I have to admit, it's slightly weird for me to send emails out into the void every few days. I never know where my words are going, who is reading them, and how they land. 

Your responses (even though I can't reply to them all personally,) are amazing validations of my words resonating with real people.

MN responded to last week's drop with her experience that felt deeply familiar to me:

She wrote:

It's amazing you got that permission and you give all these amazing workshops and people pay you to speak (jealousy alert)

But what about me?

What if I have all these ideas and dreams and things I want to do and don't have the right support and I don't have the time and money to make my dreams a reality because the daily grind of living of raising a family comes first.

What then?

----

Ahhhhh. I remember when I could have written your exact words. 

It wasn't that long ago. Just a handful of years. 

In fact, think of when you first heard my name? 

Many of you have only gotten to know me in the last year or two. Maybe five. 

Want to know where I was and what I was doing before the name Fally hit your inbox?

Actually, I was right here, doing all of the exact same things I still do right now. 

Living the grind. 

Not much has changed in my life since I became popular and my work has become well received. 

As evidenced by me having to draft this email from my phone because my toddler (who has recently entered #terribletwosturbomode) has claimed my laptop to watch CocoMelon at top volume.

In case you would like to immerse yourself more fully into my world, take a listen to what's playing in my kitchen as I write this email up:  Just be You

If you'd prefer the fuller experience of my morning grind, spill a steaming 16oz mug of coffee over your new white hoodie and sit in it because said toddler refuses to let you out of his sight long enough to go change. 

More evidence of the grind is all around me. 

There are mounds of unwashed dishes because my teens aren't home to help. Not that they would help if they were. But a little fantasy is good for the soul. 

And I'm lowkey (to borrow a term from my daughter) stressing about if I'm going to figure out how to properly replace the door gasket on my washer because it's leaking and I've never done it before but I'm curious to try and see if a YouTube tutorial is going to be good enough or if I'm going to cave and call a repair guy or one of my brothers, but I'd really rather not because I convinced my husband that I can do this myself and now I have to prove my point because I'm special that way. 

And yes I know, I do this to myself. 

The daily grind never goes away MN. 

It just gets grindier. More grindy. Grindful?

So how did I manage to get myself to this point of my life/career?

I didn't give up the grind. 

I didn't suddenly have more support, or freedom, or money or hear a Heavenly voice telling me it was time. 

Nothing "changed."

Except I did. 

I realized that if I wasn't going to make choices around how I was showing up for my own life, no one else was going to do that for me. 

I never stopped doing all the things life demanded of me. 

But I slowly learned to create small spaces where I began doing a little more of the things that made me happy. 

At first they weren't big things. They were small things like having coffee dates with friends... Sometimes just fifteen minutes over Zoom because we were in a different country, time zone, or just too busy to leave our desks. 

They were small things like buying myself little gifts to celebrate important moments for myself. Like the $15 bangle I bought to mark the completion of learning something I was proud of.

My small steps included drinking less coffee and more water. (Side note, me and the toddler are loving hard on these bottle toppers!)

I also realized dressing with a little more color made me happy. (Been rocking a version of these all season and they are weird and comfy and I feel just a little more alive in 'em.)

Slowly I filled my life up with more of the little things I loved and the joy I learned to gift myself gave me the courage and permission to do more. 

In terms of my career- I also started out vastly underpaid, and worked myself to the bone for some really difficult people. I taught teenagers and got paid $6,000 my first year. That's $600 a month. That's $150 a week. That's $6 an hour. For just the hours that I was actually in school. I didn't get paid for prep and marking and talking to parents and for being the unofficial school psychologist. 

There were a lot of things I did for free back in the day. I gave free lectures in my neighborhood, and sometimes over Zoom. 

There were even events where no one showed up! (I'll probably tell you that story another time. It was life changing).

My point, I didn't get there overnight. 

In fact, I'm still not "there."

I'm right here. Where I've always been. Doing what I've always done.

I'm in the present moment, trying to live my best life.

That's the secret, you know. 

It's what people will pay you anything for.

The secret to getting where you dream of being, is to first learn to love where you are. 

Everything else, to quote Hillel*, is just interpretation. 

Today my loving where I am will probably include mindfully breathing as I clean vomit out of car seats, listening to a lot of CocoMelon and strategizing about how my laundry is going to get done.

Tomorrow will be more of the same. 

But Wednesday I'll be at the Ayeh event in Stony Point, NY (Not Pomona like the flyer says.)

There are three more spots available for women ready to be present to their lives at a whole new level. 

I hope you'll consider joining! 

And if you're someone who has already breathed in person with me twice before, the July 30 immersive breathwork event is not to be missed!

Register here! 

From one mom in the grind to another, 

You're seen. 

And you're not that far away from your dreams as you'd think. 

Fally 

* If you scrolled to the end, you at least deserve to see the source  - Shabbos 31a