Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Unboxed, Unburdened, Unstoppable.
Speaker: I'm Michelle Madrid, and in each episode, I'll be sitting down with guests who have dared to unlock their hidden truths, unburden themselves from life's toughest challenges, and step into their power as the hero of their own stories.
Speaker: I hope these conversations will inspire you to unbox your own journey, find your strength, and embrace the unstoppable within.
Speaker: So, let's dive in.
Speaker: Francine Appy is the founder of Soul Filling LLC, a mindset-based coaching platform rooted in faith and positive psychology.
Speaker: A writer, speaker, and adoption mindset coach with 30 plus years of lived adoption experience and 25 years in ah HR and personal development, Francine empowers women in the adoption triad to reflect, grow, and thrive.
Speaker: She's the author of Brianna's Brave Day at School and Sparking the Next Chapter, an adoption journal for reflection and resilience. Her work champions honest, modern conversations around adoption, guided by her core belief, reflect plus grow equals live fully.
Speaker: Francine, welcome, welcome in. Thank you so much, Michelle. So great to be here. i just love this connection that we have because we've been connected not that long, but you're one of those beautiful souls that I feel like I've known for a very long time.
Speaker: Same to you, right back at you. Thank you so much. And that's very, very special. So thank you for being here with us. And I thought we would start with sort of an early life reflection.
Speaker: and love to start here with women women and um asking you to take us back, you know, before soul filling the work that you were focused on and so passionate about, and we'll get, you know, to more about that soon. But before, you know, the journal and the coaching and the vision of creating an adoption wellness platform, there was a little girl,
Speaker: little Francine, right? Navigating life. Franny. I was Franny then. Franny. Oh, I love that. Little Franny. I can just see her in my mind's eye. then Franny was, you know, like so many of us as little girls, we were navigating live family identity, trying to figure it out, our place in the world.
Speaker: Would love for you to take us back to that time of little Franny and what you remember most vividly about your younger years and younger self. You know, it's so funny because I really didn't know you were going to start it with this point. I thought we were going to jump in at a different place. And quite honestly, haven't thought about little Franny in a while.
Speaker: But as you're talking, I've come full circle and I'm a little bit um just sitting here like, why haven't I thought of this before? In little Franny, all little Franny wanted to do was be a mom.
Speaker: All I did was play house. All I did was take care of my babies. we I used to go to Montgomery Wards. You remember Montgomery Wards? I do. I would save my allowance and I would buy real diapers for my babies.
Speaker: And the clerk would always get upset with me. She'd be like, you know, you really shouldn't be using that. I'm like, I reuse them. I don't throw them away. right but yeah Anyway, you taught me, you brought me right back to little Franny, who really all she ever wanted to be was a mom.
Speaker: And To the point that I'm the youngest of four girls in five years. And i was coined as the responsible one. Not that my sisters weren't, but for whatever reason.
Speaker: Anyway, they gave me Mother's Day cards, my sisters, until I was a sophomore in college. So Frannie always wanted to be a mom and always wanted to be that one that was kind of taking care of people and responsible.
Speaker: And um that was my vision. I always knew I wanted to go to college. i always knew I wanted a career, but mom was front and center.
Speaker: And in a long time. And it's so beautiful to connect. I once had a friend who said to me, i was I was talking about, and this was probably four or so years ago, um i was sharing that I was doing some work to reconnect with my youngest self. And I write in in my book, Let Us Be Greater, about my first me, Julia Dawn, the little one I was before I was adopted and my name was changed and um feeling growing up so disconnected to her and really hungering as a woman to reconnect to my younger self. And I remember my friend looked at me and said, well that's just so naive.
Speaker: And it took like i sort of, took me aback and I thought, i don't think that's naive at all because that little girl was real and she had hopes and dreams and she had a sense of self and you know, the the world and life can chip away at the purest um parts of who we are.
Speaker: And so reconnecting to our youngest self, our our little girls, little Franny, ah my little, my first me, Julia Dawn, I think that's so important as women, um as we, you know, evolve in this life and also um want to come back to a sense of wholeness. That little girl is still there.
Speaker: And so her hopes and dreams and what she valued is still a part of Francine. yeah And so that's beautiful. And I appreciate you sharing that.
Speaker: Her desire to be ah mother, her sense of responsibility, How does that um live out in your life today? I feel like that's just an obvious question after what you just shared with us.
Speaker: Well, you know, I'd be remiss not to to add in one other piece, and that was faith. From as little as I can remember, church, being in a quiet space, prayer was always a place of home for me from a little, little girl.
Speaker: I never sensed this feeling of obligation of going to church, never sensed this feeling of of you should do that, you need to do that. It was this incredible place of peace for me.
Speaker: And um that element of faith was there from that little girl of Franny. And I think, thank goodness, both those things continued to evolve in my life. My desire didn't go away of wanting to be my mom and my faith grew, right? Just alongside just the same to this day.
Speaker: And as the story goes, infertility was on my journey and becoming a mom in the traditional way um through giving birth to my children became evident that it was not an option for me. And coincidentally, you however you want to say, at the same time of going through my infertility, I began the adoption process, right? Exploring adoption as a way to grow our family. And and for me,
Speaker: my faith carried me through that. And Michelle, I'll never forget my last, and I haven't told this story to very many people. um Again, it's not something I sit and think about a lot, but my very last infertility treatment, because I was very limited on how many I was going to do, my doctor and fertility specialist, he cried at my when he told me. And i I said, why are you crying? He said, you know, Francine, he said, women come into my practice with so much hope and and because I can,
Speaker: fulfill these very personal dreams, but I can't help them all. Right. And most of them leave part of my English haggard bitches. You're not a haggard bitch. Why? i said, because there's a different plan for me and I'm going to be a mom.
Speaker: It's just not going to happen this way. And the next month, um, my oldest son's birth mother chose my husband and I, and my son was born two months later.
Speaker: And I sent this doctor the birth announcement and he called me, you know. So faith to me, when we talk about little Franny and being a mom, it has to be right there with faith. And and I don't know if I didn't believe in something greater than me and a bigger picture um where I would be on this journey without it.
Speaker: And um I've just learned so much about myself and and um things I never expected to learn on that journey of becoming a mother and um my son's amazing birth mothers and how much they are as part of my heart and my mind and my prayer life on a regular basis.
Speaker: It's so beautiful and intimate. And I thank you for sharing that part of your journey because rooted in faith as little Franny was that faith stayed with you and grew with you into womanhood and motherhood and the struggles because that's hard. Infertility is hard. And so many women grapple with that. And women come to me and my own coaching process.
Speaker: And you know sometimes they are carrying that very heavy burden of infertility. And when we start to unbox what that means for them, there is a sense of, um not being enough or a sense of somehow failing or that box of loss is big for them, whether they have chosen, um the path of adopting a child or not.
Speaker: Um, the infertility piece is, a, is a wound and the wound is called loss for many of how they pictured motherhood to be what that would look like, feel like. Right. And I wonder if there is anything in that um journey for yourself that you feel like you had to unbox.
Speaker: Obviously the faith was strong and it carried you through, but anything that you would want to share for, for a woman who might be listening today, maybe struggling with the very same thing going down that very same path.
Speaker: Yeah, you know, it's a great question. And for me, it's like, and I think a lot of women are this, we're doers, right? We're problem solvers.
Speaker: You give me a problem and I'll solve it, right? And when you go through something like infertility or something that you don't have control over, and let's face it, we have control over so little, we think we have so control over so much, but at the end of the day, we really have control over not that much. Um,
Speaker: And you know what I mean when I'm saying that, Michelle. So at the end of the day, it's this power of releasing and you don't have to be a person of faith, right? i'm ah I have a very big meditation practice. I have a yoga practice.
Speaker: And it's just this somewhere, some way in your heart, we have to unbox the doing, stop doing, stop trying to fix, stop stop stop trying to solve potentially an infertility.
Speaker: and just allow, allow and surrender to what the possibility could be to unfold and take yourself right out of the driver's seat because it is exhausting. It can be exhausting.
Speaker: It's, um, it's, it's, it can, it can just take you to places um that are really hard to jump, come back from and really hard for you to even appreciate and enjoy the things that you have going on in your life because it's so all consuming.
Speaker: But I think as we allow ourselves as women to say, i need to take my hands off this wheel and I need to surrender and I need to stop trying to make this on my agenda,
Speaker: and see what happens. oh And lean into the possibility, even though it's hard, even though it can be scary and it feels very much uncertain, like you said. and um i learned several, several years ago that that sense of control that I felt like I needed in my life as, as you know, an adoptee or things felt so out of control from a very early age.
Speaker: um And hi learned that that control that I was trying to so hard to, you know gripping so hard to the driver's wheel of my life was actually a form of resistance.
Speaker: And the more I tried to control, the more that resistance came into, as you are terming it, um the what is, you know, and leaning into that. And once I took my hands off the wheel um and leaned into possibility and not being in control all of the time and having that faith and that sense of trust, all of a sudden assistance sort of came in.
Speaker: And all the miracles just start appearing. Those mini miracles, as I call them, mini, they could be as subtle as someone buying your coffee randomly or at my lucky number is 33. and all I have to see is a 33. And I know I'm on the right path, even if I'm having a bad day. yeah Those little mini miracle, that's a mini, mini, but then the miracle is like,
Speaker: Whoa. Yeah. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt, that know but it is, it is so true. And on the opposite, you know, the, on the other side of resistance is assistance and beyond that is providence.
Speaker: I really believe that. And when we just let go let God, um and, and some might be listening saying, well, that's really simplistic, but it is, it, it is so powerful in its simplicity And it's ah it's a much kinder way to be to ourselves, I think, as as women, because we don't have to hold it all. We don't have to fix it all.
Speaker: Yeah. but we But we do need to let go and receive it all. Yeah. And actually, you're reminding me, Michelle, my yoga practice started about a year before my son was born.
Speaker: Someone said, or I read, you know, yoga is good for managing stress. And I thought, oh, that's good. i need that. And so for nothing else, surrendering and letting go of the control reduces our stress.
Speaker: And if our stress reduces, you know, if I lower our stress, you have a better quality of life. You're able to see clearer if we're less stressed, right? And so for that reason, to your audience, if anyone is listening,
Speaker: A yoga practice, if you don't have one, or a meditation practice, if you don't have one, is extraordinarily powerful. I didn't miss a yoga class. ah I was like, I had never been in a place that I could go with my work clothes on and run into the yoga studio and change my clothes and leave like in a puddle of like, I normally ended crying in a shavasana, but it was that release. Like we have to release what we're holding somewhere.
Speaker: yeah And finding that place to do that, allowing yourself, whether it's in the gym or it's running or it's walking or it's yoga or it's, or you know, prayer.
Speaker: yeah um Giving yourself the grace to focus on what you do have control over. And that is creating this new possible practice to manage your stress and see what happens next.
Speaker: you know Absolutely. That's so beautiful. And it reminds me of the unboxing that I do with women because, um it you know, along the similar vein of what we pack away and box away and try to hold onto and control because we don't think that we can let others see that part of of who we are or that emotion that we're holding. We feel like we risk rejection or losing love. or And so we hold onto these things. But when you begin to sit with those parts of yourself, whether it's through an unboxing um ah journey um through coaching with me or sitting with you and we'll get into your coaching shortly or choosing a meditation practice or prayer, right? I feel like meditation is prayer. It's, it's, it's it's a connecting to something much deeper and greater than ourselves you
Speaker: um stepping outside and connecting with nature for five minutes. So much of even five minutes, right? It's powerful. So much of my meditation is done with my horses.
Speaker: Or as we were talking earlier, before we even started our conversation here inside of this podcast episode is the pause. Yeah. And the taking of a breath, which you described a teacher where you were doing a reading of your book,
Speaker: And we'll talk about that shortly too, but um instructing her children just to take that moment to pause. First graders, three deep cleansing breaths before we were ready to listen to a story, you know?
Speaker: yeah And that, you know, it I think women um also understanding the importance of trusting yourself and what works for you and what feels right and listening to your body. Because if you are out, say in nature, if you take a five minute break pause, um, and you just sit in stillness and you listen to the birds, um, or you connect with the sun, um, or you know, you, you gaze at a tree and and the beautiful leaves on the tree and you allow yourself into the miracle of that moment.
Speaker: And you sense a lightness where you, maybe you were felt more heavy before you entered into that five minute pause. Um, and your body is feeling a sense of release, or maybe you feel a little more hopeful, listen to those things, right? Those are little points of light, points of grace that are saying, this is good medicine for you.
Speaker: Keep up this practice because we are conditioned to often blow past the very thing that our body is saying it needs. Yeah.
Speaker: Right? Yeah. Yeah. it It made me think of Michelle, like so often when I'll leave my yoga practice or leave mass, right? I may not even subconsciously be going in with a problem or something I want to solve in my mind.
Speaker: But nine times out of 10, I'll leave that space of where I was just quiet and dropped in, as I like to say. And you're leaving that yoga class or I'm leaving mass. And the answer of what I need is on the tip of my tongue, like the perfect answer.
Speaker: And I wasn't thinking about it in there. I wasn't analyzing, I was doing my yoga practice. But it's powerful. When you learn to stop thinking, our society doesn't help us to do that. But when you allow yourself to be perfectly present in the moment of doing an exercise like a yoga practice or a meditation or prayer, the ripple effects of what come out after that is nothing short of a miracle and just
Speaker: a beautiful experience that if you went and said, I'm going to go to my desk right now and I'm going to write out this plan or I'm going to go talk to my child about that difficult topic now and solve this, you rarely get that when it's forced.
Speaker: But so that's the extra blessing in the pause and what comes after. Yeah, it's that beautiful stream of clarity when we allow ourselves to connect and center and be in that present moment.
Speaker: And, you know, that it's it's such a goodness in your words. And i i don't I would be remiss not to ask you about your family and your kids. Share with us. um Give us a peek into the window of your life as a mother now. um How many kids you have and what ages are they? Where are you um along the journey of motherhood?
Speaker: Well, look at me now. I'm going to get a little emotional because I get talking about my my kids and my son's birth mothers and it always, you know, it always hits me in a beautiful place. So it's, ah those are happy tears. It's my, ah my, um my, my kids will say, mom, or those those are happy tears, right?
Speaker: Yeah. So my kids are in a great place right now. They're 23, soon to be 21 and 18. My oldest graduated from college and he is working and we talk probably every day, if not every other day.
Speaker: um, and My middle son is a junior in college, um and he is, I call him my gentle giant. He's the tallest of the three, and he's the one that my children's book is actually based on an actual event that happened to him in school.
Speaker: So he is my gentle giant and just a beautiful, a beautiful person. just a beautiful, sweet boy. And my oldest is is is amazing too. i just, they're they're just all so different. I'm the youngest of four girls, as I said, we all couldn't be more different, right?
Speaker: So yes, I'm raising my children ah through the blessing of adoption and genetically, they are very different, but um at the core, um they all are just, my biggest hope and dream is their mom.
Speaker: And then get to my youngest son is my hope and dream is that they grow to be the fullest version of themselves. Unstoppable, as you say, it just the fullest, most beautiful expression of themselves.
Speaker: And I never want any part of their story or their journey or the world to tell them any different. That's beautiful.
Speaker: that is, that's my biggest wish for them. And, and I think, isn't that a wish all parents have for all their children, whether they have their children through the blessing of adoption or not.
Speaker: I talk quite a bit, Michelle, and um you know there's there's four girls, as I said, 11 grandchildren, eight of which are adopted in our family. So adoption has been in our family story for over 30 years.
Speaker: And I can't remember a time when we didn't have adoption in our story. And so i often would reflect on um just how much you want for your children and to what extent you're willing to go to for that, right?
Speaker: But by the same token, the importance of taking your hands off that wheel and letting them just evolve into exactly who they are intended to be.
Speaker: And my hope and prayer as always, may their lessons be gentle, because they will have them. And I would not um say I am a helicopter mom, but I've always said, may your lessons be gentle.
Speaker: And I have always said, you know, give you wings to fly and a reason to come home. hmm. You know, like you just want them to go. And that brings me to my youngest son who's graduating from high school this month.
Speaker: He's 18 and he's just this rock solid, you know, confident young man who plays classical guitar like nobody's business since he was in first grade.
Speaker: And he's just so... He goes from that to loving F1 races and, you know, and a whole mixture of just, he's he's just this this very diverse and alive young man for such a young age. And um they've all just been such such a gift and such a joy to raise. And has it been perfect? No, it's three teenage boys, three young adults.
Speaker: But at the end of the day, Um, my, as a mom, as my, as being the mom to them, um, I always, always put first and foremost open and honest conversations about their story. Um, and if I didn't have an answer, i would do whatever I could to get the answer.
Speaker: And if we don't have the answer today, I often would end all of my sentences with yet, yet. Yet, because this is our story today. So I can still see them as little people. And two of my three kids, it was very, very, very important for them to meet their birth families. and And I said, you will, you know, but we will do that when it's the right time for you. It's the right time for your birth mom. and It's the right time for family.
Speaker: You know, it's not yet. We're not there yet, but we're getting there. But keep asking questions and your curiosity is normal. And I want to do whatever I can to help you. So, you know, that open and honest, um open and honest questions to the best of our, to the best of our ability and always praying, you know, may your lessons be gentle and, and,
Speaker: knowing that I may not always have the answers for them regardless, in addition to whatever adoption, right? It's life. yeah And how do we instill in these humans the resilience to come back, to bounce back?
Speaker: You're gonna be disappointed. You're gonna go through the awkward teenage years. You're going to not be picked for the team. You know, you may, you know, you You may learn something about your birth family, your adoptive family, your siblings that you don't agree with, like. but And that's what I love so much about your book is the hope that's in your book.
Speaker: And it's never, ever denying that life is hard and that difficult things happen are happened to us. But that's never an invitation to not live a full, vibrant life.
Speaker: That's all I want for the adoption community. And I say, and beyond, because I want, I say beyond because I want people who don't know anyone who's touched by adoption, which is really hard to find yeah because nine times out of 10, as I begin to talk about adoption, they know somebody, either their neighbor or their family or a friend.
Speaker: um But I want them to know what to say next that is, relevant today in our conversations around adoption.
Speaker: Because a lot of times it's that pregnant pause that a lot of times I got, oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. There's nothing to be sorry about. This is our story, you know? um So giving that opportunity to um you know, have people feel this comfort level around this topic and not to say,
Speaker: oh, that's so amazing. And, you know, sugarcoat it. Like these are the spectrums of adoption, right? Everything is hard and difficult or everything is amazing, but there's this huge inner inner section of life that people are living their story that in it, regardless of having adoption and or not, there's good days, there's bad days, there's The human experience is going on. yeah And as I say, we all have to live through all these lenses of our lives.
Speaker: But if you have adoption in your story, you do have one more lens. And I just finished writing a blog about, and sometimes that lens is the leading actor.
Speaker: It's the leading role in that day, in that season in your life or whatever. But sometimes it's just in the background. it's just It's just there. It's not as prevalent as maybe some other times in your life.
Speaker: And so recognizing that because somebody has adoption in their story, you don't know their story. Everybody has a different story. Everybody, whether you have adoption in story or not.
Speaker: So can we give them that grace to really allow them to share what their story is around adoption and what their view is, because it's this incredible learning process that we would give to anyone who tell me your story, you know, just because you heard that person's from New Jersey or from Romania or from, you know, your town, we're all not all the same. and We're all coming from our own experience.
Speaker: And I want adoptees and birth moms, and in any anyone touched in adoption to have that grace to share their story.
Speaker: Yeah, and to show up as they are. I think, you know, as an adoptee, I think the narrative has always felt like, well, for a very long time, it is changing. And I think that is due to adoptees sharing more openly their stories, their journeys and perspectives, but also there's a shift in um I think adoptive parents um being willing to lean in and understand their adoptees experience um because, you know, growing up, I felt like it had to be either or.
Speaker: You either had to say you were very grateful and ecstatic about being ah adopted or. you might find yourself being tagged labeled as you're just being ungrateful, you know.
Speaker: And I'm sorry for that. When I say I love your book, I didn't love that part. And I and i actually got emotional about reading that part because it's obviously not the first time that I've heard people share that aspect. And it genuinely, you know, breaks my heart.
Speaker: and um But as I'm sure you know, well, I don't want put words in your mouth, but we all act sometimes in ways out of fear, you know, exactly. no you know that And not that it makes it okay or right, but it's our own fear.
Speaker: It's our own insecurities. Yes. and And also sometimes in that moment where folks might not know what to say, they'll just grab on to maybe something they've heard before.
Speaker: And, and that narrative um is compounded, you know, and, and And has, um over the decades, I think, um left adoptees feeling like they, you know, have no voice or have no choice, but that is changing.
Speaker: And I think it does come around. And what what you describe is bringing balanced, honest, and modern conversations to adoption, supporting women in the triad. You know, there's a ah statistic that says one in four Americans are touched by adoption in some way, whether they realize it or not.
Speaker: We've all met someone, known someone who has been adopted, who has adopted a ah birth parent, um and maybe they don't share their stories openly, but we are in contact and in connection with adoption daily. And I think it is very, very important as we work to support a wider community and to um create a more inclusive community where all voices matter, no matter your perspective or experience, it's important to lean in and hear, not judge.
Speaker: But this balanced, honest, and modern conversation within this community is key. And I'd love for you to share what you're doing, the work that you're focused on as you um near this phase of empty nesting.
Speaker: um You know, my daughter's 15, my youngest, she's three years away from graduating. um I know that soul filling is a baby for you as well, right? You're nurturing this part of yourself and this offering that you are so passionate to share with the world.
Speaker: Tell us more about that and how you are working to build that balanced, honest, and more modern conversation around this um topic of adoption and this community that continues to need support and understanding.
Speaker: so So soul filling came, um you know, I wasn't sitting there at my desk being like, today I'm going to start a business, right? It was as innocent as I texted a dear friend of mine, Deirdre, who happens to be an adoptee. We walk every week and it was her birthday. And I said, happy birthday.
Speaker: And she said, thank you, my soul filling friend, Fran. Wow. And I said, soul filling. That really is a beautiful word. Where'd that come from, Deirdre? She goes, I don't know.
Speaker: It just came rolled off. You know, you hear fulfilling, you hear soulful food, right? But soul filling. And full disclosure, Michelle, I thought I was going to start a greeting card company. I love photography and I love creating.
Speaker: And so I was going to create and take pictures of soul filling greeting cards. Like what fills your soul? Is it the beach? Is it your animals? Is it pictures of families? Whatever.
Speaker: and I made some cards and I sat with that and I'm like, Fran, what fills your soul? Come on. It's your children. It's your family.
Speaker: It's your opportunity to live this life that you've created with the help of my son's birth mothers for myself. That's what fills my soul.
Speaker: And what could fill my soul filling to make it go on into the future? And that is to be a voice of what adoption has been for our family and what adoption has meant to me and what um what adoption can mean to other people and in that are thinking about it, but don't know anything about it.
Speaker: And how can I bring ah balanced conversation to the forefront so that maybe some of the stigmas that are given to birth mothers go away?
Speaker: And maybe some of the stigmas to adoptees lived experiences go away. And maybe the stigma and the shame of some adoptive moms carrying infertility and carrying some of the things that they didn't unpack.
Speaker: Self-filling for me is to be that voice that we can come together. I don't have to be just um an adoptive mom speaking about adoption. But can I bring to my soul-filling community voices of the adoptee, voices of birth mothers, and show that we support each other.
Speaker: We like each other. There's more in common in our journeys if we just let ourselves listen to each other, right? It's not this or that.
Speaker: It's all. It's and. And so that's where... I started this, like what this could look like. So I did the things I Googled, how do you start a business? And I created my logo. So everything on my, my products and my pendant that I commissioned to have made, everything has the adoption symbol on it.
Speaker: Why? Because I want to spark informal, casual conversations around adoption. to bring adoption into a story, just like we're talking here. Life is serious. Having children is serious, whether you adopted your kids or not, but every conversation doesn't need to be serious.
Speaker: And we we begin to bring conversations forward with a smile on our face and say, oh, that's the adoption symbol. And we have adoption in our story. Do you know someone that has adoption?
Speaker: It begins to create, oh, no, I don't, but that's really interesting to know. I didn't know that. Have a good day. And you kind of move on. it's It's not this big topic of conversation every single time.
Speaker: Sparking, my goal is to spark these informal conversations wherever we can. And being on podcasts like yours um and ones that talk about adoption and ones that don't even talk about adoption.
Speaker: Just again, to bring the topic to the forefront, because, you know, there's over 5 million adoptees. It's hard to get the number, you know that. Yes. In the US.
Speaker: But when you take that number and you compound that, as we touched on earlier, by the number of people those adoptees touch, from coaches to teachers, to doctors' offices, to neighbors, that number compounds pretty significantly.
Speaker: And that's why, in my perspective, I want to bring my message to those that aren't necessarily in the adoption community, right? So that they too have this appreciation and better understanding. And so, you know, one of our local colleges has asked me to teach a workshop on what I talk about with adoption, with the hopes of bringing in you know, different people that are in, you know, social work or school counselors or therapists to begin to
Speaker: put some common language, like just language of adoption has changed, right? Yes. Yes. Birth family, real family, you know, place given up all the things you and I, we talk about these things all the time because we're coming from a lived adoption experience, but the average person may be only coming from that Hallmark movie they saw.
Speaker: 15, 20 years ago that did not depict adoption anywhere near. Is adoption perfect today? Of course not. Of course not. But at the end of the day, it's evolved and I think it's working in the right direction of of being, you know, in a better place and being healthier for all on the triad.
Speaker: um And so that is one way, you know, to be able to to bring that message. I wrote my children's book, you know, I'd love that children's book to be in every library in school, school library and bookstore, you know, it's on Amazon and it's soon to be on IngramSpark to get it out further. But why? Because I think children need to see at a young age, reading a book about adoption and just seeing, you know, at the back of the book I have, it's an adoption key, some adoption facts.
Speaker: Like just naming November's National Adoption Month. Did you know this is the adoption symbol? Like as an educational tool so that I've had families buy the book that don't have adoption in their story. And they're like, Fran, it was helpful me for me to read that to my child because I know they have friends in their class that are adopted.
Speaker: And now I know different things, just informal conversations that I can have with them about adoption. You know, those innocent, those innocent conversations. So, and I, you know, have followed and talked with for years, you know, before I started soul filling the center for adoption support and education out of, out of Virginia and the DC area. But they've asked me to, to teach a course to their community around this, you know, positive psychology that I talk about around,
Speaker: of, you know, am i i'm not so I'm not suggesting we go around and say our stories are perfect and everything is wonderful. And they're absolutely not. But we do have a personal choice, every single one of us, to wake up and ask ourselves, what can I do today that I have control over that will move me in the right direction of where I want to go?
Speaker: all We all do. we have to that. have to choose that Or we can choose to sit and rehash and wallow in what's going wrong, what I wished was different, who I'm upset with, what I'm frustrated about.
Speaker: And sometimes, you know, go to that place because we all need to, because we are human. But in my opinion, and it's specifically focused on the adoption community is, gosh, I love that lighter luggage of letting the, let those stories go.
Speaker: that don't serve you and let those people in your life that for whatever reason did or didn't do what they should have done, whether they're biological or not friends, whatever, let them go and allow yourself this freedom to live fully and to live your fullest expression, because I'll tell you what, I think you can live your full expression, but gosh, will that be a heavier load if you don't choose to let go of some of those things. So harder to get to that place of living that fullest expression of who I'm here to be when I'm holding onto things that are weighing me down and keeping me separated.
Speaker: from those parts of myself. There's a quote that says, what's wrong is available. What's wrong is always available, but so is what's right. And that's the, I think people get sometimes hung up on this term of positive psychology. It's not saying that everything is rosy all the time. No, life is hard. It's tough. We scrape our knees, we fall down, but it's in that messiness where if we allow ourselves to maybe put on a different lens and look at it in a different way, we can find a miracle. That's, I think to me, that's what positive psychology is. It's looking for the lesson and asking, that was hard, but how is this experience here to grow me? What's it here to show me? What's it here to teach me? How's it here to guide me? Those kinds of questions, which can shift us out of feeling stuck in
Speaker: an experience and a life experience that was, you know, was hard and not fun. It's a growth mindset. You know, it comes from a place of a growth mindset. Like i cause you're not going to grow. Right. I don't think if we keep rehashing old narratives that aren't serving us today. So positive psychology and resilience focuses on this growth mindset,
Speaker: of It's not denying and you have every right to be upset or not like it, but it's challenging yourself. What is the next, as small as that step is, what is the next step you can take to move into a direction that you'd rather be in?
Speaker: Yeah. And winning that ownership in yourself, you know? Absolutely. And and I think it it gets very clear, at least for me, um when I say, where do I want to live? from a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset says you're stuck. This is never gonna change.
Speaker: I don't like that. That is very disempowering. Yeah, and today, Michelle, more than ever, i think there are resources for everybody, paid, unpaid, you know the free Insight Timer, which is where I found you. it's just allowing yourself to connect with people you know but it's it's just allowing yourself to to connect with people that can just give you these little tools that can make such a big difference. man My yoga studio has free yoga classes. You know, we talk about walking in nature, that's free. Like these these little tools are these little habits, right? These micro habits can be so powerful and compound really giving yourself
Speaker: the the freedom in the ability to think because we have to let go of some of these these things. this is the This is the thing. We can't take in new information and new habits and new practices if we don't let something go because we're cluttered, right? we're We're stuck.
Speaker: I just created a an adoption journal, which basically will take people through where you are now in your story and and it allows them to put photographs with it too and And how do they see their story today? Where do they wanna see their story? And it kind of takes them through the process of how much they do have control over and empower them to to make some decisions um to make their story their next chapter, if you will, the best chapter it can be. Something that i and feel just compelled to share is
Speaker: When you're in a moment and you think, I can't get over this hump, um this is too much. When you find yourself speaking words that are more limiting, having thoughts that feel like, you know, they they limit your ability to move forward, look at the timeline of your life. And this is what I think you're sharing within the journal.
Speaker: Look at what you have overcome. Maybe it's a smaller thing. Maybe that's what you, but you've overcome something. ah moments and events in your life that have brought you to where you are today. You have everything that you need to get through whatever you're facing today.
Speaker: that's, that is a beautiful gift. And I know that people are connecting to that within your journal because you can't look back on your life and not see tremendous resilience and strength because we all, as you said, we hit bumps in the road and they're hard, but look at us. We've been moving forward. Stop and honor yourself for that.
Speaker: and look at that evidence and see the wisdom that is seated there and use that wisdom to move forward. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I just, you know, with our kids, right, I don't care that they're young adults, we still want to pour this into their brains. And but, you know, their brains like ours, they can't grow faster than, you know, look where we are in our lives, right? They can't possibly have the wisdom that we have. That's why i have to pray may their lessons be gentle, because they still They're listening, they're hearing it, right?
Speaker: um But they they won't be able to truly appreciate it probably for some years to come. And just my hope is that when they need it the most, they know that if they can't find it within, they go to something bigger than themselves, you know, whatever that may be for them.
Speaker: Or find somebody. to talk to about it because we were never, and I couldn't say that to the day I died, we were never intended to live this journey of with misery and drudgery and difficulty. And if that's, that's the space any of us are in know that you're not the first i would laugh at my kids, you know we're not that special. We're not that unique. Like you're not the first person to ever feel this way and get through this. So just know,
Speaker: You know, couple of my kids talk to a life coach on a regular basis and I love it. Yeah. I'm like, yes, I don't care. Whatever it is to manage your schedule to, because at the end of the day, they'll have less luggage to carry throughout their life.
Speaker: Even if it's a silly thing of you know, this gentleman that they work with, we'll talk to him in 15 minute increments. You know, hey, da I just need you for 15 minutes. Do it.
Speaker: Yeah. Because if you don't let that go, it's just going to keep growing. So so just instilling in our young people and in ourselves, if we weren't given this knowledge yet.
Speaker: Gosh, don't carry the load yourself, share it and come up with some kind of tool or system to to to help, you know, through the journey. And I just want to say full disclosure, you know,
Speaker: all of my kids have very unique birth stories. So all of them don't have the same um relationships and ongoing conversations and so on and so forth. So I just want to share for those in the adoption community that are listening that um it's so important to honor that too. Yeah, absolutely. Just because one in a family may have a very unique situation doesn't mean they all have the same um desire as adoptees of each other.
Speaker: They all still are very individual human beings, all my need all of us, whether adopted or not. So to make the assumption that all adoptees think the same way and must want the same, yeah they just don't.
Speaker: And I, as their mom, have to honor that. yeah you know them Meet them where they are and hold space, honor their individual experience their individual perspective, where they are right here, right now.
Speaker: And um there's no, there's no judgment. There's just acceptance and no expectation to just that level of acceptance is so freeing.
Speaker: And to your point, you know, it's so important to remember because I used to have the mantra of I came into this world alone, I'll leave it alone. Well, that's not what we're wired for. We weren't made to walk this journey of life alone.
Speaker: We're better together. We're stronger together. And when we, with intention, create these spaces of inclusivity, understanding, I really consider them sacred spaces. Lean in um because there's so much we can learn from each other.
Speaker: So much that I have learned from you today, Francine, you're such a beautiful soul and a friend, and I'm so grateful. And I'm I know that those listening are going to want to connect to feel, you know, they're feeling deeply connected to your story and what you're sharing.
Speaker: um Maybe they're ready to unbox and grow through their own adoption journey. Are there more willing to listen to the perspectives of those within the adoption triad? They're ready for deeper personal reflection. how they, how can they connect with you? How can they find your books, your journal?
Speaker: um your coaching and and learn more about your work? Sure, sure. So my website is soulfillingadoption.com, just like it sounds. So soulfillingadoption.com. And then on Instagram and Facebook, and in it's just Soul Filling by Francine Appy.
Speaker: And in LinkedIn, it's Francine Appy. So you'll see Soul Filling there too, but The one thing I would love to add to what you just said, Michelle, because I could talk to you all day and I know we have to hop off, but I love, again, I have to just say one more thing about your book that I can't stress enough to your listeners is the power of forgiveness.
Speaker: And this is something that I've talked to my kids about since they were little, little in trying to instill in them and in myself, when we forgive, it's beautiful.
Speaker: possibly for the other person, but it's even better for you as an individual um that you're not carrying around that story that may not even be true anymore, that it just doesn't matter, but you're holding on to some silly grudge that just that power of forgiveness.
Speaker: and And even if they're not asking for it, doing it for yourself and forgiving them for whatever decision they did do or didn't do powerful.
Speaker: So thank you for talking about that too. Thank you very much for for pulling that piece out because it is foundational um and is so important. And, you know, people will often say, how how could I possibly forgive? And I think the reframing of that is if you don't forgive, how stuck are you going to feel in your life?
Speaker: How imprisoned will you feel inside of your own thoughts and the and the heavy weight of that. And perhaps in the forgiving, even though if you, you haven't received an I'm sorry from the person who, um, who hurt you or disappointed you, even if you never get the, I'm i truly sorry, even if they never understand completely what they did to hurt you, forgiveness sets you free and,
Speaker: serve to live free and liberated and whole and happy. Yeah. And that's the power forgiveness. Pack lighter, create more.
Speaker: The lighter we, the lighter we are, then we have the energy level, right? At our age, we only have so much energy. We, I just had this conversation with my son the other day. You won't understand it, but the, you know, you're going to protect your energy as you get older. And for me,
Speaker: is protecting our energy so that we have the energy to do what we really want to do to create and to to have this voice in the world that you feel is needed. So yeah um protect your energy, protect your peace.
Speaker: And, you know, happiness is a choice. Choose happy, pack lighter, create more, choose happy. It is no coincidence. The choosing of happy that I am speaking with my friend, Francine,
Speaker: Thank you. Thank you so much for being here with me. It's a blessing. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I i so look forward to more conversations and thank you for writing your beautiful book.
Speaker: Thank you, Francine.
Speaker: Thank you for joining me on Unboxed, Unburdened, Unstoppable. If today's story unboxed something within you, share this with a friend. Subscribe and commit to walking this path of power and purpose with us.
Speaker: Remember, you have everything it takes to be the hero of your own life. Until next time, stay unboxed, unburdened, and unstoppable.
