Melissa Ambrosini: Open Wide

Transcript

[0:00:40] Charlie Hoehn: You’re listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about books with the authors who wrote them. I’m Charlie Hoehn. Today’s episode is with Melissa Ambrosini, author of Open Wide. Whether you're a woman or a man, you’ve probably at some point struggled with your own self confidence or unleashing your inner self or forming lasting friendships or maybe even experiencing orgasms. That’s what this episode is all about. Melissa is here to teach us how to have deeper love, rocking relationships and soulful sex. ELLE magazine called Melissa a self-love guru. She’s really trying to be the voice for the modern woman. Rather than trying to preach like a lot of other relationship guides, she tries to be like the voice of your supportive best friend who is sharing her wisdom in a way that makes your journey a lot more fun and simple and easier to follow. In this conversation, we cover some life altering topics. Melissa is going to give you tools that you can start using immediately to rewrite your future. So that you can have more authentic connections and to experience heart bursting love with a soul mate who gets you on the deepest level and of course, the best soulful sex of your life. Now, here is our conversation with Melissa Ambrosini.

[0:02:42] Melissa Ambrosini: Most of my life, I was living a life that was deeply that was unfulfilling to myself. I grew up in a house where it was all filled with people pleasers and there was a lot of shame around our bodies, there was a lot of slamming of the doors when you walk past someone in the shower, it was taboo and rude and naughty and dirty and this kind of planted a seed in my mind that my body was not something to be proud of. It planted another seed that sex and sexuality and my femininity was something that needed to be suppressed. For most of my life, I carried that with me and when I started dating, I had very little confidence. I dated men just because they liked me and not because my heart really wanted to be in those relationships and I lived a life that was very outwardly focused so my measure of happiness was on the boyfriend or the jobs or what I looked like or how much money I was earning. I didn’t know that there was another way to live. I didn’t know that you could actually feel grateful for your body. I didn’t know that your sexuality and your femininity was something to be celebrated. I went through most of my teens and 20s dating men that treated me like absolute crap and were verbally abusive and really suppressed and in that time, I really suppressed my truth and I had what I call junk-food sex. Which was just quick, easy, no connection, just about two people getting off as quickly as possible. Until I hit rock bottom in 2010. This was late 2010. I hit rock bottom and I ended up in a hospital with a whole host of health issues so I had like chronic fatigue, thyroid problems, I was dealing with anxiety, panic attacks, depression an eating disorder. Not only a whole host of physical manifestations but also mental as well. I was in the darkest and hardest place of my life. I had just had another guy dump me, he had just cheated on me. I had just moved back from living overseas and so I didn’t have a job. I was sleeping on my friend’s fold-out, single little bed, rent free, thank goodness. I had no job, my friends dumped me because I was “too emotional” for them and going through too much at that time and I didn’t have my health and so I was in a really dark place and it was the darkest and hardest time of my life. I remember just thinking, what the F? God, why are you punishing me? What is the point of life, I was so sad and I went to the doctors one day because I had a friend, a school friend, an old school friend that called me and she didn’t live where I lived? She lived about an hour and a half and she said. She had been through depression during high school and she said to me, “Get up and go to the doctors.” I did and I went to the doctors and at this stage, I had lost a lot of weight because I was just so stressed and anxious and had eating issues and the doctor was like yeah, you’re depressed. Here are some antidepressants and put me on antidepressants and I wasn’t sleeping so I was also on sleeping tablets and I was also one like high doses of antibiotics for my skin because my skin was breaking out. I was just on this like cocktail of things and it was not fun and if I had have known back then, what I know now, I would have said “Hey, I’m not actually depressed, I’m just sad or I’m just you know, releasing some suppressed emotions.” I wish I had her said that to the doctor but you know, I didn’t know and she gave me six sessions to go and see a psychologist and I realized slowly over the next few months that I needed to get happy and healthy again. I had no idea how to do either of those two things but I was like, this is my mission and I just made it my number one priority to get happy and healthy again. I actually went on and studied holistic nutrition because I felt like for me, the lowest hanging fruit was health and I started to clean up my health and started to nourish my body, stopped eating junk food, stopped partying and taking drugs. Really, began to nourish my temple and what that did was it planted this seed in my mind like I started to have such deep reverence and appreciation for my vehicle and I’d never had that before, I trashed my body, I take in crazy slimming pills and all sorts of ridiculous things to stay thin. I started to love my body, I started to have this deep reverence for this miraculous vehicle that I had been gifted in this lifetime. Because when you actually really do understand the body, it’s just a miracle, I don’t know if you – you have a child don’t you?

[0:08:40] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:08:41] Melissa Ambrosini: Yeah, I don’t know if you got to fully witness your child coming out of your –

[0:08:47] Charlie Hoehn: I did.

[0:08:49] Melissa Ambrosini: Yeah, is that not the most miraculous thing you’ve ever seen in your entire life?

[0:08:54] Charlie Hoehn: It’s pretty unreal, especially in retrospect, now that she’s 11 months old like wow, we made that. It’s unreal.

[0:09:03] Melissa Ambrosini: totally. That’s real life magic, like stuff magic card tricks and coin tricks, this is magic. And so I now, I learned how to have a deep reverence and respect for my vehicle and I now do like - my body, I am just in awe and so grateful and every day I’m thank you arms, thank you legs, thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m so grateful for my health, every day, it’s at the top of my gratitude list because when you come from a place of not having it in the past, you do really respect it when you have it. There’s not a day that goes by where I’m not grateful for my health. Then I realized after that that it wasn’t just about what I put in my mouth, it was about thoughts that I was thinking. The inner dialogue that was going on in between my ears and that constant, you’re not good enough, you’re not smart enough, you’re not pretty enough, you’re not skinny enough, you’ll never get out of debt, you’ll never meet the guy. Those egoic limiting, fear based thoughts that were on repeat in my mind was something that I needed to look at. I made it my mission and I call that voice inside our head, you know, you can call it your ego or your shadow self or your inner critic, whatever you want to call it. I call it my inner mean girl and for guys, you can call it your inner bad boy, whatever you want but that’s where my first book came from, Mastering Your Inner Mean Girl, that is where that came from because from there, I learned how to master her. Just like you have to learn how to master the piano, you know, it’s something that you practice every day and it’s something that I still practice and women have between 60 and 80,000 thoughts a day. Men have around 40,000. That’s potentially 60 to 80,000 times that you’re going to have to master your inner mean girl or bad boy a day.

[0:11:02] Charlie Hoehn: Right, isn’t the percentage of those thoughts as well, like not overwhelmingly negative but like 70, almost 80% negative for the average person?

[0:11:15] Melissa Ambrosini: Yup. That’s a lot of inner mean girl mastering that you have to do in one day. The more you practice it, the better you get at it, it’s like learning how to master the piano. The more you practice –

[0:11:30] Charlie Hoehn: How do you practice it?

[0:11:32] Melissa Ambrosini: I have a three step process that I talk about in my first book, mastering your mean girl and it goes like this, It’s a very simple three step process but it’s not always easy, it’s often, you know, these things that are so simple, they’re also very easy to do, they’re very easy not to do. Especially if you’ve got a very loud inner critic, that you have had on repeat on volume 10 with a very heavy base for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years then it’s – it might feel a little bit challenging. The three step process goes like this. The first step is awareness. In order for any transformation, the first step is you’ve got to be aware of what’s going on. You got to become aware of the thoughts that she’s telling you and maybe it’s – you’re not good enough, you’ll never write the book, it won’t succeed, it will be a flop, you’ll never make the New York Times bestseller list. Who do you think you are, you’ll never get out of debt, you’ll never meet the guy, this won’t happen for you, you know, I’m sure Charlie, you can relate to some of those thoughts. That’s the first step, awareness. You have to become aware of what your inner critic is saying to you and you know, what I used to do is I’d write it down. I’d say, “My mean girl is currently telling me that my book is going to flop, or my mean girl is currently telling me that no one is going to buy it.” Awareness is the first step. The second step is we gently close the door on those thoughts. What most people do is they let their inner critic come knocking on their mental door, plant and wanting to plant the seed of doubt and what most people do is they let that thought in and they let it come and hang out in the house and eat their food and sleep in between them and their spouse and they’re messy. They let them leave their dirty washing all over the floor but if you think about your inner critic like an annoying sales person who comes knocking on your door, you wouldn’t necessarily let that annoying sales person come in and give you their 45 minute spiel on Tupperware. You know? You’re like, thank you but no thank you, I’m not interested today, I don’t have time, you know? What most people do is they let that thought in and they let it hang out for days, weeks, years, decades. The second step is we got to close the door on that thought. “Thank you but no thank you, I’m not interested today.” It’s not about slamming the door in your ego’s face, it’s not about killing the ego or smashing the ego because the ego can sometimes have some really good points, okay? Sometimes. Most of the time, not always. We gently close the door, we say thank you and no thank you. The third step is we choose love instead. We get out of our head and we slide back on down into our heart and we ask ourselves, hang on, is that actually true? Do I have hardcore evidence that my book is going to flop? Do I have hardcore documented evidence that no one is going to buy my book? No. It’s just a made up story that I’ve told in my head over and over again. That’s the three step process. Awareness, gently close the door, choose love instead. It’s really your responsibility to take yourself through that three step process. Sometimes 80,000 times a day and the more you do it, the better you’re going to get at it, it’s like a muscle. The stronger, the more you practice your squats, the tighter your booty is going to get. Same with mastering your ego. The more you do it, the stronger it’s going to get. I’m not enlightened, I’m not going to say I never had a mean girl thought ever again, if I was enlightened, I would have levitated out of this body by now. I’m still here because there’s still more for me to learn. I’ve got in really good at mastering her and quicker at mastering her. When in an egoic thought, a limiting fear based thought pops up, I almost just like laugh at it now and I’m just like, that’s so funny that she’s trying to tell me that my book’s going to fail or no one’s going to buy it or whatever. That’s the three step process that I share in my first book, Mastering Your Mean Girl. That really began my self-love inward journey many years ago and once I began to really love myself and really have a deep appreciation for my vehicle and who I was and I got on purpose, I stared doing the work that I was meant to do in this world which is helping people unlock their full potential and leave their best life. I got on my purpose, I got on my path, I healed my body, I got happy and healthy again. There was one other area that I still had yet to really look at and that was my relationship with a partner. I began reading some of the work of David Deida, he wrote The Way of the Superior Man and Dear Lover. I started to dive in to the world of Tantra and Taoism and I began to connect with the feeling of what it would really feel like to be with my soul mate. I had never felt this before, I kind of always dated men that treated me like a doormat and it was kind of more just convenient, they liked me and I was kind of like, okay, all right. there was never a heart to heart connection because I just kind of thought that that’s just what it was like. And then I began to read David Deida’s work and uncovered this understanding that you can have your soul mate. That it actually exists and that your soulmate is someone who is there to compliment you not complete you. All of the men in my life had completed me, you know, I filled a void in them and they filled a void in me. I didn’t know that there was another way, I didn’t know that your soul mate is there to compliment not complete. I didn’t know that your soul mate is the cherry on top of your already delicious gluten free chocolate brownie. They’re not there to fulfill you, they’re not there to complete you, you’re already whole and complete and perfect just as you are and they’re just the cherry on top, you know? They’re awesome to hold hands through life with and to compliment you. When I actually understood them and I got that, then, my soul mate walked into my life. My gosh, yeah, it’s just – it’s amazing how it happens and I had done so much inner work on myself and got into that place where I felt so much inner peace and contentment. I had never felt inner peace and contentment before. I had never felt overflowing self-love for myself before. Then I finally had felt that and then he walks into my life. When you meet your soul mate, get ready for the most radical ride of your life. Because it’s not – I think a lot of people think that when you meet your one, it’s going to be all rainbows and butterflies and unicorns. That definitely isn’t the case because they are your biggest mirror, they are your biggest spiritual assignment, your biggest teacher and that’s definitely been the case for us. We have dove head first into the most heart opening expansive relationship but also, what we’re really doing is just diving deeper within ourselves. And we have the most beautiful and inexpensive, authentic relationship where we’re both willing to grow and learn and to be the best version of ourselves so that we can show up for ourselves and for each other. Open Wide, A Radically Real Guide to Deep Love, Rocking Relationships and Soulful Sex is about everything I’ve learned about relationships. It’s a manual for women and men but it’s written mainly for women to unlock their full potential so that they can share that with another human being because relationships are our biggest assignments. Yet we’re not taught how to be in them, we’re kind of born into this world and no one teaches us how to navigate relationships, no one teaches us how to be an epic lover or an epic friend or an epic daughter. No one teaches us this stuff. We learn by watching our parents and sometimes that is an epic example and sometimes it’s really crap. That’s your schooling, is your parents. For me, you know, my parents are still together and they have a beautiful relationship but it’s definitely not the relationship that I want, mine looks very different to theirs. This is everything I’ve learned about how to have deep love which is why we’re here on earth, not to have superficial, surface level relationships. I want deep love, I want deep intimacy, deep connection with my friends, with my family, with my lover, with my children. I want rocking relationships, I want soulful intimacy soulful connections and soulful sex. Because, for most of my life, I had this surface level superficial relationships and connections and sex and now I want deep. Because it’s just going deeper within yourself, you know? Your relationships are a reflection of you so it’s just about going deeper within yourself and I’m ready for it. This book is about that, it’s about opening wide to yourself and to those around you so that you can experience deep love, rocking relationships and soulful sex.

[0:21:35] Charlie Hoehn: Beautiful. Pretend Melissa, well, actually, you don’t have to pretend but let’s say I’m your target audience. All these things are things that I’m interested in personally of course and this is an epidemic that you’re describing. What you went through is literally what hundreds of thousands, if not, millions of people in North America experience and I would say, almost to a T. This is something that my wife and I talk about, I would love to prevent my daughter from getting ensnared in a lot of the traps that you described at the beginning that are so common to so many women. Part of my fear is hey, maybe this is a cultural thing, maybe I have residual behaviors that I learned from my parents who they learned from their grandparents and so forth. Teach us how to do this stuff? Let’s start at the beginning with unleashing your divine Godessence, is that how you say that word? Godessence?

[0:22:37] Melissa Ambrosini: Godessence.

[0:22:38] Charlie Hoehn: Godessence.

[0:22:39] Melissa Ambrosini: Yeah, I talk a lot about this in the book and I’m so excited to chat about it with you because I have a 12 year old bonus son, he’s my step son but I call him my bonus son. I have a 12 year old bonus son and I have nieces and nephews as well and maybe one day I’ll have children with my husband and this is something that I talk about with my nieces and nephews because I don’t’ want them to go through the same thing that I went through with the body shaming and the hatred and the self-harm and things like that. Yes it is lineage DNA stuff that we are healing, okay? It has been passed on from my mom’s, mom’s mom’s - this body shaming, this taboo around ourselves, our sexuality. It has been passed on from generation to generation but it has to stop. It has to stop with us.

[0:23:45] Charlie Hoehn: Why does this have to stop, is there a purpose to it ultimately? Like, is there any positive functionality to it? What’s the utility?

[0:23:55] Melissa Ambrosini: I don’t think there is any positive, I really don’t, I don’t see what the positive of body shaming and self-hatred, I just can’t see, I’m trying to think and I just can’t see it.

[0:24:13] Charlie Hoehn: Author Hour is sponsored by Book in a Box. For anyone who has a great idea for a book but doesn’t have the time or patience to sit down and type it out, Book in a Box has created a new way to help you painlessly publish your book. Instead of sitting at a computer and typing for a year, hoping everything works out, Book in a Box takes you through a structured interview process that gets your ideas out of your head and into a book in just a few months. To learn more, head over to bookinabox.com and fill out the form at the bottom of the page. Don’t let another year go by where you put off writing your book. I’m in agreement with you because I remember reading a study that in America, we’re particularly taboo, we do a poor job of teaching teenagers about sex. The way that we talk about sex makes it seem very taboo, something – almost evil at certain times. Whereas parts of Europe, Scandinavia. It’s very matter of fact. Children are taught about sex from a very early age and as a result, they have some of the lowest teen pregnancy rates in the world, the United States has some of the highest, we also have some of the highest STD rates in the world because it’s taboo, it’s shamed, it’s this thing, it’s like a secret. I’m with you, I think this topic is very deserving to have some light shed on it and to have the guilt and shame removed. Let’s dive in then, let’s start that.

[0:26:01] Melissa Ambrosini: Not only STDs and teen pregnancies but then, abortions, you know, it’s like, I just you know, I want with this book, one of the things that I want to do is I want women to read it and to put it down and go, “Far out, my body is not only the most miraculous thing in the entire world but I love my self so much.” If we loved ourselves and our vehicle and our bodies so much, we wouldn’t do things to it, we wouldn’t trash it with drugs and alcohol, we might not sleep around as much. You know, we might not say nasty things to it. This is why this is so important and it’s got to stop, the way that the body shaming, the taboo and the guilt, the way that it’s going to stop is with us. It’s with you and your wife, in your home, right now so that your daughter doesn’t pick it up and so that my son doesn’t pick it up. There’s so many techniques that we talk about in the book about with children. It starts with you. It starts with your wife, your wife has to look at herself in the mirror and go yes, thank you body, I love you, you’re amazing. Because if she looks at herself in the mirror and goes, gross. Even if she doesn’t say it, your daughter is picking up on that energy. She will feel it. Do you know what I mean? It’s energetic, you don’t even, your wife or I don’t even have to say anything and if we just walk past a mirror and we go inside, they’re going to pick that up. If you and your wife are making love and your daughter walks in and you’re like, you slam the door on her face or not that you do that. You know, something like that, you know, she’s going to pick up on those queues. That’s what happened to me as a child, it was dirty, it was naughty, it was rude, it was like, don’t touch yourself, you know? That’s naughty. That really distorted my relationship with my body. What we can do for our children and our children’s children and to break this long lineage line of body shaming, guilt and taboo is it starts with us. My husband and I have a lot of body confidence in our house. Especially in front of Leo. We walk around naked. I remember when I first got with my husband and he would walk out of the shower butt naked, standing there, fully confident, talking to Leo and I’d be like, babe, cover up, shouldn’t you cover up? He’s like, “no” I was like, Yeah, I had all these baggage from my childhood and I was like, “Don’t let Leo see you like that? Cover up.” He was like, then you know, when Leo went to bed that night, he sat me down and we had a conversation about it. He just you know, expressed to me, he’s like, I want Leo to see confident, masculine man, confident in his body, not trying to change it or fix it or improve it, just really confident. He said, “I want Leo to see that with you too.” I was like, “My goodness, of course.” Of course I want him to see that and so he said, only if you feel comfortable, of course. You know. It really was innate within me just to be naked around him like I didn’t actually care, it was more the logical my god, you shouldn’t do that that popped into my head. We shower in front of him, he sees us completely naked. I’m sure they’ll get to a point, he’s 12 at the moment, I’m sure in a few years, we might all start showering with the door closed. If that does happen, you know, we’ll just let that organically happen, if Leo, he has started occasionally closing the door and we don’t make a big deal about it, we’re just like, yeah, okay, that’s just what he wants to do. You know, we practice what I talk about in the book which is crystal clear communication with him. We practice that with everyone in our life, especially each other and then especially Leo. We’ll say to him, we’re closing the door because we’re going to be making love and he’s like, okay, yeah, he’s like, “Cool. All right, see you soon.” You know, that never happened in my family, it was very secretive and private and I private and I ended up walking in on my parents making love. It was like, get out, my god, you know, that sort of reaction. My god, get out, close the door. That sort of thing. We just are very open with Leo and very honest. You know, every night, over the dinner table, we say three things that we’re grateful for. We go around and we all say three things and you know, often, Nick will say, I’m so grateful for the beautiful love making I got to have with my wife this morning. You know, we say things like that and we talk about it with him and we’re just open and we’re honest, you’re right, in European cultures, in some European cultures, it is revered, it is celebrated. When the women get their period, it is celebrated. It is honored, it is like wow, you are stepping into your womanhood, same with the men and there’s some cultures and I write about this in the book that they have ceremonies to celebrate when the girls get their periods and when the men become – grow from boys to men and they go out hunting with their father. Some schools, even in Leo’s school, when they step into turning 13 which is you know, when they’re kind of – the equivalent of them kind of stepping into their manhood and the women stepping into their female womanhood and they’re getting their period. They go from wearing shorts to long pants. Actually, at my son’s school, they do that. They go from wearing shorts to long pants and that’s kind of like a symbol of stepping into manhood. It’s really beautiful, again, when I got my period, I think I was around maybe 14 or 15, I can’t really remember. It was not spoken about. My mom didn’t sit me down and talk about what’s happening. I thought I was dying. I didn’t know that I was like, why am I bleeding and this is what I talk about in the book. Celebrating your body and celebrating your femininity and your godessence and reconnecting with your god essence is something to really be proud of and to celebrate and same with men. It’s something to be honored and celebrate. Reconnecting with your godessence which is what I talk a lot about in the book is about reconnecting with your truth. Reconnecting with your heart, reconnecting with your true essence and that looks different for everyone. It’s very important that we reconnect with the truth of who we are which is that beautiful essence inside your heart.

[0:33:14] Charlie Hoehn: You talk about the six archetypes? Why did you include that in the book and what are those archetypes?

[0:33:23] Melissa Ambrosini: Yeah, I love the different archetypes that women get to play in our life, you know, same with men, we get to wear different hats, it’s the same as different archetypes, you know? You get to play the mother role, you get to play the queen, the goddess, the priestess, you know, women get to wear all of this different hats and so do men. I included it in the book because I was coming across a lot of serial, go getting, type A driven women entrepreneurs that were just wearing this one hat. Which was like this warrior, go getter, over achiever and that was definitely me. I wanted to inspire women to reconnect with all of the different archetypes that we – that are innate within us. The mother, the nurturer, you know, the queen, the priestess, the goddess, all of these beautiful different archetypes that we have access to and when we live in a world and we surround ourselves like you and I do Charlie, with serial entrepreneurs, type As, go getters, over achievers. We can forget about these other innate archetypes within us. That’s why I included it in the book because it is innate within all women to mother and whether that’s mothering a child or mothering your dog or your cat or other people. It’s innate within us. I didn’t realize how innate it was within me until I had my step son come into my life. Because before that, I was like no, I don’t want to have kids, no, I’m too driven. I just want to write multiple books and speak all over the world and achieve and also like, “I don’t want children. They are going to slow me down.” Until Leo came into my life and I got to put on that hat, that mothering nurturing hat, wear that archetype and that’s when I realized, “Holy moly it’s so innate within us.” It’s so innate and it’s so natural and it’s so beautiful and it’s been such a beautiful archetype that I love playing. A role that I love playing and that’s why I put it in the book because I really wanted to inspire women to play around with them, wear the different hats, unlock different parts of yourself that maybe you have suppressed for a little while, maybe you’ve been completely down the other end of the spectrum to me and maybe you have just been complete mother and nurturer and you have neglected that warrior, that go getter, that goddess type of you. The archetype within you and so maybe it’s about coming back and rebalancing a little bit of that and ultimately, what we want to do is balance all of them, play with all of them because that’s where life becomes colorful and joyful and fun and you know I see the women like myself who are just warriors and the achievers and the go getters, there’s a void in them and it needs to be balanced with all of the different archetypes and it’s so much fun. It adds color and diversity to your life and that is why I included it.

[0:36:38] Charlie Hoehn: Absolutely and you have all these great suggestions in the section of the book, unleashing your goddess is not as complicated or difficult as it might sound at first glance. You have a bunch of ways of just reconnecting with mother nature outdoors, how to bring Mother Nature into your home and your office, how to strengthen your intuition. You even have a list of steps to take in order to host a group night with your soul sisters, your best female friends. And you just walk through the whole thing - like it is a really great list, a great recipe for having a great evening or a great time with your best female friends. I love that part I think the most because you really do step by step like the first step is to pick a host then to give plenty of notice. You even say like, “Here’s what to say in the invitation,” then you plan the feast, you set the mood and the feel. I mean this is great. So have you done a bunch of nights like this? Is this a part of your regular routine?

[0:37:51] Melissa Ambrosini: Absolutely. So I call them “goddess circles” and this is something that I realized a lot of women were really missing in their life and just a little caveat here, this book is amazing for mentoring too and let me tell you why. I have had so many emails, that messages on social media from men that have read this book and have said, “Thank you so much. I now understand my partner or my wife so much deeper.” So I’ve had a lot of people that have said that which is awesome and was definitely one of the other reasons why I wanted to write it but women are designed to be in tribes and modern day society doesn’t really allow for that you know? We live in our tiny boxes on our own and we’re inside all day long raising our children by ourselves, a lot of us don’t leave anywhere near our families and so we feel very isolated and alone. But if you go back to all about great ancestors, they grew up in tribes. It was all of the women, the aunties, the uncles, the grandmothers they all lived together and all of the aunties and the grandmothers and the sisters and the friends and the cousins raised the children together whist the men went out hunting. And so something happens when women get together like men don’t need it as much. It’s not as innate within them as it is with us. We thrive on female to female connection so it literary changes our hormones and I am not joking. There are scientific evidence that it decreases cortisol in the body, it releases serotonin. I don’t know if you know this but when you are around women sometimes you sync to your periods to each other like that is how powerful the female pheromones and hormones are, okay? It’s just so beautiful like how freaking amazing is that? How amazing is the body that it does that, right? So most of my girlfriends were all in sync and so I realized back when I was this overachieving type A just want to write books, don’t want to have kids, go-go-go, I was very in my own world. I was living a very selfish life like I just was in my own path. I wasn’t of service, I wasn’t really helping other people. I was too busy to catch up with anyone and I realize that there was a massive void in me and that was my female friendships and so I started creating these goddess circles. And this was like you said before, it is a very intimate beautiful evening where we’ve come together, we’d share a beautiful plate of food together. We’d sit in circles and we’d have a little ceremony and it was really beautiful and we did this on the full moon of every months and it was gorgeous and I did it for many, many years and I absolutely loved it. Something very powerful happens when women come together, it is really beautiful and in the book I talk about how you can do that. How you can create your own goddess circle so that you can have that same experience because I know so many women who feel isolated and alone and it doesn’t have to be that way.

[0:41:23] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah and I am so glad you included this. I am such a huge believer. This absolutely affects men I think equally. Men and women are different, there’s a stronger pole for women to gather together like this. Men absolutely need it too, so I am thrilled that you included this. The thing that’s challenging for people who are in a lonely state or maybe have fallen out of the social loop is it takes some courage to put yourself out there, right? If you haven’t done it in a while or if you haven’t hosted something like this. So what is your recommendation for somebody, maybe a woman who has been feeling lonely who just hasn’t done this sort of thing for a while, where does she need to start?

[0:42:11] Melissa Ambrosini: Great question and I talk about this in the book as well but the first place is starting by inviting one or two people. It doesn’t have to be 15 people. Just one or two people even one person and extending the invitation practicing what I call CCC-crystal clear communication especially with your friends, especially with your soul sisters. So you know I would have an open dialogue and say, “Hey I’m really...” speak from your heart. “I am really craving a deeper connection with my soul sisters especially you and I would love if we could have a regular catch up maybe it’s once a month or once every two weeks or whatever it is, I would just love to have a regular catch up. You know maybe it is just an hour, I know we’ve got things on, we’ve got kids, we’ve got this, we’ve got that but I’d really love that so much. I love to deepen our connection. I would just love this.” And the person is either going to say, “Oh my god I’d love that too” or they’ll be like, “No” well not no they might be like, “I don’t know maybe one”…

[0:43:21] Charlie Hoehn: They’ll just ignore it.

[0:43:22] Melissa Ambrosini: Yeah, they’ll just ignore it exactly and that’s fine too because everything is perfect you know?

[0:43:29] Charlie Hoehn: You just got your answer.

[0:43:30] Melissa Ambrosini: Exactly and what’s the worst that could happen? They’ll say no or they don’t respond. People have done that to me, people have done that to me and I just go, “Okay cool they’re not ready,” and that’s fine. They are not at that point in their life where they want to go deeper with their soul sisters and that’s fine. You can’t take it personally and I talk a lot about this in the book. You can’t take anything personal. You cannot take it personally. You can extend the invitation and you can see what happens but you can’t take it personally.

[0:44:03] Charlie Hoehn: Agreed whole heartedly. Now I mean we could dedicate an entire episode to the next two sections of your book but I wanted to linger on that part because I love that first part. So the next two parts, relationships, cultivating rocking relationships and part three is soulful sex. Now I’m not sure even where to begin. I want to tackle both but I know we’re somewhat limited on time. So let’s start with relationships and we’ll cap it off with the most exciting topic, sex. So soul mate city and how to have rocking relationships, how do we find our soul mate? Super easy question for you to answer Melissa.

[0:44:52] Melissa Ambrosini: Okay, so I wanted to just interject here quickly and say the reason why the book is in three sections is because the first question is all about you. It is falling in love with yourself. It is all about unleashing your inner goddess, it’s about you. The second section is about how to have this rocking relationships with your friends and with your lover and then the third step is how to go really deep with your beloved. So it’s a progression and you’ve got to do that in that order. I know it’s very easy to want to skip to the soulful sex part at the back of the book but you’ve got to do them in order. It starts with you first then your relationships and then you can go deeper. So that’s why it is in those three sections and rocking relationships and soul mates, it starts with you. If you want epic relationships, you’ve got to have an epic relationship with yourself first. If you want to find your soul mate, you’ve got to be your own soul mate first. You’ve got to really love yourself. You’ve got to really cultivate a beautiful relationship and reverence for yourself first and how you call in your soul mate, I talk a lot about this in the book, you know once you have really loved yourself a lot and you’ve done a bit of work on yourself, get clear on what it is that you want in a partner. Get really clear, chapter four, dive into your ocean is all about understanding your core values, beliefs, interests and hobbies. You need to know your core values and beliefs so deeply so that you can call in someone who shares those same values and beliefs. They don’t have to all be the same but you know there is a couple of deal breakers in there, you need to know what those deal breakers are. For example, if one of your core values is to not hit children and you start dating someone who believes in hitting children, how is that going to work? Like seriously, you know?

[0:46:50] Charlie Hoehn: I take it you mean punishment and not somebody who just goes around from school to school bullying children.

[0:46:57] Melissa Ambrosini: Oh yes, I mean as in like your children like if they believe in discipline is smacking children which I know some people do. Some people believe in smacking kids. I mean I was smacked as a child, I was hit with a belt and that’s just what my dad believed in. And some people don’t believe in that like for Nick, he would never ever lay a hand on Leo ever. It doesn’t matter what he did and so it’s really important that you know your core values and your beliefs. So that you can get aligned with someone who is on the same page. So that is chapter four, dive into your ocean is the first step on how you call in your soul mate is you’ve got to get really clear on that first and then the second - you write it down. Create a list of what you desire in your soul mate and I am not taking about six foot two, blue eyes, blond hair, I am talking about the core values.

[0:48:02] Charlie Hoehn: You know what’s funny about this is how much time, how many years do we spend in failed relationships, unsuccessful dating where we’ve literarally never sat down and mapped out, with writing, the type of person that we are trying to attract and furthermore, how often are we behaving like the type of person that that person is trying to attract. There’s very little thought that goes into like very intentional deep thought about what we are trying to ultimately create for ourselves typically which I think is a big part of the reason why so many are frustrated.

[0:48:48] Melissa Ambrosini: Absolutely. Imagine if we had to just sat down and done this at different points in our life because we all change as well. Imagine if we just sat down and go, “Hey what do I really value?” and for some other people, religion is a deal breaker. For some people, they must marry someone of the same religion and that’s okay. It is just about getting clear on what are your values and your beliefs. That is the first step in calling in your lover. Writing it down, get really clear. Get shinny diamond clear on it and write it down. The second thing is –

[0:49:23] Charlie Hoehn: By the way, just a quick point I love that you included part in the book talking about people pleasing and not being a people pleaser because it seems like a lot of relation woes for people also comes down to the fact that they are trying to please whoever it is who seems to like them and I can definitely speak to this. This was my problem for a long time and instead of actually taking rejection as a good thing as you don’t want everybody, right? So you have to learn this in just an analogous comparison is in marketing, you learn it’s good not to have everyone as your customer. In fact, you actively want to say upfront these are the types of people I do not work with, that this service is not for. These should not be the customers because you don’t want to attract everybody. Not everyone is created equal especially when it comes to your soul mate. You have to be crystal clear on what you want and what you don’t so I love that you included pleasing in there.

[0:50:35] Melissa Ambrosini: Absolutely, yeah it’s really important. So yeah, get clear on what you do want and what you don’t want and that’s the first step. The second step is that you act as if and what I mean by that is you act as if you already have your soul mate because you are your own soul mate and if you are looking outside of yourself for a soul mate, sometimes that tends to be like a lot of people then put their power in that person and they act as if that person is going to fill the void within them. But we already have everything within ourselves. Our soul mate is just an epic human being that we get to hold hands through life with. They are our teammate, they are our cherry on top but they are not there to fulfill us or fill the void within us. So you act as if you are already with your soul mate. So as an example and a story I share in the book about one of my friends, she did this. She did this exact thing. So she got really clear on what she wanted and what she didn’t want. And then she decided to act as if, and one of the things that she wanted to do with her soul mate when she found him was she wanted to go to the Amazon jungle and travel and she wanted to go there for three months and so she was like, “Okay I am just going to go do it. I’m going to act as if I’ve already got my soul mate and I am going to do the things that I want to do. I am not going to sit here and wait to do those things until I have my soul mate. So she went and did it and guess what happens, she meets her soul mate in the Amazon jungle and they’re still together 10 years later. So you’ve got to really act as if you already have that soul mate because you already do, you are already whole and complete and you’ve already got what you actually want within you. You don’t want to come in a place of wanting them to fill a void. Does that make sense?

[0:52:29] Charlie Hoehn: Absolutely. Another way I like to think of it is your soul mate is not Jesus. They’re not your savior. They are just a guy or a girl but you are somebody who wants to have their complement like you call it it’s their spiritual quest with this person. Their reflection, they are the cherry on top of you who is already whole and complete but if you feel that this person is your savior, if you put them on a pedestal into a crazy hype that is not your soul mate, that’s a deep hole within you.

[0:53:09] Melissa Ambrosini: Exactly, that’s the thing. You can’t put them on a pedestal. You are the same, you are equal, you are one.

[0:53:16] Charlie Hoehn: Absolutely. So anything else? I know the book has a ton but I want us to get to the exciting part that I am sure people are really excited to get into is the soulful sex. Anything else with soul mates?

[0:53:31] Melissa Ambrosini: No, that’s good. Let’s get onto the soulful sex part.

[0:53:34] Charlie Hoehn: All right, so you start off with sex, shame, taboo and guilt. What do people need to know first and foremost?

[0:53:47] Melissa Ambrosini: I guess what of what we are talking about before just about the guilt and the shame that we have and I really help people in this section of the book just to identify any guilt or shame or taboo that they have around it and we just let that go. We rewrite that. Because I mentioned before, a lot of my, for my majority of my life I was having junk-food sex because it was quick and easy and the intent was to get off as quickly as possible. I didn’t know that there was such thing as soulful connection and soulful intimacy with your beloved and that’s what this section is all about. It’s about rewriting what sex means for you. It’s about letting go of the taboo, the guilt, the shame and recreating how you want your sexual experience to be. So for me now and this has never been the case until my husband, sex is an experience with God. You can call it God love, oneness, whatever you want to call it. It is a beautiful intimate uniting and an experience with love and I think what makes it that is the intention. You know the intention previously for me was just to get off, right? The intention now is to unite with my lover. It is to experience oneness with my beloved. It is to be cracked open wide and to be totally real and authentic and vulnerable and honest with someone else staring at you. It is the most open I am. It is the only thing I do with him that I do not do with anyone else. It is the most me I truly feel and it is such a beautiful thing to experience and get to share and I didn’t know that any of this was even possible. I didn’t know it because no one had taught me this at school. So the reason why I wanted to share this is because it’s possible. It really is possible to have this type of deep union with someone else and everyone is worthy of it.

[0:56:06] Charlie Hoehn: So when you are going into the bedroom and you and your husband are about to make love, what are the thoughts that both of you are having? Do you two say anything to each other before and are you like, this is our union, how do you set the intention or is it just because you’ve had all these internal shifts along your own journey that you are now comfortable and you know that this is the most fulfilling and enriching for you both?

[0:56:36] Melissa Ambrosini: We often refer to it as adult mediation because –

[0:56:42] Charlie Hoehn: It’s being present.

[0:56:44] Melissa Ambrosini: It’s you’re the most present or I mean not the most but you are so present. I mean you can’t not be. It’s like you have to be so present with each other because if you are not he can feel it and I can feel it and I’m like, “Oi, where are you? Are you here? Are you here with me?” and sometimes I’m not. Like sometimes I’ll be like, “Babe no, I am actually not. I am feeling a little bit upset about what so and so said to me and I can’t get it out of my head,” and that happens. But our intent with our love making is always to unify, it’s to come back to unity. Come back to our center, come back to our heart which is why do we meditate? We meditate to come back to our center. Why do we make love? To come back to our center. It’s the same thing and it’s to unite together and so that’s always our intention when we make love is to unite and to experience oneness. But sometimes there are times where he’s in his head or I am in my head. You know he might be stressing about something or I am worried about what so and so said to so and so or this email or something on my to-do list and in those moments, it’s my responsibility to help him open wide. And I do that by helping him get out of his head and back into his body. Get out of his head and back into his heart and so I might give him a massage with some coconut oil and essential oils and we’ve got some oils diffusing and we’ll dim the lights and we’ll just talk for a while. And I will massage and tickle and just help him get back into his body and that’s my role as his beloved is to help him do that like we are a team here and then there’s times he does that for me like he’ll see that I am closed. Because in every moment, you’re either open or you’re closed. You’re closed off to the world, to the partner, to the kids, to the Uber driver, to the lady at the bank, to the girl at the coffee shop or you are open wide to all of the beauty. You are open to your husband, you are open to your friends, you are open to the Uber driver and that’s what this book is all about. It is about opening wide to all of the beauty that is constantly around you in mother nature and your friends and so it’s my role to help him open wide in those moments and he’s for me too. You know that’s what we signed up for, when we said, “I do,” that’s what we signed up for is to help each other be the best version of ourselves. So that we can show up in the world as the best version of ourselves. And so he does it for me sometimes and I do it for him and it’s a really beautiful thing to be able to do for someone is to help them come back into their body to get present, to get out of their head and before you know it, you know the most beautiful sacred love making is underway.

[0:59:39] Charlie Hoehn: It sounds like the core message, the core purpose of the book is almost to transcend all the worries, the fears, the guilt, the shame around these essential parts of our existence and like you said, I’ve come across this in spiritual text and I’ve experienced it, is that sex and really anything that you are truly in the moment with can be a connection to God. It can be a moment with the transcendent. And you call it the inner mean girl. A lot of people call it the ego, neuroscientist call it the regulator of the brain that tends to ruminate and worry and think about the past and the future but it really seems like the purpose of this book is to be in the now with the most fundamental parts of human existence.

[1:00:42] Melissa Ambrosini: Exactly, that’s it.

[1:00:45] Charlie Hoehn: I like it and it’s for many people I’d imagine it’s been life altering. Could you share your favorite transformation that you’ve heard about from a reader?

[1:00:59] Melissa Ambrosini: I have inundated with emails and private messages on social media and I am so grateful. So, so grateful, some of my favorite stories are marriages being saved also leaving heavily abusive toxic relationships, like a lot of women have read this book and then had the courage to leave toxic relationships. A lot of women have read it and it saved their relationships. People have left toxic jobs and started their dream business. People have healed from chronic diseases that they were told they’ll never heal from. People have been able to let go of years of grief, pain, anger, resentment, it’s amazing. I mean every message, every email I get it just really pulls on my heart strings and I am so grateful that I get to play this tiny part in their transformation.

[1:02:05] Charlie Hoehn: I am grateful and I’m sure all of the listeners are grateful that you actually put this down on paper, shared your journey, shared the advice that can help anybody become more in touch with themselves, in their relationships, have more soulful sex so thank you for making the book. Now could you give our listeners maybe a challenge something that they can try today that will be a small first step to making a positive impact on their life in opening wide?

[1:02:41] Melissa Ambrosini: Okay, so I want everyone today to practice CCC, ‘crystal clear communication’ with yourself and with every single person you come into contact with because we are constantly telling little white lies but what happens is when we tell these little white lies it builds and builds resentment within us and eventually we’ll explode. So not really not physically but you know, what we want to do is make sure we’re practicing crystal clear communication with our self. Don’t lie with yourself. Be really honest with the stories that you are telling yourself. Be really, really honest with what you are letting your little inner mean girl tell you and then with the people around you. Practice it with your family, with your friends, your kids, practice it when someone asks you, “How are you?” Practice it then. When someone says, “Hey can you do this?” Instead of saying, “Yeah, sure,” when you really wanted to say no, practice it then. Practice it in every moment because if we all just practiced crystal clear communication, there would be a lot less heartache and anger and frustration in the world because there’s only ever a relationship breakdown when someone has failed to practice crystal clear communication. Like I know with my son and with Nick, we only butt heads when one of us have forgotten to practice crystal clear communication and it takes a strong person to say: “Oh whoops, sorry. I didn’t practice crystal clear communication there. What I should have said was this, this and this,” and so just start today. Start practicing.

[1:04:30] Charlie Hoehn: I like that, I like that a lot. I like it so much more than the phrase radical honesty which just seems like blurting potentially harsh truths out but crystal clear communication is something that I have seen the most effective leaders do but it is also on the flip-side, that is the breakdown of communication is literary the number one cause of divorce. So crystal clear communication is marriage proofing your marriage or divorce proofing your marriage I mean so I think that’s brilliant.

[1:05:04] Melissa Ambrosini: Totally and sometimes if Nick and I are in a bit of a heated conversation, he might say to me, “Honey, we’re not practicing crystal clear communication right now. So I am going to go for a walk and when I come back when you’re ready, let’s practice. Let’s practice crystal clear communication.” And I might say the same thing to him. I’m like, “Babes, you know we are not practicing right now. So when we can, let’s come back together because right now, we’re just butting heads.” And that’s how we speak to each other now. Sometimes he’ll say to me, “Honey I really feel like you are not practicing it right now,” and I do the same and it is just speaking from your heart not from your head. It’s speaking from your heart openly and honestly and clearly that’s all it is and it will change all of your relationships. I practice it with my parents, with my siblings, with my friends, every one now and it sometimes can feel really vulnerable and scary. Don’t get me wrong, it can feel like that. But what’s the alternative seriously? Is the alternative to lie to yourself? You end up creating more drama for yourself in the long run if you do lie to yourself or other person. Just practice it, straight up.

[1:06:25] Charlie Hoehn: I’m with you a 100% and it’s by far one of the greatest challenges. I mean part of the reason I got into writing my own books was because of how difficult crystal clear communication was for me. I could only do it if I was able to sit down, write things out and I’d imagine that plays part of the role for you as well but maybe I am wrong but that is a beautiful suggestion so thank you for that Melissa.

[1:06:54] Melissa Ambrosini: You’re welcome.

[1:06:56] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, so how can our listeners stay connected with you, follow you, that sort of thing?

[1:07:02] Melissa Ambrosini: So you can head to my website. It’s melissaambrosini.com and if you go to Shop all of my books and products and meditations and everything there for you, I’ve created with Nick, a free video master class. An Open Wide free video master class if you want to check that out, you just head to melissaambrosini.com/openwide. I’ve got my own podcast, it’s called the Melissa Ambrosini Show. It’s epic and Charlie is actually on it today. So his episode launched today. So go and listen to my episode with Charlie. It’s awesome and I absolutely loved our conversation. Let us know what you think of our conversation on my show. And then I am super active on Instagram and I’ve got Facebook as well but I love Instagram. Come and introduce yourself to me on Instagram, tell me that you heard this episode and what you got out of it. I would love to hear your key takeaways and if you’ve read the book, I’d love to hear what you thought of the book. But yeah, website, podcast, Instagram, they are the three places that I am most active.

[1:08:09] Charlie Hoehn: Beautiful and that really was one of the better interviews I’d had in a really long time. So I would encourage everybody who’s listening to this, definitely go listen to our interview on Melissa’s podcast. So the book is Open Wide: A Radically Real Guide to Deep Love, Rocking Relationships and Soulful Sex. Melissa, thank you so much for spending the time and for creating this this work.

[1:08:34] Melissa Ambrosini: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been awesome to chat to you now twice, Charlie, and to connect with you. You are a really beautiful human being.

[1:08:42] Charlie Hoehn: Oh thank you ma’am and I feel the same. So hopefully I’ll get a chance to meet you and your husband at some point in the near future.

[1:08:50] Melissa Ambrosini: I would love that so much.

[1:08:54] Charlie Hoehn: Many thanks to Melissa Ambrosini for being on the show. You can buy her book, Open Wide, on amazon.com. Thanks again for listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about book with the authors who wrote them. We’ll see you next time.