How Redecorating Your Home Can Heal Your Heart

Hello, heroines, and welcome back for our second interview today. And we have a completely different topic, um, today. I'm bringing you Melissa Tossell, who is a whiz at interior design. And I thought bringing somebody in who has that affinity and for who this is their expertise when they were in a time of transition, um, might bring a different perspective and be something really kind of fun to listen to, but I know she also has a really interesting story. So without further ado, Melissa, welcome.

Hi, it's so nice to be here. Uh, hello ladies, I don't want to pretend that you're not here in the present and in the future. Hi, it's nice to see you. Thank you for being here.

Well, thank you for being here. So let's just start with the basics. Don't you tell us who Melissa is?

Okay, so I'm gonna tell you Surface Melissa. Surface Melissa is CEO and creative leader of Aurora Design Incorporated. That is a rebrand. That is not my original brand that I had been working with in my own business for 10 years or more. I've been in interior design for 15 or 16 years. It's been a while. I can't remember exactly. Um, I, I'm basically an interior architect. I design houses up to 6,000 square feet, at least here in Ontario, Canada, where I am. Um, it's a— in other areas, it depends on their rules and who can do drawings for permit. Here, I do the drawings to get permits. I coordinate engineers, but I also do, like, I custom design all the millwork. I can custom design furniture. I source everything. I do the entire budget. I coordinate the contractor. I don't coordinate trades, but I do an obscenely detailed package. There's— I do everything, and I think of everything for you. My mom gave me those words. I'm doing her house, uh, my parents' house, which is a whole other story. But she gave me those words: I think of everything for you, but more than that, I'm here to change your life. I'm not here to just give you a pretty house, and that digs a lot deeper. So the underneath the surface— so I have a title I earned, Registered Interior Designer. I have a difficult exam I took, which also applies in the US, which is called the NCIDQ. I have other letters after my name, uh, fancy schmancy letters. I know a lot. I also love knowledge. And I'm curious, so I'm constantly learning. So for example, I know a lot about aging in place, about accessibility, about accessibility in the home, about, um, a lot of things around those topics and many other things. Um, under the surface, uh, I have been on a very— we've been on healing journeys our whole life, guys, let's be honest with each other. But the last 3 or 4 years has been either I leave everything I know and love or I get help was my turning point. So, uh, in that process I have opened up to— I kind of knew before that I'm an empath. Uh, my abilities opened up during that healing process, and I am a very strong spiritual channel. I don't do it for a living, as you hear, no desire to, but It is a part of what I do, and I have a very intuitive side to me and more of a knowing. I don't get full sentences, I just know things a lot of the times. So, um, that's me in a little bit. Like, I've been in many spiritual circles.

I've—

I have friends who are in many spiritual realms and doing different things, and I'm a part of the group Alex is a part of, which is Femme City, and that's where I've met a lot of amazing, really amazing women. Um, and I'm up to a lot of other things, but that's, that's kind of the basic me wrapped into one. Uh, I'm a speaker, I've authored articles and many other things like that. I had a YouTube— I still have a YouTube channel, but I'm not really putting much on there. Um, I've done videos, I've done all kinds of stuff before, so that's Me in a package. Um, and one of the topics Alex brought up, because it's really funny, because I do interior design, I'm so passionate about all the other stuff, about the transitions, about— I have a lot of knowledge and wisdom I can share with other people, uh, from my journey and a lot of perspectives I have. And then also because of who I am I feel things from other people, so I also take a lot of information in from other people. Uh, she gave me the perspective of interior design, like, don't they need interior design advice? And I was like, why, why don't you— right, we could go into that. So I wanted to give, I wanted to give you ladies perspective. So there's a few different scenarios I can think of, think of when you're going through divorce. So Case 1, where I don't really have to give you any advice, is when you were in a relationship and you did that typical thing of the entire house is yours and none of it was his. Maybe that was one of the reasons you just split, who knows. I have opinions on that, but I'm keeping that to myself. Um, if your house is everything you absolutely love, great, you can check out for a couple minutes, come back later. Um, Everyone else, hi, nice to meet you. I know you might be in a difficult position. So there's a couple scenarios where you've created a house together, you're keeping it. That is a situation where I think you should do some dreaming, and I think you should do— if you can have time away from the house and look at other things, I would encourage that because familiarity You just don't see things anymore, to be honest with you. A lot of us do that. I, I have beautiful pictures everywhere, and I can tell you how often I sit and look at my beautiful pictures because they're in the background at a certain point. And there are other scenarios as well where maybe the house wasn't yours. Maybe that was it. Neither of you really claimed the house. You made it a house, and it's not something you absolutely love. If you're keeping the house, I would encourage you to take your time. I would encourage you to be sure, and I would encourage you to YOLO. You only live once. I mean, depending on what you believe, you only live— you only have this one life once. I'm gonna say you don't get to redo this one life again later if you didn't like your choices. I must say that, uh, so definitely check in on your happiness. Give yourself some space because there's a lot going on, and it's incredibly silly to think that you can just handle everything and make great decisions when you're in an— when all these emotions are growing around and all this change is happening. So I'd give it some space. If it's a spot in your life where you love pretty things and that's something that makes you happy, go into it, have a look at it. If you're getting a new place I would encourage you to, one, if you can release old things that you don't need anymore and you can do that emotional purging, it's very cathartic, but it's also cathartic to go through that process of what makes me happy? What do I love? What am I keeping because I've always had it? What am I keeping because it's practical. And I, I know, I know it's a tough one. Mm-hmm.

So it's kind of like you have to do like the whole Marie Kondo thing of speaking to the things that you have and keeping the things that bring you joy and just releasing the rest.

Honestly, so there's practicality here. Not all of us are going to get $5 million to build a new house. Like sometimes you just got to keep stuff. But what I want you to do is if you can have a purging process. One, if anything makes you upset, get rid of it. I don't care who gave it to you. I want you to give yourself permission. It's not their home. I don't care if it's your grandma, your mom, your mother-in-law, your kids. It's not their house. Your kids do live there too. That's a whole other topic. But if— it's probably not your kid's stuff that doesn't bring you joy. But if something makes you upset, if you don't like it anymore, If it's a point of emotional turmoil, get rid of it as soon as humanly possible. There's no point in keeping it. Now, it's probably not gonna be everything, and especially, I'm especially talking about transitions where you are taking things from one home to your new one. And I, that is an excellent point to filter things out. At the very least, you shouldn't bring anything with you that makes you upset.

Because it's not just the item you bring, it's the energy that's attached to it as well, right? It is.

It's your emotional response to it that's the most important thing. It doesn't matter what the item is. I don't care if it's technically beautiful, but you hate it because he gave it to you and you had the worst fight of your entire life and you hate thinking about it. I don't give a shit how pretty it is. You're getting rid of it because you don't need any of that energy. You gotta give your permission, self-permission to have a clean start. And if you can, because you have the budget to do a clean start where you can start to look at things as you can even do this process where you can start to look at things that like, this is okay. It doesn't make me happy. It doesn't bring me pleasure, but it's here and it works. Uh, those are things you can have slated for the future if you don't have the budget to replace them now. And then definitely take note of the things that make you really happy and also give yourself permission to buy things because they make you happy. We all highly underestimate how important your home is as your environment. It is so important. You are there the most, most of the time, and it is the sanctuary you're supposed to go back to and rest in. If it isn't your sanctuary, you need to start making it your sanctuary. And part of that is giving yourself the emotional freedom of not having things that are going to drag you down. Um, so I think those are some pretty good tips, and I want to say be patient with yourself because there's a whole spectrum of people out there. I know, duh, Melissa, but I mean for design. There are some people who've never allowed to think them about altering their space, about making it theirs, about it being more than a place to live. And honestly, if you're operating out of that kind of space because that's all you were emotionally available for, that's okay. But know that you're not just gonna randomly bounce back and know everything you love all of a sudden in a split second. Know that you're not gonna be sure of exactly what every detail's gonna look like. And I would encourage, if you can have some patience with that, do. We need a place to live. That's cool. I would even encourage, if you just don't know, get a place. Don't worry about the place being the perfect place or it resonating with you. Find some place to stay that's okay, that's neutral, and then give yourself some space. What do I want? What do I need? What do I need it to look like? What makes me happy? Because you'd be surprised how little money you need to spend for a space to make you happy in the end if you go from that point of view and you allow yourself to explore that. And I know that also transitions into other things to do with transitioning your life. Is giving yourself permission. So give yourself permission to have space. And the rest of you who are pinning interiors for like 12 years before you got divorced, you're going to be fine. What I would say is go for— because you can get lost in details. The other end is you get lost in all of the things you love. Yeah, I would go for one of my, my starting points as a professional is really good at this is How do you want to feel in your space? I make you pick 3 words. But here's the other fun part. How do you want your guests to feel in your space? Those are very enlightening things, how guests want to feel and how you want to feel, because sometimes they're completely different things. So that's a good starting point. I would start there and then that will help inform where you want to go with your interior. Beyond that, I can't give you advice because you're all individuals, and it's not going to help you. But those are good starting points. Um, and if you want to reach out to me and you have other questions, you're welcome to.

Yeah, thank you. And I want to go back to what you said about being— you want your home to be your sanctuary. Yes, it may not be the final place, But you wanna be, there's so much, we go through so much stress, right? As we're going through divorce, on the other side of divorce, when we now have to co-parent and do all of these other things that your home really should be the place where you can go and mentally and physically take your shoes off and take a breath.

I wanna say you need to give yourself permission to get the things.

Mm-hmm.

You wanted a pink sofa, get a fricking sofa cover, make a pink sofa. If you wanted a bird statue and, and you never got the bird statue because he was gonna hate the bird, get the fricking bird statue. Go to, go to HomeSense or another store like that that has pretty things and give yourself permission to buy like one or two pretty things and start there. Um, Giving yourself joy in your space is going to make it much easier on your entire system. Giving yourself a space that makes you happy, like painting a wall, really doesn't cost that much money. You don't need fancy paint for it. You can pick out a nice color you love. And you know what? If you get tired of it, totally fine. You can repaint over it. It's fine. Also, I wanna point out for those of you who are afraid of permanence, which is cool, you're in a transitional space, we also have peel peel-and-stick wallpaper, which comes off super easy and has all these pretty colors and patterns. So there's also the point of like artwork and other things. No matter what brings you joy, I would lean into it, and I would give yourself permission to be a little creative with it. So like, if you want a pink sofa, you know, you don't have to go out and get a custom pink sofa in order to get it. You can put a cover over your sofa. I have done that. I have a, what I call my elephant sofa.

Or you can get pink pillows, right?

Or you can get pink pillows. I love that. If you wanted a pink sofa, get a pink sofa cover because you can go on Amazon, you'll find one, I promise. Um, and give yourself permission for what makes you happy. You need to be the important piece in this situation. Because to be honest with you, even if you're like, that feels really selfish, everyone who's depending on you needs you to be the most important thing to you. You can't be there for other people who are affected by this if you're not taking care of yourself. So one of the biggest things, as we're saying, is your environment. This is your sanctuary. And whatever small things or It even goes into habits, developing new habits that make you happy.

Yeah.

Like if you wanna clean every 2 days because your husband was so messy and it just makes you happy and you love cleaning and he hated that you cleaned all the time, do it. Create the new habit. If other thing, if you wanna, if you're the other side, if you just wanna leave shit everywhere and I'm gonna clean it up eventually, it's gonna be fine. To do it.

It's fine.

Everything's okay. Uh, I would— it's definitely a great journaling activity to look at what you need to be happy, because one of the things I discovered, uh, I have many aspects of my brain, my anatomy, and some of it is— I know I have aspects of autism, and I know I have aspects of ADHD. And because of the ADHD portion of my brain, Combined with that, I need things to be organized.

Mm-hmm.

But I also get overwhelmed when I let things pile up. And I've discovered because I'm such a creative person and I'm so out there, I need a clean slate. So what I've discovered is I would love to have nothing on my countertops in my kitchen. Not a thing. My kitchen's too small for that, so it has to happen. So for me personally, if I feel like crap, I kind of look around and I'm like, the kitchen has a lot of dishes everywhere. There's a lot of pots and pans laying around. I— if I clean this up, I would feel much more like doing something. So yeah, I just—

I love that you said that because I always thought it was a little weird because I feel like if my desk is messy, my head is messy. So I like my desk, and part of it is control freak part of me, right, where everything— and the Virgo part of me has to be just, you know, just right. But I also feel like— I remember when I was in corporate, when I had major projects going on and I didn't have time to kind of clean up, that I felt like my brain was constantly on overload. So at one point, I just— I forgot priorities. I put everything in a pile, and I just went from the top to the bottom because that was the only way I could get myself out of it.

And I will say that there's also another perspective that I want to point out to everyone emotionally. One, I want to encourage everyone to write things down.

Hmm.

Because your brain can only take so much. Why are you awake at night thinking about everything? Because it's not written anywhere. A lot of times, once you write them down, you're going to stop going over and over things you're afraid you're going to forget. And for me, that's the problem with a messy desk, is I'm constantly thinking of that as a thing I need to do. I need to clean this up. I have my financial stuff I need to put away. It's sitting there. I need to do that, but I need to do this. Well, I need to do that. And it pulls me in different directions. And the more you can create compassionate habits because part of compassion is realizing that something that seems useless to other people is incredibly important to you. And I want you to take this in, ladies. Please take this in. If something's important to you, if that's the only thing you learn out of this process, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about it. Just giving yourself the validation of knowing it's important is enough. It's important to you and your happiness. That's all that needs to happen. Now, if you have people you brought with you, like you have little people, children, you can start a new chapter of communication. Instead of yelling, try not to yell. Try to take some time to explain what's important to you and maybe have a discussion about what's important to them. And that might open up some lines of communication. Communication is the key to everything. But having that space to say, I need to be able to leave shit on my desk because it stresses me out trying to clean everything up all the time. Or the opposite, which is yours is like, I have a messy mind, a messy desk. And mine is like, I keep looking at everything I need to do and it, it, it's in the back of my brain. It's every time I look at it, I'm like, that's a thing I need to do now. And it's on top of all the other things I'm not doing. And it, I get into overwhelm. So just something that's a little thing that keeps needling at you, right? Yes, yes, right.

Cool. Well, that was a lot.

I know, that wasn't even— that was just the interior design side. I am, I am a lot, and I love that I'm a lot.

Um, I love that you're a lot. I love that you are, that you are who you are.

I mean, thank you.

So in that, let's use that segue.

I love it. Yes, you did perfectly about me. Um, I've come from a very powerful position of lack and self-punishment, and I have a very specific upbringing that made me independent and a hard worker, but at the same time, I grew up in a low-income household as an empath, and I was taught to be a good girl first.

And you probably felt everything, sort of.

Yeah. Um, it's really interesting. As a child, I think children are empaths. They feel everything, but I had no tools for anything. Uh, my mom— my parents did such great things with what they had, but all— both of them were carrying around a lot of trauma from their family history, from their childhoods, from their relationships with other people. My mom had a lot of her issues she was carrying around. She didn't have the tools to teach me the tools. At all. She did the very best with what she had, but that meant that I was very— I'm actually quite an introverted person, but as I've healed, what I need out of interactions and how I interact as an introvert is very different. So like, I— my husband is fine not dealing with people ever. He just needs like a couple people in his life that he interacts with or goes to the store and he's fine. Um, I need people. And it's funny, as an empath, I didn't realize that was a thing until I got well into my healing process, where I realized, one, we need— I, I want to spoil this for everyone who's going through a healing process— you need all the emotions, love. There's not going to be any point at which you are supposed to be only feeling good emotions. A healthy person with healthy emotions, you don't wanna live there. You don't wanna live in anger the rest of your life. You don't wanna set up a cozy little spot and stay there, but you need to be giving yourself permission to feel things because honestly, there was probably, for some of you, is a really long time where you didn't get permission to feel a whole lot of things because you couldn't deal with the situation at the time. So that's the big—

And I would add to that too, that if we don't give ourselves the permission to feel, we only make that process longer.

Right. That is correct. You're gonna have to deal with it eventually, or you're— it's gonna slam you in the face. You're gonna get cancer, you're gonna get dementia, or your body's gonna give out and something else is gonna happen to your body. It's gonna come out eventually, I promise you. And when you look at people who didn't age well, who had a lot of problems, they have a lot of trauma, they did stuff they didn't deal with either. So getting tools— and Alex is amazing at presenting you with a lot of different tools. So you have spiritual tools you can use, you have, uh, more clinical tools you can use. Lean into whatever tools you need to be able to expand that. So as an empath, so one I was the girl you needed to encourage to get in trouble, honestly. Uh, I was a good girl but was taught, told to be a good girl, and a good girl doesn't want anything. If no, if we can't buy anything, I don't want anything. So why should I bother wanting anything? I'm not going to get, be able to get it anyway. And I taught myself that so well that at age 40, Divine God asked me, I need you to want more. And I was like I don't know how to do that. And like, I, I was talking to a friend of mine, people like, well, what do you, what do you want? And like, to do the planning activity, I love it. I have many of them behind me. You can see behind me the bookshelf. I love the Passion Planner. Okay, it's amazing. I encourage you to look it up. Specifically, it pulls what you're passionate about, it breaks it down into easy steps. It gives you— anyway, I love it. It's beautiful for that phase in your life and for giving yourself permission. And one of the activities is to sit down and take away all the filters, all the blocks, everything stopping you. What do you want? I bet you had this activity, Alex, too, and you were like, I don't know.

And they were like, what do you, what do you want in 3 months?

What do you want in a year? What do you want in a lifetime, Alex? And I was like, okay. I don't know.

Can I just tell you, that was, that was my most dreaded question in interviews. I was like, I, I don't know what I want in 5 years. Like, I'm not going to be the same person in 5 or 10.

I don't understand this. And everyone else is like, I want this and this and this. And I was like, that's great, how do you do that? Uh, I got it It, it starts with giving yourself permission. And I want to say one of the things I learned that I'm going to share, a very hard-earned lesson with you, is when I'm jealous of other people, it's something I haven't given myself permission to have.

That's good.

It happened a lot. Like, I have people who dressed more like I do now. You know the kind of colors I wear. I wear light colors. I don't wear dark colors most of the time, very rarely. I love pinks. I love saturated light colors, if you know what that means. Um, I love pretty things. I love being pretty. And none of that was stuff I gave myself. I thought, I can't do that. And like, then I got to a point where I was like, why can't I dress like that? I mean, there's—

says who?

What? What?

Why?

Why is that a thing? And like other things, like if somebody has a really nice lifestyle, you can have that. You're not giving yourself permission to have these things. And it's a nice— if you are a really good person, you're jealous of other people and you don't want to do that. It also— it's not just things, it's emotions, it's giving yourself a freedom with people, it's how other people have coped and healed. And looking at someone like, oh, I could never be that at peace. Stop it. Yes, you can. Will it take some work on your behalf depending on what tools? Yes. But it's amazing how much easier things happen when you just give yourself permission to do things. So I've carried around a lot of things. So because I was such a good girl and I was so introverted and I had a lot of trust issues that were very well earned trust issues throughout my entire childhood, and I moved around a lot. So my dad was in the Marine Corps for 30 years. I'm actually American and I live in Canada because I came to live with my husband, the love of my life, uh, when I was barely an adult. So I've been up here for a while, but, um, I moved around a lot and this created my wound with women, which I want to say from City Healed without the fancy stuff. It just healed that wound. But what came with that is, because I moved around so much, as I explained to people who were in one spot for a long time, you don't learn social skills. Because when you have people you've grown up with, you have the safe— kind of the safe space to learn these social skills. I learned almost none of them, and I had to go into adulthood that way. And wonder why everything was so difficult and why I couldn't do anything. And it wasn't until 10, 15 years— 10 years ago that I discovered— if you have problems with this, read Daniel Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.

It's—

he says it's literally what the people persons in your life that get along with everyone— this is literally the stuff they just know and the stuff we didn't learn somewhere along the way. So read it. I recommend that to everyone. It's a really old book. It's incredibly good. And I highly encourage you, by the way, to do his method. He says, read the chapter, practice the things, and then read the chapter again. Read it twice. And I highly encourage you to do it. It was very good because it's literally what happens is you're reading and you're like, it can't be this simple. And if you keep going, you're just going to dismiss everything. But if you stop and you try it and you're like, Oh my God, it is that simple. It is this easy to get along with people.

What?

Um, that was a huge fight. And then I've gone through a huge transformation the past 3 years. So I, I had many breaking points that I ignored. I've had many mental breakdowns. I just got through them. I didn't really have help for any of them. I just got through it. I don't encourage this method, by the way. It's a terrible thing to do. This is not— it's not what you should be doing.

So you— so you went through the hard times, but you didn't actually pause to integrate or to learn what the lesson was. Is that— am I hearing that correctly?

I did the very best with what I had. I was not capable of moving past where I was at the time. Okay. And where I was is, I am a very strong person. I have a high pain tolerance, and I am very tolerant to trauma and pain, emotional pain. And I will go through a lot for the sake of other people, especially when I told you guys earlier, one of my founding principles in this lifetime was to punish myself. And I did it so well that I even had a lovely woman I had a coffee chat with at Fem City go, I had a work computer. I need my computer for work. I do AutoCAD. It is very necessary. Um, even before the Zoom era, I need a computer and I need it to work. Uh, I would do no personal things on that computer. And she was like, well, you have a personal computer. And I was like, ah, shit, I'm punishing myself again. I, I was like, there's no reason why I can't have— I love video games, for example. Why can't I have games on this computer? Also, I've learned along the way how my brain works. I can't do one task an entire day. Is that a problem for me getting work done? Not whatsoever. I know that I need to task switch, and it doesn't need to be a work task. It can be something else. I can play a video game for 5 minutes and I will do much better at the task than if I pushed through. That's something I learned, and it made me a different boss because I have had up— I was up to 3 employees at one point. Um, no, I, I've attracted people with serious psychological issues because I can handle that. Mm. And these were clients. I've also had friends around me that have serious psychological issues because that was just the fandom I was in, because I did. I had serious issues that I was so used to that I didn't see them as that. And it's— I have so much love for past me and what the heck I did with my life when— before I healed all of this stuff. Um, so fast forward, I had the final breaking point where I'm like, I gotta leave everything or I gotta get help. And I had no experience with formal therapy or psychology. Um, I had no experience with anything to get help in any manner. And a friend of mine I'd met was an energy healer. She created her own technique, and what I loved about it is At that point, I had— I was almost entirely practical. Practical. It wasn't a good thing, I promise you that. Um, there needs to be more than one side to you. And we had discussions about this, that if energy healing works, I don't need to believe in it to work. I need to be open to it working, because you can't block it entirely. Because if you believe something's not going to work Like, someone can give you Tylenol for a headache, but if you believe it's not going to work, it's not going to work. Your brain's that powerful. Your body's that powerful. So we had that discussion, and that was— and she didn't push it on me, because there are wonderful people I have met who are very kind and lovely that sell things that almost immediately, that is the only solution to all of my problems, is that, rather than treating me as a person first. Um, so she— we just became friends. And so when I needed it, I went to her. And so I've been through a lot of that. My, my abilities came out that way, and I've been through a huge transition. And so much of my transition has been so much permission. I, I've had discussions with other people about this that what we call shadow work, the dark stuff, the wounds, easy. I can dig in that stuff for days, never come out. It's fine. When you start— I started to go to the path of what do you want, what makes you happy, and I was like, uh, I don't know how to do this. How do you, how do you even start going about this? Like that, I couldn't do it. It took so much effort for the first little baby steps of me learning what I wanted, giving myself permission, also giving myself recognition for what I'd done and what I'd accomplished in my life to take care of myself and move into things that I loved, um, give myself permission to let go of people that I had a lot of abusive relationships around me. I just— when, when your primary founding principle is punishing yourself, people are happy to do that. Um, luckily I have— I'm a very strong person and I'm a very independent person, so I didn't go too far in my case. I'm very grateful for the rail— guide rails I had in place. Um, but there was— there's been such a process of that, like reawakening and wanting and exploring where I want to go with things and giving myself permission and feeling. And I live in a whole different world than before I started this process 3 years ago. I am an entirely different person than I was then. It's really weird because I am and I'm not. I'm still Melissa, but I'm a very different version of Melissa than before I started.

2.0, 3.0.

I'm at like 3.15627, something like— I mean, I'm deep into the versions at this point. There's little shifts every day, and I'm like, God, I'm entirely different. And everyone else is like, I think you're pretty similar. And I was like, no, I don't understand. Um, I opened myself up more and more to things around me. Uh, there's experiences that I've had in my life that's helped me have more compassion for other people, which kind of makes people easier to deal with. I gotta be honest with you, when you look and look at someone with love, when you can go— when someone's being just really shitty to you out in public, you can kind of go, I'm sorry, they're having such a horrible day, because what is it like to be them on the inside? Much less just someone that they came across it during their day. And sending someone with love and going like, I really hope you get what you need out of your life because you are not happy, and I'mma leave your unhappiness over there. So, um, there's so many things, like even down to my rebranding. So as I healed, um, I have a specific soul identity. If anyone wants to get into all my spiritual shit, we can go down a deep rabbit hole. I won't here though. Um, I, uh, at one point, like, the brand I chose, uh, Senora Design, was from a fandom I was a part of. It was from a pen name, a character I created in that fandom, because that's all I had. I didn't have any other idea what I wanted to name my business. Other people like, I want it to be this name, and I was like, all I knew is I didn't want it to be my name.

Mm-hmm.

Because I'm very passionate about it being a brand that everyone owns the work on. Because no matter what you say, if you call it your name, people think you did all the work, that it's your baby. Versus I wanted everyone to own that, and I knew that was a piece to having a really good team environment, is everyone being able to own that brand and to own all the work that we're doing and to know that they have a voice that matters in everything., and I need that to be apparent on the outside. So I was like, I chose it. Does that name have anything to do with my clients and what I do?

No.

I get that question. Well, what does it mean? Young cat or kitten. Oh, okay, great. What does that have to do with nothing? Not a darn thing. I just didn't wanna call it my name. I had nothing else. I was like, I guess we'll call it this. And I had a really flowery, uh, branding, um, very pretty and scrolly and I loved it and loved what I did with it. But I grew out of it. I didn't need that anymore. And actually the energy was toxic to me at this point because it was the old me and I needed to step into this new identity. I really loved this new life I really wanted. And so I had to rebrand and I came up with the name Aurora because it means the sunrise and new beginnings and the gentleness and the beauty and all of that that's associated with it. So that my brand colors are the sunrise. I work very hard on those. Uh, Holly Norian is my amazing lady who did all the work on this, and she can tell you how much patience she needed. Uh, I live in a world where I do things for other people. This who I am, it's what I do, is how I operate. And even when it came to my rebranding, we went into the first meeting where you have all your logos and you're going over what you like and don't like. I started creating a logo for my, my right-hand woman in the business, not for me, I completely for her. I had no idea what I wanted. It's easy, it's really easy to tap into what she wants. Um, and I held on to her too long because I didn't want to lose her because of how much we've put into our relationship together, our relationship with the business and all of that. And then the universe was like, honey, you're not going to do this properly if she's here. And I was like, it's not that I felt she would prevent anything, I just would be too obsessed with making sure she's happy with things as well. And that isn't how I needed to move forward, so I had to let her go. At the beginning of this year, and it was— it's the most heartbreaking thing I've ever done in my life. It still is. It's still really heartbreaking. Um, I have healed, and, uh, I recommended her to work for a friend of mine who's probably not gonna let her go in the future. She was like, you know, once I get someone I like, I'm not gonna let her go. And I was like, I'm not really worried. I know we're meant to work together again, and it'll happen. Uh, for now I gotta work on my shit. So I've had a lot of patience with this because of that whole— and it's funny because I'm helping my mom, my parents design a custom home in Wisconsin. Why Wisconsin? Because it's gonna be in the small town in Wisconsin they grew up in and where almost all of my big Polish extended family is. My parents have our 8 kids and 8 kids on either side. It's a big family, and they're finally moving back after being gone their entire adult life. And my mom's really excited about this, and she's really excited to be there with family, and she's been pushing for it for years. My dad finally healed— I'm going to say healed— to the point where he could give in to that. And my mom went from not envisioning any— and this is where I'm coming from, guys— went from not even thinking about altering anything and accepting every environment she came into to suddenly building a custom home. And it was like, I've gone through this and I've seen this, that if you don't know, pushing isn't gonna make it happen sooner. Yeah, it's really not. And having compassion and space with things is one of the best things you can do sometimes. Is there anything like you wanted to draw or you wanted to ask me about?

I think I just want to draw a comparison when you were talking about the rebranding of your business, right? Because I feel like when we come out of a divorce or an uncoupling, when we separate, it's kind of what we have to do. It's a similar process where we have to get rid of the old brand, get rid of the old label, whatever those labels were, and we have to figure out for ourselves, okay, what fits me now, right? And I don't think we can come up with that until we start to introspect and we start— you were talking about doing the work— until we start to do the work to really get to know who we are, reconnect with ourselves, right? So then we can make those decisions from a place of— I think certainty is a big word, but from a place of knowing instead of a place of—

from a place of joy, from a place of love is how you should be making those decisions. It shouldn't be like— I completely agree because You're rediscovering who you are. I've done that many times, so this is why I was like, you're gonna miss so much, Alex, if I don't talk about my journey with them, because they're gonna miss so much good stuff. Um, you, in some ways, you need to start fresh. So if you're gonna journal, if you're gonna do the work, I would— that's why I also, I'm giving you so much work and I'm shortcutting it for you. You're welcome. If you can look at the po— go from the positives. Mm-hmm. If you start with the negatives, you're gonna take the agonizing journey I took. Don't do it. Start from the, the joys and the positives. And if you need to heal things to even get to the joys and the positive one, Give yourself a lot of love. I've been there. Alex has clearly been there. We've been there where you need to heal stuff to even get to what, what makes me happy. And like right now, we were just discussing before he came on, I went off social media yesterday because you know how there's responses, stress responses of fight and flight. Well, if you're in the know, there's more than just fight or flight. There's a few other words in there that describe how people respond. I freeze unless it's very extreme, and then I fight. I'm a freezer. So I discovered recently that I am still frozen in a lot of ways, and I just— when you pile that much stress on and you don't have ways to deal with it, your body just goes into it so often that it just never comes out of it. So I'm wake— as an empath, I'm waking back up, and my emotions, as I would say, are blossoming. Are opening up and blossoming. It's a beautiful process, but also really hard to endure when you're being bombarded by everything. And also it's just really stressful for me to do that. So I did the compassionate move of I'm going off social media because— and I've had to do this, I've had to go into what we call hermit mode in the spiritual world, which is you withdraw from everyone in order to discover what you— who you are and what you need. And by the way, if that needs to be part of your journey, I highly encourage that. Yeah, I want to say, and I think Alex will agree, no one is owed your time. No one in your life is owed your time, especially people who demand it and have absolutely no care for boundaries.

Mhm.

They especially don't deserve your time, but that's a whole other thing. You deal with it however you need to deal with it. But if you need to— because I've had to do that a few times because I am so outward-facing of— for my trauma, I was looking for answers out there. And the problem is— and let me also give you another shortcut— the answers aren't out there. No one can tell you the answers. That's the hardest part of it. And that's why therapy isn't them telling you things, it's them telling you what you're saying and throwing things back at you, and you discovering things about yourself is what therapy is. So you have to find those answers, and however you get there is perfect. Like, if you need to get— like, maybe you were a hermit for years and you need to get out and you need to talk to people. Like, I encourage you to find that process and to lean into it. The more you're open to what that process looks like for you, because it could look like nothing like what Alex and I did, nothing like that, and it'll work beautifully for you. Um, and I, I think that's the biggest thing I discovered, is you need You don't need to do anything. Let me stop saying that. The best, the best thing is that you can embrace and realize that your journey is going to look like no one else's, and it doesn't need to. And that you can take advice from other people, but you also need to lean into like, what makes me happy? What resonates with me? Maybe journaling doesn't work worth a shit and you need to meditate. Maybe you have entirely different tool sets you need, and there are so many of them.

Um, yeah, yeah. And like you said, it's not— everything doesn't look the same. Everyone is different. Everyone's experience, everybody's— yeah, everybody's experience is just different, and they need to find what works for them. Yeah. Absolutely. And part of that is, you know, seeing what other people are— because when you don't know where to start, it's like, well, let me try this on for size. Let me try that on for size. Well, that worked for her, so maybe that'll work for me. And maybe those are the things that you need to do before you can find your own way, and that is okay. Yeah. So Melissa, thank you so much for being here and for sharing with our heroines.

I am so happy to be here. Uh, if anyone wants to reach out, you're welcome to. I am a member of the group. I, I'm not going to be active in there because it's not my— I have so many groups that people invite me to. Um, but you're welcome to reach out to me if something resonates. Um, if you wanted to poke at something, you're welcome to reach out to me.

And you took the words right out of my mouth because I was going to say, heroines, if there's anything that Melissa said that resonated with you She'll throw her links in the comments below, any way that you need to have to be able to reach out to her so that, um, if you do have a question or if something that she said really sparked something and you want to chat a little bit more, I'm sure she'd love to hear from you, as she just said she would. Um, but for the time being, I'm going to thank you so much for being here, for watching, whether live or on replay. And I guess I'll see you on the flip side. Melissa, thank you so much again. I love you. Thank you.