Physical and Nutritional Health and How it Impacts Our Mental Health

Key Takeaways:

• Holistic Health Over Aesthetics: Prioritize mental wellness and emotional health through exercise, as physical fitness provides measurable psychological benefits.
• Moderation in Nutrition: Mindful eating and balanced nutrition directly impact mental health, with serotonin production closely linked to our dietary choices.
• Community and Connection: Engagement in group exercises or shared physical activity promotes mental well-being by fulfilling humans' intrinsic needs for connection and interaction.
• The Power of Routine: Regular physical exercise and nutritional discipline instill perseverance, echoing spiritual growth practices.
• Love Your Body: Embrace and cherish the body you have as a unique gift, which is crucial for maintaining mental and physical health.

Notable Quotes:

1. "You literally are what you eat; most of our serotonin is produced in our gastrointestinal tract." - Buddy Bou Francis
2. "Doing difficult things make hard things easier." - Buddy Bou Francis
3. "You can't heal a body you hate. Showing your body grace is the deepest of medicine." - Paraphrase from Dr. Will Cole referenced by Natalie Moujalli
4. "Exercise is not just a physical release but a clearing of brain fog, allowing for problem-solving and clarity." - Buddy Bou Francis
5. "Taking care of our body is about stewardship; our bodies are a gift from God." - Monsignor Shora

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Transcript

0:00:04 - (Debbie Draby): Welcome to Finding Sanctuary, our shared conversations into how we think and feel and how we find peace and comfort in daily life. We get together with experts to chat about all things mental health, getting insights and understanding on the struggles of life. My name is Debbie Draby and I'm a psychologist and a proud Maronite woman and a mother of three children. And I'm passionate about bringing people together to share their stories, to support each other through life and all this beauty and all its pain.

0:00:32 - (Debbie Draby): I look forward to hearing from you in this podcast series as we engage in conversations around our shared experiences as a community. We love to hear what you think of the podcast, so please subscribe, share like and comment wherever you get your podcasts.

0:00:53 - (Natalie Moujalli): Welcome back to another episode of Finding Sanctuary in the Hills. Monsignor Shora and I, Natalie Majali, are here to talk about physical and nutritional health and how it impacts our mental health. It's been a while, but I'm back and giving this whole hosting gig a shot. Massive shoes to fill. Thanks to Debbie Draby, but I'll give it my best. We know with societal expectations, social media and certain trends circulating, we get sucked into thinking that a particular body weight or shape indicates a happy, healthy or successful person.

0:01:26 - (Natalie Moujalli): Or even that once you've achieved a certain level of wellness, physically, that should equal emotional health also. Right? Well, we now know that with more recent studies, that's not the case. And this is why we brought in our guest today, Buddy Befrancis. Buddy is a nutritionist and personal trainer, and we've brought him in to talk to us about how both what we eat and what we do with our body impacts our mental health.

0:01:53 - (Natalie Moujalli): Welcome, Buddy.

0:01:54 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Hey, guys.

0:01:55 - (Monsignor Shora): Welcome.

0:01:55 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Thanks for having me.

0:01:56 - (Natalie Moujalli): Can you tell us a bit about.

0:01:57 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Yourself in the industry, fitness industry? You could say I've been here for 10 years. I've been working as a personal trainer officially now, for five years. I've also gone and become an accredited and nationally recognized nutritionist. I've worked with all walks of life, hundreds, if not thousands of people over the last five years. I live and breathe this industry. I love it. I do sometimes feel like an underpaid therapist, but I do also.

0:02:23 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I do. I would not like. I say to my clients, they say, how are you still at work? And I say, you couldn't pull me out of here. That's the approach I take to fitness, to health, to my job. And I think that summarises the last 10 years of my journey. Lots of downs, but those ups are so rewarding and I just want Everybody to experience what I've experienced going through this journey. And I'd love to expand on that later in this conversation.

0:02:46 - (Natalie Moujalli): Great. So I know that you and Monsignor have a friendship and a little bit of a history and you two are a little bit cheeky together. So, Monsignor, thanks for coming in today.

0:02:56 - (Monsignor Shora): Thank you. Good to be here. Yeah.

0:02:59 - (Natalie Moujalli): I thought you'd have especially interested in this episode because I know that you take a interest in physical exercise as well. We've talked about that before in our podcast when you have talked about the sessions.

0:03:13 - (Buddy Bou Francis): The sessions. How many people know that Monsignor used to do bodybuilding? Yes. Are we allowed to talk about that one? Yeah.

0:03:19 - (Monsignor Shora): No, not quite.

0:03:20 - (Buddy Bou Francis): You're a bodybuilder. Yeah. Monsignor's had his battles with the gym. That's some insider trading information. Something that I wanted to actually bring up while we're talking directly. Mon's three points that I actually found on the Internet. How fitness and faith correlate is stewardship of the body. I'm wondering if you could expand on that. Discipline and perseverance and how that relates to our faith, mental health and peace.

0:03:46 - (Buddy Bou Francis): But one specifically stewardship of the body. Can you give us, I want to ask you that question, a bit of insight on that.

0:03:52 - (Monsignor Shora): Yeah. Because taking care of the body, even St. Paul mentions it in one of his letters that, you know, taking care of the body is a good thing. Exercise is a good thing. Yeah. And he actually uses a lot of athletic images in different. He says the good athlete. So he uses those images in saying the good disciple is like the good athlete who say. You got those parallels. So it is taking care of the gift that God has given you. Our bodies are a gift from God and they're a way for us to express our inner being and our soul. The gift of who we are shines through our body. So if we don't take care of our body that we're going to struggle.

0:04:34 - (Monsignor Shora): You know, you can see where people are not living in a good way. Healthy. Yeah. It actually impacts on their spirit too. So it sort of has a little bit of going back and forward. So the healthier you can do look after your body is important. It's a gift. And that gift is when you take care of it, you're able to do more for others too.

0:04:54 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I like that one. So the whole analogy of fill your cup up so then it spills over and if you take care of your mind, body, soul, etc, you'll be able to more for others and so on. And so forth.

0:05:05 - (Monsignor Shora): Yeah. And the second one, what were they?

0:05:07 - (Buddy Bou Francis): The second one, I just. The discipline and perseverance was one that I really liked. The discipline of the faith in combination with the discipline of training and it's almost like going to the gym and you could correct me if I'm wrong is the equivalent of reading the Bible once a day. And it's like you're going on that journey slowly where you're building your body, you're building your faith and there is no end goal.

0:05:30 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And I feel like that aligns with faith because the gym, yeah, you could lose 10 kilos, but where do you go from there? It's a never ending cycle of continuous learning. And I feel like when discipline and perseverance come in to the faith, I feel like I personally have struggled with that a lot. And that discipline, even going to church every Sunday, it can become. And I know you don't like this word, but. A chore.

0:05:50 - (Monsignor Shora): Yeah. No, no, but there's some people think it. Yeah. But they don't realize. And look, sometimes it can feel like. I don't really feel like, just like sometimes I don't really feel like going to the gym before I'm going, but I've got to think, well, hang on, afterwards it is going to be a fruit I'm going to push. Yes, it is. It's a great analogy. Yeah.

0:06:11 - (Natalie Moujalli): So tell us why physical exercise is good for the body and for our mental health.

0:06:16 - (Buddy Bou Francis): More specifically, good for the body, good for your health. I love to expand on that with a little bit more depth and go into a release. So what, what is the gym? In its essence, it is a distraction, but it's also somewhere where you get peace, tranquility. You're focused so heavily on completing the task that you don't have a lot of time to think about other things. And when you get rid of the time to think about other things, it's almost this.

0:06:47 - (Buddy Bou Francis): It's a little bit incomprehensible if you haven't experienced it, but you get this.

0:06:51 - (Natalie Moujalli): Clarity cleans up the brain fog.

0:06:53 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And it does, it clears up the brain fog. And I really want this, when I talk about this, to be relatable to as many people as possible. And going to the gym, when you get rid of that brain fog, it allows you to solve problems. And this is when the endorphins get kicking and you feel really good and then you finish the gym. And I don't know if you noticed, but when most people finish the gym, they try to do a task almost.

0:07:12 - (Natalie Moujalli): Immediately after makes them a lot more productive.

0:07:14 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Right. Going shopping, your endorphins are high, your brain is clear. You're not worried about how many likes you're getting on social media. Yeah, there's things that are not real.

0:07:22 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah. So it's kind of like diversion. You know, we're diverting ourselves sometimes from drowning. We can be drowning in our thoughts and our emotions sometimes. So the exercise can actually, apart from, you know, generating the serotonin and the endorphins, it can also distract us from ourselves a little bit.

0:07:41 - (Buddy Bou Francis): The physical side. The physical side to training for most individuals that get into the gym is 10%. Like, I'm obviously they're just numbers through my personal experience. But most of the time it does come from something mental. The body dysmorphia, eating disorder, bad relationship, wanting to improve themselves on a whole other level. And then that's, that's really why most people get into the gym.

0:08:04 - (Buddy Bou Francis): It's all something to do with the mental. And then the physical comes in and then you navigate accordingly.

0:08:09 - (Natalie Moujalli): But yeah, when you say gym, we're talking about exercise in general.

0:08:12 - (Monsignor Shora): Right.

0:08:13 - (Natalie Moujalli): Like whether that is kind of, you know, walking or a gym session or a boxing class.

0:08:18 - (Buddy Bou Francis): So for me, when I relate to the gym, I think that's my bias because I work in the gym.

0:08:23 - (Natalie Moujalli): Exactly.

0:08:23 - (Buddy Bou Francis): But when I say gym, I'm directly referring to any form of exercise. Exercise, it's the best thing for you. Even my clients, there was someone that I train and the last thing she wanted to do was walk into the gym. And I just had to explain, I was like, fitness isn't the gym. Fitness could be going for a five minute walk. If your job is sedentary and you don't do anything all day, then Fitness is a 10 minute walk every day. It really is a five minute walk.

0:08:46 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And that will then allow you to feel good. And then what happens when you feel good? It creates a positive feedback loop and then you want to do it again. It's like, okay, this 10 minute walk three times a week is getting pretty easy. Where do we go from there? Do we do five 10 minute walks or do we do three 40 minute walks? And it's really, as a trainer, I see this firsthand and I see people grow and flourish to the nth degree. And it can start with something just as small as going for a little walk.

0:09:10 - (Natalie Moujalli): Studies have shown that actually it's low or moderate exercise a few times a week that can make a difference in your mood and your thinking patterns. So you're right. You can just start small and it will make a massive difference.

0:09:22 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Faith of a mustard seed.

0:09:24 - (Monsignor Shora): Yes, Faith of a mustard.

0:09:26 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I'm trying to think of things to relate back relationship and it's almost the faith in yourself and it just needs to be something so small. And that's why I do get hired, because I offer that externally and I'm not by any means comparing myself to a priest. But the same way you need someone to explain the gospel to you, some people need a trainer to take them step by step through everything and give them that counsel, give them that guidance, let them know that no one really cares what you look like in the gym or exercise per se.

0:09:54 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And it really is an internal battle.

0:09:56 - (Natalie Moujalli): Well, it's your job to remove the fear. Right. Because we build up a lot in our heads about, you know, what people are going to think of us. And I don't know how to do this exercise very well. Do you know what I like to call the stamina?

0:10:08 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I want to deviate a little bit, but I explained to my clients it's called the spotlight effect. And it's the craziest thing because I literally train 11 year olds and I train 65 year olds and they all experience the same thing. And I think it's so. It's almost wonderful because it makes young kids seem old and older people seem younger. But because we are the center of our own world, we like to think that we're also the center of everybody else's world when the reality is that they're the center of their own world and they really don't care what you're doing.

0:10:37 - (Natalie Moujalli): I use the spotlight effect in therapy. Really? Yeah. So you're one of the first people to bring it up outside of my user.

0:10:45 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Yeah. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how it is.

0:10:48 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah, it is.

0:10:48 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Exactly. And everyone gets this pent up and they build it up inside their head and obviously it can be real to a certain extent. That's where anxiety, et cetera, comes in. But for the most part, having a friend, a trainer with them, it just alleviates it all.

0:11:02 - (Natalie Moujalli): I think that's great. I think that we really need to have more of these discussions because I think for a long time we have been brought up to think that exercise is mostly about looking a certain way rather than feeling a certain way. And we all know that it's actually the opposite to that. It does really impact how we feel more so than how we look. Nutrition, on the other hand.

0:11:25 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Oh, this is a good one. Yeah.

0:11:27 - (Natalie Moujalli): Impacts how we look and feel also, even in a larger way, I think. So what we're putting into our body nutritionally is going to impact how we look.

0:11:37 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Well, yeah. From a health standpoint, but when I was doing my course in the textbook, it was actually citing that most of our serotonin is produced in our gastrointestinal tract. So we literally are what we eat. And there's a reason why the chocolates, etc. When it goes past the point of moderation and balance, can start triggering things like eating disorders. Because it feels so good. It does. The chocolate, the serotonin gives us that instant feedback.

0:12:07 - (Natalie Moujalli): Right.

0:12:07 - (Buddy Bou Francis): It's instant feedback loop. It's instant gratification.

0:12:09 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah.

0:12:09 - (Buddy Bou Francis): It's a very scary subject. Obviously, I don't want to delve into it too much while we're on the podcast, but what I did want to relate back to is doing difficult things make hard things easier.

0:12:20 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah.

0:12:21 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And I think mentally, physically, with nutrition, it all ties in together.

0:12:25 - (Natalie Moujalli): So when you say doing difficult things make hard things easier.

0:12:29 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Yeah.

0:12:29 - (Natalie Moujalli): How are we relating that to nutrition?

0:12:32 - (Buddy Bou Francis): So, for example, my favorite, favorite example, the fastest way to drop your calories is to just switch out foods. Diet Coke, Coke, no sugar for a Coke sugar. A coke sugar with sugar in it is, I think, 190 calories. That's insane. And you can get the same thing from Coke, no sugar. And people like, oh, but the taste. I'm like, sorry, but you have an addiction to sugar. Yeah, that, that in itself would be.

0:12:57 - (Natalie Moujalli): So giving, like giving up sugar.

0:12:59 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Yeah, that would be my main point, like doing something difficult. It's like, you want the Coke, switch it. Yeah, just switch it. Going to the gym, if you don't, you really don't want to go to the gym. You go. And like I relate back to before, it triggers that positive feedback loop and you want to do more things. I see it all the time in the gym. The guys that come to the gym in the morning, they're happy for the whole day.

0:13:20 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I advise if you can train in the morning. Everyone's not a morning person, but training at night, you get that spike of endorphins and it feels so good and sometimes you can't sleep. And I see this personally with my clients. Obviously, I'm not saying everyone, but I see the people that come in in the morning and I know some people can't. Mums, dads, people that work in trades, etc. It makes it very hard. But the people that do come in the morning just have this kick up.

0:13:43 - (Buddy Bou Francis): It's Almost like a spike throughout the whole day.

0:13:46 - (Natalie Moujalli): What do you think, Monsignor? Do you feel that when you exercise in the morning?

0:13:49 - (Monsignor Shora): Can you feel a difference? The difficulty I have is. It does. It's great for me in the morning and through the day. But then the peak time for myself as a priest is from 5 o'clock onwards. Got the evening mass, got the meetings, and then if I do a gym session in the morning, five o'clock, I'm gone. So I have to move mine to midday. Yeah, I tried for a while. Yeah. So because I do work later hours, I have to do mine a bit later in the day, but then at the same time. But if I, if I was finishing work at 5:00, 6:00, I. It'd be great, but I would do the morning, early morning.

0:14:25 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah, I feel that. I feel like when I've trained in the morning, it clears my brain fog and I'm much more positive and much more productive throughout my day. It's crazy, but I do feel like it lasts like a certain amount of hours and then it does.

0:14:39 - (Buddy Bou Francis): You do?

0:14:39 - (Natalie Moujalli): When I get towards the afternoon, I start to fatigue a little bit.

0:14:42 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And even just to clarify for the listeners, when we say gym, I could literally mean a walk.

0:14:46 - (Monsignor Shora): Yes.

0:14:47 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Yeah, yeah.

0:14:47 - (Natalie Moujalli): So training.

0:14:48 - (Monsignor Shora): Yeah.

0:14:49 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Some form of physical exertion. Doesn't have to be 10 out of 10 exertion, it could be 1 out of 10. But anything that's remotely physical, even getting sunlight in the morning, unbelievable, Invaluable. I know that this is like, we go into like a bit of.

0:15:02 - (Monsignor Shora): No, but it doesn't.

0:15:02 - (Natalie Moujalli): We're looking at holistic health.

0:15:04 - (Buddy Bou Francis): It's the little things like that, I mean, like what we spoke about before we started. But the whole Covid thing.

0:15:09 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yes.

0:15:09 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And your desk is in your bedroom, your bedroom is in your house, your whole family works from home. That is so, so enmeshed. It's enmeshed. It's suffocating. It can be chaos. But that 10, 20 minute release of you going, getting some sunlight in the morning, and my favorite expression is just go touch some grass. Grounding, Grounding. Go touch some grass. Like there is things more to life out there and it doesn't have to be your trip to Dubai.

0:15:37 - (Buddy Bou Francis): It really is the gratitude of the little things. And I'm sure that will somehow relate to faith.

0:15:41 - (Natalie Moujalli): But we're looking at really what we're talking about, I think is holistic health and balance. I think that those two themes are really.

0:15:49 - (Monsignor Shora): Yeah. Another thing, people, when they're alone, I'm going to go to the gym alone and then what do I do? For some personalities where they do feel that little bit of insecurity or not, or when you know you're going to train with someone, you know, if you had a fitness partner, you know, a lot of us when we used to go to the gym, you know we're going with someone, might come on, you're going, I'm going. Yeah. All right. If you didn't feel like going.

0:16:09 - (Monsignor Shora): So actually having a fitness trainer too is that motivation to go, as you said. And it helps them switch off from some of the stress and give that time to focusing on their health, their well being, which will then give them that better attitude, better space to work in, you know. So for me, exercise is one of my anchors. So when I do exercise three or four times a week, I operate better as a priest. If I miss my exercise for a week or two weeks, I don't do.

0:16:41 - (Monsignor Shora): Yeah, you don't want to be around me too much in the office. Yeah, yeah. It's like all the stress is in my. It stays in my body. But when I, when I have a chance to do exercise, that helps me. And then I'm actually, I'm in a better place mentally. And then I can pray better and I can handle stress. Yeah, I can stress. Yeah, yeah. I actually.

0:17:00 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Training, Training your brain, training your face.

0:17:02 - (Monsignor Shora): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember training.

0:17:05 - (Natalie Moujalli): It is exposure and it's repetitive exposure.

0:17:07 - (Buddy Bou Francis): It's so funny, I just had like a little bit of a brain moment when you're saying that when you don't train, when you don't train anywhere between three to five times a week, you feel that stress. And I feel like it's the same thing with your faith. If you're not praying or practicing, it creates.

0:17:20 - (Monsignor Shora): You're taking my job.

0:17:21 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I know. What was that? That's cheerful. I'm sorry.

0:17:24 - (Monsignor Shora): That's okay. It's good.

0:17:25 - (Buddy Bou Francis): How did I. It's good.

0:17:27 - (Monsignor Shora): That means I'm doing a good job.

0:17:29 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Yeah. But I wanted to touch on that alone point that you made something that's very, very eye opening for me as an individual and probably for you will be as a therapist. Nat, I have been hired as a friend, and that is insane to an individual who hasn't been in my shoes. I have had clients who have no friends, no family, or they've come from overseas. And being a trainer is one thing, but being a good friend is another.

0:18:00 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And I feel like it's very important that. How can I say I'm gonna We're gonna come back.

0:18:07 - (Monsignor Shora): If you can interject, I think maybe what you're trying to say is, look, I mean, I know I trained with some people for. Sometimes for years, for four or five years that. And it was. It was the physical training. And then at times, too be a little bit of support. They talk a bit, a little bit. Something going on for them in work, their life a bit. And, you know, the friendship's built up. So it's actually, there's a friendship there as well as you're doing the gym and you're keeping healthy. And that's because the other thing we're looking at, it's a way where we can break down isolation.

0:18:39 - (Monsignor Shora): And it's happening a little bit with something I'm very conscious of is, you know, mums with young children at home and the children around them the whole time, and they maybe have to stay indoors, you know, they can't get out that much that they're coming together and doing exercise and we've got to crash for them. And they've got this bit of fellowship and they're enjoying it too. They're doing it together and that starts breaking the isolation.

0:19:03 - (Monsignor Shora): They, you know, other mothers in a similar situation, there's a bit of connection, you know, so. Yeah, so even, you know, when I know if I used to meet up with my gym partner, you know, or he'd pick me up to go to the gym, well, we're talking on the way to the gym, you know, so there's a bit of the fellowship there. In the gym, often you focus a lot on what you do. You don't want to waste too much time. So you want to. You're doing exercise and then when you're leaving, there's a little bit of that.

0:19:29 - (Monsignor Shora): So it's got that good, healthy balance that helps you mentally, you know.

0:19:33 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah. I think what you're saying, Monsignor, is that the social and buddy. The social aspect, the social and emotional value of connection, it's really insurmountable. Like, it's very important. We're designed to connect as human beings. We're designed for connection and communion. And I think any type of activity that we can undertake where we have that opportunity to be with people who can build each other up and sharpen each other and build each other's resilience.

0:20:05 - (Natalie Moujalli): It's very important. So you're right when you're talking about the exercise program.

0:20:10 - (Monsignor Shora): And it's great. Like after the late. Some of the ladies are sitting around and they're talking for a While as well, I was thinking, you know, they probably haven't had breakfast, they're exercising, they'll be wanting to starve and run off and get something to eat, but they're sitting around having a talk with each other, you know, and it's great to see that that's a part of what, you know, it's like. I suppose a lot of people do their exercise in team sports and that's a great thing. That's a great thing.

0:20:36 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I do think it's something we lose as adulthood and as we progress into the later stages of our life. And I do, I do meet a fair few people who do do team sports and they do. They're well into their 30s and they're still playing touch football. And I think that's great. And I think what we're missing from the gym or fitness and exercise in general is exactly what you're pointing to with the group fitness. And people do crave, they really that connection.

0:20:59 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And back on what we were saying about the whole studies and science based approach, I really think it's important to remember that do what feels good when it comes to your health. It's really important because we can sit and I see this on social media all the time and maybe this might be the takeaway for everyone. Just because there's a study that said that the most efficient way to train the mum of three kids doesn't need to be worrying about that.

0:21:22 - (Buddy Bou Francis): She needs to be sociable, she needs to have a release of endorphins. She needs to make sure that she's not binge eating or overindulging. And she needs to keep track of her health in a way where she's not gonna pass on any unhealthy traits to her children. So that in itself will then trigger your endorphins and et cetera. But to focus solely on increasing endorphins, I think we need to flip the script.

0:21:42 - (Natalie Moujalli): So what you're saying is take a more peaceful approach to health and wellbeing and healing. I read something online the by Dr. Will Cole and he said you can't heal a body you hate. You can't obsess your way to health, you can't shame your way to wellness. And showing your body grace and compassion is the deepest of medicine. And I think that that sums up what you're saying.

0:22:06 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Love yourself. It's so important. It's so important.

0:22:11 - (Monsignor Shora): Accept the gift of your body. That was a little bit of a stewardship. Yeah, the stewardship. It is a gift and it's not about comparing, you know. Oh, yeah, we've got. As you said, we've got to get out so much on about the image. But, you know, the gift of appreciating the gift of your body, it's incredible.

0:22:28 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Machine comparison is the thief of joy. And I see it every day. Oh, excuse me. I see it every day all throughout the gym. Who looks better, who thinks they look better, who's editing their photos more. And I want this to be a little bit of a message to everybody, is remember, you have no idea what anyone is doing. You really don't. And the more you concern yourself with it, the more you obsess over the external, the less you can focus on the internal, the more you're worried about how many like someone else is getting, the less you can focus on how your actual life is progressing.

0:22:55 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I think that's so important, so overlooked, especially in an. In an industry where everything is vanity, everything is narcissism. You walk into the gym and it's just mirrors. It really is. It's self worship.

0:23:07 - (Monsignor Shora): Yeah. It's often say, yeah, people, your body or your looks might turn ahead to look at you, but it's what's in your heart that keeps people with you. And that's. We've got to.

0:23:17 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah, that's in your heart that keeps it.

0:23:19 - (Monsignor Shora): People with you. Yeah. And that's that. And that gives you the best mental health or the best spiritual health and, you know, emotional wellbeing.

0:23:27 - (Buddy Bou Francis): We need to put that one on a T shirt.

0:23:29 - (Monsignor Shora): Yeah, we do need to put that on the back lift a performance.

0:23:31 - (Buddy Bou Francis): We'll put that on the back of a T shirt.

0:23:33 - (Natalie Moujalli): Okay. Well, I think that's a really beautiful and peaceful way to wrap up this episode. I feel like we could talk about this for hours.

0:23:38 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I'll be back.

0:23:39 - (Natalie Moujalli): You will be back.

0:23:40 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Yeah.

0:23:41 - (Natalie Moujalli): Thank you for joining us.

0:23:42 - (Buddy Bou Francis): What was that?

0:23:43 - (Natalie Moujalli): Montini doesn't seem.

0:23:45 - (Monsignor Shora): I don't want you to go into too much detail about my gym history. That's your gym.

0:23:50 - (Buddy Bou Francis): No, Buddy will be trained.

0:23:53 - (Natalie Moujalli): Training Monsignor next week on harsh grounds.

0:23:55 - (Buddy Bou Francis): So they say.

0:23:56 - (Natalie Moujalli): Thanks for joining us, guys. Thank you, Buddy, for joining us. And Monsignor, thank you, man.

0:24:01 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Great blessing to be here.

0:24:03 - (Monsignor Shora): Thank you, Buddy.

0:24:11 - (Debbie Draby): I hope this episode has helped you find sanctuary in this exciting journey of life. All of the resources we've mentioned in this episode are found in the podcast, not notes. If you need some assistance with any of the topics discussed in today's episode, then please Visit our website, HSHL.org au if you have any thoughts, comments or ideas, please leave us a comment on Spotify. Alternatively, send us an email@adminshl.org

0:24:40 - (Debbie Draby): au you& your mental health matters to us and we hope you get one step closer in finding sanctuary. Bye for now.