[00:00:00] Cynthia Garcia: The relationships when they’re healthy and they’re loving and they’re stable. They’re incredible. They’re so important for your health as well. You know, when we feel connected to others, it can make us feel more confident, happier, safe friends, and loved ones. They make us feel more secure, more stable.

Welcome back to The Transformational Nutrition podcast, the podcast that is redefining nutrition as anything that feeds you physically, mentally, and spiritually. I am your host, Cynthia Garcia, the founder and CEO of the Institute of Transformational Nutrition. And today we are talking about how you can make your relationships more fulfilling.

So over the past few years, my relationships have changed pretty. Because of, I don’t know, logistics, personal choices, and just really looking at what’s important to me. Some of my relationships just started to fade, you know, it’s interesting. I was thinking about this, that friendships and relationships, they just look different when we’re.

Than they do when we’re adults, you know, as adults, there’s so many things to factor in. It’s not just having mutual interest or hobbies or having that initial spark. It’s more about like really, truly investing in another person on a deeper level for that. Person’s good as well as your own. Relationships are not about passive agreements or just hanging out together.

They’re living, breathing things. And if you don’t actively take care of them, they’ll suffer and die. If you want your relationships to be strong, you can’t just hope for it. Right. Just cross your fingers and hope things work out. You do have to put in the. And when we’re younger, we don’t really know to do this.

We didn’t really know how to do it. And I see my daughter reign, navigating this right now with her friends. You know, she is 11 years old and they are just sort of figuring things out. You know, they go through friends pretty fast. I mean, best friends, even like their best friends will change from date.

It’s funny. We had moved into this house that we live in and then the pandemic hit and everyone was locked down. And as we started coming out of that, my daughter realized that right next door lift a girl who was her age. And at first. All of these similar interest. I was unbelievable. I mean, they had so much in common and they were the cutest things.

They would make little friendship bracelets and hang them on the front door of our homes, or they would just make little care packages and drop it off and ring the doorbell and run like it was so sweet seeing these kids connect. And again, Best friends after one day, I remember this little girl drew like a picture of herself with my daughter and they were just hanging out.

They, they would stand on their balconies each night and take at night to each other. When they got up, they would go outside and they would say good morning to each other. Listen, it was a moment. It was so good. For about four days, they were like, eh, I dunno. They just started to wonder, you know, my daughter was more active.

This girl was more into, you know, YouTube and social media. They were just different, like nothing was right or wrong for either ref. And they just turned out that they were pretty different. And so instead of trying to find more things that they had in common and focusing on them, They just kind of went their separate ways and now they’ll see each other, but they don’t hang out.

There’s no more friendship bracelets on the door and that’s okay. You know, they’re kids, but, and that’s pretty normal by the way, when we’re kids, you know, think about when you were a kid, but once we start to grow and to get older, there’s some things that we might want to consider doing in order to care for these deep connections that we have with other people.

We love spotlighting the unique stories and transformations of our students and graduates here at ITN. This week, I’m excited to introduce Jessica Davis and give her a chance to talk about her own journey of becoming a certified transformational nutrition coach. Let’s start by learning about Jessica’s background.

I 

[00:04:31] Jessica Davis: was a performing arts student. So I was a dance major in high school. And then I was also a dance major in college. And really, I do have to say that that probably started my health journey. So being in front of mirrors, in a leotard and tights for multiple hours in a day with other girls my age and everything like that really reinforced.

Comparison idea for me, I was always comparing myself to others and then dance can be very competitive. So I feel like my whole life, everything kind of revolved around looks and appearance. And then, you know, you start to tie your worth to that. So I noticed that. I found my identity and my self worth in the way that I looked.

And that really did a number on my mental health at the same time. Going through some health issues related to chronic stress. They were, you know, my hormones were all over the place. My weight was sort of fluctuating and people were really noticing, I don’t even think it was fluctuating that badly, but you know, a few pounds here or there and people because I was in the dance world, people were commenting on it and it really bothered me.

I was not taking care of my body. ’cause, I didn’t know how at the time. And that made me really want to move away from dance because dance was too physically demanding for me time. And I was at the same time realizing that maybe it wasn’t even who I was. I had always put my identity there because I started when I was eight years old and it was my life.

[00:06:21] Cynthia Garcia: And relationships are important. I want to talk about that in just a moment, but first I don’t want you to think, oh my gosh, if relationships are work, who needs them, I don’t have time to do that work. Right. And I’ll tell you the truth. There was a time when I really felt that way. I was like, you know, I have my four people around me and you know, three of them are related to me.

I don’t need anyone else. I’m good. I know me. Like, I love spending time with myself. And relationships are hard work, and I just don’t have it in me and I was wrong. It was really, really wrong relationships when they’re healthy and they’re loving and they’re stable. They’re incredible. They’re so important for your health as well.

You know, when we feel connected to others, it can make us feel more confident, happier, safe friends, and loved ones. They make us feel more secure, more. And it’s important that with connection, we do put in the work. That doesn’t mean it necessarily has to be hard and a struggle all the time, but you can put in the time to make great relationships.

For yourself. Another thing to remember is how much you have a say in the health of these relationships, you really do get to decide because the truth is that every move you make, every thought you think every decision, every spoken word in every action contributes to how positive and healthy your relationships are or not.

And the quality of these relationships has a direct effect on your physical, mental, and spiritual health. You see human beings. We have a need to feel connected to one another. And by the way, we don’t just need connection. We crave it. Humans have even been known to die without it. That is true. So when we feel connected, we feel safe.

We feel grounded. We feel at home, we are held. Physically mentally, spiritually. And when that need for connection, isn’t met. Well, that’s when we run into problems with ourselves and with other people in our lives, let’s tune in again to discover what Jessica did after leaving her career in dance and how this allowed her to find her passion in nutrition, coaching.

[00:08:42] Jessica Davis: When I was leaving the dance world, I was kind of focused on two things. And one of those things was being a fitness instructor because dancers are naturally very good at being fitness instructors, because we can really talk about the body. So I was focusing on fitness. And I was really starting to get passionate about fitness.

And then at the same time, I was noticing that all of my clients who were in my classes really needed help with nutrition because they would be coming and they would not be seeing the results. And I knew from having to learn to take care of myself after having the hormonal issues and the chronic stress and just my body being completely rundown from Dan’s.

I started learning how to take care of myself. And I started learning that no matter what you’re doing, movement-wise you need to still be supporting yourself nutritionally. At that time, I was actually struggling with whether or not, so I wanted to potentially go into counseling or I wanted to be a nutrition.

And I didn’t know which one I wanted to do. And anytime I would go to look into like counseling programs and really make the decision, I would kind of have this like empty feeling, like there’s something missing. And that was really for me, the nutrition aspect, like I needed to incorporate nutrition into the mental health.

And then, so when I found ITN and how they incorporate the three pillars, Mental health, the science pillar, and then the spiritual health that really spoke to me because I knew that in my own experience, if I only focused on nutrition, it still did not necessarily make a difference. If I wasn’t doing well spiritually and emotionally.

[00:10:40] Cynthia Garcia: Relationships are so important. And as a matter of fact, they make up one of the three pillars of the transformational nutrition model here at ITN. And that is spirituality because we think of spirituality here as connection, connection to yourself, connection to others, connection to something higher, if you so choose.

So it’s really comes down to relationships. So how can we make sure we’re getting the most out of our relationships? How can we be a great spiritual partner to someone and also ensure that they are the same to us? It really comes down to three. Truly three little things that can make all the difference when it comes to having more fulfilling relationships, that ITN, we refer to these as the three most basic human needs.

Okay. So what are they? Number one, people want to be seen. People want to be seen for who they are, both inside. They want to be seen, not just for their physical attributes, although those count too, right? Your like how you show up in the world, whether it’s the clothes you’re presenting yourself in or your skin color, like, does people deserve to be seen for exactly who they are?

And we should honor that in each. We should also see them for the struggles they’ve been through in their lives. The hardships they’ve overcome for everything they’ve accomplished for their values, for their character. Really see people, people want to feel like you’re acknowledging them. There’s a reason people enjoy compliments.

They want to know that they’re being noticed physically, mentally and spiritual. No, listen, we’re busy these days. So we don’t always take the time to share this with people close to us. You know, maybe you don’t notice when your partner gets a new sweater and your favorite color, or when your best friend is rocking a different style.

These things may seem small to you and you might think, oh, I mentioned it clearly. They know they did it right. But the thing is to them can make all the difference in the world. This is why people enjoy it. When you comment or engage on social post, you were seeing them, you were seeing their truth.

You’re acknowledging and honoring that. See people for who they are, what they’re interested in and how they show up in the world. That’s number one, one of our favorite things is finding out what our graduates enjoyed the most about the transformational nutrition coach program. When we asked Jessica this question, she explained.

[00:13:12] Jessica Davis: For me, it was the coaching community that I gained. And I think the coaching aspect of ITN and having the coaching labs, that was just so powerful because we’re not just on our own, going through the materials and trying to. Piece it all together. We have people that we can actually interact with and I’ve become very good friends with several of the people that I met through ITM.

I think being a part of the community of people who want the same things as you is so incredible.

[00:13:51] Cynthia Garcia: Number two is people want to be heard. They want to be heard and listened to with intention. They want to know that their words actually mean something. Do you ever is hearing them? They don’t want you to listen just so you can respond to what they’re saying. They want you to understand what they’re saying and why they’re saying.

I know that one of my favorite things in the whole world is when I’ll be out with my friends and I’ll hear one of them say something like, oh gosh, Cynthia, you would love this. Or you you’d like this, or this is so you, why? Like, why does it make me so happy? Well, it’s because I feel like they know me.

Like they get me, like you see me, you totally know what I’m about. At some point I’ve probably told them that I liked, or didn’t like certain things. And they cared enough to remember what I said. They really saw me for who I was and they just accepted that whether they agree with it or not, maybe they think I’m silly for not liking that particular thing, but they don’t judge.

They just go with it. Right. It’s all. Now, I know that after a long day at work, you might not necessarily want to listen to your significant other, your friends talk about their super hard day. Maybe you just want to sit on the couch and tune out for a little bit. Maybe you think I am more stressed than they are.

Like they have no idea of the day I’ve had, but I’m telling you if you just listen. Take the time to look them in the eyes indicate that you’re hearing what they’re saying. Don’t just form a rebuttal in your head while they’re talking, but actually listen and understand what they’re saying. Maybe ask some follow up questions.

You might learn something new about. Stay open, stay curious, and you might make them feel incredibly appreciated and connected to you and grateful for you since completing her certification. Jessica has been working hard to build her dream career as a nutrition coach. Let’s hear what she’s been up to lately.

[00:15:53] Jessica Davis: I work remotely for a tech company and I do their operations for them, but I also am doing one-on-one coaching on the side and I’m thinking that my one-on-one coaching will take over very quickly and I’ll be able to leave my full time job faster than I originally thought I was thinking it was going to take a little bit long.

But people are actually really in need of help. And so when, you know, I’m able to connect with people and they find out that I do nutrition coaching and they actually really do seem interested. And I think people are so. Like, what should I do? Should I do this diet? Should I, do you know what this other person is doing?

And they don’t know how to find for themselves what they need. So I’m close to being able to do one-on-one coaching. Full-time.

[00:16:50] Cynthia Garcia: Alright, third people want to feel like they matter. Now this is an easy one. People want to know that they’re important to you, that they make a difference in your life, that they matter, that you appreciate them, not just for what they do, but who they are and the gifts that they have to offer. Maybe that means scheduling a day each week, where you call or text that person you check in on them, or you send them a gift card for a coffee or a bottle of wine after a tough day at work, maybe just hang out and spend some time with them time where you’re not on your phone or watching something or distracted.

You’re just there with them, letting them know that they’re seen, they’re heard and that they matter. It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant. It just has to be you showing up for them and making them a priority, putting their needs before your own. A really easy way to do this. I text three people every day who are important to me every day.

And my closest friend, I messaged her on a regular basis. We just voice text all day long. It’s the best thing ever. It feeds me on such a deep level. I feel like I’m not alone. I feel like I always have someone in my car. Now in total that might take up, I don’t know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes a day total, but it feels like I have someone by my side and when I reach out and I just send a random text to people who I haven’t communicated with, again, it might take just a few minutes, but it means everything to that person.

And to me, quite honestly, All right. So we’ve covered three simple ways to improve any relationship. It really just comes down to saying, or sharing those three things with your friends and loved ones. Let them know. I see you. I hear you. You matter to.

All right. Let’s hear from Jessica one last time, as she shares a couple of things that she wishes she would have known when she was starting her coaching career. Hopefully this can inspire other people looking to become a coach as well.

[00:18:52] Jessica Davis: I wish I would have known that this process can be. Because I’ve always just wanted to be there already and never really enjoyed the process of not being quote unquote there yet, wherever there is being here where I am right now, 10 be enjoyable. And people feel that when you’re having fun, you know, people feel that when you’re enjoying life and you’re doing what you love, then.

You know, they will be attracted to you and they won’t feel like you’re trying to target them in any way. Like I’m trying to help lose weight because I think you need to lose weight. No, I honestly, you know, trying to help people. And that’s what I love doing is really helping people restore their relationship to themselves and their bodies and their minds.

So I think having fun in the process. I definitely was not doing that. At first, I was in a scarcity mindset at first and I was thinking that I was not deserving of it. And I was just having no fun because I was working my full-time job during the day. And then. On the computer again, trying to work on my business during the night.

And there was no time for fun in there. Well, if you’re not having fun, your energy is definitely not fun for other people. I think the only other thing that I’ve really been focused on is coming into things as you are now, because. I think we learned that at the very beginning of ITN show up, you know, you know, enough just show up how you are.

And we teach people that too, we teach our clients to show up at the gym, how you are now. You don’t have to be there already. So really I’m focusing on instead of have, do be I’m focusing on be, do have. So being before I have the thing and really just showing up as my authentic self.

[00:20:57] Cynthia Garcia: So I hope today you reach out to that someone special and let them know how important their friendship or their relationship is to you. Listen, if these past couple of years have taught us anything, it is that life is incredibly uncertain. Hold the people you love incredibly close, make them a priority.

Show them every single day. That you care about them. If you want more resources and you want to interact with people, maybe form some new relationships with a group of people who are just like you head on over to our Facebook community, it’s a private community and you can find it by just searching transformation generation on Facebook.

They’re sharing their journeys, their tips, and their support. And trust me, you don’t want to miss. If this episode served you in some small way, please share it. You know, tag someone on social media and post a screenshot of the show so that they can build better relationships with you. So that you’re all on the same page as to what we all need.

And you can show up and deliver that consistent. All right. And thank you so much for joining me for this episode. If you feel called to rate and review the show, that would be amazing. It lets us get this workout to so many more people and I’d be forever grateful. You can see all the show notes and other resources for this episode over atransformationornutrition.com/episode016.

And I will see you right back here again next week for a brand new episode.