Today I speak to the new kind of courage that it takes to lead an alcohol free life. It's about this willingness to rewrite the fear based paradigm you were born into, and part the mists into a the existence that the way we approach life can be thought the lens of unconditional love, acknowledgement and appreciation for the human experiance.
Click Here To Join The Sustainable Sobriety Course Today.
YOU CAN BREAK FREE FROM THE CYCLE OF STOPPING AND STARTING AND THE TRAP OF MODERATION,
BY EMBRACING A PATH THAT ALLOWS YOU TO MOVE FORWARD WITHOUT THE BURDEN OF COUNTING DAYS OR HIDING YOUR TRUE SELF.
Sustainable Sobriety Is Here! Keep the needle moving forward no matter if you do or don't drink.
Join Sustainable Sobriety Course, where you'll learn everything to find the confidence to be authentically you in a compact, affordable, lifetime access package.
Today I speak to the new kind of courage that it takes to lead an alcohol free life. It's about this willingness to rewrite the fear based paradigm you were born into, and part the mists into a the existence that the way we approach life can be thought the lens of unconditional love, acknowledgement and appreciation for the human experiance.
Click Here To Join The Sustainable Sobriety Course Today.
YOU CAN BREAK FREE FROM THE CYCLE OF STOPPING AND STARTING AND THE TRAP OF MODERATION,
BY EMBRACING A PATH THAT ALLOWS YOU TO MOVE FORWARD WITHOUT THE BURDEN OF COUNTING DAYS OR HIDING YOUR TRUE SELF.
Sustainable Sobriety Is Here! Keep the needle moving forward no matter if you do or don't drink.
Join Sustainable Sobriety Course, where you'll learn everything to find the confidence to be authentically you in a compact, affordable, lifetime access package.
Welcome, welcome. My name is Mary Wagstaff. I am a life coach who ended a 20 year relationship with alcohol without labels, counting days, or ever making excuses. In this podcast, we will explore my revolutionary approach to quitting alcohol that breaks all the rules, amazing stories from women who are throwing a better party because of it, and how you can stop drinking and start living. The show is not a substitute for rehabilitation and medical treatment or advice. Please talk to a health professional if your alcohol consumption is a risk to your mental and physical health. Hello, my beautiful listeners. Welcome to today's special edition of the podcast, there's a lot in the field energetically. And I just have had a lot of thoughts. Lots of lots of deep thoughts on my mind, and I just wanted to get on to share some of my insights. It's also apparently national sobriety day. So I wanted to take an opportunity to just give a shout out to the courageous people out there that are not only sober and you know, living a life free of alcohol and drugs, but those that are in the process, really rewriting their story. And the reason they didn't really know about this is because it's obviously a made up holiday. But what it does do is it brings awareness to the realities of addiction. And as you guys have probably come to know, I don't really resonate with, you know, the group, think of kind of the sober click, but I appreciate and respect and acknowledge any form of support in which resonates with you, I truly believe that we are all unique individuals. And the solutions to the world's problems are as diverse and as unique as there are individuals on this planet. So there is no shame or judgment around any support that you find for your life that works for you. And, you know, I think one of the the big things about having something like a national or international day of sobriety, bringing recognition to the struggles that people face when it comes to addiction or abusing substances, is really comes down to what it takes the courageous act that it takes to kind of shift out of group think and that there is an entire world that says no, this is this is an OK way to live and and then what's wrong with you that you can't live in this way. And really, this is just another extension, the fear based model for which we have unintentionally consented to in this life. And I don't really see addiction of alcohol and drugs as anything different than any other fear based model for which one person lives in. is compounded because there's really nothing else in our society that we that we have consented to as a group that is so destructive, but that everyone has also said is okay, then alcohol. And there's also there's also some things around the around food industry and even social media that we've also consented to as as okay that is completely detrimental to one's mental health, and really is instilled in a fear based model rather than a model of unconditional love. And so what I wanted to do today, first is have a moment of silence for all of the destruction that is raging here on the west coast. The fires and all of the displaced people and wildlife and destruction that has just that really brings just such a deep sense of loss Learning, not even on an individual level, but on a global level, there are fires that are happening here that are historically wouldn't be happening because of climate change. And one of the things about the work that I do is when we start to drop into shifting our perspective of the way that we really show up for life, we start to hold space, and create unconditional love and support for not just other people, but for the world at large. And one of the reasons that I don't can scribe subscribe to group think about sobriety is because I really feel like sometimes it is an othering. And I think that we're all on the same boat, I think that we have, in some way, shape, or form all subscribed to some sort of unintentional fear based model of living, where the presence of the idea of peace and unconditional love as our purpose in this life is really undervalued and seen as unimportant. And I, and I believe truly, that the evolution of the human species, just like I talked about in the last podcast, is really coming back to this place of emotional intimacy. And instead of fearing now, that which we do not know, that which is unseen in the inner world, which is vast beyond our comprehension, sometimes is really where the answers live for the solution not only of our personal strife and struggle, but the solution of creating a place where not only humans can thrive, but all species on this planet and the planet herself. And of course, we know, Gaia, Planet Earth, Pachamama has gone through many ages. And there has been many extinctions of lots of species. So the earth will continue to be here, and she will continue to do everything with or without us. And so it's just really interesting to, you know, kind of ask yourself, can I step into this place of unflinching faith that truly comes from accepting that love. Unconditional Love is our purpose to be uniquely who we are, and that this model, that the emotional self is bad, the parts of the emotional self are wrong. And so when we try to solve for problems, we continue to solve them inside of that same fear based model with more stress and shame and blame, rather than stepping into a new perspective of understanding, this is what I was talking about last week. This is truly the key to change a shifting the perspective in every moment. And it takes practice, because it's been thousands of years of a story where we are not enough. And that is why we are constantly seeking outside of ourselves to find the solution to make us whole again. But it's the opposite of that. It's that which lives inside it is the uncovering of the darkness for which you already are my beautiful friend. And there's nothing that you need more than to simply come home to yourself. I used to have this saying, because I've been a wanderlust for my entire life. And when I was drinking, especially where I was kind of I've always been like on my own and I never was afraid to go out by myself and I often went to bars by myself and I would like drive around looking for something to do this is before I had a child and kind of before I was settled into more of a career path. And I would say to myself, you know, if you don't know where to go go home if you don't know what to do go home, because there's nothing that's going to, you know, I would just kind of search endlessly for a place that I could find solace and comfort in and even earlier on When I wasn't really tuning into the deep emotional wisdom of my own self, where I did know home as a physical place was at least going to have the qualities of me there, there was going to be the comfort, like it's okay to just go home and go to bed. But I was constantly searching for a way to fill some void that I never even stopped to ask what it was. And so it's really in the slowing down. You know, tools are tools of emotional intelligence, and mindfulness and self development and self awareness are only as good as we utilize them. Otherwise, they're just concepts, even my practice of yoga for you know, I would say 75% of the time for the majority of the 20 years that I've been practicing and teaching was another coping mechanism was a way to simply just feel better, and to not feel what I was feeling the same with. As I reflect on it now, my, my movement practice, I mean, I was obsessed for many, many years with, you know, going to the gym and pushing, pushing super hard only to just go out to the bar after and it was like, none of it was I feeling me in the present moment, I was always creating some sort of external stimuli. And, you know, obviously, there's things that are healthier than others. But what it really comes down to is this deep root. And you know, I had an A moment this weekend, where our power was out, we are safe we are in in Mount Hood in Oregon. But we are not surrounded by the fires. But it's very, very smoky here. And there was a windstorm. So the electric company had shut off the power and we actually don't get cell service where we are. So all of the connecting that I do is through Wi Fi and through the internet. And so the smoke was starting to get kind of thick. And we had left one night of the windstorm, and then decided to come back because we wanted to really check on the house and be with the house. And we decided that until it was mandatory evacuation we were going to just stay inside, but just be ready. And so Matthew, my partner was gone. And he was either working or getting supplies, I can't remember but I was home, you know, without able to contact him, although all it is is a, you know, three minute drive down the road to connect to cellular. And so as I was packing and getting ready in case we needed to leave, I was experiencing some extreme anxiety. And I just sat down and I did the same practice that I taught you. Last week, I first of all, just sat and breathed. And I asked myself what was the emotion that was present with me. And then I asked what the sensations were and it was, you know, shortness of breath, increased heart rate, some tension in the body. So I just pointed those out, and offered myself a few statements of unconditional presence and compassion said, It's totally normal for you to feel like this. There's a lot going on. You know, you're here with your kid. And but I'm going to be here present with you through this through you feeling this. And in that unconditional presence of, of the emotion rather than the story, I was able to find a sense of relief from the physical sensations. And by realizing that the sensations were simply caused by a story and not the actual thing happening in my environment, like I actually wasn't in smoke and in fire. So there was no cause of physical sensations other than the thoughts in my brain. And when you're able to tune into that place, it really allows you to shift to shift and dive into the eyes of the heart, and to see from a very neutral place of compassion, and in peace. Now, peace doesn't have to mean happiness. Peace can just be simple understanding and compassion. And I think we get these things confused. And we're just searching for this, like happiness all the time that that's the way that it's going to be. But my invitation to you and to my clients always is that that's not the goal that you can find peace. And contentment, even when you're sad, even in an anxious moment, even in the unknown, you can be at peace there because that is the natural state of being. And so, having said that, I was able to then decide from a place of receptivity and presence, what was the next best step because I was able to get regulate my emotions regulate the nervous system. And from that place, there's offering of more grace, you know, and even if I wasn't able to do that, just simply being with yourself unconditionally in moments of real heightened emotion can offer that. And we've been, I finished the packing that I was going to do, and I just said, What are the facts here? The facts are, that there are places they've evacuated, they have not yet evacuated. We have a full tank of gas, we are equipped with water. And then I loaded my son and myself up in the car, and we just drove down with our masks on our respirators on to call Matthew and just check in with him. And we came back and then you know, him and I made a plan instead of just deciding to frantically you know, get up and go, we decided, what is our plan, when will we decide to leave, and we decided we felt better being at home, without the, without a notification of evacuation, rather than just leaving to go find where the air is cleaner that we felt like knowing what the what was happening at the house was much more calming to us. And then we prepared everything and it was okay. So I would just like to take a moment to soften the eyes and if you would with me. And if you can just visualize the sky, just opening up with this gentle pouring down of, of rain of water of tears to answer the prayers of the many here and all over the world. And may the fires these wildfires smolder out with our unconditional love and support. And we understand why they're here. They're here because things have shifted globally, the environment is different. We can we find an answer to the suffering. We send out love and protection and just this idea of unconditional acknowledgment and peace and presence to those who are in a heightened state. You know, survival, really being in a place of feeling displaced and confused. And this is happening all over the world all the time. And so knowing that it's okay to feel how you feel. And there is unconditional acknowledgment and support of those who need it most right now. And so to step into the world of sobriety means to be courageous, it means to be willing to go first, when everything else around you is telling you different, but it's that stepping into your heart. It's that listening to that deep knowing rather than the voices of the stories that were created around you. And the other thing that it means is the ability to be wrong to admit that the way that you thought things were weren't that way. And this has shown up for me again and again and again and again. And it is such an unexpected and welcomed gift, especially since I have stopped drinking alcohol. I have asked myself what else am I wrong about and instead of standing on principle. You stand with unconditional presence for the truth, unconditional love and support and acknowledgement that the truth ultimately leads to peace. And that standing on principle is never a place that you want to make decisions from. That creates disconnect. And it creates more separation, where what we need right now is more connection. And belief is the other thing. belief that someday I can also live in a place where I am not solving for the problems of my life, for something outside of myself that the answer lives inside of me, that I am not avoiding my emotions, and that my emotions actually are here for a purpose. So the ability to live at this natural, beautiful pulse of life, and that stepping into that place of interconnectedness, we so easily forget it with all of the things we're bombarded with. And what I do in these times where I feel overwhelmed by the information of the outer world, or even if I get to, like, obsessed with someone else's method, and I'm like, Oh, this is amazing. Even if I want to start implementing some new practices or tools into into the work that I do, I really just shut it down. I really I stop, I don't go onto social media. I don't even listen to podcasts, I just really tune into the Sadhguru, the inner teacher, and I'm offering to you today that that is available to you. It is all of us. We have been told for so long that the answer, someone else has the answer, or there's like prestige or recognition. But no one has any better answers for you than you do. And the best way to find that out is by trying and proving yourself wrong. We always want to prove our limiting beliefs, correct by finding proof that they are that they are actually true. And so we find that other people that believe what we believe, right? But when those beliefs are limited, our beliefs are limiting, we have to tune in to trying to prove ourselves wrong to seeing what's possible. And I just wanted to leave you with this today. I've probably quoted Marianne Williamson before, but this is the introduction to a return to love and it couldn't exemplify the work that I do in the world more around living an alcohol free life, but it's just so much more than that. It's really tuning into the inner wisdom of what it means to to live with faith in that unflinching Why? And I call it the higher self unconditional love. Some people call it God or source. But she states it better than I ever could. So Marianne Williamson introduction to a return to love. When we were born, we were programmed perfectly. We had a natural tendency to focus on love. our imaginations were creative and flourishing, and we knew how to use them. We were connected to a world much richer than the one we connect to now, a world full of enchantment and a sense of the miraculous. So what happened? Why is it that we reached a certain age look around and the enchantment was gone? Because we were taught to focus elsewhere, we were taught to think unnaturally, we were taught a very bad philosophy, a way of looking at the world that contradicts who we are. We were taught to think thoughts like competition, struggle, sickness, finite resources, limitation, guilt, bad death, scarcity and loss. We began to think these things and so we began to know them. We were taught that things like grades, being good enough money and doing the right things the right way, are more important than love. We were taught that we're separate from other people that we have to compete to get ahead, that we're not quite good enough the way we are. We're taught to see the world the way that others had come to see it. It's as though as soon as we got here we're given a sleeping pill. The thinking of the world which is not based on love began pounding in our ears the moment we hit shore. Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we have learned. The spiritual journey is the relinquishment or unlearning of fear and the acceptance Love back into our hearts. Love is the essential existential fact. It is our ultimate reality in our purpose on Earth, to be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others is the meaning of life. Meaning doesn't lie in things. Meaning lies in us. When we attach value to things that aren't love, the money, the car, the house, the prestige, we are loving things that can't love us back. We are searching for meaning in the meaningless. Money of itself means nothing. material things of themselves mean nothing. It's not that they're bad, it's that they're nothing. We came here to co create with God by extending love. life spent with any other purpose in mind is meaningless, contrary to our nature, and ultimately painful. It's as though we've been lost in a dark parallel universe where things are loved more than people. We overvalue what we perceive with our physical senses, and undervalue what we know to be true in our hearts. Love isn't the physical eyes, or heard with physical ears. The physical senses can't perceive it, it's perceived through another kind of vision. metaphysicians call it the third eye. esoteric Christians call it the vision of the Holy Spirit, and others call it the higher self. Regardless of what it's called love requires a different kind of seeing than we're used to a different kind of knowing or thinking. Love is the intuitive knowledge of our hearts. It's a world beyond that. We all secretly longed for an anxious memory a memory of this love haunts all of us all the time in beckons us to return. Love isn't material, it's energy. It's the feeling in a room, a situation a person. Money, can't buy it, sex doesn't guarantee it. It has nothing at all to do with the physical world, but it can be expressed nonetheless. We experience it as a kindness giving a mercy, compassion, peace, joy, acceptance, non judgement joining an intimacy. Fear is our shared lovelessness our individual and collective health. It's a world that seems to press on us from within and without giving constant false testimony to the meaningless of love. When fears expressed we recognize it as anger, abuse, disease, pain, greed, addiction, selfishness, obsession, corruption, violence and war. Love is within us It cannot be destroyed, but can only be hidden. The world we knew as children is still buried within our minds. I once read a delightful book called the mists of Avalon. The mists of Avalon are a mythical allusion to the tales of King Arthur. Avalon is a magical island that is hidden behind huge impenetrable mists. Unless the missed part there is no way to navigate your way to the island. But unless you believe the island is there, the mists won't part. Avalon symbolizes a world beyond the world we see with our physical eyes. It represents a miraculous sense of things, the enchanted realm that we knew as children, our childlike self is the deepest level of our being. It is who we really are and what is really doesn't go away. The truth doesn't stop being the truth just because we're not looking at it. Love merely becomes clouded over or surrounded by mental mists. Avalon is the world we knew when we were still connected to our softness or innocence, our spirit. It's actually the same world we see now but informed by love, interpreted gently with hope and faith and a sense of wonder. It's easily retrieved because perception is a choice, the mists part when we believe that Avalon is behind them. And that's what a miracle is a parting of the mists, a shift in perception, a return to love. So my friend, the reason that you are listening at all to this podcast is because you do believe in Avalon you believe and know and trust that there is a softness and a way to live this life that is different than a fear based model, which is a choice. And so what does this mean in the world that doesn't mean that we turn our backs on the way that we've been functioning. It's not about what we're doing it but it's about how we're doing it. So as you take your journey through the rest of this day, I would love for you at any moment when you feel that fear based thought process come up is to drop just to recognize it, just to recognize it and drop into the eyes of the heart, you can literally cast your inward gaze down at your heart, and offer unconditional love, I am present with you, I see you and I understand you to yourself to the other to the situation, and watch how it brings a sense of relief and peace. It might not invoke a sense of happiness or elation, or this wild ride of this complete sensory junkie, you know that is alcohol, right? That's just beyond the way of the natural rhythms of life, and to say, ask yourself, what is it that I believe in? and give yourself a few examples of ways that you've experienced the sense of presence and peace. Maybe when your child was born, maybe when you gazed into the eyes of Your Beloved, maybe when you've seen a beautiful sunset, or you gaze up at the stars, we can shift into that way of perceiving the world in everything we do. And that the need, then to replace a lack or to seek to fill a void outside of us becomes no longer desirable becomes no longer necessary. Because we are content with just being and that is enough. And then from there, we can have fun, and we can try new things. And we can challenge ourselves. But we always come back. And we always returned to love, blessings so much for your presence for your beautiful hearts. And I will invite you to see what's possible for you by shifting into belief. And just just for the rest of today, just for the rest of this week, can you pause? It does take work. That's why the act of alcohol is you know, it's this instant thing that we do this thing outside of ourselves. But we have to be courageous, we have to be courageous, and trust that the work isn't something else that we're adding to our to do list. But it's the solution to the problem that these sacred pauses these moments of inner reflection of getting to know ourselves the sacred journey of the self is the return to love. And the reason that I also love this passage so much as, as you may know, when we did the 40 days to freedom, a lot of that was based on the avalonian tradition of healing, for which I am a self initiated Priestess of the avalonian tradition, which is the the human liberation model. It's trusting that the deep inner journey of life happens from a spiral from the inside out. And all the work the vast landscape of the inner world has so much more richness and thickness, and potential to offer, how we show up in this outer 3d world and how we can create our own utopia, even in the midst of all of the emotion. And so this might sound like a lot of information that you've never really dove into. But trust that what you've been doing that the alcohol is no longer the solution. So be opening. Be open to finding a new way, a new way. That can be easier. I love you very much. I'm here and available for you if you need to chat. Of course, you can go on to the website and just sign up for a call and we can connect in that way. This is the work. This is the work. It's not in blaming the outer worlds for selling us alcohol. That all will shift when we all share Left into the inner landscape of trust and love. Have a wonderful day. The process of unraveling your story outside of the confines of alcohol is truly a sacred and beautiful journey of the South. rediscover who you are, and a whole new world again. Stop by my website Mary Wagstaff coach.com, to get instant access to the on demand workshop of my revolutionary five shifts approach. And while you're there, you can sign up for a one on one consultation, where we will create together your life intention. This is the framework for which all of your decisions around alcohol are made from your truest and highest self. In addition to working remotely worldwide. I host private one on one healing retreats at my sanctuary in Mount Hood for again, I can't wait to connect