by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
Creative Status is a podcast about using creativity as a vehicle for improving your life by deconstructing ego, integrating the shadow self, and designing and manifesting a real life.
Every episode explores how the creative process can help you GROW REAL by moving towards wholeness in yourself by making the unconscious conscious.
In this episode of Creative Status, join us as we unravel the deceptions of spiritual narcissism with Melany Oliver, an intuitive soul coach who has navigated the murky waters of misleading online spirituality to find her way back to authentic healing.
Truth vs. Illusion: Melany shares her transformative journey from being ensnared by the allure of ‘quick-fix’ spiritual modalities to discovering the liberating power of truth and emotional processing. We delve into why so much online spirituality is a trap, keeping seekers from the very growth they desire.
The Heart of Healing: Learn how sincerity, humility, and a genuine desire for truth are the cornerstones of real healing. Melany discusses how embracing our shadow self and processing our emotions can lead to a more authentic, joyful existence.
Emotions as a Pathway: Explore the crucial distinction between living in your emotions and processing through them with truth as your guide. Melany’s insights reveal how we can avoid getting stuck and instead use our feelings as a catalyst for personal transformation.
Creative Status: Where Real Healing Begins
Be inspired by Melany’s candid conversation about the simplicity of healing, the pitfalls of spiritual ego, and the profound relief that comes from aligning with our true selves. It’s a dialogue that challenges the status quo and invites you to look inward with courage and honesty.
Stay real out there,
Oli Anderson
(www.olianderson.co.uk)
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Episode Links:
Melany’s Website: https://melany-oliver.com/
Melany on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melany.oliver/
Creative Status Links:
The Creative Performance Transformation Lab: olianderson.co.uk/creativeperformance
Follow me on Instagram: instagram.com/olijanderson
My YouTube channel: youtube.com/olianderson
Get my books on Amazon: amazon.com/author/oli
7-Day Personality Transplant System Shock for Realness and Life Purpose: olianderson.co.uk/systemshock
Free one hour creative workshop to take your creative brand or project to the next level: olianderson.co.uk/creativeworkshop
Free 90-Day Journal Challenge: olianderson.co.uk/journal
The Law of Attraction for Realness (mini-course): olianderson.co.uk/lawofattraction
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The New Age Deception & Spiritual Narcissism (Show Transcript)
Intro
Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. This is a podcast about growing more real, creating lives for ourselves that are, aligned with who we truly are when we clear away some of the mental garbage that holds us back from ourselves, holds us back from other people, and holds us back from life. The creative process is a big part of that, because the creative process can make the unconscious conscious.
Today’s interview is one of my favourite ones so far. Definitely. It’s with Melany Oliver. Melany is an intuitive soul coach. I originally stumbled across her work on Instagram. I found a post where she was talking about two different approaches to spirituality. She was sharing her own story and showing ultimately, how years ago, whenever it was, she had kind of fallen into the trap of being deceived by a lot of the spiritual bullshit that’s online.
This is something that I’ve thought about, like, a lot, because obviously, a lot of the things I talk about can be classed as spiritual because we’re dealing with uncovering the truth, contemplating the truth, and then living and breathing the truth. But there’s a lot of stuff out there that really holds people slaves to themselves and slaves to their egos, because it encourages them to run away from the truth rather than towards it. And it dresses itself up as spirituality. It’s a very deceptive kind of thing.
A lot of it has to do with marketing and all that kind of stuff. And, it was just so refreshing to see Melany’s approach to this on her own Instagram. So I reached out to her, I explained that I wanted to talk about all that. And, that’s what this interview ultimately is.
We’re diving into why so much of that stuff is deceptive and how there’s maybe a healthier approach to kind of being spiritual, if you want to even use that word, to just basically moving towards the truth and uncovering the truth without any of the mumbo jumbo, none of the nonsense, none of the marketing gimmicks and all that kind of thing.
So this was a really great conversation. It was so powerful that we set off some dogs barking. I’ve managed to remove most of that from the, background noise, but it’s kind of cool, actually, to hear these dogs going crazy. And just so you can tell that we really annoyed the satanic forces of the world or, something like that. Little bit dramatic.
But anyway, here’s the interview. Melany, thanks so much for being so chill about everything and for sharing all this stuff. Hope this helps. Anyone who’s listening might piss off a few people, so apologies in advance, but, you know, it’s all part of the learning process. Here we go. Thanks a lot. Boom.
Interview
Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Melany. Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. I’m actually very excited about this one because, we had a conversation like, a week or two ago where we, started to unpack some patterns that we both noticed around some of this spiritual, bullshit pardon my French that seems, to be taking over the world, especially online. So we’re going to unpack that even more before we get into it. Do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you do and what you’re all about, and also you want to get out of this conversation that we’re about to have?
Melany Oliver: Sure. Yeah. Hi, Oli, and thank you so much for inviting me on. I’m excited about this conversation. I think I told you before, like, I used to rant about this all the time online and got a lot of stick for it. So it’s nice to meet someone who can see, you know, as well, and, have this discussion, because I think, like you said, it’s super important. Well, obviously, we’re going to get into it. But, yeah, I’m Melany. I’m a holistic therapist and emotional, healing coach. I’ve been doing this for about, well, 18 years now. Yeah. And I’m excited to share this conversation, with you and to share this with the world.
Oli Anderson: Yeah. And see what we can learn and where we end up. So let’s start right at the beginning. The reason that I reached out to you is I found you on Instagram somehow, and there was a post that you’d put on there where you were basically doing a sort of, before and after comparing contrast of a kind of old way that you’d kind of used, as a kind of philosophy for, like, thinking about life and healing the things that you’ve been through versus a new way.
And I suppose if I was going to give the abridged version of what that was, it was almost as though the old version, which didn’t actually help you get anywhere, was that, you’d fallen for some of this kind of new age deception, let’s call it the new version, was that you’d kind of tuned into something quite different. So maybe that’s a good starting point, just kind of saying where you were and where you’ve ended up. And I can hear that the hounds of hell are trying to attack you.
Melany Oliver: Yeah. I’m so sorry. About that. That’s Mexico. Yeah.
Oli Anderson: Yeah, so if we do the compare and contrast, like where were you, where did you end up and how did you learn to kind of break through the deception, I guess.
Melany Oliver: Okay, so, I guess it started throughout my childhood because, I’m half Brazilian and half English. And in Brazil, I’m not sure if you know anything about the culture there, but at least in Bahia, they’re very much into the occult.
You know, there’s, I remember doing all these rituals, you know, my grandmother used to take me to see witch doctors and they would give you like what they call bayous. and then you’ll go buy certain plants and herbs and you’ll light a candle at a certain time, you know, for the saint and then have a bath and yeah, basically it’s a little ritual, you know, and say incantations and what have you and prayers.
So it started off throughout my childhood and to me that was natural, right. And my aunts used to take me to these spiritual centres there where you’d go get your energy cleansed and speak to medium, ah, doctors.
And so that was really ingrained in me from childhood. So, when I started my healing journey when I was around 14, in my mind that was healing, right? So that’s kind of what led me down, the new age sort of path because I didn’t think to go to see a psychologist, for example. I thought I need energy healing or I need to see the spirit doctor or the witch doctor. And I guess that’s what started me on the new age path. I’m not sure if you heard me say like, I ended up more lost than when I started. And after ten years of being on the search and doing everything like you name it, I’ve probably done it and trained in it.
Reiki, hypnotherapy, theta healing, conscious access, consciousness, violet flame, God knows what, quantum touch matrix, energetics, like you name it, I’ve done it. And what I felt was that there was always something missing from all these, modalities and also I didn’t heal, I wasn’t healing and when I say healing, my search was really I just wanted to heal from depression.
I was depressed and I had severe, suicidal ideation and that’s all I wanted. I just wanted to live depression free and not have the suicidal ideation. That’s what led me on my search. But then I would do these energy healings or courses and whatever. And then two, three months later, I was depressed again with severe suicidal ideation.
And I could not understand why I’ve invested so much of my time, energy and money. I was meditating, saying my affirmations and doing my sage. And so when I talk about this stuff, like when I make fun of it now, like it’s coming from experience, it’s not, you know, as a judgement, I did it, you know, and I know how lost I was in that field. And my transition, came out of desperation, actually.
And, I remember just being… just breaking down one day and really praying from my heart and I was so desperate and I just prayed to God and I said, you know, help me. Like, I really, sincerely, all I wanted was to heal and I just wanted the truth. That’s all I wanted. And it was that one desire that I had that set everything in motion and that kind of changed, my course in terms of the, of spirituality or healing.
Oli Anderson: I, ah, should say that’s amazing. So as you were going through that story of like how you, you know, you, you kept looking in one place and then maybe you get a bit of a release, but then eventually the effect would wear off. You go look in another place and you’re just caught up in the cycle of constant distractions and, nothing ever changed.
My question for you was going to be what was the missing ingredient? And then right there at the end of the story, just shared, you basically summed it all up like the missing ingredient was the truth. Like it basically boils down to that.
The way that I understand all of this now, based on my own experience and just working with people in my coaching practise, is when people feel that they need healing or that they’re dealing with some kind of an existential void or that restless itch that they just don’t know how to scratch is because they’ve become disconnected from themselves. And, the only reason that they’re disconnected from themselves is because for some m reason, normally, because what happened in childhood, they’ve become disconnected from the truth.
They’ve, they’ve created a version of themselves, an ego that needs to resist the truth in order to maintain its hold over them so that they can keep the shadow self at bay. Maybe we’ll get into that. But also along with the resistance, they end up distorting the truth like they don’t want to see it. Because if they do see the truth, then even though they’re in pain and they’ve got this itch that needs scratching they’re going to have to make all kinds of changes in their life. And the biggest change, which is the one most people don’t want to make, is that they’re going to have to let go of the current identity that they’ve got and create a new one. And ultimately that’s what you just shed. Like all of these practises that you were, kind of trying to heal yourself with. They weren’t taking you towards the truth, they were kind of taking you away from the truth.
Melany Oliver: Yes, you’ve just nailed it. And not even that. yeah, I was basically in denial about. I mean, I’ll say I was in emotional denial because intellectually I was aware of the child abuse and everything that I went through, but I. But emotionally I did not accept it. And I was still engaging with, you know, my abusive mother, which was obviously not healthy for me.
And because of the, conditioning – like, we are conditioned to accept abuse because they are our parents. You know, they have given everything for us to survive. My mother cooked for me every day and I went to good schools. My father was a good provider. How dare I point the finger? Like, what an ungrateful daughter I am, you know, how dare I point the finger at the abuse? And so that was kind of like capping my emotional acceptance. I don’t know if that makes sense.
Oli Anderson: It makes perfect sense. So, actually, the reason that the truth is so, powerful and healing, it’s because exactly what you just said, it leads to acceptance. Acceptance is ultimately what we’re all looking for, so that itch that can’t be scratched. It’s really just a lack of acceptance. And the way to get that is to find the truth or to find reality.
Because the only thing you can accept is the truth reality. And if you accept the reality of life, then you have to accept the reality of yourself. And maybe this is kind of going to open this up a little bit more because it comes down ultimately to something that we talked about in our last conversation that we didn’t record. The hounds of hell are getting nervous again. And, basically what that is is humility.
Like, ultimately, the only way that we can heal, I have found, at least in my own life, is to learn humility. When we don’t have humility, we end up because of that emotional denial that you were talking about, trying to control everything. This is the tragedy of these people that are kind of lost with some of these spiritual deceptions. They’re in emotional pain, which is why they’re in denial in the first place, because they don’t want to ride out the short term discomfort of returning back to acceptance.
But that denial causes them to try and control life no matter what. And all I mean by that is that they try and control things so that life doesn’t ask them to face the emotional pain that they need in order to set themselves free. And so they go in all these wild goose chases and they do all these kind of courses and things that you’re talking about, or they invest money in people that have basically got the same emotional denial, the same emotional problems. And it becomes a case of the blind leading the blind.
And there’s just all these people upholding this illusion that you can avoid your emotional pain forever and heal yourself. But actually the only way out is through, as the saying says. And, basically it sounds like that’s what you did. So when you did finally realise that the only thing that was going to help you was the truth, that allowed you to kind of face the abuse that you went through when you were younger, that allowed you to face how that had caused you to become fragmented in yourself. And it probably allowed the shadow itself to re-emerge. And it ultimately put you on the path towards wholeness. That’s what I’m assuming.
Melany Oliver: Yeah, 1000%.
Oli Anderson: Yeah.
Melany Oliver: So, and then when you say emotional, like, when you say acceptance and emotional pain, and, you know, the only way out is through, that is actually how you accept truth.
Oli Anderson: Yes.
Melany Oliver: You know, when I was talking about, I was in it, I had an intellectual awareness that my mother was abusive. But I. But emotionally I didn’t accept it. Which means that I didn’t process the hurt that she caused me throughout my childhood. And that’s, the way to accept the truth emotionally is to process your emotional wounds, which I talk about all the time. and that’s painful and it does hurt. But one thing that I noticed throughout my emotional processing is that it only hurts when you resist it. Because when you actually accept it emotionally, it’s such a relief. You feel so good when you feel emotions and you accept it and you release it. Yes, of course it’s sad. And it broke my heart.
You know, it would break any child’s heart to have the realisation emotionally that your mother doesn’t love you or your father doesn’t love you. Of course you’re gonna grieve. I grieved for a good two, maybe three months, you know, and that’s what it takes, that’s what it took to really accept that fact. Yeah.
Oli Anderson: Yeah, well, I think the choices are we either stay in emotional denial, which sucks in the long term, or we face the emotions, which sucks, but not for quite as long. And then on the other. On the other side of it, we get freedom because we finally become whole again. And I think the good news, if you want to call it good news, because it kind of is, is that, once you do put yourself in that process of accepting the emotional pain and letting it kind of pass, you’re working with life.
Because life is always calling us back towards more wholeness, and it’s a natural process. And so, in a way, you can’t lose the battle. You just have to trust that process and go with it. Because, like you said, the only thing that really screws you up is the resistance of those emotions. It’s like the Carl Jung thing. Carl Jung said, what you resist persists.
Melany Oliver: Yeah, exactly.
Oli Anderson: And so by resisting it, you just exacerbate it. You make it worse, especially if you’re going on all these wild goose chases and you think you’re doing something, but you’re actually resisting it at an unconscious level. And so, is there something there? Because I think part of this transition from going from running away from the truth, but thinking that we’re running towards the truth to running towards the actual truth and freeing ourselves because we’re moving with life instead of against it, is our unconscious drives.
Because I think in your case, it sounds like what happened when you reach that crunch point where you had to get down and, like, pray for help. That was the point where the. The ego version of yourself, let’s say, ran out of steam. You took it as far as it could go, which is what a breakdown is, right? Like, you took it as far as you could go. It didn’t work. And so you’re like, “Oh, shit, right. I’m gonna pray to God”.
And then by doing that, you actually aligned the unconscious intentions with the conscious intentions, and then you could put yourself in a path. And so my question for you is, how do you see the role of the unconscious in this? Because the way that I look at it is all these people in emotional denial, they’ve basically been driven by their unconscious to eat.
Melany Oliver: Yeah, and that’s tricky, isn’t it? It’s so tricky. And, it comes back to what you said before. It’s two things. One is humility, and two is a sincere desire for truth. Because most people, they don’t want the truth. They want the results, or they don’t want the truth. They want something else other than the truth. And then when you share the truth with them, they will either get triggered or get angry or attack you or, and that is an indication that actually they’re not sincere.
They don’t want the truth. They want their ego stroked. They want an illusion. But yeah, it comes down to that. So you can still be deeply wounded. and to save you years of time and money and going around in circles, if you can just develop sincerity for truth, a passionate desire for truth and, and humility, that’s gonna, that will help you to bypass your unconscious, your unconscious beliefs and your wounds that are keeping you trapped in this, in these negative patterns.
Oli Anderson: Yeah. Do you think, we can reverse engineer our relationship with the truth by the results that we’re getting? I don’t know if that’s too vague, but basically what I’ve learned from myself and coaching people is the unconscious is always the main driving force. And if our lives are like, really fragmented and we’re constantly hitting brick walls and we’re constantly saying that we want to make changes in our lives, but then things never do change, then it means at some level that the, there’s a wide gap between the conscious and unconscious mind.
Melany Oliver: Yes.
Oli Anderson: And if we can start to understand little things like that, that’s when we can maybe wake up and say, okay, like I’m telling myself one thing, but there’s something going on inside me where, you know, I’m sabotaging myself or I’m just attracting totally different scenarios and situations because there is a block. And I suppose the question is how. How do we learn to listen to ourselves and listen to life so that we can start to really, get into that flow of moving with the truth instead of against it, even if we.
Melany Oliver: Yeah, right. Yeah. And the way I see it is, you know, and I’m talking about your immediate law of attraction because obviously we have a collective one as well. But your immediate law of attraction is showing you what’s still unhealed inside of you. You know, that’s it. And if we can see it that way and get curious about it instead of, you know, trying to force things, which doesn’t work, you know, and, yeah, see that as an opportunity.
Okay, this, I’m stuck in this pattern. Let’s dive in. Like, let’s do some inner work. why am I stuck in this pattern? And the key for me is emotions. You know, like, what is this? What, what do I feel when this pattern shows up? And then, and then from there, from the emotions that come up, you can start to process the emotions, navigate, you know, the emotional layers and see if, if that’s an addiction or, you know, an emotional addiction or, you know, a wound, and then obviously do your inner work.
Oli Anderson: Yeah, there’s a saying I often throw out. And, like I say, often is probably too often. But basically it’s the idea that the truth will set you free. Like Jesus said. Okay, that’s, that’s great, but, first it will piss you off and it will make you miserable. The reason it will piss you off and make you miserable is because ultimately the truth. I don’t think the truth ever makes anybody feel bad. I think the truth makes us feel good.
That’s why, as far as I understand it, spirituality really is just that, a journey to uncover the truth and then to live the truth. That’s all it really is. And anything other than that is going to cause problems in our lives. But the reason we think that the truth hurts, as the old saying goes, is because it causes us to have to let go of the illusions and let go of the belief systems and let go of the identities, basically let go of all kinds of things that are stopping us from healing, but that we’ve identified with and that we think are, the solution to our problems. And so I guess it keeps coming back to the same thing, which is this relationship with the truth. How. How do we, like, know if we are seeking the truth or if we’re on one of these wild goose chases?
Melany Oliver: I guess, firstly, Oli, I’m loving everything that you’re saying. I’m so resonating with everything. And I agree with you. The truth does set us free. And, it feels good, but what feels bad is the lie that we’re confronted with. That’s what hurts.
Oli Anderson: Yeah.
Melany Oliver: You know, if you had an illusion, like I was talking about, my mother wound that mummy loves me, but then you realise, actually she doesn’t. Of course that’s going to hurt. And it’s the lie that hurts that you’re releasing, not the truth. Because once you accept the truth, you feel good, you feel peace, you feel a relief.
And it’s like, like you said, it’s freeing. yeah, sorry, going back to what you’re saying, yeah, it is a relationship with the truth. And that’s why we have to want to know the truth and we have to desire truth, and live our truth. I think that’s where true happiness and joy comes from. And that’s what we’re all seeking to be our true selves in the world. In a world where that is constantly trying to, make us not be our true selves and to be something else.
Oli Anderson: How does the humility thing feed into the true self thing? Because this is another kind of avenue that’s maybe worth opening up, because I think a lot of this spiritual deception stuff is aimed at people who have a lot of inner fragmentation. When people have that inner fragmentation, it just means they become disconnected from their true selves. Okay?
And when that happens, they become driven by shame. Like, they’re not driven by truth anymore because they disconnect. It’s the shame that drives them. And when they’re driven by shame, they feel like they’re not good enough. They feel like they can’t trust themselves. They feel like they can’t trust life. And normally what happens is they go to one of two extremities.
They either become total control freaks, where they feel like they have to be a big hero to compensate for the shame that they feel. So they act like, you know, they just. It’s all hustler, it’s all grinder. They’re totally omnipotent, basically, and totally in control of life. Or they go to the other extreme, which is where they end up playing the victim, and they basically roll over. And any problem that happens is, like, the worst thing that’s ever happened. Nobody else has ever experienced it in human history. Any emotional thing that arises is going to be like a big roadblock.
Melany Oliver: That’s a disaster.
Oli Anderson: And, yeah, all this kind of stuff. So they go to one extreme or the other. But I think the middle path, so to speak, is humility, where we realise, okay, that in truth, we’re not a big hero because we can’t control everything. So there’s, you know, do your best and forget the rest.
Like, we still got to take action and, like, go out there. Yeah, make a dent in the world, but, like, we can’t control everything, so there’s no point taking that approach. And we’re not a big victim either, because we always have the power to make choices. We always have the power to kind of figure out our next move or to just patient until something changes, whatever it is. And so humility, for me is just getting to that point where we’re like, okay, I’m an amazing, powerful creature, but I can’t control everything.
I’m going to screw up sometimes, but it’s not the end of the world, and I’m not going to just trust myself and try and force everything through my own interpretations because of my shame driven relationship with myself, I’m going to actually know when to let go and trust life. And so humility basically puts us back in alignment with our nature, which again, puts us back on track to reality and truth and acceptance. And so there’s something there just around how we’re basically designed to be humble.
Ultimately, there’s a quote by Mike Tyson that I love. I might have said it to you last time. Mike Tyson said, “Man wasn’t made to be humble, but to be humbled”. And I love how he said that. It’s like we go out there, m and we got this idea about, right, I’m gonna go out and just smash life and, get attacked by the hounds of hell.
Ultimately, I’m gonna become humbled, which means I’m gonna find my true self through that process of, I suppose, setting audacious goals, whatever, but then finding out the truth about myself. So, anyway, that was a long ramble about that. But how does humility come into, I guess, your journey and the lessons that you’ve learned by not deceiving yourself anymore?
Melany Oliver: Yeah, firstly, I have no idea why they are like this today. I don’t know why. they’re not normally like this wild.
Oli Anderson: But anyway, although we’ve opened these.
Melany Oliver: Funny. Yeah. so, yeah, humility is everything. And humility, firstly, it’s about accepting reality. That’s like it in a nutshell. And, ah, when you accept reality, you also have to accept and process your emotions. Right. So it’s about, feeling everything as it is, not resisting it. yeah, so I think that’s a big part of it. And life, as they say, humbles you. Right.
If you’re trying to force things and trying to do things and it’s not working, you can continue to force it until you have an emotional breakdown, until something happens to make you really face yourself and realise that, yeah, what I’m doing is not working. I’m not being humble here. You know, I’m not being honest with myself right now. I’m forcing things. I’m going against reality, like you said, rather than seeing this as feedback and saying, actually, you know, maybe that’s not the way, maybe this is not the truth.
Yeah, and humility, for me, that’s it. It’s about accepting reality as it is, not trying to make it something else and to feel all your emotions as and when they come up because that’s how you experience life.
Oli Anderson: Yeah. Do you think there’s an element in going from this kind of ego driven state where we, you know, we tried to be a hero or we’ve lapsed into victimhood. We go from that state to humility. And on that journey, we end up facing our shadow self, basically. Like, because acceptance is the final lesson.
Like, ultimately, you can’t become humble without accepting your shadow. And I think that’s why it’s so healing to find humility. Because the main reason people feel unhealed, let’s say, is because of the inner fragmentation. And inner fragmentation just means they’ve disowned loads of parts of themselves or they’re hiding from, like, that shadow understanding, let’s say, of what life is and how it works, who they are within it, and etcetera.
And so by going from, I guess, pride to humility, and even victimhood is pride in a way, because it’s a denial of the truth. It’s in that we’re in control of everything. Like, going through that process, it makes us more whole. And ultimately, I guess that’s what we’re talking about, right? Like, the truth is wholeness. And by aligning ourselves with it, we become more whole as well. And then we don’t need to worry about all of these wild goose chases and, like, these, yeah, crazy things.
Melany Oliver: And it helps you develop compassion as well. So what was coming up for me, when you’re saying that about shadow, you know, one of the reasons, I was depressed, obviously, was because of a lot of my childhood abuse. But I had rage. I had, like, unbelievable amounts of rage that I was suppressing because I did not want to be like my mother. You know, like, Ah. And then I, you know, throughout my, you know, doing inner work and all of that, I had the realisation that I was becoming my mother. And that killed me because that was the last thing I wanted to be, you know, was like my mother. But I realised, shit, I’m becoming. I’m becoming my mother.
Oli Anderson: Yeah.
Melany Oliver: I’m full of rage and my ways, my manipulative ways and things like that. I was just like my mother.
Oli Anderson: Wow.
Melany Oliver: So that was humbling. And I had to accept that and face that within myself and then obviously process and allow myself to feel rage and to be okay with it. not to live in it, but to release it, you know. So that was a huge shadow self of mine because that was my worst nightmare. I was doing everything not to be like her. And then I ended up like her.
Oli Anderson: This is a really common thing. Like, I’ve spoken to quite a few people that have been through that. And, it’s the Carl jung thing again. Right. What you resist persists, and actually, it goes even further. Like, we can almost say, like, what we resist and leave in the shadows, it eventually takes control of us.
Melany Oliver: Absolutely. Yeah. And in ways that you can see, it’s subtle, isn’t it?
Oli Anderson: Yeah. And, like, by you facing it and accepting it, like, it’s not going to go anywhere. This is the thing with all of these real things and these emotions that we try to hide from. They’re real. And what’s real is always really. It’s never gonna go anywhere. And so, actually, the only way to get mastery of it is to. To embrace it, to see that it is there.
So, okay, I’ve got this rage because of, like, this shame of disconnection or whatever it was that caused it. When you own it, that’s when you can decide what to do with it. If you keep hiding from it behind all of the rituals and the things that people do to try a false sense of control, if you keep hiding from it, then you end up giving it power.
This is what people don’t understand. And it’s like, people get so lost, and, Yeah, so just by embracing it and accepting it, you don’t have to get rid of it. I think that’s a common misconception. Like, if we go, if we judge our emotions, anger, is another.
Well, anger is a form of rage. But, like, anger, hatred, rage, whatever it is, as soon as we judge them, we put distance between ourselves and them, and that’s when we lose control of them and they become a problem. So that’s very powerful, what you just shared. I think there’s another issue around trust. So trusting the emotions that are there, but also just learning to trust the process of, moving towards wholeness.
One thing that I think, which I’ve, you know, I’ve pissed quite a few people off around in my lifetime is that things like the rituals people perform and the, you know, things like astrology and tarot cards and all that kind of thing, I personally don’t think you need them in any way, shape or form. Like, I know people that use that stuff and they’re always popping up and trying to convince me that I need it.
But, like, my life has gone really well and I feel like I’ve healed myself because I haven’t had to use those kind of things to find some kind of a controlled connection to the truth. Because the truth is just always there. Like, we can connect to it without the intermediary step of a, ritual of some kind or control. Event. And so I now see that when people are performing those kind of rituals and doing those kind of things, it’s because they can’t trust. Like, it’s a way of putting distance between themselves and the truth in order to get the answers that they want, in order to maintain the ego and to keep avoiding the shadow self, if that makes sense.
Melany Oliver: Yeah, it does. And not even that, it’s. They’re giving their power away because they don’t feel they have power to change.
Oli Anderson: Yeah, yeah, basically that’s the simple, you.
Melany Oliver: Know, and they, on top of that as well, they don’t know how to do the inner work. And like, in your words, you said they can’t connect to themselves and find out the truth that way. So they seek something outside of themselves. And then what you end up doing, which is what I did for, you know, ten years or more, you keep seeking for something outside of yourself and all these tools and techniques, and then just end up feeling more lost and disempowered and confused about what the truth is.
And yeah, I agree with you. I don’t believe now I don’t use any of those tools either. I was super into that as well. But I don’t need that anymore. I can find out the truth by connecting to my heart and tuning into my heart and praying and. And doing it that way, rather than giving my power away to, you know, whatever else is out there.
Oli Anderson: Yeah, yeah. I think, another element of this side of things I’ve noticed is that a lot of it is just projection as well. So a lot of the time, you know, people, people might make, they make some prediction about the future or whatever it is, and they’ll say that it’s because the tarot card said this or like the stars have said that, or there’s some kind of spirit guides or whatever thing it is that they’ve connected, to have told them a certain thing, basically.
But that in most cases, it seems like that is just projection. Like it’s their way of taking their emotional stuff and the desires that the emotions are kind of leading them towards and then repackaging it so they can kind of hear it from something that’s not them, if that makes sense. And again, it comes down to what you said. Like, it’s almost like there’s a… there is a block to hearing the truth from themselves, of course, because that’s what the ego needs to stop people from healing and to keep them in that ego state.
But the projection, it’s almost keeping the truth at arm’s length. And that’s what’s so frustrating to me with these kind of people, is that the truth is there, but it’s just been. It’s been repackaged so that it’s no longer experienced as the truth. Something like that. And I think. Sorry.
Melany Oliver: Like, yeah, I was just going to say it’s spiritual narcissism, isn’t it? In some ways, you know, they’re getting their spiritual egos stroked, and so it makes them feel good, but then nothing changes in their life. Oh, I have so many stories about people like this, which I may not get into here, but anyway, yeah,
Oli Anderson: That term, you know what? You just summed it all up right there. Like, the kind of people I’m talking about. That’s what it is. It’s spiritual narcissism. The thing that nobody. Well, this thing that people rarely say about narcissists is that they feel like shit inside. Like they’re driven by shame. They hate themselves because they’re judging themselves. And they’ve got this inner split.
And obviously, like, I’m, been a bit blasé about it. Like, you should have some compassion for them. But anyway, they. They feel bad, and so they end up doing these kind of things to compensate for the shame. And it’s basically, they’ll do anything except face the truth.
What they end up doing, they create a self-image that allows them to compensate. So they’ll create some image of themselves as being this, you know, majestic healer who has his super holier than thou, all that kind of stuff. Instead of understanding that, like, if they do work as a healer or something, it’s not them that’s actually done anything. They’ve just introduced the truth indirectly into the equation. And it’s the truth that helps people, not them, in their egos. It’s narcissism.
So, this has been very therapeutic for me. Like, allowing myself to, like, say all these things about the things that have been frustrating me. But I suppose to make this practical, how do we bring it back to what you said a few minutes ago? The thing that has helped you has basically been getting in touch with your heart. I think that’s how you described it. And, listening to that directly, because basically, there’s some connection inherently between the heart and the truth. And I’m assuming. Yeah, how do we. How do we basically avoid all the things we’ve been talking about and just keep it very, very simple, which is that all we need is the truth. We can expect it to piss us off, but that’s part of the process and we can trust it.
Melany Oliver: You just said it right there. That’s the key. You have to have a sincere desire for truth. If you don’t have that, you’re screwed. Basically, you have to have a desire for truth. That is the key. And to be humble to it, because, you know, you could think that you have a desire for truth, but when the truth is presented to you, you deny it, but then it just means that you’re not being sincere about the truth.
So there are some key elements, you know, obviously, desire for truth, humility, those are the two main ones. And in terms of healing, when you talk about, like, healing, breaking patterns for me is processing emotions or feeling emotions, that’s also key, because if you’re not willing to feel the emotion, you’re going to be an emotional denial and you’re going to continue to repeat those same patterns. and really, if you have these three things, and I’m sure that there’s more, but let’s just, you know, for the sake of this conversation, like, if, let’s say these are the three key things, really see from your heart that way, because people can present something through marketing and they can talk a good talk.
You know, there’s so many fake spiritual gurus out there, but when you really feel from your heart and see from your heart, you can feel that they’re empty, that, they’re just regurgitating what they read in a self help book or whatever, they haven’t really walked. They’re not walking their talk, you know, that you can feel that they haven’t done the work. And this comes, obviously, like, what I’m sharing now.
Like, the more that you do your inner work, the easier it is to see, right. But if you’re just starting, just having that desire for truth and being humble and really feeling, and being open to feeling emotions, you’ll start to see without having healed, you know, or done years of therapy, if that makes sense.
Oli Anderson: Yeah, it’s amazing. I think, there’s a really important thing as well, just around what you just said. When I think a lot of people get lost because they think that their heart, getting in their heart means feeling your feelings and staying in your feelings. But actually, I think the truth is the thing that allows us to purify our feelings by feeling through them until they dissolve. And I think there’s something there about how ultimately.
Melany Oliver: Yeah. Can I just say something before I forget, because I just came up earlier. And you, cannot process an emotion if you’re not in truth.
Oli Anderson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Melany Oliver: And people that live in their… In certain emotions, for example, you know, take me as an example. When I was talking about my depression, I wasn’t in truths.
Oli Anderson: Yeah.
Melany Oliver: So if you can understand that if you’re stuck in an emotion, you’re not in truth, you’re in denial about something there. Yeah.
Oli Anderson: Yeah, yeah, exactly that. And I think that’s kind of what I was alluding to. So a lot of the time, people, a lot of these people, they talk about their emotions and their heart and all that kind of stuff, but they get stuck in the emotion because of the way that they’re identifying with it.
But the truth is constantly moving towards acceptance, it’s constantly moving towards wholeness, or it’s constantly calling us towards those things. And, that means that the emotions will pass eventually. It’s that whole thing, right?
Emotions are energy in motion. If they’re not moving, then something needs to change. And I think that’s one of these things, like we were saying about low retraction, where you can get feedback from the results you’re getting about whether or not you’re actually in the truth or whether you’re kind of fooling yourself. So this has been awesome. This has been therapeutic for me.
Melany Oliver: I’ve loved it.
Oli Anderson: I appreciate you so much. Have you got any final words? Like, I know you kind of just did some up, but if you want to sum up. And also, can you let people know where they can find you as well?
Melany Oliver: Sure. Yeah. And ultimately, this is the path, like you said, like we both talked about throughout, is to live in truth. And the only way to do that is by doing, you know, this type of inner work, to accept the truth, to feel your emotions. And, Yeah, because this is. This is the path so that we can be our true selves in the world, you know, and live true to ourselves and follow our hearts and our passions and desires. I think that’s what we’re here for. so, yeah, if more people could have the courage to do that, we would have a happier world, I think.
Oli Anderson: Yeah, 100%. And it’s so simple. Like, it’s simple. We make it more good than it needs to. That’s all kind of worlds. Can you let people know where they can find you if those dogs don’t eat you?
Melany Oliver: Yeah, I honestly don’t know what it is. We must have made some spirits angry.
Oli Anderson: We’ll see that as well. What’s happened. But anyway, yes. What’s your website?
Melany Oliver: So it’s just my name. Melany with a y dash oliver.com (melany-oliver.com). And it’s my, Instagram. It’s Melany Oliver. The same with my Facebook, my TikTok, LinkedIn, if you prefer that as well.
Oli Anderson: So, yeah, awesome. Well, I’ll share all that stuff in the show notes. Melany, thank you so much for this one.
Melany Oliver: Thank you. I’ve really enjoyed this.
Oli Anderson: Thank you.
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