This is the story of my discovery of Applied Self Compassion and the birth of Ignite, my premier 8 week course designed to turn inner critics into inner allies and unlock inner and outer personal transformation.
Part 1: It took a disaster to make a discovery
Our adventure begins with a story of outer success vs inner turmoil, an existential crisis and a mindblowing discovery! I posed a question about what stands in your way of change and here is what I heard: our biggest obstacle is… (drum roll) ourselves. We stand in the way of our own change. Our fears, doubts, criticism, sub-conscious mental patterns hold us back from our personal growth. I can relate. ⚡️Flashback to 2019⚡️ I’m a high rollin’ sonic witch 🧚🏼 with sold out events that were a holistic experience with a vibrant community where peeps were sippin tea, making friends, having fun and healing. I was super close to meeting a financial goal of mine too, almost breaking six figures as a woman-owned business no trust fund or financial support, just me. I had just hired my first full time employee, 🔮 CRYSTAL BALLIN Right? Kinda… I’m pretty embarrassed to reveal, I was NOT feeling amazing at all. Despite this outer success, I was struggling with crippling doubt and imposter syndrome. Despite, selling out time after time, I couldn’t even look at the online ticket sales because my inner critics were shouting: this WILL be the time no one comes!! ✋ Take a moment and think to yourself, who is your harshest critic? What kind of things do they say to you? If you are like me, your inner doubter sucks the joy of life. your inner perfectionist frets over every friggin detail. your inner worrier is always afraid. Even when every rational sign points to blue skies, we can’t trust our own decisions. we can’t enjoy the success. we can’t appreciate ourselves. It’s no fun to get smacked down by our inner critics, is it?
🤸🏾Cartwheel to 2020 🤸🏿♂️ All of my events are cancelled. I’d wake up in the morning in a complete blur. Who am I? Whoooo am I? Am I still a healer? Still a business owner? I am walkin the border of an existential crisis and my inner critics, doubters, worriers are now working overtime in pure panic, It was an inner tornado 🌪 In twenty years of wellness, four years of yoga therapy school, ten years of sound healing, countless hours of therapy, I still hadn’t managed to conquer this debilitating doubt in my life. Something had to change. I needed to transform my relationship with my inner characters, figure out what was happening in my mind and re-imagine my healing tool kit. It had to be simple and easy because my emotional reserves were running on empty. It wasn't long before I had a HUGE discovery. I listened closely to my inner dialogue, What’s going on in there?! Who are these inner doubters, perfectionists, worriers? When and where did these inner characters show up? I dug deep by revisiting lessons from my entire history as a healer... And, then, one day, 🦄POOF✨
A bunch of different things began to coalesce into a brand new thing. It was an A-HA moment 💡 There IS a way to rewrite your inner story and it was not at all what I was expecting. It wasn’t a 10 day silent retreat. It wasn't intense inner shadow work on an amethyst rock for months on end. NO, it could be a helluva a lot easier. We are talkin only 15 minutes a day. Easy, and, dare I say, FUN!
Part 2: From inner turmoil to inner peace while moonwalking
I wanna take a humblebrag moment to celebrate how far Inner Sounds has come since March 2020: Inner Sounds lost all our live events 😿 But NOW our sound healing reaches more people than ever: ✔ 24/7 access digital sound library ✔ 200 peeps on zoom Whoo-hoo! 🥳 Let's return to our epic story Back in 2020 #worstyearever my inner critics, doubters, worriers were all throwing tantrums in my mind. They were losing. their. shit. Were your inner characters suffering too? During this major freak out…. I started to wonder What was up with them? Why weren’t they okay? How can I help them? And, then, I made this friggin discovery It wasn't about banishing or casting these inner characters OUT the secret sauce was learning how to listen to them. understand them, and love them. WTF! How the heck do you learn to love an inner critic? I reached deep into my twenty year old witchy cauldron, combined a few simple ingredients and created a magical brew, that transformed my inner critics into inner allies. This sparkling new method, was simple and only took 15 minutes a day. I’m calling it... Applied Self Compassion
#micdrop You've already read all about the outer transformations I experienced, BUT, what you can’t see is the inner transformation. What happened on the inside? in one word FREEDOM After practicing Applied Self Compassion for the past 8 months, my inner critics have become cherished inner advisors. 🤔 Imagine how you would feel if your harshest inner critic became an inner ally… what would you do with all that freed up energy? For me, deeply held toxic thought patterns are rewiring and peacefully healing. My internal world is friggin calm. Spacious. Safe. I literally feel lighter and clearer. That’s what happens when you work with your inner characters not against them. I spent the last eight months refining Applied Self Compassion, repatterning inner doubters, critics, worriers, and here is the thing I realized… IF you are gonna work with your inner characters
Here are a few ingredients in the Applied Self Compassion cauldron 🎵 sound healing (duh!) ♈ astrology 😍 Inner Family Systems Therapy plus plenty more deliciousness. For the past eight months, I collaborated with my inner perfectionist to design a simple 15 min daily healing routine to enable powerful inner and outer transformations Unlike a lot of other scary, deep personal work we are anti-serious wellness. We aren't gonna put you through hours and hours of self-flagellation. or spend a month doing shadow analysis. F that. There is another way. We are magical witches and warlocks. We can do major inner work and personal transformation while moonwalking.
Part 3: Ignite and the birth of the healing wheel
Let's recap for a sec, while I was recovering from the 💩 show of 2020, I discovered a magical method called Applied Self Compassion which transforms inner critics into inner allies. This was a game changer for me personally and enabled a TON of outer transformation, including saving Inner Sounds from extinction. Then I started thinking... What if Applied Self Compassion could help other people too? I shared a sample of this healing brew with a few close friends, and BAM they experienced huge transformations too. Leaving an abusive relationship type of huge. Changing careers type of huge. BIG stuff. Holy shit! THIS could be BIG. What IF… I were to make this into a course? I gathered up my inner allies AND business team took out a big ol posterboard, and drew it out. Each ingredient. Step by step. And… we noticed a beautiful circle forming. A circle composed of 8 interconnected parts. It was a Healing Wheel:
8 spokes. 8 weeks. There is so much yummers to this healing wheel, but for now, I'll just say… the first four segments are The Applied Self Compassion Method and the last four are a bunch of fun witchy ass goodies that expands and builds out the method. We are calling this AMAZERS 8 week course: 🔥 IGNITE 🔥 I am so damn proud to share it with you. It's time to ignite your own inner transformation and launch your NEW dreams. 🎆 What transformation would you like to ignite in your life? How would it feel to have your entire inner crew rooting for you?
Cheers,
Melissa
PS: I’ve personally signed up for TONS of courses over the past 20 years. Trainings, workshops, retreats, you name it, I am a personal growth junkie. Over the years, I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t work. When we designed ignite, I took this all into account....
The four essential ingredients for successful online personal transformation:
Progressive learning: Begone rando assignments! A weekly sequence with bite-sized lessons that build on prior insights is HELLA motivating.
Accountability: Self-directed personal work is friggin hard!! Forget that. Accountability is ESSENTIAL to success. That is why we are creating a cohort that will be journeying together with 3 live zooms and an optional accountability partner, which will keep us ALL on track.
Time: is a valuable gift and breaking trust by going overtime is not cool. Ditto for surprise homework assignments. We've kept to our word but also added a lot of fun stuff for the witches who love extra curricular.
F U N: Heavy spiritual work feels like a hard pass right now, given the state of the world. Massive transformational work CAN be fun. Groove and make a witches brew? YES.
