Identify the Feelings of Attraction

Speaker 1: (singing).

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Hello, this is Rebecca Fleetwood Hession, host of The Badass Womens Council podcast. And on today's episode, we have Danielle Ireland, and Danielle is a therapist. But she didn't start out as a therapist. She started out as a ballroom dance instructor. And this is one of the millions of things I love about Danielle, is her career has been this exploration of her interest, a curiosity that she's following around. And this inner knowing about what she's supposed to be doing. She's just listening to her heart and her gut and I love that about her. In today's episode, we talk about pure attraction. And this came up because Danielle had posted something on her social media about this that really got my attention. And I think it got my attention because it felt so connected to the work I'm doing with Stand Tall In Your Story, which is an event that I'm hosting on April 20th live here in Indianapolis and also live at home. You can check the show notes for information and tickets for that. I highly recommend that you get there. It's going to be a magical evening. But the Stand Tall In Your Story event is seven women who have gone through a seven month experience called Rise And Thrive. And a big part of this journey in their seven months is for them to fall in love with their story and become attracted to their story so that they're so emotionally invested and sucked into what their inner knowing, and their intuition, their wealth of experience is leading them towards, that is just pulls them forward into great things. And so when I saw Danielle's post, and I know her therapy background and I know her heart, I thought, " Oh, we have got to talk about this." So in addition to being a therapist, Danielle has a journal that she's created, a reflection journal, called Treasured. And y'all, it is gorgeous. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. And let's just jump in with Danielle Ireland. Hey Danielle. How are you?

Danielle Ireland: I'm great, Rebecca. Thanks so much for having me.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Absolutely. If you go into labor during the podcast, we'll just reschedule another time. How's that? Does that sound okay?

Danielle Ireland: I actually wonder, if I did go into labor, I probably would double down in denial and shock, and I'd be like, " Okay Rebecca, let's..."

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I'll watch for signs of the look on your face. I'm glad I'm getting to see you while we do this. So you're going to have a baby in days, weeks, minutes?

Danielle Ireland: Mm- hmm( affirmative). I mean, I'm a ticking time bomb.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You really are.

Danielle Ireland: It could literally be any moment. And it also could be in weeks from now too, so that's the fun surprise of it all.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Right. I'm so excited for you. I think I put this on your Facebook the other day, that you're already a great mom. I just know that you're just built for this. This is going to be great.

Danielle Ireland: Thank you. That means a lot.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah. So I, speaking of Facebook, the book of faces, the bane of my existence, and also the joy of connecting with my family and friends. You know the place. You posted about attraction.

Danielle Ireland: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And you posted about it in a little different way when it really resonated with me, and it was like, " Oh, that's different. I like that." And I'm just going to read it because I think it sets up the conversation that we're about to have. It says, " No matter what or who," winky, winky, " Attracts you, you'll feel it instantly. What does it feel like? It feels like being pulled in with a hope for more, gripping, like uber gripping. An inability to deny the truth of feeling full attracted to whatever it is." And then you pose the question, " When's the last time you felt pure unfiltered attraction to a person, a thing, a job, or an object?"

Danielle Ireland: Yeah.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I love this just feeling that that gives. There's emotion in that, but it's real. So tell us a little bit about when you were writing that, what did you want to evoke with that post?

Danielle Ireland: Yeah, so there's probably a lot of different places that it came from, but I would say that my intention, or the intent I had in setting up that post was I really wanted to explore the process of change for myself, and then also to open up a conversation through social media with my clients, with various platforms that I work on, and also having created an online course that is all about... It's called the Unleashing You Relationship Course, and it's really about helping us become more intimately and better acquainted with the relationship we have with ourselves, and using the relationships that we have with other things, whether it's people, romantic relationships, intimate relationships, friendships, but also how we relate to things to better understand ourselves. And so in wanting to set up the change process, what really got me thinking was, " Well what comes before that?" Before we even realize we need or want something else or more, what comes before that? And for me that spark that catalyst is attraction. So what I love in talking about attraction is that it's usually visceral, right? It's kinetic, it's physical, it's one of those elusive, hard to explain, hard to articulate, which I almost enjoy exploring those things more, because I'm such a wordy person. But it's an experience that you have that when you feel it is undeniable. Though that doesn't mean we don't try to deny it, avoid it, run from it, procrastinate, numb it, stuff it, talk ourselves out of it, right? It doesn't make it easy, it doesn't make the choices that we make afterwards easy or acting on that attraction or knowing easy. But I think the more aware, the more I talk about, the more language I have, the more context I have, the more support I have around honoring what I feel when I feel that spark, it helps me either get more curious, or helps me trust myself more. So it's usually one of those two.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Which are fundamental in living, what I call, a thriving life versus a striving life, right? And so that's why I really resonated with it I think too, because I, like you, am trying to help guide my clients to a place where they can fall in love with their own story. And as I read your post, I thought, " That's it." Because when you're in a career where there are aspects of it that you love, and it doesn't mean that all of it might be that, but you know that you are meant to be doing it, and you're good at it, and you're wired for it, I think that's a beautiful way to have a career that you're attracted to.

Danielle Ireland: Yeah, and I think attraction builds momentum too. It leads to desire because I think so often the conversations that I have with clients or when a new client starts working with me for the first time, it's really focusing on pain management. So, " I'm in some level of discomfort, my wife isn't going in the way that I want it to go." And what I like about talking about attraction is that it feels like, unlike going back into your past, and unearthing, and unlocking key insights, and looking at family of origin, I mean, all of that work is meaningful, and important, and certainly has its place. But I also, having worked with clients in a therapeutic space, I also, I think my heart was looking for, " Okay, how can we have a similar conversation, or I'd say, as meaningful of a conversation as all the healing that we want to do, but also when it comes to building a life we want to build, what gets us down that trajectory?" And what I find too is that a lot of times when we do look back at that history, when we do go back and talk about childhood, talk about heartache, talk about heart break, or crisis, or trauma, or abuse, whatever it may be, at some point, there seems to be a fork in the road moment where someone had an inner knowing, an inner longing, and inner calling, a whisper that said, " Hey, there's something here you need to look at." And for whatever reason, for one reason or another, which is what usually brings them to therapy, they say, " Nope." And they go the other way. And it could be a desire to people please, to not disappoint, for fear of what consequences, fear of lack of worthiness, lack of ability. Whatever that negative self talk is, and I can certainly look back on my own life with that type of hindsight and see, " Oh, yep. I went left when I should have gone right." And not should as in shamey way, but there was something I knew that I wasn't acknowledging. There something that someone was... A quality that someone was revealing to me early on that I just wasn't present with. And, or there was something really speaking to me that I was really interested in that, for one reason or another, I didn't know how to act on, honor, follow. So I did this other thing instead. And so, for me, attraction felt like a different way, a more forward focused way.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That's what I was just going to say. It's forward focused, it's vision, it's tied to heart. And I love the inner knowing. I use that as well. I think it's not used enough in traditional career conversations.

Danielle Ireland: Sure.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And I think we don't tap into the inner knowing, but we also fight it because we've been prepared for life through an education that's all about external validation, and not enough about our own imagination, intuition, and sense of knowing, right? So it's hard to grade sense of knowing. You don't get to the head of the class with sense of knowing.

Danielle Ireland: I love that.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And in fact, one of my old bosses, I can remember me saying, " Well, hey, I just don't have a good gut feel about that," a client he was trying to give me. And he basically said, " That's not how we make decisions around here." And it was not meant to be as harsh as it sounds for me telling it now, but that was such a juxtaposition because the CEO that I'd had previously was all about intuition. We interviewed people and it was we placed people in jobs. And he would say to us in early training, " Never go against your gut. If the person's resume looks like it fits, but you get in the room, and you're interviewing, and you go, 'Mm-mm (negative), that's not it.' Don't do it." And every time I did, it didn't go well. And so I learned to trust my intuition, and my gut, and my inner knowing as a business tool and strategy. But it's not always honored everywhere.

Danielle Ireland: Well, and for me, I think that that there are some really interesting... As I become more and more interested in this topic, there are really interesting ways you can interpret this. So one is always trust yourself, always trust your gut, and listen to that instinct. So there's a book called The Gift of Fear. It's an older book, I think it came out in the early'80s. But it was basically, this was the guy that made the phrase popular on The Oprah Winfrey Show, never let them take you to the secondary location.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: crosstalk.

Danielle Ireland: If you've ever heard of that. So he wrote this book, and I don't remember the exact trajectory of his career, but he's worked in law enforcement for years, and years, and years. And I tried reading the book. It actually, because it talked about real cases, was a little triggering for me because it involved a lot about assault. So I just want to preface that for any listener. If you're interested in it, great. It's a really powerful resource. You could also probably get a sense of the point of that book, or his work, if you can find the Oprah Winfrey episode and just watch the interview. If you don't want to read the book-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The Cliff's Notes version, if you will.

Danielle Ireland: Yeah, that's where I stopped. But basically what he said was that for every woman who was assaulted or attacked that survived, so that meant he was actually able to talk to them afterwards. At every point, and he said this in a way that felt so in support of honor and trust yourself, not at all shifting blame to the women. I just want to be really clear about that. But what he basically said was that at every point, as the women were telling their stories, or sharing their experiences, there was an instant where they felt, " No, get away, run." Something told them all, " This isn't right. This person isn't right." And for fear of not being seen as nice, being rude, being bitchy, being... Right? All of the language has been used to gaslight women.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Right.

Danielle Ireland: For one reason or another they didn't honor that instinct, and he was not saying, in any way, shape, or form, it was their fault. But there's plenty of evidence, and even more so, to support that side of things too. Recently, I've started really becoming more interested in Malcolm Gladwell's work, and there's a book that he came out recently, I think his most recent work is called Talking to Strangers. And he's talking about implicit bias and explicit bias. A lot to do with what's happened with the Black Lives Matter movement, and Me Too movement. And so what's interesting in his research is that people will mistakenly... In this case he's talking about the police pulling someone over and making assumptions based on skin color. And so what can be hard to know is, " Is this my gut? Is this bias? Is this conditioning?" And so I think there are a lot of factors to consider with this. But as it relates to attraction, for me, what it opens up is curiosity. And that's, I think, more so than telling anybody what to do with their attraction, or how to respond to their attraction, or desire, or longing, because usually I think what really... There's something about what I see that appeals to me, there's something about what I see that is off putting, right? Whatever it is that's grabbing my attention, because sometimes the thing that grabs my attention is not always that sexy, lovey, sparkly attraction. It's also like, " Oh, that's so awful, but I can't stop staring at it." Or even gossip, or criticism, judgment. That can also be a different form of attraction because I can't get off of dumping on whatever this is. But when it's got its hook in me, what I try to do, or what I... The process I'm trying to create for myself, is getting curious about, " Oh, what is this? What's it revealing to me? What does this mean?" And it could be there's a bias I need to explore, or an insecurity that this is revealing, or healing that I haven't fully acknowledged that might be worth taking to the next step. And it can also reveal this is an instinct that I can't deny that I have to follow. So I don't always know the result of what that attraction is, but it's a place to start a conversation with myself, for sure.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I love that. And just peel the layers back and see what's in there. And I think from a therapy perspective, it could really help you unpack some of those inner voices that we have grown to accept as our own, but were not our own, but were placed within us, right?

Danielle Ireland: Oh, yeah.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I'm starting to do some work in the last couple of weeks with my coach, and just with my daily talk with myself and God about affirmation and what that means to feed your subconscious with a sense of your own inner knowing that you can tap into, because I didn't grow up in a family that was... We were just a hard working farm family, and the way you loved each other was to tell them to get their ass back to work. I mean, there wasn't a lot of, " Good job." That just wasn't a thing. And so I realized that I had become... I had begun to deflect compliments and deflect affirming comments, and when I do it with... I'm sure you get this too, right, with yourself. I can do great things with my clients, but sometimes with myself, I have to stop and go, " Oh wait." Because I'm always saying to my clients, " Well, what do people compliment you on? That's a sign of what you're good at." And I realized that when people complimented me, it made me uncomfortable. And I thought, " I can't do that," because those compliments are meant to inform me and my subconscious when I need it later to borrow that confidence from that, right? And so, it's this curiosity, that's what led me to this place of doing this work. And I've only been working on it for about a week and it's making a significant differences in my life.

Danielle Ireland: That's great.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: But because I was curious, I just asked myself, " Why do I feel uncomfortable when people give me compliments?" And I just started to follow that thought around in my own head in my journal for a little bit. Then I was like, " Oh, well what's that going to get me or not get me if I continue to do that?" That's the kind of curiosity with yourself that I think is so powerful.

Danielle Ireland: I mean it really, really is. And I think that's such... And to never lose that curiosity, that's because the work, and I use air quotes with this, the work is never done. And I'm trying to find a better word than work, especially because I find with the... Whether I'm working with a couple, or with an individual, there's a lot of weight. There's a lot of attachment to what work means, and what that looks like. And so I know marriages are work, and relationships are work, and you got to work hard. And you know for entrepreneurs, hustle, grind, work, work, work. There's there's so much attached to that. And I think maybe in particular why I'm more curious about wanting to find a different way to navigate where I fit in that space too is that so much of my identity, I had no idea how much, but being pregnant and actually wanting to conceive. I was pregnant a year and a half ago, and I lost that pregnancy. And so then being on this fertility journey, and now I'm literally bursting with child.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Literally. Yes.

Danielle Ireland: Yes, I'm the nearly crowning on your show.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Exactly.

Danielle Ireland: Yes. So in realizing, it took these life events, and also my desire for what I wanted to make. And it's making me confront, or I should say, it's inviting me to confront all of the ways I used to define myself and my worth. And I had no idea how much of that was attributed to what I produce, or how much I earn, or how many people I impact, or how many people know about what I do. How seen I feel I was, how accepted I felt I was. But it had... Being seen as someone who works hard was a big, big part of that identity. And by nature of what my body needed, the type of healing my body needed, the type of space I needed to grieve, and then also to navigate all the changes that these last nine months have brought, it's just, it's really made me challenge a lot of those limiting beliefs that I didn't even know that I had. And that I would even go as far as to say that I was proud of. I mean, because that's a big part of the narrative of my family, working hard, working through sick days, you're never sick. And again, there's certainly value to work ethic in that, but I think what I like about approaching even something that was intended well, that was modeled for me with love through my own family, approaching it with curiosity helps me not get locked into judgment or criticism, because I don't need to judge what was right for someone else in their life in order for me to make a different choice, but for me, curiosity feels like choice.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Absolutely. I use a framework with my clients, called Business Is Human, where we just have two columns. One is the business needs are to control, measure and optimize. That's what a business should and does. Should do and does. Humans are personal, emotional and social. So the needs are very different. But if we can learn how to combine those needs in a beautiful way, everybody wins. And what you're describing is the way that the industrial age of work manifested then into the way we educated it's we are locked into this control, measure, optimize as a measure of our humanity and our success. And especially for us career professionals. And what you've done is you've switched over to the human side and said, " I care so much about creating this life that I want so much that I'm not willing to do that anymore because I'm going to nurture. And I'm going to feed my soul, and my body, and my spirit to make sure that I can be a healthy mom." And we can do that every day in really challenging careers once we know the difference. We got to have both, we just can't confuse the two.

Danielle Ireland: I love how you broke both down. I have not heard that before. And yeah, it's really good. It's really good Rebecca. So I need to have that written down somewhere because-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Well, the book's coming out in sometime in the... Yeah.

Danielle Ireland: Yay. Oh, I'm so excited for you.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah, I'm just finishing it up.

Danielle Ireland: Well, I'm excited to learn from you, and quote you, and all of that fun stuff

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: crosstalk girl.

Danielle Ireland: That's so exciting. Congratulations. Early... And because you need the congratulations-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Because I receive it because it's been a... I hate to use the word labor of love while you're sitting there about to go into labor because I shouldn't compare my book to your baby. But-

Danielle Ireland: You've also delivered your own baby so-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Delivered a couple of them too. But yeah, it really is, it's been a lot of love, which sometimes love is a struggle too. So thank you for saying... I received that. I receive that compliment.

Danielle Ireland: Good. Well I am so glad you do. And I will say that, that shift, I don't know, I think it took... And this is why talking about attraction, why I love talking about attraction is that in my case, shifting from the career focus grinding, hustling, entrepreneur space, to letting myself accept and acknowledge that I also have this other aspect to me too, that didn't come purely out of attraction. That knowing largely came out of grief. So I mean, I think I was so afraid to acknowledge to myself that I wanted this. And it took losing the first pregnancy for me, unfortunately, it took that loss to realize how much I really, really wanted it. And so I think that attraction is certainly a more enjoyable experience. And it's more, I don't want to have to wait for life to knock me upside the head. I'd love to be a more active, gracious, and generous participant in my life and my learning, than have to get knocked upside the head to really wake up to my own truths. And so, not to say, I mean, I do think sometimes life does present you with big lessons, or through your own actions and choices. And I mean inevitably, the truth is revealed. I think who knows when? Who knows where? Inevitably, the truth is revealed. And I mean definitely, working couples through affair recovery has taught me that. Inevitably, the truth will always be revealed, either the truth of the experience or the truth of how you feel about it. And in that one part of my story, it took loss. And the lesson and the value I hope to continue taking from that is, how can I continue to be more curious about myself, curious about my experiences, curious about what I'm feeling? And then what would it look like for me to honor and act on that knowing, moment, to moment, to moment? Because it's just a bunch of little decisions that ultimately lead to something bigger. And what's wild, Rebecca, what's so wild is I was so terrified, truly. And I can admit this now because I mean, again, she's about to arrive, so there's no backing out now. But the way that I thought motherhood would look five years ago, when I was trying to... I was rushing through getting through the end of my master's because I realized that I started to have the internal dialogue, " I think I want to become a mother," around the same time I realized this career shift I wanted to make. And then what really jump started my anxiety was, " I'm in my early 30s, and eggs, and biological clock, and oh my god, oh my god." So I was trying to build a business and also get to the finish line as quickly as possible, to then feel secure. Which is insane, right?

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That's the control, measure, optimize. We have an infatuation with time.

Danielle Ireland: Yeah, oh yeah.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That's the measurement that all things should come by. And it's a real struggle. I totally get that.

Danielle Ireland: I had a very conditional view on what I needed to have set in place before I could also pursue this other aspect of my life. I thought, " Okay, I just have to get my career set." I mean think about the delusion of what I just acknowledged. " I have to get my career set and locked in place before I can also do this other thing." Oh my word, it's so comical.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Well, I was in a big corporate career when I was got pregnant with my first, with Cameron. And because I had had some endometriosis and some different things. My doctor said to me, " Hey, it could take you up to a year to conceive. Keep that in mind as you all are planning, blah, blah, blah." When we had gotten married, I was no spring chicken. And so we said, " Okay, if it's going to take us a year, then we should probably go ahead and think about this." So I got pregnant six weeks. It was not in my planner, Danielle. It was not in my planner. I like you, I had a career, I had my Franklin planner, I had a plan, and I had thought, " A year. Okay wait, if it's seven months..." Six freaking weeks. And I was in such denial, because same thing, I was like, " I'm not ready. I'm not ready, but you can't back out." I'm like, " Okay, here we go." But I was cranky about it at first.

Danielle Ireland: Yeah. Because you're like, " That wasn't my plan."

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I did. I said to my doctor, " This is not my planner. I'm not very happy with you. You gave me bad advice."

Danielle Ireland: Mm- hmm( affirmative). " This is your fault."

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Doctor's fault.

Danielle Ireland: Your fault.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Dr. Miller. I remember.

Danielle Ireland: I just, I really thought that I needed to get through my clinical hours, get my clinical exam behind me, and then I would feel ready. And there was always another condition. I needed to really establish myself as a speaker, I really need to establish myself and my podcast. It was just one more thing because I think the fear based belief I was holding onto was that I would lose myself completely in motherhood. I think that was the fear I wasn't acknowledging was that I was so afraid that this child will come into my life, and everything that was unique about me, and that was mine would just explode, or just melt away. And so it wasn't until the sweet life that I did get to share 12 weeks with, that ultimately didn't carry through to term, in that grief, the gift in that grief was that, for the first time that I can remember probably since I was a child, the ego was silent, my anxiety shut the eff up. And it was still. It was quiet in my head. Not numb. It wasn't quiet because of wine, it wasn't quiet because of white claw. It was still. And it was just so... The word I'm going to use is peaceful. But it was also painful, but it was peaceful in my head. And I realized, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And I pumped the brakes hard on everything, wiped myself of all expectation, social, relational obligation. I just stopped performing probably for the first time since I was 11, because I was a little performer from such an early age and I didn't realize that I was performing so many ways in my life. And grief gave me an invitation to be like, " You want to step out of this bullshit?" And I was like, " Yep."

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yep.

Danielle Ireland: Yep. I do.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That's what the Bible calls a peace that surpasses understanding. That at the time of such turmoil and hurt that you could experience something so beautiful is God's gift.

Danielle Ireland: It was. And again, it certainly, I really hesitate to say that I'm grateful for that because certainly, I'm not grateful that I lost that first life. I am grateful and proud that that experience, I let that experience change me, that I let it affect me. And for that, I am eternally grateful because I know that... I mean, believe me, the ego was back, the head chatter's all back, right? That peace probably-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That's the hard part is it does. It does. It's a constant-

Danielle Ireland: Oh yeah.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah.

Danielle Ireland: crosstalk.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah, but you can go back to it and know it's possible.

Danielle Ireland: Yes, and I felt, I don't know if it's really something I've thought through, but I could feel the difference between that stillness and the noise. It gave me enough cognitive dissonance, it gave me enough space to be able to question that confusion, and that's something I'm constantly revisiting. Constant, constant, constant.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: But... Not but. And what you're describing is available to all of us to question, and to wonder, and to dig deeper. And my biggest concern for my clients and especially for high achieving career women is the frenetic pace of business. We bury all of the ability to do that under a life that's constricted by time, and busy, and I got to get caught up. And caught up isn't a place.

Danielle Ireland: Oh my God.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's just not. It's not a thing. And if we don't infuse our daily lives with a few moments of stillness to wonder, and question, and know ourselves, and even let God speak into that sometimes, or oftentimes if you can, I'm concerned. I have another great business friend like you, Eliza Kingsford, who gets behind the neuroscience of our health and things. And she did a session in our Badass Masterclass, a monthly subscription that I have, where she broke down what happens when we're in decision fatigue, and what happened to us in 2020 as working women, and how we have normalized stress to the point, if we don't infuse stillness, you don't recover from that. It's that critical. We've got to get there. So all this is so tied together. Isn't it always fascinating when we talk about these things. You were off doing great work with your clients, I'm doing great work with my clients, and then we come together, and like this explosion of excitement that I get that we're having very similar conversations because we care so deeply about people's lives.

Danielle Ireland: Yeah, I think that shows, one, how needed conversations like this are. I mean, there's a name for that. There's a phenomenon in science, where scientific discoveries are happening in different parts of the world at the same moment. I don't remember what it's called.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The butterfly effect, is that it? Ish? Maybe?

Danielle Ireland: Maybe. But it's this idea... I mean, because we haven't spoken in a year.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah.

Danielle Ireland: I mean, we haven't spoken in a year.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Right.

Danielle Ireland: And so how do you explain that? Well either it's because we're curious about the same things, we're exploring the same things, we're working maybe with similar populations. The problems are present enough that we're having some more... But still there's also, I do agree, that synchronicity, that unexplainable magic of all of that. And again to bring it to bring it back to attraction, I think that what I love about looking at attraction, desire, values, is that the imagination, and that longing, it's speaking to us all the time. It's just a softer voice than the voice of pain, our internal critic, because I mean our beautiful brains, and I would love to talk to your neuroscientist friend. I'm sure she could totally explain-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I will connect you two on Instagram, especially because I think you'll both appreciate each other's stuff. Yeah.

Danielle Ireland: Yeah, because I'm very much feeler, perceiver. And I'm sure it's... I would love to hear what she has to say grounded in what she understands about the brain, far more than I do.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That's why I love her because she gives me that too.

Danielle Ireland: It's wonderful.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah.

Danielle Ireland: But our brains are essentially, from what I understand, they are so hard wired to manage, protect, and keep us safe from pain. That's why comfort, comfort zones, routine, and predictability feel so safe.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That's my comfort food is an actual thing. She talks about that in the session that we did. Yes.

Danielle Ireland: Completely. Completely. There was a reason why we call it comfort zones and growing pains, because change is hard. But I think, again, what I've really grown to develop a passion for understanding the difference between the pain and fear we actually need to honor, like a predator, a grizzly bear, versus standing up in front of a group, and declaring myself as a person with hopes and dreams. Or public speaking, that level of panic is very different than grizzly bear attack, but our beautiful brains don't always know the difference.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And I think from a career discussion perspective, this is really important because we use the word fear inappropriately all the time. We're getting ready to have our Stand Tall In Your Story event on April 20th, which is the women of Rise And Thrive who are going to stand on stage and deliver a seven minute TED Talk, TED- like Talk, excuse me, that is evoking a ton of what I make sure they call uncertainty, because it's only fear if there's a tiger on stage or a tornado is coming, right? And if that's not the case, really, it's just the uncertainty of I don't know if this is going to go okay, and I feel really vulnerable and uncomfortable. And the reason I designed this experience was to step into that discomfort because on the other side of it is this magical place of feeling more confident, and most importantly, that somebody in that audience needs to hear what they have to say, and getting them past the uncertainty and the discomfort is where connection happens too.

Danielle Ireland: Well not only connection but I think that that is where true esteem is built. It's not actually... I love that, complete is not... What did you say? Complete is not a destination?

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Caught up isn't a place.

Danielle Ireland: Caught up isn't a place. Okay, that's so good. Caught up isn't a place. And I think that, too, we never really arrive in confidence. We don't arrive to self esteem. What I have found, and this may be me acknowledging my own bias through my own experience, but I really, I have a hypothesis that I'm still, I'm pretty sure that this is true in other people's experiences too, that part of why I love talking about process versus destination is that my confidence in myself is not in my ability to complete a task like I thought it was. Nor do I find any relief in the completion, because what I have found about myself is I'm already 10 steps ahead of the next thing that, by the time I've already done all the things I said I was going to do, no celebration, no confetti poppers, no champagne because I'm 10 steps ahead.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And aggravated that you feel behind for the 10 steps that you-

Danielle Ireland: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yes, yes.

Danielle Ireland: Oh, yeah, 1, 000 million, trillion percent. But in the process what my confidence and esteem have really come from knowing and trusting in my own ability to handle challenge. And so the whole thing about uncertainty, challenge versus fear, I really tried to help remind my clients and myself over and over that the process of change will always be the process of change. There will always be an element of discomfort, not necessarily pain, and it may be like the amount of discomfort that you feel when you're doing a little bit of stretching, right? So it's manageable discomfort, but it's discomfort. Like stretching and hot yoga for me is different than a 90 minute massage, right?

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Right, right.

Danielle Ireland: It's just a different thing. But what I'm learning to really trust is in my own ability to to face it, or to acknowledge it, or to step into it. And if I can honor that as part of the process and it doesn't have to stop me, shut me down, paralyze me, or make me want to run for the hills like it has done in the past, activating all my fight, flight, or freeze.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Right, right.

Danielle Ireland: Yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I love that. And I do, I just am in awe of the fact that we are talking about such similar things and we haven't seen each other in a year, other than on the book of faces, and the Instagrams of world.

Danielle Ireland: Social Media.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yes, I love you so much.

Danielle Ireland: I love you. I love talking about this. It just gets me so excited and-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Same. I've already got two or three things that I'm going to write down for future episodes. So once you get that baby out into the world, maybe we can just bring her on the podcast.

Danielle Ireland: I would love. And I would that. And I would also love to have you on Don't Cut Your Own Bangs. I think that my listeners would love to hear... because I think that the best things bear repeating, right? I love Elizabeth Gilbert, I love Renee Brown. I love Glennon Doyle, I love Oprah, I love Marie Forleo, right? And they all talk about sometimes similar things, but yet they're so unique because it's coming through the filter of them, which makes it different.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Absolutely. Absolutely yes. Consider me confirmed. Yes, I would love to do it. Thank you so much. Thanks for being you.

Danielle Ireland: Thank you.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The world needs you. Thank you.

Danielle Ireland: I will graciously accept that. Thank you.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Oh

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: my gosh. Is she not just the most amazing human? Okay, so go follow all the links in the show notes so you can check out Danielle, and all of the amazing things that she's doing. Check out the Stand Tall In Your Story event. Y'all I'm not kidding. So in the link you can watch the stories from last year to get a sense of what this event is all about. And I would love for you to be there live if you are in Indianapolis. But if you're somewhere else in the world and you want to jump in for the live at home experience, here's the deal. It's not some boring snooze Zoom meeting. It is a trademarked storybook platform with my partners from Cantaloupe. TV, and it will be engaging and fun, I promise. Alright y'all. Until next time, make a great day.

Speaker 1: (singing).