Shadow Work & Manifestation: What NO ONE Tells You w/ Danielle Massi

Everyone wants to manifest their dream life, but most people skip the step that actually makes it possible: shadow work.

In this episode of Self Love & Sweat THE PODCAST, Lunden is joined by Danielle Massi to break down the connection between shadow work and manifestation and why avoiding your shadows keeps you stuck in the same patterns.

We talk about why people fear shadow work, how to face it with courage, and how leaning into the shadows is actually the real way to unlock abundance, healing, and transformation.

You’ll learn:

• What shadow work really is (and what it’s not)
• Why most people avoid it and why that keeps them blocked
• The link between shadow work and manifestation (and how to use both together)
• Simple practices to start exploring your shadow self with compassion
• How shadow work frees you to create a life aligned with your true self

If you’ve been trying to manifest but feel stuck, this conversation will show you what’s been missing.

Mentioned in this episode:

Shadow Work Book

Shadow Work Card Deck

Danielle Massi is a master shadow work practitioner, best-selling author, keynote speaker, and CEO of The Wellness Collective, a holistic healing space in Philadelphia. Her signature shadow work program, the Create Your Light Academy, has helped thousands of spiritual women unearth, remove, and heal unconscious blocks that are causing disconnect between their mind, body, and energy.

Danielle is the founder of the SELF(ISH)philly Conference, a self-care conference, where hundreds of women gather annually

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Shadow Work
• 5:22 Understanding the Shadow Self
• 11:11 Why We Resist Our Shadows
• 18:08 Neural Pathways and Transformation
• 26:28 Manifestation Through Shadow Work
• 33:16 The Shadow Work Deck

Transcript

Lunden Souza: 0:00

Welcome to Self Love and Sweat, the podcast, the place where you'll get inspired to live your life unapologetically, embrace your perfect imperfections and do what sets your soul on fire. I'm your host, Lunden Souza. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we have Danielle Massey back on the show. I'm so happy to have you back, babe. How are you?

Danielle Massi: 0:31

I'm so good now that I'm here, how are you?

Lunden Souza: 0:35

I'm good, I'm really good. I am just so stoked for our conversation again. Right before we pressed record, I was telling Danielle how much her book Shadow Work changed my life and just helped me create yeah, more of what I want to see in my life, and I wouldn't be here in Utah if it wasn't for this book and for the work that's part of this book. So I'm just super grateful. And how's Philly? How is everything going on the other side of the country?

Danielle Massi: 1:04

Philly. How is everything going on the other side of the country? Philly is amazing. We just had the Shadow Work deck come out the companion to the book, which it's been a bit of a whirlwind trying to put that out there and have everybody see it and all the excitement around it. So I'm just sitting in gratitude right now and enjoying a little bit of the end of summer as we get into that witchy, spooky season that everyone loves to do shadow work in.

Lunden Souza: 1:25

Yeah, yeah, and I'm so excited to talk about your deck and book and all the things, but let's just dive right in. I found out about shadow work through your book, through you being on my podcast, and I just feel like it changed my whole world. And I was on a walk a couple months ago with a friend and she asked me have you done shadow work? And I was like, yes, oh my gosh, I love it, danielle Massi, this book. And she was like oh my gosh, no, I'm too afraid to do shadow work. And so I want to start the conversation there for the people listening that maybe have heard of shadow work or maybe they've never heard of it before, but they're like I don't know about the shadows, I don't know if I want to be there. Why are people so afraid of diving into this shadow work?

Danielle Massi: 2:11

Well, let's start with the obvious fact that it's called shadow work, and that sounds really ominous and scary the idea of our shadows, not even in a psychological aspect, but just in life. It means that there's darkness and we're very afraid of the dark. We, as kids, are afraid to be in spaces where it might be too dark, where things might cast shadows. Shadows can look creepy because you can manipulate them and change the way that they are, and I think that idea of the shadow being a scary space translate over into what people think shadow work is and what it's all about, which there's so much confusion around. Just what is shadow work? We even see it on places like TikTok, where so many people are talking about it and you can watch a hundred videos and go. I don't even know what this is.

Lunden Souza: 3:00

Yeah, yeah, and so I know we talked about this on the first episode of what shadow work is and I want everyone to go back and listen to that, but can we just do a quick rundown of what that is and start there?

Danielle Massi: 3:13

Of course. So back in the late 1800s, early 1900s, carl Jung, who was the protege of Sigmund Freud, came up with this idea that we have memories and information that is repressed and buried so deep down within our psyche that it's kind of hard for us to access without someone else's help or without knowing exactly how to get there. He called it the shadow, and shadow work was the process of being in a deep meditative state where you can access that space and pull up those memories in an effort to heal them. For us as people, when we think about how many moments we have throughout our lifetimes, there's so much that the brain doesn't know what to do with, so it stuffs it and buries it down. It is not all bad, and I cannot stress this enough. A lot of the things that live in that repressed, buried space are things like a license plate that you've passed on the street that your brain goes oh, jpf 2287,. Which is weird if somebody listening to this is that one.

Lunden Souza: 4:15

I'm like, if that's somebody's license plate, I'm going to die laughing. If it's yours, let us know.

Danielle Massi: 4:20

I probably just saw it at some point in my lifetime and our brain actually catalogs that information Every second of every day of our lives is stored somewhere within the mind. We just don't need to access information like that on a regular basis. So what happens is it gets pushed and it gets buried and we don't need it, but it does inform the way that we see the world. So all this stuff that's hidden changes who you are at your core and when our brains shape themselves around these core memories and these experiences, we see the world very differently. Some of us are triggered by things that other people around us look at us and go.

Danielle Massi: 4:58

Why does that even bother you? Why is it that this is making you feel this way? Calm down, relax. It's not a big deal. How many times do we hear that in a single month? And it's because of your shadows. So shadow is really not scary, it's just the stuff you can't see easily. There's been a rebrand recently in the psychotherapy world of calling it parts work instead of shadow work. Okay, because it sounds more palatable and less creepy, less scary, and they've done that because they really want to get us over this hurdle of feeling like, ooh, shadow work that sounds terrifying. Where I kind of go the other way. I want to embrace it and make people feel like the shadows are cool.

Lunden Souza: 5:44

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I feel like going into those darker, let's say, or repressed, areas. I feel like being able to go there. So for someone listening that's afraid, I almost feel like it's you're cleaning out the junk drawer. It's like you open it up and there's all this stuff there's scissors and wrapped up cords and lip gloss with particles corroded on the outside, and all these things that you get to start to organize and then have more capacity to do your life's work, to go out in the world and fulfill your purpose.

Lunden Souza: 6:27

And I feel like going into those places feels exactly like the junk drawer. It's like the closet where you stuff everything into, and just because the door is shut doesn't mean that there's not things behind that door to deal with and who knows what you might find. Even cleaning out my closet, I was like, oh, I thought there was only pants right here, but here's the matching jacket that goes with it. And what we can find in those shadows can be so useful and so helpful and so connecting Some of the deepest things I've discovered, or some of those shadow experiences, things I've uncovered. Then when I get to share them in community or with people that I love and trust, I feel like it brings us closer, because we're just going throughout the world thinking that like, okay, what I see is what is and what you see in me is what is, but there's so much below the surface that I feel like when we miss that, we miss a deeper connection with those around us.

Danielle Massi: 7:31

Absolutely, we miss most of ourselves. And let's stick with this analogy for a second, because I kind of love the idea of the junk drawer. We know intuitively that you can't leave a junk drawer forever. At some point it's going to be overflowing. You're not going to be able to see what's in there. It needs to clean out.

Danielle Massi: 7:48

We've normalized this as a culture, as a society, as a people. Why don't we normalize that for the brain? Our brain only has the capacity to hold a certain amount of information within that unconscious mind and over time, as that information accumulates, just like a junk drawer, it starts to overflow and to spill out. That's where we see people have anxiety or depression. That's where we see trouble sleeping, issues around performance, anxiety. All that stuff is because that junk drawer, that metaphorical junk drawer of the unconscious mind, is starting to spill out into other spaces. If we think back to hundreds of years ago, where people's lifespans were shorter, it wasn't as big of a deal unless you were severely traumatized and there was a lot that was repressed because we were only living into our 30s and 40s. But now we're living into our 80s and beyond. So that capacity to overflow is just that much higher and it really does stop us from being able to live life on our terms, because there's so much stuff, so much junk that's holding us back from being in our truest potential.

Lunden Souza: 8:59

Yeah, yeah, I like that junk drawer analogy too, and I think those listening can resonate with exactly what you said of just like you can't ignore it forever and then when you organize the junk drawer, there's more space for things, or maybe you realize you don't even need all that junk and you can put something in there. That's, yeah, more useful, more accessible. That's more useful, more accessible. And, like I said, I just feel like every time I go back to your book a lot and now that I have your card deck it's so great but I feel like every time I uncover another shadow, another part, then I feel like this whole evolution and elevation in my personal life, my relationships, my professional life, just everything gets an upgrade. So I think people, you know you hear we were talking about TikTok and shadow, you hear these, you know, oh yeah, let's elevate to be our best selves, like we're evolving into who we're becoming. But that just doesn't happen by our conscious mind decision to then do it and then just try to control and be as perfect as possible. And I'm speaking from experience, where it's like you become aware of something and then you think you can just change it by doing more or pushing that feeling down when that trigger comes up, pretending like it's not triggering you and moving forward. But I feel like every time I've had this death and resurrection, if you will, in my life, it's always because of going to those darker parts and acknowledging that. And I believe that in order to evolve and in order to manifest the life that you want, you can't ignore that. You can't, and if you try, you're not going to get to reach for lack of better words your fullest potential or live your dream life, which is a buzzword that we hear a lot too. It doesn't just come from a conscious mind decision. It comes from navigating that subconscious realm and continuing to elevate and evolve and become even more because of it.

Lunden Souza: 11:14

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Lunden Souza: 12:16

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Danielle Massi: 13:11

Exactly. Our neurochemistry is becoming a buzz in itself on social media, where you hear every coach out there talking about change your neural pathways, alter your brain, but not a lot of them actually understand what that means and they don't have the education to speak to that. This is where the work is done. If you actually want to become a better version of yourself, you can try and talk yourself into it with affirmations. You can do some behavioral changes with CBT, which I've been trained in. All those things are lovely, but at the end of the day, your brain hasn't really shifted, not enough.

Danielle Massi: 13:45

You might've moved this much, just a little pinch, but in order to see the world the way that you want to, to show up every day as the best version of yourself, you have to actually become someone whose brain matches that, whose energy matches that, and that's where that death and rebirth cycle of shadow work can be so powerful and can really help you manifest whatever it is that you're hoping to achieve. Because if you want to be something, you can change your brain to become that version of you that can have it, and it really is simple. I think we overcomplicate a lot of that stuff and we think it's going to be scary or really hard to do, but when you know the pathway to change neural pathways, it just comes down to going back to those moments and interrupting the way that you've seen it before. So changing the senses, changing the emotions, changing the way that your body is physically reacting and then ultimately changing how you choose to think about it. And once you hack one of those, it changes for good and that's it.

Lunden Souza: 14:49

Yeah, yeah. And I saw something on social media the other day that was like it's not enough to go back and heal the child or talk to the child within, you have to become the adult that stops the pattern. Yeah, and that really spoke to me, because I think a lot of people spend time doing this work, but then we also have to be the grownup adult that says hey, no, mas not doing this anymore. Adult that says hey, no, mas not doing this anymore. And I'm going to reach out for support and I'm going to dive into these areas, these parts of me, so that, instead of pushing them away and having guilt and shame and anxiety and depression and all of this, well, what can I learn from that? What can I bring to the table so that that's not running the show?

Lunden Souza: 15:41

Because it's going to run the show, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. That subconscious mind, those shadows, are going to run the show. And then it's just going to be like oh, this is my life and this is just the way things are. But we really have that capacity the brain is so beautiful to change the way that things fire and wire, and I think about past versions of myself, and I'm sure you do too, danielle, and all that you've experienced where it's like, oh, I'm no longer that person.

Lunden Souza: 16:11

I appreciate her, thank you, but I can't even find that emotion. I can't find that trigger anymore because, quite frankly, it died it's gone, it's not there. Yeah.

Danielle Massi: 16:27

Yeah, fascinating when you think about it truly, and I wonder. This is something that I've noticed. I should preface this a little bit. I used to teach abnormal psychology and development of the brain at Penn State and when I was a teacher we talked about something called phenotype. Your phenotype is how your DNA expresses itself, based on the experiences that you've had throughout your life. There's genotype and there's phenotype, so you can have identical twins.

Danielle Massi: 16:56

One of them grows up in Philadelphia, where it's like the air is smoggy, there's like more violence on the streets. I live in Philly and it's just like a different world. Someone else lives in Colorado Springs, where there's mountains, there's fresh air, they're drinking water straight out of the mountain and the mountain is too inclined Like. It's just a different experience. They will actually look different physically. It's not even something that's just changing the brain. It's also changing the physical expression of DNA.

Danielle Massi: 17:27

The one who lives in Colorado Springs might become a little bit taller. They might be leaner, more muscular. Their eye color might be even a little bit brighter. There's going to be tangible differences. So I wonder, Lunden, if you've ever looked back at photos of yourself from before and noticed that you look different. I look back at photos of myself from five years ago and I feel like I'm aging in reverse and I'm not changing the way that I'm eating. I'm not changing my physicality. All I'm changing is dealing with the stuff I've repressed and letting it change the way that I live my life. I'm more at peace now and you can see it all over my face and my body.

Lunden Souza: 18:04

Yeah, do you see that for yourself too? I noticed that for myself and others have noticed this too. I'll get messages where it's like, oh, this chapter Utah, they'll call it looks good on you, whatever you're doing. And I was looking yesterday. I was on WhatsApp, in a WhatsApp group, and I have like a default picture that I must have chosen.

Lunden Souza: 18:23

You know, I think it was years ago yeah, years ago, over five years ago and it's a great picture, but I can just tell that my smile is different. There's like I look at it and I'm like, oh, that's the girl that thought she had to do more, work harder, do all the things in order to be worthy, in order to be good enough. This is the girl that woke up and pushed down the shadow, not really knowing it, just to show up and smile and be the person that she thought she was supposed to be, in order to be who she wanted to be. Right, For lack of better words, it just let's say it like this. It was as authentic as I could be with the tools I had at the time.

Lunden Souza: 19:05

But when I look at the picture in the smile, I was like, oh, I can just see in my smile it's different. I can see the shape of my face. I just yeah, and you notice it. And then people will say that too, like what have you been doing? What's your skincare routine? And I'm like, honestly, it's the work-ins. Right, I was in working out for so long all about the workouts, and now I'm like, oh, I just think the work-ins are the best anti-aging secret on the planet. I don't know what else to tell you, absolutely.

Danielle Massi: 19:38

And it's a combination of all these things that really gives us the ability to do everything for ourselves. And the fact that people are so afraid of shadow work and they're so afraid to go to those spaces but they will show up in other ways always kind of blows my mind, because I can watch someone be so dedicated in one space and so terrified somewhere else, when really, if we look at the results, it's not something to be afraid of, it's something to be excited about. Look how things can move and look how you can become who it is that you're hoping to become in a really simple way.

Lunden Souza: 20:12

Yeah, yeah. And the way that I came to Utah was through your book, her book, danielle's book, shadow Work. I love it because and the same thing on top but this book has sat on my coffee table and I love it because when people come over they'll sit down and they'll open it. When my family comes to visit, I make sure it's really visible so they can come and check it out. But I love it because there's so many exercises in this book, pretty much with every chapter of like, okay, here's the concept behind it and then here's how you do it. And it's so applicable.

Lunden Souza: 21:00

And I had a chance to speak with Danielle's coaching alumni or student alumni one time and I pulled out my journal and I was like, look, this is the page of manifestation. This was all the sensory experience I wanted to have when I moved back from Austria, came to California, knew California wasn't where I wanted to be, but I wasn't sure where, and so instead of saying like, oh, on the map, where am I going to go next? It was like, oh, what's the sensory experience I want to have? What am I smelling, what am I seeing, what am I tasting, what am I feeling?

Lunden Souza: 21:35

And really getting into that experience and I remember one of them was like my feet are in the rocks with stream water rushing over them. So now I'm hiking and every time I have that opportunity I put my feet in the rocks as a symbol of that shadow work and that manifestation. And so why is shadow work so critical to manifestation? Why can't we just say, oh, I want to have a big house and my dream man and my life Like, why is the declaration of it just with our words not enough? Because so many people say I want to manifest this or I'm manifesting this and I just want to make sure we're doing it the right way.

Danielle Massi: 22:16

This is going to be the simplest manifestation lesson you ever get, and for anyone who's listening to this, this is the point where I want your ears to perk up. We have a very specific process for creating neural pathways which are like super highways in the brain. Every second of every day, you're taking in everything around you with all your senses. You're smelling, you're hearing, you're tasting, you're touching and so on, and those senses are communicating to your brain what to do next. They're creating a chemical. We know that chemical as emotions. So it might make you feel at peace, it might make you feel like you're angry, it might make you feel excited. Whenever the chemical messenger is, that's going to send a message down through the brainstem, down through your spine. It's going to send it out to the body and that physical reaction that we know is fight, flight, freeze or fawn or, if we're switching to the other side of things, rest and digest peace within the body. That's going to tell the body where to send blood and oxygen. So are we pumping it out so that you can have all of your senses help you move, to run, to fight, to do whatever you need, or is it going to let you take a deep breath and send all that blood and oxygen to places that need restoration to the heart, to anywhere that needs repair. If you have an injury somewhere, are're sending blood and oxygen there because we have time to repair those things and ultimately, that loop closes when the body sends a chemical reaction back up to the enteric nervous system in the form of a thought. That's why we say that your gut is sort of like your second brain. It's telling your brain in this moment we're good or this is not good. Whatever the message is, it's going to give you a thought. If you know that that is how neural pathways are created, you know that that is how memories have stored throughout your body throughout your lifetime. You also know that that is how new things can be created too. So shadow work is the process of going backwards, it's breaking down the old neural pathways, but manifestation is the process of creating new neural pathways. So we want to use that exact same loop, the subconscious feedback loop, to create the new stuff. So if you want to have that experience where your feet are in the rocks and you feel the water and you can smell the fresh air and you feel the breeze from you, can smell the fresh air and you feel the breeze from the mountain during the hike and all that stuff is kind of flooding over you. If you can create that experience without even physically being there, by tapping into the senses, the emotions, the physical reaction to it and the thoughts, your brain thinks you're already there and it starts to make neural pathways based on this reality.

Danielle Massi: 25:01

I don't know if anybody listening to this has ever watched a TV show. My husband used to be obsessed with Tosh.0. And these dumb shows are like YouTube, where you watch someone getting hurt and, as it happens, you're like ugh, you can feel it. You feel the pain of someone on a skateboard kind of face planting hitting the concrete. Even me talking about it right now might make a physical reaction happen in your body. The reason that happens is because of this process. Our brains are always looking for information and we have this experience called mirror neurons, where our brains are kind of mimicking what they see and experience through your senses and imagining is happening to you. Our brains are extremely creative that way. So if you can use that and instead of thinking about pain or injury or whatever else, and tap into positive experience or what could be, if you can use all those pieces of it and feel it so deeply. Your brain knows what it feels like and can create a neural pathway out of nothing, so it's easier to get it, and that's how you manifest.

Lunden Souza: 26:07

We don't have to see it to experience it internally. It's that internal way that we fire and wire to then have more of those experiences.

Danielle Massi: 26:18

Yep, you just have to give those mirror neurons the opportunity, and when you sit in that space, they go. We need a neural pathway for that.

Lunden Souza: 26:25

Yep Build the road.

Danielle Massi: 26:28

Build the road, build the road. I like that.

Lunden Souza: 26:31

Yeah, yeah, and I love watching those videos I mean, you guys can YouTube it of like the new neurons firing together and building pathways.

Danielle Massi: 26:40

Oh, I love watching those.

Lunden Souza: 26:42

So satisfying. Those videos are so satisfying because you see it, it's like I'm almost like cheering for them. You see them start to go and they make the connection, then try connecting new axons, it's so fun.

Lunden Souza: 26:55

And then they may be like, you know, disconnect. And then the more that we repeat go down that road, choose that road, be the adult that chooses that road, despite maybe some things that happened when we're younger. It's like I encourage everybody just to YouTube like new neural pathways forming, like just look at that, it's so cool to see, because it's so possible. We don't have to say this is just the way I am, this is just you know, I'm going to be this way forever. It's like, actually, if you say that and choose that, that's a cop-out. That's not allowing A thousand percent. And I say that always honest and respectful. But it's like it's such a cop-out to just stay the same, especially if that's not you know, if you're complaining about your life or you don't want to have the experiences that you're experiencing.

Danielle Massi: 27:43

Our personalities are not set in stone. Your personality is not written on your DNA. It's not anywhere on that coding. It's all based on how you've lived your life. There is something like one little piece of your DNA that decides whether or not you're extroverted, irritable, but that even in itself can be activated or deactivated. And that's part of what we were talking about earlier with that genotype versus phenotype thing. Your experiences can shift that and move it, kind of like a light switch, flicking it on or off. Other than that, your personality is based on what you believe, and I have this fight sometimes with people who are really into astrology.

Danielle Massi: 28:22

I actually love astrology. I'm a Capricorn stellium. I am a true Capricorn Scorpio's in my 12th house. So I think that's like the epicenter for shadow work is like a 12th house Scorpio policeman. But when we look at those things, they should inform us, they shouldn't define us. So, yes, I am very type A, I'm organized, I'm a planner. It's why I've been able to write books and do all these amazing things I've done. But I don't let that limit me. I don't let that stop me from always taking the opportunities to do something else.

Danielle Massi: 28:57

Capricorns get a rap for being cold, and at least once a day I go check in on your friends, ask how they're doing, see who the people in your life who love you are up to Like. Check in with people, do something else, and that's a choice that I'm making. So, even if there's something that you feel like is part of your nature, you can fight that nature and change your neural pathways to lean into other aspects of who you are. It doesn't have to define you. If you don't want it to, and I agree, choosing to let your oh, I'm just like this as a person thing define you. That's such a cop-out. I used to be such an introvert. Now I'm not. I'm definitely recharging in space where I'm alone, but I'm on stages all the time. I'm in rooms surrounded by people, I'm the life of the party, and then I'll go home and read a book and talk to no one for a while. But you can change these things. It doesn't have to be defined.

Lunden Souza: 29:49

Yes, both. And let's talk about your card deck. For those of you watching the video, it's this beautiful 40 card deck with a guide book and workbook. I'll link everything, of course, in the show notes, but I would love for you to tell us more about this, how we can use it. And then I thought I could pick a card for everybody listening here today and read it. Yes, please, okay.

Danielle Massi: 30:14

So the deck came about for me. I started manifesting what it would. Yes, please, okay. So the deck came about for me. I started manifesting what it would be like to do a deck before the book even hit the shelves. I could see it in my mind. I did a similar experience to what you did with Utah, where I just felt like what it would look like being next to each other on a shelf at Barnes and Noble and seeing it, smelling the way that a Barnes Noble smells, feeling it, being able to hold the cards in my hand and feel the way that they shuffled. I made it very tangible in my mind.

Danielle Massi: 30:43

For myself, the cards are really a perfect way for anyone who is looking to do shadow work on their own but doesn't really know where to start. The book does explain how to go into the meditative state, how to pull up memories, but that can be know where to start. The book does explain how to go into the meditative state, how to pull up memories, but that can be intimidating in the beginning. So the deck is to give you a little bit of guidance about where you should focus on a given day. I do believe that there's no accidents. Whatever card you pull is meant for you that day. So whatever direction you're being pulled into, whichever way the universe is leading you, it will show.

Danielle Massi: 31:21

And the cards themselves are split into a few different categories. There's the Jungian archetypes, because obviously Carl Jung is the father of shadow work. We could not have a nod to him in there. So cards like the ego and the persona and the hero's journey you'll find them in the card deck. Then there's things like energy centers, so really tapping into the chakras. There's a shadow astrology section, so cards like black Lilith, new moon, full moon you'll find those in here. And then there's some activation cards too that are nods directly to things in the book that I talk about. So moments from the book that I pulled into the card deck to just help you find what it is that you need to focus your energy on to create big shifts. So that's what the cards are for and how they're used.

Danielle Massi: 32:09

And something that the publishing house was lovely about, thank goodness, was that I really wanted there to be a workbook too. Yeah, and I think pulling cards is awesome. A workbook too. Yeah, because I think pulling cards is awesome. I love an Oracle deck, but with shadow work specifically, sometimes you need a little more. So the workbook is to give you very tangible, specific activities, just like in the book, that you can do immediately, so that you don't have to figure out okay, here's some awareness, but now what? I wanted to answer the question of now what, without you having to think about it, to make this really accessible.

Lunden Souza: 32:45

Got it and I haven't actually dove into the workbook yet. I've been picking a card. When I fail, call to pick one, usually in the evenings, and I use the guidebook. So, with the workbook, whatever card we pick, is there a corresponding exercise?

Danielle Massi: 33:00

Yeah, every single one of them has a corresponding section in there. So if you pull the black Lilith card, there's the black Lilith exercise.

Lunden Souza: 33:08

I'm going to pick one, so I'm going to, before we close, I'm going to pick a card for everyone, for everybody listening. This will just be one that we there, it jumped right out, I love a jumper. Jumper Divine Feminine.

Danielle Massi: 33:26

Oh yes.

Lunden Souza: 33:27

Creativity, freedom and Flow. So good. So I'll open up the workbook and kind of read this for everyone, and I'm sure it'll speak to everybody in the way it's supposed to. Okay, so divine feminine creativity, freedom and flow. For too long you have been out of balance with your feminine energy. By having either an excess or a lack of feminine energy, you have been navigating your world from imbalance. An excess of feminine energy can look like creation without action, codependency, mood swings, manipulation, jealousy, boundary issues and lack of focus. It can physically manifest as reproductive problems, urinary tract infections and addiction. A lack of feminine energy can look like a lack of creativity, sexual repression, disconnect or detachment, rigidity or working too much. It can physically manifest as lower back pain, infertility issues or bladder kidney problems. Being in full alignment with your divine feminine requires balance between your masculine and feminine energies, and the mantra is I awaken. The flow of divine feminine requires balance between your max masculine and feminine energies, and the mantra is I awaken the flow of divine feminine energy within me, activating creation, freedom and flow.

Danielle Massi: 34:47

The workbook exercise for this one I'll pop this up here is actually a coloring page, and the reason why I did that is because when your divine, feminine, or in this case, your sacral chakra is out of balance, you'll have a really hard time coloring and doing something that's not focused and it's just like put a crayon or a colored pencil to paper and just see what happens. So this exercise, if anybody wants to try it at home, it's just to pull out a piece of paper, pull out whatever tool you want to use and don't think about it, just flow, just let whatever needs to come up on the paper come up. It's actually a therapy exercise that we use very often, believe it or not, with kids. It's like a form of play therapy, but sometimes with people where it feels like that creative process is kind of spiraling. So try it and just see what goes through without worrying about how it ends up.

Lunden Souza: 35:42

Yeah, when I read that, I literally was like you talking to me, because I feel like that's so much of a part that I've worked on integrating right Of just like go, go, go doing all the things feelings of like jealousy, anxiety, all of that resonates with the previous version of myself, and so this card, yeah, really spoke to me and it's so great. I'm so grateful for you, danielle, and all the work you put in the world. And just personally, I'm grateful because I said this before we started but I was in a meeting with our lead team for the organization that I work with and our COO asked me like who's been your favorite guest on the podcast? And, granted, I am so grateful for all the guests. I learned so much.

Lunden Souza: 36:34

But it was like, without a doubt, I was like, oh, danielle Massi, because of all of her work and I just talked about. I'm like, yeah, you can only shine your light as bright as you go into that darkness, and so I hope we've inspired those listening today to grab your book, grab the deck, just start inquiring of what that could look like in your life. And I know Danielle has a lot of amazing programs to help you navigate that not on your own and a lot of coaches that you certify in this work. So thank you for you and all of that, and I'm so grateful to have had this conversation with you today, me too.

Danielle Massi: 37:14

You got me emotional again. She said this to me right before we started recording today, so we started where I was like, oh my God, and now we're back here. But if anybody is interested in shadow work, I hope that this gives you a little bit of a window into why it shouldn't be scary, and hopefully it makes you want to dive into your shadow with us.

Lunden Souza: 37:32

And real quick before we sign off. I believe it's @iamdaniellemassi on Instagram website TikTok.

Danielle Massi: 37:39

YouTube website. It's all the same, nice and easy, so that it's not hard to find me, and I'll be the one with the red hair.

Lunden Souza: 37:46

Yeah, for those of you not watching the video, she has like rocket fire red hair and I love it. And right when we got on, I was like I love just, yeah, the physical embodiment of what you do shines, or the, yeah, what you do shines through your physical embodiment. So beautiful, um, thank you guys for listening. Connect with Danielle. Thank you for being here and we'll see you at the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Self Love and Sweat, the Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode or were inspired by it or something resonated with you, do me a favor and share this episode with a friend, someone that you think might enjoy this episode as well. That's the ultimate compliment and the best way to make this podcast ripple out into the world of others. And also, you can leave us a review up to five stars wherever you're listening to the podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you at the next episode. I appreciate you.