by Jarret Liotta

WESTPORT — Entrepreneur and longtime Westporter Melissa Bernstein shared her story Thursday afternoon at a flagship meeting of a women empowerment group called B.I.G.

B.I.G. stands for Believe, Inspire, Grow, and constitutes a worldwide organization focused on business building and personal development for women.

The new Westport “pod” of the group met at the Boathouse Restaurant to network and hear Bernstein share her story of transforming her emotional and psychic struggles into healing, as well as a resultant memoir entitled LifeLines: An Inspirational Journey from Profound Darkness to Radiant Light.

Bernstein, who graduated Staples High School in 1983, described herself as a dark, brooding and introspective child troubled by existential questions far beyond her years.

“Of course I wanted to be carefree,” she said, but simply didn’t know the pathway there.

Consequently, she said, “I think I got this message very early on that it wasn’t okay to be who I was (and) I have to change who I am to be accepted.”

Like many females, she said, this manifested for her in striving to be a people-pleaser who put the needs of others before her own, as well as a perfectionist, in order to quell her psychic discomfort.

“When you’re looking extrinsically to fulfill an intrinsic void, it’s futile,” Bernstein said.

After meeting her husband at age 19, she found relief and joyful purpose in co-creating their toy company.

“I had the ability to envision toys in my head and bring them to life,” she said. lauding the unique experience and freedom of going to her creative place to escape discomfort.

“My salvation has always been creativity,” she said, though as a child it was mired in a darker space and served little to no effect in releasing her angst.

As her journey unfolded, Bernstein also became enlightened to the idea that a creative person is somewhat saddled with an exhausting dichotomy that combines both euphoria and depression as it relates to their unique sensitivity.

“People kind of love what we create, but they don’t accept us for who we are … You’re going to be, by definition, an outlier,” she said. At age 48 she began work in therapy, discovering and utilizing different tools to find healing from her challenges. “Basically my whole journey was how to gain space between my head and my heart,” she said.