About Me
Oh hey, thanks for stopping by!
I assume if you are on my website, you are interested in learning more about me. I think that is AWESOME and I hope one day we get to meet.
The most important thing I want people to know about me is that I am just a normal person! I do not have protruding abdomen muscles; I do not have any pictures of my tan body, with perfectly placed sweat droplets falling from my face. I do not wear cute active wear that matches my running shoes…
There are many days I struggle to find the strength to pull my unbrushed hair into a ponytail, put on yesterday’s socks and go for a run. I am way better at showing up for you, than I am at showing up for myself, but I did find out recently that I have an unexpected Superpower! I realized, in my 40th year of life, that I am an OVERCOMER. It was brought to my attention by a very special friend who wrote an essay for school about her “Hero”. To my surprise, her hero is me. (per her permission, I posted her essay on my "Testimonial" page)
The reason being an Overcomer is a Superpower, is because once you learn that you can conquer your obstacles repeatedly, you start being less afraid. You keep going, you do not let yourself quit and you start realizing that there are other ways of reaching your goals when the first plan does not work out. There is always another way!
Don’t get me wrong, there is still a lot of “scary stuff” in the world, but when you figure out you aren’t actually going to die if things don’t go exactly the way you expected, you become a person capable of really anything you want to invest the time and work into. You bloom where you are planted, accept the things you cannot change and keep it movin’. I mean, I am probably never going to be an astronaut (which I really wanted to be in the 3rd grade), I will probably never toast champagne with Leonardo DiCaprio in San Tropez, but I will do something even better. I will spend the rest of my life helping people figure out what their superpowers are…
Have you ever heard the saying, “Find something you love so much, you would do it for free.”? I live by that advice, because even though it took me 40 years to figure it out, I finally did. I was born to make people proud of themselves and nothing makes me happier than the look on someone’s face when they accomplish a goal, especially one they did not think they could. The other side of that, is making yourself proud. The way I look at it, if I am making myself proud every day, there is a really good chance I will be able to encourage other people to be proud of themselves too!
In the words of Brene' Brown, "Imperfections are not inadequacies, they are reminders that we're all in this together."
This is my 12 year old son, Braxson. He is not only my favorite person, he is also my Hero. He didn't realize it at the time, but he is the one who gave me my superpower of being an Overcomer. He was my inspiration to keep training for every race, because even if he wasn't physically there, I pictured him at the finish line cheering me on. He inspired me to find different paths when the first ones didn't work out, and keep trying every time I failed because deep down, what I really wanted was to make him proud. Earlier this year out of the blue, he looked at me and said those exact words..."Mom, I am really proud of you." When you make your kid proud, it feels like an unlimited supply of "purpose" is consistently pumping through your veins. You feel like well...a Superhero! These pictures were taken just recently after we conquered a 17 mile mountain biking trail in the pouring rain. When we were done, he shouted back at me and announced "Mom! I did it!" I said, "I know babe, you are my HERO!" He told me before we got to the trailhead that he didn't know if he'd be able to finish it. I told him, all he had to do was try. We have been back to this trail since, both to hike and bike and it's always a different experience. We have left feeling defeated, bruised, lacking in confidence, sometimes bloody, and tired. Each time, even if we don't prevail the way we did in these pictures after our first ride, we still walk away with one thing...we are proud, because we tried. Sometimes, all you need is a purpose. If you allow it to, the purpose can become an adventure, and the adventure can turn into an amazing life lesson.
"Make yourself proud, enjoy your success, and make every failure part of your story"
In LOVE and WELLNESS,
~Melissa
*****Update about me and my son! We are still biking this same trail, and yep, it still makes us feel like we have SUPERPOWERS! Below are a couple of pictures from August of 2022. We crushed the 13 mile ride and lived to tell about it. No doubt, some bumps and bruises but we were still as proud as ever! Love this kid so much!
