The Hemp Del Soul Podcast

EP #7: Embracing Transformation: A Journey of Healing Through Psychodrama, Energy Work, and Trusting the Process with Melinda Lawless-Coker

• Marilisa Lawless • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Witness a heartfelt voyage into the essence of healing, as my sister Melinda Lawless-Coker joins me to unveil the layers of our unique mental health and wellness practices. Together, we trace her transformation from a family therapist to a psychologist with a deep focus on psychodrama and energy healing techniques, including Reiki and crystal therapy. Through our candid dialogue, you'll discover the profound impact of psychodrama's dynamic approach, designed to unearth and release emotional blockages. But our conversation is more than a clinical discourse; it's a warm recollection of our educational pursuits fueled by our mother's dream, and the birth of The Transformation Project, Hemp Del Soul, and Crystals Del Soul. Melinda and I proudly reveal our individual contributions to our ever-expanding wellness enterprise, painting a picture of passion interwoven with purpose.

As we reflect on our three-decade milestone at the Davie location, we celebrate the blossoming of a humble venture into a hub of healing, offering everything from CBD to herbal remedies. There's an intimate touch as we share stories that connect us to the mystical allure of crystals, with Melinda speaking on the visceral energy she feels and me sharing the grounding influence of my wolf crystal necklace. Stepping out of our professional roles, we delve into the layers of our personal lives—Melinda's treasured moments with her daughter and my adventures as an empty nester savoring grandparenthood. As the episode reaches its crescendo, we engage in a compelling discourse on the art of family dynamics, emotional intelligence in parenting, and the transformative power of pausing to listen—inviting our listeners to embrace the dance of communication that enriches our relationships and nurtures our souls.

Explore our wide range of organic products here: https://www.hempdelsoul.com/ or email us at HempDelSoul@gmail.com

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Hemp Del Sol podcast. All health, no high. Here's your host, Mary Lisa Lawless.

Jeremy:

Hello, hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Hemp Del Sol podcast. I'm your cohost, Jeremy Wolfe, and today I'm joined by your host, Mary Lisa Lawless, and a very special guest, her sister Melinda Lawless-Coker, who's joining us today to kind of, I guess we're trying to bring her into the fold, because what you ladies do is offer this holistic, total body approach to mental health and wellness, and Melinda brings another component to what you do. So I wanted to set the stage for her and have her talk a little bit about her background and kind of introduce herself, and we can get into some of these wonderful topics moving forward. So, ladies, always a pleasure.

Marilisa:

And first off, we're women. Sometimes we're ladies, sometimes we're not, but we're always women.

Jeremy:

So women, always a pleasure to see Women, yes, there you go.

Jeremy:

So I think I feel like I'm in for the double trouble today. Now you're gals, right, you guys are going to do a number on me. I've got plenty of problems. I've been through the ringer, 44 years old, just figuring things out or starting to figure things out. So let's get into this. Melinda, tell us a little bit about your background and what you do to kind of, I guess, add to Hemdell Sol and the business over there, I know, and the business is the transformation project as well Hemdell Sol and the transformation project, right?

Marilisa:

Yeah, all right, and crystals Delsol at this point. Growing daily growing, growing, growing.

Melinda:

Yeah, so originally I became a family therapist long, long time ago, like almost 33 years ago. It was a very long time ago for me. We went to school together. Oh yeah, we got to sit close when we were cold, we walked around campus and could hold hands. You know, because we were sisters we still are we don't hold hands as much. That's true, I could hold your hand right now.

Jeremy:

My handholding is important?

Melinda:

Yes, it is it is. And so I entered the field as a family therapist and then eventually became a psychologist and also, I guess between those, I became a addictions professional. So, and then I went into psychodrama and psychodrama. Psychodrama.

Jeremy:

Please elaborate Psychodrama. What is psychodrama?

Melinda:

Psychodrama is mostly it's doing things in action and it's an opportunity to kind of explore something in action and I talk with my hand, so it really helps to do psychodrama. Role play came from psychodrama.

Melinda:

Did it really, and there's all kinds of exercises and other kinds of things that I do with psychodrama, and I guess there's actually there could be a whole separate series of podcasts, which I'm hoping to get into at some point, that are focused more specifically on that, and it also includes energy healing kinds of practices. So that's for me. That's part of it is that the energy is moving and we're literally moving, meaning that we're standing up and moving, and I've adapted, of course, what I do with psychodrama for people that are not able to stand up and move, but we can still move in some way and do some kind of physical activity or exercise. So that's part of it. There's there's a lot more I could share, but that's, that's a good start.

Jeremy:

So the energy healing is the Reiki right.

Melinda:

That's part of it. There's there's lots of things that could be called energy healing.

Jeremy:

OK.

Melinda:

And even what we do in terms of therapy is a process of moving energy, moving the energy around different issues and different concerns that people have. Working with the crystals is another way to look at the energy and and use the energy tap into it for healing. So there's there's actually a number of different ways that we do energy focused work.

Jeremy:

So for the psychodrama, I'm trying to get a handle on this. So this would be normally, when people think of therapy, you go and sit with your therapist, sit on the couch, you have a conversation. So this would be more interactive, kind of acting out and releasing some of the, I guess, stuck energies that you have. I actually participated in something. I'm not sure if you heard about this. Have you ever heard of P3?

Melinda:

No, not offhand, not right away.

Jeremy:

So I can't. I can't remember off the top of my head what it what it stands for, but it was a weekend I went to with a group of people and it was a super intensive Form of therapy where you do act out and you unleash all your emotions crying, screaming and yelling, you do role play, all this kind of stuff. It was extremely intense and powerful, very experienced, and that your explanation of the psychotherapy reminded me of that experience, because it was essentially psychotherapy.

Marilisa:

So I'm surprised, you haven't heard about that.

Jeremy:

I'll have to get some more information about P3. So when did you, ladies women?

Marilisa:

Good catch.

Jeremy:

When did you join forces and link up together? Talk a little bit about kind of the evolution of the transformation project Hempto's soul, crystal's soul and how all of this came together. I know, mary Lisa, you've had background with your family, in therapy, initially with your sister. Talk about the evolution and how you kind of landed where you're at today.

Marilisa:

You know I can talk about the transformation project Our mom led the way, Mary Ann, I mean. She was like fathers and sons have been doing business together why can't mothers and daughters? And so we were in graduate school in the late 80s, and with her too, and yeah, she was there. She was one year ahead of us but, coming from different paths, we all ended up in the same place. So it was kind of cool. And you know, I guess it was Melinda who was in on getting our first space for renting here, where we still are. You know we're renting over 30 years now, but you know that that was you who you know went with her to do that.

Melinda:

So, yeah, right out of graduate school, which was cool, that was unusual at the time. Usually, when you finish graduate school, there's a time period where we have to just pay your dues, work in the field and then eventually, maybe you'll go private. But it was. It was nice to be able to start right away, and my mom our mom was ready to do that too.

Marilisa:

So yeah, and we all did have full-time jobs. But we started with the transformation project and we each had one client, you know. But we rented a bay and we set it up and we did support groups and just did a lot of education in the community and that kind of stuff. But most of our first clients came from 12-step rooms, from people with substance abuse issues that were looking for therapy. Um, not just a 12-step program, a support group. You know, they were looking for something more than that, and All three of us had very different styles, mm-hmm. So that worked out really well, you know. Also I mean I I've said it before when people are trying to figure out some of the differences with how we think or how we are, you know, my bachelor's is in photography and sculpting, I have a bfa, hers is in chemistry correct and went into the air force and, you know, working in Intel and yeah military, intelligence, military, more on.

Jeremy:

I think I think it's super important To have all of these different perspectives, because people people get stuck in their own biases and their own prejudices and you don't know what you don't know and from what you're doing in terms of trying to help people heal, you bring different perspectives, different journeys to the table, and I think that's really really powerful to have that. So. So let's go back 30 years. How long have you been at the location in Davey? 33 years you've been at that location and David for 33 years.

Marilisa:

Yeah, and we we thought that it was really important to To maintain the same space so that people could always find us again. And we have obviously grown, you know, with having the retail store and doing the CBD and the crystals and the energy healing and I mean or and being an herbalist and you know we've added so many layers to what it is we do. We're always trying to stay relevant and keep keep looking, keep trying to figure out how to help people heal in the best way. And Melinda is actually kind of funny because she has a much stronger response to crystals. Then I do energetically. I think it's funny. She's like oh, get that one away from me.

Marilisa:

Like that one, that's you know yeah, so she's, yeah, you're a lot more connected energetically.

Jeremy:

Speaking of crystals, you're just reminding me I'm not wearing my trusty wolf. Your wolf, my wolf crystal necklace is at bay, and I feel like I'm missing something. It definitely does have a grounding effect on me, for sure, for sure. So what do you? Shift gears for a minute, melinda? What do you like to do for fun when you're not working? What do you like to do in your downtime?

Melinda:

uh, what shows Do you cross? Do crosswords? I'm I'm actually more of an introvert and I send this is a psychodrama idea too I send my extrovert itself here to do this and to Perform or do psychodrama things. My introvert itself prefers to be at home doing those other things. She also has a little one. I have a yeah, well she's, she's nine.

Jeremy:

I have a nine year old son, so we have that yeah.

Marilisa:

Yeah, she has a nine year old daughter.

Melinda:

Yeah, she's in several different activities, so I get to go to those things and that's fun too, you know. She's in the chorus and has done performances and it's nice to be able to see that. And she's in sports. You know there's I could.

Marilisa:

I could spend time talking about her and basketball, and basketball. But yeah, so she's. She's in a different, you know, and I'm an empty nester with grandkids. My oldest grandson is the same age as her daughter.

Melinda:

Yeah, yeah, we started a little late.

Jeremy:

So you mentioned about introvert versus extrovert. I think I'm very much the same Mm. Hmm, One might not think I do all these podcasts and everything, but I mean it really. It kind of makes me feel like I'm outgoing extroverted life of the party and then other times I just want to stay in my own little corner and, you know, read or just be in, be to my own devices. So I don't, I think. I think a lot of people are probably like that to some degree. I think it's just part of part of the ride.

Marilisa:

Right, yeah, and we're.

Jeremy:

There's my little extrovert itself the stream.

Marilisa:

Well I went to the stream and stream yard. Who does the recording for this was there and I asked them for it. One of their ducks, so they gave me one. So this is our little shout out to our, our production crew there. That was my little commercial, commercial break, yeah, so go ahead.

Jeremy:

Oh no, I wanted, I want to ask you, I like, I like asking this question going forward. Is there something that comes to mind? Uh, life, hardship or challenge, something that you, you, struggled with along the way, that you could say that you're, I don't know, better off for having experienced, or maybe it was like at the finding moment for you what?

Melinda:

comes to mind. Well, actually there probably will be many. The one I'm going to pick out is from a psychodrama I did. Part of the process of getting training in psychodrama was to use our own issues. So it was a psychodrama about my issue and one of them that I did was about my brother, eddie, our brother Eddie, who had died, and while my mom was still alive and I asked essentially in the drama, I asked him to watch out for our mom because she was having some health issues and it was very difficult for us it's difficult for us to ask Uh, I asked him to do that, to watch out for her.

Melinda:

And maybe a month or so later I was having a conversation with our mom that just the two of us who were talking, and she mentioned to me that she'd been talking a lot more to Eddie, our brother who had died, and I was just like wow, you know, because I had asked him in the psychodrama. That was very hard for me and so that was actually happening in the sense that she was now talking to him a lot more and, uh, that just felt like just uh, you know, like wow, because I didn't tell her about the drama. That was definitely a defining moment, a very spiritual experience, to hear that from her. I find psychodrama to be a very spiritual process for me and when I heard that from her unsolicited, you know, she just volunteered and started telling me about it I was like, oh my goodness, wow. So that was definitely a defining moment for me.

Jeremy:

Yeah, that's pretty wild and it seems things like that happened from time to time, these unexplained occurrences, and it really gives rise to how much we don't know about this world and this life. And like we always say, mary Lisa, we're all energy right. We are, we are Absolutely and we pick up on things and just these things happen sometimes and it just seems like there's a greater design or a reason for all this.

Marilisa:

Yeah, I mean, it's why we offer some of the classes that we're offering. We're offering Reiki classes now the second Thursday of every month. Here in our space I have a medium, Maurice Israel. He works here on the weekends. Oh he's amazing.

Marilisa:

And he is absolutely amazing. And we just and we're bringing in other healers to offer a full spectrum, not just full spectrum CBD, but full spectrum with healing, healing capacity, think the way, because everybody heals differently. So there's some people that would heal. Some of you know, hear some of this stuff that we say and they're like okay, and we know that we need to just deal with them on a more grounded level. You know more 3D, so there are so many different ways for the human mind to heal. But at the end of the day, we all have to work on our healing. If we're going to make the world a better place, we've got to find ways to be kinder, to just share more love and to be tolerant of difference. You know the two of us are very different, you know, but at our base we love. We love each other and you know we spend time together outside of here, you know, outside of work. You know, but we're very different people. But it is about tolerance and being kind.

Jeremy:

Absolutely. You have always envisioned, as you know, I've been into similar spaces on my journey. I've explored psychedelics and, like I said, the P3 therapy that I was actually trying to look online to find it but I couldn't look at anything right now. But all of this stuff I also do, as you know ice baths I do, I work on, I do the breath work, the meditation, all this stuff. I envision a center somewhere right that encompasses all of these different mobilities and all of these ways that you could kind of build the community with like-minded folks to better yourself on this grand journey that we're all on together, because that's what it's all about, right.

Marilisa:

Yeah, absolutely. And to not try to pigeonhole people to do one way of doing things, because everybody is different. Different strokes, different strokes.

Melinda:

That's a good song too it is, but yeah, I mean we've come from.

Marilisa:

I mean we're only a year apart in the age. You know so we had a lot of shared experiences growing up and it's really model. You know it's created the women that we are today and you know that in our practice and our lives as friends and sisters and family, you know I mean it's. It is a really great colleagues, yeah, being able to move forward on a regular basis together. And you know we define functional versus dysfunctional families as the ability to come back to the table. Functional families come back to the table like that, the dysfunctional retreat to their own corners and like whatever the walls go up, yeah, and they never communicate again.

Jeremy:

Yeah, it's so. Communication is so fundamental and important, right? We get tied up in the emotions of any given situation and it's fine if you get overwhelmed with emotion. What I tend to do if I get frustrated, especially around my children, I'll just say daddy needs to take a break for a second, I'm going to go calm myself down, that's good, and I come back. And no, because you can't. You can't communicate effectively when you're raging. You know when your nine year old does something to just infuriate you. You got to, you got to take a step back, take a couple of breaths and they get it.

Jeremy:

They're like okay cool Daddy's going to go chill out.

Melinda:

I call that a daddy, I call that you stepping into the daddy changer.

Marilisa:

Yeah, I like the tools she uses, as the mommy changer or the daddy changer, you know, give yourself a time out.

Jeremy:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, ladies, you know I love the work that you're doing, you know doing wonderful things for the community and I'm always happy to share and learn more. And, you know, continue this fabulous journey together.

Marilisa:

Absolutely Yep. Glad to know you, Jeremy. Yeah, thank you. I like your energy.

Jeremy:

Thank you, I work hard at it. Sometimes, when I'm when I'm being intro, when I'm being, when I'm extroverted, it comes out easily when I'm feeling myself. But there are, like I said, there are times where it's, you know, like I don't know. You get into some social settings sometimes and you get a little socially awkward. I mean, I do, I don't know about no, I do, we all do, and yep it just. It's part of being human and you have to understand that and it's okay, and sometimes silence is golden.

Marilisa:

Yeah sometimes that's why I like the silent retreats.

Jeremy:

I'm still. I still have that on my to do list.

Marilisa:

Good.

Jeremy:

I'm going to get into that one day. You're going to hold me to that, okay.

Marilisa:

Yes, I will All right, very cool.

Jeremy:

All right, ladies, have a wonderful day. Always a pleasure seeing you Nice. Well, actually, I say seeing you a nice, meeting you. Melinda, it's the first time in the frostbaths and it will not be the last.

Melinda:

I look forward to seeing you again, okay.

Jeremy:

And thanks to our listeners for tuning in and we will catch everyone next time. Take care.

Marilisa:

Bye, bye, bye.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the hemp del sole podcast. Explore our wide range of organic products at hemp del solecom. That's H E M P D E L S O U Lcom, or contact 954 854 1039.

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MARILISA LAWLESS

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