Hi and welcome! I am Danni with two n’s. And like you, I have an interesting story.

The short version is that I love life, but find it incredibly challenging most of the time. However, this does not stop me from showing up. I am here because I love to write about the love and madness of this existence. So I write about life and this intention not to miss it (so I do not miss it). I am committed. And it is for this reason, that I absolutely need to share this type of space with you.

If you want the longer version read down below. 👇

But before I tell you more about myself, thank you so much for choosing to be here with me!

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Shared experience, raw emotions, questions and prompts for journaling and intention setting, daily reminders, books, meditation, affirmations, poetry, my words and words of incredibly inspiring people to facilitate your journey through this beautiful, messy life.

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Why you want to (really) connect with me

This is why I am here. CONNECTION. No other reason. How To Live This Life is not a ‘how to’ space. I do not have all the answers.

Gosh! I don’t know if I have anything for sure except for my firm belief that this life is only as joy-full as it is authentically connected and this goes for us humans too. Full humans need living, breathing connection.

I decided to enter this new space because I hunger for community and the possibility of growing together.

This world is so disconnected it hurts. But I know that it does not have to be this way. Proof is every time someone reaches out their whole, exposed heart to me. Every time someone tells me that they are interested in mine.

We can choose our community. Even better, we can create it.

This Substack cannot exist without you. It is a space where there is as much giving by the reader as there is receiving. Me too! I am not alone! I am not crazy! I feel held when I am here. These are the shared emotions that I dream of us creating.

Our lives are so much better when we truly connect. My life is so much better when we are truly connected. I need you. If you feel this too…

Paid or not paid

As long as if feels right I will write. I write for therapy. I write to connect. It has to be authentic. And for this reason, I will make no promises. I will not promise how often I will post. I will not promise special stuff for paid subscribers (can I call you friends?) Maybe there will be some perks. There probably will be. I just don’t know yet.

But know that whether you are a paid friend (can I say monetarily generous instead?) or not, I am so grateful for your presence here. So know that paid or not paid, you have my loving gratitude. I feel your generosity.

Paid subscriptions are not here to make me rich.

OMG! this is not my goal with anything. But they are a super special thank you and give me some extra love and support. Each contribution says: I truly see you. You matter. The love ‘you do’ makes a difference to my life.

The paid support helps me to continue living a simple life doing what I love most - sharing and growing with you. It also helps me bring my dreams to life… like self-publishing books to support our emotions and personal growth, including future books in my You Are ExtraOrdinary Book Series. Tap here to see my first book, THE SAD PRINCESS - The search for a happily-ever-after smile.

So you decide, paid or not paid. And I will continue to say thank you. Thank you. And thank you.

And for those of you who want to get to know me better… the long version…

I’mma Brooklyn gal gone soul searcher a while back, semi-nomad, blogger for passion since 2012, health and detox expert, personal trainer, yoga and guided meditation facilitator, mom and wife always first.

Lover of raw honesty, personal growth, simplicity, sunshine & avocados, And of course, my yoga mat.

Now, let’s start from the beginning…

ONCE UPON A TIME

Way back in the 90’s, I was a lost twenty something who was also a terrible romantic who desperately wanted to believe in the prince on the white horse coming to save me.

Of course for my past self, he would have been riding a super cool, creme-colored convertible with luggage colored interior.

I am no longer that girl, but I do still love happily-ever-after fairytales to this day.

I grew up in a split home; a latch-key child when it was starting to become fashionable. I lived in a tiny one bedroom apartment with my mom and brother, and ate Kentucky Fried Chicken, lots of pizza and chinese take-out with my dad in his bachelor pad on the weekends.

At 22, I was still a mere child and too full of doubt and fear to follow my dream of becoming a journalist and author so as the well-trained girl that I was, I chose one of what seemed to be my only other two options. I faint at the mere mention of blood, so law school it was.

After passing the NY Bar Exam, everyone thought that I was on my way to a brilliant life (sorry mom). However, this was before my parents sent me on a Caribbean vacay with my bestie from college in August of ’95.

THINGS TOOK A TURN

I experienced a love story that I had only ever seen in the movies. I still pinch myself sometimes.

I fell “in love-at-first-sight” with a free-spirited guy with the most adorable Italian accent, survived a really big hurricane, and decided to dump the law career for an existence that seemed even more scary than the one everyone was planning for me.

I was taking risks that my “stay safe in the box” self would have never thought possible. 

A few people believed that I had truly been drawn in by a cult.

In reality, I was finally on my way to understanding who I wanted to be (I now know that once you are on the road to the highest version of yourself, there is no finish line).

I didn’t know back then that I would have a lifetime to learn how this exotic stranger would change the course of my destiny by constantly stimulating me to push away from the limited, white picket fence future I had imagined. 

A month after our first encounter, the Italian guy (his name is Andrea) and I moved into a rinky-dink, basement apartment in Brooklyn. We were completely broke, but extremely in love. 

We got married by a judge named Johnnie Johnson at City Hall within the first year.  I don’t have a single photo, but I was wearing a jade colored, see-through dress and it was storming ferociously outside (one day I will give you more deets). We celebrated the same night over a deep-dish pizza at Pizza Hut.

After two years we moved to Italy. The only words I knew back then were ciao, bella, and nutella.
I still felt incredibly immature and confused.

I was running from and towards at the same time.

FAST FORWARD A BIT

After travelling, dabbling in many different businesses, and doing the married, but no kids couple thing for 9 years, in 2004, Kenia was born in Costa Rica. It was the single most incredible experience of my life until Bianca Jade (aka Havana) was born in 2007, also in Costa Rica.
Becoming a mom really has a way of giving you a wake-up call which says: It is time to figure out who you are.

So, I continued asking myself. 

Who do I want to be? What kind of woman do I want my daughters to see?

I started reading lots and lots of books in search of my best self. It was still all theory, but I also felt that something shifting.  

we started stripping and took it to the road…

About the time Bianca Jade was born, we started to abandon all our businesses for a simpler lifestyle. This meant giving up my dream job as a Personal Trainer and selling our house. The goal was to free up our time for travel, family, and our entire existence by freeing ourselves of stuff. My Tarzan husband whizzed right through every transition stage, while this NY gal suffered through the growing pains of downsizing every step of the way. 

But, I did it.
The freer we were the stronger I became.  

I felt the extraordinary in our everyday ordinary. I was discovering a new kind of home.

We started traveling in Italy in an RV, selling books at festivals for our livelihood and homeschooling the girls for seven months out of the year. We traveled to the USA and Central and South America during the other months.
Our life was exhausting and extremely challenging, but fulfilling and pretty much as perfect as a nomad lifestyle could get.

What we learned on the road was absolutely golden.
In those years, everything changed. Our lifestyle, our beliefs, our relationships, our health. We were constantly being launched into problems to solve and it was exhilarating. Most of all, I could feel in every cell that I was on my way to who I was meant to be.

THEN WE WERE ALL HIT

This time it wasn’t a fast-passing hurricane…
The pandemic changed everything for everyone, including us. Our free lifestyle just stopped. We were as stuck as everyone else. By this time, our daughters were teenagers and we found ourselves still in our RV, but instead of being on the road we set up camp five minutes from where we used to live in a traditional house in Central Italy.

We had no job. No money coming in. No projects. No idea of what to do or where to go.

As our daughters settled into normal, teen life, Andrea and I rumbled over what to do with the rest of our lives, or at least the next years. We did this for more than 2 years. It created even more uncertainty and a hefty load of tension between us.

I was back at the drawing board and in desperate need of a project, a purpose… something (ANYTHING) to work on.

I felt as if I had fallen asleep once again, and was more confused than ever before.

LEARNING TO DANCE IN THE RAIN

After almost a year of feeling empty and completely impotent, I decided that I absolutely had to do something (for myself and even more so, for my daughters).

I was back to the question: Who do I want them to see?

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass.

It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” – Vivian Greene

Finding strength and clarity became my mission. I wanted to feel connected and full.

I didn’t have a job so…

my work would become me. I would concentrate on re-finding and redefining myself. I hadn’t yet realized what a strong base all those encounters with discomfort had created for me to steadily land on. 

It took discipline, focus, acceptance and patience… it took everything that any other healthy relationship requires. I decided to commit myself to bettering myself and feeling whole.

Daily intentions. Daily practice. Checking in. Constant reminders. Returning to my why. Upgrading my acceptance, mindufulness and gratitude.

Falling, failing, and rising. Exploding, crying, feeling overwhelmed and anxious, and then finding my way back with forgiveness compassion. Embracing my imperfections and even more difficult, embracing this imperfect world. Offering something powerful to my family.

This is what I did and continue to do every single day.
It is not easy, but I am doing it and I feel myself getting stronger, more resilient and more and more inspired and whole.  I am continuously waking up.

AND THIS BROUGHT ME TO – Inspired with Danni

Inspired with Danni was a result of all my experiences during the course of a lifetime.
I wrote on the blog for about a year and then felt like it was consuming me. It no longer felt right, so I took a break.

And now I am here with only one goal. To do what feels right.

(And btw I invite you to set this one too.)

I am scared and vulnerable and so very much ALIVE and in love with life.

This is my only truth.

Me and you: HOW TO LIVE THIS LIFE is about us and for us.

Yes, us… reminding and motivating, in service with one another.

Thanks again for being here. My heart is overflowing as I type.

As I love to say...
the most beautiful journeys are created individually and then generously shared.

This is where the value of all experience lies.

May we undo loneliness. May we contaminate each other with connection. May we know the feeling of fullness. May we remember every single day, how to live and love this life.

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