Meet Dianna Vagianos Armentrout

We recently connected with Dianna Vagianos Armentrout and have shared our conversation below.

Dianna, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?

When I was in my 30s, I made a conscious decision to seek joy. When my aunt’s atypical meningioma began to grow again, I visited Mount St. Mary’s Abbey in Wrentham, Massachusetts. A beloved Cistercian nun from Scotland, Sister Evelyn, told me that we don’t know why these things happen. She said that if I looked, I would see 100 little miracles all around me, even when people are sick. The next time I visited my aunt, Matina, who was bedridden, I watched as her best friend, Giovanna, fed her chocolate. They were laughing. They were telling jokes. It sealed Sister Evelyn’s message into my heart.

As a Classical Homeopath, I have many clients who come to me distraught over their health, whether they have chronic pain, depression, fatigue, brain fog, hot flashes, allergies, or other symptoms affecting the quality of their lives. They come with their children who have anxiety or challenging behaviors, or their parents whose cognition is declining. It is my vocation to be optimistic for my clients. They do not know how constitutional homeopathy will impact them over the coming months, but I do. I get to encourage them, and accept their situations without judgment.

I recently became an Avatar teacher, and am now incorporating the Avatar tools into my practice to help clients create the life that they want, by recognizing that their beliefs have been inherited from parents, teachers and society. As these beliefs go away, optimism ensues. Relationships change. Finances change. Health challenges lessen. It is a beautiful journey for each of us using homeopathic remedies and Avatar tools.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

In the midst of Covid lockdowns, I began to study classical homeopathy with Drs. Paul Herscu and Amy Rothenberg at the New England School of Homeopathy. For the first time in their 25 year history, they moved their courses online. Paul taught us the Cycles and Segments approach, where we group symptoms together to capture the story of each client’s symptoms. When I was still in school I started practicing on my family and friends. Using Cycles and Segments, I was able to find the right remedy for those first cases.

In my family practice I see clients from newborns to the elderly. When someone takes their constitutional remedy, meaning the remedy that has similar symptoms to their emotional, cognitive and physical state, their Vital Force, that brilliant intelligence that is called qi in Chinese Medicine, begins to reorganize. Symptoms often decrease. Clients’ outlook change. I have had many clients make life-changing decisions as they get stronger on their remedies, leaving unhealthy relationships, changing diets and exercise patterns, finding jobs that are more suitable to them.

I take each case, spending as much time as I need to understand the underlying story and patterns of the symptoms. It is my goal for each client to feel supported and not judged. There is so much judgment in the health community, placing blame on people for their illnesses. I find this unacceptable. After clients take their remedies, we stay in touch between appointments, and clients have access to me as we work together.

Any clients who are looking to change beliefs and attention, are welcome to a free mini-course using Avatar tools. They can then progress to the Resurfacing three-day course. I have many clients who are seekers, and who have tried many modalities of therapies, only to continue to struggle with certain things. Avatar is a great compliment to homeopathy. I feel like I have my clients’ needs covered from all sides.

I offer a first aid class using homeopathic remedies and cell salts for common complaints from colds, to splinters and bee stings, small injuries and teething and growing pains. This has been a fun way to create a community in my practice. I meet my clients at the Denver Botanic Gardens from time to time. We have lunch together. I am community minded and collaborative by nature, and my clients have resources that they can use to deepen relationships, health, and consciousness.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

What an interesting question… Stubbornness comes to mind, but maybe we can call this determination. There is a certain grit needed to overcome the challenges in life. I think back to taking care of my aunt who was sick for a long time, and to carrying to term my daughter after a life-limiting diagnosis at 21 weeks of pregnancy. I birthed my baby, knowing that she would die, creating a cocoon of support and love for the portal of her life. How do we do these things? Let’s call it deliberate determination, and love. I have a lot of love and appreciation for the people in my life. It pulls me through challenging moments.

For people in the midst of any kind of suffering or illness or grief, I hope that you can be a joy seeker with deliberate determination and love.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

For many small business owners, people struggle with their confidence to deliver their services, and with fears around finances. Will my business succeed? Will it be self-sustaining? Can I meet the demands of a growing business? For the first couple of years of my business, I worried about many things. Many of my friends who have businesses worry. They feel like they are carrying everything on their shoulders.

Earlier this year, my mentor Carrie Skluzak, who is ever patient, took me through the first three Avatar courses. We worked on attention. What is taking up my attention? And then we began to look at beliefs. What was I afraid of? Why did I worry so much about finances? Those 10 days, rearranged my beliefs and gave me tools to clear the obstacles that I inherited from my parents and family and society. I was raised in an immigrant Greek family, and you can imagine the beliefs that were passed down from generation to generation, after 400 years of slavery to the Turkish Regime, and then the German and Italian occupations, followed by the Great Hunger.

These days I feel very light. As I walk through my days, without the noise of previous underlying beliefs and worries, I have more space to be present to those I love, including my clients. Working with the Avatar tools, has been a path forward to live my life and be a classical homeopath with ease.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Natalie Morrow (photo of me)

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