The Witch in the Lab Coat

How I stopped trying on costumes and started claiming myself

There’s a reason I’m a witch in a lab coat.

At the beginning of this year, I would have been a person standing in the middle of a room in a unicorn onesie surrounded by costumes including a plethora of wigs—at least three of them rainbow. There would be a pantsuit or two, a pile of waterproof aprons, athletic wear, a bunch of lingerie, casual jumpsuits in a variety of fabrics and designs, leggings with cats on the knees, tights of every color, tutus, a variety of wings and headbands with antennae, a lab coat or two, shoes ranging from Doc Martens to stilettos, and more hats than you can imagine!

There would be gear as well. Guitars, keyboards, a tile cutter and piles of tiles, shelves of books about everything from alternative relationship structures to neurodiversity to travel, a karaoke machine, paper and art supplies strewn everywhere, piles of crafting paper, used tables and frames of all shapes and sizes purchased from thrift stores or donated by friends.

I’d pick up one thing and put on an outfit and use it for a time and then put it down. Each iteration of me resonated—well, that’s not entirely true. Some of them I put down instantly, like the pantsuit. Oh, and also the athletic gear—what was I thinking? I don’t like Jazzercise or running. There was no sense in the chaos. I had no idea how all of these Mels fit together. I couldn’t tell the story of me and have it gel in any manageable way.

And then I got a text from a man I met last year at a weekend retreat with the Human Awareness Institute (HAI). Ryan said he was going to be facilitating an online workshop called The Creator Retreat that I might be interested in and he sent me a link for the application. It was a 10-month commitment with meetings every Thursday morning. I didn’t even read the description. I just thought, well I’m a creator and Ryan is awesome, so why not! I filled out the application. I had no idea at the time that “creator” has a specific meaning in SubstackLand. I didn’t even have a Substack. In fact, I had never been on Substack.

A month later, I had an interview with TeriLeigh and Ryan. They were going to choose 20 participants to launch this first iteration of the workshop. I made the cut. I’m going to attribute that to the fact that I had rainbow hair at the time and also that I am a relatively energetic A-student! Somehow my non-existent Substack didn’t matter.

We had a meet and greet on Zoom in February and that’s when I realized this was actually about Substack and I should probably get myself one of those. The cohort was intimidating at first—published writers, a documentarian, international speakers, a healer, a doctor. But within a few weeks, none of those credentials mattered. We were just sensitive souls supporting each other along our individual paths.

The first official session plunged me right in. March was “Spiritual Inner Work & Business Outer Action.” It started with the spiritual inner work—which has been a life long challenge for me. I’d tried meditation and yoga for years and failed miserably at both. My brain doesn’t get quiet. I’d sit cross-legged with my hands in some woo-woo pose where you make that OK sign with your hands and breathe into whatever, waiting for the silence everyone promised. It never came. And yoga? All those perfectly dressed, limber women made me feel entirely inadequate in my curvy 4’11” body and whatever sweatpants I could find.

But TeriLeigh said all I needed to do with Yoga Nidra was lie down and listen. That’s it. So I gave it a try. Now it’s my nightly practice.

That small permission—just lie down and listen—opened something. I’d paid for this workshop. Why not just try everything they suggested? I’d done that in AA when I was dealing with alcohol addiction. Take the suggestions. See what happens.

So when they told me to talk to my water before drinking it, I did. It felt ridiculous the first time, standing in my kitchen whispering intentions to a glass of tap water. But I did it anyway. Water is life, they said—drink that intention into the cells of your body.

I kept going. Created a sankalpa—a mantra tied to my breath. Learned simple physical exercises for each chakra through something called the MOZI Method. Each suggestion felt a little more out there than the last, but I kept saying yes.

And then one Thursday morning, I heard myself say it out loud in the group: “Maybe I am a witch.”

I said it tentatively, almost like a question. But something shifted when I spoke it. People nodded. Nobody laughed. And things started happening—small things at first, then bigger ones. Synchronicities. Connections. A sense that I was tapping into something real.

I still needed my lab coat, though. I needed to see results, to feel them in my body. And I did. That was proof enough.

The truth is, I’d already stumbled into spirituality once before without realizing it.

When I got sober, they told me I needed a higher power. Fuck that! That was my first reaction. God was not a part of my life. I had seen the harm that organized religion can do up front and center and I was having no part of it. I didn’t know yet that spirituality and religion were two very different things. I kept going to meetings, I got a sponsor, I did the 12 steps, and I waited to see if something would happen. If a higher power would show up.

And then she did. Flo had been with me all the time. When I recognized her and could name her—that sense of being “in the flow” where things easily reveal themselves—something clicked. All I have to do is follow the next step along the path that I didn’t force into creation. When I do that there is something in me connected to the larger universe that moves me closer to a life that feels authentic and healing.

It worked. Flo kept me sober. Flo got me through the hardest days of early recovery. But I never called it spirituality. I called it practical. I called it survival.

Now, sitting in these Thursday morning Creator Retreat sessions, talking to my water and claiming my inner witch, I realized what I’d been doing over these past few years. I’d been building a relationship with something I couldn’t see or prove but could absolutely feel. I’d been practicing trust in the unseen. And I’d been writing about it—attempting to describe the indescribable.

The lab coat stays on. I still need things to make sense, to show results. But the witch hat? That was Flo in a different form. That was me finally admitting I’d been working with the mystery all along.

Over the months that followed, the practices stopped feeling like experiments and started feeling like necessities.

When I moved from Portland to Fiddletown I was encouraged to find a grandmother tree by Sam. She’s a Forest Therapist and one of my Creator Retreat buddies. I did. My grandmother tree is an old, gnarled oak tree at the top of the hill by a picnic table. I can see her from my bedroom. I’ll sit and write or play music at that picnic table and my grandmother tree is the only witness and I feel connected to the world.

When one of the Creator Retreat participants offered a Theta Healing session I thought it was a bridge too far. Seriously, we are going to sit on Zoom together and go up past the moon on a beam of light and connect and hold hands on some plane where Creator/Higher Power/Whatever hangs out and we’re going to ask for healing?

Well, that’s exactly what Kyle did and it cracked something open I didn’t know was stuck. I went in skeptical—my lab coat firmly buttoned up—and came out sobbing in a way that felt like release rather than breakdown. I asked for healing on a belief I’d been carrying about not deserving love unless I was useful to someone and I felt it lift. Not intellectually—I felt it leave my body. I’ve been a part of a few sessions since then and I can see the changes in my life. Again, how can I describe the indescribable?

The sankalpa I’d created evolves and is now as automatic as breathing. My water is talked to every day. The MOZI exercises are my anchor on a daily basis. Yoga Nidra is my bridge to sleep. These aren’t party tricks or spiritual bypassing. They are tools that work, and I have the proof in my own nervous system. Your results may vary.

I’ve started saying “I am a witch” without the “maybe.” The lab coat stays on—I still need to see results, to track what works and what doesn’t. But the witch hat fits now. It’s not a costume anymore.

Then last weekend I went back to HAI for a retreat called Exploring Spirituality & Sexuality, and everything I thought I understood about connection—to myself, to others, to the divine—got turned inside out.

I can’t tell you everything that happened at that retreat. Some of it lives in my body in ways that words would diminish. But I can tell you this: for three days, I practiced being seen. Fully seen. Not the curated version I show the world, not the competent Mel or the creative Mel or the sober Mel—just me, raw and present.

We did exercises in radical vulnerability. We held eye contact until the masks fell away. We spoke truths we’d been too afraid to name. We moved our bodies in ways that felt ridiculous and then felt sacred. And somewhere in all of that—in the being held, in the being witnessed, in the permission to be messy and holy at the same time—something in me shifted at a level I can only describe as cellular.

I started to see the humans around me as messengers offering lessons that I can take or leave as needed. In a small group session as we were talking about spirituality, the man sitting next to me said: “God is in a church like time is in a clock.”

I caught my breath. Mind blown. I looked over at Helen, an older woman with a huge heart, a nurturing nature, and a wild sense of humor. She’s been a part of HAI for years. We gasped together.

That idea had never entered my consciousness, and what it did in one fell swoop was remove the last vestige of my resentment toward organized religion and point to the truth that god—or higher power or the universe or whatever resonates for you and your connection to the divine—is everywhere.

Time isn’t inside the clock. The clock is just a tool we created to measure and track something that exists with or without it. God isn’t inside the church. The church is just a container some people built to help them access something that’s already present.

Flo. My grandmother tree. The water I talk to every morning. The breath I tie to my sankalpa. The witch hat I finally claimed. They’re all clocks or churches. Different ways of measuring, accessing, trusting the mystery that’s been there all along.

The lab coat lets me observe. The witch hat lets me participate. And somewhere between the two, I found a way to be both grounded and open, both skeptical and trusting, both rigorous and reverent.

I’m a witch in a lab coat because I need both. Because mystery deserves investigation, and investigation is its own kind of magic.

And that, my friends, is as close as I can get to describing the indescribable.

In addition to my Saturday Life Stories Series, I have my Analog Letters Series where I hand make and write a letter to a human that is important to me. The practice has been such an experience of gratitude and connection in my life! Maybe you want to feel that too!

Start 2026 with intention and gratitude—join the Love Lab for six Tuesday evenings of letters, art, and community.

The Analog Letters Journey departs January 13, 2026. Two sessions are available. Seats are limited to 10 participants per session:

SESSION A - 4:30PM PT / 6:30PM ET

SESSION B - 6:30PM PT / 9:30PM ET

The first six registrations get Early Bird pricing ($120). Standard Registration is $150.