From ICU Nurse To Holistic Trauma Coach

If you’ve ever left a doctor’s office with a prescription and a sinking feeling that nobody really asked the right questions, you’re going to feel seen here. We talk with Melissa Armstrong, an RN who spent years in pediatric critical care before stepping away from protocol-driven medicine and into her work as a holistic trauma and anxiety coach, helping women regulate their nervous systems and rebuild health from the ground up.

We get honest about the limits of standardized medicine and why personalized medicine matters, especially when your symptoms are tied to lifestyle, chronic stress, sleep debt, or years of pushing emotions down. Melissa shares how the modern “sick care system” can keep people cycling through pills and procedures without addressing root causes like nutrition, toxin exposure, movement, and nervous system dysregulation. We also unpack a powerful idea: trauma isn’t only the event, it’s what happens inside you afterward and what your body may still be carrying.

From gut health and the microbiome to the “quick fix” myth, we come back to the wellness foundations that actually move the needle. Melissa also shares the practices that helped her own healing journey, including meditation, neuroplasticity, and somatic work, plus a simple 30-second belly-breath reset you can try three times a day to start signaling safety to your body.

If this conversation helps you, subscribe to Words of Wellness, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick rating and review so more people can find these trauma-informed, holistic health tools.

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Thank you for listening to the Words of Wellness podcast with Shelly Jefferis. I am honored and so grateful to have you here and it would mean the world to me if you could take a minute to follow, leave a 5-star review and share  the podcast with anyone you love and anyone you feel could benefit from the message.

Thank you and God Bless! And remember to do something for yourself, for your wellness on this day! 
In Health, 

Shelly

Transcript

Trauma As Energy In Motion

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Like the second law of energy tells us that energy is neither created nor destroyed. It's only transmuted, it only moves. So when you have these really emotional events, trauma is not the event, it's what happens inside of you as a result of that event. If you've got trauma in your past and you haven't actually processed through all of that emotion, which is energy in motion, that energy is still in your body and you're, it's going, if you don't deal with your issues, it rests in your tissues.

Meet Melissa And Her Shift

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Do you get confused by all of the information that barbards us every day on ways to improve our overall health and our overall wellness? Do you often feel stuck, unmotivated, or struggle to reach your wellness goals? Do you have questions as to what exercises you should be doing, what foods you should or shouldn't be eating, how to improve your overall emotional and mental well-being? Hello everyone, I am so excited to welcome you to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelly Jeffries, and I will be your host. My goal is to answer these questions and so much more. To share tips, education, and inspiration around all of the components of wellness through solo and guest episodes. With 35 plus years as a health and wellness professional, a retired college professor, a speaker, and a multi-passionate entrepreneur, I certainly have lots to share. However, my biggest goal and inspiration in doing this podcast is to share the wellness stories of others with you. To bring in guests who can share their journeys so that we can all learn together while making an impact on the health, the wellness, and lives of all of you, our listeners. The ultimate hope is that you leave today with even just one nugget that can enhance the quality of your life, and that you will, we all will, now and into the future, live our best quality of lives full of energy, happiness, and joy. Now let's dive into our message for today. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelly, and I am your host. Thank you for being here today. My guest is a coach, a speaker, and an author. And she is also an RN who has become a holistic trauma and anxiety coach. So I know we're going to be able to dive into a lot of great topics today. So welcome, Melissa. Thank you, Shelly. I'm so honored to be here. I'm really, really honored to have you. And I know what caught my eye with you is your is your main focus and talking about the the trauma and the anxiety. I think that's such a such an important topic to kind of share about for our listeners and maybe just dive in a little bit. You were an RN for for, I'm assuming, quite a long time before you you made the switch.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Yeah. I was licensed in 2010 and started working in a level one trauma center in a pediatric ICU at a children's hospital in Southern California where I lived and grew up. And um I thought I would be there forever, honestly. Like I there was women who had been there for like 40 years, you know, working in ICU. And I was then we called them the lifers. And I was like, I'm a lifer, like I'm never leaving. You're gonna have to carry my cold dead body out of here because I'm never leaving. And I realized I'd say probably within the first six months that I was like, oh, this is not really what I thought it was gonna be. And there over the years, like it there became a bigger and bigger gap between what I thought I would be doing and what I was actually doing. Um I fully believe in the need for ICUs, ORs, ERs, and penicillin when you need it, but I just felt this um kind of like uh unspoken, like we just treat everything with medications and like it was a protocol. It was when I became licensed, we were really moving in in medicine towards like standardized medicine as opposed to personalized medicine. Back in, you know, when when my parents were were kids and their parents were kids, like that was really your your doctor knew you and all of the surgeries that you'd been through, all of the experiences you'd been through. They knew your parents, they knew your, they would come to your home, they knew intimately the details of your life, and they gave very personalized medicine. And um, you know, I have my hypotheses and and ideas about why things shifted, but we were really in that shift of really like trying to push standardized medicine and making everything be a protocol. Somebody comes in and they have this symptom, you do one, two, three, always. That's the protocol, that's what you do. And I think there's a time and a place for protocols, right? Um, but I think personalized medicine is where it's at. Standardized medicine is a scam because you don't necessarily need what I need. We might need different things because we have different, we live in different places, we have different um backgrounds, we have different biochemical um, you know, processes happening in our bodies. We're on different medications, we have different exposures, and um, so over the course of time I realized that that gap was something I couldn't ignore. In 2018, I started to um I was miserable in my job. I'd left the ICU, I was, I moved around a lot. I I was working in an outpatient um primary care clinic, and I hated it. I cried myself, I like cried myself to sleep. I cried to and from work every day. I absolutely hated it. It was, I felt like a number. I felt like I was replaceable. They my bosses didn't care. The organization, I worked for a big organization, big name, you know, medical establishment. They couldn't have cared less. They didn't know me. I just started being curious. I said to my girlfriend one day, like, I wish I could just be a holistic nurse. And she's like, Why don't you? And I was like, Oh, well, I don't know. Like, is that a thing? Like, what is it? And and so I just Googled like holistic nurse, like, how do I become a holistic nurse? Which is kind of funny because like in nursing school, they holistic just means whole body approach, like whole person or whole thing approach, right? And like in nursing school, that's what they say nurses are, is they're like whole body practitioners. Um, but in reality, we are as nurses, we are beholden to the doctors and what the doctors say and what our establishment says, like building the protocols, and the doctors and the protocols are all built because they're beholden to the insurance and the pharmaceutical industry. So it's all just a system that's actually not designed to keep anybody healthy. It's not a um health care system, it's a sick care system. Um, and so over the course, you know, I got into school, I was pursuing um training and and certification in various different types of like um natural natural medicine, um, lifestyle medicine, holistic nursing, nervous system stuff, functional medicine, got lots of different um certifications. And then 2020 happened, and um I was blessed to lose my job and um opened my own practice. And I don't know if I would have done that on my own at that time. Um, and yeah, now I do exactly what I think I'm put on the planet to do um and help women the way I help them.

Protocol Medicine Versus Personal Care

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Wow. I just I I so many thoughts from what you just shared. I mean, it's amazing to me because like I was telling you earlier, this is not the you're not the first nurse turned holistic coach that I've interviewed or or spoken with. And it just it's so eye-opening and enlightening at the same time to talk to individuals like yourself. And I know for me personally, it always just confirms what I thought to be true many years ago, and I'm sure that's the case with a lot of people that you talk to. And it's it's also quite something when you bring up how you used to be how it used to be many years ago when it came to medical care. Like there are probably individuals listening to this podcast right now who are young enough to go, what? Like a doctor would come to your house, and as you were sharing that, I went, oh my gosh, that's right. We lived in a time where they would make house calls and they knew the family, they knew the family history. And my gosh, how how it has changed, and and then so spot on when you're saying it's it's standardized, but not everything fits every single person the same. I mean, when I share and I speak about nutrition, same kind of thing. What works for me might not work for you. I mean, our bodies need a lot of the similar nutrients, the minerals, the vitamins, and such, but we also have many different needs depending on where we're at in life and what sickness or illness we've dealt with or we're dealing with and our family history, all the factors like you know, that goes into the medicine also. Hearing you talk about it is quite fascinating because it just really lays out what's been going on, and it makes me wonder at what point did we take make such that shift away from being more personal to such standard medicine?

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah, it's back in, you know, before 2000, like I mean, even before that, I think back like, you know, in the in the 40s and the 50s and the 60s and the 70s, like your doctors were doing like hours of research to figure out like, oh, how does this medication interact with this medication? And that, you know, they would take your case after you left and they would pour over your case and they would go through things with a fine-tooth comb and and and really try to understand like pathophysiologically, like what is going on in this person's body. And maybe we need to choose, you know, a different. Um, I think of uh Dr. Brad Peterson was somebody I worked with. He's a well-respected intensivist, pediatric intensivist. He worked in the pediatric ICU. He is said to be like the builder of um, I worked at in San Diego, I worked for the the children's hospital in San Diego, and um he was said to be like the builder of that PICU. And he was so thoughtful in his approach to, he's he's since passed away, but like he was so thoughtful in his approach to care for those kids because not every kid needed everything, right? But now you look at a system where like I was just talking with my best friend the other day. Her son has been going through some medical stuff and um he's been on some supplements and some medications for over a year, and they are he has an unknown reason why, but his liver enzymes are skyrocketing and they don't know why. And everybody's like, oh, I don't know, maybe we should, you know, do this, maybe we should do this, maybe we should do this. Finally, she sat down, had a one-to-one with uh um one of the pharmacists who's like asking her, like, what is this quercetin? I've never heard of this quercetin. What is this medication, this medication that you're on? I've never heard of this. And she said, Well, it's not a medication, it's a supplement, but he takes the quercetin because he takes the zinc. And they told me that he needs to take quercetin to maximize that you can't properly metabolize and use the zinc unless it's coupled with quercetin. And she's like, Oh, and so she's like digging and she goes, Oh, well, you know what? Quercetin maximizes the effect of zinc, but it also maximizes the effect of everything else that he's taking. So he also is on methotrexate for um rheumatoid GRA, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. And so it's actually maximizing the methotrexate, which is why his liver enzymes are going up. So nobody over a year, the doctor never, the doctor was just like, oh, we need to decrease the methotrexate. And I said to her, I said, you know why? It's because that doctor is never looking at your chart. The second that you guys leave the office, the doctor's not looking at that chart anymore. They're not that they they are getting in there, they're using AI for their notes, they're putting stuff in, they're like, they put the prescriptions in and they move on. They never think about it, they never look back at it. And it's not because they're bad people, it's because they work in a system that's broken. And they work in a system that's designed to get as many people in and out as as possible, and they can't possibly spend the amount of time looking at your case as is required to actually help you be healthy. All they're trained to do is to get you on that chemical carousel, pills and procedures, treat it with a pill and procedure, put a band-aid on it, and that's what the that's what they're trained to do. Not because they're bad people. I want to be clear, I don't think doctors are bad people.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Well, and I think so spot on what you're saying. They they are coming into this uh at no fault of their own. For sure. Yeah, and it's it's such a shame. And you know, I I feel so fortunate because I do see currently I do have a nurse practitioner who I see regularly, and she true really does take time with her patients. And I mean, what a concept to have someone and think that should be the norm, not like, wow, I feel very fortunate, you know, like it's so crazy. And you know, it's wild when you're talking about the children's hospital. I was going to ask you where you had worked because my daughter currently works at the children's hospital in San Diego.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Oh, wow, yeah. I worked there for 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

She has experienced some of what you are sharing. And I and I think that, you know, and it's a shame. You go into your field like you did, thinking, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I want to do. And then you get into and you're going, huh, maybe this isn't all I I thought it was going to be. And which has got to be very kind of a hard pill, no pun intended, a hard pill to swallow at first, especially when you're going into medical, right? As a doctor, as a nurse, whoever, because your goal of going into that field is to help people, right? You want to help people be healthy and in in overcome their illnesses and whatever it is they're dealing with. And wow, pills and procedures. You're you're so right. And even before AI, I'm I'm sure they weren't, they don't have the time.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

They got like 20 patients a day. They're like 15-minute spot slots. Like you go in and see, you're like a new patient, you get 15 minutes with your doctor. You know, I read an article. Johns Hopskins, Johns Hopkins came out, I think it was John Hop Johns Hopkins, came out with an article in like 2014 or something that said that within uh, I want to say seven minutes, don't quote me on this, but it's something very low. It's less than 10. Within seven minutes of walking in the door, your doctor already has a diagnosis.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Well, and I've heard that quote too, and I've heard the timing of like the average amount of time they actually spend with a patient. So it's it's actually just like that. I mean, it's I want to say it was that the max is like maybe 10 minutes, and you can't even hardly get a health history.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah, how do you even understand what's actually going on in the person's body? And like there's so many things, right? Like lifestyle, diet, stress, sleep, your current diagnoses, your current prescriptions, your like there's so many pieces that you have to consider when you're talking about health. And then, like, just the unique biochemistry of each individual person, right? Like, there's it's impossible.

Foundations That Actually Create Health

SPEAKER_00 16:55

It's so true. I just did a an episode, a solo episode about all of the the different weight loss medications. And and same thing, like you're saying, it's not to bash them, it's not to bash anyone who's using them, but it's to just caution those who are to make sure you're having some kind of medical, someone overseeing what you're doing. Because same kind of thing. I I probably receive three to four emails a day to where I can just I have access to ordering. I'm I mean, not me personally, it's just like a general email that I receive.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

And I think how many people, you can just order it. You don't even have to see a doctor anymore.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Right. Again, so to your point, where that that's not okay when we're not taking it into any consideration of what our again, our health history is, what we've what our lifestyle is like, what's our nutrition like, our exercise, all of those things. And I just think that more and more we need to alert more and more people to this because the average person wants that quick fix, right? They want their results, they want to feel better, they want to lose weight, whatever it is, yesterday, last week, last month, last year. And it doesn't work like that. And when you're desperate, you you don't want to take the time to see someone and share all of your information. So it's a it's a tough, tough situation for many and really concerning for sure.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Yeah, we've been trained to believe that like a a quick fix is even a thing, right? Like that I don't even like saying quick fix because like I don't it's not even that's not even real. Like there is no such thing as a quick fix. Even a pill that might make your symptoms go away is not fixing anything. It's not a quick fix because it's not fixing anything. It's actually just a band-aid, it's a quick band-aid, is what it is. And if you want to like fix your life, you want to heal your body, soul, spirit, like the way to do that is the foundations. The foundations have always been the foundations and they will forever be the foundations. Stress, sleep, nutrition, exposure. It's like what there, you can't, there, you can't out-supplement your way, you can't out-supplement your way out out of a bad diet. You can't, you know, supplement your way out of not getting enough sleep or unprocessed trauma or not dealing with your stress. Like you can't take a pill or a procedure to make that go away. It doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Yeah, just does not. Yeah. And this is an area that I focus on a lot when it comes to just our overall wellness and our longevity, is an area that I focus on too. So just those areas that you're talking about, it's such a they all have to be in sync, and they're not always going to be perfect, and they're not always gonna be in sync. But like you're saying, we have to look at the sleep, the exercise, the nutrition. How are we handling stress? I mean, these are such critical areas to first look at before the medication. What a concept, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Yeah, yeah. And medications can be a bridge, right? They can help you feel better. Sometimes they're necessary. And I think, like, thank God we have penicillin, right? We're not all dying of pneumonia, right? Like, so I believe in medication when we need it. What I don't believe in is using medication when we don't need it. Now you go to the doctor and they don't know what's wrong with you. They're like, uh, let's throw some antibiotics and steroids at it, see what happens. You know, they're like, oh, I don't know. It could be viral, it could be bacterial. Let's give you some antibiotics. You know, one dose of antibiotics can wreck your gut microbiome for two years. One dose, not a one round, one dose. Like, that's we shouldn't be just giving out antibiotics just to like throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. It doesn't make sense.

When Treatment Turns Into A Loop

SPEAKER_00 20:59

It's making people sick. And they they again, that's like mic drop right there. People need, I hope my listeners are really, really listening into this because that's huge. That's huge. And like you're saying, yes, there's a time and place, and we need the penicillin and we need the antibiotics, but we've got to understand that do we it has to be where we truly do need it, right? Not just like you're saying, well, I don't know what's going on with you. So here, take this. I I was here, you know, back years ago, I was dealing with I have was diagnosed with Meneer's disease, and I was dealing with my inner ear disease, and um, I was because of it, I was having vertigo and and just it was it was awful. How but what happened was they thought they didn't really know, but they thought it was possibly caused by allergies. So they put me on allergy shots, and then they wanted to get the fluids out of my system, so hydrochlorothiazide. Well, because the fluids now are coming out of my system, we have to counteract that with. Potassium. So I was doing all three of those for you know seven years probably till I finally got to a point where one the vertical got so bad that I had to have a minor surgery. And then months later, I started this new for me back then, it was a new nutrition protocol, made all the difference in the world. And so again, going back to what our bodies need from more of a natural and holistic standpoint, let's look at that first because I know for certain looking back now and knowing I was not getting all the minerals that my body needed. And I was probably not getting the nutrition, I was probably not absorbing what my body needed back then either. And it that shift alone made all the difference in the world. And so again, our bodies are miracles. If we treat them such and fuel them and nourish them the way they need, let's start there. And then maybe we need to go to the other sources that we we have. We have access to medicine, thank God. But I I was I went through such a it was it was it was pretty, I don't want to say traumatic, but there were times where and then I thought, am I gonna be on this for the rest of my life? And is it really even doing anything? But because I I was scared that if I went off it, my bouts and what I was experiencing would get any worse. It would get worse than already was. So I got caught up in that cycle, and uh thank God I got out of it.

Trauma Anxiety And Nervous System Safety

SPEAKER_01 23:38

But yeah, and your doctor probably wasn't giving you any other alternative. Nope. So you're like, you're like, I I and some doctors even like speak that over their patients, right? Like I personally, as a patient in my 20s, was told I when I was 24, I was on seven different prescription medications. By the time I was 24, um, I had I had so much trauma as as an early, you know, as childhood, and we were homeless and all the things. My parents were addicted to heroin, crazy stuff. I survived a school shooting when I was 15, and then my brother was killed in front of me when I was 18. And so from the time that I was 18 to the time that I was 24, I was so sick. I was physically sick, I was emotionally sick, I was spiritually sick. And every time I went to the doctor with a new symptom, they gave me another pill. And I had doctors tell me, you're gonna be on this forever. This is your anxiety, is never going away. You need you're gonna take Xanax for the rest of your life. And they spoke that over me, right? And I agreed with them, I believed them. And so many people they come into agreement with that lie. And I just want to like right now, just give somebody some encouragement and say, like, your body is designed to return to homeostasis, to return to balance. Your body is designed to heal. Think about when you cut your hand. Like, do you have to tell your hand to heal? No, you cut your hand and you never think about it again. It just heals, right? Your body, every area of your body is divinely created to heal. And we, like you're saying, Shelly, is like you just have to make sure it's getting the right nutrients, right? Which is I the right nutrients, the right input, so that it can actually give you like it's so it can actually put out the right output. If you're not putting in the right input, you're gonna get like crappy output. You know, like if it think of a fish in a pond. Like if your fish is like dying, you don't just like feed the fish more and like you know, stuff a bunch of like pills in the water and the water's all your fish is dying, the water's all murky, it's got algae, it's got you know, nasty bacteria floating through there. Like, you don't just give the fish more food, you actually look at the water and say, Oh, let me like maybe we should clean the water. Like, maybe this this water is this environment is not good for for this fish to thrive, right? You have to look at your environment, internal, external. What are what toxins are you being exposed to? What does your nutrition look like? What is your sleep? How much are you moving? How much sunlight are you getting? We've made we're believe scammed into believing the sun is the enemy. Like it's just insane.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

It is insane. Oh my gosh. And you are covering all the entire spectrum, and I love it. It's just fire, it gets me fired up. Yeah, it's just it's I you're just speaking my language, and it's so, so true. And I gosh, I just want to also just tell you how sorry I am for everything that you had to experience. I mean, that's just too much, too much for one person. What what was that? I'm assuming obviously that led you into focusing your practice a little bit more into that trauma and anxiety approach to help others.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Um yeah, that's how I got into all of it. I appre I appreciate the the um like sentiment, you know, I'm not sorry, because I know for sure that everything that I've been through has been exactly for this reason. Like I know that I had to go through all of those things so that I could be in a very unique person position to be able to help people. Uh, I understand it both personally and professionally, right? I've been through it. I've been a nurse 16 years. I've been through it as a patient. Um, but yeah, I when I was 18 was when my brother died. And um I made the decision within three weeks that I wanted to become a nurse. And then obviously we already talked about that story. And so when I um originally started my practice, I was really, you know, I'm certified in functional medicine. So I was really doing a lot of um like functional labs, looking at your gut microbiome, looking at your hormones, doing all those things, which I think are valuable. Um, but I realized um, you know, over the first like two years that I there's the I think the missing piece to all of it is the nervous system um and how your nervous system is perceiving your environment. And if your nervous system is um, if you're if if you've got trauma in your past and you haven't actually processed through all of that emotion, which is energy in motion, that energy is still in your body and you're it's going, if you don't deal with your issues, it rests in your tissues. So we have to process through that. We have to bring safety back to the body so that your nervous system can actually like stop believing that your life is in danger when you're like just reading emails or like going to the grocery store, or you know, and most people don't think in their head that they're in danger, but your body believes you're in danger because the body always keeps the score. Um, and so that's when I really realized that like all of these protocols, like I can I can do a GI map and I can, you know, give you a super solid GI map or GI protocol and like eradicate the H. pylori and and get your nutrition like top notch. And um, but if your nervous system is dysregulated and you have unprocessed trauma, it's you can't you can't out supplement, you know, the stress.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

This is such a such an important and fascinating topic. I always am so fascinated because it it makes so much sense that if if it wasn't processed, where did it go? I mean it's still lingering.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Yeah, this the law of energy, like the second law of energy tells us that energy is neither created nor destroyed. It's only transmuted, it only moves. So when you have these really emotional events, trauma is not the event, it's what happens inside of you as a result of that event. Escabor Mate. So when you have these really emotional events, it emotion is energy in motion. There's actual physical vibration that happens with energy, right? And so if you're not, if you have these emotional events and you don't have a way to process out of it, you don't feel safe, you don't have parents and friends and community where you feel safe and supported and seen and witnessed through those emotions. Most people stuff it deep down inside. And because energy is not created nor destroyed, it's only transmuted, it stays inside of you unless you let it out. And the only way to do that is to mobilize it and to bring safety back to your body, back to your nervous system.

Meditation Neuroplasticity And Somatic Healing

SPEAKER_00 30:53

I again, I'm just so fascinated by this, and I really hope the listeners are really, really paying close attention to this because it's it's so important to be able to, it affects everything. I mean, to be able to live a complete, full, vibrant life. And I I feel like somewhere along the way as a teenager, I I kind of learned the importance of you know getting getting stuff out, getting your feelings out, expressing yourself. That I learned along the way that anything that you don't get out, it's gonna come back out some way, say, shape, or form in the future. And not to say that you know, I had it all figured out back then, but I do remember vividly understanding that at a young age. And I just think the majority, if not every person, has dealt had some experience, maybe not quite as extreme as someone like yourself, but we've all had something in our years, right? What do you, first of all, how did you go about processing what you had gone through? So you had doctors telling you, having you on all different kinds of medications. How did you work through that? Get off of all the medication and then work through all the different trauma and your experiences.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Yeah. So I will say that um it's a it's not a destination, it's a journey, right? So there's always constantly like different layers of healing. Um, I just turned 40 last year. So um my brother's death was 20 plus years ago, you know. Um, so you know, Sigmund Freud said it like unexpressed emotions never die. They get buried alive and they come forth later in uglier ways. So that's really what I did, and that's what so many people do, is because when I experienced these traumas, um, you know, my my my dad left when I was six and never came back. So it was just my mom. And um, my mom had trauma from her own childhood and um had spent many years addicted to heroin and um was really emotionally unavailable and very um stunted in her own emotional growth and um depressed in her own stuff, right? So I didn't have any support. So I just learned to stuff all my emotions inside. Um I, you know, engaged in lots of risky behavior, sex, drugs, alcohol when I was a you know, young teenager, um just out of like just trying to be loved by somebody. And I absolutely hated myself, you know. And then um there was a when I was from the time that I was 18 to 24, my tr my mode of like healing myself was going to the doctor, right? And like that's what I was getting. I was getting pills. Um, I I had had seen a like a therapist, a traditional talk therapist many times um for many years at a time from a very early age. I I also had some sexual trauma. Um we won't go into that, but um, you know, when I was very young. So I had seen a um, you know, a therapist, but it never really, you know, seemed like it was doing much. I would just talk about my problems, which actually kind of made me, I would often leave feeling more depressed than I did when I got there. Um and so when I was 24, I had such bad panic attacks. That was the year that I became a nurse. And um, I I had panic attacks like almost daily. And my now husband, then boyfriend, um suggested to me, just reflected to me, um, you know, without any medical background, he's in construction. So he was like had no idea even really what he was saying, but he just said to me, like, you just always seem like you're up here, you know, as I was coming out of this panic attack for, you know, whatever it was, I don't remember, but he's like, you're always up here. Like, if you could just come down here, I feel like you would be so much happier. And like, I don't know, maybe you should try meditation or something. And so at that point, I had nothing to lose. I was, I had the the pain of change was less than the pain of staying the same. That the pain of staying the same was it just wasn't an option anymore. I needed to try something. I had never tried meditation before, but I was like, well, I mean, what have I got to lose? Right? That's definitely not gonna help, but why don't I try? And so I did. I started meditating and knowing what I know now, I don't generally recommend meditation as a first step because it's actually kind of difficult to meditate in in a lot of ways and hard for people with trauma. But for some by the grace of God, I was able to um to successfully complete some meditation sessions, and I felt a sense of calm and peace in my body that I had never felt in my whole entire life. And um, within a matter of a couple of weeks of of consistently meditating. And um so I really just that led me on a path of like trying to understand why. You know, I started to under like I was googling like what why does meditation work? And I discovered neuroplasticity. The term neuroplasticity is the ability of your brain to like change and create new neural pathways. And I was like, oh, that's wild. Like, so your brain can heal and change, which in traditional medicine you're told that's not possible. So um, it was just kind of like this door just opened where I was like, oh my gosh. And like I just started consuming a lot more. And this is, you know, 16, 17 years ago. So there, it's not like you know, I didn't have Instagram where I was just like looking stuff up on Instagram. I was like reading books and like journal articles and like, you know, trying to understand. And I really just started to um yeah, consume more of that and learn more about the mind-body connection, meditation. I learned about somatic work. I learned about how trauma makes your body feel unsafe. The body keeps the score came out. I read that, like, and and I just started consuming all of that. And so it's just been a um kind of an evolution of me learning to reconnect to my body, learning to give myself the things that I didn't get as a child, um, learning to love myself, uh, learning to teach my nervous system that I'm actually okay. Like there's not a tiger I can calm down. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Wow. This is beautiful. This is really, really beautiful what you're sharing. And I think it's again for any of our listeners who have gone through the trauma or you're going through it now or the anxiety. I think that the way that you're sharing this, Melissa, it it sounds, it doesn't sound overwhelming. It sounds doable. It's not some like extravagant experience that you went through, right? And I and I think that's if we can like really hit home with our listeners, I think it's so important to to really point that out. I mean, you you can start like you did, start with some meditation, start slow, yeah, reading books, seeking out the information. And just like anything in our lives, like you said, it's it's not a destination, it's a journey, and that's we're all on this journey, and it might look a little different for each of us, and that's how life is, but to know that there's never perfection, it's there's never the destination, it's just a constant, constant journey.

The 30 Second Breath Practice

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Yeah, I actually say, like for a first step for somebody who's like, I feel this, like my I feel anxious, my nervous system's always up here. How do I calm down? The very first step, three times a day, what I want you to do is set an alarm three times a day. And when your alarm goes off, you have to actually do it. You have to commit that you're actually gonna do it. And all I want you to do is close your eyes if you're not driving. If you know, you have to be somewhere like physically safe. Close your eyes, put your hand, one hand on your heart, one hand on your abdomen. And I want you to just breathe for 30 seconds into your abdomen, as far deep down into your abdomen, belly breathing, just trying to feel the rise and fall of your hand on your abdomen three times a day for 30 seconds, for do that for you know, two, three, four weeks. And I promise you, you will start to feel calmer. Because we don't even breathe when we're in this.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Like we're just yeah, it's it's so true. And I'm so again, so happy you you bring this up because again, something so simple doesn't cost a thing. Yep, and it's doable 30 seconds three times a day. I mean, it's I I share in the morning part of the morning routine, taking some time outside and just five minutes of quiet time and taking deep breaths in just to start your day in that state. And thank you for sharing that because that's huge. That that could make such a difference for sure. Wow.

unknown 40:46

Woof!

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Wow, we've covered a lot in a short amount of time, and this has just been so fascinating and so interesting to hear you share. I so appreciate you sharing so much of your story, and I just um I really, really appreciate you doing that a lot.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

Yeah, it's my pleasure. It's my it's my honor, honestly. If I can share any part of my story or share any part of wisdom and it helps even just one person, um that's that's what I'm here for. This is my this is my mission, this is my calling, this is what I'm on earth for.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

So beautiful. Well, I just hope that our listeners really take all that Melissa has shared today to heart. And if you are going through something like this yourself, um, where can people reach out to you, Melissa?

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Yeah, my website is holistichealth by Melissa.com, or you can find me on all social media. I'm most active on Instagram and Facebook, Holistic Health by Melissa. I also have a podcast, Holistic Health with Melissa. Um, send me a message, sign up for my newsletter, reach out to me anyway.

SPEAKER_00 41:58

I love it. And I will add all of your information in the show notes. And again, thank you so much for being here. I so appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Yeah, it was such an honor. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

It's been wonderful. And to our listeners, take time for yourself and your wellness on this day. And until next time, have a beautiful, blessed rest of your week. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. I hope you gained value and enjoyed our time together as much as I did. And if you know someone who could benefit from today's episode, I would love and appreciate it if you could share with a friend or rate and review Words of Wellness so that more can hear this message. I love and appreciate you all. Thank you for listening. And if you have any questions or topics you would like me to share in future episodes, please don't hesitate to reach out to me through my contact information that is shared in the show notes below. Again, thank you for tuning in to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelley Jeffries, and I encourage you to do something for you, for your wellness on this day. Until next time, I hope you all have a healthy, happy, and blessed week.