Looking Back… a Little Bit of Healthy Healing History
Yes, Healthy Healing Center has already come a long way. It can look back on its bit of history. As is usually the case, when it all started, like at the time when this picture was taken in 2004, nobody could have guessed what will have become of it by now, in 2016. But sometimes it is good to look back at your roots, or the roots of your present endeavor.
You see, the group of people in the picture had come together to build a small medi-spa in north Goa, with the main focus on skilled bodywork (or massage therapy), and a sideline of medical ozone treatments, mostly in the form of an ozone warm water sauna. We began like so many start-ups with little money and lots of enthusiasm. The spa was called ‘Club Mud’. Even though it did not succeed for various reasons, everybody learned from taking this particular mud bath of failure (including myself), and everybody in the picture is now thriving in unexpected ways. Actually all have done better than they could have hoped for back then.
There is Nadia Hapke on the left. She was one of our main therapists at Club Mud and now she runs HP Praxis (for natural medicine) in Berlin, Germany, and also serves as a successful NLP coach. She came to see us in January and February this year, taking treatments at Healthy Healing and reconnecting. Next to her is George Braganza. He continues to work with us professionally, as sometimes he gives his fabulous Craniosacral Therapy sessions when clients ask for it. Then there is Paula Horan, most everybody’s mentor at the time, who had taught all the basics and some of the subtleties of bodymind therapy. Today as much as back then she works as a successful seminar leader, and author; and keeps globetrotting around the world, teaching people, helping them in any way she can. Dr Ankur, to her right, went on to complete his MD in medicine and is now is a practicing physician in Perth, Australia. But he still visits Goa quite regularly in pursuit of his spiritual quest. To his right, there is Dr Shikha. Everybody who knows Healthy Healing Center in Goa knows her, as she is the center’s integrative physician; the heart, soul and brain of Healthy Healing since when it first opened its door to the public in December 2005. Dr Ravi works now as a physician in in a government medical primary care center in rural Punjab, married with kid. We exchange the occasional greeting. And finally Melissa all the way on the right, she went back to Germany and completed her PhD in psychology. We have heard that she is now also happily married.
What I like about this story, the story of the origins of Healthy Healing, is that these origins helped everyone involved in the project to fulfill most of their life’s dreams. And as the origins were empowering to all of us who came together in 2004, the result in the form of our present clinic for integrative medicine, is likewise empowering for most of our clients.
As much as we were empowered by our actions in the past, we want to empower our clients to eventually take the matters of their health into their own hands, after they have been helped medically and given the necessary boost energetically and through educating them about self-help.
As one famous teacher said, if you want to find out about your past, what kind of unknown past you had before your were born, look at your present circumstances. They will tell you. And if you want to know what your future will be like, look at your present actions. They will tell you, as your present actions determine where you are going.
This is the Healthy Healing Center Goa story and philosophy. It started out with the idea of benefitting everyone, and it is still motivated to benefit everyone.
