Nia, coined originally from Non-Impact Aerobics and later from Neuromuscular Integrated Action, is a powerful movement therapy that will change your body and life!
Wendi found Nia through Barb Wesson, who introduced Nia in Wisconsin and is now a Black Belt Trainer of Teachers. Barb imagined Wendi as a Nia teacher before she had even taken a class! Wendi's healing in Nia has helped her open her heart, embrace joy, and dance through life, not to mention stress reduction, more confident expression, and fitness. Nia is like no other fitness program, in that it includes dance, martial arts, and healing practices in a combination with music that is rich and captivating.
After graduating her Master's program and leaving Milwaukee, Wendi desired to dance Nia regularly, and share it.. Wendi became a certified White Belt Nia instructor in April of 2003, through trainer of teachers Winalee Zeeb. She has earned her Blue, Green, and Brown Belt Levels of training since. Wendi offers Nia as fitness and therapy, including inspirational music and fun in every session.
Debbie Rosas and Carlos Rosas founded the Nia Technique in 1982, and developed a safe, holistic fitness program that addresses the whole person. Practicing Nia is a way for you to learn about yourself. You will learn how to integrate your body, mind, emotions, and spirit into everything you do to become more expressive, dynamic, interesting, creative, and somatically-educated. . For more on the Nia Technique and to locate Nia classes, visit www.nianow.com.
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How can I recover that which I have never had? The basis for healing and wellbeing through a discovery and empowerment model stems from the work of Charlotte Kasl in the book "Many Roads One Journey". Her 16-step empowerment model is a wholistic approach to overcoming addiction that views people in their wholeness– mind, body and spirit.
A fundamental basis of this model is flexibility and an openness which leads to continually ask: What works? Who does it work for? and How can we help it work better? It encourages people to be continually open to new information. At its core, this model is based on love not fear; internal control not external authoritarianism; affirmation not deflation; and trust in the ability of people to find their own healing path when given education, support, hope and choices. For more on Dr. Kasl and to read the 16 Steps of Discovery and Empowerment, visit charlottekasl.info
Wendi Martell-Daniels facilitates a weekly Women's Empowerment for Life education and support group for you to discover, and become, your full potential, one step at a time. The group is ongoing and offers an honest, open approach to overcome addictions and codependency. We apply the 16 Steps of Discovery and Empowerment from the book "Many Roads, One Journey", and the workbook "Yes! You Can". by Charlotte Davis Kasl. The focus is to learn and make choices for nutrition, exercise, sleep, and healthy, respectful relationships.
Moving forward with your life invites the decision to look forward. Choosing counseling is proof… you are taking the steps. Solution Focused therapy looks at the past with a view to the future.
When it comes to life's challenges:
Solution Focused Therapy starts with defining the problem then looks at the exceptions to the problem - "when is the problem not a problem?" It takes a next step- a focus on the goals you can set to create an environment that incorporates those exceptions in your future. What has worked, or might work, so that you could wake up tomorrow, and the problem would be better, or even solved? Change is always happening, and small changes lead to greater changes. If a miracle happened, and the problem was solved, what would your life be like?
Through constructive support, helping you create an action plan, feedback, and compliments on your progress, solution-focused therapy gets positive results!
The Unconditional Love and Forgiveness Process is a step-by-step "recipe" based on the work of Dr. Edith Stauffer. She applied the ancient writings of the Essenes, who prioritized harmony, and Dr. Roberto Assagioli, a transpersonal psychologist in a gestalt method that allows you to move through your resentments to freedom and peace. Within this process, forgiveness is to cancel any expectation, condition; or demand that I am holding in my mind that prevents the free extension of unconditional love and forgiveness between myself and another being.
Who do you need to forgive? Wendi assists you to forgive others with insight, supportive understanding, and lighthearted warmth. There is also a sequence for self-forgiveness, which offers compassion and acceptance for any and all things you may be holding against yourself. Nothing is too shameful to be forgiven.
Wendi was certified in Unconditional Love and Forgiveness through spiritual director, writer, and consultant Mary Hayes Grieco. Visit Mary's website for her books and more on the Unconditional Love and Forgiveness Process.
"Doing the same thing over and over and expecting differ¬ent results" is a matter of the brain and body having been "highjacked" by a substance or behavioral addiction. Alcohol, illegal and prescription drugs, sugar and processed foods, unhealthy relationships, pornography, workaholism, gambling, self-abuse, and any repetitive pattern bring pain and chaos.. Wendi specializes in disrupting these addictions to create wholeness and health.
Wendi will assist you to gain insight into the nature of addiction to alcohol, drugs, destructive relationships, food, work, or whatever has you "hooked". Transform your life and your brain with support for truly nurturing nutrition, relationships, empowerment, and self-care.
Loss, abuse, accidents, and life threatening events call for an understanding of how we cope with that which is overwhelming. Through Imagery Rescripting and Reprocessing, we create empowerment over feelings of loss of control or helplessness, and new images to soothe help you move forward. Release resentments and limitations with Unconditional Love and Forgiveness, a recipe for letting go of expectations. Give yourself the gift of peace.
The word "trauma" has been used in everyday language to mean a highly stressful event. A traumatic event refers to extreme stress that overwhelms a person's ability to cope. What is stressful to one person may not be to another. Traumatic events can include physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, accidents, threats to one's life, or significant losses (such as divorce or unemployment).
The impact of traumatic stress can extend far beyond the event. Nightmares, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts or images can reoccur for years. Emotional reactions of wanting to "fight, flee, or freeze" can be triggered as you encounter daily stressors. Wanting to numb or escape the feelings can give rise to eating disorders, alcohol or drug abuse, sleep disorders, self-mutilation, and relationship difficulties. Often, these related conditions are thought to be the problem, instead of the underlying trauma issues. Untreated past wounds, if not revisited to be fully healed, may prevent you from having an emotionally healthy future.
One process that has had proven success for resolving trauma issues is Imagery Rescripting and Reprocessing Therapy (IRRT). IRRT is a therapy method that carefully revisits the traumatic events of the past to bring healing and restoration through the re-writing of those events in light of a present understanding. The process involves:
Accessing the painful feelings and then "scripting" a different outcome provides options for different thoughts and actions. It can transform retraumatizing flashbacks into non-threatening memories. After this process, one will remember the event, but usually without the negative emotions and fight, flight, or freeze reactions. This opens the way for grounding, owning your voice and actions now, and creative, centered choices.
Wendi has a Certificate in Trauma Counseling through the UW-Milwaukee, and has had training and supervision with the psychologist who developed IRRT. She invests in conferences and education to remain current and further her understanding and professional skills in trauma counseling.
Wendi experienced a healing connection to horses since she was a child, and grew to love horses for their unconditional acceptance, beauty, gentleness, and power. Wendi took Greg Kersten's Faith-Based Applications for Equine-Assisted Programs and Practices Seminar in 2011. This seminar addressed the unique needs of equine-assisted practitioners who implement faith in their work with people and horses. The equine-assisted philosophy and faith-based exercises make the natural connection between herd behavior and human wellness. For information about EAP seminars with Greg Kersten, visit www.okcorralseries.com
Visions Counseling offers equine assisted psychotherapy to individuals, families, and groups, either as the primary choice for sessions, or to compliment your sessions in the office. Her Quarter horse, Blue, and miniature donkey, Harmony, assist you to "ground and conquer."
EAP differs from the practices used by commonly known physical therapeutic riding programs in that there is a focus on emotional and psychological processing of the interaction with the horse. We do an activity, on the ground, with our "herd," and then we discuss what happened during that time, and how to apply the lessons learned to your life after the session. Sometimes there are intense emotions and deep processing, other times, "We have fun, therapy happens."
Wendi is open about her path of discovery and empowerment, from her eating disorder, depression, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and adult child of an alcoholic, dysfunctional family. Becoming a mental health or substance abuse professional is often an avenue of healing and transformation for individuals who have had these and other issues, as was true for Wendi. "Wounded healers" benefit from continued support. Wendi invites counselors, clinicians, professionals, and therapists to open to receiving this valuable connection for personal and professional growth.
Wendi welcomes you to experience the variety of holistic, nontraditional, and experiential modalities offered through Visions Counseling. Personalize your time in sessions to get solution-focused brief therapy and resolve issues in a targeted manner.
Services for professionals can also be educationally-oriented, such as learning more about Nutrition, Exercise, and Sleep for Well-briety or Overcoming Depression and Anxiety through natural means. Wendi has presented a four day Movement Therapy course at the National Rural Institute for Alcohol Abuse. It is an excellent body-centered recovery experience for professionals.
At Visions Counseling, we embrace the value and potential of the whole person, body-mind-emotion-spirit, and recognize that each impacts the other on every level of being.
The individual cells of the body form the whole human being. On a cellular level, we are aware that choices for nutrition, supplements, exercise, and sleep impact the structure and function of the brain. Wendi has learned from resources such as The Chemistry of Joy, and The Chemistry of Calm, by author Henry Emmons. She references Prescription for Nutritional Healing, by Phyllis A. Balch, and Nutrition for Recovery by Joseph D. Beasley and Susan Knightly, among many others.
Wendi also gleans wisdom from the Ayurvedic perspectives of balance, including body type assessments and learning to eat according to the seasons to pacify your body type. Chronobiotic nutrition, eating from the top of the tree down, is a plan we introduce to enhance digestion, assimilation, and elimination. These practices facilitate a foundation for health.
Neurons, dendrites, and axons, the basic communication channels of the brain, are physically and biochemically wired by our beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. We are sparked to action or interrupted by non-action. The cognitive-behavioral solution-focused brief therapy provided by Wendi offers insight. Recognize the messages you interpret as truth, discern if it really is the truth, and make conscious choices to rewire your brain (and behavioral) responses.
Wendi gathers from scientific approaches as well as psychological, mindfulness affirmations, and Biblical inspirational inputs for recovery, body/ brain health, and transformational thinking.
Emotions are not good or bad, they are simply, or complexly, messages that inform us of our inner reactions to any given situation, person, or thing. Allowing emotions to surface in the safe space of a session can offer moments of understanding that make a lifetime of difference.
Conditioned tendencies, defenses, patterned that are destructive, addictions, mental illness, and personality disorders may be linked to underlying or buried emotions. Wendi accesses the wisdom of body-centered therapist Christine Caldwell in her book Getting Our Bodies Back for a comprehensive understanding of emotional reactions. The Addictive Spiral begins with intolerable feelings of pain or pleasure, and latches on to control. Control leads to rejection of oneself and the real world, and being out of step with time. This only leads to further intolerable experiences. The awareness, owning, acceptance, and action sequence of the Movement Cycle is process-oriented. It counters family agendas and rules to uncover new material, new mysteries about ourselves. We seek ever higher states of consciousness, as a spiritual journey.
God is love, and each choice made from love has a healing effect.
As a counselor who is a Christian, Wendi offers the opportunity to include Biblical principles and Christ-centered grace. Visions Counseling and the solution-focused approach is inclusive and offers services to those of all faiths, agnostics, and atheists. On her personal path, Wendi was baptized Catholic and raised in a Lutheran grade school. She is a member of Northwoods Vineyard Church in Tomahawk, has begun Restoring the Foundations work at Prince of Peace Church, and attends a healing Mass.
Integrative Day Treatment is a brief experience (one to four days) structured to address a specific mental health or AODA issue of your choice, such as depression, anxiety, nutrition for recovery or relapse prevention. Visions Counseling offers a safe environment to explore and process emotions that may arise when learning techniques to implement a new lifestyle. During the course of a day, you will participate in all aspects of acquiring new patterns, such as exercise, making meals, and choices for exercise, relaxation, and fun. Integrative Day Treatment invites you to use experiential modalities as well as individual counseling, group, or family sessions.
Integrative Day Treatment can be a bridge between inpatient or residential treatment and developing the skills and experiences to living a community sustained recovery.
Intensive Outpatient programming allows you to focus on your healing and recovery with an individualized treatment approach of up to 12 hours of therapy a week. The choice of times (day, evening, or weekend) and the number of hours per session can be adapted to meet your schedule. The program may incorporate individual, group, couples, or family sessions within any of the available modalities. The focus may be mental health and/or AODA recovery.
Intensive Outpatient Treatment can be a bridge between inpatient or residential treatment and developing the skills and experiences to living a community sustained recovery.
Using the metaphor of a "tree of well-briety", Wendi invites you to explore how we "grow" prevention, intervention, and maintain abstinence through what we eat and drink. Research finds that meeting the physical needs of the body prompts us to choose sobriety over addictive substances. This requires honesty about what the body needs, and willingness to be open to healthier options. We clarify the ways substances, including sugar, gluten, and processed foods, trigger the craving for more and the state of never having enough.
Nurturing new brain cells to branch out into different attitudes and actions depends on biochemical and whole-food vibrational personal satisfaction. Well-briety also includes enhancing sleep, exercise, and spiritual practices. Choose the areas you need assistance with, and Wendi will help you strengthen your body, mind, and spirit from the roots up!
Visions Counseling offers educational and therapeutic groups structured along a central theme. Groups are designed to help you develop specific skills, understand certain concepts, or progress through challenging life transitions. You will increase your awareness of a certain life problem, learn tools to cope, strengthen the ability to apply what you learn. Examples of such groups include the 16 Step Empowerment, Overcoming Depression, and Living Sugar and/or Gluten-Free.
Visions Counseling offers individual, family, couples, and group counseling and therapy.
Counseling focuses on growth, development, enhancement, prevention, self-awareness, and releasing blocks to growth.
Therapy focuses on issues such as remediation, treatment, and personality reconstruction. Therapy is a process of re-education that includes both conscious and unconscious awareness of both the present and the past. The purpose of therapy is to assist you in developing a correct emotional experience, and in making new decisions about the world, others, and yourself.
The impact of processed foods on the body has created the epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Such nutrient-void foods have been directly linked to depression, anxiety, eating disorders, addiction, and many other mental health issues.
Learn the value of eating whole, nutrient-rich, God-given foods to facilitate your recovery. It is possible and optimal to live sugar and gluten-free. You will be provided readings and practices that allow you to break out of food addiction into the freedom of nurturing your body and brain with choices that build an honest foundation for health.