Welcome to Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA). Our mission is to inspire individuals to discover their gifts and graces, and support them as they share their talents with the world in a loving and profitable way.
Learn to touch lives, heal bodies and free souls.
Thank you for choosing our college as a path to following your dream of a fulfilling and lucrative career in holistic health and wellness. For more than twenty years, SWIHA has been providing the highest quality education in a vast variety of healing arts. We know that more than half of our new students enroll based on recommendations from our former students. We invite you to schedule a tour and discover why our students and alumni can’t wait to spread the word!
Core Values – Essence of SWIHA
OUR MISSION
Self-Healing and Transformation – A ‘Safe Container’ for personal growth
As an educational and healing center, we know that pursuing any aspect of the Healing Arts involves personal growth and transformation. Enrolling in an academically rigorous and emotionally and spiritually intense program of study like ours can lead to change, oftentimes in significant and surprising ways! We also know from the thousands of students that have called SWIHA home, and the countless years of practices represented by our faculty, that personal healing must take place before a practitioner is able to facilitate the healing process of others. Our staff and instructors are committed to holding space for the transformation and healing of our students. This means we practice directed consciousness and mindfulness when working with anyone who is going through change. It means we can hold with compassion and acceptance whatever emotions and changes a student or staff member may be experiencing in a sacred way that honors their journey. We do this so SWIHA can be a safe container for the growth and entrepreneurial preparation of future healing arts practitioners we know will change our world.
Successful and Sustainable Graduates
SWIHA’s mission talks about our students sharing their new talents with the world in a loving and profitable way. Share, Loving, and Profitable are key words in that statement – together, they create successful and sustainable graduates. Share speaks to a generosity of spirit we encourage our graduates to have with their clients as it creates trust and connection. It also implies their willingness to seek out clients and all those who may benefit from their gifts. Loving encompasses more than can be written here! Our intention for our graduates is that they embody this feeling in healthy ways that create compassion, trust, vulnerability, and a safe space for the transformation of their clients. Finally, profitable means our graduates receive in return for their giving. This is both monetary return – which is necessary to sustain their physical practice – and a spiritual return. It is this spiritual profit that supports their personal renewal, and allows them to create untold ripples of love, healing, and transformation.
Integrity
Simply put, integrity is about doing what we say we are going to do. It is about keeping our word and maintaining the implicit agreements we have with our regulatory agencies, legal entities, governing bodies, our students, and above all else, our spirits. We willingly, through communication and transparency, hold ourselves accountable to all these agreements so that we may continue to serve our mission, values, and Spirit in ways that mutually benefit as many souls as possible.
Conscious and Mindful
A claim of mindfulness brings with it a commitment to stop and think about how our words, actions, or deeds will affect another’s thoughts, feelings, and ultimately their soul. It means to “wish no harm,” and to stand as much as possible in full awareness of the intended and unintended consequences of our choices, and act with integrity and accountability. Mindful is our commitment to take these words of the Dalai Lama literally: “Be kind whenever possible, and it’s always possible.”
Communication and Transparency
SWIHA strives to communicate with students, faculty, staff, and regulatory agencies with as much transparency as possible. Transparency means we speak the full truth to everyone as it is appropriate to their relationship with us. It means speak openly about how we actively seek out and fully accept opportunities for our own growth and transformation. It means, combined with our other values, we actively seek to uplift all individuals, especially when transparent communication may be difficult to deliver or hear.
Honoring of Individuality and Diversity
No two individuals are alike. Our programs are not connected to any particular religious denomination or spiritual practice. SWIHA honors, accepts, and respects the many faiths and belief systems of all our students. Similarly, we respect and honor individual lifestyle choices and know each person has their own path to walk to the top of the mountain. We encourage all our students to evaluate their own path through exploring their learning styles, personality profiles, gifts, dreams, fears, and phobias. We assist students in acknowledging and accessing one of the most powerful healing modalities they already possess – intuition. For this reason, SWIHA encourages students to select classes to which they are intuitively drawn.
Spirit Guided
SWIHA believes in the body-mind-spirit connection. We believe humans are spiritual beings having a physical experience, so we recognize the spiritual nature of life, death, health, and healing. While we do not subscribe to or endorse a specific doctrine or dogma, we openly acknowledge a higher power and divine presence in our lives … All are welcome here. We embrace prayer, meditation, divine inspiration, intuition, and the great mystery of life.
Student/Customer Centered
SWIHA’s mission, motto, and values guide all our choices and actions toward service to our students and customers. We hold each soul as an individual, honoring their unique path and dedicating ourselves to supporting them on their journey. We carefully and caringly serve those who were drawn to us. Whether it is in our clinics, our Yoga Studio, a single class, or a full program, we commit to finding a supportive way forward for all, through whatever circumstance may arise in their life and education. Above all, the students and those we serve as ‘customers’ are considered our blessings and responsibilities.
Renewal, Integrative Wellness, and Wholeness
Graduates of our programs report that, in addition to a quality education, they experienced a continuing and profound personal transformation well after they graduated. They felt a sense of renewed direction for their lives, and purpose for their spirits. SWIHA’s motto to “touch lives, heal bodies, and free souls” and SWINA’s motto to be a place “where caring is natural,” support these values. We feel it is this integrative approach to each student’s wellness, and the wellness of our communities, that makes this renewal possible. SWIHA believes each of our students is whole and complete just as they are, and just as they will become. We believe that through their journey with us, as they build upon their knowledge and go out into the world to offer their professional services, they individually work within their own communities to integrate a new way of renewal and wholeness.
Accountability
For SWIHA, accountability exists on many levels. It means we are reliable, answer when called upon, and accept responsibility for the intended and unintended consequences of our actions. It means we hold our staff to strict polices surrounding sexual harassment, dual relationships, and intolerance of differing lifestyles. As a business, we create and implement internal checks and balances to ensure compliance with all applicable laws and accrediting regulations. As a school, our faculty members, academic advisors, and other staff members work with students to help them keep their agreements with SWIHA, as well as with themselves. As a spirit-guided community, we commit to being open to and answering that call that can only be heard with our hearts.
