The Hidden Battles of ARFID: Unveiling a Lesser-known Eating Disorder and the Effects on the Family
This episode dives into the intricate experiences of health coach and co-host, Danna, and her family's battles with various health crises including her son Sky’s diagnosis with an eating disorder, ARFID, resulting from a phobia.
The complex journey had a profound impact on the family's emotional, mental, and physical well-being along with Danna’s professional life, leading her to face burnout and fall into a depressive state. The episode covers the challenges of addressing mental health and Danna's own experience with medical marijuana.
Danna speaks about the transformative effect of medical marijuana use as a treatment modality and its potential to defy the stigma surrounding it. The story also touches on her future business plans, her decision to limit social media use, and the invaluable lessons learned from these life experiences.
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[00:00:00] **Megan J. McCrory:** Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the So Freakin' Healthy Podcast. Hey, Donna, how you doing today?
[00:00:15] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Hey Megan. I'm well, thank you. How are you?
[00:00:19] **Megan J. McCrory:** Good. You know, you are always way more exciting before we record, and then when we record, you're like, Megan. How are you doing today?
[00:00:29] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Well, I mean, if you really wanna share what happens behind the scenes. just made the biggest burp ever and I just mentioned that it should have been recorded
## [00:00:41] Introduction
[00:00:41] **Megan J. McCrory:** Okay, so we are laughing 'cause we're always in a good mood and we can make each other laugh, which is why we do this podcast. However, this episode is quite personal to, to Donna, and so I want to make sure to give Donna her safe space to talk about what, uh, what she wants to talk about today.
[00:01:05] And, so I guess to hop right into it, um, many of our listeners may have noticed that we, we really haven't produced a lot of episodes in the past couple of months. Uh, we've tried, uh, a few times. We actually have about, I don't know, a hundred episodes backlogged that we record and haven't edited.
[00:01:22] Um, so, I think this episode is gonna explain a little bit why, this duo hasn't been able to, to produce more episodes. And I think that that's important for you as listeners to understand real life happens, real shit happens. And I think that's all the intro I'm gonna give you, Donna. You wanna go ahead and tell us what's been going on in your world?
## [00:01:45] Danna Explains Skye's Condition
[00:01:45] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Sure. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Thank you. I I do appreciate the safe space.
[00:01:49] Basically about two years ago, uh, Skye, my oldest, who was about 13, then started mentioning a lot of, uh, GI symptoms. So, so digestive, digestive issues, right? He was talking about stomach aches and acid reflux and, and intestinal cramps and indigestion and diarrhea and like literally everything that you can think of that has to do with our digestion. He had. Now, me being a functional medicine health coach and a gut health specialist, I obviously, you know, started investigating and treating him and his symptoms with, you know, the way that I knew, which was through food supplements and working with both school medicine doctors and therapists, and functional medicine and holistic experts, and I will name all of them later.
[00:02:37] Do not fear. So basically a lot of money, time and sleepless nights have been spent trying to understand what is going on with my, you know, one super healthy child. He was always the biggest foodie. He loved to eat, he loved to experiment and experience food. He loved to cook. And he was just like the picture perfect of health and, you know, he, he was seeing, then afterwards his pediatrician on a regular basis. He was also going to my functional medicine doctor, who was, um, doing some neurofeedback treatments with him as well as supplements. He was seeing a psychologist, he was seeing a psychiatrist. He was in traditional medicine, uh, traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, cranial psychotherapy, like literally, practically.
[00:03:25] The only thing we haven't tried is voodoo, right? I mean, everything else we checked off the list. And meanwhile things just got worse, which was really, really doing my head in because I was like, why is nothing helping? How is it that I'm managing to help my clients? But this kiddo who is basically a replica of me sitting home. Doesn't seem to react to any of the treatments that we're trying to help him with. Meanwhile, he seemed to be be getting more sensitive to more foods as time went by. He seemed to be hungry all the time, but unable to eat. His blood pressure dropped to a scary, dangerous level. Um, his sleep got really bad. He would get anxiety attacks numerous times a day. Um, which also therefore kind of helped him just stop going to school. Um, and eventually didn't really leave the house much. Uh, he was losing weight. He was losing muscle mass and, um, it was so slow. This, this whole process was so slow because it took so many years and actually more than the two years that I'm talking about. Um. It was so slow that you just don't realize, right? It's just like someone tells you, oh my God, your kid grew so much after a week of seeing them. But because you see them every single day, you don't really notice the the difference. So I mean, admitting it now, although most of the experts we visited did share that they believed the problem was a mental issue. Sky insisted that it wasn't, and me for those who listened to the episode of introducing me. And for those who haven't, feel free to pause now and go and listen to that one. Um, you know that I was in a, in a similar situation over a decade ago where I was coming up, you know, I was telling everyone like, oh, I have this and I have this, and I have that. All the doctors said that it was in my head. And so I was ultra sensitive about that sentence of it's all in your head. I was like, it cannot be all in head. And I was really kind of like, you know, lion mama, um, just trying to protect my baby. I didn't wanna dismiss his feelings and thoughts on the matter because at the end of the day, it's his body. His doctor then suggested to go for a one week hospital stay to get a few tests done and to cancel out the worst because we then started talking about what if it's a tumor? What if it's, you know, something in the brain? What if
[00:05:49] it's something in the, we just wanted to clarify everything. Now Sky insisted that this would put too much stress on him and anxiety on him and make things worse. And so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and I stretched the time and. Then I decided that enough was enough. I, we really did everything. Kind of according to him and made sure to keep him comfortable throughout the, the whole process. But then I realized, look, we're not getting any better. It's actually getting worse, now it's my time to intervene and to be the mom, the adult in the situation.
[00:06:23] Although most adults listening to this know how much we hate being adults and sucks, but I had to take that
[00:06:29] part, you know,
## [00:06:30] Skye's Week at the Hospital
[00:06:30] **Megan J. McCrory:** Well, during the week at the hospital, first of all, again, getting him there and, and he, he really had a lot of panic attacks. He was very scared. we also knew that he was scared of throwing up. Right that he had a phobia of throwing up. It's called a meta phobia. We knew that, but we didn't connect it to specifically what was going on at the
[00:06:48] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** time. He was scared to go under, like with anesthesia because he read that. You might throw up or you might get nauseous after anesthesia and things like that. So those fears were very, very strong in him in that moment.
[00:07:01] And he just didn't want to put himself in any situation, which will make him throw up eventually.
[00:07:06] Within an hour of being in the hospital, he had an anxiety attack. We, we, we went through it all in the hospital. They saw it all. They were just an incredible team. I mean, they really noticed from the get go that he is a very sensitive child and that the situation is very sensitive. And they gave us the most loving and most supportive team members
[00:07:29] ever, from nurses to doctors, everything in between.
[00:07:31] During that one week stay, they basically wanted to run, you know, tests like colonoscopy.
[00:07:37] So that's a camera going up your butt,
[00:07:38] Taking biopsy, checking that everything is okay. In the colon, they wanted to do an endoscopy, which is a camera down your throat to check your, your
[00:07:46] stomach and the stomach lining and everything esophagus, all like basically
[00:07:52] From the mouth to, to the end of the stomach. They wanted to do an MRI for his brain and his chest, so brain for tumor and also, uh, chest, kind of stomach area and stuff like that to check for growth,
[00:08:03] et cetera. Uh, they did psych tests and, and brought psychologists and psychiatrists to talk to him quite often. Um, it was basically a week long evaluation with nonstop meetings and with every meeting we felt Better.
[00:08:16] he got excited that he wasn't nauseous after first anesthesia. He got nervous again before the second one, but he did it like a champ. I mean, I have to say, despite knowing how anxious he was and how hard this whole week was for him
[00:08:31] We had a meeting with the whole team. Um, the results were in, the kid was clean, clear. He is the healthiest child around
[00:08:40] **Megan J. McCrory:** Okay. And that's probably the last thing you wanted to hear. Well, I mean, it's good and bad, right?
[00:08:46] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** is literally, I mean, look, on the one hand, I, I, when I was talking to the doctors after, you know, over a year, I was like, I'm almost hoping to find something
[00:08:54] in so that we, so that we
[00:08:57] know. And on the other hand, I'm like, how is it possible that I'm hoping that the kid has, God forbid, cancer or something, just so that I know how to help him and treat him.
[00:09:05] **Megan J. McCrory:** Mm
[00:09:06] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** I was very relieved because A, it gave me a, a sign that, yeah, I still was doing the right
[00:09:12] thing, which was very difficult for me. And we'll talk about, um, my own emotional and, and, and mental, um, journey throughout all of this. Afterwards, we'll give it its own uh, spotlight. But, you know, for me it was very, very difficult to Have found, if I would've found out that he is like very ill.
[00:09:33] Of course. Um, on the other hand, I came out of there going like, you know, thank God, first of
[00:09:38] all, and okay, so I did do something right. Probably not in terms of maybe the mental and emotional part of things. Um,
[00:09:47] **Megan J. McCrory:** Mm-Hmm.
[00:09:48] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** for sure the, you know, the, the treatments, at least what we were doing
[00:09:53] was good.
## [00:09:54] Danna’s role as mother and coach
[00:09:54] **Megan J. McCrory:** I have obviously heard the story a couple times and I feel the frustration from you to say, I can't fix this. You know, I , I'm a health coach, I'm a functional health coach, and I can't fix this in my child.
[00:10:08] But it's also, then I feel like . Hearing the story of going, okay, everything I've done for this child has been okay, but I cannot do this part. So was there for you a sort of release of that guilt of not being able to help your son
[00:10:26] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Not yet, but I have to say that What I did realize was also that the fact that I'm a health coach does not mean that I should be a health coach for my own
[00:10:36] son. I should be his mother.
[00:10:38] **Megan J. McCrory:** This is awesome.
[00:10:39] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** You know? And, and that differentiation was very hard for me because at the one on the one hand, I'm like, this is my ex expertise. Like I can't just ignore it and not do
[00:10:48] anything
[00:10:49] **Megan J. McCrory:** he didn't, he didn't hire you as his health coach.
[00:10:52] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Nope, I hired myself, but but I hated it all at once. I really hated it all at once because A, we all know, and especially with like teens, they don't listen to you. They don't, you know, of course my, some of my kind of things that I was just adamant that he does on a daily basis was meditation, was breathing exercises, like the simple things that you can do in your bed. You don't have to leave the house, you don't have to see anyone to do it. Of course I'm his mom. So he goes, mom, pardon my language, fuck off and leave my room and let me deal with my shit. And at the same time, he needs me because he's still, you know, he was a young teen, so he's still like, I need mommy, but I hate mommy, but I love mommy.
[00:11:36] But mommy's, you know, it's ruining my life. But you know, I still wanna snuggle with her at night.
[00:11:41] So I think, and, and something that they kept telling me in the hospital was like, now I actually came in telling them I'm glad that I'm not the nurse anymore. Like right now I'm here for his mental and emotional support.
## [00:11:56] Sky's Meta Phobia's Role
[00:11:56] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Right. So what we basically discovered through or, or we picked up on through the hospital stay and what we basically the like lines that we connected throughout that week, talking to therapists and talking to the doctors and kind of trying to understand more and more. Was that his a phobia?
[00:12:15] His phobia from throwing up was the trigger that made this whole shit of tsunami, basically tsunami shit show come about. And again, because we, because it's been very long, kind of since since the trigger of the AME phobia, um. It took so long. It was three years before
[00:12:44] **Megan J. McCrory:** Mm
[00:12:45] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** anything, before he even started showing any signs. Um, that I didn't connect it in my head. I didn't connect it to, oh, and this, it was just another thing that he had, but I didn't see it as this is the reason why everything is falling apart at the
[00:13:01] moment.
[00:13:01] **Megan J. McCrory:** mm.
[00:13:02] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** And it was very important. So although the hospital stay was like, okay, great, he's clear, he's healthy, he's fine. Fine in a way. They also helped me realize that his weights started dropping exactly at the time when the me phobia kicked in. And they showed me, you know, when you have a baby, they, you know, you have to weigh them every few weeks or whatever. And then every few months and, and every few years or, or every year at the doctors. So they really have a very clear kind of like chart. Where the, where it's too high, you know, too low and kind of
[00:13:35] **Megan J. McCrory:** Mm-Hmm.
[00:13:36] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** And that kid at age 11, basically he was in average, average, average. And then age 11 it dropped,
[00:13:42] **Megan J. McCrory:** Hmm. This is when he was the, the phobia of throwing up started. And do you know how, how he got that phobia of throwing up? Was there a specific instance?
[00:13:55] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** yeah. So he basically came home one day from school with a stomach bug because. School and German kids. Um, he threw up twice that day. He was very nervous about throwing up in that moment, I remember it as well, but that was about it. A few months after that, we flew to Israel. We were in a house like 20 plus family members. One little German kid brought a stomach bug onto all of us. 20 people in the family got a stomach bug. Sky did not, but there were like, you know, like fountains of throw up everywhere around him and he freaked out. And then a few months later, same thing happened. Like we went to France, the family, they, there was stomach bug there, so it was just a very short amount of time. That he was exposed to a to stomach box only once, or that he threw up twice in that same day. But that was it. That was the last time he threw up, by the way, this was five years
[00:14:53] **Megan J. McCrory:** Wow.
[00:14:54] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Okay. So it was so hard, you know, we knew that since then he's really scared of whatever and, and stuff like that. But he then just developed the, the phobia and, you know, it wasn't so clear to us since How often does one actually have to throw up? So we didn't really
[00:15:12] know that this was the biggest
[00:15:14] **Megan J. McCrory:** right. And.
[00:15:15] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Um, but within those three years, he slowly started to eat less portions. He developed a fear around certain foods. He, um, that foods that he thought would make a puke.
[00:15:25] chicken was the first one on the list, of course, due to salmonella.
[00:15:27] Thank you Google, uh, eggs, you know, so it just continued.
[00:15:31] **Megan J. McCrory:** So the anxiety that he paired with the vomiting, then the body kind of held onto that anxiety, and then anytime he thought, I. That he might put himself in a situation, AKA eating, something that might have the slightest possibility of having him throw up his body has then that anxiety around it.
[00:15:55] So then he avoids those foods altogether and his, that he starts to get weaker and weak. So, you've gone to the hospital. What happened after the hospital
## [00:16:08] Eating disorder diagnosis
[00:16:08] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Um, yeah, now we, so, so just to, to kind of tie it back, the name of what he has, this is a relatively new terminology for officially an eating disorder. Uh, what differentiates this eating disorder versus the ones that we know of, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, et cetera, is that his eating disorder is not body image related.
[00:16:32] **Megan J. McCrory:** Mm-Hmm.
[00:16:33] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Right. It is based on phobia or trauma, and it's called arfid, A-R-F-I-D. tHere's of course a long name for it, which every letter stands for something, but arfid basically is it's, it's a eating disorder due to trauma
[00:16:47] **Megan J. McCrory:** It was like a vicious circle because he, he was now so malnourished, he was more nauseous because he was basically starving. but he didn't link it to that. So every time he would put something in his mouth. I don't know if you've had the time. I know for us, you know, every year we fast 25 hours. The first bite that you take, you're like, ugh. You know that it, it's a little bit too much. So it was like that for him. With every meal he would eat a little bit, he would get nauseous because of hunger or because of stress or because, you know, anything would kind of trigger that, that feeling, the whatever, uh,
[00:17:22] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** um, digestive Feeling that he would get, which then stopped him from eating or decide that, oh, now broccoli is a problem and now this is a problem. Now that is a problem.
[00:17:34] he's left with like three things to
[00:17:35] **Megan J. McCrory:** Yeah.
[00:17:36] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** So it was really like just this, this vicious cycle of not knowing what to tackle first.
[00:17:42] **Megan J. McCrory:** Mm-Hmm.
[00:17:43] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** I mean, we know that there's xenophobia. He stopped taking pills like three years ago already. He just stopped swallowing them from the fear of it getting stuck in his throat and throwing up. So even meds, supplements, things like that. He, he got on some antidepressants for a while and he would crush it drink it, which is like bitter and disgusting. But he'd do anything to avoid throwing up.
[00:18:05] **Megan J. McCrory:** Hmm. Okay.
[00:18:06] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** During that hospital stay, they basically were like, look, because we know that the multi phobia is there and because we know it's officially art, we think that he needs to go to, to a clinic. And there's a special clinic just adjacent to the kids' hospital here. But it's basically for teens his age. I mean age is 11 to 19. And, they don't only treat eating disorders, they treat, you know, depression. They treat, uh, social anxiety and things like that. So they're quite, uh, white, but there's only 13 kids total in the therapy
[00:18:38] **Megan J. McCrory:** Wow. Okay.
[00:18:40] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Yeah. So it's quite homey. The school is just downstairs. Like everything is in this really nice kind of
[00:18:48] facility.
[00:18:48] **Megan J. McCrory:** an in, this is a facility where he stays, it's a facility where he is there 100% of the time.
[00:18:56] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** 100% of the time at the beginning, not even coming home to sleep. He started coming home twice a week overnight, just lately. And he's been there for five months now.
[00:19:06] **Megan J. McCrory:** They're finally, um, you know, going to release him. It has been a very, very tough and long, you know, procedure. He was struggling for a very long time. At first. Um, you know, there's of course depression involved as well, A genes.
[00:19:23] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Thanks, mommy. also because, you know, you can't, you can't. Not feed your body and expect it to function
[00:19:32] Right? I mean, like when you're malnourished, I mean, nourishment. It was funny, I was thinking about how to actually word this for the podcast, and I think because our snacks are like, you know, nuts and seeds and, and fruits and vegetables and like, just healthy things.
[00:19:47] We, he's, he eats the healthiest in this house anyways. He wasn't necessarily malnourished in a way where like, oh, now you're missing all these nutrients in your body. He was just a skeleton. So I think the fact that he was eating healthy at least, was actually still keeping him from completely falling apart. But for a 15 year old who's supposed to be my height by now. iT just wasn't happening. His body is stalled at age 12 at the
[00:20:13] moment because of
[00:20:15] **this.**
[00:20:16] **Megan J. McCrory:** why is it a good time now to talk about this? Because it doesn't seem like this journey is done, the journey's not over, and we still haven't talked about how it's affected you and the family. So why do you want to, like, what's, what's weighing on you now that you wanna bring this to the to a podcast episode?
## [00:20:36] Why Talk about this now
[00:20:36] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** I mean, look, there's a couple of things. I think the first one was that throughout this process I was itching to share. I. because I like to share, because I think that if you know
[00:20:49] someone's through the same thing or, or to kind of, or, or for those people who wondered like, where the hell is Donna?
[00:20:54] Where did she disappear? To,
[00:20:56] to just kind of give them an idea. But what really triggered it was maybe a month ago. I bumped into a friend slash client I haven't seen in a while, who I love dearly. And she kind of also questioned like, Hey, where have you been? And we chatted and I kind of summed up the story, uh, that I told you today. And she, she looks at me and she's like, we're going through the same thing with my youngest daughter. And I was like, You know, I felt so alone. Like I felt so, like I couldn't explain what was going on and I couldn't, and of course the, the emotional toll
[00:21:31] that took on me, I was burnt out. And so I, I, I didn't get a chance to really kind of have a conversation about this and hear from other people, wow, we're going through the same thing, or we have gone through the same thing.
[00:21:44] Or I know someone who has gone through the same thing, you know? So it was a very, um. It was a big aha moment for me, first of all, to say shit, if I can share some information and help others,
[00:21:55] **Megan J. McCrory:** Mm-Hmm.
[00:21:56] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** what's stopping me? I have the platform, I have the followers, I have, you know, I, I can reach more people than the average Person maybe, and I can maybe, hopefully through that, help others because that's my sole purpose in life, is to help others. So why not share? Although it's a very hard story to share, I always wanna share, of course, the success stories and the, and the beautiful things and the, and the, you know, life changing events that, that people have.
[00:22:23] But at the end of the day. We also need to hear about this. Um, so that actually brought me to immediately contact you after I met her and say like, I think I'm
[00:22:33] ready. And, um, yeah, I think, I think it was very, I think it's also important for me, for my healing process, to be honest.
[00:22:40] it's just kind of to really tell the story from beginning to end. Um, well, no end at the moment, but from beginning to now, I guess. And to share all of the, all of the steps. So yes, we talked about what he has gone through and, probably the longer part of this podcast is going to be how it affected the family, emotionally, mentally, physically, everything. And to have people understand that a, yeah, life can sometimes just kick you when you're down. But also that I think no matter how hard the process is, eventually we will come out of it and we just need to, you know, have the, the right support and the right group of people around us and, uh, and, and the patients. I think at the end of the day,
[00:23:27] **Megan J. McCrory:** So let's take a short break. When we come back from the break, I think if you're okay, we're ready to like, kind of shift into that discussion about . The impact on you and, and the rest of your family. How about that? Good.
[00:23:43] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Perfect. Sounds perfect.
## [00:23:44] Introduction
[00:23:44] **Megan J. McCrory:**
## [00:23:44] Mid-Roll - Danna's Burnout
[00:23:44] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** We kind of were suspecting that it was Arfid. My sister's actually an expert in Arfid. She probably said it a couple of times and we were like, no. But which is again, why your family shouldn't be our therapist. It was a very long journey.
[00:23:57] And the problem with Arfid is also that it's a very, very new terminology,
[00:24:03] finding that, that this is actually, you know, a serious eating disorder, that the treatment is not as it would be with other eating disorders.
[00:24:13]
[00:24:13] Most doctors and people that we spoke to. didn't know about arf. I didn't, didn't word it, didn't connect it, which made it a bit harder as well.
[00:24:22] **Megan J. McCrory:** Yeah.
[00:24:22] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** And I do suggest if you think that any, if you or your loved ones has arf, I please just research a little bit about it. There's quite new articles and stuff like that online about it and support groups on social media and on Facebook and stuff. It is definitely worth. Understanding a bit more about it. Some people think their kid or their family member is just super duper picky eater, but it could actually, in fact be arf id.
[00:24:47] So just educate yourself on the matter.
[00:24:50] **megan-j--mccrory_3_11-09-2023_104754:**
## [00:24:50] The Impact on the Family
[00:24:50] **Megan J. McCrory:** you kind of gave us a really good overview of more of the technical side, although you did talk a bit aboutwhat Skye was going through in terms of his anxiety attacks.but when we, when we talked about how we were gonna structure this show, we thought we, we needed to give the space to sky's illness and how that was, uh, discovered or how it was diagnosed.
[00:25:10] But we also wanted to really give, uh, its own space, which is the impact on the family of Skye going through this. you've already mentioned, you know, going through a burnout, which you kind of gloss over that I should say.
[00:25:22] You kind of like, you say it so fast, like, you know, just go through a burnout. And it's like, I don't think that's quite the, the level of impact you should be giving those words. 'cause that those are really, those are really heavy words and that's also means a lot to a lot of people who have done a burnout.
[00:25:40] And I know it's, it's kind of more of your way of coping with that, uh, situation. But let's dive into then, during this time period, what's going on? You have a husband, George, and you have another son, Mika. So, and you, so how are the three of you handling this? If you can talk a little bit for them, but mostly maybe about
[00:26:02] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Sure. Yeah, of course. Well, I mean, again, I'll start, actually start with Skye just to close that chapter that of course he was, again, suffering from anxiety, suffering from a lot of stress, suffering from depression. He was not going to school. He didn't have social life. I. Whatsoever, which of course affected him mentally and emotionally as well. for Mika as another child in the family who is now being almost neglected in a way. Um, it was, was and still is quite hard. He is going through puberty. He is going through his own. Struggles and growth, uh, kind of, uh, procedure and which is, as you would probably remember, going through puberty is not an easy time in life, even if your life is like flowers and lavender, you know?
[00:26:52] So he had to go through a very kind of, uh, pivotal stage in his life being not getting as much attention as. He probably should have. Um, so it was, it was a big effect on him, both in trying to gain attention, whether it was acting up in school and getting notes from teachers on a daily basis still to today or just really trying to get our attention at home or, or closing himself off.
[00:27:17] So, you know, it definitely affected him, uh, mentally and emotionally as well. Luckily, Mika is a social Guy. So, you know, he does have the outlet with hanging out with his best friend and, and meeting friends and going to play and stuff like that. And he's also very open. We're a very open family. We talk about our emotions, which I'm glad about because, you know, imagine going through all of this and and being kind of like old school and not really talking about your emotions would've been a complete shit show.
[00:27:47] So we are quite good at just, you know, Touching those emotions and talking about them and, and crying and hugging , and giving each other space to, to word out Our emotional, state, um, which I think is quite helpful and important. So for Mika, it has been a very, very hard couple of years.
[00:28:07] For George, of course, super hard as well. He is my rock and he takes everyone on his shoulders, so he's been like literally our, our Rock. but of course it's affecting him as well. Because I could hardly work basically in the last couple years, if at all. Um, also the financial situation was a big burden and he just had to take on more work in order to, um, help us with just spending money on, you know, holistic doctors.
[00:28:36] But health insurance doesn't cover, or functional medicine tests or supplements that are not covered, so. Our income just got, you know, chopped in half and our expenses doubled. that was very, very difficult for George and him being Swiss, you know, finances is is the one trigger. but no, he's also very, very sensitive.
[00:28:54] Like we're just a, a bunch of sensitive people in this family. And so, you know, we, we take on, it's not even empathy, we literally take on each other's pain. So to see our child suffer. For so long without actually being able to help him was a, a, a huge emotional toll on him as well. aNd then seeing his wife fall apart in the process didn't help. I think for me it was, uh, really, really difficult. I think it was, um.you know, just looking at the aspect of me being a health coach and not being able to help being gut health specialist and not being able to help my, my own son with his gut health put me in a very confused state. It put me in a, like, what is it called? A, uh, imposter syndrome.
[00:29:44] **Megan J. McCrory:** Oh Yeah.
[00:29:45] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** was like. How dare I try to help other people when I can't even help this child who I know exactly what he's eating and I know exactly what
[00:29:54] he's he's a super healthy kid. Like, who am I to even tell people that I am an expert in this? So that completely kind of pulled me away from work. That was like the first step where I realized like I am not trying to find more clients because I don't know that I can help them, and I don't know that I have the time
[00:30:12] **Megan J. McCrory:** Hmm.
[00:30:13] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** to put into, and, and they, you know, I know that I gain a lot of energy from my clients. I do really, I come out of calls with my clients feeling full, feeling
[00:30:25] good because, you know, it's just something that really fulfills me. And to have that, that doubt in the back of my mind just immediately made me think like, no, you're not. You are not who you pretend to be. Stop doing this. I really quite quickly just did, stopped acquiring new clients and, um, still work with, with a few, but I just kind of like stopped
[00:30:51] way, which was heartbreaking to me because I spit blood and tears, um, to, to build my business. So it was a very difficult kind of, process to say, Hmm, nope, this, this has to stop at the moment.
[00:31:05]
[00:31:06] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** And just I think the combination of all of that. So giving sky literally every waking and sometimes sleeping moment that I have, um, running around, taking him to therapies. Talking to experts, trying to figure out what the hell's going on, researching stuff online, you know, like just everything just took over my life. I had no individuality. I had no life of my own. I could not meet friends. I couldn't even come and record with you or even have calls with you. Luckily, I have people like you in my life who were like I understand, I love you and you know I'm here for you,
[00:31:45] He was scared to go to the supermarket because he was scared to bump into people who will
[00:31:50] ask him what's going on, he didn't even have answers or didn't wanna share.
[00:31:54] **Megan J. McCrory:** yeah.
[00:31:55] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** You know? And, and for me it was the same. I was like, what do I tell people? Like even if I wanna share, even if I wanna explain, I still don't know what the fuck is going on,
[00:32:04] so what do I say?
[00:32:06] **Megan J. McCrory:** Yeah,
[00:32:06] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** know? Um, so I think that really didn't, again, help with the depression and with the. Overwhelm of everything that we were just doing and trying to,
[00:32:17] um,
[00:32:17] **Megan J. McCrory:** yeah.
[00:32:18] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** figure out. Um, and then the burnout just quickly crept in
[00:32:23] and I didn't understand the full capacity and difference between like depression and burnout before. I think
## [00:32:32] Burnout
[00:32:32] **Megan J. McCrory:** Can you dive into that a little bit? Because I feel like, we talked about before depression a lot of times. I think that's good to keep talking about it. And I've told you that, you know, I have had. Depressive states, but you're, you have more of a chronic depression or let's say longer depression. So I feel like we've already talked about the difference between those two things.
[00:32:53] But,
[00:32:54] do you think you could kind of explain how burnout presented for Is that possible?
[00:32:59] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** well, you, you know me. I'm happy to talk about anything in length, look, it's, it is hard. having been suffering from depression on and off for decades now, and now experiencing full-blown burnout. I, I definitely had Kind of like, it's it's stupid. I, again, guys, listen, sorry, we're gonna use stupid terminology for the lack of a better word, right?
[00:33:24] But like lighter form of burnout, in air quotes. I did go through it in the past for sure. Um, but I think burnout and, and depression are intertwined. I don't believe You can go through burnout without experiencing depression. I may be wrong. This is my own kind of belief going through it all, but I feel like when you're burned out, by by default You probably have some level of depression because you can't lay on the sofa not being able to do anything.
[00:33:59] And anything that you think about is already exhausting you to the point of
[00:34:03] **Megan J. McCrory:** Mm-Hmm.
[00:34:04] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** literally not even getting out of your pajamas without feeling depressed. so that's why, a lot of people will go through depression and will say, well, that's depression for me. I think the burnout is more like, it's so Let me just explain what I
[00:34:21] went through. I'm, I'll explain what I went through and, and maybe our audience can actually share their, uh, experiences as well. For me, depression is usually, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm sad, I am crying a lot. I don't really find the, the positive notes, like the positive kind of little cute things that, that will get, get you going with burnout, I felt like. I could not bring myself to do anything. I was literally moving from bed to the sofa or sometimes, you know, during summer to the balcony and just lay there. And the most I would do is scroll or, or play a game on the phone. Maybe read a book, but not even fully there. you know, me, I'm, I'm, I'm a firecracker.
[00:35:06] Like I have tens of millions of business ideas and incredible, like, things that I wanna do and it was just not even there. So, even thinking of posting one post. It drained me thinking of it, just thinking I should, not even thinking what is the post gonna be about? Or you know, even sharing, like literally even going on social media, which as you can probably tell I haven't been on in a very long time. Even physically going on social media, thinking of going on social media was exhausting to me.
[00:35:38] **Megan J. McCrory:** So it sounds like the difference is. With a, let's say, chronic or on and off depression. It's more of a, a state of being, but you can still function. You can still go about your day, you can still do this and that, but it's kind of got this little, little dark cloud hanging over you for like a, in terms of, to, to, to make it a visual, uh, feeling.
[00:36:03] But the burnout was like a big sack of bricks sitting on top of you. Not, you know, in addition the cloud, you're just, you just can't do anything else. Is that kind of
[00:36:16] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** I mean, yeah, I, I guess again, I think maybe some people won't agree because, you know, again, I've been dealing with depression since I remember, you know, maybe since I was 15,
[00:36:28] **Megan J. McCrory:** Mm-Hmm.
[00:36:29] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** probably even before, but probably when I was 15, was the, the first time that I really. Realize now, okay, wow. I was genuinely depressed and untreated, but because I have been going through it on and off for so many years and because I'm quite vocal about it and because I was, you know, in the stages where I was useless, completely useless. They were relatively short. They were maybe a week or two, maybe a month, but still I left the house.
[00:36:59] **Megan J. McCrory:** Yeah,
[00:36:59] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** You know what I mean? so so yeah. So it was kind of like what you're saying, but maybe because I learned how to deal with my depression, it it, that's how I saw the bigger
[00:37:09] kind of like difference. I'm sure that some people who go through depression are feeling same as what
[00:37:15] I'm as burnout.
[00:37:16] So,
[00:37:16] **Megan J. McCrory:** yeah, but I think maybe that's, maybe it's semantics then maybe it is just vocabulary because what you are explaining. In terms of a burnout, I felt that in September, for two weeks, you know, like zero motivation, zero motivation to do anything. I couldn't do anything. so I'm guessing that either the term burnout is something that the corporate world has put on something that indicates an event in which the person cannot do their job anymore.
[00:37:51] Which essentially was the case for you, but, uh, I feel like then it's, you know, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm pondering these thoughts as we're recording. This is not something I have
[00:38:01] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** same
[00:38:02] **Megan J. McCrory:** about, but I, what I'm guessing is, is that burnout is just from a clinical point of view, and I'm not a clinician.
[00:38:10] Severe depression and
[00:38:13] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Maybe, but I'm also wondering if it's like targeted by one specific thing versus so. So look, when I, this is again, light. Years ago I learned psychology and I, one of the things that I remember I remember one of the professors telling us that what differentiates Sadness from depression is that when you're sad or or upset about a, an event, you're upset about that event. And when you're depressed, that event will ruin your whole day, your whole week. Right? You're just very focused on the negative all the time that you can't really see the bright light, whereas maybe burnout and, and you just brought it to my thinking because of Yeah.
[00:38:51] Corporate world and stuff like that. I think maybe burnout is because of a certain situation like. you get a burnout at work, for example, because it's just way too stressful, way too much, and, and things are piling on. And, and so you get a
[00:39:02] burnout and you get, a doctor's note to, to not work or something like that. And for me it was definitely that. It was like
[00:39:09] this situation. Complete every time this kid had an anxiety attack. Oh, and I have crazy stories and I, I respect him to not share these stories because it's not comfortable. It wasn't comfortable for him, but it was just these events with him where he had an anxiety attack where we both came out of that situation with PTSD.
[00:39:28] **Megan J. McCrory:** mm-Hmm.
[00:39:29] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** I mean like really like that where you look at your kid and you don't know how to help them and they're just in their state of anxiety. So every single time there was an anxiety attack every single time he wasn't feeling well or something like that. I felt like my energy level just like
[00:39:45] plummeted So it was just Consuming me. It was really consuming me to the point where I could not bring myself to do anything else. not communicating with my friends. I was not communicating with anyone really.
[00:39:57] I feel like depression is, is yes, this dark cloud and, and Very hard to kind of like see the light and very hard to come out of that tunnel. whereas a, the burnout for me was more, I need to shut out of this world and not, and I'm not able to literally communicate or do very, very simple things.
[00:40:21] yeah. Yeah. during this time period, you talked about Mika and George, They obviously knew you were going through this. Um, and you've said, you have had, some people knew that this was what's going on. What were some of the things that other people did, whether it was your family or friends or either helped or didn't help?
[00:40:43] **Megan J. McCrory:** Because you mentioned one, like people trying to WhatsApp you, like, how's everything going? And I know at some point you put together . A group that says . Hey guys, this is where I'm gonna communicate because this is all I can do is do one thing and put the information about Sky in this one message. So what were some of the things that people did that helped or did not help even hurt the situation for you in the past year?
[00:41:12]
## [00:41:12] Helped or Hurt
[00:41:12] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** That's a really good question. I never saw those messages as being unhelpful. As a, as a sensitive human being, I felt like, you know, I was blaming myself for not replying rather than going like, just leave me alone. You, it's your fault. Rather
[00:41:27] going like, oh fuck, I just need to answer. So it wasn't helpful because I was being hard on myself, not because, you know, that love that poured towards me was highly appreciated, and it was even more appreciated when I knew that these people are going to. Um, understand when it takes me forever to reply and, you know, and that it's okay. So, so that was a good space.
[00:41:53] For me, it's always like, as you say, like it almost like, highlighted my vulnerability again, which I hated.
[00:42:00] 'cause I'm like, I'm the helpful, I'm the helper.
[00:42:03] I'm not the one that needs help. I'm the helper. Like, what is going on? Um, I think most of the things that were unhelpful were me in my own brain.
[00:42:10] **Megan J. McCrory:** Okay.
## [00:42:10] Microdosing MJ
[00:42:10] **Track 1:** I did start therapy after a while. I did start antidepressants after a while as well. And I mean, that definitely helped to a certain extent.
[00:42:22] **Megan J. McCrory:** Mm-Hmm.
[00:42:22] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Um, but then, and this is me now coming out, coming out of a certain closet, um, which I actually did wanna share because I was thinking about it and I was like, do I share this part, do I not? And I decided to share, I, I decided to share because I see The results within me, and I've spoken to some people who are doing the same, and I think it could potentially help others. I have been a, um, marijuana user for on and off, a good chunk of my life since I was a young, uh, adult, and have been using it, you know, in the evenings to relax here and there. And every single time I felt, and, and this, I spoke to this, about this with my different doctors, functional medicine doctors, neurofeedback, and, and, and my therapist and everyone. And I keep saying, I kept saying like, I feel that I am finally myself.
[00:43:22] **Megan J. McCrory:** Mm-Hmm.
[00:43:23] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** my true self, not my ooh, stone drooling like you see in the movies, you know, when you use marijuana.
[00:43:29] But my, my true self, I have more energy, I have more brain clarity. I write better when I write like talks and, and, and. You know, programs and stuff like that. All of my businesses grew out of me actually using marijuana. So, and I've never abused it. I never, like, I don't sit there and, and smoke a whole joint.
[00:43:49] It's very, very small amount, uh, what you would call microdosing and. So I kept saying, you know, telling my, my therapist and my doctors about how I feel when I'm actually on it. And actually every single one of them mentioned, why don't you do it during the day? Why don't you try and see how you function?
[00:44:08] Because literally I would lay on the sofa with the phone in front of my face or the TV on for an entire day. And then when I allowed myself to smoke a bit, which was in the eat later evening hours, Then I would do the dishes and do the laundry and like be productive and clean the house. And I was like, I don't want it to become a habit of me using every single, you know,
[00:44:29] waking, waking, bake, as we call it, like waking up and immediately like using and. You know, at the end of the day, I, I am a true believer in medical marijuana in Israel. It's being used as medicine in a lot of states, in the, in the US by now, and Canada and, and other countries. So I'm a true believer. Of course, it's a natural product. I don't see why not, but I also still, in the back of your mind, you have the whole like You know, oh, but you know, it's drugs or it's whatever. And I was shy about it and I didn't really talk about it publicly. 'cause what if this client doesn't wanna work with me because they know that I'm using, and
[00:45:06] you know?
[00:45:07] eventually I was like, you know what? Every single therapist and doctor is telling me to try this.
[00:45:13] What am I fighting?
[00:45:13] **Megan J. McCrory:** Mm-Hmm.
[00:45:14] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** And so what I did was I tried a couple of days. It didn't start at six in the morning when I wake up, but like maybe at 10 o'clock I would, um, I don't actually smoke, I vape it in a little special machine. Um, so it's very, very small amounts and it doesn't, it's not like,
[00:45:29] oh, smoke, which I. But I tried it a couple of mornings and I was like, wow, this is the most productive day I've ever had. And I'm smiling. I'm not crying anymore 24 7. I'm actually like doing this with a smile and I have music on, or I have, I don't know, a podcast in the background and I'm actually doing. And so I came on a call with my therapist.
[00:45:51] We had a call at 10 o'clock, um, after trying it a couple of times, and I said to her, look, we're going to experiment something today. I just smoked before we got on the call, and I want you to kind of like try to forget about it and, and then gimme feedback on how the, the session has gone.
[00:46:08] she's like, okay. she is not a smoker. So it's not like, you know, sometimes when you talk to people who who do use marijuana, there's a certain level of understanding, but she was just like, okay, I didn't ever really, you know, into it, but okay. We had a session and at the end of the session I go, so what do you think?
[00:46:25] And she said, look. If I didn't know that you were, you know, high or whatever you wanna call it, I would not, never have guessed. Um, this is the most productive call that we've ever had. You focused, you were very literal, you were very, like, you could really function. You didn't cry once. which was literally it used to be the case that she would go on call and soon as she would go, like, how are you doing?
[00:46:51] like. For an hour so it was literally the first call that I didn't actually cry and was able to work on stuff. And she actually sent me an email afterwards as well. She's like, look, I don't see any reason for you not to use, of course, when you are feeling like you need more and more of it, when you have like fluctuations of, uh, of emotions and, and um, anger and stuff like that.
[00:47:18] You know, kind of like showing that I'm, I'm hooked on it in a way, um, that we need to talk about it again. But otherwise she goes, I don't see any problem with it.
[00:47:27] **Megan J. McCrory:** It's kind of like caffeine and coffee, you know, like. If you have just like one coffee in the morning, maybe one right after lunch gives you the kick you need. But if you start drinking so much caffeine, it's not gonna give you the same amount. And you feel, I mean, it's like any substance. Let's just, let's just put it that way.
[00:47:45] It's like any substance. But I'm curious because you did mention that you were on antidepressants, so are you still on the antidepressants? and doing that on top. And is there any like contraindications or indications that that's not a good thing to do? Or is, are those two separate pathways in your body?
[00:48:04] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Yeah. Thank you for reminding me that one, because this is really important. Um, I was on, I don't, I, I, don't remember the name of my medication and or how much, but of course I started with my medication at half a pill. I opted it to a pill, then I opted it to a pill in half.
[00:48:20] **Megan J. McCrory:** Mm-Hmm.
[00:48:21] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** And then I started to try and use, um, medical marijuana. And I realized, and I talked to my, my therapist about it as well. I realized that I almost felt like it was too much. Not in a bad way. I was like, this is euphoric, this is great. Like I can go on forever, but do I actually need that amount of antidepressants? And so I started, I spoke to her about it. She did her research.
[00:48:44] She came back to me and she said, look, the only thing I can find, literally the only literacy that she could find was that the marijuana is helping the antidepressants, and you can actually cut down on the antidepressants
[00:48:57] **Megan J. McCrory:** It's kinda like an antidepressant booster.
[00:49:00] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** It is. I mean, it's
[00:49:02] marijuana. could be bad, right? So, um, so I actually cut down. I cut down very slowly.
[00:49:08] You know, again, for those listening who are on antidepressants or thinking of going on antidepressants, please do it with, you know, a doctor holding your hand. You need to start very slow. You need to come off of it just as slowly. Um, so I cut down and I'm, I'm at the moment, I'm at half a pill every morning and microdosing of marijuana. I am high right now. I'm pretty sure no one can actually tell.
[00:49:33] **Megan J. McCrory:** Donna, how dare you?
[00:49:35] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** I'm sorry. Right. But what I do is I actually, um, make, because I don't want to consume, like, to smoke or, or vape, um, often, you know, to kind of like maintain my, my sbi, I wanna say in my, my productivity, uh, throughout the day, I actually make edibles. It's, you know, butter basically, and I put it in my bulletproof coffee in the morning,
[00:50:03] and it's actually kind of sustaining me, uh, during the day so I don't have to consume a lot of it.
[00:50:08] Um, again, it's really microdosing.
[00:50:11] **Megan J. McCrory:** Um, but at the same time, I am feeling a bit more, you know, uplifted to actually
[00:50:16] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** try and do things and to, to kind of come out of this. Story and build a new story
[00:50:23] moving forward.
[00:50:24] **Megan J. McCrory:** So, thanks for being vulnerable multiple times on these episodes of show because, um, when you can tell even part of your story and hopefully somebody hears this and says to themself, I'm not alone, I just wanna say thank you for myself and also for the listeners to be, uh, willing and eager to actually come on and talk about it. And maybe to kinda wrap this up I feel like somehow there's now a little bit more light at the end of the tunnel from my perspective, because I feel like you're back to being a little bit more regular Donna because of.
[00:51:05] Things with, with Sky are coming to more of a close, or maybe let's say things are moving in the right direction and you're coming out of the burnout and found some great ways to support yourself. So where do you kind of see yourself in the next couple of months? Like how do you, how do you feel like this is emerging?
[00:51:25] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, look, I have a lot of fears about Sky coming out of the, the therapy station, honestly, because of course he's not, you know, a hundred percent, comfortable in his own skin still. So of course we will be continuing therapies and, and for all of us, I mean, like as a family and for myself and for Skye and everyone, but I do think that this whole process has helped me a, not to baby my kids too much, honestly, I have to say, because like, I, all you want as a parent is to protect your child, but sometimes what we do is counterproductive.
[00:52:05] **Megan J. McCrory:** Hmm.
[00:52:05] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** And so I think for me to just kind of, it just kind of put me, you know, gave me a little bit of a better view of like, oh, you know what him saying, I can't eat this. It didn't actually help when I said, great, I'll make you something else, you know, but rather just gonna go like, look, this is perfectly good food. You eat it now. Um, so, so this kind of like level of thinking, but also, um, I'm excited to have him back home 'cause I miss my baby of course. And I am excited to, in whichever capacity, I feel right in that moment to kind of move forward.
[00:52:41] Because again, I'm a doer. I do really wanna continue health coaching. I Was actually thinking of even offering now that I, by the way, also managed to gain a good eight kilos along the way, and of course, go into bad eating habits and blah, blah, blah. To restart my group program
[00:53:00] and, and just say, this time I'm with you, you know, this time I'm not like overseeing, but rather like I'm part of this group.
[00:53:07] So this is a thought, and if you're listening to this program and you're interested, let me know. It's still a thought. And at the moment I'm kind of like looking into a different channel that will give me, that will get me out of the house and doing something and hopefully also, uh, making money a bit.
[00:53:25] But, In a different realm that just keeps me in my zone, which means that I will probably be offering, food, actually healthy meals, uh, delivery service. Um, at the beginning. It probably will start just here and there. just kind of go back to what I did during Covid, which was a lot of fun.
[00:53:42] Um, and now I might have a perfect partner for it as well. So yeah, I mean, I see that things are moving forward and I'm just excited to be myself again and not a shadow of a
[00:53:56] situation, if that makes sense that's the most that I'm looking forward to.
[00:53:59] **Megan J. McCrory:** and I, and I think you've also mentioned that probably not getting back on social media like you were before, is probably also something you're considering right?
[00:54:12] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Yes, I think I, uh, I think I'm saying goodbye in, in a, in a certain capacity to social media. I. I am trying hard to find certain ways to, which is again, why, why I keep thinking about different channels of work because I feel like the coaching really does rely a lot on social media. Um, I have few ideas cooking up in my little brain and I don't wanna talk about him now 'cause I will not let anyone steal my idea and Um, but, but those ideas really do not rely much on social media.
[00:54:49] I'm quite excited about that, just knowing that I will be able to start something that doesn't have me do something that I don't wanna do.
[00:54:57] **Megan J. McCrory:** Yeah. Well that is a good segue into a little bit of a wrap up and a few housekeeping things. Um, so yeah, I'm not super keen on social media either, and I think there's a lot of people leaving social media. Actually, just like two days ago I saw when I logged onto Facebook that it's like. Maybe you haven't seen this yet 'cause you haven't logged on to Facebook, but it's like, um, because you're in the GDPR, that's the, the, the Privacy Protection laws in Europe.
[00:55:29] Um, you either need to pay 10 bucks a month plus tax and you don't have any ads. Or you need to agree that we can use your data for ad targeting. So now they're forcing for Instagram and and Facebook for people to either pay them for no ads or blatantly agree to use all their data for ads. Um.
[00:55:51] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Wow.
[00:55:52] **Megan J. McCrory:** So I have a feeling that there's probably gonna be a lot of people going, fuck you, Facebook, um,
[00:55:58] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Exactly.
[00:55:59] **Megan J. McCrory:** So with that said, I'd like to introduce our new website@sofreakinghealthy.com, And the reason I wanna bring this up is because . Typically before, the only way for us to communicate was through our Facebook group, which was great.
[00:56:13] However, because Facebook sucks so much, uh, you can listen, watch the show notes and everything on the website.
[00:56:22] So you could actually, after you listen to this episode, you can actually go to our website and really give us some comments that are not on Facebook. And then we can also just give you a lot more enrichment, in the episode. So typically before you would only get show notes, and there's only so much can do in show notes now that each episode has its own page.
[00:56:42] We can do a lot more there by sharing our guest. their social media, sharing their promotional items, uh, more in depth, more research links and stuff like that. So, uh, just wanna put that out there. We're still, building it. It's pretty much good to go, but we're still adding a lot more information there, so we'd love it if you guys would go take a look and, uh, explore and,
[00:57:07] Show up there for us and pretty soon we will have a way also for you to give us tiny little tip, you know, maybe like a coffee or something here and there if you find value in the shows, because obviously we do the show for free and it's just the Megan and Donna show in terms of editing and all the other stuff.
[00:57:23] So, would be wonderful if you find value in the show in the future. You could give us a little tiny tip and then we know that you really care about us financially.
[00:57:34] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** And it's very sweet of you to include me in all the wes, but you literally, guys, while I was laying on the sofa doing nothing burnt out, Megan was doing everything. So I really do appreciate your hard work.
[00:57:46] **Megan J. McCrory:** Thank you,
[00:57:47] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** yeah, weighing on me as well to not be able to help you, but you're a, a rock
[00:57:52] star, so thank you, for
[00:57:53] **Megan J. McCrory:** thank you. And we'll end on that. You wonderful. Pretty note. Love you, Donna.
[00:57:58] **Danna Levy Hoffmann:** Bye guys.
