Danielle LaPorte - Leading With Love

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Team. Welcome back to the Man Talk show. I'm Connor Beaton, and joining me today is a special guest. I mean, they're all special in their own way, but a guest that I've had the honor of having on the show once before years and years ago, and I've had the pleasure of sharing the stage with a number of times in the years since. So joining me today is Danielle laporte, and she's the creator of the Heart Centered Membership and the Heart Centered Leadership Program. She's a member of Oprah's Super Soul 100 and the former director of a future studies think tank in Washington, D.C. she's also the author of a number of books that include the Firestarter Sessions, White Hot Truth, and the Desire Map, and her most recent book, how to be loving when your heart is breaking open and the world is waking up. She also has a podcast with love. Danielle often ranks in iTunes, top 10 best podcasts for wellness and a number of other things that she's done that are absolutely incredible. So here we go. We are going to dive in. This is a big one. What do we talk about? We talk first and foremost about the notion of forgiveness, forgiving the self, forgiving others. And then we go from there into what it looks like to deal with our fears, whether that's the fear of intimacy, the fear of living our own power, our own purpose, our own passions. And we end up talking about the notion of why we need to fall apart in order to wake up, why we need to repeat patterns in order for our own development. And this is something that I speak to personally on the show and so does she. So there's a number of really, really powerful topics in this conversation today. So as always, please share this episode with somebody that you know is going to enjoy it, whether it's a partner, a friend, et cetera. And without any further delay, please welcome Ms. Danielle Laporte. All right, Ms. Danielle Laporte back on the show.

How are you doing, Mr. Beaton? So much has happened. It's great to see you.

So much has happened. Yeah. I think the last time we saw one another was in Calgary. Was that event that you were. We were both speaking at. I remember because it was an all women's event and I was literally the only man there, period.

That's right.

Period. There were no men at all and there was like 400 women. I just remember being like, Danielle, hi. Dear Lord, there's a lot of feminine energy here.

And I remember saying, I think you were single at the time. I was like, this is a good place to be, brother. Yeah.

Good times, Good times. Well, since it's been such a long time, I thought I would start off by asking the question that I ask everyone. And maybe I asked you it years ago when you were on, but I'm going to ask you again, which is tell us a story about a defining moment in your life that's made you who you are today.

Has to do with forgiveness. Has to do with relationships, actually. I mean, there are, of course. I'm sure everybody who asks that question says many, many defining moments. But I think whenever you choose to forgive, you get more defined. You actually get more spacious, like less of a self. I thought somebody owed me an apology, like, for years of their stuff in a relationship. And, you know, anybody could have. Anybody from the outside could have looked at that relationship and said, yeah, you know, they probably should say they're sorry. And I thought, you know, I can let go of my grievances towards them. I'm. I can. I can do this. I am. I'm spacious. I am loving. I am. I did my work. Peace. But it didn't feel completely clean yet, or as clean as it could be. And I thought, you know, Even though they're 90% of the problem, I still showed up and contributed to that. And so I asked that person for forgiveness. For my part, I was going to say for my 10%, but that's how I phrase. I was like, you were 90% of the issue.

Yeah, yeah.

You're just my little thing. And I think it's one of the first times that I asked for forgiveness so clearly and without expectation. It was just like, you could actually throw stuff back at me right now. And I'm really at peace. It's just this. I want to put this out. And it was like a high was great. I felt so expanded. It really didn't matter to me what the response was. The response was beautiful. But that really. I got my taste of the power of asking to be forgiven, and I love it.

Forgiveness is a potent thing. I mean, I want to just linger on that for a moment because I think that forgiveness for men, and speaking from my own personal perspective, but also just having worked with so many men from all over the world for so many years, I've come to notice that I don't know what it's like for women to forgive. So I'm just speaking from my perspective and from the men perspective. But it seems to be something that's very challenging because we can get caught in this rationalization of kind of like what you were saying, like this, you know, they owe me this or they owe me that or it should sound this way or they have to say these things. And so sometimes forgiveness for us as men can feel very nebulous. And I see this, especially when a man feels heartbroken, betrayed, especially betrayed by a parent, betrayed by a partner. Moving through the anger to get to a space of forgiveness can be really challenging. So I'm wondering if, if maybe you can elaborate a little bit on the parameters of forgiveness from your perspective. What does it take from us and what do we have to let go of? What do we have to accept? What do we have to allow? Because I think sometimes for us as men, it's like I need some clarity, like what do I have to do in order to find forgiveness? And maybe it's less of a doing than something else, but I'll, I'll leave that with you.

That is such a big layered question. Because now I'm thinking about that masculine perspective and is there, is it more challenging for the masculine to forgive? I don't know. I mean, as a female woman, it's challenging. The ego doesn't want to forgive. That's the thing.

Can you say more about that?

Well, I think our natural state is love. And if we really are still the default will be for forgiveness. Like there's been a handful of times in my life where my immediate reaction was like, it's okay. And then I would talk myself out of it. Well, here's why it's not okay. And I wonder. So this is just, I'm like theorizing with you. If it were to be more difficult for men, and we don't know that, but if it, if it was forgiveness was more difficult, maybe it's because the counter to forgiveness is so often this accountability structure which is so like, there's a beginning, there's an end, there are results, there is some achievement here. You are going to pay for this. There is a right and there is a wrong right. And maybe we could say, like, I think culturally we are addicted to accountability systems. I mean, it starts in school, right? There's a right answer, there's a wrong answer. And when I see people, you know, like when I do get coachy, I only do it if you ask me though, I really, I'm so off of advice, which I know is so ironic because here we are, two self help authors. But when somebody comes to me with like a relationship conundrum is like so and so did me wrong. Whether it's Romantic or otherwise, they say, but don't you actually just want to let him off the hook? Wouldn't it feel amazing to just like, so be over this and you see like this glimmer for a moment of like, yeah, but there's always this. But I wonder if it's more difficult for men to forgive if it's because you are hardwired to protect what you love and there may be some extra mechanisms in there. It's like the hurt was caused, the offense was rendered. And I'm going to, you know, you men are great at armoring up. I mean, the feminine has its own way. Yes, but it might be part of your hardwired immediate armor response.

I want to take this one step further and then I want to maybe move away from it. But what's interesting for me is, you know, a lot of men and you know, a lot of women tune into the show as well. So I don't want to negate that by any means. But, you know, a lot of men ask the question, how do I forgive myself? How do I forgive others? But I think the one that they really get hung up on often is how do I get them to forgive me? I fucked up, right?

That's ego.

Yeah. Yeah, right. I betrayed them. I did something wrong. How, you know, what does forgiveness look like? And I think that a lot of guys have the question of, especially on the other side of some form of betrayal, on the other side of some form of indiscretion within the relationship, trying to find like, what is, what is the path to being forgiven look like? Which maybe it's not their work, but I was wondering if you can speak to two parts. One, the road towards self forgiveness and what that, what that might entail. And then two, the road towards being forgiven and what our work might be in that.

Well, let's work from the outside in. Being forgiven is, and I don't throw this term around lightly. Being forgiven is potentially life changing. Oh, to experience that kind of purity of love, mercy, I think it can reconfigure yourselves. You will walk through the world differently when you know that kind of love. It's almost as good as a mother's love. It's so. It's nectar to be forgiven. May all be so blessed to be forgiven. But moving closer inward, we don't get to say if someone forgives us. You don't get to say how someone feels about you. You cannot manage anybody else's opinions of you. It's an impossibility that will drive us all crazy. And you just have to show up and do your best with your full heart. A real apology without hooks, without expectation. And know that. And this is, and this is like a tricky place, know that like that person forgiving you is actually a gift they're going to give themselves. Right? Like if you could focus, this isn't the end game. But I think in that moment, in that exchange where maybe that person isn't forgiving you, just keep this in mind. They're losing out. So it isn't so much about. And you know, it's not a revenge thing. It's just like, well, you're missing out if you're not forgiving me. But it's just like a little softer, more compassionate place of like that person right now isn't realizing that they have the capacity to create this miracle, this very high frequency state of love. And you can have some compassion for that. That'll soften things. Also it distracts you from that hook of I need you to forgive me. So there's that self forgiveness. This is it. This is everything. This is the journey. All. I think all spiritual practices go back to self forgiving, which is the heart. What's the heart for? The heart is for giving. And this isn't like a new age play on words, but it kind of is. But it's like that's what you're here for. You are here to love in your specific way and in a universal way. And so when you don't forgive somebody else or you don't forgive yourself, you are not being your most powerful self. You are not accessing your full range of light and virtue and strength. And that is going to create some kind of energetic backup. I think. I mean this is more metaphysical, but I think when we withhold love, when we grip and we. I'm not gonna give. Creates blockages that can lead to anything from like a migraine to like a big diagnosis to like somehow there's a blind sighting that happens to wake you up. And if you can forgive yourself, I think you can pull anything off because you have to be so intimate with you and so gentle. I mean, I think that's what the power move right now is like on the planet is gentleness. And by gentleness I mean reverence. So you're not just tolerating yourself like, ah, I cheated or I was an asshole or I was really arrogant in that moment. Tolerance is good. It's better than not being tolerant. You move into acceptance, which is like it happened. I'm not going to push it away just Just stop pushing it away. Just be with it. But I think there's a. There's a higher degree where we really move into mastery, which is we are reverent. We're actually grateful for all that dark stuff in us. And so let's. I mean, you just touched on like, infidelity or some kind of betrayal within a relationship. I can imagine how. I mean, in my indiscretions. Oh, my God, the shame. And, you know, infidelity hasn't been my exact thing, but I've, you know, done my stuff. And first of all, just be so gentle with the judgment I'm having. Like, I have to be gentle with my shame and then gentle with the event. And then you can talk yourself into things. Like, I'm not the only being ever who's done this before. You could talk yourself into. These are all useful perspectives. Like, this is one event in the eons of human history. If you have a bigger perspective that you're going to show up in multiple dimensions, multiple lifetimes, and you'd be just like, who knows, maybe we had a contract where I was going to be the betrayer. Just to bring things into balance. You can pull on all of those. To use an overused word, you can use pull on all of those narratives to kind of help the mind settle down. Just help the mind. It's like you're talking your friend off the ledge and then you just need to do the work of love. You hold your shame like you would hold your son or your daughter. And you say, I got you no matter what. And then you push it. I'm really interested in the push. I'm interested in the edge of love where you say, even if I was this bad again, I'm going to be. I'm not going to abandon this part of myself. Yeah. And it will. That will change. Self forgiveness changes everything. I think it, you know, it obviously soothes the nervous system, but it will change how compassionate you are with other people or change the tone of your voice. You will sleep better at night. You're gonna let a lot of people off the hook and you're gonna get a lot more done because you let a lot of people off. Think of all those grievances you're not gonna have with other people and how much you can accomplish now. Not that of course, worth is on a, you know, know set on accomplishment, but hey, let's get some great stuff done while we're here.

Yeah, I appreciate that perspective. And, you know, you're talking about acceptance and mentor of mine years ago said acceptance without love is an acceptance. You know, that there's a, that there's a welcoming in that the, the act of loving what is or what has happened to some capacity, right? Or even the act of attempting to learn what is and what happened is the form of acceptance. Acceptance is a verb that we need to return to over and over and over again. I love that it always stuck with me because I think as a, as a very rational being, acceptance was like, well, how do you know? How the hell do I do that? Like, what does it mean to accept? Like I accepted it, right? Just like in a moment I just decided. And so I think that that context shifted something for me. At least I remember it shifting it. And since then, acceptance has been something that I've always had to approach with an open heart to release anger, hatred, animosity, resentment, because those things are sort of like the blocks that get in the way. And so I always love that framework that you reminded me of that when you were, when you were talking about self forgiveness. Because oftentimes I've noticed the moments that I haven't wanted to forgive myself are the moments where I'm not accepting my, my actions, my decisions, my choices, or what happened in my life. I'm not accepting them with love, right? I'm like, I accept it, but I'm still. You're a piece of crap for doing that to me. You know, it's like there's still that resentment and judgment and, and whatnot that, that is carried alongside of it.

You know what this reminds me of in terms of forgiving, forgiving ourselves is that, you know, our relating isn't linear, right? It's like we're like these constellation systems. So, you know, I've been in relationships where, you know, you, you do the dance with somebody, the man gets more wisened and sweetened and toughened from being with you. You know. You know, every relationship is its own curriculum and you can see they go on to the next relationship and they are more trustworthy and vibrant and clear and all of those things like, you know. And so I think part of self forgiveness too is a commitment. And this is how you know you have to live. The apology is that I will be in integrity forevermore. And maybe you don't get to do the do over. Maybe the person's never going to forgive you, whether it's a business betrayal or it's romance or whatever it is, but you are going to pour your integrity and your clarity into every other relationship. And that gets felt in the universe. Like, that counts. That affects your past.

You know, I love that notion. I, like, I usually will say to men, you know, what would it look like for you to live the question of forgiveness? Because it is. It is a question for a period of time where we just. We just don't know. You know, it's like, I don't know how to forgive her. I don't know how to forgive myself. I don't know how to forgive him. It's like, well, what would it look like for you to live the question of how do I forgive? You know, how do I open myself to forgiveness? To embracing and letting go, accepting, allowing, letting go of the debt that I feel is owed to me because of whatever it is. Right. The betrayal.

This reminds me of a teaching from A Course in Miracles that says, you just need to be willing to forgive and the Holy Spirit will come in and do the work for you. So I think that's it. Like, first of all, you have to forgive yourself for not wanting to forgive. Because everybody on this path. I want to be a better person, a better man. Right. And it's like. And I. And I should be more forgiving, as I don't even want to forgive. That's cool. Human nature. Just, like, be with that.

Yeah.

And then you just got to show up in the light and say, okay, I'm resistant. I can't even see what it might look like on the other side. I can't imagine ever even talking to them again. But I want to be at peace. And then just be with it. And you'll start thinking differently. Something will show up.

Can I shift gears for a moment? Because I think I love this conversation about forgiveness, but I. I want to move it a little bit of a different direction and maybe just ask a question, because you have your. Your book coming out called how to Be Loving as yous Heart Is Breaking Open and Our World Is Waking Up. And I. When I read the subtitle, I instantly. There was something that, like, was activated in me of, like. Yeah, it's interesting that some form of heartbreak almost needs to precede some form of waking up. And I was wondering if you would expand on that. Like, do you. Have you found that to be true most of the time? Why do you feel like spiritually or psychologically or culturally? Because we seem to be living through that nonsense culturally, that we need to go through some form of hardship, of heartbreak, of collapse, in order to come out the other side in a more complete way. So I was just hoping that you could speak to that.

Is Suffering avoidable.

It's like we all know the answer.

But yeah, Alan Watts, who is one of my favorite Zen drunk Buddhist philosophers, said there will always be suffering. The trick is to not suffer over the suffering. And I think that's it. Like, listen, this is the human experience. You're here. Stop resisting. Good. Okay, you're gonna suffer. What do you identify as in the suffering? We should talk about identity. But I'll answer this specific question. I think if you're asleep, if you're unconscious, your soul life source is going to work to burn all the illusions down so you can see how powerful you really are. You can see how connected and blessed you really are. So how about a bankruptcy? Do we know who we are yet? Okay, how about a substance addiction? Oh, do you still don't get that you're loved? Okay, how about. And it just goes like, you know, so it's like dispensing and it's just like burning the masks off. One more mask. You think you're a baller. Okay, well, let's just push you here. Actually underneath that mask, not only is all there this shadow stuff there about your wounded self and you didn't get what you wanted from your father and the themes that you incarnated with, but all of your power is there. You realize, and this is, you know, really the heart of the book, how to be loving is you are not the wound. You are not the wound. You are the healer. You have the capacity to figure out who you are and who other people are and to really, like, navigate stealthily. And I think there's always suffering involved. Everybody I know who's been through it wouldn't trade it in for anything. I mean, you're not grateful for the betrayal. You're not necessarily, you know, would you want to do any of that again? No. This is another characteristic I've seen of people who make it to the other side. And we always make it to the other side. Anybody suffering now, you're going to make it to the other side. That's human nature, is that we make this vow that we'll never go back there again. You know, we're never going to be on our knees. We never want to have that identity crisis. We never want to be firing our team because we're bankrupt or whatever it is. And then you see that. I see this. I see this split happen. It's like there's this commitment made after you've risen from the ashes. I'm making this data up. I think it's 50, 50. Some people don't go backwards. And they keep expanding. And then other people fall back asleep again and it's like the diagnosis wasn't enough. You see people in their crisis, in the crisis, right? Men and women who just, they start having more intimate conversations and I love you, man. And we're all getting together and we're talking about this stuff and those conversations start to drift. And the difference I think is in that fire. We commit to wanting to know truth. We commit to like we want to live in virtue and we find these tools and we keep working with the tools. For some people, other people, I don't know what it is yet, but the consciousness isn't there that they can't, they don't stay awake. The suffering wasn't intense enough. And so you get a second diagnosis or another loss or maybe they're going to get it in another lifetime. But the more I think the deeper your commitment is to truth. The you can avoid isn't the right word. I think you can dance a little more with the suffering. Like you don't need the big wake up calls, you don't need the two by four. You don't need the breakup. You just need someone to be a little bit shitty one day. You just need to be a little bit out of integrity with yourself and go, oof. That's not impeccable, that's not integrity. And that's. I find the difference between like really vibrant and awake and, and people who say, oh, that conversation didn't matter. What, what are we here for? Are we here for excellence or are we here for dopey? Like excellence is.

That sentence very much mattered. The words I choose have a vibration. I'm going to choose them thoughtfully. How I touch, how I show up, it all matters. And you also don't want to make yourself ego crazy with spiritual perfectionism because it all needs to get loved. But yeah, I think the more sensitive you are to the details of behavior and action and thought, which is what I'm really most interested in, is the quality of thought, then the more subtle the lessons come.

Yeah, yeah, I, I would agree with that entirely. And it's interesting because there's an element of. I'll just use my own language, but it's almost like there's an element of like the warrior archetype embedded into that, you know, that there is some grit required in allowing, in surrendering, in accepting. There is some form of determination.

That's the word.

Yeah. And I think what sprung up for me as you were talking is this notion of because you were sort of saying, some of us just don't learn lessons, you know? And I've been that person where it's just like, man, I had to go through almost every addictive behavior in order to learn. It's like, oh, that one didn't really, you know, get me there. And that one didn't fully. It's like, I gotta try that one again. I had to go through that one seven times, you know, and then it finally got me to a place where I got tired of learning from the stick, from the big collapse, from the road to ashes, as they say in alchemy, you know? And I think for me, what I noticed was that it took me so many times to pull myself out of it because the, the pain, my wounding was so integral to my Persona and my actual ego and my identity that it almost had to be like, broken in some way. I don't know if that lands or makes sense at all. But I'm curious to get your take on. Do you feel like some people don't pull themselves out of those cycles because their victimhood, their wounding, their pain has become such a staple to their identity? Because you said you wanted to talk about identity and that just sort of all clicked in for me.

Yeah. First of all, I want to say when I hear about repetitive suffering, I just think, wow, you're going to be so loving. I just think it's. It's the makings of magnificence. Like, I. I love conversion stories. I love. I love hearing overcome again and again and again because you will be the teacher. Think of all, you know, seven times you had to struggle with the thing. Same thing. I feel like that's seven times more people you can hold and forgive and lead. Yeah, it's a way to go.

Wait, what was the question? Identity. Yeah. So, you know, as you were describing that, I just thought, oh, yeah, this is like the chip on your shoulder just needs to get hammered. And this is the. I think the diamond and how to be loving, which is. It's about correct or a better word might be truthful identification. So do you identify as something your father said about you and it's stuck in your psyche and you think you're that or you're resisting being that he said I was lazy. And so you've. You're always doing this boxing match of I am not lazy. Look, watch. And so all that, the goal setting and the hacking and the crushing it are actually coming from this place of proving. And I tell you, it's not going to lead somewhere Fulfilling. You might hack your way through things and you probably will accomplish a lot because that's the basics of manifestation. Just focus and giver. You're going to get it, but there's no extra. There's no extra sweetness or comfort that comes when you get it, because it was coming from that place of war. Whereas, you know, if all the goals come from this place of like, hey, I feel connected to life. I want to do something here because I feel connected to life. It's got a totally different energy, same action, same goal, same quarterly objectives, very different energy that you bring to things. And so this with the same thing can come to you. The bucket of cash or the launch or the babe or whatever it is. And you get this, you get an extra bump. So, like, I got it. Cool. But there's a kind of fulfillment, a sweetness that comes with it. Like, you sleep better, you're not as hungry for the next thing. It comes with some peace. So basically, let's just boil it down. Do you identify as love or fear? That's it. Love or fear. Are you walking into the conversation as love? And let's be like super clear. Love is massive, is always creative. Love is always looking for common ground. Love is alchemical. Love has the capacity to change everything, get you out of every pickle, create anything that you want. Love. We know this instinctively. So you're going to come to the conversation as love, or you're going to come to the conversation as some part of your identity. And a lot in this space we see. Well, in any space, really. I'm going to come to the conversation as a CEO. Really? You're going to be just a CEO when you could be connected to source. That's silly. It's so silly. We go in with these little parts. I'm going to come to the conversation just as my warrior self, really. You're just going to be that and all those books you read and all the men's workshops you went to when you really. You're so much more. You're actually connected to universal mind. You know, you're actually so capable of forgiving and seeing what's around the corner. So why don't you come to the conversation as love instead of a label.

You mentioned fear before, which it seems, and maybe this is just an insinuation or a way that I'm interpreting what you're saying, but it sounds like fear is a sort of block or barrier that. I mean, especially within our culture, it seems to be not only rampant and quite dominant, you know, on social Media within our, you know, narratives. There's that word again within our society and, and our culture. But it also seems to be something that we want to eradicate. Like, I remember as a kid wearing the no fear T shirts, you know, proudly running around. No fear. Yeah. What role do you feel like fear plays in our capacity and our ability to show up in the way that you're talking about?

Yeah, it's totally stifling everything you want, whether it's intimacy or however you define success, fulfillment. I mean, this is a comment. Everything you want is on the other side of fear. But I think more than that, it's not about breaking through your fear. It's not about overcoming your fear. It's about bringing your fear with you lovingly. Like you would pack your kid in a backpack. You bring your fear with you. And this, I see this a lot with men, actually. And you know, the part in how to be loving about stop trying to overcome your fear. When I was writing that, I really had the image of a dude in my head jumping off a cliff into water, talking themselves into like, I got this. And you know, kind of that's pushing the fear aside and being kind of this authority figure over the fear and the adrenaline rush of crushing your bucket list is going to tell the ego mind that you did the right thing, but you still haven't addressed the fear underneath and you actually haven't changed your kind of reactive behavior. So why don't you just be friendly with your fear, actually have a kind conversation, a like buddy to buddy conversation with your fear. And I think when that happens, if and when you can do that, you interrupt this whole cycle of really a lifetime of denying your shadow self. It's such a powerful pattern interrupter. Just be friendly. I know this is. It's like such a mind twist for so many of us. Aren't I supposed to overcome it? Aren't I supposed to be bigger than it? When we try and get bigger than something, we just get more aggressive, which is just like shadow self on top of shadow self. You embrace it. Friendly conversation. And that's how you become whole. It's like, that's how you become like spiritually muscular. You bring that stuff with you. Yeah, it's fuel.

I agree. And I'm going to challenge just to just almost for the sake of conversation. Don't you feel like there's merit in the confrontation at some point with fear? Like, I feel like for most of us, you know, if you've experienced trauma in your lifetime or a deep betrayal in some way and you're afraid to love again or open up or let yourself feel worthy. Isn't there validity at some point in a kind of altercation between you and the fear?

Yes. But how are you going to fight? Are you going to be a dirty fighter? Are you going to, are you going to fight wisely?

Bare knuckles. Bare knuckles, you know, that's it.

It's like, of course we don't want to have our unconscious calling the shots, which it mostly is. So much of what we eat and say and think and do and buy, it's all because it's not even, it's not even conscious. Right. It's crazy.

When you bring that up. I think like I want to take it to the extreme, be like, all right, if I was facing down darkness, you know, in this kind of like evil presence, what would I do? I would handle it pretty much the same way I think I should handle fear, which is you deny the darkness its power. You are not going to control me, but you have to do this from your own fullness. It's like I used to do all this protection stuff. I'm going to call in the angels and I'm going to do all this stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff. And I realized my love is my protection. I have such a strong commitment to truth that illusions can't hook onto me like they used to. Right. So the confrontation with fear is. Imagine just being a father to your fear. So you know, your fear is acting up, it's throwing a tantrum, it's being a shitty rebellious teenager and you're not going to duke it out. You're going to say, this is how we do things here. We do things respectfully. Boom. That's the engagement. That's not a dirty fight, that's dignity. So, yeah, you get to choose how you're going to conduct yourself. And confrontations are, I mean, we learn through contrast. Right, so confrontations are going to happen.

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because there's sort of like a parenting, the fear aspect to what you're talking about, which I appreciate, you know, because having an 18 month old son where sometimes he's just wildly dysregulated for no reason and, you know, whipping blueberries on the floor and throwing against the wall and you know, it's like, like. Or just yelling and screaming for no particular reason whatsoever. You know, there is this part where, you know, I've really learned. Like I've started just as an example, I've started just holding him when he starts to really become dysregulated. And he's really crying and I'll just pick him up and I'll hold him and I'll just say inhale and then I'll inhale and I'll say exhale and I'll exhale and I'll just do that for 30, 60 seconds, you know, a minute or two. And almost every single time without phase, he. He stops, you know, and immediately he calms down. And it's been interesting to bring that kind of modality into how I interact with my own anger, my own fears. And I. So I really respect what you're saying because I think that there is oftentimes a preconceived notion, at least within my experience of being a man. In order for me to deal with my fear effectively, I need to dominate it and conquer it in some capacity. And I need to sort of like teach it who's in charge in some way, shape or form. And there are certainly consequences to that that I've seen in my own life and that I've seen in the life of men. And there is that confrontation of turning towards the fear. Maybe that's what I was trying to talk about before, right? That darkness is like there's. We have to turn and face it in order to engage with it. One of the things I'm going to shift gears unless you have anything else you want to add to that.

Oh, let's go. I love it. I love it. Yeah, shift, you drive.

I've talked about this a lot and I love that you wrote it in the book because I was like, ooh, this is such a beautiful take on this. But this notion that healing is not linear because I feel like we as men especially, you know, I see guys on the other side of divorce or heartbreak or their business is in a rough place or they're physically in a rough place and there's this deep intrinsic desire to have a rational, sequential, step by step guide. And it's funny because I feel like our whole industry like preys on that desire with it's like five steps to this. Us fucking five steps. Like if it was just that goddamn easy. So can you just speak to. Because I feel like this is such an important lesson. I just love for you to, to wrap a little bit on the notion of healing being non linear and why that's so important for us to really soak into our. To our psyche.

I was just having this conversation last night with my man and he's like, I already worked on this. And I was like, but babe, it doesn't mean like you're a loser because you got to work on, like the next layer. Is this, like, exciting? You have more capacity now to like really get in there, you know. The visual that works for me is, I think with healing, we think we see it like we're trains on a track. I dealt with my childhood trauma and then I dealt with all being bullied or being the bully in high school. And then I did this, and then I did this. And I should be here now. Part of what feeds into this is like, you know, I'm this age in this sector of society. I should be successful, whatever. And I think a much more helpful visual is like, you are a planet in a solar system and an asteroid coming through affects everything. So today's gonna look different than yesterday looked. As you know, there's a butterfly effect to this. I also feel that life gives us challenges when we really do have the capacity to meet them. Even though we think, oh my God, this is like cut me off at the knees, this is out of nowhere. But if you really, really, if you look back after you kind of look at the gestalt, you go, you know what? That happened when I had a really strong network of friends, or that happened when I had some money in the bank, I had a roof over my head, I could handle it. There's some stuff that like we unearth, especially like trauma related, where if we would have become cognitive of it in our 20s, it would have shattered us, we would have been in the psych ward. But we know more about who we are, we got more love flowing, we're more resilient in lots of ways. It's like, okay, you can handle it now. Now the soul is going to reveal one more thing to you. And I see this, I mean, especially with women in my space of just like I did the therapy and I did the workshop and I got the T shirt and this is up again.

I did the Tony Robbins event. It should be, it should be, it should be gone. Tony said.

So I did this in a cold plunge. Chanting, smoking, whatever. It's just not a straight line.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's such a, it's such a potent reminder because I think healing seems to reveal itself just like self inquiry, you know, it's like we can get to know ourselves only as deep and only as wide as we're capable of in that moment. And as we go through life and have more experiences and learn new things and meet new people, all those things contribute to our capacity to be self conscious, to inquire a little deeper into who we are. And I love that notion. Like, there's a man that I had on the show named Francis Waller. I don't know if you're familiar with his work, but a lot of his work is around soul work and the notion of growing down into ourselves. And I like that because I think it's almost counterculture to our current state of ascension and expansion and needing to grow know constantly and holding on to those. Holding on to those pieces. And I like this notion of nonlinear healing because it reminds us that it's almost like there's an arrogance to my healing should go this way. I think it should go this way, you know, Like, I know. I know exactly what's best for me, when it's best for me, what's right for me. And I should have all of those things figured out. And so to let go of that is to also sort of tip our psychological cap at something larger than us, whatever that might look like.

I've learned this. I mean, I've learned it through my own experience, but also seeing some really powerful healers in my life go through real challenges. Like, these are people I really idolize. And it's like, wow, they are not on the outside of being taken down at the knees either. Like, you just. You do not know. And the beauty of living with that mystery, like I could be struck down at any time, or it doesn't matter how evolved or how many workshops life could just teach me something, is you are more alert. And it also, that alertness has pushed me towards, like, more simplicity in my life. I live a much more simple lifestyle than I used to, but I've become more magnetized to people who I would just call simple because not simpleton, but just. I don't need to be impressed like I used to be. I just want to feel somebody's presence. Yeah, simplicity has just become really powerful for me. I fell in love with a very simple. A simple approach guy.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a big success.

Not what I saw coming. Yeah.

Well, I feel like that is probably a good place for us to pause in this conversation. It's amazing how quickly the this interview has ripped by.

But for everyone that's out there listening, I want to just give the chance for them to learn a little bit more about the book that you have launching tomorrow on October 11th. And so for everyone that's listening, do you want to just give them a little bit of insight into the book, where they can get it and what they can expect?

You can get the book Everywhere in us, Canada, and maybe the UK soon, Australia. And this is the response I'm getting from the book, that it's a crash course and how not to crash, that it's a bit deceptive in that, you know, it's beautifully designed. This is like a nice gift book. And they open up and go like, whoa, okay, I'm in. It is about. I think it has a tenderizing effect. I've heard that it is confronting and I think it's a great combination. A good confrontation that tenderizes you in the best way.

And the vibe, too, is that it's right on, it's on time, that people are really, and I'm hearing this a lot from men, too, that they're ready to let love be the game changer, that they know it is. Like, let's just really get intelligent about this. It's about time. And I'm doing an event. I've called it Church with Dee on Sunday, October 16th. And the idea is you go grab a couple copies of the book and you come to daniellaporte.com how to beloveing and we give you a ticket for church. And Church's Leanne Rimes is going to show up and sing to us from her new album, God's Work. And beautiful chorus is going to be there, Michael Beckwith is going to be there, and we're going to throw down on True Identity. It's going to be really lush. Yeah.

Beauty, beauty. I've had the fortune of having Leanne on the show and chatting with her and she was awesome. So definitely tune into that. Well, thank you so much again, Danielle, for being on the show and it's great to see you again and get to just drop in and jam for a little bit for everyone that's out there. Definitely go pick up a copy of the book. Don't forget to man it forward. Share this episode with somebody that you know would appreciate. It might be a good conversation starter between you and your partner or a friend. And that's it. So thank you so much for tuning in today. And this is Connor Beaton signing off.