About Me

A woman with short gray hair and sunglasses on her head sits in front of a tent smiling
Melanie camping at Maumelle Park in Little Rock, Arkansas

Welcome! I really am glad you stopped by. I hope you find something that interests you here, or better yet, something that enriches your life.

Recent changes in my personal life have set me on a new journey. The combination of my personal challenges, my childhood history and the pandemic made me dig deep to find ways to seek calmness and healing. I began to engage more fully in the things I love most—walking, kayaking, hiking, and camping. At the same time, I continued to read about mindfulness and trauma and neuroscience and discovered that all of these topics converged. Reading The Nature Fix by Florence Williams helped me to bring all of this into focus.

I want to continue to explore how my passions for nature and outdoor activities, combined with mindfulness and other sources of wisdom, can continue to be a part of my healing process. And I’d like to share my discoveries with you. I hope that my posts may inspire you to find your own pathways to healing and stress reduction.

Professionally, I started my career working as a counselor. Ultimately I found my way into jobs where I have provided training and consultation on topics such as leadership, organizational development, disability access and inclusion, diversity, universal design, mindfulness and healing from trauma. I’m excited to think about expanding my area of consulting to include the topics I am covering in this blog.

The highlights of my career have been helping professionals and organizations shift their perspectives of disability—viewing disability as an aspect of diversity and access as a matter of social justice. I am also passionate about training people how to put that into practice, to create more accessible and equitable environments. You can get a sense of my passion for this topic at exploreaccess.org.

 


Is your passion rubbing off on others? Or simply rubbing off?
Melanie

Do what you love in service of others who love what you do.
Steve Farber, The Radical LEAP