National Life Coaching Month, and we honored a life coach a day by showcasing them in a blog. Within a few weeks of each other, both KC Miller (SWIHA founder) and Richard Seaman (head of the Life Coaching department) mentioned an Elaine Glass. I followed my usual protocol of a “hello-and-congratulations” email stating that she was a #GreatGraduate who we’d love to feature on the SWIHA Blog page, if she’d be willing to fill out the attached questionnaire. She graciously accepted my proposal to work with me and requested to meet in person for an informal interview to go over the questions. At the time I didn’t think anything about it, yet as I reflect back, I remember us both saying we were glad we met in person. I enjoy putting a face with a name, and it allows me to write with a more dynamic and connected tone when I can see the energy and raw emotion of a person as they talk about their process to SWIHA, their educational journey, and the love for their work. I’ll never forget the day I met Elaine Glass.

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?