Stop Drinking and Start Living

Paths to Empowerment : Celebrating 4 Years Of The Podcast!

• Mary Wagstaff

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In honor of four years of the podcast, I unveil a new  online sanctuary for women who are sober, sober-curious, or in the midst of awakening, you're warmly welcomed to join a community where growth transcends traditional recovery paths!

This episode not only commemorates our devotional leadership movement for women in sobriety but also extends an invitation to explore my private coaching program designed for sustainable life changes. 

There is a necessary sacred pauses that is required for fulfillment in our lives, and the liberating embrace of intuition over the clamor of fear-based narratives. Consider your own story and the milestones you've gathered along the way. It's a celebration of the power in showing up—for ourselves and each other—in pursuit of a life resonant with our deepest values.

For those ready to align more deeply with their spiritual journey, schedule a private discovery call with Mary.

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. Come back to the show, my beautiful listeners. What is going on? Oh my gosh, if not now, when? When do we get to stop and take in the pleasure of the hard work that we do every day? I have been going like really kind of crazy nonstop for the last six months since we moved from our mountain house in Oregon and Mount Hood and it's I'm enjoying my life, but there really does need to be a sacred pause it's. It's like I could chase one thing after the next. And what's so interesting I'm just going to jump right into it is that you know most of the extracurricular things that I'm doing. I'm writing a book, I've talked to you guys about DJ school. It sounds exhausting and it kind of is. I'm not doing any of these things because I feel like I need to. They all just kind of happened at once and I didn't take the time to really ask myself if I was going to have the time in the space, especially, you know, when we were jump, when we were on the road traveling. So my invitation for this show is a couple of things. It's to I talk about this all the time. It's to stop at the vista Because, guess what? We are celebrating, and if you've been here with me since the beginning, I love you, and if you're new, I love you. We are celebrating four freaking years of the podcast. Four years, four years of me talking to you and you showing up. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. 278 episodes of me talking out of my ass. No, I'm just joking, but you know, like find, like what? What does that mean? I didn't even, I didn't even know, like I didn't even know until I decided to start going on Facebook more, because I do think that there is a little bit of a softer way to connect with people than on Instagram and something about Facebook actually just feels better, which is interesting. So I know a lot of people have issues with Facebook, but it popped up in my feed episode two four years ago that I had shared. I'm like, oh my gosh, mary, here I am thinking about rebranding the show. It's not working. I want more listeners, like all of the things that aren't working. Right, that the human brain does, and I just didn't even stop to reflect on what does it mean? That I, you know, regardless. You know, I'm not always like this was the best show ever, right I you know, like sometimes I have to get episodes out and I get them out and I talk. Sometimes I think that was a freaking home run. Right, like it's. It's consistent in the fact that I'm showing up and I do this is my sacred service to the world. That is why I don't offer ads except for myself, why I haven't monetized the show, why I don't bring other like people on the show that aren't part of our community. Right, like I really want this to be about our community and people that I know firsthand that are going to have an impact like that I've actually worked with because I can go find a million people to bring on this show, but I just don't think that it would have the same impact as me reiterating the five shifts process, the journey of awakening, going beyond alcohol, a sacred remembrance right. I really want to drive this home and I really want the message to stay consistent and you know there's enough people out there that talk about the, the negative impact of alcohol, how more women are dying from alcohol than they have ever have right, or the increase in that. I'm like A. Why do we want any more like fear based media in our in our faces? Because I trust how intelligent and in tune my audience already is. Everyone knows the impact of alcohol. If you have ever been hung over, you know alcohol is not good for you. Now to what extent? And frankly, I don't like having this predetermined information. This is a little soapbox. When there's like these statistics, or even you know there's like this breast cancer gene you can get tested for, why do I want to have that in my field? Why do I want to break. There's already so much fear around cancer and even breast cancer awareness, right Like. Yes, I do think that being proactive with these types of things is really important, but this is what I'm teaching is to how to be in tune with your body and connected with your body enough that you know your natural cycles and rhythms and being confident enough that you can process and handle anything. You don't need to be bombarded with fear based media and whatever form it shows up as to create change and in fact, it actually does the opposite. It takes you further away from your experience, further away from your body, because you don't want to be in that space. What you need is to stay closer to your body, your cycles and rhythms, your intuition, to be empowered, to know, to see yourself thinking thoughts that are no longer useful, and how do you want to redefine them. So this is like another little soapbox. Matthew and I have been thinking about purchasing another house and deciding on where we want to live, and we're currently in Hood River, oregon, which is about an hour outside of Portland. It's a lovely, lovely, lovely place, but it is blown up right the Columbia River Gorge, which is like a magical sanctuary. I mean, the Pacific Northwest is truly a wonderland. I love it here so much, but it's blown up and what means there's a low, there's pretty low inventory and the prices are, you know, probably like double where they were four years ago for rentals, for housing, and I've caught myself saying things like expensive and I really stopped using that. What I meant, what I changed that to, was this is more than we want to spend or this, you know, this is at the kind of the top of our price range. This is more than we want to spend because we, we, we have an idea of how we want to invest our money and the kind of environment that we want to create and what we want to use our property for, which is potentially another business and so we're considering like that that's probably not here for what we would like to spend, right? So, thinking about the language that you use because expensive is subjective what does that even mean? Right? I have to talk about this with people all of the time. Our knee jerk reaction to money and to time is scarcity. Our knee jerk reaction for most people is scarcity. When you start investing in yourself in a new way and you start to really look at. You know that that money really is like a number on on a screen and and and you and you have a mindset that it's not finite Possibilities start to shift for you right, like you can work more to make more money and or you can create an opportunity for yourself Like there's. There's a lot of possibilities out there. Matthew and I were just talking about you know capitalism and gets a really, really bad rap and there's a lot of ways that are. Obviously our institutions are structured that they're that are unfair, but it is the only, it is the only institution where you can have an infinite number of self-made like millionaires. Essentially there's there. Anyone right now could go out and create a business and make a lot of money. That is available with the online world that that we live in, and it takes a lot of work. That's I think that's the biggest problem is it takes a lot of work and it does take information and an education. I'm not there yet, but I know what I've been able to do with consistency and a and a and a mindset of possibility right that I definitely couldn't have done before I quit drinking and I see you know a lot. I recognize when people are, when we kind of used institutions as a way to not show up, and I don't think people know that on purpose Do that on purpose. But I do think that kind of blaming the system for what is possible for us is not the direction that you wanna go into, create possibility, right. So I could blame and I've talked about this before, I could blame the alcohol industry. I could blame politics for the laws that they haven't passed, or the mommy wine culture. It is a waste of my time and, frankly, it's a waste of your time too. Or you could go out and take control where you can and start to shift your beliefs, start to shift your mindset and learn about your body, start to live your life through your own body and through your own experience. And yes, there are many, many, many variations to all of this. Not everyone starts on a level playing field. I didn't. I grew up with a single mom. We had I ate free lunch and we had food stamps at one point. Right Like that's not on a level playing field. I don't have even. I have a father that I grew up with, but I don't know my biological dad. Right Like there's like all. I was first generation graduate from college. There's a lot of things that I could have used an excuse for, but I didn't, cause you know what I had? I had love, lots of it, and so that's like the first thing that I think holds us back. I had a connection to spirituality from a very young age. That was definitely my saving grace, and I had a mother who was extremely empowering, right, I saw her like kick ass and take names, even though she worked a minimum wage job while she went to school. She never thought I couldn't, right, she never thought that, and you know that was a great setup for me. But could I, you know, like there was all of these other things that I could have blamed for? Like, you know, I wasn't there. Like there was all of these other things that I could have blamed for? Like you know, I wasn't necessarily encouraged. I was encouraged to quit things if I didn't like them. Like I wasn't. You know, academics wasn't necessarily something that my parents sat down with me and, like we did our homework together, right? Like there's all of these things, there's always something we could look for. Or we can decide, like, how do I want to take personal responsibility for my own life now and go in the future, and the way to do that is first by celebrating how bad ass you are right now, and I don't care what you have or what you don't have. There is something about your life that A just showing up as a human, because sometimes it's impossible, right, it just feels impossible, like we have so much potential, but at the same time, like it's heartbreaking. Being a human is heartbreaking most of the time, but that's like this. We can't have this sweet without the sour, you know. So, showing up as a human, taking responsibility, where are you now that your parents were right? We always want our children to be doing better than we are. I hope Emmett excels and like crushes any awareness I have right and can be like, yeah, my mom didn't do this for me and of course he's going to. Like, of course we're gonna need to be in therapy about something, I'm sure, but I'm also willing to admit that now. What are you willing to admit now that you weren't before? And so what I really wanna offer you today is to stop and celebrate yourself. Don't move on. And then, from what is working, what are the things that you keep telling yourself you need in the future that are you think is an opportunity to be happier, you think is an opportunity to have something different that you do right now that maybe just the celebration and recognition of what you do have is enough to like bypass that right. And so for me, this is an example of rebranding the podcast I actually even took. I was in a program that was called the podcast igniter, which was really great and it was all about like rebranding and I would like a different cover art. Frankly, it's a little outdated. I don't really look like that as much anymore. I'd like to attract some new people but, like, do I need a new show title? Do I need anything really? Like, probably not, probably. What I need to do is just continue to tell people and invite my audience to leave a review and a rating and to share, share the power and how impactful this work has been on your life, right, like just to continue to invite you in. So what I did, instead of a rebranding, was I created an opportunity for us to connect, for us to connect as women, whether you're sober, whether you're curious or whether you're awakening to a new reality and I know people don't love necessarily being on social media, but it is the easiest place to create a forum for us to meet one another, and I don't know why I didn't do this four years ago, but I didn't. So what I have done is I have created a podcast discussion group, but it will be obviously more than the podcast. So, if you know, I have clients. We're gonna go beyond the podcast. So this is an online sanctuary for all women sober, curious and awakening to stop drinking and start living podcast discussion group. So I'm going to be hosting it. It is on Facebook. It is a group on Facebook, private group. You can invite your sister friends, and this is a space for all women who are naturally sober beyond alcohol sober, curious and awakening to a new reality to come together to share and support one another. Because I had that 40 day alcohol transformation challenge that everyone wanted more. Everyone wanted more connection with one another. So many people were really learning from each other. Things like I only have the thoughts that I have in my brain, and so the way people were presenting information was just so powerful. So I'm gonna offer live discussions that are based on the weekly podcast. There's no one in there right now, so by the time you're listening to this, there might be a few people. So come on over and join and I will be offering live discussions. So it'll be a really cool opportunity for us to connect and I'll be supporting as a moderator. But it's really an opportunity for people to share what is working and then also for me to help guide people into the perspective beyond the traditional way of going beyond alcohol and with more magic, with more devotion, and there could be an opportunity for people to connect in real life if we share where we're writing in from and to connect outside of the group. So this is about alcohol and spirituality and awakening together to remember the truth of who we are as women, beyond the confines of all the distortions of the systems and, like, there is the distortions that these systems have given us, but we can either use them to our advantage or just change the system, which is what I have done on the show. I have created a new opportunity for us to go beyond alcohol and it's working. I didn't need to shame the 12 steps. I don't need to shame people that talk about, like, the negative effects of alcohol. They're helping people in their own way and that's freaking awesome. However, people make it to where they need to. I always say this about yoga because there's can be some snobbery in the yoga world too. Right, it's like what I was saying about these other things, like that just didn't work for me and my people. But it obviously works for other people because it's happening right. Whether the success rate is good or not, that doesn't matter. If they're attracted to that, that's great. I shouldn't say snobbery because then that makes me like judge stuff. But I found yoga through my gym, through my local gym in upstate New York I found, and the guy that taught us was a yogi, like he was a we would have these like crazy two hour yoga classes. He was the real deal. That was the only place in town where he could teach, because there was no yoga studios and there probably wasn't enough people interested at the time to do yoga. Right, like this is 24 years ago so. But like, the science of yoga gets you to where you wanna go, no matter where you're practicing it right, Cause it in of itself is a science. It takes you from, it takes you through the layers, basically of the chakras, or like kind of on a hero's journey where you start with the physicality of who you are, on the most gross matter of the physical body and you start with the practice of the asana, the postures, and then, like, naturally, you just continue to go deeper and it helps you shift your perspectives and all of these things. So the circumstance doesn't necessarily matter. Now, if you know that there's you don't know there's other options like that's an issue, right, and that's kind of where, when I realized it was year four of the podcast, I was like holy crap, like I don't need to re-bred. Nothing's, everything's working with this show. Everything's working with the show. I just need to invite more people in and, yeah, I'm open to redirecting conversations with what people are looking for and being more diligent with the breakthroughs that my clients are having, cause I know that would help you more. So, taking more note of that, please come and join our discussion group. I cannot wait to meet you in there. You can send me a friend request and we, the discussion group is open and ready for you to come on in and as soon as I have some people in there, I am going to be in there sharing and talking. It's going to be really fun because there will be an opportunity, too, for me to offer more directed monthly live videos, live discussions where I can teach more, and I'm just going to put this out there by the end of 2024, my goal is to create a mastermind for a small group of women who are leaders and they are catalyst to creating the next version of themselves, to stepping into their next new self. Concept is going beyond alcohol, so I will take them on a journey beyond alcohol and then whatever else that that bigger goal they have is whether that's a new relationship, a new business, maybe a divorce, maybe there's a child, maybe there's also a weight loss journey attached to whatever that is, or a health journey, or you know, they're going through some sort of health crisis that we're gonna be in a mastermind of beyond alcohol, the beyond alcohol mastermind, and it's gonna be brilliant and it's gonna be so awesome to really connect the brilliant minds of the women you are Cause everyone that I've worked with and everyone that listens to this show is a natural leader and I really feel that. And there is a calling for more devotional leadership through the act of service, through the act of love and going beyond all of that stuff of kind of like whining about what's not working right and instead of just showing up and creating something new. That's my invitation to you, right, like there's a lot of broken shit out there and we know that. But is it worth our time to talk about it? I don't think so. I don't believe change happens in policy. I don't really believe change. I believe change is a grassroots thing and we have to show up in our homes first to make that change, be that change and then let it ripple out and you get to be the generational roadblock, essentially like to heal whatever came before for all of us, for all people right, for where there were I have been in justices. We get to change that, by the way. We first show up for ourselves, then our families and our communities until it ripples out, because I think putting other people in charge of our basic needs as women is not the direction. I actually know it's not. How does some? I just saw like Huberman and I shouldn't. I love Huberman, I shouldn't. I didn't even listen to the podcast, but I was like Huberman and some other dude talking about female hormones and I was like I don't really want to listen to that discussion between two dudes. I'm sure they have a lot of information, but what's the first hand impact, right? What's the first hand impact on birth control, people that have actually taken, women that have gone through menopause, that have taken hormones. We need to show up for ourselves. First and foremost, Share this episode with someone that you love. That is a badass woman. Join the discussion group and please leave a review and celebrate what, over the last four years, you have taken away from the podcast. That will crush us in the rankings so that we can create a bigger movement of devotional leadership of women going beyond alcohol and supporting one another, no matter where you are in your journey of remembrance. I love you so much. Have an amazing week. The bridge between where you are and where you want to go with alcohol is spiritual alignment. That is what makes my private coaching program so unique and effective. It meets the needs of all parts of you through a feminine lens, so that sobriety can become a sustainable part of your life, while alcohol becomes unimportant. Take your commitment to self to the next level by scheduling a private discovery call with me. Follow the link in the show notes to pick the best time that works for you and I will take care of the rest. I can't wait to connect with you in real life.