Healing Blind Spots In Ambitious Women with Dr Melanie Desmuke-Battles

What if the collisions in your life aren’t random but the result of unchecked blind spots? We sit down with Dr Melanie Desmuke-Battles, a speaker, leadership strategist and founder of Scholars for the Soul, to unpack how ambitious women can heal from burnout, rediscover purpose and build systems that reflect inner wholeness, not constant hustle.

Across this conversation, we explore how identity gets tangled in titles and to-do lists, and why true transformation starts with community that is safe, honest and non-judgmental. Dr Melanie shares the story behind her “blind spot strategist” work, plus the heart of Bibles and Brunch, a sisterhood built on prayer, restoration and practical strategy. We move from theory to practice with tools that create margin, like Mel's simplify 4D Filter (delete, delegate, delay, do differently) so calendars make room for faith, flexibility and actual rest.

We also dive into limiting beliefs and the ache of “not deserving” the call. You’ll hear why perfectionism masquerades as safety, how comparison culture steals momentum, and what it looks like to act on the last clear instruction rather than needing a ten-step map. A powerful segment rethinks childlike faith for those who grew up too soon through trauma or eldest-daughter roles, offering gentle ways to unlearn white-knuckle control and reclaim curiosity at the feet of Jesus.

By the end, you’ll have language for your blind spots, rhythms that rebuild self-trust, and a clearer vision for leading with strategy and soul at home and at work. Whole people create whole systems and your next step can be simple, faithful and enough.

Follow Dr. Melanie on Instagram @drmel_withsoul

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a quick review so more women can find these conversations.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Mel 0:39

Welcome to Beyond Organised, the podcast that helps you simplify your life and amplify your purpose. I'm Mel Schenker, life coach, speaker, founder of She's Organised, but, more importantly, a wife and mum of four little kids. If you've ever felt overwhelmed, like you're constantly juggling everything but never quite catching up, this is the place for you. Here we go beyond just the tidying up and creating systems. We're talking about real life strategies that bring order to your life, but also we talk about the things beyond the organising, the things that really matter, like your parenting relationships and so much more. So grab your coffee and let's dive in. Welcome back to another episode of Beyond Organised. I have Dr. Melanie here, and I am going to introduce this rather special woman. So Dr. Melanie Desmuke- Battles is a visionary speaker, leadership strategist, and founder of Scholars for the Soul, an educational solutions firm. With a doctorate in philosophy and reading education and over 20 years of experience helping individuals and teams cultivate clarity, compassion, and excellence, Dr. Melanie brings a bold restorative approach to personal and organizational transformation. She's been featured as a keynote speaker at High Point University, North Carolina, AT State University, and national education and leadership summits. As she transitions her mission-driven expertise into the corporate, nonprofit, and university sectors, Dr. Melanie offers transformational development, experiences focused on mental wellness, team resilience, purpose-driven leadership, and emotional intelligence at work. Whether supporting executive teams or frontline staff, her message is clear. Whole people create whole systems. Oh, love it. She equips organizations to heal from burnout, reconnect with purpose, and lead with both vision and soul. In her life and leadership coaching services, she also helps highly ambitious women uncover blind spots, reclaim their voice and authority, and lead with strategy and soul without losing themselves. Wow, that is quite a wrap. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm glad to be here, Mill. Thanks for having me. Oh, you're so welcome. I have been following you a little bit on Instagram and watching your stuff. And I am really curious for when you talk about the blind spots in women. I'd love to know what got you inspired to doing this work and talk further into that.

Dr. Melanie 2:54

Sure. So in my work of consulting mostly with schools and districts and talking about cultural humility, cultural competence, a lot of DEI work, diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, we would use the term biases. And when I was doing some work around bias work, cognitive biases, a part of it that came up was blind spots. And it really intrigued me. And I even looked up before I determined that I was going to be the blind spot strategist. I said, let me look up the blind spot. And I thought about, you know, your rear view or your side mirror, and it says objects may appear closer than whatever it says. And it made me think about how sometimes when people are coming up on our sides, if we're not looking over and giving attention to the blind spots, we could collide, right? And so I thought about how many blind spots we particularly as women, right? Because anybody could have them, but my audience are highly ambitious women who carry a lot of hats and a lot of titles, right? Whether it's mom, wife, daughter, caregiver, let alone if you work in corporate and work. But all of those titles and those hats and identities yield certain blind spots. And so there is a layer of internal soul work that needs to be done to ensure that we don't collide with those blind spots, which could lead us to burnout, which could lead us to ongoing depression, which could lead us into isolation. All of these things that take us away from actually living out our purpose in this world. Oh wow.

Community As Antidote To Isolation

Mel 4:38

I love it. I love it so much. And I I love that you're that you're coming from a um different angle to what most people do, particularly in the field of um identity and purpose and and all of that. I I've encountered enough women that are amazing at what they do that incorporate this in their work and mindset and all of that. But I really like the angle that you're coming from. That's quite unique, but needed. Like it's actually quite necessary. Now that you've you've said it, it's like, oh, I've never really thought of that before. So how do you help people and what's your main process and method around that?

Bibles And Brunch: Building Sisterhood

Dr. Melanie 5:21

So I love the art of cultivating community. Um, I know and have experienced the beauty in having connectedness with other human souls. Um, I am a Christian believer, so you may hear me reference God and Christ throughout this conversation. But for me, God created us in community from the very start. And so when we are in isolation and that's ongoing, not just times of intimacy with ourselves, but I'm talking about no real connectedness. We see ourselves diminish in what we need to do because we're carrying in it all by ourselves. So in the work I do, I'm cultivating a community that's local, but also I want it to become a global space where we can meet online and eventually I can be out in different spaces in the world speaking to women that are a part of this community. So that's the vision going forward. But I'm trying to stay in step with God and not move too far ahead of where he has me. Yeah, but the what I like to do, um, for example, we had an event last month. It was our first event called Bibles and Brunch. And we had, it was really cute.

Mel 6:34

It was really fun.

Dr. Melanie 6:37

The ladies came out, some of us didn't know each other, and they all talked about how they've been asking God for a community, a sisterhood. And they wanted one where it was not clickish, where it did not have a mean girl syndrome, but a place where you can bear your soul without judgment and people can call you into yourself, your highest self. And so that's a part of the work, is the community. The other part is the coaching. So just working with women to strategize. What is your purpose? What is your identity? What are you here for? How can we make that work? What are your systems? All that type of stuff around the business or community or upward mobility that they're seeking.

Mel 7:20

Wow. Oh, I love that. And I love that it's when when all these different people are saying the same thing, that they needed a space, and here it is. It's just, isn't that so exciting? Isn't it exciting to see how God works and how he already had things in motion before we such a blessing? That was the direction it was going. It is, it's so good. And I've even been looking for that myself. And um so my own coaching community, we are starting a Bible study next month. So I've got a lot of people in my in my space that are Christian, and um so we're getting together and and doing a Bible study. And yes, there's a a big chunk of it that's sort of focused around what God says around organizing and and order and balance and rest and all the things that you know fit in with it and identity and all that kind of stuff. But um, but even though I've got the sort of the topic and the verse maybe to start with, it is open. Like I'm gonna learn just as much as what these women are like. I'm I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna control the whole thing. I'm just gonna let God be God and do his thing. And I'm so excited because it's like I couldn't really find something like that exactly. That's what he tells us to do.

Dr. Melanie 8:38

We are image bearers of the creator, so hey, that's what we do. That's it.

Mel 8:42

I love that from you.

Dr. Melanie 8:43

Congratulations.

Mel 8:44

That's it. That's it. Oh, that's so exciting. So, from your, well, clearly, a lot of years of experience in this, even though you're so young, so I don't know how you fit in 20 years, but but what do you feel is the main thing that holds women back?

Limiting Beliefs And Calling

Dr. Melanie 9:02

So, one of the things that I know I've experienced and through community talking to other women are these limiting beliefs that they have that number one sometimes starts with a lack of deservedness. So it's this idea of who am I to do this big thing that God has called me to do? Why am I special? Or what makes me qualified? But there's a famous or an infamous saying that God doesn't call people who are already qualified. He qualifies the people that he calls.

Mel 9:37

I've literally got that written on here. God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the cool.

Faith Over Control And Next Steps

Dr. Melanie 9:44

And that that part is what I find myself encouraging women with the most and giving them biblical references to see God in action, but also to tell them about how he did the same for me. So just because I'm Dr. Male now, that is not even the qualifier that makes me suitable to do what God says. It's literally answering the call because many are called, but few are chosen. And the chosen are the ones who answer the call to God's voice of obedience. And I was speaking to another woman who's also cultivating a community, and I was telling her that, you know, often we want to know the 10 steps ahead so we can have it all mapped out, all organized, because that helps our bodies feel safe when we have a specific knowing. But that's not real faith when you know every step in every piece. So if you're doing the work that is built on your faith, you have to be okay with just doing the last thing God told you to do. Don't worry about the 10 steps ahead. Do the first, what is the first thing he told you to do? And trust that he will equip you along the journey. When he called Abraham to go and leave his father and his family, and he even gave him the promise, he didn't tell him all the little things that will come into play on that journey. But Abraham had to be a quick responder. And that's one thing I encourage people to think about is on this journey, what is your response time to the word of the Lord as he's given it to you? Because delayed obedience is still disobedience. So you're delaying something, and a lot of us say, I'm waiting on his timing. And in actuality, you're just fearful. He already told.

Leaving Room For God In Planning

Mel 11:35

We already told you to go. He's waiting for your next step. I know. And I can tell you now, if God had revealed every step of what would happen when I said yes, um, I I probably would have been scared out of it because there is so much more, you know, twists and turns and things that you just don't anticipate that come into view. But when I look at where I'm at now and having walked through all of that wouldn't change it. Like God knew that I needed those things to to ground me, to groom me, stretch me, get me to the level I need to be at to operate in what I'm doing. And it's uh, and yes, that is a big thing of God's really been sort of pivoting me as well in actually being incorporating him more in this whole organizing thing with with my community, because a very big chunk of it is actually going, well, we can plan and we can schedule, we can organize, we can do these things. But if you're doing too much of that, you're not leaving any room for God. And I know when I was overorganized in past years, I was miserable, did not help. Um, and now there is this level of flexibility and balance and almost like um a gap. You've got to allow this gap so then he can be in it. And it's like he wants us to do our part, he wants us to to be responsible and use the brain he he gave us and and all that kind of stuff. But he also wants us to allow that space to let him do his part, which is gonna take us so much further than anything we could do on our own. So it's but it's funny how even though we know that there are times where it's like I take back that control. So we have to learn out of those things sometimes the hard way. I'm sorry, God, I'm sorry. He's a good God and he's gracious too. And he's not sitting there on his throne, you know, pointing fingers and trying to judge. He's like, let me give you a hand up. Like, just let me help.

Dr. Melanie 13:53

And I think that's a big like any loving father would. And and that's a part that I also see a lot of us as women struggle with is seeing God as a loving good father. Um, especially if we come up in religious spaces or communities or even homes where didn't have a good father or fatherhood has been very strict and iron fist ruled. And so we see God as that all the time, and we don't want, and so it keeps us sometimes from surrendering and submitting because we're afraid we're gonna get in trouble. Like, and he's like, and it's like God already sees all the things, that's number one. And he's waiting, like, come on, daughter, give this to me. You've tried, you've done this, but give this to me. And when we release those things to God, he will take our plans. Some of our plans he may laugh at, like, oh, she thought that was cute. Okay. But and some of our plans he may endorse, and some of them he may help us restructure. Um, and I love that gap idea that you talked about, that flexibility, because that's where I am with the community I'm I'm cultivating now. Woman asked me, Are you gonna do this event later this year? I said, I don't really know. So we're gonna go with what God says because that's how I'm moving in this space. You know, I've got some ideas, yeah, but I have to flow with the Holy Spirit to in this kind of because this is ministry work for me outside of like coaching and being able to charge folks, and yeah, that'll come. But this is really ministry work um for me. So I have to walk in step with him. Yeah, yeah.

Mel 15:28

Well, it's the only way it's gonna work, isn't it? Because if we try and take back control and do it in our own strengths, it's just gonna flaw. We already know that. We've learned that lesson enough.

Dr. Melanie 15:37

We don't have to go back to that class.

Mel 15:38

Yeah, it's just a whole lot of extra work for nothing. So what I mean, not nothing. God does use it, but it's um, yeah, I I totally get what you mean. I have so many things going on in my brain that it's like, do I do it again? Do I continue this? Do I try this? Do I do that? And it's like, okay, it's all just sort of in that holding pattern. Like at the airport, it's it's sort of just holding and holding, and it's like, okay, now I can release this or or do that. And overall, though, he really is a God that likes to simplify and keep things simple. He does. Um having too many things going on. Yeah. It's not something that he really um pushes or no. Yeah, I agree.

Dr. Melanie 16:26

I agree with that. And I think that's another thing that holds us back as women is we have so many things going on in our mind about how we think it should look, how it should come out, what the outcome should be. And so we even allow perfectionism. And I I literally was talking to this same woman about this a couple days ago. I'm like, you can't focus on first of all how everybody else is doing it, their beautiful reels and their cute posts and their aesthetics and all of that. God is not interested in any of that. And so if we keep it simple and submit it before the Lord and just do it, every I saw somebody speak about this and it and it really resonated with me is that if we focus so much on the outcome every single time, we miss the beauty of the journey. We miss that the steps may be where the lesson is. It's not so even if it fails to people or it fails to this standard of success that we've created in our own mind, the failure is not there in the outcome. The success is in how you look at every step. Because you should be, and that's what I want women to tune into more is this identity of being a lifelong learner. And that's what I use on my educational side of consulting is pushing teachers and students to be lifelong learners because when we're in a state of curiosity with God, like a child, he said the kingdom of heaven is like the little children suffer not that they come to me. And little children are asking a billion questions, they're curious, they don't really think too, too far ahead. They're very innocent, and God, Jesus actually stated that's what the kingdom of heaven is like. And so when we release that adult mindset that we gotta, where we grew up believing that our adults in our life knew everything, but now we learn and we figured out oh, they didn't know it all. And that's okay, though. That's the way God designed this thing.

Martha Versus Mary And Intimacy

Mel 18:27

It's so funny that you're saying that because this has come up in conversations so many times in just the last week with various people. And I feel like even in that, God revealed something to me that I had never seen before because it the conversation, you know, come to me like a child, you know, all this kind of stuff. And I thought back to my own childhood and I'd gone through sexual abuse and all that kind of stuff, and I um I was quite responsible as a child. I had to grow up very quick. And so my childlike thinking is responsibility. And I didn't realize so when I am coming to God with things and I'm thinking it's faith in my responsibility, it's not. And so I've had this huge revelation recently where I'm just like, this is not, this is not childlike faith that I've been operating in, even though it's representative of what I was like as a child, this isn't exactly what God is asking of me. It's good to be responsible, I get that, but I've been holding on almost white knuckling it so tight that I haven't allowed God to then be gone in certain areas where I really needed that faith. Man. And I thought it was and it and it just wasn't. And I'm yeah, I'm still processing.

Dr. Melanie 19:53

No, that's a mind-blowing revelation because it takes me back to the work I do with women. I I'm not a therapist. I would love to be, but I really don't feel like going back to school. So, you know, I'm not a therapist. I get y'all. But I do I do a lot of internal work with myself. And I also talk to friends and family about that. And one of the things I always say is that you can't be afraid to go back. And a lot of people, because of whatever their childhood encompassed, some of them are unwilling or maybe not ready in their mind to go back. Because what you're talking about is having to unpack the parts of your childhood that were actually out of order because you should have been more childlike, but because of certain circumstances, and I'm an eldest daughter, so I had to also be responsible. So thinking about, I had never thought of that. So you really gave me something to take and chew on for later as I'm sitting with God, because that was my mindset. Even my mother was telling me, even as a little girl, you were like the first in your class to do this, and you always were helping doing that. And I'm like, but why was I like that? Like, why?

Self‑Care Systems And Boundaries

Mel 21:05

And she's like, I don't know. Yeah, why did I have this need to be like that? And I'm but I'm still doing that without even realizing it, even though I'm free from so many things, so many things, there's still these tendencies that I didn't even realize I was doing that's just trained into me, to be honest. It's been trained into me, and I have to unlearn because I I always kind of I got frustrated, particularly with my sister who's very carefree in a lot of ways. I think she's responsible, of course. You know, she's a thing as a kid. She just could do whatever she wanted, and it was you know, not thinking of the consequences so much. It was just, and there was a part of me that goes, like, how could you be like that? But then also, how could you be like that? You know, it was just you. Yeah, and I it's interesting because I almost feel like God is peeling it back and actually just being more childlike and and getting me to actually observe my own children and what their behaviours are like. And yes, there are some that frustrate me, but to be honest, if I was going back to eight-year-old me, it probably would have frustrated me then too. You know, it's they they are different, but they're also not growing up in trauma or anything like that. And they are completely carefree. I mean, they've got some things they've got to do around the house and things like that. They've got good childhoods, and so it's interesting that God's bringing this up to me now, in this point in my life. Um, but I've also got examples right in front of me that I can observe and go, how are you doing that?

Dr. Melanie 22:50

What is God saying to me through his life? And you know, that that kind of work that we're talking about is the kind of work that brings an intimacy with God that I also feel like is a limitation with a lot of women is because we are so busy doing all the things. It's like the Mary and the Martha comparison of the sisters.

Mel 23:10

Always been the Martha. Yeah.

Dr. Melanie 23:12

Always been the Martha.

Mel 23:13

What was wrong with Martha?

Dr. Melanie 23:14

Yeah, we're doing what we're supposed to do as good daughters, as good women, as good wives, but we miss out on the beauty of intimacy and sitting at the feet of Jesus, which is where we bring all of our curiosities, like, how can they, how can they be like that? Or why did this have to happen in my life? And what is it that you're going to work out of this for me to show and put into the world? And I think when we can sit and take that time, and I know it's hard for moms, I know it's hard for wives, um, because I've carried those titles. My daughters are, one is about to be 16 and the other is 19. Um, so I know even what it's like to have smaller children and the demand it puts on you while also going to school and working a full-time job as a teacher, right? So I get it. But my freedom came when I decided I'm gonna wake up a few hours, uh, an hour earlier, or I'm going to put them to bed on time and we're gonna do a routine, whether we are kicking and screaming doing it until it becomes the thing that allows me to have an hour or two to myself, some time with God before I go to sleep. Because it's it's so, it's such a disservice to ourselves when we run ourselves throughout the whole day and you don't have you. You know, you don't have any parts to yourself. I saw a lady talk about it on TikTok. She was like, Some of us need to get our graham crackers back. Because you gave your husband all the graham crackers, you gave the babies all the graham crackers, and you don't have any graham crackers. You gotta have something for yourself so that you don't literally look at when your kids get older. Now you're twiddling your thumbs, who am I? Exactly. That happens so often.

Modelling Wholeness For Our Children

Mel 25:05

You are saying exactly the things that I help women with because they they come to me to help them get organized. That's where we start. But really, it goes so much deeper than that because a big part of my five pillars, one of them is the self-care in there and going, okay, now we need to have the time for you because you are more productive, you are more efficient when you've been able to look after yourself first. I like getting up before my family and having a coffee and journaling and whatever else and having that time. Um, because I then can handle whatever happens next with the school rush and all that kind of stuff. You know, I'm not a monster in the form. Right. But it's just having that time for me, like I'm important too. My kids are important, my husband's important, but I'm important too. And I wanna, and that's what I do. I help a lot of women actually see their importance and be able to practically fit it in in their day as well. And go, well, what can we simplify, delete, delegate, delay, do differently? Yeah, going through all of that and just this is just so it's something that comes up all the time because it's something that uh the the message needs to keep being repeated because there's always a new woman that's hearing this that just uh needs to hear that you are so important. You are important, and it's time to to put things in place where you can put yourself first and still be a good man, still be a good wife, still be a good colleague, still be a good fill in the blank. It's it's important to learn and it can take take a bit of stretching, bit of growing, a little bit of extra work for a little bit, but the dividends pay off for the rest of your life.

Dr. Melanie 26:59

And because you owe it to yourself, because you've always been with you, you've always had you. When even when you felt betrayed by people or you felt hurt by people or you were harmed by people, you still always had yourself. And so because we have betrayed ourselves to people please, we have harmed ourselves or set in sabotage because of imposter syndrome, all of these narratives build an internal meter within ourselves that says, I can't even trust me. I can't trust myself to stand up for myself. I can't trust myself to speak up and enact boundaries and sustain boundaries that keep me healthy. I don't trust myself to say no and put a period on it. And so you start, you start mistrusting your own self. And that's when I see a lot of women go down this, I won't say a huge downward spiral because that can look like just the cyclical, monotone nature of doing life just the same every day. Yeah. You stop dreaming, you stop investing in your hobbies, you stop getting cute if that's your thing, you stop doing all of those things because you just want to be a good mom. Or you just but but you have to think about what is that teaching the children that are watching you.

How To Connect With Dr Melanie

Mel 28:17

Exactly. Exactly. There's a lot of things I've had to work on as a mom because I don't want my daughter or my sons to turn out the way that I did in in this particular area. Not that I I don't not that I see a big problem with myself, but it's like I gotta be careful with the way that I talk about the way I look, particularly around my daughter, because she's got killing red hair and you know, cute little thing that's getting freckles and that too. And it's like, well, I need to speak well of the way I look because being she's a little me. And she's taking that in, and and I remember what it felt like to be bullied for the way that I looked. Yeah. And so it's like I've had to do a lot of work on that. So then I don't pass on my verbal vomit under her. Right. You know? There's there's gonna be things in life that challenge us that are uncomfortable that we walk through, but ultimately it's like I'm glad I did. Yeah. Because I'm I'm so much further ahead than I could have even imagined me being at this point in my life. So it's good. It's beautiful, it's a beautiful journey. Yeah. Oh my goodness. I feel like we could just keep going on and on and on. The two males. Oh, it's so good. Um, so if people want to get in touch with you, want to actually be part of your community, see what you're doing, all of that, where can they find you best?

Dr. Melanie 29:50

Um, so I'm over in the TikTok land. Um, and I'm Dr. Mel underscore with soul. I'm the same on Instagram, Dr. Mel. So it's D-R-M-E-L underscore with soul. Um, you can find me on Facebook at Melanie Desmuke. Um, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on all the places. If you Google me, just put Melanie Desmuke back. I'll put the link to the screen. Yeah, you'll you'll find all of my stuff. Um, but if you look at the links in my bio on Instagram, you'll find a link to the community there. And you can join our email list and whatever God puts forward. Um, I would love to engage. I I know I know the Lord has showed me that I will have international connections and it's been amazing. Now that I'm just thinking about it, um, you're in Australia, and then two weeks ago I was on a call with some women in Nigeria. So yeah, and and we had a the same type of, well, I did more of a presentation workshop style with them, but it's already been there where I didn't even think about that till right now. So yeah. So we're open to whatever. Yeah, I know, right? We're open to whatever he said.

Mel 31:02

That's so good. I'll make sure all the links and everything are in the show notes there to keep it nice and simple for the listeners. But thank you so much for coming on today. I really enjoyed it.

Dr. Melanie 31:12

I have enjoyed it as well. Uh, we're gonna have to get together again after this. Uh this is not a one and done.

Mel 31:21

I agree. I think there's a lot of collaboration we can work on here. I'm very excited.

Dr. Melanie 31:26

Me too, me too.

Closing And Listener Invitations

Mel 31:27

All right, thank you. If you like this episode, don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you want to continue the conversation, you can connect with me on Instagram @shes.organised or for some free resources, head over to beyondorganised.com/toolkit. Remember, organising is a tool to live the purposeful life beyond it. See you next time.