Watch the Episode Meybell Cristina grew up in El Salvador during the civil war, where some of the ordinary rules of childhood were about survival: keep your head down, avoid eye contact, don't speak to strangers and know when to hide. When she arrived in Australia at ten, the danger had changed, but that opened …
Watch the Episode
Meybell Cristina grew up in El Salvador during the civil war, where some of the ordinary rules of childhood were about survival: keep your head down, avoid eye contact, don’t speak to strangers and know when to hide.
When she arrived in Australia at ten, the danger had changed, but that opened a much bigger question: what do we carry with us from the worlds that shaped us — and what changes when someone becomes curious enough to understand it?
In this Chocolate & Coffee Break, Meybell and Andrea explore the distance between the behaviour we see in another person and the story we may know nothing about.
Watch the full episode:
https://youtu.be/QinowDjMNIY
What’s Brewing in This Episode
Meybell’s story begins in a childhood shaped by civil war, but this conversation isn’t only about what she survived. It is also about everything she carried with her.
Meybell shares what it meant to grow up learning that safety sometimes required silence and caution, and what changed when her family began again in Australia. She and Andrea explore how behaviours such as avoiding eye contact or keeping to yourself can be interpreted very differently when we don’t know what taught someone to behave that way.
There is another side to what Meybell carried from El Salvador too: family, food, music, dancing, celebration and the joy she associates with Latin culture.
Together they explore migration, safety, family, storytelling and the assumptions we can make when we encounter someone halfway through their story.
Meet Meybell Cristina
Meybell Cristina is a Salvadoran-born entrepreneur, mental health educator, mentor and community leader based in Melbourne.
Her work grew from her own migration experience and what she describes as the often unseen challenges migrant women can face while rebuilding their lives. Through HMH & Co, the Golden Mindset mission and the Shining Success Network, she works across mental health education, personal development, mentoring and professional connection, with a particular focus on migrant women.
For Meybell, cultural background is not something that needs to be overcome. It can be part of the strength, identity and experience a person brings with them.
Brew the Change
Share a meal from your culture with someone who’s never experienced it.
Tell them the story behind it. Why is it made? Who taught you? When is it shared? What does it mean to you?
It doesn’t have to begin with the hardest parts of our stories. Sometimes food gives us a gentler doorway into another person’s world. A recipe can carry family, childhood, celebration, memory and culture, and a simple question across the table can reveal something we would never have known to ask.
Because sometimes understanding begins with something as simple as sitting around a table together.
Watch on YouTube
Pour yourself a cuppa, grab your favourite chocolate and join Andrea and Meybell for a conversation about what we carry, what others may not see, and what becomes possible when assumption gives way to curiosity.
Let Love Be the Loudest Voice.
Connect with Meybell
Instagram: @meybell_cristina
https://www.instagram.com/meybell_cristina/
Golden Voice: @goldenvoice.sv
https://www.instagram.com/goldenvoice.sv/
HMH & Co: @holisticmhealth.co
https://www.instagram.com/holisticmhealth.co/
LinkedIn: Meybell Cristina
https://au.linkedin.com/in/meybell-cristina-433615208
Meybell also shares her work through the Golden Mindset Mission and Shining Success Network. Her recent public posts identify @golden_mindset_mission as the founder account associated with Shining Success Network.
Get in Touch with Us
We’d love to hear from you—share your thoughts or ask a question!
