Ep. 62 - Choose Yourself with Mytrae Meliana

Transcript

00:03

Welcome to the Push Or Pivot Podcast, a podcast that inspires you to trust yourself in the crossroads of life. I'm your host, Thea Charles. As a life coach, I know that when you put fear aside and trust yourself, you'll know when to push through adversity, and when to stop, reassess, and pivot. I believe magic happens whenever a push or pivot story is shared. And that magic is exactly what you'll find here. My guest is Mytrae Meliana. She is a women's empowerment and spiritual teacher, holistic psychotherapist, and trauma expert, speaker and author. Her book, brown skin girl, an Indian American woman's magical journey from broken to beautiful, is a memoir about her personal journey of healing, empowerment and awakening. In this episode, she shared why choosing yourself is so important and welcome my Frankie to the pusher pivot. I'm really excited to talk with you today.

01:19

Thank you. Thank you for having me on pushing.

01:22

Thank you. Thank you. I started reading your book. And it's awesome. And I feel like I kind of know you a little bit. I would love for you to tell us all a little background on yourself.

01:37

Okay, great. Yeah. So the book that you're referring to is my my memoir. It's my story, as an Indian American woman of my own journey of healing and transformation. So I've had a very personal journey. And that journey has prompted me to become a holistic psychotherapist. And now I am a women's empowerment and spiritual teacher where I help women, empower themselves and choose themselves and really heal from all kinds of different issues, and really come into who they are. Because I know that that's one thing that my journey has showed me for myself that we are so incredible, each one of us are so incredible and amazing. But we don't know that other side of the bridge, right? It's so easy for us to think less of ourselves feel bad about ourselves. And I think we can get imprisoned or trapped in just the vicissitudes of life, you know, whether it's relationships are incidents of situations, and they're so damaging to us. About reason I wrote the book was not just to tell my story, but I wanted to share with women, especially women of color, women, like me from South Asia, or other immigrant backgrounds, where therapy isn't accessible, or therapy isn't even known, or people aren't even aware of it. I wasn't aware of it, certainly. And so rather than write a self help book, I know coming from India, which is my culture, that storytelling as is in every tradition, storytelling is so magical, and so inspirational, that I thought it would be a way to teach and to share what a journey could look like.

03:31

That's beautiful. And precisely, like why I even started this podcast.

03:38

So can you take us back to your Crossroads? Tell us about that.

03:42

Yeah, sure. So my Crossroads was, I was very much. You know, Greg grew up in India. And so it was very much have inherited a lot of the beliefs as an Indian woman. And I was in a marriage to an Indian man for 15 years that was emotionally abusive, and eventually turn physically abusive, abusive, and I was still stuck in this belief that an Indian woman once she's married, she stays married. And divorce was not common at the time. It was certainly nobody else in my family of many hundreds of families had been divorced. So it was very, not seen it. I mean, of course, I knew that Americans it was different for Americans, but there's such a cultural divide, that I didn't think that it was an option for me. So, you know, when the physical abuse happen, I that's when a light bulb went off for me that even though my culture was so spiritual, and you know, I started questioning what are women's roles, what are our rights? What are we allowed to have? What are we not allowed to have? What are the messages. And I think that's where I went to what are the messages that I received as a woman. And it just took me on this process of questioning. And it led me to this place, which was outside my cultural sphere of, I'd have to choose me, or stay living the way my culture has raised me to live as a woman.

05:22

So I'm curious, I guess, how long did it take? Like, what was there a moment? Was there something that happened? Like, how did you come to that?

05:31

Yeah, I have been unhappy for many years. And you know, and but I always thought something was wrong with me. I always thought something was wrong with me. And when the physical abuse happened, I essentially I was, he tried to strangle me. And I, you know, I think I had been living for many years as something's wrong, you know, I'm not happy, what's wrong with me trying to. And I was following a spiritual or religious tradition, I thought I had to do more of I kept doing more of that, to try and feel better about myself. But that was the wrong direction. And I just didn't know it. And when that incident happened, I then started just looking online about what is abuse, what is emotional abuse, I started reading, I started educating myself. And I didn't even think at the time that emotional abuse applied to Indian woman. And that will tell you the extent of how I was thinking, I thought it was for American woman, but coming from my culture that I had to take it, that was duty and sacrifice. Well, how I grown up to keep the marriage together at all costs. And the subtitle of my book is, it's a magical journey. So I went for long walks, I would just go for these long walks, just trying to make sense of my life of what was happening. And I returned to something that was very familiar to me as a child, where which I will call conversations with nature. I as a child, I would commune with nature, I would receive messages from nature. And I started questioning the real my religious texts, like why is the masculine superior to the feminine? Why are men who are more powerful than women? And why do why are we if everything is sacred? Why are we not equal? How can an oak tree be different from a redwood? Or better than? Right? How can a red flower be better than a slow snail there is no difference, there is no inequality in nature. There is no inequality, babe, whether whatever your culture, whatever your gender, whatever your preference of whatever your likes or dislikes, every living being is meant to bloom, and flower, and fruit.

08:08

Have you been inspired by the story shared on the pusher pivot, but feeling a little stuck at your own Crossroads? If only they were a guide to get unstuck? Well, I've made one just for you. six steps to help you recognize what is keeping you stuck, and push you out of your rut. You can access it for free on my website, fear rebel.com, slash rut, that team th e a, r e n e l.com, slash ru T.

08:53

You have such an amazing way with words and that I like can't put your book down. I've just started it the other day. And you just draw people in. There was one thing towards the beginning of the book where you had written that someone's voice, like swung like a vine or something like that. And it was like, Oh, my gosh. And you know, it's really interesting, you know, that sometimes as we're like, finding ourselves, we kind of go back to who we were as children. You know, like, you go back, you went back to nature. That's really, it's really cool.

09:28

Yeah. I think as children we know, so much more sometimes. I think that adults No, I think children but tapped into the truth of what is of joy and play and delight, and we're connected. You know, we haven't built all these structures and egos and us versus them and you know, all the divisions haven't been formed. Yeah.

09:54

So we're along our journey. Did you you know, after you came up with this realization, knew that evilness were like, when did you turn to I need to tell other people

10:08

I didn't go to I need to tell other people I was still I was still very private, I had not told a friend, it was all still very internal. And I was terrified. I was really crossing this big red line that my culture had drawn for me. And I felt like to leave my marriage because my parents were against it. They're like, doesn't matter if he strangled you still stay. You know, and that was so wrong. It was all online. And then I reached out to a South Asian women's agency. And the counselor there told me that, yes, indeed, that Indian woman can be emotionally abused, and it applies to us as well. So that gave me a lot of strength. And then I went to the library, I'm a, I'm a voracious reader. So then I started reading, I had never read self help books before. I read all kinds of books, but not self help. So there, I started learning about abuse and seeing all the things. He's really educated myself and became aware. And then I reached out to the local YWCA for to meet with a counselor and join a support group. And it was solely these baby steps. I think reaching out to this counselor was the first step of telling someone

11:29

Well, did you read the book,

11:32

I wrote the book. So once I decided to leave, things happened very fast, a lot of synchronicities. And one of the ideas just flashed to me was to become a psychotherapist. Seem to hugely, but that was my pivot. That was to leave the marriage, choose myself, go back to school, I didn't even know I hadn't really been in therapy, you know, so I was coming to it very fresh, very green, very nice. I just knew I wanted it to heal a lot. And I didn't even know what that look like. So it was this leap of faith towards myself. And it was in school, it was in my second semester. You know, and the classes are very experiential. We're not just, it's not just mental knowledge, but we are processing our feelings or experiences or memories or childhood, and it's such it was this rich part in which I think we are all cooked and really steeped. You know, we had to like really go into our own juices and feel everything. And it was very intense emotionally. And in my second semester, I remember I was in my, my home where I was, you know, my little place where I was, and I just sat down one day, I pulled out my journal, I've always journal. I was just so stunned by what I was learning in school and what my life had been, the discrepancy was so huge. I just asked myself, what happened. And what happened. And because there was a me, I remember from earlier on for my 20s, but then I lived so many years as not as myself. And I just sat down, and I wrote the first line. I am a child of the sun. And then it just poured for me. It wanted to be written. Yeah. And for nine months, I mean, it's the even the timing, the time is very symbolic. Every morning, I would wake up for just sit for a couple of hours, it would is strange for me. It had to get on the page.

13:42

Wow. Ah,

13:44

I'm so glad you did. Oh, my gosh, I could just ask you questions, like all night. But if you could give somebody a piece of advice, what what would that be? Choose yourself?

13:58

Choose yourself. I think there's a lot of self love is a big thing out there. But I think being able to love ourselves, we need to choose ourselves. And no matter what, no matter what the situation, even if it's a baby step, even if it's a few minutes a day, even if it's going for a walk, even if it's something very small to take some time to just choose you to shut everybody else out. And just make some time for yourself. And that in itself will lead to so much more.

14:34

Beautiful.

14:35

Thank you so much. This is just a really awesome How can people learn more about you? My three? Yeah, they can reach me on my website. It's my 3 million i.com and I'm on social media. So people I love hearing from people. I love hearing from readers. They're Welcome to reach out to me learn about my work. And yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So Thanks for having me. And it's been just a delight to speak with you.

15:04

Thank you. My three story really highlighted the power of being able to see a little bit of yourself and someone else to help you tap into your own power. Imagine if she hadn't learned of the South Asian women's agency that helps her acknowledge that her feelings are valid. I also applaud her for writing a memoir to help others see themselves in her story. If you were to share a memoir, what lesson Could someone learn from you? Thank you for listening to the push or pivot podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, hit the subscribe button. And please leave us a review. To learn more about the show and to access the show notes. Visit our website, push or pivot.com I'd also love to hear from you. Share your thoughts and takeaways with me on Instagram at pusher pivot. Thank you for listening, and join me next time on the push or pivot podcast.