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Can we ever be truly free?

I have been sitting with that question since hearing Dr Gabor Maté speak in London. He spoke about childhood, attachment, the body and the experiences that shape us: what we were praised for, what was allowed and which parts of us seemed to threaten our belonging.

It left me wondering how much of the life we are living today is genuinely being chosen by us—and how much is being chosen through a lens we learned to wear long ago.

As babies, our needs and responses are immediate. We reach, cry, turn away and make ourselves known. But somewhere along the way, many of us learn that self-expression has consequences. Do not be too difficult. Do not ask for too much. Do not become angry. Be good, amenable and easygoing. Preserve the relationship. Keep the peace.

For a child who depends upon attachment, this adaptation makes complete sense. Belonging is not a luxury; it is survival. Yet the strategy can follow us into adulthood, long after the original conditions have changed. We call it our personality. We say we genuinely do not mind. We rise above anger, soften the boundary and swallow the no—while resentment, tension or exhaustion gathers inside us.

Then one day, self-expression begins to matter more.

We set a boundary. We name what is true. We stop volunteering for the role everyone expects us to play. And because our nervous system remembers that authenticity once risked rejection, even a healthy act of self-loyalty can feel dangerous.

This is the painful choice beneath so many apparently ordinary moments: do I risk disappointing someone else, or do I continue abandoning myself?

Freedom may not mean becoming free of everything that happened to us. We may always have a history, conditioning and a body that remembers. Perhaps freedom begins in the moment we recognise: this happened; this is what I made it mean; this is who I learned to become because of it. Then a new question becomes possible: do I still need to be that person now?

That awareness is not an instruction to blame our younger selves. The adaptation protected something precious. Nor is it a demand to express every feeling at another person. Self-expression can begin privately—with the courage to admit what is actually here. What is true for me today? What wants to come through me? If I did care, what would I choose?

One of the most beautiful parts of the evening came during a question about supporting children through painful circumstances. The response Melissa heard contained three simple invitations: care for yourself, allow their full expression and delight in them.

What if those are also instructions for our own healing?

Can I care for myself and tend to my emotional state? Can I allow the anger, grief, desire, joy, guilt, ambition and mysticism to exist without immediately correcting them? And can I enjoy myself—not merely treat myself as an endless healing project, but become available for my vitality and aliveness?

Perhaps healing is not becoming better at holding pain. Perhaps it is becoming more available for truth, authenticity and life.

This is spiritual intelligence: not collecting more knowledge about why we are the way we are, but developing the capacity to meet our mind, body, emotions, Soul and history consciously enough that we can participate in what happens next.

What happened to you matters. The meaning you made was intelligent. The person you became helped you belong or survive. But what are you doing with your story now?

Join AWAKEN, Melissa’s free three-day live Spiritual Intelligence experience: https://melissa-amos.com/awaken

Learn more about Melissa: https://melissa-amos.com

Memoirs of a Mystic In Training, by Melissa Amos is available on Amazon

Learn more about Melissa by visiting her website melissa-amos.com and download a free hypnotherapeutic series, Intuition Rewired.

Follow her @themelissaamos across the platforms

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What if the chapter that feels like a detour is not evidence that you have gone wrong?

What if it is part of what is preparing you to arrive?

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see The Odyssey with a friend. Three hours later, I left the theatre with the feeling that I had witnessed far more than an ancient adventure story. So I went back. The second time, I took a notebook.

Odysseus begins with a destination: Ithaca. He knows where he wants to go, but the journey home refuses to become a straight line. There are storms and monsters, temptation and loss, magical helpers and moments when the way forward disappears completely. Again and again, he has to meet the chapter he is actually in—not the one he thought he should be living.

That is where the myth began to feel like a mirror.

It is easy to believe we are supported when life is flowing. The signs appear, the right people arrive and the ship seems to be travelling directly towards the destination we chose. But what happens to our faith when the feathers stop—or when we are too frightened, tired or disappointed to notice them? What happens when the map disappears and we cannot understand why life is asking so much of us?

We can begin to treat divine guidance like a guarantee: if I am aligned, things will work out in the way I want. If I am supported, the path will be smooth. If something goes wrong, perhaps I have missed the sign, made the wrong choice or somehow fallen off my soul path.

But support does not always look like ease. A sign may be an invitation to pay attention, not a promise of a preferred outcome. The difficult chapter may be developing the strength, wit, resilience or discernment we will need later. The detour may introduce a helper, reveal a truth or return us to a part of ourselves we had left behind.

This does not mean every painful experience was deliberately sent, or that harm should be spiritualised and endured. Some chapters ask us to leave, seek help, set a boundary or name clearly what has happened. Finding meaning is not the same as justifying suffering. Spiritual intelligence asks us to stay awake to that distinction.

Nor is faith the same as passive waiting. Odysseus receives help, but he still has to build the raft. He has to listen, choose, act and sometimes begin again. Perhaps our work is similar: to remain open to guidance without handing over our agency; to notice what life is showing us while still taking the next honest step.

So perhaps the question is not simply, “How do I get home?” Perhaps it is, “Where am I in the Odyssey?”

Am I in the storm, being asked to hold my centre? Am I with the sirens, learning what can pull me away from my true north? Am I on the island, mistaking comfort for belonging? Or am I building the raft—working with the materials available instead of waiting for perfect conditions?

We do not return home unchanged. The person who arrives could not have existed without the journey, and the home we return to may have changed too.

What might you do differently if you knew you were not lost, but navigating a necessary detour? And what might this part of your spiritual journey be asking you to become?

Listen to this episode of Mystic in Training for a reflection on the hero’s journey, faith, divine guidance, discernment and the conscious choices that help us find our way.

Join AWAKEN, Melissa’s free three-day live Spiritual Intelligence experience: https://melissa-amos.com/awaken

Learn more about Melissa: https://melissa-amos.com

Follow Melissa: @themelissaamos

Memoirs of a Mystic In Training, by Melissa Amos is available on Amazon

Learn more about Melissa by visiting her website melissa-amos.com and download a free hypnotherapeutic series, Intuition Rewired.

Follow her @themelissaamos across the platforms

Send us Fan Mail

What happens when the person who helped deepen your spiritual practice also leaves you questioning your own knowing?

In this deeply personal episode of Mystic in Training, Melissa shares the story of a five-year spiritual apprenticeship that contained powerful teaching, genuine magic—and a gradual shift that left her questioning her practices, relationships and inner authority.

After the relationship ended, Melissa discovered that she had carried a hidden agreement into her own work:

What if I lead them wrong?

That fear did not make her more responsible. At times, it made her soften her beliefs, over-explain herself, hesitate around her work and dilute her leadership in an effort never to control another person.

Years later, words written by clients for the Business Ascension Awards reflected something back to her that she had struggled to see from the inside: her work was helping people trust themselves, discover their gifts and find their own rhythm.

In this episode, Melissa explores:

• How a mentoring relationship can contain both valuable teaching and a damaging dynamic
• Why access to supposedly hidden knowledge can make us feel special
• What happens when questioning a teacher begins to feel like disloyalty
• How losing trust in a mentor can also disrupt trust in yourself
• The hidden agreement that made Melissa afraid to lead fully
• The difference between responsible humility and leadership shaped by fear
• Why influence is unavoidable—and what healthy influence should strengthen
• How spiritual guidance can offer a map without replacing someone’s compass
• Why psychological, spiritual and somatic understanding belong together
• The questions that help us assess whether mentorship is strengthening our inner authority

For leaders:

Does my influence make people more dependent on my certainty—or more able to recognise their own?

For anyone receiving guidance:

Is this relationship helping me strengthen my own inner authority?

Over the coming weeks, Mystic in Training will explore Awareness, Discernment and Coherence as Melissa prepares to open AWAKEN, a free three-day live Spiritual Intelligence experience beginning 29 September 2026.

Learn more about Melissa: https://melissa-amos.com

Follow Melissa: @themelissaamos

Memoirs of a Mystic In Training, by Melissa Amos is available on Amazon

Learn more about Melissa by visiting her website melissa-amos.com and download a free hypnotherapeutic series, Intuition Rewired.

Follow her @themelissaamos across the platforms