David Elron

Improving the well-being of others

When David Elron first visited Guatemala in 2001 he was a carefree backpacker who thought he’d stay for a couple of weeks and move on. However, after meeting a shaman in the highland town of Todos Santos, the Israeli’s plans quickly changed.

“I ended up traveling with the shaman, studying with him and eventually teaching with him for eight months—and the experience completely changed my life,” says Elron.

Seated on a bench on New Year’s Day in La Antigua Guatemala’s Central Park, Elron had a revelation:
“With cohetes going off all around me I thought: ‘I’m going to be a healer and work to better the lives of others.’ ”

Almost 12 years later that’s exactly what the economics and marketing graduate is doing: using holistic treatments such as massage, Reiki and Amanae, a technique that focuses on releasing suppressed and usually subconscious emotions and trauma, to improve the well-being of people who are unhappy with their lives or want to change an element of them.

Through his belief that everyone can be and deserves to be happy, Elron uses physical, spiritual and emotional therapies to create a positive and lasting change in his patients’ lives.

“When you are malnourished in one area you overcompensate for it in another.”

“You can’t just work with somebody’s body; you have to work with their mind and emotions too. When you are malnourished in one area you overcompensate for it in another. So I can tell someone what to eat, but it won’t help them if they’re undernourished emotionally or spiritually. We have to work together to find a balance,” Elron explains.

The health coach, who has worked with patients from 3 to 85 years old, has a number of businesses all focused on well-being. From infrared saunas to cleanse and detox the body, to independent film screenings to open the mind, and intensive six-day Amanae workshops (emotional release bodywork to heal past traumas), he encourages his patients to listen to their heart and body and not be afraid of addressing the things that hold them back from living the life they want.

“The magic happens when we get outside of our heads and stop thinking. Some things don’t make sense, nor do they need to, but you just have to step back and allow the healing process to happen. Magic is all around us,” insists Elron.

Many of Elron’s clients say his holistic approach (which also encompasses elements of positive psychology) is “life changing” and has enabled them to live in a more fulfilling and positive way. As well as emotional results, physical improvements are often apparent too: “I had a client that came to me for two months of intensive work. He was clinically depressed, his blood pressure was 250/190 and he had kidney problems. But a few weeks into the therapy his kidneys had recovered, his blood pressure was 120/90 and he was feeling much more empowered and happy with himself,” Elron says.

Through individually tailored programs at Santé, Elron’s well-being clinic in Antigua and Guatemala City, clients are given the tools, knowledge and support to transform their lives and become happier, healthier and fully empowered—something that may have seemed unattainable before.

For more information on any of David Elron’s well-being retreats, programs and workshops, visit www.santelife.com.