In this episode, Melissa and Diane go into a deep conversation about how to heal relationships with yourself and others. We explain what it means to be free of the Karmic ties and how to transcend the ego and duality through the amazing practice anyone can do!

More about Diane:
Diane L Haworth is passionate about facilitating the journey within for spiritual seekers ready to evolve. She’s a Heart-Centered Success Coach, teacher, author, Awake TV host, and founder of the Be Love Principles who combines traditional coaching techniques with deep spiritual truths to help clients connect to their own inner wisdom and become more clear, calm, and confident. Diane holds a B.S. in Mass Communications, an MBA, and has several healing and coaching certifications. She is a student of mystic traditions, the Enneagram, A Course in Miracles, and the author of  “How to Choose Love When You Just Want to Slap Somebody.”  Find out more about Diane and her work at www.MoreFromDiane.com

Free Gift: Be Love Bundle: https://www.beloveprinciples.org/Be-Love-Bundle

Transcription

Melissa:

Hi, and welcome to the Spiritual Expansion and Ascension podcast. I'm your host, Melissa Feick and I am super delighted and excited to have the beautiful, amazing Diane Hayworth. Diane is a heart-centered success coach. She is a speaker, author, TV host and founder of the Be Love Principles. And of course, Diane is the most amazing person because she gives you perspectives that really make you think about who you are and where you are coming from in your life. And I love Diane because I've known her for a long time. She has been my very best friend and my biggest cheerleader, and she also tells me like it is. And that's what I love about her. So welcome to Spiritual Expansion and Ascension. How are you today, Diane?

Diane (01:39):

Oh, I'm not only excited to be here. This is one of my favorite topics, but I just wanna say how wonderful it is to not only be your friend for more than a dozen years now, but to watch how you are taking your material and platforms, just like this beautiful podcast, and just shining truth, light and wisdom into the world. I am thrilled to be a tiny part of it. Thank you, my friend.

Melissa (02:06):

Ah, thank you. Super excited.  So actually our topic for today is transformational tools for the karmic relationships in your life.

Now,  I'm gonna go into this a little bit more, but before I do, I just want to encourage everyone to leave a five star review and leave a review for me, especially on apple podcast. That is very, very helpful to me. And it helps this material get out there. Please share this with your friends.

Now, the reason we're talking about karmic relationships is because every relationship affects you in some way. You are responsible for your own energies. Of course, Diane and I were just discussing this.  But to me, what karma means, it's all about our connection with others. And when you feel that you have a connection with someone, that means you are entangled, energetically. Now entanglement isn't a negative thing.

Melissa (03:14):

It's actually just because we're all one and one energy affects another. If I am angry at the world and angry at other energies, no matter who they are, whether they are somebody I know or don't know, it's still a relationship. So if you are angry at a political candidate, let's say, that energy will affect your own life. And so you are entangled in that, even if you don't know them because it's affecting your energy. And that's how I see karmic relationships. Now, Diane, I know you have a little bit of a different take. So why don't you tell people a different take for you around these relationships that we have with everyone in the world?

Diane (04:01):

Well, I think you did a great job of just explaining how, since we are in the oneness, we have a connection to everyone, but you're right, at least from my perspective, there are certain personalities. It could be individuals, groups of people, like your family or people you work with, or even,  geographic locations where there seems to be an entangled relationship where from my perspective, you can be triggered. You can be overjoyed. You can have this opportunity. And for me, relationships are all about learning how to deepen into who you really are and live from a place of love. And I can tell you the last few years I've had lots of opportunities, lots of opportunities to learn that.

Melissa (04:56):

Yes <laugh> yes. We definitely have opportunities to learn how to come from a place of love, but it's not always easy.

Diane (05:08):

<laugh>, no, it's really not, I think it's just really, for many of us, I think this is really the work of our lives.

Melissa (05:19):

Yes. I agree with you because everything is about a relationship, right? And we were talking about how we have relationships. Not only with other people, we have to me, we have relationships with other people, with our animals, with our cell phone, with our computer, with ourselves, like everything,

Diane (05:38):

your relationship with your body. Yes. Everything.

Melissa (05:44):

Everything is entangled. And I look at entanglement as a quantum energy. It's an energy exchange. Entanglement means that we are affected by everything and everything is affected by us, and not in a negative way, but because we are just all one.

Diane (06:07):

Yeah. So it's an opportunity to me. It's an opportunity to learn. It's an opportunity to contribute. It's an opportunity to be aware. I mean, you and I have been friends for more than a dozen years now, and I can see in myself and in you too, us as friends, just how our level of awareness about how we impact different relationships, how we are impacted, how that's grown. And to me, just even that awareness piece is huge.

Melissa (06:39):

Yeah. And it's interesting how we are constantly looking at life, and everyone does this. We look at life as a way of what's happening outside of us. And what are these people doing that are affecting us and what are these experiences and how they're affecting us. And we try to point out, well, it's also always about us. And sometimes it's hard for us to see that.  Because it feels like, especially lately, people just feel bombarded by all these energies and empaths really do feel that. They feel other energies. When there's a lot going on in the world, they feel it. And it's hard for them not to feel it. So what would you say to them?

Diane (07:33):

Well, I would say that it's very normal, certainly in Western society, that we've been brought up to believe, right? Cuz it's all about our beliefs that this external world is what we react to. But when we shift to the perspective that we are creating our external world or creating our experience of the external world. Believe me, if I could have uncreated COVID, I'd have been right at the first of the line to do it. Right?

Melissa:

Yes. I think a lot of us would've.  <laugh>

Diane:

Or all the other crazy stuff that to my mind has happened, that I don't agree with, that I can at times feel victim to. To me, those have been a collective call for us to go within and really cultivate the relationship to our inner divine wisdom. This is also about our relationship to our divine self.

Diane (08:35):

Some people would call it source. You know I talk about our relationship to love, that we are love and it's our opportunity to live love on the planet. And you are right, this has been, for empaths, for everybody. This has been a particularly challenging time to learn to do that. But one thing I've figured out is for me personally, I can't rely on anything out here. It all has to come from in here, including strength, power, empowerment, you and I were just talking about that, to tap into my inner guidance to help lead me in the most loving way through these relationships and how do I contribute to them in a way that is really for the highest and best of all. Especially if somebody just ticks me off, right. <laugh> That's easy if it's like somebody I love, but the other ones, that's my learning opportunity. That's my learning edge.

Melissa (09:36):

Well, yeah, cuz we're here to experience, right. And we're always just experiencing this world. It's very dense. It's very different from when we live in a higher frequency energy without a physical body. There's a lot of denseness here. There's a lot of duality here and we'll go more into that later. But all of these energies are all part of our experience here and we're here to just experience. It's not a good or bad thing, it's just an experience. And I love that you're saying, you know, we do have to come from love.  And I do think that empaths do look at the world a little bit more from a place of,  it's harder for them. It is because they feel so deeply.  And when someone is upset with them, they'll feel it differently than maybe you would. And so how can you heal that part of themselves or their relationships?

Diane (10:47):

So to me, it's always about invitations to love. You know, I wish I would consistently live from love. There's always an invitation to be the love that we are. And I think that for empaths, for people who are struggling with addictions, that is something that's coming up a lot in my coaching practice right now actually, addictions to all kinds of things. Sometimes people are addicted to news, addicted to fear, addicted to substances, whatever it is. But the invitation is to remember the divine being that you are, that can't be hurt. Our physical bodies can be hurt. Of course they can, but we can also, even in this experience, transcend what's going on. And you and I do it all the time in meditation. We do it. We know people who have had horrific life situations. People we love are still gonna die.

Diane (11:48):

People are gonna get sick.  Especially in the next 10, 15 years, supposedly, they're predicting there's gonna be weather issues and people are gonna lose their houses and businesses. And still, while you're living on this earthly plane, which we all are right now, there is a way to continue to be not only connected, cuz you're always connected, but to remember that you have an internal GPS, a guidance system that transcends all of this and can move you through pain, mental, physical, spiritual pain. You and I, we both know, we've worked with people who've done that. Well, I wasn't raised to do that, but these are the kinds of skills that you learn to have the most joyful experience here on this planet. I just have seen so many situations where people were dealing with horrible tragedies and they were still able to come through with a sense of peace, a sense of peace that they are trusting

Diane (13:05):

that everything is happening for the highest and best. I know so many times in my life, things that I thought, (well, you've lived through 'em with me) that were just, I thought at the time, the most horrific tragedies. And looking back, that's the only time when I could get out of that energy of grief and fear, which we all have. That's human. I think that we're here to experience that. Right. But then I could see the gifts that were in even the worst tragedies. So to me, the way that I work with that and help my clients with that is to help them ground as much as possible moment to moment, day by day, into that divine part of them. We are wholly divine and wholly human, right? That we are wholly divine and wholly human having this exquisite experience right here and now. yeah. Did that answer your question even a little bit?

Melissa (14:10):

Yes. <laugh> yes. It answers that.

Diane (14:12):

Like I went off there for a second, but go ahead. <laugh>

Melissa (14:16):

Okay. You know, that's what we're here for. That's what we wanna hear.  So one of the things that we wanted to talk about today was forgiveness. And this is something that a lot of people kind of resist. I find that they see it a little fluffy or they'll say, oh, I forgave them in the next moment in the next breath, they're complaining about them. And they're saying all these things, or they're like, “Oh, I forgave them,” but they're still holding on to the energy. And they're not seeing forgiveness as the beautiful transformational tool it really is. So I'd love to hear what your perspective is on forgiveness first. Yeah.

Diane (15:05):

Well it was not my favorite top 10 topic either because like a lot of us, the way I was introduced to forgiveness is like, I'd go punch my sister in the arm. And my mom would say, you know, you have to say you're sorry. And she has to forgive you. Nobody forgave anybody. And nobody was sorry. So we didn't have a really good understanding of what forgiveness is. To me, forgiveness is the ultimate freedom and it's freedom from the energy of resentment, rejection, feelings of regret. When I think of an opportunity to forgive, I'm thinking of a situation, a person, an event, where in my body I feel constricted energy. And if anybody listening thinks of something that is really making their chest tighten, maybe their stomach is turning over, that is a forgiveness opportunity. I think that a lot of people resist forgiveness. Actually people that I've worked with.

Diane (16:13):

And Melissa, I know you have too, that have been physically abused. Perhaps they've lived through a rape or a really horrific physical issue. And one of the things they think keeps them protected is always having this wall between them and whoever hurt them. You know, if they don't forgive, then there's this wall of protection. In truth, anybody that needs to be legally responsible for an action, I'm all for that. This is not about not having someone be responsible. If somebody needs to be legally responsible, let that play out the way that it should. This also doesn't condone behavior. When you forgive someone, you're not saying it's okay that you did whatever you did. It's not about that at all. It's about releasing that energy of fear, of anger, of regret that's within you. Because when you hold on to those kinds of energies that are constricting, then you have less energy for love, for peace, for freedom, for creativity, for everything you want in the world. You are the one that is suffering. That's what forgiveness does. It is a release mechanism for you.

Melissa (17:39):

Yeah. It's a release from suffering, which is what the Buddha talked about, what many gurus have talked about, is that we suffer culture and people don't realize the energy empowerment that is possible when you forgive. And you use the word freedom. I use freedom. I love the word freedom with that, but there's also, you feel more empowered. I know when I forgive something, I feel less victimized and more empowered from that person. So for me, that's helpful for me.  But I wanted to go back, oh, go ahead.

Diane (18:20):

I was gonna say, can I mention one more thing?

Melissa:

Yeah, absolutely.

Diane:

When we're talking about powerful or feeling free, those are energy frequencies. And one of the things that we know, even though we're not medical professionals or I'm not a mental health professional, but one of the things I know from 30 years of training and studying is that when people are able to truly forgive, in many, their physical health improves and it makes sense. It makes sense. So the benefits are mental, physical, spiritual, just across the board. Your life improves when you are able to forgive

Melissa (19:06):

And forgiveness. When you look at this energy, and you said that they're looking for their divine part of them, when you're holding onto all these lower frequencies of, like you said, fear, anger, hurt, pain, it creates, like you said, physical ailments and things like that, but also the ego, you mentioned something with the wall of protection. And I see this a lot with people. The ego will say, well, if you keep this energy, this anger or disconnect with this person or your feelings that they have to pay for what they did and any of those lower frequencies, right? The ego lulls us into thinking that that will protect us. But I tell people all the time, “Has that worked? Have you been protected for the last 30 years?” And they're like, “No, I haven't, as a matter of fact.”

Melissa (20:08):

And I said, well, because you're attracting that energy. If you're holding onto those, fear and pain, I don't care if it's toward your high school teacher or your best friend or your ex best friend or your ex, it doesn't matter who it's toward. It's hurting you. You are attracting that energy, because that vibration is within you. And it does attract the same frequencies. Now you may see it differently, but that's how I've seen it. And when we help them release it and see the love and forgiveness, then their life changes.

Diane (20:52):

Absolutely. And I agree, it perpetuates their experience, right? It perpetuates their experience and everybody that's listening is gonna relate to that guy you know in town who, anytime an ex-girlfriend walks into the grocery store, he just goes off. Now this woman, he's probably not dated for 50 years. Right. And he's still mad at her cuz she dumped him at the prom or whatever happened. And as long as he's holding onto that, you're right. Everything. The cashier's not gonna be right to him and he's not gonna have other relationships. It perpetuates the chaos to me. That's the playground of the ego. The ego loves chaos. It just loves to keep stirring the pot. And the more you stir, the worse it stinks. That's what we say here in the south. <laugh>

Melissa (21:46):

That's an interesting concept. <laugh> Well that pulls us into duality. So what forgiveness does, it really helps you transcend the duality and the ego parts of us. When it transcends that duality, so that's that chaos, right? Chaotic energy is really the duality and the ego loves that. It eats it up. It's like yummy yummy! Because it will say, “Well, I can't stand them. They're a bad person. But I forgive them. I’m really angry at them. They did all these terrible, terrible things to me all my life, but I can see them in love.” Well, you're still holding onto the energy no matter what verbiage you use. The ego's still using that ping pong back and forth to keep you in lower frequencies to keep you unhappy. And it's not doing it on purpose, right? So ego’s not a bad guy. But it is keeping us in a place of discontent and disassociation with our own selves because we can't connect to that, what did you call it? The divine part of ourselves. If we are holding onto the concept that this person is bad and I am good because then we don't see the divine in them. Right.

Diane (23:17):

Well, that's the separation, right. And anytime we see, and I see this all the time and I'm sure I did it for years, by the way. “Oh, I forgive them,” because in my mind, I'm the better person. I'm the bigger person, so I'll forgive you, but you're right. That's not forgiveness. That's ego. Or if you see yourself as less than, more than or less than means you're not meeting each other soul to soul, you are meeting each other ego to ego. And we do that all the time. But to me, it's like having the hand of a toddler and you're walking through the grocery store and the toddler starts having a fit. Right. That's your little ego. You're still holding their hand, but they're just going crazy. We're always being held by the divine and the divine part of us. But if we're having a fit, we're not hearing it. And we certainly can't access the guidance because we are too busy to be involved in that chaos. And again, many times it's because we're thinking, even unconsciously, that it’s some sort of a protection mechanism and it does nothing but hurt us. Nothing but hurt us, whether it's towards someone else or ourselves. And usually underneath everything it's usually forgiveness for ourselves that is our most beneficial opportunity.

Melissa (24:43):

Yeah. We'll go into that in a minute because I feel like there's too many gems in here to discount what we've already talked about.

Diane (24:50):

Polish em up, buddy. Polish em up. Let's go. <laugh>

Melissa (24:54):

So I wanna say that I remember right after my dad died and my mom was just going off, it was just her and I in the car, I was driving, she was in the passenger seat, and she's going off about my uncle.  And I didn't know this uncle very well, but she has a lot of resentment and anger toward him. And I wasn't like really far on my path then, but I remember saying to her, you know, all this anger toward him, he doesn't even know you're angry. He has no idea what's going on. And all it's doing is hurting you. It's just hurting you. And I think that really you're mad that dad left you. So it's really, you're in pain from that. And you wanna blame someone. So you're trying to blame this uncle of mine.  And it was really interesting because the reason this story came up in my mind was that separation. Yeah. It keeps us separate when we have this anger and disconnect towards someone. It's separating us from not only them, but our divinity.

Diane (26:07):

That's right. At least that's what it feels like. When you are in that divine place that's in every single one of us, even the little jerk that lives down the street, by the way, even your ex, it's in everybody. But when you are feeling conflicted, when you're feeling anger, when you're feeling blame, when you're feeling guilt, those energies in the human body, they're just so encompassing that it is very hard to feel the connection that we have to the divine and to get the guidance that will come not from our ego, but from our heart center and help lead us into a healthier place in that relationship. And again, one of the things I think people forget, and I know Melissa, you and I've talked about this before. A lot of times people's biggest forgiveness opportunities come from people who've passed. They're still holding on to something. They're mad that their uncle, their aunt, their grandfather. They've been dead for 60 years, still you're holding onto that energy. You're feeling that constriction. There's an opportunity for you. There is an invitation from love for you to free yourself from that fear, anger, whatever it is, and live the life you could here, right now in this incarnation.

Melissa (27:36):

Yeah. And so there's so much there. You know, some of the things I wanna just touch on is forgiveness to self, and we're gonna bring tools to you in the next episode.  But we really wanna be clear on what this forgiveness is all about and why should I care? And why should I even do it? And because I want you to see this as such a deep opportunity. Well, I love that you used that word a lot, Diane. So a deep opportunity to transcend your ego, transcend duality and to live more in your heart space. I think the more we forgive others, the more your heart opens. And my sense is, through all the people I've been around and all the work I've done through the years and even myself, is that when my heart is closed, I don't see the world the same. I don't feel the same. I feel lower frequencies, but as soon as I let my heart open, I think forgiveness is a beautiful tool to cohere our head and heart and to open up our heart. So can you give us a little bit of information about that?

Diane (29:03):

Well, I think there are two wonderful ways to what I call ‘open the door to the divine and one's gratitude.’ And one is forgiveness, right? Forgiveness. I have spoken to many people, and I know you have too, about, “well, I can do all this crazy stuff you want me to do, but I'm not gonna forgive.” If you want to be happy, to be healthy, mentally, physically, spiritually, if you want to have clarity in your life, if you want to be confident, have confidence about who you are, what you're here to do, if you want to live life at the highest level possible for you, forgiveness is part of that equation. Now I will say this. You don't have to forgive. You can be miserable and fearful your whole life if you want to. I mean, you can. There's plenty of really loving kind people that for the most part, you know, live great lives, but boy, there's these couple people they're holding on to resentment to and they're living less. From my perspective, it seems like they're living less of a life than they could.

Diane (30:17):

So forgiveness not only opens that divine door into your own heart, into that inner guidance that's always available for you, but from just from a physiological perspective, we know from the work of Dr. David Hawkins who did that beautiful Hawkins Scale of Emotions, that the energy that you have, the way you think changes when you are able to release blame, shame, anger, even entitlement, you get into those higher levels of energy, which include peace, bliss, oneness, those creative energies. That's where we all want to be. And forgiveness is a ticket to get us there.

Melissa (31:06):

So what do you say to someone who says, “I don't wanna forgive” or, “oh, I've done that.” I've heard this one a lot, actually. Not just, “I don't want to.” “Oh, I've done that already. I forgave them. I've done it.”

Diane (31:19):

And there's always levels. Yeah, there's always levels. And I do believe we'll get into this next time that there are different situations, but depending on how egregious, whatever it is that you're forgiving is sometimes the best you can do is to say, “I am willing to see what it would feel like to be ready to forgive.” That's all you need that cracks the door open. There are certain things that happen. If somebody, you know, injured my child, I don't know how I would ever forgive that. And this is a key element, Melissa. My ego never could. My ego can never forgive. The divine part of me always can see the love in any situation. And that's what pulls you through. That's that gentle beckoning, it's never gonna drag you by the hair, right? <laugh> and make you forgive.

Diane (32:19):

But there is a gentle beckoning. There is an invitation and you can show up by saying,  “I'm willing to just see what it would feel like to be ready to forgive.” Sometimes that's all people can do. And after a horrific abuse situation, even that is huge. I never tell anybody they have to forgive. It's always an invitation and I always trust they come in wherever they need to. Now to the person who says, “yeah, I've already done that,” I'll have 'em shut their eyes. Go inside. Usually I have 'em touch their heart and I'll ask them on a scale of one to 10, how much have they forgiven? And if they say 10, it's totally done, I'll ask 'em to bring up the person's face or the situation or whatever it is. And even on zoom, you can watch their body tense.

Diane (33:09):

Say, how do you feel? Do you feel expansive? This is divine, expansive, intelligent, creative. That is the energy of the divine. Or do you feel constricted? And they can tell in their body sometimes I don't know if it's denial or if it's the ego just trying to stir the pot a little bit, but you know, they will say, yeah, I went to confession or I went to a release ceremony or whatever it is. If you are still feeling that constriction, if you're still feeling angry, which is different than sad, by the way, you can feel sad that a situation occurred and you can have released the anger or fear around it. So it's a process of coming in. Of really coming home to yourself and understanding how your body works with the energy and not being afraid to look at it. Most of us are just afraid. I was for years, just was for years. I understand that. I know you do too.

Melissa (34:16):

Well I think a lot of people see forgiveness as saying what you did to me was okay.

Diane (34:21):

Yeah. Which is not an excuse. Yeah, it doesn't sanctify what somebody did. Also, some people, as a matter of fact, I think probably this was me years and years and years ago, see forgiveness as weak. I look at people like Nelson Mandela. I look at people like Dr. Martin Luther King, like Gandhi, like Mother Theresa. I do not see weakness. I see just the force, the power, as you say, of love in human form. Not that they weren't humans with their own frailties, but my goodness, one of the things that I think is so wonderful about having role models like that, or people to look up to, you know, if Nelson Mandela can sit in a solitary prison cell for what, 27 years, and come from that to being president of his nation, then I can forgive an ex-boyfriend for standing me up on a date 30 years ago.

Melissa (35:27):

<laugh> right. Exactly. Exactly. Well, it's hard.

Diane (35:30):

It's how far you can come. Because of the oneness. If they can do it, you can do it. That's another. To me, that's what's so inspiring about reading and meeting folks that have forgiven.

Melissa (35:50):

Yeah. Because it inspires you to see what's possible. Is that what you're saying?

Diane (35:58):

To me, if one person can do it, another person can do it. Right. Of course.  I was reading something recently about a gentleman whose entire family was wiped out. I mean his wife was, I think he had two kids, and a drunk driver plowed into them. And his entire family was killed, everybody except for him. And he was able to forgive. Doesn't mean he wished it, he didn't condone the behavior, but he was able to forgive the drunk driver. Now that to me is amazing, but he talked about how it freed him, how it freed him to rebuild his life in memory and honor of his family, instead of being vengeful and small. He was able to help others going through things. And it all started with forgiveness. It all started with forgiveness.

Melissa (36:50):

Yeah. We think if we can make that wrong right.  Maybe let's say like that situation that actually happened in my family. Somebody hit my mother-in-law and killed her, a drunk driver. And we think if we get that retribution toward the person who did it to her, then we are somehow better off or vindicated or something changes. And so people hold onto the non-forgiveness because it's easier and that way, they're the wrong people. They've done this terrible thing to you and you're giving them, to me and you probably see it differently, but to me, then you're giving all your power to the person that did you wrong. Let's just say, just for ease of explanation, they did you wrong. They hurt you in some way, they killed your mother-in-law, they stole your money or divorced you or left you when you were 20, whatever, it was all those wrongs. So you hold onto all that energy because you want to make them pay almost.

Diane (38:14):

It reminds me of the story you just told about your mom and your uncle. If somebody needs to be held legally responsible, go for it. Right. Let the law take care of that. But there is so much redirected anger, redirected grief. In your mom's case, I know you were really young when that occurred, and how perceptive of you to be aware to see your mom's grief. She didn't wanna be mad at your dad, but you had to be mad at somebody. Right. And that was a way for her to.  That was a grieving mechanism. So I think a lot of this vengeful anger that we hold onto is the way people think they're gonna heal. I'm gonna make that person pay. And then I'll heal. I have been around people who have seen justice, in their mind, what they thought justice was gonna be. It's not healing. It doesn't. It might mean the court cases are over, but it does not bring back anyone. And I think that's a good thing to bring up, that forgiveness is a healing element. To me, a powerful energy for healing is forgiveness. Yes. Is forgiveness. Again, not condoning behavior. It's not about the behavior. It's about the energy you're holding onto.

Melissa (39:55):

Yes. And that's what I was trying to come from. So we're holding onto all this anger, it's yours. No matter who you are putting it towards, it's your energy. So I agree with you a hundred percent that forgiveness, that energy of forgiveness, that's so important. But it's hard for people because they have that, like you said, that vengeful anger, and they want revenge or to right this wrong.  But what I'm seeing energetically is that there's this collective consciousness of righteous anger that's out in the collective right now. And it is fueling some really weird energies. And it's hard for me not to see these things because that's just what I do. What I see in this collective energy, It's actually creating our experience here because through these karmic relationships, through quantum entanglement, every energy that we put out into our matrix comes into our experience.

Melissa (41:14):

Now I try to tell people like I'm choosing other things in my matrix, you can choose what you want. Right. So if you wanna be angry at these people, the government, the corporations, this person, or that frequency, that's cool. I think you should do whatever you want.  But everything that we put out into our matrix matters, and this is why it's so important for me to talk about forgiveness. Because forgiveness isn't just about the relationships that we know. Forgiveness is also about the relationships we have with everything and everyone in our experience here. I agree. So can you help us a little bit with that?

Diane (41:58):

Well, I absolutely agree. Well, a lot of people have said the planet seems to be on fire now, quite literally. It is in certain parts of our world, literally on fire. But because of the media, which depending on what media you look at, it's all run by clicks and ad revenue dollars and fear sales. So it can look like we're just on a gigantic crazy train. Everybody. It's all over the world. There's political unrest. There are all kinds of disruptions and chaos. And of course you're gonna be affected by that. Absolutely everybody is affected by that. And everyone contributes to the energy of the whole. So I can look at riots, for example, and not condone behavior. I do not, in any way, think you're justified to break into somebody's store and loot their store.

Diane (43:11):

I don't agree with that. I can see people who are hurt, frightened, frustrated, they feel aggrieved, acting out in a way that they believe causes attention. Well, they did get attention. What I always ask people to do is to separate or go into their heart, right? Because your head is always gonna yell, “Let's go pick up a brick!” cuz you're in a mob mentality. Go into your heart, ask what is for the highest and best of everyone. now. This isn't about sacrifice, by the way, because that's a whole other kind of energy that you need to do some forgiveness around. This is “How do I contribute to more love, respect, compassion in this world?” That world, even though it doesn't look like it, it exists right now. There's no time or space. So that world, the one that I wanna leave my grandchildren, that where there is loving collaboration: “You don't agree with me,

Diane (44:14):

we think maybe differently about the environment, let's sit down. Let me hear what you think. Let me share what I think. Where can we meet in the middle? Where can we come up with a solution that benefits everyone?” That's what we're not doing publicly. It's happening more than we think. And that's one of the things I think we need to also remember in this really tumultuous time is that often things look and feel really broken  and there’s a lot of pain, before you have birthed something new. We both had children. There's a lot of pain in that process <laugh> before you get that beautiful baby, right? We are going through some painful times and we can either fuel the pain, fuel the fear, which as you have so rightly said, you fuel it toward other people. “You are the problem.

Diane (45:11):

You're stupid. You don't think right. Blah, blah, blah.” All that's doing. It's like,  I can't remember what that little game was when we were little, but it's like boomerang, right? That just comes back to you. That increases the us versus them. It's all separation. We will never experience the world that we could if we live in a place of separation. Because we're in physical bodies, obviously you look like you're separate from me and we get that. But energetically, we are all drops in the same ocean. We're just drops in the same ocean. And there's like some tsunami waves in that ocean right now. But think about the world. You can have horrific storms and tsunamis in one part of the world and calm seas in the other. The more of us that practice love, forgiveness, and we use meditation techniques, we use techniques like you teach and people who come on your podcast and our other venues talk about, to do the best we can to live a loving life moment by moment, day by day, right?

Diane (46:22):

We're not gonna get it a hundred percent, but I know that the days that my intention is to be the presence of love, not from my head, but from my heart. That even if it's just me and the cat, I have put better energy into the world. I think it's such a horrific mistake to think one person can't change the world. We've seen it many times, just in the people we talked about. Gandhi changed a political landscape for millions of people. And we're still talking about him. Look at Buddha and guess what, had no Instagram, no social media following. <laugh> Right. Jesus had a few guys and look what they've done. I mean, we have models that live love, and we can remember that we can do the same thing, the same energy that is in anyone else is in us. It is in us.

Melissa (47:24):

Yes. I agree. You know, the collective consciousness of these negative energies. So what we can do is work on forgiveness for ourselves and forgiveness for others. And that's really important.  I wanna touch on that a little and of course we're gonna give tools in the next podcast. So that's what I want everybody to know that the tools are coming.  I really wanted you to get a really full, embodied understanding of why this is so important. This isn't fluffy. “Oh, I forgive you.” This is so much deeper than that and so much more transformational than anyone really understands.

To me, from my perspective, the collective consciousness that we feed, we're feeding from our own inner self. A lot of times we are still holding on to old grief, old pain, old hurt because we haven't forgiven ourselves for some of the things that we feel that we have done wrong. And then we sometimes even project it onto someone else saying, “Well, they're the bad guy. They did this. They did that.” And there's a piece of that that's within us. So let's talk a little bit about self forgiveness.

Diane (48:53):

I think that has a couple components.  And I think that's the last thing that people usually want to look at because it's so much easier to blame that guy or that woman or that group or whoever it is. When we think of forgiveness of the self, sometimes we bring our family energy, right? Like my family is supposed to hate those guys. That's what we do. And some part of us often realizes that's not what I wanna do. I don't care what my family or my state or my country, who they say are their enemies. They are not my enemies. And there's a conflict. You can always identify, to me, a forgiveness opportunity when there's conflict, right? Because there's something going on in there. Also anything that's absolute, as you know, truth is perspective, when it gets past love, truth is just perspective.

Diane (49:53):

And even that, there are people who are very passionate about what they believe. I don't particularly think it's the truth, but to me, it's the energy state. And when you are constricted, I keep going back to that. When you are constricted, when you’re feeling small, there are forgiveness opportunities for yourself, as well. Some people have it so deep, perhaps they are gender fluid and there's confusion about that and they think they need to forgive themselves or God or somebody for that. That's all about not loving who they are. Not loving who they are and whatever costume they came in and personality they came into this time. The invitation, for forgiveness when it comes to self, is to, I believe, forgive what your personality or ego has done, thought, believed, acted on and rest in who you are.

Diane (51:02):

So if you are blessed enough to have little kids in your life, babies, look at babies, they're innocent, they're authentic. Every person you're mad at, including you, was a beautiful, innocent, tiny, authentic, little being at one point. I also think if we understand the difference between sin and mistake, you know, a lot of us grow up with this idea that “I've sinned” or I've sinned against God, a family, or whoever you think you sinned against. Personally, that's not in my belief system. There are certainly mistakes that I have corrected. And even I found a way to realize that I always did the best I could with what I had. If I had known better, I wouldn't have done certain things, but I also, in retrospect, can see them as my path has progressed. Right? So just deepening into this awareness of your identity as a divine being living a human experience, helps open the door to these opportunities to forgive yourself, just to forgive yourself. And that can be so much easier than people let it be.

Melissa (52:15):

Yeah. And it gives you an opening of energy. It's more expansive. It feels freer, like you said. For me, oh gosh, maybe it's more empowering. And I feel more open hearted love. People will say to me, “Well, I need to work on loving myself.” Well then you need to do some forgiveness because you can't love yourself if you're holding onto old fears or anger toward yourself or toward other people. You can't have self love, or even love at all, because your heart's gonna be closed. Like you said, the constrictive energy.

Diane (52:59):

Yeah. And be aware, right? I mean, somebody can say to me that they love themselves because they're getting a massage every month. Well, go get a massage. First of all, if you can go get one, go get one. But taking care of your physical body. But that doesn’t necessarily, in my experience, mean that they are embracing that energy of who they are inside. They just don't, right. They just don't. It's taken me years to do that by the way.

Melissa (53:36):

Yeah. Because it's external because they're thinking if I do this nice thing for myself, then I love myself. And that was something that we were told like 20 years ago. “Oh, self love, self care, do self care.”  But what they're missing is that that self care is really internal.

Diane (53:55):

And this also changes, right? If the way you love yourself is dependent on the way you look, good luck. Just good luck. That's not you. This is your costume. <laugh> This is your outfit for this time. And it changes morphs and grows as you go

Melissa (54:17):

through life. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

So this has been a fascinating conversation, Diane. Why don't you tell people where they can find you and I think you have something that you're gonna offer my listeners.

Diane (54:34):

I am. Thank you so much. I've had a ball today, actually.  Well, as you mentioned, I'm the founder of the Be Love Principles, which is one of the ways that I think has been certainly helpful for me, my clients, my students, to learn, to connect deeper to that divinity within and to live from there. So I would be thrilled to offer your listeners something, I call the Be Love Bundle, which would come with a workbook, an ebook, there's meditations and there's a copy of my Be Love Song.

Melissa (55:09):

Yes. Which is a great song. And  I've done some of your workbook. It's fantastic.  So thank you so much, Diane. This has been exciting, thrilling and super. It's really helped me see things a little bit differently. So I appreciate that. Really amazing. So in our next episode, we're gonna talk about how freely this freedom and forgiveness energy transforms your state of consciousness and raises your vibration. So we're gonna be very clear on what tools you can use and how you can raise your vibration and change your state of consciousness so that you can become more of who you truly are and bring forward your higher states of consciousness so that you can live and experience your life through your heart, through love and through forgiveness. So sending you all much love.

Diane (56:08):

Bye. Bye. Thanks so much.