From Brain Fog to Great Energy: Healing Midlife Inflammation

From the YouTube captions, lightly cleaned. Some words and names may be misheard.

Welcome to Start Before You're Ready, the podcast that proves that you don't need to wait for the perfect moment to begin your journey towards better health and happiness. I'm your host, Kelly Young. Remember, the first step is often the hardest, but it's always worth taking. Hey guys, it's Kelly, and I am back with an episode of Start Before You're Ready that you are going to love. Today my guest is Daniela Hess. Say hi, Daniela. Hi, friend. I am so happy to be here. This is like the greatest day. Well, we're going to have to work really hard to stay on topic, but before that, I'm going to have my day right now. So, Daniela and I have are lifelong friends. And we became friends in sixth grade when I moved to Niskayuna. I was new to the district. I came from Burnt Hills and I was in sixth grade and we were in the same team. So I had a small group of friends. I was new to the school and Daniela was one of them and I remember everybody else. And you guys welcomed me into your group which I was grateful for because it can be hard to be the new girl in sixth grade. So, thank you for that, Daniela. And we've had a precious friendship throughout the years. And Daniela has always been my most unique friend. Right. You've got this friend that doesn't really fit into the cookie-cutter Niskayuna girl. And that is one of the reasons why I love her so much. She is very authentic.

She's always been wise beyond her years. She has always brought energy to everything that's a little bit different and I've always been very attracted to that. That's always been something that has been very important to me. She was my first friend to get married, my first friend to have a kid, my first friend to be adopted. I've never had an adopted friend other than Daniela. She was my first friend to come visit me at college. She went to Oswego and I went to Ithaca and she would come visit us on the regular. In fact, my college friends every time I see them ask about Daniela because if you meet her once, you love her forever. It's just that's just Daniela. My mom and her had a special relationship. I used to joke that my mom that my mom liked Daniela better than me. I felt like they were kind of more on the same wavelength. For sure. We were from the same planet. No question. You were definitely from the same planet. And I have lots of memories of being at Daniela's house and vacuuming. We had to do the straight lines. We could talk forever about that. I'm going to try to stay on topic. But the other thing that she was my first I think and someone can correct me if I'm wrong. But I think Daniela was my first friend, like out of my friend group to work at Friendly's, which that could be a whole episode if we want to go there.

We bring the whole gang back together. And I loved working there. I loved everything about I love service. I loved the service industry. I loved the blue and white dress, the little apron and polyester that you could put on right out of the washer. You could pour a frible down your front and it would bead up and roll off like So true. I've more than once tried to get my hands on one of those if that's if we can put that out into the universe because that was like the best you when we went to collared shirts. I was like so excited. I know. I know. We really lost the fashion. We did. So we worked at a it was a small friendlies in Niskyuna on Union Street and it had three sections and I would be the first person in on Sunday morning. I would open it at 6 a.m. and I think you were the next person in. I mean, can you imagine like us running a restaurant? Like, what was happening? We were 16 years old. We ran that place. That they trusted us to do that and we did it well. We really did. It was a It was a great gig. And I could talk friendlies forever. We definitely had our Sunday morning egg toss. You remember that? where we'd get close, we'd pass an egg, we'd toss an egg, and we'd keep stepping backwards until it broke. That was like just to start the day.

And they hid. I just remember where I got in trouble in friendly was I just loved the joy and the delight on children's faces when I would make their cones and sundaes. So, they took they hid I'm going to say the red scoop, the large scoop, and I was only allowed I think the green scoop, which was the teeny tiny because if a mom I'm so sorry, but the red scoop was the smallest, the blue was the sec, the green was the second, and the blue was big. Blue was only for fribles. If you were using blue for a Sunday, so when people would say I'd like a single size cone for their child, I'd be like, 'Blue scoop it is.' And that was completely taken away from me. I lost blue scoop privileges because I just was like love seeing their faces. They were so happy. And the moms were like, I now understand as a mother myself that wasn't cool. Well, things have changed. We're no longer scooping gluttonous amounts of ice cream to our customers. we both serve our communities in different ways. And Daniela is, in my mind, just what I've seen a star. She really is. She is just a bright light in her community. She is an educator. She's a facilitator. She has just a way about her that people are very, it's always been the case, but I see now like her people are drawn to her. She's always been very articulate and passionate and it's like all going in the right spot right now. And I'm incredibly excited to have her share a little bit about that with you. I'm going to let her introduce herself and tell you guys a little bit about her community and what she does. A Kelly, thank you so much and just thank you for the for the sweetness of getting to be with you here and to be with your community. I likewise the admiration is very mutual. I've known you for decades now being such an incredible champion for women's joy and the area that you

Focus in on is the care of the physical layer of the being. You what motivates you isn't about just have a happy healthy body. It's I think we there's a we have a similar motivation in our work in that I'm one of the co-founders of an organization called Great Energy and my personal why is that when we look at the quality of our energy literally determines the quality of the experience we have in our lives and our education whether it's one-on-one small group, very large group certification programs in person or online really are many ways to address increasing the quality of your energy. So you can increase the quality of your experience of your life. So we look at the individual as having multiple layers, right? We have the physical layer. The physical layer has certain requirements and needs in order to function in an optimal way. Now, when things are off in our physiology, and this is a two-way street, it starts to impact how we think and perceive. So, now that now we're going to relate to the mental body. How are we thinking and perceiving? But likewise, our physical layer can be in pretty okay shape. And all and let's say you find yourself in a in a pattern of negative thinking.

Eventually your body is going to start experience that because our thoughts create when we believe them true a whole series of chemical reactions and they also c they also create corresponding and instantaneous emotions. So then we have the emotional layer of the individual. How are we attending to our emotions? Then we have our spiritual layer. So all these layers of the individual impact and influence one another. So, if we want to experience a yes to the following statement, and this is my personal question I ask myself every day. It's a yes or no question. And so, you always want to pay attention to how you answer this. Do I love my life? It's either an immediate yes or it's a yes, but we want to pay attention to the what follows the but because that shows us where our where our work is for so for lack of a better way of putting it. And so when if what we want a 10 out of 10 and we all come to our ways of service in the world because we've been in the darkness or we've been in our own personal challenge. That happened to me once I hit midlife. I'm 53 right now and I'm living vibrantly with autoimmune but I wasn't for a while and I when my energy started to decrease about in a seven a sevenyear window when I look back I'm like wow it really was from about this age to this age it was just a slow steady decline I started to notice things like I was more fatigued than usual no matter whether I have no matter how I slept. I would experience bloating after I ate. I was experiencing hair loss. So, when I would brush my hair or shower, I would just notice over time there was more and more hair in the brush or the or the tub. I was experiencing brain fog like words that would typically be there. Took a little

More time to find. Sometimes people experience rashes, skin things, headaches, low mood, decreased libido, hard to lose weight, just an overall sense of like kind of actual puffiness. So these were things that over seven years, one more would add on to the list and one more and one more and I was so busy that going to my primary care physicians weren't really giving me the answers that I needed. So it really came down to what education am I missing? And I have a masters in health education. So what I've spent the last years of study in is first and foremost how do I get my energy back to the status that I would check my energy is not mediocre, fair, poor, or good, but it's actually great. Because I was not loving my life when my energy was off. It's hard to feel compassionate to yourself. It's hard to be patient with the people you live with. It's hard to feel gratefulness, which is, I think, our baseline state when we're in balance. But I wasn't feeling that natural gratefulness for just life when all these when I was experiencing the symptoms I just listed.

So turns out once I educated myself kind of spent full-time for a few years getting certifications in everything from autoimmune care to functional nutritious nutritional coaching etc. is I wanted to understand what is it that our primary doctors are don't have awareness of and what is it they're not bringing to their patients. Now, I want to preface I want I want to say that I think just about every primary doctor, conventional primary doctor cares deeply for their patients. That they genuinely mean the very best. But what I learned is there's a difference between your conventional primary care physicians and the world of what's called functional medicine. con conventional physicians tend to be about 10 years behind the research and what we know about how the gut is the root cause of so much disease for women in midlife between 40 and 60 and functional medicine is interested in getting down to the root cause. So when I started my own personal adventure in wellness it was determined that I had anemia.

So, I'm like, 'Yay, anemia is the problem. Iron's the solution, right? Is that gonna have my hair stop falling out?' Well, it turns out no. So, when you start to really take on your health and you're not getting answers from your conventional practitioners, you have to do what's called like really peeling back the layers. So, every time I learned something, it pulled back another layer. So, so I learned that anemia was just the just the circles and it took me down this incredibly fascinating rabbit hole of learning about the body and root causes. Now, so then I learned some really interesting statistics. One 70% of midlife adults have chronic inflammation. Okay, so we're talking people between 40 and 60. 70% have chronic inflammation. So the next question is like well how would I know if I have inflammation, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, you're tired, brain fog, headaches, hair loss, rashes, anxiety, low mood, hard to lose weight, and puffiness, right? These are the typical symptoms of inflammation. Then I'm like, well, what causes inflammation? Why do we have such a chronic issue in our culture? What is it about what's going on in the United States that's different?

Well, the inflammation that is showing up in our bodies is because we are eating foods that irritate the body. Number one, we have what's called leaky gut. Now, leaky gut is where the cells of your intestinal lining. They're supposed to be shoulder to shoulder. Like, pretend we're standing shoulder to shoulder. Leaky gut means well, a little space between our shoulders and a little more space and the cell wall widens. It becomes permeable. So the that's going through your small and large intestines leaks out into your body. So that's creating inflammation. So what else is contributing to inflammation? Blood sugar imbalances. The way we eat in the United States is all over the place. Like what do we what we were we were raised well not to mention the friendly breakfast. We start with carbs and sweet in the morning, right? Instead of protein and savory. So that's a big issue for our body, processed foods. Now, many of us probably listening to this go to Trader Joe's, Sprouts, like the healthy stores and get our groceries. But if it comes in a box or a bag and it's got more than three ingredients, it's a processed food, right? So 10 years ago, I was like, 'Oh man, these crackers are made from cauliflower.' just because they have 78 other ingredients in it. It's basically salad. Like I didn't I could justify anything that tastes close to cheese nips, right? And it's organic and I got it from Trader Joe's, right?

So that's a win. That's healthy. It's not. It's not. We have such high stress because of our unnaturally busy lifestyle and pace in our in our culture, right? Ry constantly in that state of looking at the watch or looking at our phone. What time is it so I'm not late to the next thing? We are back to back to back to back in our lives. We have poor sleep. We have environmental toxins. Just take a quick scan if you're listening to this. How many things that you put on your body from shampoo to laundry detergent to toothpaste to lotion to makeup would you eat? If you can't eat it, don't use it. Right? The only thing I use on my skin is coconut oil. That's it. It's the only thing. I've never done anything. It's just coconut. If I if I can't eat it, don't put it on your body because these are hormone disruptors. Many of these chemicals and each one by itself that I've mentioned so far is like you think, well, that's just one little thing and that's just one little but it creates a storm in your body and then we get infections like how many of us have had COVID multiple times, not to mention flu and colds and Epstein-Barr, things like that. And then we have poor gut bacteria. So all of these things combined are creating the 70% of adults in midlife that have chronic inflammation. And it starts in one place. It starts in the gut. Now here, let me paint a little picture of some dominoes. So if you have gut issues and chronic inflammation, this is where it goes. This is the next domino it tips because 80% of our immune system is in the gut. This issue of inflammation and gut issues leads to autoimmune. One in

10 people right now have autoimmune. We don't hear that as a headliner on the news. I It's definitely higher in my community. I just talked about them in another podcast. I think I want to say half the women I talked to have something. They have something. Yes. Exactly. And it all starts in the gut. So because the immune system is in the gut, that's where autoimmune begins. is the genesis of an autoimmune issue. One in 10 has an autoimmune. There's like 30 different kinds of autoimmunes. The most popular autoimmune in our culture right now is we have 90% of the people that have autoimmune have Hashimoto. Okay. And the 90% of the people with Hashimoto have thyroid hypothyroidism. Yeah, that's what I hear. That's what I hear. The thyroid. I mean, women just say it like it's like I say, oh, I have hypothyroidism. I'm like I learned not to react to it. Yeah. Yeah. And so you don't have 90% of the people with hypothyroidism have Hashimoto whether they know it or not. So all thyroid issues are ultimately a gut issue. Now here's why. Because inflammation from the leaky gut confuses the immune system. So it mistakes the thyroid proteins for foreign invaders. And so now while it's attacking the thyroid and the thyroid gets damaged, it can't make enough hormones. And because the thyroid is this incredible organ that regulates the following, your metabolism, your energy, your temperature, your digestion, your brain functioning, your hormone balance. So as your thyroid slows down, everything else in a woman slows down.

Yeah. Then that creates a ripple effect that impacts your adrenal system. So you get high cortisol, which then eventually can flatline. You're going to experience a sluggish liver and you're going to feel pretty awful. And that was how I felt. I felt you like unrecognizable to how I present right now. And so in order to get by right busy working busy I just went to my doctor but they would do my labs and if I had one most important message for women it would be the following. There is a difference when you get lab work blood work done by your convent your primary doctor they mean well okay versus labs that are done by a functional doctor because they have different ranges. So, for example, when I was first diagnosed as anemic, not Hashimoto, not autoimmune, that came later because the low iron was a symptom of something much bigger going on in my system. I was told repeatedly, your levels look normal because my numbers landed in that big long green bar. So, ferritin, for example, is called is considered your iron storage.

Your iron is how much you have available to use daytoday. Your iron storage, your ferritin levels, your conventional doctor is going to say anywhere between 15 and 200 is considered normal. The functional ranges look at it has your ferritin can't be below 70 in order for you to even feel functional, in order for you to even feel well. So women are going in saying I don't feel right. I don't feel right. They're getting their labs done. Now these normal ranges of 15 to 150 are based on a sick population. Functional medicine ranges are based on an optimal healthy population. So what I'd like to say is if you want a simple hack is you can take your labs you can take your data that your conventional doctor orders for you and you run them through chat GPT and you can give it the following prompt something to the effect of please interpret my labs through the lens of functional medicine optimal ranges and that it will at least give you a little more insight if you're being pulled. Well, everything looks normal to me. You look fine.

Yeah, that's great advice. Daniela, I do want to say one thing, and I could be wrong on this. Very recently, ChatGPT has banned giving medical advice. I only know because I ask it everything. Yeah. And it you I because I Well, just to backtrack a little bit and I want you to talk about this, but you are the one that got me to do function health. It was something kidding. Oh, I didn't know you were doing it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I given you like credit for it, but you had posted something about it and then Todd posted something about it. I'm like, 'Okay, two people that I really admire do function health, so I'm going to do it.' And it was a special like Fourth of July. Yes. Yes. 365 a buck a day. Yes. So, and it was very enlightening, but I did the explanations were good, but I was waiting for the do the doctor does give you like whatever. It was very enlightening. But I'm just curious about I'm just I'm just saying that I don't know but I do believe that there's like they stopped giving there was two things. One was medical advice and one was legal advice. I and I still use I use both chatbt and grock and so I use both. It's probably what you ask it. You're not asking for like a diagnosis. You're saying what are the ranges?

No, I'm saying you're asking facts. I'm saying from functional medicine lens and optimal ranges, what do you see is going on in with my lab work. So I'm bringing it the hard data and it will tell you okay your iron your ferritin is 12. You should this is this explains why your hair is falling out. Your D levels are below 30. They should be between 50 and 80. However, your primary doctor is going to say, 'Oh my gosh, if your D levels are over 30, you're heading near toxic.' Which is so not true. Wow. So, if I were to ask, if I were to say, 'Look, we once you become 40, between 40 and 60, you want to be able to say to your friends, hey, what are your D levels, your B12, your iron, your ferritin, and your you want to have a full thyroid panel, not just TSH.' You should be able to rattle those numbers off like that for yourself and to hold your girlfriends and your family members like to be able to know that about themselves too because what once you hit midlife and your perimenopause starts to set in by 35 and menopause is on average around 52. So in that window of 35 to 55, separate from inflammation, separate from leaky gut, separate from all these other things we've talked about, you also have your sex hormones which are fluctuating and changing. And there's no one in our world medically that is the expert of championing for you to understand your sex hormones. That's not the job of a primary doctor. That's not the job of your midwife. There's it's no one's job. And so women are on top of inflammation and chronic gut issues which then typically leads to autoimmune and thyroid issues. Our sex hormones are not being monitored skillfully. So that was then this the next rabbit hole that I had to go down is to understand how do all the sex

Hormones work? What's typical? What's regular? Who can who can get me testosterone? What testing do I need to do that I'm paid out of pocket? And I did all the testing. Here's why. I needed to know none of this was cookie tunes. I needed to see the data. I needed to see I do every year my It's called a gut zoomer. It's a poop test. It analyzes your poop in ways that you can't even imagine poop could be analyzed. And I can track my numbers changing. And I like data. This is why I love data. So that I can share with my clients and my students and community. look, you don't have to pay for these tests because you like I'll find you a cheaper one that just does this, this, and this, and just you just need this little amount of data just to get you going, just to start to reclaim your energy and your health. there are 30 reasons. Most women will talk about puffiness, weight gain, brain fog, and hair loss once they hit midlife. And there are 30 reasons that we that women have excessive hair shedding in their midlife years. And so you can't just throw a dart at it, but I want to be I can say go do these three tests and if something if it doesn't come back clear now, let's go do these next three because it's all connected and it's and it's very stressful and heartbreaking for women to feel there. I thought at one point I wasn't going to teach again because I thought I was maybe entering early stage dementia. I would have to talk to myself going room from room and be like, 'Okay, I'm going from this room to go to this room to go do this thing.' And just having to be that alert is incredibly stressful and on your adrenal system.

So, it's I'm just here to like to yell from the mountaintops that this is actually the best I think I've actually ever felt. That's amazing. Literally the most a lot of work. You've done a lot of work and a lot of research and well and here but here's what's also really interesting. Spiritually when we are off physically in midlife we miss the incredible opportunity that's really here for us in it is a profound opportunity of coming back into your creativity because for many of us midlife coincides with our children going to going to college or leaving the nest and to some degree and all of a sudden it's like it's you again, you get to come home to yourself when there's research that says the most miserable years and take it for what it's worth. You probably wouldn't agree with this, right? I think, but I think you're a unicorn in this one, is the most stressful, miserable years for people are between 30 and 50. Well, it kind of makes sense because especially for women, they're the hardest years. You're raising a family, you're in partnership, you're working, you're trying not to lose who you are to yourself, right? maintain friendships, care. You're caring for so many people.

So much of that energy is going outward. Midlife is an opportunity to come back into wow, who and what am I becoming now? However, when you're off in the physical layer, when you're imbalanced, that question is irrelevant. It doesn't it has no space in your there's no joy. And I'm now seeing as I as my health has like returned fully. My god, this is the most amazing chapter. It's the best I felt. It's the strongest I felt. It's the most wonderful I feel in my body. Intimacy skyrockets. It's we, you and I grew up in a generation thinking, at least I did, that oh, as women get older, you just care less about intimacy. You care less about love making. That's just one of those things that like goes out the window. Well, it does for a lot of women because their sex hormones are off. It does for a lot of women because their ferritin is 13. It does for a lot of women. But it's like actually can be one of the most amazing vibrant times in your sexual life. That that's so interesting when you were talking in the beginning about autoimmune. It sounds exactly like menopause. I mean those are all the things. So, how don't people get like do you think that so much autoimmune gets missed because everyone says that's menopause?

Well, here's this is an interesting perspective. Some functional medicine educators and practitioners would say well what they would say two things. First of all, menopause is something that is new just to us as women. A hundred years ago, we weren't living this long. Right. Right. Okay. So, menop menopause a is new. Yes. Hey, in other c in other cultures where women are not experiencing the toxic foods, the toxic environment, the lifestyle, in fact, kind of like the blue zones, there are no symptoms of perimenopause and menopause because actually what's being flushed out are your imbalances. And that's why you experience those symptoms. Yeah. Is because imbalances are being flushed out as your hormones start to change. Okay. Yeah, that's really interesting. I love all that. I would love for you to speak a little bit about nutrition because you mentioned it a little bit about the processed foods, but I think that well, just to be totally transparent this week, in the beginning of the week, one of my students mentioned to me, she's like, 'I'm really working. She's gained a lot of weight and she's really struggling.' And I mean, you wouldn't look at her and say she's gained a lot of weight, but for her, she's she was looking at her. She's like, 'What's happening?' And I was like, she's like, I'm really working on she know she kind of knows. It sounds like she already knows that she's just it's inflammation and she feels and I suggested that she there's one thing in particular that you did that I just thought was brilliant about the just choosing a certain type of food and I think we all kind of know what the bad foods are, right? like processed in a bag multiple mult even if it's got cauliflower in it doesn't mean I'm like I don't know we I we think we know but when you start to have leaky gut these things that grains now become an inflammatory agent things that

Are kind of you'd say well this is healthy and so I was also before I learned what about how to heal the gut and how to heal inflammation I thought I was doing get smart, also unguided. I thought, I'm going to figure this out. I'll I'm like, 'Oh, I'll eat more plant-based foods. I was vegan. I'm like, that's who can argue with veganism. That's healthy.' No idea that I was making myself completely worse. Now, I'm not saying about that vegan or carnivore or anything. I'm not talking morals. I'm not talking ethics. I'm not talking anything. I genuinely thought I could figure it out myself. So, I learned from some experts and some of my mentors. They teach a very potent and effective gut healing anti-inflammatory process. It's called AIP. And I love guiding women through this process one-on-one and in groups. So, people can reach out if they have more questions. But the fundamental AIP means autoimmune protocol. It heals leaky gut. Now it removes the inflammation triggers, it repairs the gut lining, it calms the immune system, and it restores nutrient density. So autoimmune protocol is an elimination diet. It's you for 30 to 90 days. I would never do less than 90 days because of what happens in the time frame. There is you remove inflammatory foods and there's a whole list and the website that I would recommend to people is autoimmune wellness.com.

This is Mickey and Jamie. They have everything. They have books, but you can get it all here for free if you just want to dive in. They It's researchbased. And so there's a process of eliminating all these trigger foods. So what that means is for 30 to 90 days, don't do less than 90. You remove all grains. You remove soy. You remove dairy, gluten, nuts, seeds, and then a whole bunch of other things like that would be obvious. I think alcohol, processed foods, things like that. And so what remains is an abundance of fruits and vegetables and nutrientdense protein. it is animal protein because animal protein operates differently in the body for gut healing. Now after 90 days there's a process called reintroduction where very scientifically and methodically and you track it like a scientist. You start to reintroduce one food after the next. It's you track your symptoms. If your body is not ready for something, it will let within 15 minutes to two days. Like egg yolk is one of the first reintroductions. And when I first reintroduced it, I immediately had a headache. And the next day I felt really fuzzy and off.

So, so your body becomes so clean and clear. It reacts instantly to what we have been forcing ourselves to like set aside these other symptoms for years before which created the problems in the first place. It's the gold standard in gut healing and it does not run it does not work if you're like adamantly going to stick to being a vegan or again you have to ask yourself the question am I willing to do what it takes to reclaim my wellness and then like I'm a year I'm a year into AIP and the evolution of AIP. You don't stay on AIP for a year. You do what's called personalized paleo. Will I be able to have rice again someday? Yep. Will I be able to once in a while have chickpeas? Yep. But I know my body right now. And I want to be healed more than I want more than I want frozen yogurt or something like that. Yeah, they're all delicious. Freaking delicious. But I care more about my clarity of mind and my ability to articulate and my ability to feel joy steadily than I do about what's in what's on my plate. You're aware of Dr. Peter Aia. Oh, I love him. He has a phenomenal episode on thyroid and it was like the timing of it was uncanny because I had been talking about and I didn't really understand it. I thought I did. I like thought I did. I didn't even come close. I mean, he it's very sciency. I had to listen to it twice. You do a great job. Like your explanation is very helpful. But I if you want a deeper dive, I would I would we can we can link that. I call him my boyfriend Della. I have a little crush on I understand.

I mean there's something about him. Chloe got that. Well, he's so matterof fact, too. And he's really been through his own struggles. I mean, he talks openly about his years with depression and again, what's going on in the body and this is another thing that's such a pain, right? So if you're not looking at optimal ranges for your labs and part of the symptoms of inflammation and thyroid and gut, right, and cortisol is anxiousness or andor depression, women are put on anti-depressants, SSRIs, and that's not the problem. What the problem is either a thyroid, the problem is the gut, the problem is the high cortisol that was high for too long that then flatlined into low cortisol. And so you would think you're depressed. Yeah. But that's but you're not. But you know, do you know why young girls young girls like Lindsay's age are having so much autoimmune? Well, I would think it's the again autoimmune root autoimmune's root is what's going on in the gut. Okay. So it's inflammation. So it's the it's the same list applies. Yet you see you and I the ingredients in Wonderbread when we were eating it when we were 10 compared to what it is now is different.

So we they are getting the same the exposure in their 20 years of life from day one and their mothers were pregnant with bodies right and genetics that were starting to be impacted by that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. I want to move on to another story and it's this is kind of taking us in a totally different direction but I definitely want to have time to tell this story if you are willing to tell it. Totally. And I just want to pay attention to time because I know you have a thing. Yes. Okay. So Daniela is adopted and the other thing that I didn't I don't know if I mentioned but you were the first person to have a parent pass and a first one of my friends like that had passed while we were friends and it was it was it was very tragic and hard and you impressed all of us all of all of our all of your friends with the way you handled that very difficult situation. I want you to talk a little bit about that about that chapter if you want. And but I really want you to talk about Tom. I want talk you to talk about your dad. So life is so astounding. Like life is just may we care for our health so we can really feel the aliveness and the magic. And when I say magic, I don't mean in a crystal wear and woo way.

I mean the jaw-dropping like can't make this stuff up kind of ways. So my mother was she died when she was 58. My adopted mother and she had a glyobblasto brain cancer and she had it for one year to the day. And while we were caretaking her, it was my father and my mother's mother, Nana, and myself. We would take shifts and turns taking care of her. her speech was impaired because of where the tumors were. And so she would very painstakingly spend the day with us. The OJ Simpson trial was on. So, I mean, I can I can I know Marcia Clark trivia like nobody's business. She very she took great care to describe to me. I know I'm your dad's queen. My mom and dad got married when they were 18. So, they had 40 years together when by the time she died. They adored each other and you they adored you. And so, my mom would kept describing this woman. She said, 'Your dad has to meet this woman. She's smaller than me. She has shorter, curlier hair. He It's important. And she's like, 'Tom, you have to when I die, you have to get plastic surgery. Get your eyes fixed. Get your goddamn eyes fixed.' Because he had bags under his eyes. She's like, 'That sounds like I so not my dad's style.' Like it never he would never. But he made her a promise.

So he even went and did that like got his eyes bags fixed and he went to a support group for berieved people because he was devastated when she died. We expected it and it happened and he was devastated, lost. So he went to the support group and he meets a woman that to a tea matches my mother's description of who he's going to meet. Now, as if we needed more evidence, before my mother died, she gave me this stupid picture, a Polish rooster. It's some very skillfully crafted, like it's like artwork with an X-acto knife. It's very detailed, so it is very intricate, but I just couldn't stand it. It was just not my style. She's like, 'Danny, you this you have to keep this picture. It's very important.' I'm like, 'Okay, yes, mom. You don't say no to the dying lady. And you don't say no to I have a period. Oh, you don't. So then she after she dies, I'm dragging the stupid Polish rooster around every apartment I live in. I give it away finally. I'm just like this stupid thing. Like I give it to someone. I'm like, 'Oh, hang it in your classroom. The children will love it. It's bright.' So even after 10 years later after she the classroom closes, I get it in the mail. She mails it back to me. Now it's come back to me. The Polish rooster. Out of nowhere, one day, Fran, who is now my the woman that my mother was describing that my dad was going to meet, who he met at the support group for breathed people and that he married, she says, 'Danny, I have something that I just think you're going to love. Why do people think I'm going to love this? Makes no sense.' She goes upstairs and she comes down with an almost identical almost identical I have them hanging in my cabinet. Polish rooster. same size, same or like the same. Now, this was a 20 year tracking event, right? So, life gives you when like Mary Oliver says,

Pay attention, be astonished, and tell about it. I love it. Tell about it. I love it all, but they tell about it for sure. Yeah. So, so they went on to my dad and Fran went on to have another 20ome years before he passed. And on his deathbed, he just was really, he was such a kind man and straightforward. He's like, 'Love your people, love your life. You're just, you literally never know the minute, the hour, or the day that you will be finally called home.' And so his few last days where he was in a like a you can't it wasn't quite a coma but he was sleeping like 23 minutes and 59 seconds a day and he woke up the last thing he said before he crossed over as he said and he was you could see he was in such peace wherever he was before he died it was reality. It was it was reality. And when he opened his eyes that last time I saw him, he looked around and he was astonished and he goes, 'Danny, this place is the nutouse.' Meaning where he was reality. And like we're taught as children, row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. And in that moment, he really conveyed, oh, we are in the dream here in our life. And in the dream, play full out, play alive, play connected, play intimately, play presently, play caringly, play honestly, play richly, and live your full life. and simultaneously know that everything that changes in this impermanent reality is not real per se and there is an aspect that you are each one of you is that is permanent and unchanging. And may we

Each have a glimpse of what we really are so we can play the character we're playing in this life much more al much in a much more alive way knowing kind of with a nod and a wink that the real you is timeless and eternal. That is so beautiful. Wow. Wow. Wow. I love every bit of that and I just you share you've shared over the years just some really profound things that always strike me as like I get the goosebumps. I mean as soon as I asked you I just get the goosebumps which I learned that are actually the truth bumps. Those are those are those are truth bumps. That's when it's that this is to be true. How aren't our bo and our bodies are these tooting forks to truth? They we resonate to truthfulness. That's so true. Yeah, you're amazing. I feel like I feel like we just touched the surface. I hope this is a part one. I do too. I do too. And I'm so honored to be invited into your community. I just thank you and thank every one of your friends and family members in your community for caring for yourselves, your lives and those you interact with and the world such that you're putting yourselves first, right? There's a there's a reason airline the airlines the beautiful flight attendants say probably as much as Happy Birthday is sung on the planet, take the oxygen first and then help others. So, so I thank you for the champion you have been, Kelly, for decades for women's vitality and aliveness. And the last thing that I would say is Joseph Campbell is a great myth mythologian. And I and this really struck me when I was a child. He said, 'It's not happiness we're seeking that we're seeking per se. What we're really seeking is the rapture of feeling alive.' and what you're doing in the world is helping people to feel the joy of their aliveness.

Yeah. Well, the energy community and energy. It's funny how our lives have kind of come full circle and there's a lot of mutual respect between both of us and it is just really nice to talk to you Daniela and I just want to say thank you for giving up. You're very busy. Oh my gosh. It was a dream. It was a total dream and just for giving your insight. I mean I we have all learned so much from you and I encourage people to join your community. That's okay, right? Like it's like it's open to everybody. Absolutely. It's open. Answer a few of the questions and you don't have to give your email if you don't want to, but just let me know. I heard you on Kelly's podcast or because I do like people coming into the community that really are intentional about being there. They care about your health and wellness. Yeah. So it's called Great Energy Community on Facebook. You I would love to have you. Love to have you. Awesome. Great energy community. I love you so much, Daniela. Thank you so much. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Start Before You're Ready. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share with a friend who might need a little motivation. Ready to start your own journey? Check out our workouts and nutrition coaching programs at kelly'sbootcamp.net.

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