‘Happinest’ offers specialized island therapies and retreats

Bruce Winstone and Katherine Faraci of A Happinest Wellness Retreat.

Photo by Elizabeth Nolan

To enter “A Happinest” Wellness Retreat is very much like being taken under the soft wing of a nurturing mother hen — but in this case there is the doubly warm attention provided by two health practitioners.

The retreat is a small but inviting cabin on the Cranberry Road property of Katherine Faraci and Bruce Winstone and their two small children. Like a nest, its furnishings are designed to provide maximum comfort, but that’s just the backdrop for the deeper restorative therapies provided on site.

Faraci, a registered acupuncturist and craniosacral therapist, and Winstone, a “Rolfer,” are refugees from the hectic urban lifestyle of Vancouver, where Winstone did a 9 to 5 job with Lululemon for several years. They grew tired of their pattern where one of the pair was always at work and the other doing the child care, with only rare occasions of being home at the same time.

Recognizing that in addition to family the values most important to them had to do with healing, green living and nature, they decided to take a chance and move to Salt Spring.

Opening the Happinest, which is a B&B accommodation as well as a therapy site, has allowed the couple to bring over clients from Vancouver and Victoria for extended treatment plans. But they hope local residents will also take advantage of their unique healing techniques.

“The community has been really welcoming, including people who would normally be considered competitors,” Faraci said of the transition.

“I’ve been really inspired by all the other practitioners on the islands — they’ve brought a lot to my work.”

Faraci’s training in acupuncture followed the classic route, including a four-month internship at an impoverished hospital in China. But in addition to following the established contact points prescribed by the ancient tradition, she has developed and expanded her practice by incorporating a craniosacral understanding of injury and pain release.

The unusual pairing was inspired by Faraci’s own long-lasting pain after she was sideswiped by a car in Vancouver, and found that acupuncture could only provide short-term pain relief. She eventually visited a craniosacral practitioner and found both physical and emotional release the result.

“I immediately realized this is what I deeply understood,” she said, “that the body could hold a lot more than just physical pain.”

Putting the two treatments together, Faraci can see where pain is being held by the way regular energy passages are moving or blocked. She describes acupuncture as a way of opening up restricted energy or chi, with the needles like hands that untwist a kinked hose. Craniosacral work follows a detectable pulse in the spinal fluid.

“When it’s not flowing smoothly I know there’s an injury,” Faraci said. “It’s sort of like being able to tune a radio to all the frequencies.” She’s found her method is very effective for treating depression as well as physical pain, because there is often an unrealized physiological reason for the former.

Winstone is Salt Spring’s only Rolfer or practitioner of Structural Integration as developed by Dr. Ida P. Rolf. According to the official website: “More than 50 years ago, Dr. Rolf recognized that the body is inherently a system of seamless networks of tissues rather than a collection of separate parts.

“These connective tissues surround, support and penetrate all of the muscles, bones, nerves and organs. Rolfing works on this web-like complex of connective tissues to release, realign and balance the whole body.”

Winstone, who learned the technique from the institute Rolf founded in Boulder, Col.,  explained that Rolfing essentially helps people to realign their bodies through manipulation of the soft tissues.

“The idea of Rolfing is very basic,” he said.

“If a person stood up in gravity the way we build a house — if all the different systems line up in gravity — we’d feel better. It’s so simple it’s almost obvious.”

Rolfing has something of a reputation of being painful to endure, and as Winstone readily admits, “almost everywhere’s a receptacle for tightness.”

However, if any spot does get too painful, Winstone will stop immediately when requested.

To learn more about Happinest options, call 250-538-0088 or visit www.ahappinest.com.