THE RED BIRD TAKES FLIGHT: THE JOURNEY FROM MY HEAD TO MY HEART
A Journey of Healing by Sallie Fraenkel, President - Mind Body Spirit Network
I grew up in a decade when women were told, “You can have it all.”
It was the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the message was everywhere—in movies, advertising, and popular culture. One commercial in particular captured the spirit of the time. In the famous Enjoli perfume ad, a confident woman belts out:
“I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan,
and never, never, never let you forget you’re a man.
’Cause I’m a woman!”
Can you imagine? That was the cultural backdrop I came of age in.
I took that message seriously. I built a big career in the entertainment industry, eventually becoming Senior Vice President of Home Entertainment at Showtime. I led the home video distribution arm of the network, releasing Showtime’s original films and series on VHS and DVD. What started as a small operation grew into a $25-million division!
At the same time, I had what looked like a well-adjusted family life. My husband and I raised two daughters, shared quality time together, and maintained close friendships and extended family relationships. Independence, for me, meant traveling for work - and sometimes for pleasure - while holding it all “together”…
Back then, no one talked about stress, burnout, anxiety or depression. There was no language for lower pay coupled with higher expectations. If you couldn’t “do it all”, you were a failure. This coupled with the even greater pressure I placed on myself, I climbed the corporate ladder while also blazing a non-traditional trail: working part-time in an industry where no one else did. You were either all in or all out, but I was fortunate in some ways to have a boss who needed me enough to allow me to work a part time schedule. It came with a price.
From the outside, it looked like I had found balance. Inside, however, I was losing myself.
I powered through anxiety and depression without knowing what to call them.
I told myself I was fine.
But the cost was real.
I lost parts of myself trying to please others, striving for perfection, living with constant guilt, suppressing my true feelings, and fearing what might become of me.
In my mid-30s, a birthday gift from my mother - a trip to Canyon Ranch - became a quiet but powerful catalyst for change. At first, it didn’t feel like an epiphany but for the first time, I experienced mind-body connection. Through movement, breathwork, bodywork, and exposure to positive psychology, I started to actually feel my body and my emotions. I had been thinking my way through life all this time!
Something subtle had started to shift and I began to recognize that my thoughts and feelings were separate and also deeply connected. A seed was planted, growing with each annual trip I took to the ranch with my mother over the next 9 years.
My mother passed away suddenly. She suffered from several ailments including clinical depression, and her struggles shaped me in ways I didn’t fully understand for years. I learned coping mechanisms early - one of them being denial - but we all know that denial only works for so long.
After her death, as I began to unravel my own emotional patterns, my self-awareness deepened. What I came to realize was that I had been pursuing balance only on the outside. What I truly needed was to find the balance between my external life and my internal world.
I presented a strong, capable face to everyone around me, but the wall I had built around my true feelings began to crumble. I found myself crying in professional settings, unable to articulate anger or frustration because I had never learned how to give those emotions language. Therapy became a turning point - it helped me begin to heal and to listen inward.
In 2004, after twenty years at Showtime, my role was eliminated by a new boss who no longer wanted me there. Suddenly, I was at a crossroads: stay in the entertainment industry or reinvent myself.
I didn’t yet realize how profound that reinvention would be.
Around that time, I began working with a life coach. In just a few sessions, a surprising clarity emerged. I named a goal that felt both daring and inevitable: to be the CMO of Canyon Ranch. Once I said it out loud, I told everyone - friends, colleagues, even my father.
And these words carried me forward.
That intention led me, quite unexpectedly and within just three short months, to SpaFinder, the world’s largest marketing company for spa and wellness. A chance breakfast conversation introduced me to someone on the board. One meeting led to another and within a few months I started as a consultant, quickly became Chief Marketing Officer, and then shortly after that, COO.
For the first time, I had daily access to wellness modalities of every kind, alongside continued therapy and coaching. I was learning, healing, and growing - yet I was still living primarily from my head.
“My upbringing had taught me that being “strong” meant suppressing feelings in favor of intellect. I found myself in difficult situations where that belief kept me silent, even when silence was costing me dearly.”
In 2012, while attending a corporate women’s retreat in the Dominican Republic, I went for a walk with a new friend who happened to be a Feng Shui master. As I shared my struggles - feeling stuck, disconnected, unsure of what I truly wanted - a red bird landed on a nearby bush. She pointed to it and said, “In Feng Shui, the Red Bird represents your future. It’s important to choose carefully what you place there.”
Her words stopped me in my tracks.
What was I choosing? And what did I truly want to manifest?
Within two years, I left SpaFinder and the Global Wellness Summit to start my own company: the Mind Body Spirit Network - my “red bird”.
By blending my busy, analytical mind with a more truer, aligned self - my heart - I began creating a world I wanted to live in. What started as curated gatherings, wellness journeys and consulting for spas and wellness companies evolved into something deeper. I was finally my own boss. I chose who I worked with and how. I treated myself with compassion instead of endurance.
However, the red bird was only beginning to fly.
In 2007, my husband Michael and I attended a Bob Dylan concert in the Catskill Mountains. A pop-up tent advertising local real estate caught our attention, and the next day we bought seven acres of land - really quite impulsively. When the market crashed in 2008, it seemed like a mistake. But we held on to our vision and gut instinct.
In 2020, during COVID, we spent long hours by the fireplace talking about that land. Together, we imagined building a “wellness house.” And we did.
The Red Bird House opened in the summer of 2023 - a physical embodiment of the journey I had been on for decades. Today, it hosts retreats and healing experiences, including those I lead with my late-in-life best friend, Wendy. Through workshops, sound baths, breathwork, yoga, art and shared reflection, we help women reconnect with themselves and discover what they are longing for - whether that’s joy, friendship, purpose or authenticity.
That is how the red bird took flight.
It is how I continue to walk the path from my head to my heart, and how I now invite others to join me.
“Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall, and in falling, they’re given wings.”
— Mawlana Jalāl ad-Dīn Rumi
MY WELLNESS TIPS
A therapist and a coach are extremely helpful in finding clarity and healing
Build a “team” of friends and trusted people who will show up for you. I cherish “Team Sallie,” a blend of family, friends and others who are wise.
Don’t vilify anything – be open to western medicine, eastern medicine. The wellness industry often judges in ways that aren’t helpful.
Trust yourself. The answers that work for you are within and if you are willing and able to do the work, you will find them.
CONNECT WITH SALLIE