Melissa Lyons and Cathrine Marshall are the enlightened authors of a wise new book titled Freedom Rising from Within: The Ultimate Guide to Freedom and Transformation from the Inside Out. Melissa is a mind-body wellness coach, a best-selling author, and an inspiring keynote speaker whose programs, books, and group events have helped thousands of people identify and modify imbalances and misalignments that block happiness, health, and success, creating an abundance of clarity and opening pathways to freedom, flow, and connection to life’s purpose, co-authored with Cathrine, who is a metaphysical energetic healer, a guide, and an author. For over 33 years, Cathrine has had a deep and diverse life history of personal transformative experiences which has been a rich training to facilitate the healing and raising of consciousness for thousands of individuals!
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- Childhood trauma and a Near Death Experience were Cathrine’s catalysts to write Freedom Rising from Within.
- How Melissa’s early path to pleasing people transformed when she turned inward.
- Why some people suffer more than others.
- What freedom and transformation from the inside looks like on the outside.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS MELISSA AND CATHRINE:
- What healing modalities have helped you transform from the inside out?
- Do each of you react differently to triggers now?
- How do the differences between our current paradigm and the new incoming paradigm relate to insights you share in your book Freedom Rising from Within?
—
Listen to the podcast here
Melissa Lyons And Cathrine Marshall: What Does Freedom And Transformation From The Inside Out Look Like On The Outside And Feel Like On The Inside?
I am absolutely delighted to have this opportunity to interview Melissa Lyons and Cathrine Marshall, who are the enlightened authors of a remarkable new book titled Freedom Rising From Within: The Ultimate Guide to Freedom & Transformation from the Inside-Out. By the way, could there be a book more in sync with the mission of the show to encourage healing so that people can transform and live a more evolved life from the inside out? It is certainly easy to understand why Melissa and Cathrine are ideally suited to combine their gifts to inspire people to transform from the inside out.
Melissa is a mind-body wellness coach, a bestselling author, and an inspiring keynote speaker whose programs, books, and group events have helped thousands of people identify and modify imbalances and misalignments that block happiness, health, and success, creating an abundance of clarity and opening pathways to freedom, flow, and connection to life’s purpose, often described as compassionate, raw, and relatable. I can testify to that. Melissa draws on her own vulnerabilities, experiences, and humility to reach and connect with people in deep and very meaningful ways.
Her journey includes an MBA, decades of entrepreneurial and corporate business experience, a 30-month intensive self-realization sabbatical, and a heartwarming interview with me on the show about two of her bestselling spiritually evolved books. I think it’s two interviews I had with Melissa, so be sure to check them out.
Cathrine is a metaphysical, energetic healer, a guide, and an author. For many years, she has had a deep and diverse life history of personal transformation and transformative experience, which has been a rich training to facilitate the healing and raising of consciousness for thousands of individuals through one-on-one sessions, workshops, courses, and books. Cathrine’s passionate work alleviates suffering and inequality, which supports and nurtures her clients to awaken, hear, honor, and claim their souls, power, divinity, and sovereignty. Cathrine holds degrees in Psychology and Homeopathic Medicine, plus she has extensive training and teaching experience in yoga, numerology, and several deep esoteric healing arts.
I’m looking forward to talking with Melissa and Cathrine about the transformative experiences each has had that led to collaborating on their remarkable new book, why some people suffer more than others, what freedom and transformation from the inside look like on the outside, how healing from the inside-out changes a person’s reactions to triggers and much more for what will surely be a very illuminating interview that will inspire us to find relief by healing ourselves from the inside out.
—
Cathrine and Melissa, a heartfelt welcome to the show.
Irene, thank you so much.
Thank you. It’s so great to see you again. It’s so great to have you here, Cathrine. I can’t wait for everyone to learn. In fact, I’m going to show them a picture of your wonderful new book. Let’s start with this question. Cathrine, please tell us about the trauma you experienced when you were a child and the near-death experience that was your catalyst for writing Freedom Rising From Within. How old were you when you had this near-death experience?
Freedom Rising from Within: The Ultimate Guide to Freedom and Transformation from the Inside Out
I was in my 30s with the near-death experience. From my childhood, when I was eight, my parents got divorced. That set into motion a whole different trajectory of my life and there were a lot of events that happened after that, like traumatic events. I experienced a lot of trauma in that period of time. At age 14, I had 10 funerals that year. I had all my grandparents died. My best friend’s dad died. There was a lot of which I witnessed and was a part of. There were a lot of things that were happening in that year. At the same time, I was getting my abstract thinking coming online. It rocked me. It really started me questing and seeking out to understand what is death, this grieving process and the suffering of it, and why some people experience some things and other people don’t. This led me to the Law of Attraction.
That was so amazing. At fourteen, you were already questioning and seeking that. That’s precocious, in a way.
I think as my abstract thinking was coming online, at that time, I was going through all these griefs myself and experiences and observing other people and the impact that would have. I’ve always been very empathic and sensitive to energy and myself feel very deeply. It was a very big significant moment. Looking back, I was totally meant to be part of my soul’s plan. It started me on this path of seeking deeper, which in the Law of Attraction, if you start to seek something, it seeks you and you start to give energy to something. That put me on a path of unusual traumas and experiences, which led me into even deeper personal suffering and grief.
That brought me to the near-death experience. When I was in my 30s, I had gotten pregnant. This was my sixth pregnancy. None had ever come to fruition. I always kept miscarrying or ectopics. With this one, I was pregnant with twins. In the first trimester, the first twin miscarried. I was being monitored throughout the pregnancy, so I carried a full term. Right at the very end, through the process of this, on the test, there were things that kept showing up, but for some reason, it wasn’t followed up with the doctor so it got missed. Again, it’s part of the divine order of what was supposed to happen. What ended up happening was the first twin that miscarried, it didn’t fully expel and it created an infection.
That infection was brewing throughout the whole pregnancy unbeknownst to me. That created something called Obstetrical DIC, which is when you become almost septic. You bleed out and the blood goes all to the organ. How we found this out is that she was a stillbirth. She died in the womb at 36 weeks. Because I was full term, I had to deliver her.
How traumatic.
It’s very traumatic. In the process of delivering, I started hemorrhaging and bleeding out. That’s when they discovered I had this DIC. Long story short, they literally drained blood banks from other cities. They were pulling in to try and keep me alive. I was in surgery for over eight hours. They had to bring in all these other doctors. They perforated my bladder in the process and knocked out my tooth. There were these crazy things that happened.
At one point, one of the doctors said to the other doctor, “You can stop. Give up.” I happen to have a woman doctor who I hadn’t had very good experiences leading up to this with a lot of the stuff. I had this beautiful nurse come to me and she asked me what I wanted so I shared what I wanted. She brought me in this just-graduated young female OB. She was so warm. She wouldn’t stop. She was zealous and passionate. I attest to that. She played a key role in it.
Not only physically but emotionally. It sounds like she was the only one who was giving you support and nurturing through this experience.
All these other doctors were called in. They all kept saying to her, “Stop,” but she wouldn’t stop. Somehow, I made it through that first surgery. I was in ICU and started hemorrhaging again. I was in a coma at this time. I don’t have any recollection of this, but it wasn’t good. They called in my family. I had my last rights given. Right at the last minute, something shifted, and I did come back in. It’s interesting because when I came out of the coma a couple of days later, I was very different.
I didn’t have an experience where you see the light and have all of that. I’ve worked with a lot of different yogis and different people because I wanted to understand what happened here and why did this happen. I did a lot of deep research and sought into this. I did actually die and requested life. I was granted it. I feel that is attesting to a lot of my passion for supporting and helping others. It’s interesting because, at the end of this experience, I truly felt if I had had this other kind of experience of seeing the light, I don’t think I would’ve come back.
When I woke, I was very different. It was a very long recovery physically and definitely emotionally. There were some dark days after that. I was like, “This is really big. This happened. Why did this happen?” I’d already been doing so much spiritual work. I was already involved in a lot of holistic as well as esoteric work but this was different. It’s hard to explain that but when I woke up, I knew I was a different person, felt different, and sought things differently.
That brought me into this quest spiritually of diving deeper into wanting to understand it. Nobody could answer these questions for me. The interesting thing is, every time I had gone through an experience or a trauma, it brought me to some type of healing modality because that’s how I healed. I needed to understand and heal more than just the physical or emotional. I needed to go deeper. Each time I would go into a modality, it is part of my healing. That was my path. I ended up diving deep into Kundalini yoga. That opened up to soul healing, the Akashic record healing, and all of this. That’s where I started getting answers that brought true peace and healing to my heart.
I want to ask you a couple of things. Were you told why you did not have a specific memory, because it happened to me also, of your near-death experience?
That I wouldn’t come back and it was enough. I had a hard time staying in my body. I had to really work hard to stay in my body and deal with that kind of trauma and loss too because I lost my uterus and my baby.
Did you lose both babies?
Yeah. I was told and truly feel that if I had touched that, I definitely would not have come back.
I’m sure those babies are all around you all the time. Not to take away from this important interview with both of you, but those who are part of this show know that I had a spiritual awakening when my husband died next to me in this tragic car accident. As the car was flipping four times, I got these profound messages before, during, and after they pulled me out of the car.
As the car was flipping, the second message I got was, “He’s not going to make it. You are.” I don’t remember, but I have been told that I had a near-death experience at that moment. I was also given a choice to come back or not. I know that one of the reasons I chose to come back was to be here for my son. I was also told that I was coded with this mission and all of us are tuning in now. It’s because we’re light workers and we have more to do. They need us on the planet. It’s so wonderful to meet two fellow travelers.
It’s making me feel chills. I’m very honored to meet you and to be here.
Thank you. Whenever we talk like this, it validates your experience was real. Now you’re talking to me and I had a similar, very real experience. Melissa, it is your turn. I’d like you to please describe how your early path of people-pleasing transformed when you turned inward to discover what was missing from your life. Does anyone reading a people-pleaser?
We’re fellow light workers and empaths and highly stand for the people. We all went through some form of people-pleasing. For me, it was trying to follow a path where I got validation and affirmation that I was doing something good because deeply inside I didn’t feel right. I felt like something was wrong, but on the outside, everything was okay. What you guys went through, for me, reconfirms one of the things that I’ve dealt with in my life. I didn’t have a near-death experience. I have not experienced true grief.
I am so lucky, yet I felt like something was so wrong and something has been so missing in my life. Having everything and the trauma in that of feeling so ungrateful has been the darkness that I’ve carried my whole life. It’s not being worthy of feeling this way but not knowing how to move through it, what it is, or what was wrong with me. The people-pleasing was the way that I could at least get validated that there was something good about me because someone liked what I was doing then you do more and more of that. The more you people-please, you forget who you are. You lose yourself in that process.
The more you people-please, you forget who you are. You lose yourself in that process. Click To Tweet
I would submit to you that the healing sabbatical that you took was about healing your grief over the piece of you that you were not in touch with yet.
Possibly. The fact that I had built a life on empty goals and dreams, I’m trying to find some sliver of a purpose. Every time, I wanted the job that had the most money. I wanted to go to school so I could get a job with lots of money. All of the things that I did were about the outcome, rarely about the cause. I wanted that effect. It was a long time until I understood what I had built up. For so long, it’s been around me and inside of me.
What’s so interesting is we keep talking about the inside out. When this call happened is when I met Cathrine. At first, I went to her and said, “I have no idea who I am.” I don’t know myself. My husband, my parents, and my kids don’t know me. No one knows me because I don’t know me. I had built a business from the ground up for eleven years. It was a salon and medical spa. It was very successful but deeply unfulfilling in the end because I was working from the outside in. Now I see how it served me so well. I had to understand outside in before I could understand inside out.
That’s fabulous because that makes poignant and effective when you speak to other people. You’ve had about this because you’ve experienced it yourself. I think Cathrine, you’d relate to this. Many people create a mask for themselves, which is about the outside and doesn’t reflect the inside. Oftentimes, people perceive that something is off between the two. Unless you’re right, more attuned, and awakened, you don’t really realize what it was. You weren’t awakened yet. You were perceiving it, but you didn’t have a name for it yet or identified for it yet.
I suppose. Cathrine and I’ve had this conversation before. There were many times that I can remember one at 8, one at around 11 or 12, and another time at 16 when there was a knock on the door to awaken. I didn’t know what it was. Of course, you push it down and push it away. You hear it. Those of us who are awakened at whatever age we awakened was the right time obviously but it wasn’t the first opportunity we had.
Because we’re such people pleasers, when we are faced with awakening, we go, “What will people think if I’m speaking or looking differently about this?” It takes a lot of courage to awaken and live in your truth. Speaking of that, Cathrine, could you share the answers you found in response to your lifelong quest to understand death, grief, and suffering? Why do some people suffer more than others?
My understanding and what I discovered, and we talked about it in the book, is that the soul will choose. We could talk a lot about this and I’m going to try and summarize this as effectively as possible. The soul chooses classrooms, we call them. Those classrooms are specific events, traumas, or anything that can be related to as a classroom. A relationship is a classroom. It’s basically what is the background or the opportunity of our learning, growing, and healing. Soul’s main mission is learning, growing, and healing.
The soul’s main mission is learning, growing, and healing. Any soul who incarnates on Earth is incredibly courageous to come here because it is a very intense, tough school. Click To Tweet
As we incarnate into a planet like Earth or school, it has been a school of polarity meaning in spirit form, all we know is love and light. How much do we actually know it if we don’t have a reference against it? That’s the premise of very courageous souls. Any soul who incarnates on Earth is incredibly courageous to come here because it is a very intense, tough school.
Those classrooms or experiences are the backgrounds to bring us into alchemy. That’s the transformation. Grief is considered one of the most heart-openers. That’s why there’s so much suffering and grief on our planet. The more suffering we’ve had, for example, the more compassion we have to birth. The more grief we’ve experienced, the more joy we have an opportunity to birth. That’s where our transformation comes in.
We’ll have an experience that awakens us or it makes us stop. It changes our life or something within us. That’s where the journey begins. Taking that quality vibration of grief, suffering, and pain and then alchemizing it into something that makes sense, meaningful, and purposeful. From this perspective, things don’t happen to us but they happen for us. I know that if anyone here is in extreme grief and suffering at this current time, this can be very abrasive to hear. In your transformation or your process invitation, be real and raw about where you’re at.
The whole premise from a soul perspective is having this experience and what’s the opportunity or the growth in it. Additionally, there are unresolved energies that we need to address, flush out, or process. Ultimately, the highest purpose is this heart opening, soul connecting, finding this deeper meaning and purpose, and awakening to our true divine presence and sovereignty. When we start to align and awaken to that, we don’t have the same experiences of pain, grief, or suffering, and/or we can hold a space of compassion, light, and an incredible understanding and love for others around us and for the planet.
Freedom Rising From Within: Ultimately, the highest purpose is this heart opening, soul connecting, finding this deeper meaning and purpose, and awakening to our true divine presence and sovereignty.
I think about these poor people in Ukraine. Some people suffering is foisted on them. Even in a situation like Ukraine, people have choices. Would you girls agree with me? You make the choice to stay in your swamp of suffering and keep your attitude there. I’m going to find out what you’ve done, Melissa’s done, and I’ve done. What do I do? Where do I go to heal some of this, so that I can lift this internal stress? Some of it, at least from me. I think that that can relieve suffering through some choices that people make. Would you say?
Absolutely. We can’t always control everything. You know how many times we have heard the adage, “It’s my experience 1,000% true.” We cannot control everything. This is a dynamic school. We’re always intermingling with other energies, other people, and other people’s programming. That is huge. We always do have a choice within us, what we want to do with it, and how we want to perceive it. That can be a process too in and of itself. That it’s not just, “I’m going to choose it and then I’m going to feel different.” It’s about being able to go within and say, “What can I do with this energy, feeling, emotion, or situation, and how can I start to work with it?”
Learning from it and all of that. If you get a soul overview more than living your life in the trenches. Cathrine, with that, how does Cathrine look different from transforming from the inside out? How does it make a person on the outside come across differently when they’ve transformed from the inside out? What does that look like? What does freedom and transformation from the inside look like on the outside? Can you walk down the street and go, “She transformed. He didn’t transform.” How does that look?
I do feel that you can feel that with people. The more we have transformed, the more our light is able to come through. The more heart-centered, calm or peaceful, understanding, and connected we can be, the more we know ourselves. We’re able to have the courage and the grit to be able to express our soul’s guidance and express ourselves in a way where there are no masks. We don’t have to people-please. We’re able to live in a more expressive, but beautiful, deep, and meaningful way.
The more heart-centered, calm or peaceful, understanding, and connected we can be, the more we know ourselves. Click To Tweet
We spread the light. We touch other people also with our light. Can each of you tell us about the healing modalities? Cathrine has mentioned a few of them. You’ve benefited from them and that helped you transform from the inside out. We have a lot of healing modalities on the show and all. Which one’s works for each of you?
For me, the one that transformed me the most was the one I resisted the most. For anyone who can relate to that, that thing that we resist is often our biggest and most beautiful messenger. I started to journal. I’d been told over the years by different mediums and people that I needed to write. I always thought they meant to write a book. I thought I have no interest in writing a book. When they said, “No, it’s journaling,” I remember Cathrine got me going on this. I still didn’t like the idea because I didn’t want my truth on paper. It’s therapeutic because your higher self starts to come through. You learn how to channel that infinite wisdom but it’s scary because most of my life, I spent not wanting to die but definitely not wanting to live.
I felt like I was in this place with one foot on two sides. By the time I got through that initial resistance, it was like I got struck by lightning almost. It didn’t happen that fast. Looking back, it was very fast. In that moment, I was starting to write words, rant, or be random and not worry about things. Be willing to destroy or burn what you’ve written so that if you have that fear of being honest, you get rid of the evidence. That opened me up to understand that I finally met myself for the first time through my journaling.
Did you journal at the same time every day or whenever the mood hit you? How was the process for you? Was it over a long period of time until you started getting in touch with yourself through it?
You mentioned in the introduction that I had a 30-month self-realization sabbatical. That started out with three months. Again, it’s such an honor to be with you and with Cathrine together. Both of you helped molded and shaped me along my journey. When I started with Cathrine, I gave myself three months to journal, meditate, which I didn’t have practice meditation, and read. My family was on board. I sold my business and I was still unhappy but I accomplished all my goals.
My husband said to me, “When are you ever going to be happy?” I’m like, “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Probably not because I don’t even know what that means.” They gave me this free pass to do this. Three days into it, I was so overwhelmed with guilt because here are my 18 and 20-year-old daughters and my husband working. They’re all slugging it out in the house doing all the work and I’m doing nothing. I couldn’t handle that. That was the first part of that. I journaled around, “Why do I feel that I’m not worthy of this time?”
How about not being worthy, which I learned from the accident, of the gift of people loving you and taking care of you for a while? One of the things that I learned from the accident is that I had four major surgeries and seed my independence to other people who were helping me in my life. Here you had this loving family that was helping you and you hadn’t given yourself permission to love yourself and not yet to let that in.
You and I have talked about this over the years. It’s very hard to allow yourself to be nurtured. We’re all such nurturers. We don’t always know how to receive. That was the process and I had three months to do this. I did it but I’ve had my MBA attitude about this spiritual trust I was on. At the end of the three months, I was pissed off. I was angry and frustrated. It wasn’t what you think. I was like, “What do you mean? I did everything I was supposed to do.” The lesson there was the harder you try, the longer it’s going to take. This is a process of surrendering. I hate that word. I don’t hate it now, but at that moment, I’m like, “Stop saying that word.”
That was the process. Those 3 months turned into 30 months until I Will Always Love You was divinely downloaded and channeled to my shock, surprise, and delight. That was the process of journaling. That was the number one. Working with someone and understanding that we don’t have to do this alone and it doesn’t have to be hard.
Freedom Rising From Within: It’s very important to work with someone and understand that we don’t have to do this alone and it doesn’t have to be hard.
Working with someone like a healer?
It was Cathrine.
I also had her when I was going through my journey.
That’s what’s so beautiful about it. Here we are together. I’m telling you a story from 2014. I can’t believe my darkness has become to lightness.
She’s helped you light up from the inside out. She’s helped you do this. That leads me to you Cathrine. What healing modalities? You talked about numerology and yoga, and what other?
Yoga and meditation and some modality called SRT, which means Spiritual Response Therapy. That’s where you go into Akashic records and there’s clearing up the programming. I’m a seeker. I want to understand something. When I can understand it, I can alchemize it or move it and then I can come into my heart. I can alchemize the pain of it. SRT was huge. That’s why numerology, yoga, meditation, connecting with my soul, spirit, or something more than myself, and being able to calm myself enough that I could hear or get comfortable enough in my own body and my own skin to stay in my body.
Numerology and astrology especially too because I wanted to understand what my blueprint was as much information and understand as I could. For me, understanding has always been pivotal. It has been one of the most sought-after qualities that resonated the most with me to look into. That’s predominantly what I’ve been in.
I still to this day do a lot of different things. I love sound therapy, still body stuff, reflexology, and things like that. Even spending time in nature, especially after that significant trauma, I would literally spend hours sitting at a river under a willow tree. Nature is the biggest healer. I completely have attested to that. It was a very beautiful gift that I had to be able to be in that nature setting in my healing. Definitely, it feel like nature was pivotal.
A lot of people refer to nature as being something very grounding for them. People are even told to hug a tree because it’s so grounding. We do our healing from our traumas and everything, but we all still get triggered and something will set us off. Some people get set off and they shoot someone in road rage. Someone else gets set off and now they’ve learned because they’re healing from the inside out to handle the trigger in a different way. How has that worked for each of you? How do you handle that? You must still get triggers, but do you process them differently now with the work that you’ve done?
I feel I’m not as triggered anymore. I’m not as triggered in a lot of ways as I used to be. My understanding is that, when we have a trigger, it’s because there’s unresolved energy or something within our own subconscious that is responding and that is the trigger. I still have triggers. I have the ability to go faster within and be able to remove myself from the story, what somebody did, or what they said and be able to bring it back to myself. This is an indication for me about me. Most of the time, what we are vibing out, we’re not aware of. It’s very subconscious.
Learning how to read the external responses, energies, or whatever is in my environment is an opportunity for me to go within and say, “Why is this showing up?” This is indicating something that is operating from my vibration and my subconscious. It’s getting curious about that and being able to bring it back within. The minute we do that, it starts to move the energy, that awareness, and that ability to bring it back into self, which is a process and learning how to do that. Once we do that, we have the opportunity to start to move the energy.
We start to be able to bring into awareness what has been hidden from us so that we can move it, feel into it, transmute it, or transform it, whatever needs to. We have that space to be able to open up and choose how I now want to respond. What do I now want to align with or experience? Learning how to move that trigger to something positive, more prolific, and life-giving.
It sounds like you don’t personalize it anymore. When the trigger comes, you don’t personalize it. You look at it as, “What is this showing me about myself? What am I supposed to learn from it?” Melissa, is your experience similar to that? Do you have something to add to that?
It’s similar, obviously, because of all the work that I’ve done with counseling. We have a chapter in the book that as the book was being completed, it moved me ahead. When we get to teach things, our learning becomes exponential. When I was teaching intuitive journaling or a type of journaling to a group of grade sixes at one point, I remember saying to them, “When you feel yucky, you’re quite lucky.” All of a sudden, that became one of my favorite sayings.
When you feel yucky, you’re quite lucky. Click To Tweet
The second that we feel any kind of yuckiness, we’re lucky because it means our emotional guidance system is working. We are not aligned with our soul’s plan. That’s why we’re feeling yucky. As to what Cathrine described, you have that invitation to come back to what is this about. Is this really about me? What do I want? What do I intend for this? It starts to take care of itself. You still go through the process but it’s a little bit more fun than it used to be. It’s never really fun, but more fun.
Cathrine, I want to ask you also. Grief and Rebirth had a summit about this. Our vibration as a planet is ascending from 3D to 5D so we’re having this tremendous paradigm shift. It’s a transformation that is going on the planet. Could you explain to everyone who’s saying, “What in the world are they talking about?” the differences between our paradigm and the incoming one? Explain how these differences relate to the insights you share in freedom from within.
This is a really big shift. About around every 2200 years, we have a paradigm shift. This is how we’ve been evolving as a human species and how the planet has been evolving. This particular one is considered extremely unique and historical because we’re going through an evolutionary leap. If this was a game, all the rules are being changed. The whole background or terrain that we’ve been navigating previously is now completely going to be changing and is in the process of transformation. The previous paradigm was very much based on survival consciousness.
That’s why the ego was so forefront. That’s why we talk a lot in the book about becoming a soul-infused personality because in the previous paradigm, there was so much suffering and trying to stay alive, which set up so much inequality and justice, competitiveness, me against them, and protectiveness. The ego’s main role is to keep us safe and alive. Now we’re going into a higher density or frequency. The previous paradigm was considered three-dimensional.
It is why you see all the chaos on the planet now. All this is getting expunged, right?
We’re in a destabilizing period right now and that’s happening for a couple of reasons. One of them is part of the awakening process for people. It’s also flushing out a lot of the old energy that’s always been there, like deep pain, injustice, suffering, or oppression. It’s always been there. It’s just that it’s coming up in order for the new higher energies and frequencies to come in and what we’re building next in several hundred years. This part is probably the stickiest part and the most chaotic part. It’s like we’re trying to tear down a house and rebuild a house at the same time but what has been underneath does have to come up. There’s a lot of healing that’s going on individually. There’s a lot of healing that’s flushing out of the Earth and the collective consciousness.
That’s definitely part of what we’re seeing now. The whole point of this is we start to awaken as we go inward. We have been trained to go outward because we were in survival, so we had to always constantly focus on the outer. Now, we’re going into 5D. it’s a very higher frequency. Thankfully, it’s going to be one where we’re heart-centered, heart guided, and heart-led. That’s where we’re going to start to see. As we go within, we start to activate our soul’s divine blueprint. Each of us has our divine blueprint. That blueprint has our own unique path. It’s our highest path of fulfillment because it’s what we’re here to express and align with and how we serve and what we serve from.
Freedom Rising From Within: Each of us has our divine blueprint. That blueprint has our own unique path. It’s our highest path of fulfillment because it’s what we’re here to express and align with and how we serve and what we serve from.
It’s where our purpose, our gifts, and our abilities come from. We have to go within in order to tap into that for ourselves uniquely and be able to honor that. Again, we’ve been trained very differently. The more we go within, the more we cultivate that and start to understand what our soul is guiding us to do through resonance and being able to then have that ability to start to express it. That’s how we create the outer because in the new paradigm, the outer is a reflection of the inner, not the other way around. We’re trained to focus on the outer to feel something on the inner. That’s one of the rule changes as far as rules go.
What impacted me is the fact that when you start to identify more with your soul than with the ego, it does remove judgment. You talk about that in your chapter about resonance. How does the soul speak to us through resonance? How does honoring our inner resonance remove judgment? How does the body respond when it’s in resonance? You have this wonderful chapter all about that in your book.
Resonance can feel a little bit different for each of us. We have to know what that means for us individually. Generally, it’s when something will feel right for us or aligned for us. Our body will respond generally more expansively versus contracting or in protection mode. It does take out the judgment because the new paradigm is coming out of that polarity. We’re still going to have emotions but when we’re honoring our soul’s divine blueprint, we’re giving ourselves the freedom to honor and express that through the resonance. We’re also honoring and allowing other people to have that same freedom to honor their own. We’re going to be moving into what’s called one consciousness. That doesn’t mean we’re all going to be conforming, feeling, and looking the same way.
It means that we’re still going to be diverse but we’re unifying and respecting that each person has their own soul, which is their divine spark and light. Being able to respect and honor what they’re being called to do or what I’m being called to do is what our individual soul is guiding us to do. From that is how we’re going to then create this whole bigger, beautiful, loving, kind, just, compassionate, and caring world. The more aligned we are with our soul and we’re honoring this resonance, the more we know that the soul will never guide us to harm or to separation consciousness. It will never guide us to fear or harm. It always has the highest care, compassion, and purpose for creating life-giving things. It cares about life and all beings.
It cares about the Earth and everything. There is a difference between fear and non-resonance. It’s like, “Is this resonating with me? Is my body responding in a light way?” The reason why I’m saying non-resonance is because sometimes we can resonate with something but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be the easiest path or way. Sometimes we have to have a lot of courage to be able to honor our soul. The more we align and connect to our soul, the more we have the courage because we’re starting to gain the spirit, the soul strength, and the spirit essence. There’s such a present and an expansion in that.
Resonance is about feeling for yourself. When you’re guided to do something, even if everybody else around you thinks you’re crazy, it doesn’t logically make sense. You’ve been conditioned or trained that this isn’t how we do it. If you don’t feel like this is what’s right for me, there’s this inner calling, inner voice, or a nudge that won’t leave me be. You mentioned earlier about this inner and outer aligning. That’s what we’re stepping into. When there’s an incongruency between how we feel inside and how we’re expressing ourselves on the outside or we’re not honoring what’s on the inside, we won’t feel good.
It builds up a lot of resentment and it can express itself in the body also. Sometimes we get sick. That brings me to another subject that you speak about beautifully in your book, which is the subject of codependency. You hear people talk about that all the time. Would you please educate all of us because you speak about this in your book? What is a codependent loop and what is the difference between codependency and interdependency? After this conversation, about a trillion people are going to change their relationships with their significant others. Let’s talk about the difference between codependency and interdependency. What that codependent loop is like? I’m sure that’s familiar to a lot of people.
I’ll start by saying one thing. People-pleasing is a perfect example of a codependent relationship with every person in your life. People go quickly think it’s about alcohol, drugs, or supporting something. It’s not. People-pleasing is a classic example for our audience. Cathrine, you explain it so eloquently. Please go.
People-pleasing is the core of codependency. Anytime we’re doing something that doesn’t feel right for us, it could even be as simple as, “I’m tired tonight and I don’t want to go out for this dinner.” However, if we go or we don’t honor it then that drains us. We’re not being authentic, honoring our inner guidance, what feels okay for us, or best for us.
The previous paradigm was based on codependency. That’s why it’s so prevalent for all of us. We’re all dismantling codependency in some way, especially as empaths or sensitives. We tend to be a little bit more codependency. It definitely tends to be more of our process because we want to help and heal. We can feel other people’s displeasure and pain so much.
We are constantly trying to help them, but until we learn how to honor ourselves, the codependent loop happens. If somebody asks us to do something and we’re in this dynamic, we do it and it doesn’t feel good. We don’t feel good and that builds up resentment. That resentment builds and that’s building up in the subconscious. We have a blowout, either an inner blowout or an outer blowout that comes and goes on beyond our conscious awareness and then we feel terrible about it.
That’s when guilt comes in. We want to appease the guilt so we try and make up for the person or the situation that we feel like we did something bad with or wrong with. That keeps happening and it gets more and more painful and uncomfortable for us. The reality with interdependency is that nobody else outside of us can fulfill our cup. If I don’t feel loved or lovable, the only person who can fulfill that wound or fill that space or area within me is me, and the same for all of us until we’ve learned to go within and be raw, courageous, and honest with what our stuff is. We all have stuff or something. Until we have the courage to go within, we’ll keep trying to seek something from outside of us, whether that’s love, worthiness, validation, status, or whatever it is.
Until we have the courage to go within, we’ll keep trying to seek something from outside of us, whether that’s love, worthiness, validation, status, or whatever it is. Click To Tweet
When we start to go within and heal these wounds, address these wounds, move this energy, start to meet ourselves and know who we are in a deeper way, not an intellectual way but a real deeper way, that love for ourselves starts to rise and come through. That’s where we start to enter into interdependency, which is when it starts to get good. Interdependency is about being able to honor somebody else’s process, knowing they’re in their process.
We’re in our own process and not seeking or needing anything from another person. We’re not trying to drain another person. We’re not also allowing that to happen to us or around us. When I say need, we’re human beings. We’re social creatures. We need each other. I don’t mean it in that way. I mean it in trying to fill a void. We’re siphoning somebody else’s energy or they’re siphoning our energy.
When it’s interdependency, we know we can regulate our own emotions. We know how to address our own triggers. We know that we need to come within our own self if we’re being triggered by something. From that space, we can have inspired conversations. We have inspired action but we’re honoring and able to support each other in our process without the needing for somebody else to fix something or give us something or us to them. That’s when we can come into the vibrations in relationships of real deep love, connectivity, meaning, and compassion. That’s where the depth can come in because the true depth can’t come in if there’s that codependency energy dynamic going on.
That’s beautiful. I have to say there’s a lot more about that in your book. It’s worth reading. Is there anything else in your book that you’d like to share with us? Any other chapters, topics, or anything about it that you’d like people to know?
I’d like people to know that it’s so much more than a book. This is how it came into its existence as an idea of something that begins with a book, but it’s not just reading a book. When you go to a great conference or a retreat, you come out and you’re so different. You’re ready to live this new life and then 3 or 4 days later, everything comes back at you and you’ve got all the balls in there and life goes on. This book, it’s got the book itself. It’s got the journal included as well as guided meditations and reflective journaling prompts. We also have a webpage available where the guided meditations are recorded live done by Cathrine.
We built a community around it as well because it’s an embodiment process. You read it and you have to become it. It’s no longer the Nike, “Just do it.” It’s now the, “It’s time to beat it.” We’ve built a whole process around that where people can come and be part of the community and begin to make it part of their life as you transform and become so infused. That’s the part that I think is exciting about this book. It’s so much more than the book. It’s an invitation to step into this next chapter of your life into this new paradigm.
It provides people with a rich experience. It’s not that they read and discard. They can live the principles that you’re teaching them in it. Melissa, speaking of living the tenets you’re teaching, you’ve talked about the ways your children are navigating their lives have actually improved because of the concepts in your book. People who read your book may even change the way they are relating to their children. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
It’s so powerful. I’m going to make this assumption that many of us are empaths and highly sensitive, which we’ve already said. The day that I learned I was an empath like you, Irene, my life changed. The day that I found out and came to the realization that both of my girls were very highly sensitive and empathic, my parenting changed. This book takes you to all the depths and levels of how you allow something that you’re guiding to now be guided by its own soul, path, and calling. You honor their path as you honor your own. It’s having faith. That is how they can become their highest and truest selves. It’s by honoring their own blueprints and stepping back. The book helps to become comfortable with letting go.
You’re not seeing them as much as an extension of you. You’re seeing them as an individual with their own soul and soul path, right?
Yeah, exactly. I’m more aware that I learn as much, if not more from my children than they learn from me. That’s the beauty of all of this. It’s the interdependent relationships that Cathrine described. It becomes so powerful and beautiful. Talk about building joy in your life. That builds joy in a remarkable way.
Your family is probably happy now because you are finding happiness and joy within yourself, which eluded you for a while.
They witnessed it through the years. Their whole lives, I’ve come in and out of different moments. I’ve been dark for days, months, and even years. They’ve seen me go through different career paths as I try to find that thing that brings me joy. I didn’t hide any of it from them. They themselves have the courage to follow their heart and dreams so that they feel resonance now. They’ve been under the tutelage of Cathrine which is what a gift when you’ve got empathic children. It’s great if you can give them access to tools so that they can find their way.
That’s beautiful. It sounds like you’ve defined the importance of healing and transforming from the inside out. Cathrine, would you like to add anything to that?
I think that was beautifully said. I think that the minute that we can start to honor another being, whether it’s a child or a person, they have their own soul plan and pathway. We can start to nurture, cultivate, and support that. I feel like that’s when they can start to express their highest potential. That is where heart-centered, love, and the light can truly express.
Can you imagine if people are walking the planet and they’ve all released the old stuff? They’re walking around honoring each other’s soul and their highest potential in a different world.
Can I just comment on that? That’s truly how we are going to create this new paradigm. That’s how we are going to create the new. It’s through our own inner transformation and our transformation. When we transform, we facilitate transformation for the collective. We are going be doing this from the inner because the outer is a reflection of our inner. As Gandhi says, “We do have to become the change that we wish to see in the world.”
When we transform, we facilitate transformation for the collective. We are going be doing this from the inner because the outer is a reflection of our inner. Click To Tweet
Melissa, did you want to say something else?
Yes, I do. In the introduction to our book, there’s a beautiful statistic to share. This will change how every person feels about their own ability to change the world. Share it, Cathrine, will you?
One person holding a frequency of love counterbalances 750,000 who are holding a frequency of pain, grief, anger, frustration, or rage. That’s the power when we start going into higher frequencies. That’s why the inner and the outer are transformative. In the inner, we transform and we are able to hold these higher frequencies, and the frequency does the work. We just need to heal, move this energy, and align to love or compassion. I know it’s a process but that’s the power of it. The frequency does all the work.
Where did you find that awesome statistic? That’s fantastic.
That’s from Dr. David Hawkins’ work. He’s no longer on the planet with us but his work has been dedicated towards this and measuring this. I highly recommend that you dive into his work and still being done now.
I would like to do the math. You’ve touched hundreds and hundreds of thousands of lives for your show raising the vibration. You’ve held a frequency of love for so long. How many millions of people have you already affected through this process?
Honestly, with great humility, the show is now in seventeen countries and people are sharing it. It’s one of the most shared and followed shows. I really think it’s because a lot of people are finding out they can awaken and leave their other paradigms behind which is wonderful. You two are part of the blessings of bringing all these messages out to people, which is, of course, I’m living my sole purpose and my blueprint. Now everyone wants to buy your book. How can they connect with you and get your book, and you have a special offer for everybody?
We do. As I was mentioning, we are working with people to help them embody the teachings and the lessons of this book. We have a community that is online. We have an Akashic clearing for a group every single month. As a group, when the Akashic records are cleared, it’s even more exponential than when we’re one-on-one and it’s a themed clearing that Cathrine pulls through. That’s always on the first Saturday of the month.
We have a shared wisdom workshop that has meditations, reflections, and journaling prompts. That is on the first of the month. On the third Tuesday of the month, we have an alignment check-in where we’re like, “How are we doing? Where are we being pulled out of our center? What do we need to ground ourselves?” This plus many other resources are available. We have two months free available for your audience through the link if you’re interested and then come and check it out.
Should they reach out to a certain email address? Should they put in the subject line Grief and Rebirth or something so you know who they are and how they came to you? How is that going to work for them?
The link will send them from Grief and Rebirth to us. They sign up and they can cancel at any point. You’ll be required to come in and join our community. Your first two months are free. You’re free to stay or go after those two months. It’s up to you.
They’ll want to stay. Tell me each of you, what’s your tip for finding joy in life?
From my experience with it, peace is the gateway to joy. Cultivating peace within the heart, mind, and environment that we’re in as much as possible. That piece cultivates joy and then joy can start to birth and express. I also feel like starting to give permission for joy, we’ve been conditioned to be so heavy and so much in this suffering. There’s still so much heaviness and suffering obviously on the planet and within our relationships throughout our lives.
Peace is the gateway to joy. Click To Tweet
Giving self-permission to be joyful and that could be being silly, playful, dancing, and singing. It could be calling forth your playful, imaginative, wonderful, wondrous curious inner child. It’s finding what joy is for each of us individually and starting to be open to it. If one is in deep grief, that can feel really far off. It’s sometimes setting the intention that I’m open to joy.
Deep grief doesn’t necessarily cancel out joy. You can have grief and joy at the same time. You can be suffering. I learned that in my life when I was grieving that I could still have moments of tremendous joy, which was a big surprise for me. Do you agree with that? Melissa, your tip?
My intention every day now is to either work towards or be within unconditional happiness. It means that anytime I don’t feel like I’m happy about something and recognizing if my happiness rests on something external to me. An outcome or a response from somebody else or my external conditions is separating that and reminding myself. Like Cathrine said earlier, “All the transformation comes from within.” Since I didn’t know what happiness was at one point in my life, sticking with unconditional happiness as my intention helps me a lot. I’ve never felt more joy in my life and every day, it seems to get a little bit better. I don’t understand and I don’t want to ever stop. It cumulatively getting better and better.
Your path is working. You signed up for this and it’s working. It’s happening. I just want to say that Cathrine and Melissa, thank you for helping people to cultivate and create peace from within by inspiring them to have the courage to heal their wounds and traumas blocking that peace through this illuminating book, Freedom Rising From Within: The Ultimate Guide to Freedom and Transformation from the Inside-Out. I thank you both from my heart for this touching, wise, and very healing interview. Here’s a loving reminder, everyone. Make sure to follow us and like us on social @IreneSWeinberg on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. On YouTube, be sure to click subscribe so you will never miss an episode. As I like to say, to be continued. Many blessings and bye for now.
Guests’ links:
- Melissa Lyons’s website
- Cathrine Marshall’s website
- Cathrine and Melissa’s book: Freedom Rising From Within: The Ultimate Guide to Freedom and Transformation from the Inside-Out
Host’s Links:
- @IreneSWeinberg on Instagram
- Irene Weinberg on Facebook
- Irene Weinberg on Twitter
- Irene Weinberg – Grief, Rebirth + Healing Podcast on YouTube
