YDGM Ep 007: Dr Melissa Longo

I remember being in my early 20s as a student in chiropractic school when I’d go to as many seminars as possible because the fees were so low for our student rates. I’d sit and listen to many different speakers present, and I was always incredibly inspired by the women chiropractors who spoke about their lives, their practices, and their kids, and how they juggled everything. I sat there thinking, “I wanna be just like them.”

To grab her phrase from her podcast, Melissa is one of those rockstar chiropractor moms who inspires me. It’s a honor being in her circle as one of her peers, and to be able to get to know her.

In this episode, she shares about how she got married and then got pregnant in her last year of chiropractic school. 

“I graduated and had my son four days later.”

She talks about her fast birth of her first child, “My son was born very quickly. It was a little bit of a surreal experience. It was literally like three hours from start to finish … and before you knew it, boom, he was there in my arms.”

I was impressed with her level of clarity and groundedness. She said she attributed that to her being married to her chiropractor husband at the time, both sharing the same dream of starting a family letting it happen naturally. The impressive part was about when in the span of only six months, she graduated, had her first son, then moved and opened up a practice together with her husband.

“It is what it is. It’s the way it was supposed to play out for me. And we literally graduated, I had my first son, we moved to Toronto, we bought our first house, we opened our practice. We did all these major life things in a six month period and we didn’t know any other way. You just figure things out as you go along.”

Melissa also goes on to share about how, after her divorce, she handled and figured out life as a single mom, raising two boys. 

“You know, what your kids need is love. If kids are misbehaving, it always comes back to ‘where is the hurt here’. Because I don’t believe the majority of kids are trying to be manipulative. They are trying to communicate in whatever way they can that they have a need that’s not being met. It’s not that they are trying to cause problems. They are reacting to something. What’s this behavior coming from? What’s the real underlying situation here? It’s just remembering that kids just really want your love and attention. They just want your time.

She shares how important it is for us mothers to take time for self-care. 

“I also think it’s important as moms to not only be taking care of yourselves because it gives you so much back, but to continue to nurture yourself because there’s going come a time when your children are not gonna be your sole existence. It can be really difficult for some women who don’t have any sense of self or any sense of contribution or anything that gives them joy and happiness …”

Melissa is truly inspiring, a leader in our chiropractic profession, a role model, and a mentor. And I’m sure that her two sons would say that above everything, she’s a super rockstar mom.

She’s awesome and I loved getting to know her on this podcast episode.

Enjoy.

To connect with Dr Melissa Longo, check out her website http://drmelissa.ca/ 

Also, be sure to check out her podcast, Rockstar Doctor Moms https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/rockstar-doctor-moms-chiropractic-life-practice/id1181580224?mt=2