The Joy and Power of Integration & The Art of Limitless Living: An Interview with Melissa Joy Jonsson

Women For One Truthteller Melissa Joy Jonsson knows what it means to live completely from the heart—and she also knows that it’s way easier than most of us assume. Her new book, The Art of Limitless Living, offers readers practical strategies for being perpetually curious adventurers in all aspects of life. In this exclusive Q&A, she gives us important information on how to move past the misunderstandings that surround the Law of Attraction, how to tap into genuine self-love, and what it means to access our vulnerability to find our brilliance.

What is The Art of Limitless Living?

The Art of Limitless Living (aka The ALL) is a book about living completely from our hearts to access our innate infinite potential, intuition, joy, and true authentic power. While there is science to support heart-centered awareness, the experience of living from the heart in everyday life is more like an art form that is unique to each individual. While we are all connected, how we choose to create and relate from our hearts is the joy of being true Heartists, individually noticed and experienced one choice and heart-print at a time.

In your book you share that the notion that we create our own reality is only half true. What do you mean by that?

There is a popular meme circulating through the collective consciousness, and particularly in the New Age community, implying that everything that happens to us is a product of our own creation. This is where proponents of the Law of Attraction often stumble when things don’t go as they intended. As shared in the book, reality is not that simple. We are not the sole creators of our reality. Rather, reality is a complex, dynamic interplay of individual and collective choices, what I refer to as the “We” experience. Our individual choices, as well as the choices of others, are woven together in an interdependent synergy. How we choose to relate to ourselves, and the collective We experience can make the difference between being a victim of life circumstances or creating an extraordinary life.

The Art of Limitless Living opens with a very vulnerable personal story, and you continue to share personal details of your life throughout each chapter. Can you share why you took this approach?

Vulnerability is power, and vulnerability is the language of an open heart. I deliberately shared personal experiences with the reader throughout the book so the reader can be a little more forgiving and less judgmental of oneself. I have been in some pretty dark places in my life, whether it was struggling from addictions, eating disorders, underachievement, overachievement, feeling never good enough, and feeling like a plastic version of myself. Rather than looking to me as the perfect guide or mentor, the book teaches the reader to be our own authority in our own perfectly imperfect way.

A basic premise of the book is that we already are what we wish to become. It was important to me that the reader feel at ease in knowing that whatever our stories, past experiences, or perceived limitations, they do not absolutely define who we choose to be moving forward. Within the chamber of our hearts are all the key codes necessary for activating our own innate limitless potential. We can all experience self-love as a new normal and experience extraordinary living.

Your book guides readers to experience being in their heart. Is it hard to do?

Being in the field of the heart is as easy as breathing. Often, I will notice not being in my heart more easily than when I am home in my heart as my natural state. It is akin to being a fish out of water. If we were fish swimming in the ocean, we would not really notice the water. Water would simply be our environment, the way things are. But the moment we are taken out of water and are the proverbial fish out of water, we find it is difficult to breathe. As humans, when we leave our hearts (a sea of love and limitless potential), we may feel stressed, anxious, constricted, fragmented, disconnected, confused, or a variety of seemingly unpleasant notions and emotions. Therein rests our opportunity to take notice and to take refuge by returning awareness to our heart space for sanctity and completion. It only takes a moment to notice we have left our hearts and then to return.

Many people try to teach self-love in self-help books. How do the teachings in your book actually get the reader to that place of self-love and what you refer to as the perfectly imperfect True Authentic Self?

The Art of Limitless Living teaches self-love from a framework of integration. All of the situations that have been influencing our lives, molding us into the people that we think we are, are gently deconstructed so we can choose the pieces that are worth keeping, while recognizing we are already whole and complete.

In your book you share the important role curiosity plays in terms of living from the heart. Can you share what you mean by curiosity and why it is so important?

The greatest innovations for humanity have come from curiosity, exploring new potentials with innocent perception and wonder. I consider curiosity to be inverted skepticism. Rather than looking for something to be negated and proven false (skepticism), curiosity allows our awareness to search for what has not yet been recognized. Curiosity moves our awareness from the realm of predictability to the realm of possibility, ready to actualize as experience.

Curiosity is an open system that primes reality for anything being possible in the next moment. To me, curiosity is the velocity of love’s infinite potential that emerges from our hearts. Curiosity opens us, and when we are open, more becomes available, probable, and therefore likely to actualize. Curiosity creates new maps for unity, love, and connection, and cultivates the art of limitless living.