Fran: Hi Fran. Welcome to the podcast.

Great to be here, Stephanie. I've been so looking forward to it.

Stephanie: I have been looking forward to having you on as well. I spoke with your partner in crime Marina not too long ago. And so I'm very excited to close the loop on you two and your podcast, which you guys had me on, a while ago, which was wonderful.

Fran: Why don't we start where we normally do and tell me a little bit about how you became the person you were at the beginning of our story, which for you, it was your early thirties. So what were the forces that shaped you into your early adulthood?

All right. So, lot of factors in that, I came from a very large Catholic family. So deep Catholic roots. And my parents were very traditional. My father was an immigrant from Slovakia. My mom was born two years after her parents from Slovakia immigrated. Strong Catholics and big family.

There were 12 of us in our family and I was the 10th. So big Catholic family with no extended family here because they were both from immigrant families. And so the Catholic roots were deep. And because it was a traditional family, I was raised in a traditional way, really understanding and believing that women had their place. Eastern Europeans, women had their place, their job, not to speak out, to be subservient. And, also because of the Catholic roots, you did not get divorced. And, that kind of set the stage.

Later in my early twenties, I had a bit of an evangelical Christian influence on me. I started checking out other religions and evangelical Christians seemed to be, something that appealed to me at the time. They were even stronger about no divorce, that you could get through this marriage no matter what. So I met my husband when I was 19, and we lived together without being married for three years and it was very frowned upon by all my evangelical Christian friends and my Catholic family, it was frowned upon.

So even though there were problems I thought because I was living with him the best thing to do to fix this problem to be to get married. But those of us that have been married know that marriage does not fix problems.

Stephanie: Right.

Fran: It doesn't. And so knowing my background, knowing my roots, I thought that having children would fix the problem.

Stephanie: Oh,

Fran: Right?

Stephanie: Oh,

Fran: Okay. Just have a couple of kids and you know, things will settle down. And of course it only escalates what's already there. Going into my thirties, I was married. Started having kids at 30. And then at 32, but by the time the second daughter was born, I was hope lost if that's how you can put it.

I had no more hope left. I had tha t daughter, the second daughter, because I didn't want the first one to grow up alone. And so the two daughters and I, we spent so much time together, the three of us, because my husband had other, things on his mind that he was doing. I really lost my hope.

I wasn't going to start addictions, you know. My husband had addictions, I was not going there. I mean, I didn't even drink. I hated the idea of drinking because there was so much that he was doing. And so, At the age of 38, I was ready for a change.

And you know, I look back on it now and it just happened to be, that I found out about infidelity on his part. And that was the impetus. That was the impetus because there was lots of things going on within the marriage that were quiet, that were never talked about to anyone else.

A different forms of abuse, but I never talked about it. But the infidelity, that was the, finally, it was the feather that broke the camel's back. It really was. And at that point, I really hit bottom.

And I think about, all the different things that were said to me at the time, right? I could love him enough that he would stay straight, stay sober, stay, away from the other influences in our marriage, if I loved him enough. If I was good enough, if I kept the house clean enough, if I was a good enough mom, if I was a good enough lover. All those things, if I prayed enough, and it just, it didn't work.

Stephanie: How terrible to put his failings on you and make it your fault.

Fran: It's typical of an addict, they will do that.

Stephanie: Do you recall what it was about evangelical Christian, the religion that was attractive to you coming from a Catholic background? I,I just feel like that's even further down the religious control pathway than even Catholicism is.

Fran: Oh, yeah, I mean, I had no idea of, the control in that religion, coming from Catholicism. In my community, being a Catholic is a minority. It really is. Around me, I was surrounded by Protestants, right? And so I was awed. I was awed being a Catholic. And I think, in order for me to fit in, to feel like I belonged, was to look at other religions and see, well, maybe this is what I'm doing wrong.

Maybe I'm just doing my religion wrong. I will feel better about myself if I get baptized as an adult because Catholics get baptized as a child, right? So, If I take the oath that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, if I do sinner's prayer, if I get baptized as an adult with full immersion, if I do all those things right, then I'll finally be happy. Then my life will straighten out.

But, you know, it's so interesting because I started going to a church and as an adult, I was taking the baptismal courses, you know. And it took six weeks of these courses so that I could be baptized and have this full immersion and have all of those things.

And at the very last class, the pastor looked at me and said, No, I'm not going to baptize you because you're living with your boyfriend. And I was devastated. It was like, I'm not even accepted here.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Fran: I'm not welcome here. And that stopped my looking elsewhere. And then I basically came back to my own church, which, you know, I always felt at home in, and made a place for myself there.

Stephanie: Oh, okay. So you didn't end up following the evangelical Christian religion for a long time because they rejected you.

Fran: They rejected me.

Stephanie: Yeah, so you went back to Catholicism.

Fran: I came back because, I mean, they'll take anybody back.

Stephanie: Yes, they

Fran: They really will. They'll take anybody. So, I mean, I'm super grateful to the, just to the people in the church.

Stephanie: Yeah,

Fran: really lack of judgment. There was no judgment when I came back to the Catholic Church. It didn't matter. And I became a teacher in the Catholic school. So, it's a testament, not to the Catholic, but to the people.

Stephanie: Sure. Of course in any organization. It's the people that make it Yeah.

Fran: Always.

Stephanie: So your thirties, were really spent in this marriage, raising children, this marriage that was not going well, that was, not really a fit, but you band aided it with getting married and then having your children. How did you find your way through that period of time. I know you said it was the infidelity that was the straw, that broke the camel's back. But the years before that you'd lost your hope. How do you keep going through that? What was that period of time like?

Fran: The period of time that my husband and I were still together, I was a workaholic. I just worked a lot and, I put everything I had into my job, into my children, into, you know, into trying to be as perfect as I could. So I just kept myself busy. And then in the space of time before the divorce, we were separated but we weren't divorced yet, on self improvement, really. I spent so much time trying to figure out how I got into this place. Like what was it that made me so attracted to this other human that I knew wasn't good for me, that wasn't a fit, and yet it was a compulsion, right? It was a compulsion to be in this relationship. And then, with counseling, and then with my 12-step program, I figured it out, you know.

And so there were a few years in there that we were separated, the custody agreement was all done, separation of property was done, but I still believed that there could be a point where we could get back together.

I mean, we didn't get divorced for six years. So, you know, all that stuff about, till death do we part. Right, so I did a lot of work on myself, and I had hoped that he would as well, and of course, he did not take responsibility, and that's okay too, because that's his life. Yeah.

So, the hopeless part, it, uh, it was a black hole. I would say it was a black hole, and it only lasted for a couple of months,

Stephanie: Okay. Well, that's

Fran: yeah, thankfully.

Stephanie: How did you find your way out of the black hole?

Fran: So, I had friends of mine that had gone to a retreat on Vancouver Island. Actually, it was an island off of Vancouver Island. And they talked about it a lot. And, at one point in my despair, I asked them if they thought it would help. And they were like, of course, Fran, it'll help. Of course. And you know how everything's aligned when it's meant to be?

I was raising my two kids at that point, single. I was getting no support because that's what he did. I was getting no support and I couldn't afford to fly to Vancouver Island. But I checked my air miles, right? I checked my air miles. I had exactly the right amount of air miles to be able to fly there.

Everything worked out and I knew it was meant to be. So I went to this retreat on Vancouver Island. It was called The Haven. And, it changed my life, and I was with a group of other people that needed change in their life, that felt hopelessness, that felt, despair and desolate, and, and I, at that point I realized I wasn't alone.

And that's a biggie. When you see that there are other people that are going through the same types of emotions as you are, but different circumstances, right? And, they had a somatic experience. We all had somatic experiences led by the group leaders. Somatic experiences, which, you know, because of that, I knew, now that I do hypnotherapy, I knew somatic work works. Getting into your body and finding that emotion and bringing that emotion out and, working with the emotion, not in a couch setting where you're talking to a therapist for five years, but actually digging down deep and feeling that deep hidden emotion of anger, because that's what was inside here.

It was this terrible anger that I had, kept down, kept down, kept down with trying to do all these wonderful things. And the anger, because I'm a good Catholic and a good girl who's in her place, you don't express anger. You don't express, you know, the extreme anger that I was feeling and that it was able to be expressed through, they had an acupuncture type of meridian energy work.

And, they just did it. It wasn't the actual pins, but a little machine that they would touch your energy points with. And, oh my god, it worked. I was able to express all that anger, and after the anger, just sobbing tears. And then at the very end of the session, which probably was maybe, 15 minutes, it's just this huge group experience of a group hug, like 20 people all hugging me and telling me that they understood that I was going to be okay, that they loved me.

And these were strangers that I had been with for a week that were telling me that they loved me. And I felt, that's the first moment in my life that I really felt the power of the spirit.

Stephanie: Mm hmm.

Fran: power of God in humans. And they weren't Christian, they weren't Catholic, they were just people who cared and loved. And that changed the trajectory.

Stephanie: Wow. There's a couple of things there that you said that are, I think are really, really important. And the first one was, being in a place where, you know you're not alone in the things that you're feeling. As you were describing that, I was thinking, that is precisely 100 percent why I do this podcast. Because this transition around age 40 or sometime around age 40 looks so different for every single individual person that it's hard to realize that we're all going through the same type of thing. And that there are so many commonalities to this transition that even though it looks your, you know, your snowflake version of it, your unique version of it, there are still commonalities with other people that are going through it. you just nailed that by saying, you went to this retreat and you found a bunch of people that were feeling, or that were experiencing things that were very much like what you were experiencing internally, not situationally. I just, think that's so important and it really speaks to community as well.

Fran: Oh, very much. And, for me, how the spirit works, we try to put it into a religion. And yet it's not like that, Stephanie. It's not like that. And, that really opened my eyes and I was able to come back and it was super interesting at that point you know, my now ex did all the, pulling stuff out of the hat and trying it, right? He tried, sending me flowers every day.

Stephanie: He tried, the angry thing, you know. He tried, I'm going to commit suicide. He tried shaving his head and shaving his mustache off. Like he tried, he tried the most bizarre things because before that would have worked, it would have worked. I would have taken him back and I would have tried to make everything right. But this retreat gave me the strength to say no. No. This is what you need to do. You need to get into AA and you need to stay in there for at least six months. You need to get a sponsor. You need to attend 40 meetings in 40 days because that's the AA thing, right? There's something about the number 40 that's super powerful. 40 meetings in 40 days. You need to do your own work. And he chose not to. And then it was okay. Okay, I'll continue with my life and I'll do my own work. And that's another thing I've learned. I can't control, I can't cure, and I certainly didn't cause. I didn't cause.

Right. I datedd someone in my early to mid thirties that was also addict. He was an alcoholic. And so much of what you're talking about is, familiar to me. I mean, we were never married. We didn't have children, but So much of what you're talking about on your side of the fence is familiar to me, about the, like, if I could only do X, Y, or Z, then he would, right?

if I could only love him enough to show him, how worthy he is, or, what a great guy he is, or, give him the space to, be without his alcohol. And it just, it's not possible. It's impossible. It's just not possible. it's really, the cliche, right? Happiness is an inside job and you can't work on anybody else's insides.

Fran: Yeah.

Stephanie: thing you can do is work on your own. And it's interesting you just said as well, that when you started shifting, he started lashing out.

Fran: Oh, he sure did.

Stephanie: Yeah, I was talking to a woman, Julie, in last season and she said the same thing.

She was in a very toxic relationship and she tried to break up a number of times and it didn't take, but finally, when she found that inner fortitude and she was able to shift internally herself and start making her moves to get away. The same thing, lots of acting out, lots of, the love bombing, the threats, the same stuff you're talking about.

Fran: It's interesting, you know, because of the control, because he was losing control of me, he needed to do everything he could to get that control back and it was too late, right? It was just too late.

Stephanie: Yeah. The other thing you mentioned was the somatic experience, which is so interesting to me. I, a year ago, took, an online course with a woman by the name of Irene Lyon and, she teaches nervous system regulation and sort of re regulating your own nervous system.

And really most of, of that course and most of the, the work there is somatic. And that, introduced me to the concept of, somatic experiencing, which is a type of therapy. And it's interesting because you,described that, you know, exceptionally well, because so many of us, and I, I know I'm one of them, can intellectualize, can explain, so talk therapy is very much circular. You know, I can talk my way or think my way out of things, but it doesn't make a change. And so somatic therapy is, bottom up versus top down. And it's a whole different thing because you don't need to go back and sort of relive, you know, X, Y, and Z experiences from all these different ages.

You just, focus on how your body is feeling. You focus on finding those emotions and following them and staying with them. And to your point, like, like you did, right? Once you can experience that from start to finish without, shoving it down, without covering it up, without avoiding it. Once you can actually complete the circuit of that emotion, you can move past it.

Fran: Yeah.

Intermission

Fran: And a lot of it had to do with fear, right? Fear of being alone, fear of being judged. Fear of making a mistake, fear of not having enough, fear of just, you know, like so many fears.

I had, created in me a situation that I was ripe to be controlled by a man who had an addiction. And I look back on my little self, right, on my former self that grew up that way, and you have to just treat her so gently, right?

Because that poor girl, that poor little girl who grew up into that poor woman who was attracted to a man who was so controlling. That was my dad. My dad was extremely controlling because of his upbringing, what he believed a family should look like. And so I was attracted to that in my husband. That felt familiar. That felt right.

It didn't mean it was right, but it felt right. So when I could understand all of that, and it wasn't right away, that understanding came later. It wasn't part of the somatic experience. The part of the somatic experience released me from, I call it bondage, released me from the bondage, the obsession of wanting that man.

But, talk therapy, 12-step programs, all of that helped me to understand how I got there and how to stay away because it's still the familiar route, right? What we grow up with as a small child is the familiar. So you can know what it is. Once you are aware, that's step number one. And once you're aware, then you have to be attentive to it and then you can take action.

But until you're aware. You don't know why. So, keeping up with the work is paramount. You have to do the work, and you have to understand, Oh, what is it that I'm feeling right now? What really is it that I'm feeling right now? And get into your feelings, because every feeling is important.

Every single one. The anger, the feeling of resentment, the feeling of apprehension. Whatever it is that you're feeling, there's purpose in it and you need to pay attention because your body is telling you something that your mind is not getting yet.

Stephanie: Right. And the other piece of that, too, is going from blame to accountability. Right, from blaming somebody else for your situation. And for you, it could have been, you could blame your husband, you could blame your dad, you could blame, you know, there were so many outside influences that you could quote unquote blame for where you got. Until you take that accountability for your own part in it, there's really no detaching from to your, to your words, the bondage.

Fran: Yes. Once you can accept who you were back there, as this human that was doing the best they could with what they had, then you can not only accept yourself, but you can accept others, So now I can accept my ex as he was doing the best he could with what he has. I can accept my dad. I can accept my mom. I can accept you. I can accept anybody who I feel has walked on my toes. Because we're all just products of what came before us, and generationally what came before us.

Stephanie: Right. And another 1 of the keys at this juncture is that old adage of what got you here will not get you there. Right? So, if you and the other old adage, my dad loved was, , you know, insanity is the, the act of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

And so, in your position where you were at 38, you had to make changes in your actions. You had to make changes in how you saw the world or saw yourself in order to create a new outcome.

Fran: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, deep down, I probably knew that it wasn't going to last, you know, because, about the age of 35, I started working on my master's and it wasn't, you know, so much. I, at the time, I didn't think it was for the spiritual part of the Masters. I thought it was to get a raise in pay, but both of them contributed to my own growth and healing and, helped me to feel more competent, feel better, feel like I had a goal to work towards, even if my marriage was falling apart.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. One other thing you said a few moments ago is you said there was so much fear, fear of judgment, fear of what other people would think, fear. And one of the common threads around this transition is, not caring as much what other people think and what other people say, right? The way I always describe the transition is you, you go from,relying on the external authorities for their values and, and judgments and, and, and other, other direction to, realizing you have your own authority and expertise and, and, and really going inward to, to determine your own goals and values and, and things like that.

So at what point did you feel like that fear of judgment was no longer a factor in your world?

Fran: I think it was because of the 12-step program. I'm still in this 12-step program, not because I'm living with an alcoholic, but because it's deep and meaningful and a spiritual program. And part of it is, making a list. The step four is you make a list of all of your faults,

And at first, it was like, I don't have any faults, you know, it's all his fault. And then as I'm writing this out. I started to say, that's a fault. Just the idea that I don't have any faults is a fault. So, that was like number one. I don't think I have any faults. And then it all started to come out.

And I'm just crying and I'm writing all these things that are, terrible about myself, which is part of the process. I'm a sponsor now. So I help other people through this, but I can see how we were all the same, right? We start writing our faults and then once we think we've got them all, we always add a few more.

And then not only your character defects, you have to write your character assets. So it's like, there's nothing good about me. And then that little part of your brain will go, well, what about this? And you're like, okay, I'll write that down, sobbingly.

And so then You have an inventory. You've got, yeah, maybe I do try to victimize myself, but however I do, I, you know, I'm, I'm trying my best. I always try my best. And then step five is, try to get ready to tell somebody else, which is like the hardest thing ever.

When you're telling people a list of, you know, these, all these faults and all these good things about yourself, but all these faults as well. And then when you finally do, when you tell a trusted person, and sometimes it's your sponsor, sometimes it's just a really close friend, and you're reading this stuff and you're crying, and they're looking at you with such compassion, and they say, and I'll remember to this day when she said. She said, Franny, you're way too hard on yourself.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Fran: I'm like, but that disclosure of understanding that, yeah, I have faults, but I also have good things, but somebody still loves me, even though I've told them my deepest and darkest hidden secrets is huge. It's a huge awakening to love of self and acceptance of self because if somebody else can accept me knowing these deep dark secrets, wow, I guess I'm not that bad after all. I guess there's hope for me.

Stephanie: Right. So you said it took six years, before you, finalized the divorce from your ex husband. What were those six years like? Right. Cause those were the pivotal years, like right around your 40th birthday.

Fran: I dated during that time and, nothing serious, but I still did date. I still held out a hope, right? Because as a teacher, I see often the effects of broken marriages on what it does on the kids. And when there's a new person that comes into the house, right?

Where the mom has a new boyfriend or whatever, you know, I see the effects on the kids and I just didn't want that for myself. And I held out hope for so long that somehow it would have a happily ever after ending. And it wasn't until he pulled another trick out of the bag. He continued to pull tricks out of the bag because that's what he does.

His trick that he pulled out of the bag was drive off yelling at me, Why don't you just get a divorce finally? Why don't you just get this divorce? And at that point, I was like, fine, I will. And so I started the process and Canadian divorce is different than American divorce.

Canadian divorce is, you get served your papers and if you don't show up in court on court date your divorce is over. It's done, it's a done deal. So my lawyer showed up for me on our court date and he did not. I'm sure he took those papers and buried them without even reading them, , because we're used to watching American tv.

So if you don't contest the divorce. It just goes through. And so we were divorced, but he didn't know it. About a year later, he does the same thing. He yells at me as he's driving off, why don't you just get a divorce. And I yell back? Yeah, it's already done. And he was like what?

Comes back. Yeah, didn't you know we've been divorced for a year? And at that point he started malicious behavior. Very malicious behavior, which is a testament to his own struggles, right. There's a reason that we're not together.

Stephanie: Yeah,

Fran: yeah,

Stephanie: So how did you then, and I know it started earlier than this, but how did you build a new self, right? Because you didn't, you weren't going back to who you were because who you were, even as a child and a teenager wasin the controlling environment of your, parents home. You know, and then you went straight into this, so there was no going back to who you were at an earlier time. How did you build the best version of yourself after?

Fran: I stayed in the 12-step program. And it was important for me to help others. So helping others became part of, my growth, my spiritual growth. My emotional growth was helping others going through the same thing, who felt that they were alone, that felt that nobody could possibly understand what it's like living with an addict.

And yet it's just, a myth. There's so many people right now that have been affected by alcoholism or other types of addictions. Like so many people. And so part of my growth was helping other people. Part of my growth was doing lots of reading, lots of good reading, deep stuff, deep reading, deep spiritual reading, to connect with that spiritual side of me.

I continue to go to church. I continue to work in my Catholic school. I continue to spread a different kind of love even than, because I was taking my master's in religious education. And, I was working through that as well, which it was a lot of work. And I, so, because I was being exposed to different ideas through my master's, it kind of put my own Catholicism on the side.

Still Catholicism, but heightened. It's like Catholicism on steroids, which is what it's meant to be always. It was not meant to be this religion that you adhere to. Like, it was meant to be a way to get to God. And so, I found that there were so many ways, more ways of getting to God than just through religion.

And that's all part of the work. You know, you just keep up with the work, you keep up with the good literature, you keep up hanging out with people who bring you up, that are vibrating at a high vibration. And realizing it's time to extricate yourself from whatever relationship. And understanding, who belongs where in your hierarchy of who you put into your inner circle, like, whoever's in your inner circle needs to be high vibrational.

At that time, I didn't use those words, but you use the words that are like, who are actually like bringing you up rather than sucking you down into a vortex. What if it's their vortex or reminding you of your past, that you should not move on this way because this person is terrible and bad and da da da da da. It's remembering to okay I'll close that door I'll look through the window. I'll look through the window over there so you're not alone but the door is closed and you won't be affecting me. I haven't shut you out of my life but you're on the other side of the window now

Stephanie: I've contained you.

Fran: I've contained you.

And also stay with the, things that I do every day. I do gratitude. I do my meditation. I do my readings. I do lots of things to keep me high because I tend to be more melancholy. I just am. I'm an introvert and I tend to be more melancholy. So I need to know myself. I know that if I'm in environments that are not healthy emotionally, I can get emotionally sad.

I can be sad for no good reason other than I've been around sad people. So, really knowing yourself, is vital. It's vital to the process of repairing, rejuvenating, renewing, and moving on. .

Continuing to move on.

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. and it's interesting, one of the things you were just talking about it does require shifts in who you surround yourself with, right? It's more of what got you here won't get you there. And that doesn't mean everyone in your life, but it might mean some of the people in your life now have a new and perhaps diminished position in your life, because like you said, they contribute to negative energy versus positive energy. Right? And I always think about when you've had an encounter with someone, and you walk away and you tune into yourself, do you feel lifted or do you feel dragged down? And that's just an easy way to, gauge that energy. And really, you know, in an ideal world, you want to be around people who give you good energy and who you skip away from feeling buoyant and happy and,

Fran: And motivated,

Stephanie: motivated.

Fran: feed it. Yeah,

Stephanie: Yeah. The other thing I'm really, intrigued by your story is in so many of these conversations, as part of this transition, people leave these structures, these organizations behind. A lot of times people leave a religion at this period in their life. So many people I talked to have a spiritual awakening and then are following a spiritual but non religious path.

And I love that, here's an example, that you're providing an example of, youyou had your spiritual awakening and you pursued your spiritual path and yet you maintained some of those structures and organizations in your life, like the religion, like the 12-step program, and for you, you found them supportive of your journey versus the opposite.

Fran: The 12-step program, like Al Anon, has, you know, we read the same beginning and we read the same ending every time. And in the ending it says, take what you liked and leave the rest. And that's what I've made everything in my life. It's like, take what you like and leave the rest. So within my religion, there's things that I don't believe, of course. There's absolutely things that don't resonate correctly with me. But am I gonna throw everything out? No,

Stephanie: I'm gonna take what I liked and leave the rest. And it's same with anything. It's same with any book I read. It's same with any person I talk to on the street. It's same with buying in the store, right?

Fran: Take what I'd like and leave the rest. So, to actually take something, hook, line, and sinker. Sinks you. It will sink you. Because nothing is infallible. Nothing. So, if you believe something wholeheartedly, there's a question mark there.

Stephanie: It's so funny you're saying that and I'm thinking exactly, you know, when I read, self help books or personal development books, or even take, seminars, online from different teachers and coaches and things. It's like, there's nothing out there that is going to fit me 100 percent because I am a unique human being.

But. I could take bits and pieces of the things I read and watch and learn and weave them together into the quote unquote program that's perfect for me.

Fran: We're all like a puzzle, and each time we find something that fits, we put the puzzle piece in. That's why we can be living to the end of our life and learning every day something new about ourselves.

Stephanie: right,

Fran: It would have been pretty boring to not be able to take those puzzle pieces and put them in every time we learn. It would have been super boring to have that picture already done for us and never to be able to work on it. So, I think the joy in life is finding out the new pieces and seeing where they fit and saying, aha, that works for me.

Stephanie: Yeah. I love that. I love that. I think it's a great place for us to come to an end too, right? Is to send people off looking for their puzzle pieces that help bring to life the picture of their best selves.

Fran: I, I, I think so too. And, yes, everyone has a place. in this universe. We are not here by chance. We are here by, divine purpose. We all have a purpose on this planet. And once we find that out, or work towards finding that out, we feel like we belong. You know, we can't have a puzzle, like this whole universe is one big puzzle piece. You can't not be there. That, your little puzzle piece is important even if it's, you know, seven billion pieces in it.

Stephanie: Right. Absolutely. It completes the picture.

Fran: completes a picture.

Stephanie: Yeah. Oh, Fran, it's been so wonderful having you. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

Fran: Thank you, Stephanie. It's been a pleasure. it's a joy.

And my hope for anyone who's listening or watching us today is to just keep going. Pick the next best step. Whatever you think the best step is, just take the next best step. And it is in the right direction, even if it doesn't feel right, it is in the right direction.

Stephanie: The universe conspires on your behalf to put the path in front of your feet.

Fran: Oh, I love that. And so true.

Stephanie: Thanks, Fran.

Fran: Thank you, Stephanie.