Today we’d like to introduce you to Melissa Pollock.
Melissa, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
In retrospect, I can say my journey looks relatively linear. I imagine my story might sound to other healing professionals who have an innate interest and connection with people and pursue the necessary educational/professional steps to forge a career. My journey, however, felt and still feels much different than that. As a young Black girl growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, I saw a lot of people who had the things I wanted. It was difficult to see them as role models because none of them looked like me. I was the only Black student in my grade up until junior high, and had no Black teachers in elementary school and just on upon finishing High School. Feeling different is an old feeling for me. My father died just before I turned 18. This felt like a finality to me, and it instilled an anxiety that was not present before.
Because of this and the fact that my family struggled financially, “the necessary educational steps” mentioned above felt more like monumental climbs. I thrived in an academic environment —but funding my education through loans and scholarships and not knowing how each semester would play out took a toll on me. Managing grief and anxiety on top of this had me striving for stability which I linked to finishing school.
Fast forward to finishing undergraduate school, I did what most of us do, I looked in to the career I wanted and carved a path that got me there. I attended the University of Michigan School of Social Work, in my time in mentorship there I experienced profound training that built a foundation of confidence in my work. continued training there at the Mary A. Rackham Institute, Psychological Clinic to obtain my full license. This afforded me unique opportunities to develop clinical content for other university programs.
When we relocated to San Diego 3.5 years ago, I sought more excellent training because I believed it was what I needed to become the therapist (and person) I wanted to be. I worked at the University of California San Diego Eating Disorders Center and as I began to make home in California, I began to crave a sense of simplicity and full acceptance of myself outside of the roles I had been conditioned to play.
In all of the academic and professional settings, I was the only Black or one of two Black clinicians. But as my confidence grew, and I did my own healing I began to recognize my feelings of difference as signals that I do not need to live another version of someone else’s life— I needed to live mine.
My moving to San Diego coincided with the beginning of another important journey for me, motherhood. Well I was excited about the advancements in my career, I felt I was leaving behind another important dream of mine which was to in spend most of my time during my children’s formative years with them. We’ve all been told you can’t have the best of both worlds. But in the last year, I began to ask an important question, why can’t I? I shifted my intentions in life to a commitment to saying yes to my innate aspirations. When I decided to live my own life, I left behind a great full-time job to take a risk, but as Santigold sings “I’m not a gambler, but I’d put the money on myself.”
This was an important transition from a stable predictable life to one of total wellness and true purpose. I get to be the exact same me in all the important avenues of my life, therapy, motherhood and my key relationships instead of playing roles that I thought I had to and giving up things along the way. I reflect this in my work with my clients and help them to achieve stability from anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use and other mental health concerns. From a stable place, my clients and I work to deepen meaning and discover their unique potential that has been lost or clouded my conditioning and fear.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The aspects that we’re all made to believe are easy and doable, like getting the necessary degrees proved to be the most difficult part for me personally. My professional and academic successes were happening amidst a backdrop of anxiety and Imposter Syndrome.
As I’ve worked through this and other limiting core beliefs, I have discovered some truths about myself and my reality that have helped traditionally difficult seeming parts come naturally. When COVID-19 hit with its restrictions I was forced to work from home. I was lucky enough to do this, and it afforded me the time to reflect on the ways in which working for a group private practice felt limiting for me. Without the complications of needing to immediately find rental space I used to the opportunity to start my own private practice.
Beginning a practice has been a lifelong goal and one that felt far away, even as of last year. But this catalyst provided me clarity in my unique services and value, when I believed I could do it, it quickly ended up done.
We’d love to hear more about your practice.
I built my private practice on these ideas: that while traditional therapy gets us to stability, we all crave much more than a stable life. We can have a deeply meaningful and purposeful life that feels easy if we allow it. I draw on ideas of consciousness, presence and intentionally to help people live the lives they’d maybe only dreamed of. Or if they were like me, lives that they could even imagine while striving for stability. We work towards things that increase clients’ sense of esteem and worthiness; we work toward a life that feels good to live.
My decision to pursue social work in graduate school over psychology is one that I’ll forever cherish. The mission and values of social work as a profession set the foundation for the values I follow in my life. Social justice, human connection, service to community, and the innate dignity and worth of people are guideposts for me in living my most purposeful life.
In my work, I am able to channel my creativity my making content for my Instagram and blog, I designed and a led corporate mindfulness training to help employees cope with undeniable stressors.
The newest iteration is a Mutual Aid program I call Communal Connections. I advocate for and receive donations from community members and use it to buy groceries, supplement respite care, rent fees and other applicable expenses for other community members in need. I am most proud of the impact of this program as well as my leading the corporate and local donation-based meditations.
Currently, I focus on black and other traditionally marginalized groups in allocating these funds and I provide free or discounted therapy for these folks as well.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Early in my life, I fully believed I had bad luck. I could find a hundred examples to confirm this up until I truly started working on myself. As things began to work out for me, I would tell myself the affirmation “things are always working out for my highest good.” To date, I cannot find any examples that prove the contrary. When I believed I was lucky, I only noticed luck. In times of tremendous professional stress for many small business owners, I have believed and cultivated that my unique value provides me all the luck I need.
Contact Info:
- Website: Melissapollockintentionaltherapy.com
- Email: melissapollocklcsw@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/intentionaltherapy/
- Other: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/melissa-pollock-san-diego-ca/435733
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