Self-Love: Moving From Not Enough To Worthiness

 

This episode is a little different, and it might be exactly what you need. Instead of just talking about addiction recovery, self-love, and healing. We’re inviting you to experience it. Donny Starkins is here to offer a powerful conversation on self-love in recovery, exploring why so many people struggle with unworthiness, shame, and low self-worth, especially in early sobriety. You’ll learn how self-abandonment shows up in everyday life, what self-love actually looks like in action, and how mindfulness, discomfort, and presence can become powerful tools for growth. Then we shift.

This episode transitions into a live, guided self-love workshop with Donny, designed to help you reconnect with yourself, regulate your nervous system, and build real confidence and inner worth from the inside out. If you’ve ever felt like you’re not enough, either you have struggled with guilt or shame, or are looking for practical tools to support your mental health and recovery journey, this episode is for you. This isn’t just something to listen to. It’s something to experience.

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Self-Love: Moving From Not Enough To Worthiness

Breaking Free From Shame, Rediscovering Your Worth, And Learning To Show Up For Yourself In Recovery

This episode is going to be a little bit different. Honestly, it’s going to be powerful. We’re not just having a conversation. We’re going to create an experience. I’ve got Donny Starkins here. He’s a good friend of mine. We got sober together back when we started recovery. I started in 2011. He’s a former Division One baseball player turned leader in mindfulness, yoga, and personal development. Donny’s journey started through pain, multiple knee injuries, and an addiction to painkillers. What he’s built on the other side of that is incredible.

He’s the Founder of the Love Yourself Collective, a transformational coach, speaker, and co-host of Comeback Stories with Darren Waller. He’s worked with high-level athletes around the world and is part of Lululemon’s mindfulness performance team. More than anything, Donny is someone who lives and teaches what it means to truly come back, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We’re going to talk briefly, and then we’re going to shift into doing something different. Donny’s going to lead us through a live self-love workshop, something a lot of people need, especially in recovery. Donny, welcome to the show.

Thank you. It’s good to be here. Thank you, all.

Why Many People Struggle With Loving Themselves

Why do so many people, especially those in addiction and recovery, struggle with self-love or feelings of unworthiness?

That’s a deep question to start. I don’t even think it’s just people in addiction. The people in addiction are the ones who got the gift of desperation to be able to get to the root of this not-enough story. In my experience, I started a retreat in Sedona. You’ve been to it, Love Yourself. The reason why I came up with that name is that no matter where I would go and teach, speak, or lead some type of event, the common theme was that we don’t love ourselves enough.

We think that makes us different. There’s something wrong with me. I don’t feel worthy. I’m uncomfortable in my own skin because I’m constantly feeling like I’m not smart enough, pretty enough, or strong enough. You name it. We think that makes us different, but it’s what connects us all. I often say that the essence of self-love is that the only story that matters is the one that we tell ourselves. The most important relationship you’ll ever have is the one you have with yourself. The only thing that matters is how we feel about ourselves when we’re by ourselves.

That’s why a lot of people run from meditation because we can’t sit in our shit. We have to sit in it and stay with it long enough to work through it. Oftentimes, with meditation, people think in the West it’s about focus and being more present, but it’s about getting to the root of the problem, digging it out, and healing ourselves. It’s not like we’re broken. There are things that are jammed up. Often, it’s an old BS story of not enough. That usually comes from Mom, Dad, or someone in our younger years, like a parental figure.

It can come later on in life like if you’re in a toxic and mentally, emotionally, and verbally abusive relationship, and someone’s making you feel like you’re not enough. The Four Agreements talks about, we agree upon these things, and then it becomes our story. In recovery, to me, it’s not stated in the literature much anywhere, but the core of it all is a lack of worthiness and a lack of self-love. To be able to reframe that, it’s almost laughable that this is what I talk about and teach because this wasn’t the plan for me.

My plan was to be a professional baseball player, make it to the big leagues, take care of my friends and family, and fulfill my childhood dream. The fact that I’m teaching yoga, mindfulness and telling everybody to go love themselves is laughable. It’s like, “Want to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans.” God had other plans for me, for sure.

How People Unknowingly Abandon Themselves

What are some ways people unknowingly abandon themselves on a daily basis?

Where do I begin? I believe that the most self-confident people are the ones who keep the promises they make to themselves. You’ll hear me reference The Four Agreements a lot. If you haven’t read that book, it’s life-changing. One of them is, “Be impeccable with your word.” When I first heard that, I thought it was to do the things you say you’re going to do for other people. If you say you’re going to meet Mom for lunch, meet Mom for lunch. It’s so much deeper than that. A lot of it is the promises that we make to ourselves.

If we say we’re going to go to the gym and we don’t go to the gym, it’s so much deeper than gaining some weight and getting out of shape. You said you were going to do something, and you didn’t do it. You’ve broken that promise. You feel like shit about yourself. What happens is that internal noise, which I call your saboteur, this little sabotage voice that chirps up and says things like, “You’re not good enough. Who are you to do this? You’re too old. You’re too broken.” It starts to get louder. The mind becomes fertile ground for that when we break the promises.

Especially early on in recovery. If you can keep the promises you make to yourself and start these small achievable goals, the appropriate chunk size. It’d small enough to feel attainable, and big enough to feel worthwhile, you start following through. Early on in treatment, it’s getting up and making your bed. If you’re in a residential program, that’s even better because you have a controlled environment. You don’t have your phone, which is such a gift to not have your phone and create some rituals and some morning routines. I call it your sacred morning, where there are no distractions.

It’s keeping the promises that you make to yourself. When you don’t, it gets messy. The mind gets messy. We’re so vulnerable. All this stuff on social media. You have the biggest companies in the world hiring the smartest people in the world to create algorithms to capture our attention. Any marketing or any commercial you see out there is aimed at trying to hit our core wound of not enough. You’ll be enough when you take this pill or buy this product. We have to truly learn how to hold our own hearts in our hands.

You all have probably been through some type of heartbreak or a breakup at some point. When we can do these practices, keep the promises we make to ourselves, and formulate our own self-love practices, we learn how to hold our own hearts in our hands. If someone else comes along and wants to hold our hearts, great. If they let go, our hearts don’t shatter into a thousand pieces, and our lives go off the rails. We know how to, and this is what we get to figure out.

To me, I always say that’s why this is a gift, the gift of desperation, because most of the world is going to go their whole lives hijacked by this not-enough story. They never got the gift or were brought to their knees in the throes of their addiction. They’re going to get to the end of their life and realize they never lived. They’re going to be afraid to die because they’ve been living in this and trying to get validation from Dad. Dad’s maybe not even been on this earth for twenty years, but we’re still trying to get to the top of the corporate ladder to prove to Dad that we’re enough.

We have to know that we’re enough. It comes from keeping the promises you make to yourself. Not creating these big lofty goals because that mind is going to talk us out of doing it, but little goals. It’s like compound interest or 1% better. You start to create these little ones. They start to stack into a solid, unshakable foundation for physical sobriety, but life in general to be truly free.

I love that you brought up The Four Agreements. We lead a The Four Agreements book study every weekend every Saturday at the residential treatment center. “Be impeccable with your word,” I thought it was just to do the next right thing, but it’s more than that. Don Miguel Ruiz also talks about black magic, which, if we’re doing small things, and we’re following through with what we say we’re going to do. It’s not just that. It’s also doing the next right thing. It’s also not putting myself down.

I’ve got a good example. I’ve been cycling a lot. I love cycling. I have a friend, Jason, who’s a good friend. He started cycling. He is strong. I’m like, “This motherfucker is so strong, and he just started cycling.” There’s a climb in Paradise Valley. It’s called Cholla. It’s one of the steepest climbs in PV in Arizona. It’s steep. My PR was 534. He went up, and got 505. You can see it on Strava, which is the social media app for cycling. I went over there. I didn’t say anything. I just went over there, and I didn’t tell anybody. I went, and I hit it as hard as I could. It’s 507. I missed it by two seconds.

One of two things could happen. I could feel good because I did my best, I made it, and I’m like, “Damn it. I know I can get it.” I didn’t get it. I still feel good because I did the very best that I could. That’s one way it could have gone another direction, and I could feel bad about myself because he’s a new cyclist. Who is this guy? I can’t even beat him. I do have a lot of other PRs that he hasn’t touched yet, though, but that specific one, he got me on.

You weaved in two of them too because “always do your best” is the fourth agreement. If we know we did our best, then we’re not attached to any outcomes. To me, if you’re setting goals, the most important part of setting any type of goal is detaching from the outcome. It’s important to do if you’re in the amends process. If you’re making amends to hear an, I forgive you or it’s okay. You’re doing the amends for the wrong reason. You’re trying to control something you can’t control. Most of our stress comes from trying to control somebody or something that we don’t have control over. We could talk about The Four Agreements all day long because to me, they’re the essence of life.

When you go back to the, “Be impeccable with your word,” it’s also the words that we speak. In the book, it talks about how your word is two sides of a sword, where one part of it can lead with love and light. You can speak that to other people. The other one can cut through like a knife. Most war or every conflict always starts with words. The words that we’re either speaking to ourselves or speaking to somebody else.

Another way that we abandon ourselves in recovery or just in life is also through gossip. It can happen in the context of a recovery center or a small clique in recovery, and people start talking. When you’re talking shit and gossiping about somebody else, you’re using your word against yourself. If you believe that karma is going to come back to you when you’re talking about somebody else, it’s going to come back to you. That’s an abandonment.

It’s a form of self-sabotage because it’s people pleasing or it’s desiring acceptance. Usually, when we’re getting caught up in gossip and want to chime in with somebody else. It’s because we want to feel included in this low vibrational conversation, but we just want to be a part of it. It’s almost like we fall back into our little middle school or high school version of ourselves because we want to be a part of something.

The other thing I think about is what Joe Dispenza talks about. We have 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts every single day. Ninety percent of them are subconscious. If I’m talking negatively to somebody or about somebody. That’s what I’m telling my subconscious mind. Those are the thoughts that are going through my mind. I talk to my dogs. I talk to Wayne and Betty. I tell them how smart they are. I tell them how funny they are. “You guys are so smart. You’re so funny. You’re so good.” I’m talking to myself because those are the thoughts that are going through my subconscious mind.

To Donny’s point, I want to vibrate at a high level. I want to be in a high vibration state. I don’t want to speak negatively about myself or to other people. When I’m talking negatively about somebody else or something else, then that’s the energy that I’m putting out. That’s what I’m telling my subconscious mind. The subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between you and somebody else. I want to continue speaking positively from an optimistic place.

Our subconscious is formed from ages 0 to 7. Subconscious runs the show 80% of our day. Our subconscious is running 80% of our lives. It’s formed in those ages 0 to 7. I don’t remember much from then. It would make sense why you see people out there in the world acting like children, often when maybe things aren’t going their way. That’s the beauty of being able to come in here and use all the amazing modalities that you have. Getting into the EMDR and going back and rewiring or healing that inner child. Whether we remember it or not.

 

It’s because a lot of that stuff was, going back to The Four Agreements. It’s just stuff that we agreed upon. Some things are taught, and some things are caught. A lot of times, God bless our parents and whoever raised us, but they didn’t have the tools. They didn’t have all of this access that we have. We agreed because they’re our parents. They’re supposed to know everything. Did they know much when it comes to these types of conversations and emotional intelligence? No, because they didn’t have access to it.

If you’ve got a big fat resentment towards a family member or a parent. Remember, if they knew better, they’d do better. We have to understand that, and at some point, drop the old victim story. That doesn’t mean we’re not the victim of something. I don’t want to diminish that, but to be still playing the victim 10, 20, or 30 years later, we’re giving our power away instead of taking it back.

I was talking with a friend about this. We all have stuff that we go through. What I mean is I’m not unique. I have things that I go through. I have traumas. I have challenges in business. I have challenges with my family. I have challenges in my relationships. I’m not the only one. Everybody else, every single one of you has gone through your shit. If I start thinking, “You don’t understand what I went through,” and I have thought that way in the past, but I’ve learned that that’s not going to help me.

What’s going to help me is knowing, “How am I going to handle this? How am I going to learn? How am I going to grow?” That’s why we’re all here, to continue growing, developing, and getting to a place where we don’t take things personally. We forgive ourselves, our parents, our family members, and the people who have hurt us. Know that they did the very best that they could. They used the tools that they were given as they grew up.

It’s such a good point where pain is part of the shared human experience. It’s what connects us all. Even though my pain might look different than your pain, we’re all the same. We’re all trying to find freedom from that pain. When we think we’re different, my problems are unique, or if they knew what I did. As you probably are experiencing in these rooms, you feel more connected to each other often than you do with most of your family that you’ve been with your entire life. It’s not because of all of the perfection and all these amazing things. It’s because of the shit.

It’s because pain is the essence of common humanity. If you’re going to be a human, you’re going to struggle. When you all share and open up in groups, vulnerability is the pathway to connection. When someone maybe rolls in on their first couple of days here. They think that what they went through was the worst, or what they did was the worst. Somebody opens up and shares what they did. That might bankrupt this story that this person has been telling themselves like their stuff’s the worst.

It’s the vulnerability. They feed off each other. I can tell you all are open in here and down to do the work. If you were in here, maybe forced here, checked out, and closed off. That’s how this whole energy would be in the room. When one person opens up, it gives somebody else permission to do the same. It builds and builds. Ultimately, you all create the experience in here. You might have leaders. You might have facilitators that come in, but you guys get to shape this. It’s all about honesty, vulnerability, and opening up. That’s a true connection.

How Does Self-Love Look Like During Early Recovery

It’s intimacy. For someone early in recovery, what does self-love look like in action, not just conceptually?

Early recovery goes back to keeping the promises we make to ourselves, small ones. I have a coaching program called the Shift. I use the analogy that if you were out in the ocean and you change your direction just one degree. You will end up in a completely different destination. It’s about keeping those promises, making them small, and following through. To me, self-love isn’t all these butterflies, rainbows, manicures and pedicures. That’s important.

That’s a part of it because you are taking care of yourself. To me, it’s accountability. Accountability is one of the most radical acts of self-love. Truthfully, this is a semi-controlled environment. When you get back out there, the more layers of accountability you have. This is something you probably shared or taught me. The more layers of accountability you have when you get out here and go back into the real world, the more likely you are to stay sober. You stack up as many layers as possible. True accountability is what you are doing when nobody’s watching. That’s a massive piece.

Another big one, and I sometimes feel like a fraud teaching this. It’s boundaries. Boundaries will be my life’s work, especially when it comes to those closest to me. I’m a lot better than I used to be at setting the boundary, but the energetic boundary of guilt that can come in after setting it and feeling bad. The bottom line is we teach people how to treat us. When you come in here, and maybe you’ve allowed somebody in your life or multiple people to cross boundaries. You’re going to have to go back out and reteach people how to treat you.

They’re not going to like it because now you’re a different person. It almost becomes like a threat because maybe, how this person used to control you, they can’t do that anymore. The ability to hold the line is hard. It’s not something we ever just figure out. It’s part of the integration. For me, it’s my life’s work to create those boundaries and hold the line. Saying no is a complete sentence. When you’re saying no to something, you’re saying yes to something else.

To know your boundaries, you have to know what your values are. A boundary gets crossed when a value gets stepped on. Your values can change. People do values exercises every six months or so. I’m sure what you all valued maybe six months ago is going to be a little different than what you value now. If you don’t know your values, you don’t know where that line in the sand is. You’re also more likely to be talked into doing things you don’t want to do because you can’t clearly articulate why you’re saying no.

Figuring out what your values are is so huge. That also helps in goal setting because if you don’t know your values, you can’t set goals either. There’s a lot. Early on, it’s surrounding yourself, staying in the middle of the herd, and finding your tribe and your people. To me, it’s honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. I work with non-recovery people also. I tell them, if you go all in on that HOW acronym, you’ve got to get honest with yourself first, and then with at least one other person, a sponsor, therapist, or mentor, stay open-minded.

I use that as an analogy of trying on a shirt. You try on a shirt. You like it. You keep it. It fits. You keep it. If it doesn’t, you let it go. You keep trying things on until you figure out your system. I feel like a lot of people, when they set goals or are trying to stay sober, and they don’t. It’s not because they’re broken. It’s because their system is broken. You’ve got to figure out what your system is for you. Yours might look different than others. That’s okay, but stay open-minded.

Willingness equates to freedom. The more willing I am to do the work, to be honest, to be of service, and to show up, the freer I’m going to be. I often use a little reminder, a little mantra, where I’ll say, “Donny, how free do you want to be?” It’s oftentimes when it’s maybe 8:00 at night. I’m watching a show on TV, Netflix, and somebody calls.

Willingness equates to freedom. The more willing you are to show up and do the work, the more freedom you have. Share on X

Still to this day, and somebody may be in recovery and needs a little help, my immediate response is, “They’re bothering me,” but it’s like, “How free do you want to be? These people helped you do the same thing.” It’ll bring me back. We don’t regret the past, nor do we shut the door on it. We want to remember it, but we don’t need to keep shaming ourselves. The shame is there for a reason, but it’s not there to stay.

Sometimes, if we let someone cross our boundaries, we feel guilty. If I make a decision, say something, or do something that’s not aligned with my values. That’s when I feel the guilt and the shame. Can anybody relate to that? It’s okay. You don’t need to go beat yourself up. I’ve learned not to beat myself up. Next time, I’m going to play the tape through because I don’t want to feel bad. I want to feel good. That’s why we’re all here. We want to feel good.

That’s such a good point, though. That’s another radical act of self-love. When your actions align with your values, you become unshakable. If you keep making decisions based on your values, you can’t ever make the wrong decision. If your decision-making process were to run this choice, maybe it’s a new friend or a new romantic partner. You have to run it through your values and see, “Does it align?” Sometimes, we’re afraid of making the wrong decision, but you can’t make the wrong decision if you’ve run the decision through your values.

When your actions align with your values, you become unshakable. When they don’t, that’s where shit can get messy. The shame comes in. That’s shame’s purpose. Maybe you all learned the difference between shame and guilt. Guilt is, “I did something bad.” Shame is, “I’m a bad person.” It’s the over-identification of something that you did. Shame is there to teach us misaligned values. My action misaligned with values. It’s the same thing with guilt.

Brené Brown says, “Guilt is a fair but honest teacher.” It’s there, but it’s not there for us to keep shaming and shooting all over ourselves. It’s like, “I should have done this.” It’s fairly normal in early recovery to have these feelings of shame, but they’re there to teach us something. If we can learn the lesson, because lessons will be repeated until they’re learned, then we can learn and grow. It’s not necessarily a failure thing because we’re going to keep learning and growing.

How To Find Comfort In Discomfort

You talk a lot about finding comfort in discomfort. How does leaning into discomfort help someone heal and grow?

There’s another act of self-love for sure, getting comfortable being uncomfortable. Oftentimes, that can look like sharing in front of a group, talking. I remember early on in recovery. It would be a men’s meeting, too. We’d go around in a circle. I would be sitting there rehearsing what I was going to say because I wanted it to sound smart. My whole life, my life’s work has been to undo the performance. I’m an achiever on the Enneagram.

It’s one of those personality tests. Carrying what other people think is the dark side of that, and getting validation from other people. Playing baseball and everything was performance-based. If you play well, you make the team. If you play well, you make the starting lineups. It’s all about what somebody else thinks, a coach or the people in the stands. To be able to undo that has been my life’s work, but to chip away at it every single day.

Vulnerability, being honest, sharing in a group, doing yoga, doing meditation, doing breathe work, and working with a sponsor are all things. You’ve got to figure out to be able to find comfort in the discomfort. I like to use the term, to meet your edge and soften. We don’t have to try to push past our edge, but can we get to our edge? Whether it’s a yoga pose, sitting in meditation, doing breath work, or listening to the sound healing modalities? That can activate a lot of things. How do we soften into that instead of resisting, pushing, or fighting?

A lot of times in life, we’re holding on, fighting, and gripping on so hard and so tight that we can’t even see how stuck we are. I feel like the number one gift you all will get out of this work is the gift of awareness. Awareness loosens the grip in a natural way. We used to loosen the grip, drugs, alcohol, and the phone thing. What most of the world is numbing out with is the phone. The light of awareness is what can loosen the grip. You have to meet your edge and soften, and to find that comfort, but find discomfort in it. Life is not going to be comfortable all the time.

Whatever we practice will grow stronger. If you’re in the yoga pose and you’re meeting your edge and softening. When you go out in the world and get triggered or charged by somebody else, you can pause and breathe. I call it the power of the pause. In that space, we make better decisions and fewer mistakes and realign our actions with our core values. The more awareness you have, the more space you have to make those decisions. We’re not constantly in reaction, reacting from fear instead of learning how to respond from a place of love.

How many of you all have ever sent the text you wish you hadn’t sent, said the thing, or sent the email? That’s the space because we send it, and in that moment, we’re reacting. We’re hijacked by fear. We send it, and then we feel like crap about it afterwards. It comes back to the impeccable with your word thing also. Those words can be powerful. This is all for us to be able to create space. Davidji, my meditation teacher friend, says, “We are the space in between.” The space between stimulus and response is where our freedom lies.

We’re going to get triggered. We’re going to get charged. How can we use all of these coping skills that you get armed with through beautiful programs like this, because the tools only work if we use them? The more that you practice, being in this space, being able to practice with each other and on each other, setting boundaries, and giving feedback, because we’re all in the same work. It makes it easier to go practice out there, or it makes the tool more readily available.

First Step To Take Towards Loving Oneself

If someone tuning in feels like they’re not enough or doesn’t know where to start with self-love, what’s the first step?

The easy thing is to say, “You’re not alone, and you are enough.” Again, the only story that matters is the one we tell ourselves. It’s those small steps. It’s the small shifts. One, you can’t do it alone. Find your people. If it’s one or two people within these recovery rooms, I like to get close to people who have something that I want. I’m not talking about the material stuff. A superpower of mine has been to get close to people who have something that I want.

You went to a Joe Dispenza retreat. That dude has something that we want. He was paralyzed and healed his back by visualizing it. It’s the power of the mind. It’s being close to that proximity is power. You’re the sum of the five people you hang around with the most. Staying in the middle of the herd is huge. If you don’t, you’ll get picked off. You can’t do it alone. Faith is so important. Call it what you want, God, higher power, spirit, or universe. I believe faith relieves us from the burden of excessive responsibility. It’s too much to do alone.

The saying you all probably have heard is, “God will never give us more than we can handle.” I don’t believe that. I believe God will give us way more than we can handle, which is why we need God or something bigger than us. We need each other. We can’t do it alone. We’ve tried. That is ultimately, for most of us, at our rock bottoms. We were trying to do it alone. We were saying we were alone. We were saying nobody understands. We’re stuck in fear of finally surrendering and maybe having to stop our lives and go to treatment.

What is usually the scariest thing ends up becoming the safest thing. A lot of people end up not wanting to leave because it feels like a safe space. It’s about being able to find a safe space and finding supportive people, but also the balance between support and accountability. Support is someone who’s going to love you and hold space. It’s also someone who’s going to give you that kick in the butt when you’re falling off track. Most people know what to do. They just don’t always do it. Without accountability, we fall into these ruts. We end up getting more of what we don’t want.

The only story that matters is the one that we tell ourselves. Share on X

The people that I hung out with pre-recovery or pre-sobriety were much different than the people that I hang out with now. A lot of times, I hear people say, “I want to keep my old friends.” I’ve got some old friends that I love. I’m going to San Francisco. I’m going to spend some time with a couple of my old friends. I can still love them. They’re in a different place than I am.

I’m not going to spend time with them every single day because they might not necessarily have what I want, if that makes sense. To your point, I want to spend time with people who have what I want because I’m the average of the five people that I spend the most time with. I want to find people who have what I want, people who are going to lift me, and people who are doing the things that I want to do. That’s going to help me become the man that I want to be.

The truth is, you’re in a place where they talk about this feeling of neutrality. It’s contingent on our spiritual condition. You are solid in the work that you’ve done. You can put yourself in that environment. Early on in recovery, those are the people we need to have space from. The bottom line is, it’s not like we’re better than. On a frequency or vibrational level, when you have people that are using. Especially alcohol, which is one of the lowest vibrational substances that you can take. You’re going to vibrate on a higher level.

What happens with that is the four agreements again, of not taking things personally. As you start to transcend, you’re going to have people out there that are going to be like, “You can just have one.” They’re going to say, “You’re this sober person now or you’re on this spiritual path. They’re projecting onto you.” You’re going to get that as you start to elevate higher and take this life of recovery, because your light is going to irritate a lot of people. When they project onto you, it’s not personal.

They feel threatened because they probably have some shit. As you start to do that, they don’t know how to handle it. They’re losing their old friend, and so they’re going to say some stuff that’s coming from their own issues. It’s not personal. The moment we take things personally, all of our spiritual growth comes to a halt. Why didn’t we learn this stuff in grade school? To learn to love ourselves and to not take things personally would have been a little bit more important than the stuff that I don’t remember.

A Guide Meditation With Donny

I want to transition and let you teach some of what you want to teach, or lead us through an exercise. What are your thoughts? What do you want to do with us?

How much time do we have?

We’ve got some time.

How many of you meditate? How’s that working for you? Good? It’s all a practice, and I’ll guide you through it. I created this meditation. The theme of this workshop, with a guided meditation is called Sharpening Your Saw. We were talking about the tools. The idea is that if your job were to cut down trees with a saw, your task would consist of two things. Which are cutting down trees and sharpening your saw.

When you’re sharpening your saw, no trees are getting cut, but having your tool in optimal shape makes your job easier and your work more efficient. If you never took time to sharpen your saw, your work would be a lot more difficult and a lot more inefficient. Our body, mind, and spirit are the tools with which we live our lives. If we don’t tend to them, then we can become dull, uninspired, and frustrated at the way that life is going. It’s like trying to cut down a tree with a dull saw.

Our body, mind, and spirit are the tools with which we live our lives. If we do not tend to them, we can become dull, uninspired, and frustrated. Share on X

This is why it’s important every single day to stay in these practices. I’ll guide you through a guided meditation that’s going to bring to awareness some practices or some things that you need to do to sharpen the mind, the body, and the soul. This is why it’s important that we keep our minds alert and calm. Our hearts connected and inspired. Our souls passionate and on purpose, whatever your purpose means. Do you want to dive into this meditation?

Let’s do it.

If you’re tuning in on the show, you can settle into a comfortable seat. The two key components of any meditation are to feel relaxed, but alert. In meditation, know that whatever is in your experience is part of your experience. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. It’s not if your mind strays away, because it’s going to. When it does, can you come back? Think about if you were doing a rep with a free weight. Every time that your mind leaves and you notice it and come back. That’s a good thing. It’s not like, “There goes my mind again.” No, you were aware of it, and you brought it back.

That’s like doing a rep. Your mind is getting stronger. You’re cultivating more awareness. You’ll have your breath. Know that the mind is going to go. Can you simply come back? I encourage you to use the power of the imagination to work for you. We’re using our imagination every single day, usually to create these imaginary fights, scenarios, and things that usually never even happen. Why not start to use it to work for us? Take a moment and settle in. Find a comfortable place for your hands.

If you’re feeling all over the place, you can go palms down on your knees. That will allow you to feel more grounded. If you’re feeling like you want to receive something more, inner peace, presence, or gratitude, you can go palms up. You could also rest your hands in your lap, but find a space that works for you. Again, the two key components are to feel relaxed but alert. The easiest way to practice mindfulness is through awareness of breath. If it feels safe, you can start to close your eyes and turn your gaze inward. If that doesn’t feel safe, you can keep your eyes slightly open.

Take a moment and find a breath that works for you that’s going to drop you down into your body. If you’ve got to even out your breath, or if you’ve got to take a couple of sighs. Take a moment and center your focus just on your breath. When you focus on one thing, the body starts to feel this enormous release of tension. The body goes along for this emotional roller coaster ride from the drama of our minds. Keep coming back to a breath that’s going to drop you down into your body.

Breathing deeper, see how you can increase the quality of your breath a little bit more. Let your body begin to settle. Imagine you’re standing in a quiet forest and in your hands is a saw. This saw represents you, your mind, your body, and your spirit. Take a look and notice the condition of the saw. Is it sharp? Is it worn down? Is it dull from overuse? No judgment, just awareness. Imagine the work you’ve been doing in your life, trying to push forward, trying to grow, trying to change, and trying to please others, but doing it with a tool that might be tired. Take a deep breath in and a deep breath out.

Ask yourself gently, “Where in my life have I been trying to push through instead of taking care of myself?” Notice. No fixing. No judging. Imagine setting the saw down for a moment. You stop striving. You stop pushing. You choose to pause. This is where the sharpening begins. It’s happening now. Bring awareness to your mind. Notice your thoughts. Are they fast? Are they negative? Are they busy? Are they overwhelming? Ask yourself the question, “What helps my mind feel calm, clear, and focused?”

Let the answer come. Maybe it’s stillness, breathing, journaling, nature, or silence. Notice. Bring awareness to your body. Feel your breath. Feel your heartbeat. Feel your physical state. Ask, “What does my body need more of to feel strong, energized, and supported?” Is it rest, movement, certain foods you need to eat, or certain foods you need to avoid? Listen.

Shift your awareness to your spirit, the deeper part of you, the part that seeks meaning, connection, and purpose. Ask yourself, “What helps me feel connected to something greater than myself? Is it God, nature, community, service, or stillness?” Feel into that. Is it prayer or meditation? Imagine yourself slowly sharpening the saw. Each breath sharpens your mind. Each inhale restores your body. Each exhale reconnects your spirit.

You are not falling behind. You are right where you’re supposed to be. You’re prepping yourself to move forward with strength and stability. Ask yourself one final question. If I truly took care of myself daily, how would my life feel different? See that version of you, clear, grounded, strong, and connected. Step into that for another moment. Maybe breathing a little deeper. On your own time, when you’re ready, you can slowly start to come back. Eventually, open up your eyes.

I walked you through a few different questions. For the sake of time, normally, I might have people write out and journal this, but we can keep it more conversational. One of the questions was, “What do I need to do to take care of my mind?” What are those things? What are the things that reflect on that put you in a calm and focused state? What are the practices that connect you to your inner world, like your creative ideas and that childlike play? These can be things like listening to a particular podcast. Maybe it’s reading a particular author. Maybe it’s getting out into nature. What are those practices for you?

Do we want to have someone tell us their answer?

Let’s do it. It’s comfortable being uncomfortable.

For me, it was a sensory thing. I don’t know if it makes sense, but stretching and touch are things that bring me back into my body. Petting my dog and things that feel good, sensory-wise, are where my mind went.

Your mind went there, but your body even felt it, too. You were able to embody or feel that. The stretching and moving your body, which is why I’ve been teaching yoga for almost fourteen years. My mom got me into yoga many years ago when I was struggling and addicted to pain pills. I’ve had seven surgeries on my left knee. My body was a wreck. She kept saying, “You need to go to yoga.” I would say, “Yoga is for girls and hippies. I’m not doing that shit,” because that’s a fixed mindset.

That’s like, “I know better.” Meanwhile, I’m dying physically and spiritually. For me, yoga has been as important as some of the other cornerstones of my own recovery. It’s because it moves energy. Energy can’t be destroyed, but it can be shifted. The body keeps score, and the body always wins. “Our issues are in our tissues,” is the saying we use in yoga. The hips, especially, are a junk drawer for a lifetime of crap, unwanted grief, shame, and trauma that we’ve stuffed down.

They say the hips are the darkest corners of our bodies. Shakira must have known what she was talking about. I don’t think she was talking about what we’re talking about. Moving stuck energy is why you move mindfully and breathe mindfully. It’s why we can leave our exercises, whatever we’re doing, feeling so light and free, because we’ve moved that energy.

Tim’s a big fan of this, too. When I’m feeling stuck, a cold plunge.

It’s comfortable being uncomfortable.

It brings you out of it, lifts your spirits, and lifts you. It brings you back to the moment, to the present.

We start to learn that our breath can get us through anything. It always has. It was the first thing we did when we arrived here. We took our first breath, and we showed up in this world. The last thing we’re going to do when we leave is take our last breath and leave a legacy. We’re going to leave a legacy either way. Good or bad, we get to choose. You have the power of choice.

Even though maybe life hasn’t unfolded the way that you had thought, it never is the way we think, by the way. There’s such an opportunity to be the change, to break generational dysfunction so that we don’t pass down the stuff that was maybe passed down to us. Too much that’s given comes great responsibility. We’ve been given tools and this gift and the gift of desperation. It’s on us to break the cycle because we know better. We’re getting it in this work we’re doing here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate you coming out. You didn’t miss a beat. Everything makes so much sense. I appreciate you coming out and speaking to us.

Thank you. I received that. The reason I’m saying, “Thank you. I received that,” is that it is a great practice. It feels a little awkward when you first do it, especially as a dude. The old story I would tell myself. The reason I do that and practice it is because we’re terrible at acknowledging other people, but bad at self-acknowledging ourselves. When somebody compliments you, or oftentimes, I can say, “Tim, you’re the man.” He might go, “You’re the man.” We’re deflecting a compliment. Often, it’s because we don’t believe we’re worthy of it.

This is the root of everything. There’s an unworthiness. When someone gives us acknowledgement, there’s something about touching your heart. You say, “Thank you. I received that.” A great practice I have in my workbook for my one-on-one clients is to write three things you’re proud of yourself for at the end of the day. If we don’t shine the light of awareness on the good that we’re doing, this lifelong not-enough story, the neural pathways in our brain, there’s a saying, “When the river cuts deep, the deeper it cuts, the harder it is to get out of.”

 

We’ve been on this trail of not enough. It’s deep. However, neuroscience and you all have the modalities in here to rewire your brain. You can do it through meditation and visualization as we did. There’s a lifetime’s worth of one story, so it’s not going to happen overnight. We have to have practices that are going to bankrupt the old not-enough story. I’m telling you three things you’re proud of yourself for. I shared in the group and didn’t want to. They can be big or small. It’s about acknowledging the good that you’re doing. I’m glad that you said that. I could use an example.

I appreciate you sharing. It’s all awesome stuff. Do you have a social media account?

My social media is my name. It’s @Donny_Starkins. My website is my name.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate you all and your ability to listen. That is such a powerful tool to be able to hold space for each other. Most transformation happens in the listening. When we hear our story and somebody else’s story, we now feel connected. We think we’re worse, and then we hear somebody. As I was saying earlier, share some heavy stuff. It has us feeling more connected to each other. The old story that I’m different or othering. I have people in my life who play that role in that story. It’s a slippery slope to think you’re different than anybody else.

Again, we’re all the same. We’re all trying to find some freedom from that pain. A lot of people will numb it out with drugs and alcohol. Others will hide in their work, close their hearts, and go through life at warp speed trying to prove that they’re enough. Others will transmute that pain into a greater purpose where your mess becomes your message. It’s unbelievable that all of the shady things I’ve done in my past in addiction can help other people. That’s freedom to me. It’s powerful.

How Can Your Mess Become Your Message

Can you elaborate a little bit on “Your mess becomes your message?”

The mess becomes the message when we can find the silver lining as to why we’re here. How can you make this opportunity you’re getting in here the best thing that ever happened to you? It’s in the early stages of recovery when we’re shaming and making ourselves pay for the same mistake over and over again, which is more from The Four Agreements. It’s hard to see this. Shame changes the way we see the world, but so does gratitude. You can look through the lens of shame, and you’re not going to be able to see how this is the greatest gift you’ll ever receive.

How can you make that as how this is going to be? If you’re in here for a sentence, you think this is a sentence, or you have to be here instead of a gift, that’s what you’re going to get out of it. When your mess becomes your message, you can’t operate or have that perspective if you’re in shame. When you use shame, understand why it was there, and be able to see the misaligned values. You can start to see that it all had a purpose. To me, it’s the greatest life hack ever. Service, which we learn in recovery and sobriety, is the cheat code to life. You all are coming in here at a time when it’s so much more normalized.

Yours probably looks like this, too. My Instagram is all sobriety and all these people with all these followers. Not that that matters, but it’s showing me that it’s accepted. It’s more normalized. The stigma around mental health and addiction is being broken. It’s people like Tim. My co-host on my show I used to have, Comeback Stories, was Darren Waller, who’s an NFL football player. Early on in his sobriety, he shared the story on Hard Knocks, the HBO special that they have. He had less than a year sober, and he was sharing it with the world.

There was his teammate, Maxx Crosby. He got a big ass tattoo, an AA triangle on his neck. He’s one of the best defensive guys in the NFL. He got sober because Darren helped him. You got guys sharing their sobriety chips. These are the masculine of all masculine men. Darren also had a teammate who came out. He’s the first ever active NFL player to come out as openly gay. He did that because he was also Darren’s teammate. Darren’s story is different, but because Darren had the courage to share his story, it gave Carl Nassib permission to do the same.

It’s giving people permission. It doesn’t need to be on this big platform. It might just be in the context of a room like this where you share something so openly. Somebody else feels safe to do the same. I don’t know if that was long-winded, but it’s how we find freedom and get out of our own way. All of our suffering comes from when we’re thinking about ourselves. If I’m thinking about myself and I’m worried about what other people think, then I’m not going to want to share so openly about my past.

My selfishness is my selflessness. I’m not doing it to be a good person. I’m doing it to get out and stay out of my own way. That to me is true freedom. It’s not freedom for ourselves. It’s freedom from ourselves. I teach this stuff, I practice, and I trip over the things I’m teaching every single day. Let me be clear that I sit in the circle or in this room right across from you all, and I’m in the work every day. I’m often going, “You need to teach yourself and remind yourself of the stuff you’re telling everybody else.” It’s just human. I’m in the work with you all. We covered mine.

As we normally do, let’s open it up. If there’s something that Donny said that resonated with you or made you think of something, and you’ve got a question, the floor is open. Do you have a question?

Mental Exercises To Relieve Your Stress

You had mentioned something about the hips and storing stress in them. Do you have any examples of how to relieve that stress? I have a mother with a lot of hip pain. She’s getting surgery on it soon. She’s very in tune with her mental state and has a well-being type lifestyle. I’m wondering if there’s anything that she could do mentally that would help her.

Think about the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is not flowing. It’s stuck, stinky, dormant and heavy. We have to move energy. This is why I’m heading up there to Sedona. Sedona has got this healing vibe to it. It’s because there are vortexes. You can go to Sedona and see trees that are all twisted up. It’s because underneath the earth, the energy is moving. Where energy is moving is the best place to heal. If you’re in a place of stuckness, that’s heavy, dark energy.

To me, it is yoga, but it’s tricky if it’s an actual physical injury, and she’s having surgery. It’s pretty cool because, as a yoga teacher, one of the coolest parts is that you get to be the DJ. You get to create these playlists. I will strategically put songs that will hopefully make people cry in pigeon pose because we’re in there to feel. I often say, “Feel it. Face it. Heal it.” You roll out your yoga mat. You don’t have your phone by your side. That’s a gift. The only distraction is your mind. You put your mind on your breath. We work through it with our breath.

It’s being able to move that stuck energy through mindful breath and through mindful movement. Some of the postures in yoga were creating tension to release tension, like a lifetime’s worth of tension, old stories, traumas, and stuff that we’ve held onto. Depending on her injury and when her surgery is, there’s so much access to this. I have probably over 100 YouTube videos on guided meditations. I’’s very simple. It’s 5 to 7 minutes long max. Each one has a theme. There are tons of yoga videos on there. If not me, you can go on YouTube and type in, issues with hips, show me yoga poses. You’ll get endless stuff on there.

Thank you.

How To Get Rid Of Negative Self-Talk

One thing I struggle a lot with is negative self-talk. That little voice does not leave my head at all. Does that eventually go away? Is that always in your head? What are some ways you got rid of that negative self-talk, or some things you used to get rid of it?

The saboteur, this voice, is like the story of the good wolf and the bad wolf. Have you all heard that? A grandfather is talking to his grandson. He says, “In life, there are going to be two wolves constantly at battle in your mind.” The grandson looks at the grandfather and says, “Which one wins?” The grandfather says, “The one you feed.” Do we feed the good wolf or the bad wolf? I do an exercise called identifying your saboteur. It’s my favorite exercise I’ve ever done.

I can do it in a workshop setting, too, where I take you through a visualization. You come up with a visual description of this voice. It’s not just a thought. It sounds like our voice, but it’s not our voice. It’s usually mom, dad, a parental figure, early childhood teachers, bullies, and those types of things. It’s somebody else’s voice. Our voice would never say that to ourselves. We’re born of pure love. We would never say those things, but it sounds like us. We’ve been saying it since the thing happened, or whatever didn’t happen. Our needs weren’t met. We didn’t feel like we were worthy enough.

We do not have control over our thoughts. But we have control over our attachment to our thoughts. Share on X

The visual description changes everything because you have more awareness. It’s not just a voice. You have this little creature. In my experience, I have them sketch out the drawing, too, but we get clear on what this is. You can build a relationship with it. It’s like the story of the Buddha. The Buddha is on his path to enlightenment. Mara was the name of his saboteur. Mara would try to get the Buddha off his path of enlightenment.

He would invite Mara in for tea, meaning, “I want to get to know this little fucker. I want to understand and build a relationship.” That might work for some people, but having positive pattern interrupts, which is a massive coping skill. It’s to be able to redirect our focus. Some people might need to say, “Shut the F up or not now or go away.” If you come up with these creative ways to keep the saboteur on the sidelines when it’s getting too loud, it might be taking a breath. It might be tattoos, bracelets, or anything that’s going to redirect your focus.

When you’re aware of it, that’s a good thing. We’ll judge it because we don’t have control over our thoughts, but we do have control over our attachment to our thoughts. That means believing them and judging them. When we note 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts a day, there are going to be some thoughts that come in and out. We get to choose which ones to hold on to or not. We do have control over that. It’s these positive pattern interrupts, taking a breath, having a mantra, having a word, these reminders, a bracelet, or something that’s going to redirect your focus.

Thank you.

Making The Most Of Your Morning Routine

The two other questions, and for anybody tuning in, and for the sake of time, we’ll speed through those. The second part would be the body part. You would make a list. What are the foods I need to eat? What are the food and drink I need to avoid? We probably don’t know what one of those drinks is. There might be foods, there might be gluten, there might be dairy, or the things that you know your body says no to. How much water and how much sleep are you getting? What are the acupuncture and the self-care practices? It’s figuring out what are those that I need.

The third part would be, what do I need to do to get closer to God, Spirit, higher power, or whatever you choose to call it? You figure it out. What are those two or three non-negotiables that I need to do every single day to keep my tool in optimal shape? You don’t let anything get in the way of those. I know you’re a morning routine guy, too. My morning routine has changed my life forever. You have more control over the morning than any other part of the day because you get up at a decent time. You don’t have the world trying to infiltrate you with messages, and there are more distractions.

You can protect your morning. You have more control over that. For me, if you can dial in a morning routine, which might start by making your bed, and maybe that’s where you start for this week.. You’re already winning. Before you’ve even gotten out of bed or stepped out of your room, you’ve already done something positive. If you said you were going to do it and you followed through on it, you’ve now kept the promise. There are certain things that you can do before the day even starts. You’re already winning. Whatever winning means to you.

Tell me about your morning routine.

I had a coach once. What I wanted to do back in the day was not wake up and look at my phone. No judgment if you do that because that phone is like crack some days, especially if there are some opportunities in there, a DM that you may be waiting on, or a business opportunity. I had a coach take me through this exercise because I did not want to look at my phone. She said, “I’m going to take you through this visualization. I want you to imagine that you’re in a movie theater. You’re watching on three screens.

The first screen is you watching yourself grab your phone. The second screen is you doing your morning routine without your phone. The third screen is a blank screen.” She said, “I’m going to make this swishing sound. Every time I make the swishing sound, I want the screen to change from the three.” She starts a swishing sound for a minute and a half. Immediately, the saboteur is going, “This shit’s weird. This isn’t going to work.” We came out of it. She’s like, “Let me know how that goes by the end of the week. Just let me know.” I’m like, “That’s it?” The next day, I woke up, and there was space.

 

Whatever swishing sound she was making, whatever my brain went through, there was space to choose not to grab my phone. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I dialed in. On Thursday, there’s space to not grab my phone, but I grab it anyway. I remember how I felt the rest of that morning and day. I felt shitty, agitated, and irritated. Since that day, I’ve had space. Some days, I try to go for 30 minutes. Some days, it’s five minutes, but there are certain things I don’t do. It’s always in the morning before I get out of bed. I have two Frenchies. They sleep with me. I love on them.

I’m giving love, but I get so much love from them. They don’t ask much of me. It’s like, “Wake up.” I think of a few things I’m grateful for because when we focus on the good, guess what happens? More good happens in our lives because where our attention goes, energy flows. I think of a few things I’m grateful for. My dogs are staring at me, so I’m always thanking them. I say a few prayers. One of the prayers is always the Serenity Prayer, which is my go-to. Tommy Rosen wrote Recovery 2.0. He is an amazing thought leader and sobriety and yoga teacher.

He taught me a prayer that said, “God, put me in the right places with the right people to do the next right thing. Thank you for the joys and the challenges of life.” I weave that one in with the Serenity Prayer. I get out of bed. I have a big glass of water that I mix some sea salt with. I try to hydrate myself. Honestly, I’ve done a five-minute meditation. Most of my meditation these days is a breath technique. Meditation can be anything. It can be sitting, standing, sound bowls, mantras, or breath techniques.

I do a breath technique. My go-to is a slow, deep breath in through the nose. You’re slowly blowing out a birthday candle. When I do that, I feel tension drop. That’s my traffic breath, too, for sure. That is the one where you’re elongating your exhale 2, 3, 4, or 5 times as much. It gets me back down into my body. I go through phases. When I first started, it was guided meditations because I couldn’t meditate. My response early on was, “I can’t meditate. My mind never stops thinking.” Nobody does. Nobody’s mind stops thinking. You give your mind something to focus on.

The whole analogy of it’s about coming back. Notice you leave, you come back. Every time you come back, you’re coming back, and your mind is getting stronger. It’s usually 5 to 30 minutes in the morning, depending on the time. Those are the little rituals that I’ll do before I grab that phone. I’m always working out within the first, ideally, 90 minutes. I signed up for classes. I like to go to classes like a 45-minute HIIT class or a hot yoga class because I don’t have to think about it.

I go in and get it done. I do not do this for my physical. I do it all for my mind. I do not feel comfortable in my own skin until I move my body. It might show up as this crazy discipline, but I know the cost if I don’t do it. I’m not a good version of myself. I’m irritated and agitated. My body’s stuck. I don’t feel right. That is a huge non-negotiable. It’s because I know the contrast if I don’t do it. It’s not fun to be in my own skin if I don’t.

Get In Touch With Donny

Are there any questions I should have asked you that I didn’t ask?

We covered a lot of topics. One of the questions on our show was, “What would you tell someone who knew they were struggling, but didn’t know what to do about it?” I would just say, ask for help. Ask for help not because you’re weak but because you want to remain strong. This program will teach us, and yoga teaches us, too. That humility is a sign of strength and not weakness.

It shows up in men. We were taught, “Push through the pain. Never let them see you sweat. Don’t share your emotions.” Women might show up in a different form. People innately want to help. That humility is showing awareness and showing strength. We can’t do this thing alone. We were never meant to do life alone. It’s too hard. It’s too heavy, which is why I feel like asking for help is everything.

Where can people find you? How can they learn more about your work? How can they connect with you?

My website is my name, DonnyStarkins.com. Instagram is @Donny_Starkins. If you type in my name, you’ll find it. I’m friends with Tim. I’m also connected on his Camelback Recovery page. My YouTube, if you type in my name, you’ll find it, but it’s called Love Yourself with Donny Starkins. There’s got to be over 100 very simple guided meditations for 5 to 7 minutes long. There’s themes like forgiveness, gratitude, breathe, or inner peace. It’s just simple themes. If you’re like me and struggled to get into meditation, someone will guide you through it.

That’s what Davidji did for me back in the day, probably on iTunes back then, trying to get into it. Guided meditation is what gave me access to it. Know that when you’re meditating, there’s no wrong or right way to do it. You meditate not to get better at meditating. You meditate to get better at life. It truly does. My teacher says it’s about getting to the root of the problem, which often comes from our thinking, but our thoughts don’t control our reality. It’s our belief system. In that belief system, there’s a not-enough story rooted in there.

My recommendation for anybody early in recovery is to get to the root of that old, whatever story. If it’s trauma, trauma is not the event that happens. It’s our body’s response to it. There’s the story that we attach to it. It’s getting to the root of this old bullshit story, finally digging it out, and healing ourselves. That’s what I would say. That’s what sets us free. Ownership is everything. We’ve talked about this plenty, but your life will completely change. I call it, own our shit. Stop blaming. Maybe you were the victim. Maybe somebody screwed you over. At some point, you’re giving your power away.

To know the light is to know the darkness as well. Share on X

Your whole life will change. Your recovery will change when you own it all. Stop waiting for this person to change. People change when they want to. If you want someone to change, you go change. My therapist once said in relationship therapy, “Whatever you want, go do it.” Detach from the outcome. Don’t go say I love you because you want to hear it back. That’s not the right reason. That’s coming from wounds and codependency. Be the change that you want to see in your family, in your relationships, and in the world. Let me acknowledge you all. You’re already part of the change by being here.

You can’t see it if you’re shaming, shitting, and beating yourself up, but you are doing it. It’s a choice to be here. The fact that you’re choosing you, everybody’s going to benefit from this. You’re going to come back with more solid boundaries. Know who you are. To know who you are, you also have to know who you’re not. We know who we’re not. To know what love is, we have to know what love isn’t. To know the light, we have to know the darkness. It all makes sense when we can connect in that way.

That was great.

Thank you for having me. Thank you for being such a good, positive role model, my whole walk-in sobriety and in recovery. You’ve been very driven and on a mission to carry the message. This is what gives us all hope and shows us what’s possible. Thank you for being a good friend.

Thank you, Donny. Give it up for Donny.

Thank you, all.

Thanks, everyone.

 

Important Links

• Donny Starkins
• Donny Starkins on LinkedIn
• Donny Starkins on Instagram
• Love Yourself Collective
• Comeback Stories
• The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
• RECOVERY 2.0: Move Beyond Addiction and Upgrade Your Life
• Love Yourself with Donny Starkins

 

About Donny Starkins

Donny Starkins is a transformational coach, speaker, and leader in mindfulness, yoga, and personal development. A former Division 1 baseball player, Donny’s journey into recovery began after multiple knee surgeries led to an addiction to painkillers—an experience that ultimately became the foundation for his work in addiction recovery, self-love, and mental resilience.

Today, Donny is the founder of Love Yourself Collective and the creator of “The Shift,” a 90-day transformational coaching program focused on self-worth, mindfulness, and personal growth. He is also the co-host of the Comeback Stories podcast, where he shares powerful stories of transformation and healing.

Donny works with individuals and professional athletes around the world, helping them develop mental strength, emotional awareness, and daily mindfulness practices through yoga, meditation, and coaching. He is also an ambassador for lululemon and a key member of their Mindful Performance Team, where he leads workshops and facilitates experiences centered around presence, performance, and well-being.

Through his work, Donny challenges people to explore discomfort, reconnect with themselves, and build a consistent practice of self-love, intention, and purpose—making him a powerful voice in the space of recovery, personal development, and holistic healing.