Stop Drinking and Start Living

Establishing Safety In Sobriety

• Mary Wagstaff

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Today's epidote is crucial for your success in sobriety and beyond. It is the starting point you must establish for all new endeavors: establishing a sense safety and authenticity.

  • Safety in the Known: Despite knowing alcohol isn't serving us, we often return to it because of the safety and familiarity it provides.
  • Establishing New Safety: To move beyond alcohol, we must unpack our self-concept around it and create a sense of safety from a place of neutrality.
  • The Need for Belonging: True belonging comes from being accepted for who we are, not from conforming to external expectations.
  • Authentic Expression: The journey towards authenticity involves questioning the conformity we've agreed to and building evidence for our authentic selves.
  • Empowerment Through Safety: Establishing safety within ourselves allows for empowerment and confidence, enabling us to navigate life's challenges without relying on alcohol.

Share your experiences and tag me on IG @marywagstaffcoaching responding to others about your drinking. Your feedback is invaluable and can help others on their journey. Together, let's create a world where all women can confidently say, "I've got this."

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! 
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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 outgrowing 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. 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. You're here, it's a beautiful day and, yeah, congratulations on making it back.

Speaker 1:

So I'm curious how did it go last week? Did you have to respond to anyone about your drinking? I want to know. Leave it in the review, send me a message. I would absolutely love to know. You can share it in your stories and tag me. You can leave it in a comment on my Instagram. Let me know how these tools are working for you to respond to other people about your drinking.

Speaker 1:

The other thing is you may have just had a different perspective altogether. That was like I'm a woman that quote I gave at the end, I'm a woman and I don't need to explain my emotions. I mean, that's kind of how I feel about all of it Like we're grown, we're adults, we're grown women. We don't need to explain anything to anyone, even ourselves, and that's the best part. So today is very important. Today's episode is very, very important.

Speaker 1:

So I want you to listen close and I want you to understand that this is the foundation for the reason that you keep going back to alcohol, even though you're done, even though you know it's not serving you. You ask yourself the question all the time why do I keep doing the thing that I say I don't want to do? The reason that you keep going back is because of safety familiarity, even though, logically, we know the impact of the safety impact and all of the things, it doesn't matter. There is a familiarity and a comfort in the known versus the unknown versus the uncertain right. You know what you're getting with alcohol, even to your detriment, and this is the way that we have protected ourselves for centuries, right, as we stay with what's familiar. And if you're here, you haven't died yet, right? So I mean, these are just like the facts. It sounds a little grim, but it's true, and that's why sometimes it takes people that rock bottom moment of actually like facing death to make a change, and then sometimes that doesn't even work.

Speaker 1:

But when it comes to alcohol, when it comes to anything that is a sense of identity, and then there's the addictive nature of the chemical you really have to unpack your self-concept around alcohol and create and establish a new sense of safety. So, safety, establishing a new sense of safety, while you're doing this, while you're in this curiosity journey, this awakening beyond alcohol, is the number one thing, and that's what the five shifts process are all about. That I teach in the Awakened Sober Living program. So that is really where you want to go to understand. Okay, how do I establish this sense of safety from a place of neutrality? If you go into it with all of these really explosive emotions and you take action from urgency, then you're going to burn out. You're going to be like I'm doing this all alone and you're not going to tap into that connectedness that you out. You're going to be like I'm doing this all alone and you're not going to tap into that connectedness that you feel. So you have to go through the stages of the five shifts and that's why they work is really first establishing this level of awareness of the need to belong, and the need not only to just belong like hey, you're accepted, but the need to belong through the state of authenticity. And I've shared a little bit about this from a psychological perspective and I heard the psychologist Gabor Mate talk about this, but you can look it up and find it anywhere the idea of the need for belonging, right.

Speaker 1:

Well, when we're young, the need for belonging is important and critical to our basic needs getting met. Unfortunately, and even in other societal structures and institutions, we have to conform to belong, form to belong. So the true essence of belonging is being accepted for who we are by ourselves and that we as individuals and authentic, our full authentic expression, actually like, has a purpose and is seen and is valued and is appreciated, right. But when we have to shift and morph into a way that someone else deems acceptable in order for us to belong, we lose that sense of self. So the real essence of the need to belong is really through authenticity. But if we're not in our authentic expression, then that belonging, even in and of itself, is never really a safe place, but it's kind of the only thing we know.

Speaker 1:

Then we journey into adulthood and if you're here, you're catching my vibe right, like you're connecting to life in a new way. You're kind of seeing through the shadows, like the illusions are starting to dissipate and you're like, wow, maybe like all the stories and the indoctrination that I had, maybe there's another option. Maybe it's all not true, maybe it's subjective, maybe I get to just choose what I want to believe, right, which is true. Not only that, but you see that there's something that feels missing, there's something that's falling short. There's like I'm here but I'm not fully here. There's something missing. And so it's like this need for this authentic expression.

Speaker 1:

This happens a lot through life changes, whether it's like leaving a marriage or kids leaving, you know, or just kind of entering a new pivotal phase of your own evolution, where it's like okay, I've figured out how to survive, I've figured that piece of it out, now what? It's kind of like that now what question? And you know we've been sold and marketed to that. It's like now it's party time and you're like, oh, that's not cutting it either. It's really shallow and hollow and I'm not making the connections and I'm not moving forward in my career and I'm not learning new things and I feel like crap and my health and the sleep and all this stuff right. So it happens at some pivotal moment, that's kind of a rite of passage moment, where this need for authenticity kind of rears its head and that kind of comes out roaring.

Speaker 1:

But you're not necessarily like sure who that is. You might have this question like who am I? I don't even know what I like right, and that's why the exploration is so important and why it's not just good enough to just ask the question who am I? We have to actually answer it and that's what coaching is all about. I ask you the question who are you? Tell me what you're about and then you answer it and we actually go through it. And you know you might think like if I knew the answer I would have figured it out. But that's not true, because we always can figure out answers for the questions that we have, even if we're like guessing, you know, because if you ask yourself, well, if I had to guess, what would I say? And then you get to just like, let your brain, you stretch your brain a little bit.

Speaker 1:

So the cool thing now is, even if you're relying on someone like, even if you have intermingled resources right, like, say, you share resources with someone, like financial resources, and you feel like you need to still conform to a certain sense of belonging for your basic needs to be met, you still get to get curious about your authenticity, right? You may think you may have a story or some objection that like oh my God, if I have my authentic self, it won't work right. Like I have, I can't be this person in front, or I won't be accepted. Or even, you know, if I don't drink like I'm like, all of these things are going to happen. This is what I tell my clients all the time, and sometimes they don't like it, but it's.

Speaker 1:

The truth is, you're not a fortune teller. You cannot predict the future. No one can. And I don't care if you got the same result a million times, that millionth and one time you might get a different result. And you get a different result. When you show up differently, when your emotions and your thinking fuels your behavior, you will impact a situation differently and you'll get a different result, also, not because of what other people are doing, but because of the way that you're interpreting it and how you're responding. That's how you get a different result, right? So it doesn't matter if someone rejects you, because you are going to learn and have a brand new perspective and a new mindset about the thing.

Speaker 1:

So establishing a sense of safety in yourself is the journey of reclamation. You have to allow yourself to be who you are in this moment, with this identity around alcohol and the way you've identified as a mother or a lover or whatever, and all the stories that you have about your relationships and in your work and the people that you're with and how they're going to respond. You have to like be in that and you have to accept it. And you have to put it all out on the table, right, and that establishes a pretty good sense of safety right there. It's like, hey, let's just look at this from a neutral place and that's the brilliant genius of coaching, right? It's just like we get to put it all out on the table, and it's also the first step in the five shifts so that you can do this with yourself. But you just actually have to do it Like it doesn't happen when you just think about it. So you put it all out there.

Speaker 1:

This is who, this is how I be now, in this moment. Right, and you have to start asking some questions to find out what is my authentic expression? Right, how have I thought I needed to conform, to belong, and is that true? And then you start to test it. You start to test it in ways that feel not super threatening to yourself, to your survival. You're not going to all of a sudden I don't even know start. I keep just thinking of some really weird examples. But you know, you're not going to all of a sudden like decide that you want some sort of different relationship with your partner when you guys have agreed on monogamy, right. You're not going to be like I'm going to this is like polyamory, right, and like this is my authentic expression because that's going to be a pretty big threat, like that's something that you would have to like, work up to and have conversation about.

Speaker 1:

I don't know why. That's the thought that it came to my mind, but you might start going and meeting new people outside of your marriage, right, like you might just start to make new friends when it was only like you were ever making friends and connecting with friend groups inside of your marriage. So you might just start there and be like, oh, if I go join this class or go to this meetup group, what's that like? Or if I go out with this colleague, you know like what does it feel like to do something different, that's more me, and see how I show up when this person isn't around, right? But you have to understand the conformity that you have kind of unintentionally or intentionally agreed to, and some of it right away you may be like, oh, like, of course I can say no to my dad because he loves me and he doesn't actually care, right? So you start to see where, like even your own repeat of the story of conformity that you can only be this one way around these people is already not true. Like you actually already have evidence in your life.

Speaker 1:

So you start to evaluate the story of conformity and you then start to build little bits of evidence into your authenticity by disproving the conformity. So here's the trick is that you actually have to want to disprove it. If you fight for why it's not going to work, if you fight for the evidence that this is how they're always going to be and I have no choice you should just stop right now. Right, you have to want to disprove it. You have to want to disprove the beliefs that you have that aren't supporting you to believe something different, and this will get you a long way with alcohol. It'll get you a long way into shifting from the need to belong to the need to be authentic and allowing and then seeing that you can belong, that you do belong and that you have great value that people need. And if you and I were coaching together, we would find out all of those reasons that you already create value and that you have a purpose and you know the groups that you're in.

Speaker 1:

But you self-resource right. You learn how to comfort yourself through compassion, through validation, through a really beautiful sense of just seeing yourself, of just seeing that. Wow, I'm really scared right now. This doesn't feel good, but I'm going to sit here and I'm going to be with you through it. And I just got off a call where I encouraged this person who was like kind of buffering, not with alcohol, but buffering in the story, right, like wanting to find out all this information, because the thing is is like we like when we gossip and we find out all these things about other people, there's a dopamine response, right? Instead of going in to find out, well, what do I need? To be more secure in this in this moment for myself? Um, I'm going to go again, look outside of myself.

Speaker 1:

So it's from that place of curiosity, it's like, wow, what if I sit, what if I am with myself, even when it seems scary, even when I think that I'm all alone and no one in the whole world gets it. And that is really where I would invite you to take yourself. I want you myself, everyone listening, all my clients. I want them to feel so good about not like the energy of like I don't need anyone, I can do it by myself, because we do, because community is fun and it's fun to co-create and collaborate, but that you just feel solid with your own inner resourcing and your ability to be resourceful, that you've got it. It literally doesn't matter.

Speaker 1:

And I find myself, when I have these knee-jerk reactions I see them then in my relationship where I don't feel like there's this sense of belonging right. Somehow I'm by expressing my authentic self, maybe I feel like I don't belong and I see that inner child that you know, wounded inner child, like react to what Matthew should or shouldn't be doing or how what he does is going to impact me. And then there's this whole story and I don't give myself enough time to first ask what do I need? What do I need to know about this situation first, before I tell him how he should be or like why I don't think that's a good idea. Then he goes paragliding and you're up in like four months from now. This happened, so he was. I'll just tell you the story because it's pretty funny.

Speaker 1:

So I got back from the Mexico retreat, literally within like 24 hours he left to go to do this advanced certification for paragliding in California for two weeks. It was actually amazing. I thought I was it was going to be way worse, like we really didn't see each other for a month and I kind of loved it and I don't think this says anything about us. We're doing great. We had this beautiful date last night and, um, it was actually really great to come back and integrate with just Emmett and I and without him here, and it was like a big moment for both of us in our lives where we both accomplished something really impactful and powerful.

Speaker 1:

So he called me up like right before he was coming back and he's like, oh, my teacher is doing this like a month long paragliding trip in I don't know, like Czech Republic or something in October. And I'm like immediately I was like wait, we don't really have a place to live still, like we're going to be moving. And you know, I was like I don't think that you know, meanwhile he does literally tell me to do all the things I want to do. But I immediately had this sense of insecurity, of like my sense of safety was being compromised. And so, you know, there was like a trigger moment for both of us. He's like I only support you for your whims.

Speaker 1:

And I got off the phone and I sat with myself and I had wished I didn't really say anything and I was like you know what? Of course you can go, go, I've got this. I had all this evidence that I was just single, parenting by myself for two weeks. I have the resources, all the things and, of course, go If that's what you feel good about doing in that stage in our life. Like I've got this, I don't even care. Like I've got this, that is what I want you to come away with on the other side of alcohol, declaring this out into the world with smoke signals I've got this, I've got this, I've got.

Speaker 1:

So unpacking the need to belong, for the need to also have your authentic expression, is a really crucial step that will create a sense of safety for you. That's going to allow you to travel into the unknown of a life where alcohol isn't at center stage, a life where alcohol is irrelevant. You are just going to feel so confident and so resourced that you know how to have your own back. And you know how to have your own back even if you drink or even if things don't go the way that you are supposed to, and you know what your resources are, and that might even be calling on someone right, because you know who those are, what that is. But you have got to establish a sense of safety first, and that really is about embodiment, like conscious embodiment, and really choosing to create community through embodiment, and you can do that when you're numbing out. But it also creates empowerment, it also creates confidence, it really is self-fulfilling, it starts to build on itself.

Speaker 1:

And the first shift in the five shifts process is awareness. It's shifting from avoidance, of just not looking at it, to actually putting it all out on the table, to actually answering the questions, so putting out what are the questions that need to be answered. And it is all available to you, obviously with me through one-on-one coaching, but right now in the Awakened Sober Living program, and that is where you're going to start to be able to get a head start and end the confusion and actually get answers to some of the questions that you've been mulling around. So I could go on deeper and deeper about this conversation, but I just want you to understand that establishing a sense of safety first in your body and with yourself is critical for you to take that sober, curious journey. Because until you do that and until you have some evidence, you're always going to go back to the known, and that's why you keep going back to alcohol.

Speaker 1:

Share this episode with someone that you love. Share it with the world, because we need a world where all women and all beings, but where all women, can say I've got this, and then guess what? We get to show up to support each other from that confident, empowered place and there is nothing that we can't do. I'll see you next time. None of this would be possible without you.

Speaker 1:

I wanted to say thank you so much for being here and, as a special gift, I want to give you access to a masterclass that I created called fearless sobriety. It is going to walk you step-by-step through my five shifts process that is going to help you really gain a new perspective on an old habit, and once you sign up and you're registered, it'll take you only about 15 seconds and you'll be rated. It's on demand. You will receive a bonus guided meditation that's going to help you learn how to experience sensations in your body essentially from urges, from emotions without freaking out. It's going to help you learn to regulate your nervous system so that you can be in any situation, anywhere and feel grounded and feel safe. So head on over to my website, marywagstaffcoachcom. It'll prompt you to click the link for the free training and I will see you on the inside.