- Once, long ago, way before all the settlers came,
there was a young boy, not quite a man, growing to a man,
who went out with his father, who was the chief hunter,
and known for his skills, and the tribe, out hunting.
So as he went out, he shot and missed three times.
Felt a little discouraged, his head down,
his father tapped him on the shoulder letting him know
"that's fine, you'll grow."
The next time he went out again, not quite as fast,
not quite as sure, shot and missed again.
Again the third time he went out, the hunt was successful,
and they were bringing food home to the village,
but he had his head down.
He was so discouraged.
He felt like he had failed his father and the tribe,
went into his hut, and refused to hunt again.
So the father, wise as he was,
brought the son to the local healer;
shaman they had been in those days,
and the shaman knew exactly what he needed to do.
Laid him on a mat, gave him some herbs to calm his nerves,
and took him on a journey.
A journey that cleared all of this worry and concern,
and took him back to his true nature;
his strength, his power, everything that he knew
that this boy was.
'Cause he could see the clear strong man he was to become.
After the journey, the boy went out,
went hunting alone with his father,
was as fast as ever; sure footed.
True arrow right to the game.
Brought the buffalo home to the tribe,
and his son, looked at him with pride,
'cause he knew his son was back.
And that's the type of transformation healing
that I do here.
The positive transformations.
(triumphant music)
Hi, I'm Sheila Mckeon, owner of positive transformations.
- Thank you so much for taking time
to chat with me today about your business.
How long you've been in Asheville for personally?
- So, I've been in Asheville for 12 years.
I married a local boy from Asheville.
- And how long this business has been in Asheville for?
- This has been here for nine years.
- Nine years. That's a long time.
- I worked at a couple different agencies before,
and then I started my own practice.
- How did you come up with an idea to open your own company?
- Well, the company I was working for closed,
and I had a lot of clients that still needed help.
And so I had clients, and I just needed a place.
I like the name, because to me,
I'm looking for the positive in resources that client had,
and I'm all about transformation.
So, somebody comes in that has anxiety or trauma,
so I work with them to transform
what it is their struggling with now, to what they want.
- What kind of clients?
Whose your typical client?
Do they differ by age, demographics, or different cases?
- Yes I have, so I was trained as a family therapist,
my degrees license professional counseling,
but my graduate school had a family component,
and a child and a marriage component.
So, I'll see couples, I'll see children;
usually about five or six is the youngest.
So, I have maybe 10, 15 percent children,
a few teenagers, and then the rest of them are adults.
A couple of couples.
- So the people that come to you,
they had some sort of traumatic experience,
or what are the cases?
- So, there's kind of a wide variety.
Some people come to me where they just have
a little anxiety that's in their way.
That they just don't like this anxiety,
and they wanna feel more relaxed,
and they wanna be more productive.
So, they'll come in, maybe for about three sessions,
and then it's cleared up.
Other people, that need a little more work,
maybe they had childhood trauma going into their adulthood,
they'll come for more sessions.
- Takes longer time.
- Takes a little bit longer if you have compounded trauma.
- That was my next question, how long it usually takes?
I guess a difference for everyone.
Case by case. - Yeah, it depends.
If you have something that's just,
"I'm not happy with my life, I need a new change"
or a transition, a move,
something that they're transitioning to, that's shorter.
That's, I say, for something that's not
extended through their life time,
it's more like three sessions, sometimes a little bit more.
If you have something that's more intense,
complicated trauma, that would take
maybe six to nine sessions.
So, I'm more of a short-term intensive therapy.
So, usually long-term complicated trauma
can take years in therapy.
For me it won't take more than a few months.
- Is that because you don't take real hard cases?
- I take really complicated cases.
Actually, I take a lot of cases
that they have already been to about ten therapists,
and they haven't been able to clear it,
so they come here and I do it. - Wow, that's great.
So, I see you have some essential oils in your office,
that's part of your therapy, I suppose?
- Mhmm, I usually have essential oils in the diffusers
just because that helps calm.
And I use different emotional blends.
Anything else you use?
- What kind of other methods do you use in your therapy?
- This is bilateral sound,
and it's a technique called brain spotting,
which is really effective.
It's about focusing your eyes
while you're listening to bilateral sounds.
And, bilateral, you could either do
sounds, vision, or kinesthetic.
A lot of this came from EMDR,
which I have been doing for 20 years.
Eye movement, desensitization, and reprocessing.
Levels of the brain to help switch core beliefs, or ART.
ART came from EMDR too,
and ART is accelerated resolution therapy.
So, if you put it together, I can do EMDR,
I can do brain spotting,
I can do accelerated resolution therapy.
And I also do hypnotherapy.
- Oh okay. Wow.
- So, that's kind of a nice way to end.
The sessions are normally two hours,
so you'll come in with something,
we'll do some of the trauma techniques...
I also have what's called a BAUD.
This is the BAUD.
It's a bio acoustical device,
which is a type of neural feedback,
and I can use that to help clear very intensive negative,
and I usually combine some of these techniques.
Everything I do is working from the body up,
rather than cognitively trying to calm your emotional body.
So, a lot of these are working on your nervous system.
'Cause if you have trauma and you have anxiety,
your nervous system is really pretty amped up.
You can't focus, you can't concentrate, it's hard to relax.
So, I always look for techniques that help calm your body
and help relax so you can think clear.
And also clear up the trauma.
- What do you like most about what you do?
- Mm well...
I love to see people getting better.
I mean, when somebody comes in,
even if they have a really intense trauma,
one that their even embarrassed talking about,
doesn't bother me at all, I just see them already healed.
I'm just working with them now.
There isn't anything that somebody has said
that I probably haven't heard before, doesn't shock me.
I just stay with them because I have a clear vision
of where I want them to be at the end of our work together.
Productive, feeling good,
having more peace and joy in their life.
So, I like that.
I like problem solving.
- Anything you like least about maybe running this business
or inside of business?
- I don't like paperwork
which is why I don't take insurance anymore.
I'm only a cash based practice,
because insurance just was very difficult
for me to work with.
- Not native to Asheville, and I'm not,
a lot of people are moving to Asheville.
Why do you think it keeps happening?
Why do you think Asheville is such a magnet
for so many people?
- Well, it's a nice peaceful small, getting larger, town.
And a lot of people I know, new people that have moved here,
they tell me they've come here to vacation for years,
and they just got to the point just like,
"I actually wanna live there."
So, very few people move here, haven't ever been here.
So, I think it being a vacation destination,
and a tourist spot, people just fall in love with it,
and they wanna be here.
- If you could describe Asheville in one word,
what would that be?
- Mm, mm.
Energetic.
- Energetic?
- Yeah.
Yeah it sure is energetic. - That's a great word. Yes.
- Just the parkway, you wanna get out and do stuff,
it's beautiful.
Overall you have this nice young vibrant population.
- So, you are located in North Asheville,
Seven Beaverdam Road Suite 205.
- 205, uh-huh.
- We also can find you on your website.
- It's "positivetransformations.net"
- "Positivetransformations.net"
Also you have a Facebook page?
- Mhmm.
That's Positive Transformations.
- Okay, great.
So people can find you there if anybody has any questions.
- They can call me.
- Can call you.
Okay.
- Thank you so much for taking time. (relaxing music)