Connect-Balance-Thrive Wellness Services
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Connect-Balance-Thrive works to support personal, professional & organizational health & wellness. Wellness Matters! Contact us for more information.
Connect-Balance-Thrive Wellness Services™ works to support personal, professional and organizational health and well-being. Services include individual wellness sessions steeped in Trauma-Informed Practice and Polyvagal Theory Awareness from a certified Practitioner of: Healing Touch™, Sound Therapy, HeartMath® research-based techniques for Stress, Anxiety and Self-Regulation, and Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma education. Certified Practitioner Gayla Meredith provides needs-specific sessions and shares science-based information behind a variety of easily implemented wellness empowerment techniques and strategies that support client lifestyle and schedules. Individual in-person sessions include the option to enjoy a Healthyline far infra-red amethyst, tourmaline and jade warming mat during the session. In addition:
- Each session is aligned with client-specific needs and customized to support the best possible experience. Sessions may be fully Healing Touch (an energy modality using light or off-body hand placements) or Sound Therapy; or a combination of modalities, depending on client needs.
- All sessions involve an intake process, intention-setting, guided meditation and visualization with sensory activation, breath-focus and some sound elements, including tuning forks, chimes and/or bowls.
- Rest and Restore Sessions support client relaxation and emotional regulation - these are sound sessions that include a full sound immersion experience.
- Depending on client needs a variety of instruments or a few specific ones may be used, including - tuning forks, chimes, gongs, Tibetan bowls, crystal bowls, drums, rainsticks, voice, etc.
- A pre- or post-session option offers Labyrinth walks (self-guided walking meditation), and/or quiet-time nature journaling near the natural woodlands beauty of Manitoba's Riding Mountain National Park. Individual or group wellness sessions or consultations are also available to support education and awareness about the impacts of stress, including compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and Polyvagal Theory. Additional wellness supports/strategies and techniques include breath focus and heart-centred connection strategies, self-compassion and self-care options to fit individual lifestyle and interests. Practitioner Meredith is available to present to your group, offer Wellness Empowerment Workshops and/or provide Rest and Restore Relaxation Sound Bath Experiences, in person or online. Gayla Meredith, a retired Northwest Territories' educator, political advocate and award winning author, enjoys giving the gift of wellness through her Connect-Balance-Thrive Wellness Services™ business. She spent twenty-three years in a variety of northern education and cross-cultural settings, including classroom teacher, communications officer, Northwest Territories Teachers’ Association (NWTTA) President, and Vice President for the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF). With first-hand experience in education and advocacy, as well as her own personal burnout, Gayla knows the realities and impact of stress and burnout on caring professionals. In addition to teaching, she dedicated her time in the North to advocating for improved communication in education (internally and externally), realistic teacher workloads and action to support teacher wellness. Following her time in Canada's North, Gayla retired to a beautiful Gulf Island off of British Columbia, Canada. Gabriola Island and its nourishing environment and caring community provided 7 years of respite, restoration and recalibration following her demanding career. After 30 years away, in May of 2024, Gayla returned to her home Province of Manitoba where she currently offers wellness services online/distance and in-person. She currently resides in a peace-filled woodland natural environment near Riding Mountain National Park (1-hour north of Brandon Manitoba on Highway 10). Always an artist and creative, Gayla also offers a full line of energy-infused colourful creations under her Dances with Scarves® brand, including funky scarves and Blessing Dolls™. Gratitude, compassion, self-care and giving back have been foundational to Gayla’s wellness journey from surviving to thriving, both personally and professionally. Services Summary and Rates:
Individual and Group Sessions - On-line/Distance and In-person Options
Individual: 1/2 hour - $50; 1-hour - $100 (package discount available)
Group Sound Bath Relaxation Experiences:
- In-person for up to 7 participants - 1-hour - $150 total
- Online - unlimited participants - 1-hour - $150 total
- Monthly Group Online Sound Series for Self-Care - Sessions via Zoom each Monday - 1/2 hour - $50 for full month of Mondays (Check for availability)
Other services include off-site presentations and sessions customized to your specific needs - Rates dependent upon required services. Through her Connect-Balance-Thrive Wellness Services, Gayla is here to support your healthy and wellness journey. Reach out through FB Messenger, Email ([email protected]) or Text 867-445-3634.
10/01/2026
Reading as a restorative wellness support… it’s a thing 💫📚
Neuroscience shows immersive reading pulls the brain out of a stress state faster than almost anything else researchers have measured. In just six minutes physiological arousal drops measurably. Heart rate slows. Muscle tension releases. The brain shifts from scattered high arousal into focused low arousal absorption. Not because reading distracts you from stress. Because it structurally replaces it.
This is not distraction. Stress lives in scattered mental loops. The same thought cycling over and over with no resolution. A good book gives the brain one structured target to follow. A single narrative thread that requires just enough attention to break the loop entirely. The brain cannot fully ruminate and fully read at the same time. Reading wins every time. The loop stops. The stress drops. Within six minutes.
Over time this does far more than calm you down in the moment. Regular reading strengthens circuits involved in empathy emotional regulation and cognitive reserve. Cognitive reserve is the brain's ability to maintain function as it ages. It is built slowly over years. And reading is one of the most reliable ways to build it. The brain you develop through regular reading is measurably more resilient than the brain that does not read.
You feel this most on the days when your mind is loudest. Noisy overstimulated emotionally cluttered. Those are the days most people reach for the phone. More stimulation on top of overstimulation. Reading does the opposite. It gives the brain a single clean channel. Twenty to thirty minutes can completely change how the rest of your day feels. Not because you escaped your problems. Because your nervous system finally got what it actually needed.
A Yale study tracked 3500 people over 12 years and found that book readers lived 23% longer than non-readers. Not magazine readers. Not social media scrollers. Book readers. The researchers believe the combination of stress reduction emotional engagement and cognitive reserve built through sustained reading creates protective effects that compound over a lifetime.
Six minutes to begin the stress response shift. Twenty minutes for meaningful cognitive benefit. Thirty minutes before bed instead of a screen for a nervous system that actually recovers overnight. Fiction and non-fiction both produce the effect. The immersive absorption is the mechanism not the content. Physical books and e-readers both work. Screens with notifications do not. Remove the notifications. Open the book. Six minutes is all it takes to start.
Tag someone who says they do not have time to read. Six minutes is not a time problem. It is a priority problem. And the neuroscience says it is one of the highest return investments that time could make for your brain.
References shown:�Lewis, D. (2009). Galaxy Stress Research. Mindlab International University of Sussex.�Bavishi, A., et al. (2016). A chapter a day: Association of book reading with longevity. Social Science and Medicine, 164, 44–.
09/28/2026
Excellent free health and wellness resource✨ Thank you HeartMath Institute
An Expression of Our Care, we gifting our New 6 HeartMath Techniques for Easing Stress, Staying balanced and Achieving Mental Clarity eBook.
This eBook offers six proven techniques that will support you in reducing stress while inspiring more love, compassion and cooperation in your interactions with yourself and with others.
HeartMath tools help individuals tap into their own inner power – the power of the heart – a source of strength, wisdom, and resilience. And this power lies within each of us.
The chapters are, Recognizing, Understanding and Transforming Stress, Pause, Reflect and Reset, Three Pathways to Elevate Emotional Resilience, Lift Your Vibration – Lift Your Spirit, Moving More Love Through Our System and Helping the World By Caring for Self and Others.
* In the first comment is a link to access the New 6 HeartMath Techniques for Easing Stress, Staying balanced and Achieving Mental Clarity eBook.
Hearts Rising's weekly intention for...
09/23/2026
Love this message 💝 Thx Hope Around 💫
🐞 ❤️
Happy Fall Equinox 💫 https://www.facebook.com/share/1C7ETzphXv/?mibextid=wwXIfr
09/19/2026
Today is the day 💝🌀 May all be held in grace, loving kindness, optimal health and wholeness 💫
09/15/2026
Great overview of Polyvagal Theory (how the vagus nerve impacts nervous system states)✨
Have you ever noticed how differently you respond depending on how safe or overwhelmed you feel?
When your nervous system senses safety, it is easier to think clearly, connect with others, communicate and cope with everyday demands. When it senses threat, your body may shift into high alert - anxiety, tension, racing thoughts, irritability or the urge to escape. When things become too overwhelming, you may instead shut down, withdraw, feel numb, exhausted or disconnected.
These responses can happen automatically, before you have had time to think about what is happening.
Understanding your nervous system can help make sense of reactions that might otherwise feel confusing. Instead of only asking, “Why am I reacting like this?”, it can be helpful to also ask, “What is my nervous system responding to, and what might help it feel safer?”
Sometimes what looks like overreacting, avoidance, anger or withdrawal makes more sense when we understand what is happening underneath.
FREE UNDERSTANDING POLYVAGAL THEORY PRINTABLE PDF CHART
LIKE the photo and comment "POLY" and we will send you a message with a link to a free PDF of this resource.
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