Practitioner Profile: Barb Meconis – Integrative Practitioner

Holistic Care that Keeps Growing

By Bill Peterson

Innovators are those who break with the norm, venture beyond traditional academic training and develop extraordinary depth and breadth of expertise. They see a need. Then do everything in their power to fill it. Such is the case with lifelong Grand Rapidian Barb Meconis, a registered nurse whose career has taken more than one 90º turn.

The first occurred 11 years ago when Meconis attended a talk by Dr. Esther Sternberg, an authority on the correlation between a person’s mental state and the functionality of the immune system. For more than 20 years Meconis had been successfully entrenched in the traditional medical world, ultimately serving West Michigan as a certified case manager overseeing staff nurses and appraising health risks for Spectrum and Priority Health.

That’s when the "ah-ha moment" with Sternberg struck and permanently shifted her career’s purpose. This dedicated nurse practitioner recognized that the degree to which she could make a difference in people’s lives was falling short of her new ideal. This awakened healer intent on refreshing her skills soon found herself respectfully leaving her former conventional high-tech healthcare setting for a "high-touch low-tech" holistic approach.

Thus Meconis began a four-year sojourn learning about holistic healing practices. Regional seminars were succeeded by out-of-state conferences headlined by the likes of Carolyn Myss and Deepak Chopra. She completed course work in Healing Touch I and II at the Colorado Center for Healing Touch in Lakewood, Colorado.

Coincidentally, as her interest and aptitude in holistic healing evolved, she was presented with the opportunity to purchase her younger sister’s holistic center, Holistic Care Approach (HCA) in Grand Rapids. Here she could have a beneficial and lasting effect on her hometown. The idea manifested and she seized it. "I wanted to develop an integrated healing center," recalls Meconis, "an entity sustainable within the community that continues when I am gone."

As a new entrepreneur intent on growing her center, Meconis temporarily set aside her nursing and healing touch practice to immerse herself in the business side of operations. She completed an advanced degree in health care management. She reaffirmed her vision. As a result, the center’s staff and client base grew rapidly.

A year later, Meconis resumed her earlier path of self-growth, training with renowned medical intuitive Kim Seer in Chicago, Illinois. Reaching Level 3 with this program qualified her as a medical intuitive practitioner able to access causative sources of illness. More certifications followed in auricular acupuncture and nutritional coaching, all to facilitate a more thorough healing process for her clients. "I became enamored by the alternative world of healing," she says.

With her newfound knowledge, certifications and staff, Meconis felt pulled to integrate her former case management experience with her current roles as practitioner and administrator. That’s when the second right turn occurred.

"Suddenly I realized that HCA offers 20 different massage therapies and 10 acupuncture options," says Meconis. "That’s as confusing as the menu of treatments in the medical world."

But now, perfectly suited for the task of orienting clients to holistic options, Meconis again adjusted her direction in a way that allows her clients to better heal and move forward. Since one of her founding principles is to provide integrative therapies, Meconis today continues to emphasize the importance of incorporating individualized holistic care into a person’s conventional regime. What sets her apart is her ability to help clients navigate their choices. Education plays a big role.

"I like to let my clients choose," says Meconis. "It’s a co-active relationship." For example, in some cases "CranioSacral therapy and acupuncture treatment should be followed by primary care." She notes that her clients appreciate the ability to arrive at a practical and simple, informed course of action.

Having grown her vision "vertically," Meconis is currently growing her vision "horizontally" beyond her center in outreach programs to other institutions. She and her staff are contracted to make monthly visits to all Spectrum Health Care Centers for massage therapy and healing touch sessions with employees as a part of Spectrum’s Healthy Lifestyle program. They’re also impassioned contributors to Tobacco Free Partners, a collaborative effort of area stakeholders working together to affect the health of our community.

We can’t wait to see what comes next.

To contact Barb Meconis for a free 30 minute consultation call 616-361-9221. Holistic Care Approach is located at 3368 Beltline Ct. NE in Grand Rapids. To learn more about HCA visit HolisticCareApproach.com.

Source: Originally published in Natural Awakenings West Michigan May 2007 Women’s Health issue.