Hello!

Thanks so much for taking time to learn about me and The Hive. As I write this, the studio is rounding out its seventh year and surviving the 2020 Pandemic because of our consistent practicing community. Those who practice at The Hive commit to self-discovery as a life practice. We cultivate mindfulness in our daily lives and seek to nurture unconditional friendliness with ourselves.

What does that even mean,”nurture unconditional friendliness with ourselves”? When you come to practice, over and over, no matter whether life feels easy or hard, you begin to see yourself with greater accuracy, compassion and less judgment. You get acquainted with your basic goodness, with the unchanging essence of who you really are.

This understanding creates the foundation for all my teaching, whether it’s yoga, bellydance, meditation, or self-discovery. There’s a part of us that’s untouchable, totally perfect, but with all the living there is to do, we’re often confused about who we are, what we need, and what’s most important. The to-do list is so long, there’s no time to get quiet enough to listen to the still, quiet, voice within. Students at The Hive nurture a connection to that quiet voice, cultivating life practices that foster emotional and psychological resilience.

Sometimes it feels like I’ve been teaching my whole life. It’s probably because I learn through teaching and am very curious.  At 15, I started instructing private piano lessons, after college running my own piano studio with 50 students and multiple recitals a year. In my late twenties I worked for a United Church of Christ (UCC) congregation, first as children’s choir director, then liturgical dance leader, then youth director and eventually director of Christian Education. While working at the congregational level, I collaborated with the national offices of the UCC here in Cleveland. Those collaborations offered me many opportunities to lead trainings, workshops and perform on a national level for small groups and audiences numbering several thousand. Before opening The Hive, I spent several years training adult leaders to teach comprehensive sexuality education to children and adults, wrote curriculum and even had a short stint leading super-fun comprehensive sex-ed lectures to college and university students around the country.

Finding the still quiet place within hasn’t been an easy journey for me. My earliest memories include a non-stop internal dialogue: questioning myself, over-analyzing conversations and personal motives. All that distracting mental chatter created feelings of anxiety and self-doubt. This started to change when I began dancing at a weekly drum circle. For a couple years, I’d put my kids to sleep and drive two hours round trip to dance non-stop until the wee hours of the morning. Something changed in me. I connected with my body and in those moments, the mental chatter disappeared.   

Another dancer at one of the drum circles suggested I try bellydancing. There weren’t any teachers in my area, so I headed to the interwebs, found some videos, and introduced myself to fusion bellydance. I’m mostly self-taught, but have been fortunate to travel and study with the some of the best fusion dancers and originators of the style, including Rachel Brice, Mardi Love, Zoe Jakes, Jill Parker and Kami Liddle. The pandemic has recently provided an opportunity to study virtually with two of my current dancer/teacher obsessions, Piny Orchidaceae and Ogla Meos. My bellydance practice has gifted me a tangible connection to the strength in my body, an outlet for self-expression, a place to experiment with different personas and sides of myself, and deep, lasting friendships with women in The Hive’s dancing community.  

At the end of a weekend workshop with Rachel Brice in the early 2000’s, she played an interview with Pema Chodron during Savasana (Savasana is the usually the last pose in a yoga practice, where you lie on your back and chill). I can honestly say listening to that interview changed my life’s trajectory. As soon as I returned home, I went to the library and borrowed her book, The Places that Scare You, on tapes (Yes, you read that correctly. Books on tape!). Pema’s teaching reorganized my thinking in a way that didn’t necessarily alter my feelings, but contexualized my life experiences. She helped me connect with a sense of belonging and empowered me to be the change I wanted to see in the world. Listening to her, I learned that I really only have control over myself and my response to life as it meets me. Through meditation and Pema’s teachings, she encouraged me to develop humanity’s natural proclivity towards self-absorption as a skill and cultivate unbiased self-reflection, neutral self-awareness and moment to moment mindfulness.

My yoga practice started in 1994 when I took a class in college. Yoga and I had an on again, off again relationship until 2012. The company I worked for closed unexpectedly. No job meant no excuses about not having enough time and I started practicing yoga everyday. It felt like the last piece of the puzzle.

Bellydance, Pema’s teachings, meditation and yoga, teach me how to be present for my life. They stoke my imagination and provide a canvas for self-expression and creativity. I see how it all contributes to the unique skill-set I bring to The Hive community. In every class, I strive to create a supportive learning environment in which students feel empowered to explore my suggestions and find their own truth. Teaching in my studio, in my hometown feels like a dream come true. I honestly believe that a peaceful world stems from groups of peaceful individuals. It’s a privilege, supporting The Hive community as each person strives to create more peace and mindfulness in their lives. When I think of the potential ripple affect our Hive life practices have on the immediate world around us, I can’t help but get excited. 

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about starting your practice at The Hive. It can be a vulnerable thing, trying something new. Whether you’re practicing via live stream, watching a prerecorded practice via The Hive’s  Youtube library, or taking an in-person class,  it’s totally normal to feel, nervous, excited, anxious, neutral, joyful. If I can help you sort through all that, I’d love the opportunity. Looking forward to practicing with you soon.

Wild Blessings,                                                                                                   

MelissaP.