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127. Cancer, Embodiment & Erotic Return with Melissa Michaels

Episode 127 • 25th September 2025 • The Art of We • Krista Van Derveer and Dr. Will Van Derveer

Krista Van Derveer: 00:04

Hi, Melissa, it is so lovely to have you here today and to be having this conversation with you. Welcome to the Art of We podcast.

Melissa Michaels: 00:11

I am so honored to be here, Krista, and really happy to share my life experience with whomever finds this of interest, starting with just the two of us. Thank you

Krista Van Derveer: 00:21

exactly, just the two of us. And this is a really, I think it's a really important conversation, especially right now. I mean, how much, how much is going on in the world, I think impacts what we're going to be talking about on so many levels. And hearing about your journey, I think will really be inspiring to people and help us all find more love and intimacy in our lives through your journey. So I'm just going to start by bringing in the beginning, like when you first learned that you had cancer. I'd love to hear a little bit of your story about that.

Melissa Michaels: 00:55

Thank you. So I really it began way earlier than that, of course, but I had been a pretty disembodied, disassociated, acting out teenager, and sexuality was one of the ways in which I was really self, abandoning and betraying and exploring, looking for transcendent experiences, looking for connection and trying to sequence through some really for real violations that I had experienced as a as a young person, and throughout the course of my adult life, I had many adventures and explorations and deep and profound relationships, and my sexuality was very alive In a certain way I did so much healing from really some twisted and distorted understandings of what it is to be in a body and how to share that body with others, to really being quite grounded and innovative and playful And explorative and and potent in how I connected, both in making love with the universe, with my self, with my partner, with all of life, all of life, so at but I knew in my mid 50s something was truly not correct, and my body was just as I understand it now, kind of shutting down, and I was becoming more allergic to things, and my spirit was really getting quite, quite negative In a certain way. And surprise, it was 2016 2017 and I started knocking at the door of certain doctors. I was 56 years old. Okay, correct? 61 Yeah, I was, I was right around 56 years old. So I was entering what some people know is our second Saturn Return. I had been really beautifully married to my life partner and for only six years, wow, okay, and we'd had a beautiful healing time together in terms of deepening into intimacy and trust and safety and sexuality and and and exploration and and resourcing lot of healing. So it was a very fast moving situation. I wasn't well for a few months. No one could figure out what was going on. No one made a big deal about it, until I, I saw a doctor in January. She was like, a pelvic floor specialist, and she was like, well, just see how often you're peeing. And so I was like, charting all that. And I was my I was my appetite and my capacity to eat was getting less and less, and I was getting thin, and I had the classic symptoms of ovarian cancer, but I didn't know those symptoms. They call it the silent killer, because it comes in subtly. And you can have bloating, you can have gas, you can have a stomach ache, you can have a loss of appetite, things that can be associated to all sorts of things. Totally. Yeah. And in February, I released a book. I was like in the zone, but I was already between the worlds. Actually, I was already on a journey. When I look back, I just watched a video of me from that time, and I was, I was dancing between the worlds. I was really, I wasn't fully here, and it was an inspired space. Actually, by early March, I was in a lot of pain, like serious pain, and I, I wasn't I walked into one this pelvic floor. She, at first, spent 45 minutes with me, and at the very end she says, Oh, your uterus is really hard. I'm like, wait a minute. It's taken that long to figure that out. I'm like, it's Friday afternoon. I'm out of here. I gotta go see a gynecologist immediately, which I did, and I had blood tests on Monday. No, I had an ultrasound on that Monday, a blood test on Tuesday, on Wednesday, they canceled all regular gynecological appointments, and I was on my I had a they sent me for a CAT scan, and by Friday, I was sitting in the office of the most exquisite gynecological oncologist who just said, Melissa, you have late stage ovarian cancer. I don't know that they staged it then, I think they did, actually, and you're going into surgery on Tuesday. Oh my goodness, which was the spring equinox. Oh my god. And by that time, I was like, I would roll over in pain in my stomach. And I, you know, I was taking doing all the things you do for a stomach ache, you know. And, but none of that was it. So it was a very big deal. Of course, it was shocking, it was scary. And I know something about how to meet those moments really well.

Krista Van Derveer: 06:09

I mean, yes you do.

Melissa Michaels: 06:15

Talk a certain way, gather all my students, you know, and my husband, who had faced a uterine cancer with his late wife. Was shaken also, of course, wait a minute, I just married this woman and what, and and my daughters. And so we gathered, and we gathered on phone calls. We gathered on Zoom calls. And then, of course, I gathered my women around me. I taught movement mass that Sunday. It was all ritual. It was all ritual, because that's kind of how I roll. And we were in time, out of time, and I had a lot of things to figure out. You know, there were different opinions on what to do first, and I just needed to hear those opinions and listen to this body and my intuition and the doctors. So on Spring Equinox, I had my uterus and my ovaries and my fallopian tubes, everything removed, and it was really profound the night before, I sat with my family in a hotel. I mean, we could spend the whole time talking about my sweet family, and we did a council. And, you know, nobody knew what we were going to find, and if I was going to live or die, and all the things. And I, you know, I brought them in, and I really invited everybody. Let's really imagine the best. Let's see me navigating my way through this one too, which I did, and the hospital. Had so many friends and family members and prayers from all over. I was very, very honest and transparent with the world about what was happening, not in a high drama way, but in this is happening. Your prayers are welcome, and I'm going to turn in and face this, which I did, and as an embodied person, deeply devoted to tethering myself to my lived experience, both in pleasure and in pain. I went there, and because of my history of so much trauma, it they actually had a hard time getting me out of anesthesia, which I knew they would. I was like, I had all women doctors and one male doctor, the anesthesiologist. And I'm like, Dude, I am so sensitive. I promise you, I don't need as much anesthesia. And he's like, rot anyway. But I knew enough, and I'm sharing this because this is for other humans I knew enough to like I brought my dear midwife friend with me, and she had the little water bottle of the homeopathic phosphorus, which helps people come back in after a shocking experience. And so she the nurses actually asked for her help, and she came and rubbed that water on me, and boom, boom, Melissa regulated. So the surgery was very clean, very successful. They removed everything. There were no margins. And when I came out of that experience, I'm sorry we didn't record it, I sat with my two daughters. I have two daughters by birth, and one adopted. And I just started talking. I was still between the worlds. And I said, we are done. We are done as a family. We are done as a feminine. All violations, all disrespect to the body, to the feminine, to to the sacred nature of of who we are, is over. And it was a real declaration. I did not know that when that material that toxin, those toxins that dis-ease left that there would be such a liberation.

Krista Van Derveer 9:46

So tell me more. Tell me more about how that felt in your system. Because as I'm listening, I'm like, I'm like, How does one get to that state of what I'm hearing is the physical removing was a built up of all. The toxins that you've experienced psychologically, physically, emotionally, from the world in a particular way, is that what I'm hearing and you really felt a removal of that of your system,

Melissa Michaels: 10:10

Absolutely, and by the way, I wish on nobody, disease, yeah, this is not the way out of healing. This is not the way through to heal from really sexual violation and chronic disregard, both externally and ultimately, of course, I internalized that and acted it out, but what I did feel was the fact is I had something very toxic that had been taken out of me, and I just felt emptied. I felt cleared, I felt spacious. I felt reverent in a certain way, wow, and a return to a certain kind of innocence and so vulnerable. Oh, my God. I was so vulnerable. I'd always been so vulnerable, but now I knew it, and I had enough of myself to be able to hold myself and to ask for help and to be cared for, and a lot of that care really was through prayer. Because of my work with young people from all over the world, I had these prayers coming through every religion and culture, and I pulled my attention so deeply in I knew how to stay present with the healing journey that was ahead of me. And the first six weeks after surgery were very sweet, actually, because I was just myself, and I had this simple at that time, it was simple process of just helping tissue repair and and restore connection. I had a large incision, incision from my pelvic floor to my belly button, and, you know, became my friend. And of course, I had to, like, look in the mirror and just say to my husband, if you don't, if this isn't for you, I totally understand.

Krista Van Derveer: 12:09

Actually, I want to pause you there, because that's a big statement. And what you were saying to him is, basically, if you don't want to go on this journey with me, or what?

Melissa Michaels: 12:19

Yeah, I mean, all of a sudden I was – I had scars. I'd had a hernia operation at five years old, a double hernia. But that was so invisible, except not to me, because I had been working with it much of my life, consciously as an adult, not so consciously as a pumpkin, little one. But there was some way where the last of the story that we have to be, you know, six pack ballet or whatever the heck. And I've been every size of a human, but that that was how I was going to be lovable. You know, it's like, I think part of my journey as a semi public body person has been to be very real about the changing and the aging and and, and I am as indoctrinated as any other human. I grew up with people who looked pretty different than me. You know, they were classic beauties, in a way I never was, and and how to accept oneself and take interest in oneself, and then ultimately love and celebrate exactly as we are. And this man had, he had, I mean, there was no question in him, and he had fallen in love with my essence. And of course, my form was fascinating and beautiful to him. But the truth is, and I think this is where we want to go, and much of this conversation is, I became more alive through this journey, not less. And the real yum of intimacy, although it changed very radically, and sexuality I just got I got even more opened. I became an even clearer instrument of life force and ultimately love and capacity to be present and to channel and to receive. So yes, I was a little cut up. And since then, as you may or may not know, Krista, I had also a small module of lung cancer. So Mike torso has 10 incisions. And each time, when the second cancer came along a few years ago, and it was so minor, but it was still a lot of cuts, I was just, I was like, devastated that I was going to be such a an experiment and and I remembered, you know, in certain cultures, the medicine people actually cut themselves open and put a crystal inside. And that's not what was happening with me. But I chose to stay really awake and have these slight. Places are opportunities to get more and more present with whatever it is now.

Krista Van Derveer: 15:08

And how did you do that Melissa? I think that anybody listening, and maybe it's too hard, maybe it's too hard to describe, but I'm even thinking about a day that I wake up and I'm I don't want to get out of bed. You know, that is not even an incision in my body and, like, and I'm imagining just like, how do you, how do you be with that pain in the way you just described?

Melissa Michaels: 15:34

Yeah, in this film, I'm sure you've seen it, twisted gift, yes, amazing film. Home came through me. There is a life force longing to be triumphant. We tether our I forget the rest of the words, attention to that. And somewhere in my wiring, I came to understand that I am devoted to the life force, and I'm here to experience it, to be able to get ever more grounded and let it expand through me, and to catalyzing connection to that with four within four others. And so, you know, obviously we prefer pleasure, and pleasure is a thing to learn how to live into too. And I've certainly had edges, there plenty, but pain is too. And if we come to this place of no preference, like, really no preference, just okay, that's how life force is showing up right now, it's like I just found myself curious. How do I work with this? How do I lean into this? How do I alchemize this? How do I use homeopathy, acupuncture, you know, touch, nature all the of course, movement, prayer, to be with this and to navigate through it and and I will tell you that once we added chemotherapy to the mix, that brought on a level of discomfort in this body I have only a few times since experienced as so great. And after six weeks after surgery, they looked at me, they said, you know, you're probably pretty great, you're probably pretty healthy, but we're going to go in and as my friend Jenny Jordan says, mop it up. And so I had to take this body and surrender to those chemicals. And because it was a serious cancer, and because my body was pretty strong, they decided to not only give me intravenous chemotherapy, but also into peritoneal where they put another port right below my rib cage. It was big one, and it had a little tube coming out of it. And it was so barbaric. They literally would pour the chemo through that through the it was like a straw, but it was a soft straw. And they would lie me on my side, on they put me in a private room, on my tummy, on the other side, on my back to swish this chemotherapy through my gut, and that was so painful. What occurred in the days that followed? I did feel like my gut was being sliced with laser breaks, laser blades. I had never experienced anything Wow or imagined such a thing. And ironically, there's a homeopathic remedy for an experienced staffus degree. I think it was, and I was able to make a phone call and try it on, and it helped. And so I've just been a student of this body, and everything has been an opportunity to learn more. And I feel like, ultimately, this is a really big piece Krista, and then we'll talk about intimacy. Yeah, this is great. Ultimately, I stayed so tethered to my lived experience, including, like, there were a few days in the three week cycles of each chemotherapy treatment when I would sort of disappear, I would go so still, like a wild animal that had been injured, because that's what occurred. I would barely be able to eat. I would have these little spoonfuls of almond butter, and I would like take a few licks, because I knew I needed to keep that channel a little bit open. And my sweet husband, who, you know, had his, we made an agreement that anybody who'd been through chemotherapy was somebody who had passed had permission to weren't coming to the chemo lab with me. He had his own hard work to do about, am I going to lose this woman? What's happening here? And he had the very high level job of basically the way we both felt it was he was making sure my soul stayed connected to my because did he do that? I just by being present, just by, like holding a container energetically around, through his prayers, through his knowing of my soul so intimately, and through his. Capacities, really, and only he could have done that. And what I've survived without it probably. But there was something so profound and deep and intimate about that, because I was really being abducted. That's the only way, by these chemicals, abducted, and I could do only so much, but when I sleep, when I slept, he when I would sleep, there was something else that he was a guardian of.

Krista Van Derveer: 20:29

And were you aware of that while you were in these spaces?

Melissa Michaels: 20:36

We talked about it. I think I felt it, yeah, I knew that I needed my women and my daughter for most of the rest to be honest and community to cook, and I needed the wider world with me in prayer. And this was his place. It was a very sweet place. He would also drive me to the chemo love, because I would suit up on those days I was like, and my whole thing was, keep the energy moving. Just keep the energy moving. I would take one of those things – steroids, which I really don't like, and they would like jack my system with fast moving adrenaline. And I take those steroids the night before, and I'm going to get to the real point I wanted to make. And then I would get up in the morning, I'd go run up the mountain behind our house come down because I had so much extra, because I knew that would be collapsing within 48 hours or 24 hours, but I would like work with the energy, rather than resist it. I just worked with it. And one of the things that became very clear to me was that I had a view from the inside what was happening, and my doctors had a view from, you know, gold standard medical practice, what was happening and what was needed, and that we needed to figure out how to work together. And just like with the anesthesiologist, I tried to negotiate less chemical less medicine. By the time I was maybe in my second chemotherapy treatment, I was like, please, how can we dilute this? I don't need that high of a concentration, I promise you. And they grew to trust me, very, very, very deeply. And we worked together to really find what was the right balance of chemotherapy, different treatments, I would do things like, and this is also for everybody. I would ask after these heavy treatments, and they send you home, I'd ask to come back the next day and get more fluids intravenously into my system, which helped me. I I knew that I was dehydrating. I was like burning, because that is what chemo does, and I just needed help. I couldn't get the fluids in through my mouth to reach the many places in my body that were that were being, that were dry, drying.

Krista Van Derveer: 22:56

Your experience with these doctors is extraordinary. Because I don't hear a lot of people say that we found they started to trust me about what my body needed. So that, in itself, I think, is a miracle on top of everything else. But could continue. It's amazing, of course, Melissa, you were able to do that.

Melissa Michaels: 23:12

Well, it's all about intimacy. Like I would, I was like, these are my best friends right now. Every nurse who came to my side every everybody, like I made a point of, who are you, and realizing that if we can get in vibe with each other, everything's going to go better for everybody. And when I had a male nurse, and I was doing the same thing. And I think they thought I was like, hitting on the guy, which I of course, wasn't, and they never sent him back to me.

Krista Van Derveer: 23:48

Well, that, I mean, that's like, you're really standing for the art of we in bringing intimacy and connection with the people who are your caregivers in a way that I think even most people aren't doing. You know, we're looking at them as the delivery systems to the things our bodies needs, not as a human being. And I just so appreciate that about you.

Melissa Michaels: 24:08

Thank you so much. I’ll fast track when it was time to come close to the end of my treatment, I walked in after five, I knew after two I was done, that I needed nothing more, but I had family who weren't going to take that at all as the result of how I was going to proceed. And I just understood that I was part of the we and and. But after five I was done. I had, as I say, in that film, “twisted gift,” I had neuropathy up to my knees, my arms. I mean, it was just bad. And I walked into this amazing doctor's office, and I just said, I really can't do anymore. And she said, you really don't need to do anymore. And I just remember it was a Friday afternoon. I was at a hospital, I forget the name of it right now, and I just stood out in this empty parking lot, and I just. Just wailed and wailed and wailed. And that was part of it. It's like releasing all of that. And I was by myself, and it was just like, oh my god, what just occurred. And part of the grief was, I'm going to not get to see all these amazing people, my friends, these became like they got me. They were there to help me. And I lost a bit of community really fast, and that was a thing. That was a real thing.

Krista Van Derveer: 25:33

So all in all, you were in six weeks. Or how long was the chemo?

Melissa Michaels: 25:36

Six months. I mean, that was hardly the end of it, but six months from when I had that diagnosis to when I had my last chemotherapy treatment, okay, which is really a blessing. Honestly, it was fast, it was hard, it was intense. And, you know, I went from having long black hair and whatever, to this. And, you know, I came out, and this feels important to speak about too. I came out like, who am I? Who am I in relationship to myself, to my partner, to the world. I had been all my hormones had been jacked, gone, boom. I was flatlined. I didn't know really what gender I was. Honestly, I felt so between the world and I felt very none like and of course, I didn't think I wanted to be a nun my whole life, but I've always had kind of an orientation there, and I didn't know what to do with that Krista. And I wasn't very out loud about it. I was very deeply with myself, with it and and then, of course, there was so much reconnecting with all the parts of my body, in particular my womb and my Yoni, like, whoa. I even have, I have a life under there, and I haven't been present with any of that. And what is, and what does this mean for my future. And I there was, there was still quite a bit of shock, and I am kind of shy to talk about all this, but it feels important. I remember early after everything was done, it was like, I need to know if I can still have an orgasm. Like, I just need to know, like anybody home, and I had a very private moment with myself, and I I had this incredibly deep, amazing orgasm through my body. And it was just like, holy shit I had, and the energy is moving. Wow, maybe more alive than ever. And, wow, okay, that note to self, and, and, of course, I shared that with Mark. And you know, there was, I couldn't get into a big sexual play of any kind, but it was helpful to know that the sacred, holy current that I had worked hard in my life to be able to access, because I wasn't one of those kids that had orgasms as a kid or even as a young adult, it was a real thing to find that that that was still alive and well in me.

Krista Van Derveer: 28:21

And when you say, Holy current, my interpretation of that, let's see if I get it right. And what you're saying is that it's not just about the physical stimulation. Obviously, there's a deeper movement of something, current energy that's moving through you. Melissa Michaels, yeah, whether you're with yourself or with your whether you're with a partner, but it's really your relationship to this current that is what you're speaking about.

Melissa Michaels: 28:52

Yeah. I mean, it's our orgasmic energy that, you know, people work hard to find in kundalini for and it's the portal to our creativity and our set and our spirituality, I think, and our aliveness, actually, you know, I want to feel that in the fingertips and in the soles of my feet and in my tailbone and, of course, through my vagina and up into my breasts and, ah, you know, all of me. And I was very happy to know that not only was that still operative, that I am connected, and that actually the chemotherapy had been a roto Rooter, and there was more opening for all of this to move through me. Now it's taken quite a bit of time for it not to be so raw. It was so raw. I was so burnt by the chemotherapy and to build more etheric energy so that I could handle everything, handle even touch. I was so raw, and that's just taken time. I. Wow, and a lot of care and quite a bit of touch, which has been a huge ally for me, whether it's, you know, my marks soft smart hands, because his hands are quite attuned to my body. I always say you could have been a body worker, and he's like, Nah, or or body work, or my own hands, or the earth cranial, all the things acupuncture, I've just needed support, really, in that way to help gather myself, and then I'm a big bathtub person again, that's container. The dance is something else completely that does that like opens the space and allows the circuitry to hook up and whatever's cooking inside to be expressed and through writing, in particular, in my case, and through movement. So I was a very, very, very different person when I came out of this whole experience. And I want to speak to the grief, because there was a period of time when it was like, am I never going to be a sexual person again? Was that over? Wow, no one told me. I didn't know that was part of the equation. And as many people who go through an aging process, whether it's slow and organic or as abrupt as mine was, come to know that it doesn't have to be gone at all. It's just different, and intimacy changes forms, and we need different things, and our capacity to explore the ranges the interest changes. But I did have some grieving, because I had finally, in the container of this marriage, had enough health between us that we could go some really rich places. And I wasn't sure if that was gone forever, right?

Krista Van Derveer: 32:14

Right and I'm sure he had a process about that, not knowing as well, I would imagine.

Melissa Michaels: 32:19

Definitely – I've been and the best way I know that is when we were finally able to really bring our bodies all the way together, you know, intercourse, old thing, which took a minute and a long minute.

Krista Van Derveer: 32:31

How long?

Melissa Michaels: 32:36

Years, Absolutely. Everything hurt. There was no, I mean, we tried, you know, we try, but really, when my body would like go, okay, that feels good. I want that. It was many, many years, and at some point we just let it be. We just shut it down. Didn't mean we weren't orgasmic together. I think, both of us thought that might be the reality. And I really had some grief, and we know he did too. I mean, I'm not going to speak for him.

Krista Van Derveer: 33:04

I can imagine. We can imagine, yeah, I read somewhere that 70 to 80% of women treated for ovarian cancer report sexual dysfunction of some kind. And I'm, you know, hearing your experience, it's extremely enlightening. I think because I get curious, how much of these women who get to hear your story might be caught in a psychological condition like not being able to see possibility, or not even knowing how to have the hands on them, to have the process heal.

Melissa Michaels: 33:39

There's so many layers to that healing. Krista, I would love to work in these spaces, and I just might. I'm in a big turn of the road with my professional life, but part of it is having a very deep connection with oneself prior to the violation, invasion, transformation, recalibration of the whole self. So if one is not really there, before we even start, it's tricky to find there. However, I don't think anything's impossible, and for some it can be an opening, and I'm sad to hear that statistic, um, I'm not terribly surprised. The other thing is, this disease, as many different diseases and cancer do, requires a lot of attention. On the other side of being, some people say, in remission. I don't use that language. I'm just done. I don't like don't even have time to be in remission, but I am high maintenance. I do have to care well for myself, and that takes a lot of energy, and I need a lot of solitude. And I'm very privileged, and I know that to be able to buy vitamins and eat decent food and. And I learned, and I really had to learn to rest. That was such a huge part of this.

Krista Van Derveer: 35:05

Coming back into your own, even sexual expression was like resting and taking care of yourself was also a part of that?

Melissa Michaels: 35:15

Totally yeah and nothing can happen till that's all in place.

Krista Van Derveer: 35:18

Nothing. Yeah, nothing.

Krista Van Derveer: 35:24

Okay, so can I ask you some questions about your journey?

Melissa Michaels: 35:33

I'm with you.

Krista Van Derveer: 35:38

Okay, I really loved what you said, when you said that you are devoted to life force, and it just like, almost my eyes water up. It's just so beautiful. And as somebody who knows you and has experienced you in person, like I feel like the way that you are, you shine so bright and have so much life force. Melissa, it's just so extraordinary. Thank you. I get curious about partnership. For you from that perspective, how does that work? With Mark, your devotion to life force is essential. Our devotion for life to life force is essential. And I'm getting that deeper in this conversation. I love it so much. And then when we add another being to our a primary partner to our life, and they have their own relationship to life force, how? How does that constellation work for the two of you?

Melissa Michaels: 36:36

It's such a great question. Thank you. Fortunately, I I have been partnered. We chose it, obviously, with somebody who really loves his own aliveness and cares well for his body. He eats well. He is much more disciplined throughout his whole life, than I ever was. I'm pretty disciplined. I'm very disciplined now, but how he sleeps, how he eats, how he exercises, how he shows up, how much time he gives out versus how much time he regenerates his own creativity. So we're a pretty interesting match there. The other thing is, he loves that. I mean, for him, it's like, wow, how cool is that. I mean, he realizes that I have access to something through this body that is not the average and that, I think, is probably what attracted him to me the most. He didn't know how vulnerable I was there to that. With that comes so much vulnerability, but I think it's been a very pleasurable space to enter into with me, and maybe also it's invited him into a more embodied experience of himself. And he likes that. He appreciates that because he's so cognitively brilliant. So it's been something for him, and the only, I think one of the shadows is that I do require a lot of solitude. And he spent 37 six years, whatever, a long, beautiful, robust time in his first marriage with his beloved, who passed through cancer, and they were very, very much together all the time, except when they weren't. And there were times they weren't, but, but my cadence is different than that, and it took some getting used to. And he wasn't sure that looked like that was a problem, or this is how these two adults are having a relationship. And now I understand that, and he's been off writing books while I'm not when it all works.

Krista Van Derveer: 38:41

That's great. Yeah, thank you for speaking to that. And you said something about it being vulnerable. I think you were saying about the the amount of life force that you allow to live through you and to have an authentic isn't my words, but authentic expression of that. Did you say that that was also vulnerable on some level?

Melissa Michaels: 38:58

Well, I think I feel things pretty deeply. Yeah, I have good boundaries, but I can notice something in a space that most people aren't feeling and noticing, and on a certain kind of a day can take me out, not like I fall apart, but I don't have the tolerance for certain things, and I think that's post chemo, even more post cancer, even more. I don't have the appetite and the tolerance. I'm just sensitive, and I think that makes me a really pretty good practitioner, but at a party when everybody's whatever, I'm like, kind of the shy girl who doesn't quite know how to be there. And maybe it's for me, yeah, unless I feel like there's really a place there for me, I'm just a little awkward in the world. Maybe, maybe most of us are.

Krista Van Derveer: 39:59

Most of us totally. And you know, you know your lane, which I which I love, and it sounds like you don't compromise that. Yeah. Okay, so then I want to ask another question. So you said deep connection to self prior to and any sort of big cutting out of things. But also, obviously, after maintaining this deep connection to self, is a big part of what has stitched you back together. For the person who's listening, who is new to you and is like, well, what is that? What does that look like? We're just gonna, like, go to the ABCs of like, what would you suggest for the person who's listening who either is afraid of having an experience like you, because they don't know that there's something so beautiful on the other side that you're experiencing, or that have has gone through it? What would you say? What would you give them about connection to self?

Melissa Michaels: 40:58

Well, you know, it's a path, actually, and there's so many beautiful practices out there now, whether it's yoga or, quote, unquote, conscious dance or certain kinds of meditations, even Tai Chi, all of that that give us a laboratory of some kind of structure into which we can begin to study with our inner eye the nuances of our our life force in all as Stephanie mine says, The sacred sites of our bodies. And so I'm not just these hands that are put on earth to cook and touch and provide and tend and serve and all the things, although many of us are rear to think that's the whole story. In these hands is so much intelligence, so much sensation, so much subtle information about what these hands need, and it's not always comfortable, and what's happening inside these hands, and I use these hands, but it's every single part of this body. And when there is a pain, when there's a pinch, when there's an injury, when there's some kind of constriction, rather than trying to bypass it or get somebody to fix it or remove it, or what adjust it like, how can we take our time and go in there and notice and study it and see how the intelligence of the rest of the body can support. Maybe it's a nervous system that needs to come down and that's pounding. Well, how can we transform that? Maybe we need cranial, maybe we need touch. Maybe we need to go right into that pounding and move with it and give it expression and see what it needs. Maybe we need to go lie on the earth or actually eat or say something truthful or set a boundary. So we're just these rich laboratories. And I lead a pretty full outer life, but I lead a very full inner life too. And you know, it's like there's no way to ever be bored once we establish an inner, rich conversation with all the parts of ourselves, and some of it is gritty and some of it is, you know, we excavate and remember things that we kind of wish we Never did, but we somehow knew happened or didn't happen. And also, of course, in love making with another human, to be able to say that feel good, that feels good. Or can you, can you try this? Or I need you here and and then to be so present in our hands, so that when somebody asks that of us, we're actually there. So it's this, it's a sexy practice, it's a life saving practice, and it's our birthright. And so many of us got born into bodies that were not well supported and societies that didn't value the sacred, holy phenomenon of birth and early life. And so we came in and we started to immediately go out. It wasn't safe to be here. And you know, all this, I'm just going to finish this, but so much of the work that we see in a certain part of the planet right now is how to help incarnate get in these bodies show up because and it's really hard with the activation, the traumas, the violations that, for many people, have been happening always, and for all of us, we're experiencing one way or another at this time. Yeah, we're not here. We can't really meet each other, so it's a. Yes, it's, it's a deep service to ourselves and the world.

Krista Van Derveer: 45:04

Right on. I love, I love that so much.

Melissa Michaels: 45:13

It's been so sweet to be with you.

Krista Van Derveer: 45:18

I'm wondering how the journey of this going from a disembodied kind of really not me start that over. I wonder about your journey of going from disembodied and sexual violence early on and to and so many, so many years along the way, and so many experiences. And then you have this experience with cancer, and you have this question about, like, who am I now? And you can I even have, do I will even have sexual desire? Will have arrows, and you're reconnecting with that. What has this journey given you understanding about Love, and you can use that word in any way that you want to use it. But what has it informed you about?

Melissa Michaels: 46:19

This is such a good question. Honestly, it's the only thing that I'm ultimately pretty, really interested in at this point in my life. And everybody's suffering, everybody's facing something, everybody's heart's broken, whether they know it or not, even the worst of us, or the worst parts of ourselves, are just crying for to be met in a better way than maybe they haven't been. And I feel so grateful to have had teachers and teachings and enough pain to have taken them up seriously to learn how to exercise the many facets of my own heart and to be able to understand what my fear, what my anger, what my grief are telling me, so that I can I can be with it. I can help it move. I can help it. I can decode what's being asked of me, and ultimately, I can move into more joy and more capacity to love the other. And I have fallen short so many times, and I'll tell you, as I get older, it's almost like I know better, and when I do, it's not a comfortable experience inside of myself when I fall short, and I really I don't care who it is, and I have work to do every day where it's like, no, you can be the adult in the room. You can listen to what their less than optimal behavior is showing you, and maybe meet them there and pour as much loving kindness into the situation as possible. There are times that I can't, and then I really either have to ask for help or or minister to myself, but I just feel like that is the balm that is so needed, and because I have a pretty good tap to it. Yes, you do to allow it to move through is really the whole thing. And I can talk about a lot of heavy stuff with people, if I'm connected to that heart, to our heart, and my marriage, my children, and that's maybe the hardest laboratory, and and, and all, all are teachers for me and I. And I say this with humility, I'm still in the School of learning to love through it all. But to me, that's the nectar, and everything else is just what's the word entertainment or doorways or playgrounds or pathways for the exploration of what it is to be human, so that we can soften and show up in more loving kindness and presence.

Krista Van Derveer: 49:21

Period, so beautiful. Gosh, I feel like I just got a bigger download about love from listening to you, Melissa and I know we're all working hard every day. Well, most of us, some of us to, you know, learn our lessons and to come closer to love, and you just transmitted such a beautiful download for us all there. Thank you.

Melissa Michaels: 49:47

Thank you. Krista, yeah, it's such a joy and honor to be with you. Really thank you for what you're doing, because, as we know, if we can keep this going, we might be able to slow down all the violence.

Krista Van Derveer: 50:03

Yes, absolutely, yes. I love that. Stand for that slowing down for sure. And Melissa, I know I'll share this in the show notes too. But if how can people find out more about you, about your work, about what you're up to in the world, is there any place you want to point them?

Melissa Michaels: 50:22

Sure we have a website, www.GoldenBridge.org and we also do some pretty sweet work with young women around the world. Right now. We are www.GoldenGirlsGlobal.com because we lost our URL, but we'll get that back. But Golden bridge.org you can find myself and the many brilliant emerging leaders who have grown up in this work, and many of whom are standing at my side in leadership. We're in a lot of change, but I'm really available to support individuals and communities as we navigate through change in these very simple, very potent, body centered ways. And I'm so happy to be called upon if I can be a helper.

Krista Van Derveer: 51:04

I love that so much. We're so lucky. And you can also see the film that Melissa made called “twisted gift” on your website, which is an extraordinary, deeply impactful film about your journey with cancer.

Melissa Michaels: 51:18

Thank you. Yeah, it's just 11 minutes, and we have a YouTube channel with all kinds of fun stuff, but that's a unique one period. Thank you.

Krista Van Derveer: 51:31

Melissa, thank you. I love you. Thank you for being here. So I'm excited for everybody to listen to you. Okay? To be continued. To be continued. Thanks love. Dear you too, my friend.

Melissa Michaels: 51:43

Thank you. Thank you. Bye.

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