Today’s message is simple.

It may not be an easy one to practice, especially in the midst of the uncertainty and real suffering of many people dealing with the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. But it is a good one. A sanity-preserving one. And I would argue a necessary first step to doing anything truly helpful or productive.

It is this: Give yourself permission to be where you are at with it.

That’s it.

Are you sick?

Are you afraid?

Are you panicking?

Are you judging those who are?

Are you frustrated with people hoarding basic necessities?

Are you worried about elderly loved ones, or about how you will pay your rent?

Are you grieving real loss or the possibility that loss could easily occur?

Are you saddened and depressed by the state of humanity and our impact on the world?

Do you see this as natural population control; and wish everyone would stop pretending like we are above other species and the processes of the natural world?

Are you seeing the silver linings in the forced pause and wishing others would stop focusing on the sh*t?

Do you think this is a gift on a spiritual level; an opportunity for us all to step into a new level of consciousness where we begin to treat ourselves, each other and the world with the kindness and can more freely shine our light?

Or perhaps you are feeling righteous about the fact you knew this (and other chaos-inducing events) was coming and frustrated that few have been willing to take you seriously when you tried to share about another way that this (the trajectory humanity) could go?

Are you saddened that it takes a global crisis for people to be willing to pause and consider the impact they have on those around them, and the world?

Are you feeling hopeless?

Are you just bored?

Whatever it is you are feeling, experiencing or thinking allow yourself to have it.

Try to find compassion for yourself. Allow yourself to have your initial reaction.

Don’t necessarily act on it, but let yourself have it.

Find a way to let the thoughts and the emotions out in a way that also lets others have their space to process. Write it out. Call and friend and ask to vent.

Be responsible with where you direct your thoughts and feelings, yes. But don’t stop yourself from having them.

Let them be valid. Give them voice (if only to yourself).

And in the space that follows, you will find your deeper truth.

You will find the place in you that knows just what to say, and just what to do.

Give yourself permission to be where you are at with all of it.

Not as the answer, but as the way to a new way forward.

One guided by your own deepest inner truth.

Trusting you, and loving you where ever you are at with all of it.

xo,

Danielle

Today I am going to tackle a question that we would all love the answer to.

How do you win against fear?

How do you move forward when you know your own truth but are afraid to pursue it?

How do you open your heart after heartbreak?

How do you risk creating after failure?

How do you take the first step when all possible futures feel terrifyingly unknown and out of your control?

How do you win the battle against your fear?

I have an answer for you, but you might not like it. So I am going to keep it short and sweet and to the point.

Two simple words: You Don’t.

You cannot win against your fear. You will never eliminate it. You cannot extricate it from your being.

Fear is inevitable when you are following your deepest truth, because it will often ask you to change who you are being or what you believe, and the ego fears any change to your identity.

Fighting with your fear keeps you stopped, and that is exactly what your fear wants.

So long as you are fighting yourself, fear has won.

How do you move forward then, when fear has you in its grips?

First, stop fighting your fear. Stop making it wrong. Stop trying to push it away or pretend its not there. Full stop surrender. Put down your arms. Take off your armor. Call a truce.

Second, release the significance. Remember that your fear is simply your ego’s response to change. There is nothing wrong. You are a normal human with a normal ego, doing normal ego things.

Third, expand your awareness to hold your fear with love. Allow your fear to be a part of your experience, but remember it is not the whole of who you are. You are also a Soul in a human body. Allow yourself to be all of it.

Then, gently take the keys away from your ego, and give them back to your Soul. Ask your Soul what is the next step from here, and take it.

That’s it. Stop fighting with yourself. Have compassion. Find peace. Give the keys back to your Soul. Repeat.

xo,

Danielle

This week I want to share with you one of core messages I will be teaching at an upcoming workshop through the Law Courts Centre called Long Term Resilience and Avoiding Burnout.

Those of you who know my story, know that I have had quite the journey with law, from burnout, to overcoming an addiction, to transforming my relationship to the practice and the profession and creating alternate career arrangements that work for me and allow me to pursue other interests that I love.

When I hit my first breaking point with law and started a blog called Trash Your Stress in early 2013, there was very little talk in the legal profession about burnout, and the mental and emotional health issues that many lawyers struggle with on a daily basis, often silently and alone. The stigma around the subject was so high, it was difficult to get people to talk about it.

Seven years later, many strides have been made to bring the conversation out into the open. While the stigma around “being weak” and “not being able to hack it” is still there, it is much less. Resources for support are abundant and there is more willingness to ask for help.

The issue I see is that the approach to preventing burnout is often surface level. The typical problems (stress, overwhelm, unhealthy coping mechanisms, poor self-care, anxiety) are addressed with generic solutions (the most common being eat healthy, exercise, get more sleep, work less, take more breaks, meditate, start a fun hobby).  

First, let me say that there is nothing wrong with focusing on basic self-care. It is often helpful, and in more severe cases of burnout, a necessary first step to any intervention.

What I take issue with is this approach does not account for each person being unique. Generic cure-all solutions will not work for everyone or every situation. In addition, what often happens is the prescribed self-care solutions become “shoulds”. They get added to an already overflowing to-do list, and the person struggling begins to feel even more overwhelmed than ever.

When this happens a whole host of other issues arise:

• Behaviour change is not be sustainable

• Risk of relapse to unhealthy behaviours and habits increases

• Trust in self is eroded

• Negative emotions and hopelessness increase making burnout even more likely

The reason for these unintended results is that a basic self-care approach (or any one-size fits all fix) does not address the root cause of burnout.

So, what is the root cause of burnout?

The root cause of burnout is being out of integrity with your own truth.

Here is an example:

You are stressed out, over-eating and not sleeping well. You are having trouble being productive at work. Your to-do list gets bigger, and time seems to disappear before your eyes. Things begin to look bleak. You start drinking more in the evenings to try to cut the anxiety so you can fall asleep.

Burnout is approaching. You can feel it.

The basic self-care approach tells you to have discipline. Make healthier food choices, cut out alcohol and meditate instead to clear your mind before bed. Go for a walk around the block at work when you feel unfocused and come back refreshed. In no time you will be healthy and back on track.

You try this approach but can’t seem to break the habit of overeating and meditating never works as well as a stiff drink to cut the anxiety before bed. A walk around the block during the day only increases your anxiety as you watch the time disappear with you getting even less done. You buy a coffee and some baked goods on the way back to the office hoping the sugar and caffeine will help you get things done. You end up with sky high anxiety and need a couple extra drinks to quiet your mind before bed. You hate yourself for being so “undisciplined”. You feel hopeless. You are heading for burnout even faster than before.

The problem is not that you are not disciplined. The problem is you are trying to treat the symptoms when you are unaware of the cause.

The root cause of the issues you are struggling with might be unprocessed grief of a relationship that recently ended, it might be vicarious trauma picked up from a client or a friend, it might be low self-worth, it might be worries about making a mistake at work, it might be unexpressed anger about not being respected or adequately appreciated, it could be a deeper existential angst and a desire to engage in meaningful work, etc. The possible causes are endless and they will be different for everyone.

Only you can determine what the cause is for you in any particular situation, by going inward and getting in touch with your own truth.

Until you become aware of the root cause(s) of your struggles by looking deep within yourself, you will never be able to sustainably overcome them.

Burnout is prevented by you taking action to bring yourself back into integrity with your own truth.

Join me on Tuesday March 10, 2020 for an engaging workshop where we will dive into this important issue, as well as a discussion around how to build long term resilience in high stress environments, and an exercise to apply these principles at home.

The workshop is open to the public. If you are a lawyer, you will receive 2 hours of CPD credits (ethics and professionalism requirement) for your attendance. There is no fee, but a donation of $25 to the Amici Curiae Friendship Society is recommended for their hospitality.

More info and to register here.

Please reach out with any questions, and please share widely with anyone you think may benefit. Working in a high stress profession can be exciting and rewarding, but it is not always easy. Learning how to stay true to yourself in it makes all the difference.

Xo,

Danielle

One of the main reasons people give for not pursuing their passions, and not taking care of their basic well-being is, “Well I would, but, I don’t have enough time.”

I have said this very thing many times in my own journey. What I have learned is, the only way to solve this lack of time problem, is to stop letting yourself get away with that excuse.

Yes, I said it. It is an excuse.

It may be sneaky one. A socially acceptable one. A culturally endorsed and encouraged one. But it is still just that: an excuse.

If you repeatedly find yourself with no time (or no energy - which is also an excuse) to do the things you really want to be doing, stop RIGHT now, look yourself in the mirror, and ask yourself this:

Who (or what) am I giving my precious time (and energy) away to?

The most important word in that sentence being I (i.e. You).

You are the one who is choosing. You are the one who is deciding how to spend your time every day. You are the one who will choose how to spend it tomorrow.

Stop giving your agency and your power away.

Stop buying your own stories and justifications for why you have to and why you must and why you should.

Admit to yourself that you are the one who is choosing, and ask yourself honestly: Is this how I want to be spending my time? If not, am I willing to make a different choice?

If you find yourself willing to choose something different, start small. Choose one thing that you would love to make time for every day, and then, again, ask yourself honestly: What will it take to create the time for this, today?

It may be you need to say no to something or someone else. It may be you need to get some of your other procrastinating habits in check. It may be you need to cut out an indulgence or an escapist behaviour (watching TV, scrolling social media, etc.) It may be you need to share with someone else and ask them to keep you accountable.

Whatever it is that needs to be done to create space for the thing you really want to do, do it. Do it just this once. Today. Now.

Seriously, do it right now. Create the time for yourself to do the thing you have been avoiding today.

I challenge you to just do it.

Do it. Let yourself enjoy it. See how it feels at the end of the day knowing you are in integrity with you.

Let the power of your inner alignment fuel you to create time for what matters to you again tomorrow.

This is how you take back your time.

You use discernment. You choose your own deepest truth first. Moment by moment. Choice by choice.

And it all starts by admitting to yourself that you have the power to take back your time, right now, and any time you choose to.

Happy choosing!

Xo,

Danielle

How do you find your voice?

What I mean by this question is how do you speak the truth in your soul in a way that will be understood? How do you do this, when for so long that deep voice within you has been silenced?

The answer is simply to begin.

You will not get it “right” right away. You will not suddenly and perfectly say everything that you need to say in just the right way so as to make the difference you came here to make.

This is not how it works.

Your truth has been covered by the stories of your upbringing and the culture around you. It has been muddled and jumbled and mixed with many other people’s voices that for most of your life have been louder than your own.

To speak your own truth clearly once you have gotten in touch with it yourself, simply begin speaking, and adjust as you go.

Speak and notice what continues to resonate with you once it is out in the world. Keep those pieces and discard the rest. Be willing to be a little messy. Be willing to be confusing. Be willing to be misunderstood.

Be willing to rewrite. Rework. Refine. Say it again another way.

This is how it is done. There is no other way.

There will be sentences that feel like ecstasy. There will be those that land just as you hoped and the eyes of your reader or listener light up with understanding and possibility of their own.

There will be those moments of divine resonance. Let them guide you towards what is truly yours to share.

Let the rest fall away without the slightest of care.

Give yourself permission to speak your truth as best you know how, right now. And then do the same thing again tomorrow, and the tomorrows after that.

This is the way. There is no other way. You will not figure it all out in your head and get it just right when you begin.

To find your voice you must use it. To speak your truth you must speak it. To live your soul’s story you must live it.

You must be willing to risk. You must be willing to fumble. You must be a tad the fool.

Let me say this again: There is no other way.

There truly is no other way.

So, begin now.  Love yourself through it.

Your voice is needed.

There is not a moment to lose.

Xo,

Danielle

Happy Thursday everyone!

Today I want to talk about a subject that has been on my mind lately: surrender.

What does it mean, and how do we do it.

We all know life throws us twists and turns and often makes a mockery of our carefully laid plans (for more on this, see my last post).

We all know the best way forward is not to stomp our feet, get angry at the world, or depressed and helpless, and quit.

Yet, how do we navigate the emotions without closing our hearts and numbing them out, and without letting them take over and run the show?

For me the practice is always one of surrender.

It is important to be clear about what surrender means in this context.

The Webster Dictionary defines surrender as:

1. “to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand”

2. “to give up completely or agree to forgo especially in favor of another”

3. “to give oneself up into the power of another : YEILD”

None of these definitions seem very powerful. But surrender can be a very empowering act. The key is: what are you surrendering, and what are you surrendering to?

In the circumstances I am speaking of (when you are feeling disappointed, frustrated, angry, depressed, etc., due to things not going your way) what you are surrendering is your ego, and what you are surrendering to is your soul (or some higher divine power, depending on your personal spiritual beliefs).

When you surrender your ego, you surrender any attachment to a particular outcome. You surrender the judgments you had about things going or not going a certain way. You surrender the emotional reaction. You surrender your numbness and your pain.

You do not suppress these things (your attachment, your judgments, your pain, etc.). This is not surrender, but denial.  

When you surrender you offer up the reactions of your ego to your soul. You acknowledge they exist and that your experience is real. You recognize that your ego’s experience is not who you are. It is a part of you, and a necessary part of being human. You may even thank your ego for its (often misguided) attempts to keep you safe (from criticism, discomfort, loss, rejection, etc.), and then, you offer all of it up to your soul.

You (your egoic self) says: I give up. I yield to a higher power. I give up the fight. I let go of my attempts to control. I give myself over to the deeper thread of conversation flowing through my soul. I surrender.

In doing so you free yourself from the binds of fear, anger and depression. You set yourself free to keep living full out in alignment with the deepest truth in your soul.

Practice surrender every day in little ways, and it will get easier for the big stuff.

Your favorite coffee shop closed down? You spilled tomato soup on your white shirt at lunch? Your child gets the flu and needs to leave school on the day you have an important meeting for your work?

Acknowledge the response of your ego: anger, frustration, sadness, catastrophizing, despair. Thank it for its attempt to keep you safe and comfortable (by trying to make sure you are fueled with good caffeine, not embarrassed wearing a dirty shirt, and not passed over for the next guy because you had to reschedule your important meeting). Thank it, let it know that you (your soul) has it from here, and then offer up all of your suffering to your soul.

Remember this important distinction. Surrender does not mean denying or suppressing your pain. Surrender means offering it up. Release the burden of carrying it. Surrender your ego to your soul.

Surrender looks like presence (being in this moment, in your body), choice (choosing to recommit to your commitments, despite the circumstances), and action (taking the next small step forward, from grace).

Most importantly, surrender will grant you the peace and the freedom you truly desire.

With love,

Danielle

Nothing goes the way you think it will.

Nothing goes the way you think it will, even (and especially) when you are sure of it.

This is the illusion of Story.

You can try to tell it how you want it to go, and yet it will always, always, go how it wills.

This is the beauty of Story.

It is mystery at its finest. It is a frustrating, wonderful thing.

As my dear friend and Story mentor, Tina Overbury often says: “Sometimes you tell the Story, and sometimes it tells you.”

That is the thing with Story. It emerges from the unknown. It weaves its way through us in ways we will never fully understand, despite that we want to.

I have tried very hard to know ahead of time exactly how my life story will go. And I will continue to, at least to a certain extent, because that is fun of Story too. If you are present. If you are willing. If you humble yourself and surrender. You will get glimpses of the story being told through you by your soul.

Those glimpses will be so striking – so gut wrenchingly powerful – the truth of them will bowl you over with their beauty and leave you breathless for more.

This is why I keep seeking. This is why I keep listening. This is why I am willing to keep writing, despite that I know, I will never fully know ahead of time how the story of my life will go.

What I keep learning (re-learning) is that living your Soul Story does not mean writing out in detail a path for your life that feels good or right or even deeply authentically true in one moment in time, and trying to force your life into the shape of that pre-defined story.

This is not how it works.

We only get glimpses of our Soul Story. We get inklings. We get inspiration. We receive unexplicable signs and knowings.

When we follow these inklings for long enough, we start to get a sense of the story of who we are and why we are here. Yet we never have the whole picture.

If you think that you do (know your full story), turn and look back at the story of your life that has been lived so far. I am certain you will be able to pick out threads of the narrative you missed, contributions you made, or stories you had no clue you were a part of, until you looked back upon them.

We. Do. Not. Get. To. Know. It. All.  

Honestly, where would the fun be if we did?

If we knew it all ahead of time there would be no adventure. There would be no room for surprise or wonder or delight.

We are asked to listen to the inklings. We are asked trust. We are invited to contribute to the narrative. But we run into trouble when we try to take over writing the story altogether.

Yet we all do it. This trying to control. We become attached to things going a certain way. We try to force the outcome we (our egos) most want. We try to write the narrative of our lives in denial of the deeper partnership within which we operate.

This never works, at least not sustainably.

I have been humbled by this lesson many times. Though I am getting better at catching myself when my ego begins to run away with my story, I still need regular reminders to surrender my illusion of control, and begin listening for the inklings once again.

Recently, I created a vision for how things would look when I left my law firm. I wrote out a detailed plan for how the story needed to go. In doing so, I stopped listening. I stopped participating in the partnership between myself and my soul. I closed off the possibility of anything different than my pre-determined plan occurring.  

This is where we humans get caught up most often.

Lightning strikes! Something resonates as deeply true. We receive a message from our soul, or some other divine insight. And then we take that kernel of truth and we shroud it in additional meaning. We add labels, strategies and plans that make us feel more in control of this new truth, and therefore more safe.

In my case, all I really knew was that I needed to leave. I needed to step off the partner track I was on. I needed to walk away from my budding practice. I needed to say no to the way things were going. I needed to make space to say yes to a career from my soul.

That is all I knew.

My ego could not handle the uncertainty of that. It needed a detailed plan for how I would create stability and certainty in my soul work, and it needed it now. And so, it made one up. Some parts of my plan deeply resonated and some parts I just made fit because they fixed the “problem” of my uncertainty.

My detailed, controlled plan, did not go as planned. As I moved past the initial disappointment of that into surrender of what is, I felt peace. I realized I had been overriding my soul’s truth to a certain extent. The plan I had contrived was too simplistic. My soul wanted me to meander forward slowly, taking one deeply aligned step after another, allowing for the possibility of exciting twists and turns and new ways of being to take root. My ego wanted me to have my soul business all figured out - right now.

And so here I am learning again the lesson I have learned hundreds of times: to stay true to my soul I must surrender the illusion of knowing. I must release my ego’s claws of control, and trust that so long as I keep listening to the inklings, I will be okay. I will be held.

The question I always return to is this: am I willing to show up here, now, in this unknown, ever-evolving narrative that is my soul’s story?

Am I willing to write, day by day, the great story of my life; the story that only I can write; the story that has never yet existed? Am I willing to surrender the all-knowing narrative of my ego to the deeper wisdom of my soul? Will I humble myself enough to write a story I cannot control?

When I sit with these questions I am overcome – you might say strangely – with gratitude. I am grateful for this unique story that I get to live. I am grateful for the mystery. I am grateful for the lifetimes of wisdom I can access within my own soul. And most of all, I am grateful for the well of strength in my own heart, and that I keep finding the courage to surrender my ego to the story that my soul so deeply wants to tell.  

I invite you to sit quietly with the above questions for yourself. Take this inner reflection on regularly as a practice of washing the windows of your soul to make way for your deepest truth to find the light.

And remember. Nothing goes the way you think it will, even (and especially) when you are sure.

From my journey to yours, with love,

Danielle

Photo credit: Megan Alcock

Today I want to talk about the inner shift that precedes any meaningful and sustainable change, including (and especially), the decision to begin living life in alignment with the truth in your Soul.

The first step to living a Soul-Led life instead of an ego or externally driven life, is getting really sick of the way things are currently going to the point that you are willing to enter the unknown and try on something different.

This initial moment of willingness to surrender to the unknown is your breaking point.

It is the point at which you break free from the illusion that the way your life (or an aspect of your life) is going is “fine” and acknowledge to yourself the possibility of another way.

In coaching we call this phenomenon having a break down and breaking through to something new that previously was not possible for you. Hitting your breaking point (going through the process of breakdown to breakthrough) is necessary for meaningful change.  

Discipline alone may carry you through small changes, but it will not carry you through the kind of inner transformation needed to truly change the circumstances of your life in a way that will last.

This is because transformation cannot be created simply by applying strategies you already know in regular repetition (the kind of thing discipline is good for). Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for discipline in transformation, once the initial shift has taken place and you are strengthening your muscle of living in a new way. Using discipline as the only agent of change, however, will simply not sustainably work.

The first shift in transformation is the one that occurs at the breaking point, and it is an inner one. It is subtle and occurs without any application of discipline. It cannot be forced. It can be understood by your mind as the new awareness you receive, experienced in the body as exhaustion and surrender, felt in the heart as letting go or grieving of the old, and the readiness or opening of your being to something new.

Essentially, you become willing. 

You become willing to be uncomfortable. You become willing to consider you might be wrong about beliefs you have held for a very long time - beliefs about yourself, others, and the world around you. You become willing to hear and accept your own truth. You become willing to take a risk and step into the unknown. You become willing to face your fears.

So, the question I have for you today is, are you willing? 

You almost certainly have goals and dreams that you want to be pursuing right now. Maybe you made resolutions or set intentions for the new year. How are these going?  Have you made progress? Are you taking consistent action?

If not, consider that the 'problem' is not that you are too busy, or that you don't have enough time, or ________ (insert whatever reason you tell yourself for why you are not moving forward). 

Instead, consider that your block is actually a lack of willingness. Maybe you have simply not yet hit your breaking point - the point at which you truly become willing to make the change.

If you have a dream or goal you wish you were making more progress on, I invite you to ask yourself these questions:

Are you willing to set aside the time and the resources required to achieve your dream or goal? Are you willing to put in place the structures and ask for the support that you need to keep on going day after day? Are you willing to be uncomfortable? Are you willing to make any sacrifices in service of it? Are you willing to do what it takes? 

Answer these questions honestly. Without judgment if you can. No right. No wrong. Only you and your truth, whatever it might be. 

You may realize that if you are being honest with yourself you are not yet truly willing to make the change you desire. If so, you may need to change your goals or make some adjustments to your plans. You may need to take a step back.

Or, you may realize that you have in fact hit your breaking point with the way things were, you are truly willing to make the change, and all that is needed is a little more practice, or a few more steps, before you begin to see the tangible benefits of the change. You may need to double down your support systems, get back out there, and give it all you got. 

Where you go from this point depends solely on whether you have hit your breaking point with the way things have been going, and whether you are truly willing to do what it takes to create your life another way. 

When it comes to these kinds of conversations with yourself, honesty is always the best policy. Even if your honest answer is a tough pill to swallow, it will beat the disappointment and heartbreak you will experience later if you try to force yourself to change something that you are honestly not ready for right now. Forcing yourself to change will never work, at least not sustainably.

So give yourself the space to be honest with yourself, and have compassion for your answers. Even if you find you aren’t truly willing right now to make the change you seek, do not despair. Just keep doing things the old way and keep feeling the consequences, and your breaking point will be right around the corner.

Maybe not what you wanted to hear, but I’ve been doing this long enough to know that it’s the truth. And the truth is always worth knowing, even when it hurts.

xo,

Danielle

On today’s installment of Thursday Tips and Tools for Soul-Led Living, I am going to tackle the question WHY.

Why it is important to live life from the truth in your Soul.

For me there are three reasons. They operate at the levels of the personal, the interpersonal, and the global.

Each reason is itself enough motivation for me to commit to doing the work to hear my Soul’s truth, and live by it. Together, they are everything. When you fully understand what is at stake when you do not live in alignment with your Soul, and what is possible when you do, there is no reason you would not make the commitment to Soul-Led living.

The Culture of Busyness

We live in a culture that teaches us that we will not belong if we are not busy (and productive) in acceptable ways.

Busyness itself is not a harmful state. There is value in tapping into that driven place within us, and getting shit done.

Living in a near constant state of busyness comes with a high cost, however.

At the personal level we become out of balance, both energetically and in the use of our intelligence. We end up exhausted and depleted relying on external stimulation and coping mechanisms or addictions to get us by.

At the interpersonal level, we do not have time or energy to develop meaningful relationships. Our relationships become transactional, manipulative and high drama. We shut down direct connection, and instead pay for products and services in an attempt to meet our needs and desires.

At the global level, we are not interested in becoming aware of the impact of our actions on other species, or the Earth. Our relationship with the Earth becomes one sided. We take and expect her to continue to provide. We turn a blind eye.

Over time, we become hard and unfeeling. We feel entitled to immediate and unlimited satisfaction of our desires because we are sacrificing so much in our lifestyle of busyness.

The impact of our culture of busyness at the personal, interpersonal, and global levels has hit the crisis level. Mental and emotional health issues, interpersonal and international conflict, wholescale species extinction, extreme weather patterns and natural disasters have been on the rise for years. At some point, likely soon, we will no longer be able to hold up the facade of modern perfection (I’d say we’ve hit that point, despite that many world leaders are still willing to turn the blind eye).

The truth is, our band-aid fixes can only go so far.

In order to make a meaningful cultural transformation that would address these issues on a long-term scale and make possible a more beautiful life for ourselves, and a more beautiful world for our children and all life, we must be willing to fully feel the impact of the way we are living, and to find the courage to live another way.

Soul-Led Living

Soul-Led living transcends the prevailing culture of busyness, materialism and disconnection.

It is not a reaction to it (i.e. a push back or a protest), but rather a gathering up all that has come before us, a transmuting our pain into courage, and the taking of embodied steps forward into a new way of being towards, in the words of Charles Eisenstein, the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

Imagine.

We live in a world that values you living your deepest truth – the story of your Soul – above all else. Not your productivity, not your income, not your possessions, not your status, not your materialistic contribution to an organization or cause, but you living the story your Soul came here to tell.

At the personal level, you would be living your deepest truth every day. You would be in integrity with your Soul and therefore you would be peaceful. There would be no need for coping mechanisms to numb out from the pain of pretending to be someone you are not. You would be fulfilled because you would be making the difference your Soul came here to make.

At the interpersonal level, you would be connecting deeply and authentically with others from your Soul’s truth within you. There would be no need for superficiality, manipulation or drama in relationship. Others around you would be nourished by your authentic presence, and you by theirs.

Finally, imagine the impact at the global level if billions of humans were contributing to life on Earth in Soulful ways – ways that are sustainable and in service of all Life. The Earth would be renewed and provide abundant nourishment and sustenance for all who live upon her.

It is time to create a new culture.

The possibility I have described above is no fantasy.

This is what could be if we are collectively willing to break out of the paradigms of busyness and disconnection that we live within, and begin to see and live life from the deeper thread of truth that flows through each of us: the truth of our Soul.

These are my WHYs for Soul-Led living. I will provide more depth and context in future blogs, and my upcoming book. Some of the above writings are excepts from my draft manuscript.

As always, I would love to hear from you. Please let me know if you have any thoughts, questions, or suggestions for upcoming blogs.

xo,

Danielle