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Playing A Bigger Game : The Power Of Sisterhood with The Retreat Queens! Part 1 of 2

• Mary Wagstaff

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What would it take to believe, as long as you were being yourself, you couldn't do it wrong and that you belonged? This was the transformative power of our Woman's Retreat in Mexico.

In today's episode, we weave tales of feminine healing and the power of women's retreat and sacred sisterhood.  Our sanctuary of conversation opens its arms to the stories of strength and vulnerability, shared by the women, who have walked the path towards rekindling their inner light alongside us. 

Step into our circle and light a candle for your own self-discovery, as we recount the emotional revelations and the deep sense of belonging that blossoms when women support and understand one another.

The heart of our discussion begins with a grounding meditation, heartfelt connections, and the mantra "solutions for situations only," as we navigate the waters of personal reclamation. 

We explore the sacred space where saying yes to oneself fosters courage to face resistance, and the importance of collective integrity shines bright. Together, we affirm the journey of integrating profound experiences into our everyday lives, cherishing the small steps and daily rituals that cement our growth.

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:

I think we all have a little bit of feminine wounds in some way. You know whether that's, you know, a mother wound, and I think that that really bleeds into a lot of our relationships, even with ourself and our own femininity and our relationship to the divine feminine. I think I see that a lot in the world and all the women that I know I feel like I see that in all of us in some way or another. And that was a huge, huge part of what this did for me was, um healed a lot of that and um, yeah, I really really was um kind of blown away by how much, uh, I was able to to lean into that, um, that divine feminine and to just man it feels so turned on by all of it. I mean turned on in so many ways, right Like it just has brought a lot of light into my life.

Speaker 2:

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. Now I help powerful women just like you eliminate their desire to drink on their own terms.

Speaker 2:

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 are in for a treat. Welcome to our sacred sisterhood. I am literally beyond like my wildest imagination that this show is even taking place right now. I have with me how many special guests do? I have with me Eight special guests today, including my beautiful co-facilitator, neuro Rochelle, who you all know, and seven other of the beautiful women who said a sacred hell yes to joining us on our Reconnection retreat this April for the eclipse in Mexico, and I'm just welcoming you all here, welcoming you all into the circle of the community that is here, and what we're going to do to start our call today and to start this episode is we are going to ground in. Just like I would host a sister circle on Zoom or in person, we're going to have a short grounding to just come into the present moment and set our intention and so, if you're listening and it is safe for you, or if you want to press pause and come back to this, I would invite you to connect and co-weave this experience with us and come in, come into our circle and connect and ground in to this beautiful constellation and this beautiful mandala of sisterhood, because, like one of my teachers says, and I've said many times, you have belonged since the day you were born and we are warmly welcoming you in, and sisters who are here on this recording today or here live. I am welcoming you all and I'm just so thrilled and just so honored to have you all in my life. So thank you so much.

Speaker 2:

So, if you want to relax back in your seat, wherever you are, and if it feels safe, you can soften your eyes and you can start by finding your breath, breathing in through your nose and exhaling out through your mouth, and find a couple more rounds of breath where you can really slow down your breathing and focus your mind inward, on the body through the inhalation and then on the exhalation, intend to release any tension, any stress, any gripping, anything that came before this moment, any attachment to what's yet to come and arrive. In this now moment, this gift of the present that holds with it all potentiality, all possibility, let's take a moment to notice a part of the body that feels like it might be gripping or holding, and, with so much compassion and grace, see if you can ask it to just soften, a beautiful whisper of let go, I've got you. And there might be another breath that moves out through the mouth as you release a little bit more tension. And so, as is with tradition of our sister circle, we'll anchor the finite self of the body into the body of the earth by imagining a beautiful grounding cord starting from the. Anything that your imagination comes up with Could be a rod, could be a rope, roots, waterfall, a golden dragon tail, letting this grounding cord move from your tailbone or your root chakra, down through your home, through the place where you're seated, through down through the earth and the layers and layers of earth, all the way down to the core of the heart of the earth, of Gaia. Connecting with our earth, mother, divine mother, sending a hello, that trust of the abundance that is below our feet always, the waters that replenish of the nutrients that help fertilize the sacred fires, the wind of the breath, the new day.

Speaker 2:

We welcome all the elements in through this grounding cord, following that grounding cord from the center of the earth up back to your body and then letting that cord and that channel continue up through the center of the body, through the solar plexus, through the heart, through the throat, through the center of the head and the third eye, out through the crown of the head, as this beautiful beam of light now projects all the way up to the celestial realms, connecting in with the source of the infinite self the moon, the stars and the sun, all of the collective consciousness of creation pouring down through this beam of light, reminding you of your infinite wisdom, your intuition and your deep gnosis of self. The story beyond the story, the story beyond the story Following that beam of light and all of the luminescence that is pouring now in through the crown of your head down into the center of your heart, where the earth cord and the infinite cord meet, at the center of the heart of your altar, resting your awareness at this heart space, this altar of the heart, where we can give and receive reverence, guidance, gratitude and wisdom. Notice, if you can just sense the heartbeat for a couple of breaths, take a big breath into your heart and for a moment, imagine there is a beautiful, luminescent, golden light circling your entire body that is magnetizing all parts of you back to the center of your heart, to the center channel of your body, concentrating at this heart, this altar of the heart, and with an internal whisper Saying I call all parts of me now back home to the center of my body. I call all parts of me back home to the center of my being. I welcome you here now, back home to the center of my being. I welcome you here now and I release any energy that is no longer mine or serving myself or my lineage or the benevolence of the earth. I release any unwanted energy back to where it came and at this altar of the heart.

Speaker 2:

I'd love for you to ask one final question of the heart, and it's really important for you to hear yourself say it inside, dear heart, in this moment, right here, right now. What message do you have for me? What do I need to know? It might show up like a color or a word, or an image or a phrase. Just let it arrive, bubble up inside of you without reaching for it. It may be simple, it may be profound, whatever it is, trust that it's exactly what you need to hear right now. And then, just taking a moment to honor gratitude and reverence to the heart for its message and for its infinite wisdom, just take a moment to wiggle your toes and bring your hands together, rub your hands together.

Speaker 2:

It feels good to bring your hands over your eyes and open your eyes behind the darkness of the hands, to slowly let in light, if it feels good, you want to stretch the body and come back to our space.

Speaker 2:

So I'm going to light a candle for us today, for our time together and for the inner flame of all of us, all who are listening, all who are here and all of our sisters from the retreat that couldn't be here today. This candle, this flame, is for us, so we're going to go through and ask a few questions and we don't know what's going to really show up, but the intention is for these beautiful women to share with our podcast audience just what it means to say yes to themselves, just what it means to reconnect to self, to ignite their vision, to show up and remember the journey of reclamation, because there wasn't one sister on that retreat that wasn't there to reclaim something, and I just want to acknowledge all of you again for your courageousness and for how, your impeccability of you know, integrity of showing up to, with honor for the collective, with honor for yourself, that we really came away unscathed.

Speaker 2:

Nura and I and Callie and Sarah were saying solutions for situations only. There are no problems, and everyone really showed up for that to just like, yeah, we're here for it, we're going to move through whatever resistance shows up for because we know that. We know that's why we're here. So I'm actually going to start with Nura, if she doesn't mind. And what? The first question I would love to ask what did you think you were coming to the retreat for? Or what was your intention? And, of course, for Nura hosting, participating, you know, participating as the host but what was, what did you get? What was the? What did you come away with? That was like the gift. That wasn't really your intention, if that makes sense. I'm not. I wasn't sure exactly how to phrase this. It's like what did you think you were coming for, but what did you really with that? You didn't know you needed.

Speaker 4:

Going right in with the hard questions. So my intention was absolutely to be able to facilitate with my whole heart and also to expand my capacity to be with women for a week straight in an immersed experience, because I kind of live a pretty hermit-like lifestyle I work on the computer, I work from home, I have my family, I have my daughter and I have like monthly women's circles, but that's like it. It's like a few hours one Saturday a month and then I do some other things, but it's not very often that I'm in this space of immersion, and so that was really my intention was to just deep dive in and to not hold myself back or feel like I had to hold myself back, like. So I think it also does lead into. The other thing that I came away from that I didn't know was that it's actually really easy to be around a group of women. I don't have to try so hard. There was no sense of performativism, there was no sense of this is how I have to show up.

Speaker 4:

It was really just do what I do best and relate and ask questions, and I know this is something that you and I have spoken about, mary, in terms of like general socialization around, how we're not really taught certain things, and especially if you have a story with alcohol, like sometimes we will use that to try to be a buffer, to try to make relating easier. So I have a little bit of a history with that of like feeling like I needed a social buffer and not trusting myself to not be socially awkward, basically, and I really have been realizing that it's like, as long as I love myself, it's not awkward, like it's not weird, like as long as I'm cool with it, everybody else can kind of decide if they want to continue or not. So it was really, I think, an experiment in staying open and trusting. Snap, do I get to call on somebody? Okay, I'm going to call on Melanie okay, so, um, let's see for the.

Speaker 3:

Of course, now all the kids come in. Um, the thing my intention was of going on this trip was, um, reclaiming, reclaiming my spark, and um, and I was also just really needing to let go and surrender. Um, I was feeling some scarcity around finances and, and I was like in the messy middle of creating my path and my life and just in this little stuck spot of clinging to things and surrendering to the call of going on, this retreat of all those cords, um that I had been working on cutting and let myself play and and um and be immersed in pleasure, which I was also really needing. Um, the unexpected parts were um, I didn't know what kind of community I was going to happen upon, um, I, I knew Mary and I, and I knew that I loved Mary and um, but I didn't know what I was getting myself into, and so I tried to show up with a lot of curiosity and um, I came away with just the, the like, so such a powerful reminder of sisterhood or or being around women, and, and just how I have been missing those reflections in my life of such like people reflecting my light back to me, which I have with my history.

Speaker 3:

I just have not had that and it was really powerful to have that reflection. And it was really powerful to have that reflection. It was really powerful to have the reflection of my intuitive power that I knew in me but I felt really alone with it. I found a lot of belonging in myself and with a group of women that I hadn't ever experienced and having the spaciousness to follow my own needs, communal honoring of sovereignty and acknowledging the goodness of each of us following our own needs and that was a new experience for me. Thank you, and I will call on Camille. Call on.

Speaker 1:

Camille, sorry that I hit unmute. Um, I love what's been shared. It's really hard to think of what I want to say because I just want to listen to what you guys are saying. Um, but I I definitely have a few things that I feel like were um, were sort of surprise, things that I wasn't necessarily looking for and I guess I have to say, coming into this I didn't have a big expectation, or I mean, it definitely had some intentions, but I really kept it pretty open. I wasn't. I had seen Nura talking about her retreat and I just didn't even think that it was a possibility for me. Um, so I didn't. It just like wasn't even on my radar until a month before and all of a sudden it was like I saw one more message about it and I was like, oh you know what, like maybe I should do this, and it just fell into place and I was signed up and ready to go by that night and so I didn't have a lot of time to prep for it. Yeah, it just, it definitely um was meant for me and it fell into my lap, kind of. I felt like Um, so I I just kind of went into it pretty open, um, but, that being said, I did. I did have a few things that were my intentions, but I feel like there was definitely a lot of things that I wasn't expecting and it's already been mentioned but that sense of sisterhood was super powerful. Just feeling so seen and so loved was really powerful. Sorry that I hit unmute. I love what's been shared. It's really hard to think of what I want to say, because I just want to listen to what you guys are saying. Um, but I I definitely have a few things that I feel like were um, sort of surprise things that I wasn't necessarily looking for. And I guess I have to say, um, coming into this, I didn't have a big expectation or um, I mean, it definitely had some intentions, but I really kept it pretty open. Um, I wasn't. I had seen Nura talking about her retreat and I just didn't even think that it was a possibility for me. Um, so I didn't. It just like wasn't even on my radar until a month before and all of a sudden, it was like I saw one more message about it and I was like, oh, you know what, like maybe I should do this, and it just fell into place and I was signed up and ready to go by that night, and so I didn't have a lot of time to prep for it. Yeah, it just it definitely was meant for me and it fell into my lap kind of. I felt like. So I just kind of went into it pretty open, um. But, that being said, I did. I did have a few things um that I that were my intentions, but, uh, I feel like there was definitely a lot of things that that I wasn't expecting Um, and it's already been mentioned but that sense of sisterhood was super powerful.

Speaker 1:

Just feeling so seen and so loved was really powerful. I think we all have a little bit of feminine wounds in some way, whether that's a mother wound and I think that really bleeds into a lot of our relationships, even with ourself and our own femininity, um, and our relationship to the divine feminine. I think, um, I see that a lot in the world and all the women that I know, I feel like I see that in all of us in some way or another. Um, and that was a huge, huge part of what this did for me was um healed a lot of that and um, yeah, I really really was um kind of blown away by how much uh, I was able to to lean into that, um, that divine feminine, and to just man. It feels so turned on by all of it. I mean turned on in so many ways. Right, like it just uh has brought a lot of light into my life. Um, kate, I just said turned on and I'm going to mention this, so it sounds like not what I mean it for, but I like went skinny dipping with women for the first time. Well, skinny dipping, actually, for the first time I'm 37 years old. It's about time. Um, I went by myself one day and uh, had like an incredible experience with it.

Speaker 1:

Just in the sunlight, there was nobody on the beach, so it, just the ocean was mine and it was an incredible experience. And then I went with some women the next night and it was like a healing experience for me. It was delightful to just play and laugh and just enjoy and the bioluminescent ocean. It was um an incredible experience, something that um like uh, can you make a core memory as an adult? Uh, I'm pretty sure you can, and that's one of them. Um, so that was um beautiful.

Speaker 1:

I feel like I've never seen my mother's body. She hid it and was a very ashamed of it and that's not been my attitude and my experience with my body. I try to be pretty open with it with my kids. I want them to know what real bodies look like. I think it's beautiful, but it was a lovely healing experience to be around women that were very comfortable and made me feel really comfortable.

Speaker 1:

Anyways, um, I feel like I also, um, loved a lot of the uh, embodiments and different rituals and stuff that we did.

Speaker 1:

Those are things that I have seen the value of in my life, but to be consistent with it for a week, the value of in my life, but to be consistent with it for a week I'm not great with consistency, but to kind of have that structure a little bit.

Speaker 1:

I mean it wasn't super structured but we had, you know, things that we worked on every day and these embodiment practices that we did. I noticed how much just being consistent with it opened things up for me and made such a big difference in my energy and how I felt and how grounded and secure in my own energy I felt in being able to be consistent with these practices. So that's something that I'm working on is bringing that consistency home with me and, um, I love that I got to see, see the value in that and and trying things that I haven't tried on my own at home, um that I didn't think would be, um, something that I would enjoy or that would be, uh, helpful or useful for me. I was surprised there were some things that, um, that, really, really I really vibed with once I, you know, tried it. So definitely some things that I brought home with me. Um, okay, christy.

Speaker 6:

I love you, camille, so I for me. I I think back to my fear around pulling the trigger, originally, not knowing anyone. I've been following Miss Nura for a while and I too. The email read all the description of this wonderful retreat and I thought, oh my God, that's so amazing and awesome, had a lot of fear around money, different things were coming up, but I left a community of sisters to relocate and I just was craving a women's retreat and a beautiful, magical thing.

Speaker 6:

At the same time, I was freaking out about money and there was like no, christy, you are going to do this and trust, and you're just going to feel the fear and move into a space of love and do it, and everything perfectly magically, just fell into place from from that point, um, and I had, I think my biggest thing was my intention was to play at a bigger game with with moving into my fear and being brave, stepping into being uncomfortable, um, being able to say I have a beautiful light, I can be authentic, I can meet new women that I've never met, and I mean even Nora and I only met on screen. We've never met in person, which is kind of the sign of the time. So I get. But uh, yeah, it was this huge invitation of like igniting something in me and reclaiming this courage and adventure and trust, and knowing I was going to do it sober. I have really worked on my relationship with alcohol through a lot of different ways. I've never met Mary before and I just resonate with the holistic like approach to it. I've been to, you know, codependent meetings for other issues in my life but I'm just so learning so much through the lens of Mary's coaching and Nura's like coaching styles that really allowed me through this retreat, to connect and reclaim a lot of my own inner wisdom and my experiences and cultivate, like this beautiful respect for all of my own journey and what I, who I am, what I've learned and where I am right now. And it's powerful, I mean it's palpable for me.

Speaker 6:

I'm celebrating that and the gifts that I have received from getting to spend time with these beautiful women that we all just connected so beautifully and so safely and we're all courageous, showing up in our beautiful light and our fear. I mean there was so much vulnerability and fear mixed in with courage and bravery and you know I so appreciate the kind of going back to ritual, going back to like daily practice, because I got off of that train for myself and really was, you know, moving through a lot of grief and a lot of fear in the last couple of years of my life and, wow, I'm just so grateful. I just want to say the heart message that came in is you, I am so proud of you, you, you human, like, trust your heart. You've got this and your sisters are totally. They got this too and they're badass, just like you. And I mean, I'm just like. So I'm so proud of us for all saying yes to this retreat and I highly recommend it to anyone listening to this.

Speaker 6:

I don't know there's so much more that I could share. I feel like I'm blabbing on, but, um, and also, too, something I wanted to say coming back, um, after being in such a safe, yummy, like magical retreat and such a support, um, it really highlighted a lot of my life and where I need sisterhood and where I need to step into like daily ritual and carving out that time and celebrating that it's okay to start again and be reborn into a new pattern or a new routine, and it's the tiny steps. It's the tiny things and not make it so big. I have this tendency to like oh my God, you know how am I going to recreate this in my own life? And it's like no, you can just start two or three things, and we talked about that in the it's Callie. No, you can just start two or three things, and we talked about that in the retreat it's Callie.

Speaker 5:

Hey girl, hello everyone, so good to see your beautiful faces. Yeah, for me, similar to Camille, I didn't have a ton of time to really think about the retreat and I also had some like. It was like really just a miracle that I was able to go. I had like like no money in my bank account and like then it's like here you go, just what you need to make it and make it happen. And it was really a deep calling that like led me there and just a deep trust that like everything would work out and like there's a reason I'm being called to go.

Speaker 5:

Um, and it was the most magical experience and I met so many beautiful, soulful woman with like just deep connections, um, so lovely and it, yeah, it felt like I was going to like be activated and, um, it does feel like an activation happen and coming out of it, um, it's been like a really turbulent, tumultuous few weeks and my like life has turned upside down totally. Um, and I feel like the retreat like, and I feel like the retreat like planted seeds that will reap fruits for like a lifetime really, and so I'm like seeing some of the results of that right now and just like like a really deep, um, like trust in my body and like confidence in myself, to where it's like I can stay centered throughout this storm and like know that, like my heart knows the way. Um, yeah, so it's like such a beautiful back in circle, hearing you all share.

Speaker 7:

I've missed it, um I learned about the the retreat by listening to mary's podcast. I had listened along after a friend was featured, um, because I loved the messaging around the divine feminine and was curious and always came away with more wisdom after each episode. Getting to meet Nura and all that she brought to the retreat was such an unexpected gift that has opened up so many more doors for me too, as well as each woman at the retreat really there were. There was a group of very wise women, um, and it was so grateful that everybody gave what they did to the group. Um, I went into it and that with uh to the knowing. The title was reignite your vision, and I was hoping to take some time, quiet time, to look at my career and reimagine a path and use my skills in an alternative way, and I I did have the time and the space for that, but that really wasn't what took the foreground for me. Um, I was also curious to know about many different modalities, and that was a gift that I received.

Speaker 7:

The way that the retreat was organized was wonderful. We led in slowly with exercises that connected us and made us feel safe. You know, I had family. I think I was really crazy for going off to Mexico not knowing anyone and now I have this mandala of women around the all of North America that I feel really anchored to that. It's hard to imagine that you were all strangers going in.

Speaker 7:

But in one of those first circles Mary asked this question of why do you deserve to be here?

Speaker 7:

And I was like a puddle of waterworks on that day because I wasn't there yet, I didn't feel that sense of belonging yet and, like all the exercises through turning in and learning to listen to myself and you know, even holding the gaze of each of the 12 women there for an extended period of time was so powerful that it's revisited me.

Speaker 7:

Everybody's eyes them so intimately. I felt like I saw inside of each of your souls and it's come back and supported me in moments when I've really needed it, since my life has gone through a really big transition that I wasn't expecting not career-wise, personal life change but it did come out with some lovely. I've come back into the real world and I just presented as a speaker at a big international conference yesterday. So that felt like whoa I did. I don't know if I would have had that confidence if I hadn't practiced sharing in circle, which was something that was really uncomfortable for me, and just because I didn't quite believe that my voice belonged. I could say that, but I didn't believe it in my heart yet, and now I think, as maybe the ladies here can see, like I am able to speak my voice a lot stronger, and so thank you to each of you, and to Mary and to Nura, for helping to guide me and lead me there.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, my beautiful listeners. That is our show for today. Join us next week for the completion of the Sacred Sister Circle, where we really dive into why the requirement for sobriety at the retreat was foundational in not only what we were able to accomplish, but to really answer the question of how much more can you be without alcohol and creating a safe space? Right? So much of the time we spend time with alcohol, thinking that it is what makes us feel comfortable, but in very specific environments where the intention is shared, it's actually the absence of alcohol that creates a more of a sense of safety. So join us next week for the completion of our circle. Thank you for being here. None of this would be possible without you.

Speaker 2:

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. No-transcript.