The Art of Change

Hey Joyful Jourynier Anita Adams here your host and today I'm excited to introduce you to someone I've come to considered a kindred spirit. Pamela Thompson. Pamela is the founder of female wave of change Canada and national member based nonprofit. She's the author of two best selling and fabulous books and is currently working on her third, her books learning to dance with life a guide for high achieving women, and the exploits of Minerva reflections of a 60 Something woman draw upon her many lessons and transitions through life, including living and working on five continents, separation and divorce, burnout and finding the love of her life. Pamela is passionate about sharing her insights, stories and actionable strategies on how to navigate change, lead in uncertain times, and thrive in life. She continues to inspire and empower others on their journey globally. Through through her experiential workshops, speaking and writing. Pamela believes that life is an adventure to be lived to the fullest and lives her life according to that mantra. Today, we are going to talk about and focus our discussion on tuning into inner wisdom, our inner compass to navigate change so that you can thrive in life. Welcome, Pamela, thank you so much for joining us today.

Well, thank you so much, Anita, I'm excited to be here. And thank you for that gracious introduction.

My pleasure. You know, I've so I have read both of your your beautiful books, I love them. Learning to dance with life and Minerva their exploits of Minerva. And I think it was through reading this book that I feel that kindred spirit with you is like her story resonates so deeply with the woman I feel like I'm becoming and the journey that I have had. So thank you for, for writing such a beautiful book, a beautiful story, both of those stories, and for providing such wonderful tools and lessons that we can we can grow from and reflect on. So they're just beautiful. Thank you so much for that, and given me an opportunity to get to know you more in the work you do.

Well, I really appreciate that feedback or feedback about my books. Because you know, books are a labor of love, and you hope when they go out in the world that they do inspire others and people find them, you know, get they positively impact people. So it's wonderful to enjoy reading them.

Absolutely. And I'm looking forward to the third book that's coming out continue, do you have a title for it yet? Can you share?

I do not have a title. Okay. At this point, it's going to be an historical fiction novel with Afghanistan as the backdrop. As you know, I lived and worked in Afghanistan, and it was a life changing experience. And I want to dispel some myths about Islam and Muslim men and Afghanistan and share some some stories about Yeah, what happened pre Taliban. And anyway, I'm excited to do some more research myself and interview some people that I know and also share and with the ultimate goal of promoting understanding, because I helped with peace in the world when we understand one another. Absolutely. Creating

that harmony comes from understanding the differences that there are and understanding how much we're not really all that different when you when you get to know when you get to know culture and and get to know people. Beautiful. Yeah, I look forward to reading that. All right, so let's let's dive into what we're here to talk about today. You are someone who has experienced a lot of change in your life and in your work. And I understand that you average three years maximum and each position before you became an entrepreneur printer in the early 1990s. So you're somebody that's making a lot of a lot of changes, and somewhere along your journey after doing that personal growth, inner work, you connected with your intuition and have made it a practice to listen to and trust your body's wisdom. Now, can you share with us just a few examples of when you followed your heart or as I like to call it your inner wisdom and made a major life change?

I'd be pleased to do that. And EDA. One was when I let go of my well paying federal government department that position on a handshake. And I'll share a little bit about that. What happened is, I've been thinking about starting my own business for a while, but I really was hesitant to just take the leap and do it. And I was on this project management in a government environment, workshop slash training. And the the research and development fellow fellow who's the trainer, he basically was part of a management consulting group. And I ended up facilitating our small group and helping present some of the material what we came up with. And he approached me afterwards and he said, Where did you learn to facilitate? And I said, I just do it. In a previous life, I was trained in group and family therapy. And that's one of the many, many things I've learned over and done over by yours. I said, but I've never been trained specifically in facilitation. And he said, we have to talk. So anyway, we met for coffee. And he said that they needed somebody like me to open up the health sector, because they didn't have someone to help help a strong health background. And on a hands handshake without any contract. I said, Yes. And so I gave up my well paying federal government department job. And yeah, and that was like, I just, I just knew it just felt right. And I loved the idea. I love working with loved working with groups. And I've, I just knew that it was the right thing to do. My father thought I was totally mad to do it. However, a few years after, when my business, my own business got rolling, he realized, and he said to me, Pam, you took a risk. And I'm really, I really appreciate how the courage, and the fact that you're doing well, now,

that's beautiful, and it is a huge risk. It's a very bold move to do something like that. And on a handshake alone, like nothing in writing. That's pretty, pretty powerful. So what did you like? What was it that you tuned into that? You just knew, he said, he just knew like, what what does that mean? Exactly? How do you how do you teach somebody that tune into that? That's

a great question. I feel like all of us and NIDA have what we all have the ability to access our intuition, whatever that looks like. And some of us get an internal sense of knowing just a very strong sense of knowing and our bodies, others actually get a message, I get a message, I'm clear audience, I get a message. And sometimes I get visuals. So some people see images, I don't most of the time, sometimes I do. So part of it is exploring with people, like with clients, you know, getting them to go in out of their heads and into their bodies and really sort of get a sense of okay, when did you know because when, as you know, and I know with your work as well, but having read some of your work, that it's like when you know, it's so powerful, because so many people make decisions with the pros and cons list, which is what I used to do many years ago. And yet, after they made the decision based on that list, they still are not sure. And they stay up nights, you wake up in the middle of the night, say, Oh isn't the right thing to do. Whereas if you listened to interest in your body's wisdom, you just know, and you just let it go and say, Oh, it's great, it's gonna be great. Whatever happens, I'm going to learn lessons. And it's all going to be for the better, you know, and I feel like when I reflect on that particular moment, if you will, I need that. It's like that was the carrot. Like, I didn't feel like a jump totally on my own. But when somebody offered me and said, Okay, we'll give you at least eight days a month of work at an incredible per diem for the early 90s. I thought, Oh, well, I think I can handle that. And even though it only happened for three months, in fact, and then it's the time started to the amount of time waned, and then within six months, I ended up saying, Okay, goodbye, and starting my own company. It was initially a sole proprietorship, and then within two years, it was an incorporated business. But it was like, you know, it was that carrot to actually move me in the direction I wanted to.

Okay, that's really interesting. I often call those the spiritual breadcrumbs. When you something takes you on a path, you you and you respond, you pick up that breadcrumb, it's gonna lead you to the next breadcrumb and the next bread bread crumb. So I love that that you had that experience. Tell us this. Let's hear another example of you tuning in and really listening to that. That inner voice. Is it an inner voice your Yes, yeah. Okay. Let me ask you, is it your voice that you hear? Or is it another voice?

It's another voice

it is another voice. Okay, interesting. Yeah, I hear my voice but my voice to me. It sounds like an older, wiser version of me somebody that's really confident and self assured. And I find it interesting for you that it's a different voice.

Yes. Yes. Interesting. And for

all of us, and I guess that's what I want to draw on. Like, it's there's no right one way of of this working. It's we all have different ways of tuning in and, and learning to tap into that, that source of inner wisdom or intuition, and it comes to us in different ways. So

totally, yes. Okay, another nother experience where I really listened to my gut, it was I was taking a body centered coaching program, I was already trained as a life and business coach, but I really felt called to get out of my head and into my body. I was taking this body centered coaching course, all via teleseminar. And it was the last class. And the facilitator trainer, coach was asking for a volunteer to demo a process, it was a body centered decision making process, no one was putting their hand up. So I said, Well, I'll do it if no one else wants to. And she said, find a line on the floor, and I was in my office, and think about something that you really want. Now, imagine you have a knapsack on your back, and it's filled with a bunch of rocks. Now, after you've thought about what you want, imagine all those fears or doubts or negative thoughts that come up as rocks in that knapsack and feel them weighing you down. Now, cross that line. And when you before you cross it, release all those rocks and just let them go. Just let them release and fall to the ground. cross that line, however you wish to run across it, leap across it, walk across it and say allowed what you want. So I left the cross that line and I said, I want to play big. Anyway, I had no idea what that meant. I wasn't even specific about what that meant. Within two weeks, I got an email, offering me to throw my hat into the ring for one of three programs, positions in Afghanistan. And one of them had my name written all over it. It was senior technical advisor, Strategic Planning and Performance measurement. And I looked at it. And I spoke with my husband at the time, and I said, this is something I really want to do. And this is like 2010, August 2010, mid August 2010. He said, If you want to do it, I'll totally support you to do it. And initially, it was a nine month contract with no fly backs from cattle. And so within a week, I threw my hat into the rain. Within two weeks, I was part of the interview process. By middle of October, I was on the ground. It was that fast. It was that fast. And it certainly was playing big because it was working in a war zone, helping a ministry develop their first strategic plan, a ministry of 74 departments in a in a war zone. And I had nine months to do it. And I use Tory processes. So it was what say, say good participatory processes with us. I didn't just see him sit in the room with the senior management. I did. And I have a team that I taught I built their capacity to do consultations across the seven divisions in the 74. Department ministry for the country. So Ministry of Health for the country that

is playing big. Yes, it was.

But it was like, you know, it's just diet, like, you know, just shows you when you use these body centered type of processes. There's so

powerful. Yeah, that's so interesting. So I'm curious that that exercise that you walked us through, it's a beautiful one, I like the idea of of putting our our doubts the images of of rocks in a bag and just feeling the weight of it. And then letting that go, that imagination of letting that grow, go. And then are you did you actually have a hard line on the ground that you leaped over? Did you put a line or is this all in your imagination? You see this line?

I'm glad you asked because this is kind of gooey, and it's very powerful. Yeah, a line on the floor was an Afghan prayer mat. That one of my Pakistan I used to manage a project in Pakistan. Team members had gifted me a few years before Oh, that

gives me goosebumps so interesting. Yeah. Wow. And at the time you had you had no thoughts of this project this opportunity. You have no awareness of it. Not

nothing at all. Wow.

Wow, that's really cool. How do you connect the dots with all of this like, is it do you just go this is the universe the magic of the universe? or is there something that you go, Okay, this happened because of A, B, C, and D.

I just, I just trust when things come to me. And you know, even though we talked about me consciously being aware of when I, you know, after I've done a personal lot of personal growth work, you know, as children we know so much I can, I can remember, at about age four, knowing in my bones that I would travel the world and be of service. I knew it. I knew it. And then, you know, you kind of forget in that atmosphere like, Oh, my goodness,

yeah. But that's, that's interesting, too. And it's something that I've spoken a lot about recently with other guests. And this is the idea of remembering, remembering, coming back to remembering what is innately are our ability to do, and you were just saying, when you were a child, at four years old, you knew that you had this in your future, and then you forgot. And now, you know, at this stage in life, we are remembering again, we are remembering that we have we are something more than what we've been telling ourselves. And we tune in to something more.

What did I answer your question?

I? Yeah, I do think so. You've you answered my question beautifully. And I do love the journey that you've been on. I want to know a little bit more about your how you've deepened your practice to tuning in to that that part of you and you share a little bit, I think in Minerva, you talk a little bit about making time for yourself. How art has also played a role in connecting with your, with your body, and your intuition. What else? What else? Can you share with the joyful journey? Or on how how you can develop your inner listening skills?

That's a that's a really good question. Um, well, one of the things that I know to be true for myself and a lot of people is that we get into our heads, right. And so part of it is getting out of your head and into your body. And so body scanning, I teach my coaching clients, and I've, I've taught it on what webinars and and when I speak, the body scanning process. And it's when before you get out of bed in the morning, you basically scan your body from head to toe. And you notice you just noticed that there's any any tension, any pain, and you consciously then breathe into those aspects to parts of your body to release that tension and release that pain. And oftentimes, you don't even realize it's there unless you take the time to do it. That's one way. And how long

is that? That process? Is it like, oh,

you can do it in like three minutes. I was like, snap. Yeah, it's fast. The other one that I love, and I know this will resonate with you. And Anita is mindfulness walking meditations in nature. Yes. And that's when you go out. And instead of thinking about that performance review, you're giving someone or the argument you had with your partner in the morning, you instead totally tie into your of your senses. And you notice the breeze on your face, you smell the autumn leaves in the air, you hear them crunchy under your feet, you see a beautiful vista, whatever it is, and you really focus on your thoughts. And every now and again, are not your thoughts on your senses. Every now and again words and thoughts will come up and you just let them float away in a bubble or in a cloud. And then you really focus on your, your senses. And that's another way and just being in nature and hugging trees. Like every now and again. If I'm going to place it out a lot of people I think, oh, maybe I shouldn't do them. Like what packs I'm going to do this.

So yeah, I've been known to hug a few trees.

And yeah, so being in nature is huge, because it's also clearing, it's also it clears our energy right? And swimming and being by I love to swim, and being by water and in water is is is very clearing. And because we need to get rid of any negative energy in order to tune into the positive aspects in our environments and in our bodies, right?

Absolutely. I've I've had some resistance from people that I work with some clients and even just chat chatting with people and sharing them with them. The power of being in nature, people don't want to make time for that. And I find it so frustrating because it is to me it's an a huge answer to so many problems and challenges and will enable us to access that inner wisdom and find I ended love and joy and harmony and all that beautiful stuff. And it doesn't take that much time yet, yet, it feels like I'm pushing boulder a boulder up a hill sometimes and trying to, to encourage and convince people to the benefits of of getting out into nature. Has that been your experience at all? Or, you know, like, why do you so suppose there's so much resistance to, to making this time to for ourselves?

Well, it's not been such a big thing. But when I was coaching high achieving women, when I launched my first book, and I was really, that was a lot of my clientele. Certainly they were very busy lawyers, accountants, whatever. And yeah, it's like making time in the day was really big for them. And they would go out and run. But a lot of times when they ran, they weren't necessarily they were processing in their brains rather than just enjoying being low of running, right. I guess one powerful way. It's, to me, it's powerful. And I think it rings true for certain people is to look at how nature taught us that to heal ourselves, because she healed she showed us how she can heal herself. Because like six weeks after COVID, we got the reports of the air pollution over China rat radically reducing, because we weren't pumping a whole bunch of crap into the air. And then the dolphins, we heard about the dolphins coming back to Venice. So I mean, we can learn so much from nature. So I think maybe, you know, approaching maybe the discussion from that could be helpful, saying look that nature has taught us so much. And clearly she has taught us to heal you know, the heal the planet. And that's the way we need to heal ourselves too.

That's a really great approach. I will explore that a little bit more when I'm when I'm talking to people, because I'm working with a couple clients right now that are really resistant to my encouragement to take, you know, like 20 minutes to just get outside and connect with nature but maybe I'm not drawing the the connection strong enough and how it can really improve your health, your well being your, your creativity, that flow of finding solutions to challenges all of that there's just so much brilliance in this this time. And you know what we're talking we're here to talk about learning to tune in and connect to that part of your your self, that inner knowing for me, nature's the portal to that, that inner knowing that inner compass, and has been spending time in nature that was was paramount to that growth for me. And so I feel like I want everybody to do it. So they can feel that and experience it. And so they can make the life decisions with with ease. You know, it's some, yeah, let's, there we have, we're faced with all sorts of decisions every single day, and some of them are small, some of them are really big. And if we can lean in and listen to that inner compass, you know, that inner guidance, life would be so much easier, right? I definitely agree with you. Yeah, this is why I think we're kindred spirits are so many of the same beliefs. All right, I'm in your book learning to dance with life a guide for high achieving women, you identify seven keys to creative living, seven keys to consciously cultivating increased health, happiness, fulfillment and inner peace, as we were just talking. One of the keys that you say is to learn from and embrace life's transitions. Learn from an embrace life's transitions. This is a key that you've been you've personally I understand I've been focusing on in the past few years. So can you can you tell us a little bit more about that and about the framework you've created to support people to embrace rather than resist transitions?

I'm pleased to share that with you and neither one I've what I've noticed is that when we resist change, it has negative impacts on our bodies, our minds, our relationships, and our bottom lines if we work for others, or have our own businesses. And so for me, this is a really big key. And also because of all the changes that have happened that are happening as the world speeding up. I mean, there's change has always been here. But it's so there's been so much change in the last few years with a pandemic and all right. And so I really think it's key to support people with a framework and processes and tools to help them understand the change process and learn to embrace rather than resist change. So I created to a five step framework called The Art of change framework. It's based on the metaphor life is a dance, and it's underpinned by the belief that embracing change is a creative process that opens us up to new possibilities. May I share that five steps,

but yeah, I was just going to ask that would be fabulous. Please do. Okay.

So it's based on the metaphor, life's the dance, as I mentioned. So they are shine the light, choose your dance, feel the rhythm and learn the steps, practice, practice, practice, and consciously share your dance with the world. So in the shine the light, you're really look at how you typically respond to change. So I asked people to rate themselves on a scale from one to 10 in terms of how they typically respond to change. One scares me to death 10 Being I thrive on it. So you can think about that yourself. If you want to share you can. How do you typically respond to change? Would you say I'm

on the higher end I like change and which is supports the nomadic lifestyle I've chosen.

And many leaders as well, I find that I do this process with say rating themselves as a nine or 10. Namaste asleep, I will ask you a slightly different question. When a change comes out of the blue, that you do not initiate, how would you rate yourself in terms of dealing with those kinds of changes, one scares me to death 10 Being I thrive on it,

um, a little more neutral, probably lower than neutral, maybe around the four. If it's yeah, if it's kind of coming out of left field, and if it it throws my world into a bit of a tailspin.

Right. And that's typical, I would say, for most people, even if you're a leader who writes rates yourself on nine or a 10. For something you initiate off, and if it's if it's not something you initiate when you get knocked down to a four or five. And I just want to make the point for the listeners, that you're not any better. If you're a nine or a 10. It just really is a tool to help understand how you how you deal with change right now. And it's also really helpful with teams and organizations. Because if you have this discussion in your team, and you totally have this discussion and have people honestly rate themselves, with the caveat that it doesn't matter what your number is, then if somebody is a five, for example, you can say you can ask them when you're starting a change process, ideally, or even if you're in the middle of one. But ideally, before you start it, ask them what kind of support they like and need throughout the change process. So rather than having them getting angry, and pulling and tugging, and having them this work, or whatever, you actually have that discussion before you dive into it. And you you know, you make them feel like they're supported. And it's okay for them not to be all excited about change, because we are all not excited about changing physically, you know, physiologically hardwired to fear it, right? Yeah, so shine the light. That's where you explore how you respond to change. Shoes, your dance, that's where you identify the transition you are all in and where you are on your transition journey. And with this process and data, I really strongly recommend that you only focus on one transition at a time. Because a lot of times you could have more than one, like a person could retire and be moving from one coast to the other, for example, right. And so you choose your dance, you choose that transition you want to focus on, and where you are on your transition journey. I call it a transition journey. And I draw heavily on the work from William of William Bridges, you may have heard of him. Based on over 30 years of research and people have on people and organizations, he identified that, regardless of the transition you go through, there are three distinct phases, an ending, a neutral zone and a new beginning. And there's work associated with each phase. And if we don't do the work, we often keep repeating the same patterns in our lives, and remaining unhappy and unfulfilled for example, someone who gets married three, four and five times. And initially there's a honeymoon period where everything's all rosy. And then after a time, the same issues crop up that happened in the previous relationships and people either stay in them and settle or they move on to the next and it's because they haven't taken time between the relationships to find out who they are and what they truly want in life right. So choosing your dance so the ending the neutral zone the new beginning so then work of the ending is letting go and I've identified I've I've also added to bridges framework identifying lessons learned the work If the neutral zone is to envision that new life of your dreams, relationship of dreams, business of your dreams, whatever it is, and that is the scary phase, because that's the period of uncertainty, you've, you know, you've either left a job like I did, and joined an organization part time or whatever, or you've left a relationship, or they've left you. And then you know, it's very clear the ending has happened. And then you're in that sort of that abyss. And yet, that's the creative space because you get to create whatever you want, like when you decided with your, with your husband to let go of all your stuff, 90% of your stuff, how many years ago, right? And we become nomads. Before, you know, like, That was scary, I'm sure, you know, until you're in that space, but you you envision what your life will, how freeing it will be and all those positives about that new life you're going to have. And then the work of the new beginning is taking action toward what you envisioned in the second phase, right. So in feeling the rhythm and learning the steps, that's when you you start moving through those different phases. And actually doing those doing those processes. I actually just posted a blog yesterday, I think, on my site, talking about a recent transition I've been through and applying part of this process to it to give people an example of how to do it, because it's really helpful if you actually take the time to say, What am I letting go of? What lessons have I learned, right? And then you know, take the time to dream and then take action, practice, practice, practice, then then you continue to do all the stuff and also to embrace the change in your body rather than resisting it using tools to embrace it, rather than feeling like you're really scared and resisting it. And then finally, consciously sharing your dance with the world where you observe yourself and your surroundings and the positive impact that you're having. Because when you didn't make positive changes in your life, you inspire others, you know, you do, right? Yeah. It really this process really helps you to move forward and move through transitions with increased clarity, confidence, ease, and also insight, because you better understand yourself and what's happening to you.

I love that. Thank you. I want to recap this a little bit just to make sure I got it as well. So I've got the first step is to shine the light that's to identify what it is that is is in changing that's in transition, what's happening. We're what the emotions are that that are coming up, do I have that right? shining the light on to explore how

you typically respond to change. Right? That's a nutshell that's what it is.

Okay to Okay, okay. Okay. And then choose your dance, I like this, what you were saying is that there can be multiple things that are happening all at the same time. And if you're trying to do the foxtrot, and the tango, and it's good, you're gonna be falling all over the place. So choose the one thing and focus on on one thing, one transition, one thing that you are, you are trying to move through, I love that thank you for that. Feel the rhythm, that's where you're learning, the new dance, you're learning, you're getting a sense of this new state of being that you you are in and then practice, practice, practice that is for me, when you when I creating a new a new way of being in my life was to to be in nature, just throw that back into into the mix, practicing that helped me connect to my higher self connect to God, the universe, whatever your word is for it, but every single day, I was practicing this transition as I was transitioning because I was transitioning when I started doing this transitioning from a career in the arts in the nonprofit world promoting film to something I wasn't sure was going to happen yet. But I knew I had a practice in being in this space of creativity and exploring who I am and what I want. Okay, good. And then consciously the fifth point consciously shine, share your dance with the world. I love that. That is where we are now. We have practiced a lot. We're feeling comfortable in our in our new skin. And we are now shining our light in another way and sharing sharing outwards with with the world beautiful. I feel like that's where that's the stage I'm in right now. Doing a podcast and getting my book out in the world. I am sharing my dance and I'm inviting people to dance with me. So I love this that the art of of chat, the art of change framework and I believe this is either gonna give a download or an offer to our listeners tonight to walk them through this Is that what this? Yeah, well, actually,

if people go to my homepage at Pamela hyphen, thompson.com, they can sign up for the art of change framework and my blog, and then you can unsubscribe anytime, you know, I have blogs on there since 2014. Would you believe I've been blogging since it? That's

so great. That's awesome. I will, I will have to explore your blog, because the your what you write resonates with me. So this is really awesome. Thank you for sharing, sharing that framework. And and we'll we'll provide that link in, in the show notes for our listeners. But I have one final question for you. And it's some, it's about the the coming back to Mother Earth and all of that. So you recently handed over the leadership of the female wave of change Canada, which we mentioned earlier, as a national nonprofit that you founded as the ambassador for Canada, of the global social movement, female wave of change. That's what it's called the female wave of change Canada, right. Now, can you can you tell us a little bit about that organization. And specifically, I'm really interested in the Mother Earth ambassador program that you co created with a female wave of change Canada? Well, I

always enjoy speaking about the organization and the Mother Earth ambassador program. So thanks for the opportunity. And Anita, well, female wave of change is, as you said, a global social movement that was started by a woman called England bowl in the Netherlands about seven and a half years ago. And we believe feminine leadership holds the key to creating a better world, a more conscious, equitable, just sustainable and peaceful one. And just so you know, there are men in the movement as well. And it's really and and when we talk about feminine leadership, we mean qualities like creativity, intuition, emotional intelligence, you know, a number of things we've been talking about here today. And as I said, Men can have them as well as women, and we can all learn them. And the idea is, in this movement, we're aiming to increase the value, and acknowledgment that these qualities have to be brought up to dance with the masculine, we need the rational, the logical left brain stuff, but we need the creativity and all the right brand stuff as well. And so it's about acknowledging that, and recognizing and collaboration is another one with the issues you're facing we're facing today, one or one particular discipline, or a few hit heads around the table are not sufficient, we need multiple heads around the table, from diverse backgrounds and cultures to help us solve climate change and a number of race systemic racism, a number of these issues were facing. So getting back to the mother of the ambassador program, in female wave of change there, which by the way, is in for more than 40 countries. We we focus on five pillar areas, education, environment, economy, health and humanity. And a couple of years ago, just when we were full on in, in the pandemic, I felt very strongly because I was intrigued, influenced by nature, healing yourself. And those those examples I gave previously about the dolphins and the air quality over China. And I thought, even though I'm not a subject matter expert on the environment, I really want to co create a project on the environment with with some members. So I put a call call out to our members and I said, anybody who's interested and passionate about the environment, come join us to co create a program. And it was that broad, and I said, if you're a subject matter expert, that's awesome, but you don't have to be. So five women came forward. One of them was a subject matter expert, yay, that everybody was very creative. So in less than six months, Anita, we co created the Mother Earth ambassador program, which which is an experiential outdoor education program for girls ages nine to 12 to teach them about Mother Earth, the mother tree and how to become Mother Earth ambassadors in their home schools and communities. We did the higher level work, we had a we did a lot of reading, we had a resource list. We had the broader goals, impact statements and key content areas. And then were able to from a donor and also from our members donations to contract with a curriculum development consultant who really fleshed out the program into eight modules for us and she did an amazing job a woman out of out of Calgary and anyway, she worked with myself and the subject matter expert to really fine tune it and then we actually ran the program for the first time. So the first cohort finished December 2 of last year and I was so excited to be able to meet the girls and the mothers and obtain video testimonials from the girls and hear about the positive impact they the program had on them and also to present them with their certificates and So that now we're looking for partners across Canada and beyond to implement this because we're not meant to be the implementers. But we wanted to test it once to test it. And it worked really, really well. And the woman who did it as a woman called Sarah Wade, she's amazing. She has a forest school on Vancouver Island and machos and, and we contracted her to run the program over eight Saturdays, and she did an awesome job.

Amazing. So you're looking for partners across the country who will run with this and teach the program, you've created the curriculum, you'll be handing it over and and hopefully have people that will then bring it into schools or different community environments where they can teach, and specifically, just girls nine to 12.

Yes, we're starting. That's who we're with. Now. We're obviously initially interested in groups that already served those girls, you know, right there, it could be converted to boys but because of female wave of change, and the focus on women, it's, it's we're starting with the girls. And part of it is we actually it's very interesting, but the hub trees and forest, a forest ecologist from UBC, who I'm just blanking on her name, right now, she discovered hub trees and forests. And she calls them mother trees. And they exhibit many of the qualities of feminine leaders. In other words, they're very sensitive, they're emotionally intelligent, they set if you could call the tree emotionally intelligent. If there was another tree in that forest, even if it's of a different species, like, you know, it's a birch and you're an owl. If so, this mother tree keeps tabs on what's happening. And if there's one that is sick, needs more nutrients, she'll send messages out through the soil, and through the fungi in the soil, and then others, even different species will send nutrients to support that tree. It's like, and they she communicates through these, these, these fungi in store for us with all these other trees. It's It's amazing. That's

fascinating. And can it be any kind of tree that becomes? Yeah. Oh, yeah. As

far as I understand. Yes. As far as, and yeah. So anyways, that's the initial focus to you know, the reason for girls, is this idea of the mother tree.

Oh, I love it. Okay. So if somebody listening to this show, wanted to get involved or connect to this this program, how would they do that?

Well, they could, they could email me because I'm still bearing even though I'm no longer the president of the organization. I am still chairing that committee. them other than that, that CO created the mother with Ambassador programs, so they could send me an email at Pam at Creative Living community.com. They can do that. And I could connect them and yeah,

awesome. Okay, that will make sure your email address is also in the show notes. This is really beautiful. It speaks to my heart Mother Earth ambassador program. This sounds like something I can really get behind. Are there ways for people that don't necessarily want to do a program but but love this idea and want to support it? Are there other ways that we can? We can help support? Yes, thank

you for asking on the female wave of change Canada site, there's a donation button. Okay. Certainly donate.

That's awesome. Okay. And can you specify that you'd like it to go to the Mother Earth ambassador program, just

trying, you could send an email afterwards to it's the email the well, you can you'll do it in the show notes. But just some people know, the website for female way of change, Canada, is FW OC canada.com. And it's not actually it's not really readily apparent than donate that donate button, I have to look to see if they've changed it recently. But certainly, you can send an email to info at FWC Canada and say that you want to donate or you've just donated because you can donate and then specify, I've donated and I want this is this is earmarked for the Mother Earth ambassador program. We would love that because we would love to create a train the trainer to go with the modules and the curriculum. And we need to contract someone to do that. So Oh,

neat. Wow, this, this really speaks to me, I need to look into this a little bit more. It's totally up my tree.

And the other thing I should add is that each of the girls in the current model, develop personalized action plans as part of this so that they go out after and implement a project in their home school or community.

Wow. Oh, it's brilliant. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing all of this with us. And we'll we'll include all those notes. All those contact links in the show notes, including the gift that you are going to offer as a free download of the art of change framework that people can and get from from your website, which is super cool. Thank you so much and joyful journeyer. And if you haven't yet, please check out these books. So the exploits of Minerva reflections of a 60, something woman, beautiful, beautifully written, a pleasure just to run through. And then I'm learning to dance with life a guide to high achieving women. And I think in this book, this is where you you offer the framework as well, right? If I if I'm not mistaken, I know what

No, because the the what should I say? The key is in there and I speak about my heat. I actually didn't develop the framework till a couple of years after that.

But yeah, I remember being asked the question in the book about how I would rate myself on that. So maybe part of it Yeah,

it was obviously part of it was in my mind, right. I didn't develop the full framework.

Right. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again for your time. Pamela I really enjoyed getting to know more about your work and and hear your insights and wisdom and joyful journey or thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed the show, and we will catch you next time. Bye for now.