What happens when your life looks successful and you keep telling yourself it is… but then you find yourself pulled over on the side of the highway with clammy hands and unable to breathe?

Growing up in a loving, hard-working family deeply rooted in farming traditions, Melissa Coloton learned early on the importance of honesty, compassion, and the power of expressing love. Unlike most families, hers openly verbalized affection. “I love you” was the punctuation to every goodbye. This warmth, however, was balanced with discipline and high expectations. Because Melissa’s mother became a parent at sixteen, she was vigilantly determined to give her children the best possible chance, insisting on hard work, achievement, and a relentless pursuit of success.

Melissa spent 20 years building a successful career in sales. She was really good at it. The kind of good that keeps you locked in. Promotions, performance, steady income… all the things that say, “stay right here.” And for a long time, she did.

But underneath that success was constant pressure to get it right. To not mess up. To keep proving herself. What looked like ambition on the outside was really a fear of failure she didn’t even recognize at the time.

That panic attack on the highway left her feeling lost, disconnected, and unraveling, fearful that she’d die without ever honoring her true purpose.

With the help of a life coach and the practice of self-compassion, Melissa learned to listen to her own needs, confront the chronic sources of anxiety, and eventually gained the tools to manage and move through challenging emotions.

Eventually she was able to unlock the “golden handcuffs” of her sales career and step into work that centers around honoring yourself and creating aligned success so you can avoid the kind of burnout that she experienced.

We’re talking about how technology and societal shifts have fostered loneliness and a loss of communal support. But our conversation is optimistic about the resurgence of retreats, gratitude dinners, and analog gatherings. Listen in to hear the whole story.

Resources

Website: www.melissacoloton.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-coloton-coach/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissa_coloton/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61568472840753

Hype Song

Unstoppable by Sia

https://open.spotify.com/track/1yvMUkIOTeUNtNWlWRgANS?si=a2507f11148f41b1

Invitation from Lori:

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223. I Can't Get Off the Highway with Melissa Coloton