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.

The post Melanie C. Klein and Her Work through the Yoga and Body Image Coalition appeared first on CEO Medium.

“I’ve always had the mindset to run a business, and combined with my passion for wedding planning – I am the perfect person to scale a business in my field.” 

The planners at Wildflower Wedding Planning benefit from the seven years of experience Khloe has had in planning events and the mindset she teaches to find overall fulfillment in your career. They are trained with both hands-on experiences in addition to hearing knowledge from more experienced planners on the team. Khloe has a trusted and proven method for running successful weddings that she shares with the mentees. 

“Having passion is not something I can train, but for those that hold a drive to be a wedding planner can be quickly involved in weddings rather than working their way up the ladder the traditional way.” 

Most wedding planners that start their own business start off by charging next to nothing for their services to gain a clientele and gain exposure with other vendors. Typically clients that are accepting these services are what we can “budget brides” in the industry and have expectations that far surpass the capabilities of any one person. If you can make it out of this phase without a bad rap, planners can enter into getting contracted help for wedding days. Slowly they are able to charge more and pay for the help that is needed. 

“It took me about a year of wedding planning being my side hustle to get to a point of working in my business full time. Six months after that I brought on help full-time to assist in the momentum we quickly gained.” 

With signing on with Wildflower Wedding Planning, planners are able to skip all of that and dive into executing quality weddings with quality brides. They receive template wedding documents, one on one mentoring, a pipeline of leads, and guidance on how to build their book of business. Khloe built this structure based on all the things she was looking for when she was researching wedding planner positions in the area. It is a perfect platform for aspiring wedding planners that have an entrepreneurial spirit, but want to “skip pass go.” 

“My hope for all the wedding planners is to continue to be hungry in growing their book of business in a way that allows them to earn more money and satisfaction in their role of helping clients with such an important day in their lives” 

Today, Wildflower Wedding Planning has expanded its services from its home base in Chattanooga, TN to all brides in the Southeast area. Khloe’s role in the company is now focused on her true love of growing a business while the Wildflower Wedding Planners maintain what has already been built. In 2021, her team is driven to take the company to the next level by pursuing more luxury weddings, adding honeymoon coordinating services, and offering decor options to their clients. 

“The pandemic of 2020 was quite the shock, but I like to say we were lucky that our couples were determined to find a way to unify their love and move forward with a celebration without canceling.” 

There were so many different plan B’s they thought up for their clients during Covid-19. During the stay-at-home order, they worked with their couples to reschedule the wedding and all its vendors to a later date. Not knowing how long it would last, they saw couples either choose a 6 month or 12-month delay. In June, the company began executing what is now coined today as “micro-weddings.” A micro wedding is a wedding that includes all the aspects of a wedding you know of today but scaled down to accommodate 50 guests or less. These weddings would include the closest friends and family to the couple and portray all the necessary safety precautions outlined by the CDC. They planned for hand sanitizer at every table, monogrammed mask favors, plated meals, and socially distanced tables to make it through the Summer. 

“Now that the vaccine is more readily available for all, we are seeing the wedding world slowly go back to normal. People are optimistic and ready to celebrate what life was like pre-pandemic. It’s an understatement to say that 2020 was a challenging year, but I never gave up on my clients or my team. I didn’t know when the pandemic would be over, but I kept a level head in knowing that eventually, it would.” 

For more information visit: www.wildflowerweddingplanning.com

The post Meet the Founder & Director of Wildflower Weddings Planning: Khloe Jackson appeared first on CEO Medium.