Melissa Brough is a Licensed Teacher of Ishtara®. Melissa has trained with the creator of Ishtara, Tracy Harward, and is licensed as an independent teacher. For complete information on Ishtara, you can also visit ishtarabody.com.
Melissa Brough
PhD; Reiki Master/Teacher;
Licensed Ishtara Teacher
I desire to embody my full human potential and support others to do the same – in deep relationship with the body, community, and nature.
Working full time as a professor and raising two young kids, in my late 30s I found myself in the throes of a physical and mental health crisis. I was struggling with postnatal depletion while at the same time entering perimenopause—a decade earlier than most women. Being in my body felt like a living hell. Anxiety and insomnia set in. My education and resources did not hold the solution, nor did my doctors—so I began a quest to figure out how to feel good in my body. To find myself again. To heal myself.
Along the way I explored numerous therapeutic, somatic, and spiritual practices— including yoga, Aikido, Buddhism, meditation, plant medicines, dance and movement practices, Reiki, and other forms of energy medicine—all of which inform my teaching today.
When I found Ishtara Body Alchemy, a light went on inside me. Everything changed. I plugged back in.
All of the various bodies of work I’d been studying – from neuroscience and psychology to somatic and energetic practices – were woven together in a deceptively simple, profound, and pleasurable practice. I am blessed to have a PhD and other accolades from some of the top educational institutions in the country. These experiences of educational privilege were enormous gifts; but returning to the wisdom of the body has taught me more than I ever could have dreamed.
Now, after several years of practicing Ishtara, I don’t just feel good in my body; I feel ecstatic. I feel whole. I feel clear. I feel potent. I feel deep and lasting love. And I completely belong to myself.
In addition to teaching Ishtara, I’m the founder of the Energetic Literacy Project and a co-steward of Holden House, an off-the-radar retreat and residency space in Vermont.
Body Alchemy is for every body. It is my desire to meet you exactly where you are, with my whole heart—along with some playfulness and a lot of soul. To walk alongside you as you reclaim your body, your potency, and your essential self.