What Your Food Cravings Are Really Telling You with Gina Worful, MS, RD

What Your Food Cravings Are Really Telling You with Gina Worful, MS, RD

00:00

Hey everybody, welcome back to the EnergyMD Podcast where we help you resolve your long COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome naturally so that you can get back to living your best life. So really excited about today's episode because we're going to be talking with Gina Worful all about being mindful when it comes to eating and cravings. So let's learn a little bit about her.

00:27

So Gina Worful is the founder of Mastering Mindfulness Institute. Originally trained as a registered dietitian, Gina saw that traditional diet approaches failed to create lasting change. She developed a mindfulness-based methodology that helps people build self-trust and transform their health from the inside out. Today, the Mastering Mindfulness Institute supports individuals, health professionals, and universities

00:55

and applying this transformational approach. Gina, thank you so much for joining me today. Aw, thanks for having me. Yeah, always a pleasure. You know, for people in our community who are struggling with long COVID, chronic fatigue, chronic fatigue syndrome, they have tried a lot of different diets. They know that there's a certain way for them to eat. Oftentimes they feel so crappy, though, that it's hard for them to make good decisions. Can we kind of like talk a little bit about why

01:25

I guess I would start there, you know, why so many people still struggle with cravings and self-sabotage. Yeah, for sure. I mean, if you're here listening, I'm sure you have been on quite a journey with your body and with your health. And sometimes we know how to make some of these changes and what are the healthier things that we should be eating. But sometimes we might have that moment of where it's like so much depletion, so much exhaustion, and you might find yourself.

01:53

reaching for a food and it feels like there's something inside of you, like this urge that feels stronger. And you might find yourself making a food choice that you don't really feel great about or you didn't really want to make. And I really like to get curious with what is inside of that urge. And so my intention here with you on this podcast is to maybe open up some new perspectives and things that you haven't heard before. And maybe looking at your body,

02:21

through a little bit more of a compassionate lens of what is actually happening inside of that urge. Because I think that we're so under-resourced with understanding what's happening. So our society might tell us that if you have this craving or this urge for a food and it's stronger than your discipline, that you're just lacking willpower and you need to try harder. so we use methods of control, like trying to avoid foods or keeping temptations on the house or...

02:51

Or maybe we try to track our food and write down our food for some accountability. But this feeling of control and trying to fight that inner urge can feel like it adds to the exhaustion. It can feel like this inner battle. And without understanding what's happening, it might feel like, why can't I just do it? What's wrong with me? Why do I know what I'm supposed to do or what I should do? But I just can't quite seem to do it.

03:19

If you're in that place and you're like, yeah, I hear that. What I really, really want you to know is that there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing broken in your body or your system. It's your body going into its design, its safety mode, its survival mode, which oftentimes happens when we're working through illnesses or chronic health issues or our body is fighting something off or we're in fatigue or exhaustion.

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and our body shifts into more of that survival state, naturally our body responds by increasing our cravings and our drive for food and our hunger. And so our body will always prioritize protection and survival. And when we don't understand that connection, that when I crave food or when I feel that strong urge, when I don't understand that that's my body's protective mechanisms, I try to control my food, I try to suppress the craving, but it always comes back.

04:17

I think of it as like you're trying to push a balloon underwater. You're like, go away craving and you try to push it away. Then it comes back up because our body is still in that protective mode. And so it feels very, very challenging to make better choices or support our bodies or change when we're in, when we're in that state. But if we can look at our body through the lens of it's in self-protection right now, now I can look at it through a different perspective and start partnering with my body and saying,

04:47

How do I support you? How do I take care of you? And listening to what these cravings are trying to get our attention for. Mm hmm. Yeah, I love the fact that you said, you know, to be curious about the urge. My wife, who's a meditation teacher and a trauma informed mindfulness coach says curiosity is a superpower. Would you agree? I could not agree more. It is because we're we're we're.

05:15

I don't want say we're taught, but we get so many of these messages that our cravings are bad. And so when we look at them as they're bad, we develop this shame around something that our body is actually doing to try to protect us. And when we switch from that judgment to something more like curiosity, now that opens up the whole world of possibility of, wonder what I'm experiencing. I wonder what my body is needing. uh

05:43

build so much more momentum, so much more trust, so much more ease when we're experiencing those cravings or those urges. So let's make this really practical. So somebody brings you over a delicious chocolate cake and you're trying to be paleo or ketogenic. They put the cake on your counter, they leave, and now you're kind of left with this cake.

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Like where do you start so that you're not resisting, so that you're being curious, you're noticing, where do you start in this conversation with this relationship with this sweet treat? Well, I think what's important to differentiate is that it's not about wanting to taste something good because the goal isn't to try to eat perfect and healthy and eat broccoli and never indulge. You might indulge, but you might say, okay, I'm going to try to indulge with choices that

06:39

more honor my body and this health journey I'm on. So maybe I indulge in something that is like, you know, the paleo cake or something like that that I really like. But what I like to talk, what I'm focusing on here is not do I just want to eat something that tastes good, but what is that feeling when it feels like I'm no longer in choice? When it feels like something has hijacked my brain and I really do not want to indulge or eat that food, but it feels like something has hijacked my brain.

07:08

And that's the place that we really want to start getting curious with. When it feels like something has hijacked our brains and that feeling of the craving is stronger inside of us, and it's not just that we want to taste something good, but there's like, I'm not hungry, but this urge is really strong. We want to start looking at it through the lens of my body is needing safety and protection. And so I might start practicing to create the

07:38

the state and the feeling of safety within my body. And what really happens is something really cool happens. As we start building that feeling of safety and connection in our body, as our bodies start to get the message that we're feeling more safe, the craving and the urge kind of softens. It gets a little more gentle and it gets a little more gentle. And we start to shift out of that like hypnosis like state.

08:03

And so the practice is about, so on a practical level, let's say you go into that state and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm kind of in the zone with food. I'm kind of in that. You'll almost feel it like, like your primal animalistic instincts where you're, you're almost like in the zone and you're focused on food. And so you want to start practicing to bring your attention back inward and creating uh a state of safety inside of your body.

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And so sometimes that might start with just taking a pause and interrupting that hypnosis like state where you're pausing, you're taking a few breaths and you're, you're grounding back into your body and you're breathing. And then that's where you might start asking a few questions of what am I feeling? What am I, what is my body really needing to be supported right now? Nice. So pausing.

08:59

Sounds like being really mindful and intentional, noticing, taking some breaths, grounding, asking some questions. Are those questions like, um why do I have this craving? Or is it questions around, do I feel safe right now? So when you feel that come up, when you feel that urge inside of your body come up, I think of it as three Rs. It's really easy to remember.

09:27

And the first R is to reconnect with yourself. So when we go into that craving state, our attention usually comes into our mind. We're kind of swirling with craving and with thought. And so reconnect is just about creating an internal state of safety. So we might bring a hand to our heart, take a slow breath. And the purpose of reconnection is letting our bodies know I'm here with you.

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I'm reconnected with you. We're taking a slow breath. I'm here with you. And then reset is when you feel safe enough to create an external environment of safety. So reconnect is inside. Reset is I might move myself out of the kitchen or the space where I feel a little overwhelmed, where my nervous system feels overwhelmed. I'm feeling a lot. And so if you feel ready for the next step, you might move yourself out of the kitchen.

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maybe into like your bedroom or to the couch where you can wrap yourself up in a blanket and put yourself in a different environment. And it's not about giving yourself a distraction or getting yourself away or avoidance. It's about how do I move myself into an environment where my nervous system can feel safe and held so that I can move on to then the third step, which is reflection. And reflection doesn't have to be over analyzing.

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processing, figuring out where does this come from. But being in a state where I'm allowing, where I've been breathing with my body and creating an internal state of safety, I moved out of the space and created an environment that feels safe for me. And now I'm allowing this reflection of where I might ask questions that are very simple, very gentle, like, what am I feeling right now? Or what am I needing right now?

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what am I really longing for right now? And what we'll usually find is that there's overwhelm inside of depletion or there's uh a longing for love and connection. And it's when we're feeling those places inside of us that have been um maybe not felt or not heard.

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And the craving helps us through that experience because food helps us feel safe. It helps us feel love. Food provides to us what we're really needing. And that goes all the way back from our childhood. We develop these different associations. So the reflection helps us feel, am I really needing and what am I really longing for? Just to kind of connect the dots here, when

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when you're first born and you're crying and you're frantic and you're like, oh my gosh. when you're first born, it's like you think that you probably think that you're dying. And the very first thing that you experience as you start breastfeeding, and it's like, oh, I'm safe. And so that's the first relationship of where food becomes our ally. Not our enemy, but our ally to help us register inside of our bodies. You're safe.

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You're okay. It provides us a sense of like safety and grounding. And then throughout our lives, we continue to develop a relationship. we might, you know, maybe you had parents who didn't know how to express their love or teach you love or show you love. And so food became the source of feeling love or food became the source of connection. So this relationship, every person develops one all throughout their life.

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And it's not just like something that we know. It's deep in our minds and our bodies and our psyche that like food helps me feel safe. It helps me feel regulated. It helps me feel comforted, loved. And that's not a bad thing. What it can teach us is that when we crave food or we crave something, it is actually this beautiful message that we're needing something.

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And when we can understand and ask these questions, like, what am I feeling? What am I needing? And understanding that association, that's where our cravings actually become our teacher to show us where we're needing love, where we're needing connection, where we're needing support during overwhelm. And by that learning and that discovery, we start to become our own inner resource for what we're needing. And the cravings gently soften as we're becoming our own inner resource for what we're needing.

14:12

That's so beautiful. It's like, uh, it's a tool. It's a tool for mindfulness. And so is part of the process or is it helpful to, to notice if you're hungry or not?

14:30

noticing if you're hungry or not comes through practice. And it's not the first step. And the reason why is because when you're in a stressed state, the signals on if you're hungry or if you're full, those signals become distorted. And so the areas of your brain that feel satiety, that feel full,

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that area of your brain isn't active when you're in a stressed state. So it can be helpful to ask, am I actually hungry or am I just craving something right now? But oftentimes it will feel confusing and that signal will feel a little bit distorted. So as we're practicing to breathe with our bodies and regulate our nervous system, over time that signal becomes more clear. And I like to give people some clues to.

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practice noticing. And so this isn't like, I get how to do it? Can I do it perfectly or not? It's more like, here's some little clues that you can practice along the way. So when I'm hungry, that's a clue from my body telling me we need nourishment. Calories are low. We need nourishment. And so that signal inside of my body might feel like pains in my stomach, where you feel that grumbling in your stomach.

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You kind of feel a little bit of low blood sugar. It kind of happens over time. You gradually get more and more hungry. And you can feel like if you don't eat, you'll get like hangry where you're like, I need food over time. That feels a little bit different from a craving. The sensations of a craving in our body, what typically happens is when we go into that protective mode, our attention will tend to go up into our mind.

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And we start thinking about flavors and food. And kind of the fixation is up here. We're kind of thinking about what we want to taste. And it feels more primal. It feels more hypnotic. Like, I know what I should be eating, but I need something different. And there's almost this urgent feeling of, I need something right now. And you might hear that voice in your head that sounds protective. It's like, I need something. I need something.

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So we may or may not feel a sensation in our stomach. We might not feel that same sensation of low blood sugar. It might be more of our attention is up here. And the other thing I look like to get to know when my body is telling me if it's going into that state is how my body reacts when it goes into a stress state versus when it's more in that parasympathetic calm state. I, so.

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Before, when I was experiencing this and I had all these cravings coming on, I had no idea what my body was doing because I never paid attention. But then I started to notice when my neck would kind of contract a little bit, my shoulders would contract, my jaw kind of contracts, my breathing gets shallow. My body was going into that stressed state before I even realized it. So my body was giving me clues. So I like to tell people to

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Practice noticing how your body shifts. When does it feel like it's in that parasympathetic state where maybe this kind of lets go a little bit, breathing might be a little more deep? And when does it start to shift a little bit into a stressed state where maybe things tighten, contract, our thoughts go up into the mind, we kind of start craving things? The earlier that we can notice those clues,

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the earlier I can start to feel, oh, my body is telling me it needs something from me. If I don't pay attention, it's like my body ends up taking over and going into full self-protection mode. And then it feels really, really challenging to navigate that craving because my body is so in that state. So I think of it as like our bodies send us little clues and whispers. And the more I can notice and pay attention,

18:37

the more I can feel what my body is needing. Is it ever okay to give in to a craving? But I feel like giving in or thinking about pushing, those aren't allowing, kind of like what you were talking about. It seems like we have to change our vocabulary. Yeah, it's such a good question. It's an interesting way to wrap your head around it because...

19:01

Some people are like, well, is it okay for me to give into the craving and eat this food? And then also like, what if I have health goals? How do I navigate that? And so there's a couple of things that I think about is kind of like I mentioned before, it's great to have the desire that it's okay to indulge, but trying to make indulgences that are supportive for your body that are a little bit healthier, a little bit cleaner, it's always okay to indulge.

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It's less about, I overcome this craving? Did I get through it? Did I not eat the food? It's actually not about the food. What it's really about is that my craving that I feel powerless to is really just telling me that I need something. And as I practice fulfilling what my body is really needing, the cravings come down. And when the craving comes down, here's the difference in indulging.

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when you're indulging from that place of being overtaken in an accraving, it can feel like you're checked out. It feels maybe like you disassociate and you feel insatiable and you can't stop. And you know, maybe you can feel when you're full and you don't feel good, but you can't quite stop.

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When you practice regulating your body and listening to that cravings, then you might indulge, but you're doing it from a place of connection and choice. That's where you might start indulging in something and you're present with it and you're like really receiving it, you're really enjoying it. And it doesn't feel hard to feel when you're actually done and be like, okay, it's easy to honor my body. I had some and now I'm done. But when you're in those

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and your stress system is turned on, it feels almost impossible to stop. So it's not so much about whether you have the indulgence or not, it's about what state is your body in, because that will completely change the experience of it. It seems like being able to like sit with the discomfort of the craving is a little bit like hormesis, like whether it's fasting or whether it's

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cold showers or cold bath or something like that where you're trying to just observe what's happening and allow what's happening and learn from what's happening and be curious about what's happening. Would you say that there is kind of a little bit of a congruence between some of those other things or that part of this is getting more comfortable with discomfort? Yeah, so...

21:45

Something that you mentioned and brought up was cold plunging. it's funny that you mentioned that cold plunging was actually a really big part of me healing my relationship with food and understanding my cravings. Because when I started cold plunging, when I first went into the cold water, the first time, this was my first time ever doing a cold plunge, I remember getting into the water and I was like, yelled out a loud audible swear word. And it was like, and it was not something that I could even control. It was like my brain.

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went into, I am not going to be OK. Like, get me out of here. It was like my brain was so irrational, like, we're going to die. I'm not safe. I'm not OK. And my body and my breathing reacting to it. And when I was in this first, the first time I did a cold plunge, I was in a group cold plunge with other people. And there were people in there that they were breathing and they were meditating. And I was like, what is wrong with these people? Like, get me out of here. This is nuts.

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And I could not believe that there were people in there with their eyes closed breathing, and I did not get it at all. And then this instructor came around to me, and he put his hands on my back, and he told me to breathe, and he told me to quiet my mind a little bit. And just to quiet my mind, breathe with my body, and to feel the sensation. And as I started to breathe with my body, and I started feeling the sensation, the freezing cold.

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almost started to feel warm. was like interesting how your perception can change. And what I started to realize was that cold, my brain interpreted the cold as I'm going to die. But when I looked at it is just a sensation. I could be with it just as purely a sensation. And I started my body and my nervous system started to feel safe and calm down. And now it didn't feel so painful. And so it was a

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practice of regulating my thoughts and feeling how it's just a sensation in my body. Now how that translated to food. Now there was a day uh recently, or it was just after that cold plunge experience, where I felt so consumed with exhaustion and emotion and I felt myself craving something and I heard the voice in my head that sounded very similar to that voice in the cold plunge that was like, I'm not okay.

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I'm so overwhelmed, I need something. And I heard that voice and I stopped and I took a breath and I started breathing with my body. And I started feeling what that I'm not okay felt like in my body. I started feeling the sensation of a craving. And it actually, when I took away the label of it being bad, like the cold, and I just felt the sensation for what it was.

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I started to feel safe in that sensation. It actually felt like energy. felt like desire. felt like aliveness. And I realized that my mind was labeling it as I'm not safe, I'm okay. And so the practice became to feel that sensation and to feel safe in what I was feeling and what I was experiencing. And where my mind originally said, this is not okay, I'm not safe. I could practice.

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being with it just as being a sensation. And naturally, it's not that I overpowered and strengthened my way through the craving. It's that I started to feel safe and it felt more gentle being with my emotions, with my cravings, with what I was feeling inside of my body without my mind feeling like this is a threat. Does that answer what your question was? Yeah, absolutely.

25:34

And I wonder where that comes from in terms of like, we're taught somewhere along the way that it's not okay to be uncomfortable in our bodies. Like, you know, we scrape a knee and we get tended to right away. You know, like, oh, I feel uncomfortable. I cry somebody soothes me or something soothes me. Right? Here's an ice cream cone or something like that. I mean, is that kind of what you see as well?

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Yeah. And you know, this is no judgment to parents because I can have a lot. I could really empathize if you have a crying baby and you're like, I can't take it anymore. And, know, a lot of us grew up where we're crying and your parent might punish you for, for crying or having your tantrum. And so if you're punished and it's like, you better stop crying or you're going to go in timeout, you're going to be isolated. It's apparent. might think like, Oh, you know, I'm just telling them what to do, but

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As a child, we internalize that as my sadness is wrong. It's inherently wrong inside of my body. And that stays with us. And even growing up, you know, in high school, in college, we get these expectations of to be strong and to not be sad. And there's not a lot of support through the days that like, we're just not happy and we're struggling.

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And so our bodies and our nervous system can feel that like, this is bad, this is wrong. And that's where naturally we might look to food to help that emotion go away or to feel better to help us through it. And so it's not about making the emotion go away. It's feeling safe in our bodies to feel what am I feeling and experiencing. And I know that can be easier said than done, especially if you're working through health issues where fatigue is a

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really real thing or physical pain is a really real thing. And so I don't want to minimize that and say, be okay with it. Just it's fine. You know, I know that that's, I don't want to minimize the experience of how hard and challenging that can be. And sometimes it's not about getting rid of the food. It might actually be looking at our behaviors and struggles through a lot more of a compassionate lens of like,

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It's hard for me to be with my body. It's hard for me to feel my emotions or my experience. And this struggle isn't a flaw within myself. It's not my lack of willpower. It's that food is my ally and it's helping me get through this really difficult time. And as I feel supported and I feel more safe in my body, naturally that craving also in proportion softens too.

28:23

I know there's been times in my life where I'm so uncomfortable by either being in a cold plunge or being doing something hard at work where I'm seriously screaming in my head like I have to remind myself like I am not going to die. Right. It seems like that sometimes things in life can get so incredibly intense that um

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that it's sometimes overwhelming. And sometimes that can also, I would imagine, kind of like push us into this. um So I think that these mindful tools that you're talking about are so important. Being able to sit with that discomfort and loving yourself and having compassion for yourself. So many people with fatigue are pushing through. People don't understand because they look normal from the outside and they don't have cancer. If you have cancer, you get a pass.

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And with fatigue, you just don't. know, people are like, I don't understand what's wrong with you. You know, why can't you do what you used to do? Right. And then we feel bad about ourselves and whatnot. So we can definitely apply some of these tools, you know, like when we are feeling overwhelmed, when we're feeling uncomfortable, like we can definitely take a moment, our hand to our heart, have compassion for ourselves, be curious, notice what's happening and realize that we are, we are in fact safe and cultivating.

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that safety. So yeah, it's really like looking at it through that lens of when I've reached beyond my capacity for feeling and noticing what I'm feeling, that's where food helps me get through that experience. And as I use mindfulness to build my awareness and my connection with what I'm really needing in my body, naturally that, that craving becomes less and less and softens. so regardless of the experience, whether you're like, yeah, it's, can't

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I can't overcome this craving right now. Like this food is help, that food is your ally. It's actually helping you and pointing you towards showing you when you're really needing something and really needing a deeper level of support.

30:35

So how does this work with um favorite foods from grandma? know, so like people are oftentimes are thinking, you know, my grandma loved me, my mom loved me, they made this food, cake, pie, whatever, whatever it was, traditional dish that I feel love when I eat this food. um How do you kind of navigate that if the food isn't necessarily the best thing for them? Yeah, I think that there's a couple.

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things to consider with this is one, if you just want to eat the food and you want to practice enjoying it mindfully and eat the food, you know, that's one path. If you're like, I really don't want this, but I feel like it's giving me something, a sense of love or connection to a family member, it's something to bring in that curiosity with. I've had some of my students who realize that

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They're eating certain foods that they don't even really like that much, but it's been their way of connecting to family members, especially if they've passed away. And with that realization, just that curiosity and that awareness, they might start asking, how else can I feel love and connection with this family member? Are there other ways I can feel that love and connection? Now, sometimes there might be a family member who is making you food, and that is their way that they're showing you love.

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And part of that process that can feel a little bit scary is can I set a boundary for myself of honoring myself and saying no and being okay that I might let down my loved ones and exploring a little bit of that attachment to of my loved one that I'm doing it to receive their love.

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and going through a process of maybe feeling the part of you that is young and that is scared and afraid that they won't be loved by their parent and providing yourself that inner state of love so that if the parent is disappointed, you have that inner resource for yourself of feeling love, feeling steady and that it's okay. so part of, part of this health journey is can be really challenging, but it can come with a lot of growth.

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when we have to sometimes set boundaries and say, love you and I love me more. I need to do this for myself. And it expands and it grows how much we love ourselves, our own self-worth, our ability to set boundaries instead of people pleasing. And it can be done gently and with love. But sometimes that connection of a food to a family member can bring up so many different things. You know, how we feel love.

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letting people down and it can really open up a doorway to understanding our relationships and our attachments with our family members and starting to provide ourselves that love and connection or different ways to be connected to that family member. Yeah, that's such beautiful vulnerability. You know, and it really allows you to kind of deepen that relationship, you know, when you are vulnerable with your partner. uh

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think it really gives you that opportunity. The other thing that occurs to me is that when you're saying no to something, you're also saying yes to something else. And so it's kind of that you're saying yes to yourself in this particular case. oh And what's so cool about that is that our relationship with food is a mirror for our relationship with everything else in life. So if I have a hard time saying no,

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And it feels like I'm people pleasing. It's like, where else do I self-sacrifice myself because I'm afraid of letting someone else down or I'm afraid of losing love and not letting it be a, sometimes that can be confronting, but it can also show us where we're ready for our growth and for our development. And so I use this relationship and these challenges with food is a mirror to understand myself better. If I feel like I have to

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rush through eating, where else does that show up in my life of where I feel anxious, it rushed, and I'm out of time, or I need to hurry, or if I need to control my food, where else does that show up that I don't trust myself yet? You if I'm eating something because I'm uh self-sacrificing to make someone else happy, where else does that show up? And not letting it be a bad thing, but an opportunity to...

35:14

give myself more love, to create more safety, to give myself what I'm really needing. And I think that our relationship with food can be one of the most extraordinary ways to learn and discover ourselves. Wow. There's a mic drop right there. There's one of my favorite books is You Are Enough by Pinashti Sai. And he says, every experience was created for the purpose of awakening you.

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And when I read that book, realized, when I read that quote, I realized that my cravings and my struggles weren't bad. They were actually pointing me to myself of where I could awaken, where I could grow, where I could love myself more. And it was through these struggles that gave me the medium to trust, to learn how to trust myself, to learn how to create a safe state inside of my mind and my body. And all of these struggles were here for. uh

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my learning and for my growth and that lens and that mindset really helped me a lot.

36:18

Yeah, it reminds me of a quote about meditation. Like we don't meditate to get good at meditation. We meditate to get good at life. And it's the same thing with mindfulness. Like when you start to practice this mindfulness where you're more aware of things like your relationship to food and what's happening in your body when you're having a craving, when you're looking at food, it really changes how you do everything.

36:45

Yeah, absolutely. It is. It's such a mirror for our lives and we can use food as our medium to practice growing. And what a lot of my students will say is that they realize they're like, oh, wow, this isn't even about food. It's actually not even about what I'm eating. It's about practicing within myself, setting boundaries, creating more self love, like making choices based off of that. feel that I'm worth

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taking time for myself, caring for myself. It's healing in such a deep way that it is actually very little to do with food and more about offering a beautiful medium for us to work with to get to know ourselves. So for people who are listening to this, that may sound scary, right? know, like going inside and learning more about ourselves and a lot of these things that you're talking about today. Do people sometimes state that

37:42

Yeah, that's kind of a scary proposition. I'm not sure if I'm ready for that. Yeah, a lot of people do feel really intimidated by that. And I think that that's why it's important to approach this work in layers. And the first layer that I always have my students go through is to first just start shifting your dialogue, your inner dialogue with yourself to something that's compassionate and loving and curious.

38:09

So that as you're exploring yourself and your feelings and getting to know yourself, instead of going into a state of, what is wrong with you? Why do you do that? That intense, that's scary. But when we can meet some of our discomfort, some of the places of where we're hurting, and we can bring this voice of, ah I'm wondering what you're experiencing. And that's really hard. And I'm here for you. I've got your back no matter what.

38:38

When we start to build that compassionate voice of where I'm on your team, it doesn't matter if we're struggling, if we're hurting, it's not about it looking perfect. It's like the depths of love is like, I'm here for you through whatever you're experiencing. And if you can bring that voice of love and compassion and I've got your back through it, it makes it so gentle to bump up against some of those places of where we've been hurting, where we've been ready to.

39:06

explore and bring love to and it makes it a lot easier and a lot more gentle. So it's great to bring in the awareness, but like you said, you also want the curiosity, the compassion, the love, and that's what makes it a beautiful process. So it sounds like you're doing wonderful work with people. So how do you work with people? If people are listening to this and they're like, gosh, um, how, you know, how can I work with Gina?

39:35

There's a lot of ways, I think, to get started if you're in the process of getting to know yourself, building more love within yourself. And one of the ways is I have a training on: https://www.masteringmindfulness.institute. It's called Reclaiming Your Power With Food. And it's going to walk you through the method that I use that helps bring more connection and awareness of yourself and with your body. And I share a lot of videos uh on YouTube that help.

40:00

reframe the way that like some of our struggles and lots of strategies that you can start practicing and using and Eventually, if you get to the place where you want support, I also offer coaching in this Wonderful and we will drop those links below. It looks like: https://masteringmindfulness.institute/freetraining. Is that what you're referring to? Yes Okay, awesome

40:24

Is there anything else that we missed that you'd like to make sure that we discuss before we adjourn today? I think what I'll just leave everybody with is I hope that this brought a new perspective that if you have those days where things are hard and it feels like a struggle with food that It's not your lack of willpower. There's nothing within you that is wrong or broken and it's not about trying harder

40:53

But starting a new chapter with your body in a place of partnership of I'm here for you, I'm listening to you, how can I support you? And those simple questions that gentle reframe can take you really far to really understanding what you're really needing. And that's how we create a harmonious relationship with our bodies and with our food as you're on quite a healing journey, I would imagine.

41:21

Yeah, Gina, this has really been wonderful. I so appreciate the work that you're doing and the lens in which you see the world and see eating. Thank you so much for coming on today. And for those of you listening, please check out the work that Gina is doing if you feel that you resonate with what she's saying. If this was helpful for you, please like and subscribe and share this with somebody you love. Thanks so much for being here. See everybody in the next episode.

41:46

So if you have chronic fatigue, whether it's from long COVID or chronic fatigue syndrome, go ahead and click the link below to watch my latest master class where I go deep into our four step process that has helped thousands of others resolve their symptoms naturally. After you watch that video, if you're interested in seeing if we're a good fit to work together, you can then get on a free call with me. All right. Thanks so much. I'll see you over there.