The first time I’ve spoken about the “living death” I experienced last year — may this help your own heart

This is the first time I’ve publicly spoken about the “living death” that I experienced last year in the Fall of 2018. I went to the darkest place of my being — panic attacks and identity crisis, loss, disillusionment and… incredible awe. GRACE. I’m still mining it all and will be sharing the gold for years to come. But this is a natural reveal that I could only have done so easily with my dear friend, Jeff Krasno. Along with his wife, Schuyler Grant, Jeff is the co-founder of Wanderlust and, now, Commune… and he has a piece of my heart.

This is one of the most psychologically intimate conversations I’ve ever recorded. Some of the treasures I surfaced from my personal fire:

There is a kind of pain that nobody else can resolve for us. Not our best friends, not our lovers, not even skilled psychologists who know everything about us. Nobody. And that can be a brutal revelation. At the bottom of that personal pain, I learned to heal my unchecked self-hatred with boundless self-compassion. I got connected to God Source through all of that. That kind of pain has to be given up to Life itself — it’s the only release. I was stripped of all judgment. At the bottom of my brokenness was my wisdom, my love, my acceptance… a knowing of oneness.

So much of pain comes from the fear that the pain will never end. But if you can just be present with it — it will move faster.

What worked for me: the breath, the breath, the breath. Some days that’s all we have to keep us connected to something more meaningful.

Also: a (heart-centering) breath practice has got to work for a traffic jam AND transcendence. That’s my metric. It’s got to be practical. If you can’t use it in the middle of an argument with your person, or when your kid is testing you, or when the freeway is a parking lot… it’s not useful to me.

And finally… You don’t have to be “worthy” to deserve what you want. You’re good, no matter what. Even the most evil amongst us wants to go home — to return to the light. We’re all trying to get back to the same place.

Please have a listen. My hope is to shed light on the pain that we all experience to varying degrees, so that we can heal together. Togetherness is powerful medicine.

True Love,

Danielle