After more than three decades in nursing, a former surgical-burn-intensive-care unit and critical-care leader is bringing an expanded understanding of healing to Southwest Florida.

For more than 30 years, Lidia Garner has worked at the intersection of trauma, illness, injury and healing. Her nursing career began in 1988 as a patient-care technician and eventually led her into burn intensive care, wound specialization and hospice.

Garner’s career has been intense and diverse. She has led surgical and burn centers at Johns Hopkins and in Oahu, Hawaii; served as a critical-care director and later served as the assistant vice president for a three-hospital system; and worked as a medical director in the biotechnologies field. Today, she is moving in a new direction—beyond the traditional boundaries of treating physical burns and wounds.

Garner is writing the next chapter of her career, incorporating her training in Tibetan Cranial work, Brennan Healing Science and personal transformation and coaching. These practices she says have provided a structural foundation for what she intuitively understood about the relationship of the body, mind, emotions and consciousness.

From Hawaii to Florida

While directing care at the burn center in Hawaii, a colleague told Garner about a job opportunity in Sebring, Florida. The appeal of Florida’s sub-tropical paradise and the city’s close proximity to the ocean, she purchased a home in Sebring in 2016 and moved there in 2017.

Garner’s nursing career expanded after relocating to Sebring, where she became critical-care director at a local hospital and later assistant vice president of a three-hospital system. However, the demands of a traveling nursing career eventually became impractical. Driving to airports in Orlando, Tampa or Fort Lauderdale could take hours at times.

“I didn’t want to spend my life in a car and an airplane, but I wanted to stay in Florida. A Realtor friend found me a home in Bonita Springs, where I’m only 20 minutes away from the airport,” she says.

A Life in Healing

Garner’s interest in healing began early.

“My mom had what the family considered an intuitive gift and regularly helped people who came to our home with injuries. Watching her work contributed to my early comfort around wounds and the human body,” she says.

Garner’s professional career in burn care began in 1991, when treatment practices differed significantly from today’s standards.

“The nurses in the burn unit encouraged me to pursue additional education. That’s when I became a nurse. The career was tailor-made for me, as was becoming a wound specialist.”

Her colleagues eventually began referring to her as “the wound whisperer.”

“I earned it because I recognized subtle physical signs quickly, a skill I developed through years in critical care. I can look at a wound and see things.”

As Garner’s interest expanded beyond physical injury into complementary and holistic approaches, she studied Healing Touch, eventually reaching Level 4. She later spent five years studying Tibetan Cranial work.

“I also served six years as president of the organization associated with that work and recently rotated off its board,” she says.

Tibetan Cranial Work

Tibetan Cranial is a hands-on healing modality in which practitioners use their fingertips to perceive pulses in the head and apply gentle touch to areas of the skull, face, palate and neck.

Garner explains, “I begin with the recipient lying comfortably on a massage table. I use a mantra, prayer or meditation to help the client attain a relaxed state. Placing my hands lightly on the head, I follow the cranial pulses. The work is individualized because everyone is different. The goal is for the pulses to be in a state of balance.”

From Brennan Healing Science to Surrender

Another major influence has been the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, where Garner completed four years of study and is now pursuing postgraduate work.

Brennan Healing Science incorporates energy awareness, personal transformation, spirituality, psychology and expanded consciousness. Garner says the experience gave structure to intuitive abilities she has experienced since childhood.

Her postgraduate thesis continues to explore a theme that has become central to her understanding of healing: surrender.

“Consciousness is about unlearning,” she says. “Healing is increasingly about uncovering rather than adding—releasing patterns, beliefs and conditioning that interfere with living fully. Keep peeling the layers, negating the conditioning, and surrender to what is.”

A New Chapter

Garner’s professional background also informs her work as a transformative coach for health and business.

“I provide perspective and help individuals identify patterns that are keeping them stuck. Helping people to release what they are holding so that they can have a better life is my soul’s mission,” she says.

Sometimes, she believes, people simply need another perspective—someone who can listen closely and help identify what may be underneath the words.

“If you’re not succeeding, I can help with that,” she says. “If your life is not joyful, if you’re not living the life you want to live—even if you don’t know what that is—we figure that out together.

“I am here to fulfill my soul’s mission and help humanity, to help people heal—physically, mentally, emotionally. Everything I’ve done in my life has brought me to this new threshold and I’m ready.”

Lidia Garner, DBA, MS, RN can be contacted at 239-398-3391. Visit SoulAwakenings.net.