The Butterfly Who Changed Everything (With Fun And Ease!). Francine Juhlin & Samia Bano

We clean our homes, organize our closets, and clear physical clutter — but what about the mess we're carrying in our minds and #emotions?

Francine spent years blaming her job, her circumstances, her family, and other people for how unhappy she felt. Then she realized something uncomfortable but liberating: she was the one who had to #change. In this episode, we explore what happens when we #stopblaming, #takeresponsibility for our inner world, and begin changing the patterns that keep us stuck.

Listen now to this interview with Francine Juhlin, Warrior Princess of Personal Change and #author of "The Butterfly Who Changed Everything", to learn practical keys, tips and tools for transforming yourself from #caterpillartobutterfly -- with fun and ease!

Check out Francine's newest book,

The Butterfly Who Changed Everything: A Journey of Self Discovery at: https://a.co/d/08WfDHJV

Learn even more and connect with Francine at:

https://www.facebook.com/PersonalChangeWarriors

https://personalchangewarriors.com/

To Book your Free HAPPINESS 101 EXPLORATION CALL with Samia, click: https://calendar.app.google/fT19wX8hhiqgSEwx8

#PersonalChange #PersonalDevelopment #SelfHealing #InnerHealing #MeditationPractice #HolisticHealth #MindsetShift #HealingJourney #SelfLoveJourney #EmotionalHealing #RootCauseHealing #PersonalGrowth #TransformYourLife #HappinessJourney #FindingHappiness #MindfulLiving #Mindfulness #GuidedMeditation #MeditationForBeginners #SpiritualGrowth #SelfDiscovery #PositiveChange #OvercomingLimitingBeliefs #PeoplePleasing #TheButterflyWhoChangedEverything

Here's the audio version of this episode:

Transcript Automatically Generated

Hello, Salaam, Shalom, Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Aloha, Holah, Ciao, Bonjour, Buna, Privet, Mabuhay, and Dzień Dobry. I'm so happy to be with you all again, and I know you'll be so happy you've joined me because we have a very cool guest, and she's actually a returning guest, and that's Francine, who's the Warrior Princess of Personal Change. I love that so much. Welcome back, Francine…

Thank you for having me back. Wow, because we have a lot to talk about since we talked last.

I know, I know. Talking about the last time we spoke, we were, I think, mostly focusing on the first book you had written at that time, which was How to Start Your Own personal change journey. And since then, so much more has happened. Tell me, but just for people who might have missed the first episode, can you give us a quick recap of the main themes of the book?

Yes. The 6-step process of personal change was born out of my own personal change. I was 100 pounds overweight. I walked with a limp. I was taking a whole gallon Ziploc bag full of medication. My liver was shutting down and I knew I couldn't live that way anymore. But I really, I didn't know what to do because my whole life I always thought if I could just lose 20 pounds, everything in life will be perfect. And then as I started losing weight and I lost that first 20, well, things aren't perfect yet. Then I lost another 20, things aren't perfect yet. I lost 100 pounds and I still wasn't happy. I developed the 6-step process of personal change. I had to dig down to that root cause of what was keeping me from finding my happiness. Yeah, because I was just putting Band-Aids on it rather than healing the wound.

Yes. Oh, you know, you just made me think about somebody I've been working with recently, and this person is dealing with some significant health challenges, which is impacting their happiness. I'm a happiness expert. I work with people on their happiness. And what I noticed, like, it was so obvious for me to see, but it took us a while To get there with with them to see that you know like what he had been doing was basically the same kind of dynamic of like first he set himself one goal of okay I have to get this treatment and then I will feel better and then he actually got that treatment and then he still wasn't feeling better or not better enough and so then he set another goal of okay then he's chasing after the next thing that that was supposed to make him feel better and, you know, so forth. And then that thing happened and then he didn't even, like, he had to go through this like long process with the doctors and stuff to get approval to get that particular treatment. But when the approval finally came, again, it was like, oh my gosh, it was like just again, lack of happiness.

Anticlimactic is the term.

Anticlimactic. And then it was just like he was on to the next thing. It's like, what am I still missing? What's wrong? Why am I not still feeling better? And so I was like, you know, it's actually maybe the whole focus is sort of wrong in terms of if happiness is what we're looking for, it's already in here.

Yes, yes, yes, you just have to change the way you think about it.

Yes, yes, oh my gosh, so tell me about some of the… Because you have been experiencing so many changes even since then, and you now have a wonderful new book, so tell me more about what's been going on.

Well, that first book was very clinical. It was very academic. It was boring. And I just… I really didn't feel like an author. I'm like, yeah, I wrote the book, but I still had a lot of imposter syndrome. And I was still on that journey. I was still going through that change. So even though I had written the book about it, I was still going through it myself. Yeah.

And I was deep into learning meditation. A friend of mine, and this was most of this happened during COVID And I worked every day. I went into the office every day during the pandemic. because I worked for the Navy and we had to be there. So I wasn't… After work, I didn't want to go out in public like everybody else was screaming to go out in public because they'd been in the house. Well, I spent all my time out in the public. I just wanted to retreat to the home. So my friend invited me to this live meditation. I'm like, well, okay, COVID's over. I really need to get out. I am going to go see this. And I had done some group meditations on Zoom, but I've never felt that experience of doing it in a group. Yeah. And that was mind-blowing. And I want to say I probably would have discovered this had I been sitting here in my office doing it. But I think it was being in this having the energy of everybody right there in the same room. But we went to another planet in this meditation. And I met this creature who gave me a mission. And my mission was to help children understand that it's not what's on the outside, it's what's on the inside that matters. And that they need to have more confidence. And that when we reach the children, the parents will come along.

And when I tell the story, I usually use funny voices and all that. But I need to introduce myself and why I do that first. Yeah. This is Sparkle Feathers. Aww.

He is the creature I met during this meditation. And he told me I needed to make my message more fun. I told you that first book was boring. So I took that first book with the help of Sparkle Feathers, and I turned it into a fairy tale. So it is personal development set in a fairy tale, and people are identifying with these characters. They're seeing themselves in these characters rather than me just saying, this is what you should do. They're seeing these characters come to life and doing it.

Yeah. Oh, I love that. You know, storytelling is such a profound way of sharing life wisdom. It's, I mean, how humans have done it forever, you know. It's like passed down stories about our lives and lessons we learned, and that's how we learned. honestly. And it's like so much easier to remember the stories. And also the remarkable thing is like, you know, there is so much, like you grow with them, you know, in the sense that like you hear a story as a child, you take a certain meaning and certain lesson out of it. But as you grow older, you understand more things. You come back to those same stories and you find even more lessons, even deeper lessons, you know?

And that's what this is. This is that book I just told you about. Yeah. And I was with the wrong publisher first. I broke up with that publisher, took a year to get my intellectual property back. And then when I did, I rewrote the book and I made it bigger. I made it better because I never stopped evolving. Yeah.

While I couldn't promote my book. So I took all my new lessons and everything I learned from the people I've helped and everything I've learned growing myself. And this is it. The butterfly. The first one was the butterfly that changed everything. And the butterfly was more of a thing in the book. But the butterfly who changed everything… We all are the butterfly.

Because that caterpillar is us when we figure out we're uncomfortable. Then we go into our cocoon and figure out what's making us uncomfortable. And then when we figure out the root cause of what's making us uncomfortable, we break out of that cocoon and then we are the butterfly.

Yeah. Oh gosh. Yeah. So tell me more about what you've discovered about what makes… Like, what was, like, for this butterfly, what was making her uncomfortable and how did she break through?

My butterfly was uncomfortable. Well, my caterpillar. I told you all of those symptoms when we first started talking, the weight, the limp, the full body rash, my liver was shutting down. That was all symptoms. And it took a lot of work to figure out the root cause. When I was right around 8 years old, my aunt told me, you'd be such a pretty girl if you just lost some weight. So now my whole identity is now tied to my waist. I'm not pretty. I'm not worthy. And that turned me into a people pleaser, which caused a whole mass array of other issues and problems. Yeah.

And I had to figure out what that root cause was to be able to fix everything else. Yeah, there's so many variations of this story, you know, like for each of us. Like for you, someone attached for you, your sense of worthiness. to the shape and size of your body. For me, you know, it was something different. Like, for me, let's see. I mean, there were so many things. Right.

But I think for me, one of the core things that kept me small was just Like feeling very scared of well, I was scared for my safety because I'm a survivor of child sexual abuse. But I'm trying to like but you know like behind the fear of safety there was also like this. Low self-esteem around like, I felt unclean and dirty and dark. And so I felt like no one could love me. Like, at least, like, I was like, I had… I felt like, for a long, long time, I didn't tell anyone about what I had gone through because I was so scared that if they found out how not good I was and how dirty I was and all that, then they wouldn't be able to love me. And so I had this like, on the one hand, like desperate need to feel loved and to be loved. But at the same time, I was like super scared of actually allowing myself to open up in ways that you need to open up to be loved, you know. And so it was like a very strange, not very strange, but, you know, it was like one of those things that happens in life where you end up in these, like, you want something, but you end up behaving in a way that actually takes you away from being able to get what you really, really want.

Right. When growing up, even when popular kids tried to include me, I always thought it had to be a trick. Yeah, because how could they want me to be with them when I didn't even like myself? Yes, yes, exactly, exactly. That's the thing. It's like, if you like, that was exactly my thing. It's like, I was like, I don't even love myself. Like, I know how bad I am. And I don't love myself. How can anyone else? And I remember like so many different instances where this came up again and again. There was like this one time when one of my cousins gave me this birthday card. It was a very cheerful, happy birthday card, and it said something like, you're my sunshine, you bring light into my life. And I was like, what a lie. And I was like, no, I'm not light, I don't bring sunshine, I'm not no sunshine, you know, because I felt so dark. So I literally thought like my cousin must have, you know, like that, that she was lying, that it was not a sincere. Oh yeah, it's your expression, you know.

Yeah, yeah. Like even now sometimes somebody will call me pretty. I'm like, no, I've accepted the fact I'm funny looking and I embrace that. What do you mean I'm pretty?

Yeah, and it's just, so how did the like, how does the butterfly… I mean, or rather the caterpillar, like begin to sort of grapple with all this? And because it's like, if you can't even believe in your own worthiness and your own… How lovable you are and stuff, then how do you begin to even come out of that? Well, the first step is to figure out why you feel that way. All I knew was I wasn't happy. I didn't, I blamed everything else. Oh, it was the people I worked with. It was my job. It was, you know, where I lived. It was money problems. It was everybody else's fault that I felt that way. But I had to stop blaming and start accepting that I was the only one keeping me there.

Yeah. And why did you have to stop blaming? Like, why? Why couldn't you keep blaming people and find your way to happiness? You get what you give. Whatever you put out into the world, you get more of that back. So when I was blaming everybody else for the way I felt, I got more of those feelings back to me. But when I discovered that all I have to do is change the way I think about it, then I start getting good thoughts to me. And that's when everybody started noticing my attitude change. That's when every… That's when the weight started coming off, really. without even trying because I just changed the way I thought of the whole world around me. And I no longer wanted those unhealthy habits that got me there, which made me happier, made me feel better, made me an easier person to be around. And then when I was an easier person to be around, everybody around me was easier for me to be around.

Yes, that's definitely a very, very true thing. Gosh, you just made me think about, about people I've worked with, but also myself. Like when I was younger and I was in my traumatized state, I was like pretty difficult to be around. You just made me think about Back when I was in school, I had literally like zero friends because, I mean, I remember there was… First of all, you know, like, if you're a difficult personality, other kids… I mean, you know, you're in school, there's so many other options of kids that you can go and make friends with, right? So no one generally will spend much time and energy trying to figure you out and being patient with you and make friends with you. Like, you know, there was like maybe one person, one kid, one girl who Was I mean, I swear to this day she's one of the kindest people. Like when I think of kind people, because she was like my age and and she I don't know why, but I think it was just that she was such a kind person. She like made these consistent gestures too. Include me, to be kind to me. And we still didn't end up becoming friends in the sense of like I could not open up and respond to her in ways that would have allowed our friendship to really blossom or even happen. But You know, I always really appreciated and secretly loved her because, you know, like she was someone that I knew didn't hate me, that despite my very antisocial attitudes, you know, she was still consistently kind. And it's just, but she was an exception, you know. And I think the other exception in that context in my life is my little sister, because pretty much my little sister, even though I was a very difficult big sister to be around, my little sister always, I always felt loved by her, you know. She always kept coming back to me and like wanting, expressing wanting to be loved and trying to love me even though I, so on so many occasions, literally pushed her away.

Well, when you say antisocial behavior, that's your reptilian brain just trying to keep you safe because our brains are wired for survival and we form these habits to keep ourselves safe. So that was, that was your, your safety brain.

Yeah, undoubtedly, undoubtedly. Because like I was saying, like, safety was such a huge concern for me. I had huge trust issues, so that's why I couldn't open up and, you know, like, allow myself to really be in relationship with people, but like, even kids my own age. So it was definitely there. It was definitely me trying to keep myself safe, but nonetheless, it's like I had a good reason for what I was doing. But just because you have a good reason for your behavior doesn't mean that behavior is healthy or helpful or happiness-promoting for yourself, you know? And so that's part of like, it's the same thing like when you were talking about You had to stop blaming other people. It's like I think of it like that. It's like even though we may have great justifications and great, you know, reasons for why we are like blaming someone else, the fact of the matter is that it's just not helpful. It won't let you get to that place of peace and happiness and creating positive change in your life. It's just. Like a literal roadblock, right? Yeah. Stuck against.

For years and years and years, I blamed my dad for not paying child support the way he was supposed to pay it. Oh, come on, I'm 50 years… Well, I'm more than 50 now, but this, when I was going through this, I was in my 50s. I'm like, I'm in my 50s, I really need to stop. blaming Daddy, you know, that, that's what you call daddy issues to the max.

Yeah, so like for you, was it just that realization that the behavior of blaming others just was not working, was not helpful, that finally made you change?

I think I had to change a little bit to realize, oh, you know what, it's better. To change some more to realize it's a little better. And then when I got to the other side of it and looked back, I said, oh, now I get it.

Okay, okay. So that first little bit of change that helped you realize about needing to change more. Tell me a little bit more about that because how did that happen?

Well, it all… The whole beautiful process started because I knew I didn't like my job. And of course, at that time, I was blaming everyone else for the situation. And I was coming close to retirement and I needed to figure out what I wanted to do. My whole identity was tied up in being an aircraft electrician for the military. That's what I did for 33 years. And I loved that, but I couldn't do it anymore because I got old. And that mid, that interim job was what I hated. I know I don't want to do this. I have several college degrees. But I also recognize I don't like sitting behind a desk. I went to college to learn how to do a job sitting behind a desk, and then I realized, ooh, I don't like this. I'd liked my exciting life out on the aircraft carrier and working on airplanes and all of that. So here's the dilemma. I have years of college, lots of degrees, I can't do this anymore physically, don't want to do this because I don't like it. What am I going to do? Yeah.

So I started becoming an entrepreneur, but I had no clue. Even though I have a Master of Business Administration, I had no clue what kind of an entrepreneur I wanted to be, what I wanted to do. So I hired a business coach. I tried multi-level marketing, and I also hired a holistic health coach because I knew I needed to change, but I wasn't sure how to do it properly. And both of them, the business coach and the health coach, both told me I needed to meditate and I needed to get out from behind my desk at lunchtime. Stop studying, stop working, stop reading, and go for a walk. Yeah. Those 2 things, the meditation and the walking, and they kind of both kind of melded together. The meditation and walk… My walking became meditation. That is what really started the change. Yeah.

You know, it's like one of these, I was listening to this interview on a podcast, where there was this priest person. I'm sorry, he was like some kind of I can't remember his actual title within the church, but he's some like, you know, some kind of a priest or minister in a church or whatever. And somebody, so the person who was interviewing him basically, because this question comes up all the time, right? Where like, why does struggle exist? Why does hardship exist? Why does evil exist if, you know, you believe that God is, that there is a God and it's a good God, a compassionate God, a loving God, all-powerful God? And so it's been like this question that philosophers have been contemplating on and so forth. I'm like, you know, actually, I don't think it's the answer to that is so hard. I mean, like, I have come to the conclusion that actually, you know, it's just like when we hit these kinds of challenges, actually, those, it just there's just so much beautiful opportunity that those challenges are giving us, you know, to learn what we need to learn, to change in the ways that we need to change. Like, if it's very possible, like, if life circumstances hadn't forced you to deal with the change that you were forced to deal with, yes, you know, like, you would never. And like, the same kind of thing happened with me in terms of me trying to overcome my trauma, it's like I was so stuck in my patterns of trying to keep myself safe and being afraid and this and that. And it wasn't until life literally forced change on me and forced me to do something different because I just couldn't do the other things that I was doing before. You know that you know allowed me to change. So I'm like you know.

To me, like, the answer is very clear now that yes, of course there's a… Like, for me, I am a practicing Muslim, so I do believe there is a God, and God is good, God is loving and all-powerful and all that. And yes, he still allows us to get in all kinds of trouble because actually that trouble is what allows us to change.

That's right. If I hadn't gone through all of the trials and tribulations and turmoil in my life, I would still be that angry young kid who was mad at Daddy for not giving her money, mad that he told me girls don't need to go to college, mad that he told me I would never make it through boot camp. But in a way, all of that negativity is what made me push harder to make it through boot camp, to get all those college degrees, to figure out what I wanted to do. And even my liver starting to shut down was the catalyst for me to get healthy. If that didn't happen, I would still be chasing the next drug to make me feel better. Like, just like the young man you were talking about earlier. Yeah.

Yeah. I go from one doctor to another trying to figure out what, you know, getting shots, getting treatments, you know, when all I had to do was start eating healthy and taking care of myself, meditating and walking.

Yeah, exactly. And like in the context of I'm so glad that you found, first of all, the right mentors who led you in that direction of this more holistic approach to thinking about health. But also, like, we can't take for granted the fact that you actually listened to them and didn't cry, right?

Well, when you hire a coach, the one key necessity is you have to be coachable. Yeah.

And I'll tell you, the first several coaches I went to, I was not coachable because I thought I knew. I thought I was right. That won't work for me. You know, people have been telling me to meditate. Oh, that won't work for me. These crazy thoughts in my head, I can't calm them down. But when I had 2 people at the same time tell me the same thing, I'm like, fine, I'll try it again.

Yeah. So did you try like different kinds of meditations and find what worked best for you? Or like, how did that process go?

I still like learning new ways of meditating, but yes, I found that guided meditations worked the best for me because it gave me something to focus on rather than just trying to sit there and quiet my mind.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love guided meditations also. I mean, it's a love that I've developed over time, you know. Actually, you know, because I was born and raised in a practicing Muslim family, so like prayer was always a part of our lives and the, but by and large, you know, prayer is something you do on your own. I mean, there is a ritual prayer that we perform in congregation, but even then it's sort of like more of a... I mean, you're standing with other people and performing the same body gestures, and there's portions of the prayer that is read out loud. So to that extent, you know, praying in congregation can feel a little bit like guided meditation, but it's like our ritual prayers that we do like this. They're very short, actually. It will last maybe like five minutes or so, and then you're pretty much on your own. You know, in terms of like you're praying on your own and stuff. So it's like when I like started, like working with different meditation teachers. It was like actually a new experience for me to be in a long guided meditation. You know, now it's easy for me, like an hour, even 2 hours to do like a guided meditation, no problem at all. Like really, I actually really enjoy it. Yeah.

It was a new experience for me, to do it that way, except you know, and so like in the beginning it was that it felt a little bit like, oh no, my mind is still here or there, not able to focus. But it's like you just kind of have to give it a chance, you know, and sort of like try it out for a certain, like you can't try it once and then just give up on it, you know.

It's a meditation practice. Yeah. It's just like dancing or math or anything else. Yeah.

You have to practice at it. Yeah. Yeah. And the, and it is cool to like try out different, like even if you are doing guided meditations, there are different, all kinds of different guided meditations. Yeah. So it is good to try different ones out because there's definitely some that I have that are now my favorites, my go-to, and others that I've tried that I just kind of let go and it's like, nah, not really doing much for me.

Yeah, well, there's some people, it's the sound of their voice. It's like, and it's not that they're bad or they're wrong, it's just not for me.

Yeah, yeah. But also like the things that they have you focus on. So like, I know there's some guided meditations where they will have you do like a lot of visualizations. So they'll be like, oh, visualize you're here and there's this light and that shape and this and that. And for some people, you know, that kind of visual visualization really works. For me, I've found that, you know, I'm a much more auditory person. I'm not a very good at visualizing things, and it doesn't, like, I don't know, it just doesn't work as well for me. So like, for me, the one… The guided meditations, they're just about like, like my favorite ones now are just in the form of prayers. So like, you know, doing just prayers for whatever it is that You know, you're praying for, and so just listening to to that. Or now, you know, also like as a Muslim, the other thing we love listening to. We develop this love, is like just listening to the recitation of the scripture, the Quran, you know. And so you're just like listening and sort of like it's. It's like this, the meaning of the words, you know, it's like this, at one level, you know, consciously you're hearing something, but there's like this whole subconscious level at which, you know, you're getting meaning out of things that you don't maybe even consciously recognize. And so over time, you know, like, just like with the stories, you find more depth, you find more meaning, you're able to, you know, connect even more deeply, even though the words themselves may not have changed, but you find deeper meaning because you just develop that, you know.

I know exactly what you're talking about. My publisher had a little contest for the children's authors. The children reading the books on the podcast, right? So I had 3 children read my books. And it's like, oh, what a great story. Oh wait, I wrote that. But it was different hearing it, especially from a child, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you were also mentioning the walking practice and the walking becoming like a meditation. Tell me about that.

Well, at that point in time, I was working on the Navy base. So I would walk down to the marina. And it was a little foresty area with a nature center and the river. And I'd go down and look over the river and do some stretching and yoga. Then I'd walk and I'd see butterflies and bees. And one time I've just found a family of baby armadillos just playing. And I just watched nature, immersed myself in nature. And it just… All of the other problems and issues going on around me didn't matter because I was at one with something bigger than me. Yeah. And able to like just be what is often called like the state of flow, you know, like you're in the present moment, you're happy, you lose your sense of time because you're so focused and happy in the present moment. And like, not just happy, but like focused, like engaged, you know. Engaged, that's the word, engaged. You know, yeah. So you're like so positively engaged. Like you may not be happy in terms of like, oh, I'm laughing, dancing kind of Happy, but there's you know this there's it's definitely a very positive state, and you're like positively engaged and in the moment and and focused. And I mean you could also be joyful like these days. I will tell you like last year we had two like we had twins. who are born in our family, my nieces and nephews. And this last year since they've been in this world and I've gotten to be a part of their lives, my favorite form of meditation is just spending time with them. Because when I'm with those little cutie pies, oh gosh, I'm totally in a state of flow.

Oh yeah. Well, and as a children's author, I love… I dress up in costume of the character in my book. Well, you know, you introduced me as the Warrior Princess of Personal Change, right? Yeah.

My children's book, I'm Princess Francie, which is my inner child. So I dress up as Princess Francie, and Princess Francie has a tail, and I go and I wag my tail for the kids and pass out stickers, and I just have a good time with it.

Yeah, I love it when, you know, the… When you can go from, you know, meditation being this thing where you have to sit down and just be still, kind of, you know, to like everyday things that you're doing, and that becomes meditation, whether it's walking or whether it's playing with cutie pie little babies or doing really pretty much anything that you do can become a meditation. And I think that is really the most fun place to be.

Sometimes when I get into a creative flow, I consider that meditation too. Yeah, absolutely. Like when you're like creative in terms of writing or doing whatever work it is that you're doing. Like for me, I know my dad because he's an engineer by training and, you know, so forth. So like for him, like solving complex engineering problems, organizational problems where he's like trying to figure out how, what goes where. And I got a little bit of that from my dad as well. So like I can just be cleaning a closet, but it becomes like this really, like, gets me focused. It gets me to stay in the moment, and I find it fun too. Oh, maybe I need a good... My closet really needs to be clean. Maybe I should try that. It's like yeah. I mean, I can really, really not. My dad is, I will say, a few steps ahead of me in terms of like how absorbed he can get and how much of a you know, like thing it becomes for him. But I can get into it pretty deep. Like, I'll find all kinds of different, like, it's like, okay, first thing we have to do is sort through stuff. So then you start sorting through, and then you refine the categories of how you're sorting things, you know. And then it's like, oh, okay, okay. And then you don't even want to stop until the whole thing's like sorted through. Because it's just like, if you have to stop in the middle of the sorting, you're like, something's incomplete. Something feels like, no, I want to get back to sorting and like just finish it.

Well, anytime you want to sort and organize, you're welcome here.

Hey, maybe I will take you up on that because it is fun. It's fun in partners too, isn't it?

Yes. Oh yes, if you have the right partner, you know, who also enjoys the process. For like, just this was a few weeks ago, I went to one of my cousins and we just organized her closet because she also now has a little baby. Her little baby is like not even 3 months old. And she has an older kid who's closer to 3 years. But anyway, the point is that she has been really busy with life, trying to deal with babies and this and that. And so things were a bit of a mess and she didn't, you know, so when I went, we were like, okay, let's do this together. And it was like so much easier and so fun for both of us. Well, we got it done.

I love when somebody's helping me. That's when the picture photo albums start coming out. You know, I'm not getting much done today. And the last time I really did a good organizing, and I was going through… I was alone, but I was going through photo albums, and then I totally lost track of what I was doing because I started taking pictures of the photos and sending them to all the people from my childhood. I'm talking kids I grew up with when we were like 9 and 10 years old. Yeah. I know. I mean, that's part of the fun of organizing like closets and stuff. But you do… I mean, if you get too much into that, then you can lose track of… So like, yes, it would help in that situation to have someone to keep you on task, like give you a little bit of a leeway, but then, okay, come back to task. But I consider that being in the flow. I think my soul needed to go on that journey that day. Yes.

That's true. That's true. Like, so these are all like, we're talking about seemingly random stuff, but actually we're talking about deep aspects of how to create change.

It really is all about change. Yeah. Because, you know, just the simple act of cleaning off a shelf in my living room made me go back to that time in my life where I was blaming my dad for all the crappy stuff he did. Yeah.

But then those pictures reminded me of all the good times we had. So in a way, all of this random talk we're having supports the idea that I had to quit blaming and start remembering some of the other stuff too. Yes. And just like this, also this idea of organizing, cleaning up our life, you know, this was like one of the insights one of my coaches gave me is that, you know, the cleaning up of messes in our life is actually an extremely important thing that we need to engage in consistently because anything like when you don't put energy and attention to it, it will get messy. It will get more and more disorganized. That's just one of the laws of the universe, you know? And so you have to put attention and energy to clean things up because we can only tolerate so much mess in our lives, only so much disorganization, you know?

I need to add something here because my first children's book is about this. That applies to our brains too.

Yes, exactly. Yes. The only time our brains get cleaned out is when we sleep and meditate. Wow. My first children's book is an introduction to meditation for children, and I use the analogy of a magic library, and the brain is the magic library. So Princess Francie goes into the magic library and it's her messy bedroom when she was a kid. And then Sparkle Feathers comes in with the magic forest creatures and helps her clean it up.

Yes. That's meditation. Yes. Sleep and meditation are necessary to clean the mess.

Yes, exactly. And Sparkle Feathers can help.

Exactly. So messes are not just physical, they're also mental and emotional. You know, and we need to clean them up. Not all the time. You know, you don't always have the time and capacity to get, you know, do cleaning, just like in, like, you're in the physical context. You don't always have the time and capacity to clean up physical messes, but it is something that is really important to make some time for. So, you know, like, whenever you do have time and some capacity, like take some time and take some of the energy that you have to do some cleanup.

Yeah. Well, yesterday there was going to be like a 40-minute wait to get my hair cut because my friend was on her lunch break. So instead of just sitting there and playing on my phone and waiting, I drove down the road to the river, got my feet in the water, let the sunshine on my face, and I meditated for 20 minutes. Nice, I love it. Yeah, you know, this is something I've been doing, this kind of thing, a lot too. It's like, even if you have 10 minutes, 5 minutes even, can make a meaningful difference. And so it's like you just, like I have, because now I do love my guided meditations. So I actually have a whole selection of like different guided meditations that are different time lengths. I have like really short ones that are just like even 2, 3 minutes. And then I have 5 minutes, I have 10 minutes, I have 15 minutes. 20 minutes. I have one that's like, I have pretty much every time you can think of. So just depending on how much time I happen to have, I will just do it. I have a 5-day reset, and it's 5 days of 5-minute guided meditation and journal questions. And then the next day, 5-minute meditation and journal questions.

And I get such positive feedback from that, from the people who say, oh, I can't meditate. But they just take… They say, okay, fine, like I did. Fine, I'll try for 5 minutes. And by the end of the 5th day, are you going to record more? Where can I get more of these? I'm like, well, you re-listen to those while I make some more, right?

Yes, and that's the cool thing, right? Like, as you build up that practice, you know, then you also build up your capacity to stay in meditation for longer and longer periods of time. And so you actually get different benefits from, like, when you do short meditations, it's helpful in certain ways, and when you do longer meditations, it's helpful in other ways, you know, like… Things. So I remember this was like a lesson that I learned most explicitly when I was taking a class in Buddhist meditation philosophy. Oh my gosh, there are like, Buddhist meditation philosophy is very next level in terms of just how in-depth and in detail, you know, they understand meditation and how it impacts you, mind, body, soul, spirit… Like all of these different levels. And so there's like different kinds of meditation because they have different impacts on you, and there's different lengths of time when you are recommended to meditate because they have different impacts on you, right? So it's like a wonderful thing to get into and learn and explore. And it's addictive, but it's a good thing to be addicted to.

Yeah, especially because, you know, like, you might think, oh, it's just something that takes you away from living your daily life effectively, but actually, I mean, it helps you to live your everyday life. So, well, and it's healing. You could heal yourself. I am an advocate for holistic medicine, which holistic medicine has nothing to do with medicine. It's living holistically so you don't need medicine. Exactly, exactly. It's like prevention is the best medicine. And I think that's like something that is more entrenched in the way like Asian cultures understand health and wellness there. They, at least in the traditional ways that people lived in Asian cultures, including that my, like, I'm Asian, like Indian Asian. And so like, definitely there was so much emphasis in the Indian culture. on prevention, on holistic living to prevent, you know, disease and illness, not just physically but also mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. That holistic health coach I told you about, she was a doctor of Chinese medicine.

Ah, yes, yes. You know, I mean, it's, you know, that's really something cool about both the Indian culture and the Chinese culture is that they're among the oldest still living cultures in the world. Like, you know, there's other like, for example, in other parts of the world, you know, there were civilizations, of course, like thousands of years ago, but their cultures are no longer still alive. Like the Egyptians, for example. Of course. the culture that they had the people that were there like let's say 2,000 years ago, 3,000 years ago, they're not a living culture anymore.

But in India, it's like it has been, you know, a living culture for like, we can trace back to a good 5,000 years, if not longer, you know, and similarly in China, I'm not as familiar, but I know they have a deep, long history as well. So nice. Oh my gosh, Francine, I've been having so much fun talking with you.

And I know, I know, we'll just have to do it again sometime.

Yes. Do you have any last thoughts to share for now though?

I think, oh my gosh, we just said it all. I'd love to know what your viewers thought about our conversation.

Well, on that note, to all of you who are listening and are watching, please make sure you check the show notes because we will drop Francine's links in there and mine too, of course, so you can connect with Francine and me. And you heard Francine; she wants to hear from you. So please. Yes, please connect with her and let her know what's going on with you and, and get the help and support you need. Because you see how cool Francine is. She can definitely connect you with cool resources. Yeah, and check out her book. For those of you, who are just listening, who are not watching this, Francine Tell us the name of that book you just held up again.

The Butterfly Who Changed Everything.

The Butterfly Who Changed Everything. So give me a link to that also, Francine, and I will drop that as well in the show notes so people can get that book as well. And until we connect next time, I just wish you lots and lots of peace and joy.