From one of the first students to participate in the meditation class:
"In 1995, I was only seventeen years old and filled with all of the usual teenage stress. I wasn’t exactly sure where I fit in, I didn’t know what I wanted to wear, and I had not yet figured out what I was going to do with myself when I grew up. I was attending the Upper Valley JVS enrolled in the Graphic Arts program. I dreamed of becoming an art teacher after high school. Of course I was filled with the excitement of my dreams, along with the anxiety of being a teenage girl that hadn’t quite figured herself out yet. I suffered from extreme anxiety wondering where and how I fit in, and wondering if I even needed to anyways.
Then one day we had a substitute teacher in our lab. Her name was Mrs. Nancy Neal. She was the coolest adult I had ever met. She actually looked at me when she was speaking to me and she really cared about what I was interested in and why. She taught us guided meditation one day in class, and I went home and practiced on my own that very same day. I continued to do this on a regular basis. I even did it in the classroom or anywhere that I was and needed to relax. This relaxation I learned from Mrs. Neal was one of the first steps to my realization of what I wanted to spend my life doing.
I learned from her the importance of caring for and respecting myself no matter what everyone else was saying or doing in my life. She touched the life of myself and so many of my friends when no other adults wanted anything to do with us. My friends and I weren’t put on this earth to be like everyone else and she recognized and encouraged that. I owe her many thanks for helping me develop into an independent thinker and not be afraid to follow what sounds correct for me to live by, even if it made no sense to anyone else.
I am currently the owner of The Earth’s Center in downtown Tipp City. I am a Holistic Health Practitioner and Holistic Life Coach. I help people learn how to relax and focus on what is important in their lives and how they can get where they want to be. At my office we offer reflexology, reiki, hypnotherapy, acupuncture, massage, yoga, pilates, zumba, belly dancing, meditation classes, and tai chi classes.
Of course we cannot forget that we also offer Mrs. Neal’s not-so-conventional meditation class for teens.
I do not know how many lives Mrs. Neal has reached the way she has reached mine. I do know that my fourteen year old nephew loves her and she is one of few that can reach in and bring him out.
Thank you Mrs. Neal for spending your life blessing the lives of others. What you are doing is making a difference."
Nicole Mikel
Owner, The Earth’s Center
Tipp City, Ohio