Redefined is hosted by me, Zainab Salbi, and brought to you by FindCenter, a search engine for your soul. Part library, part temple, FindCenter presents a world of wisdom, organized. Check it out today at www.FindCenter.com, and please subscribe to Redefined for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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What’s most important about life? What is the essence of life? Is it what we do, how much we earn, how many social media followers we have? Or is it, do we live our lives in kindness to ourselves and to others? Do we live our lives in love to ourselves and to others? In nearly losing my life, I was confronted with these questions and it led me to the conversations that make up Redefined, about how we draw our inner maps and the pursuit of meaningful personal change.

For me, there have been many moments when the world of spirituality feels overwhelming. Too many teachers, too many holy prayers, thousands of kinds of meditation. It sometimes feels like I could never have the time to practice all the spiritual teachings in order to reach inner peace. Of course, this is the exact opposite of how our spiritual practice should make us feel.

Today’s guest, Danielle LaPorte, is a Canadian author, teacher, and self-made leader of her own heart-centered empire. Millions of people visit her platform every month. To me, Danielle has a special gift of making others feel less alone in their most vulnerable moments by anchoring her teachings in everyday reality. She’s practical, she is real, and she is funny. She shows that simplicity and heart-centered attitude about life paves the smoothest path to spiritual and mental health and well-being.

Today, I converse with Danielle about the ups and downs of her life journey and all that it entails, the time she felt like an outsider, the time she felt that she got it all wrong, or the time she felt she was living as an imposter. We’ll find out what she did to trust her voice, open her heart, and follow her passion that eventually helped so many individuals and businesses lead a heart-centered life. I find Danielle’s story and her approach to be refreshing, luminous, and grounded on the messiness of being human in this fast-moving world. Join me.

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Welcome. I’ve been following you for a while now, actually, and constantly inspired by your sharing. And I’ve got to say that the one sharing that I don’t know anybody else who has done it, except me, was to let go of most of the things you own, which you have apparently done recently. But I was feeling awkward for a long time until I heard you saying you did the same. I was like, “Thank you, God. Someone else understands the process.” So, can you please tell us about the process of how you went about it, and why did you decide to let go and lighten up your load physically?

It’s interesting talking about it now, because there’s this line where it feels like it feels clean, and natural, and useful to talk about it. Then also, sometimes I feel my ego creeping in. I’m just like, “Hey, I let go of all of my stuff and look how cool that is.” So, that’s kind of the new phase in it.

But over the last two years, I’ve let go of probably 70 percent of my things. I moved out of this great big old house, and I live in a really crappy building by the beach, that we made beautiful. Almost everything went. And it’s not just stuff I didn’t need, because how many wine glasses do you need? You don’t even need the wine glasses. You just need a glass, you just need a vessel.

Well, I’ve got to tell you. I’m grateful for that, ego or no ego. I’m really grateful because I felt lonely in doing it, so thank you for that. But you also talk about lightening up the load emotionally, right? Like forgiveness, empty the space in our heart. Can you talk about how did you come to that process?

I decided to stop gorging on spiritual material. I went on . . . I’m still on this fast. I was just . . . It was another book, it was another esoteric teaching. It was, “I need to know more about all of it.” I realized it was actually making me anxious, really, truly contributing to legit anxiety. That I wasn’t involved enough, that I needed to cut cords. This was too soiled. I was bringing this energy in. I needed to do all these things before sleep and all this.

Yes, there are principles and practices, but enough, enough. It was all in conflict with what I know to be true. I mean, anybody listening to this knows to be true. The light is within. Nobody, nobody . . . I’m sure you’ve had so many teachers in your own life, real teachers, high-caliber sages, people who can heal. It’s still up to you, it’s still up to you. You can have so many impeccable, gifted oracles, you still got to make the final call.

It’s so true. I want to ask, how did you start your spiritual journey? How did that start?

Hmm. My mom got knocked up in high school. So, she had to quit high school to have me, so really young. I feel like I came in on a mission, and that is having young parents. My mom was reading Wayne Dyer, bioenergetics, when Wayne still had some hair. And my dad was a hockey player, and they were young, and it was the seventies, and smoking weed, and being an only child, and feeling always on the outside. That’s it, that’s it. And then fifteen, you get your first copy of You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay. And I’m like, “Oh, my bladder infection means that I’m pissed off.”

Wow. [laughs]

It’s just like the next thing.

Yeah.

And then it’s A Course in Miracles. I mean, you can already hear that pattern of more, consume, consume, consume. To now, I feel like I’m living in reverse. I’m doing less. It used to be, if I have seven days in a week, I’ll do seven different meditations. Now it’s just like, you know what? I’m going to do one short practice every day for many months. That’s it. And I’m going to get rid of some books.

I’m curious about the journey that took you out of Canada to America. You actually lived in a place I used to live in, in Arlington, Virginia. You worked at the Body Shop, you run a nonprofit. And then you left that, and came back to Canada and started this path, which at the time probably was ahead of your time, in that spiritual path. Now, it’s a need for a lot of people. How? How did you do that? Why did you decide to go there?

Part of me, as I read your story and I read your teachings, I hear a woman who is confident and knowing of her voice. I always encounter so many women, including me at times, that we doubt our voices, we doubt our magic, we doubt our opinion, so many women. And you’re confident. Because it’s not now that you’re confident, to start a career in something that is ahead of itself, and to be out there is someone who knows her voice, which is beautiful.

The question I have is how did you come to that clarity? Did you have, perhaps your mom who first believed in your voice, or someone else, but how did you come to that clarity? I ask that for all those who are doubting their voice, and a lot, a lot. How do you come to that clarity? “This is my voice. This is the path I’m going to go about, and I’m going to shape it and pave it the way I want to pave it.

Hmm. Oh, I had a lot of cool teachers, but I wasn’t as confident as I looked. So, I was just using the tool that I was given. I definitely went through, especially in that time of Washington, DC, and Arlington, went through big imposter complex. So, running a think tank, future studies. I graduated from high school. I never went to university, I never went to college. Every week in DC, somebody was asking me what my alma mater was. I didn’t even know what that meant. And you know what? I wanted to work for you.

Me?

This is why I’ve been so excited to connect today.

Oh, my God. [laughs]

I want to tell you, I was thinking about it this morning. There was a choice point that involved you.

Wow. Do tell.

I was working in Arlington, a think tank all dedicated towards scenario planning. It was cool and weird and going to the White House and the Pentagon and all that stuff. Then I came across Women for Women and I was like, “She’s here, they’re here.” And I loved everything. I just thought, you know what? I didn’t feel good enough for you.

Oh!

I thought I need a degree. I need to go to university. I need International Studies—and I loved your style. I didn’t even know. The women you were serving in different countries, I didn’t even know where they were. I was just like, “If this whole think tank goes bust, I’m going to work for them.”

Wow.

Life took me on a different path, but you were my sacred number two. [laughs]

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. First of all, we were living next to each other. I was in Alexandria for the longest time, and that’s where Women for Women was based at. Then here, like I started, here we are meeting at this point where we are both in that journey of our lives. It’s so beautiful. I gotta tell you, I started Women for Women with no experience whatsoever. I was going to college as I was starting Women for Women, so no experience, never. I worked at The Limited. [laughs]

Yeah. I was a bartender. Yeah. [laughs]

A Hallmark store and all of that, but I had the belief and the desire and I just went there about it. You would’ve been in good companionship, basically, all of us like, “I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m just doing it,” you know. Then you had a clarity. Did you have a clarity, that this is the path that I want to craft for myself after you left DC and went to Canada?

No, no. Making it up. I thought when I came back to Canada . . . Well, first of all, I thought I’d never leave the States. Lots of glamour in the States and all of that. Got back to Canada, realized it was one of the best decisions I’d made in my life, was to be back here. I got into style and branding, and then there was a close drive-by with Oprah and I used that opportunity to raise some money. But there was always this through line of like, “I want to be of service. This has got to be soulful.”

I got fired from my own company. I got Steve Jobbed after we raised all this money. I had my own lawyer call me and say like, “Give us back your office chair and your Blackberry.” That was a good . . . I wouldn’t say that’s a dark night of the soul. I think the term dark night of the soul is way overused. That was a rough patch. Then out of that fire, just like, “You know what, I’m going to be Danielle, and I’m going to use Helvetica font, and I’m going to talk about consciousness.”

I thought I was still going to talk about fashion and family. I mostly talked about spirituality and entrepreneurship, and I just made it up. I made up what I had to offer. Not that I was faking it, but I was just like, “Okay, I have something to say about this. I feel like a seeker, and I know how to hustle online, and how can I help you grow a heart-centered business? Let’s talk.” That was my shingle, and that turned into a book and so on and so on, and here I am.

One thing that’s worked really well for me is I just share what I’ve been learning along the way. I made a commitment really early on because I tried this, like, “Hey, let me tell you about somebody else’s teaching,” and I can be deeply steeped and I can be very articulate about it, but it’s not necessarily what I actually went through. It’s better for all of us if I talk about what I went through, and I’m really as transparent as possible about that.

It’s beautiful. It’s really, really beautiful, because you’re just saying show up in your life, show up however how to show up. It’s not even “fake it until you make it.” It’s more like show up, and the showing up means “I don’t know some things, and I know some things.” I’m going to talk about what I do know about and I’m going to learn about what I don’t know about. That’s what I’m hearing. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong in here.

I’m pretty sure the Buddha said that, “I know some things and I don’t know some things.”

Anybody who tells you, “I know it all,” run. Run away, fast. [laughs]

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. Yeah. [laughs]

Then you went into that world and, as I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, inspired many, including me and my friends. Also, what I really love is that you’re saying don’t be rigid in your spirituality. Don’t be very rigid about that. It’s so interesting, because a lot of people escape from religion because of its rigidity, and then they go into spirituality and there they become rigid also. Can you talk more about that, and the phenomena that you’re seeing around?

I talk a lot about not being rigid, because I actually have an underlying rigidity to my spirituality. It’s like I can talk about the middle of a divorce, and I’m having a green smoothie and smoking a Marlboro at the same time, and there’s God in both of those. Beneath that . . . and this has really been the battle, literally an internal battle the last couple years . . . has been this rigidity of, “Am I spiritual enough? Am I practicing enough and deeply enough? Is my spiritual commitment rigorous enough? Do I know enough esoterica? Am I willing to suffer on behalf of the collective and transmute that suffering?”

It’s been very intense, and I’m at a place . . . I wouldn’t say I’m firmly in it, but I feel like I’ve entered the mansion of acceptance, in that it’s all God. I’ve recently come across this concept called swadharma, so dharma being your path, swadharma meaning your very particular path. My struggle would be am I spiritual enough, am I practicing enough, and then I would just rake all of my own wants and desires over this internal coal set of, “Should I want to be in partnership? Is that holy enough? Should I want to be an entrepreneur? Is that holy enough?”

The thing is, I am built for partnership. I am built for entrepreneurship. I am built to speak. Why would life design me so? It would actually be sacrilegious to Higher Self to not be that. Now I’m just like, “Here I am.” Now I’m just like, “Eh, all of that, all of that. Should I be a nun? Should I give it all up?” Then just like, “I’m just going to chill. I’m going to love what I love.”

Some days I feel so tiny and insignificant, and I fear. How many other lifetimes am I going to have to live to get it right? What will life ask of me? If I give my life to love, to Christ’s consciousness, to humanity, what’s life going to ask of me, and will I be able to deliver? I’ve just recently come to the conclusion: so far, so good. Something has always caught me. Even in the worst, the worst, the worst, the truly dark night, something was breathing me. If it had me yesterday, it will have me tomorrow.

Oh, yeah, so beautiful. I’m tearing up as I reflect on what you’re saying, because I learned to trust life. Life always works somehow, you know? It got me as well, Danielle. It’s like, so it works, somehow, some way. It just has this magic and its miracles or whatever it is, honestly, and it works, right? To trust life, and to let go of that doubt.

You also remind me as you were speaking, the earlier part of what you were sharing, I have an Indigenous friend from Canada. I actually go to Canada once a year and stay with the Nishnawbe tribe over there, their nation. They’re my friends, but I also learned a lot. And one time, my friend who was the elder there, she said, “Zainab, if you have a wing, if you’re an angel wing, how would that look like?” It was the beginning of my own spiritual curiosity and seeking. I was like, “It’s going to be colorful, and it’s all red and yellow and rainbow colors, and the wings would be huge and beautiful. How about your wings?” She said, “Mine? Mine will be full of smoke from my ashes, from my cigarettes, and an old can of Pepsi on it because I love Pepsi so much, and some chocolate, melted chocolate all over them. That’s how my wings are going to be.”

It was such a beautiful story, you know. Living in the enlightenment or living in the seeking, it’s real. There’s melted chocolate and some cigarette and Pepsi and whatever it is, whatever your habit is . . . and I’m not judging at the moment . . . and yet she’s one of the most powerful souls I know.

And you know I think the carry-on from that is the medicine is in every day, and the messages that are everywhere are actually coming from you and Spirit. I feel like in my thirties, I was always looking for a sign, and thinking the sign was coming from something more powerful than me, something more knowing than me. And yes, it is. I mean, there’s something greater, but it’s like now, even when I do anything like I pull a card . . . which I do all that oracle stuff way less than I used to. Now when I do a speaking gig, I stand up and I say, “All right, let’s pretend this is an AA meeting. My name is Danielle,” and everybody in the crowd will go, “Hello, Danielle.” I’m like, “All right. My name is Danielle, and it has been twenty-four months since I’ve had an astrology reading.” Now it’s like when I do anything oracle-like, I say “I’m open to receiving my wisdom through this.” Not that there’s some other force outside of myself that’s going to show me the right card. It’s just, I need a little extra lens today. These cards are going to be my glasses today. And on a good day, I don’t need the cards. I got it. My heart tells me.

That’s beautiful. So let’s talk about the hearts. And I love heart-centered. I’m curious about what was your journey that helped you arrive to your heart’s center? And as a result, what is heart-centered that you stand for, the heart-centered programs, heart-centered businesses, heart-centered world that you advocate for?

I would say my before and after is before—bold, after—gentle. Bold’s great, but bold without gentle is not sustainable. It’s pretty shadowy. It says a lot, “look at me.” And lots of traditional challenges, like divorce, and some health stuff and all that, and some career bumps. But really my for real dark night, I would’ve said all of those, oh my God, dark night of the soul. Oh my. And then you really get initiated. You get in it. And you go, oh, this is what St. John of the Cross was talking about. This is it, where it really . . . I want to do more exploration around this, but maybe I won’t since I don’t do research anymore, but it’s really a dissolution of your identity.

And what I’ve learned, the streamline with all mystics is they do talk about this place where you don’t know who you are anymore. You do question creation, God, all of it. You have no idea who you’re going to be on the other side of it. And then recently I came across this story of Christ’s crucifixion, and it’s the kind of the sequencing. And there is that moment where he’s on the cross and he says, “Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.” And his death came very shortly after. And then before his enlightenment and his ascension, total darkness and blackness. Nothingness. The void. Annihilation. And then the light. Then that’s where all that imagery of the dove comes in and the light from above and within.

And I’m not enlightened, but there is a commonality, whether you are a master or just one of us, where you do not know who you are anymore. And then you find out who you really are. And I found out that I love people. I had a story that “I’m an introvert,” and a lot of “fake it to make it” things. And then really deep stories, like “I need to earn my worth with life.” And I just use spirituality as another metric, like all the things I mentioned earlier. Am I going to pray enough? Meditate enough? Enough, enough, enough, enough. Let me get the mala beads. Let me get this. And I’m going to earn my way into good karma.

And that is so counter to what anybody who’s been through a dark night will tell you. Just like, guess what? You are the beloved, no matter what. And I could never get it. I never got it. But now I get it. It’s like, do you think God really cares if I clocked thirty-four minutes meditating that day? Or if I go years without it? You think? No. This is the same force that made the ocean and the sun. I’m okay. And if I can just be in that place, I can relax. And then I feel the light and I can be more fun to hang out with. I can be a better friend, and a better mom and partner, all those things, better leader. Isn’t it what we’re here for? I mean, that’s what I mean when I say, how many lifetimes till we get it? Do I got to do a hundred more trips in this Babylon that we’re in right now to just love?

For me, I only understood that I am loved and I’m safe two years ago, ironically. And it came from a physical place, not even from a spiritual place. I was in a very vulnerable place in my health. And a friend said, “Go to my home. Go and take care of yourself and go to nature until you figure out your life.” And I entered his home and there was this basket of fruits. He had filled it up for me to wait for me. And I just looked at it and it’s like, symbolic, right? It’s like, they’re always going to be people, they’re always going to be people who are loving you, who are caring for you. And I just looked at these fruits and then just sobbed.

And it was my first time, it was like, oh my God, I’m loved. I am loved. And I kept that feeling. I did not let go. And it came from a human. But then I was able to incorporate it into myself, the “I am loved.” I was able to accept it and be kind to myself. And it was just a very simple example of just someone else showing up in a tough moment.

It’s always that.

Yeah.

I was on a retreat once where this couple ran me through something that’s called panchakarma, where it was just cleansing. And one of the phases of it, the elements, is you kind of end this day with this bath. And you’re all naked and greased up and everything. And the woman’s name was Sophia, and she hands me these oils and—end the day with this bathing ritual—and I get moved when I think about it—she washed my hair for me. And she has this beautiful pewter pitcher of water, and I went to take it from her, I thought she was handing it to me. And she said, “No, you do enough.” And it was just like, that’s all I needed to hear, was some other human say to me, “You do enough.” And it was having my hair washed. It was my bowl of fruit. [laughs]

No, isn’t that amazing? Because I mean, we’re always looking for a miracle or magic or whatever, and yet it is right there in front of us, a kind act by another human. And it’s just like, boom, it’s right there. And we can be that kind act for others or others can be that kind act for us. It’s like, as you said at the beginning, it’s that play, that presence with each other. That’s the healing there. That’s what I’m hearing from you. I have a few more questions, because I mean, you balance between . . . Well, let me actually before that, I go into, because we are living in a time of anxiety. A lot of people are having anxiety. A lot of kids are having anxiety. I worry about them. And yet you say anxiety is gentleness training. Tell me more about that. How do we get it?

That is firsthand experience. So in my darkest time, I started having panic attacks. Had no relationship, no cognitive relationship prior to that with anxiety. And I had my psychologist on speed dial and she said, “Danielle, you’re having panic attacks.” And I was like, “What?” I’ve never even been an anxious person. I had experienced people having panic attacks in front of me and felt incredible sympathy, but . . . And she said, “Danielle, you have probably had low grade anxiety that you have been managing very well your whole life.” And that was how I realized I was a workaholic. I was addicted to my day planner. I actually made day planner as part of my business. I have a day planner system. Some nights I’d just sit and I would just hold my planner, like a little wooby. And I’m like, she’s right. I’d been managing this—am I enough? How do I perform? How do I get in-ness—all the time. And finally, there was no more managing it. Just had to implode.

And the way through was gentleness every day. And my observation is with myself and other people, when you are really losing it and crumbling, you want the big answer, you want the guru to come, you want the tincture, you want the thing. And when somebody who loves you tells you, why don’t you take a bath? Why don’t you just come and stay at my house this weekend? You just want to say, “Suck it! This is not the answer. I need something way more dramatic, I can hardly breathe.” But those are the answers. So I learned to walk in the woods. I learned my list was no longer about “crushing it.” My list was, I’m going to text a friend today. I’m going to lie on my living room floor and I’m going to actively do nothing. And so, I think everything is gentleness training. I think the crunch that we’re in on the planet right now, this extreme polarization that is killing our spirit, that is making our bodies ache, that is creating psychological damage on our children is all a call for gentleness. I think it’s the global medicine. I think the Divine is saying, “I gave you this chance and that chance and that chance.” Or let me rephrase that. I don’t think it’s about chances. It’s like opportunities. We still—in all the world health situation. And now I’m really starting to pay attention to global disaster migration, climate change migration. These are all . . . This is a call to be gentle with . . . I need to be gentle with the choices I’m seen to be in opposition with.

Otherwise, it’s just more war within and war without. I’m really getting this year. That big teaching of “as within, so without.” I’ve really pulled back on judgment. I’ve really gone on a judgment retreat. Because there’s a battlefield within me. I got to look at my own arrogance and my shame and my greed and how I neglect the Mother. And if I can do that—and this is really, really important, for anybody who’s listening, if you care, this is important—all of that being conscious of those things is not just an audit to see where you are unevolved and how far you have to go. It’s to love those things. And that’s where the healing is. I see my greed. I see where I can be manipulative. I see my shame and I bring it in to my heart and say, “I have space for you. I made you. Dear fear, dear neurosis. You are of my making. You’re my little babies. I’m not going to leave you on the porch because if I carry you around, I’m a loser. I’m going to bring you in. Because I’m vast. I am capable. I am love itself. Something is holding me. Something has me. I’m going to have all my little baby creations. I’m going to have all my relationships.” I bring my darkness in with light now. It’s making a difference.

That’s so beautiful. What I’m hearing is that, in order to be gentle to others or to Earth, which is much, much, much needed things right now, we have to learn to be gentle to ourselves. As a matter of fact, we can’t be gentle to others and to Earth, if we are not kind and gentle to ourselves and that’s how . . . and then ourselves include the dark sides and the good side. Just bring it all in, love it all in. That’s how you calm it actually. That’s what I learned. So I thank you for that.

I have some rapid questions for you. Which is, who are the people who have influenced your spiritual teachings the most? Best teachers that you have read or studied.

Yep. Pema Chödrön, favorite Buddhist nun, very accessible, clean teaching. Eckhart, for sure, not as accessible, but so plain in a way. Marianne—Marianne Williamson, very kind of walk her talk. I love Michael Beckwith. Yogananda. And my most recent teacher, I just really cherish, is Adyashanti. And Adyashanti is just this . . . He’s this dude from California who had deep Zen practitioner. He’s in his fifties, sixties now. He speaks about wholeness. He’s had all these . . . This is where I really fell in love with him and just like, all of these enlightening experiences, experience of oneness, and is beyond words, and comes back and says, I still have a wife and this is still a table. The spiritual . . . The new age quip is like . . . “Non-dualism is we’re all one.” And he’s like, no, non-dualism is, “We’re one and we’re separate.” Like, oh my God, genius. So those friends. Those are my spiritual fangirling moments.

Okay. Next one. I’m going to check him out. Favorite movies that you go to lift your spirit or for solace or anything.

The Piano. Love it. Such a story of liberation. Two movies that are sequels. One is, Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders film. And Faraway, So Close!, all about angels deciding whether or not to be human, give up their immortality.

I love that movie.

My favorite recent movie in English, they’ve translated it to be Another Round. And in Denmark, it’s called Drunk. It’s with Mads Mikkelsen and he’s so hot. It’s a bunch of male high school teachers who intend to keep their blood level at whatever legal drunkness is, and what they learn. It’s brilliant. It’s a very sexy film too.

Very good. Sexy is good. Songs that you go always to trigger whatever emotions you need to trigger.

I’ve been listening a lot to LeAnn Rimes’s album Chant. It’s beautiful. I dance a lot to any and all Florence and the Machine.

I love her.

Yeah. She is . . . I’ve seen her in concert too. She just all got us, beautiful chorus to just chill and be in the heart center.

Last but not least, your favorite books.

My favorite books—

Books that you always go to, whether they’re poems or whether they are . . . Like something that you always go back to.

Rumi. Hafez. Leonard Cohen, A Course in Miracles—it’s not a book, it’s really a way of life—Emptiness Dancing by Adyashanti, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, and Start Where You Are by Pema Chödrön.

Beautiful. And on that note. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[closing piano music]

I’m so honored and I am . . . My heart is yours however I can serve.

Thank you.

I got so many bowls of fruit for you.

That was Danielle LaPorte. For full transcripts of this episode, please visit www.findcenter.com. Do remember to subscribe to this podcast, please. It’s free and I really would welcome your comments on it. You can also follow us on Instagram @find_center. To learn more about Danielle’s work, please visit www.daniellelaporte.com and follow her on Instagram @DanielleLaPorte. I know you will enjoy it as much as I do.

Redefined is produced by me, Zainab Salbi, along with Rob Corso, Casey Kahn, and Howie Khan at FreeTime Media. Our music is by John Palmer. Special thanks to Neal Goldman, Caroline Pincus and Sherra Johnston. See you next week, when we’ll be talking about the power of prayers.