Your one-stop resource for alternative and traditional healing in Ojai and Ventura County. Find a healing destination or healer to provide you with the knowledge, treatment and healing you need.
Get to know your local practitioners! Check back in with Ojai Healers regularly for interviews with some of our members, and visit OjaiHealing.com for their insight into all things Health!
This month I talked with Lisa West. Here's what I learned!
Ojai Healers: What brought you to Ojai?
Lisa West: My partner was offered a job here. We were surprised at how ideal the valley was for my interests and focus as well, so we stayed.
Ojai Healers: What brought you to your present career/modality?
I have always wanted to work in medicine, from the time I was 3 or 4. A fortunate injury in high school led me to a physical therapist and I clicked immediately with the profession. As time went on, I began learning more about the body, mind and spirit and became fascinated with the interconnectedness of these parts of us. These interests led (and continue to lead) me into exploring more holistic modalities, especially areas that focus on the connective tissue of the body (things like craniosacral, myofascial release and visceral mobilization).
I am finding a lot of joy lately in teaching others about some of the things I have learned, primarily through yoga classes and courses.
Ojai Healers: Tell us what you do in your free time.
Lisa West: My free time is spent reading, sometimes fiction, but embarrassingly more often I am reading books about the body/mind/spirit. I really love my work and am usually trying to explore it in one way or another most of the time. I am an eternal yoga student and spend time trying to "be Yoga", be in the moment, as much as I can remember to. I love the ocean and being outdoors, though I don't bring myself to nature often enough.
Ojai Healers: If you weren't doing what you do, what would you be doing? One practical answer, one dream....
Lisa West: I love what I do, and think I will always do my work in one capacity or another. Perhaps I will be led to write more in the future. I mostly just want to create the time and space in my life to meditate, center and increase my capacity for listening so that I can give as much as possible during my sessions and in my teachings.
Deon de Wet has been practicing and teaching Thai Yoga Massage/Therapy internationally for many years. He is committed to showing people how to help themselves and others feel better by naturally finding and exploring the Bliss in their Body.
He now lives in the Upper Ojai Valley, where he offers private sessions and teaches Thai Yoga Massage Practitioner Certification classes.
Deon first discovered “Nuad Bo Rarn”, Traditional Thai Massage, while traveling in Thailand on vacation in the year 2000. It brought forth sensations of emotional and spiritual well-being, similar to those related to periods of deep meditation. He also experienced a profound sense of Bliss and connection to his body, previously only felt after vigorous exercise.
Since then, he has completed several training courses and obtained certification as an Advanced Thai Yoga Practitioner (by Saul David Raye in the USA and Pichest Boonthumme in Thailand); Hatha Yoga Teacher (Anusara-style) and Massage Therapy Practitioner (Institute of Psycho Structural Balancing).
He has always been deeply committed to providing the utmost in care and compassion to his clients and students. As a result, he has integrated techniques and wisdom obtained from his ongoing personal practice of Hatha Yoga and Meditation as well as from the many other mind/body healing traditions experienced along the way.
To date, he has trained massage and skin-care therapists, yoga practitioners and instructors, couples, friends and family all over the USA, in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa. As a professional instructor, he has been certified as an approved provider of continuing education credits (CEC’s) by the National Certification Board of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (NCBTMB).
For contact information, visit Deon de Wet's profile
I recently had a chance to chat with Sandra about herself and her work. Here are some excerpts....
If you could offer your services to anyone in the news today - celebrity or politician or criminal or victim of a crime or anyone else, who would it be and why?
I can't think of a specific individual but there is a passion in me to help the 'movers and shakers' of this world to understand that now is the time to change our old mindset of might makes right with a new more enlightened mindset of unity, compassion and cooperation not only to each other and all nations but towards the earth as well. It is time for our specsis to finally grow up.
Read more about Sandra's work, her personal story, and her favorite foods after the break or contact Rev. Sandra Foster.
Continue reading "Rev. Sandra Foster" »
