Meet Meesh

We were lucky to catch up with Meesh recently and have shared our conversation below.

Meesh, sincerely appreciate your selflessness in agreeing to discuss your mental health journey and how you overcame and persisted despite the challenges. Please share with our readers how you overcame. For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.

Two things have never been more true. I was born with an optimistic light that shined for a better world AND I’ve battled with depression, anxiety, and a highly sensitive body from a very young age.

My light always lived in me but I didn’t always know how to access it. I was blessed with a strong will, a deep intuition and a stubborn character rooted in ethics. Born into a family where respect was earned not given. Hard work was expected and words of affirmation did not exist. I simply did not fit the mold of “look pretty and stay quiet”.
I had a lot to say and more questions to ask than my parents had answers to.

I had the odds stacked against me; believing in a world where peace and suffering were both honored. Where children deserved explanations to complex world issues and parents were emotionally mature. I was called naive, told “that’s just not how things work”. I never believed them, and to a point still don’t but I now know they weren’t totally wrong either.

Because of my sensitivity, the old world tactics of “ because I said so” and painful punishments lead to a heightened nervous system which is something I still manage today. It manifested in my youth as insomnia, night terrors, and eventually, as I reached puberty, suicidal idealtion, self harm, addictions, and ultimately C-PTSD.

I was lucky though. Bessel Van Der Kirk in “The Body Keeps Score”, talks about how it just takes one good influence to give a child the chance at a healthy life after abuse. I had that. My parents believed that children should be in sports. I chose Rhythmic Gymnastics. Thank goodness I had that because nothing in my life was stable except my time on the mat. As long as I had practice, my coaches, and music I was able to actively balance the dark and light that is me.

There are many things that guided me into overcoming my mental strife.

Love was by far the strongest. Ironic, because if you would have asked me when I was 17 I would have shrugged my shoulders in angst. I couldn’t even say the word love. Its corny and true. I needed to be strong for my brothers, for the friends that relied on me and for the deep knowing that there was something better out there for me.

Another thing was time in nature. Some of my happiest memories when I was a child was when me and my family would go camping. I still vividly remember a camping trip up in northern Wisconsin. We were camping with a few other families and there were roughly 10 other kids ranging from ages 5-12. One night we were playing hide and seek, and I found my spot beneath a car. I was laying on my back staring at the underbelly as I heard footsteps of the looker fall further away from me. Once they were gone I scooted out just enough so that I could see the sky. It was the first time I ever saw the Milky Way. I’ll never forget that feeling. Freedom, awe, beauty. A sense of belonging washed over me, as I pondered the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, darkness speckled with light.

Years later, I find myself moving into a van with my best friend to travel cross country. What I knew was that I was ready for change and an adventure. What I didn’t know was how much that trip would change my life and my health. Although I spent much time in the great outdoors as a kid I really didn’t maintain that connection when I moved out of the house. For college I went to a city school and the concrete jungle was as close as I got to nature.

Three years before Zoey and I left for van life, I found the lowest my mental health had ever been. It was January 2016, I couldn’t sleep, eat, or focus. I was breaking out into anxiety attacks in the middle of class, I was in my last quarter of undergrad. Every 30 minutes I would start crying and couldn’t stop. I started self harming more, drinking more, and recklessly sleeping with people. It didn’t matter if I was awake or asleep, everything was a living nightmare. I majored in psychology, so on a better day I was able to discern that what I was experiencing was proper PTSD. Auditory hallucinations, flash backs, night terrors, psychosis, the whole gambit. I reached out to a hotline and got some basic support but ultimately didn’t have the financial or mental ability to seek help. I did however have one friend who noticed I was having a harder time than usual and offered me some great words of encouragement. They were the exact reflection I needed to stabilize me. It just takes one friend.

Fast forward a few months, I’m in a toxic relationship hoping my partner will fix me. My PTSD is shifting more into CPTSD and life still sucks. Ultimately, my partner and I broke up but not before I found myself in therapy twice a week and group therapy twice a week. Yes four therapy sessions a week, than goodness for the City of Chicago and the nonprofits that support LBGTQ mental health. I disgress. Zoey and I bbecome great friends and then in the summer of 2018 we decide to to move into a van.

September 24, 2018, we leave for the open road. We quit our jobs left the city and embarked on an epic that had us traveling through rain for two weeks with nothing but a wood burning stove to cook on and a passion for paying as little as possible to live.

During my two and a half years on the road with her, my nervous system healed. My pain went away. I got sober. My connection to spirit thrived. I remembered how powerful those summers were when I was a child running free, chasing creeks, catching frogs, and sleeping under the stars.

Two things have always been true, my sensitivity can be my best ally or my worst enemy. Nothing has held me more on my journey to a healthier, happier life than my strong belief in a better life, love, freedom, family, and nature.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am a multi-hyphenate individual juggling the roles of operations manager, embodiment coach, retreat company founder and facilitator, writer, and artist. Currently what is taking up my time is helping to build out a new wellness social club and gym in Venice Beach California called Primal Moves. Working on the back end of the project to keep the train chugging. Its a fast paced start up energy that is exciting and a dream to be a part of.

One event I’m really looking forward to is being a speaker at the Evolving Masculinity Summit happening on October 23 & 24, 2025. I will be talking about my relationship to the masculine and how I’ve been reconciling the toxic masculinity that I have been conditioned into.

Revolution Retreat is the retreat company that I am a founder of. We focus on nervous system regulation, adventure and wellness retreats all over the world. This year we are really excited to be rolling out our Corporate Retreat Package where we curate a retreat experience specific for your team. Focusing on connection, regulation, wellness and play, we love helping people step deeper into their magic.

My personal embodiment practice is undergoing a transformation. The dream I’m manifesting is to blend my love for writing and artistic expression into how I coach people and into the programs themselves. I started embodiment coaching 3 years ago when I realized that working with those with chronic pain and trauma required more than just corrective exercise. Lord knows my journey has needed a whole gauntlet of tools to get me to where I am today. So I accumulated other tools like somatic therapies, myofascial release techniques, breathwork and posture therapy to blend together to create unique one on one programs for my clients. Some of my joys is solving puzzles and understanding humans so this is the perfect work for me.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

1. Find the lesson and create the meaning. For those of us that struggle with existential dread, depression, or needing to be in control coming to terms with the fact that everything is happening for you not to you allows us to step out of the spiral and extrapolate a new perspective. It’s your responsibility to save yourself. Life is inherently absurd, so stop wondering why and start asking what can I learn? How does this fit into the story I want to create?

2. Self reflection. Without this skill, I would not be where I am today. When we let our ego run the show we stay in a victim mindset because the ego and our nervous system are wired to keep us safe. Which is not inherently good for us. Sometimes this looks like self sabotage. So, when we take the time to self reflect and give ourselves the space to say I was in the wrong or that was partially my fault. It builds humility, first and foremost. It also creates space for awareness and change.

3. Develop your relationship to your intuition, to your self. Authenticity is the highest vibration. It’s how we align ourselves with what is really meant for us. So when your relationship to your intuition is established it becomes really clear what opportunities or relationships are working or are not working. Walking away becomes really easy when it’s a full body yes.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

Spirits Rebellious by Kahlil Gibran this book covers 3 short stories about how love and authentic expression will always rule over material gain. The first story talks about a woman who had been arranged to marry a wealthy man who treated her terribly but gave her the world in riches. Only for her to leave him for a tradesman with little to his name but a love that radiated everywhere they went.

The third story is set in old world Lebanon where a young priest defiles and betrays his duty to the church when the young priest observes how the village people are starving while the church feasts. Rebelling against the corruption leaves and braves a massive storm to live amongst the villagers. The story is a powerful take on freedom, liberty and justice.

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Miki Ash
Curtis Joe Walker
Elise Engelking
Eric Sprinkle

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