Have you ever felt too embarrassed about the way you look or feel about yourself to even walk into an escrow office or networking meeting? Or do you just run out of energy halfway through the day and give up on all the things you know you "should" be doing today? Is the stress associated with major changes in your business getting you bogged down? Jane gets it. Jane Wenning has been helping people improve their mental and physical well-being for over 20 years. As an entrepreneur herself, she understands how difficult it can be for mobile workers to stay active and eat in a way that energizes us. From her own experience, she adapted the Four Pillars of Health and she shares her journey from body shame to acceptance and abundance in today's episode.
Guest Information:
“When you love who you are, you become healthy, strong and unstoppable. This is true transformation – body, mind and spirit. This is the gift I want to share.”
Jane Wenning is a certified Medical Technologist with a degree in Clinical Laboratory Science. She is an Athletic Trainer, and Health Mentor who has been helping people improve their mental and physical health for over 20 years. During high school and college, she was overweight, struggled with eating disorders, had low self-esteem and brain fog. Obtaining a degree in Clinical Laboratory Science and working with athletes, Jane merged these two worlds together to create a structured wellness plan focused on four pillars – Recovery, Emotional Energy, Nutrition, and Movement. Outside of her degree she has spent hundreds of hours learning about nutrition, longevity, brain health, sleep, interval training, fasting, epigenetics and estrogenics. Jane now equips motivated people with the tools to transform into healthier and stronger versions of themselves to look younger, have more energy and live life with vitality.
Website for download of bio-optimization tools and / or survey www.4-pillarshealth.com
Or contact Jane directly at [email protected]
Episode Highlights:
7:16 You have to give yourself compassion. Because if you don't, you're just going to continue to to keep yourself in that place of hurt. And you can never heal from a place of hurt.
37:30 Take out a piece of paper and start journaling "gratitude". You cannot be grateful and angry at the same time.
30:47 The four pillars are recovery, emotional energy, nutrition, and movement.
--- Full Raw Transcription Below ---
Bill Soroka (00:01:03):
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Sign And Thrive podcast for notaries. I'm excited to introduce you to our guest today, Jane Wenning. She's a health mentor for the last 20 years and has helped people improve their mental and their physical health. Jane, thank you so much for being here with us today.
Jane Wenning (00:01:20):
Bill. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to your audience.
Bill Soroka (00:01:26):
Yeah, my pleasure. Well, I'll tell you right now, Jane and we'll get, we'll get a chance to talk about this, but you know, in our industry, we're going through this upheaval, a major period of change. There's a lot of people feeling stressed about that, feeling the pressure as there's a pivot required right now. So I'm, I'm glad that we get a professional to talk to about that. But then also one of the the big challenges in our industry is that we live this mobile lifestyle. You know, our entire office is in our car sometime and we're running around from appointment to appointment to appointment and we often forget our own self care in that. And I know that this is a place where you are an expert. You've got your four pillars of health that I can't wait to introduce everybody to. And before we do that though, I want to, I want our notaries to get an idea of why you are so passionate about this holistic approach to health.
Jane Wenning (00:02:30):
Okay. So my story starts back when I was 11 and I was body shamed. And for the next decade, I carried around so much hurt, so much anger, the self-loathing, the not feeling worthy enough. The depression, the anxiety that went with it, it went with me, it moved with me, me when I went to college and I finally got to a place in my life where I wanted to be better, but I knew that I couldn't heal if I was coming from a place where I hated myself. So I had to get over that. I had to accept that this is where I am at this moment in time. And then use my knowledge as a clinical laboratory scientist and an athletic trainer to put together a program that would propel me to be the person that I wanted to be. So it started with acceptance and then from there I was able to move into a space of healing.
Bill Soroka (00:03:44):
What's that look like? What's acceptance?
Jane Wenning (00:03:46):
Wow. You know what, acceptance is looking at yourself in the mirror and saying I like you, but, or I even I love you but here's some things that I'm not happy about. And then taking those action steps to change those. You don't have to change all of who you are. You can keep the fabric of your integrity and change some of the, some of the other details about your life and maybe what you don't like. But again, if you don't come from a place where you accept where you are right now, and if you're always looking at the past and looking at the pain, you're not going to move forward.
Bill Soroka (00:04:31):
Hmm. That's powerful. And one of the you know, I've been following you for a little bit now after we first connected. And one of the things that you talked about is feeling like healthy, eating is a chore. And I feel like there, when you talk about acceptance that there's some sort of link here for, for me, cause I struggle with that. So it it just feels like it's this huge endeavor to eat healthy; like to go to grocery store, to plan meals out. I'm like, I plan every minute of my day, except for that. Yeah. So is there a link there? What is that all about?
Jane Wenning (00:05:10):
Yeah, there is definitely a link there because I think we are giving, given so many mixed messages by media that, oh, this thing is healthy and that thing is healthy, but they're not really healthy. We know in the back of our mind that real food is the nutrients that our body needs and not things that are coming out of boxes and bags. But yet we do Bill, we live these crazy busy lives. And so it's hard to walk that line between having healthy food and having quick food. That is a very, that that's a crazy fine line to walk and it does, it takes a lot of mindfulness and some practice. But once you get over that learning curve, you can make healthy eating a very realistic, easy choice every day. And, and here's the other thing that I like to tell people that I work with that I follow the three Cs.
Jane Wenning (00:06:16):
Okay. No one is perfect. We shouldn't strive to be perfect because then we set a bar that is so high it's unrealistic and it only sets us up for defeat. So the three Cs are to be consistent and whatever your consistent is, if you are consistent is 80/20 or 70/30, stick to your consistent. But know that if you get off of the band, if you fall off of your consistent pattern, you got to get back on. So being aware of that. The other, the next C is creativity because even though we might have our meals all planned out for us or a majority of our meals planned out for us, life is going to happen. Right? And especially for your team, they are out on the run all the time. So life happens quickly. You have to be creative. And then the third C is compassion. So you set out your plan for the day and you were creative, life happened and you didn't quite hit your mark that day. You have to give yourself the compassion because if you don't, you're just going to continue to to keep your, yourself in that place of hurt. And you can never heal from a place of hurt.
Bill Soroka (00:07:43):
I love that you've even included compassion in there because even as you were talking about consistency and creativity, which could be the marketing three CS too. Right. But it's perfect for eating as well or your health as well. But the compassion partner is such a huge component because we all slip off. We slip, I, I slip off of, especially with eating rituals or habits on the day one. And I tend to beat myself up about that and that fall into that shame cycle. And then it's really easy to justify a pint of ice cream, right. When you're in that shame cycle, right? Yep.
Jane Wenning (00:08:16):
Oh, absolutely. So by giving yourself that compassion, you can let go of that hurt mm-hmm
Bill Soroka (00:09:53):
It really is. And I love that you brought up the Reticular Activating System, cause to me, this was the science behind the law of attraction. Like this is why the law of attraction works when you, because when you program your mind and your mind starts looking for things, it's processing billions of pieces of data. But when you start having that conversation in your brain, it starts finding those things out in the world. Yes. So you start to notice them. Yes. and it can work in so many different areas of our life so that I, the self talk ties right into that. So what are some of your favorite affirmations for this to help us have those healthier conversations in our mind?
Jane Wenning (00:10:32):
Okay. So I have two. My first one is when I'm feeling overwhelmed and not worthy, I step back and I say, okay, my God loves me, my family loves me and I love me. I don't care what anyone else out there thinks about me. And you know, this is, this is a rough world. People are very mean. They hide behind their computer screens and they can be very critical. And it's hard. You can say that you're developing thick skin, but it's really hard to grow that thick skin. But when you pull back and you look at what's really, really, who are the people that are really important in your life that love you, that, that can help yourself talk. And then the other piece is the word surrender. You cannot control all the outcomes. You can only control what you put into a situation. So if you put what you can into a situation and you let go of the outcome, but then still, and it's not to just sit back and, and think that things are going to happen for you. You still have to put the work in, but don't get overly pressured by what the outcome might be when you can just surrender that and say, you know what? I did my best today. That's another piece of giving yourself that compassion.
Bill Soroka (00:12:05):
Yeah. Well, I, I love that you talk about that, you know, as a self-proclaimed control freak, I really struggled with letting go of outcomes for, for much of my life. But I remember I had almost a spiritual experience on a hike once where things were kind of collapsing around me and I was hiking with a friend up this mountain just to get out and change the energy, right? Shake it up a little bit. And this voice came to me that just said, surrender, surrender, surrender. And I didn't know what it meant until, you know, you get home and you get in the daily day life and you start facing those situations and you're like, surrender, oh, this is what it means. It means that all I've done all I can. Yes.
Jane Wenning (00:12:52):
Yep.
Bill Soroka (00:12:52):
Let it go now.
Jane Wenning (00:12:54):
Yeah. It….
Bill Soroka (00:12:55):
Powerful.
Jane Wenning (00:12:55):
Less. It definitely does not mean to just sit like a lump and let life pass you by.
Bill Soroka (00:13:00):
Right. It's the opposite. I think.
Jane Wenning (00:13:03):
Yes. Surrender is very active. It means putting your whole self in, but then stepping back and letting the outcome happen rather than try and control the outcome. Just let the outcome happen.
Bill Soroka (00:13:20):
There's a, a book, I guess it's not very new, but I had never heard of it by Seth Godin. It's called The Practice. And he talks about the power of the practice, the, the joy in life, the, the reason, the purposes that we do things is more in the process. It's in that work. It's in that hard work. It's not the outcome. It's not the results. We've been kind of trained the opposite, right? You've got to have this result, this result, this result, but that's not where the joy and the growth comes from. It's in all the steps in between. So when you focus on the process or who you become along the way, then those results just seem to take care of themselves. You just got to let, 'em go surrender.
Jane Wenning (00:14:00):
You know what, it's crazy because then they, it's almost like they manifest themselves. You know, when you, when you enjoy the, the process, when you enjoy the growth of a challenging day and overcoming obstacles and how it makes you a stronger person, the, the whole, the process is great. And the outcome then is, is, is great as well.
Bill Soroka (00:14:30):
It's like magnified too, because you've you become somebody else. So then, I mean, and the next day, like, and you don't get this until you get it, right? Like I used to think this was kind of, I could read all the affirmations I could do, like, yeah, okay I kind of get that. I want to believe in that, but until you get in and you experience it and it's that, that almost enchanting high, when you're in the process and something magicals about it, you don't know what it is, but you can feel it tingling inside you. Yeah. And then the result doesn't matter, but it comes anyway right. Times 10. Right.
Jane Wenning (00:15:06):
So, and sometimes you become a stronger, smarter, more resilient version of yourself. And you're like, wow, where did that come from? I love that.
Bill Soroka (00:15:17):
Yeah, exactly. And then sometimes the result that you were working for doesn't even work. Right. But who you became in the process just opened the door to another new idea, another new project, another new process to work on. Yep. Really magical stuff. I love that little sidebar that we did
Bill Soroka (00:15:57):
As we come into this industry, we have all kinds of different body types. We have all kinds of different baggage that we're dragging along with us from that other life into this business. And now we're faced with being the face of a company we're CEOs of our solo-prenenur venture, right? So we've got to walk in and pop in and do marketing. We got to go to networking meetings and we have these opinions about our body and how we look. And that can be detrimental to us. It's sometimes it's freezing many of us from even participating in that activity and that client getting activity is necessary. So do you have any recommendations or suggestions for people to overcome this level of body shame?
Jane Wenning (00:16:41):
Body shame is, it's really difficult because it, it goes so deep. It's it strikes the core of who we are. And in an instant it can change how we view ourself. It, it's something that can take a long time to overcome. But I think when you employ good health for yourself, when you pay attention to your health, then the body is just, it's just the outward piece and it's not who you are on the inside. But here's the thing when you don't like who you are on the outside, you don't, you don't, you're not healthy and good on the inside because as you know, Bill, where our mind goes, our body goes. So when your mind is stuck in that body shaming box, that's where your body goes. Whether whether you're fit or not, that's where your body goes. When you walk in front of somebody, you automatically project those shaming thoughts off of them back onto yourself.
Jane Wenning (00:18:04):
And they're not even thinking that at all, it's everything that's coming from you mentally. So the, the way to change that is to learn to love who you are. Now, there are a number of, of ways to do that. We talked about the acceptance piece. We talked about the affirmations, but again, look in the mirror. And what is it that you don't like about yourself? Is it your attitude? Is it, you know, the dark circles under your eyes? Okay. There's a remedy for that. There's a magic pill actually for that, it's called your pillow. Get more sleep. Okay. We can touch on that later. But when you look in the mirror and take a good account of yourself, not a critical account of yourself, but take a good account of yourself. You can work through, you can turn down the volume on that body shaming stuff, and you can really transform yourself from the inside out.
Bill Soroka (00:19:05):
Hmm. Awesome. And I love the framework that you give people for that. So that's a perfect segue. Jane, you've created these four pillars of health that you designed just to help you, right? This was how you started coming about and it kind of evolved now. And this is part of your coaching.
Jane Wenning (00:19:23):
Yep. Yep. So in the beginning I didn't have the four pillars. I like a lot of people focused on nutrition and movement and thought that that was everything that was going to get me down this journey to health and like, like your audience, I'm, I'm a solo-preneur. I wear many hats. I come from an entrepreneurial background. My dad was an entrepreneur, all my siblings and I have many with the exception of one are all business owners. My husband is a business owner. So I understand, and I have three businesses myself. So I understand the amount of energy that it takes to be a solo-preneur. And I found myself at one point, my husband, you know, here, and here's the thing you think that you, you're racing around like crazy. You have to be on point for your, your spouse and your family and your business.
Jane Wenning (00:20:22):
And you think that you've got the world by the tail and then something happens. So my eating was on point. My, my my movement was on point. I would take a little bit of time every day to decompress. But one day my husband called me and he said, hey, HR just told me that a check I gave you a couple months ago, a paycheck hasn't been deposited yet. Could you check on that and see where it is? And I'm thinking, oh my gosh. See, because in addition to my other things, I was also in charge of all of the family finances. And so I'm thinking, oh, well, it's got to just be here on my desk. And I went through my desk and I looked and looked and looked for that check. I was not going to call him back and say, hey, have him reissue one.
Jane Wenning (00:21:08):
I mean, what was wrong with me? I felt like I was losing my mind. I finally found the check in a briefcase that I hadn't used in over a year. Why it was in that brief? I have no idea. So I started looking back on my life and thinking, wow, what is wrong with me? And I realized Bill, that the piece that was missing for me was recovery and recovery was causing so much brain fog, I didn't even realize it. So I would go to bed at 10 o'clock every night, because that was bedtime. But before I went to bed, I would have two or three big glasses of water. So I knew that my bladder would wake me up in a few hours. And when it did, I would get up and start working. So I was running on three or four hours of sleep every night and trying to be on point for all of these different people and all of these different companies in my life. I, I just, it hit me when I realized what I was doing to myself.
Bill Soroka (00:22:12):
Wow. So, and that's just not sustainable, right?
Jane Wenning (00:22:15):
Well, it's not. And people wear lack of sleep as a badge of honor. And I will tell you right now, the only thing that lack of sleep is going to get you is a place in assisted living, because there are so many cognitive decline things that happen. So many metabolic things to your body. So many disease states that begin to fester when you don't get enough sleep.
Bill Soroka (00:22:40):
Wow. That's hugely important. And you know, it, I think we're breaking that stigma, right? Like it used to be the badge of honor. It still is for many people, I see it on social media, but now I think Ariana Huffington had that big part in that too. She's really been an advocate for sleep as with, after what happened with her. So I, I love that we're shifting into this.
Jane Wenning (00:23:04):
Yeah. Yeah. So, and, and this is something that just like our weight, it sneaks up on us and we don't really realize that it's becoming an issue until something catastrophic happens. Yeah. So I lost that paycheck, you know, or you go to the doctor and you find out that you have high cholesterol or you have high glucose. And then it's like, wow, what do I need to do to revamp my lifestyle? I mean, those are the things that when you look in the mirror, those are the things that you need to see. You need to see, am I tired and unenergetic? Am I, am I crumbling on the inside and it's just not showing up on the outside yet. Mm. You know, so those are important things. When you look in the mirror, it's not about being critical of maybe of your physical appearance. You know, we all want better hair in a better nose in a bigger this, or a smaller that, but look deeper into that mirror and see the inside you, because once you start to transform and change that inside you, you become so powerful.
Bill Soroka (00:24:18):
Yeah. Great advice. Great advice. And I, so there, there's still this stigma with recovery. Even if it's not necessarily sleep, like some people will say, well, I get eight to 10 hours of sleep. Like I, I get eight to 10 hours of sleep, but I still had to overcome the the recovery piece, the like, just take a break, like unplug and recover, give yourself that break. How do you, how do people, or what suggestions do you have for allowing that?
Jane Wenning (00:24:50):
That kind of ties into my emotional energy pillar, where you unplug. Statistics show that, and this will be interesting for your, for all your audience, statistics show that you should move your body every 25 minutes. And for all of your mobile people, that can be really hard because we are stuck in traffic. And I've been there. There are times running between job sites where I have put 200 miles a day on my car. And I know what it's like to be stuck in traffic and not to be mobile. But that is that's one of the gifts that you have to give yourself is to be creative and take these moments, turn off the music because we are so overstimulated, our brains are so over stimulated by the next thing we have to do and the next and the next thing we have to do you need, and then you've got the music playing, and then you've got your phone going on.
Jane Wenning (00:25:57):
Just, just taking some time when you are in your car to turn everything off and just have that silence is a great, great helper. But during your day, you need to, when you're able to remember to move your body, because that does a whole host of benefits, both energetically and cognitively to yourself. And that is, that's a form of recovery, making sure you're hydrated is a great form of recovery. And they also play into the emotional pillar because when you are dehydrated, you don't under, you don't realize some of the, the negative consequences of not bathing your cell, your cells need fluid to move the toxins out and to move the good stuff in. And when you're not hydrated, the toxins stay in your cells. And that can really, really increase your anxiety, depression and then overall, just body fatigue.
Bill Soroka (00:27:06):
You know, I, I, it's interesting the timing of this because I, over the weekend, I had a, a friend who had to go to the emergency room. He's a, a senior having some respiratory distress. So I had taken him in, we spent all day there, of course, but when we finally got a room, there was a curtain dividing the patient next to him. And she was very agitated yelling, wouldn't cooperate. She was disoriented. And when the nurse came over to our side, we just had a conversation. And her, the, what had happened was she was dehydrated. She was dehydrate, she had thought she was drinking water or enough water. And it turned out that she got toxic, cause she wasn't releasing those toxics and it affected her brain function. Yes, she was disoriented. She didn't know what was going on. And the nurse said that a lot of disorientation and the early onset with some of those brain function diseases is tied right to hydration or lack there of.
Jane Wenning (00:28:11):
Yeah. And so I know your mobile people might be thinking, well, wait a minute, I can't stay hydrated because I'm always on the go. When I was running around hopping from job site to job site I had investment properties, I had land development. And so I was, I was driving a lot. I was also at that time preparing for a body building competition where every day I, I, I had to drink nearly a gallon of water. And that that's a hard thing to do when you don't have a bathroom handy. I mean, it's one thing when you're in an office building and you can run down the hall or upstairs or downstairs, but when you're mobile,
Bill Soroka (00:29:32):
That's great suggestion. I never even thought of that.
Jane Wenning (00:29:34):
You know, and avoid going to the restrooms. People are always like, well, you, there are gas stations all over that. you can go to the restrooms at, yep, what do you have to walk past? You've got to walk past all that nasty food to get to the bathroom. And it's like, oh my gosh, maybe I need this. I don't know this Debbie fruitcake thing, whatever it might be. You know, all of that, that food that is brightly packaged and called the chips, the cookies, oh, I'll just grab one of these, the slurpy or the slushy or whatever those things are, you know, that, avoid the gas station bathrooms because it's only going to put you in a situation where you're in a moment of weakness and you're going to grab a candy bar and, and that's what you want to defeat your mindful eating for the day.
Bill Soroka (00:30:26):
That is a really great tip. And I can think of several other reasons to skip the bathroom at the gas stations, but the, the cheap food and the low energy food is a great one. Yeah. Excellent suggestions. So I love that. So when it comes to your four pillars, did we, so I know you started with recovery, was that a four pillar or is, was just kicking off with emotional energy?
Jane Wenning (00:30:47):
So my four pillars are recovery, emotional energy, nutrition, and movement. And I start my four pillars off with recovery because if you are not sleeping, all of these pillars are tied together, but I find that if you are not sleeping and getting quality sleep, there's a difference between just sleeping and getting quality sleep. When you're not getting quality sleep, you don't have the bandwidth that you need to, to be on point for all of your, all of your activities that day, you find yourself and studies have shown that when you lack sleep, you start grabbing all those high sugar, high processed foods. And then in addition to that, when you're lacking sleep, you don't have the energy to put any movement in your day. So sleep and recovery are super important. Some of the other things that go into recovery are getting sunshine on your eyes and on your skin every day that resets your circadian rhythm.
Jane Wenning (00:31:50):
So you can get a good night's sleep. Like we talked about, hydration is super important. And then another thing in recovery and people, we talked about the, the guilt with giving yourself the gift of recovery. When you have a massage, you know, people will say that that's a foo-foo thing. You know what? You are working hard. Give yourself that one hour break once a month or a half hour break. Because when you have a massage, what's happening is you are moving that lymphatic fluid through your body. You have your lymphatic system is like a sewer system in your body that doesn't have a pump. And especially when you are sitting in your cars and stagnant all day long that lymphatic fluid just kind of sits and collects. So you need to move and you need to also give yourself the gift of massage so that you can move that lymphatic fluid through your body and toxins cellular debris and other waste products can be eliminated from your body. You will feel so much better.
Bill Soroka (00:32:59):
I, I just, what I needed was an excuse or a really good reason to justify a massage. And I actually have one booked for this weekend. So that's, that's really good information to know. I didn't, I love hear, I've heard about the lymphatic system before. I didn't realize it didn't have a pump, so it get pushing this through really makes sense. Yeah. Okay. I love that.
Jane Wenning (00:33:19):
And then, and here's the thing too. Your brain has its own lymphatic system called the glymphatic system. And at night when we sleep, and this is why it's important to get quality sleep because your brain will compress and expand kind of like a sponge, but not that dramatically. But what it does is it pumps the toxins through your brain. Your cerebral spinal fluid is pumped through your brain to remove those toxins. Now, if your, if your glymphatic system is not functioning well, because your lymphatic system isn't functioning, well, those toxins are going to sit there and sometimes they can be reabsorbed into your body. So it's a good idea to get that stuff moving and get it out.
Bill Soroka (00:34:05):
Definitely. Do you have a favorite way? Well, let, I'll ask it this way. How do you know if you've got, if you've had quality sleep,
Jane Wenning (00:34:15):
When you wake up in the morning and you can wake up, maybe before your alarm clock goes off, you're not hitting this snooze button. When you get up and you feel rested and energized, that's when you know that you've gotten quality sleep. Now I wear an oura ring. So I'm able to see, you know, what my recovery looks like. And my oura ring might say, well, boy, you didn't really recover that well, last night my sleep might have been good, but my daily stressors from the day before my sleep didn't really compensate for. So so it, it's good to have some of those outside markers to help you understand. Now a day or two of maybe not getting adequate sleep you're not going to feel slumpy, but after a week of not getting good sleep, you're going to feel slumpy. And that's when you need to really make some changes.
Bill Soroka (00:35:16):
Excellent. I love that you use the oura ring as well. I've been trying to use it. I tend to want to flinging everything off my hands whenever I'm sleeping. But yeah, I find that data. I love measuring data. Yeah. And just saying, okay, here's how I can improve or, or what have you. So that's really helpful. That's oura O U R A I think.
Jane Wenning (00:35:40):
O U R A. Yep.
Bill Soroka (00:35:42):
Yep. Yeah. All right. Wonderful. So then that leads right into the emotional pillar.
Jane Wenning (00:35:47):
Yes. And with the emotional pillar, awareness. Awareness is so, so key to the emotional energy pillar, because when you are aware that you are frustrated and angry, then you can ask yourself, wait a minute, why, why am I this angry over this situation? Do I need to be this angry? How can I be less angry? What can I do differently so that I'm not this angry the next time around. And like we talked about before, when you, your brain is so powerful and there's an emotional side, and there's a problem solving side. So acknowledging that you are in an emotional state and then flipping the switch on that and start asking yourself, questions will turn on the problem solving side of your brain. So that instead of sitting there and wallowing in your anger and replaying a negative conversation over and over in your head, you are now saying, okay, what can I do differently so that I don't have this negative conversation? Is this somebody that, that might be in my inner circle, but they are not in my corner and I need to bump them to the outside?
Jane Wenning (00:37:09):
So your brain starts solving those problems. Is this a toxic person that I, I should try and turn the volume down on and not deal with? You know, so there's lots of problems, problem solving things. But a couple of the tools that I like to give people are number one, start, if you find yourself in that emotional state, take out a piece of paper and start journaling, gratitude, start journaling, all the things that you are thankful for, and they can be little, they can be big, they can be, you know, recent, they can be something in the past, but that also is going to completely change your mindset because you cannot be grateful and angry at the same time. So you're still working in the emotional side, but you are releasing these great endorphins. And one of the other things that you're releasing too, is oxytocin. When you practice gratitude, you are releasing oxytocin, which is it is a very high upstream hormone that controls things like cortisol and cortisol is our stress hormone. So it's so important to be able to be aware of where you are emotionally and then have the tools to combat that. So journaling, yeah, is a really good thing.
Bill Soroka (00:38:29):
I, I, I'm a huge advocate for journaling and even gratitude. So I'm so glad that you brought this up and it doesn't even have to be anger. Right. It could just be stress if somebody's feeling stress broken hearted or hurt or whatever it might be just focusing on gratitude can help at least nudge you out of it.
Jane Wenning (00:38:45):
Yes, yes. For sure. Yep.
Bill Soroka (00:38:48):
Yep. Awesome.
Jane Wenning (00:38:48):
And then too, I, I have people practice gratitude sometimes before they go to bed, especially if they have a hard time sleeping, I have them practice gratitude before they go to bed and it puts them in more of a calm state. So they are able to sleep.
Bill Soroka (00:39:05):
That's an excellent suggestion too. I U, I usually do a little forgiveness mantra before I go to bed, forgive myself and others kind of a thing. And I try to start with gratitude, but I find that it's requires a little kickstart in the morning, cause my brain just is it's ready to get to work, right? It's like ready, meditate. Let's take this on. But I, so I might switch gratitude to the evening. I like that.
Jane Wenning (00:39:27):
Okay. So, so here's another thing that I'm going to give all of your people. And this is a super powerful tool. I use a process called habit stacking. So in the morning when I'm brushing my teeth and it's just me in the bathroom and me in the mirror, I look in the mirror and I tell myself seven things I forgive myself for. Seven things that I like about myself and seven things that I'm grateful for. Now you can pair this list down to two or three, but once you get started rolling on this, boy, seven things will come out automatically. And when you again, start forgiving yourself for things in the past, for things that you are guilty about, you move yourself from that place of hurt to that place of healing.
Bill Soroka (00:40:24):
Yeah. It's super powerful. Can you share a little more about the habit stacking and why you chose to do it with while you brush your teeth?
Jane Wenning (00:40:33):
Yes. Well, first of all, brushing your teeth is something that most people do a couple times a day. And what else are you going to do when you're standing there brushing your teeth? So habit stacking is a good way of making new habits become habits. It's, it's a way of solidifying them. So if you take a new action that you would like to become a habit and you pair it with something that's already a habit, then it solidifies that until it can be a standalone.
Bill Soroka (00:41:07):
Yeah. It's such a powerful, it's a powerful shift in the way that your brain thinks. And I think I remember, or reading this in B.J. Fogg's Tiny Habits, or even back before he even wrote the book, but he is like, just hook it onto something you do already. Yep. Putting deodorant on, turning on the shower, then start doing this. If you're going to start drying off, when you pick up the towel, start doing this or saying this to yourself and just tie it in and it helps solidify those. And then you almost fi, I find that you remember to do the asking questions even more than you brush your teeth sometimes. Right. Right. You're like, oh yeah. Start asking your questions. You're like, oh yeah, I better brush my teeth at the same time, you know? Yep. And pick it up. It's kind of cool how it works.
Jane Wenning (00:41:53):
So another habit stack that I have for your people, and this is especially handy when they're driving around in their cars, whenever you stop at a stoplight, drink, water, drink your water. You know, whether it's three or four, eight big gulfs of water. When you stop at a stoplight, then have something to drink.
Bill Soroka (00:42:15):
It's like a healthy drinking game.
Jane Wenning (00:42:16):
Yeah it is..
Bill Soroka (00:42:17):
I love it.
Jane Wenning (00:42:35):
Oh wow.
Bill Soroka (00:42:36):
Just breathe. 10 times. It helps me calm down and driving. It helps me become a lot more forgiving when people don't use their turn signal. Yes. Or they don't know how to merge. Right. Mm-hmm
Jane Wenning (00:42:48):
Okay. You know what, that, that's a great habit to get into. And here's the science behind why that is such a good thing for you. When you've come out of a meeting, your sympathetic nervous system is activated. That's your fight flight freeze. So your stress hormones are a little bit higher. Not a good plan when you're going to jump in your car and go sit in traffic. Mm-Hmm
Bill Soroka (00:43:55):
That has helped improve my joy of driving so much. Yeah. So thanks for explaining why that makes sense. It seems so logical. Now. I knew it worked. I just didn't understand why.
Jane Wenning (00:44:04):
There you go.
Bill Soroka (00:44:05):
That's great. All right. I love it. So, anything else on the emotional pillar or the emotional energy pillar?
Jane Wenning (00:44:12):
You know what, there are, I, I think that is enough for today. I don't want to bombard people with too many things in one pillar, but having the awareness is just, it is just such a big key to understanding where your emotional state is at at any moment in time. And then when you have tools to be able to switch gears on your emotional, then that's a great start.
Bill Soroka (00:44:44):
It's a huge start. And you know, one of the concepts that we often teach in our programs is, you know, taking responsibility for your emotional wake, like understanding how you show up to the world and how people feel when you walk away or from a conversation, whether it's online or in person. But that also is you taking responsibility for their emotional wake within yourself.
Jane Wenning (00:45:09):
Oh, for sure. Yeah.
Bill Soroka (00:45:10):
That's super important too. And that ties into self talk. That was really valuable. Thank you. And that leads to your pillar three, which is the nutritional side.
Jane Wenning (00:45:18):
Yeah. And you know what, and that leads right into, I mean, it, it kind of dovetails right off of being your best self in presenting your best self to people. And I'm not talking about physically, but when you are consuming foods that cause you to go on this roller coaster, you can't be emotionally in control when your metabolic system is on a roller coaster. When you've consumed a lot of processed foods or a lot of high sugary foods, what happens is you get this dump of glucose into your blood, but your blood can only handle so much of it. So insulin comes from your pancreas and it tries to take that glucose out. And sometimes what happens is it takes out too much glucose and that's when you crash. So you go from feeling high and euphoric to, Hm. And then in between there, then you also have a meeting with somebody that maybe didn't go so well
Jane Wenning (00:46:28):
And that's why nutrition is so important. If you want to show up on point and be on point for the loved ones in your lives and for your business, you need to keep your insulin level as stable as possible. And you do that by not consuming highly processed high sugar foods. I like to tell people that in the nutrition pillar, we focus on whole real food. And how do you know if it's a whole real food? Because at one point in time, did it have a face or did it grow from the ground? That's it, if it had a face or if it has grown from the ground, then you know, your nutrition is going to be on point.
Bill Soroka (00:47:14):
That's pretty simple way of looking at it there. I like that.
Jane Wenning (00:47:18):
Yeah. You know what, Bill, there's so many different avenues with all these different diet plans. You know what, start there, just start with eating whole real food, and then you can work your way into intermittent fasting or using a compressed eating window or doing I, I almost hate to use the word detox, but you know, then you can work your way into a detox where you kind of purge some of the stagnant things from your organs. You know, they're, and then you can, you can see at that point, when you're consuming whole real foods, you can see, okay, how does my body respond or react to this, to this food? I mean, when you don't have the distraction and the noise of processed food in there, then you can understand more about what's really nourishing your body.
Bill Soroka (00:48:13):
How do you do that when you work on the road and you're on a budget?
Jane Wenning (00:48:17):
Mm, okay. So my, my biggest tip is you have to, okay, so first of all, I'm going to back up and I'm going to say that protein is a priority. You have to make protein a priority because protein is going to make you feel full. And protein is also going to keep your blood sugar pretty stable. And then to make protein a priority, you have to have it made in advance. So I actually schedule, and I have my clients schedule on their calendars, a two hour cook session a couple times a week. And one of the, one of the things that I give my clients to to cook they're called poppers. And they are just a list of all these meatball type recipes. So I have one that's like a protein popper or a, a, a pizza popper where it's made with an Italian sausage. And maybe you put a little cut of pepperoni into it and some mozzarella cheese, and you use a binder that might be oatmeal or quinoa. And then you actually mix your pizza sauce right in there. You turn it into a little meatball and you cook it in many muffin tens. And when you do this, you have these little five gram protein bites that you can throw a bunch of those in a container, and they're in your car and your cooler, you can take 'em on the go.
Bill Soroka (00:49:47):
But that sounds delicious.
Jane Wenning (00:49:48):
Yeah. Yeah.
Bill Soroka (00:49:50):
So the food can taste good.
Jane Wenning (00:49:52):
Yes. Yes. The food can taste good. And it can be, you don't, you can get to a point where they say buy organic. You know what? Not everybody is there and that's not accessible to everyone. Start with eating the best quality food that you can afford, but make sure that you prior prioritize your protein and whether your protein is coming in the form of animal or plant prioritize protein, that's going to feed your muscles. It's going to repair your organs. You're putting yourself through a lot of stress every day. Your carbohydrates that you're eating are not going to repair any of that. In fact, they cause inflammation in the body and will compound any damage that you have going on. So your protein is going to repair the body. Your fats are going to energize the body, but you have to make sure that you're eating the right fats as well. The seed oils, the industrial seed oils are plasticizing and very inflammatory to your body.
Bill Soroka (00:50:51):
Hmm. Good to know. Now, do you have an opinion on how many times a day a person's supposed to eat?
Jane Wenning (00:50:56):
No. No. Listen to your body. Bill, we are not a pair of panty hose. It is not a one size fits all. So listen to your body bodies do well on intermittent fasting, where they might start, you might start eating at 10 or 11 o'clock and then finish eating by six or seven. Here's the rules that I will say for eating: stop eating three hours, at least three hours before you go to bed. Because like we talked about with the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system, when your both digestion and rest are on the parasympathetic side, but you cannot do both of those things really well. So your body is going to prioritize digestion over rest. So if you eat really close to the time you go to bed, your body is going to focus more on digesting your food and not recovering your body. Hmm. So that would be one of the hard and fast rules that I have with, with eating is stop eating three hours before you go to bed. All these arbitrary, you need to drink this many ounces of water a day, or you need to eat this many servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Bill that's so arbitrary. I'm five feet tall. I weigh a little over a hundred pounds. My husband is six, four, and he weighs 175 pounds. Do you think that those two rules hold, you know, the same for both of us?
Bill Soroka (00:52:29):
Makes sense. Right?
Jane Wenning (00:52:30):
So listen to your body. When you take out the distraction and you take out the noise, you can listen to what makes your body feel good. For me, animal protein. I like my animal protein. That makes me feel really good. My husband is like a goat. He can work off of animal protein. He can work off plant protein and he feels just great. But I have had clients where I have them track their food and they are amazed at the days that they take refined flowers and sugars out of their diet. How much better they feel. That was an epiphany for, for a couple of my clients. Yeah. They thought that they were getting energy from these processed foods, because that's what the manufacturers will tell you. But it was actually the reverse.
Bill Soroka (00:53:22):
It's funny. I found that to be true for me too. Especially as I get older, but it's the next day. So if I eat heavy carbs or sugars on one day, I'll wake up and I'll, it's like, I've been hit by a truck.
Jane Wenning (00:53:33):
Yes.
Bill Soroka (00:53:34):
I'm like what? Like my hips hurt or everything. I'm like, I feel like I'm 95, not 45, you know?
Jane Wenning (00:53:40):
Right, right. I had one client tell me when I started working with her, she said that she wakes up every day with hip pain and pain in her feet. And she said, oh, but that's normal because I'm, I'm close to 65. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, it's common, but it is not normal. And we changed her diet. She just sent me a an email a few days ago that she went hiking in Colorado. And this is the first time she has ever gone hiking and not had any joint pain.
Bill Soroka (00:54:11):
Wow.
Jane Wenning (00:54:12):
Yeah. Wow. Food is so powerful. Yeah,
Bill Soroka (00:54:15):
It is. Yeah. And it's just our, it's shifting our, our, the paradigm about how we think about it. I can, you know, you can feel that, but, okay. So let's talk about this a little bit. Yeah. I think a lot of people know this. They know they should be doing this. They sh it makes sense. We, they hear it all the time, right? So what's the difference maker? How do you, how do you shift and say, yeah, this is my time now?
Jane Wenning (00:54:40):
I think that the big key to this is preparation. You have to have your foods prepared in advance because when you don't, when you get home or when you're on the road, traveling, if you don't have food made with you, you are going to start grabbing all kinds of things. That's going to be quick. And that's when people run, and they know that they should be eating healthy. But yet when you are pinched for time, you're just going to grab.
Bill Soroka (00:55:12):
So if you're tired. Yeah. Yes. It's, it's just like doing, you say, you're going to do your bookkeeping at the end of the day. You're exhausted. You're not going to do your bookkeeping. It's going to sit there until, for a year, until April 14th. That's that's a really good point. Yeah. So you mentioned earlier though, that you recommend your client's schedule, like two hour, a couple, two hour blocks, have you found, is it Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, or does it ma, like, what have you found that works?
Jane Wenning (00:55:39):
It's whatever works for them, whatever works into their schedule. When I'm in Minnesota, I, I, I bounce between a couple different houses. And when I'm in Minnesota in the winter time, boy, my Sunday afternoons can be very cold and dreary. I cook up a storm on my Sunday afternoons. And like these little popper, things that I was telling you about, they only take 20 minutes to cook in the oven. So while you're cooking one batch, you can be preparing another batch. So you might be preparing your, your pizza poppers while you are ground chicken. I do a ground chicken with a Buffalo wing sauce and a blue cheese.
Bill Soroka (00:56:20):
Delicious. Where are these recipes?
Jane Wenning (00:56:22):
Yeah, I do. I've got all those recipes. Yes. And I'm happy to share them all with people. But those are things that if you've got them ready, made in advance, boy, you can make trays of those things, stick them in the freezer and then pull them out. Especially if you have, them like in I'm, I'm not a huge proponent of plastic bags, but go ahead and use your plastic bags and stick four or five little poppers in one bag. That's going to give you 20 to 25 grams of protein. Yeah. In one sitting. So…
Bill Soroka (00:56:57):
And in Phoenix, we can bake those right on our dashboards.
Jane Wenning (00:57:00):
There you go.
Bill Soroka (00:57:04):
I love it. Well, thank you for those tips, for sure. And that leads us right into pillar four what's pillar four?
Jane Wenning (00:57:08):
Pillar four is movement. And I'll tell you what movement is so important. People, you know, people all think, okay, well I have to move to lose weight, but you know what, here's the thing. You are never going to outrun a bad diet. So get your nutrition on point, start eating whole real foods. At least be consistent 80% of the time, 70% of the time start doing that. And then and then add this movement into your day. Another misnomer is that, or myth is that you have to move your body an hour and a half a day or 45 minutes a day. You know what? We are not all there. Some people are, and that's great. But again, look in the mirror and say, okay, I accept where I'm at right now. I'm, I'm having a hard time scheduling a half hour of movement in the day, start with five minutes.
Jane Wenning (00:58:06):
And I have, I have a YouTube video that is a four minute full body, body weight workout that you can do in the size of about a yoga mat. So there's no excuses when you're traveling. If you're in a hotel, if you have limited space in your house, you can do this in the size of a yoga mat. And it's four minutes. If you have 10 minutes that day do it. You do the eight moves for four minutes. Well, they're 30 seconds each. So you do eight moves for 30 seconds each and then rest for two minutes and do 'em again. And you are getting a full body, body, weight, cardio workout. And you are, one of the things that happens when you work out is you create this chemical in your body called B D N F brain derived neurotropic factor. And it is like miracle growth for your brain. It's what helps establish new neuro connections in your brain and helps the plasticity of your brain. So by just moving your body, you can actually feed your brain.
Bill Soroka (00:59:20):
Now, that's interesting. And I love that you give people space, space, and grace, right? That's my theme for the last couple of years to start where they're at. And so this doesn't mean gym membership.
Jane Wenning (00:59:30):
No, no, no. It doesn't mean going out and buying any equipment. Nothing. You don't need a, a set of dumbbells, nothing. You just need a small, maybe three by six space that you can do some some movement in yeah.
Bill Soroka (00:59:49):
Small space in four minutes. Yes. Think we can all spare that.
Jane Wenning (00:59:53):
And you know what, and that is such a gift to give yourself that, that movement, that time to move that four minutes. Yeah. And the, the other thing that that'll tie into too is your lymphatic system. When you move your body like that, that helps to push that sewer system. It helps to get that sewer system working and push out those toxins. So again, you're going to have better brain function because now you're, you're pushing the toxins through and you're getting the BDNF. And you're just going to feel when you work out, when you move your body, you create these endorphins. And again, that's going to give you that energetic, happy boost, and everybody needs more of that.
Bill Soroka (01:00:40):
Yeah. Well, especially when you're a solo-preneur out here trying to make things work, it takes so much energy to operate a business and brain function to figure out and get creative, cause we got to differentiate somehow. So you got to think a little outside the box and this is the kinda stuff you need to do.
Jane Wenning (01:00:55):
Yeah. Yep.
Bill Soroka (01:00:57):
I love that. Any other tips that you'd have for pillar four?
Jane Wenning (01:01:02):
Let's see, in my movement, you know what, listen to your body with movement. Do not do something just because someone else is doing it. A lot of times I get asked what's the best exercise to do. And my response is the one that you like to do, because if you like to move your body in that way, you're going to continue to do it. So if walking is your jam, then you walk and maybe that means for your for your people that they park further away. I mean, we all hear about yeah. Park in the back of the parking lot. Yep, yep. Do that park at the back of the parking lot and that way you're getting some extra movement and walk. When you walk from your car to that building walk like you're late, don't just kind of ho hum it. Because again, here's where you're activating that other nervous system you're going from that parasympathetic nervous system where you've been just kind of sitting and sedated in your car to now you need to be on point with your client. You need to be energized with your client. So you walk like you're late to get from your car to your client and that will activate your sympathetic nervous system and it'll get you going.
Bill Soroka (01:02:25):
That's interesting. You know, I do something kinda similar. I, I walk, I call it walk with intention. Yes. So I stay present on it and I focus on, I am almost having a conversation like I'm instructing my body to increase my heart rate and to, to get things up, burn that body fat and, or just pump me up basically. So I'm staying in it to walk there because you see it all the time. People say, oh yeah, I walk. But then you watch them walk. And it's like more of a, a mosey and it's, it doesn't feel intentional. I was doing that too. I'm just like, but I wasn't getting any results. I'm like, well, this isn't, I don't think this is what the intention was. So I'm going to walk with Intention now.
Jane Wenning (01:03:03):
Nope, Nope.
Bill Soroka (01:03:03):
That way. Cool. And the what else? You just sparked something else for me too. What's your take on stretching?
Jane Wenning (01:03:13):
You know what? I like stretching. I like stretching. So there are four pieces to my movement pillar. One of them is making sure that you get your heart rate up a couple times a week. You don't need to do it for hours at a time. I love hit training because you get your heart rate up and then you let it recover. And then you get it up for like 30 seconds. And then you let it recover for a couple minutes and you can get an amazing workout in just 15 minutes doing that. Hmm. But so, so that's the, the cardiovascular piece that I like with movement. And then there's the stretching piece, which we need to all make sure that our muscles are pliable. So stretching in mobility is very important because here's the thing, Bill. I mean, we're not that old, but yet when you lose mobility in your shoulders, you are not going to be dressing yourself.
Jane Wenning (01:04:16):
And then you have to rely on somebody else to do that, or you're going to lose your independent living. So you got to keep your joints healthy. You have to keep your, the mobility and the flexibility and to do that, you need to stretch. Then the other piece of of my movement is balance. That's something that people will lose right away. We don't pay attention to balance. We sit so often that we lose our balance. And if you, if you watch people, they need to have help, you know, they, they assist themselves is what I'm trying to say. When they stand up, they'll use the arms of the chair, they'll use the desk, whatever it is because they don't maybe necessarily have that balance and strength, strength, training, super, super, super important because we start losing muscle mass in our thirties and studies have shown that people with the strongest leg muscles and the strongest grip strength remain living independently longer.
Bill Soroka (01:05:29):
Oh, interesting.
Jane Wenning (01:05:31):
For, for your people. The whole reason that we are running the way we are is to have freedom. We want to have freedom of time. We want to have freedom of finance. And what does that matter if in the process we've lost our health and all that time then that we've freed up is spent going to doctor appointments. And all that finances that we've accumulated are spent on medical bills.
Bill Soroka (01:05:57):
What a great way to round this out and highlight the importance of the four pillars of health and wellness. Jane, thank you so much for sharing so much of your insight wisdom and the practical steps, practical, tiny little steps, yes, that we can be taking right now to keep, maintain our health, keep our health, restore our health as we build our empires in our business.
Jane Wenning (01:06:23):
To optimize, we want to optimize our health. We don't want, we don't want to just maintain because you know that if you're not growing,
Bill Soroka (01:06:32):
You're dying,
Jane Wenning (01:06:33):
You're dying. Yep.
Bill Soroka (01:06:34):
Yep. Jane, thank you so much for sharing so much of your wisdom. Thank you for being here.
Jane Wenning (01:06:39):
You are very welcome. Thank you, Bill. I appreciate your time.
Bill Soroka (01:06:43):
And if people want to learn more about what it is that you offer and get in your orbit, Jane, what's the best way to do that?
Jane Wenning (01:06:50):
Oh, for sure. So the best way to get to get in touch with me, visit my website and that's the www.4-pillarshealth.com, And there you will find, there's a free download. It's the four lifestyle tools for better health. Again, thees are real simple, easy things to implement. And then there's also a survey that people can take online if they want to see, okay, which pillar might need help. There's a quick survey that they can take, and then I can discuss the results with them and give them some practical, easy tips to improve that pillar, which again, will have trickle down effects into the other pillars.
Bill Soroka (01:07:38):
Yeah. Great. And where are the popper recipes? Are they…….
Jane Wenning (01:07:42):
If they, yes, absolutely email me and I will send you, I will send you my popper recipes and you can, you can get my, do it, please do it. I will send those to you and then you can, you can get to my email through my website.
Bill Soroka (01:07:57):
Yeah, absolutely. And of course I'm in the post, all this, for those of that are listening. If you want to connect with Jane, get in her orbit, check out her website and all of the amazing coaching and mentoring that she offers for your health and wellness do that. And then I will have all those links in the show notes wherever you're listening to this, you'll find those links Jane, once again. Thank you so much for being here with us.
Jane Wenning (01:08:21):
You are welcome. Thank you, Bill.
--- End of Transcription ---
Bill
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