I’m Allie Judith Maglio.

I grew up in the bible belt of the South as a New Jersey Jewish transplant during the Walmart overtake in the now well-known and hip Bentonville, Arkansas.

Being the only Jewish girl in my high school was hard for me, and there were times when this led me to make choices that betrayed me and negatively affected my mental and physical health. Still, I managed to find success with writing and my academics.

Leaving Arkansas after college and following a fully funded master’s at The University of Missouri allowed me to start fresh. Although I often felt ostracized in the South, I loved the slow pace of living, and the Midwest offered me a similar life. I met and married my husband, Nic, and started my career as an English teacher.

I have been a poet since I first learned how to write. And I have always dreamed of sharing my perceptions and stories with others. But, as one hears from most, life seems to get busy and stressful, and the things we feel we have to do rob us of our truest desires. To those sharing that kind of advice, I now say, “fuck that.”

When I found out I was pregnant with my first child, my mental and physical health took a considerable plummet, and I knew I had to do everything I could to heal my mind, body, and spirit, so I began the journey to regain my health and my sense of self. Part of that healing journey has been to start this blog and share my essays and poems.

My drive to share my knowledge and resources comes from hitting rock bottom and crawling my way out. I understand that life can be whatever we want it to be when we let go of what we think the world expects of us. Additionally, I want to provide women with a place to learn ways to reclaim their health and self-worth for free.

Most of my healing has been through a steady yoga and meditation practice and what many would deem “alternative medicinal modalities.” I want to contribute to breaking the negative stereotypes that surround practices and modes of healthcare considered inaccessible or unreal—they are neither of those things.

This blog is here not to promise you a quick fix for your problems or a program that will bring you wellness in a few weeks.

This blog is for me to share the mindset shifts and lifestyle choices that have transformed me. I will teach how I learned to love myself unconditionally through practices of yoga, meditation, and self-care with a healthy dose of humor and a radical amount of acceptance.

I hope you follow along and find that some of my lifestyle choices also work well for you, that you feel inspired to do something you have always wanted to do, and that, like me, you learn to love yourself and understand that living authentically is the only way for one to be completely happy, healthy, and whole. 

AJ

Allie Maglio
High School English Language Arts
200 HR YTTT
MA - English Literature
MAT - Teaching
BA - Creative Writing

More about me

  • We are the Maglios: Allie, Ayla, and Nic. Nic and I met in the fall of 2016 during my second year of graduate school at the University of Missouri. Nic was born and raised in Columbia, and after falling in love with this midwest town, his tight-knit group of friends, and summers spent on Cornell Lake in Wisconsin, I knew that this steadfast and loyal man was the person I wanted to create a life with. Ayla was born in January of ‘23, and this fall, I will embark on the journey of full-time teacher and mom. On the weekends and evenings, we like to garden, camp, and sit around tables cooking and being merry with our friends!

  • I was 16 years old the first time I took a yoga class. I had decided to quit dancing after 13 years, and I was looking for another form of movement for self-expression and to keep my body in shape. I was immediately hooked. I practiced three times a week at a local gym in my university town. At the time, my practice was focused mainly on the physical expression of the postures. Still, when I moved to Columbia for graduate school, I began practicing at a studio that explored the philosophical and spiritual depths the practice offers. My excellent teacher, Liz, taught me the power of mantra and Sanskrit through song, and soon yoga became my church. The summer after my first year in graduate school, I backpacked Europe and learned Transcendental Meditation - two experiences that forever changed the course of my practice and my life.

    During Covid, when studios were closed, I began developing my at-home practice, which to my surprise, deepened my relationship with yoga in ways I never imagined. My husband and I committed to Yoga with Adrienne’s 30-day challenge in January of 2021, and soon I was practicing at home every day.

    My practice now is one in which I am confident to show up and give myself what I need daily - my yoga. I have meditated daily for the past two years and practice Transcendental Meditation twice daily.

    My posture practice involves stretching, dancing, and moving in any way my body needs at the moment - sometimes following a guide or a teacher and sometimes in silence with my intuition.

  • As a child, I loved to dance and write as forms of self-expression. I also loved to read, look at art, watch others perform, and observe nature and the outdoors.

    I felt a deep connection to my femininity from a young age, and I loved to (and still do) express that through fashion and beauty.

    In college, I fell in love with Virginia Woolf’s style of prose, which is a poetic stream of consciousness and so I began emulating her style in my own writing. When I feel an essay emerging in my body and mind, it often comes to me in waves, with a rhythm akin to Mrs. Dalloway.

    I was accepted to a writer’s retreat for my poetry during my senior year of college and was introduced to contemporary poets such as Robert Hass and W.S. Merwin, who were the genesis for my self-expression in poetic form.

    My current poems speak thematically to the birth of my daughter and the rebirth of myself as a mother, my reclaiming of my Judaism, my yoga and meditation practice, the intimate moments in my marriage, and a deep spirituality that comes from my connection to God and nature.

    Poets and artists that inspire my art: Bon Iver, W.S. Merwin, Haruki Markami, Buddhist Monk Thich Nahn Hun, the Old Testament, Taylor Swift, Sylvia Plath, T.S. Elliot, Phillip Glass, Vangough, Walt Whitman, Stephen Hawking and any physicist who examines the cosmos, and more.

    Bloggers and YouTubers I love for fashion and culture are my og Sunbeamsjess, Lizzy Hadfield, and Something Navy.

    Places that inspire me are the mountains, any dive bar that serves stag, a Jewish deli, and my classroom full of teenagers who have no filters.

  • From the end of August until the end of May, I teach reading and writing to 10th and 12th graders. Working with teenagers is sobering, and I love to perform for them and teach them how to think for themselves.

    I meditate, write, and practice yoga in the mornings before work.

    In the evenings, I like to cook, go on walks, listen to 70s soft rock, sit in the driveway in a camp chair, and watch TV with my husband.

    On the weekends, we get together with our friends and typically cook Asian food or kababs, drink beer and wine, go out for pizza, hike, or take trips to the lake or the river.