Our Vitality

Other wellness providers, however, operate somewhat under the radar, providing services in unique and/or alternative ways.

At the Roots, for example, is a rapidly expanding group of mental health service providers, which about two months ago moved into a large suite of offices in Banbury Place. The practice aims to help individuals with a myriad mental health challenges, including substance abuse recovery, assistance with anxiety and depression, relationship issues, parenting or grief support, grief support, and many others.

the therapist she was seeing had never gone through what she was, and Sommer believed that affected the quality of her care.

“I thought there has to be something else, some other form of support,” Sommer said. “People are struggling more than ever” with their mental and physical health.

Sommer’s response was to become a certified peer support specialist and begin providing the kind of mental health or other services she thought were missing in the Chippewa Valley in a non-clinical setting. The services are provided by either peer support specialists, who are certified by the state of Wisconsin, or peer support mentors, who go through training provided by At the Roots.

What links all their providers, who are private contractors, Sommer said, is that the services they offer are “based on our lived experiences.” When they meet with an individual and discuss their issue, she said, “we know what that (issue) feels like.”

When someone comes to At the Roots for help, she said, “We try to put them with someone who has a similar background. That is how you really connect with someone.”

Individuals come to At the Roots either through the Comprehensive Community Services program administered by Wisconsin counties, or by paying privately.

An At the Roots provider works closely with the individual to provide the support the individual needs to move forward, Sommer said.

“A big portion of our job is to help people rebuild their lives,” Sommer said, after years of substance abuse or other deleterious activities. “A lot of times people just need to be heard.”

Since At the Roots began in Sommer’s home office, the business has grown to 14 providers today in less than two years. It outgrew its first office location in Altoona and used some pandemic relief funding to move into its new home on the third floor of Banbury Place.

Sommer said she is happy that At the Roots has been able to grow because it means more people are being helped. But on the other hand, she said, future growth has to be controlled because, “I’m very protective of At the Roots and how we do things.”

Referencing her husband, Sommer said of At the Roots’ growth: “We just saw the good we were doing and wanted to help more people.”

Laura Berndt was frustrated. The massage therapist and mother of four was going through severe pain that could not be diagnosed properly. There were continual rounds of chiropractors, acupuncture and MRIs.

“Nobody could figure me out,” she said.

What she also noticed was that the various health care providers were not working together. “Nobody cared what the other ones were doing,” she said.

A few years later, Berndt was diagnosed with leukemia and was dismayed that her doctors just wanted to treat the disease and didn’t seem interested in how it developed. “I wanted to get to the root of the leukemia,” she said.

Berndt eventually found a local oncologist who would work with her to find the disease’s cause and then treat it.

“That’s where some vision of Evolving Wellness came into play,” Berndt said. That vision was for “a wellness hub where you can find all the answers at your fingertips.”

Evolving Wellness was established in 2018 as a network of health and wellness practitioners who offer a variety of therapies to address conditions that include cancer, Lyme Disease, lung issues, mental health, chronic and acute pain, sleep disorders, gut health, autism, and others.

The intent is to ensure that the individual receives treatments by independent contractor providers who are committed to working together for the best outcome, Berndt said, to provide “wholistic, functional medicine.”

Evolving Wellness, its web site says, is a “community of practitioners working together in unison, offering an array of health and wellness services with the goal of a strong, connected, and healthy community.”

She added: “I don’t believe a person should never get treated” because of their inability to pay for services.

Berndt is executive director of the agency and there is a board of directors to set policy for the non-profit. Of the providers, she said, “Everybody has their own private practice.”

Berndt said Evolving Wellness’ model allows the agency to provide the kinds of care that other providers might not offer. This includes a technology called Pulsed Electro-Magnetic Field (PEMF) therapy, which Berndt said has delivered tremendous results for patients by recharging the body’s cells.

Evolving Wellness describes the technology this way: “The energy supplied via PEMF gives cells the energy they need to ward off whatever is threatening them, whether it’s trauma or a disease-based attack. This makes it easier for your patient’s body to restore its health naturally …”

The therapy is particularly effective for aiding with lung issues by enhancing respiration and increasing oxygen levels, reducing stress, and improving sleep, and addressing chronic fatigue syndrome, Berndt said.

“It should be more mainstream,” Berndt said of PEMF.

Another technology offered through Evolving Wellness is Alpha-Stim, a medical device that its proponents say can help relieve pain, address depression or insomnia, help anxiety, among other issues.

“You are more focused,” after an Alpha-Stim treatment, Berndt said. “This is training the brain to be in this (calm and focused) state.”

A fledgling effort for Evolving Wellness is a teen center that offers teenagers a safe place to connect, unplug from social media, have a meal, and engage in wellness activities. The center has limited hours now, but Berndt said she would like to expand them in the future.

“There are teens who want to talk” but need a safe place to have those conversations, she said. As a nonprofit, Berndt said, finding funding is a constant challenge but for now the organization “is doing OK.”

As for the future, Berndt said she would love to start a full-blown wellness center, but for now, “we are just growing slowly and engaging in a lot of collaboration and talking. That’s where the magic happens.”

Martial arts is a lot more than breaking bricks with your hands and getting in shape, according to Chester Gustavson, owner of AFK Martial Arts on Hastings Way in Eau Claire.

“A lot more people come in who want to better their character and better themselves,” said Gustavson, shortly before a group of teenagers came in to practice Kyuki-Do, a Korean martial art that blends Tae Kwon-Do, Judo and Hapkido, among others, into one system.

The emphasis at AFK Martial Arts, Gustavson said, is including the whole family into the practice. “We want to get more families involved,” he said. “That is something I am working on.”

While the physical fitness aspect of martial arts is important, the mental part – discipline and focus –is just as important or even more so, he said.

“Our purpose is to give people the tools to help them be successful in martial arts and the outside world,” Gustavson said, by improving their confidence, selfesteem, and other traits. Getting into shape, he said, “is only a portion of it.”

He added: “Some kids haven’t found their calling” and “use martial arts for that.”

Martial arts practitioners spend a lot of time discussing a pamphlet that Gustavson has put together that describes the “Kyuki-Do Life Skills” aimed at instilling the self-control necessary for the mind to control the body. The “pillars” of this philosophy include discipline; goal setting; excellence; hard work; emotional control; communication; courage; and persistence.

“We talk very deliberately about those” pillars and how they can impact a person’s life, Gustavson said.

Growing up in Neillsville, Wis., Gustavson said he discovered martial arts when he was nine. “I never found my way to fit in” through other pursuits, he said, and martial arts gave him that pathway.

Gustavson found his way to Eau Claire to live and work and practiced martial arts along the way. In 2008, he opened his studio as a part-time venture and went all in in 2015.

There’s no question, though, that the physical skills that practitioners learn are important, but Gustavson said the aforementioned pillars are intertwined on the mat as well. “This all teaches self-control,” he said. “Your mind is controlling your body.”

Gustavson said business at the studio has rebounded since the early days of the pandemic, adding, “this is my best year ever.”