From Corporate Burnout to Soul-Aligned Purpose: A Conversation About Kinesiology and Motherhood
Welcome to Mama What’s Next, a new career podcast for moms at the intersection of spirituality and expert career advice. This podcast is about trusting your inner voice and following the path that truly lights you up. Because, let’s be honest, life is too short to settle for anything less than your passion.
In today’s episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Melanie Herzog, a kinesiologist in Sydney, Australia. She works primarily with overwhelmed working moms. Our conversation touched on the transformative power of kinesiology, the importance of addressing root causes rather than symptoms, and how putting yourself first as a mother isn’t selfish—it’s necessary. Today she shares with us about her corporate career change.
What is Kinesiology?
As described in Better Health Victoria: ‘Kinesiology means ‘the study of movement’. The term is also used by complementary medicine practitioners to describe a form of therapy that uses muscle monitoring (biofeedback) to look at what may be causing ‘imbalances’ in the body and attempts to relieve these imbalances.’
Kinesiology is also different to physiotheraphy: while physiotherapy focuses on restoring physical function and your mobility after you have been injured or become ill, kinesiotherapy/kinesiology focuses on preventing injury in the first place.
Melanie explains to us that the kinesiology approach examines ‘unresolved stress reactions’ in a person and provides techniques intended to help the body’s natural healing process.
After struggling with knee issues and sciatica for years—issues that coincided with a challenging period in my life in Germany—I finally turned to kinesiology after trying “everything, everything, everything” without relief.
The experience was mind-blowing. It felt like the practitioner was speaking directly to my body, which was responding with answers. In just two sessions, issues that had plagued me for years began to resolve, and I walked away feeling calm and reconnected to myself.
Melanie explained kinesiology as “a non-invasive, client-centered, holistic, integrative modality that utilizes the skills of muscle monitoring to identify stresses within your body.” These stresses can be structural, physiological, biochemical, or emotional.
Unlike conventional approaches that focus on treating symptoms, kinesiology aims to identify and clear the root causes, allowing the body to return to homeostasis and self-heal. It’s about peeling back the layers of an onion to get to the core.
Beyond the Band-Aid Approach
A touching moment in our conversation came when Melanie shared her personal story. She was once on antidepressants and sleeping tablets due to unaddressed emotional difficulties.
“The antidepressants, did it help? Yes, it did. It numbed me. I didn’t have to feel it, but did it take away the sadness? Not really. The sadness only went away when I acknowledged it,” she revealed.
This highlighted something we both agreed on – that medicating symptoms might seem easier initially, but real healing comes from acknowledging and connecting with our emotions. When we ignore what our body is telling us, it eventually “screams” at us through pain. Sometimes – unfortunately – it takes us a long time to hear our body speak. Sometimes we need to feel the pain, we need to get sick, before we change something.
Supporting Overwhelmed Mothers
Melanie works primarily with working mothers who are stressed, overwhelmed, and anxious. They are essentially women like us who “live for their families, live for everyone else, doing for everyone else, just not doing anything for themselves.” Melanie says in our conversation.
And what does that result in?
Well – her cup is empty. She is exhausted. It takes a toll on her both physical and mental health.
The solution isn’t actually that complicated.
It requires her to shift perspective and understand: “There is nothing selfish about putting yourself first and your needs first, quite the opposite. Because if you’re in a good place, I can tell you your family follows.”
Melanie helps these working women move from a victim state to becoming creators of their reality. (makes me instantly think about Dr. Joe Dispenza listening to that sentence)
It’s not about doing less for others but about filling your cup first and giving from the overflow.
And it’s beautiful to be reminded of that here in our conversation (that got me emotional quite a few times).
Career Change can be scary (often it is: at first)
Especially when you’re already overwhelmed, but as Melanie says, you don’t have to walk this path alone. With the right support, small steps can lead to transformative change.
“Think about a mountain—when you get on top of that mountain and you have the view, it’s so worth it,” she said.
Melanie sees herself as her clients’ biggest cheerleader, celebrating small victories and helping them develop plans for success, including how to handle setbacks.
Helping You Find Your Dream Work
Our conversation ended with her sharing something beautiful about her career change: “When I left my corporate career, the day I walked out, I never looked back.”
She described her current work as her “dream job”—so fulfilling that it doesn’t even feel like work. It’s a powerful reminder that finding purpose-driven work is possible, even if it requires courage to make a change.
For all the mothers feeling trapped or unfulfilled, Melanie’s story is a glimmer of hope. It shows us all that there is a path to work that energizes us rather than depletes, that aligns with your soul’s purpose rather than just paying the bills. You may need that corporate career change or simply a new inspiration.
If you enjoyed this episode, I would be super grateful if you could leave me a review. It helps me to inspire more women to follow their true path.
See you next time and thanks for being part of Mama, what’s next.
