The first step to changing your relationship to alcohol and making it easier to say no to a drink, is to understand why you say yes in the first place. Your thoughts are what make or break any habit. You must know what your "belief story" around alcohol is, to know what you want it to become. We don't walk around thinking all of our thoughts and beliefs are BS, but the truth is, they are our interpretation of the world and subjective. The human brain will continue to find evidence for what it knows, to it's detriment. The most important things is not to threaten the selfie system, this is what makes the conflict grow. Rather offer compassion and curiosity to all of you. There will always be something that no longer serves us, alcohol is a double whammy with such a strong reward, but we must make friends with our habits, they are hard one and our inner critic also isn't going anywhere. Get to know her, and get to cultivate a much more intimate relationship with yourself, underneath the urge to drink just might be a woman who needs some long overdue TLC.
Schedule complimentary a 1:1 mini session With Mary HERE
Thank you for heading to Apple Podcast To Drop a 5 Star Review and What You LOVE about the show.
Live Coaching/Q&A Every Last Sunday of the Month at 11am PST. For More Information & To Register To CLICK HERE
(100% Confidential & Anonymous)
Transform your relationship with alcohol by focusing on yourself. Discover how to fulfill your needs without alcohol's help. Understand your body's signals, leverage your emotions, and expand your desires for real, lasting pleasure.
Join "The Naturally Sober Woman" self-study course, where you'll learn everything I teach my clients in a compact, affordable, lifetime access package.
Transform your relationship with alcohol by focusing on yourself. Discover how to fulfill your needs without alcohol's help. Understand your body's signals, leverage your emotions, and expand your desires for real, lasting pleasure.
Join "The Naturally Sober Woman" self-study course, where you'll learn everything I teach my clients in a compact, affordable, lifetime access package.
The first step to changing your relationship to alcohol and making it easier to say no to a drink, is to understand why you say yes in the first place. Your thoughts are what make or break any habit. You must know what your "belief story" around alcohol is, to know what you want it to become. We don't walk around thinking all of our thoughts and beliefs are BS, but the truth is, they are our interpretation of the world and subjective. The human brain will continue to find evidence for what it knows, to it's detriment. The most important things is not to threaten the selfie system, this is what makes the conflict grow. Rather offer compassion and curiosity to all of you. There will always be something that no longer serves us, alcohol is a double whammy with such a strong reward, but we must make friends with our habits, they are hard one and our inner critic also isn't going anywhere. Get to know her, and get to cultivate a much more intimate relationship with yourself, underneath the urge to drink just might be a woman who needs some long overdue TLC.
Schedule complimentary a 1:1 mini session With Mary HERE
Thank you for heading to Apple Podcast To Drop a 5 Star Review and What You LOVE about the show.
Live Coaching/Q&A Every Last Sunday of the Month at 11am PST. For More Information & To Register To CLICK HERE
(100% Confidential & Anonymous)
Transform your relationship with alcohol by focusing on yourself. Discover how to fulfill your needs without alcohol's help. Understand your body's signals, leverage your emotions, and expand your desires for real, lasting pleasure.
Join "The Naturally Sober Woman" self-study course, where you'll learn everything I teach my clients in a compact, affordable, lifetime access package.
Transform your relationship with alcohol by focusing on yourself. Discover how to fulfill your needs without alcohol's help. Understand your body's signals, leverage your emotions, and expand your desires for real, lasting pleasure.
Join "The Naturally Sober Woman" self-study course, where you'll learn everything I teach my clients in a compact, affordable, lifetime access package.
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 physical health. Now on with the show. Welcome back my beautiful listeners. It's Mary Wagstaff, I am so glad that you're here for another episode, I really hope that you're doing well. And that you are taking some of these tools and principles and applying them to your life. If you didn't know about it, or didn't get the opportunity to sign up for the live class that I taught this last weekend, the five essential shifts to find freedom from alcohol for forever, I would love to give you the link to that class. It was really amazing. It is the full framework of what I teach my clients one on one, and you can start using it and applying it to your life. So if you haven't if you're new here, welcome. And if you have haven't been here through all of the episodes, this is about a process not of simply just not drinking, but of dismantling the habit of alcohol. And that is a piece of it that we're going to talk about today about think drinking, thinking to how to evaluate it, how to understand where you're at, so you can see where you want to go. If you would like the link to that class, you can email me Mary at Mary Wagstaff coach.com, I am going to start starting this last Sunday of the month of December 27. Doing every month, a live q&a. So I'll bring to the table a little topic of discussion, you know, depending on how many people are there live, and then answer any questions about the pot that you have information on the podcast, or about that subject or drinking in general, there will be time for live coaching, it will be completely confidential, you just ask a question through the chat bar. Over zoom, no one will see your name, you just ask it to the panelists. There's no video. So look for that. And I will leave the link in the show notes to register for that. But you can also get the the masterclass that I did this weekend. That is the full framework of what I take my clients one on one through. And one more thing if you've been listening to the show, or even if you just started, please would be such a huge favor to me if you could stop by Apple podcasts and give the show a five star review with just a quick little note of why you love it what you've taken away from it because this helps other people find the show so that they can also find freedom from alcohol. I've heard from so many people, they have actually stopped drinking from the show. This is how so many of my clients have found me. And so it's just really important that we add to the availability of resources out there for people to find the support that they need. Because when it comes to changing your relationship to alcohol, this process will work for anyone, no matter what situation you are in, no matter what your circumstances are. But there needs to be a diversity of support that resonates with people. And this process really resonates with the person who doesn't want alcohol to be part of their story forever. They kind of want to find the freedom from it, figure it out and then move on. They don't want to have to continuously share the story about it, talk about it all the time, define themselves around it. They want to be able to keep the circumstances of their life, their social engagements, and move on. Now, of course, when we expose our belief story around alcohol, some of those things will naturally change because you realize some of the things that you engaged in, when you were drinking all the time frequently, that is no longer enjoyable. Like it never really was alcohol just made it tolerable. And so I know for me and a lot of my clients, there are people in places that you just end up naturally change because you realize it's just not part of your value system anymore to me for a while and you're wondering about what one on one coaching could do for you, I would love for you to schedule a time to jump on a call with me, I'll walk you through my process to help overcome any craving any urge. Any really big emotional disturbance is a three shift process that works immediately. And it's very accessible to everyone. I teach this to my clients, just so you know, I'm not an island, I have people that I work with that come directly from the show. So reach out, get the support you need. And let's go from there. So today we are going to talk about evaluating your drinking, thinking. I spoke about this on the class this weekend. And it is crucial part of the process of finding freedom from alcohol. When you know this, it makes changing your relationship with alcohol and unlearning the habits so much easier. It's literally the only way to find freedom from alcohol is you must start with your thoughts. All of the results that you have in your life right now have come from your mind, all of the emotions you experience come from your thinking. The habit of drinking is a process you learn through repetitive behavior, thinking, feeling, acting, thinking, feeling, acting, thinking, feeling acting, and now you do it without thinking about it at all right. So there used to be a point where certain trigger will just say five o'clock, which is a circumstance in your life didn't always create the response or the thought, for a drink and that desire for a drink, but you repeated it. And this is how we form a habit. So you have right now what I call a belief story around alcohol, you have a lot of thoughts that make up your beliefs of the habit of drinking. And we know that beliefs are subjective because everyone believes different things about the same circumstance. So I have different beliefs and thoughts around alcohol than you do. And the good news is, is that you can form an any new belief that you want to around anything. And right now, it doesn't seem possible or even seems a little scary to want to not want alcohol. But it is possible for you to do that. And the only way to find out, what you really want is to uncover what the beliefs are that you already have. So these are thoughts that you don't even question, some are about drinking, some are about quitting what it means about you, if you drink or you don't drink, how alcohol benefits your life and hinders your life, what it will be like, if you don't drink, what it will be like to stop drinking, what it will feel like thoughts that it's super hard, or it won't be fun, right? So all of these play into your feelings, and then the actions that you take. So if you think it's going to be super hard, you're going to feel nervous. And then the chances of starting the process are going to be less so you take in action you stay in Do you keep repeating the habit. All of these thoughts and beliefs that you think you think are 100% true, we the the belief systems that we live in, we just see them as fact. They are mainly based on what you have experienced from the past what you have evidence for in your brain, the habitual part of your brain because it wants to be efficient as possible, we'll seek to find evidence for that in the world. So you'll say try to not drink for a couple days. And then you'll go back to it and you'll say See, it was so hard, I couldn't do it. Right? Instead of instead of looking in the outer world and thinking man, I guess not everyone drinks. Wow, maybe it might be easier. You know, I actually think it's not going to be that hard to just simply not drink a beverage and feel an emotion. And then the action of it becomes easier but you have to see what your thoughts are first, to feel the feelings and then also to create new thoughts based on what you really want. And your brain has no interest right now and creating new beliefs to its detriment around alcohol. with alcohol. The fear of quitting overrides the pain alcohol has caused you because the reward the brain receives is unnaturally concentrated and strong. It is so strong that the brain will choose it choose alcohol or Your life. And you can think about this, we know we wake up in the morning and say I'm never drinking again, I feel awful only to still drink that night. This isn't you. This is the habit of alcohol. This is the habit of that thought patterning. And this is so crucial to know. Because once you know this, you can drop all of the judgment around you being weak, or whatever your thought belief. Story is around what your relationship to alcohol means what it means if you can't stop what it means, if you do stop, of course, it feels scary. This habit has a hold on you right now it is a very strong, very familiar loop in your brain. And right now you can't see it for what it is, you're repeating thinking on repeat, and it is interwoven into the fabric of your life. So for example, quitting alcohol, right now you have a lot of thoughts about what it means to quit who you will be that it's going to be hard that it's going to suck that it's going to be challenging, that it's not even possible, you're going to forever be in deprivation, you're always going to want it you've tried, it didn't work. And so all of these thoughts are creating this belief that you can't do it, that it's not possible that there's going to be a magic time when suddenly it'll just be easier. But the truth is, as we know, the longer you wait and pro long the dismantling of the habit, you strengthen the habit, you strengthen that pathway. Every time your brain wants to drink and you give it a drink, or every time you try to resist an urge by avoiding it and distracting it and not diving into it. You strengthen the habit of alcohol in your brain. Which makes it harder to change. But we unlearn the habit the same way that you learn the habit. So you have to click Create a blank slate more or less, to start to create the thoughts that you want to think about alcohol and when your desire for alcohol changes. The thoughts around alcohol change. And yes, it is 100% possible to change your desire for alcohol quite easily once you start the process that I outlined for my clients. And my belief story around alcohol is 100% different than it used to be. I used to believe that alcohol was the party that it was like the most fun it was like these are a few of my favorite things. Margarita is being one of them. Like I loved it. I love the party, I love going out all of the things right. So I thought if I changed that, then everything else would change. Well, my belief story around alcohol after going through my five shifts process is none of that. And I no longer desire alcohol. I my belief about alcohol is that it has no merit in my life. And I really don't think it has much merit in anyone's life. But I let people decide for themselves what they want. Being that there is nothing no benefit I can gain from having a drink of alcohol anymore. And nor nor do I want to have a drink of alcohol. I have exhausted all my options with alcohol. It's had its time it's had its place, I've experienced it. It's done, I'm interested in moving on to new things that I couldn't do when alcohol was in my way, beliefs or thoughts that you think over and over again, if your thoughts about living in alcohol free life or positive and the best results you could hope for it would be a lot easier to quit right and deep down. You have a lot of negative thoughts about what it means to be alcohol free about your life, and about the habit because there's a lot of thoughts from other people that have created helped form your thoughts. There's a lot of evidence that you have in the past. So you're not living in possibility. You're living in probability of what has happened. And so the invitation is, what if you just imagined and daydreamed? Not about what you know from the past, but about the best case scenario like out of this world scenario of what would be possible with you and your relationship to alcohol. So say it's that you never desired alcohol again. And then it just doesn't cross your mind and you're still the life of the party. You write a book, you meet your dream lover, you income, your income skyrockets like this is all possible if you believe it is now there's no magic spell to cast for it to happen overnight. But we show up creating new beliefs paying attention to our thoughts and taking action from a place have inspired feeling that little by little, we create evidence for this best case scenario. And these could be all the things you choose to believe about what would happen if you change your relationship with alcohol, but right now you choose to think from fear and lack, rather than abundance and joy. And it is okay. It is totally 100% normal to think this way. Most people do, there are a lot of rules in the 3d reality that we need to follow. But I am here to tell you that you don't have to follow them. I like to often think if there was no one, if I didn't know anyone else's thoughts or anyone else's opinions, what would I do? So the paradigm of the structure and models is really shifting right before our eyes, people in the world are crushing their goals that, you know, we would think like had no business of doing so because they believe it. And because we have access to so much information, and technology, literally sky's the limit. And all you really need access to is your brain. But we're seeing happen, people really taking their lives, just like to the furthest, like biggest dreams they've ever had. They take action and they are willing to fail. The best thing my clients can do at the beginning of our work together is fail. And I say that in quotes, because I don't look at failure as a negative. They learned so much from it. Right now you are scared to fail, you think is failing is bad. Everything in your life has taught you to think logical, improbable. That is kind of the structure of the 3d, right? We have not been taught that to fail strengthens our inner resilience to fail teaches us what we don't want teaches us the way that it isn't done so that we can eliminate some of the choices and continue to move forward. That is not how we get it done around here is by taking the probable road especially when it comes to alcohol, you have to show up ready to lose it all because your life does depend on it. I would much rather die trying to fail than die failing at ever trying. Right? No way. So if you never fail, you're just in stagnation and even potentially regressing. Especially if there's a part of you a higher part of you that knows you are meant to do more in the world and alcohol is in your way. So there are only two types of thoughts, love based thoughts and fear based thoughts and fear doesn't exist. The past doesn't exist. It's an emotion that you can create through a thought. And I'm not talking about an immediate threat from a circumstance. I'm talking about fear based thinking, fear based thinking happens from an interpretation of the past or what we think is possible for the future. With with based on evidence from the past, right? The past doesn't exist in the future doesn't exist, it only is a thought created in your mind. So unconditional love takes you outside of the confines of time and space where there are more possibilities and way less rules. It creates a union to life where fear is a separateness of life, or there's all these rules and restrictions and we can we're wrong all the time. And we we fail and everything is a problem, right? But says who, if you are a student at all, of course, in miracles, this is what they speak of illusion, the illusion of separateness. And that all of our human drama is an illusion keeping us back from experiencing the fullness of life. And then we add things like alcohol, that take more of our lights or inner light, and it keeps us more separate or it keeps us in that illusion of separateness. But you know this now, and deep down, you know, alcohol isn't the way it is not the way of unconditional love and connectedness. It's an illusion. And that feeds into the idea of separateness and lack and fear and probability and logic and rules and wrongness and failure as bad. Even the part of you. You know that's like but I really like the taste, right? So there's that part of you, but you got to look at the bigger picture if that's the one excuse keeping all of the other pain of alcohol stuck in your life. That is an easy excuse to get rid of like if you've never tasted wine again. And that's all it was, but you could get rid of all of the other negative side of facts, then you know, you've got more of a belief story around underneath that, right. And so you can have some grape juice, take a nap, and it'll kind of be the same thing and have to practice alcohol free thinking, you have to lay out all of the amazing things about drinking. And you know what they are, because they're the opposite of the negative things of drinking. Right? So if you have groggy mornings, you will have more energized mornings, if you have lowered inhibitions and make decisions that you aren't in line with your values and your goals, you will be making decisions from a place of clear headedness. So you have to really look at all the positives of alcohol and late of not drinking and lay that all out. How is alcohol in your way, and go through every single piece of it, and then take it three why's deeper, and you can really uncover more of the belief story. So ask yourself why three times you know about your objections, and about your reasons. So if you say alcohol interrupts my sleep, why is this a problem? I'm grouchy in the morning, why are you grouchy? I can't think clearly, why is that a problem, you know, I need to get everyone out of the house and perform at work. How is your work suffering, maybe you've weren't able to apply for the raise that you wanted, because you haven't been feeling confident about your performance. So then you can start to see all of the threads that lead back to booze, and then I'm so tired from not sleeping, when I get home, all I have the energy to do is drink. And the beat goes on a 24 hour cycle of your habitual mind, getting what it wants and you suffering. And all you need to do is take a step back and slow down the process, you need to pay attention to it while it's happening and expand your awareness and become the witness. But you have to write these thoughts down. What is already a habit that creates the desire to drink is added to by all the negative thinking, right? So you could eliminate a lot of your triggers for drinking, if you actually started looking at the circumstances of your life in a more positive way, you'd start to be able to call them out. Right now we have all of these, we have negative thoughts about a lot of your circumstances. And that kind of gives you the excuse to drink about stress about your children about work about being tired about overwhelm, about not being able to have fun without it there. They all come from this, that fear based and lack thought processing, they don't come from unconditional love, and future focused about possibility. And so you can see that, and these aren't positive affirmations, these are looking at your life in a more positive way. You are a powerful creator, you can think whatever you want. So you have to ask yourself, why would I choose to think that way, you have to have your own back when it comes to this. And I know that it is a scary process to think about not drinking, because then there are things to confront, that you can't hide from. But once you have this tool of the not drinking piece, confronting the story of the reality of the story of the other problems in your life, it becomes much easier, you become much stronger, you build a stronger foundation, and a stronger backbone to support yourself, the outer world doesn't bend to your will. If you can't show up and for yourself, to make yourself happy. No one else is going to do it for you. The world changes when we change how we view it, not the other way around. And that is why I never leave it up to anyone else to plan my birthday. I invite some people sometimes but I know what I want to do. Right? I'm not leaving a chance up to the outer circumstance. And if I did, then I would have to trust that that I could respond with grace to whatever someone you know, plan for me. The biggest thing you really need to think about is your reasons for not sticking to the process. Seriously, even if you are doing it on your own. So okay, I didn't drink Monday, I drank Tuesday what was happening? What changed? What were the triggers? Was that hard on Monday? was I able to allow my emotions of that discomfort of the urge or was I just pacing around trying to avoid them? Ben, you know, did I spend that night not drinking? binge watching on Netflix and sugar? You got to just see what you're doing and why you're so scared to just be with your mind. It's because it's unfamiliar, but it won't kill you. I promise. It will only make you a stronger human being for you and for the rest of the world. So how did the drinking feel? What were the sensations in your body before and after? How did it change? Was it pleasant? Did you evolve into a newer version of yourself when you are drinking? Did you learn anything about yourself or alcohol? What scares you about an alcohol free life? You need to know this to see if it's true. And valid. Alcohol isn't going anywhere, if you decided to go through my program, and you didn't want alcohol anymore than what, right? No longer having the desire for alcohol means no more compromising in your brain, no more of that daily mind chatter. So I like to always think about an ex lover, an ex relationship. We've all been there where you're pining over them, you're thinking about them. And one day, it's just gone unless you intentionally go back to pull up those emotions, right? But why would you ever do that? Why would you sit and feel those those old emotions, when you have a life in front of you, that doesn't involve that you no longer want to be with that person, you don't really care what they're up to, or what they're doing it is simply over. And that is what can happen with alcohol to the same as possible. You have to think of a brighter future and know that your thoughts about alcohol are optional. And you have to practice thinking new ones, and feeling the emotions that come along with the old ones. This is how the process changes. They are what is keeping you stuck. But the first step isn't to just change your negative thoughts to convince yourself that doesn't work, you first have to pull them out of the shadows, see them for what they are to see your beliefs around alcohol, your belief story. All of that stuff that happens on repeat why you think you drink all of the habits because you deserve it? Because it's fun, because you're stressed because you can't handle it. Think pull out all the reasons why you like it all the reasons why it won't be quit, what is hard to quit, what worries you about not drinking, what it means about you if you can't stop and change your relationship to alcohol, right. So that's another fear people have what it means if you do all the ways your life will be better. When you uncover these thoughts, you will see a lot of conflict. And that's totally normal. And because what has happened is you've created a habit that is not a tool. It's a crutch. And so the the human part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex that knows that this is a crutch. And it's just carrying this extra baggage around is in conflict with a part of your brain. That's like, Yeah, but we got this on lockdown. Like we have this habit and it's good, right? But it's taking up so much of your precious energy thinking about it, deciding about it cleaning up all of the things. And what if you didn't have to solve that problem? Every single day? What if you also didn't have to solve the problem overnight? What if it was actually a process that revealed itself to you, as you showed up for it, it was an unlearning in bite sized pieces, as well as learning the tools to support your emotional processing. Right. So we think we just quit. And that's it. But that is not how it works. So give yourself a break. If you've tried to quit drinking, and you weren't successful, because no one is successful in that way. And if they are, they feel like crap about it. Right now your beliefs are all taken up in the past process, and it is not serving you. It's not in your ability to quit, right? The belief that you don't see in plain terms is that you think alcohol makes me feel better. And that's why we do everything, we think it'll make us feel better and happier. It's why we blame the outer world they didn't do what I wanted them to do didn't act in the way I wanted them to. So you have to change the all of your thoughts about the outer world and just to suit that. And you do that with alcohol. Alcohol does make you feel better by alleviating alleviating the mental friction of that habit loop and all of your negative thinking about the outer world and all of that chatter it shuts it down. But it doesn't make you better. It doesn't make you prettier, sexier, smarter or funnier. In fact, it takes all of that away. At this point in your alcohol career. The only thing the lower brain is doing is serving itself. It is not serving any part of your growth in your higher self. There's no new sub stuff and I'm sorry to break it to you right now. But it is done like alcohol has. Its had its time. And you've been there you you've done that and you know this and now you are just strengthening the habit over and over. So what you have to do is you've got to push pause and just don't freak out. They won't take the alcohol away. The worst case scenario is that you give it a shot right and that you're just stay where you are the best case scenario Is that your life is way better than you ever could have imagined. And then the worst case scenario becomes that you missed out on that. I hope you have an amazing day. If you want to start talking and evaluate your drinking, thinking, I would love to do it for you. So, go to the show notes, sign up for a call. I'll teach you about how to overcome an urge and we'll work through this together have an amazing day. Hey, if you are loving this podcast, then you are definitely ready for the next step. Schedule a call with me where I will teach you my three simple fail proof steps to overcoming any urge or craving that you can start applying to your life right now. It is absolutely free to you. All you need to do is find the scheduling link in the show notes or on my website. Mary Wagstaff coach.com I can't wait to connect