Integrated Wisdom

Soulful Chats with Clinical Psychologist Dannielle Kurr - Spiritual Transformation through Motherhood and Breathwork

• Tatiana Da Silva • Episode 62

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In this episode of the Integrated Wisdom Podcast, host Tatiana welcomes clinical psychologist, schema therapist, and breathwork practitioner Dannielle Kurr for a soulful conversation about spiritual transformation. Dannielle shares her profound journey through spirituality, with a particular focus on how motherhood served as a powerful catalyst for her spiritual awakening.


Episode Highlights:

  • Transformative Birth Experiences: Dannielle describes her two childbirth experiences as spiritual initiations, with her second birth culminating in what she describes as an orgasmic, peak experience that connected her to something greater than herself.
  • Early Spiritual Influences: The loss of her father at age three created an early need to make sense of life's bigger questions, while her university studies in both psychology and Eastern religions revealed powerful parallels between these disciplines.
  • Breathwork as a Spiritual Tool: Following a suggestion from her doula, Danielle discovered how breathwork could access similar transformative states she experienced during childbirth, including kundalini-like energy rising through her body.
  • A Non-Pathologizing Approach to Mental Health: Dannielle shares her perspective that many mental health challenges represent "our souls signaling to wake up" rather than pathologies to be fixed.
  • Professional Integration: She discusses how integrating spirituality into her clinical practice helps prevent burnout by recognizing there are larger forces at work and that "life happens for you, not to you."
  • Book Recommendations: Dannielle recommends "The Stormy Search for Self" by Stanislav Grof and "Falling Forward" by Richard Rohr for listeners interested in exploring spirituality further.

Dannielle can be reached on Instagram @affectivepsychology_breath

I am so excited to announce that my SOLD OUT ‘The Conscious Therapist’ course will be running again in May 2025. Register now for our waitlist to be the first to get access to this course and other insiders treats by clicking this link below:

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Intro and Outro music: Inspiring Morning by Playsound


Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only. It is not intended to be treated as psychological treatment or to replace the need for psychological treatment.

 

Tatiana:

Before we dive into today's episode, I wanted to share something special with you. If you've been listening to our conversations about integrating spirituality into therapy, you might be wondering where to start with your own clients. To help you with that, I've created a free guide called 20 Client Conversation Starters, X Exploring Spirituality Ethically. Now, these aren't just any random questions. They're carefully crafted prompts designed to open up meaningful dialogue while respecting ethical boundaries and diverse beliefs. With each question, you will be given a context for when and how to raise it with a client to provide you with that extra guidance. You can download this guide right now by heading to the link in the show notes. Let me know how you go with using this conversation. Starters, I'd love to hear from you. Now, today's episode. Welcome to the Integrated Wisdom Podcast. I'm your host, Tatiana DaSilva. Join me as we discuss what it means to live an integrated life and explore ways for you to create a life filled with greater meaning, peace and connection by integrating the wisdom of spirituality, psychology. Neuroscience, epigenetics and energy psychology. I hope to empower you to create deeper and more loving connections with yourself and others, whilst also paving the way for humanity at large to be reimagined and inspired to become the very best version of it. Hello and welcome to the Integrated Wisdom Podcast. I am so excited to bring you just another, installment of my Soulful chats. Today I have a dear friend and colleague Danielle Kurr me to talk about her journey through spirituality. Danielle Kerr is a compassionate clinical psychologist, schema therapist and breathwork practitioner who's dedicated to helping people break free from longstanding patterns of behavior that hold them back with a deep understanding of how early childhood experiences shape emotional and relational patterns. She guides her clients to connect with their wiser self to take responsibility for meeting their own needs as an adult. She has an interest in how non-ordinary states of consciousness can be used to transform trauma, combining evidence-based therapy with breath work. So conscious connected breathing. Danielle creates a supportive space with lasting transformation and helping people rediscover their true selves. So welcome, Danielle. Thank you so much for agreeing to join me today.

Dannielle:

thank you so much, Tatiana. I've been really looking forward to this conversation.

Tatiana:

So tell, why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about you and you know

Dannielle:

Yeah.

Tatiana:

what you're doing.

Dannielle:

Okay, so I'm a clinical psychologist who specializes in using schema therapy in the perinatal period. So with mothers around birth, I mean, and fathers too. But I guess that transition from into parenthood, I suppose. And there's nothing quite like becoming a parent that stirs up early unmet needs from childhood. So I think schema therapy is just a beautiful fit for this time.

Tatiana:

Yeah. Fantastic. And I'm sure we'll talk about this a little bit more, but as we're talking about offline, I've had so many clients, so many guests mention that,

Dannielle:

Hmm.

Tatiana:

Motherhood or the, the transition into motherhood was such a transformative period of their own spiritual journey. So I'm very interested to hear about how that that unfolded for you as

Dannielle:

Yeah, definitely. I was thinking about you know, the initial sort of question of what got me interested in spirituality and I, in, you know, looking back, you know, my first child's now 13 becoming a mother and childbirth was certainly, uh, uh, and I, I believe in initiation. Uh. So transformative, the process of kind of preparing for birth even that, the in, in preparing to give birth. I, in retrospect, looking back and it can see, you know, starting to shift in consciousness. I was thinking about some of, you know the affirmations that I used during the birth were from my favorite band and I'm. To sound like one of those stereotypical tool fans, but banging on about, you know, the deep meaning of the lyrics. But when I was pregnant, I really heard the lyrics in a new way. So, you know, I, I'll give you a couple of examples. So life is eternal or this pain is an illusion. Me and reaching out to embrace the random, reaching out to embrace whatever may come. So these were particular lyrics that really spoke to me in a new way. And you know, I kind of grabbed hold of those to help me prepare for, I guess, the birthing process, which. It's obviously a big deal getting a baby out of you.

Tatiana:

Absolutely. And what beautiful words, right? Like just so apt and profound for that moment, but I guess even for life, right? Like when we think about

Dannielle:

exactly.

Tatiana:

being on this planet. Yeah.

Dannielle:

Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah. And so I think in, you know, with my with my son's birth, this. Deep experience of kind of turning inwards. It was something I'd never really experienced before, that deep connection inwards, and it was so peaceful and so present to my body. And I remember it just at the point where I was about to birth him. Like I could hear the cry of another woman and it just connected me to something really ancient and really primal about women. I. Yeah. And then out, out he came and it was the most glorious kind of feeling to, to, to see this human. You know, that you have grown and is a part of you and you know now in your arms. Mm.

Tatiana:

Yeah. Wow. It sounds so

Dannielle:

Yeah. So that was the first time around and. Second time around. I had had, so I think two really interesting experiences that my, so I had a doula for both births. She's actually paid, played a really important part I guess in my spiritual journey. So second time around, she was coming over. We were gonna have, well, I was gonna have a home birth, and she had come around to drop something off and I was like, I'm not ready, I'm not ready for this. And she's like, oh. And I hadn't had that experience first time around. And and she was, uh, you know, asking me some questions and I was like, I don't know. I just, I'm just not ready. And then. I was kind of putting my son to bed and thinking, how do I love a another human as much as I love you, how do I kind of split my heart? Well, in two, I don't know if that's the right word, but yeah. Is there enough Love to go around, I suppose, and. I kind of reflected on, so I'm a firstborn and reflecting on, I guess, what my experience was when I had a sibling that ca came along. Obviously the birth of a subsequent, you know, child and a sibling is a huge transition for, for a child. You know, going from the sole apple of, you know, your parents' kind of eyes to now having to share that attention with a sibling. So kind of connected to that, but also the fact that when I was three and a half and my brother was born, eight weeks later, my dad passed away in really tragic, kind of unexpected circumstances. And so. I really kind of felt, oh my gosh, there was that first born loss, but also this devastating co-occurrence where, you know, dads often kind of step up and have a much more active role with that. You know, old, first born child. And so I'd kind of had this double whammy kind of loss. So I had this big emotional release, cried my eyes out for that poor little girl that kind of went through this double whammy. And then I got up and I was ready. I was ready to birth this child Now.

Tatiana:

Wow.

Dannielle:

Yeah. And in the actual birth I had this moment. So a lot of people I think, talk about birth being transformative and often it's through a sort of traumatic experience. You know, they've kind of faced you know, this intersection of life and death. There is something that happens in the birth where they. Fear for the life of themselves or most often their child. And that's the catalyst for their kind of spiritual growth. For me, I feel like I had a different kind of avenue where it was like a peak experience rather than a traumatic experience.

Tatiana:

Mm-hmm.

Dannielle:

So during the birth of, uh, my daughter, after I'd had that big kind of emotional release. I remember this particular part where again, favorite band had like music on, had my doula kind of at one end massaging me and my partner at the other kind of massaging my head and I had this moment of like, my body kind of dissolving away. It was kind of like fireworks going off in, it was the most intense, amazing sensations that I'd guess I. Experienced, I might call it a kind of orgasmic birth kind of

Tatiana:

Whoa.

Dannielle:

moment, but it was like, yeah, incredible. And afterwards I had a debrief with my doula. I was talking about how angry I was that I felt like the midwife had sort of come in, observed me and it took me out of the experience. And I quite angry that it had ruined the, the moment, right? Yeah, exactly. And through kind of debriefing with my doula, I kind of actually. Transform the way that I looked at it, rather than being annoyed or angry that it had ended, I was able to look at it, that I was just deeply grateful for that experience. And also she shared with me that, you know, some people, uh, reports experiencing very similar experiences through breath work. So in that moment, I was saved from having to continuously trace the dragon through having more babies and. Could actually explore, I guess, that he experienced more through breath.

Tatiana:

Wow, that is fa like, I'm actually mind blowing hearing that story because I haven't heard of a birthing experience like that. It sounds just mind blowing and Yeah, quite transformative in so many ways.

Dannielle:

yeah, yeah. It was pretty yeah, very grateful to have had that experience.

Tatiana:

Yeah. Wow. And I guess like as we talk a little bit more about, you know, some of the work that you do, we can expand on the role that Breathwork has then had for you, but maybe we can go back to the beginning. What would you say was the first thing that sparked your interest in spirituality?

Dannielle:

Yeah. So I guess looking back on it it's hard to know. Particularly when it started. I've heard you sort of talk on the podcast about the Celestine prophecy and I remember being a teenager and reading that book and so actually that was probably pretty, pretty informative. But I think, you know, having lost a parent at such an early age. I think actually there was a lot of trying to make sense, like of why that had happened. Yeah, so actually I think that was a big kind of catalyst.

Tatiana:

obviously grief can have it can open up those questions for us, right? Those higher questions that we can, we can so often. Kid ourselves into thinking we're gonna live forever. Everyone's got, everyone we love is gonna live forever. And then we go through a loss like that. And it, it makes you really reevaluate everything that matters and also why we're here. And you, you ask those bigger questions, don't you?

Dannielle:

Yes, exactly. Yeah. And particularly being so. Little, it kind of, I don't know. It's an iterative kind of grief. It's you're far too young at the time to really grieve. I think that grief definitely came later and breath work was actually a really part of me accessing that grief and really feeling it rather than. Kind of intellectually knowing about it.

Tatiana:

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And so would you, what would you say was the first spiritual concept? That you started exploring with when you were ready? Like when you understood, you know, that this was a path that you wanted to know more about?

Dannielle:

so just as you ask that question, I'm reminded that at uni when I was studying abnormal psychology, so I did Asian studies and science as my undergrad, I had abnormal psychology and the Eastern, I was studying Eastern religions at the same time. And so we were learning about how it's not, uh, it's not the external circumstances that influence how we feel about them. It's our perception of them. It's the meaning that we give to those circumstances. So. That was a pretty light bulb moment for me, and that actually both of those, yep. That was psychology. But yes, we've got these ancient philosophies that have been grappling with this same thing for, you know, centuries.

Tatiana:

Yes.

Dannielle:

Yeah. So thinking about it. Yeah, there has always been a little bit of that overlap, I think for me, in my interest in psychology, how we understand why we're here with those kind of eastern philosophies or religions. Mm.

Tatiana:

Yeah. Interesting. And so at what point did you start to, I guess, incorporate some of these spiritual perspectives or maybe even practices into your life, and what benefit do you think it's had for you personally on a personal level to start

Dannielle:

so I remember, I remember doing my masters and. So I was finishing it off while I was having the kids. So I'd had these sort of experiences. And actually if I can go back and sort of also share, I guess the role of my uncle in my life as well. So he was a bit of a black sheep in the family, kind of spend a, spend a bit of time estranged. And I remember meeting him for the first time and he was always like, really interesting and cool. And he'd, you know, traveled and was into all this kind of alternative stuff that my family. Just generally wasn't interested in, and I remember as a teenager, he was trying to talk to me about some of these things. You know, there's more to this life than just physical matter. Right. And I was probably, well, I was definitely, I like to call it that I was an obnoxious atheist at that point. I was all about the science and measuring, and if you can't measure it, then it's not real. And

Tatiana:

Yeah,

Dannielle:

yeah, I would've been pretty difficult to be around. And so I had these interactions with him where I was really focused on tearing him down. Like it feels gross to kind of say that now, but you know, I guess I was a typical teenager thinking that I knew more than

Tatiana:

yeah.

Dannielle:

anyone else.

Tatiana:

We've.

Dannielle:

Yep. And then when I started kind of having these transit changes as I became a mother, I really wanted to now talk to him about some of these things, but he just wouldn't, no, he was, was not kind of in, wasn't going to open himself up again. But when he passed away, so I think my daughter was about six months old at the time. I had gone up to look after my grandmother, oh, sorry, my grandfather. So my MO grandmother could go and be with him when he passed,

Tatiana:

Okay.

Dannielle:

and I found out that he had died. Laid down in bed with my daughter and, you know, snuggling with her and I felt this presence sit down on the end of the bed and kind of like hold my ankle. And I felt this energy to shoot up. My whole body felt this warmth and love just permeate. And I was like, I knew you'd come.

Tatiana:

Oh,

Dannielle:

love you. Yeah. It's, yeah, I love you. Be free. And it's like in his death, he gave me this beautiful gift that no amount of conversation that we could have had whilst he was still alive would've actually had anything as profound as that moment for me.

Tatiana:

Yeah. He could show you rather than tell you. Right?

Dannielle:

Yeah.

Tatiana:

Yeah. Sorry. I actually feel very emotional by this. Like that's just beautiful.

Dannielle:

Thank you. Yeah.

Tatiana:

Yeah. Wow.

Dannielle:

Yeah. I, I feel the shivers every time I,

Tatiana:

I chills my whole body.

Dannielle:

yeah. So that was I guess another really important thing that I'd experienced, which then leads me into doing masters and doing a group assignment on CBT for psychosis. Going through some of the criteria for psychosis and oh. Ooh, like there were a few sort of things that sort of resonated with me. The idea of finding meaning in things and synchronicity and things like that was funny. I actually went back to look at the psychosis criteria. Couldn't find actually anything like the things that actually resonated with me at the time.

Tatiana:

Oh, interesting.

Dannielle:

What it did at that moment when I was like, oh, like this is weird'cause I'm resonating with this. So for some reason I typed into Google psychosis versus spiritual awakening. I. And then I had Phil Borg's TED Talk come up where he was discussing that in indigenous cultures, those, you know, individuals who, you know, look like they're having a psychotic experience would actually be identified and initiated as a shaman and. So that was actually really transformative in the way that I actually saw presenting to me. And I think even at uni I remember buying a book called Creating Mental Illness, and it was discussing the pathologizing of, you know, the human experience.

Tatiana:

Wow.

Dannielle:

over-diagnosis of diagnostic criteria. And so I feel like it's really shaped how I view mental illness. I sometimes kind of joke that I think I'm a terrible clinical psychologist because I don't believe in mental illness. But it's the framework that I guess we, that,

Tatiana:

Yeah. We have to work with.

Dannielle:

generally our culture kind of exists in. But I deeply believe that depression, anxiety, a lot of you know, the reasons why people present under a mental healthcare plan are actually our souls kind of signaling,

Tatiana:

Hmm.

Dannielle:

you know, to wake up and we've gotta transform, we've gotta identify and then. Update outdated beliefs about ourselves that made sense at one point in our life, but are no longer serving us and are limiting us, keeping us away from, I guess living our true, authentic life.

Tatiana:

Yeah. Not living in integrity, right? Like that's causes so much of that, that con dis confidence offering.

Dannielle:

Yeah. So I, yeah, I think it just permeates, I guess, how I. See my role working with people.

Tatiana:

Mm. Oh, how, how beautiful. I guess, I mean, you've just led it so nicely into the next question because I, I'm curious to know how it then transformed your work or how it enhanced your work.

Dannielle:

Yeah, so I think moving away from a pathology viewpoint and, you know, if I think about, you know, my areas of interest, you know, working with the, you know, parent child, that early attachment. It's all about, you know, relationships. It's very relational. And then my experience with breath work was very kind of, somatic working with altered states of consciousness and actually becoming very deeply comfortable with having no idea what's gonna happen. You sit down and support someone to breathe, you have no idea. What is going to emerge And oftentimes in supporting them, you may not know what the full process is, but you are holding that sort of space for them and, and of course helping to process some of, I guess, the materials that is coming up. But I felt like both of those exp experience, the relational, the being present with the unknown,

Tatiana:

Mm-hmm.

Dannielle:

and trusting that everything is going to work out really helped when I came to schema therapy.

Tatiana:

Yeah. Well,

Dannielle:

when I did come to schema therapy, it felt like putting a glove on, it was really,

Tatiana:

yeah.

Dannielle:

A beautiful kind of combination of. Those early work experiences or embodiment.

Tatiana:

Is there any other way which you feel like it, it influenced the way that you work, that you wouldn't potentially have had you not gone down that path?

Dannielle:

Yeah, it's always hard to know how.

Tatiana:

Yeah.

Dannielle:

Well, I think a recent kind of shift for me is being introduced to the idea that, you know, like life is happening for you not to, and, So think that idea helps to get a little bit of distance from the material that clients might be kind of working with and coming in and. I think for so many you know, therapists, we come into this work because often we were parentified as a child. We took on the responsibility of being, you know, looking after the emotional needs of our caregivers. It's really easy to then. Kind of take that into working with clients as well, which obviously places a sort of huge risk for burning out, like that's gonna come at a huge detriment to ourselves. So I think that having a, a sp bringing in your own spiritual kind of perspective. Helps to actually kind of hand back a lot of that responsibility to the individual and actually what they're here for in this lifetime. And I don't know, I don't know what their particular lesson for this lifetime is and how presumptuous of me to think,

Tatiana:

Yeah.

Dannielle:

you know, that I would know that. So.

Tatiana:

Yeah.

Dannielle:

Yeah, I think that helps to to not take on ownership for this. And, you know, we are confronted sometimes with really awful situations and have felt the distress and the unjust of injustice of people's particular sort of circumstances and. And I found it really helpful to kind of lean back into that idea of a higher power, something bigger at play here.

Tatiana:

Yeah.

Dannielle:

otherwise I think there's a high chance that you could kind of take on. Well, I could have taken on that, you know, responsibility for trying to solve, you know, someone's situation for them.

Tatiana:

Uh, absolutely. And you make such a wonderful point on that because it's true. Like, I think. We, it's an occupational hazard where we feel like we need to, you know, it's our job to make people better. It's our job to, you know, give them what they're looking for. And it can be so hard to just sit back. And I remember earlier in my career, sometimes the guidance that I would receive was very specific about this. It was, it's not your job. To save people. It's not your job to do their work for them. But it's still, I think sometimes we still struggle.

Dannielle:

Yeah.

Tatiana:

having, Yeah.

Dannielle:

We're still human at the end of the day. Right. But then we catch it and then hand that back over and,

Tatiana:

Yeah. Absolutely. And so, I mean, I know you and I have spoken about this in, in, uh, previously about the fear that I personally felt.

Dannielle:

Hmm.

Tatiana:

These two parts of me, right? Like really owning my spiritual side and the fear of repercussion around that professionally. Uh, I'm wondering whether you experienced similar fears and how you came to overcome them.

Dannielle:

Yeah, so. I think there is this kind of rooted history for me of seeing, you know, some spiritual concepts being quite aligned with psychology in general.

Tatiana:

Mm-hmm.

Dannielle:

I have felt, I. I kind of comfortable with that aspect. But I have to say that, you know, participating in your group program, Tatiana, the conscious therapist, and you know, you sharing the importance of actually meeting, uh, and being aware of the, the needs of our clients, which also cultural, but spiritual factors in there as well. I mean, just there was such a goldmine of kind of information and evidence in there that you shared that that actually really helped to be less fearful.

Tatiana:

Oh, how wonderful to hear that. Yeah.

Dannielle:

you a little plug there.

Tatiana:

Ah, I always get uncomfortable when that happens, but thank you.

Dannielle:

It's true.

Tatiana:

But It's true. isn't it? Like once we start seeing the evidence, how, how much evidence there actually is it, it's, yeah. It makes it so much easier to let go of the fear, doesn't it?

Dannielle:

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So thank you.

Tatiana:

Oh no, thank you. And so what value do you personally think there are for psychologists and therapists in particular to embrace their spiritual selves? Or just at least be more a little bit more curious about their spirituality?

Dannielle:

I mean, the big thing for me, I think is being protective around against burnout. I. I mean, I do remember taking into one of my personal breath work sessions you know, when I was feeling particularly overwhelmed by the suffering in the world and, you know, the things that our clients, deal with and you know, kind of being asked, you know, is there, you know, an higher power that you can kind of give this over to? And you know, of course with breath work, fascinating things emerged and so it's, yeah, for me, I think that has been the biggest, take away or importance of bringing in spirituality because I, I do believe that what we are doing with people is a spiritual practice. Yeah, and I guess one of my you know, there are many lifetimes I guess to work on this stuff as well. So we can only do what we can do and clients will only, I guess, do what they're call to and willing enable and what this lifetime actually presents for them.

Tatiana:

Yeah, absolutely. Now, you, you alluded to some like, like incredible things coming out of breath work. Would you be comfortable to share maybe like. Like a mind blowing thing that happened with like in this vein, only if you're comfortable.

Dannielle:

Oh you mean out of all of the breath breathing experiences?

Tatiana:

Some, maybe some one that stands out to you as, wow. Like that was a really spiritual experience.

Dannielle:

Yes. So I guess the thing that kind of comes to mind when you talk about this is the first time that I. Was again, breathing. And and I felt this heat, uh, rising up my spine with, I guess, again, the kind of energy that my doula slash breathwork teacher had shared around this kind of like sexual energy, orgasmic energy and, being connected to just something so much bigger and grander than, you know, this little body that we have. But and again, tying it back to, I guess seeing the, uh, going back to another tool song. So, I was watching the video of my favorite tool song, and at the end of it, it had like, I guess the idea is like kundalini and that kind of serpent, you know, going up the channels, kind of coming out of the, the crown and this. It just represented, I guess, what I, it felt like that experience had been and kind of, yeah. Really fascinating to then see this experience that you'd had represented in this video clip, which then ties into the centuries of you know. Wisdom and philosophy around it.

Tatiana:

Yeah, Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I know that breath work can be such a transformative experience and every time it's different, isn't it? Like every time you do it, you get something different. So Yeah, it's, yeah, it's phenomenal.

Dannielle:

yeah, absolutely. And I also think it's just so interesting that the kind of grandfathers of, you know. Modern breath work. So in the seventies we had psychiatrist in the Czech or Czech. His Slovakia back then he was a psychiatrist working with LSD. And then we had, uh, a guy in America who had spontaneous kind of memories of his birth emerge while he was in the bath.

Tatiana:

Oh.

Dannielle:

So at the same time, these two kind of very different backgrounds, but exploring what happens when we connect our breath. What are the experiences? What, what can come about from accessing these states of consciousness? How can we use it for healing sort of purposes?

Tatiana:

Wow,

Dannielle:

Yeah. Happened at the same time across.

Tatiana:

that's really interesting, isn't it?

Dannielle:

Uh, very interesting to me.

Tatiana:

I've read somewhere, I can't recall now where, where I read this, but apparently when, uh, an idea or a perspective or, or a, a resource is meant to be manifested into, into earth, multiple people are going to have this insight

Dannielle:

Wow.

Tatiana:

and they, so that they can like to fast track it. Propagation across the the globe, right? So different parts of the planet are going to have these insights, and then it starts to, and you know what's, I don't know if you've seen, have you seen the movie on Netflix on the birth of IVF?

Dannielle:

Oh no. Oh, yes,

Tatiana:

Oh, you should watch it. It's a fantastic, I think it's called Joy. It's beautiful. Oh, it's just a mind blowing thing, but, so, but it tracks the, the researchers in the UK when they, they basically originated the first, the first baby. But when I was looking into doing, like, I did some research into that, apparently at the same time in India, I think it was India. Oh, my mind's not reliable these days, but I'm pretty sure it was in India. There was another researcher also developing an IVF protocol.

Dannielle:

Wow.

Tatiana:

Isn't that fascinating?

Dannielle:

Yeah, and actually as you're talking, I'm pretty sure don't they talk about that in the celestine prophecy of that like critical mass thing?

Tatiana:

Yes, maybe that's where I read it. It was so long ago, but I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere else as well more recently. But apparently, but apparently that does happen. So Yeah. it's interesting how these, these examples.

Dannielle:

Yeah.

Tatiana:

Oh, how fabulous. And, and so I guess from your perspective on like maybe a final reflection, if you had to pick one transformative aspect of embracing spirituality more fully, both on that personal and professional level, what aspect would that be for you?

Dannielle:

So I, I think the idea that life happens for you not to you.

Tatiana:

Yes.

Dannielle:

Because it touches into, uh, a couple of different ideas for me. Mm-hmm. One is the concept of kind of like non-duality. That there is not, like, there is no good or bad, you know, like all of our experiences aren't good or bad, although it's very easy. Our mind does kind of do that, but.

Tatiana:

Like all these things.

Dannielle:

Yeah. It's actually all the same. And think for me, that helps to come out of a really, uh, a state of disempowerment. one of empowerment. We go from being a victim to actually being in charge of our lives. No matter what the circumstances actually might be, we will always kind of have a choice about how we respond to that.

Tatiana:

Yes.

Dannielle:

And so like how aligned is that with psychology and kind of spiritual concepts?

Tatiana:

absolutely. I mean, Frankl himself spoke about this, right? That our power lies in choosing the meaning we give to the experiences we have. Yeah. And it's so true. It's very empowering to, to be able to, to tap into that truth.

Dannielle:

Mm. Yeah. And I really feel that in my life at the moment of how these, like decision points can be where we can choose. To see it in the negative or we can choose to, you know, em, embrace it as something that's enhancing our lives rather than impacting negatively on us.

Tatiana:

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, this has been such an amazing conversation. Thank you so much.

Dannielle:

I've really enjoyed it.

Tatiana:

But do on. Segment as you know, where I get, I guess, to recommend a transformative spiritual book. That would be helpful to our listeners who want to begin that journey or want to tap into their curiosity about exploring these things a little bit more. What would be that recommendation for you? It's gonna be more than one. I've

Dannielle:

Okay, great. Thank goodness, because I have been pondering this question a lot. I really enjoyed Stanners Law of GRS book, the Stormy Search for Self, which talks about, I guess, uh, spiritual emergency as,

Tatiana:

Hmm

Dannielle:

I guess that kind of idea of, what might look like mental illness can often be actually our spiritual breakthrough. So I really enjoyed that book. Another book that just kind of keeps coming to mind is by a Benedictine, I think I've got that Benedictine. Anyway, a monk, called Falling Forward, and it's, his name's Richard Raw. So it kind of talks about you know, how those moments where we fall down are our moments of kind of transformation.

Tatiana:

Yes. Oh, how beautiful. Love that.

Dannielle:

But thanks for not limiting me to one.

Tatiana:

No, no. And I'll add like the links to the show notes on, for both those books. And why don't you share a little bit about also what you've been doing and where people can find you.

Dannielle:

Yeah. So, people can, probably the best place to find me would be on the socials that affective psychology and breath.

Tatiana:

Oh, beautiful. Well put thanks on the show notes for you for there as well. But again, thank you so much Danielle for, for joining me today for sharing all your wisdom and experiences and your vulnerability. I really, really appreciate that.

Dannielle:

Yeah. Thank you so much Tatiana. I really love what you're doing in the world.

Tatiana:

Oh, thank you and thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you all next time.

Dannielle:

Thank you.

Tatiana:

Bye.