When Melissa snipped off her long hair, it wasn't just a haircut; it was a declaration of independence from the weight of external expectations. Her story, rich with the highs and lows that map the terrain of the human experience, reveals how she emerged from a chrysalis of generational trauma and a harrowing night of the soul to find her luminous core. Through a candid conversation, Melissa, whose professional dance has twirled through the realms of wildlife biology and real estate, shares the profound lessons of embracing one's full authenticity and the power of connection to rewrite the stars of one's destiny.
Venture with us on a journey where the art of sales gets a new coat of empathy, transforming it from a transaction to a heartfelt exchange that nurtures growth. This exploration travels beyond the conventional, inviting listeners into the creation of global holistic healing centers, where plant medicine meets the sacredness of stillness and intuition. As Melissa's narrative unfolds, we uncover the importance of cultivating safe spaces for spiritual practice and the resilience forged in the fires of adversity, all while reimagining the sales landscape as a garden of choice, empowering others to blossom on their healing paths.
Friends, our time together is coming to a close. Before we part ways, I sincerely thank you for joining me on this thought-provoking journey. I aim to provide perspectives and insights that spark self-reflection and positive change.
If any concepts we explored resonated with you, I kindly request that you share this episode with someone who may benefit from its message. And please, reach out anytime - I’m always eager to hear your biggest aspirations, pressing struggles, and lessons learned.
My door is open at my Denver office and digitally via my website. If you want to go deeper and transform confusion into clarity on your quest for purpose, visit http://www.ramsbybaz.com and schedule a coaching session.
This is Baz Porter signing off with immense gratitude. Stay bold, stay faithful, and know that you always have an empathetic ear and wise mind in your corner. Until next time!
When Melissa snipped off her long hair, it wasn't just a haircut; it was a declaration of independence from the weight of external expectations. Her story, rich with the highs and lows that map the terrain of the human experience, reveals how she emerged from a chrysalis of generational trauma and a harrowing night of the soul to find her luminous core. Through a candid conversation, Melissa, whose professional dance has twirled through the realms of wildlife biology and real estate, shares the profound lessons of embracing one's full authenticity and the power of connection to rewrite the stars of one's destiny.
Venture with us on a journey where the art of sales gets a new coat of empathy, transforming it from a transaction to a heartfelt exchange that nurtures growth. This exploration travels beyond the conventional, inviting listeners into the creation of global holistic healing centers, where plant medicine meets the sacredness of stillness and intuition. As Melissa's narrative unfolds, we uncover the importance of cultivating safe spaces for spiritual practice and the resilience forged in the fires of adversity, all while reimagining the sales landscape as a garden of choice, empowering others to blossom on their healing paths.
Friends, our time together is coming to a close. Before we part ways, I sincerely thank you for joining me on this thought-provoking journey. I aim to provide perspectives and insights that spark self-reflection and positive change.
If any concepts we explored resonated with you, I kindly request that you share this episode with someone who may benefit from its message. And please, reach out anytime - I’m always eager to hear your biggest aspirations, pressing struggles, and lessons learned.
My door is open at my Denver office and digitally via my website. If you want to go deeper and transform confusion into clarity on your quest for purpose, visit http://www.ramsbybaz.com and schedule a coaching session.
This is Baz Porter signing off with immense gratitude. Stay bold, stay faithful, and know that you always have an empathetic ear and wise mind in your corner. Until next time!
Baz Porter:
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another session of Rise from the Ashes podcast. I'm so excited to have this show today with Melissa. She is an extraordinary human being and if you don't know that, please get to know her. Share this message because we're about to have a very enlightening conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, people of the world, let me introduce you to Melissa. Melissa, the floor is yours.
Melissa Cauley:
Hello, hello. Thank you, baz. Thank you for having me on. Ladies, gentlemen, children of the world. I love that. I am Melissa and the introduction part OK. So I have been in sales for the greater part of 30 years in one form or another. I am a wildlife biologist by education. I have done everything from permitting oil and gas wells to doing clearances on oil and gas wells to selling retail, owning a few different businesses, been in real estate, been in catering, been in multifaceted, different lanes of business for a very long time. And at this point you might ask who do I identify as? And my motto is that the more I identify as nothing or no one, then the better off that I am. So that's a little bit about who I am, baz.
Baz Porter:
I love that, and my next question for you is what do you love about what you?
Melissa Cauley:
do. I absolutely love getting to meet people from all different walks and paths of life experiences. Just enjoying the different experiences that people have had and really getting to know them at a soul level and understanding and loving them for exactly who they are being in service of people is what lights up my heart. I just really love the humanity part of being in sales and getting to know individuals and getting to help individuals as well.
Baz Porter:
This is why I like speaking with people like yourself, because you're not just speaking, you can feel the passion from you, and that's a whole different resignation when you're just in a business, but when you're creating a life for yourself and also creating it for other people by teaching and paying your fault.
Melissa Cauley:
Yeah, absolutely.
Baz Porter:
A lot of our listeners love stories of adversity but, more to the point, overcoming adversity. Is there a time in your life, business or career that you've overcome adversity but not just any adversity, a significant one but then turned it into an opportunity?
Melissa Cauley:
Great question. Yeah, if we were to quantify the adversity that we get to go through or what we bring into this life as individuals and human beings, I would say that the major adversity in this life for me, and the biggest win in who I am, has been in overcoming and healing the trauma the generational trauma and the trauma that I sometimes self inflicted in this life and was inflicted upon me.
Melissa Cauley:
I had to go through the biggest challenge in 2000. I'm going to say that I went through my first little tidbit of what I would call an awakening experience and I thought at that point yes, this is it. It's where I learned to know Christ. It's where I learned a bunch of different energetic things. I'm going to say along those lines and we won't go into I was raised Catholic. I was an LDS convert at that point, which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I had the opportunity to see inside of those couple of different religions, as well as experience where the energetics started for me.
Melissa Cauley:
So 2017, and then the biggest adversity that I believe that I've overcome in this life happened in 2022, where I'm going to say that I went through a dark night of the soul in November of 22, which absolutely completely changed my life. There was a big experience that I had, and a lot of that is inside of what I call Pandora's Box that I won't go into, but what I will say is that was the absolute. What I thought was the end was the absolute beginning in remembering who I am and, yeah, that was the biggest thing. The other biggest thing right there that happened as well, is the absolute knowing that I didn't have to worry about what anybody thought of me, because, as long as I was following my path and my mission in this life, the rest just dropped away, it was let go of. And there's many that helped me this year, in 2023, to get to this point.
Melissa Cauley:
And yeah, but that was the biggest thing is absolutely, and as I step into it now, not worrying about what anybody had to say about who they thought I should be, and getting to be myself, getting to know myself at that cellular level and going this is who I am and when lose draw. They may not like it, they may like it. It's all of it's okay. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, so we're good.
Baz Porter:
I love what you said then about thanking yourself for the awakening, because a lot of people they go through an experience of some form of awakening with it, spiritual awakening with it, so life awakening would be anything like. But they stay there and they stay in that dark night at a soul for so long, needlessly half the time, because they're unwilling to accept, as you said, who they are not who they think they are, but who they truly are. And I love that you have come to this realization and this epiphany of no one cares, it doesn't matter what anybody else think, because the only person that really knows who you are is you, and that's a powerful place to be. What was the turning point for you in that? I don't want you to go into the dark night of the soul, for obvious reasons, but what was the turning point for you in that? What was the revelation?
Melissa Cauley:
The revelation for me is I had this long blonde hair and I've always been like, oh, you're beautiful, you're beautiful, you're beautiful. And with that, at that point, that I wasn't as spiritually developed as I should have been was attracting the wrong people, and I was always this. I haven't done everything perfect, but I was always this very gentle, kind person who loved to love people and always see who I thought they could be. So the turning point for me was definitely I basically, with scissors, cut all of my hair off and it was this it's time to know you. This is the pattern that you are going to break. This will never happen again in my life, because throughout life, right, we go through these things where the money's there and then you're completely broken, you hit rock bottom and there's nothing there.
Melissa Cauley:
But that turning point for me was this is the time that you're really going to do that self inflection and go inside and know that you are loved and forgive yourself and just really this divine love that enters when we start to do that deep work. That isn't comparable to anything else that we could ever have in this life, in my opinion, and so that was the turning point, that it was like go through this little dark night of the soul. This is what you're being asked to do Now. You're going to have to love yourself in that mirror, looking every day without your hair and without the image that people thought you were, and going to have to feel that backlash of oh she's gone crazy again, this is what she's done, blah, blah, blah.
Melissa Cauley:
But that was the turning point for me is really going inside, breaking those patterns and understanding boundaries on an organic level that begin to come in. So everything begins to come in once we start doing and I don't even know that you call itself, because there's a lot of whatever involved there but it's that divine, absolute divine love of the healthy, divine masculine and divine feminine that resides within each of us. And I was able to step out of this boss masculine energy that, as a female, I had been in for so long in that survival mode. So that was the turning point. It was like the universe went bloop, rolled me out and there I was.
Baz Porter:
For those people who are listening on audio, melissa and I spoke a few weeks ago and since then I changed something about me for a very similar reason. I got bored of these stereotypes and a very good friend of mine said shave off your hair, baz. And I was like you're nuts. Three days later, I shaved off my hair. Because of what he said and what you're speaking about now, I was fed up of being defined by an outside version of perception of who I people thought I was. So I know exactly what you're speaking about and this is not the first time I've done this, but it's the latest time.
Baz Porter:
I've done this, so I love what you just said about don't let anybody else define who you are, and thank you for sharing that. Out of the chaos that was in 2020, was there any habits that you started to form that set your routines up all day up or made you in a very powerful persona, the version you show up in today?
Melissa Cauley:
That's a great question as well. Yeah, the chaos in 2020, see, I reside in a state, literally in the United States, where it could be considered a Republican regime and it's very culturally religious as well, and so, in our neck of the woods, I will say that, as much as the world was in this upheaval, business didn't stop here for us, and we were very fortunate in the fact that I was able to stand in my power and say, no, I'm not doing this, I'm not doing this and I'm not doing this because those are not my beliefs and you can say scientifically, this is where I should go with it, but it was literally standing in that power and not having that outside influence of going. This is the way we're going to do things, because it's for me, it is not okay. Where I saw it headed was not okay. What they were making people do was not okay, and if I was a voice, or to be a voice for the people, it would be along those lines, and that really that was.
Melissa Cauley:
I was with a different organization at that point, and that's really when I began to step into what I'm going to call my power, or reclaim my power in my voice, even though I wasn't there yet. That was really transformational in the fact that and I'm still hearing stories I heard a story the other day of what could be considered a Republican regime in a different country and a different part of the world which really made me inflect and analyze and go. They were actually. That was a regime. They were made to stay in their homes and they were made to. They could not leave or they would be arrested. And I think that's where the cultural dissonance begins with society in going, the way we look at these words that are happening. But that really helped me to step into my voice.
Baz Porter:
I like that when you went step into your voice because I also admitted what you were saying and what you just described is a different persona or a different person coming forward from an experience and, like many others, they stay there because it's comfortable or they're afraid or they're suppressed For whatever reason. There's no judgment with that, but what you managed to do was step out of it because you saw or felt, however you want to describe that your true, your value, your voice and all of these things are making a compounded effect for the new version, the one that's going to be always in process of having a rebirth. People think that a rebirth is going to happen in 24 hours. I'm going to wake up one day and everything's going to be good. I'm going to have this and this and that's what I define successful, but actually it's not.
Baz Porter:
Most of the time, as you experienced, it's not what we've. Success isn't what we think is something entirely different. Is there anybody in your life that defined before you were going through this period in your life that you looked up to and aspired to be like a role model? Some people I had a person the other day ask me to tell me this was the first I ever heard of it. She aspired. She was inspired by Mother Teresa.
Melissa Cauley:
I will say that, for me, I found the inspiration. I've always believed in God's source or whatever have you. I developed that belief at a very young age. My grandfather told me that was the only person or the only thing that would ever be there for me throughout this life, and he was right. This experience caused me to lose everyone I knew or thought that I knew, and so, as far as that goes, I feel like I've been led by and getting to know the energy of Christ who resides in me and God at the same time. That's who I can say. Now I will say that in March of 2023, that did change, because some of my soul family did come in and in divine timing for all of it. But as far as the everything that I went through I lost, I didn't lose, they just fell out of alignment, including my entire family. There's one I have, a brother that sees me, and it all happens the exact way that it's supposed to happen, so I wouldn't say that I had an idol.
Baz Porter:
Can I relate to some of what you just said? With my own journey, so I have an inner standing of what that means and the profound effect it has on us as we go through that. Many of our listeners aspire to leave an impact in the world, and that impact is in a form of beyond them. Now you mentioned spirituality and your belief system there. Where do you find you're being led to leave that impact for the world?
Melissa Cauley:
That's a beautiful question. So I feel that I'm being led to bring together holistic healing centers globally. In the leader that I am and am becoming, I feel that plant medicine is a big part of the healing that needs to occur outside of the traditional medicine system and I really feel like that is the direction and where we're going. Where I'm going and I am a massive connector of all of the pieces to bring together the family centers inside of communities is what it feels like.
Baz Porter:
I like why you said family centers live inside of communities, because communities are different sectors and they have different structures, each one of them. What you're describing please correct me if I'm wrong Something that is multi-layered but actually has a central focus in the evolution Healing is a better word for it Of a larger collective of people, is that correct?
Baz Porter:
Absolutely I love that, in this first-pist world, people absorb information in many different ways. Is there anything you've come across, whether it be a book, podcast, a source of information that's really inspired you to not just thrive in what you're doing now, but overcome and implement what your vision is becoming?
Melissa Cauley:
I will say that I honestly it's not that I don't read many books, but my eyes don't focus when I'm reading, so I do listen to certain things or different things, but I will say that the biggest thing for me is to sit in the stillness throughout the day, even if I'm in conversation, and listen that was something that was absolutely learned for me and to be able to receive what I need, to be receiving and understanding the intuitive side of the way that my being worked what's your favorite part of the day?
Melissa Cauley:
I really love morning. I really love morning and I am oh geez, that's just hard for me because I love it all Taking the dogs for the run or the walk every day, and even winter. I love winter and I love the landscape and I love taking photos and, yeah, that's definitely probably morning as well.
Baz Porter:
I love the fact that I fall if the break gives any attention. I like that. Can I watch me? Obviously you've had some perceived failures in your journey. Is there one that really stands out for you? But it gave you such a humbling lesson that it resonates not in a negative way but in a positive way. It really lights your soul up.
Melissa Cauley:
Yeah, absolutely so. In 2022, when I sought how to heal, I began to do and be part of a bunch of different modalities Obviously, reiki, obviously a lot of those things that I was beginning to trust, and the biggest lesson that I will say that really hurled me into who I am now is knowing when we embark on what I will call different medicine journeys. I was led in three different plant medicine journeys in spaces that weren't safe and with people who thought they could predict my future, and so that for me, especially in that learning curve or that learning process, was like it's not the failure, but that's what got me to here, to understand that is not okay and that's what I see going on a lot in what is I'm gonna spiritual revolution or whatever you want to call it. But yes, that's what I would say would be the biggest per perceived while you're was trusting people that I shouldn't trust.
Baz Porter:
Fortunately you are correct, Melissa. That goes on far more than it should in a lot of safe areas and personally I it needs to stop because it's gonna affect somebody. One day it's gonna really hurt people. I know it has. I've come across people in my on my path where it really has left an imprint within them. That has been. They've been seriously traumatized Because what you said you've, they've been in front of the wrong people and they've been told incorrect information and led down a path is not right for them. So thank you for bringing that to the awareness. This is what this podcast is about. It's about your journey. It's about giving the tips that possibly could stop and prevent somebody going down a silver path, Because no one wants to see someone go through that path if we can prevent it.
Melissa Cauley:
Is there anything that?
Baz Porter:
you learnt in the sales aspect of what you do that you apply now to aid others in their ascent.
Melissa Cauley:
Absolutely so. I recently in the sales process, I recently came on board with a company called the Journeyman Collective and what I have learned in that process is I get to be their first touch and so just absolutely holding that powerful space for the inflection on who the individual is that I get to meet with. It is absolutely being in that energetic balance and knowing the questions to ask and having the empathy and helping them, guiding them to what would be good for them or what may not be good for them, but ultimately leaving the choice up to them. And it's even involved into this, like sales. To me is. It's not a dirty word, but it sounds dirty Because when you think of it in the context of the way that we used to look at things, it truly is now this offering. It's this offering where they get to choose what they get to do. But that's been huge for me in that transition in the last few years.
Baz Porter:
I love that. I've never actually been on a sales school in my life. I always call it a relationship call and I service call because all it is essentially, especially in my profession. I'm building a relationship. My aim isn't to sell something is to improve and elevate their life and all business or both and get them where they want to be, where they, I want them to be, it's where they want them to be. So it's not ever a sales call and I love what you just said there. It's understanding, showing empathy and holding a space for them. Yes, that's a really defined look on it. I love it. Where do you see yourself? Where would you like to see yourself in three years time?
Melissa Cauley:
Three years time. Where I'm headed is helping, like I said, to bring together those necessary pieces inside of different communities for individuals to and families Individual starts with the individual, obviously, and families to be able to organically seek what they need in order to awaken or heal in this life. And I'm working with another lady currently who wants to build conscious learning centers for children starting from the ages of zero to six, for the littles, and really that is the. Whether we call the children that are now entering the earth star seeds or whatever we choose to say, they're very gifted and they communicate in a different way. So just being able to see that need and bringing that need into the integration of the communities is I really see that happening on a global level. That's where I am headed for this mission, that I'm here to serve on this earth.
Baz Porter:
I'm listening to what you're saying, but I'm also listening to the vibration you're saying in app and it is very concise, it's very elevated and that's a rare quality to have.
Baz Porter:
When we tune in to us, beyond the noise, we hear distinctions. We hear things beyond the words and they can't be explained and they're rare because we are so conditioned to tune into the noise and, as you said earlier, other people's opinions about us. We forget that we have the capabilities within us to elevate to that level and I love your story of how you overcame adversity and you didn't just turn it into something that is empowering you today, but you're turning it into a mission, and that mission isn't self-serving. Then I can hear the levels of authenticity within you and I know you've got a little lump in your throat right now and you're supposed to, because it's meant to stir something not within you, not just within you, but everybody else listening to this. Is there anything that you would like to share with the audience before we part ways? Just for today? We'll be back, don't worry that. You can get inspiration. Give a parting advice impartially to somebody.
Melissa Cauley:
Yeah, don't quit. Wherever you are, there is always light that seeks you. There is always that light within you and, as alone or as Desolate at some of those times may seem, just always seek the answers that are inside of you. Everything is inside of you and everything that is happening, that you think is happening to you, is happening for you. It all happens for us and it happens to Elevate our soul and who we are supposed to be, and, remembering who we're supposed to be on this earth today's. Every Thing that we go through or we get to go through as human beings we are meant to go through, whether it be the trauma, whether it be the abuse, whether it be whatever it is.
Melissa Cauley:
We would not be equipped as we are today if we didn't go through every single thing that our past helped us with, and so I really the more that we give gratitude to how far we have come as the individual and really turn inward and just love who we are, because we have overcome those circumstances and we have chosen To do what it is that we are to do. Just don't quit, because every single bit, every single moment, you are that much closer to it being revealed. It being revealed, and it's not a destination. It literally is revealed piece by piece from the work that we do and the love that we give to ourselves. As much as that sounds self-serving, it is not self-serving. Put your own mask, oxygen mask, on first, and and everything you prevail. I have faith in knowing that work is not for the faint of heart and to know that they are seen and they are loved and they make the difference in this world. So that's, we're all in that. What's whatever I just said?
Baz Porter:
Thank you. That was Truly amazing. Thank you for your time. If you want to get hold of you working, they best find you. Obviously, don't give me a personal number. You get a lot of weird phone calls and text messages, but where can they find you?
Melissa Cauley:
I am on Facebook and I am on Instagram as Melissa Kali Ca. You le why. And I also have an email me. L is s a at Hulladium P a L L ad I. You m services. All one word dot awesome.
Baz Porter:
Thank you very much for those wanting to get hold of us up. They links will be in the comments below in the description. Please search her out and inquire about her wisdom, because I can vouch for her authenticity and Her heart centered place of where she comes from. Melissa, thank you very much for joining me today. It is truly an honor to have you here with me.
Melissa Cauley:
Yes, thank you. Thank you for helping me on.
Baz Porter:
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, children of the world, thank you very much for joining me again. Please share this message. Inspire someone's day and you may change their life. For myself, phoenix talks this was a rises from the ashes. Have a blessed day and be safe.