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Esther Heideman: Tibetan Singing Bowl Healing. Photo by Corey Miller.
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Practitioners like Heideman use Sound Healing to ease pain, stress, anxiety and depression; improve sleep; lower blood pressure; stimulate the immune system; reduce headaches and tremors; and flush the lymphatic system to energize cancer patients. Photo by Corey Miller.
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Hutcherson’s overall aim is for people to commit to their own self-care—an empowering and often emotional process. Photo by Corey Miller.
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Susan Johnson, owner/instructor at InsideOut Yoga (IOY) in White Stone, has been leading domestic and international retreats for 12 years. Photo by Corey Miller.
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InsideOut Yoga Retreats focus on positivity, perseverance, self-acceptance and finding mental peace. Participants connect and gain new perspectives. Pictured above: Morocco retreat members strike a pose. Photo courtesy InsideOut Yoga.
The holiday season may not be a time when many people focus on health. Wait until January, we tend to figure. Yet good self-care can help make these months more joyful, particularly with lowering stress levels and avoiding bad eating habits that can cause weight gain and other medical complications. “Self-care,” though, isn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition. Take the three women profiled: each has taken a different road to wellness. Today, they happily share their knowledge and experiences with family, friends and clients—and now, readers.
Esther Heideman: Tibetan Singing Bowl Healing
Each time Esther Heideman strikes a Tibetan Singing Bowl with a mallet, she gathers information about what is happening inside a client’s body.
Based on the pitches and overtones she hears, Heideman says, she can locate areas of pain, tension and disease. She then draws on various healing melodies to help release energy blockages and heal physical and mental ailments, as clients rest in trance-like meditations.
“It’s incredible how quickly it works,” she relates. “You can’t explain it; you just have to experience it. Music truly has the power to harmonize the body and mind.”
Heideman, 53, a world-class professional classical singer and voice teacher, gained advanced certification in Tibetan Singing Bowl Healing during the COVID-19 pandemic. She now offers group and private classes at Motion Studios and the nearby Palmer Building in Kilmarnock and plans to add Breath Work classes in the fall.
When COVID-19 cancelled all her scheduled concerts, Heideman deeply missed the vibrational feeling she experienced from orchestras and choirs during stage performances. That prompted her to reflect on a past visit to a Buddhist temple in Hong Kong, where she had wept with joy as monks played Tibetan Bowls in preparation for a leader’s cremation.
In 2021, Heideman decided to travel to Florida for a training with Alex Gopali, a native of Nepal and a Tibetan Bowl guru.She also bought sets of the necessary therapeutic-grade bowls, each hand-hammered by monks on the eve of a full moon.
While scientific research on the benefits of Tibetan Singing Bowls is still incomplete, they date back thousands of years and have gained increasing support as a complement to Western medicine. (Note: Sound or Vibrational Healing is different from Sound Bath Healing, which features multiple instruments played at once rather than prescribed melodies in specific sequences.)
Practitioners have turned to Sound Healing to ease pain, stress, anxiety and depression; improve sleep; lower blood pressure; stimulate the immune system; reduce headaches and tremors; and flush the lymphatic system to energize cancer patients.
“Our bodies naturally tune up to higher, purer vibrations,” Heideman explains. “The body is 80 percent water, so you can feel vibrations move across and through you. You’re also forced to ground yourself, get out of your head and stop overthinking.”
Heideman’s Vibrational Healing group classes incorporate chanting and deep breathing as clients lie on padded mats with blankets and bolsters. During private or duet healings, participants rest on soft padded massage tables with bowls placed on and around their bodies. Heideman also passes along personalized breathing and stretching exercises for at-home practice.
Music has long had a central role in Heideman’s life. On her family’s farm in Wisconsin—where she once had a friendly pet cow with red hair like hers—her mother was inspired by “The Sound of Music” and encouraged her three kids to sing and play instruments.
“I always had the loudest voice on the playground, by far,” Heideman recalls with a laugh.
A gifted soprano, Heideman earned a bachelor’s in music at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a master’s in music performance from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She has performed at venues worldwide, including The Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall, where she has a concert scheduled in December.
Heideman and her husband, Nathan Martin, recently moved to the Northern Neck because its landscapes reminded them of favorite spots in Ireland. She enjoys Gyrotonic workouts—a combination of yoga, dance, gymnastics, swimming and tai chi—meditation, nature walks, camping and studying herbal cures.
As for the inevitable skeptics of Tibetan Healing Bowls, Heideman welcomes questions and encourages people to follow her favorite quote, from the American naturalist John Burroughs: “Leap, and the Net Will Appear.”
“Just try it one time,” she says, “and you’ll understand.”
The Bowl Movement I 917-553-0824
Rosemary Hutcherson: Medical Nutrition Therapy
By age 13, Rosemary Hutcherson liked reading nutrition guides and textbooks more than novels. Her brother even gave her such a book for Christmas that year.
Yet Hutcherson also was a major sweet tooth, gobbling up favorites such as Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and gummy bears through her college years.
“It’s shocking to me how much sugar I used to eat,” she says. “So, when people come to see me, I’m never going to judge. My job is to support them, motivate them and identify any barriers in the way of making positive changes.”
Hutcherson, 59, is a registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) and Integrative and Functional Nutrition Certified Practitioner (IFNCP) at LWell, a Williamsburg-based team of RDNs, medical providers and certified health coaches.
As nutrition practice director, Hutcherson helps train LWell providers while offering medical nutrition therapy to clients with goals such as losing weight, improving energy and mood, reducing pain, controlling diabetes and managing menopausal symptoms or digestive dysfunction.
Hutcherson teaches nutrition basics, develops personalized meal plans and builds deeper connections with clients to understand why they are making unhealthy choices. At any given appointment, then, she could be discussing how to manage stress, incorporate vegetables into recipes or grocery shop and premake meals to avoid the fast-food line.
The overall aim is for people to commit to their own self-care—an empowering and often emotional process.
“As they gain confidence in their choices and establish habits that work to meet their health and wellness goals, they come to the table with their own ideas and are excited about what they can do,” Hutcherson relates. “There’s no stopping someone who feels like that.”
Wellness actually is a second career for Hutcherson, who was born in Richmond and spent much of her childhood in Lynchburg. She grew interested in nutrition when her mother joined Weight Watchers and learned about healthy food combinations.
By high school, Hutcherson also was a “cardio junkie,” starting with aerobic dance sessions. She now runs, lifts weights and does Peloton and Orangetheory Fitness interval and endurance workouts.
A political science major at Old Dominion University, Hutcherson worked in several university development offices and spent 14 years as a stay-at-home parent to son Cole, now 27, and daughter Cate, 24.
Hutcherson and her husband, Alex, moved to Williamsburg in 2006 for his career with Ferguson Enterprises. In 2009, she returned to school to study nutrition, earning RDN and IFNCP credentials plus Certificates of Training in Adult Weight Management and Obesity Interventions.
The most sustainable healthy eating plans are those that account for personal food preferences, Hutcherson notes. For example, she is a big fan of vegetables but not so much of fruit, so her frequent solution is to add frozen berries to smoothies. People who don’t like vegetables, on the other hand, can blend organic supergreens mixes into protein shakes.
“There’s always a workaround,” she says.
As for the upcoming holidays, Hutcherson’s main piece of advice is to reframe the “season” as individual days of indulgence. So, Thanksgiving Day can be a feast, but the days after don’t have to be a repeat: “Get back to your routine. Wake up Friday, eat a good breakfast, drink plenty of water and go to the gym.”
A few more tips:
- Buy and make less food. Think about how many sweet treats you really need from Halloween through Christmas. Aim to have fewer leftovers.
- Enjoy your favorite items in moderation, without guilt. For Hutcherson, that’s the iced sugar cookies she makes with her children and nieces.
- Avoid the breakroom at work—no one goes in there looking for broccoli!
- Think of “no” as an empowering and positive word, not a punitive one.
- Make time for fitness and sleep, for energy and stress relief.
Control a few variables,” Hutcherson says, “and then just celebrate the beautiful season.”
lwell.com/rosemary-hutcherson I 757-585-3441
Susan Johnson: Yoga and Travel Retreats
At age 39, Susan Johnson set a goal: by her 40th birthday, she wanted to be able to do a split. By then, she’d had hundreds of recurring dreams about completing the move and feeling great about herself.
Once she started yoga, Johnson gained the flexibility to meet her goal in just a few months. Little did she know that she also had found a new career path, as a yoga instructor and studio owner and later a leader of international wellness retreats.
“All that from a weird dream,” she says, chuckling. “This journey has brought me physical and mental balance, strength and flexibility and an unbelievable community with change-your-life friendships. Most importantly, it has helped me inspire thousands of people.”
Johnson, owner/instructor at InsideOut Yoga (IOY) in White Stone, has been leading domestic and international retreats for 12 years, including the YMCA Kekoka Yoga Retreat in Kilmarnock and trips to Shenandoah, the Outer Banks, Peru, Morocco and Costa Rica. Now 61, she’s planning a Barcelona excursion for 2024.
Participants typically stay at luxury eco-friendly retreat centers for one to two weeks, attending workshops and yoga and meditation sessions. Johnson and her co-leader friends—a brewery owner, a retired physical therapist and now a fellow yoga instructor—also plan unique adventures such as zip-lining, wine tours and visits to Machu Pichu and the Sahara Desert.
With names such as “Spreading Happy,” “Peak Moments,” “Rock the Kasbah” (rocking wherever you are) and “Off the Grid” (tapping into your own light and power), the retreats focus on positivity, perseverance, self-acceptance and finding mental peace.
“People come in with all types of backgrounds, and we help them connect, share emotional issues, gain new perspectives, tackle challenges, honor their own temperaments, let go and discover greater happiness,” Johnson relates. “It’s incredible to watch the transformations.”
A New Jersey native, Johnson majored in German and communications at Rutgers University and was a German teacher for several years. She moved to Irvington with her husband, a Norfolk native, and their two sons in 1997.
In 2008, Johnson became a Registered Yoga Teacher through the Yoga Alliance, a national nonprofit association. She opened IOY in June 2010 and earned two more advanced yoga certifications in 2018.
Since 2011, Johnson has served as volunteer chair for the Kekoka Yoga Retreat, a fundraiser for the summer camp program for kids. She had previously worked as co-director of development for the Northern Neck Family YMCA for seven years.
The mother of three grown children, Johnson has a dry sense of humor, a potty mouth, a huge appetite and a love of craft beer. Yoga should be equally laid-back, she believes, and people without natural strength or athleticism shouldn’t shy away (in fact, she claims to have neither, just some natural flexibility). She encourages beginners to just show up.
“Yoga is not a performance, and we’re all a work in progress,” she notes. “Nobody is there to judge you. It’s not about comparing yourself to anyone else. It’s a way to learn your strengths and limitations and embrace who you are. That gets easier to do with practice.”
IOY’s wellness retreats have regularly sold out; in fact, Johnson added a second week in Costa Rica this year to accommodate demand. The upcoming Barcelona trip will have two nine-day sessions in April and May, each with spots for 18 people at $3,499 apiece excluding airfare, travel insurance, spa services, adult beverages and gratuities.
Johnson already can’t wait to go.
“The energy people bring to retreats is amazing,” she says. “Maybe it has something to do with clearing their calendars for even a short time—to do something purely for themselves.”
Register now for the upcoming Barcelona retreat. Two nine-day sessions in April and May 2024 are available.
