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EP 36: My darkest secret + How to remember who you really are
17 Plays9 days ago
There’s a story I keep close to the vest, not because of shame but more so because of the legal actions I fear I could face for sharing.
I feel the need to tell you this deep, dark secret because if you never knew me in my insanity you’d never know how real and possible transformation is.
My reality was reading personal development books, working hard to learn more about myself and using my will power to become who I felt I was capable of being.
Little did I know I was looking in all the wrong places and the more I tried the more rigid, judgmental and unwilling to change I became.
Listen to this one for inspiration and clear direction on finding yourself and becoming who you were always meant to be -
a reminder of what’s possible when we stop trying to be the source of our own power and instead relax into being the vessel for the Source of all that we are.
I’m just so damn grateful.
Xo,
Dana
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Reflection
00:00:01
Speaker
Good morning, everyone. i am coming to you from Costa Rica again. um my God, it's such a beautiful morning. I am 36 years old today. And oh my gosh, I just feel like life is so amazing. and What i really want to say is it wasn't always like this for me.
Coaching Journey and Self-Trust
00:00:22
Speaker
So we had our kickoff call for the modern day healer experience on the 28th. So the day before yesterday. And most people on this kickoff call cried. And like, you know, it was tears of gratitude, happiness, um joy, i think a little bit of overwhelm.
00:00:43
Speaker
heard... i heard multiple times that one of the main challenges people are facing becoming coaches becoming um examples of what's possible for other people in the realm of business and entrepreneurship.
00:01:08
Speaker
that there's this feeling of, I wanna be able to trust myself. I wanna be able to know that I'm going the right direction. I want this to work. And I also kind of wish that I was a little bit further down the road, although I know I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
Personal Transformation Over Six Years
00:01:24
Speaker
And why i feel it's so important for me to convey to you where I was before is because if you didn't know me before, if you didn't know me six plus years ago, you wouldn't recognize how massive of an inner and outer change and transformation I've gone through.
00:01:49
Speaker
And I love the idea that the word transformation really means a change that shocks you. right? It's not just like, oh, yeah, I've changed. Like, these are things that I used to do. And here's how I am It's like, no, you look back, you look in the rearview mirror, and you go, oh, my God, I don't even recognize that
Strength from a Higher Power
00:02:09
Speaker
person. That's not me.
00:02:11
Speaker
That is no longer who I am. And that's where I'm at. one hundred percent 100%. And I know how I got here. And it wasn't me, right?
00:02:22
Speaker
And that's kind of the point that I'm going to make today. And I think that's a stuck spot that so many of us get into. And we're blinded by our own power.
00:02:34
Speaker
But we forget where the power comes from. And so we continue deplete ourselves, trying to find it within ourselves. When it's there, however, we have to connect to it.
00:02:46
Speaker
And it has to come from something bigger. It can't just come from our body, our our brain, right? We have to allow something bigger to so source that power from.
Overcoming Addiction and Recovery
00:02:57
Speaker
And we have to allow that bigger thing to come through us and to use us as its instrument, as its vessel for dispensing the gifts of the divine, you know?
00:03:07
Speaker
And so for me, like, just to give a little context, um You know, Roman, my oldest, is eight years old now. And this is a story that I think I've really, i haven't, I've told little bits and pieces of it, but I've kept it somewhat close to the chest because fear, right? Fear, not so much of being judged, but fear of legalities, fear of, you know, like child protective services coming in and taking my kids even at this point from me because of how
00:03:38
Speaker
absolutely crazy I was. And I use that word, you know, like, I'm not being politically correct, but I have no actual need for that right now. Like, that's how I felt.
Self-Deception in Addiction
00:03:47
Speaker
i felt like a crazy basket case.
00:03:49
Speaker
um And he's eight. And when he was in my belly, you know, in utero, I drank. every single day. Now, granted, I i was a sick severely suffering alcoholic, and I consider myself recovered, not from um not from the disease itself. like I know that I have a physical allergy to it, but to alcohol. So if I was to consume any, I would not be able to stop. um that's the That is the disease.
00:04:22
Speaker
But I have completely recovered from the obsession. And it's, again, it wasn't me that did this. It was something bigger. Because if it was me, little s self, you know, little m me, it would have taken me lifetimes to figure out what happened to me in a split second, you know, that my higher power, something bigger took care of.
00:04:44
Speaker
You know, that's a quantum leap. That's a huge, massive transformation um in in a split second. Life changed forever in that moment. So when Roman was in my belly, I drank every single day. I would have an enormous glass of wine.
00:04:59
Speaker
I mean, like probably half the bottle. And i can't remember exactly because it's been so long, but i probably had days where I drank a whole bottle of wine.
Medical Intervention and Reality Check
00:05:08
Speaker
And I justified the wine because I, my insanity, my ego, which was completely in control at this time in my life, told me, you know, like it's justifiable because it's wine and wine in some ways is good for people and it's got antioxidants, you know, like, I mean, that's the insanity because I believed my own lies. That's called delusion.
00:05:33
Speaker
where you are believing the illusion that your ego has created for itself. And now my body is just being used as a tool to...
00:05:44
Speaker
make my ego feel real when in reality it is just false and there's no real experience to be had with it because it doesn't even know what real experience is. And so for me in that time of my life, drank every day, but then also when I gave birth to Roman, um and this is the story that I keep kind of close to the vest, but when I gave birth to Roman, he came out, they We're going to discharge us.
00:06:14
Speaker
And i will never forget, like, the doctors coming into the room and saying, your blood alcohol levels when you came in here were high.
00:06:25
Speaker
Like, you have alcohol in your system. We can't just let you go. And i remember thinking to myself, like, what? Like, this isn't my life. Like, me?
00:06:37
Speaker
You're not goingnna let me go? Do you know who I am I'm a good person. I'm going to be a great mother. I'm smart. All I do is read personal development books. All I do is work on my business. All I do is try, try, try.
00:06:50
Speaker
And you're going to tell me that I'm not fit to walk out of this hospital without being questioned? How, what is happening? And at the time I smoked weed every single day as well.
00:07:04
Speaker
And so there was t hc in my, in my system too. So that was also completely illegal. And they were like, you, you know, we have to, we have a um social worker coming in to talk to you before you leave. And then we'll basically decide if we're going to discharge you with your child or not.
00:07:25
Speaker
And I remember just thinking, there's no way this is happening.
Pursuit of Happiness and Personal Growth
00:07:29
Speaker
And being so numb to the situation that I couldn't even think beyond the moment that I was in because I was i was just so completely incapable of comprehending the situation I had gotten into myself, you know, gotten myself into. And so i sat there and I just got angry and I justified all my anger by blaming everybody else, blaming the doctors, blaming Raina, my nurse practitioner, because in the beginning, uh, three months into my pregnancy, I was quote unquote honest with her. And I told her I was smoking weed and, um,
00:08:09
Speaker
she red flagged me. And that's the reason that they tested my blood alcohol levels and all of these things. And I didn't know she had red flagged me. They actually told me that in this discharge interview, like your nurse practitioner has a red flag on you on your file here because you were doing illegal drugs.
00:08:29
Speaker
Like in South Carolina, that is completely illegal. And, um, I just couldn't believe it. So I blamed everybody else. My natural reaction was to blame Raina, to say, what, what? Like, I can't even trust my healthcare, know, provider um in terms of like, you know, what I'm going through and telling her what I'm doing to help myself.
00:08:53
Speaker
Blame, blame, blame, you know? And then I'm gonna blame the the social worker for doing his job. how How can I like, why would this guy like ping me?
00:09:06
Speaker
You know, like why me? So, All this is going on. And you know if you knew me then, you'd know also, while I'm at home every day, i am reading all the personal development books I can get my hands on. And I am just wanting to change so badly on the inside.
00:09:27
Speaker
wanna stop feeling the way that I feel. wanna stop feeling discontent. I wanna feel like comfortable in my own skin. I want to, um and I'm thinking to myself, Once I get my business working, all of that will come to me, right? But intuitively, I knew the happiness needed to come first, but I wasn't willing to prioritize that. I really thought because my business was my passion, that that was what I needed to work on first and foremost in order to get the happiness that I was looking for.
Limits of Self-Knowledge
00:10:01
Speaker
so that I can then like reap the benefits of that and actually feel content in my life and um be nice to people and not make poor decisions and not drink so much and all of these things and not smoke weed so much and whatever it was.
00:10:15
Speaker
And what was really happening was, and I see this in hindsight, of course, is that as I'm reading all of these personal development books, I am essentially...
00:10:29
Speaker
like so many people, trying to figure it all out on my own. I know from um just, you know, like, i don't want to call it knowledge because knowledge to me means something completely different than it used to.
00:10:45
Speaker
Self-knowledge, right? Book smarts, learning about myself. I thought that was going to bring the change. And here's why so many people get so frustrated with personal development, human design, um astrology, anything that pumps up the self-knowledge, gives you more more to for your mind to basically chew on and to say, oh, this is why you are the way you are, and gives you more reasons, justifications to be the way that you've been.
00:11:21
Speaker
It creates a rigidity in your personality. It creates a rigidity in your um and your being. And what's happening is you're becoming more attached to the idea identity that your ego has created for you, right?
00:11:38
Speaker
And that's exactly what happened to me. And this is not to say, this is the interesting part, human design, um Tony Robbins, any personal development. It's not to say that any of that is bad.
00:11:51
Speaker
In fact, when you know yourself and you are true to yourself and you know where your power comes from and that it doesn't, in your change, the transformation doesn't come from self-knowledge.
00:12:02
Speaker
When you know that because you've experienced it, all things all of these pathways for more understanding, help.
00:12:13
Speaker
And they become fun ways to become creative with this brand new identity that you are not attached to, that is born of love, that you are building consciously, creating it, sure, with your ego, but you have such a healthy relationship with it that you you're not getting sucked into it and it's not becoming this rigid part of you, right? And you're not using it against other people to tell them why you're different and to separate you and to justify bad behaviors that are not aligned with who you are at the core, right?
00:12:48
Speaker
And so for me, that's what I was doing in the background. So now I've got this child protective services group coming in they interview me. And I am beyond angry, okay? Because this is my this is my defense mechanism.
00:13:05
Speaker
Get mad. Get mad. Get indignant. Get self-righteous. And show them that you are a smart, capable woman who does not deserve to be questioned.
00:13:18
Speaker
So this is what I did. And um they actually ended up letting me go. which is insane to me because I was so out of my mind and i explained to them i I told them that you know I just had one glass of wine the night before because I knew I was going to be induced the next day and I was so nervous and this is why right and I justified it and they accepted it after oh a lot of questioning and um
00:13:48
Speaker
i I had Roman and then for two full years I acted like that. It was just blame, blame, blame, learn, learn, learn, think I'm changing.
00:14:00
Speaker
But really in reality, what I'm doing is just pointing the finger at everybody else, telling them what's wrong about them, separating myself further from the rest of my fellow human beings,
00:14:13
Speaker
And making it all about myself and also trying to figure it out all on my own, which further separated me more and got me to a place of, thank God, desperation.
00:14:26
Speaker
um That was my rock bottom, right? Was like, I can't continue doing this anymore. And also, you know, just having this white light moment where something bigger came and took care of like sobriety for me and relieved me of the obsession to drink, which gave me all of the knowledge I needed, right?
Embracing a Higher Power
00:14:45
Speaker
In that moment, it was like, oh, this is all I ever needed to know that this was possible.
00:14:51
Speaker
It answered every question of faith I ever had. It showed me through experience that What's possible for me lies on the other side of my belief in a higher power and my ability to let it work through me as opposed to me trying to figure everything out and trying to learn more about myself. I know everything I need to know through that higher power. And then everything else now has become a fun tool for creativity, for building out organized thoughts and
00:15:23
Speaker
right, that makes sense to people like you in a business container, for example. So I listen to books like, it's so funny, like um Grant Cardone, ah The 10X Rule.
00:15:35
Speaker
personally don't really love Grant Cardone. I think that he is a very aggressive, egotistical, arrogant human being, but I also think that he's perfect. And I think that he has a lot of ideas that I actually implement in my own life, but I wouldn't say them the way that he says them.
00:15:55
Speaker
But does that make him bad person? Absolutely not. Does it make him a bad or different person? In fact, His individuality, right? I am able to see the beauty in it and to learn what I want to learn from him and to leave the rest And that's actually like his teachings right now are some of the things that you're seeing pop up massive action, right?
00:16:20
Speaker
Pop up in my, in my curriculum. And the fact is, is that like, I get to see him as the powerful, creative, um, perfect soul that he is in an imperfect package, the exact same way that I am.
00:16:38
Speaker
And the only way that I've been able to do that and to get to that place is by understanding that me alone, right, trying to source my own energy is a recipe for actual self-implosion.
00:16:53
Speaker
It is a recipe for not just depletion, but full-on, like, drying out of my being and, like, turning myself back into dust, right?
00:17:04
Speaker
Right. I mean, I could have killed myself so many times doing the things that I was doing. I could have killed somebody else. um I knew that if I kept drinking the way I was, i would literally just die of of some kind of liver disease or malfunction. Or um i was just I was killing my body, but then put drinking and driving on top of it.
00:17:26
Speaker
Put drinking while pregnant on top of it. Like so many avenues for death. And that's what I was doing. i was self imploding because I was trying to find the power within myself without knowing what the source of that power was.
00:17:42
Speaker
Right. And so now it's not only just sourcing power from something bigger, but it's also seeing other human beings as another connection to it because we are all created from it. Right.
00:18:00
Speaker
and What happens is you either look at other human beings as um unified with the whole, even with their flaws, or you don't.
00:18:13
Speaker
One way is aligned with your higher power and with what you actually are and what they actually are, which is soul perfection and um purity and wisdom and all of the creativity and abundance that we could ever want, all the love that we could ever want.
Learning from Imperfections and Diverse Teachings
00:18:31
Speaker
or you look at them in their humanness, in their imperfections. And what happens is, of course, you basically highlight those imperfections in yourself.
00:18:41
Speaker
And that becomes what you see. That becomes what you see in the world. That's what you experience. And so for me on my journey, um It was absolutely essential not only to find the source of all of my power through something bigger, but to also experience other human beings as the sacred, you know, creations that...
00:19:08
Speaker
a higher power created as well. Like they are the same. And that's why doing the truth cleanse from soul vibe recipe for me has been actually like, if I didn't do that ah thousands at this point of times to get clear from all of my resentments and all of my judgments towards these specific individuals, I'm,
00:19:34
Speaker
um And then continue to maintain that by doing it every single day if necessary. When things come up, that way they don't build up, number one, and I don't have to do a mass clearing again for two years. um But also, I just get to have a clean, fresh slate every single day where I know what I am. I know what they are.
00:19:56
Speaker
I still slip up. I'm still imperfect. Roman, my eight-year-old, this point, like, he is my biggest opportunity to learn patience because, oh, my God, I still haven't learned that lesson, right? Like, totally imperfect.
00:20:11
Speaker
And there might be things that I say to you that you're like, uh... I don't know about that. Right. But your job isn't to, and my job isn't to judge each other for these things. It's not my job to to judge Grant Cardone Tony Robbins for all of the, what I would perceive, especially six years ago. Well, right when I got sober.
00:20:31
Speaker
Um, cause before that I was like, yeah, so I was like totally on par with the do it yourself. You can do it. You can do it. Um, but yeah,
00:20:41
Speaker
I would be judging them after getting sober for now being super arrogant and egotistical and going rah, rah, rah, like we can all do it ourselves. But now, like I said, it's gone so far beyond that. And I can see all of the perfection that lies in their creations because they also are creations.
00:21:02
Speaker
And it allows me to, like I said, take what I need, leave the rest And love them for who they are, which allows me to love myself for who I am and you for who you are. And it just builds on itself and the creativity and the inspiration and the excitement and the enthusiasm that you get from walking that path as opposed to thinking that you can do it all yourself.
Creativity, Inspiration, and Higher Connection
00:21:24
Speaker
It's all about you, right? It's all about more self-knowledge. It's all about learning more. When you walk that path, all of the things like human design, um literally anything you learn becomes something something creative. It becomes another tool that you can truly use and apply because it's relevant, because everything is relevant.
00:21:47
Speaker
At this point, when it comes to wisdom, not self-knowledge, not trying to figure it all out yourself, not even thinking that you can do it yourself because you cannot.
00:21:59
Speaker
You cannot. And that's not a disempowering thought. That's actually super empowering to know that it's not your fault that if you're in this place that you're at, like, and it feels really hard and you feel like you could be somewhere different.
00:22:11
Speaker
First of all, change is so fucking possible. Excuse my language. It is so possible. And it doesn't come from you. You do not have to do it. Like you actually don't.
00:22:23
Speaker
You get to let go of everything and let something bigger do it. And that's the beauty of it. How much easier can it get? And yet we complicate it because our brains are so in control. Our egos are so in control.
00:22:35
Speaker
And we've practiced that route for so long. It takes a massive undoing. And for some people like me, um you know, there is that split second of undoing that your higher power can can accomplish in literally a split second.
00:22:52
Speaker
Something I couldn't have done in lifetimes for myself on self-knowledge alone, right? But ultimately there was still so much spiritual action to be taken to practice putting my higher higher power first and learning what I was and who I am through that, as opposed to, you know, all of this self, the, the self-help books, the personal development, human design, astrology, all Enneagram, everything that I was doing.
00:23:20
Speaker
Um, and now it's like, God, the world has opened up in ways that I could have never expected.
Gratitude and Fulfillment through Higher Power
00:23:28
Speaker
And I'm just so grateful. I'm so grateful for this path. I'm so grateful for truth.
00:23:35
Speaker
I'm so grateful to have these frameworks and to have people like you listening to this. Right. And, um, the last thing I want to leave you with is knowing that like,
00:23:49
Speaker
You are literally, I'll so i'll speak from for myself. I felt like on that kickoff call, what I wanted to say and what I did say was I am not even, i don't even want to call myself a mentor or a teacher.
00:24:05
Speaker
We're all the same, right? I am a reminder. You are a reminder, right? I'm a reminder of what is possible when we go to the source of everything that we are instead of stopping short, falling short by ah trying to get it all from ourselves and and learning more and and filling our brains with more what we call knowledge, which is actually just more stuff to distract us from the true wisdom that we actually are and that we have every opportunity to tap into
00:24:41
Speaker
If we are willing to put aside all of the BS and all of the things that we have been doing for so long, all of the judgments, all of the self-righteousness, all of the anger, all of the resentments,
00:24:57
Speaker
right? If we're willing to put aside all of the ways that we have been trying and just try one more thing, and that is to connect to our higher power and allow it to guide us and to ask it for what we want, but from a place of what it wants for you, right?
00:25:16
Speaker
And so that really will untangle some things because When we ask for what we want, a lot of times when we are so inundated and so tainted by our ego's perception of the world and we haven't gone through the undoing yet, we're ultimately asking for what we think society wants for us, so what we have been raised to believe that we desire.
00:25:39
Speaker
And so the best thing you can do is ask for the will of your higher power for you because ultimately that is what you want. more than anything in the entire world because it's what you are.
00:25:54
Speaker
So um leaving you with the idea that you are a reminder of what's possible when we follow that path. We let go of the other one of rigidity and self-knowledge and trying to do it all ourselves and trying to figure it all out. And yes, we are so capable but only when we're an instrument, only when we are allowing the flow to move through us um and to be a vehicle for change using the will of our higher power.
00:26:24
Speaker
Oh my god If you loved today's episode and you are listening to this on ah iTunes or on Spotify, um please, please leave five-star review.
00:26:35
Speaker
ah would be so appreciative. um It will just help more people like us find this show and find these answers that I feel are so relieving.
00:26:46
Speaker
Right? Like there's real relief in this to know that it doesn't have to be hard. It can be easy. It's not always easy, but it can be simple. Right? um Because I really genuinely believe that each of us are a path.
00:26:59
Speaker
We're all a path back home to the source of everything that we are. And when we can be that path, that's when we fulfill our soul's function of true joy, true, true, true happiness, the deepest happiness you could ever feel.
00:27:13
Speaker
And I'm feeling that today. I am so, grateful. I'm so grateful for you. I'm so grateful for this path. I'm just absolutely incredibly grateful. Thank you for listening. I love you so much.