The Emerging Women Podcast

This episode’s guest is Danielle LaPorte. Danielle LaPorte is the outspoken author of The Desire Map, The Fire Starter Sessions, and co-creator of Your Big Beautiful Book Plan.

An inspirational speaker, former think tank executive and business strategist, she writes weekly at DanielleLaPorte.com, where over a million visitors have gone for her straight-up advice — a site that’s been deemed “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality,” and was named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes. Danielle is a featured presenter at the 2014 Emerging Women Live Conference in New York City.

“You have to want what you want with all your heart… but don’t be attached to how it shows up.”

In today’s episode of Grace & Fire, Danielle and I speak about:

• Desire: how she defines it and the difference between desire and passion
• Practices for identifying and cultivating “Soul Desires”
• How to handle expectations when cultivating your desires
• Having the courage not to compromise and the two qualities she identifies as most important for developing this courage
• The power of feelings versus emotions and their connection to desire
• Her deepest desire for emerging women everywhere

Tune in and listen to Living from Desire with the truly amazing and inspiring: Danielle LaPorte.

Transcript

Chantal Pierrat: Welcome, Danielle LaPorte!

Danielle LaPorte: Thank you, Chantal. We’re finally here.

CP: I know. Finally here. God, I’m so excited. I can barely contain myself. I don’t know if you know this, but before I started Emerging Women, I read The Fire Starter Sessions, and they had a huge impact on me, and boy, did that light a fire under my “boo-tay.” It was fantastic. I’m even more excited to talk to you now, because here’s my first question: Who are you? And where did you come from? I mean, that’s what I kept asking! I kept asking that as I was reading the book. I was like, “Who is this person?!” Can you give us a little bit of your background before we jump into all the other things we need to talk about?

DL: Yes, OK. I’m not from Earth, so let’s start there.

CP: [Laughs] I didn’t think so!

DL: But I’ve shown up. [Laughs] An important nugget in my bio is that my mom and dad were really young when they had me. My mom got knocked up in high school. And having really young parents was just what I needed and an influence on me. So they were taking me to hippie parties and hockey games. They were growing up while I was growing up, and that made a difference, I think. I got toilet trained in the ladies room of my mother’s community college.

Jump cut to [me] in my 20s, and I haven’t graduated from high school, but I talked my way into every job and I’m running a think tank in Washington, D.C. That was weird. Jump cut to more companies. I can’t believe I’m old enough to say this now, but then the Internet came. [Laughs] The World Wide Web happened and I was playing online and finding my voice and [had] a big failed business and a lot of anguish around that. Then [I] rose from the flames [with] The Fire Starter Sessions.

CP: So not only did you not graduate from college—I didn’t realize this—but you didn’t graduate from high school?

DL: No. My mother got pregnant in high school. But I did finish high school, yes.

CP: Ultimately you did finish high school. OK. Give me something to hold on here, because I’m like, “How amazing are you to have accomplished so much and to be consulting executives and running a think tank without that educational background?” It’s quite remarkable.

DL: Thanks. And I use that to my advantage. When you’re in Washington D.C., every week somebody says, “Harvard? Yale?” I was like, “No.” And then they think, “Wow, you must be really smart.” And I just go, “Mm.”

CP: Right. No, it’s amazing. So I read The Fire Starters, and now the next book here is The Desire Map. And I’m sensing a theme here—fire and desire, and it feels very hot and emotion-sensual-oriented. And we’re going to get into that. But maybe we could start with, what do you mean by desire, exactly?

DL: I mean everything. I think desire is an evolutionary impulse. I think it’s the underpinning of consciousness. It doesn’t happen unless you want it to happen. Desire is driving everything. It drives us on a banal, mundane level. It drives us on a cosmic level. It’s driving everything we do.

CP: So help me understand what you mean a little bit more. I’m thinking of passion, for instance. [Are] desire and passion the same thing? Is desire everything, or is it somehow distinct from things like passion or wants? Like, “I want something.” Is that a desire?

DL: Desire and passion aren’t the same thing. Desire is always there. And you can have a passionate desire, or you can have a lukewarm desire. You can have desires, wants, cravings that aren’t good for your growth. Well, everything is good for your growth, but I think everybody knows the meaning when I say that. And you can have desires and passions that are absolutely all about integration and fullness and being wide awake—really healthy stuff, the good stuff, the light stuff, the positive stuff.

So it all gets back to what’s under this, [and] what’s under the under is about feelings. I think everybody is desiring, consciously or unconsciously, to feel a certain way. We are desiring, consciously or unconsciously, a preferred state of being. And it is all about attaining being in that preferred state of being as often as possible and as long as possible. Sometimes you can’t keep it up for very long, and that’s life. That’s life.

CP: The thing about desire—I love the way you’re approaching it. It feels very inside-out. Like you said, figuring out the state of being that you want. I find sometimes I get a little triggered with, “What are your desires? What are your desires?” Women don’t ask for what they need and it just sort of has this feeling of—which I totally agree with, women tend not to ask for what they need.

But if you just kind of look at it, it’s like, “Well, what do I want? I want a BMW or I want this or I want that.” And I wonder how we can peel what you’re talking about, desire, which feels so much more profound when you talk about it, in terms of what state of consciousness is that going to get you, to have that BMW, for instance. Do I go backwards, back into the state of consciousness? Or do I start with the state of consciousness and go out? Because maybe I don’t want a BMW, you know what I’m saying?

DL: Exactly. You start with a feeling. Everything starts with a feeling, because maybe you don’t want the BMW. So this is why people hear “desire” and they think, “BMW” and “soul mate” and “six figures” and whatever, right? And that’s a layer of desire. It’s just the outward layer. There’s no judging—no judging!—but get clear if that is really going to give you the feeling—what I call your “core desired feelings,” or your preferred state of consciousness that you want.

Let’s say you get in there, you “desire map,” and one of your core desired feelings is vitality. Which, by the way, is one of the most common feelings that I’m seeing people wanting. It’s this whole family of vitality, energized, lit up. And if one thing—one of many things—that’s going to make you feel vitality is a Beemer, go get the Beemer. Move mountains, get the car. Get the car. Get the guy. Get the money. Go for it if you’re going to feel the way you want to feel. And all sorts of great things happen when you feel the way you want to feel.

Or, the other side of this story is, you’re going to realize that BMW has nothing to do with you feeling energized.  It has everything to do with you wanting to please somebody else, get the love you never got. It’s about feeling powerful, and actually wanting to feel powerful is not at your core, it’s just this other thing. And you’re like, “I don’t need the Beemer. I’m good. I just need a bus pass and a bunch of other things.”

CP: Right. Well, then how does it tie into expectations?

DL: That’s such a great question. Nobody’s asked me that, ever. Expectation, yes. The reason why this is so hot, the word, [the] concept “expectation,” is because it brings out the paradoxical nature of desire. Because here’s the thing: you have to want what you want with all your heart—want it, like squeeze your cells with desire, want it. Don’t apologize for it. Declare for it. Ask for it, demand, command, beg for it. Just want it. But don’t be attached to the idea. Or don’t be attached to how it shows up. Actually, that’s a very good qualifier, let me rephrase that. Don’t be attached to how it show up.

So I think we should get very attached to those desires, to the desired state. I want to feel love. I want to feel union. I want to feel connection. I want to feel vitality. And I want it more than anything in my whole life. I am committed to that, which really is a devotion to consciousness. And, hey God, hey life, hey Brahman, whoever, hey dude, how do you want to give it to me? On a silver platter, I hope, but it could come in various ways. It could come through the BMW. It could come through walking every day. The point is you get to feel the way you want to feel more often than not.

CP: So in that feeling, in cultivating that desire—and I’m saying “cultivating” because this is sounding like a practice.

DL: Thank you, it is, yes.

CP: And, of course, from your book, there [are] all kinds of exercises. But as a practice of cultivating the desire, it’s really hard not to have expectations.

DL: I know! I know, it’s really hard. [Laughs]

CP: You know? I’m like, “I’m putting all this practice in!”

DL: Yes. It’s actually hard to not have expectations. It’s excruciating to let them go, actually. Because you’ve got to let go of so much stuff to just be open to what’s going to come, and that’s where you’re going to get a little panicky and you’re going to hyperventilate at, “What if I don’t get it? And what if I have to compromise?”

I hope I don’t have to tell you and anybody who’s listening [that] I know this. I know this. I’m in it. I’m in it every day. I know this! I’m with you. My terror of having to compromise is something I deal with, because I’ve made compromises. I have PTSD from making some compromises in my life. So when I try to stay open to the future, I go, “God, if I have to compromise again, I’m going to fucking die!”

And I have to trust that I will feel the way I want to feel and there will be no compromises. In fact, I’m getting to a place in my own awareness and strength that I know that if I compromise, I’m not going to feel the way I want to feel. So I won’t let it happen. And then I’m also getting to a place in my evolution [where] life isn’t going to let me compromise. I really believe that life has really, really, really got my back. So it’s not going to give me a half-baked cake.

CP: Here’s a question, and maybe you could bring an example of this in from your life: how do you develop the courage not to compromise? Is the desire enough—for lack of a better word—is that your foundation or your prop? Is that a second step? Because I feel connected to my desires, but sometimes I feel, “Wow, I have to compromise because I’m scared.” Even when I have a strong desire.

DL: Courage comes from proof and faith. I think it’s both things. And I think the business world, the motivational world, the logical world, has us operate on proof. And the New Age, metaphysical paradigm has us operate only on faith, and both [are] only half the story. I take courage from—I look at my history, and I say things like, “I pulled that off. I didn’t die. I won. Life came through for me. That worked.”

And I also have to look at—there’s proof in pain. I could write a book just on this, right? You go to that place of, “That reality that I experienced—that relationship, that job, that event, that product, that day, that program, whatever—shocked so severely, that was so painful.” And you’ve really got to go there. How painful was it? How humiliating was it? How much did it let you down? And we don’t want to do that. We do not want to do that. That’s why people go from relationship to relationship, because we don’t want to deal with how painful losing the previous relationship was.

So you go to the proof—the proof of pain and the proof the glory in the past. And then you just have to go to 100 percent pure octane faith that things evolve, the sun is going to come up, the universe does have your back. You have to believe it to see it. Change is possible. You really have to believe that change is possible. With all that proof, you have to believe that change is possible.

CP: Let’s get back to the practice part. So can you tell us—let’s say there are some exercises in the book where you really document what your true desires are, what those states of consciousness are that you want to cultivate—how do I, 1) really, really connect to that, and then 2) there’s a step, like I can’t just walk around with that state of consciousness. Maybe we can. But those desires get turned into something on the outer. And what is that process, from the very beginning? I know the book outlines this and it’s big, but maybe if you could just give it to us in a nutshell, from the identification to the actual outer manifestation of desire.

DL: So how does desire map inside us?

CP: You know, essence.

DL: I get it, totally. Yes. It’s a stream of consciousness about how you want to feel in every year of your life. And I break them down into five areas. Call them whatever you want, just keep it simple. Livelihood, relationships and society, wellness—those are three, I always forget one—and spirit and essence. You know, inner you.

CP: Relationship.

DL: Relationship. And I guarantee you—well, first of all, don’t hold back in that process. You want to feel electric, you want to feel turned on, you want to feel close to God, you want to feel powerful, whatever, just get it all out. And I guarantee you that you will see a pattern, that the same feelings that you want to feel in livelihood, finances, wealth, money, job, career, are the same ways you want to feel in that relationship.

So you can narrow it down. You have to narrow that down. You want to get this to identifying three, four, five core desired feelings, and those core desired feelings are driving everything. So you want to let them consciously drive everything. So then it gets down to, here’s the final step. There’s another part of this. So the final step is, what are you going to do today, what are you going to do every day, to feel the way you want to feel?

It’s as practical as [designing] a whole day planner around this. You can use little Post-It notes. You write out your core desire feeling, you put it in your day planner, on your fridge, on your computer monitor, whatever, and you say, “OK, I want to feel sensual. What am I going to do today to feel sensual?” That doesn’t mean you have to take a belly dancing class. You could just wear perfume. You could make a saucy phone call. “What am I going to do today to feel connected to God or lit up or rich or brave or whatever?”

CP: But you’re identifying your desires every day.

DL: You are re-devoting your core desired feelings on a daily basis. [Do] you want to feel good every day or not? But then the other part of this is to be looking at your goals. This is the bigger picture practicality. What are you going to do this year to create those feelings? I’m into year goals, and I’m into very few. I think, you know what? Flat out just accomplish two or three things this year, instead of ten things kind of, “Eh, OK.” Three things? Awesome.

So maybe this year, to feel harmony, you’re going to take a course. You’re going to take a meditation class. Or maybe you’re going to reunite with your estranged father. Or you’re going to have your wedding. Or you’re going to get a dog. Whatever it is. Or you’re going to start a business. It’s all about creating harmony in people’s lives, whether it’s feng shui or relationships. So that’s a big thing.

So now, in the process of identifying your goals, having your goals be the outcome of your core desired feelings—everybody already has investing goals. Let’s call them “pre-desired feeling” goals, before you desire map. BDM, Before Desired Mapping. And you need to look at the goal you’ve been holding in your life long-term and measure them against the awareness of your core desired feelings. So this goes back to your original point: “Do I really want the BMW?” Maybe the answer is, “No.” Maybe the answer is, “Yes, more than ever.”

CP: And the way you measure them is to just sort of imagine that you’ve gotten those goals done, checked off the box, and see if you actually are feeling that state of desire that you’ve identified as your core desire?

DL: Yes. Is that really going to make you feel what you now know you want to feel more than anything? And what I’ve found with people is there’s a lot of quitting that happens after you get clear on how you really want to feel. [Laughs] So it’s dumping the trunk, and it’s quitting jobs, and those things happens.

But then [there are] profoundly subtle revelations. I just heard from a woman who was doing a desire mapping group, getting a bunch of girlfriends together, doing it together, and her revelation was that she was resenting almost everything that she was doing in her life. And a lot of this is probably not uncommon, that we’re just not feeling the way we want to feel a lot of the time. And we’re resenting so many of our commitments, which are really obligations. Obligations are shit. I mean, who wants obligations? We want choices. And we’re just realizing, “Wow, I resent so much of what I do, and this is not how I want to feel.” It was huge for her.

CP: Yes, I definitely feel—in my own life, I know that I’ve set goals that are not connected to my deepest desires. They’re connected to my brain and maybe societal expectations, but I know that.

DL: Yes. I know it, too. It’s part of my book. I was getting places and not really feeling like celebrating when I crossed the finish line. I was like, “Wow, this does not feel fantastic.” For me, it was about—you know, I’d set these goals, and I would go after them with a force that was frying me. I had to just push, and sometimes you need that force. Oh my God, thank God women, men, humans have that force, because sometimes you need it, like, “Lift!” Or, “Show your fangs,” whatever. But that’s not how I want to live every day.

CP: I want to talk a little bit about emotions, too. I started this by saying, “You’ve got the fire,” and now we’re talking about desire. And just the way you speak, you have a lot of sensuality and emotional energy around you. And I’m curious to see if that is a main source of wisdom for you, that the emotional realm—I mean, desires are linked to emotions, or are they not linked to emotions? How do they differentiate?

DL: Well, I think your desires influence your emotions for sure. And I try to have somebody desire map it. I believe there’s a different between feeling and emotions. So I never once say, “We’re getting clear on your core desired emotions.” We’re getting clear on your core desired feelings.

And in doing my research around this, here’s what I know, here [are] the facts: nobody, nobody can agree on what emotions are and what feelings are. But everybody agrees—most people agree, psychologists and metaphysicians—that there is a difference. There is a difference and it does make a difference. I say that for desire mapping, it doesn’t matter, call them whatever you want. We’re just getting to your preferred state.

Now, what belief is [is] that core desired feelings are something you’ve been longing for for a very long time. They may even have been there with you when you were a child. You can trace them. You go back to your childhood and see how you wanted to feel. One of my core desired feelings is union. That word, that concept has changed a little bit over the years. It went from “connection” to “communion,” and now I’m just like, “The right word, the precise term for me is ‘union.’” And I’ve felt that since I was a very little girl. It was just this longing, like, “I want to know God. And I want to be everybody’s friend. If you’re a new friend, I really, really want to know who you are.”

Emotions, for me, are very fleeting. I can feel 900 emotions in a day. I can feel rage, I can feel [good], I can feel happy, sad. A bunch of them are petty. “Hey, hi, goodbye!” They’re very fleeting. Whereas feelings, the physically desired feelings, are much deeper, much deeper and much more steady. They’re the oceans instead of the mist.

CP: I love that. I love what you said, because my next question was, I’m glad you made the distinction, because I agree. While I value my emotions and I think that they can teach me something if I’m careful with my consciousness and I’m aware, but sometimes I don’t trust them. And sometimes it’s just as much of a reflex, the emotions can be, than someone hitting my knee and my leg going up. So to really put my trust in that, I think I’m definitely going to bet more on what you’re talking about, which is the feelings—

DL: You bring up a great point about trust. I think everybody can identify with [the idea that] we shouldn’t trust our “negative” emotions. Like rage is an emotions, anger is an emotion. You could also say they’re feelings. And we all know if we’re committed to some mindfulness, you don’t want to act out of those places. You want to feel them, you want to move, and you want to do something with them, but you don’t want to be impulsively rageful.

Again, to your point about trust, what about distrust of the happy emotions? I’ve often [felt], “Huh, I felt really happy there, but was that really, like, deep?” [Laughs] And you feel all giddy about something, you feel happy like you’ve got a fix. And you leave and you go, “Oh, I actually feel kind of empty and dirty now.” [Laughs] “That didn’t make me feel what I really want to feel. Actually, I didn’t feel really connected. I didn’t feel really joyful. I didn’t feel really sincere. I didn’t really feel God in that.” So beware of the emotions, love them, but feelings have way more power to them.

CP: You actually say this in your book; you explore the concept of, why do we push good feelings away? Why is that?

DL: What did I say? [Laughs] Because we’re trained to push good feelings away! This comes from—

CP: Is it guilt?

DL: This whole system is against feeling our own power. We’ve got a legacy—decades, generations—of having our feelings invalided. “Don’t be too powerful. Don’t be too sexual. Don’t be too insightful. My God, don’t be too intuitive, too psychic. Don’t be too angry.” It’s all bumpy-dumpy, because we don’t want to make each other comfortable. We’re just bumping up against each other in these little suitcases called “identities” and “egos.” And so, bumpy-dumpy. Don’t.

And if you don’t, if you play along with those rules, if you are a certain way, then you get rewards. You get to be loved, you get to be liked, you get harmony, you get balance. You get what we all want, which is acceptance and positive attention. So that’s why you push away good feelings, because your good feelings make you more powerful, and you won’t fit in a box anymore. Listen, the ecstasy, joy, those different things [that are] all in the same family—joy will change how you look to the world. It will change what you accept in life.

Once you experience joy—whether it’s something as simple as appreciating a cherry blossom, or it’s an orgasm, or it’s the transcendent joy of forgiveness, whatever it is—you’re not the same person. You’ll be a little bit louder. You might be a little more quiet. You might be less accommodating. Your joy may point to someone else’s pain. So why not just tamp it down? Because if I don’t experience my good feelings, if I just push it away, then I won’t change. And if I don’t change, I’m not going to hurt anyone around me. If I don’t change, I don’t have to make any changes. So we push away the good stuff.

CP: How important is it—you know, you mentioned joy, alongside bliss—to get very detailed on the desire, to really, really pinpoint the right word?

DL: I think it’s really important. But this is my bias, so I can say this. As the author, I will tell you to do whatever works for you. And as an author, words for me are a total erotic turn-on. When I find the right word, I say, “Oh my God, it’s the right word!” And then you write the right sentence and the right paragraph—I can hardly sit still.

But yes, I would say it’s an experiment, it’s an art. It’s not a science. Be full of it and play with it. I can say that you don’t want to be changing your core desired feelings every day, because these aren’t emotions. They’re not coming and going. They are deeply rooted things. Some of them—devotions, like, we don’t change partners every day, right? There’s a reason. Consistency is momentum, power.

And my personal experience has been—I’ve had my core desired feelings [for] 10 years now. I started this for myself 10 years ago in my journal. And I’ve changed them three times in 10 years. And I just changed them very recently, so I devoted five years to hanging out with the same core desired feelings. And then I’ve just been through my own huge rebirth process—a very intense divorce; creating all-new programs, products, art; turned my company inside out. I’m not the same person I was a year ago.

And the evolution of my core desired feelings just kind of came to me. Actually it’s about union, not about communion. I’m not going to play it safe and say, “I want to feel the divine feminine,” because everyone knows what that means. I wanted to want Shakti, because I know what Shakti is. It’s not about—my last version was “abundance.” For about four or five years, “affluence” was my word. It wasn’t just about cash and fluidity and ideas. I really wanted abundance in every [part] of my life. I really looked to that concept forever. I just thought abundance was [key].

And now what I [really] want, my new and improved core desired feeling, is “golden.” I want to feel golden. I want to feel like the golden girl. I want the love. I love god. I only wear gold. I want to give gold. I love the exchange. And I love the divinity that’s in the golden aura. So I got to “golden” and I was like, “Oh yes, that’s it. Oh my God.” And there’s another, which I can’t remember right now.

CP: It’s perfect, because as you took us through that example, I could feel the difference and the alignment as you landed on “golden,” as you were talking about it. It’s really important to fine-tune this so we’re completely aligned. Otherwise, it’s just not the same. “Affluence,” “abundance,” and “golden,” they’re just three totally different feelings.

DL: And they all served me at the time, very well. Oh, I know my other two now: “joy,” joy has been with me for a while, that’s not going anywhere; and “truth.” Really, more than anything, I want the truth.

CP: I love that, and I love that you stand for that. I think the truth bombs have been—they’re real, man. They’re real. OK, so here’s a question: can you have it all? Let’s say I come up with four core desires. Is it possible to have all of those manifest in our lives at one time?

DL: Wow, you’re good. That’s another question that nobody’s ever asked me. Can you have them all? Yes! Yes! Yes. Why not? Why limit your satisfaction? Yes. And you will get off course. You will get off course, and it’s super useful. It’s actually really necessary. It’s natural get off course. “You know, today’s a shit day.” “I had a shit day”—just to quote some Pink. And you get [back] on. You go, “What am I going to do today to be the joy and be the Shakti, be the union? I didn’t feel any of my things yesterday.”

And this is where you really start to feel like a kick-ass goddess, god of your life. “Yesterday was shit.” Or, you know what, let me get [even] more specific: “Right now is shit. I’m not feeling what I want. What can I do to feel what I know I want to feel? What can I do to generate my core desired feelings? I’m going to make a choice. I’m going to make a conscious choice to take an action that’s going to lead me to joy, Shakti, vitality, whatever.”

And it’s often a doing. Sometimes that doing, getting to where you want to go, is, “I’m going to sit and I’m going to think. I’m going to meditate, I’m going to contemplate and create that preferred state. I’m going to do it through that.” Which seems passive, although we all know it isn’t. Or, “I’m going to do something that looks less passive on the outside and I’m going to go shopping. Or I’m going to give something away. Or I’m going to go for a walk around the lake. Or I’m going to go make a phone call.”

CP: Got it. I have one last question. I guess [I think] what a gift would be for our audience would be some advice, or, what is your deepest desire for women as they are entering into their emerging process? They’re at the start of their fire starter sessions, or they’re just at the start of—they’ve identified their desires, they’re in that no-compromise state, and they’re ready to take it out into the world. But it’s scary. There [are] all these obstacles. It’s hard to stay on task. But that energy of emergence, it’s so juicy and it’s so powerful. What is your deepest desire for women that are in that state?

DL: There’s a lot I could say, and you could ask me this tomorrow and I would say something different, maybe.

CP: That’s why we love you. [Laughs]

DL: Today I say, have the courage. You don’t even have to have the courage, forget that. Let me tell you why I’m rephrasing it. My initial response is, have the courage to feel what you’re feeling. The reason I want to take “courage” out of that statement is because when we say “have the courage,” it creates a lot of fear, actually. “I don’t have the courage, there’s fear.”

Feel what you’re feeling. That’s it. Because if you feel what you’re feeling as you’re emerging, you will feel scared, you will feel power, you will feel bliss, and you will be so alert. You will see what’s behind you. You will have a 360-degree view of what’s in your way, of where the doorways are, and of where the gold is. You will not block your power if you are feeling what you’re feeling, whatever it is. There’s going to be a lot of things that you’re going to feel that you’re going to label negative and scary and positive and new and awesome. Just feel it. That’s where the juice is. That’s the switch you want to flip.

CP: If you feel something that you don’t want to feel, is that failure, like you’ve failed somehow?

DL: No. Oh my God, listen, I just went through a situation where I just [saw] how I avoided getting there. I finally realized I was feeling really vulnerable in this situation. I was actually feeling attacked. And that is something—I have never, never said I’ve felt attacked. And I’ve been attacked! I’ve been in shitty—I’ve been in intense business situations, and for me to go to that place and just go, “OK, really, how am I feeling right now? Oh my God, I feel attacked. I feel vulnerable. I feel scared.” I can see how I’ve designed my life to actually not feel those things.

And once I really felt that, the power on the other side? Fucking incredible. Because I am lucid, I am real, and in that place, I have a 360-degree view. I can see tenderness, I can see the next move, I can see love, I can see compassion. I can see right through the shift. So I designed my life to not feel that, went there, and [now I’m] like, “Wow.” [Laughs] I get smack dab into what I want to feel, which is joy.

CP: Well, thank you so much, Danielle. This was profound and a gift to our audience. Thank you so much for being the personification of grace and fire.

DL: Thank you for making this space, and for really being here. Thank you, thank you.

CP: OK. Take care. More to come at the Emerging Women Live Event in New York.

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