Stop Drinking and Start Living

Why It's Important To Put Yourself In A New Room

• Mary Wagstaff

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Today I share the profound transformations I observed on our Women's retreat and why it is so important to put yourself in new intentional environments, to make big change. I offer insight into how you can apply these to your life now and transform your relationship to self and to alcohol.

Key Takeaways:
-People are ready for more meaning and connection. 
-Many women are missing real intimacy in their lives.
-Sobriety creates an opportunity for authentic relating.
-Manifestation is real. 
-Co-creating from trust, detachment, pleasure and personal responsibility.
-Establishing safety creates more space for bravery. 
-Nature supports us. 
-We can't grow in isolation. 
-Intentional containers create expedited results. 
-Embodiment is non-negotiable.
-All sensations are neutral.

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. 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 all are amazing. Thanks for being here. Thanks for joining me on this journey.

Speaker 1:

It's been a wild ride. So much has transpired and you know I have talked about the retreat a lot on the show and I want you to. I think you're no, I think, if you're listening, you're like, okay, you get it, but it's also like what does this have to do with sobriety? I want to quit drinking and I just want to know I hear you, I hear your pain. I want you to know that I understand some of you are on the other side of alcohol and you're ready to live a sensual, joyful, pleasure-filled, desire-filled life and learn how to support yourself and solve your problems. But maybe you're feeling like you don't know how to do that. You don't know how to support yourself and solve your problems, but maybe you're feeling like you don't know how to do that. You don't know how to enjoy your sober life, you don't know how to make sobriety work for you, and so everything I offer that's outside of the lens of just alcohol being at center stage is because it's available to you. But you have to be willing to explore, you have to be willing to put yourself in new circumstances, to have new thoughts. That you get to explore, that you get to be curious about that. You get to see yourself in an embodied way.

Speaker 1:

And there were several women on the retreat, one in particular who I had worked with a little bit before we left, but I was really really just getting to know her and in seven days this woman, who was like pretty shy, pretty reserved, did these practices, these embodiment practices and showed up in community in a new way and really created a sense of safety for herself. And then our time together on the other side of that, like one-on-one coaching and then seeing her in the groups and all this stuff she's been doing, was just, it's been mind blowing, it was seriously, I mean. I I felt like it was a 180 transformation. Um, not to mention like other personal things, that and how she's like actually showing up for her life and the challenging things in other ways, but like doing both right, seeing her own inner light in a new way, coming closer to herself. And that is why I emphasize the importance of ritual, the importance of embodiment, because alcohol has had you moving further away from yourself. So you have to find things that help you come closer to yourself, not in a way to distract you, but in a way to help you understand who you are and what you need.

Speaker 1:

And one of the things that I teach that I have a little mini course on is using your menstrual cycle to quit drinking and even if you're beyond your bleeding years, this works for you because you can just chart we use the phases of the moon and even if you have no interest in the phases of the moon, you can just use that energy to chart. And it's really profound because you do have a cycle and so you know you might not engage and go, have a. You know, tell your mother-in-law that you're moving cross country and taking all of her grandchildren with you. When you are feeling like you know you're at the beginning of your cycle, you might wait until you're feeling more confident and empowered and grounded and in a place of compassion for yourself and for other people. Right, so using your cycle to quit drinking is such a powerful, powerful perspective and I will link that in the show notes. It's a very affordable offer it's $22 and it will change your life. That was the main tool I used to quit drinking and then I started creating the five shifts process from there.

Speaker 1:

But I just wanted to talk a little bit and let me digress. And if you are still drinking and you are struggling and you are exhausted by alcohol exhausted by alcohol, what all of this alternative information offers is where to focus your mind on your intention. Right, why is it important for you to quit drinking? Right, so you can end the shame, the guilt, the sleep better, the health. But why is that important? So you can have a better quality of life. Well, why is that important? Because this is so you can have a better quality of life. Well, why is that important? Because this is the only one you've got. Well, why is that important? What do you want to do? Because you've got stuff you want to do out in the world, right. So you've got to go deeper. You've got to really uncover your sacred why, and you have to lead with that.

Speaker 1:

And I've said this before that if you can't tap into a sense of a little bit of sentiment and really connecting to the anchor of the heart and the sacredness of this life, I think it's much harder. And I mean, I think that alcohol has this beautiful invitation of giving us the extreme opposite, right opposite, right, the, the like. It takes you so far away from yourself and takes you so far away from connecting to your higher self, connecting to spirit, connecting to your heart and and and really being able to process the and hold space for the journey that is life, that the contrast of being closer to yourself, like on a day where you're feeling really good and the sun is out and you've gone for a walk and you're connected and you played a game with your family and you didn't drink and it feels so lovely. That is the wholesomeness and the sincerity and the tenderness that you really want to keep coming back to, and that's why ritual is so important and that's why connecting to yourself in a new way that might just be and home, so that you can start to see where your bump up against resistance and really see the impact of meeting your own needs, instead of using alcohol to get that time out, alcohol to get that break.

Speaker 1:

But I wanted to talk about some of my own personal takeaways from this retreat that I hosted in April, and the reason I want to share this is because it has been five years. Yay, it's a huge milestone. And this is a huge milestone and there's a lot that's transformed for me, coming through an awakened sober life into a sensual sober life, and when I was there, I explored so much of who I am and who I want to be and what turns me on and turns me and lights me up, that the possibility of where you can go with the five shifts process and really awakened sobriety is so much bigger than you know. And this doesn't mean we're just like happy all the time and one of the sisters expressed that in the interview from the retreat was like no, this is about using emotions as portals to understand yourself. So my key takeaways were people are ready for more meaning and connection.

Speaker 1:

You want to be out, even though you might not think this right now, when you get out in community, in an environment, with other people that have a similar intention of being in that environment, there is a turning on or a there's you connecting with something that you didn't necessarily know you were missing. But you're here and you don't want to drink because you want more meaning and connection in your life. Because alcohol is shallow and it doesn't leave room like as a hobby, as a pastime, like it's frankly kind of boring, right, so it's just kind of like silly, like oh, we're just sitting around, just like drinking all the time. Like what if you're just sitting around, you know it's like, yeah, take a break, but as as a real hobby, you know, and there's no shame in that, it's just that you want more. You want, you want more, whether that's giving yourself time to read, indulge in a book or be out in nature, right, um, and you've, you've, you have a belief that you create meaning and connection through alcohol. So, but the the the meaning and connection that people are ready for is authentic expression, is being seen authentically as they are, as as holding space for others and not judging the other thing.

Speaker 1:

The next thing that I took away from the retreat, from my perspective as a space holder and as the facilitator, is that women are missing real intimacy in their lives. I think every woman I talk to just wants more romance, whether that comes from an intimate partner or not. One of the experiences that we did and this was later on and, I think, beautifully executed the process of getting women to where they could really be intimate with each other and was, you know, establishing safety. I mean, if you look at and I'll put I should put this out on social media somewhere If you look at, the very first day, we had an opening ceremony of the group picture we took and then, like the very last day was actually the day we did this pleasure ritual, it was like these little women look like they had known each other forever. I mean the glow, their faces look different. It's amazing, but we did that.

Speaker 1:

We had this one experience where we did this partner work and this was like I think, our second to last evening experience where we did this partner work and this was, like I think our second to last evening and you had to pair up with a partner and we did a little bit of contact improv dance, very briefly, we did some laugh, yoga we, you know, we had just, we had created and established enough safety and trust in the group that doing things that felt uncomfortable was okay and everyone felt that way and it was so powerful. And then we did some healing touch on each other and I guided this particular session. So I demoed, just like a couple of things doing. Some one of the sisters was laying down and it was, like you know, a massage moment where it was some body traction. We had some essential oils, we had bolsters to set people up. We were doing a little bit of like partner stretching. So we started with some partner stretching, when you're back to back and you move your arms and your breath in unison and you give compression, um, and the feedback.

Speaker 1:

And then there was a way of communicating too, really emphasizing the communication what feels good, what's your sacred yes, what's your sacred no, and how to receive that right, how to receive more, how to receive less without feeling offended and the feedback from that was so powerful. You know, one of the women expressed I have had friends since I was in high school, my entire life, and I've never done anything like this with them. I've never even. I don't even know if I would feel comfortable doing anything like this with them, but I do. Now I might even offer this right and you know, the set and setting does create the opportunity but it was a way of really receiving and giving in such a unconditional way, without any expectation, and there was a moment of eye gazing at the end that just you know, it was so, so, so tender for everyone and not one person, well, had a dry eye probably, but was very receptive to it. And I mean, I go to yoga and I'm like, can this just be in a hands-on assist class the whole time? Because that touch, that intimacy, we are just missing behind these damn screens all the time.

Speaker 1:

The next thing was sobriety creates an opportunity for authentic relating. I mean, clearly we know that and the women had expressed that on the interview that I did with them. But when I mean, I remember one of the last times I drank and I used to drink with my mother, like often whenever I would be with her, and you know, our relationship now on the other side of alcohol is so much more authentic. We don't even have the same conversations that we used to have. We kind of used to like repeat a lot of the same conversations and we just don't have that anymore.

Speaker 1:

I just took her to a sound bath for Mother's Day. We had some cacao beforehand. We sat out back, we were laughing about our respective partners and just men and women and just kind of joking about it from a place of lightheartedness and you know it was we were able to just connect in such a different way that, like there's that initial way you think you're opening up with honesty, but without the willingness to go through the vulnerability you never get to the real meat of it all. So that seeing that sobriety really created the opportunity for authentic relating where it's not just because my inhibitions are lowered, um, this is how we can create more community, create, you know, opportunities for collaboration and real follow through. Right, because when you're in, when you're relating with someone authentically, your integrity is involved and I think you mean what you say more and I think you're not just going to say yes to something on a whim and then not follow through with it. And I think you're not just going to say yes to something on a whim and then not follow through with it.

Speaker 1:

The next thing I took away and there was so much more, but I just jotted down a few things is that manifestation is real. At the beginning, I mean Nura and I planned this nine months ago, nine months before April. We started it and we anchored it. We did some really intentional energy work to visualize it, to call in the women, and I did a new year's manifestation challenge with Gabby Bernstein and I did it every day and I wrote about the retreat every day that I wanted it to. You know, I wanted a sold out retreat and then I created a vision board, actually with my mother, and I hadn't done that in so long.

Speaker 1:

She hosted a little workshop and the message that came through for me was it wasn't about what I wanted, but it was about anchoring the energy of what you wanted, what the women wanted, and I feel like so mostly everyone listening would have taken away the same thing, right? So the invitation is to come next time, right, but I really tapped into what do you want, what do these women need? Why are they here? What is this for them? What do I need to offer them? Right, not what I'm getting. And, of course, like I always had that intention of what I was giving, because the real intention was I knew the impact that that experience had on my life and I wanted to have the experience of facilitating it and holding that space and the creativity of creating the container. But I really wanted to be able to offer that opportunity and I'm gonna keep doing it and I just think there were moments of hard work and selling and marketing and all of the things and Neurohead and I had worked through some of that, but in the end there was really just this deep sense of trust that it was going to be exactly what it needed to be and it was done. Like we put the invitation out there.

Speaker 1:

I knew I know people need this and the willingness to be bold and say to say that, and so someone might not really know like, oh, wow, is this for me? Like Terry said on the beginning I highlighted her quote. She's like I just had this energy or this understanding that I knew I needed sacred sisterhood, but I didn't really know what that was. So if I never used the word sacred sisterhood, terry might not have come. So, and I felt the same way when I found it sacred sisterhood, I was like I, yeah, I need that. I don't know what that is. I've never like you know, like I, I want that, right. And so sometimes we don't know what we need until we hear it.

Speaker 1:

And then someone had expressed to me recently that came on the retreat also that the idea had kept coming back to her. Right, she had resistance, but it kept showing back up and she's like OK, what is this here? I need to lean into this more because if it keeps coming back, there's something there for me and so I would encourage that's such great advice. Like, if you're a hell, no, put it to the side, right. And sometimes we just don't. Even there was a couple of ladies that express like, oh, this isn't for me, this is a retreat, I'm not. I have this self concept like I'm not a retreat person or it wouldn't even be possible for me. And they made it happen and, um, you know, there was so much that had to go into making that happen and but it's possible, right, like even you know, financially or with the resources. It was like giving yourself enough time to to plan it and pay for it and create the space.

Speaker 1:

Because, you know, one of my mottos is YOLO, like if we're not making it happen, we're not living. You know, and I know that there's a lot of privilege that comes with these kinds of things. I completely recognize that. But we don't create abundance by through scarcity, you know. So when it's like I got it like the old mindset of just like save, save, save, no, we have to invest. Investing is how we create abundance. Trust is how we create abundance. Taking action from abundance is how you create abundance. You do not create abundance from scarcity and I just think it's. You know it limits us.

Speaker 1:

One of the women who was like I don't even know how I'm going to pay for this came and then like got three job offers when she came home Amazing, right, manifestation is real. But you have to create from the energy of the result you want. You cannot create from a place of lack. You have to create from a place of abundance or you will be grasping and that energy will be fueled into your work, whatever it is. Co-creating from trust, attachment, pleasure and personal responsibility this was what I came away with.

Speaker 1:

This was the first time that I had really done a big project with someone else. As far as my business was concerned, you know really sharing the creative process too, because I've had business coaches and stuff. Creative process too, because I've had a business coaches and stuff. But Nora and I had done a few other things together, like the podcast, like a couple of you know classes that we hosted. But when you're co-creating from a place of trust and you're not micromanaging the entire experience, there's just so much more magic that can happen. And really knowing like my medicine is going to come through, your medicine is going to come through, and trusting that everyone's going to receive exactly what they need to, and not like there's so many more elements at play than just what we were offering, as we expressed on the interviews with the retreat sisters. So if you haven't listened to those, go listen to those.

Speaker 1:

It was the retreat sisters. Like what they showed up with right, like their willingness to participate, their magic, the setting, the set, and the setting the retreat center was amazing. I have to go give them a review. Actually, they did a phenomenal job. There was no problems. Um, the mother nature, like Gaia, held us so well the environment, you know the diversity of neuro and I and our energy, as well as the content that we created. And so there was just all of these other forces at play that we didn't have a hundred percent control over and we really had to trust that like okay, that you know that we're here, the universe has got our back, um, and really enjoying it Right, like I just enjoyed it and I trusted in myself and I trusted that whatever I was offering, that I wouldn't be here doing this if I didn't know exactly what I was doing. Right.

Speaker 1:

And like, the other thought that Nora and I kind of went in with was we set the expectation right. I mean, we created the retreat. So if you're creating something, no one else really knows what it's supposed to be, because you are the creator knows what it's supposed to be because you are the creator, it's your artistry, and so it was like we set the expectation for what it's supposed to be and then everyone else gets to decide if they want to receive it or not, right, and of course we support and feedback and all the stuff if someone needs help. And then, just taking personal responsibility for my own emotions, there was a couple of times that something came up, that I had a trigger moment and it lasted for a little bit. I thought about it or, you know, wrote about it or talked about it, and then it was gone. So I was taking personal responsibility for my emotions, versus like, oh, you're showing up this way, so you need to change and and then like putting anything especially like Adonira and her processing, or any of the retreat sisters or the retreat staff right, like there was a lot of moving parts.

Speaker 1:

Establishing safety creates space for more bravery. Oh my gosh, this is. I'm going to have some people come on and talk about this, and I know I just recently did the episode about establishing safety and sobriety. That was such an important process. It was like a whole day and a half that we really spent doing. I mean, we were doing it the entire week.

Speaker 1:

But when you feel safe, you can be brave, right, more brave, and so my invitation to you is to really understand in my body what creates a sense of safety. For example, someone I just talked to recently said space right, and they were like it just doesn't feel safe for me to like share this information or I'm triggered, and I was like, well, how do you get to a place of safety? For them, it was space. I need to be away from people. I need some of my own time For safety for you might be to go out for a walk.

Speaker 1:

Establishing a sense of safety might be to get under your covers, be in a really small space. So really finding out and be curious about what establishes a sense of safety for me. Something that we work on I've worked on being working on with Emma is take a break, go in the bathroom, be by yourself, create your own environment. That's going to work for you to settle down. And if you don't have the opportunity, you can always go in. And I think one of the best anchors to find safety in is with the breath and then with your senses. You know, really opening your eyes and just a tree, a mountain, the trees are blowing in the breeze. Take a deep breath and that's going to really ground your nervous system, because you can't take action into the unknown from an ungrounded nervous system, a dysregulated nervous system, and so when we really establish the sense of safety in this container and of the daily practice of grounding in the body, these women were like that, you know they're like fear whatever. Here I am, you know, like even the fear just became like they were there for it. It wasn't even a question anymore. They just knew that they had, that they were safe enough to go through it, whatever showed up. They just knew that they were safe enough to go through it, whatever showed up.

Speaker 1:

Nature supports us. I talked about this in my little portion I shared on the sisters interview. The elements are there to help us be present. The elements are there to help us reflect in ourselves. They're there to cleanse, to purify, to ground to communicate with, to purify, to ground, to communicate with. When we use our senses and we are in communion with the elements and the world around us, we tap into something bigger and get out of our own minds. Right, we go beyond the ego. We go beyond the mortgages and the jobs and the things, the mortgages and the jobs and the things and we see the grander picture, the bigger reason for it all to exist, to be part of this miraculousness. I mean the eclipse. Wow, it's wild. We just saw the Aurora Borealis, right. That magnetosphere around the earth that goes from the North to the South Pole. Read about it. That's what the Aurora earth that goes from the north to the south pole. Read about it. That's what the aurora borealis is. It's the sun particles that allow us to see the magnetosphere of our earth and if it wasn't there, we would be toast right, we wouldn't exist. It's like too perfect, too perfect, it's amazing and it just helps you expand your consciousness in such a bigger way.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so I just have a couple more reflections of one another. That you can't grow the same in isolation. Yes, if you, if we are not seeing ourselves and other people like we always are sharing, right, the sister circle is like either one-on-one shares or mostly sharing in the group. And it's like I see me in you, right, you cannot grow in isolation because you're too in your head. You think it's all about you, you make it all about you, and when we make it all about being part of the collective, we can grow in such different ways. It's so amazing, even just watching and really paying attention to your kids and really paying attention to your partner, really paying attention to your friends and how they're showing up for life, and just like, honor them, honoring, like that they're doing the best, they know how you know, and from that place your heart gets to soften and then you're more willing to show up for your quote, unquote, faults or your shortcomings. And, just like the willingness to be human, intentional containers create expedited results. This is so important. We emphasize this so much while we were selling.

Speaker 1:

The retreat is when and they talked about this in the interviews also different from an expectation of like I'm going to go on this vacation and stay at this resort and all these things, which could be true as well. It was this intentional container, created for a specific result, that brought with it the space to see and examine one's expectations, but then to also step into their intention. And the reason it creates expedited results is because you're immersed. It's an immersion right. It's just like if you went away and did any immersion for the weekend. You went to go do a training or a seminar or something like that, right, even if you have a part time with a partner where it's just the two of you exclusively for a couple of days, immersed together, and you're trying new things differently, you're going to come away with some expedited results, and so a retreat might be a big ask. There's a lot of moving parts there to get you going, but there is the intentional container of sister circle. There is the intentional container of one-on-one coaching. There is the intentional container of participating in a course like the Awaken Sober Living course, where you're going there for a reason and you're experiencing things that you wouldn't normally right. So that's, you want to put yourself intentionally into new rooms so that you can see more of yourself.

Speaker 1:

These could all be in their own podcast episode, but I had wrote them down with the intention of sharing them, so that's why I'm sharing them. So embodiment is non-negotiable. So, right before I had gone, we went on the retreat. I had just gone to days straight and I knew I was going to do embodiment on the retreat, but I came away with like no, no, no, no, no. This has to be every day. Every morning, we are starting our practice, we are starting our days with conscious embodiment guidance, and so that's what we did. I had this playlist. The women came in in silence it was first thing in the morning and I guided them gently through some embodiment cues like I had shared with you.

Speaker 1:

And the reason that it's non-negotiable is because if you don't come closer to the vessel that holds you, you're going to keep going outside of yourself and you're going to keep being disappointed, right going outside of yourself, and you're going to keep being disappointed, right? So the other thing is is it contains, it creates a container for safety. When you feel safe in the body through movement and through what feels good and what doesn't, and what feels like there's resistance, and that's the cool thing about ecstatic dance is the invitation. It's not like oh, I love this song, this is my jam, I'm going to dance. No, the invitation is how do I dance with the resistance that I'm having in the judgment of this song? How do I dance when this song brings up old shit for me? How do I move my body in this new way when I'm exhausted? How do I lay down on the floor and let the floor support me? Right? I hate this DJ. How do I move that? Where's that hate in my body and how do I let that express through me? You make space. It's non-negotiable for your growth and your awakened sober life, because your awakened sober life is all about asking how much more can I be without alcohol, right? And then you have to step into the, how much more you have to step into the opportunities to be that much more.

Speaker 1:

The last thing I have written down is all sensations are neutral and they really are when you practice. It's such a cool, profound experience to, even Now, if I broke my arm right now I might be feeling differently about that, or someone punched me in the face. But however, when you dive into the firsthand, embodied experience of observing sensations, even pain, observing them, they stop. They're not homogenous. What happens is your brain picks up pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, and you tense, you tighten and then you compound the sensation. But when we soften and when we observe and when we describe like ooh, like that cold, you know, maybe that cold feels just like some pins and needles moving through my body and we relax versus being in the story of I don't like the cold, right, so all sensations can be neutral.

Speaker 1:

And then, when we allow ourselves through embodiment and by embodiment I really mean experiencing what it feels like in your body, um, and and through somatic embodiment, which is like moving with the body, um, experiencing the body in new ways and new shapes, is you're going to, you're going to be able to have a pleasurable experience, even in resistance and there's a catharsis. You're moving, you are releasing stored energy that you may have had for your entire life, right, which is why, on an ecstatic dance floor, people can become emotional floor, people can become emotional right, and the music helps guide you. It's a really beautiful practice. So, even if you're going to yoga, even if you're lifting weights, even if you're running, my invitation to you is to see how neutral you can allow the sensations to be and then also what shifts. Taking those pauses right and I don't think we do this enough, even in yoga is even say you do a set, right you like, do some bench pressing, take a pause and in that pause, notice the release, notice the shift of what is now available to you that wasn't before. Thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 1:

I want you to take this episode away and I'll make a list of all the things and pick one thing that you can try today in your own environment. Right, you don't have to go away for seven days to dive into this stuff. You have access to some version of creating these opportunities for yourself, no matter where you are and when I say in isolation, I don't mean people always Nature will reflect back to you and see you. Right, there's your family, there are your coworkers, right, so it doesn't have to be just a social setting. In this way. Have a beautiful week. I'm so proud of you. 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.