Melissa's Podcast: https://mindlove.com Mind Love http://learntruehealth.com/mind-love Having a positive mindset is sometimes tricky when we are overwhelmed with problems and challenging situations. Even when it feels hopeless, we can still learn how to push ourselves to embrace a positive mindset. My guest Melissa Monte is such a fantastic person.  She survived the worst situations all because of a positive mindset, and she’ll teach us how to do that in the episode. Traumatic Years Although Melissa Monte had a great childhood, her life took a drastic turn when she experienced several traumas during her teens. Melissa Monte was raped twice, her close friend committed suicide, and her dad passed away. Melissa Monte and her mom had different ways of coping.  Her mom was part of a book club. So, even if Melissa Monte dealt with her traumas by partying a lot in college, she managed to borrow books from her mother occasionally. But it wasn’t enough to help her fix her issues or have a positive mindset. “Because of ignoring some of those issues I was dealing with, it started to manifest in my life in other ways. I developed a dangerous eating disorder. And I was a bulimic for eight years,” said Melissa Monte. She added, ” I was also attracting negative people. Plus, I found myself in jail for my ex-boyfriend’s crime, which led to a two-year legal battle. When I hit rock bottom, I knew I had to do something.” Baby Steps Melissa Monte said she took baby steps by reading books, following advice from successful people, and applied it to her life. She says it was not an overnight change, but more like a decade of growth. As time went one, Melissa Monte felt that it started to become essential for her to share the things she did. Because apparently, people started asking and noticing significant differences in her. Hence, Melissa Monte did some steps to realize her full purpose. “Everything has been different in the last year. Because everything feels so much more meaningful to me. It’s easier to keep my goals now and keep making progress. That’s how Mind Love podcast came about. It’s sharing tips that changed my life,” Melissa Monte said. Learning To Forgive Melissa Monte says the first thing about having a positive mindset is learning how to forgive. In her case, Melissa Monte’s parents divorced young. Although she has a great stepdad, she felt resentful towards her real dad. When Melissa Monte’s dad was diagnosed with cancer, that’s the time she made more effort to connect. One of the things that surprised her was a large number of homeless people came to her father’s funeral. That’s the moment of clarity that added to Melissa Monte’s guilt of never understanding. Hence, she felt that the first step to a positive mindset and change was to forgive herself for that. “Forgiveness is such a big part of any change. Because without forgiveness, you will only be repeating negative thought patterns in your head all the time. You’re going to be talking yourself down,” explains Melissa Monte. Melissa Monte did the same thing with the suicide situation. She revealed that her friend said he was going to commit suicide years before. But Melissa Monte, who was then only 15 years old, didn’t take it seriously.  She thought it was the typical teenagers’ way of getting attention. For the longest time, she blamed herself and learned to drink because of that tragedy. “Everything is a process, and I realize how important it is to have compassion for yourself. Once I did, that opened the door for all the other changes that mean a lot to me,” said Melissa Monte. “Like finding the passion or understanding of how the brain works and working with that. All the little things add up.”  Developing Habits Melissa Monte says that one of the books that helped her was the Power of Habit, by award-winning New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg. Because at her lowest point, Melissa Monte was just taken over by so many harmful habits like bulimia. “Bulimia is a series o