I had the pleasure of interviewing Lillian Daniels who specializes in natural knee healing . She is the founder of TheHappyKnee.com where she works with clients coaching them through the Happy Knee method to get to their knee goals naturally without pain pills or surgery.
Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I started in accounting and I did not really feel I was having an impact or making a difference in the lives of others. Once I healed my own ACL tear without surgery and saw how much my life was enhanced I saw that this method could really add to the quality of life of others .
How have your personal challenges informed your career path?
There were a few challenges
- I tore my ACL
- Unclear Insurance coverage & not having the money to pay for treatment
- I had to heal it myself
Being unable to walk with my torn ACL was very scary and one of my biggest challenges at the time. As an active person (track runner and basketball and swimming) not being able to even walk made me worry that this would be the end of my active lifestyle. I set out to heal my own knee. When I spoke to my friends who did get treatment for their knee I realized the results from my healing my own knee were exceptional in comparison. After successfully completing the NYC marathon I felt confident to offer my solutions to others.
Can you share five pieces of advice to other doctors/clinicians/healers to help their patients to thrive?
- Get into yoga and do not be intimidated- Yoga is incredibly healing , and if you can breathe then you can do yoga. Start early to build a habit that will positively shift how you approach and show up in the world.
- Respect the Power of Habit — Habit vs. pure Willpower, Habit will usually win. For this reason it is helpful to build habits that can benefit your health and wellbeing early as it will help in the avoidance of having to do something cold turkey.
- Be kind to yourself — Working to adapt new healthy habits can be challenging and the perfect time to practice/test speaking kindly to yourself as you work to improve. Be kind instead of beating yourself up as you work to improve and conquer a new challenge (this is not limited to health routines you can always be kind to yourself)
- Drink more water — As a key to so much healing and a cheat to beauty hacks and more, water is an absolute essential. Learn and implement the tricks that help you drink more water & as a result you will enhance your health immensely.
- Listen to your body and respect your opinion — No one has been with your body longer than you trust it and listen to it, get to know it.
Social media and reality TV create a venue for people to share their personal stories. Do you think more transparency about your personal story can help or harm your field of work? Can you explain?
Social Media can truly help especially if you are sharing things that you have already solved for yourself. Social media also allows me to show that we are really not that different and that something that may have been seen as unsurmountable is in fact achievable. I appreciate the convenience of being able to quickly post & share helpful eating , yoga and health tips that I think people will be able to get immediate benefit from.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant to your life?
“You are your greatest investment” And feel free to define what “investment/ideal result” means to you. Look inward for the answer to “what is something that will truly bring me joy/value (set your definition of what that is)”. Whether it is an investment of your money , time , energy or another resource that you are seeking to allocate, investing in yourself is always a good idea. It will allow you to show up for yourself and those around you even better.
Some examples may be
Money — This may come in the form of paying for something that brings you joy or increases your knowledge
Time — Giving yourself the hour to walk the park, do your hair, meditate or.. Do nothing! Vs. giving your time to something or someone else. There are times when it is absolutely ok to just be with yourself and to make a list of things that you KNOW will result in your FEELING GREAT.
Energy — Invest in spending your energy well and cultivating your energy and perspective. Be kind to yourself give yourself patience , be aware of the way that you talk to yourself and the energy that you cultivate towards and around yourself. This will be subconscious but will manifest hugely in your life. So invest in respecting how you feel don’t brush it off.
This hit home for me when I tore my ACL I had habits such as working out frequently, and going out a lot that I simply could not do in order to allow my knee to heal. Taking out the time to rest, recover and change habits to do what was needed to recover is paying dividends that I still enjoy today(able to run pain free and do my favorite activities). I also had to be kind to myself since during recovery I was unable to do a lot of things that I used to.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Move from a place of love — Love for yourself (The relationship that you have with yourself will be the longest relationship that you have). Love and empathy towards others truly putting yourself in the shoes of another before coming to a conclusion. Keep in mind that you are going to have an impact no matter what you do and moving from a place of love allows for the impact that you have on yourself and others to be one with little regret. When it comes to health truly be kind to yourself and be your own best advocate no one has been with your body longer than you.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Instagram : @Lillian_Daniels_
Facebook/ — @TheHappyKnee
@TheHappyKnee
Originally published at medium.com