Stop Drinking and Start Living

BONUS! Why simply quitting alcohol doesn't quite cut it

• Mary Wagstaff / Nura Rachelle

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Rekindling the inner flame.

We are celebrating Imbolc!

You’re invited to join our free Imbolc Circle this Sunday, February 4th.

Bring a friend, and your open heart.

We look forward to connecting with you in circle.

You can join free by signing up HERE!

Why simply quitting alcohol doesn't quite cut it—instead, we discuss the transformative power of connecting with your inner self and the universe's natural rhythms. 

I recall my client Elizabeth's interview on the podcast, showcasing the profound impact of distinguishing our physical sensations from the mental stories we tell ourselves, a pivotal step on the path to sustainable sobriety. 

We weave our inner journey with the threads of the winter solstice and the lunar cycle's ebb and flow. Discover how these cosmic events reflect our personal growth, offering moments for introspection and release, much like the phases of the moon guide us through life's mysteries. 

Learn to harness the Wheel of the Year and find support in the goddess Brigid's Imbolc festival, as we share our experiences of nurturing visions and utilizing resources to realize our aspirations amidst the astrological dance of Aries' desire and Aquarius' call for collective progress.

Together with Nura Rachelle, we celebrate circle gatherings as sanctuaries of shared wisdom, where the fiery individuality of Aries meets Aquarius' collective spirit, creating a dynamic synergy that fuels our transformative quests. This episode promises to arm you with the insights needed to forge a path where alcohol is no longer the centerpiece, but a forgotten part of the past. 

This time of year can be full of joy, but it can also come with extra stress and temptations around alcohol. So, I thought, why not offer something to help bring in a bit more ease and peace?
I'd love to spend this time together with you. I miss you! 
Pre Registration is required. For more information and to register, Click Here

You have everything you need right now to find alcohol freedom with The Stop Drinking & Start Living Course. Join 100's of Women who have successfully eliminated alcohol from their lives using The Five Shifts Processes. Click here to learn more and join.

Speaker 1:

Do you ever feel like you're out growing alcohol, that you are longing for a deeper connection to life? If alcohol is keeping you playing small and feels like the one area you just can't figure out, you are in the right place. Hi, my name is Mary Wagstaff. I'm a holistic alcohol coach who ended a 20 year relationship to alcohol without labels, counting days or ever making excuses. Now I help powerful women just like you eliminate their desire to drink on their own terms. In this podcast, we will explore the revolutionary approach of my proven five shifts process that gets alcohol out of your way by breaking all of the rules, and the profound experience that it is to rediscover who you are on the other side of alcohol. I am so thrilled to be your guide. Welcome to your journey of awakening. Welcome back to the show. My beautiful listeners. Thank you so much for being here for this bonus episode. I wanted to start today by just sharing a little bit about my intentions of having Nura on the show and talking about Soul Mission and really bringing you all the opportunity which I think I subtly have talked about over the last four years on the show, which is bridging the gap between where you are with alcohol and where you want to go, which, from my firsthand experience and even the experience I have of working with my clients, is the bridge of that gap, is the remembering of who you are as soul and human combined. This is, these are the opportunities to be in spiritual alignment with really the essence of who you are, that goes beyond the status quo, that goes beyond the social constructs and the social narrative of alcohol and everything else, the roles that you hold. So many women come to me when they are at a threshold in their life. Alcohol isn't working for them. When we only focus on trying to just not drink, they're really missing the mark for a why they're drinking in the first place, why they feel the need for alteration, why alcohol is not working for the version of themselves that's starting to awaken. There is a part of you that is awakening and now the spiritual alignment really is. It's not dogmatic, it's not about religion. It is about presence right, it is about being in the experience of being human. That is how I see it. It is an embodied experience of what does my life feel like when it's happening in real time in my body, when we're separating. And if you go back to listen to Elizabeth's interview. One of my amazing client, elizabeth, she shares about. One of her biggest breakthrough moments was when she was able to drop into the witness from the perspective of separating the sensations in her body from the story that her mind was telling her, from the thoughts in her mind. And this isn't something that one has to experience and something that I do privately with my clients, and it's also something that happens in these containers that Nura and I have been talking about. In these containers where women are gathering for the purpose of connecting to. Yes, I mean there is goal setting, right. There is like I want to open a business, I want to find the love of my life, I want to, you know, maybe have a health journey, right, but it's the foundation for how we get there from a place of inspiration and intention versus just goal setting, which was what the 40 day alcohol transformation challenge was all about, which, by the way, the results in that challenge were incredible. I'm going to try to get some testimonials and feedback from everyone, because the people that showed up really just crushed it and they had so many takeaways. They weren't drinking and we weren't really talking about alcohol that much. We were talking about not what you're moving away from, but what you're moving towards, and if you can't shift that perspective, alcohol is going to just continue to take up so much space in your brain and you expect cravings, you expect thoughts and you decide they're not a problem and you learn how to manage them, you learn how to allow them, you learn how to be with them, and so this bonus episode is actually an Instagram live that Nura and I just recorded as an invitation to the Inbook gathering that we are hosting this Sunday, february 4th. But I share a personal part of my story of really learning about when I'm in spiritual alignment. It means I can trust my intuition, when I'm making my spiritual alignment a priority, and sometimes that just means, like, even the shifting of the phases of the moon or the shifting of my own personal cycle. Right, maybe I don't have access to it, but I'm always looking for it because I make it a priority, because I know it is what has created sustainable sobriety for me. And sustainable sobriety doesn't just mean the absence of alcohol. It means the self-agency to decide what do I believe about this situation? Right, where I'm opening and taking off the blinders of all of the conditioning. Right, not just around alcohol, but of everything else in your life, because in a lot of ways, that's why you're drinking and that's why you're continuing to drink, because of the story about alcohol, but also because of the story of all of the other roles that you think you need to fill in your life and how you need to fill them, which put you in second place, right. And so this is about the spiritual element, is about making yourself a priority. So I hope you will join us, bring a sister friend the link to register is here in the show notes and I hope you enjoy this conversation about Inbook, what Inbook really is, which is this cross-quarter holy day between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, and why it's important, why these times are actually important, and I will see you live on Sunday. I'll talk to you soon. What we wanted to share today, to do this live, is creating those opportunities right To live in the both and or to at least presence, the fact that we do have to live in both of these worlds, that we're like using our logical mind to plan and Can you hear me? Yeah, so that we're using our logical mind to plan and evaluate and all of these things, but then at the same time, it can kind of take us away from the present moment, from that living in the body, which is why I think which is what is so beautiful about astrology, because it brings us right into the here and now and we can't escape. But it's always like the future moment is now and really paying attention to the phases of the moon and the wheel of the year as it shows up in our own cycles and rhythms.

Speaker 2:

So absolutely and it's not going anywhere right, like it's going to be increasingly more part of our relationship with life. I feel like, with Pluto in Aquarius, it's learning about how to be in a proper path. Power relationship I mean, it's always about power with Pluto, but we're not giving our power to it. We're also not having power over it too. If you think about it that way, the way we interact with AI or with technology, it's like we're teaching it how to interact with others or with us. There's all of these really interesting theories about it being kind of like the collective unconscious and it's like what are we reflecting back to it? So I know for me I sometimes will make little AI generated images on Canva and I'm like please do this and thank you, or I'm on chat with ET and I talk to it like it's a person and I actually do notice that it gives me better results when I do that, I love that.

Speaker 1:

I love that. Well, yeah, and I think even us getting on this live today, we were kind of laughing about the technology and this need to know and that there's kind of this gap sometimes in this learning curve that I mean for everyone. Right, it's like constantly changing. It can be kind of frustrating because it's like we can learn it, but it's beyond the nature of who we are, and so it's kind of being in that both and of accepting the nature of who we are and understanding kind of this cultural overlay that we get to engage in and what is the story that we want to tell about it and ourself in relationship to it?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. And I think the number one most important thing, and why our work and how our work overlays, is just being in alignment with natural cycles and rhythms. Like those things change, no matter what's invented, no matter what's the new trend, the new idea, even if, say, you're trying to eat differently or dress differently, it's like no matter what, there's nature, there's natural law, there's cyclical rhythms. We can all get behind that. I think just putting it to the front of the conversation is just reminding us. You know, this is the wheel of the year. We're going to come back to the same places time and time again, like I was just reflecting this morning on Christmas time, just you know, a month ago, and how different it felt and how accustomed my body is to like a certain wave and experience around that time of year, and then the shift from then to now, like there's always a really dramatic change that happens between then and now. Do you feel?

Speaker 1:

that, oh, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

What is it like?

Speaker 1:

for you. Yeah Well, I think there's a lot of this external focus right On, you know like kind of the commercial part of it and gathering and sometimes these you know cultural obligations, and as I've grown and really started to live more into and live life through more of an embodied experience and in the nature of cycles and rhythms, I've had to really take a step back from some of this. Doesn't really feel that great to me and so wanting to be more in communion with the solstice during that time, with the kind of energy of renewal and you know even the Gregorian calendar, new year, I think that there is a collective energy of renewal. So there there feels like a little bit of a push pull sometimes but coming. It's an opportunity for me to always come back to my truth. But astrologically I know a lot has shifted and I definitely just feel like I have a lot more clarity right now. I have a lot more clarity about the. What's really come up for me as of just like recently is like oh, that was my intuition that I wasn't listening to.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Thing. I think probably that's can resonate the process right. It's like understanding fear versus intuition and, like we can. Our minds are like the lawyer. We can argue for or against. Our best interest, like really just depends on what we're used to arguing for.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's so interesting and I think when things get muddied and you know this might be a time to like tell everyone who's here and listening. What we're doing here is we are hosting a gathering, a circle ceremony, on for in bulk on Sunday, this coming Sunday, february 4th, at 10 am Pacific time, and I what what really the invitation and intention for me is and I think we share this intention is to really create a space and an opportunity for us to step into that embodied experience of being in right relation with cycles and rhythms, because there is so much going on that is taking us away from that, that it gets muddied and we get into this expression of. Is this my intuition? Is this fear like what? What is this all about? And and really an opportunity to ground, like you were saying even before this call, like let's ground our bodies into the present moment, right, like the idea of mindset and mindfulness, and then see, okay, what is the story We've been telling ourselves, what's the story that we want to tell, and then, even more so specifically in relationship to what's happening in this, this specific time of year, right, as the wheel changes and we're we're shifting into more and more light here, and you know that in the northern hemisphere. So for me there's just been more as the light has gradually come there. I just had more and more clarity about some of those, like those seeds that were planted, you know, kind of during the fall time and the early winter, and Just more and more clarity about the resourcing that I'm needing. That doesn't always, isn't always in alignment with, like, you know, that logical part of like what I want to what I'm seeing out in the world or what I want to do out in the world. Right, I'm just like having to turn, tune back, turn inward, and so that's what the celebration is really about is an opportunity for us to gather in sacred ceremony, for everyone to turn inward, but also have that same the reflection of the collective and the energy of, you know, the planets as well.

Speaker 2:

Of course, I really love tuning into the wheel of the year and comparing it to what we already know about the moon cycle. Yeah, so who can think of the winter solstice, especially in the Northern hemisphere, where it's the extreme of darkness. That's like the new moon. And if we tune into what a new moon is, it's that complete darkness where the light of our consciousness, of our awareness of information is less accessible. Like we're actually wiping it away. We're coming into a clean slate a little bit so that we can create that fertile ground to allow something new to come in, to be seated. I know a lot of people have contentions over like when does the true year start? Is it at the solstice or is that at the Aries equinox? And I'm kind of neutral about it. I don't really feel like that's a really important argument. I feel like it's more just tuning into like you can decide that the cycle begins when you want it to begin, but you're just having awareness of well, the cycle is going to keep happening. Yeah, and as long as you know how you feel and how it serves you to relate with that part of the cycle, then you'll be able to benefit and create your life around that Like. So for me, I kind of treat this the winter solstice, the Capricorn solstice similar to how I would treat a new moon. I'm not going in forcing intentions. I'm really actually trying to extricate and take away and like less is more, like I'm trying to actually clear out my space, which is so interesting, like in our inverted world. It's like the opposite. We're like accumulating so many things Right, typically around that time, whereas for me I'm like, really it's like with my daughter. I'm like you don't get to have any new presents unless we, you know, donate these, or like if some things to your cousins, or like we need to redistribute these items and resources, or else it's just, you know, hoarder. I saw the funniest thing like a meme of, like a mom making her kids watch the show hoarders.

Speaker 1:

Oh my God, because they wouldn't clean their room.

Speaker 2:

That's a really funny parenting hack, but it's kind of like that, you know, with the solstice, new moon. So if we liken the rest of the wheel of the year to the moon cycle, well, the opposite solstice, the cancer solstice, summer solstice, is like the full moon, so we have the stream of light. And right now where we are, well, actually, let's go backwards, so the areas equinox is like the first quarter moon and then the liberate equinox is like the last quarter moon. So where we are right now, where we're approaching with in bulk, is like a crescent moon. So you see that beautiful little sliver of light. And this part of the cycle is associated with hope. We start to have new information and we're still riding on faith. We're riding on the faith that we've been cultivating, we're riding on the inner resourcing. So so much of this time is actually just tuning into just the tiniest little spark, the tiniest little flicker of that inner flame to really help us. You know, last the coming six weeks of the winter, if you're in a place where winter is really extreme, but even you know, it's like as above, so below, as within, so without, it's like maybe in yourself and your own decision making, your own process, wherever you are, you only have a little sliver of light in terms of like consciousness right now about the situations Like so there's more happening for you in the unconscious realms that you don't even actually know about yet and they have to play out more instinctively, intuitively, rather than this like logical control, like we can plan everything right now. It's more, I think, tuning into the inner resources that are available right now and then you know where do we have choice, where do we have power. And remember, you know the cycle is going to keep going. We don't have to like have everything clear right in this moment. It kind of leaves a little bit of space open for the mystery to evolve and unravel.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, yeah, the surrender. I love likening the wheel of the year to the phases of the moon as well as, obviously, that you know the archetypal energy that comes in. I think it's just such a beautiful, kind of easy way to look at it and, of course, yeah, jump in, jump into your new year when it feels like new year to you, right, like it's never ending, it's a circle, it's not a line, and so we get to kind of decide when it works for us. But I do think that the energies right of the environment really can support that as well. Yeah, and Tina here says hope is a beautiful way to describe in bulk, which is, you know, and the way that I really like to think about in bulk, because February 1st is also a celebration day for the St Bridget, or you know, the triple flamed goddess, bridget, and she is the goddess of fertility and she is the triple flame goddess of, like the maiden, the mother and the crown, but the way I always really have tuned into Bridget as the keeper of the hearth and the midwife, and that there's this tending to the fire that has to be done in order to support the birthing right, and so there's this opportunity for kind of resourcing and I think, with that crescent moon energy, you're getting more of a glimpse and I know I've been seeing this in my life You're getting more of a glimpse of like that embodied what do I really need? And then deciding to give yourself permission to take it. And so I just wanted to share a quick little story because it's very fitting. Anna and I have been planning a reconnection women's retreat in Mexico for the last six months and we made this decision to start this retreat, which will be nine months. So it was like kind of this whole birthing gestation period and it was like the seed was planted and you could probably speak more of the astrology of what it happened. But it was like the seed was planted and the idea was there and then we just kind of have like put the energy into the idea right, and now, as there's like a little bit more of the details coming around, I'm really feeling this embodied energy of for myself, of what is really needed for me to fully birth this experience in a way that feels very grounded and very nourishing and healthy, like to have a healthy baby, and some people may or may not know that are here, but, like my family and I decided to start to live full time on the road in the early December. We had renovated a camper and we took ourselves out on the road with kind of like not this idea in mind of what the resources I was going to personally need for myself and I was feeling, during that winter time and like the mercury retrograde of the holiday season, that a lot of resistance, but I didn't know. I was in a lot of confusion, it wasn't clear to me, and since the shift this shift has happened and we've even had, you know, a first full moon happen of the new year and like we're in our first moon cycle here is just this more embodied clarity about the resources that we have, the resources that I really need to execute the vision, to hold the space for the vision and Nur and I have been talking about, like the value of the vision for myself and really midwife myself and really be the midwife of this experience for myself. So then then I can be the mother right, because we hold all of these archetypal energies inside of us, and that means really trusting in the vision to that I had, that we had, you know, however, many months ago that, like yes, that vision was in alignment with what we want. And how do we curate and cultivate the space and what and what do we need for that? And for me, I need some stability. Moving around on four wheels is not really supporting, is not the? Is not the midwifery experience that I know is going to have birth and usher this experience out into the world. So and it could just be an inquiry for anyone that's listening to this is you know what is that for you? And I think that was like the shift in the transformation that you that you know is happening in this new year and where some, where maybe you're not taking advantage of your resources or thinking like you don't have a choice, and I think that was what was showing up for me. It was like, oh, I have to make this work and I wasn't really looking at what are my resources and what are the choices that I actually do have, because nothing's permanent. We can always decide to shift course at any moment and what do I need to support myself during that transformation. So really, the circle that we're offering is going to be, you know, for everyone to kind of dive a little bit deeper, I think, into what that is for them now and to be around other people that are interested in exploring these, these shifts inside of themselves.

Speaker 2:

I love that. Thanks for sharing all of that, mary, I do. I feel like there's so many of those kind of opportunities, especially right now with the North, not in areas because it's like I have a new desire, like I want to make a change, I want to try something new. If you, listening, have strong areas, you will already know it's not about follow through, like sometimes those ideas need to be the spark, but you need other elements, like resources, to create the follow through. We can't write on the idea alone, right. Sometimes we get new information, right, and that's a big part of, I think, what we're all learning collectively. We're all doing this together and there's so we combine that north, north and areas is like there's something new coming in. And then there's the Pluto and Aquarius, like the whole collective is changing the way we relate with each other on the collective stages, completely shifting and you put those together, those. That's like a beautiful cosmic opportunity for chaos in certain you know, certain circumstances, but also really for us it's for finding greater freedom, but realizing well what is required for sustainable freedom or what is required for me in what I is that I'm wanting to create right now. I think that'll be a really big focus for our in bulk circle, and which I'm really excited about.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, me too, and I think that that even the idea of the, you know there's like these ideas that we have that sometimes aren't it's, you know, it's not the right time, and I think that there's a surrender, there's like a surrender and the surrendering right, it's like for me in this experience, it's like I was surrendering, like, you know, my home and and what that idea, what those cons with that concept was, and you know it's like okay, well, maybe my idea and my expectations of what this experience was like for me right now is doesn't feel like as much freedom as I thought it was going to be. And you know, and there's like the, the ego that gets in the way of all of these types of things. And I just think, with astrology and with the wheel of the year and and, as a woman, tuning into my own intuition, there's that's the opportunity to be able to just like never, there's never a wasted moment, right, it's always learning about myself and and learning how to trust myself even even more and letting it all be for us, right, like how is this for me? And and the growth and you know, I'm just, I am feeling into that collective energy and I know the need to be with like, like minded people and just be supporting other people who are having visions, to create and connect. Is is so awesome, and you had said something to me when we were, when we were working together, about how you know there's just some things that we're meant to learn alone, right like that we're meant to learn with other people, and I really think that if, if there's too much resistance to that and we see that in the social media world, we're all separate behind our own screens, that we're going to miss. I think there's an opportunity that we miss out on of like how deep, how much deeper we can go when we, when we learn with the other or in relationship to the other.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. I mean one of the best ways to put Aries and Aquarius together it's like Aries is the personal individual, like this is my desire. I'm aware that I am, you know, I am a divine spark of creation, like I am amazing, you know, I hold my value, like there's work that the I needs to do and be an embody. But it's like the Aquarius is like the with, so I am with you, you know, like there's this combination putting them together. So it's not about, like everybody diminishing to find equality, it's actually about like let's honor all of the different I am's together. And so that's why I think it is so powerful to be in circle, because even the politics if that's the right word of a circle, it's like that there's no hierarchy, everybody has equal vantage point, I mean, kind of except for the people right next to you. But you're right, you're all around the circle, everybody can kind of hear. You know, it's not like, oh, I'm at the back of an audience and can't hear you. It's like there's equal attention and space held for each person in the circle. And so I feel like that is really a shape that can embody kind of the flame and the dispersion of air, energy that comes together with areas in Aquarius. It's like okay, well, what's the vessel like, what's the container? You need a container for this or else it's just like willy-nilly wild chaotic energy just going all over the place. Right, what air and fire are they're not grounded. Yeah, yeah, absolutely Like we get to bring in the earth and we get to bring in the water and we get to make it whole and complete for ourselves. And I think you spoke into something so beautiful, mary. It's like nothing is ever like a waste. It's sometimes, I think, especially with areas, energy is like we need to get started on something, just to get into momentum, to get into our flow state, to then like be able to even see the next. yes, you know if we're just like sitting, like waiting for this perfect idea or this perfect expression or this perfect plan and we don't start taking action and we might not ever get to that vista where we now see, oh, that's what I really wanted. I needed to just like muster up the courage to walk up this little hill so that we see that over there, which is what I really want. So I think there's this bravery that we're all cultivating to in that, like the whole self trust piece. So I feel like this, this impulse time is really going to help us ground that because we're going to have Pluto and Aquarius Sun in Aquarius, we have the North note in Aries. The day that we're going to be meeting, the moon will be in Sagittarius, so the energy of freedom is really in the air and they feel like even right now, like so you might. You might have already signed up, but if you haven't signed up, you can join for free. You can find all the information on my website at nora-rachellecom and you'll see it in the top link, involc Circle. So you can just click there and join for free and then we'll be. We'll be meeting live on Sunday on the actual astrological Involc, which is when the sun is at 15 degrees Aquarius, and so we'll be opening up in Circle, doing some sharing and talking a little bit more about the nature of this time. And do you want to add anything, mary?

Speaker 1:

No, I'm just so excited to be here and I just as you were saying about, like the Circle being the Earth energy, it is, and it is the keeper. It is itself the keeper of the flame, right Like it is the hearth, and so it wouldn't be the same without you there. So we're really excited to have you and it's always just fun to gather live, especially for these celebratory days, to just honor our cycles as humans, because we can't get further away from that, just to remember who we are Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, all you have to do is go up.

Speaker 1:

All you have to do is then be chill up, yeah, and bring us, bring us sister friends, like totally all are welcome. So, nira, thank you for having me here.

Speaker 2:

Of course.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thanks for joining us Glad it worked out.

Speaker 2:

It's a pleasure. I've been really loving all of our collaborations.

Speaker 1:

Yes, awesome, and we will see everyone on Sunday. I hope to see you soon. Hey, my beautiful listener. So the number one secret to sustainable sobriety is not winging it. You need a system that will give you consistent and predictable results. So, even if you do have a drink, you are always moving towards making alcohol unimportant in your life, not stopping and starting. And that's where the stop drinking and start living program comes in. It's your opportunity to know what's working, what's not working and what you need to do differently so that you can get out of the moderation and deprivation trap. To become a lifetime member of the program, all you need to do is follow the link right here in the show notes or visit my website, marywagstaffcoachcom. And, as a special thanks for being part of our show, enter the word podcast at checkout to receive an additional 10% off. I am so excited for you to explore the endless possibilities beyond alcohol. I will see you on the inside.