A vision held quietly for twenty-five years, and the sanctuary that grew around it.
Some places are built.
Others are remembered into being.
SoderWorld is the second kind. What follows is the story of how a quiet vision in Willowbrook became a living sanctuary, and the hands and hearts that have shaped it along the way.
Eric Soderholm imagined SoderWorld in the early 1990s. He held the vision quietly for years, shaped by his own study of medicine, spirituality, and what it actually takes to heal. The work, then and now, has never been his alone.
Twenty-five years on, the Soderholms remain woven into the fabric of the place. The sanctuary they built has stayed, in every meaningful way, a family's offering. Tended carefully. Opened generously. Made to outlast any single chapter.
A career nearly ended in a single play. What brought it back changed everything that came after.
Eric Soderholm came up to the major leagues in 1971, a third baseman with the Minnesota Twins. By the mid-seventies he was a fixture in the lineup. Then came the spring of 1976, and a knee injury that, by every conventional measure, should have ended his career.
The doctors said it was over. He kept asking different questions, and the answers came from places American medicine had not yet learned to take seriously. Acupuncturists. Herbalists. Healers who worked the body as a system, not a set of parts. The knee came back. So did he.
What brought him back was older than the medicine that had given up on him.
In 1977, his first season with the Chicago White Sox, he hit twenty-five home runs and was named the American League Comeback Player of the Year. He played another three seasons. But the experience left a mark deeper than the comeback. He had felt, in his own body, what conventional medicine could not reach. Years later, that lesson became a place.
"We did not invent any of this. We made a place where it could remember itself."SoderWorld
Twenty-five years of building, listening, and adding what the place asked for.
SoderWorld opens in Willowbrook, a small wellness center offering traditional and alternative therapies under one roof. The vision Eric had carried for years takes its first physical form.
The Himalayan salt cave is added. The first space designed not for treatment, but for stillness. The center begins to feel like a sanctuary.
Frequency-based work joins the ancient modalities. Science and ceremony begin sharing a building, in conversation rather than competition.
Labyrinth, waterfall, zen garden, firefly garden. The land becomes part of the medicine. Walking becomes a kind of treatment.
Twenty-five years on, what began as one man's vision is held by a community: practitioners called to the work, members on parallel journeys, and the hands and hearts that keep the sanctuary tended.
Quiet commitments, kept consistent across twenty-five years.
Every room, garden, and pathway is designed as active medicine. The environment is not incidental. It works with you at every level.
Healing is rarely solitary. We gather in circle, witness one another, and find strength in belonging to something larger than the self.
We trust your capacity to change, to heal, to become more fully yourself. Every practitioner and space is in service of that becoming.
We honor wisdom developed across millennia. These traditions are not relics. They are living practice, continuously relevant, continuously alive.
Healing should not be reserved for the few. Through our membership and community programs, we make transformative wellness available to those who seek it.
The hands and hearts that have held this place from the beginning.
Founder · Ayurvedic & Panchakarma Therapist · 30+ Years
Trained at the Wellness & Massage Training Institute, the San Diego School of Healing Arts, and the Deepak Chopra Center. The creative force behind the Sol Flo Massage and the Ayurvedic practice. Her hands know both protocol and presence.
Sound Healer · Yoga & Meditation Instructor
Founder of the Wellness Information Network and producer of Wellness 2000. A creative force across mediums, sound healing sessions, workshops, and the multimedia work that gives SoderWorld its voice. His sessions open the nervous system to integration.
Founder · Vision Keeper · 25+ Years
A former Major League infielder whose own healing journey, after a career-threatening back injury, sent him deep into the study of medicine, spirituality, and what it really takes to recover. He held the vision for SoderWorld quietly for years before it had a name.
Family · SoderWorld
A Soderholm by family and by practice. Her presence in the sanctuary spans years and roles, woven quietly into the everyday rhythm of the place.
Partner · SoderWorld
Bio details to come. A partner in the work of the sanctuary.
Partner · SoderWorld
Bio details to come. A partner in the work of the sanctuary.
We have been here for twenty-five years, listening. The sanctuary continues with each person who walks through it. Yours might be the story we hold next.
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