April 25, 2023 • 57 mins
Do you speak up for what you believe is right, without diminishing others beliefs? Join Maureen in this episode of The Family Balancing Act with her guest, Gina Van Luven. Gina is an international speaker, best-selling author, and experienced Board-Certified Health Coach. She is a mom and grandmother! Her message and authenticity have been witnessed by millions and gotten her interviewed by dozens of magazines, as well as radio and TV shows across the globe, including CBS, ABC, and FOX. She is the author of several books and creator of several self-help products, including "Tame Your Stress Dragon."
Her books, Nutrition for Success and I'd Rather Scrub toilets than Cook, are well, brilliant! Owner of Prime IV Hydration & Wellness franchise in Mesa, Arizona.
Somewhere along the way, we handed over our power and truth, allowing the powers that be to take over and "do it for us".
Doing this not only took away our God-given rights (yes, it's in the original constitution), but it took away our children's rights. It has been done in such a way that we didn't even notice, because we've been so busy and entranced to stay focused on the outer world and how to stay in line. Maureen Huntley is your host, board-certified Integrative holistic and functional medicine health coach, Emotional Freedom practitioner, mom, grandmother, wife, and CEO of her family’s home operations. If you miss any of our episodes, you can find us on Apple, Spotify, google, podbean, pandora, iheartradio podcast, CTR - Radio Network, and more. Deep Breath ~ Exhale ~ It starts with you.Gina Van
Luven www.ginavanluven.comhttps://www.facebook.com/meetginavanluvenhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/gvanluven/https://twitter.com/gvanluvenhttps://www.instagram.com/gvanluven/
Maureen Huntley, MS The Family Balancing Acthttps://maureenhuntley.com/ https://www.facebook.com/maureen.huntley?mibextid=LQQJ4d https://www.facebook.com/TheFamilyBalancingAct?mibextid=LQQJ4dhttps://www.instagram.com/mohuntley/www.ctrnetwork.com/thefamilybalancingact
VIA Character Strengths *FREE assessment:http://maureenhuntley.pro.viasurvey.orghttp://vitalhealthforlife.pro.viasurvey.org
Her books, Nutrition for Success and I'd Rather Scrub toilets than Cook, are well, brilliant! Owner of Prime IV Hydration & Wellness franchise in Mesa, Arizona.
Somewhere along the way, we handed over our power and truth, allowing the powers that be to take over and "do it for us".
Doing this not only took away our God-given rights (yes, it's in the original constitution), but it took away our children's rights. It has been done in such a way that we didn't even notice, because we've been so busy and entranced to stay focused on the outer world and how to stay in line. Maureen Huntley is your host, board-certified Integrative holistic and functional medicine health coach, Emotional Freedom practitioner, mom, grandmother, wife, and CEO of her family’s home operations. If you miss any of our episodes, you can find us on Apple, Spotify, google, podbean, pandora, iheartradio podcast, CTR - Radio Network, and more. Deep Breath ~ Exhale ~ It starts with you.Gina Van
Luven www.ginavanluven.comhttps://www.facebook.com/meetginavanluvenhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/gvanluven/https://twitter.com/gvanluvenhttps://www.instagram.com/gvanluven/
Maureen Huntley, MS The Family Balancing Acthttps://maureenhuntley.com/ https://www.facebook.com/maureen.huntley?mibextid=LQQJ4d https://www.facebook.com/TheFamilyBalancingAct?mibextid=LQQJ4dhttps://www.instagram.com/mohuntley/www.ctrnetwork.com/thefamilybalancingact
VIA Character Strengths *FREE assessment:http://maureenhuntley.pro.viasurvey.orghttp://vitalhealthforlife.pro.viasurvey.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Thank you so much for joining theFamily Balancing Act. Here at the Family
Balancing Act, where we restore theheart of motherhood, one conversation at a
time. I'm Maureen Huntley, yourhost, board certified Integrative and Holistic Functional
Medicine coach. I'm an e FTpractitioner, mom, grandmother, and wife,
(00:24):
and I'm also the CEO of myfamily's home operations. And if you've
been here before, welcome, andif this is your first time, it's
an honor to have you here.So come right on in, pull up
a chair and grab a tea,a coffee, or a green juice,
because we have a lot to talkabout with my guest today, Gina van
(00:47):
Luven. Gina is an international speaker, best selling author, and experienced board
certified health coach. She is amom and yes, a very young grandmother.
Her message and her authenticity has beenwitnessed by millions and has gotten her
interviewed by dozens of magazines as wellas radio and TV shows across the globe,
(01:10):
including CBS, ABC and Fox.She's the author of several books and
creator of several several self help products, including Tame Your Stress Dragon, her
books Nutrition for Success and I'd ratherscrub toilets than cook well are brilliant,
(01:32):
So if you miss any of ourepisodes, you can find us on Apple,
Spotify, Google, Podbean, Pandora, iHeartRadio Podcast, CTR Radio Network,
and many more. So sign upfrom my monthly newsletter and grab my
free year round holiday stress less tipsat Maureen Huntley dot com, where you
(01:53):
can also learn how to work withme. I love what I do Integrative
wellness solutions women who mother and theirfamilies by moving the energy of chaos,
anxiety, stress, and the overwhelmof being everyone's everything into the emotional freedom
(02:13):
of being fully you. So deepbreath, exhale. It starts with you
taking care of you first. Courage. How often are you using courage?
It's a virtue that describes strengths thathelps one exercise their will and face adversity.
(02:38):
The via character strings that fall underthe virtue category are courage, bravery,
honesty, perseverance, and zest.So where are you and what is
bravery? Well? Bravery is valor. It's not shrinking from threat or challenge,
(03:00):
facing fears and speaking up for what'sright. To be brave is to
face your challenges, threats, ordifficulties by valuing a goal or conviction and
acting upon it, whether it's popularor not. A central element of bravery
is facing your fears. The VIAInstitute describes three types of bravery. We
(03:23):
can possess one, two, orall three of these types well. The
first one is physical bravery, youknow, jumping into action when needed think
parenting, motherhood, teaching, orfirefighters, police officers, soldiers. The
second is psychological bravery, doing thespiritual, intrinsic and extrinsic work, like
(03:49):
looking inside yourself and facing painful aspectsand having that big conversation with that person.
Moral bravery standing up for the truth, standing in integrity and honesty,
speaking up for what's right, evenif not everyone, including those you thought
(04:13):
would have your back, are therefor you to be an unfavorable opinion to
the group, but you move throughit. To quote today's guest from her
twenty twenty post on her website ChinaVan Luvin dot com entitled the Red Pill
or the Blue One, knowledge candefinitely be overwhelming at times. This is
(04:34):
why we learn in bits and pieces, and not everyone learns at the same
rate or in the same way.This is the problem with the public school
system. It forces everyone at acertain age to learn the same thing in
the same way. What this reallydoes is stifle our creativity and keep us
(04:55):
wrapped up in a nice little boxof ignorance. Due somewhere along the way,
we handed over our power, ourtruth and allowed the powers that be
to take over and do it forus. Doing this not only took away
our god given right, yes it'sin the original Constitution, but it took
(05:17):
away our children's rights. It hasbeen done in such a covert way that
we didn't even notice because we areso busy and entranced to stay focused on
the outer world and how to stayin line. Back in twenty nineteen,
I wrote a paper entitled Lucky Harms. I bet you can kind of guess
(05:40):
what this is all about. Iwrote, General Mills, Lucky Charms truly
is the lucky product, but notfor the consumer. It isn't benefiting from
the luck. This bright red cerealbox with Lucky the lepre con sliding down
the colored rainbow of little marshmallow shapeshas been gracing the shelves of amer Cup
(06:00):
for well over fifty years. Theclever statements on the front of the box,
made with whole grains and fortified withtwelve essential vitamins. Would have us
believe it's good for our family.Question it and you get pulled in by
yet another banner box tops for education. General Mills is giving back to our
(06:24):
children's education, and they're the goodguys. Only charm here, only harm
here. Not only is the industrialcomplex screen with our food and our air.
And how about all of everything thatwe're ingesting. Oh, like the
media advertising our schools, healthcare,scarecare, our health, our children's health.
(06:45):
It's all about the bright colors andthe presentation. What is socially right
and now what is considered wrong andby whose standards? Huh? We as
women were told to scream out mybody, my choice, whether or not
you believed in it. That wasthe campaign, and it was sold to
us because it's the word choice.But now it's been broadened and co opted
(07:11):
to your body, our choice,don't think, just do what we say
and don't ask any questions. SoI have this little voice deep inside of
me that's been restless, and maybeyou know someone that also has that little
voice wanting to burst forth. Butthe fear of offending someone by swallowing our
(07:33):
own thoughts and words. It's theproblem. In my opinion, as women
rise, we get taken down covertly, quietly, as we may notice,
yet don't make waves, don't wantto bring attention, and it might be
too difficult for our family and friendsand community. They're important to us.
(07:54):
Our beautiful children need us to stepup and take a stand against the insanity
of the covert capal. Yeah,deep state, I said it. The
time is here, and actually it'salways been here, and now for women,
mothers, grandmothers and those who motherto stand up and use their voices
for the health and safety of ourchildren, the world's children. Mama bears
(08:18):
unite. We were aware and awake, and the awakening is now. My
guest today is Gina Van Luvin.She is that voice. Gina is an
international wellness speaker, author, boardcertified health coach for almost two decades.
She is the creator of several selfhelp programs and the best selling author of
(08:39):
Nutrition for Success, How to MaximizePerformance in All areas of your life.
I'd rather scrub toilets than cook,and Tips to getting in and out of
the kitchen Quickly. She is alsothe owner of a Prime Ivy hydration and
(09:00):
in Wellness franchise in Mesa, Arizona, that you have to look into.
Having overcome several health issues herself usinghealthy food and alternative treatments, Gina felt
empowered to support others in their journeytoward health and well being. She believes
that while you may be handed aspecific set of cards, it's how you
(09:22):
play them. Life is full oftwists and turns, and if you have
the right tools, you can navigatethem with ease and grace. I've known
and followed her for years. Sheis an inspiration. She is brave and
she uses her bravery character strength bigtime. And I am so honored to
(09:46):
have Gina with us here today atthe Family Balancing Act. Welcome Gina,
Thank you so much. What alovely introduction. It's really exciting that you're
doing something like this. And Isome notes as you were talking. One
have to go through those. Ijust go YadA, YadA, YadA.
Thank you. Well. You you'rea force because I you know, I
(10:09):
follow things you say and and andI'm you know, like or I'll maybe
make a little comment or send ahard or thumbs up, and you're just
giving your thoughts. You're not tellinganybody else how to think, and that's
never been my I just want tosend information out there. Can we take
(10:30):
a look at this, just kindof pick up the hood and look inside,
and especially I think as it's comingup for our children and how it's
affecting them. Yeah, it's it'sinteresting. It's obviously become more of a
touchy subject to speak your mind thesedays, and it's it's it's unfortunate,
(10:52):
but I've seen a pattern of thismy whole life, of just kind of
be seen and not heard. Andmy mom even said that my dad,
who was kind of out of thepicture very early in my life, was
very much like that, just beseen and not heard. So it was
ingrained in me without my even knowingit, whereas my mom was the opposite.
(11:13):
It's like be you, you know, say what's on your mind.
And she's not particularly that way,but she's very open and accepting of other
people's thoughts and ideas, and Iappreciate that so much about her, and
so fortunately I got a little pieceof that as well. And I can't
say it's always easy. I've hada lot of backlash, especially as of
(11:35):
late, but even in childhood,going to school, asking questions and they're
just you know, they're just honestquestions. I'm a curious person and I'll
ask questions or say say what Ithink and getting in trouble for we're doing
so. And how I felt andactually it's happened very recently, oddly where
(12:00):
you would think it would not comefrom this particular person who is a business
coach. Kind of made me feellike I shouldn't have asked a question,
and I thought, gosh, thatis so it really kind of set me
back. I thought, this isreally strange coming from a business coach,
because it felt like he was tryingto squash my Yeah, my voice,
(12:22):
right, don't don't say anything,don't ruffle any feathers. And yet feathers
are being ruffled all the time.There are many people out there talking and
they're they're the feathers they're ruffling,and the people are keeping their feathers down,
and it's happening on the inside exactly. That's a really good point to
(12:43):
make, because that talk, whetherthey were saying it outwardly or it's happening
inside, it's it's happening. AndI think if you if you squash that
and try to suppress it and notspeak it out. That's when it can
create health issues. Having said that, if you don't have the skin for
it and you say something and there'sbacklash and people coming at you with negative
(13:07):
comments like that can be hurtful food. So I'm not encouraging everyone to go
out and speak their mind if they'renot ready for it. But I would
say that if if that is anissue for you, to encourage you to
explore why that is an issue foryou and work on that versus just trying
(13:28):
to, you know, spew itpull out at once. Sometimes that can
be like the volcano as well.Someone who suppressed the press suppressed and then
all of a sudden the eruption happensand it's not healthy either, not at
all. And and so there's thisdual action of hold it into I let
it out, and you hold itin enough so it's it's going to blow
(13:50):
the gask. It's going to blowat some point. It might not even
be at the group that needs tohear it and then get the right hear
it. If you're going to blow, there has to be conversations. And
that's the piece that's missed, that'sbeen missing, is that there is no
conversation. It's like you're either goingto listen to this, and you listen
(14:11):
to it and you try to respondwith a rebuttal or why you think you
why you know you feel this way, and it's just stalled out. You're
not allowed. I know I've spoken, this is how it is. This
is it? It's very narcissistic.Well, I think the other piece is
(14:31):
if it's done in a positive ora loving way. Again going back to
the volcano at an example, ifyou let things fester, then it becomes
an eruption that can destroy the thingsaround you. Whereas if you open up
something when it's happening, but froma place of love or curiosity, it
(14:56):
comes out very differently. And soI would also invite people to consider this.
If you have something to say,is it just something that you want
to share, is it a bitof curiosity or are you lashing out?
And I would say the latter canbe problematic. And if that's the case,
(15:18):
for you to again look inside,why do you feel the need to
lash out that you've been triggered?Why are you being triggered? And so
when I feel that place where youjust want to like you kind of want
to pounce back is taking a deepbreath and going okay, deep breath.
Why do I feel triggered? What'sgoing on inside my mind my soul?
(15:45):
And how can I respond to thisin a positive way or do I just
need to like take a step backand kind of go sit with it and
think through it versus just retaliating Ifthat makes sense, of course, no,
definitely does. And yet at thesame time, all of these the
(16:07):
different subjects that we could definitely touchon, you know, the children,
their health, school, food,you know, the food sources. And
we've been talking about this since Iknow from I en days back in you
know, the Dark Ages two thousandand seven. I'm in like I was
on it before then, but thatinspired me to keep moving through it.
(16:27):
And you know, the whole foodthing. People are actually I have friends
of mine who would never look atthat before. Really they just kind of
went along with it. Well,now they're noticing not only the cost of
you know, food because the inflationis just kicked in like crazy, but
also all the lists of all thecrap that is on the box, and
(16:56):
you start to I noticed that there'smore people talk about eating more plants,
and that's always been my thing.Just eat some plants, okay, you
know, just eat something green,for God's sakes. So there is movement
in certain areas. But you bringup you know, they never bring up
religion or politics. Well, religionis easy. These politics is like,
(17:19):
yeah, well, food is verydifficult because there's an addiction there and and
so it's not it's not just aboutthe thought process around it. There's there's
mental and physical attachments to food.And it's funny you mentioned lucky charms.
I used to love lucky charms asa kid, and fruit loops and all
(17:41):
of those other terrible things. AndI mean I didn't know any better.
I used to take white bread,the wonder bread, but some butter on
it and then which probably was margarineat some point, and pour white sugar
on it, fold in half andeat that. I mean it was just
should have just got a twinkie.Oh I eat plenty of those two,
(18:03):
Oh my god, any of thosetwo. And it was just in a
place of ignorance. And ignorance isn'tum It's not like calling somebody stupid,
right, I mean, that's justa negative thing. Ignorance is. We
all have it. I happen aboutyou don't know what you don't know,
and ignorance is is not knowing.Now, there's ignorance, and there's a
willful ignorance, right, It's it'swhere you know something and you choose to
(18:26):
ignore it. That that's that's alittle bit different. But I was just
completely ignorant of it. And Iremember my day's at Intel. Have a
friend who's still a friend to thisday. We were pregnant at the same
time with our now twenty seven yearold children. This is a long time
ago, and she planted the seedfor me about healthy eating and I had
(18:48):
I was pregnant. I wanted toeat healthy and I knew that I knew
that there were some things that Iwas doing it was probably not necessarily healthy,
but I didn't look at the ingredientsnecessarily, like the dyes and preservatives
and things like that. I didn'treally I wasn't really aware like I was
like so many Americans who think thatif it's on the shelf, it's okay
(19:11):
to eat. Right, we're beingprotected by the USDA. What's on the
shelf is okay to eat. AndI was of that, of that mindset,
and she started planting some seeds It'sone of those things that I thought,
hmm, you know, I didn'tfeel threatened. Would I Some people
feel very threatened by that. Ididn't feel threatened, but I thought,
(19:33):
hmm, this is this is differentthan what I know and understand. I
didn't think about this a little bit. But I started to change my diet
and I felt better pregnant than Ihad ever felt in my entire life.
And so a light bulb went offand that was kind of the the start
of my journey, which more happenedlater on. But uh, it was.
(19:56):
It was interesting when I remember thatpoint in my life where that mental
switch kind of happened, and thatit happens differently for everyone and sometimes not
at all. Yeah, often itjust shows it shows up because of illness.
The work it's it's when that showsshows up as illness. It's helping
(20:22):
people to step out of that andtake a good look. But when you
have doctors and this still have Ihear it every once in a while,
I still continue to hear this thatthe doctor will specifically say, oh,
diet has nothing to do with it. It's it's astonishing to me that doctors
today would still believe that it's astonishing, but it happens, and I mean
(20:45):
has happened recently when somebody told methat their doctor said that to them,
and it's hard for me not toget angry. But I thought, it's
not a healthy motion necessarily the emotionthat's you know, and how you spew
it. Then it's managed to right. But I mean, I have the
(21:06):
same deal. I have somebody inmy family who became who had cancer and
went to the you know, wentthrough the whole process and I kept hearing,
oh, you know, diet hasnothing to do with it. And
I sort of took charge of thatand I said, okay, let's prove
the doctor wrong here. You know, that was my goal. Now I
(21:27):
didn't prove them completely wrong, butI did move the dial. It was
like, wow, we slowed thisdown, we stopped this part of it.
This so it it definitely moved thedial. You can't when something's already
in process. It's the working ofthe miracles. Then you know, it's
like you're you're bringing in, youknow, miraculous things. But even like
(21:51):
the the ivy work that the businessthat you have, where can you talk
a little bit about that and howthat helps people through their their illnesses.
Yes, so I'm sure everybody's familiarwith IVY therapy, either had it done
themselves or know someone who has pins. In the hospital. It's just liquid
nutrients, and this is becoming moreof a preventative measure versus Oh goodness,
(22:18):
I'm in the hospital. I needliquid nutrition. And when you when you
eat, you have to digest.Even with supplements, you have to digest
what you're consuming, and you're notYou're not going to get everything out of
that food or that supplement, whichis why you'll see like a thousand percent
on supplements and like what do Ineed? A thousand percent dial should be
(22:41):
linked to a hundred. And it'sbecause your body cannot take everything that is
getting so they give you more thanwhat you what you need. And with
food, I mean you it's hardto eat more than what you need.
And the nutrition value in our foodhas decreased substantially with the transportation of food.
So if you're buying local, that'sgreat, Like you can probably pretty
(23:03):
much sustain yourself nutritionally with locally grownfood. But most of us, myself
included, will get things that Imean I live in Park City, Utah.
I will have snow till July inmy neighborhood. I'm not kidding,
this is no exaggeration, but wehave local farmers, but obviously they're not
growing right now, so I can'tget local. And when it has to
(23:23):
travel, you're losing every As soonas you pick it, you're starting to
lose nutrition. That plant is dyingand it's losing it's nutritive value. And
so when you get an IV you'regetting one hundred percent of that absorption versus
having to go through the digestion process. So I think IV therapy is kind
of like the new massage. Youthink of like massage envy and need a
(23:45):
massage. In those places where itwas kind of a nice to have people,
people started understanding that, hey,this could be used preventatively to reduce
stress. IV therapy it can beused very much preventatively as well as reactively.
If you do have some type ofillness that you need support with and
you mentioned with your family member withcancer and kind of dialing it back,
(24:11):
that's a huge piece of it.I think some people don't understand that it's
not just about trying to eradicate something, it's about mitigating and prolonging your well
being your life hopefully, but you'reyour well being during that time that you're
alive. And I'll give you agood example for me, I have genetic
(24:33):
heart conditions and diet. Unfortunately,I can have the best diet in the
world and I still have these geneticgenetic DNA that predisposes me to stroke and
potentially heart conditions down the road.I can't necessarily do anything about that,
the genetic piece, but if Idid have a poor diet, it's going
(24:57):
to get me to that point fast. I don't want to get to that
point faster. I want to delaythat as long as possible and if ever.
Yeah, and my dream is thatsomeday when it's time for me to
go, I go to sleep andI just I'll wake up. That's my
death right there. I've kind ofput that out there too. I'm like,
(25:18):
that's a good way, Okay,thank you asleep. But I don't.
I don't and I'm not afraid ofdying. I'm afraid of suffering.
I don't like and I've had enoughof that my life. Don't want any
more suffering. But it's all aboutwhat can I do to make myself or
help myself be healthy and happy andbalanced today or tomorrow. So it's what
(25:41):
you're doing right now precipitates what's goingto happen in the future. So what
I'm doing today will help me ortomorrow. And I just do that day
after day after day. If thatmakes sense, No, it does.
It's it's beautiful and by starting withyourself and then you be the pebble in
the water to ping out to yourfamily, all your children, your family,
(26:07):
your community, which you're doing whichis amazing when you're doing it in
so many levels, with with youryour books and you get your voice,
you know you're you're really touching somany because I look at like even school
food. Oh I could get goingon this, but over the years I
(26:33):
really tried to help in the schoolsystem in my area and even outside my
area too, and I even kidnappedthem the principle of the high school.
Not really, I just went inone day, I say, we have
this appointment when you know, whenis your lunch and can you do like
another hour beyond that? And Iwas like, I'm taking you into the
(26:55):
city, into Manhattan, and we'regonna we're gonna do this. And I
took him to a school that wasa private school, so obviously the guys
coming from a public school, butgoing to a private school where they had
a rooftop greenhouse and garden. Thekids had breakfast was Chef Bobo was the
(27:17):
name of the Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and so great guy.
So they had this garden on therooftop and all of the utensils and
everything they had that they were usingwere all biodegradable. It was all eco
friendly the whole place. The kidswere all involved in the process through science,
(27:41):
through um, you know, theylearned. It was like this great
curriculum that involved the plants and growingand food and the kids got to work
alongside him and make meals. AndI remember at that time, I want
to say, what was that liketwin fourteen, twenty fourteen, we were
(28:04):
doing um uh you know, theywere making their own breakfast and it was
two dollars for breakfast, and thenlunch was like four dollars, and then
there was an after school meal.And I took this principle throughout this whole
thing. And we were late gettingback because he didn't want to leave.
(28:26):
He was like, this is amazing, it's a dream. And he was
sold. He was like, youguys, we have to you know,
be the first public school to getthis going. It fell flat. You
know, you get the school boardinvolved, you get you know, the
money manager involved, and it reallywasn't about the money because parents were willing
(28:48):
to step up and do this,to help create the gardens, to help
build the you know, like tohelp, but it just it didn't happen.
Yeah, I a similar experience.I didn't have a beautiful, wonderful
school to take them to. Butgoing into the I can't remember what the
term is, but it's the personwho manages all the nutrition for the district
(29:11):
who was very, very overweight bythe way, and and not I mean,
I understand that people have weight issues. Some of them are genetic,
and I've worked with a lot ofdifferent people and very in different degrees of
that. And it's not to disparagepeople who have an extra weight, but
I also believe that you need tobe the person behind what you're doing.
(29:37):
And if you're a person that's nottaking care of yourself and is overweight and
then you're managing the nutrition for allof our children, there's just a huge
disconnect with that, and I havea tough time with that. So that
was that was step number one.But they were getting subsidized by like Tyson
Chicken. So you're, you know, getting free chicken nuggets which are irradiated
(29:59):
and I'm not genetically modified, buteating GMO foods and eating grains that they
shouldn't be eating and reservatives and it'sjust garbage. It's garbage. And she's
just like, well, this iswhat we get, and we get it
for free. And it was verymuch a money issue. But to your
point, I mean, I livein a very affluent community. They'd stop
(30:22):
up with the money, but thenthere's the children that don't have their families
don't have money, and then thegovernments would have to subsidize that. It
was just this huge, confusing mess. And I there's certain things that I
can get behind and push and Ijust I knew that it was fruit,
it was frutile. I just couldn't. I couldn't do it. It was
(30:44):
very frustrating to make that realization thatthere's probably nothing that can be done and
I, at least not by me. Somebody else needs to go from that.
It's better voice by Yeah, Icouldn't. I couldn't do it.
There are a lot of voices andcombined movement happens. You know, it
(31:07):
takes you know, it takes morethan a village. It takes many,
many, many people to move behindsomething, but a big voice to to
pull them through the eye of theneedle. I think that what you both,
what we both dealt with with thefood in the schools, you know,
going back years now m a fewyears and more for me even um
(31:33):
that we're in the same place.Still we're still we have not moved.
We just keep running and the ditchesgetting deeper, and we're just running and
running and running, and we're andwe're going nowhere. Yet it's being sold
as we're going somewhere. We're thethere's that. No, it's it's the
(31:56):
same as it as it was sinceI was in school. It's a same
garbage that they're feeding people. AndI think, if I allow, if
these billionaires took their money and putit into school food systems, all of
this, most of the disease issuesthat we have, and not to say
(32:16):
that it's going to raise poverty,but when you have a healthy mind,
when you have a child that's growingup in an environment where they're they're at
least eating two healthy meals, aday. The output their their mental and
emotional output is going to be somuch different than a child who's been fed
(32:37):
garbage all day long. And youprobably remember back when we were going to
school, they went into I thinkit was a school, it might have
been a school in New York wherethey had lots of incidents. They do
an incident report. There are alot of you know, violence and issues
(32:59):
with in the school. And theyinstituted this school lunch program, healthy school
lunch program, and their incident ratewent down to zero. And I don't
know if you remember where that wasor any details about that, but it
was just shocking to me. Iremember because Joshua was part of that.
(33:21):
He was talking about them. Rememberthat there was something to do with it.
I don't know whatever happened. Iknow that the mayor of New York
right now, Adams was very Hewas very big, into he was very
overweighted. He got he had likea heart attack, and he his mother
(33:42):
had diabetes and whatever. I don'teven know if he had a heart tape,
but he was very he wasn't veryhealthy. He decided to become a
vegan, like he was kind offorced into it, and his health turned
around completely and then he got hisHe was like gung ho and he got
his mother healthy, and he's gettingand he started actually trying to grow grow
(34:07):
the whole vegan movement. I wasat a talk he gave and people were
like really moving into it, andthey're trying to hit the populations in the
New York area that were deprived andstruggling. I don't even hear about that
(34:28):
anymore. It like it was likegood for publicity for a little while.
It's kind of and if it stillis. I prayed to go on a
little quiet, a little silent,and yet he is a bigger platform now
for the whole for all in NewYork. It's I know, it's more
(34:49):
complicated than what it seems because someof the schools don't even have kitchen.
Well they have kitchens, but they'rewarming kitchens. They don't have a place
to make food, and that wasa funding thing, and I know some
of them can be converted to cookingkitchens. And it's really a lot simpler
than what people think. Though.To change that around, it's just a
matter of somebody taking the bull bythe horns and going, okay, let's
(35:13):
do this. But it really doesneed to be done in a government level
versus someone like like you or me. But I just want to make a
point real quickly. As you mentionedvegan, and I know you do plant
based education, and I mean,if you look at all of the if
you look at the whole world,most of the populations that are the healthiest
(35:36):
are plant based. They all havea little bit of meat, but they're
all plant based, and I thinkthe key here is plants. You mentioned
that, So whether you're a veganor you eat meat, I don't care.
I very much believe in what Joshuataught us and what I am taught
us is that everybody is different andit has different needs, and what works
(35:57):
well for one person may literally destroyanother person. So I'm very much into
individuality. But the key amongst allof them is plants. And as you
said earlier, if you could justeat more plants, and if we could
get more plants into the mouths ofour babes, I think that so much
(36:17):
would change. And you look atlike the Japanese culture and for the longest
time and probably even still, they'rejust they're just smarter than us. I
mean, I'm not going to mincewords. They just are there. They
just because they eat plants. It'sbecause they eat predominantly plants. And I
spent quite a bit of time inAsia. I lived in Malaysia for four
(36:40):
years, and so we were travelingall over Asia, Southeast Asia, and
the Southeast Asian cultures are different.But if you go like Japan in Korea.
I did not visit Taiwan or China. My husband did, but they
are all plant based and they're allmostly very lean. Like as a whole
I mean, you will see somewhite people, but as a whole population
(37:01):
is lean. It's starting to tipbecause they are becoming more westernized and changing
some of those habits into the notso healthy ones right right, the younger
populations, but they just they havea healthier population. And what you put
in is what's going to come out, and over time you can really catch
(37:27):
up with you from an intellectual standpoint, if you're not feeding yourself things that
can help your brain function properly exactly. And you had mentioned like when we
first started about your curiosity as achild, and if we're not eating those
plants that lift us up, ifwe're not eating nutrient dense foods that lift
(37:50):
us up, that curiosity starts todim. It's like a light you just
kind of strudge through, and I'mI definitely will add some plant, some
animal proteins in once a while,some fish and that because I feel now
that as the time has gone on, I listen to my body and I
(38:13):
encourage everyone to listen to your body. How do you feel after you eat?
And where are you feeling it?But you know it's our children again,
like how do you get them tofocus? A lot of focus issues
with children? Well, oh yeah, not only food, right media.
(38:35):
I mean there's just a lot ofbombardment of stuff, behaviors from other kids,
everything, It's just a lot.Well and if the if the child
has grown up on on the standardAmerican diet, depending on how old they
are, the younger ones respond reallyquickly. I mean I have my own
personal story with that. People cango on my website and look at it.
The younger ones can turn around whatreally quickly. The older you are,
(39:00):
the more difficult it is to detox. Basically, so if you've been
on a standard food diet for along time, it's going to take a
bit to reverse that. So youget some of these parents that say,
oh, well, I tried,you know, gluten free, or I
tried going to healthier foods, andthey're not saying a change, but the
child has so much toxicity they needto actually put them through a detox before
(39:23):
they can really see the benefit ofthose changes. And it's also kind of
like when you're when you're creating agarden and you plant all the seeds.
You know they're they're way down inthe ground, and you water it and
the sun shines out and you're waitingfor it to grow, and and you
don't say anything. Next day,you don't see anything. The next day
(39:45):
don't see anything, and you're like, gosh, darn it, this garden.
This is just a waste of time. And you just go stamp on
all the seeds and dig it allup, realizing that it was just about
ready to poke through the surface.And just because you can't see it on
the surface doesn't mean it doesn't existor doesn't mean it's not growing. And
so I try to impart that onthe parents, especially or even my adult
(40:05):
clients, that it takes it takessome time to undo that damage, and
you may not feel amazing right away, it's going to take time to time
for you to get to that point. It's going to take time. It's
going it'll take less time to getto where you want to go than it
took you to get to where youare. But you still have to walk
(40:27):
the path back where It's like you'returning around and now you're going to collect
those bread prums all the way backto where you started or where you want
to end. And you know,it's amazing what a good detox can do
to us. Oh yeah, butit's easier when we're doing it with If
you live, if you are ina family unit, and if you have
(40:50):
control over your food, you're theone in charge of making the meals,
you might be able to actually makethat happen. But if you're a lone
wolf in the middle of it,that's really hard. Yeah. I've I've
I've worked with some clients over theyears who are in a family that it
just they are that that lone wolf, and I just encourage them to continue
(41:13):
because eventually those people are going tosee, oh my goodness, look what's
look, Look what's happened to you? They see the benefit and then they
slowly start to go along with it. I have encountered situations where the family
becomes very threatened by that healthy person. And because we de talk sometimes those
(41:38):
talxic people in our life need tokind of talks out. Yeah, they're
part of the intoxification exactly, exactly. Yeah, And that's not saying say
they should kick your family out.That's not what I'm saying. Osually we
have little ones, but that thatdoes happen sometimes. But I think it's
(41:59):
important that you have to do youAnd if you concede to people because they
are less healthy than you and they'reafraid of your light, and then you
decided to succumb to that, Imean, that is not the direction that
I would encourage someone to go.And it can be painful. As you're
(42:21):
going through this coming to the light, so to speak, becoming healthy,
and you start attracting things that resonatewith you, which are healthier people and
healthier situations. It's a little scaryto think that, hey, maybe these
people are not you know, thesemaybe these are not my people anymore,
but we can still love them andaccept them the way that they are.
(42:45):
But for me, I'm really luckymy family, my whole family pretty much
came right along with me. Theretook a little bit in the beginning,
but I was like, Hey,this is this is my journey, this
is the way it's going to be, and y'all can do whatever you want
to do. That's out to you. I still love you. But I
(43:07):
did not let the naysayers change mypath, Like this is my path and
I'm not going to risk my wellbeing because you don't think I can,
or you think I'm doing something crazyor whatever it is that you have to
say, I'm going to I'm goingto go my path and it's how you
(43:31):
show up for yourself and how ithas worked that they then see and yes,
might be threatened by a family membermight be threatened or friends. Friends
might be threatened, but they wanta piece of it. They just I'm
not quite sure how to get thereor if not, as you say,
(43:53):
love them up where they're at.That's all we can do. My husband
and family, all my kids,all four kids, and they're all When
I was, you know, reallygetting good at like wanting to become a
you know, a vegetarian then intoveganism, I was just trying to eat
more plants. That's it. Iwasn't forcing them to not eat and eat.
(44:15):
I just didn't do that. Ijust you know, and I was
trying to really get the good stuffon the table. I remember one morning
making pancakes, but I was likemaking some paleotype pancakes or whatever, making
them healthy, and I was lookingfor them the syrup, the maple syrup,
(44:36):
and it was like all gone.And my husband up in his office
was keeping a Antemima when there wasAntemima bottle in his office in the child
cabinet, like it was some sortof secret sauce, and that came out
went onto the table. Because thekids and nobody, I was the only
(44:57):
one who was like, oh no, we have to have you know,
the Whole Foods brand or whatever,we have to have real maple syrup.
I lost my mind and then Ilet it go because it's just not worth
it. In today, years later, they're very much on board with choosing
making better choices, but sometimes ittakes ten years to get there. You
(45:20):
just have to I went through somethingsomething similar when I made the changes.
The short of it is, mythen three year old had an incident at
school and I just probably ain't criedand cried. He had ADHD with aggression
and I knew I guess intuitively thathad something to do with food, and
(45:44):
so I did all this research.I found the Fine Gold method that was
kind of I think it's called fineGold how I got started, But it
really was about more plant based andremoving all the chemicals from the food.
And so one weekend, I likethrew out everything. If it was not
real food, it got thrown out. And my husband and my son at
(46:05):
the time, my oldest one,I think he was like thir twelve,
probably about about twelve, so tweenalmost teenager, and he and my husband
both used to drink ocean spray cranbraidgjuice. They didn't complain about anything else.
It was the ocean spray caranbraes.How can he take away my cranbraidges?
Like, look, you're welcome tomove out and go somewhere else,
(46:28):
and you have your grandma juice,but it's not all out of this house.
And sometimes I mean you if youif you're going to be the mama
bear, you have to be themama bear, right, you know,
defend your child. And I wasn'tgoing to defend my other child because you
wanted ocean spray cranbridges against each other. Almost in the right. This is
my three year old versus my twelveyear old, but I actually I think
(46:52):
it was older than that, fiftyfifteen. I don't know anyway, Um,
yeah, I just it was importantfor my family to make healthier options.
And my three year old turned aroundin like three weeks, completely different
child. It was as astonishing thedifference in his behavior. And it's interesting
(47:15):
that you can you can feed yourchildren the same exact thing and one child
will have a negative effect and theother ones will not. And that comes
down to genetics and some you know, other things, environmental things as well,
but every everybody is different. Andjust because your child is okay and
(47:35):
doesn't have any knowingly negative side effectsfrom eating garbage, it doesn't make it
okay. It doesn't make it healthybecause it does not just say that builds
up. Pard builds up exactly exactly, and it's just a it's a time
bomb, and you don't know whenthat time mom is going to go off,
and maybe it won't be till heor she is sixty, right,
(47:57):
Um, But it could also belittle things that are happening that you just
go unnoticed because it kind of becomesa social norm. Certain things now and
they may not notice, and youdon't. Again, you don't know what
you don't know. And when youget completely clean, like looking at how
much better your life is and howmuch more present you are and we're balanced
and we're patient. You just don'tknow it until you get there. Thank
(48:23):
you so much for saying it thatway, because you're right, and it
feels so good when you're there andI go on and off there, you
know times that I'm like, oh, time to come back to center.
Because we're human. There's no perfection, just process as we do this,
as we work through all of this, and it's I love how we started
(48:47):
today. It was like this wholeyou know, what's going on in the
world, and then not using ourvoice and that and yet it comes down
to the family nucleus. It comesdown to the itty bitty stuff that happens
at our table. Yeah, absolutely, but it starts at home. Yeah.
(49:07):
And I look at how my behaviorwas and how I felt thirty years
ago when I started my journey andmentally, emotionally, physically, everything was
so different. I was in mytwenties. I'm like, I started this
(49:29):
path for myself in my in myvery early thirties, but you look at
like your late twenties. That's likeyou the prime of your life, right,
you should feel the best time,right, you know. No,
it was my late thirties, earlyforties in through until I hit menopause.
Really that's another journey, that's whoBut just oh my goodness, it just
(49:54):
just the best time of my life. I just felt so wonderful and not
to say all the time, likeI this morning, I actually have a
little bit of a headache. Ihave. I have neck issues. It's
it's structural stuff. Unfortunately, again, food is not going to help,
right, structural stuff. My neckwent out last night and so I'm going
to the chiropractor again. One ofmy tools that I can use practice.
(50:17):
Yes, I love I love thatlove and my peppermint. Yes, you
can sell me files. But I'mnot as I'm not as balanced today as
I normally like. My my sharpnessis not the same because I I've got
there's like a there. Yeah,it's just like stops the right there,
the flow. I feel like thatall the time. Just but I didn't
(50:40):
know it. It was just mynorm. It was my normal, right,
right, And again you don't knowwhat you don't know, And when
you get to that place of ah, this is optimal, but now I
think, Okay, what do Inot know that I need to like upload?
But then then you're like constantly insearch. Okay, what do yeah,
what do I have to up level? What do I have to do
to make this? Yeah, likeeven better? But it's all just it's
(51:02):
just living. I mean, we'rehumans and this we're just you know,
souls stuck in a skin jacket.You know, we're just having this experience
and yeah, it's cool. It'scool to be able to figure it out,
to be like the super sleuths ofour life. Well, and sometimes,
I mean I still get help frommy people I have. I'm not
(51:25):
like the almighty Oh I can fixeverything, Guru. Yeah, yeah,
I get you know, sometimes Iget stuck and I need someone else to
help me through it. And it'sfunny just sitting with someone sometimes they'll they'll
start to walk me through and go, oh, okay, nope, I
got I got it. I gotit. But yeah, you know,
(51:46):
I'm not and never will be perfect, and I need help along the way
just like everybody else. I'm Ijust am better at sourcing my tools and
realizing that I have them. Orwhere if I don't, where can I
Where can I get them? Whereasbefore, I just thought this is the
(52:07):
hand I was dealt and I'm juststuck with it. I'm probably going to
die in my forties and that'll bemaged uh and and I mean that's a
that's a terrible way to live.I just have a lot of health issues
and I didn't see any way out, and I was told there was no
way out. So um, it'samazing what we believe in that moment when
when an authority figure is telling uswhat we should this is the fact.
(52:32):
This is the fact. Ye,And yet that's an intrinsic job. Wait
a minute, I want a differentfact. Yeah, I'm going to change
that fact. I'm going to goout fine. And I yeah, I've
always kind of been that way.I'm not one to go running to the
telepathic way immediately. I try tofind my holistic way first, but you
(53:00):
know I'm not. You know,look, we need everything. We need
all these sources. You need themin a way where they're listening and communicating
with each other. It's not oneversus the other. And that just drives
me crazy. It's like, youknow, you're using essential oils, and
you might go into you know,a physician's office who doesn't want the scent
(53:22):
in there because it make their peoplein the office they're sick. It's not
the case. It's not perfume.They're essential oils. They have the name
Essential in them, you know,at the top of it. So I
life is great, it really is. And I'm so happy that to have
(53:42):
reconnected with you and and this amazingjourney. You have an amazing life and
you've created so many amazing things.Can you, as we get ready to
close, can you tell our listenerswhat you're working on a little bit about
your books and how they can findyou. Yes, absolutely, my book
(54:02):
I'd rather script toilets than cook tipsat kitting in and out the kitchen quickly.
That's kind of a funny one.It's got a funny title, but
I really don't. I don't reallylike to cook. That's that's not my
thing. I just wanted to showup yummy and healthy right in front of
me on my plate. So Icreated ways to get in and out the
kitchen quickly, Like how can youmaximize your time and still create delicious,
(54:24):
healthy food? Because that is anecessity for me. I mean, I
love myself too much then to givemyself garbage. And so I've just learned
these tips and then my other onenutrition for success how to maximize performance in
all areas of life. It's reallylooking at all of those areas and we
learn this in school. Your relationship'scareer is spirituality and self esteem. Of
(54:47):
course your physical activity and your food. But how does that drive all of
the other things in your life.So it just kind of goes through a
little bit of each of those areas. It's kind of a fun self discovery
read. My latest thing, asyou mentioned, was prim IV Hydration and
Wellness, So that is is goingto be opening later I think like third
(55:09):
quarter this year, so I'm noteven I'm not even open yet. If
you would like to go to aprime IV, just look them up online
and go to one in your area. It's a wonderful experience. You get
to sit in these zero gravity massagechair while you get your IV done.
It's just like meditation time. Youcan just kind of zen out and it's
(55:30):
like forty five minutes of love foryourself and I just enjoy it so very
much. Yeah, your nutrients areflowing, that's right, that's right,
you're doing that. And I docoaching like like like you do as well.
I focus more on people who haveone or more health issues. I
(55:51):
am kind of focusing more on myPrime IV right now, not really taking
any any new clients, but it'scertainly something that I'll be doing in the
future. And I've been doing fornearly two two decades, and again it's
mostly working with people who have oneor more health issues where Western medicine has
not been able to resolve the issuesthe symptoms that they're having, and they
(56:12):
really want to try to elevate theirlife, and we just do that one
one piece at a time, onestep at a time. I love it
that. That is beautiful. Andyour books now that can they buy them
on Amazon or they where? Wherecan you get them? The cooking guide
you can get on Amazon. Theother one you can go to my website.
(56:35):
Either one of them you can getfrom myn Just go to my website
Gina Vanleven dot com. It lookslike ben lovin v A N l u
v e N, but it's pronouncedfamily been. I've been I hope I've
been saying that right. I'm sorry. You did you did you can say
Van Loven too, I'm fine.Well you are, you're quite a loving
gal. Oh well, I amso honored to have had you join me
(56:59):
today. This is I'm such anhonor to do, Bill, Thank you
so much. I would love tohave you back where we can just move
into some other stuff and really kindof move the energy, because I think
that the world I was saying beforewe even got on are needs you needs
me. We all need each other, and you know, to be a
sweety wale to move us forward isa really wonderful, wonderful thing. So
(57:23):
as we close out, I justI'll just take a deep breath and X
and know that you're not alone hereon the Family Balancing app
Thank you so much for joining theFamily Balancing Act. Here at the Family
Balancing Act, where we restore theheart of motherhood, one conversation at a
time. I'm Maureen Huntley, yourhost, board certified Integrative and Holistic Functional
Medicine coach. I'm an e FTpractitioner, mom, grandmother, and wife,
(00:24):
and I'm also the CEO of myfamily's home operations. And if you've
been here before, welcome, andif this is your first time, it's
an honor to have you here.So come right on in, pull up
a chair and grab a tea,a coffee, or a green juice,
because we have a lot to talkabout with my guest today, Gina van
(00:47):
Luven. Gina is an international speaker, best selling author, and experienced board
certified health coach. She is amom and yes, a very young grandmother.
Her message and her authenticity has beenwitnessed by millions and has gotten her
interviewed by dozens of magazines as wellas radio and TV shows across the globe,
(01:10):
including CBS, ABC and Fox.She's the author of several books and
creator of several several self help products, including Tame Your Stress Dragon, her
books Nutrition for Success and I'd ratherscrub toilets than cook well are brilliant,
(01:32):
So if you miss any of ourepisodes, you can find us on Apple,
Spotify, Google, Podbean, Pandora, iHeartRadio Podcast, CTR Radio Network,
and many more. So sign upfrom my monthly newsletter and grab my
free year round holiday stress less tipsat Maureen Huntley dot com, where you
(01:53):
can also learn how to work withme. I love what I do Integrative
wellness solutions women who mother and theirfamilies by moving the energy of chaos,
anxiety, stress, and the overwhelmof being everyone's everything into the emotional freedom
(02:13):
of being fully you. So deepbreath, exhale. It starts with you
taking care of you first. Courage. How often are you using courage?
It's a virtue that describes strengths thathelps one exercise their will and face adversity.
(02:38):
The via character strings that fall underthe virtue category are courage, bravery,
honesty, perseverance, and zest.So where are you and what is
bravery? Well? Bravery is valor. It's not shrinking from threat or challenge,
(03:00):
facing fears and speaking up for what'sright. To be brave is to
face your challenges, threats, ordifficulties by valuing a goal or conviction and
acting upon it, whether it's popularor not. A central element of bravery
is facing your fears. The VIAInstitute describes three types of bravery. We
(03:23):
can possess one, two, orall three of these types well. The
first one is physical bravery, youknow, jumping into action when needed think
parenting, motherhood, teaching, orfirefighters, police officers, soldiers. The
second is psychological bravery, doing thespiritual, intrinsic and extrinsic work, like
(03:49):
looking inside yourself and facing painful aspectsand having that big conversation with that person.
Moral bravery standing up for the truth, standing in integrity and honesty,
speaking up for what's right, evenif not everyone, including those you thought
(04:13):
would have your back, are therefor you to be an unfavorable opinion to
the group, but you move throughit. To quote today's guest from her
twenty twenty post on her website ChinaVan Luvin dot com entitled the Red Pill
or the Blue One, knowledge candefinitely be overwhelming at times. This is
(04:34):
why we learn in bits and pieces, and not everyone learns at the same
rate or in the same way.This is the problem with the public school
system. It forces everyone at acertain age to learn the same thing in
the same way. What this reallydoes is stifle our creativity and keep us
(04:55):
wrapped up in a nice little boxof ignorance. Due somewhere along the way,
we handed over our power, ourtruth and allowed the powers that be
to take over and do it forus. Doing this not only took away
our god given right, yes it'sin the original Constitution, but it took
(05:17):
away our children's rights. It hasbeen done in such a covert way that
we didn't even notice because we areso busy and entranced to stay focused on
the outer world and how to stayin line. Back in twenty nineteen,
I wrote a paper entitled Lucky Harms. I bet you can kind of guess
(05:40):
what this is all about. Iwrote, General Mills, Lucky Charms truly
is the lucky product, but notfor the consumer. It isn't benefiting from
the luck. This bright red cerealbox with Lucky the lepre con sliding down
the colored rainbow of little marshmallow shapeshas been gracing the shelves of amer Cup
(06:00):
for well over fifty years. Theclever statements on the front of the box,
made with whole grains and fortified withtwelve essential vitamins. Would have us
believe it's good for our family.Question it and you get pulled in by
yet another banner box tops for education. General Mills is giving back to our
(06:24):
children's education, and they're the goodguys. Only charm here, only harm
here. Not only is the industrialcomplex screen with our food and our air.
And how about all of everything thatwe're ingesting. Oh, like the
media advertising our schools, healthcare,scarecare, our health, our children's health.
(06:45):
It's all about the bright colors andthe presentation. What is socially right
and now what is considered wrong andby whose standards? Huh? We as
women were told to scream out mybody, my choice, whether or not
you believed in it. That wasthe campaign, and it was sold to
us because it's the word choice.But now it's been broadened and co opted
(07:11):
to your body, our choice,don't think, just do what we say
and don't ask any questions. SoI have this little voice deep inside of
me that's been restless, and maybeyou know someone that also has that little
voice wanting to burst forth. Butthe fear of offending someone by swallowing our
(07:33):
own thoughts and words. It's theproblem. In my opinion, as women
rise, we get taken down covertly, quietly, as we may notice,
yet don't make waves, don't wantto bring attention, and it might be
too difficult for our family and friendsand community. They're important to us.
(07:54):
Our beautiful children need us to stepup and take a stand against the insanity
of the covert capal. Yeah,deep state, I said it. The
time is here, and actually it'salways been here, and now for women,
mothers, grandmothers and those who motherto stand up and use their voices
for the health and safety of ourchildren, the world's children. Mama bears
(08:18):
unite. We were aware and awake, and the awakening is now. My
guest today is Gina Van Luvin.She is that voice. Gina is an
international wellness speaker, author, boardcertified health coach for almost two decades.
She is the creator of several selfhelp programs and the best selling author of
(08:39):
Nutrition for Success, How to MaximizePerformance in All areas of your life.
I'd rather scrub toilets than cook,and Tips to getting in and out of
the kitchen Quickly. She is alsothe owner of a Prime Ivy hydration and
(09:00):
in Wellness franchise in Mesa, Arizona, that you have to look into.
Having overcome several health issues herself usinghealthy food and alternative treatments, Gina felt
empowered to support others in their journeytoward health and well being. She believes
that while you may be handed aspecific set of cards, it's how you
(09:22):
play them. Life is full oftwists and turns, and if you have
the right tools, you can navigatethem with ease and grace. I've known
and followed her for years. Sheis an inspiration. She is brave and
she uses her bravery character strength bigtime. And I am so honored to
(09:46):
have Gina with us here today atthe Family Balancing Act. Welcome Gina,
Thank you so much. What alovely introduction. It's really exciting that you're
doing something like this. And Isome notes as you were talking. One
have to go through those. Ijust go YadA, YadA, YadA.
Thank you. Well. You you'rea force because I you know, I
(10:09):
follow things you say and and andI'm you know, like or I'll maybe
make a little comment or send ahard or thumbs up, and you're just
giving your thoughts. You're not tellinganybody else how to think, and that's
never been my I just want tosend information out there. Can we take
(10:30):
a look at this, just kindof pick up the hood and look inside,
and especially I think as it's comingup for our children and how it's
affecting them. Yeah, it's it'sinteresting. It's obviously become more of a
touchy subject to speak your mind thesedays, and it's it's it's unfortunate,
(10:52):
but I've seen a pattern of thismy whole life, of just kind of
be seen and not heard. Andmy mom even said that my dad,
who was kind of out of thepicture very early in my life, was
very much like that, just beseen and not heard. So it was
ingrained in me without my even knowingit, whereas my mom was the opposite.
(11:13):
It's like be you, you know, say what's on your mind.
And she's not particularly that way,but she's very open and accepting of other
people's thoughts and ideas, and Iappreciate that so much about her, and
so fortunately I got a little pieceof that as well. And I can't
say it's always easy. I've hada lot of backlash, especially as of
(11:35):
late, but even in childhood,going to school, asking questions and they're
just you know, they're just honestquestions. I'm a curious person and I'll
ask questions or say say what Ithink and getting in trouble for we're doing
so. And how I felt andactually it's happened very recently, oddly where
(12:00):
you would think it would not comefrom this particular person who is a business
coach. Kind of made me feellike I shouldn't have asked a question,
and I thought, gosh, thatis so it really kind of set me
back. I thought, this isreally strange coming from a business coach,
because it felt like he was tryingto squash my Yeah, my voice,
(12:22):
right, don't don't say anything,don't ruffle any feathers. And yet feathers
are being ruffled all the time.There are many people out there talking and
they're they're the feathers they're ruffling,and the people are keeping their feathers down,
and it's happening on the inside exactly. That's a really good point to
(12:43):
make, because that talk, whetherthey were saying it outwardly or it's happening
inside, it's it's happening. AndI think if you if you squash that
and try to suppress it and notspeak it out. That's when it can
create health issues. Having said that, if you don't have the skin for
it and you say something and there'sbacklash and people coming at you with negative
(13:07):
comments like that can be hurtful food. So I'm not encouraging everyone to go
out and speak their mind if they'renot ready for it. But I would
say that if if that is anissue for you, to encourage you to
explore why that is an issue foryou and work on that versus just trying
(13:28):
to, you know, spew itpull out at once. Sometimes that can
be like the volcano as well.Someone who suppressed the press suppressed and then
all of a sudden the eruption happensand it's not healthy either, not at
all. And and so there's thisdual action of hold it into I let
it out, and you hold itin enough so it's it's going to blow
(13:50):
the gask. It's going to blowat some point. It might not even
be at the group that needs tohear it and then get the right hear
it. If you're going to blow, there has to be conversations. And
that's the piece that's missed, that'sbeen missing, is that there is no
conversation. It's like you're either goingto listen to this, and you listen
(14:11):
to it and you try to respondwith a rebuttal or why you think you
why you know you feel this way, and it's just stalled out. You're
not allowed. I know I've spoken, this is how it is. This
is it? It's very narcissistic.Well, I think the other piece is
(14:31):
if it's done in a positive ora loving way. Again going back to
the volcano at an example, ifyou let things fester, then it becomes
an eruption that can destroy the thingsaround you. Whereas if you open up
something when it's happening, but froma place of love or curiosity, it
(14:56):
comes out very differently. And soI would also invite people to consider this.
If you have something to say,is it just something that you want
to share, is it a bitof curiosity or are you lashing out?
And I would say the latter canbe problematic. And if that's the case,
(15:18):
for you to again look inside,why do you feel the need to
lash out that you've been triggered?Why are you being triggered? And so
when I feel that place where youjust want to like you kind of want
to pounce back is taking a deepbreath and going okay, deep breath.
Why do I feel triggered? What'sgoing on inside my mind my soul?
(15:45):
And how can I respond to thisin a positive way or do I just
need to like take a step backand kind of go sit with it and
think through it versus just retaliating Ifthat makes sense, of course, no,
definitely does. And yet at thesame time, all of these the
(16:07):
different subjects that we could definitely touchon, you know, the children,
their health, school, food,you know, the food sources. And
we've been talking about this since Iknow from I en days back in you
know, the Dark Ages two thousandand seven. I'm in like I was
on it before then, but thatinspired me to keep moving through it.
(16:27):
And you know, the whole foodthing. People are actually I have friends
of mine who would never look atthat before. Really they just kind of
went along with it. Well,now they're noticing not only the cost of
you know, food because the inflationis just kicked in like crazy, but
also all the lists of all thecrap that is on the box, and
(16:56):
you start to I noticed that there'smore people talk about eating more plants,
and that's always been my thing.Just eat some plants, okay, you
know, just eat something green,for God's sakes. So there is movement
in certain areas. But you bringup you know, they never bring up
religion or politics. Well, religionis easy. These politics is like,
(17:19):
yeah, well, food is verydifficult because there's an addiction there and and
so it's not it's not just aboutthe thought process around it. There's there's
mental and physical attachments to food.And it's funny you mentioned lucky charms.
I used to love lucky charms asa kid, and fruit loops and all
(17:41):
of those other terrible things. AndI mean I didn't know any better.
I used to take white bread,the wonder bread, but some butter on
it and then which probably was margarineat some point, and pour white sugar
on it, fold in half andeat that. I mean it was just
should have just got a twinkie.Oh I eat plenty of those two,
(18:03):
Oh my god, any of thosetwo. And it was just in a
place of ignorance. And ignorance isn'tum It's not like calling somebody stupid,
right, I mean, that's justa negative thing. Ignorance is. We
all have it. I happen aboutyou don't know what you don't know,
and ignorance is is not knowing.Now, there's ignorance, and there's a
willful ignorance, right, It's it'swhere you know something and you choose to
(18:26):
ignore it. That that's that's alittle bit different. But I was just
completely ignorant of it. And Iremember my day's at Intel. Have a
friend who's still a friend to thisday. We were pregnant at the same
time with our now twenty seven yearold children. This is a long time
ago, and she planted the seedfor me about healthy eating and I had
(18:48):
I was pregnant. I wanted toeat healthy and I knew that I knew
that there were some things that Iwas doing it was probably not necessarily healthy,
but I didn't look at the ingredientsnecessarily, like the dyes and preservatives
and things like that. I didn'treally I wasn't really aware like I was
like so many Americans who think thatif it's on the shelf, it's okay
(19:11):
to eat. Right, we're beingprotected by the USDA. What's on the
shelf is okay to eat. AndI was of that, of that mindset,
and she started planting some seeds It'sone of those things that I thought,
hmm, you know, I didn'tfeel threatened. Would I Some people
feel very threatened by that. Ididn't feel threatened, but I thought,
(19:33):
hmm, this is this is differentthan what I know and understand. I
didn't think about this a little bit. But I started to change my diet
and I felt better pregnant than Ihad ever felt in my entire life.
And so a light bulb went offand that was kind of the the start
of my journey, which more happenedlater on. But uh, it was.
(19:56):
It was interesting when I remember thatpoint in my life where that mental
switch kind of happened, and thatit happens differently for everyone and sometimes not
at all. Yeah, often itjust shows it shows up because of illness.
The work it's it's when that showsshows up as illness. It's helping
(20:22):
people to step out of that andtake a good look. But when you
have doctors and this still have Ihear it every once in a while,
I still continue to hear this thatthe doctor will specifically say, oh,
diet has nothing to do with it. It's it's astonishing to me that doctors
today would still believe that it's astonishing, but it happens, and I mean
(20:45):
has happened recently when somebody told methat their doctor said that to them,
and it's hard for me not toget angry. But I thought, it's
not a healthy motion necessarily the emotionthat's you know, and how you spew
it. Then it's managed to right. But I mean, I have the
(21:06):
same deal. I have somebody inmy family who became who had cancer and
went to the you know, wentthrough the whole process and I kept hearing,
oh, you know, diet hasnothing to do with it. And
I sort of took charge of thatand I said, okay, let's prove
the doctor wrong here. You know, that was my goal. Now I
(21:27):
didn't prove them completely wrong, butI did move the dial. It was
like, wow, we slowed thisdown, we stopped this part of it.
This so it it definitely moved thedial. You can't when something's already
in process. It's the working ofthe miracles. Then you know, it's
like you're you're bringing in, youknow, miraculous things. But even like
(21:51):
the the ivy work that the businessthat you have, where can you talk
a little bit about that and howthat helps people through their their illnesses.
Yes, so I'm sure everybody's familiarwith IVY therapy, either had it done
themselves or know someone who has pins. In the hospital. It's just liquid
nutrients, and this is becoming moreof a preventative measure versus Oh goodness,
(22:18):
I'm in the hospital. I needliquid nutrition. And when you when you
eat, you have to digest.Even with supplements, you have to digest
what you're consuming, and you're notYou're not going to get everything out of
that food or that supplement, whichis why you'll see like a thousand percent
on supplements and like what do Ineed? A thousand percent dial should be
(22:41):
linked to a hundred. And it'sbecause your body cannot take everything that is
getting so they give you more thanwhat you what you need. And with
food, I mean you it's hardto eat more than what you need.
And the nutrition value in our foodhas decreased substantially with the transportation of food.
So if you're buying local, that'sgreat, Like you can probably pretty
(23:03):
much sustain yourself nutritionally with locally grownfood. But most of us, myself
included, will get things that Imean I live in Park City, Utah.
I will have snow till July inmy neighborhood. I'm not kidding,
this is no exaggeration, but wehave local farmers, but obviously they're not
growing right now, so I can'tget local. And when it has to
(23:23):
travel, you're losing every As soonas you pick it, you're starting to
lose nutrition. That plant is dyingand it's losing it's nutritive value. And
so when you get an IV you'regetting one hundred percent of that absorption versus
having to go through the digestion process. So I think IV therapy is kind
of like the new massage. Youthink of like massage envy and need a
(23:45):
massage. In those places where itwas kind of a nice to have people,
people started understanding that, hey,this could be used preventatively to reduce
stress. IV therapy it can beused very much preventatively as well as reactively.
If you do have some type ofillness that you need support with and
you mentioned with your family member withcancer and kind of dialing it back,
(24:11):
that's a huge piece of it.I think some people don't understand that it's
not just about trying to eradicate something, it's about mitigating and prolonging your well
being your life hopefully, but you'reyour well being during that time that you're
alive. And I'll give you agood example for me, I have genetic
(24:33):
heart conditions and diet. Unfortunately,I can have the best diet in the
world and I still have these geneticgenetic DNA that predisposes me to stroke and
potentially heart conditions down the road.I can't necessarily do anything about that,
the genetic piece, but if Idid have a poor diet, it's going
(24:57):
to get me to that point fast. I don't want to get to that
point faster. I want to delaythat as long as possible and if ever.
Yeah, and my dream is thatsomeday when it's time for me to
go, I go to sleep andI just I'll wake up. That's my
death right there. I've kind ofput that out there too. I'm like,
(25:18):
that's a good way, Okay,thank you asleep. But I don't.
I don't and I'm not afraid ofdying. I'm afraid of suffering.
I don't like and I've had enoughof that my life. Don't want any
more suffering. But it's all aboutwhat can I do to make myself or
help myself be healthy and happy andbalanced today or tomorrow. So it's what
(25:41):
you're doing right now precipitates what's goingto happen in the future. So what
I'm doing today will help me ortomorrow. And I just do that day
after day after day. If thatmakes sense, No, it does.
It's it's beautiful and by starting withyourself and then you be the pebble in
the water to ping out to yourfamily, all your children, your family,
(26:07):
your community, which you're doing whichis amazing when you're doing it in
so many levels, with with youryour books and you get your voice,
you know you're you're really touching somany because I look at like even school
food. Oh I could get goingon this, but over the years I
(26:33):
really tried to help in the schoolsystem in my area and even outside my
area too, and I even kidnappedthem the principle of the high school.
Not really, I just went inone day, I say, we have
this appointment when you know, whenis your lunch and can you do like
another hour beyond that? And Iwas like, I'm taking you into the
(26:55):
city, into Manhattan, and we'regonna we're gonna do this. And I
took him to a school that wasa private school, so obviously the guys
coming from a public school, butgoing to a private school where they had
a rooftop greenhouse and garden. Thekids had breakfast was Chef Bobo was the
(27:17):
name of the Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and so great guy.
So they had this garden on therooftop and all of the utensils and
everything they had that they were usingwere all biodegradable. It was all eco
friendly the whole place. The kidswere all involved in the process through science,
(27:41):
through um, you know, theylearned. It was like this great
curriculum that involved the plants and growingand food and the kids got to work
alongside him and make meals. AndI remember at that time, I want
to say, what was that liketwin fourteen, twenty fourteen, we were
(28:04):
doing um uh you know, theywere making their own breakfast and it was
two dollars for breakfast, and thenlunch was like four dollars, and then
there was an after school meal.And I took this principle throughout this whole
thing. And we were late gettingback because he didn't want to leave.
(28:26):
He was like, this is amazing, it's a dream. And he was
sold. He was like, youguys, we have to you know,
be the first public school to getthis going. It fell flat. You
know, you get the school boardinvolved, you get you know, the
money manager involved, and it reallywasn't about the money because parents were willing
(28:48):
to step up and do this,to help create the gardens, to help
build the you know, like tohelp, but it just it didn't happen.
Yeah, I a similar experience.I didn't have a beautiful, wonderful
school to take them to. Butgoing into the I can't remember what the
term is, but it's the personwho manages all the nutrition for the district
(29:11):
who was very, very overweight bythe way, and and not I mean,
I understand that people have weight issues. Some of them are genetic,
and I've worked with a lot ofdifferent people and very in different degrees of
that. And it's not to disparagepeople who have an extra weight, but
I also believe that you need tobe the person behind what you're doing.
(29:37):
And if you're a person that's nottaking care of yourself and is overweight and
then you're managing the nutrition for allof our children, there's just a huge
disconnect with that, and I havea tough time with that. So that
was that was step number one.But they were getting subsidized by like Tyson
Chicken. So you're, you know, getting free chicken nuggets which are irradiated
(29:59):
and I'm not genetically modified, buteating GMO foods and eating grains that they
shouldn't be eating and reservatives and it'sjust garbage. It's garbage. And she's
just like, well, this iswhat we get, and we get it
for free. And it was verymuch a money issue. But to your
point, I mean, I livein a very affluent community. They'd stop
(30:22):
up with the money, but thenthere's the children that don't have their families
don't have money, and then thegovernments would have to subsidize that. It
was just this huge, confusing mess. And I there's certain things that I
can get behind and push and Ijust I knew that it was fruit,
it was frutile. I just couldn't. I couldn't do it. It was
(30:44):
very frustrating to make that realization thatthere's probably nothing that can be done and
I, at least not by me. Somebody else needs to go from that.
It's better voice by Yeah, Icouldn't. I couldn't do it.
There are a lot of voices andcombined movement happens. You know, it
(31:07):
takes you know, it takes morethan a village. It takes many,
many, many people to move behindsomething, but a big voice to to
pull them through the eye of theneedle. I think that what you both,
what we both dealt with with thefood in the schools, you know,
going back years now m a fewyears and more for me even um
(31:33):
that we're in the same place.Still we're still we have not moved.
We just keep running and the ditchesgetting deeper, and we're just running and
running and running, and we're andwe're going nowhere. Yet it's being sold
as we're going somewhere. We're thethere's that. No, it's it's the
(31:56):
same as it as it was sinceI was in school. It's a same
garbage that they're feeding people. AndI think, if I allow, if
these billionaires took their money and putit into school food systems, all of
this, most of the disease issuesthat we have, and not to say
(32:16):
that it's going to raise poverty,but when you have a healthy mind,
when you have a child that's growingup in an environment where they're they're at
least eating two healthy meals, aday. The output their their mental and
emotional output is going to be somuch different than a child who's been fed
(32:37):
garbage all day long. And youprobably remember back when we were going to
school, they went into I thinkit was a school, it might have
been a school in New York wherethey had lots of incidents. They do
an incident report. There are alot of you know, violence and issues
(32:59):
with in the school. And theyinstituted this school lunch program, healthy school
lunch program, and their incident ratewent down to zero. And I don't
know if you remember where that wasor any details about that, but it
was just shocking to me. Iremember because Joshua was part of that.
(33:21):
He was talking about them. Rememberthat there was something to do with it.
I don't know whatever happened. Iknow that the mayor of New York
right now, Adams was very Hewas very big, into he was very
overweighted. He got he had likea heart attack, and he his mother
(33:42):
had diabetes and whatever. I don'teven know if he had a heart tape,
but he was very he wasn't veryhealthy. He decided to become a
vegan, like he was kind offorced into it, and his health turned
around completely and then he got hisHe was like gung ho and he got
his mother healthy, and he's gettingand he started actually trying to grow grow
(34:07):
the whole vegan movement. I wasat a talk he gave and people were
like really moving into it, andthey're trying to hit the populations in the
New York area that were deprived andstruggling. I don't even hear about that
(34:28):
anymore. It like it was likegood for publicity for a little while.
It's kind of and if it stillis. I prayed to go on a
little quiet, a little silent,and yet he is a bigger platform now
for the whole for all in NewYork. It's I know, it's more
(34:49):
complicated than what it seems because someof the schools don't even have kitchen.
Well they have kitchens, but they'rewarming kitchens. They don't have a place
to make food, and that wasa funding thing, and I know some
of them can be converted to cookingkitchens. And it's really a lot simpler
than what people think. Though.To change that around, it's just a
matter of somebody taking the bull bythe horns and going, okay, let's
(35:13):
do this. But it really doesneed to be done in a government level
versus someone like like you or me. But I just want to make a
point real quickly. As you mentionedvegan, and I know you do plant
based education, and I mean,if you look at all of the if
you look at the whole world,most of the populations that are the healthiest
(35:36):
are plant based. They all havea little bit of meat, but they're
all plant based, and I thinkthe key here is plants. You mentioned
that, So whether you're a veganor you eat meat, I don't care.
I very much believe in what Joshuataught us and what I am taught
us is that everybody is different andit has different needs, and what works
(35:57):
well for one person may literally destroyanother person. So I'm very much into
individuality. But the key amongst allof them is plants. And as you
said earlier, if you could justeat more plants, and if we could
get more plants into the mouths ofour babes, I think that so much
(36:17):
would change. And you look atlike the Japanese culture and for the longest
time and probably even still, they'rejust they're just smarter than us. I
mean, I'm not going to mincewords. They just are there. They
just because they eat plants. It'sbecause they eat predominantly plants. And I
spent quite a bit of time inAsia. I lived in Malaysia for four
(36:40):
years, and so we were travelingall over Asia, Southeast Asia, and
the Southeast Asian cultures are different.But if you go like Japan in Korea.
I did not visit Taiwan or China. My husband did, but they
are all plant based and they're allmostly very lean. Like as a whole
I mean, you will see somewhite people, but as a whole population
(37:01):
is lean. It's starting to tipbecause they are becoming more westernized and changing
some of those habits into the notso healthy ones right right, the younger
populations, but they just they havea healthier population. And what you put
in is what's going to come out, and over time you can really catch
(37:27):
up with you from an intellectual standpoint, if you're not feeding yourself things that
can help your brain function properly exactly. And you had mentioned like when we
first started about your curiosity as achild, and if we're not eating those
plants that lift us up, ifwe're not eating nutrient dense foods that lift
(37:50):
us up, that curiosity starts todim. It's like a light you just
kind of strudge through, and I'mI definitely will add some plant, some
animal proteins in once a while,some fish and that because I feel now
that as the time has gone on, I listen to my body and I
(38:13):
encourage everyone to listen to your body. How do you feel after you eat?
And where are you feeling it?But you know it's our children again,
like how do you get them tofocus? A lot of focus issues
with children? Well, oh yeah, not only food, right media.
(38:35):
I mean there's just a lot ofbombardment of stuff, behaviors from other kids,
everything, It's just a lot.Well and if the if the child
has grown up on on the standardAmerican diet, depending on how old they
are, the younger ones respond reallyquickly. I mean I have my own
personal story with that. People cango on my website and look at it.
The younger ones can turn around whatreally quickly. The older you are,
(39:00):
the more difficult it is to detox. Basically, so if you've been
on a standard food diet for along time, it's going to take a
bit to reverse that. So youget some of these parents that say,
oh, well, I tried,you know, gluten free, or I
tried going to healthier foods, andthey're not saying a change, but the
child has so much toxicity they needto actually put them through a detox before
(39:23):
they can really see the benefit ofthose changes. And it's also kind of
like when you're when you're creating agarden and you plant all the seeds.
You know they're they're way down inthe ground, and you water it and
the sun shines out and you're waitingfor it to grow, and and you
don't say anything. Next day,you don't see anything. The next day
(39:45):
don't see anything, and you're like, gosh, darn it, this garden.
This is just a waste of time. And you just go stamp on
all the seeds and dig it allup, realizing that it was just about
ready to poke through the surface.And just because you can't see it on
the surface doesn't mean it doesn't existor doesn't mean it's not growing. And
so I try to impart that onthe parents, especially or even my adult
(40:05):
clients, that it takes it takessome time to undo that damage, and
you may not feel amazing right away, it's going to take time to time
for you to get to that point. It's going to take time. It's
going it'll take less time to getto where you want to go than it
took you to get to where youare. But you still have to walk
(40:27):
the path back where It's like you'returning around and now you're going to collect
those bread prums all the way backto where you started or where you want
to end. And you know,it's amazing what a good detox can do
to us. Oh yeah, butit's easier when we're doing it with If
you live, if you are ina family unit, and if you have
(40:50):
control over your food, you're theone in charge of making the meals,
you might be able to actually makethat happen. But if you're a lone
wolf in the middle of it,that's really hard. Yeah. I've I've
I've worked with some clients over theyears who are in a family that it
just they are that that lone wolf, and I just encourage them to continue
(41:13):
because eventually those people are going tosee, oh my goodness, look what's
look, Look what's happened to you? They see the benefit and then they
slowly start to go along with it. I have encountered situations where the family
becomes very threatened by that healthy person. And because we de talk sometimes those
(41:38):
talxic people in our life need tokind of talks out. Yeah, they're
part of the intoxification exactly, exactly. Yeah, And that's not saying say
they should kick your family out.That's not what I'm saying. Osually we
have little ones, but that thatdoes happen sometimes. But I think it's
(41:59):
important that you have to do youAnd if you concede to people because they
are less healthy than you and they'reafraid of your light, and then you
decided to succumb to that, Imean, that is not the direction that
I would encourage someone to go.And it can be painful. As you're
(42:21):
going through this coming to the light, so to speak, becoming healthy,
and you start attracting things that resonatewith you, which are healthier people and
healthier situations. It's a little scaryto think that, hey, maybe these
people are not you know, thesemaybe these are not my people anymore,
but we can still love them andaccept them the way that they are.
(42:45):
But for me, I'm really luckymy family, my whole family pretty much
came right along with me. Theretook a little bit in the beginning,
but I was like, Hey,this is this is my journey, this
is the way it's going to be, and y'all can do whatever you want
to do. That's out to you. I still love you. But I
(43:07):
did not let the naysayers change mypath, Like this is my path and
I'm not going to risk my wellbeing because you don't think I can,
or you think I'm doing something crazyor whatever it is that you have to
say, I'm going to I'm goingto go my path and it's how you
(43:31):
show up for yourself and how ithas worked that they then see and yes,
might be threatened by a family membermight be threatened or friends. Friends
might be threatened, but they wanta piece of it. They just I'm
not quite sure how to get thereor if not, as you say,
(43:53):
love them up where they're at.That's all we can do. My husband
and family, all my kids,all four kids, and they're all When
I was, you know, reallygetting good at like wanting to become a
you know, a vegetarian then intoveganism, I was just trying to eat
more plants. That's it. Iwasn't forcing them to not eat and eat.
(44:15):
I just didn't do that. Ijust you know, and I was
trying to really get the good stuffon the table. I remember one morning
making pancakes, but I was likemaking some paleotype pancakes or whatever, making
them healthy, and I was lookingfor them the syrup, the maple syrup,
(44:36):
and it was like all gone.And my husband up in his office
was keeping a Antemima when there wasAntemima bottle in his office in the child
cabinet, like it was some sortof secret sauce, and that came out
went onto the table. Because thekids and nobody, I was the only
(44:57):
one who was like, oh no, we have to have you know,
the Whole Foods brand or whatever,we have to have real maple syrup.
I lost my mind and then Ilet it go because it's just not worth
it. In today, years later, they're very much on board with choosing
making better choices, but sometimes ittakes ten years to get there. You
(45:20):
just have to I went through somethingsomething similar when I made the changes.
The short of it is, mythen three year old had an incident at
school and I just probably ain't criedand cried. He had ADHD with aggression
and I knew I guess intuitively thathad something to do with food, and
(45:44):
so I did all this research.I found the Fine Gold method that was
kind of I think it's called fineGold how I got started, But it
really was about more plant based andremoving all the chemicals from the food.
And so one weekend, I likethrew out everything. If it was not
real food, it got thrown out. And my husband and my son at
(46:05):
the time, my oldest one,I think he was like thir twelve,
probably about about twelve, so tweenalmost teenager, and he and my husband
both used to drink ocean spray cranbraidgjuice. They didn't complain about anything else.
It was the ocean spray caranbraes.How can he take away my cranbraidges?
Like, look, you're welcome tomove out and go somewhere else,
(46:28):
and you have your grandma juice,but it's not all out of this house.
And sometimes I mean you if youif you're going to be the mama
bear, you have to be themama bear, right, you know,
defend your child. And I wasn'tgoing to defend my other child because you
wanted ocean spray cranbridges against each other. Almost in the right. This is
my three year old versus my twelveyear old, but I actually I think
(46:52):
it was older than that, fiftyfifteen. I don't know anyway, Um,
yeah, I just it was importantfor my family to make healthier options.
And my three year old turned aroundin like three weeks, completely different
child. It was as astonishing thedifference in his behavior. And it's interesting
(47:15):
that you can you can feed yourchildren the same exact thing and one child
will have a negative effect and theother ones will not. And that comes
down to genetics and some you know, other things, environmental things as well,
but every everybody is different. Andjust because your child is okay and
(47:35):
doesn't have any knowingly negative side effectsfrom eating garbage, it doesn't make it
okay. It doesn't make it healthybecause it does not just say that builds
up. Pard builds up exactly exactly, and it's just a it's a time
bomb, and you don't know whenthat time mom is going to go off,
and maybe it won't be till heor she is sixty, right,
(47:57):
Um, But it could also belittle things that are happening that you just
go unnoticed because it kind of becomesa social norm. Certain things now and
they may not notice, and youdon't. Again, you don't know what
you don't know. And when youget completely clean, like looking at how
much better your life is and howmuch more present you are and we're balanced
and we're patient. You just don'tknow it until you get there. Thank
(48:23):
you so much for saying it thatway, because you're right, and it
feels so good when you're there andI go on and off there, you
know times that I'm like, oh, time to come back to center.
Because we're human. There's no perfection, just process as we do this,
as we work through all of this, and it's I love how we started
(48:47):
today. It was like this wholeyou know, what's going on in the
world, and then not using ourvoice and that and yet it comes down
to the family nucleus. It comesdown to the itty bitty stuff that happens
at our table. Yeah, absolutely, but it starts at home. Yeah.
(49:07):
And I look at how my behaviorwas and how I felt thirty years
ago when I started my journey andmentally, emotionally, physically, everything was
so different. I was in mytwenties. I'm like, I started this
(49:29):
path for myself in my in myvery early thirties, but you look at
like your late twenties. That's likeyou the prime of your life, right,
you should feel the best time,right, you know. No,
it was my late thirties, earlyforties in through until I hit menopause.
Really that's another journey, that's whoBut just oh my goodness, it just
(49:54):
just the best time of my life. I just felt so wonderful and not
to say all the time, likeI this morning, I actually have a
little bit of a headache. Ihave. I have neck issues. It's
it's structural stuff. Unfortunately, again, food is not going to help,
right, structural stuff. My neckwent out last night and so I'm going
to the chiropractor again. One ofmy tools that I can use practice.
(50:17):
Yes, I love I love thatlove and my peppermint. Yes, you
can sell me files. But I'mnot as I'm not as balanced today as
I normally like. My my sharpnessis not the same because I I've got
there's like a there. Yeah,it's just like stops the right there,
the flow. I feel like thatall the time. Just but I didn't
(50:40):
know it. It was just mynorm. It was my normal, right,
right, And again you don't knowwhat you don't know, And when
you get to that place of ah, this is optimal, but now I
think, Okay, what do Inot know that I need to like upload?
But then then you're like constantly insearch. Okay, what do yeah,
what do I have to up level? What do I have to do
to make this? Yeah, likeeven better? But it's all just it's
(51:02):
just living. I mean, we'rehumans and this we're just you know,
souls stuck in a skin jacket.You know, we're just having this experience
and yeah, it's cool. It'scool to be able to figure it out,
to be like the super sleuths ofour life. Well, and sometimes,
I mean I still get help frommy people I have. I'm not
(51:25):
like the almighty Oh I can fixeverything, Guru. Yeah, yeah,
I get you know, sometimes Iget stuck and I need someone else to
help me through it. And it'sfunny just sitting with someone sometimes they'll they'll
start to walk me through and go, oh, okay, nope, I
got I got it. I gotit. But yeah, you know,
(51:46):
I'm not and never will be perfect, and I need help along the way
just like everybody else. I'm Ijust am better at sourcing my tools and
realizing that I have them. Orwhere if I don't, where can I
Where can I get them? Whereasbefore, I just thought this is the
(52:07):
hand I was dealt and I'm juststuck with it. I'm probably going to
die in my forties and that'll bemaged uh and and I mean that's a
that's a terrible way to live.I just have a lot of health issues
and I didn't see any way out, and I was told there was no
way out. So um, it'samazing what we believe in that moment when
when an authority figure is telling uswhat we should this is the fact.
(52:32):
This is the fact. Ye,And yet that's an intrinsic job. Wait
a minute, I want a differentfact. Yeah, I'm going to change
that fact. I'm going to goout fine. And I yeah, I've
always kind of been that way.I'm not one to go running to the
telepathic way immediately. I try tofind my holistic way first, but you
(53:00):
know I'm not. You know,look, we need everything. We need
all these sources. You need themin a way where they're listening and communicating
with each other. It's not oneversus the other. And that just drives
me crazy. It's like, youknow, you're using essential oils, and
you might go into you know,a physician's office who doesn't want the scent
(53:22):
in there because it make their peoplein the office they're sick. It's not
the case. It's not perfume.They're essential oils. They have the name
Essential in them, you know,at the top of it. So I
life is great, it really is. And I'm so happy that to have
(53:42):
reconnected with you and and this amazingjourney. You have an amazing life and
you've created so many amazing things.Can you, as we get ready to
close, can you tell our listenerswhat you're working on a little bit about
your books and how they can findyou. Yes, absolutely, my book
(54:02):
I'd rather script toilets than cook tipsat kitting in and out the kitchen quickly.
That's kind of a funny one.It's got a funny title, but
I really don't. I don't reallylike to cook. That's that's not my
thing. I just wanted to showup yummy and healthy right in front of
me on my plate. So Icreated ways to get in and out the
kitchen quickly, Like how can youmaximize your time and still create delicious,
(54:24):
healthy food? Because that is anecessity for me. I mean, I
love myself too much then to givemyself garbage. And so I've just learned
these tips and then my other onenutrition for success how to maximize performance in
all areas of life. It's reallylooking at all of those areas and we
learn this in school. Your relationship'scareer is spirituality and self esteem. Of
(54:47):
course your physical activity and your food. But how does that drive all of
the other things in your life.So it just kind of goes through a
little bit of each of those areas. It's kind of a fun self discovery
read. My latest thing, asyou mentioned, was prim IV Hydration and
Wellness, So that is is goingto be opening later I think like third
(55:09):
quarter this year, so I'm noteven I'm not even open yet. If
you would like to go to aprime IV, just look them up online
and go to one in your area. It's a wonderful experience. You get
to sit in these zero gravity massagechair while you get your IV done.
It's just like meditation time. Youcan just kind of zen out and it's
(55:30):
like forty five minutes of love foryourself and I just enjoy it so very
much. Yeah, your nutrients areflowing, that's right, that's right,
you're doing that. And I docoaching like like like you do as well.
I focus more on people who haveone or more health issues. I
(55:51):
am kind of focusing more on myPrime IV right now, not really taking
any any new clients, but it'scertainly something that I'll be doing in the
future. And I've been doing fornearly two two decades, and again it's
mostly working with people who have oneor more health issues where Western medicine has
not been able to resolve the issuesthe symptoms that they're having, and they
(56:12):
really want to try to elevate theirlife, and we just do that one
one piece at a time, onestep at a time. I love it
that. That is beautiful. Andyour books now that can they buy them
on Amazon or they where? Wherecan you get them? The cooking guide
you can get on Amazon. Theother one you can go to my website.
(56:35):
Either one of them you can getfrom myn Just go to my website
Gina Vanleven dot com. It lookslike ben lovin v A N l u
v e N, but it's pronouncedfamily been. I've been I hope I've
been saying that right. I'm sorry. You did you did you can say
Van Loven too, I'm fine.Well you are, you're quite a loving
gal. Oh well, I amso honored to have had you join me
(56:59):
today. This is I'm such anhonor to do, Bill, Thank you
so much. I would love tohave you back where we can just move
into some other stuff and really kindof move the energy, because I think
that the world I was saying beforewe even got on are needs you needs
me. We all need each other, and you know, to be a
sweety wale to move us forward isa really wonderful, wonderful thing. So
(57:23):
as we close out, I justI'll just take a deep breath and X
and know that you're not alone hereon the Family Balancing app
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