Love Revelation: I am a Radical Self-Love Ambassador…

I call myself a Radical Self-Love Ambassador, and as fun and “what is that?” as it sounds, I really mean it. And sometimes I can forget that I really mean it or what it even means. So, I’m declaring it here so that I begin to create it, and so that you can be a part of it, too. 

Here’s what that looks like for me: Bring me into your companies, your organizations, your women’s groups, your men’s groups, your churches, your workshops & retreats and I’ll use my potent gift to make art with words, my music, my powerful inquiries and my capacity to facilitate transformative conversations as we talk about shame, about the path to freedom, about humility as a celebration of ALL of our strengths, about the magic of vulnerability and the power & connection we discover through authentically expressing who we are, about getting clear and having the courage to pursue what we REALLY want in our lives…I’ll talk about what self-love REALLY is, what it looks like and why it actually matters. And I’ll do it in a way that has everyone taking deep breaths and discovering their own precious power in the process.

Bring me in to be a presenter, to creatively inspire and to facilitate conversations with your young people and teens in your schools and organizations as I create a space for them to laugh at themselves and love themselves at the same time…for perhaps the first time in a really long time. I’ll create the space for them to find permission to be who they REALLY are and to like what they find.

Being a Radical Self-Love Ambassador means that in the months and years ahead I will be touring the world and having people get all the way into the cells of their bones that there is nothing wrong with them and that they are deeply and truly loved.

It means published books, and more recorded albums of my original music. It means creating performance art and one-woman shows and creating workshops where people get to share and release their stories of shame and embrace what makes them beautiful and unique.

It means listening for what lights you up in our one-on-one conversations so that you walk away, unleashed, empowered and being more YOU than ever before.

It means leaving the grocery clerk and the coffee barrista and the woman who cleans at my gym GETTING that they matter and are appreciated not just for what they do and also for who they are.

It means continuing to take on my dreams, becoming intimate with my own doubts, fears, and limiting beliefs. It means loving myself despite the voice that tells me “I never get it right.” It means being really human and therefore, really lovable, so that you get to see how lovable that you are, too.

And so, I’m declaring this here today as what I’m in the midst of creating. I don’t know how it’s all going to go yet or exactly what it will look like as it unfolds…and being in communication with you seemed like a great place to start.

If you love what you read in my posts if you are inspired by the possibility of having me LIVE at your event or doing work within your organization or community…then EMAIL ME and we’ll begin a life-changing conversation about what that could actually look like.

All my love,

:)Melissa

©2014 Melissa Simonson

Love Revelation: A Simple, yet RADICAL truth…

My Loves:

I’m going to say something really simple, and you might see it and say, “Well, I already KNOW that.” And I want you to REALLY receive this message, anyway.

There is nothing wrong with you. 
Nothing to fix. 
Nothing to change. 
You have everything you need to have all that you want.
You were born with the perfect balance of strengths and weaknesses to offer up the unique gift of YOU to the world.
You started making a precious difference in the world the moment you were born.

And if you’re struggling to see that, if the voice in your head stills wants to fix you or make you wrong for this thing or that, here’s the good news:

That’s just false gunk that has gotten in the way of your seeing your wholeness, and that gunk can be cleared away.

We as human beings have this tremendous capacity to transform, to come back to the truth of who we are, to come home to knowing ourselves as magnificent and worth cherishing.

If you’ve got stuff in the way that’s keeping you from embodying the knowing that there is truly nothing wrong, (you’re so not alone), send me a message and we’ll open up a conversation to connect you with the beauty of who you really are. Xo

:)Melissa

©2014 Melissa Simonson

Love Revelation: Thinking…plus action…makes it so

Tonight’s magical NYC subway adventure included a conversation with a very close-talking, surprisingly profound and maybe a little psychic drunk man telling me that he was “very attracted to my light” and that I belong on Stephen Colbert or Broadway, 🙂 , followed by a deep conversation with a man newly studying to be a lawyer about, NLP, Eckhart Tolle’s the Power of Now, Jed Mckenna, Byron Katie, Landmark Worldwide (It was a long train ride from the city at this hour).

And the evening ended with a text message from this new friend: “Melissa, amazing connecting with you. your journey is going to be as beautiful as you decide to make it. Thinking makes it so.”

This whole night began with my heading into the city to grab a drink with a lovely man who I met on the Subway last week who was reading an inspirational book that grabbed my attention.

All of my life, people have warned me to “keep my guard up” and worried about my daring willingness to leap into the unknown, befriend strangers, and go off the beaten path. Even in the midst of connecting with kind strangers like this man, I’m met with concern that I be careful in whom I put my trust.

The fact of the matter is that I wholeheartedly trust me and my inner guidance system. I’m just really good at following the YES in my heart and also listening for the NO, and nearly 33 years into this life I’m living, which has included travel to other countries and cities and meeting countless people, I have yet to have experienced anything short of magic.

I’m not lucky or extra blessed or extra special in my experience of miracles showing up daily in my life. I’ve just chosen to show up wherever I am from a place of wonder and a desire to connect, of sharing myself and discovering the light inside of others.

Love begets more love y’all. And as my lovely new friend said, “thinking makes it so.”

:)Melissa

©2014 Melissa Simonson

Love Revelation: Being a stand for love in the world

It’s an incredibly vulnerable and weird experience to do a funding campaign.

Since launching my GoFundMe campaign to support my New York move a little over a month ago, I have been confronted by many uncomfortable feelings and thoughts.

“You look so needy.”
“People are gonna think that you don’t have your stuff together.”
“Asking for help on this level is just too much–people are going to be so annoyed and think you’re rude…and a little pathetic…for asking.”

Yes, I talk to myself like this in my head, and it hurts. And, there are days when these thoughts can almost stop me.

But here’s the thing: While YES, I asked for financial support in order to help ME transition my life to NYC, this campaign has been about SO MUCH more than me because WHO I AM is someone who wakes up everyday committed to making a loving difference in the world.

I have designed my life inside of the greater commitment to being an Ambassador of Radical Self-Love–of being someone by example, through my dedication to my work, through my creative expression, my family relationships, my friendships and through every day-to-day interaction to be a CAUSE for people to love who they are.

I live each day of my life committed to having others be LIT UP by their lives. I am committed to everyone knowing the freedom that comes with full self-expression, and to healing the shame that causes them to hide their true voice. I am committed to having people wake up in the morning with a smile on their face because they GET that they are truly loved & lovable in every moment.

So, for everyone who has contributed to this campaign and for all those who feel inspired to contribute, you’re not just donating money to me as I make my life in New York–you, right along with me, are choosing to be someone who is committed to creating a loving world.

THAT is the difference you make through donating to my crowd-funding campaign.

And so I’ve chosen to set all of my feelings of shame and thoughts of self-judgement aside because my life is NOT about looking good. I am a stand for love in the world, and so I’m choosing to risk what you’ll think of me, and choosing to invite you to be a powerful contribution along side me instead.

And so I want to ask, will you make the powerful choice to join me in creating a loving world?

Please visit http://www.gofundme.com/MelissaNYCJourney to donate and then share this campaign with the people you care about so that they get to experience themselves as the powerful contribution that they are, too.

Thanks for all that you are.

:)Melissa

©2014 Melissa Simonson

Love Revelation: The power of “AND”

me

On August 27th, 2013, the word “AND” transformed my life.

Let me explain.

Two days before, in my Advanced Course with Landmark Worldwide I’d had a huge breakthrough that had me seeing all of the ways that I was living my life as a victim who needs to protect herself from anger, harshness, disappointment. I was being a coach inside of the thought “Please don’t be mad at me;” a daughter, lover, friend inside of the thought, “Please don’t be mad at me;” I was pursuing my dreams inside of the thought, “Please don’t be mad at me:” which ummm…wasn’t very effective, to say the least. Was I making things happen? Yes. And I had NO CLUE what I could make possible through freedom from that fear story.

So there I was on August 27th, the final night of my Advanced course, and we were doing one last exercise. It went like this:

Look for all of the statements where you say, I want X BUT Y. And we were going back and forth with a partner stating as many of these as we could think of.

“I want to have a passionate, committed relationship BUT I’m afraid it’s not possible for me.”

“I want to make money doing what I love BUT I don’t know how.”

“I want to move out of my mom’s house BUT I can’t afford it.”

Then we made one little shift that created my life as I know it today. We simply took that little word, that action-stopping, you-can’t-have-what-you-want word, “BUT” and replaced it with “AND.”

“I want to have a passionate, committed relationship AND I’m afraid it’s not possible for me.”

“I want to make money doing what I love AND I don’t know how.”

“I want to move out of my mom’s house AND I can’t afford it.”

And suddenly the world opened up. There were actions I could take to have what I want. There was the possibility to move forward in my life in ways that truly matter to me. When I got to that last one about wanting to move out of my mom’s house AND not being able to afford it, I was stopped in my tracks:

“I need to move out of my mom’s house.”

And then I saw actions: Get clear on my finances, pick a date to move out and get clear on prices of apartments that I want, create a financial plan to make it happen, etc.

And I hit the ground running. That next week I was looking at apartments in Madison. And than it occurred to me: I don’t want to live in Madison anymore. I want to move to Brooklyn, NY, and I’m going to do it by March of 2014. I registered into the Landmark Introduction Leaders Program that just started this past Friday as a way to REALLY throw my hat over that fence.

And well, my loves, I’m writing this post from Brooklyn, NY and it’s March of 2014. And believe me: there were freak outs and break downs. I nearly cancelled my registration for that program multiple times. I chose to move in the midst of a business re-brand, which felt insane. And I didn’t let that stop me. I found the courage to ask friends and family for financial support in order to follow through on my commitment to get here in March to begin that program, and between the online GoFundMe campaign (http://www.gofundme.com/MelissaNYCJourney), and loving checks in the mail, I’ve currently raised $2,961 toward my $5000 goal, with 11 days left. Vulnerable to ask–Hell yes. And I didn’t let the word “BUT” stop me from creating the invitation for others to contribute powerfully to my life and those who I’m meant to touch with my life.

And I’m falling in love with what is beginning to unfold in my life here in my new city. And oh yeah, I’m going to have that relationship that I want, and every day I get to do more and more of the work that I love while also making money…doing what I love.

Anything is possible when we remove the word “BUT” from our language.

“AND” just might be my new favorite word. 

Now it’s your turn: What could that simple word make possible in YOUR life? What actions can you take to turn YOUR wanting into reality?

All my love,

:)Melissa

©2014 Melissa Simonson