2023 - WTH?! 2023 - Bring it on!
Podcast
Episode:
2023 - WTH?! 2023 - Bring it on!
by Danielle Searancke
I was asked by a few people for some personal updates, so I decided to record an episode to talk about the major events and challenges in 2022. I’m giving it a 3.5-star review - WHAT the hell was that?! I haven’t recorded the spirit messages yet, but I want to share what Spirit has been inspiring me with for 2023 as well. I now have some clarity on what the focus will be looking towards the future.
I would love to hear your top 3 things from 2022 and your top 3 for heading into 2023! You’re welcome to share them on the post for this episode in Spirit School. I enjoy getting to know you there. The move off of social media was one of my main goals for 2022, and this is one of the benefits! I hope you enjoy hearing my recap and I appreciate you taking the time to listen, and your acceptance of the emotions that come along with it.
For the first time, I will be offering an annual membership for $1111 USD and it will include The Initiation (a $888 USD value) for FREE! The cart for this will be open until we start on January 31st, so there is time to decide if this feels aligned for you.
Episode:
2023 - WTH?! 2023 - Bring it on!
Spirit School Podcast
In this episode:
I’ve got a bit more clarity on what the focus will be for 2023
While last January feels like lifetimes ago, I also don’t know where the time has gone
2022 started with the obsession with getting Spirit School off of social media
I have benefitted from this shady system of social media, particularly Instagram
Stories of me crying had 1000 views, but talking about The Initiation had 150 max
Meta platforms made it so that you have to pay for ads for promotions to be seen
There was a hearing about the intentional harm in Meta’s algorithms
I felt a mismatch in values having Spirit School on their platforms
Another issue is that there are always 3-5 scam accounts impersonating me
I had to hire someone to help manage my DMs, and it took the fun out of being there
Reels are being pushed and I don’t want to be a content creator
TikTok builds up creators then takes away their exposure, creating unequal exchange
My IG growth is slow because I don’t play games and I block suspicious followers
Moving my programs off of Meta and onto Mighty Networks was a sovereign move
Mighty is an all-in-one platform with opportunities for growth
My team moved all of my historical content to Mighty over 5 months
We launched successfully with The Calling, then moved the Collective
I’m off of Facebook but will not leave Instagram because of my audience
Off social media, I have Mighty, my podcast and mailing list for sovereign growth
I will be able to buy it out as my own platform, and I get to just show up and speak
I’ve focused on getting trauma informed from a financial place as a BIPOC woman
I kept finding myself in relationship with people who worship money
I don’t think about it that much, but I wondered if I was supposed to
Being around people who talked about money a lot made me feel not enough
I had a friend literally choose the pursuit of wealth over genuine friendship
I have named my money wounds and have come a long way in my healing
I became trauma informed certified for entrepreneurship
In January, I will be certified through the Trauma of Money and will be a facilitator
I’m passionate about this because money stuff comes up for lightworkers
I had resistances to helping clients with pricing because of my own wounds
I’ve learned so much and I’ll have the tools to help people when money comes up
I was trauma-informed before because I worked with Indigenous residential school survivors and youth
Just because you’re trauma informed doesn’t mean you won’t traumatize someone
It’s about being prepared and having the skillset to repair
All lightworkers, especially mediums, could benefit because we work with grief
I’ve made changes to my business like removing penalties for payment plans
Clarity is kindness, so I created a detailed syllabus for The Initiation
It was a successful year in terms of money, but I value connection
This was the hardest year of my life in a lot of ways
WIthin a week, my dad was diagnosed with cancer and my brother was in a coma
I had just recorded a reel to my younger self to love on my brother
The hardest part was when I had to say goodbye to him
I took a month off to be by his side every day while he recovered
Having opportunities for exposure fall through showed I’ll be self made
It dissolved the illusion of exposure and I realized it’s an ad to be featured
I’ve created Spirit School from my bedroom, but I started looking for a space
Everything unfolded for me to get one of three waterfront spaces in Squamish
I got funding from an Indigenous capital organization to build the space
My first retreat is going to be focused on deep spiritual experiences
I will run the first Initiation 2.0 to focus on psychic, group readings and business
I’ve already had some plans stripped away, so this could change
Spirit School Links
Trauma-Informed Lightworker Waitlist: https://view.flodesk.com/pages/6398f03888aca7e15696b1fa
Join the Spirit School Collective: https://www.squamishmedium.com/spiritschoolcollective
More about The Initiation: https://www.squamishmedium.com/programs-the-initiation
Join us on the new FREE Spirit School platform: https://myspiritschoolcollective.com/plans/
Visit Spirit School at https://www.squamishmedium.com/ for all courses and upcoming programs
View full transcripts of podcast episodes at https://www.squamishmedium.com/blog
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2022 - What the hell?! 2023 - Bring it on!
Hello everyone and welcome back to Spirit School. Very excited to be here for another episode with you all and this is one that was kind of requested. I've had a few of you message me to ask for a personal updates. That is quite interesting for me because I feel like I get so personal on this podcast episode, but I really don't talk that much about family, just different personal things. So I wanted to put together a podcast episode just kind of highlighting what the hell was 2022? I mean, I don't know if anyone else feels like that. It's gonna get a 3.5 star review from me. But also looking at what's coming up in 2023 because this has been part of, you know, I haven't recorded the spirit messages for 2023 yet, but all month they've been really inspiring me on what 2023 should be a focus of. And I'm gonna get a little bit into that as well, about the future, and 2023, what's happening. So, and that list is getting shorter every day, so I feel comfortable at this point in time recording this podcast episode because I have a bit more clarity on like what's happening.
And you know, in truth, it's been a little bit hard going back through 2022. For me, like looking back at January literally feels like five lifetimes ago. And then, in the same breath, I'm like, what the heck happened to this year? I almost feel like from July until now, I'm recording this in mid-December, like, I don't even know where time has gone. Time has been a funny little vortex that is weird to me. Time and space still fascinates me. Like even me and KJ talk about that, my little girl. She'll talk about like her music class. She would spend summer like at camp. She would do two camps. She would do an outdoor camp and a theater camp. And she always complained like the outdoor camp is so long, like it's too long. And the indoor camp, she never complained about that. But the camps were the exact same timeframes and I was talking about that with her. I'm like, well, when you're having fun, time flies, I guess, right? Like when you're doing something that you really enjoy. When it's somewhere that you actually really don't wanna be, like, it can seem to really slow down a little bit, right. I've heard it compared to, you know, five minutes in a dentist chair is not the same as five minutes at your favorite concert. So there's something weird about time and space that I'm hoping to like learn more about and like pick apart. I just haven't had time.
I wanted to run through some of the bigger things that have happened in 2022 and then maybe talk a little bit about what's to come. Hopefully you enjoy this and I'm always interested in hearing what's happened for you in 2022. Like even if you wanna come into Spirit School and we release the podcast episodes there as well, so you're always welcome to start a conversation under those podcasts. I would be curious to know what your top three things were for 2022 and like what your top things are for heading into next year too. I love getting to know you guys better as well.
So, 2022 really started with this obsession, I would say, about pulling Spirit School, pulling my business off the reliance of the backs of social media giants. Now, if you listen to my podcast at the end of last year, you'll know that I did kind of talk about this a little bit. And I feel like, you know, over the pandemic, like social media was such a blessing and such a curse in so many ways as well. And I really kind of came into this realization, how I felt a little bit used by social media, a little bit. I definitely have been successful in part thanks to my Instagram account. You know, when I launched The Initiation, most of the people are coming through Instagram. So I am someone who has benefited and I need to acknowledge that. I have benefited from this shady system of social media.
But the baffling thing to me was, you know, I would show up vulnerably and I may cry about something in my story, and that story would get like over a thousand people. It would literally reach over a thousand people. And if I was like talking about like The Initiation, it would go down to like 40 or 50, or even at most like 150. And I knew social media, and Meta in particular, cause I'm not on TikTok. I love TikTok and I scroll it, but I've chosen not to build over there because I want to have a space online that I can just go there for fun. So, tikTok for me is like my fun thing, right? So I'm talking mostly about Meta platforms here. But I started to feel like you're kind of like making money off of me being here because you're pushing ads and if I want to promote anything, you're pretty much forcing my hand that I have to pay.
So I did pay for a couple years just to, like literally you're paying to show your post to other people, which, okay, fair enough. I guess pay to play. But why would you give so much exposure to me in one of my weakest moments? Something about it just started feeling like really off for me. And so when I started looking a little bit deeper, around that time in America, there was a hearing in the Senate about the intentional harm that Meta has done with their algorithms. And it really kind of came out through a whistleblower and through, sorry but Zuck's own testimony. Like they are actually trying to psychologically impair and harm us with the way that the algorithms are set up. So here I am with Spirit School, which I consider to be an ethical and kind business, but I'm literally thriving off the backs of a social media giant that doesn't care about us at all. And there just felt like to be a very value mismatch. It just wasn't in alignment with my values.
There's something else too that I wanted to bring up around this, and I don't think I've, I think I've maybe mentioned this once on the podcast, but a couple things, actually. There's a couple more things here. How about that? So one of them was all these fake profiles, all these scam accounts, like it's just never ending scam accounts. I mean, I have almost avoided my private messages for a long time because for two years, at least two years, probably three years by now, at any given time on Instagram, I'm not on Facebook really, but on Instagram, I will have two to five impersonation accounts, impersonating me and ripping people off. Saying, you want a reading? Or they always start Grand Rising. Do you want a reading? Just PayPal me 50 bucks here. And then they'll give them some shitty reading. And a really harmful reading. They actually really scare people about curses and stuff like that.
So every time I would have an impersonation account, I would receive hundreds of private messages. Hundreds. And I mean, everyone's trying to be kind and everyone's like, Hey, did you know that there's like an impersonation account? Hey, I just like lost 50 bucks to this person. You need to be aware. You need to tell your audience. And I mean, I had to hire someone, you know, and this is one of the roles that one of my people has, but they have to help me with my private messages. I can't keep up with it. And in truth, it became a really unfun place to be because it was constant. And I have to repeat myself, I don't even know how many times a day, every day, seven days a week, like 12 months a year for years now. Years. I know, just stay discerning out there. There's usually all these different scam accounts. It's very exhausting. And I can tell you that Meta doesn't care at all in any way that this happens.
Most times I've reported it, if I'm able to, from a burner account, I get a message back saying that they're not breaching any community guidelines. There's no way to get in touch with them. There's no way to contact them. They won't verify people unless you're a celebrity, which I think is ridiculous because what bonafies a celebrity, right? You know? And then like, I think a verification process should be like, can you just verify people who can prove who they are? Right. I'm Danielle Searancke. Here's my driver's license. I've had to upload my driver's license hundreds of times to Meta to try to get accounts closed. Like the labor, you guys, the labor that social media giants put on us is absurd, absolutely absurd.
Which takes me to my next complaint about social media, which is, you know, and again, I thrive off social media, right, like, I get it. Like I have to learn how to exist within it. But like with Instagram in particular being my platform of choice, because I just wanna post a picture and say a few things and like show up in my stories. But with the invention of reels, which is just trying to be TikTok, in like a really kind of sad way. It's really sad actually, reels compared to TikToks. It's almost like cringe. It's almost like cringe a little bit, to be honest with you. But it's like we're only gonna be pushing things with reels now. I'm like, okay, so you're asking us all to be part-time slash full-time content creators, but you're only gonna share content if we pay you, or we're crying, or you're going to capitalize on our weakest and, you know, most horrible moments. Like to me, there's just like such a value misalignment there. It just drives me nuts.
And the truth is, I am someone, I mean, I've said this a few times on the podcast, but I won't do anything I don't wanna do. And I know that there's like a self-indulgence to that. There's a shadow to that. It's not the best quality to have, but what ends up happening is I will resist it. I'm like, you know what? You're telling me to do this so I'm not gonna do it. Just because you're telling me to do it, I will not do it. And I think if you go to my reels, like they turn a whole bunch of things into reels now, but I think I've created three or four. And they were fun. And when I was in the moment, and it didn't feel like labor to me, they were fun to put together. But honestly, that inspiration comes like once every couple months. I can't imagine. I mean, you have to love it.
And I hope the people who are out there doing it every day love it, because what I've seen happen on TikTok in particular, is that the platform will really build someone up and give them exposure and then scale it right back for however their algorithms work, nobody knows. I've seen this with the most seasoned of creators, like people who I've been falling for years breaking down into tears because their views are so low and they're like, I used to get like a million views and I'm only getting like 30,000. And like they're literally crying and breaking down because guess what? TikTok has created them into pretty much full-time content creators, and they're not getting that exchange, right? And so they're feeling that misalignment of exchange. They're overgiving to a platform that clearly doesn't give back, you know? And this is just the field that we're operating in.
So I've been very conscious, and I've had to make a very clear decision for myself, that I don't have an interest in being a social media content creator. I love having a presence. I love showing up when it feels really good for me. And I definitely don't use my social media just to sell. Selling is something, you know, I think happens naturally. If people like my energy and like what I talk about, then they'll find ways to work with me. You know what I mean? But you know, I just had to make a choice. I'm just like I'm not interested in where Meta's going. I'm not interested in being a social media content creator and helping them keep their sales up and like their stock up. Like they're not getting rich off my back basically.
So from what you've seen this year on my Instagram is really kind of like bare minimum, and I'm putting that in air quotes because obviously like I'm still there, and when I'm there I wanna be there. And I think that you guys can feel that, right? So my Instagram growth is very slow because I've been very resistant to playing any of the games, you know what I mean? Like I'm blocking people every day because I get so many impersonators that I have to look at everyone who follows me every single day, and I'm blocking over half the people who follow me because they're either coming from weird accounts, they're clearly men who are just trying to like slide into your dms. I hate that phrase, but it's true. And I'm blocking half the people who are coming anyways. I mean, running a social media account is like a freaking job in itself. And I'm sorry, but, um, you have enough Zuck, okay? I'm gonna go over here and build my own thing.
So, part of the obsession of 2022, and this is in huge part thanks to Andrea McCallum who's editing this podcast, who's like my right hand in community management and media management. And she pitched this other platform that is off social media, you know, and that's Mighty Networks. And at first I was a little bit resistant because I had been in previous networks before and I wasn't a huge fan. Like I was like, yeah, it's okay. One of the arguments is like, well, everyone's already on Facebook, so just keep it in Facebook. I'm like, well, people could open their phones and they can choose to click Facebook, or they can choose to click Mighty, and they'll come where they wanna come, right? And they'll be where they wanna be. I had to look at it from a lens of where do I wanna be? How do I wanna do things?
And so this for me was one of the clearest choices, was to move my programs and my business off of Meta and onto my own platform, which again is sovereign as fuck. Like I'm just like, I have my own platform now, and I'm building on a platform that's actually going to allow me to buy the platform and really create it as mine. So I have potential to grow into it. Now what I will say is I have years of content on Facebook because I used to run my programs as a hybrid. I would run them, you know, the evergreen stuff on Teachable, the community aspect on Facebook. But with Mighty, it's an all in one platform. Everything is there. Everything, like the community, the free community, access to the Empowered Podcaster, or access to The Calling. The Calling now you can purchase. I'm not running it again as a live program, so you can actually purchase my business program in Spirit School now. The Spirit School Collective, my membership is there, everything is there. It's an all in one platform and that makes my life happier and my life easier.
But one of the biggest things that we did in 2022, and we are still working on it. It took us five months, three of us, five months to prepare our network because I had so much historical content and my team worked tirelessly to move everything over, and that took five months. And then we launched The Calling in the new platform, the new Spirit School platform. And that went super successful. And then we moved the membership over and now it's where we are. And I've let go of Facebook completely. I have an online presence on Facebook. I don't check messages over there. You'll get an automatic response saying, I do not check DMs here. I don't even really check the comments there. Like, I am completely off of Facebook and it feels really good for me. I've actually also chosen not to invest in certain programs for myself that run off of Facebook as well, just because I don't like being there. It's not a place that I love.
Now, Instagram is a bit different. I do love Instagram. There is something about it. The energy of it, kind of like the audience that I've been able to curate over there. And keep in mind, I curate my audience very carefully. I don't have like people who are trying to like pitch me constantly on there. People get blocked a lot because I want Instagram and social media to be a place of like mutual exchange. I wanna know about you and I give you an opportunity to know about me a little bit more day to day than, say, this podcast, right. And I've made some incredible friends and students on that platform. So I will not be leaving Instagram, but I'm not seeing Instagram as a tool to necessarily grow my business. I am interested and obsessed with being successful, not living off the backs of social media giants. That is so passionate for me.
So what does this mean? Off social media is my Mighty Network. It's this podcast, it's my newsletter. So those three areas are what I'm able to focus on now, and that's true sovereign growth because I own my mailing list. This podcast does not work on like some algorithm that is trying to harm people or prioritizing like the most privileged. It's an equal playground here. And then of course, Mighty, which I will be moving out of the Mighty Network within two years and separating it as Spirit School being its own platform.
So this was like one of the bigger things that happened in 2022. I am so proud of our network. It is amazing. For me, it's the best I've seen. But that's because it could be mine and I can't take any credit for it. It's Andrea, and you know, Danielle and Christie with her branding and stuff like that, that really make it what it is. And it gives me an opportunity to just show up and speak about the things I like to speak about and not have to dick around with being popular according to Meta AI. You know what I mean? So, that went way longer than I expected. But obviously I'm very passionate about this topic.
Another area of growth this year that I have been really working on has been my relationship to money and wealth. That has been a major focus of my entire year, and it's been something that I've looked at head on, dead on, and be like, why does this bother me? You know what I mean? Like when I first started learning about money disorders and getting trauma informed from a financial place as like a BIPOC woman, right? I had to start looking at why things started bothering me in the out world. Like I kept finding myself in relationship with people who really worshiped money. And I don't know why. I think I kept saying like, should I be doing this? Should I be liking money this much? Is this what I should be talking about? It kind of keeps you in this chasing game of like, not enoughness, because I was like, God, I just, I'm not like, I hate money, but I don't think about it that much. It didn't become my whole personality.
But all of 2021, it just seems to be all that was around me were like people, and classes, and teachers that were like, money, money, money, money, money, money, money. And I kept feeling like not enough. I had one of my good friends, like a really good friend, and we came up together, basically because I didn't wanna make a million dollars, I couldn't expand them anymore, and they chose not to be friends with me. So they like literally chose the pursuit of wealth over a genuine relationship that had been curated over years. And it really hurt me. And going into 2022, I had to look at that and there's nothing wrong with what happened there. Like it was fine because they were honoring their truth and it made me kind of get closer to questioning mine.
And so I started looking at the money worship money wound and realizing that's where I found myself. And then I had to start looking at, okay, so then how do I wanna show up differently? Like, what are my money wounds? Because there's literally 13 money disorders, which all make perfect sense, though I think the data collected around them isn't, you know, fulsom. Like I don't know how many men versus women, or what demographic they came from, what social standing they came from. But I will say that a lot of things were named for me this year as I was on a journey of healing my relationship with money and wealth. I've come a long way.
I'm really excited heading into 2023 because this actually opened up, you know, the third thing I'll say about this, which is along the same vein, is the other thing that I focused on a lot in 2022 was becoming trauma-informed certified. Now going through the trauma-informed certification process, I've done two certifications this year. I did one that was entrepreneurship specific and then I'm completing right now, I'll be completed by the end of January, the Trauma of Money certification, and I'm becoming a certified Trauma of Money facilitator. So in Spirit School next year I'll be teaching a program called the Trauma-Informed Lightworker, and I will be teaching about the Trauma of Money with the certification that I've done.
And I'm very passionate about this topic too, because one of the harder things that I saw when I was mentoring other people, they're like, well, what should I price myself at? And I couldn't believe the resistances that came up in me when those topics came up because I was like, dang, like how do you guide someone else through pricing themselves? Because my relationship to money and wealth is so wobbly right now, and I'm still trying to figure all that out for myself, right. Like what makes sense? What makes me feel good? What is typical out there? And I'm putting on air quotes. I kept getting told that I was undercharging and I'm not charging my worth. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Where did worth come into this? Okay, I need to look at worth now. Why is worth tied to money? And then looking at capitalism, right? And looking at the history of capitalism and you just go everywhere.
So I ended up dedicating this year to learning, getting certified in the things that I want to talk about in Spirit School, whether it's on this podcast or in Spirit School itself. And yeah, it's been very exciting. It's been so delicious. I've learned so much. I've met some incredible people. I feel like I've healed so much. And now I'll be in a better position heading into 2023 when I'm mentoring people. When the money stuff comes up, I'm gonna have a lot more tools to be able to help people walk through this because this is part of being a light worker in a time when our basic needs are met with money, right? When we look at the history, we can clearly see that like our oracles, our spirit talkers, our cultural spirit teachers were really cared for through livelihood needs, like food and shelter and care. And, you know, nowadays it's not like that. Money is the exchange that we have picked as a civilization. And so really kind of like healing some of the intergenerational stuff, just even the lightworking space when it comes to money. So obsessed. I am so excited about everything I have to share and I haven't talked about it a lot here because I wanna know what I'm talking about before I start really talking about it.
So, 2022 was a huge year of learning and growth around this. And yeah, I've just learned so much. And so I did spend a lot of time in that trauma-informed training. Now, I was trauma informed before, not certified, but because my previous work was in healthcare and trauma-informed, the language of trauma-informed really does come from healthcare setting originally. It's made its way over into like the coaching, mentoring, online space. So because I used to have to work with residential school survivors and Indigenous youth, I had to learn some trauma-informed skills. So one of the big aha moments for me in going through these certification programs was like, wow. I'm like naturally trauma-informed in a lot of ways, but not others. Right. And then also understanding that just because you're trauma-informed doesn't mean you're not gonna traumatize someone or rehash someone's trauma. Right? It's about being prepared for it and having a skillset set on how to make repairs if that's open for everybody involved.
And so this year was a huge learning journey for me around this. And I've been saying it for years that every single light worker could definitely benefit from doing some trauma-informed training, whether it's a certification or just like a class or two, because the truth is we're as mediums in particular, we're working with people in deep states of grief. And some of the passings that our loved ones have, have left a lot of trauma, and we are in positions as light workers to potentially rehash someone's trauma through our sessions and readings. And I hear it a lot. My sitter started crying and I didn't know what to do. My sitter lost a child and something came up in me that triggered me, right? And so I'm seeing a need in the light working space for some formal trauma-informed training.
So I am creating my first ever certification program called the Trauma Informed Light Workers Certification Program, and it's likely gonna be a six month experience, but it's gonna launch in Spring 2023, and it's probably gonna run for nearly the rest of the year. And I am working on collaborating with a few people on some of the classes and some of the teachings because I can't come from a space of teaching everything about trauma-informed care. I don't have the lived experience. But what I can teach in it is like the private sittings, is the business, is your relationship to money.
My business now, I've made a ton of changes this year to make sure that my business is trauma informed from a business lens. So I got rid of penalties for people who need payment plans. The standard out there, because we're all driving in unregulated industries over here, right? Whether we're in the coaching space, the mentorship space, the spiritual teacher space, it's unregulated. We don't have a governing body over us. So you kind of have to look around at what people are doing and how they're doing it. And that's typically how we do things. So for years, I was offering these flexible payment plans, but there was a penalty attached to them, right, because that's what was being done out there. And when I started doing my trauma-informed training, I was like, well, I mean the people who need to access payment plans are the people who need to access payment plans. Like why would they pay premium, you know, when they're the ones who need the access?
So my last round of The Initiation was the first time that I got rid of that. So if you sign up for The Initiation, January 31st, you're gonna have options. You're gonna have an option of paying in full, or paying the same price in three payments. It's totally up to you and there's no penalty attached to it. Now, that does put me in a little bit of a riskier space, but I can't ask every single client to carry that risk for me and my business. That's not fair, and that's definitely not trauma-informed. So that's just like one thing.
And the other thing too that I was really proud of is, you know, change the language in all of my offerings to not be like word salad or too woowoo being clear and concise. And kind right? Clarity is kindness. So I created a detailed syllabus for the Initiation. So with The Initiation, you're gonna know every single week what to expect through this syllabus, which is another thing. So just so you guys know too, to like get certified, I had to submit my body of work and highlight how it meets trauma-informed standards and get feedback on it. And that's the only way I was able to get my certification.
So these are just two things that I did. I did a ton of things, but just for the sake of this podcast, I'll teach this more in depth in the program, the six month program, which if you're interested, I didn't even think about doing this, but I'll just pop in a wait list in the show notes below because I know that there's so many people looking for this because it is so needed. And yeah, I'm working really hard with some subject matter experts and people who are definitely qualified to give certifications to make sure that I meet some sort of standard, so that it is something that will carry weight out there in the real world. Okay, so this is part of my passion and what's coming up with 2023.
So those are the three things that I really focused on this year. It's been a lot of healing. Those were the bigger things that really took me through the year that were very expansive. They filled me with joy. All the trauma-informed classes I showed up live. I made space for them on my calendar. It was three hours a week every single week of this year. And I never missed a class. And I still have classes every week for the next six weeks to complete my certification for the Trauma of Money facilitator training too. So excited for that. Yay me. That's totally what this sounds like. Yay me.
Hopefully you're all celebrating yourselves too with something for 2022. And again, I would love to see your list, but those are the things that I'm celebrating. I think those are three things. It was getting Spirit School off the backs of social media giants, it was healing wounds around money, and it was trauma-informed care training. Those were the three things that I was doing.
Now looking into 2023, I mean, what isn't happening? Oh, yeah. What I wanted to say too in 2022 were the things that didn't go well. How about that? Um, okay, so 2022 was one of the hardest years of my life. It was harder than 2020, and it was harder than 2021 without a doubt. Now, if you look at success in the matter of numbers and money, great year, right? But unfortunately, as I've learned through, you know, the trauma of money, money is not something that I hold to be a core value or, you know, I don't put it up on a pedestal. So if that was enough, that's what I'd be raving about at the end of the year.
But, truthfully, what I value most is connection, like actual connection with people, getting to know people, feeling connected with people. And in that sense, because that for me is a measurement of success, it's like how connected do I feel to my family? How connected do I feel to my friends? How connected do I feel to myself? Like that is honestly like probably the biggest currency of value for me. And in that regard, this was one of the hardest years of my life in a lot of different ways. And you know, it started with my dad getting diagnosed with cancer, and then a week later, my brother slipping into a coma only to find out that he wouldn't survive bacterial meningitis. And so, my dad got diagnosed and then a week later my brother was in critical care. It was like one of the hardest things, see I'm about to cry. One sec.
Okay, I'm back. So for those of you who follow me on social media, again, you get more of like the day-to-day stuff there, right? So, funny enough, the week before my brother went into hospital, I did this reel. Here's me with my reel, one of my three reels of 2022. And I did this reel about how my public speaking coach told me to run on the spot for 15 seconds and then blurt out a message to your younger self. And I remember, and I did this video, and I recorded it for my teacher because she had to assess it. And I was running on the spot and then I stopped and I said, Danielle, younger Danielle, like, love on your brother. Make this relationship work because you'll realize at the end of days it's just you two. He is the only witness to your life and you do not stay connected forever. So like, please make every effort to love on this relationship. And that's the message that I gave me younger self. And like literally two days later, my brother was in hospital and he almost died.
And it came to the point where he was in rough shape, man. And I know he listens to my podcast. So I love you, brother. I hope this doesn't bother you, me talking about this, but it was the biggest thing that happened to me in 2022, to be honest with you. And it was actually something else because I took the entire month off to be at my brother's side every single day. And the second day in hospital, they called us to say, you have to come say goodbye. He's not gonna make it through the night. His surgery, like my brother's still living with something on his brain, like they couldn't get it all out. So the drive to the hospital and like managing the family, and like having to say goodbye was like the hardest thing and leaving was so hard. Sorry. I'm sure there's a lot of people crying out there right now. That's not what I'm trying to do, but that was like the hardest thing I've ever had to do, was say goodbye to my brother.
And I remember the next morning waking up and calling the hospital to see if he made it, and he did, and I jumped in the. and I live far away from the hospital. I live in Squamish and the hospital's in Vancouver, and I drove right to the hospital and I sat by his side every day and every day I would drop the kids off at school and I would drive to the hospital and I would love on the nurses, and I would let the nurses know my brother is a loved man. Do everything you can for him. And I did that every day for five weeks, and I felt so blessed because my team, Andrea and Danielle, okay, I'm gonna pause and come back. Okay. So Andrea and Danielle kept everything running for me, everything. My program, my membership, like I stepped fully away from my work all of March to be by my brother's side every single day, and I don't regret that for a second.
And there's a closeness I think, that me and my brother got from that experience that completely was in relation to the reel that I made a couple days before the incident where I was like, do not lose this connection. And so we make our effort even still to this day to stay connected, to call each other when we can. And I think that. We've grown a lot as brother and sister through that experience. But that to me was like really hard. And you know, the update on my dad, he's still waiting for his surgery. I mean, Canadian healthcare is free, but it fucking sucks. So, he got diagnosed in March, we're here in December. He still hasn't had a surgery. He's still on a wait list. So, free healthcare for the win, right? I don't need to go there. So those were two really big, hard things that kind of came up.
So 2022, there's a lot more that happened, a lot. I had a magazine reach out to me and say like, we want you to write this feature, and here I am writing it. And then they completely ghosted me, and never responded. And that happened with a TV show thing too. And then that podcaster I talked about before, you know, on the shadow side of this business. There seemed to be a theme this year of like these opportunities presenting themselves to me, only to be like taken away, or not happening and not following through. I'm so new to that world because I've never been featured on a podcast, you know, like a big, big podcast or, you know, like a make it or break it type situation to be exposed. Like, I've never had that before. I've never desired it really before either. And then when the opportunities came up, I was like, okay, like let's just play and see where it goes. And then it never followed through.
Now those don't even really make it on my highlight reel because they were so minor and it's like, well, whatever. I'm just meant to be self-made, you know what I mean? Like, I'm just made to be self-made. And that's kind of what I took away from those experiences like not happening. But yeah, it really kind of shows a different side of, I don't even know what kind of space you call this, like just being exposed, like getting that exposure. So, yeah. I was also really surprised going through that process, like how pay to play being exposed is.
I was surprised when I found out through this whole experience that when you get into Goss magazine, or Forbes Magazine, or all these top lists, it's like you're actually paying. It's actually an ad. That shocked the hell outta me because I had so many people in my life were like, I was featured here and I was featured here. But I was like, wow, I didn't realize that those were paid. It's an ad essentially. And that shocked me. So I think too, part of that whole process for me was like dissolving some sort of like illusion around these huge opportunities that people are getting. And I'm like, but it's actually just running an ad. And I was like, I don't really wanna run ads. I'm trying to do everything without running ads, on social anyways. So, there's that.
Okay, . I was not planning on talking about all these things, but here we are. So then what's to come? You know, what's to come? You guys know from recent podcast episodes I started looking for a space because I am literally standing next to my bed right now while I'm recording this podcast episode, and I've created Spirit School to where it is now, the online ecosystem, including the podcast, from the side of my bed, which is fantastic. But three days in a row, when I was walking to the washroom, I bumped into my bed. And I like had bruises for months on my legs from the bumps I kept getting from my bed.
So, I decided to start looking for an office space and it turned into having a workshop space, which turned into having one of the three only waterfront spaces in Squamish. And everything unfolded in a beautiful way. And I got you know, Indigenous capital organization decided to fund my dream, and they gave me a half and half loan and grant. So I got funding right away to build the space. I didn't need any extra capital. That was pretty miraculous, so as of January 15th, I'm gonna get the keys to the new Spirit School location and we're gonna be spending a few months doing construction, but I am gonna open the doors formally to the Spirit School space May 1st, after my retreat. I was thinking about doing April 1st, but I can't risk Covid or I had Covid four times in 2021 too. A lot of health stuff kind of came up, but I just can't risk getting sick before the retreat. So I'm gonna save the grand opening for Spirit School to be May 1st.
Our first retreat in Spirit School will be in July, early August, which will be really exciting. And yeah, we're gonna do in-person retreats and workshop weeks and guest teachers and lots of fun stuff. And for my locals, we'll be doing more local type stuff as. But I think about 80% of my audience and clients are from outside Canada, so it'll be interesting. And my thought on it was like, even if this acts as like an office for me, I'm happy. And anything on top of that is just bonus. It's just absolute bonus. Because part of my healing money wounds, by the way, was when I started looking at rent, I was like, oh, it's probably like 10 grand a month. But my God, the rent was actually cheaper than my Mastermind payment. So I was like, well, this has to happen, right? I just paid my last payment on my Mastermind last month. So yeah. Anyways, so Spirit School will be opening in 2023. So if you wanna follow along the construction, I will be doing reels. There you go. I'm gonna be doing video updates weekly about the Spirit School space progress. And maybe even asking your advice, and the different things that you wanna see in Spirit School too. So I'm excited about that.
Of course, we have my first retreat, the Sacred Spirit Retreat. There was a huge demand for it, and I cannot wait to meet my clients and their extended family, and all my audience that have signed up for this experience. So this is going to be the best time. Like I literally have things already planned. The swag is gonna be amazing. And it's gonna be focused and centered around creating atmospheres for deeply enriching spiritual experiences. So it's all gonna be about spiritual experiences. We might even do table tipping by the way, so we'll see. That's kind of where I hope to go with it, but we'll see. So we have that.
I also have The Initiation 1.0 in January, and then immediately after that, we're gonna be doing Initiation 2.0. So this will be the first time I'll be doing an advanced layer of mediumship development, which funny enough is going to include psychic development because I think it's really important for working mediums to be able to clearly understand the difference between psychic and mediumistic information. So we're gonna be focusing on that. We're gonna be focused on group readings, demonstrations, and business, like setting up a practice. So that's gonna be The Initiation 2.0, which is advanced mediumship, I would say, if you wanna think of it like that. I hate thinking of it like that. I'm like, it's like advancing, I guess.
And then the Trauma-Informed Light Worker Certification program, which is going to take up almost the whole year. I'm really excited for that experience. And continuing to grow Spirit School, like on my platform, my Spirit School platform, this podcast, wherever Spirit leads me. And I also just wanna say like, you know, God laughs when you make a plan. This is my plan. I've already had a few things stripped away in the past few weeks where they're like, uh, not now. Uh, we're not doing this now.
So this list could change or shrink, but where I stand here today, these are gonna be my focuses heading into 2023. My Spirit School space, the first physical location for Spirit School, my retreat, The Initiation 1.0, and then the birth of 2.0, which I'm excited about. More retreats in the Spirit School space, and my trauma-informed light worker certification program. And that will carry me through 2023. And we'll see what happens. Right? We'll meet up here in a year. I'll let you know how it went. I'll let you know how it didn't go, and we'll move on to 2024.
So yeah, here's me, personal update, maybe a bit more personal than I typically go to. Hopefully no one feels hurt or offended. I'm sorry for you do. Feel free to reach out if you wanna let me know how you feel. I'm open to it. I can handle it now. I can definitely say that. And I just wanna wish everybody a really joyous holiday season and ease heading into 2023. If nothing else, for myself and all of us, I do hope for an easier and more gentle 2023, because the last three years have been wild, right? Wild.
So, thanks for being here with me on Spirit School. Check out the links below. I have a great deal happening right now for The Initiation where if you sign up for a year of the Spirit School Collective, which I have not offered an annual membership in a few years, but if you invest in the annual subscription for the Spirit School Collective, my membership, which is super active, you get The Initiation for free. And you can do the initiation in January, or you can do The Initiation in September. You could do either of them with this deal. So yeah, I'm really excited. And so that's coming up. And then if you want to express your interest in the Trauma-Informed Light Worker Certification program, you can join the wait list below. The waitlist, I don't do early bird sales. Actually, this even bundle is the first time I've discounted pretty much anything because I don't like scarcity sells or anything like that. But that will be available, the bundle, up until January 31st, 2023. And then I'll be removing the annual option for Spirit School, cause I wanna keep it like a real school. January to January. It's gonna be a lot of fun.
And we're gonna be focusing on the future in Spirit School next year. Where like, you know, typically we look to the past a lot when we're on this healing journey, spirit has been really inspiring me and say, okay, it's time to focus on the future. What's the future we want to create? So the focus in the Spirit School Collective in 2023 is going to be focused on our future selves, dedicating the year to our future and our future selves. So I'm really excited about that, but look at the links below if you're interested in joining in on anything. And if not, that's okay. I will see you on the next episode of the Spirit School podcast. Bye.