Upcoming Events (visit the events page for details):
Reiki Level I: Sunday, January 17 & 24 12-3pm (2 part class, 6 hours total). Cost: $125, includes a manual.
Reiki Share Circle is no longer located at Vital Health and Wellness. It has been moved to a Healing Waters and Sacred Spaces and will continue to be held on the 1st Sunday of each month.
Contact Michelle for more information: 503-453-5487 or check her website: www.CreateHealingReiki.com for all the details.
Welcome Tiffany Ueltschi, LMT, Doula
Tiffany offers pre-natal, Swedish/relaxation, deep tissue massage, pediatrics/minors, Arvigo Technique Maya Abdominal Massage (ATMAM), and is a birth doula. She enjoys easing the discomforts during pregnancy as the baby grows, increasing blood flow throughout the mother’s body resulting in maximum nutrients being delivered to the baby, and creating a more nurturing environment for growth and well-being. She understands the important role massage plays in assisting athletes achieve maximum performance, prevent injuries as well a fast recovery time from injuries in children and adults. Tiffany also believes that once things are centered abdominally through Maya Abdominal Massage the rest of the body will follow in healing itself from many pathologies in men and women, allowing the body to produce the proper amount hormones, and increase digestion. She treats the body as a whole since everything is interconnected. We are very excited to have Tiffany at Vital Health and Wellness!
A New Year Update from Dr. Kevin Colling, D.C.
I hope you all enjoyed a peaceful holiday season with family and friends and are now looking forward to a positive new year ahead. As always, a new year signifies new beginnings and is a time to reinvigorate our motivation to reach our fullest potential both physically and mentally. For me personally this means making the decision to embark on a new stage in my career. I have entered into a 10 month, 250 hour training program in applied functional science. Although I have already completed a significant amount of training in functional rehabilitation, when all is said and done I'll be a Fellow of Applied Functional Science and certified in functional manual reaction. I'll be the first chiropractor in Oregon to earn this title. This means that I'll gain further expertise in implementing and managing all functional techniques of assessment, rehabilitation, training and conditioning, performance, and injury prevention. I'll also increase my knowledge and understanding of the principles of neuromusculoskeletal Chain Reaction™ biomechanics. My goal with all of this training is to help fulfill my mission of helping people heal themselves as quickly as possible and with long lasting effects.
Benefits of Applied Functional Science
1. Fast recovery and rehabilitation
2. Sport specific training and conditioning to optimize performance
3. Sport specific injury prevention
4. Simple and specific home exercises that involve whole body chain reaction biomechanics
5. Outcome markers that demonstrate results
6. An enjoyable, effective form of rehabilitation
I look forward to sharing my knowledge and skills with you to help you reach your potential and enjoy a healthful new year.
Wishing you and yours good health and happiness in 2010.
Celebrate with Gratitude
Michelle Garnier Winkler, Reiki Master
‘Tis the season to feel wrung out? Over-partied? Ready to crash? Instead of experiencing the lingering joy the post-Holidays are supposed to bring, this is what many of us sense. To alleviate these feelings now and throughout the New Year a better emotion to focus on expressing is gratitude, even if it may seem counter-intuitive.
During the quiet and busy times, we can all squeeze in a moment to say thank you to no one in particular. Notice the little things. The traffic light that turns green just before you step on the brakes. When you go in search of something in a book and immediately open to it. The radio station that plays your favorite song. All of these should be recognized as gifts. When you make the shift from thinking of such incidents, if you acknowledge them at all, as gifts, your days are filled with more pleasure and you are aware that you’re taken care of by something more divine.
Even when you’re exhausted, you often sense that you just don’t have the energy to go to work. Since you can’t exactly call in tired, while at work try exercising your gratitude. For caregivers and healers, we can be grateful for being of service and doing something, however minor, to make an impact on someone’s life. Creative professionals can take pleasure in the process of creation as well as being thankful for the opportunity to express yourself. Business people of all stripes can be grateful for co-workers who make you smile, the meeting that gets rescheduled and the client who says thank you. Bringing gratitude into work helps your workday seem less stressful, be more rewarding and in fact can help to energize you.
In all likelihood, you celebrated a great deal over the last several weeks. Despite all the card writing and gift exchanging, there are invariably still plenty of things and people that we take for granted, particularly our family. Yes, you probably had your fill of time with them, but that attitude of satiation makes it a perfect place to start. Acknowledge your in-laws for helping to create the person you love. Appreciate just how much joy children bring into the world, even when they’re yours and they’re driving you crazy. We all have at least one bothersome relative. You can give thanks for them for providing you with a mirror reflecting back those same unpleasant traits in yourself, which helps you to name those things you want to change about yourself. Feeling and expressing gratitude for our families helps you to be filled with compassion and know that we are all connected.
Being grateful during hard times isn’t likely the first thing that comes to mind. This is truly spiritual work. The symptoms of stress are also a great teacher. They actually reveal where we need more gratitude. Physical pain is a wake-up call to slow down, listen to your body and express thankfulness for it by giving it what it needs. Insomnia and restlessness instruct us to heed the inner voice of wisdom we all possess and to be grateful for its perpetual truth. Tears, even if they seem to be a never-ending river, are a lesson in release. By letting them flow instead of holding them back, you’re honoring your emotional need to rid yourself of excess energy and aid you in moving beyond the emotion. It’s certainly not easy in the face of grief, anger or fear to be filled with appreciation, but doing so shines a light on the blessing that will inevitably come out of the darkness. More importantly, it also floods you with faith.
One of my favorite techniques to help ingrain the attitude of gratitude into consciousness is to count all the blessings and gifts received during the course of the day while lying in bed just before falling asleep each night. Try to recall and appreciate everything. I always note all the safe travel, my good health, the abundance of food and the love, guidance and healing I’ve been fortunate to receive. Then I move onto anything unique to that day. Of course there’s no way to list absolutely everything. That’s part of the point, though. As you recount all these things you’ll find your body and emotions softening and perhaps even moved to tears. What a beautiful way to end the day and fall asleep!
The expression of gratitude throughout all aspects of your life is a golden doorway. It helps the ordinary to become sacred. It also puts you into the flow of life to get more joy, peace, hope, love, inspiration and insights. Start by noticing the small things and you’ll be on your way.
Michelle of Create Healing is a Reiki Master/Teacher in private practice in SE Portland who strives to follow the Reiki principle "Just for Today: Be Grateful" everyday. For more information call 503-453-5487 or CreateHealingReiki.com.
Happy New Beginnings for Maree Bento, LMT
It's a bittersweet change as I leave Vital Health and Wellness. What an amazing group of practitioners to share the clinic with since we opened in June 2008! I love this community because every person is so passionate and dedicated to their healing modality. Their enthusiasm is contagious and fun, making this indeed a sad good-bye to my massage space here. But, this isn't good-bye, I'm grateful to continue to be a part of the web of supporters that VHW has.
It's always been a dream of mine to work from home, a dream now come true! My husband and I purchased property in SE this year that has a 256 sf shop. This old shop has been completely transformed into a fresh new massage studio. Never before have I had the ability to choose every last detail that my space would encounter. Details that I'm proud of that help our environment: Bamboo floors! High-efficiency windows! Zero VOC Paint! Armed with a new knowledge of Feng Shui and Space Clearing skills, I've had a wonderful time with this massage studio's transformation. (New beginnings everywhere, I graduated this year from the Portland Feng Shui Institute. I'm now a Feng Shui consultant!) I'm thrilled to begin working out of the 'Soul Meets Body Massage Studio' January 6th, 2010. What a great way to ring in the New Year! Thank you Vital Health and Wellness for your loving support. Thank you to the community surrounding VHW, your support and warmth will always be felt. May you all be happy, may you be healthy, and may you and yours be safe. Big love and 10,000 blessings!
Maree Bento's clients may continue to contact her at the same number and email (503) 803-3296 or mareenatal@gmail.com. If you'd like to see pictures of the massage studio, she will post pictures at http://mareemassage.blogspot.com soon. We thank her for her time at and dedication for Vital Health and Wellness during its formative years. We will miss her presence at the clinic and wish her the best of luck with her home practice and Feng Shui consulting!