Melissa, Truly an International Woman! Born in Australia to “Kiwi” parents (of New Zealand descent). Their heritage was UK / Ireland area.
Raised in Japan from age 6 to 16 and then returned there to teach English for a year after University. After that, she travelled through Asia, Europe, Africa and North America, settling in Whistler, BC Canada for one ski season …. And stayed 34 years. She remains living there now. Melissa found “Heaven on Earth” at age 22, she thanks her early self for making the decision to live in good health surrounded by nature.
She has two daughters, and when the youngest joined Sparks at age 5, Melissa became a Girl Guide leader. In 2013 she watched a documentary with her Girl Guide unit including her 2 daughters called “Girls Rising”. This was such a powerful experience it forever set her on a path to help women and girls know that education is a right and not a privilege.
She began her personal growth journey to be of service and find her passion. She found her ‘why’ and reached out for support and more encouragement. With Megin Alvarez she started a not for profit organization (as a volunteer). GIRLS MATTER was launched in 2017.
For employment, Melissa worked at Delta Hotels for 24 years specializing in Asian inbound tourists at the 40 + hotels in the chain. When it was bought out, she was out of work in the corporate world.
Melissa then became an INTEGRATIVE MIND BODY HEALTH PRACTITIONER helping people get to the root cause of their pain. Using several therapies she helps people discover the root cause and bring the body back into balance so it can heal itself. She runs training programs several times a year to teach other coaches, practitioner and counsellors, the mind-body healing tools she works with, including NLP, Time Line Therapy and Hypnotherapy, powerful tools tapping into the other 90% of our mind, the unconscious mind!
She is most proud of being a mom of two amazing daughters who are out in the world with their own visions and passions. Melissa received an award for podcasting recenty in the “inspirational and motivational” category, from Women in Podcasting Awards. Her podcast is called “DON’T WAIT FOR YOUR WAKEUP CALL”, which you can find here: https://yourguidedhealthjourney.com/podcast/
She became involved with Soroptimists seeing how her vision with Girls Matter is aligned with that of Soroptimist’s vision. She wants to attend the United Nations and maybe not next year, but she will get there!
For hobbies and for joy, she downhill and cross country skies, paddleboards, camps in the back country, travels the world and reads.
Her “Favourite quote: “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right”, by Henry Ford.