SWIHA Blog

At Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, we actively encourage our students to work through their fears and hesitations around entrepreneurship. Harsha Bipin, a Mind-Body Wellness Practitioner graduate, is a brilliant example of what can happen when you take a leap of faith in yourself!

“My previous life was of a software engineer,” Harsha explains, “it had a lot to do with me and the needs of my immediate family.”

“I joined SWIHA while I was on a maternity break, hoping to just do the Holistic Nutrition program to learn more about eating right. I had faced a huge positive shift in my life by changing my eating habits, and I knew there was more to learn.”

As Juan Te Dailey was working as a staff coordinator, she became introduced to the concept of Life Coaching: “I saw it on a show several years ago and it stayed on my mental ‘shelf’ waiting to be birthed,” she explains.

Once she became immersed in her education during the Life Coaching program at SWIHA, her vision of service became clear: “Most people are like me: they take jobs for security and spend years doing something they hate because it isn’t what they are born to do. Seeing the lightbulb go on is priceless!”

“Life Coaching isn’t therapy or counseling; there isn’t any diagnosis or judgment,” explains Victor Yarter of Victory Coaching, “Coaching can be on personal subjects, or professional. It’s a way of helping you to develop plans, ideas, and concepts that help you to create forward action in your life.”

Before becoming a Life Coach, Victor worked as a Behavioral Health Technician, an Arizona Ranger and owned his own business. After receiving numerous recommendations from friends, he researched the curriculum of the Life Coaching program at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts.

“Life coaching is for anyone who wants to improve an area of their life that is important to them,” explains Virenda Swarup, a SWIHA Life Coaching graduate, “It could be to do with their relationships, job, disturbing/troubling stressful thoughts, self-confidence, lifestyle, sudden transition or anything that is important to the individual in living a more satisfying and creative life.”

“I love being a Life Coach because I found how to be of service to others in a way that overflows my cup,” says Andrea Pohl, SWIHA graduate and founder of Owl Wisdom Holistic Coaching. She has always been drawn to serving others, and spent a decade in various positions of the restaurant and hospitality industries, an industry she was introduced to while studying Psychology in college.

“I would define Life Coaching as seeing an individual with unique qualities and abilities, assisting the human in seeing themselves in the same way,” says Hali Benson, SWIHA graduate and founder of Blossom Services, “This then allows them to live according to their highest Self and find the truth they need to be freed to live authentically. As a life coach, I give them tools and accountability to speak and do as they would like to speak and do.”

Stefanie Booker Atchison came to SWIHA during a difficult chapter of her life: “The economic downturn of the housing/mortgage crisis hurt me like it did a lot of others. It robbed me of my job, my comfortable salary and my home. It took my savings and my self-esteem, too. By the time I made my way to Arizona, I was halfway through my unemployment benefits and working an entry-level position at a local law firm. While I was grateful for the work, I was in an office job that didn't speak to who I was.”

“I never felt more at home on a campus, calm, or more intrinsically motivated to learn than at SWIHA,” says Kay Vallely, owner of Revive Coaching, “The lessons I learned are all applicable, meaningful and useful.”

Kay explains that her love of learning ultimately guided her to serve as a Life Coach. She was studying communications and developing her crisis intervention skills while working with family support services.

Before becoming a Life Coach, Samantha McManaway-Hanks was struggling to find who she was. “I ended up in the hospital with an infection and my whole life turned upside down,” she shares, “I was once super healthy and then one day, I was extremely sick. I then started to have to find ways to deal with stress, health, and everything else. That’s what lead me to SWIHA.”

When she’s not in SWIHA’s teaching kitchen supervising and inspiring future Nutrition coaches, Janet Lee has her own thriving business, A Healthy Journey, which combines her passion for health with Life Coaching principles to assist her clients in leading fulfilling, wellness-centered lives.

“I welcome curious individuals willing to explore what is not working in their lives. Encouragement, education and excitement are shared to open up to new possibilities, creativity and opportunity for health, happiness and wholeness!” Janet explains.