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Begin Again is for people in the second half of life who sense that the identity they've been carrying no longer fits. Host Winston Faircloth — spiritual director, daily poet, and fellow traveler — brings honest conversation, personal story, and original poetry to the journey of remembering, releasing, and returning to who God created you to be. Visit www.myreuniontour.com for more resources.
Welcome Home. This poem is from Tour Day nine eighty four, and the title is Home. Deep down, an unmet desire, returning to what we hold dear, as restlessness ever gnawing, uncertainty feeding our fear. We chase countless unspoken needs. We're taught what we should want.
Winston Faircloth:The career, picket fence, accolades, our pursuit endless, if only deflaunt. For decades, we think this one will bring us relief. Climbing life's upward ladder. Our joy, oh so brief. One day we wake up to realize the pursuit was such a waste.
Winston Faircloth:Daily rushing and striving has only brought needless haste. This one precious life, a short series of days, each a new beginning as we focus on praise. When viewed from above, we have a new story to tell. Being a blessing to others allows peace to indwell. We can run from our essence, no matter how far we roam.
Winston Faircloth:A day arrives when we must begin our journey, our sacred path home. Welcome to Begin Again. If you've been here before, if you're one of the people who listened to season one and heard some of those stories of perseverance and starting over, thank you for being here. Coming back matters. And I hope what you just heard in that poem is a sign that this is still a safe place to be honest about where you are.
Winston Faircloth:If you're brand new to Begin Again, welcome. You've picked a good moment to find us, because in some ways, this episode is a beginning for all of us. I want to do something a little unusual here at the top of season two. I want to tell you where I've been. Because the truth is, a lot has changed since I hit the record on that last episode of season one in late twenty twenty.
Winston Faircloth:And I don't think it would be honest just to pick up where we left off in the summer of twenty twenty six without naming that. In season one, Begin Again was a show about fresh starts and perseverance. We heard stories from incredible people, people who lost jobs, changed careers, started over after grief, or burnout or failure. And I meant every word of every episode. But honestly, I was also in many ways still figuring out who I was in the second half of my own life when I was recording that.
Winston Faircloth:I was 59 when the business I had relaunched with confidence produced nothing. Not one client, months of silence. The identity I had built my whole adult life around, builder, achiever, problem solver, the one who always finds a way forward, that identity stopped working. And I had no idea what to do with that. Shortly after I stopped recording season one, what followed was five years of what I couldn't have imagined.
Winston Faircloth:A season of honest reckoning, spiritual formation, the slow work of grief and lament, the kind of pruning that doesn't feel like growth while it's happening. Later that fall, around the same time that I stopped recording, I started writing poems. Nearly 1,000 of them as I'm recording this now. One photo, one reflection, one attempt to put into language what was happening inside of me. Most of them began as letters to God.
Winston Faircloth:Some of them began as complaints. I'm not the same person who started season one of this podcast. And that most of the people who know me now have never met the person I was before. So that's where I've been, and that's why I'm back. So what I found in the silence.
Winston Faircloth:Here's what I want to share with you, friend. Something I wish someone had said to me when I was in the thick of it. The identities we carry, our titles, our roles, our achievements, the ways other people know us, they're not bad things. Most of them are generally good things. They protected us.
Winston Faircloth:They gave us a container for energy and purpose. They helped us build something real. Yet, somewhere along the way, for a lot of us, that identity stopped being something we wore, and it became something that wore us. I had made a vow somewhere in my early youth, not out loud, not consciously, a vow that I would always be the one that figures it out, the one who delivers, the one who doesn't need help. And that bow, it served me for a very long time until that bow became the wall that I kept running up against.
Winston Faircloth:In the contemplative tradition, there's a name for this. Richard Rohr calls it the loyal soldier. It's the part of you that fought the battles of the first half of your life and won, and now stands guard at a door you need to walk through. Not out of malice, out of loyalty, out of love even, but that loyal soldier, that identity, it's blocking your door. The invitation of the second life is not to conquer the loyal soldier, not to renounce the loyal soldier.
Winston Faircloth:It's not to shame or dismiss the person you've been, the identity that served you well. Instead, it's an opportunity, it's an invitation to honor that person. Name what they built. And then gently, with ceremony and with gratitude, give them a proper discharge. I know how that might sound.
Winston Faircloth:It might sound like a lot, or it might sound like the most natural thing in the world, depending on where you are right now. What I can tell you is at that moment, when I had that moment of recognition, is I wrote a speech, an actual formal ceremonial speech, something that was aspirational, something I one day hope to do, that discharge ceremony, which honored the person I had been, naming what we had built, protected, and sacrificed, and yet then committing out loud to become someone different, someone closer to who God made me to be. I wrote that speech for no audience, but eventually I read it to people I love the most, and something moved. It's not a technique. It's not a program.
Winston Faircloth:It's a human being meeting a threshold and choosing to cross it. And that's why I'm here talking to you today. Because I believe that threshold is real. I believe a lot of people are standing in front of it, feeling the restlessness, sensing that something in them doesn't fit anymore, not quite knowing what to do with it. And this season two of the Begin Again podcast is for those folks.
Winston Faircloth:So what is Begin Again now? Let me tell you what the show is going to be. Begin Again season two is a companion to My Reunion Tour, a faith based group journey for people in the second half of life who are navigating an identity transition. Everything we talk about in this podcast is rooted in that program and the community we're going to be building around it. But the podcast itself, completely free, always will be.
Winston Faircloth:It's a conversation for anyone who needs it. You don't have to be in the My Reunion Tour program to belong here. So here's what you can expect from this upcoming season two. Some episodes will be like this one, just me and a microphone sharing something from the journey, a story, a reflection, a poem. These will be shorter and more devotional in feel, something you can sit over a cup of coffee with on a lazy Saturday morning.
Winston Faircloth:Other episodes will be conversations, not interviews in the traditional sense. I'm not here to spotlight people's credentials or resumes. I just want to have conversations with people who have stood at the threshold and crossed it. People who've released an identity that no longer fit. People in the middle of that passage still working it out.
Winston Faircloth:People whose stories you'll hear and think, Yes, that's exactly right. That's where I am. The show is organized around four movements of the soul. The same four movements that shape my Reunion Tour program. Remember, recognize, release, and reunion.
Winston Faircloth:Four movements of the soul. To remember is where we go back, all the way back, and map the terrain of our lives. Not to relive it, but to understand it. To see perhaps for the first time, identities that have formed us and vows that we've made along the way. Recognize is a threshold all its own.
Winston Faircloth:It's the moment you name what you've been carrying, not in a clinical way, but in a sacred, honest, and sometimes overwhelming way. This is the place where people often get very quiet. Release is the work, the lament, the grieving of what was real and good, and is still going to be let go. And then the ceremony, the ritual act of discharge or recommitment of walking through the door. Finally, reunion.
Winston Faircloth:Reunion is what is on the other side. Not a destination, not a graduation, a permanent returning. A community of people committed to becoming again and again who they were always created to be. That's what we're doing here. Episode by episode, season by season.
Winston Faircloth:I'm not going to promise you this is easy. I'm not going to tell you there's a shortcut or formula. What I can tell you is that the journey is worth it, and it's one that you don't have to make alone. Before I close, I want to speak directly to someone who's listening. Maybe you've achieved what you set out to achieve.
Winston Faircloth:And something in you quietly said, Is that all there is? You can't quite name the feeling, but the disorientation is real. Maybe you poured yourself into a role caregiver, provider, parent, professional, and that role is coming to a close, or it's already ended. And the organizing identity of your days left with it. Perhaps you've tried the programs, the masterminds, the certifications, and none of them have stuck.
Winston Faircloth:Not because you didn't try, but because the issue was never more information. It was transformation. Maybe you're in a season of restlessness that you can't quite explain to the people in your life. Maybe you're grieving something you just can't quite name. If any of this is landing for you, if something stirred when you heard the poem at the top of this episode, you're at the right place.
Winston Faircloth:This is not a show for people who have it all figured out. This is a show for people honest enough to admit that they don't. For people willing to sit in the question just a little longer. For people who sense that what's waiting for them on the other side of this threshold is more alive and more true than anything they've carried so far. You are right where you're supposed to be.
Winston Faircloth:So to wrap up this episode, I'm going to read a different poem from these thousand days of working it out with God and with myself. This poem is called Begin. It's from Tor day July. The longest journey in life starts with a single thought that leads to a decision that requires a first step. Even with the best plans, we cannot fully know how our path will unfold.
Winston Faircloth:To pretend otherwise is foolish. The easy option is to stay with what is known or certain. We may feel secure, but we will miss the adventure. Today in this moment, with trust and surrender, we decide to follow in a first step of faith. And this is how we begin.
Winston Faircloth:That's where we'll leave it for today. If this episode stirred something in you, if you've been feeling that restlessness, that sense that something no longer fits, I'd like for you to visit my brand new website at myreuniontour.com. We've got hundreds of these poems there. And on our front page, there will be some profiles of roles, identities, responsibilities that could give you a description of the kinds of people that I'm working with. I'd love for you to look at those and see if any of those relate to you.
Winston Faircloth:And if you're ready to go deeper, not just listen, but actually take this journey, I'm going to be forming a new cohort in the fall of twenty twenty six. But the best place to start is a conversation. It's not a sales call, just an honest conversation about where you are, and whether the journey I'm describing fits this new season of your life. The link will be in the show notes, and you can schedule that conversation at myreuniontour.com. I'd love to hear from you.
Winston Faircloth:And if this episode resonated with you, invite a friend to subscribe to Begin Again wherever they listen to podcast. Make sure to share this episode with someone you love who might be standing at the same threshold. I'm Winston Faircloth. This is Begin Again. And until next time, you're right where you're supposed to be.