Melany Heger Author and Psychologist

08/09/2025

✨ Why I picked it up
The heroine’s depiction in the blurb captured me. She’s described as very individual, skilled, and perceptive, much like me! I had just been introduced to the idea of an otrovert by Dr. Rami Kaminski’s (an American psychiatrist. And I thought, maybe Smilla is one of these people: not wanting to belong, but not introverted either.

✨ My insights and how the book helped me
Right now, I’m struggling with my own desire to be alone at times so I can think and write. It feels guilty as a mom, but I know I need it to balance myself out. Also, I like following where my mind leads me. In this book, Smilla follows her hunch, smells a rat, and roots out the bad guys behind Isaiah’s death. Along the way she has an intimate relationship with a journalist-investigator, but in the end, true to her nature, she goes back to living alone again. That made me reflect on my own natural proclivities and how I’ve adjusted to living with a husband and two teenage kids. Both paths are equally valid, and both come with their own challenges. 🌟💬

07/09/2025

adapted from the original by littleshine.com

06/09/2025

📚 Books and Being 📚
✨ Book reflections from a psychologist & author
📖 The Snakes by Sadie Johnson

✨ Why I picked it up
I was attracted to Bea’s work, which was similar to mine—we’re both psychologists in the clinical setting. In the story, there were hints of a past that dragged and bled into her future with Dan, the man she loves. 💬

✨ My insights and how the book helped me
There is a dark theme here: the sins of the father and the sins of the mother. Bea tries to cut herself off from her family, but she gets dragged into it anyway. The family drama escalates with a death, and ultimately, it does not end well. I was totally shattered at the end of the book, but there it was a strong, definite conclusion.

What I learned here is that sometimes we really cannot fix our family’s dynamics, even if we try till we die. If you are like Bea, trying to do this, then just trust your sense of self-protection. Don’t cut yourself corners, because you deserve a better life after a lifetime of living with a dysfunctional family. 💖✨

05/09/2025

Thank you, Pinoy Indie Authors, for inviting me as a guest speaker! Honored to share my psychological insights on crime fiction writing with fellow storytellers. 🖊️📚✨

04/09/2025

📚 Books and Being 📚
✨ Book reflections from a psychologist & author
📖 The White Princess by Philippa Gregory

✨ Why I picked it up
Since I was already deep into the Cousins’ War series, I had to read this one to fill in the gaps. The mystery of the twin princess and the controversy that followed made for such a compelling read. 📚✨

✨ My insights and how the book helped me
Greed can blind us and push people into inhumane acts—like Edward, who was supposed to protect the young princes. In my psych practice, I’ve seen how a person acting out of greed doesn’t always see it as greed, but rather as something the world “owes” them. That lack of empathy is dangerous. I’m not perfect either—I’ve had moments where my own empathy failed me. But I keep trying, in all areas of my life, to catch myself and choose differently. 🌟💬

03/09/2025

✨ Why I picked it up
This book was mentioned by my English teacher in college. I didn’t buy it then, but I read it for free at St. Scholastica’s College when I was a student. Curiosity got the best of me, especially since I don’t know much about Latin American culture. 🌎📚

✨ My insights and how the book helped me
The Buendía family reminded me a lot of Philippine family dynamics—if you’ve lived in an intergenerational home like I did, you know what I mean. The elderly man, Melquíades, was the hardest to understand for me, and honestly, the whole story was really dense and complex. But the images that popped into my head? Wow. 🌟

What I miss about books like this, magical realism, is that they expand my idea of what writing can be and cannot be. As you know, nonfiction is my genre, and sometimes I can be… well, unimaginative. This is what I’d call high-brow literature: valuable and thought-provoking, but I’ll still stick to my thrillers and women’s lit. (That’s just me! 💖)

02/09/2025

01/09/2025

Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) is what I prescribed to several of my clients this month. It just so happened that it’s also what the “doctor” needs. So what is CFT, and why am I writing about it today? You know by now that when I write, it’s usually because something struck close, and that something is often some profound (or everyday) pain I am processing.

I’ve put a pause on my Instagram, changed the profile pic to a moody black and white to symbolize abstinence because I’m conserving my energy. Cal Newport, the author known for his work on digital minimalism, explains it this way:

“What's happening here is you have these unmet needs. [Social media tools can give you sort of a simulacrum of meeting them. People are social beings, and need to be connected to people. If you are texting and doing comments on social media, it sort of touches that a little bit, just enough that you don't feel hopelessly lonely, but it's not really fulfilling that.]

[People want to see their intentions made manifest concretely in the world, humans want to do this. That is why they are posting on social media and people are responding—it's sort of this simulacrum of real creation.]”

Newport goes on to say in an interview with the Huberman Lab (Dr. Cal Newport: How to Enhance Focus and Improve Productivity, YouTube) that this “pseudo construction and collective attention economy of social media” fills a void in us that can only truly be met by going out into the world, living life for real, and putting effort into the kinds of meaningful work and connections that satisfy our creativity and our need to belong.

In the few months that I’ve been using social media heavily (after my first book dropped), I noticed how easy it is to get sucked in. The algorithm seduced me, making it effortless to forget my original purpose—my authentic voice. Parang hypnosis, mga besh.

I even started to write a second book that was influenced by the voice of this algorithm, this ghost in the machine, that I started believing it. I am rethinking this second book now—it feels a little too ma-drama, and it leans toward YA. For now, the project is paused in light of my realizations.

But I’m not out totally from social media. Since I have a soft spot for Facebook (my OG soc med platform), that’s where I’m retreating for now. What Cal Newport said about going out into the real world to find fulfillment and an actual outlet for creativity makes sense.

Aside from that, I’ve also rethought how I want to share my content, and the new flow is:
1. Write for my blog
2. Share on my page using Meta Business Planner, and when appropriate, share on my personal page
3. Share on my Substack
4. If there is a worthwhile pic, share it on IG

Doing this gives me back the power. Long-form content is what I’m good at and what I need to continue sustaining. But most importantly, creating and following this action plan is an act of self-care. And that’s exactly where Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) comes in: It’s about treating myself with compassion by reclaiming my energy and aligning with my ikigai (purpose in life).

I keep telling my clients: this is how you do CFT. When you feel consumed by anger toward someone or something, remember—love thy enemy—because the real enemy is often within. It’s your Shadow (the Jungian archetype) casting its darkness on your steps; it’s the ugly umbra where your light is completely blocked.

Use the blaze of your anger as a source of light: self-reflect.

Ask yourself: What is it in this person I hate that I might also hate in myself? What is it, what is it, what is it? In my case, what I hated was my inability to read the room, my social ineptness. (Scratch that, let’s use growth mindset words: “learning curve in social skills”).

After you identify what it is that you hate about your “enemy,” and recognize how a piece of that belongs to your own shadow, shower it with compassion. Speak to this hurt self with love. Forgive yourself. In doing so, you begin to dissolve self-hate, and slowly, you start to love thy enemy.

With that in mind, I say to myself:

I forgive you, Melany, for your stumbles in social spaces. You are learning, and you will continue to grow. You can take concrete steps to do better. I believe in you, and you will move forward from here. It is okay to fail as long as you learn something from it. Now dust yourself off, Gen Xer. It’ll bruise, but it’ll heal.

You can also read this essay on my blog:

Discover how Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) guided me to use social media with purpose, balance, and self-compassion.

31/08/2025

This is me during CEU Graduate School orientation (16 Aug 2025). When they asked for a volunteer for the icebreaker, ako yung unang nag-recite 🙋‍♀️. Medyo panget yung facial expression ko jan 😅 but what can you do? So glad I went and met a bunch of new friends 🚀. Level up na tayo mga sis and bros—di papatalo tong Gen Xer sa mga bagets!

30/08/2025

Last night, we had the distinct privilege of having Melany Heger as our resource speaker on Psychology in connection with our ongoing 5th Pinoy Indie Authors Collab, IT’S ABOUT CRIME.

Thank you so much, Melany. We learned a lot from you which will help us write a more in-depth crime story.

Despite the darkness of the topics discussed, we found positive takeaways from it which we feel must be shared here for everyone’s benefit, especially those who are struggling.

1. Talk kindly to yourself. Don’t put yourself down. Be your first cheerleader. You are worthy. You deserve good things. You can be better. (Of course, watch out pa rin not to be arrogant.)

2. Unload your unconscious self by diverting it and expressing it in creative ways like art, cleaning, walking, etc. There has to be a good outlet for all bad thoughts.

3. A solid support system is helpful in eradicating bad thoughts. People really need one another talaga to survive not only the external battles but more importantly pati internal din. Humans are social animals, we thrive in community because we make up for what the others lack, and that includes emotional and physical support.

4. Meds are helpful, too.

Special thanks to Yeyet Soriano for making this discussion possible.

30/08/2025

📚 Books and Being 📚
📖 The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

✨ Why I picked it up
The storyline was compelling — the classic set-up where a group of friends gather, someone dies, and it becomes a whodunit. And of course, I got it from my favorite second-hand bookstore, Biblio Ayala Malls Circuit branch! 📚✨

✨ My insights and how the book helped me
This story is very entertaining. I’m not going to tell you who killed who, but the unraveling was the best part — how friends who seem okay on the outside can slowly ferment poison towards each other.

This week, I had a challenge of my own: a failure in reading social cues led me to being rejected by a social group. It was painful. It is said that being rejected by a group feels like death, because evolutionarily, when cavemen rejected a member, it meant certain death. It felt like that for me, too. 💔

Anyway, I have recovered, sort of. But it reminded me I still have loads to learn about “reading the room.” I don’t want to end up like Miranda 😬.

29/08/2025

📚 Books and Being 📚
✨ Book reflections from a psychologist & author
📖 Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier (aka Peter Bieri)

✨ Why I picked it up
You know me—I’m a sucker when a book says “over a million copies sold.” 😅 Plus, it was originally translated from German, and since I had a brief dalliance with Deutsch, I was curious to see how the translation would feel.

✨ My insights and how the book helped me
This book was dense, heavy, and often hard to read. I found myself backtracking a lot, sometimes confused—maybe because of the translation, maybe cultural gaps, or simply the pacing. Hindi ko siya type. However, the rhythm made me sleepy, and this is a big win for me (hello, perimenopause insomnia! 😅).

The book is brilliant in its own way. There are words in here that modern writers seldom use—for example, fata morgana and soupçon. I was happy to see these words in print; kala ko ako lang may alam nun, hoho 🤓. The late Mercier himself actually had an academic background in philology and philosophy (yes, there is a difference!), and you can feel it in the way he wrote this book. Writers are always the sum of their backgrounds, and this book pulled me deep into the inner world of a Swiss intellectual (or more broadly, European academic life).

While I had to concentrate a bit more to get the story straight in my head, I am 100% thankful for the author’s gift to the world. Works like this remind me of a time before algorithms dictated what we read, before Amazon and Kindle suggested (low-key dictated) what we put in our brains. 📚 I’m also recently watching a YouTube channel on the history of printing and books, and they make me wonder: what kind of literary diversity will survive in the age of AI and beyond? 🤔📚