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“It’s very important for parents to have their own sense of purpose and their own dreams. The idea that parents are going to vicariously live through their kids…I think is extremely dangerous,” says holistic healer and former top national tennis player Dane Esses, who joins Mental Health in a Modern World to explore the hidden emotional costs that come with achievement-driven childhoods. Dane opens up about how the pressures of elite sports and unspoken family expectations created a pattern of tying self-worth to performance—leaving a legacy of anxiety, burnout, and addiction that often follows athletes into adulthood.

In this episode, Dane shares his journey from chasing temporary relief through winning on the court to finding genuine healing by unraveling the deep-rooted contracts formed in his family system. Alongside host Greg Schmaus, he explains why so many athletes and high-performers struggle after stepping out of the spotlight, the dangers of families outsourcing fulfillment to their children, and how to finally break free from generational patterns of guilt, people-pleasing, and “performing to keep the peace.”

Tune in to Mental Health in a Modern World for an inside look at Dane’s process—including a powerful live demo of parts work and family constellations—to discover what it really takes to transition from performance to authenticity, reclaim self-worth, and become the hero of your own story.

5 Key Takeaways

Unlock your potential and heal old wounds with these five powerful actions inspired by this episode:

1. Examine Your Motivation: Reflect on whether your drive to perform is rooted in your own passion or in the need to please others, especially family members.

2. Identify and Release Unhealthy Contracts: Practice naming and consciously letting go of unconscious contracts you've made to carry others' happiness or define your worth through external achievement.

3. Prioritize Authenticity Over Performance: Embrace play and enjoyment in your pursuits, allowing your true self to emerge rather than being ruled by competition or approval-seeking.

4. Set Emotional Boundaries: Recognize what emotional burdens are yours to carry and which belong to others, and return what's not yours to lighten your mind and body.

5. Engage in Daily Check-Ins: Implement a regular practice of self-reflection and playful activity to support integration, healing, and ongoing self-awareness.

Take the first step today—choose one action and commit to your own healing and authenticity!

Memorable Quotes

"It's very important for parents to have their own sense of purpose and their own dreams. The idea that parents are going to vicariously live through their kids and their kids are going to make a bunch of money and buy them a house is extremely dangerous."

"Performance isn't my self-worth. It can be fun and I love competing, but now it's more about enjoying myself and not tying my identity to whether I win or lose, because that's certainly a recipe for disaster."

"I think the first thing I want to offer is if you're an athlete and you feel like you're going through a crisis, look at your crisis as an opportunity to further step into your purpose. Even if you can't see that right now, just let things take their course and keep going."

Connect with Dane

Website - https://decodewithdane.com

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dane-esses-775a36307/

Resources Mentioned

Paul Chek (holistic health and performance practitioner) - https://www.chekinstitute.com/

Connect with Greg

Website - https://www.healing4d.com/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/4d_healing/

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@gregschmaus

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-schmaus-22929589/

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It's very important for parents to have their own sense of purpose

and their own dreams. The idea that parents are going to

vicariously live through their kids and their kids are going to make a bunch of

money and buy them a house or whatever, I think is extremely dangerous.

I see that a lot of mothers who haven't discovered or

really lived their sense of purpose are very commonly putting

tremendous amounts of pressure on their children. That's what I experienced.

And I can still see that play out a little bit. In a world moving

faster than our minds were designed to handle, mental health is becoming one of the

defining challenges of our time. Welcome to Mental Health in a Modern

World with holistic health practitioner Greg Schmaus. After

overcoming severe anxiety and OCD in his own life,

Greg dedicated the past decade to helping others heal through a fully

integrated approach to mental health, combining lifestyle coaching,

psycho-emotional healing, mindfulness, and archetypal work.

Over the years, he's facilitated thousands of sessions, guiding people back to

peace, clarity, and a deeper connection with themselves.

Each week, Gregg shares powerful solo insights, conversations with leading

voices in holistic healing, and immersive live coaching sessions that take

you inside the healing process itself. New episodes every

Friday. Follow the show and start reclaiming sovereignty over your mind

in a modern world. Here's Gregg. Dane, welcome to the

podcast, brother. Thank you, Greg, for having me. Yeah, I'm

super pumped to have you on. This was a last-minute game-time decision,

um, and I'm super, super excited that you're here. Um,

so I'd love to start with you just sharing a little bit of

the background of your life journey, your

experience, what brought you into this world of

holistic health. I know you and I have some

parallels in terms of our journey, so I'd love for you to just share a

little bit about it. Yeah, I grew up in

Houston. I grew up playing competitive tennis. It

ruled my life. It was all I ever did, really ever thought about.

It was definitely a way of me maintaining

balance within the family. If I was winning and performing, everything

seemed to be going well. So all the traveling, all of

the missed time at school, the sacrifice of a

social life was really a big part of my childhood.

I graduated from high school. I went to play collegiately at Tulane.

I didn't focus much on academics then, and I was

playing very competitively. I was ranked as high as top 50 in the country

with hopes and desires of playing professionally after.

And right around the time, right before COVID I

experienced a huge crisis. I was not playing well

for maybe one of the first times in my life and

felt like I was letting teammates down. I was

really physically unhealthy, 2 years into a vegan diet.

And when COVID happened, I was, I can remember

praying, I hope that our season ends and I can be put out of my

misery. So COVID ended our

season. I was in a very

celebratory mood and not knowing really what to do

after I graduated. I wasn't quite good enough to play professionally and make a

living. So I ran, I went to law school. I had a good

LSAT score. And about

midway through law school, I was not happy. I was drinking a

lot and really hit rock bottom. And

that's when I heard you talking to our mutual friend, Paul Chek,

and decided I wanted to work with you and enter the

field of being a healer and

transitioning from being a competitive athlete to helping support

athletes. Beautiful. And so, so

many parallels between you and I. And one of the big things that we've

both experienced is this transition from competitive

sports and this idea of performance into

holistic health and healing. And so I'd love for you to

talk a little bit about what your relationship with

performance has been. It's been a big part of my journey,

which is moving from performance to authenticity,

and how so much of our identity and persona is

built initially, especially as athletes, around how we

perform. But a lot of times we

get disconnected from our authentic self that's kind of laying beneath

it. Really curious what your experience of that has been.

Yeah. Initially my relationship with performance was

something I could hide behind, something that gave teammates, gave me

friends, something that I could promote to whoever

it was that I'm a competitive athlete. I always loved wearing my

uniform to class and Kind of hiding behind that a little bit.

I'm still very competitive, even though that's changed. It's not something I've

thrown away. I'm, I like to compete in other ways. I think

it's just changed from performance isn't my self-worth. It

can be fun and I love playing board games, getting

competitive, but now it's just more of a way of

enjoying myself and not tying my identity to whether I win or lose

because that— is certainly a recipe for disaster. And I think you

experienced it too, that in an individual sport, that can be a very

slippery slope. Yeah.

Yeah. Your identity and your sense of value is so tied

into the results of your performance. And so I

experienced it for so many years where you perform well on

any given day and you feel incredible about yourself. You're on top of the

world. The next day you perform Poorly, and all of a sudden

you're hitting rock bottom. And so your sense of

identity, your sense of worth, your sense of value, and your mood

is just constantly in flux with the results

of your performance. So I totally get that. And

so one of the things you've shared with me is so much of

your sense of purpose now is related to

supporting the health and mental health of athletes.

I'd love for you to share a little bit about what you see in the

world of sports and athletics from a standpoint of

mental health and holistic health. Like, what is Dane seeing when he zooms

out and kind of looks in? Yeah, so what I see

currently, especially within the realm of professional sports, is that

athletes, whether they're freshly retired,

not playing well, or their career takes a pivot from being in the

spotlight to Either being a role player or not even a

player at all, there's a lot of mental health

challenges that come with that. There's a death process

between being a performer and kind of what's next? What do I do with

my life? What's my purpose? So I see a lot of addiction,

a lot of alcoholism, a lot of drug abuse within

the ATP Tour. That's the tennis tour. And then I

see a lot of episodes. I mean, anybody can turn on the TV and see.

athletes that are making headlines left and right. And it's very, very

common that these are freshly retired athletes or athletes

that are no longer in the spotlight, kind of looking what to

do with their lives. Yeah. In

archetype language, we call that

an archetypal possession, where someone gets

possessed by one archetype. And so let's

say they're possessed by the athlete archetype. As

soon as they go into retirement of that archetype,

they go through a crisis of self

because they've been possessed by that one archetype. They don't know who they are

outside of it. And so I could see how that could

lead to depression, addiction, and a huge

downward spiral. Is that kind of what you're alluding to? Yeah,

absolutely. And I coached collegiately too. So a lot of the students that I

had, that it's a sport that you have to really dedicate your

whole life to. And then you see people not quite good enough

to continue doing it. And there's that period of, what do I do? Do

I coach? And it's kind of, you get pushed into coaching, but you're not

quite happy. So it's a whole, a whole range of issues.

Yeah. I'd love to explore, because this is something I've,

you know, explored a lot in my own life. I know you and I have

done some work around it, which is how

our childhood, our experience of our

parents and our childhood environment really

impacts our relationship with athletic performance. For example,

if we experienced a lot of judgment from our parents, or if we

experienced a lot of pressure from our parents, Or if we never

felt like love was uncond— if we felt like love was always conditional,

or we feel this deep sense of like unworthiness, that

can be like the fuel or the engine that drives a lot of

our, you know, desire to achieve or to perform. Or,

you know, a lot of, from what I perceive, like high

achievers and athletes, they're really driven by a lot of

childhood wounding. And that's not to say that it's all bad.

Sometimes that can be good to kind of like get some

redemption and to kind of prove the naysayers wrong.

So there's, it's not all shadow, but I have

experienced that there's a big trap when our

engine and the fuel source is always driven by our

childhood wounding. I'm curious what your perspective and

experience of that has been. Yeah, my experience of that

was that the entire family dynamic pretty

soon revolved around my brother and I's tennis. I

remember being at tournaments and feeling like my dad's taking off

work, my mom's driving 5 hours, sometimes flying across

the country, and I would feel that so much. The tremendous

amount of pressure and guilt if you lose and,

you know, you've got to win to kind of keep this, the Coherence of the

family together. And then when it becomes such a big part of your

life, I mean, dinner conversations, who you're competing against,

scouting reports, it just, there's a point that it becomes too much.

And I think it's important that we turn that switch off and, and

have lives outside of our sport. Yeah.

You know, what you shared so resonated and

You know, I experienced this a lot growing up and also observing it with

other kids that were athletes and their parents is,

um, when parents aren't happy

and healthy within themselves and the

child sees their parents'

emotional fluctuations based on their performance,

the child feels as though they're carrying the load of

mom and dad's happiness. Mm-hmm. Based on how

they perform on the field, on the court, in life, etc.

And so that dynamic, that creates contracts that

then carries over into that child's,

you know, adult relationships, intimate relationships.

And now you have an individual that feels like everyone else's

happiness depends on their performance. And that

creates, you know, enough weight and pressure that can

So I'm curious how that experience in your childhood,

how that has translated into any ongoing

patterns in adulthood. Yeah, that, that's

such a great point that you bring up. I think what comes up for me

is that it's very important for parents to have their own sense of

purpose and their own dreams. The idea that parents are going

to vicariously live through their kids and their kids are going to make a bunch

of money and buy them a house or whatever, I think is extremely dangerous.

I see that a lot of mothers who haven't discovered or

really lived their sense of purpose are very commonly putting

tremendous amounts of pressure on their children. That's what I experienced, and

I can still see that play out a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.

And so within all of this, we have these unconscious

contracts and we have these parts

that take on these extreme roles. As a

result of some of these dynamics. And so I'm

curious, because we're going to do a little, a little demo today.

If we were to work with some of these patterns within you,

anything that's still alive for you, what is it that you'd like to

focus our attention on?

I think it goes back to the wounding of my dad.

And just feeling like I could never do enough. Like

winning was the temporary relief and that he could never see me

for the type of person that I tried to be outside of the

tennis court. Right. So really that's still a wound that

we work with till this day. Yeah. So the

father wound of my value

is dependent on my performance.

And you could say that there's a part that carries this belief that I don't

have intrinsic worth, that

my worth is dependent on external achievement.

Is that, am I getting that correct? Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

So why don't we start with a little parts work

around this pattern, and then we can see if we can identify

some unconscious contracts that maybe we

can work with and release. Um, how's that feel?

Yeah, perfect. Awesome. So what I'd

invite you to do is just close your eyes and go inward

and see if you can find this part

that has carried this weight of performance.

Feeling as though his worth is derived from it,

or his father's approval is derived from it,

or his value in the world is derived from it.

And see where you find that part somewhere around your body.

It's right at my heart.

And just focusing on it, just initially, what do you

notice about it?

It feels very disappointed.

Mm-hmm. Feels like it's let a lot of

people down. Mm-hmm.

He just feels very heavy and dense.

Mm-hmm.

And how do you feel towards this part as you're just getting to

know it? I feel sorry for him.

Mm-hmm. Do you really

feel for him? Yeah. Yeah. So let him know that.

And see how that lands.

He receives it well. Mm-hmm. Great.

Now see if there's more he wants you to know about himself, more he

wants to share.

He's telling me that he needed to perform in order to

maintain stability within the family.

So he needed to perform to

regulate the family.

Yeah. And keep his— keep parents happy. Yeah.

That's quite a load to carry. See if he

wants to share more about what that was like for him.

It was very taxing mentally,

physically, spiritually.

Anything else he wants to share?

He always felt like he was walking on eggshells, like he

could never, he could never relax and be happy. Be

at peace. Yeah.

I'm curious if that

also impacted his joy of the sport.

Yeah, tremendously. Became less of a

passion and more of a lifeline. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. See if there's

more he wants you to know or understand.

He wants to go back to enjoying it. Mm-hmm.

Enjoying life before everything became a performance.

Yeah.

And back then, what would've happened if he didn't perform?

What was his fear? What were the consequences?

The family dynamic would implode.

Mm-hmm. And he wouldn't be valued by

parents or even peers.

Right. So he'd lose his value. There'd

be chaos, or he'd feel unsafe.

Yeah. Anything more?

You'd be alone, not worthy of anybody else's company.

Yeah.

Does this all make sense to you? Yeah. Yeah.

So let him know that. Let him know this all really makes sense

and see how he reacts.

He receives it well. Yeah.

Anything more he wants you to understand?

Getting that he's very young, maybe 10 years old.

This was his initial paradigm of the world.

Yeah. So he's only 10 years old and this is how he, his

worldview kind of got framed.

Yeah. How old does he think you are?

10 to 12. Okay, so he still thinks you're quite young.

Yeah, around his age. So let him know how

old you are and see how

that lands.

He's relaxed. Okay, as he relaxes a little bit.

Great. So let him know you're,

you're able to really help him now.

He takes that well.

Okay. Ask him if there's any parts of him that are stuck in the

past, or if he's still carrying anything

from the past.

Because obviously he, he still thought you were around his

age. He

still thought his self-worth was tied to

performance.

Yeah. Anything more he wants to say around that?

He's ready to let that go. Great.

And so there's a contract that this part was carrying, right?

I'm curious if we could name that contract for him.

And then see if we can release it.

I think it's something like, I, 10-year-old Dane, will

perform in order

to keep people happy and

protect my sense of self-worth.

Great. So I, 10-year-old Dane,

Just repeat it out loud. I, 10-year-old Dane, solemnly

swear to my essential self, solemnly swear to my essential

self, that I will always perform at a high level,

that I will always perform at a high level, in order to prove my worth,

in order to prove my worth, keep everyone happy, keep

everyone happy, and keep myself safe, and keep myself

safe. No matter the cost to myself. No matter the cost to

myself.

How's that land when you repeat that out loud?

The truth buzzer's going off. Yeah. So body says

it's true. Yeah. How's the part feel

about that contract? It feels

lighter when we speak it out. Mm-hmm.

What's his attachment to it? Does he still feel attached to it? Does he still

feel like he needs it?

There's a part that feels like he doesn't know who he is without it.

Hmm. So the attachment to it is, I don't know who I am without it.

Yeah. Yeah.

So does that part need any reassurance or,

um, how can we support that part? Just

told him that part's not dying, it's graduating

and it's becoming a playful part that can

perform without attachment. So

let it know that it's not going away, but it's transforming. Yeah.

Yeah. Great. How does that land? Really good.

Awesome. So see if this part would

like us to help him release that contract.

Yeah. Yeah.

So step into your essential self,

and let me know when you really feel like you're there.

I'm there. Great.

Now connect with this part

and speak these words to him with intention.

As our essential self. As our essential self. I release you

from this contract. I release you from this contract. And I revoke this

vow. And I revoke this vow. Good. Just breathe.

And let's have this part take that contract and

release it to one of the elements— earth, water, fire, wind.

What would you like to give it up to?

The earth. Great. So have this part take the

contract and give it to the earth.

Just really witness him as he's doing that.

And he'll let you know once he's released it.

Deal's complete. Great. And so now let's offer

him a blessing or a gift

instead. So instead of this contract, I offer you the blessing of—

so we'll replace it.

Permission to compete for

fun. Permission to

play more. Yeah, I love that. Permission

to play rather than perform. Yeah, so let

him receive that into his body.

See, releases the performance and invites in play.

See how that lands for him. Very liberating.

Awesome. And now just

really inviting him back into your body in that unburdened

state.

Just notice what your body sensations are as he integrates back in,

in this way.

Feel much lighter, much less dense in that chest area.

Great. Now let's just check in with him and see, just as follow-up, as

integration, what, what we could do to

really support his integration process, whether it's a certain kind of

play, you know, a daily practice. What would feel good

just for follow-up and integration?

Any good daily check-in Number one. Yeah.

Number two, more

games that are play. Mm-hmm.

Beautiful. Anything else

that this part needs, or does it feel complete?

Feels complete. Beautiful.

Awesome. So whenever you feel ready, just

Starting to bring yourself back.

Awesome, brother. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for

opening yourself up to really go through that together.

Yeah, for sure. Thank you for taking me through it. How did that feel for

you? Felt very liberating. It still

feels like that part Is carrying so much burden

of other people and it's just not sustainable anymore.

Mm-hmm. So it's interesting how

these performing parts that go back to

childhood, um,

really carry the weight of other people's happiness

and carry contracts.

Um, around keeping other people happy.

Curious your thoughts on that. It definitely lands. I think

there's a component of keeping coaches happy too. I mean,

coaches can cuss you out, at least from what I

experienced, could just completely start screaming when you didn't expect

it. So even after I left a household that carried a

lot of those same patterns, I went to college and continued to experience it.

So I would say for the first 23, 24 years of my life, I

didn't know anything else. So it's been an entire process

to kind of go through the death experience and then

it feels like a death experience of how you relate to other people. So it's

definitely been, been quite a journey. And nowadays

athletes are obviously at the highest level tied to

their performance and coaches' jobs are dependent.

You know, what was coming up for me is this belief

that many of us carry, which is, I'm not enough.

And, you know, I've carried it myself in the past. I know many

of us have. And

if we go back to this dynamic

of performing to keep someone happy,

You know, it's my perspective that we are all

responsible for generating our own happiness. You know, we

can never really make someone else happy. We can

uplift them for a short period of time. We could meet

certain needs, but happiness

that's truly sustainable is always an internally

generated experience. So it's almost

like an impossible contract

to make someone else happy,

especially if they're an unhappy person. And

so it makes sense why as a child we would

develop this belief of like, oh, I'm not enough.

It's like, no, you, you can never do enough to make an

unhappy person happy. So it

makes total sense why we would create that belief about self.

I'm curious how that lands for you. Yeah,

I think so many athletes are going through that. I think it leads to a

lot of addiction too, because somebody who's not genuinely

happy, you perform, coaches, parents, whoever it

might be, might seem, you know, temporarily at

ease, might be Nice to be around. And then your

next competition is around the corner and that entire loop just comes

crashing down again. So for me, my childhood and my

collegiate career was a, an ongoing cycle of keep,

keep someone happy, perform, life's great. And then the

next day or 24 hours later, it can

completely come crashing down. So yeah, not a, not

a healthy place to be. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, in

constellation work, we have these contracts. And in

our family of origin, in our original constellations,

we create these contracts, especially with our parents.

And a lot of times what happens is instead of

the flow of love and the flow of attunement,

Going from parent to child, which it should be kind of like a

one-way flow, one-way highway, it ends up

reversing. And the flow of attunement starts

to go from child to parent, where the child's like

always attuning to the parent. How can I make you feel better? How can I

stabilize you? How can I keep you happy? And that really

pulls the child out of themself. And

they start really merging with their parents' emotional experience.

Um, and it sounds like when we were working with this

part, a lot of the performance was to stabilize

the home. And that's such a tremendous amount of

pressure. And that creates, you know, what we would

call an attachment injury. Because the

attunement is no longer going from parent to child. parent to child, it's

going to child to parent and child to

environment. Um,

anything that you want to share around those,

you know, around that topic? Yeah, that's so spot on.

And that dynamic led me to feeling very unsafe in the

world. And it's so funny that you brought that up because after I had

graduated from college, My parents got divorced and

that was a prime example of when I saw these patterns kind of playing out.

Instead of dad checking in on me like, hey, are you okay?

He would get mad when I didn't check in on him enough to like make

sure he was back on his feet. And it was like, I remember we

had a point where it's like, no, like your job isn't to

support your parents or to keep your parents happy. It's the other way

around. And I was like, I didn't even realize that. You know,

we, I grew up kind of thinking that I was responsible for

his happiness and I, when I felt like I wasn't doing

enough, it really fractured our

relationship. And it's a, it's very complicated till this day.

I'm curious if there's any other contracts that we want to touch

on and work with and potentially release that relate to

carrying the load of someone else's happiness.

Yeah, I think, um,

I think the contract is something like, I, Dane,

solemnly swear to my essential self that I need

to

maintain my— to keep my parents happy in order to

main— in order to be worthy of love. Mm-hmm.

So I, Dane, solemnly swear to my essential self that

I will always keep my parents happy in order

to keep myself safe and worthy of

love, no matter the cost to myself. Yeah.

Does that resonate as a contract? Yeah, I think so.

Definitely. So repeat that out loud. So I, Dane— I, Dane—

solemnly swear to my essential self— I solemnly swear to my essential

self. That I will always strive to keep my parents happy. That

I will always strive to keep my parents happy. In order to keep myself

safe. In order to keep myself safe. And feel worthy

of love. And feel worthy of love. No matter the cost to

myself. No matter the cost to myself. What

happens in your body when you repeat that out loud?

There's just such a relaxation because it's so true.

Uh-huh. And if you get curious about the part that's carrying that

contract, is it the same part that we worked with earlier, or is it a

different one?

I think it's a different one. Mm-hmm.

So see if you can find that part around your body somewhere.

It's more my gut. Mm-hmm. And what do you notice

about it when you focus on it?

Feels very heavy and very overburdened.

Mm-hmm. Anything else?

Just feels exhausted. Yeah.

And how do you feel towards it?

I feel compassion for it.

So let it know that. See how that lands.

It kind of relaxes a little bit. Anything the part

wants to share about itself?

It's very fatigued.

Yeah. Tired of carrying the load of their

happiness. Yeah.

Anything more it wants you to know? It's carried a

lot of guilt. Mm-hmm.

Feeling like he is the reason for

his parents' misery.

Great.

Anything more he wants to share about that?

The guilt was really related to my mom. Mm-hmm.

Her not being happily married

and my dad not giving her the

attention that she needed. And this part kind of taking on

that, the burden of that. Yeah.

Of needing to make mom happy or

to fill the void that dad wasn't fulfilling in his role.

Yeah. Yeah. Does that make sense to you?

Yeah. So let the part know you can really see that

and see how it reacts.

It reacts to that very well. Mm-hmm.

Anything more it wants to share about what that experience was like?

That dynamic?

It made it very unsafe to be

around other women. Yeah.

It led to a lot of rescuing. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Makes total sense why he would try and do that.

Was it to secure connection? Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

His value? Yeah.

How old is this part?

Getting 16.

Mm-hmm. So around the age where he's also starting to engage,

you know, other females. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And how old does the part think you are?

16 to 18. Yeah. So he also still thinks you're quite

younger, quite a bit younger. Yeah.

So let the part know how old you are and see how he reacts.

Feels safer knowing that I'm older.

Mm-hmm.

And how does he feel about this burden that he's carrying, this contract that he's

still carrying? How does he feel about it?

He's ready to retire it. Is he?

Yeah. Great.

So he's ready to release his contract? Mm-hmm.

Awesome. So once again, step

into that essential self.

And let me know when you feel embodied in that.

I'm there. Great. Connect to this part in your

gut

and really speak these words intentionally as our essential self.

As our essential self. I release you from this contract. I release

you from this contract. And I revoke this vow. And I revoke this

vow. Good. Just breathe.

Invite this part to offer that contract to one of the elements: earth,

water, fire, wind.

Fire. Fire. Great. So just invite this

part to take that contract and to

offer it to the fire.

I'll let you know

when it's

complete.

It's complete. Great.

Now invite in a blessing for this part. Just a replacement of that

contract.

I think the blessing is authenticity without the burden

of other people's happiness. Great.

So invite that into your body.

And then what I'm going to invite you to do is

invite your mother's essential self

into your field of awareness.

Let me know when you feel connected to her essential self.

Yeah. I want you to say to her, and you can do it

internally or out loud, it's usually more powerful out loud,

and say to her, Mom, I've been carrying the responsibility of

your happiness.

Mom, I've been carrying the responsibility of your happiness.

For a long time. For a long time.

Just breathe.

And her essential self is going to say back to you, Dane, that is no

longer your burden to carry.

And she's going to ask a request. Will you return it back

to me?

And see if you feel ready to return that back to her.

I do. Great.

So it was guilt in your gut. Which is really the

responsibility of your mom's happiness.

Go into your body, take that out of your gut,

and hand your mother's happiness back to her

as a gift, as a blessing to her

and to yourself.

Just let me know when you've done that.

Yeah. Great. And now just

repeat these words to your

mom. Mom, I take what is mine. Mom, I take what is mine,

and I leave you what is yours. And I leave you what is yours.

I release you to your destiny. I release you to your destiny.

Just invite her to

make her way out of your field.

And just check in with your body.

What are your body sensations? Feel

very whole, not corded to her. Great.

And so whenever that feels complete, you're welcome

to slowly Bring yourself back.

Feels very freeing. Yeah. It's felt

so dense in my body for so long that energetically it just

feels like there's such a massive shift. Yeah.

I find a lot of our digestive challenges

And gut issues are when we're carrying the burden

of other people's emotions inside of us.

You know, because the gut is very much a boundary

between what's you and what's not you, what's yours and what's not yours.

And so when those lines get blurred, it can

create a lot of stress in the gut.

Because the gut is really the body's representation

of a boundary and the interface between the

inner and outer environment. You know, because the gut is where

we take food and stuff in

from the outer environment into our body. So when we're

taking, you know, energy, emotion from mom,

dad, whoever, and we're taking that into us as our

responsibility to carry, A lot of times it will be

held in the gut. So I'm not surprised that that part showed up there when

you tuned into it. Yeah. It's really interesting. I've

noticed in myself so much binge eating throughout my career,

and I know a lot of that's related to, you know, other keeping them,

keeping them happy. Yeah. Beautiful. Well, what an

incredible journey together. I'd love to check in with

you, Dane. Anything that you'd like to share about your work?

Because you're, you know, launching also as a massage

therapist, a body worker, a holistic health coach. So

I'd love for you to share anything about some of the work that you're currently

doing in the world. Yeah, so I currently work as a

physiotherapist. I do part massage and part stretch therapy.

It's very targeted. Everything starts with an assessment, and

there, there's definitely no wasted time. I'm currently working on a

project to hopefully have some land where I athletes, whether it's

NBA players or whatnot, can come spend some of

their offseason and just kind of reconnect to themselves. So kind of,

I'm planning on helping support athletes that way. So whether you're a

college athlete or whatever level that you play, athlete or not,

I'd love to connect with you down the road. Beautiful.

And if people wanted to connect with you, where would you want to send them?

Or how can they reach out to you if they're interested in you know, getting

some support? Yeah, you can send me an email at

[email protected], or my website is

decodewithdane.com to kind of see more of what I offer.

Beautiful. And what are some

maybe parting messages? Um, any

wisdom, any, um, final thoughts

and reflections in terms of, um, What you would offer

athletes. You know, if there's some athletes that are listening to this

that might be struggling or want to really improve their mental

health, whether they're still, you know,

in their sport or retired, what would you want to offer

as some just final reflections? Yeah, I think the

first thing I want to offer is if you're listening to this and you're an

athlete and you feel like you're going through a crisis, I would

invite you to look at your crisis as an opportunity

to further step into your purpose. And even if you can't

see that right now, just to kind of let

things take their course and to keep going and to be open to that

possibility. And then the other thing I would want to offer is

that every hero goes through a death process. So

if you're retiring or you're in a transition state

and you feel like that's causing a lot of chaos, just to trust that that

could be very well be your invitation into really being a

hero in this world. So I would love to offer that.

Beautiful, wise words from a wise man.

Thank you so much, brother. You know, I really loved how,

you know, what we, the work we got into today, we really

highlighted how a lot of these unconscious

patterns through athletics and performance going back to

childhood could really impact a lot of

our relationship dynamics in adulthood.

Super grateful that you opened yourself up, you

know, on this recording an episode today, which takes a lot of

courage and vulnerability. So I just want to express my gratitude to you for doing

that. Thank you so much. It helps me give my life more

purpose when I'm able to do so. So it's an honor to do it with

you. Beautiful. Thank you, Dane. And thank you to all the listeners for going on

this beautiful journey with us. Check out Dane's work if you feel inspired.

And I look forward to sharing something next week

with another episode of Mental Health in a Modern World. Bye-bye. Bye.