Michael Shattah (2015 – present)
President
Michael Shattah has worked in educational, medical, counseling, and organizational settings for more than two decades, with a focus on wholeness-based approaches to learning and health.
While a Ph.D. candidate in Health Counseling and Educational Psychology at UT-Austin, Michael helped hundreds of clients explore therapeutic concerns in mind and body, as well as develop skills to enrich their personal and professional pursuits. His doctoral research examines the Quality of Life in medical patients with chronic pain, using a comprehensive Bio-Psycho-Social-Spiritual health model to enhance options in assessment, self-care, and treatment. The related evidence-based study examines potential effects of mindfulness and self-compassion for promoting patient health, reducing pain, and preventing additional disease. [Quality of life in pain patient population, as potentially moderated by self-compassion]
Michael Shattah received a M.A. in educational psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to instructing college psychology courses, Michael formerly taught standardized test preparation throughout the United States with The Princeton Review to over a thousand students seeking advanced medical and graduate degrees. During this time, he created and began teaching the Step-wise PRIMER on integrative learning.
Previously, Michael received a B.B.A. in business management from Georgia State University, with a concentration on human resources training and business development. He has started, worked at, and consulted with many enterprises, health, and sustainable community organizations devoted to improving Quality of Life in the workplace and marketplace as a whole.
Relevant Professional Training:
- Austin Pain Associates, Dr. Wills M.D. and Dr. Byrne, Ph.D. – Psychological Services Provider
- Austin Capital Area Counseling – Mental Health Counselor and Services Provider
- UT-Austin Counseling and Mental Health Center – Community Outreach and Programming
Posters and Publications:
- Poster Presentation – Stanford University CCARE Conference 2012: The Science of Compassion
- Article Contributor: Self-Compassion and Adaptive Psychological Functioning (Neff, 2007)
- Article Author: Learning and Mindfulness, The Learning Curve at UT Learning Center
Group Training Course Facilitator:
- Fitting pieces: A Step-wise PRIMER on integrative learning – self-directed skills and strategies
- Fitting pieces: Wholeness-based health promotion and disease prevention programs
- SMART Options for pain management: Support, Methods, Assessments, Resources, Treatments
Susan Tingley (2018 – present)
Secretary
Susan was born in 1952 and is part of the baby-boom generation. Susan has recently become semi-retired, which has allowed her to choose a new project and focus for her life. That new focus is her lifelong passion for changing the world. She is currently developing an innovative, holistic education system for young women in prison.
Susan started out as a teenager in the late sixties and early seventies living in a small conservative town in upstate New York. She was curious, artistic, and loved to read. She developed an intense interest in issues and problems facing culture and society through self-directed study. What sparked this passionate interest was her reading about women’s liberation at that time in history. She had the revelation that her own sense of alienation, loneliness, and lack of confidence stemmed not just from personal failure, but from the cultural experience of being a woman. Her eyes were opened to the prejudice, rigid role assignment, oppression, violence, and cultural and literary exclusion and denigration of women and girls she had been experiencing all along, but could now see as a bigger picture of cultural forces at work.
From her understanding of women’s issues, blossomed her understanding and appreciation of the forces of oppression on people of color, LGBTQ+ people, poor people, and yes, men too. She realized that cultural forces had a strong role in restricting the natural fairness, kindness, and empathy that is the birthright of all people, including men. She understood that denigration of women’s interests and glorification of military might was part of the problem. Men and women naturally choose some different interests, but both these interests can be valued and respected. Domination and bullying shape all of us, but conscious and educated resistance becomes healing and transformative.
Susan’s sense of outrage at injustice and her strong sense of the need for change inspired her to be politically active as a teenager. She also had a strong realization that education is a very powerful force for change, but did not put this realization into practice until later.
It’s one step forward to know and understand that cultural forces have shaped our internal attitudes, but it’s a different and additional step to realize that knowing alone is not enough, and that internal work is still necessary for true freedom. I say this because even though Susan knew about oppression and how it applied to her own life, she married a man who was abusive. She freed herself from her physically violent husband and left her marriage, realizing later that it was her own lack of worthiness that was at the bottom of her partnership with a very controlling person. Successfully freeing herself from that dangerous situation was very empowering for Susan.
Susan raised her daughter from that marriage, and eventually married again. She has great compassion and insight into mistakes young women make as they create families, because she too made mistakes raising her daughter and two step children.
Susan’s work has been varied and eclectic. She has been self-employed as a landscape designer and installer, a music professional, and a project manager for home renovations. As an employee, her job titles have been Tax Examiner, Group Facilitator, and Manager at the Internal Revenue Service, Sales Manager at Pender Nursery, a wholesale landscaping nursery, and Administrative Director at Khabele Strong Incubator, an innovative private school for middle and high school students. She has been a teacher many times, such as a preschool teacher at Fleetwood School for Gifted Children, Choir Director, both children and adult, and piano teacher for hundreds of students. Susan currently works part time as a piano teacher.
Although Susan’s first strong passion was about changing the world, as she matured, worked, and raised her family, she became deeply interested in spirituality. Her understanding of her life as a spiritual journey brought peace and deepened her understanding of humanity. Her use of spiritual principles, such as forgiveness, acceptance, transformation, and guidance in decision-making is important to her. She is committed to the path of wisdom-seeking and spiritual education as a way to understand her own life and a way to better serve humanity.
Susan has become engaged in community activism in the last year. She is an active and contributing member of both the East MLK Contact Team and the Hog Pen Neighborhood Association, both volunteer community betterment groups. She led the successful effort to get needed sidewalks for her neighborhood and improve a dangerous intersection. She is currently working on connectivity issues in her east-side neighborhood (traditionally African-American and historically red-lined and historically receiving unequal city services). She is active in her church, Unity Church of the Hills, and currently volunteers as a “reading buddy” 3 times a week for Spanish speaking and underprivileged 1st graders.
Stacey Loop (2018 – present)
Member
Stacey Loop is passionate about education and considers herself to be a lifelong student around the mind/body connection and the potential for tapping into optimal wellness, which is different for each person and requires appropriate application of using the right tools at the right time.
After years of working in public schools as a Special Education Teacher, Stacey began her personal journey only after the birth of her son, who was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder. Fascinated by the ancient teachings of yoga and holistic health, she embarked upon in-depth certifications as a yoga therapist and health coach. She shares this gift with her community and with her son to assist in moving them toward greater balance.
Stacey has taught over 2,500 classes over the span of 15 years in the format of teacher training, educational topics, therapeutic private lessons, mentoring, and public classes. She co-wrote the curriculum for Yoga Yoga’s Children’s Teacher Training and leads teachers in this 95 hour certification program as well as training in other programs around the therapeutic aspects of yoga and meditation.
She is known for her insight and playful approach in helping individual students move in a forward direction through the profound teachings of yoga and holistic health coaching applied strategically to meet the “bio individuality” of the student.
- C-IAYT = Certified International Association of Yoga Therapists
- E- RYT 500 hours; E-RYT 200 hours Certifications in the Hatha yoga tradition
- Children’s Yoga Certifications: Yoga Ed K-8th; Yoga for the Special Child
- Studied at the American Viniyoga Institute
- IIN Health Coach Certification
- Studied Holistic Health Coaching at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition (IIN)
- BS in Special Education, Oklahoma State University
- Public Relations assistant for Modern Holistic Healthwww.modernholistichealth.com
- Co presenter at U.T. Social Worker’s Conference 2017 on “Inner Transformation: A Holistic Approach for Kids with Neurological Issues”
Luiza Reingatch (2018 – present)
Member
Luiza is an alternative care practitioner that works with homeopathy and applied kinesiology.
Author of “Higher Nutrition”, a self care book.
Reiki Master with the violet flame. App developer in the area of health and nutrition.
“Educate, Empower and Elevate” is the tag line for my “Higher Nutrition” brand, because I feel it is a human birthright to be furnished with truths to make a conscious decision based on that.
Shahnaz Erwin (2021 – present)
Treasurer
Shahnaz Erwin RYT, LMT, is a Mother, natural foods chef, culinary instructor, and Yoga teacher. She is a certified Yoga instructor, registered through Yoga Alliance. Through her culinary career, she has studied under some the finest chefs in the world. She studied at The New School in New York City – a branch of NYU in their culinary dept.l- and the Kushi Institute, a world renowned macrobiotic healing center in Becket, MA.
Her chef teacher’s’ advice still rings true in her teachings of, never stop learning (or tasting).
Her stagiaire (apprenticeship) at Le Cirque, a world famous five star classical french restaurant in N.Y.C. “The most amazing time of my life, truly a circus, in a classic sense ” says Shahnaz. After Le Cirque, she went on to MEKKA, an urban soul foods kitchen and Angelica Kitchen – one of the premiere vegan restaurants in the world. There she gained vital skills that she has carried with her throughout her entire career.
She celebrates her seventeen years in the culinary industry and is now a private chef, a food coach and is a former senior teacher and faculty member at the Natural Epicurean Academy of Culinary Arts. This school is one of the leading plant based culinary schools in the nation, and this is where she taught students basic tools in life.
One of her focuses at the school was for her students to identify and implement healthier options for food and following through with what to do with it; how to prepare a delicious meal. Taking the food from the farm to the table.
“With this knowledge they can live a long, happy and healthy life, knowing where the food is from, how it is prepared and how it can be enjoyed.” Says Shahnaz about her former students at the Natural Epicurean.
Her Love for teaching continues. FoodSchool was birthed 2013, and there you’ll find culinary classes for big-n-small, and kids camps. www.yourfoodschool.com
Shahnaz recently worked under a contract with Engine 2 team as a healthy living food coach in their immersion projects, teaching people that you can still eat healthy, no matter what their current health situation is.
Learning where the food comes from is vital for everyone to know. “Along my journey I have rekindled my passion of cultivating the earth, which stems from my childhood. It was then that my parents planted the seed into my soul, of living as one with the earth and teaching me one of the greatest tools that would help me with my life. They taught me how to cultivate the Earth, plant the seeds and harvest the fruits of my labor. Not just in the garden, this philosophy applies to every facet of my life.”
To help spread the seeds of sustainable living and education, Shahnaz continues to cultivate her passion by working with the non-profit group, TOFGA, (Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association). It’s because of her passion, enthusiasm, and her culinary skill, that TOFGA has asked her to be their Chef for their annual fundraiser banquet dinner two years in a row.
Her connection with the earth transfers to her Yogic career and teachings. She is a certified Yoga teacher in two modalities: Hatha and Kundalini. She has been teaching Yoga for over 17 years. Currently, she teaches for the Austin area YMCA. Prior to the YMCA, she taught at Yoga Yoga for over a decade, Sun & Moon Yoga Studio in the D.C. metro area, and at Asheville Yoga Center, Asheville N.C.