January 14, 2025 • 41 mins
We’re less than three weeks into the new year and have already faced a healthy handful of national tragedies (14 killed in Louisiana, the cybertruck explosion outside the hotel in Vegas, the fires in Los Angeles, just to name a few) not to mention the global crises that rage on (the war in the middle east, the destruction in Ukraine, climate change, for example). And this doesn’t even account for whatever personal disappointment or chaos that may be brewing in your little world.
Needless to say, it seems we may be gearing up for another wild year.
So how are we approaching this turning of the clocks? Are we entering in with the same energy we have always brought to January — rigid, individualistic and even sometimes materialistic goals that we are determined to meet?
Or are we entering in with an attitude of softness, of listening?
Are we willing to receive what life is trying to teach us?
On this week’s episode, I want to talk about how I’m trying to soften my way into the new year, and why I think softness (especially when things are hard) is the way of the future.
See the poem I discuss by clicking HERE
Host: Ally Fallon // @allyfallon // allisonfallon.com
Follow Ally on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allyfallon/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back
together with the words you write. All the beauty and
peace and the magic that you'll start too fun when
you write your story. You got the words and said,
don't you think it's down to let them out and
write them down on cold It's all about and write.
(00:22):
You write your story. Write, you write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast.
I'm Ali Fallon, I'm your host, and welcome back also
to a brand new year, Happy twenty twenty five. I
know I published an episode last week, an interview with
my friend Amanda Riga Green, which, by the way, if
you haven't had a chance to listen to that episode
is such a good one, so please go back and
listen to it. But that episode was recorded with Amanda
(00:50):
before you went on this Christmas winter amorphous long, crazy
long break that I feel like we've been on. I
don't know about you, but I feel like we've been
on break for seven or eight lifetimes. So much has
happened in the last couple of weeks, which is part
of what I want to talk about on today's episode.
I want to just kind of catch up on what's
been going on in my personal world, what's been going
(01:11):
on in the broader world, and how I'm entering into
this new year, the mindset that I'm bringing into the
new year, which is same, same, but different also from
the mindset that I carried through twenty twenty four and
through previous years. So that's what I want to talk
about on today's episode. But if you haven't had a
chance to listen to the Amanda Feger Green episode, please
(01:31):
go back and take a listen to that one. It's
all about listening to your intuition, and not just your
intuition the way that you think about it, but also
your extrasensory perception. Amanda is a psychic medium. She's also
a really incredible communicator around astrology and numerology and just
the more mystical aspects of life. And I've learned so
much from being her friend and so much from listening
to her show. I say this in our interview, and
(01:53):
she also interviewed me on her show, which is called
Soul Sessions, and in both interviews I say that her
podcast is one of the only podcasts that I listened
to religiously, Like there are maybe two shows that I
listened to every single episode and her show is one
of those shows. So if you haven't had a chance
to listen to the episode, go listen to the episode.
Go follow Amanda Riegergreen on Instagram. Go find her podcast
(02:17):
called Soul Sessions wherever you listen to podcasts, and make
sure to follow and subscribe to her show too. I
hope you learn as much from her as I do.
I know you're gonna gain so much insight just from
listening to her episode, the interview that she and I
did together last week. And it's so fun that I
get to just have these amazing conversations with my friends
and then get to share them with you. Okay, so
I was saying a minute ago, I don't know if
you feel this way, but I feel like since we
(02:39):
have been on this winter break, this Christmas break, which
for me and my kids started I don't know, like
the twenty third of December until what are we sitting
at now today I'm recording this episode. It's January thirteenth.
You'll hear the episode on January fourteenth, so basically three
long weeks. It has felt like seven years. I don't
know if it has felt like that to anybody else,
(02:59):
but not even just because my kids have been home
and we've been out of a routine, and so that
part of the equation feels, you know, chaotic at times
and kind of difficult, but also just because so much
has unfolded and so much has taken place. And you know,
if you listen to what Amanda is talking about about
the way that the energy is shifting in the world
right now on our planet, that has to play a
(03:22):
role in this too. I'm sure that there are all
these world events that are unfolding. There's a lot of
chaos in the world around us, and it just genuinely
feels like I'm existing in a different time today January thirteenth,
as I sit here recording this episode, it's a different
time than it was the last time that I spoke
to you, which would have been I don't know, the
(03:42):
second or third week of December. One of the things
that's happening for me personally is I've been in this
long process since September of last year of slowly stepping
back from my coaching practice. I've been really vocal about
this here on the podcast and also on Instagram and
other social media platforms, and so if you've been around,
you've heard me talk about this, But essentially, I have
(04:04):
for the last I don't know, ten or fifteen years,
been running online programs to teach authors how to outline
their books and how to get their manuscripts written. I've
been working one on one with clients, helping them edit
their books, or ghost write their books, or you know,
in some capacity, helping them get their manuscripts published. And
I just started feeling the poll really strongly last year.
I've actually been feeling it for a couple of years,
(04:24):
but really strongly last year, to the point where I
couldn't ignore it. Started feeling like I needed to take
a step back from my coaching practice, and I wasn't
sure really why. I knew that on some level, I
was burnt out. I've had two kids back to back
in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. My family has
been through a lot. If you've been listening for a while,
this is all repetitive to you, you know about this.
(04:45):
But my husband and I took a really big chance
on a business investment that didn't go well, and that
has been really stressful financially. We had my mother in law.
This is a really positive thing. Move in to the
house next door to us. We bought like an old
nineteen fifties ranch and renovated it for her, and she's
living next door. We've had, you know, just challenge after
(05:05):
challenge after challenge, after difficulty after difficulty, after transition after
transition after transition. And I know we're not the only ones.
I know that a lot of us have been on
this roller coaster, particularly since twenty twenty as things began
to shift really dramatically in the world around us, through
the pandemic, the early parts of the pandemic, and even
into twenty one and twenty two and twenty three, that
there have been a lot of changes that are happening
(05:28):
for all of us. So I know we're not the
only ones who have felt like for the last five years,
we've been on this wild roller coaster. And so I
started feeling midway through last year like I was not
only burnt out on the work that I was doing,
which I love, by the way, I love my work
and I love my clients, but I was physically burnt out.
I was emotionally burnt out. And also there was something
(05:48):
else happening that I couldn't quite explain. It's like there
was a shift happening in the way that I wanted
to show up in the world, in the way that
I wanted to show up in my personal life as
a mother, as a wife, and the way that I
wanted to show up to be of service to the
broader world. And I couldn't quite put my finger on it,
and I still don't know that I have the perfect
language for it. But one of the things that you'll
(06:09):
hear me say if you listen to previous episodes from
twenty twenty four is something along the lines of I'm
feeling pulled away from the world of publishing. I'm feeling
like something shifting in the way that I help people.
It's less about helping people get books published and more
about helping people understand their stories or engage with the
process of writing. And this is not altogether different from
(06:30):
how I've been showing up over the course of the
last decade plus. I mean, I wrote a book that
published in twenty twenty one called The Power of Writing
It Down. If you haven't read that book, it's still
a great read. In fact, one of the funny things
that happened over the break is my mother in law
stumbled across this post on Facebook from someone who none
of us knew, that had read the Power of Writing
(06:50):
It Down, had been really moved by it, who had
a large platform, and who'd shared about the book, and
the post had gone somewhat viral, like semi viral, and
it had, you know, thousands of shares, tens of thousands
of likes and comments. And she brought it to me
and was like, do you know who this person is?
And I was like no, And what a strange thing
(07:11):
for that that book is years old, which I mean
typically they say after the first six months the book
is out, you won't see a spike or a peek
in the sales at all. It's kind of like what
it does in the first six months, it's going to
show you what the book is going to do. And
that book was a funny one because it came out
in January of twenty twenty one, right at a time
when let's see, Biden was taking office, there was the
(07:34):
insurrection at the Capitol. There was so much happening politically.
It was a really complicated. I don't remember what was
happening exactly with COVID, but I remember it being like
a really confusing and chaotic time, which is sort of
silly to say, because it's like, yeah, welcome to the
world that we live in now. It's chaotic and confusing,
you know, kind of across the board. But the book
(07:55):
came out I think it was like the sixth of January,
the ninth of January something like that. Books always come
out Tuesdays, so I could go back and look at
the calendar and tell you what the date was. But
it came out within days of the insurrection at the
Capitol and of the transition of power from Trump to Biden.
And it was a wild time for a book to
come out, and also a wild time in my personal
(08:15):
life because I had a six month old at home.
We had literally just moved to Nashville from LA. We
moved from LA to escape the fires that were happening
at the time, which is a topic I will circle
back around to later on in this episode. But the
fires were happening in LA at the time that we
moved to Nashville. The smoke was terrible in the city.
(08:35):
We were not in danger where we lived in Pasadena,
in South Pasadena. We were out of the danger and
out of the evacuation zone. And at that point the
way that the fires were taking place in twenty twenty,
we weren't even worried that the fires were going to
come down the hill toward us at all. We were
just too far away from them. And so our reason
for moving was like the build up of the pressure
(08:58):
of living in la through COVID. And then the fires
happened in the hills, and we had an infant and
couldn't take her outside, and we were literally taping garbage
bags over our windows because we lived in one hundred
and ten year old house, an old crafts and style house,
and the windows were the original windows on the house,
and so smoke was seeping in through the seal on
(09:21):
the windows of our house, and so we're taping garbage
bags over the windows to keep the smoke from seeping in,
so that we can keep the air quality in our
house safe enough for us and for this tiny baby,
my daughter who's now four and a half. And so
we literally got in our car. We had no plans
to move at that point, got in the car, drove
across the country to visit some friends in Nashville, because
(09:42):
I had lived in Nashville before and came to Nashville
with the intent to stay for like three to five
weeks and ended up finding a house and buying a
house and the rest is history. So then we moved
shortly later to Nashville. But so twenty twenty one, the
beginning of twenty twenty one, when this book comes out,
there had been an unplanned move. My daughter was six
months old. I was still breastfeeding around the clock. We
(10:04):
still weren't sleeping, she wasn't sleeping through the night. This
book comes out, there's craziness happening in the world around us.
There's unrest happening in my personal life. We had moved
into this house, but we were not settled into the
house yet. We moved the week before Christmas in twenty twenty.
I think I got to Nashville like on the twenty first,
and Matt got here on I want to say, the
twenty fourth. I think he flew in on Christmas Eve,
(10:26):
and so our things, like the movers arrived with our
furniture the first week of January. So it was like,
I don't know, New Year's Day or the day after
something like that. So we were getting all of our
(10:47):
furniture and still arranging our house, and this book is
coming out and I'm supposed to be on Instagram and
promoting it and talking about the book, and my life
was just in utter chaos, and so the book came
out and didn't really do what anybody thought it was
going to do. It's wild now to think about it
and to look at I have four published books. My
(11:09):
first one was called Packing Light, my second one was
called Indestructible, third was called The Power of Writing It Down,
which everyone thought, I mean, everybody was saying to me,
this is going to be your breakout book. And then
I have a book that came out last year called
Write Your Story. Well, the Power of Writing It Down is,
in my opinion, I mean I wrote it, so I'm biased,
but in my opinion, is a fabulous book that really
is about helping people to engage with the process of writing,
(11:32):
because writing can change your life. Writing can heal you
from the inside out. Writing is such a powerful way
to take an experience from your life that feels chaotic
or charged or traumatic and to transmute it into something
beautiful so that you yourself can feel more empowered, and
so that the people around you can connect to it
and can understand where you're coming from. Writing is this
(11:53):
amazing connective resource. It's like the best therapy ever that
we all have access to. And I I wanted The
Power of Writing It Down to be this book that
helped people to meaningfully connect with the tool of writing
and to be able to use it in a way
that was really practical to their lives. So The Power
Writing It Down was really a book about journaling, about
taking events from your life and putting them to paper
(12:16):
in a way that would heal you from the inside out.
That book came out in January of twenty twenty one
and just didn't really do what anybody thought it was
going to do. I mean, it's wild. I still get
the royalty reports from the publisher that published that book,
and I still haven't bought out the advance on the book,
which I'll talk about for a quick minute what this means,
(12:36):
because I know several of you here are interested in publishing.
If you're listening to the show, you may very well
be interested in writing your own book and publishing it.
So when a publisher writes you a check for what's
called your advance on royalties, it's exactly what it sounds like.
It is a check that they write you ahead of
the book ahead of writing the book, to kind of
buy you some time to carve out in your life
(12:58):
to write the book. They write you that check with
the assumption that later, when the book publishes, the book
is going to generate royalties, and whatever your cut of
the royalty share would be, which is like usually around
ten percent, that check is like an early advance on
those royalties that would have come to you. So they're
basically saying, like, okay, you know, the check could be
(13:21):
five thousand dollars, it could be five million dollars, but
they're basically taking a bed on you and saying, we're
going to write you this check ahead of time because
we know that when the book comes out, the book
is going to generate this much revenue. Well, it's like
a great shame for an author to take that check
to go write the best book that they know how
to write, to publish it into the world, and for
the book never to generate that much revenue, never to
(13:46):
buy back the advance on royalties. It's almost like if
your boss were to give you an advance on your
paycheck and then you were to stop showing up to
work and so you never earn back the advance that
they gave you on that paycheck. That's why what it
feels like as an author when your book doesn't buy
back the advance, and so I share that to be
candid and to be vulnerable and to say, like this book,
(14:08):
everyone thought it was going to be my big breakout book.
This was supposed to be the book that you know,
doubled and tripled my previous numbers. It never really did that.
It's still never bought out the advance on royalties. And
it was such a bizarre thing for me to see
over the break that this person who I don't know,
I've never heard from the book is years old at
this point and they found the book, loved the book,
shared about the book on Facebook, and that it was
(14:31):
getting all of this energy and attention around it again
when the book is years old. Was just like this
bizarre dichotomy. But it reminded me. It reminded me that
from the very beginning, this has always been my mission,
This has always been my message, is that writing is
a tool that should be accessible to anybody who wants
(14:51):
to use it. And a lot of times we get
in our minds that writing is a tool that's only
for a certain group of people. It's only if you
have a publishing contracts, only if you have a degree
from you know, x y Z university. It's only for
those who are really good at it, who are really
like gifted with the you know, gifted with words, or
who have perfect grammar or whatever parameters you put around it.
(15:13):
We have these ideas that writing is only for those people,
and that writing is not for me. And to me,
what I want to do and what my mission has
always been is to connect people with the beautiful tool
that writing is and to help people engage with it
in a meaningful way, which sometimes means publishing. Sometimes it does,
and publishing is only part of the story. It's only
(15:35):
a small, small part of the story. Writing is so
much more powerful than that. And so this was a
reminder to me. Over the break. I was like, Oh,
this actually isn't a new thing for me, this way
that I want to show up in the world now,
you know, to kind of shift away from the publishing
focus of it and shift more into the therapy focus
of it. This is not new. This has actually been
(15:56):
going on for a long time. This has been birthing
over the course of the last day decade It's just that,
you know, the publishing angle of things tends to feel
a little sexier. It's an easier sell if you're going
to sell an online course. It feels like, at least
in the past, and maybe the energy around us is shifting,
but in the past, it was much easier to sell
a course called how to write a book than it
(16:18):
was to sell a course that's about how to journal,
you know, to process your emotions. People were much more
interested and were willing to pay a higher dollar amount
for the first one versus the second one. And I
just have been feeling more and more convicted over the
course of the last six months, but year, but two years,
but five years, but ten years. Depends on how you
want to look at it, more and more certain, more
(16:40):
and more sure that what I want to do in
the way that I want to show up in the
world is about teaching people to connect to their ability
to take an experience and transmute it through through words
into something beautiful, into something amazing. And so I've been
taking the step back from my coaching practice, kind of
(17:01):
creating some more space in my life, really unsure about
what that was going to look like. You know, my
my husband and I we've been in this transition. He's
been kind of taking over the breadwinning and the family,
and I've been stepping back from the coaching practice. And
one of the things that unfolded for me overbreak is
I was reminded about how I have wanted to take
(17:23):
a yoga teacher training opportunity. I've wanted to do this
for the last couple of years. It's been on my
short list of things that were really important to me,
and the timing just hasn't seemed to make sense. And
I know I shared about this on a previous episode,
but we got pregnant last summer. We lost the baby
last ball, and when we got pregnant, I sort of
postponed the teacher training in my mind for another couple
(17:46):
of years, just thinking like, it's just too difficult to
take a teacher training when I'm pregnant, and so, you know,
no problem, that will just have to be something for
another time. Well, I didn't really think about it until
December that that wasn't an obstacle anymore, and so I
started to go back and look at the various teacher
training programs that were available in my city, and there
were a few different ones, and one in particular that
(18:08):
had dates that were really aligned with what I had,
the commitments that I had already made. And so I
reached out to my friend because the teacher training program
that I found that had these dates that aligned for
me also happened to be hosted by the studio where
I fell in love with yoga. I started going to
yoga in twenty fifteen. My book called Indestructible, the memoir
(18:31):
that I wrote about leaving an abusive relationship, talks a
lot about yoga and the role that yoga played for
me in that process of finding my own voice and
finding my power, finding my strength, finding my truth, getting
aligned with myself. And I talk a ton about what
a huge role yoga played for me in that process.
And so that studio is the studio where I fell
(18:51):
in love with yoga. It's the studio that I went
to religiously, you know, almost every day of the week
for years and years. And also my friend Brooke, who
I became friends with through the process of training at
her studio, owns how Yoga East Nashville. So I texted
her and asked her about the teacher training program, you know,
would she recommend it for me. I was like, hey,
(19:12):
you know something that you should know is I'm not
in shape. I have not been working out. I do
you know once a week workouts with a group of women.
We've been doing lifting workouts, but I haven't been in
a yoga studio in a couple of years. I think
it had been Let's see, I hadn't really been in
a yoga studio consistently since twenty nineteen, and here we
are and headed into twenty twenty five. So that tells
you how many years it's been since I've been practicing consistently.
(19:36):
And she just was really she really encouraged me. She said,
you know that's you don't need to worry about being
in great yoga shape. If you want to do this
teacher training program, I think it would be great for you.
So come on down. And so I signed up for
the teacher training program just kind of like it just
everything felt right about it. It was very last minute
and kind of in some ways not very well thought out.
(19:57):
But you know how, sometimes there are decisions in your
life where it's just like a full body yes, It's
just like yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, we're going to
move Heaven and Earth we're going to make this work.
And even you know, my husband and I we've been
because of this business investment that we made and because
of the shifts in my work and his work, we've
been trying to you know, cut corners financially as much
(20:19):
as possible so that we can save on our monthly budget.
So when I brought the idea to him, he was
a little hesitant because he was just like, Okay, well,
this is something another added expense that we're going to
have to add to our list. And I just said,
you know, this is super important to me. I am
happy to cut in other ways, but this feels like
something that I just feel really called to do, and
(20:41):
so I want to, you know, do whatever we can
to make it happen. And of course he was on
board as soon as I said that, and so I'm
feeling really grateful and happy, and I was able to
start the teacher training program over the break was sort
of we won't start our official training until the last
week of January, but I'm already in the studio and
taking classes a few day a week and already can
(21:02):
feel just that reconnection with the part of myself that
I feel like I set down in twenty twenty. And
this is too long of a story to get into,
but I'm gonna say this because I feel like there
are other There have to be other people out here
who feel like this. But when everything started happening in
the world in twenty twenty, and in my personal life,
(21:23):
I had Nella in twenty twenty, and that the whole
experience of giving birth to her in the middle of
the pandemic a story for another time and that I've
told in the past on the podcast, but the whole story,
the whole birth experience, was incredibly traumatic and chaotic. And
when that happened in twenty twenty, and when the world
shut down in twenty twenty, and that whole experience that
(21:46):
unfolded in that year, I feel like I flipped into
survival mode. And I don't really know that I've fully
come out of it. And I say that because, you know,
survival mode is it's a natural human instinct. I think
I have in some ways not only been in survival
mode but also been shaming myself a little bit for
(22:08):
being in survival mode because I've almost felt like I
know better. You know, I have the tools and the resources.
I'm very privileged. I have access to ways to regulate
my nervous system, and I should be able to kind
of pull myself up by my bootstraps. But the reality
of the matter is, you know, in twenty twenty, I
went into survival mode, and I don't think that I
fully have come out of it even yet, although I
(22:30):
do think that there's been like a defrosting of survival
mode that's happened in particular in the last six months.
And even though some really difficult things have transpired in
the last six months, like losing the baby, like losing
my dad, you know, like the fall apart of this
business investment, what's also been taking place is an ability
(22:52):
to sink into this experience and really have the experience
instead of resisting against it. And I don't know that
I'm using the quote unquote write language for this, but
for me, the way that it feels is that survival
mode is about resisting against an experience. It's like I
can't take in this experience right now because I have
(23:13):
to just go survive, and so I'm gonna, you know,
dig my heels in and push against this experience and
not allow the experience to come in fully because I'm
afraid that it will overtake me, and the opposite of
survival mode, that regulated state feels a little bit more like.
This experience is uncomfortable, it's challenging, it's difficult, it's not pleasant.
(23:35):
It's not what I would ask for. But I have
an openness. There's a space that's big enough for me
to let in the experience and let the experience show
me or teach me what it's trying to teach me.
And yoga for me, and that their writing does this too.
So there are so many different tools that we have
available to us that can help us to regulate our
(23:56):
nervous systems and help us to have that openness to
fully take in the ex experience. But yoga does this
for me. Just being on my mat, being in the
room that's a heated room, doing the postures, engaging with
my practice again has helped me to ground myself. It's
helped me to feel a little bit more open to
fully receive what life is trying to show me, so
(24:17):
that I can so that I can experience it from
a more regulated place, so that I'm not resisting against
the experience, but I'm fully taking it in. I don't
know if I'm doing a great job explaining that, But
that's just how it feels different in my body when
I'm in what I would call survival mode versus like,
I don't even know what I would call it, a
more regulated state, I guess is what I would call
(24:39):
the other one. So all of that to say, coming
into twenty twenty five, I'm coming in with a little
bit of a different attitude and mentality than I had
in twenty twenty four. It doesn't mean that the attitude
or mentality that I had in twenty twenty four was
bad or wrong. It just means that this attitude and
mentality that I have is slightly more evolved than and
(25:00):
it was in twenty twenty four. And I trust and
believe I was exactly where I needed to be in
twenty twenty four, in twenty three, twenty two, et cetera,
et cetera. And yet in twenty twenty five, I'm feeling
pretty grounded, and I'm feeling pretty planted, and I'm feeling
really regulated, even as the world quite literally explodes around us.
(25:22):
There have been so many things that have taken place
already in twenty twenty five in our global community, in
the United States, and the most recent of which are
the fires that are happening in LA, which feel particularly
close to home to me because I have so many
friends in LA who are affected by these fires, and
(25:43):
so many people that I know personally or I that
are you know, one or two people removed from me,
who are personally very affected by the fires. Who have
you know, people who have lost everything, have lost their homes,
have had every possession that they own burn to the round,
and so watching that unfold has been a really challenging
(26:07):
experience to take in. And there have been other things too.
I mean, just I know that mentioning the LA fires,
I'm not talking about all the other things across the
globe that are also happening, can feel a little lopsided. Sometimes.
The only reason I'm bringing up the fires is because
whenever something happens where someone that you know is affected,
or someone that you you know know someone who knows
(26:29):
someone you know is affected, it always feels more pressing.
It always feels closer to home. It always like really
levels you and reminds you about how easily this sort
of thing could happen to you, and the further away
things are. This is just human nature. This isn't even
anything that we're doing wrong. Just the further away a
tragedy is from you, the easier it is to feel like, oh,
(26:53):
that could never happen to me, because it's so far away.
It's you know, it's that the person who's suffering is
living such a different life than what I'm living. But
I remember when I was living in LA and when
the tornado happened here in Nashville. The tornado happened here
(27:17):
in Nashville, And because I've kind of toggled back and
forth between Nashville and LA, when I was in LA,
I was watching the tornado destroy the apartment building that
I had lived in up until twenty eighteen, and so
it was like so close to home. And even though
I wasn't living in Nashville at the time, it felt
almost as if I was. It felt like I'm watching
this apartment building have the face ripped off of it
(27:41):
and having all of my friends in this neighborhood be
displaced because of this event, and I could almost feel
like I was there, like it was happening to me.
And so when things happened that are that close to
home for us, and maybe the fires aren't it for you,
But maybe there's something else that's it for you that
really gets at you, that really, you know, keeps you
(28:02):
up at night. And for me watching Instagram and hearing
from people and what they were experiencing in the La fires,
I had to finally delete the app because it was
so traumatizing and challenging for me to listen to what
was happening. But even in that, hear this kind of
balance between fully taking in an experience and resisting it.
(28:25):
So there's no one right way to do this. And
I'm not saying that we should be able to stay
on Instagram and take in all of this horrifying information,
because I do think that we have so much more
access than we've ever had to horrifying information that our
bodies were simply not made to take it all in.
But I want you to start to hear this nuance
(28:45):
between digging your heels in and feeling like I can't
I can't receive what my life is trying to give
me that survival mode, and then the flip of that coin,
which is like I'm going to regulate and ground and
grieve and feel and take it all in. There's space
enough for me to take this in. And what I
have found is that when I can do that, and
(29:09):
it doesn't mean that I have to keep Instagram on
my phone or that I have to keep scrolling all
day or any of that, I don't even think that
that is healthy. But when I can ground down and
settle in and regulate my nervous system and open to
receive even the horrifying stuff, even the death of my father,
even the loss of the baby, even the LA fires,
(29:29):
even my friends who are hurting, even all of it.
When I can ground down and settle in and regulate
my nervous system and fully receive all of it, everything
that's right here for me. It doesn't have to be
I'm not saying get on Instagram and take all of
that in only to your capacity, But when I can
do that, then I have the capacity to transmute something
(29:54):
that's horrible into something that's slightly less horrible. So so
think about my friends in LA who are losing everything,
and in the midst of losing everything, are staying open
enough to love one another, to take care of one another,
to take in a stranger, to take in a friend
(30:15):
or a friend of a friend, or a cousin of
a friend or whatever, to provide for the needs of
others who are hurting. That is what it looks like.
That's what it feels like in the body, to stay
open even in the midst of chaos, even in the
midst of change, even in the midst of loss, even
in the midst of grief, even in the midst of
the most horrifying circumstance that you can imagine. And you
(30:37):
know what, this is a muscle that we have to
exercise because you can't just you know, if the worst
thing that you ever imagined could ever happen to you happens,
your first response is not going to be to stay
open to it and to fully receive it. You just
have It's like getting in a car accident. You know,
your gut level response is going to be to clench
(31:00):
every muscle in your body and to resist what's taking place.
And I think the shift that's happening for me is,
you know, you've read stories about how if you can
soften in a car accident, you actually fare better than
if you tense every muscle. And so what I'm trying
(31:20):
to practice in my life is a little bit of softening,
even in the midst of total chaos and despair. A
little bit of softening and yoga is helping me to
do that. And I'm really grateful that I've been able
to step into this teacher training process and to take
advantage of this studio that's right down the street from me.
I don't know why I wasn't doing it before, but
I think I needed, you know, some extra motivation. I
(31:42):
needed someone to tell me like, Okay, here's the expectation.
You signed on the dotted line. You said we're going
to come to yoga six days a week. And really
kind of I needed it to be that clear so
that I could move all the logistics and get childcare
and do whatever I needed to do. And we're making
it work. But whatever it is for you that helps you,
(32:02):
maybe for you it's something totally different. The other thing
I've been doing is sauna and cold plunge, which is
another thing that teaches me. You know, the sauna really
physically teaches you to soften every muscle. It's like you
get in the sauna. At least for me, because heat
is easier for me than cold. I get in the
sauna and it's just like ah, yes, okay, every muscle softens,
And then can you practice that softening even when you
(32:25):
get in the cold plunge? Because when I get in
the cold plunge, my whole body wants to go, oh
my gosh. You know, can you practice the softening even
in the cold and going back and forth between the
sauna and the cold plunge teaches me that, and it
teaches me. It's starting to at least teach me or
show me. How could I bring this into my life
(32:46):
where when things are going great, it's easy to stay soft.
It's easy to let it in. It's easy to like
receive and feel grateful. Yes, yes, I love this. I'm
having the best day of my life. The sun is out,
you know, well, everyone I love is close by. I
have the most beautiful meal in front of me to eat.
I'm drinking a hot cup of coffee. Easy to soften
(33:08):
to that? But what about when everything is going terribly?
Can we soften to that as well? And that is
the attitude, it's the energy, it's the nature that I'm
trying to bring in to twenty twenty five. Can I
soften to what my life is trying to show me,
even if it's not what I wanted? Even if it's
not what I expected, even if it feels chaotic, even
(33:30):
if it feels stressful, and you know what is so wild?
There's this I was telling my husband, how I can
always tell you when I feel safe, because I will
write poetry when I feel safe. I write poetry when
there's like a poet that lives inside of me that
only comes out when I soften in the way that
I'm talking about. And I have not written a poem
(33:52):
since I don't know, probably twenty nineteen. And I mean
I could I could guess at all the reasons for that,
but a lot of them. You could probably guess that too,
based on what I've just shared. So I've not written
a poem since twenty nineteen, and I've moved into twenty
twenty five with this intention. Can I soften to really
let my life in? Can I really let my life
(34:14):
move through me and show me what it's trying to
show me? And the other day, after spending all night
sobbing quite literally like scrolling Instagram and sobbing about the
fires that were happening in La, I went to sleep
feeling really just soft but sad, like so sad, and
(34:35):
I woke up and my husband said something on his
way out the door. He was like, you know, it's
it's going to be a hard day. The world is
burning and there's nothing we can do about it. And
all of a sudden, I just had a download. It
was like this poem just came through me and I
didn't have to effort for it. I didn't have to
work for it. It just came to me. And it
(34:56):
was the most healing experience to put this poem into words.
And I shared the poem on my Instagram. I will
link it here so that you can read it if
you didn't get a chance to read it. But I
posted it last week and the poem is called the
World is Burning and There's nothing we can do. And
it was the most healing experience for me to write
the poem, and then sharing the poem was so healing
because it just felt very connective. And I kept getting
(35:18):
messages from people who were saying thank you for putting
into words what I couldn't put into words myself. And
it was just like, oh, like there she is. There's
the poet who always pokes her head out when she
feels like it's safe too, and it's not even safe
as in the world is a safe place. No, it's
safe as in, this body is a safe place. This space,
(35:41):
this energetic space that I create for her, is a
safe enough place for her to poke her head out
because she is incredibly sensitive, she is incredibly tender, she
is incredibly creative, and I think that in a lot
of parts of my life, I've sort of armored up
enough to be, like, you know, in control. I have
(36:02):
my ducks in a row, I've got my shit together,
I've got my life together. I know what I'm doing
and what I'm about, and I can make money and
I can take care of myself and all this stuff,
and that there's nothing wrong with any of that. However,
that hardness has prevented her from feeling like she has
(36:22):
space to come out. And so what am I saying?
A couple takeaways I think from this episode, if it's
helpful for you, take what is helpful for you and
leave the rest. But one takeaway is can we soften
a little bit more? Can we soften enough to let
in what life is trying to show us? This is
connected to our writing. So the second thing I want
(36:43):
to say is are you feeling the invitation to write?
Are you feeling that call, because even in the times
in my life when I've been pushing that away, which
I think I really have been since twenty twenty. I mean,
I know, I wrote Write Your Story, which came out
last year, and I'm very proud of that book. It's
an amazing book. But that book is it's a formula
to follow, to take an experience from your life and
(37:05):
turn it in to a piece of writing that you
could share. So that book is not like from my guts.
It's from my brain, which doesn't make it any less valuable.
But I guess what I'm talking about here is like,
is there a way for us in this time? I
think we need this. I think we're going to need
this as we move into twenty twenty five and as
(37:27):
more tragedies happen all around us and in our personal
spaces too. I think we're gonna need the courage to
move from our brain to our guts. And I posted
something else on Instagram to this effect, basically saying, if
your instinct during this time is to shame people or
judge them, or criticize them or tell them like you're rich,
(37:47):
you'll recover just fine. Just know that that is not
your natural instinct that is coming from conditioning. Your brain
has been hijacked by a culture and an environment that
is inviting the darkest part of human nature. That is
not you. You, in your truest essence, are all love.
(38:07):
You are love. Your nature is love. And you will
feel the happiest. You will feel the softest, You will
feel the most comforted. You will feel that the best
you've ever felt. When you can reach out, grab someone's hand,
look them in the eye and say me too, Yes,
I'm so sorry You're in pain? What can I do?
How can I help? Can I bring you a bowl
(38:28):
of soup? Can I bring you you know? Can I
make you food? Can I pick up some supplies? Can
I drop off blankets? Can I where can I donate?
How can I help? That is human nature? And in
times like this and tragedies, we do see that nature
come out of people. And I think, you know, as
we move into twenty twenty five, I feel that there's
going to be more of this, unfortunately, more unrest, more
(38:51):
political unrest, more natural disasters, more you know, chaos, more despair.
And all that I can pray in the midst of
that is that we can stay open to let in
what life is trying to show us. I think a
big thing that life is trying to show us is
that it is our nature to love others. It is
our nature to love each other. It is our nature
to take care of our neighbors. That is your nature.
(39:15):
And if you feel a different impulse or a different instinct,
I want you to notice that that is your conditioning.
It is not your nature. You have been conditioned. You've
been told to take care of yourself first, to protect yourself,
to protect your your own you know, to stick whatever,
to fight against the enemy that is not the truth
of who you are. And in the truth of who
(39:36):
you are, I think you'll find that that artwork will
come through like a beautiful artwork will come through, like
this poem that I wrote, which I'm not saying like, wow,
I wrote such a beautiful poem. It's more like it
was such a healing experience for me to put those
words on the page. You are equally capable of letting
(39:57):
something like that come through you. That will be as
healing for you as that was for me. Helping others
is part of what's trying to come through, you know,
reaching out and connecting with our neighbors, joining in community
as part of what's trying to come through. So this
is the new energy that I'm bringing into twenty twenty five.
It's actually not new, it's ancient. It's old. It's been
with us for as long as we've been human beings
(40:18):
and alive. And it's not that it's never been present
in our lives before either. It's just I'm taking that
thread and pulling it through as the controlling idea for
twenty twenty five. My controlling idea for twenty twenty five
is really about nurture. It's about nurturing myself, nurturing my family,
nurturing my community. Just feed, feed, feed, nurture, nurture, nurture,
(40:43):
you know, take care of those around me, because that
is my nature. I hope that you are well wherever
you are. I hope that the seven lifetimes you've lived
since I last heard from you have been lovely lifetimes
more or less, and I'll look forward to chatting with
you again on next week's Write Your Story episode.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
I'll see that
Speaker 2 (41:09):
H
Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back
together with the words you write. All the beauty and
peace and the magic that you'll start too fun when
you write your story. You got the words and said,
don't you think it's down to let them out and
write them down on cold It's all about and write.
(00:22):
You write your story. Write, you write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast.
I'm Ali Fallon, I'm your host, and welcome back also
to a brand new year, Happy twenty twenty five. I
know I published an episode last week, an interview with
my friend Amanda Riga Green, which, by the way, if
you haven't had a chance to listen to that episode
is such a good one, so please go back and
listen to it. But that episode was recorded with Amanda
(00:50):
before you went on this Christmas winter amorphous long, crazy
long break that I feel like we've been on. I
don't know about you, but I feel like we've been
on break for seven or eight lifetimes. So much has
happened in the last couple of weeks, which is part
of what I want to talk about on today's episode.
I want to just kind of catch up on what's
been going on in my personal world, what's been going
(01:11):
on in the broader world, and how I'm entering into
this new year, the mindset that I'm bringing into the
new year, which is same, same, but different also from
the mindset that I carried through twenty twenty four and
through previous years. So that's what I want to talk
about on today's episode. But if you haven't had a
chance to listen to the Amanda Feger Green episode, please
(01:31):
go back and take a listen to that one. It's
all about listening to your intuition, and not just your
intuition the way that you think about it, but also
your extrasensory perception. Amanda is a psychic medium. She's also
a really incredible communicator around astrology and numerology and just
the more mystical aspects of life. And I've learned so
much from being her friend and so much from listening
to her show. I say this in our interview, and
(01:53):
she also interviewed me on her show, which is called
Soul Sessions, and in both interviews I say that her
podcast is one of the only podcasts that I listened
to religiously, Like there are maybe two shows that I
listened to every single episode and her show is one
of those shows. So if you haven't had a chance
to listen to the episode, go listen to the episode.
Go follow Amanda Riegergreen on Instagram. Go find her podcast
(02:17):
called Soul Sessions wherever you listen to podcasts, and make
sure to follow and subscribe to her show too. I
hope you learn as much from her as I do.
I know you're gonna gain so much insight just from
listening to her episode, the interview that she and I
did together last week. And it's so fun that I
get to just have these amazing conversations with my friends
and then get to share them with you. Okay, so
I was saying a minute ago, I don't know if
you feel this way, but I feel like since we
(02:39):
have been on this winter break, this Christmas break, which
for me and my kids started I don't know, like
the twenty third of December until what are we sitting
at now today I'm recording this episode. It's January thirteenth.
You'll hear the episode on January fourteenth, so basically three
long weeks. It has felt like seven years. I don't
know if it has felt like that to anybody else,
(02:59):
but not even just because my kids have been home
and we've been out of a routine, and so that
part of the equation feels, you know, chaotic at times
and kind of difficult, but also just because so much
has unfolded and so much has taken place. And you know,
if you listen to what Amanda is talking about about
the way that the energy is shifting in the world
right now on our planet, that has to play a
(03:22):
role in this too. I'm sure that there are all
these world events that are unfolding. There's a lot of
chaos in the world around us, and it just genuinely
feels like I'm existing in a different time today January thirteenth,
as I sit here recording this episode, it's a different
time than it was the last time that I spoke
to you, which would have been I don't know, the
(03:42):
second or third week of December. One of the things
that's happening for me personally is I've been in this
long process since September of last year of slowly stepping
back from my coaching practice. I've been really vocal about
this here on the podcast and also on Instagram and
other social media platforms, and so if you've been around,
you've heard me talk about this, But essentially, I have
(04:04):
for the last I don't know, ten or fifteen years,
been running online programs to teach authors how to outline
their books and how to get their manuscripts written. I've
been working one on one with clients, helping them edit
their books, or ghost write their books, or you know,
in some capacity, helping them get their manuscripts published. And
I just started feeling the poll really strongly last year.
I've actually been feeling it for a couple of years,
(04:24):
but really strongly last year, to the point where I
couldn't ignore it. Started feeling like I needed to take
a step back from my coaching practice, and I wasn't
sure really why. I knew that on some level, I
was burnt out. I've had two kids back to back
in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. My family has
been through a lot. If you've been listening for a while,
this is all repetitive to you, you know about this.
(04:45):
But my husband and I took a really big chance
on a business investment that didn't go well, and that
has been really stressful financially. We had my mother in law.
This is a really positive thing. Move in to the
house next door to us. We bought like an old
nineteen fifties ranch and renovated it for her, and she's
living next door. We've had, you know, just challenge after
(05:05):
challenge after challenge, after difficulty after difficulty, after transition after
transition after transition. And I know we're not the only ones.
I know that a lot of us have been on
this roller coaster, particularly since twenty twenty as things began
to shift really dramatically in the world around us, through
the pandemic, the early parts of the pandemic, and even
into twenty one and twenty two and twenty three, that
there have been a lot of changes that are happening
(05:28):
for all of us. So I know we're not the
only ones who have felt like for the last five years,
we've been on this wild roller coaster. And so I
started feeling midway through last year like I was not
only burnt out on the work that I was doing,
which I love, by the way, I love my work
and I love my clients, but I was physically burnt out.
I was emotionally burnt out. And also there was something
(05:48):
else happening that I couldn't quite explain. It's like there
was a shift happening in the way that I wanted
to show up in the world, in the way that
I wanted to show up in my personal life as
a mother, as a wife, and the way that I
wanted to show up to be of service to the
broader world. And I couldn't quite put my finger on it,
and I still don't know that I have the perfect
language for it. But one of the things that you'll
(06:09):
hear me say if you listen to previous episodes from
twenty twenty four is something along the lines of I'm
feeling pulled away from the world of publishing. I'm feeling
like something shifting in the way that I help people.
It's less about helping people get books published and more
about helping people understand their stories or engage with the
process of writing. And this is not altogether different from
(06:30):
how I've been showing up over the course of the
last decade plus. I mean, I wrote a book that
published in twenty twenty one called The Power of Writing
It Down. If you haven't read that book, it's still
a great read. In fact, one of the funny things
that happened over the break is my mother in law
stumbled across this post on Facebook from someone who none
of us knew, that had read the Power of Writing
(06:50):
It Down, had been really moved by it, who had
a large platform, and who'd shared about the book, and
the post had gone somewhat viral, like semi viral, and
it had, you know, thousands of shares, tens of thousands
of likes and comments. And she brought it to me
and was like, do you know who this person is?
And I was like no, And what a strange thing
(07:11):
for that that book is years old, which I mean
typically they say after the first six months the book
is out, you won't see a spike or a peek
in the sales at all. It's kind of like what
it does in the first six months, it's going to
show you what the book is going to do. And
that book was a funny one because it came out
in January of twenty twenty one, right at a time
when let's see, Biden was taking office, there was the
(07:34):
insurrection at the Capitol. There was so much happening politically.
It was a really complicated. I don't remember what was
happening exactly with COVID, but I remember it being like
a really confusing and chaotic time, which is sort of
silly to say, because it's like, yeah, welcome to the
world that we live in now. It's chaotic and confusing,
you know, kind of across the board. But the book
(07:55):
came out I think it was like the sixth of January,
the ninth of January something like that. Books always come
out Tuesdays, so I could go back and look at
the calendar and tell you what the date was. But
it came out within days of the insurrection at the
Capitol and of the transition of power from Trump to Biden.
And it was a wild time for a book to
come out, and also a wild time in my personal
(08:15):
life because I had a six month old at home.
We had literally just moved to Nashville from LA. We
moved from LA to escape the fires that were happening
at the time, which is a topic I will circle
back around to later on in this episode. But the
fires were happening in LA at the time that we
moved to Nashville. The smoke was terrible in the city.
(08:35):
We were not in danger where we lived in Pasadena,
in South Pasadena. We were out of the danger and
out of the evacuation zone. And at that point the
way that the fires were taking place in twenty twenty,
we weren't even worried that the fires were going to
come down the hill toward us at all. We were
just too far away from them. And so our reason
for moving was like the build up of the pressure
(08:58):
of living in la through COVID. And then the fires
happened in the hills, and we had an infant and
couldn't take her outside, and we were literally taping garbage
bags over our windows because we lived in one hundred
and ten year old house, an old crafts and style house,
and the windows were the original windows on the house,
and so smoke was seeping in through the seal on
(09:21):
the windows of our house, and so we're taping garbage
bags over the windows to keep the smoke from seeping in,
so that we can keep the air quality in our
house safe enough for us and for this tiny baby,
my daughter who's now four and a half. And so
we literally got in our car. We had no plans
to move at that point, got in the car, drove
across the country to visit some friends in Nashville, because
(09:42):
I had lived in Nashville before and came to Nashville
with the intent to stay for like three to five
weeks and ended up finding a house and buying a
house and the rest is history. So then we moved
shortly later to Nashville. But so twenty twenty one, the
beginning of twenty twenty one, when this book comes out,
there had been an unplanned move. My daughter was six
months old. I was still breastfeeding around the clock. We
(10:04):
still weren't sleeping, she wasn't sleeping through the night. This
book comes out, there's craziness happening in the world around us.
There's unrest happening in my personal life. We had moved
into this house, but we were not settled into the
house yet. We moved the week before Christmas in twenty twenty.
I think I got to Nashville like on the twenty first,
and Matt got here on I want to say, the
twenty fourth. I think he flew in on Christmas Eve,
(10:26):
and so our things, like the movers arrived with our
furniture the first week of January. So it was like,
I don't know, New Year's Day or the day after
something like that. So we were getting all of our
(10:47):
furniture and still arranging our house, and this book is
coming out and I'm supposed to be on Instagram and
promoting it and talking about the book, and my life
was just in utter chaos, and so the book came
out and didn't really do what anybody thought it was
going to do. It's wild now to think about it
and to look at I have four published books. My
(11:09):
first one was called Packing Light, my second one was
called Indestructible, third was called The Power of Writing It Down,
which everyone thought, I mean, everybody was saying to me,
this is going to be your breakout book. And then
I have a book that came out last year called
Write Your Story. Well, the Power of Writing It Down is,
in my opinion, I mean I wrote it, so I'm biased,
but in my opinion, is a fabulous book that really
is about helping people to engage with the process of writing,
(11:32):
because writing can change your life. Writing can heal you
from the inside out. Writing is such a powerful way
to take an experience from your life that feels chaotic
or charged or traumatic and to transmute it into something
beautiful so that you yourself can feel more empowered, and
so that the people around you can connect to it
and can understand where you're coming from. Writing is this
(11:53):
amazing connective resource. It's like the best therapy ever that
we all have access to. And I I wanted The
Power of Writing It Down to be this book that
helped people to meaningfully connect with the tool of writing
and to be able to use it in a way
that was really practical to their lives. So The Power
Writing It Down was really a book about journaling, about
taking events from your life and putting them to paper
(12:16):
in a way that would heal you from the inside out.
That book came out in January of twenty twenty one
and just didn't really do what anybody thought it was
going to do. I mean, it's wild. I still get
the royalty reports from the publisher that published that book,
and I still haven't bought out the advance on the book,
which I'll talk about for a quick minute what this means,
(12:36):
because I know several of you here are interested in publishing.
If you're listening to the show, you may very well
be interested in writing your own book and publishing it.
So when a publisher writes you a check for what's
called your advance on royalties, it's exactly what it sounds like.
It is a check that they write you ahead of
the book ahead of writing the book, to kind of
buy you some time to carve out in your life
(12:58):
to write the book. They write you that check with
the assumption that later, when the book publishes, the book
is going to generate royalties, and whatever your cut of
the royalty share would be, which is like usually around
ten percent, that check is like an early advance on
those royalties that would have come to you. So they're
basically saying, like, okay, you know, the check could be
(13:21):
five thousand dollars, it could be five million dollars, but
they're basically taking a bed on you and saying, we're
going to write you this check ahead of time because
we know that when the book comes out, the book
is going to generate this much revenue. Well, it's like
a great shame for an author to take that check
to go write the best book that they know how
to write, to publish it into the world, and for
the book never to generate that much revenue, never to
(13:46):
buy back the advance on royalties. It's almost like if
your boss were to give you an advance on your
paycheck and then you were to stop showing up to
work and so you never earn back the advance that
they gave you on that paycheck. That's why what it
feels like as an author when your book doesn't buy
back the advance, and so I share that to be
candid and to be vulnerable and to say, like this book,
(14:08):
everyone thought it was going to be my big breakout book.
This was supposed to be the book that you know,
doubled and tripled my previous numbers. It never really did that.
It's still never bought out the advance on royalties. And
it was such a bizarre thing for me to see
over the break that this person who I don't know,
I've never heard from the book is years old at
this point and they found the book, loved the book,
shared about the book on Facebook, and that it was
(14:31):
getting all of this energy and attention around it again
when the book is years old. Was just like this
bizarre dichotomy. But it reminded me. It reminded me that
from the very beginning, this has always been my mission,
This has always been my message, is that writing is
a tool that should be accessible to anybody who wants
(14:51):
to use it. And a lot of times we get
in our minds that writing is a tool that's only
for a certain group of people. It's only if you
have a publishing contracts, only if you have a degree
from you know, x y Z university. It's only for
those who are really good at it, who are really
like gifted with the you know, gifted with words, or
who have perfect grammar or whatever parameters you put around it.
(15:13):
We have these ideas that writing is only for those people,
and that writing is not for me. And to me,
what I want to do and what my mission has
always been is to connect people with the beautiful tool
that writing is and to help people engage with it
in a meaningful way, which sometimes means publishing. Sometimes it does,
and publishing is only part of the story. It's only
(15:35):
a small, small part of the story. Writing is so
much more powerful than that. And so this was a
reminder to me. Over the break. I was like, Oh,
this actually isn't a new thing for me, this way
that I want to show up in the world now,
you know, to kind of shift away from the publishing
focus of it and shift more into the therapy focus
of it. This is not new. This has actually been
(15:56):
going on for a long time. This has been birthing
over the course of the last day decade It's just that,
you know, the publishing angle of things tends to feel
a little sexier. It's an easier sell if you're going
to sell an online course. It feels like, at least
in the past, and maybe the energy around us is shifting,
but in the past, it was much easier to sell
a course called how to write a book than it
(16:18):
was to sell a course that's about how to journal,
you know, to process your emotions. People were much more
interested and were willing to pay a higher dollar amount
for the first one versus the second one. And I
just have been feeling more and more convicted over the
course of the last six months, but year, but two years,
but five years, but ten years. Depends on how you
want to look at it, more and more certain, more
(16:40):
and more sure that what I want to do in
the way that I want to show up in the
world is about teaching people to connect to their ability
to take an experience and transmute it through through words
into something beautiful, into something amazing. And so I've been
taking the step back from my coaching practice, kind of
(17:01):
creating some more space in my life, really unsure about
what that was going to look like. You know, my
my husband and I we've been in this transition. He's
been kind of taking over the breadwinning and the family,
and I've been stepping back from the coaching practice. And
one of the things that unfolded for me overbreak is
I was reminded about how I have wanted to take
(17:23):
a yoga teacher training opportunity. I've wanted to do this
for the last couple of years. It's been on my
short list of things that were really important to me,
and the timing just hasn't seemed to make sense. And
I know I shared about this on a previous episode,
but we got pregnant last summer. We lost the baby
last ball, and when we got pregnant, I sort of
postponed the teacher training in my mind for another couple
(17:46):
of years, just thinking like, it's just too difficult to
take a teacher training when I'm pregnant, and so, you know,
no problem, that will just have to be something for
another time. Well, I didn't really think about it until
December that that wasn't an obstacle anymore, and so I
started to go back and look at the various teacher
training programs that were available in my city, and there
were a few different ones, and one in particular that
(18:08):
had dates that were really aligned with what I had,
the commitments that I had already made. And so I
reached out to my friend because the teacher training program
that I found that had these dates that aligned for
me also happened to be hosted by the studio where
I fell in love with yoga. I started going to
yoga in twenty fifteen. My book called Indestructible, the memoir
(18:31):
that I wrote about leaving an abusive relationship, talks a
lot about yoga and the role that yoga played for
me in that process of finding my own voice and
finding my power, finding my strength, finding my truth, getting
aligned with myself. And I talk a ton about what
a huge role yoga played for me in that process.
And so that studio is the studio where I fell
(18:51):
in love with yoga. It's the studio that I went
to religiously, you know, almost every day of the week
for years and years. And also my friend Brooke, who
I became friends with through the process of training at
her studio, owns how Yoga East Nashville. So I texted
her and asked her about the teacher training program, you know,
would she recommend it for me. I was like, hey,
(19:12):
you know something that you should know is I'm not
in shape. I have not been working out. I do
you know once a week workouts with a group of women.
We've been doing lifting workouts, but I haven't been in
a yoga studio in a couple of years. I think
it had been Let's see, I hadn't really been in
a yoga studio consistently since twenty nineteen, and here we
are and headed into twenty twenty five. So that tells
you how many years it's been since I've been practicing consistently.
(19:36):
And she just was really she really encouraged me. She said,
you know that's you don't need to worry about being
in great yoga shape. If you want to do this
teacher training program, I think it would be great for you.
So come on down. And so I signed up for
the teacher training program just kind of like it just
everything felt right about it. It was very last minute
and kind of in some ways not very well thought out.
(19:57):
But you know how, sometimes there are decisions in your
life where it's just like a full body yes, It's
just like yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, we're going to
move Heaven and Earth we're going to make this work.
And even you know, my husband and I we've been
because of this business investment that we made and because
of the shifts in my work and his work, we've
been trying to you know, cut corners financially as much
(20:19):
as possible so that we can save on our monthly budget.
So when I brought the idea to him, he was
a little hesitant because he was just like, Okay, well,
this is something another added expense that we're going to
have to add to our list. And I just said,
you know, this is super important to me. I am
happy to cut in other ways, but this feels like
something that I just feel really called to do, and
(20:41):
so I want to, you know, do whatever we can
to make it happen. And of course he was on
board as soon as I said that, and so I'm
feeling really grateful and happy, and I was able to
start the teacher training program over the break was sort
of we won't start our official training until the last
week of January, but I'm already in the studio and
taking classes a few day a week and already can
(21:02):
feel just that reconnection with the part of myself that
I feel like I set down in twenty twenty. And
this is too long of a story to get into,
but I'm gonna say this because I feel like there
are other There have to be other people out here
who feel like this. But when everything started happening in
the world in twenty twenty, and in my personal life,
(21:23):
I had Nella in twenty twenty, and that the whole
experience of giving birth to her in the middle of
the pandemic a story for another time and that I've
told in the past on the podcast, but the whole story,
the whole birth experience, was incredibly traumatic and chaotic. And
when that happened in twenty twenty, and when the world
shut down in twenty twenty, and that whole experience that
(21:46):
unfolded in that year, I feel like I flipped into
survival mode. And I don't really know that I've fully
come out of it. And I say that because, you know,
survival mode is it's a natural human instinct. I think
I have in some ways not only been in survival
mode but also been shaming myself a little bit for
(22:08):
being in survival mode because I've almost felt like I
know better. You know, I have the tools and the resources.
I'm very privileged. I have access to ways to regulate
my nervous system, and I should be able to kind
of pull myself up by my bootstraps. But the reality
of the matter is, you know, in twenty twenty, I
went into survival mode, and I don't think that I
fully have come out of it even yet, although I
(22:30):
do think that there's been like a defrosting of survival
mode that's happened in particular in the last six months.
And even though some really difficult things have transpired in
the last six months, like losing the baby, like losing
my dad, you know, like the fall apart of this
business investment, what's also been taking place is an ability
(22:52):
to sink into this experience and really have the experience
instead of resisting against it. And I don't know that
I'm using the quote unquote write language for this, but
for me, the way that it feels is that survival
mode is about resisting against an experience. It's like I
can't take in this experience right now because I have
(23:13):
to just go survive, and so I'm gonna, you know,
dig my heels in and push against this experience and
not allow the experience to come in fully because I'm
afraid that it will overtake me, and the opposite of
survival mode, that regulated state feels a little bit more like.
This experience is uncomfortable, it's challenging, it's difficult, it's not pleasant.
(23:35):
It's not what I would ask for. But I have
an openness. There's a space that's big enough for me
to let in the experience and let the experience show
me or teach me what it's trying to teach me.
And yoga for me, and that their writing does this too.
So there are so many different tools that we have
available to us that can help us to regulate our
(23:56):
nervous systems and help us to have that openness to
fully take in the ex experience. But yoga does this
for me. Just being on my mat, being in the
room that's a heated room, doing the postures, engaging with
my practice again has helped me to ground myself. It's
helped me to feel a little bit more open to
fully receive what life is trying to show me, so
(24:17):
that I can so that I can experience it from
a more regulated place, so that I'm not resisting against
the experience, but I'm fully taking it in. I don't
know if I'm doing a great job explaining that, But
that's just how it feels different in my body when
I'm in what I would call survival mode versus like,
I don't even know what I would call it, a
more regulated state, I guess is what I would call
(24:39):
the other one. So all of that to say, coming
into twenty twenty five, I'm coming in with a little
bit of a different attitude and mentality than I had
in twenty twenty four. It doesn't mean that the attitude
or mentality that I had in twenty twenty four was
bad or wrong. It just means that this attitude and
mentality that I have is slightly more evolved than and
(25:00):
it was in twenty twenty four. And I trust and
believe I was exactly where I needed to be in
twenty twenty four, in twenty three, twenty two, et cetera,
et cetera. And yet in twenty twenty five, I'm feeling
pretty grounded, and I'm feeling pretty planted, and I'm feeling
really regulated, even as the world quite literally explodes around us.
(25:22):
There have been so many things that have taken place
already in twenty twenty five in our global community, in
the United States, and the most recent of which are
the fires that are happening in LA, which feel particularly
close to home to me because I have so many
friends in LA who are affected by these fires, and
(25:43):
so many people that I know personally or I that
are you know, one or two people removed from me,
who are personally very affected by the fires. Who have
you know, people who have lost everything, have lost their homes,
have had every possession that they own burn to the round,
and so watching that unfold has been a really challenging
(26:07):
experience to take in. And there have been other things too.
I mean, just I know that mentioning the LA fires,
I'm not talking about all the other things across the
globe that are also happening, can feel a little lopsided. Sometimes.
The only reason I'm bringing up the fires is because
whenever something happens where someone that you know is affected,
or someone that you you know know someone who knows
(26:29):
someone you know is affected, it always feels more pressing.
It always feels closer to home. It always like really
levels you and reminds you about how easily this sort
of thing could happen to you, and the further away
things are. This is just human nature. This isn't even
anything that we're doing wrong. Just the further away a
tragedy is from you, the easier it is to feel like, oh,
(26:53):
that could never happen to me, because it's so far away.
It's you know, it's that the person who's suffering is
living such a different life than what I'm living. But
I remember when I was living in LA and when
the tornado happened here in Nashville. The tornado happened here
(27:17):
in Nashville, And because I've kind of toggled back and
forth between Nashville and LA, when I was in LA,
I was watching the tornado destroy the apartment building that
I had lived in up until twenty eighteen, and so
it was like so close to home. And even though
I wasn't living in Nashville at the time, it felt
almost as if I was. It felt like I'm watching
this apartment building have the face ripped off of it
(27:41):
and having all of my friends in this neighborhood be
displaced because of this event, and I could almost feel
like I was there, like it was happening to me.
And so when things happened that are that close to
home for us, and maybe the fires aren't it for you,
But maybe there's something else that's it for you that
really gets at you, that really, you know, keeps you
(28:02):
up at night. And for me watching Instagram and hearing
from people and what they were experiencing in the La fires,
I had to finally delete the app because it was
so traumatizing and challenging for me to listen to what
was happening. But even in that, hear this kind of
balance between fully taking in an experience and resisting it.
(28:25):
So there's no one right way to do this. And
I'm not saying that we should be able to stay
on Instagram and take in all of this horrifying information,
because I do think that we have so much more
access than we've ever had to horrifying information that our
bodies were simply not made to take it all in.
But I want you to start to hear this nuance
(28:45):
between digging your heels in and feeling like I can't
I can't receive what my life is trying to give
me that survival mode, and then the flip of that coin,
which is like I'm going to regulate and ground and
grieve and feel and take it all in. There's space
enough for me to take this in. And what I
have found is that when I can do that, and
(29:09):
it doesn't mean that I have to keep Instagram on
my phone or that I have to keep scrolling all
day or any of that, I don't even think that
that is healthy. But when I can ground down and
settle in and regulate my nervous system and open to
receive even the horrifying stuff, even the death of my father,
even the loss of the baby, even the LA fires,
(29:29):
even my friends who are hurting, even all of it.
When I can ground down and settle in and regulate
my nervous system and fully receive all of it, everything
that's right here for me. It doesn't have to be
I'm not saying get on Instagram and take all of
that in only to your capacity, But when I can
do that, then I have the capacity to transmute something
(29:54):
that's horrible into something that's slightly less horrible. So so
think about my friends in LA who are losing everything,
and in the midst of losing everything, are staying open
enough to love one another, to take care of one another,
to take in a stranger, to take in a friend
(30:15):
or a friend of a friend, or a cousin of
a friend or whatever, to provide for the needs of
others who are hurting. That is what it looks like.
That's what it feels like in the body, to stay
open even in the midst of chaos, even in the
midst of change, even in the midst of loss, even
in the midst of grief, even in the midst of
the most horrifying circumstance that you can imagine. And you
(30:37):
know what, this is a muscle that we have to
exercise because you can't just you know, if the worst
thing that you ever imagined could ever happen to you happens,
your first response is not going to be to stay
open to it and to fully receive it. You just
have It's like getting in a car accident. You know,
your gut level response is going to be to clench
(31:00):
every muscle in your body and to resist what's taking place.
And I think the shift that's happening for me is,
you know, you've read stories about how if you can
soften in a car accident, you actually fare better than
if you tense every muscle. And so what I'm trying
(31:20):
to practice in my life is a little bit of softening,
even in the midst of total chaos and despair. A
little bit of softening and yoga is helping me to
do that. And I'm really grateful that I've been able
to step into this teacher training process and to take
advantage of this studio that's right down the street from me.
I don't know why I wasn't doing it before, but
I think I needed, you know, some extra motivation. I
(31:42):
needed someone to tell me like, Okay, here's the expectation.
You signed on the dotted line. You said we're going
to come to yoga six days a week. And really
kind of I needed it to be that clear so
that I could move all the logistics and get childcare
and do whatever I needed to do. And we're making
it work. But whatever it is for you that helps you,
(32:02):
maybe for you it's something totally different. The other thing
I've been doing is sauna and cold plunge, which is
another thing that teaches me. You know, the sauna really
physically teaches you to soften every muscle. It's like you
get in the sauna. At least for me, because heat
is easier for me than cold. I get in the
sauna and it's just like ah, yes, okay, every muscle softens,
And then can you practice that softening even when you
(32:25):
get in the cold plunge? Because when I get in
the cold plunge, my whole body wants to go, oh
my gosh. You know, can you practice the softening even
in the cold and going back and forth between the
sauna and the cold plunge teaches me that, and it
teaches me. It's starting to at least teach me or
show me. How could I bring this into my life
(32:46):
where when things are going great, it's easy to stay soft.
It's easy to let it in. It's easy to like
receive and feel grateful. Yes, yes, I love this. I'm
having the best day of my life. The sun is out,
you know, well, everyone I love is close by. I
have the most beautiful meal in front of me to eat.
I'm drinking a hot cup of coffee. Easy to soften
(33:08):
to that? But what about when everything is going terribly?
Can we soften to that as well? And that is
the attitude, it's the energy, it's the nature that I'm
trying to bring in to twenty twenty five. Can I
soften to what my life is trying to show me,
even if it's not what I wanted? Even if it's
not what I expected, even if it feels chaotic, even
(33:30):
if it feels stressful, and you know what is so wild?
There's this I was telling my husband, how I can
always tell you when I feel safe, because I will
write poetry when I feel safe. I write poetry when
there's like a poet that lives inside of me that
only comes out when I soften in the way that
I'm talking about. And I have not written a poem
(33:52):
since I don't know, probably twenty nineteen. And I mean
I could I could guess at all the reasons for that,
but a lot of them. You could probably guess that too,
based on what I've just shared. So I've not written
a poem since twenty nineteen, and I've moved into twenty
twenty five with this intention. Can I soften to really
let my life in? Can I really let my life
(34:14):
move through me and show me what it's trying to
show me? And the other day, after spending all night
sobbing quite literally like scrolling Instagram and sobbing about the
fires that were happening in La, I went to sleep
feeling really just soft but sad, like so sad, and
(34:35):
I woke up and my husband said something on his
way out the door. He was like, you know, it's
it's going to be a hard day. The world is
burning and there's nothing we can do about it. And
all of a sudden, I just had a download. It
was like this poem just came through me and I
didn't have to effort for it. I didn't have to
work for it. It just came to me. And it
(34:56):
was the most healing experience to put this poem into words.
And I shared the poem on my Instagram. I will
link it here so that you can read it if
you didn't get a chance to read it. But I
posted it last week and the poem is called the
World is Burning and There's nothing we can do. And
it was the most healing experience for me to write
the poem, and then sharing the poem was so healing
because it just felt very connective. And I kept getting
(35:18):
messages from people who were saying thank you for putting
into words what I couldn't put into words myself. And
it was just like, oh, like there she is. There's
the poet who always pokes her head out when she
feels like it's safe too, and it's not even safe
as in the world is a safe place. No, it's
safe as in, this body is a safe place. This space,
(35:41):
this energetic space that I create for her, is a
safe enough place for her to poke her head out
because she is incredibly sensitive, she is incredibly tender, she
is incredibly creative, and I think that in a lot
of parts of my life, I've sort of armored up
enough to be, like, you know, in control. I have
(36:02):
my ducks in a row, I've got my shit together,
I've got my life together. I know what I'm doing
and what I'm about, and I can make money and
I can take care of myself and all this stuff,
and that there's nothing wrong with any of that. However,
that hardness has prevented her from feeling like she has
(36:22):
space to come out. And so what am I saying?
A couple takeaways I think from this episode, if it's
helpful for you, take what is helpful for you and
leave the rest. But one takeaway is can we soften
a little bit more? Can we soften enough to let
in what life is trying to show us? This is
connected to our writing. So the second thing I want
(36:43):
to say is are you feeling the invitation to write?
Are you feeling that call, because even in the times
in my life when I've been pushing that away, which
I think I really have been since twenty twenty. I mean,
I know, I wrote Write Your Story, which came out
last year, and I'm very proud of that book. It's
an amazing book. But that book is it's a formula
to follow, to take an experience from your life and
(37:05):
turn it in to a piece of writing that you
could share. So that book is not like from my guts.
It's from my brain, which doesn't make it any less valuable.
But I guess what I'm talking about here is like,
is there a way for us in this time? I
think we need this. I think we're going to need
this as we move into twenty twenty five and as
(37:27):
more tragedies happen all around us and in our personal
spaces too. I think we're gonna need the courage to
move from our brain to our guts. And I posted
something else on Instagram to this effect, basically saying, if
your instinct during this time is to shame people or
judge them, or criticize them or tell them like you're rich,
(37:47):
you'll recover just fine. Just know that that is not
your natural instinct that is coming from conditioning. Your brain
has been hijacked by a culture and an environment that
is inviting the darkest part of human nature. That is
not you. You, in your truest essence, are all love.
(38:07):
You are love. Your nature is love. And you will
feel the happiest. You will feel the softest, You will
feel the most comforted. You will feel that the best
you've ever felt. When you can reach out, grab someone's hand,
look them in the eye and say me too, Yes,
I'm so sorry You're in pain? What can I do?
How can I help? Can I bring you a bowl
(38:28):
of soup? Can I bring you you know? Can I
make you food? Can I pick up some supplies? Can
I drop off blankets? Can I where can I donate?
How can I help? That is human nature? And in
times like this and tragedies, we do see that nature
come out of people. And I think, you know, as
we move into twenty twenty five, I feel that there's
going to be more of this, unfortunately, more unrest, more
(38:51):
political unrest, more natural disasters, more you know, chaos, more despair.
And all that I can pray in the midst of
that is that we can stay open to let in
what life is trying to show us. I think a
big thing that life is trying to show us is
that it is our nature to love others. It is
our nature to love each other. It is our nature
to take care of our neighbors. That is your nature.
(39:15):
And if you feel a different impulse or a different instinct,
I want you to notice that that is your conditioning.
It is not your nature. You have been conditioned. You've
been told to take care of yourself first, to protect yourself,
to protect your your own you know, to stick whatever,
to fight against the enemy that is not the truth
of who you are. And in the truth of who
(39:36):
you are, I think you'll find that that artwork will
come through like a beautiful artwork will come through, like
this poem that I wrote, which I'm not saying like, wow,
I wrote such a beautiful poem. It's more like it
was such a healing experience for me to put those
words on the page. You are equally capable of letting
(39:57):
something like that come through you. That will be as
healing for you as that was for me. Helping others
is part of what's trying to come through, you know,
reaching out and connecting with our neighbors, joining in community
as part of what's trying to come through. So this
is the new energy that I'm bringing into twenty twenty five.
It's actually not new, it's ancient. It's old. It's been
with us for as long as we've been human beings
(40:18):
and alive. And it's not that it's never been present
in our lives before either. It's just I'm taking that
thread and pulling it through as the controlling idea for
twenty twenty five. My controlling idea for twenty twenty five
is really about nurture. It's about nurturing myself, nurturing my family,
nurturing my community. Just feed, feed, feed, nurture, nurture, nurture,
(40:43):
you know, take care of those around me, because that
is my nature. I hope that you are well wherever
you are. I hope that the seven lifetimes you've lived
since I last heard from you have been lovely lifetimes
more or less, and I'll look forward to chatting with
you again on next week's Write Your Story episode.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
I'll see that
Speaker 2 (41:09):
H
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