An excerpt from my book, Sanctuary (currently being nurtured in the editing process)... stay tuned for the rest!
When you are tapped into your True Self, the guidance is crystal clear. Logic, external opinions, doubt, practicality, and subconscious resistance will try to stop you from expanding into who you’re meant to be in all of your bigness. But when you’re living according to your True Self, life becomes a series of choiceless choices that you simply must oblige to. Not because of a system telling you what is the right or wrong thing to do, but because the musts become like undeniable magnets for your human to merge with your soul, to discover your potential in this lifetime. - Melissa Dolan
“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed.” ― Terence McKenna
I had my spiritual awakening at age 25. A whole new sea of possibilities opened up. I got my Reiki energy attunements and Health Coach certification. I went to a month-long, immersive teacher training on a Caribbean Island and became a yoga teacher.
“Please explain,” my colleagues in finance would ask me on our way to the client after seeing my Instagram stories of practicing Kundalini Yoga at 6am in the hotel room. They would let me read their astrological natal charts in the conference room between client meetings.
I was living with my boyfriend of four years at this time. We met at a club. Initially I had brushed him off but then realized he had a party drug in his hands for me upon getting my attention. From there, we had a great time and the rest was history. Loads of crazy, fun together. He was also my best friend, the kind that would make homemade kombucha and pizzas with me and we would be on the floor laughing when the flour spilled everywhere throughout our kitchen. We traveled the world and bought a house of furniture. We created a home of us.
Though, our compatibility dwindled as I traded in hair-of-the-dog mimosas for post-hot yoga matcha lattes, dancing until dawn for sunrise meditation, and beach getaways for spiritual trainings. I wanted the relationship to work, I really did. My heart broke every time I realized we wanted to do different things. We wanted to spend our time differently. We couldn’t see eye to eye because our priorities shifted. The dissonance grew and the fights got heated. It was a challenge to find common ground. We considered if deepening our commitment would fix it. Maybe a ring was the solution. Maybe then I could grow the way I am growing and be with all of these life changes but know this part of my life is stable, secure. Could he be my rock as I flipped my life upside down?
One day, I asked him, “Hey babe, when I quit my job in finance, would you be willing to take more of the rent?” We had split everything 50/50.
“Absolutely not.” Rarely was he this clear. But I got it. He didn’t want to build a life with a woman who put all of the burden on him.
I took it in. His words like an arrow. His clarity made me clear. We were not the team I had always hoped we were. He never went against my recent major life shifts, but he wasn’t fully supporting or cheering them on either. I knew by leaving my corporate job, I was entering into a world of risk, especially financially, and I might need to lower my expenses initially while I began this new life venture. If I was going to take a leap into an abyss of unknown and try to fly, I needed to feel the person I’m spending my life with would spread their wings too. We could fly together. But I felt an extra weight to carry while my wings were vulnerable while they were just growing. I could do this alone. My wings felt stronger by the option.
So there I was. Unsupported by my partner. Unhappy at my finance job. Facing a world of unknowns and unwilling to stop the momentum of musts occurring strongly in my inner world while the outside was catching up.
My consulting job and the accompanying late-and-heavy client dinners kept me busy during the weekdays. I had sparse time or energy left over for inward contemplation after my real job of people-pleasing and report-writing. But I was being driven by two questions. Who am I, really? How am I meant to spend this life?
Between the deep seas of excel spreadsheets, you would find open tabs of Google searches reading “Yoga teaching jobs abroad.” My fantasy-brain went on magic carpet rides away from the fancy board rooms with stacks of papers listing billions of financial data for me to flip through and give my judgements if they were a good deal in legal compliance.
I toggled between two worlds. In one, I was turned on by increasingly bigger paychecks and bougie dinners with a top-shelf dirty martini in my hand. And in the other, I finally felt alive when I was landing my handstand, imagining teaching yoga on rooftops overlooking the sea. I finally felt like this possibility of true freedom and inner fulfillment was perhaps maybe possible, not just a fantasy that entertained me during an ADHD moment at work.
I would have mini-breakthroughs as I sat at cafes on a Saturday morning reading Joe Dispenza or listening to Eckhart Tolle on my plane rides en route to the client. My eyes got a new glow as life was filling my cells and I learned to dis-identify from my emotions and see them for what they were - separate from my true self.
I found a way to create more time and space for myself. Cue 6am runs and daily meditation. More truths and desires that were going completely against my life-as-I-knew-it were bubbling out of my heart.
“You’re the one who’s changing.” My boyfriend would say to me when I could no longer orgasm while having sex. I was sad for our disconnect. And there was nothing either of us could do about it.
I was eating choiceless choices for breakfast and drinking smoothies of soul callings. No one around me understood it.It was me and my musts against the world and I had no chance to go against it, nor did I want to.
Though, there were competing voices, You could just stay, it would be so easy. You could keep making money and become manager in the next year and you still don’t have to go into the office. You have it so good. Your life is beautiful right now, why would you change anything? I would look at those engagement rings on Pinterest. He really does love you and he would be heartbroken if you ended it. He would be destroyed if you left. Teaching yoga? There’s no money in that. You’d have to give up per diem, dinners at the best restaurants, top floor views, and you love this lifestyle!
ENOUGH! UNIVERSE, GIVE ME A SIGN! The tug-of-war between my heart and my mind, within my heart and my mind, was agonizing.
Life did give me signs. Sometimes as evident as the sunrise beaming bright orange over an East Coast horizon. Other times, it was more subtle. It was beyond what my eyes could see and what I could make sense of. They came in the way my heart fluttered in possibility. I could travel the world. I could be free. They came in the way I got a surge of energy by the thought of the unknown mystery seducing me, whispering into my ears, putting a smile on my face that I could not hide if I tried.
I walked down my sunny street on a spring day with a combination of feeling ecstatic in this present moment and a wonderment of Where the hell am I being guided? A song I had never heard came on through my headphones:
So even if I could, wouldn't go back where we started
I know you're still waiting wondering where my heart is
Pray that things won't change but the hardest part is
You're realizing maybe I, maybe I ain't the same
And what you're waiting for ain't there no more anyway.
After a lifetime of numbing and stuffing feelings labeled as ‘too much,’ finally, as a last resort, I truly softened. I surrendered my heart over to grief. I got angry and didn’t push it away but I let the fire burn until it died down into a soft crackle. I let my shame flood my existence, nearly drowning me, and got drunk in vulnerability. I let myself be witnessed in this range in front of fifty women. I had no idea what was happening but I chose to trust the process. I must let this be moved and expressed. And seemingly, an unexpected side effect of feeling it all was activating an inner intelligence. My inner navigation-system of emotions came online. I let everything crack open and a wisdom emerged.
When I was on my consulting jobs, it began to feel like somebody was putting a lampshade over my entire being. I would go dark. What happened to my newfound glow? I was nearing the trust to let it all go. The consistent paychecks, the pleasure of biting the olive of the top-shelf dirty martini, the satisfaction of tossing off my high-heels in the high-rise hotel, and the casual collection of five-hundred-dollar handbags. Was I really ready to trade this in?
When I saw someone land in peace as the yoga class I taught came to an end, or had a conversation with someone who went off and lived overseas, or when I was asked to be a facilitator at a women’s festival, I beamed.
I took my boss aside one day on the job and I said, “I’m going to quit.”
He nodded, revealing his expectancy, and said, “When are you going to do it? Because we all have bets on when it would happen and I want to win.” I laughed.
Opposite to my ex-boyfriend’s reaction when I told him my decision, I took this as a complement. He might as well have said, “That’s great, Mel. I’m so happy to see you follow your dreams. We always knew you were bigger than this conference room and I celebrate you.” That’s how I interpreted it at least, some people just don’t know how to express their joy for others. I guess my Instagram stories of crystals and mantras and being more interested in sharing breathwork than discussing cash flow best practices wasn’t so incognito after all.
I told him, “I mean, I’m giving you my two-weeks notice today.” In that moment, I officially became a fuck-around-and-find-out, while wholeheartedly choosing yourself kind of gal.
We shared a smile. Bittersweet. Four years of my life grinding and climbing up the corporate ladder coming to a close. Giving up and giving over a trajectory I had been working day in and day out, pouring myself into the deep hours of many nights to achieve the next pay increase - believing that, then, I would feel better inside. Just like that. In eight-ish words. As my breath touched my belly, my body learned what relief felt like. My energy field expanded times ten. My exhale got deeper and my heart bigger. I have no idea what the future is going to look like, but I know it’s going to be absolutely incredible. The inner fire in my belly ignited. Now, I can do what I came here to do.
There was no turning back now and the only time I ever questioned the decision was for one of those moments where sixty seconds feels like sixty minutes. I hugged my ex-boyfriend goodbye in the lobby of the home we had made together. He helped me carry my bags down the elevator as I was heading out for the airport. Almost time for this new journey to officially begin. As the floors got lower, my heart beat got faster. I saw our own milestone moments flash before my eyes. Two journeys held and supported by the relationship that I had also decided to give over, just like the job. What the hell was I doing? What have I done? Were my feet still touching the ground? I looked to the lobby, near the window, where I paid off my final student loan, to the gym where we shared late-night and early-morning workouts, to the doorman who said Hi every morning as we picked up our coffee, to the grocery store across the street where we had playful arguments over what to get for snacks. There was a final grasp before the biggest leap of my life to date. Maybe I don’t have to go. Tears welled up into my eyes. I looked into his as if asking if I could take it all back now. Would be take me back now after I burned it all down? His eyes looked into mine, I drank in his soft smile that felt like home, and without any words, he whispered, “You got this, Mellie, I love you.”
I dove into a sea of unknown with an undeniable, but fragile, faith. I took a big breath and landed back in my body, as best as I could. Ouf, there it is. I could still feel this inner fire in my belly, it was helping me keep the blinders on, looking forward. I was meeting this side of me that was equally comforting and invigorating. A me that didn’t know fear, only adventure and pleasure, that was ready to jump into the deep end. I rolled down the window and let the wind touch my face. Okay, here is my body. There are my feet. I felt them just enough to remember all is well. All I needed to know was that each next step would reveal itself. I believed in myself enough to put one foot in front of the other, in one of my twelve pairs of shoes I packed an extra suitcase to bring along with me for the ride. A notification went off on my phone, “Flight to Lisbon, Portugal boards in 2 hours and 30 minutes.”
The biggest of many choiceless choices to come had been initiated and was well underway. Despite the differing external opinions, despite the impracticality, despite the risk and unknown that I was leaping into, I knew it was what I must do. I was my own best friend, my own inner loving parent, my own lover now, and I was learning to be my own liberated True Self who believed in Herself without a shadow of a doubt for the first time.
Thank you so much for being here and for taking the time to read the limited pre-released chapters from my book, SANCTUARY - Pillars to Bring You Home to Your True Self and Become the Empowered Creator of Your Life
I have been so loving this journey of bringing my book baby Earthside. Keep an eye out for more chapters to come and let me know what you think! Truly, I will LOVE to hear it. What landed for you? What is your takeaway? Does it resonate? What would you like to hear more of?!
Share your feedback in the comments section or send me a DM and follow along the very fun journey with me in my Instagram stories.
ANDDD - if you want community support, embodiment practices, and many other tools to support YOUR JOURNEY: Come join us in SANCTUARY ONLINE - first 8 days are free!
Love you!!! Thanks for being here. xoxo, Mel
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