Nicole Laino
Hello, and welcome to the limitless entrepreneur podcast. I am your host, Nicole Laino. And I am here with a very special guest. I’m here with Melanie Weller, Melanie, it is I’m so excited to have you here because we’re going to talk about some topics today that we touch on that we dive deep into even on this show, but you are going to take us in a whole other direction with it, which I am I’m like kind of giddy about. So first let’s let’s let the listeners know a little bit about you. Can you introduce yourself and tell them a little bit about yourself?

Melanie Weller
Yes, thank you so much for having me on your show. I am in conventional terms of physical therapist, I see myself like I spent a lot of years collecting credentials, I have a lot of letters after my name. And my background is in treating people that haven’t found success and other places. And what I heard over and over in doing so was how what was happening inside of their body was very metaphoric for happening, what was happening outside of their body in their personal lives and their businesses. And what I came to really love was helping people with these spiritual and stress related underpinnings of their physical dysfunction, really getting to the root of it, that it’s not just about doing some stretches and exercises and things like that, that it goes much, much deeper than that. And so, I really like to lead with my inner magician, high priestess these days, more than my credentials. But I branded my I’ve branded myself as a stress management expert for a long time now. And my clinical expertise is in treating the vagus nerve as a pinched nerve. And your vagus nerve is your big stress, pleasure and inflammation mediating pathway in the body. It’s the largest part of your parasympathetic nervous system. So it balances out all the fight and flight that we’re all stuck in on a chronic basis. And that we don’t really need, you know, the saber toothed Tiger isn’t chasing us all the time. But we, you know, many people live in a state of chronic fight and flight, we’re very much in our heads and not really all the way down in our bodies. And the vagus nerve that comes out of the base of the earth comes out of your brainstem and exits the base of your skull. And it goes all the way down into the pelvis, it innervates your vocal cords, your heart. And an actually when it goes down to innovate your heart just it loops back up to integrate your vocal cords. So I like to think of it as the nerve that allows us to speak our hearts. it innervates the digestive system. So it’s involved with the muscles that help us move food. Through our digestive systems, it’s involved in Vitamin B 12. absorption, we can we can’t absorb vitamin B 12 Without our vagus nerves. And it’s also involved in bile and digestive enzyme secretion as well. It’s in almost all of your organs, except for your adrenal glands that are which are part of our stress, fight and flight response. And it sends more information up to our brains than it does down to our bodies. So it’s definitely taking in a lot of information. I work with it with clients very much in now and although I also I still work with people with physical issues, but much more in accessing their own genius and their own intuition and really optimizing their gut brain in their heart brain and speaking from the most authentic part of themselves. And the research, the scientific research around the vagus nerve is amazing. How well your vagus nerve functions has predictive value for patients with pancreatic cancer for how long they will live. The when they in research, they’ll often apply electrical stimulation to the vagus nerve. And when they do that, it repairs the mitochondrial defects in the cells that go with heart disease. And so your vagus nerve isn’t directly in your mitochondria, but it causes a cascade of effects that then repairs the mitochondria, which are the energy producers in our cells.

Nicole Laino
So it’s, it’s, it’s involved. It’s this kind of, because I don’t know if anybody listening to this show unless they have a medical background is terribly familiar with the vagus nerves and what they do and how they’re functioning but they’re But it seems like they have their hand in just about everything. And you’re very tied to stress. It sounds like absolutely,

Melanie Weller
absolutely. It’s like I equate it to the mycelium network of the body. And the mycelium network of the forest connects the roots of all the trees and plants together and sends signals and nutrients back and forth. And your vagus nerve is very similar to that it literally connects everything.

Nicole Laino
So how does somebody know? If they have a? If they have an issue with their vagus nerve? Or not? What would be without, you know, having knowledge or being able to what do you look for with somebody that you’re working with? What do they come to you with? And then what do you what are you kind of looking for?

Melanie Weller
Well, I’ll say first, we all have experienced when our vagus nerve is not working well, because that’s when we go to do public speaking or something that would make us similarly nervous. And we get a lump in her throat, and our palms sweat and our neck gets tight, our heart starts to race and our stomach feels funny, because that all happens because your vagus nerve has been dialed down and your fight and flight responses have been dialed up. Physically, I really look at rotation, the more somebody is limited physically in rotation, the more likely they are to have vagus nerve dysfunction. And I have a free course on my website that takes you through a self assessment and treatment for all the different points. The challenge with doing it in a by ourselves and sometimes in a virtual format is that we are all master compensators. And we all take the path of least resistance. And so you know, and that’s sort of just a really nice way to say that we all cheat, like we’ll cheat through movement, no matter you know, if that’s just the rule, if you don’t have the motion in one place, you’re gonna take it from somewhere else. And so, for example, if you’re going to assess how well your head is turning side to side, it’s important to go slowly and feel like if you have any speed bumps, that you feel like you’re going over, or if you notice that you start to like tilt your chin, when you get to a certain point to go a little further, you know, we all do these very subtle compensations. And that’s the advantage of seeing a clinician or seeing, you know, or having somebody else, watch the move or doing it in the mirror so that you can at least see yourself a little bit because it’s these compensations can be can be very subtle. Just yesterday, I treated somebody that has had it physically in my office here in New Orleans that I work with people online too. So I just wanted to clarify that I saw this person here in my office, and she was just one of the most brilliant compensators ever. Like she was so subtle about how she got around having she was basically was having back and knee pain. And she was basically stuck in a fetal position, but she’s standing upright. So the amount of compensation that she has to do to get there is enormous. But her doctors and other people that she’s seen for this just blew by all of her barriers and didn’t pay attention to how much she was compensating. She’s otherwise very healthy. And so they are like, Oh, look, you can move your leg in all directions. And she’s like, Yeah, but it’s really a you know, she would tell them it’s achy, when they would move around. The whole reason it was achy is because she was going past her available range of motion. So I will say short, short answer is that rotation, so how can you turn your head, you know, giving yourself a hug and in sitting and turning side to side? You know, and I have many clinical tests that like take people through on that. But short answer is that rotation because we know that stress and trauma always affect the voice and the breath and our vocal cords and our diaphragms are horizontally oriented in our body. So we embody stress and trauma on this horizontal plane. And when people are really severely locked up in rotation, I always ask about their mental health and if they’re having suicidal ideation because the answer is almost always yes. And if the answer isn’t Yes, I’m having these thoughts, these suicidal thoughts. The answer is no, but I feel like I’m dying on the inside.

Nicole Laino
And I can only imagine that you know, those people that are experiencing that like thank God that they end up talking to somebody like you because you go for like a physical ailment and you think that they’re going to you know, and Right now probably prescribing some sort of pain medication, which will only contribute to that feeling most likely have a feeling alone and feeling, you know, like you’re dying on the inside, let’s let’s know it all. But but to end up with somebody like you who you know, and I think that this is kind of the message that I’d like to dive into here, which is the, the internal, influencing the external, and how that shows up, not just in our pain and in our body, but in our world, and our inability to do things, I think you said that you you’ve, you work with people who have had a hard time creating success in their life in a certain way that they haven’t been able to, to make something happen that they wanted to happen. And so can we just talk a little bit about that? And we’re gonna see where this goes, but I’m, I’m interested in, in hearing about, you know, whether that’s that’s all vagus nerve oriented, or, you know, what is it if somebody is right now is listening to this, and they’re like, I’m having trouble. I feel like I’m stuck. I feel like I can’t create the level of success that I know I’m capable of that. What’s your what is your take on that? What is What are you looking for, and what you know, like, let’s let’s just open that box and see takes us?

Melanie Weller
Well, I really look at the vagus nerve compression points and the whole body at a at the macro and micro level in archetypal terms to really help get to these blocks. So for example, the easiest way to to understand this is through Western astrology. So mythology, among many things, was a mode of communicating scientific information. The ancient Egyptian myth of ISIS, and Osiris has the numbers of the earth processional cycle in it. So the story was how they communicated the cosmology. And there’s other myths from other cultures that have the same numbers. And so they know that this was just the way that they wrote their science in those ways. And the in astrology Aries rules the head and the ventricles in our brain that makes cerebral spinal fluid look just like the ram’s horns that represent Aries. And the way our hyoid bones and our throat sit on top of our larynx is looks just like the symbol for Taurus and Taurus rules, the throat and our aortic arches are the same shape as a symbol for Leo. And Leo rules the heart, and it works this way the whole way through the body. We also have intracellular structures that mimic the shape of the constellations, adenosine triphosphate ATP, which is the energy in our cells. It’s made by the mitochondria, but ATP is shaped just like the Aries constellation. And so the n in has very similar archetypal function to it as well. So for example, if the vagus nerve is compressed at the base of the skull, I will often ask people where they’re being the hero in someone else’s story. That and that’s the Aries piece, the warrior, you know, are where they’re, you know, or what, you know, even like what, you know, what do you find meaningful? What are you passionate about? What, you know, do you want to, you know, what do you stand for what’s your, you know, and getting clear on those kinds of things. And Taurus is all about what you love and what you desire and what feels good. And, you know, certainly speaking your truth, since it’s our voice. And so when your heroics and your desires are at odds with each other, it will show up as nerve compression at the base of the skull, it archetypically shows up as impaired vision and impaired set your vagus nerve is really in all of your senses. It’s in your sense of taste in your it innervates the skin of your ear canal, it’s involved in vision, they know it’s involved in smell the the last research I read, they’re not exactly sure how it is. But they see it respond. They just don’t. It’s in their aneurysm. It’s in there. Yeah. And so it really impairs your ability to sense what’s going on. And so I help people. I evaluate people’s bodies and people’s energies because I work with us online. I’ve tried to turn this this way that mythology is sort of coded into the body or where it really mimics the cosmos and other stories into a form of energy medicine. And so for if I’m working with somebody online, like I’ll go through and feel into their energy and feel like feel into which stories are distorted and what needs to be lined up and so Oh, you know, it’s a, it’s a big body of work, you know, certainly, and I don’t know, every myth that’s out there, you know, and that’s the, that the rule, the only rule we ever follow is as above, so below, or as within. So without, and I, this is just a very prescriptive based approach, he likes to sometimes call it story prescription that we’re going, you know, we’re gonna go through and figure out what story you’re really stuck in, and what needs to come into better alignment and how you can really edit that story and own it, rather than letting it play out repetitively, and tragically, and in your own life.

Nicole Laino
So it’s kind of like, you know, we’re, we’re inducing like the pattern interrupt, and we’re saying, Okay, now we’ve recognized, so you’re almost saying that it’s coming with like, people usually come to you with a physical ailment historically,

Melanie Weller
yes, yeah, I get more people coming now just for trying to open up performativity genius and clarity and things like that. But yes, yes. And even, you know, going back to the person I was talking about earlier that I, you know, just saw for back pain, and knee pain or knee was an issue. And I said, Well, you know, I said, Well, this is where, you know, I said, Tell me where your structure is at odds with your transformation, like, where you want to do something else, but the structure of your life, or the structure of your work, or something like that, or the greater society structure is in allowing you, you know, you don’t feel you feel bound by that or constrained by the structure. And she said, Melanie, you’re reading me really well, I know, but that’s just the archetypal. That’s what shows up at the knee. Okay, at the end of the day, you know, like, or that, you know, and that’s the piece that I really want to get out to people that they can really reflect very, you know, like, your specific parts of your body are giving specific messages. And we don’t really know how to talk to our bodies, and by the time you’ve had pain, or repetitive failure, in other areas, your body is saying no, somewhere, and you’re not listening.

Nicole Laino
Yeah, and I mean, we’re giving we’re given signs all the time through life. Like there’s, there’s little universal signs that are coming to us all the time. And we’re either paying attention and learning from them, and they’re not, they’re not problems any longer, or we allow them to compound and, you know, just keep happening. And then I always said that it’s like, you know, the universe is knocking on your door and starts with a little tap, like, hey, you know, I want you to just be noticing this thing over here. And, and it starts up very polite. And then eventually, if you keep ignoring it, they beat your door down. Absolutely. You know, and that’s, that’s the the diagnosis. That’s the, you know, like the big bang that comes to us. And, you know, the idea is to start paying attention to that stuff sooner. And so just thinking about how people can apply this to their life, how this, like this knowledge and this awareness, how can somebody who’s listening to this right now, what can they start doing to so if they are feeling this, this way of, you know, unable to create the success that they want, they feel like they’ve they’ve interrupted their flow? Like, how can they get into flow? Like, I know that that’s kind of something that you specialize in helping people do.

Melanie Weller
Right? The Well, I would say, one you could do the exercises in my free online course are really helpful. And as you get just the physical flow, and I’ll tell you the exercises, I didn’t realize this when I when I first designed them, but they really they really access the way our electrons, the mechanics of our electromagnetic field, in the way that I have I position people in those. And so just doing even though it’s a physical exercise, there, it really opens you up to the big picture. It’s also works quite magically and energetically, so I would say one. Those exercises there’s research that shows that when solar and space weather disrupt the electromagnetic field of the Earth, it’s measurable in our vagus nerves. So our vagus nerves are really the bridge between our stories and our bodies. They’re the bridge between the cosmos and our bodies. You know, they’re what connects our In our world, it’s what connects our inner world to our outer world. And the power of doing something really simple physically, I think shouldn’t be underestimated. I think we make healing way too hard, very often.

Nicole Laino
Well, I think, you know, and I like immediately, I just think about yoga that I think that’s one concept that if this is seeming a little far out or not, you’re not quite understanding it. I think that we all kind of have subscribed over, you know, just the last couple of decades where yoga has become super mainstream. And people recognize that mind body connection, that that stretching and that these poses in these positions are more than just stretching a muscle.

Melanie Weller
Absolutely, absolutely. So yes. And in that way, your vagus nerve is very much the bridge between your mind and your and your body. Because your vagus nerve, when it’s will also remap your brain at the highest levels, the research shows, and so, and really exhaling if you do nothing else, just exhale, I can walk everybody through one of the vagus nerve exercises, here are a few. Sure, if you like, what I often tell people that if you do nothing else that I say, just remember to exhale, because we’re all stuck, you know, stuck in this shallow breathing, this very, very shallow breathing. And so for anybody that’s going to do this, right now, please do not multitask, do not drive and do this do not you know, stop what you’re doing and give it your full attention. So you can do this in sitting. And ideally, you’re sitting in good, but comfortable posture, so like maybe at the edge of the chair or not all the way back and cross your left ankle over your right. And you can just give a little bit of gentle pressure there. And if you have any conditions that where you’re hesitant or you know, to do this, the beautiful thing about your brain is that it doesn’t see doing it and imagining it as any different the same parts of your brain activate. So you could literally visualize this exercise, and it would work and the research supports that you can imagine doing bicep curls, and your bicep gets stronger. You know,

Melanie Weller
Google the piano player experiment. And you’ll read about a whole study that they did of people who actually played the piano and then half of the group, just imagine playing the same fingering exercises, and they both progressed almost at the same level. Yeah. Now our, our fascinating neural system, nervous systems are amazing things. Yeah. So then take your right hand and put it across your body like towards the outside of your left thigh.

Melanie Weller
And then take your left hand and put it behind your head. And what I’m going to have everybody do is inhale into the backside of their heart. So just imagine that you’re putting air into the backside of your hearts between your between your breathing in between your shoulder blade, between your shoulder blades, and then hold your breath for a few seconds there and then exhale all of it like you’re blowing out a candle or blowing through a straw. And go ahead and do that two more times. And while I have people do this, I usually tell them about a South American proverb that says your future is behind you propelling you forward. And your past is in front of you, waiting for you to make peace with it and clear your way. So as you breathe into the backside of your heart, imagine that you’re breathing into your future and inviting it to connect with you. Inviting the things that you desire your good future to come forward. In Egyptian mythology their cardinal directions are told in the story is knowledge wisdom, magic and truth. So I like to think how we bring knowledge from above into wisdom below and magic from behind us to show up as truth in front of us. So as we breathe into the backside of our hearts, we’re breathing into our magic as well.

Nicole Laino
Oh, I love that. And you definitely like I just did it I put I muted my microphone while I was while I was heavy breathing there for a second but hearing me but I you feel creating space. So just creating that space and when you can physically tune into that. I mean, I noticed that when I meditate I noticed that this relaxation just kind of does that but the breathing. I definitely could feel and it was helpful. He Hearing you kind of walk through that lovely proverb, because I do think that those stories and those, the making that connection in our minds of, you know, I’m doing more than just breathing.

Melanie Weller
Absolutely, absolutely well, and the difference between acute subacute pain and chronic pain. And I would extend this to chronic limiting beliefs and these chronic stories that we tell ourselves is that chronic pain gets locked into our limbic systems, which is where our emotions are stored. And you cannot logic yourself out of your limbic system, you need an emotional key to get out of there. And that’s really the power of story. The neuroscience of storytelling is all about unlocking the emotional system in our bodies and creating more oxytocin, which is the neurotransmitter that makes us all feel connected with each other, which in oxytocin is made in the heart. And so your vagus nerve, and your oxytocin production are very intimately linked. And so when you can put a metaphor with it, it’s very powerful. And I’ve spent, you know, even before I really came to the structure of what I’m doing now in the throes of my own breakdown, where my life was falling apart. But for years, I’ve asked people what to tell me what the metaphor is for what’s happening to them to say that I’m, and they always tell me exactly what’s wrong with them, they just don’t do it in sight. And so when things are really knotted up, or when, you know, I had somebody years ago, before I was doing what I’m doing now, and she told me, she felt like a sponge that was full of water, and she couldn’t bring herself out. And she had a pain condition where she couldn’t. If, if I had her twist, it would have exacerbated her pain. Okay, and so I gave her a way to experience getting wrung out without putting her in a threatening position. And it was mind blowing what happened to her as a result of that it was completely transformative. And, you know, I she left I was like, just take it, like, just don’t go like, you know, jet skiing today. Or all of that, you know, it was but she danced out of my office after not being able to move for many years. And so giving, treating the metaphor and treating the story is really powerful. When we treat our physical bodies, sometimes our stories changed but when we treat our stories, our physical bodies always change. And we’re so much more than our this container that we come here in and I want to an exercise I do with people regularly is asked I asked them what their if they were going to dress their soul, what does their soul wear, you know, to personify it and give it some life. And we’ll talk about the details of that and then I help them really work through kind of getting their energy lined up with that vision. And then I have them go walk like their soul reach like their soul or you know, start to move really move like it so that they really embody it. And this is super powerful on an on so many levels, because we’re not, you know, I collected so many credentials over the years. And you know, but like, that’s not who I am. And it was a lot of undoing from you know, in my own process to learn that and, you know, if I go for a run I’ve had an A right hip issue on and off for many years. And then if I move like the High Priestess or move like the magician, my hip doesn’t hurt at all, when I really embody that deeper essence of myself. It’s it changes everything. And one of the things that I do on a practical level, I really treat shock absorption. People so for example, by the time somebody comes to me with back pain, they’re not moving right at their big toe, their ankle, they’re neither hip, their ribcage, their neck, or the base of their skull. So their back pain is taking a beating for what’s not happening right above and below it. They’ve got no shock absorption in their system. And they often don’t have spiritual shock absorption either or emotional shock absorption, you know, mental shock absorption that whole that stiffness really reverberates through their entire lives, and I will often after loosening In these people, I’ve teach them how to teach them to walk softly. Because we know that if you can control, the softer walking tends to lead, lead to less pain. So walk, you’re walking as a controlled fall from one foot to the other in a way, but when we get injured and stressed, and life happens, we often don’t control the fall, and we just crash from one foot to the other. And, you know, we all know, people when they’re walking towards us, because it’s like an elephant is walking down the hallway. And you can hear them and other people are like ninjas, and suddenly they appear. And so really getting people to walk softly. But when I tell people get people to envision what their soul looks like, and get them to go walk, like their soul, they always walk softer. And it’s so much more fun. And as you know, I mean, it has the same effect. And they’re really able to, you know, and it shifts. This is really powerful in patients with anxiety in particular, 16 year old girls are one of my favorite demographics to work with, because they soak up the imagery so easily. And when you get them to walk, like they see their soul or to walk like I had, I recently treated one who were we had her walk like a lion headed goddess, because she had her vagus nerve was compressed in her heart, and Leo rules the heart. And so we really tapped into that lion energy and it was so fun to see her just walk completely differently. And in to visit she was she had all of our anxiety symptoms resolved. Yeah,

Nicole Laino
we did. And years ago, when I was in acting school, like we had, we had a, I don’t know, movement class, but where we would have movement where we would walk like different animals, and you had to move and embody different things. And it was really to tap into that energy, like at first, it’s like, it’s not about looking like something else. It’s not about how it looks about how it feels. And it’s about how you can get into that energy. And you could apply that to the character that you were creating. And that’s why it’s so funny. Like, I never thought that my acting experience would be used for anything other than acting, I didn’t think that I would be applying it to like my coaching and, and the things that I do in the way that I see like personal growth, but it all connects. Because I’m curious, when you say your soul, would you use that as like Soul slash Higher Self higher self? Or do you see them as different things?

Melanie Weller
No, I think they can be the same thing. I think whatever. Yeah, you know, I think people you know, I try to let people let it be whatever, they whatever fits their belief system. I don’t think it has to be soul. In particular, it’s your it’s about you know, it’s about tapping into your essence. And I will tell you, I’ve taught thespian students before this process, you know, for, in part for vocal health and in part for embodying characters in that way with no you know, and I don’t have a thespian background, but it was so fun to see it actually see it work so well.

Nicole Laino
Well, there’s there was something like I, I know, I remember reading something about Harvey Keitel and a character that he was building. And, you know, when you study, it’s studying the masters at anything, you can get better at what you want to do this long, you know, and he was talking about how he embodied like, he saw his character as a lion. That was my first exposure to hearing that applied to the actual building of the character, and everything that you’re saying about like, and because I go through this with my people, as well, or we talk about the highest self, we talk about that next level version of yourself, how does she walk? How does she feel? What does she do? What does she believe? What doesn’t she believe? What isn’t she available for? What did you know? And really envisioning her and embodying her? And I say her because currently I have no male clients, but I don’t discriminate. I just don’t have any at the moment. But what does she you know, what is she inside and out? And, and how can you feel into all of those aspects, the energetic side of it, and it’s such an important piece, because that’s everything is feeling, you know, you can write anything down in words. But if you can’t connect to the feeling to it, then there’s work to be done. You need to you need to be able to connect energetically to the words that are coming out of your mouth. And you know, I’ve said before, like to go back to the acting references, getting on stage and saying the words is not acting, getting on stage and feeling the character and the moment and that’s what a great performances. So recognizing that all of this stuff, all the work that you do everything is the energy that you bring to it. It’s being connected to something and embodying this better version of yourself. And, and, you know, to go back to the souls thing, something that I love to remind myself, and this just sort of drops me into the right frame of thinking for this is that I am not a human, I am I am a soul having a human experience. And seeing these as kind of two separate characters that I’m trying to bring closest I’m trying to bring closer allows me to remember to not forget my soul. And how we

Melanie Weller
all think this? Yes, I completely agree. No, I think we fundamentally. And I work largely with women as well. But you know, we think way too small about ourselves. And, you know, one of the things that I’ll sometimes get people or a little mantra I’ll give people is that is that my my body is in me that it’s not so much that like I am in my body, but that my body is in me that like your me is really, really big. And that you always have to dance with other people’s energies, but you never have to shrink. Right? You know, and to really hold that. That really big space for yourself. And the visualization is really very powerful for soothing the nervous system. I started with this, maybe 10 years ago or so because I had I had a friend tell me that my aura was purple. And I said, Oh, well, what does that mean? And he probably said a lot of things. But what I latched on to was he said royalty, and I was like, Oh, I’m the queen. But I would I started to recognize that when I got rattled that my crown would get off center, and my case wouldn’t be fluffed out fully. And just putting all of those pieces back into place is incredibly soothing, to my nervous system. And over time, it really just stay in there, you know, like, it’s much harder to rattle me. And it’s much easier for me to be in flow now and to pick up on all of those little symbols and all that little magic and meaning that happens in life, those guideposts that, you know that you know when to really allow my future to have my back and take me where I need to be that it’s not something that I need to go out and chase.

Nicole Laino
Yeah, and just recognizing that, that. This, I think what it does, I think it allows people, when we talk about the soul, when we talk about the highest self, what I the reason that I kind of come back to it all the time, is it reminds you to not be a victim of your circumstance, that sometimes we can feel very small in this life where we can feel even those of us who are very self aware, you can fall into a pit where you’re, you’re reacting to the world in a way that isn’t serving you because you’re a little too human in the most however, also, you got to be human to like to just be all out in the souls area, like reminding yourself that it’s okay to make mistakes that it’s you know, there’s there’s this big quest for enlightenment, and, and you know, in the spiritual, we’re all talking about highest self, we’re all talking about connection to the divine, like all of this stuff is out there. And we forget also that, you know, we are flawed humans, and that’s part of the experience that we are having. That’s why saying that I’m a soul having a human experience, that then all of those things that are happening all of the environmental, cultural, whatever the moment of the circumstances is it then is throwing at me is part of the experience I’m meant to have here. And, and just processing it that way, rather than being upset and being like, Okay, well, this is part of this is the emotion I’m meant to experience right now as a human.

Melanie Weller
Yes, yes. And I think our power it really is when we’re grounded in a theory all at the same time. And we’re very clever at how we repeat our patterns. You know, I’ve worked with people. For example, one woman, her mother had already passed away when I worked with her, and her mother had been a prescription drug addict. And she just says she described her to me and then she described her she had this amazing job on paper, but it was not making her happy at all. And she used the same language to describe her mother that she used to describe her employer. And if she hadn’t realized that she just went to go work for her mother, she was repeating this pattern.

Nicole Laino
Well, and I think that that’s common, too.

Melanie Weller
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. No, we’re so you know, and, you know, the Yeah, just you know, and, and that’s okay. Like it took her those steps, you know, like that realization to then break that pattern and make that change. And I think putting it in the body and putting it in a language that we’re you know, I think for these more energetic problems, putting it in, in body terms, and even some in like, disease terms really gives you some can really give you bigger power. And a really technique really connects people with their purpose. I have one client who has a son that has type one diabetes, and the pancreas energetically Is this seat of the ego. And she had a very traumatic experience growing up in a church that just wouldn’t let her have any kind of leadership role whatsoever. And she’s wired, deeply, deeply wired for leadership. And I have a long series of questions that I ask entrepreneurs about how they’re what’s going on in their life and their business. And her my assessment was that her business has type one diabetes, she’s kind of you know, that she has this whole thread running through and she’s super intuitive, and but not really bringing that out. And that’s like, the, is like her insulin, that’s the P, you know, like, she’s not, you know, that intuition is like her insulin, and so it’s not getting out and getting into ourselves. And so she’s not attracting the clients that she really wants to. And so helping her step into that bigger part of herself, but really telling it through the lens of type one, diabetes was incredibly powerful and meaningful to her, because that’s been such a big part of her life and helping her son, and everything. And she’s clearly trying to figure out how to, you know, she would openly consciously tell you that, like, if she could do anything. You know, she would if she had all the money in the world, she would fund research for a cure for diabetes. And so really, you know, this is part of like, you know, she’s figuring out how to, at least archetypically solve it. Right. You know, and, you know, we’ll see where that where that goes. But you know, but that’s, you know, it was just so interesting to I was really blown away when that pattern came through. And, you know, and putting it in those body terms made it very palpable for her.

Nicole Laino
Right. Yeah. And, you know, and I think that that’s kind of the lesson. And I think a good place to kind of leave the audience is with this, you know, just with the knowledge that that the answers are all right before you that if we’re just looking at things in the right way, we’re looking, we’re looking for the lesson, and we’re looking for the pattern, because we are living out patterns we are living out, you know, the the patterns of the past and the patterns that that are living inside of us are reflecting and playing out externally outside of us. So being able to recognize that and paying attention, and not judging the things that are happening, but looking at them with some curiosity and looking at them as little clues along the way to us getting the life that we want and creating the space for everything that we want. So thank you so much for sharing all of that. Thank you so much for sharing your story and your knowledge and your wisdom. And tell the listeners if there’s anything you want to leave them with, but also tell them where can they stay in touch with you and get that free guide that you were talking about the the free assessment.

Melanie Weller
So I’ll just leave you with what with one thought in terms of story, the stories that we live in, and the mythologies is that we are every character in every story. And that when you can really own the role, you know that you’ve been that you have a part in each role and that you’re, you know that that entire story is playing out within you that can be very can be very empowering rather than thinking that like I’m stuck in this role, but somebody else has a better role or a more hurtful role or whatever. So that’s um And you can find everything about me at embody your star.com. And that will take you to an abbreviated vagus nerve course, it’ll email you the long one. And there’s a direct link to my full website there as well and a whole bunch of other all my social media, contacts and everything

Nicole Laino
is lovely. And we will link all of that up in the show notes for you. So you don’t need to remember any of it, just go on over to the show notes, go over to the podcast page, click the link and it’ll bring you right over there. We’ll deliver you directly to miss Melanie, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you. Thank you to the listener who is still listening and made it all the way to the end with us. I appreciate you as well. And remember You are only limited by the limitations that you accept and when you stop accepting those limitations. That is when you become limitless. I will see you on the next episode.