628: The Inner Work That Awakens Your Highest Self with Danny Morel

0:00Hello and welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast, the show that empowers you to wake up to your full potential and achieve your biggest goals and dreams. I am your host, Hal Elrod, and I invite you to join us each week as we share actionable strategies to take your life to the next level, as well as interview world-class experts and entrepreneurs who have achieved extraordinary goals themselves and we ask them to give you a peek behind the curtain and teach you exactly what you need to do to do the same. Ready? Today on the Achieve Your Goals podcast, I am sitting down with my friend Danny Morrell to talk about what it really means to awaken your highest self, not the Instagram version, not the motivational quote version, but the real inner work, the healing, the identity shifts, the moments where you're forced to confront the beliefs that are quietly running your life. We're diving into his new book, Awaken Your Highest Self, his three-part framework of

1:03Awaken, heal, transform, and yes, we're even talking about plant medicine, specifically Ayahuasca and how that is transformed his life. This one is deep. Let's go. Danny, it's going to be with you, brother. Glad to be here. I remember when I had you on my show, so this is cool. Yeah, it's a full circle moment. Well, I'm a fan. I'm a fan of you as a person, as a friend, your work. Now I'm a fan of the book. I just, I finished this a few days ago. I'm on my second. Go around. I mean, dude, if you look, I'm not, if anybody can see, but like the amount of underlines. Wow. It's pretty much the, it's just, there's like more underlined and circled than there is not. So yeah, man, I was excited when I heard this book was coming out because of who you are. So yeah, thanks for putting it out. Number one. Thank you. Before we dive into this, I want to know a little, for those that don't know you particularly, and of course, you share a lot in the book, but your journey, what led

2:06to you personally realizing you need to do a wake in your higher self. And then beyond that, of course, we get into what led you right in the book. Yeah, I think it's reaching the best way I can describe it. You reach this mountain top that you thought you needed to reach your entire life. And then you get there and you realize, oh my God, like I'm still empty. And that's what happened to me. I had achieved success in business. I had all of the stuff and the million dollar real estate company married, married three beautiful boys. I had just built this beautiful Tuscan Italian home, a custom, like the whole thing, the whole thing. And from the outside, that's right in the dream. Yeah, from the outside, I was living the dream and then, but then my mom passed away, which I share in the book. And I think it opened me up spiritually. And questions started showing up that I wasn't really, I didn't have the courage to answer because I knew the answers. And that's when everything began for me.

3:07Yeah. So, you know, I mean, so for years, you've done your waking events, you hosted the higher self-podcast, which you mentioned that I was on that. So you've been doing the work. And you're, I mean, you have 2.2 million followers on Instagram, like you, you're have a huge following. You impact a ton of people. What prompted you to go? Right. Now's the time to write the book. Yeah. So when people come to awaken your highest self, the event, to me, and I think to the people that show up, it is the most beautiful thing to see because it is, it's literally like taking them on a, a plant medicine journey without the medicine, because we're just starting to, we unravel all of the cocoon that they've built around their mind, their heart, their spirit, their soul for three days. And that's why people literally call it like more powerful than 30 years of therapy in three days because we're going into the depths of who they are and opening that up, causing a metamorphosis quite frankly.

4:08And so I just started getting so many people from all around the world who were like, I wish I could come. I wish I could fly there, but look, the stuff is expensive. Yeah. You got to get your flights in your hotels. Yeah. And so standing that, and I just started seeing so many transformations that I thought to myself like, I just got to get this out to more people. Yeah. And so that's where the book journey began. And listen, I'm just going to share with everyone. I am not, you know, I was about to say I'm not an author, but I am an author. I'm not a writer. Yeah. Like I'm like, just put the people in front of me and I will let it rip. Yeah. So packaging all of that into a book was a process for me. Yeah. I'm with the opposite way. Most authors like they write the book and then they're like, I should do events now. And I should, you know, I should have a podcast and you did all that. What I love about that is, it's one thing to write a book because it's all theory. And it made me not as theory because you've done the work. And you're like, I'm like, you're working for me like, I'm sharing. I know this works. I did it. I shared it with some other people.

5:08It worked for them. But you and I actually want to hear, I love an example. Like you've been doing the work in person three day events with human beings watching them transform, watching them in tears, break down, like right, go deep and then come out better on the other side. Give any, any favorite story of someone that, when your events that went through what you teach in the book and actually came out a better version of themselves? Yeah. You know, there's what I have so many, yeah, yeah, so many. And the reason why I have so many is because it all has to do with your mother and father. So I build the event and the book to get you to that place where the book is going to change your life. It's going to change your life because it's going to take you to all of the parts of yourself that you've been resisting. And part of what we resist is our power. So what just popped in my mind was there was this woman that came from God. I don't know Egypt or I don't know, somewhere in that part of the world.

6:11And she was saying like, you're not going to believe what happened. I said, try me because I've done my 20 of these. She said, I was standing there. You know, I take her through a spiritual journey and Alexandra, the great, was standing in front of me. Okay. And she says, and I realize I'm his ancestor and she says, my whole life, I felt powerless and smaller or lower than others. And I walked up to Alexandra, the great. And I like put my head down and I bowed down to Alexandra, the great. And I already knew what was coming because I understand when spirit gives you these messages, what it's trying to teach you. And she says, and all of a sudden, Alexandra, the great brass me by the chin and by the shoulders and lifts me up and says, you don't bow down to anyone because no one is higher than you. I think that's one of the biggest things that the book is going to help people with. We spend our lives comparing ourselves to others, judging ourselves, being mean to ourselves,

7:17not being loving to ourselves, thinking that we are lower than other people. And then as a result of that, all of that energy creates the life that we live. And the truth is that we are the physical manifestation and representation of the divine. We were perfect from the moment that we were born and we're actually here to remember that. And what keeps us from remembering that is resistance and the energy that allows us to like embody how beautiful and powerful we actually are is allowance, which is the feminine. I love the part of the book where you walk through, you have us imagine being born, right? Imagine a baby being born and you're born into this from a perfect place of love and safety. And now you're, you're separated for the first time. Right. You went from being oneness and wholeness, love and oneness to fear and separation. That's right. And that and that begins a lifelong journey of trying to remember who we really are.

8:18That's it, man. Remember the divine within us. And you talk a lot in the book about the premise of either when the energy of fear and separation or the energy of love and oneness and that that birth example is kind of where it first breaks off. How do we get back to living in a state of love and oneness? What are the obstacles? What standing in the way? How do we get back to that place? Yeah. So I like to take people through a three step process. And the first one is awakening, right? And part of awakening, the first thing you have to do is to question. And I'm talking how question everything, like I started to, yeah. I started questioning. Am I happy? I love what I do. Do I love what I'm in a relationship with? Like, am I living my purpose, right? The answers were no, no, no, right? No, no, no, no, no, no, a lot of notes, a lot of notes. I think that's the first step and the most important step because it's the step with the most afraid to take.

9:18Like we love to believe. We love to believe what the news feeds us. We love to believe what the preacher feeds us. We love to believe. We love to believe us. Well, we're feeding you right now. Yeah. But that's not where your power is. That's why what's happening right now is happening when it comes to gurus is we're starting to realize that like, there is no guru. You are the guru. Yeah. Right? Now, there are guides that can help you remember that. But any guide or any teacher that is trying to get themselves to be your guru isn't coming from love or truth. Because the real teachers, the real healers, the real spiritual people, they just want you to remember that you are the one that you're seeking. Yeah. Like Jesus when he said the kingdom of God is within you. That's right. Yeah. So once you start questioning everything, you really just start to unravel and I would recommend, we take you to this journey, but I would recommend like really question everything. Like, are you happy with the money that you make? Are you happy in your relationship? Are you happy with your body and your physical condition, right?

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11:25you do the same head over to cured nutrition dot com forward slash how that is cured nutrition dot com forward slash how and use the code how it check out for 20% off your entire order. And if you do a bundle or you do a subscription, it stacks on top of that. You get an additional 20% off, check out the flow gummies and their other products as well at cured nutrition dot com forward slash how and enjoy the rest of today's episode. It's brutal on us. Needle on us. Needle on us. Awaken start. Awaken, heal, transform. What are the other parts of the framework? Yeah. And then with awakening, you've got a question, everything, then you discover and you start to really discover where the root cause of a lot of what's holding you back in life actually comes from. So you start to look at your childhood. You start to look at your relationship with your mother and father. You start to look at your masculine and feminine energy and and how really afraid you are

12:25quite frankly. And then you decide. Yeah. You decide what you are going to do with the information that you just got. One of the things that I so as I'm reading the book and the book is like it's deep. It's it's like it's gut wrenching like having you go so deep and into your past and looking at your parents and one thing I'm reading it as is not only me looking at my parents. And I am very blessed at a really supportive mom and dad and there's a line in there where you say something like even if you had a good mom and dad, right? There's still stuff that's and so it really caused it because at first I'm reading them like, nah, my parents were cool. That's right. And then I get to that line. I'm like, okay, let me really be really honest, you know, and then thinking about my mom and dad. And one of the things though that as I'm reading it is I'm not just thinking about my mom and dad. I'm thinking I'm a dad. Yeah. A daughter. And so this is I'm going to have my daughter read this book as soon as she, she's 16 and she's in a phase of like, you know, she was like, dad, I don't read yourself help. Like I want her to read what I want to read. And so I'm like, all right, I'm not going to push hard, but it's like I have a note in

13:27there. Have Sophie. This is one of the first books she will read when she's finally ready for personal development. Thanks. Spiritual development. Yeah. It's a good book. And as I'm reading it, I'm going. I'm just thinking about the trauma that she has from us or the, you know, like from me and my wife or a sled and how hopefully she'll read and go, oh, my mom and dad did the best they can. And they love me. And what did I adopt from them? What did I take on from their unknown wounds that you talk a lot about in the book that yeah, so it'll help help her heal. And I wanted to do it now and not wait till she's 40. That's the thing, right? I'm like, I want her to read this book, awaken yourself and start doing the work now before she has to look back and be like, oh, I screwed up this relationship and this relationship. My married because of what mom and dad didn't know they were doing or imparting on to me. Yeah, that's it, man. And that's, you know, a lot of what's happening right now in the collective is we're all on that journey of unraveling all those wounds. Yeah. And the reason why I put that in the book is because you have no idea how many people

14:30we've helped unlock their fullest potential where they had a great mom and dad. But their mom and dad were just constantly like stressed out, yeah, something as simple as that. Totally. Or their mom and dad unconsciously put their emphasis and energy and love into the sibling that was sick or potentially maybe favored somebody like, yeah, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Or I think a big one is you get a wonderful mom and dad, but they settled for mediocrity. That's right. Like they settled for so much less that they did not see the extraordinary limitless divinity within themselves. And so they just went to the work job they hated, right? The great mom and dad, but like they weren't, they weren't living as an example of what possible. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yeah. That's right. You talk in the book early on and it really sets a great tone and I got a lot from this because it's a great frame. The journey to consciousness and you talk about two types of consciousness, victim consciousness and creator consciousness.

15:31Break those down. Well, victim consciousness, it's not something that you think. It's not something that you, you know, like consciously decide. It's just this overarching energy that you embody and live from unknowingly where you believe that life is happening to you. And so you look at everything from that lens. The wrong person gets elected. Fuck. Yeah. Somebody breaks up with you. Yeah. Yeah. In other words, all of life is happening to me and it's not my fault. And it's not only not my fault. I don't control it and there's nothing I can do about it. Yeah. Yeah. And when you awaken, you actually start to realize that the opposite is true. You start to realize that you are literally creating the attachment to the guy that got elected. You created the situation, win that relationship. You're creating the financial situation that you're in and it's all based off of the

16:35energy that lives inside of you. And that, my friend, when that happens, it's like you just, it's like you just turn a light switch on because you're entire life, paradigm shifts forever. And you can never go back. And it's really one of the beautiful things about awakening. And this is where the second part comes into place is healing. I like to use the example of narcissists. Yeah. It's a hot topic right now. And a lot of people are in the energy of calling their exes a narcissist, which I just want to say, I'm not in any way devaluing your pain, any abuse, anything you went through, but just hear me out here for a second. When you are in victim consciousness, then the pain that you felt from that relationship, you place that pain out there. In this case, you are placing it in a label and in a box called narcissists.

17:36Guess what you're unconsciously doing? You're giving it your power. The only way you can actually change your life is to grab that power back and the pain, bring it right back in here where you've been avoiding, own it, go into it, feel it, process it, understand it, and then uncover all of the parts of yourself that created it. That's the part we don't like to hear. You take ownership. And once you take ownership, it leads you to acceptance. We're instead of like blaming you, accept it as a beautiful part of your life's journey. And as I said, beautiful, because most of the time, the way that we transcend consciousness is through pain, not all the time, but most of the time. And so then when you're able to do that, that leads you to the next layer, which this one for sure is like most people don't ever want to mess with forgiveness. Because when you could see the quote unquote, narcissists as not a narcissist, remove the

18:36layer as a wounded little boy or a girl, preach someone that also must have experience trauma, a broken heart, their heart shattered. And when you can realize that that person now is only being to you the way someone was with them when they were a little boy or a little girl, well, then guess what? You get to find the parts of yourself that sees them, not for this evil human that hurt you, but for a beautiful little boy or girl that was once hurt as well. And when you do that, guess what? Then you get to thank them, forgive them, honor them for the lessons that they taught you in your life, and you're free and you get to move on. And that's the difference between victim and creator consciousness, man, is that when you stay stuck in victim consciousness, I'm just going to say you'll never be free. You will never find peace. You will never find real love because real love allows.

19:36It allows you to feel, to process, to thank, to let go and fear controls. If you struggle to fall asleep or stay asleep, I have a supplement that I take that I've taken for about three years now. Ever virtually every single night, I highly recommend it. It's called nightcaps by cured nutrition. It is a CBN and CBD oil supplement and CBN supports your body's natural sleep rhythms throughout the night for deep restorative sleep that leaves you feeling refreshed and ready to rise in the morning. Highly recommended, I book in my days with cured nutrition, I take their flow gummies in the morning, I take nightcaps at night, and you can get 20% off of both of those products as a listener of the Achieve your goals podcast. Head over to curednutrition.com forward slash howl that's curednutrition.com forward slash howl and use the discount code HAL for 20% off your entire order.

20:36And if you do a subscription, which I do a monthly subscription for both of those products, you get an additional 20% off that stacks on top of the 20% as a listener. So you can save a bunch of money and it will help you fall asleep and stay asleep again. Curednutrition nightcaps in the evening and I start my day with flow gummies every single morning. I hope these products will help you and enhance your life as they have for mine. Enjoy the rest of the episode. Love that. Forgiveness, I see just the way that you explained it as that is the thing that frees us. That's right. When I am the way that I am, right, victim consciousness because of that person, either that narcissist, that was my parent or a next, you know, whoever, and it's like you're hanging on to this pain that it's pain, you're holding toward them, but you're holding it. You're holding it. You're recreating it every thought that you have about that person as the victim that

21:38you are as soon as you forgive. And I love the way to get there is to realize that was just a scared. They were a wounded boy or girl that grew up and then projected their wounds unconsciously onto other people. Not because they were evil because they were flawed heard by the way, how I'm not even saying like I'm not even like making them right for the pain they caused you. No, sure. It's not about them is what I'm trying to do. It's about you. Yeah. It's like what are you going to do for the rest of your life, carry that shit, remember it, a joint narcissist, anonymous fucking coaching club, like, yeah, and what good is that going to do? Yeah. Yeah. Versus you can let go. It's about your freedom. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's so often when we're hurting over someone, it's like they're not even thinking about us. Right? Like they're living their life and you are recreating the pain and perpetuating it indefinitely. And that's why people hate it when I say this because what people actually hate is the responsibility. They hate that they can own it.

22:40They hate that they can transmute it. Understand how deep this is. If you get to own this and you get to transmute this, guess what else you get to own and guess what else you get to transmute your whole entire life. So it literally shatters people's entire paradigms. And they don't like it, yeah, because it's like it's responsibility, which is weight, which is fear, which is what if, you know, I've been able to blame them, which is a really safe place to be. And it's easy. Yeah, it's easy. It's painful, right? But it's easier, but it's easier. It's easier. I don't have to look within. That's right. Right? I just keep it's their fault. So I get to stay in my story, get a little bit of attention from other people for it. That's right. For me, what helped me bridge the gap with forgiveness was this paradigm that if I had to live another person's life, I'd probably be exactly the same as them. Like we judge other people as well, like I would never do that. That's horrible. That's wrong. That's evil. That's bad. It's like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, you didn't go through what they went through. That's right. And if you had, you would have, and if you had their brain and literally process things the way that you, you'd be them.

23:41And so from that place, I feel like we can forgive and love all people because really, oh, yeah. If I had been them, I'd be them. And that's oneness. Oneness is understanding that they are you and you are them. Unpack that, expand on that. Well, it's either we're separate. When we're separate, we get to look at how, as separate than me. And we get to look at who he is and we get to judge him. We get to criticize him. We get to compare ourselves to him. We get to look up to him, down to him. We get to classify him in a box. We get to judge him based off of the color of his skin, how much money he makes, what he does, all of that stuff. When we live in oneness, none of that exists because we realize that how's just doing the best that he can with the cars that have been handed to him, exactly like you're doing. And when you actually sit face to face and you get to meet other people and you get to tell them, like, tell me about your life story, you're going to be astonished by how much

24:45their story is similar to your story. And that's when you finally realize that we're not separate, we're all one. So talk about how you got to this place of higher understanding, higher consciousness, your own awakening, in terms of your journey for those that don't know, even those that do I want to hear it. I know it, but I want to hear it in this moment, which is you were running a billion dollar real estate company. Like you said, you had, you'd built this Tuscan home, you're living the dream, your mom died, you got a divorce. You went through some pain, but how did you bridge the gap from real estate business guru guy to spiritual awakening that's talking right now about oneness and healing trauma and what you're, all of this ayahuasca, okay, yeah, plant, plant medicine, but no, no, that wasn't it. Forgive me. It was the desire for the truth, the desire for the truth is what led me down a path of doing whatever was necessary for me to discover the truth.

25:48Now, when you say the truth, yeah, what do you mean by that? I mean, the truth about myself, the truth about life, I was highly religious. So the truth about God, I didn't want to believe anymore, how I wanted to know, I wanted to know, I wanted to know in here. And since I didn't know how to get there, I actually turned to the thing that I was afraid of the most, which was plant medicine. And the thing that I avoided the most and the thing that I criticized the most and I think that I rejected other people's, yeah, it's the same thing we do with the plants, what we do with people, because it's a frequency that lives inside of us. And that's what most people don't realize. So when I actually realized that I was rejecting and judging ayahuasca, I actually realized that that was the energy that I was living inside of me. And ayahuasca was literally just mirroring back to me who I was as a human being. And once I saw that, I thought to myself, okay, I got to go do it. So this was on my list of topics I wanted to talk about.

26:51And for me personally, I have not done ayahuasca. It's on my list of, I thought, I'm going to rid me. I want to take my dad. I just, you know, I've heard him out in amazing breakthroughs, but I've also heard the opposite side, which is I've heard the pros, the cons. So I want to hear your huge proponent of it. Yeah, don't go there. So talk to you about it. Get the get the get the spots to go to. The commercial spot. Well, look, before we started, you were mentioning that the founder does it every single day. And I don't know the idea. Yeah. Yeah, but whatever. I just, I just, I just think that like you want to be in small, intimate settings where you can trust where there's love. Okay. That's it. So let's start here for anyone who is not familiar with ayahuasca, maybe they heard of it. Maybe they've never even heard of it. Is it? And why are you? How did you discuss? How old were you when you discovered it? And why are you such a proponent, such a fan of it? Yeah. Ayahuasca is a plant medicine that comes from a vine in the Amazon jungle that when you

27:54drink the medicine gives you direct access to the divine direct access to, in this case, Ayahuasca is the feminine energy of God. And they call it mother, right, or grandmother, the mother, grandmother, or energy. Yeah. So imagine being held, being taught, sometimes being reprimanded by the feminine energy of all of creation. That's how profound it is. I found it seven years ago or so right after my 40th birthday. But I just came back this weekend from taking my son who was eight, who's 18. Wow. For his first journey. Oh, wow. What was that? I loved it, man. He loved it. Yeah. I have one of my friends. He actually, he was the director of the Miracle Morning movie and his mom was so against anything. Plant medicine, drugs. You call it whatever you want, right? And so she was resistant. He finally took her and she's going again, like it was just transformative. And I want that for my dad.

28:54Let me ask you this. This is personally for me because I've done very high dose of psilocybin, mushroom, magic mushrooms for those who don't know, right? How many grams? I think I did eight one day. That's big. And what I did is I read it some, I can't remember how I got there. But when I was going through chemo, some, either, maybe it was my own idea and a meditation. I don't know. But I was like, I got the idea. I read it somewhere. When I do chemo to do psilocybin, to do mushrooms, to help kind of offset the effects of the chemo. And I was like, I'll try it. And I had this chocolate in my freezer for like a year that somebody gave me. So I have a gram and I'm laying there feeling just the chemo. I filled it to a terrible and like an hour later, I'm like, whoa, I feel great. I spent the whole day in nature and journaling and praying and meditating, right? And I was like, wow, that was amazing. And I can't wait till chemo next month now, because I'm going to do it again. And I kept ratcheting up to two grams and then three and then four and then eventually, it was either six or eight, one of the two. And that was like full blown talking to God. So my curiosity is doing high dose, heroic doses of psilocybin.

29:57How does that compare to ayahuasca? Because I've read it. It's similar. It's similar. But very different. Because every medicine plays a certain role in your spiritual evolution. So mushrooms is more like mental, mind, thoughts. Ayahuasca is more feminine, heart, body, all of that cannabis, by the way, is another great one. I used to judge cannabis. And now it's the medicine that my wife and I use. Like when something's coming up and we want answers, I'll be right back. And we have a room and two hits with the right intention, that's the key. And we go deep into journey, Campbell, which is this little dot right here, because I just did it, is the serum from a frog. And it actually, I've seen people actually purge out chemo from their eyes, like the energy

30:57of all of it just gets released. I might need to follow up with you on that one, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it must be up. Yeah, Campbell, Campbell, Campbell, will, will, Campbell will help you. And yeah, man, and you know, if, if I'm honest, I'm glad we're talking about this, because all of these journeys, the way that it changed my life, that's what actually made me start awake. That's what actually made me do this. Yeah. I remember being ceremony, thinking every human on earth needs to experience this. Yeah. And then I remember thing, but there's no way I'm going to get every human on earth to do this, because it's scary. I understand that. Yeah. And then I thought, what if I made an event that like made people feel like they were getting the experience of plant medicine without the plant medicine? That's what awakened is like, and that's what the book is like. Wow. That's incredible. All right. Let me ask you a question. How many apps are you using for your personal development? Maybe a meditation app like calmer headspace, an affirmation app like I am or think up, a

31:58book summary app like Blinkist, a journaling app like five minute journal, a visualization app like envision an exercise app like seven minute workout and maybe even a habit tracking app to keep it all together. That is a lot to manage and a lot to pay for. What if you could replace all of them with just one app? Yes, it is called the Miracle Morning app and it is essentially seven apps in one hundreds of guided meditations and breathwork tracks, a full library of affirmations plus tools to create your own visualization prompts for 10 key areas of your life. Guided workouts from two to 10 minutes long book and audiobook summaries of top personal and professional development books and a journaling tool with guided prompts, the wheel of life or a blank page to write freely it simplifies your morning saves you money and helps you start every day with clarity, purpose and energy. And it is one of the only apps in this space with a 4.9 out of five star rating. Try it free for seven days.

33:00Just search Miracle Morning in your app store or go to Miracle Morning app dot com to get started. All right, back to the show. Now, for anybody listening that is like five minutes ago, we started talking about they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? Like this took a turn. I wasn't expecting this. Let me share my opinion on it. The way I explain it. So a couple of things. One is, you know, the US government classified these thing drugs, of course, right? And they're like made in lab, meth, it made in a bathtub, horrific. And then things that grow in the ground that God or mother earth created. And they're all in the same category, right? So that's like I always say, there's that's why they call it plant medicine. I'm glad there is that category now versus it all being lumped into drugs. That's number one. Number two, when I had, when I was getting chemo, and I was on death doorway, man, I was 125 pounds, I lost, I mean, 40 pounds less than this. And I'm already thin, right? I'm like, and they accidentally a nurse one day was supposed to inject chemo into my spine to keep the cancer from going to my brain stem, right?

34:00Just so it's horrible. And she missed my spine and injected it into my nerve along my spine. And this caused me to go into these horrific migraines. I got migraines as a kid growing up. I've never had anything like this. And it was, it was 24 hours a day for like seven or nine days, something like that. It was horrible. There's actually seen in the Miracle Morning movie where I gave my dad, my cell phone. I said, Dad, I want you to film me right now, he goes, you're in bad shape. Why? I said, because I've been recording all these videos of me, like my positive mindset around this. I'm like, this is the low it. I've never felt so horrible. I want to capture this. Right. Good. So he captured it. So they send me home to the apartment near the hospital. I'm like seven days and they tried morphine, oxy cotton to help the pain. Nothing worked. Nothing worked. And I'm in so much pain. I'm crying. I'm like, I can't eat. I'm losing more weight. My wife is three hours away. I wear in Houston. She's here in Austin. And so my dad puts me in a wheelchair, takes me out to the car, drives me to the apartment.

35:01And I go and I'm sleeping. And he's trying to feed me and I can't eat. I can't even, I got an eye mask on. I got ear plugs in. I got white noise on high, blinds up. So much pain. And after a day or so, and so I'm like eight, nine days in this now, my dad finally goes, how, what about that marijuana that your friend dropped off for you? And I go, yeah, yeah, I'll try anything and I hadn't done marijuana in probably years. And so it was so funny because my dad had never done marijuana in his life. And he's like, so what do I, I have like his pipe in this baggy, what do I do? I'm dealing with a pack of little bowl. And I take two hits off of the marijuana and keep, again, so five minutes later, my dad leaves, five minutes later, maybe 10 minutes at the most, I feel fine. I sit up, I walk out, I go, dad, I'm starving, made me some food and his faith, I mean, he just, you know, he's been watching me for over a week right in this state of state of fine. And so how many days was it? Probably seven. Oh, is there a spiritual, it may have been seven, but yeah, I'd have to go back and see

36:03if I could find it. But so my dad makes me food. I call my wife and I'm like, hey, sweetie, she goes, what? How are you talking right now? I'm like, yeah, I took two hits of marijuana, a plant that grows in the ground. Well, we'll get that later. Not pharmaceuticals that are damaging my liver, that they're pumping me full of. And I'm fine. That's right. And my appetite's back. My pain's gone. I'm fine. And certainly I share that story as like that was a paradigm shift of I'm like, so wait a minute, you're telling me that I was two hits away from total relief and the pharmaceutical company, right? So that's why I am such a proponent of plant medicine, one of many, many, many reasons like you. It's been transformative for me. It grows from the earth. It's not made with chemicals in the lab. So yeah, man, that's my, that's my soapbox. Just just number one, I couldn't help but think that the same physical pain that you were in was the same emotional pain I was in. That made me say, I'll try anything.

37:04Number two, if you think about it, anything that grows from the earth is literally from God. Is literally from God. And then number three, anything that grows from a lab is literally from man. So it's like this really beautiful divide to see where are you actually living and putting your trust? Is it in man? Is it in the 3D world or is it in God, the divine, the spiritual world? And this is where religion kind of messes with us a little bit because whether we realize it or not, it actually has nothing to do with God. It's like man made, it's a man made creation that keeps you up here. And so so much so that it makes you look at everything that I'm discussing right now and goes, no way, it's evil, I was that way. I would just ask you to feel, that's it, I would just say feel. We have forgotten to be human beings and we are now human thinkers and we spend so much

38:07of our times thinking and in our minds that we have forgotten that we can also feel. We can also intuit and you can feel if what I'm saying is dangerous or evil or bad or if it feels actually safe, maybe a little scary, but safe, that's right and that's where you know and you discover your truth and you stop believing is by trusting what you feel. Let's talk about that because that is one of my favorite topics when whether it's even just watching your social media videos or interview clips of you talking about God and connecting with the divine within us, I like the frame you mentioned believing, which is most of our beliefs around God are literally beliefs that somebody else told us. What do you believe? What my mom and dad told me and then what I heard and what I read and what's like, do you connect with God like directly? Jesus said, the kingdom of God is within. Are you connecting directly? Well, no, I just read my works and I go to church and I listen to the right and nothing

39:10wrong. No judgment against that. No, no, no. And I actually just want to say like I honor that. That's where you're at. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's value there. So what I'd love to hear you just talk about how the journey, the spiritual journey, in fact, let's just go there. The spiritual journey you went from by the book very, very religious. I was very, yeah. And then to where you're at now and anywhere in between. It's the difference between living your life from the outside in or the inside out. Okay. Talk about that. It's the difference between living your life from needing or being free. It's quite frankly the difference between searching and having found. In the external, there's always going to be things there for us, waiting for us to take our energy. It can be pornography, it can be drugs, it can be our looks, it can even be our relationship

40:11and it can even, yeah, be belief. And what we don't realize until hopefully we do is that whenever we are dependent upon something outside of us, to sustain us. In this case, whether it's pornography, alcohol, a relationship, forgive me for bunching it up into this, but religious beliefs, what we are unconsciously living is a life that is dependent upon the exterior, the outside. The answer is out there. Yeah. That means you're powerless. Now what if someone is saying, well, that's blasphemous, that God, yes, God is out there. God is the crew. I would ask you the question, where did you get the idea that it's blasphemous? Because not taking the COVID shot was blasphemous. Being a bad boy or girl right before Santa Claus came was blasphemous.

41:15It's control. It's control through fear. So if I tell you that something is evil or blasphemous or whatever, and you are not here, guess what you're going to do? Yes, sir. I guess it must be. I'm asking you, challenge it, question it. If it's so right, you're going to find the truth. And that's what people are afraid of. Do you know Aaron Apke? Yeah, I do. Yeah. I love Aaron's teaching on this right that he's like, I left the church to follow Jesus. Right? Like actually following Jesus' teachings versus what my pastor told me that I was separate and that I was bad and that I was flawed and that I was a sinner and that, you know, and it's like, Jesus didn't say those things, right? And I'm going to take it a step further. If Jesus were here right now, he wouldn't want you to follow him. Jesus' actual message was one of discovering the truth, the divine and your power within yourself.

42:15If you think about it, like what kind of human being gets crucified and then says it's okay. Like they don't know what they're doing. What kind of human being is being murdered and still loves his brother and sister. That's someone that had discovered that his power was in here. That's what he kept talking about. Jesus didn't want followers. He wanted you to become the highest version of yourself because someone that can, is becomes the highest version of themselves. The last thing on earth they would want is a follower who are right back to guru because they don't want you to everyone, they don't want everyone to awaken to the highest version of ourselves. Now you got it. Yeah. And then you wrote the book called Awaken Your Highest Self. What are the big, I mean, we've talked a lot about a lot of things that are covered in the book that are addressed. What are the biggest themes or messages or takeaways that you want people to gain from this book?

43:16I think number one is you can either live in fear or love. That's the biggest thing and I'm just going to just say that right now humanity is literally in the process of shifting from fear to love. You're seeing it happen. You're seeing it with Epstein. You're seeing it with like all of the stuff that's coming out. It's like the truth is coming out and it's coming out so that it could finally click inside of you that everything that you've been dependent on is actually full of shit. Yeah. Living in the matrix that the government's in charge and they're looking out for our best interests. All of it. And let's just talk about the energy. The energy that causes you to be dependent upon everything out there is fear because you're afraid deep inside of yourself that you are not powerful enough to be the own leader of your own life. Love allows you to be that leader. Love also allows whatever is happening out there to happen and it doesn't necessarily

44:21have to impact you. Like I know things are happening out there but it doesn't bother me. I don't give it any of my energy. It's interesting. I think it's funny I've fallen more into the trap of paying attention to what's going on and maybe giving some power away meaning I remember for most of my life. I'd paid zero attention to politics and people like this person I'm like I don't care who gets elected. I create my life. That's right. Doesn't matter who's in office and what they're doing and like not that it doesn't matter but doesn't matter in my life like I am the creator of my life. That's right. And I will adapt to whatever new regulations or rules are put in place like all figured out and all create the life that I want. And your point I think about how many people are like they give away their power to fixated. Yeah. Fixated. And then I fell into this 2020 as I started to like wake up I was like wait a minute what's going on. I think it was when we got locked in our house I'm like oh this is actually affecting me for the first time ever like where I know there were tax policies and stuff but like this

45:22is like directly affecting I'm being told what I can and can't do and that's actually what sucked me in and maybe for a lot of people 2020 was a shift in so many ways. I think in some ways our consciousness was elevated and expanded and we started to see the veil being pulled back. But I think also at least I could say I'm guilty. I was pulled into it way more than I ever had been before and I'm like wait what's going on? Who's Epstein? What is what they're doing? What? Yeah. So it's interesting. How do you define freedom? And I want to ask in the context of feel free to share like you're living a beautiful life right now. Not just with the you know the success and all of that. But like you're married to an amazing woman in Jen. You have a daughter that you received a message during I think it was a plant ceremony journey that you were going to marry this woman have this daughter. So what does freedom look like to you and your three boys? What does freedom look like to you? Freedom looks like going into the depths of who you are and disconnecting yourself from any fear energy within you.

46:26The fear of being yourself, the fear of speaking your truth, the fear of loving someone fully, which is a very deep fear for people, the rejection, the fear of being loved, the fear of being abundant and disconnecting yourself from anything external that you are currently dependent on. That's when you're free. I love that. And what are some practices to do that in the book you talk about life's medicines and you've got yoga and meditation and breath work and and the plant medicines, you know you cover kind of the whole gamut, but what are some practices for people? I legitimately say that I say this humbly, but I really believe that the book is a great practice in and of itself because it's going to take all of this and make it applicable to your life. And it's going to make you start like you're going to have an experience like some things are going to come up. But you know, man, I think I'm going to answer that question this way. I think that the only practice you need to worry about is the practice of unraveling

47:30any blockages around your heart. How that looks for different people, it's going to look different for different people. But as long as that's your commitment, then the how will show up? The practice for you will show up because maybe it might be different for me than it is for you. And that's okay. Yeah. Yeah. So to wrap up a weight kit, we've got the three part framework that is central to your work. Awaken heel transfer. Awaken heel transform. What's left to be said on that? Well, we talked about awakening. And the final step of awakening is to decide, like decide what you're going to do. Are you going to take the red pill or the blue pill? That's really the moment, by the way. And then you go in and you start to heal. And you start that journey by going deep into the parts of yourself that you discovered in the awakening were fragmented. And you go repairing your inner child. You go rebalance your masculine and feminine energy. And then finally, you transform. And that starts with integration, integrating everything that came up for you during the

48:31healing journey. It also goes into you creating life from this new perspective, not from the afraid version of you, not from the separate version of you, but from this new whole version of you. And I'd like to say that that's, I think, the most beautiful part about the journey is that most of the time what we want isn't what we actually want. Is what the wounded little boy or girl inside of us wanted or was searching for when they didn't get love? And if you are going out living life from that energy, you ain't never going to find it because they didn't out there. It's in here. I love it. That was one of my favorite. I was watching. I think it was, I was you and on Lewis House show. And I think you might share the story in the book too, but you were asking God, when am I going to find the one? Where is the one? When I write, and the hand goes up literally, my hand literally went like this, and it comes back. It literally how was like this and I'm like, crying my eyeballs out.

49:32That's when I like, yeah, because you find the one when you realize that you don't need the one because you are the one and any one that you would add into your life, a partner or a significant other is just to compliment your wholeness, your affinity, right? Hold on. Let me say it drops the book over here. The book is available at AwakenBook.com. That's right. And anything else that you want to leave, people with man, I highly recommend this book y'all again. I'm having my daughter read it. It is awaken your highest self, the limiting beliefs that keep you stuck and the heart work that sets you free. It is deep. It is a life manual. Like, so I'm going through it again. It's one that I think I'll just keep studying, keep doing the work. It's not one where you, yeah, you don't just read it and go, yeah, I was good on. It's like, wow, this book is deep. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate it. Oh, I would just say pick up a copy. I think it's going to take you, yeah, into the parts of your life that you've been trying to figure out, but haven't had like that guide. This isn't motivation. This isn't rah rah. This is deep. Yeah.

50:32It's going to cut and take you to the root, but that's actually what you want, because that's how you change your life. Indeed. Yeah. All right, Danny, love your brother. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. All right. Until next time. Yeah. And more about the Achieve Your Goals podcast and to get access to today's show notes, transcript, and exclusive content from Hal Elrad, visit Halelrad.com forward slash podcast. Thanks again for joining us. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the Achieve Your Goals podcast.