Our Team
Linda Lazar Allen, BA, CAMT, CST
Craniosacral Therapist
Heart Centered Emotional Healing
Michael Allen MD, FAAP
Board Certified in Pediatrics
Board Certified Holistic/Integrative Medicine
Board Certified in Anthroposophic Holistic Medicine
Morgan Allen CHC
Certified Integrative Nutrition Coach
It is our passion to help our patients truly thrive and discover their true potential when healed and whole.
A husband and wife team, we co-created our practice in 2008 to help bring others the profound healing from
integrative medicine and therapy techniques we found along our journey with our family. Our center is
inspired by the memory of our son Kieran, who led us to learning all we offer our patients today.
We are proud to have the family tradition of healing continue with the addition of our daughter Morgan
joining our team as a certified Integrative Nutrition Coach.
Let us be your partners in balanced health and help you and your family blossom into your full potential!
Michael Allen MD, FAAP
Board Certified in Pediatrics
Board Certified Holistic/Integrative Medicine
Board Certified in Anthroposophic Holistic Medicine
Dr. Michael Allen has been practicing Pediatrics for over 30 years. The importance of looking beyond conventional medicine, to healing the whole person, was first imparted on Dr. Allen in medical school at the University of Arizona, where he studied with Dr. Andrew Weil.
The need to look outside the box came again to Dr Allen through his greatest teacher, his son Kieran, who had cerebral palsy, cortical visual impairment, and seizures. When western medicine proved ineffective alone, Dr Allen continued on his holistic journey learning nutrition, herbal medicine, homeopathy, craniosacral therapy, heart centered therapy, and myofascial release therapy. These holistic treatment modalities helped his son, and greatly improved his quality of life.
He soon discovered that the patients in his practice also asked for and benefited from this holistic approach. These holistic modalities also helped Dr Allen and his family again when Kieran unexpectedly died in August of 2003, two weeks after his seventh birthday.
Understanding the gift and journey that his son’s life and his death brought to him, Dr Allen was motivated to begin a comprehensive study of Holistic medicine, and later became Board Certified as a Holistic Physician, in both Integrative Holistic Medicine and Anthroposophic Holistic Medicine, for both children and adults.
In 2008 he and his wife Linda, who practices Craniosacral therapy, opened the Center for Living Health, a dream they had held for many years and felt inspired to create in memory of their son so that they could help others. Dr Allen is grateful to his patients for all that they have and will continue to teach him every day.
Family is the center of Dr. Allen’s life, and he feels continually blessed by the light of his daughter Morgan, who graduated from Sacramento Waldorf School and UCSB, and for the memories and gifts of his son Kieran’s life.
Dr Allen’s Training includes:
Medical School: University of Arizona
Pediatric Internship and Residency: University of Texas Southwestern/Children’s Medical Center, Dallas, TX
Board Certified in Pediatrics, American Academy of Pediatrics
Board Certified Holistic Medicine, National Board of Integrative Medicine
Board Certified Anthroposophic Medicine, Physicians Association of Anthroposophic Medicine
Consciousness Studies with Dennis Klocek -Rudolf Steiner College
Rudolf Steiner College– partial training Foundation Year & Teacher Training
Chikly Institute: Heart Centered Therapy
Upledger Institute: Craniosacral Therapy, mentored by founder John Upledger
Myofascial Release, training with founder John Barnes
Linda Lazar Allen, BA, CAMT, CST
Certified Emotional Acupressure Therapist and Craniosacral Therapist
Heart Centered Emotional Healing Therapy & Mindfulness Coaching
Linda works with adults and children, and is known for her nurturing touch and ability to discover and gently release tension and trauma in the tissues that can cause pain and dysfunction, allowing the entire body to relax and self-correct.
She works with issues related to the brain and neurosystem, including Sensory Processing, ADD/ADHD, Autism, Learning Disorders, Sleep Disorders, Behavioral Problems, Retained Primitive Reflexes, Tongue Tie, Headaches, and Injuries (Accidents, Concussions, etc). She also specializes in working with emotional difficulties such as Grief/Loss, Depression, Anxiety and Stress.
A journey of growth and healing led Linda to bring her gift of compassionate healing into practice.The birth of her son Kieran and his diagnosis of cerebral palsy, sensory processing dsyfunction and seizures awoke her and husband Michael, a holistic pediatrician, to a path of self-discovery. They turned to craniosacral therapy (CST) when western medicine failed to help their son.
After witnessing CST’s profound effects, she took a class to help her son, only to realize that this was her heart work. She went back to school, and after becoming certified as an Acupressure Therapist and Craniosacral Therapist, continued on in a two year intensive program for certification specializing in Emotional Healing Acupressure. Linda also has advanced craniosacral brain and neuro-system training, and she has attended numerous workshops and conferences on Sensory Processing.
Linda’s inner journey deepened with the unexpected death of her son at age seven. She once again witnessed how powerful and healing these therapies are in her own healing and grief, notably the depth of healing reached through Heart Centered Therapy (HCT). She now integrates HCT into many of her sessions as a tool to gently help identify and transform the emotional component of disease in the body, without reliving the trauma. She is a teaching assistant for HCT founder Alaya Chikly’s workshops around the country.
Linda and her husband Michael opened the Center for Living Health in 2008 as a culmination of a dream to work together and offer whole body healing to their patients. Linda brings to her sessions the love and first hand knowledge that this work can make a difference. She honors the memory of her son’s journey and the light and wisdom of her daughter Morgan , a graduate of the Sacramento Waldorf School and UCSB, through her practice and in her life..
Training includes:
Bachelor of Arts Journalism, USC
Acupressure Institute of Berkeley: Certified Acupressure Therapist, Advanced Training SpecializationCertification in Emotional Healing
PAAM International Anthroposophic Medical Training Program, 3 years
Chikly Institute: Mentored & Trained by Bruno and Alaya Chikly in Heart Centered Therapy, Advanced level training in Brain/Neurosystem, Retained Reflexes Release, Lymphatic Drainage
Upledger Institute: Craniosacral Therapy, mentored by institute founder John Upledger
Myofascial Release, training through all levels with Institute founder John Barnes
Rudolf Steiner College– Anthroposophic Counseling Masters in Psychology Summer Intensive, classes in Foundation Year Teacher Training, Consciousness Studies with Dennis Klocek, and other workshops.
Along with Linda’s formal training, she has also attended numerous classes and workshops on Neurologically Managing Sensory Processing Disorders, Sensory Integration, Mindfulness Practices, Energy Medicine, Flower Essences and Essential Oils. She incorporates elements of these therapies into her sessions as needed.
Morgan Allen, CHC
Certified Integrative Nutrition Coach
Morgan’s passion for healthy living and eating led her to becoming an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. Certified by the Institute of Integrated Nutrition, Morgan is a healthy recipe creator, gluten and dairy free club member, fruit and veggie enthusiast, dancer, avid runner, and so much more.
Her passion for all things wellness, healthy living, and nutrition has lived within her since she was a little girl, for she grew up in a household with two holistic health professionals as her parents. Her love of health and wellness has always been there, yet it only reached its full potential after she went through her own health journey. Two major moments along her journey particularly brought her to where she is today.
The first was finding out that she was allergic to gluten and dairy at the age of thirteen, a discovery that changed her life forever. As a kid who loved pizza, ice cream, and mac and cheese, this news felt like the end of the world. At first, she felt so limited and helpless, for she felt like there was nothing she could eat anymore. Yet, with time and as she got older, she began to explore the world of food, diving into recipes and the bounty of whole, natural foods. She found there were so many things that she could eat, and that there was a whole world of possibilities and fun options available for gluten and dairy free individuals. This discovery sparked her love of creating recipes and experimenting with foods, for instead of viewing her dietary restrictions as something negative, she shifted it to be a positive thing in her life, and learned to find joy in creating new recipes and finding alternatives to her old favorite meals.
The second pivotal moment in her health journey was planted as a seed during her teenage years, but only began to flourish during college. As a pre-professional ballet dancer, she faced the pressure to look a certain way, and fit the “perfect ballet body.” Subconsciously, she turned to restricting food. Then, halfway through college as a Dance major, she had to stop dancing due to an injury. Depressed and away from home, she again turned to restricting food and over-exercising as compensation for eating, which led to her developing severe gut health issues from the restriction and stress around food.
It got to the point where she was experiencing pain, bloating, and major discomfort every time she tried to eat anything. It was at that point when COVID arrived and her university closed, forcing her to return home. The intensity of her gut issues and the move back home was the wake up call she needed, and she realized she needed to make changes in her life and heal her body.
So she turned back to the world of holistic health that she grew up in, and began to rebuild herself, her relationship with food, and remember the beauty of food. Under the guidance of her father, a holistic MD, and through research and lots of trial and error, Morgan healed her gut health. She utilized the aid of food in her healing journey, learning how to eat for her individual needs, nourish herself to feel good, listen to her body intuitively, and eat mindfully with gratitude and appreciation for her food.
Through healing her relationship with food, she discovered the real power of food as medicine, and saw the potential nutrition has to change people’s lives for the better. This, combined with her passion to share the endless food possibilities within gluten and dairy free living, and her lifetime love for health and wellness, led her on her path to becoming a Certified Integrated Nutrition Health Coach. She came to the realization that sharing the power of nutrition, food, and healthy living was her life’s purpose, so that she could share her knowledge she learned through her own health journey to help others.
Her mission is to make nutrition advice easy and clear, cutting through the myths and fad diets to provide real personalized nutrition and healthy lifestyle changes that can truly heal people from the inside-out. Morgan specializes in gut health, gluten and dairy free living, food freedom, mindful eating, sustainable healthy nutrition, and healing through food. She believes that bio-individuality is the foundation of health and that when it comes to nutrition, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Each individual is unique, and requires different nutrients to thrive and meet their potential in life. Working with each client through this bio-individual approach, Morgan creates a personalized plan created specifically for the individual and their individual needs, empowering her clients to cultivate sustainable health and wellness practices and become the best, healthiest version of themselves.
Morgan is also the founder of Glo Inner Wellness, our supplement line formulated by Dr. Allen. From an idea of a dream supplement that not only would reduce bloating immediately, but also target the root problem by healing the gut itself, to years of extensive research and working closely Dr. Allen to design the perfect formula, GLO Inner Wellness, and first product, Gut Glo, were born.
Training Includes:
Certified Integrated Nutrition Health Coach, Institute of Integrated Nutrition 2021
BA in Dance, BA in Sociology, Minor Professional Writing, UCSB 2022
Certified Corepower Sculpt Yoga Teacher 2022