Loren Mahaffey is a breath of fresh air in the community. Quite literally, Mahaffey knows the value of mindful breathing; it is the basis of her healing practice.
Poised in her 5 Element Studio, Mahaffey effortlessly incorporates subtle yoga movements as she speaks. It’s who she is.
For the last 10 years Mahaffey has taught yoga and bodywork on the island, which she found lamentably lacking in alternative health practices when she first arrived here from Tucson, Ariz.
"My brother had a second home here, and I came to get out of the Arizona heat and take a brief vacation," she says. As those things frequently go, the brief vacation morphed quickly into a new home.
Mahaffey exudes a quiet, positive energy, the sort of feeling you get from the rare being who appears totally at home with herself. She knows what she is doing is her life, what she was meant to do, but it wasn’t always so.
"I come from a medical family," she says. "My mother is a psychologist and both my brothers are doctors. I always assumed I would follow the family tradition, but I when I worked in a hospital in my senior year of college, it just didn’t feel right. I didn’t know anything about alternative health practices at the time, but I just knew traditional medicine wasn’t right for me. It was disheartening."
She graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor’s of science degree in psychology and molecular and cellular biology, but something happened that changed her life. It was a simple observation.
"A dear friend said to me, ‘You know you don’t have to follow a medical career,’" Mahaffey says. "I’d never thought that thought before – It was as simple as that; It opened my mind."
"I’d learned jewelry making in a college job, so I took a different route and started my own jewelry business, which I had for seven years. But the whole time I felt this wasn’t right, either. I knew I really wanted to work with people.
"I had lots of stress I didn’t know how to deal with at this time," she says, "and I was introduced to yoga. It felt right. I began studying Zen Shiatsu yoga, and I knew this was what I was meant to do. I sold my jewelry business and began yoga study.
"This is why I’m here today. I fell in love with healing and I came to understand this is where my gifts lie. I am so blessed and grateful," Mahaffey says "I love being witness to healing and the process of transforming other people and it helps me heal myself as well."
When Mahaffey got to St. Thomas there were only a handful of yoga teachers on the island. She saw it as an opportunity.
"I felt the need and potential for yoga, so I opened my own practice. I was just going to stay one year, and then I met Matt, my husband. His family has lived here for years, and he has his own landscaping practice here."
That sealed it.
In 2008 Mahaffey opened 5 Element Studio, where she offers several healing modalities. She says the foundation of her therapy is derived from Chinese medicine and integrated with various bodywork techniques. Her professional training includes Zen Shiatsu, Craniosacral Therapy, Visceral Manipulation, Meridian Unwinding and raindrop therapy with therapeutic grade essential oils.
If that sounds mysterious, it really is not. The practice is ancient, Mahaffey says. She has a deep understanding of what she practices, and an extensive education and a firm belief in the good it can bring to people. She has the ability to see a person and determine how best to help that person heal.
Zen Shiatsu, for instance, is a form of Japanese acupressure that is based in Chinese medical theory. According to what is comfortable for the client, a variation of light to deep pressure is applied to specific points (acu-points) and pathways (meridians) as well as other hand techniques to help relax and release holding in the body. The focus of Zen Shiatsu is to balance the qi (vital life energy) of the body.
Rain Drop Therapy is a detoxification aromatherapy treatment using the highest quality oils. Nine different essential oils are applied to the feet and spine with specific massage techniques and stimulation of acupressure points and meridians to support the detoxification process throughout the body, and to help relax and cleanse the spine. Warm towels are used at the end of this treatment to help the oils penetrate. This treatment is deeply cleansing both physically and emotionally as well as deeply relaxing, she says.
Mahaffey has yoga classes several times a week, and takes individual clients as well. She brings in outside instructors in year-round professional community workshops for students and teachers in practices as diverse as Asian bodywork translated to the table, a Oneness Awakening retreat, and workshops with visiting master teacher Robin Buck in Pranayma, meditation and yoga Nidra, which was recently finished.
A workshop on the Arvigo techniques of Maya Abdominal therapy self-care training level one will be held Jan. 25, 26 and 27. The yoga classes and workshops are listed on her website, www.5elementstudio.com/about/lorens-yoga-education-and-practice/
A mantra Mahaffey lives by:
"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the causes of disease.
—Thomas Edison
