Why Healing Protocols Fail — And How to Finally Make Them Work

In this episode of the Gutsy Health Podcast, Juanique Grover and guest Gina Worful unpack why so many healing protocols don’t deliver lasting results—and how to turn things around.

Drawing from their work with the Gutsy Academy, they explore the real reasons people get stuck in their health journey and share practical strategies for breaking free.

You’ll hear why mindset is the foundation of sustainable healing, how to read and respond to your body’s unique language, and the role of mindfulness in creating real, lasting change. They also discuss how societal pressures push us away from self-care, the connection between emotions and physical symptoms, and why co-regulation in relationships and parenting can transform not only your health but that of future generations.

If you’ve ever wondered why your healing plan feels like an endless cycle of starts and stops, or why even the “perfect” protocol doesn’t seem to work, this conversation will give you the missing pieces—from understanding your nervous system to redefining self-worth in your healing journey.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why mindset is the foundation of sustainable healing
• How to interpret the body’s signals to identify root causes
• The role of mindfulness in shifting patterns that block recovery
• How emotions and stress shape physical health
• Why co-regulation in parenting and relationships transforms well-being
• How societal pressures disconnect us from self-care

Key Timestamps:
02:56 – Why mindset determines healing outcomes
05:48 – Learning your body’s unique language
08:22 – The role of mindfulness in recovery
14:17 – The impact of emotions on physical health
42:45 – Co-regulation, parenting, and generational health

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Join the Gutsy Health Academy → mygutsyhealth.com/gutsyhealthacademy

If your healing feels stuck or your protocols never seem to last, the missing piece may not be another diet or supplement—it may be your mindset, nervous system, and emotional health.

The Gutsy Health Academy gives you the tools, structure, and support to finally make healing sustainable. Join today and start creating lasting change.

🔗 Gutsy Health Academy

Transcript

Gina Worful (00:00)
And so that's just a clue that probably your nervous system is a little bit overwhelmed. The key isn't to use more willpower. The key is instead to calm your nervous system and bring down cortisol and feel what your body is really telling you it needs from you emotionally, physically. And now you're working in partnership instead of in this battle against your own body and your food.

Juanique Grover (00:23)
Welcome to the Gutsy Health Podcast where science meets soul and healing becomes reality. I'm Juanique Grover, your guide on this transformative journey to reclaiming your health, vitality, and freedom. This season, we're diving deep into the order of healing, starting with mindset and working through the layers of what it truly means to heal. Each episode is designed to empower you with tools, knowledge, and hope so you can become the self-healing advocate you were meant to be. For more resources, free classes, and downloadable quizzes and guides, visit

MyGutsyHealth.com. Let's rewrite the future one step, one insight, and one courageous choice at a time. Now let's get gutsy.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Gutsy Health podcast. I have my main squeeze with me. It's Gina Worful It's so good to have you here. Like it's so, so good. It only feels right to start this series of interviews with you because you know, I've covered mindset, mitochondria, I've gone through the order of healing all throughout this year.

Gina Worful (01:12)
We're back again!

Juanique Grover (01:30)
We didn't really do Brain. Well, like, and that's because we talk about it more in the Academy. But I wanted to circle back to what is the Gutsy Academy? What does it mean to be a self-healing advocate? And who better to do it with than you? Because like, you've been such an important part of this whole story and mission. And so Gina is such, if you don't follow her on Instagram, you should because

Sheena is probably one of the most remarkable humans I've ever met. And our story, there's gonna be a little bit of back end story in here as well as science around mindfulness. But my story was, I met Sheena at a wellness retreat and she was like, I'm a dietician. And I was like, ⁓ and she was like, no, no, no, I'm one of the good ones. And I'm like, okay, tell me more.

And honestly, what we bonded over like how we vetted each other was how do you detox your liver? Right? Are you going to give me some bullshit? Or are you going to like feed me some science as to like the real way to detox your liver?

Gina Worful (02:32)
Is

the filtering question of like, we on the same page? It's like, so tell me what you think about detoxes to see if we were on the same page with that.

Juanique Grover (02:41)
Right? It's like, if you know how to detox the liver properly, you actually have shown me that you've done some research. Like you actually understand how the body works and you're not just jumping on like popular bandwagons because they're cool and someone's selling a product. And so from there, like I just had this like massive girl crush on you. was like, I have to be her friend. And then I'm like, better yet, can you just be my work wife? Like, can we work together?

And I met you at a time when Tristin's health started to decline fast and furiously. He was starting to lose his voice because of his cancer. And I needed a co-host. Like, I could no longer run the Gutsy Academy. One, I needed someone to do it with. And I needed another brain. Like, I feel like I bring a lot of heart, but I needed a very, very intelligent, compassionate kind.

big picture human to replace the big shoes of Tristan, basically. Like he was kind of a big soul to replace. And I found you, like the universe just plopped you in my lap and was like, here, co-create something incredible. And we did it. Like you started co-hosting the podcast with me. And then I remember telling you about the order of healing. I'm like, Hey, I'm revolutionizing my gutsy school to be the Gutsy Academy. And it's based on this order of healing. And you're like, Hey, I can help you make classes.

And I remember we were supposed to split up the classes, but Tristin's health was declining so bad. And when you're a care partner, like you're breaking and you're dying as well. And so I had very little bandwidth to pull my end of the classes. And you were like, don't worry, I've got it. So you did like the majority of the classes. And I remember just doing the digestion portion and you did the rest like a badass. You're just like, I got it. And you created.

the most beautiful classes I've ever seen. And it was all based on everything that I could have dreamt up, but didn't know how because I was literally drowning in sorrow and sadness and despair and nervous system dysregulation. And then you and I together launched the Gutsy Academy, which was based on the order of healing. And it's funny because the first couple years,

you know, again, we talk about mindset being number one, but we approached it from a very sciencey place. We didn't realize that we had to go through our own mindset healing journeys and observe the journeys of our Academy members to realize like, oh my gosh, like 50 % of healing is actually mindset. And that's when we dove way deeper into the mindset, the aspects like

That's when I was having my mindset journey. You were on your journey. Like you had already started it. You were like halfway there. You were ahead of the game of everyone. Everyone was just catching up to you. And then we just, again, evolved like the Gutsy to Academy just kept evolving and changing and morphing into this beautiful like school that it is now. Yeah, you know, like Gina, tell people from your perspective,

Joining the Gutsy's the Academy, your whole mindset work that you've done, what was that like for you those four years ago?

Gina Worful (05:58)
my gosh, it's been a journey for me. And like you said, the Getzi Academy has grown with us as we have grown. And when I met you and Tristan, I had just been exposed to the world of like quote unquote, root cause healing of understanding how does mitochondria play a role in our healing? How does digestive issues and microbiome, how does that play a role in our adrenals and our hormones?

I was so mind blown that healing is not just what I was taught as a dietician of like the food pyramid or the plate or these FDA recommendations that there's so much more to the story. so I was on my own healing journey resolving a lot of health issues. And when I met you and Tristan, I remember seeing this order of healing and thinking like, this is absolutely brilliant. This is a perfect order of what the body needs in order to heal.

And so I was so fascinated by that science, but at the same time, I was also personally in the process of trying to leave out foods that I really knew were not good for me. Like I was like, you know, I don't think gluten is a good part of my healing journey and taking out these different foods and noticing that for me, it felt really hard and really challenging that I was going through these times of when I would eat really well and really healthy.

and stick to my protocols, stick to my supplements, but then sometimes I would kind of fall off of it. And so I was going through a bit of those cycles of where I was sticking to my protocol and I was really trying to focus and stay on it, but kind of feeling like my healing was a little bit of a war with my own body. And I realized that just the mental side of knowing how to eat healthy, there's so much more to the story. What I was actually missing was

this understanding of how to work in partnership with my body, how to feel like healing is actually understanding what my body is needing, how it's communicating to me rather than feeling like it's my enemy and feeling at war with my body and with my food. And that's where my evolution has been coming into a deeper connection with my own body and where mindfulness really played a role for me. And we started bringing that into the academy.

Juanique Grover (08:14)
Well,

you've created the Mastering Mindfulness Institute and you have this curriculum that is actually used in universities to train other dieticians. Is that not correct? Yeah. You didn't brag enough about that. And you should.

Gina Worful (08:29)
been a part of teaching other future dietitians how to help people improve their health while they're on their health journey, but also maintain a really good relationship with food so that they're not in this place of feeling controlled by their cravings or feeling like they are affecting their relationship with food while they're trying to get healthier because that is one of the biggest challenges of being a dietitian is we're

classically known to tell people what to eat and tell them to cut back their food and their calories. But sometimes that actually creates like this hyper focus on food and can actually create an eating disorder. So I think it's really important to be in this harmonious place with your food and your body while you're in healing process. And it has been something I've been really passionate about teaching other health professionals and future dietitians to do things a little bit differently.

Juanique Grover (09:25)
want to talk about people that are listening to this podcast today because our podcast today is the real reason people struggle to follow healing protocols. people don't realize, it's funny because enrollment is open and people keep asking me, okay, how much are the supplements? What are the food protocols? Like what are the supplement protocols? Like if I start like with my coursework a late, am I going to be able to stay up to date with the protocols? And people are asking these very cerebral questions. And from the beginning,

Because they've been asking those questions since the beginning of time with this course, right? And what it always comes back to with our students is we actually need you to check in with your body. You might not touch a supplement the entire time you're enrolled in the Academy. You might spend the next two years on a mindset journey or a body connection journey or just like a baseline journey, right? Like everyone is on a different healing path. But a lot of people think that the Getse Academy is like, okay, we're all going to follow these

protocols and take 100 supplements and it's actually doing less. know, it's like, actually, we're going to teach you the protocols and we're going to teach like, you're going to know a lot about supplements at the end of this, this whole Academy and at the end of these courses, but you're going to take a lot less than you realize, right? Because the work that we are coaching you through the work that Gina has created and I've kind of helped co-create it just in the Academy is like, we're going to teach you

how to actually get in touch with your body. Listen to what your body is trying to tell you. Imagine being in a relationship with someone that you're deeply in love with, but you're speaking two different languages. And so how do you guys progress? How do things get better if you actually can't talk to each other? That's the same with your mind and your body. Your body has its own language. And that language is energy and feelings and symptoms and pain and inflammation.

and fatigue and achiness. And what have we done with those messages? We've literally slapped Band-Aids on them. We've put ibuprofen in the body. You're like, shut up. I don't want to hear you. Or we take caffeine every morning. How many people drink coffee? It's like, quiet brain. I don't care you're tired. I'm going to block those receptors in you that are actually telling me we're fatigued. And I'm going to keep working like a mad person because I don't care what you have to say. Imagine if you were in a relationship with someone like that who's trying to tell you,

Hey, I have these needs that aren't being met. And you're like, shut up, just take this coffee. I don't want to hear you. Like, I don't care what you have to say. Like that relationship would fail fast and furiously. And that's oftentimes when people join the academy is when their relationship with their body is literally up in smokes and their body, they feel like their body is failing them. And so then what do they do? Well, they go to doctors and they're like, Hey, I don't understand what's going on with my body. Can you tell me?

You know, and then the doctor's like, well, I think the language of your body is this. But oftentimes the doctors get it wrong. So they go to the next doctor who's like a therapist, hey, tell me what's wrong with me and my body. Something's going on here. And the doctor says, well, I'm going to try these protocols and these things and do this blood work and tell you a little bit here and a little bit there. And I'm probably going to get a lot of it wrong. And then nothing works. And then they just bounce around from doctor to doctor to doctor. And by the time they get to the Gutsy's the Academy, we're like, hey,

Like the doctor isn't actually the main character here. You have to heal the relationship and the communication between you and your body. So you might literally spend the next year learning that. Like we use this term dropping into your body. You drop into your body, we teach you meditations, we ask you questions, and we really help you to connect with the feelings, the emotions, the sensations, the inflammation.

and we teach you how to not create stories around them because the mind will create stories around it. The mind is brilliant. The mind is so smart. The mind will say, hey, inflammation means this, this, and this because I read it in a book and I heard it on this podcast and we did it at it. We're like, great, okay, we're going to have your mind turned down and we're going to see what your body actually has to say about that inflammation. And what's crazy, you and I have seen it, like we see it every week.

Like people will literally start crying because it's like the first time that they've ever heard the language of their body. It's like coming home to a friend you haven't seen in years.

Gina Worful (13:49)
Yeah, we could even talk about that a little bit more because some people might be hearing this and saying, you know, what are you talking about my body, the language of my body and my body talks to me and what is that going to sound like? What is that going to be like? So maybe I could just share a little bit about that.

Juanique Grover (14:04)
Yes, I would love to hear from you.

Gina Worful (14:07)
think where people struggle is when they don't understand how their body communicates to them and their body is always talking and communicating to us, but it doesn't sound the way of like talking like you would expect. Sometimes we think that, well, the language of my body doesn't mean it's gonna talk to me and give me an answer. And it's not necessarily that way. Our mind talks to us in things like thought or language. It's kind of how you can talk to yourself in your head. That is how our minds talk to us.

but our body speaks to us so differently. It speaks to us in sensation and that's how it lets us know that we need something. So for example, if your body needs food, you'll start to feel the sensation of hunger in your stomach. It'll start to create that sensation to let you know, hey, I need something. And if we ignore that slight sensation, then it will get louder. It'll talk to you louder, quote unquote, louder.

by creating that feeling of low blood sugar. Now you're shaky. Now your emotions are like, you're kind of angry. And so your body is even really trying harder to get your attention. Or if your body temperature gets too hot, you'll start sweating and your body's letting you know our temperature is overheating, we're too hot, we're sweating. Or if your nervous system starts to go get overloaded in a stressed state, you'll start to notice like your muscles will contract, like your neck, your shoulders.

That's like the body's protective state. And if we ignore that signal, it might get louder and speak to us even more through like really bad neck pains or a headache. And if that gets ignored, we might even binge on sugar because it helps regulate our nervous system and get us back out of that fight or flight state. And if we don't understand that sensation has been communicating to us for a long time, we can feel like, why does my neck always hurt? Why does my back always hurt?

Why do I suddenly lose control and binge on sugar? And so if we ignore those messages, it can feel like, is this happening to me? Why is my body against me? But if we feel and we tune into what those sensations are inside the body, we can start to understand, my body has been telling me it actually needs something and I just wasn't listening to it. I don't have a sugar addiction. Maybe I don't have these chronic issues. It's actually my body signaling to me, hey, I need something. I need your attention.

Juanique Grover (16:26)
You know, it's interesting because a lot of people that will, again, we don't understand the language and let's say we have cravings or sugar addictions or insert whatever you struggle with right here. People will say, well, I have to just power through it. And the thing is like, no, this is literally a chemical imbalance that your body is signaling to you that you can balance out by supporting the body with what it needs. So you gave blood sugar as a great example, know, craving chocolate.

is a great example of low magnesium. Women that eat chocolate around their period, they're like, oh, I'm going to do so much better this month. And then they feel like they're possessed and they eat sugar and chocolate. And then they're like, wow, I don't know why I did that. It's like, I do. Were magnesium deficient and your body was looking for magnesium any which way or form, just start supplementing magnesium and that magically goes away. Your body was talking to you, but you just, no one gave you the interpretation dictionary to help you understand it.

So going back to our original podcast episode, this is the reason why people struggle to follow healing protocols because they actually don't understand the language of their bodies. Like they don't understand, they're like, I started out so strong and I don't know why I fell off. Well, it's because you are coming from your healing from a very cerebral place. In Guzzi Academy, we talk about where soul meets science. The science is the cerebral part of the healing and

teaching you the modalities, teaching you the science so that you can understand why this is important. But the sole aspect is the feeling, like the integrating, the connecting, the unraveling of the stories you tell yourselves that aren't true, but you picked up somewhere that it was true, right? Like the negative beliefs that you have about yourself. So many women, start out strong on healing plans, but eventually fall off. Why do you think this happens?

kind of touched on like the idea of willpower. But why else do you think this happens?

Gina Worful (18:28)
I think like what you said earlier, where we create this expectation of, need to follow the perfect protocol. And when we get so much in our heads of like, I need to follow the perfect plan or the perfect protocol, we create this stress inside of ourselves and maybe start changing all these foods really fast, start changing everything overnight. And sometimes that can overwhelm our nervous system. And when we don't understand why we...

or getting food cravings or the emotional component or the stress that causes us to crave sugar when sometimes we give in and sabotage ourselves, we go into like this downward spiral of like, already messed up, I should have been perfect and then start over again. And I think a lot of people put this expectation that if I just had more discipline, more focus and more willpower, then I would be able to stick to my protocol.

but it's actually keeping them in that cycle and in that trap of where they end up falling off the protocol because they think that they need more mental discipline, more focus, more cerebral mental discipline, but it's actually not that at all. The reason why they are slipping off of it is usually something that is a message from their body. And I say message, but it might be an emotion or it might be a craving that is telling them they really need something.

and it can feel very confusing. Like, why do I know what I'm supposed to do? Why am I learning how to eat healthy, but I just can't quite seem to do it? And that answer isn't going to be like in more mental willpower. It's actually going to be by coming into a connection with your body and feeling what are the emotions and the other drivers like in my nervous system that are causing me to veer off and lose that self-control. Does that make sense?

Juanique Grover (20:15)
Yes, I would love for you to give an example because the example that comes to mind that you share a lot of is there was someone that would come home from work and would like just start binging. And you were like, okay, well, what's the feeling behind that? Like what happened at work that caused you to come home and self-soothe? Because the binging is truly just self-soothing. So something offset the nervous system. And will you share that story? Because again, I don't think people... Here's my example.

Just share that example because when I have people come into my office and they consult with me and they're so sick, it's clear from the beginning with the majority of people that walk in, unless they've like done the academy or listened to tons of podcasts, that they're so disconnected from their bodies that in my, like I want to ask every one of them, but again, time and places, right? Like there's a time for everything. I can't say this right off the bat, but people are

so disconnected that you can't expect to heal a relationship with your body when you are almost dissociated from it, where you are so cerebral about it, where you are trying to force it into healing. Like a body will not be forced. It has to be invited and welcomed and safe. So let's go back to the example, because I want people to hear the story. I feel like I slayed the story of the student that you had.

Gina Worful (21:41)
Yeah, and I also just want to comment too before sharing that story too, I love that you said that a body really needs to feel safe because some people might also be wondering like, what do you mean by disconnected from my body? Like my head and my body are connected with each other so I don't know what you mean because I didn't understand that concept of disconnection until I did learn about it. I didn't know I was disconnected. But disconnected is like when you live with all of your attention up here in your mind, your

your attention, your awareness, and your thinking all the time. And your attention isn't down here inside of your body where you're feeling your body, you're feeling your emotions, the sensations. And sometimes feeling safe to have your attention go from your mind into your body can be a little bit of a process. Sometimes that can be a journey that takes time because if you have had a lot of physical

ailments or pains or issues that are really uncomfortable and scary, it might have been really hard to keep your attention here in your body. You might have moved your attention up into your mind because it feels safer. You're not feeling those sensations from your body. And the same thing with emotions. If you had a lot of emotions that were overwhelming, either now or growing up or a really painful chapter, you might have moved your attention out of your body and up into your mind because

having your body feel numb or disconnected actually feel safer. So we start trusting our body signals again as we move our attention from our mind down into our body. But sometimes that can be a journey. And so I just wanted to explain that a little bit about if anybody's feeling kind of confused about what does that mean to be disconnected from my body. Sometimes it's keeping our attention into our mind because it feels safer. But we start to feel the sensations of our body as we move our attention into our body.

Juanique Grover (23:28)
Well, I'm glad you touched on that because so many people have been sick for so long that they're this was my experience, especially when I got really sick three years ago. And you'll remember that, Gina, where I can even podcast. I can have like meetings. can think straight. It was hard for me to brush my teeth. Like it was so uncomfortable being alive in my body because it was so sick and I lost so much trust in it that I didn't want to be in my body anymore. It was the most terrifying thing I've

ever, ever, ever experienced. But what we do in the academy is we help you understand, like, yes, and like, we have to build this trust back. Like, I had to muscle my way. Like, people don't know how much work I put in to get to this point. They think I just did a few protocols and a few hyperbarics and yay, I was better. There was so much mental work that I had to put in to like, force myself, not, I shouldn't say force, but like,

slowly build back trust and like heal my body, not just through supplements and treatments, but through gaining self-trust again, right? Like it's all of it. It's the science and the soul. It's the mind and the body. Like I'm glad you mentioned that because there are so many people right now, if I were to ask you the question, listener who's listening right now, do you feel safe in your body?

⁓ the majority of people like hit me up on my DMs and be like, yeah, I listened to your podcast. No, I don't feel safe in my body. I want to hear that from you because that's a very real thing. And so now you're literally living in this meat suit that you don't trust, that you've broken connection with and trust. And now you have to heal it. Like now you have to like, and so of course you're going to very cerebrally try and force it into healing because, and I put here in air quotes, it betrayed you.

it failed you. It didn't show up in the way that it was supposed to. And here's the thing is that it didn't fail you. It was giving you messages for years and years and years. And oftentimes we failed it. Like we failed to listen. We failed to put ourselves first. We failed to love ourselves. We failed to have healthy boundaries. We failed to say no to others often.

We hemorrhaged our life force for other people. We failed to self-care. We failed to sleep properly, to practice nervous system regulation tools and techniques like meditation and mindfulness and slow, wonderful walks with yourself in the morning. Instead, what do do? We go for fast walks where we're listening to podcasts, we're talking to people on the phone, we're servicing other people, we're not sleeping well, we're...

burning the candle at both ends for years, if not decades. And then we're like, what? My body failed me. And it's like, no, your body was telling you for years it was tired. Your body was telling you for years this was too much. Your body was telling you for years it needed less. And what did you do? You drank caffeine and you pushed it. And you're like, I don't care what you have to say. We're going to do more.

Gina Worful (26:40)
Yeah,

in no judgment for the caffeine drinkers. I got some caffeine right here next to me.

Juanique Grover (26:47)
I'm like, again, like perfection is not required here. Right. And so like, do I drink like whenever I go on vacation, I actually drink coffee because it's like, it's like my fun little treat. And do I feel worse afterwards? 100 % but like I'm in full choice here. You know what I mean?

Gina Worful (27:06)
But I love the idea of what you're talking about, that some of these things that we label as problems, like being tired, having cravings, we label these things as these are my body against me and I have to overpower it and fix it when really it's actually a message of I need rest and I need something from you. And so to go back to that example that you brought up, it's one of the powerful ways that

you can understand the message that your body is telling you. So a lot of people will see their lack of discipline to stick to a plan as this is my problem, there's something wrong with me. When really that itself is a very specific message from your body. And so for example, there, yeah, there was somebody who kept saying, I'm gonna stick to this plan. I'm gonna stick to this healthy eating. But every evening he would come home and end up snacking on some chips and

having a bunch of snacks and like veer off the plan. And when he came to me, he was like, can you help me fix this right here? Like this time, can you help me not eat chips? And I asked, well, what's happening before the chips? And sometimes it was I wasn't eating and my low, my blood sugar was so low, I went into like the survival response. Sometimes it was that his stress had built up throughout the day.

and he didn't really pay attention that his stress was like at a peak and he was needing snacks and food to actually help re-regulate his nervous system. And so when we looked at how is his body communicating what he was needing earlier, the chips resolved itself. He didn't need to use willpower. He didn't need to force himself to stick to something. It all resolved on its own. And so when we can understand my body is communicating to me, I haven't had enough food.

or my body is communicating to me, I'm stressed and I'm overwhelmed and we listen and we trust that signal, now we're working with our bodies instead of seeing it as the enemy. And most of the time when people go into that state of where one minute they have so much motivation to eat healthy and then the next minute it's like something takes over their brain and all of sudden they go into almost like a hypnosis feeling of like, I need these chips right now or I need something right now.

That's usually the nervous system communicating and telling you we need food or sugar or carbs as a survival mechanism. It helps lower cortisol. It helps regulate our nervous system. And so that's just a clue that probably your nervous system is a little bit overwhelmed. The key isn't to use more willpower. The key is instead to calm your nervous system and bring down cortisol.

and feel what your body is really telling you it needs from you emotionally, physically. And now you're working in partnership instead of in this battle against your own body and your food. Does that make sense?

Juanique Grover (30:00)
a lot of sense. think something that we do in the Getty Academy when we coach our students is by the time they're at like month four, they're like, yeah, I've taken a lot of courses and I've done a lot of things, but I didn't realize how ragged I was running my nervous system. Like I didn't realize that even though I had slowed down and I had said no a few times, I needed to do it way more. People were like, hey, look, I'm checking the list, right?

I'm doing the 10 minute meditation and it's like, yeah, and are you lowering your expectations in every area of your life to just give your body some time to breathe? Here's a great example. Women, we put so much expectation on ourselves. It's unnatural. don't like, we are born into this world where it's just plastered on us and so it feels normal, but it's actually not normal. It's unnatural. And so one example that I want to share is

In my gutsy small group coaching that I do twice a month, a lot of the women, we had like massive processes around preparing dinner. And I know that sounds so weird, but I was like, why? You know, they're like, I have to show up and prepare dinner even when I'm sick and I'm not feeling good. And I was like, why? When we went through this process of like, why do you have to do that? And we went behind the lies and the beliefs behind that and that they could actually let that go. They were like, my gosh.

You mean, I don't have to have home-cooked meals every day because, because again, women to us, the message behind that was I am not a good mom and I don't love my children if I am not slaving in the kitchen, making them a home-cooked meal. And I was like, do your children really believe that? Do they love it when mom is stressed and forcing them to sit down at a table and eat the meal that she cooked and they actually hate it? Or do they love it when mom is like sitting on a couch and she's regulated?

and she's snuggling them and she's asking them about their day. It's like, can you see how this story of like, I have to show up, I have to show up making dinner or else my value diminishes and my children love me less. Like just little things like that. When we unpack these beliefs, like these beliefs that people gave to us, whether it was a mother, a teacher, the movies, who knows what. We're thrown these beliefs from young.

Right? And we pick them up and we're like, okay, this is true and I have to do this. Otherwise I will be less valuable and less lovable. And as you go through these processes, as you go through the academy or any group coaching program, and you can have people challenge them and you can process why they're not that important anymore, then you can lay that weight down and allow for true healing to happen, more slowness.

Slow doesn't equal unvaluable. I think, especially as women, you know, we feel like we have to keep up in a man's world. We have to perform and we have to hit goals and we have to work out so freaking hard because that's the thing, right? Like we're all lifting weights and we're all doing cardio and we're so productive. And as women, like that's so not okay for our bodies, right?

our bodies actually need slow. Our bodies are designed to literally bring humans into this world. We weren't designed to build empires. We weren't designed to go hunting. We weren't designed to hunt down and kill animals and build huts and homes, right? We were designed to nurture and to love and to grow tiny humans and take care of them.

And yet we're in this man's world, which tells us that our value isn't that it's perform, perform, perform. And so it's so hard. It's so hard. Of course we're disconnected from our bodies. Of course we're sick. Of course we're tired. Of course we have these stories and these beliefs that we have to do these certain things. Otherwise we're not lovable and we're not valuable.

Gina Worful (34:14)
And I think that a lot of people wonder too, why is it that I do different programs or I start a new thing and I get excited, but then I just don't do it. And I know that I deeply want it, but for some reason I just don't do it. And I think that that's one of the common things that can create some inner frustration. And then the nervous system is constantly turned on with this, like, I know that I want to do it. And so there might even be some hesitation to even try another thing because it's like, well, what if I don't do it?

And if you really unpack the deeper layers and you keep getting curious with what am I really feeling, I remember on one of our gutsy calls, one of our members came to the call and said, I'm feeling really frustrated because I just, I know that I should be taking care of myself, but I'm not making the time. I don't have the time. And I remember we asked her what, how would you feel if you did make the time for yourself? And she was like, ⁓ I don't have time for that. That's so uncomfortable.

And we asked her, what's the feeling? What's underneath that discomfort with making the time for yourself? And she's like, oh, the time for myself, that doesn't feel good. It's like, what's underneath that? Oh, it's lazy. What's underneath that? Oh, I wouldn't be getting enough done. I wouldn't be taking care of everyone else. And what's the fear that's underneath that? She said, I won't be valuable. And so if you have this...

deeper driver of like, if I'm not doing things constantly for everyone else, my kids, my spouse, other people, if I don't constantly perform for other people, I won't be a valuable person. That's gonna make the desire to make the time for yourself really hard and really uncomfortable. But when you really feel that, then if you really feel the truth of like your value and your worthiness, then you will begin

then starting to get momentum from a place of connection with yourself, knowing your value and not triggering your nervous system at the same time.

Juanique Grover (36:10)
So with that student, was my value is my performance. So self-care means I'm not performing, therefore it's incongruous with my values. And so here's the thing, you don't know what you don't know and you can't see what you can't see. You need coaches, you need people looking outside to help you look within and be like, hey, can we unravel this for a second? Can we go deeper?

Can we help you see this from a different angle and see how it's actually not true? Can we help you see how this deep core belief is actually ruining your ability to heal yourself, take care of yourself, value yourself? Because what's often tied with, I'm not valuable. If I'm not performing, then I'm not valuable. Another one is, I'm actually not worthy of taking care of myself.

That's one that we can go in deeper and deeper and deeper. And that's what Brit Lefkoe does with all of like for our Getse Academy members. Like that's a huge one. Like, of course, you're not going to invest in your healing. Of course, you're not going to give yourself the time. If you have a root belief that you are unworthy of healing, unworthy of love, unworthy of your time, you will do everything you can to sabotage your healing, to reinforce that belief.

to show yourself that it remains true until you can cut that belief out very gently and lovingly. It doesn't have to be hard. I think cuts sounded really violent. It's not that violent. It can actually be easy, guys. We don't do hard things in the academy. We do things very gently.

Gina Worful (37:48)
think it also makes this process of choosing yourself and healing your health something that is so much deeper than just getting healthy. What you're really doing is you're changing the story of I really matter, I matter to myself, my body matters, caring for myself matters. And so we see these health plans as like a surface level, like, everybody's doing it, everybody's getting healthier.

But it's really so much more than that. You have to face some of those deep places within you that says, I don't have the time, taking care of myself is selfish, I'm not worth it, I'm not worth spending money on myself, I'm not worth spending the time to cook for myself. And you start changing those stories that like, my body matters, my happiness matters, caring for myself really matters. And I think you begin elevating your own self-worth on like a really deep level.

Juanique Grover (38:42)
We've brushed on this a little bit, Gina, but how are other ways that we become disconnected from our bodies in the first place? We've kind of like brushed on it here and there, but can we go really deep into this question? Because I think people need to understand the majority of you listening to this podcast are actually not as connected as you think you are to your body. I have not come across one Academy member who I'm like, my gosh, you're so connected and like,

you really understand your body. Like there's nothing for me to teach you here. A lot of people come in thinking, ⁓ I already know all this stuff. But the deeper we go, the more they're like, holy cow, the more I learned, the more I realized how disconnected I am. How did we get here? How did we become so distant from our bodies that it feels like our body is on Venus and we're here on earth?

Gina Worful (39:33)
one of the big things is we are in a culture that encourages disembodiment. It encourages us to pull our attention out of our bodies and into our minds. so instead of being encouraged to spend time connecting in word, what am I feeling? What is my body feeling today? What are my emotions today? Instead, we're encouraged to pull our attention into our computers, our emails, our social media. And even when we approach health, a lot of the

is very cerebral, like you said, especially when you get into the world of like food tracking and calorie counting. And I'm so glad that we don't do that in the academy because it very much pulls your attention up into your head with right and wrong and numbers and this very mental place of approaching health. And so unfortunately, we're really not encouraged to keep our attention down in our bodies and feeling our feelings.

One of the other reasons why we feel disconnected from our bodies, like I mentioned before, is really just a safety response. And so if you're feeling disconnected from your body, try not to be hard on yourself about it because sometimes that can be a very useful strategy to protect yourself if your emotions have been overwhelming or if your physical sensations have felt overwhelming. And the process of coming back into connection and trusting your body

is maybe a process of feeling safe to feel your emotions. I know a lot of us grew up maybe with parents who said, you're gonna be put in timeout if you cry. And so from a really young age, you might be learning, if I have feelings like sadness or if I'm crying or if my emotions are overwhelming, that is so bad, I'm gonna be isolated and punished for it. And this is no judgment to parents, because we just don't really sometimes know how to handle those emotions. But...

You may have learned from a young age that crying and sadness and emotions are a bad thing. And so you might disassociate from that experience as an adult. It might feel more protective to instead of feeling our feelings. We're not really in a culture that encourages us to feel our feelings. Instead, we're taught to suppress them. So we move our attention up into our minds for safety. But when we only live with our attention in our minds and we don't feel the sensations of our body,

it becomes very confusing and distorted. Like we might not be able to tell, am I hungry or full? Am I having a food craving? Cause you're not feeling the sensations of your body. Or if your body has certain symptoms, it might be really confusing as like, are these symptoms happening? What is wrong with me? You know, even things like the connection with weight gain. Often that can feel just like this very frustrating thing.

but that's the body's way of creating protection. know, fat stores are protective for the body and the organs. So disconnecting from the body, quote unquote, disconnecting, moving our attention up into our minds or out of our bodies can be a protective thing. And we're also in a culture that encourages us to move our attention into our minds or away from our own bodies. And we can rebuild trust with those signals again by moving our attention back into our bodies.

also in a way that feels safe. And I think of feeling safe as, I stay in a place of where I'm really curious? Like, I wonder what I'm feeling today. I'm wondering what that sensation is or, that's interesting. I'm feeling anxious today. But if I start to move my attention in my body and it feels overwhelming and I'm like, I can't handle this, this is too much. Maybe that's too fast. Maybe I need to actually keep my attention away from my body.

until I can get a little more curious and feel more safe to feel those sensations again.

Juanique Grover (43:24)
I have a few examples. hope I can remember all of them because as you're talking, I'm like, okay, I need to talk about these points. But the first one is as I've been raising my kids, there's been two versions of me. They extremely traumatize sick me and the healing me, the me that feels safe. As soon as Tristan died and then a year later when I got sick, I was drowning and my nervous system was so offset.

it was so hard for me to hold space for my children when their nervous systems were getting offset. Because let's be honest, when you are young, you know, your nervous system is still learning how to regulate and you have to borrow someone's nervous system to help regulate it. So if your parents had dysregulated nervous systems and you were growing up and they couldn't lend you a healed nervous system to help yours co-regulate with,

If they started feeding you stories of you're bad, keep quiet, go to your room, you're too much, you need to shove it down. What they were actually saying is, I'm so dysregulated, I can't lend you my nervous system. And what they should have said was, I'm sorry, I can't lend you my nervous system right now because it's not in alignment with what you need right now to feel safe. Like, can you imagine if you were young and your parents actually said that versus go to your room, stop doing that?

So like, can you imagine the energy of like, I'm dysregulated right now because you're being really noisy. I need to go put myself in my room and regulate so I can come back and help you. Can you imagine if your parents said that instead, how your nervous system would show up right now? What's really interesting, I've been dying to share this. feel like, you know, like Buddhist monks that like live in the mountains and they become all enlightenment. F those dudes. I don't want to say the F word because there's a lot of

Christians that listen to this podcast. That's the easiest job on the planet. Are you kidding me? Sitting in isolation, becoming enlightened. I want to take those dudes and be like, hey, there's a child screaming in that room. They need some co-regulation. Do this over and over and over, multiple times a day for the next two decades of your life. And then see how enlightened you are.

Gina Worful (45:42)
That's the real meditation, is bringing it into life.

Juanique Grover (45:46)
Yes, like moms, we have the job of trying to heal our nervous systems, trying to like regulate them. And at the same time, regulate our undeveloped brained children's nervous systems too. Are you kidding me? That's so hard. That's so hard. And yet that's the work we have to do. Can you imagine the gift you can give your children? Your healed self.

your regulated nervous system. You know, it's not like the lessons of like, hey, like count how much sugar you're having and don't eat gluten and don't like, I feel like I've experienced everything. I've had perfectly eating children, especially when Tristan was alive, like our children ate perfectly. And then, and now they don't, but out of like the perfect eating children and the regulated nervous system that I can lend them, I would say the regulated nervous system is far more valuable.

than my children eating perfectly. Like I've experienced both worlds now and I can by far say that it's my nervous system being, well, my nervous system healing. I'm not Zen guys, trust me. I'm a lot better, but I'm not Zen. But my nervous system being better is far more healing for them. They are so much better off because I have been able to become friends with my body.

love myself where I was at, at my worst, at my best, be able to become an empowered self-healing advocate for them, connecting with my body, healing all the parts of me that were unhealed, and then showing up better, not just for myself, but for them as well. You can't afford to not take care of yourself because that self-neglect will bleed into your children's self-care. It will bleed into the way you parent.

And then you're modeling to them that self-neglect is love. And then guess what they're going to do when they're adults? They're going to hemorrhage their life force, be people pleasers, not take care of themselves. And then they too will start to get sick. And I don't know about you, but I saw hell. went through hell with Tristan. I went through hell with my own health. I absolutely don't want my children ever, ever, ever, ever going through that. And so...

You guys, can't afford to not take care of yourselves. You can't afford to remain disconnected from your bodies. It's not an option here. Actually, it is if you choose that. if you want to be on the other side, more empowered, more healed, more healed for your children, you take the steps to get there. All right. The other example I wanted to give, which was so great, you'll love this, Gina, but...

I love, again, I'm not a perfect parent, but there are some things I think I'm doing well and I want to share this. I had a great conversation with Satori the other day. She was getting really nippy with Henry and unfortunately, Henry gets it in the neck when she's nippy. And I was like, Satori, like, why do you think you're getting nippy with Henry right now? And I'm so like, I wish I had these tools when I was young to help me unpack why I was the way I was. But she was like, well, mom, I think

I think what happens is when my friends leave me out, my amygdala tells me to take it out on Henry because I'm so angry. Right? Isn't that crazy?

Gina Worful (49:14)
Gosh, and how old was she now?

Juanique Grover (49:17)
She's eight. She's recognizing that when she feels left out, her brain gets hijacked. She's no longer in her prefrontal cortex. She's in her amygdala and she takes her anger out on other people around her. And it's not anger, it's sadness and rejection. Can you imagine if you were given those tools as a kid, if you were given that language, if you were given that space, if you were given, or if you had a nervous system you could borrow from a parent that was calm and regulated,

Do you think you'd be sick right now? Like, I want you to answer that. Like, would you be sick right now if you were given the tools and the language and a borrowed safe nervous system? Do you think your body would have strayed so far and shouted so loud to come back to center again? All right. Gina, how do we want to end this podcast? There's so much we can talk about.

Tell us a little bit about mastering mindfulness and how you're going to bring that into the Getzi Academy. Just so everyone knows, Gina, so when you join the Getzi Academy, the very first week of every month, Gina's gonna be leading that. We're gonna review that, like let's say it's month number two, which is mitochondria. We will review mitochondria and why it's step two in the order of healing. But then Gina, you're gonna take people on like a mastering mindfulness journey. What is that gonna entail for?

students that enroll in the Getze Academy, what are you going to help them accomplish and learn?

Gina Worful (50:45)
Yeah, this is where we're going to bring in the connection with yourself along with everything that you're learning. One, it's so empowering to learn health information, know how to take care of yourself, but then also creating a deeper connection with yourself and your own body. And so sometimes I know our conversation in some ways may have felt intimidating, like, I don't even know where to start. How do I connect with myself? And it can be hard to connect with yourself if you're in those moments of where you are feeling stressed or you are having food cravings.

sometimes that moment is really difficult to feel in connection with yourself. So we do intentional practices, almost like brief guided meditation so that you can practice feeling the sensations of your body and being in connection with your body so that as you're changing your, maybe some of the food choices that you make, you can feel, does this feel right for me? And instead of feeling like you have to grit in willpower,

You can feel very in tune with your body and not feel controlled or overpowered by food cravings or like you have that loss of control. It's all about regulating your own body and feeling in tune with it. So those are the practices that we do. I think of it as like practicing for game day. Like you don't want to just show up on game day and you never shot your first two. Sometimes people say, well, why do we do these little practices and meditations? It doesn't necessarily feel good. Like I went to the spa and sometimes it does feel really good.

but it's less about feeling good and more about meeting yourself truly authentically. What am I feeling? What are the sensations in my body? How's my own body communicating to me what it really needs and coming into a deeper relationship with it almost as if we were improving communication with a partner. And the beautiful thing is you can't mess this up. There's no doing good, there's no doing bad.

You're just having an experience with your own body and it's all right, it's all valid, you can't mess it up. And so it is one of the things that our Academy students have said has been one of their favorite things is feeling like they're more in tune with their own body and more connection with it.

Juanique Grover (52:56)
Thank you so much for sharing that. think if everyone should be following Gina online. Gina, it's what is your Instagram? It's Gina dot warful, right? W-O-R-F-U-L. So follow Gina online. She shares a lot of incredible tips and tools. So many things from the Mastering Mindfulness Institute. Follow along, join the Getzi Academy where you can get a lot of guidance from her, this cohort.

As well as from Britt Lefkoe, who is a mindset, he's one of the world's best mindset coaches. my gosh, like you guys are in for a treat with Gina and Britt. I'm so excited for the students of this year. Like it's going to be such a great, great cohort. And like I said in past podcasts, this is probably going to be the last cohort that I teach in depth like this for a few years as I want to just spend time with my kids and just

open up my bandwidth for them as they are just getting older. I have four kids now. I started off with two. Yeah, when the Getze Academy started and then I doubled in number over like two years. ⁓ but Gina, I'm so grateful for how you have evolved the Getze Academy with me, like your own healing journey, my healing journey, watching our students and like co-creating this

really beautiful space for people to become their best self-healing advocate. We're not just teaching you how to become your own coach, like we're teaching you how to become like this very intuitive, like healing badass. And so if this resonates with you, if you are ready to choose yourself, if you are ready to slough off the belief systems that have been holding you back and find healing again and

just coming back to alignment with yourself. If you know that your body has been calling for healing, but you just don't know how to answer it, this is your opportunity to learn the language so you can answer the call that your body has been giving out. So join the Getzi Academy. This will be the last cohort we teach in a while. Go to mygetzihealth.com forward slash getziacademy. Sign up every week. Signups are going up in price.

So the sooner you sign up, the less money you have to pay. So make sure you sign up ⁓ sooner before then later. And Gina, again, thank you for your time. Listeners, thank you for being here and we'll catch you next week.