You're listening to the Vibrant Happy Women Podcast, episode number seven.

I'd been stuck in a pattern of toxic relationships my whole life, beginning when I was a child.

Welcome to the Vibrant Happy Women Podcast, stories of vibrant women living happy lives.

And now your host, Jen Ridey.

In our last episode, I spoke with Laura Ball, and she shared her story of leaving college at age 18 to go home and care

for her 13-year-old sister when their parents died. Today I'm speaking with Melanie Benayette.

She is an author, an artist, and a health coach. Melanie shares her story of healing from

physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in finding a vibrant and happy life today.

I'm so happy to introduce my guest today, Melanie Benyatt.

Melanie is a certified holistic health coach, an author, and a professional artist.

She lives in the beautiful cool pines of Prescott, Arizona.

Melanie is the author of an award-winning book titled, Stretch Your Brave, Hack Your Story. Melanie, how are you doing today? I'm really

excited to be on your show. This is right in line with things I like to talk about, so. Nice. It's going to be

fun. So I've given our listeners just a bit of a taste about you.

So take a minute and fill in anything that was missing from that bio.

Yeah.

So I have a lot of stories to tell, which is why I wrote that book last year.

So I don't know exactly what I could fill in, except that, yeah, probably the one story I like to tell has to do with something that ended up sending me to jail.

Oh, let's go right there.

I would assume that's related to your low point in life when we like to talk about that.

But first, let's back up a tiny bit. We love to start our show

with a favorite quote or a personal motto if you want to share that. Sure. Well, over years ago,

...