71. The Science + Soul of Shadow Work with Danielle Massi Artwork

Sex, Drugs, & Soul

Welcome to Sex, Drugs, & Soul—where the sacred gets spicy, the healing gets real, and the self-discovery comes with a side of mischief. I’m Kristin Birdwell—author, mystic, tantrika, story doula, and professional line-blurrer between the profane and the profound.

For years, I thought I had to choose between my wild, rebellious nature and my deep spiritual calling. Turns out, the magic happens when we embrace and integrate the two. This podcast is where we break the rules, shed the shame, and get intimate with our truth—whether that’s through soul-stirring conversations, sensual exploration, or the occasional existential crisis (served with a wink and a cocktail).

I bring you raw stories, deep wisdom, and unfiltered conversations with fellow seekers, healers, and pleasure revolutionaries. We’re talking spirituality, sexuality, self-expression, and all the beautifully messy things that make us human.

So, if you’re ready to rewrite the story, drop the ‘shoulds,’ and live a life that turns you on—welcome. Let’s get wild, raw, and soulfully reclaimed.

IG: @kristinbirdwell_ | kristinbirdwell.com

All Episodes

Sex, Drugs, & Soul

71. The Science + Soul of Shadow Work with Danielle Massi

April 21, 2025 • Kristin Birdwell • Season 3 • Episode 8

Send us a text

Kristin sits down with Danielle Massi for a deep dive into shadow work, unpacking what it really means to face the hidden aspects of ourselves. Their conversation moves through personal stories, common misconceptions, and the quiet power of self-awareness as a catalyst for healing.

Together, they explore the emotional complexity of therapy, the nuanced challenges of working with personality disorders, and Danielle’s evolution from therapist to author, speaker, & CEO. Childhood and past life experiences, often buried beneath the surface, are brought to light as they examine how early wounds continue to echo through adult behavior and relationships.

Connect with Danielle:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/iamdaniellemassi
Website: https://www.iamdaniellemassi.com/

Jump to the mic drop moments...

0:00 Intro
2:02 Understanding Shadow Work
16:43 Anxiety, Depression, and Unconscious Memories
28:52 The Emotional Toll of Therapy
36:42 Navigating Personality Disorders
42:52 Chaos vs. Control in Relationships

Do you want to reset, expand, and feel more alive? Learn more about Naba and the community detox journey here.

Kristin (00:00.846)
Welcome back to another episode of Sex, Drugs and Soul. Today I have the shadow work queen on Danielle Massi I'm so excited to have you on. Took a deep dive into your book and like pretty much like became my companion. Dog eared some things, underlined some things. I just wanted to read it before we had this time to drop in together. So I'm happy to have you here.

Danielle Massi (00:28.35)
Thank you for having me and thank you for taking the time to read the book.

Kristin (00:31.98)
Yeah, yeah, I really wanted to. I feel like not every podcaster does. But, you know, speaking from personal experience, I haven't read every book that I've, you from guests I've had on. And I know that, you know, the reverse is true in my situation. But I would just love to dive into shadow work. The shadow totally, you know, just attracts me or anything in like that deep and mystery parts of ourselves.

Danielle Massi (01:00.628)
Yeah.

Kristin (01:01.558)
I'd love to start off with just even a little brief definition of what is shadow work or if someone's never heard of the term before, just dipping their toe into it, how do you define it?

Danielle Massi (01:13.298)
Yeah, it's funny. I've been talking about shadow work now for close to a decade. And when I first started, nobody knew what it was, even though it's been around for a very long time. But because of TikTok, that's changed immensely in the past three years or so, where all of a sudden I'm giving a keynote and I ask who's ever heard of it before and most people's hands go up, which is wild. So but here's where it gets interesting. The definition of what it is.

Kristin (01:34.91)
wow.

Danielle Massi (01:39.78)
really doesn't vary all that much if we're sticking true to what it starts as but the definition that people give me of what it is varies really widely. So we'll set the record straight a little bit. Shadow work was coined by Carl Jung who was a famous Swiss psychiatrist back in the 19th century, late 1800s. And when he began doing this work, he was a student of Sigmund Freud who everybody knows. What he found

Kristin (01:51.982)
Thank

Mm.

Danielle Massi (02:09.096)
And like most men at that time who were doing this kind of work, they were really just like trying out things. There was no real research. They just wanted to have these amazing ideas that were put out there. But he did stumble across something wonderful, which is this concept that we tend to repress our memories. We bury things away from ourselves. And the way that he would see that come out is through getting people into a meditative state and asking them very pointed questions and a lot.

would stumble through and after the sessions, they'd be like, I don't even know where this stuff is coming from. And that is shadow work. Shadow work is the process of going into these moments that we are burying within ourselves to pull them up to the surface, solely and intentionally, in an effort to heal and integrate. And it sounds simple. I think in a lot of ways it is really simple, but I think the internet and TikTok and other places can make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Kristin (02:39.97)
Hmm.

Kristin (02:43.776)
Hmm

Kristin (02:57.57)
Hmm.

Kristin (03:06.446)
good to hear. I'm curious, is it the repressed memories or like those parts of ourselves too? Because I know for a long time, like I've shunned like, and I wrote about it a little bit about like the places or pieces of me that I hid from or I didn't want to fully accept or showcase to the world, you know, or that kind of thing.

Danielle Massi (03:30.056)
Yeah, one is the other. So the way that our brains work, and for those of you guys who don't know me, my background's in cognitive neuroscience and I was a licensed psychotherapist for a long time. the background with the brain is fascinating where our memories are the core building blocks of who we believe we are and who we tell ourselves that we're not. So the way in which we store memories is based on four pieces, which I do talk about in the book.

Kristin (03:48.045)
Bye.

Danielle Massi (03:57.764)
It's our sensory experience. It is our chemical reaction, which is our emotions. It's the physical response, fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or staying in that rest and digest space. And it's the thoughts that we have that co-occur. And when we talk about those aspects of self that we're hiding, those are built from our memories.

Kristin (04:12.354)
Mmm.

Kristin (04:19.392)
Wow, okay. Ding! But I love like that explanation and breakdown of like how the memory processes and captures that moment and then you know affects us in you know this life and then I know because I'm privy to your book but I know you've also talked about the past life experiences.

Danielle Massi (04:22.516)
It's all connected.

Danielle Massi (04:41.618)
Mm-hmm.

Kristin (04:43.608)
But before I dive in there, because that's definitely a question on my list, I wanted to open up and share your journey of how you, you know, the specific moment or awakening during your cancer journey that cracked you open to it. Because I think that that was so vulnerable and open and relatable too.

Danielle Massi (04:58.92)
Yeah.

Danielle Massi (05:03.624)
Thank you. I'm going to go even deeper a little bit than that because there's aspects that couldn't even fit into the book after all the editing that went into it. something beyond the pages, something who haven't read the book before, something to know about me is that I come from a family of spiritual healers. My grandmother was a spiritual healer in the Bronx and people would come from all over the country. They would go into her space, which was in the basement. I lived with her when I was little and I'm

Kristin (05:07.639)
Okay.

beautiful. Beyond the pages.

Danielle Massi (05:33.33)
watch people come in with incurable diseases and come out fine. They'd be diagnosed with lupus or different types of advanced cancers and then they'd be better. And I didn't understand it as a kid, but I knew that it scared everyone in my family, that all of my family members, her sons, my uncle and my father, and their wives, my cousins, everybody was afraid of grandma, except for me. I was like, what is she doing down there?

Kristin (05:59.982)
Hmmmm

Danielle Massi (06:02.854)
I want to get into this. I want to know what's going down. Over time, my family worked really hard to keep us separate as much as they could. So the message that I got at home all the time was facts are facts, science is science. Stick to the science and you'll be fine, which is how I ended up pursuing cognitive neuroscience and go to school for therapy. I wanted to understand what makes people tick and how our brains work. And it just became

Kristin (06:10.294)
WHAAAAT

Danielle Massi (06:29.778)
Such a fascination for me. I became a professor at Penn State University. I wanted to share the knowledge with other people. I wanted to challenge the next great thinkers of the world. And then I was diagnosed with cancer. And when I went through it, I had all the tools. I knew exactly what you're supposed to do in that scenario. I had a therapist myself. We broke everything down. I spoke to my own doctors. We talked about all the options that were out there, but nothing was working. And I felt...

Kristin (06:42.254)
Mmm.

Danielle Massi (06:57.854)
horrible like the lowest low I could have ever imagined for myself and I couldn't find my way out of it it didn't no matter what I tried and I remembered as I was kind of like sifting through all this stuff that I used to teach about shadow work it was something that I talked about all the time with my students, but

I didn't do anything with it. I learned about it. I knew the history. I knew the science. knew everything about Carl Jung. I can give you that guy's full bio and all the projects he's ever done, but I'd never done shadow work. So I found a woman in the UK named Allison, who I dedicated the book to. And she was a licensed therapist too. And I kind of went on this spiritual holistic journey herself, moved away from traditional therapy and she did my first session with me. And I worked with her for a very long time after that. She taught me everything.

Kristin (07:31.96)
beautiful.

Danielle Massi (07:46.364)
about shadow work and how to use it with people.

Kristin (07:49.195)
Mm. Mm. That's so beautiful. I love, so, so did she, did she walk you through the first past life or like going into that realm as well? Okay.

Danielle Massi (07:58.846)
She did, yeah. And for anybody who hasn't read the book, the first time I ever did shadow work in the traditional sense, it ended up being a past life regression. And that was not on purpose. It's just that's where we went.

Kristin (08:09.772)
Yeah, no, it's interesting. had one recently done with a therapist slash spiritual guide and I didn't even realize like what I had held on to and brought into this lifetime.

Danielle Massi (08:21.288)
That's it. That's the whole quantum shadow work. We have no idea is there. And that's the beauty. Once we can uncover it, we can integrate it, we can heal from it, and it changes our entire point of view.

Kristin (08:32.216)
Yeah, I was like, wow, this is where this sense of urgency came from. Like, because I wasn't able to complete like a mission or get the message to someone in a previous life. It was really like falling so much so that I like, I was like, okay, I've got to study some quantum healing hypnosis or something.

Danielle Massi (08:42.576)
You

Danielle Massi (08:48.05)
Yeah, it's like all the pieces of the puzzle make sense for people after doing shadow work sessions.

Kristin (08:52.462)
Yeah, so I know that, you know, shadow work, so there's that element. And you've touched on meditation before in the book. Is that like the first key step that you would recommend to listeners to do or how would you?

Danielle Massi (09:05.542)
I think starting in a softer way usually is a better entry for people because this can be a scary topic. Like going into the hardest things your soul has ever faced. It's not like we're going to sign up for that right away. Sometimes we want to dip our toes in the water before we do a cannonball. So shadow work journaling is a nice easy segue in my opinion to just start touching on some of these things to start finding where the path leads us. And then we can make that decision of when we're ready to go deeper.

Kristin (09:11.554)
Yeah.

Kristin (09:16.588)
Yeah.

Kristin (09:22.238)
Yes.

Kristin (09:35.278)
I like that descriptor of cannonball. It's like I get a little brief image of me like running into bull jumping, know, like, because I'm like, I've always like, I like this one about jam. Are there any like, common myths or misconceptions about shadow work that you'd love to like kind of dispel or?

Danielle Massi (09:53.12)
totally. I think when you hear the phrase shadow work, it sounds very ominous and sort of off putting like, yeah, everybody thinks I'm like walking around my house like in all like I'm black today, but that's because I just got my hair dyed. So I'm trying not to dye my clothing. Thank you. Like normally I'm in white and like everything's light and airy and everything can be really beautiful. And I think just like a cannonball, cannonball is gonna be a lot of fun, but

Kristin (10:00.207)
Doodoodoo!

Kristin (10:09.538)
Looks great.

Danielle Massi (10:22.608)
it sounds scary. So I know that a lot of different practitioners are trying to move away from the term or the phrase shadow work and call it something else. Like for instance, if anybody's in therapy, your therapist probably knows all about internal family systems, which is the sect IFS of therapy. And there's a specific branch of IFS that does shadow work called parts work.

Kristin (10:24.59)
Mm-hmm.

Kristin (10:40.662)
Mm-hmm.

Kristin (10:47.126)
Mmm. Mmm.

Danielle Massi (10:48.444)
And they call it parts work, because that sounds a lot less scary than shadow work, doesn't it? Yeah, parts work is shadow work with your eyes open. You're still achieving that same meditative state, but what the therapist is looking for is your eye movement. That way we know that neural pathways are breaking down.

Kristin (10:52.714)
Yeah. I'm like, okay, that's what she was doing then too.

Danielle Massi (11:08.89)
Instead of like, it's just a visual indicator. I'm comfortable enough having people close their eyes. I know that they're getting what needs to be done. But for a therapist, it has to be measurable. need to be able to see that the neural pathways are breaking in that eye movement, just like with EMDR signifies the breakdown of a neural pathway. We know we got it then.

Kristin (11:27.414)
Yeah, that's really interesting and fascinating. I'm like, tell me about it. No, just I said, because, you know, I've had some recent things. I love the title of my podcast as far as sex, drugs and soul, but I've had some like run ins with me, know, shadow band or something around the language of certain things and like, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, come on. I'm like, it's really uplifting.

Danielle Massi (11:30.288)
Everything is about the branding.

Danielle Massi (11:47.956)
huh. Yeah, they think it's like an OnlyFans account. huh. Yeah.

It's such a great name, but people don't really look beyond the name because it's scary. And I think that's one of the things that actually is a part of that collective unconscious or the shadow that we all share is we like to sort things and put them into boxes. It's the way that our brains work. Even from like younger than two years old, we tend to start sorting things into genders. And it's arbitrary. There's no rhyme or reason to why we do it. We're taught these things, like for instance, the color blue.

Kristin (11:57.495)
Yes!

Danielle Massi (12:23.91)
Up until the 1950s was a girl's color, not a boy's color. Because the Virgin Mary was blue. Everything associated with that color was seen as feminine and really leaned in that direction. And red was considered a masculine color and pink as an extension was a masculine color. Little boys when they were born were put in pink until the 1950s. Little girls were put in blue. And then something shifted culturally, societally.

We switched it. You even see it with Disney princesses. Snow White is wearing blue. Cinderella's wearing blue. Sleeping Beauty came out at the time that blue and pink were swapping. And hence the fight about the dress, blue or pink.

Kristin (12:54.861)
mmm

Kristin (13:02.744)
Wow.

Whoa, I have full body truth bumps right now. Yeah.

Danielle Massi (13:07.558)
Yeah. Isn't that unbelievable? It's all a construct. It's all how we put it. So when we learn something's supposed to be some way, the memory is created, it sits within the body. The brain now has this readily active box sorting system of how to put things. I hear the word sex or hear the word shadow that goes in the icky box. I don't want to touch those.

Kristin (13:36.066)
be maintained like the good girl then I won't get into heaven. I'm saying that because of like religious background and upbringing.

Danielle Massi (13:41.466)
Yeah, and that is the big thing is that, that Virgin Mary complex, the Madonna whore. Exactly. And yet in other cultures and other societies, the gray area not only exists, but it flourishes. So that same sorting doesn't happen.

Kristin (13:46.71)
Yes. Yes. It's like it can only be one or the other.

Kristin (13:57.292)
Yes. There's a lot more permission in it too, actually. I feel like you're tapping into my mind here because one of my next questions was about easing the concept of duality and how we put the boxes in right and wrong or good and bad or that sort of thing. So what do you want to expand on?

Danielle Massi (14:14.408)
Yes. We're leaning right into it, right? It's just the way that our brains work, but they don't have to. It's like our shortcut system. Like on a computer, we want to create shortcuts. So our brain is creating shortcuts. We have all these unconscious memories. They create those boxes in the sorting system where we put things into. And that's where duality comes from. It's just our way of simplifying. But

Kristin (14:21.974)
Bye bye.

Kristin (14:36.654)
Hmm.

Kristin (14:40.942)
you

Danielle Massi (14:42.196)
I always loved as a therapist challenging people on creating more gray space and pulling things out of those boxes. So if somebody has a knee-jerk reaction to something, I'm going to spend time in there. I want to know why. I want to pick it apart. I want to go through it with them and understand it. Because how many things do you think we could accomplish if we stopped just automatically having this knee-jerk reaction to go somewhere?

Kristin (14:46.83)
Hmm.

Kristin (14:53.111)
Yeah.

Kristin (15:01.848)
for you.

Kristin (15:07.342)
for sure. mean, there's been times in my life now it's like I've had a few reps over the years where I know to like analyze and look at it with a little bit more curiosity when I do have a knee jerk reaction. It's like, OK, what's the trying to tell me? Yeah, I'm like, and then ask myself questions and getting curious. Do you think that like a lot of the anxiety or depression that's seen today? was just watching a documentary, I think by Gabor Mate about

Danielle Massi (15:22.429)
underneath this.

Kristin (15:37.63)
the rise of youth, whether anxiousness or suicide rates or depression is related to those unconscious memories or the connection and memory or what do you see in that capacity?

Danielle Massi (15:52.808)
I definitely see that. I think there's more research that needs to be done because there's still that part of me that I want the science, want the facts, and I want the data. But I can say that I've seen with people, whether it's through traditional therapy or through shadow work, that when we do deal with the unconscious, the stuff that we're hiding, the levels of anxiety, lesson, we end up feeling a lot better every single day, and our ability to handle hard moments.

Kristin (15:56.952)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Danielle Massi (16:21.748)
gets a lot better. So our resilience increases. I do think they're directly connected. But that is something that we're still working on studying because when we think about scientific research around the brain, it's all brand new. I had a neuroscience professor who on day one of class, it's like everything you learn today is already outdated and we know nothing. Welcome to class. And it was so true. And I'm dating myself a little bit. I graduated college a while ago, but

Kristin (16:49.986)
Me too, sister.

Danielle Massi (16:52.108)
The brain is still a new frontier. We don't know anything as of yet. And I think things like shadow work as we like deepen our understanding to them or even things like quantum physics, which we know are based in science, but a lot of it is leaps of faith. We're going to have more data on it the next 15 to 20 years to be able to back everything up and make it so that it can be more mainstream because people won't put it into that box of like, no. Woo woo, which I hate. I hate the phrase woo woo because it's

Kristin (17:05.198)
I

Kristin (17:15.694)
Woo woo.

Kristin (17:19.534)
Me too. And I'm like, it's not.

Danielle Massi (17:20.264)
So it's, yeah, don't, it's not, I think, I think everything in this realm of like the woo woo stuff that we talk about, it's just science that we haven't fully figured out the explanation for yet. We just need more data. We're working on it.

Kristin (17:33.838)
Yeah, I know. That's why I love the information you're providing and then Dr. Joe dispenses information because I feel like it does provide the science before the spiritual concepts or the mysticism to couple it. And I love the integration between the two because I feel like it helps with the skepticism of it.

Danielle Massi (17:53.276)
My publishing house would love that you're saying this because when we were working on shadow work and everything's getting pitched to all these like higher ups, the big publishing companies, they're like, imagine if Joe Dispenza and Gabby Bernstein had a baby and her name is Danielle Massi. This is her. That was the pitch.

Kristin (18:09.89)
I love it.

Danielle Massi (18:15.516)
It's like science meets the spiritual and making it happen in a way that feels friendly and easy because it doesn't have to be so hard.

Kristin (18:18.156)
Yes.

Exactly. I was going to say your book is so easy to digest. like, so I've read, you know, somewhere I'm like, oh, okay. It's some of it. Some books can be a little bit harder to get into or implement or, you know, integrate or use the practices. And yours is just very, very like easy to digest. I definitely highly recommend. And then

Danielle Massi (18:25.246)
Thank you.

Danielle Massi (18:33.171)
Yes.

Danielle Massi (18:40.978)
I appreciate that. Thank you.

Kristin (18:45.166)
You touch on a lot of different forms of meditation. I've seen it on your Instagram. I've seen it on, you know, in your book. I love to explore some different options of meditation for people. And then I have a particular question around writing as meditation.

Danielle Massi (18:55.666)
Yes.

Danielle Massi (19:00.092)
Yeah, I think we have this idea in our minds of what meditation is supposed to be. And this is funny. just the other day, my kids, I'm like trying to show them some movies from my childhood. So we're going through Little Rascals and it takes two with the Olsen twins. And we're just like going through all of them. And Ace Ventura came up recently, especially because my son is such a goofball. And in one of his movies, I forget which one in the Ace Ventura movie, he like spends time

Kristin (19:16.59)
Yay!

Danielle Massi (19:29.524)
with Buddhist monks, and he's meditating in the very beginning. There's all these animals around him. He's got his fingers in that position. He's doing, and my kids are like, what the? That is they don't see that. I'm like, he's meditating. They're like, Mom, you don't meditate like that. And I thought that was so cool to see, because I think most of us who are, you know, 25 plus think of meditation as.

Kristin (19:53.432)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Massi (19:55.738)
sitting crisscross applesauce on a meditation pillow, perfect silence, eyes closed, fingers in the correct mudra, trying to focus on your third eye and thinking about your grocery list in your head and trying to bat it away. And that's not the way that it needs to be, that's not even close to what it is. When we're thinking about true meditation, all that it is is accessing theta brainwave state. And you can do that all the time. You're in theta brainwave state multiple times throughout your day.

Kristin (20:08.471)
Hahaha

Kristin (20:17.55)
Hmm.

Danielle Massi (20:23.632)
When you're sitting around and you're starting to daydream and you have to like shake yourself back to reality, you were in theta, you were meditating. When you're trying to fall asleep at night and you're drifting off and you could get up if you wanted to, but you're like trying to fight yourself to go to sleep and you're getting more restful, you feel your body relaxing, you're in theta. You're on a walk, walking your dog through and you're looking at the trees and the flowers and you're super relaxed, you're in theta. And that's where we want to get. So you can do that however you want.

Kristin (20:30.06)
Yeah.

Kristin (20:40.664)
Mmm.

Kristin (20:47.126)
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

Danielle Massi (20:52.808)
There is no right or wrong way to do that as long as you get to that destination. So I like sharing on social media some ways that people have done it before that make it really easy. Things like fires, crying, things like walking meditations, which Dr. Joe Dispenza loves talking about as well. You just need to get to that space and you did it. And it doesn't have to be no thoughts. It just has to be the ability for yourself to be in that rest and digest state or

Kristin (20:52.812)
No.

Kristin (21:03.234)
Mm-hmm.

Kristin (21:13.262)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Danielle Massi (21:21.68)
as I've heard people say before, just being where your feet are.

Kristin (21:25.058)
I love that expression. Like I say, I'm like being where my boots are. And then, yeah. And that gives me so much permission too. Cause sometimes I am like, okay, I love my meditations, but I have a new puppy. And so, no, I didn't get the memo. No, and I'm paying for my raising. So, but like I've been, you know, working on just like leaving the phone at home and like going on the walk with him and

Danielle Massi (21:28.85)
Yes, just be here, just be present.

Danielle Massi (21:41.382)
And that's not easy.

Kristin (21:54.99)
And so I love that as like a meditation with him too. And then, you know, it just gives like, you know, more freedom and options. And it's also to me like a twofer. I love, I'm a fan of twofers where I'm like, I can get some exercise. Yeah. Get some exercise, some nature, some, some meditation, some theta. That's great. Yeah. Is that like my little dopamine?

Danielle Massi (21:58.684)
Yes.

Danielle Massi (22:07.079)
I love a twofer. Yeah.

Danielle Massi (22:15.186)
It gets all the things accomplished. Just check them off.

Kristin (22:23.226)
and so I'm just curious because when I was writing my book, I noticed, I kind of tend to think that writing is a form of meditation as well, like, observing our thoughts. And I would notice sometimes when I was writing that, the tense would change to we, and I'm like, okay, that necessarily didn't feel like it was coming from me per se. or like maybe greater consciousness or higher self. and then, but there was also so many elements of dots connecting and I'm like, my God.

Danielle Massi (22:30.877)
It is.

Kristin (22:53.006)
an abandonment, one from my dad whenever they gave me a divorce and just like so many aha moments through the memoir writing journey. So I was like, is there could there be a potential connection between memoir writing or reflective writing and journaling to shadow work?

Danielle Massi (23:07.796)
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, as long as you're getting into that theta state, and it sounds like you definitely are, then you're getting into that space. When people are brand new to it, because memoir writing can feel overwhelming. To sit down and have to write about yourself is very vulnerable. It's intimate. And we can do it, but sometimes a couple of little nudges in the right direction can help.

Kristin (23:15.362)
Okay.

Kristin (23:21.934)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Danielle Massi (23:32.7)
So what I recommend for people, and I call it shadow work journaling, but really it's just like journaling inwards and trying to go deeper is to ask yourself any generic question, like what's on my heart today? Just close your eyes and breathe for a couple seconds and see what pops up. Like what's just gonna bubble up from under the surface, but then keep going. And whatever your answer is, like let's say like, I feel like I'm stuck. What's the stuck feeling about? Close your eyes, breathe.

Kristin (23:41.954)
Hmm. Hmm.

Kristin (23:47.886)
Mmhmm.

Kristin (23:57.507)
Hmm.

Danielle Massi (24:03.176)
whatever comes up and then you just keep going. And really, when we think about it, that's all that therapy is. I talk to other therapists about this all the time, all that a therapist is besides like years of training. So I do not want to downplay the fact that we have to go to school for a long time. We're trained in very specific things, but really it's just getting very good at lines of questioning. And they're not things that we think about ahead of time. It's not like a therapist is coming in with a bunch of notes about here's where we're going today.

Kristin (24:03.918)
Mmm. Mmm.

Kristin (24:10.434)
Mmm.

Danielle Massi (24:33.086)
Therapists are highly intuitive. I'm hearing you and I'm thinking and I'm letting my heart open up and it's like what feels like it needs to be asked. And that's all that you're doing with memoir writing or someone else is doing with their own shadow work journaling if they're doing it on their own. It's just opening your heart up, letting yourself get into that really nice juicy theta brainwave state and letting the questions take you wherever it is that your soul needs you to go.

Kristin (24:33.152)
I'm home. I'm home.

Kristin (24:42.67)
Mmm.

Kristin (24:46.574)
Bye.

Kristin (24:50.797)
Hmm.

Kristin (25:01.614)
Yeah, that's awesome. I love like the incorporation of like the breathing in between in the the pausing too. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, like even like as the the draft, you know, the journaling too, sometimes I can just like, free write or whatever, but like the pause, okay, take a deep breath and then and then continue or like in between the questions. Like I love that like little.

Danielle Massi (25:08.166)
It helps keep us where our boots are.

Kristin (25:31.648)
add on or combo.

Danielle Massi (25:32.978)
Yeah, of course. And for anybody that is like, wouldn't even know where to start or what to ask. That's where shadow work journaling is really great because the questions are pointed and you could look up questions on the Internet. You could find a shadow work journal. I have one called the Shadow Seekers Journal online. I questions inside the book and I have an Oracle deck coming out that has I know I can tell you.

Kristin (25:38.808)
Mm-hmm.

Kristin (25:45.984)
Hmm

Kristin (25:55.086)
cool. you have a, my, when is it? Sweet, no, I mean, I love Oracle Dex and that looks bomb. When does it come out?

Danielle Massi (25:59.866)
I'm dying. This is the first time I'm talking about this on a podcast. I'm so excited.

Danielle Massi (26:07.792)
Me too! August 5th is available for pre-order now and I think it's on sale.

Kristin (26:12.662)
Okay, okay. I'll pre-order it. I'm like, there's that patience lesson again now.

Danielle Massi (26:18.436)
Right now, no, no patience with this because this is the good stuff. But besides like the normal guidebook that comes with every Oracle deck, there's also a workbook. So every, every single prompt in here also has a set of like either shadow or journaling questions that you can do or exercises to help you get there on your own so that you can start doing this stuff in a way that feels like it's guided and not like you're on your own because that can be scary.

Kristin (26:42.902)
Yeah, for sure. I know like riding in and of itself can feel lonely or isolating and then if you're going into a new realm, support. For me I've noticed I'm like okay slower is better for my nervous system in a plethora of different ways whether it's dating, whether it's talking to people. just, it just, yeah, it's been a new found realization.

Danielle Massi (26:50.42)
yeah.

Danielle Massi (26:58.014)
Yeah.

Danielle Massi (27:11.656)
And how beautiful that you know that about yourself because not everybody is that way. And for the people who are sometimes their life doesn't give them the space for that. Like they have family members who won't really give them the time to slow down or their job or whatever else. And that can be difficult.

Kristin (27:24.782)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. thank you for speaking into that. Yeah. I kind of lost my train of thought of where I was going, but... Yeah. my God.

Danielle Massi (27:37.332)
We're sitting with the yumminess of that.

That self-awareness that you have is so great.

Kristin (27:47.182)
You know, it's been a journey. But I've always been curious and inquisitive and like you and I've been toying with the idea. I'm like, do I go back to school? Like I minored in psychology and didn't continue on, but I do feel like I don't know if I want to stay within the box of parameters or like legalities that therapists have to stay between versus like a coach or guide.

Danielle Massi (28:08.904)
That's why I left. I'm glad I did it because I do have that backing. I do have all the research, the experience and the ability to do things safely, which unfortunately in the coaching world, even if you were to go and get like a coaching certification, there's just nothing that's going to match what you would get in a therapy degree. But it also has a lot of limitations, rules and boundaries that make it that your hands are tied behind your back.

Kristin (28:17.229)
Yes.

Kristin (28:21.516)
Okay.

Kristin (28:30.433)
Mm-hmm.

Kristin (28:38.198)
Yeah, yeah. I could sense a little bit of that even with my therapist because she did both. And whenever, whether it be eye contact or like a, I don't know, was there a particular moment or story that you like made the final choice? Like, okay, I'm going to leave that arena and go. It doesn't have to be a happy story.

Danielle Massi (28:38.206)
for lot of it. So you'll know what to do.

Danielle Massi (28:44.37)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Massi (28:57.672)
Mine's not a happy story. It's terrible. This is, so I had, I've been feeling it. It was on my heart for a long time. I knew the direction that things were heading in. I had cancer, but I still, loved my clients so much. I still do. think about them all the time. That's something that people don't realize with their therapist. It's a one side of relationship. I know everything about you.

Kristin (29:15.598)
Thank you.

Danielle Massi (29:23.654)
I know your whole childhood. know about your kids and their birthdays and their hopes and their dreams. And you know nothing about me. And when you go, I worry about you and I think about you. And it's just so lovely in some ways to be able to be there for other people and to hold space for them. It's an honor and it's a privilege. And every once in a while you get a client who doesn't make you feel that way. And

I accidentally became a specialist with personality disorders. It was something I never meant to do. It was not something that I cared to do, but I'm very good at recognizing when someone has a personality disorder and handling them. Because in my mind, it was like a game of chess. And I'm playing, when I'm playing with someone with a personality disorder, whether it's antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, it's like playing chess with Bobby Fischer. You have to be aware that they are

Kristin (29:57.335)
you

Kristin (30:09.965)
No.

Danielle Massi (30:21.07)
smarter than you. And it's scary in some ways, because you need to be prepared, you need to be thinking through everything. So like, they're putting their piece on the board, I've got to think about 10 ways that they could go with it, and be prepared to make a better move and move offensively instead of defensively. So I had a client who was a narcissist, and narcissists will never come in for therapy, unless someone else is the problem in their eyes.

Kristin (30:43.714)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Massi (30:50.62)
which is always the case. It's never therapy for them. And I've worked with a lot of narcissists over the years, but that's always how it happens. They bring in their girlfriend, they bring in their husband, they bring in their child, and they go, this person's the problem, fix them. And then my job as the therapist is to segregate the parts and to figure out how to help the situation in a way that creates safety because very often, especially in cases of antisocial...

Kristin (30:50.763)
you

Dang, okay.

Danielle Massi (31:18.752)
and specific cases of narcissism or even borderline, it can be very unsafe. So I had one who came in and without giving too many details, we were having a session one day and I could see from his body language and the look in his eyes that he was very angry at me. And the way that he changed and like everything that he was moving, was like, okay, we're playing chess was the offensive move.

Kristin (31:23.758)
Mm.

Kristin (31:29.379)
Hmm.

Kristin (31:40.194)
Mmm.

Danielle Massi (31:47.28)
And in that case, I thought to myself, I'm going to tell him that I know what he's doing, but not by saying, I know what you're doing, by saying, I can tell you're thinking X. So I got up to the edge of my chair and made myself as big as I could and tried to make myself feel really powerful. And I said, I can tell you're thinking about killing me right now. And he sat back. He got a little bit smaller and he looked at me and he said, how did you know?

Kristin (32:03.053)
Yeah.

Danielle Massi (32:14.408)
And I was like, I'm quitting, I'm done. I'm out of here. That's the end. So that was the day that I decided that I was over it. Yep. And that was it. And that was when I decided I was not going to be a therapist anymore. Yeah, writing books, shadow work tends to be work that I do with people who are like very interested in getting to the root cause of the things that are weighing heavily on their heart. They want to understand themselves better.

Kristin (32:22.094)
Holy shit. Whoa.

Kristin (32:29.324)
Yeah, that would do it for me.

Danielle Massi (32:44.264)
And it's never a blaming thing. It's never like fix this other person. And that's been the real change for me.

Kristin (32:46.126)
Thank you for sharing that. It's wild. It's wild. I had truth like I got on truth bumps because I'm like that truth feels like a sensation in my body feels like there's some kind of resonance. And then, you know, I got a little bit teary eyed whenever you mentioned like someone taking a child to a therapist because that happened to me as a, you know, a youth and

Danielle Massi (32:53.972)
It's a wild, wild story. It still gives me goosebumps years later.

Kristin (33:15.982)
I didn't feel like, so I kind of put like a negative connotation or taste into my mouth for their traditional therapy for a long time. And so it wasn't until last year that I decided to explore ketamine assisted psychotherapy and then had my therapist. And I was like, my God, there can be a grounded, super spiritual tapped in mystic therapy like that. Those exist. Yeah.

Danielle Massi (33:22.28)
A lot of kids do. A lot of kids do. Yeah.

Danielle Massi (33:40.462)
yeah, not only do they exist, there's a lot more of them than you think. And most of us know each other and we talk behind the scenes.

Danielle Massi (33:50.374)
It's so cool, isn't it? I found so many people who went to therapy as kids who thought that therapy sucked. And it really is because it wasn't them, it was their parents. And when I was studying to become a therapist, I'd studied cognitive neuroscience in undergrad, but then I specifically went on to become an LMFT, which is a licensed marriage and family therapist because

Kristin (33:56.385)
here.

Mm. Mm.

Kristin (34:08.983)
Good.

Danielle Massi (34:11.494)
In my opinion, I wanted to understand more about systems and how those impact who we are, because I already knew the neurology of it. I didn't need more of that. I didn't need to go on and study that additionally. And with systems and families, for children, they make up so much of who we become because they create our memories. The things that they say to us, the positions they put us in, the spaces they bring us to, they make us who we are.

Kristin (34:21.934)
Mm-hmm.

Kristin (34:37.998)
Brings tears to my eyes because I'm like in the yeah, I mean I can see you know, I think about my stepfather who you transition and whenever I at the time I was reading many lives many masters when I found out and and then I you know, I'd written my book with the perspective of him being alive and then I was like, guess now because I hadn't talked to him in like

Danielle Massi (34:42.185)
Yeah.

Kristin (35:06.574)
you know, a decade or more. And then I guess I would, you know, grieve, heal. But now I got to go back and rewrite with the perspective that he's dead or that he won't, you know, and never read these pages. But I had like a clear, like, download of I was like, wow, as we made an agreement to come into this lifetime to positive, you know, positively or negatively affect me or impact my life in certain ways so that the expression of me, it would have the highest healing for the greater good or the collective consciousness. And so

Danielle Massi (35:33.48)
Yeah. I got goosebumps.

Kristin (35:36.078)
It was just like, and so I was just thinking of that and being little me at the same time and having compassion. so thank you for that. Like felt in a moment. kind of want to circle back to because I just checked the time. I'm like, we still have time. OK, we you know, you mentioned narcissists and stuff, and I think that that's also like thrown around a lot.

Danielle Massi (35:48.82)
course.

Danielle Massi (36:04.071)
Yes it is.

Kristin (36:04.95)
So is it a scale? Is there a healthy amount of narcissism? Is like, what's your, yeah.

Danielle Massi (36:11.762)
Yeah. I'm actually really glad that you brought this up because this is another thing, just like shadow work and Tik Tok and things like that, that misinformation gets out there. And I find, believe it or not, that a lot of people who fling around these terms tend to have some of the traits and they're like, perfect, I can call someone else a gas lighter. And I see it constantly. So here are my thoughts. No, it is not a scale when we talk about a personality disorder.

Kristin (36:32.033)
Hmmmm

Danielle Massi (36:42.244)
A DSM-5 classified person with a personality disorder needs to have a certain amount of the traits in order to have the personality disorder. If you come in one shy, you do not have it, period. But there are a lot of narcissistic people. And I think the way that our society is moving us, a lot of us are narcissistic.

Kristin (36:56.308)
okay.

Danielle Massi (37:07.976)
I mean, think about today, I spent an insane amount of time staring at myself, whether it was like getting ready today, creating content for social media, recording this podcast. That's not normal. We weren't supposed to do that. I don't think human beings had mirrors until that long ago. And we spend so much time evaluating, critiquing, looking at ourselves, trying to sell ourselves in different spaces, walking on stages or into networking rooms and going, here's my elevator pitch.

Kristin (37:18.018)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kristin (37:28.654)
No

Noooo

Danielle Massi (37:36.326)
And we're all a little narcissistic, but I don't necessarily know that that's the worst thing. Like it exists, it's human, it's the way that our world goes, but it doesn't mean that we have a personality disorder. And I think what's happening now as our internet warriors are coming out in abundance is we're clinging to whatever weapons we can find. And a lot of the time it's misdiagnosing people or even misdiagnosing ourselves. I've seen people diagnose themselves with things like BPD.

Kristin (37:42.446)
Yeah.

Kristin (37:49.23)
Mmm.

Kristin (38:02.709)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Massi (38:05.856)
or ADHD, every single person is got some kind of like neurotypical definition of who they are. I'm like, if every single person is neuro spicy, then by definition, every single person is normal. abnormal is the minority. So we can't all be neuro spicy. I think at this point, what's happening is our brains are moving.

Kristin (38:13.652)
or spicy or no real difference.

Kristin (38:24.718)
you

Danielle Massi (38:30.416)
and adjusting and changing and more and more of us are moving in a direction that's the new normal. And that's why the DSM exists, is as we change, so do the definitions and they'll continue to evolve and move and shift with us.

Kristin (38:43.086)
you

interesting. mean, think of myself, I'm like, I've definitely gone, I'm like, okay, traits of this, traits of this.

Danielle Massi (38:52.796)
We all do. You should have seen every, every person in my therapy cohort when we were learning about abnormal psychology, we were diagnosing ourselves. like, this is it. I've got BPD. And it's like, if you're even questioning it, you probably don't. Because personality disorder people very rarely look to themselves and go, there's something wrong with me. But it's normal. And again, back to that conversation about wanting our brains want to put things in boxes.

Kristin (39:03.661)
Yeah.

okay. I was like...

Yeah.

Kristin (39:19.566)
mmmm

Danielle Massi (39:20.368)
It can be very relieving to be able to go, my God, that's why I'm like this, I'm autistic. And it's like, no, you're not. You're not actually, you have signs. There are pieces of it that if there were more of them, you'd be classified out of that, but you don't have enough and that's okay. And we can live in the gray space.

Kristin (39:25.664)
Yeah.

Kristin (39:35.918)
Hmm

Yeah, I kind of laughed just because I was like, am I high masking autistic? Am I? know, like looking at different like, I'm like, I kind of like the terminology just even being neuro spicy.

Danielle Massi (39:44.212)
I'm

Danielle Massi (39:52.02)
I know it sounds exciting. Now I want to be that too. But I think that's what we all do. And I so normal for us. And we want to feel like we understand ourselves. We want to be able to put it into a nice neat little box and go, my god, that's it. That's why.

Kristin (40:05.644)
Yeah, like, okay, yeah, now I have something, label I can identify with and, or that provides probably some sense of comfort or safety. Yeah.

Danielle Massi (40:12.094)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Massi (40:15.474)
Yes, that's it. And that can regulate our whole nervous system. Even if it's something you don't want to be labeled as, it can feel so relieving to just be able to put a name to something.

Kristin (40:25.646)
That also makes me think of like the chaos as the normal or feeling normal. I like the unknown.

Danielle Massi (40:30.984)
Right. And chaos and control. In my book, I talk about life lenses. There are certain people who, based on the way that your memory is formed, see the world through the lens of control and chaos. And it really is a spectrum. But certain people are going to gravitate towards that because it makes sense. So I need safety. I need control. I need an understanding. I need a nice, neat little box. I'm going to find a partner who is chaos personified.

Kristin (40:37.868)
Hmm.

Kristin (40:58.222)
You

Danielle Massi (40:58.3)
And we're going to get together and make each other crazy until the end of time. But it's not everybody. But that's not everybody. Other people have different life lenses, like a need for fairness. And everything has to be about, you know, social justice and let's make the skills tip even. I'm going to teach you lessons that are going to make you open your eyes. And on the other side, they're going to end up with someone who is like,

Kristin (41:01.23)
God. Not it. No.

Danielle Massi (41:24.36)
you know, like a super liberal or super Republican, and they're going to be like all the way in and like, no, like Jewish people don't need to worry about what's happening with Israel right now. And it's like, tend to partner with people who just push our buttons. I think that's our natural tendency and like how shadow work happens for most of us is not through these like nice, easy sessions. It's through finding people who trigger fuck out of us.

Kristin (41:39.32)
Mm-hmm.

Kristin (41:51.534)
I have

Danielle Massi (41:53.148)
And then we enact some of these things with them and recreate our own childhoods or past lives until we figure it out or we think we figured it out.

Kristin (41:57.262)
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Yeah, for me, I mean, there was definitely some chaotic relationships in my 20s. And then I got finally got to the point, was like, okay, what's the common denominator here? Me. Yeah, yes.

Danielle Massi (42:05.64)
Yeah.

Danielle Massi (42:11.348)
And for anybody who doesn't feel like they've gotten to that point yet, that's okay. Like we're all on our own journey and we figure it out in our own time, but there are nicer ways to do it. And Joe Dispenza is the first one who I ever heard say, you can create change from a place of peace instead of rock bottoms. And that always resonated with me because it's true.

Kristin (42:29.742)
Mmm.

Kristin (42:34.446)
Yeah, yeah. Listen, I'm like, even though I tell myself rock bottom was where I planted new seeds, but it's like I do prefer the peace route. I did this super beautiful meditation with him. I think it just got released a few days ago with Maylon. Wow. I just like so, so, I was like, this is so juicy and saw like visions of

Danielle Massi (42:53.022)
Mm-hmm.

Good.

Kristin (43:01.73)
galloping on a horse with my dad and like holding hands with like future and younger me and like then like the people that I was meditating with in a circle it was just like this is so beautiful.

Danielle Massi (43:11.73)
And that's the way that it could be all the time.

Kristin (43:13.774)
Oh, so good. Oh yeah, you know, I don't want to touch on, I'm like speaking of future. So we've talked about like going to the past. I kind of want to, is that going to the future? Okay.

Danielle Massi (43:25.042)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Massi (43:29.128)
yeah. They're inherently tied. And this is where we just change the name of things. So when we hop into that state of brainwave state and we go back into moments that our soul needs us to see, we can either regress into the past, aka shadow work, or we can use quantum physics and look at future potentials and what it is that we could do. It's the exact same process.

but just a different direction. Are we going back to heal and integrate or are we peeking forward to heal and integrate?

Kristin (44:06.038)
Mmm.

Danielle Massi (44:08.574)
same concept. And that's what I manifesting really is to me. And it's using all those things that we talked about before, and we talked about creating memories. When we are tapping into the sensory experiences and the emotions, the physical responses and the thoughts of potential realities that we have and integrating those, we're becoming whoever we want to become faster.

Kristin (44:11.917)
Mm-hmm.

Kristin (44:32.878)
Mm.

Danielle Massi (44:33.682)
we're bringing that future into the now in the same way that with traditional shadow work, we're bringing the past and altering it into the now.

Kristin (44:40.77)
Hmm. It's kind of like creating a future memory. It hasn't happened yet. I mean, I love visualizing or like, go, mean, just, and sometimes I'll go into a session with like maybe a fixed more, more fixed idea of something I wanted to visualize. But then sometimes I go into a space and something will pop up and I'm like, holy shit. Like that, that went in like.

Danielle Massi (44:44.788)
Exactly, it's creating a future memory.

Kristin (45:08.446)
I'm like, that one was not one that like, present me went in with. It was like, like a surprise or miracle or whatever.

Danielle Massi (45:18.344)
That's that good, good shadow work. Because when we do that, it's like we have no attachment to it and we just let whatever our soul needs to show us come through. That's so powerful because we're not trying to force that we're just flowing into it. It's so good.

Kristin (45:20.247)
haha

Uh-uh.

Kristin (45:34.658)
Yes, flow over force.

Danielle Massi (45:37.758)
flowing over forcing, but you said you love visualizing the future and I bet you a lot of people who are listening to this are like, I can't see anything. I can't visualize the future or I can't see memories. I don't really dream. It's super common. And it doesn't mean that you can't do these things. You can still absolutely manifest without being able to visualize what your future is or to do shadow work without being able to see clearly what the past is. We have different

Kristin (45:45.26)
yeah.

Danielle Massi (46:04.382)
capabilities depending on how it is that our brains process information when we're young. The same way we learn differently. So there might be some people who like to read the book, some people like the audio, some people want to see the movie. And it all has to do with how you process information. If you're someone who's a visual learner,

Kristin (46:10.222)
Mmmmm

Kristin (46:19.374)
Mmm.

Kristin (46:23.918)
Mmm.

Danielle Massi (46:26.824)
the visual stuff or the clairvoyance is going to be very clear and easy. And you can tap into that, make it really strong, but that's not everybody. And it's one of the biggest questions that I get asked when people ask about shadow work or about manifestation. You can do it and focus on your other senses. So thinking about which of your senses are the strongest on a day-to-day basis or how you learned when you were young. Were you the kid who could just like...

Kristin (46:50.19)
Mmm.

Danielle Massi (46:52.34)
sit down and listen to a whole lecture and you didn't need to study, you just went for the test and you did well. Because if so, it might be the audio piece of it. It might be the listening. So you can tap into those things, listen to binaural beats more often, listen to sounds when you're on a walk. And that could be your meditation for the day, like listening to the rustling of the leaves and the trees and how the wind is whipping your hair and it's making those slight little scratchy noises, just paying attention to whatever

Kristin (47:14.157)
Bye.

Danielle Massi (47:21.392)
sensory pieces are strongest for you and then use those. So when you're manifesting, what does the future sound like? For me, it sounds like a beach because the future version of me is in La Jolla and she is on the beach and she's just free with a cup of coffee. So I'm a coffee girlie, toes in the sand or sitting at ES and I hear it.

Kristin (47:24.258)
Hmm.

Kristin (47:28.109)
Mmm.

Kristin (47:35.694)
Mmm, yes!

Danielle Massi (47:48.41)
I can hear it so strongly. So if you don't feel like you can see it, just use your other senses. It does the same thing. Just strengthen the ones you got.

Kristin (47:56.494)
just spoke into that because it does speak to like my like growing up my mom was very big and you know I'm like I tell people we didn't have a lot financially growing up. was we were rich in other ways and one of the biggest ways was like the the emphasis on dreaming big and visualizing and talking about it with my mom and it was just very profound. So it makes sense connecting that dot to like okay I'm able to visualize things because I use that as like a young child we'll be driving.

Danielle Massi (48:22.728)
She's been training you your whole life.

Kristin (48:24.535)
I didn't realize it. I mean, in that capacity with that.

Danielle Massi (48:27.922)
Yes. Yeah, it's funny. all, it starts when we're young. Those first seven years of our life in terms of how our brain is going to form are so critical. And in those young years, if you spent them hiding in a dark closet because you were afraid and you heard fighting all the time, you might learn in an audio sort of way. Everything's about what you hear. If you're someone who is taught to visualize, it's going to be that piece. If you were someone who, like me, I wrote everything down,

I don't know why I was a writer. I've been a writer my entire life. It's no surprise I ended up writing a book if I were to think about it critically. But I write everything. I used to listen to lectures at school, whether it was undergrad or graduate. I'd take notes the entire time. And then I would go home and I'd take notes again. I'd rewrite my notes because I learned by writing and I'd make flashcards because that was how it was going to land somewhere within my mind.

It was always that way when I was little and I didn't know how to talk to people about what I was feeling. I'd write them down. Everything was about written word for me. So that's how I learned. And the more we know about those things, the more we can tap into them and use them for how we do things as adults.

Kristin (49:39.598)
Love all of that. Like just so the different little tools and like questions that people can ask themselves like you know and ask the younger like okay what did I do as a child if I can't you know like don't know what can I grasp or start with today? That's so awesome. I'm like we're kind of like closing in. Is there anything else that's on your heart that you want to share, explore, expand on?

Danielle Massi (49:54.525)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Massi (50:03.42)
No, I think we covered everything that I was hoping we would do. I know this can be dense. Shadow work can be, it's simple in what it is, and yet it's so multi-layered and there's all these different facets and the brain's involvement, your physiology and your energy, and it can feel overwhelming. So I hope that people hear this and they just take it a day at a time and learn a little bit and maybe pick up a book if you're someone who likes to read or

Kristin (50:06.048)
my.

Kristin (50:26.734)
Mm.

Danielle Massi (50:32.744)
hop onto YouTube and listen to people speak about it. Find people you trust, people who are recommended by other people and listen to voices who are going to share experiences that you might not understand. ultimately start to think about where you get a little black and white, where you fall into duality and question whether or not there might not be some gray area that you can explore.

Kristin (50:42.2)
And... And...

Kristin (50:55.522)
love that different shades of gray. Thank you so much. And then I'll put definitely put all of your information in Instagram and website in the show notes or my my lovely assistant will. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any like other like programs or that you want to touch on or besides the Oracle DAG?

Danielle Massi (50:57.971)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Massi (51:08.884)
Thank you.

Danielle Massi (51:18.932)
You have the Oracle text coming out. can get it on pre-order. And then I actually have a course for people who are interested in learning how to write a book. We didn't talk about this and this was not the focus at all today, but I definitely find that the process of writing a book, which I'm sure you can speak to at length, is it's scary, it's hard, and there isn't really a clear direction for where it should go, which can be very overwhelming for people. So after I wrote my book, I created a course that breaks it all down into simple, easy, bite-sized steps.

Kristin (51:38.392)
Mm-hmm.

Good morning.

Kristin (51:47.886)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Massi (51:48.018)
It even helps you write out a full book proposal with a template that you can plug and play all the stuff that you did into it. Yeah.

Kristin (51:52.68)
beautiful. I just walked someone through creating a book proposal for Hay House. And so that would, the template would have been great too.

Danielle Massi (51:59.41)
Yeah.

Well, if you still need it, I can show you how to get it. it does, it makes a big difference and it makes it a lot easier to land a book deal if you have everything in the way that they want. And with everything, whether it was writing the book, figuring out how to create an Oracle deck with a publishing house, figuring out how to become a private practice psychotherapist, nobody wants to give you all the answers.

Kristin (52:10.464)
Mm-hmm.

Kristin (52:20.269)
Hmmmm

Danielle Massi (52:25.574)
And I think that's something that as human beings, we need to get better about is like giving away the keys to the kingdom and going, there's more that I can share and it's not hurting me to share these things with you. So finding people and spaces that will do that is difficult. And I've just really tried my hardest throughout my career to be that person for anybody who needs it, that there's no gatekeeping. All the answers are there. You're not going to have to come back to me with

Kristin (52:29.304)
Hmm? Yeah!

Kristin (52:34.904)
Mm-hmm.

Kristin (52:47.342)
It's hard.

Danielle Massi (52:52.008)
follow up questions, because I'm giving you everything. And there's gonna be nothing left. There might be more something you want to explore afterwards, because you want to go on the next step, but there won't be any pieces left out. It actually makes me think about my husband's grandmother was hysterical. She was such a character. She was one of those women who she just had a joke about everything. And you would never imagine the words that came out of her mouth as like an 85 year old woman, but she purposefully

Kristin (52:54.968)
Yeah.

Danielle Massi (53:21.374)
gave her four daughters a book of recipes that had at least one thing missing from every single one as like an F you. And that was her to a T she was hysterical but everybody now is like grandma, I'm like, we really want to make that and we can't make it it'll never be the same. But it's just like her way of being like you guys are always gonna miss me because you'll never have it again.

Kristin (53:27.246)
Kristin (53:37.332)
yeah, aww.

ahhhh yeah

Danielle Massi (53:44.614)
And that is something I think a lot of people do, whether it's consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously, is they leave pieces out, whether it's like they feel threatened, they don't want anyone to be able to do it without them, they need to be needed, whatever the thing is. So I don't want that to be the case for anybody that I'm ever with.

Kristin (53:56.332)
you

Kristin (53:59.81)
No, to me it's also speaks to the abundance. There's enough room for in space for all of us to succeed and collaboration over competition and more uplifting and empowerment versus like, I to keep the secrets or the keys to myself. So, well, thank you so much. I think that's a great moment to end on.

Danielle Massi (54:06.288)
Always, always.

Danielle Massi (54:14.45)
Yes, yeah. And if you don't feel that way, there's some shadow work you can do on that.

Danielle Massi (54:25.682)
Thank you so much for having me on Chris and this is fun

Kristin (54:28.312)
Thank you.