Understanding This Will Save Years of Your Life with Donna Bond

Donna Bond 0:00
When we can align ourselves with our soul, our higher self, our original wisdom, that part of ourselves, which is comprised really of unconditional loving, that part of ourselves is neutral.

Alex Ferrari 0:31
I've been able to partner with Mindvalley to present you guys FREE Master classes between 60 and 90 minutes, covering Mind, Body Soul Relationships, and Conscious Entrepreneurship, taught by spiritual masters, yogi's spiritual thought leaders and best selling authors. Just head over to nextlevelsoul.com/free

I like to welcome to the show, Donna Bond, how you doing Donna?

Donna Bond 1:08
Hi, Alex, thanks for having me here.

Alex Ferrari 1:11
Thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm really glad you come on the show. I think it's gonna be a really interesting conversation. We're going to talk about a lot of stuff in your book, original wisdom. And in your journey to this, this magical place you are right now I know. We just been talking that you are in, in Costa Rica because somebody has to live there. Live here. It depends almost got to live in paradise. So it's, it's It's always fascinating. I'm hoping to get down there soon. But my very first question is, how did you get started doing this kind of work?

Donna Bond 1:45
Yeah, well, it's a long and winding road. Alec's it's a long winding road. I was a corporate marketing executive and hospitality for about 28 years. And at the age of 44, I was really miserable. And 44 was a really significant age for me, because that's how old my father was when he died. And so when I turned 44, suddenly, I was in a really big rush to figure out, who am I, what the hell am I doing here? What is my life about? And, you know, I had a big job, I like to say, I was a middle class ladder climber, you know, I worked my way up, I had my head down, and my high heeled shoes on the ladder, and I just kept climbing. And, you know, have this great multiple six figure job, working for a world class hotel company, had a lot of prestige, had a lot of, you know, success and notoriety. From the outside, it all looked perfect. And inside, I was deeply unhappy. I was deeply, deeply unfulfilled. Even though at the time I couldn't have told you, that's what it was. But, you know, with all the work I've done and the path that I'm on now I'm I'm able to really point to that, and know that it was like, it was a deep lack of unfulfillment. You know, I just, I wanted my life to have more meaning and purpose and make a difference in the world. And I did not have the belief system or the framework that couldn't even begin to open up a door to a life like that. So I went to go see a psychic, which I had done many times before in my life in my, in my history, it was sort of part of me that I kept in the closet locked up. And this woman said, Donna, they're spelling it out for me, spiritual psychology. And I said, What in the hell is spiritual psychology. And she went on to say, there's three universities that teach a program in spiritual psychology. And she gave me the names of two of them and she never gave me the name of the third one because we got talking about something else and got distracted. And I went home and consulted the other Oracle. I googled it, and very quickly found my way to the University of Santa Monica. And after an incredible amount of patience on behalf of an admissions counselor there who talked to me for months about enrolling in this program, I had to work through my egos 101,000 re sense why that didn't make logical sense in my life? What in the hell was I going to do with a master's degree in spiritual psychology? When I was in hospitality? None of it really made any sense. But there was this poll, right there was this, yes, that I was drawn to. And even though it was scary as hell, and it was a big investment, you know, from a time perspective and a money perspective. This woman said to me, Donna, why don't you come for one weekend and see what happens. And that changed my life.

Alex Ferrari 5:47
Wow. You know, it's so interesting. I can't tell you how many people I've had on the show, who, on the outside, had everything, had the job, had the money and the career, and they were miserable, absolutely miserable. And I had similar issues with my career as well. I guess it's also at the top. The, it always happens around midlife. In a weird way, isn't it? It's the one thing I've noticed now. Like, it's a weird thing, like when you go you late 30s, early 40s, you start because you've been hustling so hard, so long, that you don't have a moment of breathing because you're like, I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go, gotta go, gotta go. And I got to do everything. I've been taught all my life that I have to keep doing. I don't know what in that time period that you know, you just stop and go, huh? You know, and some people happens in the 50s. But generally speaking, once you get into late 30s, in the 40s, you you reflect for a minute, because you've been pushing for 20 years, 25 years, you've just been constantly pushing and push. It's really It's fascinating to me.

Donna Bond 6:59
Souls code, souls code.

Alex Ferrari 7:04
So okay, so you talked about spiritual psychology? What is spiritual psychology?

Donna Bond 7:10
Yeah, well, it is this beautiful modality. I, you know, I like to think of it as a conversation modality, it was innovated, and pioneered by doctors Ron and Mary honeck, at the University of Santa Monica. And they have been facilitating programs in spiritual psychology for nearly 40 years. And it really is the study and the practice of conscious awakening. But it's being able to see our lives through the spiritual context, or through the lens of our soul. And it teaches us that every single thing that's happening in our life, and I like to say, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and I'm from Connecticut, originally, so I say the super wicked ugly, that everything that's happening is happening for us for our growth, our learning our evolution, giving us the stepping stones that we need to evolve into our next level of potential into fulfilling or realizing our intelligence.

Alex Ferrari 8:29
Interesting so when you say spiritual is a lot of people have different definitions of spiritual you meaning it basically looking at it through your souls I like kind

Donna Bond 8:39
of Yeah. And my definition is the relationship that we have with the energetic part of us. Right? We have this lifeforce breathing us, we have this spark of all that is spark of the divine animating this physical shell, that we wear this disguise that we show up in and that energy is alive, right? It has information, it's got resonance and frequency, and it is a living, breathing, moving dynamic. And it is moving through us. And so it's it's having a relationship with that higher part of ourselves.

Alex Ferrari 9:33
Were you a spiritual person prior to this?

Donna Bond 9:37
Yes.

Alex Ferrari 9:38
You always Weren't you so so spirituality was something that was always running in your life. So when you when you kind of came across this idea that things just start to fall into place a little bit more because there's the sense of things that happen. They don't happen to you that happen for you, that switch in and pursue Active changes of life easily

Donna Bond 10:02
changes everything. Yeah, it changes everything.

Alex Ferrari 10:05
How did it affect? How did it affect you? When you? What like was it that lightning bolt that hit you when you were in a classroom, I'm assuming, or reading the book or something like that, that that concept came into your mind into your consciousness and you'd like, oh, and then because there's always those moments of awakening, I guess that would be in a moment of awakening, or to start the process in a very big way. How was that in your own life?

Donna Bond 10:30
In 1989, I was on a plane and I was reading the Seat of the Soul by Gary Zhukov. And I was coming out of my skin, when I read that book. And this was, you know, in 1989, I was like, I was pretty young. I was 20, you know, I was young, and not very well read at that point in my life, and just really starting to sample and dabble in some of these ideas of spirituality and metaphysics. And anyways, I'm reading this book, and I wanted to shake the guy next to me, because I was so excited that somebody put in writing what I have always known inside of me. And that was a real powerful awakening. At that time, I've, you know, have gone on to have a lot of really cool and transcendent experiences. But that is definitely a marker in time of having that, you know, no tangible evidence, if you will, nothing that we can really point to or prove. But my first real knowing that first real knowingness that as I was taking this information into my consciousness, I could feel it moving through every fiber of my being as truth.

Alex Ferrari 12:13
And yet, at that young age, when you heard that and had that kind of moment of awakening, you still had a programming inside of you that kept you on this, this rat race for the next 23 years. 24 years. Isn't that amazing that our programming our, our, our operating system, our subconscious mind, which is where most of this comes from anyway, is so powerful, that even at that young age, when you had an awakening, a spiritual awakening, it did not override that programming that we had. Isn't that amazing?

Donna Bond 12:53
It is amazing. And it I mean, it wasn't even. It wasn't even a possibility in my framework at that time,

Alex Ferrari 13:04
right? Your Mind Your, your free, I like the word framework, the framework of your life, what you thought was possible, did not It didn't even occur to you to walk down. Could you imagine like in that when you're in a 90 day dinner and going, you should go to Santa Monica, and study spiritual psychology. Good. That wasn't even

Donna Bond 13:23
wish that I had. I wish that I had dammit. I'd have a PhD in metaphysics by now. But yeah,

Alex Ferrari 13:33
it wasn't it was it wasn't a path. And I think that's a great lesson for people listening is that that subconscious mind is so, so powerful, that if you don't bring awareness to what's going on, it can control you for decades, and sometimes for the rest of your life. Unless you're able to bring a consciousness or you got so uncomfortable. That you that's what brought it brought it to the consciousness. You were doing it for so many years, and you're just like, but I'm miserable. So the programming was working that software was running. But the program was like, it's crashing, left and right. There's bugs in this programming.

Donna Bond 14:15
Yes, yeah. And you know, and at the same time, as you know, Alex, it's all divinely timed, it is all perfectly timed. And, you know, the work that I'm doing in the world today and the women that I work with, I wouldn't be able to be of service to them. In the same way that I am had I not had 28 years right as a corporate marketing executive. So it's all perfect. It's all perfect. I needed to be asleep for as long as I was asleep. And I woke up at the perfect time.

Alex Ferrari 14:58
Now when you started down the path of this new this new awakened path. I assume that the people around you, not everyone was accepting of this new path. What was it like for you? Psychologically and correct me if I'm wrong, maybe everybody was like go for a girl. But I'm assuming because I'm a human being and been around other human beings, that that's not the probably the case. If that is the case, how did you deal psychologically with either family, friends, colleagues? Going Your? Your effing nuts, what are you doing? You're throwing your life away?

Donna Bond 15:37
Yeah. So I had another profound revelation. And you can read about this. In original wisdom, harnessed the power of the of the authentic you, I was at the University of Santa Monica. And it was I was at the the first year of the program. And I had a massive knowingness to leave my job. And I'm married to an amazing guy, Paul bond. He's a fine artist, he's an oil painter. And when we got together, we met on match.com. That's a whole nother

Alex Ferrari 16:28
story on recession.

Donna Bond 16:31
But when we got married, we made the conscious choice together, that he was going to pursue a career as a fine artist. And I would still like slog off to corporate America. And, you know, there was definitely that moment in time where he's up surfing at 11 o'clock in the morning, and, you know, I'm putting those high heels on the rungs of the ladder again, and again, you know, doing my thing, where I could have had resentment. And I remember sort of having a moment of guidance at that point in my life. And knowing that this was my job, right, like to create this space for this man to birth, what he came here to do on this planet. So fast forward, right, you know, here we are years later. And I have this really profound awareness that I have to leave this job and I don't have a plan. I don't have a clue, Alex, I just know, like, I got to get out of here. And there was no passing go or collecting $200 I was walking away from huge bonus money, you know, huge bonus money. But it didn't matter. Because I had this inner sense of surety and knowing this, and my husband, God bless them. You know, I was like, I was there for you while you were birthing your thing. And now you get to return the favor. And so even though I don't know, it wasn't, it definitely brought up a lot of fear, from a financial perspective, just based on the, you know, the way that we lived in Southern California, the lifestyle that we had, and what I was walking away from, with really no plan to replace it. I hung out a shingle originally as a marketing consultant. Because I had been in the business for 28 years, I had a lot of contacts, it was a great way for me to really focus on my studies at the University of Santa Monica and really devote myself to my spiritual practice and to everything that was unfolding, and still be able to make a buck when, you know, coaching and being a spiritual guide was not even in the view. At that time. It just wasn't. So yes, I did get a lot of pushback, mostly from people that I worked with. Sure. You know, my family has watched me make a lot of crazy moves over the years, not the least of which is like marrying some guy off of match.com I only known him for a month and he proposed to me and I said yes. So yeah, yeah.

Alex Ferrari 19:36
Oh, yeah. That's Oh, yeah. I'm sure the parents love that. The

Donna Bond 19:39
parents Yeah, well, my father God bless him, right. He he didn't live to see it, but my mother was definitely freaking out. My boss at the time was like running a background check on my husband. And my family was like when I you know, quit my job and enrolled. I at USM and I, I enrolled, I enrolled at USM. Before I quit my job, I was like a year into this master's program. Before I walked away from my career. My family was like, yeah, that's just Donna being Donna doing crazy things like, you know, moving to Costa Rica. But I honestly look at this as like sharpening the saw, sure. Stephen Covey's seven habits, seven habits. This is how I sharpen the saw and stay courageous, so that I can really walk the talk of what I'm inviting my clients into.

Alex Ferrari 20:42
Right, it seems to me that you, you, you basically jumped into faith, you jumped into like, I'm, I'm walking down this road, God. So whatever happens in your hands kind of vibe? Seems like you've done that a couple of times in your life

Donna Bond 20:58
at least a couple of times.

Alex Ferrari 21:02
So, okay, so I imagined that when you were going through all this process, there were that negative voice inside of you that we all deal with that kind of critique the the critic that we deal with? What advice do you have for people to quiet that negative self talk the the abuse that we do to ourselves? I mean, I heard someone once say that, if we had a friend who spoke to us the way we speak to ourselves, we would never ever be with that person. Because we're brutal with ourselves. How did you deal with it? And what advice would you be able to give others to quiet that negative talk with someone who's maybe trying to do something similar to you, as far as just breaking free of what they are currently doing to do what is, is their bliss is their mission is their path?

Donna Bond 21:53
Yeah. You have to love her, or him, you know, the way that we relate to ourselves, most of us have been taught to endure that abuse. And we, you know, crack the whip on ourselves. And we've been taught to believe that that's the only way to motivate or to keep ourselves going. But what if we treated that voice with a little bit of compassion, and a little bit of understanding, and a little bit of attention. And what I mean by that is, you know, I hear you, and I hear your fears. And I hear that you're just trying to keep me safe, and that you're trying to protect me. And if I'm honest, I know that those negative things that you're saying to me, are not really true. So I have to sort of call your bluff, but I'm doing it in a way. That's, that's compassionate, and understanding. And, you know, these parts of us are born out of alienation, because we've alienated parts of ourselves. And so, on the path to wholeness. We've got to get our arms around all of those parts, and bring them close, and align ourselves with all of it, because that's what makes us human.

Alex Ferrari 23:45
Gotcha. It is not an easy thing to do. The self talk and the what let me ask you, then how do you how do you love yourself? How do you forgive yourself? Because we beat ourselves up so much for things that we might have done in the past mistakes we would have made? How do you do self love with yourself and forgive yourself for these things?

Donna Bond 24:07
Yeah, well, the University of Santa Monica has a really incredible process. That's called compassionate self forgiveness, that I'm not really at Liberty, to disclose to the whole audience here. But it's a really beautiful process of recognizing the judgments that we have, right? And it's really our ego mind that is running the show that has, has something to say about everything, right, is running around saying what's right and what's wrong and what's good and what's bad. When we can align ourselves with that our soul, our higher self, our original wisdom, that part of ourselves, which is comprised really, of unconditional loving, that part of ourselves is neutral. So that part of ourselves sees everything as neutral, where there is no right or wrong, there is no good or bad. Now the ego can't really get its head around this, because it's so out of what we're accustomed to, and how we live in the world. But we're all part of this one, energy, we're all part of this unconditional loving, and the true essence of each of us, is comprised of this. So when we can call upon that part of us, it's that part of us really, that has the ability to do the forgiveness work, that can look beyond the judgments of our ego mind. And help us align ourselves with like deep radical acceptance, and understanding and compassion.

Alex Ferrari 26:36
Well, a lot of people have a problem with the quote, the quote, unquote, self love of yourself, because they think it's being selfish. As opposed to being loving to yourself, you're like, Oh, you're just being selfish, especially, you know, especially women, that do it to themselves a lot. Because I've raised with women, surrounded by women at this point, I have no testosterone in my life, other than my cat food. So I, I been around women all my life, and I've seen the sacrifices, men do it as well, I've done it as well. But I've seen it very interesting that women who sacrifice themselves, they're like, Well, I'm not going to love myself, because I have to either take care of the family, take care of my husband, take care of my, my, my, my kids, take care of my job. And I And again, men do it as well. But they think it's selfish to take a day off. And something as simple as go to a movie, go to a spa, do something that it fills them up. How can you break free from this kind of mindset?

Donna Bond 27:44
Yeah, well, you know, I think it's important also to really understand, self love. And when we talk about self love, like what is that because it's easily confused with self care. And self care is very different. Right? My, when I think about self love, self love is making a commitment to yourself, and keeping it self love is having the courage to speak up and say that thing that was uncomfortable, but that really needed to be said. Self love, when we're really talking about self love, there, there is an element of reverence for how we understand our human journey, and how we understand the journey that we make as spiritual beings on this epic human adventure that we're all on. And when we can recognize the journey that we make, there's this deep reverence right for our humaneness. And for everything that we go through and all the suffering that we all experience. And I think when we move into that place, self love becomes a completely different paradigm than like taking off the day and going to the spa. Because that's not what I how I view self love. Self Love is like a deep honoring of ourselves, and who we are and all of our parts, not just the pretty shiny, quote unquote, perfect parts, but like, the messy entangled effed up other parts, right that we all have. It's recognizing that we all all have them.

Alex Ferrari 30:01
Gotcha. Okay, that makes like, I think

Donna Bond 30:03
there's like you got to add in honor. And you have to add in reverence and word. When when you add those two elements, or those two qualities into it. It's not selfish.

Alex Ferrari 30:22
It's just again, it's programming, its programming that we're told that you can't, can't love yourself or don't spend time thinking about what's good for you. Think about the community or your family or other people outside of you. Now, we did kind of mention this a little bit the midlife crisis, but you've mentioned before, and I think it might be in your book, midlife versus mid awakening. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like going away, like, is there a difference between a midlife crisis with

Donna Bond 30:57
me that said that? Okay, versus mid awakening? I don't know. It's not ringing a bell for me.

Alex Ferrari 31:03
It's not really. Okay. That might have been a mistake. It might have been a mistake. But I guess we did talk a little bit about midlife crisis and that awakening of having it around that same time?

Donna Bond 31:16
Well, you know, you and I were talking about it before, it's like, you get to this this middle age. And it's like this. Dang, you know, it's like this bell that goes off. And it certainly went off for me. And it was just accentuated by the fact that that's how old my father was. He died of lung cancer, right? He was 44. I was 22. When that happened? And but to your point, I think there's something inside of us, right, that suddenly says that suddenly wakes up and says, like, what is my life about? What am I doing here? What really matters to me, you know, what is really truly meaningful. And at that point in your life, many people have amassed a good amount of material success, right? And they've got like, the big paycheck, and they got the nice house, and they have the relationship, and I got a couple of kids. And, you know, they're on the conveyor belt, and they're going along. And, and I think that that's what promotes part of the problem, right? It's like this hypnotic state that we fall into. And our soul is like, hello, right? Is this how you're going to spend the rest of the time here? Because it's gonna go by pretty quick.

Alex Ferrari 32:44
So that that brings me to my next question, then. So many of us have struggles with finding our true purpose, our true mission, our true path in this life, you know, sometimes we go into marketing, and we become very successful in marketing, but it's not really like you're good at it. You make a living at it, but it's not really what you're here to do. And so is there a way or any advice you could give the audience on how to discover what that mission is? what that path is what that bliss is?

Donna Bond 33:17
Well, first of all, it's not a job. It's not any job. It's not any career, you know, it's not a job. And I and I also would say, it's not something that we do. Our purpose, as I see it, is the true expression of who we came here to be. Right? And it's really about how we show up. Right? It's like what we bring to it. You know, there's a lot of coaches on the planet. There's a lot of spiritual coaches on the planet. But there's only one spiritual coach who has the essence of Donna bond, right? And that waiver that imprint, that energy that you know, and let's call it personality, and, you know, then we get into talking about the ego and the personality, but that is my vehicle. Like, that's the car that I'm moving through the planet with. But there's this innateness inside of me, that wants to express through me. And that is my purpose. And, you know, we come here, I believe that we all have a dynamic code inside of us our intelligence to the fullest realized expression of who we came here. To be in this life, and if we've come here to be an apple, we're never going to be an orange, no matter how hard we try. So I think part of the pie is discovering, like, wow, I'm an apple. So I'm gonna like, be as Apple is I can in this life, and I'm going to express my, my fruit and my colors as an apple in the best way that I can. Because that's why I've embodied and who I've come here to express as Does that make sense?

Alex Ferrari 35:37
It does make sense without a question. But my other to follow that up, though, let's say I discovered I am an apple. But I've been an orange and been acting like an orange for quite some time. How do I find the courage to become the app? If we go down with this metaphor?

Donna Bond 35:57
I love it. Thank you for indulging my metaphor. We just need a little bit of willingness, right? I think the first step is really to recognize that you're not an orange, right? And the way that you would recognize you're not an orange, is that your, your life is out of balance in some way, right? mentally, emotionally, physically, there's, there's something going on, that is not in balance. And that's our first clue. Right? That's what happened to me. When I was at the Ritz Carlton, you know, have this sexy job, I'm in this beautiful resort, I'm working alongside amazing people. But I had this deep discontent. And what was also going on in my physical body was I had cancer growing inside of me that I had no idea at the time, I had no idea. But because I had tried to be in orange for so long. Right? It creates all of these imbalances. And, you know, as we've already talked about, I didn't have the framework, I didn't have the mindset to even begin to put myself on a different path. You know, I definitely think I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the divine intervention that took place in my own life, that was assistance in getting me on the path. Now, did I make a lot of courageous moves along the way to propel myself through the doors that I walked through? You bet your ass I did. And I think it's helpful when we can just exercise a little willingness. Right? If I'm willing to just take one small step, I'm willing to do it different than I've ever done it before. I'm willing to try something new, I'm willing to get out of what's familiar, you know, the comfort zone. If we can just demonstrate a little willingness, when we take one step, then the next step will be revealed. But what where we trap ourselves is in our linear thinking and our logical minds, right? We want to know, well, what are all the steps? How long is it gonna take? You know, what's the cost benefit analysis, I want to know the return on the investment, right? We want to have all of our ducks in a row. But the universe doesn't really work like that. Because the universe is moving and changing in every breath. It is dynamic, right? So if we plan out all the steps, from here to wherever it is, we think we're going, we end up forcing ourselves against life. Because things are always moving. And every time we take a step, the whole deck rearranges like think about chess, right? You make one move in chess, and like the whole board changes. And I really think that's how life is, is we take one little step and then everything gets rearranged. So if we can be patient enough to trust that the next step is going to reveal itself. It will, it's going to show itself to us. And then it's a little less scary, because then we don't have to take 50 steps, right that we don't know how to take. We're only taking one at a time.

Alex Ferrari 39:45
Well, I mean, even with your own journey, you were at college for a year with your old job. You didn't let go of the life. The life raft. That's right and to you were like, I'm gonna go swim over here, but I'm not letting go of that. Just in case this whole thing goes to hell. So even with you, you took a year of a transition. So for everyone listening, it doesn't happen overnight. I mean, some sometimes sometimes you do burn as they call it up, burn the boats at the shore. Sometimes Sometimes you do that not advisable. not advisable, not advisable. Jen, depending on you know, if you're alone, you have a family of kids. There's a bunch of different things. But But you took a year to transition. And even in my own life, it took me a year currently two years of, of podcasting. While I was still had a full post production company to going until I finally was like, Oh, I don't I don't have to do this anymore. I'm, I'm making enough money being a podcaster. I think I can retire now from that. And then, you know, I get called for big jobs. I'm like, No, I'm a podcaster. Now.

Donna Bond 40:59
So acknowledge you, Alex. i So acknowledge you. And I think that's so significant. Because you're sending the message to the universe. This is where I am. This is who I am. This is what I'm doing. This is how I'm investing my lifeforce now. And when we are that aligned, and we put all of our lifeforce into that thing, the universe is going to respond in kind. And we get in trouble because we tried to do the hokey pokey. I too. I got, I got a call for a big job. So and it actually took me two years to transition.

Alex Ferrari 41:39
But yeah, you were a marketing consultant. That's

Donna Bond 41:41
right. Right. I was a marketing consultant, because it's still there was no vision of doing what I'm doing. Like I and had, you told me at the time that this Oh, you're going to sit in these beautiful, intimate, sacred one on one conversations with, I would have said there is no effing way I'm doing that, like,

Alex Ferrari 42:03
told me I was gonna be. You told me I was gonna be a podcaster. Seven years ago, it was eight years ago, let alone do a spiritual podcast a year and a half ago, when I launched this one. This was this is the scariest thing I've ever done is doing the show, until I finally decided to just say, You know what I'm all in. And the second I said I was all in, that's when everything happened. The universe is okay. He's ready now. Yeah, it wasn't ready before. He's ready now. And then the doors just swung open. And a lot of things have happened with the show and myself. And, and but you need to take the leap. And it's a strategic leap. Wasn't Yeah, it wasn't like a complete craziness. But it was a strategic leap that you need to take. But I agree with you. I think that when you are aligned with if you tell the universe, what you're planning to do things, if it's really your path, really makes you happy. Things happen, it will figure things out for you, the path unfolds in front of you. Life, and I think I can I'm gonna speak for you for a second I think as a as a gentle spirit, please forgive me. I think we believe, especially early on in life that we control. We have our plans is perfect. Like, well, we're thinking in our head is like, No, I'm gonna do this, this, this, this and this, I'll be retired by this age, I'll have this wife, I'll have this I'll have this career, and you plan it all. And I said, I said it so many times, thank God. My plans were not listened to. Because I would have married the wrong girl, I would have I would have gone down the wrong path. If every thing that you plan actually happened. We don't know what's best for us. As as a general statement, but when you start on a mental standpoint, but when you go through the soul, you go through the spiritual you go what feels right. That's a different conversation. Because all these decisions were mental ego base programming based, is that fair to say?

Donna Bond 44:10
Totally. And I love it. And I just want to add in one thing here, all of my plans did happen. But they happened because I was forcing myself on life. But I forced myself to a place where I got to and I said is this it? Like? Is this it? Because it wasn't because it was empty? It was meaningless. It was lacking on every level. And I got hurt in the process. I got hurt, right? I was physically very sick. You know, I was emotionally distraught, depressed. I was so unhappy and so many levels. I had negative self talk that was to beat the band. And I was spiritually bankrupt.

Alex Ferrari 45:07
Without without question, someone asked you a few questions, ask all my guests. What is your definition of living a good life?

Donna Bond 45:19
Be being in the flow. That's it being in the flow, being in harmony with life, as it's unfolding minute by minute,

Alex Ferrari 45:34
what is your definition of God?

Donna Bond 45:40
All that is

Alex Ferrari 45:44
simple as that, and what is the ultimate purpose of life?

Donna Bond 45:49
I do not know. I do not know the answer to that. And I'm not going to pretend to

Alex Ferrari 45:58
Fair enough. Where can people find out more about you your work? And where can they get your book of ritual wisdom?

Donna Bond 46:04
Donnabond.com. And my book is, you know, on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and all those bookseller places, and thank you so much for having me Alex, this was really fun.

Alex Ferrari 46:15
Yeah, absolutely. And do you have any any parting message for the audience?

Donna Bond 46:20
Be courageous.

Alex Ferrari 46:23
Be courageous, Follow. Follow your bliss, as Joseph Campbell says, All the usual Yeah. Don, I appreciate you. Thank you so much for the work you're doing and I appreciate you being on the show. My dear, thank you so much.

Donna Bond 46:33
Thank you, Alex.