My name is Melanie Hernandez-Leonard, I was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico but was raised up to the age of 21 in St. Thomas , U.S. Virgin Islands. I met my high school sweetheart (now my husband, since 2020) at the Virgin Islands Montessori School & Peter Gruber International Academy. After High School, year 2014, I went to EDP College in Puerto Rico to study to be an Interior Designer. After Hurricanes Irma and Maria in the year 2017, my family and I were displaced from both Puerto Rico and St. Thomas. We made our way to the mainland in Houston, Texas where my mom had a friend that could help her find a place for us to live and a teaching job. I continued my general studies online to finish up the semester but had to transfer to another school. In 2018 I began my studies again as an Interior Designer student at North Dakota State University. After the first year of school I realized what I tried to avoid for many years that Interior Designing was not meant for me. I switched majors to be a Visual Arts student and pursue my passion for art. In the year 2020 when Covid-19 was disrupting my studies I decided to transfer to an online program, Academy of Arts University, so I can get the best out of my learning. Year 2021 I was no longer able to finish my Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts because I ran out of help from FASFA. My husband and I decided that we shouldn’t let this stop us from starting our family.

Fast forward to this year 2026 I have a 3 year old daughter and a 19 month old son and I am a stay at home mom since 2022. Within the years of 2022-2025 I have tried to run my own baking business, won some art awards, and tried to start my own art business. Nothing seemed to work at the time, but I do believe in divine timing. My whole life I have been very interested in music, to me it was always a from of healing or even a way of coping with the hardships of my life. I never pursued anything music related because everyone always admired my talent for art. So I thought art was the only thing I could ever truly be good at. My parents didn’t have the money to get me any instruments let alone afford classes, so art was the cheapest thing I could do and I was self taught my whole childhood. Now as an adult, I have been more focused in my inner work, shadow work and healing myself from certain emotional traumas and so on. I have been meditating with singing bowls at home and have been slowly creating a spiritual practice of making sure I stay in alignment since 2019. I have always been drawn to music and the healing that it brings me. The feeling I feel when I sing aloud, dance to the rhythm of the beat, or lay relaxed listening to sounds of nature with gentle/meditative instruments in the background. When I looked more into certain sound healing instruments I resonated with them more strongly than I would the traditional instruments such as, guitar, piano, a drum set, etc.

I have to say that becoming a Sound Healer was definitely not something that I envisioned myself doing, but I got this intuitive call that this is what I was meant to do and here I am answering it. I have so much to learn but that’s the exciting part! I look forward to this new journey of mine and I am so happy I was able to find Scholistico to help me along the way.