Anya Warda Photo by Aniko Kiezel
Journey To Health LOCAL ARTIST USES PAINTING TO HEAL
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nya Warda is a proud tree hugger. “I love greenery, exercising, fresh air, sunshine, going outside and
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being with nature,” she says. “I’m a tree hugger. That’s who I am—that’s what my life experience has made me.” Warda’s love of nature is more than aesthetic. She’s thankful to walk, much less hug a tree. At age 26, the native of Poland was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, a debilitating autoimmune disorder that attacks the joints and makes them painful and swollen. Determined not to be in a wheelchair, she took matters into her own hands.
“I started searching online, even though I didn’t know what I was looking for,” says Warda, who emigrated to the U.S. with her family at 18 and studied at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia before moving to California in 2012. “The very first website I found said our bodies are designed to heal themselves. I’d never really thought of that.” Warda adopted a vegan lifestyle, started juicing and drank gallons of water in an effort to heal her body
from the inside out. She walked, even though it made her cry. “If you don’t use it, you lose it,” she says. Her symptoms gradually improved enough to allow her to return to one of her first loves, horseback riding. But it wasn’t until she completed a whole-body cleanse at a lifestyle center in Lodi that she could leave the painkillers behind and take back her life. “The body is designed in such a beautiful way. Every cell is yearning
