Cara Bean on the Power of Comics to Explore Mental Health with Kids

Debbie:

Hey Cara, welcome to the podcast.

Cara Bean:

Thank you so much for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Debbie:

Yeah, I’m excited to talk about your book and your work. And I’ve already read your formal bio, but I always like to hear from my guests in their own words, like to learn a little bit more about what you do in the world. And I always love to know people’s personal why for their work.

Cara Bean:

Yes, I was a high school art teacher for about 13 years in Lexington, Massachusetts. And I ran a classroom and I drew with students every day. And probably not very long into my career, I realized that mental health was a huge part of teaching at a high school and would come up in the art classroom quite often. And you’re always encouraged as a teacher to pursue professional development and I didn’t want to learn anything more about art. I felt okay with my own knowledge based on that, but what I didn’t know enough about was anything to do with mental health and I found that especially maybe my more shy or artistic students, the creative kids would kind of choose me as their safe person to talk to and I was ill prepared and wanting to serve them better. And so I kept learning about mental health at any opportunity or workshop. And you should also know that I’m a cartoonist and I draw comics and I doodle constantly. I was just drawing right before we started. And so when I take notes, when I’m really trying to learn something, I draw it when I really want to absorb something. And so when I was learning about depression and suicide and anxiety, I was drawing everything that I was learning. And those pictures and notes became interesting to other people besides me. And people thought, well, that’s it. Can I borrow that? Or those are great notes. Or can I photocopy that? And it started to be, this was probably like 12 or 15 years ago. I just kind of realized it was something I was doing that was interesting to other people. And over time, I created little pamphlets or zines about it. And someone challenged me about six years ago or seven years ago, if I could create something that spoke directly to kids using comics. And it took me a really long time and a lot of help from many brilliant people and experts and practitioners, but I created this book called Here I Am, I Am Me, An Illustrated Guide to Mental Health, which uses comics and visual metaphors to talk about mental health. So it’s interesting. It came out of the art classroom, but it is very much my best communication skills, I think, are through my hands and hopefully my heart. So that’s a little bit about me.

Debbie:

That’s such a great story. And I’m curious, were you always someone who learned through drawing when you were a kid as well?

Cara Bean:

Yeah, I was just looking through some old letters I’d written to my father and I was reading, I’d gone to graduate school and I was telling him about how intimidated I was about this one class and how hard it was and how I was just gonna draw everything. And I was like, wow, I’ve always done, this is really like, this is my go-to of understanding. And I think I do have some dyslexia that was not diagnosed when I was in school, but I think I did struggle to learn. And so when it was really serious and I absolutely wanted to get it, I would draw. And I often rewrite information that I like. I’ll write it in my own handwriting, and that’s another way that I process and understand. So yeah, that’s kind of the beginning place.

Debbie:

Yeah, that’s so cool. And let’s talk a little bit more about, you know, the art form of comics or doing graphic novels. I mean, this isn’t a novel, but you know, a graphic book to connect with kids, but also like, what is it about mental health and this medium that you think is so powerful?

Cara Bean:

My goodness. Yeah, it really does collaborate in a beautiful way, mental health and comic books. And I found it myself before I really started making my own comics, there were certain cartoonists that I would read, one’s name was John Porcelino. He would do these autobio memoir comics about his life and he talked about his OCD. And I couldn’t believe how honest and beautiful it was. And how the simplicity of it and how easy it was to read and probably harder to say out loud really like those experiences, something about the image and the picture. But I think like, if you think about comic books, we have thought bubbles in comics. You can literally see into thoughts, which like maybe you can’t even really do it in a movie, you might have a voiceover or something, but you can have this dualistic. I speak one thing, I think another, I say I’m fine, I’m not fine. And you can also have these beautiful metaphors for feelings and internal experiences. You can create creatures or various characters to represent your anxiety or your fears or your frustrations. So I think that’s, and kids get that, they’re like, incredible Hulk, that’s the anger persona of like, you know, like exploding feelings. So it’s, it’s always been there. But like, I think there’s this movement called graphic medicine. That’s like, doctors and patients and educators and academics that are using the format of comics to heal or to explain or you know, if I’m a surgeon and I’m going to do surgery on you, I want to show you what part of your body and like what you might feel before. And if I’m a patient, I might say, you’re a doctor I’m meeting for the first time. I want to show you my history of the things I’ve gone through. And so there’s, I feel like it kind of fits into that. There’s a movement of this. And I discovered it as I was stepping into it just intuitively. There’s a lot of people working in this art of comics to communicate and help others in many ways, but I really love that.

Debbie:

That’s so cool. So I want to talk also about the subject matter. So you were a teacher. How long has it been since you were a teacher? And I’m kind of curious how you stay on the pulse of what’s happening with teens and adolescents.

Cara Bean:

I mean, I left, I didn’t know I was really leaving teaching. I kind of told myself I would leave for one year and that was in 2018 before the pandemic. And I left and as I started this book and realized what a huge project I just, and I had sold the idea of it before I had actually written a manuscript and I had to learn. And I’m really glad I did actually, because I had beautiful support and wonderful people helping to guide me. I think by myself, I don’t know that I could have done it. But I was outside the classroom when the pandemic happened and I was seeing what my friends were going through and my friends, you know, everyone’s families were going through and the need for mental health resources was like shooting through the roof. It already was, but it was like so much more so. But it just took me, it takes a long time to draw a graphic novel. Like you just, it’s hours of sitting and sketching and then you’re coloring it and there’s all these edits and it’s a lot of steps. It’s not just like typing. So it just took, it wasn’t until 2024 that the book actually came out. And so now just in the last couple of months, I’ve visited some schools and I’ve met with some kids. And so that’s been exciting to see how it lands, because I was a bit nervous, but it took me so long to make and I wasn’t the same teacher person I was beforehand and the world had changed so much. But at the end of the day, like we all have brains and nervous systems and feelings and that will always be there no matter what’s going on in the world. And kids have been receptive. I was afraid that maybe it would be too much science or too much vocabulary in the book and that doesn’t seem to bother them. And I got like one really funny email from a little girl who it really made me feel good because she was just completely friendly with me as if we were buddies already because and she felt that way I hoped because of the book and she wasn’t focused on out of the heavier information in the book. She liked that there was talk of feelings and how her brain was changing as she was getting older, but she was like cracking jokes with me. And that just made me feel so, I was so worried about there’s only so many things to be worried about when you make a book like this. You know, is it accurate? Is it good? Is it helpful? Is it the right thing? Am I in the right order of how to say it? But at the end of the day, it’s how kids … for me, that’s the real test is if they accept the book and if it’s helpful to them. So I’m starting to get those. It’s only been out about two months and I’m starting to get those messages that I know are coming straight from them and not because someone asked them to write in it or you know, a teacher asked. So that’s for me the real proof in the pudding. But yeah, it’s, it is a, it’s an intense world that we live in and with the internet and all of the stimuli that we have and the, you know, the childhoods of our kids today are so much different from our own. And, you know, and so in that way, I can’t, you know, I probably want to team up with like a 13 year old and help illustrate their thoughts on what that’s like. But I thought, there are certain things that I just wish I’d known as a kid. And there’s so much great science communication now and so much understanding about our brains that, you know, is more readily available, but I hadn’t really seen it in a comic book. I wanted to see what that would be like. Yeah.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah, that’s great. A couple of things that just came up as you were talking. One is that I just interviewed Ellen Galinsky, who wrote a wonderful book called The Breakthrough Years. So I’m recommending it for you and also listeners, make sure you listen to that episode. She spent 10 years researching with teenagers about what they want people to know about their experience. And I think that, you know, is connected to what you were saying too, how powerful it could be to sit down with teens and find out what’s going on in their inner world. And I guess, you know, just before we pivot to getting more into the book, I’m just curious your thoughts, because there’s been so much discussion lately about the mental health crisis and Jonathan Haidt has his book out on the anxious generation. And there’s just so much discussion and people trying to figure out what’s really going on. And you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but I’m curious if you have thoughts on it. How do you come at this from?

Cara Bean:

I mean, I think I’m just, I’m just watching like everybody else and I can really only go by probably my nieces and nephews and like my friends. I don’t have kids. So like the kids that are closest to me and you know, they’re pretty awesome. I don’t know. Like I’m impressed with them. And I, but I also like, have a heavy heart about it because I feel like, like, we escaped this. There’s a lot more trap doors, it feels like, in this world and a lot more fear because of all the information that’s coming out and they seem to still find connection and meaning and fun. So maybe it’s going to be okay. You know, like, I don’t have a strong answer. You know, I’m very much a feeling person. So, you know, I get and maybe I’m a bit of an optimist here. So I am kind of hoping that they’re figuring it out. And I even had a conversation with a college student recently and that was like in their 20s. And they were talking about, they really want to talk about generations. And I guess I’m generation X and I was like, I don’t get into this like generational talk as much, but they’re really into it. And I said, well, the only thing I can think of is you know, I’m not, I don’t like to be on my phone during a conversation and that’s, I thought that was different because I’m older and they said, well, you know, we’re changing. We’re not doing that as much. And I was like, well, that’s great. So I, I feel like things are shifting and changing and they’re aware of when it gets to be too much and they’re struck, they’re watching too. And yeah, I guess I don’t have a good answer, but I’m watching. Yeah.

Debbie:

There’s no good or right answer. I’m just curious, but I agree with you. I think I’m so impressed with this generation in so many ways. And I think that your book is really respectful and generous in the way that it shares really complex topics. And so maybe this is a good point. We’ll take a quick break and then let’s talk more about your book when we get back.  Okay, so you mentioned earlier your book is called Here I Am, I Am Me, An Illustrated Guide to Mental Health. It’s great, I just have to say like, it feels really good in your hands, it’s color, it’s got great paper stock, it’s just nice, I love the sensory experience of your book. But I love that as soon as you open the book inside the front cover, so you’re not even in the book yet, you dive right in by sharing an illustration of the parts of the brain in this very kind of fun and accessible way. And then of course you have a whole chapter on the brain later on where you go into a lot of detail, but again, in a very accessible way. So I want to know more about that. Why was it so important to you to include the brain science in there?

Cara Bean:

There were a couple of things when I proposed this book that I knew I wanted to be in there. And one was the brain. I wanted to look inside the brain. I wanted to, you know, have just like a simple understanding of brain anatomy and how it affects our emotional health. And then I also knew that there had to be a chapter about suicide. And those are the two things that I was like, my non -negotiable. This is what’s going to be in the book. And then as I started researching the brain and reading everything about the brain, my gosh, that probably took like just a couple of years of just being like, what can I actually say? Like, there’s so much research and so much going on. And what’s good for a kid to know what’s good for me to know? And where do I stop? And like, how deep do I go? And because I’m a cartoonist, I’m looking for metaphors and characters everywhere all the time. And so I kind of found the characters in the brain. And I realized as I research different topics like anxiety and depression and addiction that certain characters kept coming back. Like you’re going to keep hearing about your hippocampus and your amygdala keeps showing up and you’re going to hear about your prefrontal cortex like over and over. And so I thought, well, they’re going to keep coming back. They’re characters. And then, you know, the fun part for me is figuring out the sort of mind puppets of my little drawing puppets. I’m giving myself freedom to kind of make up what they look like a little bit because it’s just a brain. You know, I’m going to give them different colors. Some of them are wearing glasses. Like some of them have facial expressions or one eye or two eyes. So that helped me organize how to even create the book and like how to use the brain in a way that’s like helpful enough to get you through like a moment because I think when you can recognize like, I’m having a reaction, like that’s the biggest thing is to help you get past that reaction is even knowing that you’re having a reaction. So, yeah, so I, I probably spent maybe two years just writing that brain chapter, the first one. and the intro to the book also, it took me a long time to put myself in the book. I didn’t want to be in the book. and it only works if I’m in the book.

So that was a thing. I’m a bean. My last name is Bean. And my students would call me Ms. Bean. So I’m just, I would always sign beans, everything beans. So that’s part of the book. And so you’ve got this bean telling you things and you’ve got your brain and all the brain characters. And you also have another recurring character, which is stigma, which is a monster. And I make this creature for when we don’t want to speak about things or we’re feeling bad, or made to feel bad, or we feel bad about something. That character kind of creeps up in different topics when we get a little nervous to ask for help or speak our truth and kind of admit something that’s not right. Yeah.

Debbie:

Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned yourself as a character in the book. And so it’s interesting to hear that that was something you knew had to be in there, but you didn’t want to put in there. And you kind of share some stories from your life. So I’d love to hear a little bit more about that. You brought it up, so let’s talk about it.

Cara Bean:

Yeah, no, I think it’s really like it was a battle for me to get there and if anyone out there is a teacher or like talks to groups of people at any time. When you share personal stories, that’s off topic, you’ve got their attention so much more than when you’re trying to give like the information at hand. So I would notice that in the classroom, like, OK, we’re studying, you know, observational drawing or we’re going to make a sculpture. But if I tell them about this puppy that I found on the way to school and I had to figure out what to do with it and I’ve got their hanging on my every word because they’re like, I’m telling them something outside real about my life and it’s a true thing that just happened. And so I knew I wanted to have a connection moment in almost every chapter and I call them the pink pages, but they’re in the hippocampus is the part of your brain associated with memory.

And so they’re the hippocampus pink pages. And I would just kind of have a memory or a thought and I would illustrate it and it’s a true story. And some of them are funny and some of them are serious and depending on what we’re talking about. But I hope that it and I know that when I would read non -fiction and I loved non -fiction as a kid. So this book is kind of like the book I wanted as a kid. I love the true stories of people’s lives. Like I wanted to flip through and read all of the actual true stories. And then I could go back and take in the information if I cared or if I was interested, but I needed that grounding. And so I knew, I didn’t know that when I first began the book, but I realized it was kind of as you make a book, the book has rules for you. And it kind of tells you like, okay, each chapter must have a personal story. There should be a map for every chapter of questions. And like, so that’s gonna happen. And then little by little, it organizes itself, but not clearly for me, very slowly over time. Yeah.

Debbie:

Well, just to go back to the stories too, they also create this kind of credibility for you and that you have lived experience. So it’s worth listening to what you have to say. So I thought they were really powerful and a really important part of the book. And it’s also just really interesting to hear how you organized it. I think, you know, it’s like, it’s an illustrated book, graphic, you know, drawings. Like, you spent years thinking about this and I love hearing, you know, getting these little glimpses of just the maps you had inside your brain of how to organize and the themes even color wise that are present throughout the book. So I just so appreciate how thorough and thoughtful this whole process has been for you.

Cara Bean:

That’s great. Yeah, when I made this book, I would just make comics for fun. I just made comics about my life or funny stories or experimental comics when I wasn’t teaching. It was my art form. And I found that not intentionally when I look back at them now, so many of my stories were about anxiety and the like climaxes, me having a super embarrassing moment or which is usually really funny, or I completely freak out about something that is not a big deal actually, but I didn’t know that at the time. And I was like, these are all about my anxiety, but I was not consciously doing that. So it was nice to take a step into this book where I was very conscious, like sharing these stories to show like, yeah, my humanity and my struggles as well and just how all these topics connect to each one of us and that like whether you you don’t have to be a mental health professional to have mental health conversations and any one of us could be the person that someone turns to just like I was as the art teacher and you could be the coach you could just be the aunt or uncle you could be the parent you could be anybody and are you ready for that do you feel prepared to to guide someone in the right direction and that was kind of like the hope that comes through in the book that it’s  really it’s for kids but it’s also for any of us that kind of wants that little bit of like reassurance and you know good information.

Debbie:

Yeah, I’m glad you said that because it is a book that certainly I think so many, you know, teens, adolescents would really get so much out of. I think it’s written for your ages 12 and up is how it’s marketed. but yes, it’s certainly a book that any parent adult who works with kids, teacher, therapist would get so much out of because you do offer a way to talk about some really challenging and difficult topics in a way that feels, I don’t know, comfortable is not the word, but it feels doable. You know, I think we can get paralyzed with some of the heavier topics. So your whole book kind of tackles all the things, right? You talk about anxiety, you talk about depression, you talk about cognitive distortions, you really kind of cover all the different kinds of mental health challenges that not just a young person, that a human could experience. And you have a chapter on substance use and addiction I thought was really powerful. And so could we talk about that a little bit? I’d love to know how you went about approaching that subject.

Cara Bean:

Yeah, so yeah, up until that point in the book, things are pretty fun and light and airy. Like we learn about the brain and we learn that we all have a mind and we learn about our nervous system, but we can laugh about that, you know, and, but once you get into substance use and addiction, that’s where the book kind of takes a darker turn in the, in the conversation gets a lot heavier. And, and this is a topic that’s very strong in my own family. And I share that in the book. There is plenty of addiction and substance use in my family. And that was the thing I was dying to have someone talk to me about when I was a kid and nobody was. So this, that part really was, it was a hard chapter for me to write. And I knew that I actually, if you, if anyone out there is a fan of Bill Watterson and Calvin and Hobbes. I loved that comic as a kid and you know he’s a very private person and he doesn’t write. I don’t think he writes about substance use and addiction but one thing he does do is he talks about philosophy a lot of times in his comics and on like heavy topics sometimes and he in the one interview said that that’s when he would put Calvin and Hobbes on a sled or the roller coaster they would be really moving and like there’d be action because the subject matter was so heavy. And so that chapter, each chapter has a kind of metaphor location in the book. And the substance use and addiction chapter is located in an amusement park because it’s a double mean fast. There’s sugar and there’s rides and like, it’s really easy to take that stuff into talking about drugs and alcohol and behavioral compulsions. 

So that’s how I handled it. I took a page out of Calvin and Hobbes and I just put that first roller coaster ride is where you really learn what drugs can do to you. It can kill you, it can damage all the different ways they can damage you. And I just thought, okay, well, we’re just gonna zip through the information and hopefully that lands. And then, and then what’s nice in a comic too is you can take a visual break after something heavy. And I love, my favorite cartoonists will do this. Like, you know, you’ll have this fight scene or you’ll have this big reveal of something terrible that happened. But then you can have a page where it’s just like a meadow or a sunset and you can kind of take a beat before you get into the next topic. And I felt like I was able to do that a little bit in that chapter. And then for me, having a family member that was an alcoholic, I liked the tilt of world as the metaphor for when you love somebody that has an addiction and they don’t want to get off the ride and you desperately want them to get off the ride and maybe you’re on the ride with them for a little bit and then you go, I can’t do this and I have to get off the ride with you and I hope that you get off the ride too, but I can’t control that. So like finding those metaphors for me, like when I would, I wouldn’t find them right away. I would have to kind of search and doodle and draw my sketchbook and sit on the floor. But once I found them, I was like, okay, I’ve got it. Like, this is a way I can explain it. And so that was, you know, on the pink pages from that chapter, I have a cousin who passed away from an overdose. And I had to, you know, I was really nervous about putting that in the book. But I think it’s really important that everybody knows that this affects families and affects many members of families and everybody, whether they’re talking about it or not, is affected by it. And even if it’s not you personally, or even someone really close to you, it is affecting all of us. And it’s good to come out to remind each other.

Debbie:

Yeah. And it is, I was thinking of, just like he spoke the addiction and inoculation and you know, we talked about that on the show as well. And I think, you know, that book and you know, this chapter and just what we’re talking about is a reminder that we have to talk about these things. I think there’s a lot of fear in some adults that, well, we don’t want to explain this stuff in too much detail to our kids because it might make them more interested in. I mean, the same goes with really any serious subject. Let’s avoid it, not talk about it. But it’s so important that they have access to really good solid information because they’re curious and we want them to learn about the stuff from good sources.

Cara Bean:

Right, yeah. And like in a comic, you can say one thing in the words and show something else in the pictures. So even though we’re talking about these heavy and dangerous drugs, you’re not seeing pictures of them, not even learning what they look like. Like the picture is just the amusement park. You know, it’s the voice speaking to you that’s telling you about things. So I think you can, there’s a little bit of a safety that you can put on that where you can control how much you show and the way that you juxtapose it with imagery in the comic. So I hadn’t thought about that until you just said that.

Debbie:

Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that’s cool. And then I, you know, do want to touch upon the chapter on depression, suicide was, I would say even more, it comes after, it’s even more intense. It’s hard to read about. I think it’s hard for anyone, just knowing that so many kids are struggling right now with this. And I imagine it was really hard for you to write about. And I would love it if you could kind of talk a little bit also about how you approached that chapter, because it’s, again, such an important topic that a lot of people don’t know how to even bring up or explore.

Cara Bean:

Yeah, absolutely. And I was afraid to talk about it too when I first, especially as a teacher in the beginning, like I noticed the guidance counselors would just ask a kid and I was like, how do you do that? And so when I started attending those workshops and trainings, what I would hear from professionals is that talking about it is not a bad thing. And it actually can be a huge relief to someone who is hearing these thoughts and maybe wants someone to help them through it. So it’s like, really great if they have they know that they can talk to somebody, like remove some of the burden of it. And I had made, excuse me, I made this little zine called Snake Pit. It’s on my website, you can still read it. But I just drew what I was learning about suicide and suicidal thoughts and ideation and how it was the perspective and adults like how do you talk to a kid. And I actually used a lot of the same metaphors I use Cliff of being on the edge of something. I kept all of that because I feel like it worked. But I just kind of shifted the conversation in the book with the help of a really wonderful therapist named Michael Safranak, who makes another appearance in the book later as a therapist. But he sat with me. I was really nervous about those chapters. And it was during the pandemic when I was working on them. So I was very isolated.

And I zoomed with him and a few other artists and we drew metaphors for depression. And I talked through like, okay, well, this is how I want it to be in the book, but like, what order should I say this? And we kind of, you know, decided like, it might be really nice to focus on whether if you’re the friend, if you’re the family member or care, caring person that someone else comes to, what do you do? Let’s go through that. And then once we get through that, and also let’s take care of you. How do you feel after that? That was a lot. Let’s take a moment, Suka, and I appreciate it. You handled something really heavy. And then, okay, well, what if it severed you? Then what do you do? And so I was very densely, lovingly, carefully laid out, and probably one of the scarier things I’ve done as an artist, but I’ve had it read by many, many people too, because I was very nervous about it. I wanted to make sure I was a helper, you know? And then, yeah, the depression chapter comes before the suicide chapter, because those aren’t always together. You know, some people that don’t have depression, you know, I have an impulsive act. So we’ve learned about depression.

And it’s kind of that metaphor for that landscape is like a moon like desert, not a lot of plant life, like boulders and pits, you know, and you’re at a place where you can feel stuck or slowed down. And it’s kind of a blue color. And then when we transition to the chapter of suicidal thoughts and suicide, it gets even more gray, you know, and how do we, and we’re really keep seeing that landscape of the cliff, you know, the edge and stuff. This is the only thing. And how can you help somebody or help yourself through that? And yeah, it’s not a lot of pages, but they were really, really carefully composed pages with many hearts and eyes reading them and taking it in. So yeah. I’m proud of those pages, but yeah, they were hard. It was hard to do. Yeah.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah. Mm -hmm, yeah, I bet, but so, so important. And I’m glad you mentioned the snake pit. I read that earlier and I think it’s such a helpful resource. I’ll have a link to that in the show notes too for readers. If you are an adult or a therapist who’s working with teens who are in this place, I thought it was fantastic. Such a great resource. So there’s a lot more we could go into. You talk about coping skills, you talk about therapy. So it feels really comprehensive when looking at the landscape of mental health for young people. As a way to kind of wrap up, could you just share with us, you know, you mentioned some of the feedback you’ve gotten from young people and how great that is. What do you hope the book does in the world?

Cara Bean:

I hope it encourages conversations. I hope that it’s like a resource on people’s shelves as a resource. It’s not, you know, meant to be like this book that you blow through. You just kind of like have it there. And you know, when something happens or you go, like, now I’m kind of in that situation. I remember there was kind of a chapter about that. It didn’t appeal to me at the time, but maybe let’s go back and read it or I’ve got this young person in my life that I care about and we’re both going to read this book and then we can have a bit of a chat about it. I would love for it to be a tool for either the kid or the adult to kind of bridge the gap between how we talk about some of these things. Yeah, that would be a dream. I would love it if it just created connection.

Debbie:

That’s great. That’s wonderful. So listeners, the book again is called Here I Am, I Am Me, An Illustrated Guide to Mental Health. And Cara, tell us where listeners can connect with you and learn more about your work.

Cara Bean:

You can come to my website, it’s called carabeancomics.com. And yeah, I like to do drawing workshops. I’m really still an art teacher. I love to make people draw with me and feel our feelings when they come up when we draw together. And I’ve just started to do some school visits. I love to highlight the wellness team of a particular place and how people can give them some love and give them, you know, focus on them a bit. You may maybe use my book to help bring attention to what people are doing in different communities. So yeah, I’ll be out there in the world, but you can find me at my website.

Debbie:

That’s awesome, thank you. Listeners, as always, I will have links to everything in the show notes page. And Kara, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time and congratulations. I really just think your book is such a fantastic resource. So it’s wonderful you got it out into the world.

Cara Bean:

Thank you, Debbie. I appreciate you having me on your podcast and letting me be a part of your platform where you’re helping so many people. So I appreciate you. Thank you.