Free yourself from your victim status to enjoy life.
Today, more than ever, wellness is at the forefront of societal discussions. From mental health to physical well-being, women are making significant strides in bringing about change, introducing innovative solutions, and setting new standards. Despite facing unique challenges, they break barriers, inspire communities, and are reshaping the very definition of health and wellness. In this series called women in wellness we are talking to women doctors, nurses, nutritionists, therapists, fitness trainers, researchers, health experts, coaches, and other wellness professionals to share their stories and insights. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Géraldine Fretté.
Géraldine is a nutrition therapist and uses breath intelligence to help you fully. She makes the connection between good breathing and good digestion as well as the other way around.
When she began as a nutritionist, she often felt that she wasn’t fully meeting her patients’ needs. So she turned to micro-nutrition. But she was still missing some keys to support her patients through a comprehensive holistic approach. Then, she discovered personal development tools, like hypnosis and EFT, and started to enrich her palette of techniques. She kept exploring since then, and found additional inspiration in Ayurveda, microbiota analysis, fasting, and hydration. She connected the dots.
Breathing has been a corner stone of her learning process. A true point of convergence. Very naturally she started exploring how breathing could improve digestion, and vice versa, as well as using protocols to improve the energy production, at the cellular level. She understood that one could improve the efficiency of this autonomic function and therefore trigger specific physiological adaptations to boost metabolism and develop fitness, health and performance.
Géraldine offers instruction in French and English, and is available locally and long-distance via Facetime and zoom.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
It’s the story of a woman who neglected self-care to the point of falling ill long before realizing that her illness indicated she wasn’t living the life she deserved. I am this woman. By changing my life, I healed my soul. By falling in love, I healed my body. I discovered the intense power of breathing, to be more conscious. I practice freediving to feel a little more alive during each session. I have been a dietitian for twelve years and I now combine nutrition, hypnosis and breathing. By transforming my nutrition practice, I have radically changed the way I support people and my way of reading the world.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
At the start of my career, I wanted to develop new skills to make my practice as holistic as possible. I attended numerous training courses on nutrition and other therapeutic techniques. I met charismatic teachers who encouraged students to integrate these new methods to their own techniques. I also understood that the personality of the therapist can add value to the methods without really knowing what my color was. One day, a patient said to me: “thank you for being who you are” and I understood. Today I know that my greatest strength is to connect symptoms and body ailments, life events and the patient’s words. I literally weave colorful treatment strategies.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about a mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I stubbornly thought that each session should begin as soon as the patient entered my practice.
And often I was confronted with stressed or distressed patients.
I know now how essential it is to connect with the patient and allow sufficient time for him or her to switch to a calmer state, with a breathing exercise, for example.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
I act on three essential points:
- Understanding your symptom often means channeling it, perceiving its origin and possibly deciding to change. I always explain in a simple way the invisible, what is happening in the body, so that the persons also understand what they feel or what they refuse to feel.
- Specifically, as far as I am concerned: eating healthily and breathing effectively (90% of us breathe poorly) are the two principles that make our cells function in their intended purpose which are the heart of my job.
- I invite everyone to take responsibility. I allow my patients to act for themselves, physically in concrete actions and mentally.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing?
1. Sleep in peace. Going to bed with a light stomach without being constrained by tight clothes, sleeping in the dark, in a cool room and taping your mouth can change your nights. You think that’s not glamorous? What do you say about snoring in front of your lover then?
2. Hydrate. We discover every day the powers of water on our body even though we neglect these benefits so much. Look at the work of Dr Masaru Emoto about water once and you will want to write, like me, on your bottles of water all the respect you have for this element and the desire for it to recharge and clean your body.
3. Laugh. Every day, a lot, loudly and with everyone you love. It’s contagious and necessary because it unites! This is my favorite breathing method, a great and quick technique to calm yourself down to fall asleep. Every evening watching a stand-up before closing our eyes is one of our daily practices with my lover.
4. Move. Move your body every day and laugh at its own limits and try to surpass them or not. And always move your mind by training your brain, by being curious about everything and about life in general. The third dimension of movement is undoubtedly evolution, moving within one’s certainties. I remember a session where the theme was “changing point of view” and where the patient really got up to think differently: moving is also that.
5. Eat good, organic and well. By enjoying each flavor, by chewing well and eating less (30% less in your plate offers 20 years of healthy life) will do yourself good. This is how I like to gather my family around me. My grown-up daughters love coming back to eat at their mother’s house, the flavors taste like love.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Becoming aware of our breathing also means being aware of the number of breaths we have left. This movement would promote the need to re-learn how to breathe, by freeing the ribcage and understanding the intimate connection between breathing and the autonomous nervous system. Thanks to our breathing, we can better manage our emotions, change our limiting beliefs and patterns and live better by learning how to cope with stress.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
1. Trust your body and be proud of it.
2. Moving and breathing can be learned at any age.
3. Choosing your food with intention, cooking with love and sharing a meal are real therapies.
4. Free yourself from your victim status to enjoy life.
5. Being kind is real strength.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health, and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
I am convinced that there must be a clear link between diet and mental health. Indeed, the way we eat is an undeniable sign of our way of thinking about and taking care of our body in general. Furthermore, it now seems illogical to dissociate our eating habits and the preservation of the world in which we live.
It is complex to choose among these four options. I would rather say that the cause that is most close to my heart is food intelligence: that is to say, being aware that eating well turns your body and your mind into the most beautiful planet possible.
What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?
I promised myself to make my thoughts and work more available online from the start of the year. Currently, I have a LinkedIn and Instagram profile on which you can read some stories of consultations with my patients related to my practice and mixing nutrition, hypnosis and breath work.
I also work at the Breathing Academy, the first breathing school in France, whose website is here. https://breathing-academy.com You will find several articles and podcasts in the blog tab. I am currently writing a book which will be released next year. It will be presented on the website as soon as it is published, I promise.
Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.
About the Interviewer: Wanda Malhotra is a wellness entrepreneur, lifestyle journalist, and the CEO of Crunchy Mama Box, a mission-driven platform promoting conscious living. CMB empowers individuals with educational resources and vetted products to help them make informed choices. Passionate about social causes like environmental preservation and animal welfare, Wanda writes about clean beauty, wellness, nutrition, social impact and sustainability, simplifying wellness with curated resources. Join Wanda and the Crunchy Mama Box community in embracing a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle at CrunchyMamaBox.com.
