Melissa Dierker
Board Member
(Pronoun: She, Her)
Melissa is a social worker, and a trauma informed yoga teacher for youth. Melissa has worked with kids in the foster care system, and adoption for over 10 years. She has worked for the state of Missouri with the Children's Division for 5 year as a social worker supporting kids and families in foster care, supporting families to help them keep custody of their children, and as an adoption specialist supporting adoptive families as they adopted local youth. Melissa then worked for Children's Home Society (now Family Forward) a local non-profit running their support groups for kids in foster care and who were adopted, doing intake, writing home studies and doing training. Melissa attended Yoga Teacher Training and graduated in Fall of 2016 with Yoga Buzz, a local non-profit, after learning how trauma is stored in the body.
Simply put, trauma is a response to a deeply upsetting or disturbing experience, situation or event that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope. Traumas can also become stuck in the body. Trauma-informed teaching requires an awareness of how trauma can present differently from person to person. People who experience trauma may be frequently triggered, or reminded of their traumas. When this happens, the brain begins to operate with a response frequently referred to as fight, flight or freeze.
Melissa knows that, in order for yoga to be accessible to all youth it needs to be taught in a trauma-informed approach, and cannot be a privilege-based service. Trauma informed yoga adapts the practice of yoga so that everyone who participates can feel successful, safe and included. In her trauma-informed yoga classes Melissa tries to eliminate as many triggers as possible. There is an intentional difference in the shapes that are taught and in the languaging used during class. Participants have control over how they feel and move in their own bodies.
Melissa started her own trauma-informed yoga business, Complete Harmony, in February 2017, and purchased her own brick and mortar studio in June 2019. Melissa loves to bring the healing power of mindfulness and yoga to local youth at schools, domestic violence shelters, LGBTQIA+ teens who are unhoused, youth who have lost a family member due to hospice, in the studio and so much more. Melissa truly believes movement and mindfulness are ways that humxns can utilize to process the trauma in their lives. In her spare time Melissa loves singing, bonfires with friends, coffee, and spending time with her family.