Episode 96: Letting Go: Finding Peace in Adversity

Summer, Sam & Alida McDaniels (left to right)

Alida McDaniel is a holistic life coach, chef and naturopathic doctor in-training, sea green health. She helps her clients uncover the silent unhelpful patterns speckled within our lives. She truly believes when we are free from attachments to trauma stories we may heal.

Social media and contact information:

Instagram:
@eatglowrise
@goddessintellingence

Podcast Transcript:

Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the relatively damaged podcast by damaged parents where hungry, depressed ill people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.

Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than. Like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damaged self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges.

Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we're meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is the damaged person, the one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side hole.

Those who stared directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them, let's hear from another hero. Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.

Today, we're going to talk with Alida McDaniels. She has many roles in her life. Daughter cousin, niece, chosen family and more. We'll talk about how she struggled with food addiction, depression, molestation, rape, chronic illness, bad relationships, and trauma from her parents divorce and how she found health and healing let's talk

 Welcome to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Today. We have Alida McDaniel, a holistic life coach, chef, and naturopathic doctor in training. She is also the owner of Sea Green Health. She helps her clients uncover the silent unhelpful patterns speckled within our lives. She truly believes when we are free from attachments to trauma stories, we can heal.

Thank you for coming onto the show today, Alida.

Alida McDaniel: [00:02:25] Thank you so much for having me.

Damaged Parents: [00:02:27] Yeah, I mean, and we were just briefly talking about struggle and I don't want to forget what you just said to me. I don't want us to forget to put it in the recording. So would you just repeat that little tidbit for me? Cause it was just such a diamond.

Alida McDaniel: [00:02:44] Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that I do best is I find a way to make adversity graceful. Through the work that I do instead of identifying with the struggle, which is where most of us get stuck, we build an entire life around that. I help people actually look at discipline as a discipleship, as a way of living their life and becoming a student of their highest and best self.

So that discipline actually becomes fun. It becomes adventurous. It becomes playful instead of being daunting and stressful and punishment.

Damaged Parents: [00:03:15] It's almost like, instead of looking at it as a struggle, which it still is, you're asking the question, well, what purpose is this struggle here for? And how can we turn that into fun?

Alida McDaniel: [00:03:27] well, look, I mean, I can, I could be in the middle of a struggle, but I don't have to drive the struggle bus.

Damaged Parents: [00:03:32] Right. So the struggle can be happening. You don't have to. Let's see. How do I want to put this? It doesn't have to rule your life. Is that what it, when you mean drive the struggle bus.

Alida McDaniel: [00:03:44] For example, if we look at something like guilt, guilt is I am I made a mistake, okay. I can acknowledge that. I made a mistake if I'm guilty of making that mistake there's room for me to resolve it and move on shame is when we hold on to that mistake and I am the mistake. And in that, that I am the mistake.

That's when we're driving the struggle bus. That's when we become the driver of our pain, to the point where our physical body, our emotional body, our mental body, our spiritual body all resemble the struggle. And there's really not a lot of room for us to do any sort of healing or resolution because we now build an entire life around this struggle is who I am.

Damaged Parents: [00:04:24] yeah. And when you were speaking, it was reminded me of, times of my life. And I certainly see it in other people too, when the struggle comes, it literally encompasses and becomes all of who they are. And I think that's what you're talking about. That struggle then becomes if you will, their identity and then.

Because the struggle is that identity then what are they? Even without the struggle.

Alida McDaniel: [00:04:51] 100%. I was in, I was in school and we were doing what was in school for spiritual psychology. And we were doing an exercise where I was in the part of the facilitator. Another student was in the part of the client. We had a neutral observer and I said to her, who would you be? If this depression was no longer your identity, if it didn't exist anymore.

And she looked at me, she said, Alida I would have nothing to talk about. And I think that a lot of times we it's like asking a fish. If it's wet, we're so wrapped up in it. A fish doesn't know if it's dry, if it's never been dry before. If, I have a client who is struggling with health issues and they've never been healthy before, it's hard for them to even fathom that there's something on the other side.

You know, For the first half of my life, I'm 43. Now for the first half of my life, I battled with chronic illness. I battled with obesity. I battled with food addiction and I battled with depression and I had many doctors want to medicate me. But nobody really wanted to get to the root cause of it. And it got to a point where I had gone so deep in the identity of it, that I was numb.

And completely oblivious to the fact that I was consistently choosing to create the conditions that perpetuated the pattern

Damaged Parents: [00:06:06] So taking responsibility for what you're creating in your life.

Alida McDaniel: [00:06:11] and how you are, feeding into the program.

Damaged Parents: [00:06:14] Yeah. And if you're in that spot, that's probably, that was probably really foreign to you as well. When in that place where you don't even know you're feeding into it, I'm thinking that's such a foreign concept and there's probably this thought or idea that, that couldn't ever even possibly be true, because who would ask for this.

Alida McDaniel: [00:06:38] that right there. Who, who in their right mind would create? Auto-immune. Chronic illness, depression, obesity, food addiction, nobody would consciously choose it. So they think the reality is when, when we're in it, for example, when I was in it, I would notice that someone would say something to me like, Hey Alida like I believe in you.

I love the work that you're doing. Can you come here and bring. Whatever it is that you do to this.

situation. So whether it be public speaking, I used to, I did a lot of that starting at the age of like 13 coaching. I started coaching, at that age I was teaching dance and all these things.

But I would notice that when people would hold me to a higher standard that I believe, then I believed I was worthy of in the back of my mind. I would be like, what if I get sick? The, what if I get sick was also partially, I hope I get sick because then I don't have to show up. And then I don't have to feel that light actually come through.

I don't have to actually show the world that I'm better than I really, that I feel that I am. I always had an excuse to play small. And so while in my right mind, quote unquote would not have created those things for myself. I was not in my right mind. I was ill, and I was under the influence of processed and junk foods that I was addicted to.

And I was under the influence of the depression of feeling like I was a victim to what happened to me and my past being molested, my parents divorcing. And it, took a lot of time to really acknowledge that. Hey, I'm a control freak. We were talking about this before we started as an Aquarius.

I want to be right. I love to be right. And, if I am in a situation and I started reading about things like law of attraction, and I started looking at it and saying, okay, wait a second, hold on. If I'm a control freak, and this inanimate object, this piece of food has more control over me than I have over myself.

I'm not being a true control freak. And that's actually what snapped me into my body and said, wait a second, hold on. If I really a self-proclaimed control freak, and I let an inanimate object have control over me, I'm not a control freak. And that played into the part of me that didn't feel safe.

So it was enough to jolt me into my body and say, okay, wait a second. Where am I really choosing my own demise?

Damaged Parents: [00:08:57] So that question that you asked yourself really seems like that was such a conflict in your mind that it created the, not the threshold, the conduit to change.

Like it was really such an aha. Well, if I'm not this, but I'm doing this, this doesn't make sense anymore. And so how, I mean, I'm thinking most people, even the people you work with have to at some point have that question where it's like, oh wait, hold on. Yeah, that doesn't or the logic doesn't make sense.

Alida McDaniel: [00:09:31] The challenge is the complacency and the pain and the struggle is so, so enticing the comforts of being stuck. It's so certain. I have this, if you've seen my Facebook page or not, my Facebook page, actually in my bio, says people come to me when they're ready for their soul to be cracked open.

I'm the one That people come to. They say I've been to every therapist I've been through. Every coach I've been through every program, nothing has worked and I've avoided you because I know that you're going to call me out and you're going to see through bullshit. And, and the reason, the reason why that happens is because.

When we finally look at our situation and we no longer feel like we actually have control, there's a point at which that feeling becomes disgusting.

Damaged Parents: [00:10:19] That you don't have control or

Alida McDaniel: [00:10:21] that you don't have control. So for example, when I was 21, the ides of March, I will never forget this. 1999, March 15th. I went to the doctor.

I was fainting. It was the last time I saw like an actual legit medical doctor for a quote unquote checkup. I said, look, I've been fainting. I wake up, I've completely blacked out. I've crashed on the hardwood floor. I've hit the coffee table on the way down. Like, this is not good. I'm having ear itchiness, I've got some sinus issues and he looked at me and he said, how are things going in your life?

And I was like, I mean, they're not all that great. And I burst into tears cause like I was miserable, you know, I was going to college. I was working three jobs. Like I didn't want to be in regular college. I wanted to go to trade school. And he said, here, let me write you this prescription for some Prozac.

And just know you're going to be on it for the rest of your life. So we'll just keep increasing the dose, increasing the dose. And I thought, wait a second, hold on. You know, Something is not right in my life, but instead of giving me a solution, and this was the third doctor that tried to put me on that drug. you know, Something is not right in my life, but instead of you going to the root and saying, okay.

Alida let's free you of that affliction. You want to numb that? And I called my mom and, literally I was like in the, parking lot and I had left the prescription, the pharmacy, cause I just knew I, I had made the commitment.

I was like, I can't do this. We cried on The phone. And so I, I committed at that point to find a natural solution and. In that moment, I had to come to the realization that if I was going to choose to not numb myself, I had to give myself permission to feel everything that I didn't want to feel, which for an Aquarius, as you probably know, we don't do emotions very well. It's just not in our nature.

Damaged Parents: [00:12:00] The ones, I, know don't either.

Alida McDaniel: [00:12:02] Yeah, we don't like emotions and being an only child being raised by a single mom who played the part of mom and dad, so had to take that alpha had to be in the masculine, being in an emotional state or even understanding emotions was not something that came easily for me.

But I knew at that moment, I had to give myself permission to experience the full scope of emotions. So I came to the realization at that point, I'm a food addict. I admitted it. And I said, the reason why I want to go to trade school, I want to go to culinary school. I want to learn how to make all the food that I'm addicted to healthy for me.

I thought that that was going to be the solution, but I also thought that, okay, I can inspire people and I can, motivate people to create change. And, I essentially was becoming one of those, before Instagram existed. One of those Instagram motivational speakers who really doesn't have a life  that matches what they preach. And so I was in culinary school, running down the stairs in the dorm room. And we were in this really old building that was like a refurbished old motel hotel in San Francisco. And so the halls, everything you did echoed in the halls. And so I'm running down the staircase and I hear this horrible noise and I stopped dead in my tracks.

And I realized it's my thigh slapping together. Now I can laugh about it now.

Damaged Parents: [00:13:17] Right. But in that moment,

Alida McDaniel: [00:13:19] that moment. it was the most terrifying I stopped and I'm like, okay, did anybody hear that? But it was in that moment that I came to the realization, it was in that pinnacle moment where I said, I can not be someone who believes in the process of do, as I say, not as I do, if I'm really going to go out and make food healthy.

I can't just talk about it. I have to live it. I have to be about it. And that's when things began to shift. When I was in San Francisco and I was going to school, I started learning about nutrition. I started learning about mindset. I started learning about fitness and I started unpacking. Everything, because I realized that if I were to walk away from school and continue doing the same thing, that I'd always done, nothing would ever change.

And I would probably be on medication if not dead in a few years. And I wasn't willing to accept that. And so I think that. A lot of my clients who come to me literally are at their wits end. They have that moment, They have that like, oh, this was a really gross gut check. And I.

don't like the way that this feels, and I'm not willing to suffer like this anymore.

And I'm going to go to the one person that I know who's actually overcome it. And I need to talk to Alida

Damaged Parents: [00:14:29] right. And so you're speaking mostly of the food addiction, or also you had spoken of like a chronic illness. I want to say.

Alida McDaniel: [00:14:37] Illness is an addiction. It's an emotional addiction. And I know that this is not something that's a very mainstream way of approaching it. But when we look at, and this is part of, I've been through so many, so many different training modalities over the years, I've been doing this for 17 years.

We start to look at the specific parts of the body. For example, if you're familiar with Louise Hay, she wrote a book, You Can Heal Your Life. And it literally talks about, there are very specific points in your body that hold onto a particular emotion or trauma. For example, the knees are directly related to how we feel about ourselves, how we love ourselves or not, and how we feel worthy enough to stand tall in our life.

Our back is directly related to, our place in the world and our identity in our family. And in our culture and in our tribe and our friends. And so when we start looking and we start understanding that the body holds on to energy, I, before the age of 20, I had bursitis and arthritis and tendonitis, and I had gut issues and I had all these different things.

I had sinusitis and bronchitis, and

Damaged Parents: [00:15:37] So lots of inflammation, it sounds like

Alida McDaniel: [00:15:40] everywhere, but the reality is when we understand that inflammation starts in the mind. And when it starts in the mind, then it creates the choices that create the condition inside the body to now perpetuate that in a physical form. And so when we talk in terms of a chronic illness, a chronic illness is an addiction to the emotional pattern that caused it to begin with what I have clients who are battling with obesity.

Obesity is a buffer to self judgment, internal battling, essentially. And so when we're able to resolve that internal battle, The weight naturally drops off the food choices change. So while on the one hand a lot of what we do is really understanding how we relate to food. It's not at the forefront.

It's actually, why do I make the choices that I make? Why do I choose the life that I choose? Why do I choose the habits that I choose? Why do I live the certain disciplines that I live on a daily basis. and what programs, what belief systems are they feeding?

Damaged Parents: [00:16:37] That's really interesting. Thinking about it what I'm not hearing is that someone with a disability is choosing their disability. What I'm hearing is, there are sometimes there's inflammation and other things that can tie into. And I could be wrong, but that tie into our mental health, which then in turn tie into the challenges we create on top of, let's say, if someone has a physical disability or, or whatever, and that as those become more balanced, then even with that challenge, new choices can be made.

Wherein there's a healing that happens.  am I getting that?

Alida McDaniel: [00:17:17] 100%. Now, now we, we want to be crystal clear that when we talk in terms of, someone who's born disabled that is different than a disability that develops over time. So if we take something as simple as, as an injury, for example, okay. We take an injury, an injury doesn't happen in the moment.

The injury appears an injury happens because we have had a consistent misuse of that body part that has created a condition by which the body can no longer hold it up. And for example, if you, you have a knee injury or an ankle injury or a back injury, it's because we've misused it for so long that the body can no longer with stand that misuse.

Okay. So when we talk some to talk in terms of, say, for example, diabetes type two, right now we have a society in America where yeah, it's pretty crazy. We're not talking about diet. We're not talking about chronic inflammation, we're not talking about auto-immune and directly related to the gut.

We're not talking about toxic foods and GMOs and glyphosate and all those things that are actually impacting that. So when I look at someone and I see, okay, there is an injury, there is some sort of disability. Then I piece it apart. And I say, okay, what point in life did it actually start at what point? So when we talk in terms of a disability, for example, and we go back to the moment that it started. We're able to notice, at what point, for example, I have a loved one right now who is battling with very, very horrible skin disease. They've diagnosed it as auto-immune now they've, they've diagnosed it as cancer.

And what I've actually been able to track is the fact that it got worse when he moved into a home that has mold. Now we can also look at it and say, skin conditions are directly related to our lack of vulnerability or a fear of being vulnerable because we have a life that shows us. We can't depend on people.

We can't trust people. We can't let people in. So when I see somebody who's got a skin disorder, right, it could be, I want to be crystal clear when we talk in terms of diagnosis. From a natural pathic perspective,  we see it as just an ailment. It's a dis-ease of the body. So if we no longer have the emotional pattern and we're able to actually show up fully, because now we don't have that energetic drain on our body, the physical ailment can resolve itself.

And we no longer need to continue to have that barrier by which we can actually show up fully. Does that make sense?

Damaged Parents: [00:19:51] So I think what I'm hearing is that someone with a skin problem would have difficulty getting close to others because they're using it as a protective barrier in some ways, and letting not letting go I'm processing through that and figuring out and trying to understand where the challenge is. And then being able to walk through that fear.

To have those closer relationships would be helpful.

Alida McDaniel: [00:20:20] Yeah, absolutely. But this goes to any, form of disability.  When some form of disability, manifests in the form of our body. It is some form of protection. It is an indication that we don't feel safe and the,  form of that disability, not again, not the way that we're born, but when it, forms in our physical reality in our lifetime, it's a letting us know that it becomes an excuse by which we no longer have to people please now, because the disability becomes the excuse.

Damaged Parents: [00:20:50] See, I'm not sure. I totally agree with that. maybe follow me down this. We can have a, we can have a real conversation about

Alida McDaniel: [00:20:58] do it. Let's open it up.

Damaged Parents: [00:21:00] because I think that, I mean, people with disabilities. In some ways. I see a lot more people pleasing and in fact, maybe even more so not asking and not owning what they want or what they need, because they feel like a burden.

Alida McDaniel: [00:21:19] That's exactly the problem is because of, so the disability comes because of the people pleasing because the people pleasing becomes toxic. So the physical body, So whatever religion you're in, whether you believe in religion or not, we can look at, we can look at the Muslim religion specifically.

We can look at Christianity, both are taught to be a martyr. Okay. So Christianity it's, they, the translations show us that the phrase it's better to give than to receive, which if you go back far enough and I'm, when it comes to religion, I'm a comparative religions buff. So it'd be original translations in Aramaic actually say it's better to be in a position to give than it is in a position to have to receive. So that's that, that throws a whole other wrench into it. But, but the reality is we are taught from the very beginning that we need to sacrifice everything that makes us happy, healthy, and whole to protect the people around us or to receive love

Damaged Parents: [00:22:12] so being the giver means that then your worthy of love in some ways.

Alida McDaniel: [00:22:19] the belief. I know, I know many people  who are giving to a fault. I was that as well. Where if I give they'll stay, if I overgive they'll love me.

Damaged Parents: [00:22:30] So it's almost like love is coming at a cost in their mind and they're not seeing, or there's not. This perception of receiving is also giving.

Alida McDaniel: [00:22:41] True. Very true. 100%. and also too, it goes back to boundaries. So I have a loved one who has many, auto-immune everything you name it. She has a, wide collection of illnesses. Whenever she gets a new one, she wears it like a badge of honor proudly. Now she's the kind of person that she was raised in a home where her parents separated at at a certain point in her life where it caused a trauma in her that she believed if she would have just given more at that time. Parents would have stayed together. Life would have been different. So her entire life has been perpetuated on if I just take care of and spend my last cent on the people that I love, they won't leave me

Damaged Parents: [00:23:27] That's painful.

Alida McDaniel: [00:23:28] It is painful, but that's essentially what people pleasing looks like. Whether we do it in energy, we're giving from our own cup instead of filling our own cup up so much that we feed from the overflow. And that's where the body starts to break down is that's where, we start to have those injuries and those long-term inflammation and those longterm conditions is because we have given so much.

That we don't even know how to say, you know what? I need a break. You know what I need to say? We don't even know how to say no. So the ailment develops in us so that we have an excuse to say no.

So when we are able to understand where the boundaries have been watered down and we are not taking a stand for our own boundary, Then the ailment starts to be like, wait a second.

I don't need to be here anymore. Cause we don't need an excuse to say, I need a break.

Damaged Parents: [00:24:19] Right. Hmm. Okay.  Obviously I have a disability, I've talked about it at the podcasts and things like that. So even, I, again, I just want to reiterate, I don't think you're talking about accidents that happen. People are born with disabilities and there are some disabilities.

I'm not sure we can fix, but I don't know where that, I mean, God is miraculous in, in many ways I think. And. I mean, part of me also thinks that there's a purpose and I don't always know the purpose for that struggle or that disability or that challenge and where some people have healed and others people haven't.

I don't know if that's just part of that journey.

Alida McDaniel: [00:25:01] That's a such a good question. I think if we're, if we're going biblical about it.

Damaged Parents: [00:25:05] yeah. I don't know where we're

Alida McDaniel: [00:25:06] no. And, and that, I, and I, I it's, it's a great way to go if this is something that I talk about quite frequently is when she's, this was going around to the villages and healing, the people. It happened in so many different, various ways that there isn't really one right way or wrong way for Jesus to have healed one person.

But what was consistent was when the woman with leprosy came and said, Hey I'm hideous. I need you to heal me of this, I can't find a husband. There's no way I'm going to have kids. Nobody will hire me. So I'm just basically I'm wretched. And Jesus said, well what have you learned from your affliction? Well, nothing. There's nothing for me to learn. I'm hideous, I'm cursed. And Jesus said, if you have not learned from your affliction, there's nothing I can do. Okay.

Damaged Parents: [00:25:51] So in what I'm hearing you say, which is kind of a belief I've come to with my disability is the, the lesson, because I can't change that my hands don't work anymore. It just there the way I would like them to it just isn't going to happen. The healing though didn't happen in the physical sense. It happened on another plane.

I want to say, I don't know if that's the right word, but if there's something that changes inside, that's a true, the true healing. So the physical didn't change, but internally, so much changed.

Alida McDaniel: [00:26:29] And it's not to say that. It's not to say there there's no value in that. I want to be crystal clear. The reality is for every illness, there's a payoff for every ailment. There's a payoff.

And that could be. And what's really interesting is as many con many questions as we're in the pre, the pre podcast recording these. When we're talking about these questions, most times we were a kid, we are raised to feel guilty or ashamed. For speaking, our truth. Speaking our mind, we end up physically manifesting illness in the form of any sort of injury.

For example, when I was two, my dad was emotionally abusive to my mom and he was emotionally abusive basically until the day he left. Now, when I was two, I manifested bronchitis chronic bronchitis because when I was sick, he would stop yelling at her. And so when we start to really actually piece apart someone's life and we start looking at how that pattern actually shows up, I would probably be able to find exactly what caused that only because, if it's related to parental programs, if it's related to ancestral programs epigenetics shows us that 25 generations back.

We have programs from 25 generations back. So your injury could literally be self punishment from 25 generations ago and this is why it's so important when we say, okay. if I'm going to really just go inward and I'm going to ask myself, Okay.

what could this be showing me? Yes, absolutely. It is part of your spiritual curriculum.

It is in my spiritual curriculum to go through every physical ailment under the sun. So that I can help other people overcome them. That's just part of what I do for example, this whole last week is now Tuesday, this whole last week for an entire week, week and a half now I've been going through all these crazy different sinus issues.

And every time I would sit right in front of this computer, my eyes would start swelling up. And my body would say, walk away from the computer. Now you can't do this. And they would start running my face with water and it led me to. The research on mold it led me to understanding the EMF agitate the, mold that's in your physical body.

Damaged Parents: [00:28:38] EMF

EMF

Alida McDaniel: [00:28:40] EMF electromagnetic frequencies.

So anything that you're getting from your computers, your TVs, your phone, Bluetooth headsets, all that, those are all electromagnetic frequencies. If you have mold inside of your house, if you have mold inside of your body, the electromagnetic frequencies, just wake them up and agitate them.

And so all of that, all of that led me to being able to do that research as soon as I was able to pass that on the affliction went away.

Damaged Parents: [00:29:02] Interesting.

Alida McDaniel: [00:29:03] So it's a matter of really understanding, if there is a spiritual curriculum for you to learn. What that disability is. It's also to understand what that payoff is.

In what ways do you get to not show up fully? In what ways do you not get to contribute fully in the way that you want to, or does it actually challenge you to take a step back and say, I don't need to do the manual labor, but I can show up with my energy and with my love. And maybe that's the lesson, because all of those things can be very huge shifts in how we actually see the way that we want to contribute to the world.

The way that we need to, the way that God is calling us to contribute.

Damaged Parents: [00:29:43] okay. So is what you're saying, please tell me if I get this wrong. What I hear you saying is in some ways, when a disability or an injury or,  whatever it is shows up that it's more shifting to what is the purpose? maybe it's to learn and grow from this and, or overall it's to learn and grow, I think, but the, sometimes that if it's a physical injury, the physical healing will happen.

And yet, in other instances, maybe it's learning that, that person needs to learn how to show up in a way that is to love and be emotionally supportive. I think that's what I'm hearing you saying. I'm not certain I'm getting that. All

Alida McDaniel: [00:30:26] yeah, partially and so when we talk in terms of healing, an ailment, it would be as though, do you, are you familiar with Dr. Joe Dispenza?

Damaged Parents: [00:30:35] I do not know that name no.

Alida McDaniel: [00:30:37] I am a huge fan of him. When you go and you look him up there's a lot of, mixed things on here because what he talks about is the power of the mind.

So he was in a biking accident riding his bike in the tour to Palm Springs got hit by a car, broke his back in a million different places. He was literally laying in the hospital on his stomach and the doctors told him you're going to have the only, I think he had like. Cause he was a chiropractor.

He's like, I'm going to get all the best of the best to come. Give me an assessment. They all told him, you have to have this one particular surgery. You're going to have a rod. You're going to have that pins. It's, you're going to have fusions. Like you're not going to be able to do what you've always done.

But the back of his mind, he always knew the power of the mind. And so he said, I'm going to test out this theory. And if it works, I'm going to spend the rest of my life, studying it and teaching it. So, What he did is every single day, all day, every day, he imagined his back healing, all the vertebrae, going back into position, all the broken pieces, going back into position, imagine himself walking out of the hospital as though the event had already occurred.

Those are his words as though the event has already occurred. And in a matter of just a few days, he was already mobile. In a matter of a few weeks, he was walking now, nothing short of a miracle. Of course no surgery, but what he did was he trained his body to see it as a memory, rather than as something that's so far beyond that I'm not even connected to it.

Damaged Parents: [00:31:59] Right.

Alida McDaniel: [00:32:00] That's where the shift gets to occur is when we talk in terms of a payoff, you know, for you. If you are a kinesthetic learner and you are in a situation where the identity that you are validating to me is that you can't be who you are.

I can see past that. And I can say, I can see a time in your future where that doesn't exist. And if.

I can see that in your future. I know it's possible for you, which means that now my communication with you will be as though that, that had already occurred.

So this is, this is where that shift begins to happen is basically saying who I am right now.

Doesn't mean that's going to be the same person I am tomorrow. There are people who have literally been in his workshops who have gotten their sight back. Who've gotten their hearing back who have healed from insane diseases almost immediately from getting into such a state of receivership. But in that moment, it's like how many times have you prayed to God?

And you're the only one doing the talking.

Damaged Parents: [00:33:00] You got to listen to.

Alida McDaniel: [00:33:01] Exactly right. And we've all done it, I get it, we've all done it. But at the end of the day, if there's only a fraction of what we received in that miracle, and we've asked for that prayer, and God has only given us a portion of it, what we're really saying is God, you know what?

I'm only worthy of this part right here. And we haven't received the full gift that God is looking to.

give us. Jesus said, would you be healed well? Like, yeah. Yeah. But only so much. Cause cause if I, if I heal all of that, then you know, then I can't, play small anymore. I can't make the excuse that like that was literally, that was me.

Damaged Parents: [00:33:38] I believe it's possible too, that it could be learning to use the voice and to ,for instance, having these conversations and being on a podcast and sharing those thoughts and ideas with the world, which may end up being more valuable than those notes that I would have on paper, for no one to hear and find. So

Alida McDaniel: [00:33:57] chill.

Damaged Parents: [00:33:57] it, so it is, I think it's possible that we just need to be open to whatever it is the universe has planned. And I don't always know exactly what that looks like, and I sure would love to sometimes, but I'm just not the psychic. I don't have that ability at this point anyway.

Alida McDaniel: [00:34:18] Yeah, well, look, the reality is I heard a Grant Cardone actually say the only reason why I can see into the future is because I created it.

You know, so it's, like, do I want to look at my current struggle? And do I want this current struggle to exist five days from now? Do I want this current struggle to exist 90 days from now? One of one of my early mentors. Vedros Julian said, if there's something that I see is going to take me six months, I fold time and figure out how I can do it. in three.

 What would have to change? Yeah. What would have to change? Who would I have to become? When I have a client say to me, I want to achieve this in my business. I want to achieve this in my relationship. I want to achieve this in my health. The question is if the event had already occurred, who would you be?

Damaged Parents: [00:34:58] Right.

Alida McDaniel: [00:34:59] How different would you be now?

So for example, I went to culinary school. I have two degrees. And while I've been a coach for a very long time, We just redid the kitchen. We added 330 square feet. We built the kitchen around the equipment, four ovens, eight burners, like the whole everything. I've got a pot filler sink.

And I am not at my best when I'm sitting at a computer screen, my body just please don't do that to me. Can't stand it. Can't stand it. Now I could spend all day. With a knife in my hand and food and just creating that's when I'm at my best, when I'm using my hands for something that is creative and expressive, not when I'm sitting typing at a computer.

If you had something to look forward to, you would be like, I don't need this anymore. Something really good is coming and I'm going to be so happy that I'm going to want to not have anything stand in my way.

Damaged Parents: [00:35:55] right. Hmm, lots to think about today. Alita.

 Alida McDaniel: [00:36:01] that's yeah, that's just part of it. That's part of the process

Damaged Parents: [00:36:04] Yeah.

Well, and I thought it's always interesting to have a challenge discussion. I think we have, well, it's avoided in conversations and things like that, you know, asking those difficult questions and having those difficult conversations.

So I think it's really important.

Alida McDaniel: [00:36:20] I agree. Yeah. And I, I believe especially if everything that we saw last year and coming into this year, you know, avoiding the tough conversations, hasn't gotten us anywhere.

Damaged Parents: [00:36:29] No.

Alida McDaniel: [00:36:30] Not gotten us anywhere. And so it's imperative that we have these tough conversations and that we really face, whatever's coming up for us because in those moments we might learn something and we might explore something.

Damaged Parents: [00:36:41] Yeah. And I think, I think really what I've learned is that, regardless of disability there's capacity

Alida McDaniel: [00:36:48] Amen.

Damaged Parents: [00:36:49] You know whether or not someone's disability they physically let's just say this, whether or not someone physically gets better or not, they can still envision a life and they can still envision powerful things and they can still become the embodiment of who they're meant to be, whether or not the physical comes back or not.

Alida McDaniel: [00:37:11] Absolutely. But the reality is most people will use it as an excuse to just give up. Or just avoid, but I mean, some, some of the most inspiring people in this world have some form of a disability, but they're like, but I'm just not going to let this stop me.

Damaged Parents: [00:37:26] Yeah. Yeah.

Alida McDaniel: [00:37:28] And that's really what it comes down to.

You know, It's like if some of my mentors, have ADD ADHD, dyslexia, the whole gamut, they have learning disabilities, but there's some of the most successful people in the world. And if we let our conditions, whatever those conditions are, stand in the way and be the only identity that we accept.

We don't really open ourselves up to receive whatever God has in store for us. So it's really understanding that whatever we've been gifted in this moment, whatever type of adversity we've been gifted, it's an opportunity to say how much more do I trust God to guide me through this and help me understand why this has been gifted to me so that I can move through it and move past it and move on to the next level.

Damaged Parents: [00:38:08] Yeah. Fascinating conversation. Okay. I always end and I don't put this in the pre-interview questions, but I always ask three tips or tools or just three things you want the listeners to walk away with from this podcast with we may or may not have already talked about them. So it just opens it up to three things that kind of pop into your mind that the universe share this.

Alida McDaniel: [00:38:30] Okay. So number one , just because it is right now, doesn't mean it always has to be. It's a matter of basically looking at your current scenario. And instead of seeing that as your identity, I am the struggle is basically saying where I am this emotion. Okay. Basically saying I've been gifted this opportunity.

This is a lesson plan. School is in session. It's time for me to pay attention, sit up in my chair, take some notes. Maybe I'm just being tested so that I can be prepared for my next level. So instead of being stuck in the moment, And assuming that this is all there is see it as an opportunity to grow and level up. Number two, self love, self love. Isn't always a hot bubble bath and a face mask. Sometimes self-love is the harsh talk. It's the come to Jesus moment of, you know what I'm slacking. I'm not really showing up. How do I actually own where I'm choosing to stay stuck? So self-love. You know, is a form of really, truly just coming into ourselves and getting grounded in how you're creating this reality.

Number three, faith. When we talk in terms of faith, oftentimes we will pray to God, but then we turn right back around and we take it back and we worry about it. We say, I know God's got my back, but in the back of my mind, like, okay, how am I going to okay. But what if this, and. So we say we have faith, but our results show otherwise.  So what we've got to do is we have to really check ourselves in those moments. Do we really, truly lean in on God and let God do the work? Or are we assuming that God actually doesn't have our back and proving to God that we don't feel worthy of receiving?

Yeah. So those would be the three

Damaged Parents: [00:40:07] Fantastic Alida. I'm so glad I got to have you on the show today. Always mind blowing things happen here.

Alida McDaniel: [00:40:14] Awesome. I love it. Thank you so much for having me. It was a great chat.

Damaged Parents: [00:40:17] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoyed talking to Elida about how she got out of her own way to find health. We especially liked when she said our conditions don't have to stand in the way of achieving our dreams. Tonight with other damaged people, connect with us on Facebook. Look for damaged parents.

We'll be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See you then.