Shayna Taylor
Appearances
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
In Italy is like insane. They love food. They love community. They love long meals. Even me, before I moved there, I could go and eat all the pasta and cheese I wanted and it wouldn't affect my gut and my skin. Most people have their own garden, produce their own olive oil. You know, it's normal for them. That's their life. And they appreciate the ingredients.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah. Drained a lot of resources. It was very humbling. I made scary. Yeah. Very scary because all this money that I would have never had from this house, I was like putting it into, you know, investing into this project that was supposed to make money. And I ended up losing like so much of it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And now when I backed out because it had been three years, the owners said that they spent the deposit and they won't give it back to me. So now I have to go to court.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yes.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
No. So the land is separate.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So the land I own outright and land is owned by Shana Agricola, which is my agriculture company. It was just the houses that I was trying to buy, which is in the middle of the land that I own.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So it's like I own 88 hectares or 88 acres of land and the houses are in the dead center of it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
That is what I'm trying to get out of is the house situation. So I was trying to overpaid. And yeah, I was trying to just renegotiate with them, but they weren't willing to budge. So then I was like, OK, well, then just give me my money back so that I can, you know, go on with my life.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
You guys wasted three years of my life because you didn't have your paperwork organized and you expect me to just like take the brunt of it. And they said no. So unfortunately, there's nothing else left for me to do. And it's not like in the States where they hold the money in escrow. They released it to them. So they spent it. So they're telling me they don't have the money to pay me back.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So now I'm literally filing with them in court because my lawyer is like, you have the right to have the money back because they were supposed to finish the work as of December. And you were so kind to wait two and a half more years for them to finish the work.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
uh and they didn't so like you by law you you do you are supposed to get reimbursement for the for the deposit but you know it for in Italy to go to court is like it's a minimum of four years for this to be resolved oh my gosh yeah
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah. So, you know, I listen, I love what I do and I love my land and I love producing this olive oil. And like we're going to do so much more with the land to make more products to sell because it's so magical. The land there and the olive trees are, you know, 200, 300 years old. So it's why they have such high polyphenol count, because the older the tree, the deeper the roots.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And that's where the polyphenols come from is the nutrient dense soil.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So it's like I'm so grateful and I wouldn't change anything also because I think I needed to be humbled coming from Los Angeles and like thinking anything's possible. Like I I'm happy that I went through that spiritual humbling. It was obviously very hard because I like. All this dream of everything I thought I had figured out just got totally taken away from me.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And I had to figure out like, okay, well, what is my life now? And I met my fiance in the meantime, like through moving to Italy. He's Italian. We just got engaged. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. On New Year's Eve.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
No, I met him like a year and a half after I moved.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Not very good.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Great.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah. He lived in New York for like five years. So yeah, no, my Italian is like, I can, I can understand a lot, but for me to talk, it's like very basic. I need to like go to an eight week course, but I like don't have the time.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And then I also speak in English all day because my companies are based in America. So I'm still doing Zoom calls all day in English. And then I have a translating assistant with me in Italy who like helps me translate everything. So I'm pretty much crippled myself to learn Italian at this point.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
But I will learn, especially before I have children, because they're going to know more Italian than me. And that's not, you know, I'm going to have a codeling.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So, no, I moved to Florence area because my fiance works closer to Florence. So I actually moved before it kind of went sour because I was like, OK, I'll move out of the Umbria property because it's going to have to be totally redone anyway. So we moved in together like a year and some change ago outside of Florence. And so I already kind of like moved. So I was like, perfect.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I can commute to Umbria like while the project's going. And then we live together here. So it's easier for him to go to work because I don't have to go to work every single day. He has to drive to an office every day. Right. So that was kind of our compromise. And I moved him out of Florence city center because I refused to move back to a city. I was like, this is our compromise.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So now we live like 20 minutes outside of Florence, still in the countryside and in a town called Improneta.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Uh, it's like an hour and 20 minutes drive. Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
you didn't learn how to raise all the trees in la honestly i didn't learn in new york i mean no no i didn't i knew nothing yeah i only knew from fascinating obsession i only knew from research on my own i mean we're really lucky to live in our the time that we live now because so many things are available to us on the internet and books and you know all this stuff so it was more of an obsession of like
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
wanting to learn all this stuff. And then the best way to learn, and I say this for people in business, like business school is amazing. And it does teach you a lot of things that maybe I wish I had when I started on entrepreneurship. But what really teaches you how to run a business is running a business because there's nothing that school can teach you other than real life scenarios.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And it's the same with anything. Like I was like, I will figure out how to do this. And the best way for me to do it is just to immerse myself in it. So that's exactly what I did. I And I've learned so much. I got really into biodynamic farming. That was what I wanted to do was biodynamics and using the ecosystem of the area and the farms. And I find it fascinating.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I find it so cool to learn about how nature used to work before we like manipulated it so much. So, yeah, I just came from pure passion and throwing myself into it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Research. Because I also was like, I need to make sure I have chickens that are organic, that were never fed corn. You know, it's like there's a lot of things that I'm obsessed with. Like I will never eat a corn fed chicken because I have a huge allergy to corn. So it's like...
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Then I had to find specific farms that were also believing in that in Italy, which luckily you can actually find them often. I don't know if anyone knows this.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Italy is the most sustainable agriculture in the world. They invest so much money into organic agriculture.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah, from overwhelm. Yeah. So, I have to say that all the spiritual work that I did before and this was like the beginning actually I learned way more in the process of me moving, but I had some basic tools of learning how to be okay in my own body like home is your vessel it's your body home is not a place that you live.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And if you feel home in your body, then you can essentially be okay in any environment. And this was ultimately like the biggest realization I had of like, I can create home anywhere. It doesn't need to be in Los Angeles. And so I'm going to sell this materialistic thing and I'm going to go try and recreate it in a different version in Italy. I'll never forget though.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
move to the countryside somewhere or to Italy specifically. But yeah, so my journey is a wild one. So I'm born and raised California. I got into the health and wellness space in my early twenties when I went to culinary school for college and became really passionate about food. I also was a model for many years, which was very counterintuitive to each other.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I was staying in Paris in London before I finally like got moved into the place in Italy. And let me remind you, these country houses are old. They're like 30 years, you know, wear and tear and there's no kitchen cabinets on the thing. And there's like, you know, I had no furniture at all. So I had the house manager guy who worked for the owners before just buy me a mattress and like,
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I had a mattress when I arrived. And then he gave me a table and some chairs. So I came with my three suitcases, and that was it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
By the way, the Wi-Fi that the house owners did have set up didn't work at all. So of course, I had to go get Starlink and then try to figure out how to use Starlink. So I remember I arrived and at this time I already kind of stopped drinking alcohol through my spiritual journey, but I would still occasionally have like organic wine here and there.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And my girlfriend, bless her, one of my best friends, Olga, I met her actually in Italy before I moved and she helped me actually. feel comfortable to move there because she was like, she lives in Paris now, but she was living in Rome at the time. And she just became like a sister really fast. And so on my solo trips, her and I used to hang out.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And so when I finally made that decision, I was like, at least I know I have one friend that is close by, you know, in case something goes wrong. I also have like one of my best friends in Denmark, but she's a mom of three and it's not like she can just like leave and help me, you know? So I got to the houses and I like, I like was just sitting in the kitchen and you're like, it's really isolated.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Like I'm not like, this is also to my, I'll tell you a side side story after too, which is so funny about my fiance, but I just sat in my kitchen and was like, Oh boy. Like what did I just do? I had no car. I had no, I had no car and I was in the countryside. So I was like, how am I going to get groceries? Like I need to like, like what is, what is my game plan here?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So luckily I had Matteo who was like the guy who was the property. He like watched the property, you know, for the owners before. And so he like really helped me manage everything. But like, you can't buy a car as a foreigner in Italy. So I had to go buy a car in another country. So I had to go fly to,
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
to try to find a car, to then drive back to Italy so I could have a car because I was like wasting money on leasing a car.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
No.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
No.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
No one tells you that. No one told me that.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So I, yeah, I just had this moment where I like almost had a meltdown where I was like, okay. I know you're really like a bold woman. Like you're an Aries and like, you know, you've done a lot of things in your life and you just go for it. But like this one, this one is like next level.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So I literally have never drank alone in my life, but I poured myself a glass of wine because I was like, I think my whole audience has already forgiven you for judgment free zone now.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And I remember my girlfriend, Olga, bless her. She literally calls me and she's like, how's it going? Like, how are you doing? And I was like, well, I'm just like having a glass of wine. And she was like, you having a glass of wine by yourself? I was like, mm-hmm. And she was like, okay, you want to talk about it? I'm coming over. And she's so sweet.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Um, but that's what kind of like pushed me towards wanting to be more on the health side of things versus a traditional chef. And then I had a lot of, uh, of my own health problems, uh, especially related to like gut health and, um, you know, specific things around skin and, uh,
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
She literally surprised me and flew the next day because she knew I was unwell because it's like I don't drink in the first place and then I'm drinking by myself. It's like, really? Something's wrong. Something is not right. So she literally came and surprised me next day, called me at like 9 a.m. and was like, guess where I am? And I was like, where? She's like, I just landed in Florence.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I'm coming to you, bitch. And literally came and helped me just get the basics. She was like, let's go get the basics so you can feel comfortable because I was like, what do I need to make myself not feel like I'm in a complete panic? So basic needs.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So I went and got like kitchen stuff and knives and cutting boards and like things that made me feel, you know, I love to cook and I'm in the countryside. So like, I don't have, you know, I can't go to a restaurant on the street every day. They're not even open every day. So I like had to get myself in like this country living, you know, vibe. And then of course,
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
all of my spiritual tools is what actually like helped me and grounded me. Like having my feet in the grass and actually grounding myself every day and hearing the nature and having the view and like going outside and being like, what was the reason why you did this and reminding myself why I was there.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
and just like continuing in my spiritual practices of like figuring out, as I mentioned to you before this podcast, like it wasn't until I landed in Italy and I had to sit in silence that I realized my underlying anxiety was chronic, like really intense. And it started bringing up all these feelings and all this stuff.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And then I started realizing how much grounding my energy, like physically grounding my energy and also visualizations and meditation helped me actually start to combat and realize when my anxiety was okay and when my anxiety was heightened.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And so I just like, that's when I started promoting a lot in my journey of like putting your feet in the grass and how important it is and how it's this free tool that we have. And it doesn't, if you don't have grass, it could be sand. And if you don't have sand, it could be dirt. And if you don't have dirt, it can be leaf. You know, it doesn't really matter what it is.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
It's just grounding in nature in general. And so this whole process and, of course, spending time with animals and like buying my chickens and like when I started to really develop out this dream that I had, like it just made me feel so grateful. Like I was just like, how blessed am I that I'm able to to do this? And also, you know, the cost of living in Italy is huge. so little compared to here.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
It's like traumatizing when I come back to the States now and have to go to the grocery store. I swear. I'm like, I'm paying six pints for a freaking blueberry, $6 for like a thing of blueberries. And like what I can get for six euros at the grocery store in Italy is like a whole bag worth of fresh ingredients.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Like I just did this grocery haul because I want to tell people, I want to show people the comparison. And I bought, I'm not even joking you, like three huge bags of vegetables, so many different types, like six cucumbers for my juices and four celery things, bunches of celery and like two kombucha things and onions and garlic and all this, everything, 51 euros.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
It's a big problem. Yeah, exactly. And then I so I was in an eight year relationship, most of my 20s. And in 2020, I decided to end the relationship. And this was like a huge pivot in my life. I have to say I was going through Saturn return because I was 28 and I was just it was like all just made sense. I had a very intense Saturn return for people who know about it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
51 euros. If I went to Air One.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
When I go to Air One. 1500 euros. Yeah, exactly. When I go to Air One, it's a minimum of 250.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
For like half of that.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Well, food became transactional versus actually being like a relationship you have with food, which is our biggest problem. You go to the market. You have no idea where anything's from. You buy it in plastic. You check it out. You pay for your credit card and you go home and you eat it. And like that's the disconnect between the relationship with food and human beings.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And obviously city people feel that the most. And it's another huge topic that I'm really passionate about is connectivity with food and how if our children were raised to understand where food came from and the joy that it is to watch a seed turn into a sprout and then a sprout turn into a plant and then a plant that gives you something you can eat.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
is even for an adult, you know, even 90 year old grandmas in Italy find it incredible. I mean, the relationship that they have with food in Italy is like insane. They love food. They love community. They love long, long, long, long, long meals. And they love growing everything. I mean, most people have their own garden, produce their own olive oil, even if it's a small amount.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And they like, it's, you know, it's normal for them. That's their life. And they appreciate the ingredients. and they tend to the soil.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
It's like why the food is so good in Italy and why people, you know, even me before I moved there, I could go and eat all the pasta and cheese I wanted and it wouldn't affect my gut and my skin versus like I was gluten-free, dairy-free, refined sugar-free, corn-free, like I wouldn't eat anything being in LA and I was more inflamed than when I was eating the food there is because
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
They've been passing down generations by family owned farmers, the old way of farming. And yes, of course, some of them did. You know, they do have pesticides. It's still there in Italy. But like generally speaking, it's family owned businesses and they've been doing the old regenerative practices forever. So they never felt the need to change that.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And so the food has more nutrients because the soil is not overtilled or over poisoned. And so when you eat the food, you're actually absorbing the nutrients that your body needs versus feeling like it's just inflamed and you're not getting the nutrients. It's like an apple in America, you eat one and you actually only get the nutrients that is like a quarter of an apple.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And then, so you have to eat six apples in order to get the nutrients of one apple. Whereas when you go to Italy and you eat a tomato or an apple, you're like, whoa, this tastes so good. And it's like, well, yeah,
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And so when we broke up, I basically had to start my life completely over because my life was totally a shadow of that person.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Because it's nutrient dense.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah, it's totally like that. Yeah. It's so accurate. And so many people do that.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yes. And listen, like I because Italy is not into health and well, like I can't go down and get a green juice like, you know, down the street or like go. You know, I miss I miss some of the biohacking wellness stuff that we have here in America because I do love that stuff. And so when I come here, I like totally go to like, you know.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
all the juice places and get all my smoothies and like you know versus having to make it for myself every day which by the way is the way of you know I preferred way but of course it's nice when you don't have it it's like these conveniences of America I miss sometimes because we live in the world of convenience and Italy is the opposite of that it's like how inconvenient can things be I've not
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Really? Yes.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I'm not kidding. It's so the opposite of how we are. It's actually wild. Which, by the way, it's amazing because it's why Italy is Italy, right? It's 100 years back in time.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yes, my partner was in LA. We also lived in New York for like three years. And then I decided to move back to LA when we broke up. And so this kind of started my journey, not only in entrepreneurship, but also this journey of like... I'm ready for something new, like really to start over. And so I was building my businesses in LA.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And so people love to go there to experience that. But, you know, there's the pros and cons of everything, right? Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Food became transactional, which is our biggest problem. You go to the market, you have no idea where anything's from. You buy it in plastic, you check it out, you pay for your credit card, and then you go home and you eat it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I always had this drive to want to move to Italy and buy farmland and like be a farmer and grow my own produce and have my animals. And like, that was my dream, the chickens, like all this stuff. And I was just like, I thought that it was going to be something in my life that I did when I was like 45.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah. So I agree with everything that you just said. I, of course, where I, where I started this journey was my own health problems. I had so many weird health issues that I could not figure out what was causing them from skin problems to chronic bloating, to cystic acne all over my back to like, just like weird things.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
things, like I thought being constipated for like three days was normal, and it's just not, nothing about that is normal. And I was on a quest to figure out how to heal myself naturally, and I would go through these phases where I would like get a little better, and then I would go backwards five steps, and then I would get a little better, and then I would go backwards five steps.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And I went to 11 different doctors, all different types, medical doctors, holistic doctors, like all these different types of weird, you know, Chinese medicine doctors to like organ, like measuring your organ doctors to like, I was literally like, I'll do anything to figure out what is wrong with me and not live in this. Like I had also chronic like brain fog and memory loss. And
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So many things that I was like, I don't understand. I'm the healthiest person I know. Like, how is this possible? I eat all the right things. I didn't eat any gluten. I didn't have any dairy. I didn't do I was literally like I work out every day. I don't understand.
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And it wasn't until I met actually Dr. Joffrey, who is my partner in inner alchemy. And when I met him, we became friends first. I was actually going to him for like chiropractic in New York. I met him through Kelly Ripa.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah, now he's in Naples, but he was in New York originally. Oh, he was in New York originally.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah, get off your acid, the green minerals. Yeah, exactly. I use all his stuff, too.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah, I've been taking his stuff, I think, for like seven years now when we met. So when we met in New York, he was helping me with my scoliosis. And then that turned into, he was like all into this, all this other stuff, gut healing and whatever. And so I was like starting to pick his brain about all of it and asking all these questions. And then he was like, we have to do testing.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Let me help you. And he was the first person that was like, we should do a GI map and test your gut health. It sounds like it's a gut problem. And I was like, cool. I don't know what that means, but like, that sounds good. It was like the first time I actually felt like I was, I got it as something that made sense to me. Right. He like tested my blood, live blood cell analysis.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
He like did all this stuff that like no other doctor I went to did. They didn't like ask even the, the top medical gut specialist in LA. Like I did a colonoscopy and the other oscopy and like, everyone was like, you're fine. And I'm like, well, I'm not fine. So I don't, you know? And yeah. So I, I did a GI map with him. He was like, Oh girl. Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah, I had like everything under the sun for that candida overgrowth Parasite like all the bad bacteria were like ten times higher than the good bacteria I had H pylori like I basically had like the perfect formula of like a very fucked up guy Yeah, and so through that, you know doing a whole protocol with him and at the same time I also so this is why we came together so
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
You know, I didn't think that it was going to be in the next couple of years from when I was dreaming about it. Right.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I was doing these protocols and they were helping me, but I had so much underlying stress that it was making it go backwards. And it wasn't until I got my stress under control and I moved to Italy and like realized all this stuff spiritually that I actually was able to heal my gut. So it took me six years to like get to where I actually was like healed.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And it wasn't because of what Dr. Joffrey was giving me. It was because I had so much chronic underlying anxiety that it was wreaking havoc on my gut. And that's why I couldn't actually fix it.
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah. So I host, um, retreats, wellness retreats that happened when I moved to Italy. I, it's one of my favorite offerings I've ever done. We do week retreats, uh, with women, uh, and it's, it's amazing.
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And then now I have a Shana Serene circle, which is an online community that kind of brings the retreats to everyone because obviously it's not, everyone can come for a week or can afford a retreat. Uh, so I also launched this, uh, platform online called Shana Serene circle, which is like everything I cover on the retreats.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And then I started deep diving into spiritual practices because I was trying to not only heal myself from the relationship of eight years, but also all of the things that brought me to be in an unhealthy relationship. And childhood stuff that I felt I just didn't unravel because I was just in survival mode.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Cause we do food relationship with food, spiritual work, fitness, and then of course, like enjoy Italy at the same time.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah, they come from all over the world, but I would say like half of them are from the States, yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
We're between 10 to 16.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So that was the original plan was for them to stay at my farmhouse, but because everything started to be delayed, I ended up collaborating with other luxury properties around Italy. Yeah. So I've done a couple other properties in Italy and then now we're trying to do weekend retreats. And then I want to do event day events on my land.
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So we want to do like, have you, do you know the brand like outstanding in the field? Have you heard of them?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So I want to do like that on my land. So huge table, long dinners where people come and do a wellness day. So we do like a day retreat on my land. So people can actually be in the olive grove. They can like see the land. Cause so many people are invested in this land. So I want to give them the opportunity to come. And even though the houses like TBD, what happens?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Like I could end up getting, getting them in the future anyway, but for now, like it's just in the loop of whatever, at least allows them to come and like be in the olive groves and feel the energy of the land because the energy of the land is like, Everyone should feel it. It transformed my life. Transformed my life.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Do you meditate? Yeah. It'll be different per event. We'll see. We haven't done any yet. We're planning them now for this year. Okay, cool. But we want to come a little bit in the later afternoon. We do some sort of physical activity. So whether it be yoga, hike, Pilates, or whatever. Okay. Then we move into some sort of spiritual work.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So whether it be a sound bath or meditation practice or whatever, then we do a long table dinner and then we want to do a after party with a DJ. So it's like a summer.
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And, uh, through that process, I, my drive to want to leave LA and go live a different life just became stronger. And then I, my family knew I was thinking about moving. So we decided to spend Christmas there, uh, for holiday. And I had this attachment and in spirituality, you start to learn about non-attachment. So I And I had an attachment to my house because it was my first house I ever owned.
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
They were walking.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Gardening.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Swimming.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Carried a bucket. Yeah, exactly. Like a sack of potatoes. Exactly.
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yes. So in my own journey of diving into spirituality, I realized that all the things that we want in life, like
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
empowerment or setting boundaries with others and attracting abundance and having our dream job and attracting the right partner all of these things in order to get the real version of what you dream of you have to do the inner work and understand your inner world because if you don't understand your inner world you have no idea why you're attracting different things into your life or why you're not attracting different things into your life and
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And the only way you can figure that out is if you start to have a better relationship with the soul within yourself. And through my own journey, I realized how completely disconnect. I thought I was like, I was an intuitive person. I was like always into health and wellness. I was always, you know, I loved crystals.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And like, this was like the surface level of actually getting into the inner work of myself and understanding where all of my triggers came from and how I actually was a very reactive person in life and would react to small shit that didn't matter. Right. Or get angry or annoyed or like even if I didn't snap at someone else, it was like my internal world was reactive. No.
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And it wasn't until I was like, oh, my God, like I don't have to live in reactivity. I can actually live in peace. And the only way that I can do that is by figuring out where it comes from and why I would become reactive over something that like essentially doesn't matter.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And even if it is something that would upset you as a human being, it doesn't mean that you get to choose how it affects your well-being. And on my anxiety journey, that was the missing link is that I was letting everything affect me at such a deep level because I was so used to being in survival mode and like a warrior, you know, chick and just like ready to like fight a war, you know?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah, yeah, yeah. that everything hit me like it was the worst case scenario, even if it wasn't. So obviously I was attracting different things into my life. Like I've been through so many crazy things and it was because my energy was waiting for the worst case scenario because that's what I was used to since I was a kid.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And even though I've had so much good in my life, it all came with some debilitating challenge to get over. And it was, I literally was like, what is this? And why, like, it can't just be like, Because, you know, because I, you know, it's 100% something inside myself.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So what I love about spiritual work is that just asking journaling is like people laugh at journaling, but like it's one of the main starting points of being able to ask yourself questions because we don't ask ourselves enough. How do you feel today? People don't actually ask themselves that.
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And like, how is your internal world? Like, is something off? Like, what emotion do you feel? Did that, like, people are so reactive and move forward in life so fast that they actually forget the connectivity with themselves. And our phones don't help because then we're looking for instant gratification through social media versus like having, you know, these, it's like dopamine hits, right?
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
It's like we're looking for every dopamine hit we can find. in society, whether it be friends, buying something, Instagram, whatever.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And instead of like finding the happiness and the light, the like joy that we have, the happiness that we're supposed to have, the abundance that we're supposed to have in our energy every day, because then those dopamine things aren't necessary because you're just embodying the energy of all those things with you all the time.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I like made it exactly how I wanted it. It was a content creator's house. And I was building my social media following then and building all my recipes. So I was like, wow, to leave this house feels like very daunting, but like it doesn't make sense for me. Then I was like, do I rent it?
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
But in order to achieve that, you have to dig deep within yourself and your inner world and figure out what parts of yourself you don't understand. And we're so, as we discussed before on this podcast, like people are so disconnected from themselves. They're disconnected from the others.
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
They're disconnected from so many things because we're going into this virtual world of like everything is, you know, a different reality than the present moment, than from nature, than from it's crazy when you think about it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
and we can't escape ai right we can't escape this technology and like it's great we have a lot of it and it's amazing like i love using some certain things for business i think it's amazing but we have to find the balance between the inner work the connectivity to nature the caring about you know planet earth and the food we eat and the wholesome you know ingredients that we have and caring about sourcing and building a relationship with food again
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
and ourselves as well as you know if you want to dabble in that stuff or if you live in a city like you can have both but you have to care about yourself and what you put in your body and your inner world and like going deep and yes meditation is a really good way to do that and yes journaling is a good way to do that I worked with many healers in my past to help me understand things better now I'm in a place where I feel I don't need that and healers are amazing because they do help you at
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
like transform different energy. But at the end of the day, it's you that transform it. It's never the healer. So people should never look to healers as if they have some sort of like, it's you that you choose. It's you that you transform yourself. They are just a guide to help you through that process. And I love, and don't get me wrong. Like I've worked with some amazing healers.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I bring them on my retreats to work with the retreat members when they need like an extra oomph and feel comfort and like transform energy within themselves. Um, But yeah, it's really coming back to where we used to be and how we used to live before all of this modern day world. And the Europeans have more connectivity to it because it is still, they're a hundred years behind.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
But then I was like, no, because then I can't invest in a property in Italy because, you know, it's like I needed to sell it to then have this dream. So I literally, I'll never forget, I woke up one morning and I was journaling and meditating and this was very new to me at the time.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Whereas in America, we really struggle with that.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Like don't go to a city in the summer in Europe because no one's working.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I started with a five minute journal and it took me months to integrate it into my life because I was so used to waking up and just going straight into my work, running away from my underlying anxiety. Which I learned later in life. I didn't realize that I was just running on the crazy cycle because I was trying to run away from the underlying anxiety I had.
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So you woke up freezing. Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And I mean, going back to inner alchemy and, and kind of why Dr. Joffrey and I decided to partner is because it's important for people in their gut health journey to have a scientific person like Dr. Joffrey, a real doctor who's going to explain, you know, why things are the way that they had all the technical things.
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And he's like insanely passionate about the amount of like what supplements you should be taking and, and, you know, all this stuff. And so that is so important as part of the journey, but he also understands from his own world. And also from my journey is that the, of course he really, he touches a lot on the food. He's a very healthy guy and, you know, he's extremely healthy.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Uh, I do the whole chef portion of it. So we have like a whole cooking segment where I teach you like the basics in the kitchen and how to make a bone broth and like We talk about the gut balancing plate. So like everything that you should, how your plates should basically be, you know, organized when you're thinking about food.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I also have, we have a huge section about stress management and how to unpack trauma and stress and different tools that you have in your life and going back to the basics of grounding your feet in the grass and getting sun in your face in the morning. actually having peace and learning what joy is again.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
But I just woke up one day and I was like, you know what? I think I'm ready to sell this house. This was October. I was supposed to leave for Christmas December. So I was like, if my house sells before Christmas, I will go. I'll just basically go on a whim and not take anything with me except for three suitcases. So I put my house on the market and it sold two weeks later. And I was like, okay.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Like I was living life so much without knowing what thing, what actually brought me joy in life. Now I do ceramics like on my, you know, downtime. And like when you're an entrepreneur or two, I was over, I was like, I'm not working enough, you know, like what more can I do?
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
As Americans, we're so spoiled in the way that things are quite easy for us to do.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And then I realized like Shaina, when you do that, it actually depletes your energy field and you get drained and then nothing attracts to you versus like, having boundaries with your team and your job and everything and like being efficient in what you do and then spending time doing things that bring you joy.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And Italy really taught me that because they don't overwork at all and have so much balance in what they do. And so I started, you start to be like, oh, this is actually okay to live like this. And it's when you're not in this rat race of feeling bad because everyone else is in the rat race and you remove yourself from it, you're like, holy crap, like,
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
okay, now I understand the balance of what life is supposed to be like. So now I've been able to find that balance. I'm not saying you have to move to Italy to find that balance. You can do it anywhere, right? So yeah, Inner Alchemy is basically a very extensive 13-module online program that covers...
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
all of these topics um that and now we just actually we're about to break it up into three different phases because it's so much information we realized that it would be better if we broke it up into phases and also makes it a little bit more affordable for people who don't want to buy it all at once so we're doing three different phases now um and yeah within those phases we cover like
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
lifestyle choices, supplementation, diets, chef school, the science behind gut health, all the different, uh, gut related, most, you know, chronic symptoms that people have. So whether it be Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, um, brain fog, you know, depression, um, SIBO.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
All basically we cover all those things. Yeah. So what's it, what's it,
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I have a few. So my morning ritual is the key to everything for me. How I start my day is the most important thing and helps me embody the energy of which I carry out for the entire day.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And when I started stressed or rushed or not grounded or not listening to some sort of spiritual wisdom or whatever, like I really feel a difference in how I deal with things, how my anxiety comes back and just how like neurotic I feel. So my non-negotiables are I don't care how early I have to wake up. I like to have two hours before I have to do any sort of work.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So I used to start with five minutes, and then it turned into 10 minutes, and then it turned into 30 minutes, and then now it's two hours.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Before I touch my phone. before I look at emails. So I'll touch my phone because I typically listen to some sort of spiritual wisdom in the morning for 30 minutes. It's how I like to start my day. So I wake up, I have my bone broth. I drink my, I have my olive oil lemon shot. I literally travel with my olive oil because I like need to have it every day. You're welcome.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I have my matcha instead of coffee. It's actually how I started my first brand, Shaina's Kitchen, was I created a matcha brand because it helped me so much with my anxiety to switch from coffee to matcha. and got really passionate about finding the best quality. We also sent you some matcha to it to try.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And so I got obsessed with finding the best tasting quality matcha you could find on the market. And so then when I found it for myself, I ended up creating a brand. That's actually how I started being an entrepreneur was through selling matcha.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And I called it, I call it morning ritual matcha because it was a huge part of creating my morning ritual because I used to make my matcha and then sit with my matcha. And that's when I would journal and meditate. And it was part of my like ritual. So in the morning, I always ground. So even this morning, I mean, Miami is a great place because you can walk to the beach.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So my grounding was out to the beach and I woke up at 5 a.m. because I wanted to work out at 830. So I had to have my time. So I always meditate. I always journal. I always do gratitude. Instead of thinking about the negatives, it's really easy to wake up and think about all the things you need to do and get stressed about it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
But instead, I always try to think of all the things that I'm really, really excited for and grateful in my life, which obviously helps set up my day in a sense of gratitude versus lack or stress. And then I always listen to 30 minutes of some sort of spiritual wisdom. So right now I've been really into Kabbalah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And so I've been listening to a lot of spiritual practice related to that, just to like something new to educate myself on.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Verbiage.
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah. Meditations, I used to do a lot of guided in the beginning. Now I do meditation on my own, like in my own guided head.
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161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Not one person.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah, you should. I mean, the biggest misconception about meditation, I think, is that you think you're supposed to think about nothing.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
But the reality is it's actually the opposite. Yes, of course, you're not supposed to think about your anxieties and your stressors. But like the amount of downloads and information that I get about my business or about something that I should do or about a friend is always in meditation.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So like you have to learn how to, of course, like go into your inner world, which can be a scary place for most people. But once you're able to tap in and release yourself from like all these like needs of things you need to do that are over here. And tap into this like soul calling of information of peace and tranquility and like all the things that you want to think about from this side.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
That's where the meditation is actually like the sweet spot. Because, yes, whenever breathing practices are amazing way to meditate, guided meditations, of course, are amazing because visualizations allow you to be alert. distracted enough to go into a different world, which is also your inner world.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So I was like, OK, either I'm leaving L.A. for sure. And my second option was Nashville. I was thinking, I love Nashville, I wanted to leave LA, so I was like, okay, I'm gonna move all of my stuff to Nashville in storage, and I'm gonna go to Italy with three suitcases, and I'm going to really explore the idea of living in Europe.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And people think that like, like, um, visualizations, like I thought I was, I couldn't visualize anything when I first got started. I was like, it's impossible for me to visualize anything. Like, what do you mean now? I can like, it's insane what I can visualize. And it's not about being able to see a clear picture. It's not, that's not what meditation is.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
It's being able to understand the essence of what you're trying to visualize. Hmm. and be able to be in that essence of it. So maybe you don't necessarily see the details of a falling rainfall or a falling waterfall, but you can get the essence of if you were standing in front of one and in that moment with the waterfall and the energy of which the water is giving you.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And that's where you kind of want to drop into that place because that's what actually gets your body to drop into relaxation and you get the mental break And when those thoughts come in, you just say, thank you so much. But like, I'm not doing that right now. And like, go back to the, you know, it's just like, thank you so much. But like, that's not what I'm doing.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah. It happens to me still to this day. You know, sometimes I'll like think of something that's stressful and I'm like, I, right now is not the time. So like, I'll think about that later and like put it over there in the box.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah, 100 million percent. I mean, you'll be able to get something just as good. It'll be different, but it'll be very similar to that. When you're able to like really embody meditation in your life, it'll be the same thing. It's like, for me, I need it every single day, even if it's for five minutes.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Like it's essential because I know how much it grounds me in my wellbeing and like gives me certainty in my day and like relieves me from the crazy, you know, spiral of the trauma, you know, the stress loop, the fear loop that we all can get ourselves into, right? And it's not about running away from it or trying to control it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
It's about understanding it and giving yourself the tools and learning the tools that you can use to get yourself out of it and back into the present moment. Because the fear loop and anxiety loop comes from the future. It doesn't come from the present.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So if you can bring yourself back into the present, and that's what meditation is, is in the present moment, it's you're just present and nothing else. That's when you can, you know, really release and let go of the stress and anxiety of the world that we have on a daily basis.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So I don't recommend this is the way people should do it, because I went there, decided to stay, and then had to figure out my visa process, so I was flying back and forth and wasted a lot of money and time because I didn't like prepare myself. And, you know, I was really on a whim, which is very much me. Like I love spontaneity. So I was just like living a spontaneous life.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yes. So you can find me and everything I do on social media, which is my full name, Shayna Therese Taylor.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
S-H-A-Y-N-A, yes. And then, of course, you can find all my offerings that I have, like olive oil matcha and retreats on shaynaskitchen.com.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Hmm. What does it mean to me to be an ultimate human? I feel like my whole body just relaxed when you asked me that question. I saw that. Did you see that? Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
The answer is to be fully grounded and present in the current moment and like really happy and in certainty because I feel like when you asked me that question, it actually grounded my energy.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I felt it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So yeah, I mean, I would say being somebody that suffered a lot from underlying anxiety and being completely ungrounded. I mean, I remember I went to this Irish psychic reader and he literally told me I was like cut in half through like, he's like, spiritually, you're like cut in half. And to the world, you look like a swan, but underneath you're like this.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And when he said it to me, I was like, yeah, that's basically how I feel. And so learning how to not live like that and being in the place that I am right now in my life and knowing what it's like to be grounded and knowing what it's like to be happy and of joy and love what I do and remove the fear loop from my life is, I think, what it means to be an ultimate human.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Um, but yeah, I, I, while we were there for Christmas, I, we stumbled into a real estate office and I wanted to look at how like properties for fun. And I wasn't really sure what I wanted, uh, and what I was looking for, like a bunch of land or maybe later, or just like a small house or a retreat center. Like I didn't really know.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I find it so cool to learn about how nature used to work before we manipulated it so much. This kind of started my journey, not only in entrepreneurship, but also this journey of like, I'm ready for something new.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And, uh, so I started looking and they sent me some properties in Umbria region specifically, because I really love Umbria because it's still the raw, authentic Italy. Like Tuscany is amazing. It's beautiful.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And I do spend most of my time now outside of Florence, but it's so touristy and it's, everybody knows about it that it it's just not as authentic in Umbria, like good luck finding an English speaker. And I like that. You know, it's like the authenticness of Italy and it's so beautiful. They call it the green heart of Italy because it's literally the center and it also gets a lot more rain.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So everything is so green and lush all the time. Whereas Tuscany gets very dry in the summertime, like Umbria stays very green. So it's stunning, really beautiful place.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yeah.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
It's not, like winters are not drastically winter. Like maybe it snows for like two days and then it melts.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And that doesn't happen every year.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
No, because it honestly like the climate of Italy, especially, you know, southern is even better. But like where I'm we are like central ish. It's the seasons are really nice. They're becoming shorter now because the whole world is getting warmer and summers are really hot sometimes. But I have to say, like I winter was very chill. Nothing crazy.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
There was like two weeks where it was like kind of cold. Did you buy a place there? Yes. So back to the story.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Back to the story. It's actually, uh, kind of a, it's a, it's a great story, but I'm going to share the honest part of it because I think everybody needs to know the, the goods and the bads of when you do something like this, because as Americans, we're so spoiled and the way that things are quite easy for us to do. Everything is hard.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Don't get me wrong, but like starting a business, anybody can start a business, buying a home. Like to get a loan and all these things, it's actually very easy compared to other countries.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And when you have this mindset of anything is possible, which is the mindset I had, and then I decided to be a single woman turning 30 and move to Italy on her own and try to buy a property and land and be a farmer, I got so humbled. Wow. So humbled because the way that we do things is the opposite of the way Italy does things.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So to build a business, to start a business, to do things right, to have tax write offs, like even as like I lost so much money because the original accountant that I got introduced to didn't tell me any of these things. So I had to unravel myself out of like,
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
For us, for instance, a small example, if you use your personal Amazon, but you use your business card for something, you can justify it for tax reasons or for stuff in America. Of course, you should open a business Amazon account. I'm not saying not to do that, but that's a small thing that I've never had to think about because it's easy for us to justify it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
It's a great story, but I'm going to share the honest part of it because I think everybody needs to know.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
In Italy, even though I'm the owner of the business, It was the business credit card and it was under my personal Amazon account. They take it as I stole money for my own personal buyings from Amazon, from the company. So I personally had to wire the money back to the company to justify the money when I never spent it.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yes.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
No, business card for business things. Business card for business things. So like I used my business card in Italy. But it was your Amazon personal card. Exactly. So it was like for farm stuff. It was like you can clearly see it was like stuff for the chickens and like- Random farm supplies. Like I would never use that.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
It's for it, but they literally, it doesn't matter because I use it on my own personal Amazon. They consider it that I stole money from the company. So I had to wire all the Amazon accounts, like whatever I spent on my Amazon back to my agriculture company to pay it back for the books of finance. Wow.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And I was like, this is a small example, but like, you just don't think about those things, you know? But anyway, so I'm going to tell you in short, like a little bit about this story. So I started looking at properties with my family and we were in Christmas and I stumbled upon this property, which blew my mind.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I, the energy, I'm very sensitive to energies of places and this energy of this place was magical. So I was like, I know this is it, but my logical mind was like, you can't buy the first place you look at Shana. You need to like look around a little bit. So I, my friends were coming for new year's and I remember the house, they they're not, they're foreigners as well.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So they said like, we also rent it for vacation rentals. One of the houses, cause it was two with two different owners. And so they, I decided like, Oh, can we rent it for, you know, new year's to like, so I can live in it and see what it's like. So they, we rented it for a week and And then during that week in meditation, I was like called to rent it for a month.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So I rented it for the whole month of February. And that allowed me for it to be the base, which I could go and look at other properties around the area to be sure this was the one I wanted to put an offer on. And in that time, in February, I also started asking questions because the olive grove, so it was only three hectares with the houses.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And then the olive groves used to be attached outside of the fence. So I was like, who owns the olive grove outside of the fence? And they were like, I don't know, let's find out. So they find out, I go to find out that all the land around it is also for sale.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And so this is when I was like, this has to be the place because this is like the farm dream and also the retreat dream. Like this was like the both tied together.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So then I inquired about buying the land outside. So it was a different transaction. And long story short, I moved into these houses. They let me move in before I bought it because the houses didn't pass the inspection. I was supposed to sign the houses in August 2022 when the euro was equal to the dollar.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Exactly. And it was very new, very fresh. And they were supposed to be done with the works that needed to be fixed by December 2022, which then turned into... June of 2020, or sorry, yeah, December of 2022, then turned into June 2023, which then found out more works that needed to be done, which turned into July 2024. So I was supposed to...
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
start the project to refurbish this house because it was really old and start hosting small gatherings so it could pay for it. So this was an investment property. It wasn't for me to like live in Gaelic around. And I made a mistake of starting to invest money into the farm and my garden and the chickens and all these things.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
And before, you know, I bought this house because I was like certain that this house was going to be purchased. But then three years of my life goes by and I realize like, oh my God, like a road was going to be erected. And then they were like, like there was so many discrepancies of this property that were on, not that they didn't tell me. And I don't think that the owners are like bad people.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
I just think that they didn't have their paperwork in order. And to, in order to sell a house in Italy, unless it's like really written that you, you know, everything is whatever, like, transparent, you cannot sell something. So the commune is crazy. They check every single detail of every little thing of the house to protect me as a buyer.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
But long story short, I was just like draining money without being able to make money. And so after this road got erected and all these things, and I realized the value that I paid was just not the value that I should have.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So I also got taken advantage by the real estate agent and the owners because I didn't know I was an American thinking like, wow, this is so cheap compared to what I'm used to in Los Angeles. and I didn't do enough research and really got fucked over.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
So then I decided to back.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yes.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
You don't need a special visa. You actually can get a special visa if you own land there.
The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
161. Shayna Taylor: Healing Chronic Anxiety and Gut Inflammation by Returning to Nature
Yes, exactly. I have a self-employment visa because I also have a company there, the agriculture company. Yeah. So in the end, in the, in the meantime, I bought the land all around it, which is where my olive oil comes from.