Emily A. Francis
This week on Small Talk, we sat down with Emily A. Francis, a highly sought after wellness advocate, author, radio host and speaker, to chat about what it truly means to heal ourselves whole.
Her-Story
Emily A. Francis is a voice of health and healing, one who promotes physical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual healing concepts that target all aspects of the body to influence true change.
We wanted to know where this passion for well-being stemmed from and what inspired Emily to pursue this path.
"I always exercised, I was a gymnast since I was three, and I did martial arts. My dad was also an avid exerciser. When I was young, I wanted to be a bodybuilder, I had this obsession with muscles, and my dad was so proud of that!”
With an evident fascination towards the body and Popeyes as her childhood hero, one could anticipate that a career path of fitness would be for Emily.
But after the passing of her father, Emily sought to understand the body for more than just its physical aspects and began digging deep into what happens beneath the surface.
“The other major external factor is that my dad died very young; he was only 43. He was playing tennis, and he died of a heart attack. My dad was very into Earl Mindell’s vitamin bible; he had cabinets upon cabinets of vitamins and minerals. He used to make me drink these power shakes, and I was young; I didn’t know about any of this. So, my studies began because when you don’t know enough, you’re dangerous.”
Don’t Panic
After her father's passing, while in her twenties, Emily began experiencing massive anxiety and panic attacks, forcing her to retreat and withdraw from her previous social and active lifestyle.
“I went through a great many years of massive anxiety and panic. I stopped drinking and partying, I stopped teaching aerobics, I stopped working out all the time, and my life changed drastically overnight. The anxiety that I had been pushing down for so long came up with a wild vengeance.”
When we suppress our emotions, especially those that cause us discomfort and fear, we end up with a ticking time bomb of emotional poison. The problem with this is that sooner or later, all of those suppressed emotions will begin to boil over, and it won’t be pretty when they reach the surface.
“I had this huge panic attack one night. I got lost, really lost, and I ended up an hour or two away from home in a storm; it was awful. I called 911 thinking I was dying. The paramedic showed up, and he did my blood pressure; when I saw the numbers, I was shocked! 'This is way out of balance', I exclaimed. He looked at me, and he said, ‘You need to listen to me. You know just enough to be very dangerous. So, you either need to back off, or you need to study a lot more.” He said, “Do not go to the hospital tonight; you are healthy, you are having an anxiety attack, you are not having a heart attack, and you are going to spend a lot of unnecessary time and money at the hospital. Go home.” And so, I did.”
Having already been an aerobic director interested in yoga, tai chi, and Kungfu, exercise was always important to Emily and was simply a part of her life. Yet, after her then-recent panic attack, she decided that she needed to know a lot more than she did to heal through her anxiety and come out on the other side as a more whole and healthier individual.
“I began that quest, and when I was twenty-seven, I went to massage school. My undergrad degree was in exercise science and wellness, so I’d been studying kinesiology, anatomy, and physiology since the ninety’s. I had spent more than half of my life studying the body and the muscles. And then, when I went to massage school at twenty-seven, it locked and loaded my love for muscles in a way that nothing else could compare. Putting my hands on the body, the muscles speak to me, and I understand the language.”
In her book, ‘The Body Heals Itself,’ Emily deep dives into the muscles like few authors ever have, offering the reader a deeper awareness of our muscles and how their connection to our emotions can help us heal.
“A lot of people who I did work on throughout the years would find that through massage, they had an emotional release from really deep within the tissues. So, that became my sort of forte, and the reason how I was able to document my theories on the body.”
When reading Emily A. Francis’ book, we became absolutely fascinated with not only the muscles and tissues themselves but with our own ability to relieve pent-up emotions that have been stored there. Emily has given her readers a newfound awareness and appreciation for the body itself.
“If you study well enough, and you focus on your niche and your own personal gifts, you’ll be able to help a lot of people.”
Our Health, Our Responsibility
Our health is our responsibility.
We are responsible for what we consume, visually, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Meaning, that if health and healing are what we truly desire, we need to take it into our own hands to craft the results we wish to see.
From Emily's perspective, we wanted to know what needs to change in the system to see health and healing more prominent than sickness and disease.
“You have to do your research. So many companies are funded by big pharma. They’re the companies coming out with drugs that get people addicted, and they’re the same companies that, a few years down the line, release the patent to help you get off the medication. They own them both. They might have a medical license, but they’re dirty, they’re crooked.”
We must start researching and putting in our own due diligence. Only then can we begin to see through what is true and what is false.
“It’s a dirty business. Countless doctors make more money the more that they prescribe. It’s dangerous, so you need to learn how to gauge whether this doctor has your best interest or theirs. You have to drive your own ship in healing; you have to.”
We as individuals, as parents, as siblings, as friends; need to up our game in knowledge. Emily’s book, ‘Whole Body Healing,’ as she states, ‘is not the ‘be-all and end-all, but it’s a great resource manual to get you started.’
With the help of Emily’s work, we can formulate a path to our healing and begin steering our own ships away from danger. In figuring out what works for us, we may have to pay out of pocket for certain specialists. ‘But it’s worth it, says Emily.
“You’re going to have to find doctors that don’t have that big pharma money as their primary source. From integrative medicine and functional medicine, to Chinese medicine, osteopathic medicine, and allopathic medicine. You need someone who has your best interest and who will be honest with you.”
It is far too easy to become lost in the system, being fed so much misinformation that we start to believe it’s true. Knowledge is power, and the ability to think for oneself, and make decisions based on our research is what truly holds its value.
‘Thriving Health’
We wanted to know Emily A. Francis’ definition of thriving health. Her answers; a clear mind, balance, and time alone.
#1
“Firstly, for me, thriving health is having my mind as clear as possible. Because of my history, that’s the most important place for me to start; being healthy and sound in my mind.”
“I’ve given my power away, way too many times to way too many people, and when I’m out of balance, my mind can be swayed. So having a clear mind is my most important driving factor.”
#2
“Second is balance. I don’t need to be restrictive on anything, whether it be food or alcohol, but I have to ride the middle. I like to pair things; if I eat something junky, I like to pair it with something healthy.”
#3
“Lastly is my alone time. My alone time to be spent in gratitude, in prayer, in meditation, my time to come back to myself and God. That time is really important to me, and I would be really sad if I didn’t dedicate that time to be alone in my space with the highest vibration. That to me is health.”
Such simple acts, yet ones that reap great rewards.
In taking time to clear our minds, find our balance, and cultivate alone time, we can rest assured that our own inner pharmacies will thrive.
100% True
We asked Emily A. Francis what she believes one hundred percent to be true, her answer……
“Anything is possible, that I know one hundred percent.”
At TrooMe, we believe that our health lies in our hands. We are powerful, capable, and magnificent human beings, and the sooner we come to that realization, the sooner we can take our power back and step into the magnificence that is meant for us.
May we follow in Emily’s footsteps, choosing to steer our own ships in the direction of whole body healing.
Purchase Emily's Newest Book, 'Healing Ourselves Whole'.
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