Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back together with the words you write. All the beauty and peace and the magic that you'll start too fun when you write your story, you get the words and said, don't you think it's down to let them out and write them down and cold.

Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back together with the words you write. All the beauty and peace and the magic that you'll start too fun when you write your story, you get the words and said, don't you think it's down to let them out and write them down and cold.

It's all about.

It's all about.

And write write your story. Write you write your story.

And write write your story. Write you write your story.

Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast. I'm Ali Fallon, I'm your host, and on today's episode, I want to talk about inspiration. I want to talk about where inspiration comes from, why staying inspired is so important, talk about the things that we do to stay inspired. And I'm recording this episode from my home, from the guest room in my home. Actually, I have tucked myself back in a tiny little corner. I mentioned on the last week's episode that I'm in a little bit of a transition as far as how I record this podcast, which is cool. The house that is right next door to my house we purchased in order to renovate it and make a space for my mother in law to move in next door. We're very excited to have her here and as part of that, we're also building out an addition in the back for a little learning slash education school space for our kids that we're going to invite some of the neighborhood kids and do a little homeschool co op situation. We're figuring it out as we go, not exactly sure what it's going to be, but a learning environment for kids in the community, including our kids. And then also in the basement, we're building out a podcast studio. So that's so exciting because it just means well, exciting for me because more convenience, but also exciting for the podcast because the quality of the sound is just going to keep improving and improving, and there's so many amazing things that I can do and guests that I can have on when I've got a space where I can invite people to come and record. So I'm really excited about that. I think it's perfect that I'm sitting where I'm I think recording this episode right now about inspiration because it's currently eight forty at night, the night before this podcast is supposed to go live. Shout out to my producer Houston, because he's being very patient with me and staying up late to edit this podcast and get it up early tomorrow morning. I'm down to the wire, which is not usually how I do things, but you know, such as life, sometimes things just unfold the way that they unfold. So, like I said, I'm kind of shoved in this back corner my kids. I just got my kids to sleep. This is kind of the first window that I've had in the day to get this done. And I've been talking with so many people this week and last week about this idea of inspiration. It's been on my mind NonStop, and I have so many things I want to say about it, and I want to just open a dialogue about inspiration because I have things that I want to say, things that I feel passionate about that I think are really valuable to share. But also I know that you'll have things that are valuable to say and to share, and you'll have feedback for me on the questions that I pose. You don't have to give that feedback directly back to me, although I would love for you too if you want to reach out on Instagram and send me a DM there, that would be wonderful. But you can also just use these questions that I'm going to ask as little conversation starters in your own community, in your own friend groups, or as writing props for yourself, because if you're anything like me, and I think this is more than just me, I think this is a global thing happening right now, because this conversation keeps coming up again and again and again, and if you're anything like me and like the people that I've talked to in the last couple of weeks, this is a big topic. This is something that we're really wrestling with right now. It's attention that we're living in. And I want to talk about all the reasons why, and I want to talk about why I think this is such a massively important conversation. Before I dive into all of that, I do want to make sure that you know that as you're listening to this, if you're listening to this the day it's live, you have twenty four hours left to join me for a book and six Months, which is my program where we walk through the process of writing a book manuscript together in six months. So we will literally start July tenth, which if you're listening to this to the day that it goes live, that's tomorrow. We'll start Wednesday, July tenth as a group, and we will by Christmas of this year Christmas of twenty twenty four, you will be holding your finished manuscript in your hands. This program is for anybody who has that nagging feeling that they're supposed to write a book. This doesn't need to be for someone who has publishing connections, doesn't have to be for someone who has a degree in writing, for someone who feels like they're a great writer, who feels like they're a great writer. Even great writers don't feel like they're great writers. It doesn't have to be for someone who has a highly defined book idea. In fact, none of those things aren't necessary to join this program. This program is for someone who has a nagging feeling that they're supposed to write a book, something they can't kick. Maybe you have a book idea that's been kind of pulling at you, tugging at you for a long while, long time, and you haven't made much progress on your own and you could use some support, some accountability, some community. You could use a little bit of coaching, maybe some direct feedback on your work. This program is for you. If that's you, please please consider joining us for this program. I tried to give lots of options because I know times are tough. Inflation is high, and I am not unaware of how challenging it can be to make ends meet right now. I don't know where you are specifically, but I do know that we're living in a wild world right now. So I wanted to make this as accessible for as many people as possible, and so I offered three different tiers for you to join at. There's a basic tier where you get access to everything that you need to the bi weekly coaching calls, to all the digital content. There's a middle tier where you also get access to late night office hours. The biweekly calls are in the middle of the day, in the middle of the work day, and I kind of scheduled them at a lunch hour. It's at one pm Central Standard time on Wednesdays. I did that at a lunch hoer intentionally. But if you can't make that time for some reason, maybe you're on a different time zone or something, then the late night office hours are a really great way for you to get your questions answered. But even if you can make those bi weekly calls, those late night office hours are really intended to be a more intimate group time to get specific feedback on your work, and they're just a really great way to touch base, an extra time on the well meet on the off weeks from the bi weekly Wednesday calls, and so those happen at eight pm Central Standard time. And then there's a VIP tier where you get actually two forty five minute one on one calls with me and some direct feedback on your work. And let me tell you. If the VIP option is available to you, let me just encourage you to take advantage of that, because it is by far the greatest value. It is the lowest price that I've offered on one on one coaching really long time. And in fact, a lot of the people who were on my wait list for my publishing coaching program, which is my one on one program, it's like a three month one on one program, I sent them to this VIP program because I think it's honestly, in some ways kind of better to have the group support, to have a community of people surrounding you, to have that kind of built in accountability, and then also to get someone on one attention on your book is such a powerful thing. And so that VIP tier, in my opinion, is like the most valuable of all the three. And I know that that's not accessible for everybody. So I'm not saying, you know, put it on a credit card if you can't afford it. I'm just saying, if it's accessible to you, that would be the one that I would recommend. And for all three tiers, I am offering payment plan options. So I wanted to make this as accessible for as many people as possible because I really believe in this program. It's life changing. This is not just about writing a book. This is about becoming the person that the book is asking you to become. There's a message that's trying to come through your life. It's trying to come through you. It's trying to come onto the page, and you are the transmitter of it. You're the only person who can transmit this specific message. It's like a fingerprint that's completely unique to you. And so I want to help you to do that. I want to help you bring that message to bear. I want to help you make it manifest in the world. And I've watched this happen for I don't know thousands of authors that I've worked with, where that process of bringing that message to bear is so deeply satisfying that it just boosts your confidence, It changes who you are. It changes the way you see yourself, the way you move through the world, and of course sharing that message with other people is also part of it. You get to become the inspiration. You get to spread the inspiration and share it with others, and that's another really exciting part about it. So I'm a huge fan of this program. It's my favorite thing that I get to do all year. I'm so excited about it. I would love, love, love to have you join us, and today is your last chance to join. So if you have that inkling that you're supposed to do this, I challenge you. I dare you. I beg you to go to a book in six months dot com. Check it out, check out all the different options. Please join us. We start tomorrow. It's going to be a really spectacular time together. So I couldn't move on with the inspiration episode without talking about a book in six months. But let's move on to talking about inspiration. So this really all started because a couple of weeks ago, I was on a thread with two friends of mine who are moms. We're all three moms to young kids. We're in that toddler phase. That's wild. I mean, it's fun and it's wild. It's kind of all consuming. No, let me take the back. It's not kind of all consuming. It's one hundred percent of all consuming. There doesn't feel like there's much white space or margin in your day. And I was saying to my friends, how much I'm realizing that I give a lot of attention to making sure my kids are good, making sure the house is good, making sure my husband's good, making sure everyone's good, and not as much attention to making sure I'm good, making sure that I'm filled up, making sure that I've got you know, I'm doing stuff for me. Like people ask like, Okay, what are you doing for the summer, and I'm like, we're doing one trip. I'm trying to keep it really simple. We're doing one vacation. And the vacation was one hundred percent for my kids. It was all about what they would think is fun. And that's not just vacation. It's every day, all day, every day with my kids and with my just my role in life that I feel like I'm constantly looking out for to make sure my kids are really well fed, they're very well nourished, they have fun activities going on, they have things that make them excited. You know, their little love buckets are full. Then at the end of the day, I realized, Wow, I haven't really given a lot of energy to making sure that my bucket is full. And I know this is kind of an age old conversation about self care, but I want to take this a little further because I don't really think of that as self care. I think of this as filling the well, as Julia Cameron would say. Julia Cameron talks about inspiration as filling your creative well. So if you think of a well or a tank that's full of inspiration, like you've taken in all these inspiring experiences. You have seen all these inspiring things, and it just fills the well or fills the tank all the way to the top. Now, your creativity is an overflow of that. So you pull in this inspiration, it fills up the well, and then the well spills over and overflows, and the overflow of that becomes your creative output. What's wild about that is how true that feels when you think about it, and then how much of us are living in a space. We're living in a world that in many ways requires us to put our creative output first. To put our productivity first, to put our efficiency first. And I wouldn't necessarily equate creative with productivity and efficiency, but that's how it gets lumped together in the culture that we live in. It's just like I call this the content hamster wheel. I call this the content hamster wheel. That you get on the hamster wheel of creating content. You've got podcasts that have to go up, You've got Instagram videos, you've got reels, you've got stories, You've got you know, email newsletters that go out. And this is just from my job, but your job has its own brand of this, its own version of this, where you're on the hamster wheel, and it's like go go, go, go go, put more output, more output, more out. Well, that defies the laws of physics. You cannot keep giving output when there's no input. Here's a question for you to use as a journal prompt or to use as a conversation starter in your group of friends. How much thought and effort have you given to filling your own creative well? How much have you given to what inspires you? What inspires you? Let me just ask you what inspires you. I was at breakfast with my husband yesterday. We tried to plan a monthly day date. This is something we've been doing together for the last year or so, because I was complaining a year ago that when we would do date nights that I didn't want to go out, Like he would plan a date night and get a sitter and I would just be like, oh, I can't. I don't want to go out. It's like, you know, seven thirty pm, and the last thing I want to do is leave the house. So we started doing these date days together where we get a sitter from like ten to four, ten to five something like that. So we're there in the morning with the kids, and we're there for bedtime, which is usually the hardest time of the day, and we go do kind of whatever, Like we usually go to a nice brunch or breakfast, but we wander, we window shop, we go look at houses open houses. Is what we did. The other day, we went to Trader Joe's, which Matt and I neither of us had really been to Trader Joe's since we left California a couple of years ago, which is pathetic because there's a Trader Show's like twenty five minutes from us, but that feels like a lifetime away, especially with the kids, so I usually end up doing instacart. My point here is that we spend a day of filling the well and it doesn't have to be anything that complicated. It can just be, you know, going to an open house of a beautiful We were going to these open houses. My husband is a real estate agent, and so we did have a purpose for going to the open houses. We weren't just going for no reason, but we were going to these really beautiful houses that were two and three million dollar houses and just admiring the beauty of these places, not with the intention to buy them ourselves, but just to admire the fixtures and admire the tile and the floor and the finishes and the choices that the builders made, and just to take it all in. You know. Then same thing at Trader Joe's, just to see what there is to see, you know, to take it in to see, like what kind of fun treats would there be, and can we take some stuff home to our kids. You'd be surprised at the simple things that can feel that well. Anyway, at brunch, I was talking to Matt. I was asking him, like, what keeps you inspired? Because I just had this conversation with my two girlfriends over voice text, because that's how when you have toddlers, this is how you catch up. Honestly, when I get together with these two girlfriends, we bring our kids with us and we go to the park or whatever, and we like don't even get to talk. It's just, you know, you speak for ten seconds and then you get interrupted. So our longest conversations happen over voice text. We just, you know, volley these voice texts back and kind of leave five to ten minute voice memos for each other that act like a bit of a podcast. So we had this whole long conversation over voice text about what keeps us inspired and how can we make more space in our lives for being inspired and how can we do that in simple ways where we don't have to like go to the Bahamas or take a month off or whatever. And so then I was asking Matt at breakfast, I was like, what makes you inspired? And he said something that I thought was really important to this conversation, which is he was saying, you know, it's weird. I think that my answer right now is going to be different than you would expect it to be, and different than it has been in the past and probably different than it will be very soon in the future. But he was saying basically, right now, what makes me feel inspired is like being in silence in the woods, and that resonated for me too. I was just like, oh, man, yeah, there's something about that, isn't there just about like going into nature having some quiet, not really having many other people there, if any other people there, just spending some time in silence. What is it about that that sounds so inspiring right now? And this is one of the reasons why I wanted to bring up this conversation. I thought about this while I was at breakfast with Matt having this talk, because I realized that part of the importance of feeling the well, this is something that's important all the time, anytime for anybody who wants to be a creative person or live a creative life. But also in this time that we're living in, this really unique, special, weird, bizarre time that were alive right now. I said to Matt, and I don't want to overstep my expertise here because I am not a therapist, but I feel like what I want to call this time is global PTSD, like we lived through this global pandemic, which was one hundred percent unprecedented. Nobody alive had ever experienced anything like this before. We went through two years of it or more, I don't know, depending on how you measure the time, and depending on where you were in the world, your experience of it was either more dramatic or maybe a little less dramatic. We were in la for a lot of it, and so the lockdowns were pretty dramatic. There were mask mandates indoors and outdoors. We moved out of the city because it was such a challenging place to live with a newborn. My daughter was born in July of twenty twenty in La County, and then we moved to Nashville in December of twenty twenty. So without going through the whole story, which I've told before, and you have your own version of the story that you lived through. Also, starting from March of twenty twenty until present day, you've had wild things take place. You've seen things that you never thought you would see in your lifetime, not to mention. Layered on top of that, we also have the highest level of political tension that I've ever experienced in my life before playing out for us on a stage on social media, closer into our internal space than it's ever been before. It's not like, you know, I remember being in my twenties when it's just like on a TV and you flip on the debate and you watch it with friends and then you flip it off. And we didn't have smartphones back then. It's different. Now it's right in your hand, it's in your psychic space. It's kind of like harder to turn it off, I think. And then you have the war in the Middle East, and then you have what's happening in the Ukraine, and then you have you know, my husband was telling me how sad he's feeling about what's happening in South Africa right now, and I hadn't even really I've been in touch with that, Like, I hadn't really heard much about it or done much reading on it. And it's just like layers and layers and layers of pain and heartbreak and horrors that are playing out on the world stage on social media right in front of our eyes. And we think that that's not supposed to affect us, you know, we think that we can just sort of like bop along as usual on this content hamster wheel going like produce, produce, produce, put out more content, write another book, make another podcast, you know, put up another reel. And it's like, we need to fill the well. You have to you have to fill the well. You have to take in stuff that's inspiring to you. You have to take in stuff that nourishes you. Otherwise what will you have left for output? And I think Matt's sense that he wanted to just go to the woods is a strong statement about the level of trauma that we've all experienced. Five years ago. You know, Matt would have said something that inspires me would be to go to Coachella or something. You know, He's Matt loves music, he loves big cultural festivals, he loves being around people. He's very extroverted. He would have wanted to go to a concert, a you two show, Coldplay. And now he's like, I want to go to the woods. I want to just go to the woods and be in quiet. And I think that says something about the state that our nervous systems are in all of us collectively, we are desperate for the well to be filled. I think so few of us, myself included, are really giving it the energy that it needs, that it requires of us. If we're going to continue to be people who inspire others, you cannot continue to inspire others unless you're also inspiring yourself, unless you're first inspiring yourself. So how are you filling the well? And you know I mentioned this, but I'll go back to it for a second. Yesterday, when we were on our day date, we went and did things that were very inspiring to me. I felt really full and very nourished at the end of the day. That wasn't crazy expensive. The most expensive part was childcare, and so if you have small kids at home, I'm sorry, that's just not cheap. Hopefully you live close to family who can help you out. The rest of it was like window shopping, just you know, walking through the mall kind of seeing what's there that feels inspiring to me. I like to look at the different colors and textures and people watch and just kind of take in the sites, the smells, the sounds. We went to Trader Joe's, like I said, and we didn't buy a whole lot. We bought like a small bag of groceries, but we bought a couple treats for our kids. A couple little like nostalgic things that we were like, oh my gosh, I forgot about this special thing that you can only get at Trader Joe's that we haven't had in forever, Like the Trader Joe's peanut butter pretzels that are so nostalgic for me. I have eaten so many of those in my life. So we grabbed a bag of those and some other just fun little things, and we went around looking at open houses and like I said, just kind of took in the beauty of these really incredible houses. And we had a lovely breakfast, just kind of took our time and it's slow, and drank a cup of coffee and had good conversation and really filled the well yesterday. I think the main point I want to make here is that filling the well is not a nice to have. It's not a luxury, it's not a privilege. It's an absolute necessity. The only times in our life where we forego filling the well is when we are in act of trauma. In act of trauma, your body goes into fight or flight, and you're not looking to get inspired, you're looking to survive. So you're in survival mode. All of your body's energy and attention goes to doing the things that you know you need to do to stay alive. And I have lived through seasons like that. It is not pleasant if you are going through a season like that in your life. Right now, I send my love to you. I'm holding you in my heart right now and holding space for that period of time that you're going through, because it is unpleasant but necessary. And the best gift that the rest of us can give you is to make it an absolute priority to stay inspired, to make it a number one priority to fill our own well. And this does not have to be complicated. It can be something really really simple. Maybe ask yourself right now, what's something simple I could do tomorrow that would film my well? You know what, Since I'm talking about all of us being in this collective kind of PTSD, here are things that are really nourishing to a body that is in PTSD or a nervous system that is really dysregulating. One is water. I read this post a long time ago. This was probably mid twenty twenty, like right after Nella was born, so July or August, and it was talking about how helpful water can be as a tool to calm me your nervous system. Drinking lots of water, getting in a body of water of some kind, going swimming, getting in a swimming pool, getting in a river, a lake, cold plunging has been very regulating for my nervous system. Taking a warm bath, getting in the shower. Notice how when you get in a body of water, there's something about that that regulates you. And in fact, now that I'm saying this, on fourth of July, I was with my friends. All of our kids were there. Our kids were going nuts, like that five to seven pm range when the kids just go off the rails and it's wild, crazy town. The kids were going nuts, and we were packing up and trying to get out of the house because I was like, my son is gonna just like destroy this entire house if we don't leave soon. And one of the dads was like, why don't we just put them back in the pool, And in part of me was like, oh gosh, I don't know, we're already dry and we've been swimming all day. But I was like, Okay, let's try it. We'll put them back in the pool. Put the kids back in the pool, and it was like magic. We got back in the pool with them and it was magic. It's like something about being in water just calms the nervous system, no matter how dysregulated you are. It's something very simple and accessible to almost all of us that's at our fingertips that we can use to ground. So that's something really simple and free or cheap that you can use to fill the well. Something else is sleep. Sleep is very regulating to a dysregulated nervous system. It's absolutely vital for a body in PTSD. And one of the things that I hear a lot of people say. As I've been working with authors for the past couple of years, I've heard a lot of people say, I've been so lazy. I've been sleeping in in the morning. I've been you know, normally I would get up and do my writing early, but I've been so lazy. I've been sleeping until seven or seven thirty. And I just want to reframe this for you a little bit, because if your body is in PTSD, if your nervous system is disregulated, sleep is an absolutely vital piece of the puzzle. It's a vital part of the formula to bringing your body back to regulation. And to bringing your brain back to balance. So much healing happens while you're sleeping, so let yourself sleep. Another thing that I'll hear people say, because I've been doing a lot of meditating and kind of encouraging some of the authors who I work with to meditate also, and people will say, oh, yeah, I like to meditate, but I always fall asleep, And I'll say, okay, if you fall asleep while meditating. This I'm saying this because I was taught this when I first started my journey with meditation. If you fall asleep while meditating, that tells you your body needs sleep. We've been so indoctrinated with this idea that to sleep in is lazy, and it's like, well, maybe it's because you're running yourself ragged, like running around all day chasing your kids or working hard or doing whatever you're doing, and maybe your body actually needs that extra sleep. So water, sleep easy, easy, easy ways to fill the well. And notice that's how it's gonna like go kind of up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, where at the bottom of the hierarchy, the bottom of the pyramid are going to be like the most basic needs like eat good food, drink water, sleep. You know, once you have those basic needs met and once you're in safety, then things like going to look at, you know, a two million dollar house on a Sunday with your husband because you have a babysitters just like glorious, so glorious, and filled the well right up to the tippy top. And things like window shopping or buying a new shirt or something like that fills that well right up to the tippy top. You don't have to buy anything. You could go into I used to do this when I was in my twenties and had no money and could not afford a single thing in Whole Foods. But I would go into Whole Foods and I would just wander the aisles and just check out what was in there because the way that it's all organized and everything was so soothing to me. It was so the opposite of chaotic. What's the opposite of chaotic? It was so calming to be in a Whole Foods that I would just wander the aisles of Whole Foods and I wouldn't even buy anything, but I would just At the time, I was living in downtown Portland, living and working, and I would walk from my apartment to my job, and on the way I would stop at Whole Foods and just wander the aisles, and then I would go to my job, and then sometimes on the way home, I would do the same thing, pop in the Whole Foods and wander the aisles, and if it had been a really good day at work, I would buy myself a Lara bar or something that was like a real treat for me back then. So you know, you can do this within the confines of what you have access to in your life. While I was talking about this with my group of friends on the text thread, would it be ideal if I could pick up and take a tropical vacation right now? Sure, that's not something that I have access to. That's not something that's accessible for me right this minute in my life. I've got two little kids who need me. Our lives aren't insanely busy. I'm not saying it's impossible ever in the future. I'm just saying, right this second, that's not something that I can reach for. So I'm going to reach for something that's a little bit more accessible. I'm going to reach for a day date with my husband, reach for a pool day with some girlfriends where I can just get a half a day where my husband can cover the kids and I can go lay by the pool and order Postmates or whatever. Maybe even that feels out of reach for you right now, and that's okay. I don't know what your specific situation is, if you have kids, or if you have a full time job or three full time jobs, or you're barely making ends meet, or whatever your deal is. I want you to think really seriously about what happens if you don't feel the well. What is the alternative? And I want you to know that you cannot give of yourself creatively or otherwise if you don't feel your own well, you have to fill the well to overflowing. And it's the overflow that is the giveaway. And that's how we become people who can inspire others. You can't just be inspiring and not be inspired. It doesn't work that way. And so ask yourself what kinds of things could inspire you? And maybe maybe it would be cool to make a list of some things that inspire you that really are out of reach right this second, but that you would love to dream about and think about and make plans for. When I turned forty, I took a group of friends up to New York City and we spent the weekend there. It was a quick weekend, but like forty eight hours in New York. We did a Broadway show, We went to the Modern Art Museum, We ate spectacular meals, We wandered around the city. I did a ton of window shopping. I bought a few gifts with some birthday money. A few little things I bought, like a bag for myself and a necklace with some birthday money. It was definitely a splurge, but really really fun, and I came home just feeling so energized. It was the first time that I had been away from both of my kids overnight since having kids, and I went from feeling totally depleted, like in the hole, you know, just in the red, like nothing to give. I made some really significant changes. First of all, I started moving my body every day after that, for the first time in a really long time. I decided to run a ten k. I run a ten k a couple weeks after that, I don't know, six or eight weeks after that, and I started to just feel like myself again. I started to feel myself coming back online and It just is a reminder of how important it is to prioritize this. I'm not saying you have to take a trip to New York City. I'm just saying, if there's something like that that feels really, really inspiring to you, maybe you write it down and maybe you aspire to it, and then maybe in the meantime you do some things that are more accessible to you. So make a list. Let's do this. Let's all make a list of things that are inspiring to us and try to prioritize them the same way that we prioritize other people in our lives. I have a friend whose parents are very sick right now, and she doesn't have her own kids, but she's always thinking about what does my mom need, was my dad need? What's going to make their lives easier, What's going to make this better for them? And that's how I am with my kids, and I know you're that way with other people in your life too, constantly thinking about how you can make life better for them. How can you you know? With my kids, it's like, how can I inspire them? How can I give them the things that they need to develop in the way that I know that they're capable of. How can I get them enough activity and enough friend time and enough quiet time and enough naps and enough nourishing foods and all the vitamins whatever. Constantly thinking about that, But how much time and effort do I really give to filling my own well? Not nearly enough, Except now that it's top of mine, I'm definitely going to be thinking about it. And my conversation with Matt at breakfast the other day really brought home the importance of this as I thought about being in this collective kind of PTSD. We have an obligation to ourselves and to each other to do this, to figure out ways to fill the collective well so that we can find our way back to love, and find our way back to each other, and find our way back to compassion, and find a way to metabolize our anger and our fear, and our our repulsion and our resentment toward the other side or whatever it is, find a way to metabolize all of that and turn it into something good so that we can lock arms and hold hands and move forward together in this world and write write a story that's really inspiring for future generations. We can't do any of that unless we inspire ourselves. So I would love to hear from you. Let me know. Send me a DM on Instagram, send me a picture of your list. Make a list of ten things that you can do that inspire you. I'm going to post my list on Instagram so that you can see it, and I want to see yours too. Send me your list of things that inspire you, from the simplest of things, just giggling on the floor with my kids, something simple like that, all the way to a trip to New York City, or a tropical galification, or whatever it is that feels your well. I can't wait to hear. I'm so excited to see many of you in a book in six months. Please, please, please, If you have a book that's nagging at you, don't forget to join us. You can find more information at a book in six months dot com. I will see you there and I will see you next week on the Write Your Story podcast.

Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast. I'm Ali Fallon, I'm your host, and on today's episode, I want to talk about inspiration. I want to talk about where inspiration comes from, why staying inspired is so important, talk about the things that we do to stay inspired. And I'm recording this episode from my home, from the guest room in my home. Actually, I have tucked myself back in a tiny little corner. I mentioned on the last week's episode that I'm in a little bit of a transition as far as how I record this podcast, which is cool. The house that is right next door to my house we purchased in order to renovate it and make a space for my mother in law to move in next door. We're very excited to have her here and as part of that, we're also building out an addition in the back for a little learning slash education school space for our kids that we're going to invite some of the neighborhood kids and do a little homeschool co op situation. We're figuring it out as we go, not exactly sure what it's going to be, but a learning environment for kids in the community, including our kids. And then also in the basement, we're building out a podcast studio. So that's so exciting because it just means well, exciting for me because more convenience, but also exciting for the podcast because the quality of the sound is just going to keep improving and improving, and there's so many amazing things that I can do and guests that I can have on when I've got a space where I can invite people to come and record. So I'm really excited about that. I think it's perfect that I'm sitting where I'm I think recording this episode right now about inspiration because it's currently eight forty at night, the night before this podcast is supposed to go live. Shout out to my producer Houston, because he's being very patient with me and staying up late to edit this podcast and get it up early tomorrow morning. I'm down to the wire, which is not usually how I do things, but you know, such as life, sometimes things just unfold the way that they unfold. So, like I said, I'm kind of shoved in this back corner my kids. I just got my kids to sleep. This is kind of the first window that I've had in the day to get this done. And I've been talking with so many people this week and last week about this idea of inspiration. It's been on my mind NonStop, and I have so many things I want to say about it, and I want to just open a dialogue about inspiration because I have things that I want to say, things that I feel passionate about that I think are really valuable to share. But also I know that you'll have things that are valuable to say and to share, and you'll have feedback for me on the questions that I pose. You don't have to give that feedback directly back to me, although I would love for you too if you want to reach out on Instagram and send me a DM there, that would be wonderful. But you can also just use these questions that I'm going to ask as little conversation starters in your own community, in your own friend groups, or as writing props for yourself, because if you're anything like me, and I think this is more than just me, I think this is a global thing happening right now, because this conversation keeps coming up again and again and again, and if you're anything like me and like the people that I've talked to in the last couple of weeks, this is a big topic. This is something that we're really wrestling with right now. It's attention that we're living in. And I want to talk about all the reasons why, and I want to talk about why I think this is such a massively important conversation. Before I dive into all of that, I do want to make sure that you know that as you're listening to this, if you're listening to this the day it's live, you have twenty four hours left to join me for a book and six Months, which is my program where we walk through the process of writing a book manuscript together in six months. So we will literally start July tenth, which if you're listening to this to the day that it goes live, that's tomorrow. We'll start Wednesday, July tenth as a group, and we will by Christmas of this year Christmas of twenty twenty four, you will be holding your finished manuscript in your hands. This program is for anybody who has that nagging feeling that they're supposed to write a book. This doesn't need to be for someone who has publishing connections, doesn't have to be for someone who has a degree in writing, for someone who feels like they're a great writer, who feels like they're a great writer. Even great writers don't feel like they're great writers. It doesn't have to be for someone who has a highly defined book idea. In fact, none of those things aren't necessary to join this program. This program is for someone who has a nagging feeling that they're supposed to write a book, something they can't kick. Maybe you have a book idea that's been kind of pulling at you, tugging at you for a long while, long time, and you haven't made much progress on your own and you could use some support, some accountability, some community. You could use a little bit of coaching, maybe some direct feedback on your work. This program is for you. If that's you, please please consider joining us for this program. I tried to give lots of options because I know times are tough. Inflation is high, and I am not unaware of how challenging it can be to make ends meet right now. I don't know where you are specifically, but I do know that we're living in a wild world right now. So I wanted to make this as accessible for as many people as possible, and so I offered three different tiers for you to join at. There's a basic tier where you get access to everything that you need to the bi weekly coaching calls, to all the digital content. There's a middle tier where you also get access to late night office hours. The biweekly calls are in the middle of the day, in the middle of the work day, and I kind of scheduled them at a lunch hour. It's at one pm Central Standard time on Wednesdays. I did that at a lunch hoer intentionally. But if you can't make that time for some reason, maybe you're on a different time zone or something, then the late night office hours are a really great way for you to get your questions answered. But even if you can make those bi weekly calls, those late night office hours are really intended to be a more intimate group time to get specific feedback on your work, and they're just a really great way to touch base, an extra time on the well meet on the off weeks from the bi weekly Wednesday calls, and so those happen at eight pm Central Standard time. And then there's a VIP tier where you get actually two forty five minute one on one calls with me and some direct feedback on your work. And let me tell you. If the VIP option is available to you, let me just encourage you to take advantage of that, because it is by far the greatest value. It is the lowest price that I've offered on one on one coaching really long time. And in fact, a lot of the people who were on my wait list for my publishing coaching program, which is my one on one program, it's like a three month one on one program, I sent them to this VIP program because I think it's honestly, in some ways kind of better to have the group support, to have a community of people surrounding you, to have that kind of built in accountability, and then also to get someone on one attention on your book is such a powerful thing. And so that VIP tier, in my opinion, is like the most valuable of all the three. And I know that that's not accessible for everybody. So I'm not saying, you know, put it on a credit card if you can't afford it. I'm just saying, if it's accessible to you, that would be the one that I would recommend. And for all three tiers, I am offering payment plan options. So I wanted to make this as accessible for as many people as possible because I really believe in this program. It's life changing. This is not just about writing a book. This is about becoming the person that the book is asking you to become. There's a message that's trying to come through your life. It's trying to come through you. It's trying to come onto the page, and you are the transmitter of it. You're the only person who can transmit this specific message. It's like a fingerprint that's completely unique to you. And so I want to help you to do that. I want to help you bring that message to bear. I want to help you make it manifest in the world. And I've watched this happen for I don't know thousands of authors that I've worked with, where that process of bringing that message to bear is so deeply satisfying that it just boosts your confidence, It changes who you are. It changes the way you see yourself, the way you move through the world, and of course sharing that message with other people is also part of it. You get to become the inspiration. You get to spread the inspiration and share it with others, and that's another really exciting part about it. So I'm a huge fan of this program. It's my favorite thing that I get to do all year. I'm so excited about it. I would love, love, love to have you join us, and today is your last chance to join. So if you have that inkling that you're supposed to do this, I challenge you. I dare you. I beg you to go to a book in six months dot com. Check it out, check out all the different options. Please join us. We start tomorrow. It's going to be a really spectacular time together. So I couldn't move on with the inspiration episode without talking about a book in six months. But let's move on to talking about inspiration. So this really all started because a couple of weeks ago, I was on a thread with two friends of mine who are moms. We're all three moms to young kids. We're in that toddler phase. That's wild. I mean, it's fun and it's wild. It's kind of all consuming. No, let me take the back. It's not kind of all consuming. It's one hundred percent of all consuming. There doesn't feel like there's much white space or margin in your day. And I was saying to my friends, how much I'm realizing that I give a lot of attention to making sure my kids are good, making sure the house is good, making sure my husband's good, making sure everyone's good, and not as much attention to making sure I'm good, making sure that I'm filled up, making sure that I've got you know, I'm doing stuff for me. Like people ask like, Okay, what are you doing for the summer, and I'm like, we're doing one trip. I'm trying to keep it really simple. We're doing one vacation. And the vacation was one hundred percent for my kids. It was all about what they would think is fun. And that's not just vacation. It's every day, all day, every day with my kids and with my just my role in life that I feel like I'm constantly looking out for to make sure my kids are really well fed, they're very well nourished, they have fun activities going on, they have things that make them excited. You know, their little love buckets are full. Then at the end of the day, I realized, Wow, I haven't really given a lot of energy to making sure that my bucket is full. And I know this is kind of an age old conversation about self care, but I want to take this a little further because I don't really think of that as self care. I think of this as filling the well, as Julia Cameron would say. Julia Cameron talks about inspiration as filling your creative well. So if you think of a well or a tank that's full of inspiration, like you've taken in all these inspiring experiences. You have seen all these inspiring things, and it just fills the well or fills the tank all the way to the top. Now, your creativity is an overflow of that. So you pull in this inspiration, it fills up the well, and then the well spills over and overflows, and the overflow of that becomes your creative output. What's wild about that is how true that feels when you think about it, and then how much of us are living in a space. We're living in a world that in many ways requires us to put our creative output first. To put our productivity first, to put our efficiency first. And I wouldn't necessarily equate creative with productivity and efficiency, but that's how it gets lumped together in the culture that we live in. It's just like I call this the content hamster wheel. I call this the content hamster wheel. That you get on the hamster wheel of creating content. You've got podcasts that have to go up, You've got Instagram videos, you've got reels, you've got stories, You've got you know, email newsletters that go out. And this is just from my job, but your job has its own brand of this, its own version of this, where you're on the hamster wheel, and it's like go go, go, go go, put more output, more output, more out. Well, that defies the laws of physics. You cannot keep giving output when there's no input. Here's a question for you to use as a journal prompt or to use as a conversation starter in your group of friends. How much thought and effort have you given to filling your own creative well? How much have you given to what inspires you? What inspires you? Let me just ask you what inspires you. I was at breakfast with my husband yesterday. We tried to plan a monthly day date. This is something we've been doing together for the last year or so, because I was complaining a year ago that when we would do date nights that I didn't want to go out, Like he would plan a date night and get a sitter and I would just be like, oh, I can't. I don't want to go out. It's like, you know, seven thirty pm, and the last thing I want to do is leave the house. So we started doing these date days together where we get a sitter from like ten to four, ten to five something like that. So we're there in the morning with the kids, and we're there for bedtime, which is usually the hardest time of the day, and we go do kind of whatever, Like we usually go to a nice brunch or breakfast, but we wander, we window shop, we go look at houses open houses. Is what we did. The other day, we went to Trader Joe's, which Matt and I neither of us had really been to Trader Joe's since we left California a couple of years ago, which is pathetic because there's a Trader Show's like twenty five minutes from us, but that feels like a lifetime away, especially with the kids, so I usually end up doing instacart. My point here is that we spend a day of filling the well and it doesn't have to be anything that complicated. It can just be, you know, going to an open house of a beautiful We were going to these open houses. My husband is a real estate agent, and so we did have a purpose for going to the open houses. We weren't just going for no reason, but we were going to these really beautiful houses that were two and three million dollar houses and just admiring the beauty of these places, not with the intention to buy them ourselves, but just to admire the fixtures and admire the tile and the floor and the finishes and the choices that the builders made, and just to take it all in. You know. Then same thing at Trader Joe's, just to see what there is to see, you know, to take it in to see, like what kind of fun treats would there be, and can we take some stuff home to our kids. You'd be surprised at the simple things that can feel that well. Anyway, at brunch, I was talking to Matt. I was asking him, like, what keeps you inspired? Because I just had this conversation with my two girlfriends over voice text, because that's how when you have toddlers, this is how you catch up. Honestly, when I get together with these two girlfriends, we bring our kids with us and we go to the park or whatever, and we like don't even get to talk. It's just, you know, you speak for ten seconds and then you get interrupted. So our longest conversations happen over voice text. We just, you know, volley these voice texts back and kind of leave five to ten minute voice memos for each other that act like a bit of a podcast. So we had this whole long conversation over voice text about what keeps us inspired and how can we make more space in our lives for being inspired and how can we do that in simple ways where we don't have to like go to the Bahamas or take a month off or whatever. And so then I was asking Matt at breakfast, I was like, what makes you inspired? And he said something that I thought was really important to this conversation, which is he was saying, you know, it's weird. I think that my answer right now is going to be different than you would expect it to be, and different than it has been in the past and probably different than it will be very soon in the future. But he was saying basically, right now, what makes me feel inspired is like being in silence in the woods, and that resonated for me too. I was just like, oh, man, yeah, there's something about that, isn't there just about like going into nature having some quiet, not really having many other people there, if any other people there, just spending some time in silence. What is it about that that sounds so inspiring right now? And this is one of the reasons why I wanted to bring up this conversation. I thought about this while I was at breakfast with Matt having this talk, because I realized that part of the importance of feeling the well, this is something that's important all the time, anytime for anybody who wants to be a creative person or live a creative life. But also in this time that we're living in, this really unique, special, weird, bizarre time that were alive right now. I said to Matt, and I don't want to overstep my expertise here because I am not a therapist, but I feel like what I want to call this time is global PTSD, like we lived through this global pandemic, which was one hundred percent unprecedented. Nobody alive had ever experienced anything like this before. We went through two years of it or more, I don't know, depending on how you measure the time, and depending on where you were in the world, your experience of it was either more dramatic or maybe a little less dramatic. We were in la for a lot of it, and so the lockdowns were pretty dramatic. There were mask mandates indoors and outdoors. We moved out of the city because it was such a challenging place to live with a newborn. My daughter was born in July of twenty twenty in La County, and then we moved to Nashville in December of twenty twenty. So without going through the whole story, which I've told before, and you have your own version of the story that you lived through. Also, starting from March of twenty twenty until present day, you've had wild things take place. You've seen things that you never thought you would see in your lifetime, not to mention. Layered on top of that, we also have the highest level of political tension that I've ever experienced in my life before playing out for us on a stage on social media, closer into our internal space than it's ever been before. It's not like, you know, I remember being in my twenties when it's just like on a TV and you flip on the debate and you watch it with friends and then you flip it off. And we didn't have smartphones back then. It's different. Now it's right in your hand, it's in your psychic space. It's kind of like harder to turn it off, I think. And then you have the war in the Middle East, and then you have what's happening in the Ukraine, and then you have you know, my husband was telling me how sad he's feeling about what's happening in South Africa right now, and I hadn't even really I've been in touch with that, Like, I hadn't really heard much about it or done much reading on it. And it's just like layers and layers and layers of pain and heartbreak and horrors that are playing out on the world stage on social media right in front of our eyes. And we think that that's not supposed to affect us, you know, we think that we can just sort of like bop along as usual on this content hamster wheel going like produce, produce, produce, put out more content, write another book, make another podcast, you know, put up another reel. And it's like, we need to fill the well. You have to you have to fill the well. You have to take in stuff that's inspiring to you. You have to take in stuff that nourishes you. Otherwise what will you have left for output? And I think Matt's sense that he wanted to just go to the woods is a strong statement about the level of trauma that we've all experienced. Five years ago. You know, Matt would have said something that inspires me would be to go to Coachella or something. You know, He's Matt loves music, he loves big cultural festivals, he loves being around people. He's very extroverted. He would have wanted to go to a concert, a you two show, Coldplay. And now he's like, I want to go to the woods. I want to just go to the woods and be in quiet. And I think that says something about the state that our nervous systems are in all of us collectively, we are desperate for the well to be filled. I think so few of us, myself included, are really giving it the energy that it needs, that it requires of us. If we're going to continue to be people who inspire others, you cannot continue to inspire others unless you're also inspiring yourself, unless you're first inspiring yourself. So how are you filling the well? And you know I mentioned this, but I'll go back to it for a second. Yesterday, when we were on our day date, we went and did things that were very inspiring to me. I felt really full and very nourished at the end of the day. That wasn't crazy expensive. The most expensive part was childcare, and so if you have small kids at home, I'm sorry, that's just not cheap. Hopefully you live close to family who can help you out. The rest of it was like window shopping, just you know, walking through the mall kind of seeing what's there that feels inspiring to me. I like to look at the different colors and textures and people watch and just kind of take in the sites, the smells, the sounds. We went to Trader Joe's, like I said, and we didn't buy a whole lot. We bought like a small bag of groceries, but we bought a couple treats for our kids. A couple little like nostalgic things that we were like, oh my gosh, I forgot about this special thing that you can only get at Trader Joe's that we haven't had in forever, Like the Trader Joe's peanut butter pretzels that are so nostalgic for me. I have eaten so many of those in my life. So we grabbed a bag of those and some other just fun little things, and we went around looking at open houses and like I said, just kind of took in the beauty of these really incredible houses. And we had a lovely breakfast, just kind of took our time and it's slow, and drank a cup of coffee and had good conversation and really filled the well yesterday. I think the main point I want to make here is that filling the well is not a nice to have. It's not a luxury, it's not a privilege. It's an absolute necessity. The only times in our life where we forego filling the well is when we are in act of trauma. In act of trauma, your body goes into fight or flight, and you're not looking to get inspired, you're looking to survive. So you're in survival mode. All of your body's energy and attention goes to doing the things that you know you need to do to stay alive. And I have lived through seasons like that. It is not pleasant if you are going through a season like that in your life. Right now, I send my love to you. I'm holding you in my heart right now and holding space for that period of time that you're going through, because it is unpleasant but necessary. And the best gift that the rest of us can give you is to make it an absolute priority to stay inspired, to make it a number one priority to fill our own well. And this does not have to be complicated. It can be something really really simple. Maybe ask yourself right now, what's something simple I could do tomorrow that would film my well? You know what, Since I'm talking about all of us being in this collective kind of PTSD, here are things that are really nourishing to a body that is in PTSD or a nervous system that is really dysregulating. One is water. I read this post a long time ago. This was probably mid twenty twenty, like right after Nella was born, so July or August, and it was talking about how helpful water can be as a tool to calm me your nervous system. Drinking lots of water, getting in a body of water of some kind, going swimming, getting in a swimming pool, getting in a river, a lake, cold plunging has been very regulating for my nervous system. Taking a warm bath, getting in the shower. Notice how when you get in a body of water, there's something about that that regulates you. And in fact, now that I'm saying this, on fourth of July, I was with my friends. All of our kids were there. Our kids were going nuts, like that five to seven pm range when the kids just go off the rails and it's wild, crazy town. The kids were going nuts, and we were packing up and trying to get out of the house because I was like, my son is gonna just like destroy this entire house if we don't leave soon. And one of the dads was like, why don't we just put them back in the pool, And in part of me was like, oh gosh, I don't know, we're already dry and we've been swimming all day. But I was like, Okay, let's try it. We'll put them back in the pool. Put the kids back in the pool, and it was like magic. We got back in the pool with them and it was magic. It's like something about being in water just calms the nervous system, no matter how dysregulated you are. It's something very simple and accessible to almost all of us that's at our fingertips that we can use to ground. So that's something really simple and free or cheap that you can use to fill the well. Something else is sleep. Sleep is very regulating to a dysregulated nervous system. It's absolutely vital for a body in PTSD. And one of the things that I hear a lot of people say. As I've been working with authors for the past couple of years, I've heard a lot of people say, I've been so lazy. I've been sleeping in in the morning. I've been you know, normally I would get up and do my writing early, but I've been so lazy. I've been sleeping until seven or seven thirty. And I just want to reframe this for you a little bit, because if your body is in PTSD, if your nervous system is disregulated, sleep is an absolutely vital piece of the puzzle. It's a vital part of the formula to bringing your body back to regulation. And to bringing your brain back to balance. So much healing happens while you're sleeping, so let yourself sleep. Another thing that I'll hear people say, because I've been doing a lot of meditating and kind of encouraging some of the authors who I work with to meditate also, and people will say, oh, yeah, I like to meditate, but I always fall asleep, And I'll say, okay, if you fall asleep while meditating. This I'm saying this because I was taught this when I first started my journey with meditation. If you fall asleep while meditating, that tells you your body needs sleep. We've been so indoctrinated with this idea that to sleep in is lazy, and it's like, well, maybe it's because you're running yourself ragged, like running around all day chasing your kids or working hard or doing whatever you're doing, and maybe your body actually needs that extra sleep. So water, sleep easy, easy, easy ways to fill the well. And notice that's how it's gonna like go kind of up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, where at the bottom of the hierarchy, the bottom of the pyramid are going to be like the most basic needs like eat good food, drink water, sleep. You know, once you have those basic needs met and once you're in safety, then things like going to look at, you know, a two million dollar house on a Sunday with your husband because you have a babysitters just like glorious, so glorious, and filled the well right up to the tippy top. And things like window shopping or buying a new shirt or something like that fills that well right up to the tippy top. You don't have to buy anything. You could go into I used to do this when I was in my twenties and had no money and could not afford a single thing in Whole Foods. But I would go into Whole Foods and I would just wander the aisles and just check out what was in there because the way that it's all organized and everything was so soothing to me. It was so the opposite of chaotic. What's the opposite of chaotic? It was so calming to be in a Whole Foods that I would just wander the aisles of Whole Foods and I wouldn't even buy anything, but I would just At the time, I was living in downtown Portland, living and working, and I would walk from my apartment to my job, and on the way I would stop at Whole Foods and just wander the aisles, and then I would go to my job, and then sometimes on the way home, I would do the same thing, pop in the Whole Foods and wander the aisles, and if it had been a really good day at work, I would buy myself a Lara bar or something that was like a real treat for me back then. So you know, you can do this within the confines of what you have access to in your life. While I was talking about this with my group of friends on the text thread, would it be ideal if I could pick up and take a tropical vacation right now? Sure, that's not something that I have access to. That's not something that's accessible for me right this minute in my life. I've got two little kids who need me. Our lives aren't insanely busy. I'm not saying it's impossible ever in the future. I'm just saying, right this second, that's not something that I can reach for. So I'm going to reach for something that's a little bit more accessible. I'm going to reach for a day date with my husband, reach for a pool day with some girlfriends where I can just get a half a day where my husband can cover the kids and I can go lay by the pool and order Postmates or whatever. Maybe even that feels out of reach for you right now, and that's okay. I don't know what your specific situation is, if you have kids, or if you have a full time job or three full time jobs, or you're barely making ends meet, or whatever your deal is. I want you to think really seriously about what happens if you don't feel the well. What is the alternative? And I want you to know that you cannot give of yourself creatively or otherwise if you don't feel your own well, you have to fill the well to overflowing. And it's the overflow that is the giveaway. And that's how we become people who can inspire others. You can't just be inspiring and not be inspired. It doesn't work that way. And so ask yourself what kinds of things could inspire you? And maybe maybe it would be cool to make a list of some things that inspire you that really are out of reach right this second, but that you would love to dream about and think about and make plans for. When I turned forty, I took a group of friends up to New York City and we spent the weekend there. It was a quick weekend, but like forty eight hours in New York. We did a Broadway show, We went to the Modern Art Museum, We ate spectacular meals, We wandered around the city. I did a ton of window shopping. I bought a few gifts with some birthday money. A few little things I bought, like a bag for myself and a necklace with some birthday money. It was definitely a splurge, but really really fun, and I came home just feeling so energized. It was the first time that I had been away from both of my kids overnight since having kids, and I went from feeling totally depleted, like in the hole, you know, just in the red, like nothing to give. I made some really significant changes. First of all, I started moving my body every day after that, for the first time in a really long time. I decided to run a ten k. I run a ten k a couple weeks after that, I don't know, six or eight weeks after that, and I started to just feel like myself again. I started to feel myself coming back online and It just is a reminder of how important it is to prioritize this. I'm not saying you have to take a trip to New York City. I'm just saying, if there's something like that that feels really, really inspiring to you, maybe you write it down and maybe you aspire to it, and then maybe in the meantime you do some things that are more accessible to you. So make a list. Let's do this. Let's all make a list of things that are inspiring to us and try to prioritize them the same way that we prioritize other people in our lives. I have a friend whose parents are very sick right now, and she doesn't have her own kids, but she's always thinking about what does my mom need, was my dad need? What's going to make their lives easier, What's going to make this better for them? And that's how I am with my kids, and I know you're that way with other people in your life too, constantly thinking about how you can make life better for them. How can you you know? With my kids, it's like, how can I inspire them? How can I give them the things that they need to develop in the way that I know that they're capable of. How can I get them enough activity and enough friend time and enough quiet time and enough naps and enough nourishing foods and all the vitamins whatever. Constantly thinking about that, But how much time and effort do I really give to filling my own well? Not nearly enough, Except now that it's top of mine, I'm definitely going to be thinking about it. And my conversation with Matt at breakfast the other day really brought home the importance of this as I thought about being in this collective kind of PTSD. We have an obligation to ourselves and to each other to do this, to figure out ways to fill the collective well so that we can find our way back to love, and find our way back to each other, and find our way back to compassion, and find a way to metabolize our anger and our fear, and our our repulsion and our resentment toward the other side or whatever it is, find a way to metabolize all of that and turn it into something good so that we can lock arms and hold hands and move forward together in this world and write write a story that's really inspiring for future generations. We can't do any of that unless we inspire ourselves. So I would love to hear from you. Let me know. Send me a DM on Instagram, send me a picture of your list. Make a list of ten things that you can do that inspire you. I'm going to post my list on Instagram so that you can see it, and I want to see yours too. Send me your list of things that inspire you, from the simplest of things, just giggling on the floor with my kids, something simple like that, all the way to a trip to New York City, or a tropical galification, or whatever it is that feels your well. I can't wait to hear. I'm so excited to see many of you in a book in six months. Please, please, please, If you have a book that's nagging at you, don't forget to join us. You can find more information at a book in six months dot com. I will see you there and I will see you next week on the Write Your Story podcast.