Good Life Project - Alex Elle | How to Heal

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

I’ve come to realize something, we are all healing from something. All the time. Maybe it’s a physical illness or injury or harm, maybe it’s rooted more in our minds, maybe it’s even rooted in the culture. But, we’re all invited into a path of healing, and we all need it on some level, even if we don’t know it, or want to own it quite yet.Question is, how do you find healing when you feel like all the odds are stacked against you?When you feel like you take two steps backward for every step forward? How do you heal beyond the visible wounds, and reclaim something deeper, more whole? And, how do we heal as a path of growth and expression and joy?This is where we’re heading in today’s conversation with Alex Elle, who's found a way to approach self-healing from a practical, relatable, expansive standpoint. Alex is an author, certified breathwork coach, and restorative writing teacher whose powerful healing journey has led her to where she is today. Her newest book, How We Heal: Uncover Your Power and Set Yourself Free, is a practical and empowering guide to self-healing, filled with essential techniques and insights that invite readers to unlock their confidence to heal on their own.And in our conversation today, we explore Alex's own healing journey and the barriers—which you might find relatable—that stood in the way of her process, and we discuss the difficulties of healing when no one else around you is doing it, breaking generational cycles, and how to heal when you're ready. You can find Alex at: Website | InstagramIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Elizabeth Lesser about a life of perpetual awakening and healing.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I saw the women in my life carry misery like a badge. It was what I thought we were all destined to carry, is the sadness, is the struggle, is the unhappiness, is the not knowing of who we are. And I did not want to live that way. And it was hard because when people around you are living differently than how you want to live, it's like, can I even do this? Can I break the cycle? Because no one taught me how to do this. It's like, can I even do this? Can I break the cycle? Because no one

taught me how to do this. Not my mother, not my grandmother. I had nobody leading the way for me. I am leading the way. I am the matriarch of healing for my lineage. So I've come to realize something. We are all healing from something pretty much all the time. Maybe it's physical illness or injury or harm. Maybe it's rooted more in our minds, our state of being. Maybe it's rooted in the culture. Maybe it's all of the above. But we're all invited into some kind of a path of healing. And we all need it on some level, even if we don't know it or don't want to quite own it yet. And the question is, well, how do we find healing when we feel like all the odds are stacked against us? Or when you feel like you take two steps backward for every step forward,

how do we heal beyond the visible wounds and reclaim something deeper, more whole in ourselves, in our world? And how do we heal as a path of growth and expression and joy? And this is where we're heading in today's conversation with Alex L, who's found a way to approach self-healing from a really practical and relatable and expansive standpoint. So Alex is an author, a certified breathwork coach, and restorative writing teacher whose powerful healing journey has led her to where she is today. She discovered writing as a complementary and really profound form of revelation and healing and growth and her exploration of healing through journaling

and mindfulness. And her intention behind her work is to build community and self-care practices through literature and language. And Alex's workshops and courses and retreats, they embody her mission as she works to help others find their voices and really create clarity in their lives and relationships. Her newest book, How We Heal, Uncover Your Power and Set Yourself Free, it's this practical and empowering guide to self-healing filled with essential techniques and insights that invite readers to unlock their confidence, to heal on their own. And she also has contributions and thoughts and essays and prompts and meditation from so many different incredible people woven into it.

And by the way, just as a physical object, as the maker in me lit up because it is an absolutely beautiful to both hold and behold social object. And in our conversation today, we really explore Alex's own healing journey and the barriers, which you might find really relatable, I know I did, that stood in the way of her process. And we discuss the difficulties of healing when no one else around you is doing it too. Saying yes to a process of healing, recovery, revelation, reclamation, or even growth, breaking generational cycles, and how to heal when you're ready. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. We'll be right back. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations,

iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Okay, where do we dive in? So first, the book, excited to talk about ideas and stories. The physical object of the book itself is gorgeous. Thank you. Absolutely gorgeous. Thank you. Absolutely gorgeous. I'm curious how much of that was your vision, because it seems like somebody had to really, really care to create something that is so just physically beautiful as a social object.

So I have a great team over at Chronicle, and the design process is very collaborative. And the designer there, her name is Vanessa. She is absolutely wonderful. And Chronicle is known for creating really beautifully packaged books, right? And so they know with me that I love beautiful things. I love minimalism, but I love to make people feel things when they pick up a book. So even with my book, After the Rain, it's stunning. So we kind of have How We Heal looking a little bit like After the Rain, but with kind of a tweak. So I love it.

It's just, it just makes me happy. People can only see like your smile right now. But yeah, there's something kind of magical. I mean, as a fellow author also, like when you write something, it's been interesting for me. I'm a maker also. And so I'm so, I love the process of creation. Yeah. But I've never been really deeply moved by sort of like a fairly straightforward book,

which has been most of my book, except for the last one we actually had, Pops of Color and Iconography. And all of a sudden I was like, oh, like this is actually something that I feel like it lands on people differently. The medium is in part the message and it really matters what it feels and looks like and how that moves through you. I feel the same. Something that I want people to do with my books is keep them out. Keep them out so they can revisit them.

Keep them out so they can look beautiful. And someone else is like, oh, what is that? Right? So with How We Heal, the title is actually sideways. And it is just, we were torn, like, should we do sideways or should we do regular? And we went back and forth. And then I was just like, you know what? It has to be sideways because people are going to be like, what does that say? And that is cool, right? So that's the first draw to kind of get people in,

which I love people being curious about books. I mean, I'm a book collector. Me and my husband have hundreds of books. And to be honest, sometimes I just buy them because the cover is beautiful. I'm 100% there with you. I totally get that. Yeah, no, it is great. And then of course, what's inside of it is fantastic. And we're going to dive into that. But before we get there, we need to talk about pottery. You have been for like the better part of this year, you and I think it's your oldest daughter have been like doing pottery together.

And when I was watching, you created this great sort of like reel about it, this visual about it. I was watching that. I had this flashback because I grew up the son of a potter. So in the basement of my house, you know, like was all converted into a pottery studio. And that was my mom's, like, that was her sacred space. That was where she would go to get happy, to express herself, to work out whatever she needed to work out that was going on in her like heart and mind. And I was exposed to that from a young age, like a really young age. And I would sometimes be down there working on my own thing with her.

So it's so fun to see that, I guess you and your daughter started to sort of like say yes to co-creating and using pottery as a medium together earlier this year. I'm so curious what that experience has been like for you. Man, it's been so beautiful. So my oldest is 14. She'll be 15 in November. And I had always wanted to try pottery. She's an artist. I'm an artist in my own right, meaning I'm a writer, which I think writers are artists, but she's an actual artist. And so I really wanted to expose her to other mediums of making. And I also, like you, love making. I love it. I was always intimidated by pottery though, but I decided, okay, let's try this.

I'll try this with Charlie. Her name is Charlie and it'll be fun. And I didn't go in thinking, I want to become a potter. I want to sell the things. I just wanted us to have fun and play. So on Wednesdays we would go and after her therapy session, we'd go and do pottery and we're still doing it. So sometimes it's not on Wednesdays, sometimes it's on Fridays or Saturdays, but not only have we become kind of a family with

the small studio of people, but we've grown closer with each other without even saying anything. Just being at the wheel next to each other has been so wonderful. And she can throw like 12 pounds of clay. It is wild to me to see. And me, I mean, I focus on like the little tinies because I'm still kind of intimidated, but it's really fun to get our hands dirty and to not know what we're doing and have fun with it instead of, you know, kind of the world tells us that we really need to know what we're doing and we need to monetize our creativity. And this is not that. It is just simply playing and making a mess and getting dirty. We're all covered in clay when we leave. And it's really beautiful.

It challenges her, I think, as an artist to release perfectionism because you cannot control the clay. Yeah. At all. Of all the mediums that you could play is one of those things where it will bring you to your knees really fast. Really fast. Really fast. And there was a time. So she made this really big piece. It was about nine and a half pounds of clay.

And by the way, for those listening, if you have no sense of that, that is like a big piece of clay that takes a huge amount of effort and craft to be able to work with. Yes. To be able to center, to be able to do anything with. I look at her in awe. So she had about nine pounds of clay. She drew out her sketch, which was this plate with a carved rose and some flames, right? So the rose would be sitting on the plate. The plate looks like the sun, essentially. She was so excited. She threw the piece, hand carved the rose. It was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen.

And it did not do well. When it got fired, it cracked. And she was devastated. So much so that she wanted to throw it away. I said, no, no, no. It's okay. Things happen. This is the lesson.

That even when you take your time and do things in a way that you think is going to produce something beautiful and amazing, it might not. Trial and error. So I made her keep it. She keeps it in her room, but she was really disappointed for a few days. Like, dang it, I wanted that to come out right. And the glaze didn't look right and all these things, but it was such a beautiful lesson. And that's what pottery has taught us. You're bringing back so many memories as you're sharing that story. I remember my mom had, they built this massive like gas fire kiln, you know, like that you could literally walk inside and it would take 24 hours to fire. And there had to be somebody there watching it the whole time.

I remember her, like she would work for months sometimes to have enough pieces to put into that. And then in 24 hours, you never knew what was going to happen. You almost had to just surrender yourself to say, what might come out might be stunning and blow me away. Everything might explode and anything in the middle. And you're just kind of like, if you go in with a sense of perfectionism and expectation, it's almost like you were guaranteed to live in tears. Pretty much. That's it. I mean, so many lessons in there. So you have

mom of three author, breathwork coach, restorative writing teacher with a really a deep focus on healing in a very holistic and expansive way. So part of my curiosity is how does facilitating healing through writing and breath and meditation and community also in no small part, how does that become not just a personal devotion for you, but really eventually like your work? That's a really good question. Something I've been thinking a lot about lately when it comes to healing is kind of removing the dauntingness of it and centering joy as a healing mechanism. Because so often when we're healing, it's because something big has happened or quite literally, maybe we've broken a bone or our heart has been broken because of whatever. And it's such an

undertaking to heal. And something that I really want people to get curious about is healing as an act of not only community service, but an act of kind of this like permission to allow yourself to be joyful, to allow yourself to be hurting, but also be healing, to be grateful, but also maybe be grieving, right? So like really honoring the duality of what healing can look like. And in how we heal, the underlying theme there is that when we heal ourselves, we heal our lineage. When we heal ourselves, we heal each other. Because healing is so multifaceted, I want people to get excited about it instead of being like, dang, this is another thing I have to go through. And don't get me wrong, because some things are not fun, not fun to heal through. But I think where the beauty is, is leaning into the possibility of what's to come on the other side of the thing that's really tender or really bothering us or really hard to even look at. And so healing for me is this dedication to self-choosing

and this honoring of the things that we've walked through and carrying it close with grace, non-judgment and self-trust. Which sounds beautiful as you share it. And then there's the reality of walking through it, right? Which is a complete and utter mess sometimes, right? Like the word that you were about to say is the exact thing that was just in my mind. So yeah, all of it, all of it, right? Like in the mix. And I know this is personal for you also. I know this has become a devotion and this is also like you built a tremendous body of

work and you help thousands of people through workshops and books and your prompts and meditations and ideas and breath work. But this really started in a very personal way for you. I know I've heard you describe your younger years. If I'm remembering it properly, I remember hearing you say I was raised to hide, to be fearful. Yes. I often say that I learned self-hatred before I learned self-love. And that really felt hard for me as I started to raise my children because I didn't want to keep the cycles of self-hatred going. And so it had to stop with me. There was no choice.

I had no choice. Or rather, the choice was to heal the lineage, right? To heal myself, to heal the lineage. And I grew up with a mom who did her best with what she knew, and it was really challenging with her. Thankfully, we're in a really amazing place now as I'm an adult and I can look at her as an adult and we have boundaries and all these things. But it's hard when you grow up feeling like you don't have a voice, feeling like you're unloved and feeling like you are the reason why everyone is in pain. And so when you are feeling this way, I wasn't carrying myself, didn't know how to carry myself with dignity and integrity and love. And I wasn't really nurtured. I didn't come from an affectionate family. And so there's just so many things I had to learn on my own. And I became a mom. I was 18. I was young when I had Charlie. And it was really

a wake-up call for me to get it together. And so I now have three daughters. I'm married. And healing looks different in this stage. So it looked different when I was 18 and to my early 20s. It looked different when I met my husband at 23, it looks different now that I'm raising not only Charlie, but two young kids. And so it's like giving myself the permission to really honor every phase of healing that I am in. And what I have found is the older I get, the more healing I have to do. I turned 33 this year and it was a really like pivotal awakening for me.

And three years prior to that, I felt like, oh my gosh, why is all my trauma coming to the surface? I'm 30 years old. I thought I dealt with that. You know, I thought I had healed from that. Like, why is this coming up? And what I realized in therapy and through my writing work and through my meditation practice is that it is okay to have to heal from the same thing more than once. It is okay to not be healed.

I think the world tries to shame us for going backwards to a place that maybe is tender and triggered and wounded. But the beauty in that is we should go backwards because now we have different tools to nurture and self-soothe during those moments that feel like, oh my gosh, why am I back here again? Yeah. I mean, that makes so much sense to me. And yet you're right. It's sort of like we're supposed to look at life as this linear thing. Okay. Firstly, you identify the thing, and then you deal with it, then you heal from it, and then you move on. You're whole. Yay. It's quote behind you. But everybody knows, once you reach a certain part of life, everyone's been through something. And it kind of doesn't work that way the apple watch series 10 is here it has the biggest display ever it's also the thinnest

apple watch ever making it even more comfortable on your wrist whether you're running swimming or sleeping and it's the fastest charging apple watch getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes the apple watch series 10 available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised.

The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. But I'm so curious for you in particular also, like, as you mentioned, you become a mom when you're 18. You're young. So you're at a point where you're still in the very early days of just figuring out who you are, let alone who you're becoming. And then part of that is now a huge amount of your energy is going towards raising a kid. And then a huge amount of energy is... It sounds like that

was a moment where you're also saying to yourself, okay, so I need to break some cycles here. So a big amount of your energy is also going to say, how do I do things differently? And part of that is processing whatever you've been through. But part of it is also really, even without any of that, an 18-year-old is going to be saying, in the early stages of, who am I and what am I becoming? So you've got these overlapping things. The average 18-year year old, I mean, I'm just, I'm imagining the weight of it. It was heavy and I had no idea what I was doing. None. And I spoke at a conference a couple of weeks ago and I said that, you know, I wish it

didn't take teen pregnancy to get me where I am today, but that's just a part of my story. I'm not sure the life I would have if that hadn't been a part of my story. And so I struggle with that even now as an adult woman, it's just like, whoa, that's such a big undertaking for a kid and a lost kid at that, a really sad kid. So it's so, so, so layered, but I committed. I didn't have all this language that I have now then, but I committed to being better. Whatever that meant, I just knew I had to be better. And I wanted to be better. I wanted to not only be better for my daughter, but for myself. I saw the women in my life carry misery like a badge. It was what I thought we were all destined to carry, is the sadness, is the struggle, is the unhappiness, is the not knowing of who we are. And I did not want to live that way. And it was hard because when

people around you are living differently than how you want to live, it's like, well, what am I doing? Can I even do this? Can I break the cycle? But something that's really beautiful that I'm extremely proud of is looking at my daughters and seeing that they know they are loved. And that is not something that I experienced. They feel love. They are happy. They are fun. They love me and my husband. There is just this easefulness about them. They are kids. And the reason why I bring that up is because I remember a couple years ago, I had just had my youngest and my mom looked at me and she said, it's so nice that you let your kids

be kids. That really struck me because I know that when she looks at me, mother, my children, there's a sense of kind of awe there because no one taught me how to do this. Not my mother, not my grandmother. I had nobody leading the way for me. I am leading the way. And so as an adult, that feels really heavy when it comes to healing because it's like, no one did this for me. I am the matriarch of healing for my lineage. And so it is layered. It is a lot, but I am so grateful. I am so grateful that I am still alive today, quite literally. I am so grateful that my oldest child and I beat the odds.

I know that things could have been very different for us. I am grateful that my family, my mother and stepdad and our very small family and my husband and his family, we are in a healed place. Even though me and my mom have had our stuff, it's really beautiful when a parent starts to acknowledge what their stuff is and starts their own healing, and then we can really relate to each other. So the children that I've had have brought love into a place that I feel was loveless. And that's healing for me. It's so interesting also, right? Because on the one hand, you're doing it for you. On the other hand, you're doing it for your kids. And part of that is because you want to model

a way of being that you hope they will see and be affected by and maybe step into and in whatever form is right for them. But there's your mom too. And it's so interesting the way you describe your mom and how she noticed this in you. And it's almost like you wonder if, you know, like every generation has trauma. Every person has something, capital T or little t trauma, right? You know, and I've seen you write this and like, we're like-minded on this. Like we're all doing the best we can, you know? So you want, when you tell that story about your mom too, it's almost like you're modeling behavior, not just for your kids, but maybe unintended, not intending to model it for

your mom too, but you're literally showing her like, this is possible. Cause it sounds like she didn't grow up in a context where she realized that was possible. And there's probably a large part of why it wasn't present when you were a kid. So it's sort of like you're modeling things, not just for the generation to come, but the generation that has come and showing that there's still a different way of being, which is really powerful. And that's what I mean by lineage, not just forward, but backward, right? Healing is so far reaching in each direction. And that's why I'd say so often and why the theme in how we heal is when we heal ourselves, we heal each other because we are leading by example. When we are

rooted in a healing, it doesn't mean we're healed, but When we are rooted in a healing, it doesn't mean we're healed. But when we are rooted in our healing, we are leading by example. People are bearing witness to us, whether we are raising children or not, whether we are in a committed relationship or not. This could be in the workplace. This can be in our platonic friendships. Like when we heal ourselves, we don't have to say a whole bunch just by our changed behavior, just by our, you know, our shift in the way we think and how we respond to things. Like people are seeing this. And that's what I tell my students and my clients. And when I'm

speaking at conferences, like people are watching us. And so let us lead with intention when we do things. Yeah. So powerful. You also mentioned something, which is that when you were growing up and you're 18, you make this decision. You weren't surrounded by folks who were sort of like, let me show you the way. Here are things to do. And also when you say yes to essentially breaking a family cycle and not

only learning what that means and how you move forward from there, but knowing that you're going to be stepping outside of the expectations and the way things have been done all around you, that can be a terrifying thing. You wrote about this. I'm going to read your words back to you. You wrote, you may be the only one doing things differently in your family, or you may be the only one deciding to get emotionally free in your friend group. I know this can feel isolating, but do not ignore your healing because you're waiting for your loved ones to get on board. And that's so powerful because I think sometimes we wait because we hope at some point, someday, they'll get to a point where like, okay, so I'll feel supported. I won't have to break and I won't have to create any tension or any, and it'll be easier to do it.

And so often that someday never comes. And I know that's so hard. I've been there. I tell this story a lot. When I first started healing and tapping into this new life, I was 23 when I started having my awakening. And I wanted everybody to come. I was like, you got to heal. You got to heal. Come heal with me. This feels so good. And people were looking at me like, no, I don't want to do that. That's not where I am. Stop trying to force your healing on me. I don't want to look at that thing. I don't, I'm not ready to tackle that pain.

And I remember feeling so let down and kind of judgmental too, which was my humanness showing like, fine, if you don't want a better life, but it's just like, wait, wait a second. Okay. Alex, reel it in. So when I started having some of my own kind of reflections and self-talks, it's like people will follow suit when they're ready. Just because you're healing doesn't mean they have to take the steps with you. You can keep healing.

They're going to see you. And I remember feeling really lonely. And a part of that judgmentalness that was happening was because I was scared to do it alone. I was so terrified to be with myself on the journey because that's really who we need to be looking at. We need to be looking at ourself, not necessarily our parents, not necessarily our friends or partners, but like look at yourself. I joke about this all the time. I'm like, mind your business. That looks like

looking at yourself. Everything else is a bonus. And so when I started looking at myself and really centering what I wanted and needed instead of wanting to bring people along because I thought that's what I wanted and needed. I need support. I need this. Like, no, I can be my own validation here. And I need to learn who I am with or without people standing beside me. And it is not easy, but it is so comforting when you get to a point in the healing process and in the growth. I don't even really want to say healing, but more so like in the growth, when you feel like you are so deeply rooted in what you have committed to do that nothing can shake

you and everything else and everyone else will follow suit. And it doesn't have to be forced. That was huge for me, major, not easy, but huge. I'm curious for you, when you get to that point for you, is this just a gradual evolution, a gradual awakening? Or was there a moment or something that happened where you're like, you know what? I need to let go of all the externalities, all the expectations. This is a me thing. From this moment forward, that's what matters. It was definitely an aha moment for me. And then moving forward, it was gradual, pulling back the layers of the emotional onion of stuff. But it was definitely like, oh, I'm ready. Writing for you seems like it was one of the things that dropped down early in the process

as like your, for some reason, it seems like you were drawn to this as a really powerful early step into whatever path you would end up traveling down where you end up bringing in different modalities. Talk to me about how writing, especially writing as a modality to process, to reveal, to heal becomes a part of your practice. Writing has shown me myself and that is what draws me to the practice. I remember being in therapy for the very first time as a young adult. I think I was 19 or 20 and I had an amazing therapist. And she gave me the idea to put a journal in my imaginary emotional toolbox. And I had always been a writer. I wrote short stories. I wrote sad poems. I'm the only child, so I used storytelling to be a sense of comfort. And so I had always been a writer, but I never knew I could write to heal. And when I started

writing to heal and to explore and to be kind to myself and to be curious and to unpack and all those things that it can bring to our lives, the game really changed for me. And my mom gave me my first journal and I hadn't used it. I still have it. And I think there's one thing written in there. It was this red, beautiful red journal with this embroidered flowers on it. And I remember thinking like, here's a permission slip to tap into my truth. And then the older I got, the more I started really exploring affirmation writing and notes to self, because I had spent so much of my time speaking ill to myself and negative self-talk and being mean to myself, I wanted to change that narrative. And that started around 22, 23.

Like, let me just write these notes to self, be kind to myself and see what happens. And that was really foreign. Like this doesn't feel natural, but it started to feel natural because I was at that place of, I want different. So I must do different. I don't know what different means, but I'm going to try. I'm going to try everything. And positive self-talk shaped how I saw myself and it allowed me to give myself power to explore self-love and what that looked like. And so affirmations and notes to self really pushed me into this place of writing to heal. And I found it in therapy and it's been amazing. I mean, it brought me to my career and it also has brought me to my deepest truth, which is that I am worthy and I have always been worthy. And years and years ago,

I did not think that. And now today, I am deeply rooted in that. Yeah, that's a powerful shift. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. Oftentimes when I'm doing a bit of prep for conversations,

for folks who have a significant public profile, I'll explore and I will go back to the very beginning. And so your, which I did with your Instagram, which goes back about a decade now. And it was about a decade ago that you showed up and very soon after that started sharing notes and thoughts and ideas. If I have the timing right, that would put you at about 23 years old, 24 years old. So I'm fascinated because if you're deep into this personal healing process in your early 20s, you discover writing as something that's really affecting you in a profound way personally. And I'm so curious, I'm always curious about the impulse

that animates you to say, well, what would happen if I shared this in a public way? Because on the one hand, be like, maybe I could really affect people beyond just me. But on the other hand, it's incredibly vulnerable to do that because you have no idea how you'll be received. And this is especially you as like a 23, 24-year-old person, like really trying to understand your identity in the first place and come to a place of like grounding in your own identity. Do you remember back and sort of, I'm taking you back a decade now when you were sort of like going through the process of like, I think I need to share this. Like, tell me about what was going on. Let me think back. Well, I know I had a friend tell me to stop hoarding my happiness. And she was like, you never know, like who may feel this and who this may resonate with. You don't know. And that was back when Instagram was really a place to just

share and it wasn't about much, but fun, right? It's very different now. And so I just did it. And I was like, okay. And those notes to self really landed with people. And that's when I started connecting with the idea of community. Like, whoa, I am not alone in my struggle. I am not alone in my joy. Wow, that's cool. That's really cool. And I'm not the only one going through this. I had this woman reach out recently

who's been following me for about that long. And she was a young mom as well. I think she had her child at 19 or 20. And she was like, you are the reason why I chose to start healing. I saw no one else being able to create a life that was beautiful and abundant for not only themselves, but their children. And you really helped change me and the type of woman and mother that I am. And I was in tears reading the email. I'm 33 now and I still get messages like that. I've been with you for so long and we've grown up together. I've seen your children grow up

and this is just, thank you. And I'm grateful for them. I wouldn't be where I am today if people weren't buying my books, if people weren't coming to retreat, if people weren't believing in me. This whole thing here, whatever this is, is community care. We are holding each other. And that is so special to me. And the 23-year-old me had no idea, no idea that her stories were even valuable, but turns out that they were. And I think everyone's stories are valuable. That's the big thing for me about being a writer. It's like, I don't want you to just read my stories.

I want you to write. I want you to reflect. I mean, in How We Heal, there's journal prompts and there's meditations and there's practices because I want people to tap into themselves, not just take away from me. When I do take away, I'm doing air quotes because a lot of people are like, Alex has it all figured out. Or they see someone with a large following or who is quote unquote successful or what have you. And they're like, they have the answers. I tell people all the time, I know nothing. I am a student of life. I know nothing. But what I do

know is that this works for me and I am giving this to you to try. Maybe it will work for you too. So it's like this really communal, sacred practice of sharing and hopefulness and connection. Yeah. No, it's invitation-based rather than proclamation-based. It's not like you shall do this. It's like, hey, I've been through some stuff too. This has helped me. Here's an invitation. Maybe a way that you can step into it, which is really interesting because you caught yourself earlier in our conversation.

You started to say you. You caught yourself. And it was this micro moment, but also a really beautiful moment because I could see that you began to share something starting by you almost saying like speaking. And then you very quickly switched it to I saying, and it was almost like I could see the wheels in your head saying, let me share my own personal experience, knowing that that's what I can truly speak to. At least that's what I sensed when you made that really quick micro shift. And it really flows through the way that you bring your ideas, yourself, everything. It is all so much,

this is my personal experience. Here's an invitation, which allows people, I feel like, to really step into it in a way that it also takes shame out of the equation. Because it's not saying if you can't do it, then there's something wrong. It's just saying, this is what's worked for me. Maybe it'll work for you. Give it a try. And if it works, great. If not, that's great too. There's other things you can explore. I try to be really intentional about my language. We live in guru era and expert era, and I'm really uninterested in being guru or expert. And so even in how we heal, I mean, there's a certain way that I had to write the book, but I tell people like, this is your journey.

This is your practice. Even when I'm leading meditations, I'll say, feel free to do this seated if that feels good for you, or go take a walk or listen to this in the background. Do what feels right and good for you. Because giving people their power back to choose, the power of choice is so beautiful and important to me. And also making sure that I'm not talking at people unless I'm filling them up like, you are amazing. You are wonderful. You are capable. I don't want anyone to ever look at me and think Alex has didn't have that. I didn't have anyone inviting me or nudging me. I had people telling me what to do and how to do it. And that was

unhelpful because then I didn't even know my voice. I didn't know what belonged to me and what didn't. Yeah. And even if it works, it's like, okay, so then the path forward is other people telling me what works rather than me running the experiments, sometimes stumbling, but figuring out, okay, so this, I'm actually capable of figuring out what's going to help me from the inside out, you know, rather than just waiting for somebody else to declare, this is your next step, which is a completely different experience, even if it works, even if it's effective. I am there with you a hundred percent. I love how you framed that. We're taught that other people have our answers. We're not taught to look at ourselves and to trust

our inner knowing and our inner wisdom. And that's what I really want my work to do for people is to nudge them into the direction of their inner knowing. That is so, so deeply important to me and to the legacy that I want to leave on this earth is like Alex L's work taught me that I can trust myself, that I have a voice and that I can do it my way. And that's really divine. Yeah, I mean, powerful. When you sit down to write a book,

then that basically says, here are some things to think about. It's gotta be a really interesting dynamic because on the one hand, you do want to share things that have worked for you and you want to create different versions and you want to find a way for somebody to step into the offerings. And on the one hand, there can be a lot of pressure, especially from within the industry about like, this is how you write this type of book. This is the quote formula. This is what we know works. And then there's your ethos, which comes from a grounded and humble place. I have to imagine there was some interesting sort of like back and forth around how this whole thing came, like around the way that you teed everything up.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But I'm so blessed to have an amazing editor who listens to me, who honors me, and we can have healthy conversations, whether we agree or disagree, which is so important. Because technically, I'm in the self-help space, which also feels, I don't like that term, but that's just what it is. And I told them I didn't want to write a book that was prescriptive. Like, here is what you do to heal, which is why I wanted to break up my teachings and invitations with other people's healing. So we have some awesome, amazing, amazing contributions to the book. I interviewed some

really dope ladies and everyone heals differently. We have an Olympian in the book. We have artists in the book. We have therapists. We have fellow authors, like actresses and loops back to the communal act of healing. There's not just one way to do it. I write to heal. I meditate and breathe and all that to heal. But you might not want to do that. Or you might want to try it, but then you might see someone in the book who's saying that they garden or that they paint or that they love being around friends and family. That's the healing for them. So there's so many different ways that we can do this. And I wanted to make sure that it wasn't just my voice saying, this is how you heal. I wanted it to be other people saying, this is how I heal. It just invites this diversity and uniqueness to the whole experience.

And I think it does. It makes it so rich and you get all these different lenses and different stories and different histories too. And even when you do offer these invitations, it comes in the form of exercises and prompts and meditations and breath work and conversations. So it's sort of like choose your own adventure type of thing. You know, it's like figure out like what way in to your own path is going to resonate most, like figure out like what's going to help you do the work most while you're thinking this through. One of the things that you mentioned, you mentioned this pretty early on, actually,

I think it's sort of like in the first of four pillars that you offer out of four sort of like major ideas or categories is the role of rest in this whole process, which so often is not mentioned. It's sort of like, here are the steps, here are the invitations, here are the things you do. But so much of the integration, so much of the actual growth part of it happens when you just create the space to rest. And you really made a point of focusing in on that, which I thought was interesting. I mean, resting is replenishing. It's restorative. It is nourishing and we all need it. I mean, just look at life in general, look at plant cycles, look at how much babies sleep when they are first born because they're growing and growing and growing so rapidly. It's like rest is essential. And we live in this grind culture when we become adults

where it's like grind, go hard, don't sleep till you're dead. It's like that, don't do that. Do not do that. Sleep while you're alive and everybody will thank you for it. Because when we are well-rested, we are clear-minded. When we are well-rested, we can heal in a way that feels more intentional and less exhausting. And also, we don't always have to be healing. That's a big part of the message in how we heal is you don't have to always be healing. You don't have to heal today. You don't have to heal next year. Take your time with your process and with this practice. It is a practice. Healing is a work and practice. We don't have to have it all figured out. We are allowed to have fun. We are allowed to grow. We are allowed to change. And we are allowed to be easeful in this life and during these monumental changes and shifts. And that requires their mental, how's their physical, right? It's like, we don't want this healing work to become a task.

We want it to be deeply embedded into our daily practice in our daily lives in a way that's sustainable, not harmful. Yeah. It makes so much sense because I keep thinking with so much of this work, you know, if we just keep looking at nature, it answers so many of our questions. There's no season of growth of new crops without a season where everything lays fallow. It's the way it is. And we are part of that cycle. And every time we try and forcefully opt our way out of it, everything breaks. The world around us breaks, we break as human beings.

And you brought up a really great point, which is this notion of you can't be clear-minded if you don't have some semblance of rest. And at the same point, I wonder if you also would agree with this. I feel like it's really hard to be open-hearted when you don't have a sense of rest. You could consider yourself a kind person, a good person. You could have the impulse to want to do a good thing, a compassionate thing, to be there. But when you are utterly exhausted, sometimes it just, you don't have the reserves. And that goes both to other people and to yourself. Yes. I am uninterested in pouring from an empty cup. That's not something I'm interested in doing. I do not want to be depleted in trying to love people at the same time. It's unhealthy. And that's a big part of rest work for me too. I call it rest work because it is kind of like,

it has to be, we have to work on it. We have to work on taking a step back and slowing down. And so when we are empty because we are restless, because we are overworked, because we are hurting deeply and we're not giving ourselves permission to be with the pain, when those things are just all consuming, it is so hard to give with intention to our work, to our spouses, to our children, to ourselves. And so sometimes my best healing comes from going to take a nap. Before I got on this call with you, I took a two and a half hour nap, which I don't do often, but I needed to. I'm getting over a cold and I'm tired and my kids want to come and get in the bed with me in the middle of the night and be on my back.

And so it's like, Alex, you are allowed to rest. That permission, you are allowed to rest. Whatever that means, whether it's going to take a nap or taking a break from the healing work or just going to sit down because you need a moment. That is so radical. And there's a woman on Instagram who I love. Her name is Trisha Hersey of the NAP ministry. And she reminds us often to go sit down somewhere and rest and to release the idea that we always have to be performing, always have to be doing something because performance isn't where our value is. And we are not any less valuable for taking a beat

and refueling and replenishing and nourishing ourselves. And so rest has to be a part of the equation. It has to. And the notion that resting from the process of healing is also a part of the equation, like that counts as the type of rest that actually leads to healing. Like resting from the process of like what can sometimes be a really intensive process, resting from that can actually facilitate the healing process itself. That is it. Yeah. One of the other things that you

talk about also is the notion of reframing fear, of saying, okay, so let's deal with this. Let's be upfront with this. And if there are things that you've been through, things that have formed you, things where there's trauma, things where there are fear responses that are almost DNA level deep, if you're further into life, because they've just been so embedded in the way that you identify and live and behave. Let's talk about this. And can we put a different frame on that? Because until that happens, there's going to be a whole lot of struggle without moving through, moving past, without being able to access the ease that I

think so many of us want? I mean, all of that, yes. The chapter or the section rather that you're talking about is befriending your fear. And I wanted to put that in the book because I did a whole course on befriending fear. And people really gravitated to that because they had never been invited to allow their fear to be a part of their life. And there's something really beautiful about saying fear, you can come in, but you can't run the show. And also there's something extremely moving about not being scared out of our healing because fear is at our door, right? Taking the time and making the space to truly be with everything, be with it all, and then move through it. Fear is not a bad thing. It doesn't make us weak. It is a natural response. When things get hard,

it is something that will come up because change is on the horizon, right? And so fear is a great teacher if we allow it to be. And I wanted to make sure that I emphasize that in how we heal, because a lot of this healing work that we're doing is scary. We may be the only people in our family doing it right now, healing, right? We may be the only ones making the step. And that is scary to do this work alone. But don't let fear change your trajectory. It can come with you. It's okay. It can be a great friend. Doesn't have to be the leader in your life, but it can be a friend. And that's hard and really, really valuable for us to walk through and learn along the way, which we will, I think. I'm still learning it. Yeah. I think it's one of those things that we

all learn for life also, right? Because we don't want to do it. No. But it's never going away. It's funny when I hear some variations of be fearless. No. I don't know how to do that. And I don't necessarily believe it's possible. There are always going to be things, unless you completely release your past, and then you never do anything to step into a path of growth in this moment and then the next and the next, there's no way to avoid some level of, ooh, there's fear rising up in me. So it's like, whether you can be friended or not, at least getting comfortable with the notion that it's going to walk beside you in different ways. And can I develop the skills and the practices to be able to walk with more ease beside it and maybe even extract the wisdom from it. Cause often, you know, there's a teacher in there too,

which is why I love so many of the practices and the exercises that you share in this conversation in the book are exactly built around that. It's like, okay, what can we learn from this? And how can we, how can we breathe into it with more ease, knowing that we may have moments where we're not, we don't wanna be controlled, like you said by this, but in some way, shape or form, it's a part of the human experience. So what can we do with that while we know that? So powerful.

A lot of the process that you've built around the way that you share and a lot of which is, it starts out with almost like this focus on, okay, so first get to know yourself, like not the facade that you present to the world, but like, you know, like the real you, let's explore fear and how that works and see what we can process through. And then there's also a sense of, and this is what you write about this as well. And you're like, okay, so how do we come back into a place of power in our lives, in a sense of agency? Because unless and until we can do that, we feel like we are always being led through

our lives rather than leading our lives. And I thought the writing and the ideas that you shared, and there's some of the practices around this were really powerful too. It seems like this is sort of like, it is such a central pillar in your lens on healing and growth. It is. And I'm glad the exercises and the words kind of flow together and resonate with you because that's what I want this book to do. I want How We Heal to be that open invitation to look at it all and to see the fear, to see that you may have to begin again

after you think you've overcome that thing, that you can heal even when no one else around you is healing, and that you can get curious about yourself. That's really the biggest invitation of how we heal is to get curious about yourself. And writing can be such a powerful modality in there. Some of the stories, I feel like there were more, you had a whole bunch of examples. And then the Q&A on slowing down from Chriselle Lim, I think it's like, here are all sorts of different ways into this. What feels good to you? You kind of come full circle in the book, at least. This is an ongoing conversation.

The book is a moment in time with some really powerful ideas and exercises and things to do. By saying we're all dealing with unspoken and unseen things, some heavier to carry than others, this all goes down to a heart level. And compassion and connection. We need to get down to that level. We need to bring the experience, not just the conversation, but our felt experience down to that level to really be in the world the way that we want to be. Yeah. I mean, that's the community care, right? That is the compassion, the connection, the care. That is what our healing does. It connects us in a really powerful way, even when we feel lost. And I love that folks are open to using writing and these tools that I've offered in my courses and at retreat and at conferences to just get to know themselves. A big question that I often ask is like,

who are you outside of your roles to other people? Who are you? What's hurting you? Where does it hurt? Why does it hurt? Like getting down to those micro level back to basic questions that we often just don't even ask ourselves because we are moving through the world, right? How do we connect with our true self if we are constantly ignoring the journey? And I think that that's something that I've learned along the way is that even in my own healing process, there was a point where I was ignoring different steps in the journey because I just wanted to be over it. I just was done. Get me there, right? But healing is a forever love. Healing is something that we're going to be doing until the day we leave this earth. We're going to be growing and changing until the day we transition off this earth.

And so how do we do that in a way that not only supports us, but supports the collective? And I think that is the question I want people to sit with. How can your healing support the healing? When we start healing our inner world, we start healing the world. And I think that there is something deeply sacred and necessary about that. Can't agree enough. It feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well. So in this container of Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life for me means to stand in my power and be my most authentic self,

no matter the room I walk in. Because when we are rooted in who we are and the truth of who we are, people can see that. So I guess that how I want to live a good life is by leading by example. Thank you. Thank you.

Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, say that you'll also love the conversation we had with Elizabeth Lesser about a life of perpetual awakening, connection, and healing. You'll find a link to Elizabeth's episode in the show notes. Good Life Project is a part of the ACAST Creator Network.

And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it?

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