Anna Kelly

Master of Arts in Applied Healing Arts
January 2004

“I’d chosen medicine as a career because I wanted to be in partnership with people, and it wasn’t happening,” says Anna Kelly, M.D., a board certified anesthesiologist. Looking for new ways to connect with her patients, Anna completed a 300-hour medical acupuncture program through the UCLA School of Medicine. It was a good move; her new skills gave her new and satisfying ways to work with patients. Then, through a friend studying at Tai Sophia, Anna discovered the applied healing arts program. “It’s totally changed my life,” she says. 

“My fiancé (partner in my practice and now my husband) and I came up from Atlanta to visit Tai Sophia, even though it seemed unlikely we’d choose to take a program so far from home. Very quickly I knew I wanted to be around this place and its energy. I signed up without really knowing all the details. I just felt it would be helpful.” Through her experience in the AHA program, Anna says she’s become truly present in the treatment room and relates to her patients in a different way. “Instead of being ‘Dr. Fix-it,’ I’m in partnership with my patients. I learn as much from them as they get from me. It’s a wonderful interchange.

“In my personal life, AHA shows up in my day-to-day relationships with my children, my husband, and all my family. If I’d not done this program, for example, I think I’d still be needing therapy to deal with issues around my
father, who is schizophrenic. I’ve shifted how I view his situation, and that shift makes all the difference. I’ve let go of the pain and worry I’d carried for so long. Just as he is, I love and appreciate my daddy.

“AHA has helped me observe the assumptions I make and the stories I create, to see circumstances more clearly, to bow to what is, and to choose actions that serve the greater good. Looking back, I think that taking this program was something God intended me to do.”

Douglas Drewyer

Master of Arts in Applied Healing Arts
January 2002

Douglas Drewyer, identified by the Washingtonian magazine as one of the area's best dentists, considered entering the John F. Kennedy leadership program at Harvard; instead, he chose the Applied Healing Arts program at Tai Sophia Institute.

"I jumped on the rare opportunity to participate in the genesis of a program unlike any other," he says. Doug first encountered the program's core philosophy when he asked a friend - a student in the Institute's SOPHIA program - for assistance with a staff dilemma in his dental office. "I was drawn to the philosophy," he says. "Then, I saw it as a model of troubleshooting based in nature; but after learning more, I realized it isn't about 'models' - it's about seeing nature and the body-mind-spirit as a teacher. It has more to do with how I be than what I be doing."

Through his "project of excellence" for the AHA master's degree, Doug brought his learning to senior dental students at the University of Maryland Dental School. "I'm excited that my 'project of excellence' has introduced the conversation of relationship-centered health care to the college," he says. In a series of seminars, he introduced future dentists to an approach to relationships they do not learn in a conventional skills or management class - a way of interacting that creates mutually supportive relationships among dentists, their patients and staff, and the wider health-care community.

"The AHA program has provided the framework for focusing my work, for realizing the gifts I will return to the dental community and to the health-care arena in general," he says. "I've found that while each person in this program does change, it's about much more than the individual - it's about how each person takes this learning out into the world and makes a difference. "There's such a need and a hunger for this approach," Doug says. "I want to do all I can to bring it to the world."

Natalie Lawrence

Master of Arts in Applied Healing Arts
August 2002

Commuting from New Brunswick, Canada would seem too big a trip for any regular graduate program. But when Natalie Lawrence came to Tai Sophia, there was no question in her mind- it was absolutely worth it. "The gentlemen at the front desk are amazing. I felt like they were waiting for me." She already had two Canadian degrees in the arts and social work, and was looking at Masters degree programs in Social Work, but she wanted something different. At that time she was researching programs in mindfulness, Kabala and Eastern traditions. She looked at the Omega Institute catalogue, which led her to this website and she made a call. She was drawn to the 'Applied' part of the Healing Arts program.

"In undergraduate you learn theory, but then you are on your own to figure out application. I was used to living in my head, before everything had to be logical, make sense. I was in tune with my intuition, but now I have a deeper understanding than that, I trust my body in a different way. Coming here was based on a decision based on a whole body perspective, which knew I needed to balance the part my head played."

I've been a family therapist for four years, and now that I've finished the requirements for the program I'm applying a new set of tools that also work to heal, the holistic body mind spirit focus rounds out the approaches I have to offer. In the Canadian system you can work with different clients based on your degree, so this Master's degree opens my work up to all clients.

"This is an embodied learning, which I can sometimes explain to people who've been exposed to eastern traditions, but how do you communicate in words something you live? It's helped me to have a different level of peace with what's around me and inside me."

AHA's first Canadian student is bringing the Redefining Health workshop to Monkton, British Columbia as part of her "project of excellence," and in the long term would like to offer a healing center in New Brunswick. She intends to continue her involvement with the Institute, offering her time to discuss the program with prospective students. If you would like to speak with her, please contact the Admissions office.