Episode 1666: Interview with Maria Garcia About Resilient Recovery After a Stroke

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining us on episode 1,666 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast

Maria Garcia: I'm Maria Garcia. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence, and impact the world by using your time, your talents, and your tre- your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to recognize that illness isn't random is key, and one of the ways to get inspired to do that is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

I would say, um, you can rebuild even though it looks like that might not be possible. You can rebuild. Just get back up one more time than you fall, and it doesn't [00:01:00] matter how long it takes you. It took me about three or four years before I stopped saying, "Why me?" Right?

Scott Maderer: Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's podcast episode, I interview Maria Garcia. I ask Maria about her recovery from a devastating stroke. Maria also shares how that event changed her life, but helped her discover a calling. And I also ask Maria about her book, Breaking Into The Light: A Journey of Self-Discovery [00:02:00] and Transformation.

I have a great book that's been out for a while now called Inspired Living: Assemble the Puzzle of Your Calling by Mastering Your Time, Your Talent, and Your Treasures. You can find out more about that book over at inspiredlivingbook.com. It'll take you to a page where there's information, and you can sign up to get some mailings about it, as well as purchase a copy there.

I'd love to see you get a copy and share with me how it impacted your world. Maria Garcia is a powerful example of resilience and self-discovery. After earning double majors in finance and international business she initially made her mark in the corporate world, but her path took an unexpected turn when a massive stroke altered her life forever.

Through sheer determination and a long, challenging recovery, Maria emerged stronger with a deeper sense of purpose Maria channeled her transformative journey into her memoir, Breaking Into the [00:03:00] Light: A Journey of Self-Discovery and Transformation, sharing her journey and the lessons she learned along the way.

Almost a decade after the book's release, she discovered a groundbreaking nutritional methodology which played a pivotal role in her continued recovery and personal transformation. Today, Maria is a passionate coach committed to helping others navigate their own journeys of recovery and transformation.

She specializes in guiding individuals to reset their relationship with food, unlocking profound shifts in their overall life experience. Welcome to the show, Maria.

Maria Garcia: Thank you, Scott, for having me.

Scott Maderer: Absolutely. I look forward to our conversation today. A- as we kinda dive into the beginning of the interview too folks just heard you talk, and your voice obviously sounds a little different, a little raspy.

So as you launch into your story, talk to us a little bit about, you know, what's going on. Do you, do you have, do you have a cold or, [00:04:00] or is this something else as part of your journey?

Maria Garcia: As I like to say, this is my sexy voice. And the reason it's so sexy is because, and I'll get into the story, when I was 25 years old, I thought I had food poisoning.

So I ended up at the hospital thinking, "Okay, this'll just be a day or two days." And what turns out was a very different outcome. Somebody finally walked over to me after numerous tests and says to me, "Miss, we think you're having a stroke."

Scott Maderer: Fo- wait, food poisoning to stroke? That's... What was the symptoms that made you think it was food poisoning

Maria Garcia: but it was a stroke?

I just ne- I had never, I didn't know what a stroke was. I had never heard of a str- like, I had never even heard the word. I thought food poi- And you were in your 20s. Yeah, 25. Yeah.

Scott Maderer: Yeah, so not that... Yeah not something a [00:05:00] 25-year-old thinks of as their first choice, yeah. Not at

Maria Garcia: all.

Scott Maderer: Yeah.

Maria Garcia: Not at all. And then on top of it, I'd eaten shrimp that day a few hours earlier, so.

Well, that'll do it.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. So they thought you were having a, a, a stroke. What... Tell me more. What, what happened?

Maria Garcia: Well, they had to run a few tests. They didn't even know for sure what was going on, but they ran the tests. I guess some were CAT scans, some were MRIs, I'm not even sure. And they noticed, um, something was wrong in the brain.

And then they weren't sure if it was a clot or, uh, an aneurysm.

So

they just transferred me to a different hospital. And wow, at that second hospital, after a few hours, I actually thought I was okay because my thinking had cleared a bit. And I, I felt like I was getting better. But meanwhile, what I didn't notice is [00:06:00] that I was slowly losing mobility, and my ability to speak was totally gone.

I became a mute.

Scott Maderer: So at 25, you're having a stroke. You felt okay, but you ended up losing your ability to speak and a large part of your mobility.

Maria Garcia: Yeah. And I felt okay after a few hours, not at the beginning. At the beginning, I felt like I had the worst headache ever. I felt like somebody had hit me over the head with a cast iron pan.

And I

Scott Maderer: had

Maria Garcia: extreme vertigo.

Scott Maderer: Go back in time before this. So you're, you're a young adult. What were your dreams? What were you thinking your life was gonna be like, uh, before this?

Maria Garcia: I was climbing up the corporate ladder. I had just started working at a new company like six months prior, and I'd just taken my Series 7 exam, [00:07:00] and that was to become a stockbroker.

Mm-hmm.

And

I had done super well on it. I was excited.

Scott Maderer: And then after, a- as your- And right after

Maria Garcia: I took it, right after I took it, bam. Life's not all right.

Scott Maderer: And what, what happened with the, after the stroke? What was the experience after that? I mean, I've... I, I'm assuming it's not like, oh, you suddenly started feeling better and everything went away and everything's back to normal.

Maria Garcia: No, not at all. Not at all. That's what I thought it was gonna be like, because I had zero reference for a stroke. So I thought, "You know what? When I leave the hospital, I'm gonna be totally patched up, and I'm just gonna resume life as it was."

Boy, oh boy, I couldn't have been any more wrong, right?

Scott Maderer: So what was the journey like as you left the hospital?

Maria Garcia: Oof. I was at the hospital, at the two hospitals, for four months [00:08:00] total. The first hospital, I didn't even move. I was just stuck between four walls. I had family there with me all the time. My family was actually so amazing, because they created shifts so somebody would be with me 24 hours a day, and I credit that with the reason I even recovered.

Because one night I almost died. I would've died if my mother had not been there. And just their love is what made me, I wouldn't say have hope- But they were keeping the hope alive that I didn't have.

Scott Maderer: Now I, I talk as a coach sometimes about what I call borrowed hope, which is when you're in a situ- Yes

when you're so dark that you don't have any hope of your own, but if the people around you have hope, sometimes you can just borrow that hope for a little while. Yeah, that's good. Sounds like you were experiencing that. [00:09:00] What, uh how did this experience affect your faith journey and your faith experiences as well?

Maria Garcia: Well, I've always been a Catholic by name, Catholic by birth, but I was never very religious. I got to the age where I would go to church, and then one Sunday my mother looks at me and says, "Aren't you going to church?" And I just stopped and said, "Are you going? Are you going? Why don't you go?" And that's when I stopped going, so I haven't, I haven't been always very religious.

However, when this happened, I became very spiritual.

Very spiritual. Not in the religious going to church kind- Mm-hmm ... of sense, but more like meditation and-

Scott Maderer: Mm-hmm ... just

Maria Garcia: having a relationship with a divine.

Scott Maderer: Hmm. [00:10:00] Do you feel like, you know, 'cause I, a lot of times when people go through a rough experience, there's almost two kind of reactions.

One is to be angry and push away, and the other is to kind of lean into the spiritual connection, and it sounds like you leaned into it a little bit. Why do you think that was your reaction?

Maria Garcia: Well, to be honest, I actually did a little bit of both.

Scott Maderer: Okay.

Maria Garcia: At first it was very, um, "Why me? Why me? Why me?"

And I was totally upset and I thought I had been forsaken.

Mm-hmm. And

then eventually I got to the point when I began to see the light and to see that there was life beyond this situation. Yeah. Then I started to become spiritual and realizing that, wow, it's a miracle that I'm even here. Yeah. It's a miracle that I can walk.

It's a miracle that I can talk.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. I was gonna talk a little bit about that too. You, you mentioned, you know, basically [00:11:00] going mute and having a lot of mobility issues. Now, you know, obviously you're not 25 anymore. You're like 27 now, right? So-

Maria Garcia: Oh. ...

Scott Maderer: uh, I, hey, I, you know, I've been married a long time. I know better than to guess-

a woman's age. Yeah. What was the journey like? How long was the... I, and I don't even wanna call it recovery, but how long was the, from the beginning symptoms and, and getting out of the hospital to, you know, how was it learning to move again and learning to talk again and, and all of that? What was that journey like?

Maria Garcia: So just to frame it all without really getting into it very deeply because it's a very, very, very long journey.

Mm-hmm. But,

um, I was paralyzed basically from the neck down and mute. That was my state, you know, for a while. So much so that doctors thought I was in a vegetative coma when I could actually [00:12:00] hear and understand everything, and they didn't even realize that I was there.

But you just could react

Scott Maderer: to show them that you were... Yeah.

Maria Garcia: Yeah, and it was such, oh my God, desperation does not begin to explain what that was like for me. That, wow, that was a very insane time period in my life. Then when I finally got out of that second hospital, so this is four months later, I went home in diapers, in a wheelchair, cross-eyed, couldn't walk,

couldn't barely move my left side,

couldn't really feed myself, didn't know how to hand write. I spoke maybe two words at a time or two syllables.

So it was a process basically of going through a second [00:13:00] childhood.

Mm-hmm. But

this time with the awareness of all I had lost. You know? And it took me, I don't know, the better part of 10 years to get to 70% recovered, and only because all I did was focus on recovering, getting better, looking up therapies, doing alternative therapies, researching treatments, and I did all kinds of things.

I did stem cell injections. I went to Germany for therapy for, like, six weeks. I did Feldenkrais method. I did hyperbaric oxygen therapy. I did chelation therapy, which are so many things. It was, like, nonstop for probably... It was actually for eight years that I was doing the therapies, eight to 10. And when I got to year 10, I was [00:14:00] like, " wait a second.

I feel like I have not recovered in two years at all. I've not made any progress at all. Maybe I'm done recovering. Maybe this is it. Maybe my life is gonna be at this level." And by that point, don't get me wrong, I was pretty happy with where I was, but I was maybe 70% of what I had been.

Scott Maderer: What was the first moment as you were going through all of this when you started thinking to yourself, uh, you know, m- I, maybe I could rebuild from here?

You, you don't, you don't keep working at it for 10 years without some belief that things can get better. So what was that moment that something clicked for you?

Maria Garcia: So I think the first moment when I, when I first started to glimpse hope, and not just borrow hope [00:15:00] like we were talking about, was I began to go to a gym.

This is when I could finally walk unaided. And there was a yoga class, and I thought to myself, "All right. I can do yoga. They'll modify it for me, whatever I can't do, and it's gonna be nice and light and easy." So I went to yoga thinking I could finally do some exercise, but then it turned out to be such a powerful mental thing for me.

Mm. It was m-

it was such a... That finally I, I started to see the silver lining. It was, but it was only during yoga. It was like the black cloud began to dissipate. And I thought, "Maybe I can do something with my life."

Scott Maderer: So talk now, what, what do you do now? How has, how has this journey affected what you do now and what you s- how you [00:16:00] serve other people with your perspective and your journey and, and how, how is that showing up in what you do?

Maria Garcia: Yeah, I love that question, and I love answering that question. About 10 years after the stroke, I'd said I stopped doing all those things, 'cause I was like, "I'm tired. I don't wanna do anything else. I'm not getting any better, so I'm just gonna live," right? I went back to school. I began working with a friend just to get out of the house.

And

then it wasn't until 15 years after the stroke that I saw an ad for a nutrition course, and I was like, " that sounds interesting," because I had already been playing with my diet as well during all that recovery period. I'd gone from macrobiotic, vegetarian, pesca- I did all of the things,

right?

So I was naturally just interested. [00:17:00] And I thought to myself, "I will learn something new about a topic I already enjoy." So I enrolled in the course, not thinking anything more, and then within six months of the, from the beginning of the course, I ended up recovering another 20%, 15 years after stroke, and I got my life back.

I literally got my life back. Finally, what I had been looking for for over a decade, I finally had And that was such a powerful experience for me that I decided to enroll to become a coach. But not because I wanted to coach anybody, because I was so blown away by what I had experienced that I needed to know what's, what the hell happened.

Well, pardon my, uh, French. I needed to know what happened [00:18:00] to me Mm-hmm ... what it was about, because to me it was total sorcery. So during the certification we had to have, um, pilot class. I gathered a few people, had my pilot class, almost had a breakdown, by the way, '

cause- ... I'd done

nothing of coaching and being on Zoom and talking to people and stuff, to me that was very, um, foreign So I did it, but I did it, and the class was so eye-opening because people in my class, they were having their own miracles.

It was different than my miracle, but nevertheless a miracle. People stopped using CPAP machines. I had a woman who was 86, I believe, she stopped injecting insulin for type II [00:19:00] diabetes that she had been using for 10 years Her macular degeneration didn't progress as quickly. And just all these miracles, people losing over 40 pounds in three months without ever being hungry, without having loose skins or any of that, and just miraculous stuff.

And I was like, "Okay, and now I'm hooked. Now I understand why I suffered the way I did-" for as long as I did

Scott Maderer: When you think too about some of the shifts there, 'cause y- yeah, there's the physical shift of diet, but there's also mental shifts. So like you were talking earlier about the yoga class, how it was, it wasn't so much the yoga as it was how it shifted your mindset.

Talk a little bit about [00:20:00] that part of it, how changing your perspective affected your journey, and how you, how you see it now as a coach when you're working with others affecting their journey when they're, when they're dealing with, with issues like this

Maria Garcia: Well, I believe it's a bit of a hamster wheel, but not a bad hamster wheel, a good hamster wheel.

So- You change your perspective, you start eating better. Eating better shifts your perspective more. So it all began with me thinking, "Oh, my life is over," to me thinking, "Maybe I could live a different type of life." And that's when I did all the things, and much later discovered nutrition, and that shifted my mindset even more.

And I really say I like it because I've, I've seen people [00:21:00] that were depressed for 10, 15 years on medication, they were able to get off the medication.

Yeah. And people, I've heard of people with schizophrenia getting better through diet, people with bipolar disorder improving their mental health.

Scott Maderer: One of the things too that I, I I talk about it as a feedback loop between our, our belief, action, perspective, action. You know, you, if you act a certain way, it begins to change your perspective, which then allows you to act, which then changes your perspective, or if you change your perspective, well, then that allows you to act, which then changes...

No matter where you start, they feed back to each other. Yeah. And, and I think diet, exercise, what I call keystone habits, you know, all of these things that we can do. Like I've had a... I work with people in money, and I've had people come back after work- I'm working with them money and they're, they're like, " I'm losing [00:22:00] weight.

Why am I losing weight? You know, you're not a health coach." Yeah. And I'm like, "Well, because you're getting more active and more disciplined in one area of your life, it naturally reflects other areas of your life." Seen the thing- Yes ... same thing happen with diet. People start paying attention to their health, and all of a sudden their money's better off, and they're like, "But these aren't connected."

It's like, "Yes, they

Maria Garcia: are." Yeah. Every, everything is connected. Everything.

Scott Maderer: Yeah.

Maria Garcia: Yeah.

Scott Maderer: So maybe somebody out there right now is hearing your story and, you know, going through their own diagnosis, their own challenge right now. Maybe they're at the beginning of that journey. What are some of the things or, or what can you share with somebody right now that, that, uh, might help them in this moment?

Maria Garcia: I would say, um, you can rebuild even though it looks like that might not be possible. You can rebuild. Just get back up one more [00:23:00] time than you fall, and it doesn't matter how long it take you. It took me about three or four years before I stopped saying, "Why me?"

So just to know that even though the outcome looks terrible, looks bleak, there's no hope, one day will come when things- Look differently.

And I would say something that I wish I had known 15 years before I suffered all, like if I had, if I had known what I know now when I first suffered the stroke, I could have healed much more rapidly and probably to better degree. I probably wouldn't have this sexy voice that I'm coming to you with.

Well,

Scott Maderer: that would be a horrible thing.

Maria Garcia: It would be horrible,

Scott Maderer: right? You've used that as your entire tagline. The, [00:24:00] so that, that, uh that's actually a, an interesting thing to ask a- and 'cause I've asked this of other folks that have gone through, and and myself, I've gone through some, some pretty big challenges in my life, and people have asked me.

You know, looking back on it, there's always a part where we look at it and go, "Oh, man, I wish I knew then what I know now." But there's also a part where it's like, yeah, but would I know what I know now if I hadn't gone through what I went through? Yes. So how do you, how do you reconcile that in your heart and your mind?

That, that, you know, difference between regret and yet also not regret, you know? Or, or, or feeling that and not feeling that.

Maria Garcia: I'll say this. I wouldn't live what I went through again for nothing, but I wouldn't take it back.

I'll say it like that. Mm-hmm. And although I say that I [00:25:00] wish I'd known what I know now before yes, in a way, but n- that would negate my whole life experience.

So I would, I don't need to do that. No. It's not actually a regrets.

Scott Maderer: You can enjoy where you're at, but that doesn't necessarily mean you wanna repeat the experience. Exactly. Exactly. A- well, and as I tell people, there's two ways to learn from mistakes. One is to learn from your own, the other is to learn from other people's.

Smart people learn from their ma- their own mistakes. Really smart people learn from other people's mistakes. Unfortunately, I'm smart. I'm not really smart, so I just make 'em all myself. Me too. Yeah.

Maria Garcia: Me too. I'm only smart. I'm only smart. Right. I'm only

Scott Maderer: smart. I'm not really smart. So I've got a few questions that I like to ask all of my guests, but before I ask you those, uh, is there anything else about your journey, your experience, um, y- you know, the [00:26:00] book you wrote- written, Breaking Into the Light, that you'd like to share with the listener?

Maria Garcia: So thinking back, I would say the biggest lesson I learned was that what we eat determines how our body functions. And that was, and it sounds like something that- We all know because we say we are what you eat, and blah, blah, blah. But that's like a platitude. Everybody says it and nobody has any clue just how deeply accurate that is.

Scott Maderer: Absolutely. So my brand is Inspired Stewardship, and I kind of run things through that lens of stewardship, and yet I've discovered over the years that that's one of those words that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So when you hear the word stewardship, what does that word mean to you?

Maria Garcia: So according to Merriam-Webster, the definition is the careful and responsible management of [00:27:00] something entrusted to one's care.

And I feel like I've been given stewardship over this extremely powerful but very little explored vehicle or set of knowledge that is centered around diet, right? And I wanna share with others that don't want to suffer the way I did.

Scott Maderer: So this is my favorite question that I like to ask everybody. Uh, imagine for a moment that I could invent this magic machine, and with this machine, I was able to take you from where you are today and transport you into the future maybe 150, maybe 250 years. And through the power of this machine, you were able to look back and see your entire life, see all of the connections, see all of the ripples, see all of the impacts you've left.

What impact do you hope you've had in the world?

Maria Garcia: Ooh, that's a deep question. [00:28:00] I would say, uh, I would like people to reach a place where they can reconnect with their true selves and their bodies more, but through the healing power of a proper diet because it's, it's bec- it's because of diet, and it's gonna sound hard to believe, but it's because of diet that I feel like I, I'm more myself.

I'm more authentic. I'm more me. So what's on the roadmap? What's coming next for you as you continue on your journey?

I would say that, uh, the next logical step for me is probably stages, so I can reach a wider audience.

Scott Maderer: Through some speaking?

Maria Garcia: Yes.

Scott Maderer: And you can find out more about Maria Garcia over at [00:29:00] genuinelymaria.com.

Of course, I'll have a link to that over in the show notes as well. Maria, what else would you like to share with the listener?

Maria Garcia: Pretty much I want to say what I have been saying, but in different words. No matter what you're going through, anything, it could be physical, it could be mental, what you eat can have a very significant impact on the way that goes forward.

Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode please do us a favor. Go over to [00:30:00] inspiredstewardship.com/itunesrate, all one word, itunesrate.

It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed. Until next time, invest your time, your talent, and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the

world.