Bonus - A Chat With Melanie Stevens

Faye Casement Author

Mar 22, 2023 |

Faye: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to a special bonus episode of The Wellness for Women's Show. And in today's session, I'm going to be talking to the fabulous Melanie Stevens. Welcome Melanie. Thank you for being here with us. Melanie is a spiritual mentor, and I can never say reiki, so you might have to correct me on that.
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Reiki master and taro. And tarot expert as well, aren't you? And this is really the first time we've had a five second chat if that's before coming live. And Melanie and I are just going to have a chit chat basically and just kind of see, you know, obviously we're coming at wellness and life from the same but yet different kind of perspectives and just basically just going to see where, see where we land, aren't we Melanie?
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We are indeed. Fabulous. And so again, quick introduction time because although I'm going live in the group and obviously everybody in here, hopefully by now knows me. This will go out onto the podcast and onto YouTube. So quick introduction time for me. I am fake casement. I'm a certified life coach, and I specialize in life and weight loss.Weight loss with love. Rather than restrictive methods. And I've got my own unique method for doing that. So that's a very quick overview of me, but I say I'm just really interested in life and how people tick, and so I'm really looking forward to hearing more about you. So do you want to give us a little bit of an introduction into yourself, Melanie, and what you do and how you do it?
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Melanie: yeah, of course. So I'm a spiritual mentor, Reiki master, and Tarot Reader and I work with my clients delivering Reiki. You did say it right? Is Reiki. A lot of people call it Riyki.
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Faye: Just too many vowels in there for me!
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Melanie: It is Reiki. You got it. Spot on. So I do reiki with my clients, but as I’ve adapted the Reiki session to be more of a healing package.
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What I, what I like doing is doing the Reiki for people, but not just sending them off on their own merry way. I like to continue the conversation. I want to stay close to them. I want to check in with them, see how they're getting on, because the, the Reiki can continue to work after the session.
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So, I've made it into a package. I've created some meditations incorporating something called the Sedona Method, which is like a psychological spiritual tool to help release from unwanted, unpleasant emotions. And that's more often than not what people come to me for in the first place. To have the Reiki so they can continue to use that meditation every day to listen to it. Or as it, you know, in the moment when they're feeling those unpleasant emotions come up. Because sometimes when we have healing, it brings stuff to the surface that needs to be felt and then released. So it can be a little bit uncomfortable, but that helps people through and then I also give them a workbook so they can journal how they're feeling and really be aware of what's coming up after the session that they might need to reflect on and look at and, and heal from. So that's the Reiki package, but I also do Tarot readings providing spiritual guidance, not just using the Tarot, but with anything that comes through from my spirit guides at the time.
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And I do courses. I've got a Crystals course out on Udemy, and I'm currently writing a course in shadow work. So it's all based on that kind of self-development, self-awareness, and healing from uncomfortable stuff that comes up for all of us every now and again in life.
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Faye: This is why I wanted to bring you on and have a chat I do have a little bit of an interest in tarot cards and angel cards, and I've got some, some sets and sometimes I'll pull them out, you know, if I'm just feeling a little bit stuck. So I can't profess to being an overly spiritual person not like yourself, but I do like the awareness that they can bring me because for me, my method is about having and gathering awareness, taking action, and being accountable for that action and we can look to a variety of places for that awareness.
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So in the Triple-A-Way™️ so awareness is a big part of that, and self-development and mindfulness, and obviously with the weight loss as well. emotional eating is probably quite prevalent for most overeaters. And so it is about working on all of these things with love and curiosity and kindness for ourselves.
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So I think there's quite an alignment there in terms of what we do.
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Melanie: Yeah, definitely. And there's a lot of people who they, you know, they might not be a tarot reader, but a lot of people have an Oracle card deck or an angel deck or something that every now and again, they just feel like, you know what? I just feel like I need some guidance.
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And our spirit guides are working with us all the time trying to get messages through so you can ask them, you know, help me to choose a. A card from one of the decks I've got that has a message that I need to hear today. What do I need to know today? What, what do I need to be aware of? And some of us meditate and get messages through from our guides that way some people pick a card and they read it and you know, the message usually really resonates.
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Whichever one you are drawn to, you are drawn to for a reason because somebody is helping drawing you to that card because you need to. You need to read that message today, or your friend will ring you and say something to you that you just needed to hear that day because it's all sort of brought to us for our own highest good.
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Faye: I find it very interesting how when I've say pulled a card or something like that, and again, just that awareness that it can bring me, just to spark something. It's like, it's almost like a creative spark that it can bring along or occasionally, because I'd say most of the time it does seem to resonate when I pull something out, but even when it doesn't, I think even that is important as sometimes you have to discount what you don't need to hear just as much as what you do.
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Melanie: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Which decks have you got? Do you, do you remember?
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Faye: I could tell you I have a little box of goodies, I'm going to make a right racket for the Podcast. I can always edit it out (Laughing)
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I have got the Rebecca Campbell Work Your Light and The Sole Truth Self-Awareness card deck.
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Melanie: Ah, haven't heard of that one.
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Faye: I've got, these ones I've not figured out these ones. These fortune cards and then a tarot deck and then some other just general, general things. But these two were really quite pretty.
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Melanie: They have beautiful imagery, really beautiful decks.
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Faye: They're just beautiful to look at if nothing else. And I do I'm quite creative as well as crafty as well so I like artwork and that kind of thing. So they're pleasing as well, aren't they, to just look at the workmanship that goes into the artwork, if nothing else.
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Do you use Oracle cards as well then for your readings or?
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Melanie: Yeah. More often than not, I use tarot cause I learned how to read the tarot traditionally. So from my readings, I give to other people. I bring the tarot in I do have multiple decks. I'm not even going to tell you how many, because it's
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Faye: Mine is poultry is what you're telling me. (laughing)
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Melanie: (laughs) Let's say it's more than 20 and leave it there. , I've got lots of deck. I do have Oracle as well, because for me sometimes I like to pull a card for myself and because I know how to read the tarot. Sometimes it feels like someone else is reading to me if I use Oracle, because I don't use it every single day and it's not tarot cards.
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I can close my eyes and ask my guides to show me an image I need to see today and know what card it's from. . . So Oracle sometimes, especially a new Oracle deck, I think, oh, that feels like somebody else is reading for me cause I'm unfamiliar with it, which is nice. . . But when I'm reading for others, yeah. It's the trustee taro for me. . .
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Faye: Interesting. And so one thing that I've been working a bit on lately in my own journey, because at the end of the day I'm still on my own weight loss journey. So again, I don’t know whether I've told you this when we were messaging to say, hey, let's have this chat.
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But how I came in to do, and what I do is because I went on a weight loss journey. Basically, pretty much think that I spent 40 years of my life with my head in the sand somewhere and I arrived at 40, probably fresh with a midlife crisis. Decided that I'd give the whole weight loss thing go – ‘AGAIN!’, but that's how I found, well ‘properly found’ mindfulness and life coaching. And I ended up losing over 70 pounds through an intuitive eating style method. And then I was like, wow, why have I been trying to restrict myself for all of these years? Why have I been beating myself up for, you know, 20 plus years about weight and weight loss and whatnot?
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Why? You know, everybody needs to know about weight loss with love and intuitive beauty methods and that kind of thing. But what I've been doing, what we sort of tap into a little bit in coaching, but of course coaching is more about forward focus rather than necessarily going back. But I have been diving lately a little bit into subconscious work.
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And so I'm wondering what your thoughts are with regards to how the subconscious fits into sort of the spirituality I know that you said you were doing something about shadow work, and if I'm honest, I don't know if shadow work links to the subconscious and so I'd like to know whether it does.
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Melanie: Yeah, it absolutely does. So the shadow self is the repressed parts of us that we have hidden from view.
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So when we, when we grow up our parents and our teachers teach us how to behave and we are perhaps encouraged to behave in certain ways, like being good and being polite and being kind with the people and we're punished or we are embarrassed or treated differently, ignored, put on the naughty step when we behave in ways that are. Socially unacceptable or not loving and things like that.
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So we can push certain parts of our character down into what's known as the shadow. So the shadow part of us, the angry part, very often we're not encouraged to be angry as children because it's seen as, oh, no, no, no. You can't, you know, that's not, that's not likable. That's not lovable. So we grow up feeling like, oh, I'm, I'm starting to feel angry.Oh, no, no, no. I'm not allowed to feel angry. That's bad. And we push these parts of us down into our subconscious. . . also things like, you know, little boys can be told not to cry, not to show emotions, so they push that sensitive part down into their shadow. Girls of my age were told to be little girls should be seen and not heard, and we weren't encouraged to be strong and assertive and ambitious and yeah, show that leadership because in my era, thankfully things are changing.
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Melanie: So that natural leadership ability, it's not all bad stuff that's in the shadow. It can be stuff that's would've been amazing. Courage, bravery, taking risks. No, no, no. You mustn't do that. You've got to be sensible. It, it, these things get pushed down and suppressed over such a long time that they, we forget they even exist.
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But they do exist. They, they live in the subconscious and every now and again, they try and come up because they're a normal part of being human. But we still try and push them down and then that can sabotage us. It can make us sick, it can get us stressed out. If we don't, if we don't allow our anger out, for example, it can make us ill and it can lead to other problems in our life because we feel like we're not allowed to be angry, and yet we probably don't even know why, because it's ingrained in us and programmed in us from childhood. So shadow work is about integrating those parts. And that doesn't mean we all go around shouting and screaming at people all the time, but it's just recognizing that anger is a part of being human. All of these things, as a man, showing emotion, it's part of being human, but we, we've buried them usually due to. Surroundings and circumstances. By bringing it up and integrating the shadow and showing some love to those parts of ourselves that maybe we feel ashamed of because we've been taught to be ashamed of them makes us feel more whole and more complete and it stops these buried parts from trying to come up and actually sabotaging us when we just allow them. Very much linked to the subconscious.
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Faye: It does link in again with what I do and teach as well. Cause again, it's all part and can be part of mindfulness as well.
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And also, Sometimes we'll talk about rewriting stories. So again, from a food and a weight loss point of view, you know, we were told to clear our plates you brought up thinking that, or if you're going to have a sandwich, I automatically think if I'm going to have a sandwich, it should come with a packet of crisps and a can of pop, because we were lunchbox kids for starters. And then, you've got meal deals that are still out there now as so we have a lot of stories and food relationships that we have to address as well. And some of that is some subconscious, because if we go around, burying our thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
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Like I, like I said, I did pretty much for, you know, good 40 years going around thinking that anger was bad. You know, I had all these thoughts and feelings with regards to thoughts and feelings and that I should and shouldn't have these things. And it was in doing some of the work that through life coaching, mindfulness and that kind of thing that I've been able to let go of those and bring myself together and find myself and find, find a whole person.
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Melanie: Yeah, exactly. It's, it's all down to our programming. Nobody's purposely programmed us to, to feel stress and pain. They've been programmed by our teachers, our parents, our siblings.
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We've all. been programmed by our society, by our culture, by the media and our upbringing and everything else. It's only when you, you know, you stop to question these things, why do I have to, why am I still trying to clear my plate? I'm fuller. Why am I eating? Yeah. And then you remember, well, that's because I was brought up to do that.
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I wasn't allowed to leave the table until I'd sat and eaten, even if I was really full up. And it, you can just question that, like, why am I doing this? And then, Change once you've realized that it's, it's must be such a, an unconscious habit to do the things that we've been so programmed to do that we don't even know.
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Faye: Absolutely. And that, that's what my program is partly about as well is, is finding those, but specifically with regards to food and food stories, and the life element as well, you know, because you just don't, you don't realize how much we are doing at that subconscious level and it's bringing it to the fore one way or another.
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The thing for me, I don't mind how, I've got methods that I can teach, but we can also pull on other modalities as well to get awareness and deepen awareness in one area or whatever it is that we need to work on. Cause again, we're all uniquely us, aren't we? And we need to find our own unique paths to our goals.
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Melanie: And certain things resonate more with certain people and certain things resonate with different people, but there is something out there for everybody that can help them, I believe. And you know, do you find as well that with the words that are used around weight loss, smoking, anything where people are trying to change that if we use language that suggests we're missing out on something like doing something up, stop doing this, lose weight at all of that. Do you find that that has an adverse effect rather than using positive language? It doesn't feel like you're giving something up. Cause if you feel like you are not allowed something that makes me want it even
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Faye: Absolutely. Yeah. Which is why we aim first of working a weight loss method with, without restriction really. So again, weight loss is a funny thing to explain because we all know the science it is all about your intake and output but it can happen in so many different ways.
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But we've been brought up again with the diet industry, programming us all over the years about calories in and out and this kind of thing. Or if you've ever been to a weight loss club, you know you've got all of that dialogue still running through your head. But not one of the ones that I ever went to helped me to fathom life at the same time but the pair of them go together.
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I talk about it a lot in my inner circle with my members. We were talking about it at the weekend. So again, you know, rather than saying, well, I can't have something, it's more about, well, what, what do I choose to give myself today? So you could, maybe you do want to reduce something it's just about playing, about getting curious about your relationship with everything. But you can either go into that and say to yourself, I can't have things. I shouldn't do this, I shouldn't do that. Or you could say, well, I'm choosing to do this with love.
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And you make your whys so much more powerful if you make them positive. So rather than saying, if I don't do this my health's going to suffer. Wouldn't it be a lot better to say, if I do this, I will give myself the gift of health. You're still doing the same thing, but ones bringing more positivity to it, and which one are you going to sustain? The one that feels good! And so a big part of my message about ditching the diet, drama, and finding more joy, because bringing in that positivity is what gives it the longevity.
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Melanie: Yeah, definitely. And it's interesting, like the words that we use and I actually did an experiment recently.
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I put it on my, my Facebook and my TikTok. I don’t know if you've heard of the rice experiment. I hear that they're teaching this in schools now, and it's where you cook some rice. So the rice is cooked and then it's put into split into two equal size. One of the jars you stick a label on it saying love, and the other one you stick a label on it saying hate.
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And then you, I know it sounds a bit strange and it feels a bit strange, I've gotta be honest, but you, you speak every day. You pick the jar up and you say loving words to one of the jars put that down and pick the other jar up and you say hateful words to the other jar and you keep the jars apart a foot apart.
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After a little while, the people that I was hearing about doing this experiment were noticing that the hate jar that they'd been saying nasty things to were starting to mould and the other jar wasn't. I did this experiment and neither of my jars showed any moulds and I thought I'd done it wrong because I find it difficult to say bad things, even though I'm talking to rice. So I went to Chuck the rice away, and when I opened the love jar smelled quite nice. When I opened the lid to the other jar. It absolutely stunk! It was really, really strong.
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So much as the experiment didn't quite go as I was expecting cause I couldn't see the mould on the hate jar. It still impacted it and I could smell the difference and it really made me aware to actually do the experiment rather than reading about it and seeing it or noticing that difference made me realize, oh my God, my words have got so much power in them. They can actually do that. So, what's it doing to me if I'm using words to myself, if I'm berating myself or beating myself up about something. And the same with somebody trying to lose weight. If you are giving yourself grief for it, you know, it's, it's, it can affect your, your health. It's so important to use really gentle, loving language to ourselves while we're moving through any sort of change.
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Because you know, it, it can really have an impact. Just the words we use to talk to ourselves and other people.
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Faye: Absolutely, that's an interesting experiment. It sounds, really surprising that that could happen. But you know, everybody should go out there and try the rice experiment feedback to us, let us know what happens.
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But certainly, the words and what we use at the end of the day this is psychology. It's based on the ego. A friend of mine, Cathy, who's in the group, gave me a great talk once with regards to the ego and the adult and child. She's a counsellor and how the ego still wants, it's fuzzies I think she called it. Can't remember. She'll, have to perhaps come and set me straight on it, but you ultimately can feed ego, the negatives or the positive it doesn’t mind it will take the lot. But the more you feed it, one, the more it will believe it.
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I one of my exercises in my membership on the ‘why’ work, there is an ancient story about wolves and which would survive? Well, it'll be the one that you feed.
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If we just think about it in terms of that, if you're feeding the negative all the time, then you're just going to breed negativity. This is why we have sayings like negativity breeds negativity and all these kinds of things, isn't it? You know, because it's true.
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I do a lot in my own practices to try and equal that air time, in terms of the thoughts. If I notice what's coming up if I'm having a particularly difficult patch then I'll step up my self-care game and try and bring in that positivity and the mindfulness and other modalities that I use.
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I've just been experimenting with the emotional freedom technique. Sometimes I might draw out the tarot cards or the oracle cards, you know, just to just try and get me back onto that even keel.
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Melanie: I like EFT because that works with the meridians which are used in Chinese acupuncture.
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I had some really good results with it. I think for me I noticed my thoughts get more negative when I'm tired, when my energy levels are low, when I'm stressed, when I'm run down. And obviously, I've got reiki so I know what I need to do, I need to do the work on myself.
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It's all right. Doing it for other people. I think as a practitioner. Very easy to forget yourself. Even though I preach this all the time.
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Faye: I'm pretty sure every single person who's going to come on and visit the Wellness 4 Women Show will say something similar unless there is a guru out there selling their perfect life. It’s not real it would be like me saying that I'll never have a weight gain. Of course, I will I'm human!
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Melanie: And one thing I was doing for a while with my negative thinking. Generally, I'm a positive thinker, but when I'm struggling with my energy when I'm working too much, which I have a really bad habit of doing that's when I notice that my mental health is declining. I start catastrophizing and I start imagining.
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Awful things happening which I've read is a defence mechanism. It's like your mind is trying to prepare you for something really terrible to happen, so it's not so much of a shock, which is crazy. Why don't you just imagine something good happening? It's much nicer. Yeah. So what I started doing was journaling at the end of each day. I think have I have any negative thoughts today and did I catch them? And more, the more I journaled that at night, the following day, I'd remember journaling it and I'd be a little bit more aware of my thoughts and I'd start to notice it happening. . , stop it in the moment. . , instead of imagining something really bad happening, like I'm about to cross a busy road and I start visualizing me like being hit by a truck, why don't you just imagine you're going to cross the road and you're not going to die and everything's going to be okay?
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Melanie: Yeah, I stop myself and skip it and think of something much nicer. Yeah. It's just the awareness that you're doing it.
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Faye: When I started out on my journey I scoffed that I didn't have anything. I didn't have thoughts. There was nothing to be aware of I'd literally buried my thoughts and feelings so deep that I didn't know I had them. But once you start to hear these things you can’t unhear them. I think sometimes people worry that it's going to uncover Pandora's box and you'll never be able to get it all back in again but actually it's so, My relationship with myself has changed hugely from that work and the work that you were just suggesting there. I don’t know whether you call it worry tree, I've got a friend, we call it the worry tree, one of those exercises.
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It’s brining it to your conscious brain where you can then step into action. Because then you can go I don't like that. I don't want to keep that anymore so what can I do about it?
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I do love a good detective program. It is a big thing with me curiosity and being the detective of your own life and just figuring out where did that come from? Is that something that I want to keep? How can, how can I change that? But there's a lot that comes into what you were saying there, just getting those thoughts out and onto paper and journaling especially.
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I did an episode on journaling. So powerful, better to be out than in sometimes, whether that be journaling, coaching, coming in, talking to yourself, and having some healing. Going to a counselling, you know, whatever it is, whatever works for you is transformational, isn't it? and that's what we want for all of our clients is to is to get them that transformation
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Melanie: Once you've recognized that you're doing things by journaling or, or whatever method you use, then you've got the choice. You know, instead of worrying, oh, well I've just written down that I'm having really negative thoughts.
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Well, how is that? How, because now you are aware it's happening. You'll notice it happening. You can stop it happening, and you can choose a different, you reframe your thought. You can choose a different thought. It's not like writing it down to make you feel like you are a bad person or anything like that.
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It's, it's just a, very normal human response sometimes to stress and to life. When life gets a bit stressy and a bit busy or we've got things going on. We start with the negative thoughts and it just makes us more aware of our own mental state, our own energy. Awareness is that first step, isn't it?
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Because once you're aware…
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Faye: yeah, absolutely. Always the first step. Like you say, from there, you can take back control and find your power again, isn't it? Because you're going to have these thoughts anyway. You know, we, we can't necessarily, we can't stop the thoughts from coming because they will come in, but we can well, I mean, sometimes we can help a little bit.
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So again, this is where self-care can come into it, isn't it? Because if you gather awareness about yourself and you know that you tend to have more negative thoughts when you are tired. Well then maybe we need to step up the self-care game in terms of like making sure that we work on our sleep and our sleep hygiene or, you know, some people might find that if they have large meals of an evening that they end up with nightmares or cheese dreams,
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I find that if I have red meat, I tend to not sleep very well and pizza, but I still love pizza. So, you know, sometimes you make your choices as to what you want to do, but at least again, you're getting that power back aren't you? being able to take control and make that choice and that's part of stepping into your personal power.
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Melanie: It is power. It's empowering. It's not designed to make you think, oh God, I've got all this work to do. Because actually healing yourself, shouldn't be complicated. It shouldn't be difficult. It's really about awareness, bringing love in and making changes.
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It's all, about making the changes to the person you want to be and bringing into your life what you want to bring in through positive you know, self-love and self-care. And that's not to say that we should bypass the unpleasant feelings or anything like that, because sometimes they're trying to tell us something.
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So I think glossing over them isn't what I'm suggesting either. It's just exploring them Because for me, catastrophizing brings me nothing good at all. It's not warning me about something that's actually likely to happen. It's something that's incredibly unlikely to happen, but then be in a spin.
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So I think I don't actually need to do anything with that other than reframe my thoughts and do something else. If I'm feeling angry about something and I just think, oh no, that's uncomfortable, I don't want to feel that, then I'm just bypassing something that needs to be explored. So, you know, sometimes you do need to dig these things up and think, okay, well why am I feeling angry?
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Well, actually, I've got really bad boundaries and I'm not saying ‘no’ enough. So, okay. I'll start doing that and explore sometimes why we get these unpleasant, uncomfortable feelings.
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Faye: Yeah, we, can't say, oh, I'm never going to have another negative thought ever again, no matter how much but the decision is, do I want to deal with it or do I want to just let them keep coming and coming and coming and not dealing with those?
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Which then can, like you say in ask, in the circumstances, if you're overweight and perhaps need to work on weight loss or wanting to work on weight loss, that's when you find that you end up with your f’it, moments in your weight loss journey and all that kind of thing. But, so actually, again, how I teach is not weight loss. It's not about the food. It's not about the how, it's actually what's kind of getting you to that point in the first place. Because often it's, it's, it's something that's happened before and again, I always think that you've got three opportunities to change something you've got before. So again, knowing yourself well enough to know when and anticipate that something could come up.
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So I'm going for a meeting with my boss today, that's something that has a tendency to make me want to eat biscuits or something. Then you know and can take steps to avoid or try to catch those thoughts or those behaviours whilst you're in the moment or again, after it, having that self-reflection to then learn from anything that's happened.
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Melanie: Yeah. No, I like that because you, yeah, you do have opportunities and if you miss the first one, there is another, there's always going to be another one.
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Faye: There's always another, there's always opportunity. But the negativeness would be like, there isn't, I've blown it. If you have ever worked on weight loss, it would be a case of, oh, well I've blown it and then I've done, I'm, you know, I'm useless. I'm this, I'm that. The other, you know, we've then just feeding ourselves more negativity. Whereas actually self-love and compassion is all about looking to just grow from each moment and where transformation can come from, isn't it?
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Melanie: I think everything starts on the inside. The inside out. Yes. We can't change anything on the outside until we've looked at what's happening within.
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Faye: Yeah. Totally agree. Totally agree. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure having a chit chat with you. I usually do try and keep these to about half an hour.
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Although I could probably talk all night.
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Melanie: quite, quite
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Faye:. It really has been great to connect in. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to drop Melanie's details in the descriptions below. And if you're listening on the podcast and YouTube, then they will be in the descriptions any questions for any of us, we'll circle back around and have a look for any questions in the group over the coming weeks.
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Okie dokey. Well, I'm going to love you and leave you. Did you want to say anything else, Melanie, before we go,
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Melanie: Just thank you so much for chatting with me tonight.It's been lovely meeting you as well. Cause obviously this is the first time we've met
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Faye: Happy to chat. Indeed.

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Categories: : Weight loss