Being A Body Witch And Manifesting Through Movement With Melissa Gutierrez

Melissa Gutierrez:

Thank you Jennifer for having me and I can’t wait to share and converse

Jennifer Bourn:

Now, I need to know more about your journey. You do a lot of different things but we don’t always get started doing all those things at the same time. What did your path look like to get started and then bring you to where you are today?

Melissa Gutierrez:

Such a good question and I kind of want people to believe in the mythos that I was just like hatched out of some magical egg, doing everything, but that’s definitely not the case. I often, in my mind, go back to the moment I realized the power of being connected to my body and what that did for me.

And I can encapsulate it quickly for you, by thinking of the time in college that I was diagnosed with pretty severe clinical depression.

I started to realize and feel in my body the rhythms of that depression, which for anybody and many, many people who have dealt with mental wellness and mental wellness issues, there’s a cycle where it’s like, "Oh, here comes the depression and I’m about to go in it."

And I remember having this moment in college after being in therapy and discussing pharmacological options — which no judgment if you take that, do what you need to do. But I also recognized that if I had felt it coming, if I started moving and exercising, and forced myself out of that sense of inertia and like, "Oh, I just don’t wanna do anything," it broke open a lot of that. It broke open the ability to shift the rhythm of the depression and to move beyond it.

And that’s where I would say my realization began.

Jennifer Bourn:

Wow, that’s really fascinating that you could recognize that coming on and then know that if you got moving you could break that cycle.

Melissa Gutierrez:

It literally looked like this one afternoon: I had already had a therapy session and I was like, it’s coming, it’s coming. And I was also one of my two majors in college. One of them was psych. And so I was learning about depression and the cycles and what happens to our brains and putting all these pieces together.

And one afternoon I was like, "Oh my God, it’s coming and it’s gonna be so awful and I’m gonna feel terrible and I’m not gonna have the energy to perform the way I want to at this school. And, and, and hit the mark." And that created more stress. So my depression always had an edge of anxiety, which was extra delicious.

And, I felt this innate understanding that if you start moving now you can shift this. And I remember getting up crying and I was like, "It’s fine. Your legs aren’t broken." And I went for a run and I was just crying. And I was like, "You’re gonna go. I don’t care if you want to. This is not about what you want. This is about what you need to do to create change." And that’s been a seminal moment and memory for me for so long.

Jennifer Bourn:

What stands out to me is the strength to talk yourself up. Sometimes when we’re in the lowest of lows, it can just feel good to wallow in that low a little bit, or let it come and just be the victim for a little bit, and say this is what it is.

But the strength to say, "I’m not going to let this happen." Right? "I’m not going to accept this. I’m going to choose something different. I’m going to get up, even though I don’t want to." That is the polar opposite.

Melissa Gutierrez:

And in the spirit of understanding how we get to a certain place, which people might see me now and go like, "Wow, she has all these tools and modalities and has it all together," the process was not easy because I didn’t understand necessarily what I was doing in the top down perspective I have now.

So that pendulum, that continuum of experience where it was like, "Do I just cry on the floor forever? Oh, that’s not working. Do I get up and force myself to move?" And it’s painful. It’s physically painful to push yourself through that.

And that led to an imbalance.

Often when we find a tool, we tend to really work it cause we’re like, "This is everything I need and I’m never gonna need another thing." And that pendulum swung so hard into like exercise bulimia, Type A productivity… The imbalance was there because I was trying to fight something that was to your point, so far in the opposite direction of what I felt I needed to have the energy and the perspective to succeed.

Jennifer Bourn:

I love that you pointed out in the moment, we don’t have the clarity that we have in the future. When we’re looking back and recognizing what we were doing, all you know is "I have to do something and I’m going to do whatever I need to do to get through this."

Now, you also are a powerlifter, a kickboxer, a dancer, you meditate…

You are embracing movement on an everyday basis. Did you find that mechanism to get past some of those challenges and embrace that movement really translated into the drive to bring this into your career?

Melissa Gutierrez:

That’s such a good question because I spent so much of my movement career trying to edit and hide some of what I do now that is the entirety of my passion and my being.

There was so many… So many times in so many classes where I would be told "You just need to give them yoga. They’re not looking for anything else. Don’t bring anything." And listen, you do what you gotta do to pay the bills until you have a more privileged or secure position and you can go, "No. Now I’m gonna start doing things my way."

And that was always with me in a personal sense, and now I’m really bringing all that to the fore, the more you use your body to express so many different aspects of yourself, the healthier you are, the happier you are…

I teach embodied witchcraft to an international audience now on another platform and it feels also really necessary in this very difficult time in the world.

Jennifer Bourn:

Well, I think a lot of people at this time, in particular, are really looking for experiences that nurture the soul — that really get in and nurture who you are at your core, instead of just this surface level. And you do a lot of that in your work. You do a lot of really deep work with your clients and get into magic as well. Tell us a little bit about what your work embodies and what the benefits of this level of work are.

Melissa Gutierrez:

I think that’s a really great question because it’s very easy to get caught up in modalities, right? Like yoga and reiki, powerlifting… Oh, but what kind of dance? And magic? What you talking about? If you picture it as a wheel, these are all pathways to the central access, which is yourself.

And these are all just ways to explore, refine, and cultivate a wonderful relationship with the one person and the one body that will never leave you. And I want for people to entertain movement on those levels that we’re discussing — the profound, emotional, mental, spiritual, however you define that perspective.

This is the vehicle not only of how you explore your life but also the life you create and that your body is the source of power for all of that.

Jennifer Bourn:

Now, you learned how to not physically burn out chasing what you want. Can you share a little bit about a time that maybe you faced burnout and how you learned to better deal with that?

Melissa Gutierrez:

Oh, there are so many times that I relearn that lesson.

Jennifer Bourn:

I don’t think you’re alone on that one.

Melissa Gutierrez:

I’m not alone and this is why I push this message so hard too. Cause I’m like, "We don’t have to keep doing it. Like, it’ll sneak up on you, maybe the first three to five times and then you gotta, recalibrate a little bit."

But a very grounded example of this is when I was sort of riding the high of being a trainer in New York City.

It’s pre-COVID. I had just successfully left a really toxic, abusive marriage. I was in a better relationship, I was in a better life, and I was training my booty off. I was like, "I’m gonna work." It didn’t matter how many clients I saw on a day, I was dedicated to my movement practice and to my powerlifting.

And I suffered for about a year — a huge hormonal disruption — that I had to go to an endocrinologist, a specialist for, after some failed attempts with other doctors and not being heard. And I’m so grateful I live in New York City where there was even a doctor like this — an endocrinologist I could speak to — and we went through all the tests and drew like 16 vials of blood. And she said "Yeah, you’re overtraining." And so did my nutritionist because by the way folks, I was working with the nutritionist but I wasn’t necessarily being honest about what my output was.

This is what I really want people to get from this story.

I also had just gotten life insurance and they were like, you are the healthiest human being we have ever seen in our lives. My body was, like, sculpted and so I’m getting all this positive affirmation but my body was saying something isn’t right. And it gets louder when you don’t pay attention.

So the endocrinologist and my nutritionist, we get together and they go, "Oh Melissa, this is very common. We see this with high-level Olympic athletes all the time. They mess up their hormone profiles." And in my head, I heard that, like, I’m an Olympic-level athlete! And then thankfully, the other rational voice came forward and was like, "You need to reframe that honey. You need to hear this."

And that was a huge lesson.

So that’s of a place where I can feel myself edging into now where I can go, "Uh, pull it back, pull it back, rest, rest."

And I think that story hopefully is relatable because there’s often this fear or ambition that kind of coalesce and collapses into the same feeling of drive — and this is all on me and I gotta make this happen — and it’s true. But it’s hard to find the balance of health in that and so the burnout rate with entrepreneurs is so high as you know.

Jennifer Bourn:

I know that is something I can one hundred percent relate to.

I think too, with social media, you see all the things that everybody else is doing and there’s this pressure, especially in the digital agency, freelancer, entrepreneurial world — what’s the next thing you’re launching, and the next program you’re releasing, and the next membership you’re building, and the next thing that’s coming.

It’s always bigger and better, and who’s hiring and who’s growing. And that keeping up with expectations or what you feel like you should be doing is so exhausting. And that puts such a tax on our bodies. We set these goals and we push and then we collapse.

And so one of the things that I really love is that you’ve learned to recognize that these things are starting to happen and say, "Hey, hold on a second. We’ve got to course correct here a little bit or we’re not going to be in a good place."

Melissa Gutierrez:

You know, our bodies are often left behind. They’re sort of like the last part of our priority list.

And by the way, I speak with a lot of respect to parents and single parents who are working in particular. I am single and child-free by choice. That doesn’t mean I don’t have things that are logistically heavy in my life, but there’s a different logistical load. You still have a physical body that if it fails on you, your whole family is screwed.

If you really are bearing the responsibility or even half… If you don’t take care of yourself, you take the whole ship down with you. And so I speak to respect about everything that goes on in every individual’s life and the common denominator for all this — the great equalizer is our health. You have it or you don’t.

Jennifer Bourn:

That’s such a powerful reminder that if you don’t take care of yourself, you’re not helping anyone in your family, anyone that you love, anyone in your life, anyone that you’re responsible for.

I can’t be my best for others if I don’t give myself my best first.

Melissa Gutierrez:

Yeah. Because the truth is when you take better care of yourself, it’s the rising tide that lifts all the boats. Your immediate circle is better, however, that is defined, your community… You’re more available for progressive behavior to advance the world in the way you want.

I think particularly for entrepreneurs, when you’re talking about manifesting ideas that help us to earn income so that we’re not homeless and poor, you have to be aware that you are also a hundred percent of energy. Not in the woo woo energy but that there’s only so much of yourself to give away.

And when you are creating and manifesting externally, what you wanna see in the world, that’s a humongous endeavor and you better be feeding that system back. So I’m not advocating for those sleepless nights when you have a big launch.

Jennifer Bourn:

Sometimes it’s what you’ve got to do.

Melissa Gutierrez:

It’s what you’ve got to do. But I want people to prep for it. Like, when I’m on the team for an entrepreneurial person who’s doing that and I’m part of the body entourage, we prep for it, we program differently in our workouts, nutrition changes, and then the balance between activity and rest shifts for a period of time.

It’s really about working with adaptability and rhythms.

Jennifer Bourn:

I adore that.

I have talked about this moment of clarity when I realized work-life balance is like getting on a seesaw or a teeter-totter. When you strive to keep it flat, it’s difficult and it’s not fun for anyone. A seesaw is way more fun when you’re going back and forth.

And if work and life are on different sides, sometimes your family and your life and your hobbies and vacations and all of those other things you love have to come first and work takes a backseat. But sometimes work has to come first. But as long as one isn’t stuck at the top for too long and there’s that natural ebb and flow, then it’s a more healthy approach.

You said something really interesting to me. So you said body entourage. I need to know what this role is. What does that mean?

Melissa Gutierrez:

So, for privileged individuals — and I mean privilege in terms of accessibility to this — a high functioning exec, like a C-level, or if I’m working with a professional athlete, there’s often a nutritionist, couple of personal trainers, maybe a personal chef. There’s this sort of grandiosity around supporting them.

Jennifer Bourn:

Oh, yeah.

Melissa Gutierrez:

I like to use that language, being part of a body entourage, because when I’m working with clients who are not necessarily at that C-level place but who are just regular folks where I consider myself to be. I try to get them to understand the different areas of support.

Like, hey, maybe you can’t have a nutritionist on call all the time, but have a couple of sessions. I’m a personal trainer with a biomechanistic view. I also do yoga and all the myriad things. But guess what? Still doesn’t cover everything.

You might want to diversify your physicality and your experience in your body. So get a massage, explore some acupuncture. You know, I try to get people to expand the idea of what self care is, and also how much they deserve

Jennifer Bourn:

I love that.

There’s this notion of looking for support in your business, through technology and software and automation and virtual assistance. So why shouldn’t there be an investment in support for your personal wellbeing — For your body, for your mind, for the things that ensure you show up every day your best, most creative self.

Melissa Gutierrez:

That’s the goal.

And when the pandemic happened, being in New York City, it was rough and I was hit with the ‘rona. I was really sick and that was a big experience of its own. But I recognized when we were going into lockdown… I was thinking this is not gonna be a couple of weeks.

But I was like this is a great time to cocoon and come out and flourish the way I want to. And so I reevaluated my team and I called my business coaches and I upped my game planning with them. And in terms of affordability, I found other coaches whom I could do barter exchanges with cause I was like, "Hey, you’re stuck at home right? Do you need some training?"

And then I had a sex and pleasure coach for the first time in my life, and I was like, “We’re gonna up level that.” And then I had my therapist. And then "Oh, I can afford a hundred dollar program on X." Or, "I don’t know about crystals, let me find out about crystals." And I expanded. it’s not should do this.

It’s not that you have to come into this world knowing all the tools. But you can acquire so much. This is why they talk about:

• Have your business coaches.
• Get a body witch in your life.
• Up level your experiences as much as possible.

When you do that with your own body, your health, your wellness, your drive, your creativity just explodes. It’s phenomenal.

Jennifer Bourn:

Now, I’m glad that you said body witch because I was going to ask you about this. People around the world, attend your virtual classes, which can be found on your website at Melguttierez.com. One-on-one you help clients use their bodies to solve health and personal problems with a little bit of magic mixed in.

You’re known as the body witch. Tell me what that means to you.

Melissa Gutierrez:

When people hear the word witch, it comes with a lot of connotations. That’s fair and I use it for that purpose. There’s a lot of history in that.

When we attach it to the word body — and by the way, I am not the only body witch out there, and it is not my mission to be the only body witch. It is my mission to find the other body witches and make everyone a body witch. You’re a body witch. Everyone’s a body witch.

And what that means is for those of us who practice under that title, it’s its own form of transformational coaching. And it’s a belief that we are more than just the bones. The miracle of our bodies is more than just the physical. It is our connection to nature and how we are affected by her rhythms.

So my business planning will often, be coordinated by the seasons and lunar cycles. If I’m getting stymied in a particular issue, if I’m feeling the stress of my business and my body a certain way, I have so many tools to use. But I could also just take a walk outside, get a hit of sun sunshine, recognize that that’s real, hug a tree.

I’m totally the crazy person who hugs a tree. Don’t care. And then get that hit of energy and come back and I’m centered, I’m grounded, I’m refocused. As opposed to beating myself into "Why aren’t you focusing? Come on. I know you’re tired. Come on, get it together. Come on. I know you’ve been on zoom for seven and a half hours. Let’s do it. Let’s do it."

That’s not sustainable for me anymore. So when we use the word body witch it’s about acknowledging that we are more than just what we feel and see in the immediate vicinity.

Jennifer Bourn:

I love that though. When I am not quite feeling it, I’m not in the groove, things seem to be taking a lot longer than they should, everything seems a little slow, I feel like I’m slogging through my work, the best thing that I can do is to get up and to go outside.

I’ll go for a walk. Sometimes I’ll go and try to find grass, right? If I can get my feet in the grass or head into the backyard in the sun, turn on the waterfalls of my pool, put my feet in the water, right?

There’s something magical about the movement of water, of bare feet in the grass I spent my childhood on a houseboat and in the water and sleeping next to waterfalls. So there’s this calmness that I feel.

It’s like when you go to the ocean. You cannot stand on a beach and look at the ocean and hear the waves, or you cannot stand in front of enormous redwoods, or at the top of a mountain and look out and think your problems are big. Because you realize you’re such a little tiny part of the world and it makes everything feel, not quite as big, not quite as bad.

Melissa Gutierrez:

Jennifer has just proven that she is a body witch. What, what! Cue the Megan Thee Stallion.

This is what gets me all like fired up. Everything you just said about water — we all have very particular relationships with certain elements. Some people are water people and they go to the ocean to renew themselves.

I love that you spoke of the redwoods.

In my mind, in meditation, when I’m feeling overwhelmed and ungrounded, I will particularly imagine myself near a Redwood tree. And that, that, transports me.

At this point, I think it’s foolish for human beings to not recognize that very primal connection to nature and tap into it as a source of renewal, the same way we look at food, exercise and sleep or pleasure So I’m so excited for you that you have that and I would even invite you to bring in some of those elements into your home.

The bathroom’s the water room and so many times when I shower, I will do a candle-lit shower and I have crystals on an alter space with mermaids to recall like, this is the water room and this is where I release and cleanse. And I’m not saying everybody else has to bring it to that level but like uplevel, your shower experience.

Jennifer Bourn:

Well, I love that you said that because so many entrepreneurs, freelancers, business owners, professionals, all say "I do my best thinking in the shower."

Melissa Gutierrez:

Yes.

Jennifer Bourn:

There is something about letting that water just run over you and letting your mind wander.

Lately. I think I’ve been doing a little too much thinking in my shower because sometimes I can’t remember if I washed my hair or not.

Melissa Gutierrez:

Yeah, I’m like, wait, did I shave? And then you gotta like, touch your leg.

Jennifer Bourn:

I’m like, "I can’t remember. Should I put conditioner in my hair? Should I wash my hair again just in case?

Melissa Gutierrez:

That’s why your hair’s so shiny ’cause you do it several times. I would like for people to embrace that. And I’ll even add essential oils to the bathtub and that’s something that I find to be very impactful. So people should do that. treat, your shower, like a spa.

Jennifer Bourn:

I’m going to try the essential oils tip.

So let me ask you, what would you say to someone who has been working and hustling and grinding? They are working from sun up to sun down. They know that they need to work some movement in. They know they should probably be exercising. They’re struggling to really work that into their day.

What are some things that people can do to start really embracing the idea of, of movement?

Melissa Gutierrez:

Remember when JLo and Shakira did the Super Bowl?

I had to counsel many women who were devastated that they didn’t look that way. JLo and Shakira started to set a high bar for people who were like reaching 50 and I was like, "Listen, that’s not your job. If that was your job, you would be working out four hours a day. You would have many meals catered to you."

Your job is to be there for your family and to have health before you are concerned about hitting anybody else’s standard of being. And that really starts with cultivating joy and freedom and comfort and soothing capacities in your body.

Listen, you could do a really quick stretch. It could be two to five minutes of stretching, which is just healthy for you anyways. Or if you’re ready to uplevel this, put on music you love and dance as often as you want throughout the day.

There are so many times, Jennifer, I’m not feeling it. Something’s not aligned. My energy isn’t being utilized in the most efficient way. That’s what my body — that’s what my mind — is telling me and that usually means to stop, pause, step away, and then put on some music.

And sometimes I don’t feel like being the body witch.

What do I do when I don’t feel like being the body witch? When my students have signed up for class and I’m not in the mood? I put on Cardi B and I remember who I am And then I’m in that energy again. Imagine if people use that tool. To get them into any head space they needed at any time. How amazing would that be?

Jennifer Bourn:

I love the idea of using music. Put it on, turn it up, and just move. It’s not hard. And no one has to see you do it.

Melissa Gutierrez:

Our power in our bodies comes from embracing everything that comes along with expressing movement.

So if you feel silly, if you feel ashamed, if you feel vulnerable, if you feel sexy, if you feel joyous, if you feel grief — whatever the spectrum of human experience you’re carrying inside of yourself — the more you’re able to embrace it and move with it and sometimes through it, the more powerful you are in your humanity and as a person overall.

Jennifer Bourn:

Well, and if you can do that — if you can learn how to move through that, you can learn how to move through uncomfortable situations in a lot of other areas in your life.

Melissa Gutierrez:

Yeah. That’s the point.

You know, when I’m teaching a woman how to lift heavy weights in the gym and she’s uncomfortable, she says "This is a male-dominated space and I don’t think I can do this."

I remind them "Well, are there other spaces you’re trying to step into that may not have a pre-carved-out space for you? Aren’t you trying to dominate in another arena? Practice here."

Practice here. And these are general swaths I’m painting, right? Like there’s different work for different people and people who are not necessarily in a binary system of gendered identification.

But when I’m working with men and they’re in a female-dominated yoga class and they’re uncomfortable and they’re like, "I don’t know how to move or stretch this way." I remind them, "No one gender or sex gets to monopolize feeling at ease. You’re here to claim your own ease and to treat yourself this."

Jennifer Bourn:

There’s that saying, right? Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

The more that you can get comfortable in those tough situations, the more you’ll be able to teach yourself.

Practice working through those situations so when they do show up in your business or with clients, or when opportunities present themselves that might be a little bit scary, you’ve practiced… You know how to handle those feelings when they come up and that helps you get through that.

Melissa Gutierrez:

Your mind and your body, don’t always know what’s happening in reality versus what is just an imagined terror you have for yourself or drama. And that’s a good thing because you can use that. You can use that as a virtual reality theater to practice.

So when I’m trying to practice being powerful, it’s very easy for me to gravitate — because of my background, the way I grew up — to certain sources of music. Like, I love doing yoga to death metal at home.

I haven’t done that in group classes yet. I’m not going to impose that on people. But I love to do it at home.

When I have difficulty accessing a softer power, a softer side, that’s when I have music, and a setting, and sometimes outfits that I use to move in that way. The more you wrestle with what you’re uncomfortable with in your body — like whatever creates an ick — as long as you are safe in your exploration, that’s a source of power. That’s a place of growth.

Jennifer Bourn:

I love that

Melissa Gutierrez:

And it will translate outside of whatever, outside the gym, off the mat. It will translate into the next difficult conversation you have, whether it’s work or family or yourself.

Jennifer Bourn:

It’s powerful when you really look at how you can treat your body to empower you to do what you want to do — to be there for the people that you want to be there for, to feel the way that you want to feel.

Because every choice that you make and how you treat your body, whether it’s movement, or food, or any of the other things, you’re creating how your body feels and the ripple effect of that can be positive not. So positive…

Melissa Gutierrez:

Or not. You know, the other part of this is, watch your self-talk.

You know, I get it. I’ll be at the gym and I’ll be like, "Get it together!" You know what I mean? And that’s fine. Sometimes you need that. But it’s not always that.

If your self-talk when it comes to performance of any kind only has one voice, that’s an indication of it’s time to diversify the toolkit and working in your body as primary.

And I wanna advocate that people really start to carve out self-love in a real way. Listen to how you speak to yourself. Listen to that and start practicing that and also cultivate practices of pleasure that are with your body that go beyond food and sex.

Food and sex is very important and I do work around that too, but what feels good? Like, do you know how to move for the joy of it? And it could be walking in the grass or it could be dancing to something else. But until you really know what that is, you don’t have complete command over yourself. And so you’ll start to recognize how to empower yourself.

And it shows up in other arenas. You also start to put in your body and your mind what to expect in terms of standard of care, but also what to receive from others — and also what success looks like so you won’t sabotage it with that grind, thinking you’ve got to kill yourself to make it happen and not be able to recognize when that burnout’s coming for you.

Jennifer Bourn:

I love that.

What other can’t live without tools or trick do you wish that you had discovered earlier?

Melissa Gutierrez:

I think the self-talk that we were just discussing. I wish I had known how important my own internal voice was.

And we are told it. It is told to us that it’s important. But we are not taught how to practice it. It is not given to us in practice. And so self-love in that regard and love for your body is paramount now for me. And I wish I had had it earlier.

Jennifer Bourn:

I think a lot of people can relate to that. That we’re told that we need to be kind to ourselves, we’re told to get rid of that negative head trash, but there really isn’t a lot of talk about how to do that.

When your days don’t go according to plan and the proverbial poo hits the fan, what do you do? What practice do you have to help keep you in a positive head space?

Melissa Gutierrez:

There are certain triggers for me in that.

If I feel like I’ve wasted time. Oh, oh, I get so aggravated and grumpy and angsty. And then I notice there’s a, a sort of speed that starts to take over internally — a momentum where I’m like, "Okay. Well, if I shove this in and maybe email that," and then I start looking at things that are really extraneous that are not gonna affect the day in any way.

I have come to recognize that voice or that feeling and I go, "Oh, thank you so much for letting me know how you feel but that’s not gonna be helpful right now."

And I’m obviously describing a process that I have learned. Cause, first of all, there’s the recognition. I’m just going, "Thank you. I honor you and I understand you’re trying to keep me safe," cause that’s really what all of this is for all of us. And then I, say, "I’m gonna put you aside."

And then if I don’t know where to go from there, that’s when I hit the pause and do like two minutes of just breathing. And then when I’m not taken over by that internal sense of momentum when there’s not that like, hysterical angsty. Ugh. Ugh. I’m like, “That’s not helpful. That would be helpful in another scenario, it’s not helpful here.”

And then I sooth myself. I learn to soothe myself because putting that beast away takes a process of self-soothing. And so that’s when my self-soothing practices come into place.

Jennifer Bourn:

I love the idea of acknowledging it. Saying, "Hey, thanks for giving me this signal and now I’ve gotta set this aside." Just acknowledging that it’s there… Sometimes just putting a name to it, recognizing it, and saying, "I get it and I’m gonna choose to do this differently," and being really intentional can create so much more positivity in the day.

Melissa Gutierrez:

Like, is this a strategy that’s gonna assist me in the present? If it’s not, then you soothe. And listen, it’ll go away. The discomfort you feel, the neurotransmitters, and the reuptake process, it’ll die down in a couple of minutes. Go distract yourself with something healthier. And that’s when you need to have that toolkit. You need to have practice so that you know what to do.

Jennifer Bourn:

That’s such a great piece of advice.

I know we mentioned your website, Melgutierrez.com where they can find your virtual classes. Do you want to share a little bit about what classes you have available?

Melissa Gutierrez:

I do. I have a Monday core class — and if you can’t come live, people get recordings — which is really about grounding and centering and really understanding what your core is.

Wednesday is almost like a small group strength training, but we cover foundations so that people can safely explore on their own. I don’t want people to come to my classes to get their workouts in. I want them to come to me to learn and then they can put on any YouTube video they want and explore safely.

And then the Friday class is when we do dope yoga and meditation and that class has a lot of music and movement. Sometimes this straight-up dance. And we explore energy work in that class and all kinds of stuff.

So, the website is there and my Instagram account is full of free meditations I do every Monday and then I save them to the library.

Jennifer Bourn:

Oh, fantastic. And what is your Instagram?

Melissa Gutierrez:

It’s @thebodywitch.

Jennifer Bourn:

Makes it easy. Thank you so much for joining me and for sharing your journey of seeking satisfaction.

Melissa Gutierrez:

Thank you, Jennifer. It was a real pleasure.

Jennifer Bourn:

If you enjoyed this episode of Seeking Satisfaction, subscribe for new show updates at Jenniferbourn.com/seeking-satisfaction, and hey, please leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform.

If you would like to hear more from Melissa and learn her 3D Spatial Bubble Practice on how to open the space within and outside you to access grounded clarity that connects to your vision so you can strategize effectively and harness the energy you need to execute, check out the Seeking Satisfaction Extra Minutes Membership.

Members receive Extra Minutes from podcast guests like Melissa that provide valuable training to help you build a better business. You can find details about the Extra Minutes Membership and Melissa’s Extra Minutes training in the show notes.

Until next time may you live inspired, embrace imperfection, seek satisfaction, and have a fabulous day.

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