Meet Betty

Betty was born and raised in Texas, attended Baylor, lived in Oklahoma, Kansas, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan before coming to her senses in Arizona.

She worked for the computer industry as a technician, systems analyst, project leader, salesperson, sales manager, regional vice president and vice president of sales for one of the largest data processing organizations.  She was personally drawn to the leading edge in human resource management; exploring partnering - beyond team building.

In her position as vice president she was responsible for 11 offices from San Francisco to New York and found herself on an airplane four days a week. High Stress! After having a spiritual experience on a Shiatsu table she "heard a voice"  that said, "let go."  She quit her job the next week and started on a journey to create a space for people to let go of and learn from their stressful experiences. Seeking guidance as to where she might locate this space, she experienced her a visual field filling with purple and gold pansies.  Startled and confused by this phenomenon, she asked for more specifics but the pansies continued. She finally surrendered to the vision and  left in August 1986 to find a field of pansies.  In June of 1987, after driving 36,000 miles, she discovered a retreat with a back yard full of  purple and gold Johnny Jump Ups that looked like baby pansies.  There she founded The Merritt Center as the culmination of her dream to provide a space for people to experience renewal and empowerment; to learn and grow. 

She has created many workshops and programs including those described in the workshop section of this site.  More than two thousand people have experienced her programs.

Answering her need to reduce stress she created a bodywork technique: KIATSU, based on Shiatsu, incorporating breath, toning, Process Oriented Acupressure and other energy releasing methods.  She has taught Kiatsu to therapists since 1989.  She added Healing Touch techniques to her bodywork sessions and was certified by the Colorado Center for  Healing Touch January 2001.

She is the keeper of a sweatlodge. She conducts the ceremony as an introduction to the process to those new to the Lodge seeking a way to ask for what is needed, to let go of that which no longer serves mind, emotions, body and spirit and to give thanks for all the blessings of the journey of life. As part of her Cheyenne-Arapaho teacher's initiation to become the keeper of the lodge, Betty was required to spend four days and three nights in the forest without food or water in each of the four seasons of the year.. As the lodge keeper she keeps the lodge as a "little girl/little boy" teaching lodge. 

The Arizona Republic featured her in a front page article describing the interest of non-Indians in the sweatlodge ceremony.  Her Spiritual Fasting Vision Quest was described in the April 1999 issue of Health, a national wellness magazine.  She is a frequent speaker in Arizona. She was the keynote speaker for an Annual Meeting of the Tucson networking organization: Resources for Women and in April 2000,  she was the keynote speaker for the Women's Wellness Forum sponsored by a regional medical alliance.

In 2005 Betty was ordained as a minister by the International New Thought Alliance. She now happily responds to calls for Reverend Grandmother to perform ceremonies to mark life's passages.

There have been several local-statewide newspaper articles, radio interviews and webcasts about her latest dream: The Free Returning Veterans Program, which was started in 2005. She was one of 14 participants in a Roundtable about Peer Support for Veterans sponsored by Survivor Corps in Aug. 2008. This new program for returning combat veterans was created to include veteran mentors in a peer support role. Each of the four Programs, held through 2008, included four weekend retreats featuring education in trauma release/management techniques, life rebuilding and celebration ceremonies.

With Al, her husband since 1972, she shares four children, nine grandchildren and three great grandchildren.