About Me

Hi there! My name is Melissa, and I teach simple, science-based strategies for a calmer, healthier life. At my breaking point I was overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, and illness. I desperately needed to establish a sense of calm and presence in my life and knew there had to be a better way.

Sound familiar?

Then, you’re in the right place. If your story is anything like mine, you know the feeling of reaching your limit. Whether it’s from the compounding of modern life stresses or an extreme medical trauma, life can quickly get overwhelming.

During these times, we tend to abandon healthy habits when we need them most. Or, we never learned how to prioritize wellness in the first place. Our society tends to value productivity over health, and our healthcare system tends to be overwhelmed with diagnosing and treating the sick rather than preventing illness. It’s hard to get wellness-focused help that takes the mind-body connection into account. I’m trying to change that.

My Background

I offer a unique perspective, a blending of both professional expertise and personal experience. This combination gives me perspective when it comes to applying the theories and science of wellness in the real world.

What started as an experiment…

When I found myself at my breaking point, I just wanted to feel “well,” or have a healthy mind and body. I knew there was a better way and vowed to make it a reality.

Pairing my Psychology background with my professional experience as a consultant, trainer, and educator, I created a “Commitment to Calm.” It was a 30-day promise to myself to reclaim my physical and mental health by making it a priority for 10 minutes a day. My focus was on quick, evidence-based practices, because I needed realistic solutions for my hectic life.

I took baby steps to rebuild my well-being and learned what does and doesn’t work when it comes to creating sustainable change. After the first month, I felt so much better that I kept it going for a year. All the while, I chronicled the journey so others could make similar changes.

These small changes became self-care habits. They continue to help me cultivate a calm, content life without getting overwhelmed. I started out as an anxious mom in search of calm and ended the year a healthier, happier version of myself.

I learned…

It’s essential to focus on simple, science-based strategies for wellbeing.

Wellness is optimized with an integrated approach to mind-body wellness.

Self-care is healthcare.

We must “take five” daily to prioritize wellness.

Changing habits doesn’t have to feel overwhelming.

My Professional Expertise

Intrigued by the possibility of understanding and shaping human behavior, I fell in love with psychology in college at Arizona State University. I knew I didn’t want to go the clinical route and was excited to discover the world of Organizational Psychology. It offered me a way to apply psychological principles to the working world.

Ph.D. in Psychology

I earned my Master’s and Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from Claremont Graduate University. As part of my dissertation research, I studied how executive coaches influence behavioral changes in their clients. I wanted to better understand how we can help people achieve their goals through personal development and change.

Business Consultant

After graduating, I joined a small business consulting firm in Tucson, Arizona. As a business consultant, I helped business leaders become more effective. Whether I helped them improve their management skills, design better organizations, or develop their team, I worked alongside our clients to make their businesses more successful.

College Instructor

At the same time, I branched out into education. I taught Psychology undergraduate courses at community colleges throughout Phoenix and continued to teach when we relocated to Dallas. At UT Dallas and Southern Methodist University, I taught Management courses to undergraduate students. In addition, I taught graduate-level courses in Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Argosy University. Facilitating learning became a passion of mine.

Dale Carnegie Certified Trainer

When offered the opportunity to become a certified trainer for Dale Carnegie Training (DCT), I jumped on it. If you’ve never seen a DCT session, they can be a lot of fun. Trainers challenge participants to set stretch goals, reach outside their comfort zones, and experience personal and professional breakthroughs. Every session I was inspired by my participants and loved hearing about the successes which were a direct result of the trainings.

Certified Integrative Wellness Coach through the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at UA

After a professional pause to stay home when the boys were young (and my youngest was so fragile) I founded Working On Calm. It was a way to gain knowledge and create a system for reclaiming my well-being. My focus on the mind-body connection led me to integrative wellness.

I earned a Wellness & Lifestyle Series certificate from the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine (AWCIM) at the University of Arizona. I chose this training because AWCIM’s work empowers individuals and communities to optimize health and well-being through evidence-based, sustainable, integrative approaches.

The Wellness & Lifestyle Series included over 140 hours of integrative wellness curriculum, including topics such as mind-body medicine, resiliency to stress, and mindfulness interventions.

Next, I completed AWCIM’s Wellness Coach certification. Approved by the National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching (NBHWC), this rigorous program ensures the proficient skill and knowledge attainment necessary for effective integrative wellness coaching.

Many Paths…One Direction

These professional experiences have one thing in common: helping others grow. This theme carries over to the Working On Calm community. My goal is to help others prioritize health and wellness, with an emphasis on self-care that reduces stress and builds resilience. It’s what gets me up in the morning and motivates me to continue this work.

My Personal Experience

Below is the happy executive summary of my life. It’s entirely accurate (to the best of my recollection) but glosses over some of my life’s biggest challenges. If you want to skip directly to the juicy personal experiences, those things that kept me up at night and motivated me to found Working On Calm, click here. Or continue reading for the full context.

I grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona. My brother and sister are 15 and 12-years older than me, respectively. So, I grew up with siblings, but also like an only child. As a kid I loved normal girl stuff: listening to music, hanging out with my friends, and babysitting my nieces.   

The desert was a great place to grow up, with a lot of time spent outdoors and in the swimming pool. To this day, I don’t feel at home if the air isn’t dry and the sun shining.

I went through the normal teenage angst and rebellion, but unfortunately can’t locate any pictures of the purple hair! In high school I met Andrew Duarte as a freshman in high school. It took us a few years to get our timing right, but eventually he figured out how awesome I was.

We finally started dating as seniors and became inseparable. Little did we know when we went to Senior Prom that we would be spending a lifetime together.

We attended Arizona State University where I studied Psychology, Business, and Women’s Studies. We liked to go to concerts and hike, but mostly did normal twenty-something stuff like study, work side jobs, and drink cheap beer. Thankfully we were in a relationship because the rumors about ASU being a party school are true!

After graduating, we got married before moving for graduate school. We dated for 6-years but were only engaged for 6-weeks. There was no need to draw it out any longer.

When Andrew got into medical school, we moved back to Arizona. Medical training was long and grueling and involved six moves over the course of seven years. After spending two years each in Tucson and Scottsdale, we moved to Dallas for a year. Everything really is bigger in Texas, right?

Andrew finished his residency back in Phoenix while we welcomed two baby boys, twenty-months apart. Rocco was two-years-old and Ike, eight-months old, when we were uprooted yet again. We moved to Baltimore for Andrew’s fellowship in Interventional Radiology at Johns Hopkins University. I guess we should’ve bought stock in U-Haul, because we kept them in business for a decade.

Thousands of miles from friends and family, with a husband gone long hours, I was homesick. It wasn’t all bad though. I was beyond happy to meet a few moms in the neighborhood. Plus, it was fun to explore a completely different part of the country. There were many firsts, like watching fireflies and tasting shoofly pie.

Halfway through our year in Maryland, we got a welcome surprise. We were going to be outnumbered with another baby. Unfortunately, it was a difficult pregnancy. Our third son, Victor, was born 15-weeks early and spent 189-days in the NICU before coming home. It was the hardest thing we’ve done.

Currently, we live in Scottsdale, AZ. Our home is one filled with chaos and love. There’s always a wrestling match breaking out or a dog barking. When not carting the boys to and from sports, we enjoy playing pickleball and swimming.

Andrew and I are still going to concerts every chance we get.

Real-World Struggles

Below are the things that made life difficult, kept me up at night, and took a toll on my wellness. They don’t represent single points in a bio, but rather unfolded over time. Like layers of an onion, these struggles layered upon each other and created filters through which I experienced life.

Anxiety

Diagnosed with anxiety in college, it’s been a lifelong struggle. Over the years it waxed and waned, and I developed multiple coping mechanisms, some productive, some stupid. I tried counseling and medication to varying degrees of success. Yet, the anxiety persisted.

Post-pandemic, I emerged a raw, sensitive ball of anxiety. It wasn’t until I learned to take a mindful approach to my anxiety, exhibit self-compassion, and develop better self-care habits that I was able to calm my anxious mind. I still live with anxiety; it will always be a part of me. Yet, it feels manageable for the first time in my life.

Parenthood

I love being a mom, but let’s be honest. It turned my orderly, controlled world upside down and is so much harder than I thought it would be. When I became a full-time caretaker I lost all sense of balance, neglected my own needs, and found it difficult to keep up with life.

Plus, motherhood did nothing to help my anxiety. When it started to feel unbearable during my first pregnancy, I was referred to a perinatal therapist. She advised me to consider my deteriorating mental health “as serious as a heart attack” in terms of pregnancy safety. I’ve been working on finding the right balance ever since.

Medical Trauma

When my first pregnancy didn’t go as planned, it was stressful. Due to oligohydramnios (too little amniotic fluid) I spent five weeks in the hospital before having Rocco. Within minutes of birth, he went into respiratory distress and required 10-days in the NICU before coming home.

It wasn’t until months later that I began to understand the psychological ramifications of my medical experience. This was my first foray into medical trauma, although I didn’t have that terminology at the time.

With the birth of my third son, there was a series of traumatic events involved. I suffered a major hemorrhage, was diagnosed with preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM), went on bedrest at 16-weeks, and had him via emergency c-section hysterectomy, due to placenta previa, at 25-weeks.

Victor required 189-days in the NICU and came home on oxygen. Although he is healthy now, he required a hip surgery, and two hospital stays for illnesses. These traumatic experiences forced me to disconnect from feeling my emotions. It was how I survived.

As Victor got stronger physically, I got weaker psychologically. Years later, the smell of hospital soap, a visit to the doctor, or my son catching a cold can set off a stress response. So much focus is put on saving a mom’s and baby’s life, and so little discussion happens after the fact. We are left to pick up the pieces and it can be a struggle.

I’m still processing this medical trauma and speaking up about the psychological impact of being a NICU mom. Recently, my family served as a March of Dimes Family Ambassador. We were honored to help them raise funds necessary to ensure the health of moms and babies everywhere.

Illness

Since having my third son, I’ve dealt with the aftermath of an intrusive, emergency abdominal surgery. Vague pain, multiple specialist consultations, and unanswered medical questions cause incredible frustration. I know what it’s like to bounce around looking for answers to medical problems.

In 2020, I was diagnosed with two different illnesses. Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) caused my heart rate to elevate with changes in position. There’s nothing like your heart beating as if running while standing still to do the dishes. Needless to say, POTS had a serious detrimental effect on my anxiety.

At the same time, I started experiencing random moments of dizziness and sensations of motion sickness. After multiple specialist appointments and scans, I was diagnosed with vestibular migraines. It took a long time to get this diagnosis.

It can be difficult to experience physical illness when you also have mental illness. The physical sensations fueled my anxiety, which made the sensations even worse. At times it was hard to separate the two and I didn’t want my doctors thinking I was “crazy.”

Illness was and remains a real mindf*ck. It felt like I’d fix one thing, and another thing would go wrong. Doctors advised me to control my stress, which was likely a contributing factor, but couldn’t provide more guidance on how to get well. I learned firsthand that our specialized healthcare system removes the whole patient perspective, and I had to learn how to care for my wellness on my own.

Unmanaged Stress

If you’ve gotten this far in my bio, you’re probably not surprised to hear I’ve experienced a high level of stress. Earning a Ph.D., moving multiple times, supporting my husband’s medical career, having three kids back-to-back, two of them born sick, and on and on. I had a lot of stress and wasn’t great at managing it.

There was also self-induced stress. I spent my life as an over-achiever in school and work. I set unrealistic expectations and overcommitted myself. I thought this pressure helped me succeed. Resting was lazy, and achievement proved my worth. In actuality, I made my life miserable.

My perfectionism told me I was never enough. I would finish one accomplishment only to move onto the next one. Success never brought happiness, just more stress. No one taught me how to care for myself, set realistic expectations, or rest. In sum, I neglected self-care for years.

Anxiety, motherhood, medical trauma, illness, and unmanaged stress had me feeling like I was drowning. Take the culture we live in, my life stressors, and medical traumas. Pile on a pandemic and it’s really no wonder I needed to be saved.

Prioritizing my mental and physical health, learning to manage my stress and anxiety, and adopting self-care habits changed everything. Now, I’m throwing out life preservers to anyone else who needs one.

Where we go from here…

We all have a basic understanding of the things we should be doing to be healthier. It’s often not a knowledge issue, but a habit issue. Unfortunately, health does not always equate to wellness, and many of us don’t know how to care for our wellbeing.

Our society teaches us our worth is established through our achievements and possessions, which often negatively impacts our physical and mental health. Yet accomplishments rarely lead to happiness.

Plus, modern medicine often focuses on disease treatment instead of prevention. When the mind-body connection is ignored and interventions don’t address the whole picture of health, we create a never-ending cycle of stress and illness.

Wellness is an individual responsibility and right. Although we can’t control what happens to us, we can direct our outcomes. Since completing my commitment, I’ve shifted my focus to helping others make similar changes.

You can feel calm and be well. Let’s work on it!