Melissa Brough, Independent Licensed Ishtara Teacher

Find your most essential self, and help them rise.

 

I desire to support people of all backgrounds on their journeys of coming back into their bodies, to remember and benefit from their own innate, embodied wisdom. To reconnect to their intuition; to free themselves from patterns that burden their life; to tap into their greatest potency and to draw forth the life they desire. 

 

I do this work because I did it for myself. In my late thirties, 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. 

 

As a professor, I existed mostly in my head and didn’t realize the extent of my disconnection from my body. Anxiety and insomnia set in. My education and resources did not hold the solution, nor did my doctors—so I began a journey to figure out how to feel good in my body. To find myself again.

 

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’s Body Alchemy, a light went on inside me. Everything changed. I plugged back in. Now, after several years of practicing Ishtara’s methods, 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 am the founder of the Energetic Literacy Project, which teaches and advocates for moving beyond emotional intelligence into energetic intelligence, and the 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—plus a bit of playfulness and a lot of soul. To walk alongside you as you reclaim your body, your unique energy, and your essential self. 

 

Testimonials:
 

“That was one of the best decisions I’ve made. It was mind-blowing. Literally. Melissa helped me release my thinking mind and expertly guided my drop into the body. I had no idea what kind of feminine power was dormant in my hips. I had no idea I carried so much anger in my shoulders. But Melissa could see it and she helped draw it out. Her guidance was attuned, gentle, and beyond wise. I have already signed up for her next class. The answer is yes.”

—Ann 

 

“Melissa teaches a new language of the body. She is a steward of real transformation, creating powerful containers to transmute outworn emotional and relational patterns, making way for a rediscovery of a powerful self.”

—Aditi 

 

“I came to Ishtara and to Melissa's teaching with a long history of dissociation and disconnection from my body, and with a good measure of hopelessness: I had tried so many modalities, and nothing seemed to really work. Melissa radically welcomed my resistance and my years of accumulated hopelessness, and helped me to understand that they are not aberrations but part of my body story—the seed of my new body story. She helped me start to thaw—something I never thought possible—and brought me to a moment of true release and epiphanic opening to a new way of being. Her teaching is wise, really fun, infused with her genius for radically welcoming in people's full selves, and deeply authentic. Her conviction, soulfulness, and intuitive connection provide a truly safe container for transformation.” 

—Ellie 

 

“Melissa is a highly gifted guide and practitioner for how to safely, bravely, and powerfully connect with your body. The container she creates with Body Alchemy allowed me to not only see the old patterns and stories that I’ve embodied, but to also practice releasing them.”  

—Grace