637 Allana Pratt:

Swipe right, swipe left. If you’re looking for love, you won’t find it in the swipe. Unless you look in the mirror first, because it starts with you… you looking within, and finding a way … to fall in love … with yourself. You see, if we don’t love ourselves and search for someone to love who we’re pretending to be … because deep down we don’t think we’re good enough to be loveable, well, anyone that loves us… will never really know us enough to truly love who you as you truly are. Think about it because my guest today – Allana Pratt – is turning dating upside down, in the most beautiful way.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock, 5-time serial entrepreneur and founder-CEO of the social podcast app Podopolo, and whether you’ve been on this journey with us for a long time, or if you’re new to Wings of Inspired Business, this episode is going to blow your mind. There’s nothing better than taking a moment to put on your wings, as we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. As women entrepreneurs we all soar higher when we lift as we climb!

Today we meet Allana Pratt, an intimacy expert who is busy upending the dating world with a new app called HeartMates where members Become the One to Find the One which Keeps the One. OK, let’s take that again… an app that helps you become the one … the one that loves yourself so much … that you easily attract the one … who truly loves you as much as you love you… and hopefully you love you … a lot.

It’s not Allana’s first time on this podcast – long before she set out to change the dating game with her HeartMates app, her work was featured on the Huffington Post, People, Forbes, CBS, ABC, NBC and FOX. Allana is the Author of 6 books, she has 5 million viewers for her podcast “Intimate Conversations” on YouTube, interviewing luminaries like Whoopi Goldberg and Alanis Morissette, and she shares with raw transparency and authenticity her own struggles with love.

I can’t wait to introduce you to Allana! First…

Have you downloaded Podopolo yet? If you’re listening to this podcast right now then I know you love podcasts as much as me – and that’s why it’s time to explore the app that makes listening social and curates the ideal podcasts for you from our library of more than 4 million. Find out what everyone is talking about – join us on Podopolo today – free to download in either app store.

 Maybe you are happily in love. Maybe you’ve been married a long time and wonder where the intimacy has gone. Maybe you’re divorced – happily or unhappily; maybe you’ve experienced the trauma of abuse in relationships. Maybe you just haven’t met your Mr. or Ms. Right yet. Maybe it’s all up in the air and open for grabs.

Here’s an intimate question for you. How much do you… love you? That’s right. How much do you let that inner bully voice tell you all the things you don’t love about yourself … and let that inner bully voice define you?

My guest today is the Intimacy Expert, Allana Pratt – and she’s the go-to authority for those who have suffered heartbreak and are ready to live unapologetically, and attract an open-hearted, ideal relationship. Her vulnerability and courage landed her a featured weekly column on the GoodMenProject, and featured on Huffington Post, People Magazine, Forbes, CBS, ABC, NBC and FOX.

Allana is also the Author of 6 books and Hosts the edgy Podcast “Intimate Conversations” where she’s interviewed Whoopi Goldberg and Alanis Morissette and listeners learn how to find the relationship they deserve. She’s a certified coach with close to 5 million viewers on YouTube, even coaching Leeza Gibbons during Dancing with the Stars. In addition to her new HeartMates app, Allana She offers private and group coaching plus retreats where clients cultivate a thriving intimate relationship with themselves first, which naturally attracts and enhances their ideal epic partnerships.

So much to dig into today, including how learning to love yourself also makes all the difference in growing a profitable business, inspiring a great team, and making the impact you want to make on the world.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Allana Pratt.

Melinda Wittstock:

Allana, welcome to Wings.

Allana Pratt:

It is so great to fly back.

Melinda Wittstock:

I know. It’s wonderful when you have guests come back on and there’s been so much transformation in their lives, lots of new things to catch up on. And of course, we’re well into the 600s now on this podcast in terms of episodes. So it’s been a while.

Allana Pratt:

Wow. Good for you. You are on fire woman. Not only are you an extraordinary listener and interviewer, all that you’re doing with your podcast and I just saw, what was it? At Traffic and Conversion, you’re going to be hosting podcasts for people as well. And you’re making-

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes. So Podopolo is my new app that makes podcast listening social and profitable for content creators, which is a big issue when 85% of podcasters don’t make any money from their content, which is crazy. So we set out to solve that and just wildly improve the listener experience. So I’m so excited about it. But yes, there’s a lot going on and there is with you too because you also have a new app out in the world and it’s the world’s first partnering app and I want you to tell us all about that.

Allana Pratt:

Oh, you’re so kind. Thank you. Yeah. So fist pump for your app. And the reason why I created the world’s first partnering app is because dating apps are designed to keep people single. They make money when we stay lonely, desperate and keep paying them every month. And I’ve used-

Melinda Wittstock:

I’ve never really put that together because you think, oh, a dating app is there to help me find dates, but it’s to keep you dating and not actually with the right one.

Allana Pratt:

It keeps you wounded and it might give you some dates, but then when hits the fan or that first fight happens, or that moment when you want to tell the truth and you’re scared, or you don’t quite be yourself when you’re afraid of being rejected, they don’t heal any of that. So you break up again and you get back on the app and that’s the whole system. So for us, HeartMates, it’s heartmates.app. That’s the partnering app, but it’s designed to help you become the one to find the one and keep the one because once you’ve finished your HeartMates singles curriculum and you’ve found the one, you can move into the HeartMates couples curriculum, because I’m really committed that people stay together and thrive over time.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s so beautiful. I’m thinking about during COVID when people were so isolated, and if you weren’t with your heart mate, right? Gosh, that’s pretty difficult. Because the dating apps didn’t even do what they do for you, right? It was a very isolating time for many and existing relationships either got closer or fell apart. So how has COVID really impacted what you’re doing?

Allana Pratt:

Yeah, well that’s when I burst it. It was right when COVID first hit and I knew, I could feel the wave of fear coming of isolation. If I’m already single, I’ll never find love. Or if I am in a relationship and now I have to look at this person every single day, there was like a lot of fear coming and a real mental health crisis ensuing. So that’s when, and it wasn’t a thought, Melinda. I’ve had very few of these moments in my life. It was like a calling. It was like somebody took my shirt and started pulling me out the door. My heart was being called, you’ve got to do this. The world is calling for this. They’re going to need this now more than ever, because those of us that are on the conscious path, we did our best to use the downtime to really discover what really matters now.

And success is great and making an impact is great, but at the end of the day, all of that impact, it’s about relationships. It’s about connection. It’s about intimacy. It’s about deep love that’s vulnerable and real. And I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t taught how to do this. Two divorces down the road, I’m like, okay, I’m the only one uncommon here. Let’s do some work. So I want to support people in what it really takes to. And here’s the thing. When you become the one, the one you’re really seeking is yourself.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, now isn’t that the truth? I wish that’s something that I understood much earlier in my life. I mean, I’ve come to understand that, but it just took me a while to figure that out. And I think often, the way I describe it is that you really have to be able to truly love yourself and all aspects. What you perceive to be the bad as well as the good, but just love yourself to be able to love somebody else truly.

Allana Pratt:

Right? Otherwise you’ve got a wall up so that they don’t see your wobbly parts and don’t reject you and we call it a relationship or a marriage, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

And so you end up building a lot of relationships on a faulty foundation, because if you don’t love yourself, then you can never really be yourself and that somewhere subconsciously you know that that person doesn’t really love you because you haven’t shown them the real you. So how could they?

Allana Pratt:

Correct. And that to me is maybe what we could call a soul mate relationship, where two halves come together to complete each other and your happiness is based on them approving of you. And they’re the source of your worth because they love you. Right? But when they don’t, there goes your worth, there goes your safety. And so I had a lot of those soul mate relationships. And we call this a HeartMate relationship where two whole, not perfect, but healed hearts, people that are willing to own their own shit, do their own work and then drop their walls, open their heart and come together so that one in one, you don’t complete each other, you complement one another. And one in one can be infinity. So we’re not just here to I’m finally not single anymore. Now we’re here to impact humanity and have some fun.

And that’s what I’m up to personally. That’s what people in HeartMates are up to. So we don’t get into the partnering app instantly desperate seeking to get that hit. We make friends, we do the work. We get on the conscious connection calls every Friday and we practice communicating. We practice speaking authentically. We practice listening without interrupting. We practice the skills needed to thrive in a relationship because you’ve been married a long time. It has its ups. It has its downs and you need communication skills. And when communication is over, the relationship is often over.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think one of the most intriguing things too that bears repeating is a great relationship is not one half of a person plus one half of person makes a whole. It’s two whole people.

Allana Pratt:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

And what you said that that is kind of, yeah, it’s infinity in a way. I mean, that is so vital. And I have that later in my life. I did not have that in my marriage. My marriage ended some years back, I looked back on it though and it was interesting training.

Allana Pratt:

Thank you. I like that training. So you two aren’t married? You’re a couple, but you’ve been together for a long time. Yes?

Melinda Wittstock:

We’ve been together about six years now. And it’s wonderful because it’s a conscious journey that we’re both on, much in the way that you describe. But I think had we met earlier, neither of us would have been ready to have what we have.

Allana Pratt:

I’m so glad you said that too, Melinda, because there’s this stigma, like if we aren’t married, we’re broken. And if they’re… So like how’s the business, but are you dating anyone? It’s like a wrongness to just be this thriving person who’s really cultivating a relationship with themselves, with source, with their purpose, with their hearts. Right. So I too, later in life, I was 51 when I met Chris just earlier this year in January. And I’m grateful for my two marriages. While I did get divorced, no regrets. I learned I was a damsel in distress in the first one just looking to be saved. I learned in the second one that my mum was dying and I thought a man and a baby as a plan, so I didn’t have to feel. And so I had to forgive myself for that and not stop blaming them and realize I was perhaps the one that had betrayed my truth, not had the courage to speak up. It was so much fun to blame them, but really I had to forgive myself.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. I came to a similar thing because you can come at it. If you’re in a bad relationship and there’s a toxicity, and in my case I was married to a narcissist way back. That was very, very difficult. There was a lot of gas lighting and whatnot, but had I been healed, that wouldn’t have landed with me.

Allana Pratt:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

I guess for a long time, you feel like a victim, then you realize there’s no power in that. And the only one that’s put you in that place really is yourself. So there was a long process of taking responsibility and appealing, letting go, surrendering, letting go, forgiving, forgiving myself, forgiving him. Quite a process. And likewise, in my 50s, I’ve found that kind of true love. And I think so many women actually, we could talk about that for a little bit, how so many women come into their true confidence and authenticity in their 50s.

Allana Pratt:

Yeah. I mean, I wish I had this confidence back when I was 20.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, me too.

Allana Pratt:

[crosstalk 00:09:37] It’s so much better back then, but whatever and I’m like-

Melinda Wittstock:

I think of, I see these old pictures of myself and I think, oh damn. Back then, I was kind of smoking, right? But if I had the confidence now, gosh, you kind of think, what would it take for younger women? DO younger women have to go through all of this to get here? Can they get there faster?

Allana Pratt:

Well, that’s why you and I give what we give in our podcast and that’s why HeartMates exists. We have people that are in their 20s up to their 60s or 70s within the app because we all have something to heal and grow. But I think it’s really amazing the young women that are ripe to learn and they’ve seen my two divorces and they’re like, I don’t need to do that. And yet there is a richness to a fine wine that only comes with age and experience. And if we don’t resist pain and we see the beauty and the gift in it, then we can just save her all of life. We don’t have to finally be happy when we meet the one. We can take on a new point of view. Like I like to call my last ex, my son’s father, my greatest spiritual teacher, because I was this confident woman, Ivy League model, author, interviewed celebrities. I was looking really good on the outside, but there was a sliver of insecurity that he found and took advantage of but I was part of this as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. You’re describing my relation… You’re describing exactly what I went through as well.

Allana Pratt:

Okay, great. So we can shift our point of view because our point of view creates our reality, as you were saying before, out a victim into Victoria goddess priestess. So my $250,000 of legal debt from that 12 year-

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh gosh.

Allana Pratt:

Great. And I was-

Melinda Wittstock:

I’m so sorry.

Allana Pratt:

Well, thank you. But I was at choice. I was terrified to lose my son. I didn’t have the courage to say why do we need another 25K on Monday to do another report? I didn’t have a voice. So I now looked at that as my PhD from the best universe in the galaxy about consciousness. So I could change the point of view about that debt as well so I stopped beating myself up and I got grateful for all the lessons and I’m better for it. I’ve never been happier. I also never been more humbled by how hard it is to develop an app.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh yeah. I know a thing or two about that, this one being now my, I guess, a fifth business in the apps and technology and whatnot. And now, I mean, there’s so much that goes into it. So much. So I have such appreciation not only for your mission and what you’re doing and your message and helping people along, but creating an app, not easy.

Allana Pratt:

No, not easy. That was a really crazy thought I had way back, like 16 months ago, and had I known what I was getting into and how many hundreds of thousands and now I’m getting investors all the rest of it. But you know what? If I’m going to ask somebody to do the work and become the one and seek first themselves and heal inside and then keep showing up and maybe it’s going to take five people that they date until they find someone they’re really aligned with that ideal match, but I’m not walking my talk, I’m not showing up and risking as well, I’m not falling down and getting back up as well, then I’m kind of a bit of a fake guru in the corner. So I’m very authentic and vulnerable on my videos. And even within the app, I literally, Melinda, go out and all. I can track it.

I’m like, oh, they haven’t done their profile in two months. And I will literally say, okay, if you’re cool with this COVID wise, can I show up with a six pack? We’ve got to get this profile done. Let’s do this. So I’m interacting with my members as a founder who really does care. Or maybe I see somebody I can track. They’ve had like 10 first dates, but no second dates. And I’ll call them up too and I’m like hey, can I, can I come hang out? Can I be your wing girl? Let’s really figure out what’s going on. And I video all these Melinda. And [inaudible 00:13:34] it’s like HeartMates kind of like bachelor nation. It’s like HeartMates nation. And I go out and it’s positive TV. It’s positive processing that I help people integrate and move through their greatest fears because with COVID, for me, it’s been very isolating.

And to know that somebody, even some founder of an app cares, it really helps someone go maybe I am worth it. Maybe I don’t need to give up on love. Maybe I am in for the long haul. Maybe I can delay gratification and do the inner work. Maybe I am worth it. So it’s been nourishing for me, for my intimacy expert. That’s what I call myself because I just love connecting and being real and being that safe place for people to just exhale. It’s a gift. It’s a gift to me too. Challenging, annoying at times, but what a gift to be so real with people?

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s amazing and really, truly wonderful that you’re doing that for people. I think there are a lot of people right now who are so wounded and I don’t know COVID and all the uncertainty, just our social media, so many things about society has put people in a place of fear. And I think during COVID, it was kind of an interesting thing because people who are already on a consciousness journey, just like you said, they took the time to really look within, really figure out what’s important, get into alignment, do a lot of healing, do all that work. Other people chose differently and they chose to go into fear and reaction and see this big sort of bifurcation right now in between.

And so how to swim if you’re on that conscious journey, which we both are, but you still have to swim in an ecosystem to a certain extent where, and especially if you’re helping people directly in that space, where you’re dealing with all their stuff. How do you cope with that? Because I imagine you to be very empathetic.

Allana Pratt:

Thank you.

Melinda Wittstock:

So how do you give without, oh gosh, like the taking in all that energy as you’re helping people kind of heal their energy, if you will?

Allana Pratt:

Yeah. It’s a great question. It’s something I teach within that curriculum as well, because the more we open our heart, the more empathic we become and the more we do pick up on other people’s energy and it can really drain us. So I have a lot of different skills within the curriculum to manage our energy. And personally, it was humbling. I sort of, if you can imagine like a tree roots and shoots, right? And here I am giving, and I’m going to use this word on purpose, serving and serving and giving and serving, but I wasn’t contributing. And to me, the word contribute is that figure eight. I give and I receive, I give and I receive. I was only one directional. Serving, serving, giving, giving. Trying to help feeling everyone’s desperation, but it wasn’t putting the roots down for me.

And when I moved in with my beloved, I hadn’t lived with anybody for almost two decades. And I was so excited to have sex. Sex In the morning. Oh my God. So I did that and then I worked out and I did my affirmations and I went to work and I came home and instead of doing my morning practice and my evening practice, I wanted to come home and cook and pour a glass of wine and be with him. And within three, four months, Melinda, I became the most insecure Allana I’ve ever been. I am so confident as a single bad ass woman, but holy shit, here I was in this relationship with this amazing man insecure as ever. And I was like, oh, I didn’t put down more roots. I left my morning practice like that feminine time where I just be still and listen and allow and receive just be, be with my feminine. And at the end of the day, I forgot.

I used to do this when I was single, I would praise my masculine. Instead of like oh, you didn’t do that. Well, I’m like, I consciously, at the end of my days, sit down with a sunset and a glass of wine and I praise my masculine. You showed up, you might’ve fallen down, but you’d got back up. You gave it your best. I praise myself. I left all of those practices to the dust and I lost myself. So what I’m learning with, long story short back with your energy of being so empathic, I must take care of my own inner masculine and feminine. I must have my morning practice. If I need to get up an extra hour so I can still have this sex I want, just let it be.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes, I have this dilemma as well. It’s kind of meditation first or.

Allana Pratt:

We change it up depending on the mood, but basically I have to honor and love myself more and have healthier boundaries so that when I show up, I don’t take on other people’s energy. I’m whole. And my vibration, when my vibration is high, I’m literally just it’s like ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. It can’t touch me. It won’t vibrationally scientifically can’t. But when my vibration is low, it sticks, it hooks and then I doubt myself, I close my heart. I start beating myself up. So I’m no different than anyone else. And self-care and self-love, as you were saying earlier, is the foundation of it all.

And then lastly, there’s these two principles. There’s a lot of principles we teach in HeartMates but two of them that I want to say. It’s our job to be responsible to people, but not for people. Sometimes [inaudible 00:18:47] are worth out of being rescuers. So we want to be managing that. And then the other part is the concept of allowance. Like you were saying, this big divisive world we’re living in right now, you’re accurate. And yet allowance doesn’t mean we like it or prefer it. It just means we refuse to waste our energy resisting it. And those two principles are really helpful for me.

Melinda Wittstock:

So I want to go back to this figure eight that you were describing because it’s the give and receive. And so many women, whether it’s in relationships or their businesses frankly, or with their kids or in any aspect, in all aspects of our lives, we tend to over-give but not give anything to ourselves. And then it gets to the point where we can’t really be at our best without that replenishment. So it just bears repeating that that is so vital. And often when we go into relationships, we do have a tendency to forget ourselves because we start putting the other person ahead instead of it being on a level we’ve got to continue to put ourselves in that equation.

Allana Pratt:

Yeah. We have this little… We have now that we’ve hit some bumps, Chris and I, and we both realized that we’d lost our practices that we fill ourselves up first. And we also say to each other from wholeness after already doing our meditation or whatever it is we’ve done, I choose you. I love you. I’ve burned the bridge. I’m in this all the way through to the other side, because in our vulnerable times, both of our biggest fears is that we’ll be left. So even though that’s not his job to heal me, that’s mine to do my inner work. We from wholeness, from the overflow, we give that which the other needs to heat to hear, to calm down and feel safe. We have all sorts of different practices. We do. We have a counselor. We have date night. We have dyad night.

We have all these wonderful ways that we be together because we’re willing to take the time and listen. And I love this idea that we can be full and give from the overflow, contribute to one another and heal what I’ve been healing for like 50 years and finally it’s starting to work. So don’t give up on love and know that ultimately the love affair is with ourself. And that my God, I used to be afraid of becoming one of those narcissist if I loved myself that much, but it’s quite the opposite. I’m becoming more and more humble. The smallest things make me happy. I can really…

I really feel like I’m making love with life, Melinda. I can start to feel my vibration coming back. That same figure eight you’re talking about contribute and then the worthiness to receive back. It was a worthiness thing for me. I was just more comfortable giving because I honestly, at the end of the day, blamed myself for the divorce, blame myself for the custody battle, blame myself for the debt. I wasn’t letting me off the hook. So the receiving had everything to do with that. I’m allowed. I’m more than humbling.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes. It’s funny how it’s so hard or however we’ve been socialized, acculturated, whatever as women to receive. Have you ever had someone give you a compliment like, oh, you look so beautiful or I love that new blouse or I don’t know, something like that. And the woman says, or you perhaps have said, oh, what? This little thing? You minimize the compliment. Right? And I realized that I was doing that a lot of the time when people were giving me compliments, but I wasn’t conscious of it.

Allana Pratt:

Yeah. Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

And I don’t know, this instinct to try and minimize ourselves or just not being able to receive. So it was a big conscious thing several number of years back just learning to say thank you and genuinely receive it. And then to do otherwise would be dissing the person who’s genuinely complimenting you.

Allana Pratt:

Right? [crosstalk 00:22:53] Beautiful. And the receiving is something I would like to go deeper into too, because if we can’t receive a compliment, can we receive money? Can we receive a miracle or can we even receive constructive criticism? Or can we receive a bigger orgasm? Or can we receive things not going according to plan, but still seeing that this is for us. It’s all receiving. And so, as I’ve learned more to say that, instead of saying this whole thing, take a beep and say, thank you. I realize I can be worth more to receive investor money. I can allow my life to look beyond my wildest imagination and I can receive constructive feedback that there’s a fucking bug, another bug in the house.

Melinda Wittstock:

There’s always a bug somewhere.

Allana Pratt:

I can receive that without justify and blame and playing myself. I can just breathe more. And I don’t know if I’ll ever get there, but I am getting better at the receiving-

Melinda Wittstock:

But it’s a journey.

Allana Pratt:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s a journey. Because I find on this consciousness path, every so often, the universe says are you sure? Are you sure you’re really recovered from that? I’m just going to test you again, check in on you. And there are more and more subtleties to it, but I love what you say, this connection between receiving love and receiving money. We don’t often connect those things consciously, but they are connected. It’s just receiving.

Allana Pratt:

Yes. And it’s all energy. And we’re in charge, we also have choice, right? So we can’t control life. So you’re going to receive equal pleasure and pain, equal challenge and support because that’s duality and that science and that’s how it works. But you are at choice with your point of view and you don’t have to take on something you receive. You can just sort of like… It’s almost like rugby. You can receive the ball, but you could pass it behind you. [inaudible 00:24:44] y’all, right? So you don’t have to take on a negative comment, but you can receive it and see if there’s any validity to it without any rejection, because you’re whole on the inside, you don’t have to deflect, resist it. You can really be with it. So I’ve, holy doodle, have I been with a lot of stuff now that I’m learning how to lead?

It was just me and my assistant and now there’s 18 of them. And they’re all over the world. And I’m like oh my God, this leadership thing, how do I get up under my staff? Am I good enough? Am I worthy? I’ve just been uncomfortable all the time, but my transparency, my vulnerability, my willingness to clean up my messes, my willingness to make up for the damage done, my willingness just to be honest with my clients, with my staff, all of it, it seems to be going well. They seem to feel safe and they feel like this is a family. And they’re actually that contribution figure eight is coming back. They want to help me make HeartMate succeed. They want to help my relationship to thrive. I even got COVID. I had to reschedule this interview. I got COVID and they said can we go grocery shopping for you and things? All of this has slowed me down to realize the more we can receive and let that be enough, not instantly give, but simmer in it, saver in it. We’re worth it. And then from the overflow, give.

Melinda Wittstock:

Beautiful what you’re saying about your team too because we can apply everything you’re saying about receiving and this figure eight to building a team and at Podopolo, we often say that it’s who we’re being as much or more than what we’re doing that actually matters. And so that relationship, I think it’s vital for an entrepreneur. If you want to build a scalable business, it’s about the team. It’s about being able to lead the team, inspire the team, have everybody united on mission, but also embrace diversity and the fact everybody’s in a little bit of a different place and, yeah, getting that dynamic right. I feel like the conscious journey for me has allowed me to do that too. We’ve scaled a team at Podopolo from two of us in January to 24 people.

Allana Pratt:

Nice job woman.

Melinda Wittstock:

And they’re all over the world too. So we’re combining cultures. We have folks in Nigeria, Kosovo, India, Brazil, Uruguay, Costa Rica and all over the United States. And we’ve built this culture without having met each other. I mean, a few of us finally have, but I mean, if you don’t come at it from that place that you’re describing, it’s much harder to pull that off.

Allana Pratt:

Totally. And so I feel like the universe, whenever I have a new thing, I need to learn, the universe gives me either a client, a podcast guest or a project so that I can learn. Back when I was a new mom, all of my guests were parenting experts. Clearly I needed to do some work with being a better mother as well. But this idea of this being an anti-dating app, this is a partnering app. Wonderful Christopher Lochhead helped me to like, Allana, this is different. This is a new category.

Melinda Wittstock:

It is.

Allana Pratt:

Own your new category. You’re teaching people how to partner with themselves, with the divine, partner with their little wobbly you on the inside, partner with their dreams and of course partner with their beloved. So how wonderful that I’m learning how to partner with all of my employees, learning to partner with myself, learn to partner with Chris, partnerships with you. It’s really, I believe what the world is calling for from COVID. As I said before, it’s like when we really slow down, to me anyways, the most important thing is our relationships and the communication because if the communication is dead or not working, so it’s the relationship. And so how are we talking to ourselves? Oh my goodness, I haven’t…

During COVID I didn’t see… I was, well, sort of forced to slow down and face and feel some areas where I’ve had this thing, Melinda, where I don’t feel safe and I’ve got a story and I got proof. Men aren’t and poor me and build a safe, safe, safe. But what I realized it was just smoke and mirrors. It was just a smoke and mirrors things I was doing because I didn’t want to feel still how I hadn’t forgiven myself for some things that had happened being cheated on. It must’ve been because I wasn’t sexy enough. I wasn’t valuable enough. I am so grateful for this partnering in all directions being given to me by the universe because I’m learning how to partner with my most wobbly self. I’m learning to forgive her.

And then the experience is one of freedom and energy and vitality and juiciness and confidence and not taking things so personally. And literally today, we did a webinar for HeartMates and this woman said I’m addicted to your videos. And I’m like thank you I think. What are you talking about? She goes there is light coming out of your eyes. I feel it. I feel home. And I started to cry because it really is all energy. I don’t talk to my phone when I do shoot a video. I’m really talking to people. I’m choosing to make it land. I’m choosing to partner. I’m choosing to love. And if we could all just have that little beat without having to get COVID.

Melinda Wittstock:

But this is just so beautiful. It’s so beautiful. Your transformation and your journey Allana and how you share it and so authentically, it’s such a shining light. I would say the lighthouse. You’re the lighthouse. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. Not only is this whole new category, but I can see how it applies to all aspects of people’s lives. So as men learn how to be more intimate with themselves and with women being able to share their feelings, being able to even feel their feelings, right? As women, everybody has all these challenges of how we’ve been made by and constrained by our society. And you’re helping people try and send that, which is so, so important. I want to make sure that people know how best to work with you, find you, make use of all this and obviously watch your videos for sure on Instagram because they’re amazing.

Allana Pratt:

Oh, thanks honey. Thank you. So yeah, you go to heartmates.app to apply for the app and to join. And the app has a dating app component in it, but it also has an intimacy training and we do live conscious connection calls, practicing communication every Friday. So got the three components, heartmates.app. And then once you meet your one, HeartMates for singles turns into HeartMates for couples. So there’s another curriculum to support you in diving deep, keeping your heart open and seeing that, wow, when you lean in to what used to be like scary conflict, you can actually get closer.

So that’s HeartMates. And then there’s… We should have you back on my podcast as well, Intimate Conversations. There’s a YouTube channel full of a lot of videos and yeah, just the intimate videos. It’s important to me to make it safe for everyone to be real and to not judge. Our wobbly part is any less than our transparent part. All the little you’s and [inaudible 00:32:03] side get to come to party. And then there’s nothing to defend and you’re free and you’re juicy and you’re alive and you’re vibrant. And the light really does radiate out of you as a lighthouse for your ideal HeartMate to see you.

Melinda Wittstock:

How wonderful. Well, Allana, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us again.

Allana Pratt:

Love you sister. Thank you so much for the privilege and honor and congratulations on everything that you do. You’ve always been an inspiration to me. The next time I’m in LA, we’ll go for a walk along the beach.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes, we will. I can hardly wait for that. That would be amazing.

Allana Pratt:

Thank you.