Laurel Mellin

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Personal Growth Expert

Laurel Mellin Quick Facts

Main Areas: Personal Growth; Happiness; Weight Loss
Career Focus: Author; Medical School Professor; Obesity Expert.
Affiliation: The Institute for Health Solutions; University of California, San Francisco

Laurel Mellin developed The Solution, a scientifically proven method for adults to turn off their drive for all the common excesses and experience more emotional balance, relationship intimacy, and spiritual connection. This new method, described in her book The Pathway, goes to the roots of not just one of the common excesses but all of them: overeating, overspending, overworking, drinking too much, and smoking, as well as the softer excesses like people-pleasing, rescuing others, putting up walls, and thinking too much. Mellin, who first applied this method to weight loss, is an associate clinical professor of family and community medicine and pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.

The Solution method is based on the scientific literature that since 1940 has shown that at the roots of excessive behaviors, other than genetics, is the need for two very basic internal skills: self-nurturing and effective limits. Mastering these skills changes nearly every aspect of life. The first time that most people use the skills, they immediately shift their emotional state from imbalance to balance and their drive for another cookie, drink, or spending spree fades. However, the state of balance does not last. For emotional balance is a product of the feeling brain and the feeling brain only chances with practice. However, as people stay on the “pathway” of using these skills, their personal balance becomes spontaneous and lasting. They typically experience a Solution, that is, freedom from all the excessive appetites and an abundance of all the rewards of a happy, healthy life (balance, integration, sanctuary, intimacy, vibrancy and spirituality).

The method is so simple that Mellin first taught it to children and so powerful that Health magazine named it as one of the top ten medical advances of 2000. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Illinois, Chicago have shown that users of The Solution, on average, feel healthier and happier right away, and these changes last years later without ongoing medications, diets, or support. More than 200,000 people have used this method. Mellin, the director of the Institute for Health Solutions, lectures extensively to health professionals and self-help groups.

Other Programs & Highlights

Laurel Mellin has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today Show, Good Morning America, and the CBS Evening News. Her work has been featured in Time, Life, Newsweek, Fortune, Shape, U.S. News & World Report, and every major women’s magazines. It has outstanding endorsements, including C. Everett Koop, former surgeon general.

The SHAPEDOWN Program has been selected by the American Medical Association at its national congress as an exemplary health promotion program. It has also received an award for excellence in consumer education from the National Food and Drug Administration.

Favorite Quotes & Thoughts from Laurel Mellin

• Self-nurturing is the skill of checking our feelings and needs throughout the day, so we know and honor ourselves and meet our needs more often.

• Effective limits is the skill of having reasonable expectations—not too harsh or too easy –and following through with them, so we can take action and have more power and greater safety in our lives.

• If you have a truckload of insight and nickel, you only have five cents.

• Traditional interventions—insight, knowledge, planning and deciding—are processed primarily by the thinking brain. Unfortunately, there is no significant relationship between what is processed by the thinking brain our most primitive human drives. That’s why you can have a Ph.D. in nutrition and an eating disorder. True transformation comes from revising the feeling brain.

• On the day that you were born, you had all the inherent strength, goodness and wisdom you would ever need. All that you required were the tools to access it. These two skills –nurturing and limits—are those tools.

Getting Started With Laurel Mellin

Before jumping right into The Solution, I suggest you start by going to The Solution website at www.thepathway.org. You will have the opportunity to learn more about the program, get the answers to frequently asked questions, and take a self-test to determine your reason for using The Solution. The Solution was based on research that started over 20 years ago and is proven to work in many areas of your life.

Once you become familiar with The Solution, you should then read Laurel Mellin’s book, The Pathway, to get a better understanding of it, so you can put it into action. If you want the skills to become spontaneous and lasting, consider participating in the training. It’s based on her course, which involves completing six Solution Kits (workbooks and CDs). You can use them on your own, with support from The Solution Internet community, through local self-help Solution Circle or professionally-conducted Solution Groups.

Another of Mellin’s books, The Solution: 6 Winning Ways to Permanent Weight Loss, will help those who particularly want to end their overeating. If this is the case for you, Mellin recommends that you read this book in addition to The Pathway.

This approach can also be used to resolve child obesity. Mellin’s SHAPEDOWN Program, a family-based approach to child and adolescent obesity, is based on The Solution. The program targets nutrition and activity in both children and their parents and teaches the skills of nurturing and limits to parents and children alike. Again, before starting it right away, it would be best to read more about it. Visit www.shapedown.com to learn if SHAPEDOWN is right for your family. If so, look into ordering the SHAPEDOWN Getting Started Family Pack, which is described on the website.