It's So Intimate

My words for 2024

I don’t usually publish words for the year, but this year the words are so clear that I’m sharing them with you because they may hold important keys for your future.

Intimacy and vulnerability.

Those who can learn to navigate intimacy and vulnerability will fair much better in the new paradigm than those who don’t.

This magazine cover - and the $4,000 dress I’m wearing on it, during a time when I literally had no money and maxed credit cards - was my first discovery of the magic that can happen when we get intimate and vulnerable.

Vulnerable, Intimate and Real: Alexis Neely Was Terrified of All Those Words, But Ali Knew …

(if you are new here, and don’t yet know about “Alexis” and “Ali”, you can start here)

It was 2011. One of the “worst” times of my life by the measures of the traditional “success” focused world. My credit cards were maxed, I was facing bankruptcy, and I certainly didn’t have anything to wear for a photo shoot.

I did NOT want to do it.

But, the famed brand photographer, Christina Morassi, was about to shift from photography to coaching, and I had already paid for a photography package with her the year before.

Christina called: “It’s now or never, Alexis. Come out to Los Angeles, and let’s shoot, sister.”

“No, I can’t do it, I said. I don’t have anything to wear. I have no money. I’m living on a farm with my kids, and I’m literally falling apart over here.”

Christina said that was perfect. “Perfect?! What?” I thought she was crazy. But, maybe that was exactly the kind of crazy I needed.

Christina’s told me her specialty was to photograph the one who was coming through, but that I didn’t know or hadn’t met yet.

Something in her words touched that part of me that was deeply buried, and I can see now with hindsight, so deeply desired to be known.