Hi, I’m Melissa.
Integrative Mindfulness Coach. Meditation Teacher. Energy Alchemist.
Integrate your head, heart, and body. Clear the energetic channels for joy, freedom, and connection to flow.
Let your actions become guided by self-compassion and inner alignment rather than shoulds and inner criticism.
You’ve dipped your toe into the mindfulness pool and already have some nice tools and practices in place to resource yourself.
And you also sense there’s so much more to explore beneath the surface of the chatter you hear on repeat in your head all day.
More to stir up, sift through, and reveal.
More to clarify and integrate into how you show up in the world.
More corners of your soul to pour into, so you can pour outward into others.
Because even if you can see the places where you get in your own way, you don’t always know how to process the nuances of the resistance you’re feeling or the blind spots you’re intuiting.
You know in your gut that if you had someone you trusted to lovingly nudge you a little deeper — to hold a safe space for you the way you do for everyone else in your life — you could connect more deeply with your inner experience and process your sticky emotional spots with more ease, even when discomfort or fear bob up.
My Story
Lean in, wrap yourself in a cozy chunky sweater, imagine we’re sitting side by side around a campfire...and I’ll tell you about the tides that brought me here.
It was 2005 when I took a week-long vacation from my soul-sapping desk job in Washington, D.C. to go to a surf camp in Costa Rica.
And as un-revolutionary as that sounds, it felt like a bold move for me at the time because I followed my gut instead of my “shoulds” and “musts.”
My friend and I stayed at a sweet little inn on the beach run by a couple who’d left Silicon Valley for “the simple life.” We were greeted with beers pulled straight from an ice bucket on the beach. Instant ahhh.
Imagine waking up to the sound of waves lapping at your doorstep. The tang of sea salt slipping into your room and inviting you to come out to play. Juicy sweet mango hitting your tongue at breakfast amidst the treetops with playful howler monkeys serving as background music. Feeling the hum of pure aliveness in your body while doing handstands in the sand, downward dogging under palm trees, sitting on a surfboard soaking up sunshine in perfectly warm water with hardly anyone else in your line of sight.
It was invigorating and illuminating to be surrounded by all these people who'd decided to trust themselves instead of looking outside for validation, affirmation, or permission slips.
The flow of the days there felt so effortless.
Spontaneous joy and delight and laughter popped up at every turn. And I suddenly knew in my bones: This was the kind of life I wanted to live.
But when I boarded the plane to go back to my life in Washington, D.C. where the rhythm of my days felt the 180-degree opposite of the days in Costa Rica, tears streamed down my cheeks. I knew things had to change dramatically for the sake of my deepest well-being. But I had no idea where to start — and worse — if it was even possible for me.
As a Project Coordinator at The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, my intellectual mind was feeling fed but every other part of me felt undernourished. Like I’d flatlined. I was working in a windowless office cubicle, plugging lifeless data into spreadsheets, and changing out of the clothes I’d sweat through on my 100% humidity daily Metro commute.
But despite my doubt-filled monkey mind, some intuitive spark that things could be different had been lit…
And when I finally surrendered and started to trust my intuition, synchronicities started lighting up at every turn, nudging me forward on a path now guided by ease and alignment rather than over-effort and shoulds.
I heard the exact words I needed to hear at the exact moment I needed to hear them from my favorite yoga teacher to spark the courage to ask for a month of paid vacation to go back to Costa Rica to get certified as a yoga teacher — an experience that prompted me to quit my 9-5 job and blew the door open to the intuition-guided, freedom-drenched path I’ve been on ever since.
The day after I decided to start massage school, I looked up a program I knew of in San Diego and found out that its once-a-year start date was two weeks away. I was offered a room in a perfect-for-me bungalow two blocks from the beach and the school the next day, sight unseen.
The first yoga studio I approached to teach at told me they'd just lost a teacher, whose space I slid right into.
I felt called to sign up for a meditation retreat in Guatemala without knowing how I’d pay for it. Just before payment was due, a check appeared in my mailbox for inheritance money from my grandfather I was meant to receive 15 years ago — for exactly the amount I needed.
Just when I'd decided I wanted to dial back my hours at the coffee shop where I worked and do more writing, a former colleague emailed me out of the blue asking if I'd have any interest in writing content for a children's health website (for triple my hourly coffee shop rate).
And the soul-assuring synchronicities have kept flowing ever since (which they always do — we just need to attune our awareness and clear the channels to become better able to notice and receive them).
WHAT I’VE LEARNED ON THE RIDE HERE
That the combination of Mindfulness, Heartfulness, and Somatic Integration is an alchemical pathway into our deepest connection to highest Self and the freedom to flow with life.
That when all parts of ourselves feel safe to be witnessed and explored with curiosity in a loving, nonjudgmental container, shame and the Inner Critic’s power begin to dissolve.
That the deeper we’re willing to go “in”, the lighter we get to emerge “out”.
That illuminated integration of all parts of ourselves naturally leads to more loving acceptance of our whole Self.
That intentionally nurturing small moments of presence and kindness is the most profound work we can do in this life.
That this work is, at its core, about transforming the world into a place where every human being walking the planet can feel a sense of their inherent belonging and connectedness to life.
That the more space we become able to compassionately hold within ourselves, the more compassionate space we’re able to hold for others.
That the more connected, loving, and peaceful landscape we cultivate within ourselves, the more connected, loving, and peaceful landscape we cultivate in the world.
It's my honor to guide you through a loving exploration of your soul’s depths.
Feel more like yourself (your Self) every day and cultivate an inner trust within which real growth can take root. Loosen your grip on what’s holding you back and move forward from a place of deeper understanding and alignment.
Professional BiO
Melissa Maher has been a Certified Professional Coach through the ICF-accredited Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching since 2010 and is a Certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher, having graduated from Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach’s two-year-long Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program in 2019. She is also a Certified Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Practitioner as a graduate of David Treleaven’s Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness course. She has been a dedicated Vipassana meditation practitioner since 2006 and has attended hundreds of hours of silent meditation retreats, including a one-month retreat. She served as an Assistant Trainer for in-person iPEC coach trainings from 2011-2018.
After a heart-opening month-long yoga teacher training in Costa Rica in 2006, Melissa quit her uninspired 9-5 job and took her soul-searching from Washington, D.C. to South America and then to San Diego, where she hopped between the shoes and bare feet of yoga teacher, massage therapist, holistic nutritionist, barista, and humble newbie surfer.
While in San Diego, Melissa also worked in the Life Coaching Department of the Tony Robbins Company, which sparked her passion to nurture seedlings of possibility in other curious, heart-centered souls to create a life full of joy and fulfillment on their own terms.
As a coach, Melissa supports her clients in bringing greater present moment awareness, self-compassion, and embodied alignment into their lives, so they can find deeper joy, clarity, and inner peace — even in challenging or uncertain times.
Melissa has led two week-long Find Your Flow retreats in Costa Rica to help women dive deeper into the lives they truly long for. She has also conducted leadership development trainings in hospitals around the United States and offered workshops to audiences ranging from corporations like Pfizer to yoga studios and artists, offering a blend of coaching, mindfulness, and body-centered practices.
She lives in San Francisco with her partner Paul and daughter Audrey and is a sucker for a fun, free-flowing conversation, an impromptu dance party, sundresses, a frosty IPA, and getaways that feed her wanderlust.