Cait
Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of The Born to Rise podcast. I’m your host, Cait Scudder, and I am so excited to introduce you guys to our amazing guests today. Mel Wells. Mel, thank you so much for being here.

Mel
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited for this conversation Cait.

Cait
Me too. I feel like it’s been a long time coming and so beautiful that we’re both in the pregnancy portal right now. And just all that creative mama lifeforce, generative energy in the space. It’s so beautiful.

Mel
Yes, there’s really nothing like it. This pregnancy has just been the best thing that’s ever happened to me for my creativity. I already feel like so many shifts happening with my business and it’s just so, so beautiful. I have so much respect for mothers just wow.

Cait
Yeah, I know. I totally hear you. I remember after having my first feeling like I had I was just like we’d be I mean as you are, the postpartum period is all the fields all the heart fields, just oxytocin explosion, just so, so joyful, but feeling like I had entered this secret realm of mothers that I of course knew existed and have a great relationship with my mom but it’s like realizing, all life comes into form through the mother and through that devotion, it’s it’s such a wild realization.

Mel
It’s such a spiritual journey. It’s a real vortex, a real ceremony and a portal and I think we all know that life comes from the mother but until you actually go through pregnancy and birth, I think you have no idea just how much of a cosmic and multi-dimensional like deep primal experience that really is. It’s truly such a gift to get to experience. Yeah, just really feels like the ultimate shamanic ceremony. Death and Rebirth times a zillion.

Cait
Yes. And the surrender on every single level imaginable. Like your body becoming this I remember Yeah, when I was pregnant with Ella I’m feeling this now pregnant with this one. It’s so weird to feel like an alien another life growing in your body. Have you been able to feel the baby like kick and move yet?

Mel
Yeah, we have. It’s pretty wild. Pretty wild.

Cait
I love that it’s so beautiful, amazing. Well as our listeners have just heard, you are such a guide and a force and a profound teacher and mentor for women who are reclaiming their feminine wisdom their feminine power like tapping into what it means to be a conscious leader as a woman in the world and I’m so I’ve just admired your work for a long time Mel and I’ve been so struck by your willingness to share the fullness of your journey and your experience and I would love to hear you talk about the the process just that you have gone through and I know it feels like it hasn’t even been that long of like a year and a half or whatever the timeframe has been of things seeming to completely unravel and fall apart in your personal life and then swing sofa I feel like I’m gonna cry happy tears for you just in the other direction of like meeting the one and the man of your dreams and getting pregnant and getting engaged. And now moving. I know you’re in a brand new house right now like, just all of these beautiful things coming together, I’d love for you to share a bit about your your personal journey. And I can’t help but think how many parallels there are. And I can only imagine for you what, you know, the insights that you’re taking from this, but the parallels in business and in entrepreneurship, when we think that it’s all gone to shit and nothing is working and the universe has conspired against us. And we’re just, you know, out of luck and on our knees, and we don’t even know the breakthrough that’s available. So I’d love to hear you for those who don’t know your story if you’re willing to share that. And then talk to us about the parallels that you see in being a business owner.

The process that Mel went through in her personal journey and the parallels in business

Mel
So I’ve been in the coaching industry and this entrepreneurship world and self development and spirituality. For around nine years now. And, yeah, yeah, what you are referring to is a big breakup death that I went through. In 2021. And I was with this, I was with someone for four years, I really thought that he was my person, we created this whole beautiful life together. And yeah, out of the blue, it completely fell apart. He met someone else. It was very, it was a huge, huge shock. I did not see it coming in the slightest, which was the which was what really shocked me the most. And yeah, I felt like I felt like my whole life was just kind of falling apart what we’d created together, we, we’ve just moved across the world together. And I really felt like wow, I’m, I’m living in my worst nightmare right now, not only am I being left, but I’m being less or another woman, which for me was like, the most devastating aspect of it. But I really felt through that and because of the practice and connection that I’ve developed, with a higher power, God, the universe, whatever you subscribe to, I really knew this is happening to my highest good, even though this is a mess right now. Even I’m in chaos. There is medicine here. For me, this is happening, because it’s meant to happen. Because there must be something better out there for me, there must be. And I had to really surrender and really trust that this perfect, quote, unquote, live that I had, and this perfect relationship that I thought I had, wasn’t it? Because how could it be if it if it had fallen apart like that? So instead of trying to force it back together, or you know, be a victim in the whole situation, and try and control it and make it right, I completely surrendered to it. And I said, Okay, God, like, show me what you’ve got. Show me what what you’ve got for me, show me what this next chapter is going to look like. Because I’m open, I’m available and ready. And I know that following a big death always comes a rebirth and following chaos and following the disruption and devastation of everything. Something better is always about to be rebuilt. And I really trusted that and I knew that that was coming. And yeah, I didn’t. I didn’t know how soon it was around the corner for me, but But yeah, nine months later, I met this incredible man. We fell in love instantly. We got pregnant very quickly, he proposed and we’ve moved into a beautiful family home together and now I’m like, oh, that’s what God had in store for me that that now I understand why things had to fall apart because how would like this was obviously on the way for me and I wouldn’t have been able to have this. If I had tried to hold on to what was no longer in alignment and no longer meant for me. So yeah, a real process of trust of devotion to a spiritual path and trusting that everything is unfolding for our highest alignment. And that is exactly the same in business. You know, it’s entrepreneurship is a spiritual journey is a self development journey where you will be faced with lots of opportunity for death and rebirth, lots of opportunity to lose things that are no longer in alignment. And we have to be really honest with ourselves. And really trust that we can always rebuild, we can always transform, there’s always a new level, and a new expansion waiting for us.

Cait
So beautiful and so powerful. And I’m so happy for you. And it’s, it’s really powerful to hear you describe that even in the thick of the chaos even in the total unexpectedness, and like that shock that you were describing of, oh, my god, is this really happening and the pain and the heartbreak and all of that it’s so beautiful to hear you describe that deep down, you always knew, like, I’m held, I’m held by God, the universe and that relationship with, with a higher power with how you describe that holding you I think is so important, because I think it’s very easy for a lot of us to feel when things go wrong, like the despair, like the real despair comes from when we feel like we’ve been forgotten, or we’re doing it all alone. And I’m curious, what is what has supported you in developing, I don’t know how you would describe that. But like a faith or a relationship or a sense of being held. Like I imagine that whether it’s in personal life or in business, there may be folks listening who feel both profoundly resonant with that and who feel like they don’t even know where to begin to cultivate that kind of trust.

What made Mel feel held and supported during her journey

Mel
Yeah, well, I think the the despair you’re speaking of is a feeling of a lack of control, a feeling of oh, my God, I’m out of control. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. And, you know, I feel the truth is, none of us know what’s going to happen next. Like we’re never really in control. And I think that so there’s that aspect, just kind of really acknowledging that, like, we never know what’s going to happen next. We don’t know if we’re going to be with the person that we’re forever. How can we ever guarantee that? How can we ever know anything? For sure? How can we know where our business is going to be in 10 years? How can we know anything? We don’t, right? So we have to trust our path, but also we have to trust ourselves. You know, and I think that comes from experience, experiencing hardship, experiencing challenges, and overcoming them, right. Like when I look back at my life, and I look back at like the hardest times in my life, you know, overcoming food addiction, eating disorder, losing my dad at 22. And going through this sudden grief of, of his death, like every, every single thing, you know, a breakup, I went through a divorce when I was 25, as well. Every single thing that has felt like a death has always been followed by a rebirth. So it’s almost like I feel I have a safety in looking back and seeing that pattern, not just in my life, but in everyone’s life, right? It’s the hero’s journey, we have to go through these challenges in order to become who we’re meant to be in order to self actualize. And I bet for everyone listening, you can kind of look back at hard points in your life, and you can be like, Wow, I really see the gift now, now that I’ve overcome it, it would have wouldn’t have led me to who I am today, ultimately. So I think if we can look back and see that in our past, we can also trust that that’s going to happen in our future.

Cait
I love that it’s so beautiful and such a great easy tool to remember of like evidence gathering from what has already come before you and you’re even though it might feel extremely intense wherever you are right now you’re just sit another dot point on your trajectory. And it makes me think a lot now about you know, the wisdom of the feminine in general, which is something that I know you’re such an expert on. In the nature of cycles and the nature of seasons and how our bodies are literally moving with an operate as women with This Rhythm. I’m curious how that informs the way that you move through the world the way that you teach like this, the feminine wisdom of cyclicality and how that’s shaped your trajectory?

How the feminine wisdom of cyclicality shapes Mel’s trajectory

Mel
Yeah, thank you. So the first kind of opportunity for me to really connect with that was healing my relationship with food, I used to be someone that was anorexic and bulimic for a number of, I think seven years total. And so when I actually got into the coaching industry, it was coaching women to heal their relationship with food and their body image. And so one of the key things, in fact, probably the thing that like really helped me the most with that journey. And what I was coaching women on for so many years, was intuition, the power of tuning in and listening to our bodies tuning in and actually connecting with our intuition. And when we’re disconnected from our intuition, we’re disconnected from our bodies, when we’re disconnected from our bodies, we’re disconnected from our feminine essence. And so for me, coming home to my intuition via food was like the gateway for me, helped me unlock our relationship with my body, a relationship with my intuition, which led to unlocking a relationship with my sexuality, my womb, space, all of this comes from the wisdom of the body. This is all the feminine wisdom and when we aren’t tapped into that we just bulldoze. So the wisdom of the body is, like you said, seasonal, cyclical. And we can’t tune into those seasons, if we don’t know how to listen, if we’re not paying attention to the signals of our body, the wisdom of our body, and really honoring what we need. You know, there’s going to be seasons of our life and business where we do just want to hibernate, well, we don’t want to be live streaming, where we don’t want to be selling, there’s going to be seasons of our business where we’re really wanting to get out into the world, we want to show everyone who we are what we’re about, we want to be onstage we want to be live streaming want to be sharing, and we can’t expect ourselves to be in that season all the time. When we expect that of ourselves. We are discounting the feminine experience, which is cyclical, which is seasonal, and yeah, so it really comes down to being able to listen, and being able to honor where we are. Because I think, you know, culturally, we are living in a patriarchal, more masculine, value driven world, which means our culture encourages us to just push on regardless of how we feel, regardless of what season we’re in. It doesn’t honor feminine nature, it doesn’t honor feminine cycles, you know, which is why women are expected to just operate as men in this world, essentially. You know, something that I introduced for my team recently is the first the first day of that moon or their period, they can just take off work, like no questions asked, I’m not going to expect them to show up and do tasks when they are bleeding, because that’s a sacred time. That’s a time for going within honoring our bodies honoring our sacred intuition and wisdom. And I don’t want them to be showing up on Zoom calls in that time. So yeah, there’s just a few, a few aspects of how we can really start weaving that feminine wisdom in to our lives and our businesses.

Cait
I love that it’s so beautiful. And I love that team. Like it’s such a beautiful leadership move to incorporate that value that you’re teaching to your clients in your community, to your team. It’s so, so powerful. And I’m just like over here nodding so much as you’re describing, you know, the patriarchy. And I think that even as women, we’ve internalized so much of that, that we can feel and really make ourselves wrong from and use terms like oh my gosh, we’re just being lazy, or we’re not working hard enough, or we’re not doing what the business needs if we’re not being visible or external. And it’s such a breath of fresh air to remember that. Not every season is for that. And I’m curious for you how you have how you’ve seen that actually work in your benefit, because I think that there are a lot of people who may be like, Okay, that sounds so juicy and so yummy. And yes to embracing the seasons where I just want to be snuggled on the couch, but also I need to make money. And I mean, I believe that we can operate in a cyclical way and it actually support our businesses wildly. But I think there’s maybe some hesitation or some resistance to that. And I’m curious what you would say to that.

How operating in a cyclical way can support your business

Mel
Yeah, totally. I mean, I feel like Like recently I can speak to like my experience this year with pregnancy. trimester one for me was so difficult. I experienced depression, anxiety. I didn’t I couldn’t move. I couldn’t. I couldn’t get off this I feel like literally physically in those days. And so, you know, I had a launch, and I pushed it. And I said to my team, we just can’t do this right now, we are going to focus on just tightening up our systems, we’re going to do some back end stuff, we can sell using old emails, you know, when I’m not going to be showing up live, I’m not going to be doing a promotion of this, we’re going to make this as easy as possible. But I’m not going to be showing up live, I’m not gonna be doing any calls because I literally have to listen to my body. So that was that was like this in full effect. Like if I’d have pushed on and tried to do like a big live launch how No, like, my body would be screaming at me. And so we focused on more like systems and behind the scenes stuff with the team that they could take the lead on more, so I could rest more. But I knew that trimester two was going to be a whole different ballgame. So trimester two was when we decided to run our annual queendom retreat, which is my mastermind. So we deliberately put that in trimester two, because I knew I’m going to have a lot more energy, I’m going to want to be out, I’m going to want to be doing a retreat, and then off the back of trimester two, now we’re going into a launch, and I feel great, because I have all this energy. Now I know that trimester three is gonna be a whole different thing as well. So we don’t really have much plan. So these are just some of the ways you know, we can just kind of start to notice, okay, this is the season that I’m in currently, this is where I’m going to be later, or, you know, and really just start to just move things around. Not everything needs to be done, immediately. And we don’t need to be constantly selling. And I think, you know, if you’re really looking to scale your business, and scale your leadership, then empowering your team, to be leaders in their own position, and to come up with ideas and initiate them and action them. without you needing to do everything is really important.

Cait
Yes, oh my gosh, so true, and so much yes to that on all the levels, the trimesters the energy levels. And really, I mean, a big theme of what I’m hearing is just like letting yourself letting ourselves be held as women and held by the season that we’re in held by the support circles that were around, and not not pushing and overriding this innate wisdom, I mean, the visual that’s coming to mind is just this like underground current of the rhythm of our bodies, not needing to manually override that with our agenda, or idea of how it has to look in order to be successful. And really like being able to ride those waves, it feels Yeah, so much easier.

Mel
And we have all these waves just in every single cycle that we go through. So obviously, when we’re pregnant, we’re going through a different cycle. But for people listening who are not pregnant, you know, every single month, you’re gonna experience you know, the first two weeks of your cycle, are you going to are going to be your spring and summer time. So your summer time is your ovulation time, that’s when you’re going to have the most energy, that’s when you’re going to want to be live streaming, launching things, selling things speaking on stages, during big presentations. Those first two weeks are very different energy than the second two weeks. The second two weeks of your cycle, are your autumn and winter, which is when your body is preparing to bleed or bleeding, those two weeks you’re going to be less up for the big energetic pushing, you’re gonna want to be a lot more internal. So if we just do something as simple as start tracking our cycles, you know, you can track your cycle on there’s so many different apps out there. And you can just measure, okay, this week, I’m going to be at this stage of my cycle. This week, I’m going to be at this stage of my cycle. And for me, like the full weeks of the cycle, relating to the spring, summer, autumn winter is a really good way to remember it. So if we are planning a big launch, let’s say this is like, you know, pregnancy aside, if I wasn’t pregnant, and we are planning a big launch, I would look at okay, when is my period? Yeah, because I don’t want to be getting online and selling stuff or I don’t want to be trying to promote a big challenge or something like that. I want to be shooting a bunch of podcasts. When actually all I want to do is like curl up and drink tea and you know, because I’m bleeding. So we get to we get to track our cycle we get to honor our body wisdom, month by month like regardless of you know Pregnancy or anything else.

Cait
So beautiful and so congruent like with what I imagine, like you could have launch any other way teaching, being a teacher and a coach and a mentor, and a facilitator, it would just feel so off to bulldoze through those seasons that are just for hibernation and shedding and releasing. And it’s such a beautiful, new embodied way for your clients to experience in the world. And something all of us can tap into of really listening to those currents that are there. I love that so much. And I’m curious now, like, I know that you do, I don’t know a lot, but I know that you do a lot of work with the divine feminine archetypes. And I feel like in this whole conversation, you know, it’s the common thread is is coming back to these undercurrents of profound wisdom and ease and guidance and support that is always there for us. It’s in our bodies. It’s literally the current in the rhythm that’s moving through us in the physical form. And I’m curious how your work with the divine feminine archetypes that seems like another almost invisible support squad that is available to us as women. How do you what for those for people who don’t know what the divine feminine archetypes means? What is that? And how? How can we start to draw upon some of this archetypal wisdom to support us in our work and in our way of moving through the world as women.

What are the divine feminine archetypes and how can they support us in business and life

Mel
Beautiful, yeah, so these archetypes will exist within all of us. They exist within the collective unconscious, and really tapping into each archetype can create like an integrated, feminine power for us as women. So often we have this idea of like what it means to be feminine. Right? So some people think like, oh, being feminine means being soft being, you know, passive being led. Some people think being feminine means being sexual being sensual, being floaty, wearing a different kind of outfit. I don’t know, right? So we all have these ideas. But the truth is, there are seven different feminine archetypes within us and they’re all completely different, right? We’re all these. We’re just multi dimensional women, right? We’re so multifaceted. We can never say being feminine equals this because as soon as we’ve done that we’ve put the feminine in a box. So the seven archetypes and this is from Jungian psychology. So the seven archetypes of the of the feminine are the maiden, the mother, the wild woman, which is also known as the mystic, the lover, the wise woman, or the Crone, the Huntress and the queen. Right? So the maiden is kind of how culture raises all of us, the culture that we’re living in raises, or to kind of be in has made an energy which kind of looks like the Disney Princess that’s waiting for life to happen to her waiting for the Prince to save her waiting for the perfect thing to come along. She doesn’t really know her own power, yet. She’s quite naive. She can often be a people pleaser, wants everyone to like her, really hasn’t stepped into her full power and potential just yet, but very playful, very easily trusting, you know, sees the beauty in everyone. And then we have the mother, the mother archetype is the nurturer, the caretaker, the one who just has this huge heart that wants to just wrap around the whole world. But the shadow of the mother can be over giving, not taking care of herself, or it can even turn into controlling out of, I just love you so much that I want the best for you take take it right. The wild woman or the mystic is the free spirit, the Gypsy, the adventurer, the woman who’s led by spirit. And then we have the lover who is the sensualist, very connected to pleasure, pursuing the beauty in life pursuing the pleasures in life. We have the wise woman who is like the the wise Elder, the teacher, the woman who is like very, very connected to her spiritual growth and development and is often a mentor for the for the maidens for the younger women. We have the Huntress who with the hunters, I always think of Wonder Woman like I think of like a warrior woman who Who’s like knows what she wants, goes and gets it very independent and natural leader, you know, very goal focused, very, very driven. And then we have the queen and the queen is the archetype that I work with the most in my business and leadership and the one that I this is why I have my mastermind is called the queendom. Because it’s about feminine leadership. And for me, the Queen archetype represents the leader who is devoted to a life of service, who knows her worth, who, who leads from love and with grace, but also has very strong boundaries, very strong sense of self worth. And ultimately, is a very integrated, embodied leader who is devoted to her path. So yeah, those are the those are the seven different archetypes. And I think, for everyone listening who is an entrepreneur and growing their business, the, the, the Huntress archetype, which is like the goal setter, the driven kind of warrior is one that we often find ourselves in when we’re like on the mission pursuing the mission. And the shadow of the Huntress is the hustler, right? Just go, go, go go. Like it’s all about the mission, nothing else matters. But really, when we can, when we can tap into a more Queen archetype, which is a lot more grace, a lot more softness, a lot more love, a lot more devotion rather than discipline. It’s just a different frequency, right? It’s a different quality. We know that we can tap into the Huntress when we want to get get something really important done, and what if we really need to apply ourselves. But the energy of the archetype of Queen is very much an embodiment of devotion, spiritual path, leadership, from a place of grace, not from a place of pushing

Cait
I love that distinction. And I can feel as you’re describing that, like there’s, there is so much power, I mean, each one of these archetypes for different reasons, but the medicine of the hundreds and the medicine of the Queen like they’re both they’re both super powerful. And yet I love the language, you use the discipline versus devotion. For somebody who, and again, as we’re talking about, we live in a patriarchy we’ve internalized a lot of these ways of being and operating from outside of us. For somebody who is desiring to tap more into that Queen frequency to move the dial from discipline to devotion, what are some of the practices and the tools that we can start to lean into and incorporate as women to access more of that Queen like grace?

Ways to move from discipline to devotion

Mel
Yeah, so she’ll have something that’s personally really helped me is prioritizing spaciousness, rather than feeling like everything needs to be a rush. For me, when I felt like everything was everything was a was an was urgent right now. I was coming from that place of push, which was coming from I need to achieve x y Zed. Because if I don’t, then I’m not worthy. Right? The Queen just knows her inherent worth. There’s no rush to get anywhere, right? So often we can look at our goals, we can look at our to dues, we can look at our vision. And we can go why, like why? Why am I trying to cram so much like, what if I just take the deadline office and create spaciousness, because when we create spaciousness around the things that we want, we’re just like letting go of our grip on them. The hunters can obviously it can off often have like, quite a tight grip on her goals. Whereas the queen is like a lot more flexible, a lot more spacious, has a lot more grace. So I think something that’s really helped me is, you know, I remember one year like looking at my goals for the year and kind of realizing, wow, like actually, this can be three years, not one year, and it feels so much better. And I feel like I’m going to be a better leader. If I grant myself this spaciousness. And in that spaciousness, we are giving ourselves the grace of the Queen, instead of saying, No, it needs to all happen this year, or it means I’m not on track or on time or one of the things that we make up about achieving a certain thing by a certain deadline. So I think letting go of that Ah really allows us to come into a space of grace with ourselves.

Cait
I love that so much Mel, the spaciousness and expansion of timelines and real softening. I feel I’m like, Ah, yes, I feel the exhale in my body as you’re saying that. And it’s so interesting because what that what that brings up as I hear you say that is, there’s a profound unhooking from what any external metric or ticking of a box or hitting the target as the Huntress or whatever the whatever the analogy is, there’s a profound reorganization of where we are drawing our worth from. And as you said before, as you were describing the Queen, like the queen just knows her worth. And so whether she hits a million dollars in a year or a million dollars in three years, it doesn’t actually matter. She still knows that she’s the queen. And I think that that there’s such a key in that about worthiness and worth.

Mel
Yeah, and it’s about like really zooming out to like the big picture, the grand plan, not the race. So like, let’s say your goal is to hit a million dollars. Who would you be? If you knew that you were going to hit a million dollars? Like, who would you show up as if you just knew that that was in your timeline? Like that’s gonna happen? It’s happening, it’s on the way, it’s gonna happen. Let go of the race to get there. Now to get that I just like, Okay, I’m definitely, it’s definitely happening. It’s definitely who I am becoming. So like, who would I show up as if I just knew that that was an absolute definite?

Cait
So good. I love that. Oh, my gosh, I love that so much. This has been so juicy, so many amazing nuggets that you’ve shared. One of the things that I always ask our guests on the show is if you had one piece of advice for our listeners, who are women, entrepreneurs, on the rise, heart centered leaders, what what pearl of wisdom would you leave them with?

Mel’s advice for heart-centered leaders

Mel
Be the living embodiment of what you are teaching. Live, what you are preaching, because your success and the impact of your work is going to be magnified not by how much you do, but by how deeply you embody what you are putting out into the world. So my advice is to instead of focusing on going faster, or wider, out there, go deeper within yourself, and then share from your, from your place of embodiment.

Cait
So profound. I love that so much. It’s been such a rich and full conversation. Mel, thank you so much for being here and sharing your wisdom so generously with all of us for our listeners who are just like lapping this up. Rewinding listening again wanting to get more. Where can people stay connected with your work your many books, your podcasts, tell us tell us where we can get more more of everything though, wells.

Mel
Thank you so much. Yeah, you can come find me on Instagram @iammelwells. I have a couple of books on healing our relationship with food connection to our intuition. I have various different programs around feminine archetypes, feminine wisdom, feminine leadership, my Business Mastermind the queendom which is all about feminine leadership. But yeah, just come Come find me on Instagram and say hi.

Cait
I love that so much. And if you’ve listened to this episode today, guys, send us a DM let us know what your biggest takeaway was. We always love to hear from you. Mel, thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure to have you on the show.

Mel
Thank you so so much.