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The Next Perfect Step
Candid conversations about spirituality, how to navigate in the world, channeled messages, guided meditations, book reviews and other topics. We invite comments and questions as we look to connect with a community of similar interests.
The Next Perfect Step
Embracing Your Shadow Self: A Journey to Personal Empowerment and Spiritual Growth with Melanie Stevens
Ever wondered how embracing your shadow self can lead to personal empowerment? Melanie Stevens, a spiritual teacher and healer from Devon, UK, joins us to share her remarkable journey from crippling anxiety to spiritual enlightenment. Melanie's story is not just about healing but transformation, as she recounts her path to becoming a Reiki master and the pivotal breakdown that introduced her to profound methods like the Sedona Method and EFT tapping. If you’re exploring spiritual practices like animal healing or shadow work, Melanie’s insights on intuitive decision-making and practical tools such as crystals and Reiki will guide you in managing anxiety and creating your own spiritual toolkit.
Shadow work isn't just a buzzword; it's a transformative practice that can help you embrace all dimensions of your identity, even the parts society often deems unworthy. Through personal stories and lived experiences, Melanie and the hosts unpack how shadow work can help overcome social anxiety and redefine self-identity. This episode delves into the art of journaling as a tool for self-discovery, highlighting the importance of self-care while navigating this path. By addressing deeply embedded beliefs and emotions, we discuss the concept of rewriting your narrative and embracing your authentic self in an ever-evolving journey towards empowerment and personal growth.
Emotional depth and self-awareness are ongoing pursuits, and Melanie's exploration of emotional frequencies offers listeners fresh perspectives on growth. By fully experiencing emotions and understanding the mirrored relationship between internal and external worlds, Melanie provides a blueprint for navigating life's chaos with balance and clarity. Her courses in energy healing and animal communication offer practical pathways for beginners seeking to tune into their intuitive selves. Whether it's the use of crystals to combat anxiety or staying focused amidst external turmoil, this episode is a treasure trove for those eager to find peace and purpose amid the world's uncertainties.
Welcome everyone to the Next Perfect Step. We're all possibility-line conversations. We're excited today to have a fellow podcaster on. I am your host, laurie Mullen.
Speaker 2:And I'm your co-host, laurie Tremblay. Welcome so much to the Next Perfect Step. Laurie and I are holistic healers and teachers and we are so excited to have Melanie Stevens with us today. She's also a teacher, a spiritual teacher and a healer spiritual teacher she was coming to us from Devon in the UK this is the southwest part and she has many, many gifts. She's going to talk about shadow work. She does animal healing. She's a Reiki master teacher, among many other things, talks about spiritual awakening and ascension All the things that we like to talk about as well. So thank you so much, melanie, for being with us today, and please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself as well.
Speaker 3:Sure, and thank you so much for having me on the show. So, as you said, I'm Melanie Stephens. I'm a spiritual teacher, and that's primarily the work that I do now. So I have learned many things over the years Reiki, tarot reading, I've done shadow work. I've done all of these things to help develop myself spiritually Before coming to the realization that actually, my real passion lies in teaching and sharing what I've learned with other people, and that's when I decided to really go for it as a spiritual teacher great and I was reading your website.
Speaker 2:You have a background, brought you to spiritual, the spiritual, mindfulness and and ways to cope with um your anxiety you were talking about you had, but how did that happen for you?
Speaker 3:so, um, for me, that's what brought me onto my spiritual path. Really, and I think a lot of people share that. It comes from a place of pain where actually you don't want to carry on with how you are reacting to the world, with what's happening, and my anxiety absolutely came to a head when I was 28 and I had a bit of a breakdown. I couldn't get out of bed, I couldn't face the world, I left my job and I just thought, help, I can't carry on like this. And as the world of synch my job and I just thought, help, I can't carry on like this.
Speaker 3:And as the world of synchronicity often works, somebody introduced me to somebody else, who introduced me to somebody else, and I met a spiritual life coach and she literally helped me to transform my life. She taught me something called the Sedona Method, which is about managing unwanted, negative, heavy emotions. I learned EFT tapping, which is hugely popular, and I also discovered people like Eckhart Tolle. She introduced me to lots of different spiritual authors and I would read and devour all of their books. And I really did change my life after I spent three months working with her and I went from just having so many fears and phobias, being completely overwhelmed, burned out, so anxious to feeling in control of my life again and knowing that I was back in the driver's seat, so that kind of stayed with me.
Speaker 3:That was the catalyst of my awakening the next 10 years or so, having the odd reading, delving into tarot reading and a few bits, but not really driving forward on my spiritual path until 2019, when faced with lots of loss, lots of bereavement, lots of trauma, all these things happening again, again, pushing me back onto that spiritual path. And that's when I started learning reiki. Uh, and the rest is history. I started using the reiki, I set up a business, I moved into teaching it and here I am today laurie and I are both also reiki masters and I'm a teacher and it is.
Speaker 2:It really changes your life, among all the other tools that you have, right, and it helps other people and I think what you were talking about the anxiety bit now is such a it's everywhere right. A lot of people are anxious and don't know what to do and don't know how to manage their worries and fears. So what you're doing is wonderful and thank you for giving the tools that people need. And, um, I guess my question is could you maybe tell people about some tool that they could use to help with anxiety?
Speaker 3:absolutely, and there's lots of different tools. It depends. I always teach people to kind of tap into their intuition when they're making decisions. I mean, I started using crystals um. I've got one now, but I I've always got a crystal in my hand when I'm doing anything, um to help me if I know there's something in one of my chakras I want to clear. But I mean, anxiety is can be very often felt with crystals um.
Speaker 3:Or you can have reiki. It really helps to calm the nervous system when it's in overdrive and when we've got this constant fight or flight reaction going on, which is a very valuable thing to have in the right situation where you actually need it. But our fight or flight is going off all the time when we're not actually in danger. So anything that can calm you and bring that sense of peace and if you feel drawn to crystals, then it might be that you want to have a look in a crystal shop, get your hands in the crystals, touch them, see what feels calming and comforting to you and then get that crystal.
Speaker 3:Doesn't matter what it is or what the books say about it. If you use your intuition and pick one that feels peaceful, then that's going to help you in those situations where you are overwhelmed or if you feel drawn to having a Reiki session. It might be that you have a look, you find somebody, you feel a connection to them and you can go and have a Reiki session. And again, you can tell them what you want the Reiki for, explain that you've got high anxiety and it's in overdrive and you want a calming session, and then that can help you as well. Or if you're're like me and probably you, you might use a number of tools and then you've got this toolkit at your disposal that you can use in any situation and you pick something that feels right for you to use intuitively.
Speaker 1:It really starts just where you feel comfortable to start. It's a path. It just starts to snowball. You get your first crystal, then you get your first Reiki session and breath work. It's all just tools in this fantastic toolbox that we get to use to better ourselves. It's an amazing journey, but it's just simple little starts like going and picking up a crystal, feeling its energy, starting to learn what energy work is. It really, like you said, is life changing. To start down this path, you do something called shadow work and for those who don't know what it is, would you like to explain a little bit about shadow work and how we can dive deep?
Speaker 3:yeah, absolutely so. I first heard of shadow work a few years ago and, ever curious, decided to have a look and see what it was. And the term shadow work or shadow self, all these, all these terms we we hear were first used by Carl Jung, who many people will have heard of. He was a Swiss psychoanalyst and psychotherapist and the he talked about the shadow as being the parts of us that we've hidden from view, that we've repressed and that we deny. And the shadow every single person has a shadow self. Um, it's created by, primarily, our programming in our lifetime. So it's our upbringing, it's the people around us, it's society itself, it can be government, it can be teachers. As we're growing and learning and you know, particularly when we're younger, we get taught what behaviors are are acceptable, likeable, lovable, and we get taught what behaviours or beliefs are not acceptable and lovable, and this, of course, comes from the perception of the person teaching you. So we learn to deny certain parts of ourselves and by denying them, they keep trying to come up. And that can cause sabotage, because we keep trying to push them down and what we're doing is denying an aspect of ourselves. And in order to be whole and healthy and complete. We do need to embrace all parts of us, even the parts that maybe other people don't like, all the parts that we've been told aren't likeable, and to give an example, because I think getting our head around shadow work. We need real life.
Speaker 3:So I was brought up, I was born in 1981. Misogyny was rife in those days, so women were treated quite differently and I was told as a child that little girls should be seen and not heard. That was actually something that was very often used. So then as a child, you get taught that, oh, this is how little girls have to behave we have to be quiet and demure and polite and just sit and not contribute to a conversation. So that creates that shadow self of that more um, not necessarily loud, but someone more expressive, somebody more talkative gets buried and denied because we've been taught that that isn't likeable and that you need to be shy and sweet and demure.
Speaker 3:So you start to act more like that and you bury that part of you that wants to be expressive, and then as an adult, you struggle to communicate, you struggle to put your point of view across because you feel intimidated and like, oh no, I must be quiet and shy, but you kind of have forgotten where that came from, because you feel intimidated and like, oh, no, no, no, I must be quiet and shy, but you kind of have forgotten where that came from because you've been like that your whole life. You've identified with that. So when we do shadow work, we're really taking a deep dive into why we feel we can't behave in certain ways and how is that impacting us? Is it a hindrance? Is it preventing us from being our true, authentic selves? And we have to explore all of these patterns and beliefs that we were given throughout our childhood. And that's the process, is what we then call shadow work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally agree as well, as there's so many different aspects to shadow work. I've been doing shadow work for 10 plus years and I think there's so many levels to shadow work. Um, everything you just said and not only is it that, but it's the feeling wrapped around it, right? So when you are supposed to be seen and not heard, you're supposed to be seen and not heard. You're supposed to be seen a certain way, right? Little girls are supposed to dress up and be cute and look pretty and be quiet, and still we're also wrapped around. That feeling of our opinion isn't valued or important, right? So it's just not that we're supposed to be quiet, but that our opinion doesn't matter, and it does. And that's part of shadow work too, is, I think there's so many different levels to shadow work.
Speaker 1:When I worked at it, it started off as seeing all the different beliefs that were hidden and where they came from and how they came about and how they formed, what my truth was. And I really think shadow work is the observer, right? So you get to see what we have hidden, that we want to bring out into the light, what those programs are that are running behind us that we don't even know are running, and it only goes with things we've been told and how we formed our belief systems, but also how we feel about things. So, like when we have a flat tire, we automatically think this is a bad day, that this is ruined, we're supposed to be sad and upset or angry about this tire. But we don't have to be, doesn't have to mean anything, we don't have to attach these feelings that we've been told we're supposed to feel about it.
Speaker 1:And then I think you know, you start seeing more about yourself and learning more about yourself, and then shadow work becomes a choice. You get to see the choices are yours and you get to make these choices. You get to choose joy over fear. You get to choose the meaning that you want things to mean.
Speaker 1:I just love this subject because I think it's so broad and it's so many levels and so in depth. But I also think that shadow work sometimes gets a bad rap because we see it as dark or a sadness or things we don't want to see, and we've given that meaning as to mean that they're the bad things we don't want to see and we've given that meaning as to mean that they're the bad things we don't want to see about ourselves. But there can be a real joy about learning and then getting to choose who you want to be. We see, and we get to grow and see what we were formed as, what society formed us as, as what our parents formed us as, and then we get to decide who we want to be.
Speaker 3:You know, we get that choice and I just think you know shadow work is fabulous it is empowering because when we start to break down who, who we've always thought we were as a person, we come to realize that we are an amalgamation of other people's programming and we get to rewrite who we are as a person. Like he was saying, you have that choice at any minute. Am I really? You know, I had massive social anxiety as a child and I was shy and I've always thought I'm a shy person, that's who I am. No, I'm not, because I've done my shadow work and I'm now, and I've always thought I'm a shy person, that's who I am. No, I'm not, because I've done my shadow work and I'm now identifying with a completely different part of me that I never really got to feel or be because of the expectations of the society around me pushing me down and suppressing me. So it really is empowering because you do like you say. You get to choose who would you like to identify with, and what's buried in the shadow isn't just the stuff that other people taught us to bury, that we might perceive as negative or we might not. Courage, confidence, leadership might be buried in the shadow.
Speaker 3:And another thing from my childhood was that you know again, it's the misogyny, unfortunately, but we were taught as girls not to be bossy, and the word bossy was used was never used against a little boy. Girls don't be bossy. No one wants a bossy boots. So that ability to be directive was suppressed. So then as an adult, you get into a management role. People struggle to tell people how to do their jobs because they're not comfortable being directive because of the programming they've been given as a child. It can affect you 20 years in the future and you don't know why, until you do the shadow work and you dive in and realize, ah, I can see now why I have such an issue with this and now I can choose to bring up out of my shadow that part of me that was trying to be a leader. That's always been there and I get to bring it up and I get to play with it that's wonderful.
Speaker 2:How would you go about? Somebody wanted to start the process of shadow work. How would you go about doing it? Would you do it by you know exercises, or with a teacher, or writing things down? What would you suggest?
Speaker 3:so, um, the way I've taught it in my course this is just how I learned it's one method was really journaling and writing prompts for myself, so that I could be kind of triggered by the prompt into really feeling what wants to come up.
Speaker 3:And then sitting quietly and allowing things to come up, thoughts popping into my head, words coming up, memories coming up, feeling is coming up and writing it all down. Well, okay, I'm feeling this, I'm noticing that, that I'm hearing this, oh, I'm remembering that. And just sitting in that quiet space, allowing yourself to create space for what needs to come up and then write it all down. Because once it's written down, you can then look at it afterwards and reflect on it and you can identify where things have come from. And you can then make that choice okay, do I want to still identify with this part of myself or do I want to identify with that part of myself and you can start actually having some fun with it and putting it into practice. And shadow work doesn't mean bringing up all of the anger and the horrible things out of our shadow and shouting at everyone all day. It just recognizes that maybe we've buried certain aspects of ourselves which would be healthy to allow in some way. So it's a very reflective, mindful practice. Certainly that's how I did it.
Speaker 2:I did it mainly on my own, but with some guidance from somebody to give me those prompts, and then I'd use those prompts, go off and journal and come back and start the next bit of the course that sounds really helpful related journal and I think that's very helpful because you can reflect on it, as you said, afterwards, and you're just writing down what's coming to you in your mind and in your heart and memories and aha moments, right lots of aha moments with shadow work it's important, and it's important to ask yourself those questions.
Speaker 1:Like I said, be the observer of your own life. Um, what thoughts and feelings are coming up? Um, you know, we, we say certain things, um about ourselves, like, oh, that was dumb, but we're not really dumb, right, and we get to see that. And I love me and Lori are big journalers, yeah, so it's so important to ask yourself those questions and see what comes up for yourself, and you get to observe them, see where they come from, see where they come from. I think I just have to alliterate that journaling is such a great way to be able to just write things down without the filter, just write it all down and then go back and reread it, because there are huge aha moments in there.
Speaker 3:And I think it's really important to and I think it's really important to um combine shadow work with some sort of self-care as well and to sort of go easy on yourself and release any judgments, because it's when you look back sometimes at what you've written, it can be quite triggering.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's meant to be, it's meant to bring things up. So you need to be in the kind of space where you're ready to face that. So you know, if you're feeling really anxious, like I would say, don't do shadow work today. You know, get into a space where you're feeling better and then do it and keep pausing for some self-reflection and some self-love as well, because we've all got shadow traits and they can bring up with the trait itself can be a lot of shame, can be a lot of uncomfortable feeling around the fact that certain bits have been hidden, and it can bring up things that you know maybe can impact our relationship. So we need to go easy on everybody because we're all learning and the people that have programmed us have also been programmed. We've been doing this for a very long time. So there's no, it's not meant to send any blame or judgment to anybody, it's just a recognition so that we get to choose the type of person we want to be.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and then a support team if you need it. Find somebody who works with it like you, or just even just a friend who can help you through those sad moments that you may need to just have a hug or just to have somebody sit with you while you process and process those moments is hugely important through it too.
Speaker 3:And equally the journaling there can come back in in terms of, you know, pause when you're doing shadow work, pause to journal about all of the things you're the proudest of that you've accomplished, because I know people think, oh, you don't need to do that. But actually that really helps to get you into that vibration where you can take it when you're facing the stuff. That's perhaps a bit less comfortable because you've put yourself in that higher state of being before you've dived into the shadow work.
Speaker 1:That is such a key, important message you just got. We're we're not supposed to only be down in the mud, we need to come up to the sun too, and that's a huge tool. And I think a huge important part of shadow work is learning to dive deep, but to to come back up, not to stay there. Right, we're learning something about ourselves. We're bringing it out into the light for us to see and work with, but we're not supposed to stay down there, and so I think that that was excellent and so important for people to hear is that shadow work is deep and meaningful, but it's not meant for us to stay down there. It's so important for us to see the good things about ourselves as well, seeing the things we may not want to see about ourselves. So thank you for saying that. Yeah, that's great and as well.
Speaker 3:It's not something that you know. I wouldn't want anyone to put pressure on themselves to think I've got to do all my shadow work in a month. You're going to be doing it a long time. You've been doing it 10 years, I mean. I don't know how many years I've been doing it for a few not quite that many but things keep.
Speaker 3:I keep having these epiphanies and these aha moments because everything that is happening, what we perceive to be externally, is reflecting back to me, my internal state. So when I do feel triggered, I know instantly okay, what's going on here, what's in my shadow, so I might not even be actively doing shadow work. And then I get triggered by something and then I'm oh, okay, I need to look at this. But I can't look at every single thing that happens because I would just be in it all the time and, like you say, you've got to come up for air sometimes and integrate it into your life.
Speaker 3:It's not meant to be oh, I've done shadow work, I can move on and do something else. It becomes a regular process. It's something that you're constantly recognizing and seeing, that's happening all around you. That's triggering these things. But yeah, it's, it's something that you pick it up, you put it down, you do something else and you come back to it and kind of integrate it as a process, but a regular dip in and out process, not let's get it all finished in a month well, I don't think you ever stop doing it.
Speaker 1:For me, I never stopped doing it, even even though I, like you said, I may not have as many triggers as I used to have, and I figured out where some of them have come up. So when something, I mean there's layers to triggers too, right. And so if something comes up and I'm like, oh wow, that's still making me feel a certain way, I haven't that, somebody hasn't said something and I suddenly have no feeling about it anymore. So there's still something there that you get to work on. I don't think it ever goes away. It changes because we're supposed to change.
Speaker 1:So, as I've changed in the last 10 years, my beliefs have changed, but I never stopped questioning my beliefs. I don't think we're ever supposed to be stuck in one belief or one way of thinking. I always am asking myself why I feel this way or why I believe this way, and is there any other way to look at this? And to me that's shadow work too. It's always asking myself the why and examining it. And and do I want to change it? I don't think we're meant to die on any hills, so they say in our beliefs, or anything like that. So that. To me, that's all shadow work too, so I don't ever think there's an end to it, because I will always want to question where I'm standing and why I'm standing there, and do I want to walk to another hill?
Speaker 3:absolutely. It's an evolutionary process and it's the same as, like you were saying, we are. We are evolving all the time. We're not going to suddenly stop evolving hopefully not. I want us to carry on evolving and we change all the time. And so our shadow work practice might change as well, because we may find find, like you're saying, the triggers actually do become few and far between. There's a lot less triggers and what they're triggering might change. So something might be happening in your life that's triggering a certain emotion, but you're not getting triggered. Anger isn't coming up, but grief is, and you think, why am I facing so much grief at the moment? And it's that one thing that keeps coming up and that can evolve and change as well. So it is a bit unpredictable, because when something comes in as a trigger, it's an opportunity to see what that's trying to reflect. But we can't necessarily predict on next week I'm going to be triggered in this way.
Speaker 2:It just it just kind of flows in and out of our lives way it just it just kind of flows in and out of our lives. I like what you said, too, about change is, uh is, a constant. It's been, laurie too it's. We're always creating ourselves, creating our new. At least, I like to do that. Just create a new path for yourself on a new way to look at things, a new way to speak or express yourself. So we're always changing and we're always evolving, and noticing along the way is a good way to do that, I think.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And actually there was something that you mentioned about layers, because when we're doing shadow work, we might expect a certain emotion to come up when we're faced with a trigger. And sometimes we recognize that emotion and we think, oh yes, that's made me feel this certain way. I can understand that, I know where it's come from. And then suddenly we go from feeling angry, for example, to being in floods of tears and we think, well, where did that come from? But what we've done, we've kind of dislodged an emotion that was trapped and by doing that and healing it, there was one right underneath it and it might be something different. So suddenly we go from being really angry about something to being absolutely devastated. So I would just warn people that that might happen, so they're aware that. You know, emotions do come in layers and sometimes they can change as we work through those layers. And when you uncover something, there might be something else that's just buried underneath that that comes straight up afterwards. So just something for people to be aware of.
Speaker 2:You were saying something earlier about burying your emotions and how important it is. Like we've all been taught, most of us have been taught to shove those emotions down, but it's important to do the exact opposite and let them out right, let them release and yeah yeah, it's.
Speaker 3:And the suppression of our emotions, of any emotion, is never going to be healthy, because the more we suppress it, eventually we kind of forget it ever existed. But that's when the sabotage happens, because that's when it's really the emotion is kind of coming up and knocking on your door and at some point you're going to have to open the door because the knock's just going to get louder and louder. And that's when we keep getting these events happen to us, which of course they're happening for us, but we may not recognize that because they're trying to provoke, if you like this feeling to come up. It's trying to come up, and the more you deny it, the more you'll keep getting faced with these repeated patterns that can be very frustrating, until there's an eruption of emotion and then the patterns stop and the events stop because you don't need them anymore. You don't need that trigger anymore because you've allowed the emotion to come up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great point in allowing. When we resist our own feelings and we try to push them down, that's heavier. I mean we're pushing something on and we're weighing ourselves down with that. There's no good and bad emotion, right? We think of anger or sadness and tears and crying as bad because we're taught like. Nobody wants to see that, right, but we do. We need to see our own anger. We need to see our own anger. We need to see our own sadness in order to go through it without the resistance, right? So there isn't. There's, like I talked about before, the why and why. Why is anger coming up for me right now? Why am I angry about this? We get to look at it, we should look at it. No feelings, right or wrong. If that's how you're feeling, then that then be admit that, see that, say I'm angry and then figure out the why of it and without the resistance, you know, we, we have to allow and work through it and find out why it's come up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a really good point, because we do label things, and I think this is something a lot of people get very stuck on. They'll say well, why would I want to keep feeling angry all the time? Why wouldn't you Not every day? But it's a valid emotion. It's a valid expression of what it is to be human. We come here and have this vast array of emotions that we get to experience. If we're just identifying with some of them and ignoring the rest, we're cutting ourselves off from our own energy, we're denying our own energy and therefore we're not going to feel whole and complete. So there are no such thing as good and bad emotions. There are some that feel heavier. We might say they don't feel very comfortable, but they're valid expressions and they can be very useful extremely useful and learning who we are and who we want to be.
Speaker 1:I mean, we have this duality and if we don't know who we don't want to be, it's harder to discover who we do want to be. It's seeing both sides. I mean, if anger's coming up around something, it'd be because you really don't want that which can. You can really then learn how you really do truly either want to be or live or see in the world. So it's a big lesson, it's big discovery. When we have those certain emotions and any time when we're as happy and glowing as we're doing, we've learned something. We learned that this is really where our joy or happiness is and that's where we want to be, versus being over here.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and I think as well. You know, talked about how empowering empowering it is to do shallow work, but also it can stop us blaming, because I do hear a lot of people when I listen to people talk. They blame people, they blame circumstances, they think that things are happening to them and it's unfair and it's not nice. When we recognize that anything that's happening is a is designed to help us to integrate and fill more hole there's no blame anymore. Judgment, which is also a nicer space to be in. Fill more whole there's no blame anymore.
Speaker 3:Or judgment, which is also a nicer space to be in, because we're not feeling like a victim. And when we feel like we're a victim, we identify with that victim consciousness, we lower our vibration and then we're just opening the doors for things to come in that we don't want. So when we realize that we're creating all of this in order for us to come back to wholeness and integration, again that's that empowering. It makes us realize that we are creating everything that's happening. Nothing's being done to us, no one wants to feel like a victim. It's very uncomfortable and it's a low frequency. So again, it's that recognition of why is this thing happening to help me to shine a light on what I need to integrate.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. When I worked with my clients I did what I called soul coaching and right away, I think, when people start the journey, the biggest three energies in everybody is shame, blame and guilt and the duality of that is love, joy and peace. But we have to start with those three. I think everybody is taught from conformed religion to society to point fingers to blame whether we're blaming ourselves or blaming somebody else. Fingers to blame whether we're blaming ourselves or blaming somebody else. Blame, shame and guilt it's huge, it's, it's weighing us down. But on the other side of that, if we do the work, if we look at it, if we can dig deep into those, we get love, joy and peace exactly, and I think a lot of people say, well, I I'll just go, I'll just go to the love, joy and peace and I won't bother with the rest.
Speaker 3:But it's like no, you're bypassing that. You have to go through that to come up. So what I like to do when I'm doing any inner work is I really go for it and go deep into whatever I'm trying to avoid feeling because I know that's the only way of healing it. But as soon as that's come up and it's been released which doesn't really take that long, and if it does, I've identified with it somehow. So I need to just allow it to move up and out quite quickly. And then I choose the opposite frequency.
Speaker 3:So if I've just felt grief come up and it's been really heavy, as soon as that grief has started to dissipate and I start to feel neutral, I choose to feel love and I think about something. Love and I think about something like I think about my dog or I think about something that makes me smile instantly puts me back in that love frequency and when I'm in that frequency I can't be in any other one. I can't be in fear and love at the same time because they're two different frequencies, but I can't bypass the fear to get to the love, because it will keep knocking at the door until I open it and let it in, let let it up and out, and then I get to choose that other frequency.
Speaker 1:I love that. You just said that. It's been a very long lesson for me, but one I just really recently learned is that it doesn't have to be that hard. We make everything really hard. I used to believe that I had to work months on something, that I had to dive deep, that I hadn't done all the steps I was supposed to do, that I made it really difficult, really difficult, and it really does not have to be difficult. It is really simple as, yeah, working on it, seeing it and then choosing the feeling, just find the feeling of watching a sunset that brings you joy or peace and it's really that fast that you can change that frequency and that the feeling deep inside you. It really can be that easy and I just I love that because I made it so hard for so long and I want people to know it doesn't have to be that hard. It really can be empowering great work and it can be easy.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And I think sometimes that's because we're so thorough that we're like, oh no, I have to do some more work. That was too quick. No, um, no, no, I must have missed something. And it's this kind of going, you know, wanting to go back into it and do some more, but no, if the feelings come and it's gone, it's gone like we don't have to go digging for anything else because we will be reflect, um, presented with a reflection, if there's anything else that needs to come up. So at that moment we don't have to feel guilty about just then choosing that higher frequency. But I think that's a very common occurrence is that we feel like I've got to do this work and it. You know surely that can't be, that can't be it, that was too quick, I've missed something, but we haven't right.
Speaker 1:So I love that you just said reflection and, how you know, talk about how the universe of the world reflects what you are needing to see at the moment yeah.
Speaker 3:So this has been a really interesting one for me. Um, because when we really come to realize that we create our reality ourselves, we kind of think, well, I didn't create all this, this was already here, and then I, I'm just here experiencing it. But no, we, we do create these situations. So you know, if something is happening constantly for me and I'm being triggered in some way, then that is a reflection of what's in my shadow and it's literally like visualizing it as a mirror. So there's this great big mirror that's come in and I'm being triggered into feeling ashamed of something. And you know, it's very easy to think, no, that's uncomfortable, and you bury it back down. And then something else happens and you feel ashamed again and you think, oh gosh, I felt like this earlier this week. Why is this happening again? And that is like the universe holding up a great big mirror to help you to recognize the reflection of what's in you that's creating the event, that's bringing up that shame. So it starts within and you know, I can't think who said it now, but life happens from the inside out. So it starts from within and is reflected back to us in what we perceive as our external reality, which is being created by us.
Speaker 3:But it is useful then and we can see it with global events as well, with big things that happen like pandemics and huge events that happen that serve as a trigger to some of the things that come up in people's shadow. And suddenly something happens and people are all falling out with each other and they're nasty to each other. That of them was already there. Those feelings they're voicing were already there, but the event happened to trigger it to come out and suddenly it's out in the open and that can feel horrible, that can feel really chaotic when that happens. But actually it's lots and lots of people's shadow coming up all at the same time and a pandemic will trigger that, a political event will trigger that, a natural disaster will trigger that. Suddenly, lots of people are all facing the same kind of shadow trait fear, hatred, division, whatever that may be. So we can see it happening on the big scale as well as individually in our lives as well.
Speaker 1:The big scale as well as individually in our lives as well. Yeah, I so agree, and especially with our beliefs. So what we focus on is what we're shown to, and whether we are focusing on something deliberately or subconsciously and as a whole, like you said, a big society. When we're focusing so much on a belief system, yeah, events happen and say well then, here it is, here's what you're focusing on. So all of it's an opportunity to see what we're feeling and what we're believing and what we're seeing in front of us. Like you said, it's what's happening inside. What we're focusing on is now shown to us on the outside.
Speaker 3:And it's funny. I liken it to the Facebook algorithm. When you go on Facebook and you watch a video of a dog, and then all the videos and posts you see are of dogs. There's more videos that are similar. Then you get all the adverts advertising dog food and all of a sudden, because you've engaged with something, even if you didn't like it or comment on it, but you've watched it, you've engaged with it and they show you more because they know that that's what you want to see.
Speaker 3:And that's exactly the same thing with life. If I keep going out and saying, oh, everybody in this town's rude, I will keep attracting rude people to me because that's my belief and that's what the universe keeps showing me. To strengthen that belief, if I say everybody in my town is lovely and happy, every time I go out I bump into happy people because that's what I'm looking for. And the universe responds like the Facebook algorithm you seem to enjoy engaging with this. Here's some more. And then my whole life is flooded with happy people, because that's what I am looking for and that's what I'm getting in return exactly happy people, because that's what I am looking for and that's what I'm getting in return.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah, the first time I saw it was when I was getting ready to buy a car and I was deciding what kind of car I want and suddenly, everywhere I saw that kind of car. I had never seen them before, but it was really it was. It was my aha moment to say this is really how it's worked out.
Speaker 3:I've had exactly that same experience and I've had a lot of people say the same thing. Why, suddenly? Because I want this car, I'm seeing them everywhere. Well, because you're looking for them and you'll find them. They will keep being shown to you and that's when you realize, oh gosh, this physical reality isn't quite so solid and dense and unmovable, is it? It's actually really malleable, and that that's kind of that proof of that happening absolutely and that's great, because I think that's a really common occurrence.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of people will have noticed that we do find what we're looking for, but what we think is oh look, um, the universe has shown me that that's the truth, that that's your truth, that you're creating with your thoughts, and therefore it's being reflected back to you. Somebody else has a different belief and they are presented with evidence of that belief. So to them, that is true, and to you, your belief is true, because you are literally seeing it reflected in your reality. But your two realities can be very different absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think something really important to add to that too is I had an experience in my life where you know there was my truth and somebody else's truth and I was really torn, I mean to the point of, you know, big bawling, big prayers break tears. I did not know what to do or how to feel or believe, and I finally asked the question of what other path is there? Is there something else I'm not seeing that I don't even know about? Like there's A and B, show me C and D, and I got that answer. So sometimes, when we can only see two paths, if the question we're asking, instead of focusing on either A or B or you could say, okay, there are these two beliefs, show me what else I can believe in and focus there, focus on. I don't know any other way. Show me what's possible and you will be seeing that too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I really like that, because if we do just ask, show me a better way of doing this, show me a different way of doing that, show me a different way of doing this, show me a different way of doing that, show me a different way of thinking about something, you will find it. I'm always having conversations with source, the universe, and seeing what comes back um, and there are infinite. I believe there are infinite possibilities. There isn't ever just two choices, um, but we are only seeing two if we believe there's only two. So, if we believe there's only two. So people who believe there's only a and b and that's all that there is, they will be presented with that as their reality and that confirms that belief. So it's when we then say, okay, I want to have a look at, like you say, c and d, what do they look like? It's so interesting when you see that brought back into your reality.
Speaker 2:We truly are Realities. Go ahead, Lauren.
Speaker 1:No, I was just going to go on and say, like that's the analogy of the eagle's vision. Right, we only see the world through this human little straw. Right, we can only see what's in front of us, what we know. And what we know is what we've learned from our past or what we've been told. And yet there are so many more opportunities and so many paths we don't even know exist. I'm a huge believer in animals. Teach us, you know, and I think that that's the bigger picture, the eagle's eye, where we get to see everything from above, above the clouds, right, and I know you're an animal communicator too, so rotating that in. But yeah, there's so much that we just can't see because we don't know exists, but it's there and it wants to come out knowing or being open to that. There's other paths than just this duality of of what we're seeing right now, with this side and this side.
Speaker 3:Oh, there's so many other paths in between where we could all walk down together yeah, exactly, and I also believe that we'll be shown what we can handle at the time. So we won't say, show me what's possible, and suddenly we get completely shown what we can handle at the time. So we won't say, show me what's possible, and suddenly we get completely overwhelmed and we break down because we'll be shown what matches our frequency. Like we can handle seeing a few different perspectives. We're able to take that bird's eye view, but some people aren't, so they don't really tap into that.
Speaker 3:But as we continue to evolve, we see far more than we would have done a couple of years ago because we've changed and we're able to handle that higher frequency now. So we get an even bigger picture and that bigger picture view. We think, oh, I'm seeing everything that could possibly happen, but we're not. We're just seeing a tiny fragment, even when we are taking that eagle eye view. But then a couple of years from now, when we've evolved further and our consciousness has got to a space where we can handle more, we'll be shown more. But I do believe that we're shown what we're able to cope with and get our heads around at the time that's a great point, melanie.
Speaker 2:I also kind of get the message also, just to stay in my lane and not try to, like, talk to, you know, change another person's perspective. But who could not be ready for it or wouldn't hear what I'm saying, understand because they're going at their pace, they're learning their lessons. It's not my responsibility to bring them to that higher perspective that they aren't ready for, or even, you know, vice versa. Maybe I'm not ready for this higher perspective either that someone else is trying to show me. So I've just been like you know they say kind of just stay in your lane and, and you know, take care of yourself, love other people, give them space, give them the opportunity to learn for themselves.
Speaker 3:But it's not our responsibility to to direct it, because we can't absolutely and I love that because I've had the exact same wording from my spirit guides recently stay in your lane, exactly the same.
Speaker 3:So when I see different things happening and you see some of the the conflicts and the drama and the negativity and the fear and the wars and everything that happened, I've been told just stay in your lane, because if you keep going into that lane you're bringing yourself down. So I'm in my lane and in my periphery there's some stuff happening that's not great. Just keep your focus on where you want to be vibrating, what you want to be feeling, because if you keep dipping in and out, you're kind of dropping your vibration. And that's not to say we can't help people, but we, like you, say we meet them where they're at and if they're on a slightly different path, then that's absolutely valid. They're still in their lane doing their thing, but we're just just focused on. Especially when I get overwhelmed by the chaotic energies around the world, that's the message I get, loud and clear stay in your lane, like you've got this, you're okay.
Speaker 2:I love it Great. So you have um many other tools that you. Can you tell us a little bit about other things that you do? I know you do the oracle reading on tarot and different things. Do you tell our listeners what you other things that you are offering?
Speaker 3:yeah, of course. So, um, I offer courses in crystal healing. It's a beginner's course, so that's ideal for people who are on their spiritual path. They're learning different things, but they just want something to learn that they can use just for themselves to get themselves into understanding the world of energy and frequency, without being too full on. So I offer a nice beginner's course in crystal healing. I teach intuitive tarot. I did learn traditional tarot reading, actually, but I steered more towards the intuitive style of reading. So that's now how I teach people, so they can use tarot or oracle cards.
Speaker 3:I teach um energy healing as well, and I've kind of made that a bit more broad, because, although I used reiki and I'm a reiki master again I wanted to teach something that people could pick up um as a beginner that they can utilize and tap into. That's a bit more universal, so it's not using the Japanese traditional teachings, it's more of a broad. This is what energy is. Here's how you can use it. Here's how you can channel it and cleanse and balance your chakras.
Speaker 3:I've got a course about the spiritual awakening and the ascension to help people to kind of understand some of the things that we've been talking about today. I've got another. I've got two courses in shadow work. One of them is again what we've been talking about programming that we've been given in this lifetime and then there's a more advanced one for people who want to look into past lives and how they might have impacted us and what we might have buried. That's come from another lifetime rather than coming from the programming we've been given in this lifetime. I think that's come from another lifetime rather than coming from the program we've been given in this lifetime um.
Speaker 2:I think that's all of my courses for now. I'm building on them, I teach on udemy and I've got a few courses on there. You teach, um you do animal communication as well is what I read yeah, I do so.
Speaker 3:I do um more animal healing and then I allow the communication to come through in the moment. So I I learned animal reiki and I also studied animal communication and I combine that together as a package to help with people's animals, whatever they're going through whether the animal is going through grief, whether the animal is going through um, separation, anxiety, whether they're reacting to other animals there's so many things our animals can feel as well and they also have a huge range of emotions and we need to recognize that and value animals for the sentient beings that they are and they can absolutely benefit from energy healing. In fact, I feel like animals are more in tune to energy than we are because they aren't bombarded by incessant thoughts, so they're more attuned to their feelings. So, yes, I offer energy healing and then I sometimes do get sort of communication coming through during the session If there's something they want to show me that I can give to their human to help them to come back into balance to help them to come back into balance.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful, and we will have a link to her website below so that if you want to involve in any of the wonderful programs that Melanie has, you can get in touch with her. So is there any last things, passionate things that you feel need to be um talked about?
Speaker 3:um I think really one of the the takeaways would be what we were just talking about, the, the message that we're getting about staying in your lane. So the energies of the world this year in particular, but really the last four or five years, have felt at times really chaotic, like the collective energies. Some big things happening in the world and probably going to continue this way for a while as we go through the ascension process and lots of things are coming up for healing. So the energy is, I certainly felt they do feel quite chaotic at times and even though I've got so many tools now to help me with my anxiety, it doesn't mean the anxiety doesn't occasionally hit me and then I have to use my tools.
Speaker 3:So I think a takeaway for people is, like we've said, stay in your lane, stay on your path and stay in your heart, because that's where you can always come back to. It doesn't matter what's happening in the world. If you come into your heart, you're always going to be able to connect to that peace and that love and you can connect to that feeling anytime you're feeling overwhelmed, if it all gets a bit too much, you can come into the heart or use crystals or whatever modality you've got, but I think we all need to be reminded of that sometimes, because it feels like life is happening to us sometimes but it's not. We get to choose in every moment.
Speaker 1:Beautifully said and I cannot thank you enough for this beautiful conversation we've had today. So thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:So, if you've enjoyed this conversation as much as we have, please like share and subscribe, and until next time. How is your intuition leading you to the next perfect step?