Today we’d like to introduce Michelle aka “Meechi!” Meechi is our Activities Director here at SLR. She founded and created the programming for our Activities Department. Not only is she is a certified Yoga instructor, she’s also a Certified Personal Trainer and is currently studying to become a Yoga Therapist!!
Meechi incorporates Yoga, Recovery Group Fitness, personal training, creative art expressions, SCARS Trigger Awareness and even Field Day into our clients’ treatment programs. She believes that physical health is just as important to recovery as mental and spiritual health. At Serenity Light Recovery, she focuses on creating a fitness tribe that motivates one another, a group of like-minded people who help each other stay accountable!
Meechi loves to motivate and encourage individuals to have fun in sobriety and teaches clients to embrace and cultivate their “You-niqueness” through art and physical activities. She has an incredible passion for helping others thrive in their recovery journey. A deep seeded passion of Meechi’s is her love for going on nature walks, collecting things that ‘speak’ to her and turning them into art. “My personal recovery journey is very eclectic and beautiful. For me, it’s all about seeking a spiritual connection with my higher power whom I choose to call God; and it is by staying true to this connection that I have experienced self-acceptance, love and a burning determination to thrive in all I do.”
We asked Meechi a few questions to get her perspective on a few important matters.
1. What drives you to show up every day?
Being able to witness God’s amazing grace everyday drives me to show up to work with my best attitude on. I love what I do at Serenity Light Recovery, I love the people I work with and I truly enjoy working with our clients. Being a person in recovery myself, I am driven and passionate to share what I have learned and experienced in my journey with our clients. SLR is not just a job for me, it is my passion and purpose, I have the opportunity to give back each and every day and make a difference in someone’s life, for me that’s what life is all about, that’s what recovery is all about.
At SLR there is an excellent dynamic, we all work together as a compassionate and cohesive team. We are truly a work family. Each of us goes above and beyond on a daily basis to help make our clients life better.
2. What’s your favorite thing about working at SLR?
Hands down, The Miracle Belly Laughs!!! I work with individuals who are at their absolute rock bottom, so hearing someone belly laugh for the first time in a VERY long time is such an incredibly powerful and joyful moment, the sound of hope being set free. My team hosts field day once a month; SLR field day is an opportunity for our clients to learn how to have fun and enjoy themselves completely free from drugs and alcohol. For a lot of our clients, field day is a major turning point in their life, they are able to experience true freedom from their old life, “the dark days” and freedom to be themselves!
3. What’s your advice for someone contemplating a major life change (i.e. getting sober/going to treatment)?
It is never easy going through a major life change. My best advice is to allow people who want the absolute best for you to support and encourage you in this journey.
For me, I struggled letting people in. I didn’t want anyone to see my mess because in my mind if they knew what was really going on in my head and in my life, they would surely jump ship and run as fast as they could in the opposite way. In my experience, this could not be farther from the truth.
For the longest time I reached for pills, alcohol and more pills to find peace from intense anxiety and depression, this took me down the darkest hole I have ever experience. What I was desperately seeking was ultimate, lasting peace, peace that didn’t come with terrible consequences attached.
Today, I can gratefully say recovery has led me to a path to true peace and ultimate freedom, peace and freedom that only comes from a relationship with a power greater than myself. This way of life is waiting for you too! Allow people in to help you; reach out to someone you see thriving in their own recovery and ask them how they did it, then be willing to take their suggestions. “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” -Socrates
Namaste.
As our CEO, Heather’s main calling is to stay true to the vision of the organization, which is saving lives and striving to redefine statistics by raising the standard of care with evolving treatment methods. Heather studied psychology at LSU and both the main and Clear Lake campuses of the University of Houston, and she is a certified IASIS provider and CPI instructor. She’s been helping people in recovery since 2011. Heather’s motto to live by is “I am not what I’ve done; I am what I’ve overcome.”
