The power is in your hands

by | | Curated Content

December 17th 2024
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WellBeing Magazine
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Discover how palmistry reveals your talents, character, and destiny through hand shapes, lines, and ancient wisdom.

“Your karma changes with each clap in kirtan,” the Indian Yogi told me after a temple ritual. “Really, tell me more please.” Rather than being set in stone, he explained that lines and our destiny are constantly changing according to our choices. I reached out my hand to this renowned Bengali palmist. He scrutinised and prodded the valleys, mounds and furrows of my hand with intense concentration. “This is your past, your inborn gifts,” he held my left hand. “The right – your present and future.” He proceeded to explain my character, health and destiny. Though doubtful at the time, in hindsight, he was right. Details about my marriage, character, child, career and living environment unfolded exactly as he had predicted. All grasped from the physical features of my hands. This esoteric art had a lot more credibility after that encounter.

Timelines

Aristotle wrote 2500 years ago, “Lines are not written into the human hand without reason.” Our palms provide a map to a deeper understanding of latent talents, tendencies and fate. Palmistry is believed to be born in ancient India, spreading to Tibet, China, Persia, Egypt and Greece. Palmistry was among the main methods utilised by ancient soothsayers alongside astrology. Ancient authors who wrote about palmistry include Indian Sage Valmiki, Greek Ptolemy, Roman Juvenal and China’s Yellow emperor Huangdi. Though many religions condemned palmistry as the devil’s work, there are occult branches of Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and Jewish traditions that endorse palmistry.

After a lull, palmistry was revived in the 19th century due to classics including the Book of Fate and Fortune and Palmistry for All by Irish astrologer Count Louis Hamon (aka William John Warner or Cheiro). Westerners waved palmistry in when in 1897 Edgar de Valcourt-Vermont founded the American Chirological Society and Katherine St. Hill started the Cheirological Society of Great Britain in 1889. Good palmists could convince even the staunchest sceptics such as Mark Twain who wrote in Hamon’s visitors book after a session that he – “exposed my character to me with humiliating accuracy”.

Weird Science

Our hands are as unique as our fingerprints. From foetus’, our palms offer a snapshot of our early development. Though science doesn’t generally support palmistry, researchers have found correlations between palmistry and dermatoglyphics (the study of fingerprints and palm lines) and human development.
Here are some medical study findings:

• In males, a ring finger that is longer than the index finger indicates higher prenatal testosterone. The bearer is more likely to have more progeny, a longer penis and handsome facial features.
• Men with longer index fingers than ring fingers are more susceptible to heart disease and schizophrenia but less prone to ADHD. Children with this trait showed better self-control.
• A significant correlation between longevity and the lifeline was observed when Newrick and colleagues studied 100 corpses in 1990.
• A fingerprint marker at birth was connected with a diabetes diagnosis after aged 50 according to a study by Kahn et al, A fingerprint marker from early gestation associated with diabetes in middle age: The Dutch Hunger Winter Families Study.

Talk to the hand

Are you ready to get your gypsy on? Summon both information and intuition to provide a well-rounded reading. There are conditions that assist in reading a palm accurately and respectfully. Once you have permission to read a palm, provide a private place and enable the subject to record findings. Ensure you both have clean hands and good natural lighting. A magnifying glass, torch and camera are also useful to view and record observations.

Dive into divination with an overall impression of the shape, size, texture and colour of both hands including the fingers. “The left or secondary hand represents the inner life – the subconscious or what you’d like to happen. The dominant hand, often the right, shows the real future.” If you are left-handed, it is the opposite.

Is it an earth, fire, air or water hand? Note the relative finger length and flexibility. Next check out the major mounds. Now trace the lines. Take notes if needed. People can be very impressionable so don’t let the reading get out of hand with negative details. Hand out information with a touch of sensitivity and restraint. Explain findings by highlighting features with a pointer or in a photo.

General observations

First hand: Shaking or holding hands reveals volumes about someone. Skin on our hand is our main interface with the world. A handshake can provide character clues based on their palm skin. Chiromancy or chirology categorises skin as sandpaper, paper or silk.

Sandpaper: This coarse, deeply lined palm indicates a thick-skinned nature that tends to suppress emotions. These practical types are often happiest in physical outdoor jobs such as a trade or physical trainer. They can feel like a trapped animal in a sedentary job and thrive with manual work that allows them to use more brawn than brain. Those with rough hands can be tough dealing with others and situations. Emotional sensitivity isn’t their strong point, but they exhibit kindness through acts of service.

Paper: This medium-thick skin is most common. Owners of this type lean towards more mental rather than labouring careers. They prefer a logical and rational approach with plenty of proof to back up claims. Their adaptability allows them to take on many roles and relate to a wide range of people. They often have a talent for technology and communication. Their palms have more lines and palms tend to be more rectangular showing their practical side. The resilient skin mirrors an inner fortitude.

Silk: This moist, smooth and sensitive skin is more common in women. A silky soft hand suggests someone who is empathetic, intuitive, sensually receptive and predominantly emotional rather than intellectual. They are attracted to artistic, ethereal and spiritual pursuits. A tendency for anxiety becomes evident through sweaty palms. Owners of silky skin hands tend to be creative and sensitive to their surroundings including smells, sounds, sensations and tastes. A slow, gentle and reassuring approach is the best way to relate to someone with this thin skin. They can withdraw when criticised or treated harshly. Handling them with kid gloves will bring out their best.

Colour

Yellow/orange palm: Ingesting high levels of betacarotenes from orange foods can have this effect. Alternatively, it may indicate gall bladder, liver or anger issues.

Red palm: This can indicate robust health, prosperity and passion. If excessively red it may be related to high blood pressure and inflammation.

Pink palm: This is a sign of someone amiable, supportive and supported by loved ones. In essence, they have a good heart.

Pale palm: Isolated, introspective and low-vitality types may display white palms. They are often artistic and empathetic.

Hands on

What type of hand do you have? A square earth hand? A long- fingered air hand? A rectangular fire hand or a flexible, slender water hand? Each hand type has unique talents and tendencies as follows:

Earth: Square palms with stubby fingers suggest a person who is patient, practical, steady, unpretentious and good with their hands.

Water: Dreamy, creative and emotional types may have long palms and fingers. They are often talented artists, dancers or musicians.

Fire: Rectangular palms with short or tapered fingers are a sign of someone who is ambitious, bold, energetic and entrepreneurial.

Air: Square palms with long bony fingers belong to one who is analytical, aware, intuitive, philosophical while excelling in expression and manifesting ideas.

Measuring mounts

Mounts are elevated palm pillows mostly at the fingers base. High mounts suggest a strength and interest in this area. Though there are 10 in total, we will focus on the seven major mounts.

Mount of Venus: A ripe Venus indicates luck, love, lust, luxury and sensuality. Frigid people may have a flat Venus while a plump Venus suggests rampant desires.

Mount of Jupiter: This line under the index finger is a sign of confidence, courage and powerful role models or mentors. A sunken mount may mirror low self-esteem.

Mount of Saturn: A strong Saturn shows maturity, seriousness and a strong work ethic. If underdeveloped, it may indicate poor discipline.

Mount of Apollo or Sun: Successful and powerful personalities have prominent Sun mounts. They enjoy time in the spotlight with healthy self-esteem and an appreciation for beauty. A poor Sun mount may mean self-doubt.

Mount of Mercury: A distinct Mercury suggests exceptional verbal or written communication skills plus a wicked wit. A deficient mount can be blocked communication or progress.

Mount of Moon: A full lunar zone indicates an imaginative, intuitive and caring character. If overdeveloped, they may have escapist tendencies.

Mounts of Mars: A lower Mars adjacent to the wrist shows a warrior-like spirit, a distinct upper Mars conveys a courageous and confident type.

Between the lines

Reading the lines is one of the easiest maps to reach the real person. The deeper the crease, the steadier that aspect. A weak or sketchy line suggests that area could do with some strengthening. An interrupted line indicates a blockage, break or breakthrough. Hypersensitive souls who are more mentally impressionable have more lines. Fewer lines indicate a more straight forward, emotionally composed character.

Head line: Our intellectual interests and life lessons are imprinted here. Unconventional thinkers have wavier lines than traditional types.

Heart line: This horizonal line under the fingers represents relationships and emotions.

Life line: Scooping around the thumb’s base, this line reflects energy and joie de vivre. Independence may be indicated by a broken line.

Mercury line: This marks one’s capacity to communicate and travel.

Sun line: Fame, fortune and fulfillment are defined in this line.

Fate line: Flowing from the bottom of the palm to the middle finger, a strong fate line indicates a sure sense of purpose.

Relationship lines: On the side of your palm beneath the pinky, these lines show significant relationships.

Finger pointers

Finger shape and size can speak louder than words. Flexible fingers are a sign of mental flexibilityA long finger denotes the following:

• Index (Jupiter) – decisive and dominant personality
• Middle (Saturn) – determined and disciplined
• Ring (Sun) – charismatic, confident and energetic
• Little (Mercury) – amusing and expressive
• Thumb – a large thumb is associated with iron will

Professional palmist

Studying the hands of my daughter and I, master palmist Sulabh Jain relayed astoundingly accurate details about our past and personality.

Founder of chariotpalmistry.com, Jain started studying palmistry at eight years old from his grandfather, Bagwan Das Jain. He went on to complete a PhD in palmistry in India combining psychology and palmistry. Jain focussed on childhood trauma and how it produces lines on the hands.

Author of the Dictionary of Indian Palmistry Symbols and Dictionary of Chinese Palmistry Symbols, Jain has consulted thousands of clients in his Sydney practice and online worldwide for decades. Rather than solely a predictive tool, Jain sees palmistry as a “spiritual tool, designed to develop one over time”. Recently, Jain predicted the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on his YouTube channel after analysing Trump’s hand. Soon after, it came to pass.
Jain combines palm reading with spiritual counselling. Lines alter with effort, according to Jain, “Think of the hands as a blank canvas that we write upon with our thoughts. To create new lines, we introduce new thoughts. To remove old lines, we can stop thinking those thoughts.” He recounts the case of a client who lacked confidence in her career, “Over a three-year period, she has grown a business line on her hand, and also developed a strong line for spirituality, too.” For remedial measures, Jain may suggest a specific meditation, mantra, charity and, more rarely, gemstones. “Palmistry and palmists are guides to help you to create the life you would like,” says Jain. “Try this timeless tool to enhance self-understanding and self-actualisation.”

Article Featured in WellBeing Magazine 213

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The power is in your hands

How to Overcome Frustration

by | | Curated Content

December 17th 2024
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WellBeing Magazine
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It would be nice if life always went to plan, but sadly that’s often not the case. Life can be frustrating at times. In her book, Change Your Thinking, psychologist Dr Sarah Edelman explains that, “Frustration is a feeling we experience when we don’t get our needs met, or when some obstacle impedes our ability to achieve a goal.” Frustration can also arise when where you are in your life isn’t where you want to be. Physician and psychotherapist Dr Russ Harris refers to this as the “reality gap” in his book The Confidence Gap.

Dr Harris explains, “Whenever there’s a large ‘reality gap’ — by which I mean a gap between the reality we want and the reality we got — painful feelings will arise. And the larger the reality gap, the greater the pain. A small reality gap may give rise to feelings of disappointment, frustration, anxiety, regret, boredom, guilt or impatience. An enormous reality gap may give rise to despair, angst, rage or terror.”

Whether your reality gap is big or small right now, or your frustrations stem from health issues, relationship problems, under-achievement, money worries, or a situation that is out of your control, you can overcome frustration by shifting your mindset, taking small actions, and finding more ease, flow and acceptance in your life.

5 strategies for overcoming frustration

1. Question your assumptions

Assumptions can be a big driver of life frustration. What assumptions have you brought into your adult life from your childhood? Did you assume you would:

• Live in a certain type of house?
• Be married?
• Have a certain number of kids?
• Have good health?
• Have a stable job?
• Be making a certain amount of money?
• Have travelled extensively around the world?

Whatever your assumptions were, you may find that as you get older and notice that some of your assumptions haven’t happened yet (and may not happen), it can be hard to reconcile. It can be difficult to come to terms with not being where you believed you “should” be or wanted to be. I know I have struggled with this over the years.

I always assumed I’d get married, have two kids, work in a full-time job earning good money, live in a big home with a backyard and pool, be fit and healthy, and have enough money to travel and maybe even buy a holiday home. My life assumptions mostly reflected how I grew up, what I saw around me and cultural norms. But often assumptions don’t take into account the complexity of life.

At nearly 40, my life doesn’t look exactly as I assumed it would. Some things I have achieved and others I haven’t. This reality gap can feel frustrating at times. What I didn’t expect in my life was to be dealing with chronic health issues since my 20s, that my ability to work full-time and earn a consistent income would be compromised as a result, or that I would have reproductive issues that influenced my family size. But this is how life unfolds. Life is often full of unexpected challenges.

Life doesn’t always go smoothly and sometimes your assumptions can get in the way of feeling good about your life. Assumptions can leave you focused on what you don’t have, rather than on what you do. Let go of assumptions that are no longer serving you, make peace with how your life is and turn your focus to all the good in your life.

2. Loosen up your expectations

If you have high expectations of yourself and others, you’re likely to feel frustrated when you let yourself down, or others disappoint you. Do you find yourself getting easily frustrated when things don’t go the way you think they should? According to Edelman, common beliefs that underly a low tolerance for frustration include:

• “Things should be fair”
• “My life should unfold smoothly, without hassles”
• “People should always do the right thing”
• “My generosity should always be returned”
• “I should never make mistakes”
• “I should be aware of all possible problems and prevent them”

When you feel things should go a certain way, it’s easy to feel frustrated and stressed when they don’t. High expectations can also make you overly critical of yourself and others. To overcome frustration in your life, consider loosening up your high expectations by being kinder to yourself and others.

Give yourself permission to not always get things right or to have all the answers. As you extend more kindness to yourself, you’ll find it easier to cut others some slack too. You can be kinder by assuming the best in others. So often people are going through their own challenging times and you may not always see their best side. We are all human, we’re all doing the best we can and we’re all fallible at times.

3. Be mindful of your ambition

Ambition in life is great and it’s an exciting journey to push yourself to reach your potential. However, ambition can also be a source of frustration and self-criticism. When you feel you’re not achieving enough, not moving fast enough, falling behind or running out of time, it can be hugely frustrating. Ambition can make you hyper focus on what you haven’t achieved. The constant striving can lead to discontentment and harsh self-talk.

As I’ve been writing my first book, I’ve felt frustrated with my slow progress and come up against a lot of negative self-talk. I’ve been working on my book for years. It’s been a tough road and at times I’ve wanted to give up. However, I really want to write this book because I know it will help people who are going through what I’ve been through. My ambition to bring this book to life has become a source of deep inspiration, as well as deep frustration. The frustration has often turned to harsh self-criticism, where I question if I’m good enough, if I will ever finish, or if anyone will even read my work.

When you become frustrated with yourself and your progress, check in and reframe your thinking. Don’t let negative self-talk undermine your ability to achieve great things. Adopt a more empowering self-dialogue by consciously choosing a more balanced perspective, by using my Reframe Your Thinking reflective exercise:

Questions and Examples

1. Identify: What thought is driving your frustration?

I should have finished my book by now.

2. Feel: How is this thought making you feel?

It makes me feel embarrassed, lazy and like giving up sometimes.

3. Reflect: What assumption underlies this thought?

I assumed I’d be faster as I’ve been a writer for more than a decade. I know people who’ve written books quickly.

4. Balance: Is this assumption 100 per cent true, fair and helpful?

I’ve been writing while contending with health issues, family commitments and other work projects. It’s not helpful to compare my journey with others.

5. Reframe: Is there a better thought to have in this situation?

My book might be taking longer than I assumed, but I’m taking my time to get it right and not sacrifice my health. Good things take time.

6. Connect: How does this new way of thinking make you feel?

It makes me feel less stressed, more resilient and motivated. I’m more accepting of my journey.

7. Envisage: How will this new thought change your actions?

I feel excited and energised to keep writing. I won’t give up!

4. Bridge the gap

Action-taking is a powerful antidote to frustration. In most cases in life, there’s something you can do to help bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. Are you actively trying to improve the situation that’s frustrating you? Are you looking for ways to overcome your obstacles?

Don’t let your frustrations define you or stop you, but instead let them direct you and fuel your creative problem-solving. Don’t be afraid to start small. Break down your goals into smaller action steps that are more manageable, sustainable and allow you to work with your current limitations.

Whether your limitations are around time, energy, health, money or something else, look for the next small step forward instead of waiting for life to be “perfect” or to feel 100 per cent ready. As soon as you start to take action, your sense of control and agency increases. Brainstorm, think outside the box, get creative, chat with others and be willing to embrace the power of small action.

5. Accept what’s out of your control

Sometimes in life, things happen that are outside of your control. These situations are truly tough to deal with and can be deeply frustrating. Maybe you need to accept a chronic illness, a life-changing disability, a relationship breakdown, a divorce, the death of a loved one or being fired from a job. At some time or another, everyone is required to dig deep and accept a hard reality.

While acceptance is difficult, it can also be empowering. In The Happiness Trap, Dr Harris says, “Acceptance…doesn’t mean giving up or admitting defeat; it doesn’t mean just gritting your teeth and bearing it. It means fully opening yourself to your present reality — acknowledging how it is, right here and now, and letting go of the struggle with life as it is in this moment.”

As hard as it might be, is there something you need to accept in your life? According to psychologist Arlin Cuncic, you might be stuck in resistance if you say things like this:

• “I can’t deal with this”
• “This is not fair”
• “Things shouldn’t be like this”
• “Why is this happening to me?”

While resistance may make sense in the face of change, loss and grief, when you can accept what is, life becomes a little easier to deal with. Cuncic says, “By accepting things for what they are, you can acknowledge your emotions without denying, avoiding or ignoring the situation. It can be an effective way to process your emotions and manage difficult experiences.”

Having gone through chronic illness twice in my life, I know how hard acceptance can be. I’ve had to learn how to accept what is and to move through pain and sadness. I’ve found creating acceptance mantras helpful, as they ground and reconnect me to my inner strength. Try creating your own mantra, or using one of these:

• “I am strong and can face this”
• “I don’t like what is happening, but it is happening”
• “I make space for all the good and difficult in life”
• “I trust this experience will serve a purpose in the≈future”

While resistance keeps you stuck in what was, acceptance gives you the opportunity to move forward and make changes. When you accept and surrender to what is, you place yourself in a better position to find peace, to flow with life and to move forward in a meaningful way.

Article Featured in WellBeing Magazine 213

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How to Overcome Frustration

Jan Fran

by | | Curated Content

December 17th 2024
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WellBeing Magazine
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The teacher said, ‘Let’s go round the room and everyone can tell us what they watched last night,’” Jan Fran told the Shameless podcast, recalling a moment from her school days. While her classmates mentioned popular sitcoms and soap operas, Fran had a very different answer. “‘The news.’ I think the class just went completely silent. Even my friend, who was sitting next to me, turned and mouthed ‘the news? You watched the news?’”

Now an accomplished journalist, media commentator and broadcaster, it was this sense of curiosity and engagement with social issues from a young age that set the foundation for Fran to pursue a passion for journalism and storytelling.

“I was also aware of how powerful the media is,” Fran tells WellBeing. “How powerful it is in shaping stories, and shaping perceptions of people, and how wrong it can be, especially when you grow up in a community where the media representation of you does not match your lived experience within that community at all. I was very conscious of these things, and it kind of felt like [journalism] was the direction that I was always going to head.”

Fran has filmed documentaries around the world and created her own award-winning online opinion and analysis series to help engage young people in current affairs. She’s also co-host of the ABC’s Question Everything and is known for her work on SBS’s The Feed and Channel 10’s The Project.

But alongside her journalistic accomplishments, Fran is an advocate for giving a voice to those who feel unheard. She’s an ambassador for Plan International, an organisation that aims to advance equality for girls around the world, an ambassador for the Whitlam Institute’s What Matters? writing competition to help young people share their opinions on what’s important to them, and has used her platform and influence to be an advocate for issues that affect women, girls and minority groups.

The power of media

Born in a village in northern Lebanon, Fran and her family moved to Australia when she was four years old, settling in Bankstown in western Sydney, an area with one of the city’s highest Arabic populations.

Her father had a big influence on Fran as a child by nurturing a sense of curiosity and by always questioning things. “He was always very intellectually rigorous,” says Fran. “He’s an incredibly intelligent man. He’s a very widely read man. He was always very sceptical of power and the kind of the havoc that it can wreak on people.”

While growing up in Sydney, Fran was disappointed and, at times, angry at how the media portrayed Lebanese Australians and others in the local Middle Eastern community.

“We had really a barrage of negative perceptions in and around the community that just was not matching up to my experiences of the community that I was in,” says Fran. “I grew up in the late 90s and early 2000s, those were my formative coming-of-age years in the western suburbs. At the time, there was a lot of tension between institutions like the police, the media and the Lebanese community.

“There was a lot of negative reporting around Lebanese people. There was a series of gang rapes that happened in the year 2000, that spurred on reporting that suggested that, you know, all Lebanese men were racist misogynists and that Lebanese people couldn’t assimilate. Then, of course, September 11 happened, and they’re suddenly [viewed as] terrorists. Then the Cronulla riots [racially motivated riots that occurred in Sydney in 2005] happened a few years later. And suddenly you were somebody that was ruining Australian society and couldn’t assimilate.”

Giving girls a voice

But it was this sense of frustration at how the media was misrepresenting communities, and often making her feel as though she didn’t have a voice to speak up about it as a young woman, that inspired Fran to want to give a platform to others, particularly to women and girls.

“Part of the kind of work that I want to do, and the causes that are close to my heart, really revolve around girls. And when I say girls, I mean teenagers and young women,” says Fran.

Part of this work is through her role as an ambassador for Plan International, an independent development and humanitarian organisation that strives to advance children’s rights and equality for girls. Just some of the ways they do this are by working with partners to provide education programs to children affected by humanitarian crises, teaching women about sexual and reproductive health and influencing governments and the United Nations (UN) agenda on children’s rights issues, with a particular focus on girls and young women.

“One of the things that Plan does — among the work that they do in various countries around the world in terms of alleviating poverty and [advancing] girls’ education — is that they really strive to give girls a voice,” explains Fran.

“Growing up … I felt as though my voice was sort of taken, or that I was spoken over, or spoken for, or I didn’t have a platform, and felt very disempowered by that. So a charity that works with girls, and having a remit of giving voices back to girls, was really important to me, and was something that attracted me to Plan from the beginning.”

One of the things that Fran thinks need to happen is to give young girls a platform to speak up. “I think that they should be taken more seriously in matters that specifically pertain to them,” explains Fran, who says she’s undecided about her thoughts on whether the voting age should be lowered to 16 or not. “But I think it’s a very interesting idea, because, 16-year-olds, they drive, they can participate in the economy, they work, they pay tax. Why shouldn’t they get the right to vote and really have a voice in who represents them and the changes they want to see made?”

What matters?

Another way that Fran has been helping to give a voice to young people is through her role as an ambassador for the annual What Matters? writing competition, which is run by The Whitlam Institute, a research and policy Think Tank within Western Sydney University.

The 2024 competition was the program’s 20th anniversary year. More than 5000 students in years five to 12 from 1251 schools across Australia entered the competition, each writing a 600-word piece of fiction, non-fiction, poetry or prose, expressing their views on things that are important to them. Topics ranged from friendship, homelessness, democracy, artificial intelligence and Palestine.

“It’s a similar reason to why I got involved with Plan, to really encourage young people whose voices are not often heard, to take part in what I think are democracy-building exercises,” explains Fran. “To say to them, ‘This is your country as well, and you have a right to be heard and for you to determine, or for you to at least have a say, in how this country should be run and how you should be represented.’”

Fran is so committed to the initiative and passionate about giving more girls an opportunity to be heard that, next year, she plans to encourage more young women of colour from public schools in western Sydney to enter the prize. She says that it’s channels like this which provide the kind of platform that she never had access to. “I just think about my time growing up in western Sydney, and the platforms that I didn’t have,” says Fran. “I would like to provide them for those [girls] today.”

The competition winner’s school library receives a curated selection of books focused on active citizenship, civics and democracy from the Museum of Australian Democracy, as well as winning a trophy and cash prize. Additional sponsored prizes include access to writing classes and author visits. One entry is also awarded a trip to Canberra to spend the day at Parliament House shadowing political speechwriters and journalists in the Press Gallery.

The Frant

Fran has always recognised journalism as a powerful tool to drive change, but also saw it as a platform to get important stories in front of people who might not engage with traditional media such as television or newspapers.

One of the ways she has reached young people — who are more used to getting information online in short, sharp Tik-Tok-style soundbites — has been through her online opinion and analysis series, The Frant.

Fran is the creator, writer and presenter of the series. In these short videos, Fran gives commentary on social issues such as Australia’s climate policy and gender inequality, told with her trademark wit and humour. The videos live online, mostly being viewed on social media, and are typically only a few minutes long. It’s a format that has proven popular as they have collectively reached more than 20 million views since beginning in 2018.

A popular episode of The Frant is an explainer on what the gender pay gap really is. It’s a topic that needs more conversations. According to Plan International, more than a third of all Australians (37 per cent) still do not believe there is a gender pay gap, although Aussie women still take home an annual salary on average $25,596 lower than their male counterparts.

The episode was so well received that, alongside two other episodes of The Frant, it resulted in Fran receiving the 2019 Walkley Award for Best Commentary, Analysis, Opinion & Critique. The accompanying episodes were on the myth of getting jobs based on “merit”, and on biased media reporting after the Christchurch massacre. The latter was viewed five million times on social media, according to The Walkley Foundation.

Fran also understands the power of social media more broadly to affect change – and she isn’t afraid to engage with her followers. In March 2024, Fran posted a video to encourage people to donate to Plan International’s urgent appeal to help get food and necessities to people in need of aid in Gaza. According to Plan International Australia, Fran’s post alone resulted in them receiving more than $49,000 in donations.

Saying “no” to new fashion

Working in the media often comes with the obligation of looking a certain way on camera. But unlike a lot of her colleagues in a front-facing television role, Fran has sworn off buying new clothes since 2019, and her advocating for this has inspired others to do so.

It’s a decision that helps not just her pocket but the environment too. According to Berlin-based thinktank Hot or Cool Institute, Australians buy more cheap fashion than any other wealthy nation and need to reduce their clothing consumption by 74 per cent to combat global heating.

With the exception of a few basic items like stockings, Fran has not purchased a new item of clothing in five years, instead sourcing her clothes through op-shops, vintage stores and Facebook Marketplace.

“The catalyst was the fact that I was hosting a nightly show on SBS and I was just expected to wear something new every night,” says Fran. After accumulating so many clothes for the show, Fran and the show’s stylist started to question why they were buying so many new items, especially as they were tailored to Fran’s size and the “look” of the show, making it unlikely they would ever be reused. “No other presenter really is going to wear them … They’re just going to end up either gathering dust here or being thrown out or not used at all.”

Together, Fran and the show’s SBS team pledged to go without buying new clothes for a year. While Fran left SBS mid-year, she has continued to say no to buying new clothes ever since. Followers have reached out on social media to tell Fran how seeing her journey inspired them to try the slow-fashion life too. “Usually, every time I do a post, or every time I post about a really good retail place that only does slow fashion, people will jump into my DMs and say, ‘Hey, I’m trying to not buy anything new for a month!’” says Fran. “I’m always super chuffed.”

With all her efforts to advocate and give a voice to those who are traditionally unheard — women and girls, the environment, young people, or minority groups — hearing about the impact she’s had on others is a reminder of why she does what she does.

Fran was once approached in the street by a Syrian man who recognised her from her online videos. Recounting the moment on the Wilosophy podcast, Fran said that the man told her that he’d arrived in Australia only two years prior and that he loved her videos as they helped him better learn and understand what Australia is about.

“I felt really honoured by that,” Fran told Wilosophy, pleased that her videos had helped someone understand Australian society on a deeper level. “I centre minority audiences and women quite a lot, and so when they do come up to you and say, ‘I’ve learned a lot from your work’ or ‘thank you for your work’ or ‘I appreciate your work’, it just puts into perspective the whole reason why I do what I do.”

Article Featured in WellBeing Magzine 213

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Jan Fran

The Best Foods to Eat That Kill Parasites

by | | Curated Content

December 16th 2024
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Dr. Will Cole
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The Best Foods to Eat That Kill Parasites

What’s the Best Natural Toothpaste?

by | | Curated Content

December 13th 2024
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Wellness Mama Blog | Simple Answers for Healthier Families
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Toothpaste has been a passion of mine ever since I learned teeth can be remineralized. I used to always make my own, but there are so many good options out there now. However, there are plenty of brands that claim to be natural yet have sketchy ingredients. Here are some of the best natural toothpaste […]

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https://wellnessmama.com/reviews/best-natural-toothpaste/