Supernaut

Sweet Surrender

• Supernaut • Episode 1

Share episode

The moment I heard the spirit of wine whisper "you don't have a personality without me" became my turning point. That single, chilling exchange crystallized everything wrong with my relationship to alcohol—and launched me on a journey I never expected to take.

Welcome to Supernaught, where we explore spirituality, sobriety, and the spectrum of self. In this premiere episode, I share my winding path from pandemic boxed wine and cigarettes to discovering the deeper patterns behind my addictions. When I finally committed to sobriety, I was shocked to find my relationship with sugar emerging as my next battleground. 

The breakthrough came when I learned that gluttony isn't just about physical hunger—it represents a spiritual void we're trying to fill with consumption. Meanwhile, my injured psoas muscle (known as the "muscle of the soul") was physically manifesting my resistance to change. These weren't separate struggles but interconnected signals pointing toward the same healing journey.

Now I'm embarking on what I call my "Sweet Surrender Year"—a commitment to living without desserts while incorporating daily nature meditation. This episode explores how addiction rarely exists in isolation and how spiritual awareness can illuminate the underlying patterns connecting our seemingly separate struggles.

Whether you're battling substance dependency, compulsive behaviors, or simply seeking a more conscious relationship with yourself, this podcast offers a judgment-free space to explore transformation. Because as I've learned, we're all only one decision away from a new life. Join me on this journey of discovery, and let's find our way together.

Speaker 1:

This is Supernaught. My name is Beth Kelling and I'm going to talk about spirituality, sobriety and the spectrum of self. I've loved talking about spirituality for as long as I can remember and I've been on a sobriety journey since 2020. The more I talk about sobriety, the stronger I become. The more I explore spirituality, the more fulfilled I feel. This is a space for stories and for the moments where struggle meets transformation. This is Supernaught, hi. So in this first episode of Supernaught, I just want to talk about why I decided to start this podcast and sorry for the note cards, I am very nervous and I don't know how to public speak. So since high school, I've always kind of wanted to be a writer. It's just been in the back of my head Like if I had enough courage, that's what I would do. But then I heard a real writer say that a writer has to write or they'll die, and I realized I'm not a writer. So I gave up on that dream. But it was not much longer later that I convinced my family to build this studio. In our business, we focus on food, shelter, clothing all the necessities of life but art and creativity is a necessity for thriving in life. So I'm obsessed with podcasts, watching them, and when I had the thought about doing my own, I laughed, thinking, well, yeah, I don't need to write, but I do need to talk or I will die. I'm a big talker. So when I was thinking about what I would talk about, it was obviously spirituality. It came to my mind literally instantly. I've been obsessed with finding out why we're here on this planet for as long as I can remember, and I'm at peace with the fact that we will probably never know why we're here, but it is still my favorite thing to explore. And then, right away, I thought about sobriety being a topic too.

Speaker 1:

In 2020, I was stuck at home drinking boxed wine like everybody else, but had ulcers. I was smoking cigarettes. I wasn't working out. I was just getting more depressed all the time that my son was getting close to graduating, and so it kind of just happened without me really trying. But I decided to quit drinking at home. So then I was only drinking when I was bartending. That was a few nights a week, just a couple shots here and there to get through the night. And then somehow I switched jobs and had a job that I had to be a lot more responsible at Went, from closing the bar down at 1, 2 in the morning to having to be at a 6.30 crew meeting every morning that I had to run and then put out emergencies all day. So it was just. There was no way I was going to be able to do that job and drink, because I didn't just drink a little bit, I drank a lot. So that was easy to kind of just quit altogether.

Speaker 1:

I started drinking every other month or so, but sometimes even that would get out of control, like one time I went to a friend's house to watch a football game and the whole morning I was like I'm not going to drink. I'm not going to drink. Today I walked in and somebody handed me a glass of wine and my decision-making skills just shut off and I drank it and I was like but this is the only one, I'm going to have, no way I'm having another one. Then I see myself pouring another glass and I literally say to myself why are you pouring another glass? And I literally heard like the spirit of the wine come out and say to me because you don't have a personality without me. And I was like, yep, you're right, started drinking, drank all day.

Speaker 1:

The next day, Monday, at work, was one of the most brutal days of my life. There was no way I could have been good at my job and drank. So I kept contemplating quitting for a year, but the cycle just kind of kept going on and on. Then I started dating somebody who didn't drink and he encouraged me to quit forever and I wasn't ready for that. But I was ready to go a year. And I do want to shout out to him because I do not think I would be where I am right now if I hadn't gotten that year, and I don't think I could have gotten the year without him. And that year was my son James' senior year. So I had been praying relentlessly to slow time down. I knew that wasn't really an option, but that is the only thing I wanted in the world and doing something, whatever it is going a year without it. That will slow time down. So I am so blessed for that timing.

Speaker 1:

So after the year I went back to drinking every other month or so, but again every once in a while we just get out of control where I went to a birthday party and the whole day I'm like there's no way I'm going to drink, I'm not going to have anything. Then I get there and somebody asked if I want a, a margarita, and my brain just shuts off and I'm like yep. Next thing I know it's the morning, on my hour drive home first Vikings game of the year and I missed it because I was too hungover and my son, who had just moved out, was coming over to watch it, and that was one of the biggest regrets of my life. So that was September. Then I didn't have a drink until Christmas when a coworker made some homemade Baileys and I just got really excited to drink it, so went home, poured a little glass, had a couple sips, but this time instantly I felt it in my body and I felt it affect my brain and I didn't like the way that it felt. So I literally had to give the rest of the bottle away and then really thought at that point I was going to be done again.

Speaker 1:

But my brain kept trying to convince me that I could drink in certain situations. It was trying to figure out how to keep drinking. So I went on a trip to Australia and I thought, well, I'll just drink on different continents, that can be my rule. So I was having one to three drinks a night and I thought I am so good at this, I can do this now. I'm a good drinker now. But the next thing I know I'm buying a $50 pack of cigarettes and up all night hooting and hollering.

Speaker 1:

And the next day we had to take a train ride to the Blue Mountains and it was literally miserable and I got seriously depressed. So then I believe that would be my next drink, last drink. And then I went to Iceland on a trip and I was sober cab the whole time and it it was going really well. I wasn't having any drinks. But the second to last night we were swimming in a lagoon late at night and there was this blue, slushy drink all around and I thought, well, I'm just going to have one of those. No idea why I make these decisions. Have one slushy blue drink, and then we are leaving the parking lot. It's like midnight and there's are leaving the parking lot, it's like midnight and there's cops at the exit stopping.

Speaker 1:

Everybody rolled down my window, gave them my ID and they asked if I had anything to drink. And I said, yep, I had one about an hour ago. And they were like, well, what's the blood alcohol limit where you're from. And I said 0.08, and they said, well, here at zero. So I took a breathalyzer but somehow I blew zeros, kind of freaking out. I mean, icelandic jail would be pretty cool, I think, but also pretty expensive. So they come with a second breathalyzer. Luckily, again I blew zeros. I do not know if they would have. They said that if you blow under 0.05, they just take your keys. So I still think we probably would have had to walk a few miles to our Airbnb at midnight. But either way, I feel like that will for sure be my last drink, because it's just a good story and I just can't picture my brain changing its mind this time. I really, really do believe that will be my last drink.

Speaker 1:

So now I'm trying to figure out my addiction to sugar and my relationship with it. So on Easter this year it was two weeks ago yesterday I just overindulged. I was so full, just miserable, laying in bed thinking why do I do this to myself? Why do I overeat? Since the two trips I took this year, I had gotten to the point where I was like having desserts and sweets after every meal. It was like even if it was just one piece of chocolate, but it was a craving that I couldn't control. And so I'm laying there and started thinking about how my seven deadly sins are gluttony and sloth. So I'm obsessed with chat GBT, so I decided to ask it hey, is there anything spiritual or mythological that I can do to help rid these deadly sins that I have? So ChatGBT gave me so much info about that.

Speaker 1:

It said that gluttony is hunger without fulfillment and that it's tied to the idea of trying to fill a spiritual hunger with physical consumption. And that blew my mind. I just felt that's how I've been acting my whole life, always overindulging, and maybe partially because I'm a Taurus like, especially with things with comfort and pleasure, like food, shopping, sleeping. Those are my things. It offered a remedy. It said temperance, moderation. It offered a remedy. It said temperance, moderation, intentional balance, not giving into extremes and not denying is the answer.

Speaker 1:

Gluttony does not heal by force. It heals through slow gratitude and attunement. What is my body actually asking for? What am I trying to feel? And I remember that I've been waking up with my teeth really sore for the last couple weeks and it hit me that it was some kind of sign trying to tell me that I needed to do something about my sugar addiction. It had been coming for a long time. This was all leading up to this decision. So it said that the ritual is may I nourish? Ask the food or say to the food may I nourish what is truly hungry in me. Eat with presence, light a candle. Make food sacred, not sinful.

Speaker 1:

So then I looked up the sloth and it's the dream drainer. It isn't laziness, it's a spiritual heaviness that keeps you from engaging with life. It shows up as scrolling, zoning out, numbing and pains, and pairs with gluttony. The mythological archetype is lotus eaters from homer's odyssey. They eat the lotus flower and fall into a dreamy, forgetful stupor, forgetting their purpose and wanting to stay in the haze forever. That made so much sense to me too. I'm still trying to figure out my relationship. Flower and fall into a dreamy, forgetful stupor, forgetting their purpose and wanting to stay in the haze forever. That made so much sense to me too. I'm still trying to figure out my relationship with cannabis, but not right now. One thing at a time. So the spiritual remedy is purpose plus movement. What would make me feel alive today? Even the smallest movement can crack the shell, even something for five minutes, and also saying I choose life.

Speaker 1:

I just kept thinking I didn't want to waste another summer not feeling good about myself. I've tried every diet that's ever existed and I've never felt comfortable in my own skin, especially since I've been drinking. So why not do something that I'm proud of? Why not change my relationship with sugar the way I did with alcohol? So I've decided to go a year with no desserts. I don't have time for a year with no sugar. Like reading labels, especially like salad dressing when you go out to eat. I did Whole30 before and for a year. That just doesn't seem realistic.

Speaker 1:

But no chocolate, candy chips, cheetos are pretty much the only chips that I eat. But also I'm going to say no to like chips and dips. When you're at parties, get togethers. Candy I don't have a big problem with. If it's there, I'll eat a bunch of it, but I don't ever buy it. But chocolate and ice cream, cream cheese wontons was a hard one. I've had to decide if that's going to be on the list or not, because it does not feel like it's a dessert, it's like an appetizer. But yes, that is something I'm going to refrain from also.

Speaker 1:

But remember it said temperance, moderation, balance, not giving into extremes and not denying. So my balance is that, yes, I'm going to have fruit, yes, smoothies, homemade popcorn, so I can put olive oil and my own herbs on it. There's the Good Pop brand freezies that have zero sugar. They're not even that great, but I thought, yeah, once I don't feel like eating anything sweet anymore, that maybe I'll feel like those I have, like some dill pickle cashews that don't have any added sugar, like snacks, like that with no added sugar. I will have Maybe some honey on toast, but no maple syrup, just because I don't eat pancakes and French toast that often, even though I really love them. But I don't want to start that habit. And the other part of the balance is that I'm going to have desserts on vacations. James wants to go to Japan next year and I don't want to miss out on some food that I'll never get the chance to try again. I'm also addicted to new experiences and I don't want to quit that. So I decided that on Easter day.

Speaker 1:

So in the last two weeks I've been practicing, I've only had sugar four or five days. The next day after Easter was my birthday, so I had two birthday parties planned that I was like well, I'm not just going to be that person and say, no, I'm not going to have any dessert. And then I had a women's wellness weekend last weekend and the chef, amy, is so amazing that I knew I was going to have to try something that she made. And she made tiramisu, which is one of my favorites. So that was my last dessert yesterday. Um, going two weeks with only having any sugar for four days, um was a good test. Now I feel like I can really do it today. It was hard because a co-worker's birthday um, somebody made rhubarb crisp and that's one of my favorites, and I was literally like, well, I can just go one more day. It was literally just yesterday, but yesterday was May 4th and I think Star Wars will have my back and this was the first really hard one. I'll just be really excited to have rhubarb cresp next spring.

Speaker 1:

One of the worst feelings is when somebody brings you something and you're like, oh no, I just started this diet, I can't eat that. But like now I'm saying it Just don't bring me any fun food because I'm going to say no. So one thing I realized in the last couple weeks is the days that I didn't have any sugar is the days that I overate are the days that I wanted sugar the most. So that's already something that I've learned, and so when I quit drinking, I gained a bunch of weight because I didn't replace it with anything. So what am I going to replace sugar with? And that is going to be meditating. To replace sugar with, and that is going to be meditating.

Speaker 1:

I, four weeks ago, started a new meditation practice of sitting outside for 20 minutes and just listening to nature. I started that because a friend, todd, said that you know, sitting outside and listening to birds and the trees will rewire your brain, and so I'm like well, why don't I just sit outside 20 minutes? And I'm going to do that for a year as well. In Minnesota, winter it's going to be absolutely miserable, but it's going to make me a lot stronger, and then I'm going to get to hear the nature all times of the year, and so far it's going well. In the rain, in the wind, it's still been very enjoyable, and I can so notice how much calmer I am.

Speaker 1:

Another thing I've replaced alcohol with and other bad habits is music. I always say music is my drug, and I had a reading done like 15 years ago and she told me that in a past life I died from a drug overdose at a music festival and that I'm going to be spending this life trying to overcome my addictions. And so is that why I am where I am right now? Maybe, but also I mean I was blacking out after just a couple drinks. So this is happening because it just needed to.

Speaker 1:

I also want to start running and replace my bad habits with that, and that brings up that I decided that same day to ask chat gbt about my psoas muscle. That's been sore for about seven months. Ask it if there's anything spiritual or mythological about the psoas muscle and how I could heal that. That got injured because just 10 minutes of listening to David Goggins and I decided to run a 10k after not running for a couple months. So I asked at GBT and it said your psoas is your physical and emotional center, often called the muscle of the soul. So when it's injured it's rarely just physical. It's often carrying your fear, tension and survival instincts. It went into how hip flexors are about movement, progress and stepping into new territory. Like your soul wants to move forward, but something like fear is resisting. You're being asked to slow down and feel. So I think all that has a lot to do with the podcasting it said. Something sacred inside me is stretching to be seen Feminine power and creativity claiming space, voice and desires.

Speaker 1:

But also there's two times that I felt a shift in my psoas muscle. One was when I called and made a chiropractor appointment with a lady that I believe I was supposed to meet I think she's a real healer and I felt a serious shift in my hip flexor then. And the other time that I felt the shift was when I made the decision to stop having sugar, because it's like the universe wanted me to slow down and not focus on running until I could get my food figured out and get that relationship steady. I kept thinking that running was going to solve all of my problems, like you know, just putting my happiness on a future event where I think I need to learn to just be happy in the moment. So Chachi Beachy and I decided to call this the sweet surrender year and I was thinking maybe every year I'm going to want to do a year of nothing like, maybe a year of no social media or no TV, even thought about no mirrors.

Speaker 1:

My friend Brandon inspired that he doesn't look in the mirror, so obviously you would run into your reflection once in a while. But covering up the mirrors in your house and intentionally not looking in the mirrors when you're washing your hands, I think I would get a lot of Botox and filler before I did that. But that's a possibility. And I started to think what would be the hardest thing in my entire life to give up. And that answer is easy it's blankets. Again, I'm a tourist and I just love comfort. Sometimes I get home after work at five o'clock, just jump in a bed, do work from there, watch TV, hang out with my dog and cat and I'm just in bed all night because I love blankets more than anything. So I think if I went a year without blankets, I would literally probably wail and scream and despair all night long. But then I thought, imagine what you would gain after a year with no blankets. I mean, he would just become so strong and need literally nothing. So I don't know if I'll ever do that, but that's an idea.

Speaker 1:

And, ps, I'm also very open to the idea that the only reason putting sugar into my body is bad for me is because I believe that it is. If you haven't heard that concept before, we'll get into that. But right now the issue is that I just have this really unhealthy relationship with it. So this is what I'm going to do and I don't want to act like everybody should do that or everybody should quit drinking. Some people do have a good relationship with alcohol. I just want to talk about drinking less and not glorifying it. The way that every sports game and activity makes it seem to be Not drinking is scary. It's lonely. You feel like an outsider. Not everybody is supportive. They feel really uncomfortable. But again, I literally black out from just a couple drinks. So, and as soon as alcohol touches my lips, I'm just done for Like. So for me, it's just what I need to do.

Speaker 1:

So when I say this podcast is about sobriety, I mean it broadly. I want to talk about all addictions gambling, sex, overthinking, because I think overthinking is an addiction. And that brings me to the third theme of this podcast, which is spectrum of self. I didn't want to be stuck in a lane. I want to be able to talk about everything in this human experience. I'm so curious on why we do what we do. It's like the Oracle in the Matrix when she asked Neo if he wants a piece of candy and he says well, do you already know what I'm going to say? And she says, yes, but you didn't come here to make the decision. You came here to find out why you made the decision. So I've always ran towards what excites me. Sometimes that's very dangerous, but right now it's podcast. I've always liked TV and movies, but every night I just go home and watch podcasts, so I've gotten rid of pretty movies, but every night I just go home and watch podcasts, so I've gotten rid of pretty much all my other streaming services.

Speaker 1:

I have a vision board I made seven or eight years ago and I hung it up by my TV. It says live healthy, be the boss of your body, wake up with more energy. And I really thought I would just slowly wake up every day, believing it more and more, that it would just become my identity. But the universe works in such creative ways that I think it instead gave me this idea, the idea that I believe can change my eating habits for life.

Speaker 1:

I've been striving for so long to be my best self, but Taoism teaches that the most powerful action is effortlessness and align alignment with nature. So that's why I'm so excited to be meditating outside, and Zen. Buddhism says that enlightenment can only be realized when the seeking stops, and psychology says that acceptance, not control, is the path to peace. So I said I couldn't do the year of no alcohol without that boyfriend. So now I'm saying it here so that I'm accountable to everyone listening, because I don't think it's just about willpower. I think it's so much more and I'm excited to explore that.

Speaker 1:

I already have so many amazing guests lined up, and I've realized in the last couple weeks that my purpose is sharing people on. I'm sure I haven't always been the best at that with my friends because I haven't been in alignment, but I've realized in the last couple years that service is the key to happiness in this world. I truly believe that, and so I think the only way I can overcome this addiction with sugar is if I can help other people overcome their addictions. So remember you are only one decision away from a new life. Please let me know if I can help Alan Carr his books. He has a lot on quitting all sorts of different things, and that is the book that probably helped me more than anything else. But please reach out to my website. If I've ever met you, I guarantee I've thought about you being on this podcast because I've been working on this for the last year, just thinking about every person I've ever met and how I want them to come on. And if I haven't met you, I definitely want to meet you.

Speaker 1:

I'm such a curious person and I just want to know what people believe spiritually and their sobriety journey. With everything, we all have something that we need to quit. So if you made it through all this, I really appreciate it. I will get better at public speaking and thank you so much. Addiction is affecting so many people that I know and love and I'm not always sure what to do about it, but talking helps. I want to hear your struggles and your triumphs. If you want to come on the show, please find the link below to our website to start the conversation, of being a guest or to give me feedback and ideas of what you want to hear on topics of spirituality, sobriety and the self. I am nowhere near a professional. I am nowhere near a professional. If you or someone you know needs help now, please call the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357. It's free, confidential and available 24-7.