Melissa (Mellie) Artema
My practice focuses on providing education and services that promote holistic healing, self awareness, and personal & spiritual growth through an integration of ancient practices and modern knowledge. We seek to slow down, connect, reflect, learn, overcome internal conflicts, heal, and expand our human experience. Sessions utilize over 3 decades of studies in energy medicine concepts, along with my natural sensitivity and gifts.
Concepts from East Asian medicine, yoga philosophy, Western herbal energetics, polarity therapy, and other healing modalities offer a framework for the integration of ancient healing arts with modern science. These paths are pulled together and customized for you to help achieve greater personal transformation and alignment with your soul's purpose.
Offerings include:
We might be a good fit working together if you are looking for in depth healing work, coaching, holistic peer support, mentoring, and a deeper understanding of your experiences through the lens of bioenergetics, and if any of the following applies to you:
Concepts from East Asian medicine, yoga philosophy, Western herbal energetics, polarity therapy, and other healing modalities offer a framework for the integration of ancient healing arts with modern science. These paths are pulled together and customized for you to help achieve greater personal transformation and alignment with your soul's purpose.
Offerings include:
- Bioenergetics coaching sessions utilizing an eclectic blend of transformational tools
- Somatic therapies and awareness practices including techniques from yoga, meditation, and qigong
- Neurodiversity-experienced, trauma-informed care and support
- Acupuncture, movement support, bodywork, and energy healing modalities
- An interfaith approach to spiritual care and support, inclusive of all people and spiritual practices
- Customized wellness education
We might be a good fit working together if you are looking for in depth healing work, coaching, holistic peer support, mentoring, and a deeper understanding of your experiences through the lens of bioenergetics, and if any of the following applies to you:
- are neurodivergent
- consider yourself empathic, highly sensitive, or strongly introverted
- have experienced difficult life circumstances
- are seeking a deeper level of understanding yourself and your path
- have sensory processing challenges or experience unique perceptions
- are currently working with a therapist and would like to add acupuncture and somatic work as a complement to your healing process
- are a family member of someone who has special sensitivities and gifts, who would like to gain a deeper understanding of energetic subtleties in order to holistically support your loved one
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Background
This work is a soul calling. Because I was born neurodivergent, empathic, and energetically sensitive (but didn't fully realize this until later in life), I learned many lessons the hard way and often retreated to the comfort of solitude in nature where I could surround myself with the magic of the plant and animal world for restoration time. While I absolute love studying and learning in traditional ways (especially health science), those ongoing experiences of retreat and observation continue to be my greatest teachers, acts of self-nourishment, and sources of wonder. I didn't find out until adulthood that I am (proudly) autistic. All of a sudden, so much made sense - the lifelong struggles, the misdiagnoses, never seeming to fit in or being able to understand socializing, the cycles of burnout and crashing, the extreme sensory sensitivities. It all made sense for the first time in my life! It also helped to explain my innate talent for energy medicine and my intense interest in learning everything I could on the topic, long before the internet existed. I was born with certain gifts, but have also worked hard to develop and focus my skills over the past 30+ years. Not knowing I was autistic, but knowing I was profoundly different in so many ways, with a deep interest in holistic ways of looking at the human experience, motivated me to learn and experience everything I could in the areas of health and medical sciences, energetics, and more. These were the things that I have felt deeply drawn to for decades, beginning with an intellectual fascination of encyclopedias and medical books combined with an experiential sense of both affective and somatic empathy (deeply feeling, understanding, and physically experiencing others' emotions) from the age of 4 years old. I knew it was my work. The support, education, and wellness practices I offer are near and dear to me. These tools and supports have helped me personally through decades of self-reflection and self-development work. I am in deep gratitude for my own teachers. This work allows me to honor my introvert nature while still being able to share my gifts and hard learned lessons in order to support others - and to hopefully make their paths a little less rocky. Coming from a long generational line of healers, I began studying and practicing reflexology as a child in 1987. I was absolutely fascinated by herbal medicine and reflexology concepts and read everything I could get my hands on. I found yoga in 1993 and I have been studying integrative health modalities ever since. As someone who is passionate about life-long learning, I have studied multiple acupuncture and bodywork styles, movement arts & somatic therapies, herbal medicine, holistic nutrition, functional medicine, sacred sexuality, and much more. I have a special interest in nurturing the body-mind connection through movement and somatic education. While I love Eastern philosophy, my education is grounded in Western sciences as well. My 150 credit, regionally accredited, acupuncture degree included extensive studies in biomedicine and evidence informed practices. I have a special interest in neuroscience, especially as it relates to healing trauma. In addition to my private practice, I have worked in teaching roles and in conventional hospitals and clinics doing patient care, community relations, and allied health focused work. I am currently working on a doctor of philosophy degree in transpersonal counseling, sometimes defined as spiritual psychology. It is an approach to healing that integrates transcendent aspects of the human experience, encompassing spiritual evolution, mystical experiences, non-ordinary reality, consciousness studies, and the wider aspects of the individual and collective human experience. Some of the tools that may be holistically used in this work to explore life experiences are: meditation, guided imagery, dream work, art, movement, music, and reflective practices. "You could see transpersonal psychology as an attempt to understand the different states of consciousness—and the different views of reality. . . it was an attempt to integrate the ideas and insights of western psychology with the insights of eastern spiritual traditions, such as Buddhism and Hindu Vedanta and Yoga, particularly their examination of 'higher' states of consciousness, and 'higher' stages of human development." - Steve Taylor, Ph.D. While I encourage practical methods, diligent self-education, and taking responsibility for one's own sense of well-being, I also support listening to your inner wisdom and embracing life's mysteries. I support reflective practices and creating positive habits and thought patterns. |
My model of care emphasizes supporting conscious embodiment, slowing ourselves down, softening, becoming quiet, and honoring the inner knowing we all possess. 
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Additional Work
- I am a provider through the State of Wisconsin's Comprehensive Community Services (CCS) program, offering yoga-based health coaching, wellness education, and holistic peer support for people in the program with traumatic backgrounds, mental health diagnoses, and substance use concerns. I especially enjoy working with neurodivergent teenagers. I travel in a 12 county area in Western Wisconsin doing this work. If you are in the CCS program, looking for support, your service facilitator can find more information about services and referrals here.
- I also work with a program that offers peer support and other specialized care, at no cost, for people ages 15-25, across a 9 county region, who have experienced their first episode of psychosis. Feel free to email if you are in need of information about this program or contact Dunn County Behavioral Health.
Highlights of Education
Specialized Continuing Education
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Credentials Include
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Energy Medicine Studies
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Herbal Studies & Teachers
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