Melanie C. Klein is making the world a better place through her roles as an empowerment coach, thought leader, and influencer. She takes on radical self-acceptance, supercharged confidence, and authentic empowerment. She also has years of experience as a writer, speaker, and professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies.
Melanie has always put theory and knowledge into praxis and action. As a natural culmination of her education, training and commitment to social advocacy, she co-founded the Yoga and Body Image Coalition in 2014. Over five years ago, Melanie began working 1:1 with clients by offering guidance through her unique skills and framework. All her work stems from the same central hub: consciousness-raising and empowerment for the individual and the collective.
Yoga and Body Image Coalition
Melanie started the Yoga and Body Image Coalition in 2014, after over two decades of empowerment work on both a personal and social scale. Her desire in starting the Yoga and Body Image Coalition comes from a commitment to body love that’s lived out by developing, promoting, and supporting yoga that is accessible, body-positive and reflects the full range of human diversity.
Her clients receive Melanie’s unique insight, experience, and years of study and personal growth. She helps clients gain awareness about how culture works and the roles and scripts we all follow. Through that knowledge, she helps clients resist, deconstruct, and re-create those scripts (and even our overall culture).
Melanie’s Coaching Work
Melanie’s own personal growth is what led her to the personal coaching space. For a long time, she struggled with shame, guilt, blame, and the fear that she wasn’t enough. She found freedom from those feelings through intersectional feminism, sociology, mindfulness, meditation, and yoga. When she experienced that freedom, she knew it was her calling to share that freedom with others.
Coaching isn’t the only way Melanie is sharing that freedom with the world. She’s also working through teaching, organizing, writing, advocating, speaking, mentoring, collaboration, and curating and publishing anthologies. She remains true to her aim to be conscious and empowered while constantly developing herself. Melanie wants others to live fulfilled lives and gives them the tools they need to contribute in meaningful ways, making the world a more beautiful and equitable place.
Melanie’s Background & Education
Melanie’s background and expertise allow her to provide a holistic approach to her coaching practice. She’s worked for over 25 years in social justice and social advocacy. She’s an expert and advocate in intersectional feminism, a framework that helped her grapple with her own struggles.
One area of expertise is in the area of media literacy. She uses media literacy to challenge the larger cultural narrative and diversify representation. Her work through Yoga and Body Image Coalition, as well as her published books, are a prime example of diverse representation. Because of her work, the yoga and wellness spaces are significantly diverse today than they were a decade ago.
She has two degrees in Sociology, with emphases on sex and gender and systems of power and privilege. She’s worked as a Sociology and Gender/Women’s Studies professor for nineteen years.
Melanie first started practising yoga and meditation in 1996. In 2001, she took her yoga teacher training. She completed her Thai Yoga Therapy training in 2002, around the same time she became a certified massage therapist. This training has lent to her expertise in yoga, meditation, and mindfulness.
A Life Marked by Ongoing Growth
The transition from the academic sphere (as a professor) to the private sphere (as a coach) took a bit of an adjustment. At first, Melanie questioned herself and her ability to exist in both spaces. She worried about how she would grow her integrity and authenticity in her coaching practice.
During this transition, Melanie had to let go of her preconceived notions, stereotypes, assumptions, misconceptions, and projections. As she embraced this shift, it deepened her own personal development work. This allowed her to expand her vision and sense of confidence, pushing her to her next level of being.
Melanie doesn’t take her work with clients lightly. Because she takes her work so seriously, she’s constantly checking in with herself to make sure she’s continuously growing. If she gets nervous about a new challenge or speaking engagement, she smiles with the realization that it’s an opportunity for growth.
It’s that mindset that Melanie uses to help individuals optimize their growth both personally and professionally. She helps clients gain increased confidence, healing, clarity, money mindset shifts, action-taking, and overall empowerment. Through her coaching, individuals gain radication transformation that leads to the collective liberation of communities. Melanie truly is changing the world, one person at a time.
