On growing up at fifty, practice as a modern-day chaplain and cultivating a domestic monastery.

• (1:48) - Parenting Practices and Transitions
• (3:51) - Addiction Recovery and Personal Experience
• (5:33) - Talking to Children About Addiction
• (10:02) - Living in a Domestic Monastery
• (15:24) - Marriage and Personal Growth
• (23:50) - Chaplaincy and Palliative Care
• (26:13) - End-of-Life Celebrations and Legacy
• (29:07) - Connecting with the Community and Future Plans

Melissa Berry Appleton is a Buddhist Chaplain, lay ordained in the Soto Zen Prajna Mountain Order, by Roshi Joan Halifax of Upaya Zen Center.

Currently serving as a Chaplain with the University of British Columbia Okanagan, British Columbia Interior Health Physicians and the clinical counselling and social work graduate intern practicum program, Melissa has worked as a front-line worker in geriatric cognitive impairments, palliative care, and residential treatment centers for addiction.

Almost complete with her Masters of Clinical Counselling in Psychology she's practiced and taught yoga, somatics and meditation for more than 20 years.

Melissa is mama to three incredible humans now launching as young adults; her deep commitment to practice in the Domestic Monastery is her greatest source.