WITH LOVE, DANIELLE

Does "virtuous" make you think of… pious? Or… integrity? How about this: virtues are higher states of consciousness that Life is always trying to pour into us. LOVE is a virtue. Not a feeling. Compassion is a virtue, not an ideal. Forgiving is a virtue, not an act. And you don't "do" virtues, you embody them. And embodying virtues is why we're here. Forget all the religious messaging. Being virtuous is where ALL the happiness is. All of it. Everything we crave is in the energy of the virtues. How do Virtues become vices? Well, let me tell you a story about Darth Vader… I'm out to make Virtuousness so much lighter than it's been pitched to us for centuries. No signaling, no punishing systems, and dogma-free. We're taking virtues back in this episode of WITH LOVE, DANIELLE. You may never look at Love in the same way again. Come onnn in…

What do you think of when you consider "being resilient"? Hold that thought. Resilience has everything to do with heart intelligence. You can't ADAPT TO THE PRESENT unless you are connected to your own capacity to Love. You can't create a better future if you can't accept the present. I know it may seem counterintuitive but nothing changes until we get up close and accept it for what it is, for what it's trying to teach us. Enough with the tough. It's killing us. YES resilience. And resilience has zero to do with sucking it up and getting more steely or aggressive. You ready for a reframe? I hope so. Because if I can further this concept, I'll die happy. This episode of WITH LOVE, DANIELLE is to the point and, hopefully, liberating.

Who's in for a Loving Kindness Practice? My man and I do this together to relax. Sometimes we use it to start Team D meetings. This WITH LOVE, DANIELLE episode is essentially a reminder that you are MADE of Love. Come back whenever you need it. Daily would be good.

The ego's favourite hiding place is… You ready? In personal-development workshops! Self-helpers and spiritual seekers really know how to strive, and striving is classic ego-ing. Being on the path can appear to be anything but arrogant or self-serving. Philosophies of peace spoken softly. Self-sacrifice. And it all looks great in stretchy yoga pants. I'm body positive. I'm a meditator. I'm journaling daily. I'm fighting for peace. All these actions and commitments can be sourced from one's heart, a bona fide outpouring of dedication to Love. And… Virtuous actions can be puppeteered by a shadow self that's telling you that you need to constantly burn your bad karma. Same spiritual practice, different motivations. You feel me? I know you do. This episode of WITH LOVE, DANIELLE (#52) is for you, babe. And me. Because I've been there.

I have been wanting to talk very specifically about the ego for a while… This is it. Helloooo, egooooo! Simple: the ego is the unhealed part of us. Or more succinctly, the ego is the way our unhealed self acts. That's it. We don't have to banish it, mollify, or suppress it. Why would we?! The ego is our creation! It's one of your thought babies. It's just looking for love. And integration. Here's the big beautiful liberation concept: the gift of the ego is to show us who we truly are… our Original Nature. Once we understand that, we are going to glide through this lifetime instead of grind. This episode of With Love, Danielle is potentially one of the most useful I've ever done.

You are the soul that owns the house you live in. This is a mighty useful metaphor for understanding the concept of our Soul… body temple… energy… spirit… what we attract… nervous systems… hard wiring… All those terms that are jangled around in our wellness space. I have a beautiful breakdown for us that can help keep our human-holiness in perspective. It starts like this, "The house is the analogy of your body. You are the Soul that owns the house…" How do your emotions relate to your Soul? What does the furniture in your "house" symbolize? LISTEN IN. This is a fun one.

My last book was The Desire Map. Back then, my life was guided by the question, "How do I want to feel?" I built my career on that. But I began to notice that even if I wasn't experiencing my core desired feelings, I was still in touch with a greater purpose. Temporary unhappiness didn't hold me back from helping a friend or feeling close to The Divine. A new question emerged. "What do I want to embody?"The answer was clear: Love. Love no matter what. And it turns out that the path to being more Loving is through a Loving process itself. Here it is, a sneak peek of my new book, How To Be Loving! Heart centered, soul powered, and divinely timed. A place for nuance and Compassion, where Self Acceptance has room to grow. As you listen in, I leave you with this… What if… You could consistently choose higher quality thoughts? You stop talking yourself out of your natural inclination to Forgive? You started to create conditions for healing in your life? You aligned your personal ambitions to include the collective—because the days of self-centered bucket lists are over? Your ego—which is just an exaggerated sense of a separate self—began to calm down? Spirituality is really the practice of thinking with Love. And we can effectively train ourselves to keep returning to Love via our thoughts over and over again. Being Loving doesn't necessarily mean feeling more. It means feeling everything with more Love. It's the ultimate inclusiveness. Because in your heart, it's ALL IN—your light and your shadows—and everyone else's. This is the non-dual place where complete Self Acceptance has room to grow. This call for gentleness is counterculture. And it's what we're yearning for. We do not need to focus on "fixing" ourselves. As we focus on living from our heart center, anything that's not in alignment with that Light falls away.

There's tolerance. And it's obviously better than intolerance. But there's often some kind of settling beneath it. And then we move up the spiral to Acceptance. A definite improvement but… Let's really expand to the highest destination if possible: HONOUR. We honor our contrasts and our mutual freewill. It's a huge stretch when we're frustrated with other people's choices. We don't have to condone, but we can respect the most basic commonality that we all have: CHOICE. Tune in for a mind stretch!

I'm breaking tradition on my one woman podcast to introduce you to someone who I think is an earth angel: Randy Watson, founder of Ally Global Foundation. Everytime I meet with Randy I leave feeling shocked and hopeful in equal measure. Ally Global helps survivors of human trafficking find healing through safe housing, education, and aftercare. A request: PLEASE LISTEN. Learn with me. I've been paying attention to this global issue since my days of running a think tank in Washington, DC., when I toured The Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In this conversation, you're going to hear how perpetrators get access to kids of all ages and communities and begin a cycle of seduction and fear. Girls from upper class communities to marginalized kids; A+ students with doting parents to kids lost in the social care system. I was stunned to hear what's going on in my own city. You'll also hear stories of bravery and healing. And hopefully you'll be compelled to help us raise awareness and funds to help protect and heal survivors.

Astral body, mental body, auric field… nervous system… sound system… What's it all mean, really? I have a very simple breakdown for these things of monumental importance to our wellbeing. All things I wish I knew more about when I was twenty, eating New Age books for breakfast and generally avoiding Mother Nature. In this short episode we're going into:Explanations of astral body, mental body, emotional body, and… What hangs out in your auric field anyway? PLUS! The 101 on our nervous system and why nourishing it should be our #1 focus. This is Love for ALL your bodies. Tune in, be well, vitalize your life.