MEET MELANIE
From vital signs to singing bowls - same devotion to care.
I’ll never forget the moment I came home, scooped up my toddler, rocked her while she slept and cried my eyes out. I had been holding it together for my entire shift, but I couldn’t do it any longer.
I'd spent the last 20 hours trying to stabilize a young boy and find recipients for his organs — fulfilling his and his family's wish for him to be an organ donor. It wasn't possible. There was nothing more to be done, and his family was devastated. By the time I got home, I was a physical and emotional wreck. At that point in my life, that was the norm. I needed so much time to replenish myself that I never felt like I was who I wanted to be for my husband and daughter.
For nine years, I worked mostly the night shift. Straight out of nursing school, I started in a Neurosurgery ICU at a Level 1 trauma hospital; this was all but unheard of for a new graduate. I treated fresh spinal injuries, traumatic brain injuries, gunshot wounds to the head, strokes, and brain tumors.
My time in the ICU pushed me to look for even more meaning in the work, which led me to become a Certified Procurement Transplant Coordinator. For three years I worked 24-hour shifts — stabilizing organ donors, guiding their families through the hardest moment of their lives, and working to find recipients for every eligible organ. I cried with widows married fifty years. I sat with children as they shared what they'd miss most about a parent. I picked mothers up off the floor as we took their child to the operating room. It pushed me to the limits of how much I could give, while my own needs sat on the back burner. Right in the middle of that tipping point, I became a mother.
Since I was a little girl, I've wanted to help people — my mom, my dad, my aunt with disabilities who lived with us. At home, it wasn't that easy; I couldn't provide the help the adults needed. Looking back, it wasn't my job. Still, I left home carrying a desire to help wherever I could.
I had never felt so depleted. No matter how much I slept, my body still craved rest. No matter how much I relaxed, my fuse was so short I'd snap at my husband and daughter. I left the bedside for more stable, less intense nursing work. It helped — for a while. Then I had my second child, and that same unfixable depletion came back. I craved relief from what I can only call my overcaring syndrome.
I studied yoga and made spiritual choices that felt more aligned with who I'd become. What became clear was that simply changing my outer life wasn't enough — I had to change my inner relationship with myself.
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Two moments still stand out from my nursing years.
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The 3 a.m. conversations — patients facing fear, uncertainty, and unfamiliar rooms, reflecting on their fears, dreams, and regrets.
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The moments I sat with a family as someone they loved moved from life to death — work that demanded real skill to make safe and peaceful.
I listened intently. I communicated clearly. I acted with compassion. I worked creatively for whatever each person needed.
I still loved that work. I just knew it was time for something to change.
Certifications & Credentials
ISTA Certified Therapeutic Sound Practitioner
Level 1I Certification, Sound Healing AcademyB.S. RYT-200, Sacred Yoga Institute
BSN, Georgia College & State University
One night I went to a yoga class and sound bath — and was shocked by how restored I felt in just one hour. I started researching sound therapy, then enrolled in training. When I learned how sound frequency affects the nervous system and how closely it mirrored techniques used in neuroscience, something clicked: I was coming full circle.
Sound therapy was exactly what I needed to change my inner relationship with my own body and life — and a way to keep doing what I'd always loved about nursing: creating safety for the most intense, human moments we go through — loss, change, growth, repair, healing. Nursing taught me that what people need already exists within them; they heal most effectively when given the right conditions and safety to do it.
Consistent time with sound gave me that safety — to calm my own nervous system out of its reactive state. I became more thoughtful with my family. Clearer about what I wanted. Finally brave enough to build the plan I'd always known was meant for me.