Space can feel amazing, but it can also feel incredibly unsettling at first. When the norm has been allowing the energy, expectations, needs, and desires of others to take up so much space within your life, their absence creates an emptiness.

We are deeply conditioned to fill what is empty.

We clean out the closet and then buy new clothes. We reach for food when we aren’t hungry. Pour another drink. Turn on the television. Pick up our phones. Work more, shop, scroll, make plans, stay busy.

Anything to avoid sitting in the emptiness for too long.

But what if emptiness isn’t asking to be filled?

What if it is a magical, fertile space where all that we’re meant to experience begins?

There is something incredibly powerful about the void. The space between what has ended and what has not yet arrived. The clearing that happens when something leaves our lives and we resist immediately putting something else in its place.

When we don’t rush to fill the space, we can discover what actually belongs there.

Maybe less belongs. Maybe the empty space itself is the gift.

Room to breathe, to hear ourselves again, to feel what we actually want. To notice what nourishes us and what depletes us. To become more intentional about the relationships, experiences, commitments, and energies we allow into our lives.

I’ve been exploring this as I grieve the ending of my partnership alongside the complex absence of family relationships. There were moments when the emptiness felt enormous and I noticed myself reaching for my phone constantly. Social media posts, stories, likes, email, Substack. Even checking my bank account seemed capable of giving me a tiny dopamine hit.

Click. Click. Click.

It became almost obsessive on my hardest days. I could feel there was something underneath asking for my attention. Something I needed to feel. Something I needed to be present with. And then suddenly my fingers were doing their own thing and I was somehow buying a new phone case.

Eventually I had to ask myself: What I am seeking here?

Connection.

There have been moments throughout this transition when I have felt incredibly alone. Reaching toward the outside world was one way of reminding myself that I wasn’t. I began recognizing the difference between what genuinely nourishes me and what I use to numb, distract, or avoid the emptiness.

Sometimes what looked like reaching towards others was actually pulling me further away from myself.

I started noticing what happens energetically when I open social media. I can very easily match the energy - fast, stimulating, not enough, seeking, consuming.

The platforms are designed to keep us there. There is always another notification to check, another story disappearing soon, another person to respond to, another piece of information, another metric to measure, a fear of missing something important.

For me, it had become a clear energy leak.

I believed that I needed to be on social media. I need to post and share stories regularly. I need to promote my offerings. I need to stay visible for my business.

So, I decided to challenge that.

I deleted all the social media apps from my phone. If I want to, I simply do so from my computer. That also means I can’t share stories. I engage on the platforms as I’m called to in healthy, balanced, aligned ways.

So far, a few days in, it has felt really good.

My yoga classes do not seem to be impacted. I’m not noticing a difference in new client bookings. My business has not disappeared.

I feel different. There is more of me available to me.

I’m also becoming much more intentional about who and what I give access to my energy. We’ve normalized being available almost constantly. To our work, our phones, social media, messages, notifications, news, and people. So much of that access happens on external terms. Someone sends a message, an app sends a notification, something appears on our screen, and suddenly our attention has been pulled somewhere we never consciously chose to place it.

What changes when I decide when I enter those spaces? When I decide when I’m available? When access to my attention and energy happens on my terms?

This isn’t about closing myself off. It’s about becoming more discerning about what I allow into my space and when. Not everything needs immediate access to me simply because technology has made that access possible.

The more I question these patterns within myself, the more I recognize how much they have been shaped by the culture around us.

Our discomfort with emptiness is not personal.

We live in a culture that benefits from keeping us uncomfortable with empty space. There is an entire economy built around convincing us that what we have is not enough, what we are is not enough, and whatever is missing can be found somewhere outside of ourselves.

There is very little encouragement to simply be with ourselves. To feel the discomfort. To let something be unfinished. To not know. To want something without immediately having it. To experience an opening in our lives without rushing to decide what should go there next.

Our attention is something companies compete to occupy.

There isn’t much money to be made from someone sitting quietly in the void.

There is a constant pull towards more. More consumption. More productivity. More information. More stimulation. More improvement. More connection. More visibility.

The more disconnected we become from ourselves, the easier it is to convince us that the answer is another thing outside of ourselves.

This doesn’t mean consumption is bad. Technology isn’t bad. Wanting beautiful things isn’t bad. Entertainment isn’t bad. Social media isn’t bad. Connection certainly isn’t bad.

It’s the energy that inspires the action that matters.

A chocolate bar eaten slowly, with pleasure and presence, can be gloriously nourishing. The same chocolate bar eaten because we desperately don’t want to feel what is moving through us can be an entirely different experience.

The same is true of social media, relationships, sex, shopping, food, work, exercise, entertainment, spirituality, and self-improvement.

It’s not about good or bad.

The more useful questions are: What is the energy behind what I am doing? What am I seeking right now? Am I choosing this or am I reaching for it unconsciously? Is this nourishing or depleting me? What might I feel if I didn’t fill this space? What could become possible if I allowed this space to remain open?

No need to become hypervigilant about all things or shame yourself. It’s about becoming more aware and reclaiming our power to choose.

There is nothing inherently wrong with filling space, but it’s worth exploring.

Let ourselves not know what comes next.

Choose from alignment rather than urgency.

Wait for the relationships that meet us.

Allow experiences that reflect who we are rather than who we were.

We might discover that some of the space we’ve spent out entire lives trying to fill was never empty.

It was ours.

Space for our energy, wellness, desires, creativity, purpose, knowing…the beautiful life that is meant for us.

Space for what is truly ours to emerge.

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This is a necessary death.

Not because there isn’t love. There is so much love.

The depth of our love has brought us back to each other more than once.

We have found clarity. We have let each other go. We have grieved the relationship and said goodbye. And then somehow, here we are again.

There have been cycles that needed healing. Patterns that needed to be lived more than once before we could fully see them. Wounds that seemed to find exactly the right place in one another to rise to the surface.

That is part of what makes this so difficult. Our returning wasn’t meaningless. It wasn’t simply repeating the same relationship over and over again. Each time, there was more awareness, more honesty, more depth, more love.

We met each other differently because we were different.

And still, eventually, we would arrive back at the same truth.

There are places where our lives, our needs, and our paths simply do not align.

Maybe some cycles repeat because we haven’t learned the lesson yet. Perhaps we needed to return a few times to receive everything the relationship came here to give us.

There has been so much beauty between us. And there is also misalignment that can no longer be softened, explained away, or loved into something different.

We are meant for different paths.

Somewhere along the way, we began pulling each other toward our own paths. Each of us trying to stay true to where we were being called while somehow also trying to keep one foot planted in the other’s world.

There is an incredible amount of energy in that struggle. Energy spent trying to bridge what may not be ours to bridge. Energy spent trying to make two paths become one when they are asking to part.

What I can feel now is that letting go is not a failure of our love. It is one of its deepest expressions.

A releasing of one another back to ourselves.

Back to the lives we are each choosing. Back to our creativity, our purpose, our own becoming. Back to the energy that has been tied up in trying to make something work that life is clearly asking us to release.

There is something so sacred and fucking heartbreaking about loving someone enough to stop asking them to walk your path. And loving yourself enough to stop leaving yours to walk theirs.

This is a death.

Not everything that dies was wrong.

It has lived its season, given us its medicine, changed us forever, and now asks to be released so that whatever is meant to be born next has room to breathe.

This hurts.

Letting go of a love that has changed me, healed me, and brought me back to myself in so many ways.

There is a clarity beneath the grief that I cannot unknow. A quiet liberation in no longer fighting what I know to be true.

There is peace.

I can grieve what we are losing while honoring what we are each being called toward.

I don't know what comes after this, but I trust where life is taking us.

Loving deeply and letting go,
Melissa

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I wanted to share a few opportunities to gather in community and work with me in August.

Exhale - New!
A twice-monthly virtual restorative practice to slow down and return to yourself. We’ll weave together restorative yoga, meditation, energy work, and nervous system regulation practices.

Insight Timer
I’ll continue offering free virtual events on Insight Timer including intuitive readings, guided meditations, and energy work. I also have lots of free guided meditations and talks on the platform about living with greater authenticity, freedom, and empowerment.

Insight Timer Offerings

1:1 Intuitive Readings + Coaching
For those wanting more individualized support, I offer intuitive readings and coaching that blends meditation, energy work, somatic practices, nervous system support, and intuitive development. Single sessions and discounted packages are available.

1:1 Offerings

Coaching Partnerships
I’ve started doing more long-term coaching partnerships for those wanting deeper, consistent support. We can meet weekly, 2x monthly, or monthly and I offer discounted rates.

I’d love to work with you. You can explore everything on my website, reply directly to this email, or schedule a free 30-minute connection call to see what feels most aligned.

Complimentary Connection Call

With love and gratitude,
Melissa

My meditation this morning was on the topic of being an instrument of love.

My partner and I also talked about this last night after someone in his men’s group planted a beautiful seed.

How can we show up for ourselves and others as love?

As I sat with it, I realized how often we try to put love in a box.

We tell it that it should be soft, kind, gentle, nurturing.

As if even love has been split from its wholeness by our human conditioning.

We often mistake love for performance rather than truth.

But love was never meant to fit inside our definitions.

Love is fierce.

Love is fire.

Love is the mirror that reflects everything we’ve hidden.

Love is stepping toward someone.

Love is stepping away.

Love is becoming more fully ourselves.

Love is making food for the people you care about.

Love is sticky-note messages.

Love is honoring how you deserve to be treated.

Love is standing for justice and equality.

Love is carving out time for yourself every day.

Love is nourishing your body.

Love is movement.

Love is rest.

Love is laughter and joy.

Love is pain and tears.

Love is a piece of dark chocolate and a warm cup of tea.

Love is allowing yourself to be held in hard moments.

Love is asking for what you want and need.

Love is showing up as your grounded, healthy adult self and owning what is yours.

Love is showing up for your inner child who needs support and to know she is not alone.

Love is the earth beneath our feet.

Love is talking to the neighborhood chickens on your morning walk.

Love is looking into the eyes of another.

Love is letting yourself fail and remembering there is no such thing.

Love is saying what needs to be said.

Love is forehead kisses.

Love is a cold shower.

Love is a warm bath.

Love is leaving an unhealthy relationship.

Love is grieving.

Love is letting yourself feel.

Love is having the courage to be alone.

Love is having the courage to trust another.

Love is the animals who love us so effortlessly.

Love is telling the truth.

Love is repair.

Love is accountability.

Love is boundaries.

Love is beginning again.

Love is choosing what makes you come alive.

Love cannot be reduced to one expression, one emotion, or one way of being.

It is fierce and tender.

Quiet and roaring.

It opens doors.

It closes them.

It grieves.

It celebrates.

It burns away what isn’t true.

It cannot be boxed in.

It is vast.

Always evolving.

It is everything.

Perhaps our work isn’t to become more loving.

Maybe it’s simply to return to love’s wholeness.

Melissa

Website

Instagram

Insight Timer

Substack

Grace came to visit me last night.

She is still flowing through me this morning as I write.

There has been so much loss lately. So much grief. So much letting go.

I’m learning to surrender to this powerful river of life, allowing it to carry me where I need to go instead of exhausting myself trying to swim upstream.

I’m learning to trust my life. To trust all that is being asked of me right now.

My abandonment wound has been especially alive these past few days.

The little girl in me that was given away at 7 days old is still very present.

Safety and trust are very hard for her.

That little girl has been showing me immense pain and loneliness.

It’s been coming up to be felt as I let go of people I love deeply but are not safe, healthy connections for me.

She has been asking me to really be with it, to feel it in its entirety.

I’m learning to do that for myself.

I put my hand on my heart. I breathed into the pressure that felt like an elephant on my chest. I brought my awareness to the pain that has been with me for a very long time. Pain that still needs to be heard, validated, and loved.

I’m here, beautiful.

No matter what, I am here.

Regardless of how anyone else shows up or doesn’t show up, I will never leave you.

You can never be abandoned ever again because I am here and I will always be here.

You are deeply loved.

Your sensitivities, your emotions, your oceanic depth, all of you is loved.

As I welcomed the pain, I felt my fierce protector step forward.

She had kept this little girl safe for many years by protecting her from pain that was too much for a tiny body to hold.

Silence and numbness had become her way of surviving.

I welcomed her too. I thanked her.

I stayed with all of this for a very long time.

I slowly felt my heart open again. I felt energy flow throughout my body. My loving words landing deeply within.

It seems like there is an unlimited amount of pain and protection in my body.

It’s frustrating as hell sometimes.

That’s ok. I’ll welcome the frustration too.

I know the amount of love within me and around me is bigger than all of it.

I connect with my deeper belonging in these moments.

Beyond our human families, to the divine mother and father, earth, animals, and wise trees that surround my home.

I let that settle in my body.

Letting in more safety, letting in more trust.

More grace.

The grace of honoring every single experience I’ve been through and every single step I’ve taken. Not making any of it wrong or bad.

We’ve all gone through some really hard shit.

Let’s not get stuck in the poo, but let’s stop minimizing it.

Damn, that was brutal. That hurt me deeply. It taught me. It molded me. I am the woman I am today because of it.

Let the pain have space. We need to feel it.

Often, the steps that matter most are the inner battles nobody else sees.

This past month has felt like at least six.

I’ve spent some time reflecting on everything I’ve accomplished and moved through. I’ve also been thinking about the people I love and all that they’ve navigated too.

It’s so easy to focus on what we’re still integrating, what still needs healing, or where we’re trying to get next. We often miss just how far we’ve already come.

I want to get better at celebrating that.

I’ll always be growing. The people I love will always be growing too.

But can we make sure we’re also loving ourselves exactly as we are?

Can we celebrate ourselves and others with tenderness?

Growth doesn’t require withholding love until we arrive somewhere else.

Can we hold both? That we are always evolving and already enough?

Becoming and belonging at the same time.

We don’t have to earn our worth through our evolution.

Can we celebrate the quiet victories, the invisible courage, and the ways we’ve shown up when no one else was watching?

Let’s love the shit out of ourselves every single step of the way.

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The word credo comes from the Latin credere, meaning to believe. At its heart, a credo is a statement of what we believe, what we stand for, and the impact we hope to create in the world.

A credo can guide your business, creative project, relationship, family, or the way you choose to live.

It can be broken down into four parts.

1. Devotion - What is this devoted to?

2. Belief - What are you taking a stand for?

3. Hope - What do you want to have happen?

4. Invitation - Naming who this might be for.

I felt inspired to share what came through for me and also extend the invite to you to reflect on what your credo might be.

Devotion
My work is devoted to bringing awareness to the systems, conditioning, and patterns that limit us. To support greater freedom, safety, and authentic expression for all. To own what is ours and release what is not. To truly live what we’re learning and bring all of our wisdom into our bodies, relationships, and every aspect of our lives. My work is raw, real, and deeply rooted in love.

Belief
I stand for equality, justice, and truth. I believe in courageous conversations, accountability, and excavating the roots of our individual and collective wounds.

Hope
My hope is for a world where people trust themselves, live authentically, and create healthier relationships, families, communities, and systems that send powerful ripples of healing across generations.

Invitation
This work is for those who are ready to question their inherited reality, embrace what is true, and courageously embody a new way of being.

We also explored another question that I loved.

What movement am I creating?

For me, it’s to question societal norms, gender roles, family dynamics, cultural expectations, relationship patterns, and truly anything we have been taught.

The survival strategies that once protected our ancestors may no longer serve us.

I want us to bring light to all the places we’ve been taught not to look.

To move towards what we avoid.

To name what is harmful.

To speak up if we were taught to stay silent.

To refuse to self-abandon to keep others comfortable.

To develop the courage to feel, to come out of your head and into your body, and to trust your knowing.

I believe our capacity to feel is one of the greatest healers of ourselves, our relationships, and our entire family lineage.

If what I shared resonates, I’d love to support you.

I offer complimentary 30-minute connection calls for all new clients. My work includes intuitive readings, coaching, meditation, yoga, and transformational group experiences.

For those ready to go deeper, I offer customizable coaching partnerships. We meet virtually on a weekly, bi-monthly, or monthly basis, with discounted rates available.

If you’re feeling the pull toward this work, I’d be honored to walk alongside you.

You can find more info on my website or simply reply to this email.

With so much gratitude,

Melissa

When we step outside of societal norms and unpeel the conditioning that limits us, we are often told how things should be by those still living inside.

How we should show up, how we should do things differently or better, how we should live within terms defined by others.

There is a lot to explore here.

What came from our parents, their parents, our ancestors?

What came from the people in our lives, gender norms, or the larger collective?

What came from past versions of ourselves that we no longer are?

A huge part of reclaiming what is true for me is using my voice.

Speaking up about the abuse I experienced and ongoing damaging patterns in my family lines has been the most challenging.

Sharing has been a hugely important piece of my healing and empowerment journey.

Many people interpret the act of speaking up through the lens of shame, blame, revenge, or victimhood.

We are taught to.

We are conditioned to stay silent and often try to correct the people who do not.

Stop rocking the damn boat.

Stop lifting the very lumpy rug.

Here are some of the responses I commonly hear when women share, along with an invitation to reframe them with greater compassion, curiosity, and truth.

These responses can be incredibly dehumanizing. They often dismiss or minimize lived experiences while protecting the very patterns that cause harm.

When we challenge these, we create more space for everyone to be seen, believed, supported, and for these oppressive cycles to finally end.

“She’s being negative.”

Naming harm creates the possibility for repair, protection, and change.

“She’s playing the victim.”

She may be reclaiming her voice and refusing to minimize what happened.

“She’s just seeking attention.”

She may be seeking truth, connection, accountability, or healing.

“If it was really that bad, someone would have known.”

Abuse frequently happens behind closed doors and is often hidden by manipulation, intimidation, or social appearances.

“Why didn’t she leave sooner?”

Abuse often involves fear, coercion, financial dependence, trauma bonding, concern for children, or hope that things will change.

“She’s being dramatic or exaggerating.”

Trauma affects memory, the nervous system, and the ability to speak. Many survivors actually minimize their experiences before they fully acknowledge them.

“She must be seeking revenge or trying to ruin someone’s life.”

Many survivors speak because silence often protects abuse, while truth has the potential to protect people. The goal is awareness, prevention, and healing, not punishment.

It’s truly not up to us to decide why, when, or how someone shares their experiences.

If what they’re sharing doesn’t resonate, you don’t have to argue with it, correct it, or attempt to make sense of it.

You can simply recognize that it isn’t for you and let it continue on to the people who are meant to hear it.

Every time we tell the truth about our lives - not to blame, but to honor what is real - we strengthen our relationship with ourselves.

We stop asking others for permission to trust what we know.

We reclaim.

Where in your life have you been taught to question your own reality?

What changes when, instead of defending your experience, you simply honor it?

Believing,

Melissa

When I think about how I learned about boundaries, most of it came from my family and the many expectations of what it meant to be “good.”

Boundaries weren’t about honoring myself; they were about containment.

Containing my feelings, my experiences, and my truth.

The focus was rarely, what do I need?

But rather, how does everyone else feel? What is expected of me? How am I impacting others?

Instead of expanding into myself, I was contracting.

I was constantly making myself smaller.

I was also absorbing the emotions, expectations, limits, and energies of everyone around me because I wasn’t inhabiting my own space.

So many of my choices and experiences reflected that.

Much of it wasn’t authentic expression, but rather an attempt to belong.

I exerted so much effort trying to meet the expectations of all I had inherited without ever questioning what was actually mine.

As I’ve gotten older, boundaries have become about coming home to myself.

They’ve become questions.

What do I feel? What do I want? What is true for me?

Every day is another opportunity to fully own my own space.

To nourish myself with practices that bring me back to center.

To continue returning borrowed energy to its rightful owner.

For many years, I worked at the bank with incredibly rigid perfectionism.

I felt like I had to prove myself.

Work harder. Stay longer. Do more than everyone else.

My worth often felt tied to my productivity.

Then I had a manager who completely disrupted that story.

He worked differently than everyone else. His schedule was flexible. He got his work done in the way that worked best for him.

At first, it honestly drove me crazy.

One day I came in late and started explaining why.

He looked at me and basically said, “I don’t give a shit. You always get your work done. Do what you need to do however you need to do it.”

Something shifted inside me.

He wasn’t measuring my commitment by the hours I sat in a chair.

He trusted and respected me.

The spaciousness felt uncomfortable at first.

Then it felt incredible.

The way I worked started to change.

I stopped organizing my days around what was defined as productive by others and instead around my energy and what I actually needed.

Around the rhythms that allowed me to do my best work AND honor my wellness.

Not everyone liked it.

Living on your own terms tends to make people uncomfortable when they’re still living on someone else’s.

But every time I honored what was true for me, I was practicing another boundary.

I was becoming a little more myself.

Who are your boundaries really for?

For me, my boundaries are first and foremost for me, for my purpose, and for the work I am here to do.

For protecting my energy that allows me to keep showing up.

They’re also for my children.

They’re for my daughter, who deserves to grow up knowing that women are worthy of deep respect, safety, and equality. Not someday, but now.

They’re for my son, who deserves to know that emotional expression isn’t weakness and suppression is not strength.

They’re for challenging the conditioning that tells us that there is one right way to be.

One right path. One right definition of success. One size fits all.

Who am I to decide what another soul is here to become?

My boundaries are for my partner, my clients, my teachers, all of my relationships.

They help me stay rooted in my energy so I can invite others to do the same.

They remind me to honor my no, yes, maybe, or not today.

My whatever the fuck I want to do because this is my life.

My boundaries are also for this beautiful world we share.

For the earth, animals, and communities whose voices are dismissed.

For protecting what is sacred.

Boundaries aren’t simply walls.

They’re expressions of what we value enough to protect.

If you were to create your boundaries from your deepest truth today - not from fear, obligation, or conditioning - what would they look like?

Who are you teaching about boundaries?

What were you taught that you have chosen to keep?

And what parts are you courageously rewriting?

I don’t think boundaries are something we master.

They grow as we grow.

They change as we heal.

They deepen as we remember who we are.

Every time we honor what is true for us, we become a little more ourselves.

Boundaries are an act of becoming.

I’d love to hear what this brought up for you.

Melissa

Gratitude to suradej ji for the photo.

I had another very hard weekend with my son.

This painful cycle has been repeating itself every day, every weekend, for more than six years.

I’ve learned to minimize the reality of what I have been living through simply because I have had to survive it.

He chose to leave my home early and go to his dad’s yesterday afternoon.

It is such a paradox to run toward the people whose wounds are surging through you.

To run toward what keeps you from feeling.

To run toward what keeps you from healing.

To run toward the people who validate your wounding.

It’s not you. It’s her.

No matter what happens, it is always her.

She is both the cause and the impossible solution for all the wrongs in this world.

The whole truth is never expressed or understood.

Only one very limited side of the story is shared.

No reciprocity.

No accountability.

Seeing others as wrong if they do not align with our limited perspective of what is.

No space or respect for differences.

Black or white.

Right or wrong.

I have been cast as the villain by many people over the past few years.

Holding a bright flashlight to illusion, shadow, and unhealed pain tends to do that.

My son is no exception.

So much of his definition of safety is rooted in not being asked to feel.

My home, however, oozes an invitation to be fully present with what is.

For myself, my daughter, my partner, and the friends I invite in, it is a very calming, peaceful sacred space.

For my son, the energy of my home is incredibly overwhelming.

True safety invites us to feel.

And feeling can be terrifying.

I could feel my entire body closing in protection after the time with my son.

The manipulation, the games, the familiar experience of being blamed for all that is by people unwilling to look at what is theirs.

I cuddled on the couch with my daughter after dinner as we watched a show we love.

I keep reminding myself that I am showing her how women and girls deserve to be treated.

My dog curled up on my legs, his favorite place.

Safety.

My partner came over as I put my daughter to bed.

He could sense all that I had inevitably become entangled in when my son was here.

Patriarchy, misogyny, sexism.

Disrespect and dehumanization of girls and women.

Conditioning that is not authentic to him, energy that is not truly his, but that he absorbs through the environments he inhabits, through the poisonous air he breathes.

I have left many spaces and relationships that breed these energies, only to have them continue to enter my home through the trojan horse that is my son’s vessel.

My partner sat behind me on the couch after my daughter went to sleep.

Holding my rigid body, wrapped in ice and armor, still pierced by broken arrows.

He simply breathed and held me.

Breath by breath, I allowed myself to soften.

It is getting easier with him, but it is never easy.

Tears began to flow.

Warmth, openness, and love slowly spread through my body.

More tears.

More holding throughout the night.

Words needing to be spoken about all that I have experienced with my son over the last several years.

Consistently being told what is true for me by people who are not present.

Consistently being minimized, invalidated, mocked, judged, and shamed.

Frequently being asked to prove what I know in my bones.

This is not unique to me.

How often do we ask women to prove their experiences?

How often do we demand evidence before offering care or support?

How often do we question, minimize, or dismiss what is true for another?

We see it everywhere.

In conversations about gender inequality and sexism.

In conversations about sexual violence.

In our systems, families, and communities.

Women are expected to thrive inside the systems that continue to wound them.

Who protects the mothers?

Who stands with them in the arena?

Who helps carry what was never theirs to hold alone?

Shame tells mothers to stay silent.

Shame tells us to push away support.

Shame tells us we will always be alone in this.

Mothers need more support.

Women need more support.

Humans need more support.

Many of our systems are broken and this needs to change.

I will keep going.

I will do my best every single day.

I will continue to choose love, truth, justice, and equality.

That will always upset those who have built their lives choosing otherwise.

And still, I choose it like the badass villain I am.

Because when mothers and women are truly seen, supported, and protected, everything will change.

Families will heal.

Damaging cycles will be broken.

And that powerful healing will create miracles in our world.

With a cape, a witchy cackle, and absolutely no plans to stay silent,

Melissa

I’ve spent many years learning how to show up differently.

Learning how to communicate more effectively, regulate my nervous system, and respond rather than react.

Learning how to become a healthier parent, partner, woman, and human.

This work matters. Personal responsibility is incredibly important.

But so is context.

Alongside the inner work we are doing to heal and grow, I continue to witness a troubling pattern in how we relate to women.

We ask:

“Why is she so reactive?”

“Why doesn’t she do things differently?”

“Why can’t she just calm down?”

Or my favorite, “Why can’t she just be nice?”

Too often, we blame women.

We project our beliefs about what is right for another person’s life and place an unfair burden of responsibility on them for the behaviors, choices, and actions of others.

This is especially true for mothers, who are so often expected to carry, fix, manage, and be accountable for everyone around them.

While also smiling and keeping everyone comfortable.

But no one person is responsible for another’s behavior.

Healing, accountability, and change belong to each of us.

I want us to start asking a very different question.

Does she feel safe?

Because no human being can consistently show up in healthy ways when living in environments that are unsafe, disrespectful, or dehumanizing.

Safety is not a luxury; it’s a biological necessity.

Our nervous systems are designed to detect danger and keep us alive. When our bodies perceive threat - whether physical, emotional, sexual, psychological, relational, financial, or spiritual - we shift into survival.

We fight, we flee, we freeze, we fawn.

Survival responses are not character flaws to be shamed.

They are necessary adaptations to the environments and experiences we have survived.

Many women do not feel safe in their own homes.

Many live with abuse, control, intimidation, invalidation, manipulation, and criticism.

Many carry the invisible labor of entire families while their own needs, feelings, and humanity remain unseen.

Many are navigating the lingering and persistent effects of generational trauma.

Many are carrying enormous pain while receiving very little support as they parent their children and also attempt to reparent themselves.

Many are living in environments where they are regularly disrespected.

Respect matters.

Feeling valued matters.

Being listened to and validated in our unique experiences matters.

Safety is not simply the absence of physical violence.

Safety is also being spoken to with kindness, having your boundaries honored, being believed, being allowed to have needs, having your no respected, being treated as an equal, being able to rest, being able to tell the truth without fear of punishment, being free to be fully yourself.

I know intimately how difficult all of this can be.

After years of moving through trauma, abuse, and unhealthy dynamics, I began cultivating safety within my own body.

Layer by layer, breath by breath, boundary by boundary, truth by truth.

It requires tremendous courage.

When we have lived in survival for long periods of time, safety itself can feel unfamiliar, often terrifying.

Yet healing asks us to keep moving toward safety.

Toward respect, toward reciprocity, toward love.

So before asking how women could show up differently, let’s ask a different question.

How can we help women feel safe, respected, and valued?

Because everything changes from there.

The goal is not to shame ourselves or others for the ways we learned to survive.

The goal is to create enough safety that new ways of being become possible.

Here are some ways to create more safety in our homes:

• Speak with respect, especially during conflict.

• Honor boundaries and consent.

• Know and express your non-negotiables.

• Take responsibility for your own emotions and healing.

• Repair after rupture, own what is yours.

• Share emotional and domestic labor.

• Listen to understand, rather than defend.

• Validate experiences, even when perspectives differ.

• Eliminate manipulation, mockery, intimidation, and name-calling.

• Encourage authentic expression without punishment.

• Seek support when harmful patterns emerge.

Finding safety in my relationship with my partner has been beautifully complex.

When we met, I was finally feeling safe in my body for the first time in my life. I had never experienced being loved, honored, respected, touched, and communicated with in such beautiful ways.

And yet, as healthy as our relationship is in many ways, we both carry wounds, conditioning, and protective patterns from previous relationships, our families, and the collective. There is so much for each of us to unlearn, heal, and release.

We recorded a visual poem, Safe, together several months ago. At the time, I was struggling to feel safe within our relationship. We both had (and still have) a lot of inner work to do.

After separating for a few months, we found our way back to one another. Since then, the safety between us has grown in ways I could never have imagined.

Safety isn’t the absence of challenges or pain. It’s knowing that both people are willing to meet themselves, each other, and the relationship with honesty, respect, accountability, and love.

I’m grateful to finally share this creation with you. I wish you safety within yourself, within your relationships, and within all spaces you choose to enter.

May all beings be safe.

Safe - Visual Poem

. . . . .

Love you all,
Melissa

My writing this week is asking for a pause from diving into the depths of the world.

Every Tuesday morning at 6am PST, I meet in a wonderful virtual community to write.

I don’t always know what wants to come through, but I show up to be a creative vessel.

This week there is stillness, less noise, not something clear demanding to be birthed.

The pause feels needed.

These past few weeks have been really hard.

I’ve been using my voice as I’m called to, with a new level of vulnerability and depth.

Doing so brings up a lot to process.

My writing resonates with some and really pisses off others.

I’ve learned that it is all medicine.

To not hold either the compliments or complaints tightly.

Whether you are inspired or triggered, I know my words are meant to be shared.

Sometimes it is very painful.

Sometimes our truths set fire to everything around us.

All that burns as we stand in our integrity is meant to.

This past weekend I applied for a couple full-time positions with local non-profits.

A couple options are significantly less than what I made at the bank and I would have much less space for my business.

The positions are also deeply in alignment with my values and it feels right.

I would be of service in a bigger way.

I would be making a bigger impact in our local community.

Sitting with the likelihood of diving back into full-time employment, continuing to support my business as it grows, and going back to school to get my bachelor’s and then master’s in social work.

I’ll be starting at the local community college next Monday after a 13-year break.

It feels like a lot.

It feels scary.

But I know I will make it work.

So today I am taking a deep breath as I write.

I feel myself landing more in my body and heart.

I see my life being shaken like a snow globe.

My work, my home, so much of my life in transition.

Nothing fully settled, nothing fully clear.

And what is most present is trust.

I trust the shaking.

All will land as it’s meant to.

This weekend my 13-year-old son was back home with me after living with my parents on the weekends for a couple months.

My relationship with my son is incredibly difficult.

I barely survived the weekend.

We are each other’s biggest teachers.

We are both healing a ton of ancestral and collective trauma within our bodies.

We are constantly invited into unhealthy patterns, deeply rooted gender and family dynamics that we are both here to end.

We are trying to find a way back to each other through it all.

For us both to feel safe, respected, valued, and loved.

That topic is a post for another time as the words that want to be written are very tender and not yet clear.

Today what is asked of me is my presence.

To simply be here with all of this.

For myself first, and from that place of inner presence, for my kids, my partner, my community, and all that is wanting to come through me.

And that is beautiful.

That is enough.

. . . . .

What is being asked of you today?

Inviting the knowing to come from within you, rather than the expectations or answers of others.

. . . . .

I am here.

Melissa

I was updating my resume recently and applied for work to supplement my self-employment income as my business continues to grow.

I came to one question: Do you have a college degree?

No.

I clicked the box and felt something crack open in my heart.

Not shame.

Not regret.

Not the expectations of others.

Longing.

A deep, undeniable longing that seemed to arrive out of nowhere.

Except it didn’t come out of nowhere, it came from a dream I had buried 13 years ago.

I was working full-time at the bank, figuring out how to be a wife and mother, and pursuing my bachelor’s degree in business.

I was exhausted, but I was also proud of myself.

I wanted more for my life.

I wanted to learn.

I wanted to grow.

Unfortunately, I was not supported in that pursuit in my marriage.

I was repeatedly told that I was a bad mother and wife for wanting a degree or doing anything to better myself.

Over time, the emotional abuse sank in.

I stopped.

The dream was packed away and placed on the highest shelf, hidden from my awareness.

For many years and even after I left the unhealthy marriage, I told myself I didn’t really need a degree anyway.

Part of that was true.

It did not hold me back in my career in banking.

I’ve taught meditation and yoga, guided healing work, facilitated groups, written, coached, and supported many people through beautiful transformations.

I know my worth is not determined by a credential.

I have built a meaningful life without one.

But another part of my story was protection.

If I convinced myself I didn’t want it, I didn’t have to grieve it.

I didn’t have to acknowledge the dream I abandoned.

And I certainly didn’t have to risk wanting it again.

Yet there I was, staring at a simple checkbox and feeling something very important happening in my body.

The same night my friend came over and shared about her experience beginning the journey to go back to school to get her master’s in psychology.

Coincidence?

I think not.

The dream had officially returned.

Not as the many whispers that I’d been resisting for a few years.

As a giant, uncomfortable YES.

I was up until midnight researching degree programs, requesting my transcripts, and applying to the local community college to finish up my transfer units.

And then a new layer became very clear.

Social work.

The more I learned, the more everything inside me came alive.

Social work is not only about helping individuals heal.

It is also about understanding and transforming the systems that contribute to suffering in the first place.

It asks questions like:

How do we help people heal while also addressing the systems, environments, inequalities, and structures contributing to their suffering?

How do we address the conditions that make healing necessary?

How do we create healthier families, communities, organizations, and societies?

How do we create meaningful change?

Reading about social work basically summarized why I know I am here on the planet.

To make an impact.

To create systemic change.

More ah-ha’s continued to flood in.

It was like I was zooming out and looking at my life, seeing all of the weirdly shapes pieces somehow fit together perfectly.

Twenty years in banking.

Many years doing the reps to get over my paralyzing fear of public speaking.

Meditation, somatic practices, coaching, energy work, writing, and facilitating groups.

The fire that roars within me about injustice, inequality, societal conditioning, harmful family dynamics, and unprocessed trauma of all varieties.

All the inner work that is continually asked of me so I can live the life I’m meant to live and support others.

I have been training.

Of course, buckets of fear also arrived.

Overwhelm, paralysis, the endless list of reasons why this might not work.

I’m too old.

It’s too expensive.

It will take too long.

What if I fail?

What if I succeed?

But beneath all of that noise was something much louder.

Alignment.

This matters and I know I can do this.

The beautiful thing is that I don’t need to figure out the entire path today.

I don’t need a bachelor’s degree today.

I don’t need a master’s degree today.

I don’t need to know exactly how the next five years will unfold.

I just need to take the next right step.

And then the next.

This isn’t just about suddenly deciding to go back to school.

It’s about giving ourselves permission to have desires.

It can feel so scary and vulnerable.

We are taught to make ourselves smaller.

More practical.

More reasonable.

We learn to explain away our dreams before anyone else can.

Then one day, something cracks open and we realize that the dream never left.

. . .

I want to leave you with an invitation to explore.

What dream have you buried?

What longing still lives quietly beneath the responsibilities, the disappointments, the stories you’ve told yourself about what is or isn’t possible?

What dream feels too big?

Too expensive?

Too late?

Too impractical?

Too much?

Maybe those reasons are true.

Or maybe they’re fear.

Your dreams deserve to be acknowledged.

Your desires deserve to be acknowledged.

YOU deserve to be acknowledged.

This is your life.

Take a breath.

Allow yourself to imagine.

Feel into what’s alive in your body.

You don’t need to take a giant leap.

You don’t need to know how.

You only need to take the next step.

And then the next.

You are magic.

I am magic.

We are surrounded by magic.

Let’s stop forgetting that.

. . .

Wielding my wand,

Melissa

Three years ago, during my meditation teacher training, I was asked to write about a topic that has impacted me for our final paper in the program.

What emerged was a story of adoption, awakening, trauma, grief, motherhood, healing, and the lifelong journey of reclaiming my authentic self.

I know that my medicine as a teacher is sharing my unfiltered experiences as I chart my own path, often bloody and bruised.

Standing beside others as they walk through fire.

Us laughing about universal fuckery, exchanging hugs, words of wisdom, and healing balm for our wounds as we trudge forth.

As I read the words I wrote again, I am in awe.

So much of my life has changed in the last three years.

What a beautiful ass kicking it has been.

So beloved community, here it is.

Sitting with the topic for my paper has been very interesting. A lot of energy came up for me and I told myself I needed to let it all marinate for at least a few weeks. I made it about a week before these words poured out in the middle of the night due to a four hour serenade by a very loud cricket that I named Surround Sound. I have yet to find him or the mini microphone and speakers I’m certain he used. It was hilarious and although I was grumpy and wanting to sleep, I was inspired by the divinely placed musical intruder.

I looked up the symbolism of crickets as I always do when creatures appear on my path: intuition, abundance, sensitivity, communication, and self-expression. The timing felt right, so I let the words flow and typed out the first draft. I looked for my muse throughout the day as I edited the paper a bit. He appeared the following night on my pillow, ready to be escorted outside, moments after I finished the final draft.

I struggled with deciding on a topic because all that I feel called to write about is so interwoven in who I am and what I share with others as a teacher. My core values are freedom, love, trust, equality, authenticity, surrender, joy, integrity, courage, and humor. Embodiment - embodying and expressing my true self - encompasses all of these values and is an intention I return to daily on my awakening journey.

I want to start out with the powerful words of Brene Brown.

“True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”

Remembering who I am and living as my authentic self is a homecoming that’s taken many years of deep inner work and continues to unfold.

So how did I find my way back to myself?

I was midwifed into being on a Monday by la luna, which explains a few things. I was with my birth mother for seven days before I was adopted by my parents. I had a mostly happy childhood. I loved playing with animals (I basically had a zoo), climbing trees, playing sports, dancing, singing, being in nature, and learning about anything and everything. Growing up, I saw, felt, and knew many things that I was told I wasn’t supposed to see, feel, or know. Life is magical and I knew and experienced this deeply as a child, but most of our world does not validate this truth.

Over the years I slowly dimmed my light and joy, I was less and less of who I truly am, I put myself in the many boxes women are often asked to step into, and I stayed there for a very long time. As a teenager, I started to process my adoption. I was always told I was special, that I was chosen. A truth you learn to sit with as an adoptee is that you were also given away. You learn to hold all of it. The gratitude for the life you were given with your adoptive family and also the pain and grief over the life unlived with your birth family.

In my early twenties, I had an intense kundalini awakening. I was very sick, lost and unsure of what was happening. I consciously began my spiritual journey to better understand my experiences and regain my health.

I have always been very connected to spirit and a very sensitive soul. I tried to numb these sensitivities in different ways for many years. Practices such as yoga, meditation, energy healing, and shadow work changed my life. I immersed myself in mystical classes and trainings. After spending most of my life feeling wrong or broken, I finally began to realize that my sensitivities are my greatest gifts.

Around this time, I met my biological sister for the first time. Our meeting was like the most magical, awkward first date you’ve ever been on. We giggled, cried, and could barely speak. Shortly after meeting my sister, my son was born. Motherhood has been my greatest and toughest teacher. To sum it up, holy shit (and add very deep sigh). It has been beautiful, painful, and everything in between. Three years later my daughter came into this world. Holding my newborn daughter in my arms made me think of my birth mother and how painful the experience of adoption must have been for her. My sister and I were inspired to begin the process of connecting with our biological families.

We met people who looked like us and had personalities similar to us, something neither of us had found in our adoptive families. With each step, I discovered a new puzzle piece of who I am. My biological mother was not ready to connect in person when we reached out initially, but eventually found me online. I will always remember the moment I realized my biological mother was requesting to be my Facebook friend. Another noteworthy moment was when my biological brother found me on ancestry.com and I discovered that I had thirteen brothers and sisters from my biological father’s side of the family. Someone joked that I had hit the biological family jackpot - I had indeed. Two months after connecting virtually, my biological mother passed away unexpectedly. My sister and I immediately hopped on a plane to Tennessee to help our aunts with everything and to discover more about who our mother was.

The experience ripped me open in the way only grief can. I could no longer tolerate many aspects of my life that were not in alignment. I continued to peel the many layers that kept me from showing up authentically in all areas of my life.

I was in a women’s group that focused on energy awareness, female empowerment, and conscious parenting. A few months after my biological mother left her body, the other women in the group and I were given our monthly assignment. We were to write about who we truly are at the deepest level. It could be a goddess, an archetype, an energy, anything to help us connect to our divinity within.

Until that moment, I had only been dipping my toes into the waters of my true self. I had a knowing of who I was, but the awareness hadn’t been fully experienced and integrated in my body. The awareness surged through me and I let myself write.

I am Alethia, The Goddess of Truth. I help all live our lives unhidden, to remember and live as our true selves. I remove all labels and expectations that keep us small. I release all judgments, comparisons, any need to please others at the expense of ourselves. I cut through illusion. I restore balance. I am the divine feminine and the divine masculine, balanced in harmony. I am joy, freedom, unconditional love, compassion, authenticity, truth, and power. This is the truth of who I am.

Energy surged through me immediately and I sobbed for hours. Another powerful awakening had begun, but this time I had the awareness to understand what was happening and tools to help my body move through each layer. I wrote, I embody and express my true self and posted these words in my home and at work, along with an image that showed a goddess holding a sword (cutting through illusion), balancing scales, with her eyes covered (inner sight & knowing). I added newly discovered aspects of who I am and energies I wanted to embody to this paper often as many transformations unfolded in my life. It was a beautiful, powerful reminder of who I am and why I am here and I read it regularly for many years.

Shortly after this experience, I left an unhealthy marriage and made other big changes in my life. I invested in trainings, opportunities, and travel that set my soul on fire. I let my heart lead the way. I had the hard conversations that needed to be had. I finally gave myself permission to live the life I am meant to live, rather than the life I realized I was living for others. I let myself be fully me, more and more each day.

A sexual trauma I experienced when I was nine years old, something I had never shared with anyone, finally rose to the surface to be healed. Stored deeply within my being, the experience had been bleeding on so many aspects of my life. The unprocessed trauma impacted my relationship with my body, safety, trust, joy, play, creativity, authenticity, boundaries, and my ability to fully own my voice and power. It profoundly affected the relationships I had with men and how I interacted with my son. This wound had remained hidden in the darkness for over twenty years, waiting for the moment my system had enough support, awareness, and capacity to bring it into the light. I honored the tenderness, courage, and many layers of unpeeling that my healing required.

Invalidation, perfectionism, unconsciously healing the crap out of everyone and everything, people pleasing, playing small, disempowerment, inequality - it’s been a journey! There has been so much pain to look at and sit with, but the experiences have been expansive rather than the constriction of living within the expectations of others.

With each layer, more of my essence comes home to my body and can be expressed in this world. With each step, there is more clarity and liberation. I continue to fiercely surrender to my path, to let all of the parts of me and my life that are no longer true and aligned fall away. I continue to be reborn over and over again.

I am here to embody and express my true self. I am here to help empower and awaken others. By being fully who I am, I help give others permission to do the same. I am here to create the new heart centered, soul aligned world that I believe we are meant to create together.

The poet and mystic Hafiz perfectly articulates the reverence I feel for the gorgeous, messy journey of being human.

“Now is the time to know that all you do is sacred. Now is the time for you to deeply compute the impossibility that there is anything but grace.”

I’m grateful for every single sacred moment, even a cricket concert in the middle of the night.

. . .

Coming back to yourself now, checking in.

Where in your life are you being invited to embody more of your authentic self?

What layers are asking to fall away so more of your essence can come home to your body and be expressed in this world?

. . .

Thank you for letting me share my story and I hope you will share yours.

Melissa

I recently made the decision to take a few months of space from my parents.

This came after sharing my experiences with the sincere intention of bringing healing to damaging family dynamics.

It became clear, after many years of attempts, that this is not currently possible.

I was repeatedly told that I was misunderstanding and misinterpreting everything, framing my experiences, feelings, and boundaries as the problem rather than what I was trying to bring into the light.

What access do people have to me, my work, and my inner world when they are not treating me with respect?

For many of us, social media is our work, our voice, our creative expression, our livelihood, and a space where we speak truthfully.

If someone’s presence is regularly causing self-editing, hypervigilance, or shrinking, that’s worth exploring.

People often see blocking someone on social media or asking for physical space as reactive or harsh.

It can also be as simple and loving as removing access that no longer feels safe, respectful, or aligned.

After sitting with this for several months, I said yes to space.

The clarity was heartbreaking and liberating.

I want to be very clear: my parents are kind, loving people and parenting is hard as hell. I regularly drop the ball as a parent, probably daily. There is no one who shows up perfectly as a parent. We are all doing our best and still handing our kids plenty to work through in whatever healing modalities they choose in the future.

Different generations, different flavors of poo to process.

My writing is never about bashing or shaming anyone.

It is about continuing to reclaim my voice, standing firmly in my integrity, sharing my medicine, and inviting others do the same.

I know I am meant to speak to these unhealthy systems, the ancestral trauma we carry, conditioning, and the deeply damaging roots that wrap around our families and societies.

I know I am here to help break these cycles by speaking up.

I will not pretend everything is ok when it isn’t.

The truth teller is often met with punishment instead of understanding.

Silence often feels safer than exposure.

The one who points to the wound is often seen as the problem, rather than the wound itself.

Yet this is my path, so here we fucking are.

Before I set this boundary, I slowed down and listened to my body.

What do I feel in my body when I imagine leaving things as they are?

What happens when I imagine creating more space?

I noticed contraction, disempowerment, and editing in one direction, followed by spaciousness and increased capacity for authentic expression in the other.

The answer was not easy or free of pain, but it was clear.

There was deep grief in taking this step, with 40 years of layers and buckets of tears.

There was a lot of energy moving through my body as I honored my clarity.

More space.

More honesty.

More expression of my voice, my soul’s work, and my truth.

And so it is.

If you are navigating something tender in your family, you are not alone.

Take a moment to slow down, connect to your heart, and listen within.

Where in your life are you editing to preserve connection?

The grief can be immense.

As is the liberation.

May we all create space for our authentic expression to breathe.

In devotion to truth,

Melissa

If my words resonated with you, here are some ways to connect with me.

Website | Instagram | Insight Timer | Substack

This past week, I buzzed my own head in my kitchen.

It felt glorious.

My hair grows really damn fast.

As do I.

At first, the haircut was simply a new layer of authentic self-expression emerging.

But with each cut, I’ve realized it’s so much more than hair.

It’s separating from female conditioning.

Redefining beauty on my own terms.

Reclaiming my entire body and identity.

And a very healthy, hardy serving of fuck the patriarchy.

I went to my parents’ house recently with my freshly buzzed head.

I put on a hat, attempting to add a layer of hiding and protection, as I headed over to pick up my daughter.

Shortly after I arrived, my dad took off my hat, made a face of disapproval, and told me he didn’t like my haircut.

I was very calm and grounded in that moment and felt like everything was moving in slow motion.

With kindness, clarity, and strength I told him that I’m not open to any of his opinions about how I express myself.

He did not acknowledge much of what I shared and responded, “I do it because I care.”

That moment cracked open something deeper in me and the painful awareness continued to grow over these past few days.

I’m recognizing how often my boundaries are not honored within my family.

The many expressions of my authentic self, my feelings, my needs, my joy, my growth, my dreams, my purpose, my relationships…a huge majority of my unique journey being met with discomfort, criticism, minimization, fear, or judgment.

Regularly being told that I’m too much, too sensitive, too dramatic, even wrong for having my experiences - either verbally or more subtly, but equally as apparent, with facial expressions and body language.

Unsolicited opinions, their projections and limitations about everything in my life.

The wound beneath so much of my pain isn’t disagreement.

It’s invalidation.

It’s thousands of boundary violations.

It’s not being honored for who I am.

There is no space to be fully me around most of my family.

It feels like I am showing up as a skeleton of myself.

It feels so suffocating.

I invited in more of this unveiling again in my marriage, divorce, and parallel parenting dynamics.

I’m seeing how this bleeds into my relationship with my children.

There is an intense reactivity that arises in me when my needs, feelings, or experiences aren’t respected by my children.

When they repeatedly cross my boundaries as children will do as they learn how to be healthy humans.

I now know where this comes from.

It’s a very old, very deep wound asking, loudly and tenderly, for healing.

The invitation I’m sitting with, and offering to you if it resonates, is reclaiming our power by honoring our own experiences.

By naming boundary violations without minimizing them.

By untangling care from criticism, control, and fear.

By allowing authentic expression to belong to us, regardless of how others respond.

By strengthening trust and self-validation within.

By meeting our reactivity with compassion instead of shame or guilt.

By asking what wound is underneath the intensity.

What younger part of us is asking to be seen, protected, and honored?

Healing has nothing to do with getting everyone to understand us.

It’s learning not to abandon ourselves when they don’t.

A very loud layer arising for me right now is a deeper understanding of who and what I will allow in my life.

Having my boundaries respected is simply non-negotiable for me.

Not perfectly, allowing plenty of space for messy growth, but with those who show up with the intention of genuinely honoring each other.

My friend recently said we are minimizing exposure and I loved how she said it.

If people continue to ignore the boundaries we set, that is information.

We don’t have to continue to say the same thing hundreds of times as we suffer.

We get to choose.

Let’s let our truth, needs, and authentic expression take up way more space.

Keep going.

LIGHT THEM UP.

Standing firmly in my evolution of wholeness and honoring you in yours,

Melissa

Diving deeply into shadow work, honoring my boundaries, becoming more grounded in my body, my knowing, and my voice.

Alone, I felt really solid.

Then I stepped into a conscious partnership for the first time in my life two years ago.

Intimate relationships have a way of unearthing everything that has been hiding beneath the surface.

EVERYTHING.

It has been a beautiful, transformative, painful, often messy healing journey.

After a lot of space and self-reflection, I’m in the process of stepping back towards a man I love deeply who also hurt me deeply.

Betrayal and dishonesty ended our relationship.

Sacred boundaries were violated, shattering trust and safety in the foundation we were creating together.

We have separated for several months and are finding our way back to each other after a lot of inner work.

We continue to meet the new, truer, more whole versions of ourselves.

It is so challenging.

And so beautiful.

A man’s presence has never asked me to evolve in these ways before.

To really look at and own all that is mine.

I know this has been his experience as well.

I’m discovering that intimate partnership is a completely different arena of inner work.

Here’s some of what I am exploring and by no means mastering…

I’m wanting to dive into the depths of love and intimacy, while also being so terrified of all that it asks of me.

I’m taking in the profound beauty and vulnerability of truly being seen and the gift of witnessing another in their wholeness.

The kraken of old wounds and survival patterns have been unleashed.

My nervous system is rewiring, very slowly, to melt into healthy, intimate partnership with consistency, honesty, and repair.

I’m in awe of the beauty of being met exactly as I am and meeting another in this way.

I’m learning to honor another without abandoning myself.

I’m allowing trust and safety to continue to grow one step at a time.

Intimacy mirrors back all the places within us that still bleed.

Partnership activates parts of us that solitude never touches.

Conscious relationship is a profound spiritual practice.

In the sacred mess of becoming,

Melissa

I was aware that I’d never felt this before.

And while I hadn’t at this level, I realized that throughout the years, even in very oppressive environments, I had been surrounded by many people who had my back.

I thought about the time I was going to get a very insignificant raise after working my ass off in the banking industry for many years. My manager at the time walked into his manager’s office and said, “I can’t pay her that.” He ended up getting me one of the biggest raises I’d ever gotten, simply by speaking up.

I must note that we still have a lot to do for equality in the corporate world, but it was beautiful to see how one man, one comment, created real change in my life.

There were many times where my other manager supported me in honoring my health and what I needed emotionally and spiritually. He respectfully allowed me space and flexibility, human to human, to be fully transparent as I struggled with how to show up in the banking space when I knew I was no longer meant to be there and my entire being was screaming at me to leave.

I’m sitting with how many experiences of allyship I perhaps didn’t fully absorb at the time because all I could see was how far away we are from true equality.

Yes, there is still so much that needs to change.

SO much.

And I am grateful for every single moment someone stands for what is right.

I also know that there were likely many moments where there were people in my corner and I will never know.

For both the seen and unseen allyship, I thank you.

This is how we get there, together.

Coming back around to what inspired me to write this…

The first experience that happened recently was a man who I barely know who responded to a comment of another man on social media.

I shared about my experience as a woman and a man responded, stating that he felt upset and blamed. The ally joined the conversation and asked him why he felt that way, with gentleness and curiosity. He then tried to help this man see what we as women are experiencing right now. It helped open up some beautiful communication.

The same day, another man shared my writing on Substack - writing that was fierce and directed at the shadow of men.

He wrote, “let this be heard.”

In both circumstances, I was brought to tears.

My entire body softened.

The allyship landed not just mentally and emotionally, but in my body.

It felt like my entire being was exhaling.

I didn’t have to fight.

I didn’t have to explain.

I didn’t have to seek to be understood.

There were no strings, just grounded integrity.

I experienced this powerful felt sensation of “I got you.”

I felt safe.

I felt supported.

I felt equality.

These men showed up with integrity, curiosity, and a genuine commitment to understand and support women without defensiveness or agenda.

I want to experience more of this.

I want to see more of this in our world.

Here are some examples of allyship.

Men supporting women:

Speaking up when another man is dismissive, defensive, or disrespectful toward women’s experiences.

Listening without interrupting, correcting, or trying to fix, especially when women are expressing pain.

Using their voice to advocate for equality and accountability.

Crediting women for their ideas and amplifying their work.

Being willing to sit in discomfort and examine their own conditioning.

Standing beside and providing support without centering themselves or seeking recognition.

Women supporting men:

Listen and allow emotional expression without taking responsibility for it.

Address harm with honesty and respect, inviting growth over shame.

Acknowledge integrity, presence, and grounded masculinity.

Respond to the man in front of you, not past wounds or patterns.

Allow care and support without assuming hidden agendas.

Speak against narratives that reduce or dismiss all men.

Recognize and respect the work men are doing to grow and unlearn.

Support men who are doing their inner work, rather than dismissing or shaming vulnerability.

For all of us, let’s call each other into growth with honesty and care, instead of judgment or competition.

Let’s refuse to normalize harmful dynamics, even when it’s uncomfortable to speak up.

Let’s celebrate each other’s voices, successes, and truth without comparison.

Let’s lead with healthy boundaries and self-responsibility.

This is relational integrity.

There are so many examples of how we can show up as allies for each other.

What have you experienced that has touched you?

What do you want to see more of?

I’d love to hear from you.

Men for women, women for men, men for men, women for women, all genders, all races, all spaces, all of humanity - we need ALL of it!

Thank you for all the ways you are showing up for yourself and others right now.

Melissa

Someone I follow on Substack, Sean Talbeaux, spoke to this beautifully and powerfully in his newest post THESE ARE NOT EXCEPTIONAL MEN.

Reading about an online rape academy that has millions of monthly viewers brought me to tears and flooded my body with rage.

These extreme expressions of the masculine shadow come from the same deeply damaging roots that are normalized in our society - objectification of women, engagement with porn, control, inequality, domination, violence, lack of integrity, self-awareness, and accountability…I could keep going.

Women, of course, have plenty to process that is ours.

The loudest aspect of shadow work for women that is directly tied to all that is unfolding with the shadow work of men is the pattern of holding for others.

I’ve personally experienced this over and over again.

I’ve seen every single woman in my life do the same.

Women are taught, explicitly and energetically, to hold.

To hold space.
To hold emotions.
To hold relationships together.
To absorb what is not owned.

We hold so much of the pain, trauma, emotions, and responsibilities of men.

This causes emotional exhaustion, self-abandonment within relationships, suppression of our needs, resentment, confusion, feeling unmet, and major impacts on our bodies and nervous systems.

We also keep the people we are holding for from doing their inner work.

I am done.

We are done.

Women are not here to carry what men won’t face.

We need to own what is ours and hand back all that is not.

This is everyone’s work right now.

Every man.

Every woman.

Our shadow work is 100% our responsibility.

We all grew in this poisonous soil.

None of us chose this.

But we get to choose what happens next.

You arrive capable, excited, and ready to play.

Almost instantly, you are seen as less than.

Not always loudly, not always directly.

But in a hundred subtle ways that land in your body before you can even name them.

You’re placed lower in the lineup.

Given fewer opportunities.

Talked to differently.

Watched more closely.

Trusted and respected less.

And suddenly, instead of just playing the game, you’re trying to prove yourself and struggling to take up a fraction of the space that’s handed to another.

I joined a co-ed kickball team last fall and experienced this, over and over again.

I watched it happen to every woman on the team.

And that’s when something became even more clear to me.

The damage isn’t just done by the people actively participating in sexist behavior.

It includes the many people who stay silent.

Most of the people on my team were kind, respectful humans.

They weren’t openly disrespectful.

They weren’t the ones making the comments, oozing inequality, or mocking women.

But they also didn’t say anything.

Not when women were dismissed.

Not when opportunities were uneven.

Not when the tone shifted.

They stayed quiet.

I called out some of what I was seeing and asked for equality on the field after one of our games.

The coach heard me out, we had a healthy conversation, and things were very different for one game.

The energy shifted and it was beautiful.

But it didn’t last.

Some of the men and the coach talked privately after the game and the following week everything was back to the normal boy’s club dynamics.

Only one man openly acknowledged the lack of equality after I spoke up.

One.

There were many days I left the field furious.

“Does nobody else see this!?”

Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

What’s even more painful than the behavior itself is the collective agreement to let it continue.

My partner at the time was also on the team and did his best to support me.

He listened. He saw and validated a lot of what I experienced. He could see how much it was affecting me.

But when the moments came when there were opportunities to say something in front of others, most importantly to other men, he stayed silent too.

As did the other women.

As much as this lights my fire, I understand it.

I’m passionately devoted to justice, and I stay quiet more than is sometimes called for as well.

It’s so uncomfortable to speak up.

It’s easier to stay likable, to stay safe, to not rock the boat.

To tell yourself that we’re overreacting or it’s not that big of a deal.

But it is a big deal and the reactions to sexism are valid.

Because as a woman, it is deeply painful to walk onto a field, into any space, and be immediately seen as less than.

To feel like your presence is conditional.

To feel like your worth has to be earned.

To feel like you are one mistake away from confirming a bias that was already there.

At one point, another woman on my team pulled me aside.

She told me I was her hero for calling these dynamics out and gave me a huge hug.

And while that meant so much to me, it also broke my heart.

She felt and experienced all of this too.

Like so many others, she didn’t feel safe enough to say anything.

Even when I called out these behaviors, I minimized what was happening in my communication to try to maintain connections, team morale, and be respectful.

I didn’t full call it what it is.

Sexism.

Blatant inequality and disrespect.

Bullshit.

This is how these dynamics continue.

Not just through overt behavior, but through silence.

Through the desire to belong.

To not get kicked out of the tribe.

To not be “too much.”

Clearly this isn’t just about co-ed kickball.

It felt way too familiar to my experiences in the banking industry.

Different setting.

Same dynamic.

Women navigating unspoken hierarchies.

Being underestimated, undervalued, and underpaid.

Less perks, less respect.

Doing all the extra tasks around the office that nobody values or gets paid for.

Watching opportunities shift in subtle, deniable ways.

People seeing it, feeling it, and saying nothing.

I don’t believe most men or women want to uphold these patterns.

But silence does uphold them.

Every single time.

Change doesn’t happen because we privately agree something is wrong.

Change happens when we name it, in real time.

When we risk discomfort and vulnerability for the sake of something more honest, more fair, more human.

And when men step up as allies?

It matters in a different way.

It matters SO much.

Because it shifts the dynamic.

It redistributes power.

It makes it harder to dismiss.

It says this isn’t just a women’s issue; it’s a human one.

I know it’s not easy.

I know what it asks of people.

I also know what it costs when we don’t.

Because this is something women are navigating every single day.

On fields.

In offices.

In conversations.

In rooms where we are still learning to fully take up the space we deserve.

This is an invitation.

To notice.

To speak.

To let what is right be expressed and honored even when it’s far from easy.

Because sometimes the most harmful thing in the room isn’t what’s said.

It’s what isn’t.

With hope, courage, and a healthy serving of rage,

Melissa

While these sources of wisdom can offer powerful perspectives, they don’t always express the truth of the present moment in the way our bodies do.

Our bodies carry deep intelligence, sensing what is safe, aligned, and true long before the mind does.

Listening to this wisdom can be complex, especially as we sort through trauma, conditioning, and past experiences that live in our nervous systems.

Honoring our body’s signals, even when they are uncomfortable or inconvenient, is an essential part of living authentically.

If any part of us says no, it deserves to be heard.

I experienced this in many ways with my previous partnership.

There was alignment on higher levels, there was deep alignment in our hearts, but my body and nervous system had been saying no for the majority of our relationship.

Our no’s can be complex as well. It might be that we have some inner healing to do first or that the timing is not quite right. It might be a future yes, but a current no.

How often do we drop into our bodies and discover what is true right now?

I used to look outside of myself for answers. Now I tend to look up to my higher self and spirit the majority of the time.

What is my highest truth?

Connecting with our higher selves, guides, spirit is freaking amazing, but everything we experience needs to be integrated in the body to truly live it.

Only we know what is true for us in this moment in our bodies.

And whatever it is, it’s valid and deserves our attention.

Have you ever experienced what I call a sacred yes? It’s a full-being YES. I feel it from my crown on the way down to my roots, chills move throughout my body. All of me is in alignment and open.

For my sacred no, I often feel a closure in my heart, womb, or both. There is contraction in my body.

Sometimes our bodily messages are much more subtle, where some parts are in alignment and flow and some are saying no or perhaps not yet.

Often what is needed for clarity is time and space.

It always starts with an intention to listen within.

Take a moment to pause and check in with yourself.

Is there something in your life where you’ve been searching for answers outside of yourself? Perhaps asking others, looking for signs, or waiting for certainty?

What does your body know?

Notice where there is expansion, contraction, ease, or resistance. Your body may not always speak in words, but it is constantly communicating through sensations, energy, and subtle shifts in your nervous system.

Can we listen more deeply to the wisdom already living within us?

Melissa