S2E63: Danielle Smason - Finding You
Danielle is the Co-Founder of Revival Society, a family based business and a Foundational Trauma Practitioner. She is a proud wife and mama to 2 boys. She loves giving back to others and being a voice for the underdog. From a young age, She was always intuitive. She had a gift. After struggling with her own health issues for years on end and unexpectedly getting pregnant, led her to her full purpose, preparing women emotionally for motherhood. She works with your heart to figure out why you can’t fully move forward and why you haven’t been able to release yourself of your emotional pain. She is here to show you how to work through your painful memories that you’ve been suppressing, so that you can finally create a calm and peaceful home.
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Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome back to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents. We're anxious, pained, loving 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%.
[00:00:21] 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, want to better understand how others view their own challenges?
[00:00:41] 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 are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is you. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole you who stares directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover your purpose.
[00:01:10] You are the people who inspire me to be more fully 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.
[00:01:30] The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them. Today, we're going to talk with Danielle's Mason. She has many roles in her life, mother, sister, aunt wife, best friend, cousin, and more. We'll talk about how she struggled with depression and anxiety throughout her life and lost her identity with bullying and how she found health and healing let's talk
[00:01:56] Welcome back to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Today we have Danielle Smason with us. She is the co-founder of Revival Society, a family based business, and a foundational trauma practitioner. She's a proud wife and mama to two boys. She loves giving back to others and being a voice for the underdog from a young age.
[00:02:16] She was always intuitive. She had a gift after struggling with Her own health issues for years on end and unexpectedly getting pregnant. She was led to her full purpose preparing women emotionally for motherhood. She works with your heart to figure out why you can't fully move forward and why you haven't been able to release yourself of your emotional pain.
[00:02:39] She's here to show us, you and me, how to work through our painful memories that we may have been suppressing so that we can finally create a calm and peaceful home. Danielle, welcome to the show.
[00:02:53] Danielle Smason: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. So excited to be here with you .
[00:02:57] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Okay. Before we even get into what struggle led you in, which we talked a little bit about that in the introduction, explain to us what's a foundational trauma practitioner.
[00:03:07] Danielle Smason: as you heard in there that I got unexpectedly pregnant and what I realized was as much as I wasn't prepared physically to give birthed, cuz I feel like as a society we're not prepared emotionally, I was more prepared than I thought. And what a foundational trauma practitioner does is really builds that emotional foundation for you because what happens for people?
[00:03:33] We live in a world where a lot of people think they're getting answers, but then overnight they seem to feel like they fell or they seem to feel like something's not working or no matter what, a try is not working. And when you have that foundation, you never have to fall to that place again because you know what works for you and you know how to get yourself up and moving again no matter what happens in your life.
[00:04:02] Damaged Parents: So you're really talking about like that emotional falling down where maybe there's hopelessness or lost or sad depression, things like that.
[00:04:13] Danielle Smason: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm talking. All sorts of things, whether that's emotions with depression, anxiety, whether that's physical things that have been going on in your life for years, you know, with chronic pain. You know, Some people that have autoimmune issues that meet that lead to autoimmune disease.
[00:04:31] You know, Some people are having kidney issues, blood sugar issues. It's all sorts of things, but absolutely, it really is that emotional aspect that leads to that physical aspect.
[00:04:43] Damaged Parents: Okay. So the emotional aspect, by healing the emotional aspect, it helps with some of those physical things then,
[00:04:50] Danielle Smason: Absolutely
[00:04:52] Damaged Parents: Right? So tell us, or explain to us how this happened in your life. Like , how did you figure this out? Because you're the co-founder. Of Revival Society and you know, in your introduction it says intuitive, so I'm thinking you, no one gave this, showed you this way.
[00:05:08] Danielle Smason: No. So really how it works for me was I had my own struggle. Um, My story is very different than. A lot of people that I hear and a lot of what I even help people work through. But for me, my story was very intricate. I didn't have that typical struggle, that typical trauma that a lot of people talk about.
[00:05:32] I had been raped before, but beside that, I grew up in a very loving home. But for me, where my trauma really came from was outside of the home. I was bullied pretty much my whole entire life up until about college, and it really was that bullying for me that really affected my health. It really affected me with depression, anxiety, chronic pain, all these different issues that I was struggling with, and no matter what my mom tried to do to find answers for me, and also my sister, Carly.
[00:06:07] Now in the psych ward at the time, she realized that there had to be something that wasn't being addressed. My mom is someone to never put a bandaid on anything. So if going to doctors and specialists and trying a holistic route in all these different therapies and all these different modalities wasn't working for us.
[00:06:29] Then she was gonna find the answer. And so my mom went on a search to really find what wasn't being addressed. And I did, I always had an intuitive gift to really understand people from a first glance when I was younger, I'm not as much anymore, but when I was younger, I was obsessed with eyes to the point where I
[00:06:52] Damaged Parents: the eyes, you're saying? The eyes.
[00:06:54] Danielle Smason: yeah.
[00:06:54] With. and I knew everyone's eye color. I knew like every single color in their eye color. So if they had like a light brown with a tint of orange, like I knew everything about their eye color. And it was because obviously everyone says the eyes are your soul. And so for me, I was able to really read through someone's eyes.
[00:07:15] What was really going on inside of them, and now what I've really done is I've studied, but I've also crafted my gift to really understand someone of the things that they're really not saying and the things that really need to be worked through that maybe they don't even realize is what's affecting them and why they're having that struggle or why they're not able to move forward.
[00:07:40] Or whatever it may be that they're dealing with in their life. So as much as it is an intuitive gift it's definitely something that's been crafted and studied over the last like seven and a half years.
[00:07:52] Damaged Parents: Wow. So you've worked really hard to come up with a system with the, with the now, and it's you and your mom and your sister together, right? Doing this work.
[00:08:03] Danielle Smason: Yeah, so it's me and my mom or the practitioners. We call her more of the master practitioner because she is the one that really gives you that hope that you don't have that hope in the beginning. She really is there to hold your hand if you need it, and she also shows you the way to healthy relationship.
[00:08:22] Relationships that you didn't even know you can mend. And then with me, I'm more of that direct, more quick and fast way of working with someone. She's really there holding your hand. I'm really there getting you those results very, very quickly. And very quick amount of time through intensives and through on the go.
[00:08:41] What I call integration, because that's when you're ready to move really that quickly in your life. So absolutely, it's the two of my mom and I, and then my sister more runs the business and she's really the person that runs the business, but she's also that person that really connects with the people from the very beginning.
[00:08:59] Damaged Parents: And you realize this, this was Carly's Carly's in the hospital. You're struggling to, Mom is not gonna give up and. How did you guys, what happened next? I mean, was it just, Oh my gosh, we have to research or did something intuitively come and then you did research, which, what happened?
[00:09:21] Danielle Smason: wish I could. Exact order of how it happened. But I think what started happening was my mom started doing more research of like, what's really going on here? Like, why is this not working? And then for me, I got a message. I actually admitted this on a podcast the other day. I don't, I usually don't admit this because it's weird, it's strange to some people, but I truly believe our work is not.
[00:09:48] It's not either spiritual, nor is it scientific. It's kind of in the middle. And for me, I get really strong messages, which I call from God that tell me exactly what I'm supposed to do, how I'm supposed to do it, and how to move someone through something, or how to work someone through something or what's the next step of the method.
[00:10:10] And with my sister, I recorded, I was told to record her. At the time it was a meditation and what we realized, they're not meditations, they're realizations. And so I recorded her this personalized realization for her to understand why she was where she was at, and it allowed her to get herself out of how, to her head and really into her body.
[00:10:35] And that was the start of the method, was her allowing herself to get so connected. To her body so she could realize that she really wasn't meant to be in the psych ward, that she wasn't as crazy as she thought she was, or as people were telling her she was. And it really allowed her to start to slowly move forward.
[00:10:56] that was the start of everything with the method. And then from there, my mom started doing more research and she was told about eft, which is emotional freedom techniques, and that's where you tap on different meridian points in your body in order to release energy you otherwise wouldn't know is there.
[00:11:17] But for her and for us, we realized that it was powerful because Carly was feeling calmer in her body. And right, Like imagine someone sitting there trying to eat a sandwich and they can't eat a sandwich. I mean, that's where she was. You don't have to be there to work with us. But that's where she was.
[00:11:37] She couldn't eat a sandwich and she was uncontrollably shaking. And so when you start to see that that starting to dissipate, that starts to bring you some hope and some comfort. But for us, it wasn't deep enough. It wasn't really getting to the root of what was really going on for her.
[00:11:53] Damaged Parents: The EFT was not getting to the route. Okay.
[00:11:57] Danielle Smason: and it wasn't also with our clients as well, it was bringing them calm, but we wanted to bring them so much more than that.
[00:12:03] And so we started studying under different psychoanalyst, different works. But what we've really done is we have found the gaps in those works of what didn't work for us and what doesn't work for our clients, and that's how we've been able to create this method.
[00:12:19] Damaged Parents: Mm. That sounds amazing, and I love that it came out from love too, right? That it was about loving your sister, and then it sounds like, did that same meditation or realization that you called it, did that also help you with your own struggle?
[00:12:37] Danielle Smason: Yeah, it definitely did. I would say for me it was more of. Like EFT definitely helped me, but it was more of when I started creating this method, I felt like in the beginnings it was almost like there for me to heal myself. And again, I never think like you're fully healed but like to heal the biggest parts of me that I really struggled with, it was almost like I felt like God gave me this method to like heal myself and like heal my family and then also to show other people that they could heal themselves, but then.
[00:13:10] As I started to do the work, I realized I'm not there to heal anyone. I'm really there to teach them how to heal themselves, and that's what we've been able to develop. Not feeling like you have to rely on someone to continuously have these incredible breakthroughs, but to really know how to do that on your own.
[00:13:30] And that's now what we've created is, yes, we're there to help people work through the really big things and the things that they couldn't get to themselves, but once they work through a process, they're really able to take this method and this tool. I mean and consistently change their life over and over and over again because we're human and we go through trauma and we go through experiences.
[00:13:55] And what happens is, is for a lot of people, they go to someone and they do the work, or they think they do the work, and then they go to that next event, or they go to that next experience and they have a triggering moment, or they have just a whole new trauma. And what happens? That trauma just gets stuck or they have to go back to that person.
[00:14:15] And with the work we do, it doesn't work like that. People don't have to continuously come back. They can, but they don't have to. They can learn how to work through it on their own.
[00:14:25] Damaged Parents: So essentially giving people tools to feel confident in their personal lives so that I'm thinking so they can surround themselves with safe people and then have the ability to work through something should it come up again. But the whole idea is not to keep people coming to you. , but to teach them and let them live.
[00:14:45] I mean, cause I know like some therapists, like they just see people forever and I'm not certain that's always super helpful.
[00:14:54] Danielle Smason: Yeah, I don't wanna, I mean, again, like there's definitely a time and place for therapy and I think it's amazing to be able to sit and talk with someone and share how you're feeling. But there's also a time and place to learn how to really work through it on your own and know how to do that. And yeah, it's really all about empowering that person to be able to.
[00:15:15] Be in a hard situation and know how to work themselves through that situation. Again, we're always there for people. People love to stay with us because they just feel that comfort and they feel that connection. But it's never something that people feel like they have to do because they really feel like they're equipped for their life moving forward to now go do the things that maybe.
[00:15:39] They tried in the past to work on but couldn't do prior, like go towards that purpose. We get you in that, we get you understanding what that purpose is for you with that. What's been so deep inside of you that you've known you're supposed to do but couldn't take action on. We get you taking action on that stuff, but it's up to you right to go take that conscious action and people feel like they can do that after they work with us.
[00:16:06] Damaged Parents: So it sounds like gosh, I was, I'm trying to think of the, the basis like you're creating a safe environment if one of those foundations of being able to transcend and to be able to get to those things. One of the, I think the bottom rung is safety. And without that safety, I don't know that people can. those steps. So it sounds like welcoming them into a loving environment. I mean, I just wonder, I know I didn't finish that sentence, but I just wonder how often. I mean, there's so much trauma in this world that in families and things, that we need to reach out to people, to others, to that so that we can get that help so we can feel safe so that we can go do the things that we need to do.
[00:16:51] Because understanding of trauma is when you're in trauma, it's like tunnel vision. And you cannot see anything. And the first decision tends to be what we think is the right decision instead of really pondering that. So I'm thinking that's what you help people to do is feel safe and to investigate.
[00:17:11] Maybe if they're in a situation that's really scary for them, what might some other options be for, for taking the next step?
[00:17:19] Danielle Smason: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a part of it. Also working through that initial. Experiences that are stopping them from actually really showing themselves in the world from actually really stopping them from getting into that purpose. Stopping them from creating that real confidence that they feel within themselves, that real certainty they feel within themselves.
[00:17:38] Stopping them from having healthy relationships. So it's kind of a mixture between the two, but you first have to really work through the things that someone's been through. And for some people listening to this, they're like, That's scary. Like, I've tried to do that. It's so scary, but. With the work that we do, it's, it's not as scary as it's made out to be.
[00:17:56] It's really about having that safe space, but also knowing how to really work through those emotions so they don't continue to come back up over and over and over again. So you don't have to uproar your life to do this work. Actually, After each like session, each experience you're going through your life continues to get better and better because you're releasing so much energy that you otherwise wouldn't release.
[00:18:21] And that's what starts to help you have that like dissipating with your health issues and your health struggles. And something I wanna touch on is, so many people come to us and they're like, I came to you for this reason, but like, I didn't realize this was the reason that I was coming to you for actually, And someone, if you're on here listening like, and you've just been struggling with your health like this absolutely might be something that you're looking for because it's really about getting to the seeds of why that health issue started in the first place.
[00:18:50] And I just wanted to add that on because I think it's really important for people to understand.
[00:18:54] Damaged Parents: Yeah, so I think what I'm understanding from what you're saying is that the health issue may be a symptom of an underlying, deeper issue. And if we can deal with it, that if we can work through, not deal with like it's bad . If we can work through the deeper issue, then. A lot of times, or hopefully some of those, the, if, I don't know that everyone will get 100% better or that their physical ailments will totally go away, but they, if they were acquired ailments or immune disorders or, or invisible illnesses and things like that, but that they would at least get some relief from them getting worse maybe.
[00:19:35] Danielle Smason: Yeah, I mean, for some people everyone's different. But for most people, I will say that come to us, their health issues, like they're gone. I mean, we had someone that came to us probably about four months ago, debilitated in bed. Autoimmune issues on like 50 different vitamins. Couldn't eat certain foods.
[00:19:55] I don't know. It was like a list of things and every one of those is gone.
[00:19:59] Damaged Parents: Wow.
[00:20:00] Danielle Smason: just, and it actually was gone, believe it or not, for this specific person. It was gone in a day because there was so much energy that was stuck that. They didn't realize. And then there was another person was involved in sending this person and they looked at us and said, I don't get it.
[00:20:22] Like they still will ask me questions like, I don't understand. Like, how is that even possible? Like, we've been everywhere. We spent over a hundred thousand dollars. Like how in one session are their health issues gone? And it's because what we're not understanding as a society, Is that there's a moment in time where energy gets stuck and when that energy is not released, we think, Okay, we, we think that, okay, we fell right.
[00:20:50] For example, we fell and let's say we break our leg and then we get surgery for it, and then we feel better. Well then later on, that leg starts to feel pain again. Or it starts to show up somewhere else in the body. We think it's gone. But what's happening is it's just layering on top of each other. And so when you really get to the roots and the seeds of what's really going on, like for example, if you really get into that fall and what that created in the body, that's when the energy actually releases.
[00:21:22] And there is no longer that physical pain. And I do this on purpose because
[00:21:27] Damaged Parents: The quotes, the air quotes,
[00:21:29] Danielle Smason: right physical pain is there for about three months. After that it's considered chronic. After that, it's considered emotional, what's really going on, what's really underneath this pain, and it's usually not what people expect it to be.
[00:21:43] And so it's just really un important to the brain that topic to life on this podcast is for people to understand, if you've tried everything and you've done the test and the tests come back normal, it's cuz there's something else that's going on underneath. But also for some people that come, their tests come back not normal, but they don't connect to what's being told to them.
[00:22:08] They're like, There's no way that there's no answer. There's no way that this is all it is. Like there's no way I should, I, I'm gonna live like this for the rest of my life. And there's, there's nothing they can do for me. That's usually when people come, cuz they're like, they're at their wits end. What do I do?
[00:22:23] How do I work through this? How do I move through this? And we're really here to bring a new perspective for how people are really viewing their trauma and working through their trauma. And again, trauma might seem scary, but. Everyone goes through trauma. It's trauma is not the actual experience that happened.
[00:22:45] It's the physiological effects that happen in the body at that time and that are still playing on the body today.
[00:22:53] Damaged Parents: Right, Like I don't get to decide for you if something is traumatic for you or not. It's your experience and if it's traumatic for you, it's traumatic for you and you're the one who's gotta do that work to work through it, right?
[00:23:07] Danielle Smason: Right. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it can be the simplest of things that just, I mean, I had a client, she. Didn't have a voice for years. Like hardly could share her opinions, speak her truth. And she it was because when she was younger, she forgot about it. She didn't remember it. But when she was younger, she was playing the quiet game in the car and she didn't wanna play the quiet game, and she felt like she couldn't speak.
[00:23:33] And for her, for example, she was like three, four years old. That's where she lost her voice. Right. So everyone is different, but to her that was traumatic. For some other people it wouldn't be trauma. So it, I, if you're listening to this and you're like, I'm stuck, but I haven't really been through anything that was kind of my story.
[00:23:50] Like I'm stuck, but like, why does everything else work for other people? But it doesn't really work for me. Like I've had one main thing in my life, but you know, there's nothing really else there. Like, why am I at Revival Society, it's our job to figure out, why are you so stuck? Why can't you move forward?
[00:24:08] Why are you struggling so much? Why are you dealing with all these health issues or struggles? However, you know you wanna call them, but why? Why aren't you able to find answers?
[00:24:19] Damaged Parents: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. and everyone that comes there, they are able to find answers then, or, or some of 'em. I mean, I'm thinking not everyone gets such great results as that one person and other people like the. The healing looks different, ,
[00:24:34] Danielle Smason: I would say most of our clients do get miracle results like that. But it's really about where someone's at and what they're ready to experience. It's what their body's ready to experience. And what I mean by that is we have a process to be able to make sure that someone does qualify for this work and that they're ready.
[00:24:56] For this work because it's really important to be ready. You really have to be open. You really have to be honest. You can't rationalize. You have to be able to connect to your body. I mean, those are some of the qualifications, and if you fit those qualifications, I can look someone in the eye and say, I can a thousand percent help you.
[00:25:16] Now what someone decides to do with that work Is ultimately their decision. But it's really fascinating because even the people that sometimes, and it doesn't actually happen often, but even the people that aren't ready to do the work or they're not ready to face a specific relationship, they leave and then they'll contact me later and be like, You'll never believe what happened.
[00:25:40] Sometimes the body's not ready for that experience. And so we meet you where you're at and what you're willing and what you're ready to accomplish. So for example, with that person that came in, they had tried everything to the point where they're like, Okay. Like, I mean, this is all I got. I'm gonna give it everything I have.
[00:25:59] And they were all in. And that is why they received those results is because of the energy that they were willing to put into, not just Sessions, but outside of sessions, which we teach you all that. But it's also not as complicated as we make it. It's just deeper than we think it's, And so I will say though, And I will see in for this proudly in it that a lot of our clients do get results like that because we qualify them.
[00:26:26] We make sure that they're ready to do this work. And if they're not, we send them with a personalized realization which allows them to get ready to do the work. And that was the beginning of the method in the first place. That is what saved my sister's life, and that is what changed her life. So it's really about what someone's ready for and.
[00:26:45] Because we've done this work for so long, we know when someone's ready and we also know when they're not, and we're really open and we're really honest about that.
[00:26:54] Damaged Parents: Yeah, that would be really important I would think. Now, so if someone is wondering, even maybe of, they're wondering what, like if. Just to close this out, usually I ask for three tips or tools. So I'm thinking someone's either, I don't know, they're either on the edge or they're not sure. What would you say for them to think about?
[00:27:14] Danielle Smason: I'd say for them to think about if they wanna really continue the path that they're on. It sounds really cliche, but what I mean by that is are you willing to look in the mirror next year and be exactly where you are? Because if you don't take action, whether it's with us or it's with someone else, and we have, we have so many referrals, like we have so many resources that when it's not us, we might very well give you a resource of who it is for you and who we think it could be for you.
[00:27:43] So I wanna make that very clear. I always say to people, I might be on this podcast just to give you an awareness that that person that's been knocking at your door is that person you need to contact and you need to connect with to now finally start your journey or to continue your journey.
[00:27:59] But for some people, they do hear this and they just know the people that I really do serve, they really tell me. They're like, I heard you on this podcast and I really just connected to you immediately. So usually people. just know, and if you don't, it's okay. You're always open to a call to see if it really is something for you.
[00:28:20] But what I would say for you is really just get clear on where you're at in your life and where you really wanna go, and looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, Am I comfortable? Being in this place that I'm in, or do I really wanna be somewhere different? And is Danielle that person enjoy that person, my mom, that's gonna get you there and help you get through this piece?
[00:28:43] Or is there somebody else that you know has been there in the past that you haven't yet taken action on to really get that transformation that you're looking.
[00:28:53] Damaged Parents: Yeah, those are good things to think about. Well, everyone, this is Danielle Smason you can find her at https://www.revivalsociety.com. It's her and her sister and her mom, and I don't know if there's anybody else yet. Is there anybody else yet though? But there're super amazing and Carly's been on the podcast before, so I'll put that in the show notes.
[00:29:17] And. Of course, all of Danielle's information, so thank you so much for coming on the show.
[00:29:22] Danielle Smason: appreciate it.
[00:29:23] Damaged Parents: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoyed talking to Danielle about how she was able to heal. We especially liked when she spoke about her joy of bringing healing to others. To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on Instagram. Look for @damagedparents will be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See ya then
