WELLTHY Generation Podcast!

45. Working Through Overwhelm of a Healing Journey with Soledad Fernandez-Paulino [Client]

• Naihomy Jerez • Episode 45

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What if transforming your health could also enhance your financial well-being? Join us for an eye-opening episode of the Wealthy Generation Podcast with my friend and former client, Soledad from Wealth Para Todos. From battling chronic illness to becoming an advocate for health and wellness, Soledad's story resonates with those feeling overwhelmed by life's challenges. We discuss the hesitation and fear that often accompanies significant health changes and explore how trusting oneself and making incremental adjustments can lead to a profound impact on personal health and the well-being of loved ones.

Through candid conversation, Soledad shares the turning points that reshaped her life, revealing the importance of patience and self-compassion in adopting new habits. She illustrates how small, practical steps—like starting the day with a protein shake—helped stabilize her energy levels and manage ADHD symptoms. Our discussion highlights the transformative power of giving oneself permission to progress at a personal pace and showcases strategies for breaking the cycle of emotional eating, managing stress, and incorporating joy and self-care into daily routines.

As we dive into the ripple effect of healthier choices, Soledad emphasizes the financial benefits of maintaining good health to avoid unnecessary medical expenses. She shares anecdotes about teaching her children to make better nutritional decisions and the use of natural ingredients in meals. Tune in to this inspiring conversation to discover how prioritizing wellness can lead to lasting and meaningful improvements in your life.

More about Rita-Soledad Fernández Paulino

Rita-Soledad Fernández Paulino is a Queer Mexican-American, former math teacher turned money & self-care coach. After years of dealing with various autoimmune health issues, PTSD, and ADHD, Soledad learned to use money as a tool to support their wellness and is now committed to teaching other progressive BIPOC, women, and LGBTQ+ folk how to do the same. Soledad believes YOUR wellness is essential to the collective and wants to see you both well-thy and wealthy.

Instagram: @wealthparatodos
LinkedIN: www.linkedin.com/in/wealthparatodos
Website: https://www.wealthparatodos.com
Self-care 101 Guide: https://mail.wealthparatodos.com/self-care-guide
1:1 Coaching Information: https://mail.wealthparatodos.com/one-on-one-coaching

Thank you so much for listening!


Nai:

Hey friends, welcome back to Wealthy Generation Podcast W-E-L-L-T-H-Y. Today is a little bit of a different episode because I am actually going to share an Instagram live conversation I had with my friend and former client, soledad from Wealth Para Todos. We decided to do this Instagram live together because what I've been noticing is that there is a lot of hesitation around belief that we can create change in our health. There is a lot of mistrust in ourselves, in confidence, and a lot of times we're dealing with so many other factors in our lives that deciding to make a health change for yourself, deciding to switch up your lifestyle, can seem and feel overwhelming. And I really wanted to talk to Soledad about it because she was actually one of my clients who did come in this way.

Nai:

She was overwhelmed and she did have other things going on in her life that made it a little bit difficult for her to start implementing changes. She had a lot of excuses that would come up as to why she couldn't practice or try something new. She also had a lot of health issues that she wanted to solve for that really hindered her quality of life in the past. It had her on bedrest. It had her looking for a lot of answers and a lot of doctor's offices, and she wanted to end this cycle of not knowing when she was going to get sick, of not knowing how her body was going to react, of being afraid to do activities with her family and her friends and to travel because she just did not know what was going to happen. And, through our work together, something that she mentions on this live is that she really gave herself time to go at her own pace. She really gave herself time to heal slowly and to implement things in a way that felt a lot more manageable for her and your heel. You will hear her touch on all these points throughout this live, and we were texting the other day back and forth and she's showing me how what she has learned and how she has changed her life around is now influencing her friends and family, where they are adopting health and wellness habits as well, and we were talking about how crazy it was that in the past she was the friend who would always get sick on trips or it didn't go so well and people had to wait around for her, and now she's the friend promoting health and wellness and the one who can go and go and go, the one who can feed herself, who can make confident food choices and always take her health and wellness seriously, make it a priority, be intentional and aware of it, and I love to see how her where her trajectory in health and wellness has taken her, because she is also a money and self-care coach. She's actually my money coach my money and self-care coach and she has identified and she knows and she has so much evidence that if we do not take really good care of ourselves, if we're not taking good care of ourselves, then we can't make really good money and we start to use our money for things that we'd rather not like medical bills instead of proactively taking care of ourselves to avoid those situations in the first place. And she has come up with an incredible self-care model, which is called diverse self-care, and if you want to learn more about that, I'm going to link her information here in the show notes, because it's really creative, engaging and a holistic approach, in addition to taking your finances into consideration. So it's really, really, really amazing.

Nai:

Now I'm going to go off and leave you in our IG live conversation. If the sound switches or it sounds a little bit different, know that. That's why, because this was an Instagram live recording and I can't wait for you to listen in and share what your thoughts are. If you've gotten anything from this episode, if you want to share anything with us, make sure to DM us, as we mentioned in the end of the IG live. Also, make sure to share this with a friend. Please leave a review. Help us grow. Help us share the wealthy and healthy knowledge and wealth of information that we both have to share so that our community can keep on being taken care of and elevated as we all should. So, sending you so much love. Thank you for listening in and enjoy.

Nai:

Hello friends, welcome to this IG live. Whether you're watching it live or watching the replay, this is going to be an amazing conversation with a really good friend and former clients. We are talking about trust and hope when it comes to your health and wellness journey. All right, if you don't know who I am, I am Naomi Jerez. I am a food and hormone health coach and I teach and support women on how to heal and balance their hormones through food and lifestyle. Food and lifestyle Okay, hold on. So, as I was saying before, as she comes on, she comes on, I'm here.

Sol:

I'm here, hi everybody. Hi everybody, I'm Rita Soledad Fernandez-Solino and Naomi was my wellness coach, and I am so honored that we get to talk today about what it's like to feel like defeated when it comes to your wellness, to feel like there's nothing that you can do in terms of improving your health, that you feel like defeated when it comes to your wellness, to feel like there's nothing that you can do in terms of improving your health, that you feel like you've done everything because I think we reach a certain age, that you're just kind of like yeah, like it is what it is. Yeah, and I worked with Naomi during a season of my life where I felt that way, where I was just like damn, 30s is crusty dusty and my 20s are crusty dusty, like I've navigated different health issues throughout my life and Naomi really, really impacted my journey and I'm like now I just find myself so hopeful and I always think there's a solution to, you know, conquering our health issues. Thanks, steve.

Nai:

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Thank you for joining me. I actually invited Soledad to come on and chat with us today because I did notice that there's a loss of hope. There's so funny. We just had a whole conversation about eating on this live before we jumped on here, so we were on the phone.

Sol:

Anyway.

Nai:

I asked Soledad to come on because there's this point in our health journeys, I think, that we lose hope or we lose trust. And I asked Soledad because she was at kind of that place when we first started. I'm like what gave you like that little one ounce of hope, of trust that you still had an opportunity to heal, that there was something still out here for you and also as a person I guess we can talk about that later but one, your hope in healing, and then two in yourself that you can make this happen. Like, how did you process that?

Sol:

Yeah Well, to give everybody some context, I had reached I had earned six figures in my business and I had gone one whole year. And as I was embarking on my second year of business, I had this thought of like I don't even want to make more money if I'm going to continue to like have health issues. You know, I was dealing with really, really heavy periods. I had gotten on the IUD. I was dealing with like I would just deal with inflammation Cada vez y cuando.

Sol:

I didn't necessarily know why I'd go to doctors and they'd just run tests and tell me me it was like, oh, this autoimmune disorder and this autoimmune disorder, and I've been experiencing that since age of 16. So for me I didn't even like going to doctors. And then I went to one doctor and I saw a nutritionist and they're like, oh, you should go, try going gluten-free. And I was like, never, ever will I I'm Mexican, I love conchas, I love, you know, all of pan dulce Like there's no way that I can ever become gluten free. And so then I was just kind of continuing to have certain health issues. And then I had this moment where we were in the mastermind call together and you shared how, how, like your, your wellness was number one that you didn't care about other things.

Sol:

That, like wellness was your number one priority. And this is me before. Like I really got into all my self-care Now, obviously, like self-care and you know, restorative body self-care is like a big part of you know how I help people, even inside of my business, and so I was still amazed and intrigued by that and I was just really like wait, there's people out here who, like put their wellness first before anything else and I that. That fascinated me. That fascinated me and because it fascinated me and I was like it just planted a seed where I started to think what, if, what if? There's this other possibility where I'm not dealing with horrible sleep issues, with crazy ass periods where, um, I'm like moody and I feel like I can't, like I can't live my life fully because I never know what I'm going to feel like. Like it was so hard for me to plan. For years I wouldn't even plan, like you know, to travel or different things in my life, because I was like what if I'm gonna be sick?

Sol:

You know like I might be sick, so I can't even. I can't even plan, and so when you shared that and you talked about prioritizing your wellness, it planted a seed of like a possibility, a possibility that maybe, maybe I could learn something, maybe, and I had like, in terms of trusting myself to go on this journey, this wellness journey, with you. Um, I think I was just, I gave myself permission to do it at my own pace, and I was someone who was very resistant to everything that you were teaching me and I, I didn't make it a problem.

Sol:

I was like okay, and I like I think I was like after only two months I was like I'm gonna need, I'm gonna need a full year of this. Yeah, I'm gonna need 12 months. And I gave that to myself. I said it's okay, I going to take my time, because it's taken time for me to learn my current coping mechanism, my current habits and my beliefs around wellness. And let me tell you everybody I went to Naomi and I told her I know about eating healthy. I did Weight Watchers Like that was the attitude. I was like, oh, no, no, no, you don't have to teach me about nutrition. I count points like, oh, it's so embarrassing now, it's so embarrassing and silly to think about now. But that's where I was.

Sol:

That's where I was in terms of my wellness journey, and I mean, one of the one of the first things that you said to me was like so you're not eating enough. Another thing people should know is like I have ADHD and, um, I wake up early and I would wake up like around like five in the morning and I wouldn't have my first meal till around nine o'clock and so one of the first things that Naomi said is like you got to start having this protein shake and I had all the excuses of why I couldn't have this protein shake.

Sol:

Now, this version of me in 2024, like I travel all the time and I take my collagen with me, I take my protein packs with me and I have this protein shake. So much so that recently I was in like arrowhead and one of my friends was like you inspired me. I'm gonna start having this shake every morning too.

Sol:

And I was like, yeah, we have to do our part to regulate our blood sugar and just doing that morning routine of having my protein shake um shake in the morning, I noticed that I stopped being like, like generally yeah, I just kind of lived like this for a long time. Everybody, this is a little shaky and I just got like like, oh well, I guess I'm like, I'm inquieta, I'm, you know, it's the ADHD. No, everybody, it was my blood sugar.

Nai:

You know, you mentioned something that I was just telling my OBM yesterday and I said if people just knew that if they ate more, they will feel better. There's this whole like fear of eating and I'm like, but this is what you love to do, let's just eat. But there's a lot to do with the timing of eating. What you're eating it's very like tailored to what our needs are, so that you can feel like nice and settled and balanced, like you were. So can you talk to us a little bit about your experience of completely changing your lifestyle when it came to health and wellness, with ADHD that comes up, or that it's a question or a thought is can I trust myself to be disciplined or to remember to do something or not to get so overwhelmed? So what was your experience with that?

Sol:

Well, I felt overwhelmed. I didn't feel like I could trust myself.

Sol:

I felt like shame and guilt and embarrassment at times Because I was just like damn, like I even just creating the habit of having the protein shake. It took me a long time to develop that habit and it's such intentionality, and part of it was that you would like send me these messages on WhatsApp but like, have you had your protein shake? And I'm like shit, I haven't. Oh, got to go get it. You know, like I was, I had certain habits in place.

Sol:

It was easier for me to wake up and go on Instagram and post all my stories than it was for me to go into my kitchen and make myself a protein shake. And so the accountability that I received from you the check-ins in terms of the WhatsApp messages and just our weekly check-ins I needed that. I needed that type of support to help develop the habit. And then, after like I started doing it, I could feel the difference in my body, because another thing that would happen when I started working with Naomi is like in the middle of the day, I would crash and I would just need to take like a two hour nap every single day. And it's because I was crashing and one of the things that Naomi was like was like full. You know, you need to eat at these different intervals, and I'm not somebody. This might sound crazy to some of you who are listening, but I don't experience hunger.

Sol:

I experience like no hunger or starvation, like hangry, yeah, like I'm either like, oh, I'm not hungry, I'm not hungry, I'm not hungry, and then, all of a sudden, I need to eat something, or else I'm going to like I get really mad, I feel like I'm going to pass out. It's zero to 100. And so one of the things that Naomi and I talked about was the importance of eating at like these regular times, until this day. Everybody, this is what I do.

Sol:

You know, I wake up Within one hour I have my protein shake. Within three hours I have breakfast. Another three hours I have lunch. Another four hours I have dinner. Yeah, I drink water in between. Another thing is I used to be a huge snacker, like always eating, like always eating fruit and I and I thought I'm so healthy, I'm eating so many fruits.

Sol:

I eat so many fruits. Oh yeah, I like to snack on bell peppers. And now it was like we gotta get some protein in there, like this is part of the reason why you're crashing. And so it was like those things right, those um little changes. But I had to be so intentional about it, like I had to set like, but till this day, guys, till this day, on my calendar it says when to eat, like when to eat lunch.

Sol:

That's the hardest one for me because it's in the middle of, like, my work day yeah um, but dinner that's easy because I'm with my kids and, like, when my kids are around, kids are going to tell you they need to eat, right, so that's easy. Breakfast I just established the routine and the habit of like before I start work. I have to eat breakfast.

Sol:

Yeah so that's just like a habit that I now have in place. But I mean, I don't know Like some people might be listening to this and be like this sounds so basic, but it's like, yeah, it ate. Like it was so basic and yet it was so hard um difficult and challenging, very challenging for me.

Sol:

But once I learned, you know, have your protein shake, eat at these regular intervals um, move your body, um, just also just understanding the importance of protein, learning different ways to manage my stress right, because for me I was very acostumbrada like if I have a bad day then I'm gonna have Oreo cookies.

Nai:

If.

Sol:

I have a bad day, I'm gonna have donuts. If I have a bad day like, yeah, of course I'm gonna drink alcohol, like those were very strong habits and also what was modeled for me as a child, absolutely, and so I think a lot of it was like you telling me to do breath work and doing like finding different ways to manage my stress, and I remember getting to the point where I was like I wonder how many days I can go without eating Oreo cookies, like in the evening in the evening Because of my routine.

Sol:

My life was like.

Sol:

Even when I started eating at regular intervals, I had a certain level of stress in my life that the way I would reward myself for making it through the day was lechita and double stuffed Oreo cookies Yep. For making it through the day was lechita and double stuffed oreo cookies, yep. And so it was a shift for me to start thinking yeah, definitely, definitely an emotional eater. Yeah, um, it was a shift for me to start thinking like well, how do I change my lifestyle so that I don't have to reward myself at the end of the day? How can I I have more joy and more pleasure throughout my day so that I don't find myself like I don't know, like really searching and trying, really searching at the end, yeah, Comforting yourself all at once, yeah, yeah.

Sol:

And so for me, that's where the self-care came in right. It was like how do I engage in self-care throughout the day so that I'm not looking for comfort, comforting self-care at the end of the day? And I mean now it's like I know, I know when I'm doing too much, I know when I'm having too much of a busy schedule, because I'll start craving sugar. And what I tell myself is like look at your calendar, adjust your expectations, go take a nap, go on a walk, like. I've learned other ways to manage. Well, I think one. I've decreased a lot of stress in my life. But even when I do have stressful times, I mean people go look at my Instagram stories, look at what this morning was like you know, like even a day like that.

Sol:

I I mean, I told my mom we're doing this IG live.

Nai:

I know it's going to be a fun part of my day, I told.

Nai:

Sol, we don't have to do it. It's okay because you did have a stressful morning and thank you so much for talking about stress, because it is one of the major, major things that impacts our health, impacts our eating, how we treat ourselves, and although it's okay to find comfort in food, oftentimes it's our only way to cope. It's how we're taught to cope. I mean, I do it sometimes with my kids too, where I'm like I'll give you a lollipop, I'll give you some ice cream, right? It's the only connection that we make. So it's really important to build this toolbox of different ways to cope and how can you sprinkle little things throughout the day to allow you to feel good?

Nai:

And another thing is, I don't know if y'all who are listening are noticing how layered this can get and how many steps there are, although, as like Sol said, she's explaining it. It sounds simple, but it takes a lot of different connections within the body and within the mind and a lot of awareness to realize what's happening, what you're doing, what are you doing and why are you doing it. And I know that another challenge was even connecting with yourself because of certain lived experiences. So a lot of times we don't even realize what we're doing, because we're so on autopilot, yeah Right.

Sol:

Our coping mechanisms become habits, yes, and then these habits, like, lead to a certain identity, and so, for me, I had this identity of like I'm sick, I'm always going to be sick. That's who I am. Like wellness is not part of my life, yeah, and I really attach myself to that identity. And part of our work together was, you know, you start learning some new habits, you start learning some new skills, you start feeling better, that now you're like wait, I'm like a healthy person yeah, like I really feel this way yeah, like now, I like I love telling people all the time, like every I mean people will describe me as that.

Sol:

People describe me as someone who's like you're really healthy. I'm like, I know I am. Like I really am good about protecting my sleep, drinking enough water, moving um stress management. I think very consciously about protein. Obviously, there's still always things that I want to work on, like I know that I couldn't incorporate more strength training into my life so that I could build muscle. Um, there, you know, and I'm still like, literally recently, I was telling my husband you know, I think I do want to lose some weight, because that's another thing. When I came to Naomi, I wasn't even telling her, I mean, I lost 20 pounds when we worked together and it was a shocker yeah, it was a complete shocker for me because I was like how, how did I?

Sol:

lose 20 pounds Because, again, I had come from Weight Watchers where you had to, like, count everything, track everything, and so for me to have lost weight and it just melt off poco a poco and I've kept that weight off since you know it's already already been, I want to say like a year since we stopped working together, yeah, and that weight has continued to been on to to stay off that recently I told my husband I was like you know what?

Sol:

I think I want to lose weight and he said you're gonna work with Naomi, right, like to him it was like a no-brainer that I would work with you and I was thinking like, oh, I want to get like a personal trainer maybe. And he was like no, like imagine if you go back to Naomi now at this level. Yeah, because this, like, there's parts of Naomi's program. Guys, I never even know, I never submitted my pictures.

Nai:

Like I just, I'm just like you did it at your pace and that's the beautiful part about it because it kept. Although it was overwhelming, you kept it so much at the cusp where it's not like I'm quitting. It's way, way, way too much like it. It was manageable and we took it like just where you needed it to be, to take some action and to feel those feelings, but not be like 100%. This is not for me, and going all the way back to that mindset of I can't heal, there's nothing I can do to lose weight. Because let me tell you something, especially especially 35 plus and I want everybody to hear this and this is the podcast that I'm actually recording for tomorrow when you want to lose weight and your solution is just exercise, that's not going to work, and I'll tell you why because it's so intricately tied to how you're eating.

Sol:

I mean, it might work for you, because you, because you know how to eat now, but I still think I could improve because, like right now, I'm eating oatmeal, which is, I consider, this dessert.

Nai:

Oh look at you?

Sol:

Yeah, because I know like it has probably like a lot more sugar and not enough protein, like I know that from our work together.

Sol:

Yeah, yeah, but I literally, literally, like it's a treat. It's a treat for me today, um and and. But I do also think, like now I think I'm in a place where, if we work together again, I would be like okay, I'm ready to learn even more about food, because I mean people who are watching this, you have to understand. I went to naomi and I didn't even want to step into a kitchen, I didn't even want to cut myself apples and peanut butter. Like my level was like level, zero Level, like basement level.

Sol:

It was like really really, really low, but I'm not like that anymore. Um, but I'm not like that anymore.

Nai:

So, real quick, because I know like we're cutting it close on time, I want you to please share if you've experienced this at all. Like, how far beyond you has this experience gone? Like, how has this investment in yourself taking this time? How has it not only impacted you, but maybe other humans around you, because part of, like, my mission and my values is generational health, and I know we definitely are. If y'all didn't know, we're a team wealthy and wealthy monetary wealth and health wealth. How has this gone beyond you and what has been the bigger impact?

Sol:

oh, I'm so glad you asked that question because something that I love is that I'm known as like the tia. That will not give my kids. Any of the kids like shit, like when I say that, like the snacks that have like red 40, yellow, 10, like all the food coloring my kids know, like, literally, I tell them you can have high fructose syrup once every three months.

Sol:

So they'll look at their ingredients. And recently the cousins, they like all got together and one of them was like they were passing out these paletas. But it wasn't like a fruit paleta, it was like you, you know, the ice cream truck with all the food coloring and my kid said I can't eat it. I already had my high school toast for this quarter and then my nephew was like what's that? And my and my child was like oh, it's something like the ice teas at the movie theater. It's in that ice cream. It's just not good for you. My mom says it's like bad for your stomach or something. But yeah, I already had it. I already had it and so I love that. My kids are reading labels.

Sol:

And even recently I was at my abuela's house and the ice cream truck was like you know? Um, the kids were waiting for the ice cream truck and I told them what, if you guys get ice cream from like I, I choose your ice cream. I choose like the ice cream and and it's a healthy ice cream and it's, you know, breastfed and there's no food coloring and all natural ingredients. And the kids and I was like and I'll get each of you a pint, like your own little pint of ice cream, and so I had it delivered to the house and there one of them got this ice cream that had a mint mint chocolate chip. Yeah, and my dad was like that has food coloring.

Sol:

For sure that has food coloring because it's green right, right right and I looked at the ingredients and it was made with spirulina yep, yeah, it turns out to be like it's like a natural, like it is. So everyone in my family sitting there they all learn about spirulina and they all thought that it was going to be like one of those fake sugars. They're like, oh, it's probably one of those fake sugars. I was like, no, no, it's not, not this ice cream brand, not this ice cream brand. And then we looked it up and then it turns out to be like some type of superpower.

Nai:

And then it turns out to be like some type of superpower.

Sol:

Yes, then I found it. Yeah, I found it at Whole Foods and I was like, oh my God, guys, the next time we get together, I'm going to put this in the agua fresca.

Nai:

Yes, and color them naturally. Some beet juice, some turmeric spirulina oh my gosh, I love that. So thank you for sharing that. All right, awesome. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. If you guys don't know either, so is my money coach. She is amazing at that and takes an obviously holistic approach around that. So please share with us how we can find you and support you, and then I'll share after you all right so you can support me or follow me on instagram.

Sol:

My dms are completely open. So if you have any questions ever about working with naomi, if you're like definitely one of those people like it's not gonna work for me, come to me, come to me, we'll both both will voice know each other back and forth, just so that you can process it. I think a lot of times we need that.

Sol:

But yeah, follow me on Instagram at WalshParaTodos. You can subscribe to my weekly email list. I send out an email called Todo Con Tiempo on Tuesdays and you can get that and the link in my bio. And yeah, let's stay connected.

Nai:

Awesome. And if you don't know who I am am naomi jerez. I am a food and hormone health coach. You can also follow me right here on instagram, sign up for my freebies and obviously you can dm me as well we're just as chatty and friendly like this behind the scenes too. I promise y'all all right, so I hope you all have a wonderful day. You learned something and we'll see both of us in the dms. Okay, bye.