Stop Drinking and Start Living- The Feminine Way

The Truth About Mental Health, Sobriety & Embracing The Feminine Way with Andrea Clark

• Mary Wagstaff

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This episode is a special one—I’m sharing an incredible conversation I had on The Truth About Mental Health podcast with host Andrea Clark. Andrea is a former family psychologist who’s pulling back the curtain on the limitations of the mental health industry and advocating for a more holistic, empowering approach to healing.

We had so many synchronicities in our conversation, from shifting away from the need to control everything to fully embracing our feminine energy. We also talked about the societal conditioning that keeps high-achieving women stuck in stress, overwhelm, and alcohol reliance—and how the feminine way offers a path to liberation, joy, and deep trust in life.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✨ Why stepping into the feminine is the key to sustainable well-being
✨ How alcohol mimics trauma and keeps the nervous system in survival mode
✨ The link between high-achieving women, stress, and dissociation
✨ How surrendering control and honoring your cycle leads to more success
✨ Why luxurious space and exquisite care are essential to true empowerment

Connect with Andrea Clark's Work Here!

There Is A Life Beyond Moderation & Deprivation. 
We Focus On What You Are Moving Towards, Not What You Are Moving Away From.
The Exhausting Trap Of Moderation Ends Now With My No Shame Approach Using The Proven Five Shifts Process.  Follow the path of 100's of Women, Click HERE to join today!

Accountability is the key to lasting change. I’m here to not only help you eliminate the desire to drink but to fall in love with your alcohol-free life. You've taken in all the information, now it's time for implimentation Book your free consultation now. 💫

DISCLAIMER: This podcast and its contents are not a substitute for rehabilitation, medical treatment or advice. It is for educational and inspirational purposes. I am not a therapist or doctor. The views here are expressed a personal opinion and based on first hand experience. Please consult a doctor if your mental or physical health is at risk.

Mary Wagstaff:

Music. Welcome to stop drinking and start living the feminine way. I'm your hostess. Mary Wagstaff, holistic alcohol coach and feminine embodiment guide here to help you effortlessly release alcohol by reclaiming your feminine essence. Sobriety isn't just about quitting drinking, it's about removing the distortions that keep you disconnected, overwhelmed and stuck in cycles of numbing. Each week, I'll share powerful tools, new perspectives that transform and deeply relatable stories to help you step into the power pleasure and purpose that it is to be a woman. This is your next evolution of awakened empowerment. Welcome to the feminine way. Hey. Welcome back to the show, my beautiful listeners. It's Mary. How is living the feminine way going? Drop me a DM, sober, glow up. Activation sessions are live. Book your session now. In the Link, in the show notes, I can't tell you how much these sessions are just been such a game changer. I went back and forth with offering one off sessions for a while, because I typically offer, you know, a month long, coaching, mentorship, container, not month long, a month long, right? And I believe that both are important, but I really want to give people the opportunity, because sometimes I just want an activation session, sometimes I want I'm going through a transition. And so these are available for women that are sober, curious, or at the beginning of their journey, or people that have kind of been on and off, but you just know that you're moving beyond alcohol, and you need a catalyst of support. So the link that you need is right in the show notes. It is such an honor to do this work and to see what's happening on the other side of this and how people are just coming away with the tools, to really know how to go into that place of the feminine. Way to shift from story to sensation, to catch themselves in story, so that the time in between gets shorter, and we don't let something that you know doesn't feel great take away more of our pleasure, more of our power. And we can really drop in because time's flying by, right? We can really drop in to the pleasure that it is to be a woman, and you get to decide, what kind of woman do I want to be in this life? So schedule, there's a link in the show notes. If there's a reason that you can't find a time that works for you, my email is in there. You can just email me and we can figure it out today, I have such an exciting show for you. So as happens, sometimes I am interviewed on podcasts, and I happen to reach out to this lady, kind of randomly. I mean, she was looking for guests, and I didn't know much about her show. Her show had actually just started. It's called The Truth about mental health. She is. Her name is Andrea Clark. She was a practicing family psychologist for many, many years, and she shares her own journey with mental health, but she's kind of pulling back the curtain of some of the ways that the that the mental health industry just isn't really holistically available for what we need, often as humans, and a lot of times when practitioners are working with insurance, there's things that they actually can't do or say or prescribe that would have an even bigger impact just because of their medical license because of the insurance companies. So she is no longer holds her license, but she has a really steeped history, not only personally, but professionally, of kind of uncovering, you know, what we see as the gold standard. And we know this. We know we're having questions that that the gold standard of medical, of Western medicine, isn't the end all be all. It doesn't really, hasn't really allowed for a holistic perspective. It doesn't really allow for a salute, like a lifestyle based perspective, because it is a business, and so it is in the business, often, of keeping people sick and and disempowered and and what I believe, I don't really like to, you know, it's not really useful of my time to point fingers. I just think it's catching up. It's, it's, it's, it's behind the times. It did what it needed to do. We gave a lot of strides, we gave it a lot of perspective, but systems and institutions are often way behind the time of our own conscious evolution, and it takes a lot of time for systems to catch up. So that's why it's important when we have alternative news sources, when we have alternative practitioners, to just, you know, be open. Curious, and that's why you're here. I am not in a western medical model. And although I do believe, you know, believe, and reference, a lot of I studied psychology, I studied human development, and a lot of that holds true. We know about trauma and imprints, and we know about the ways that addiction and behavior, but there is, you know, created, but there's also a lot of nuance, and then we're changing all the time. Our cultures are changing all the time. So anyway, long story short, Andrea had me on the show. Little did I know we were going to have so much in common about the feminine way our both of our lives have transitioned to stepping more into our feminine set of leading with our masculine, with this need to control, with this need to just micromanage everything, and because we both are very high achieving women, want to get stuff done. And at the same time, I had shared with you the story of shifting the finances to let my husband take care of them, and she was doing the same thing. It was just, you know, I don't believe in coincidence, but it was just such a beautiful synchronicity. And so Andrea shared my pod this interview on her show, which I definitely want to encourage you to go check out, and I'll make sure and leave the link in the show notes here. But I asked her if I could share the interview with you all, because it's really important for me to for my audience to see me and kind of an a different filter, and when I am interviewed or when I'm sharing, you know, when I'm not the one running the show, there's definitely a different expression that comes through. And so I wanted you to be able to hear that. And there's so many nuggets of wisdom that we take away and how the conversation unfolded. I know you'll enjoy it. Please check out Andrea and Andrea, thank you so much. You're amazing, beautiful, and thank you for your awesome work in the world. So without further ado, enjoy this. All

Unknown:

right, let's do this. I'm so excited you're here and having this conversation with me. Yes,

Mary Wagstaff:

thank you so much for having me. I am absolutely love what you're talking about, what you're doing, and to just share openly in an open forum where, you know, is just so awesome. It's so empowering. So thank you for having me. Absolutely, so

Unknown:

I would love Mary for you to start just by sharing what brought you to this place of the work that you're doing. Is there a journey or a story behind that? Tell us a little bit about, you know all of that? Yeah, absolutely.

Mary Wagstaff:

So as you may have heard, I am a woman's holistic alcohol coach, and really what that means the holistic part is we can't have one without the other, right? I really believe that we are having a divine and a human experience, and we're kind of the bridge to both. So we want to look at, I would say, No, woman left behind. We want to look at the mind, body, heart and soul, because we really are. That's been my experience anyway. So yes, this journey to alcohol coaching came through. You know, it's like you can't teach on something that you haven't experienced yourself. It's like, but a full, embodied experience. So I always say I lived a parallel life of mindfulness and drinking for 20 years, so when I was 18 years old, and probably even before that, but I started out on my spiritual journey with yoga, with finding out about my conscious breath. If you were to know more about like astrology and human design, which I don't know a ton about, but you know all of the signs and the stars point to. My mission here in life is to seek spiritual truth. So I've always had a little like existential despair, because I've always been, you know, like seeking the greater meaning of life. And I started out as a younger person in the Catholic Church, some of that really still resonates with me. There was like something else. I was seeking more of an embodied experience that I didn't really know how to find there. So I'm like, on this mission, you know, to just find myself, which I think in some ways we all are, and unintentionally and along the way, because I was very independent and kind of marching to the beat of my own drum, as many people do unintentionally. You know, I started drinking, I started experimenting with drugs. Part of that, I think looking back, was because I did feel like no one kind of got me, or no one understood. And I did have friends. I had a friend group. Of course, alcohol was very accepted in my world. My father was, he was an owner of a couple bars. He was a bartender. It was just something that you just do as an adult, right? Same kind of thing, we just see it like you. It's this rite of passage, but like any drug, it becomes progressive. And, you know, I believe that there is a spectrum of use and dependency, but anyone can become addicted to alcohol. But I also believe different from the narrative of like being an alcoholic necessarily, that we can become un addicted to anyone can, and that really just, you know, it's like a set of tools and skills and awareness that you're willing to have. And for some people, maybe that's not part of your journey in this lifetime. So drinking like college kid travel. By myself. I kind of always use alcohol a little bit as like a buffer or a tool to be independent, to kind of sit at the table by myself, like belly up to the bar with the boys. It became something that, well, for really 20 years, I always knew that it wasn't the journey that was met for me. I always knew like I was missing there was some part of myself I wouldn't be able to access fully with alcohol in the way, and then, like, other drugs and stuff. But I'll just fast forward you till, you know, nine years ago, I was pregnant. I had a baby that I really wanted. I didn't know if I would ever want to have a child, and I did, like the biological clock happened, and unfortunately, I didn't take that nine month break, which gave me evidence that I wouldn't die without alcohol. You know, I didn't take that break with my mindset being like, Oh, this could be the opportunity. But it wasn't until about a couple I mean, of course, I wasn't drinking while I was pregnant, but then I quickly really jumped right back on. It's like, I couldn't almost wait to do it, being a new mom. I use it a little bit to kind of buffer that I stayed home with my son, but that he was really the catalyst for me to awaken me to a more mature part of myself. Because I was 34 when I had him that, you know, asked the question, What kind of mother Do you want to be? What kind of woman do you want to be? It was from that point where I realized a big part of my spiritual journey that had been missing, and part of my life was that was really the divine feminine. And even through my yoga practice is like a pretty masculine practice in a lot of ways, it's very linear. So I started studying more of the feminine mysteries and started understanding how my cycle was attached to the same rhythms of the moon, and really what it meant to be a woman and the honor and the privilege and the pleasure that it is to be a woman that's so often shamed culturally and, you know, isn't recognized as worthy, quote, unquote, although we are literally the creators of life. You know, there's like we have a portal in between our legs to bring life into this planet. And so when I started filling myself up with that piece, and at the same time, I'm like, I gotta get rid of alcohol, it kind of the scales almost started naturally tipping where it had been such a struggle before, of willpower and what am I missing out on? So it was like I was filling myself up with more of me. I was centering the change around my human experience and my divine experience, and alcohol, really. And I won't say there was, it's, you know, resistance, because, of course there was, but it started to fall away more naturally. But it was, I was in most people come to this point where they're just like, done with alcohol. They're kind of, what I say is they've outgrown it, where they're like, they're not even drinking all the time or craving alcohol all the time, but they're thinking about it. They're obsessing about it, because there's this inner battle that they're having where they want it to be gone, but they just don't know how, because they've only really learned and everyone, every single person in the Western world has had to make a decision about alcohol in their lives, and also kind of has the belief that there's an us versus them, that there is either you're a normal drinker or you're a problematic drinker. And I think that that narrative is extremely damaging, and it's just not useful at all for anyone, no matter where you fall on the spectrum. One more like piece of the story was I had I'd been teaching yoga. I've been doing, like mindfulness meditation movement for for a long time, which I feel like kept me alive and out of like the despair of alcohol with like my saving grace. And so I knew even before I finished, before I stopped drinking altogether, that I wanted to do more working with women's empowerment, because I had already manifested a lot in my life. I had really gone beyond the status quo of success. From what I had seen in my family, I was my the first college graduate in my family. I graduated with honors. I bought a home before, like my, you know, my mother bought a home and, you know, so there was all of these ways that I had already been using my mindset in different ways than I had seen other people previously doing, and I really wanted to teach women this, but I knew alcohol had to go. I had to walk my talk, but I had started kind of doing, like women's empowerment coaching. I was doing like mama baby yoga, and already connecting with women in a new way outside of drinking, once the switch flipped for me and I had started to dive and really start to figure out more of a formula, a solution with all the tools I gathered over these years, of all the work and I had done, all the training I had done, and then bringing in coaching on top of it was like I figured it out. Because my biggest fear, and most people's biggest fears, they're going to quit drinking, but they're going to always want always want it. They're always gonna forever be like something's missing. And when I finally flipped the switch, there was no going back. And now, like, very quickly, I pretty much had no desire to drink. I'm like, this is way better. And so I was like, I have to share this with the world. I have to tell everyone that there is a new way. There is a. Another way to do this that doesn't require labels, it doesn't require counting days, it doesn't require excuses or anything, but it could be a transformation, right? And it doesn't have to be a light a life sentence. So I've been doing that for five years, and it's been really such an honor and humbling too, like such a humbled honor, that I really try not to take for granted, because to be in such an intimate space with women, what can be such a low point is really such an honor for me. So that's a lot of words, but that's where I came from. I

Unknown:

love this. I mean, I love the journey that you've taken and what you're doing. It's interesting that you were brought to this podcast. I've been on my own journey with alcohol in my last couple decades has not been like a problem, but I noticed probably, like, a year and a half ago, I'm like, because I'm a high performer. And I know you talk about high achievers, high performers, I'm a high performer. And so I work my ass off, like, all the time, and I was very much in my masculine and I would notice myself craving, like, I just want to go on a girls trip and just like, got loose, you know what I think like? And there'd be this, like, pent up, like, I just need to let it out. I just need to let it fly. It wasn't until I started functioning in my feminine embracing my feminine energy, which I'm 42 so I've only been doing that probably a year, that I'm just like, I don't crave alcohol, right? I don't crave alcohol. And I'm not saying that there's not any moments after like, a long week or a hard day that I'm like, but I'm aware. I'm like, I just really want to dissociate right now. Like, it's been a lot today, right? But it's more that than anything. It's like, oh, I want to dissociate, but I haven't had any of those feelings of, like, I need a girls trip where we're just going to completely cut loose and drink. And those things have really melted away. I'm really excited to hear from you about some of these things you know, talking about alcohol and the nervous system, talking about how alcohol can recreate trauma. Like, I think that high performance women in particular, have this whole battle. And I'm not saying women, not all women, have a battle. But like high performance women, they're so caught in this, like, masculine energy, masculine world, and they don't even know it until they figure it out. It can be perplexing. I feel like, like, I felt very perplexed for a long time, like, why am I so sick? Why am I so this? I invest so much money in myself. I take really great care of myself. I'm ticking all the health boxes. Yet I feel like crap. You know what I mean? And I think this is where some of that, that alcohol piece, yeah, potentially, come from. I mean, you're the expert that that's just from my own lived experience, though. Yeah,

Mary Wagstaff:

well, you are spot on. And kudos for figuring it out, because, because we don't really see this as a solution, it's like, Well, I'm a woman, like, What do you mean being my feminine you know, we don't really even know what that means, because so part of my theory and my philosophy, I'm actually writing a book too, is that as women's Empower like when, when we start to look at the women's empowerment movement, we start to automatically see, right then, an increase in alcohol consumption by women, as well as medication too. Middle Aged, like high achieving, white women are the highest medicated people in our country for mental support, right? Like an SSRIs and stuff, and I'm not, and I just want to preface this too, I have done it all, and I believe in neutrality. I believe we are not judged for our human experience, that we are here to have an experience. And alcohol, my journey with alcohol was literally the greatest gift of my life. It gave me such a contrast to what I really wanted, the values that I was that were really important to me, and it helped me come closer to my spirituality, to God, to the Divine of like, that's not why I'm here, because to be fully alive is to have it all, and that's where I think we've kind of been sold short as women, because genetically and hormonally, we have very different experiences. So if we think about the the menstrual cycle, it's a 28 day cycle. And inside of that cycle, and this is something that I teach women, that we most women, and I was right there with you, it's like we think of our menstrual cycle as just the time we're bleeding. We don't really look at this full 28 day spectrum, and what's so beautiful about the moon, and the relationship to the moon is this is how we used to tell time. We used to literally tell time by the phases of the moon, which is in direct correlation with the menstrual cycle. And I personally don't think it's a coincidence. You know? I mean, it's a 28 day cycle as well, and it waxes and it wanes, and it is so beautiful. And so inside of that, we have hormones that are doing different things. So this is where a high achieving woman can just look more at data of her cycle, of saying, okay, these are the facts, and at different points during the month. I. Have different needs. I have very different needs, and I'm going to be, is it more productive for me during my luteal phase, which is like the last week of our cycle before we're bleeding? Is it more productive for me to rest? You know, kind of that pre, I forget what someone called it yesterday. It's like, it's some they do it with women for Nursing Mothers, like new mothers, they talk about getting your rest ahead of time, because you might have to be up for days. And then I'm really high performing when I'm in my waxing phase, right when I'm in that ovulatory phase, instead of, like pushing and kind of coming up with mediocre work and feeling shitty about it and making myself feel bad that I'm not performing all of those things. So that's really what I would say, is a really good first step for women that are functioning in their masculine because this is what we've been taught. This is what so much of the women's empowerment and so many women sacrificed and fought hard. And I'm not saying that it was a bad thing. It wasn't. We have so much because of it, but what we gained from it, there was a lot of what we lost. And one of my kind of philosophies of what I say is we've been fighting the stereotypes so hard to prove what we're not that we lost what we were. So we only got a sense, yeah, we lost a lot of the feminine archetypal energy that is the beauty of what it means to be a woman, the nurturing, the caretaking, the empathy and being in that place of pleasure, of receptivity. And so what I find is the discomfort for so many people isn't just the stress or the overwhelm. For women, the discomfort is in receiving pleasure. The discomfort is in relaxing and that's really where I want to take myself, because I'm still working on it, because I'm a type A person, and I'm like, in this world of entrepreneurship and achievement and unlearning, like you said before, it's like we have to kind of decondition ourselves from this is what success means. And I heard this from a book before, and I'm not going to remember who the author was right now, but it was success or achievement. Is simply a life you approve of. And the The truth is, is, as women, no one's going to do that for us, but ourselves. And the reason we're drinking is because we're not approving of our life, because we're comparing it all of the things, right? So to step into your feminine because sometimes people are like, I don't even know what that means. Yeah, the first part of that is to feel, to feel the human experience. Because we're not just alive when we're feeling good, we're alive. One of my coaches says life is 5050, and, you know, I think when we generate more awareness, the time in between kind of feeling crappy gets shorter. It's like we were in this journey of forgetting and remembering, and the forgetting becomes shorter and shorter as we generate more awareness. Or we don't make it a problem, right? We're not like, oh my gosh, like, this thing happened. It's a problem. It's like, No, this is my human experience, and this is how this is part of it. This is completely normal, because I am in this cycle. So the first thing I really teach women, especially high achieving women that you know maybe a little more dissociated just from their needs in general, that they even have needs, right like we do have needs that we can't get from someone else, that we can't get from our job, that we can't get from achievement, that we have to get from ourselves. Is just to start to collect data of really watching how your cycle changes, without judging it and honoring it, honoring that, this menstrual cycle. And if you're outside of your bleeding years or for whatever reason you're not bleeding, you can use the moon because it's it's essentially the same thing. So you can still see, in a cyclical rhythm, your hormones will have changed a little bit, but you can still see like, okay, I can see where I have that fire, where I want a party where I want to let loose, and I can see that time where I want to go inward and I'm sensitive. And the thing that's happened is that we've used alcohol as the bridge to solve every single one of those emotions, but they all have different they all need a different solution. And so that's why all of our emotions at this point, this is, of course, general speaking, are associated with alcohol, the good, the bad, the indifferent. And it's like I want to be alive. What does achievement feel like in my body? What does excitement feel like in my body? What does deep sorrow feel like in my body? And deep pleasure and letting all of those emotions have a full cycle, have a beginning, middle and end without interruption, because every time you use alcohol, and this is kind of getting into the nervous system piece, we're interrupting the flow of our natural state of emotion, right? And that is what can almost triggers to the body that it has a trauma response, because you're essentially sending the signal it's not safe to feel the way you feel, naturally and authentically right now, good, bad or indifferent. Isn't safe. An alteration of how your natural state is right now is required, and we don't know it. It's very subconscious. Well, for me,

Unknown:

the way I experienced it was I almost felt like it was wrong, which still means unsafe. But. It was like, Oh my gosh, why don't I have the energy to do these things that I want to do? Why am I just wanting to lay on the couch, just like a lot of self criticism and this last year of taking this journey to really honoring being cared for, caring for myself, working with my husband on this ship that I'm making, that he's totally embraced, and which I know not all partners are always supportive, but thankfully, I have a supportive partner in this it's the biggest battle has been me, with me and how I perceive my performance, or how my feelings or how my body's feeling is hindering my performance, and I really had to unsubscribe to my old narrative of what success looks like, and really surrender like I can be successful while still doing it with a different process, like it's gonna look different, but it actually, when I embrace it, feels better. Yes, even though it feels foreign, like sometimes I have this cognitive dissonance, yes, have to talk myself through it, but I'm like, No, this is yes. This feels weird because you're used to doing it a certain way for, like, 30 years, or whatever it was, but this feels better, right? This feels more honoring, this Yes, more natural, even though it feels awkward because it's a change, like, I have to coach myself through it sometimes, and that can be a weird place to be in, like for that absolutely time. You know what I mean. And so I understand why alcohol can be a thing that is involved, right?

Mary Wagstaff:

Absolutely Well, and what you're describing, and because I listened to your story, is like you had to create safety for yourself. And you know your and this is the same as my story. It's like I had to create my own sense of safety through my own resourcefulness, right? Because I grew up with my mom dodging bill collectors. And I mean, God bless her. She is, she is the reason I am who I am and the way I'm independent. But I was like, I'm never going to let that happen. So financial independence was always so important for me. So the same thing is kind of happening with my household right now, where my husband is really like, I'm gonna hold the security of this foundation. This woman that I shared with you, Kelly Brogan, she's a She's amazing. She talks about masculine and feminine money and how masculine money is, is our foundation, is our safety, but the feminine wants to be creative, but we can't feel safe enough to create if the foundation of the stability isn't supporting our nervous system. Yeah, so you're having, and I'm doing the same thing, where you're having to remind yourself it's safe, it's safe for me to to rest, it's safe for me to let go. If that is a big thing. So that's one of I talk about this concept called the feminine way of sobriety. I don't really even love the term sobriety, because it's so loaded, but the feminine way of sobriety is establishing safety. And some people, some women, are doing it on their own, because, like you said, they don't have necessarily this, this literal masculine foundation. But we all have masculine and feminine energy inside of ourselves. We have to learn, no matter what, no matter even if there is a partner involved, how to create that containment of safety in our nervous system. So that's really the first part of I am safe here and and really, like just kind of same conceptual like fact finding, just gathering data. Okay, what are all my resources, even if it's kind of something you wouldn't think of as a resource, like, well, I have my phone, I have my computer, I have re access to information. I have, you know, these supportive people in my life. I have literally this much money in my bank account, whatever it is, it's really important to gather our resources so that when our brain wants to tell us that we're not safe, softening being in the emotional state of our human experience, being in our feminine we can say, Okay, I already am, whatever that is, and find evidence that it's true without doing that. So it's so brilliant that you're already doing this naturally. And I believe that all women have this intuition of doing this work, but it our intuition has also really been shamed as just another like, emotional flare up, right?

Unknown:

It's like, oh yeah. It's like, there's been so much brainwashing around the concept of intuition, yeah.

Mary Wagstaff:

So learning to trust that and kind of bringing it all back online, it takes time. And that's, that's the second piece of the feminine way. So the first piece is safety, the other piece of the feminine way is luxurious space like that. There's that. There's no rush, because it doesn't you know you had a life like you said. You're 42 right? I'm I'm going to be 44 this year. It didn't happen. This didn't happen overnight, especially when it comes to alcohol or any big thing you want to change in your life. This is a transformation that is so next level to your evolution and what's possible for your life. Life, this isn't just this isn't about alcohol at really at all. We have to center this change around ourselves and the relationship we have with ourselves and our life and our womanhood, and really be able to ask, What kind of woman do I want to be? What do I stand for? And just kind of unpacking it in a really slow, beautiful way, because we want to see how the evidence is showing up in our life. And because we're not men, we're not working on a 24 hour cycle, sometimes we don't see the evidence of it until next month, where we're like, Oh, wow. I actually handled that differently than I would have before. I can see that things are shifting for me. I can see that I don't have as much resistance to that, and that is when we build the confidence where this is so common, the shame, like, why don't you have the energy you can't let like you're too being lazy, or whatever it is, like I had to be forced to this weekend, my husband took us out a little surprise for Valentine's Day. And I was, like, totally into it. I, you know, I micromanage any of it. And I had some thoughts come up about like, we ended up not really being able to do much because my little boy wasn't feeling good. But I was like, Okay, we're gonna be here, and we like to play games and hang out and stuff, but we're all kind of busy bodies and doing projects and stuff. But we hung out, we like watch TV, which doesn't really happen. I was like, No, this is so good for my nervous system. This is telling my nervous system it is safe if we do this, nothing has gone wrong. And in fact, we're bonding as a family. And I'm teaching my kid that it's okay to rest, yeah, it's okay to be in the living of life, you know, like that. That can be satisfying, just to be right? And so I'm really glad that you brought up this piece personally, too, of being this high achieving woman, and how we have to, like you said, unsubscribe, that we don't have to do it in this masculine way anymore, and we can still have success, and we can still have financial freedom, we can still have professional success, but we can do it through the lens of the feminine, but we have to be willing to give ourselves permission to do it, because the structures that are in place right now, like all of our institutions, are way they're slow technology and human awareness is moving so much quicker than our institutions, as you know, are catching up to it. So we have to be the catalyst for change and not ask permission or forgiveness and just do it differently. Frankly,

Unknown:

yeah, absolutely. And I it's important to surround yourself with people who are going to support that, right? Yeah, which isn't always easy. There's lots of messaging on social media, and, you know, just in our world around that really go against that. I'm actually thinking about somebody who is a personal trainer who I used to follow, and I actually unfollowed this person because it wasn't healthy for me, because the perception or the take that she had is like, you suck it up and you push no matter what. And that was literally what I was trying to get away from, right? Yes, and, and there was a lot of narrative around, like, it doesn't matter if you have your period, it's a mindset, and it's a this or, and I'm like, Okay, this is the kind of stuff I have to unsubscribe to, because that's the narrative I used to run in my own life all the time. Like, this is what I'm trying to move away from. So it's like giving yourself permission, that it's okay to unsubscribe, unfollow, move people to a different, you know, layer of inner circle if you need to, right? And maybe you don't share everything with them. And I think that that's important too. And I think that that's a really, it can be a really challenging, yeah, for for people to do absolutely.

Mary Wagstaff:

I mean, it's a huge thing that comes up for women. That's one of the objections is, you know, am I going to be any fun? What are people going to think? Am I going to be, you know, can I be social? Am I going to be this downer? And what I found, and, you know, we coach through this, and we look at the thoughts and we we disprove them, and then we, we really follow the intention more than the expectation. That's a huge distinction that I teach people, is to look at your heartfelt intention for why you're doing something, because you're not typically being social just to drink, typically you're wanting to connect or celebrate or share or something. So when we lead with our heartfelt intention, we get in touch with a different part of us that bypasses how we need to be for other people, because we are, we're often putting our thoughts into other people's head. And what I've found is even if people do have an opinion, your willingness, our willingness to be unapologetic about what's best for for my personal life, lands in someone's brain in a way that makes them reflect on themselves typically, and so even if they want to say something about it, but most of the time, people are generally supportive. And what I found is because I had this very unapologetic, very casual approach, because I always say sober cheerleading is not my thing. I'm not baking a cake for. My sober anniversary, which I don't think there's anything wrong with that, and I am so proud of the work I've done. I just didn't leave drinking to become a sober person, and I have to talk. I talk about it all the time because, yeah, this is my business, but in my personal life, is the biggest reason why I'm able to do the work I do and have a more full expression of who I am, and go deeper in my humanity, and go deeper and challenging myself or honoring myself the absence of alcohol. But when I was talking to people, I'm like, Yeah, you know, it was really casual. Sometimes I brought it up. Sometimes I didn't just exploring my relationship to alcohol. And I was kind of in my own inner coaching, self coaching, and I was working with some people, some spiritual mentors at the time. But when I was really casual about it, not making it like I have a problem, or you have a problem, or anyone has a problem, yeah, people came out of the woodwork. Everyone was like me, too. I want to talk about this like they it felt like a safe space for them to talk and as you know, in our polarized, you know, media and political arena and all the things, it's like, we have to be willing to listen. We have to be willing to just soften sometimes, and I say definitely, like, there's too much influence out there to let your brain go someplace that it doesn't need to go. Like, I'm a big proponent of changing the circumstance, because we can think new thoughts about the circumstance, or we can just change it and be like, I don't have the capacity to deal with that right now.

Unknown:

I've got other things to deal with. This is my opinion. But I've noticed that people who have the biggest transformations are usually people who take themselves out of environments that are really creating the the response in them, right? And so it's not even an avoidance thing, but it's kind of like, yeah, you can do a lot of work, but if you stay in the same environment that is continuously triggering or causing mental health challenges, anxiety, yes, then what do you write an uphill battle for the rest of your life, right? Sometimes it's more the environment than anything else, and that's just the truth. Like,

Mary Wagstaff:

yeah, absolutely. I heard you say that in the show too. And I believe, I believe that it's definitely can be that, and it can also be like our perspective too, right? So one of the things that I coach people on, and that I think can be important, like, say you're in a relationship, like in a marriage, that you're like, This sucks. And I have all these thoughts about what they're not doing, right? But you really, you really step into your lane, and you clean up your side of the street, right? And you make sure you're taking personal responsibility. I mean, I know my relationship has changed dramatically when I take personal responsibility for it, but then you have the clarity of discernment at that point when you know I've done I'm really honest with myself, I'm doing my work. I'm trying to see things through neutral, a neutral lens, letting you know, like letting my husband be his sovereign self, and he's got his own things. But now, when I've emotionally regulated myself, okay, now I know this isn't for me, right? So I think it's important to to leave when you're feeling really good. Now, of course, there's circumstances that are dangerous, and it's like, you gotta go. You gotta go. But yeah, absolutely no. I am huge proponent of, like, change the circumstance, and then you can also see then too. But sometimes we can also be take our mind with us, right? It's like there are people too. It's like the grass is always greener. We always think it's like the next job, the next sounds the next job, right? So it's a little bit of both. If you're

Unknown:

not doing the inner healing, doesn't matter how many times you change your environment,

Mary Wagstaff:

yeah, exactly. So it's both. But I think having the ability to regulate our nervous system be honest with ourselves about we say it's not working. Where are you not working? Right? Where are you not willing to show up to do the thing that maybe you think is harder, and getting support around that too, because sometimes we don't know, I mean mindfulness tools and like, you know, all of the tools that you have as a therapist and doing coaching work, it's like we're not born with that ability. People don't teach us this stuff. And so I always say I'm teaching you all the things that your mother didn't teach you, and I'm still wearing it too. You know, I've taught women about 40 year old women about cyclical living, and then they're teaching their daughters about it, their daughters that are having a lot of anxiety in high school and challenges in adolescence, and now they, generationally, are changing this cycle of emotional trauma because they're teaching their daughters like, okay, hey, you feel really nervous and anxious about going to school. Where are you at in your cycle? Oh, this is why. And then they're like, hey. And it changes everything. Just that little bit of data gives us permission to feel the way that we feel, and then we don't compound it by shaming ourselves wrong with me type of thing, right? And then that's what always leads to the drinking. Is like, you know, something's wrong with me, I and then you make yourself feel worse about it, and it's like the only solution is the alcohol. And then that creates this vicious cycle. Feeding itself, where then the alcohol becomes, you know, the source of the problem of lowering our our feel good chemicals, because it affects every single system in our body. You know, I really don't talk a lot about the negative impact of alcohol, because even though we kind of all know it is a neurotoxin, it is addictive substance, but talking about the negative impact of alcohol doesn't create good feelings in our body, because the words that we say to ourselves, and we can have an awareness of it, but it doesn't inspire change. What inspires change is when I lead with my heartfelt intention, when I focus more on what I'm moving towards versus what I'm moving away from, but it is good to know the biological effects of alcohol. And so what I say in my work, it's both an intersection of behavior and belief, and it's all of our beliefs around the narrative of what we meet, what it means to quit drinking, what it means to about me as a drinker, what's underneath that that I've been covering up or that I didn't know I was covering up. So what I've found really, is it the beliefs that we have about alcohol and about the narrative around it and ourselves have much, a much bigger impact in keeping us stuck than the behavior and the chemical of the alcohol itself. And you know, we have habitual beliefs create habitual behavior, and it all starts with a belief we're not continuously like brushing our teeth because we think it's bad for us. And that's just like a simple daily example. But you know, there's these underlying beliefs that we have around alcohol or the absence of it that really need to be brought to the surface in a really neutral and loving way in order for us to create the change and start to move towards like the beliefs that we want to believe, and then we generate evidence that they're true. And the ones we have about alcohol actually aren't true. And when we start to just bring it into awareness and we bring it into the light, we find out that that we already have so much of what we needed all along, and it's it's just the removing of the layers to find our wholeness that we don't really need to become whole. We need to remove what is covering up our wholeness already. That's so, I

Unknown:

love that. That's such a banger. It's so, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, you're already whole, but you have these things that have hidden those pieces of you, right? Yeah, yeah, okay. I do want to get to this nervous system alcohol connection, and also very fascinated by this idea that alcohol mimics the effects of trauma. Can you share more about that? Yeah, absolutely. Well,

Mary Wagstaff:

I mentioned it briefly, but what happens is, what, okay, let me just start at this, what I believe the impact of trauma is. And you talked about this in your episode too, how we have these different ideas of what trauma is. I really believe trauma is a moment in time where we don't feel safe, where there was that imprint gets stored in the body, and that can be for many different things, and what happens often is in our adulthood, and you know this too, is that we experience a similar frequency or a similar emotion that triggers an old response that we're not even aware of, right? So say, like, you lost your mom at the grocery store and you couldn't find her. That could be a very traumatic imprint for a child, like there's this moment of fear that gets stored in the tissue of the body, and even potentially, you find someone, and that feeling is ignored or invalidated, right? Like, you finally find your mom, and it's like, Oh, don't be sad, right? I'm here. You don't have anything to worry about, right? We really time travel through the frequency of emotion, right? So we have, maybe not a completely unrelated experience, but an experience in our adult life that the body has stored that is associated with that past emotion that we don't even know is there. We don't even know that memory is there. And then we add alcohol as the bridge to move away from that emotion. Well, that imprint gets stored even deeper in the body, because we are never giving it a chance to come up and out Sanskrit or in yoga philosophy, they call this a samskara, where it's a groove in the brain, where that groove in the brain gets deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper, and we never get to take a new pathway. Essentially. Now what's happening is you are reinforcing through the presence of alcohol that that emotion isn't safe to feel, that memory that your body has is actually true and valid, that when you feel this frequency, because emotions are just sensations in our body, and, you know, a release of chemicals. So when we feel those sensations in the body and we add alcohol to override them, we're sending this signal that, in fact, danger is happening, and we're repeating that same signal again and again and again and. For women, and what we're talking about with pleasure, when we're feeling good, or we're feeling achievement, or like, Oh, I just want to let loose and break free. We're also associating pleasure achievement and excitement that it's not safe to feel in its most natural form, because we're associating it with alcohol. And every time you you add alcohol to an emotion, you are stopping the emotion from having a full cycle, from having its full expression happen naturally. So we really don't even know. I mean, I thought I knew what it was to have fun, and we always think we're like adding alcohol to have even more fun, and it's what we're doing, is we're just inhibiting our thoughts that are in the way of us having fun. So when I when I coach women, and they're like, but I want to have fun still. And I'm like, Girl, I got sober going to ecstatic dance, and I danced with such a huge catalyst in my journey of sobriety that I became a DJ because of it. So I'm like, an ecstatic I'm an ecstatic dance DJ. I teach embodiment, and I always say, like we're throwing a better party, because I'm actually ecstatic. Dance is not just about, you know, we think of ecstasy as, like, this blissful experience. Everyone has had a good cry where you cry so hard and it feels so good, right? You're like, Oh, it's so cathartic. That is possible with every emotion, it is possible for us to fully embody every emotion, so much so that there is a catharsis that it feels actually pleasurable on the other side of it, that is really where that where we keep re imprinting trauma into our body when we're feeling A sensation, and then we're using alcohol to change or to numb or dull or just alter dissociate, like,

Unknown:

yeah, that is so good. I've never thought of alcohol or substances as a way to dissociate or feel normal, if you will, right, like not feel Yeah. Never thought about it as essentially as a trauma cycle or pushing or imprinting it deeper, and that makes a lot sense, well, and for a

Mary Wagstaff:

lot of people that have been drinking for a long time. And I didn't really start heavily drinking, probably until like after college, really, but I did start when I was like 18 more, but I used to smoke a lot of pot when I was younger, so I've had a cycle of dissociating since I was like, 12 or 13 years old. What I've found for myself is that there's these things that happen in my life, and I can't associate them with any real memory. I'm still trying to, like, figure it out, but where I kind of have these unnatural fears, right? And now it could be just the wounding of being a woman, and we've, you know, I mean being in the world as a woman can be quite scary, like women get attacked and women get hurt. And we do have imprints from our ancestry that lives in our DNA as well. So it could just be ancestral wounding that I'm not really even aware of. So I will have these like real, embodied moments of deep, deep fear that don't they don't equate to my life experience, yeah, and what I've found is because I altered my nervous system from fully developing at such a young age that when tough times were happening, I was always dissociating. And so our nervous system expands and contracts, right? It's like a river. It ebbs and it flows. And if we don't have the experiences to allow like a muscle, to create more resiliency, to create a greater capacity for what it can hold it's going to freeze, and this is why it's so important with our children to honor we have to be able to validate their emotions and honor emotional cycles of intimacy, not interrupt emotions, so that our children, their nervous systems, can learn to develop in a really healthy way that they're not afraid of emotion. And to do that as parents, we have to be able to have emotional mastery over ourselves, because being a parent could be very frustrating. And so this is what I'm working on so deeply, is having emotion emotional self mastery, having boundaries for myself, so that I can be a safe environment for my kid to experience whatever he needs to experience, and not make it mean anything about me. And that's huge. It's hard, is it's

Unknown:

a lot of work. But that

Mary Wagstaff:

are why people drink too, right? Like, that's why moms, at the end of the day, they're like, I got nothing. I got nothing left. But if you learn to separate yourself, if you learn to pull yourself back and hold space and stop making it about you stop trying to control everything, right? Because this is with women, is because we feel kind of out of control ourselves. A lot of time we're trying to micromanage everything, but we don't need to. People can manage themselves. And so if we kind of just take a break, just try to get curious, what if I stopped trying to micromanage everything for a minute, what would happen? And it's like, oh, I can just be a loving support. I can be here, loving and supportive, and not have to take it so damn personally all the time and see what happens. Right? Like, of course, there's a. Perceptions to the rule, but I know for myself, and this is even after alcohol I was trying to I was micromanaging a lot in my household. That was like taking away from me, creating pleasure in my own life. I think

Unknown:

that that comes back to safety again, yeah, because it feels like, I mean, it feels like it's unsafe to surrender and let the chips fall. There's this feeling that like you're responsible for everyone, and if they're not doing what they need to do or whatever, then you're not doing well. And that just feels very obviously unsafe, right? There's a lot I feel like for women with what we think our role is, and if we're not fulfilling that role, then you know, we're failing, and that creates this feeling of safety, like, if you're failing, like you're expendable, absolutely,

Mary Wagstaff:

yeah, there's all of these rules that we you know, I think we've unintentionally just kind of taken on, and of course, we've seen it generationally, or we want to do different than our parents did, and so we put a lot of pressure on ourselves, which I think is, you know, the case for you and I in a lot of ways. And what I found so the three pieces of the feminine way, and this is kind of my new framework, because I have this other process called the Five shifts of alcohol freedom. But this is really the feminine way of alcohol. Freedom is establishing safety in the nervous system, allowing yourself to have luxurious space. Just, you know, this is going to take time. I'm learning a new way. I'm going to give myself a year to just really be in the curiosity of my own self and then exquisite self care. And when I talk about self care, it's not just about like pedicures and massages, but giving yourself, I call it a sacred time out five minutes. Sometimes we have to literally put our hand on our heart, take a breath, walk into the bathroom, sit down on the toilet and ground, just ground yourself. And that, to me, is that is exquisite care of myself so that I can stay in dignity and integrity with the way I really want to show up, and sometimes that means I have to remove myself for a minute, but I still do want to hold space for my kid. I still want to know Him, to know I'm there, that he's safe enough to experience his thing. And so when we start taking exquisite care of ourselves as women, and we take responsibility for our own happiness, I do find, just like with alcohol, that the micromanaging piece starts to become less important because we're doing that as a way to every action we take, the end result is always an emotion. We always think, if I do this, I'm gonna feel better. But when we can do that work ahead of time, proactively, and we're always like in the act of taking care of ourselves in whatever way we need, asking for help, asking the art of asking, right? Letting someone else take over, which I know you talking about with your husband, can be really challenging. It's like, it has to be good enough. Sometimes, right? Might not be the way you've done it, but it has to be sometimes, like, yes, we have a joke in my house that there's only one way to fold a towel.

Unknown:

Yeah, there's only one way to fold a towel, you know. But we laugh about

Mary Wagstaff:

it, and it's like, I don't even know if you fold the towel. I just usually fold the towels, but it's fine. I've seen where, if I let go and I turn that energy inward, it has such a different lasting result than the towels being folded the right way or whatever it is, you know. So it just takes self awareness. It takes the willingness to be wrong. Sometimes it takes the willingness to for someone else to maybe be right, or just to see a different perspective than one of my coaches always says, Would you rather be right or happy? Because sometimes being right doesn't always create happiness if we're fighting our way to it. Yeah, I love that. And then, you know, to kind of bring it all together. It's like the end result of this, often, for women, is alcohol, right? Where we're like, micromanaging, or we're not taking care of ourselves, or we're having to prove our worth, because none of it's actually filling us up on the inside, we're still left depleted. And these things that we've kind of been promised in some weird societal way, or just traditionally, culturally that we've been promised, are going to create happiness for us, and then they don't, and we still feel depleted, we still feel numb, we still feel overwhelmed. It's like, okay, well now I'm gonna have a drink, because shit, nothing else seems to be really working. Yes,

Unknown:

I will say this from my own experience, especially my journey this last year, really embracing my feminine energy, my cycle, I'm having a lot more fun doing what I'm doing. I'm way less focused on air, quote, success, even though I am cultivating success, I'm more focused on the process versus the results. I'm way more present with myself and in my life, with my important relationships, which are bringing me much more pleasure, because I'm just more focused on being present with the person. It's interesting. Just as like a testimonial is I am now, like two weeks from having my week of bleeding, right the week before I was really tired and kind of. Out of it, and instead, and every month, I've made progress where I'm not like trying to force something, and I just I work when I feel like it. And yes, and I know that not everybody has that luxury. I'm an entrepreneur. I can do that. I have an established business, so I have the space to do that. But I am not forcing myself to do a certain workout, right? I'm doing the movement that feels good if I want to work out in my pajamas instead of tight clothes. I add up. Then I noticed that the week coming out of, like, my period, I was just like, I had this natural energy, just like, bang, so much out, and I had so much clarity and laser focus, and I got probably more done in joy too, that, like week, week and a half, than if I was trying to force myself right, and it would be mediocre, and be like, dragging myself, and it would be from a place of guilt and, like, obligation, and it just felt so good. And I'm like, Why haven't I been doing it like this? The whole freaking time is fine, it's fine, but it just it made me reflect on, like, gosh, like, I'm so thankful that I'm embracing this, and even though sometimes it still feels awkward because it's like, not the way I used to do it, I just feel more fulfilled. My daughter is like, Mom, you're you're so much more present with me now than I mean, she's 11, so she, you know, very aware. She's like, I just really like the way you are, like you're hanging out with me, and you seem less stressed, and, you know, like you're paying more attention to me and like I'm enjoying that process. And so anybody listening in like it's a process, and I highly encourage you, whether it's alcohol or not, this in itself, is just such a rite of passage for women, and you can achieve and be who you want to be at the same time, you just have to be okay with it looking different, you know?

Mary Wagstaff:

Yes, oh my god, I'm so glad you shared that, because it's such a beautiful testament. Because really, this is the highest form of our authenticity. My authenticity isn't just about sharing your opinions. Our authenticity is how do I feel in the moment and What need do I have personally? So we have to start there first before it's like, be seen, be heard. You know all these things, like, you don't play small. It's like, no, we've got to know what's going on with our body. And then that stuff that naturally wants to come out into the world. Like you said, you have this clarity. And it's such a beautiful thing too, to model for your daughter, especially as she's coming into adolescence too. So I'm so happy for you, because, I mean, I was the same. I didn't start really charting my cycle in this way, of, like, understanding that I had these different energies at different times. And you know, if you are, I was thinking this the other day too, because I was, like, the first day I was just feeling bloated and just lethargic and kind of grouchy, and I'm like, I am so grateful I don't have to go sit somewhere right now, forced to go somewhere. But what I would say, sometimes, there's things on our calendar. Now, here's a radical thing. I've tried to do it. I'm gonna, I'm actually gonna sit down and do a little bit more work on this for the rest of the year. Is looking at what your cycle looks like for the entire year. And so you can kind of anticipate, I'm not gonna plan a party at a family gathering when I'm on day 23 or whatever, when I'm starting to feel that way. So that's a radical way to run your life, which is syncing your calendar with your cycle. And of course, it changes a little bit. But if you do have to go out into the world, and you do have to go into an office, or you do have to be with people, there can just be a softening in your own mind, right? The words that we say to ourselves when we're by ourselves have the biggest impact, yes, yes. Or, you know, taking a break from, like you said your workout. I love when I hear women say, you know, I just am going to let my body move the way it wants to move naturally, without it having to be this thing that ends up creating more cortisol in the body anyway, and probably hindering metabolism when you're forcing yourself to well.

Unknown:

And I will tell you that my body composition, I'm reaching my composition goals. I feel better, and I don't know if I'd say the word faster, but kind of more sustainably than when I used to force myself to do things when I didn't feel like it. Yep. And I'm noticing a transformation in my body and my composition in ways ever before, and I will, like, let myself go now days without a ton of movement. Maybe I'll walk a little or stretch or whatever. But it's like, whereas before I'd be like, No, I've got to lift or I've got to do some sprints, or I've got to do this, and my body is, like, happier, like, she is shifting more easily, more fluidly. So that's been incredible. I do want to say this because I think for high achievers, whether you're in a corporate setting or work a job, or you're an entrepreneur, like we are, I think that there's also fear sometimes, like, if I actually honor what what my body's telling me to do? Am I going to stop making as much money? That was a huge fear for me, because my husband I are actually in the process of transitioning from me being the breadwinner, I'm good at making money, and me being the person who provides the most money in the house to him. Really stepping in, and what you talked about the masculine money versus the feminine money, and US shifting to he's the core provider of all of our basic bills and basic needs. And then what I make goes towards fun, investment, travel, like expanding our wealth, and that's been something we haven't lived until this last year, and it's a transition, and there's been a lot of fear around it, because I'm shifting and changing, and I know that there will be an upswing of income for me again, but I have to be okay with that awkward stage where maybe my income has shifted back a little because I'm learning how to be efficient and effective in the periods where I'm really driven to do so and rest when I'm not and I have to continuously surrender and know, like, no, it's I don't need to live into this fear and scarcity that, like, if I am not always working, then we're gonna go broke, or I'm not gonna get back to where I was and beyond. You know what I mean? And yes, I think 100% I'm right there. Girl, yeah, and it's giving him the space, which is uncomfortable for him and for me to really step into the gap. But it takes time. On a practical level, sometimes you have to adjust your budget. Sometimes you might not take the trip that year. Like we've made some sacrifices and changes to our budget to accommodate this shift that we're making relationally in our finances, and it's uncomfortable, and I and I think that that's something that's important to talk about, because it can hold high achieving women back, especially if they have a partner who's supportive. I know not everybody does right, or you're single, sometimes that takes some other practical things that you have to put in place to give yourself the safety net and the space to make these shifts that long term will work for you, but in the beginning, it doesn't feel like they're working. And you're like, oh my gosh, what you know? And say, that's a big thing.

Mary Wagstaff:

Yeah, it's huge. I'm so glad you're talking this is a conversation that a lot of women are having now. And actually, you know, there's another woman named Laura Doyle who is a relationship coach. She's pretty well known. Her ideas are pretty radical, especially if you're, like, a quote, unquote feminist. But she talks about, especially in a traditional male female household, there is such an A respect that men really thrive off of having that responsibility and having to step up to that and I know for my husband, because we made the exact same change this year where he started, like I was always doing the bills, I always knew about the money. But now I'm seeing him put himself because we just moved to a new community, and so he's putting himself out there in ways that he wouldn't have necessarily, because he is really stepping up. And he's always, you know, he's an entrepreneur too, like he's always made money and contributed, but it was like he just what didn't have his hands in it. He didn't see it because I was trying, I was felt, didn't feel safe enough to let him sweaty and control totally relate because of what the work we I think we had to do as children, right? That we as younger people, we could talk about it for forever, like there's so many layers here, but what it comes down to is that little by little, just creating that sense of safety for yourself so that you can ultimately, what you're saying is be in the pleasure that it is to be a woman, be in the feminine flow of the creative process, right? And that doesn't mean we don't work and we don't have a schedule or anything like that, and it just means being more present to your ever changing needs, not having to explain your emotions to anyone. One of my really good friends and colleagues says, I'm under no obligation to make sense to anyone, including myself.

Unknown:

Oh, I love that. I do too, and I feel

Mary Wagstaff:

like as a woman, we really just we don't need to always make sense, because sometimes we talk in spirals, and we have all sorts of ideas and we see the big picture. We're really good at holding the big picture. But, yeah, I think that we're in a state of a new feminine evolution, that we're awakening to Feminine Empowerment in a new way. And you know, where we're at is a really beautiful place, because we have access to many things. So I think it's a really good place when we embrace the privileges that we have, when we embrace the essence, really, of who we are as women, and we get to just ask ourselves, what kind of woman do I want to be? Then the need for alcohol, the need for dissociation, and anyway, starts to fall away. And when we see ourselves moving towards that, we're like, okay, that's a sign that there's some imbalance, or there's something I'm needing that's lacking, or maybe it's even just a thought, you know, maybe I'm projecting onto my husband because of an insecurity I have, right? It's such a big topic, but I'm so excited for you, and I feel very resonant with where you're at, because I'm kind of in the exact same boat. I have a lot of creative projects that I am really interested in pursuing, but yeah, there's that, like, can I let go and trust and know that my path of more financial freedom, my path of more success, is actually me surrendering so that I can. Really align with the next phase of what I'm gonna do, you know, and that's hard. It is scary. It is scary.

Unknown:

I'm excited for you. I love all the work that you're doing. I am gonna be linking all the links you gave me in the show notes, perfect, so that people can find you. And I really encourage everybody to go find Mary. She's incredible. Follow her. Check out her website, check out her offers. Do you have anything right now? Are you taking new clients? I am taking

Mary Wagstaff:

new clients. Yeah, I offer a complimentary consult, just so I can meet with people. And from my perspective, a lot of times, women are asking the question, Why? Why do I keep doing this thing that I don't want to be doing? And through, you know, a really beautiful judgment free conversation. I can typically see where they're stuck. It's a nice way to just get some clarity about where you are. I do have a podcast as well, yeah, stop drinking and start living the feminine way. There's a lot of resources there. People go to my website. I have a monthly class workshop that I offer for free. There's some other little freebies they can download, and there's a bunch of

Unknown:

resources, amazing. Okay, I'm excited. I'm gonna check out those resources too. Thank you for having this conversation with me. It's been incredible.

Mary Wagstaff:

Yeah, you're awesome. Thank you so much. It was all right,

Unknown:

guys, we will see you next week. Thank you. If

Mary Wagstaff:

something in today's episode spoke to you deeply. You are ready for your next level of awakening, and I want to invite you to book a sober glow up activation session with me where we can rewrite your alcohol story. Right now, we'll remove the energetic blocks that are keeping you stuck and stagnant to activated and alive. To book a session and to learn more, just follow the link right here in the show notes, or head on over to my website. Mary Wagstaff coach.com and find out what it means to truly live life from your most authentic self. I will See you over there. You