Author Spotlight; Melissa Reid

Melissa Reid, a modern day Mystic, holds a master's degree in counseling psychology and has been a psychotherapist, spiritual counselor, and energy healer since 1978. Melissa is an Empath and Sensitive -- one who psychically tunes into and experiences others' energy fields through her own sensory field. She transmutes others' pain with The Gift of Tears in which everything is dissolved in the face of love.

The Book;
A Journey of Love (Magical, Mystical, and Messy):


Follow one woman’s journey quest to explore Love;

As she travels through Greece, Mexico, and India you learn, as she does how Spirit affects us all, and how Love touches us all, and that Love maybe something very different than you think it is. Her Journey to wholeness and healing can inspire your own. Learn about what it means to step into your authentic self and live the life you were mean to. The pain and suffering in life do not have to overwhelm you; you need never be afraid of being unworthy, nor do you have to be ashamed. Love can liberate you from all of that. Learn if you have not, that you are Worthy, and that shame will not serve you. You can choose to step into the Loving embrace of Spirit! You can accept that there is a purpose for you in life. The Light of Spirit, of Life, and of Love can guide you. Relationships are one of the most puzzling of all the parts of the human life experience; but there is hope, to begin to understand the inner and outer life of relationships. I was reading several of the reviews online of this book; it was mentioned a few times that the author is a “Tell it like it is, Holds nothing back” sort of woman. In speaking online briefly with her this is exactly what I have experienced. She is honest, bold, warm, and personable. I shared a brief version of my own life journey with her as I obtained permission to write this blog. She had some terrific insights and phrase expressions that helped me re-frame or change my perspective of some of my experiences. I found Melissa to be relevant, kind, understanding, and full of compassion, and empathy. I highly recommend you go and get this book if you love reading about someone’s real inner life experiences. What is Love? What is its measure? What are its depths? Perhaps her Journey can put yours into a new light and perspective.




Book Excerpt;

Introduction

Love. We all hunger for it. We look for it everywhere — through romance, in objects we imbue with an association of love, in family, and friendship, and spirituality. It is what drives us forward and out into the world — looking for love in a life partner, work we love, a community in which we can feel loved, surrounded by the things we love. It inspires spiritual devotion — turning inward for what we can’t seem to find externally, and for some, looking externally for love through one deity or another. We want that feeling of love. We want to love and be loved. But many of us have a multitude of defenses around it. We have conditioning and programming that protects us from hurt, but at the same time, leaves us defended against love. Some of us think we are in love, when in reality we are in need — on a quest to fill that emptiness inside. We are often searching for love to heal wounds and compensate for any number of shortcomings we perceive within ourselves. That was my dilemma, but I didn’t know it. Searching, searching, searching — for love — for years, but to no avail, until finally, one day I began to feel it — this love that I recognized when I felt it — that I must have known about all along, but didn’t realize it — an incredible love that moved me to tears.
It began in 1988, as I sat up in bed upon awakening, calling forth anyone and everyone who could help. Sitting with the remnants of anguish-filled dreams, love issued forth to meet me and embraced the content of my dreams. A tremendous compassion arose for all that I had endured. Childhood neglect and abuse depicted in dream scenes of the past were met with love. The love invoked the tears that poured forth from me — the tears that seemed to be washing away the old. Thus, began the practice of healing my past, dissolving the old energy constructs that were constricted and contracted — holding themselves away from love. The healing evolved into meeting everything with love, including emotional reactions to current situations and past life experiences that were affecting the present. It is as though Love was bringing everything back home to Itself, and leaving, in its wake, the presence of more love.
Love was emerging from within me. I could feel it outside of me as well. It seemed like it was coming from a company of angels and from all those in spirit who walk with me. And over time, I began to sense love as the life force energy that is everywhere — that is animating everything we see and feel and touch with our physical senses. I saw love in dreams and meditations through the eyes of my guides. It was the same love that I saw as an evolved version of myself — me as love, seeing everything as love, with no separation between me and everything around me. This is what fueled my desire for enlightenment, to reside in that awareness of love all the time.
But, in my human self, I was far away from that. Having been immersed in suffering as long as I could remember, the fleeting glimpses of nirvana couldn’t sustain me. Had divine providence placed me in a cave, sheltered from life, I could have avoided that personal search, but it didn’t and I wanted something from the world around me. So, I dove in head first — in one relationship after another, looking for love. I wanted the love of romance novels and fairy tales — the happily ever after. Much of this story is about my quest for that while pursuing a spiritual path that I simultaneously embraced and fought. Despite my resistance, which waxed and waned, healing happened and I evolved spiritually and personally along the way.
This book is about that journey — looking for love in Mexico and India and Greece, healing past lives and balancing karma, listening to the guidance of angels and guides and my inner voice —looking like a fool time and time again. Dissolving my conditioned and programmed self, uncovering my authenticity, becoming more available to love — these are what brought me closer to an awareness of myself as love and the realization that it is our Greater Self that is generating our experience.
I use a lot of words to reference that Oneness that I sense we are — Presence, God, Consciousness, Source, the Vastness, Being, Essence, Life Force, the Self, Greater Self, Love and That that I Am. Ego, personality, child, self, little self and lower self are words I use to describe the familiar sense of “me”. It is what I think of as my humanness — the externally imposed identity comprised of conditioning and programming in our world of form. The physical plane and form are words I utilize to describe all that we can see, feel and touch with our physical senses here on Earth.
Sometimes you will hear me saying, “I” as I am expressing from the place of ego, identified with the world of form. Other times the use of “I” will reflect the deeper sense of Being that I know I am. Many times I will appear to be full of contradictions, and that is because I am. Often mistaking myself for the limited physical self, collapsed into my conditioned thoughts and emotions one minute, while the next, I am resting in the Presence that I Am.
I say, “Child” and talk about “her” in vivid dream and meditation images because that is how the personality and its sub personalities or aspects show up for me. Perhaps that is my psychological background and orientation of seeing the conditioned patterns of thoughts and beliefs and emotions as aspects of my psyche. But, in reality they are energy constructs, comprised of our cultural, familial and environmental influences and programming. They are not personal, animated little beings as I represent them to be. But some of them carry memories from this life and others, and perhaps that explains their portrayal as individuals of differing ages. Maybe it works for me to perceive them as people because I can bring them love and compassion the same way I would any human on Earth.
I have changed the names of my real life characters to protect their anonymity. God knows I’ve revealed a great deal that, if I were them, I wouldn’t want the world to know. But they’ve been human as we all are — reflecting the light and the dark in varying degrees. Although these men who I write about were difficult to have relationships with, they were instrumental in bringing me closer to love. Ultimately, they, along with the others with whom I shared this journey, have helped to create more peace and happiness than I ever thought possible. It has taken me awhile to come to a more comfortable and accepting place with myself, and an even longer time to be all right with exposing myself in all of my naked vulnerability. But, it seems important to share all the heartache and suffering in the hope of bringing love to anyone and everyone who has felt, as I have, the pain of being human.


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