How to Rebuild Self Trust After Divorce | Melody Long on Feminine Energy, Forgiveness & Healing

Hello, heroines! Alex again for our second interview today. I'm so very excited to bring to you Melody Long. Melody and I have known each other for, I don't know, 3, 4 years or so, something like that. And it's been really interesting to see her journey through, you know, her business and what she does. So I thought I would bring her in because I think we were just chit-chatting just before getting on with you guys, and I think it's going to be really good. So, Melody, why don't we just get started? Why don't you tell us, uh, who you are, where you're from, and what you do?

Sure. So, um, I live on the West Coast of the US. I live in Portland, Oregon. I've been on the West Coast a good part of my life. Professionally, I've been a registered nurse for many, many years and have taken care of very, very sick people for many years. So that is a piece of my life. But I also am someone who came into this life being very okay with the notion of, if you want to say, God, Goddess, intelligence, Universal Life, however you'd like to label it, it never was an issue for me. And I always felt very connected, kind of spiritually, growing up as a young person and a teenager. In fact, I even— I can remember in my teenage years, out of the clear blue sky, thinking, I think I might wake up this lifetime. And I'm like, I don't even know where that came from. And You know, life came, couple of divorces came. I was in my late 30s, early 40s, had two very young children. Um, uh, was kind of the 2x4 on the side of the head to kind of rock my world. Um, and so I, I was a single mom for most of my adult life. Uh, my kids were a year and a half and 3 and a half when I, um, got divorced. And very— I'm very grateful their father stayed involved in their lives. He lives here locally. We still see each other, you know, have holidays and spend times at baseball games for grandkids, etc., now. But it was a very rough period of my life, and so I have incredible sympathy for single women and the journey that they go on and the way life shakes us up sometimes to really, um, for it, from my perspective, kind of get us into our soul's journey. And so I, um, am really, uh, now I work with women who are entrepreneurs or not, but are really wanting to deepen their connection with their inner wisdom, their inner knowing, and really to look at what's limiting them from moving, moving forward. So that's a little bit about me.

That's beautiful, beautiful work. I mean, to— I, I think one of the, the things that I see in, in society today is It feels like women are minimized, maybe because of, I don't know, fear of how powerful women can be, especially when we all, you know, when we come together, then it's really a force, a force to be reckoned with. Yes. But I know when you're going through, or I imagine when you're going through a divorce as a single mom, it must be difficult to really tap into, tap into that. So how do you then, how were you able to do that as you went through your journey to actually end up doing the work that you're doing now?

Sure. Well, It's my belief that we really are all guided and that we're never alone in this journey, whatever our journey is, even in the face of what looks like being alone, that we have spirit guides, guardian angels, whatever you want to say. Our inner wisdom is always with us. And so I was, um, guided to a community Through a series of people I knew, that was a very profound, deep spiritual community that I got back in touch with kind of where I wanted to be. I became a meditator more consistently and spent time with those people. I changed my work around so that I could have time to go on retreats or, um, do things locally. So really, I was guided, and I think that all of us in some way, if you could look back on your life, you probably would say the same thing. That events happen. We don't necessarily— we meet somebody, we read a book, we have an experience, and it moves us on to the next place. And bit by bit, small step by small step, we move in a new direction with more confidence, more self-assuredness, um, and a deeper trust in ourselves. And I think ultimately, um, I believe that we're all spiritual beings having a human experience, and that It's a journey. It's really a journey to learn to trust ourselves because we have a lot of undoing to do with patriarchy. Um, we were taught not to trust other women because they could take our man away from us. We were taught, um, to be jealous and, and competitive and our natural way is to be collaborative and loving and supportive and in community. And that's, I think, where we want to go.

I agree. And I think, you know, we're living this feminine energy in a masculine energy world, right? Because competition, all of those things are more masculine energy, whereas I think by nature— and we all have masculine and feminine energy within us— but I think for us women, we do tend to operate more from that feminine energy, which, like you said, is collaborative, it's inclusive. And that's where that strength comes from. That's where we get to tap into, into our strength. I want to go back to what you said before about self-trust. Because one of the things I hear often is that, um, coming out of a divorce, women sometimes have a hard time trusting themselves again, trusting in their decision, in their ability to make decisions, in their ability to make the right decision. So how does one begin to go through that process of learning to trust ourselves again?

Well, in the world in which I travel now, it's looking at what our limiting beliefs are. Like, um, very generally speaking, it takes us back to childhood, to something that happened for us in childhood that we then carried through different series of relationships or periods in our lives. So I think it's really looking at— to get back to your question of how do we go from lack of confidence to lack of self-trust, lack of confidence to trust and, and inner confidence in our intuitive, intuitive wisdom, our intuitive knowing. And I think it's a process. It's, um, I think we have to be open to it. I think not all of us may be open to, to kind of, um, self-improvement, self-growth, self-inquiry. But those who are, bit by bit by bit, we take steps to do that. And, and what I spend a lot of my time doing now is working with people around what's called belief coding. And it's a modality to look at what are some of our limiting beliefs and how can we heal them without really going and re-traumatizing ourselves. So And another thing I wanted to say—

can I ask, what do you mean when you say re-traumatizing ourselves?

Well, you know, say you were somebody who was abused physically as a child, and that has repercussions clear through. I mean, like, take the new Pope. For now, there was a letter from, um, I'm forgetting the name of the organization, but all the young people, mostly men who are now adults, um, who formed an organization who have been abused by, um, priests and cardinals and etc. in the Catholic Church. Well, they sent a letter to the new Pope asking that, um, he seriously look at cleaning, basically cleaning things up. So in belief coding, if you were working with someone who had some trauma, some major trauma, you don't want to put them back into a situation where they're going to relive that. But there is a way to heal that bit by bit by bit. And when it's something big like that, it's not a quick fix, but this process allows, um, you not to be re-traumatized. That's what I meant. The other thing I wanted to mention, um, which is maybe a little bit of a segue, but I'll see if I can make it make sense, is that like you said, we all have feminine and masculine energies in us. But we also have distorted masculine and distorted feminine energies in us, as well as Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine energies in it. Basically, maybe think of it as kind of ascended masculine, ascended feminine, and distorted masculine, distorted feminine. And what we know as masculine energy for thousands of years has been the distorted masculine energy, which feminine people in feminine bodies and people in masculine bodies have embodied. And that's what's destroyed our planet. That's the energy. The energy of the Ascended Masculine supports the feminine, holds the feminine, protects the feminine, encourages the feminine. That's a different energy of masculinity than most of us know.

Which, when you say distorted masculine, I'm gonna— to put it in everyday terms, let's say kind of that, the alpha male energy, right?

Yeah.

Which is that in-your-face, make things happen, like, which is to me not masculine energy, that's kind of little boy energy trying to make big, you know, trying to be big energy. But it's okay, because I agree with you. I think, I mean, I look at my own relationship and I see him most happy when he when I give him the opportunity and he has the opportunity to support me in some way. And he's always, you know, looking for different ways to support the work that I do, um, and just allow me to be in, in my feminine and to be able to experience that. So what's I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, go ahead, go ahead.

Well, what I was going to say is that whether we're in partnership or not, and you're blessed to be in that kind of a partnership, that's great. But for those of us who aren't in partnership, that it's just us, we have inside of us that supportive masculine energy that can support and hold up the feminine kind of goddess energy, if you want, that's creative, that's unconditional love, that's compassionate, that's creative, incredibly creative. We have that, and we can call on that. We can call on our masculine to support us. So for example, you're an entrepreneur, you can call on that masculine energy to support your creative work in your business.

So in that example, would you say, is the masculine energy kind of the driven, organized, um, kind of make things happen energy? How would you describe that within, within us?

I would think of a balanced masculine is um, structure. Okay, not driven, um, is structure, is, um, support, is acknowledging the importance of the feminine, which the distorted masculine doesn't do at all. Um, it is a, um, it loves building and, um, taking kind of in a internally, just in one person, it's the part of you that takes the creativeness and the ideas from the feminine side and helps put it out into the world. So it's the feminine who has this vision, this big idea about where you'd like to go if you're an entrepreneur, for example. And if you're not, it might be that, that your creative has ideas about your family and what you'd like your family to be like, how you'd like to raise your children, or if you don't have children, how you'd like to create community around you. And the masculine would support that.

Okay, that makes, that makes sense. So I want to go back to something you touched on earlier, which was your divorce story.

Yeah.

I'm curious to hear what kind of was your biggest lesson from, from your divorce story that you think would be helpful to share with our heroines?

Well, um, in a very kind of practical way, um, it was really important for me, as much as I could— it took me, realistically, it took me— my divorce, my marriage ended because of an affair. And so there was, you know, that piece. And it took me about 5 years really to kind of get through my anger about that. But it was really important for me, not as much as I could— I'm sure I could have done better— but as much as I could to not involve the kids in that. And they were pretty little. When all of this happened. So that was a big piece. And I think we fairly succeeded in that fairly well because I would, for example, my son played baseball and so we would be sitting, you know, in the stands. We wouldn't necessarily sit together, but we'd be in the stands with all the other parents. And people would routinely say to us, "Melody, I can't believe that you guys can interact with each other and you're civil with each other." And, and we were, you know, we shared Christmases and Thanksgivings together and birthday parties and that kind of thing. We did all the way along for the kids' purpose.

So the kids then was the driving motivation behind you being able to be civil with each other. Was there anything else?

Because, well, yes, obviously there was. I mean, for me, what I know is that, um, the whole piece of forgiveness is about myself. It's not about anything that anybody else did to me. It's about what the energy I want to hold in my heart and what it does to my heart to hold resentment and anger and fear and judgment or whatever the baggage is. And so being in this spiritual community, I was very aware of that. And so for years I worked on that. And I think that, that with just being civil with each other in kind of a— oh, um, kind of everyday language or everyday thinking, not in a spiritual context at all, but just being civil as much as we could. I, I did not succeed at that all the time, for sure, but, um, I think he would, he would say, if you were to ask him, that, that I did okay.

You know, your story reminds me a lot of my parents because my parents divorced when I was 21, so fairly late in, in my life, and That was the one thing that they really made an effort with, and I would, I would give my mom props, especially because she really wanted to try to, as disruptive as the divorce was, to make it as least disruptive as possible for, for the children. And, you know, I contrast that with my boyfriend's experience with his ex-partner, and it's night and day, huh? Night and day. Night and day. Um, and I want to honor you for that, and all of the other women who are going through that and who are able to really think— I would say, for lack of a better word, think of the children first. And think of the impact of the situation on the children and really aim to make that transition as manageable as, as possible because they're living through it too.

They are. And I think it's important on the flip side of that to acknowledge our feelings and to not stuff our feelings, that we have to have some sort of outlet. We need to have a coach or a therapist or a good friend or somebody that we can vent with. If nothing else, driving in the car down the freeway screaming or whatever, you know, that we have a way to get out whatever's coming up, whether it's crying, whether it's anger, whether it's regret. Whatever it is, because you don't want that in your body. You want to be able to move through that and heal that. You know, emotions get stuck. I mean, we know that now, that our bodies energetically, things get stuck in us. And that becomes— I see it every day as working as a nurse in a hospital. You know, those become major illnesses that people have because, you know, 40 years ago they couldn't, you know, their heart got broken and now they've got quadruple bypass and they never dealt with it 20, 30 years ago.

Yeah, and to add to that, I'm trying to look for my copy, but if You haven't— if you haven't had a chance to read this, it's going to cover my face, but I think it's— see, it won't do it. There you go.

The Body Keeps the Score.

Yeah. And it's incredible. It's not a small book, but it's incredibly— like, the information in here is really, really super cool. So if— It's so true. And so if anybody is going through this right now and needs a bit of support, I think this is a great first place to look to really encourage you to, like, like you said, Melody, even if you just go drive around your car and scream your head off just to be able to release, to move things. Yeah, to keep things—

I don't want to give the impression that it's that it's the better thing to just have a stiff upper lip and be polite and kind. Um, I want and would encourage people who, particularly women, are going through a divorce, is to feel your feelings, to honestly feel your feelings, and know that there will come a time when you feel more balanced when you feel more calm. It may not be right this moment, but it will come, and life will get better, and you will survive. And you do have the incredible strength to move through what looks like really hard times. You will make it.

Yeah. And the last thing I would add to that is The only way out of it is through it.

It's true.

So the only way we are going to release those emotions is to allow ourselves to feel them. And the more we feel them, the more we take away that power.

Yeah.

And the more we're able to, to kind of let it, let it go, so to speak. So, Melody, any final words of wisdom? Anything we haven't touched on that you think is important? To share.

This is a great conversation. My heart goes out to any of the listeners who are in that kind of a place right now that's really tough. Know that you're not alone. This community that Alex has created is a great support for you. You will make it through. Help is available. And I just wish you all the best. Thank you.

That was lovely. Thank you, Melody.