Melissa Denyce: So I was laying in my bed.
I was fully awake.
I was fully alive as far as I'm aware and my eyes
were closed and suddenly I was in another dimension.
And this dimension was made entirely of an infinite ocean
of overwhelming love and bliss
Rod Bland: My guest today is Melissa Denise, the
creator of the YouTube channel Love Covered Life.
Melissa, welcome.
And thanks for coming on the show.
Melissa Denyce: Thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited to be here and have this
conversation with you.
Rod Bland: Great.
It's, I'm very honored that you said yes to have this
conversation, actually, because um, you know, when
I started this channel back in March of 2023, and it was
one, your channel was one of the ones that inspired me.
There's a few that I found inspiration
from that was yours.
And, uh, I mentioned before the JeffMara
podcast and of course Alex from Next Level Soul.
So I really appreciate you for doing what you're
doing because I felt like, okay, Melissa is
not a movie producer.
She's not, uh, you know, she hasn't been in the movies
like what Alex has, and you've kind of, you know, started
from scratch where you are.
And I felt like what you were doing with your
channel was something that.
is achievable, still really good, but achievable
for the everyday person.
So that, that, that helped me get going.
Melissa Denyce: Oh, thank you so much for saying that.
I love to hear that feedback because you're correct.
I don't, I still don't have a clue what I'm doing.
So.
Rod Bland: Yeah.
It's um, I think sometimes you just got to stay in
something for long enough to become successful.
You don't always have to be like the best of the best.
A lot of success is just sticking in there.
So how about we start with what your life was like before
you had your, shall we say, spiritual transformation?
Melissa Denyce: Okay, yes, wonderful.
So, feel free to stop me or redirect or anything
, but I was born with pre birth memories, which I
did not understand what they were at the time.
I didn't know what a pre birth memory was or that people
could have them, but I just had this memory of divine
bliss that I was born with.
And so that sort of, um, started my life off
in a certain direction.
From the very beginning, I was very.
interested in spiritual things and kind of a little bit
obsessed with how I'm going to experience this divine
bliss again, and what do I have to do to feel that again?
And I was born into the Christian faith.
I was born into a really strict branch
of the Christian faith,
which now would probably be considered a cult.
And so I was taught a very opposite thing about God
and the spiritual realm than what I remembered.
And as a young child, I couldn't really differentiate
those two things.
So I 100 percent swallowed everything that I was taught.
And I was a very, very sincere Christian for
almost Well, yeah, about 30 years, 29 years of my life.
And some of the things that I was taught were very
depressing to me and caused me to have some mental
health issues as a teenager.
Oh, for most of my childhood and my teenage
years, I was depressed.
I became suicidal as a teenager and.
I just kept, um, kind of pushing forward to try to
find the spiritual connection.
And so on the one hand, I had this like ongoing relationship
with this being that I remembered from my pre birth
memories that was very loving, very understanding, very.
forgiving, um, always directing me to forgive
the people in my life and to be more loving
and more open minded.
And then on the other hand, I was taught that this being
that we called God was, had created most of the world's
population just to throw them into hell and burn them
alive for all of eternity.
So I, it was kind of hard to reconcile these.
things.
And it caused me a lot of mental turmoil.
And so I spent a lot of my time desperately seeking
divine bliss, seeking to have a divine experience.
As we said in the Christian faith, trying
to feel God's presence.
I want to feel and experience God's presence.
And I did a lot of crazy things trying to
stimulate an experience.
I would go out in crazy weather.
I would go out late at night by myself and just like
walk around when it's zero degrees outside thinking
if I can have an extreme enough thing is going to
stimulate something
Rod Bland: say crazy weather, do you mean like
thunderstorms, lightning, that kind of thing?
Melissa Denyce: Yeah, I went out in blizzards.
I was out in thunderstorms all the time.
And so I, I would go out by myself and walk around the
neighborhood, just hoping if I go around this corner, the
light is going to be there and I'm going to have this
crazy supernatural experience.
I was a crazy teenager.
The thing, things that we do when we're young, um,
but nothing ever happened.
And.
I, I, I just remember becoming more and more depressed and
then I would pray every night begging for an experience,
please give me some kind of experience, because I
knew if I could feel that bliss again that all of my
earthly pain would just be wiped away in an instant.
So that's what led up to me having, finally having
the out of body experience.
Rod Bland: Right, so you had an out of body experience.
This is interesting.
So what actually precipitated, so that was
around about 2930, I guess.
So tell us about that.
Melissa Denyce: Yeah, actually this happened earlier.
I was 18, 19 when
Rod Bland: Oh, okay.
Melissa Denyce: Yep, so I was in my bed praying my normal
prayer, begging to have an experience of divine bliss and
I cannot explain why it happened that night
when I had prayed the same thing for years and
nothing ever happened.
But I, so I was laying in my bed.
I was fully awake.
I was fully alive as far as I'm aware and my eyes
were closed and suddenly I was in another dimension.
So there's two phases to this experience.
In the first phase, I still perceived myself to be
in my bedroom on my bed.
But it was like I was in another dimension and
this dimension was made entirely of an infinite
ocean of overwhelming love and bliss that was also a
presence and I immediately recognized it from my pre
birth memories as the being that I had been taught to
call God in my earthly life.
And this presented itself to me as like this force field of
love and the love was washing over me in waves from my feet
to my head and it was also in like washing in waves inside
of me and it was wiping away all of my depression and all
of the pain connected to my earthly life and I remember
saying to it, where have you been my entire life?
I have been looking for you my entire life and
you are finally here.
And I felt like I was being held in my mother's
arms like a newborn baby.
Like, no, like I was held in my father's arms and
comforted in my mother's womb.
So there was definitely a masculine and a feminine
element to this presence.
And I remember thinking it feels like the love, all the
loves that we can experience in this lifetime, all wrapped
into one, like brother, sister, friend, mother,
father, son, daughter, lover, everything, pets, everything.
All wrapped into one and multiplied by a million.
And this is where words really fail me because there
are no words to describe what this felt like because
we don't even have those feelings in this world.
If I could describe it, it would be Love, safety,
security, peace, joy, bliss, beyond what we
can ever experience here.
And I felt like, like, I realized that the things
that I had been taught in the church were completely
wrong and that it is completely impossible for
anybody to be eternally lost.
It's just unthinkable because that's how safe and
secure and loved we are.
So, I'm not sure how long I experienced this.
I remember feeling like I, I'm just gonna stay here forever,
I'm never gonna leave,
Rod Bland: not going back.
Melissa Denyce: go back to my life.
That's right.
Um, but time was different there,
so I'm not sure how long or if there even was a length of
time that I was in that place.
But at some point, I began to...
expand.
My consciousness began to expand out of my body
and out of the physical realm, and I found myself
somewhere above the earth.
I, I've since put language to it.
Um, a lot of near death experiencers have called this
an experience of ultimate knowledge, and that's what
began to happen to me.
I became aware that I had access to all the information
that was available in our universe and that
I could know anything that I wanted to know.
So I began asking questions.
As soon as I would formulate a question in my mind, I
would receive a massive download of information that
would Not only answer that question, but show how the
answer to that question fit together with everything
else in the universe.
And I know that sounds impossible, but that
is what happened.
And as soon as I would get that download, it would
stimulate more questions.
And I would ask like five, 10 more questions
and I would get a massive download and response to
each of those questions.
And this was happening like at the speed of light.
So on the one hand, it's like I'm asking questions
and I'm getting this massive download and it's like
I'm expanding like this because as I'm, as this
information is coming into my consciousness, I'm expanding
so that I can contain it.
And it felt like I was expanding through
dimensional awareness.
So I remember expanding through several
dimensions of awareness.
And every time I would expand up into a new
dimension, there would be this feeling of, like,
release, of freedom and bliss.
Like, I would feel so much more expanded and there
So much more information available to me, and I
would see things from such a higher perspective that
I kept having this epiphany like, oh yeah, I knew
that, oh yeah, I knew that.
How could I not understand that before?
But it made so much more sense the more expanded I got.
When I got to the top, there was um, This moment
where I saw that what what I called the key to
life like why are we here?
What are we doing here on this planet?
And and I saw why we have to go through all the suffering
that we do and I saw the answer and from that Extremely
expanded perspective.
It was so simple that I laughed and I said, how
do we not know that down there like We make things so
complicated and this whole time it's been so simple.
But I wasn't able to remember what it was because from
this perspective, it's way too much information
to fit into our minds.
And I know that doesn't make sense.
Like, from way up here, it was so simple, but from
way down here, it's so complex that it's impossible
for us to understand.
Um, so on the one hand, um, I expanded extremely fast.
I saw the key to life, and then I began to contract back
into my con into my body.
But on the other hand, I was being given all these
downloads and having all these epiphanies and it was like
all of these other things were happening at the same time.
Most of those things I was not allowed to remember
but there's two things I saw that I can remember.
Do you want me to share those?
Rod Bland: Yeah, I'm fascinated.
Melissa Denyce: Okay, so the first thing I saw that I
do remember is when I first expanded out of my body.
It was like waking up into this realm of brilliant light.
And what I called my angels, many people would
probably call them guides, were there with me.
These beings were surrounding me and they
had a message for me.
Because I had been raised in the church and taught that
most people were dying and going to hell, and I had also
had all of these layers of guilt and shame programmed
into me, um, because we were taught about sin, and how we
all had to confess our sins, and if we missed anything
we could die and wake up in hell, so there's all these
layers of guilt and fear that were programmed into me.
And so what they said is, there's nothing for
you to feel guilty for.
There's nothing for you to feel ashamed of.
There's nothing for you to be afraid of.
There is no judgment awaiting you.
Your life is proceeding exactly as it is supposed to.
You are doing exactly what you were supposed to be doing.
We are so, so proud of you and we are So supporting
you and there is no way that you can mess this up.
We know how difficult this is for you, but you're
doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing.
So there's, there's nothing to worry about.
You have to go back and complete the job and we'll
be with you every step of the way, supporting
you and cheering you on.
And I looked down at the earth and I saw that the entire
earth is made of brilliant light, the same brilliant
light that was in that place.
And I saw that the light is the presence of what we
call God, Source, Creator, whatever word people
are comfortable with.
We're all made up of that.
And we can't get away from it, even if we try.
So that's why the idea of somebody being eternally lost
is unthinkable, because how can you be lost from what
you literally are made of?
And I saw that from that higher perspective.
Down here, humans are stumbling around like
toddlers learning to walk, and that's what our mistakes
are like to God or to Source.
It's like a toddler learning to walk.
Why would you judge a toddler for tripping and falling?
Everything is understood because we're at a very
limited perspective here, so everything is understood.
Everything that the plan encompasses.
anything that we could possibly do.
And there's nothing that we could do to be lost
or to make God mad or disappointed or surprised.
We are just so eternally held and loved.
So that was the first thing that I saw.
And the second thing I saw was when I was much more
expanded, when I was expanded as far as I could, I looked
down and I saw, now this is really cheesy, but I
was a Christian teenager.
And so we were always talking about the plan
of God for our lives.
And so the words I was given is this is the
cosmic master plan of God.
And I looked down and I saw this beautiful
multidimensional living pattern that was full
of colors and math and geometry and music.
On the one side of the pattern it looked like one
of those rugs they used to make where it's like all a
mess on the one side on the back but on the other side
it's a beautiful pattern.
So I was shown that from our perspective here with all the
pain and the mistakes and the suffering and things that we
go through right down here it looks like it's a mess
but on the other side of the pattern is this absolutely
beautiful multidimensional plan that is alive, and
it contains the life paths of all sentient beings.
And within that plan, it is so large that it allows for
us to have free will and to make choices that seemingly
lead away from the light, lead away from love, but
everything is contained within the plan, which is perfection.
It is absolute perfection.
And so even when we make a choice that seems to lead
away from that perfection, it is contained within that
perfection and it's impossible to get away from it.
So that's the second thing I saw.
Um, then I saw the, uh, the key to life,
which I can't remember.
And then I began contracting back into my body and it felt
like I knew I was going back in, I knew I was going to
forget most of what I saw.
I understood that it's because it couldn't fit
into my physical brain and I felt the information falling
out of my consciousness like air leaving a balloon.
And I, another thing that I remember very clearly at
that point is the music.
Every part of my experience was music.
It's like the experience itself was music because when
you're on the other side, everything is connected.
So math and music and geometry and all the feelings like
the love and the bliss, it's all the same thing.
And so everything was music, and I heard this
beautiful music the entire time I was there, but
I specifically remember noticing it when I was coming
back into my body and it felt like my consciousness
was floating back into my body on the music.
Then I came back in and I had the first moment of
my mind coming back online and saying, Wait a minute.
What just happened to me?
Because when the experience is happening, it seems
like the most normal thing in the world, and
you don't question it.
You're just present with it.
But then when my brain came back online, I was shocked.
Like, what just happened to me?
And I felt the love.
That magnetic, loving presence stayed with me until
I fell asleep that night.
It was gone when I woke up in the morning, much to my
disappointment, but I did still feel this, like, glow
around me for the next couple of days, and then eventually
that faded away as well.
So that's what I remember of that experience.
Rod Bland: Wow, so I've got, I've got a
few questions for you.
Um, so when you're saying how when your, your consciousness
expanded and then a lot of, God, that must be so
tantalizing to have that, like the key to everything, knowing
that you were showing that, but then not actually being
able to remember it later.
I guess there was some reason for that.
Yeah.
Melissa Denyce: it's so frustrating, but I know the
reason, the reason is because it wouldn't make sense from
this perspective, because in order to get to that, I
had to expand so much and I had to understand so many
things that, that science just doesn't even know about
yet, if that makes sense.
Rod Bland: Yeah.
That's a hard one to wrap your head around, but
it does actually make sense if you think of.
I've heard our brains described as really like
a reducing mechanism.
So, memory etc.
is not actually contained in our brains, it's just
a filter for what's there.
So, from that perspective it does make sense to me
that you would acquire all of this information and be
able to process it at that time, but then you come back
into the body, everything's sort of hooked to these very
minimal set of filters that you've got to, that's what
you've got to work with.
And unless you can separate your consciousness
from that, then...
You know, it makes sense that you can only do
what you can do with what your brain can handle.
And I suppose the other thing is that it would kind
of defeat the purpose of coming here, wouldn't it?
If we, if we knew all that, knew everything
we could possibly know before coming here, we
wouldn't learn anything while we're here, right?
Melissa Denyce: Yeah, I think you're absolutely
right about that.
It would, it would mess up our game, so to speak, because I
think a lot of the purpose in being here is to experience
things that we can't experience on the other side,
like limitation, um, what it feels like to be a separate
being and be put in all of these challenging scenarios.
And if we knew all the answers, then it would
defeat the whole purpose.
Rod Bland: Yeah, it seems like the more I read about this,
it seems like this is, it's the essential part of our
life experience that actually helps us grow, like as a,
as a being, as a, as a soul.
That's, that's actually the part that makes us grow
and if we, we don't have exposure to these trials and
tribulations and challenges, then we're kind of just
cruising along, right?
Melissa Denyce: absolutely.
I've found that in my own life, I'm constantly being
flipped into, let's say I have like a judgmental
thought towards somebody,
maybe not even like in a harsh way, but just like not
understanding why someone's behaving in a certain way.
A few months down the road, I'll find myself in
that situation, reacting exactly as they were.
And then it's like, I'm just getting all of this
hands on experience on what it is like to be in all of
these different situations so that I can learn how to
have compassion for people who are different than me
or who respond differently than I think that I would.
Then I often find out that's not the case.
Rod Bland: So after you had your out of body experience,
that's really spiritually transforming what occurred
to you then, how did you then integrate that into, you know,
your religious upbringing and what you'd, what you'd
learned from your religion up to that point in time?
Melissa Denyce: Great question.
It took me another 10 years to fully integrate it.
At the time, I was still very much immersed in
the Christian faith.
It did prompt me to leave the childhood church that
I had been attending for 19 years, the one that
was really suppressive and cult like, and to find
a much more open minded, compassionate, church setting.
But really, the, the big thing that it, that it
caused me to do is to become an even more avid seeker
of spiritual experiences.
Because my initial thought in my teenage brain at the time
was, wow, I finally had this experience of divine bliss.
I know it's possible.
I've experienced it again, and now all I
want is to have more.
So my entire goal in life became, how am I going to have
more spiritual experiences?
So I began chasing them even more than I had before.
I joined this charismatic non denominational church that
was all about like all the the gifts of the spirit and
having divine experiences and all these things and and
so I really chased that for a long time but I never had
anything as profound as my out of body experience had been.
So after several years I began to feel really disillusioned
with the whole thing and I actually shut down my
non spiritual connection for the first time in my
life and became more almost more of a materialist.
I still believed in God.
I still considered myself a Christian, but I thought it's,
it's, this whole thing is, it's not getting me anywhere.
It must be really impossible to experience those divine
experiences like I want to.
And I kind of just, At that point, I thought, oh, that
out of body experience I had, it must have been demonic.
Um, and I just put the whole thing behind me and, uh,
went into a really dark, dark period of my life.
When I shut down my spiritual connection,
nothing good came from that.
Um, my husband and I really struggled in our marriage.
We really struggled financially.
Um, we lost our, car, we lost our apartment twice
and things just kept getting worse and worse
and worse until I finally had just had enough of it.
And I finally had been pushed to the place
where I was willing to be more open minded and to
consider options outside of the Christian faith.
I began, I had known for a long time that near
death experience stories.
existed because I had run across them online earlier
in my life, but I had intentionally stayed away
from them thinking that's not, that's not Christian,
that's demonic, that's going to be a bad thing for me to
get into because I knew as soon as I started reading them
there would be no going back.
Well, I was in such a dark place in my life that I
decided I didn't care and I started reading them anyway.
And that's when my life changed because I began
reading all the stories of people who had had similar
experiences to me and I was finally at a place in my life
where I could just accept what I new to be true, like this
deeper truth that I had known from my pre birth memories
and my experience, my own out of body experience, which is
that the truth is much more wonderful than what we've been
led to believe in religion.
The truth is that God, or Source, or whatever word
you're comfortable with, is unconditional love.
And it's the love that is so powerful and so magnetic
that it can encompass all of our mistakes.
And there's nothing to be afraid of.
We're here to live our lives, to have certain experiences
because we chose to, and there's absolutely no judgment
in anything that we do here.
And when I was finally able to accept that, I could integrate
the experiences that I've had.
And that started a whole process of deconstructing
from my Christian faith, which lasted several years, but
that's a whole other story.
Rod Bland: What I'm getting, cause I've
got four kids, right?
So what I'm getting from this is it's, you know, I
like what you said before about how You're a cosmic,
was it a cosmic toddler?
Was that the term that you
use?
I've heard one of my other guests use that
term as well, but it, it makes a lot of sense.
And it's a perspective as a parent that is a good one to
have is like, well, they're just, they're just little,
they've only just started.
And I think sometimes we can get caught up in
expecting them to sort of be a certain way.
And, um, yeah, it's just made me think about.
Perhaps being somewhat less judgmental and accepting
the fact that they're just learning as they
go and they're going to stumble and fall and make
mistakes and that's okay.
Melissa Denyce: yeah, what I was shown in my
experience is actually, it actually felt more like a
grandparent's relationship with their grandkids.
Like, oh yeah, you've made a mistake, you did something
that you're not supposed to.
And I hesitate to say this almost because Some of the
things that humans can do to each other can be pretty
horrible, and I don't want to downplay that or make
it sound like there's no consequences for your actions.
You can just go do whatever you want.
That's not what I'm saying at all, but from that
higher perspective, that really is the feeling
that I got and what I saw.
It was like just a grandfather chuckling at his grandkids
getting into trouble and understanding that they're
just two years old and they'll grow out of it.
Rod Bland: It's a good analogy because the grandparents
are the ones that don't seem to hold a grudge.
Like parents, parents, if you're in trouble with
your parents, you know, you're really in trouble.
But if you do something with the grandparents,
yeah, you're pretty much going to get off the hook
pretty quick with that.
So I'm interested in when you were conscious of your, uh,
pre birth memories, like, was it from as far back as you
can remember, like from being an infant or did they sort
of come online at some point?
Melissa Denyce: Yeah, there's a couple of them.
That I've remembered since I was an infant.
There's others that have come back to me with time,
and I remember no I remember remembering them when I
was very young, and then I forgot and suppressed
them as I grew older.
I didn't understand that they were pre birth memories until
I discovered the near death experience community, and
learned that other people had pre birth memories, and then
that's when I understood that I had had pre birth memories.
Rod Bland: Okay, you mentioned that there was this fairly
long period from when you had your, so you had your out of
body experience and then you went and then sort of closed
off again and then, and then started to open up again.
Can you tell us a bit more about that period?
Because it sounded like that actually took quite a while
and I think maybe there's something in that process that
you went through that might help other people who have
been in a similar situation.
Melissa Denyce: Yeah, absolutely.
So I had my out of body experience when I was around
the age of 18 or 19, and then from Then, until for
the next three or four years, I was very involved
in the charismatic branch of Christianity and seeking
spiritual experiences.
And I did a lot of the crazy things that I did before
going outside, going out into weather, but I also
combined that with doing church events and whatever
things they had going on at the church, like coming down
to the altar, being involved in conferences, trying to
get the gifts of the Holy Spirit, trying to stimulate
something and nothing.
I mean, I, I experienced something like some feeling of
connection, but nothing crazy.
I never even spoke in tongues, which is pretty standard for
charismatic Christianity.
Everybody speaks in tongues.
And so that was really frustrating for me.
And I could not understand why are these things
not happening to me?
So I shut it down when I met my husband and we moved
across country and I kind of just shut down my spiritual
connection and went into a really dark period of my life.
Um, the thing that might be helpful for people to
understand is I did eventually learn that you cannot
force these experiences by trying to make them happen.
For me, anyway, the way that I've been able to finally
begin to tune into this divine connection in any kind of
lasting or meaningful way is to understand, first of
all, that I am that already.
And I didn't have that understanding
until much later.
As long as I was trying to seek an experience
as if it was something outside of me, nothing
ever happened because I was looking in the wrong place.
The experience is within and it's actually
a part of who I am.
It's actually my own being.
Because like I saw in my out of body experience, we are
all that brilliant light.
We are all that thing that we're seeking.
And I had to understand where to look for it.
So you have to look past the body, past the mind,
past the emotions, into your state of being.
And I started practicing self inquiry meditation.
and understanding that I have to get to the source
of my being, which is simply my presence and the
place in me that says I am.
And that's where you can connect to that bliss and
that love beneath all the layers of everything else
that you think that you are.
So that was the first thing.
And the second thing is understanding
that This connection strengthens naturally
with spiritual expansion.
So if you want to have spiritual experiences,
then focus on spiritual growth and expansion.
And that I mean, there's so much that
we could go into there.
Meditation is really helpful.
Um, learning how to accept and flow with life
rather than resisting it.
Learning how to tune into this, the frequency is the
best way that I can put it.
the subtler level of our consciousness.
When you do those things, um, then the divine
blissful connection will start to naturally become
more available to you.
Rod Bland: I'm fascinated by meditation.
So could you tell us a little bit about your
meditation practice?
I know everybody's kind of has their own one, but
I'm interested in hearing what you do with yours.
Melissa Denyce: Yeah, absolutely.
I will say that I find it really hard to sit down and
meditate for much more than, yeah, you have kids, so
you understand that there's never quiet in the house,
so I often end up being a little more frustrated
when trying to sit down and meditate, so the way that I
practice meditation is As I started doing self inquiry
meditation, even if it's just for a couple minutes a
day, so that I can tune into that sense of beingness.
And rather than trying to sit there for 20 minutes
and meditate when it's just not happening, I've tried to
make it a practice of living.
Like, this is how I live my life.
In any situation that I find myself in, where I feel
stressed, I feel overwhelmed, I feel any kind of emotion,
whether positive or negative, I bring myself back to
that sense of presence.
So I'm constantly practicing self inquiry as I'm going
through my life until it becomes a way of life.
And after doing this, For a couple years, I started
to notice that when I would try to pin down my sense of
self, it wasn't showing up.
When I first started doing self inquiry meditation, I
could find the sense of self where I would say, who is it
that's having this experience?
It's me.
I am having this experience.
And I could pin down that sense of self.
But the more I did this, The harder it became to pin
down that sense of self, and I started to notice
there's something beyond the sense of self that's
waiting to be discovered.
It's before the, the I and I am, and it's
the simple am ness.
It's the simple being ness.
And so I found this whole new dimension of life that
was just existing without identifying as anything,
if that makes sense.
This whole dimension of beingness that contained
everything that was happening.
And when I, and then I started practicing just surrendering
into that beingness and learning how to flow with life
as my guru, as some people say, I don't know if you're
familiar with Aaron Abkey, but that's what he says, that
life is the ultimate guru,
because it will manifest as exactly what you need
in each moment for your highest and best good.
And so then that became my meditation practice to
surrender to the beingness of life and embrace the
divine teacher that life is
and just develop this trusting relationship with whatever is
manifesting in front of me.
that this is for my highest and best good at this time.
And I can just kind of flow with this and fall into this
and let it be what it is.
So that's kind of how my meditation practice
developed through stages over the last few years.
Rod Bland: Yeah, that's really good.
That's helpful for me.
Cause yeah, it's, it's not just having a lot of
activity around because of having children and whatnot.
And, but it's also,
I, from the, when I wake up in the morning, I'm
like, I want to, I want to do stuff and to actually
pause and just sit there.
Ooh, sometimes it's really like, Ooh, I don't
want to just sit here.
Can't do it.
So that's given me something to, to work with.
Um, and sort of on that topic.
A lot of people who watch this channel have children or have
really busy lives, but they're wanting to get more connected
with this spiritual side of things and perhaps they've
sort of lost touch with that.
Do you think that meditation is like one of the best
ways to do that or do you have any other things that
really work well for you?
Melissa Denyce: I honestly think that there are a lot
of different tools that people can use and they
all lead to the same place.
Meditation is one of my favorites because it helps.
you to connect with the, the subtler reality, like
the subtler frequencies of the spiritual realms.
The more you do it, the easier it gets, and it
allows you to have that deep divine connection
that you're seeking.
Another practice that I've found really helpful is
to just love everything.
So whatever manifests in your life, just make it
your practice to love it.
Every person, every object, every situation.
And that can, I mean, that can be a lifetime
spiritual practice.
If that's all you do, it will really expand
your consciousness.
Another thing is which is really simple, is simply
practicing gratitude, being grateful for everything
that manifests in your life.
I don't think that a spiritual practice has to be like,
take a ton of your time and energy and you don't have to
sit for hours in meditation or go to the Himalayas
or anything like that.
It can often be the most simple things.
that are designed to just change your state
of consciousness.
So just being grateful for everything that manifests
into your life, even the challenging things, finding a
different way to see it that allows you to feel gratitude
will start to create those feelings, like create, open up
your awareness and make room for those feelings of bliss
and love that everyone is seeking to have in their life.
Um, I think those have been the biggest ones for me.
I know there's, I mean, there's so many spiritual
teachers out there and each one of them has
their own spin on things.
So just finding what works for you and what
resonates with you, I think.
Rod Bland: Yeah, that's useful.
so you've had a, at some point you wanted to be Become
a kind of a teacher or to help people find their own
path with obviously with what you do with your channel.
What, do you mind if I ask you what led up to that?
Do you deciding, okay, I'm going to talk to people
about this in a much more public forum and, and this
is how I'm going to do it.
Melissa Denyce: Yeah, of course.
Well, I just did not have anyone to talk to about
my experiences because I told a couple of people.
I told my daughter, who of course believed me, and my
brother, who also believed me.
But aside from that, nobody came, nobody came out
and accused me of lying or being crazy, but I'm
pretty sure that They were thinking one of those two
Rod Bland: Yeah.
Melissa Denyce: Nobody believes this stuff.
Nobody knows how to respond or what to think.
And I just got to the point where I needed
to talk about it.
Any artist will say that when they get that
inspiration, it's like they have to create it.
Like whether they're a singer or a writer or an
artist or whatever, it's going to come out of them.
So they have to create it in some way.
And that's what it felt like.
It felt like there's this message that's
burning within me.
I've had these experiences.
I have to share them.
I have to talk about it.
And so I went to YouTube because I thought there's
got to be Someone out there somewhere who wants to hear
this or who's had a similar experience or who wants to
talk about these things.
And so I recorded a video of my pre birth memories
and put it out there and it was so Scary.
Because I was still involved in the Christian church at
the time and nobody in my life believed me and I was
so afraid of being judged or I'm gonna go to hell
because I'm leading people right away from the church.
But as it turned out, there was a lot of people
who wanted to talk and it took off very quickly and
grew into what it is now.
Um, and I think that even in the last 10 years or so, the
interest in these spiritual experiences has grown so much.
There's so many people who are interested, so many
people who've had profound spiritual experiences who
didn't know what to make of them or how to process them.
And, but more and more people are coming out
and sharing their story.
It's helping a lot of people.
Rod Bland: Yeah, there's, we've just become a generation
of questioners and I think some of that is partially to
do with, I feel like it's sort of started with the pandemic
where we suddenly realized that not everything we're
told is actually, is true.
And people started to think for themselves a lot more.
At least I, that's something I started to think a
lot more for myself.
I just sort of went along and thought, okay,
well, everything they told us is all fine.
buT I like what you said about how.
When the artist gets the inspiration, it's just got to
come out, whether you like, it has to come out some way,
you've got to kind of go with that, and yeah, that, that's,
it's, people often ask me the same question, it's like,
well how did you, what made you start doing this, and,
and um, there isn't really any good answer, it's just
that while I saw some other NDE videos, I thought that's
exactly what I've got to do, and I wasn't doing anything
like that before, I'd had no, I, I guess I had had a
couple of experiences that, that was sort of in that,
in that sort of realm, but people just thought I was
a bit, bit nutty going down that path, except for my wife.
She thought that's perfect.
That's exactly what you need to do.
And now everybody's kind of used to it.
You know, I'm the guy who asked for a Ouija
board for Christmas and things like that.
Melissa Denyce: Wonderful.
I'm so glad that you put yourself out there
and that people have been accepting of that.
Rod Bland: Yeah.
So what's been the, the, has there been an evolution with
how your family is with you now, given that you've, you've
been, um, sort of out there as far as your spirituality and
the way that you look at the world for quite a while now?
Melissa Denyce: Well, that's a bit of a complicated topic,
and my husband is fine with me saying that he doesn't,
he is extremely supportive.
He doesn't, believe that these spiritual experiences
are like really happening.
Um, he doesn't necessarily agree with my perspective or
that they're real experiences, but he is extremely
supportive of me doing this.
He's fine with me believing whatever I want and
doing whatever I want,
and I'm incredibly blessed to have that.
Rod Bland: a staunch realist.
That's what it sounds like.
Melissa Denyce: and there's nothing wrong with that.
It's not everybody's purpose.
I do have.
Some family members who are very supportive, um, may
be in the same boat of not necessarily agreeing with
me on these experiences, but are very supportive
of me and are happy that I've been successful
with my YouTube channel.
Um, and then there's others who are all over the spectrum.
Some of that I don't necessarily talk about
publicly just for privacy's sake for those individuals.
Rod Bland: It's definitely evolving though, isn't it?
Like you're finding that just, I just find just in
the general circle of group of friends or people that
you meet for the first time, it's a lot easier to have a
conversation about things like an out of body experience or,
or a near death experience, or when people ask, or
what do you, what do you kind of do with your life?
And you talk about what you talk to people about
and Their eyebrows still raised, but it's definitely
much more a part of everyday conversation now, isn't it?
Melissa Denyce: It's more widely accepted by the
culture, even, I've noticed things, even like when I
go to the bookstore, back in the day, a lot of this
stuff, like near death experience books, would have
this little tiny section in
Rod Bland: Yeah, it was in the occult section
as well, wasn't it?
Yeah
Melissa Denyce: now there's this massive section and
it's labeled, it might be labeled like, self help or
spirituality rather than metaphysical and occult.
Not that there's anything wrong with those words, but,
but yeah, I've seen that become more widely accepted.
Rod Bland: So given what's occurred in your life Melissa
and the things you've gone through, what advice would
you have for the young Melissa, like from, that
was a teenager going through those really hard times?
Melissa Denyce: That's a good question.
I've never thought about that before.
I think I would tell her to try to relax.
I was very stressed, very high strung, depressed, unhappy.
I would have told her what you're going through right
now is really difficult, but it doesn't have to be.
Just try to trust that this is all leading somewhere
really, really good.
Actually, another thing that I would have told myself, I
would tell myself, although I don't know if I would have
been able to understand or accept it at the time is that
you're creating your reality.
Like you're creating this darkness that you're stuck in
and there's no guilt in that.
It's part of the experience that you signed up to have.
But the point is going to be to find your way out of that.
And you are creating in your physical reality, everything
that's manifesting, you're designing your entire
experience based on how you're perceiving your life.
As soon as you can figure that out, as soon as you can
figure out how to create from a place of peace and bliss,
then that's what you'll start experiencing in your life.
Rod Bland: That's a bitter pill to swallow, isn't it?
That one where you've, you have to go, okay, well, if
you've got all these things occurring in your life to
say, well, this is actually really my responsibility and
it's not up to anybody else to fix this because I've
created it in the first place.
Yeah.
Melissa Denyce: Yeah, absolutely.
It can be so hard for people, and it took me
years to finally accept it.
But when I did, I had gotten pushed to the point where
it was almost a relief to think I, I can actually stop
this cycle from repeating.
Like, I'm actually creating this so I can create
something different.
Rod Bland: Yeah.
You now become, you're in a position of
power at that point.
So, I wanted to ask, people are going to have to ask
questions if they want to get in touch with you, or just
tell us everything you've got going on as far as how people
can follow your work and reach out to you if they want to.
Melissa Denyce: Yeah, of course.
Thank you so much.
Um, mostly I'm active on YouTube, Love Covered Life
podcast where I interview other near death and
spiritual experiencers.
I do have a website.
It's lovecoveredlife.
com and I have, uh, Some paintings for sale.
Right now, I'm still in the process of getting
my website switched over.
So, but within the next month or so, I should have
that straightened out.
I'm also on Instagram and TikTok at melissadenyce, D E
N Y C E, although I don't do as much on those platforms
as I would like to, but um, that's pretty much what I
have going on right now.
I have a couple of other projects in the works, but
it's going to take me some time to roll those out.
So
Rod Bland: excellent.
I'll put some links to those in the show notes for you.
Do you have any final positive message that you'd
like to leave the viewers with who would, uh, made
it this far in the video?
Melissa Denyce: yes, I, I feel the most important
message that I could share is that it is really important
for us humans living here on this planet to learn
how to love each other.
The most prominent message that I hear from near death
experiencers, almost every single person who has a near
death experience, comes back with this message that love
is the answer to all the problems we're facing in our
world and that small acts of love and kindness are the
most powerful and that we really can change the world.
by learning to love each other.
And I think that's something that we don't quite grasp
here because we think that the world is the way that it is.
And there's so much cruelty in the world.
There's so much wrong with the world and
that's just how it is.
And there's really nothing we can do about
it, but that's not true.
The world is the way it is because we've
made it that way.
And we can change that.
And it really is just a matter of each one of
us waking up to the fact that we have the power.
We have the power to choose to love each
other in each moment.
And if all of us did that, we could change
the world overnight.
It really is possible for us to learn how to live
in peace and harmony.
on the earth, but we have to stop accepting that things
have to be a certain way just because that's the
way they've always been.
We have to change our vision, expand our vision,
and believe that something better is possible.
And then each one of us simply has to do our part by making
the most loving decision that we can in each moment.
And so that's what I would like to share.
I would just like to encourage people that you have a lot
more power than you think.
You don't have to go out and do something massive
to change the world.
We just have to choose to love in every situation.
And if all of us could do that, then we would
solve the problems of the world because we would be
creating from a much higher state of consciousness.
a different world would manifest for us.
Rod Bland: Wow, that's a great message.
That's so good.
Melissa, it's been my absolute pleasure to
have you on my channel.
I really appreciate you taking the time to, uh,
to have a chat with me.
And thanks for, very much for being a guest on my show.
Melissa Denyce: Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you so much for the work that you're doing.
I've really enjoyed talking to you and I've been honored
to be on your podcast.