Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Dani Lee Harris.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
The epiphany moment in my life was a few years ago when I was so depressed that I could not eat, sleep, and wondered if life was worth living anymore. I lost 30 pounds in 6 weeks and was unrecognizable. Before to this moment, I was on a natural life high when my life came crashing down in a moment. The moment my ex-wife walked out the door for good. In those dark days, I just did not understand why. The actions of another had me questioning my worth, my value, and my life. My youngest child was a few months old and honestly, it was the glance of her picture on my car dashboard that saved me from that very moment of foggy thinking. I had hit a moment like never before when I was sick and tired of being on an emotional wheel that was controlled by others. I had enough and I was determined to do something about it. I picked up my daughter, went home and literally fell on my face and asked God, “Please, just get me out of this pain and I promise I will not be bitter, but I will be better.” My life would never be the same after that moment.
Something clicked inside of me and the morning after this event, I would wake up with so much internal peace. I smiled for the first time in months and I made myself breakfast, something I had stopped doing. This was a new beginning and although I had many new beginnings before in my life, this was different. I was clear-minded, I understood my life purpose and I changed my life mission. You see, going through this event, I did not seek external revenge or hatred; instead, I chose to go within and seek assistance from the very thing I chose to ignore my whole life. This thing I speak of is the duality part of me, called the Spirit. It goes by other names such as intuition, gut feeling, Holy Spirit, 6th sense, or first mind. No matter what name it is called, I have learned that it is our internal GPS that navigates us through our tough times, our experiences and gives us lessons.
What I found during this revolutionary time in my life is that I have always had the answers to my life and my happiness. I also have free will and I went with the flow of my emotional state instead of my spiritual wisdom. I had repetitive situations all my life because I was not getting the lesson I was suppose to learn and use as building blocks. Instead, my life experiences became quicksand and emotional stuck spots. I was growing older but repeating patterns that I had the power to change. I was missing the most important life lesson that would ultimately change my perspective and mindset. The underlying truth I was missing was that life happens for me, not to me! Ahhhhh this changed everything for me.
I started meditating more, started a gratitude journal, and started the journey of self-examination in every area of my life. After 40 plus years of living, I finally started getting revelations about my entire life and it all made sense. I learned how I was mimicking what I was taught about love from what I witnessed as a child. My earliest memory in this life was at the age of eight. It was a day I will never forget. My mother, sister, and I were in our Harlem project apartment and we had to be very quiet this day. I remember that our mother had the 8 project locks activated on our apartment door and even had a screwdriver jammed into the door with a security bar on the floor. This was usual, but as a child, I did not pay it any mind. Then there was a knock on the door and mom went to the door and asked “who is it” with no reply. After asking a second time with no reply, mom started turning the locks removing all security except a thin gold chain on the top of the door.
Opening the door with this chain still on, the entire door was kicked in by our father. I remember my attention going to the floor where the gold chain landed. My father entered the apartment and grabbed mom by the neck, making sure to lock the door behind him. Throwing mom on the couch, he started choking her as she was desperately trying to get away from his grasp. My sister started yelling and screaming and at one point jumped on our father’s back but was quickly knocked to the floor. Mom was kicking so hard her legs went through the glass table sitting in front of the coach. I was stuck in fear like never before and never since. I could barely move my limbs as I was terrified beyond reality. Was this happening? Was my father trying to kill our mother? Eventually, he would drag our mother to the kitchen, which allowed my sister the opportunity to open the door for the police officers who were called by our neighbors. My father was shielding his body by my mother’s and the police were asking him to drop the knife he retrieved from the draw. I will never be able to accurately describe the feeling I felt when my father sliced my mother’s neck from ear to ear in that next moment. Miraculously, the knife dropped after that first slice and the police were able to subdue my father and my mother did survive the attack.
Mom would live another nine years and die at the young age of 40 from an unrelated illness while I was a senior in high school. This was my foundation of relationships and love. I would face a fatal event in my life at the age of 23. I was shot in the face and experienced a Near Death Event that would have me return to my body with gifts that I would not unwrap for many years out of fear of what people would think or how I might be labeled by others who could not understand my new profound life wisdom. It wasn’t until I experience the epiphany moment I speak of at the beginning of this article that I was able to see the bridges between my life experiences and my life mission. I was seeking what most of us desire. To love and to be loved. I just did not have the correct foundational pieces to discover real and authentic love. I was looking for it outside of myself, not realizing that the foundation of love, peace, and happiness starts within. When we share this love with others, it should be an overflow from the endless internal river. When we seek to love others based on our outer view of the world, we will only repeat cycles and carry pain, mistrust, dishonesty, and a host of undesirable emotions and behaviors.
I was already a life coach, author, motivator, trainer, and educator but this new moment in my life of personal discovery would change the trajectory of my business. Helping others to discover their authentic self, get past toxic relationships, and divorce and properly use their power to live peacefully and happy despite all that is going on around them. Since my near-death experience, I have been on a path of service, knowing I just wanted to help people. I started with law enforcement, retiring as a police officer from the Atlanta Police Department in 2015. I discovered my passion for teaching and started teaching other officers and civilians an interpersonal communications class. I took this same class to collegiate institutions in the Georgia area and at one time was an adjunct professor at multiple colleges in the Metro Atlanta area for eight years.
As a professional researcher by trade and education, I discovered how to use my skills, talents, and experiences to not only transform my life but I now see the results of using my story, my voice, my gifts to help others release the shackles in their own life and uncover their authentic selves. I have an 8, 10, and 12-week transformational coaching program that changes lives… for the better. Leading to a much happier, peaceful, and loving group of people as my clients constantly testify about. I also developed two unique programs, one program looks at epiphany themes throughout a person’s life and the second helps people marry the 4 core of being which are the mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional.
I have the most amazing life now. I manifested the most amazing person in my life, my soulmate, who I get to call my Wife. We are coming up on our 1st year wedding anniversary in June. I have 5 amazing children and I am raising my 4-year-old down-syndrome (I call it up-syndrome) daughter who is the definition of LOVE. My entire life has become an example of how you take many years of heartache, pain, and devastation and make them stepping stones to ultimately change perspective and mindset to truly live your best life permanently. It all starts inside each of us.
If this man from the streets and projects of New York City can survive the NYC foster care system, poverty, abuse, life-threatening illness, getting shot in the face, 2 divorces, bury every prominent member of the family, disprove statistics and achieve the highest level of education, become a best selling author, survive narcissistic and toxic entanglements, and so much more… so can you. It is all a matter of learning how to change perspective and remembering life happens for you, not to you. If this interests you, do not hesitate to reach out to me and get on your personal metamorphosis path.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road at all. I shared with you my earliest memory and life seemed to get tougher after that. When my mother died, my sister and I decided to raise the three younger siblings in order to prevent them from returning to the foster care system. In essence we were children raising children. This would lead to many personal and family mistakes that still plaque some of my family member until this very day.
I was born intersex and went through many years of personal shame and not understanding what was happening to my body since I went through puberty in a group home. I did not trust anyone, nor did I seek medical attention until I was grown. I was born a man in a hermaphrodite body raised as a girl until I was able to correct all my birth and medical documentation to mirror my natural sex. Imagine growing up thinking something is wrong with you while all along you were created and perfectly crafted by your maker to be uniquely different.
I would get shot in the face by my best friends nephew at the age of 23 and had a near death experience where I traveled outside my body. I would become the deciding factor to pull my father off of life support at the age of 25. I struggle and beat a battle with alcoholism young and realized this was a family disease that would ultimately destroy my family.
I have suffered emotional, and physical abuse from a young age. Allowing me to grow up and still allow others to take advantage of me and use me all in the name of love. Like most people I know, I have overcame betrayal on the highest levels. I have been lied on, talked about, misrepresented and deceived by those who claimed to love me. I have travelled the darkest parts of pain and devastation and survived to tell my story and help give others a voice to tell theirs.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a Transformational Life Coach that specializes in helping people turn their life pain into power, trials into triumphs and tests into testimonies.
Get past toxic relationships and divorce. Find authentic self. Change perspective and mindset. Unshackle yourself from your past and experiences. Take control of your happiness. Un-dump all that does not serve your highest self. Change any part of you that you choose to change. Learn how to listen to your spirit/your personal truth and so much more.
My specialty is in mindset as this is the cornerstone to any transformation. I am know for the results my clients get. I don’t talk the talk, I walk the walk with you. I give you the best gift you can ever receive and that is the best version of yourself. I have created two very unique programs that uncover personal epiphany themes and helps people to marry the four core of being which is physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental. It is the ultimate show of self love to pour into every area of your life.
I am most proud of the results and testimonies my program produces. I am overjoyed by the metamorphosis process my clients go through and how they discover their authentic selves through the program. My mother died a broken woman at 40 years old with so many gifts and talents inside of her… I not only dedicate my life work to her but I will spend the rest of my life helping others to LIVE THEIR BEST LIFE!
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I do not believe in luck. I do believe in intentions and having pure ones to ultimately get the karma one deserves because of what they put out into the universe. My intentions have yielded the best life I could every ask for. I am blessed in every area of my life and that is because I know just how important it is to serve others and operate from a place of love at all times. Honesty, integrity, good intentions and understanding cause and effect has yielded nothing but mighty and good things for my life and my business.
Contact Info:
- Email: dani@themetamorphosisdr.com
- Website: www.themetamorphosisdr.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_metamorphosis_dr/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drdani.harris.92798
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrDanileeharris
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjqE4aNcBl_xWJhZWbRSs7Q
- Other: https://linktr.ee/themetamorphosisdr
Image Credits
Shavette, Dante, Jason, Jada, Jordyn, and Danielle
