Ina Gjikondi and Bonnie Buckner sit down with Melinda Coles, a coach whose mission is to support people in identifying and inhabiting their own abundance. Her advice: speak life into yourself and speak light about yourself. Melinda shares how she attends and connects to that wholeness and allows others to do the same. She also talks about the process of being present to yourself, getting unstuck from the stories that hold you back, and moving forward. Reach into the wholeness within yourself as you follow along with this conversation.
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Speak Life And Speak Light Into Yourself With Melinda Coles
Welcome to our show, the One Humanity Lab: Into an Ecology of Wholeness. In this episode, we have with us Melinda Coles, who is a coach whose mission is to support people in identifying and inhabiting their abundance. Her coaching approach is informed by her formal social work education, ten-plus year mindfulness practice and her ongoing healing process and the healing processes of the many brilliant, amazing women she’s been blessed to share space with over the years.
Melinda specifically works to help people transform their self-doubt and move into their highest selves. Melinda has over fifteen years of experience as a trainer, curriculum developer and facilitator in the non-profit and local government sectors. In her various roles, Melinda has facilitated training around the Washington, DC area, including a self-care class with the DC government, training on sexual violence awareness with the Metropolitan Police Department officers, incarcerated men and women at DC jail and students in DC public and charter middle and high schools and local universities.
Melinda earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Social Work from Syracuse University and completed the Eco Leadership Coaching Program through the GW Center for Excellence in Public Leadership. She’s blessed to be the mom to her daughter, Journey. Melinda is a proud black queer woman. Her favorite things include enjoying good food, laughing until she cries, spending quality time with those she loves and playing word games. Welcome, Melinda.
Melinda earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Social Work from Syracuse University and completed the Eco Leadership Coaching Program through the GW Center for Excellence in Public Leadership. She’s blessed to be the mom to her daughter, Journey. Melinda is a proud black queer woman. Her favorite things include enjoying good food, laughing until she cries, spending quality time with those she loves and playing word games. Welcome, Melinda.
Thank you. It’s so good to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
I would love to start with a simple question. I would love to know a little bit more about you and how you’re coming to this space. What’s showing up? We can build as we go but perhaps if you want to connect that to wholeness. How does that relate to your sense of wholeness?
I’m coming in feeling good and grateful. For me, gratitude is very connected to wholeness. There are times when I have felt broken or less than a whole. Gratitude is a direct connection back to my core and to feel grounded. I feel grateful for so many things. I’m grateful to be here with you both, for the sunshine, even though it’s a little chillier but grateful all around. That’s how I am.
Melinda, I want to talk a little bit about how you’re linked to us through this coaching program that we run. One of the things that we focus on in that program is developing these inner capacities, a sense of wholeness and fostering wholeness. To do that, we use different methods and tools, one of which is looking inside with dreaming and imagery. Can you talk a little bit about that?
I can talk a lot about that but I will talk a little for the sake of our time together. That was incredible for me because, intuitively, it’s something I had always been drawn to. I would notice the time, numbers and things that repeat. I would notice all of these things in my life, symbolism, imagery and all these different things that would track my dreams, but I didn’t have any formal education around it or the understanding of it.
For me, through the e-Co Leadership Program, being introduced formally into practice to be able to approach my dreams and imagery with curiosity and get so much more understanding for me continues to blow my mind. I have a dream journal. I have followed up with you, Bonnie, to further my learning with the dream class.
It continues to blow my mind and reaffirm that the answers for most of the things that I’ve been wondering or wanting to know are within me already. It probably sounds very cliché but it is. My affirmation, confirmation and reassurance are very different when it comes from the inside versus external ways that I used to seek that validation or confirmation.
The answers for most of the things you’re wondering or wanting to know about are within you already.
If I can build on that, I am curious how you are noticing this inner shift in your outer conversations or relation to others and how you’re showing up.
It’s so funny because I was on a group FaceTime with my cousins. They were sharing pretty heavy things. One of them asked me, “Did you take a deep breath?” That is one of the ways that I show up now. Before, that kind of energy would automatically ramp me up, ramp up my energy and suck me in. Now, immediately, I take that breath at the moment. That pause that you talked about so much during coaching has served me so well with clients but also with myself to allow myself that pause. That’s a huge inner shift for me because it does allow me to check back in with myself. Take that pause and say, “That’s a lot,” or say nothing or whatever comes up for me
That is a beat that I did not use to allow myself to have. I felt compelled to respond immediately or match somebody where they were. If they came to me very amped up, I thought I needed to join them in being amped up. I don’t even know that I thought consciously that I had to do that but that was my immediate reaction. That’s one huge inner shift for me. I take that pause and deep breath.
Another inner shift has been sitting with the fact that I don’t know a lot of things. Rather than getting spun up about what I don’t know and why I don’t know it, noticing how that feels to not know, noticing where the uncertainty comes up and how I respond to uncertainty. That pause and noticing have allowed me a lot more choices to make. Do I do something about it? Do I not do something about it? Do I respond? Do I not respond? Honestly, the gift of choice has been the greatest shift for me. I was reactionary in a lot of ways. To have this gift of choice has been incredible.
When your cousin asked, “Did you take a deep breath,” and you responded, what shifted?
The energy overall shifted on that call. I said, “Yes, I did take a deep breath. This is heavy.” It was like a collective deep breath where people paused and said, “It is.” We had that moment and then the energy shifted. The conversation continued but that acknowledgment was important and it shifted how the energy felt on that call.
I was wondering exactly about this inner shift, that power of choice or how you said, Melinda, “I was always reacting to things but now I can pause, ground or center myself.” I also wonder what other spaces you might have noticed, for example, with colleagues or people who maybe we’re used to a certain way of perceiving or knowing you. How are they? Do you have any other examples of how they might have noticed your inner shift?
I do. I was talking to a coworker about the fact that pause, for me, is not apathy. That’s how she was perceiving it like, “You don’t care about it.” I said, “I care about it but what can I do about it?” It’s acceptance. I’m not apathetic to it but I can’t change this situation. I thought that was an interesting distinction to make. I still show up. I’m still here. I’m present in the workplace and I’m not bringing home some of the things that I used to carry with me, wondering, ruminating and wanting to know more about something or the information I didn’t have. I remember during one coaching session where Bonnie said to me, “What if you don’t know?” I said, “I don’t know and I need to know.”
Finally, that was the question, “What if you don’t know?” I ask myself that often, Bonnie, so thank you for that. It’s been freeing to acknowledge that I don’t know. When I know, I will know or I won’t and that’s it. I’m operating from what I do know now. At this moment, this is what I have. This is the direction that I’m going in. This is the information I’m working from and that’s it. I’m noticing for myself and sharing with my coworker that it wasn’t apathy. I wasn’t checked out. I’m tuned in but I am not reacting in the way that I used to react. I’m not activated at all. I am present, noticing and accepting.
What I hear in both that story and the story with your cousin is that the pause creates the space for something new to occur rather than maybe continuing the heavy conversation or getting wrapped into the story. We talk about stories a lot and dream. Not taking on other people’s stories, the story of our clients or the story of others. Also, not getting stuck in their story. I think about how easy it is to pick up other people’s stories.
I think of it as walking down the sidewalk and stepping in somebody else’s gum that’s been thrown on the sidewalk. It’s sticky and is on my shoe. Other people leave little strings and other people can step in it. These stories carry. By taking such a pause, “I don’t know what I’m going to do about it now. I have to acknowledge this moment,” all these things you’ve said, that space cuts the gum. It allows for a new story to happen and something else to occur.
Cutting that gum, even that metaphor, allows you to be unstuck. It’s easy for you to get stuck in the story. I want to be clear. I’m not always unstuck. There are still piles of gum that I have stepped into. I want to notice that those were two examples of when I unstuck myself. Even with that, noticing when I’m in a story has been incredible.
You can still get that gum off your shoe. Even if you didn’t avoid it, you can still get it off of there and allow that new something to come. I have spent a lot of time in my life trying to avoid certain unwanted experiences. I will stay in that story or I won’t even allow that newness to enter in because there’s a possibility that I’m not going to like it. That’s okay. That’s the other thing.
There are plenty of things I’m not going to like. There are plenty of experiences I’m going to have in life that I’m going to disagree with and that’s okay. Note for me, even with that freedom is recognizing I don’t have to resist it, that’s so much energy that you use to resist. When I disconnect knowledge, I don’t like it myself. Maybe nobody else even cares or needs to know that. To have the knowledge from myself and notice, “Yeah, I don’t like this energy and experience,” thinking about my options that are beyond that has been a very different place. Especially when I’m not stuck in that gum or story about what it has to mean.
I can’t stop thinking about the gum stuck in the shoe. I remember often getting a stick to take it off your shoe, that whole process of removing the gum. It still can stay a little bit there, hopefully not but it makes me wonder, Melinda, in this process of unsticking or being present to yourself and still letting go of the story that is not the story that belongs or you want to carry forward. How do you know how to cut it? How do you know that this is the way to go? How do you know when you know that this is mine and this is not mine? How does that happen to you?
A lot of it for me has been about naming it. This is the story that I’m telling myself. Needing to name, I feel ashamed about this or I feel embarrassed about this, which are two feelings that I have not leaned into for a long time. I have run the opposite way of it. Leaning into that shame, embarrassment or fear has been crucial for me in getting unstuck. Otherwise, it’s the elephant in the room for me. I’m not being genuine about what’s happening. It’s counterintuitive in a lot of ways because it’s like going into that feeling that I have avoided for so long. I felt like it was going to absorb me. Allowing it to wash over me and then noticing it’s connected to another story.
Following that story, I’m like, “Where did this come from? Where did I learn to feel ashamed or embarrassed about this? Where did I learn to have this fear?” Sometimes it’s not even my fear. It’s like what one of you was saying. “Whose is it? What’s mine? What is not mine?” Detangling that but allowing myself to approach it curiously has been freeing. When I can approach it with curiosity, I can detach the judgment of places in myself that I have kept hidden from other people because it doesn’t align with how I want to be perceived and how I want to be showing up.
Leaning into those dark places, hard feelings, heaviness, pain and fear have been crucial for me in getting unstuck. It’s something that I have to pick up and go into over and over again. It looks different every time. Sometimes I’m better at it. Sometimes I’m not but getting into the story, unpacking it and in some ways, debunking it. A lot of my stories are not rooted in truth. Getting into that and unpacking it is something that I continue to pick up but has been helpful for me.
Leaning into those dark places, hard feelings, and the heaviness, pain, and fear are crucial for getting unstuck.
You mentioned the magic word, curiosity. You said it twice. You were talking about leaning into these moments of embarrassment or the heavier stories. I find so often, especially doing work with dreaming, talents, abilities and potentials, are also laying on the ready like little treasures at people’s feet. The lack of curiosity is employed in picking them up and exploring them like, “What would it look like if I was open to the love that’s right in front of me? What would it look like if I stepped up and spoke directly?”
Other talents like, “I’m more courageous than I thought I was.” I found with people, when working with their dreams, there’s a tendency to look at, “Here’s my pattern. Here’s what I’m doing wrong.” Equally, I feel we have to be very curious about, “Here’s a strength of mine that’s showing up.” If I pick that up and claim my inner strength, I’m thrown again into uncertainty. What’s my life going to look like then?
I’ve been working with clients and nobody has come in and specifically said, “I am struggling with claiming my inner strength.” I found myself asking some of those same questions. What did you do well? What were the wins? What are you bringing to the table that is positive? How are you growing in your work or your team or whatever the situation is? I’ve noticed in so many different people’s backgrounds, job titles and roles that they have not considered their strength and they have struggled with it. I relate to that because I have also struggled with that. That has been important for me to go into and unpack.
As a black woman, I grew up learning to be humble about things, not to brag or not appear like you’re showing off or being too boastful. Somewhere along the way, that got translated into, “Don’t celebrate your wins. Don’t acknowledge when you’re proud of yourself. Don’t say what you do well.” It morphed into this other thing of being self-deprecating in so many ways. I’ve even talked a lot about, “Let’s not even joke that way about ourselves.” Speak life and light about yourself.
Let’s not even joke in a self-loathing manner because you’re still listening to that. You’re still hearing and taking that in. A lot of times, that’s been a defense mechanism for me. How can we show up, embrace, celebrate ourselves and recognize that it honestly has the opposite effect than what I imagined it would, which gives other people permission to do the same thing about themselves?
It’s not that somebody is showing up, celebrating themselves and making somebody else feel like, “I cannot.” It has the opposite effect. Some people show up and do a little bit too much of it. That’s a different story but more commonly, what I’m seeing is people with the exact opposite. It’s interesting because sometimes it’s people you wouldn’t expect who may show up in these ways that seem proud and strong. When you start to talk to them and unpack it, they ream themselves and rattle off all the things they did wrong and bad, what’s not working and how it doesn’t. Sometimes I’d even have people who do this and say, “I did this one thing well but,” and then rip it apart.
You compliment yourself and take it right back. Even pointing that out to clients has been impactful. It has done exactly what you’re saying, Bonnie, of illuminating those inner strengths and helping people connect to what is the story about that inner strength. For me, I have had a fear of leaning into that because, to your point, what is my life going to look like?
If I take these limits off and I allow myself to follow a dream, yes, there’s the fear of what if it doesn’t work but what if it works? That brings up a whole other thing. All these other pieces of fear pop up and bubble up differently. That again connects back to that story. “Why wouldn’t I be enough? Why wouldn’t I be the right person? Why wouldn’t it happen to me?” Allowing myself to notice that my thought process has again been pivotal for me in terms of moving on this journey.
I was listening to a podcast, since we’re in the podcast business (smile), but I have some favorites. This was with Jay Shetty and he is interviewing Dr. Amen. He is talking about happiness and its connection to the brain. This doctor says, “The first thing that I do when I get up in the morning, I put my feet on the ground and say, ‘Everything is right with the world and this will be a great day.’
This is me paraphrasing. Setting that intention, starting to wire the brain in that certain way and stepping into that starts building new neural-pathways. This then becomes a habit in how we can continue to show up and be in our day. It’s interesting to see and work with ourselves also in an energetic fashion.
The other thing I want to point out is you could be great and efficient but still carrying in this heavy lifting thing. How do we be great in unleashing the energy unlimited to have this energy that has no limits in a way that moves and propels us? This came out of research from the Leadership Circle Group. They looked at the patterns of people who got things done but they also have these beliefs and assumptions, which they call reactive tendencies, that are carried with them. It keeps them in this hamster wheel. Everything is somehow triggered by fear or a problem.
You have the other energy, which is the creative energy, the dream work that Bonnie talks about. In this space, it’s energy unleashing because the intent is propelled by a clear, intentional purpose. You also spoke about meeting with clients. I wonder if you have examples of how these things are showing up in your life or your client’s life.
I got certified in Leadership Circle. I spent two weeks talking about my reactive tendencies and creative competencies. Yes, I do. That has been that language and that lens has been incredible. In the reactive tendency, I scored primarily in protecting and that’s connected to this fear of showing up in a way that’s not aligned with how I want to show up. Being very self-protecting.
One of the biggest realizations that I had was around the fact that I am self-protective. I knew that but I hadn’t thought about being protective of other people as a reactive tendency. That was mind-blowing to me. It’s important to note that while my intention of being protective of other people is positive, not wanting somebody to feel heard or feel those things that I have a fear of, it’s also a projection because I’m projecting onto somebody else.
I don’t want them to feel or they’re not going to be able to feel or I’m guessing that I know how they’re going to feel or respond to anything. I don’t. It was very interesting for me to note that protecting was one of my reactive tendencies, particularly around distancing myself and being critical. I wasn’t surprised about the critical piece. It’s interesting because I have embraced it in a lot of ways over the years, been okay with having a little bit of cynicism and been all right with feeling critical of things with the intention of getting a deeper understanding of them.
For me, back to that point of the unleashing, it was stifling to do that. When you start with, “What are all the things that can go wrong,” that’s a very particular direction you’ve started the path on. It’s not saying you can’t plan for things that may come up but when I start there, I can get stuck there. A lot of times, I have allowed myself to not go further because I’ve identified all the things that can go wrong and then I’m not interested because I think it’s going to fail.
It’s as opposed to looking at the creative piece and living into that more creative and unleashing space to acknowledge that it’s not that something may fail. Failure is a part of life but in the creative space, I can look at it and say, “What can I learn from this?” With creative energy, I can look at it and say, “I have failed at things before. I have learned and grown. I can handle that if that is what comes up.”
It’s not so crushing to have something not work. It doesn’t mean that I am a failure as a person if my idea doesn’t work. I have been in a lot of ways so closely aligned with my ideas that a rejection of my idea felt like a rejection of me. If something I was working on failed, then I felt like I was a failure and then I gave up.
Understanding that being critical has been my defense mechanism has allowed me to not try some things because I have convinced myself that it wasn’t a smart decision and it wasn’t going to work. That has been interesting to think about. What I kept calling it was being critical. Being in my reactive tendencies are the ways that I hurt my feelings and shut my dreams down. How can I not be a barrier to myself is the question I walked away with.
Being critical and being in your reactive tendencies are ways you hurt your own feelings. They are ways you shut your own dreams down.
What strikes me is earlier in the conversation, you talked about the discovery that you have all the answers inside yourself. I’ll speak to it in terms of tools. For me, dreaming is going into the inner toolbox and finding all the tools to make all the changes, everything that I need to do to make my path. What strikes me is the idea of rather than treating uncertainty as something to start to put something into that space that’s a life jacket or something like that. I’m going to throw something into that space of uncertainties that’s certain and I can hang onto. It’s knowing I’ve got this toolbox within me. I’m going to walk into the space knowing I’m going to be able to do whatever needs to be done within that space.
It’s that self-trust. It’s trusting that I have the tools, competencies, creativity and strength to deal with what comes up. It’s not that nothing’s going to come up. It’s that I can figure it out. I remember when I was buying my house. I thought this was so profound. I said, “What if this is too much? Financially, I’m not sure.” I went through this whole list. She calmly said, “Then you sell it.” It had not occurred to me that there was a direct remedy because my story was if I have to sell the house, I’m a failure. It was a direct line to that for me like, “If this doesn’t work out perfectly, if I am not successful at this.” The story was very present and rampant. Yes, it’s that self-trust.
With those tools, I have been opening dreams for friends and friends of friends. They’ve been coming in like, “None of this makes any sense.” As I’m writing down and listening to them, they’re like, “None of this makes sense.” When I started looking at it, I was like, “This makes a lot of sense.” When I was able to share that back or share what came up for me, every single time, people have been like, “I feel that way all the time. That’s so resonant. No, that does make perfect sense.”
To your point, I didn’t give it to them, have this dream or make this up. A lot of times, I didn’t know what they had been dealing with. They had these answers in themselves. It came to them in a way. It makes me think about how often I discredit stuff that comes to me because I feel like it doesn’t make any sense. It’s a message in there for me if I can approach it with that curiosity and not that judgment.
As I’m attending to this conversation, it also makes me wonder, because a big part of this process is listening, engaging and listening to the dreams or story of this other human being. What I am curious about is how you attend to listening. What happens in your listening process?
I have had to learn how to listen. I’m not listening to solve, resolve or respond but to listen and be with somebody. It allows me to connect with the person. I have to intentionally remind myself, “Put your phone down and look at somebody because you’re listening with your ears but you’re taking in a whole person.” To be able to know, “I noticed your eyes lit up when you said that. You pause. That seemed like something else was in there.” This is with clients but I’m talking primarily about my loved ones. Listening and being present in that way for me has helped me make some deeper connections, listen in and hear.
We work with dreams. “What repeats? You’ve mentioned this a couple of times. This seems like you’re excited about this.” What’s not being said? “I noticed you didn’t mention such and such.” It’s listening in that way, for example, with my daughter. If you have teenagers or have been around teenagers, you know that they might not be the most forthcoming all the time with so many different things going on. Sometimes my daughter can give me one-word answers.
She may be doing other things while she’s talking to me but when I can listen to her and focus in, it creates an opening for her to open up and share. I’m not trying to show her when I can show up, not trying to be the parent and have the answers or feel like I’m the expert on what she’s doing. When I can show up with that curiosity and truly listen, our discussions have been incredible.
I’ve gotten so much more information without pulling the mom card like, “You got to tell me this.” Creating a space for her to share and hear. I found a lot of times that she was already thinking about a lot of the things but my approach didn’t allow her to open up and share with me because I was coming at it in a different approach versus listening and seeing what was there. It’s been impactful for me.
There was another gentleman from one of our previous cohorts who told me that going through the coaching program changed his relationship with his children. Instead of being the dad that says, “Do this because I said so and it needed to have been done yesterday,” he sat down and started to listen, “Why don’t you do this? What is interesting to you?” That changed everything.
My daughter is applying for colleges soon. Hearing her thought process on things and sharing her perspective has helped me see that she does have this. She’s clear on what she’s looking for and what she’s thinking about in college. I don’t have to be the educator on this. There are some pockets for it but that’s not my primary role in this. I would not have gotten there if I had not been open to listening.
It’s been interesting to navigate that and see that it also undermines them when we do that. When we play that mom card or parent card, it undermines their inner knowing. I was asking her and seeing that she’s incredibly self-reliant and self-aware in a lot of ways that it would be easy for me to miss when I feel like I have to do more talking than listening.
I wanted to go back. In the very beginning, we started with wholeness. Melinda, you mentioned gratitude as a way of entering that space. I’m curious, when you think of wholeness for you as a leader or wholeness in the world, what else comes up for you? How do you attend to your wholeness?
We all navigate in the workplace. “Can I bring my whole self to this workplace? Do I have to show up in a particular way? Do I have to leave a part of myself at home?” The reality is I bring my whole self regardless but I lean into different parts of myself differently, depending on the environment. The more I’ve gone inward and the more clarity I’ve gotten on myself, who I am, what motivates me and how I want to be, the more uncomfortable spaces where I don’t feel like I can bring my whole self feel to me and the more disingenuous I feel present in a space where I don’t feel like that’s welcome, wanted or encouraged.
As a leader, I try to welcome people to bring their whole selves in. “I want to know how your family’s doing, how you feel and what you’re concerned about. We still have work to do, so I want to know all of those different pieces.” For me, it’s been like giving people permission to do that. The other thing is showing up fully yourself. More so than an invitation spoken, showing up fully yourself allows people to do that.
To me, in thinking about wholeness, it’s that acknowledgment of a whole person. It’s not just a worker or a teammate. Even looking at my daughter, she’s not just my daughter. She’s my daughter but she’s a friend. She has a job. She’s a student and all these other roles. Sometimes I have been guilty of interacting with people as if their proximity to me is their role is who they are. That is a portion but not the totality of who they are. Recognizing myself and allowing myself to invite my full self to be present and speak on things from my perspective like, “I see it on this one side from the work perspective but I got to tell you this as a woman.” It’s bringing that in.
To Bonnie’s point talking about speaking up and being courageous, sometimes it does feel like a risk to bring that in and say that. It’s a risk also because, in some environments, it’s not welcome. As a queer woman, I’m not in a closet at all but I also don’t show up in my workplace and say, “As a queer woman, this.” I haven’t felt like that’s welcome.
Everybody takes an LGBT class but that’s very different from showing up fully yourself and not knowing how that’s going to be received and how that’s going to impact us. It’s something that I am always thinking about and navigating. It’s becoming a lot more uncomfortable for me in places where I don’t feel like I can speak or show up fully as who I am.
Melinda, if you were to sit back and close your eyes for a minute, what is the image you have of wholeness?
The image that comes to my mind is a tree where I can see a mature tree fully formed with these green leaves. I can also see roots too. That’s the image that came to me of wholeness.
We’re going into the plant world for a moment. In the program, we engaged with your first client, who was a plant client. With the image that showed up for wholeness, I wonder if you were to ask your client the question of wholeness, this tree may be or your client, what would your client have said about wholeness or anything you want to share about that? How have you experienced wholeness with your client? Maybe that’s a better way to frame it.
Pacey is her name. Pacey would speak about being nurtured, having her needs met, being taken care of and being attended to. That’s when she is most responsive. She does her best. I always mispronounce the type of plant but they call it a prayer plant. During the day, her petals are down and outstretched and at night her petals go up. When she’s not watered sufficiently, her pedals stay up. They don’t fold down.
That’s how I learned about bottom-feeding plants from Pacey. When I can sit her in some water and she’s nourished, her petals immediately fold down and are outstretched again. Pacey is all about taking what she needs and shining very brightly. For Pacey, wholeness is about ensuring her needs are met and she draws into herself when they’re not.
Don’t we all?
Yes, we do.
I have another question about this inner imaging. What is your vision for humanity? If you were to dream a great dream for humanity, what is it?
Initially, my first thought was a lack of suffering or having that suffering resolved. Wholeness is crucial. It’s individual wholeness but collective wholeness. We are interconnected. I truly believe that and I feel that when somebody else is suffering, we’re all suffering. Collective healing and wholeness.
When somebody else is suffering, we’re all suffering.
The word wholeness does take us to healing. It is about healing in a way. Melinda, you’ve spoken about some of the things that you do. You have a dream journal and practices. I wonder if there is one practice or an invitation, something that you have found useful to bring you to your wholeness that you might want to share.
I have several but the one I will share is the meditation that I’ve been saying. I got it from Lauren Ash, who does Black Girl in Om Podcast. The meditation is, “I am grateful for all that I am and all that I have. I am open to receiving all blessings and abundance that may come my way. I remove any blockages that may prevent my mental, spiritual or physical health.” I’ve been saying this meditation every morning and it has been a gift to me. To bring us back to wholeness, it starts with me that, “I am grateful for all that I have and all that I am,” is another way of saying, “I am already whole. I am grateful for all that I already am. I’m open to the blessings and abundance that’s coming to me.” This has been a powerful meditation for me.
Thank you for sharing that.
What a great way to close this conversation with you, Melinda. I would invite all of us to say that little prayer in whichever way, language or color that will bring us to our wholeness. To find our words and entry point so that we can attend to what is already there but to claim it and live it fully. Melinda, thank you again for being with us. I hope you come and join us back another time.
Thank you both for having me. I loved it and I would love to come back again. Thank you so much.
Important Links
- Melinda Coles – LinkedIn
- Dr. Daniel Amen – Episode on On Purpose with Jay Shetty
- Black Girl in Om Podcast
About Melinda Coles
Melinda Coles is a Coach whose mission is to support people in identifying and inhabiting their own abundance. Her coaching approach is informed by her formal social work education, 10+ years of mindfulness practice, and her own ongoing healing process and the healing processes of the many brilliant, amazing women she has been blessed to share space with over the years.
Melinda specifically works to help people transform their self-doubt and move into their highest selves. Melinda has over fifteen years of experience as a trainer, curriculum developer, and facilitator in the nonprofit and local government sectors. In her various roles, Melinda has facilitated trainings around the Washington, DC area, including a Self Care class with the DC government, trainings on sexual violence awareness with Metropolitan Police Department officers, incarcerated men and women at DC Jail, and students in DC Public and Charter middle and high schools and local universities.
Melinda earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Social Work from Syracuse University and recently completed the e-Co Leadership Coaching program through the GWU Center for Excellence in Public Leadership. She is blessed to be the Mom to her 16-year-old daughter, Journey. Melinda’s a proud Black, queer woman and her favorite things include enjoying good food, laughing until she cries, spending quality time with those she loves, and playing word games.