 I am James Swannick, the co-founder of Swannick's Sleep and the helper of people in reducing and quitting alcohol and we're speaking to the lovely Chantalin. Did I pronounce it correctly? Give me have another go. Chantalin. Chantalin. Chantalin. So elegant. Chantalin. Beautiful. So lovely to have you here. Chantalin is a holistic wellness and lifestyle influencer. She's a very busy mompreneur. She's the president of the Santa Monica chapter of the holistic chamber of commerce. Yes. And Chantalin believes that how you do anything is how you do everything. And it's so great to have you here on Swannick Life. How you doing? I'm doing fantastic. I was so excited. Thank you so much for having me because I'm a big fan of the Swannis. Thank you very much. I can't believe I butchered the pronunciation of your name. I even practiced before we went live and then I still got it wrong. Think of Shanti like in yoga. Shanti peace. Yeah. Chantalin. Beautiful. I love it. If you're watching on Facebook or YouTube, go ahead and just type in right now where you are watching from. And if you have questions or rather I should say when you have questions as we go along we would love to answer them for you. And yeah. So just go ahead and post a little comment down below. Let us know that you're here on Facebook and or YouTube. So we're talking today about integrating health and wellness into your life, into your business plan. Just tell us a little bit about you and how you see health holistically. Well, I feel number one, everything works together. So if you are successful in business and you're miserable in your personal life, that's not going to do very well. And if you say or you are successful financially and your health is declining, that's not going to be great either. So it works together. It's important to have health and wellness in everything that you do so you can enjoy life more and you can be even more productive if that's what you want to do. And so I think more and more so even back in the days, I work with corporate corporations and I remember maybe 20, 25 years ago, even like I work with corporate from American Express and they would send their executives to understand what self care is all about. And I love that because so it's all always about self love, self care and health and wellness because it's what you put in your body, what you put on your body, what you put around you and body, mind, spirit, connection because that's what we are. We can't do just one area and let go of the other. So you want to be successful in business, make sure that also your health is good, your family, your relationships so that you can enjoy your success. Yeah, I love that. And hello, Cheryl Jones watching on YouTube. Hello from California. Melania says, or I've heard the term holistic but never knew what it meant. Do you want to just clarify? I know you kind of gave us a nice little introduction there, but why don't you clarify what holistic actually means in terms of health? Yeah, I like holistic for me personally also mean whole as in W-H-O-L-E, you know, looking at the whole picture and doing all things that are naturally good for you that what nature intended is what I think of holistic. Nature intended us to be happy, nature intended us to be thriving and healthy and well. And for me, when I run my Santa Monica Holistic Chamber of Commerce, I think of holistic also is heart centered. So for the business folks, you know, we all want to be of service. And so either you invent a product or you have a service, it's all about being of service. And so it's a heart centered piece to me. That's also part of being holistic. Give us an idea of how you live your life in terms of what do you do first thing in the morning? What do you do throughout the day? What do you do at nighttime as a bedtime ritual? How are you sleeping? Give us an idea of what a holistic life looks like for you. Well, I love having, you know, a ritual because it's sort of like I used to years ago knowing things that are good for me. So I would create things that I have to do like regimens that I have to follow. And it gets boring and it gets feel restrictive. And I felt kind of, you know, just just obligations versus joy and happiness. So I create, you know, I kind of, I'm a, I'm a sponge. So I just learned from all these different doctors and health professionals and gurus. And I developed a morning ritual because I felt that it was a place for me to lean into and to relax into. So that's my barometers for everything. So creating ritual for me would be something that's nourishing that makes me happy or makes my body happy. And especially I have a strong morning spiritual, spiritual practice. I wake up first thing when I'm still kind of groggy. I start my meditation like that to me at this stage in the game is a non-negotiable. I ideal for me would be a 20 minutes. And I remember I had a teacher before who said to me when I used to say, Oh my God, I'm so busy that I'm trying to squeeze it in. I'm trying to, you know, make it happen. It was so much of that masculine, you know, energy of like, I got to get it done. It's almost like angst, you know, and I didn't like that. And he's like, you need to chill out and you need to go meditate for an hour. I just told you, I don't have time. He goes, then do it for two hours because you obviously needed it. And I thought he was joking, you know, but then later on I realized, yes, we do need to balance out our busy life with time to self. So my morning ritual will be 20 minutes of meditation. It calms me down. My day may not change, but my perspective changed and I'm more equipped. I have a 14 and a half year old son and, you know, sometimes parenting is very difficult and challenging and I yell at him and I realized, Oh my God, what if I didn't meditate? So it becomes like something I need and I love. And then I start with a morning hot liquid drink that I felt I need to fuel my body after a long night's sleep. And I do, I give out my recipes all the time. It's super simple, hot cup of water, a touch of lemon if you want to taste and a half a Meyer lemon and a little touch of cayenne pepper because I like it spicy. And then I put a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar first thing in the morning in my body. What that feels to me is warm. That warm feels very soothing. So it suits me, you know, from my, from just touching my mouth, my lips all the way down. I feel kind of warm and fuzzy. And that's how I want to start my day, warm and fuzzy. And then, you know, because I get grounded by doing all these rituals, then I, you know, start to plan my meal out in the morning. And next thing I do is I make a green smoothie for my son and I, he's a teenager. I fed him really healthy thing his whole life. But then one day he's, he's out there in the world eating pizza, whatever every day if he could. But I give him this green smoothie and I felt kind of like, you know, I'm giving him something nourishing that line his stomach with. And again, it's about feeling nourished. It's about feeling and I make it so yummy. He loves it. He asks me for it. And I feel like, ah, I won, you know, as a parent that to me is a win. So having these ritual and it's also feels nourishing to him that I pay attention to him before my day starts. So that's my ideal like quick morning. And if I had more time, of course, there's stretching, there's yoga, there's tennis games that I like to play. I like to play tennis. My ideal week would be three times a week. I get to play tennis and maybe do yoga five, five days a week. That would be the ideal thing. But you know, all these self care takes a lot of time because I plan about two hours in the morning for myself whenever I could. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. Like some days I don't get that. But my meditation, I get in and my hot water. Those two things are like my must go to because it makes me feel like I spend some time just to do that. Oh yeah. And I also try to do oil pulling three times to five times a week. What do you try to do? Sorry. It's an Ayurvedic practice. So let's say after my meditation, I immediately put a tablespoon of organic coconut oil. This is for the night for the mornings. I actually have the time and I swish it around my mouth. I put the timer on for 20 minutes while I get my clothes and make my smoothie and do all these things. I believe that it's supposed to pull all the toxins out of your body. But for me, what I noticed right away is my dental visits changed. Like I get plaque. Some people just do for their teeth. And for me, doing this oil pulling makes my plaque a lot easier for my dentist to deal with. Like I would sit there and he's not scraping the plaque off of me. I'm obsessed about getting my teeth done. I used to go for cleaning every three months. And he goes, that's too much. You're abusive to the enamel. So I said, okay, he's a six months please. I said, okay. But I noticed at six months, sometime he had to scrape the plaque a little bit. I mean, that's just too much information maybe. But I noticed that that was one of the benefits of the oil pulling. And he makes your teeth whiter, cleaner, fresher breath. And so I incorporate all these rituals as part of lifestyle. So that is not something I think about. And it's kind of nice. I'm just like get up and I just do these things. And you know, I feel a million bucks before I leave the house. Yeah, wonderful. I love that morning routine. I got a few points I want to make on that are all just questions. But I want to make sure that I acknowledge the people who are leaving comments on Facebook and YouTube. So we've got, let's see, Mia Bianca says, what do you think about supplement capsules for those who have no time to make a smoothie? Supplements are good. You have to research the companies. And what I love doing is I curate a collection of things that I use. And I have a company that I use to make the green smoothie. It's when I have time, I put all those extra frozen bananas and yummy fruits to make it palatable for my son. Otherwise, I actually put this powder in a shaker bottle and I'm out the door shaking that bottle and sipping it. Supplements are great. I think, you know, you have to also monitor how your body feels. Now for someone healthy, I would say it's really hard to tell if a product is working. I usually give it a good six months, you know, when I research a product. I don't always feel the difference. But knowing that I'm doing something nourishing and my body is functioning as it should, that's my barometer. That's, I'm like, okay, I'll continue to do that because we're not getting enough nutrients in our food anymore. Yeah, I don't think that taking a supplement is going to make up for poor diet, lack of exercise and poor sleep. You can take all the best supplements in the world that promise the world. But I think that they are probably more, I mean, just think of the word supplement, right? It's supplement something else, it's not replacing something it's like, it's adding to. So I think if you're going to take supplements, you want to be practicing good health routines anyway, as a standing start. Would you agree with that? Completely, I completely agree with that. I think you try to get it from your food and, you know, unprocess things as much as possible. Supplement just helps you, you know, here and there. It's okay to do that. You know, but I wouldn't just, like you said, it's not a replacement of a complete well balanced diet or nutrition. We have another question here from Micah Ann Rivera. What is the best eye bag remover for a night shifter? Well, I would say if you have eye, you know, bags under your eye or dark circles, you definitely need to take a look at your nutrition, because that's really where it comes from. But there are products like, you know, cool cucumbers, aloe vera, that's, and then just ice pack sometime for the gentle area of the eyes. But again, I've learned that dark eye circles are usually a nutritional imbalance. Yeah. And when you really break it down, I believe that you can cure almost any physical ailment through good nutrition and lots of water. I mean, I guess lots of water is part of good nutrition, but my partner and I, we go to an organic farmers markets every Sunday morning here in Brisbane. And it's funny because my mother, I think, still scoffs at us going and paying premium prices for organic, as opposed to getting it from the chain of supermarkets here in Australia in colds or Woolworths because we're paying a premium price. However, whether it's a placebo effect or not, just the idea that I'm putting in vibrationally alive foods that are only, have only traveled less than a couple of hours from the place that they were pulled from the ground or taken or they fell from the tree. And then they're eating within 72 hours of this purchasing that food and not frozen makes me feel healthier. And I think that's reflected in my overall sense of calm. Most of the time, I'm still have little meltdowns here and there. But I think if you can eat nutritionally dense, beautiful food, but that's obviously going to, here's the thing I always say when it comes to the price, because a lot of people object to the price and they say they can't afford it or et cetera. You're going to pay for it eventually. Like you either pay for healthy food now or you'll pay for it with medical costs later. What are your thoughts on that? Completely agree. Food is medicine. Her properties have said and I totally believe in that. And I am so blessed that I live two blocks from the farmer's market. It's like world famous for farmer's market, the Santa Monica farmer's market here is where all the chefs in LA come to. And I get to learn about the farmers and know about them. I actually have a vast knowledge about soil health. I believe in regenerative agriculture, which means we're going beyond organic. We're talking about doing things that are good for the earth because your soil is a living organism and the more biodiversity in that soil, which means there will be nutrient dense foods for you later. And I totally view, I'm not a farmer. Like I'm funny. I'm like a hippie from the city. Like I'm not a farming girl. I'm not any of those things, but I will use my dollar to support the farmers who are good stewards of the earth because you're right. You either pay now or pay later. And the thing about paying later is you feel like crap. Well, who would want to feel like crap? I don't care if I had all the money in the world. I want to feel like a million bucks every time I get up in the morning. I want to bounce out of bed. I want to be vibrant and enjoy all my activities because all that money is not going to help you travel the world if you can't have the health to support your lifestyle. So that's what I want. I want to continue to have fun in life. So yes, I'd rather pay now a little bit now. That's my insurance. We rarely see the doctors other than getting out physical exams. And I'd like to keep it that way. Yeah. Well, another way just to make it more cost effective is that if you're willing to invest in a flower pot and buy some soil, maybe fertilizer or organic compost, and actually buy some seedlings and plant some of your own vegetables, that actually can work out to be very cost efficient. We now have four or five rows of flower trays, et cetera, where we've planted kale, bok choy, spinach, tomatoes. We have dandelion, as I understand it, is very good for helping control or reduce cholesterol, which I've been guilty of having high levels of cholesterol. So I eat that. And we kind of want to get it to the point where we actually don't need to go out to go grocery shopping for any vegetables, quite frankly. We might go after some other things, but for vegetables, we'd like to just grow it on our own. And it does require an initial investment because you do have to buy some trays or pots or containers. Then if you really want to make sure that the soil is rich as you were talking about there, Chantelaine, like with some worms and organic and it's rich and all that kind of stuff, then you do have to invest in that. But once you've got it up and running, what it really just takes is sunlight, water and patience. Yes. I might add some love and care in there as well. Love, care, water, sunshine and patience. All of that. We all need it. Even humans love that. Us humans would thrive too if we have enough love and sunshine and water and food. Where can our viewers find more about you just as we move along here? Where is your site and where can we learn more about you? Well, I'm working on my website, but it's chantelaine.com and because I, you know, my career have kept changing a lot over the years because of all my, I'm like squirrel. I get excited about things and I go, oh, I want to do that. Oh, I want to do that. And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm so ADD on my career choices. But now what I realize that, you know what, I am a curator of all things great. I love anything that's life affirming. So for me, you know, I do transformational coaching, helping people A, to be in acceptance of exactly where they're at and embrace that and learn to look for the magic and joy that's already there and not try to be somewhere else. But that doesn't mean that you can't make the plan because we can all improve. We can all expand and we cannot evolve. And that's, that's never going to end until we die. You know, like that's just our process. So how can we have fun with it and incorporate it? So I now understand that everything I'm interested in is all under the umbrella of, you know, holistic wellness and lifestyle. So my website is going to have all the different things. I also, I worked since high school as a celebrity nail stylist. So I'm very much into beauty. And you know, you can tell a person's healthy by looking at their skin, if their skin is glowing and you know, they're hydrated if you're looking at their skin. And so I come from that Hollywood, I'm part of the glam squad, you know, so I love, I use all that experience to make holistic lifestyle sexy and glamorous because it is sexy and glamorous when you're healthy and vibrant and happy. And so that's under the shantlin.com. So if you go on there, I'm going to start, you know, including all the different sectors of things that I care about, you know, whether it's supplements I like, food that I love, you know, any kind of product that I'm into and sustainability is a big deal for me. Any company that I align myself with, I love that, you know, I enjoy caring for the planet and the earth. And I love, you know, we have a new wave of, we call it capital, conscious capitalism. So, you know, we have companies who cares about people and planet just the same as the profit. And I love that. And so I love to support that just like I support farmers who are doing good things, you know, we posted a link to that website in the YouTube comments and the Facebook comments down below. So if you'd like to learn more, you can go to shantlin.com, C-H-A-N-T-A-L-Y NN. Someone on Facebook says, thank you. I'm a proud son of farmers, both mother and father. Oh, wonderful. God bless you. There's not enough farmers in the world right now. I think in this country we have like 10% of the population of farmers. I mean, that's why I love my farmers. We've got Antonello is watching from Manila in the Philippines. Big shout out to you, Antonello. Thank you for watching. We've got Vinch, Alessia Chamerro. Hello, hey. And yeah, now you've mentioned, you've mentioned water a few times there. I am of the belief, but it's funny because I can have a belief but still not take an appropriate action. But I am of the belief that if we just simply drank so much more pure, healthy water, particularly spring water, maybe water that doesn't have fluoride or chemicals in it, we could also probably reduce the number of our physical ailments and sickness and things like that. The more water you drink, the less food you tend to crave, which might mean the less sugary crap that you eat. The more water you drink, the less stress and anxiety you feel. The more water you drink, the better your skin looks. And so the more confident you feel, the more confident you feel, the healthier you strive to be, the healthier you strive to be, the better you feel and so forth. What are your thoughts? I know we've talked about nutrition and it almost seems just too simple advice like, oh, I'm going to come on a show, listen to see how I can fix my health. And the answer is eat good food and rip lots of water. But how important is drinking lots and lots of water? It is so important. I am actually, I've been accused of not drinking enough. Every time I go see my doctor, even my acupuncture, she goes, oh girl, you're all dehydrated and they have to, and I get thirsty because I'm active and the water, water is life. Water nourishes all of my cells. And for those people who are trying to work on their diets or whatever, I suggest, you know, if you drink warm liquids, it actually helped to calm the cravings and the hunger down a lot. And so like you say, when you drink more water, you eat less. And the water is so good for your lymphatic system to remove all the toxins in your blood. It helps your circulation. It helps to cleanse your blood. So that's how important water is. And I now know that I constantly have to have water near me. I have to have a bottle to remind me to drink because sometimes I forget, you know, I forget. And if you, and I drink a ton of water because I'm very athletic and I go out and I play tennis and I'm drinking and I want to get big jars of water so I can remember to keep drinking and replenish because as I sweat, I'm losing a lot of electrolytes and things like that. And one of the tricks is to add a little salt to my diet. If I want to retain the water, if you're dehydrated, that's a trick, you know, eat food and eat more miso based food. So you can get more salt into your diet so that you can retain the water because a lot of time that's what happened when you're dehydrated. You're not able to hold onto it and you're not having enough. So having more salt makes you drink more water. Yeah. I use Celtic or Celtic. I never quite figure out the pronunciation. Which one is it? Me neither. I call it Celtic because I like the sound of it. Yeah. We do have a lot of Celtic salts. People just think salt in general is okay and good for you but there's a quality of salt there. And if you get Himalayan, pink Himalayan sea salt or Celtic salt, it has lots of trace minerals in it as I understand it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I put the sprinkle that on all of my food and it makes me drink more water but not out of like, I'm thirsty. It's more like, oh, I just want to keep feeling good. Yeah. Yeah. And I think with the COVID pandemic right now, I've added a new thing to my ritual. Also, I forgot to mention because I've only been doing it for four months but after my oil pulling, oh, it is very important. If you do oil pulling, you need to spit that oil, the coconut oil in the trash and not in your plumbing because it will clog your plumbing. And then afterwards, I would actually gargle with hot water and Himalayan salt. And I would gargle in my throat and making sure everything is clear and then I brush my teeth. And, you know, it's important the salt, the quality of salt is actually really important. I don't use, actually, I don't even have regular table salt in my house anymore. I love all the good trace minerals. So I would buy Celtic salt, Himalayan sea salt at the very least, you know, sea salt, you know, is what I cook with. We have someone watching us live on YouTube right now, Les Elliott says lemon and honey will hydrate you on a cellular level. Do you know who Les Elliott is? I think that's my sister. Anyway, yes, lemon and honey is so good for you. I think your sister sounds very smart. I like it. She's super smart, actually. A viewer on Facebook, Vani Sharkey says, Shanta Lynn, I read about you when I saw you were the next Swan East guest. How did you get involved with Cancer Schmancer? So Cancer Schmancer is started by my dear big sister, Fran Drescher. And I met her in 1996 as her manicurist. Her regular manicurist was on maternity leave. And I was working at the Witts Calton here in Marina Del Rey. And one day they called me, they asked me, hey, do you mind coming to Ms. Drescher's room and give her a manicure? So I showed up and I gave her a manicure. And ever since then, I guess her other manicures never came back. She couldn't get. So I became her next manicurist. And to this day, I still see her and give her manicures, but we became really close. And I got to watch her because I was seeing her every week. It sort of feels like every time anything big happened in her life, I was there to witness it. And we watched her two years, eight doctors later, to just get the proper diagnosis of uterine cancer. And it was a crushing blow. And but what I love about her and inspired by her is that she takes lemons and make lemonade out of it. And she used her pain into purpose. She just transformed it into purpose and helped so many people. So she started Cancer Schmancer. That's the name of her book when she, you know, share about her journey from cancer to health because she's now 20 year well. And I'm so thrilled about that. And so we talked about having a lifestyle where you don't get cancer in the first place. And so I'm very passionate about that because I've always been into holistic lifestyle. And then, you know, the other part of that is we help women once they get the diagnosis to take control of their body with the mantra of Cancer Schmancer, where we tell you to please do your research. I know it's a personal choice, whether you decided a chemo or not. If you want to do alternative medicine, it's a personal individual choice, but please do your homework and don't just take your doctor's word for it. Go get second opinion, go get third opinion, listen to your body. She had to go to eight doctors. Something was wrong and no one knew. And she kept going. And I don't know, that scared me also when I first heard about it, because I'm thinking, you know, here's someone rich and famous. She could go to any doctor she wants. She had all the resources on fingertips and they couldn't find out what's wrong with her. Imagine it was me, a regular person, you know, with my doctors, you know, I would just listen to what my doctor said and he'll say, you know, there's nothing wrong with you. I might have just trust that. I don't know. But I'm glad that we're telling people, like, listen to your body, get it in touch. If something is wrong, let's get to the bottom of it. You know, if you hear whispers of it, which Cancer Schmancer does, it gives you tips. And when you start hearing whispers of, you know, phantom pains and aches, you know, pay attention. Just listen to your body. You know, so I'm very passionate about it. And of course, I love her. She's my girl. She's such a humanitarian. And so, you know, I really look up to her and emulate myself because that's how I want to live. She is such a bright light and a very enlightened being. And I only hope to be more like that. Oh, wonderful. Thank you for sharing that story. Yeah. Tell us about your sleep routine. What do you do to ensure that you get a great night's sleep? Because talking about nutrition, we talked about water. One thing that's often overlooked, maybe less so these days is the quality of our sleep and its impact on our overall health. So what do you do to ensure that you have a great night's sleep? I have to say, I don't have a, I have a ritual, obviously, but I'm blessed in that I could sleep anytime, anywhere. Like, if you say, hey, Shanti, I'm going to be with you in a few minutes, just, you know, take a seat. I could just sit down in a chair and fall asleep. I mean, it's God's gift to me. I can eat anytime, anywhere, and I can sleep anytime, anywhere. But my goal is, my ideal, I always looking for something that I could aspire to do is to have eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. So my thing is to try to eat dinner early. So my routine will start like having dinner 5.30, 6 o'clock, as much as I can. And again, I'm not about being a stickler or a militant person. I'm saying that's my goal. That's my ideal. That's my sweet spot. But life happens. So, you know, but it's either 70, 30, or 80, 20 of the time you can do your routine. That's what you stick to. You do the best you can. So my idea would be 5.30, 6 o'clock dinner. Then, you know, you have a couple hours to relax, clean up, hang out with my son, have a good evening, maybe even watch a show or read a book or, you know, whatever activities you have. And then I would like to turn off all electronics two hours before bedtime so that it doesn't mess around with my bio rhythm. Not that I, like I said, I'm not that affected at all. I can lie down and go to sleep. My son, not so much. He's a high functioning teenager. He's very smart and his brain just keep going. So it's actually more important that I stick to the routine for him. Because when he lies down, it takes him a little bit, you know? So you can go freshly right off of the computer or TV or whatever and go to bed and just expect to be out. So we also do meditation at night. And for my son, whenever I'm home and I'm, you know, I try to be home every evening at bedtime if possible. I do a little meditation and a body scan kind of raking healing for him just to help him calm. And also just as I help him, I'm falling asleep. And I'm sure a lot of parents who are watching, they know, like you put your baby to sleep and the baby is not sleeping, but you're already falling asleep. That happens all the time since infancy. But with him, you know, I really try to give him, you know, that time to chill out, relax, and, you know, clean up and get into our PJs. Having rituals, again, not to be militant, but to help us relax because we know what's to expect, what is to come. So as soon as we finish dinner, if we can get our showers in, put our PJs on, we're already kind of like getting into that mode. It's like Pavlov dog experiment, you know, you have a routine. So as soon as you put the PJ on, you're like, I'm yawning already. So that's what I like to do at night is turn off and I don't sleep with the phone on. As much as I could, I turn off all electronics because it's just not natural for our buyer rhythm. You know, years ago, we go to sleep when the sun goes down, you know, and we get up when the sun gets up. That's normal. But, you know, we live in modern world and which I also love the fact that we can communicate you in Australia, me and US, you know, it's amazing. It's awesome, the technology that we have to make sure that we honor our body systems because that's also part of health and wellness and productivity. You know, if you're healthy, you're gonna be more productive. Yeah, I've, I used to use the alarm in my iPhone to wake me up each morning. And then I changed it to buying a little $7 portable alarm clock, battery operated it. I use that just to ensure I don't sleep past it. And I put my phone now on airplane mode and leave it in a different room. Because what was happening was that I was, the alarm was going off on my phone. And so when the alarm goes off, you know, you're grabbing the phone. And then of course, because your hands on the phone, you're tempted to start going into it. And then your reactionary mode almost right away. So since I've shifted that, it's enabled me to be more present in the mornings. I write down 20 things that I'm grateful for in my journal here, my gratitude journal each morning. And I got pages and pages of things that I'm grateful for. At the moment I'm doing, I'm up to 11 minutes of meditation. I've done a 10 day silent meditation called Vipassana previously. But I must admit that I have a, I wouldn't say it's a love-hate relationship with meditation, but I have an on again, off again relationship with meditation. When I'm doing it, I love it, but then it's very easy, frighteningly easy. In fact, for me to just skip it and to go weeks and often months without doing it until I remind myself to go back and do it again. Anyway, just sharing a little bit of my, you know, struggle with meditation, but just my, my challenge maybe. Well, I feel you because I actually, I was like that too. I never could stick to one kind of meditation. So what I would suggest is, you know, make what works for you, what makes you, you have to start feeling into what makes me feel relaxed, what makes me kind of drop the day, whatever that may be. And it could be just simply a breath. You know, I do these, I love breath work. So breathing exercises is one of my favorite things. We could just, you know, take in a breath, hold it while I hold the breath, I relaxed the body. It's all about relaxing, tapping in. And, and I love there's a, there's a beautiful monk who talk about meditation. He goes, you know, with the monkey mind, don't try to shut the monkey mind, let mine go and just say, ah, I see you, I hear you. This is what we're doing. And, you know, I also love those deep Chobra 21 days meditations. If anybody ever done those, it's so cool because it's very short. And he has a fun story to tell you about whatever concept it is. And then you have maybe five minutes of meditation, listening to those were also really helpful. And actually I'm in the process of doing a 21 day abundance. That's a protocol given to me by the Chopra center in my Facebook group. So I actually have a group right now and it's kind of fun because you get the, you're not doing everything by yourself. And it's nice to have accountability partners and responsibility partner. And again, for me, everything is not about being militant. It's about how do I ease into it, make it work. So if I can't do a 20 minute meditation, I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I'm like, you know what, I'm going to do some breath work. And you know what sleep is the kind of meditation, you know, whatever that is that lets your body relax and let you not think so much ran just texted me. Oh, she's watching. Thank you, Franny. Nice to meet you virtually. Louis Jean says, is asking, do the swanies mask come in any other colors answer? Yeah, so it's a question about our swanies sleep mask and I don't have one with me at the moment. But the answer is yes, we have the colors that come in the color black and blue. So we have a 100% pure silk sleep mask that's oversized deliberately that goes over the top and silk actually is very good for your skin because it retains the moisture of your skin as opposed to cotton which can leave yourself wrinkles and dehydrate you. If you can get silk pillow slips, that's another great thing as opposed to cotton pillow slips because if you sleep on your side or on your front and your face is in there over the course of many hours, your skin being rubbed up against cotton is going to leave you with wrinkles and dry skin. But if you're doing this, if you're lying the same way on silk, it actually is retaining the skin's moisture. So just a little tip there. Yeah, Antonello asks, my mother-in-law's got a problem staying asleep. She typically complains of waking up at about 1 or 2 a.m. and then she just can't get it back. Is there any holistic approach to helping her get her sleep back? I'm just worried about her health. Well, first of all, I don't know how long this has been happening for her or is that something that just recently happened because a lot of people's sleeps are being disturbed by the whole COVID and everything that's going on in the world, which is understandable. Again, there are actually homeopathic remedies that you can take that is natural. You can try it. I think one of my girlfriend who's watching, she had taken some stuff that she said actually works for her. I never had to, so I can't speak from experience. I just know that if anything happens for me, I go to the homeopathic pharmacy first. That's the first place I go. And also, again, all of these things we're doing in life, the most important thing is self-awareness. You have to ask yourself, how am I feeling? How can I get more relaxing? And even when I do the body scan, I think I'm lying on my bed. I think I'm relaxing, but then I tell myself, okay, relax the top of your head, relax your forehead, relax your skull to pay attention to it. And even to the point where when it's my heart or my internal organs, I'm telling my internal organs to relax, I put my hand on there. And the same thing, what I ask myself all through the day is, what am I feeling and where am I feeling it in my body? And you put love and attention there. So it depends. Is she worried about something? Is something bothering her? Is her diet? What does she eat before she goes to sleep? Maybe lately, she's been eating something that's keeping her up. It has too much caffeine. She's drinking green tea, which is healthy for you. But you have to understand your body system and everybody feels different. Yeah. I think I want to just concur with what you're sharing there. Okay. The gold standard of sleep, as I understand it and have researched it, and it involves, in my opinion, in my research, exposing yourself to as much natural light as early as you can in the morning, and then blocking as much artificial light, for example, in the evening, as well as ensuring that you don't eat in the last three hours before you want to retire for the night and sleep, ensuring that you're not drinking coffee within eight hours of bedtime, ensuring you're not drinking alcohol within three hours of drinking, of nighttime, I should say, or bedtime. So herbal teas and all those kind of things are fantastic because they're relaxing, they're very good for you. It prepares you for sleep. However, if you're drinking a herbal tea while staring into a screen, watching Netflix, or scrolling through your phone late at night on YouTube video, lying in bed, then you are compromising your ability to be able to sleep the way that nature always intended you to sleep. Also, the lights in our homes, quite frankly, are filled with artificial blue light, which triggers our pituitary and pineal glands, which stimulates them, which suppresses our body's ability to create melatonin. Our company, Swannick, has just come out with these better nights light bulb, which have almost no blue lights in them. In fact, they're yellow in nature, and when you put them in and you replace them around your home, it's a beautiful, calming light with no artificial light. And if you use those in conjunction with obviously wearing a pair of orange blue light blocking glasses, which blocks out the blue light. So if I do this right here, you can see it's blocking the artificial blue light. Then you will find that you'll fall asleep quicker, you'll sleep deeper, and you'll wake up feeling a lot more refreshed. So everything that Jonathan Lynn was talking about there is absolutely true. And in addition, first thing in the morning, try to expose yourself to as much natural light as possible, because our skin has receptors in it. And when the sunlight hits our skin, it tells our internal body clock, which is named our circadian rhythm. This is wake-up time. So now it's going to flood with the daytime hormones. And then it knows that about 12, 14 hours later, it's time to start flooding the body with nighttime hormones, such as melatonin. And again, all of that is a holistic approach, right, Shanta Lynn? None of that involves going to the doctor and get a prescription for Xanax or Ambien. It's just taking a holistic approach of eating well, getting sunlight, blocking artificial light at night, doing some breath work, drinking some herbal tea, making sure you're not eating or drinking alcohol in the last few hours before you go to sleep. As you know, I help people quit alcohol. Just don't drink alcohol. Just stop doing that. But if you are going to do it, don't do it in the last three hours before you go to sleep. Yeah, I think that's great advice. I'm not a huge drinker, but I am a big foodie. And I love to have a nice glass of wine sometime with my dinners, and I totally agree with you. And especially for me, I'm very much of a lightweight. It's kind of like I can't have too much. It's poison in my system. I turn pink. A lot of Asian people turn pink. We don't have the enzyme to break down the alcohol. So we're being poisoned, blood poisoning, until it leaves our system. And so it is something that I, again, I'm very conscious about, and I try to drink a ton of water to flush anything out of my system. But yeah, I love to get a good night's sleep, and it's important. Shantalan, you mentioned your son a few times. I'd love to ask you about him. But first, you actually came to America as a Vietnamese refugee back in 1977, as I understand it. And you were one of the thousands of quote, unquote, both people. And so I wanted to ask you about that. And maybe you can tell us a little bit about why that experience has made you so passionate about everything today. Well, you know, I was nine, almost turning 10. We live about two and a half years under the Communist regime in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 75. So this was November of 77. And my mom and I escaped out of Vietnam. It's a harrowing journey. And when I got to Malaysia, when we saw land, our boat kind of broke apart. And half of the people actually did die. You know, not everybody knew how to swim. And my mom and I got separated. So I was struggling, flailing. And I, at one point I told myself that no one was coming, that this was it. And I was surrendering. And I have to say, my mom was very prophetic. She, before the trip, she said to me, put on a red t-shirt, a long sleeve red t-shirt. So in case we get lost in the crowd, I can spot you. And I think to this day, that was the reason why I was safe, because my mom and I got separated. And I was for sure dying. I told myself, no one's coming. This Malaysian village fisherman came out and saved me. So I must have just surrendered and floated to the top, bobbing up and down, who saved my life. And from that moment on, for me, this is the promised land. And this is why we're here. So that there is a future for myself and my son. And I used to tell that story. And I said, I wasn't supposed to be here. I was meant to be here. And he would correct me. And he said, no, don't ever say that you are totally meant to be here because you're here. And if you're here, that means I get to be here. And I said, okay, you're right. And that's in fact, because the whole COVID and me pivoting all my work around, I am actually writing a memoir. And I'm going to probably call it little red shirt. And to talk about my journey coming to America. And that's why to me, everything in life is icing on the cake. I've been worse. I didn't think I was going to have a life. So here I'm saying to myself, here's freedom. What can I do with it? What am I going to do with my life? How can I lead a legacy? How can I be observers? And all the things that I've been through, how can I use that information to help everyone else around me? So that's why I'm passionate about everything. Because I can, I can be. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, John Thulin. Beautiful. And your son is, I'm sure, is a reflection of you and your values and the way that you see the world. He's a mini-me, for sure. He is a total mini-me with better qualities, too. He's super smart. He's a very sweet, sensitive, 14-and-a-half-year-old boy. He's an empath. So he feels very deeply. But I also love that he's just your normal, hot-blooded American boy. He's excited about life, too. And all he wants to do is get his ways. And he gets very creative in getting his ways. And I love that he's into sports. He loved to play basketball. He loved to skateboard. And we live here in Los Angeles. And now he's told me he's into surfing. So I'm going to try to find him a great surfing instructor, because that, to me, is like living here near the ocean and be a surfer is like a dream. I'm not a great swimmer. I did learn how to swim after that whole accident or incident back when I was nine. I actually talked myself into learning how to swim. But I have to tell you, I'm not comfortable in the water like he is. He's a fish. And I love that about him. And he's an entrepreneurial mind. He loves to make money. He sees I'm working. He's always asking me how he could make money. He started out babysitting. And then he said, well, that takes a lot of my time. I want to make more money. He's always constantly thinking about how to make money. And I said, what kind of life would you have? He's always very present, but he's always thinking about how he can do better and get better in life. And I love that, because I just want him to be happy. One of my favorite poets or a philosopher is Khalil Gibran. And he talks about how children are not in possessions. So my prayer every day is that I can be a good enough mom to support him on his journey of whoever he needs to be, whoever he's meant to be in this life and how to be a service. That's the one thing I keep talking to him about. How can we be a service? And then everything else will fall into place. But also the balance of learning about business. He loves business. And so, you know, it's a great combination. He's my greatest teacher because I want to teach by example. So therefore, I behave myself way better than when I wasn't a mom. You know, I'm more conscious and more aware. And I have to remember everything is an impact. What impact am I leaving for him? And, you know, I do that again. I'm not perfect, not the perfect mom by any stretch of the imagination. But I do my best and I put my heart into it. And he deserves it. And he deserves a happy mom too. So that's also the other side of, again, balance, you know, you need to be the best parent you can. But part of that is you also have to be the best human being. That means you have to be happy too. You got to pursue your own happiness. Can't help anybody from a place of lack. And I did come from that culture where you self-sacrifice. And now that I'm here, I'm like, wait, there's a balance. I can sacrifice, but knowing what I'm giving or what I'm offering and make sure that I didn't cut myself short. You've mentioned a couple of times, Chantalin, a body scan and breathwork. So I just wanted to bring our viewers' attention to the fact that you could ask Chantalin about her guided body scan, about her breathwork. We've actually put Chantalin's Instagram details there in the comments. If you're on YouTube, watching on YouTube, you can go to, it's chantalin.la. Is that right? Your Instagram page? My Instagram is chantalin.la. And I'm also on Facebook. And I'm also on LinkedIn. Those are my three. And I do Twitter, but it's more of like, I linked it to my other accounts, but I'm very active on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. LinkedIn, it's more professional for me. Facebook feels a little more intimate and casual because I can do all my groups that I do. Like, for instance, right now, I'm doing this 21-day abundance group, you know, and I can guide people through. And then on Instagram is just, you know, another expression of how I live my life. I try to share that. Yeah. Yeah. And yes, I would offer all of your viewers if they're interested. You know, I can do a body scan, you know, virtually or over the phone to help you. It's a very relaxing thing. I would also offer, you know, something like a ho'oponopono, which is a Hawaiian practice of forgiveness because I believe forgiveness is not about forgiving the other person so much, but it's also letting go of the anger you're holding or the resentment that you're holding. It's not healthy for you because you're the one hurting. So I love those kind of practices too. So people can hit me up. So there are details on how to reach Chantalin in the comments down below, especially if you're watching on the replay. We have a lot of people who watch the replay later on who can't join us live. So there'll be details in the comments down below, whether you are watching this now on Facebook or YouTube. Go in there and you can learn more about how to get in contact with Chantalin and maybe do one of her guided body scans, maybe do some breath work with her and talk to her more about her holistic approach to life. Chantalin, thank you so much for giving us your time and your guidance here on Swannick Live. We so appreciate you. And thank you for inspiring me to go and live a little bit of a healthier life, more holistic and take more of a holistic approach. Well, thank you so much, James. I'm a big fan. I love your products. I love what you're doing to help people because I think sleep is really, really, really important. I feel much younger and prettier when I have eight hours of sleep and I'm a different person. And I love your products and what you're doing. So thank you and thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much and you're welcome.