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Welcome to the Migraine Heroes Podcast, a podcast where we share real stories from real
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people suffering and battling with migraine disease.
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In this podcast, we seek to provide support, hope, holistic health, advocacy and inspiration
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for those who suffer from migraine disease.
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Hello Julie, thank you so much for being with me today.
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I'm so pleased to have you here in my home in Brussels, actually where we both come from.
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Very, very, very good.
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So let's get into it.
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Do you want to share a bit with the audience who you are and where you're from and a bit
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about your family too?
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I'm Julie, like you now know.
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I come from Belgium, Brussels.
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I've always lived here.
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Actually just a few years.
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I have been in Madrid like four to five years.
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I'm married and I have four beautiful kids aged between 11 and three years old.
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Last year, we took a year off to travel the world.
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And that's how we met again.
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Do you want to share Julie for a minute that we actually met before that?
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We met a long time ago.
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Yeah, that's true.
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I totally remember.
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So actually we were in high school together, not in the same year, but in the same school.
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And I really remember you.
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We had the same math class.
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And I remember perfectly the two of us in our uniforms in the school that still exists
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today and that actually my son is maybe going to go to that school one day.
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And yeah, so that was like 20 years ago, indeed.
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And so that's how we met.
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I mean, 20 years ago, probably earlier than that, 1999, something like that.
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So before the 2000s, a long time ago.
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And so Julie and I briefly met at that time, I mean, briefly in the sense that we had so
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different groups of friends, etc.
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And as Julie and her husband, along with their four children, were doing a tour around the
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world, they were coming to New Zealand and very few people come all the way.
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So my husband and I and my kids were always so grateful and so happy when we see Belgian
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families come and discover this amazing country.
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And so you came full family.
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So it was after, at the very end of our three months in New Zealand, we had just spent like
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nine weeks or even more in a camper van traveling around both islands of New Zealand.
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And then thanks to common friends, we ended up in Auckland, where you live, and we had
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the chance to meet your kids and your husband.
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And so after all that time in the mini camper van, arriving to your home and just reconnect
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with the joy of being together with a family and in a very welcoming home and having a
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home cooked meal was just like a dream come true for us.
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Yeah, we were, Laurent and I, super impressed.
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I mean, you need to imagine Julie and your husband, Charles, traveling with four children.
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And I don't know if any one of you listening has ever done camper van.
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You know, you share a very, very restricted space.
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You have to share all meals.
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You have to live at the same time.
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You go and you do walking or cycling in an amazing nature, sharing all habits.
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And so we were really, really impressed that you were able to hold it all together as a
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family of six traveling like that in New Zealand.
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And so I remember perfectly when I arrived to your place, you told me, okay, I'm just
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going to watch the kids for you and just go and take time for yourself.
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Maybe have a walk, a massage, whatever, just go to the nearest spa or whatever and just
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And I was just, oh no, no, no.
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I've been traveling for almost six months.
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I'm just so happy to reconnect with you and to be in your home with your kids, your family.
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I just want to spend time with you and connect with you.
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Yes, it was quite intriguing because Julie arrived in my kitchen.
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And you know, having spent, by that time you had been traveling for a lot of months, right?
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So six months nonstop with the children.
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And so I thought maybe you want to have some alone time, some mom time, right?
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That would be quite logical.
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And there's something else that happened is you were saying, it's interesting, I'm in
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your kitchen and I feel this is really where I'm supposed to be.
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That was exactly what I felt, exactly.
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I just wanted to stay there, enjoy your company.
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And our girls had decided to cook and bake some things.
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And for me, the kitchen is always the place in the family that is just a place where I
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feel the more comfortable and homey.
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It's where everything happens, where everyone reconnects.
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With my mini kitchen in my mini campervan, I can assure you that I was really longing
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So the idea of having the 10 of us gathered around the family meal, seeing kids coming
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from one part to the other, running after each other and cooking was just, okay, now
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I may be at the total opposite side of the world, but I just feel like I'm home.
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And that was actually more than just a physical sensation, because that's where we talked
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for the first time about Nectar.
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And so Julie came in the back end of my kitchen and there I have lots of herbs.
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So I have this magic cupboard full of a lot of the foods that are on the list and a lot
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And she was asking me, what is all this?
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Can you explain to me, what do you do for work?
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I mean, we hadn't connected since 99, that was 2023.
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And we were just curious, what do you do for work?
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And so she introduced me, she just said the magic words, traditional Chinese medicine.
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And I was just like, okay, now we're talking again.
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And she said, oh, you love that?
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And I said, okay, yes, I totally love that.
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And she said, oh, if you want, I can give you something to eat, but maybe you will find
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It's a kind of a mushroom, silver fungus, you know that?
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And just, no, I don't, but just the idea of mushroom, I feel like, yeah, you're talking
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But you have little herbs and everything and just, okay, no, please go for it.
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And so it's quite funny because our husbands had gone to do some sports together and go
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And we were together with the six children and they were all eating something, you know,
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quite, quote unquote, I would qualify normal.
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And here is Julie and I having a silver fungus full of collagen preparation that I thought,
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oh, maybe she's not going to like this and that, you know, we both quite relished.
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And I loved it so much.
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I was just like wishing for more and willing to discover more.
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And so I asked Diane, so what do you do for a living?
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What is your passion?
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How did you end up here?
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Is it the years you have spent in China?
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I feel that there's more.
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And so I was just like asking, asking, and just yet digging for more.
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And so Julie was super curious and she asked me plenty of questions.
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And I even remember going with you, Julie, in my library and showing you all of my best
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But I'm like, okay, these are the best ones.
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And you started to order all of that for your return when you'd be back to Brussels a couple
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And so you got curious and I made you probably a decoction, I can't quite remember which
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Chinese red dates.
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And maybe a bit of Dong Quai too.
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No, you had shipped it to my place, I remember you had shipped some Dong Quai.
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And so that's how we started talking.
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And we spent an amazing day and a half or two days together as two families at the end
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of which Julie said, I'd love to work with you.
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And so I say, yeah, you explained everything about Mektar and not only was I your biggest
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fan because of all the healing nutrition part and all the food as medicine, but also I was
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And for me, something really, yeah, it was kind of like lifting a candle inside of me.
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And I was just like, okay, so maybe it's possible to have a work that is related to
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your passion, to have something that really fills you with joy and fulfillment all the
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And because I am a stay at home, I was a stay at home mom.
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So for a bit more than 10 years, my choice, we have decided with my husband for me to
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stay at home and just take care of the kids.
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And for me, it really has been and still is a real privilege to have those four little
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souls growing inside my home and to have the privilege to watch them and see them evolve
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and grow every day.
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And but there was still this little other part of myself that was just maybe wishing,
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willing and really longing to do something related to my passion, which is really food
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as medicine and healing nutrition.
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And so when Julie left with the children, we take really good pictures, the two of us.
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And so Julie is quite keen that we work together now.
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And she knows very transparently, a lot of my friends say that, a lot of my friends,
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they see the passion that we have, the changes that we make, how food can help.
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And they also have their zones where they'd like to improve their body.
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And so very, very often, I would say more often than not, friends tell me they wish
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they could work together with me, but they don't necessarily actually mean it.
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They express enthusiasm, love and fuel with energy, but they don't actually mean that
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they want to work.
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So I always take these comments with a grain of salt and I let people, you know, come and
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And what really struck me is that Julie, within the heartbeat, enrolled in the Academy of
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Healing Nutrition, she started to do, while she was, now you were in South America, you
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started to study all of your chapters, one after the other.
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And having done the course myself, it's quite a big course and it's quite time consuming.
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And I could see the passion in supporting you and transporting you and you studying
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at a speed of light.
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And so I started to exchange with Elaine and I said, a friend of mine from school, she
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came home and she wants to work with us and I didn't take it seriously, but now I see
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her like zooming through the course of what we call an Academy of Healing Nutrition.
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And at a speed that if you don't have the passion for it, you can't mimic.
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This is not just ability to study fast.
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This is just a true passion, a true absorption of contents that you feel you belong with.
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And for me, that was really it.
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I was just like, okay, this is the missing piece of my puzzle.
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I had already done in the past, like many, many trainings, some related to foods and
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others totally different and not linked to it.
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And what's all common in all of that is just that the passion to take care of others.
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And that's also the reason why I was so happy to be a stay at home mom, take care of my
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kids, nurture them, nourish them and just watch them and just be front stage.
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And so I really felt that when Diane explained me what she was doing at Nectar.
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And so when I was going through my modules for the Academy, I was just telling my husband,
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okay, something is really happening here.
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Not only have I met with Diane and not only now am I doing a course, it's just, I really
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had the impression that I was really reconnecting with something inside of me that was really,
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And so I think that's what you felt also.
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And so Diane told me, okay, you have to meet Hélène.
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And so then Hélène and Julie met and I let you talk about it.
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I think what struck us both is, yes, the way you describe it is such as if you had
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already learned the content before.
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And I want to be mindful, everyone is at a very different way to look at spirituality,
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And I can't say that my spirituality or the things I believe in or that I understand from
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the world are always completely clear.
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But from an intuition perspective, it really feels like and it felt like Julie was rediscovering
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content she had already learned.
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And that's how the three of us felt.
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It was incredibly fast, incredibly natural.
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And she would ask questions like you would pull a lot of them.
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And there's a lot of people as an audience you've never met, health practitioners I have
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tried to train or have, you know, experimented with that were just not a good fit.
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And with Julie, things were instantaneous, a bit like you have a love at first sight.
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It's just a very intellectual one, I guess.
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With migraine disease, we only have each other to make a difference.
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If you know of someone suffering from migraine attacks, share this podcast with them.
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And so I remember at that time, I was then in Costa Rica, just arrived in a totally different
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atmosphere, really tropical climate and trying my best to adjust to jet lag and everything.
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And I had my call with Helen.
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We also had a real, real good feeling.
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And it was so heartwarming, so connecting.
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And even though we hadn't met in person, I know we were talking the same language.
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And so I was just, okay, girls, I really want to be in this with you.
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And so at that time, I still had like four to five months to go on with my trip.
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And so I say, okay, I'm going to really eat up all those modules.
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And when I come back, if you have something for me, just know that I will be there.
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And so while we were still on the trip, we start to explore working together, start to
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She was just incredibly fast, incredibly empathetic.
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And one thing that is really important to understand is all of the women, men, children
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we take care of are incredibly different.
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And so while they have commonalities, we always see exceptions and extreme cases.
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The thing that matters to us, to me, is to find talent that has this completely, I'm
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going to even call it creepy obsession and passion for food as medicine, to go and always
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find the next frontier of solution, even if it might only help one single person.
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And that relentlessness of intense empathy and intellectual curiosity, digging up for
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more foods is exactly what we need and that Julie has.
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Yes. And so I was very, thank you for saying that, because that's really how I feel from
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inside. And it was a bit confusing because I was just like, okay, I have been a stay
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at home mom for like 10 to 11 years.
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And I literally had to go to the totally opposite side of the world from Belgium all the
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way to New Zealand and come back home with a job.
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And this, after having said for myself and my husband that the idea was to take a year
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off and start with a blank sheet.
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And so I came back and all our friends and family was so, how was it?
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And now what's next?
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And I was just like, okay, I think I have a job.
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Yeah. And it was quite spectacular, the speed at which you were on board and everything
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was smooth. And it was a really sharp contrast with, again, other people we had tried to
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work with and would not even put them in front of customers because we thought, okay,
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this is not the right fit.
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We are after something else.
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And so you helped us also really understand the type of talent that we need inside of
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our beautiful Migraine Heroes journey and entity.
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Yeah. So that spring, like last summer, it was time of the summer holidays here in
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Europe. We had decided that we had to see a bit who was going to do what and according to
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our holidays and everything.
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And so end of August, Hélène was on holiday with her family.
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And so Diane told me, okay, how do you feel taking the lead on Nectarine and be with the
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women and men we have in program and just be that frontline person?
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And I was, okay, you think I'm ready?
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And you told me, yes, I know you are.
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And I'm sure you know to just go for it.
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Yeah. And it was spectacular to see your empathy, to see you in action and to have you help
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us when we have this massive desire for helping more and helping always better with higher
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and higher success rates.
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So it's been phenomenal. One of the things I do day to day with Julie are the list of foods for
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the ones who are familiar with the way we work.
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Every single one of the people we work with are on different food lists.
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And so there needs to be a huge amount of brainpower to put these together.
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And before Julie, I do them on my own.
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So Hélène would cover the day to day and look at that everyone's in the right direction.
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But sometimes, just like she texted us five minutes ago, she says, can you review outside of
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cycle this list, this one woman doesn't seem to go in the right direction.
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And so we pay extreme attention to that.
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And when you do list it, it's really, really brain consuming.
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So it's been amazing over the last few months to be two to tango and to discuss, OK, this is
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how I see this profile.
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This is how I do it.
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This is exceptional circumstances and foods we can try.
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And it's been amazing to do that together.
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It just felt a lot less lonely and a lot less tiring.
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And it's amazing to be able to share that passion together.
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Yeah, you say being less lonely and everything, but still you're still in Auckland and I am
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still in Brussels and Hélène is in the south of France.
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And so what's amazing is that we are the three of us in totally different geographical
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locations, but still we have that same passion, that same wish to make the lives of
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everyone in program and even more for the ones listening to us.
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It's just more than the program.
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It's just like a whole community of people connecting with their hearts and with the
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passion and really a conviction that food is really super powerful and that sometimes
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we have just forgotten how powerful it is and how it can really not only in healing,
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but also just finding back your balance and nourish you and nurture you no matter what
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is your condition, no matter what age you have, no matter anything, actually, it's just
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something that we have all around us all the time.
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And by just connecting and knowing and sharing ancient wisdom, there is a lot, a lot we
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can do. And so I'm very grateful every day just to wake up and just be mindful of what
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I have, not only under the roof of my home with my husband and my four kids, but also
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now I have a job that is really a passion.
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I don't even like to call it a job because it's really much more than that.
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It's like I have found my path.
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And yes, so for me, it's really, really, really something that I'm grateful for every
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day. Having the chance to connect with my passion and help people that are spread in
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our program all over the world and connect with other amazing women, the ones that are
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working at Nectar behind the scenes that are also really amazing and spread all around
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the world, but just linked one to another with this passion of really wishing to do
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something that is going to matter even for one person.
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Yes. And what I find incredible, like, look, if you put yourself in my shoes and you try
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to fight that and you might take someone who does not have children and has a lot of
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time on their hands, etc.
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And here it's not about that.
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I find that Julie, with all of the heavy loads that she has at home, which is intense
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and a lot, she still finds a ton of energy because it is her passion and because it
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drives you. Do you want to comment a little bit on that, on how, in spite of having so
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much, you fabricate even more energy to do what you do?
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So that's exactly the same question that my husband asked me when we came back home.
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He just told me, OK, so now that you're going to work at Nectar, how are we going to
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organize ourselves internally with the kids and with everything that you were doing for
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the house? And I was just like, OK, no, don't worry, I can do both.
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And he was just like, no, but how would you do that?
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And I was just like, no, don't worry for me.
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I can do both. Just start and we will see how much time, how do I feel with it?
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And so I have started like this.
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And yeah, like you say, it's giving me tons of energy because I just feel one day after
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the other that I give so much, not only of my time, but I pour my soul and my heart in
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what I do. And it's not something that I feel I have to do it.
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And it's just that men and women that are in program, they just feel like I am giving
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them so much of my time, like you say, when we have our brains that are connected and
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everything. But for me, it's just I am the one receiving so much and I feel very lucky
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to have the chance to help people.
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And so that's what's giving me most of my energy.
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And also because I see my kids, they're asking me what I'm doing and how do we do it.
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And I'm also very proud and honored and really filled with energy and joy to show them
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and share with them what is my passion.
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Yes. And it's quite striking.
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I find my husband finds that too is like, oh, my God, and you have more energy and more
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energy and can be a bit at night, a bit in the morning when you're in transit and commute
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or on the weekends.
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I think it just gives us energy.
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Quite frankly, it's a way of resting.
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I was discussing with our lead engineer.
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He says, for me, it's a form of meditation.
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I do all of this work and I see from the back end the lives that it changes.
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And it's a form of meditation.
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And I think I really share that.
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I think you share that too.
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It's how do we refill the cup and find time?
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Well, because when we take care of others and we see the lives transformed, this is what
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lifts us at the end of the day.
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Yeah. It's a very special feeling.
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Yeah, it's like really therapeutic and restorative for ourselves, but also because I
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think everything that we advise others, we also apply it to ourselves.
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And so, of course, you have to lead by example.
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And I think that we are a living person of what we recommend every day.
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And so my relationship with food has changed also, not because I was eating differently
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in the past, but just because I see food today like really my ally.
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And in Europe, I don't know how it is for you guys in the rest of the world, but in
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Europe, people often consider food as we can eat this, but we can't eat that and don't
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have too much of this and make sure you have enough of that.
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And so there is really a relationship with food that is related to quantity versus
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quality. And that's what I have discovered with the Academy.
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But also with Nectar is that food can be your best friend every day and not only the
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quality of it, but how you prepare it.
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And it doesn't matter if we can cook or not, where we buy our ingredients, just the
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power and the energy and the heart you put into it.
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And just OK, I'm just wishing to cook me a simple soup or even heat it again just
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because I feel that's what my body needs.
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And so just the fact of being in tune with what you need, with the season, being
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grateful for the person who has cooked something for you, if you are not the one
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having cooked it or someone having bought the things for you, even if it's my kids who
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have cooked like pancakes with I don't want to know the ingredients they have put in
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it. I just feel like the relationship has changed because I have reconnected with the
[24:07]
joy and the quality and the power of food.
[24:12]
Well, that's very beautifully said.
[24:13]
Thank you so much.
[24:14]
This is my co-nerd.
[24:15]
I think thank you so much, Julie, for being part of this incredible adventure.
[24:20]
Thank you for the lives you changed already.
[24:23]
And thank you for those amazingly complex lives that you are going to change.
[24:28]
I have this incredible vision that Julie, she's going to code new ways of healing.
[24:35]
I think you have that ability to take some of the most rare forms of migraines and
[24:42]
transform them into these beautiful, sharp and free brain that have a completely
[24:47]
changed existence.
[24:48]
And I look forward to the full journey together.
[24:50]
Yeah. And thanks a million to you and to Helen for having believed in me and for
[24:58]
making every day a place for me in this amazing community and journey, like you say.
[25:04]
And I can't believe that I had to live at the end of the world to have the courage to
[25:09]
start this. And then I had to live here, had to come all the way to meet Simi, because
[25:15]
that would have been the only time when I would have been truly able to listen to you
[25:20]
and understand you in the way that you expressed.
[25:23]
So a huge thank you for coming all the way to New Zealand in a camper van.
[25:29]
If you're looking for a community, we'd love to have you join us in our Facebook
[25:34]
groups. Migraine Heroes is a community all about creative expression and open
[25:39]
conversations around migraine.
[25:41]
We have a second group called Migraine and Comorbidities, where we support each other
[25:45]
through the unique challenges of living with migraine alongside things like IBS, ADHD
[25:52]
and much more. Just check the links in this description.
[25:54]
We'd be very happy to welcome you there.
[25:58]
The content in this podcast should not be considered a substitute for medical professional
[26:03]
advice, diagnosis or treatment.
[26:06]
Always consult with your health care provider for any health related concerns.
[26:10]
And remember, everyone and every situation is unique.
[26:16]
Remember, sharing is caring.
[26:19]
Share your story with me.
[26:21]
Take my free test and let's connect to help you gain a deeper understanding of your
[26:27]
Learn about the underlying imbalances that could be contributing to your genetic
[26:31]
predisposition for migraines.
[26:32]
Join our community of Migraine Heroes, all the links in the description below.
