January 17, 2026 • 40 mins
Here we are, at the start of a new year.
How is it going for you? How does it feel to start fresh?
Beginning something new can feel exhilarating. After all, anything is possible, all is new. But being a beginner can also feel intimidating and overwhelming.
After all anything is possible, all is new.
In today’s episode, I want to talk about what it means to be a beginner (as in: someone who begins again and again) and why it matters so much.
Whether you’re in the “working my resolutions for the new year” camp or the “new years is an arbitrary marker on a man-made calendar camp,” I invite you into the newness of this day, of everyday.
I invite you to see yourself as a beginner.
Host: Ally Fallon // @allyfallon // allisonfallon.com
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):
This is the beginning. Almost anything can happen. This is
where you find the creation of light, a fish wriggling
on to land, the first word of paradise lost on
an empty page, Think of an egg, the letter A,
A woman ironing on a bare stage as the heavy
curtain rises. This is the very beginning. The first person
narrator introduces himself, tells us about his lineage. The mezzo
(00:24):
sopranos stands in the wings. Here the climbers are studying
a map or pulling on their long woolen socks. This
is early on, years before the arc dawn. The profile
of an animal is being smeared on the wall of
a cave, and you have not yet learned to crawl.
This is the opening the gambit upon moving forward an inch.
(00:45):
This is your first night with her, your first night
without her. This is the first part where the wheels
begin to turn, where the elevator begins its ascent, before
the doors lurch apart.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Pick up the pieces of fola, 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 get the words and said, don't
you think it's time to let them out and write
them down and covered.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
It's all about.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
And write. Write your story. Write you, write your story.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast.
I'm Ali Fallon, I'm your host, and this is your
first episode of twenty twenty six. Welcome to the new
year with me. Welcome back to the show. I'm so
grateful to have you here. I'm grateful you're listening in.
What I want to talk about on this week's episode
is this concept of being a beginner, of what it
feels like to start at the beginning of something with
(01:50):
really no blueprint for how things are supposed to go.
I think sometimes it's so easy to lose touch with
our sense of beginnerness, with the facts that we wake
up every day with this fresh, clean slate that really
every day is this new beginning, that we don't have
to wait for January first for it to be considered
a new beginning. That January first is an arbitrary date
(02:12):
that we've called the beginning of a new year. And
the fact that it's arbitrary, there's two sides to that.
It's like, it's arbitrary, so it's kind of meaningless, but
it's also arbitrary in that every single day that you
wake up is your new beginning that you would like
it to be. And so what would it look like
for us to start every day with that idea in mind,
that we can look at our lives anew, that we
(02:34):
can look at them through a fresh lens, from a
fresh perspective. Because I know, in the past couple of years,
I feel like there's been this arc. And I don't
know if you have witnessed this or since this. I'm
forty two, so maybe this is partly my age, but
I do feel like there's been an arc over the
course of the last ten or twenty years with New
Year's energy. So it used to be that everyone would
(02:56):
set New Year's resolutions and then the new year would
come and everyone was like really in the energy of
their resolutions. And at least when I was younger, in
my twenties, resolutions were always always always things like eat better,
exercise more, get in shape, get my six pack. So again,
age specific maybe, but also a little bit generation specific,
because I do think that my generation, I'm an elder millennial,
(03:19):
and I think my generation is particularly obsessed with body image.
And again, like maybe Some of this is just me
maturing over time, but some of it also has to
be the Zeitgei's shifting and the younger generation coming of
age and bringing this fresh new energy, speaking of fresh
new energy into the collective energy where we're not focusing
(03:42):
so much on that, we're not paying so much attention
to that. And so over the years, the New Year's
resolution energy has shifted dramatically where it used to be
like you set this really specific. You know, I was
taught smart goals in high school, so it's like specific, measurable.
I don't remember what the rest of the acronym was.
I could come up with them if I really sat
(04:02):
here and thought about it for just a second, specific, measurable, achievable.
So I would set this really specific goal. I want
to achieve you know, X thing by X date, and
here's how I'm going to do it. Here's my plan,
and I'm going to move forward with confidence and power
at the start of the year, and it's going to
be non negotiable, and it's about discipline and all this
stuff into like a bit of a softer version of
(04:24):
a resolution, where for many years there it felt like
we were kind of picking a word, or picking a
theme for our year, picking a lens to look at
our year through. So in the last couple and yeah,
in the last couple of years, I've noticed this other shift,
this second or third shift, where whatever shift we're on
into more of looking at January first like an absolutely
arbitrary date, Like this is not a date where we
(04:46):
need to be, you know, motivating ourselves or making resolutions
or making new choices for ourselves or working towards something new,
because it's the January first date comes from this great
Glorian calendar which was created by it created by Julius Caesar.
And maybe I'm getting those details wrong, but essentially this
idea that this calendar is created by a man, that
(05:08):
it makes no sense when you look at nature in
the middle of winter, that we're supposed to be resting
and nurturing and nourishing. And I know I recorded an
episode last year, or maybe it was the year before
on this idea of wintering and how important and special
it can be to spend the winter just nesting and
hibernating and creating and dreaming about what's coming next and
(05:31):
not necessarily going out there to try to achieve something
or accomplish something, and so yeah, we've moved into this
new phase where it's like, yeah, January first is kind
of meaningless. And I'm not saying nobody sets resolutions anymore.
Definitely people do, but I'm saying maybe more of us
are becoming aware of this idea that January first might
not be the ideal moment to set this specific measurable
(05:53):
resolution like we used to think, and so more of
us are kind of thinking in that mode. I don't
know if you've noticed that shift, but I've definitely known
the shift. And so as I've thought about what this
new year means to me this year, what January first,
the start of twenty twenty six means to me, I've
really thought about so much this idea of being a beginner,
(06:14):
because well, really the reason why this idea came to
me is because I'm teaching yoga at how Yoga Vias
NASHVILLEA just became certified in June, and I've been teaching
at the studio since then, and I'm loving it so much.
And I noticed I knew this would happen. I noticed
that at the start of January, our classes all of
a sudden got very busy meaning people are still setting resolutions.
(06:38):
This is why I said I know that people are
still setting resolutions because I'm witnessing it happen. We're getting
a ton of new students to the studio who have
never done yoga before, or who have done yoga but
haven't done it in a really long time, and so
they're making this shift and change in their life, and
they're adding yoga to their regimen, and they're coming in
early in the morning for six am classes, and they're
coming in for the first time to a hot clae
(07:00):
and they're giving this a try. And so I was
just connecting with this energy of gosh, what must that
be like to walk into a studio. You've never taken
a yoga class before, you've never taken a hot yoga
class before, and you're stepping into this room for the
first time. What must that feel like? And connecting with
that energy because I'm the instructor now, I mean, I
(07:20):
remember what it felt like. I do remember what it
felt like to be a new student. And you know,
I could tell that story another day, but I remember
so vividly what it felt like to walk into the
studio that first time, and I will never forget the
instructor telling me your goal the first time you come
here is just to stay in the room for all
sixty minutes because it is so hot in there. You
don't have to do every pose, you don't have to
keep up with the flow, just focus on just staying
(07:42):
in the room the whole time, and that will be
a big accomplishment. So I remember what it felt like
to be so new, and now I'm the instructor, and
I'm actually a new instructor, so I still am connected
to that energy of this is what it feels like
to be new at something. And I really wanted to
build my yoga flow around this feeling of what it's
(08:03):
like to be new. And as I was connecting with
this feeling of what it feels like to be new,
what it's like in the body to be new at something,
I just kept coming back to this sense of like
we're starting a fresh year. I don't care who you are,
I don't care whether this calendar was created by a man,
or whether it's arbitrary or not. Collectively, as a collective
(08:26):
energy in the zeitgeist, this is the time of year
where we're turning the page and saying, yesterday was twenty
twenty five, today is twenty twenty six. This is a
new start, And yes it is arbitrary because you could
also wake up tomorrow on whatever day you're listening to this.
So January twelfth, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and decide February, March, April.
(08:46):
You could decide any day of this year that you
want this day to be a new day, a new start,
a fresh start for you, the turn of a page,
the start of a chapter. You can always, always, always
decide to start fresh. And also so you can't really
decide to start fresh unless you're willing to connect with
what it feels like to be a beginner at something.
(09:07):
I literally wrote at the top of my page before
I started recording this episode, how to be a beginner,
and then I tabbed down two lines and wrote begin.
It's so obvious, right, It's so obvious. It's right there
in front of you. How to be a beginner. You
have to begin. In order to be a beginner, you
must begin, and beginning is the hardest part, beginning with
(09:30):
something new that you've never done before. Maybe the thing
you begin with is yoga. Maybe the thing you begin
with is going to the gym, or cutting sugar from
your diet or whatever any of those kind of many
options that are available to you for New Year's resolutions.
Maybe it's something like that, or maybe for you, beginning
means I'm going to begin today to slow down. I'm
(09:56):
going to begin to say no to things to clear
my calendar. I'm going to begin to schedule my days
in such a way where I can take deep breaths
all through the day, from start to finish. I'm going
to begin to slow my reaction time when I get triggered.
I'm going to begin to look at my life as
(10:19):
an observer and notice where my patterns are running. I'm
going to begin to do something differently than I've ever
ever ever done before. And I just want you to
take a moment to connect with what it feels like
to be a beginner. I'm feeling it in my body
right now because I can put myself my two feet
in that place of walking into that yoga studio and
(10:41):
just knowing I'm going to walk into the studio and
my life is going to change. I knew that intuitively.
I really believe I did. I walked into that studio
on a September day, I don't remember the exact day
of twenty fifteen, and by November nineteenth, so two months
ish later, my life I knew it completely unraveled and
fell apart in what would become such a beautiful way.
(11:05):
But what was absolutely terrifying to me at that time,
And no matter what you tell me, you could never
convince me that me beginning at yoga that day had
nothing to do with what eventually happened. I walked into
that yoga studio with my ex husband. We took the
first class together. He never came back to the studio.
(11:26):
I came back day after day after day after day,
and that experience built the foundation for me. It started
to connect me to my body, to my intuition, to
my inner knowing, and what I discovered two months later
had always been there waving its flag at me. I
just never had the eyes to see it. And yoga
(11:47):
and connecting with myself and connecting with my breath is
what gave me the eyes to see what had been
there all along. So in order to be a beginner,
we have to connect with that feeling of what it
feels like to walk into the yoga studio for the
first time, and it doesn't have to be a yoga studio.
Maybe it's something totally different for you. But my guess
is that you probably already have a sense of what's
(12:09):
inviting you to begin in your life. It might be
something really different, like maybe for you, it's just about
connecting with your breath during the day, or any of
those other things that I mentioned, you know, seeing your
life through the lens of an observer. Or maybe it's
meditation for you, or maybe it's I don't know, any
number of things. You probably have something floating in your
(12:30):
head right now that you're like, I think this is
what I'm meant to begin. And the only way to
become a beginner is to begin. And I wrote begin
with a plan or without one, because sometimes I think
we have this sense and the old way of setting
resolutions really speaks to this. The old way of setting
resolutions is specific, measurable, actionable, you know, time sensitive. The
(12:56):
old way of setting smart goals was you're supposed to
put a deadline on it, a date that you wanted
to complete this thing by. And what I'm talking about
is walking into a fresh start with or without a plan.
In fact, a beginner's mindset really looks at something and says,
I don't have the first clue how to accomplish this,
(13:17):
Like I wouldn't even know where to begin. All I
know is that I can put both feet inside the building.
You know, when I showed up at yoga that day,
I didn't know the name of a single yoga pose.
I did have some dance experience, and so I think
that was part of why I, specifically, individually, was drawn
to yoga, And everybody will be drawn to something different.
(13:38):
So I think I was pulled towards yoga because of
my previous dance experience. But I walked into that studio
I didn't know a single yoga post. I had never
done yoga in the past. So I walked in with
that feeling of just like, oh, I'm going to take
this class, and I'm going to be the one person
in the room who doesn't know what the heck we're
doing and what's going on, And that feeling can feel
(14:00):
very vulnerable. It does feel very vulnerable. It's supposed to
feel vulnerable. My brother in law told me just before
we transitioned into the new year that he's really been
wanting to start taking yoga classes. I have spent many
(14:21):
months trying to convince my husband to come with me
to yoga, and yoga is just not his thing. And
I've had to realize that and remind myself like everyone
has their own thing, and everyone has their own path
that they're on, and just because I love yoga so
much and it's meant so much to me, I mean,
Matt has taken many yoga classes because I've dragged him,
but yoga is not his thing. And it's not that
he couldn't get anything out of it, but it's just
really it's not the thing that he feels drawn to.
(14:44):
So I've had to let that go. So I was
surprised when Luke told me Matt's brother told me that
he would really like to start taking yoga classes, and
so I brought him to a couple of classes with me,
and this got me thinking. This was like in the
later December that I was bringing him to classes with
me and he was telling me, you know, I love
it for this reason and that reason, but gosh, it's
(15:04):
so hard because you just don't know any of the names,
you don't know what's going on. It's moving so quickly.
The teachers are teaching, you know, such a fast pace
and it can be really hard as a beginner to
keep up. So this got me thinking about how I
could design a flow for the month of January when
I knew we'd have a bunch of beginners come into
the studio where the flow moved a little slower and
(15:26):
where you had a little bit more space and time
to teach some of the poses. Then, because this is
how our brains work, we've been so wired toward one
certain way of doing things that I started to go, Okay, well,
if I slow the flow down, then the advanced students
are going to be frustrated because they're going to want
to really get a good workout, and that's what they
come for. They're going to want to really flow. And
(15:48):
what I realized is the epiphany for me is that
simple doesn't always mean easy. In fact, simple sometimes is
harder then complicated. Does that make sense, Simple doesn't always
mean easy. Keeping things simple can sometimes be harder and
(16:08):
more challenging than when we over complicate things. There is
a blessing even if it's something that you've done a
thousand times before, because maybe the thing that you feel
like you're being called to do in this fresh start
at the start of the year. Is maybe something that
you've done a million times before. I mean, maybe for you,
this just popped into my head. So maybe there's someone
listening who needs to hear this, But maybe for you,
(16:30):
it's like, I know I need to get sober. I
know I need to like just stop drinking or stop
using drugs to numb myself for my life, or stop
using my phone, my freaking phone. I definitely do that,
to use Instagram on my phone to numb myself and
to not be here and not be present. So maybe
there's something like that that you're like, I've done this
one hundred times before, but I need to do it again.
(16:53):
And what I realized is that just because something is simple,
it's so simple. It's like give up coffee, give up
your Instagram, delete it from your phone, give up alcohol
for the month of January or even longer. It's so simple.
But that does not mean that it's easy. And so
when you plan a yoga flow that's simple, maybe the
postures are quite simple. You come back to the basics.
(17:14):
You teach where you're one, where your two or you'r three.
You teach you just the basics and really focus on
alignment and focus on posture, and focus on the little
tiny details and nuances that many people don't notice in
a yoga class. Just because you come back to the
basics doesn't make the flow easy. In fact, sometimes it
can make it more challenging. If you're holding a pose
(17:35):
for a lengthy amount of time, sometimes that pose actually
becomes more challenging than it would be if you were
moving through a breath to movement. So how to be
a beginner? You just begin? And sometimes we have to
begin at something that we've actually done many, many, many
times before. But can we look at that thing through
(17:56):
a fresh lens with a fresh perspective. And sometimes when
we slow things way down and we keep the postures
really simple, and I mean this is more than just yoga.
Sometimes when we slow down we keep the postures simple,
it gives us an opportunity to see the flow, to
see our life, to see the poses, to see everything
(18:19):
that's going on around us in a fresh way, to
see it through a fresh lens. So what would it
look like for you? Because yes, January first happens in
the middle of winter. It's simplify, simplify, simplified. Declutter, declutter, declutter,
bring it back to the basics. Remind yourself that you're
a beginner again. What would it look like for you
(18:39):
to do that, To remind yourself that you're a beginner again.
To remind yourself that January first, and January thirty first,
and February twenty eighth, and March whatever, and June and
July and every day for the rest of this year
is a brand new, fresh start. You get to start over,
You get to have a clean slate, You get to
turn the page from one day to the other. In
every moment, in every breath, and every day, this is
(19:02):
a fresh start. And you are a beginner, and you
can start wherever you are. You can start with whatever
you have. You can start to build what it is
that you long for. You can start to build what
it is that you hope for. You can start to
create what it is that you know is possible, that
vision that's in your head. You can start over. You
can start fresh. You don't have to keep dragging the
(19:24):
past with you into the present moment. And believe me
when I say that I am speaking to myself here
one thousand percent. I feel like if you've listened for
a long time, you've heard me rehashed this story over
and over again. And whenever we're rehashing, whenever human beings
in general are rehashing a story over and over again,
we're doing it because we're trying to understand. So you
(19:44):
can't fault yourself for that. You really have to give
yourself tons of grace that when you find yourself retelling
the same stories over and over, it's because you're trying
to understand. I guess my question for myself and my
question for you would be, do you have to understand?
Or can you just let it go? Can you just
let it go that that's the way that things happened,
(20:06):
that's the way that things went. You don't get it now.
Maybe you'll get it one day, maybe you won't. But
whether you get it or whether you don't get it,
can you just let it go? Can you just turn
the page and decide that today's a fresh start, and
decide that in order to be a beginner, all you
have to do is begin. This is the other beautiful
thing about being a beginner that I just reconnected with.
(20:28):
And if we can remind ourselves that we're all beginners
every day, we get to come in with this energy
all the time, but the bar is set kind of
low for beginners in a beautiful way. Like you walk
into a yoga room for the first time, a hot
yoga class, and the instructors will tell you, or should
tell you, your goal for class is just to stay in
the room. That's your whole goal. You don't have to
(20:48):
do every posture. You don't have to do every pose.
You've got nothing to prove to anybody. You don't have
to do the whole flow. Please, don't compete with your neighbor.
Take breaks when you need it, Take a sip of water,
you know, come down to the mat, listen to your body,
stay with your breath. You're a beginner and all that's
expected of you is just to stay in the room.
Just stay present with yourself and with your breath. And
then we act like, okay, So now after I've been
(21:11):
been doing the thing for a while, now I'm an
advanced yogi and so now is when I really start
competing with my neighbor and making sure that I do
everything that the teacher tells me to do and proving
myself on my mat. No no, no, no, no, no
no no. This is why we need to reconnect with
a beginner mindset, because no matter how long you've been
(21:33):
doing the thing that you're doing, the fact of the
matter is all that's expected of you, all that can
be asked of you, all that you can ask of
yourself is to show up every day, to stay with
your breath, to do your best, to breathe, to be here,
to bring your full self into the space, into the room.
I am recording this episode later in the day than
I usually do. I usually record in the mornings. I'm
(21:55):
recording at night because my day did not go to plan.
I have had this whole new like morning routine that
I want to do this. I've got a new setup
for the homeschool co op that I've been building for
my kids. We've got a system, a new system going
that started January fifth, because that was the first Monday
after the break. So we've got this new system in place.
I've been so excited about it. Last week was like
(22:17):
setup week, like let's get everyone in the routine. We
know what we're doing. This week was like, yes, okay,
we're coasting, We're in the new routine. We're going well.
I woke up this morning. From the minute I woke up,
things just started going wrong. Things started going not the
way that I wanted them to go, not the way
that they planned to go, not the way that they
were supposed to go. One thing after another of the
dominoes just started falling. You know how it goes. I
(22:37):
don't need to tell you the whole story, but basically,
by the time I got to my class, my yoga
class tonight to teach at four point thirty, I normally
get there a little early, take some minute, a minute
to ground, get ready for my class. I show up
at class, I'm frazzled from the day. I haven't had
a moment to like breathe and take care of myself.
I show up, I'm checking students in left and right.
It's such such a busy time of year at the studio,
(22:59):
so you just got people flooding in. You're checking everyone in.
And then I popped into my yoga class and taught
my flow, and my flow is all about being a beginner.
I opened with this poem, this beautiful poem that I
read at the end at the beginning of the episode
by Billy Collins. The poem's called Aristotle, and it has
three parts beginning, middle, and end, but I read the
first part, which is called beginning. This is the beginning.
(23:20):
Almost anything can happen. This is where you find the
creation of light, a fish wriggling onto land, the first
word of paradise loss on an empty page. I've been
working on memorizing this poem because it's such a beautiful poem,
and so I read it at the beginning of class
and we launch into the flow. And I have this
really simplified, stripped back, stripped down flow planned so that
(23:43):
I can walk through the poses and walk through the
cues and teach people what the poses are called, and
show people what Sun Series A looks like and what
a Sun Series C looks like, and what a Sun
Series B looks like. And it just didn't go the
way that I wanted to go. It was fine, and
we did it. We did all the postures, we did
(24:04):
the poses, we moved through. It's fine. It was fine.
But when I tell you that, I walked out of
there feeling like such a beginner, feeling like I'm a
beginner teacher, I'm just reminded that I'm easily thrown off
by the stress of the room around me. So many
people in there were new and bringing this new energy
in that I'm easily thrown off by realizing, like a
lot of people in the room are very uncomfortable, and
(24:27):
I'm easily thrown off by the day that happened before
I walked into the room. I'm easily thrown off by
the busyness at the front desk. I was like, Wow, Okay,
I'm a beginner and it's okay. It is a vulnerable
feeling to be a beginner. And guess what, how do
you be a beginner? You begin? So if there's anything
(24:48):
that you are beginning at the beginning of this year,
you are a beginner, and you are going to feel
vulnerable as you begin something that you've never begun before,
or maybe even begin something a new that you've begun
a thousand times before. Maybe you take step one of
your own sobriety. Maybe it's sobriety from alcohol, or maybe
(25:08):
it's sobriety from codependency, or maybe it's sobriety from people pleasing,
or maybe it's sobriety from perfectionism, or maybe it's sobriety
from you, yeah, constantly beating yourself up or being unkind
or gossiping, or caffeine or whatever it is that you
are beginning anew at the beginning of this year. Maybe
this is the five hundredth time that you've begun this thing.
(25:31):
I don't care how many times you've done it before.
To be a beginner feels vulnerable. You will feel like
you are new. There's this great line from the poem
that I read at the beginning of the episode. He says,
this is early on, years before the arc dawn. The
profile of an animal is being smeared on the wall
of a cave, and you have not yet learned to crawl.
(25:53):
That line, You have not yet learned to crawl. Remember
what it was like. You probably can't really remember in
your brain what it was like to be the age
where you couldn't even crawl you were one year old.
But if you have a baby, if you have a child,
maybe you can connect with what it felt like to
watch them take that first step, take a first step
(26:19):
in faith, wondering if your legs were going to catch
underneath of you, you know, catch you as you walked,
or if you were going to fall and hit your face.
Maybe you can reconnect through watching your children take their
first step into kindergarten, or their first step into first grade,
or their first step on the playground to go play
with someone, or their first heartbreak, or their first step
(26:41):
into college. You know, there are so many thresholds that
we cross in life that are firsts. And what I
want you to remember is that today is one of
those thresholds, and so is tomorrow. So is the next day,
and so was the next day, and so is the
next day. It is a fresh start. It is a
new beginning, is an new chapter a new book, and
(27:02):
only you get to decide what this new chapter is
going to look like. You do not have to bring
the past in with you. I can tell you for sure.
I know January first is an arbitrary date, but I
am choosing to leave twenty twenty through twenty twenty five
in the past. I am choosing to leave twenty twenty
(27:29):
through twenty twenty five in the past. That is the
arc of the story for me that I don't yet
fully understand. Maybe one day I will, but I'm tired
of spinning my wheels trying to understand. Before I'm willing
to move on and start anew before I'm willing to
move forward and start fresh, I'm starting with what I
(27:51):
have how do I be a beginner? I just begin
So I'm just beginning. I'm beginning without a plan. I'm
beginning without an agenda, and beginning with what I have.
I'm beginning with who I am. I'm trusting that who
I am right now is enough to get me where
I'm going, and that all I have to do is
show up and begin and be with myself and be
(28:13):
with my breath. And that's enough. That is enough. Who
I am is enough, What I have is enough. Where
I'm starting is enough to start today, to enter into
this new chapter, and to turn the page tomorrow and
start again, and turn to pay the page the next
day and start again. I wrote on my notes how
(28:34):
to be a beginner, make no assumptions. So when you
are a beginner at something, you don't assume because you
don't know what to assume. And beginners can teach us.
Use this as a metaphor. If you're in a yoga
studio and you've been in the yoga studio for a
long time, and you know the drill, you know all
(28:54):
the things, you know where to put your stuff, you
know the routine, you know which you put your mat
in the same spot every single time you go in,
you've got your system down. You know all the poses,
you know all the postures, you know the teachers you like.
You always go to their classes. You go at the
same times, every day, same week. Blah blah blah. You
got the drill down. Okay. You can watch the beginners
walk in who are so fresh. They wouldn't know where
(29:17):
to put their mat They have no idea what even
is different about putting their mat in different spots of
the room. They don't know who the teachers are, they
don't know what the postures are. They make no assumptions.
They couldn't possibly make an assumption. How could they? Because
they know nothing? And we have so much to learn
from watching a beginner know nothing. What would it be
(29:38):
like for you to pretend you know nothing because guess what,
you really don't. You really don't. You might think you're
right about so many things. But I have been practicing
saying this to myself. I'm okay with being wrong, I
really am. I'm okay with being wrong, And in fact,
it's so important for us to learn that most of
the time we're wrong. The assumptions we make are not correct.
(30:02):
So I wrote How to Be a beginner, make no assumptions,
make mistakes. I'm taking tonight as a win. I made
several mistakes that I'm not going to beat myself up for,
but I should have taken a moment to ground before
I went into that room tonight. There are other like
little tactical mistakes I just learned as a teacher. I'm like, Okay,
don't do that, do this instead, try this next time, X, Y,
(30:23):
and Z. I'm giving myself my own little feedback. But
making mistakes is part of being a beginner. Listen, if
you were perfect, if you had it perfectly down, you
wouldn't need to keep doing these things. So whatever you're beginning,
go in trusting that you are going to make one
hundred mistakes, and that mistakes are how we learn or
(30:45):
how we grow. It's part of the process. It is
built into the fabric of what it means to be
a beginner to make mistakes. So assume that mistakes are
going to happen. They're just part of this. And I
wrote make a mess. My profectionism gets in the way
so much of my ability to access my beginner's mind.
(31:06):
A beginner's mind is the very essence of creativity. Unless
you can come to your life with childlike wonder, unless
you can come to your life to the events of
what's happening around you with a sense of like, I
wonder what this means. I wonder how we could approach this,
(31:26):
How could we solve this problem differently? How have we
not seen this before? How have we not thought about this?
Unless we can come with that kind of openness, that
kind of curiosity, we can't make any progress. We'll just
keep repeating the past over and over and over again.
There will be no such thing as new beginnings for
any of us who cannot learn what it looks like
to begin anew to come with a beginner's mindset. A
(31:50):
new beginning is a gift to someone who chooses a
beginner's mindset. And so what would it look like for
you to choose a beginner's mindset in your life? For me,
I've rehashed the story a bunch of times, thousands of times,
hundreds of times. It feels like I've just kind of
whined and complained about it. I'm not being too hard
on myself. I've just my brain has been working so
(32:11):
hard to figure out, like, what happened? Why did it happen.
How can I prevent it from happening in the future.
What if I could just kind of hit the delete
button and approach my life now with a beginner's mindset,
Like here's a thought experiment for you. I stole this
and altered it from someone on Instagram that I cannot
remember who it was. It was, like, I think, like
a fairly popular influencer. So if this sounds familiar to you,
(32:35):
send me a message and let me know who I
stole this from because I can't remember, maybe like Ryan
Holiday or something like that. But the thought experiment was like,
let's just say like you were a soul who was
on the other side, or you were in heaven or something,
and you got dropped into your current body and your
current life today, but you had never lived a day
in your life before, so this is all new to you.
Like you show up, you're just like, oh, okay, I'm
(32:57):
Ali Fallon. I'm married to Matt Ford, who's this like amazing, supportive,
loving partner. I've got a great, sturdy, loving marriage and partnership.
I've got two beautiful, happy, healthy kids who are just thriving,
like who are just living their best life and completely thriving.
I live in a nice house in East Nashville. I've
(33:19):
got space, like we all have bedrooms, like it's a
beautiful house. I started this homeschool co op for my
kids because I had the privilege of doing that. I've
got resources, I've got family support. My mother in law
lives directly next door to us. She moved here because
she's just such an amazing, loving presence in our lives,
in our kids' lives. She helps me with my kids.
(33:41):
I have friends like all over the city. I've built
relationships here. Do you see what happens? Like I don't
need to go on and on about my life, but
like you start to see your life through a totally
different lens. It's not like, you know, if I was
a soul who like dropped into this body today, I
wouldn't see like all the loss and all the frustration
and all the despair. And I'm not saying that none
(34:01):
of those things matter. They're part of my story. But
I wouldn't spend time ruminating on everything that we lost
over the last five years. You know, I wouldn't spend
time obsessing over trying to fix the problem. Like you know,
I've had these back to back miscarriages, and so much
of my brain energy has gone like, how do I
fix this? Something's wrong? How do I fix it? Well,
(34:24):
if I dropped into this body today, I would just
be like, this body feels strong. I teach yoga, Wow,
this is cool. This body feels healthy, This body feels
strong good, Like, how can I nourish my body? How
can I take care of myself? What would it look
like for you to imagine that you're a soul that
drops into this body today and you're seeing your life
through fresh eyes. You were a beginner in your own life,
(34:44):
and you're just like, wow, okay, even if the circumstances
are not which you hoped that they would be. Like
maybe you're a soul that drops into the body and
you look at your bank account and go like, yikes, yeah,
whoever was like driving this shit before made some t
choices that put us in a tough spot. Or maybe
you know your soul that drops into the body and
(35:06):
realizes like, ooh, this relationship I'm in does not feel
good in the body. So maybe seeing things through that
fresh lens can actually help you make choices that you've
been unwilling to make before because you've been stuck in
a pattern. Maybe you go like, oh, like, I really
realized that that friendship is not working for me. Even
(35:28):
though this person has been friends with me for a
really long time, I've been friends with them forever. So
maybe seeing your life through a fresh lens and with
a fresh perspective can give you that clarity. And then
my invitation to you is to give yourself the permission
to be that beginner in your life every single day.
What would it look like to wake up tomorrow and
(35:49):
begin again, begin fresh, begin anew? What would it look
like to wake up every day and think what do
I want to make today? How can I bring a
beginner's mind? How can I bring a childlike wonder to
my life? A childlike curiosity. One of the things that
has come up for me so many times as I've
thought about this childlike wonder and curiosity is just how
(36:11):
special it is to get to witness this in kids,
because they come by it so honestly. So my two kids,
I spend a lot of time with them. I've thought
about so many times over the last couple of weeks.
I've been playing with this idea. How you know, if
things had gone my way, the way that I wanted
them to go back in twenty twenty, my business would
have been hugely successful. Things would have taken off, My
husband's business would have been successful. We would have hired
(36:34):
a nanny, I mean whatever, there's so many different ideas
about that. We would have hired a nanny, brought a
nanny into the space. I would have had full time help.
Because of choices that we made. That was never something
that was accessible to us. We just didn't have the
resources for it. We had nanny's off and on and
nanny's shares and different kinds of things. But again, if
I'd had my way, if it had gone my way,
(36:55):
I would have hired this full time nanny. She would
have been with us for all these past years. And instead,
what I've had is like copious amounts of time with
my children, which you know, is like, yeah, that's amazing.
And also there are some big drawbacks if you have
young children. The drawbacks are like you just have no independence,
you have you can't go anywhere by herself, including the
(37:16):
grocery store. And so I've just had all this time
with my kids, and looking back from this vantage point,
I'm like thank God, like because I'm out of the
weeds of it. I'm like, thank God that things didn't
go my way because I've had all this time with
my kids and I've got to witness them and they're
a childlike wonder and that childlike you know, the freshness
(37:38):
that they just come into this world with. And when
we started the homeschool co op next door, we originally
hired a teacher, who we hired her over the summer.
She was going to start in August. She backed out
at the last minute. It was a whole debacle. Then
I was like, Okay, I'm going to step in and
I'm going to teach until we can find another teacher.
So then I was with the kids. So I was
with my two kids. There were six or seven maybe
(38:00):
total kids at the time, seven at one point and
then six for the second half of that first semester,
So I was with the kids a lot. And again
like total benefits to it, and also drawbacks because it's
like you're stuck in the space, you can't go anywhere.
But when I think about the real gift of spending
so much time with these kids is I am not
(38:24):
at all confused about what it looks like to have
that childlike wonder. It has rubbed off on me. It
has been so good for me. It is not something
I would have picked for myself, because I'm like a
butterfly that likes to flit from thing to thing, Like
I want to like freedom to go here and there
and make plans at the last minute, and you know,
meet friends for lunch and yeah, just go to this
(38:45):
and that. I like to do a lot of different stuff,
and so the idea of being in the same place
every day, doing the same thing with the same group
of people was feeling a little claustrophobic to me. But
I'm like, gosh, thank God that I got that experience
because they their childlike wonder rubbed off on me, their
childlike wonder inspired me. I have been given so many unbelievable,
(39:08):
remarkable gifts from spending so much time with these kids.
Thank you, thank you, Thank you to these kids for
teaching me this lesson about what it looks like to
be a beginner, how to begin something, how to be
a beginner. You begin, that's it. That's the only thing
that's required of you is begin. So my question for
you is what do you need to begin? What do
(39:29):
you need to begin, And what would it look like
for you to wake up tomorrow and see tomorrow as
your fresh start, as the start of something really beautiful.
I'll read this Billy Collins poem one last time because
it feels like a perfect way to wrap up. This
is the beginning. Almost anything can happen. This is where
you find the creation of light, a fish wriggling on
(39:50):
to land, the first word of paradise lost on an
empty page. Think of an egg, the letter A, a
woman ironing on a bear stage as the heavy curtain rises.
This is the very beginning. The first person narrator introduces himself,
tells us about his lineage. The mezzo sopranos stands in
the wings. Here the climbers are studying a map or
(40:12):
pulling on their long woolen socks. This is early on,
years before the arc dawn. The profile of an animal
is being speared on the wall of a cave, and
you have not yet moved a crawl. This is the
opening the gambit upon moving forward an inch. This is
your first night with her, your first night without her.
This is the first part where the wheels begin to turn,
(40:34):
where the elevator begins. It's a scent before the doors
Lurch apartment
This is the beginning. Almost anything can happen. This is
where you find the creation of light, a fish wriggling
on to land, the first word of paradise lost on
an empty page, Think of an egg, the letter A,
A woman ironing on a bare stage as the heavy
curtain rises. This is the very beginning. The first person
narrator introduces himself, tells us about his lineage. The mezzo
(00:24):
sopranos stands in the wings. Here the climbers are studying
a map or pulling on their long woolen socks. This
is early on, years before the arc dawn. The profile
of an animal is being smeared on the wall of
a cave, and you have not yet learned to crawl.
This is the opening the gambit upon moving forward an inch.
(00:45):
This is your first night with her, your first night
without her. This is the first part where the wheels
begin to turn, where the elevator begins its ascent, before
the doors lurch apart.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Pick up the pieces of fola, 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 get the words and said, don't
you think it's time to let them out and write
them down and covered.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
It's all about.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
And write. Write your story. Write you, write your story.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast.
I'm Ali Fallon, I'm your host, and this is your
first episode of twenty twenty six. Welcome to the new
year with me. Welcome back to the show. I'm so
grateful to have you here. I'm grateful you're listening in.
What I want to talk about on this week's episode
is this concept of being a beginner, of what it
feels like to start at the beginning of something with
(01:50):
really no blueprint for how things are supposed to go.
I think sometimes it's so easy to lose touch with
our sense of beginnerness, with the facts that we wake
up every day with this fresh, clean slate that really
every day is this new beginning, that we don't have
to wait for January first for it to be considered
a new beginning. That January first is an arbitrary date
(02:12):
that we've called the beginning of a new year. And
the fact that it's arbitrary, there's two sides to that.
It's like, it's arbitrary, so it's kind of meaningless, but
it's also arbitrary in that every single day that you
wake up is your new beginning that you would like
it to be. And so what would it look like
for us to start every day with that idea in mind,
that we can look at our lives anew, that we
(02:34):
can look at them through a fresh lens, from a
fresh perspective. Because I know, in the past couple of years,
I feel like there's been this arc. And I don't
know if you have witnessed this or since this. I'm
forty two, so maybe this is partly my age, but
I do feel like there's been an arc over the
course of the last ten or twenty years with New
Year's energy. So it used to be that everyone would
(02:56):
set New Year's resolutions and then the new year would
come and everyone was like really in the energy of
their resolutions. And at least when I was younger, in
my twenties, resolutions were always always always things like eat better,
exercise more, get in shape, get my six pack. So again,
age specific maybe, but also a little bit generation specific,
because I do think that my generation, I'm an elder millennial,
(03:19):
and I think my generation is particularly obsessed with body image.
And again, like maybe Some of this is just me
maturing over time, but some of it also has to
be the Zeitgei's shifting and the younger generation coming of
age and bringing this fresh new energy, speaking of fresh
new energy into the collective energy where we're not focusing
(03:42):
so much on that, we're not paying so much attention
to that. And so over the years, the New Year's
resolution energy has shifted dramatically where it used to be
like you set this really specific. You know, I was
taught smart goals in high school, so it's like specific, measurable.
I don't remember what the rest of the acronym was.
I could come up with them if I really sat
(04:02):
here and thought about it for just a second, specific, measurable, achievable.
So I would set this really specific goal. I want
to achieve you know, X thing by X date, and
here's how I'm going to do it. Here's my plan,
and I'm going to move forward with confidence and power
at the start of the year, and it's going to
be non negotiable, and it's about discipline and all this
stuff into like a bit of a softer version of
(04:24):
a resolution, where for many years there it felt like
we were kind of picking a word, or picking a
theme for our year, picking a lens to look at
our year through. So in the last couple and yeah,
in the last couple of years, I've noticed this other shift,
this second or third shift, where whatever shift we're on
into more of looking at January first like an absolutely
arbitrary date, Like this is not a date where we
(04:46):
need to be, you know, motivating ourselves or making resolutions
or making new choices for ourselves or working towards something new,
because it's the January first date comes from this great
Glorian calendar which was created by it created by Julius Caesar.
And maybe I'm getting those details wrong, but essentially this
idea that this calendar is created by a man, that
(05:08):
it makes no sense when you look at nature in
the middle of winter, that we're supposed to be resting
and nurturing and nourishing. And I know I recorded an
episode last year, or maybe it was the year before
on this idea of wintering and how important and special
it can be to spend the winter just nesting and
hibernating and creating and dreaming about what's coming next and
(05:31):
not necessarily going out there to try to achieve something
or accomplish something, and so yeah, we've moved into this
new phase where it's like, yeah, January first is kind
of meaningless. And I'm not saying nobody sets resolutions anymore.
Definitely people do, but I'm saying maybe more of us
are becoming aware of this idea that January first might
not be the ideal moment to set this specific measurable
(05:53):
resolution like we used to think, and so more of
us are kind of thinking in that mode. I don't
know if you've noticed that shift, but I've definitely known
the shift. And so as I've thought about what this
new year means to me this year, what January first,
the start of twenty twenty six means to me, I've
really thought about so much this idea of being a beginner,
(06:14):
because well, really the reason why this idea came to
me is because I'm teaching yoga at how Yoga Vias
NASHVILLEA just became certified in June, and I've been teaching
at the studio since then, and I'm loving it so much.
And I noticed I knew this would happen. I noticed
that at the start of January, our classes all of
a sudden got very busy meaning people are still setting resolutions.
(06:38):
This is why I said I know that people are
still setting resolutions because I'm witnessing it happen. We're getting
a ton of new students to the studio who have
never done yoga before, or who have done yoga but
haven't done it in a really long time, and so
they're making this shift and change in their life, and
they're adding yoga to their regimen, and they're coming in
early in the morning for six am classes, and they're
coming in for the first time to a hot clae
(07:00):
and they're giving this a try. And so I was
just connecting with this energy of gosh, what must that
be like to walk into a studio. You've never taken
a yoga class before, you've never taken a hot yoga
class before, and you're stepping into this room for the
first time. What must that feel like? And connecting with
that energy because I'm the instructor now, I mean, I
(07:20):
remember what it felt like. I do remember what it
felt like to be a new student. And you know,
I could tell that story another day, but I remember
so vividly what it felt like to walk into the
studio that first time, and I will never forget the
instructor telling me your goal the first time you come
here is just to stay in the room for all
sixty minutes because it is so hot in there. You
don't have to do every pose, you don't have to
keep up with the flow, just focus on just staying
(07:42):
in the room the whole time, and that will be
a big accomplishment. So I remember what it felt like
to be so new, and now I'm the instructor, and
I'm actually a new instructor, so I still am connected
to that energy of this is what it feels like
to be new at something. And I really wanted to
build my yoga flow around this feeling of what it's
(08:03):
like to be new. And as I was connecting with
this feeling of what it feels like to be new,
what it's like in the body to be new at something,
I just kept coming back to this sense of like
we're starting a fresh year. I don't care who you are,
I don't care whether this calendar was created by a man,
or whether it's arbitrary or not. Collectively, as a collective
(08:26):
energy in the zeitgeist, this is the time of year
where we're turning the page and saying, yesterday was twenty
twenty five, today is twenty twenty six. This is a
new start, And yes it is arbitrary because you could
also wake up tomorrow on whatever day you're listening to this.
So January twelfth, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and decide February, March, April.
(08:46):
You could decide any day of this year that you
want this day to be a new day, a new start,
a fresh start for you, the turn of a page,
the start of a chapter. You can always, always, always
decide to start fresh. And also so you can't really
decide to start fresh unless you're willing to connect with
what it feels like to be a beginner at something.
(09:07):
I literally wrote at the top of my page before
I started recording this episode, how to be a beginner,
and then I tabbed down two lines and wrote begin.
It's so obvious, right, It's so obvious. It's right there
in front of you. How to be a beginner. You
have to begin. In order to be a beginner, you
must begin, and beginning is the hardest part, beginning with
(09:30):
something new that you've never done before. Maybe the thing
you begin with is yoga. Maybe the thing you begin
with is going to the gym, or cutting sugar from
your diet or whatever any of those kind of many
options that are available to you for New Year's resolutions.
Maybe it's something like that, or maybe for you, beginning
means I'm going to begin today to slow down. I'm
(09:56):
going to begin to say no to things to clear
my calendar. I'm going to begin to schedule my days
in such a way where I can take deep breaths
all through the day, from start to finish. I'm going
to begin to slow my reaction time when I get triggered.
I'm going to begin to look at my life as
(10:19):
an observer and notice where my patterns are running. I'm
going to begin to do something differently than I've ever
ever ever done before. And I just want you to
take a moment to connect with what it feels like
to be a beginner. I'm feeling it in my body
right now because I can put myself my two feet
in that place of walking into that yoga studio and
(10:41):
just knowing I'm going to walk into the studio and
my life is going to change. I knew that intuitively.
I really believe I did. I walked into that studio
on a September day, I don't remember the exact day
of twenty fifteen, and by November nineteenth, so two months
ish later, my life I knew it completely unraveled and
fell apart in what would become such a beautiful way.
(11:05):
But what was absolutely terrifying to me at that time,
And no matter what you tell me, you could never
convince me that me beginning at yoga that day had
nothing to do with what eventually happened. I walked into
that yoga studio with my ex husband. We took the
first class together. He never came back to the studio.
(11:26):
I came back day after day after day after day,
and that experience built the foundation for me. It started
to connect me to my body, to my intuition, to
my inner knowing, and what I discovered two months later
had always been there waving its flag at me. I
just never had the eyes to see it. And yoga
(11:47):
and connecting with myself and connecting with my breath is
what gave me the eyes to see what had been
there all along. So in order to be a beginner,
we have to connect with that feeling of what it
feels like to walk into the yoga studio for the
first time, and it doesn't have to be a yoga studio.
Maybe it's something totally different for you. But my guess
is that you probably already have a sense of what's
(12:09):
inviting you to begin in your life. It might be
something really different, like maybe for you, it's just about
connecting with your breath during the day, or any of
those other things that I mentioned, you know, seeing your
life through the lens of an observer. Or maybe it's
meditation for you, or maybe it's I don't know, any
number of things. You probably have something floating in your
(12:30):
head right now that you're like, I think this is
what I'm meant to begin. And the only way to
become a beginner is to begin. And I wrote begin
with a plan or without one, because sometimes I think
we have this sense and the old way of setting
resolutions really speaks to this. The old way of setting
resolutions is specific, measurable, actionable, you know, time sensitive. The
(12:56):
old way of setting smart goals was you're supposed to
put a deadline on it, a date that you wanted
to complete this thing by. And what I'm talking about
is walking into a fresh start with or without a plan.
In fact, a beginner's mindset really looks at something and says,
I don't have the first clue how to accomplish this,
(13:17):
Like I wouldn't even know where to begin. All I
know is that I can put both feet inside the building.
You know, when I showed up at yoga that day,
I didn't know the name of a single yoga pose.
I did have some dance experience, and so I think
that was part of why I, specifically, individually, was drawn
to yoga, And everybody will be drawn to something different.
(13:38):
So I think I was pulled towards yoga because of
my previous dance experience. But I walked into that studio
I didn't know a single yoga post. I had never
done yoga in the past. So I walked in with
that feeling of just like, oh, I'm going to take
this class, and I'm going to be the one person
in the room who doesn't know what the heck we're
doing and what's going on, And that feeling can feel
(14:00):
very vulnerable. It does feel very vulnerable. It's supposed to
feel vulnerable. My brother in law told me just before
we transitioned into the new year that he's really been
wanting to start taking yoga classes. I have spent many
(14:21):
months trying to convince my husband to come with me
to yoga, and yoga is just not his thing. And
I've had to realize that and remind myself like everyone
has their own thing, and everyone has their own path
that they're on, and just because I love yoga so
much and it's meant so much to me, I mean,
Matt has taken many yoga classes because I've dragged him,
but yoga is not his thing. And it's not that
he couldn't get anything out of it, but it's just
really it's not the thing that he feels drawn to.
(14:44):
So I've had to let that go. So I was
surprised when Luke told me Matt's brother told me that
he would really like to start taking yoga classes, and
so I brought him to a couple of classes with me,
and this got me thinking. This was like in the
later December that I was bringing him to classes with
me and he was telling me, you know, I love
it for this reason and that reason, but gosh, it's
(15:04):
so hard because you just don't know any of the names,
you don't know what's going on. It's moving so quickly.
The teachers are teaching, you know, such a fast pace
and it can be really hard as a beginner to
keep up. So this got me thinking about how I
could design a flow for the month of January when
I knew we'd have a bunch of beginners come into
the studio where the flow moved a little slower and
(15:26):
where you had a little bit more space and time
to teach some of the poses. Then, because this is
how our brains work, we've been so wired toward one
certain way of doing things that I started to go, Okay, well,
if I slow the flow down, then the advanced students
are going to be frustrated because they're going to want
to really get a good workout, and that's what they
come for. They're going to want to really flow. And
(15:48):
what I realized is the epiphany for me is that
simple doesn't always mean easy. In fact, simple sometimes is
harder then complicated. Does that make sense, Simple doesn't always
mean easy. Keeping things simple can sometimes be harder and
(16:08):
more challenging than when we over complicate things. There is
a blessing even if it's something that you've done a
thousand times before, because maybe the thing that you feel
like you're being called to do in this fresh start
at the start of the year. Is maybe something that
you've done a million times before. I mean, maybe for you,
this just popped into my head. So maybe there's someone
listening who needs to hear this, But maybe for you,
(16:30):
it's like, I know I need to get sober. I
know I need to like just stop drinking or stop
using drugs to numb myself for my life, or stop
using my phone, my freaking phone. I definitely do that,
to use Instagram on my phone to numb myself and
to not be here and not be present. So maybe
there's something like that that you're like, I've done this
one hundred times before, but I need to do it again.
(16:53):
And what I realized is that just because something is simple,
it's so simple. It's like give up coffee, give up
your Instagram, delete it from your phone, give up alcohol
for the month of January or even longer. It's so simple.
But that does not mean that it's easy. And so
when you plan a yoga flow that's simple, maybe the
postures are quite simple. You come back to the basics.
(17:14):
You teach where you're one, where your two or you'r three.
You teach you just the basics and really focus on
alignment and focus on posture, and focus on the little
tiny details and nuances that many people don't notice in
a yoga class. Just because you come back to the
basics doesn't make the flow easy. In fact, sometimes it
can make it more challenging. If you're holding a pose
(17:35):
for a lengthy amount of time, sometimes that pose actually
becomes more challenging than it would be if you were
moving through a breath to movement. So how to be
a beginner? You just begin? And sometimes we have to
begin at something that we've actually done many, many, many
times before. But can we look at that thing through
(17:56):
a fresh lens with a fresh perspective. And sometimes when
we slow things way down and we keep the postures
really simple, and I mean this is more than just yoga.
Sometimes when we slow down we keep the postures simple,
it gives us an opportunity to see the flow, to
see our life, to see the poses, to see everything
(18:19):
that's going on around us in a fresh way, to
see it through a fresh lens. So what would it
look like for you? Because yes, January first happens in
the middle of winter. It's simplify, simplify, simplified. Declutter, declutter, declutter,
bring it back to the basics. Remind yourself that you're
a beginner again. What would it look like for you
(18:39):
to do that, To remind yourself that you're a beginner again.
To remind yourself that January first, and January thirty first,
and February twenty eighth, and March whatever, and June and
July and every day for the rest of this year
is a brand new, fresh start. You get to start over,
You get to have a clean slate, You get to
turn the page from one day to the other. In
every moment, in every breath, and every day, this is
(19:02):
a fresh start. And you are a beginner, and you
can start wherever you are. You can start with whatever
you have. You can start to build what it is
that you long for. You can start to build what
it is that you hope for. You can start to
create what it is that you know is possible, that
vision that's in your head. You can start over. You
can start fresh. You don't have to keep dragging the
(19:24):
past with you into the present moment. And believe me
when I say that I am speaking to myself here
one thousand percent. I feel like if you've listened for
a long time, you've heard me rehashed this story over
and over again. And whenever we're rehashing, whenever human beings
in general are rehashing a story over and over again,
we're doing it because we're trying to understand. So you
(19:44):
can't fault yourself for that. You really have to give
yourself tons of grace that when you find yourself retelling
the same stories over and over, it's because you're trying
to understand. I guess my question for myself and my
question for you would be, do you have to understand?
Or can you just let it go? Can you just
let it go that that's the way that things happened,
(20:06):
that's the way that things went. You don't get it now.
Maybe you'll get it one day, maybe you won't. But
whether you get it or whether you don't get it,
can you just let it go? Can you just turn
the page and decide that today's a fresh start, and
decide that in order to be a beginner, all you
have to do is begin. This is the other beautiful
thing about being a beginner that I just reconnected with.
(20:28):
And if we can remind ourselves that we're all beginners
every day, we get to come in with this energy
all the time, but the bar is set kind of
low for beginners in a beautiful way. Like you walk
into a yoga room for the first time, a hot
yoga class, and the instructors will tell you, or should
tell you, your goal for class is just to stay in
the room. That's your whole goal. You don't have to
(20:48):
do every posture. You don't have to do every pose.
You've got nothing to prove to anybody. You don't have
to do the whole flow. Please, don't compete with your neighbor.
Take breaks when you need it, Take a sip of water,
you know, come down to the mat, listen to your body,
stay with your breath. You're a beginner and all that's
expected of you is just to stay in the room.
Just stay present with yourself and with your breath. And
then we act like, okay, So now after I've been
(21:11):
been doing the thing for a while, now I'm an
advanced yogi and so now is when I really start
competing with my neighbor and making sure that I do
everything that the teacher tells me to do and proving
myself on my mat. No no, no, no, no, no
no no. This is why we need to reconnect with
a beginner mindset, because no matter how long you've been
(21:33):
doing the thing that you're doing, the fact of the
matter is all that's expected of you, all that can
be asked of you, all that you can ask of
yourself is to show up every day, to stay with
your breath, to do your best, to breathe, to be here,
to bring your full self into the space, into the room.
I am recording this episode later in the day than
I usually do. I usually record in the mornings. I'm
(21:55):
recording at night because my day did not go to plan.
I have had this whole new like morning routine that
I want to do this. I've got a new setup
for the homeschool co op that I've been building for
my kids. We've got a system, a new system going
that started January fifth, because that was the first Monday
after the break. So we've got this new system in place.
I've been so excited about it. Last week was like
(22:17):
setup week, like let's get everyone in the routine. We
know what we're doing. This week was like, yes, okay,
we're coasting, We're in the new routine. We're going well.
I woke up this morning. From the minute I woke up,
things just started going wrong. Things started going not the
way that I wanted them to go, not the way
that they planned to go, not the way that they
were supposed to go. One thing after another of the
dominoes just started falling. You know how it goes. I
(22:37):
don't need to tell you the whole story, but basically,
by the time I got to my class, my yoga
class tonight to teach at four point thirty, I normally
get there a little early, take some minute, a minute
to ground, get ready for my class. I show up
at class, I'm frazzled from the day. I haven't had
a moment to like breathe and take care of myself.
I show up, I'm checking students in left and right.
It's such such a busy time of year at the studio,
(22:59):
so you just got people flooding in. You're checking everyone in.
And then I popped into my yoga class and taught
my flow, and my flow is all about being a beginner.
I opened with this poem, this beautiful poem that I
read at the end at the beginning of the episode
by Billy Collins. The poem's called Aristotle, and it has
three parts beginning, middle, and end, but I read the
first part, which is called beginning. This is the beginning.
(23:20):
Almost anything can happen. This is where you find the
creation of light, a fish wriggling onto land, the first
word of paradise loss on an empty page. I've been
working on memorizing this poem because it's such a beautiful poem,
and so I read it at the beginning of class
and we launch into the flow. And I have this
really simplified, stripped back, stripped down flow planned so that
(23:43):
I can walk through the poses and walk through the
cues and teach people what the poses are called, and
show people what Sun Series A looks like and what
a Sun Series C looks like, and what a Sun
Series B looks like. And it just didn't go the
way that I wanted to go. It was fine, and
we did it. We did all the postures, we did
(24:04):
the poses, we moved through. It's fine. It was fine.
But when I tell you that, I walked out of
there feeling like such a beginner, feeling like I'm a
beginner teacher, I'm just reminded that I'm easily thrown off
by the stress of the room around me. So many
people in there were new and bringing this new energy
in that I'm easily thrown off by realizing, like a
lot of people in the room are very uncomfortable, and
(24:27):
I'm easily thrown off by the day that happened before
I walked into the room. I'm easily thrown off by
the busyness at the front desk. I was like, Wow, Okay,
I'm a beginner and it's okay. It is a vulnerable
feeling to be a beginner. And guess what, how do
you be a beginner? You begin? So if there's anything
(24:48):
that you are beginning at the beginning of this year,
you are a beginner, and you are going to feel
vulnerable as you begin something that you've never begun before,
or maybe even begin something a new that you've begun
a thousand times before. Maybe you take step one of
your own sobriety. Maybe it's sobriety from alcohol, or maybe
(25:08):
it's sobriety from codependency, or maybe it's sobriety from people pleasing,
or maybe it's sobriety from perfectionism, or maybe it's sobriety
from you, yeah, constantly beating yourself up or being unkind
or gossiping, or caffeine or whatever it is that you
are beginning anew at the beginning of this year. Maybe
this is the five hundredth time that you've begun this thing.
(25:31):
I don't care how many times you've done it before.
To be a beginner feels vulnerable. You will feel like
you are new. There's this great line from the poem
that I read at the beginning of the episode. He says,
this is early on, years before the arc dawn. The
profile of an animal is being smeared on the wall
of a cave, and you have not yet learned to crawl.
(25:53):
That line, You have not yet learned to crawl. Remember
what it was like. You probably can't really remember in
your brain what it was like to be the age
where you couldn't even crawl you were one year old.
But if you have a baby, if you have a child,
maybe you can connect with what it felt like to
watch them take that first step, take a first step
(26:19):
in faith, wondering if your legs were going to catch
underneath of you, you know, catch you as you walked,
or if you were going to fall and hit your face.
Maybe you can reconnect through watching your children take their
first step into kindergarten, or their first step into first grade,
or their first step on the playground to go play
with someone, or their first heartbreak, or their first step
(26:41):
into college. You know, there are so many thresholds that
we cross in life that are firsts. And what I
want you to remember is that today is one of
those thresholds, and so is tomorrow. So is the next day,
and so was the next day, and so is the
next day. It is a fresh start. It is a
new beginning, is an new chapter a new book, and
(27:02):
only you get to decide what this new chapter is
going to look like. You do not have to bring
the past in with you. I can tell you for sure.
I know January first is an arbitrary date, but I
am choosing to leave twenty twenty through twenty twenty five
in the past. I am choosing to leave twenty twenty
(27:29):
through twenty twenty five in the past. That is the
arc of the story for me that I don't yet
fully understand. Maybe one day I will, but I'm tired
of spinning my wheels trying to understand. Before I'm willing
to move on and start anew before I'm willing to
move forward and start fresh, I'm starting with what I
(27:51):
have how do I be a beginner? I just begin
So I'm just beginning. I'm beginning without a plan. I'm
beginning without an agenda, and beginning with what I have.
I'm beginning with who I am. I'm trusting that who
I am right now is enough to get me where
I'm going, and that all I have to do is
show up and begin and be with myself and be
(28:13):
with my breath. And that's enough. That is enough. Who
I am is enough, What I have is enough. Where
I'm starting is enough to start today, to enter into
this new chapter, and to turn the page tomorrow and
start again, and turn to pay the page the next
day and start again. I wrote on my notes how
(28:34):
to be a beginner, make no assumptions. So when you
are a beginner at something, you don't assume because you
don't know what to assume. And beginners can teach us.
Use this as a metaphor. If you're in a yoga
studio and you've been in the yoga studio for a
long time, and you know the drill, you know all
(28:54):
the things, you know where to put your stuff, you
know the routine, you know which you put your mat
in the same spot every single time you go in,
you've got your system down. You know all the poses,
you know all the postures, you know the teachers you like.
You always go to their classes. You go at the
same times, every day, same week. Blah blah blah. You
got the drill down. Okay. You can watch the beginners
walk in who are so fresh. They wouldn't know where
(29:17):
to put their mat They have no idea what even
is different about putting their mat in different spots of
the room. They don't know who the teachers are, they
don't know what the postures are. They make no assumptions.
They couldn't possibly make an assumption. How could they? Because
they know nothing? And we have so much to learn
from watching a beginner know nothing. What would it be
(29:38):
like for you to pretend you know nothing because guess what,
you really don't. You really don't. You might think you're
right about so many things. But I have been practicing
saying this to myself. I'm okay with being wrong, I
really am. I'm okay with being wrong, And in fact,
it's so important for us to learn that most of
the time we're wrong. The assumptions we make are not correct.
(30:02):
So I wrote How to Be a beginner, make no assumptions,
make mistakes. I'm taking tonight as a win. I made
several mistakes that I'm not going to beat myself up for,
but I should have taken a moment to ground before
I went into that room tonight. There are other like
little tactical mistakes I just learned as a teacher. I'm like, Okay,
don't do that, do this instead, try this next time, X, Y,
(30:23):
and Z. I'm giving myself my own little feedback. But
making mistakes is part of being a beginner. Listen, if
you were perfect, if you had it perfectly down, you
wouldn't need to keep doing these things. So whatever you're beginning,
go in trusting that you are going to make one
hundred mistakes, and that mistakes are how we learn or
(30:45):
how we grow. It's part of the process. It is
built into the fabric of what it means to be
a beginner to make mistakes. So assume that mistakes are
going to happen. They're just part of this. And I
wrote make a mess. My profectionism gets in the way
so much of my ability to access my beginner's mind.
(31:06):
A beginner's mind is the very essence of creativity. Unless
you can come to your life with childlike wonder, unless
you can come to your life to the events of
what's happening around you with a sense of like, I
wonder what this means. I wonder how we could approach this,
(31:26):
How could we solve this problem differently? How have we
not seen this before? How have we not thought about this?
Unless we can come with that kind of openness, that
kind of curiosity, we can't make any progress. We'll just
keep repeating the past over and over and over again.
There will be no such thing as new beginnings for
any of us who cannot learn what it looks like
to begin anew to come with a beginner's mindset. A
(31:50):
new beginning is a gift to someone who chooses a
beginner's mindset. And so what would it look like for
you to choose a beginner's mindset in your life? For me,
I've rehashed the story a bunch of times, thousands of times,
hundreds of times. It feels like I've just kind of
whined and complained about it. I'm not being too hard
on myself. I've just my brain has been working so
(32:11):
hard to figure out, like, what happened? Why did it happen.
How can I prevent it from happening in the future.
What if I could just kind of hit the delete
button and approach my life now with a beginner's mindset,
Like here's a thought experiment for you. I stole this
and altered it from someone on Instagram that I cannot
remember who it was. It was, like, I think, like
a fairly popular influencer. So if this sounds familiar to you,
(32:35):
send me a message and let me know who I
stole this from because I can't remember, maybe like Ryan
Holiday or something like that. But the thought experiment was like,
let's just say like you were a soul who was
on the other side, or you were in heaven or something,
and you got dropped into your current body and your
current life today, but you had never lived a day
in your life before, so this is all new to you.
Like you show up, you're just like, oh, okay, I'm
(32:57):
Ali Fallon. I'm married to Matt Ford, who's this like amazing, supportive,
loving partner. I've got a great, sturdy, loving marriage and partnership.
I've got two beautiful, happy, healthy kids who are just thriving,
like who are just living their best life and completely thriving.
I live in a nice house in East Nashville. I've
(33:19):
got space, like we all have bedrooms, like it's a
beautiful house. I started this homeschool co op for my
kids because I had the privilege of doing that. I've
got resources, I've got family support. My mother in law
lives directly next door to us. She moved here because
she's just such an amazing, loving presence in our lives,
in our kids' lives. She helps me with my kids.
(33:41):
I have friends like all over the city. I've built
relationships here. Do you see what happens? Like I don't
need to go on and on about my life, but
like you start to see your life through a totally
different lens. It's not like, you know, if I was
a soul who like dropped into this body today, I
wouldn't see like all the loss and all the frustration
and all the despair. And I'm not saying that none
(34:01):
of those things matter. They're part of my story. But
I wouldn't spend time ruminating on everything that we lost
over the last five years. You know, I wouldn't spend
time obsessing over trying to fix the problem. Like you know,
I've had these back to back miscarriages, and so much
of my brain energy has gone like, how do I
fix this? Something's wrong? How do I fix it? Well,
(34:24):
if I dropped into this body today, I would just
be like, this body feels strong. I teach yoga, Wow,
this is cool. This body feels healthy, This body feels
strong good, Like, how can I nourish my body? How
can I take care of myself? What would it look
like for you to imagine that you're a soul that
drops into this body today and you're seeing your life
through fresh eyes. You were a beginner in your own life,
(34:44):
and you're just like, wow, okay, even if the circumstances
are not which you hoped that they would be. Like
maybe you're a soul that drops into the body and
you look at your bank account and go like, yikes, yeah,
whoever was like driving this shit before made some t
choices that put us in a tough spot. Or maybe
you know your soul that drops into the body and
(35:06):
realizes like, ooh, this relationship I'm in does not feel
good in the body. So maybe seeing things through that
fresh lens can actually help you make choices that you've
been unwilling to make before because you've been stuck in
a pattern. Maybe you go like, oh, like, I really
realized that that friendship is not working for me. Even
(35:28):
though this person has been friends with me for a
really long time, I've been friends with them forever. So
maybe seeing your life through a fresh lens and with
a fresh perspective can give you that clarity. And then
my invitation to you is to give yourself the permission
to be that beginner in your life every single day.
What would it look like to wake up tomorrow and
(35:49):
begin again, begin fresh, begin anew? What would it look
like to wake up every day and think what do
I want to make today? How can I bring a
beginner's mind? How can I bring a childlike wonder to
my life? A childlike curiosity. One of the things that
has come up for me so many times as I've
thought about this childlike wonder and curiosity is just how
(36:11):
special it is to get to witness this in kids,
because they come by it so honestly. So my two kids,
I spend a lot of time with them. I've thought
about so many times over the last couple of weeks.
I've been playing with this idea. How you know, if
things had gone my way, the way that I wanted
them to go back in twenty twenty, my business would
have been hugely successful. Things would have taken off, My
husband's business would have been successful. We would have hired
(36:34):
a nanny, I mean whatever, there's so many different ideas
about that. We would have hired a nanny, brought a
nanny into the space. I would have had full time help.
Because of choices that we made. That was never something
that was accessible to us. We just didn't have the
resources for it. We had nanny's off and on and
nanny's shares and different kinds of things. But again, if
I'd had my way, if it had gone my way,
(36:55):
I would have hired this full time nanny. She would
have been with us for all these past years. And instead,
what I've had is like copious amounts of time with
my children, which you know, is like, yeah, that's amazing.
And also there are some big drawbacks if you have
young children. The drawbacks are like you just have no independence,
you have you can't go anywhere by herself, including the
(37:16):
grocery store. And so I've just had all this time
with my kids, and looking back from this vantage point,
I'm like thank God, like because I'm out of the
weeds of it. I'm like, thank God that things didn't
go my way because I've had all this time with
my kids and I've got to witness them and they're
a childlike wonder and that childlike you know, the freshness
(37:38):
that they just come into this world with. And when
we started the homeschool co op next door, we originally
hired a teacher, who we hired her over the summer.
She was going to start in August. She backed out
at the last minute. It was a whole debacle. Then
I was like, Okay, I'm going to step in and
I'm going to teach until we can find another teacher.
So then I was with the kids. So I was
with my two kids. There were six or seven maybe
(38:00):
total kids at the time, seven at one point and
then six for the second half of that first semester,
So I was with the kids a lot. And again
like total benefits to it, and also drawbacks because it's
like you're stuck in the space, you can't go anywhere.
But when I think about the real gift of spending
so much time with these kids is I am not
(38:24):
at all confused about what it looks like to have
that childlike wonder. It has rubbed off on me. It
has been so good for me. It is not something
I would have picked for myself, because I'm like a
butterfly that likes to flit from thing to thing, Like
I want to like freedom to go here and there
and make plans at the last minute, and you know,
meet friends for lunch and yeah, just go to this
(38:45):
and that. I like to do a lot of different stuff,
and so the idea of being in the same place
every day, doing the same thing with the same group
of people was feeling a little claustrophobic to me. But
I'm like, gosh, thank God that I got that experience
because they their childlike wonder rubbed off on me, their
childlike wonder inspired me. I have been given so many unbelievable,
(39:08):
remarkable gifts from spending so much time with these kids.
Thank you, thank you, Thank you to these kids for
teaching me this lesson about what it looks like to
be a beginner, how to begin something, how to be
a beginner. You begin, that's it. That's the only thing
that's required of you is begin. So my question for
you is what do you need to begin? What do
(39:29):
you need to begin, And what would it look like
for you to wake up tomorrow and see tomorrow as
your fresh start, as the start of something really beautiful.
I'll read this Billy Collins poem one last time because
it feels like a perfect way to wrap up. This
is the beginning. Almost anything can happen. This is where
you find the creation of light, a fish wriggling on
(39:50):
to land, the first word of paradise lost on an
empty page. Think of an egg, the letter A, a
woman ironing on a bear stage as the heavy curtain rises.
This is the very beginning. The first person narrator introduces himself,
tells us about his lineage. The mezzo sopranos stands in
the wings. Here the climbers are studying a map or
(40:12):
pulling on their long woolen socks. This is early on,
years before the arc dawn. The profile of an animal
is being speared on the wall of a cave, and
you have not yet moved a crawl. This is the
opening the gambit upon moving forward an inch. This is
your first night with her, your first night without her.
This is the first part where the wheels begin to turn,
(40:34):
where the elevator begins. It's a scent before the doors
Lurch apartment
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Betrayal Season 5
Saskia Inwood woke up one morning, knowing her life would never be the same. The night before, she learned the unimaginable – that the husband she knew in the light of day was a different person after dark. This season unpacks Saskia’s discovery of her husband’s secret life and her fight to bring him to justice. Along the way, we expose a crime that is just coming to light. This is also a story about the myth of the “perfect victim:” who gets believed, who gets doubted, and why. We follow Saskia as she works to reclaim her body, her voice, and her life. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.