Hello Joy-seekers, meet Johann Bretz!
Johann lives in Germany, is an engineer, and loves traveling. His favorite place is New Zealand! He has been pursuing his passion as a holistic health personal coach, which covers physical, mental, and spiritual health. Johann's goal in this meaningful work is to help others access their true potential so they can have more energy, joy, meaning, and purpose…to be limitless and thrive!
We connected last April on Instagram. Our philosophies about life and spirituality are actually very similar and I really appreciate the way Johann makes that holistic connection to physical health that has a direct impact on mental and spiritual health.
He also covers topics such as time management, gut health and how that impacts everything else, having a routine and sticking to it, prioritizing a good night’s sleep, managing overthinking, managing anxieties and fears, understanding self-doubt, practicing gratitude for what you do have and what you can control, finding more peace, and embracing your feelings and emotions without judgment.
In our conversation, we chatted about joy, healthy eating habits, the gut-brain connection, vulnerability, self-worth, the power of our thoughts, being in the present moment, and human connection. I am including Johann's responses to a few of my questions below:
What does joy mean to you based on your own life experiences?
I actually just read something that compared joy to happiness. Both terms are used kind of interchangeably. I would make a distinction because for me, joy is more like something that I can choose to have or cultivate, whereas happiness is something that I experience and get to have. Joy is something permanent and in our control. Happiness therefore always depends on or is triggered by outside circumstances and can be really awesome, ecstatic, amazing and a huge rush of dopamine. It can be very fleeting though and leave us as soon as it arrives. Whereas joy is not as exuberant, but more like a silent ember. It is like a small flame burning, but it keeps burning. Joy is more like a state of mind as is peace or love, where you choose to feel those emotions instead of being at the whim of someone or something else. It's much more stable and can get us through even the most difficult moments.
You have provided a lot of in-depth information about how chronic pain and illnesses are often connected to what we are feeding ourselves. You even mention poor gut health linked to mental health issues. Can you please walk us through a few top tips on how to improve nutrition and wellness that can help manage and even sometimes eliminate these issues?
It is just so fascinating because we have more living organisms inside our gut than we have human cells in our body! The interesting part is that we have a gut-brain connection. We do have neurons in the gut and we actually have more connections that go up from the gut to the brain rather than down from the brain to the gut. So whatever happens in our gut has a huge influence on our brain.
Each of us has a unique metabolic fingerprint that is constantly changing. There is not one single diet that is perfect for every human. Fermented foods are supposed to be really good for our gut microbiome, so start adding slowly if you are not used to them (one or two servings in the beginning)...sauerkraut, miso, natto, tempeh, or kombucha. These are supposed to be really helpful for our immune system, which is also mostly located in our gut.
The number one tip for all things nutrition is to eat real foods. Anything that you could get before we started to industrialize food production is a huge improvement compared to all those highly-popular ultra-processed foods and sugar-sweetened drinks. If you can do that, you are already a big step ahead!
Then it comes down to more problematic and inflammatory foods versus less inflammatory ones. Generally, the better the quality, the less inflammatory or harmful—meaning organic fruits and vegetables that have not been exposed to toxins like pesticides and herbicides, as well as meat from animals that were raised in a natural environment on their traditional foods (so grass-fed cows instead of grains or corn). Dairy also works for some people at least when it comes from grass-fed cows, sheep, or goats and raw dairy products like cheeses or yogurt have tons of nutrients that are beneficial for us.
Gluten is a problem for a lot of people even if they do not have celiac disease, as are other lectins (plant proteins that attack our gut wall and can destroy, leading to leaky gut which is connected to a lot of diseases). The phrase, "All disease begins in the gut," from Hippocrates is quite true.
If you have some serious issues and do not really know what causes them, I would always recommend an elimination diet, which excludes all potential trigger foods like grains, dairy, alcohol, sugar, coffee, and even eggs, for at least two weeks. Then once you have noticed significant improvement, slowly reintroduce those foods one-by-one for two to three days so you can see how your body reacts to them.
You have been very vulnerable about your own struggles that are connected to self-worth. How has being more vulnerable and sharing your truths with others transformed your own life? What has that felt like for you?
To be honest, it was pretty scary at first, and I was new to social media, especially Instagram when I started posting. I was bullied at every stage of my life basically, and I never really had the confidence or self-esteem to stand up to that or to just not be affected by it. So, when I put a post out that I am a coach now and would start taking on people as clients, I knew the mocking messages would follow quickly and it did. It hurt at first and I felt down and ashamed, but then I realized that it actually did not matter what those people thought of me. Who are they to make fun of me for being who I am?
The only thing that matters is what we think about ourselves when we are by ourselves. At some point, it finally clicked for me, well if somebody else does not like me, so what? As long as I like me. Instead of always trying to please everybody else and be like someone I am not and then feel like I am betraying my own values. So even though it was scary, if felt right and it was actually pretty liberating to throw off those shackles I had let others put on me for so long.
I am so thrilled to share our conversation with you all and I hope it keeps you encouraged on your own journey to seek joy and live a more holistic life.
You can follow Johann on Instagram, @johannbretz!
And as a special offer for checking out this blog post and listening to the podcast, Johann would like to offer a free discovery call to explore your current health status, find out what is keeping you from achieving your health goals and figure out some ways to overcome those hurdles.
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