Dani's Breakthrough Story · New Earth Community

Dani Carlton

Nov 2 • ⭐️ Our Stories

Dani's Breakthrough Story

Before the shift, I wasn’t self aware of anything, it seems.

I drank on random nights of the week.

I ate basic, simple yet shitty foods.

I partied a lot.

I ran a business, eventually, after trying SO MANY DIFFERENT JOBS.

I had a lot of sex, opened up my relationship, tried a lot of things and was quite the deviant.

I smoked a lot of weed.

I was quick to anger, didn’t admit when I was wrong, acted righteous and didn’t take much responsibility for my actions.

I was cruising, like on autopilot. I didn’t look forward to future much, I didn’t like planning beyond 9 months, so committing to things wasn’t part of my character.

I wanted kids around mid 20’s, then after I got married I felt that feeling fall away.

I was very sexual and sensual, I often thought maybe I had a sex addiction.

I shopped a lot, I was obsessed with buying clothes and stuff.

I used any product, without a care for the ingredients.

I wasn’t aware of the state of politics, the government or the world at large, even though I had travelled to 25+ countries, I also barely remembered my trips (I attribute this to drinking).

CRISIS:

In 2013, a short flight to Florida marked the beginning of an unexpected unraveling for a young woman who thought she was simply going to say goodbye to her beloved grandfather. What awaited her was not just the end of a life, but the collapse of a family system — and the innocence of her own heart.

The visit begins tenderly enough, steeped in nostalgia for the home that once symbolized warmth, safety, and childhood joy. But the moment her grandfather — frail, bleeding, and confused — answers the door, she crosses an invisible threshold. The man she adores is dying, and the family she thought she knew begins to fracture before her eyes.

As she helps care for her grandfather in his final days, long-buried tensions surface. Once-loving aunts turn hostile, twisting grief into accusation and control. In the chaos of his dying, they weaponize loyalty, manipulate her grandmother — slipping into dementia — and force her and her mother out of the home. When she returns to say goodbye, she’s met with locked doors, shuttered blinds, and a grandmother who looks at her like a stranger. Still, she pushes through for one final moment with the man who taught her love, strength, and presence.

After his passing, the grief metastasizes. Family turns to enemies. Accusations of theft and poisoning replace compassion. The home that once held laughter and the scent of sunscreen becomes a haunted memory — closed off, unreachable. Over the next three years, her aunts destroy what’s left of their shared history: photo albums burned, her grandmother hidden away, the funeral stripped of dignity and connection.

The devastation ripples through her body and mind. Anxiety, depression, and addiction fill the void left by loss. Her skin erupts, her spirit dulls, and her marriage strains under the weight of unprocessed pain. Traditional medicine can’t touch the wound — because what’s broken isn’t just physical. It’s ancestral. It’s spiritual.

What began as a trip to say goodbye to her grandfather becomes a story of initiation — into grief, trauma, and ultimately, awakening. This is the account of one woman’s descent into loss and disconnection — and the beginning of her long return to wholeness, truth, and the body that remembers everything.

CHASE:

After my grandfather’s death and the collapse that followed, I tried everything to feel like myself again. Dermatologists, hormone specialists, therapists — none of it touched the ache that lived inside me. My mind was always racing, sleep was restless, and anxiety became my default state. Out of desperation, I downloaded Headspace. It was the first time I realized just how loud my inner world had become. For a few minutes each day, I could finally hear myself breathe.

That small shift opened a door. I started devouring books on psychology and neuroscience, determined to understand what was happening in my body and mind. But even with all the reading, something deeper in me knew I needed more than information — I needed change. Space. Solitude.

There came a breaking point when I looked at my husband and said, through tears, that I felt lost — that I needed to go away to find myself again. Leaving everything behind — my marriage, my home, my business, my friends — was terrifying. But it was also the best decision I’ve ever made.

What was supposed to be a three-month trip to Thailand to volunteer with animal rescues and support local communities turned into sixteen months that transformed my life. I taught English to kindergarteners, fundraised for refugee schools, organized food relief during the pandemic, and raised a litter of wild jungle dogs and two cats — all of whom I eventually brought home to Canada.

But Thailand wasn’t just a chapter of adventure. It was a crucible — the death and rebirth of who I was. My husband and I decided to end our marriage after eleven years. I closed my photography studio for good, stepped away from the dance world that had defined me for a decade, and returned to my small hometown — not as who I was, but as someone I was still becoming.

In that in-between space, I became laser-focused on healing. I meditated daily, read everything I could about science and spirit, and spent hours each day tending to myself — moving, eating with care, journaling, and learning to be honest with what I felt.

When the world shut down, I turned inward and began to trust myself again. I dated freely at first, reclaiming parts of my feminine energy that had long been dormant. Then, after reading Joe Dispenza’s work, I set an intention — to meet someone who truly saw me, someone who would walk beside me in growth. Within a week, he appeared. We spent a year together in Thailand, living the kind of life I had once only dreamed of — simple, soulful, and free.

That season of my life stripped away everything false and left only what was real: my devotion to healing, my belief in transformation, and the realization that peace was never something to find — it was something to remember.

CONFLICT:

While I worked through my divorce amicably, I started offering wellness classes, workshops and eventually retreats. I had “broken up with” my GP and connected with a local naturopath to check in on my overall health. We did hormone testing that showed my inflammation was down (all the physical signs had gone away while I was in Thailand) but it showed that I was not fertile and I also had mold poisoning from a damp apartment I was living in recently. Within 9 months I became fertile but I had to go through a whole new lifestyle to get there.

I quit drinking 100%

I stopped using my phone at night and in the morning

I changed what I ate and used fasting to cleanse my body

I read every day

I prayed every day

I grounded on the earth every day

I did breathwork every day

I moved my body every day

I got in nature every day

I journaled my feelings every day

I expressed gratitude every day

I spent most days teaching children and working at a yoga studio

I had never been so happy.

The conflict was moreso, leaving my marriage, no longer being friends with everyone I was still friends with, as we no longer shared values especially because in this time, I decided not to get vaccinated and that didn’t go over well with 10/12 friends.

I moved back in with my parents after my divorce at 31 which had it’s own challenges.

And then I dated my highschool crush, which ended from a myriad of things but hugely because he had a side relationship that he hid from me when we were supposed to be exclusive. I pushed through for 9 months after I found out but I became anxiously attached which pushed him away and he was in no way on the same page as me emotionally, mentally or spiritually.

I thought that I would try things again with my man that I dated in Thailand. I got on a plane and went back and on arrival, he completely flipped on me and after one meet up, refused to see me again AFTER he had begged me to come back and be with him. I was devastated.

I was chasing happiness again.

BREAKTHROUGH:

This was the moment for my breakthrough - what did I really want? I was fully single, not attached to a home, car, job, I had no commitments to anything but myself.

I met so many beautiful people and started towards the depth of my spiritual journey to uncover my attachment to men, my lack of self worth and my true identity and souls work.

I started a plan to open a wellness center in Thailand in February with a beautiful man by my side, short term romance but everything I needed to be reminded of my worth. It was such a fast, fiery and sexy scenario that I look back fondly on. It was the incubation time I needed to get clear. By October I opened a place by myself. I hosted 2 in person weeklong women’s wellness retreats, weekly yoga classes for the community and 3-day a week jungle school program for kids. I was on fire. I meditated 5x a day, was constantly dancing, laughing, doing yoga, ate clean foods, and was living in joy, purpose and flow.

I realized I was the happiest in this state of being.

I knew who I was finally.

Helping women heal.

Leading children.

Uncovering the lies from our conditioning.

Learning the truth behind what they have been doing to our food, water, skies and minds.

I came alive.

I chose myself every day.

AFTER:

I serve with integrity and truth.

My mission is first.

I take care of myself every day but I prioritize leadership in community spaces for women and children. I want to be the change I want to see in the world. I tell it how it is, but with a softness that carries the truths weight and am highly efficient at the transmutation of information.

I show women that their emotions do not rule them.

I show women that the food they’re eating is controlling their overall health and that they can get that same control back with simple changes.

I show women that they can be fully expressed and fully loved at the same time.

I show women that they are powerful, resilient beings.

I show kids the TRUTH about nature, the self, food, thoughts, movement, etc. and in doing so I gain their trust instantly and help them grow to be better humans.

I raise my son with these values;

Love

Joy

Peace

Balance

Wellness

Movement

Truth

Connection

I am fully devoted to raising my child, and the children of others, in integrity to truth, wholeness and peace - what it truly means to be a human.

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