The Not Drinking Alcohol Today Podcast
Meg and Bella discuss the ups and downs of navigating an alcohol free life in Australia's alcohol centric culture. This highly rated podcast, featuring in Australia's top 100 self improvement podcasts, is a must for those that are trying to drink less alcohol but need some motivation, are curious about sober life or who are sober but are looking for some extra reinforcement. The Not Drinking Alcohol Today pod provides an invaluable resource to keep you motivated and on track today and beyond. Meg and Bella's guests include neuroscientists, quit-lit authors, journalists, health experts, alcohol coaches and everyday people who have struggled with alcohol but have triumphed over it. Our aim is to support and inspire you to reach your goals to drink less or none at all! Meg and Bella are This Naked Mind Certified Coaches (plus nutritionists and counsellors respectively) who live in Sydney and love their alcohol free life.
The Not Drinking Alcohol Today Podcast
Sober Yoga Girl: Alex McRobert's Inspiring Memoir
Today, we welcome back Alex McRobert, known to many as the Sober Yoga Girl, who shares her inspiring journey in the recent release of her memoir, Sober Yoga Girl, from a school teacher in the Middle East to becoming a yoga teacher and sober coach in Bali. Alex candidly discusses how a transformative experience led her to a life centered around healing and sobriety, leading retreats in some of the world’s most serene settings. Discover what makes Bali so special to her and why it's becoming a hub for sober retreats.
Alex started her memoir at 14 months sober, bravely recounting how her party lifestyle masked unresolved trauma. Structured around the seven chakras, her story reflects various life stages and invaluable lessons from yoga philosophy. From grounding and creativity to self-confidence and higher power connection, learn how balancing chakras helped her to address past painful life experiences and to build resilience. We highlight personal stories that illustrate the transformative power of daily yoga and mindfulness practices in supporting sobriety and personal growth. This episode offers inspiration for those on their own recovery journeys, with universal appeal through its engaging stories of resilience and healing.
LEARN MORE ABOUT ALEX
Link to the Sober Yoga Girl book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1739094379
Alex McRobert's web: https://www.themindfullifepractice.com
MEG
Megan Webb: https://glassfulfilled.com.au
Instagram: @glassfulfilled
Unwined Bookclub: https://www.alcoholfreedom.com.au/unwinedbookclub
Facebook UpsideAF: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1168716054214678
Small group coaching: https://www.elizaparkinson.com/groupcoaching
BELLA
*November 6-Week Small Group Challenge: Learn more: https://resources.isabellaferguson.com.au/alcoholfreedomchallenge*
Isabella Ferguson: https://isabellaferguson.com.au
Instagram: @alcoholandstresswithisabella
Free Healthy Holiday Helper Email Series: https://resources.isabellaferguson.com.au/offers/L4fXEtCb/checkout
Everybody. Today we get to welcome Alex McRobert back on the podcast. Alex is also known as the Sober Yoga Girl, which is such an incredible name. I love it. So, of course, Alex is a yoga teacher, sober coach, based in Bali. A huge welcome.
Speaker 2:Alex, thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be back.
Speaker 1:Well, I know so you have been on the podcast before and we really delved into the benefits that yoga can provide you or anybody wanting to drink less. Just as a bit of a recap, would you mind just reminding us a little about what you do? What brought you to Bali? How long have you been sober? Just do a little recap for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so I have. I've been living in Bali for three years and I've been sober for five years, five and a half and when I quit drinking in 2019, I just had this sudden realization of, like man, I don't really like my life right now. And at that point in my life I was a school teacher living in the Middle East, and I had an amazing experience. You know, I went over to the Middle East when I was 23. I loved it. I was there for seven years, but I enjoyed the adventure and learning about different cultures and being overseas. I didn't actually like teaching itself, you know. And so I had this realization of like, oh my gosh, I don't really want to teach anymore. And then I ended up going to see a psychic actually crazy enough psychic at 30 days sober and he said to me you know, you're not meant to be a teacher, you're meant to be a healer and you're going to have a retreat center one day and you're going to be traveling around the world leading retreats. And that seemed so far off from my current reality. But what it did do was it turned this unattainable dream into a definite reality. And once I had that perspective shift, then my whole life became set up around taking all the steps to move forward, to make that dream happen, and so I ended up moving here in 2021.
Speaker 2:So I started my business. It really took off in the pandemic. It was online yoga and sobriety programs, and now in Bali, I still run lots of online yoga philosophy classes and all of these things, and then I also do in-person yoga teacher trainings. I do in-person. I have an advanced training coming up this year. I do an annual retreat to India, which is in March, and then an annual sober girls retreat to Bali. And yeah, it's just, it's really what I dreamed of for many years and it's pretty amazing to be doing it now.
Speaker 1:I can't believe it. It is your reality that that seed that was planted years ago, you're actually living it. It's absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2:And sometimes I forget that, like sometimes you know you get into your regular, like even this morning. You know I didn't sleep very well last night so I kind of slept in. I didn't do my walk or my practice and I'm just lying on the couch in this grumpy mood and then, like you know, I start talking about it and I'm like, oh wait, I'm like living the life of my dreams.
Speaker 1:I know, I know, I just I I will have to do another podcast in like um five years time and see, see where you are. Then what do you?
Speaker 2:love about Bali? What is it that keeps you there? Such a good question. So what I loved about it when I first came here in 2017, so I came here on vacation and it was actually supposed to be my honeymoon to my ex, who I was married to for a very brief stint of time, and I was just in, like we had broken up, and I was in like the deepest depression and shame and grief and guilt and, like you know, I've ruined this guy's life, blah, blah, blah. And so I came here and I actually didn't even want to come here, like I was trying to get everything refunded and I couldn't get this training course refunded. That was like a big investment.
Speaker 2:So I just decided, okay, I'm going to come, and I remember what I describe it to people is like, okay, you know how in the Wizard of Oz, dorothy is like seeing in black and white and then, all of a sudden, she starts seeing in color. This is Bali for me, like I was seeing in grayscale. And then I landed in Bali and it was like, like you know, you can see from the background behind me, but for anyone that can't see the video, I have like full floor to ceiling windows in my villa and it's just, I'm fully surrounded by nature, by plants, by flowers, by greenery, and when I opened the door and step out of my villa, like you can hear the jungle buzzing, like it's that loud. My, my little teenage cousin came to visit me a couple of years ago and she, literally she, she says to me Alex, what's that sound?
Speaker 1:It's nature, it's nature. It's nature, and what do you make of Bali really becoming one of the hot spots for sober retreats? There's a lot of Australians over there running sober retreats, and I'm sure from other countries as well. Yeah, what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Every single week there's a sober retreat. It's like every single week I'm getting texts from people. It somehow became the sober destination, like I think it was the yoga destination, but now it's the sober destination, and I do like it. I think it's great that everyone's getting this benefit of Bali. I do think, though, that we want to be really mindful, as tourists, that we're coming in and not, like I just don't want to be destroying this beautiful land by us over running it with people and with things, and and I really would encourage people, like if they are coming here to try and connect with, try and connect with an authentic Bali experience, um, so, for example, like on my retreat, we always go over to the home of my Balinese friend and we learn how to cook with his mom, and you know she makes offerings and just having like something where you can really truly connect.
Speaker 2:Or I met a woman this morning who she's here volunteering in schools, teaching English, and I was thinking to myself, man, like she must be having a real experience, and even being out here where I live. So I'm out of town, about probably 30 minutes motorbike ride out of town, and here I'm in an actual village, whereas when you get into the main tourist spots, they've become very modernized and westernized. It's a western experience in Bali essentially, western experience in Bali essentially. And so I think it's amazing that people are coming, but I would encourage them to be really thoughtful about, like, how can we do this authentically and how can we support the people and, in all cases, like, whenever possible, try to buy from or work with venues where the Balinese people are actually getting the profits, getting the money, because a lot of these places are foreign investors, where the Balinese people are actually getting the profits, getting the money, because a lot of these places are foreign investors where the Balinese people are not really earning a lot from their work. So that's kind of my thoughts around that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I have to agree. Now, of course, you've written a book, and from what I understand, it's also called Sober Yoga Girl, which, yeah, why wouldn't you call it that? It's brilliant. Tell us about who's it for. What's it about? What drove you to write this book?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'll tell you something interesting, actually, which is little known, which is that the name Sober Yoga Girl actually came from the book originally. And then so I wrote the first. I wrote the first draft of this book in 2020. And I can't remember where I got the idea from or something, but I was like I'm going to call it Sober Yoga Girl. And then I thought, okay, if I'm building up to, you know, this book release, then why don't I start a podcast called Sober Yoga Girl and why don't I, you know, start a community? And so it's so funny because all of these things seem like like the book seems like it came after, but it actually came before. And so I wrote the first book in 2020.
Speaker 2:And when I first wrote it, I was about 14 months sober and it really was just a. It felt like a necessary step for my sobriety journey. I think I had gotten to a point where I had thought I was just a party girl and I didn't realize that I was drinking, basically to cover up like a lot of unresolved trauma, and I, when I started writing, I like couldn't stop. Now that I'll share. One other interesting thing is that I I discovered I had this flash one day in the middle of writing the book in 2020. And I was like I had this flash one day in the middle of writing the book in 2020. And I was like I think I've written this book before and I started looking on my Google Drive and I had actually started this book in 2017. But because I was still into drinking and still into partying, it just was too much work. You know, it was like I wrote maybe five chapters, I think. I laid out some chapters and then I just put it to rest and then I had a flash of like I think I've written this scene from my life and it was so wild because the book starts with this. The book starts in like this the night of like my biggest mental health breakdown, which was when I was leaving my ex, and the way I had started the book in 2017 was the morning after that happened, and I yeah, and so I found it on my Google drive and I actually included that scene in in the new version, but it's just feels like a story that's been waiting for me to write basically for years. Yeah, and the. So the first version I wrote in 2020 was really just like a dump of everything.
Speaker 2:And then I hired my first editor, saloni Lakia. She was based in India and we worked together. We met every single week for a year on Zoom. It was like therapy, basically, and it was very challenging because she dissected everything, like every story you know, and even chapters. She's like Alex, this chunk, like we don't need this, or you know what, even chapters. She's like Alex, this chunk, like we don't need this, or you know what's the point of this. Or I had to defend why certain things were really important to me to keep in the story, and that was an incredible process of work. And then I ended up leaving it on my hard drive for a long time and I didn't really know why I had left it on my hard drive for so long and I worked with other editors and then I didn't feel ready to publish and basically, I think what was left was for me to make amends with a few different people.
Speaker 2:That were in the book, and so I think, everyone that I could possibly make amends with I have. So I ended up reaching out to my ex-husband and in December, and we both found out that we're both five years sober.
Speaker 1:That's remarkable, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, but we did connect on Instagram and we we have been connecting over email. He wants to buy the book, and so everything's positive, but we didn't get too into depth of like why he got sober, what led him to it. But I'm, if I had to guess, I think both of us were just like pretty traumatized from what happened and we went on like almost parallel recovery journeys without even being aware of it.
Speaker 1:Amazing, absolutely incredible. So this book is meant to be published. It's been within you for a long period of time and now it's ready. It's absolutely incredible. So tell me about the book. What's it about?
Speaker 2:So the book is basically my story of mental health, sobriety, addiction, recovery, resilience, and it covers my life over a big span of time. A lot of it is my time in the Middle East, I would say, and the way that the book is structured is based on the seven chakras, and so along the chakras of the body, my life is kind of broken up into these parts and a lot of the teachings are about kind of my experiences, traveling, my learning, the things that I went through, and then how all of it teaches and relates to yoga philosophy. So I'm teaching a lot about, like, the different philosophical concepts, the asana practices, the breath work and storytelling through learning, essentially.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Would you mind touching on what are the chakras? What are the seven chakras and how did you relate them to different sectors of your life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great, that's a really great question, and I love that you asked that because I, throughout my book writing process, I've gotten a lot of feedback from people over the years, and one of which is I have a teacher in Mumbai, anvita, who I meet with a couple of times a week to do philosophy work, and she read the book and one of the things she said was she said, alex, you don't ever explain what the chakras are, and so I end up adding that in, but I think for me it's become so common that I just I say it and I forget that majority of people don't really have that as part of their life and so that's right.
Speaker 1:Like I would only ever encounter the term chakra if I was to go into, you know, a shop selling jewels and all you know those beautiful shops that you see, with all of the sarongs, like it just wouldn't pop up in my everyday life. So I would love to learn more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the chakras are essentially so in all of the ancient, in all of these ancient healing modalities, there's a different map for the subtle body, and so this is the map for the subtle body that comes through in the Vedic tradition, which is where yoga is based on, and I say this because there's also traditional Chinese medicine, which has a different channel system. They have, like, the meridians and all of these points. And so the chakras is a different name and a different kind of concept for this similar idea which is like that, our body. It's essentially talking about the same idea that our body keeps the score, like so we're holding our trauma, our stories, our tension in these different energy centers. And it could be something that happened to us developmentally at a different time in our life, our childhood. It could be some specific type of trauma or incident that has basically blocked off a chakra. And so there's many chakra models, but the most widely believed is that there's seven, and the first is the root chakra, which is at the base of the spine. It's near, like the reproductive organs and it's kind of about like being grounded, being safe and secure.
Speaker 2:So in writing my book, this was kind of the chunk of, like my childhood life, I would say. And then the sacred chakra is the next chakra. These are, this is our reproductive organs. This is basically the home of like sexuality, creativity, letting go emotions going with the flow.
Speaker 2:And in this part of the book, like if so, if you've maybe experienced any, which is, most people have some kind of like sacral chakra related issues, whether it's like some trauma you had or you know, anxiety or anything like that, and so when this chakra is blocked, we struggle with our emotions, we struggle with creativity. And in this chunk of the book, this is my first year living in Kuwait. Aha Right, empowerment and believing in yourself, and I often will think of like the visual of a fire and it's really about like strength, determination, self-belief, confidence, and so in this part of my book, it's really the second year in Kuwait and when I'm starting to really step into my confidence and my kind of building my life there and also building this relationship with this, this guy that I met yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then the fourth chakra is the heart chakra, and so this is about like healing, forgiveness, love, and at this point in the book so I moved through the three chakras and then me and my ex have broken up and it's all about me basically like healing my heart at this point and so learning to forgive. And this is again another thing where I think a lot of people have like a blocked heart chakra. We live with a broken heart, whether it's from like our own relationships, ending our sadness over what happened in our family unit as a kid, like maybe watching our parents divorce, like death having like a death in your childhood or your young adulthood, or even in your adulthood that you weren't given the tools to like move through. All of these can break your heart, and so a lot of people have like very closed off hearts, and so balancing this chakra is like all about expanding and opening and feeling and and healing amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where are we up to?
Speaker 2:so we're at about the halfway point, actually, and basically the bridge into what I think of it as, like the outer world is the um, the first three, and the inner world is the top three, and then the heart is kind of like the connector. So these three chakras, we have our throat, our third eye and our crown, and these are all more about inner work, and so this kind of pairs really well with, like my book's journey, because after having this, like you know, mental health breakdown, collapsing, rebuilding my life. This is where I start to really step into like, okay, what do I want from my life? And like, how can I start to speak my truth and how can I follow my intuition? And so speaking my truth is when I start to get sober, and then following my intuition is when I start to build my business and then crown is like connecting to your spirit and higher power, and this is where I end up coming to Bali and like building my life here.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's just. It's such an incredible story and I love, I love that you've related it back to the chakras because it provides such a lovely structure to the book but also ties so nicely into your life and how you live it. You've learned around yoga and the philosophy of yoga and how it can really just support, I guess, building a life that you're more in tune with, you resonate with and you don't want to numb out and escape from. So if you were describing you know, your perfect person that would want to pick up and purchase the book, who would it be?
Speaker 2:purchase the book. Who would it be? Yeah, you know, I think it's valuable for anyone on any recovery journey. I think, in particular, obviously, it would resonate with, like, young women. There's a lot in the book about like sobriety, feminism, recovery and like yoga as alternative medicine, and so I think, for for young women in particular, it would be that's who I would really love to reach. But I would love for it to be picked up by anyone like, no matter your age, no matter your gender, no matter your interests, because I think you know stories of suffering and stories of resilience are universal and all humans experience that, and so I think you can get something from it, no matter who you are.
Speaker 1:And all humans experience that, and so I think you can get something from it, no matter who you are. Yeah, how would you describe yoga and your daily practices that tie back into yoga have helped support. I was going to say just your sobriety, but it's probably more than that, just your personal growth. How have they really sustained you, just with your outlook in life and moving forward?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is such a good question.
Speaker 2:You know, when I I can feel the difference in myself when I've started the day with a practice, when, whereas when I haven't like I gave example, you know, today I did not do my practice in the morning because I ended up sleeping and I did teach a class, which was beautiful, but I didn't have this personal time for me.
Speaker 2:And when I don't have this personal time for me, I can just see my mind going in, going in negative places, like, oh, like I'm this today I was just like grumpy, you know, like I was like just grumpy and like craving sugar, you know, and this is because I have not filled up my cup enough with like meditation, with grounding, with moving and and community enough so that I'm just I'm seeking like quick fixes for these things. I was speaking the other day about some with someone I think it was yesterday about how, when you actually do the things that you say you're going to do, just build self-confidence because you're like I am, you know I'm reliable, even if it's just to myself. So starting your day with some kind of routine and it could just be your practice, doesn't need to be like a 90 minute thing. It could literally be like I'm just going to do a down dog every single day, and even that you're like I've stayed committed to this practice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's quite amazing that we're talking about this, because I was just recording a video that I'm doing with a colleague. It's called Sip Smart and it's all just about little basic steps that you can do to drink less, and the video was your daily routine and I was just talking about what are the common themes of the amazing guests that I've had in this program that have been able to sustain an alcohol-free life for, you know, 5, 10, 15 years. All of them, without fail, have a morning moment. Isn't that incredible? Gratitude practice, or a yoga practice or meditation? Or who was on here? Veronica Valley, who talks about she does three gratitudes and three resentments, and that sets her up for the day. But wow, so what's your morning practice normally look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so usually I try to go. I do this 40 minute walking loop that is right by my house, and so I like to get out for a walk in the morning because being outside, being in nature, moving my body, and then depending on how much time I have, I will. My favorite thing to do is to take my teachers, do a teacher do one of my teachers yoga videos, but I don't always have much time because he's it's a 60 minute class. So if I don't, then I will just. I will literally just like intuitively flow, put on some music and move my body for maybe 10, 15 minutes. If I do have like a full 60 minute chunk of time, then I will put on a yoga video with my teacher and I find that he just really grounds me into like the energy that I want to be in, which is like the energy of love and compassion. I want to be in, which is like the energy of love and compassion.
Speaker 1:God, I love that and you know you're probably. I was thinking about this and thinking about the questions I'd love to ask you. When it comes to your how you grew up, your family, your group of friends, is the fact you made this decision to move to Bali to really immerse yourself and build a practice around yoga and well-being. Is that quite novel? Are you quite a trailblazer compared to you? Know the norm that you were brought up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and within I mean within my family unit of like my mom's family, I would say they're very much like you know, get a job, work that job for like 30 years and then retire is kind of the setup. But as I say this, I'm like my dad's, like my uncles and aunts on my dad's side, were kind of like none of them left Canada but they were very nomadic in that they would be on this side of Canada and then that side of Canada and then here and there get a job there, you know, and so they definitely lived. My dad's family was a bit more like alternative and I do believe, you know, I've had a lot of interesting feelings about my grandmother, my dad's mom. I actually don't write about her in the book at all because there's so much family estrangement and sadness and so much of it is like not my story that I just I'm like, okay, I'm not, I don't talk much about my dad's family, but my granny said has you know, she wrote a book when she was in her seventies and something about how if she could do it all again, she wouldn't like when she was in her seventies and something about how if she could do it all again, she wouldn't like essentially saying that she didn't really which is kind of sad like saying she didn't really want to be a parent, she didn't really want to be a wife and she was born in a time where that was what you did.
Speaker 2:You know, you got married, you had children, you were, you were a housewife and that was her life. And I've had all these interesting feelings about her lately because I think I mean she's passed away now so I couldn't ask her. But I think if she were born when I was, she would have probably done what I did, like she probably would have lived the way I did, and I think she would have been a lot happier and perhaps it would have resolved some of the issues a lot of us have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, all right, the rest of the generations that have flowed on.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And so I do feel like, in the choices that I'm making now, in some ways like even though I do have some resentment to her and there's lots to unpack there I do feel I feel her close to my heart, you know, and I feel like I'm resolving and healing a lot of the family lineage by by doing this, by following my, my own path.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it takes courage to buck the norms Well, both on the front of where you live, how you live, uh, sobriety that's, you know it's becoming more common, but it's still, you know, it's still bucking the trend. Where did you, where do you get, where'd you get that source of adventure and rebellious spirit? Where'd that come from? Is that from granny, your granny, or what would you say? You always had it.
Speaker 2:You know? I mean, I think aspects of it probably came from her, but I have to say, if I didn't, if like so, the circumstance I found myself in when I graduated university was like. I just wanted to be a full-time yoga teacher. That's all I wanted to do.
Speaker 1:And my family.
Speaker 2:yeah. So I had been teaching yoga for a year. I was 20, I was 22 when I started teaching yoga and I just said to my parents, like I just want to stay here and teach yoga. And they said, okay, you know you're going to need to pay for your own housing and whatever. And then when I really looked into it, I was like, okay, this is like an unsustainable option.
Speaker 1:It's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I had a bachelor of arts and a bachelor of education and I was like, okay, well, I could just teach, but I didn't really want to teach. And if I went into teaching in Canada I would have to be on the sub list, and some of my friends are still even on the sub list like 10 years later. Like some of them have not gotten classrooms. So it's a very competitive job market in Canada. I do think in COVID things shifted slightly, but it's very hard. And so I had heard about this overseas teaching opportunity and I was like, okay, well, I can get a job, I can have a free apartment and I can, you know, have a classroom and then just like, travel the world.
Speaker 2:And so I don't know, had I not been in that situation of like not having opportunities in my home country, if I would have been brave enough to do it and I would say it was like the best thing that ever happened to me, even though I did experience a lot of challenges in my two years in Kuwait and it was very hard. It opened my world. Like I would never be sitting here in Bali right now had I not done that in the first place, and those were my first two jobs overseas were kind of like baby step situations because I was, you know, given a job offer, I had a contract, I had a flight covered, I had an apartment covered, and so all I had to do was pay for like my food, my housing, and like I didn't even have to pay for my housing, my food, you know, my, maybe my electricity, and then like my travel and my car and whatever.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:I was able to build an overseas life with a bit of like care and then that built me up with the confidence to now be able to do it in Bali completely on my own.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it. And, just as some, just a couple of parting questions about the book. What would you say would be the overall message of the book that you're trying to convey, and what are you most proud about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. So the overall message I would probably say is I mean, I think there's a few messages, but mostly like A big one was around reframing my life experiences and understanding that you know, there wasn't something wrong with me per se, and it might just be something wrong with society, with you know, the way that we perceive alcohol, the way we perceive mental health, the way we perceive dynamics in relationships and all of this. I thought there was something wrong with me and now I understand that it's like kind of like systemic issues that are impacting everyone, and so I hope my book is able to help people reframe and change their perspective in a way that they didn't anticipate. Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, and what am I most proud of? I think, yeah, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Lot of the first book had resentments towards other people.
Speaker 2:It was like, well, you did this or you did that, you know, and I feel like through this process I really watched my own evolution and growth and to be able to be self-aware and pick out like. I'll give one example One I had a really tough time at my first job in Kuwait. It was really really tough and through a lot of the book, there was a lot of resentment towards the school leaders who were there and I had this recent epiphany. I'll give one example. I took a sick leave and it was because of my mental health and they were basically saying they would fire me if they didn't get photocopies of my mental health records and they weren't going to pay me for that time and blah, blah, blah. And I was very resentful for a long time of like this guy was trying to like, harm me and ruin my life. And it recently dawned on me like the guy who asked me for that was literally just a man from Toronto who had been hired to be the principal of a school.
Speaker 1:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:And so, he was not there, being like I'm going to ruin Alex's life by asking me for her records, like someone probably asked him to do like doing his best, and so I, for a long time, was like, well, this guy wanted to ruin my life, you know.
Speaker 2:And it's like that's just not true, like we're all just making decisions based on the scenario we find ourselves, yeah exactly and and I feel like I was able to really come to forgive a lot of these people, including, you know, my ex, including former, like employers, including even my parents, you know, just understanding like everyone was doing the best they could in the situation that they found themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's a process with a whole lot of things, but a degree of reframing, new perspectives, letting go, just letting go of the stories we tell ourselves. We do often create our own little prisons, don't we? I mean, I do it. I do it if I find myself, if I haven't done for an exercise, I'm often sitting around ruminating on my thoughts at the ripe old age of nearly 50. But look, they're two brilliant reasons, uh, to go out and grab the book. Um, alex, thank you so much for coming on the podcast again. Um, where can people find the book? Where should they look out for it and when? When's it gonna drop?
Speaker 2:yeah, so it's gonna be out next week, september 5th. Yeah, amazing, yeah, and it's gonna be available out next week, september 5th. Yes, amazing, yeah, and it's going to be available on Amazon Kindle, so you can get hard copies and then also a soft copy on your Kindle as well.
Speaker 1:Fabulous. So what we might do is, when it's out there, well, there's probably going to be a link you can give me, but I can also update the show notes when that becomes available. But, thank you, I'm so jealous of where you're sitting right now in the jungle, in nature. It just looks beautiful, absolutely incredible. Thank you for coming on the podcast, alex.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Isabella.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
