Transcript of Episode 119: Overcoming Crohn's Disease and Colitis
With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Meredith Dykstra and Special Guest, Dane Johnson
Meredith:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Cellular Healing TV. This is episode 119. I’m your host, Meredith Dykstra. We have our resident cellular healing specialist, Dr. Pompa on the line, of course. Today, we’re welcoming a very special guest. His name is Dane Johnson. The topic today is Crohn’s, and colitis, and digestive disorders. We’re going to be really delving deeply into those. Dane is joining us today because he has his very own special and personal story of his journey of healing Crohn’s and colitis.
Before I begin the interview, let me tell you a little bit about Dane; then we’ll jump right in. Dane Johnson is a holistic nutrition consultant who’s personally overcome a life-threatening battle with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Dane now consults others who suffer from irritable bowel disease, while continuing his career as a model and actor in Los Angeles. You can learn more about his healing program and story at crohnscolitislifestyle.com. Dane is also the co-founder of a non-profit called the Nutrition Heals Foundation. You can find more information at nutritionheals.org; that’s a gateway for natural solutions in the health and wellness world. Very cool. Dane, we’re so excited to have you on Cellular Healing TV. Welcome to the show.
Dane:
Thank you! Thank you, Meredith. I’m so excited to be here. I’m grateful for this experience. It’s so surreal to come from such hard times of dealing with a long chronic disease to now being able to speak with you amazing people and really dive into helping find the root cause of these problems and symptoms for the world.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, we had a conversation before we got on. We have a good friend in common; Jordan Rubin. When I saw your before and after picture, I said oh that reminds me of my friend, Jordan. Yeah, you met Jordan. In his original book, Patient Heal Thyself, was what inspired you, right? It got you to realize that there’s hope and there’s something you can do about it. Those are your own words.
Dane:
Yeah, absolutely, Jordan was my mentor, so to speak, over the book. The doctors weren’t telling me anything of the sorts and I had no options and when I found his book, Patient Heal Thyself was the first book I read. When I read his story and what he had gone through, I related to it so much. It was that beacon of light for me. I felt that if he could do it, so could I. I really dove into that book and I listened to his words. I said his morning and nightly prayer every morning and night. I cooked with tea; some of the recipes he had in there. Here I am a few years later now teaching other people how to do the same. Helping everyone get healed and get off it.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no doubt. Tell your story. Go back—that’s obviously part of the story, but when did you first get sick? Go back before that but let us hear it.
Dane:
Yeah, so I was your normal average suburban kid growing up. I really didn’t have that many symptoms until I hit about 17 or 18 years old; which I’ve met a lot of kids who are having the same things where they’re having some symptoms. IBS-type symptoms: bloating, a little stomach pain, maybe a little diarrhea, something like that. Nothing you really want to tell people about. Something you just think oh it’s something I ate. That lasted a few years, I think because I was into sports and I ate well for my sports and I pushed myself in other avenues in life, which cut out a lot of the bad processed foods. I think that saved me until I was about 22 when I finally got diagnosed with ulcerative colitis to begin.
When I got diagnosed, I was under a lot of pressure. I had just taken a job in Washington, DC working for Oracle Software. Working 60 hours a week, we were under a tight budget. It was my first job out of college. Living on the beach with my buddies to now working in an office 60 hours a week. Under high amounts of stress, diet went down, and all of a sudden it just like a flip of the switch, like a light, I started having uncontrolled bowel movements. I started having massive fatigue, brain fog. Eventually, went to the doctor, got the colonoscopy; diagnosed.
When I was first diagnosed—for a young person, it doesn’t really hit you. Especially when you were able to eat pizza, and have some soda, and have some gummy bears, and there was no problems. No harm no foul right? To make that mental transition was extremely hard for me. It took years I think for me to get over the anger and the resentment. When I got diagnosed, as long as I could keep it under control, maybe with a little prednisone, with a little Asacol, a little Lialda. I went about my way, pursuing my dreams, pursuing my life especially at a young age, I didn’t want to worry about it.
Then when I hit about 24, I quit my job and I became a full-time actor and modeling. When I started doing well in it, it was like a double edged sword because now I’m flying around the world and I have to look great and I got to — so I put a lot of pressure on myself and that’s when I had my first huge flare. I was in Miami at the time, traveling. I was living in a boarding house with a few other guys and I just kind of collapsed. I lost about 30 or 40 pounds in about three weeks or four weeks. I couldn’t eat. My family –actually my mom, who’s been a god-send in my life, she flew down to Miami to help me out because I was doing really well in my career, but here I had this massive problem. I started looking at options. I got on stronger drugs: immunomodulators, immunosuppressants, Entyvio, Remicade, 6-MP, methotrexate. I’m not sure I pronounced that one.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s right.
Dane:
Yeah, none of it was really working for me. One note I want to make about that, is I never wanted to be on conventional medicine. It was something in my heart where I just didn’t want it for me. I think I had a bad attitude about it the whole time. It never really solved problems for me. I took it for months; about three years on and off prednisone, on the immunosuppressants, the 5-ASAs, and the immunomodulators, and I never got real results. I just felt more tired and more sick. It got to the point where I had gotten so sick, the doctors were saying well the next step is surgery to get a colostomy bag. When I heard that—it’s the funniest thing, the most irony I think a person could have in life; to be a professional model, getting paid all this money to travel the world and yet here I am dealing with this terrible sickness that was so hard to talk about. People are very ashamed of it. Who isn’t ashamed? You’re dealing with a bowel issue. It was, to me, the most ironic thing. I remember being on set in Jamaica shooting a commercial and having to run off set and take care of business. The director’s looking at me like where’s this kid going? I got all those funny types of stories.
Dr. Pompa:
They probably thought you had an eating disorder, right? This guy’s losing weight, he keeps running off the screen. Am I right?
Dane:
Dr. Pompa you nailed it on the head. I have had jobs where I was so skinny and they looked and me and they judged me as if I was that guy who didn’t eat. I’m sitting here saying, I love to eat okay? Don’t be surprised if you catch me eating a burger and fries, that’s what I always used to say. I was in a paradigm because I couldn’t express it to people. I was in this very physical, looks-type of industry and I just found it very ironic. I think because of that is why I became public about it because people were giving me praise for what I was able to do with my life, but here I was dealing with this very shameful and hard situation. I eventually just said hey the only way I’m going to learn about this is by being a little more public about and talking about. I started talking, I expressed it to my friends, my family, my doctors; I really let everyone knowing what’s going on. One thing lead to another where somebody recommended this book and that book.
When I opened my heart to natural medicine; not my mind because I was very upset about the idea of not being able to eat food and all that, but when I opened my heart to natural medicine around the age of 25, I finally got Jordan Rubin’s book. What touched me is he came from a spiritual point of view and that was a big change. I think that was the big key for me, was the first time I healed myself I had to let go of the pain and anger. I had to let go of the stress. I had to engage my parasympathetic nervous system; my rest and digest. I had to let go of what I couldn’t control and I had to focus my energy on what I could control. What I could control is: how I felt in that day, how grateful I was, what I spent my time doing, what I allowed myself to watch, what I allowed myself to listen to, what kind of conversations I allowed myself to have, going out in the sun, reading a very inspirational book, writing my family and my friends letting them know how much I appreciate them in my life. What I found is as I let go of the pain and I let go of the anger, all of a sudden my physical attributes got better. I found this great connection of letting go, and finding gratefulness, and finding harmony, and then finding it easier to then eat well, because I knew I was doing what was right for me. It was then easier not to eat the breads, and get away from leptons, and getting away from grains that were hurting me; beans, and refined sugars that I was addicted to. It was not easy, but that was the basis.
Jordan Rubin’s book was one of the major books; Patient Heal Thyself. Dr. Blum had a great book as well. What I did is I created a journal. Within 75 days I was able to wean myself off of all drugs including prednisone, Entyvio; oh I’m sorry Remicade at the time. I gained 40 pounds. I went and traveled through Europe and took back my life. Was I little crazy to go do that? Yeah, I was young and a little crazy, but I had it in my heart what I was going to do and I paid for it a little bit. Fast forward two years later, I’m dealing with situations; I’m not perfect but I’m able to stay off the drugs. I’m able to manage, live a life, but I still have problems.
I decided to take my learning to the next level. I went back to school for natural medicine at the Energetic Health Institute in Los Angeles. When I started working with naturopath doctors and learning about mitochondria energy, learning about the mind body connection, learning about how food can be a medicine, how to use targeted food to heal the gut lining of the liver, the heart, and how I can create targeted healing movements, energetic movements every day: that’s when I really started to shine and really grow. In the middle of my schooling, I had my second flare, which again; high amounts of stress, huge changes in life, relationship problems, family problems, work problems, all these things. My diet wasn’t as strong. I started drinking alcohol again. I had my second flare. This one nearly killed me.
I was at a job. I was at an Ugg fashion show and I went up to the art director I knew very well and I said, “Sierra I can’t do this, I feel terrible, I think I need to go.” I drove myself to the emergency room. I hardly could drive there. It was almost like I shouldn’t have been driving. I was drinking Emergen-C’s trying to get enough Vitamin C and electrolytes to keep myself focused on the road. I stayed in the hospital for about six or seven weeks. That was the hardest time of my life. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. I’m young, but I think anyone would agree. I dropped to 120 pounds. I couldn’t walk. They had me on chemotherapy because they thought I had a virus. I was on four antibiotics. I was on 200 milligrams of prednisone, eventually on TPN because I couldn’t eat anymore, so they were infusing food. Then, I was on Dilaudid, 3 grams of Dilaudid, which is a strong, and toxic, and very addictive opium; seven times stronger than morphine. I wasn’t getting better. My mom flew out, my dad flew out, and my sisters flew out. The doctors were telling my parents they didn’t know if I was going to live. They needed to remove my large intestine right there. My family knew I didn’t want that for myself. I don’t really remember a lot of this, but supposedly I was completely against it.
I don’t know how they let me out of that hospital, but after about seven weeks they allowed me to leave. I called up my naturopath doctor and also my professor, and I said this is what’s going on. He drove over to my house and he helped me put together a plan. I spent the next year of my life not working, not doing anything but living in my home and healing. I spent that time studying, going to school, which was a savior. I mean times listening to his—another naturopath or having a doctor, a naturopath doctor, a 20 year veteran doctor come to my house and see me, and feel me, and listen to me. I ended up working with different organizations who were seeing what I was doing.
Slowly but surely, a year later, I got off all the drugs. I gained 60 pounds of weight. I’m lean so that weight is real weight. I work out every day. My colonoscopy shows a 75% decrease in disease. I was on the drugs when the first colonoscopy, the second colonoscopy I was on zero drugs. I’m talking no Tylenol, no pain killer, no nothing. Turmeric is my pain killer. I did many things to do that. That’s when I knew I think I’d found my calling is deep down I’ve done some really fantastic things with my life, but I never have ever believed I’m better than anyone. I’ve always felt normal. I just felt that I was willing to explore and jump off that cliff, so to speak; to grow, to experience. That has been the root of my hard work, of my faith, my belief, is that I think anyone can do what I do. I just think it just—and I failed my way to success. I just failed my way the whole way; trial and error.
People don’t have to live in fear. I learned through all that, that living healthy, and eating right, and using supplements; that’s the best high you can have. Anyone out there who’s done cocaine or smoked a little weed or any of this stuff to escape; the best feeling in the world, the best feeling, is being your best version of yourself. When you feel it, and you push yourself over, and you press that line, and you hit it hard, you gun it; there’s no feeling like it. You will gladly give up the sugars. You’ll gladly give up that processed meat. You gladly spend the extra money on organic food because you look in the mirror and all you feel is strong energy, and confidence, and belief in yourself. You can be a better husband. You can be a better worker. You can have more purpose in life. You can leave a better mark on this world. You can be a better father. Whatever you want in life, that’s how you get it. You get it through what you eat, and how you feel, and your mind body connection.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s amazing. I hear my echo a little bit in there. I don’t know what that’s from. There you go. Anyways, it’s today — I think people have to understand that the food is different; at least from when I grew up, Dane. Glyphosate wasn’t being used in the food, which creates massive inflammation and disruption in the microbiome. Now, it’s on everything kids are eating today. Your bottom fell out all of a sudden. Most kids have the symptoms that you had already. A little bloating, a little thing. No big deal, everyone gets it. All my friends will get it. I always say, I go to my kid’s ski races; all the kids have medications on their thing, whether it's pain killers, who knows what it is? The point is, is that the bottom can fall out that quick.
Then someone gets the diagnosis. Your autoimmune was colitis, Crohn's but all of a sudden it could be Raynaud’s. It could be scleroderma. It could be — the list goes on and on; or just some unexplainable—because there is no autoimmune yet diagnosis for that particular thing. Autoimmune—Dane, when the body’s own immune system is attacking itself; this is an epidemic in young people today. Everything you said is right on. The question I have for you now is; you got well, you fell off, and that happened a couple of times. How sensitive do you have to be now? Meaning, what if you had that burger? What if you had it? Where would it put you? Would you ever again? Where are you at on the spectrum here?
Dane:
Yeah, that’s a great question Dr. Pompa. That’s the big ticket question: can you go back to eating? How much room do you have to wiggle? The honest truth is the stronger you get, the better you get at being your own best doctor I call it; the more your body can take. I can go out now and I can have a drink. I can go out now and I can eat a burger. I can eat ice cream. I could eat gluten, dairy. Am I going to feel great? No. Will I recover? Yes, because I also know what things to put in place to go oh my body feels this way. Ding ding ding, I’m going to put my glutamine. I’m going to put my anti-inflammatories. I’m going to do an elemental diet. I’m going to meditate. I’m going to sit in a sauna. [19:09] I’m going to do all these things. I have enough ammo to watch myself, but at the same time, if the stars align in a negative way, I could fall off and have a huge flare again, right? I think the answer is it’s whether I want to or not. I don’t actually feel that I want to do that to myself because all I’m doing is making it harder for myself to achieve what I want to achieve in my life.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, one of the messages when I teach my doctors is that you have to empower the person. You have to empower your clients and patients because if you don’t do that, then people are going to not make the right choices. See, you went through it. You learned that it’s like, I just don’t want to do that to myself, right? I'm the same way. Of course I can eat all those things now; I can do that.
However, I just value so much being my best self. I just value so much—I fear going back ever to the person that I was when I was sick. It is; it's too great a fear, Dane. It drives us to do the right thing day in and day out. In today's ballgame, it becomes harder and harder to make those exceptions. If you are going to make exceptions, I tell you, you have to make clean exceptions, meaning if you're going to eat pizza, you'd better buy a different grain and make a different grain. You better put a different cheese on it. There are ways to make safer exceptions, there really is, and with Meredith's cooking, it's even easier.
Dane:
All right, Meredith, come visit me.
Meredith:
All right, I've got a good flatbread for you. I'm curious, too; we haven't delved in a lot with Crohn's and colitis specifically on the show yet. I'm just wondering if you can back up a little bit too and explain what these diseases are, what they look like, Dr. Pompa, you as well, so we can really zero in on what you were dealing with, and then also some of the specific therapies you used that you found success with.
Dane:
Okay, yeah. Crohn's is an autoimmune disease that affects the entire GI tract, from the mouth all the way down to the colon. Across the board, Crohn's disease—the immune system can attack anywhere in between, which makes it a little more complicated and harder to target and to heal. Ulcerative colitis specifically is found—most of its inflammation and disease is found in the large intestine, so it's a more targeted area. It's a little easier to manipulate because you don't have to worry so much about all these other parts, the stomach, the small intestine, that targeted point. Even though both are extremely—can be fatal and should be taken seriously, that's kind of the main difference.
Modern medicine has a hard time really finding differences between them. For me, since I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis by my first colonoscopy, then my second doctor said no, you have Crohn's disease. I said okay, a year later, you have Crohn's disease. Then the doctor now is saying you have ulcerative colitis. So I've been diagnosed with both of them. I find both of my inflammatory issues are in my large intestine.
Meredith:
Are they commonly diagnosed together?
Dane:
Sometimes. When they don't know, when they see signs of the disease in maybe the stomach, I was diagnosed with gastritis, or in the small intestine, they'll say okay, that's Crohn's disease. If they're only seeing it predominantly in the large intestines, they'll say ulcerative colitis. It's easy for someone too who's had ulcerative colitis later on to be diagnosed with Crohn's disease, I've found. I think it's a very personal situation and very specific to what doctor you're going to, what kind of systems they're using to diagnose you, and their specific definition. I've been to many doctors all around the country, and they've had different opinions, all minute, but that's kind of the main—simply put, Crohn's affects the whole system. Ulcerative colitis is more narrow to the large intestine. Both should be taken seriously.
Dr. Pompa:
What made the greatest difference for you?
Dane:
The greatest difference for me—this is such an intangible thing, but I really—I just have to go back to this point. I didn't understand it when I was healing myself, but I understand it now. The biggest difference for me was my mind, starting with my mind of it's all okay; I'm not supposed to be sick; I can be a healthy person; my body is divine; it wants to heal. When I started telling myself that and I started letting go of that stress, then it became so much easier to look at my problem and create solutions. What we need to do is we have this puzzle piece, this Rubik'sCube, and we all have our personal Rubik's Cube we're trying to solve with our diseases or our lifestyles, adversity; it's life.
When we calm our minds, and we calm who we are, and we start creating solutions instead of creating reactions, Oh, I can't handle this, I'm getting emotional,. then it's going to be easier to look at the food, and look at the situation, and look at your sleeping habits, and start making bite-sized solutions at your life to create a cumulative difference. I know that's intangible, and a lot of people are saying, what's that mean. My first suggestion is to start with your mind. Simply write down what your goal is and what things you can do to start getting you there, even small things.
I always say to people if you're watching a bunch of crazy, scary movies and you're screaming on the phone and arguing on the phone with your family, how do you think that's going to make you feel in your gut? What are you going to eat after that? If me and you get on the phone, and we have a laughing conversation, we joke about old times, you're not thinking about food; you're not thinking about Skittles. If I get on the phone with you and I tell you you're late on rent, and you need to get back to work and work harder, and that you're not doing good enough and I'm not happy with you, that's when we eat our emotions.
The biggest problem is that food is just one part of healing; it's just one. We need to be able to absorb that food again. We need to be able to let our gut heal. Dr. Pompa, as you probably know, the mind/gut action and how much of our immune system is in our gut, and how much, energetically, our spirit is in the gut, from a lot of people who practice Eastern medicine, it is a lot more than what you eat. That's just one part. You can eat kale salads all day long and you can be hurting, and you can get worse.
Dr. Pompa:
No doubt, our interview with Bruce Lipton, we were talking about how thoughts can drive cellular inflammation or thoughts can down-regulate cellular inflammation, and turn on genes, for better or for worse. We know that autoimmune, a gene gets turned on. Physical, chemical and emotional stress, just simply our thoughts, we know can turn on and off those genes as well. When we get rid of the stressors and we change our thoughts, that's ultimately the answer. That is; it's ultimately the answer.
I wrote an article called “The Autoimmune Answer,” and that component right there is the starting place. It really is. We have to derive, we have to dictate our thoughts, to ultimately start the healing and to finish the healing. We've done a lot of shows on how past abuses, past things, that stuff, how you hold those feelings, and how again, it is a perfect storm of now chemical stressors and other stressors—we have to remove all the stressors to get well. So you said it very well.
Dane:
One thing I want to say out there for people who really want something to hold on to tangibly—because if I would have heard that when I was sick, I would not have been happy with that answer. I say to the listeners right now, when you start healing, you will understand what me and Dr. Pompa are talking about right now. You will start feeling the difference in how you see life and how you view it. Something tangible is your bowel needs to rest. It's not necessarily healthy food. Your bowel needs lighter food; it needs less work; it just needs some rest. Your mucosal lining needs to heal. Think of your gut like a scratch on your arm. If you keep rubbing that scratch, it's going to keep opening up; it's going to get infected. It needs to sit still, it needs to have good cleaning, and it just needs to heal. There's stuff we can do from there, but I think that's a good idea.
Dr. Pompa:
We do a lot of fasting; we train our clients on how to fast, different types, intermittent daily, block fasting. You're right; it has to heal. Not just the gut has to heal, your cells—I'm sorry, the gut has to rest, but your cells have to rest, as well, to heal. People eating all day long, they're just driving up—they're making their mitochondria in their cells work, work, work. There's very little energy that is able to do that process. That energy is needed for healing. You have to rest the gut and you have to rest your cells. That's the magic of how to fast and there's multiple ways to do that; another great point, Dane, absolutely.
Dane:
You said it so right. I love what you're talking about there, Dr. Pompa, with the mitochondria in the cells. Our body—we only have so much energy to use. It's either being used to clean up, or it's being used to restore. If you keep throwing garbage in your house, all of your energy is going to be going toward trying to maintain that garbage. It has no time to repaint the walls. It has no time to get new furniture. That energy needs to used to actually heal, not cleaning up the mess you keep putting in there. That's why it gets worse and worse and people's diets get stricter and stricter, because their bodies are getting more weak from the damage, consistent damage being done. We're not building energy because we're under chronic stress. We're sitting at computers all day. We're exercising in a stressful way. It's more of the health or fitness era than health and fitness with the caffeine supplements and the whey proteins, and all this craziness. I think you hit the nail right on the head with the mitochondria, which I’m sure most of your patients and clients don’t really know much about when you talk about it. It’s like, “What? What’s mitochondria?” That’s the basis of healing. That is the golden ticket. If you don’t have your mitochondria, you don’t have anything.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s right. Yeah. The mitochondria is where you make every bit of gasoline for your cells. You can’t run without it. You can think without it. You can’t digest without it. It’s damaged in most people even before they have symptoms, a lot of the times. They’re, “Oh, energy.” They’re driving caffeine and other stimulants really to just make up with the fact that their mitochondria is already malfunctioning, not producing enough ATP, driving more inflammation. Really, it’s the first thing to start to get damaged. It’s one of the first areas that we have to fix.
I have my five Rs, Dane, that I teach as a roadmap on how to fix the cell. R number 3 is restoring cellular energy. It doesn’t come in the order of go 1, 2, 3. Oftentimes, R3 is the first thing that we actually have to do in very challenged patients, is restore that cellular energy so everything else even works. I’ll tell you one thing that we love to teach on this show is don’t try to eat less; eat less often. So many people are just eating meal after meal, and this handful of nuts, or this bar, or that thing. Every time you raise glucose and insulin, you’re straining that mitochondria. Matter of fact, you’re making yourself have to down-regulate the oxinated stress even for making energy with every bite of food you’re taking. Eating less often is another strategy that just—it’s amazing how it heals the mitochondria over time.
Dane:
Yep. I couldn’t agree more. It gives bowel rest, right. If we always are having food in there, when are you going to take your probiotics? When are you going to take your marshmallow root, your slippery elm? When are you going to take your glutamine, all these things that need a clear surface to actually heal the wall?
Dr. Pompa:
One of the problems is when people eat less, though, they go, “I can’t function.” It’s like they take their meal away and their snack away, and their glucose drops because their body’s mitochondria’s inability to use fat for energy becomes a problem. That’s a whole other subject for another day.
Dane:
Yeah. I feel you on that. I think you can go down that road pretty far.
Dr. Pompa:
We’ll never come back.
Dane:
We’ll never come back. We should write a book after this. Could someone transcript this? Yeah. I agree. I think there’s a lot of—my goal with Crohn’s and colitis is take this huge problem and try to simplify it. I’ve been saying this my whole life. I’ve never been the smartest guy in the room. What my benefit is and what makes me, I believe, unique is I go after complicated things, and then I try to simplify them. Then I feel I’m able to take someone who doesn’t go to that route and show them a simplified, easier way of understanding something that seems so complicated.
We have science. We have compounds, chemistry. There’s all these little cells and all these things in our body, and all of this craziness that people don’t really understand, and it seems overwhelming. For those people who are feeling overwhelmed, I say to you, take a breath. Relax. One bite at a time. Just get one bite.
What probiotic will help you out? What’s one staple meal that you do well with? What’s your go-to meal? How can you start getting to bed at 10:30 at night so that your melatonin’s working correctly? It reduces your cortisol, and you’re getting that efficient sleep. You can wake up at 7 am. How can we get your adrenal glands right? You’ve been taking prednisone for a year and a half. Of course your adrenal glands are messed up. What herbs? What kind of cholesterol intake can we take? What foods can we add?
Right now, we’re talking—we just named 40 solutions that someone could look down on a piece of paper and say, “What can I do?” It doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be simple. Working on your morning plan—we need consistency in our lives. The problem is that we don’t have time. What can we do in the morning? I’m sure, Dr. Pompa, you have a morning ritual that you pretty much stick with because it just works for you. I like to wake up. I go out on my—I’m a gardener. I love gardening. It’s just my thing nowadays. I love watching something grow.
I have a hammock out there, and I go read my book. I like to read books every day. I read a few pages in my book. I make my elemental shake, my vegan, organic, elemental shake in my Vitamix, and I put my supplements in there. I sip on that, and that’s my morning. It takes me 40 minutes, but I look forward to it. I wake up looking forward to my morning. That’s what I say is it’s a win/win because I’m relieving stress. I’m putting myself in a happy state, and I’m doing something productive for me and also my dreams with what I want to do with my life and what purpose I want to create in life beyond money, beyond power, what I really want to do.
I was reading this book today by Stephen Covey. It’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He said, “Think about the day when you go to a funeral,”—this is a little morbid, but stick with me. “Think about if you’re at your own funeral, watching your funeral. If your kids, or your wife, or your parents had said something about you and your life, what would you want them to say?”
Dr. Pompa:
I play that scenario. Yep.
Dane:
Yeah. It’s not just about how smart you are and how you can tell people what to do. Can you relate with people and their vulnerability? Can you be authentic? Can you speak the truth even when you don’t know what you’re talking about? I think that vulnerability and that step of, “I’m no better than anyone. I’m just like you, and I want you to do what I did. It doesn’t have to be hard. We can do it together, and life can be great,” That’s the impression I want to leave.
I’m sure you feel this. As a doctor, people put you on a pedestal, and they put you on a pedestal, and they put you on a pedestal. Then they have these high expectations that you’re just going to have the touch of God, and just boom, and everything goes away. People have to be able to do it for themselves. What we can do and what’s so great about us is we have the power to help give them the tools to walk that path. That’s what you’re so great at.
Dr. Pompa:
Give our viewers and listeners some more advice on mindset because you do. You have an amazing mindset. I can just tell. When I look for clients even to take on, I interview them first because I’m really digging to see if they’re stuck in the identity of being sick, if they really have a desire to get well. If they’re willing to do whatever I tell them to do—I know that if I told a guy like you to stand on your head in the corner 10 minutes every day, you’d go, “Can I go more? If I go 20, would it help?”
Dane:
Yep.
Dr. Pompa:
You can tell the mindsets that just get well. Put down some things that have just been able to be transformational for your mindset, how you’ve been able to change bad thinking. We all have bad thinking.
Dane:
Yes.
Dr. Pompa:
Give them some advice.
Dane:
All right. Great. I couldn’t agree more. When I talk with my clients, it’s the same thing. I’m looking for someone who’s okay with failing, and I’m looking for someone who has an open mind, and is looking for what’s good, not what’s bad; what’s good. The mindset is simplify life. Look at what you want. Forget you’re sick. You’re not sick anymore. Right now, in your mind, you’re not sick. If you’re your healthiest self, what do you want? What do you want? What will make you happy?
Is it being healthy? Is it being in shape? Is it having stress-free, healthy relationships with your friends and family, and you’re in a good love life, and a good relationship with your wife or your husband? Okay. Everything that you want, even if you were healthy or sick, is the exact same. You just need to start actually accepting what you want in your life and start going towards that with positivity. There’s one simple fact: Positivity creates positivity. Negativity creates negativity. It does it in your mind and in your bowels.
I learned this physically one time. It was one of my big realizations when I was sick. I was going through—it was in my first 15 days of my healing program after reading Jordan Rubin’s book and a few other books. I got on the phone, and my mom was talking to me. She wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do, and I got all upset at her. I started giving her a hard time saying, “I got to do this. I got to do that. You don’t understand.” I started letting go and getting her angered. Within five seconds, I felt a sharp pain in my stomach. I stopped in my tracks, and I said, “Oh, my god. What I think and how I act directly makes me feel pain or uncomfort.”
When I get like that, my bowel movements are worse. I noticed. When I relax and I—then I said, “Okay. What do I actually want to do?” When I started looking at my life as a whole picture, and I started finding that people helped me when I helped myself, when people wanted to be around me even if I was sick—what did I need to be healthier? I needed to be around friends. I needed to be around love and family. I needed a woman to accept me for who I was, even if I was 125 pounds, sick, with cystic acne all over me, and running to the bathroom, or pooping my pants, or something crazy.
I need a purpose in my life. I need to feel valued as a human being, that what I do matters. I said, “Okay. All these things I need, are they going to help me feel better and help me get healthy? What can I do about it?” It started with accepting the shame that—everyone has shame. Everyone poops. Get over it. The Victoria’s Secret girl poops. I promise you. All right? Everyone’s got faults. Everyone’s got problems. Guess what? Sickness is coming for everyone one way or the other, and it’s best we learn now. That’s the gratefulness. I’m glad I got sick young. I’m glad.
Look at me. I’m now a holistic nutritionist. I eat healthy. My family, my kids in my future, we’re going to be eating organic, good stuff, and we’re going to feel good. There’s going to be no arthritis. Adversity comes for us all in different ways, but I feel prepared. The mindset is you have—the problem with healing is the same problem 99% of people in our culture have with success in their business, success in their marriage, success with their friendships, success in personal happiness. It’s creating solutions around happiness and getting back to the transparency of what you want and who you are. What’s wrong with you is what’s great about you.
People want to accept you. You have to allow them. You’ve got to let go. Tell your friends. You’re going to find out if they’re real friends. If they’re not real friends, you’re going to find out one day or another, and it’s best we find out now. Let your family know. If someone is giving you negativity, this is my favorite thing to do: Hit them back with positivity. They’re going to feel like fools if they keep with their sinister, cynical, negative responses when all you say is the glass is half-full, and what’s good about the day, and you create a solution around a problem they keep complaining about. What I found is that all the negative people around me, one by one, they wanted to be around me. They wanted to talk to me.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. You attract who you are, man.
Dane:
Exactly. All of a sudden, they were real positive around me, and they would say, “You know what, Dane? I can just talk to you. I don’t know what it is, but my boyfriend, or my girlfriend, or my whatever makes me upset, and I can’t stand being around them. You, I really get along with you.” All they’re saying is that I’m just saying positive things. We all want to be happy.
Dr. Pompa:
Sure.
Dane:
Start with your happiness. Look at the food. Hold your belly. Look at the food. Should you eat it? No? Okay. Breathe. Breathe.
Dr. Pompa:
This is great stuff. It falls in line, Dane, with every show that we love on Cellular Healing TV. We’ve done so many mindset shows. As of lately, right Meredith, it’s almost like we’re on a mindset thing, and we’re not even trying. We have guests, and man, I love when it goes in that direction. It really is a sticking point for a good life or a bad life; for a healthy life or for not a healthy life.
Dane:
It’s true.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Dane:
It’s true.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s what I love to say–
Dane:
Yeah. Dr. Pompa, if we were talking about how to build your business, and how to be a millionaire, and how to be your own boss, this would intrinsically be half the conversation.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s right.
Dane:
We’re talking about Crohn to colitis. It’s still half the conversation. If we were talking about how to make your marital problems go away, this is half the conversation.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Dane, I’m going to have you talk to my kids because they think I’m out of my mind. “You’re choosing your unhappy—you’re choosing your problems. Just think about it.” I’m going to make them all watch the show.
Dane:
Okay. I want to tell the viewers—I want to give them some idea of how amazing this can get. It’s the last story I’m going to tell about this, I promise. I went through all this. When I got that energy about me—I walk into casting rooms where people judge me like that. It does not feel good. It feels terrible, but I don’t go in there trying to be the best-looking guy, or the most in shape guy, or the perfect specimen. I go in there with high energy. I make jokes. I remember names. I talk to them about their family and their kids. I talk about life. I book with my mind. I booked a movie, a lead role in a movie, a month after I got sick because the director just loved my energy. He booked me the lead. I was in a horror film. It was so fun.
Dr. Pompa:
You’re creating your reality. You’re creating your future. It is all positivity. It is all what you’re putting out there. You’re attracting the opportunities. You’re attracting the right people, every bit of it, or you’re attracting the opposite. Man, I hope people heard that, Dane. That’s a great example.
Dane:
I know people out there are going, “What do I do with this?” They have their pen and paper, waiting for notes I made to tell them the perfect meal and the perfect thing. I’m sitting here, and going, “Listen, guys. You got to start with this.” I’m telling you, it works for anything you want. Look at me. Look at me right now.
Two days ago, I booked a job with Nautica, a large company. They’re paying me all this money to go shoot their clothes only because of our conversation, and we connected in the room. I work out for 30 minutes, 45 minutes. I eat right. It’s a connection. I’m in New York doing that now, and I’m figuring it out.
I do things a little different than I should, and it’s because I want to keep growing. I push the envelope. I could stay in California, and I could stay healthy eating what I want, and live my life fine, but I like to travel. I like to figure out more solutions, so I put myself in stressful states. I was in Thailand six months ago, or seven months ago. I was in Puerto Vallarta three weeks ago. There’s not healthy, organic food around. There’s no anti-inflammatories. There’s no clean water. I’ve gotten salmonella. I got e. coli traveling. I have put myself in some situations. I don’t advise it, but it’s my calling in life.
I really want to continue to pursue new experiences and how to create solutions so that in another three years, I can go, “Hey, this is my protocol for if you travel. This is my protocol if you’re at home, for healing.”
Dr. Pompa:
That’s what I do. I don’t slow down.
Dane:
I put myself in stressful states, and what I learn through and through is—I’ll tell you right now, five years ago—no, seven years ago, I was a punk kid in college, going out and drinking beer, eating pizza, working out, lifting weights, hitting on girls on the beach, hardly going to class, getting 2.8 GPA. All right? That’s me, guys. That is me. If that’s you, okay, we were the same. All right?
I’m telling you, the reason I’m here, and I have this mindset, and I’ve been able to accomplish what I have is because of my ability to let go of my pride and my ego, and just be willing to learn and then fail. I have hit so many walls, and I just keep hitting the walls, but I do it with a gratefulness.
I’ll tell you, I’m 29 years old now, and what I do every day, I read a personal development book every day. I say the three things I’m grateful for every single day. The day just gets brighter when you just say what you’re grateful for. Someone I love, what’s good about them, every day. I just try to spread positivity. I try to get away from negativity. I work out half as hard as I used to because I don’t need to kill myself in the gym. I like to cook. I put on happy music. I listen to happy, positive music all the time. I hang out with my girlfriend, who completely knows that I have Crohn’s disease. She has seen some bad stuff, and she’s still there. It’s okay. I promise you, if you’re having problems with dating, the person you’re going to date has problems, too. Okay?
Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely. I tell you what, man. I fell in love with you during this show, and it’s not because you’re such a handsome guy. It’s because of your mindset.
Dane:
Thank you.
Dr. Pompa:
I mean, honestly. You know what? I guarantee you my viewers fell in love with you, too, man. I love being around people like you. You fed my soul. You did. You fed me. I know you fed Meredith—you know what I’m saying—and you fed my viewers, man. I just got goose bumps because you will attract world changers. You’re a world changer.
Dane:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
Let me tell you something. We have a saying, “From pain to purpose. From crisis to purpose.” That’s what you’re doing—or the opposite. “From pain to more pain. From pain to nothing.” Your thing is immediately, “Yeah, I’m helping myself, but how can I help others? I want to make a difference.” Gosh. I hope people heard that, man. It just emanates from you, brother. It does. I can feel it. Everybody can have it, and that’s the point.
Dane:
Yes! Yeah!
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Everybody can have it.
Dane:
You’re human. Accept yourself, and you are already on the path. Failure. Fail. Just go.
Dr. Pompa:
Listen. I hope every one of the doctors that I trained is watching this. I know they are. I hope every one of our viewers, my clients, everybody that I coach personally is watching this because yes, yes, yes.
Dane:
Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Pompa. I’ve loved talking to you, too. You’re lighting me up, as well, man. I feed off you, and I’m so happy I’m doing this. It’s so crazy. This is what I’m so grateful for. I’m so excited when I get up in the morning because this is—for everyone out there who’s sick, please listen to this. This is the most important thing I want to say to you right now.
The worst thing that ever happened to me in life was getting Crohn’s disease and nearly dying of this disease. That’s the worst thing that’s happened to me. Now, moving forward through time, it is now the thing that’s going to give me purpose in life, which is more important than money or power, purpose. It’s going to give me freedom. It’s going to help me build wealth so I can take care of my family and go on trips more than two weeks a year. It’s going to be the way I make a difference in this world and what I do with my life.
At one point, it was the very worst thing that ever happened to me. Today, it is the defining thing about me that I am most proud of. I call it the opportunity of adversity. What you can overcome in life is what empowers you and is what makes you special. This can be a gift. If you’re 18 years old, or you’re young, and you’re kind of relating with me, being someone young who has to deal with chronic disease, this can be the best thing that ever happened to you in your life. You’re going to learn how to take care of yourself. You’re going to learn how to eat right. You’re going to learn about positivity. You’re going to learn how to attract people who are like-minded.
All of a sudden, you’re going to wake up, and four or five years, you’re going to be surrounded by positive, like-minded, transparent friends who will all have the strong purpose of doing something very strong and very purposeful in life, and also gaining freedom away from the things they don’t want. It can be a gift if you so let it. That’s it.
Dr. Pompa:
Praise God for that.
Dane:
Thanks, buddy.
Dr. Pompa:
Thank God that you—listen. To young people watching this, man, you’re going to hear it from him more than me. You better believe it. They are my own kids.
Dane:
They’re the most powerful gift. Fifteen years old, you are the most powerful person, yet. You have so much strong energy and so much power to do so much, and it’s up to you to start today, just failing toward success.
Dr. Pompa:
If I would have known—
Dane:
That’s what I say.
Dr. Pompa:
I was the guy like you in college. If I would have known what we know now, at 15, my gosh, how many more millions lives would I have changed today, sitting here at 50 years old? How many, Dane? I wish I knew at 29 what you know right now. I thank God for you, Dane. I do. We got to have you back on the show.
Dane:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
I want to know where you’re at. I want to know—I want to see you in the movies, man.
Dane:
We’ll see.
Dr. Pompa:
We’re going to follow you here on Cellular Healing TV.
Dane:
Good.
Dr. Pompa:
You are absolutely the Cellular Healing TV family member, man. We just adopted you in right here.
Dane:
Thank you, brother. Man, I appreciate that.
Dr. Pompa:
All right, Meredith. I’ll turn it over to you.
Meredith:
Oh, gosh. Dane, this has been such a pleasure. I was thinking we were going to talk a lot more about your challenges with your gut, but I love that this has shifted over into mindset. That is the foundation of getting well. This has been an amazing, amazing show, incredible information. You’re really inspiring. I think everyone that’s been watching, I’m sure, has felt your energy and feels lifted up. I want to thank you again. Any last words before we sign off?
Dane:
I’d say, if you’re listening, I hope you enjoyed it. I’m here to help if you need help. I know everything wasn’t perfectly tangible, but I promise that what me and Dr. Pompa were saying is the true gift, the true secret to success. More tangible things, if you need help, I’m sure Dr. Pompa can help give you some solid recipes. If you need, you can email me or write me, CC Lifestyle. My business is somewhat new. I’m still moving forward, but I’m moving forward hard with what I’m going to do with my passion. Stay strong. Welcome faith, and that is it.
Dr. Pompa:
Thanks again. We got to market this show to the massive.
Dane:
I’ll re-blog, and we’re going to keep moving. Let’s do another one. Yeah. We’ll do another one in six months, or four months, or whatever is good for you guys.
Dr. Pompa;
Meredith will stay in touch with you. Thanks, Dane.
Dane:
All right. Thanks!
Meredith:
Awesome. All right, guys. Thank you for watching. We’re signing off for today, and we’ll catch you next week. Take care, everyone.
