🎧 Episode 12: How Unresolved Trauma & Hidden Stress Can Impact Fertility: Mind-Body Approaches for TTC with Dr. Dani

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Introduction

In this episode, we dive deep into the often-overlooked connection between unresolved trauma, hidden stress, and fertility. Dr. Dani Olson, a brain health and holistic wellness expert, shares her personal journey of healing, as well as practical insights into how emotional and physical blocks can influence reproductive health. This episode blends science, spirituality, and actionable strategies to support those navigating the TTC (trying to conceive) journey.

You’ll gain a new perspective on how the mind and body interact, discover tools for managing stress and emotional blockages, and learn ways to approach fertility in a holistic, integrative way. Whether you’re just starting your fertility journey or exploring alternative methods alongside medical treatment, this episode offers both hope and guidance.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• How unresolved trauma and hidden stress can impact fertility

• The mind-body connection: how emotions manifest physically

• The role of the nervous system, psoas muscle, and cranial structure in reproductive health

• Case studies highlighting emotional blocks and conception challenges

• Practical tools: meditation, energy work, coloring exercises, and intention-setting

• How to combine holistic approaches with IVF and traditional fertility treatments

• Managing fear, mindset, and partner dynamics on the TTC journey

⏱ Listen time: 55 minutes
🎧 Format: Video & Audio
📍 Best for: TTC individuals, holistic fertility seekers, and anyone curious about the mind-body connection in reproductive health

👉 Explore Personalized Support with WOVA Health
👉 Learn More About Gabie’s Story

Podcast Transcript

Gabie: Welcome to The WOVA Circle: Real Talk on fertility, wellness, and trying to conceive. I'm Gabie Peytchev, founder of WOVA Health and fertility educator. This podcast is your community space for navigating the path to parenthood with evidence-based insights, authentic conversations and genuine support. I'm dedicated to being here with you through every part of your journey.

Hi everyone. Today we have Dr. Dani Olson with us. She specializes in brain health, chiropractic, Reiki, Qigong, and overall wellbeing. And she's also helped people navigate fertility challenges in a holistic way. So I look forward today to learning from her expertise and what she has to share with us.

Before we dive in, a quick note: if you want ongoing tips, evidence-based insights, and conversations with fertility experts, make sure to subscribe to the WOVA Circle Fertility podcast. You get every episode delivered straight to your device so you don't miss out on anything important that can support your journey to conception and beyond.

I also wanted a quick note to mention that some of the methods Dr. Dani uses are very well studied and researched, like muscular alignment and stress reduction. There are some others like energy work and Reiki—there is research, but many people find them very helpful. So I encourage listeners to explore with curiosity today and always check with your healthcare provider before starting something new.

Dr. Dani, welcome.

Dr. Dani: Thank you.

From Personal Healing to Holistic Practice

Gabie: Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to combine structural alignment, muscular work, energy-based approaches, brain health—how do you combine all of this with fertility support?

Dr. Dani: Everything is connected. My own personal story is fascinating with infertility. So I kind of want to start there.

When I was 31, I was a new doctor and I started to go blind. I was losing my vision very quickly from peripheral inward. I stopped menstruating. I started lactating. And because I'm trained in neurology, I understood that I had some sort of a tumor in my head probably. And when I researched that type of tumor, I realized it would come back in 80% of the cases after surgery. And I thought, well, I don't want to go through surgery if there's an 80% chance of it coming back.

So I had to figure out what I could do internally for myself—do things like clean my body. I fasted for 10 days. I meditated, I prayed. I really focused on figuring out, I've got to get to the root of why this is there. And that's one of the basis of what I do in my work, because I'm looking at things not just from a structural background, but from emotional and spiritual perspectives.

My background is in chiropractic, which is a really great doctorate to have because we're trained in anything from neurology to endocrinology to dermatology to OB-GYN. A lot of people have no idea that we're trained in all that. So I wanted to look at it from all different perspectives, not just from the symptom. And that's one of the things I think is really, really important with fertility—that we look at things from all different perspectives. So for me, I had to figure out what is the root.

And I went through kind of an interesting journey of going to a craniosacral therapist. So I do what's called craniopathy, which is different than craniosacral, but she sounded like a really nice person. I had met her at a business networking meeting—she worked and lived on a houseboat, and I thought, that sounds fun. Being on the water is amazing to me. So I made an appointment with her.

I didn't really feel anything the first time. The second time was really scary. I was driving in Minnesota where I used to live—I now live in Los Angeles—but I was driving in the winter on a freeway and I had about that much vision left. Very tiny amount of vision left. And a car passed me and it completely surprised me because I didn't realize there was another car on the road with me. And all of a sudden I was like, "Oh my gosh, I can't drive anymore after today if I don't figure this out. I've got to figure this out. I've got to figure this out today."

This last 20 minutes, I was white-knuckling to her houseboat for my appointment and I thought, I've got to get this figured out. And so one of the things I talk a lot about is the power of intention. And as I'm driving that last 20 minutes, I'm like, "Today's the day. Today's the day, today's the day, today's the day. I've got to figure this out."

A Divine Healing Experience

I got to her place, laid down. I'm like, "Don't even talk to me. Let me just figure this out." And she's like, "Okay, okay, okay." I was laying there and had this really interesting experience that I had never experienced anything like this before. I hadn't read about experiences like this before, but very clearly on the left side of the table that I was laying on was a vision of a cliff—a very beautiful cliff. It was sparkling and granite. And I used to be a rock climber, so I could see how I would climb it. And I was telling her about it. I'm like, "This is really weird. It's like I could touch it. It's that real."

And so she really helped me talking through things, which I learned a lot about—the power of having somebody guide you through things. So she's like, "Tell me the color of it. What's the texture of it?" And so as I'm visualizing it and really bringing it into my focus, I could really see what it looked like. And she told me I should climb it. And I'm like, "That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. Okay, okay, I'm visualizing climbing up this cliff."

And I felt hands under my armpits just reach up and lift me up on top of the cliff. And I remember I was laying there. I was like, "Whoa." She said, "What just happened?" I said, "Somebody grabbed me by my arms, put me on the top of this thing and I don't know who it is."

And she said, again, leading me through, "What's up there? Can you hear anything? Are there any colors?" And I was like, "No, there's no color. Wait a minute. There's somebody here with me." And it was this loving male energy and I could feel him within arms distance of my right arm. I told her, "I'm like, there's a man here with me." And she's like, "Oh, you found a helper?" And I'm like, "This is weird. Okay. What do I do?"

And she said, "Well, why don't you ask him some questions?" And I'm like, "Man, I wish I would've known this was gonna happen." I feel like I'm a very spiritually balanced person. I think I'm one of the healthiest people I know. "Why do I have this?" This is what I was asking. "Why do I have this?"

And I could hear him telepathically with me say, "You need to look within." And I'm like, "Okay. All right, next question. Am I going to be successful with how I'm doing this fasting, meditating, believing I could figure out the root of it?" He said, "Yes. Continue."

I said, "Okay. Are you from where I think you're from? How is my dad?" And so my dad had died four and a half years earlier. He was the one that introduced me into chiropractic. I'd never heard about it before. I grew up in Northern Minnesota, and he's like, "I really think you should look into this. You've always been interested in spinal cord injuries since your brother's friend was paralyzed in a car accident. Maybe you should look into it." So anyway, he was a very important part of my journey of what doctorate I was going to pursue.

When I asked this clearly an angel how he was, they disappeared. So now I'm laying there and I'm kind of like, "He gives—we were having such a moment. Why would he leave?" And the craniosacral therapist was like, "I don't know." And I said, "Is this a normal thing for your sessions?" And she's like, "This is unique for you." And I'm like, "Okay, that was really powerful."

And all of a sudden I could feel his presence back on the other side of the boat. And I looked and he had brought my dad to me. And that's when I started crying and I realized like, something really, really important was happening here. I'm sobbing. And he brought my dad to me and I'm telling him, "Dad, you've got a granddaughter. I did my doctorate. I want to have another baby. I can't have another one because I've got this thing in my head and I don't know what it means."

And my dad said, "I'm proud of you, baby." And when he said that, I was like, "Dad, I feel so bad I didn't see you before you died."

That was the root. So the tumor was right behind where my optic nerves crossed, right back here, right in front of the pituitary. And what had happened, and I didn't realize this—and this is one of the reasons I wanted to share this with people—is even though I considered myself very balanced and that I handle my emotions well and everything, my dad died when I was 26. I didn't realize that by not going to see him in Florida and going on my vacation to Mexico instead—so he died two days after I got to Mexico—that my body had manifested dis-ease, they call it, behind my optic nerves for regret from not seeing him before he died.

And so when I said that, "I feel so bad I didn't see you before you died," it was this aha moment. I'm like, "That's the root, that's the root of this. My body manifested this behind my optic nerves."

And when I said that, when I had this realization, this light came through the ceiling into the top of my head, went down into my tumor. It was so bright—there's no human words that will describe the purity and intensity and nature of this healing light. And it felt like my tumor was disintegrating, almost like it was evaporating.

And then all of a sudden, as soon as that evaporated, I could feel this light just going up and down throughout my body. Every cell was being touched, and I was laying there with my eyes closed and I thought, "I think I'm being healed. This is crazy." But I let it do its thing and it was just the most beautiful experience.

And then it pulled the light back out and I laid there for several minutes with my eyes closed. And this woman kept saying, "You need to open your eyes." And I'm like, "I'm afraid I'm going to be disappointed. I'm afraid I'm going to be disappointed." She's like, "Honey, you're going to have to go or you're going to have to drive home." And I'm like, "Okay."

So I opened my eyes and my vision was perfect.

Gabie: Wow.

Dr. Dani: It was wild. I mean, I was doing peripheral vision tests, like, "Oh my God, I could see everything." And from that moment on my life was changed. I realized we are way bigger, way more powerful, and the power of thoughts and emotions are much deeper than I even realized in my studies, and I became a changed woman.

All of a sudden, because I knew what that healing light looked like, I could feel it in the centers of my hands and people would come in and I'd be touching things. It was crazy. I had a woman with MS—she was blind in her left eye and it took three sessions, but her vision came back. I had a woman that passed an ovarian tumor after I worked on her and visualized it exiting her vaginally. And I mean, I didn't know what this power was. I knew what it was, but I didn't know how to describe it to people and I didn't know what to call it.

And then I met some Reiki masters and they were telling me about Reiki, and I'm like, "You know what? I'm going to learn Reiki so this has a name." I spent two and a half years, got my master's in that. And what I realized is an understanding of the entire structural system of the body and the nerve system, the power of emotions and things like that, but also being able to tap in and use Reiki on those parts directly. Even though it's a universal divine intelligence that should be able to travel anywhere—I mean, I do work over distances, I work with people all over the world sending healing energy—but it's so nice to have that understanding of how the body works, how everything's connected.

So if somebody's having, say, a thyroid issue, I directly put my hands over their thyroid. If I'm doing a distance session, I will visualize my hands on their thyroid gland. So I am a strong believer and a poster child for emotional manifestation of disease, because in a matter of minutes I went from having that much vision to perfect vision.

And there's so many things that I know that we can cover that are going to really help people that are listening to your podcast understand that it's not just about hormones with fertility issues. And you'll notice, I call it fertility. I don't talk about infertility. I talk about fertility because that's a more positive mindset and more positive word to use.

I think sharing that story and letting people know that the power of emotions behind things can really, really help.

Understanding the Science Behind Energy Healing

Gabie: Before we move on, I do want to dive deeper into that story because it's fascinating. It's also a little bit surreal for many people who haven't had this divine experience. They'll wonder like, how is this possible? And oftentimes there are things like this that we can't even explain scientifically, like how the emotions really are so powerful and how they can create these physical blockages in the body, but also break the blockages. So can you try to explain scientifically as much as you can what really happened?

Dr. Dani: There is actually quite a bit of science behind the study of Reiki and energy healing. There's a place, I think it's in Phoenix. There's a lab that they've created—a lab that has zero energy in it, and they study energy healers in there to see what power can come through them. I don't know a ton about that, but I've heard about it and I thought, oh, that's really kind of neat.

But we know things like chronic stress can affect the telomeres of the DNA. We know it can affect the hormones—cortisol, FSH, sperm production, ovulation. All these different things can affect chemistry. So understanding that the emotions are all over in our bodies is such an important thing.

Look at Chinese medicine. So in Chinese medicine, liver issues tend to do with anger, stored anger. It can be from joy or it can be from stress. I mean, there's all kinds of different things. Chinese medicine is fascinating. If you haven't had anybody on your podcast that does Chinese medicine, I would totally get into it.

Lungs in Chinese medicine are where grief is. I remember thinking—I don't know if you remember Christopher Reeve, the actor who broke his neck in a horse accident—so his wife Dana was an actor, but she was also a professional singer. And I remember after his accident, she would say to the interviewers, "Everything's fine. Everything in our family is great. He's doing great, everybody's happy." And I remember saying to my friend, "She's got to talk real, or she's going to end up with something in her heart chakra or lungs." And she ended up dying of lung cancer. And that was such a big example because she was never a smoker. She's a professional singer, but she never addressed, at least publicly, "Wow, our family's life has been dramatically altered in a way that we never expected."

But if people want to really look into the science of things, I mean, there's so much on the internet about the power of emotions and what they call dis-ease or lack of ease. It's a really fascinating thing to look into.

Gabie: Do you think in your situation what you imagined and what you envisioned really was you talking to yourself, or do you really believe that there was some power outside of you that was helping you?

Dr. Dani: I truly believe there was a power outside of me that was helping me. I mean, I physically felt the presence of this loving man. I mean, I remember I even wrapped my arms around him like, "Help me, help me." So I myself feel like there was an external divine force helping me.

Structural Alignment and Reproductive Function

Gabie: You mentioned you wanted to discuss the structure, so the structure and the tension of the body, and how is that affecting reproductive function?

Dr. Dani: Okay. So one of the things—I have a skull model—one of the things that I work with a lot of the people that come in here, men and women for fertility, is making sure that the bones of the skull are moving properly. So our skull is made up of 12 bones. They're all different colors on this model. So you can see that there's joints between different areas behind your eyes. There's joints on the roof of your mouth.

And one of the things that I think is really important, I'm going to take this apart real quick, is this red bone called your sphenoid bone. See where the pituitary gland sits? And every—well, not every—the pituitary is such an important part of the endocrine system. And as you breathe in and breathe out, these bones should move like this. You breathe in, you breathe out, you breathe in, you breathe out.

That breathing in is what circulates the fluid that carries oxygen and nutrients and things to the brain. When you breathe out, it pushes the waste products out. Your sphenoid, as you breathe in and breathe out, should move like this. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. That motion does what's called milking the pituitary gland. So it's kind of squeezing, releasing, squeezing, releasing, almost like a sponge. So it helps that pituitary stay healthy.

But we've got to talk all these endocrine things that work together—the pituitary, the thyroid, the adrenal glands, ovaries. All these things work together, all coordinated up in here in your skull. So I want to make sure that people's cranial systems are moving properly so that the hormones are working right and that the brain is working right, because the brain runs everything, including how you sleep, how you eat, all these things that we don't think about, how you ovulate, these different things.

Now, the other thing is on the other end of the system, on your spine, we've got your sacrum and your ileum bones. This bone should move like this—as you breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. So between this motion and this motion of this one, if you look at them, they look very similar to one another. And then if you look at these ones and these ones, it's hard to do it on the screen, they look very similar to one another as well.

A lot of times what I do is I use these things called pelvic blocks that are put underneath the pelvis here—they're shaped like little triangles and they help get that sacral motion. Now think about, so the brain's up here and it's sending messages to all the different parts of the body. Every vertebrae brings messages to different places. So we've got lungs, heart, all these different things—stomach, pancreas, spleen, liver. You get down here to lumbar three. This is where it connects to the ovaries and uterus.

So there's also connections down in the sacrum and things. All this coordination between the nerve system has to be able to talk with one another to ultimately go back up to the brain. And that's one of the beauties behind the structural work that I do, because if there's interference somewhere along the pathway, if I can figure out how to get it to open up and be able to talk better to the brain, that's when things really start to coordinate.

Now, one thing I wanted to share—another structural thing—there's a muscle called the psoas muscle. It's a very, very, very well-studied muscle. The psoas, or iliopsoas muscle, goes from here on the spine down into the hip. One of the examples I wanted to give of somebody that I use this psoas muscle stretch on—it was a family in Rochester, Minnesota that I worked on. They had worked through all the Mayo Clinic fertility that they could do and they couldn't get pregnant. And I worked on her twice in one weekend and she got pregnant that month.

And what was happening is her psoas muscle, that big one that runs from here, was so tight on one side. In my opinion, what was happening was it was affecting how the ovaries and uterus were working because it was pulling so hard in there. So she ended up getting pregnant and then I worked on her again, and then she got pregnant again.

Gabie: Nice.

Dr. Dani: And every time it came down to that psoas muscle, it was the same one. And I think maybe it was from driving or maybe from old sports. I'm not sure exactly why it was so tight on that one side.

Yeah, she came in again—she wanted to get pregnant and she didn't get pregnant. And I thought, oh, that's weird. It seemed to work the other two times. And then her husband came in with her the next time and I was like, "Wait a minute. I haven't worked on him in a long time." And I said, "Hey, do you have time for both of you to be worked on today?" And they're like, "Yeah. I mean, we came all the way from Rochester. It's an hour and 10 minutes away."

Energy Polarity and Fertility

And one of the things I'm trained in is Qigong, which is a form of Chinese energy healing. And so we use acupressure points and things like that. I put my hands on this man's shoulders and I felt like I was being pushed away, like repelled, like a magnet. And I'm like, "His chi is backwards." So his chi—chi is life energy, that's what flows through our body. It's what attracts things to ourselves and to each other.

And I was like, "How did his chi get reversed?" And I'm like, "You've been under a lot of stress." And he's like, "Oh my God, you have no idea how much stress I've been under." So the family business was having a lot of struggles and he was just working really hard. He has two little kids and they want to get pregnant and they can't get pregnant. So there's all this stress, just stress, and it just flipped his chi backwards.

So again, in my opinion, what was happening with their fertility issues was his sperm was at a different polarity. So you know how we need to put magnets together, they attract together. But if you flip one, they repel.

Gabie: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dani: I thought with this, because I've never heard anything like this, but it came to me, it's like, okay, so if his polarity is reversed, his sperm is not going to be attracted to that egg. It's going to be repelled. So I did this Qigong move where it's a move on the feet that changes the chi so it flows the right way. And they got pregnant with twins that month.

And so, I mean, there's just something like you've got to look at things from so many different angles to be open to what could possibly be going on. I brought that up to my Qigong grand master and she's like, "Well, I mean, I, yeah, I could see how that could happen." I'm like, "I mean, it kind of makes sense. It worked."

Gabie: Wow, that's very interesting. Yeah. Have you—do you have any other interesting stories to share? Is it usually—is that the problem that you notice or have you noticed anything else within the body?

The Emotional Root of Physical Symptoms

Dr. Dani: It can be so many different things. It could be a structural issue in the head, it can be an emotional issue. I mean, again, because I understand the power of emotions and how it manifested in me as a tumor, which by the way, when I had a follow-up MRI, I had nothing. I had no scar tissue, no sign that I'd ever had a tumor there, which is amazing. It was complete remission.

I do have an experience with a woman that came to me. So we both have identical twins in Minnesota. So we were talking about, "Isn't it neat that we both have twin sisters living in Minnesota?" And I said, "Do you have any other siblings?" And she said, "Well, we had a brother, but he was hit by a car. I think he was six and they were five and he was killed." And she goes, "And we saw it happen." And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine the trauma of that."

But she had come to me because she hadn't had a period in two and a half years and her sister had had a baby. They had always dreamed about having babies at the same time. I get it. My sister and I did too.

By the way, I did end up having a second baby. I didn't bring that up because after my tumor was healed, it was I think maybe two months and I got my period back and I got pregnant with my other daughter.

Gabie: Congratulations. Yay.

Dr. Dani: That was exciting. Thank you. So I understood she wanted to have a baby at the same time as her sister, but she couldn't because she wasn't having periods. And so I'm going through structurally through her body, checking her psoas muscle, checking her cranial system, and I couldn't find anything physically interfering. I'm like, "Okay, so it's got to be something else. What could it be?"

And so I asked her body, "What's the root of this? How can I help? How can I help figure this out for her?" And I heard, "Fear of losing someone you love so much." And I was like, "Whoa." And I asked her because she's a healing professional. I said, "I just heard this message—this is the root: fear of losing someone you love so much." And she goes, "Oh, no, I've worked through all that." And I heard, "Not all the way."

So I was doing Reiki, sending love and trying to help her body get over that fear. And I think her acknowledging it again made such a big difference because she got her period the next day and she got pregnant with a little boy.

Gabie: Yay.

Dr. Dani: Yeah, I know. It was so fun. It was so fun. And that's, it's just—it's so wild because you have to look at things from so many different perspectives. And that's why I think why I love what I do so much is because there are physical things, there are emotional things. The mind is so powerful and we all know that.

Gabie: Yeah, and it's all working together in synergy. Emotions affect your physical body and vice versa.

Dr. Dani: Yep. It's fascinating. I mean, once you get into that little rabbit hole of reading about it, you can be like, "Wow, this is way bigger than I ever thought it was." And there's a lot of information out there.

Gabie: What do you think is harder to address? Is it the emotional aspect versus the physical body?

Meeting People Where They Are

Dr. Dani: I want to meet people where they're at. So I had a very interesting experience not that long ago because a lot of people come to me for fertility because I've had really good success with it. And I sat down for my initial consultation with this woman who had specifically come to me for fertility. We're talking about different things and she said, "Honestly, I don't know if I want to get pregnant." I'm like, "Okay. Hmm. Okay. That's going to be an opportunity."

And I said, "So you came to me for this. What's standing in your way? Because I want to make sure that—this isn't like a puppy. This is a baby." Her partner really wanted to have a child, but she wasn't quite sure. And so I said, "Okay, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to do what I can do. I'm going to work with emotions, I'm going to work with the structural, I'm going to do energy work, whatever I can do to make your body and your mind in a place where if it is going to conceive, it'll conceive. But that's between you and your partner. Okay? So I'm going to do what I can do. You do what you can do."

So she didn't get pregnant and then she came to me again, still wasn't quite sure. She didn't get pregnant. I just saw her this week and she's like, "I realize I really, really want to get pregnant. I really do." And I'm like, "Yes. Okay, we're on it. Okay. We've got to get that big, big, big thought handled." And I felt so good. It's like, oh, she realized that she really—this last month, she really felt like she was pregnant. Breast tenderness, just didn't feel quite right. And she was all excited. I'm like, "That's what we needed. We needed to get that spark of excitement in her." And I was so, so, so happy. So prayers.

Gabie: That is important because she was probably blocking her body from conception.

Dr. Dani: Without realizing it. I think too, she'll be a great mommy. She really, really will. It's an interesting thing. You said the word "blocks" and I had an interesting message come through. One time somebody came into me and he was talking about all these blocks that he had in his life. And I heard so clearly, "Instead of calling them blocks, think of them as gates instead. Gates are much easier to open than blocks." And I was like, "Dang, that's brilliant." And it really changed his thought process about his career and his life, because life became a lot easier because it's really hard if there's a block in your way, but if there's a gate to open—

Gabie: Yeah, I like that.

Dr. Dani: So pearl of wisdom from the Divine Source.

Opening the Gate After Giving Up

Gabie: I like that. So that reminds me, there's also situations when you struggle to conceive for a long time and after a while you almost give up and you close that gate. Now in this situation, what would you recommend? And there are some people who say, "Oh, you need to take your time. Maybe stop thinking about it, try to relax," which we all hate this advice, but does that work? Because there are some situations where people really take a vacation or even adopt, and then they conceive naturally. But these are probably exceptions. How do you open that gate again?

Dr. Dani: There's so many things that can be done. Having her realize like, "I really do want this"—like, it meant so much to me that she figured that out. But we also know that chronic stress—I mean the stress of trying to conceive, especially if you've been going at it and going at it and all these different methods that people are taking in—you're taking this herb and doing that and nothing's working. That chronic stress really interferes with hormonal balance, cortisol—all these different things that can really affect people.

There's something that I learned about recently and I don't know a ton about it, but I do want to share it because it's involved with my daughter that I had after my tumor was healed. She started a thing called Accelerated Resolution Therapy, and it's a type of therapy. So for her case, she's very tapped in—she should be after having a mom that had my experience to even bring her into this world because my desire to have that second baby was so important. But she had a fear of throwing up, a very, very, very deep phobia.

I was talking to her over Christmas and she said, "I've done two sessions of this ART therapy and I'm looking for that fear of throwing up and it's gone." And I was thinking about it the other day as I was thinking about this podcast, I'm like, I think people need to know about these other options, not just talk therapy. I've heard of EMDR. ART sounds like EMDR on steroids. It sounds like it's a lot faster.

But it's something worth looking into that if maybe there's a program in your amygdala of your brain that just keeps running and you don't realize it. It's like having a program on your computer that's running and you just need to shut it down. Eye movement and changing the neural pathways—I think there's a really good possibility for this working well with fertility. So there's another one to look up: ART.

Practical Tips for Home Practice

Gabie: Are there any practical tips that you can apply at home if you can't find the right expert or you can't afford an expert?

Dr. Dani: Yeah. I love the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza and he's got a ton of free videos on YouTube. I met him, gosh, probably 30 years ago, and we were talking about quantum physics and the power of the mind, and he has developed ways for people to be able to tap into their own energy fields and really get the body working into coherence.

There's a really good one called "The Blessing of the Energy Centers." So he calls chakras energy centers, but basically what he does—and it's a long meditation, is probably 45 minutes or so. So you've got to be open to having that time to do it. But what he does is he talks you through starting at your root chakra, which is the base down here, starting at your root chakra and visualizing energy in there. And then eventually you go up to the sacral chakra and the solar plexus, and the heart and the throat, third eye and crown. And you're getting these energy centers in coherence with one another, so they're all working at the same level, and everybody's talking to one another.

Amazing, amazing stories about the wondrous things that have happened with people that use his work and it's free on YouTube.

Gabie: Thank you. Thank you for the recommendations.

Dr. Dani: And he has great like week-long conferences and things like that. But for people like me, I just don't have time to do a week-long conference, but I can spend 45 minutes listening to a guided meditation and there are a lot of really good ones on there. Not just about the energy centers, but even for emotional clearing or for sleeping or all kinds of things. Can't say it enough about Joe Dispenza's work.

Integrative Approaches with IVF

Gabie: Many listeners combine conventional fertility treatments like IVF with integrative approaches. Do you see people undergoing IVF and how do you see your work fitting within that landscape?

Dr. Dani: I do work with people. So again, you've got to look at structure. You want to make sure that this down here is able to support implantation and conceiving and a baby, and obviously all those things that are important for down here, especially in the nerve system.

A lot of times I work with people with Reiki to help—if they say "I'm going in for IVF at two o'clock on Thursday," two o'clock on Thursday, I'm there sending healing energy, sending love, sending possibilities, sending anything I can do to help facilitate success for them. And so, I mean, I love working with people through IVF and IUI and things like that because what I do is such a different approach. I mean, you can put an embryo in, but you have to have a good medium for it to grow in. Just like you can plant a seed in bad soil, you're not going to get a good plant, if it even does grow. So you want to have that environment really, really special and perfect for the baby to grow properly.

Gabie: Many people are superstitious. I think I probably was as well, and don't share about their experience. And then you have the IVF scheduled and you don't really talk about it, but now that you're saying this, I think it's maybe better to share with your close circle friends and family so they can think of you at this moment and send all the positive energy possible your way.

Dr. Dani: Absolutely. You know, they go back to the Bible—where two or more are gathered? But there's also a book that I read called "The Power of Eight," and it talks about the importance of having people with the same intention and what they can do together when you're putting everybody in the same vibrational frequency of the same thought or success. It's amazing the things that can happen for people.

I had an interesting experience doing distance Reiki with a woman in Wisconsin. Her husband was a golf coach and for his team, he would always have crystals and give one to each team member. And they would all, during their competitions, all know that they had a crystal in their pocket, but they had all been together. So they had—this sounds really new-agey, but it was really cool—they would all work together as a team even though they were individually golfing. Connected by having those crystals in their pockets, they were in the same energetic frequency.

Well then his wife developed a tumor in her base of her brain, and he ended up sending out stones to anybody that wanted them. Actually, I think her friend took over sending them out. Anybody in the world, they would mail a stone and then they would send out a message to everybody that's like, "Dr. Dani and this woman are meeting at 12 o'clock on Wednesday Pacific time. Can everybody hold your stones and send healing to her?" And it really, really worked. The power of having that connection with people I think is so, so important. So yes, do tell people.

Gabie: Good advice. Yeah.

Dr. Dani: Yeah.

Bridging Traditional and Holistic Medicine

Gabie: Do you ever have to explain yourself when you're talking—because I'm raised by a traditional medical doctor and I don't know a lot about Reiki or Qigong and all of this is so fascinating to me, Chinese medicine. But you probably sometimes have to explain yourself in a lot of detail when you talk to more traditional medicine-minded people. And how do you connect the science with like what is not yet really well-researched and studied, but it makes sense. You've seen it, you've done it. How do you do this? And I'm asking this because I know there will be people and listeners who also are more on the traditional side and they might be wondering how is this possible? How is this working? Do I believe it?

Dr. Dani: How are babies conceived? I mean, think about the power of an egg and a sperm coming together and boom, and all of a sudden it knows to make a spinal cord and it knows to make fingernails and eyelashes. There is a higher power. I mean, let's admit it. There has to be.

With the traditional people that I work with, I mean, you can't deny it. It makes sense to them. When I explain like—the brain works with everything. It connects everything through the nerve system, the hormones, through the chemistry. I mean, it makes sense. And they all agree. They're like, "I mean, there are some that are just like, I wish I had your passion. I wish I had your understanding. Where do you find it?" And I said, "Mine has just been a journey of running into different people, like Joe Dispenza. I just happened to meet him at a conference or hearing a book title three times from people. And I'm like, I should probably pay attention to that." And then I'll read this book and then it'll lead me to somebody else.

I remember I had—it was back in 2020, I had two people that ran an advertising agency that came to me on January 1st, 2020, and it was going to be their best year ever. It was COVID, but I saw them on January 1st and I thought, "Okay, so I've gone through, I've explained what I do. I've worked with both of them." And I said, "Okay, so now you've experienced my work, how would you as advertising people explain it?" And they both looked at each other and exactly at the same time they said, "Magic." I'm like, "I mean, that's the shortest elevator pitch ever," but it seems like magic, but it's not. It's science. It's all neurology and thoughts and energy.

Gabie: And the brain is still so under-researched, right? There's so much about the brain that we don't know and we have yet to find out about.

Dr. Dani: Yeah, it's amazing. One thing I just thought about—there's this part of your brain called the amygdala. And the amygdala is where we process and perceive emotions. And I've worked—I've actually worked successfully with—I had her do a coloring exercise because her sacral chakra, which is the color orange if you look at the different colors—so the sacral chakra is right down here. I had this thought that having her get a coloring book and color only shades of orange while she was focusing energy in her sacral chakra, because it just seemed like that area just didn't have as much power in it as it should.

I mean, this is kind of what Joe Dispenza is doing too with the blessings of the energy centers—working on powering up these different parts of the body. But I thought if there's anything in her amygdala that's still processing like a computer program like we talked earlier, that needs to be shut down—say there's an old memory that maybe they don't even know that there's an old memory, but it's just going and going and going and going—the amygdala, I will have women or men color. In this case, orange for the sacral chakra, and really focus on healing and sending energy to that sacral chakra, ultimately to close down whatever that program is that's in the brain that you don't realize is running. It's fascinating. So many things that can be done that are so easy and cheap, like a coloring book and markers.

Simple, Accessible Practices

Gabie: Yeah, we often overcomplicate things and we want to spend money on expensive supplements, on expensive programs or devices that are supposed to help us without really looking within and what we can—I mean, a lot of the things are for free. Breathing and improving your breath—this doesn't require a lot of money. Your sleep quality, I mean, nutrition is different because, for example, choosing organic versus not, that's going to make a dent in your wallet, but there's a lot of things that are free.

Dr. Dani: Right. I've had a lot of people, especially in the last maybe two years, a lot of young people coming in that are trying all these different biohacks and they're, you know, all the mushrooms and this supplement, that supplement—this is supposed to make me better and this is supposed to make me stronger and this is supposed to make my skin better and my hair better. And they'll come in and their liver is like, "No, that's too much."

There's a lot of people, a lot of young people with liver issues and they're like, "What's wrong with my liver?" I'm like, "Okay, back off a little bit. Maybe do two things, not 24. Maybe even take one thing and see how you feel. You feel great, maybe you feel like crap. I don't know. But piling on all this stuff that social media is like, you need this and you need that." And then if you want to be like this, you're going to have to do that. Keeping it simple, I think is so important.

Gabie: Yeah, I agree. I agree. And your body is not like your friend's body. We're also different, and you have to take more of a personalized approach. You can't just follow every trend out there because most likely it's going to backfire. It's not going to really help you.

Dr. Dani: Absolutely.

Gabie: But I understand because I, for example, have always hated supplements and I was raised to believe that nutrition is very important and you can really take most of the nutrients from nutrition. And when I was struggling to conceive, I took so many supplements because I just wanted to make sure, like everybody just—just in case, you know, take this, that, this—like so many I couldn't even count them and it was probably not a good idea, but it was basically a decision driven by fear. And unfortunately when you have a longer trying to conceive journey, fear is one of the major drivers on this journey.

Dr. Dani: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Managing Fear and Opening Gates

Gabie: Talking about fear, do you have any advice of how we can manage that fear and maybe open another gate, you know, close that gate at least slightly, and transition to hope?

Dr. Dani: I truly think that this therapy idea could really help a lot of people, especially if it's something that they don't realize that they're holding within.

During COVID, I also went to homeopathy school, which is amazing. It takes a long time to learn, but I really would encourage people to look into that as well because homeopathy—it's what physicians used to use for helping people before suppressive drugs were invented. And so what homeopathy does is it's just pellets of specific energy that are given to the body to help it heal itself.

And I'll give you an example of an interesting one. I had a woman come into me that had really bad breath her whole life and they were moving out of state during COVID. And her and her husband came in, they're like, "It seems like you've been able to help us figure out everything. We got a weird one for you. What do you think about bad breath?" I'm like, "Oh, I've never noticed that you had bad breath." And she's like, "Yeah, my whole life, it's been so bad. I've tried every mouthwash you can think of. I have had the prescription strength ones. I've had biopsies of my nose, I've had biopsies of my throat—"

Gabie: Oh my goodness.

Dr. Dani: "—nothing can figure it out." And then I was thinking back on my homeopathy training and I'm like, I said, "Do you have a family history of tuberculosis?" And she said, "Yeah, my dad's parents both had tuberculosis. Why?" And I'm like, "There are some diseases that will stay in genetic tissue. Tuberculosis is one. Gonorrhea, syphilis and cancer. Not that it necessarily causes syphilis or gonorrhea or cancer, but the energy of those diseases stay within this person's tissues. So even though her grandparents both had it, their tuberculosis was transferred to her father, who then transferred the energy to her."

And so I gave her one little pellet of this thing called tuberculinum that's actually made out of tuberculosis. And she texted me two weeks later and she's like, "My breath is fine." And I'm like, "Woo." Yeah. So we're talking about—I mean, it's wild.

There's a whole world out there that I've hopefully opened some people's eyes to that don't understand the power of this. And so homeopathy can work on physical things, it can work on emotional things. If people have fear of going to the dentist, fear of airplanes, maybe they don't even realize that they have certain gates that need to be opened. A really fully in-depth homeopathic consult tells a lot about people and they'll ask weird things like, "What position do you sleep in? Do you crave certain foods? Are there certain foods that you, no way would I want that food? Would you rather have cold water, room temperature water, hot water?" All these things tell the essence of a person. So homeopathy practitioners look at people from a big level.

I don't use a lot of homeopathy. I just wanted to understand it because I thought it was cool. But if I do see it in something that's really obvious, like bad breath, I was like, "Oh, we have to sling this remedy at that one," because it makes so much sense and it worked.

Gabie: Homeopathy is still widely used in the UK. I know I have some friends there who refer to homeopathy often, especially if you have not a very serious condition that doesn't require medical care. Maybe you're just getting a cold too frequently. You want to prevent that. I know that it's widely used in some countries, including the UK.

Dr. Dani: It is. It is something I hope that people will look more into it because it is powerful. Now you have to remember, so homeopathy helps heal at the speed of nature. It's not necessarily fast, but what it's doing is it's helping your body push through its healing process or process through something.

I always think of it as like—because they're little white pellets—I always think of them as like the cue ball in the game of pool. So you're using the cue ball and you're pushing it at a ball and trying to get it into a pocket. So with homeopathy, because it's so specific, you're using that little white pellet and you're trying to get the body to push itself in the direction that it needs to go, that it just sometimes needs somebody to give it a little shove. It's like having a rock at the top of a hill that's just sitting there and you just give it a little push and all of a sudden it can go down the hill. Sometimes the body just needs that.

Gabie: Yeah. Yeah. And even if people start doing their own research, I still advise that they work with someone who understands homeopathy because again, it's just like anything else you take in your body. I wouldn't just Google online and think that this is the right thing for you.

Dr. Dani: No. Don't Google. Go to a qualified, reputable person that's going to look at the body-mind as a whole. You don't want to just be slinging remedies at yourself.

Gabie: Yeah. Yeah. Just like supplements. Yep.

Dr. Dani: Yep. And in my case, like when you look at a tumor here, they wanted to cut it out. But they weren't getting to the root of it, which was my body. I think my body was like making a tumor today. We had to get into the different aspect of why was the body behaving this way? And this is one of the things—I've worked with a lot of people that have symptoms, but it could be coming from someplace completely different.

Gabie: How long ago did your father pass away versus when you got the tumor?

Dr. Dani: He died when I was 26 and I got the tumor when I was 31.

Gabie: Yeah. Long, long time.

Dr. Dani: Mm-hmm. And the thing is, I had no clue that I had regret. I thought I was relieved by not seeing him. My brain's like, "Mm-hmm. You've got to deal with this." And I think it was important too for my own work to understand the power that's available to us from so many different aspects, whether it be through belief or through homeopathy, or through prayer or meditation or food or what have you. I mean, there's so many aspects of things that we can do to enhance our health and our wellbeing.

Working with Skeptical Partners

Gabie: If you see a couple where one of the partners is very in tune with what you're saying and they're willing to try anything and then the other partner is more skeptical, but you have to help both of them so they can conceive. When somebody is more skeptical with these practices, do you feel that it's going to be harder to help them or that doesn't really matter?

Dr. Dani: I don't find that. I usually sit down with my model and we talk about things so I can explain it. They can actually see it, because you can't deny the brain talking to the body is going to work better than the brain not being able to talk to the body. I mean, it just makes sense.

So I haven't really had that—if a couple's trying to conceive and they're in it together and they both want it, I think that's more powerful than somebody being skeptical because I think they're more open. It's like, "We're willing to do anything. You can go see this woo-woo doctor. I'm okay with that." Or "the magical unicorn." I've got so many weird names that people give to me.

Gabie: Because it's hard. I mean, sometimes I feel like we're just so stuck into our everyday lives and being so sold this traditional way of thinking that it's very hard to get out of this box and be able to see what's out there that is affecting you. All these things that are affecting you. I mean, we all run on energy. If there was no energy within us, we wouldn't be able to exist.

Dr. Dani: Right.

Gabie: That reminds me, I was reading somewhere about the heart and the energy that the heart gives off—radio frequency signals, basically. And it gives off the most of our whole body and within, I think a few feet apart, maybe three to four feet apart, you give off that energy and then you have another person in front of you giving off their energy. And that's why sometimes you say, "Hmm, I don't really quite fit with this person. Like we don't have the same energy." And actually, that's what happens. I mean, you have that energy that you're throwing out there in the world and it interacts with everybody else, and you don't always click with everybody you know or meet.

Dr. Dani: That's true. I mean, we are energy beings. That's how, you know, if you get the intuition like, "Oh, I like that person," or "It doesn't feel right."

Gabie: Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing that we have such a system to listen to, to get that gut, that gut instinct and go, "Yeah, nope."

Dr. Dani: Yeah, yeah, yeah. True.

Final Words of Wisdom

Gabie: And there's so many things we can't explain, but they happened. They happened to us and—yeah. Amazing. I mean, Dr. Dani, thank you so much for sharing your experience and your perspective. It's been truly enlightening to see how you approach fertility with looking at the structure, but also the emotional aspect. Super, super important. And finally as like a final sentence, if you want to share or say something to motivate people on their journey, what would you say?

Dr. Dani: Trust your body. Yeah. Give it the right fuel. Give it the right thoughts. Fill it with positive visions, positive videos, books.

One thing too, there's this thing called the reticular activating system in the brain. And when you're first going from sleeping to waking, this area of the brain is really, really active. And so one of the things that I've learned, and I hope that other people can learn from this too, instead of getting up in the morning and like, "I've got to get up, I've got to go have my coffee, I've got to do this, I've got to do this"—be present with your body and focus on what you want to accomplish that day.

Each morning I wake up and I'm like, "Oh, I'm so grateful for my body. I'm so grateful for my heart for doing what it does. I'm so grateful for all these organs knowing what to do. I'm so grateful that I was able to sleep." And it really sets the tone for your day differently.

Gabie: Wake up with intention.

Dr. Dani: Wake up with intention of what you want to achieve and receive that day.

Gabie: Beautiful.

Dr. Dani: Thank you.

Gabie: Thank you so much for listening to this conversation with Dr. Dani. If you found this episode helpful or if you're curious to explore more ways to support your body and your fertility journey, make sure to subscribe to our podcast, The WOVA Circle Fertility Podcast. Subscribing means that you will never miss an episode full of expert insights and practical tips and holistic guidance for conception and beyond. And also, letting more people discover our podcast and discover all of these amazing experts.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

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