In the realm of holistic wellness, Erika Dworkin stands as a beacon of wisdom and compassion, seamlessly blending her expertise as a Board Certified Holistic Nutritionist (BCHN), Dietary Supplements Specialist, and Intuitive Wellness Guide. With a profound commitment to providing generations with compassionate holistic guidance, Erika’s journey is a testament to the transformative power of holistic practices in achieving well-rounded health. Join Mystic Mag as we delve into the depths of holistic nutrition, explore the significance of dietary supplements, and unlock the intuitive approach that Erika employs to support individuals on their wellness journeys. This exclusive interview unveils the secrets of holistic well-being, offering insights that resonate across generations.
Can you share a pivotal moment in your journey to becoming a Board Certified Holistic Nutritionist? How did that experience shape your approach to holistic wellness?
Two pivotal events in my journey shaped who I am professionally.
My ability to recover in my early 20s from crippling candidiasis, and a spiritual calling to help heal the world, have guided me to become not only a Board Certified Holistic Nutritionist, but also a Dietary Supplements Specialist and Intuitive Wellness Guide.
In 1970, my father, Michael Dworkin, PD, CCN (a Connecticut licensed clinical nutritionist with a doctorate in pharmacy), founded a brick-and-mortar nutrition center where he operated his highly successful clinical nutrition practice
In my early twenties, he diagnosed me with severe candidiasis, a fungal systemic overgrowth of yeast that developed from stress and multiple rounds of antibiotics prescribed throughout my childhood for sinus infections. Although I appeared healthy, I suffered from many debilitating ailments. His regimen of nutritional supplements and dietary modifications turned my life around. In ensuing years, those with a wide range of candidiasis symptoms began searching for me when traditional medical approaches could not help them.
In 2009, six years after my husband died, I felt spiritually called to return to Connecticut to run my father’s nutrition center and help our world heal. This was even as I was experiencing my own premature midlife and menopausal hurricane of crippling hot flashes, night sweats, slowed metabolism, weight gain, self-doubt, exhaustion, reduced libido, anxiety, depression, and cerebral difficulties.
I can see now the map of my life’s journey and realize I am incredibly fortunate to have emerged whole after so many adversities, including job and business losses, unexpected career changes, and the deaths of my parents, two key employees, and two fur babies. My spiritual journey has brought me to my current world of self-reinvention and unlimited possibilities. After traveling these very bumpy roads, I have the keen vision to guide people, their families, and their pups on their wellness paths.
I have deep respect for allopathic medicine, which made possible my mother’s survival for 20 additional months after her congestive heart failure diagnosis at age 89. But I also have discovered over my lifetime that prescription medications, with potential side effects, are not always necessary or the best option.
Depending on an individual’s health status and compliance capacity, I have often found that a natural, holistic approach may be preferable. Diet modifications can go a very long way to altering one’s health, and dietary supplements can support the body’s wellness optimization where diet alone often does not suffice. Other therapeutic lifestyle changes, such as stress and consciousness management, improved sleep, and other self-care strategies, can also contribute to slowing progression or even reversing many health conditions. These are the important lessons I teach and demonstrate to my customers and clients with deep compassion and collaboration that takes into account both their wellness aspirations and any expressed fears, concerns, and limitations.
As a Dietary Supplements Specialist, what do you believe are the most common misconceptions people have about supplements, and how do you address these misconceptions in your practice?
SOME MISCONCEPTIONS
All supplements are the same – brands, manufacturing quality and processing, individual ingredients, forms (tablets vs liquids vs formulations created to enhance absorption, such as isotonic formulas) are poorly understood. For example, most don’t understand the difference between a low-cost, lower quality brand they may buy from a drugstore vs. effective, trustworthy professional brand ingredients and formulations, such as those from Designs for Health, nutraMetrix, and Orthomolecular Therapeutics.
When purchasing supplements, you don’t get what you pay for. In other words, many focus on lower price when selecting supplements without recognizing that a lower price often means that the supplement will not be as effective, or may contain undesirable ingredients such as talc, mineral oil, synthetic dyes, corn syrup sweetener, and binders that may be poorly tolerated and may render the supplement unabsorbable, or at least poorly absorbed.
Nutrition generally, and determining which supplements to take, is a DIY project and can be handled through Google and online/Amazon reviews.
Supplements that work for one person can work in the same way for others without review by a nutritionist who is a dietary supplements specialist.
Timing, dosing, quality, form, and the combining of supplements are not necessary to consider. I often find that people who take a poor-quality supplement, or one that is not in a therapeutic dose, erroneously dismiss the supplement as ineffective generally, or for them, because it “didn’t work.”
HOW I ADDRESS THE MISCONCEPTIONS IN MY PRACTICE
My online professional apothecary with over 20,000 items includes only high quality professional and national brands that satisfy GMP (good manufacturing practices) requirements. I also offer other exclusive brands and those not available in my apothecary, including those that are up to 95% absorbed via a liquid isotonic delivery system.
Over the past 14 years, I have frequently found it necessary to explain that nutrition is not a DIY project because the wrong supplements choices can be ineffective, potentially harmful, and certainly waste money. Ultimately, however, the proof is often in the results that come from working with me.
In your role as an Intuitive Wellness Guide, how do you incorporate intuition into your approach to helping clients achieve their wellness goals? Can you share a specific instance where intuition played a crucial role in your guidance?
My connection to Spirit, and my angels and spirit guides, quite naturally, with little effort on my part, aid me in my work. I suppose this is because I am, every day, working to fulfill my spiritual mission to help heal the world, just as my father did.
My healthy, high-vibration diet, daily kundalini yoga, meditation practice, and ongoing consciousness management work as an Avatar Wizard (see theavatarcourse.com) all strengthen my ability to use what I sense from my clients’ words and energy. My understanding goes beyond logical thinking and derives from my subconscious, gut instincts, past experiences, well-honed emotional intelligence and perceptiveness, and extreme openness.
A woman who I’ll call Janice recently called me in a panic because she had received conflicting HIV tests and was worried she may have AIDS. She believed it was because a nurse had improperly handled a needle used to draw her blood and was afraid to return to any traditional medicine setting for health care.
Though I had addressed viruses in the past, I had never worked with an AIDS patient. But I didn’t have the heart to turn Janice away and sensed that there must be ways to address HIV with specific, cutting-edge nutraceuticals. It came to me, as if out of nowhere, that scientific studies might have established that sulforaphane, beta glucan from shitake mushrooms, and black seed oil may be instrumental in combating HIV. Extensive research proved my hunch right.
What type of services do you offer?
Vitathena Wellness is the hybrid online-in-person successor to my family’s brick-and-mortar nutrition center that operated for 65 years until 2021, when COVID required its closure.
We have 3 divisions: Human Nutrition; Financial Fitness; and Canine Nutrition.
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Shop Online from our Professional Apothecary, which offers over 20,000 items, including professional and national retail brand dietary supplements, topical and other therapeutics, and natural body care, to improve quality of life and longevity.
My clients and customers can text, call, or email me anytime for an emailed recommendation. When they order products directly from my email,
They get 10% Off all first orders, 10% Off all auto-shipped items, and free shipping on orders over $50.
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Shallow Dive: Introductory 2-Part Telehealth Wellness Assessments ($75)
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Deep Dive: Personalized Private Consultations In-Person or via Telehealth
• Consultation Packages & Monthly Membership
• Payment by HSA/FSA Cards & Paypal 6-Month Interest-Free Arrangements
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At Work: Through our Get Well, Stay Well Preventive Care Employee Benefits
Program. Includes Lunch – & – Learns and on-site resident nutritionist services.
Financial Fitness.
Part-time business and debt elimination opportunities to create financial wellness and reduce related anxiety, stress, insomnia, depression, immune issues, and other health challenges. These opportunities enable people to discover greater quality of life by gaining more time, freedom, self-fulfillment, confidence, and happiness.
Canine Nutrition. In Development. Highly nutritious, organic-whenever-possible, small batch, fresh frozen dog food that empowers humans to provide optimal nutrition to their fur babies.
Holistic nutrition often emphasizes the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit. How do you incorporate spiritual and emotional aspects into your nutritional counseling, and how does it contribute to overall well-being?
Of course, the mind, body and spirit are all connected, but I meet people as and where they are. Not everyone is open to, or ready for, a spiritual or emotional approach to their physical or mental health concerns. I therefore carefully read each client to determine which type of approach they might accept. Generally, the more holistic the approach, the more completely a client can heal.
If a client is open to less conventional ways to address their wellness, I might use coaching to prompt them to find their power within to make supportive therapeutic lifestyle changes and map out short- and long-term measures to optimize their health.
I might work with them on deep breathing, meditation, journaling, movement and flexibility, and stress and consciousness management. When appropriate, I will refer a client to energy healers that offer ancestral healing, inner child work, massage therapy, Bowen therapy, reiki, yoga, chiropractic care, or crystal and sound healing techniques. I also make referrals to personal trainers, traditional practitioners, and other specialists when appropriate.
How do you tailor your nutritional advice to accommodate individual needs, taking into consideration factors such as age, gender, and specific health conditions?
Nutrition is part art, part science, and is never formulaic. As I’ve noted, I meet each person where they are. My thorough intake forms give each nutrition client an initial opportunity to paint a complete picture of their past and present so we can collaborate in the creation of their wellness future.
Since nutrition is an extremely dynamic field, I constantly research to develop science- and clinically-based regimens that take into account all elements that make a client unique, including age, gender, social and physical limitations, preferences, fears, biases, culture, family background and medical history, and more.
Over a period that is most likely to generate positive results, we work together as I monitor each client’s progress, make necessary adjustments to customized dietary, supplements, and lifestyle regimens, and support, guide and inspire them to remain accountable to themselves and their wellness aspirations.
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From my chapter, Midlife and Menopause – Mapping Your Path to Empowerment, in the Amazon best-selling experiential book, The Energy Medicine Solution: Mind Blowing Results to Live an Extraordinary Life:
I am passionate about empowering others to pave their paths to their individual levels of optimal wellness. I have done this for thousands by addressing both the symptoms and underlying causes of diverse health issues, including hormonal imbalances, inflammation, fatigue, anxiety, weight gain and obesity, bone and joint challenges, digestive issues (including candidiasis), and cardiovascular concerns.
When you work with me, I consider your whole being, your body, mind, and spirit. I gently, compassionately, and discreetly help you discover your path to wellness and guide you down it without judgment. As I feel into what you’re feeling, I tap into my resolve to empower you to find relief. I listen intently, research thoroughly, and search with an open mind until I discover innovative answers. As you relax into the awareness that investing in your wellness will reduce your suffering, your collaboration with me will foster self-love, confidence, real healing, and inner peace.
