ID - The Gateway to an Alternate Life - Day 3

Our identity as we know it begins to form from the instant we take our first breath. We start off as a blank slate, an open book waiting to be written. Our early years are filled with first steps, first sights, first discoveries. Each of these moments shapes us, adds a brushstroke to the canvas of our character. As we move through adolescence, the picture becomes more complex. Little by little, we become a mosaic, a multifaceted collage, a puzzle formed from.

The fragments of our life.

There comes a day when we grasp the paintbrush ourselves. We realize that need not be defined solely by circumstance, that we have the power to paint our own future. We awaken to find that we can reshape our identity. Our identity continues to evolve, but now as an intentional work of art, guided by our own hand. We are the artist and the masterpiece. It is time to step into a greater identity. This is the gateway to your alternate life.

Hello, beautiful people. Hello. Welcome to day three of identity work. I am just having the time of my life. Reading the stories, in the comments, in the group. I'm freaking out. I'm loving, loving the way you're telling these stories. Like, I can't even. I'm completely obsessed with the whole thing, the breakthroughs. The way you guys are showing up is so meaningful. I feel like I've watched a hundred movies in two days. So I want to ask you a question. In your own experience of what's happening right now, like in. In you writing your story, do you feel like the way you wrote this, the way you contemplated this, the way you researched this, like, do you feel this is different than any other time you've ever told your story before? You're becoming the way. The way we've gathered the information for this. Does this feel different than the way you usually feel when you describe your life? What would be the biggest thing that's different? Like what? How does it feel different when you look at it this way? Lighter. I like that light. It feels like art. It feels lighter. No need to prove anything. Limitless, empowered. Freeing. It's like deserving. There's meaning. Magic. The opposite of what I usually feel. Things are possible now. Safe. It matters. Possibility. It feels more truthful, Magical, Liberating. It feels open. Takes me out of victim mode. Crystalline, fun. Poetic. Grateful. Gratitude. I care. Joy feels like a movie. Letting go of needing to prove anything. It feels creative. Like, I got the memo. No shame. Expansive. I. Mad worthiness. It feels true. And for some, they're still. Like, I can see here. I feel still afraid. The casualness of taking off I understood the assignment. Strength and brave. It was painful, responsible, calm and stress free. Freedom, relief. Okay, so one of the things that I want to bring forward with the power of writing a story this way is that it's just the truth. It's just like this is. This is what happened. And it's wild how a life, in the end, when you just live it, there will be the truth of what your life was and that will be enough. So often when we're trying to explain the way our life is right now, we alter the truth with our feelings a little bit. Either to validate our experience that things suck, or to color it a little more colorful than it is out of fear that our story isn't good enough. And so both of those things are things that start to warp our identity because either way, we start to feel like we're not sure who we are. Are we the version that we kind of dismiss and make worse than it is, or are we the version that we need to polish up to make better? The real truth of who we are becomes the hardest identity to actually grasp. It feels like that's never the thought we have, is to just tell the truth, just to say it, what it is, because it feels either not enough or it feels like too much or it feels like something else. So in the way I asked you to write the story, it's. It's just the truth and there is pain. My gosh. I read. I read stories that took my breath away. But at the end of the day, what we really found, and I think most of us, if not all of us can agree on this, is that what we saw was extraordinary fate, extraordinary odds being, you know, defied. Extraordinary storylines, either just miraculous simplicity. That's like, that's insanely how on earth it happened so perfectly. And sometimes the complexity of, like every single thing about this was an almost not. So how did it end up happening? Every single story has an essence of that. And so our story, our own lives are going to be like that. There's going to be moments where the simplicity of it is almost laughable, where you're like, so I said I wanted this. And then the next day it showed up on my doorstep. Same as, you know, my grandmother going to see the, the seer or the, the woman who told her, you're going to meet a tall, dark stranger and your life will change forever. And she walked out of there and bumped into my granddad. Like, sometimes the simplicity is just too, too funny. You just can't make this stuff up. But then other Times it's like, wait, so my mom, who was literally the kid who would never leave her mom's bedside, somehow gets a bubble and decides to go to Canada, meets my dad in a nightclub and stays in Canada for the rest of her life? Like, how does that happen? The. My dad that was not even supposed to make it. The doctor said there is zero chance, and he made it. So how does that happen? Our life's gonna have those moments, too. So why this is so important and why I wanted to start the program with this is that a lot of times how we see our identity is that we should know what's coming. That's how we describe having a solid identity. We know what the plan is. We know what's coming, we know what we're supposed to do, and everything's working. But, like, none of that happened for you to be here. So why do we imagine that that's going to be the way for us now? Sometimes it will, and that's great, but most of the time, it won't. So that's not what our identity is. Our identity is basically how we relate to ourselves as the truth of who we are. And so you could say who I am is someone who is a mess just because you don't know what's coming. But you could also say who I am as a person who's constantly creating her life one day at a time. Same circumstances, different identity. So seeing so many different people kind of show what it took for them to even exist and who their grandparents were and their great grandparents and their parents and how they got here, it just goes to show like, it all matters so much in one sense. And in another sense, it's like it doesn't matter. Like, does it matter whether they knew what they were doing or not? No, you still ended up here. It mattered whether they had a plan or not. No, you still ended up here. Did it matter whether there was a war? Did it matter whether there was a pandemic or a Spanish flu? Did it matter whether. Like, doesn't matter whether they were married? No, no, you were a child from a second marriage. Doesn't matter. None of it matters. You're here. Somehow it doesn't matter. So what if we had that kind of trust in the things we're supposed to create on this planet, that as long as we're really engaged in our identity, as long as we're like, I'm the one that is living out this life, and I'm showing up for it, I'm grateful to be alive. I'm showing up for this, I'm curious about this. I'm here for this magical magic things get to happen because all that happened with all these stories is people showed up, made decisions and did things and then stuff happened. So the stuff's gonna happen. The identity is who are you when the stuff happens? That's what changes things, not what happens. Who are you when this stuff happens? Some of the most extraordinary breakthroughs that I read in this, in this group are people who shared things like, I thought I didn't matter, but contemplating this work, I realized my 17 year old mother decided to keep me against all odds. That is a brave girl that makes that choice. Who are you when it happens? Are you brave? Are you like, this wasn't part of the plan, but I can adapt, that's who I am. Or are you like, trust me to make mistake and to not know and this was not supposed to be. When we look at the way we handle things, a lot of the time the issue is not what happens to us, the issue is the way we handle what happened. We've seen so many forks in the road during this, this class already. So many stories where it's like, holy wow. Some people who stayed, some people who left, some people who fled, some people who died, some people who like the choices, the decisions, the pain, everything. People just had to survive, just had to move forward. It's not always just going to be simple, but miracles are going to happen. So I want to ask you this. Who here, in being in this group and in reading other people's stories, realized that you actually had a breakthrough about your own life through someone else's story? Like something someone else said made you realize something about your parents, your grandparents, yourself, your storyline. Like, you read their stuff and you're like, oh my gosh, this, this is a part of me I never realized. Look how many people are saying yes. So on another question, if you wonder, wondered even for a second before you wrote what you wrote, if it would matter or not, if you had the tiniest little thought, like, watch me be the only person that nobody reads this thing, or does it even matter that I'm writing this so much? Like, who cares if you have the tiniest thought about that, Say me, if you were like, am I really going to write this whole thing? It doesn't really matter. No one will read it. Maybe I don't post it. Look at this. So just as an example of how much we can matter on the simplest things and how much we can overcomplicate things on the Simplest things. Some of you doubted whether you should post or not. And some of you were entirely moved by someone else's story. So just. Just knowing your story, just knowing you, just hearing you, just you showing up for stuff in life changes people. But we don't put that in our identity box. We think that's just something that kind of happens by accident. It isn't. And I hear you like some people here, like, I still haven't posted mine yet. There's still something like, does it matter enough? Do I matter enough? Will it make a difference to me? I don't even really care. My story is weird. All the things that I said on day one would probably happen, but for so many people, just reading your story made them realize some things. So I like to see life in. In this way. Coaching containers for me feel like an ecosystem. They feel like a representation of the real world. How we behave in a space like this is very similar to how we behave in the outside world. We have the same fears, the same thing. It's just another thing in our real life. So why wouldn't it be the same? But the things that hold you back here, hold you back out there, the things you break free from in here, you start to sh. Shape out there as well. It's kind of magical like that. And so when you don't think you matter out there, the chances of you coming in here and doing something that would make you have to believe that you matter, like. But if you do it, there's a breakthrough in here and out there. So I want to encourage you to really utilize this space like it's real life. Because the breakthroughs you have in here, they're transferable. It takes as much courage, but it's actually transferable. So the identity, the part of us that says, I'm the kind of person who this is what we want to pay attention to. So you might say I'm not the kind of person who participates in groups like that, who has that part of their identity. I don't really participate in group programs. I watch them, but I don't really participate. Obviously there'll be no answers because you guys don't participate. Funny. Okay. No, there's a couple of them. Very good, very good. Then you might have, like, I go all out and I play all out in. In things because I'm the kind of person who wants to try everything because I really want to change my life. Who's that kind of person? I'll do anything, I'll do it all because I really want. I Do everything all the time, no matter what. Because I want to change my life and I'm showing up no matter what. That. And so you'll notice that it's just so easy to act in alignment with what you decide your identity is. You don't even need to think about it. It's like if it's who you are, you'll do it. If it's not who you are, you won't do it. If your identity is. It depends on something else, then it'll. It'll depend whether you do it or not. We don't do things. It's not like every single new decision that needs to come into our lives, we need to contemplate and say, I wonder if I will do this. There's actually a very tight knit energy inside of us that dictates what we're going to do and what we're not going to. Because it just, it's just written in our nervous system. So you don't even need to think about it so much. If it's who you are to do it, then it's who you are to do it. If it's not who you are to do it, then it's not who you are to do it. If it depends, then it'll depend. That's just who you are. Can you see how that may serve you in some cases and may totally not serve you in other cases. Like sometimes it's cool that you have this because it's who I am. I'm kind. Because it's who I am. I'm compassionate. Because it's who I am. I'm. I'm this because who I am. But then also I'm self deprecating because it's who I am. I already. I've already decided this is not going to do much for me because this is who I am. I failed this more times than I could count because it's who I am. Oops. So what we really want to start doing here is questioning who you are, who you think you are and who you've said you are. Because is it really all serving you that. That's the question. And there are parts of who you are that are serving you. And that's why I. I've been saying it's not about completely changing who you are. It's about looking at what are the parts of my identity that serve me versus the parts of my identity that protect me from something but also cut me off from something more important than what I'm protecting myself from. So if you are like, oh, I don't participate in group programs. And I say, why? And you say, because, you know, I don't want to be the one person that looks weird or says something weird or doesn't get acknowledged or I don't like to feel invisible or I don't think it matters or whatever it is. But then the real truth is I want my life to change. So what happens is I don't participate in group things because I don't want to feel embarrassed, I don't want to feel silly, I don't want to share my personal stuff because I don't want to be judged. But who I am is someone that wants to change conflicting and identities. So sometimes it's good to just kind of take a look at it, and this is how we did the homework the other day, is to say, I don't know if I want to keep this part of me. I'm not 100% sure. I've seen what my life looks like with this as the leading thing in my life, and I'm just not 100% sure. So one of the ways that we tend to tell our stories in life, whenever you're sharing a story is it usually comes with a desire to validate some sort of happiness, pain, something. So we want people to validate that we're right about something. We'll put it that way. So whenever you tell a story, an example, you get stuck in a traffic jam and you decide you want to tell somebody the story about that. What's the point? Just want to be validated in the anger about getting stuck in a traffic jam. There really is no other reason you tell the story. If you decide you want to tell the story about how you just had your biggest financial month ever, you're telling the story to validate the truth that you just had the greatest financial success in your life. Like, there's no other reason to tell a story other than to validate the experience. Yesterday I asked you or the day before to write in here in order to validate that you matter for yourself. And the way that you wrote the story and I could tell wasn't written so that other people would validate it. You wrote it so that you could feel it and then it just happened that a lot of people commented on it. The thing is, for a lot of people, connection is validation because if you tell me the story and I don't validate it, you don't feel connected to me. So I have people in the comments section saying, isn't, isn't the reason we tell stories also for connection. And it's like, yes, but if the story is about something that, that went wrong or something that went this. It's like, I only really feel connected if you validate what I've said, even in celebration. Like, if I celebrate it and there's any part of it that's for you, the only reason I'll feel okay is if you validate the celebration. Now, what I asked you to do yesterday was to write it for you, for you, for your story, so that you could realize that you matter. And the way everyone wrote their story was different. You could tell in the writing that there was no part of it. That was like trying to get any kind of validation. You could feel it from people in the way that it was written. They wrote it because that was their story and that was the truth. Period. It wasn't this like, you need to understand me. You need to understand where I come from. You need to validate my experience. You need to understand. Wasn't that it was like all of us are putting in here what it took for us to be alive. And everyone did it from such a squeaky clean place. And honestly is the best writing I've ever seen. In group shares, there was no, I'm writing this for you. It was, I'm writing this for me. And it wasn't, I'm writing this for you to think that I matter. It was like, holy crap, listen to the story I have. I so matter. And that's where the most connection actually happens. When you're not saying for validation. The most possible connection occurs because it's just the truth. And someone acknowledges the truth. They don't need to validate something that's already the truth. So you'll notice in the way that you live your life, there's different ways that you communicate with people. There's ways that you communicate with people where inside you want to be seen and validated in order to feel like you're connected to people as opposed to validating yourself so much and being so clear about who you are and sharing things because you're sharing them. It's your expression, it's your joy, it's your truth. And you already know some people aren't going to get it. That's not even the point. It's just who you are. It's just the way. The way you do it. And so I will tell you, since I've done this identity work, something quite special has happened in my life is I. I talk a lot less in my regular life. I Listen a lot. Before this work, I used to talk all the time because I used to be looking for points of connection or looking for points of validation. So I used to always want to try to say something that would create connection or trying to do something that would create connection. Now I love to listen and ask questions and learn about people, pay attention. And I realize that the connection comes much more when I'm just. When I want to talk, it's because I have something real I want to say, not because I want to be validated for something I. It's something solid in me where I want to tell a story that comes from a place in me that's like, clean. Doing it for a round of applause. I'm not doing it for someone to agree with me. Like, I could tell the story and someone could tell me, oh, my gosh, I don't agree with that. It should be that. And I be like, really tell me why? Instead of like, okay, never mind. Like, can I actually be open to dialogue with people? Can I share things from such a different place? And my identity started to shift when the reason I was speaking was not to get validation. I started talking a lot less. There's a lot less things I need to say when I don't need to be validated. What also started happening is that I wasn't really interested in listening to people who only wanted to be validated because I realized that they weren't present in the conversation. They weren't actually talking to me because they were experiencing something and they were sharing it with me. They just wanted to tell me something so I could validate them. So I also realized that's not my favorite thing to do. And it helped me realize who my friends are and who I actually like to spend time with. And it also made me a much better coach and mentor because it made me realize when I'm listening to a client, the most important thing is to be listening for what they need validation for and what they're trying to validate within themselves and where they're stuck. Like, it started helping become such a better mentor. So it helped me choose my friends and my. My surroundings. It makes it that I talk a lot less, and it makes it that I'm a better mentor. So all of this started to shift my identity massively. I only speak when it matters. I only listen when it matters, and I listen for what matters with my clients. So my whole life is about everything matters because I just wouldn't spend time where it doesn't. So it matters. It really matters. And you'll realize when you watch me, when you listen to me, how close gratitude is for me, always. How close my emotions are always. Because I'm always on the edge of how important everything is. But I don't listen to things that don't matter the way that I used to before to either validate or invalidate. And if I'm. If there's a person and I saw a comment, like, how do we listen to our loved ones? Like, what if you have somebody in your family that just always talks about stuff where they need validation? Well, that's your family. It's a little different. We don't all get to choose our family. But can you imagine how you would listen differently, knowing all they need is validation? This is not. This has nothing to do with me. They could be talking to a brick post right now. All they want is to feel like they're allowed to feel what they feel. Sometimes Kevin does this. Like, he'll. He'll get into a. A thing in the car, and then this guy cuts him up on the highway, and he's, like, so mad about it. And there's a time in my life I would try to coach him. I said, look, you can't get all caught up like this and stuff like that. Gotta just breathe. Like, who knows? Maybe this person's in a hurry to get to the hospital. Like, who I was was the positive person just part of my identity. But what I say now is. I say, what, jerk? And then Kevin laughs because realizes in that moment, that's all he needed. He's not a negative person. He's not. To coach him into being a better person in this moment where he's triggered for a second, if Kevin was a super negative person where everywhere he went, all the time, he was mad at everybody, okay, then, you know, maybe he's not the right person for me, but he's not. So when he gets all upset about something, and I totally validate it, immediately and intensely, the speed at which the whole thing goes away is quite spectacular. When a friend calls me and she's like, oh, my gosh. I'm just so frustrated. You'll never guess what, you know, this other person did. There's a time I would have just tried to coach her, but I realized, like, I don't coach everybody. I. That's my job. I could coach. But, like, what you think? I think she called me to coach her. No, because how she would have called me if she wanted my help. She would have said, I need your help. I'm going through something. I need a different way to look at it. That's not what she said. You'll never believe what just happened to me. And then I listen, I say, then she laughs. That is terrible. Are you kidding me? She's canceled never speaking to this person again. And they laugh because the fact is, sometimes it just sucks. And you need the validation. And if you spend most of your time trying to explain to people that you should be allowed to sometimes not be happy, it just feels like a prison. So the fact is, if someone does need validation, sometimes I just give it to them because that's not who they are. Is not a person who's in constant, constant, constant need of validation. Or else we'd be having a very different conversation. But when a person needs validation for a minute, you can see you'd be like, that is the most frustrating thing I've ever heard in your whole. Entire. My whole entire life. Let's go shopping. You know, sometimes that's all it takes. So here's what I realized. Part of my identity is that I will always offer wisdom, but only to people who show up wise. That was a missing part of my identity, and it actually caused me a lot of pain because I gave wisdom to everybody. And then I felt not important, frustrated, angry, upset, resentful at everyone who didn't understand my beautiful wisdom. So I realized I only give people. I only give wisdom to wise people. So when a person comes to me and says, melannie, can you help me? Because I'm going through this, my friend, my cousin Kevin. I'm like, I'm right there, and I will be the wisdom of my soul. But when you tell me, oh, you'll never guess what happened to me, and you're in your super trigger, super trick, super trick, you're super triggered. I am not gonna give you the wisdom of my soul, because I can already know how that's gonna land. I'm going to invalidate the anger that you feel with my wisdom. And you are going to utilize. This is what people do. You're going to utilize my wisdom to validate your truth that nobody cares about you. You're going to utilize my detached intelligence as I guide you through how to be a better human as evidence. And you're going to validate your truth that you don't matter because of the way I responded to your thing. I'm not interested in being the validation for anybody's thing. I don't need to say, well, you know, you should know me. You should know that if you come to Me, you're going to get wisdom. Because why? Because I need to prove my identity. I know I'm wise and you would have gotten wisdom had you shown up an energetic match for it. Now, behaving like this changed something else for me. What it made me realize is that I'm probably a match for things based on how I show up. Because any wise person has probably already decided to be this way. Any anything that I want in this life. If I'm already grateful, I show up in gratitude. I will be met with something to be given. How often does this happen? You're grateful for something already and then someone gives you something more. But when you're not happy and you're frustrated, nobody goes out of their way to give you something and they invalidate or they validate the truth that you're not important, that you're not special, and that you don't get treated well. But when you're already grateful and you're already in a great mood, people give you stuff and they validate your truth that today's a great day and you're a match for miracles. So what if you just realize that your identity is not just set in stone? It changes. It changes based on how you're feeling. It changes based on who you're with. It changes based on their energy, their attitude. It changes based on so many things so you can't even say I am whatever it is you want to say. And that be a permanent truth doesn't even work. Our identities are like these shape shifting identities. It's like who are you when everything's working? Who are you when everything is not working? Who are you when the people around you have a light sense of humor and you feel like laughing? Who are you when everyone's really serious and you feel if you say one thing out of place, you're going to be judged. Who are you when you're totally seen? Who are you when you feel like you don't matter and no matter what you say, it won't matter? Who are you? There's so many versions of us. And when I realized that that there's so many different versions of me, it made me stop identifying with just one little part of me. So where this is going to set you free here is that you may have parts of you that you don't love, and those parts have maybe created some chaos in your life. But then because you felt bad or upset, you've wanted to validate that there's something wrong with you just because you just do that, like people who say, I'm just so stupid. I am, I am stupid. Like, we get into this weird thing where we want to be right about something like that and we give a lot of our life away. Instead of saying, this was a moment for me, this is something that I did. This was a way that I was. This is a thing that happened. I. We stick on it. And on the opposite, when there's a little part of us that does something great, we invalidate that that's permanent. So, for example, you do something genius and someone says, you're a freaking genius. That's amazing. You say, no, I'm not. It's very rare that I have good ideas. This is just a one off. So the things that happen once we want to validate that are permanent, and the things that happen once that are great, we want to validate that are not permanent. So instead, if you actually start to connect with yourself, like with more curiosity and more like, huh, that was a good shot. I wonder if I could do that again. Or like, that was not my best moment. Hopefully it was not a pattern. Let's just forget about that one. Turn the page, Moving on. Like, what would happen if we weren't so permanent about the mistakes we make and so flippant about the things that we did that were great? Like, imagine if I could do that again. Imagine if this is the becoming of a new piece of my identity. I like this about me. I want to do this more. Instead of, like, no idea where that came from. Don't get any ideas. Don't think I could do it again. So what I love about these conversations right now is that they start to just create question marks in your mind. And what it creates, and this is one of the things that really set me free, is the potential of a phase in identity. And I contemplated this when we're little or when a person is small, a little kid, an adolescent will often say things like, they're in a phase. You notice that. You'll be like, oh, it's the, you know, terrible twos. That's such a tough phase. You know, it's like, yes, but, you know, kids just starting school life is. It's just a phase. You know, they grow out of it. Oh, teenager. Gosh, that's a phase. That's a tough phase. You know, it's a. It's a really tough. They grow out of it. Adolescence, childhood, being a baby, Everything's a phase. Then all of a sudden, it's just who you are. That's just who she is. What you want to do the way she is. Well, that's just the way I am. What do you want me to tell you? Where does it. How does it stop being just a phase? So I took it back. I said, I'm in my phase. I'm in my entrepreneur phase. I'm in my I love making money phase. I'm in my relationship phase. I'm in my lean back phase. I'm in my goddess phase. I'm in my I'm in a phase where I'm figuring myself out. I'm in a phase where I'm changing things. I'm in a phase. And what I loved about that is it made it that everything is being tested. It. There is no permanence and there's a pattern. We allow people to change and to be. It's open that the best of them is yet to come, and they're still in their formative years. And then one day we're defined and that's it. And that is usually around the time where people start having identity crisis, not feeling good about who they are, feeling so unsure, feeling like they've maybe messed up, feeling like they're fighting against themselves, deciding that the future is going to look exactly like the past. Like that's when all of that stuff starts anyway, is when we decide, well, that was it. If you haven't succeeded by now. Do you remember when people used to worry about figuring out what you want to be when you grow up? You have your whole life for that. That was a lie. What if we bring it back as the truth, though? What if we say, I really do have my whole life to figure that out? What if. What if we said, okay, well, then let's make it the truth. I have my whole life to figure it out, so why am I deciding right now to have done enough? It's too late. That this, this, this, this. Can I actually take that on? We talk about childhood and adolescence in a way that expects transition. She's in a phase. We talk about adulthood with permanence. That's who she is. So what I realize is there's a way that we talk that just makes such a big difference to how we feel. Even the way people tend to share with me when I'm on a coaching call with someone or when I'm speaking to some, they'll be like, you know, my past made me who I am, or I'm the way that I am because. And they try to tell me the story about what it was that made them who they are. I'm who I Am because of this. And so this is a way I'd love for you to look at it. How does this feel? And I want you to really try this on and just imagine feeling this. What does this feel like? If we say much of my past guided me to become this version of myself, like much of my past guided me to become this version of myself, how does that feel? Instead of, I am who I am because of my past. So for some, it's triggering. For some it feels true. For some, it feels beautiful, more fluid. Let's say it again. Much of who I was has guided me to become this version of myself. What I like about it is that it doesn't mean anything. So it can feel beautiful because you add beauty to it. If you like the way you're feeling right now, but the real truth is, like, it just means that there's another version of you coming. When you say, I am who I am because of my past, then it's like, oh, well, okay, that's kind of set in stone. But when it's like, you know, there's parts of the past, Much of my past has guided me to be this version of who I am right now. It just means like, okay, so if I started being different today, then much of who I'm being right now would start to guide a future version. And the beauty and everything we're talking about right now is if you get to that future version and you're like, man, I don't think I like it, then you get to say, I've tested out what it feels like to think and feel and to become and to be this way that has created this version of me. And I'm not sure I want to keep it tested it. What it feels like is testing. And I realize that a full life comes with fully testing things. It really is that your identity, a lot of the time is shaped by how you felt, what you thought during things that happened. When nothing is happening, you get a feeling, but it's always the same feelings. You're not constantly learning. You're just. You just know what it feels like when you do nothing. You know who you are when you're bored. But when I would like to ask who here has traveled quite a little bit in their lives if you've been okay, so could you say that different places you've traveled, brought out from you a different piece of you sound like every place you went entirely changed you. Then you went somewhere else and you were somebody else, and you were at some thousand, but you took away from Every place you traveled, a new piece of identity, right? So experiencing experiences, being put in different environments, those are some of the things that changes the most. But a lot of people will do this thing where they say I have to be changed before I can experience things. So let's move travel aside. Have you ever in your life stopped yourself from doing something because you're not yet the version of you you think you need to be with by the time you do it? So I can't do this yet, because I'm not that yet. I can't do this yet because I'm not that yet. I can't do this yet because I'm not that yet. So how interesting is this? There are things in your life you've done that as you did them, they changed you. And then there's other things that you're waiting in order to be changed in order to do that. Interesting. What if you saw your entire life as travel? Like you're traveling to this new identity. Like there's. It's a journey to romance and it's a journey to trying on a new career. And it's a. It's a traveling. You're traveling to this other, this other version of you. Then you'd have to go before the change can happen. Like, you don't change thinking about going on vacation, you change there. And when you come back, you realize you've changed. It's the other crazy thing I realized. You might decide you want to change. And then you go and then you live it and then don't even really realize you've changed until you come back and you're like, this doesn't feel the same. You've gotta go and come back to realize how far you've come. And that takes courage. And it also takes not knowing the plan, even if you know where you're going. Even if I tell you, okay, you're going to Hawaii, you're going to be there for two weeks. These are some of the sites you want to see. These are some of the places you want to go. I still won't be able to tell you how much you will have changed by the time you get back. That's what happens when you live. And so for a lot of us, the big issue and why the identity feels warped is that you haven't traveled in a very long time. Not really. You haven't traveled in your self expression. You haven't traveled in your forgiveness. You haven't traveled in your new sites, you haven't traveled in your testing stuff and trying stuff. And being brave and being bold and putting yourself out there and in doing crazy, wild things and getting your heart pounding and rushing and going somewhere like, you haven't taken yourself to the edge again in a while. You haven't felt like it's the beginning of something in a long time. You're just trying to fix something about you before you're allowed to. Then believe that the things you're going to try are going to work. That's never how it goes. That's not how everything shifts in our life. And this is one of the things that I. Oh, that always stuck with me was the. The fish. They. They say when you put a goldfish in a fishbowl, it grows to a certain size, and it won't go past that because it needs a certain amount of space in the fishbowl. But if you put the fish in the ocean, goldfish can grow scary big. Not the ocean, but the lake or whatever. If you put goldfish in a lake, they get ugly big. Like, I would not want to see a goldfish in the lake. It's been there for a couple of years. I'd be like, so the thing is, you. You're keeping your goldfish in a tiny bowl and you're saying, once the goldfish is big, I'll put it in the ocean, I'll put it in the lake. It doesn't get big until you put it in the lake. The scary in the lake. What if something else eats it? Now, that's the cycle of life. But it will not get big in the fishbowl. It will not get big in the fishbowl. It will not get big in the fishbowl. Not because there's something wrong with it. Not because it's had stunted growth because of fish food, because it's still in the fishbowl. So where are you holding yourself in the fishbowl, thinking, once I'm big enough, I'm totally leaving this hellhole. I'm done with this. I'm cr. I just need to grow big enough to leave. Doesn't work that way. You've got to say, I don't know what will happen to me, but if there's any chance that I'll grow, I need to go. And what does that look like? There's so many things in your life that you know you would want to do, and you're telling yourself, I don't have the confidence to do it. I don't have the skills to do it. I don't have the this to do it. And So I need to gain the. The skills before I can do the thing. But that's the equivalent of saying I need to be a bigger fish before I can exit the fishbowl. But the only way to grow bigger is to exit the fishbowl. So your identity has to change in your mind before it can change in the world. And this is something that is terrifying to us because what we want more than anything is evidence that we're going to be fine, that we're going to grow big, and that everything is going to be okay. But we don't get that. We either get comfort in the fishbowl or we get life out there in the wild. You did not get here because your lineage stayed in a fishbowl. We read the stories. They were either knocked in the lake or they jumped in there themselves or. But they did not stay cooped up waiting for life to give them the perfect circumstances. Where's our courage? It's in there somewhere. It's just. The issue is that we have the choice. And choice is a really hard thing for people to have until they grasp the privilege it is to have it. Most stories that people change, people change once they have no more choice. But a lot of the times, the stories that go that way, where people only change when they have no more choice, there's another breakdown that occurs later down the line. And that's when they end up having so much choices that they still don't know how to make choices. And then they mess it all up. Part of our identity is that we've got to be extraordinary at making choices and. And trusting our choices and knowing that we're going to be no good no matter what. Because what I really want for all of us is a life of choices where we feel solid in making those choices. I really did change my life when I had no choice. That's what it felt. And one of the things I. I regretted the most was that I had to wait till I hit the rock bottom thing. But I've made up for it. Because the choices I've made in my life and the way that I lead myself and the way that I choose now is so powerful. But I realized my biggest issue was I had a problem making choices. I could not make a choice save my life. I was too afraid of making the wrong choice. And so I waited until I had no more choices left. And then I had to do the one thing I had to do. So what if we took on the identity? Try it on. Just try it on. I'm really bold Bold at making choices. And I'm willing to. To see what happens. I travel with my choices. Like, we'll find out. Let's go see what happens when I make this choice. Kind of like one of those books where at the end of each page, you've got to decide to turn to page 7 or do page turn to page 14. Pick your ending. You've got to make a choice. And the thing is, not making a choice is also a choice. But we don't realize that. We don't realize that that's happening in the moment. Think that no choice is just avoiding it. But the thing is, making no choice leads to the moment where you have no choice. It's the energetic match for that. You choose no choice long enough, eventually you'll have no choice. That's the energetic match. But it's scary to make the choice because what if I make the wrong choice? But what's the wrong choice? A choice that makes things a little bit harder. A things that. A choice that creates an obstacle. A choice that creates heartbreak. Well, you had all of those in your lineage, and you're still here. What if no matter what the choice you make, you will also make it right because it's who you are? In the end, when we tell the story of your life, there will just be the truth, and it'll feel like you couldn't have written it better. It's so you could look at the story in my lineage. You could say, you know, my grandmother's fiance, he said, go on the date with the guy if you feel something, I know you'll be back anyway. Was that a bad choice or that the best choice? What does it matter? It works out. What if your identity is. It works out because it's who I am. We're so sensitive with pain. We're so sensitive with any kind of moment where it looks like it's not working. That's. That's our biggest downfall is not having the. Even if it takes a year of pain, it works out for me. Doesn't matter. It works out for me even if I have existential crisis. If. Even if I'm confused, even if I'm lost for a while, it always works out. It's who I am. What would our life be like if you actually could start to identify with things like that? The issue is we use our past. When we use our past to validate our present, it's an identity choice. And that sometimes works positively, and sometimes it works not positively. So I can say, you know, the reason that I struggle so much with putting myself out there in business is because I never really had anybody that believed in me when I was a kid. Like, nobody believed in me. And so now I have the voices in my head of everyone who always doubted me. When I go to make a move, all I can hear is those voices of, probably not gonna make it. It's probably not gonna work out. Like, those are the voices I hear. So you use your past to validate your present. You're allowed to do that. It's just, is it working? And if it were the only thing, and there was no one else on the planet that had said, you know, I grew up with no one's voice that was positive around me. None. And I decided that I was going to treat myself like someone I loved. And for the rest of my life, I whispered nice things in my ears. And I have created the most extraordinary life. If there wasn't one person on Earth who'd done that, I could understand. But there are, which means it's a choice. But we don't like to see it as a choice. And anybody who tells you you have a choice tends to trigger you in those moments when you're choosing that because it feels like, how dare you invalidate my feelings, my choice, my past, and everything I have identified myself to be. We don't like the people who challenge the way we validate our identity when it doesn't serve us. We're like, hey, hey, hey, hey. Your positive attitude is pissing me off. You're making it sound like I could have been doing something better all my life, and I don't like the way that feels. You're making me feel like I could have done better. You're making me feel like I didn't need to be sad. You're making me feel like I didn't need to pass the two last two years in misery. And that really doesn't validate my experience. And you're mean, and I don't like you. How very dare you? Now, on the flip side, when you validate, when you use your past to validate your present and it's positive, it looks like this. I'm just very successful. I've been successful for the past five years, so I'm successful now because I've been successful for the past five years. You say I'm amazing at launching things in my business because the last two launches were extraordinary. You say I'm great in relationships because every. Every relationship I've ever had, I've loved. And in the end, I break up with Them and I find someone new, and I'm great. In relationships, we say, you know, I'm a great mom because my kids think I'm great. We say, I'm. I'm a great friend because I've had the same friend since high school. We validate the present with the past. When it's a good thing, it serves us. So it's okay. It's not. There's not a problem with validating yourself. The issue is validating something you don't like. Why do we do that? Just to feel safe. Just to feel like we're allowed. But this is the choice that needs to be made. It's like, do I want to be validated or do I want to be liberated? And sometimes validation equals liberation. Because there are things I believe about me that literally set me free. I believe I will always make things right if I can validate that. I liberate myself and validate myself at the same time. This is when we start to feel like life is going pretty darn great. When I can validate and liberate at the same time. I am working in vibrational alignment with my dream identity. When I on the cusp, I either validate or I liberate. A lot of times who just validate because of. For those of you who've done Femme fatale will Baby goddess, Baby goddess is like, I don't care about liberation. I just want to be right. I feel much better. Thank you. So you've got to pick in your life, like, how big do you want to be? Because it's your choice. And so what's my identity now? What's so important in this work is that I have absolutely no attachment of what you end up becoming. Like, I think you're wonderful either way. Like, I don't. I don't mind. And so many people around you, you'd be shocked to find out also don't mind. If you're great, they'll be so happy for you if that's what you wanted. If you're just simple and happy, they'll be so happy for you. It's. If you're miserable that we're not happy, I'm not happy. If you wish you were more than you are. And the people who love you, they're not happy. If you wish that you were more than you are, but no one's looking at you when you're happy, wishing you were more, that just doesn't happen. And I think a lot of us think that that's what's happening. Everybody thinks I should be more. No, they don't. Not unless they themselves have created wild lives that are so extraordinary. And there's a part of them that thinks, I wish you could live this too, because I think that you would be happy. But then that's their own stuff. Nothing to do with you. Or the people who don't realize that you're really happy with all your greatness, and they've chosen a life with a little bit more simplicity. And they say, you can't possibly be happy because I live a simple life and I am happy. Which means your big life is probably stressful. And it's usually. But they only do that to validate their own experience of their lives. That's what we do. Everyone is just walking around wanting to be right about what they're doing. And at first I wondered why the heck we do that, but now I get why we do that. Because who wants to live a life with the true questioning that they might be doing it wrong? Like, nobody wants that. We want to be sure that we've chosen the right thing. When we're in our simplest human, childlike need, we just want to make sure we're not messing this whole thing up. But when we're willing to be wrong, we're like, well, if there's a better way, what is it? Even if I've been doing something for the last three years and it turns out there's a better way, I'm not going to start going, I've wasted the last three years. I'm going to start saying, woo. What's next? But that's not what people do. They say, I wasted the last three years. If there's a different. If there's a better thing for me now, it means I should have been doing better before. That's part of what we need to let go of. I wasted the last 10 years. I wasted. Your marriage doesn't work out. You wasted your best years. You decide you want to change your career. You've wasted all those years in school. You wasted all that money at school. You decide you don't want. You've wasted. You don't. You change your mind. You wasted. So people stick to things they don't like, just so they don't have to feel like they wasted something. Ah. Instead of seeing the rest of their life and saying, I'm. I'm complete. Like, I did that and I think I'm ready to try something else. It wasn't wasted. Like that amazing conversation that I had with Cammy yesterday where I said, you didn't waste. You spent 49 years living exactly the way you wanted. You don't regret that. And you saying you can't have the one thing you think you should have now makes it feel like you. Maybe you. You did wrong. And that's why we're starting. We start to freak out and to wonder and to worry because at the end of the day, what we actually want is to feel like we're on the right track. Sometimes we're not on the right track. So what did we learn? And are we ready to pivot? And regret feels hard. But some people just hold on to pretending they're okay with what they're not okay with just so they don't have to face regret. Is that better? So this session is really a shaky one. Like, it kind of shakes up a little bit the coziness of. Of our. Of our predetermined identity up until this point where it's just been like, how do I change this identity? And it's like, do you even change this identity? Because you're gonna. On the day that you actually understand, when we get to the point where we start changing this identity, you're gonna have to make peace with the fact you could have changed it all along. And you might feel really crappy about that because it'll feel like you should have done it sooner. I really like you to be able to make the choice that you're not going to do that because. Or else it's just sabotage. It doesn't matter when you find out that there's something else you found out. And the goal is to see how much you've lived already. Even if you could have been more. Who knows? You gotta love who you've been because who you've been led you here. And here's a pretty sweet spot. What doesn't work is trying to change your identity because you hate this one. Because we are trying so hard to validate the experience that we're having that if this dream identity that we conjure up invalidates who we are, we're going to fight against it. Because it's like there's a part of me that wants to dream identity. There's a part of me that doesn't want to invalidate who I am. And the validation part always wins because I'm human. So guess what? We're staying the same. Forget the voyage. Give me the bowl back. Stay it on the kitchen counter. So I want today to be a little bit of a wake up call. For you to say, life is just always happening now. Like it really is just now. And the concept of the past and the present and the future, it's. It's an amazing concept to rationalize life. But at the end of the day, we don't experience it like that really. Apart from in our memories, we really only experience now. Even when you think about the future, it's a concept until you're in it. So by the time you're in it, it's not the future anymore, it's now. So you can think about tomorrow if you want, but by the time tomorrow is there, it'll be now. So by. By the time that you can do anything about tomorrow, it'll be now again. So our job with our identity is to actually be able to. To master who we are now. And so if it serves you that now validates or now uses all the past to validate who you are now, if that helps you, cool, keep it. If it doesn't, then you've got to put it down because it's always going to be now. And no matter how much you think, how much time do I have left? Or, you know, how much do I have? It doesn't matter. You're only going to have now anyway. And you'll remember what it was, kind of. But you'll remember it wrong, because we also do that because we just like to torture ourselves. Like, it was so perfect. There was a way for me to stop time and look at you then. You were complaining about everything. You were upset about everything. Your financial situation, the way you looked, your partner, whatever it was, lack of partner. You had problems back then where you look back at yourself and you're like, I was so pretty. I was so fit. I was so young. I was so this. My partner was so. No, it's not the way it was. Stop it. That's not the way it was. The way it was is, you were human the way you are now, and it was now with all of its complexities. So our identity work is that it's always now, it's always complex, but it's who we are that dictates now. So if we're going to move into a different identity, things have got to change now. And for that, there cannot be a holding on to the past to validate who you are, or else it'll still be the same person tomorrow and the day after and the day after and the day after and the day after and the day after. Because you can't change tomorrow unless you change now. Because when tomorrow comes, it will be now. So we want to wait Till tomorrow, next week, next month, when we're ready, we'll never be ready. That's not how traveling works. Have you ever noticed for some of you, I don't know if it's the same for you, but it is for me. Like, I will be on the plane and I don't. So we want to wait till tomorrow, next week, next month, when we're ready, will never be ready. That's not how traveling works. Have you ever noticed for some of you, I don't know if it's the same for you, but it is for me. Like, I will be on the plane and I don't even realize I'm traveling yet. Like, I am literally in the plane and I'm like, this is so weird. I'm not even like, am I really going? Life is like this. You're locked and loaded on this journey to change. And you're sitting there with your seat belt on going, am I really changing? Oh, yes. So the homework today is so simple, but it's going to bring up a lot of feelings. I want you to just see your own life with the same matter of factness as you saw your lineage. What it took for you to still be alive now. What it took for you to be the kind of person who still believes in personal development now that you're not just blase and fed up with life and a pain in the butt. And what it took for you to lead yourself to this room. What it took for yourself to have the finances, to come into an offer like this, and to not literally have so nothing that it's not even possible, to be the person that even has the courage or the confidence to believe things can change. What did you have to see? What did you have to learn? I don't want you to try to tell your story in a way that validates why things are hard right now. You know that story. You've told it so many times. I want you to tell it differently. I want you to tell the story of how it's a miracle that you're here today. The beauty of it, the magic of it, the hardships of it. And I want you to make peace with your life up until today. You don't need to be bouncing off walls, proud of yourself, and you don't need to be in regret. You don't need to be any of that in order to change. You just need to be ready, put the past down and say, that created everything I was until now. And that is really epic. Because if there is life after now, then there's an amazing thing coming for all of us. But if now is tomorrow and the year after and forevermore, because who we were and it's who we are and that's the way it is, then, well, crud might as well just decide how this is going to end anyway. That's not it. Everything we've been explains who we've been until now. And the rest of this program is going to start to shake up what we do next. But in order to do identity work, you've got to freaking love the person you are right now. And you have got to recognize how wild it is that you're here and all the things that needed to happen for you to be who you are. You've got to see it like an outside person would look at your life if they watched it in a movie. See the art, see the artistry, see the complexity, see the orchestration of magic and miracles throughout your own life. Not the drama, the tragedy, or the need for validation that things were hard. The actual full story, the truth. Do yourself a favor and see it in the same light. If your grandkids or your. Your nieces or nephews, Great, great nieces or nephews in the future, you know, if someone ever did a documentary about you because of what's going to come next in your life and they ever made a movie about your life, what would it be up until now? Tell it like that. And if you're struggling with this, if there's any part of you that's like, just ask yourself, what am I protecting? What am I afraid is being challenged or taken away from me right now? What's potentially being invalidated? What is. What is Melanie not understanding about me specifically? It's making me feel like this wouldn't work for me. And then look at it and say, if I didn't need that, would I be able to do this exercise? If I weren't stuck there, would I be able to do this exercise? Because all I want is that we get to a point where the only thing you validate is the thing that makes you extraordinary. And for that, we've got to put some stuff down. But not because we hate it, not because it doesn't matter, because we've honored it. It's complete, and now we move. So do this part in honor of your life until this point, this magical creation of chaos and beauty and art and majesty and miracles and pain and thriving and all of it, honor your life up until now. And then tomorrow we will have another Q A. You'll be able to ask your question on the same thread. We're going to build that thread up. So if your question's already been posted and you're like, I have the same question I had when we started, then keep your question. If you're like, I wrote a question but question's been answered, I have a different question. Delete your question. Rewrite a new question. If you still have the same first question and you have another question, just add a question. So there's a Q and A thread. I'll also add it in the replay of this email just so you have it close when I send you the replay in your inbox. Take a deep breath. Breathe the way you would breathe if you're a little baby that was panicking or freaking out or something. Like breathe love into your body. I love you. You're beautiful. You smell nice. And I will see you tomorrow for the next module.

Our identity as we know it begins to form from the instant we take our first breath. We start off as a blank slate, an open book waiting to be written. Our early years are filled with first steps, first sights, first discoveries. Each of these moments shapes us, adds a brushstroke to the canvas of our character. As we move through adolescence, the picture becomes more complex. Little by little, we become a mosaic, a multifaceted collage, a puzzle formed from.

The fragments of our life.

There comes a day where we grasp the paintbrush ourselves.

We we realize that we need not.

Be defined solely by circumstance, that we have the power to paint our own future. We awaken to find that we can reshape our identity. Our identity continues to evolve, but now, as an intentional work of art guided by our own hand.

We are the.

Artist and the masterpiece. It is time to step into a greater identity. This is the gateway to your alternate life.