Crohn's and Colitis, Devastating Gut Issues and the Journey to Healing: 82

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. Today I have Dane Johnson and he has a really, a bit heartbreaking, but of a, it ends up well, no story. And so I'm excited to share him and his, uh, knowledge with you today. We're gonna talk about a lot of things related to gut health, but specifically, um, IBD and Crohn's and colitis. So Dane, welcome. If you could just start by telling people, how in the world you got into this because it was kind of a, a, a sad story the way that it started out.

Yes, it was. And, and Cheryl, thank you so much for having me and bringing me on and sharing this story and what we do with your community and everyone out there who's listening who might be dealing with chronic gut health issues, IBD. I dedicate this talk to you. This talk is for you. And I hope we can get some life-changing results and get some big aha moments today. And so yeah, it was a very sad story, you know, for me. And some of the reasons I'm so passionate about this and I'm here today is because I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, then Crohn's, then ulcerative colitis. The doctors couldn't make up their mind. I got my first symptoms at 19 years old. It nearly killed me on my 27th birthday. So on, you know, I turn, my birthday is November 24th. So December 11th, 2014, I nearly passed away in the hospital 2 weeks after my birthday. I was in the hospital for a month or 6 weeks straight at that time. I suffered for a lot of my 20s and I, you know, I would drop down to 120 pounds from 185. I, you know, had 25 bloody bowel movements a day, extreme cystic acne. I've been on all the medications the doctors told me to. I never wanted this. My parents didn't know what to do with this. I never dealt with any major health issues. My family never dealt with any Crohn's, colitis, or IBD growing up. We didn't know anything about chronic disease. And, you know, it just hit me like a ton of bricks and we didn't know what to do about it. So we went to every different, we flew around the country and to different Mayo Clinic and UCLA and Cedars-Sinai and, and saw different naturopath doctors and tried different diets and read all the big books, the SCD diet, low FODMAP diet, the fruitarian diet and paleo carnivore style. And I just kept getting more sick and more sick and more sick. And my mom was trying to take care of me. I mean, a lot of us can, you know, mothers out there and people out there know what your mom's going to try to do for you. And she, you know, at one point lost her job trying to take care of me so I wouldn't lose my career. Because I was so lucky at 23 years old, I, right after getting, you know, my final diagnosis, okay, you have IBD. Before they weren't really sure. I moved out to Los Angeles to pursue a dream in acting and modeling and doing commercials and all that. And I was a kid from the sticks. I had, it was like from the woods. I wasn't from Virginia. And all of a sudden it happened. I was a nobody. No one found me. And I, went out there and made this thing happen at a young age and with no money in my pocket, tons of debt, no experience, didn't know a soul in California. And at the same time, current clients became life-threatening. So it was a very ironic moment in my life where I remember just thinking, how could God be so giving in one hand and so taking on the other? It was the biggest irony of my life. I was meeting different clients and working all around LA and Miami and New York, and I got all these agencies interested in me in up and then all of a sudden, you know, I can't control my bowel movements. I'm losing blood left and right. I'm anemic. I'm low on electrolytes. I'm fainting. And I, if you can see that little scar, if you've seen the video right there, I was, I was losing control of my, my vision and fainting. I was just hanging out with the buddy and cracked my head open on the side of a table. I mean, all these horrific experiences. I was massive shame, losing control of my bowel movements, scared to leave the house. Could hardly walk, you know, just stuck on a toilet. And I was 23. I mean, it was just, it was, it was, it was torture. And so in one moment I was building this amazing life I never thought I'd have. You know, I was raised in Haymarket, Virginia, in the middle of the woods. We had, you know, we were just good old boys out there. And I had just, always had these dreams and I went after them. I just went after them and then it was taken from me in one fell swoop. And my mom did everything to try to take, help me. And she would travel with me when I was living in Miami or New York and she'd get me my own apartment. And she actually lost her job trying to help me keep mine. And she ended up starting a nonprofit, 501 nonprofit based on that experience. I mean, it poured every dollar she had into all this. And I didn't come from a wealthy family. So when we were spending, $2,000 on functional lab work and $5,000 for round-trip flights and hotel rooms, plus consultations with different doctors and, and different professors who wrote books on, on IBD and gut health and still not getting results. It was, it just seemed like there was nowhere to go. And I became so angry because my parents couldn't give me an answer. These GI doctors with all these degrees and 100 different alphabets behind letters behind their name couldn't give me answers. I had already been on Remicade. I had been on Entyvio. Been on TPN feeding too. I've been on prednisone on and off like Skittles, 60 milligrams, drop down, back up to 60, drop down, back up to 60. I've been on obviously mesalazine. I'd been on 6-MP, which gave me drug-induced hepatitis. My liver started shutting down. I did methotrexate. That didn't work. So I was a young man who was willing to do everything. I just wanted my life back. I said, well, God just gave me this great gift. And now I can't even walk. Doc, give me whatever you got to give me. I was not this against-the-grain guy who was going to go out and heal myself with gluten-free AIP-style diet. I was, no, no, no, sir. Give me what you have. Let me get back to this life. I'm only 24 once. I've got this one shot now. I've got a, I got a casting for a new movie. Who would have thought little old me might be in some movies? Oh wait, I can't walk. I can't be away from the bathroom. I just lost 40 pounds. Now I'm hiding from my agents. I'm hiding from my family. I'm hiding from friends. And I'm supposed to be the cool guy online. This is right when social media started hitting. So what am I— what am I— what does my agent want me to post? What am I supposed to do? I'm supposed to be the cool guy, the hot guy, the hip guy, the influencer. Behind closed doors, covered in cystic acne, throwing up 20 to 25 bowel movements a day at least. I didn't sleep through a night without using the restroom for about 8 months straight. My clothes don't fit. I can't work out. I can't leave the house. I'm in severe pain. Pooping sometimes felt like I was trying to poop glass. And it was just, and everyone out there who can relate to this, it's, it's like we all know, it's like, well, you're just supposed to go to the doctors, right? If you get sick, you go to the doctors. You get really sick, you check yourself into the hospital. Been there, done that, still sick. So I start looking at this like, is this it? Is this, is this what I was meant to do? Is there nothing else I can do? Mom, Dad, what, what else? They write a check, don't get anywhere. Well, what do I, what do I eat? Mom's researching day and night. Okay, we're gonna do this, we're gonna eat that, we're gonna take this random supplements, go to Whole Foods. Drop by everything we can find that Google says at Whole Foods. Just take everything in the supplement side and every organic food, get it. That's not $800. I'm still just as sick. And so it was, you know, it was the most painful thing I've ever been through in my life. And it was a prison I didn't know how to get out of. And no one knew how to get out of. And I want to share the keys to what helped me get out today. And I want to share the keys to success because eventually I did. And December 14th, right around there, 2014, I nearly died in the hospital. And I was on 2 or 3 different antibiotics. I was on infused, I was on 200 milligrams of infused prednisone, which is about a little over 3 times the dose they'd ever give you orally. I was on a TPN feeding tube, and then it was a doctor in Florida who had an idea that there was an active virus in my body, which is why I was chronic, I was dying and I wasn't getting better from the not eating, being on antibiotics, being on massive dose of steroids. It wasn't working. No one could figure out why. Doctors were scratching their head, why is this kid so sick? And I had lost consciousness at this point. I was in dreamland. They had me on 3 grams of Dilaudid as well, which is basically legalized heroin. So I was floating on a cloud, talking to the wall, right? And so when this one doctor suggested I needed to be on a chemotherapy antiviral, that's what's actually saved my life. It was about 24 hours later, I snapped out of it where I became conscious. All my, my markers started calming down and I started being able to eat. And then about a week later, I checked myself out of the hospital and then I was housebound for a year. So I was bedrested from there for 3 months. Took me about a month to get off the couch and start being aware. So I just sat on the couch. My mom and sister took turns living with me. So my mom had to get back to work. I mean, we, we were a middle-class family. She couldn't just stay out there. And because I wanted to live in California, my whole family was from East Coast. I didn't want to leave my life in California. That to me was the ultimate failure that I would have to go on disability, live back with my mom. And to me, I just, because I had so much going for me in California at that time that I felt like I built this life. I was very happy with it. And she didn't want to see me lose that either because it was like that hope that you're going to be able to get past this. Don't give up on your dreams. And so her and my big sister took turns living with me. And I was actually grateful for that because I got so close with my sister and, you know, just years on a couch all day long. I mean, we were watching anything we could watch. I was, I was watching space, space exploration all day long. Animal Planet. I learned everything there is to learn about the Antarctica and about the planets. I don't remember much because I was, you know, so hipped up. But it took me about 2 to 3 months to be able to start walking again. And, and then during that time, I got myself off methotrexate. I still was on the Entyvio. I got myself off the chemotherapy. I got myself off the antibiotics. I got myself off— took about 4 or 5 months to get completely off prednisone. So I got down to about 10, 12 grams of prednisone that I had to just slowly be on. Coming off too quickly really caused problems. And then I was dealing with extreme depression. I mean, when you have that much toxicity— to this day, I think that one of the reasons I got so bad mentally— I mean, obviously you get that bad when you go something like that, that you just get into a depression. But I felt so sickly. You ever been not so nauseous? But imagine like a spiritual, like a nauseous feeling spiritually. Like you just, everything just lost its color, lost its taste, lost its hope. It was just a very bleak energy everywhere. Every cell in my body was bleak. And I remember just feeling like I just hated waking up and being conscious because I didn't want to feel. I didn't want to feel anymore. It felt so bad. And I think that had a lot to do with coming off the painkillers. And coming off the drugs. I mean, my body was so toxic, so overwhelmed that I had to start releasing. And I remember it was actually after my first Epsom salt bath, I did a lot of, I started doing skin brushing. And then the bottom of my feet were actually, all the skin was falling off my feet. And I think that was because my body trying to drain those toxins. I also had no fat where your body stores toxins because I'd lost 60 pounds. So it was being stored in my muscles. And so I had such muscle cramping. So I was doing, I started doing Epsom salt baths about 6 weeks into being home. And then a lot of skin brushing, a lot of breath meditation, very specific about what I was eating. A lot, you know, a lot of broths and just a little bit of light meats. I couldn't handle fats. My pancreatic enzymes weren't working. Just a host of problems. I mean, it was a tight bundle of problems. And it was about 9 months, 10 months in that I started being able to go on long walks and ride a bicycle and get to the grocery store and get my own groceries. And I got back up to like 150 pounds. I'm 6'2", so it was a light still. I would usually walk around at 180, 185. Today I'm like 188. And start going back to the gym. And I remember my mom said this. She goes, you're crazy. What are you doing at the gym? You almost died. I said, ma, just the act of going to the gym every day. I went to the gym 27 days in a row, 140 pounds, and I could barely walk with a cane. It wasn't because I was working out. It was the act of getting out of the house and getting in a routine and being around that good energy. See, one of the brilliant things of being that sick is it taught me— I was so— I was life-threatening backed into a corner where at its primal basics of survival, you start becoming aware of the need to feel good. Like part of healing is just searching like, like a mouse looking for cheese of good energy. You just are looking. You can't just ignore it anymore. You can't just turn on Netflix and ignore it. You gotta get around positivity. So when I went to the gym, I saw some of the guys I knew from the gym cuz I was a big, big gym guy, right? I just love going and exercising and running, whatever. So just going and being around that energy, just putting on my headphones, just saying it's 11:00 AM, I'm gonna go there. I'm gonna be able to ride my bike. Just being able to sit on a mat and meditate for 30 minutes, then go home. Just being in the back of a yoga class, you know, and just being on my hands and knees and going, just the, just the act of being there. And I started feeling better. And then all of a sudden I started getting 5% more done at the gym, 7%, 8%. And I found reasons to smile and I found reasons to laugh. And so when you, when you're backed into a corner or fighting for your life, or you're really in a deep depression, or if you're in a hospital right now, you got to find something to laugh about. You gotta find what's good. You gotta share what's good. And when I started changing my mindset that I was no longer going to be sick or depressed, when I started with that and said, I'm done, that's when my life changed. So it really starts with a decision in your mind. And then from there, if you have conviction, you, you will manifest it. You will create it from there. And so that's what I did. And it was every single day. And I really learned the bare basics of where does happiness come from? Where does emotional and spiritual depth and healing come from? You know, what is it that makes us happy? Is it our fitness? Is it the perfect body? Is it fame? Is it money? Or is it being able to talk to those that you love and find a reason to laugh and be of value to them? You know what makes humans feel good? When you feel of value to others. I was feeling so depressed because I was such a burden to everyone around me. So I woke up and said, I got to start being of value to others. I call a buddy and he goes, oh my God, are you okay, man? Tell me. Don't worry, I'm great. This is what's good. This is what's good about my growth. Even though I was still very sick, this is what's good. This is what's good. Tell me about your life. How are you? How's that girl? Are you going to put a ring on it? How's the career? Oh, this is what I think might help you. This is what I might think help you. I started trying to be of value to others instead of just being a burden. And that made me feel good about myself. That made me feel like I had a purpose to live. Humans don't feel good unless we feel of value to others. That's why when we create success, one of the things we always want to do is give. I want to buy my mom a house. I want to build, I'm going to build a new water supply or help create electricity in India, Africa, or third world country. As we create success, we just want to be more value. So you start, I started learning and becoming aware of what it meant to feel good, what happiness emotionally and spiritually, how to make that trade. And what were the limiting beliefs around food? Why is, why did I feel I needed gluten? Why do all humans feel they needed fast food? Why did I feel like I needed alcohol? And why did I feel like I couldn't live without, you know, McDonald's or Papa John's or Doritos or donuts or bagels? Because that's what I grew up on. I mean, when the first gluten-free diet was ever shown to me, I said, there's no way. There's no chance. Everything I eat is gluten. I was raised on cereal and Papa John's and Subway. I worked at Papa John's Pizza. From 14 years old to 18 years old. So what do you think I ate? You know?

Well, and that's an interesting, I mean, gosh, having gone through that, what a traumatic experience. But I'm sure at this point, you know, you've looked back, you've had so many lessons from that on just life generally and happiness and all of that. But I think for the, you know, the health part of it, what were the lessons that you sort of learned about you know, was there anything that you were doing at the time that you feel like was exacerbating the condition? Or, you know, cuz you mentioned gluten and that's immediately where my mind goes to because that's such a pervasive, uh, thought process lately that people have. Like a lot of people, there's like demon or gluten's the devil and a lot of people are like, no, it's still fine. And it's just, it's a big debate. And you know, there's been all these books like Wheat Belly and, and all kinds of things. So I, I would just love to hear you know, having gone through that most dramatic experience almost that anybody could go to with your gut, like what did you take out of that? And you went to all these experts, like eventually was there some light bulb where you kind of like figured it out at least for yourself?

Yeah, great question. And so now I wanna give you some of the defining moments and what I call universal truths that helped me heal. And so if you're listening right now, maybe grab a pen and paper, write these down if you're chronically sick or need something, cuz these are life-changing. Number one, I decided that the way I was going to make a decision on what was, you know, physically, like food, for instance, what food was good or bad, was I had to, I was going to do things that could only help me and couldn't hurt me. So that was my first rule. Can this potentially hurt? Can this potentially help? So if it could potentially help and not hurt, I was going to do it. So first I had to look at the obvious ones, prayer and purpose. Could it hurt? This is exactly, when I got that deep, I had, this is my first rule. Prayer and purpose can't hurt, can only help. Okay. Meditation can't hurt, can only help. Putting on Bob Marley, turning off the scary movies, getting myself in the parasympathetic nervous system can only help, it can't hurt. Gardening, getting out in the sun, putting my feet in the soil can only help, it can't hurt. Reducing my, any arguments, reducing any anger, pain, resentment. Like I forgave my father and we started getting a lot closer when I got chronically sick, a lot closer. So that was obvious to me. And a lot of you guys are saying, ah, well, Dan, give me the unobvious. It's unobvious for a reason, and it's a journey you have to go through for a reason. So stop trying to go around it and go through it. Okay? So here's the next thing. Healing starts in the mind. So what we just said, those were all mental aspects. Okay? And when I started looking at what really changed my life, it wasn't— I didn't find the perfect diet. I didn't find the perfect supplement. That all came when I did these things first. So these are your first steps, and then all of that will become more clear. Here's the next one with diet. What's more important than if you're gluten-free or you're, you're, you're looking at the vegan versus meat war going on right now? Here's what I want you to do. Here's more important than any of those questions. Only eat what you cook. When I started meditating and clearing my mind, I said, what's the most empowering thing I can do that reduces the risk no matter what I choose? Oh, eggs are bad or they're good, or chicken's bad or good, or brown rice or white rice, or lettuce or, or, or nuts and seeds, or no, I gotta have, I gotta have my own homemade yogurts and raw milk. Oh no, I I gotta have more sauerkraut. No, the lactobacillus is hurting me. No, it's too much histamine. All that stuff. First thing you do, only eat what you cook. When I got— when I started spiritually healing, I was now in an energetic place to do that. I don't know. I was also— I found a place to go to school. So find a place to get trained. I went back to school for natural medicine and I was dealing with my natural health professors, asking them questions, going to people who would study this for 10, 15, 20 years, looking at how they ate, look at how they made decisions around food.

Food.

And a lot of it, there's so many better questions to ask yourself before we get in the argument of this is bad and this is good. Okay? The quality of the food, the manner at which it's prepared. Is it local? Is it seasonal? How do you mix food? Okay. One of the things that I found when I started researching different diets, like when I looked at the, all the, all the diets and understanding of the carnivore and AIP, and I saw all the research there, then I looked at David Klein's Self-Healing Crohn's Colitis on the fruitarian diet and only eating 20 bananas a day. And then I looked at the bone broth diet, and then I looked at And then I tried the low FODMAP and I did SED and then I did, uh, Gundry's low lectin and I found beautiful nuggets in all of them. All of them had great points and then I cherry-picked them and I customized them to myself. That's when my life changed. So I actually found that I could do styles of vegan fruitarian at certain parts of the day and then I journaled on them and then I did styles of AIP carnivore, uh, maybe for lunch or dinner or on a Tuesday or Wednesday and then I would journal on them. So the biggest thing I would recommend next is you have to journal. I journaled for 187 days, everything I ate, how I felt, my exact symptoms. So I had a symptom tracker and then I started being Dr. Dane twice a day and my patient Dane came in and told me the truth. So 5 minutes more in the name. Okay, Dane, did you eat that crappy food? You should have. How'd you really feel? Did you notice a difference in bowel movements? Oh, you saw more blood today. Do you think it was about what you ate yesterday? You think it was the stress? You think it was about sleeping? So I was using my intuition to say, what do you think? But before I was too upset, stressed, angry. I didn't have a place to really get a vision of what was going on. So I, I couldn't impact empower myself to understand. Okay, so that's another thing you have to do right now. Write down— you got a journal. If you're really ready to heal and you're not journaling, ask yourself why. Why would you not journal? How hard is it? I'm talking 5 minutes morning, 5 minutes at night. Okay, and if you need the journal, just shoot us— just say, write us info@cronesplace.life and say, hey, Dan, can you send me the journal? Send you my journal for free. I built this when I was housebound. I wrote it up, I rewrote it, rewrote it, and said, this is what I want to track. Okay. And I got a, I got one around here somewhere if I can find it on my desk. Nope. Can't find it. But I put it in a 3-ring binder and every day, and it just, it did the things I need. So that was big. So again, healing started in the mind. I did what could only help me, couldn't hurt me. I journaled every single day so I could get more intuition. I only ate what I cooked and that gave me more intuition on what I was gonna eat. So as, and then I had a community of training. So every day I was getting trained in natural medicine, functional medicine. Lab work. I was, I was, so I was looking on the outside. I was reading 3 to 4 hours a day. Reading can only help you, can't hurt you. These are all beautiful things I learned when I was chronically sick is that, do you know why Buting is so, reading is a must? If you are in a mentally tough place right now where you're dealing with depression, okay, and you are in a bad place, you must read. Okay, here's why. You cannot have all your negative thoughts in your head going on repetition over and over again and read a page at the same time? If you get in your head, what happens to your page and your place in the book? You lose it. Aha, wait, I can't read and think about all my problems at the same time. If you— and how much does it cost to read a Tony Robbins book?

Nothing.

How much does it cost to read the best doctor's books in the world? Mark Hyman's books, how much it cost? How much? $5. It was so—

I don't even think about— you can go to the library. Nobody does that anymore, but you don't even have to buy the book.

When— and that's why I say you got to start with the spirit. When my spirit healed, there was obvious answers. I was just too angry and upset with my parents and the doctors and God, and so, and so anxious and scared. And when I got all that energy down and I could see through the fog and I could see clearly and I was convicted and I decided I'm done being sick, I'm done being a victim, I'm done, I'm gonna heal. The steps became obvious. It wasn't obvious how to get there, it was obvious what to do next. I'm gonna say it again: it wasn't obvious how to get there, it was obvious what to do next. Should I start reading every day? Yes. Why? Because there's wonderful information and people have already been through crazy stuff like this in the future. So I was reading Jordan Rubin's book Who healed himself of IBD. You want to hear about manifestation? I talked and did an hour-long call with Jordan Rubin. I'm going to partner with him next year. And his books helped save my life. What? What? That man's books helped save my life. And it wasn't just his telling me what supplement to take or on SBOs or HMOs or probiotics or the Maker's Diet. It was his story. It was his energy. It was his spirit that allowed me to feel like if he can do it, if I can do it. He's the only one who I'd read who had gone through what I was going through. I hadn't met anyone who had been sick and gotten better like me. I didn't meet anyone who could relate. I never met a doctor who could relate. That's one of the reasons I started my company, because we've been through it. We're going to help you go through it. We're going to help you do it with you. We've gotten massive success. Okay, I'm symptom surgery drug-free. I want to— I weigh 185 pounds. I can eat what I want. I could go eat an entire large Papa John's pizza with gluten, with dairy, go run 10 miles, and then go hang out with my kids and be Fine. Not because it's not good for me. That's all trash and it's inflammatory and it's bad for you. But my body is so strong. My shield is so strong. My digestion is so optimized. My microbiome is so optimized. My body can handle that stress. That's what healing's about. A normal person can handle the inflammation. It's not that it's not inflammatory. Their body can handle it until it can't. Right? A shield. That's why I call the program Shield. So we'll talk more about that later on. But that's how I came at it. I had to rebuild the body in step 1. Step 2 became obvious. So when I started reading, I started looking, how do I build this energy? I started going to bed at 10 o'clock. My house was perfectly clean. I didn't watch any scary movies. I didn't put on anxious music. I only listened to Bob Marley. I let the sun in. I got my feet in the ground. I started journaling. I started planning, taking care of plants and gardening. And the one thing I used to laugh about is like trying to watch a garden grow is like trying to heal. If you look every single day, it's like, oh gosh, it could take forever. But 3 weeks later you're going, wow, I can't believe how much this has grown. Right?

That's a great analogy. I love that.

And that's why I love taking care of the garden. I was like, by the time this tomato plant gets tomatoes, I'm gonna have no blood. By the time this, these strawberries come out, I'm gonna gain 10 pounds. Not gonna happen overnight, but if I put time and focus with every day, so I'd wake up, I'd, I'd make a mucosal healing tea, hot tea with different herbs. I like peppermint and chamomile, and I'd put a little slippery elm and marshmallow root. And then maybe slice of ginger. And I go out and I grab my book. And I always read. I found little things that helped me read because I didn't like reading, right? I found that if I had a highlighter, I read better because as I read something that was like, aha, I would highlight it. And then I might even go to the back of the book and write it as a star in the back of the book. So I'd go out in my garden. I'd see that first sun. I'd get that sun in my eyes. I'd have my robe on. I'd have my tea. I'd have a little bit of Bob Marley in the background. I wanna love ya. You know, and I'd be on my patio. So I created an environment that was like a vacation. If I take a billionaire and they were going on vacation, how much of that energy do they want to— they want to do on their vacation? They have all the money in the world. They want that same energy. They want positive energy. They want a quiet morning. They want to wake up with the sun. They want to be around a garden. They want to have a book that inspires them. It doesn't— I don't care how anything— so you start learning about what success is. The poorest man can have such better energy in his life than the richest man because of ignorance of how energy and spirit and the earth works. So when I got chronically sick, and although everything was seemingly taking away from me, everything was seemingly taking away from us, I started really realizing what to have was— it was an exchange of energy that you don't need a lot of money for, that you don't— I, I couldn't be away from a bathroom, but I could still love. I could still smile. I could still get that Bob Marley around me. I could get that sun around me. I could get those plants around me. To this day, I still take care of 70 plants. When I was 25, I took care of 200. How many of you are feeling this energy right now? If you can feel this energy, say right now with me— I know you can't hear me, this is a recording— but say amen. Say thank you. Say yes. Because that is the energy. You got to absorb it. You got to eat it. That's your vitamin. Oh man, Benazadi, shout out to him. That's his vitamin G. Vitamin G, right? That's the vitamin G we're talking about. You gotta get that positivity. I started going to church. Why? Because I just knew I needed— I wanted to put my hands in the air. I want to be grateful. I wanted to sing because I was done being sick, not because I was trying to, you know, argue about anything. I need— you got to get positive energy around you. No more negativity, no more victimhood, no more anxiety, no more fights. No more, I can't. Only what I can. Those who say they can and those who say they can't are both usually right. When I'm feeling down, get a book, go for a walk, get that sun, get on the phone and make someone's day better. Find a reason to smile, find a reason to laugh. To this day, when I get on the phone with my team, the first question is, what's good? You start your day with what's good, always. You tell someone a problem, you tell them 3 solutions afterwards. Do not tell people, do not enroll people in problems without then enrolling them in solutions. This is all I learned through chronic suffering, almost losing my life, and more pain than I ever thought I could take. So, you know, pain to purpose. Diagnosed with purpose. You can do this. You have to tap into your divine power as a human, and as you do it, step 2 and 3 will be obvious. So that was another one. Get in a community where you can learn, where you can grow, where others around you are doing what you're doing. That's our program. In our program, you can talk with everyone in our program. We don't have this whole thing where you can't talk to each other. We are a free governing community with over 1,000 members of moms and elders and children of all creeds, all races, all cultures, all diets, all talking to each other, all focused on solutions, all, all cheering each other on. Okay, no diets, only a lifestyle. Build your lifestyle, forget a diet. Okay, build your plan, your unique plan. Cherry-pick from each other. That's it. That's the energy. And when you learn this, I want you to take a step back from this, and this is going to help. This is what gave me my power to just be convicted as all can be. I started thinking, okay, Dane, imagine right now— everyone imagine with me— imagine you're not sick at all. Imagine you're free. There's no more, there's no more sickness. You're safe. You're safe. Now imagine trying to create your very best life, family, business, wealth, lifestyle, travel, vacation, hobbies, relationships, friendships. How much of this energy is needed or desired to build that very best life? Should you be focusing on positive energy? Should you be eating more, more specific? Should you be around people who have common goals? Should you be reading books and training? Should you be getting up in the morning with the sun? Should you be putting down all the anxious, scary stuff and just listening to good energy and positive vibes? Would it be better if you cooked your food? If you had a billion trillion dollars, would you have someone be giving you local food or fast food? How would you eat? How would you exercise? How would you communicate? What kind of relationships would you want? Would you want to make their day better? Would you want to help them? Okay, now come back to right now. How much can you— of that can you do right now? 98% of you building your best life are practices you can start instilling right now.

And I, I think that's, Dane, the perfect segue to talk a little bit, cuz you mentioned it briefly about your program. And I think one of the most underrated, I have a video about like the 4 Cs or the 5 Cs, something like this, but it's, um, one of the most underrated things in any kind of goals, I believe, is community. So you mentioned your community, you mentioned the Shield program, and I want to be really mindful of your time and mine as well, because I'm actually recording another show today. But, um, I would love for you to share a little bit about more about your community, about Shield and how people can get involved, because I think you're right. It's not a lot of times, especially specifically for challenging, uh, diagnosis. There, there's not one specific thing that's gonna automate automatically make you feel better. It's a conglomeration of things. It's often things that you have to figure out for yourself, as challenging as that seems, but it can be made less challenging by having a supportive community. So I'd just love for you to share more about that before we wrap up today.

Yeah, 100%. Thank you so much, Cheryl. So, and, and the SHIELD program, the basis, the big headline is I built what I needed when I was chronically sick and, and failing to get any results. That's the basis and theme. And my family almost went broke trying to heal me. We spent over $30,000 in the first year without getting results. And so everything was about trying— how can we get the best results in the most cost-effective way? So when you come into the SHIELD, stands for supplements, herbs, imagination, exercise, lifestyle, and diet. 6 pillars of health. Build your SHIELD. Okay? Metaphorically, build your SHIELD because the cure for all disease is the ability to respond to adversity, not eradicate it. The ability to respond. So in the SHIELD program, you will get a, a private coach. I believe that having one-on-one support is vital. Okay? You have to have a one-on-one coach. So our coaches have Crohn's colitis. They've healed it. They only see Crohn's colitis. They specialize in it. We see about 120 Crohn's colitis clients a week around the world, and we have coaches all around the world. Okay? So it's included in that. You're gonna get a customized plan. So you wanna start, as I was mentioning earlier in my own story, you've gotta start with a, a, a proven system, something you can repeat. So number 1, start with consistency over perfection, something you can repeat. Try to get your pro— your protocol first thing in the morning, last thing at night. And then as you journal, as you get experience, you then start customizing. Some of us need they focus more on probiotics, antipathogens, binders, liver, liver gallbladder drainage product, getting rid of fissures, fistulas, hemis, strictures by using healing enemas or things of that nature. And so we need to then start customizing. So we're gonna start you off with the proven system and then customize based on the experience that you have or what you're even telling us off the bat. So everything's customized and we do what's called food philosophy. So that's the idea. The mission of food philosophy is to eliminate a diet and build a lifestyle. Because not one person listening or one person on this planet really desires a diet. We desire results. And then we wanna be free of a diet and be able to eat what we want. So we're gonna treat you like an adult to be able to assess the risk of any food. That's what food philosophy is, to look at any plate of food and be able to assess its risk for your personal needs based on your stress, where you are, how far along you are in optimizing your gut. I couldn't eat anything when I started. Now I can eat everything because I fixed the gut. Imagine metaphorically like a torn ACL. Once the ACL heals, you can start playing B-ball again on the court.. You can start going for a run, not immediately. And if you do it wrong, it'll get worse, right? So you have to do it in a right tempo and move it up, but you can do it, I promise. And so you're gonna have a customized plan with a coach. You're gonna be a lifetime member. You're gonna have access to the community. We do live trainings every week. So I do a live on different topics every week. You can ask questions, we can listen to any recording. I've done a live for the last 2 years. It's complimentary for free. There are no hidden costs. You can also do lab work. So we also have lab work. We can get and interpret stool analysis, mold analysis, organic acid tests, viral load panels. We work with Dr. Armin MD in Germany on that. He built us a very customized viral load panel we think is connected to IBD. And we can do parasite detoxes. And we also do trainings on alternative therapies like APC. I just did 240 million stem cells in Cancún and how did that work and how to utilize that and hyperbaric oxygen therapy, you name it. This is that's all we do. We're a train moving 100 miles per hour just on Crohn's colitis. And we have more testimonies than anyone in the world doing it. We post a testimony a week of someone getting rid of all of their symptoms with Crohn's colitis. We have over 500 testimonies with Crohn's colitis. We also see IBS and other things like microscopic colitis and people with, you know, other things like other issues going on with IBD or undiagnosed. So you can reach out on that. And then we work around the world. We have testimonies in India. We have testimonies in Africa, obviously all over Europe. All over North America. We work with kids as young as 6 or 8. Those are very difficult. You, as a, you need, as a parent, you'd be very ready to learn this yourself because we'd be training you. And we've worked with 60, 70 years old. We've worked with tons of people post-surgery, people who had 10, 12, 15 surgeries, 40 years of disease, with tremendous results. Um, you know, I've, I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of the most extreme cases around the world, life-threatening cases. And so this is what we do. We're very passionate because we've been through this. Our families have suffered. Our families have spent thousands and thousands. And we want to build a community where we just focus on customizing and getting you trained. So the last thing about the SHIELD program is it's a place where you get trained. Even, you know, if you're done with the private coaching, you have the program, you have the live trainings every week. We have multiple doctors on staff also acting as professors doing trainings on nutrition and supplements and Chinese medicine and chiropractic medicine. And then we're also looking at Ayurvedic. I mean, you name it, we're doing it. We're here to learn. We're here to grow. You're a part of a team. You are part of a place where you're always gonna be able to learn. We have a phone, phone app coming. We have a new, new subscription model where I was just telling Cheryl about, so stay tuned on that. You're gonna be hearing about that. And if you are interested in this, what we do is we set you up with about a 45-minute to 60-minute free session with one of our IBD specialists. So your IBD specialist has had severe Crohn's and colitis themselves, gone through the worst, the worst, and they're gonna do a free call with you to talk about your case, your needs, how the program works. And so that link is below in Cheryl's show notes. As you can click that, you can schedule a free call and ask us your questions and really get a sense of us. Because the two things I want from now, if you want to learn more about us, is we want trust and integrity. I want to earn that from you. I want to show what's possible. And I want to help because I've been in your shoes. My family's been in the shoes. This is my life mission. And I'm so, so excited about what I do and how to do this. And I just, just like, there's so much you can do. I promise you, there's just a million things we can do. Even the toughest cases, they're hard. They take time. It's not easy.. It's not a drive-through for healing, but you can do this. And just remember, healing is possible. Start with the mindset. Look at those foundations we talked about. Start journaling and set up a call with us and stay tuned for more because there's so much, there's so much possible. And Cheryl, thank you so much for having me on today. And I wish we had all the time in the world to keep breaking down how to get results. But, you know, we'll go.

Well, you'll just have to come back and I won't schedule anybody after you this time.

Yeah.

But I think It's so wonderful that number one, I think it would be obvious to anyone whether they're seeing or hearing you that you are so very passionate about this subject. And it's just amazing to me that this, what you're doing now all came out of such a, a very painful and scary time in your life. So I really just wanna acknowledge you for turning that around and then creating something so wonderful out of this. And I think, you know, there's lots of things in what you said today that even if people don't have Crohn's or colitis, that I think they can come away from this having learn something and being able to implement it in any challenge that they're dealing with, really.

Yes. Thank you so much, Cheryl McColgan. Remember, guys, and you're right, anyone, any disease, turn pain to purpose. The universe works the same for all of us. If you're dealing with another disease, start with your mind. Build a system you can be consistent with. Get in a training, get in some kind of community, learn from others, customize your own plan, okay? And find a place to keep it up because you're just going to learn and grow, learn and grow. It's the same in fitness, the same in marriage, the same in kids. Same in career, same in building a business, as same in Cheryl building the best podcast in the world. It's all the same. We learn and grow together. God bless, guys. I am here for you. Healing is possible. Turn that pain into purpose.

And Dane, really quick, it's all in the show notes, but tell people where they can find you and where they can follow you.

Yes. Instagram, Crohn's, C-R-O-H-N-S, colitis, C-O-L-I-T-I-S, underscore lifestyle. Or you can follow me personally, Dane Johnson 1. So that's Instagram. The website is crohnscolitislifestyle.com. We're also on YouTube. It's youtube.com/crohnscolitislifestyle where you can see more testimonies or how-tos. Grab in our, get in our email list when you go to our website. We'll send you our 6 Tips to Healing. So you can start there with some protocols and then our healing journal where you can get the journal that I used for about 7 months straight. And so that's that template that you can start filling out. We're gonna have you fill it out when you join the program, guys. And you can click on all that in the show notes, but We're excited to see you. DM us, let us know how we can serve you. Thank you so much, Cheryl, for having me.

Thank you again, Dane, so much. I appreciated this and enjoyed talking to you today.