We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Melissa Holman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Melissa below.

Hi Melissa, thanks for joining us today. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

Some of the most important conversations of my life happened at 2am, across thousands of miles of ocean, with a man who was dying.

My older brother Chris was one of those people who made you wonder how one human being could hold so much. Genius-level intelligence. A gifted musician. A commercial pilot (self-made, mind you) who never graduated high school but earned his GED and then put himself through flight school through sheer will and brilliance. He was a middle child who learned early to take up just enough space, but not too much. Sound familiar?

In August of 2022, Chris was diagnosed with an aggressive colon cancer. Eighty-four days later, he was gone.

I was living on Guam. He was stateside, going through treatment, and the pain kept him awake at night. So we did what we could. We chatted on Telegram. Late nights for him, early mornings for me – time zones blurred, and none of that mattered anyway. What mattered was that for the first time in our lives, Chris and I were really talking.

We talked about our childhood. The things we’d been through. The meaning we’d made of those experiences, and how much of that meaning had shaped us into people who held everything in and let nothing out. We talked about how our family was, to put it plainly, emotionally constipated.

There’s something you need to know about constipation of any kind. If you’re backed up in one area, you’re backed up everywhere.

Chris was, I believe, a highly sensitive person. The kind of man who felt everything deeply but had learned, like so many of us did, that showing it wasn’t safe. In our home, sarcasm was a primary language. Sensitivity was something to be mocked, not honored. So we learned to push it down. We built walls. We got really good at functioning while suffocating on everything we were never allowed to feel.

I knew this pattern well. Because I had lived it too.

I remember breaking my toe as an adult. I ran it straight into a wall. You know what I did? I looked down and said, “Geez. I broke my toe.” That was it. No tears. No reaction. I didn’t even feel it. That’s total disconnection. That’s what happens when you spend decades training yourself not to feel. Eventually, your body stops sending the signal altogether.
I was completely disconnected. Spirit. Mind. Body. All three. I had spent so many years swallowing my emotions, performing wellness, and white-knuckling my way through life that I had lost the thread back to myself entirely.

Now, I want to be careful and honest here. Emotional constipation was not the cause of Chris’s cancer. But I believe with everything in me that it played a part. Trapped energy has to go somewhere. Unfelt emotions don’t disappear; they go underground. They settle into the body and take up residence. The research backs this up, and so does lived experience.

Chris and I talked about this. And for maybe the first time, he didn’t deflect or intellectualize it away. He admitted it. Those conversations, raw and real and happening while my brother was dying, were also, strangely, some of the most alive conversations we ever had.

That’s the cautionary tale I carry with me: Don’t wait for a terminal diagnosis to start telling the truth about who you are and what you’ve been carrying.

After Chris passed on November 6, 2022, I found myself still wrestling with something I hadn’t fully settled as a Life Coach: who exactly I was called to serve.

I kept hearing the same phrases from women who reached out to me:
“I’m at the end of my rope.”
“I’m falling apart.”
“I try so hard, and no one listens.”
“I keep showing up for everyone else, but nobody sees me.”
“I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

And every single time, something in me cringed. Not because I didn’t recognize her. But because I recognized her too well.

That was who I used to be. Every word of it.

Completely disconnected from myself – spirit, mind, and body. Depleted down to the studs. A woman who had given so much away for so long that she’d lost the thread back to herself. I had learned as a little girl that my sensitivity was a liability, so I buried it. And I became very good at surviving. Functioning. Helping everyone around me while simultaneously running on fumes.

I didn’t want to admit that. It felt like weakness. It felt like proof that I wasn’t qualified to help others or speak with authority.

But Chris’s death opened my eyes.

Because I had watched a brilliant, sensitive, gifted man spend a lifetime not letting himself feel, and I had seen where that road ends. And I thought: what if the very thing that qualifies me to serve her is that I have been her?

That’s when I stopped running from my niche and leaned all the way in.

I accepted the calling to walk alongside soul-tired women over 40: women who’ve spent their lives showing up for everyone else and have finally hit the wall. Women who are exhausted, anxious, and losing hope. Women who are disconnected from their bodies, their identities, and their sense of purpose. I guide them back into peace, vibrant flow, and renewed joy. Back to who they were always designed to be.

So let me ask you something directly, because that’s how I operate: Where are you emotionally constipated?
Where are you holding something that needs to move – a grief, a rage, a longing, a truth you haven’t let yourself say out loud yet?

Because here’s what I know: your spirit, mind, and body remember even if you’ve intellectually forgotten. Your nervous system holds it all. And the disconnection you’re calling “just being strong” may be costing you more than you realize.
You don’t have to wait for a crisis to start listening.

Chris didn’t get that chance. But you do.

In memory of Chris. Brilliant. Gifted. Gone too soon. And one of my greatest teachers.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Meet Melissa: The Woman Behind Lemon Balm Coaching

Let me tell you what I’m not going to do.

I’m not going to give you a polished, perfectly curated bio that makes it sound like I woke up one day with a calling, hung out a shingle, and started changing lives. That’s not my story. And frankly, the women I serve have had enough of perfectly curated. They’re hungry for real.

So here’s real.

Where It All Began:

I didn’t grow up in a home of faith. I didn’t have a roadmap, a mentor, or a particularly soft landing in childhood. What I had was survival instincts, a sharp mind, and a heart that felt everything – which I quickly learned to hide, because sensitivity wasn’t exactly celebrated.

For most of my early life, I operated from a place of self-centered survival. I didn’t know another way. I was doing what we all do when no one has shown us anything different – I was managing. Coping. Getting through.

Then came 1988.

I was in basic training with the United States Air Force when I had an encounter with Jesus that I can only describe as before and after. Not a religious experience in the churchy sense – a real one. The kind that reorganizes something deep inside you and sets your feet on a completely different path. He led me to my husband. He softened edges in me that I didn’t even know were sharp. And He has shown up with grace, provision, and peace every single time I’ve needed Him since.
That encounter changed the direction of everything.

Fast forward through 20 years of being a devoted stay-at-home mom. Twenty years of pouring out. Showing up. Putting everyone first. Doing it all with love and passion, while I gradually lost myself in the process.

Then menopause hit.

And I don’t mean a few hot flashes and some mood swings. I mean the kind of menopause that feels like your body, your mind, and your identity all handed in their resignation letters at the same time. My body was worn out. My mind was foggy. I was emotionally disconnected from everything – including myself. I had given so much away for so long that I genuinely didn’t know who Melissa was anymore outside of her roles.

I’ve told the story before of breaking my toe and barely flinching. That’s how disconnected I was. That’s how far I had drifted from myself. But God didn’t leave me there.
He began to rebuild me. Not into who I had been before. Into who He designed me to be all along. And that journey of rediscovery became the entire foundation of Lemon Balm Coaching.

Why Lemon Balm?
Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) is an ancient herb; powerful, deeply calming, and wildly underestimated. It’s been used for centuries to soothe the nervous system, calm anxiety, and restore a sense of peace and clarity.

And because my name is Melissa, choosing that name felt right because the women I serve are wildly underestimated (often by themselves most of all). And what they need isn’t to be fixed. They need to be restored.

What I Do and Who I Do It For
I am a Christian Life Coach, a Registered Aromatherapist, and a Body Code Practitioner. I’m also the co-host of the Heart and Soul Elevation Podcast.

I serve soul-tired women over 40 who have spent their lives showing up for everyone else and have finally hit the wall. Women who are exhausted, anxious, and losing hope. Women who have been strong for so long they’ve forgotten what it feels like to be held. Women who look fine on the outside and feel like they’re dissolving on the inside.

If any of these phrases have ever come out of your mouth (Or the mouth of someone you know):

“I’m at the end of my rope.”
“I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
“I try so hard and nobody sees it.”
“I just want to feel like myself again – but I’m not even sure who that is.”

Then you’re exactly who I’m talking to.

The problems I solve are real, and they run deep:

Nervous system dysregulation: that constant hum of anxiety, the inability to rest even when you’re exhausted, the feeling that your internal world is always on red alert.
Identity loss: the slow erosion of self that happens when you spend years being everything to everyone and nothing to yourself.
Emotional disconnection: from your body, your intuition, your joy, and your sense of purpose.
Spiritual drift: that ache of feeling far from God, far from yourself, and far from the life you sensed you were meant to live.
Burnout that goes bone-deep: not the kind a vacation fixes. The kind that has been building for years.

The Peace Restoration Method (PRM)
My signature system, the Peace Restoration Method, is not a quick fix. It is a soul-deep, proven path back to yourself.

Inside the PRM, we work on:
🔥 Nervous system regulation – so you’re no longer living in constant internal chaos
🔥 Reconnecting with your body and your intuition – she’s still in there, I promise
🔥 Reclaiming your joy, your identity, and your sacred sense of self
🔥 Redesigning your days with boundaries and peace as your actual foundation – not an afterthought

This isn’t a program about productivity hacks or positive thinking. It’s about getting to the root of all the trapped energy, the unprocessed emotions, the nervous system that has been in survival mode for so long it forgot there’s another setting.

And that’s where my unique combination of tools becomes a real advantage.

As a Registered Aromatherapist, I understand the deep connection between scent, the nervous system, and emotional regulation.

As a Body Code Practitioner, I work with the subconscious to identify and release trapped emotions and imbalances that are stored in the body; the things your mind has moved past but your body is still carrying. This is the work most people don’t even know exists, and it is often the missing piece.

As a Christian Life Coach, I ground everything in truth, anchor it in faith, and guide it by the belief that you were designed with special gifts and talents that this would of needs right now.

God is, quite literally, the CEO of Lemon Balm Coaching. I’m the COO – Chief Obedience Officer. This business goes where He leads it, serves who He places in my path, and operates from a foundation of stewardship rather than striving.

What Sets Me Apart?
Here’s the honest answer: I have been my ideal client.

This isn’t a talking point. I don’t have a polished origin story. I have genuinely lived the disconnection, the depletion, the identity loss, the spiritual drift, and the bone-deep exhaustion that my clients walk in with. I know what it feels like to not cry when you break your toe. I know what it feels like to serve everyone around you while wondering if anyone will ever show up for you.

My experience, combined with my training, my faith, and my God-given archetype as a truth-telling Wise Woman, means you get someone who will walk with you, not talk at you. Someone who will give you the truth you need, not just the comfort you’re craving. Someone who has done this work herself and continues to do it.

I also believe that healing accelerates in community. Modern life has sold us the lie that strength looks like going it alone. But disconnection is often the hidden root of burnout, anxiety, and despair. We were wired for belonging; emotionally, spiritually, and physically. So my work is rooted in the original design.

What I’m Most Proud Of
Not the credentials – though I worked hard for them.
Not the podcast, the programs, or the platform – though I’m grateful for every bit of it.
What I’m most proud of is the moment a woman who came in completely hollow looks at me and says, “I feel like myself again.”

When I see her reconnect with the woman she was designed to be, when her nervous system settles, when she starts making decisions from peace instead of panic is everything. That’s why I do this.

I’m proud that I stopped playing it safe with my niche. That I leaned into my own story; every messy, real, hard-won part of it, and that I let it become the very thing that qualifies me to serve. My brother Chris’s life and death were part of that reckoning. His story is woven into the why behind everything I do.

And I’m proud that this business belongs to God. That I get to show up every day guided by obedience. That is a freedom most entrepreneurs never find.

If you’ve read this far, I want you to know that you are not too far gone. I don’t care how depleted you are, how long you’ve been running on empty, or how many times you’ve tried to feel better and slipped back. As long as you are breathing you are not beyond restoration.

You were not designed to do this alone. The exhaustion you’re carrying was never meant to be carried solo. Community is part of your original wiring.

Your spirit, mind, and body have been speaking to you through your anxiety, fatigue, and the disconnection. These are signals. And we can learn to listen to them together.

Faith is the foundation. If you’re a woman of faith who’s been trying to heal herself with willpower and hustle, I want to suggest there is a better way that starts with surrender, not striving.

And finally, this work is for the woman who is ready to stop surviving and start living with peace, purpose, and the kind of joy that doesn’t depend on circumstances.

That woman exists inside you. She has never left. I’m here to help you find her again.

Have you ever had to pivot?

The Pivot That Changed Everything (And Why I’m Glad I Didn’t Stay Comfortable)

Let me say something upfront: if you’re waiting for a sign that it’s okay to change direction, this is it. Because pivoting is intelligence in action, and I should know; I’ve done it more times than I can count.

In 2018, I graduated from the American College of Healthcare Sciences with my Aromatherapy Certificate. I had worked hard for it, believed in its healing power, and was genuinely excited to step into this new chapter as a solopreneur.
So I did what you do. I ‘hung out my shingle,’ and I started seeing clients.

And it was good. Aromatherapy is powerful (don’t let anyone tell you otherwise). The science behind essential oils and the nervous system is real, the results are real, and my passion for it was absolutely real. But something kept nagging at me.

As I sat with clients, listening to what brought them in, what they were struggling with, and what they hoped to find relief from, I kept finding myself leaning forward.

I wanted to know the story behind the story. Why the anxiety? Why now? What happened five years ago, or twenty years ago, that set this particular pattern in motion? What were they carrying that had never been addressed, only managed?
I didn’t want to put an aromatic band-aid on what ailed them. I wanted to get to the root.

And aromatherapy, as beautiful, effective, and legitimate as it is, is a part of the picture. But I kept seeking the whole picture.

Here’s the thing about being a Sage: you can’t turn off the part of you that seeks deeper. You can try. You can stay in your lane, stick to the plan, and honor the credential on the wall. But if your gift is discernment and root-cause thinking, it will find a way out one way or another.

Mine found its way out in the form of a very inconvenient realization: Aromatherapy was the door. But coaching was the room I was supposed to be in.

This pivot wasn’t dramatic. There was no crisis, no rock bottom, no burning-it-all-down moment. It was just that I had to be honest with myself that the credential I had worked for, the business I had just launched, and the identity I had just stepped into, weren’t the final destination.

That takes a particular kind of courage that doesn’t get talked about enough.
It’s one thing to pivot when everything is falling apart. It’s another thing entirely to look at something that’s working and say, “This isn’t quite it.” I was made for something more.

So I pivoted. I leaned into coaching. But aromatherapy didn’t get left behind. It got integrated. It became one of the powerful tools I bring to the table, layered with energy work and faith-based coaching into something entirely its own.

What I’ve Learned About Pivots
There have been smaller pivots along the way; shifts in niche, changes in social strategy, refinements in how I show up and who I speak to. And I’ve made peace with the fact that this is just how it goes. Business is a living thing. You are a living thing. Growth requires the willingness to outgrow.

Pivots are proof that you are paying attention. The aromatherapy path taught me how to work with the body. It gave me a framework for understanding the nervous system, for seeing the physical manifestation of emotional pain. Without it, I wouldn’t be half the coach I am today.

The thing that leads you somewhere isn’t always the thing that keeps you there. And that’s okay. Honor the catalyst. And then be brave enough to walk through the door that it opened.

Comfort is not the same as calling. I could have stayed comfortable. Kept seeing aromatherapy clients. Built a tidy little practice and called it good. But comfort and calling are not always at the same address. When they’re not, you will feel that tension in your bones.

People had been telling me who I was for years. My whole life, people sought me out for wisdom. For perspective. For the truth they needed but weren’t sure they wanted. You can’t get that in a certification program. That’s a God-given design. Coaching just gave it a container.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Some lessons don’t come easily. Some of them wait until you’re flat on your back before they finally get your attention.
This is one of those.

I didn’t walk around as a little girl consciously thinking “I have to be perfect to be loved.” Beliefs like that don’t announce themselves. They just take up residence and start running the show from behind the scenes.

But looking back, I can trace it clearly.

Somewhere early on, in the mix of sarcasm and high expectations and learning that sensitivity would get you mocked rather than held, I picked up a belief that lodged itself deep: If I don’t do it right the first time, (whatever ‘right’ is) I am not worthy of love.
Not “I made a mistake.” Not “I’ll try again.”
Worthy. Of. Love.

I want to be honest about this, because I think it’s important: That belief worked for a long time. Until it didn’t.

It made me capable. Dependable. Resilient in ways that genuinely served my family and my community. I raised children with intention. I navigated military life – the moves, the upheaval, the constant starting over – and I did it without falling apart. I learned to stretch an enlisted salary in ways that would make a finance professor weep with pride. I stepped into leadership wherever it was needed. Boy Scout Master. Homeschool co-op director. Band member. Youth band leader. If something needed doing and no one was stepping up, I stepped up. Because that’s what capable, dependable, worthy-of-love women do.

I performed. I excelled. I showed up. And I paid for every single bit of it in ways I wouldn’t fully understand until my mid-40s.

When menopause hit, it didn’t just bring hormonal shifts. It brought a full-system reckoning.

My body, the one I had pushed and ignored and performed through for decades, finally said enough.
My mind got foggy.
My energy evaporated.
My emotional world, which I had managed so efficiently for so long, started leaking through the cracks in ways I couldn’t control or contain.

And the belief that had driven me, do it right, or you are not worthy, suddenly had nothing left to run on.

Because what that belief system actually demanded underneath all the productivity and leadership and capability was:
Perfection instead of presence and performance instead of peace.

I didn’t know how to rest.
I didn’t know how to receive.
I didn’t know how to say “I got that wrong and I’m still completely worthy of love,” because that sentence was simply not in my vocabulary.

So when my body forced me to slow down, to stop performing, to just be for a moment, the whole architecture started to crack.

That breaking point became the doorway into everything I now do.

I had to unlearn the worthy equation entirely.

Worth is not a math problem.
Love is not a performance review.
Belonging is not something you earn through flawless effort.

I had to learn that the same grace I could extend to everyone around me was also meant for me.

That was not easy. For a woman who had built her entire identity on getting things right, accepting grace felt almost suspicious. Like a trick. Like the other shoe was about to drop.

But God is patient with slow learners.

He kept showing me that His love for me had never once been contingent on my performance. That I was not a human doing, I was a human being. And that the worth I had been grasping for had been mine all along.
I didn’t earn it. I couldn’t lose it. I just had to stop performing long enough to receive it.

I share this because I know I’m not the only one who grew up running this outdated program.

Maybe yours sounds a little different. Maybe it’s “if I need help, I’m weak.” Or “if I’m not useful, I’m a burden.” Or “if I slow down, everything will fall apart, and that will be my fault.”

Different words. Same sentence underneath.

But the beliefs that help you survive one season of life can become the very ones you must release to grow into the next.

My old story kept me safe for a long time. I honor it for that. But I don’t live there anymore.

Today, I know, deep down in my soul, that love, value, and belonging are inherent. They are woven into who I am, not what I do. Letting go of that old story didn’t make me less capable. It made me whole.
And whole is so much better than perfect.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lemonbalmcoaching.com
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