Melissa Kaplan, CEO & Founder of EmBody the Revolution, somatic Practitioner & author of Unguarded
About Melissa Kaplan
Melissa guides women to use the awakening force of eros to dissolve their defenses & cultivate greater intimacy with themselves, others & nature.
Her radical, embodied and trauma-informed approach invites all beings to break free from internalized patriarchy so they can gain full access to their sexuality, creativity, eroticism and spirituality.
Melissa knows from her own personal experience and through facilitating her clients’ revolution that the only way to heal the split between heart and sex, spirit and eros, self and nature is by unlearning certainty, letting go of the linear path and embracing the meandering, messy, mysterious unknown. The core philosophy of her approach is based on evolving the work of the Core Energetics Institute into a more integrated framework that actively strikes at the heart of internalized patriarchy and grounds us in a more liberated approach that includes the healing of the deep feminine.
Working with Melissa requires radical honesty. Clients often feel awakened, challenged, undone, and erotically and spiritually charged when working with her. They end up questioning everything they believed was true and discovering the truth in their bodies that has been buried for a long time. As they re-member and reclaim their wild vitality, sexuality and connection to eros, they reconnect with their wisdom and power. They create a radically alive existence and do what they came here to do in this lifetime.
"To live outside the law you must be honest."
Bob Dylan
Melissa's Story
The Journey to Embodying the Revolution
Before finding her purpose as an honest outlaw and founding EmBody the Revolution, Melissa was the Executive Director of Hadassah International for 13 years. Responsible for global fundraising and development, she fostered medical collaborations among countries, governments and institutions, and led staff, boards and volunteers in more than 15 countries. Based in New York City, Zurich and Jerusalem, she was a radical innovator in the non-profit field, driven to impact change on a global level by advancing health and peace through medicine.
Melissa is an alumna of Harvard Business School with a focus on Executive Leadership and holds a master’s degree in Public Administration. She was a Graduate Fellow for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. She facilitated “The America Project,” at The Carter Center, which built corporate and community partnerships to support national urban policy. She also served in the AmeriCorps-Vista program, creating a statewide sustainable economic development program in the rural coal mining towns of Alabama and working with the mentally ill and gang communities in Chicago, Illinois.
“A life truly lived constantly burns away veils of illusion, burns away what is no longer relevant, gradually reveals our essence, until, at last, we are strong enough to stand in our naked truth.”
Marion Woodman
When Melissa was approaching her 40th birthday, she took stock of her life and realized she hadn’t been fully living it. Although her life looked stellar from the outside, she felt like a hollow girl in a woman’s body, performing life and hiding shameful secrets. In a soul-searching conversation with a long-time friend she admitted that she’d been running from her calling for 20 years and that it was time to uncover it.
Their conversation launched her into the mysterious unraveling of life as she’d known it. She began to study Core Energetics. She experienced a crisis and awakening during that time, which she writes about in her memoir, Unguarded. Her journey led her to become a Core Energetics practitioner and faculty at their Institute. She’s also studied Cultural Activism at the Orphan Wisdom School, Sexological Bodywork with Pamela Madsen and Energy Healing with Lynn Kreaden.
“The choice to no longer abandon myself became the core of my liberation.”
Melissa Kaplan
Photo Credit: Melissa Kaplan
Growing up in Georgia, the daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher, Melissa learned that her sexuality and erotic connection to her body were not to be celebrated but submerged in the hidden corners of the basement. Separation from nature and internalizing the patriarchal view of dominion over others further exiled her instinctual spirit-child.
But now, several decades later, her hollow girl has been filled with the truth of her own body. Her sexuality and spirituality have been reclaimed from the dark corners they were once relegated to. Hand in hand with her spirit-child, Melissa continues to whisper her longings to invisible beings, animals and rocks and knows they are speaking back to her. She is deeply rooted into self and devoted to her erotic, wild nature, living radiant, unguarded and wide open.
