I’m incredibly excited for this weekend. Starting tomorrow, Boston will host a summit of wellness leaders – people passionate about wellness, healthy eating, mindfulness, green beauty, sustainability and living up to a wonderful standard of health. This is a fortuitous event for me personally, as I’m really seeking to learn what works for me to make a lot of small but impactful changes to the way I’m living so that it is healthy and wholesome. This includes changing the skincare I use, the food I eat, and the mindfulness practices that are required on a daily basis to counteract the many stresses of life. W.E.L.L. Summit 2015 is the first event of its kind, and I’m proud of Boston for hosting it and making it possible. #BostonforWellness!
It will be at the Wyndham in Boston’s historic Back Bay neighborhood and they will have SO much to offer attendees. Friday’s Farm to Table dinner hosted by Chive Events promises to be absolutely amazing, two full swag bags of terrific products, juice bar by Thirst Co., Nectar and Green pressed almond milk (mmmm!), and daily panels with experts eager to share their journey and wisdom. The team putting this event together really outdid themselves. All the previews of the behind the scenes work show such a fine attention to detail. Here’s a collage of just some of the beautiful photos showing what kinds of things to expect from their Instagram!
Some of the sessions are off site, including cycling and Xtend barre classes, and an intimate session at one of my favorite places to be in Boston: Follain (which I’ve written about before here and here). Saturday and Sunday will begin with yoga and movement classes, followed by brunch (Brunch is Always a Good Idea : ) ).
It was really hard to select sessions to attend, but here are a few of the ones I *think* I’ve settled on.
Sacred Beauty Salon: Seeing Ourselves in New and Empowering Ways
The W.E.L.L. Summit welcomes Rebecca Casciano as she leads attendees through reflective exercises and conversations designed to enhance the way we see ourselves and others. You will leave the workshop with a fresh, positive perspective, new friends and a gorgeous glow from within!
Rebecca’s acclaimed Sacred Beauty Salon Series launched last March in New York City and this healthy beauty movement is quickly spreading across the country. Rebecca hosted a Sacred Beauty workshop at The Detox Market in LA and is very excited to bring her signature program to the W.E.L.L. Summit. It has been featured by Well+Good NYC, Serene Social, Organic Beauty Talk and all over Instagram at #SacredBeautySalonSeries, take a peek!
Drink Your Greens: Using Juices and Smoothies to Become Your Healthiest Self
Thirst Juice Co. is a juice and smoothie bar located in downtown Boston and coming soon to Wellesley, MA. At Thirst, we serve a carefully crafted menu of healthful, delicious, food and drink, all off which is vegan and gluten-free. We believe that nutritious food should taste good, and are committed to helping our customers learn how to better fuel their lives so that they can live more fully.
With Founder of local Thirst Juice Co., Heather Stevenson. Heather founded Thirst in 2014 in order to share her passion for the healthful food that she’s been eating and drinking for years. A vegetarian since the age of ten, and a life-long athlete (12 marathons and counting!), Heather knows that what we put into our bodies has a direct impact on how we feel, and on how our bodies perform. Eating well is a key component of living well, and Heather is committed to helping others learn to eat (and drink) their way to their best selves.
Eating with the Seasons: An Ayurvedic Way to Feel Your Best this Fall/Winter!
For Emily Griffin, living well is all about flow.
In college, major digestive disorders sapped Emily’s energy, disrupted her once clear skin, and stole precious time from her busy schedule. What’s worse, Emily found that she wasn’t being taken seriously by her once trusted doctors.
Frustrated, she began researching homeopathic and Ayurvedic modalities, and began practicing yoga regularly. Though she had been athletic her entire life, it wasn’t until she discovered yoga that she felt a positive shift in her entire body.
Ayurveda helped Emily learn which food worked especially for her. Combined with yoga and holistic healing, her health returned, and she found she was feeling better than ever. When a studio manager reached out to her to teach yoga, it was a dream come true: Emily could now help others feel as good as she did.
These days, through her yoga classes and as an Ayurvedic practitioner, Emily helps clients all over Boston strike the balance between living well, but not becoming obsessed by the latest wellness trends. There is a give and take—a flow—to living healthy, and she’s a firm believer that, when paired with a mindful approach to food and movement, laughing with friends and the occasional indulgence go a long way to living well.
The W.E.L.L. Summit welcomes Emily Griffin as she leads session attendees in discovering the secrets of Ayurveda, how they apply to you, and how to eat with the seasons to ensure you feel your best this Fall & Winter!
Going with your Gut: How Intuition Leads Us Down the Path to Fulfillment:
Rachel Winard knows a thing or two about women’s intuition.
As an accomplished violinist who graduated from the prestigious Juilliard School, she realized that while performing music was still her passion, the business side of being a musician no longer felt right to her. She set her sights on law school, but somewhere in the space of late nights studying at Columbia University and becoming an environmental lawyer, Rachel found she was struggling daily with her health.
After receiving a diagnosis of an aggressive form of Lupus—an auto-immune disease—Rachel made the radical decision to listen to her gut: it was either her health, or her job. Something had to give.
Rachel’s quest to heal her body found her trading her job as a lawyer for a very long flight to India, where she spent four months immersed in yoga and Ayurveda. Her insatiable curiosity led Rachel to learn everything she could about these ancient practices, and she began studying folk tales from around the world for stories of healing through natural means.
Seven years of self-taught knowledge, trial and error and whipping up product recipes in her food-grade kitchen/studio has led Rachel to where she is today: a “walla” of skincare; an awesome expert of clean, healthy, simply beautiful formulas that care for people as well as the planet, and proud founder of Soapwalla Kitchen.
Founders of Soapwalla (Rachel Winard), Meow Meow Tweet, will also be such a treat to hear from. Their life journeys are unexpected and inspiring! You can read more about them in the links above. Ayurveda practitioners, herbalists, media gurus, champions of ethically sourced clothing and home decor will also share at sessions!
I’ll be sharing snapshots of all the lovelies on my Instagram, @nini4nana, so if you’re not yet following along, head on over! If you aren’t able to be there, don’t worry – I’ll return to the blog afterwards to recap some of the highlights and things I learned about wellness and empowerment with you.
I’m also pumped to meet everyone coming! Will you be there?? Let me know!
In good health,
🙂
BlueBoots
Wow this sounds incredible! How do you learn about events like these?
Hi Kelly! It was incredible – I will be posting about it soon, so check back in to see what it was like! I found out about it a few different ways. The next one will be in NYC, so check out wellsummit.org to sign up for updates and for more details!
Will do! Thanks!