Melanie Ryan, LCSW, is a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, psychotherapist, and metaphysician. She is founder of The Golden Shadow Method and Trigger Work. Melanie is an international teacher, retreat guide, writer, and owner of Ancient Wisdom Today, LLC, and Bodhi Books, LLC, publishing.

 

The Golden Shadow! 

Melanie Ryan brings into collective consciousness that there is a positive shadow, a golden shadow that stores all our positive qualities. The Golden Shadow Method immediately connects us with our true nature. Within each person lives an enlightened golden buddha, filled with love, wisdom, compassion, and creativity. Re-connecting to our inner light and love is the first step in the golden shadow method. This method is not spiritual bypassing; it is about connecting you to your true nature, the power of love and compassion, that provides strength and courage to face our obstacles.

 

Trigger Work

Melanie Ryan developed Trigger Work, a healing process that holds the view of triggers as a one of our greatest teachers on the path of enlightenment. Triggers are sparks of awakening. They are not enemies to suppress or avoid, but allies helping us reconnect with the truths buried deep within. All humans have triggers. They are a natural built-in mechanism of working with the unconscious, an organic process of self-healing and realization. Triggers help make the unconscious conscious and when we learn to work with them, our lives transform. Melanie’s new book, Triggers are Treasures is due to launch in January 2027. 

 

Melanie’s Background

Melanie self-studied meditation and mysticism as a teenager but was conditioned by the culture she grew up in to focus on other things. She started college at age seventeen and began her professional career earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Hartford (1992) and a dual master’s degree in clinical social work and clinical research from Fordham University (1995). 

 

In 1999, Melanie found spirituality again. For the last 25 she has studied with indigenous elders and spiritual masters throughout North America, South America, Central America, Europe, and the Far East. Her training includes Tibetan Buddhism, shamanism, Jungian psychology, past-life regression, Asklepian dream healing, vision questing, vinyasa yoga, and reiki energy healing. 

 

In 2017, Melanie Ryan became an authorized teacher in the Shambhala tradition founded by the Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. In 2020, she studied the Terrain Model of naturopathic medicine for five years with Dr. Marizelle Arce. In 2024, she became a student of Vajrayana Buddhism, Dzogchen, and Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine) with Dr. Nida Chenagtsang. In 2026, Melanie completed a master’s degree in metaphysics from Delphi University. 

 

Disillusioned by the limitations of the modern U.S. healthcare system, Melanie founded The Center for Health and Healing (2012), an award-winning holistic health center that served the Hudson Valley region of New York for nearly a decade. A few months prior to the 2020 pandemic lockdown, she closed the center and shifted her focus to devoting herself to her son Justin Bodhi and writing books. In 2020, she opened Ancient Wisdom Today, an online and in-person holistic healing center. She published The Golden Shadow Method and began teaching it online worldwide and on international retreats. She serves on faculty of the world-renowned Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York.

 

Today, Melanie Ryan and her husband, Andy Steigmeier, live in the mountains of northern Georgia near the Cherokee National Forest. They lead small private healing and wilderness retreats, workshops, and educational programs for children and adults. They devote their lives and their work to the benefit of all beings, and to their son Justin Bodhi Steigmeier, who died suddenly from an aneurysm in 2023. He was 15 years old. 

 

In 2027, Melanie Ryan, her husband Andy Steigmeier, and their son Justin Bodhi Steigmeier will be featured in a documentary called TRAGICAL: A Journey from Tragic to Magic.