Tag Archives: Gratitude

New Year’s Reflections

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As I reflect back on this past year, it has been a year of great courage for me.

I moved to NYC with little money in my bank account and fortunate to receive the support of great friends. I took on a life far from the cozy one I’d grown accustomed to and with each day, leapt into a new unknown.

I discovered burn-out in my work and had the courage to release patterns and dreams that no longer served me. It was scary and dark…deeply uncomfortable. I’m still letting go as I surrender notions of what it means to be a “success,” to have a purpose, what is meant for my life, what wants to be birthed through me.

It takes great courage to live inside the space of “I don’t know.” I’ve felt small and purposeless at times, a voice in my head constantly chiding “What if I never amount to anything?”–and that might be the most precious gift of this challenging year–there is something much more profound unfolding then my Personal Will can ever create or comprehend…and I don’t have to “amount” to anything to be a gift and receive the gift of my existence. A lesson I continue to learn.

And in the midst of all of that letting go and clearing out, a great love was being born and continues to birth itself with new adventures on the horizon–partnership was perhaps the least expected gift this year, and a most welcome surprise.

And now I face 2015 with continued courage, brand-new dreams, and a continued deepening of my surrender. “Thy will be done.” This will continue to be my prayer as I embark on yet another year of this precious life.

I Am Learning What Real Love Is

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There is a life-altering gift emerging from my family’s recent challenges, and it is a gift I am receiving with an open heart and deep gratitude.

I am learning what REAL love is—what it looks like, how it acts, how it moves.

You see, I used to cringe at the concept of “sacrificial love”—particularly that of the various Christian traditions that I was exposed to through the years. I interpreted this sacrifice as sacrificing one’s own happiness for the sake of another’s…which would add up to nobody actually being happy in the end. This kind of love sounded dis-empowering to me and at the heart of a whole lot of people not taking care of themselves, not pursuing what matters to them all for the sake of another. It sounded like entrapment, imprisonment. It sounded like a perfect recipe to lose one’s self.

And as it turns out, sacrificial love IS the perfect recipe to lose one’s self, and not any of the parts worth keeping. It turns out that through all of my resistance, sacrificial love is what I’ve been praying for all along.

I now see that this kind of love has nothing to do with giving up happiness, and everything to do with risking my SELF—all of the beliefs & stories I cling to, the past, the desire to be right and hold resentments, the drive to seek safety, control, and approval—true love asks me to give all of that up and surrender to a will far greater than my own. Not my will, God’s will. “Thy will be done.”

Sacrificial love means that I’m choosing to make myself so vulnerable, so open, so present to who you REALLY are to what REALLY is, that all I want is what is best for you…which as it turns out, is also what is best for me. It means seeing you beyond my stories of you, my perceptions of you, the past that my ego wants to project onto you. It means true forgiveness and healing.

So yes, sacrificial love requires letting go, and letting go, and letting go…but not of that which brings me joy. It simply asks me to let go of all of the illusions, all of the barriers that I’ve built that limit my capacity to actually experience joy and blind me from the truth: That love is the most natural, effortless expression of my soul. That loving you, SEEING you and showing up for you beyond fear and story is what I was born to do. It’s what we were all born to do.

Thanks to having the dad that I have and the mom that I have, I got to receive the precious gift of this growing awareness over this past week. I love them beyond words.

And oh yeah, when tragedy seems to strike in your life or to those dear to you—let my shared awareness be a gift and reminder to you that there is nothing wrong, ever. At any moment you can surrender and recognize that even those challenging experiences are loving you and giving you exactly what you need.

Peace, Y’all.

Melissa

©2014 Melissa Simonson

Love Revelation: The power of “AND”

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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

Love Revelation: Small Acts of Kindess

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Everyday since I first set foot in Brooklyn, and sometimes multiple times a day, people are blowing me away with their spirit of friendliness and helpfulness. Momentary connections and funny commentary at the grocery store or the post office, conversations struck up at the locker room at the gym, a random man coming to find me in the coffee ordering line just to let me know there is a table with an outlet that just opened up (he saw me looking for one to no avail).

Yes, there are A LOT of people here and lots of people focused on their own stuff as we humans tend to be…and yet there is magic in the madness.

And I can say with all sincerity that these kind strangers are angels for me as I ride the emotional roller-coaster of familiarity and homesickness multiple times a day.

Small acts of kindness make a HUGE difference. We each have the capacity to make a loving impact on the people around us…in such very simple and yet utterly profound ways. 

:)Melissa

©2014 Melissa Simonson

“I may not know what aisle the bread is in, but I can transform lives!”

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Funny statement of the afternoon, while in a phone session with a client: (Me to my client) “I may not know what aisle the bread is in, but I can transform lives!”

As I relish moments of feeling comfortable in my new city, and feel like it is taking all that I have just to meet basic needs day-to-day as every moment is a new discovery, I find that when I am doing my work, when I am holding sacred space for my clients as healer, freedom catalyst, and a beacon of radical self-love I am HOME.

When I am living in alignment with the call of my soul, when I am acting on what REALLY matters to me in my heart, I am HOME.

As I bring others home to the truth of who they are, I come home to myself.

I’m so grateful for this awareness today.

©2014 Melissa Simonson