The Glow Code: Style Your Life
As a Life and Fashion Coach, I've learned that the thing we're all searching for is life is freedom. Freedom to be our true selves, and to love it.
Prone to conformity, suppression, and just trying to be the "good girl," I quieted my voice and outsourced my wholeness, hoping someone or something else would make me happy.
It was only when I allowed ALL the parts of me to surface—the messy, different, and wild parts—that I felt whole in my body. I was done searching externally for self-love and peace, knowing that I had all the power and love I ever needed right inside of me. I just had to be willing to find it, and most importantly, express it.
Style is an external expression of your inner radiance and truth. So before we go out, come inward with me!
The Glow Code: Style Your Life
Abuse, Chaos, & A School Shooting: Somatic Healing with Melissa Armstrong
Can somatic healing unlock the body’s hidden potential to process trauma? Join us for a powerful conversation with Melissa Armstrong, a Trauma-Informed Functional Health Coach who has dedicated her life to helping women recover from trauma.
Melissa's chaotic, traumatic childhood included parental addiction and abuse, a school shooting at 15, and witnessing her brother's death at 18. Unresolved trauma led to severe physical symptoms, prompting her to explore alternative healing. Over 20+ years, Melissa transitioned from nursing to being a Trauma-Informed Functional Health Coach. She now guide women in healing their mind, body, and spirit through mind-body connection, somatic work, nervous system regulation, lab testing, lifestyle changes, and nutrition. Healing is always possible!
Melissa opens up about her struggles with severe health issues, including gut problems, migraines, and insomnia, and how these challenges led her to explore holistic and functional medicine. Learn how the introduction of meditation by her now-husband marked a turning point, allowing her to break free from generational cycles of trauma and create a loving home for her children. Our conversation sheds light on the resilience required to overcome a turbulent past and the transformative power of supportive relationships in fostering healing and self-discovery.
CONNECT WITH MELISSA:
WEB: www.holistichealthbymelissa.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/holistichealthbymelissa/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/holistichealthbymelissa/
CONNECT WITH MAREN & START YOUR GLOW-UP TODAY!
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I'm here with Melissa Armstrong. Holistic Health right by Melissa. Yes, hey, tell me what your jam is, melissa, and why I'm so excited to have you on this show.
Speaker 2:So I currently run my own private practice doing online health consulting for women who have experienced trauma to heal their whole mind, body and spirit and find lasting inner peace and emotional freedom. Um, that is really my jam. Just talking about, uh, somatic release, trauma recovery, mind body connection, helping people identify lifestyle changes, um, that they can make to improve their health and overcome trauma. That's so neat.
Speaker 1:So why don't you, um, could you define like somatic Sure, because even me, who's like pretty well-versed in this world, like we use the term so much, and I just I would love like clarification, certainly at least like what you mean by that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for me, somatic means like getting out of your head and into your body and really like feeling the, the sensations that you have inside of your body and allowing those emotions and that energy to process through.
Speaker 1:Hmm, okay, so we I see the term somatic placed in front of a lot of things these days, like somatic stretching, somatic yoga, somatic breath works, somatic meditation, like so can you put the term somatic in front of anything and what? What would be the difference then, like, between somatic yoga versus yoga?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's such a good question. Um, gosh, I mean, yeah, I guess you probably can, because really I think the difference between I mean, yeah, I guess you probably can, because really I think the difference between I mean yoga is a hard one, because, like yoga, the whole intention with yoga is being really mindful and present in the moment, um, but like stretching, I think you can just like lay on the ground and stretch and be thinking about your to-do list or your bad day or whatever, and not necessarily getting as much out of it, versus like intentionally and mindfully. Stretching, I think is like where people use that somatic in front of that. Um, you know those other terms is my guess. I've never actually pondered that question, but that's a great question.
Speaker 1:I just, I've seen it come up a few times and and I've always been like, ooh, what do they? What? What makes this somatic? Versus just yeah or whatever. But um, why don't you tell me like I? First of all, I just want to say I absolutely love the work you do. That's obviously very fitting for my work and the show and what my message is.
Speaker 1:You know, I grew up in a way that really made me feel extremely disconnected from my body, and it has taken me 37 years to to really like understand what was happening emotionally in my body and get in tune with how that translated to my physical senses, and even just being able to connect to like what is a yes for me, what is a no for me, trusting my gut, like things that we knew as children and then have been totally divorced from, you know, as we've gotten older. I had a question presented to me today in a meeting and the question was what did you love to do when you were seven years old that brought you so much joy, and me and several other people in the meeting. Our answers were all revolved around like being in nature and movement somehow, and for me specifically, it was like I love to be barefoot and I love to be in the grass and feel sunshine and feel the breeze. I mean, seven years old, I'm not thinking at all about what I look like or what my intention is for the day. Seven years old, I'm not thinking at all about what I look like or what my intention is for the day, like I'm just, I'm just out in nature, loving it and and feeling so in tune with my body and loving the way everything felt on it.
Speaker 1:Um and so I don't know why we lose that somewhere along the way, but it's very important to me and I'm trying to help my kids get into that. But I noticed they want to be on their screens all the time and I didn't have screens when I was growing up. Yeah, same, yeah, okay. So I'd love to know, like, tell me about your journey and how you got into all this. Are you a registered nurse?
Speaker 2:Yes, I do hold an active RN license still, okay, um, so my story kind of starts back in early childhood, right? So I grew up in a very chaotic, volatile um household. My parents were both addicts. My dad was really mentally unwell. He had several, you know, mental health diagnoses, schizophrenic um, borderline personality, all the things on top of that. Being an addict and having his own trauma, was very physically abusive toward my mom and my older brother and that was like a regular occurrence that it just he just beat them up like in the house all the time you know, just like in front of you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when were you spared from that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, he wasn't physically abusive toward myself and I have two younger sisters. Um, my brother had a different dad, so it was it was really my brother and my mom that took the brunt of his anger and trauma is really trauma that he had. That was manifesting, you know, in his emotional lability, and the drugs obviously didn't help, Um, but yeah he, it was just like in the living room, just like just absolutely crazy to think about it is crazy to think about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what was it like? I'm sorry I just have so many questions as we go through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 1:Feel free to pass me on. Um, but your mother, what was it like for her? Was she like a very submissive kind of that stereotypical? Um, what? What's the word for the abused wife, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think she she wasn't like the traditional, like submissive, like they. They definitely got into it because she was kind of, I think, like feisty sometimes, like as well she should be like.
Speaker 2:She wasn't the typical like abused woman who just like cowered in the corner and like she often would like speak up and and like talk back to my dad. She really they were both using when I was really little, um, and she wanted to get clean and he didn't and um her, and they had lots of arguments about that because you know he was a abusive drug addicted, you know controlling man, and he wanted to continue to control her and she didn't want that. So, um, wow, ultimately they did end up getting divorced when I was six and my dad left and didn't come back, um, in any significant stance. We heard from him from time to time but he was not around. He didn't pay child support. I rarely saw him.
Speaker 2:If you know, I could probably count on one hand how many times I, how many times I saw him and you know, until I was, until he died, um, and then my mom got clean and um, but as a result of her own trauma and everything she had been through with my dad and all of that, she was very verbally abusive and emotionally unavailable and completely disconnected from us. Um, and that continued through my childhood and then, when I was 11, I was molested by my friend's grandfather, and when I was 15, I was at a school shooting and um my yeah, the shooter grow up.
Speaker 2:Southern California, in San Diego. Wow, and there was a shooting at my school. The shooter was one of my friends. He was at my house the night before it happened so I had a lot I didn't know. He didn't tell me, but I had a ton of guilt for not knowing, for not being able to predict the future and, um, obviously, just the trauma of like experiencing that and watching people like be shot in the middle of the school.
Speaker 2:Wow, so you were very present like in yeah, wow, it was like it happened in, like we called it the quad, so it was like the center of the school was like it was San Diego, so it was outside, you know, um, and it was like the center of the school, it was just like an open area, and he just literally like pulled out a gun and started shooting people and so, like, at first I didn't even know what it was. I didn't, I had never even heard a gun before, so I didn't even know what to think it was. I for some reason thought it was like firecrackers and a trash can. It sounded very close, and turns out it was. I for some reason thought it was like firecrackers in a trash can. It sounded very close, and turns out it was very close. But I thought it was like somebody like doing prank, pulling a prank or something, and um, and then, you know, it didn't take long and people started running, and then I realized that it was like a life or death situation, um, so it was like that, just experiencing that.
Speaker 2:And then you know everything that happened over the next like you know, few minutes, few hours, where, like, we were barricaded in a room for a period of time with, and one of the students that had been shot, who didn't end up dying but had been shot, was in the room with us. So he was like bleeding profusely and I'm like 15 and have no idea like what is even happening and thinking we're all going to die, you know. And then eventually the police arrested him. He was just a single shooter. He's currently in prison, but, um, not knowing at the time, and this is back in 2001.
Speaker 2:So in 2000 is when the Columbine shooting happened. So that was really like this is like kind of the beginning of like, where it was like really mainstream to like hear about it on the news and they were like playing clips of it, you know, and um, but it was really like that. It was like a, it was like a movie and um, where, you know, we were barricaded for a period of time. Then they didn't know if he was, you know, acted alone or if there was other people. So when they had already apprehended him, but in evacuating the rest of the school, we all had to walk out with our you know hands on our head with the rifles, like you know. It was just terrifying, absolutely terrifying.
Speaker 1:Were you barricaded in the room with the shooter? No, no, you were managed to kind of get away from him.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So he was kind of like on one side of the quad. I was on the other side of the quad and I just like turned around and like ran into one of the rooms that was close to that side. And it wasn't long either. It was like you know, I don't know, I'd say probably less than 30 minutes for sure. Like it's not like we were there for hours or anything. Like he was apprehended pretty quickly, um, but yeah, it was just. And then just having that guilt too, because like I I spent time with him 12, 14 hours before that and I had no idea, but I had all this responsibility, like felt this like sense of responsibility, like how come I didn't know? Why didn't he tell me? I would have told somebody. Like just, you know the guilt that comes from that Um which obviously is not founded, but very understandable.
Speaker 1:You know, I think everyone, anyone with a conscience, would feel exactly the same way. I think you know, as parents, we watch our kids do things and we feel so much responsibility when it's, you know, and there is a measure of responsibility for parents, but you know what I'm saying. Like, yeah, people make their own choices and but that is so much to handle as a teenager, especially after having been through the things you did already, with so much chaos in your home, abuse, unavailable parents and then molestation, and then it's like Melissa that is. That is like I've interviewed a bunch of people and talked to a lot of people and yours story is very intense and, yeah, so I just, I just my heart feels for you and that poor girl.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, that was a really dark time in my life and I was very, you know I struggled a lot with the panic, the PTSD, suicidal ideations um you know, in and out of psychiatric hospitals, counseling, all of the things, and then when I felt like I was kind of like coming out of that haze, when I was 18, my brother, who was five years older than me, was killed in a tragic accident right in front of me.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness. So, yeah, oh, oh, oh, that's awful yeah, it was really devastating.
Speaker 2:I feel like that doesn't even accurately describe what I went through. Um, but it that was really kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back. I couldn't. I. I was so unwell emotionally and mentally, spiritually prior to his death and then, once he died, it was just I felt like I had nothing to live for. My mom was completely, obviously beside herself with grief and anguish and all the things right and um, everything, all of our past and the past with my dad and everything just like resurfaces when somebody dies, especially tragically, like that. He was 23. So it's not like it was his time or anything. Um, and I was really unwell emotionally, mentally, and I was really unwell emotionally, mentally, physically, um, and started at that time is really when, like, the physical symptoms started to manifest for me. I started to have a lot of gut issues, skin issues, migraines, insomnia, um, just overall, so unwell in every sense of the word.
Speaker 2:I decided that I wanted to pursue nursing because I wanted to help people and I think I was kind of born to be a healer. I mean, how could I have not been a healer, given everything that I had been through? And, yeah, um, I pursued, started pursuing nursing school and simultaneously pursuing like, care for myself physically, um, and was met with, you know the here's. You're depressed, take these antidepressants, you're having panic. Take these, um, benzodiazepines. You have insomnia, here's a sleeping pill, you have a rash, here's a steroid, that kind of thing, just getting medications and we're just band-aids. They weren't actually fixing the problem and, um, so I did that for a number of years and then, when I was about 24, my now husband, then boyfriend, suggested that I try meditation.
Speaker 2:Before my now husband, then boyfriend, suggested that I try meditation and he said you just he was reflecting back to me Like you just seem so like hyper elevated all the time. You just can never relax. If you could just relax, I think you would feel a lot better. And I didn't even know how to do that Like at all. What does that even mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I tried and I realized, um, pretty quickly that I could actually feel a sense of peace and calm that I had never experienced in my life and it really evolved from there and my nursing career, you know, wasn't aligning with my values as I learned more about like somatic work and like the mind body connection and trauma and everything that I had been through and its role in what I was experiencing physically and how you know, looking back and seeing like wow, I had trauma, but like so did my mom and her mom and her mom like it goes back five generations and just putting it all together, the, the traditional model and my career in, and what it was was not aligning with what I wanted and what I felt like was my calling, what my, my assignment on earth um is and um it eventually evolved to me learning about, like natural medicine, um, pursuing education in holistic medicine, coaching and functional medicine to where I am now.
Speaker 1:Ooh, I feel like I need a big deep breath to Ooh. That was like. I think what I'm feeling actually is kind of the like, admiration and like inspiration from like sitting down with you here and I know we're on a computer screen but feeling like the very put together, grounded, peaceful, happy person that you feel to me to be, and connecting that with someone who has been through so much insane and intense trauma that lasted for so long. And I, you, you know, you mentioned in there your husband and I had this thought when you were talking earlier like, after going through so much turbulence, having such dysfunctional parents obviously not a good modeling of romance and relationship that way and and then all the other things that happened to you, how, that way, and and then all the other things that happened to you, how, like your sense of safety and security and trust in the world and in people I would imagine would be so shattered.
Speaker 1:And so I I guess I know this isn't the focus of our conversation, but I am curious like did you have so much inner work trying to get to a point where you could even like love someone like that, or or let them love you and and be in some kind of committed, loving relationship, like, I think, just my own trauma, which was nothing at all like anything you experience. It was really difficult for me to just get really vulnerable with another person. And so I'm those are the things I'm thinking about as you're talking and just your, just your sense of security and stability in the world in general. I mean, I would be so scared all the time of all the things that could happen, because everything kept happening to you. It's like constantly getting the rug swept out from under your feet.
Speaker 1:So that's just so much and I think that's what I'm sitting here feeling like. It feels so shocking when you tell me these things, because the person you seem to be now is is seems like yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Do you know what?
Speaker 1:I'm saying Like, yeah, so yeah, no, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Statistically, like it's. It's so crazy because, like I know, I'm a nurse by trade, right, so, like I've done, I have a bachelor's degree, I've done all the psychology and sociology and all those things, like I know statistically, like I am one in a million, a billion like the fact that I was able to, like, pull myself out of that and not repeat those those cycles. I broke the cycle. Like my children my boys are three and eight now like are growing up completely different than anything that I could have even ever imagined for myself when I was their age. And, um, and yeah, to answer your question about my relationship with my husband, it's, it's incredible, I think it's so. It was such a, it was divine, like that's the only way I know that I can describe it, because I know for a fact that everything that I've been through has led me to this exact moment in my life. I know that, beyond a shadow of doubt, this is my assignment. And, um, I also know that my life would look so different if my husband would have been somebody like, say, my dad, I, my life would look very different.
Speaker 2:And I met my husband when I was 16, I'll be 40 next year, so, um, we've been together for longer than we haven't been Um, and, yes, there was an insane amount of inner work that went on, that went into me to be able to love him and be loved by him. My saving grace in that whole situation is that he has always been somebody that's just been very strong and and um, firm and understands himself. And, you know, while of course he had his own you know history and childhood and all of that, he he's always just been a very level-headed, clear, strong, good person and he loved me in spite of it. I was pretty crazy in my early twenties, like I've often we've talked about it and joked about it, like I can't, I can't believe that he stuck stuck with me because I was definitely, I was a basket case when I was in my early twenties Like emotionally volatile, that kind of thing Like difficult to be in a relationship with, kind of crazy Is that what you mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Just like emotionally like unstable. I was very, I was panicked all the time about everything. Yeah, what you described like my sense of safety and security, Like I was always worried like we would get into the car, we would go to Costco, we would do like just do life, and I would be like constantly like literally looking over my shoulder, and like we would go to Costco. I remember on I can think of probably a handful of occasions where we I, we'd go to the store and I'd be like sobbing in the parking lot because like a car door slammed or like a fear that I had just like imagined in my head that it was, and I was like couldn't get out of the car because I was so panicked. And he would just like try to talk to me and try to calm me down, and if it didn't work, we just left. Like there was lots of times where he was like, all right, let's just go home, Like this is not worth it, and we would just go home and he, um gosh, he's amazing, he's the best.
Speaker 1:Thing ever. Yeah, a lot, is he a very patient man.
Speaker 2:Very, very patient.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I just find that very tender. I love hearing about people whose relationships withstand such hard circumstances and feel like they were divinely connected, because I feel very strongly about that with my current husband. Uh, okay, sorry, I had I wanted to go back for a minute. So, oh, had you been dating him since you were 16? Like were you guys romantically involved from that whole time? Yeah, wow, uh, so did he? Did he go to your high school where the shooting was?
Speaker 2:no, he is um three, almost three years older than me, so oh okay, when he was already graduated. But he went to a different high school.
Speaker 1:Okay, oh, all right, um, okay, so thank you for touching on that. That's like that's always really special to me to hear about that. Let's go back, um, when you were talking about how you kind of started getting into meditation, was that kind of like the maybe like the start of your unlock for you in your wellness journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that was totally the start for me. That was really when I realized like I remember meditating and feeling calm and peace and remember, and I remember being like well, wait a second, like why is the? Why did the doctor never tell me about meditation? I've never heard of this as a therapy, like a, a, a treatment modality you know, and and um, yeah, that was really it.
Speaker 2:It evolved for me. I started really consuming a lot of information about like. I remember like Googling, like why does meditation work? And just and reading and researching about different types of meditation and why does it work, and neuroplasticity, and that led me onto a path and this is, you know, 20 years ago. So we're talking like the beginning. I feel like trauma now is is kind of like a kind of a, a key word right, like it's a buzzword for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, but like you know, actually I guess it wasn't quite 20 years ago, it was like more like 15, 16 years ago it was it was not as well known and talked about. So it was like trying to understand, like how my trauma was affecting my physical health, how it was affecting my mental health, how it was, uh, perpetuating unhealthy habits and behaviors and, um, learning how to break out of that was like a huge, huge learning curve, but meditation was the first step for me.
Speaker 1:What kind of meditation?
Speaker 2:did you start with Guided meditation? I started with Deepak Chopra's 21 day free meditation challenges.
Speaker 1:I used to get an email on my inbox and I would just do that and I don't know how or why I stuck with it Like I was. Just I just did, yeah. Hmm, I could imagine that maybe living in so much like keyed up tension all the time, that chance to just sit and and like feel something besides that for even the briefest of seconds, probably struck some kind of nerve in you or cord in you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I craved it.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:I wanted that, like when I would meditate and I would feel calm. I was like I couldn't wait until the next second that I could do that, um yeah that's.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting too, because I would. I would think that, like so many people have such a hard time getting into meditation. It's so uncomfortable for them to sit with themselves quietly like that. So very neat that it was like such a cathartic experience for you. Yeah, so what kind of? You did a lot of research. I mean 15 years ago, like the internet was not what it was today. Now I feel like there's so many coaches and experts and gurus and so many opportunities to get help from. I mean, you just take your pick, you know who resonates with you. Um, but it wasn't like that 15 years ago. Right, your Google experience was very different than it is today. So how did so? Meditation was kind of the first step for you. And then keep, keep me going here. I'm really enjoying this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so meditation, and then I started learning about like tapping EFT I did. I learned about EMDR cause I had been in therapy my whole life and it really, you know, take it or leave it Didn't really help much until I started EMDR.
Speaker 1:What's EMDR?
Speaker 2:EMDR is a yeah, it's eye movement, desensitization, reprogramming, so it's a, it's a, it's a therapy technique that they um, my particular. There's different ways that they can do it, but, um, my therapist that I started with had like things that I would hold in my hand that would buzz in one hand or the other, um, as I was telling certain stories, and then they would make them buzz opposite ways, to kind of um, make your brain, both sides of your brain, work and um, um, kind of repackage, the, the process or the excuse me, the trauma, reprocess the trauma and um, so you can think of it from a different perspective and not have it be so traumatizing, um, and helping release all that stored energy, that stored trauma.
Speaker 1:Um and and the tapping. Did you do that on your own or with a therapist?
Speaker 2:Nope, just by myself, like same thing, like Ian, or uh. Um, deepak Chopra is like I. I found stuff on YouTube and started watching stuff on YouTube and um, reading a lot about it and just started doing it on my own and tapping.
Speaker 1:I've done tapping a little bit on myself, but, um, could you describe it a little bit for anyone listening who doesn't understand how that works?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so emotional freedom technique is the other word for it. Um, it's basically, it's based out of, like Eastern Chinese philosophy, that your body and everything in your body is energy, and sometimes you get stuck energy and it can't flow. So the idea is that if you tap on certain meridians in the body, uh, that you can allow that energy to flow more freely. Um, so you start, you know, by tapping on the outside karate chop of the point of the hand, and then you move through different pieces, uh, portions of your face and your upper chest, um, to help that energy flow, and you just repeat affirmations, um, or you really can't do it wrong. Um, the idea I think the original idea is that you're supposed to like, repeat, like a limiting belief. Um, me personally, I just repeat affirmations I, I, I think in general, that just works better for me, um, and that's kind of what I encourage my clients to do too.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, Okay, so you really did take a deep dive into kind of all the the alternative or holistic side of healing, which I'm very drawn to as well. So, um, thank you for answering all these questions. I like have so many as we go through, but you can keep on with your journey here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then I just really started um doing a lot of deep like introspective work with reading books about certain things Like, uh, I remember one of the first books that I read was care Carol Dweck's book called Mindset and all about like how your thoughts can really impact your reality. Right, and reading all kinds of different books and researching on the Internet, trying out things on my own journaling, researching on the internet, trying out things on my own journaling. I used to journal a ton about I still journal, but I used to just write a ton um about what I was thinking and feeling, and getting it all out on paper was always very helpful and um provided me with a lot of clarity. And I feel like what I tell people now, when I'm working with clients one-on-one and telling them to journal, is I feel like once you put it on paper, that's when you have the agency to be able to change it, because you can analyze it from a different lens. When it's on paper, you can determine if it's true or not. So assess the validity of that statement, cause most of us tell ourselves a lot of like really terrible things all the time You're not worthy, you don't serve this X, y, z Um, and once you determine the validity of it, that's when you have the agency to change it. So, um, I did that, I continued with counseling, did EMDR?
Speaker 2:Um yeah, started taking better, a lot better, care of myself and learning more as I was progressing through my like into my nursing career. Um, I learned more about like nutrition and you know the, you know sleep hygiene, like, and different tools about, um, lifestyle and other stress management techniques and, um yeah, different stuff like that. It was a journey. It was a long journey.
Speaker 1:Long journey and and really kind of never ending right.
Speaker 2:Oh never ending.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, okay, I'm still just taking all of it in. What was the effect like on your husband and your family as you moved through all of this? And then when did you kind of turn this into your like work Cause I know you became an RN and then when did you kind of like shift out of maybe the more traditional nursing profession and developing your own system, I guess?
Speaker 2:Um, I think the effect on my husband was kind of the same. Like he me, healing allowed him to learn a lot about himself and while he, you know, had a very different upbringing and and didn't have, you know, big traumas and all of the things that I was dealing with, he learned about himself and stress management and improving himself along the way and learned a lot about me, and we learned a lot about how to communicate with each other really effectively and efficiently. So that was, you know, good for our relationship. I became a nurse when I, in 2010 is when I was um finished nursing school and was licensed, and then I worked in traditional medicine in like a hospital setting.
Speaker 2:For most of that uh, since then, for most of that time until 2020, is when I left traditional nursing um and pursued more like natural medicine. That's when I started getting. I started my education for holistic nursing. I got certified in holistic nursing, nurse coaching um, did functional medicine education and worked for various like wellness clinics, chiropractors, that kind of thing, and then I opened my own practice in early January 2023 and went full-time last year last summer.
Speaker 1:Um, did COVID have an impact on you leaving the traditional nursing world? Yes, Okay.
Speaker 2:So I heard 2020 and I was like, hmm, I we're in that you decided to leave that the model already the traditional health care model as far as, like the, the first line of defense for the traditional health care model is a pill or a procedure and, um, I want to be clear that I don't discount and I don't completely not believe in that system Like thank God for ICUs, ors, ers and acute medicine, like that for health and chronic illness and long-term longevity, longevity, health, happiness, that model sucks and that and I understood and felt that imbalance and like misalignment in my own values and that model before COVID happened and then COVID just blue, right, yeah, intensified it and shown a light really where it didn't agree with you anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pillar, when you say pillar of procedure, can you clarify what that means a little bit more? A pill or procedure, oh, pill or procedure, okay, yeah, well, I'm glad you clarified that for me. Okay, pill or procedure? Oh, interesting, yeah, um, okay. So was that like a scary leap for you to take to leave that world and then change.
Speaker 2:I think to say that there was no fear is not true, um, but I, while I did feel like there was some fear there, I felt certain that it was the next step for me, that it was the right step for me. Um meditation for me in in the early years of my experience with it, really um became uh, evolved for me into a relationship with God and where I would hear God speak to me and feel a connection to our higher, to a higher power, and I feel like that has grown and grown and grown and um, my faith has become very important to me and that's kind of where I leaned back on when I was considering and um definitely is uncertain, right, and now I have two little kids, so it's like I have, I have mouths to feed.
Speaker 2:So, certainly there's. You know, I need to still be able to pay my mortgage and buy groceries, um, but yeah, I just trust that. This is this is my call, this is my assignment and I and I trust the process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, I love that.
Speaker 1:It because there is so much pressure, um, when you especially when you have children or other people depending on you, um, but to know that something just is not for you and to be able to take the leap out of that, that shows a lot of bravery. And I especially love how you talked about how your meditation is a spiritual practice for you. It's very much for me too, and being able to connect with the divine and develop a faith system through that method is so simple, right, even it's actually a very complex thing, but it's such an. It's a simple and practical thing anyone can do at any time and any day practical thing anyone can do at any time and any day, anywhere, right, yeah, so you said you worked at like a bunch of clinics you got I didn't even know there was such a thing as like nursing, holistic nursing or, sorry, holistic nursing certifications.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that was even a thing. So how did you find out about all that and and what did that mean for you? Can you like, can you be a holistic nurse without getting a certification, or was it? Can you, sorry? Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Speaker 2:yeah, so, I'll answer your last question first. I think, yes, I think in in nursing, just being educated as a nurse, like, even if, like traditional nursing, like you're taught when I went to school, in like the two thousands, like you're taught that as a nurse, or like in in the medical profession, we think of people as like a whole, whole person, which is like. Holistic just means like the whole person, right, it's a complex system of interconnected parts that the sum of all of those parts are greater than in one individual part, right, so like when you're considering the whole person. That's, that's the idea of holistic and that's the basis of like nursing practice is your, but in in in action, and because our system is broken, in my opinion, um, I think that we are limited to trying to separate the pieces of that whole person.
Speaker 2:So you go to your cardiologist for your heart, you go to your endocrinologist when you have diabetes, you have, you know, you have all these different doctors who specialize in different things and, like, your pulmonologist is going to, if you're asking about your lysinopril, your pulmonologist is going to be like, go talk to your cardiologist. Like, I know I'm not, I don't do that, um, which I feel like is just an is a recipe for poor care, poor healthcare, um, and sickness. And then add in the fact that we live in a country that is based on capitalist you know structure. So like money makes the world go around in our country, so like it's just become a big profit margin for people.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, especially with the pills, right yeah.
Speaker 2:The doctors are literally, and I again I want to be clear like that. I believe in ICUs, or yours, and I think that there's bad apples everywhere, but in general the doctors and nurses who work inside of that model are great people and truly are looking at, truly want to help people. They just work in a broken system. The system is broken, it's not them broken system. Um, the system is broken, it's not them. Um. So, and then as far as like, holistic nursing, so so I think that all nurses are holistic nurses. As far as getting like board certified, there is lots of different board certifications, from holistic nursing to like you can be board certified in chemotherapy. Like I started my career in the pediatric ICU. I worked in a pediatric ICU for the first seven years of my career. I was a CCRN, which is a critical care RN, like board certified critical care RN, um. So there's lots of hundreds dare I say, hundreds, I think, um of different certifications that you can get um. Just, you know, doing, completing certain the, whatever the requirements are for that certification, and then taking a test typically is is how you do it. So I don't recall exactly how I figured out um about this. It's kind of coming to me. I was very much. It was before COVID 2019, 2018, 2019. I was recognizing that the model just wasn't working for me.
Speaker 2:I was in my early thirties and I'm thinking like, am I going to do this for the rest of my life? Because I feel like I could die if I have to show up to work one more time and have these like. At the time I was working in a clinic, in an outpatient clinic where I was. I was functioning in a very independent role called um nurse clinic, where I basic stuff like respiratory UTI, um, you know, strep throat where I would basically see patients from start to finish. So bring them back, do their vitals, do their, get their history, do whatever testing necessary, and I would follow a protocol and if they lined up with the protocol I would treat them.
Speaker 2:If they didn't line up with the protocol, I would have to go to the physician who was overseeing me and who signed all of the charts, because obviously I'm not a physician so I can't prescribe Um and but most of the time they fell into the protocol and you would just treat them from per protocol Um. And I remember just being like is this what this is? Because this sucks. I do not want to do this. 22 patients a day Like you literally cannot even like. Good luck going pee, good luck having one second to think about the next step or to think at all. You know, like it's. It's just such a and in my already like, I think tendency to have like a hypervigilant nervous system, like that environment was just really really bad for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I would imagine like subconsciously triggering from all the chaos of your childhood.
Speaker 2:Yeah that chaos just added to that, to that feeling of not being not feeling safe, lack of security, those kinds of things, and um, so that model was not aligning with me and I started like researching, like online, how holistic, just being, like I want like more autonomy in my job. I want to actually help people. I remember talking to people. I think what happened is I talked to somebody at work who told me to talk to somebody else and I talked to her and she's like oh, have you ever heard of holistic nursing? Like I'm a holistic nurse.
Speaker 2:She worked in the same organization that I did, so she really didn't utilize it, but I started looking and I think that's how I started like even got word of it and I was like, oh, like I wonder if I use this and then like could do something in more, like a wellness center or something. I don't even think it was really an idea for me to even have my own practice at that point. Um, yeah, and it again, it just kind of was an evolution where I was like oh, wow, like I can actually use this and like everything I do now currently in my own practice is completely within my scope of of a nurse. Like I just I really focus on like somatic work, lifestyle modifications and education.
Speaker 1:Okay, Wow. So you made the move then to holistic nursing and did? You said you had worked at various clinics before branching out on your own. Was that like a very relieving and um you know, prayer answering time for you to finally work in that space, and was that a good experience?
Speaker 2:It was and it wasn't um it was it.
Speaker 2:It was in the fact that it got me out of traditional medicine, which I really needed out, but it wasn't in the fact that I realized really quickly, once I got into that model, that I was like wait, I'm still working for somebody else and I still feel like a number. I feel like I'm completely replaceable, like if I didn't show up to work tomorrow, they'd just hire somebody else and, um, I hated that feeling and I really wanted, um, my youngest was born in July 2020. So I was, you know, really struggling with like schedule having autonomy in my schedule, self-schedule, like the freedom and flexibility in my schedule, is really what I craved. I wanted to be able to work and also be a mom. I want to be able to pick my kids up and take my kids to school and like, good luck finding a boss that's like oh yeah, go ahead, or hours and go pick your kindergartner up. Like no, it was not, it was not.
Speaker 2:So I realized that I really needed to be independent. I wanted to have. I wanted to help people on my own terms. I wanted to have the freedom and flexibility in my schedule. I wanted to be able to be a present and available mom and be able to go to my kids recital on a Tuesday at 10 15, if that's when it was, because that's when a lot of them are um, like my preschooler, just at the end of this last school year, had a like tea time with mom and it was at 10 15 in the morning on a Tuesday. Like when would I have been able to go to that if I had a regular job, you know? Um, so yeah, that's kind of how I made the jump.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I resonate with all of that. I worked full-time as an English teacher for a stint while my girls were very, very little and it was. It was like torturous on me in that aspect. I liked what I was doing, but to be so ruled by the schedule and miss everything, it was hard on them, it was hard on me. It wasn't what I wanted either. So now you've opened your own practice and I would love for you to like kind of explain what you do with clients and what. What type of clients come to you. Like what are they seeking treatment for? Do you spend like time more on the medicinal side of things or are you really almost like working like therapeutically with them? Do you lead them through exercises? Like tell me kind of paint the picture. I'm so curious about what you do, you know, day to day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my business is holistic health by Melissa. Um, I'm a trauma informed functional health coach, so I help women overcome personal and intergenerational trauma to achieve lasting inner peace and emotional freedom. So I spend, um, I spend a lot of time. I use functional medicine, specialized functional medicine, lab testing to identify imbalances within the body that we can correct using lifestyle uh, stress management, detoxification and sometimes some supplements. Um, we do that and we work through trauma, uh, stress, learning, all the stress management techniques, uh, lifestyle techniques to really better their whole mind, body and spirit.
Speaker 2:I focus a lot on somatic work. So we do a lot of meditation, tapping, breath work, um, on every call. I start every call with every client, always with some sort of somatic exercise for five, the first five to 10 minutes. I found in my you know, two, three years now of doing this type of work that if I just give a client a handout or I said, oh, you should try meditation, like 99.9% of the people won't do it because they don't know how, they're intimidated, they're fearful, they think it's dumb, they don't you know, like there's some reason but they won't do it. So I like to force them to do it, to try it, um, and they're paying me.
Speaker 2:So, um, I expose them to lots of different types of exercises breathing exercises, tapping exercises, affirmations, visualizations, that kind of thing, um and meditation, so that they can. A lot of clients, you know, start with one and then they're like, eh, and then I asked them how did you like that? I didn't really like that so much, it didn't really, you know, feel great, it feels awkward, whatever, next time we try something else, how'd you like that? Oh, wow, that was really cool, I really liked that. So then it's like okay, the next time we're going to try that again, and then maybe you could try that at home for five minutes and kind of like, building up their muscles, those their somatic muscles, that way.
Speaker 1:That's so neat and, I think, so needed, like I I love, actually, when I'm on meetings or calls and the first thing we do is something like that. So like the relief of taking time out from the chaos of the world and just sitting for a minute and getting like grounded and connected, really I feel like lays the space for you to be able to work on all the other things, right, yeah, yeah. So Do you have any like specific examples or stories of your work with a client that comes to mind that you'd feel inspired to share about?
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, I mean, I feel like I. So I've got a couple clients that come in, come to mind. Most of the clients that I come that come to me, they, they, the to me, they, they, the. A common complaint is like I just don't feel good, so, like I, they tell me like I should not feel, I should not feel this way. I should feel happy, but like I don't, and it's usually like either anxiety, depression, some physical manifestations, so like gut issues, other issues, pcos, things like that, but I just don't feel good. Fatigue and then like mood stuff is all almost always a factor. Um, and I have, I think, two different clients that I think like right off the top of my head, one that I'm still working with, one I haven't been working with for a couple of months, but, um, one girl came, came to me very like, kind of like probably one of like the best looking clients like on paper like she seemed like she had it all together.
Speaker 2:She kind of already knew a lot of like healthy habits, um, really, um kind of already kind of really well, um, her complaint, her biggest complaint, was gut issues. She had like um digestive issues. When she would eat she would feel very like bloated and have like kind of generalized abdominal discomfort and um, uh, she thought it was all related to her hormones. Turns out it was in part, but hormones are always a a downstream effect. It's never hormones are the cause. It's always something else that's causing um that um, but she but her the the reason why she came to me. It was cause she had been trying for I think, two or three years to get pregnant and she couldn't. Um, they already had two, but they were trying for another and, um, she we worked together for almost six months and she we actually it was like five months and she ended up going on pause because she got pregnant.
Speaker 2:Um, once we like really balanced her hormones and the things that I found with her were primarily stress.
Speaker 2:She was stressed out of her mind.
Speaker 2:She had no idea she, when I asked her how, how her stress was, she was like, oh, I, I feel great and then it took a while.
Speaker 2:But then she was like oh, now I realize, and part of that was introducing those like meditation and mindfulness practices in her and then having her remove them. So like let's introduce this for a week and see how you feel once you remove them for a week, because it's that a, b, a, so like a is without them, b is introducing them and then going back to a cause, a lot of people you'll introduce those things and then they're like yeah, I don't really notice a difference and it isn't until you remove them that they're like oh, yeah, okay, I see that that was actually making a difference and I couldn't tell Um. So we really got her stress under control and then some of her testing indicated that she had a lot of like gut. Her gut microbiome was an absolute wreck and um, once we really like restored her, her microbiome rebalanced, uh, all of the bacteria and um got rid of the parasites that she had that she felt a lot better.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, I'm like when you first started describing her. I'm like I'm having a deja vu experience because I've been struggling with the exact same things. I'm like is this me?
Speaker 2:No, it's definitely not you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, wow, okay. That's so powerful Interesting that she didn't realize the amount of stress she was under.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like that's not uncommon. Um, I, I feel like I really I work with a lot of women who just and that's, I think, generally why they they say like I just don't feel good. It's because they are putting, they're so disconnected from their body and what they're actually feeling. They're just living for everybody else and they're just like constantly caring for other people. 90% of people, the women that I help, are moms. So we tend to just put everybody else first and and I actually recommend the opposite I think that you, it's just like being up flying on an airplane. When you're on an airplane, they tell you, put the oxygen mask on yourself first, because you have to so that you can help your child.
Speaker 2:And I think life is no different. Like you have, you cannot pour from an empty cup. You have to fill your cup first and you have to be able to recognize when you need to have your cup filled, because if you can't recognize that, nobody else is going to. I mean, my husband is fantastic and he is a super hands-on dad and loves me to death, but there is like zero chance in this planet that he's going to be like honey. I feel like you probably need a break Like you should go take. You know, like I'm recognizing that you're feeling a little burnt out and you need a break from the kids Like it doesn't have. You know, nobody else is going to recognize that. I need to recognize that for myself and I need to be able to communicate that to the people that I love and that who love me and, um, build a sense of security and safety within myself, learn to trust myself. All of those things came over. You know, 20 years and obviously I'm still on a. It's a lifelong journey, so yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:I'm laughing about that. Because like, yes, that's, I'm laughing about that because like, yes, no one's going to be like, let me take the kids. Yeah, some people will you know, but it's. But I think in general, we have devalued and really like diminish who's usually home with the kids, although it does seem to be that even if both sexes are working, generally the women still take the brunt of the mental load and management, for whatever reasons. But, um, I think we there's like a sense of well, if they're home with the kids, it's easy, right, and I'm like, oh, it's so the opposite. Like, talk about chaos.
Speaker 2:Yeah, being home with the kids is a thousand times harder than going to work, yes, and certainly like.
Speaker 1:maybe the pressure might feel different, like if your primary role is caretaking versus someone whose primary role is like out earning income right, different level of pressure. But as far as intensity and difficulty I mean parenting it never stops and the amount of pressure and guilt we place on to be a good parent and I think that might be the problem is that we can recognize if someone is working an outside job and say you really need a break from that. It's so stressful and there's no emotional attachment to that. So we maybe don't feel like it's wrong to say I need a break from all that, but it's really difficult as a mother to say I really need a break from my children. I can't do this for one more hour today. Right, there's like so much emotional guilt that that carries.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause, then you're, if you're not there for that time, you're like, oh, but I should be there, like it's so-and-so, going to know to give the right snack or to tell them this and this situation. And like we put yeah, we put all the pressure on ourselves and and we don't give ourselves the grace and the like permission to not be on 100% of the time Like we are. You're human. We're human Like even moms. We are super human, but we are still human.
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely, and you know, I think it's so good for children to see that both parents roles are valued and that it's okay for them to be their own person and have independence and have friends and go do things that are just about them and developing themselves still, versus a kid who watches their parents slug through life and create like so much attachment that the child is has to have their mom or dad around all the time to function.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. It creates like a healthy boundary and a really healthy sense of self within the child. I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, when I was growing up, I feel like my mom was very, very I mean, both my parents were very dedicated parents, but my mom was the stay at home mom and my dad was the provider and I watched my mom spend all her time just taking care of us and taking care of the house, to the point where it's really hard for her even still I mean, she's in her sixties now. Sometimes it's hard for her to like feel like she can go even away from my dad and do her own thing because she feels so beholden to that lifestyle and and she still has anxiety about that, and it took me a long time to work through that being modeled for me and being kind of innate in me to even like.
Speaker 1:I remember being like the dynamic I have with my husband. Now he, like he's so supportive of me doing whatever I want to do and developing hobbies and having friends and going out or or you know, whatever it is I want to do, and it's me who's the hold back, it's me who's like oh, I just don't feel like I can. And I remember feeling very resentful of him for a long time and not knowing I was resentful, but feeling like watching his level of freedom and just confidence to be like I'm going to go do this today and check in with me about it. And I was like I always feel like I have to come and ask for permission. And it's not because you're saying you need my permission, it's because I just think I have to have it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and where does that come from? Right, it took me so long to deconstruct that and really and really let go of that guilt and anxiety over saying it's okay that I'm gone for a few hours tonight. I'm going to go take a yoga class, or I'm going to go to a movie with my girlfriend, or you guys will be fine without me, I don't need to rush home, it's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um well, I feel like this has been very eyeopening for me, very uplifting Um any lasting thoughts or um anything you'd love like listeners to know that, that you're feeling inspired to say and share.
Speaker 2:I always love to just encourage people that, no matter what, healing is always possible, no matter what the circumstance, the experience, the story that you have, what the doctor has said. Like I was told, you're going to live with this forever. You're going to be on antidepressants for the rest of your life and I haven't taken antidepressants in over 10 years, so you know not to say that they're bad and it's sometimes. People need them, but like this doesn't. Healing is always possible and your life doesn't have to be like that. If you're not happy and you want healing and health, you can have it and it's actually closer than you think.
Speaker 1:I love that, yeah, stepping out of victimhood Like if you were ready to make the change. It's possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Radical responsibility, you can do it and we are like so strong and so well-equipped. You know so equipped to do it and maybe not well-equipped. You have to learn.
Speaker 1:There's going to be a lot of learning.
Speaker 2:It's going to be a lot of learning, but, like you are, you are so capable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. It's very empowering. Um okay, Last thought then here how can listeners connect with you? And I'll have everything in the show notes, but you know, how can we connect with you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my website is holistic health by Melissacom, and then I'm on all social media at holistic health by Melissa. I'm mostly on Facebook and Instagram, but I'm on YouTube and Tik TOK apparently too, so okay, Do you treat people in clinic and and virtually everything's virtual. Oh okay, I do like with my local clients. I will sometimes meet um locally I'm in color, northern Colorado but um everything's a hundred percent virtual. I can see people in all 50 States, all countries of the world.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. Okay, well, thank you so much for your time, yeah.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having.