SWIHA Blog

‘Happy Father’s Day’ does not always seem to fit for some people who had less than an ‘A+’ experience with their fathers.  The ‘A’ often stands of Abusive, Abandonment, or Awfully-emotionally-unavailable.

Long ago, I learned to celebrate the lessons my father gifted me as a child of an Alcoholic father.  Yes, I have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility; yes, I highly prefer to be ‘in control’, and yes, I tend to ‘do it myself’ because I can predict the results.  While I have had to learn to temper and refined all these qualities I inherited as a result of who my father was, in the end, they have served me well.

The last lesson my father taught me has most shaped my life.  It is the importance of being able to imagine. 

My father’s birthday was June 13 and often fell on Father’s Day.  In late December, 20 years ago, my father had just returned from an AA meeting with a burning desire to work the 5^th & 8^th steps:

Many people are opting to remove dairy from their diet, opening their eyes to the many alternatives and getting creative with ways to recreate traditionally dairy-based items! Janet Lee, a raw food chef and SWIHA Holistic Nutrition instructor, recently shared on a Facebook Live video for #WellnessWednesday two ways to make delicious and nutritious coconut yogurt.

Coconuts have numerous health benefits – they contain fiber, manganese, copper, iron and medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs), supporting your heart and bones, healthy weight loss, as well as having many essential electrolytes to prevent fatigue. When you add probiotics to the mix for gut health, you have a treat that is yummy and supportive of your total wellness.

It has often been said, one of the worst mistakes a leader can make is to do too little in a time of crisis.  While wearing a mask has been something I was hesitant to commit to due to my personal traumas with having my face covered, the time has come for me ... for SWIHA ...to do more to help prevent the widespread increase of coronavirus infections in Arizona.

As of Friday, June 19, 2020 SWIHA will require Face Coverings (e.g., masks, cloth face covering, face shield, etc.) to be worn by staff, instructors, and students when entering the building, walking in the hallways, shopping in the bookstore, and in any communal areas until safe physical distancing can be established within the classrooms.

Hypnotherapy is a powerful way to create change in your life. It brings you into a highly relaxed state of inner concentration and focused attention so that you can make new choices based on the awareness and clarity that arises. Additionally, self-hypnosis is an empowering skill to reduce chronic pain, improve sleep, and alleviate stress!

Using hashtags, also known as the pound sign (#), is a way to create and collect like-minded communication or influence. The little tic-tac-toe looking symbols are used regularly by millions of social media users to turn phrases and words into searchable links. A hashtag is used to unite posts about specific topics and collect those who want to participate in the meaningful conversations wherever they are in the world.

Hashtags are effective. They can be traced back to 2007, to resident of San Diego, California who started appending all his posts with the #sandiegofire. It was intended to inform people worldwide about the ongoing wildfires in the area at the time. His ability to gather people in unity and curiosity was quickly noted by communication and marketing experts.

If you’ve been into the Healing Pages bookstore on the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts campus in the last decade, chances are you’ve been blessed to meet Roann Monson. “She has such an eye for picking outstanding books to sell in the bookstore,” her fellow Healing Page's co-worker Anyada Francia says, “She is always up on the newest, most interesting books, and people loved to see what she would bring in.”

Her passion for books is life-long. In fact, she served in the ASU library for thirty years! During that time, she would often come in to Healing Pages and declare that when she retired from ASU, she was going to work in the SWIHA bookstore. A woman of her word, Roann retired from ASU on a Friday and picked up her first shift with the SWIHA community the following Monday!

Southwest Institute of Healing Arts found its humble beginning as a Massage Therapy school wanting to do things a little differently. Our dream has grown, our campus has expanded, and Massage Therapy is still one of the amazing programs we offer. Over the years, we have graduated hundreds of well-rounded, talented healers that are thriving as stand-outs in this booming industry.

A recent survey of massage therapists revealed that 88% report being satisfied in their career. Considering that the average job satisfaction rate among Americans is 51%, today we are going to analyze the many reasons why massage therapists LOVE what they do!

Just as necessity is the mother of invention, uncertainty can be the catalyst for entrepreneurship. A study conducted in 2009 by the Ewing Marion Kauffman foundation revealed that a staggering 57% of Fortune 500 companies were founded during periods of economic hardship. Out of the 2008 downturn, we saw companies like Uber, Pinterest and Groupon form, flourish and become regularly-used services.

“The best time to be an entrepreneur is when everyone is running for the exits,” Eric Reis, author of the best-selling book The Lean Startup, said in a recent interview with CNBC.

At Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, we dedicate ourselves daily to our mission of inspiring individuals to discover their gifts and graces and support them as they share their talents with the world in a loving and profitable way. It was this idea that resonated with SWIHA graduate, Melissa Richardson:  “I didn't want to work for anyone else,” she says, “I wanted to make my own way and chart my own course. I had my own ideas of how I wanted to participate and give to the world.”

Melissa is a licensed Massage Therapist in Buffalo, New York. She loves what she does and one day realized that, while she was making a difference for her clients, she felt she was only helping them temporarily and in a physical way.

Stories have been used in every culture, every language, to connect us to a larger self and universal truths. Whether they are myths, songs, paintings, or traditions, storytelling helps form a common goal, honor sacrifices, and pass down knowledge. They also have the ability to transport us to another time, place, or body and allow us to empathize with an experience we’ve never had.

There are two pretty amazing women who are leaving quite a legacy by capturing the stories of hundreds of women of all ages in a series of books. Living Brave...Finishing Strong is the fourth book of the Living Brave series by Dr. Hilda Villaverde and Mary Beth Stern.