When movement became a challenge

In my late thirties, pain in my knees and feet became so severe that I lost the ability to walk normally. I was raising two young children, running a dance company, directing performance groups, and teaching dance from a stool with a microphone. The stress and physical challenges were overwhelming.

I signed up for a workshop with Lynn, visiting from New York at Decidedly Jazz Danceworks in Calgary. Her exploration of movement patterns introduced me to a name I had never heard before: Touch for Health. Then she shared words that stopped me: “I have the gifts of my injuries.”

How could the pain that had taken so much from me be a gift? Yet Lynn’s perspective opened a new possibility. Perhaps I could learn to understand my body differently instead of seeing only what I could no longer do.

Finding Touch for Health

This was before Google. It took nearly a year of searching to find a teacher. I first discovered training in Malibu, California, but I lived in Alberta. Eventually I found Greg Webb in Calgary, where I could attend classes and receive private sessions. As I explored Touch for Health® Levels 1–4, I began rebuilding my relationship with movement and discovering how actively I could participate in my own well-being.

When I thought my family might move, I decided to pursue instructor training while it was available. But I was terrified. I doubted that I knew enough or deserved to be there. So I called Lynn in New York, reminded her of her Calgary workshop, and told her about my fears.

Her reply was simple: “Dear, everything you need to know is already inside you.”

Those words gave me the confidence to attend eight intensive days of Touch for Health® instructor training. That experience transformed my understanding of possibility, intention, and the body’s capacity for change. I have never looked back.

A shared passion for movement at every age

I am delighted to see Lynn continuing to teach and share her work at 83, including movement opportunities for older adults through dance. My own path now includes seated and standing Tai Chi, where we explore balance, coordination, flexibility, confidence, and the joy of moving well. Different movement languages can share the same belief: our age or challenges need not define our possibilities.

Three years of Movement and Music

Over the past three years, I have created Movement and Music programs that bring together my lifelong passion for dance, music, and the arts through the power and artistry of Tai Chi movements. Each exploration invites participants to discover new relationships between movement, intention, rhythm, breath, and personal awareness.

Touch for Health® knowledge and techniques remain at the core of these movement explorations. The framework that Lynn helped me discover continues to guide how I invite people to observe their own movement, notice change, and explore possibilities without being limited by a single prescribed outcome.

These programs, including recordings and resources for exploring at your own pace, can be found in the Greenwell Center shop. They are a celebration of everything I love about dance, music, Tai Chi, and BioEnergetic Wellness.

From one dance workshop to a university program

Perhaps the most extraordinary ripple effect is the new BioEnergetic Wellness program being developed at Akamai University International, within the College of Integrative Health. As Department Chair of BioEnergetic Wellness, I am helping shape an educational pathway that recognizes whole-person development, movement literacy, reflective learning, and the potential within each student.

I can trace the courage to take on this new challenge back to Lynn’s encouragement. Her belief that the knowledge and potential we need can be discovered within ourselves gave me confidence first to become a Touch for Health® instructor, and now to help create opportunities for a new generation of learners and facilitators.

Congratulations, Lynn Simonson, on your 2026 Dance Teacher Award! Thank you for showing me the gifts within my injuries and helping me trust the possibilities within myself. Your influence continues to move through every class, program, and educational vision I create.

Read Lynn’s Dance Teacher award profile and explore the Movement and Music offerings in our shop.

The post The Gifts of Our Injuries: Celebrating Lynn Simonson and a Lifetime of Movement first appeared on Greenwell Center for Holistic Health.

That question sits at the heart of Episode 10 of Facing Dementia with Laurin Wittig. Our conversation began with “the funk”—those times when motivation changes, familiar practices lose their appeal, and we can feel disconnected from the very things we thought were supporting our wellbeing. But as Laurin shared what had been unfolding in her own life, we discovered something much bigger: sometimes a new perspective is the opening that allows change to happen.

Moving From “Good for Me” to “I Look Forward to This”

Laurin described becoming tired of continually choosing activities because they were supposed to be “good for my brain,” and then feeling disappointed when she did not follow through. Her shift was surprisingly simple. Instead of asking only what she should do for wellness, she began paying attention to what genuinely brought her joy and what kinds of challenges she actually enjoyed.

Movement became an important part of that discovery. Pickleball and line dancing gave her activities she could look forward to rather than obligations she had to complete. From there, other interests began opening again—playing the piano, returning to her writing, spending time in nature, and becoming curious about what might come next.

This is an important distinction within BioEnergetic Wellness. We are not simply asking, “What activity is considered healthy?” We are also asking, “What happens within me when I engage with this activity? What do I notice? What invites me back?” Awareness gives us information that can help us make choices that are meaningful and sustainable.

Movement Is More Than Exercise

Laurin’s choices also gave us an opportunity to explore movement from a broader perspective. Pickleball asks the body to move in multiple directions, respond to changing space, coordinate the eyes and hands, shift weight, anticipate, react, and continually adapt with new partners and games. Line dancing adds rhythm, sequencing, memory, direction changes, timing, and coordination with other people.

Rather than repeating only one familiar pattern, varied movement provides the brain and body with changing sensory and motor information. Learning unfamiliar sequences and coordinating movement in new ways challenges us to adapt and develop new patterns. Just as importantly, choosing movement that is enjoyable can change our relationship with the activity itself—from something we must make ourselves do to something we anticipate with pleasure.

And then something fascinating can happen. Movement can become a doorway into other parts of life. For Laurin, joy in movement was followed by renewed interest in music and writing. One experience did not remain isolated from another. Her world began expanding.

Perspective Sits at the Seat of Change

One of the most important ideas to emerge from our conversation was this: perspective sits at the seat of change.

If we continue trying to “fix” ourselves from the same limiting viewpoint that got us to our current position, we may simply repeat the same strategies with more effort. A different perspective can reveal possibilities that were invisible from where we were standing before.

Laurin experienced this dramatically in her writing. While working on her next book, she realized that she had placed her characters in the wrong relationships. When she stopped forcing the story and allowed herself to rearrange those relationships, an opening appeared. The story could move again.

What a wonderful metaphor for wellness. Sometimes we do not need to try harder. Sometimes something needs to be viewed differently, reorganized, explored, or released. We cannot always predict what will be waiting on the other side of a new viewpoint.

Exploring BioEnergetic Wellness Through Movement

At the Greenwell Center for Holistic Health, our programs are designed to provide opportunities for this kind of exploration. Rather than prescribing one “right” way to move or be well, we use movement, intention, awareness, music, creativity and reflection to help participants notice their own experiences and possibilities.

Tai Chi Skill Building

Our Tai Chi Skill Building classes explore much more than memorizing a sequence of movements. Through Tai Chi, we can investigate time, space, coordination, balance, intention and the relationship between one movement and the next. The series also brings in the arts and other experiential explorations, inviting participants to become curious about how movement can influence perspective and how we organize ourselves within an experience.

The goal is not perfection. It is discovery. A familiar Tai Chi movement can reveal something different when we change our attention, rhythm, direction, intention or relationship with the space around us.

Movement and Music — On Demand

Our Movement and Music on-demand program provides another way to explore wellness through movement at your own pace. The program weaves together movement, intuitive music, intention and tea, with seated and standing possibilities so participants can explore rather than perform.

Music changes the experience of movement. Movement changes how we experience space. Intention changes what we notice. When these elements come together, we have an opportunity to discover responses and possibilities that may not have been available through thought alone.

Tea as a Daily Intention

The teas from the Cape Breton Tea Company add another simple layer to this approach. Each blend carries an intention or affirmation that can turn an ordinary cup of tea into a daily pause for awareness.

The tea does not become another wellness task to complete. Instead, preparing and sipping it can create a moment to reconnect with the goal or intention we are exploring. What do I want to bring into today? What am I noticing? What might I approach differently?

For Episode 10, we shared the new Butterscotch Delight, a combination of black and green tea with honeybush, fruit, flowers, cinnamon and natural flavours. Its affirmation was especially fitting for our conversation:

“May my spirit be deeply comforted, my heart gently opened, and my days rich with connection.”

Sometimes a wellness plan can begin with something that simple: a cup, an intention, a moment of awareness, and permission to notice where the experience leads.

What Might Be Waiting on the Other Side?

Laurin’s journey in this episode reminds us that we do not always know where one joyful choice will lead. Pickleball can lead to line dancing. Movement can rekindle music. Quiet in nature can reveal disconnection. Surrender can reopen a book. A different relationship between fictional characters can illuminate something about the relationships and patterns in our own lives.

That is why perspective matters so much. When the viewpoint changes, possibilities change with it.

As you consider your own wellness plans, try asking something different this week: What do I genuinely look forward to? Then notice where that answer takes you.

Coming Next: We Reverse the Microphones

Our next Facing Dementia conversation takes a fun turn. Laurin returns to her podcast-host role and interviews me.

We will explore a question that grew directly from this episode: Can our wellness practices themselves become a source of pressure?

What happens when exercise, food, sleep, meditation, supplements, brain health and all the things we believe we “should” be doing become another measure of whether we are succeeding or failing? Laurin will bring the questions, and I will explore how the BioEnergetic Wellness Formula can help us shift from surveillance and self-judgment toward awareness, curiosity, adaptability and trust.

In the meantime, explore the BioEnergetic Wellness programs, Tai Chi Skill Building, Movement and Music, wellness resources and daily inspirations available through the Greenwell Center for Holistic Health. And perhaps make your next cup of Cape Breton Tea Company tea an opportunity to pause and ask: What new perspective might be available to me today?

The post When the Funk Hits: How Movement, Intention and a New Perspective Can Open New Possibilities first appeared on Greenwell Center for Holistic Health.

In our Tai Chi Skill Building series, each week is designed as more than a lesson in learning the next movements of the Tai Chi form. Before we begin moving, students are invited to create the conditions for exploration: to slow down, notice, reflect, choose a goal or intention, and consider what they would like to discover through the lesson ahead.

Tai Chi: Movement That Supports the Whole Person

Tai Chi brings together gentle movement, attention, posture, coordination, and breathing. Research has associated regular Tai Chi practice with improvements in psychological well-being, including reductions in stress and anxiety, while systematic reviews have also reported improvements in subjective sleep quality. Research examining cognition suggests potential benefits for aspects of cognitive and executive function, particularly in older adults. Together, these findings help us understand why students may experience Tai Chi as much more than physical exercise.

Breathing is woven naturally into this experience. Rather than forcing the breath, we create space for posture, movement, and attention to work together so that breathing can become easier, fuller, and more comfortable. Research into Tai Chi in respiratory populations has also explored improvements in exercise capacity and some measures of pulmonary function. These studies do not mean that every person will experience the same outcome, but they add an important scientific perspective to the traditional experience of Tai Chi as an integrated mind-body practice.

Why We Begin With Nature

At the beginning of our weekly program, participants encounter photographs of nature accompanied by ideas to ponder. This is intentional. Before asking the body to learn something new, we first invite the person to arrive.

A systematic review by Jo, Song, and Miyazaki examined 37 studies investigating the physiological effects of viewing nature. Across studies using photographs, videos, virtual environments, plants, flowers, and other natural elements, the researchers found evidence that viewing nature can support physiological relaxation and stress recovery. Measures used across the studies included heart rate variability, blood pressure, heart rate, EEG, and measures of brain and autonomic nervous system activity.

That makes the opening photographs more than decoration. A quiet image of water, trees, sky, flowers, or landscape can become part of the transition from the activity of the day into a space of observation and possibility.

Read the systematic review: Physiological Benefits of Viewing Nature

Writing Toward the Future

Our journal prompts are also deliberately future-facing. We are not only asking, “What happened?” We are asking questions such as: What would I like to experience? What am I noticing that could open a new possibility? What might become available if I approach this movement, idea, or week differently?

There is a growing research base around positive future-oriented writing. Studies of the “Best Possible Self” approach, in which people write about a positive future they envision for themselves, have found benefits for well-being, optimism, and positive affect. A 2019 meta-analysis included 29 studies with 2,909 participants, while a 2025 systematic review of positive expressive writing found the most consistent benefits for well-being and positive affect, with future-oriented Best Possible Self exercises among the approaches showing the most consistent benefits.

Our Tai Chi Skill Building journals are not the same intervention, and we are not claiming that these studies directly test our program. What they do provide is a fascinating scientific context for why intentionally imagining, describing, and exploring a desired future can be a meaningful part of preparing for learning.

Preparing Before the Lesson Begins

Notice how much has already happened before we learn the next Tai Chi movement. We have viewed nature. We have shifted our attention. We have considered a goal. We have written toward possibility. We have become curious about what we might notice. Then we enter the class and begin exploring movement, music, breath, structure, space, and the internal experience of the Tai Chi form.

This is one of the ideas at the heart of BioEnergetic Wellness: learning can begin by preparing the conditions for observation rather than rushing immediately toward an outcome. The student remains at the centre of the exploration, discovering what changes, what becomes easier, what feels different, and what new possibilities emerge.

And Students Are Already Feeling the Difference

One participant shared after our third class:

“The power of this work has provided me with a new framework for presenting yoga; it has changed my life.”

That reflection beautifully captures why this series is about skill building rather than simply memorizing a sequence. The Tai Chi movements give us a structure, but the explorations around them invite students to consider how movement, awareness, intention, creativity, and observation can influence everyday living and the future they are creating.

You Can Still Join Us

If this way of exploring Tai Chi speaks to you, you are welcome to join the Tai Chi Skill Building series. The first four lessons have been recorded and are ready for viewing, together with the class assets and supplemental materials, so you can begin from the start and move through the explorations at your own pace while joining us for the lessons still ahead.

Registration is available here on the Greenwell Center website. Come curious. Bring your journal. Allow the photographs, questions, music, movement, and Tai Chi form to open a conversation with what may be possible next.

Research Mentioned in This Article

Jo H, Song C, Miyazaki Y. Physiological Benefits of Viewing Nature: A Systematic Review of Indoor Experiments. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2019;16(23):4739.

Si Y, Wang C, Yin H, et al. Tai Chi Chuan for Subjective Sleep Quality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. 2020.

Wang C, Bannuru R, Ramel J, Kupelnick B, Scott T, Schmid CH. Tai Chi on Psychological Well-Being: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. 2010.

Wayne PM, Walsh JN, Taylor-Piliae RE, et al. Effect of Tai Chi on Cognitive Performance in Older Adults: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. 2014.

Carrillo A, Rubio-Aparicio M, Molinari G, et al. Effects of the Best Possible Self Intervention: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. PLOS ONE. 2019;14(9):e0222386.

Hoult LM, Wetherell MA, Edginton T, Smith MA. Positive Expressive Writing Interventions, Subjective Health and Wellbeing in Non-Clinical Populations: A Systematic Review. PLOS ONE. 2025;20(5):e0308928.

The post Before We Begin to Move: The Science Behind Tai Chi Skill Building first appeared on Greenwell Center for Holistic Health.

Announcing the New BioEnergetic Wellness Program at Akamai University

Akamai University International has announced the expansion of its College of Integrative Health to include BioEnergetic Wellness as an online degree program housed within the new Department of BioEnergetic Wellness.

I am deeply honoured to step into the role of Department Chairperson for the BioEnergetic Wellness Program and to help guide this next stage of development. Coursework leading to Master’s and PhD-level degrees is projected to begin in early January 2027, with an undergraduate program in development.

Why This Matters

For many years, BioEnergetic Wellness has been growing through the dedication of educators, facilitators, researchers, students, associations, and communities around the world. This new academic home creates an opportunity to continue developing the field through higher education while honouring its whole-person, person-led approach to wellness.

The Department of BioEnergetic Wellness provides a place to explore the principles, practices, research, and evolving language of the field within an interdisciplinary academic environment. It also opens new possibilities for learners who want to deepen their understanding, contribute to research, develop professional skills, and explore how BioEnergetic Wellness can support quality of life for individuals and communities.

From Student to Department Chairperson

This announcement carries special meaning for me. My own studies at Akamai University provided the opportunity to explore questions that had emerged through decades of teaching movement, Tai Chi, Touch for Health®, Therapeutic Touch®, and other approaches to self-care and wellbeing. That academic journey contributed to the development and articulation of the BioEnergetic Wellness Formula and to an expanding body of work exploring awareness, biofeedback, movement, intention, activation, community, intuition, and human flourishing.

Now, the opportunity is to help create pathways for other learners to ask their own questions, investigate their observations, develop rigorous scholarship, and contribute their unique knowledge to the future of BioEnergetic Wellness.

Building a Global Learning Community

Because the program will be offered online, its potential reaches far beyond one geographic location. Our vision is to cultivate an international learning community where diverse experiences and ways of knowing can meet thoughtful inquiry, experiential learning, collaboration, and research.

This is not simply about creating another degree pathway. It is an opportunity to continue developing the language, scholarship, educational foundations, and professional identity of BioEnergetic Wellness while keeping personal agency, self-awareness, connection, and quality of life at the heart of the work.

Looking Toward 2027

There is much work ahead as we prepare for the projected January 2027 launch of graduate coursework and continue developing the undergraduate program. Faculty development, curriculum design, research opportunities, international collaboration, and pathways for future students will all be part of this exciting next chapter.

I am grateful to Akamai University International President Linda Eldridge-Tibbetts and the Board of Governors for their confidence in the possibilities for BioEnergetic Wellness and for recognizing the value this field can bring to the international communities we serve.

I am also grateful to the colleagues, students, collaborators, organizations, and communities who have helped shape this work over many years. This milestone belongs within a much larger story of people asking thoughtful questions, sharing discoveries, building resources, and imagining what wellness education can become.

Welcome to the next chapter of BioEnergetic Wellness.

We look forward to sharing more about the Department of BioEnergetic Wellness, the developing programs, and opportunities to become part of this growing international learning community in the months ahead.

The post A New Chapter for BioEnergetic Wellness: Announcing the Program at Akamai University first appeared on Greenwell Center for Holistic Health.

That question has stayed with me since reconnecting with dancer, artist, and Dance Alchemist Kristen Mangione. Kristen joined me on the Be Well podcast two years ago, and our newest conversation began because of something quite different: the Artist’s Letters she has been sharing through her newsletter and blog.

These letters do not simply tell readers what Kristen has been doing. They invite us into what she is discovering while she is creating. One reflection in particular stopped me: “What if the future we’re building is also building us?”

When We Meet Our Own Work Again

Kristen had returned to The Dancer’s Path, a course she created six years earlier. Listening again to recordings she had made at that time, she discovered something unexpected. She was not simply hearing a younger version of herself. The work seemed able to speak to who she is now.

How often do we return to something from our past only to evaluate it? We look for what we would change, what we know now, or what we might have done better. But what happens if we return with a different intention?

Instead of asking, Was this good enough?, we might ask: What can I notice now that I could not notice then?

Perspective changes with experience. Awareness changes with perspective. Something familiar can therefore become new without the original thing changing at all. We have changed, and the relationship has changed with us.

Messages Across Time

Our lives are full of messages we may not recognize as messages when we first encounter them. A photograph. A journal entry. A movement we once loved. A painting. A course we created. A conversation we remember differently years later. A piece of music that suddenly reaches us in a way it never did before.

The experience does not have to be mystical to be profound. We are simply bringing today’s awareness into relationship with something created or experienced at another point in time.

And sometimes that creates an entirely new conversation.

When Time Becomes Less Important

Another of Kristen’s reflections explored what happens when time seems to disappear. She described experiences with movement, bodywork, music, nature, and meaningful conversation where the clock becomes almost irrelevant.

I love this idea because we so often talk about needing more time. What if some of what we are seeking is not more time, but a different relationship with it?

There are moments when we stop measuring and simply become part of the experience. We are no longer anticipating what comes next or organizing ourselves around what needs to be accomplished. Our attention has somewhere to land.

Movement can do this. Art can do this. Nature can do this. Tea can do this. Deep conversation can do this. Sometimes simply becoming curious enough to notice can do this.

Awareness Creates Possibility

This is where Kristen’s creative reflections feel beautifully parallel to BioEnergetic Wellness. In BioEnergetic Wellness, awareness is not merely gathering information about what is wrong. It can help us recognize how we are organizing ourselves in this moment and what possibilities may be available next.

We do not need to erase the past for the future to be different. We can recognize what has been, notice what is present now, and become curious about what we are organizing toward.

That changes the question from What happened to me? to include another possibility: What is available to me now?

Creating Rather Than Simply Remembering

Perhaps this is why Kristen’s Artist’s Letters feel so refreshing. They are not simply reminders of what she has done. They are part of what she is creating now. She shares a discovery and leaves enough room for someone else to have a discovery of their own.

That is a very different kind of communication.

Instead of delivering an answer, we can open a conversation. Instead of telling someone what an experience should mean, we can offer a doorway into awareness. Instead of using our past only as history, we can allow it to participate in what we are becoming.

A GenerosiTEA Pause

For our podcast conversation, I chose GenerosiTEA with the intention: “Open your heart to hope and optimism, for your resilience and pure generosity inspires others.”

Currant and apple became wonderful companions for the conversation. Currant invites us to notice the richness that can be held within something small — an idea, a memory, a movement, or a creative impulse that continues to develop meaning over time. Apple offers the image of nourishment and possibility, with seeds for what comes next held quietly within what is already here.

Perhaps generosity can also mean allowing ourselves to create without demanding that we already know where the creation will lead.

What Message Is Waiting for You?

Take a moment and think about something you created or experienced years ago.

It might be a photograph tucked away in a drawer, words in an old notebook, a piece of music, a movement you have not practiced for years, a painting, an idea you never developed, or something you once created with great care.

Return to it without trying to decide whether it was successful.

Instead, become curious.

What do you notice now?

What can you understand now that you could not understand then?

What possibility does it open?

And perhaps most importantly:

What if the future you are building is already building you?

If these ideas about time, space, movement, and the future spark your curiosity, I invite you to explore them with us through our special Tai Chi Skill Building series. This is much more than learning Tai Chi movements; we are using movement, music, art, awareness, and creative exploration to discover how the way we organize ourselves today can influence the possibilities we recognize for tomorrow. What happens when we move differently through space, experience time differently, or revisit a future we previously imagined for ourselves? Can movement help us notice a possibility we had not yet considered? We still have nine special classes ahead, and when you join, you will also receive the recordings and incredible supplemental material from our first three explorations, so you can begin at the beginning and experience the discoveries in your own time. Whether you already have a future you are working toward, are reconsidering one you previously identified, or are simply curious about what might emerge next, this series offers a place to move, notice, create, and explore what your future may already be inviting you to become.

The post Messages Across Time and Space: What Is Your Past Self Inviting You to Notice? first appeared on Greenwell Center for Holistic Health.

If you are attending one of these events, please come and say hello. Each gathering offers a different opportunity to connect, discover, and explore simple tips and tools that can become part of everyday life.

Friday: CBLIP Partner Gathering in Port Hawkesbury

We begin Friday in Port Hawkesbury, where the Cape Breton Tea Company will be on display at the CBLIP Partner Gathering with the Cape Breton Partnership. The event has a sold-out audience, and we are delighted to be part of a gathering that celebrates connection, partnership, and the many people contributing to the vitality of Cape Breton.

Tea has always been about more than what is in the cup. It creates a pause, opens a conversation, and offers an easy way to connect. We are looking forward to sharing that experience with the CBLIP community.

Saturday: Halifax Women’s Health and Wellness Show

On Saturday, we head to Halifax for the Halifax Women’s Health and Wellness Show, where the Cape Breton Tea Company will be sharing our wellness tea blends and the stories, ingredients, and intentions that make each blend unique.

There is also a lovely surprise for early attendees: the first 100 people will receive a gift bag that includes a bag of Cape Breton Tea Company tea. The gift bags are already being prepared, and you can get a peek behind the scenes in this gift bag video.

Come explore the show, enjoy the special events throughout the day, and stop by our table to discover a tea that might become part of your own wellness pause.

Sunday: Autumn Holistic Market in Antigonish

Sunday brings us to the Autumn Holistic Market at the Antigonish Legion from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on September 27. The Greenwell Center for Holistic Health and Cape Breton Tea Company will be there alongside healers, readers, vendors, and members of the holistic community. The market is also supporting the food bank through a raffle and an on-site food donation drop-off.

Our table will be filled with opportunities to explore: wellness teas, books, card decks, programs, and practical resources designed to bring wellness into the activities you are already doing each day.

Be Among the First to See Our Latest Book Release

We are especially excited to have the latest book release on the table: Artfilled Wellness Frequency in Motion Volume 1: The Spiritual Essence of the Spine.

This is an opportunity to be among the first to see the new volume and explore how art, movement, awareness, intention, and the energetic organization of the spine can become part of a richer conversation about daily wellness.

Wellness at Your Fingertips

One of the ideas we love sharing at the Greenwell Center is that wellness does not have to be another task added to an already busy day. A cup of tea, a movement, a breath, a card prompt, a moment of awareness, a piece of art, or a clear intention can become a point of activation.

These events give us the chance to meet you in person and show you some of the tips and tools that can truly be at your fingertips. You can ask questions, explore resources, discover a new tea, flip through a book or card deck, and consider what small experience might support the way you want to feel, move, create, and engage with your day.

Three days. Three communities. So many opportunities to connect. We hope you will join us somewhere along the way—Port Hawkesbury on Friday, Halifax on Saturday, or Antigonish on Sunday. We would love to see you.

The post A Weekend of Wellness, Tea, and Community Across Nova Scotia first appeared on Greenwell Center for Holistic Health.

Is it the therapist, the method, the diagnosis, the research—or the person actually living the experience?

That question opens a fascinating conversation on Be Well with Michelle Greenwell with writer and conceptual artist Mark A. Michaels. Mark’s work examines fundamental paradigm dilemmas within traditional psychotherapy and contemporary psychedelic therapy, with particular attention to the ways authority, expertise, and healing are defined.

Drawing from his forthcoming preprint, Binaries, Multitudes, and Beyond, Mark brings an unconventional perspective shaped by writing, conceptual art, self-examination, critical inquiry, and a willingness to question ideas that healing culture can sometimes take for granted.

When Expertise Becomes Authority

One of the most compelling ideas in our conversation is the distinction between expertise and authority.

A therapist may have tremendous expertise in psychotherapy. A physician brings medical knowledge. A facilitator may have years of education and experience with particular approaches. Yet the individual also brings an essential form of knowledge: the lived experience of being themselves.

What happens when those different forms of knowing meet? Can professional knowledge support someone without automatically overruling their observations? Can we receive guidance while continuing to question, notice, choose, and participate?

Mark’s perspective gives us an opportunity to explore what happens when therapeutic authority is deliberately decentralized and the individual is encouraged to engage critically with the process rather than simply submit to a model or interpretation.

Do We Always Need Something to Fix?

Our conversation also considers the language surrounding healing. Terms such as trauma, triggers, dysregulation, patterns, blocks, and healing journeys can provide useful ways to describe experience. But could continually searching for what needs healing also influence how we understand ourselves?

Instead of always beginning with What do I need to fix?, what might happen if we occasionally began somewhere else:

What do I want to do with my life?

That shift—from fixing toward noticing, choosing, creating, and participating—becomes an important thread throughout the episode.

SoulTEA Harbour: Come Home to Your Heart

Our CommuniTEA pause comes near the beginning of this conversation with SoulTEA Harbour from the Cape Breton Tea Company.

The intention for the tea is:

“Balance and Flow is possible when we open to be present for our true heart’s desires. Come home to your heart.”

For this episode, we bring particular attention to anise and cardamom. The distinctive sensory presence of anise invites us to notice, while the warmth and complexity of cardamom encourages us to linger with the experience rather than rush through it.

The idea of a harbour also becomes a metaphor for the conversation. A harbour can provide shelter. It can be a place to pause, gather resources, and find our bearings. But the harbour does not have to determine our destination.

Perhaps expertise can work in a similar way—providing knowledge, perspective, support, and safer navigation while allowing the individual to remain an active participant in deciding where they are going.

Therapy, Psychedelics, Creativity, and Critical Inquiry

Mark and I explore these questions through several different lenses, including psychotherapy and contemporary psychedelic therapy. Psychedelic experiences raise particularly important questions about vulnerability and interpretation: when someone has a profound experience, who gets to decide what that experience means?

At the same time, decentralizing authority does not mean abandoning expertise, ethical responsibility, safeguards, or appropriate support. The more interesting question may be how we make room for both.

Mark’s life as a conceptual artist adds another dimension. Art reminds us that two people can encounter the same painting, music, story, or creative experience and discover something entirely different. We discuss whether creativity can make room for forms of personal discovery that do not require someone else to immediately interpret the experience for us—and whether humour and irreverence can sometimes loosen the grip of certainty.

What Would You Notice?

This episode also offers an experiential invitation. Think of something you have been trying to change, improve, heal, or fix about yourself and consider:

What do I believe needs fixing?
Where did I learn that this needed fixing?
Whose definition of “better” am I using?
If nobody else were interpreting this experience for me, what would I notice?

There does not have to be an immediate answer. The opportunity is to become curious about what you observe.

From Recipient to Participant

Ultimately, our conversation moves beyond therapy. What if people did not have to wait until something was wrong before learning how to observe, question, choose, experiment, create, and respond?

What changes when we stop thinking only in terms of being a patient or client and recognize the possibility of becoming an active participant in our everyday wellbeing?

And that leads to the question at the heart of this episode:

If we remove the expert from the centre of the healing process, what belongs in the centre instead?

Discover More from Mark A. Michaels

Mark A. Michaels is a writer and conceptual artist exploring authority, expertise, healing culture, psychotherapy, psychedelic therapy, creativity, and personal agency. His forthcoming preprint, Binaries, Multitudes, and Beyond, uses narrative analysis and critique to examine these questions through the lens of his own journey.

To reach Mark please go to: https://markamichaels.com/ Or locate him on IG: https://www.instagram.com/markamichaels/

Listen to the full episode of Be Well with Michelle Greenwell to hear Mark share more about his work and where you can follow his writing, art, and the release of Binaries, Multitudes, and Beyond.

As you listen, pour yourself a cup, become curious about what you notice, and return to the SoulTEA Harbour invitation:

Come home to your heart.

The post Who Holds the Authority for Healing? A Conversation with Mark A. Michaels first appeared on Greenwell Center for Holistic Health.

These programs are different in how they are experienced, yet they share an important foundation: wellness becomes more meaningful when we develop skills we can use for ourselves. Rather than waiting until the body is overwhelmed, uncomfortable, tired, or stressed, we can learn to notice earlier, respond differently, and build practices that support us week after week.

Make Wellness Part of the Week

One of the most valuable things a class can offer is not simply an hour of activity. It can become an anchor in the week—a regular place to return to your breath, your movement, your awareness, and your own capacity for self-care.

When a wellness practice becomes part of the calendar, we no longer have to wait for the “right time” to take care of ourselves. The time is already there. The habit begins to form. The body starts to recognize the opportunity to release tension, reorganize movement, deepen breathing, and reconnect with a greater sense of ease.

Tai Chi: Build Ease, Strength, Balance, and Movement Awareness

Tai Chi offers a gentle but powerful way to explore how you move. Through slow, intentional patterns, participants have the opportunity to improve awareness of posture, balance, coordination, breathing, joint mobility, and whole-body organization.

Our Cape Breton fall schedule includes classes in Mabou on Mondays (9 – 10:30 at the Hillsborough Hall), Inverness on Wednesdays (9 – 11 am at the Inverness Manor Music Room), Creignish on Thursdays (11:45 – 1:15 pm at the Creignish Hall), and Baddeck on Saturdays (9 – 10:30 am or 10:30 – 12 pm at the Baddeck Public Library). You can find the full schedule on the calendar for weekly classes. Whether you are returning to Tai Chi or beginning for the first time, the focus is not on perfection. It is on developing movement literacy: noticing how the body responds, finding greater ease, and gradually creating patterns that support daily living.

For those needing an online class, we are offering Tai Chi Skill Building on Tuesdays 1 – 2 pm Atlantic. You can learn more here. Class includes intuitive music and art, a weekly theme of exploration, recorded classes to review the rest of the week, and a great group of people to gather with.

Tai Chi can become much more than something you do in class. The principles begin to travel with you—into how you stand, walk, turn, reach, breathe, recover from effort, and respond to stress.

Touch for Health®: Learn Practical Skills for Everyday Self-Care

Touch for Health® provides another pathway into greater body awareness. It introduces practical, hands-on tools that can help participants explore posture, movement, muscle response, energy balance, and simple strategies for supporting wellbeing.

Our fall Touch for Health learning continues with Level 3 in September and Level 1 beginning in October, along with our monthly Touch for Health support call for former students who want to refresh their skills, ask questions, and continue developing confidence with what they have learned.

For new students, Level 1 is an invitation to begin building a personal toolkit. For returning students, the advanced levels provide an opportunity to deepen observation, refine skills, and understand more about how different parts of the body and its energetic organization interact.

Two Pathways, One Intention

Tai Chi and Touch for Health® both invite us to move away from a passive view of wellness. Instead, they help us become active participants in how we feel, how we move, and how we respond to the changing demands of daily life.

In Tai Chi, the learning happens through movement, breath, repetition, and embodied awareness. In Touch for Health®, the learning happens through observation, muscle monitoring, balancing techniques, and practical self-care strategies. Both encourage curiosity rather than judgment. Both create opportunities to notice what is working well. Both help build a stronger relationship with the body’s own feedback.

What Could Change by Making One Commitment This Fall?

Imagine arriving in December having spent three months consistently supporting your balance, mobility, breathing, self-awareness, and capacity to release tension. Imagine having a few more tools to draw on when your body feels tired, stressed, stiff, or out of rhythm. Imagine wellness becoming something woven into your week rather than something you hope to get to later.

That is the opportunity of beginning now.

Fall programming begins Monday, September 7. Explore the class calendar on the Greenwell Center website to find the Tai Chi location that works best for you, and watch for our Touch for Health® Level 1 and Level 3 course details.

If you have been thinking about creating healthier habits this fall, this is a beautiful place to begin: one class, one new skill, one weekly commitment, and a growing awareness of what helps you feel well.

Your fall wellness rhythm can start here.

The post Start Your Fall Wellness Rhythm: Touch for Health and Tai Chi Begin September 7 first appeared on Greenwell Center for Holistic Health.

At the Greenwell Center for Holistic Health, our fall programs invite you to think differently about healthy habits. Rather than adding another list of things you should do, we are creating opportunities to notice how movement, energy, attention, creativity and everyday choices can become part of a living wellness practice.

Two Ways to Build a Weekly Wellness Habit

This fall, two 12-week experiential programs offer complementary ways to explore what it means to create greater vitality, flow and awareness: Tai Chi Skill Building and BioEnergetic Habits: a Qi YINtegration program.

Tai Chi Skill Building: Exploring the Movement Behind the Movement

What happens when we move beyond remembering the Tai Chi sequence and begin to understand what each movement is asking the body to do?

Expanding from our Movement and Music and Symphony of Radiance programs, Tai Chi Skill Building explores the metaphors within the Tai Chi set and what those movements can mean for wellness. We will slow movements down, investigate structural alignment, weight transfer, spiraling actions and whole-body integration, and then bring those discoveries back into the flowing set.

We will also explore how integrated whole-body movement creates gentle compression, expansion and rotation through the torso, bringing awareness to the internal movement and massaging of the organs. The goal is not simply to perform Tai Chi better, but to develop greater movement literacy and internal awareness.

The experience is enriched by intuitive musicians Brenda Bowen Cox and Donna Hutchison and intuitive painter Marian Egan. Music, rhythm, co lour and visual expression become part of the exploration, helping us hear, see and feel familiar movements in new ways.

12-week class dates: September 8, 15, 22 and 29; October 6 and 27; November 3, 10, 17 and 24; December 1 and 8.

BioEnergetic Habits: A Qi YINtegration Exploration

Our second fall exploration begins with a simple question: What are we doing every day that energizes us, creates flow, contributes to stagnation or depletes us?

BioEnergetic Habits takes Qi YINtegration into the landscape of everyday living. Across 12 weeks, we will become curious about the energetic patterns hidden within the way we breathe, move, eat, rest, think, focus, interact and respond to our surroundings.

We will explore posture and structural organization, breath and rhythm, nourishment and hydration, movement, emotional patterns, attention and mental load, relationships and environments, Five Element habits, creativity, joy, rest and renewal. Movement, Figure 8 patterns, biofield awareness, sound, co lour, nature, art, tea and intention become practical ways to experiment with how small changes can influence the experience of the day.

This is not about la-belling habits as good or bad. It is about developing the ability to notice. What gives you energy? What uses it? Where does your energy seem to move easily? Where might you be repeatedly creating conditions for depletion or stagnation? Most importantly, what small shift could help you renew?

Healthy Habits Do Not Have to Mean Doing More

One of the most valuable things we can do for ourselves this fall may be to reserve one hour each week for curiosity, movement and discovery. A weekly class creates an anchor in the calendar—a place to return to the body, notice what has changed, explore something new and carry one small discovery back into daily life.

Over time, those small experiences can begin to layer together. Better awareness of posture may change the way we sit at a desk. A movement explored in Tai Chi may appear while we are gardening or walking. A moment of intentional breathing may interrupt a demanding afternoon. Music may shift our mood. A Figure 8 may help us rediscover flow. Rest may become something we intentionally create rather than something we wait for when we are exhausted.

This is the invitation for fall: do not simply organize your schedule—organize your schedule to support the person you want to become.

Whether you choose to deepen your Tai Chi through movement, metaphor, music and art, or explore the energetic ecology of your everyday habits through Qi YINtegration, give yourself a consistent place for well-being this season.

Let this be the fall when wellness becomes part of how you live—not simply another thing you hope to find time for.

The post Organize Your Fall for Wellness: Two 12-Week Explorations for Healthy Habits first appeared on Greenwell Center for Holistic Health.

As we move into the fall and winter seasons, Tai Chi Cape Breton invites you to create a regular weekly habit that supports relaxation, rejuvenation, and the rediscovery of wellbeing. Rather than waiting until tension or fatigue builds, a consistent class gives you a place in your week to practise moving with greater ease, releasing unnecessary effort, and noticing the patterns your body is ready to change.

Why a Weekly Tai Chi Habit Matters

One class can feel wonderful. A regular practice creates something more: familiarity. Week by week, the movements become easier to recognize, the breath has more opportunity to settle, and the body can begin to explore balance, coordination, posture, mobility, and relaxation without rushing.

That consistency also creates a gentle rhythm of self-care. You do not have to wait for the perfect day or find extra motivation each time. Your class simply becomes part of the week — a place to arrive, move, connect with others, and give yourself time to reset.

Tai Chi is not about forcing the body to perform. It is an opportunity to become more curious about movement. Through slow, coordinated actions, weight shifts, spirals, breath, and attention, we practise listening to the body while discovering possibilities for greater ease. Over time, this can help turn wellbeing from something we think about into something we regularly experience and practise.

2027 Regular In-Person Schedule

Monday — Hillsborough/Glendyer Hall, Mabou

Time: 9:00–10:30 a.m.
Location: Hillsborough/Glendyer Hall, 4738 NS-252, Mabou, NS

Wednesday — Inverary Manor Music Room, Inverness

Time: 9:00–11:00 a.m.
Location: Inverary Manor Music Room, 72 Maple Street, Inverness, NS

Thursday — Creignish Hall, Creignish

Time: 11:45 a.m.–1:15 p.m.
Location: Creignish Hall, 2061 Ceilidh Trail, Creignish, NS

Saturday — Baddeck Public Library, Baddeck

Times: 9:00–10:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Location: Baddeck Public Library, 520 Chebucto Street, Baddeck, NS
Registration: baddeck@cbrl.ca or 902-295-2055

Your Weekly Appointment With Wellbeing

Fall and winter can easily become seasons of hurrying, sitting more, and putting our own care further down the list. Choosing one regular Tai Chi class is a simple way to change that pattern. It creates a recurring appointment to move, breathe, connect, and notice what your body needs.

Whether you are returning to Tai Chi or stepping into a class for the first time, you do not need to arrive already flexible, coordinated, or experienced. You begin where you are. The practice grows through repetition, curiosity, and the willingness to give yourself time each week.

Make this the season you create a wellness habit that gives something back to you. Let your weekly Tai Chi class be a place to relax, rejuvenate, reconnect with community, and rediscover the sense of wellbeing that can emerge when movement becomes part of how you care for yourself.

For more information about Tai Chi Cape Breton classes, contact info@greenwellcenter.com or visit greenwellcenter.com.

The post Make Tai Chi Your Weekly Wellness Habit: Fall/Winter In-Person Classes in Cape Breton first appeared on Greenwell Center for Holistic Health.