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These Hampton Roads women didn’t give up when life threw them curveballs.“Embrace the mess,” Lauren Wilson said. “Growth isn’t linear and transformation doesn’t happen overnight.
Give yourself grace during the hard in-between stages because that’s where the magic happens.”Wilson, founder of All In Digital Marketing in Virginia Beach, reflected on the lessons she learned from grief and loss stemming from her life’s lowest moments, including a miscarriage, divorce, and the deaths of her estranged father and her best friend — all in a year’s time. She and 10 other women shared their raw and unfiltered stories with more than 160 attendees at the second annual S.
H.E. Talks event on Friday in honor of International Women’s Day, March 8.
S.H.E.
— Strong, Hopeful and Empowered — Talks was created by the Hampton Roads Networking Group. Markella Fanis Mitcheison, the group’s founder and owner, said women in the region have incredible stories, and they should be heard. “I can’t tell you how many times I got choked up,” she said after the event.
Marion Constantinides telling her story during S.H.E.
Talks. (Kendall Warner / The Virginian-Pilot)Each woman was introduced by an alumna speaker, with words of encouragement and warm embraces, before stepping to the podium.Kristen Mantlo started the Virginia Beach-based nonprofit SMILE — Samantha Makes It a Little Easier — to honor her late younger sister, Samantha Trost.
Trost died in 2009 at the age of 20 after a yearslong battle with bone cancer. Mantlo founded the group to help families fund equipment for their children facing life-threatening medical conditions.“Life may not be going according to the plan, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not still meaningful and beautiful,” said Mantlo, who has a doctorate in health services research.
Marion Constantinides’ husband, Matt, sat in the mostly female audience and wiped tears from his eyes as his wife shared her story of paralysis after giving birth to their son in 2016.“(It was) a moment that should have been filled with joy and celebration, but instead I was trapped in a body that refused to move,” she said.A Navy veteran and chiropractor, she owns Axis Medical Center in Virginia Beach.
She said stem cells were the saving grace that returned her mobility.“My story isn’t just about recovery. It’s about resilience,” Constantinides said.
“About never giving up even when the odds are stacked grossly against you.”Kismet Madison, center, listens to others’ stories before sharing her own. (Kendall Warner / The Virginian-Pilot)Kismet Madison, owner of Mad Tax in Virginia Beach, wasn’t afraid to tell the audience how she had to reshape her life after learning of her husband’s infidelities from their five children.
With her head held high, shoulders back and a quick flash of her high-heeled Betsey Johnson shoes, Madison told the crowd that at age 52, she was starting over.“It’s time. I’m finding my voice, learning the power of silence and I’m learning that I have to teach others how to treat me,” she said.
“This is just the beginning.”Nicole Ashley, right, with Fallon Whidden after speaking. (Kendall Warner / The Virginian-Pilot)Fallon Whidden, an attorney with J.
S. Burton in Virginia Beach, said she learned to accept and embrace her diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.“I learned to let go of the unrealistic expectations that I set for myself,” she said.
“I stopped trying to fix the way my brain works ...
and accept that I’m imperfectly perfect.”Dressed in a hot pink dress and the confidence to go with it, Katya Melvin, an emigrant from Russia who owns LoveGodesss, a coaching and boudoir photography studio in Virginia Beach, was the final speaker for the afternoon. In 2012, Melvin said, she found herself working as a bookkeeper for $12 an hour, barely making ends meet and hating her life.
Then came the death of her baby boy, Angel, while she was 36 weeks pregnant.At the lowest point in her life, she said, she realized she was the only one who could save herself, by finding her own light.“I became friends with being uncomfortable,” Melvin said.
“And it required me to jump into the unknown ...
because everything you ever want is on the other side — the lover, the money, the dream, the happiness — but you need to do your own part.”Sandra J. Pennecke, 757-652-5836, sandra.
[email protected].
