Stop Drinking and Start Living

Ep. #59 Rite Of Passage

November 18, 2020 Mary Wagstaff Season 1 Episode 59
Stop Drinking and Start Living
Ep. #59 Rite Of Passage
Show Notes Transcript

Today we talk about Alcohol as a rite of passage into adulthood. Alcohol as a rite of passage is completely void of the tools necessary to step into the future as independent  & connected to our feminine power of emotional intelligence and embodied intuition.

We need to embrace and embody these aspects to become sovereign Women, claiming personal responsibility and moving through limitations with excitement to meet the challenge, rather than fear of failure.  Honoring your life with the sacred journey of Dismantling Alcohol, and Sobriety, is the rites of passage you and only you can claim for your self to what this life and your growth mean and represent.

Email Mary with Questions for the show: Mary@marywagsaffcoach.com

Schedule your free alignment call with Mary HERE

Join us for our Transformational Women's retreat in Mexico in April! Create the intentional space to reconnect with yourself in a community of like minded women. Follow the link here to register and say YES to yourself. 

My private coaching program, which combines a feminine with holistic perspective, guides you towards a easeful and sustainable sobriety so you can make alcohol unimportant. Learn the #1 tool to sustainable sobriety: Schedule a discovery call here.

Join our On-Line community sanctuary here!

Welcome, welcome. My name is Mary Wagstaff. I am a holistic alcohol 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 getting alcohol out of your way that breaks all the rules, life enhancing tools that make not drinking fun and easy. And the profound and sacred journey that it is to rediscover who you are on the other side of alcohol, it's time to answer the calling of the woman who is ready to be fully embodied, to stop drinking and start living. The show is not a substitution for rehabilitation, medical treatment or advice. So please talk to a medical professional if your alcohol consumption is at risk to mental or physical health. Now on with the show. Welcome back my beautiful listeners. It's Mary Wagstaff, thank you so much for being here for another episode of stop drinking and start living. And so if you're new to the show, you may have seen that I have been having some more than just weekly episodes. And I guess if you've been here for a while, you've been noticing that too. So Wednesdays are my regular days. Last week, actually, I had some mishap, it was interesting, there was a something that had posted early in the same episode, and then posted later. But typically, Wednesdays every week, you can always count on I'm here for you. I'm here for myself. But I have been feeling called to produce more shows, basically, because there's just an endless supply of things to talk about around this subject. Also, the kind of going in Word of this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere. Really, I think, and I'm doing this for myself, personally as a really beautiful opportunity to re examine where we are at in the spiral, that is life. And so time is not linear. It's not just you know, birth to death. And then that's it. When you start to pay attention, especially as women, how we move in cycles with nature, you'll notice that things are more of a spiral. And so we kind of come back around to the same, the same times during the year, where the energy shifts in a very similar way. And so during the fall time, during salan season, there is this, this, you know, let creating more of a, you know, the death, the death of the natural world, everything is kind of going into that hibernation mode, but it's the process of it. So we're not quite there yet, but we're preparing for it. And so it's like we can reflect and come in, when you take the time to do it intentionally gather up the seeds of knowledge and new awarenesses that you've had from the year. And there's been so much presented to us that we can really utilize as a gift to go inward during the really dark days of the year and kind of just sit with it and let it really have that churning, that kind of composting, in the darker days going into the dark of the subconscious, without shame without judgment, and kind of just seeing, you know, where am I at this point this year? What have I accomplished? What is really no longer serving me? What am I totally ready to just leave behind. And then as you emerge in the spring, kind of bringing that, that momentum and that energy back into and then putting your gifts to flower out into the world. And so I've probably talked about this on the show. garden metaphors work for a reason because we are nature we are life. And we really just become very disassociated with nature, which is one of the things I think one of the root causes of people's addiction and habit to alcohol and other forms of disembodiment and dissociation is our disconnect from the natural world. When we see ourselves in line with that the stark contrast of kind of the ebbs and the flows don't feel as Stark, right you you just know and honor these natural flows and rhythms but because we're not taught that especially in our Western culture, it's very foreign to us and it's in its it's really in alignment with That emotional intelligence piece that I speak to all the time. Because it's a felt sense, it's not something that you see that you can really touch your experience. I mean, you can experience the natural world with all of your senses. But there is this felt sense. And we all have it, we've all experienced that shifting of the energy of the seasons that kind of has that, to me, it's very romantic, even if it doesn't, to me, big romance doesn't always feel amazing. It's just a big feeling. And it's those emotional waters that kind of, you know, when you get welled up, I often read things that I write that are, you know, kind of more flowery and poetic that I'll often cry over later, or when you know, we don't always shed tears of sadness, we shed tears of joy because of tenderness. And, you know, this is the experience that we can have with ourselves, when we really reflect on that calling that woman who has been saying, hey, over here, can we just take a little, a little to for a second. And just kind of check this out without worrying about what if what you'll be missing out on like, it's all gonna be right there waiting for you, if you slow down the process a little bit to just start to inquire further. And take this time for yourself as a really a sacred gift. And as a rite of passage, and this is what I'm going to be talking about today. And it's going to kind of come in three parts, although there might be some podcasts in between. But for the next three, Wednesday's, I want to kind of build on this idea of rite of passage, and the implications of that around alcohol in our culture. But also the implications of how it is something that we are missing out on, and that this opportunity to examine your relationship with alcohol is really, you gifting yourself, because no one else is going to do it for you, you gifting yourself this opportunity of walking through a new threshold of your life into claiming a new phase of your life, a new version of yourself a new status of how you want to experience this life, how you want to be in relation to others. And maybe that extends beyond you and you become the leader to offer this to other people. Since I have been really in the process of practicing ritual and rite of passage for myself and in community. I have offered this in smaller ways not pushing my agenda on anyone but like last year at Christmas, at my in laws, I had talked to my mother in law and you know, said it would be really nice to, and she was on board with it to take a moment to not just be passing out the gifts and everyone gets the gifts so quick. And then no one says, you know, it's like this kind of chaos. And there's no real felt kind of moment of pause, of course, there's kids and, and whatever. But we just took the opportunity to light a candle. And then everyone got to go around and say what they would like to give more of and what they would like to call in more of for that year. And it was really beautiful. My sister and brother in law had been trying to have a baby for a while. And that was something that they shared with the family that they you know, and they would really wanted the blessings. And it was like a month later. And I cry thinking about it that they got pregnant. So maybe it was more than that, because they just had the baby a couple last week actually. And so it was just a couple of months. It had been a few years of them trying. And so it's that idea of like these sacred pauses. And then, you know, to her because I see this, this journey into motherhood with or without children. And this is something I wanted to talk about today, with or without children as like this opportunity that's not about the baby shower and the one Z's. You know, it's about you. becoming a mother or stepping into the motherhood phase of your life has so many implications that we don't pause and just ask, What am I ready to leave behind from that made in hood phase? What am I ready to step into? What kind of mother do I want to be? What do I want to take from my heritage and my lineage to support this as an empowerment What am I ready to be the, you know, to be the kind of living in prayer, the living embodiment, to end any cultural wounding to end any ancestral wounds that have been carried generationally. And addiction is one of them. Addiction is a huge one that I feel very privileged to have taken that step and that leap of faith with myself to say, this end, this ends here. And now this is not supportive of, you know, growing intimacy in family in showing up to be the fullest expression of the light and the embodiment of the Divine of myself, which is me inside. And again, with when you do it from that place of, you know, honor and privilege of what has come, maybe there wasn't the the availability of awareness, there may have been more, more trauma and you know, less risk, less opportunity for resilience. But instead of this happened to me, and this is a cyclical thing, once you gain aware awareness, it's like you root yourself into knowing this can end here with me, and here and now. And now I can heal this cultural wound, I can heal this ancestral wound of addiction in whatever form it shows up. And bless, like, if your ancestors are engaging with you in any way, it's like they are, they're praising your strength, your courage, I gained so much love and support from my grandmother who has passed and just knowing she believes in, in the work that I'm doing, and that it does take strength and courage and not to say that anyone's weak because of it, it's just, you know, you have a certain level of awareness. But it's, it's, it's the listening to it, it's the committing to figure it out, because you believe so strongly with your whole heart, that on the other side, what you are going to be gaining from kind of trial and error and moving through fear is going to be so worth that you can't even imagine, you know that it kind of took you so long to get there to everything. And it's divine time. And I do believe in that also. But you still have to take action, because if that calling of that voice is there for you, it's ready, like the time is now. And it doesn't mean that you have to go from you know, drinking every day to leading a cultural revolution, it just means that you start the process of inquiring. And that's kind of what I mean by, you know, divine timing, it's that you don't need to overwhelm yourself and have any milestone markers for yourself. This is a very individualized journey. And that's why my mission is to completely dismantle sobriety and break every single rule that anyone has ever created around sobriety. Because Because everyone's life up until this point, is completely different. Everyone has a different circumstance of adversity that they're meeting, culturally and otherwise, trauma, resilient tools for resiliency, internal resources, supportive others, and on and on. But once you know that there is a possibility on the other side of it, it literally is just that step. So kind of going one day at a time and removing any ideas of what it needs to look like or where you need to be. I was asked to be interviewed on a podcast that I've yet to do, and I'm sure I'll share it with you guys. But one of the first questions that they asked on the show was about my sobriety date. And I don't know what that is, because I know that it's been a couple of years since I had a drink of alcohol. But I've been on this journey for a little while. And I don't believe in sobriety dates, if you use them as a tool, and they work for you. But I don't require my clients to have one. Because awareness is never lost. Once you can see something you can't unsee it and one of the most valuable times one of the most valuable tools it's like gold is when you're in the process, especially with a one on one coach. And you if you do have a drink during this inquiry process during this curiosity process at the beginning stages, it is solid gold if you do it within in more of a form form with a formula and kind of a process that you're looking at and then we go over it piece by piece through the thoughts, feelings and actions. And we really we really dismantle it We really deconstruct what happened. And it's like, Whoa, your mind is blown wide open. If you can remember it now my clients, if they've had a drink here or there or whatever, they're not usually going you know all in because we're we have a certain drinking protocol. But man is that when you ditch the judgment and you come at your drinking in that way, it's just such a game changer, because it's really about the belief anyone can become addicted to anything. And anyone can unlearn and dismantle a habit also. So addiction is not a life sentence. And that is one of the biggest stigmas. Now dismantling it may be more challenging for other people, absolutely 100%. But I do not believe addiction is a life sentence. And I do not believe deprivation is a life sentence. And so I'm saying it, it's out there. a rite of passage is a ceremony or ritual of the passage, which occurs when an individual leaves one group to enter another, it involves a significant change in status of status in society. This is a Wikipedia definition. So you can think of many things in culture. And I'll probably talk more about women here. But just you know, in our west, our rites of passage are a little weak, I have to say. So for women, menstruation. There's like the sweet 16, getting your driver's license, college graduation, marriage, babies. And sometimes retirement is another one, I'd say graduation. If you are involved in a sort of, in any religion, there's certain things associated around that people have like kinson yeras, which actually I don't think is a religious thing. I just think it's more of a cultural thing. For men. In the Jewish tradition, there's the bar mitzvah, I grew up Catholic, so we had many rites of passages. The first communion, baptism, your penance, confirmation, and then marriage is the final sacrament. So what, um, it is an opportunity to create a sacred pause, right, there is a moment in all of these like, I'm not this is not me hating on the rites of passage we have here in America, or in the West. But it's to honor and recognize this passage of time. The rite of passage in modern times really, in Western culture, are geared more towards sometimes kind of the whole than focused on celebrating the individual, from my opinion, and from my observation personally. So when I went through any of these rites of passages, I don't remember, especially in the church, this being really an opportunity for me to honor myself as an individual and the divine expression of who I was, but it really was about, you know, service of a higher power, but not the power within. Now, my mother was amazing. And when, when I didn't start menstruating, she did celebrate that with me. I don't really remember However, having, you know, it going kind of deeper, that Oh, as far as the significance of, of what that really meant, as far as really the sacred message, kind of a blood ritual, essentially. And in our culture. This is really viewed as not a pleasant thing. It's looked at upon as gross, disgusting, so on and so forth. It's hidden, it's shamed. In some cultures, women have to like go hide out in isolation. And we're not going to get into just that about menstruation. But my mother did celebrate with me and I really appreciate that for her because she never looked, she never told me it was going to be a burden. What we're going to talk about today is how alcohol is used culturally as a rite of passage. That is not to create this presence of the individual leaving one group and entering another. It's that the it's that you now meld into the whole of what is seen as normal. So many rites of passages are geared towards empowerment and survival. And that shift and this is in kind of in other other cultures, especially when they're, you know, they're they do do these now with in some groups of camps and women's rites of passages where it's out more in nature where you're spending some time by yourself in nature to really dive deeper into your skills of intuition of survival, this kind of stuff, where you get to become that more parental figure for yourself, where really in our culture, what I what kind of is just seen as normal is, here's a set of keys and you know, a beer bottle. And when you kind of think about it, and that stark contrast, it's really fascinating, because it's giving you this quote, unquote, freedom, but not by empowering you to say, you know, this is an opportunity for you to look deep inside and start to cultivating these skills that you will be able to use to take out to solve any problem that you that you can solve without needing always the support of of the other. And so when we transition into this different status in society that creates this, this framework for kind of a new responsibility, looking at life in a new way. But there's never really this moment of pause, you know, especially for women, I would say around menstruation and motherhood. Again, with or without children, we still experience the same shifts, internally, we are creating more in birthing more into the world in that phase in our life, or we're stepping maybe into more, you know, career rising in our career status, or we're just deciding kind of how we want what we want to put out in the world, what our contribution wants to be in the world, maybe you're caring for an elderly parent at that point, also, kind of a rite of passage. That's definitely a rite of passage also at that phase in life. So, but we're never really asked, Who do you want to be? How do you want to do this differently? instead? We're not talking that we don't talk about the emotions, how are you feeling about becoming a mother? What are you scared of? What do you need support with? What would you like to find out more about, it's this kind of, you know, like, then there's just like this mommy juice, wine culture, where it's like, oh, my God, I have, you know, three kids, of course, I'm drinking, instead of this embracing of being now the guide and the teacher of the next generation, seeing how you're going to be handling your emotions differently. You know, for me, having my son was the the pivotal moment for me, in changing my relationship to alcohol, I did not want to teach him that this was the way that was normal. For adults, I didn't want to have an intimate relationship with Him kind of on this surface buzzed level, where we could only quote unquote, kind of go deeper. If I had been drinking, I never wanted to have to give him his first drink. Because I knew of the pain and the suffering that had brought to me. And I was a fully functioning, contributing citizen of, you know, the world that I owned a house and I had a great job and, you know, relationships. I wasn't, you know, burning down bridges or whatever. So it's just like, but the internal pain and the struggle that it had caused me, and then not having anywhere to turn was so challenging. And it wasn't really until I met my sisterhood, this global sisterhood that I'm part of, and I'll put a link to the in the show notes of the goddess rising, and woman rising sisterhood that I'm part of, and it is a global network. I mean, it's amazing. And that was when I really realized that the way I learned to be independent was through a masculine paradigm. And I'm there is no shame. I have amazing strong heritage of women in my family. I am who I am because of my mother. She's an amazing woman. She's an entrepreneur, and a very, very powerful, independent woman. And she, you know, was also raised by a very powerful, independent woman and my great grandmother. But it really was from this kind of masculine paradigm rather than the embrace. Have the divine feminine, of the feminine of the emotions being of power of the softness of you know, like, let's kind of fall into each other's arms. And I'm not saying that this is how anyone has to do it. But there is this honoring of the sacredness that it is to be a woman. And there's a lot of scarring, I think around sacred sisterhood in our culture, where, you know, there's like this competitive vibe and betrayal. And a lot of that is changing right now, as we see women rising more in power in their power, and becoming the becoming the the example for the masses, not just to women, but for men and women. And of course, the more that this happens, the better, you know, the more peaceful world we will live in. Because there isn't that the feminine, the healed feminine, the Divine Feminine doesn't have that power over need. And it's been there ready to just be revealed. And so I really think that the, the need for alcohol has kind of come through that this right, this rites of passage that we have in our culture have been more in line with this masculine paradigm. And when you start to look at it from more of a feminine paradigm, a divine feminine paradigm, where it's really about the sacredness, and the slowing down, and the question asking and the support and like, let me give you, you know, a foot bath and a foot, rub and do your hair and let's create a crown for you. You know, it doesn't become penis necklaces, and getting wasted. And again, nothing wrong with us. I had a great time at my sister's bachelorette party, but I probably don't remember much of it. We did rent a Hummer limo also. So you know, it's just saying that the reason that you're having this calling now is because you are entering into a new phase of your life. And it they're the outward example for you, of what that looks like, isn't there, it's not in our culture, it's starting to happen. I was just in ceremony with over 400 women, I don't even know what the total was. But I know it was at least 400 women around the world where we were really diving deep into the feminine mysteries of what it means to honor sacred sisterhood, the divine feminine and women's mysteries from all over the planet. And that may we banish this, this power over model that has kept us from becoming more uniquely who we are. So much of what happens is without, you know, this acknowledgment of the change that is taking place, leaving these significant shifts of life seeming kind of unimportant, right, and then there's a void in it. And we know that as we get older, this isn't viewed as as important in our culture. I mean, when you become the matriarch, the grandmother of your family, wow, how much wisdom that you have, I was so close to my grandmother, I'm so honored for her so much of her guidance, even though a lot of it was a fear based model. And then the transition into wise woman, as the Crone and the great grandmother, and all of these have been really viewed, as you know, we there is this fountain of youth that the younger you are, the better, but you know, I mean, I was talking about it with Matthew last night. I mean, there was shit that I did in my 20s that I was a smart, independent woman. And I'm like, I don't even know what why that was ever desired to me. You know, I didn't gain anything from it. awareness, maybe that didn't want to do it again. But it was really this lack of empowerment, even though I was independent, there was still a lack of empowerment of what my sovereignty meant, and how honoring that honoring my body as temple honoring the sacredness of this life as a vow to becoming more uniquely meat was completely missing. And it was a spiritual deficit. I didn't I was I was literally traveling around the world looking for some answer that I wouldn't have known if it hit me in the face because I was drunk most of the time. And without any regret, because I know that my life has taken me where it has so that I could be here to do this work now. But I am here to tell you that the process of honoring yourself with a rite of passage now is such a gift and such a important piece of this transition of moving away from alcohol or having a relationship with alcohol differently in your life. So that you aren't living in a life of deprivation. And that is the biggest shift that I see with, you know, other ways sobriety movements, and I just use that term for lack of a better word. And then my, you know, the approach that I do, and there are some other there's a mate, I mean, I always say, I do not downplay anyone's work, because that there needs to be solutions as unique as the individual. But my work is really about the individual. It's not about creating a sober movement, it's not about being in sober club, you know, all these things are great. I don't exclusively hang out with sober people at all, I hang out with amazing women, some of them drink, sometimes some of them don't, I don't even know, I don't hang out in environments where people are like, drinking a lot all the time. But I've definitely been to parties and have a great time. And it's all awesome. But the type of women that I've attracted into my life, are just women, where that's just not a priority for them. And so they might have a glass of wine now and again, you know, and because of my openness about it, it's really opened so many of their eyes to Yeah, like, you know, why do I need to drink right now, maybe I just don't need a drink. Or maybe I have used it as a as a buffer and as a tool. And you know, if you're, if you're really honest about that, but it's not having negative implications on your life, then by all means, but it's the awareness, it's the the the deciding on purpose, I know what my y is, I'm going to be completely Cognizant and very honest with it. And if there are consequences, I will deal with them, and I won't berate myself for them. But this journey, of changing your relationship with alcohol, and why I say it's such a sacred journey is because it is it is because you have never been presented with the opportunity of a sacred pause to really ask yourself, what does this life mean to me? What does being a woman mean to me? What is wielding my power mean? To me? How am I what has been your relationship to power? And what scares you about it? How do you use it, to exert power over others or for yourself? And this is really what a rite of passage comes down to is honoring that sovereignty of the self as a dedication to personal responsibility? And then, really knowing when are you trying to have a power over a model to gain back control of your own life? Or can you claim personal responsibility for yourself in such a sacred way, and such an honoring way of full recognition of all of the parts of yourself that your power model becomes a power with model, and honors, also, the cycles and rhythms and nature of the other? What is your relationship to womanhood, to your own cycles and rhythms. When we have a disconnect between the cycles and rhythms of our own life, we are already disembodied and their lives avoid in the connection of this thing that we are carrying around, which is our temple, our body or vessel. And so of course, reaching for this thing outside of us to find refuge in this substance, that just alters the perceptions of our senses. We will never find that which we are looking for inside of that. So I would love for you this week to really look at your own rites of passage. In that have you've experienced in your life, and what have you participated in? How have they really been? opportunities to explore and express your power and question How you want to step into a new phase of your life? Did they teach you about who you were, how has alcohol has a rite of passage supported you or has it supported the collective of the power over model. And, really, ultimately, we step into this phase to recognize and honor that we are our own best mother and father, that we can move through our own limitations to be the inner guru, the Sadhguru. And that we can also see ourselves in relationship even to those who we disagree with, as an opportunity to have a teacher student relationship, we can learn from everything. It is not up to the collective to do this for you at this point, yet have yourself to take pause to decide to offer this as a leader to yourself to your family, and to even potentially your sphere of influence. But you don't have to worry about that right? Now, you can just take one step forward towards this threshold of what's possible of just getting a little bit more curious. And so as you know, if you've been watching this, I celebrate the high holy days of the year as the calendar of the calendar as dictated by the natural rhythms of the earth herself, not in the Gregorian calendar. And of course, there is overlapping, because some of those traditions have been wiped out, and then replaced from a Christian doctrine, which, you know, I grew up that way. And I honor some of the great spiritual teachers have those traditions, and not so much the the system itself, but again, is a neutral circumstance in the way that I participate in my life. But at the turning of the wheel, I can honor and reflect on what has transpired, and that felt sense of the season, and how do I wish to move forward. And this is the opportunity that a rite of passage really gives you in a really significant way. And besides the birth of my son, um, you know, I mean, college didn't, I didn't even go to my graduations. So that was not obviously that important to me. But um, the, the experience of this particular rite of passage of changing my relationship with alcohol, and it, completely eliminating my desire for it has been the most profound, pivotal experience of my, of my adulthood of my womanhood, because it was for me from me, with the knowing that I am never truly alone, whether that's just me and the pulse and the rhythms of the light of the natural worlds, or the sisterhood I'm part of, or even, you know, people that don't understand, my family will always be there for me to love and accept me, as I am, I don't need them to understand, I need to understand. And there's so many questions, you know, I've listened to other podcasts, silver podcasts about all of this, like, what do you do if and when these interpersonal relationships, you got to get good with you. That's the only thing you need to matter, because then the way you show up is going to dictate your experience and the way that other people relate to you. worrying about what you're going to say, or what you're going to do that needs to come from within and you show up with more grace, more vulnerability, more love, for compassion, compassion for yourself and for the others and unapologetically becoming more you. And then giving personal responsibility for those for other people's reactions and responses to you know, to your life. And of course, if there are relationships that are unhealthy for you, which may have been unhealthy for you from the beginning, then you decide what you want to do with those. But it really comes down to creating a sacred vow for yourself. And that's the first thing that I really impress upon my clients is say, you know what, we create a life intention. But take this take an opportunity you just dedicated this yourself to Know thyself to deep, deep exploration that most people never get the opportunity to do in this lifetime, to really get to know themselves in a way that they that they know Never would have an end letting alcohol be that be a gift for you be that gift. That was such a stark contrast to how we live in embodied life and experience this life. That being able to pause and say this is it, we're doing this, and we're just going to show up and see what happens and get super curious. Because there's no rules, there's no one at the end of this at the gates, make check checking off boxes, saying you did it or you didn't do it, you get to do you, you get to step in to experience this this life more fully. And you get to step out of that place where you're in that constant, backwards momentum, where, you know, we have mommy and daddy issues. And I mean, I have been there, I'm still there, I've got stuff, but I, you know, that I work on. But I don't let it dictate my moving forward, in any in. And what happens is when we continue to gain awareness and a forward momentum, some of those some of those issues, they really start to lose their power. Because we don't have to consent to the past. To accept it. All we need to do is reclaim our power. By knowing that now we have a choice. So this is how we change the past by reclaiming our power in to this present moment. What I would love to offer you is an opportunity for yourself to really give yourself a sacred pause, and a little ritual of you know, maybe you put out a candle. And you just have a quiet moment with yourself to enquire a little bit further about, what do I want the rest of my life to look like? What have I learned from alcohol that I can utilize to transition my future? Is there anything else that alcohol needs to teach me? You know, is there any more experiences I think I might be missing out on and the answer will always be no, the only experiences that you're going to be missing out on is on the other side of alcohol if you never give yourself an opportunity to check into that. And you know, over the last 20 years, I have participated myself in a lot of different rites of passages, most of them more untraditional. And I, they have all been just this really beautiful pause and deep recognition of what has anchored me into what you know, I don't what I think is like not going off the deep end not having any of those rock bottom moments where I really could feel that pulse of my inner knowing and my intuition. And so much of it has been covered up that it makes, you know, sometimes I think about it not with regret. But with a little bit of sadness, that there's a lot of things I don't remember that there was so much potential that I you know, wasn't able to step into. But here I am now and maybe it's bigger and better than ever than it would have been had I never drank at all. And I truly believe I mean, I wouldn't be here doing this work had I not had that path. So very honored, very humbled, that you're on the other end listening to this. And if you have any questions about what this could look like for you, I mean, it could be anything, it could be beautiful. But think about this next phase of your life wherever you're at, and what you're ready to banish what you're ready to leave behind what kind of fear Have you been carrying around, that's just not true anymore. Or you're willing to believe something new, and continue practicing that so that you can feel into something else and reflect on you know, your life and these milestone moments and and see how maybe there wasn't this invitation of becoming more fully who you were. And that this alcohol, this invitation of alcohol as a rites of passage, as you know, how we celebrate as adults and as a community really has been, you know, kind of a cover up almost of, of lack of spirit of culture, and so many things and Really a cover up of your highest and brightest self. And you've been putting out so many amazing things to the world you have already contributed so much. But I know that there is so much more that you still have yet to experience in this life. And there is so much more than as you are ready to blow your own mind. Underneath that haze of alcohol. It's kind of like it dislike creates this like dustiness on top of the light bulb, like you're in a dark closet, it's like, you know, squeaking it off with a little rag and one just one day at a time, it's literally all you need to know. And it doesn't. And it doesn't matter. But what the rite of passage does. First, you set up the ceremony, right? You, you set out on the journey, and you say this is it and you gather your tools. And when you need help you ask for help in the direction, you know, with directions. And you pause and you turn around if you start going backwards, but you know where the desktop what destination you're on now. And then when you get there, you can walk through the threshold and honor of the, of the greatness of who you are and the journey that you chose to undertake. Because you're worth it. Because this life does mean something because there's so much to explore outside of the bottle, outside of the confines that alcohol creates in our life and in our culture. And then you can offer this inquiry to others from a very open way this is here, if you want to take it, you know i i have been sending my niece because I have a little boy. But we do a lot of kind of, you know, sacred rituals and stuff. But I've been sending my niece some powerful ritual practices already. And she's only four. Because I want her to grow up to feel into the power that she is. And I know my sister is already doing an amazing job. And she's a super powerful woman. But this idea of priestess rather than Princess, you know, this idea of being the whole and holy, divine virgin forever, that you are never not pure, rather than the princess who is just up on display to be looked at. And this is what I want to offer to you to dedicate your life to, to the greatness that you are in to something greater as being a very integral part of the collective. So no one needs to give you a rite of passage, you can do it for yourself, and then you can start creating them for others if you want to. But this is the work that I do with my clients as we really look at the sacredness of this journey. And what it means how we want to show up and it's okay if you don't know how you want to show up. But we're uncovering that day by day. But you can ever step into the fullness of that when you have something altering the innate state of who you are. I hope you have a wonderful week. Please email me I'm really opening that invitation to my listeners right now. I would love to hear from you, Mary at Mary Wagstaff coach.com, I will talk to you soon have an amazing day. If you are loving this podcast and thinking about what it would take to start the process of getting alcohol out of your way. I want to invite you to check out my one on one coaching mentorship. It's your opportunity to apply these tools and a new framework to how you live your life. To get the results you want most to stop drinking without pain to trust yourself again and honor your future from a place of possibility. It takes the guesswork out of the how it meets you where you're at in this moment. Together we will walk through the threshold of the next phase of your life. Follow the link in the show notes to schedule a time to talk or on my website. Mary Wagstaff coach calm I can't wait to connect