With Dr. Rod and Brooks Newton, owners of Hidden Springs Wellness Center
You’ve been exploring and teaching how to create a fulfilling life for 40 years now. What have you found to be the most helpful for people?
Brooks: I’d say commitment to your own personal growth plus a willingness to learn and practice skills for self-exploration. Lasting results don’t come from a quick fix. Anything worthwhile takes time and effort.
What are the tools and skills you are talking about?
Rod: There are two main ones: creating skills and healing skills. Creating skills include visioning, mental imagery and manifesting. These channel the power of your mind into creating what is important to you, which allows you to give your unique gifts in life.
The second set of skills is healing (unblocking) skills. Healing skills include awareness, acceptance of personal feelings, and the ability to relate effectively to our feelings. These enable us to handle the challenges that inevitably come up when we really go for what we want. Those challenges bring us important life lessons.
Even more important than these skill sets is knowing when to do which. We often try to push forward with creating, when we need to pause and embrace the feelings that are coming up. At other times we indulge our feelings, when it’s really time to take effective action. Knowing how and when to shift gears between creating and healing brings a sense of ease to your life – everything begins to flow smoothly.
It seems like most of us get stuck in unhealthy habits, and struggle to change them. Can your work help with that?
Rod: Yes. Habits exist in layers. There are the surface behaviors like eating junk food, sabotaging success in your career, or finding yourself in the same dysfunctional pattern of relationship again and again. These are easy to see but they are just the first layer. There are other, invisible layers – hidden patterns under the surface – that feed those self-destructive behaviors. Unless you discover and change those deeper patterns, all you can achieve is temporary change. Just ask anyone who has tried to lose weight or create a better relationship!
Lasting change comes only when you address these deeper forces in play, so we teach people ways to explore and release their dysfunctional patterns. It’s actually a pretty exciting process once you get the hang of it and develop your inner skills.
Many researchers and doctors believe that the mind plays an important role in healing and success. Why don’t more people use their mind power?
Brooks: I think most people just don’t know about the incredible power of their own mind, or they just find it hard to believe. When they discover how simple it is to focus their minds and what a powerful tool this is, they enjoy learning and practicing the skills. As Thomas Edison said, “If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves.”
I’ve heard that you ask people to set goals, yet you tell them that success doesn’t depend completely on achieving them. What does this mean?
Rod: There’s a big difference between superficial success and deep fulfillment. You may think you want a million dollars, a big house, etc. Or, you may decide that something like world peace is what you want. You can choose anything as a goal. But the process of working towards that goal, the journey, is what really matters.
On this journey, you focus your mind and embrace your feelings. Challenges inevitably arise. How do these challenges make you feel? Can you follow those feelings under the surface of your habits to discover the lessons being presented? Can you use your movement towards a goal for deep healing? A person might choose a goal and not actually reach it but they may discover that the journey is more fulfilling than just achieving the goal would have been! The combination of creating and healing is where the real magic is.
Can I use these same skills in my relationships?
Brooks: Certainly. All of us are in relationship all the time and we haven’t been educated to know how to deal with the challenges that inevitably arise between two people. What feelings are coming up? What can we learn from what shows up? We believe that we aren’t together to make each other happy, but to help each other grow. And growing together is very fulfilling. In fact, we develop deep abiding love for any person who helps us grow.
I understand that you incorporate all these skills into your 28-Day Seasonal Cleanse at Hidden Springs. How does that work?
Rod: Dr. Bonnie Nedrow and I facilitate two cleanses every year, during the spring and fall. The cleanse works on all levels – physical, mental, and emotional – to release toxic poisons, thoughts, and emotions. We use this same process, which we call the C.H.I. Practice (C for creating, H for healing and I for integrating the two – knowing when to do what) to make the process of getting toxins out of your body easier and more effective. We use visioning skills to mobilize your body’s energies for detoxifying and we use emotional wellness skills to remove the blocks that get in the way. Understanding the relationship between toxic release and emotional release enhances the process dramatically.
What is the number one reason I might succeed or fail with these skills?
Brooks: Commitment to your own personal growth is what makes the difference.
The C.H.I. Practice is quick, simple, and most of our students tell us that they look forward to doing their daily practice. It just takes a few minutes, but the results are cumulative over time and very powerful. What’s really exciting is how the techniques evolve as we apply them. I’m sure we’ll be using and sharing these tools with others for the rest of our lives.
Dr. Rod and Brooks Newton are co-owners of Hidden Springs Wellness Center. They are passionate about sharing life skills in The CHI Practice classes, 28 Day Seasonal Cleanse Class, yoga classes and in the personal coaching they do with individuals and couples. For more information call (541) 488-8858 or visit www.hiddenspringswellness.com
