539. Transform Your Trauma into Awakened Power | From Pain to Purpose - Melissa Monte

Melissa Monte

 [00:00:00] 

Welcome to Soul Elevation, guiding Your Ascension to New Heights. I'm your host, Kara Goodwin. I'm excited about this episode with Melissa Monty, host of the Wonderful Mind Love podcast. We go deep in this one , talking about how your challenges are related to your story and how you can use that to launch yourself into a new reality.

She has practical steps, which she lays out in this episode, so you might wanna be ready to take some notes in this one. Melissa Monty is the host of Mind Love a top ranked podcast with over 5 million downloads that explores consciousness storytelling and what it actually means to wake up after her own journey through addiction, a felony conviction for someone else's crime, and the slow work of rebuilding from scratch.

She discovered something powerful. The stories we're most ashamed of .

Usually contain [00:01:00] our greatest medicine through mind. Love her company, story, love, and her upcoming book, the Story of Consciousness. She helps people recognize they're not victims of their circumstances. But authors of their reality, her work strips away spiritual bypassing to get real about transformation because consciousness isn't about perfection.

It is about showing up as everything you are. Before we begin, I'd love to invite you to visit kara goodwin.com where you'll find a world of resources to support your awakening journey. Explore my book, your Authentic Awakening, a beautiful collection of free guided meditations and other offerings to help you deepen your spiritual connection wherever you are on your path.

You can also discover upcoming summits, workshops, and live events designed to expand your consciousness

and connect you with a community of like-hearted souls. If you feel inspired by today's episode, please [00:02:00] help the show grow by liking, commenting, sharing, and subscribing. Your engagement truly amplifies the frequency of this work and helps high vibe content like this reach more people. And now enjoy this episode.

Kara Goodwin: welcome Melissa. I am so excited to have this conversation with you here today.

Thanks for coming on. Soul Elevation.

Melissa Monte: Thanks for having me. I'm honored to be here.

Kara Goodwin: Well, we had such a great conversation just two days ago on Mind Love. I was so honored to be a Jo, uh, to join you on mind Love, and I'm so excited to go deeper into your story because I know you have a, an amazing, really like origin story of how you got into this work. And I do wanna get to that. But before we do, I just want to go a little bit into the, the.

Spiritual nature of your exploration. You've got such a, a, [00:03:00] I think, a very cool mix of things that you're drawn to. I, I mentioned when I was a guest on your podcast, you've been going into the No, the gnostic texts, which I resonate a lot with me, and I, I would love to just start with the mystery schools and what you've learned in terms of the ancient mystery schools and, and how they've.

How they have facilitated transformation within people.

Melissa Monte: yes. So, so many of my, uh, expertise I guess you call it, is just because it was either part of my healing or part of my intense curiosity, which I think is how we find. Our purpose here anyways, the ways that we're meant to serve, it's usually the path that we've taken, the sacred curriculum that we've been given within our own story.

Kara Goodwin: The medicine that

Melissa Monte: yeah.

Kara Goodwin: that we offer. Yeah.

Melissa Monte: Your wounds become your wisdom, your message, your message. There's so many ways [00:04:00] to say

Kara Goodwin: Ooh, the mess is your message. I've never heard that before.

Melissa Monte: There's

Kara Goodwin: love it.

Melissa Monte: in all of it, and one of those deep explorations for me was from religion because I was raised very Christian and it never really felt right to me. I went hard into it. I tried to give it my all. I pretended with a lot of things, honestly, because everyone around me was, and I was like, I'm doing all the right things. I I believe in God after. of the traumas that I had gone through, I had gotten to a place where I didn't believe in God at all.

And it wasn't even just the traumas. It was actually even going to college and taking a World Religions class and being like, wait, I thought that story originated in the Bible. What does that mean for the story I heard if it actually originated a thousand years earlier? So a big part of my finding my own spiritual path. Because even though I played in the, there is [00:05:00] No God zone for a while, that didn't really feel right to me either. There was some sort of magic in the world that I couldn't quite explain. And so as I went through spirituality, I, I had to spend a lot of time kind of unraveling the fear that my religion had planted in, like, for example, kind of reading about. Eastern religions and then saying a quick little prayer to Jesus just in case like, Hey, so you know, I'm not trying to end up in hell. I'm literally trying to get closer to you. So if I'm on the wrong path, you steer me over, like know my heart's in the right place. And I eventually started asking the right questions like, how do I unwind this fear?

And it led me to really understanding the origins of things, uh, the, the Theo setting theology. Understanding some of the original stories that were told that were then adopted by the Bible. Understanding who was in [00:06:00] power at the time that certain things were put together. Who was the Council of Nyia? How did they actually choose what got into the Bible and what was left out? finding the answers to those questions be was really helpful because it's really like following politics today. What is in. The best interest of those in power for us to believe, to keep us more submissive and better controlled. And a big part of that was fear. But one of the things that I had found in my deep dive was the ancient mystery schools, which I just found fascinating. And for over a thousand years, people traveled across the Mediterranean to this small town outside of Athens for one specific experience, and that was to be transformed by a story. And so these were the Ellucian Mystery schools, and it was the most famous initiation rights in the ancient world really.

Plato went through them ces, Marcus Aurelius. So they all made this pilgrimage to experience. Different stories [00:07:00] such as the myth of Persephone and demeanor, and then they left as different people. It was like the original psychedelic transformation, but, but really just with the story, with the dark, with the acting out. And so the Greeks mastered something that I think. We have forgotten, or my theory has intentionally been hidden from us and it's that stories can be a consciousness technology. So they weren't just lectures where people learned about mythology. They were. Sort of like transformation laboratories where people became the story. And so initiates would fast for days, they'd drink this psychoactive brew called ion, and then they would enter these really darkened chambers where the myth was enacted around them and kind of threw them. And so they experienced themselves as Persephone descending into the underworld, feeling that that terror of separation from everything familiar. Or the [00:08:00] disorientation of being in alien territory, and then the gradual adaptation to the underworld consciousness before experiencing return and resurrection. And so they understood that you became what you identify with when you deeply identify with a mythic character, your psyche. Almost reorganizes around that character's patterns, and so their struggles become your struggles. Their consciousness becomes available to your consciousness. It actually reminds me of what Napoleon Hill talked about, where he would talk about your invisible counsel. He kind of invented the mastermind where he would say, he would study people so deeply like Abe Lincoln or, or people that he really looked up to, and so he could get to a point of knowing them and their philosophy so well that he could actually ask. Well, what would they do in this situation? I think that's one of the most powerful hidden benefits of any connections that we have, whether we know the person really well [00:09:00] in person or whether we just deeply study our heroes. But that's what was happening here. The, the gods in the myths were their, their heroes.

They were the original influencer in their way, and so they became really strategic about which myths they used. Every mystery school followed. Or every mystery school story followed a similar template, separation from ordinary consciousness dissent into the unknown. Then an encounter with death or limitation and then consciousness or conscious return a, a more expanded awareness because of what you've learned through that journey.

And so they succeeded because they understood three things that modern spirituality usually misses, embodied experience over just information. Precise symbolic language where every detail corresponds to specific psychological processes, and then kind of a [00:10:00] graduated intensity. So they didn't throw people into the deep and immediately they, they built the capacity gradually before facing full death and resurrection experience.

So we can use that same technology today by. Approaching transformation stories as consciousness rather than entertainment. That's why I'm always saying I think biblical literalism was the worst thing to ever happen to the Bible. There was a reason that Jesus spoke in parables. Parables is what connects, and this is something I even learned, um, through other modalities.

The reason story came so together for me was I spent 20 years as a marketer. I'm still a marketer. And uh, we know it through marketing that people don't. Create a behavior change or even spark behavior like a purchase or hiring you facts and logistics. You can sit there and show them all your credentials.

What people connect is the story. [00:11:00] Even Russell Brunson, one of the most famous marketers, calls it the Epiphany Bridge. Every time he tries to sell something new, he creates that very specific transformation story of where he started, his kind of aha moment, the epiphany that he had of this new way of being and.

So when you can connect with somebody through story or learn to connect with yourself through story understanding what stories are driving your current behavior and what story you want to be guiding your life, you can use this kind of technology to either bring people with you or spark a change in yourself.

Kara Goodwin: Mm. Wow. I love that. That's amazing. And. I, first of all, I love that this all took place in Greece

I had chills all up and down my spine because yesterday. This whole Greek reincarnation, like past life connection really came front and center. And now here you are. [00:12:00] Which has my attention where I'm like, okay, this is Melissa's bringing in some Greek stuff. I I hear you. And, um, but I was having this amazing massage.

I have this amazing massage therapist, and she's Reiki trained. And she is, she does reflexology. She's a cranial sacral, like she and she is so in touch. With her own energy. And then she's like kind of subtly doing energetic healing as she's doing an amazing massage. It's just, I hope everybody has a Sheila in their life, but, um,

Melissa Monte: a, and she is amazing.

Kara Goodwin: oh good.

I'm so glad that you have your own version of it. Um, but I, there's something with, in at least yesterday, I. Kept having these flashes of Greece and I've only been to Greece once, and it was many years ago, but it was a another, it was like an ancient, it was ancient Greece and. I don't have a [00:13:00] lot of details about what it is, and it's unusual for me to feel like a specific past life coming bleed through.

But there is something, and I, it's not the first time that it's happened in that setting, but I don't always, I never remember. It's always like this, this, uh, Greek life like comes back up and I, and then it's like, this is familiar. Like, I think this comes up every time and I'm just like, what a weird thing to think about.

Why am I thinking about ancient Greece? And so, um, and then when I finished, I had a. An email from somebody who's going through this. Uh, I mean, she went, she's not going through a new spiritual awakening, but like a new layer of spiritual awakening. And she was just sharing that. She'd had a couple of sessions with people and these past lives that came up and there was so much synchronicity between the two readings that she'd just had.

And one of them was this ancient, this life in ancient Greece. And I'm like. What, what she was saying was just resonating with me and I'm like, here it is again. [00:14:00] And then it came up again in another podcast. Somebody brought up ancient Greece and now here we are. And I'm just like very interested in that.

So I'm like feeling all this resonance as you're talking about it. But it makes me wonder too, like how, what? Role has this played in your life? I love how you talk about it as a technology. So for your own healing and your own transformation, what role has this type of approach taken in your life?

Melissa Monte: Oh, it's. been the entire story. Like that's what we're, we are all living in a story. We are meaning making machines. And so most of us identify with the circumstances that have happened to us, or we think that we are, however. The truth is we're identifying with the meaning that we've given those circumstances. And so, um, [00:15:00] it Man's Search For Meaning talks about this. Uh, the author actually to interview people that survived the Holocaust and wondered why some of them seemed to thrive at other ones. It just broke them. Their life was never the same. They couldn't regain. Their identity, their selves after it.

And he wanted to know why. And he realized it was the meaning that people were giving things. And so, uh, it, we have that control to give our lives different meaning. And that just took me a really long t time to understand. And so when I was young, I had everything going for me. I had a. A lot of hope for my future.

I was always told that I was smart and intelligent, and when I was 15 I was sexually assaulted at my first high school party and it was not just a private thing. I, I was completely unconscious and there was a crowd of older boys basically cheering on my abuser and I. [00:16:00] I didn't really know how to deal with this, and so I decided I was fine, because multiple people were there, it ended up spreading around school with a different story than the one that I knew. One where I was not the victim and, and I had no control over my reputation or what people said about me. It was actually part of why I fell away from the church. The church found out I was sexually active and took away my solos and, uh, I was in choir and they didn't ask any questions about how I was sexually active, how I got there.

And so there was a lot of internalization where I didn't really even realize that I was sexually assaulted. I, I thought it was my fault because I had been drinking. I didn't know what I said. I didn't, the me too movement had not happened, so I did not have. other stories to compare mine to where I could see that I had been taken advantage of.

So I think that's when [00:17:00] I started losing pieces of myself without even realizing it. And losing yourself isn't this dramatic moment where everything falls apart. slower than that. It was like every year, each small hit to my worth. Every time I pushed down what I was really feeling, it was kind of like that thing about. Putting a frog in water and slowly turning up the heat. I just had no idea how much of myself I was losing. But then the less I valued myself, the more I craved validation, the worse I treated myself, the worse I let other people treat me. And so then my dad died, um, soon after that. And it was almost like whatever fragile sense of self I had left, died with him.

And so I did what a lot of us do when the pain gets too big. I just tried to make myself numb bulimia. party, drugs, alcohol, whatever, promise to make me feel something else. It could even just be staying busy, social media, everything. And so I was spinning in this cycle of [00:18:00] self-destruction, but it was like my normal just kept shifting, so I didn't really notice it. And when you can't find anything within yourself to hold onto, start just reaching for anything outside of you to fill the void. And so was coincidentally when I met. Mike, we'll call him Mike for this, these purposes, but he swept me off my feet with five star dinners and luxury resorts. very first date.

He actually gave me this diamond necklace that made me feel valuable for the first time in years, and I wore it every single day. But then the lies started early. We stayed in hotels because his house was being renovated. And then it turned out he lived with his mom. And then he said, well, he was living there to help his disabled brother. And then it turned out his brother didn't live there and his disability was like mild a DD. And so every lie got a little bigger, but it was so slow and they started small. And so it was like the excuses got easier to swallow. I. [00:19:00] Almost look at it as like he was training me to deep throat as bullshit. So part of me something was off.

Like I could feel the cracks in the reality he was selling me, but admitting it to myself also meant admitting that the dream was dead. was no. Knight and shining armor sweeping me out of my life and into his, which also meant facing everything I was trying to escape. And so then when I found out he was cheating repeatedly, I buried that too because the apologies felt so good.

And then I out about his meth addiction and I was actually relieved because something outside of me was to blame instead of just. My worth. And so I wasn't just ignoring red flags, I was collecting them like they were gonna complete some kind of a set. But really deep down, I believed he was all I deserved.

And if he barely wanted me, would somebody better? And so I just stayed and then. [00:20:00] Well, I actually did try to get away for about a month. I mo moved in with my friend in Hawaii and I got my life together and I felt better. But then I came back and I had not done any of the inner healing and so it was just a few phone calls and I was back in his spiral and it was very soon after that. That we were driving to lunch and I saw police lights behind us and thought we were being pulled over for speeding or something, but the officers made us get out of the trunk or get outta the car so they could it. And when the officer opened the trunk, I just will never forget the look on his face when he saw lock boxes, pair of bolt cutters and cases like I'm talking. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stolen jewelry. And I knew he had a jewelry business. I thought I was helping him with it. He said that's what he did with his dad, but turned out that business was actually stealing it from houses that were for sale and selling everything on eBay. then the diamond necklace that he gave me that I wore every day, including that one, [00:21:00] was also stolen.

And so his crime was now my crime. And a big part of like his. Stealing spree was actually when I was gone. He just went on a spree, robbed like 50 houses during that time. And there were some eyewitness accounts. He had my dog and he was cheating on me with blonde sex worker who kind of fit my description. And so, it just more intertwined our, our cases. But we were arrested together, if I went to trial to prove my innocence, which would've been fairly easy to do since I was literally. Not on the mainland

Kara Goodwin: Hm.

Melissa Monte: all of these eyewitness accounts. Well, there were only two, I think, but um. But if I did that, he had to go to trial too, and it would've guaranteed that he got 10 years in prison I could accept a felony deal so he could take a deal too. And at that point I was sort of used to giving him everything. So I [00:22:00] took the felony. But I just remember sitting in that courtroom listening to his victims, a military mother whose jewelry box held her dead son's baby hair or elderly couples missing decades of anniversary gifts. And he just showed no remorse while I'm bawling my eyes out in the corner and preparing to sacrifice my freedom for his.

And something clicked like the separation, the trauma bond between the two of us just. Disintegrated and it took a while, but I started to see the pattern, the algorithm as I call it, about how every small choice, every belief I held, every thought that I left unchecked had led me to that police car. And I realized that every single day I'd been creating this story based on. Uh, meaning that I had been giving these events what they meant about me, and I'd been creating this reality without even knowing it. And so it wasn't [00:23:00] one aha moment, it was a thousand little ones over time. But I started to realize that everything came back to how I was interpreting my own story and that. I could actually rewrite that. I could change the meaning that I gave different events, and when I did that, it would affect the subconscious and change life, not just in the present moment, but the future that I was building.

Kara Goodwin: Wow. Well thank you so much for sharing that. And when you talk about the rewriting of your story and how that helped to, it really helped to rewire, you know, reconfigure your reality. Were there specific. Steps. Was there a kind of a protocol that you did to do that? Was it through, you know, a talk therapy approach or is there, or was it a little bit, just more on the fly than that?

Melissa Monte: For me, it was more on the fly, as you can tell, by my deep dives into everything I [00:24:00] become interested in, I became really curious as to which. Which of the thousand things I did actually moved the needle the most, and I do believe that bringing intention to almost anything, regardless of the path that you're taking. Your heart is there. There's the ability to change, but I wanted to find the fastest path and really figure out like, what are those pieces that you really need to know? And so I've done this in a bunch of different ways where I, um, I took little pieces, like one little story. I've taken my overall story and I've kind of rewritten it. But what I've realized is that it comes back to, to seven steps. Really. There's seven pieces of your story that you need to know to. To have a breakthrough the fastest, and you can do these steps in a couple of different ways. You can either. Look at it as, as the overall, which I'll explain in a minute, like you just throw everything that fits in that to kind of see the themes of your life. This is [00:25:00] really helpful. If you're trying to find your purpose. You're trying to find the common themes you don't really know, or you can look at it through the lens of one thing, like say, you know, you struggle with relationships, or you know you have this one thing that keeps showing up in your life. You can look at it through that lens, and so. We started the algorithm, and this is one of the most important pieces to know because this is the loop you've been living inside. It's the pattern shaped by past experiences, beliefs, and conditioning. And so everyone starts here. You didn't consciously choose this story, it's, it was given to you.

This is also why we learned that age zero to seven the things that happened to you at that time, the things that you're told. your baseline because your brain is basically in theta the entire time, just absorbing and taking everything as truth, and so. The key questions to ask to figure out your algorithm is what were you taught about blank?

So if you're looking at it through one lens, like what were you taught about relationships, what were you taught about men? What were you taught about intimacy? [00:26:00] Or you can look at it as your overall, like what were you taught about? The big things. Success, love worth relationships, identity. Growing up, what recurring experiences have shaped your beliefs about yourself or what recurring experiences have shaped your beliefs about blank?

If you're looking at it through one lens, if your life were a movie before things changed, what was the main storyline? Or if you had to summarize your past patterns in one phrase, would it be? Example, I always had to prove myself or I always had to earn love. What would it be? And so these are the subconscious patterns that you might not see.

And this is where most people that haven't done the work live and even the people that have done the work, um, I still find things within my algorithm that I would like to bring to the surface and change the second piece. Step two is the disruption. is the shock that breaks the loop. Something shakes up the algorithm.

It could be a crisis, it could be an unexpected truth, and so it [00:27:00] might be something big like a sexual assault or getting arrested, but it could also be something a teacher said to you that just landed in a new way or something your best friend said, and all of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh, that's what you see.

I didn't see that until now. And so this is the moment or the series of moments that made you realize something wasn't what you thought. Third is the awakening. This is seeing the pattern for what it is, the fog lifts. see the pattern and you realize, oh, this isn't just life. This is the story I've been living.

Not everybody lives this way. Not every everybody believes this. So what was the exact moment you saw the pattern? For some people, this overlays right on top of the disruption. They almost happen at once. For others, something disrupts it and you just feel discombobulated and it takes a while to see what that pattern is.

That was a little bit more my path. But what? What stories from your past suddenly made sense in a new way because of [00:28:00] this information. And then fourth is the resistance. This is the second place that people live the longest. is where you see the old story, but it doesn't let go so easily. So it's where fear, resistance, and identity crises show up. And if you think about it, most of us know what we need to do to fix our life, or at least some of the steps. And it's just hard to do, like. You bought the gym membership, but you can't find yourself going, or you wanna start studying spirituality and you just keep forgetting or you wanna start the meditation practice and then you give up. So it's what fears or doubts made it hard to step into the new version of you, or where did you hesitate self-sabotage or nearly turn back. this is usually a pretty big emotional battle battle. And so this helps you to surface the hidden fears that you might not have named or finding conflicting emotions about the change that you wanna have. And then fifth is the choice. It's where you're like, okay, I'm done living in the in between. actually gonna [00:29:00] commit to change. And so transformation isn't just about seeing the pattern, it's about choosing a new one. And so this is where you say, I'm not going back. What was the exact moment you decided to change for real? What actions proved to yourself that this time was different? Six is the embodiment. This is where you actually become the new version of you. change meets action. So you're not just thinking differently, you're actually living differently. actions, habits, choices solidified this transformation? this is actually the piece where if you end up taking your soul work, your, your mess, and it becomes your message, a lot of this embodiment part is what becomes your curriculum. It becomes what you teach other people, the actual steps beyond the mindset. And so. These are the first six steps, and I didn't just make these up, it's actually just a new lens to look at the hero's journey, where every good story, the, the sort of track that every [00:30:00] good story follows, that that hooks other people, but also you. there's a big piece that I think most of them miss. Well, the questions to actually get yourself to see, to get you to see yourself as the hero of the story. But, but it's step seven, and this is what I call the gold or the soul of it. It's extracting the deeper meaning and patterns. So the story isn't just about what happened, it's about what it means, like I said before. So looking back, what was the story really about? How does this experience help you help others? What's the one sentence of wisdom that this journey gave you, or what new patterns do you see in your life now? Usually you start kind of feeling like the sage when you start extracting this out, and so these are the seven steps that I. Take clients through that I've taken myself through, where it just helps you see things with the most clarity. And so in my programs I have AI tools, for example, that helps you just kind of put in your [00:31:00] answers, even if it's a jumbled mess and it will extract things in a very specific way. But even without that, even if you just sit.

Sit here and pause this podcast and go back to some of the questions that I prompted you with. In each of these stages, I promise you, you will see your life in a new way. Even people that have been doing the work for years, for example, one of my clients is he was a, a relationship coach, and he's been coaching for years, but when he went through this process, he actually could see how his story was guiding him to something more specific within that container he had experienced. Erectile dysfunction actually. Um, and then found out it was because of a brain tumor in his head. And that was just part of, uh, his story. It ended up leading to him like seeing things in a new way, actually connecting to his intuition, um, leaving his relationship. He was actually engaged, realizing it wasn't right, so he sort of just told it as the [00:32:00] factual chronology. But when he went through this, he started to realize that. That tumor was on his pineal gland, the seat of his intuition, and it was actually creating a physical manifest manifestation of not being able to connect to his partner or to his own inner wisdom. And so when he could see this thread, it changed the way that he. Approached his work, his clients, how he saw his purpose, because he could see the, the golden threads, the patterns within it, um, by looking at it through this structure. So it's a very powerful structure for approaching story work.

Kara Goodwin: Wow, that is so powerful. And when you're, when you're talking through that, it made me think about, um, you know, I've, I've had a guest actually bring this up recently, and it landed with me where I was like. Oh my gosh, I've never thought about that. And that's so true, but how people, how human humans have a tendency to prefer a, an [00:33:00] uncomfortable behavior or something that isn't even, um, bringing them what they want.

And they know that, for example, an abusive relationship, but they prefer what they know. Versus what they don't, even if there's so much promise in anything but that, and,

Melissa Monte: Oh yeah.

Kara Goodwin: and so I don't know how much you come up against that or how that resonates, but I'm, I'm curious about your thoughts about that and then also just.

If there's any sort of typical progression through these steps in terms of, of timeliness, if it's per, you know, because you were saying, you know, sometimes this step happens in conjunction on top of another step and they kind of just happen at the same time, and then other times it takes a long time. Is it really a personal journey in terms of time, or is there kind of a natural progression that you see?

Melissa Monte: It depends. When I was first [00:34:00] starting this, I had to look at it through my life. So from the algorithm to, actually finding the wisdom was a decade, maybe more, or some of the things I would understand right away. And some of the things needed more time. because I give My place here in the world, a different meaning. I can see things much more rapidly. I don't clinging onto my ideas as much because. have found that when I let go of that, when I actually release it, most of the time that I'm clinging, that's coming from my own mind, which is the ego, and there's something greater that could be guiding my life. Whether you wanna look at that as a higher power, God, the universe, or your heart center, it's, it's getting out of your mind. And so now I can go through these steps very quickly and I still use them. For example, my miscarriages last year were very difficult and I was very diligent in like watching the meaning that I was giving [00:35:00] the situation. Making sure I wasn't making it mean something about my body, my place as a woman, my to my family, things like that.

And so it becomes an almost for me. I don't need to go through every question of every step. I can just sit there and say, now. Oh, I can spot some unconscious beliefs here. Why? Why do I feel fear about going towards this? Oh, I have this belief that women make the money or whatever it is. I have this belief that need to. Earn my place in the family by working when I am just as valuable as I am. So I can just see those. Now don't even really need to identify, oh, which was the part that broke the loop. Like I just know, oh, the algorithm versus the story I want to have. But when I was really unwinding, because it's a difficult concept to grasp.

You can't just say sorry, like the meaning you've given your life. true, create something new. Most people [00:36:00] in the beginning of all this will be like, what do you mean? And they have to really feel it. And so, um, when I first, uh, did this process for myself, I was following a slightly different template that didn't feel as cohesive to be. Um, but I, I couldn't figure out which was with which. Was it the sexual assault that was the disruption? Was it the arrest? That was the disruption? So, like I said, I just put everything I, it was out of chronological order and it still allowed me to see, oh, like this is always happening at once. It's not like you just go through these one time and then you're. In the enlightenment phase, there were multiple disruptions in my life and I needed them because I didn't just get it right then. So I was gonna be shown in a new way and a new way, and a new way. it's really how the universal laws work. [00:37:00] My view of God isn't a man in the sky, I have actually moved away from even saying universe quite as much because I'm shifting into. kinda a new understanding of it, but I see God more as the divine matrix that holds everything together, that universal flow of love and life that I just told my, my son, my 4-year-old. was like, I don't think God is a man. I think he's more like energy. And he like pauses for a long time and he is like, if God is a big, giant battery that gives life to the trees?

And I was like, oh, my work here is done. You got that way faster than I did. But I think it's, it's the structure of everything, the universal laws that keep things in check, that keep this transformation rolling. And, and so I love the universal laws. I've gone really deep with them, but one of my favorites is the law of reflection. It's realizing that. Everything in your life is a reflection for your [00:38:00] highest good. So when everybody, when when people say to shift from, why is this happening to me, to why is this happening for me? Yeah, that's one way to look at it. But also it's like, what is this reflecting back to me? What is in my awareness right now?

How can I sit with that? Like I keep seeing destruction. Where am my life? Am I experiencing destruction? And I think that it starts far away. We might see it all around us with other people, but if we, if it's unchecked, it keeps coming closer and closer and closer until it's in our immediate circle, till it's in our immediate family, till it's within our body and we are experiencing disease. And so I used to not understand that, not see that all these things were random. And so it would get closer and closer and deeply affect me now. I can let it be at an arm's length most of the time. Hold on. I'm seeing this a lot. There's something that I need to internalize here. There's something that I need to shift within myself, it's still [00:39:00] impossible to escape all of the negatives.

I'm not saying I will never face disease, knock on wood. I hope not, but,

Kara Goodwin: Hm.

Melissa Monte: um. But when I find that things stay a lot more peaceful in my immediate realm, if I'm able to take the things afar and immediately ask those questions, immediately turn it inward and say, is there anything in this for me? What do I need to sit with?

What do I need to feel and experience and make the conscious choice to shift within myself? Because there's really only two options. We are either. Consciously creating our lives or we are living through our algorithm. I think there's this big misconception in the self-development world where we like discover the secret or the law of attraction and we're like, oh, I think I can just, manifest when I feel like it, or like, cool, I have this powerful tool to create my reality.

But then it's like this. [00:40:00] It's like tarot cards that we pick up and put down when we're not using them anymore. But we don't realize that not an option. We're either consciously creating or we're acting from our algorithm. We're consciously creating or unconsciously repeating at any given moment.

And so. When you realize that the intention just becomes the process of life. You can't bring intention to everything at once, but you can pick the things that are alive for you right now that are showing up for you quite often. Right now. You can use the Law of Reflection to have it guide you on your curriculum and then just go piece by piece, and that's the work that we're here for.

Kara Goodwin: I love that. I love how you break it down and. Make it more manageable because it's very big, you know, it's let's change your life. Like, but it's, it's so practical moment by moment. And it makes me reflect too on our conversation for a couple of, from a couple of days ago, because we started talking about, [00:41:00] we, we, we dipped a little bit into sacred geometry and into patterns.

And I'm hearing you talk about patterns. We're talking about it in terms of habits and how we have repeated behavior, but I felt like. Maybe sacred geometry held some, you, you had a place for that in your heart. I don't know if there's anything from more of that kind of mystical side. The, the sacred geometry side, there's the Greek affiliation too with the sacred geometry, with Play-Doh and, and Aristotle and so forth.

And I'm just gonna keep that as an open topic if there's anything that that jumps out for, for you there.

Melissa Monte: Oh yeah. Well, just like I talked about God being kind of the sacred system with any, anything, see this as God's code, really. It's the. Mathematical skeleton of [00:42:00] everything in the background. That's why numerology shows up. That's why all of these systems that seem like completely separate systems, astrology, human design, and like they all seem to ring true because

Kara Goodwin: Yeah.

Melissa Monte: different layers of the code on top of one another.

Kara Goodwin: Yes. Yes.

Melissa Monte: when

Kara Goodwin: I love it.

Melissa Monte: sees, we see even. of the stories I mentioned, how the same stories show up in different cultures across time, even if they were across the world and they had no means to come together and share these stories. The same stories still show up, and I think it's because that's how our human brains interpret the code.

It's the Awakening Blueprint. And so it kind of shows that to me. Creation isn't random. It's, it's patterned the same geometric ratios that shape galaxies also shape our cells stories. And so even like, um, I went back [00:43:00] and reinterpreted a lot of the biblical stories that just didn't make sense on the surface.

Like, wait, hold on. The first two humans. Already failed. And that's supposed to be their fault, not the creator's fault, and then damned the rest of humanity. But also, you're supposed to be all knowing, but you didn't know this was gonna happen or you did know it was gonna happen. So you basically set us up for failure and then said, everything's gonna be painful after that, and then we can't go back to eat.

What are you talking about? And so, um, but it really actually mirrors the geometry, if you wanna say, of creation itself. So to me, Eden. Is unity consciousness. It's the wholeness before the separation. The serpent is also the spiral. It's activation through movement and duality. apple, is. Sort of the overlap between Spirit and matter and the birth of awareness. The fall [00:44:00] from Eden was actually the descent into de density. That was when our consciousness actually separated from the divine, and then the exile is the return to. That unity consciousness. So it's not literal, it's almost like this geometric unfolding of consciousness. It tells the consciousness story, the same one that a course in miracles tells, or that Eastern religions tell in a slightly different way, but we are looking at it as only through the literal story.

And so we just lose, lose a lot of of the gold there. But then it ends up becoming, or, and when you even think about it that way, it's like the. Consequences of that separation in the Bible, it looks like our punishment, like, oh, childbirth is gonna be hard. You have to work for your food now. But also, those are just the cost of being human maybe when we chose to come into this life.

And so I know that's not exactly the, the structure that we think about, but I think the more that we [00:45:00] see things as sacred geometry, the more we have. I mean, I. I'm sure your listeners that have had some psychedelic experiences, even if it's just a little bit of mushrooms, it's like you take a little bit of mushrooms and you're in a parking lot.

Suddenly it's like every car is the same size. Everything's lined up. Exactly. The geometry is always right there. You look at the leaf and you see new patterns, when you're in your typical state of mind, it just looks like a leaf because we've already given that leaf meaning, but I wonder how we would see it if we hadn't. Have already internalized it with the meaning that we would give it. I think that becomes closer to what we see in the psychedelic mindset with a little bit more DMT. And so, um, when you realize that everything, that all the messy humanness is actually fitting into this very specific structure and they're just overlaid on top of each other, and it just depends on where your mindset is to how. much you can see the synchronicities, how [00:46:00] much you can see the patterns. But the more you focus your awareness on that and expand into that, the more it becomes a little bit closer to your default. You don't need to try so hard. You don't need to take something to get there. You just trust and it appears.

Kara Goodwin: I love that. And, and it's funny because again, you know, we just had, we just had the, we were on the other side of the table just two days ago and you were like, yes, you're speaking my language. I feel like you're, in my head, you're just speaking out. And I that's, and now I'm like. Now it's my turn to be like, oh my God, you're just saying my stuff that I love.

Like I just love this stuff. I love seeing the world this way and it resonates so deeply with me. I wonder, as you were talking about like reinterpreting the stories of the Bible that you've been told your whole life and seeing them with new eyes and that curiosity, have you come across the, the numerical encodement, uh, decoding of the Bible and [00:47:00] Shakespeare's.

There's, like, they've done, I, I don't even know who it is. I think I heard about it through Rob Robert Edward Grant, but I don't know that he was the one who did it, but maybe he was, I'm not sure. He and Richard GRE were talking about it and it was an amazing interview, but they, yeah, there's some sort of way that, that it's that like decoded both of those, have you come across this.

Melissa Monte: Yeah, there's this book actually, um, called The Bible Code and

Kara Goodwin: that sounds familiar. Yes.

Melissa Monte: and it well, and there's a few different ways that this happens. This is why I find everything so fascinating and I see spirit in everything, even if it's been manipulated, like God will find a way. A Course in Miracles talks about this all the time where it basically says. When a problem is created, the solution is immediately created as well. And so I do see our Bible as being manipulated, and also [00:48:00] there's something called the Bible Core Code. It's also known as the Torah Code, but it's this idea that hidden messages are actually embedded within the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, specifically the Torah, so the Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, Deuteronomy, which an interesting relationship with.

I went through years of. Hating those books because they're so brutal. Like there's just like, God is just like this egotistical tyrant who's like, wait, you'd looked back. Let me kill your whole family.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. Here are the locusts. Unleash the locust. Yeah.

Melissa Monte: understanding this Bible code actually healed a lot of that in me, where it's just like, just trust.

Everything is meant to be a bridge to something else. And again, it's only abhorrent when I'm taking it literally. So, um, but they. Uh, it, it talks about how the entire text, explain it? It's like one continuous string of Hebrew letters, no spaces. And so they pick [00:49:00] every nth letter. I can't remember, it's like every 50th or 500th.

But supposedly they discovered really meaningful words or phrases that seemed to predict events or even reveal hidden truths. And so, um. I remember one of them, there was this Israel Israelite prime minister who kept finding the phrase assassin that will assassinate in one of the famous code matrices published before his death. And then people have claimed to find terms like Hitler and Atomic Holocaust, and even Twin Towers en encoded in Genesis. And so the skeptics say it's coincidence, but I, I personally don't believe in coincidences. And so also think though. if I would've found the same patterns as that Israel Prime Minister, or if that was just a pattern meant for him. And so it was there at the right time in his right state of mind for him to discover his code, whereas that would've been meaningless to me, [00:50:00] so I wouldn't have even seen it. So it's just a fun thing to play with and discover more about.

Kara Goodwin: So when you like the Bible code, it helps you to be able to do this yourself rather than it having,

Melissa Monte: Bible Code.

Kara Goodwin: okay.

Melissa Monte: However, I like that it exists because again, for me, the code that I saw in that was. Like to me, I was just like off with their heads. I want nothing to do with this book for a long time. And so that's why it's been really healing for me to go back and reinterpret it without the literalism in multiple ways.

For me, it's been going into the stories, but also this was a really, like I mentioned, this was a really powerful discovery for me. When I read the book. I didn't feel called to all of a sudden start decoding myself, which. Sometimes I am, depending on what it is, where I'm like, wait, I gotta just keep going deep down.

I'm gonna keep pulling this one thread. But for me, just the understanding of it was helpful because again, I was getting a lot [00:51:00] of resentment toward my upbringing. I had a lot of judgment. I think that's a big part of my work here. That's actually been something I've been working on the last few years too, where I'm like, okay, I have this beautiful understanding of the Bible, but. actually still have a and a separation with Christians in general. Like it, something about it makes me angry, like I feel like I was fooled or something like

Kara Goodwin: Hmm.

Melissa Monte: And so I've been asking for healing around that and I, and now I'm getting it in different ways. I recently interviewed. Someone who also was raised really religious, but he said something that I could just feel like broke off one of my calluses.

And he said, you know, religious people much further ahead than most because they're already With spirit in a way they have that they, they believe in the connection at least. And so it's a step up. Whereas I had sort of seen [00:52:00] it as this big thing that held me back where I had to unravel all this fear and it would've been easier for me to start with a belief in nothing. When now I see that as laying the groundwork and I actually, um, even got further confirmation. My, both of my parents were religious and divorced, my. My story with my parents is just an interesting one. My dad was always, not really a provider, but he was always around, always loved me. He went through a lot of trauma too, but I I had a little resentment like, why? Why just religion? Like, why? Like, come on, like can't you see through this? Like I could like almost in a. Like, uh, I was making it mean something about them really. um, then I was doing, looking into numerology and my, life path number is 33 master number, which is also a six. I realized that my dad had a [00:53:00] different life path that fit very well with his, but his sole urge number was a 33 6. So what he. His soul was urging for What he really wanted in this life was this path of being a healer, being a teacher. And I took that on as my life path, and I've always kind of seen my dad pass the torch, but I thought it was just entrepreneurism. He was always trying stuff and failing and. Part of my journey has been, well, I wanna pick up where my dad left off, but it was more like from an ego thing, like, I'll do this for you. And just understanding the numerology of it. I suddenly got this new visual where he was laying down the bricks of the path that I was walking, and it was so healing. It brought me to tears. And so sometimes it's just this small shift like realiz. The Bible isn't just this completely manmade manipulation book, there's truth in it.

Look what these stories are also saying, or look, even these books that you really dislike, there's a code within them that have guided people [00:54:00] towards something. And so when I can see that there's a deeper meaning underneath things, a lot of times it, it's a healing that I specifically need, but somebody else might see something slightly different, and that happens to be for them.

Kara Goodwin: Hmm. So beautifully said. I love that. Well, Melissa, this has been very rich. I, I've loved every moment. Can you please talk a little bit as we close up here about story love and mind love and how you work with people and how people can find you?

Melissa Monte: Yes. Yeah, I am@mindlove.com, so all of my programs are there. you can also find my podcast Mind Love on any of your favorite platforms. It's two words, I have, um, a lot of different, or a couple different programs. There's one, if you just want something that's very laid back but takes you through growth in a very manageable way. [00:55:00] I have the Mind Love Collective, which. Every month there's a theme and there's just some short videos and some work that you can do in a community that you can converse about it through. People love that it's a very affordable membership option or if you wanna do the deeper work and actually get into the story work, the story coaching, that's what story love is for.

And so I have different AI tools that I've developed. There's, there's calls that we, you join and we actually. Do the hard work of your story, figure out what you need to process, but also figure out how to make that your message. If you are wanting to take this out into the world. That is what connects with people.

That is what I think how you stand out online in general, is really figuring out how to connect people with your story. And so I show you how to take that story and share it in a way that will really makes people lean in as well as. Create all of your content from your story and just make a really story driven, cohesive brand.

So there's the [00:56:00] mindset work of it, and then there's the taking it out into the world, work of it.

Kara Goodwin: Beautiful. Well, thank you so much my friend. This has been great. I, it's such a joy and an honor to connect with you. Thank you.

Melissa Monte: Thank you for having me. E. 

Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Soul Elevation. If someone in your life would be inspired or uplifted by what you heard today, please take a moment to share it with them. These are the kinds of conversations that ripple out and elevate collective consciousness, and if you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss the powerful episodes ahead.

Your presence, your energy, and your support. Truly help amplify this mission of raising frequency and anchoring in a more awakened humanity. Thank you for your support, and I'll see you for the next episode of Soul Elevation.

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