grateful || melissa shares

Dear clients,
This is such a special read. Be sure to go all the way to the end, because wow. Just wow.

And dear Melissa,
I do remember you and I remember how it was one of the first time I had really met my online clients out in public and how amazing that felt. Then hearing snips of your story and pinching myself that I had a hand in it. Thank you for being my client and sharing with us. 

xx – Bethany

I’ve been wanting to reach out since the moment I started be.come, but I could never get the words right; that’s how much this means to me.

I found Bethany and be.come through Nico actually. At first I thought, “cool, fitness. I’d like to try.” I’d always been active growing up, always a dancer but since I became a young adult, movement has become scarce, and I didn’t like that. I tried different fitness routines but nothing stuck. I’d give up because I didn’t come to love anything I tried. Back story; I’ve always had a little tinge of anxiety. I’ve always given myself tough love and pushed through. But at 23, I experienced loss and grief for the first time. And for the first time, I could not push through.

My anxiety left me too scared to leave my house. I have never felt so low, so powerless. I had to explain to my closest friends what was going on in my head, and looking back, I am proud of who I was then. For how I handled it. I kept my friends close, just through the phone. Back then though, I was ashamed. I felt completely trapped in my head. Completely exhausted. I went back to therapy. Once again, avoiding the problems, talking about little things that didn’t help me overcome what I was going through.

And then I thought about Bethany. This was January 2018, be.come was in the beta stage, and I knew I had to do something, something for my mental health.  be.come was something that I completely took to. Bethany, you gave me an escape from my head. If only for 25 minutes at a time, you let me focus on my body. On how I felt. I’m crying as I write this, because of how beautiful be.come is. I think it saved me.

I became stronger. I became more confident. I learned to accept my body for everything it does for me, I felt completely beautiful inside and out. On days when I felt in shape, even more so on days I felt bloated. I caught myself saying things like “oh hello, little stomach roll. You are adorable!” And then, I found myself saying things like “I feel so much happier after working out” and “I’m so stressed, I’m going to be.come to clear my head” and “wow, I feel so good”.

And here I am, over a year later, still be.coming. This has been the only fitness routine I have ever stuck with. Because I am working out for my mental health. I now find myself saying things like “I was so distraught and stressed today, I can’t wait to be.come later.” It is NEVER about ‘I ate too much’. Never. And here’s the funny thing. As I started becoming stronger through be.come, I pushed myself out of the house, out of my comfort zone a little more each week. I’d take myself on self love trips from Long Island into NYC.

One of these trips, I felt a little more anxious than I was used to. I pushed myself, me and my mom were walking from Brooklyn to Queens that day. And guess what. We passed a bookstore along the way. Word. And by chance, Nico was doing a book signing for their new book of poetry. Of course we had to go in. And we did. And I noticed right away, there was Bethany.

Bethany – I am that young girl who went straight up to you trying to find the words to explain how much be.come means to me. I don’t know if you remember, but I always will. Thank you for teaching me to love my body no matter what. Most importantly, thank you for getting me out of my own head back then, and for giving me something to do as an act of self love whenever I feel that sense of powerlessness creeping back in. be.come has started a beautiful journey of self love for me. It was the very beginning of me accepting who I was and figuring out how to be who I want to be. Within the past year, I have done so much that I am so proud of. And those little steps I took to NYC each week? Well, about 6 months ago they took me all the way to New Orleans, a solo self love trip!

I’ll never be able to say thank you enough.

Love always,
Melissa P.