The Firefly Revolution Is Here and the World Needs Your Light NOW

What if one spark, your spark, could ignite a revolution of hope, joy, and real change? 

Join Dr. Sandra Marie on Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious as she welcomes Julie Wignall, award-winning author of The Extraordinary Power of Fireflies and global voice for soulful activism. In this expansive, deeply moving conversation, Julie shares how to transcend fear, rediscover your joy, and create grassroots transformation in a chaotic world.

From boardrooms to landfills, deserts to refugee kitchens, Julie reveals how ordinary people, her “Fireflies”, are lighting up the world with courage, creativity, and authenticity. She weaves soul, science, and story together to show how every one of us can reclaim purpose and build a future rooted in empathy, connection, and inspired action.

Whether you're overwhelmed by the state of the world or fired up to make a difference, this episode is your spark.

Highlights Include:

• Turning eco-anxiety into empowered stewardship
• What ancient firefly habitats teach us about inner light
• Why grassroots joy is more powerful than rage
• How to unlearn societal conditioning and rediscover your truth
• The quantum science behind thoughts as creative forces
• Building a global community of light workers and everyday heroes
• Why now is not the time to wait, it's go time.

🧭 Download Julie’s FREE guide: “Flying Lessons for Fireflies”
🌐 extraordinaryfireflies.com

 Connect with Julie Wignall
Coaching | Speaking | Social Media Links
Website: https://www.extraordinaryfireflies.com

Remember, fireflies need the dark to shine. The world needs your glow.

Chapters

• 1:34 Transcending Anxiety in High-Pressure Systems
• 7:37 From Eco-Anxiety to Empowered Stewardship
• 12:45 Personal Growth Through Darkness
• 13:25 The Importance of Happiness and Inner Work
• 17:49 Lessons from Nature and Ancient Ecosystems
• 21:27 Redefining Success Beyond External Validation
• 35:40 Unlearning Conditioning and Embracing Authenticity
• 51:49 Cultivating Courage and Overcoming Naysayers
• 56:07 The Role of Playfulness in Transformation
• 1:00:07 Mental Health and Resilience Strategies
• 1:05:56 Cultural Empathy in the Face of Global Crises
• 1:24:22 The Power of Storytelling in Shaping Paradigms

Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:03.084)
Enjoy this Wild Soul gathering production. I'm Dr. Sandra Marie. Pour yourself a really tall glass of spiritual curiosity and join me for the happy hour for the spiritually curious podcast. In the spirit of happy hour, cheers to some new insights, peace, revitalization, and perhaps an aha moment that may change your life. Today on the show, we're joined by a woman who lives at the intersection of visionary leadership and soulful activism.

Julie Wignall's unconventional journey has taken her from the boardrooms of international business to the heart of global, environmental, and social movements. She's the award-winning author of the extraordinary power of fireflies, where she celebrates everyday changemakers who illuminate new possibilities for humanity and the planet. Julie coined the term fireflies to describe those who courageously light the way for others, an idea that feels even more urgent than ever.

whether you're feeling inspired, overwhelmed, or searching for your own inner spark, this conversation will remind you that your light matters and the world needs it now. Let's welcome Julie to the show.

Thank you so much. It's great to be here.

Julie, you've had such an expansive career and honestly your work seems more pertinent now than ever to be honest with you. Before we jump into your book, I would like to ask with your work in politics, business and environmental activism, how has your spiritual perspective evolved through these high-pressured systems?

Speaker 1 (01:34.766)
It's a really good question. You have to transcend it no matter where you are. And I think that that happens no matter what career you're working in. You have to transcend what's going on. It's, you know, face it. It's an anxious time right now. People are concerned. We are going through what they call quantum shift in terms of the world.

No matter how you look at your politics, your systems or whatever, I think everybody feels the anxiety. The concept though is, is we need to transcend that because if you're going to feed into it, it's fear, it's anxiousness, it's, my gosh, what's going to happen. We become like the deer in the headlights and we freeze. We don't do anything or we go through flight. You know, the biological is flight, fight or freeze. And how are you going to respond? And we need to respond.

with awareness and with thoughtfulness, because I continually say the world doesn't need more activists. We have activists. The world needs more thought leaders who say, let's take action in this way. And to do that, that's that rising in the spaces between where you transcend what's going on with everything else and you see a clear path forward. And what happens when you do this?

You're shining this light and that light becomes almost like a lighthouse. You're sending out a beacon and other people who are doing the same say, hey, let's meet and see how we can collaborate. Let's see what we can do. Let's get past all the riffraff that's going on at these lower levels and let's actually make change. And that change happens on the grassroots level, but it can't be based in anger. can't be based in fear.

I consider myself an unconventional activist and I use that term on purpose because I don't see myself as a revolutionary. I recently met someone who said, no, it's resolution of revolution because we need to find answers to things. We need to find ways to, move forward. And I, you know, I don't see myself so much as a rebel. It's to say, I see a different way. And I call these those unconventional paths.

Speaker 1 (03:53.032)
It's not overturning systems. It's not breaking windows. It's saying, this is a better way to do this and let's do this and let's be the model for what the world can look like. And that's the whole concept of Firefly. Someone who sees beyond what is to what can be. And then they take action to create the world that we all want to live in, to create that better reality. They don't wait. And when we talk about today, it's like today, this is the time.

to stop standing on the sidelines, stop wishing and hoping and wanting. We need everyone shining their light. We need it like now. And we need to help give the courage and the inspiration and encouragement to get more people to stand up, to find those ways and to say, yes, let's make a difference. And it's not just, you know, because today everybody was super.

bipolar when it comes to politics. We've got a lot of issues, not only political, but we're also dealing in terms of environmental issues. We have worn out systems that don't work anymore. We have cultural beliefs. We need a whole paradigm shift. So it's not just, you know, standing on a soapbox about one thing or another, it's to say, we need to all agree that we need to live in a world where people are seen equally.

where everyone is important. I list this as four pillars that every human being on the planet needs. Every person wants to be seen. Every person wants to be heard. Every person wants to feel like they're doing something that has meaning, that's important. And everyone wants to feel like they're part of something that's bigger. When we take that attitude, we start treating each other a little bit differently.

And the concept is we all glow. Scientifically, actually, we now know that we all glow. And we all have, you know, we have that light. And the reason I chose fireflies, and you and I had chatted a little bit before about some of the amazing things that you've experienced in nature. And I've been blessed to have the same type of thing, but something as simple as a firefly. When I talk about, you know, the extraordinary power of fireflies, most people will sit back and go, oh,

Speaker 1 (06:19.208)
I remember, I remember watching fireflies in my backyard when I was young. And even if they come from a place where they've never seen a firefly, they go, this is just magical. And the whole purpose of using fireflies as that metaphor is to try to not teach people new things because I think it's the remembering of things that we already know. It's remembering that the world is full of magic and that we're full of magic and we are so much more

powerful than we realize. And when people say, but I'm just one person. What can I possibly do to make a difference in the world? Well, let's go look at the difference that that one little firefly in your backyard could make on you in terms of bringing that delight.

So that's super powerful. You said a lot, you covered a lot. So I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask some questions that are going to revisit this maybe in a micro kind of way to help it connect with different people to maybe get an aha. You just talked about this. Many people feel small in the face of climate change and social injustice. And we are being barraged with all of this right now. What's your advice for turning

eco-anxiety into empowered stewardship and how do you move from spirituality into practicality?

In my book, I actually talk about, because I have multiple different careers, moving from working, I worked as the director of the National Aquarium, I was in Washington, D.C., and I was working with the Smithsonian Institution, and I was working with numerous nonprofit organizations, all working to help the environment. But I noticed that the big thing that we were all doing is it was constantly fundraising.

Speaker 1 (08:15.882)
you would say to me, we going to work on this project? Yes. But I'd say, but we have to start our next fundraising campaign. It was always a fundraising campaign. And I did a paradigm shift where, within the environmental community, I was like, big, bad, greedy business. These are the bad guys. And if they would just get on board, we could change everything. And after a while of hearing this, I started to think these are

guys, corporations can't be bad guys, companies can't be bad guys. There can be people within those companies and corporations that are greedy that are the bad guys. But then if they're the bad guys, could they not also be the good guys? And I didn't feel like, and face it, we've gone through working, I've been working on environmental conservation since the 1970s. And I got to see if it was that great and we were that successful. We wouldn't

really be in the dire straits for in today. So the message has to be, let's shift, let's do a paradigm shift and let's look at different ways and different things we can do to help. Because of that, I actually chose to go to work for a Fortune 500 company. I wanted to know what could take place if someone who was an environmental conservationist could work hand in hand with a Fortune 500 company and could I make an impact and could I do anything? And I spent

13 years, honestly feeling like I was ruling the world. Being able to really have an impact, not only on the company itself in terms of doing environmental shifts, but watching them take the lead in the field for all of their environmental actions, being able to have an impact then nationally and internationally was absolutely huge. I'm not sure I could have done the same thing had I stayed within.

the capacity that I was still in in Washington, D.C., which made all kinds of sense. So the concept in terms of what anybody can do, we can all start by just being aware. Just being aware of what we do, because science keeps changing every day. This is good, this is not good. There was a big thing that don't mow your lawn.

Speaker 1 (10:33.752)
during spring because it's better for the insects, it's better for the pollinators and there were huge campaigns. But now there's another group that says, no, no, no, that's not good for the environment. Mow your lawn, that's better for the environment. It goes back and forth. So I tell people, sit back and just focus on awareness and focus on what you're doing because part of my message is we gotta stop bullying people.

how dare you? You got in a car today. Well, how else was I going to get to work? I'm not within walking distance to work. How dare you? In my book, I talk about people who are working at making changes. And one of the examples that I gave of this is a fabulous woman who is a designer, Leila Ajaralu. And she makes the point that we go to the grocery store and then what do we do? We say,

I'm gonna start being healthier. I'm gonna eat fruits and vegetables. We fill up our grocery cart and we go home and life happens. All of a sudden, two weeks have passed, three weeks have passed and we now have science experiments sitting in the back of our refrigerators going, And then if you're following environmental issues, go, food waste is like the number one thing that ends up in landfills. I'm a terrible person and I live in an apartment. I can't really compost and all.

How horrible could I be? We need to stop that. Layla, as a designer, sat down and said, wait a minute. What if we stop blaming the consumer and we start looking at how can we design things better? Maybe, you know, what could we do? Maybe we need refrigerators that will keep our food better for longer. She learned that there are the crisper drawers that are supposed to keep our salad greens fresh for longer time. Don't really work. Maybe we need to redesign that.

This is the same thing where it's not how often are you replacing your computer or your iPhone. We continually blame the consumer for everything. And we need to shift that and go back to the companies and say, maybe you need to design our computers better, where all we need to do is change a chip in and out every couple of years to upgrade. We don't have to create all this electronic waste if we design better and it shifts.

Speaker 1 (12:56.214)
So I really tell people just to focus on being aware, but if you want to do the biggest thing to help the world and anything and make the world better, you got to start. always start with the older dies as above, so below, we got to start with below and we need to start with the inner work of what makes you happy. Because if you want to change the world and if you want to help in terms of climate change and the environment and social justice and economics and all of these issues.

What changes the world is when you change yourself. And what changes yourself is when you're living in alignment with what makes you happy. And the most amazing thing to me in today's world is how many people don't know anymore what makes them happy. And that's the whole concept of trying to remember the magic of the fireflies. I had, was an honor many, many years ago, I worked with a group of at-risk boys, 15 to 16 years old.

And these were boys who were such troublemakers. Their parents had sent them from all over the country to a boarding school. And I had the opportunity to do an environmental conservation program with them. And I realized they were all just carrying so much anger and frustration around with them. And I stopped after the second day and I said, okay, wait, let's just stop. If I were your fairy godmother and I came knocking on your door and I said, your wish is my command. I am just here to make you happy.

What is it that you would ask for? And they stared at me with blank stares. And I am expecting, they're going to say, well, I need to be a super famous rap star or an influencer or I need to have a billion dollars. And they just stared at me with blank faces. And one of the kids finally looked at me and said, you know, no one has ever asked me what makes me happy.

And what was interesting was over the next couple of days, they started coming to me one at a time. And these were kids who were troublemakers, but they were troublemakers because they were incredibly, incredibly smart. And they just, the system as it was set up didn't work for them to express their creativity, their innovation. But they really thought about this and they came back and one of the kids started by saying, you know what I thought about this? And I realized,

Speaker 1 (15:20.908)
You know what makes me happy when I'm at home Sunday mornings, my dad and I make pancakes for the rest of the family. And that makes me happy. And it made me just kind of catch my breath. I started listening to the other kids. Wait, you know what? I'm happy when I take my dog for a walk and it's just the two of us in the woods. Someone else said, love late laying stargazing at night. Someone else said, love laying in the grass and just watching the clouds go by.

And it made me sit back and realize what really makes us happy. And for each of us, I think, you know, it's different, but it tends to be those small moments along the way. It's when we connect with each other. It's when we connect with nature.

When we're feeling like we're really in alignment that we are, when we feel that we're seen, we feel that we're heard, when we feel like what we're doing is meaningful, and when we feel like we're part of something bigger, we're happy. And when we put that together in terms of happiness and we're following these paths that give us our lives meaning, we are truly changing the world. Because as you illuminate your path to move forward,

You're giving permission for all the people standing on the sidelines with their hopes and dreams and wishes. You're giving them permission to take action to say, if you can do this, so can I. I can step into my happiness too. I can do what's going to give my life meaning. I feel like in our society, we start out when we're very little and we know exactly ask any kid under the age of five, what makes them happy? And they will tell you.

I like this and I like that and this is my color. But after you hit like five or six, you begin just very slowly, we get what I call enculturated. I don't really want to go to Uncle Bobby's because this is boring there, whatever. And what do you hear? Oh honey, you love Uncle Bobby. And of course you want to go there. Thanksgiving isn't really my favorite holiday. Do we have to have turkey again? Oh honey, you love turkey. It's a tradition. Well, think about

Speaker 1 (17:31.266)
How many times were fed this information? We're also told when we're little through elementary school, you can grow up to be anything that you choose. And then all of a sudden we become teenagers and they say, but now you need to think about something that's going to bring in an income, make sure you have healthcare, take care of a family. So all these things begin to change and we're fed so much different information about what we're supposed to like, what we're not supposed to like that we forget.

We forget what made us happy when we were little. It amazes me to this day, sitting down with clients, with adults, anywhere, what makes you happy? And in any room out of 10 people, there will be eight people that sit there and go, you know what? I really need to think about that. When we're aware of it, I did this, had a neighbor who said to me, you know what? I was listening to you talk about that. And I was outside in the garden and I'm weeding and I'm going, this is just never ending backbreaking work.

And she said, but I stopped and I thought about what you said. And I realized, no, I'm doing this because this makes me happy. I like being out here and I like gardening. So why am I complaining about all of this? And it was a complete paradigm shift where she said, yeah, now I'm doing this. So I use that as kind of a starting gate. And then my next level with that is we put everything off.

I'll take action tomorrow, but in the same way we say, I'm not ready to do this. And my answer is yes, you're ready right now. We put everything off. say, I'll be happy. I'll be happy after I graduate high school. I'll be happy after I graduate college. I'll be happy after I'm married or after I found the love of my life or I have kids or I have a job or I have a house. We set up all of these things. We're going to be happy then. And then we give lip service.

to this concept of, it's the journey, not the destination. And I continually tell people when I'm doing workshops, let's talk about this. What do we do as human beings when we reach that destination? We do this accomplishment. We go, I landed the client. I got the house. I got the whatever. It's like we made it up to the top of the mountain. We pat ourselves on the back for like a total of what, five minutes.

Speaker 1 (19:53.506)
And then the interesting thing is, is then we start sharing stories of, my gosh, I can't believe we did this. I can't believe we made it. And we talk about all the things that went wrong. We don't sit down and talk about all the things that went perfectly, that got us here. And then this, we talk about all the things that went wrong, all the mistakes that we made. my gosh, and we did this. And can you believe we still made it without realizing that's part of how you made it there?

But we discuss that and then within a very short period of time, we turn around and we go, there's another mountain I think I want to climb. And we start the whole process all over again. So shouldn't we start enjoying along the way and laughing at the things that go bad? Everything's got its obstacles here and there and just kind of pivoting.

Being creative, being innovative. There are always, you know, I always say that the clients that say yes, but I tried this and this and this and this with this grand idea that it was going to get my life meaning. And I just couldn't make it work. So that must be the universe's sign that I'm not meant to do this. And it's like, no, the universe is telling you do a paradigm shift and go try another door. You keep trying the same doors over and over again.

and you get the same response, it's time for a new door. It's time for a new key. There's a saying that, well, old keys don't open new doors.

Yeah, that's really powerful and so important. There's so much simplicity in that, right? You move away from that blame and shame game and you move away from the external into the internal. And I agree with you, people will tell you they want to be happy, but then if you ask them what happy looks like, really you're going to leave them with their jaw on the ground, not really sure how to answer that and probably coming back to you retrospectively and answering that. that's

Speaker 2 (21:57.108)
super powerful. It's just the awareness. Sit back, be the observer, pay attention to that.

And then how do we each define success? Because we each define it differently. I went to school in the outback of Australia and the jokes were that then there were many people who were very wealthy there. Well, if I came from a culture that said, they should all be driving Rolls Royces and Bentleys, no, these guys were driving pickup trucks because we were in the outback, which is very rough area and terrain and a Rolls Royce wouldn't get them anywhere.

But a pickup truck would. So it's like, you know, how do we each define happiness? And how do we each define success? So that we know what we have when we have it. There's an old story. I spent some time living on the coast of Mexico. My mother called it my beach bum days. I taught snorkeling. But it actually led to a career in marine biology.

But while I was there, I met a number of fishermen. They'd go out in the morning and they'd fish and the fish would be brought in and they'd have lunch with their families. They would spend the afternoon taking the siesta on their hammocks. And they used to laugh and they said, so here we are living this life and we're very happy. And now here come all of these tourists that are working these backbreaking jobs that are super intense and stressful.

they're making a lot of money and what do they do with their money when they have it? They come on vacation here so that they can go fishing in the morning, have lunch and spend time with their families and children and spend their afternoons lying in a hammock taking a siesta. So it's like you know we've both ended up in the same place. How do you want to get there?

Speaker 2 (23:53.79)
That is just a great example. Right now there's a lot of doomsday stuff, right? And we have all this electronic thing. In this era of constant doom scrolling, other than not doing it, how do you personally stay connected to hope and avoid spiritual bypassing?

You have to dig deeper. You have to dig deeper and you have to start connecting with people. And I think that that connecting with people, with other human beings is kind of really what it's all about. But I will give you the backstory. Here I have this wonderful multi award-winning at an international level book. I wrote it during the pandemic and my concept, because I have had so many different careers.

I was not one of those kids that at four years old said, I'm going to grow up to be a dentist and I'm going to follow that path the rest of my life. I wasn't sure. And that took me to numerous different things, which have all been important in creating the person I am today. But as I was writing the book, thought, you know, if I were reading this book, I go, well, good for her. She could do all these things, but I can't. And the purpose of this book is to inspire.

and to be a call to action, to follow your own path. So I said, I want to put 20 people, I've got 10 chapters, two people in each chapter or their groups or whatever that are really doing something to change the world and have a positive impact. And I'll use that to show the points I'm trying to make and to say, there's more than one way to the top of the mountain. You don't have to follow my way. Here's somebody who did it differently and here's somebody else who still did it differently.

And I had a list of 25 people. Here's the behind the scenes peak. I had a list of 25 people who, if I read you the list, you would probably say, you know what, I think I've heard about 20 of them and I remember reading stories about these people or seeing them in his headlines. Well, I work really hard at being authentic and I'm not just going to do a cut and paste to put people in the book. I wanted to reach out to everybody and say, I'm going to include you.

Speaker 1 (26:05.954)
and want you to see what I'm writing and I'd like you to check it. I want to make sure it's accurate and that it has your blessing to say it's okay. And I started reaching out to these people and I kid you not, I found that every one of them that I was reaching out to was a fraud or flake. it's like, but wait a minute, but the news said that you did this and this and I would get to the assistants and they'd go, why do you want to reach this guy?

He's so mean and he didn't do any of the things that he said that he did. Why do you want to feature her? This was like all made up. This was like their own press. I, I, you talk about the height of depression. It was like, there nobody that's doing anything, anything good in the world? And I have a wonderful, wonderful publisher who said, Julie, just take some time off and you're going to dig deeper.

and start from the beginning again and see who you find. And it was the best advice I could possibly be given to this day. I still don't know exactly how I was led to each of the people that I've included, but I can tell you this, not only are they each the real deal, now the book is out and they're still the real deal. And they continue to inspire me and they're an

all different fields. It's not like you can only move forward if you're a scientist, or you can only move forward if you work in the healthcare field or social justice. These are people who do everything from artists to musicians to, and they're all changing the world. And really from the grassroots up.

which is really how it has to happen. This is not a matter of saying, I could take over the government and I can change climate change overnight and I can do this and I can do that. No, everything changes based on our attitudes. Everything changes based on how we all see the world and how we all see a path to the future together. And that has to start at that grassroots level.

Speaker 1 (28:25.612)
where we each start seeing each other, the light in me sees the light in you, and let's partner, let's collaborate, let's find ways to work together to raise each other to a higher level. Because part of what needs to change is not just the big issues of how we're dealing with things, it's how we approach them. Are we treating people with kindness?

Or are we just being nice until we get what we want and then going, oh, look what I do. What you see on a global stage playing out with a lot of the multinational companies, which you're seeing with politics and everything else. If you stop for a minute and think about where most people work, the office politics, I, like I said, I worked for a fortune 500 company and I used to joke, my daughter was in elementary school and

I used to tell people I would much rather walk into a Fortune 500 board meeting than walk into a PTA meeting at school because it's lethal. And so if this is how we're acting on this daily basis, and then we look at how things are being run in our states and federally and internationally and how everybody's dealing with each other, well, what do you expect? If we want to change it,

we have to start modeling what we want to see. We have to say everybody deserves a seat at the table. Not just everybody deserves a seat at the table, everybody deserves to be heard when they're sitting at the table if they have something to say. And we model it at that level and watch it continue to rise. One of my favorite stories that I wrote in the book,

because people say, well, I don't have anything. Or we come up with excuses. If only I had the money, if only I had the support, if only I had the this or that. And they usually boil down to, I don't believe I'm good enough, I don't believe I'm deserving, I don't have credentials, I don't have a degree. Or then I have the people who have the degree and they go, but I have the wrong degree. It's like, no matter what it is, nobody's prepared.

Speaker 1 (30:44.878)
And everybody carries the same thing. I'm not good enough and I'm not deserving enough. I, one of the fireflies that I wrote about is a wonderful man named Fabio Chavez, who lives in Peru. I take that back. I'm sorry. I Paraguay. I do have someone from Peru, but this is Paraguay. And Fabio was working as an engineer, a sanitation engineer on a landfill, but he loved music.

And he was pretty much a self-taught musician. And he was working on what was the biggest landfill in Paraguay. Now on this biggest landfill, with also the poorest people in the country. They've got nothing. And, just because you have nothing doesn't mean that you do nothing and it doesn't make you ignorant. It doesn't make you stupid. These people were making homes out of pieces that they found.

and the landfill. And Fabio had this idea, all the kids that are here, what if I could take these kids and create an orchestra and maybe music is a way to elevate them and help them find a shift to a new life. It's a great idea, but you know, here's Fabio. I don't have the right credentials. I don't know this, but maybe if I could find someone who had money, they could buy musical instruments for the kids. And then he realized, well, that's not going to work.

Because this place is so poor, if somebody did come in with a million dollars and say, are instruments for all the kids here, they would be stolen and turned into scrap in two days. So instead he pivoted and he said, nobody else is going to do this, but I see a way forward and I'm going to. And that's part of what makes a Firefly. And he went to these people who are incredibly innovative. And he said, I want to create an orchestra. want to teach your children music.

I want to create the instruments ourselves from the landfill. And they made violence out of discarded license plates. There's timpani drums where the sides of the drums that they're hitting are X-rays, giant medical X-rays from medical waste that's been thrown away. And they created an entire orchestra that they call the Recycled Orchestra of Paraboy.

Speaker 1 (33:09.666)
Now these kids, as they were getting older, they're into all kinds of different music and Fabio encouraged all that. Well, they loved the band Metallica. So he said, write them a letter, which they did. The band actually went and visited them and said, this is so cool what you're doing. We would love if you would be an opening act for us. As we travel, it took it to the next level. They toured with Stevie Wonder for a period of time, but these kids, now, it's the recycled orchestra

And they travel the world using these instruments that were created from a landfill. And Fabio has them all wearing t-shirts where on the backs of the t-shirts when they perform, it says, the world sends us trash and we send back music. And that's really in a nutshell.

what fireflies do in each and every way that they choose to move forward. And like Fabio has always taught the kids having nothing is no excuse for doing nothing. And they've continued to thrive. But I have people like this all over the world that are doing things each in their own unique way, incredibly inspiring, but to say each one of us has the power.

to change the world, when you change the world for yourself and then for the people around you, it continues to expand and it spreads across the globe.

Well, that's powerful. And I would say really having nothing is a judgment, right? And it's a perception. You know, I was gifted the ability to do some travel and volunteer work in some third world countries. And I'll be honest with you, some of the happiest people and best relationships within families and communities I found were in some of the most extremely porous areas.

Speaker 2 (35:12.418)
that I spent and I like, you know, people sleeping on dirt floors, that kind of thing. And it's lovely, I'm still in contact with some of these people and it was just really enjoyable. It was very eye-opening for me. So having nothing is, it's all how you define it, I would say. You've mentioned this a couple of times already in the conversation and it seems to be coming to light more and more in our awareness is recognizing

Our multifaceted conditioning is really coming to the forefront these days, right? So you talk about fireflies glow effortlessly without questioning their purpose. What are some of the human patterns that you see that dim our light the most and how do we begin to undo this conditioning? You mentioned it earlier in the conversation with children, but a lot of this is just other, it's conditioning and other people's baggage that was never ours to begin with.

It has really roadblocked us.

Exactly.

Right. It's a process of unlearning. And I think one of the reasons, and I agree with you 100%, a lot of times when I'm in third world countries and there things that we might describe as poverty stricken, but these people are so rich in so many ways. And I think part of it is, is they're authentic. It's not how big of a house do you live in and what does it look like or what kind of clothes are those designer clothes, or are they something you just got off the rack?

Speaker 1 (36:41.294)
It's authentic. It's, I don't care what you're wearing. It's gratitude for everything. I don't care what you're wearing. I care how you're feeling and I care what you're thinking. And it kind of pushes past all of the rest. It's really difficult to get past in our society to do that unlearning, but it's done and it can be done. And I actually have a free download.

at gratitude.

Speaker 1 (37:08.728)
that is on my website that's called Flying Lessons for Fireflies. And it's like five lessons, five exercises just to go shine your light brighter right now. And one of the exercises in there that gets referred to a lot is increasing your awareness. And today we call it intuition. everybody's got intuition and every big business person.

How did you get there? Well, I followed my intuition. We used to call it psychic abilities and before that we called it ESP. It's all the same thing and it all begins with awareness and each person does it in a different way. And I have an exercise that I call the grocery store exercise that I have put through numerous clients and students and workshop participants through this. the concept, you'll have somebody who goes,

I just went to my yoga class and I'm feeling so centered. Now I'm going to drive home. And as you're driving home, go, that SOB he got in front of me and you're banging your horn. it's like, you're thinking where, where did that alignment and that awareness go? So I said, let's start with just a grocery store. As you maneuver through a grocery store, you have your list and you say, want this and this and this. Are you aware of the other things that are on the shelves? Do you know if there's a new product that you might be interested in?

Would you know if there was somebody sitting on the floor that like needed some help? When you go down the aisles and somebody has their grocery cart that's at an angle, do you push it away? Do you say, excuse me, if you need to go or do you just go around through another aisle and come back a different way? Are you aware of the other people there? Would you know if there's a person at the end of the aisle that maybe needs help?

getting something down from a tall shelf? Do you talk to the people who check you out? If you have people who check you out anymore. But how do you maneuver through there? And are you angry through there? Because it's amazing. I where I say frustrations and anger taken out in a grocery store. And you go, this isn't just here. This person is not happy anywhere. But do you go through this just with any appreciation that you can buy food?

Speaker 1 (39:24.546)
that there's food to even purchase, that it's there to take it on all those different levels and to start checking in. But also first you have to even check in with yourself. How do you feel? You know, anybody who's ever practiced yoga, the most important yoga pose they call Tadasana, it's mountain pose. And it is just standing still with your feet hip width apart and just checking from your head to your toes. How am I feeling?

And it's amazing how out of tune we are even with that. I had an experience working with a colleague where I went, you know, you're getting really snarky this afternoon. Is everything okay? And he went, my gosh, I have a headache. I'm sitting here doing all this work. I didn't realize I have a headache. And I'm sitting there thinking, how can you not know that you have a headache? Well, those, as we start checking in with ourselves in our bodies, we start knowing

the little cues that our body gives us when something is out of alignment. When someone says something and you go, I can't put my finger on it, but whatever they say, I just don't trust. Somebody's reaching out to me, but I feel like this is a scam. do you know? I don't know. It's like my spidey senses are tingling, but it tingles differently for each of us. You know, some people get butterflies in their stomach. Some people get a knot in their neck or shoulders. It's knowing what those tells are.

because we do know, that's why we say I'm not teaching things so much that are new as encouraging people to remember what they already know. And we know at our core, we've got the information, we've got everything we need to move ourselves forward. I say, there's a saying, whenever you have something you truly desire, the universe will always.

conspire to help make it come true and you have universal helpers everywhere. And as you start learning to become more intuitive with yourself so that you know those signs that your body sends you and you become more aware of the world around you and knowing that there are forces beyond us that are helping along the way. And I'm saying this as a scientist.

Speaker 1 (41:49.518)
because you can talk about all the belief systems, but I can also talk about the quantum physics that will say, I could take your 2000 year belief systems and I can show you how those, we're proving that now. We're showing that these mystics from 2000, 3000 years ago are right. There are more dimensions than we can see if we just open ourselves up to it. But I tell people all the time, you know, cause it's a joke,

Leaf does, it's not a matter what you believe. A leaf does not need to believe in photosynthesis to turn green. It's going to happen anyway. But if you start getting in tune, ask, ask questions and ask for signs. We don't do that. We go, I'm not allowed to do that. Yeah, you are. I had an experience just a month ago where I was trying a whole new course of action and I was thinking, Hmm.

Is this, you know, is this the right course or not? I would really like a sign to know that I'm heading down the right path. And I have a pair of earrings that have seahorses on them. And I was putting them in for the day and I went, I need a sign of the seahorse. Now I live in the desert. And my immediate thought of where am I going to see any sign of a seahorse?

Well, I had to go to the library that afternoon and our library has a bookstore that sells their books when they have to move them off the shelves and they do a used bookstore out of date things. And I walked in and I found right front and center, there was a children's book with the seahorses on it that was right in the window. And I actually, keep it by my desk to remind myself, you know, you can ask for help.

I need a sign. need something. You know, some people go find pennies. Some people find dimes. You're allowed to ask and you're also allowed to ask for help. It's hard getting past all of these belief systems that you go, I really don't believe that, but everybody else around me does. So don't feel comfortable. It's hard to push that aside. And it's hard to have the courage when you have so much fear. And we live in a very fear-based society.

Speaker 1 (44:15.154)
And you're also dealing with your own insecurities. I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy enough. And that's why we say ask for help. You have to, it's not a matter of getting past your fear. It's a matter of acknowledging your fear because your fear is gonna go with you. You don't get over it and you don't get past it. It's still there. You just have to learn how not to let it have the power to drive your actions.

And that's where you work on cultivating courage. None of us are born with courage. You know, this is something that you really have to work on building up. And we do that through the help of others and through people who inspire people, who are accepting people, who are welcoming. I always say there are over 2000 different species of fireflies and many people don't know that they actually shine not only in that

greenish-yellow light, but they're in yellow, they're in green, they're in blue, they're in orange, and they're in red. This is a family that embraces a wide amount of diversity. And we need to follow suit in terms of human beings, and we need to be supportive of each other and encouraging of one another. And we need to be working and inspiring each other to be that authentic human being.

of just what you've experienced, what I've experienced dealing in third world countries. And I do that even in talking about failure because we come and we meet people that we haven't seen for 20 years and you have to, you feel like you have to take that stance of, you know, how is everything with you? it's perfect. It's wonderful. A lot of times it's not. And I say to myself, if I want to live in a world that's more authentic, then I have to be more authentic.

And I have to say, you know what, I have been trying something, it hasn't really been working. So I think I'm going to try something else, but to be honest with ourselves and to be honest with each other. And again, when we do something as simple as that, we're giving permission to other people to say, you know, I've been having kind of a rough time of things too. So that we want to celebrate each other's victories and achievements, but we also want to be there to support them.

Speaker 1 (46:40.886)
and to have the faith and the belief in them when they've lost the belief in themselves. And that becomes really important.

I would agree that's really powerful and just to jump on the back of that, you know, in our Western societies, we live in a world that focuses on rewards and living from the outside, So how do the fireflies teach us to redefine success beyond metrics, titles, external validations, those kinds of things that all of us in Western societies deal with all the time?

And we're always working on that. And that's where we work on supporting one another, which is why I work on building a community. When people download, for example, the free handout that I have on my website, I put them on an email list. And it's an email list that goes out once a week. I send out something that is for encouragement, for inspiration, just because I believe everybody.

needs to be continually inspired and continually reminded to keep questioning. And we're all still learning. And I'll tell you, I was on a Zoom call and I've been working on this for a long, long, long time. And I was on a Zoom call and you start noticing what's going on with other people when you're talking. And I couldn't get my eyes off of one of the women on the Zoom call who just was beautiful and she looked wonderful. But what really hit me is this behind her.

was this gorgeous living room. Everything was clean. Everything was put in its place. And I was like, how do you do this? And I had a hard time paying attention because I kept looking at this fabulous background until she moved her head. And I saw that telltale sign of when you move, but your kind of your hair disappears. That said that she had one of those fake backgrounds. And it was like,

Speaker 1 (48:44.928)
Okay, I'm not the only one who's got projects all over the house and laundry and, but we all forget and we all buy into different things where it takes conscious awareness constantly to be committed to living authentically. You know, I tell people, I take people through steps of first you want to know what makes you happy and what gives your life meaning.

And then you want to know how you define success so that you're actually taking the time to write this down so that you become really aware of that. But the third thing is to really identify what is your code of values? What do you want to live by? And that's where we've kind of gotten off track, I think, in terms of the world. And what are those? And defining those, it's ethics and integrity and honesty and

transparency and if those are really important to me, then if I tell you that and you see that I've got some kind of crazy fake background, no matter how wonderful it is, I don't seem like I'm very transparent. If I'm going like, don't look behind the curtain. If I want to live in this world where the light in me sees the light in you, then, and we're going to be authentic, then we have to walk the walk.

And that's part of changing our behavior. And it also dictates the choices that we make. you know what you stand for and what's important, you don't find yourself working for a company that's known for stealing and underhanded business deals, because that's not part of your code of ethics. You would have never taken the job in the first place, unless you have a code of ethics that says it's okay to look in the other direction.

So those are the things that help to keep you aligned and make you remember so that you can laugh at yourself when you do something like what I'm doing. I'm buying into this society thing that that's what my home should be looking like. And you see that little glimpse and that's through awareness. And you go, wait a minute, that's not part of my code. That's not part of my code of values. So.

Speaker 2 (51:10.7)
I love your authenticity with that. mean, it's all of us. We're not perfect. You had your moment on that Zoom meeting. We all have our moments, even though we have our awareness and we put conscious attention to it. So I just want to say kudos to you and to put that out there because sometimes I think folks think, well, this isn't attainable for me. They can do this, but I can't do this. Right. I'm really curious, Julie, you've curated

global stories of change makers in your book. Did you find any common thread on how they blend intuition with inspired action?

Every one of them, and that's part of how you cultivate courage. Every one of them was dealing with a situation that was really untenable or that they'd had enough of. And it's that desire to push through. instead of staying there, every one of them chose to take action. But the trick is, and I actually wrote about this even

having worked for a multimillionaire and how he did things, even at that multimillionaire level, there are always people who say, this guy's got this new idea and it's crazy. It's never, never going to work. And I had the opportunity to, course, where we had a one-on-one with Roger McNamee, who this guy was an investment broker that was there when they first walked in with the idea of Amazon.

And he said, they want this crazy marketplace. he said, everybody in the room said, this is crazy. This will never ever take off. So it's knowing that no matter what level we're at, there's always going to be the naysayers. never going to happen. I became the director of the National Aquarium in Washington, DC as a female. The only other female at the time was Julie Packard, who ran the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Everyone said, please, there are no women that run

Speaker 1 (53:15.086)
There are no women that run zoos. You have to put those blinders on and it has to be, you have to have a desire, and this is what they all have in common, a desire to do something where they're seeing beyond what is to say, this is what I've got to do. And they put those blinders on and they hear those voices to the side. Of course, we all hear them, but it's like, I can't focus on you right now because I'm moving forward.

And it's not listening or following anything, but that vision and trusting in that, that's gotten them all where they've gotten. And they continue to grow and do new things constantly. I have to tell you, one of the gentlemen that I wrote about, when he was young, he was in San Francisco, there was an oil spill. And all he talked about was the environment and his friends would go, just John, shut up. We don't want to hear from you anymore.

It was his birthday and as a birthday gift to everyone he knew, he spent the whole day being quiet. And he said, for the first time I started listening and I learned so much from listening to other people. He actually, now this is to the extreme, but he stopped talking for 17 years. And during this time he started walking and he walked across the United States and walked to different areas. He had other people come walk with him.

and it was just listening. And he put together the stories he heard. He's written a number of books. I think there's been a documentary that's done on him. So this man, put out the book and I get an email from John and he says, Julie, you're not getting here from me for a while. I just want to let you know I'm heading on a plane tomorrow. leaving. going to South Africa. And I have plans to walk from South Africa up to Kenya. Now this is a man.

who's 78 years old. When you started, and this was the beginning of like last year, and he's still doing the walk, he's doing it in increments. But there's always, you know, there's always something new you just put on this blinder. And it's like, you're crazy, who would walk? Why would somebody do something like this? Or in our society, and is somebody paying you to do this? And you just go, I just know I have to walk.

Speaker 1 (55:34.994)
And I know that this is what's gonna give my life meaning and I have to share what I learned from people with everybody else and just trust that everything is gonna kind of fall into place. And it doesn't mean that you don't pay attention to what needs to be taken care of or paying the bills or the rents. You just find different ways to move forward.

and I can't even imagine all the different interconnectedness that comes with him on that journey and how many souls he's going to touch with it. Wow, that's beautiful.

just really amazing.

Yeah, that being said, what role does playfulness have in personal transformation and global healing? And can joy itself be an act of resistance?

Yes, yes. And it's the one that should be used more than anything. And I always tell people it is, it's the importance of play. you know, unfortunately, I think that that's something that comes with age, where you start saying you hit a certain age and you go, why was I so serious about this? You know, it's like, we can play a little bit, we can have fun.

Speaker 1 (56:46.318)
Because of that, that's one of the reasons why today when I work on programs or projects, I will only work on them if they are multi-generational. I have a huge issue when people say we're gonna be a youth-led movement or we're gonna be a senior-led movement. It's like we need to be a human-led movement because for every movement or anything that we try to accomplish as a group, we need to hear from those people who are in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s who go,

come on, let's have a good time and let's remember to have some gratitude. And we still need those people who are raising their children and you know, in their 30s, 40s and 50s that are, you know, serious about this because things are serious. We need that balance and we need the 18 and 20 year olds that believe, yes, we can do this. And we need that 10 year old because that 10 year old is in alignment with people who are older to say, when do we get to play?

You know, because the playing is important and let's find the joy in what we're doing because that joy every day will take us so much further than the stress, the fretting, the fear. It's, it's one of the true keys to, finding your success.

Absolutely. you know, we're in a massive mental health crisis right now with these mental health challenges just skyrocketing. What spiritual practices or mindsets do you recommend for building some resilience and authentic self-care?

think this is where we need to go back in terms of how we're educating kids and what this looks like. Teaching meditation. And there's more than one way to meditate. I actually do some things to show people, know, different people work differently. You know, when someone says to me, Julie, start meditating and we're going to

Speaker 1 (58:46.798)
Just observe your breath. Some people are great with that. Me, all of a sudden I start breathing real wonky because it's like, am I breathing right? Am I not breathing right? But there are a lot of different ways to meditate and it's finding the way that's right for you. Understanding how to use physical exercise, whether it's just walking or swimming or whatever that is that helps you just connect to have that time just to think things through.

And it's back to being seen, being heard. if we want to be seen and we want to be heard, we also have to learn how to become active listeners so that we're listening to other people. And again, it's knowing that our lives have meaning and that we're connected to something bigger. And I think that that goes through with absolutely any age. And because of that mental health crisis, I actually have

because the people in my book, nobody has followed that tried and true path. Everyone's kind of done it differently. And, you know, I think especially for teenagers or those in their twenties that are trying to figure out, hey, everybody else is doing this and I don't seem to have got this down right. And that's just how it is. And that's because we're each on our own, own special path.

But to bring that through, I've actually taken the book and that's what's sitting a little bit behind me on a desk. I have a miniature version of an exhibit that I'm hoping to bring to complete fruition to let it travel, to start inspiring and letting teenagers and those in their 20s know that let's start now.

you know, let's know that you can do anything that you set your mind to, that we can take you to the next level. Look at these people and what they've done all over the world. And they've created change. They've done this and so can you. So we're looking at creating more of a firefly exhibit to show them that. And I think, you know, and it's back to that connection as well. One of the things that's really huge right now in Europe that I'm just waiting for it to come to the States is they're doing offline

Speaker 1 (01:00:59.522)
time, which is fabulous. They're taking over museums and shopping malls and outdoor parks and spaces. And they're just saying it's offline time. You leave your cell phone, you leave your computer and you'll see people laying on blankets, just reading books together. You'll see people sitting at craft's table, trying to make things together. People laughing, playing board games, but it's rediscovering that

connection of just being people and human beings connecting with each other without the judgment or those clicks or the, you know, other things that you go, no, I have to do the right thing or it's not going to work. But there are many different ways to do this. And as kids come together to do this and teenagers and those in their twenties, you know, I have people of all different ages that are in the book. And one of the most successful

actually started when he was a teenager. And that's Ronnie Abrogel, who is in Copenhagen, Denmark, who started the human library. And the concept is checking out people instead of books. So that if you have questions about someone who's transgender, instead of coming to your own conclusions, you could check someone out and then ask them one on one, all the questions that you have, things that you want to know so that you can hear to what would he calls it, unjudged someone.

to learn things differently, but his whole journey started when he was a teenager and he lost a friend of his who was shot. And dealing with the grief, he had a brother that helped and a small group of friends, they were doing like a book festival in Copenhagen that became a big festival every year and there's arts and crafts and whatever. And he set up a tent with this concept of

anybody who's gone through this, who's lost someone through guns, you know, and you're dealing with that issue, come and talk to us so we can tell you from our perspective what that feels like. And there were lines that went around the block and stayed there for the whole showing, which was just a very, very innovative, different way to deal with things. And

Speaker 1 (01:03:23.638)
because there are so many mental health issues that so many teenagers are going through, this is not, it's not abnormal. I mean, it's actually the norm. And I would be concerned in terms of the mental health of a lot of these kids if they weren't having different issues. And part of it is really is back to that authenticity and talking about that as well. One of the people I wrote about, Lisa Gershwin is the world's

foremost expert on jellyfish. And coming from a field as a marine biologist, you talk about jellyfish, you don't talk about anything without mentioning Lisa Gershwin. Lisa has dealt with mental health issues. But as a scientist, you go, you can't talk about that. Lisa, no, I'm talking about that because people need to know about this. And if I'm dealing with this, other people will deal with this because you go someone so successful, you can't possibly be dealing with the same issues.

Yes, I am. She lives today in Tasmania and she actually ran for parliament in Tasmania on a platform of we need to start bringing mental health issues more to light and discussing them. We say that we're dealing with them in our society, but again, you turn around if you have a job and you go, I need to see a therapist. going through something and I'm really having a hard time. The first thing that most

bosses will tell you is don't put that down, pay for it out of pocket because once you know through our human resources division, you're going to be labeled that you've got issues and it's going to affect the rest of your career with our company. That shouldn't be the case.

Correct. Good for her, good for you. And you seem to have a real passion with working with the youth and supporting them. So I do want to thank you for that because it's come up in a number of things that you've shared. And I think it's really important. We're sort of on this weird cusp with being able to affect some really meaningful change. And I think just conversations like this where people hear it make such a difference.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36.95)
I'm going to touch on another big topic right now, and I feel like it's a topic that people avoid, but it needs to be talked about. In light of the global migration and refugee crisis, how does your work with fireflies reflect the need for cultural empathy and shared humanity?

huge. And I'm glad that you brought it up because it's not only what's going on in terms of refugees today, people who need help, people who are dealing with untenable situations around the world. And that's been the case for a long time in terms of why people move from place to place. But what we're not dealing with, you know, we don't even deal with that where these people are in dire need. We're also

not dealing with the fact that more more people are going to need to migrate as we're dealing with climate change. Places that are livable today and not the too distant future are not going to be livable anymore. And it just so happens, of course, I've written about a great couple in Paris that started the Refugee Food Festival. And I thought that this was so clever and so

Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52.174)
creative and there are many different ways. Let me just say to deal with refugees and today where we're dealing with people who are being deported and moving back and forth. But that doesn't mean that you just have to sit there and hard. There are ways to do this and this is on that grassroots basis. So this couple they loved to travel and what better way to learn about other cultures than over a meal, breaking bread, whatever that looks like in that culture.

and they're French, they went back to Paris and they noticed, you know, of course we've got all of these refugees that are here. And we never stopped to look for the most part past all the fact that they're refugees, you know, so many of these people are skilled, they have talents. And even if they come to us and they don't, have, everybody's got superpowers that they bring to the forefront if we just allow them to shine.

you know, lot of these people were chefs or they knew cooking. that was something very special in terms of their culture and their community. So this couple started Louis and Marin are their names. started the, it's a global effort, the refugee food festival. And it began with restaurants in France where they started with just a week and then it expanded through throughout a month.

to say restaurants that would agree to allow refugees in to the restaurant to cook foods from their homelands with people helping to serve them as the restaurant to the local population and not only introduce people to the culture through their food, but also in terms of saying, need to employ these people and these are gifts and talents that they have and

other people working in the restaurants with them that they can put them all to work. And it started as just in France. It was actually picked up by the United Nations, UNESCO, and they have a toolkit now that is on their website and it's expanded to cities around the world. And anybody could do this in any city, anywhere to say, we need to welcome people.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14.824)
in and people into our lives. And part of this is not just having this old school where this group of immigrants lives in this part of the city and this group lives in this part of the city. We need to be melding and mixing in with people and sharing our experiences. That's how the United States was started. That's why we've

got this crazy version of English that we speak because everybody was speaking a different language, but people needed, you know, we got to put up the barn for the guy that's down the street and this person needs help with this. And everybody just jumped in to help. And in terms of communicating, we started changing our language to help make everybody feel that they were heard. We need to be doing that some more. And that's just one example.

but there are a lot of different programs everywhere, this was, nobody gave the, that's the thing, nobody gave them permission. I'm sure there were a of naysayers going, we don't need to deal with this immigrant problem. They said, no, this is something that we know, we've traveled and we know the food and we love it, we're big foodies. And we know some people in the restaurant business, this is our wheelhouse and we need to put these two things together.

And I've seen this happen, that happened with food. I've seen this happen with dance classes. My own daughter took for many, many years an African dance class to learn different dance moves from different countries within Africa. And then that brought in drummers because many of the African dance moves, you have the djembe drums. And so that brought in more people in the community that said, well, I'm not a dancer, but I'm a drummer. love music and I want to learn from this.

This is how you start building community and community, that connection and building community is what it's all about.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11.306)
Absolutely. And I love all those different examples and I love how you humanized it. We're all people. You think about the resilience it takes to get from point A to B in that drive. You're talking to some people with some real resilience and skill sets. Together.

for all people and

Speaker 1 (01:11:32.59)
Absolutely huge. I'm personally friends with a number of people who have gone through experience of leaving their country or have lost their country through a takeover. And that's a huge thing. And we have to honor that. On the other hand, we also have to say these are boundaries between these countries that we've drawn. know, when I'm looking back at nature and I'm looking at migratory birds and animals, and it's like they're not going...

I'm over this country now and you know, I'm just moved from Mexico to the United States. They just see the landmass and we have to get to the point where we look at ourselves as we're all citizens of one planet. I had the opportunity to talk to an astronaut who went up to the space station sitting next to, he was an American sitting next to a Russian. And he said, you know, when we took off, I could say, that's where I live.

As we got further and he go, that's where I live. he said, but then you get to a point where you go, that's you see the earth and you go, that's where we live. And that's how we need to start looking at all of it.

I and it may not feel like it many days, but I honestly feel like we are moving in that direction to be very honest with you. Julie, I would ask you in your journey, did you have a personal failure or dark night, dark night of the soul kind of thing that became a catalyst for your most maybe profound spiritual insight?

I still have them.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13.71)
Now that is an honest answer. That is truly an honest answer.

You know, I have studied Jungian psychology for over 40 years and Carl Jung once said, if the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's. And I think that the biggest thing that we forget to teach anybody is that when you're reaching out for something new, something different, the path isn't clear because you're creating

the path and it is a very uncomfortable feeling. And we question everything. We question the world. We question life. We question how can these things happen? And I've gone through many, many dark things, but fireflies need the dark to see the light. I have people who say to me, I've gone through, I was adopted during a time where adoption was not acceptable.

I was one of those babies they called a gray market baby, which meant I was kind of adopt, I was bought and paid for. And I grew up in a situation where people said, no, you're adopted. You don't really count. You're not real. I felt like Pinocchio. You're not a real girl. I went through that. I, you know, I had a family that I lost at a very, very early age. I've gone through a lot of loss, a lot of things that are very, very dark, but I've also known.

that when we go through these things that are really, really difficult, that we carry them with us, we carry them in our hearts. Anybody who's ever lost anybody, you know that there's a hole, there's a darkness that will always be there. That's part of what we call our shadow. But it's those experiences that give us compassion, that give us empathy. I was young and I was actually pregnant at the time that I lost my mother.

Speaker 1 (01:15:09.032)
And I noticed that the people who really knew what to say were people who had also lost their mother. But the people who didn't and were very awkward, you didn't feel badly about it all. You just knew that they'd never had that kind of loss and you just, you were grateful. And I'm so thankful that you haven't had to endure this or go through this yet. But for those that have had to go through different things,

There's a depth there that allows us to really connect with other people on a very, very deep level, because it's more important than how many people follow you on Facebook, how many people have bought my book, how many, you know, there are things that are more important and that's our humanity. And that's the connecting one-on-one. And that's knowing that we each have that darkness that's there, but that's what gives us the depth.

that we need, if I hadn't gone through all these experiences, you know, we would be talking and I'd be saying, what refugees? There's no, know, immigrants, not a big thing. People who can't do this or, and because I'd be buying into it. And it's an eye opener to say there are things that are, are very deep. But I always say the deeper you dive, the higher you fly. And that's the path of.

Nice.

the firefly and we all go, we call, I call it the firefly path where we're shining together. And it's like, it's, it's an honor to share and somebody else's success. But when somebody else is dealing with loss, their loss is my loss. You know, if we go back to those ancient philosophies and Buddhism, there's the famous story of the student that goes to the teacher and says, how do I treat others master? And the teacher says, there are no others.

Speaker 1 (01:17:06.6)
And that's the basis of biology, that everything is connected, but that's also the basis of spirituality, that's the basis of metaphysics, that's the basis of quantum physics, it is truly the basis of everything because we are all connected and we really truly are one.

Wow, that's very powerful. Thank you for being open about that. And talking about ancient systems, what wisdom can the ancient ecosystems like the firefly habitats teach us about living harmoniously in this digital hyper-consumptive world that we live in?

You know, in addition just to Fireflies, say we have choices, but Fireflies, Fireflies spent the first two years of their lives underground. And I call it prime in the pond, you know, as we're preparing all of these experiences that we have are the things that prepare us for moving forward. And, but even when they're underground, they still have the capability to light up. And to me, that's huge.

studying biology, not just fireflies, but ancient systems and those systems of animals that have managed to adapt that are still here. mean, sharks have been around for eons and they've changed very little, but how do any plants or animals or human beings, as the case may be, how do we maneuver through this? We have to learn how to be flexible. You know, what do they talk about them? Bamboo.

that can flow with the wind, but it doesn't break. And that's where our code of values again becomes so important to say, we need to change. We need to be flexible. We need to approach things differently, but we still need to have that code of values so that we're doing it with that integrity to say, know, with this crazy age of, my gosh, too much information and so much of it is wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17.57)
But I always tell everybody, if you really want to know basic answers, forget all of the formulas and the science, go back to nature. Go sit down and watch, you know, watch a butterfly, watch a plant just sprout from the ground and grow. look at the miracles that are there, because it is a miracle, you know, that an acorn grows into a giant tree and that we all have

the capacity and the capabilities to do the same, to create anything that we choose to create. Now with quantum physics, this takes things a step further. Quick science things for those that aren't the science geeks, but to make it very simple and forget all the big formulas and I'm oversimplifying this, but we talk about atoms and then we talk about subatoms and then nanoatoms and they get smaller and smaller and smaller.

But here's the thing, when we think about in between those atoms, we tend to think that that's empty space. And it's not empty at all. That's where it's energy. That's where we have, the joke has been in the physics labs that from Einstein, okay, so this is energy and energy, does it move in waves or does it move in particles? And when they talk about this,

think about those spaces in between and how does energy move. And they've actually been able to set up examples so that I look through my glasses into this field and you look through the field in your glasses and they actually call it the field. And I say, well, of course, energy moves in waves. can see them right here, they're waves. And you say to me, no, I'm looking through my glasses and I see the particles. Of course it's, me your glasses and I'll give you mine. And we trade.

And I go, no, still seeing the waves. You're still seeing the particles. I say, now let's trade places. I'm going to sit in your place. You're going to sit in mine. We still see, I see the waves. You see the particles. What's going on and what they're realizing is we control what we see. Energy moves in waves and particles. And when we talk about the serendipity or things are in alignment and things just happen, that's when that energy is in alignment in those spaces between.

Speaker 1 (01:21:45.546)
in what we call the field, that's when people say, my prayers have been answered. That's where it happens. That's that energy and that we create what the outcome actually is, what it materializes and looks like. So if we have that kind of control and we have that power, why in the world would we all be sitting there going, my God, it's going to be doom and gloom? And it's like, no.

But we all do that. It's a human thing to do. But it's like, I got to shift my energy to go, if I'm creating this, that's where they say thoughts are forces and thoughts are things because that's creating the world that you're living in. So if that's what we're creating, let's create our hearts.

Well, we are creator beings and that in-between space is the most powerful. We just need to, and again, I think it comes down to all this conditioning and things that we've been told. We just don't recognize how powerful we are. You and I may be more into the science and understand the intricacies of some of it and some may understand it way more than I do, but you don't have to understand all of that. It's just the basic awareness of

These are the simple steps and this is how it works. And hey, powerful creator, you really do have the ability to do all of this.

And you know, all the science in the world, I always talk about a story about, think of a man on an elephant and that man sitting on the elephant, the man himself represents our thoughts, our intellect. The elephant represents emotion and how we feel. And guess which one is deciding which way we go. It's the emotion. And I go back to again, that's the importance of the arts.

Speaker 1 (01:23:38.166)
You know, you can sit there and talk about all these formulas and the science and this and that. But if I draw a picture or I'm a talented sculptor and somebody sees and they feel it, it's connected to the heartstrings. That's where we change. That's where it all starts. And then it comes up to the intellect, but it all starts in our emotional center.

100 % very, yes, that's what you said was incredibly important. So just to tie this up a little bit, we've been talking a lot about raising the collective consciousness and I wanted to ask you what role do you think the stories like those in your book play in creating a lasting paradigm shift?

think that as human beings, all learn, we all learn, me included, through stories. I think stories are incredibly, incredibly powerful and stories are what connect us with each other because they're emotionally centered. As we do that and we begin to connect, we feel safer being our authentic selves, which gives safety to others to do that.

we begin creating those communities. And, you know, I talk about my experiences in terms of being adopted today and no adoption is not where it should be, but today it's like somebody says they're adopted, nobody thinks twice about it. Well, that was because at the time that I was adopted, it was unconventional. Today it's conventional. So my whole concept in working with these people, sharing the stories and inspiring others at any age and to say it's never too late,

never too early, but to follow the unconventional when more of us begin living authentically, which is considered unconventional today, following our heart's desire, not listening to the naysayers. We're changing what's unconventional and we're making it conventional, which is the world that we want to live in.

Speaker 2 (01:25:41.774)
Absolutely, that's very powerful, nicely said. Julie, for the listeners who would like to work with you, what would that look like and how do they connect with you? What are you doing these days?

I would encourage everyone just to check out my website at www.extraordinaryfireflies.com and go ahead and download the five flying lessons for Fireflies. It's free. Get yourself on a mailing list just to keep getting encouraged and inspired on a weekly basis. I have links to all of my social media pages there as well to keep people.

updated with new things that are happening as they are. But I do work with people and I encourage everybody needs, whether it's a mentor, a coach, someone in your life, a therapist to help. And I think this is a fabulous time for that because most of us, me included, have just like a half an hour free get on a discovery call to see what it's like to try to get some more clarity in your life. And it's not a push to say, you know,

and work with me as a coach. I do work with people and I work with companies and corporations and training sessions and a little bit of everything. But it's to say, take advantage, not just if I'm offering this, go find out what that is and now go call somebody else and then call somebody else. And you might not be ready for any of it yet, but find out what you're looking for. It'll give you some clarity to know what you want to do to take your next steps. It's no different than therapy.

I tell people, you know, go to see a therapist, if you're not feeling better, think that we set up some misaligned concepts of what you're supposed to go through in terms of therapy. And you don't always have that aha moment right away, but you go, if you talk to a therapist, you should leave feeling better. You should leave feeling pretty good. And if you leave and you're just as depressed as you were when you went in and you don't feel like you've got any

Speaker 1 (01:27:46.018)
clarity or anything that's going to get you to your next step, stop and it's time to find another therapist and to keep finding that until you find the right person for you. And you know, we do this with doctors, therapists, teachers. it's the best teacher. It's the best teacher for one person. It's not necessarily the best teacher, therapist, and the same thing with coaches. And like I said, because so many of us that are working with clients and different people,

We all work differently and you want to be exposed to as much of this as you can and say, this is what aligns with me. And a lot of times, you know, again, it's not the right time. I have clients that they go, we talked two years ago and it's like, yes, I remember. Well, I'm in a place now where I would like to go forward. And, and that's great. mean,

This is again a new way of doing business. So these are not sales calls. isn't, know, you've got to work with me. No, the whole purpose of this is to introduce people to this is the process and take this and now try it. And it's like try on clothes until you find the one that fits. And sometimes you don't need it at all. Sometimes you go, I have people in my life that are mentoring me and helping me. Well, great.

then know what it is so that you make the best use of that and appreciate what they're offering for you, because nobody makes it to any place by themselves.

That's right. Times are changing. And I say that with positivity. Yeah. They are. So what's next for Julie? I feel like there's always a what next for you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:27.95)
I am in the process of working on some very new things that I'm really excited about in terms of creating a bigger and stronger community and really hoping to be able to take the whole concept of the people that I share to be doing workshops with all different ages to start across the country, make my way overseas to connect everybody to start thinking about what does this all mean to you? How do you connect with people?

And it's not just my connecting people, it's watching the people that I work with starting to connect with each other and starting to use each other. I need somebody in public relations. That's you. Would you be willing to do this? I taught a training workshop to a group of public artists. I was in Michigan and a woman came to me the second day and said, I would love to finish this thing, but my husband and I are traveling. where are you going? We're going to Australia.

We're in Australia. Oh, we're going to, she gave me her itinerary and they were going through Perth. What just so happened, one of the women that I wrote about was in Perth. This was a woman who was also an artist and at 83 just got her very first one person art exhibit, which was very, very exciting. So I said, let me connect the two of you. And all I ask in return is just send me a picture and tell me that you guys had a wonderful day. was, she was like, this was amazing.

And to be able to put people like that together all over the world so that even when you have those dark nights, you know that there are people in every corner of the planet that are having the same thoughts, but also have the same desires and the same hopes and dreams and wishes that are taking that risk and that chance to realize how powerful they really are.

You're building a global community and I can see how that feature sold, just the story with that lady with her art exhibit.

Speaker 1 (01:31:24.866)
Yeah.

As we're winding up the show, have three questions I like to ask everyone. A little bit more fun maybe. So here's the first question. Imagine you're creating a spiritual survival kit for someone just starting on their journey. What three practices or items would you put

Ha!

I would put a rock to remind everybody to connect with the earth spiritually. I would put a feather. I would pick three things from nature, a rock, a feather to remind them to fly, and a vial of water to remind them to continue to flow.

Wow, that is like super cool and special. What do you like to listen to that helps bring you back to center to that state of interbalance clarity?

Speaker 1 (01:32:12.622)
You

Speaker 1 (01:32:21.034)
Everything. I have to tell you, I like a lot of the instrumental music that's out there, but I am a huge fan of jazz. And I have to tell you, one of my Bibles and favorite book that I ever came across is called Not a Brahma. The Exploration of the Conscious Mind. It was actually written by a man who was a music critic.

and I think he was in the Netherlands. And he talks about the connections of that spirituality to music. And he spends a lot of time talking about jazz and people who saw the world very, very differently that were unconventional fireflies on their own, the Charlie Parkers. And it's funny because at the end of every chapter of my book, I have an exercise to do so that you can take what you've read and put it

into practice in your own life, because this is supposed to be a guide to action. And in Nata Brahma, the book, at the end of every chapter, he has suggestions of music to listen to that are all jazz based that connect back into it. really is a spectacular book.

Awesome. And lastly, after a day's work, what's your guilty pleasure? Chocolate, a bubble bath, cheesy rom-coms or something different?

Eating, cooking, I have a huge garden and I love making things from the garden. Yes, and if the guilty pleasures, yes. And having dinners and having people over where you have those late night conversations where sometimes you agree, sometimes you disagree. And a lot of times it's the arguments and it's the disagreements that when they're done with respect and somebody makes me think differently is...

Speaker 1 (01:34:19.84)
just that is to me one of the ultimates.

Nice. That's very stimulating, I agree. Julie, any last thoughts before we finish?

just to encourage everybody that if there are dreams, any wishes, any hopes, you got to stop waiting. The world needs you now. If you start thinking about the people that you go, I really respect this person, this person, this person. Now stop and think of that person had been too shy, too scared, too nervous, too stressed. I can't do this. And they had never done it.

Now is the time to shine and that, know, especially today, it's not only you doing what it is that is your heart's desire or that gives your life meaning that you want to do, but the fact is that the world is waiting for it and the world needs it. And people are waiting for you to shine your light brighter because you're going to help them shine.

How beautiful. Julie, much gratitude for all your wisdom, your insights today, which has certainly been extremely illuminating. Thank you for being on the show. And for all our listeners out there, really appreciate you taking time out of your day to join us. Until next time, remember, embrace that wild soul. And I'm with Julie. The time is now. Go time. Thanks, Julie.

Speaker 1 (01:35:46.456)
Thank you!

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Wild Soul Gathering's Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious. To learn more about our guests, please go to our website, WildSoulsGathering.com. We're very eager to hear from our listeners what you thought of the episode, topics you might like us to cover in the future, your thoughts on spirituality, questions you may have. Please feel free to send us an email at WildSoulsGathering.gmail.com.

This is your host, Dr. Sandra Marie, sending each of you peace and love. Until we meet again, embrace your wild soul.