We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melanie Klein a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Melanie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

After dealing with crushing personal shame, guilt and self-doubt, I was catalyzed into action after meeting my first mentor and simultaneously beginning my mindfulness and embodiment practices over 26 years ago.

Beginning to “understand” the world around me and my unique place within it as a woman as it intersected with discovering – a revolutionary and liberating awakening – my personal agency and power combined into a very specific mission and intention. To illuminate pathways of possibility and personal freedom that elevates the collective experience was the clearest and most compelling decision I’d ever made… and it’s fueled all of my work since.

Whether I am working with 1:1 VIP clients or publishing my books, delivering talks or teaching my students, the central area of my work is raising consciousness and creating a framework of awareness that leads to dynamic and effective action.

The combination of developing my intellect, learning how to develop a critical consciousness and asking questions with the embodiment work allows me to not just think about how to create change or understand how to create change, but how to make change happen and BE the change.

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?

I am a sought – after empowerment + mindset coach working with individuals and teams across the country to align and integrate their personal and professional spheres for increased success and abundance without compromising their joy. I am also a successful writer, speaker, and Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies and have written and/or contributed to over 9 books on empowerment, personal transformation for collective liberation and cultivating resilience including the groundbreaking and award-winning anthology, Yoga & Body Image: 25 Personal Stories About Beauty, Bravery and Loving Your Body and most recently, Embodied Resilience Through Yoga.

I combine over two decades of professional and personal work and integrate my backgrounds in mindfulness and embodied wisdom with my academic expertise and advocacy work. In this way I offer a holistic and unique pathway to personal freedom and prosperity, one that is customized and designed to each individual. This includes 1:1 VIP coaching as well as group programs.

My clients know that I am committed to the highest level of excellence, integrity and joy! My work is potent, powerful and deep as well as playful, exciting and inspiring. There is never a doubt that I operate in service of their highest good and exceptional results that blow their mind.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The holy grail had been won! After 15 years of teaching Sociology and Gender/Women’s Studies, I was hired as a full-time tenure-track professor and I felt victorious. It’d been a long time coming – years of teaching, facilitating workshops and panels, mentoring, guiding and leading students and engaging with the wider civic community, publishing essays, articles and books… all of it.

Eighteen months into my tenure-track position it became abundantly clear (and inconvenient)… Oh, I need to resign and open my coaching and consulting calendar full time. I’d made myself available to private clients for well over a year at this point and I found the guidance I was able to offer and the transformation I was able to witness and support in my clients exhilarating and exciting. I wanted more of the 1:1 experience. I wanted more opportunities to use my entire skillset to serve. I was ready for the next phase of my career and the next evolution of my work in the world.

People questioned my choice – why would I leave now? I’d be tenured soon. They cautioned me – why take such a risk when this path was “guaranteed”? Things would be easy. I could kick back and coast.

I knew with absolute certainty that none of that sounded desirable to me. It felt like a spiritual death.

Similar to that lightning bolt moment 20 years earlier, I knew I needed to pivot and trust myself. THIS was my direction. THIS was clear. And THIS was my choice. I felt compelled to honor it. That was my only option.

It was one of the best choices I’ve ever made and is a prime example of the big life transitions and moments of trust I help my clients navigate and execute.

The last five years of my business have been deeply rewarding and inspiring. I can’t imagine ever saying “no” to the life I’m living. The work I’m able to do in the world as well as whom I’m able to work with is deeply fulfilling.

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

A core idea I learned that I had to unlearn was the idea that life happens *to* me – that life comes at me and that I do not have any power or agency to make a decision on my own terms with my own overall wellness at the forefront. The notion of making empowered and conscious choices was an unknown idea to me for my entire adolescence.

It wasn’t until a death defying road trip at the age of 22, landing in my first mentor’s Sociology of Women class at the local community college and the introduction to meditation, mindfulness and embodiment work that I realized – oh, that’s not true.at.all.

Up until that moment, I’d been plugged into countless cultural scripts that hid my own power and agency from me. The messages I remember all placed my source of value and self-worth outside of myself – from MTV to Barbie and her scale perpetually stuck at 110 pounds to teen magazines focusing on beauty, fashion and “how to get the boy to love you.” I’ve heard “you aren’t enough” and “you have to wait for something and someone good to happen to you” versus “your are whole and worthy” or “you can create good things for yourself.” Most insidiously, the overarching message I can recall as far back as kindergarten is “it’s your fault” and “you aren’t capable without…” fill-in-the-blank. That could be a boyfriend, a diet or some other artificial external filler.

Being presented with the idea that all of that was NOT true was mind blowing and life changing. It was also that lightning bolt moment that made it clear to me that I wanted to be engaged in the process of self-discovery, personal growth and collective change for the rest of my life. That declaration has guided me forward personally and professionally ever since. It’s the nexus of everything I do with clients, what I teach, what I write about, speak about and share.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.melaniecklein.com/
• Instagram: @melmelklein

Image Credits
Photo credit: Krista Mason Photography