'Your body speaks your mind.' Stark woman creates lecture series based on holistic healing

NORTH CANTON − Much of Juanita Mazzarella's life has been in pursuit of learning about what she believes is the inextricable connection between the mind, body and soul.

It has resulted in her creating "Love & Wellbeing for All," a monthly wellness series she hosts at the Light After Loss Hope and Healing Center at 3751 Burrshire Drive NW on the third Saturday of every month.

"It's a safe space for people to come and share and have some fun," she said.

Mazzarella said she felt compelled to start Love & Wellbeing for All last year. In January, she held her first talk, "Introduction to Raja Yoga" at the Quonset Hut Community Event Space. She relocated to Light After Loss this summer.

Mazzarella's talks tout the benefits of holistic living, including meditation, energy massage, Reiki and Unified Healing Therapy, along with Akashic record readings.

"The goal is to create a community of life and well-being for all," she said. "That's how this showed up. I've had all those good things in life, I could now really seriously share it with others. People are coming and sharing because these topics are uplifting. I'm seeing how people are connecting with each other, who didn't know each other before."

Shannon Ortiz, founder of the Light After Loss Hope and Healing Center, said Mazzarella has been a welcome addition.

"We are so happy to have Juanita doing her wellness series at The Hope and Healing Center," she said. "Juanita is one of those people who simply feel like sunshine. For us, she's been impacted by suicide loss, she's been impacted by breast cancer, but when you meet her, she's nothing but love and light. A fellow survivor who's turned pain into purpose, which is what we are all about."

A former graphic artist, Mazzarella said she discovered the power of Raja yoga meditation in 1993 while living in Miami, shortly before she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

"Right before I felt this lump in my breast and started trekking all over from doctor to doctor, I had been exposed to Raja yoga meditation, two weeks before," she said. "I really started hearing information about how your emotions and lifestyle and how you think, who you are as a person and what you're doing in life, all had a really significant effect on your health. It was like somebody opened my eyes really big because I was diagnosed with this cancer at the bottom of my left breast, and I knew there was a lot more going on here — cancer doesn't just show up out of nowhere. I particularly felt like there was a very strong emotional component."

Mazzarella said meditation also led her to explore the works of Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Louise Hay and Leo Buscaglia.

Author touts intuitive gifts: Catching up with author Lynn A. Robinson and her `divine intuition'

"Every chance I got, I would go and hear these people speak, and they were all saying the same thing, which is, 'Your body speaks your mind,'" she said. "Our emotions really do affect how our body translates what we're thinking. The healthier our thoughts, our feelings and our inner self talk is about ourselves and then about others, the healthier we become. I didn't grow up like that."

The youngest of seven siblings, the 1976 Timken High School graduate said hers was a typical Italian Catholic family.

"Everything seemed to be fine until I was 8 years old, and my father died," she said. "At that point, it felt like our family went into trauma, chaos. I don't know how I knew the word 'trauma' back then, but it felt very scrambled. My mom, she was doing her very best. Everybody was doing their best, but we lost the cornerstone of the family. Then it became very difficult, really tricky."

Mazzarella said practicing meditation daily for 31 years has deepened her relationship with God and helped to slow her mind.

"It definitely was a life-changer," she said. "To becoming positive instead of negative. On the outside, I was positive, but on the inside there were negative thoughts, confusion and turmoil over having lost my father, and just feeling there were missing parts."

Meditation, and help from a counselor, also enabled her to confront past experiences of sexual abuse.

"I had to ... go deep in healing what that was," she said. "The counselor in Miami was very, very good and was instrumental in helping me through this journey and learning a better, healthier way to live."

Mazzarella also embraced a 12-step program by Co-Dependents Anonymous because women in particular are often caught in a cycle of co-dependency because they're seen as nurturers.

"They say it's the momma of all addictions," she said. "All the different addictions we know of as common, underneath the umbrella is co-dependency. It's taking care of other people, knowing you really should be taking care of yourself."

The next Love & Wellbeing for All workshop is planned for noon to 1:30 p.m. Aug. 17.

"We're going to be building a 'Web of Life' to show how we're all connected to each other," Mazzarella said.

Admission is free for children ages 10 to 18. Adult admission is $10. To learn more or to see a schedule of monthly programs, visit www.juanitamazzarella.com or call 330-224-2126.

Reach Charita at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com . On Twitter: @cgoshayREP.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: 'Your body speaks your mind.' Stark woman creates lecture series based on holistic healing