PAIN TO

POWER

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A 30-day coaching intensive + workshop for surgeons looking to break through the pain that keeps them from their power in their careers and personal lives.

FEBRUARY 2nd - March 2nd, 2026

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A note from Mel:

Start now. Even if there is one day left. Why? Because that seemingly simple and stupid act is telling the bully that lives inside of you that it doesn’t control you. That you deserve to heal in community. That your stories are your power. That your pain is evidence of your humanity not your worthlessness. You belong here. Your pain belongs here. Your only flaw (if you can even call it that) was ever believing in the system that told you otherwise. It simply doesn’t matter how many days you’ve missed. It matters that you take ANY action (however big or small) on behalf of your humanity, worthiness and inherent belonging.

JOIN US TODAY.

You’ve trained to be a surgeon.

But the work of being a surgeon - the emotional, relational, cultural weight of it - was something you were never trained for.

Not the having to pretend all the time.

Not giving up our own agency.

Not feeling psychologically fractured inside.

The human cost of carrying responsibility, conflict, grief, scrutiny, and fear - often alone.

This workshop is for surgeons (residents and attendings) who feel disconnected from their careers, weighed down by experiences they can’t seem to shake, or silently wondering if they want out—not because they can’t do the work, but because something inside them is exhausted from carrying it the way they’ve been taught to.

PAIN TO POWER 30-DAY COACHING INTENSIVE
A woman in a grey plaid blazer and zebra print pants stands in front of a mirror, looking to her left in a room with wooden floors and a windowsill.
A woman with brown hair and hoop earrings sitting in front of a crinkled silver metallic background. She is wearing a black blazer, black top, and ripped jeans, and is smiling at the camera.

The problem isn’t that you aren’t strong enough

Surgeons are trained to perform in high-stakes, high-pressure environments.
You’re trained to narrow focus, override sensation, and move fast in moments where trauma response is necessary.

What you were never taught is how to recognize when that state is no longer needed.

So it becomes habitual.

You stay braced long after the moment has passed.

You live inside a nervous system calibrated for emergencies while navigating conversations, complaints, complications, bureaucracy, and relationships that actually require presence, steadiness, and discernment, not survival mode.

You weren’t trained to:

  • identify trauma response versus drama response– instead you were trained to live IN a constant state of trauma response

  • process pain instead of internalizing it or displacing it

  • navigate relational conflict without collapsing, fawning, freezing, or fighting

  • meet grief, shame, and fear without turning them inward or numbing them out

Instead, the culture taught you to sacrifice yourself—and when that didn’t work, to assume something was wrong with you.

A collage of photographs of women in various professions and clothing styles, laid out on crumpled aluminum foil.

Where this shows up in real life.

Not in your surgical skill, but everywhere else.

  • Navigating incompetence or unethical behavior without accountability

  • Discrimination, threats, and power hierarchies that protect themselves

  • Lack of respect from colleagues or team members

  • Bureaucratic load and insurance battles that erode meaning

  • Block time cut without consultation

  • ORs unprepared, equipment missing, problems you’re forced to solve in the moment

  • Contracts, board complaints, public shaming, difficult patients

  • The death of a patient, and nowhere to put what that does to you

Some surgeons leave.
Some stay and feel dead inside.
Some drink, numb, overwork, or quietly unravel.
Some carry so much unprocessed pain that even meaningful moments blur or disappear.

And the most dangerous belief takes root:

“Something is wrong with me.”

The internal bind no one talks about

If you speak up, you risk being labeled difficult, emotional, or unsafe.
If you stay silent, you betray your values and yourself.

If you care deeply, it hurts too much.
If you detach to survive, you lose the part of you that wanted this life in the first place.

No matter what you do, it feels like you lose.

There is another way.

Not by blaming yourself, villainizing others, or pretending this doesn’t hurt.

The new way is noticing instead of reacting.
Being with what’s here instead of collapsing it into worst-case futures.
Learning to stay present without bypassing or numbing.
Understanding when trauma response is appropriate—and when it’s costing you everything.

And most importantly: doing this together, not alone.

Why this requires real training and support

Surgeons aren’t broken.
You were simply never taught how to process emotion inside a system that discourages it.

Logic alone fails because trauma response isn’t logical.
Venting keeps the drama triangle intact and reinforces powerlessness.
Therapy is essential—but often slow, abstract, or missing surgeon-specific context.

This work is specialized because it was created by a surgeon who has lived it—panic attacks in the OR, fear consuming daily life, bringing pain home to family, and learning how to forgive earlier versions of herself.

This is not theory.
It’s the work that made it possible to care deeply without collapsing, to lead and create without losing presence, and to stay connected to purpose even inside immense responsibility.

What this workshop builds inside you.

Through Pain to Power, you’ll develop the ability to:

  • pause before defaulting into trauma response

  • become the watcher of your own mind

  • offer steady, internal support to the parts of you that need it

  • process pain instead of turning it into self-blame or resentment

  • assess situations with clarity, depth, and precision

  • meet pressure, complaints, complications, and human conflict with steadiness

  • bring new language and perspective into relationships that once felt impossible

Not because you force change—but because you integrate it.

This work doesn’t make you “stronger” by hardening you.


It steadies you through self-compassion, self-knowledge, and having your own back.

The result: you’ll go to sleep at night feeling proud of how you showed up, you’ll build capacity to be present in your life…and ultimately, what you’ll do next, I cannot say. That’s personal to you. But you can only access your power after your process your pain.

WHAT IT IS

Pain to Power is a 30-day immersive workshop and integration space.

It’s not a lecture.
It’s not passive learning.

It works because of:

  • active participation

  • vulnerability and witnessing

  • structure and boundaries

  • real-time coaching

  • collective presence

You’ll do the work now, not “someday when things slow down.”

As part of the workshop, you’ll have 30 days of integration and support, including replays and group coaching—so this doesn’t become another insight with nowhere to land.

Collective witnessing matters here.
Shame dissolves when it’s seen and held with regard.

HOW IT WORKS

How the structure supports real change

  • Lesson 1: Vulnerability, Energetics, the Role of Pain in the Human Experience

  • Lesson 2: Pain Stories, Primary vs Carried Pain, Processing through Tonglen

  • Lesson 3: The Challenge, The Transformation Story, Activating a New Identity

  • Lesson 4: Integrating, Service as an Antidote to Pain

  • Lesson 5: Collective witnessing

During integration:

  • You bring what hurts, what feels stuck, what feels too much

  • Coaching stays constrained to the Pain to Power process

  • Group coaching is visible so everyone learns together

  • This remains intentionally narrow—so nothing gets bypassed

This isn’t something you read and hope sticks.
It’s a place to practice being with yourself differently.

A woman sitting on the floor, smiling with medical supplies around her, wearing blue scrubs and a blue cloth covering her head, with a yellow glove on her shoulder.

This work is honest about what it asks of all of us– and there are no easy buttons. But it is so worth it.

You’ll be asked to notice the urge to blame.
To sit with the discomfort of the idea that this moment might be happening for you, not to you.
To resist trauma bonding, rescuing, or reinforcing villain narratives.

You may feel grief, humiliation, or shame as truths are spoken aloud.

This is not for anyone who wants to stay in pain or use villainizing as a solution.
Your role here is not to coach others—it’s to witness, participate, and allow the process to work.

Because the truth is:

What’s harder long-term isn’t this work.
It’s showing up every day feeling trapped, disconnected, and slowly withering inside a life that once mattered to you.

Pain to Power Workshop

A woman sitting on the floor with a vintage microphone in her hand, smiling, with headphones on the ground beside her, against a plain gray background.

This workshop is for surgeons who are ready to:

  • be open to coaching

  • explore a new relationship with pain and healing

  • reclaim their capacity and presence

  • decide for themselves what they want—not just follow inherited paths

  • resist the cultural urges to villainize, identify as a victim, trauma bond

  • process deep pain (it doesn’t have to be just from your career as a surgeon)

    It’s for those who feel that whisper already:

You are powerful. You are okay. You are worthy.
You do make a positive difference.
You do not have to carry the full burden of a dysfunctional system alone.

The tone here is simple:
compassion, care, and power.

If you’re ready to step out of trauma response and into authorship of your life and career, you’re in the right place.

JOIN TODAY

21 POWERFUL CONVERSATIONS AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY

THE PRIVATE PODCAST

I want to tell you about something that already feels like a really special part of this experience.

I created a private podcast just for you inside Pain to Power.
It’s honestly been pouring out of me — the things I don’t usually say publicly, the parts that feel tender, honest, unfinished. This work feels so important, so missing in the world of medicine (and beyond) and I know I’m meant to be right here working on it.

In many ways, each podcast episode feels just as important as the live work we’ll be doing together. It is just me, my mic and you– the people who know this work is meant for them.

The best part is that you get access to it as soon as you join.
The episodes are already waiting for you.

Think of it as a place where you can listen quietly, on your own time, and let things land in a different way — without having to respond or perform.

I just recorded another very vulnerable share, and I can’t wait for you to hear it.

I’m really glad you’re here.

— Mel

Black and white photo of a woman sitting on the floor against a plain wall, wearing headphones and holding a microphone, smiling.

The Details

  • I’ve been taping a behind-the-scenes private podcast to go along with this work and I’m already 6 episodes in– all of which is available as soon as you purchase. Currently there are 21 episodes (lessons, group conversations, vulnerable shares)

  • From February 2 - March 2 you’ll get coaching and content support in a private facebook group just for us. This is where you’ll do the majority of the integration work. The facebook group will open on the first day of the program.

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Not sure if it’s for you? Let’s talk about it.

  • People join Pain to Power because something inside of them is tired of carrying pain alone. Not because it sounds nice. Not because they want another tool. Because continuing the way they are feels heavier than changing.

  • Therapy is private and individual. Pain to Power is relational. It shows you how your thinking and pain show up in real time—at work, in leadership, in moments where you feel trapped, defensive, or exhausted.

    This isn’t about fixing your past. It’s about changing how you live with yourself now.

  • In our group, you’re going to practice discernment.

    This work doesn’t compete with anything. It teaches you how to decide what’s useful and what isn’t. People who do well here don’t need a single authority to follow. They take responsibility for how they use the space.

    That’s the work.

  • You’re here because avoiding this hasn’t reduced the overwhelm.

    Like crying during a really good movie, this space helps you create space. It doesn’t add on to the overwhelm.

  • You’re here because isolation hasn’t worked.

    That thought comes from being highly competent and deeply alone with your inner world. In practice, what feels uniquely personal is widely shared. Seeing that—without being fixed or coddled—is what loosens its grip.

    Pain doesn’t resolve privately. It resolves in relationship.

  • You’re here because waiting for perfect timing keeps you stuck. And avoiding the work because you’re late to the game is just another excuse your scared brain offers.

    There’s no catching up. People get value because they engage honestly with what’s present. Starting imperfectly isn’t a flaw—it’s the work. The best time is always NOW.

  • You’re here because focus matters more than duration.

    This is short because it requires attention and participation. There’s no dragging it out, no passive consumption. You show up, you practice, you learn how to work with your mind under pressure.

  • You’re here because something inside you already knows.

    Discomfort doesn’t mean danger. It means you’re doing something unfamiliar instead of repeating what hasn’t worked. Certainty comes after action, not before it. Don’t believe me? See how you feel right after you push purchase, get that welcome email and stop carrying this pain alone.

Logistical Questions

  • I’ve specifically created a random assortment of times for calls in the hopes that you can at least get to one. But nothing is perfect because we’re coordinating with a lot of people and time zones. It is still going to be impactful to listen to the replays, which will be available on the Private Podcast within a few hours of the call.

  • Yes. Replays will be posted on the Private Podcast as soon as possible, likely within a few hours of each call.

  • The podcast will disappear after 30 days. The last day to listen will be on March 3rd. This is a limited-time course, intended to be experienced together as an intensive.

  • The Facebook Group will be archived on March 4th, so you’ll have full access to comment until midnight on March 3rd. However, our team will conclude our coaching and conversations on March 3rd at 6pm.

  • The short answer is yes, but I have no idea when. There are 3 more mini-courses coming that will build on this work and I want to keep the momentum up for those who are committed to transformation this year. My best guess is that it will be offered next year.

  • Simply- the pain that we carry affects everything, including our ability to integrate coaching, therapy, and other healing modalities. It blocks crucial wisdom, capacity, perspective that is foundational to the next courses.