Hey, I’m Musa Francis!
I help queer creative business owners bloom into happier, healthier, more resilient versions of themselves.
My pronouns are he/him.
As a queer and trans Resilience Coach, I do this by helping my clients create healthy lifestyle habits and self-care rituals for better mental and emotional wellbeing and so they can feel their best whilst doing the creative work they love.
Through my own journey of recovery from depression, chronic stress, anxiety, burnout and trauma, I’ve come to know how essential it is to honour, nurture and nourish yourself in order to thrive as a queer creative entrepreneur.
Dimming my light.
These days, I’m the happiest, healthiest, and most resilient I’ve ever felt in my life, but it hasn’t always been this way.
Growing up as a queer, gender-nonconforming, alternative, third culture kid in a religious household wasn’t easy. Add some sexual trauma to all that minority stress and you have yourself a recipe for poor mental health. I caught on quickly that questioning gender roles and social norms, speaking up for myself, and expressing too much difference led to rejection, isolation, and harsh punishment.
I was too much for those around me and didn't fit in anywhere. Being my true self wasn’t acceptable or safe, so I learned how to dim my light, put on a mask, and perform conformity. I figured out what levels of difference were safe to express and held on to those, but otherwise shrunk myself down into a little package of perfection that was a little quirky but acceptable to all.
While I was deeply connected with my sense of self, I felt so disconnected from the people and the world around me. I was depressed, painfully lonely, and always anxious about being ‘found out’.
I lost my sense of joy, my inner peace, and my aliveness.
Disconnecting from me.
By the time I was 16, I was so tired of having two identities. I was depressed and stuck in a cycle of self-harming and restrictive eating. Life had taught me that being more like everyone else made things a hell of a lot easier, so I dove headfirst into conformity. I got the “right” hairstyle, wore the “right” clothes, listened to the “right” music, moved my body the “right” way, said the “right” things, did the “right” things, and got the right “friends”, and dated the “right” people.
While I identified as bisexual, I chose to only date cisgender heterosexual men and pretty much found my ideal man on my second day at university. I like to call this part of my life my “mainstreaming” phase.
And for a while, it worked. Life was a lot easier. I was so good at this mainstreaming project that I bought into it fully and believed this version of me was who I truly was. What I didn’t realise at the time was that by choosing to conform, I’d also rejected myself. Sure, I had plenty of friends, plenty of fun and I thought I was happy. But there was still this sense of unease under the surface. Most of my connections felt shallow and the acceptance felt hollow and I felt the deepest sense of disconnect with myself.
My turning point.
After experiencing yet another sexual assault at the age of 20, I started taking antidepressants and things only went from bad to worse. I’d spent the past 15 years struggling with depression, anxiety, chronic stress, and trauma and coping as best I could. But now I was hearing voices and spending every minute of every day fighting thoughts of suicide.
Therapy became frustrating as I got tired of rehashing the past without seeing any forward momentum. I couldn't function and had to put my entire life on hold.
All I wanted was to feel like myself again.
Like my mind, body and life were my own.
I knew I had to find another way to heal.
My transformation.
One afternoon in 2010 while journaling, I got the message that I needed to focus on getting my mind, body and spirit as healthy as possible. It was a lightbulb moment for me. I quickly bought some books on physical health, mental health and spirituality that called to me.
A few days later, I was reading a book by Silver Raven Wolf, and in it I read: “To be a witch, you must be brave enough to face everything inside you, and have the courage to change the things you do not like. To be a witch is to desire personal transformation.” These words changed the course of my life. I took to researching, made a plan and got off my meds (please don’t do this without medical supervision!). I spent the next two years focused entirely on getting my body, mind, and heart well.
I developed a practice of regenerative self-care and started the process of reconnecting with my body, freeing my mind, and transforming my life. The depression lifted and I was able to go back to university and graduate, set up my own stationery design and illustration studio, and start a family.
Falling in love.
After 5 years of running Dark Orchid Studio, I went through a devastating period of burnout that left me physically, mentally, emotionally, and creatively exhausted. I knew what I had to do to feel better, but I just wasn’t doing it consistently.
I enlisted the help of a life coach as well as a health coach to help me get my healthy habits in order and my life back on track. Through my work with my coaches, I learned that I’d burnt out doing too much because I was still chasing perfection in all areas of my life. I still felt I was both too much and not enough. The work I did with my coaches helped me see that I was enough and start to change the habits I’d learned as a child in a bid to protect myself.
Through my journey of recovery from depression, anxiety, chronic stress, burnout, and trauma, I’ve come to know how essential it is to honour, nurture and nourish yourself in order to thrive as a queer person. I fell so deeply in love with the transformative power of regenerative self-care and the coaching process that I trained as a health, fitness and life coach so I could devote my time to helping others care for their mental health.
I found that the more I practiced regenerative self-care, the more I reconnected with my body, my intuition and sense of self.
Living in bloom.
Through the practice of regenerative self-care, I started reclaiming those parts of me that I had rejected.
It wasn’t until I was 30 that I realised that my relationships with cishet men felt performative and transactional, and were steeped in compulsory heterosexuality and heteronormativity. They weren’t healthy for me. This led to me uncoupling from my co-parent and partner of 13 years, a painful but necessary process for both of us.
It wasn’t until I was 31 that I fully stepped into my transmasculine self. I’m now living in full bloom as the queer trans man I’ve always been underneath it all.
Although I still struggle with gender dysphoria, I’m now living with more joy, inner peace, wholeness, emotional freedom, and the deepest sense of connectedness than I have at any point in my life thanks to the tools I’ve learned, my practice of regenerative self-care and the coaches I’ve worked with.
My mission.
I live in a small market town in Oxfordshire, England, with my two free-spirited kids.
I now spend my time helping my clients optimise their lifestyle habits, mindset, diet, exercise, and environment for better mental and emotional wellbeing. It is my deepest joy to help guide other queer creative entrepreneurs through the same transformative process I went through.
It’s my mission to help other LGBTQ+ creative business owners to live boldly, to love themselves fiercely, and to care for themselves radically, because we all deserve to live in full bloom as the happiest, healthiest and most resilient versions of ourselves.
I love coaching online through video because it gives me the opportunity to work with queer folks from all over the world.
Learn 5 powerful morning rituals that helped me boost my mood and bloom.
More about me.
I like to live as close to nature as I can.
I’m slowly rewilding and moving towards self-sufficiency and living sustainably, in alignment with the rhythms and cycles of nature. I prefer to build my family’s health through food, plants and lifestyle medicine where possible!
My hair is deeply spiritual and reflects what’s going on in my life.
I let my hair lock up when I’m cultivating radical self-acceptance. I shave it all off when I’m in a period of transformation and need to let go of my past self. Right now I’m rocking locs with an undercut as I’m at a point where I’m doing both at the same time – being in a period of deep transformation while also practising radical self-acceptance.
My grandmother is my idol.
She’s the most bad-ass woman I know. She’s a shaman and a plant medicine healer. I would have loved to apprentice with her but we live on different continents. I get to do my healing work through the medium of health coaching and writing.
When I grow up, I want to be the witch who lives in the deep, dark woods.
I’m a practicing witch who helps facilitate personal transformations through health coaching and writing. My dream home is a homestead somewhere in the British countryside surrounded by thick woodland. Maybe with other folks who want to live off the land, tend to nature, and meet in circle under the moon.
My spirit guide and totem is the lion.
The lion is my clan’s totem and I was also born under the sun sign Leo. Deeply passionate, nurturing, warm, courageous, intuitive and fiercely protective. I can be a little intense and a little too serious at times, but I also love to play.
I went to uni to study Sport Science and graduated with a degree in Illustration.
I’ve had a deep love for the creative arts, human physiology and psychology for as long as I can remember and I can’t seem to choose one over the other. The way I have created my coaching practice allows me to do it all. I get to geek out on the science of the human body and mind, and I get to express myself creatively by creating resources for my clients.
CLIENT SUCCESS STORIES
“Musa’s 90-day transformation program has taught me how to change my habits, slow down, make myself a priority without feeling guilty. I now live a much more relaxed and stress-free life. I feel healthier than I have in years, and my family and clients have a much better version of me!”
JENN, AUSTRALIA
Ready to start your journey to radical resilience?
The best place to start is to join my free Boost Your Mood & Bloom email course. Over 5 days, I’ll teach you 5 powerful morning rituals to help you start your day feeling more empowered, positive and calm. You’ll also receive my weekly(ish) Blooming Queer Notes with tips to help you feel happier, healthier and more resilient as a queer creative business owner.
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