Diamond Dallas Page makes a living by helping others.
The World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Famer has been changing people’s lives for over 20 years with DDPYoga, a yoga fusion program for men who “won’t ever” do yoga.
He developed this training method after breaking his spine and quickly realized that his training methods could not only enhance but save people’s lives.
Since 2004, Paige has seen his program create miracles, and we bring you the Jersey Shore kid’s most inspiring story in our “Transformation Tuesday” feature: Everyone has a story of how DDP Yoga has transformed them and, in many cases, saved their lives.
Laura Ellsworth knew how to lose weight.
After all, she’d done it many times.
But every time she wears it, she ends up wearing it again.
At 39, she was depressed with extremely low self-esteem, but spent so much of her life caring for others that she often didn’t even have time to worry about her own feelings.
As a full-time carer for her sick mother and a teenage son who suffered from depression and self-esteem issues, Laura found life overwhelming. Her husband, her son’s stepfather, did his best to ease the burden, but his health was also deteriorating.
“We all ended up with COVID, but my husband was hospitalized with double pneumonia,” she recalled. “He had the hiccups for 13 days. When he got home he started throwing up and we thought he was having a heart attack. He then went back to the hospital for an MRI and CT scan.”
When the coughing and hiccuping wouldn’t stop, they scanned further down and found she had pancreatic cancer.
“Thank God for COVID and the hiccups. I would never have noticed the pancreatic cancer because there were no side effects. When everyone was worried about COVID, I thanked God because otherwise my son’s cancer would never have been discovered.”
Because the health conditions of his mother and husband, David, were so grave, Ellsworth believed that she might be the only person her son could rely on if something happened to them.
“David had to have two-thirds of his pancreas removed,” Ellsworth said, “and I realized that if anything were to happen to me, what would happen to my son? I had to take care of myself.”
Ellsworth knew that the survival rate for this type of cancer is extremely low and she feared her son would not survive, and deep down she knew she needed to get healthy so she could be there for her son.
“I was in a terrible state at the time,” Ellsworth said. “I couldn’t even get up in bed. My back was hurting so much that I had to have David pull me out of bed. I was desperate, taking care of my son, my mother, my husband, my family and friends. I was always the caretaker. I would go to bed and cry myself to sleep, hoping I wouldn’t wake up. I didn’t want my life to end and I prayed that this would be my last night. I was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore.'”
But now, Ellsworth knew he needed to be healthy, so something had to change.
One of her friends, her former boss, Jennifer Jolicoeur, happens to be a DDP yoga instructor.
“After talking to her, I was like, ‘I can’t do this,'” Ellsworth says. “I was someone who told myself the worst story and was my own worst enemy. I would tell myself that fat girls don’t do yoga, girls my size don’t do yoga. The day Jen sent me that message, I was like, ‘Okay, I want to try it.'”
Her friend has been on DDPY for seven years, every day, and she told Laura that DDPY helped her get where she was and get the life she wanted back.
Skeptical but desperate, Ellsworth talked her husband into giving it a try.
“My husband convinced me, saying, ‘You have nothing to lose, just do it at home.’ I joined her class online. During the hour-long class, she beat me in so many ways that I didn’t even know what I was doing. Holy shit, I don’t know how I got through it.”
“She said she had class tomorrow and I didn’t know if I was going to be able to take it. I woke up and it was ingrained in my mind and I got up and my whole body hurt and I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. And my husband said, ‘But you got up.'”
It was the first time in two years that she had been able to sit up on her own without her husband’s help.
That was on April 12, 2022.
That day, Ellsworth went from feeling helpless to feeling unstoppable, and she’s gotten stronger every day since.
“I did 30 days of just the free exercises and what Jen taught me, and then my husband said, ‘Buy the app.’ After 30 days, I got the app and haven’t missed a day since. I’m now at over 700 days and it’s not a milestone anymore. I keep track, but it’s just a daily routine. DDPY went from being a small part of my life to being my life.
“This program is amazing. It really teaches you how to take care of yourself. The only thing you should believe in is yourself.”
Now Ellsworth trains every day. She’s in great shape and stronger than ever, focusing on DDP yoga as well as weightlifting with DDP’s Power Cuffs, which help her build muscle with very light weights.
It wasn’t just to boost her own self-esteem.
“My mental health was so bad that it affected my son,” Ellsworth said of her 16-year-old son. “He had such a poor self-image because of the circumstances around him. He grew up with a mother who had no self-esteem. Our kids learn from us. We are their role models. He’s the first to give the shirt off a stranger, but he won’t do anything himself. He’s becoming like his mother, and that’s not good.”
It’s completely changed the way I talk to myself. I tell my son every day to treat himself like he would treat his best friend. If someone put your friend down like that, you’d be so upset. Talk to yourself like you would treat your best friend. It helps you to better yourself, it helps you to better yourself physically and mentally. Everything you do on the mat helps open something up mentally. If you can do something now that you couldn’t do two days ago, what else can you do?
When Ellsworth looks in the mirror today, it’s hard to recognize himself.
“I’m proud of myself,” Ellsworth said. “I hated myself, I hated my life, but I loved other people’s lives. I hated the life I was trapped in, I hated not being able to be out in public. I wanted to feel free, I wanted to feel myself. I hid my belly, I hid my legs. I don’t care if other people criticize me. I know what I did, and now I can be proud.”
For many years, Laura felt hopeless and depressed, and worried about what on earth could change her situation. But today, her perspective has completely changed.
“Now I feel like I can do anything… anything,” she said. “I was never really into fitness and never imagined doing anything in the fitness community. Now I’m working towards becoming a DDPY instructor and I want other people to feel the same way I do. Up until now I’ve been stuck in a rut and thinking this is my life and this is how my life is going to be forever. Now I can’t believe where my life is going.”
Ellsworth was so passionate about helping others that she was hired by DDP YOGA. Now she is able to help people on a daily basis. She leads by example and teaches her son to be confident and that anything is possible.
Thankfully, her husband’s cancer is also in remission.
“I went from being someone who thought, ‘I can’t do that,’ to now thinking I can do anything. Dallas says when you say you can or you can’t, you’re right. That quote goes through my head every day. I answer everything. Even when I question myself. I say, ‘Whether you say you can or you can’t, you’re right either way.’ I achieve these goals. That’s who I am now. I look forward to training. I never thought it would be like this.
“DDPY has changed my life and I can say that everything is going for the better.”
