Episode 117
Dani Williamson:The 6 Pillars for Radical Healing
Dani Williamson:
The 6 Pillars for Radical Healing
In this episode, we're joined by Dani Williamson, a functional nurse practitioner and the owner of Integrative Family Medicine in Franklin, Tennessee. Our conversation dives deep into Dani’s personal health journey, her approach to healing chronic illness from within, and her six common-sense steps to radical healing.
First Aired on: Dec 11, 2023
Episode 117
Dani Williamson:The 6 Pillars for Radical Healing
Dani Williamson:
The 6 Pillars for Radical Healing
In this episode, we're joined by Dani Williamson, a functional nurse practitioner and the owner of Integrative Family Medicine in Franklin, Tennessee. Our conversation dives deep into Dani’s personal health journey, her approach to healing chronic illness from within, and her six common-sense steps to radical healing.
First Aired on: Dec 11, 2023
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In this episode:
Episode Highlights
Introduction of Dani Williamson
Dani Williamson is a functional nurse practitioner specializing in treating chronic illness through integrative methods. She discusses her personal health struggles and transformative experience with functional medicine.Dani’s Health Journey
Dani shares her 24-year battle with chronic illness stemming from childhood stress, trauma, and systemic inflammation. Her pivotal moment towards healing involved recognizing the importance of diet and lifestyle.Functional Medicine and Nutrition
The discussion emphasizes the critical role of an anti-inflammatory diet and removing food sensitivities to heal chronic conditions.Dani’s Common Sense Steps to Radical Healing
Dani outlines her six common-sense steps to healing which focus on the whole person, including diet, sleep, movement, stress reduction, and community support.Detailed Breakdown
Trauma and Chronic Illness
Dani attributes her chronic illnesses to years of living amidst chaos and trauma. The first colonoscopy at age 20 was just the beginning of more health challenges to come.The Turning Point
The turning point in Dani’s journey was the realization that her diet controlled her symptoms, a fact overlooked by conventional medical training.Healing with Diet
After changing her diet and reducing inflammation, Dani experienced significant improvements in her health.The 6 Pillars for Radical Healing
Dani discusses the six pillars she implements in her practice and personal life:- Eat well
- Sleep well
- Move well
- Poop well
- Decrease stress
- Cultivate community
- The Impact of Stress
Chronic stress is recognized as a significant factor in deteriorating health and the importance of managing stress is discussed for overall well-being.
- Cultivating Community
Dani underlines the importance of community and connection for emotional and mental health.
Key Insights
- Your diet has a profound impact on your health, and addressing food sensitivities can be life-changing.
- Sleep quality is foundational for healing; a good night’s sleep contributes to better health outcomes.
- Movement and exercise are crucial for maintaining physical and mental health.
- Proper gut health and regular bowel movements are indicators of overall well-being.
- Chronic stress can sabotage healing efforts; it’s essential to find effective coping mechanisms.
- Building a supportive community is central to maintaining long-term health and wellness.
Other Resources:
Other Resources:
Connect with Dani Williamson
Connect with Dani Williamson
Episode Transcript
Julie Michelson: Welcome back to the inspired living with auto-immunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson. And I am so excited to be speaking with Dani Williamson today. Danny is a functional nurse practitioner and the owner of integrative family medicine in Franklin, Tennessee.
[00:00:51] Danny welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you.
[00:00:55] Dani Williamson: It's so good to see you again, Julie.
[00:00:59] Julie Michelson: Yes. [00:01:00] Lucky for me it was just, it feels like just a few days ago. I got
[00:01:05] Dani Williamson: twice in one week. Can't do
[00:01:08] Julie Michelson: no. So I want to start with where I often do. Come to this world through our own health journey. I know you spent 24 years struggling with chronic, various and numerous chronic illnesses.
[00:01:27] So what was the turning point for you for healing your body from
[00:01:31] Dani Williamson: within, well, you know, the 24 years of chronic disease started. From 18 years of living in a shit hole of chaos in my house. I mean, it's as simple as that. And I, and, and, and my grandfather had died by suicide. My mother attempted suicide multiple times.
[00:01:56] I had chronic stress. From all the, I mean, [00:02:00] chronic well, chronic stress. She has chronic diarrhea from all the stress in the, in the house and two different stepfathers and lots of trauma. First colonoscopy at age 20. And, you know, From 18 to 35, I, then I got married and I had been diagnosed with lupus. I had chronic itching, you know, and I was functioning duly.
[00:02:24] I mean, I was doing my job. I had two kids and I was in a hard marriage and I was. Suicidal and I'd remember the morning. I mean, straight up the morning, I was going to end it all and drop off the foot of Broadway in Paducah, Kentucky, and to the Ohio river right there at the foot of Broadway. And there was nothing anyone could do.
[00:02:43] And thank goodness by the grace of God. My kids came running in the room that morning. I don't know, three and four or something and jumping on the bed, mama, mama, and we're hungry. And I mean, literally Julie, I looked in their eyes and it was instant. I was, I was [00:03:00] no way I was going to leave those kids with my husband at the time.
[00:03:03] Greg and. I got up and I fed them breakfast, probably horrible. Who knows? I probably got captain crunch and milk from Walmart for all I know, but don't go there a year later. I'm a single mom, two kids, little kids, five and six, then I'm on food stamps and a medical card. And I thought. I'm going to apply to nursing school.
[00:03:28] I have a graduate degree in fashion design. I owned a maternity store and put again, so I applied to nursing school. I'm standing on the front porch. One day, I get two letters in the mail. One said, congratulations, you're going to Vanderbilt school of nursing nurse practitioner program or whatever. And the next one is.
[00:03:49] Something like congratulations, or you qualify for 56 more dollars in food stamps this month for Ella Jackson and daddy. And I was [00:04:00] like, holy cow. So I definitely got moved to nursing school in Nashville. Right. Three and a half years later I've still got all the symptoms. Right? I still all the chronic stuff going on.
[00:04:13] I probably was on anti-depressants. I can't remember. 24 years later, my first job out of nurse practitioner school. My second job, actually, the doctor looked at me and said down. What are you eating? Don't, you know, your diet controls your symptoms. And it turned my entire world around. I was like, what? I had just spent $200,000 in an education at Vandy.
[00:04:37] Not one time. Did they tell my class of 300 and something? Nurse practitioners, there's a root cause for your patients, depression or lupus or heartburn or migraine. It out. So from that day forward, I did food sensitivity testing on man started some probiotics and that's, and I started decreasing [00:05:00] the inflammation in my body and it literally turned the entire trajectory around for my life and my patients.
[00:05:08] So that's what I do. And I mean, it was an, I am living proof that whatever you turn on, whatever chronic lifestyle disease that you turn on, you can turn off or at least dial it back. Greatly by controlling what's at the end of your fork. That's not only it. Of course you have to sleep well and move well and poop well and all that.
[00:05:33] But by changing my diet and decreasing that inflammatory response turned everything around for me. And I'm pissed off through the years that I wasn't told this by the four gastroenterologists that did colonoscopies on me. Oh,
[00:05:48] Julie Michelson: hi. And it's, it is so say it's frustrating is ridiculous. And I went through that.
[00:05:57] Period of anger of, you [00:06:00] know, I spent 11 years declining with rheumatoid arthritis being told over and over again. There's nothing you can do. There's nothing. It doesn't matter what I even would read something and go to the rheumatologists and say, you know, what about this? No, no nothing you can do you have, you have rheumatoid arthritis?
[00:06:19] Dani Williamson: Yes. Okay. So you just led me into something. I forgot my rheumatologist. When I was diagnosed with lupus, my obstetrician, I went to the best one. There was at Vandy, supposedly, right. We drove from the docu to Vanderbilt. She walks in that room. She looks at me square in the eye and she said, Danielle, there is no cure for lupus.
[00:06:38] It kills women every year. What? And she said, here's your pain medicine. Here's your anti-inflammatories. She put me on a celebrate. Celebrex Vioxx, whichever one was taken off the market for killing people, sudden cardiac death. I can't remember I was on it for a couple of days. I didn't like it. Thank goodness.
[00:06:59] That's [00:07:00] what she said. And then she said, this will hurt your kidneys and your liver. So we need to check your liver and kidneys every six. And I didn't know any better. I was 35 years old. Six months. Yes.
[00:07:10] Julie Michelson: That's like, not that I had to go in every six weeks because the stuff I was on was so toxic and same thing.
[00:07:16] I was 34 years old and literally she said, Oh, we're so sorry. You're so young. We'll keep you as comfortable as we can for as long as we can.
[00:07:28] Dani Williamson: That wasn't anything to me. And actually I saw a new patient probably two months ago and she had her rheumatologists was this page, was this doctor? I didn't know.
[00:07:38] She was still practicing at Vandy. What did she tell you? Because what was it that she, I guess it's rheumatoid arthritis she has. And she said, well, she told me there was nothing we could do. And I said, really well, let me tell you what she told me
[00:07:55] with her hand on the door, that fruit, that you can turn this around. It's [00:08:00] not easy. It's not fast, but once you start feeling better and you start to decrease that inflammatory response in your body. You don't want to go back. I'm never going back to where I was 11 years ago at 44. I feel better at 55 than I did in my thirties and forties, mid forties.
[00:08:22] I will never go back. As do
[00:08:26] Julie Michelson: I at 52, it is, we'll
[00:08:28] Dani Williamson: preach it from the mountaintops until the day I die. And that's what we do in the office is we turn people's lives around by decreasing inflammation and healing, their guts. And you know, but you and I, I mean, I'm only as good. You're only as good as what your patients or your clients do.
[00:08:44] You know, I can teach it all day, but if they go home and decide to drive through, you know, crispy cream and get a couple of. A dozen donut holes, you know, and then go to Chick-fil-A for dinner that night, then there you go. Whatever. So, so [00:09:00] I'm not going to do that anymore. I couldn't tell you last time I went through Chick-fil-A, but it's not rocket science, which is what I was talking about in the book.
[00:09:07] Six common sense steps to practice radical Ealing. We complicate this so much. And we can't do that. And I think as healthcare providers, many times we speak in this language. That patients don't understand and they don't want to understand, they don't care about the neuro pathways in their brain and their dopamine is on fire, their glutamates out of whack.
[00:09:32] And their dad was in the shitter. I mean, they don't care. They just want to know what can I do? To feel better. Right.
[00:09:39] Julie Michelson: And in a way that's not overwhelming. Let's talk about the books. So your book is coming out in November, November the ninth, wild and well Danny's common sense steps to radical healing. So let's, I would love to hone in on, you know, it is once you lift that veil, Ignorance [00:10:00] for lack of a better word or misinformation.
[00:10:03] It really is common sense. It does come back to, this is how we got here. This is how we get well, so let's, let's talk about some of those steps.
[00:10:17] Dani Williamson: You can cut out on me. There were
[00:10:20] Julie Michelson: a little, a little technical difficulty. Let's talk about the, some of the six common sense steps in real speak, as you say.
[00:10:30] Dani Williamson: Okay.
[00:10:30] So eat well, sleep well, move well, poop. Well decreased stress and cultivate community. Those are the six steps that I've worked with. For 11 years and I start with eat well, because it's the most complicated yet the most easy one as well. What's at the end of your fork, right? Will heal you or kill you hands down.
[00:10:55] Simple as that. So you've got to make sure that you, for me, [00:11:00] I think knowing your food sensitivities are what's creating the inflammatory response in your body is very important. Not everyone can do that. So I'll have them cut out the top seven inflammatory foods in the country. Gluten dairy, soy, corn, sugar, eggs, peanut.
[00:11:16] And their face goes blank. Whoa, what am I going to eat? Because that's all I eat. Well, you're going to eat. You're going to eat all the fresh one ingredient. God made food. You can stand fish, chicken, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, oils.
[00:11:39] Lam Turkey. I mean, go buy a turnip, learn what to do. I don't eat the same foods over and over. And our body likes diversity. You know, God made hundreds of 150. We feed our kids about five or six meals, their entire life. We only eat probably less than 20 foods ourselves. So we start with diversity [00:12:00] and I go through, you know, here's go to your farmer's market, eat in season.
[00:12:05] You're only as good as what your animal ate. Maybe you can buy a cow. That's grasping. You know, and put that in your freezer for sure we should have done that now. Apparently the, I have a count in my freezer, but yes, I got one life summer and not even knowing all this was going to go crazy, but the diet is key.
[00:12:24] And for me, it's one ingredient. I'm a huge fan of a Mediterranean lifestyle. And I know people love a carnivore diet or a keto or paleo or whole 30, and that's fine. But I know that the bulk of the world eats a Mediterranean lifestyle and the American heart association recommends, which is fresh food, more vegetables than not, and some fruit and then some meat or fish or chicken, you know, and oils.
[00:12:51] I just think you don't have to complicate it. People ask me what kind of life, what diet diabetes. I don't eat a diet. I just eat good food. [00:13:00] And so I think that's key and then you have to sleep well because your body heals when you sleep. If you.
[00:13:14] I can't sleep. You can't heal and doing one or the other in it, then get out of it. No phones in there. No computers, no wireless routers in there. No TVs in there. All of that is creating. Horrific electromagnetic fields spiraling around you. You can't get away from the EMF steering. The day we're sitting in front of a computer right now, we've got lights.
[00:13:37] We have a ring light in front of us. We got all these EMS. But at night, your bedroom has got to be a sanctuary. When you cross that threshold into your bedroom, it needs to be clean. It needs to be uncluttered. It needs to be safe. You don't need to be sleeping on an electric bed that is shooting. [00:14:00] EMF all through your body and brain unplug it.
[00:14:03] If you have a sleep number, setting rain naked and unplug it. So sleepiness key, but then you've got your sleep hygiene as well that everyone knows about. And magnesium. Maybe you need some magnesium to help you sleep. Magnesium's a smooth muscle relaxer and it just helps you sleep.
[00:14:23] Open muscle. I mean, to be time T you know, sleeping well is key, whatever your routine looks like, we need to get you sleeping. Earlier to bed the better. If you can, ground and earth and put your feet on the earth at night and your face to the setting sun, that's going to help you sleep also the same in the morning.
[00:14:44] If you've a good morning, it's going to set you up for a good evening. Or I'm a big fan of grounding eat well, sleep well move. Well, you got to move your body. We were given these bodies to move. When you stop moving, you [00:15:00] stop moving. That's as simple as that, that's what my friend, Dr. Derek Meyer says, he's a chiropractor and that's a fact, and you don't have to go out and go to CrossFit five days a week, whatever works for you.
[00:15:12] If it's hula hooping, then hula hoop for crying out loud. That's great for you. If you want to rollerblader, I skate. I don't care. I just need you to move your book.
[00:15:24] Julie Michelson: I love that you say move and not exercise because that's exactly what it is. And we, I see, I'm sure you see it a lot in the office too.
[00:15:33] Especially with auto-immune patients that they're, they're overdoing it, they're driving their inflammation. So I think of moving well as like, what's that optimal for you, right? So you're not overdoing it and you're beating your poor body into the ground and you're not sitting on your rear end all day.
[00:15:53] Dani Williamson: Absolutely hands down and whatever it takes, whatever it takes, you know, park a little bit further away at [00:16:00] the grocery. Take the stairs while you're in there making your spaghetti sauce, do 20 pushups on the countertop, but better. If you can get down and do five on the floor, do a plank, do a down dog, do some squats.
[00:16:11] I try to squat when I'm brushing my teeth. I don't know if that's great or not. If you're unstable, don't do that with the toothbrush in your mouth, but, you know, just move your body. We tend to come home and lay on that couch and we watch, you know, special victims unit. And then we get onto the next one after that.
[00:16:28] And we watched, you know, new Amsterdam and before you know it it's three hours and we're on the couch and we've done enough. Do something got to move your body. Doesn't matter what it looks like. Eat well, sleep well. Move well, poop. Well poop. Well, when you eat well, when you sleep well, when you move, well, guess what?
[00:16:50] You're more likely to poop. Well, and people who tell me, well, my doctor says it's okay. If I pooped twice a week, I've always cooked twice a week. [00:17:00] That's not normal. That's maybe your normal, but it's not normal. We are designed to eliminate whatever we eat today should be gone tomorrow. A dog. If you poop like your dog, you are in good shape, a dog eats and they go and poop not much longer.
[00:17:19] And then they're thrilled about it. They scratch around and fly back in the door. I have a dog. Well, if we go poopy, poopy puffy,
[00:17:30] Julie Michelson: and I have one of, one of my cups is he's eight pounds. And literally when you lift him up, you can tell if he hasn't pooped yet. I just, I can tell. And I'm like, oh, he needs to go out. He's got too much in there. It's got.
[00:17:48] Dani Williamson: Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you've ever done a poop study, a stool study, we do a three-day study our study at the office.
[00:17:56] And if you have to poop and scoop for three days, you have no [00:18:00] idea how.
[00:18:04] Poop is ladies and gentlemen, if you believable. So pooping. Well, most people are dehydrated. All my water's gone here in this glass, right? And most people are dehydrated. I'm 130 pounds. I need a minimum of 65 ounces of water a day. If I get in my cell. I need way more water. If I drink coffee, I need more water.
[00:18:25] I, people don't realize how chronically dehydrated they would feel better just hydrating and your skin would look better and you're going to poop. But again, you can't poop. Well, unless you were like, man, I ate fast food growing up and I would have diarrhea, but that's totally opposite. No, that's not pooping well, so you have to eat fresh, clean, good as healthy as you can food, and you got to move and sleep again.
[00:18:55] It all works together. And then guess what? The stress, well, [00:19:00] this book's coming out and I'm stressed to the hilt. Right. And you know, I was in a bad marriage forever. I was a.
[00:19:12] Forever 11 years seemed like tremendous, tremendous amount of stress with two abusive stepfathers. And. That kind of stress almost killed me. Of course, that's adverse childhood experience stress, but stress will kill you. It lowers your immune system, your white blood cells burst in every direction and it decreases and increases the inflammation in your body.
[00:19:37] You know, nobody has told you that.
[00:19:44] You have to stay in that bad other job. And I need, I did that. I did that seven years ago. I started my own business. Not everybody has to do that. You also don't have to stay in an abusive marriage. And so you don't also, don't have to keep the people in your [00:20:00] life that are sucking the life out of you. The soul suckers, you have the right to set boundaries.
[00:20:06] You also have. To say no to things, nothing gets on your schedule, unless you say yes to. So you have the right to say, no, Julie, I can't do that podcast. I am over WellMed. And I think when we are, give ourselves permission to know that, oh, you don't have to be the room mother to the third grade class who cares that kids still going to go to fourth grade, whether you're the room mother or not, or you don't have to tolerate that friend that is constantly dragging you down.
[00:20:41] You can lean those people out of your life. And when you start to decrease the stress and we all have a certain amount of stress, stress is good for you. Stress. Sure.
[00:20:54] Also keeps you cortisol going, but chronic long-term stress will destroy. [00:21:00] Yes, and we are in power. We are in charge of so much of that, but yet as women, you see this as a coach, you know, this, we pile it on and then we get angry about it. And then it starts to destroy our health. When we have the power all along to cut the time.
[00:21:21] Julie Michelson: We do. And it takes, you know, that first, like you said, that first step is permission and then it's reprogramming and training. And I actually have recently been noticing this with my male client. I used to think of the inability to say no as a particularly female trait or problem or condition. And while I do think there's definitely.
[00:21:46] More of, you know, we are trained to say yes and behave. Right. And do do do, and mothers, you know, put themselves last. And all of that, I'm seeing with my, with my male clients, just like right now in the past month. [00:22:00] Well, I'm talking men in their fifties and sixties who do not know how to say no, if they can't sit
[00:22:07] Dani Williamson: something,
[00:22:07] Julie Michelson: even in business, there, there is, like you said, with the podcast, they're T they're saying yeah, business.
[00:22:14] They can't handle
[00:22:15] Dani Williamson: stress. Yeah. And we have the right, you know, when I got, so over-scheduled at the office, we were booked out for 15, 13 months. Probably three years ago, 15 months I made the call to close the practice to new patients, not closing the practice, close the practice. That was the hardest decision we did a announcement on.
[00:22:39] We did a video, a video and, and announced it on Facebook. That was horrifying to me because you know what we do for a living. We want to help everyone. But my health was going to take a huge hit. If I continued to try to, to keep up with it, I couldn't do it. And we closed down. We closed to new patients for [00:23:00] probably a year and a half.
[00:23:02] And we are booked up. So I have some more decisions to make coming up soon. I don't know what's going to happen, but, but that's on me. I have the right to say, I can't do this. I can not help you.
[00:23:19] You be your best if I am this stressed out over this going on back here in my life. So de-stress well is my fifth step and then commune, well, cultivate committee. It's key. It's key. It's really incredible. The more I studied about community for that last chapter in the book is on cultivating community. I learned, you know, we, well, I already knew this part, but we are not designed to live in isolation.
[00:23:48] We're pack creatures, right. We want to be with family and brands. And what happened to us the last year and a half social isolation? What, what is that? [00:24:00] So-so social isolating D that doesn't even go together and we cannot do that and we cannot thrive and we can not serve. You're barely surviving. And many people didn't suicide rates went through the roof this last year, year and a half.
[00:24:14] I sit on the board for the American foundation for suicide prevention, which is near and dear to mind. I mean, my mom has attempted multiple times. I know what it's like to want to die. And then my grandfather did die by suicide. I lost a patient last month to suicide and I never saw it coming. And this is my world is suicide prevention community.
[00:24:41] It's key and you don't need a ton of community. You don't need a hundred people in your circle. It only takes one or two big roots to hold up a beautiful Oak tree, you know? So, so I'm a big believer in cultivating. I started a neighborhood cookout last year, daring [00:25:00] coven, and. We have a cookout every Saturday in our front yards, and eventually ended up morphing all into my yard as we got closer and more comfortable and comfortable and got to know each other.
[00:25:12] I now don't have a neighborhood. I have a true community and we all knew each other and we all loved each other, but we didn't know each other. And now we know, and I stood up at one of our neighbors, got married and I started the wedding off to talking about community. They asked me to, and so cultivating community is huge.
[00:25:33] You heal when you have community and guess what you eat better. When you have community, you sleep better. When you've laughed with community, you move better. When you have community, you poop better, your stress is better when you have your, your tribe. It's not rocket science. And so again, that's what I do.
[00:25:53] And I try to work it all together with patients and let them know that none of those balls. [00:26:00] Ever equally in the air at the same time. Sometimes you're, you're eating better than you are, you know, sleeping better or you're, you know, so it's all about balance and it's about homeostasis. Your body wants to right ship.
[00:26:14] I am proof of that. It doesn't take much, you are living proof of that. You were not born broken. And I tell you what, when you turn something on your body wants you to turn it off. And we don't listen to those little red flags, that joint pain that pops up, right. That insomnia that may happen for awhile, that itching, that you're having, that slight anxiety that's pop.
[00:26:41] Those are red flags that your body is screaming at you to do something and
[00:26:47] Julie Michelson: it will get louder and louder unless you start listening. Those symptoms are information.
[00:26:52] Dani Williamson: Communication. I are, they are Infor information inflammation, red flags, the whole thing, and [00:27:00] we don't pay attention. And in traditional allopathic medicine, the way I was trained, we treat the symptoms, right.
[00:27:07] We treat the symptoms, the Nexium doesn't cure a disease. It treats a symptom of heartburn. It's B it's heartburn, which is a symptom. Of something else. And so when we go back upstream and look and say, what happened, when did I feel the best in MOA? When did I really feel like I was on my a game? And some people say, you know, Danny, I never felt like I was on my a gang.
[00:27:34] They had a lot of trauma or they had a lot of things happening. And so you can turn it around and just that slight little bit of feeling better. If you have a couple of days of feeling better and not so foggy, headed, or not so much joint pain, when you wake up, you're more inclined then to take it to the next.
[00:27:55] Oh, that's
[00:27:56] Julie Michelson: the becomes a self-propel. It's just [00:28:00] amazing. You can, we can tell people what to do till we're blue in the face, but once they make that one change where they can feel that needle start to move, there's no holding them back. I
[00:28:10] Dani Williamson: mean, this is, and we need coaches. This is why, what you do for a living.
[00:28:16] We do not utilize. In fact, I am at a I'm at a real crossroads in my practice right now, we sat and had a meeting this week about. And I could bring another provider in another provider. Like a nurse practitioner could bring another vet or a doc. I mean, I could bring anybody in. I wanted. I am really leaning towards bringing in coaches because PR as providers, I don't have the time to walk you through, even though I have an hour and a half, I'm not your coach.
[00:28:47] Right. I'm your healthcare provider. And I'm just trying to keep everybody alive in the practice. Right? I mean, it's, I can do a lot in my time with you, but I'm not the follow-up person. [00:29:00] Right. I'm not what you do. At literally turns people's lives around. And I hope that I will scream that from the rooftops going forward.
[00:29:10] The more I've learned about the power of. Well, I
[00:29:15] Julie Michelson: it's it's my joy is partnering with practitioners because what I do works, what you do works. And when we put it together, the results are just faster, better. I mean, it's, it's exciting. It's remarkable. It's. It's just, it is amazing, even though I know because I've lived it and I see it day in and day out.
[00:29:38] The body's ability to heal is phenomenal. It's phenomenal.
[00:29:44] Dani Williamson: I mean, it's so wants to be a hundred percent. It, unless you're dead, it's never too late. Yeah, actually, I think we put that quote or that in the book I thought, oh, that's I love that [00:30:00] people might not like that. I think I have it in there unless your dad it's never too late.
[00:30:04] In fact, I know, I knew on one of the call-outs and and it's, it's the truth. So whatever people are going through, whatever, I mean, there is definitely a way. Around this and through it, actually through it, you have to go through everything. You can't go around. The only way to get there is to go straight through it.
[00:30:26] And again, it starts with what's at the end of your fork, it starts with you believing also that you are worth. To be 150%. And we, when, when we, as men and women put our oxygen masks masks on first, yes, we don't do it because I have two kids over there that, that need my attention or a husband who needs my attention.
[00:30:49] You can put your oxygen mask on because you're worthy. Right. Healthy happy and whole. And guess what? When mom is healthy, happy, and [00:31:00] whole guess what else is the rest of the family? Absolutely do it for you. And, and, and I think we forget that and it's a trickle down. Effect and, and yeah, I'm a big believer of that.
[00:31:13] And we, as women set the tone for the family, we set the entire tone when we're sick, when we don't feel well, when we have to go back to bed, you know, after we take the kids to school and we're exhausted, and then we're irritable when the husband comes home or the wife comes home and we set the tone, whatever mood we're in is the mood, the rest of the families.
[00:31:37] Absolutely
[00:31:39] Julie Michelson: Danny, you gave us, I mean, somebody could listen to this over and over and over again, and really they hit each of those areas. And then pick up your book and they're done. What would you say one small achievable step listeners could take starting today, as soon as they listened to this [00:32:00] to start to improve their health.
[00:32:02] I mean, there's so many different places that I'm like, as you're saying it, like, oh yeah, there's her ones. Oh no, there's her one step. So what, what would be one
[00:32:10] Dani Williamson: to circle back to the first one? I would circle. You know, my first, my first instinct was to say the diet, the diet, the debt. Cause I know it's key, but you know, so many of your listeners are probably not sleeping.
[00:32:27] And if you don't sleep, you can't tackle everything else because you heal when you sleep. So I would take a big inventory of what's happening to my sleep at night. Do you sleep well? Do you have trouble going to sleep? Do you have trouble staying asleep? The first thing you could do, which is completely, they could watch this and stop is go clean up the bed.
[00:32:52] Yep. I love naked. Make it welcoming to sleep and then maybe take some magnesium or [00:33:00] get some sleepy time tea, get the distractions out of the bedroom. And you know, that includes an animal in the bed. I hate to say it now that I got this puppy, I don't have him in the bed. But, you know, I know that people don't sleep as well when animals are in the bed, but you also don't sleep well when your husband or your wife are snoring out, like crazy and you're up.
[00:33:23] But if you're snoring, so also you need to look at, do you possibly have sleep apnea? Yeah. Well,
[00:33:31] Julie Michelson: back to that inventory, I love that. I always say in every area we work on. Knowing where your starting point is, is that that's the first step to change. Most of us are not aware. We just normalize and we deal.
[00:33:47] And so I love the, you know, clean up the room and see what's really going on. Are you sleeping? Are you staying asleep? If you have a partner in there with you ask them, am I.
[00:33:59] Dani Williamson: Yes. [00:34:00] Do you know how many people I have diagnosed? Well, I don't diagnose them with it, but I send them to the sleep lab with sleep apnea.
[00:34:07] It's unbelievable. It's remarkable. I had a pulmonary, a sleep doctor on my Facebook live recently. Untreated sleep at me. It takes 10 to 16 years, 10 to 20 years off of your lifespan. Well, I don't snore and I knew I didn't snore, but I did a home sleep study for my patients. Just to say, I can do this. Well, guess what?
[00:34:31] I didn't pass that booger very well at all. And so I went into the lab and did a sleep lab, a sleep study in the lab and in the sleep center, I have something called rim sleep apnea. So REM sleep is not the deepest, deepest sleep, but it's deep sleep. When I get into rim. I lose oxygen 29 times. I lost oxygen.
[00:34:56] Well, and I'm not overweight. I [00:35:00] don't snore. I don't have the, any of nobody. My family that I'm aware of has sleep apnea. So I actually am going, I'm ordering a C-PAP to see, I feel fun, but you feel, oh my, maybe you can feel better. Exactly. I don't know. We'll see what happens, but sleep. I say the one thing is let's take inventory of the bedroom and get you sleeping first.
[00:35:28] Then you can tackle what's in your kitchen or what you're doing every day, because if you're fatigued, you can't do it. I mean, you just can't do it. I love
[00:35:39] Julie Michelson: that that is gold. So before we wrap up, where can listeners find you? And this'll be included in the show notes
[00:35:46] Dani Williamson: as well? Well, Danny williamson.com, simple as that has everything on it.
[00:35:52] It has the book landing page, the countdown until the book comes out tons of free education, but all of that also [00:36:00] on social media, Danny Williamson. Well. Instagram, Facebook and YouTube all the same. I put out like you tons of free education every day between Instagram and Facebook. And then my Facebook lives are transferred to YouTube.
[00:36:15] Your Facebook live, we did it's on YouTube, hundreds, and hundreds, so much free education for people. And then the book is available everywhere. Absolutely everywhere Barnes and noble books, Amelia, I'm so blessed that they all picked it up. And it's released in November, November 9th. So we've got a lot of free education and free content out there for anybody who's interested in healing, their body truly healing their body from the inside out.
[00:36:46] Julie Michelson: Danny. Thank you so much. This was so incredible. You know, we could do this 10 more times and to still have so much more to talk about. I so appreciate you.
[00:36:58] For everyone listening, [00:37:00] remember you get the show notes and transcripts by visiting inspired inspiredliving.show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did.
[00:37:09] I will see you next week.
[00:00:51] Danny welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you.
[00:00:55] Dani Williamson: It's so good to see you again, Julie.
[00:00:59] Julie Michelson: Yes. [00:01:00] Lucky for me it was just, it feels like just a few days ago. I got
[00:01:05] Dani Williamson: twice in one week. Can't do
[00:01:08] Julie Michelson: no. So I want to start with where I often do. Come to this world through our own health journey. I know you spent 24 years struggling with chronic, various and numerous chronic illnesses.
[00:01:27] So what was the turning point for you for healing your body from
[00:01:31] Dani Williamson: within, well, you know, the 24 years of chronic disease started. From 18 years of living in a shit hole of chaos in my house. I mean, it's as simple as that. And I, and, and, and my grandfather had died by suicide. My mother attempted suicide multiple times.
[00:01:56] I had chronic stress. From all the, I mean, [00:02:00] chronic well, chronic stress. She has chronic diarrhea from all the stress in the, in the house and two different stepfathers and lots of trauma. First colonoscopy at age 20. And, you know, From 18 to 35, I, then I got married and I had been diagnosed with lupus. I had chronic itching, you know, and I was functioning duly.
[00:02:24] I mean, I was doing my job. I had two kids and I was in a hard marriage and I was. Suicidal and I'd remember the morning. I mean, straight up the morning, I was going to end it all and drop off the foot of Broadway in Paducah, Kentucky, and to the Ohio river right there at the foot of Broadway. And there was nothing anyone could do.
[00:02:43] And thank goodness by the grace of God. My kids came running in the room that morning. I don't know, three and four or something and jumping on the bed, mama, mama, and we're hungry. And I mean, literally Julie, I looked in their eyes and it was instant. I was, I was [00:03:00] no way I was going to leave those kids with my husband at the time.
[00:03:03] Greg and. I got up and I fed them breakfast, probably horrible. Who knows? I probably got captain crunch and milk from Walmart for all I know, but don't go there a year later. I'm a single mom, two kids, little kids, five and six, then I'm on food stamps and a medical card. And I thought. I'm going to apply to nursing school.
[00:03:28] I have a graduate degree in fashion design. I owned a maternity store and put again, so I applied to nursing school. I'm standing on the front porch. One day, I get two letters in the mail. One said, congratulations, you're going to Vanderbilt school of nursing nurse practitioner program or whatever. And the next one is.
[00:03:49] Something like congratulations, or you qualify for 56 more dollars in food stamps this month for Ella Jackson and daddy. And I was [00:04:00] like, holy cow. So I definitely got moved to nursing school in Nashville. Right. Three and a half years later I've still got all the symptoms. Right? I still all the chronic stuff going on.
[00:04:13] I probably was on anti-depressants. I can't remember. 24 years later, my first job out of nurse practitioner school. My second job, actually, the doctor looked at me and said down. What are you eating? Don't, you know, your diet controls your symptoms. And it turned my entire world around. I was like, what? I had just spent $200,000 in an education at Vandy.
[00:04:37] Not one time. Did they tell my class of 300 and something? Nurse practitioners, there's a root cause for your patients, depression or lupus or heartburn or migraine. It out. So from that day forward, I did food sensitivity testing on man started some probiotics and that's, and I started decreasing [00:05:00] the inflammation in my body and it literally turned the entire trajectory around for my life and my patients.
[00:05:08] So that's what I do. And I mean, it was an, I am living proof that whatever you turn on, whatever chronic lifestyle disease that you turn on, you can turn off or at least dial it back. Greatly by controlling what's at the end of your fork. That's not only it. Of course you have to sleep well and move well and poop well and all that.
[00:05:33] But by changing my diet and decreasing that inflammatory response turned everything around for me. And I'm pissed off through the years that I wasn't told this by the four gastroenterologists that did colonoscopies on me. Oh,
[00:05:48] Julie Michelson: hi. And it's, it is so say it's frustrating is ridiculous. And I went through that.
[00:05:57] Period of anger of, you [00:06:00] know, I spent 11 years declining with rheumatoid arthritis being told over and over again. There's nothing you can do. There's nothing. It doesn't matter what I even would read something and go to the rheumatologists and say, you know, what about this? No, no nothing you can do you have, you have rheumatoid arthritis?
[00:06:19] Dani Williamson: Yes. Okay. So you just led me into something. I forgot my rheumatologist. When I was diagnosed with lupus, my obstetrician, I went to the best one. There was at Vandy, supposedly, right. We drove from the docu to Vanderbilt. She walks in that room. She looks at me square in the eye and she said, Danielle, there is no cure for lupus.
[00:06:38] It kills women every year. What? And she said, here's your pain medicine. Here's your anti-inflammatories. She put me on a celebrate. Celebrex Vioxx, whichever one was taken off the market for killing people, sudden cardiac death. I can't remember I was on it for a couple of days. I didn't like it. Thank goodness.
[00:06:59] That's [00:07:00] what she said. And then she said, this will hurt your kidneys and your liver. So we need to check your liver and kidneys every six. And I didn't know any better. I was 35 years old. Six months. Yes.
[00:07:10] Julie Michelson: That's like, not that I had to go in every six weeks because the stuff I was on was so toxic and same thing.
[00:07:16] I was 34 years old and literally she said, Oh, we're so sorry. You're so young. We'll keep you as comfortable as we can for as long as we can.
[00:07:28] Dani Williamson: That wasn't anything to me. And actually I saw a new patient probably two months ago and she had her rheumatologists was this page, was this doctor? I didn't know.
[00:07:38] She was still practicing at Vandy. What did she tell you? Because what was it that she, I guess it's rheumatoid arthritis she has. And she said, well, she told me there was nothing we could do. And I said, really well, let me tell you what she told me
[00:07:55] with her hand on the door, that fruit, that you can turn this around. It's [00:08:00] not easy. It's not fast, but once you start feeling better and you start to decrease that inflammatory response in your body. You don't want to go back. I'm never going back to where I was 11 years ago at 44. I feel better at 55 than I did in my thirties and forties, mid forties.
[00:08:22] I will never go back. As do
[00:08:26] Julie Michelson: I at 52, it is, we'll
[00:08:28] Dani Williamson: preach it from the mountaintops until the day I die. And that's what we do in the office is we turn people's lives around by decreasing inflammation and healing, their guts. And you know, but you and I, I mean, I'm only as good. You're only as good as what your patients or your clients do.
[00:08:44] You know, I can teach it all day, but if they go home and decide to drive through, you know, crispy cream and get a couple of. A dozen donut holes, you know, and then go to Chick-fil-A for dinner that night, then there you go. Whatever. So, so [00:09:00] I'm not going to do that anymore. I couldn't tell you last time I went through Chick-fil-A, but it's not rocket science, which is what I was talking about in the book.
[00:09:07] Six common sense steps to practice radical Ealing. We complicate this so much. And we can't do that. And I think as healthcare providers, many times we speak in this language. That patients don't understand and they don't want to understand, they don't care about the neuro pathways in their brain and their dopamine is on fire, their glutamates out of whack.
[00:09:32] And their dad was in the shitter. I mean, they don't care. They just want to know what can I do? To feel better. Right.
[00:09:39] Julie Michelson: And in a way that's not overwhelming. Let's talk about the books. So your book is coming out in November, November the ninth, wild and well Danny's common sense steps to radical healing. So let's, I would love to hone in on, you know, it is once you lift that veil, Ignorance [00:10:00] for lack of a better word or misinformation.
[00:10:03] It really is common sense. It does come back to, this is how we got here. This is how we get well, so let's, let's talk about some of those steps.
[00:10:17] Dani Williamson: You can cut out on me. There were
[00:10:20] Julie Michelson: a little, a little technical difficulty. Let's talk about the, some of the six common sense steps in real speak, as you say.
[00:10:30] Dani Williamson: Okay.
[00:10:30] So eat well, sleep well, move well, poop. Well decreased stress and cultivate community. Those are the six steps that I've worked with. For 11 years and I start with eat well, because it's the most complicated yet the most easy one as well. What's at the end of your fork, right? Will heal you or kill you hands down.
[00:10:55] Simple as that. So you've got to make sure that you, for me, [00:11:00] I think knowing your food sensitivities are what's creating the inflammatory response in your body is very important. Not everyone can do that. So I'll have them cut out the top seven inflammatory foods in the country. Gluten dairy, soy, corn, sugar, eggs, peanut.
[00:11:16] And their face goes blank. Whoa, what am I going to eat? Because that's all I eat. Well, you're going to eat. You're going to eat all the fresh one ingredient. God made food. You can stand fish, chicken, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, oils.
[00:11:39] Lam Turkey. I mean, go buy a turnip, learn what to do. I don't eat the same foods over and over. And our body likes diversity. You know, God made hundreds of 150. We feed our kids about five or six meals, their entire life. We only eat probably less than 20 foods ourselves. So we start with diversity [00:12:00] and I go through, you know, here's go to your farmer's market, eat in season.
[00:12:05] You're only as good as what your animal ate. Maybe you can buy a cow. That's grasping. You know, and put that in your freezer for sure we should have done that now. Apparently the, I have a count in my freezer, but yes, I got one life summer and not even knowing all this was going to go crazy, but the diet is key.
[00:12:24] And for me, it's one ingredient. I'm a huge fan of a Mediterranean lifestyle. And I know people love a carnivore diet or a keto or paleo or whole 30, and that's fine. But I know that the bulk of the world eats a Mediterranean lifestyle and the American heart association recommends, which is fresh food, more vegetables than not, and some fruit and then some meat or fish or chicken, you know, and oils.
[00:12:51] I just think you don't have to complicate it. People ask me what kind of life, what diet diabetes. I don't eat a diet. I just eat good food. [00:13:00] And so I think that's key and then you have to sleep well because your body heals when you sleep. If you.
[00:13:14] I can't sleep. You can't heal and doing one or the other in it, then get out of it. No phones in there. No computers, no wireless routers in there. No TVs in there. All of that is creating. Horrific electromagnetic fields spiraling around you. You can't get away from the EMF steering. The day we're sitting in front of a computer right now, we've got lights.
[00:13:37] We have a ring light in front of us. We got all these EMS. But at night, your bedroom has got to be a sanctuary. When you cross that threshold into your bedroom, it needs to be clean. It needs to be uncluttered. It needs to be safe. You don't need to be sleeping on an electric bed that is shooting. [00:14:00] EMF all through your body and brain unplug it.
[00:14:03] If you have a sleep number, setting rain naked and unplug it. So sleepiness key, but then you've got your sleep hygiene as well that everyone knows about. And magnesium. Maybe you need some magnesium to help you sleep. Magnesium's a smooth muscle relaxer and it just helps you sleep.
[00:14:23] Open muscle. I mean, to be time T you know, sleeping well is key, whatever your routine looks like, we need to get you sleeping. Earlier to bed the better. If you can, ground and earth and put your feet on the earth at night and your face to the setting sun, that's going to help you sleep also the same in the morning.
[00:14:44] If you've a good morning, it's going to set you up for a good evening. Or I'm a big fan of grounding eat well, sleep well move. Well, you got to move your body. We were given these bodies to move. When you stop moving, you [00:15:00] stop moving. That's as simple as that, that's what my friend, Dr. Derek Meyer says, he's a chiropractor and that's a fact, and you don't have to go out and go to CrossFit five days a week, whatever works for you.
[00:15:12] If it's hula hooping, then hula hoop for crying out loud. That's great for you. If you want to rollerblader, I skate. I don't care. I just need you to move your book.
[00:15:24] Julie Michelson: I love that you say move and not exercise because that's exactly what it is. And we, I see, I'm sure you see it a lot in the office too.
[00:15:33] Especially with auto-immune patients that they're, they're overdoing it, they're driving their inflammation. So I think of moving well as like, what's that optimal for you, right? So you're not overdoing it and you're beating your poor body into the ground and you're not sitting on your rear end all day.
[00:15:53] Dani Williamson: Absolutely hands down and whatever it takes, whatever it takes, you know, park a little bit further away at [00:16:00] the grocery. Take the stairs while you're in there making your spaghetti sauce, do 20 pushups on the countertop, but better. If you can get down and do five on the floor, do a plank, do a down dog, do some squats.
[00:16:11] I try to squat when I'm brushing my teeth. I don't know if that's great or not. If you're unstable, don't do that with the toothbrush in your mouth, but, you know, just move your body. We tend to come home and lay on that couch and we watch, you know, special victims unit. And then we get onto the next one after that.
[00:16:28] And we watched, you know, new Amsterdam and before you know it it's three hours and we're on the couch and we've done enough. Do something got to move your body. Doesn't matter what it looks like. Eat well, sleep well. Move well, poop. Well poop. Well, when you eat well, when you sleep well, when you move, well, guess what?
[00:16:50] You're more likely to poop. Well, and people who tell me, well, my doctor says it's okay. If I pooped twice a week, I've always cooked twice a week. [00:17:00] That's not normal. That's maybe your normal, but it's not normal. We are designed to eliminate whatever we eat today should be gone tomorrow. A dog. If you poop like your dog, you are in good shape, a dog eats and they go and poop not much longer.
[00:17:19] And then they're thrilled about it. They scratch around and fly back in the door. I have a dog. Well, if we go poopy, poopy puffy,
[00:17:30] Julie Michelson: and I have one of, one of my cups is he's eight pounds. And literally when you lift him up, you can tell if he hasn't pooped yet. I just, I can tell. And I'm like, oh, he needs to go out. He's got too much in there. It's got.
[00:17:48] Dani Williamson: Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you've ever done a poop study, a stool study, we do a three-day study our study at the office.
[00:17:56] And if you have to poop and scoop for three days, you have no [00:18:00] idea how.
[00:18:04] Poop is ladies and gentlemen, if you believable. So pooping. Well, most people are dehydrated. All my water's gone here in this glass, right? And most people are dehydrated. I'm 130 pounds. I need a minimum of 65 ounces of water a day. If I get in my cell. I need way more water. If I drink coffee, I need more water.
[00:18:25] I, people don't realize how chronically dehydrated they would feel better just hydrating and your skin would look better and you're going to poop. But again, you can't poop. Well, unless you were like, man, I ate fast food growing up and I would have diarrhea, but that's totally opposite. No, that's not pooping well, so you have to eat fresh, clean, good as healthy as you can food, and you got to move and sleep again.
[00:18:55] It all works together. And then guess what? The stress, well, [00:19:00] this book's coming out and I'm stressed to the hilt. Right. And you know, I was in a bad marriage forever. I was a.
[00:19:12] Forever 11 years seemed like tremendous, tremendous amount of stress with two abusive stepfathers. And. That kind of stress almost killed me. Of course, that's adverse childhood experience stress, but stress will kill you. It lowers your immune system, your white blood cells burst in every direction and it decreases and increases the inflammation in your body.
[00:19:37] You know, nobody has told you that.
[00:19:44] You have to stay in that bad other job. And I need, I did that. I did that seven years ago. I started my own business. Not everybody has to do that. You also don't have to stay in an abusive marriage. And so you don't also, don't have to keep the people in your [00:20:00] life that are sucking the life out of you. The soul suckers, you have the right to set boundaries.
[00:20:06] You also have. To say no to things, nothing gets on your schedule, unless you say yes to. So you have the right to say, no, Julie, I can't do that podcast. I am over WellMed. And I think when we are, give ourselves permission to know that, oh, you don't have to be the room mother to the third grade class who cares that kids still going to go to fourth grade, whether you're the room mother or not, or you don't have to tolerate that friend that is constantly dragging you down.
[00:20:41] You can lean those people out of your life. And when you start to decrease the stress and we all have a certain amount of stress, stress is good for you. Stress. Sure.
[00:20:54] Also keeps you cortisol going, but chronic long-term stress will destroy. [00:21:00] Yes, and we are in power. We are in charge of so much of that, but yet as women, you see this as a coach, you know, this, we pile it on and then we get angry about it. And then it starts to destroy our health. When we have the power all along to cut the time.
[00:21:21] Julie Michelson: We do. And it takes, you know, that first, like you said, that first step is permission and then it's reprogramming and training. And I actually have recently been noticing this with my male client. I used to think of the inability to say no as a particularly female trait or problem or condition. And while I do think there's definitely.
[00:21:46] More of, you know, we are trained to say yes and behave. Right. And do do do, and mothers, you know, put themselves last. And all of that, I'm seeing with my, with my male clients, just like right now in the past month. [00:22:00] Well, I'm talking men in their fifties and sixties who do not know how to say no, if they can't sit
[00:22:07] Dani Williamson: something,
[00:22:07] Julie Michelson: even in business, there, there is, like you said, with the podcast, they're T they're saying yeah, business.
[00:22:14] They can't handle
[00:22:15] Dani Williamson: stress. Yeah. And we have the right, you know, when I got, so over-scheduled at the office, we were booked out for 15, 13 months. Probably three years ago, 15 months I made the call to close the practice to new patients, not closing the practice, close the practice. That was the hardest decision we did a announcement on.
[00:22:39] We did a video, a video and, and announced it on Facebook. That was horrifying to me because you know what we do for a living. We want to help everyone. But my health was going to take a huge hit. If I continued to try to, to keep up with it, I couldn't do it. And we closed down. We closed to new patients for [00:23:00] probably a year and a half.
[00:23:02] And we are booked up. So I have some more decisions to make coming up soon. I don't know what's going to happen, but, but that's on me. I have the right to say, I can't do this. I can not help you.
[00:23:19] You be your best if I am this stressed out over this going on back here in my life. So de-stress well is my fifth step and then commune, well, cultivate committee. It's key. It's key. It's really incredible. The more I studied about community for that last chapter in the book is on cultivating community. I learned, you know, we, well, I already knew this part, but we are not designed to live in isolation.
[00:23:48] We're pack creatures, right. We want to be with family and brands. And what happened to us the last year and a half social isolation? What, what is that? [00:24:00] So-so social isolating D that doesn't even go together and we cannot do that and we cannot thrive and we can not serve. You're barely surviving. And many people didn't suicide rates went through the roof this last year, year and a half.
[00:24:14] I sit on the board for the American foundation for suicide prevention, which is near and dear to mind. I mean, my mom has attempted multiple times. I know what it's like to want to die. And then my grandfather did die by suicide. I lost a patient last month to suicide and I never saw it coming. And this is my world is suicide prevention community.
[00:24:41] It's key and you don't need a ton of community. You don't need a hundred people in your circle. It only takes one or two big roots to hold up a beautiful Oak tree, you know? So, so I'm a big believer in cultivating. I started a neighborhood cookout last year, daring [00:25:00] coven, and. We have a cookout every Saturday in our front yards, and eventually ended up morphing all into my yard as we got closer and more comfortable and comfortable and got to know each other.
[00:25:12] I now don't have a neighborhood. I have a true community and we all knew each other and we all loved each other, but we didn't know each other. And now we know, and I stood up at one of our neighbors, got married and I started the wedding off to talking about community. They asked me to, and so cultivating community is huge.
[00:25:33] You heal when you have community and guess what you eat better. When you have community, you sleep better. When you've laughed with community, you move better. When you have community, you poop better, your stress is better when you have your, your tribe. It's not rocket science. And so again, that's what I do.
[00:25:53] And I try to work it all together with patients and let them know that none of those balls. [00:26:00] Ever equally in the air at the same time. Sometimes you're, you're eating better than you are, you know, sleeping better or you're, you know, so it's all about balance and it's about homeostasis. Your body wants to right ship.
[00:26:14] I am proof of that. It doesn't take much, you are living proof of that. You were not born broken. And I tell you what, when you turn something on your body wants you to turn it off. And we don't listen to those little red flags, that joint pain that pops up, right. That insomnia that may happen for awhile, that itching, that you're having, that slight anxiety that's pop.
[00:26:41] Those are red flags that your body is screaming at you to do something and
[00:26:47] Julie Michelson: it will get louder and louder unless you start listening. Those symptoms are information.
[00:26:52] Dani Williamson: Communication. I are, they are Infor information inflammation, red flags, the whole thing, and [00:27:00] we don't pay attention. And in traditional allopathic medicine, the way I was trained, we treat the symptoms, right.
[00:27:07] We treat the symptoms, the Nexium doesn't cure a disease. It treats a symptom of heartburn. It's B it's heartburn, which is a symptom. Of something else. And so when we go back upstream and look and say, what happened, when did I feel the best in MOA? When did I really feel like I was on my a game? And some people say, you know, Danny, I never felt like I was on my a gang.
[00:27:34] They had a lot of trauma or they had a lot of things happening. And so you can turn it around and just that slight little bit of feeling better. If you have a couple of days of feeling better and not so foggy, headed, or not so much joint pain, when you wake up, you're more inclined then to take it to the next.
[00:27:55] Oh, that's
[00:27:56] Julie Michelson: the becomes a self-propel. It's just [00:28:00] amazing. You can, we can tell people what to do till we're blue in the face, but once they make that one change where they can feel that needle start to move, there's no holding them back. I
[00:28:10] Dani Williamson: mean, this is, and we need coaches. This is why, what you do for a living.
[00:28:16] We do not utilize. In fact, I am at a I'm at a real crossroads in my practice right now, we sat and had a meeting this week about. And I could bring another provider in another provider. Like a nurse practitioner could bring another vet or a doc. I mean, I could bring anybody in. I wanted. I am really leaning towards bringing in coaches because PR as providers, I don't have the time to walk you through, even though I have an hour and a half, I'm not your coach.
[00:28:47] Right. I'm your healthcare provider. And I'm just trying to keep everybody alive in the practice. Right? I mean, it's, I can do a lot in my time with you, but I'm not the follow-up person. [00:29:00] Right. I'm not what you do. At literally turns people's lives around. And I hope that I will scream that from the rooftops going forward.
[00:29:10] The more I've learned about the power of. Well, I
[00:29:15] Julie Michelson: it's it's my joy is partnering with practitioners because what I do works, what you do works. And when we put it together, the results are just faster, better. I mean, it's, it's exciting. It's remarkable. It's. It's just, it is amazing, even though I know because I've lived it and I see it day in and day out.
[00:29:38] The body's ability to heal is phenomenal. It's phenomenal.
[00:29:44] Dani Williamson: I mean, it's so wants to be a hundred percent. It, unless you're dead, it's never too late. Yeah, actually, I think we put that quote or that in the book I thought, oh, that's I love that [00:30:00] people might not like that. I think I have it in there unless your dad it's never too late.
[00:30:04] In fact, I know, I knew on one of the call-outs and and it's, it's the truth. So whatever people are going through, whatever, I mean, there is definitely a way. Around this and through it, actually through it, you have to go through everything. You can't go around. The only way to get there is to go straight through it.
[00:30:26] And again, it starts with what's at the end of your fork, it starts with you believing also that you are worth. To be 150%. And we, when, when we, as men and women put our oxygen masks masks on first, yes, we don't do it because I have two kids over there that, that need my attention or a husband who needs my attention.
[00:30:49] You can put your oxygen mask on because you're worthy. Right. Healthy happy and whole. And guess what? When mom is healthy, happy, and [00:31:00] whole guess what else is the rest of the family? Absolutely do it for you. And, and, and I think we forget that and it's a trickle down. Effect and, and yeah, I'm a big believer of that.
[00:31:13] And we, as women set the tone for the family, we set the entire tone when we're sick, when we don't feel well, when we have to go back to bed, you know, after we take the kids to school and we're exhausted, and then we're irritable when the husband comes home or the wife comes home and we set the tone, whatever mood we're in is the mood, the rest of the families.
[00:31:37] Absolutely
[00:31:39] Julie Michelson: Danny, you gave us, I mean, somebody could listen to this over and over and over again, and really they hit each of those areas. And then pick up your book and they're done. What would you say one small achievable step listeners could take starting today, as soon as they listened to this [00:32:00] to start to improve their health.
[00:32:02] I mean, there's so many different places that I'm like, as you're saying it, like, oh yeah, there's her ones. Oh no, there's her one step. So what, what would be one
[00:32:10] Dani Williamson: to circle back to the first one? I would circle. You know, my first, my first instinct was to say the diet, the diet, the debt. Cause I know it's key, but you know, so many of your listeners are probably not sleeping.
[00:32:27] And if you don't sleep, you can't tackle everything else because you heal when you sleep. So I would take a big inventory of what's happening to my sleep at night. Do you sleep well? Do you have trouble going to sleep? Do you have trouble staying asleep? The first thing you could do, which is completely, they could watch this and stop is go clean up the bed.
[00:32:52] Yep. I love naked. Make it welcoming to sleep and then maybe take some magnesium or [00:33:00] get some sleepy time tea, get the distractions out of the bedroom. And you know, that includes an animal in the bed. I hate to say it now that I got this puppy, I don't have him in the bed. But, you know, I know that people don't sleep as well when animals are in the bed, but you also don't sleep well when your husband or your wife are snoring out, like crazy and you're up.
[00:33:23] But if you're snoring, so also you need to look at, do you possibly have sleep apnea? Yeah. Well,
[00:33:31] Julie Michelson: back to that inventory, I love that. I always say in every area we work on. Knowing where your starting point is, is that that's the first step to change. Most of us are not aware. We just normalize and we deal.
[00:33:47] And so I love the, you know, clean up the room and see what's really going on. Are you sleeping? Are you staying asleep? If you have a partner in there with you ask them, am I.
[00:33:59] Dani Williamson: Yes. [00:34:00] Do you know how many people I have diagnosed? Well, I don't diagnose them with it, but I send them to the sleep lab with sleep apnea.
[00:34:07] It's unbelievable. It's remarkable. I had a pulmonary, a sleep doctor on my Facebook live recently. Untreated sleep at me. It takes 10 to 16 years, 10 to 20 years off of your lifespan. Well, I don't snore and I knew I didn't snore, but I did a home sleep study for my patients. Just to say, I can do this. Well, guess what?
[00:34:31] I didn't pass that booger very well at all. And so I went into the lab and did a sleep lab, a sleep study in the lab and in the sleep center, I have something called rim sleep apnea. So REM sleep is not the deepest, deepest sleep, but it's deep sleep. When I get into rim. I lose oxygen 29 times. I lost oxygen.
[00:34:56] Well, and I'm not overweight. I [00:35:00] don't snore. I don't have the, any of nobody. My family that I'm aware of has sleep apnea. So I actually am going, I'm ordering a C-PAP to see, I feel fun, but you feel, oh my, maybe you can feel better. Exactly. I don't know. We'll see what happens, but sleep. I say the one thing is let's take inventory of the bedroom and get you sleeping first.
[00:35:28] Then you can tackle what's in your kitchen or what you're doing every day, because if you're fatigued, you can't do it. I mean, you just can't do it. I love
[00:35:39] Julie Michelson: that that is gold. So before we wrap up, where can listeners find you? And this'll be included in the show notes
[00:35:46] Dani Williamson: as well? Well, Danny williamson.com, simple as that has everything on it.
[00:35:52] It has the book landing page, the countdown until the book comes out tons of free education, but all of that also [00:36:00] on social media, Danny Williamson. Well. Instagram, Facebook and YouTube all the same. I put out like you tons of free education every day between Instagram and Facebook. And then my Facebook lives are transferred to YouTube.
[00:36:15] Your Facebook live, we did it's on YouTube, hundreds, and hundreds, so much free education for people. And then the book is available everywhere. Absolutely everywhere Barnes and noble books, Amelia, I'm so blessed that they all picked it up. And it's released in November, November 9th. So we've got a lot of free education and free content out there for anybody who's interested in healing, their body truly healing their body from the inside out.
[00:36:46] Julie Michelson: Danny. Thank you so much. This was so incredible. You know, we could do this 10 more times and to still have so much more to talk about. I so appreciate you.
[00:36:58] For everyone listening, [00:37:00] remember you get the show notes and transcripts by visiting inspired inspiredliving.show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did.
[00:37:09] I will see you next week.
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My Guest For This Episode
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Connect with Dani Williamson
Dani Williamson
Integrative Family Medicine
Dani Williamson MSN, FNP owns Integrative Family Medicine In Franklin, T N; Focusing On Gut, Autoimmune Thyroid ( Hashimoto’S Thyroiditis Is Her Passion), Hormone, And Adrenal Health With Her Patients.
Her Approach Embodies A Physical, Emotional, Mental, And Spiritual Process To Healing. Dani Is A Graduate Of Vanderbilt University School Of Nursing Nurse- Midwifery And Family Nurse Practitioner Program.
She Is On The Board Of The Middle Tennessee Chapter Of The American Foundation Of Suicide Prevention And Believes Strongly In Addressing Issues Of Adverse Childhood Trauma And Its Relation To Overall Long-Term Health Conditions.
Her First Book Wild & Well Dani’S Six Commonsense Steps To Radical Healing was Released November 9, 2021 By Morgan James Publishing.
Her Approach Embodies A Physical, Emotional, Mental, And Spiritual Process To Healing. Dani Is A Graduate Of Vanderbilt University School Of Nursing Nurse- Midwifery And Family Nurse Practitioner Program.
She Is On The Board Of The Middle Tennessee Chapter Of The American Foundation Of Suicide Prevention And Believes Strongly In Addressing Issues Of Adverse Childhood Trauma And Its Relation To Overall Long-Term Health Conditions.
Her First Book Wild & Well Dani’S Six Commonsense Steps To Radical Healing was Released November 9, 2021 By Morgan James Publishing.
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