In today’s episode I interview Dani Williamson about her new book Wild & Well: Dani’s Six Commonsense Steps to Radical Healing. I enjoyed talking with Dani about her healing process and her book because she and I have the same interest in helping people recover from stress and prevent health issues caused by stress.  

Please note, if you are struggling with depression or triggers caused by stress, this episode may be disturbing. Our intention is to bring awareness to the potential effects of childhood trauma as well as the options and opportunities for recovering from stress and trauma. Those options are not often discussed in the conventional medical system, which is what motivates Dani and I to write and talk about it.  

Dani Williamson is a functional medicine practitioner who was previously a family nurse practitioner and she’s here today to tell us more about what inspired her to completely go this route of helping people to improve their health by making lifestyle changes that anyone can implement and make a huge difference in their overall health. 

We’re all humans just trying to get through life as healthy as we can! 

Dani grew up in complete trauma and constant chaos. With a grandfather that committed suicide, a mother who also attempted suicide multiple times and a stepfather that was a child molester, she experienced stress throughout her childhood. At age 20 she also attempted suicide, was in a bad marriage and lost everything she had. She was then diagnosed with lupus and fibromyalgia and depression.  

After hitting rock bottom, she decided to pick herself up and apply to nursing school. While getting through school at age 40, she started trying to find a cure for her lupus. One day a colleague said to her: “Dani what are you eating? Don’t you know your diet controls your symptoms?”  

What’s at the end of your fork will heal you or kill you!  

In Dani’s words, “If you weren’t born sick you don’t have to live sick.” Diseases are turned on and off by lifestyle. That’s how she developed her 6 steps to a better life: eat well, sleep well, move well, poop well, distress well and commune well. 

Childhood trauma that happens to you before the age of 18 can set you up for a lifetime of chronic disease. 64% of the population have had at least one ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) in their lifetime. And if you had one you are 50% more likely to have another one at some point. Furthermore, if you had four or more adverse events you have a 20-year shorter lifespan due to high stress.   

As much as we know that trauma and stress in our childhoods has a potential to affect our health for the rest of our lives, we also know that there’s something you can do about it.  

Dani started researching about food sensitivities and after changing her diet and life habits she doesn’t have any pain or symptoms from lupus anymore! She proved that what you eat could help you reverse whatever is happening to you.  

The food industry is about addiction, we get addicted to gluten, dairy, sugar, etc. And those foods keep the inflammation inside going. If you are eating drive-through food four or five times a week you are eating fake food that is addictive. 

It’s when you decrease inflammation that you begin to heal! The food you’re eating is causing inflammation which is disrupting your whole body and overall health. But this takes time, and it takes commitment, and it takes consistency to make it sustainable. 

But eating healthy is not the only thing. It becomes critical to also have enough sleep so you wake up rested so you can eat well and have energy to exercise every day. These are the kind of lifestyle changes you need to make to really start healing your body and improve your overall health.  

Just pick something that you enjoy. It doesn’t have to be hours it could be just a short walk which will also help you digest your food better and have better bowel movements because it’s not what you eat, it’s what you absorb in your gut that counts. 

But this is not meant to become a long To-Do-List as that may be overwhelming. This is not meant to be another stress generator in your life. It’s meant to be a way to identify the things you can tweak and fine tune to achieve a better and more sustainable lifestyle. 

Then there is community wellness. When you are with your people, when you’re with your tribe, whether it’s a couple of friends or a whole group, your inflammation goes down because you’re laughing and your cortisol levels go down so your stress goes down

The secret is to keep doing what you’re doing. Keep on working, improving, finding new ways to implement these habits because they are going to make a difference for you and your family. Your body is designed to heal itself and a few lifestyle changes can boost this healing. This is why Dani wrote her book about radical healing – to give you a strategy and break it down into easy commonsense steps for reversing decades of chronic disease and hopefully change the entire trajectory of your families’ life. 

You can get her book Wild & Well: Dani’s Six Commonsense Steps to Radical Healing from Amazon and or your favorite bookstore.  

If you are struggling with anxiety and/or depression, please know that I’m here to help you as well. Find resources, including my books, below, and I invite you to sign up for my upcoming FREE Masterclass: Transform Your Life: Get to the Root of Anxiety and Depression going live on October 12th:

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