Visit to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized talk recommendations and more.
After losing her mother in a house fire when she was just six years old, Danielle Torley saw two paths before her: a life full of fear, or one that promised healing and recovery. In this inspiring talk, she describes how she turned her grief into beauty in a most unexpected way — by dancing with fire.
The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. You're welcome to link to or embed these videos, forward them to others and share these ideas with people you know.
Follow TED on Twitter:
Like TED on Facebook:
Subscribe to our channel:
TED's videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy ( ). For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at
That’s so cool
Alert guys she’s from the Fire Nation. Protect the Avatar until he’s ready.
maaaaan you made my day
@plushka twin same here mate
When recommendations are faster than notifications
I think it’s amazing she did this for herself. Fire Poi comes from New Zealand (Aotearoa) from Maori traditional Poi.
Nope….
I started with fire. And i still spin…i love it 🙂
When my wife died I was crushed, however, I knew three things. I couldn’t go back. That door was closed. I couldn’t stay where I was, the pain was too great. I could only move forward, deeper into the abyss, hoping to come out the other side, hoping there was an other side. Eventually I reached that other side and found a beautiful life. For you, fire dancing is how you moved forward to reach the other side. The journey is not easy but it is worth it. Well done.
This is one of my greatest fears, losing the one I love. Your comment has inspired and uplifted me and I truly hope that your heart doesn’t hurt any more. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Callie Morales what ?
She is beautiful
That’s lit
Wow, that is a sad story, but im glad that they made it out, but so sorry for mom!
The thrill that releases adrenalin to the endorphins that are released by looks of the mesmerised, helped her overcome the grief.
So inspiring. I know how terrible it feels before facing my fears and I know I powerful I feel after facing it.
The thing about trauma, when you’ve gone through a particular event, your body protects you by making you fearful of similar events. Its just the ego/brain protecting itself. Been bullied by people? You might start avoiding people.. Been hurt with a loud explosion? Your body will amp up the anxiety around loud noises. It’s all in the name of self protection, cant blame the body really its kind of logical..
But its not logical to carry on through life with this fear and for that fear to shape so much of our existence and personality. It may have just been one event but your body tells you its EVERYTHING to protect itself.
The only real way to overcome trauma is to put yourself in the very thing that scares you, you need another example for your brain to realise that it will not always be bad, and that particular event was just that… a particular event.
The Child Brain definitely can not come to this realisation, as they are experiencing life as brand new, and whatever happens in these early years, it tells itself will always happen. This is the biggest lie.
When a person protects themselves through isolation from feeling unloved… When you take extra careful steps for avoidance of an event happening again, you are really living a lie based of one example. What comes next is learning to trust yourself enough and throw yourself into the very thing that scares you, its only then you can start to heal cause your mind has a more up to date example.
When you were unloved, you have to teach yourself to love others, to let others love you, to heal that pain.
If you were abused you have to trust yourself to put yourself in the company of others, it wont happen again.
Thinking it will happen again is usually what brings it back to keep happening again and again.
Fear of abandonment? you will probably push people away because of that, which is only further abandonment so it becomes self perpetuating…. where attention goes, energy flows.
You can really only heal by using the very thing that traumatised you, as a source of healing.
If its women that have hurt you, you have to find and allow a woman to love you… you have to train yourself into a different story than the one you are telling yourself.
Humanity will get a lot further in all of our individual torments when we realise this.
Fear is tool that should be used to learn from, not abused.
Don’t let fear abuse you.
This woman did just that.
I had to screenshot this comment because it was so good. I hope Everyone takes a second look at this comment. It was worth the time to read.
I just started burning. Dancing with fire has changed me. Empowered me. Saved me.
I should’ve known I was going to cry from this just from “Grief” in the title. That was such a sad story, but it was beautiful that she was able to be resilient and heal through it all. That’s real strength and bravery.