Dr. Frances Malone: Following Fear and Showing Up Myself | The Great Conquest

Unknown Speaker 0:05

Hello divine souls, Jamila Bernie here with becoming the big me. I'm so excited for this special segment of the becoming the big me podcast. This section of the podcast is dedicated towards sharing the stories of conquest for some incredible individuals. They are also featured in my latest book, becoming the big, the great conquest. In this section of the podcast, we will dive deep into each of their stories and their journeys and their hardships from addiction, PTSD, loss of loved ones and children. This segment of the podcast is dedicated towards sharing their stories and in sharing their journeys not only of the hardships but sharing how they overcame. To learn more about the author's behind the stories that you are going to hear, go to the great conquest.com And if you would like to purchase a copy of the great conquest book, you can go to bit.li/greatconquestandwithoutfurtherado Let's dive into the amazing journeys. Hello, hello, welcome back to the becoming the big me podcast. I'm your host Djemilah Birnie and today we have another episode of our becoming the big me the great conquest section. And I'm so excited to introduce our guests with you here today. I have Dr. Francis Malone, Dr. Francis Malone is a pioneer in the field of integrative pediatric medicine and holistic education for parents. She is a healthy families advocate and offers holistic support for conscious families and naturally healthy kids through the intuitive parents collective. Her podcast, the intuitive parents podcast and her practice Malone pediatrics, as with anyone chasing their dreams, there will be obstacles along the way. Francis is no stranger to these obstacles, and as has encountered many on her journey. But throughout it all, she has continued to get back up and keep going. I'm so excited to have Dr. Malone on today to tell us about her journey, who she is, what she does, and how she is overcoming her fears, even currently right now. Hey, Francis, thank you so much for joining us.

Unknown Speaker 2:45

mula. Thank you so much for having me here on your podcast. I'm delighted to be here and to share some of my journey so that perhaps it helps someone else along the way.

Unknown Speaker 2:57

I'm so excited. I know. I know a lot of your journey, Francis. But I would love it if we could just dive right in. And can you just give the audience a little bit of your backstory and history so they can kind of understand who is Dr. Francis Malone?

Unknown Speaker 3:16

my own pediatric practice in: 2016

Unknown Speaker 8:12

I realized that the information that I have and my perspective on supporting parents and raising their children, and actually even just seeing their children or seeing themselves was very different and valuable for the parents in my practice, and valuable perhaps for people outside of my current network. So that was my most recent place of really having to, again, face fears and ideas that I had about myself that are not true that I made up as being edges to who Francis is and who she can be and who she can become. And I have to say that that I hope that journey is never over for me, and that I always keep pushing myself a little bit more to expand what I have to offer, expand the love that I have to offer and receive people and their intentions with. So yeah, that's the most recent giant, leaning forward into trusting myself and learning about myself and then finding the people to support me. Thanks for asking.

Unknown Speaker 9:29

May I ask what what was the major fear? Or what is the major fear that you find yourself facing as you go to embark on the next level or the next step in your journey?

Unknown Speaker 9:44

Oh, God, I think this is one I share with so so many people, but absolutely I will tell you it's the fear of not being enough. The fear of not knowing enough the fear of not having the personality Not having the looks not having that. Yeah, it's one that I think I have in common with 50% of the population or more.

Unknown Speaker: 10:12

That's true. It's true. So so even while you're having these feelings, which exactly you're saying so many of us have, I know I have them all the time myself as well. How do you get yourself to, to show up anyways and face that fear because that can be something that can be crippling for for many people.

Unknown Speaker: 10:35

As well, Jamila, I have incorporated into my life, little places, and things that I do to show myself that I care about Francis. Some of those things are occasionally having bodywork and massage done, I try to work it into my life, so that I do it on definitely a monthly basis, sometimes every two weeks, partly because of my own traumatic, physical, the traumatic life history, I actually needed and have used massage to help me to become a embodied person. So after having had histor things happen in my life where I needed to leave my body, I have found that part of my healing journey has involved getting massage on a regular basis where there is touch that you can predict, and you know that it is healing, touching and has helped me to come back into myself as a person i You've used and continue to use yoga, to help me to ground my parasympathetic nervous system that can easily get torched just like everybody else's into fight or flight. I take my shoes off and ground myself as often as possible in nature, or sit myself down in nature, even if just shoes doesn't, I mean, just bare feet doesn't work. And I try not to look at the whole beast. Right? So I think there's a saying that, how do you eat an elephant, and you can only eat it one bite at a time. And that is true for probably everything or challenge that I've ever given myself is to, you know, stabilize myself support my emotional self that is feeling dysregulated and out of control and worried and fearful and anxious. And then tried to make a list or formulate in my mind. What are the pieces that are required for that? And are they things that I need to do? Or are there people who can help me and either partner with me or that I employ to help offload me having to learn all the things. So that's actually one of the more recent things that I have learned is that using other people's strengths, to allow me to stay in my zone of genius, actually allows me to soar higher, but have to still support that core anxiety, things, those little trigger things that show up for me, you still got to support that party yourself while you lean a little bit further forward, and just trust that you're going to be able to do it.

Unknown Speaker: 13:44

I'm curious if if some of of your experience or your history has influenced your interest in some of the cranial sacral work that you do?

Unknown Speaker: 14:00

Hmm. I would say absolutely. Absolutely. My work with babies and young children doing cranial sacral therapy comes from my traumatic childhood. I think that part I had a beautiful, beautiful childhood in so many ways, but emotionally I felt I had to

Unknown Speaker: 14:37

be hyper vigilant and to be hyper aware of the emotional and energetic environment that I was in and that the experiences that led me to use that coping skill or that hyper vigilance actually are one of the biggest gifts that I have in use in my practice, which is the ability to energetically read a child or a family. And it's a skill that I couldn't go to school for that you couldn't go and have somebody say to you be in a room with a family, and be able to say the one thing that's on people's minds that they haven't even told you yet, right, so that's part of my practice. And then, with cranial sacral, I actually put my hands on children, or on their energetic field as well as their parents, and provide support for them to either deal with a transition or support them in being able to talk about something or being able to experience or feel something. So my own history, people talk about this resilience that we develop, by having had hard lives. And I absolutely believe that there is a place along a person's journey where you can finally look back and see that it didn't just require resilience, but it also our coping skills that we've developed, then become this asset. And when you are becoming more secure in your attachments with people and more secure and able to love yourself, then you can look back and start to see that those are former coping skills that we tend to put in air quotes in a negative connotation, actually, are this gift that you also have to offer? So it's both right. It's two sided sword. So when I look back at my life, I, I do see places where things were hard, but I also see that they have given me lots of beauty in my life.

Unknown Speaker: 17:01

Yeah, I, I also believe that in life, a lot of times the hardest obstacles for us to overcome or the most challenging situations, in the moment, can teach us some of the greatest lessons. Can you share with us a little bit about some of the lessons that you have learned through the hardships of your journey?

Unknown Speaker: 17:33

I think I can, or absolutely wasn't prepared for that. So there's a lot of back explanation that might be necessary for my answer, but I'm going to go ahead and give the answer and we can see how much more would be necessary for people. So as a person that grew up as a child with an insecure attachment to my parents, and the feeling of lack of control in my life, and the events of my life, and how things will transpire moving forward. I develop these coping strategies of number one hyper vigilance to the energetic room. Are the old people doing okay, or somebody's mad is somebody angry? What, what can I do to mitigate that, that whole hyper vigilance as well as a district trust or a fear of not being loved or accepted and this is not my parents or my siblings responsibility that's, that's owned fully by me, that I had that fear or that perspective. And so, impart read each of the things that they did in life as indicators of not caring or not loving or so, we tend to when we are living within a mental framework, we tend to read things in our external environment that support our whatever our main subconscious rhetoric or line of thinking is, and I, when I look back on my life now can see how I was an active player in not just reading people, but also in little ways rejecting their, their attention and their advances to right. So, as I have who I know it's a very long journey to be on. So on this journey, I have really come to take responsibility for some my own responses to other people. And now know that when I read something as being only indicative of that that person doesn't care about me or that this is Oh, right. This is some fear jumps up for me, right. But my job now, as an older, much older, Francis Malone is to look at that through the lens of who I am now, and say, Is that is that actually true? Or is it just nonsense based on your old stuff? And then I get to have a dialogue with myself about? Yeah, so that's actually not really true. And if I wanted to know if it's true, I can ask the person, I can say, are you angry with me? And, frankly, most of the time, they say, No, oh, you're not angry with me. You're having your own life. You're having your own emotions about your stuff. And I'm busy reading too much into them. Right. So yeah, that's a real personal information. But now I do a lot of that. Do a lot of self counseling about Sure. That's good information. And I see that somebody is upset, I see that they're upset. It doesn't relate to me. Is there any way that I am partly responsible for that? And how do I want to show up for them? Right, if I am responsible? Or how can I show up for myself and just saying, you know, what, they're allowed to be angry, they're allowed to do whatever they need to, they're allowed to have their own experience of life. And then I do my own self calming and self support, to not be reactive, right? Because we live in a world of people reacting and reacting to other people's stuff. And it's really, because we haven't dealt with our own childhood trauma or own internal fears.

Unknown Speaker: 22:14

What are some of the things that have helped you maybe, and you can, they can just be activities. But what are some of the things that have helped you to even understand what those childhood fears are, and also face them?

Unknown Speaker: 22:40

Right, because I can tell you that I, my first response to any situation that I don't, I'm fearful of is kind of like a winning racehorse like, I will look at it out of the corner of my eye, stomp my feet back up, take a breath. And kind of like this is just how I approach challenges, or used to approach challenges in my life, and it's very effective. So um, let's see the some of the things that I do and have done I think that So number one, it is always really, really hard to turn back around and look in the past, and to see the things that we were afraid of. It really is. But if someone had told me that looking back, and loving that little girl, and seeing that at six, she really didn't have the ability to necessarily be heard by the adults necessarily change life experiences for herself and her sister, then if they told me that by doing that, and to showing her love and just saying, you were just a little kid, I think that's the first stop start. And for me, I had already been doing this bodywork, right, so as a disembodied person, I needed to do bodywork and I needed to start feeling like my knees as being part of my body and that when they hurt, I should listen to not just push myself through it, right. And I was whipping myself, pushing myself through obstacles and physical demands, because I couldn't feel what my body was saying about those things, which I think is socially acceptable because people are like, Oh, wow, look at this person, they can overachieve. But really that what I was doing is just overcompensating with coping skills. So after doing some of that, I guess self care stuff. Then finally saying I don't want to move forward in my life in this stuck, little bit unhappy person's life anymore. And then I actually need to turn around and look at how I got here. And understand that it's not the child's fault that I have all these coping mechanisms. It's not my younger selfs fault. But things happened or played out the way they did. That that was probably the key thing for me is that that actually allowed other things that I had, I'd actually didn't even remember to burble forward, and me to be able to have a tiny bit more of objectivity about No, right. And having a tiny space of objectivity about something that's so deeply personal can help us to reconcile it. And the more we do that, and the more reconciling and the more releasing of things that have been stuck, the better we get at it. And there is beauty and joy at the other end of that horrible tunnel, or the abyss or whatever you want to call it. And that's where I am now, which is, oh, I wouldn't change my life for anything. So glad I went through it. The work is worth it.

Unknown Speaker: 26:16

Yeah, so how has how has doing that work and really facing facing what that trauma is facing those fears? How has that influenced where you are today and the work that you are doing today, with with other families?

Unknown Speaker: 26:37

Well, so I never even imagined that it was possible to wake up in the morning and to feel sheer joy at being alive and getting to do this day. And that's where I am right now. And the fact that I wake up that way. And I approach the people in my life that way, most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time. And I'm able to see people with my own love for them. And to see places where they are asking for support. It's changed my world completely. And really amazing, heart centered, open, people are showing up in my life. And I get to guide people on their own journey towards joy for wellness out of that dogfish Moon sanctuary, which is my practice there. It's totally outside of medicine. But part of holding people's integrity for them with them, helping them map out a journey of things that could be helpful for them. A whole banquet of things that you could choose from, to help start. And it's also allowed me to, I guess, expect more of myself and trust myself more. Right? So as I have worked on and healed a lot of that old stuff. And I am by no means fixed or whatever, but that the fixing is from inside myself. Right? It's not for someone else to do and I am on a journey of becoming a better and better me, always. So but as I am right now I am able to, you know, ask more of myself and say really? Is that something that is true? Absolutely about you, Francis Malone, like, can you not get above the second rung on a ladder? This five year old kid doesn't believe that? Do you really believe it? And then I just like, did it, I got a better ladder and I could get to the top right? So like, busting through, then you become this fearless like edge Buster, which is maybe who I am now. You know, or things like I used to not really get in freezing cold water because I told myself it doesn't feel good to myself and actually try it again because you don't even know whether you like that anymore. And turns out I love getting into freezing cold reverse. No. But I would you know eight years ago, that wasn't the story 10 years ago, it was absolutely not the story. So I think that having gone through and started the work of reassembling who I am and re understanding who I could be, has given me lots of strength and the ability to see these limiting ideas that I've had about myself as really constructs of either my life or other people in my life or but they're not really necessarily me. They're just ideas about who I was.

Unknown Speaker: 30:01

Something that you brought up was doing some of the work that you have been doing on the farm at Dogfish moon. And I love that you bring that up because something that has really helped me is doing work in the garden and doing physical work as I'm working through my my own mental stuff. Is it has the farm and that whole venture with the physical labor and having to exert yourself and build things. I mean, I know you have so much going on there. Has that helped you in your own process?

Unknown Speaker: 30:42

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And by so just by you being in your garden, and working and doing hard work, you're like hitting so many levels of places of self care for how I vision, self care, lots of people think of it differently. But being out in nature, being really just digging in dirt, using your body, learning to use your body, right, because so for some of us, it may be that doing gardening, or, for me digging, excuse me digging holes, or moving gravel, I haven't had a lot of personal experience in doing that I certainly never moved a hole to tons of gravel before ever in my life. But I got to be out there one on one with some loads of gravel, and buckets and shovels. And I'm out in nature, which is one of the best places for us to be really doing our self care and healing. And then I'm using my body and that physical exertion is is helpful in one aspect. And then the other aspect is having seen yourself move a bunch of dirt or plants or whatever the thing is, you then learn that Oh, well I can do that. i It's not just that I need to rely on other people or wait around for someone to come and help me or to, quote unquote, save me I really, boy, it's possible that I should just write down all the crazy ideas that I had, like, I thought people need to come save me or like who's going to come help fix this thing for me. And that's like really no longer my story pops up occasionally. But that's not a working parameter for me anymore. And probably has to do with doing a lot of gravel moving and dirt moving and organizing of where we're going to put things and being outside doing it. Yep. So you're totally right. Gardens are so therapeutic. And being in nature and doing any hard work, I guess.

Unknown Speaker: 32:47

One, it's funny because we actually met and building a year on Francis's property for dog fish, Moon. And there was a lot of lessons that we collectively learned. I feel like as a unit through that process of one, I don't think any anyone there had ever built a your before and joined to collectively move in a way is that the structure stays right. And it's just so incredible, the lessons that we can learn through doing these different activities and for you being like, Hey, I'm going to build this year, I'm not exactly sure how. And I'm making you know, a post on Facebook calling calling out to the collected as seeking help, because that's a big, that's a big fear for a lot of people to overcome as well is the the ability to even be Ask, ask others to join in and to help move you forward on your mission.

Unknown Speaker: 34:05

Absolutely. I think that that gets people stuck so so often not just in their own lives, but in their own businesses and all aspects. I think that people don't realize that if you don't ask, nobody can show up. And that is a huge lesson that I learned from that year at raising is we asked for help. And so many people showed up who I never even knew. No, I didn't know most of the people there. I knew one person and then I kind of knew another person. And everyone else was a brand new face to me. Who heard about us through Facebook or through some maybe also Instagram. And they showed up because they were interested in helping because we asked and I see that reverberating in my own life is oh wait Francis, you're sitting You're waiting for hope. Did you ask? Did you lean over and ask anybody? Did you move into that vulnerable place of asking for help? So that someone can say yes. Oh, I could help you. Just like, when somebody asks each of us for help, and we don't mind helping, we love to help. Right. But I think we forget to turn it around and say, Oh, if somebody asked me to, you know, help them move a couple pieces of thing from one place to another, and I have a truck, and I wouldn't mind doing it, I'd be glad to help. But we don't. Oftentimes, we just don't ask. Ask for hugs, ask for, you know, forgiveness, ask for help ask for all of it.

Unknown Speaker: 35:45

I love that. And I want to highlight there is how do you feel when someone else asks you for help you feel good, you enjoy people generally enjoy helping another person. It does make them feel good. And so something that has helped me personally reframe and actually ask for help more when when I need to, is to remind myself that by not asking for how I'm actually robbing other people have the experience of getting to help? Because that's something that we all love to do.

Unknown Speaker: 36:23

Yes, absolutely. I think that. And we're also partly responsible for the walls and the tower that we build around ourselves if we don't ask, right? Because you haven't allowed people in, you haven't allowed them the opportunity to say, I love that you asked, I'm not available today, or I can't help in that way. But could I help in this other way? Right. But when we live in fear of not being enough, we're not caring for ourselves, I think that that's sort of underpins the whole fear of asking for support. But when we do it, we get to CPA for short for us.

Unknown Speaker: 37:12

If you so you have gained so much experience over your time of having your own practice and serving families and and everything else that you are embarking on through your farm and what you're doing with the intuitive parents collective and your podcasts. And if you could rewind back into time and and give yourself one piece of advice from the knowledge that you have gathered back when you were first starting your solo journey, what would that be?

Unknown Speaker: 37:56

It would be to believe in yourself and your idea. And maybe give yourself a little bit more grace and understanding. And I thought about that this morning to about how I need to remind myself that even now, I the me right now also needs to hear the same thing that the me years ago needed to hear, which is that I guess just doing just leaning forward and trying to get to your dreams are going to get you to a way better place than you are right now. Or you're going to have dreams that you've never tried to manifest.

Unknown Speaker: 38:48

I love that you bring up you know how that's still something that you deal with? Because it truly is a journey that that there's no there's no destination, right? Like, what's the what's the destination at the end? When does it end? Well, that's when you're no longer here.

Unknown Speaker: 39:09

Okay, I guess I wanted to say I would also let me know, down the lessons, right? Down, you're going to need them. You need them again and again and again. And again. I've just had written them down like okay, give yourself a little bit more love and understanding. I could have heard that two days ago when I really needed it. And I was mucking around in not real MCQ this time, but just quagmire of self, you know, whatever, all the things that I'm not, you know, I didn't feel that I had done well enough, right? And they're actually kind of nonsense, but I needed to hear it again. So write this stuff down and put it somewhere or place it like remind yourself or set a timer so that in three months you're going to remind yourself that you need given yourself a break. And, you know, I guess, be optimistic and to be loving of yourself and other people. And I don't feel like you could go wrong with that.

Unknown Speaker: 40:15

So, oh, wow, we have covered so much. And there's so many different there's so many different fears that that go into stepping into your purpose and go into chasing your dreams. And exactly as Francis has shared with us today is another that's a process that is not going to stop, there's always going to be a new layer, there's always going to be a new level, especially if you are continuing to try to grow, especially if you are continuing to try to go after new things new and exciting things which Francis has done, Francis, can you can you just this is like promo time right here. Can you tell us a little bit more about like, what all the amazing things that you are doing today. And kind of what's going on in your realm now because there's so much

Unknown Speaker: 41:14

okay. Gorgeous love the opportunity to let people know. So I have a private practice called Malone pediatrics, where I get to support parents to raise children in the most simple, naturally pharmaceutically minimized way that they desire. And that's a practice that's located on Bainbridge Island, as well as in Port Townsend, Washington. And it is a primary care practice as well as a specialty practice where I see children for behavior issues as well as kids who are have special needs. And then dogfish Moon, which is a wellness sanctuary, you can find it at www dot dog fissuring.com. There, we are supporting the growth of adults in their mind, body and spirit with access to nature and Epsom salt, floating pools, not tanks, the big giant ones that you can stand up in and not feel claustrophobic. And that's also located in Washington that's imposed by Washington on 77 acres. Next, a farm that Jamila is referring to we have a year and a bath house and a giant farmhouse. We'd love to see you there. If you make it up to the northwest. Those float pools are my way of providing a mechanism for people to decrease the pharmacy. pharmacologic burden that I see is just rampant in adults and their living need in order to function. Floating in Epsom salts reduces pain, it helps with recovering athletics reduces anxiety reduces depression. And it also boosts people's creativity. Because it puts your brain in the theta state that meditation also does. But you can do it while lying in a pool of Epsom salts. And then the intuitive parents collective which is all my brand new baby there, I get to support parents across the country across the globe in changing what I see as their fundamental perspectives about children and and also with all the mundane things that come up in life or the difficult challenges that the parents have in managing kids. So there's different parts of it. One is the intuitive parents podcast, which is a weekly podcast that I will be hosting other people who are making changes in the world of Pediatrics in supporting parents and kids. And then there is the intuitive parents collective, which is a group online program where parents get to get one on one I mean, get support from me as a group, as well as have the opportunity to get one on one support with me. So check that out. That's at the intuitive parents collective.com. And through either any of those mechanisms, you can reach out to me. Thanks.

Unknown Speaker: 44:35

And Francis also has an incredible gift for you guys as well through her 14 day shift challenge. So I will be including that link in the description as well. And this for instance, can you share a little bit about your your gift for our audience today?

Unknown Speaker: 44:59

Oh, absolutely. So I wanted to share with parents something that they can implement, actually, just by hearing about it, and it has the power to really help families to decrease the amount of chaos and meltdowns and tantrums are behavior that they experience on a day to day basis. And it's not because we're, you know, putting the kids in timeout or anything like that, we're actually helping the parent to change their own internal internal energetic space, so that they can be more available for their kiddo. And kids feel that. And then all of a sudden, they just feel more secure in where their parent is right now and how the parent can show up. So we guide you through these 14 days of learning the process, and then getting support from me over those days to remind of important parts of it, as well as a journal in order to keep notes so that you can remind yourself about it later, and tasks that help to keep the learner on target. So yeah, thanks for mentioning that I forgot about that. But that's at my gift from Francis calm.

Unknown Speaker: 46:30

And that is such an incredible resource that's completely free for all of the digital versions. But she does also have a physical journal that can be purchased as well, if you prefer to, to write down your answers, which if you guys are a fan of, of me and my teachings, you know how much I believe in the power of pen to paper and the power of physically writing down things with your hand and how that helps to create the subconscious link and really solidify the lessons that you are learning. And so I highly suggest that y'all go and check out Francis's website at Francis malone.com. Check out all of the amazing resources that she has. And most definitely take advantage of her offer for the amazing free resources that she's providing through the 14 day shift at my gift from francis.com. And I will also as always be including in the description down below all of Francis's social medias and other important links so that you guys can continue to connect with Francis and watch her journey as she continues to face her fears. By putting herself out into the world through through the internet, really for the mainly the first time through the intuitive parents collective and the intuitive parents podcast, it's really exciting journey to witness and to watch. As she just continues to exist, be an example for what it means to become the big me to continue to face those fears to continue to take the next step. And to continue to put herself out there in a way that can definitely be scary. Thank you so much, Francis, for coming on, and sharing your journey with us today.

Unknown Speaker: 48:29

Thank you, Jamila. I have just really loved this opportunity. And I appreciate it. Thank you

Unknown Speaker: 48:42

thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of The becoming the big money podcast. I know that you found value in hearing this story today. And I would love if you could show your support by going and grabbing a copy of our book and you can do so by going To bit.li/greatconquestyoucanalsogotowww.thegreatconquest.comformoreinformationabouteachoftheindividualsinvolvedinthisprocessthanksagainfortuningin