Red carpet and Ferraris outside, neon lights and bodycon dresses inside. What might’ve passed as the latest nightspot on Wilshire Blvd. was actually Santa Monica’s newest health and fitness center, Whole Life Balance with Drip IV Therapy, celebrating its grand opening Wednesday night in the only way founder and CEO Shane Griffin knew how.
Formerly Toronto’s hottest nightclub owner, Griffin has funneled his years of serving others into a new venture: his state-of-the-art boutique yoga wellness center. What’s different this time is, instead of the drugs and booze that fueled his previous lifestyle, Griffin is now sober and approaches life from a holistic purview.
Today, his top shelf merchandise is an intravenous blend of vitamins and minerals.
There was much to celebrate at the grand opening. Whole Life Balance has developed their own drip IV formulas with the aid of a team of doctors for maximum wellness and support. The new menu is tailored to the needs of the average Westsider. Examples include the Stamina (an energy drip filled with B vitamins), the Resistance (an immunity drip), or the Social (pre or post-party drip). Even better, walk-ins are now welcome five days a week with a registered nurse and doctor on staff to fit all questions and needs.
Other services include online and in-person nutritional consulting, fascial stretch therapy, massage therapy, acupuncture, personal training and small classes of yoga, aerial yoga, and Pilates.
Ever-expanding, Whole Life Balance also is offering fitness memberships to their gym, which affords discounts on all the other services (15 percent off massages, IV drip, fascial stretch) and use the entire boutique wellness center is at one’s disposal, including packages to yoga and Pilates classes.
Founder and Certified Nutritional Practi- tioner Griffin is perhaps his own best example of how his methods can help you.
“I’m holistic, but I’m far from Zen,” he said.
At one time the biggest independent nightclub owner in Toronto, Griffin has spent his life serving others – be it shots of Patron in the past or wheat- grass today.
“It was when I got out of the nightclub business that I realized that my normal, was not normal,” Griffin said. “What was normal for me for well over a decade of living in the fast lane was not going to be conducive to a healthy life. So I put myself into treatment to Passages in Malibu.”
At Passages, Griffin learned about the concept of a holistic life, the guiding principle for his new fate to come. From there, he enrolled at the Insti- tute of Holistic Nutrition, “and I swear to you on every ounce of me, I had absolutely no idea that I was going to do anything with the program.”
But six months into school and six months out of treatment, Griffin still wasn’t happy. He couldn’t derive joy from his straight A’s in class. He was numb.
“I knew that I liked my life, I just wasn’t feel- ing it,” Griffin said.
His therapist broke it down for him: During 20-plus years of using drugs and alcohol, Griffin’s body had used up the serotonin in his body and no longer knew how to reward the brain naturally and without substances.
“And I thought about people in treatment with me who were going back to criminal charges, who were going back to children they hadn’t talked to in 10 years because of their addiction,” he said.
No wonder relapse, he said to himself.
“So I started working on protocols for people in addiction recovery. That’s how Whole Life Balance started,” Griffin said of the yearlong journey.
From neophyte to valedictorian, Griffin graduated early with the highest honors and moved to California last June. He designed his own nutritional protocol software, a composite of holistic and nutritional libraries designed to recognize a person’s top 10 imbalances. From a 45-minute questionnaire, Griffin and his team of CNPs and coaches handpick an individualized protocol of foods that support your homeostasis, lifestyle changes and supplement support (where the drip IV therapy comes in).
Or you could just stop by for a massage or Pilates. Griffin has maintained his same goals as when he was a nightclub owner: to make people feel at home.
Whole Life Balance with Drip IV Therapy is located at 507 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 101, in Santa Monica. To learn more about fitness memberships and IV drip therapy sessions, call 888.540.5714 or visit wholelifebalance.com.
