Karla Mitchell, doctor of natural health, inside the Exhalation Integrative Wellness Center. PHREDDY WISCHUSEN PHOTOS[/caption]
Mitchell found her calling in a roundabout way. The westside native and Cass Tech alum got her undergraduate degree in business and an MFA in marketing before working in the automotive industry for years. But like many successful people, Mitchell learned her resilience through overcoming adverse circumstances. Both of her parents struggled with addictions, and she was raised by her grandmother.
While she was working in automotive, Mitchell’s father was diagnosed with cancer. He had a brain tumor removed at Karmanos. After weeks of rehabilitation, he began to walk and talk again. But within months of beginning recovery, the tumor came back. Exhausted from the strenuous therapy and harsh drugs, he told his daughter, “I’m not putting anything else in my body,” and prepared himself to transition.
But Mitchell refused to give up, and she started looking for “anything alternative” to manage his pain. She came across reiki, a Japanese technique for balancing energy. Mitchell was initially skeptical but decided to give it a try when she saw a class was being taught by a registered nurse.
At first, the self–proclaimed “left-brained” Mitchell struggled with the alternative culture of the reiki practictioners. “I went to this class and it was very weird,” Mitchell told The Michigan Citizen. But as she began practicing the new techniques on her father, she noticed a marked difference in the man enduring a massive brain tumor with no Western medicine.
“There were days when he would get up and would be walking around like he was never sick,” Mitchell recalls. Although he soon passed, the family knew reiki was to thank for smoothing out his transition.
Mitchell continued learning new wellness practices, soon helping to treat a friend’s back pain and weaning her off Vicodin at the same time.
In 2009, during a routine examination, a doctor discovered cancer in Mitchell’s cervix. It had not spread yet to other body systems, but according to Mitchell, the doctor believed given the advanced stage of the disease, it would begin spreading soon. He gave Mitchell 60 days to try alternative therapy before the situation became life-threatening without standard medical intervention — chemotherapy, radiation or surgery.
Mitchell began researching how a diverse array of cultures deal with disease cells. She put herself on a strict diet, drank herbal teas, took all-natural tinctures, castor oil packs, added healing plants to her bath water and practiced reiki on and other energy healing techniques on herself.
Forty-five days later, she returned to the doctor. He couldn’t find evidence of any cancer cells, she says.
Mitchell decided to celebrate her victory over the disease by dedicating herself to healing work, quit her job, and began practicing naturopathic wellness full-time, after study at the Trinity School of Natural Health.
[caption id="attachment_15619" align="alignright" width="300"]
Students and neighbors learn to grow herbs in the Transformation Station.PHOTO COURTESY GROW48204.WEEBLY.COM[/caption] In 2013, she moved her growing practice from downtown to its current location on Greenfield, which features a massage therapy room; a meditation room, which also serves as a space for group acudetox; a talk counseling room; a community education/multipurpose room where fitness classes — yoga, pilates, Zumba, boot camp — and group workshops are held; and an area for squeezing fresh juices and preparing herbal remedies. She has also added two other healer/therapists to the staff. “There is a huge natural health community in Detroit,” but many times, Mitchell says, “I find that people cling to a product and they push that product, or it’s an isolated service and they push that service. And that’s not necessarily the truth, because you are a whole complex person, and so in my practice I advocate whole-person natural healthcare. The human body is just like a symphony orchestra. You know what a symphony orchestra sounds like if every instrument is playing its own tune. Think of the different body systems — respiratory, circulatory, elimination… — if all those systems aren’t working together, you’re a hot mess.” Considering the whole health of the individual means considering the health of the communities they live in as well, Mitchell believes. With that in mind, Mitchell says the work of EIWC is divided into four pillars: naturopathic primary care; wellness services (including cupping, reiki, reflexology, acupuncture, massage therapy, etc.); alternative substance abuse treatment therapies (Mitchell is a licensed substance abuse treatment provider. Her methods don’t involve methadone or other chemicals, but do include interventions — “not the messy surprise ones seen on TV,” she says, but part of a family systemic model); and sustainable responsible business, which includes food justice and community outreach. Mitchell recently purchased the lot across the street from her childhood home and converted it into the “Transformation Station,” a community garden growing fresh healthy fruits and vegetables and healing herbs. Residents of the neighborhood, where Mitchell says groceries are only available at liquor and corner stores, were so happy to have the garden and its fruits. “You should have seen people bringing milk jugs full of water down there just to water it,” Mitchell says. She is also currently conducting a 10-week internship with students from Blanche Kelso Bruce Academy, each week teaching the students about a different herb to include in their “urban arsenal” of naturopathic remedies, which they make into tinctures and salves they can share with their families. Mitchell also works with a clinical M.D., which allows her to accept some health insurances. She encourages people to explore all the options available — traditional and alternative — for feeling their best, often advising new clients, “You are responsible for your health, not the person in the white lab coat.” “A lot of my clients have been recently diagnosed or have been diagnosed and have been on medication for a while, and realize the medication is not working and is only making them more sick…,” she says. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association published in 2000, ascribes 225,000 deaths per year to iatrogenic causes — illness caused by medical treatment/medication, most of which were related to pharmaceuticals. “The idea is to inspire the body’s innate healing process so that it functions on its own,” Mitchell says. “If you give the body what it needs to thrive it will heal itself. …If clients are continuing to come back, then I’m not doing my job… “The idea is to inspire some kind of a paradigm shift.” EIWC will host a holiday open house on Dec. 19 from 6-9 p.m. All are welcome to the free event. To learn more about the Exhalation Integrated Wellness Center, visit www.eiwdt.webs.com, or call 313.744.2747.