LALLIA SCHNEIDER External Programs Director

Mission -- To help others. I thrive on it. Even in my personal life, my home
serves as a sort of refuge for friends and family, as well as friends of friends, to get on their feet in times of hardship. I love to help people with their livelihood, self esteem, and overall personal attitude toward EVERYTHING.

How I Got Here -- For a long time I wasn't sure what my "calling" was so I wandered around blindly looking for something that made me feel right. I always knew as a child that the things I was being taught in church and school about life and history were deceitful and inaccurate. Maybe not intentionally, but none the less, they were deceitful and I had no way of "proving" it. I just KNEW it. For most of my childhood, I was confused about a lot of "logical things" that most other kids just accepted as fact. Questions were discouraged by parents, teachers, and other "grown ups" since my particular questions challenged their authority. I developed a fear of asking these questions because I didn't want to be in trouble.

As an adult these doubts and "knowings" did not disappear, but instead they turned into distrust and resentment to authority. I developed a bad habit of questioning myself rather than finding answers to the questions I had as a child. I convinced myself that there were no answers to these questions and "knowings" and that there was no "purpose" in life. I began to believe that what you see is what you get. I thought there was no "god" or "heaven." Even though I convinced myself that I had convinced myself, these "knowings" still did not disappear. Instead they got louder and louder. I started to be angry with myself for not just accepting "reality" for what it was.

My father, too, had all of these questions as a child and through his adulthood as well. He journeyed through different religions and belief systems throughout much of my teenage life and brought us along with him. At the time, this angered me even more. With each religion that was explored or supernatural concept that was discovered, there were more rules implemented and more restrictions tying me down because these pieces of new information were all still illogical to me. I felt a great amount of anger and frustration with EVERYTHING for a long time because nothing made any sense. Recently, my father realized that he needed to steer away from organized belief systems in a whole, as that is where the corruption was coming from. He began to share with me the things he was learning, not because he wanted to force me to be someone again, but because he was truly excited that all of his questions and "knowings" from his childhood were being answered as he went down this unseen path of enlightenment. A few years ago he loaned me a DVD called "The Secret" which implanted a concept that YOUR THOUGHTS control your reality. This was an interesting concept to me. Not to mention that it was obvious that I was truly attracting things like distrust and resentment into my life since that is what I was dwelling on in my thinking. Once I realized that I have the power to attract love and happiness and understanding to me, I really began to attract those sort of people without even noticing or trying.

One of the people I attracted to myself happens to be Kevin Doheny, the Director of Sound, Mind & Body Healing Center. When I came to Sound Mind & Body Healing Center I had an understanding of the importance and the healing benefits that result from YOUR THINKING, however, had no idea how "deep" things really go. I am very interested in learning more about health and wellness in a more holistic way than common medicine teaches. I am also drawn to spiritual people who look for alternatives to the "standard" way of life that society promotes. I want to live outside the box and I am on a mission and a journey to find new ways to do so.