LTF | THE LIE
What was the first lie you ever believed?
In this episode, Melissa Allison walks us through the tender and tangled territory of self-erasure—the moment a young girl silences her voice to be loved, accepted, or simply… less of a disappointment. Told through raw personal story, The Lie explores how that first betrayal of self becomes the script we carry into adulthood, relationships, religion, motherhood—and how we begin to rewrite it.
From childhood wounds to moments of defiance, Melissa traces the path from shapeshifting to sovereignty. This isn’t a tale of reinvention—it’s a remembering. A return to the self that was always there, hidden beneath the performance, waiting for permission to speak.
You’ll hear stories of pain, silence, and the quiet fire of awakening. And more importantly, you’ll be asked:
What lie are you still living?
And what would happen if you stopped believing it?
This episode is for every woman who’s ever made herself smaller to survive—and is finally ready to take up space, speak her truth, and come home to the voice that was hers all along.
Show Notes:
This episode is a reckoning.
A return to the first moment we learned to shrink ourselves in exchange for acceptance.
Melissa Allison opens the door to a deeply personal and universally resonant story—one that begins with a child's voice at a pulpit and the silence that followed. Through vivid, raw storytelling, she explores the wounds left by mothers, teachers, churches, and systems that taught us being “too much” was dangerous—and being ourselves was somehow wrong.
But The Lie is not just about pain. It’s about the quiet fire of awakening.
The moment you realize: I was never broken. I was just buried.
As the episode unfolds, Melissa takes us through her journey of unlearning the distortions and returning to the truth of who she’s always been. She reminds us that healing isn’t about becoming someone new—it’s about remembering the self that was never truly gone.
This is not a self-help pep talk. It’s a sacred initiation.
And it asks you:
What lie did you believe in order to survive?
And what would happen if you stopped believing it?
You don’t need to reinvent yourself.
You just need to come home.
Takeaways:
- The truth of who we are often gets buried beneath years of expectation, silence, and shame—but it never disappears.
- We shrink to survive, but at some point, we must face the moments that taught us to disappear—and choose to come back to ourselves.
- This journey isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about remembering who you were before the lie.
- The stories we were handed are not the ones we have to keep. When we challenge them, we begin to transform—not just ourselves, but the entire narrative.
shadow work, mother wound, reclaiming voice, healing journey, self-worth, breaking generational patterns, feminine power, forbidden stories, emotional truth, remembering who you are, identity reclamation, podcast for women
Transcript
What if the thing you've been hiding is actually the most true, most powerful part of you?
Speaker A:This is loving the F.
Speaker A:Where we don't apologize for taking up space.
Speaker A:We own who we are, and we don't look back.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Melissa Allison.
Speaker A:And here, we don't just talk, talk about the forbidden.
Speaker A:We embrace it.
Speaker A:I spent my entire life trying to be what they wanted.
Speaker A:Trying to mold myself into something acceptable, trying to shrink, contort, erase, become.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And every time I failed to fit their expectations, I felt like a disappointment.
Speaker A:Especially to her.
Speaker A:My mother was usually disappointed in me before I ever shapeshifted for the world.
Speaker A:I did it for her.
Speaker A:And that's when.
Speaker A:Where it all began.
Speaker A:The belief that I was not enough, that I would never get it right.
Speaker A:But that didn't stop me from trying.
Speaker A:I was six years old.
Speaker A:It was a Sunday.
Speaker A:We were late for church.
Speaker A:It was fast and testimony meeting, where anyone could stand up at the pulpit and speak.
Speaker A:So I did.
Speaker A:I stood there and I spoke my truth.
Speaker A:I told my family I loved them.
Speaker A:I told them Heavenly Father gave them to me, and I told them that it was okay.
Speaker A:We argued that morning that we were late, that we were still here.
Speaker A:And the congregation laughed.
Speaker A:Not cruelly, not in mockery, but with warmth, with affection.
Speaker A:And my heart grew in that moment because they heard me.
Speaker A:They responded to me.
Speaker A:And I thought, this is what it feels like to be seen, to be heard.
Speaker A:I went back to the pew, glowing, full of love, and I sat next to my mother.
Speaker A:She bent down, her arm on the back of the bench, her lips close to my ear, and she whispered, you will never go up and speak again.
Speaker A:So I didn't.
Speaker A:I was told at 12 that.
Speaker A:That I didn't have friends because I sucked the life out of people.
Speaker A:I was told the school thought I was retarded, but my mother insisted they test me.
Speaker A:I was told that my rocking back and forth was a sign that something was wrong with me.
Speaker A:I was told.
Speaker A:I was told.
Speaker A:I was told.
Speaker A:And I believed them.
Speaker A:And through it all, there was this whisper, this ache inside of me that said, you are more than this.
Speaker A:But I didn't trust it.
Speaker A:I trusted everyone else instead.
Speaker A:I ran to the church when I was 19, pregnant and scared.
Speaker A:I tried to mold myself into what I thought was acceptable.
Speaker A:I believed all I had was my looks because no one ever told me I was smart.
Speaker A:And then, rock bottom.
Speaker A:A shelter, four children, and a therapist named Lori.
Speaker A:I sat in front of her, shaking.
Speaker A:And I told her, I feel like aphrodite.
Speaker A:A statue.
Speaker A:Frozen.
Speaker A:Beautiful.
Speaker A:But captive and trapped.
Speaker A:I can't breathe.
Speaker A:I can't move.
Speaker A:I meant for more.
Speaker A:And I asked her if I was crazy, if anyone else ever felt this way, if this whisper was real.
Speaker A:She looked me in the eye and said, only you can answer that.
Speaker A:And in that moment, I knew.
Speaker A:So I made a decision.
Speaker A:I would wake her up.
Speaker A:I would bring Aphrodite to life.
Speaker A:I would find out once and for all if I was crazy or if I was meant for more.
Speaker A:I applied to college.
Speaker A:I studied in Switzerland.
Speaker A:I became a journalist, an award winning reporter, a public radio voice.
Speaker A:And still they tried to shrink me.
Speaker A:My boss told me to my face that she thought I was stupid.
Speaker A:And yet I was standing right there with a degree, honors, awards.
Speaker A:And they still wanted me small.
Speaker A:Then I lost everything.
Speaker A:My best friends betrayed me.
Speaker A:I had nothing.
Speaker A:And in that moment of absolute destruction, something was born.
Speaker A:The vision poured into me like a gift from the gods.
Speaker A:And I knew this was never about becoming.
Speaker A:It was about remembering.
Speaker A:I stopped hiding.
Speaker A:I stopped making myself small.
Speaker A:I told women at networking meetings, in boardrooms exactly what I was doing.
Speaker A:And the women who I thought would judge me, they wanted what I had.
Speaker A:They wanted to know how.
Speaker A:They wanted to wake up, too.
Speaker A:So let me ask you something.
Speaker A:What if you were never lost?
Speaker A:What if you were never broken?
Speaker A:What if everything inside you is just waiting for you to stop hiding?
Speaker A:What if the woman you're looking for is already here?
Speaker A:Are you ready to remember?
Speaker A:Thanks for listening to this episode of Loving the F, where we look at the forbidden and say, hey, baby, if this stirred something in you, share it, rate it, send it to someone who's ready to hear it and come back for more.
Speaker A:We are just getting started.
