KENT – Julianne Dow has returned to a place that she loved as a teenager to retire and run her business, Dow Integrative Institute.
Dow was a student at Kent School in the 1970s and she forged a connection to the outdoors here as well as teaching herself about stress relief through meditation.
As a teacher for more than 40 years, she is now offering classes and guidance in Jin Shin Jyutsu, which is an ancient Japanese healing art, as well as Yoga Nidra, which is a form of guided meditation. She is offering a class in Soothing Sleep Solutions on Saturday mornings from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. for three more sessions. The class is hybrid and students can join in person or online and is designed for those struggling with insomnia. Dow welcomes new students at any time. Online registration is available.
She was drawn back to Kent. Two years ago she retired as a teacher for the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York. During her tenure as a teacher, she has taught all grades from pre-kindergarten through to grade 12 in many different locations.
“We were looking for a place to retire and my father was at the Fountains in Millbrook,” Dow said, explaining she wanted to be close to her dad in his later years. He passed away a few months ago.
“The mountains and the river just called me. We looked at all these different places and we kept coming back to Kent,” she said. She and her husband settled on a small house that was zoned commercial and residential on Maple Street, just across the street from the Kent firehouse. It was previously a bed and breakfast and years ago a restaurant.
She was drawn to holistic health for a number of different reasons.
“When I was a first grade teacher, I was very much struck with the anxiety and stress that our six-year-olds were feeling when they compared themselves to others in their reading level,” Dow said. She also realized that parents sometimes developed anxiety when they heard about the challenges their child might be facing.
“I sought out a healing modality that was Jin Shin Jyutsu, which is an ancient Japanese healing art. What drew me to it is that I wanted to work with children and it didn’t involve needles. It is like Chinese acupuncture but without the needles,” she said. The treatment involves placing hands on various parts of the body. “It’s all about balancing the life force energy in the body so optimal healing can take place.”
She has integrated Jin Shin Jyutsu with Yoga Nidra, which is a type of guided meditation. She learned about this from her own personal health journey when she was seeking relief from insomnia.
“It imitates sleep, you are lying in savasana the entire time – flat on your back – it is a guided meditation to move from the physical body into the deeper realms of consciousness,” Dow explained.
“Personally, Yoga Nidra saved my life, so that is why I teach it,” she said.
She is a certified teacher in Connecticut, New York and Indiana. She also served as a part-time member of a research team for four years at the Overlook Medical Center in Summit, NJ, where she worked with pre- and post-surgical hospital patients to offer them treatments.
Dow offers a wide variety of therapeutic services, including individual sessions for all ages. She even provides healing for animals. After her own dog, Emerson, developed a tumor, Dow began applying some of the same healing techniques to animals as she had learned to do on people.
She had already had training on these types of techniques and began teaching animal owners how to do it themselves. She has done extensive work with horses, as well as a variety of farm animals.
“The animal health piece is a combination of breath work, therapeutic touch, and Jin Shin Jyutsu,” Dow explained. She has several animal workshops planned in upcoming months and she hopes to partner with Kent Park and Recreation on some classes for people and possibly animals.
Dow offers free 15-minute consultations to determine if she can meet someone’s needs, as well as a free class for new potential clients to experience and determine for themselves if what she has to offer is a good fit for them. More information can be found at her website calendar, www.juliannedow.com, or email her for a free class at iam@juliannedow.com
