An Invitation To Joy With Melissa Lyons

Melissa Lyons is not a grief expert. But her mysterious message-turned-children's-book I Will Always Love You is helping grievers all over the world feel peace, comfort, and even joy after a loved one dies. We're talking about how each of us is served the crappy buffet of grief, what to do when we're charged with a mission from the Universe, and how the emotion of joy gets marginalized in grief.

Transcript

Melissa, I am so excited to have you on coming back today to share your story and your book, Both with us. If you could please share with us your lost story. Well it's interesting because when I wrote the book, I wasn't aware of a lost story that I was facing. So it was more than 16 months until I understood what the words meant to me. But once the story came into my hands and into my life, I knew that it had a place in the world. It was so powerful and that became my journey. It totally changed my life around it. I became an author and my career changed and I've been working with it ever since. It sounds like your book is something that came to you kind of like a vision. Can you describe that moment? Yeah, It wasn't even like a vision per se. I sold the business after having it for 11 years and I took off three months and thought that I would figure out what it was that was missing. I lived my life with a bit of a black hole inside me. On the outside, Everything seemed quite perfect and I really have nothing to, Nothing was missing except for I felt empty professionally. And those three months quickly turned into 30 months of this journey of trying to dig inside of me to find out just what wasn't right. And it culminated, I saved 30 months because I was sitting on a beach one day journaling just randomly, Writing words like beach, Tree, Boat, Sun, Tea, You know, Water, Any words that would come and I just sort of lost track of the words. And then when I look back a couple hours later, I saw this story. It was literally on a page in my book, Word for word, Without errors, Rhyming perfectly, Staring back at me. And it blew me away. In that moment, I've had moments kind of like this in my own life, Were you like totally freaked or excited or what did you make of all these words on a page? Well, I was interested in it and I thought, What is this about? And you know, I reread them a couple times and thought, Okay, This is really something. I don't know where it came from. I don't know why it came. And I didn't really know what it meant. And the reason why I was sitting journaling, I was waiting for my husband who was in the water and he came out and he said to me, What happened? You look like something happened. And I said to him, I think I just wrote a book. And he sort of went, Oh, Here we go again. Because he knew I was on this journey. He's like, What now? And I said, Can I read it to you? It's not long. And it was just like this. We're just talking. And I went to talk and words wouldn't come out. And when the words did come out, I was sobbing uncontrollably. I was sweating profusely. I had this physical response to the words and I really wasn't able to read them without having a response like that for many, Many months. And even now sometimes when I read them, Sometimes I get through it and sometimes I don't. It just depends. But I don't understand why they overtake me in a physical sense so deeply. I have a hunch just knowing your story a little bit and being exposed to the book for the short amount of time that I have, That it sounds like you're channeling some kind of universal story or universal truth. And I'm wondering, You gave me an offer before we hit the record button today to share this book, This story with our listeners today. And I think I would really love if we could do that right now in this moment. I would love to. And it's funny that you talked about the channeling. I think that I do think that there's something like that going on because my second book is very different but it's very much the same and it's for when you lose a pet. So they both deal with this and they're not about grief, They're about hope and love. But they deal with that feeling that you have and messages you need to receive from those who are no longer with us. And I think that's true for both the human and the animal kingdom too. That comes up a lot on the show actually. Yeah, Well they're so, It's just about the connections that we have, Right? Yeah, Absolutely. We create relationships with a lot of things. So shall I start? Would you like me to read it? Yes, Yeah let's open up that space. Okay. So the book is called I Will Always Love You and in the first part of the cover it starts out by saying, See me in your dreams and in your mind's eye. Imagine me free and able to fly. And this book before I start, It's for everyone bigger small. It's for the child who lives within us all. These words were sent to comfort you. Take time to read them. You'll know what to do. And we'll begin. If you're reading this now and I'm far away, Please pay attention. I've got something to say. It was my time to go and I can't explain why. But there was a reason. It was my turn to fly. Now I can see you from my new place of rest and you must understand you are still truly blessed. Realize that by letting me go you'll give us both freedom more than you know. Believe in angels and spirits or not but consider this. I hear all of your thoughts. Your life lies ahead and it's all very great. I'm privileged now to see all of your fate. I have one last wish and it's part of a theme. It's you choosing to choose to follow your dream. My gifts to you include memories and love and now you'll have more with my guidance above. I'll send you hints so you know I'm around. Pay closer attention to each sight and each sound. You might see a butterfly or other clues that I leave. It could be a rainbow. You just have to believe. Focus on love and trust in good things. Listen to your intuition and see what life brings. Open your mind and change as you need. Embrace new directions. See where they lead. Welcome your challenges as they appear. Accept them as lessons. There's nothing to fear. They come with messages and purposes too. It's all part of your learning. They're gifts for you. See them with gratitude and understand their role. Then get back to focusing the thoughts you control. Trust your heart as you follow your dreams. It has been directed by the highest of teams. You hold the power and the answers inside. Turn into your heart. Let it be your guide. You create your world with each thought that you think. Your beliefs build your future as fast as you blink. The mind is a garden that grows flowers and weeds. One who chooses good thoughts always succeeds. Trust me I know advice is easy to give but divine wisdom shows this is how you should live. Be the one who shares the light that was mine. Honor me now by letting yours shine. Trust that I'm free and home at last. Cherish each moment life goes by so fast and remember I will always love you. I'm just pausing to have a moment. I wanted to ask you to close your eyes when I read it but I'm sure you did so. I did and I hope that I mean granted if our listeners were not driving I hope they did. True. That's just there's so many things coming to me right now. The first one is I haven't absorbed a story and rhyme since I was a very very little kid like back in the Goodnight Moon days and I think there's something so powerful about reverting back to that space of of having this universal wisdom delivered but then having it delivered in rhyme and in small words and in like just these universal truths are not for like lofty people who sit around and philosophize all day they are for all of us and there's something so profound I think about literature that's meant for all ages and I'm just acknowledging that in this moment I'm like holy crap like you could have read this to me when I was five but you can read this to me now at 26 and get you know almost exactly the same effect or an even greater one because I am transported back to this space of being read to and thank you for reading to us that's a whole other luxury that we don't often get as adults as being read to that goes away when you become an adult and and I think that's just so there's something really powerful and like ancient old storytelling but not dusty do you know what I mean when I'm saying I'm saying all of these things all at once but something definitely comes through in a story that's for everyone with this higher level of wisdom yeah I agree with you and you know in the beginning of this journey from for me I had a hard time accepting the credit for it and even to this day like I accept the credit for for seeing these words and changing my life and making sure that I got them out to the world but in terms of the wisdom and the power that they bring I came through me not from me and I'm aware of that and I'm so grateful for it but I think that they're powerful because they came from somewhere that and they and they're meant to be heard I wonder in your transition between your former job and publishing books like I will always love you in this way and you're one about pet loss as well did anything have to change or move inside you to make space for this fact like I might be a channel for these messages instead of always being the one who's in control of where your life is going now a lot had to change I think um well even even that the months preceding the the creation or the book coming to me that was that was a whole lot of work from the inside out you know finding time to to meditate to journal to to to to see love and beauty and everything you know it was a long process for me as a person I feel like like I said I felt like a little bit the dark hole and now I now I live with this this light that just comes from I don't know where and well I do but I didn't and it's just like the most amazing transition can we talk about the dark hole what is that viewer what does that represent yeah you know I'm I'm still working on that it was it I think yeah you know what we can talk about it but I don't know that I can actually I haven't defined it yet all I know that is that it um the light has as has shone in a way that maybe it was there so that I could appreciate this part of my life like maybe maybe if we all have an average of a certain number of happiness or sadness in our life and sometimes some of us get it all mixed up and some of us get all at once and in the end we get it balances out to a net number I'm not sure I think that if if we're doing this in our life and we're not connected to a purpose that's making us feel like we're doing what we're meant to do like we don't feel completely alive or we have that nine feeling it means that we're not connected to what we're supposed to do so we have to find the courage or the strength to change to find out what it is to explore it and so I think for me that dark hole might have represented the fact that I was wasn't going down the right path and then I wasn't going down the right path and I didn't go down a path that was not right but professionally I think that I did have this to offer and this was supposed to come through me and it took a long time to come and maybe that was the dark hole as a as a as a notice saying we're trying to get you we're trying to get you you're not listening I maybe that's what it is I know in this podcast we talk a lot about intuition and its role in grief oftentimes you know a couple of days before a loved one dies someone will have a vision of a yellow butterfly which is a symbol of transition or people will feel their loved ones around them even though they have died already and in reading your story even just on your website it sounds like this book is a big piece of intuition and I think it takes such courage especially as grieving people who a lot of the world already thinks we're crazy to come into the world and be like okay this is another thing that I'm feeling and you can't see it you can't touch it you can't like wrap your brain around it really but you know it's true for you I'm curious to know what was the driving force that that took this book from okay it happened on a beach and it went onto paper and oh my gosh it rhymed how cool is that but taking that and transforming it into a physical object that is now available worldwide is a whole other level of I'll use the word manifestation because it's literally producing things and putting them into reality but it's literally a physical creation process and almost like a dedication like a pact that you're coming into with intuition when you agreed to be like okay yes I suppose there is a universal message here I guess how did you take those steps from being the sole holder of this message to I need to make this a book that's available everywhere yeah it was like I think what you what you're saying is you've almost summed it up I saw those words it's almost like someone dropped a baby or a puppy off at your door and you didn't really want either of them but but you but you're the but you got them and so you've got to make sure that they get where they need to go and that's how these words work just to see them rhyming the way they rhymed and and to not be able to speak them out loud the force was so strong and so powerful um that I that I just knew that I had to change everything in my life to like it was like it was like oh that's what I'm here for and even though it took me a long time to get that wrapped around and it was like why me that you go through that process like how did I get picked for this I'm not special enough I haven't experienced this why me and then it's like the realization because I'm not afraid I'm not afraid to put myself out there was afraid as a vulnerability but people not liking the words but I wasn't afraid afraid of the business aspect of it and I'm really entrepreneurial and I love change and I love a challenge it's like oh that's why it's me and I know that's more than just that but I think that's why I got I got this role you know this universal job so to speak yeah I'm nodding my head in agreement I know you can't see it on this side of the on the side of the world well I'm thinking you've got the same you got the same job offer you can be a lot younger and you listened listen sir you sort of got a job offer too that you picked up pretty quickly isn't that funny I think um yeah it's funny how intuition works sometimes it's like I have a job for you and you're like who me there's this there's a questioning of like am I qualified enough but there's also a questioning of am I brave enough to let this exist in the world and be attached to my name and not really have any like there's not really a good reason or like a good foundation for it necessarily other than I feel like I should I have been charged with this mission and now I must fulfill it and it's um I think this is what people mean when they say I have a calling I have a vocation I have something that I get chills right now which my podcast listeners know is is a sign that some kind of up leveling or like a universal truth is happening but I think we get calls we get knocks on our hearts that ask us to be things without explanation without reason without the without the head involved we get these heart callings or these heart pullings to do things and whether it's picking up a creative pursuit after you've lost a loved one or starting a business or sending a message to somebody that hasn't heard from you in 12 years or or just anything of that nature we get these little knocks and whether or not we decide to greet them is a choice that's up to us but once we have been charged with these quote unquote missions it's it's really hard to say no it's really hard to turn that down and be like no that's not speaking to me it's hard to talk yourself out of it so I'm totally agreeing with you and that because that is what laid the foundation for this podcast itself I'm getting a quick like a like almost a snapping motion over here because I want to pivot in a totally different direction but I want to ask you do you think your book and or the work that you do these messages that you've received are preparing you will prepare you give you some kind of bolstering or strength for future losses that you're going to face in your world absolutely and you know I've had the conversation with myself many times you know is this a precursor to a significant loss I'm gonna face and is it preparing me for and that was a really hard thing to grapple and to get through I've got two two young adult daughters and I thought oh my goodness like is it like you know I went through all of that but now that I've been through everything I've been through and and know where these words have come from I have this I know that someone who's moved on gave these words to me through me to or to share with people so they would be comforted so I have to believe them and I do believe them I believe that this wisdom comes from people who say like shine I'm not gonna shine my light anymore so please don't be sad like like you know I the thoughts that come to me is like who said we're supposed to be sad when someone leaves because maybe we're supposed to live for them and actually we owe it to them to be happy because because we want to want them to know that we we honor them enough to live a happy life and so I think it's um it's asking people to change their perspective to shift how they're viewing it so I'm doing that myself in everything I do what has been some of the feedback that you've received on I will always love people who are craving humans craving pets I mean anything across the spectrum well that has been the most rewarding part of my life other than the miracle of having my two children and giving birth this book and the things that people have shared with me about how it's impacted their lives have been the most um rewarding and comforting things young girl one young girl who lost her mom to cancer was given the book and when everyone left a funeral home one night she she went up to the casket and she sat and read her mom the story um the thought about having being part of that moment warms my heart fills me with joy when when it's a sad time um other things like just yeah just the heartwarming stories about how it's changed people's perspective and how that they say to me straight out like I was so sad because I thought I was supposed to be sad and now I realize that I'm supposed to be living for them and then I think wow we're getting somewhere here you do need to be sad and you do need to move let it move through you but you you can also let that go it's like you know what it is it's like it's permission permission to live with joy once you once you've gone through what you need to go through yeah I'm cheering and raising my hands and all kinds of stuff over here because so much of the work that I do is surrounding permission to let grief be the experience that it is whether it is an experience of sadness or nostalgia or for me it's always rage it comes through an extreme anger but for a lot of people it also comes through in joy and I almost think like this is going to be kind of hilarious to say coming out of my mouth but like joy gets marginalized in grief and does not get acknowledged as a true expression of honoring someone you've lost and I think I want to ask you to say more on that because I think it's such a powerful message to I'm not going to quote it directly from your book because I can't quite recall how it was phrased but I think of that biblical passage like this do in honor of me and continuing to live your life in a way that honors the people who have gone before you is powerful but also to experience joy parallel to that is also really powerful because there's there's losing someone and feeling sadness but there's also losing someone and feeling joy and I think both of those you hold one in one hand and you hold one in the other hand and you never fully I don't think you ever fully release either one you always live with the joy and some kind of sadness but to to once in a while let joy win to let uh joy be the dominant emotion to let joy be the honoring emotion of a memory or a person or an event is just it's there's so much power there there's so much energy there of let me let this be the expression of how much I love you still actually that's so well said because I think there's an imitation here and I'm gonna I'm gonna use this example and I'll use it carefully but you know sometimes we're Canadian because we're born in Canada or we're Americans we're born Americans and we're the religion mostly we're the religion that our parents were and we fall into defaults in this world many times by the traditions that group that shape who we are and so if we're from a culture that that's very sad or angry or or grieves for an extensive period of time we tend to keep doing it but it doesn't always mean that that's the right thing to do so the invitation here is to yeah feel all those emotions go through it um but the line that that I that I I found when I again I read this book like everyone else you know and try to understand it and um the line realize that by letting me go you'll give us both freedom more than you know like what if when we hold on to those feelings and emotions of grief and we're doing it for ourselves because that's how we're getting through our life what if we're holding them back what if they could be actually moving on and and doing whatever they're doing now more freely if we were living in joy like what if they've got one foot in and one foot out because we're not okay but if we decided that we're going to be okay and we're going to really let them go maybe they'll be better off too and if we don't know any better why not think that way because everybody will be better off in the end and I know that really simplifies it but what if it's true we don't know that it's not true maybe we're holding them back what does it look like to let someone go with joy if you had to describe that what does that look like I don't I don't know that I could describe letting someone go with joy but what I could describe is saying I wish I had you longer I wish I still had you today it's not fair that you're gone but thank goodness I had you for the time I had you I can't change anything else and the only thing that I know now is that you're not here and I am so I have two choices to let you go be whatever you're going to be now freely knowing that I'm going to live like you would want me to because of course of course we want people to live their life because live their lives because like if anything would ever happen to me god forbid and my kids are here I would only want them to do things that make them happy for the rest of their lives and I wonder how free I could be if they stayed sad forever or or held on to such a part of me and and so I so without having any concrete answers my answer to you would be if I was gone I'd want to be let free and I'd want the people I've left behind to be free too knowing that we're all watching each other on some level be happier trusting that we're all being happy because without having anything else to believe that's not true about that then believe it's true and everybody will be better for it that's so wise and it's something I really wanted to touch on because there's so much conversation especially in the gray sphere of let it go move on release release release and there's this perception that when you do that the person that you love is gone forever and you will never be able to communicate them you'll never be able to see them you will never be able to get into any sort of contact with them and I think what's tricky about the verbiage of let go is that that is permanent as in it cuts off communication it cuts off a relationship and what's so critical I think about the concept of letting go and these are not words I use frequently because they're so misconstrued in the world of grief is that letting go is about surrendering to the truth of what happened like my mom is gone she's no longer on the planet I like Leif said I am alive and she is no longer and I have a choice whether or not to live in this place of joy power choice freedom or I can live in this place of you know wallowing stagnation rumination all these things like you you very much I this is one of the major reasons that I started coming back is because I believe we have a choice in how we proceed in life after loss I think it's so important for us to remember that letting go is not a permanent goodbye it's a releasing of this this desperate clinging like aching I I cannot leave this rock because if I leave this rock it's gonna go away forever and I'm never gonna see it again and it's not gonna be on the planet anymore but the but like this rock this cornerstone of this thing that's happened in your life it's still there it always exists it's always going to exist in your life but whether or not you choose to keep hugging on to it for dear life or mourning the fact that it is no longer moving along the path with you that is where your decision to quote unquote let go I think comes in yeah and it's not let go of the memory it's it's let go of the pain to be really clear and and I'm glad you mentioned that about the verbiage because what if when you let go of the pain you're now open up to pay attention to each side in each sound all of a sudden you hint so you know I'm around like all of a sudden when you let go of that darkness and you let lightness come in maybe that thing that you think you're losing actually becomes much more of a force in your life and I wonder about your intuition um I wonder if as you started to heal your intuition heightened if if possibly your mom's part of that I mean they probably talk to us and communicate with us more when we're open then when we're close well we know that's true so holding on to pain versus holding on to memories and holding on to memories of joy or memories of of anger again I just think it opens you up to that much more communication not communication sorry connection to that person who's lost I don't think you have less of a connection I think you heighten it by by adding a little bit more of lightness to the to the moments I'm getting this image of um like loosening the rope or uh widening a lens it's like what if I looked at something that was slightly larger or what if I step back and looked at an inclusive picture of joy within the loss or happiness within the pain or all of these things because we know any of us who are grieving know that grief is this I refer to it as a divine dichotomy of absolute searing blind and joy in one hand and totally crippling uh just grief in the other hand and I think you have in some ways when you're grieving you have a decision to make about which you would like to look at the ways in which you choose to honor a person and I believe that the people who have loved us in life whether they're parents spouses siblings children pets co-workers friends anyone that we've lost wants us to be able to be in a relationship with them and that's what I think the people who are grieving want us to continue living not only through their spirit and a spirit of joy but through our own we have a we have our own intuitive mission going back to the very beginning of this conversation we have an intuitive mission to carry on their mission through living our own mission does that make I think it's the golden key like we don't like we we you don't just honor someone by letting them go you honor that person by living um and doing that doing good things because because if you're not doing good things you're just like what was the point and we when you get to that point like what was the point what's the point about this you know you go down that path and it's like so we don't have a black and white answer so choose something that that could make it better for someone else and then that will make it better for you and then and you know it becomes that that domino effect that yeah once you get through those really really really hardcore things that you had to get through now you have this opportunity this really golden opportunity to impact people's lives around you and also possibly like you know that line I said at the beginning of the book see me in your dreams and in your mind's eye imagine me free and able to fly like so what if you the weight loosens on that person so they actually can fly they're not leaving you they just want to fly it's just a it's a change in perspective and again without without the real answers we should pick something that's better why wouldn't we I think it's so difficult in grief because oftentimes um our what is offered to us on the buffet seems so crappy it's hard for us to remember that there are other choices to be made like if we if we just turned a little bit to our left or a little bit to our right we would see that there is something different to choose than despair or rumination or hostility or isolation isolation is so huge that's like an entree on the buffet is isolation in grief and I think through your book the message that I'm receiving is that if if our loved ones could leave anything behind it's it's the message that there is always more to choose and there's always more joy to choose than we can reasonably see within even the first weeks months of our losses there's almost something I believe Cheryl Sandberg writes about this and I may be wrong but she says there's almost an illusion of having blinders on when we're grieving of this is always how I will feel it will exist this way forever this is something that's only happening to me and there's these mantras that we repeat over and over to ourselves when we're grieving and if I think the perspective I'm getting from hearing about your book and even hearing your story in person today is that it's offering this pinprick of light it's like there is this message and you have a choice of whether or not you take hold of it and internalize it or not and you can hear the story 30 40 times you do not have to hold on for the first time because it's it's it's a lot to hear that message if I want to fly I want to be free I want joy for you and things like that in the midst of your grief you're like but why this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me but to to hear that over time and to know our loved ones in life and then to internalize that message of oh this is what they would have wanted for me is super powerful that can inform a crap ton of our decision making going forward that that's the hope and for me the value in stating that I'm not like one of my things that I stumbled with in the beginning you asked like how did I move forward people wanted me to talk about grief and and it was like what do you what can you come and talk to us about it and I don't know anything about grief I really don't and so it's like so what am I doing in this operating in this world that I don't have any any um any gifts to bring but then I realized oh yeah I'm not talking about grief I'm talking about changing perspectives to hope and love and joy when faced with a derailing moment in your life and so that's where I think my power comes from and that's why I actually decided to take it and really run with it once I understood it is because I realize I'm not here to talk about grief and I'm not an expert in that subject matter but I am in the others so I always ask against them coming back if they could give listeners one resource that would help them come back in their own words whether it's a message or a book or a practice what would you tell the people who are listening to this show who are grieving who you know are looking for ways to come back from grief in their world so my message would be you asked me um a few minutes ago um to describe my dark days or the dark holes and I went through a period of my time where I I really hit rock bottom and I was very ill and I had like those blinders on that you talked about um I was like completely on like non-functioning and I had someone finally at the end of two weeks say to me what do you think your children see when they look at you right now and that was so hard and so powerful to hear because I realized they were looking to me and I couldn't help myself get out of this hole that I was in and it was like like it could have been life-altering if I didn't change where I was so my message here is that when we're when we're in that and you think about you've lost someone you love but there are people who love you and maybe you have dependents if something happened to you and you're looking down on them what would you want them to do how would you want them to grieve you how would you want them to live their lives and if you would want more for them than you're giving yourself or you're allowing yourself then there's your window of opportunity to say hey this isn't right I wouldn't want someone to do what I'm doing so why am I doing it and what do I need to do to see a way out of this mess or this darkness or this dead end dead end I absolutely love that this is such a different reframing of all the times I've heard this in the past it has been you know I can't let myself feel this way because they wouldn't want me to feel this way so there's been a blocking there's been a lack of permission given but with your perspective and through this book there's almost it's like turning it on its head giving it a 180 of asking yourself if I died if I died today what is my deepest truest wish for my family for my friends for my co-workers for every stranger that's ever known me on the street what is my deepest wish for them to live in the aftermath of my loss and then to live that in honor of the people who have gone before me that's a total reframing of well my dad wouldn't want me to be sad so I'm not going to be sad and that's a total denial of emotion like this is just such a large it's a small but large reframing it's like it's the littlest shift in perspective I literally feel like I moved over one degree and now I can see this I can see this wish I can see this I can see the story like this narrative in such a different lens than I've viewed it in the past this seems to be a season for us all coming back I'm seeing religion differently uh as a result of another interview and in this one I'm seeing our loved ones wishes for us in a different lens because of this conversation with you and this is this is awesome like this is powerful work I think because in in on one hand we could put this immense amount of pressure on ourselves to be who our loved ones would want us to be after their deaths but then in another lens we could think about what would happen if I died what would how would I want everyone else to live and then live in that way and somehow that has more integrity to our spirit than the first one there's less pressure there's more of a releasing the ropes are coming off you you're letting them fly you're letting yourself fly there is a freedom in in asking yourself how would they want me to live but also how would I want them to live well if there's a there's an element of authenticity to it and you know if you took it on pen to paper and you actually wrote down literally this is what I want you to do like imagine I'm not here tomorrow this is how I want this is how I want you to feel this is how I want you to do and actually go through that for the two one or two or three people who matter most in your life give them what you want from them then yeah you're right turn it around on yourself and um it's powerful because it will come from your authentic self about what you want for them and then that's what you need for yourself I think this is just such a cool message and I can't thank you enough for coming on and reading the full story and just sharing this message today because this is not something that's like this is not common knowledge in the Greek sphere