Today we’d like to introduce you to Melenie Borden.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I am a yoga instructor, meditation guide and Reiki master, but I only found this passion quite late in my life.
About ten years ago, I began to experience chronic pain in all of my joints, to the extent that I could not pick up a small hand weight. It became so bad that I could not move out of bed due to lower back pain. Being an active daughter of two athletes, my inability to exercise was very frustrating. I understood the importance of good nutrition and knew my diet was healthy, but suddenly I began to react to some foods, with hives and pain. Several trips to doctors brought no answers. I had blood work done which also shed no light on the cause. Frustrated, I decided to take matters into my own hands and started evaluating every part of my life.
I came to the realization that my body was over reacting to stress. As a family we had moved multiple times in a short period. I was not aware of the toll the that the stress was taking on my health. I had not learned how to cope in a healthy way.
The little I had read about yoga, had revealed that it was physically gentle and could relieve stress. I went to my first class at a local fitness center and fell in love immediately! Yoga and meditation gave me the tools to heal my physical body, relieve my mental stress and teach me how to regulate my emotional self. It took a few years of slight diet adjustments, yoga and mindfulness practices to get my body to repair itself.
Once I understood just how much of my physical and emotional health really was in my own hands, and I could make small changes to affect a large overall change in my quality of life. I realized there was little I could not do. Yoga and meditation gave me the tools to implement those changes. I learned that each of us already have everything we need to healthily and successfully navigate this life. You do not have to become something outside of yourself; you just have to develop into who you already are. It is like when a sculptor finds a piece of unpolished marble, the shape of a horse is already in there, he just needs to chip away at the non-horse bits to reveal the final masterpiece. Health, peace, joy, love, success – it is all inside. If it does not feel like it yet, you just need to keep on looking. Give yourself time, educate yourself and get support.
Once recovered and having practiced yoga for a few years, I did my RYT200 training to become a yoga instructor and continued to learn about mindfulness practices, meditation and energy healing. Through yoga, workshops, private Reiki sessions, corporate and group events I teach people how to use these tools to become responsible for their own health, be it physical, emotional or spiritual. My current focus is on bringing yoga, breath-work and meditation practices to corporations. Companies who offer their employees yoga 1-2 times per week, as a perk, are seeing a reduction in stress levels, reduced sick days, improved focus and overall well-being. I enjoy bringing a tiny bit of peace to their lives and seeing them go from stressed-out to blissed-out in 60 minutes.
We are always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we have spoken with enough people to know that it is not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It was a very bumpy road of pain and inability to manage stress. Being unable to run or do much exercise was hard and frustrating. The pain has never gone away, but I am able to manage it with yoga and diet. Some days are better than others, but to be able to do handstands, arm balances and headstands at the age of 45 seemed unthinkable when I was struggling to get out of bed ten years ago. To heal physically, I had to learn how to deal with fear, anxiety and stress, and had a helpful structure within yoga to do so.
We would love to hear more about your business.
I am a yoga instructor, Reiki Master, meditation guide and a passionate student of eastern philosophy and universal energy. My yoga classes are for all levels, beginner to advance. It does not matter if I am doing a yoga class, Reiki session, meditation session or even a conversation, I am always focused on the flow of universal energy that we call “prana” in the practice of yoga. What I had to learn in my own life was how to allow that energy to flow in a healthy unobstructed way. This creates harmony in the physical, emotion, mental and spiritual side of each of us. Some clients are in tune with the energy and others need some coaching to understand it, and yet others do not know why they feel better-they just know that they do.
Through yoga instruction, I help people become more in-tune with their physicality. Through meditation and mindfulness practices, clients learn how to manage thoughts, stress, anxiety and mental health; through Reiki we dig deeper into the world of energy and how it affects our lives.
I offer public group, corporate, and private instruction, as well as special events for yoga, meditation and mindfulness. For Reiki I offer private and group sessions.
What were you like growing up?
I was born in South Africa, the middle child to a single mom. She was strong and independent, so I learned to do the same. I learned to be strong. This was the time of apartheid and the transition of the country to more inclusion. I was a teenager when Mandela became president and South Africa changed for the first time in hundreds of years. As wonderfully liberating and necessary as this time was it was, it was filled with violence and political unrest. South Africa became very dangerous and we all lived with vast amounts of stress. It was not until I came to the USA that I realized just how much stress we lived with every day. Things here were a big change from life in South Africa.
One big lesson I learned from going through this period, was that people have a limitless capacity to affect change in their own life. Each of us holds within us the capacity to affect that change. It is about having the tools and support to make that happen. A lesson I would learn again many years later and bring me to my current career.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.melenieborden.com/
- Email: melenieborden@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindfulmelenie/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MindfulMelenie/
Image Credit:
Alejandra Diaz-Baldocchi
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