Stop Drinking and Start Living- The Feminine Way

Beyond Boredom: Rediscovering Your Creative Essence

• Mary Wagstaff

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Have you ever caught yourself pouring a glass of wine just because you were “bored”? Let’s talk about what’s really going on underneath that go-to excuse — and why it matters so much to your feminine wellbeing.

In this episode, we get real about how our culture conditions women to fear stillness and how alcohol has become a sneaky permission slip to rest. But what if you could grant yourself that permission — no wine required?

✨ This one’s for the woman who’s ready to reclaim her energy, her creativity, and her right to just be.

We’ll explore:

  • Why “boredom” is often a mask for your body’s need to rest
  • How productivity culture suppresses feminine creativity
  • The real shift that happens when you drink — and why it’s not what you think
  • How alcohol has become a socially acceptable way to pause
  • What it feels like to build the muscle of receptivity instead of numbing
  • The feminine magic waiting for you on the other side of the “antsy” feeling

Your feminine energy doesn’t thrive in constant doing — it thrives in presence, in play, in permission to follow your own rhythm.

🌹 Ready to experience rest and relief without deprivation?
Download your free Urge Guide at marywagstaffcoach.com

Your creative spirit is waiting. Let’s set her free.

DISCLAIMER: This podcast and its contents are not a substitute for rehabilitation, medical treatment or advice. It is for educational and inspirational purposes. I am not a therapist or doctor. The views here are expressed a personal opinion and based on first hand experience. Please consult a doctor if your mental or physical health is at risk.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Stop Drinking and Start Living the Feminine Way. I'm your hostess, mary Wagstaff, holistic Alcohol Coach and Feminine Embodiment Guide, here to help you effortlessly release alcohol by reclaiming your feminine essence. Sobriety isn't just about quitting drinking. It's about removing the distortions that keep you disconnected, overwhelmed and stuck in cycles of numbing. Each week I'll share powerful tools, new perspectives that transform, and deeply relatable stories to help you step into the power, pleasure and purpose that it is to be a woman. This is your next evolution of awakened empowerment. Welcome to the feminine way. Welcome back to the show, my beautiful listeners.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I'm going to try to make this one short and sweet. One of the things that is often an objection or an excuse that I hear from women that when we really think about it, it's kind of ludicrous is the reason that they're drinking is because they are bored. Okay, have you ever met a woman in her life that's bored? I mean, it's just not even possible. This episode is titled the unspoken basic need. Need because this is something that is a basic need, especially of the feminine, but that goes overlooked and unrecognized because it's not seen and appreciated in our culture, in our society, and that is creativity. So there's a few things about boredom and women that I want to point out that you might be falling into. Oftentimes, what boredom actually means for women is the fear of being perceived as lazy, is the fear of actually resting and receiving. So instead we turn to alcohol for an external validation, for an external permission slip, to chill out right, and oftentimes we actually have things that we want to attend to. So in order to meet both of those needs to chill out and to continue to attend to things we lower our inhibitions by creating what I like to call the party of one, and this is going to be coming out soon in a new offer that I have, a freebie called my perimenopause and must-haves, and it's really about a ritual swap from alcohol to finding your new hormonal normal with a sacred pause from alcohol. So there's this product called loop and there are these earbuds that really invoke without without like telling your people, I'm not wanting to listen to you with big old headphones. There are these um earplugs that create this very, very similar experience of the party of one inside. So it's like you're functioning, but now you're like, ooh, I'm doing my own thing and you're feeling good, and like no one else knows about it Okay. So if this is you which I know it is I want you to check out loops L, o O P. I'll leave a link in the show notes. Um, and stay tuned for my ritual swap guide. And stay tuned for my ritual swap guide.

Speaker 1:

So, because we're, and also, instead of actually maybe just saying like tonight, I'm not going to keep doing the things, I'm not going to make dinner, I'm not going to do the laundry, I'm not going to prepare tomorrow, and maybe you know we don't all have the opportunity but when I look at my male counterpart and I'm so in awe of this because it's like I could never function like that. Well, yes, you could, and I'm not saying you should, but my male counterpart and I don't know if yours does this or if you've had this experience but he's not a big planner, he's not a big prepper, like for me. It's like I want to know that there's lunch for tomorrow for Emmett, I want the dishes to be done, like there's these things that make me feel really good and I'm not going to shame myself for that, but what he does is he's trusts in his own resourcefulness to meet the needs, even as, even as a father, right, like to get Emmett water if Emmett's thirsty, and they didn't bring any in the car, right, and I would have, like, the backup water and the water bottle and the sunblock and all of the things, and he's willing to figure it out, and no one's ever died, right, so like if you were sick you wouldn't be able to do all of the things. This is the unsolicited to-do list, so you can, in fact, give yourself permission to do nothing, right, and the kit, like you have your backup ramen, you, and then that's it, and then you leave the dishes and you let it go, right. So so what do you need to believe to be able to give yourself that permission slip? Because if you're not doing and finding your worth and your validation through being productive, then who are you? And I think this is the biggest question that we get to just sit with? Right, because if alcohol is actually giving you the thing that you actually want, but without the alcohol you call it boredom then you're denying yourself the natural projection of your life that you come home from work and maybe there's a break. Right, because if the alcohol is giving you that excuse, but life is giving you the availability of it already, but you need to quiet your mind because, instead of taking a break, you call it boredom because you're not being productive, right. And so you just tell yourself that you're bored, or in like you're still subconsciously kind of interpreting that as lazy. And so where it comes in with this unmet basic need, is you might actually feel like that, okay, well, if I'm not attending or tending to something and it's just me say you're alone. Well, now, what do I do? Right? And life keeps you busy. And there, very well, are a lot of you who have extracurricular things that you like to do, but some of them may be tied with alcohol. You might craft and drink, you might read and drink, you might, you know, knit and drink or cook and drink. Um, and say you do other things that don't involve alcohol. Say you have a yoga practice or a workout practice. Well, those things are not automatically tied with alcohol. So it's like, okay, I'm going to do that. Now what? So?

Speaker 1:

Creativity stems from boredom, right? We know that it is a good thing to not have constant stimulation. I mean, I can't tell you that the kids that I've encountered they're like I'm bored all the time. It's like, think about when you were younger and daydreaming, staring off into space Like this is where I get some really good ideas is on my walks, when I'm just thinking, when I don't have something in my ears, um, when I get up in the morning and I give myself a moment to to contemplate cause is there really? Can you ever really be bored in this world? Like, what does boredom really mean and what is the thought that creates boredom? Because boredom is a, an emotion.

Speaker 1:

Boredom isn't just a state, right, because you could just not be doing something and be like I deserve this. This is great. This is how I celebrate, this is, this is how I show myself appreciation, and now it's not boredom, but it's the same circumstance, right? Or this is the relaxation I, um, I, and also in my guide oh my gosh, you're going to love it. So in my guide I have this other thing that I use these eye masks and there's this woman I don't know this is.

Speaker 1:

I've never really shared this with anyone, but there's this woman on YouTube and this is very popular. It's Reiki ASMR, and part of me feels like it's like wrong to watch, but I don't care, I really enjoy it. So there's this woman, anna, and she's amazing and it's this. You know, asmr is kind of this new wave. It's kind of bizarre. It feels it does feel. I think I feel weird talking about it because it feels weird watching. It's like, oh, this is how we have to create connection through a computer screen with this lady making noises. But she's so lovely and she's a coach in her own right and I love Reiki and I love all the things that she does. But sometimes before I kind of take a nap, I'll just watch a couple of minutes and just listen to her. She's this amazing voice and she's very beautiful. She kind of looks like I don't know like a storybook character or something, and so it's just so relaxing.

Speaker 1:

Now, I could interpret that time as boredom, but it's not, you know, and I would say that I could work on my downtime for creative contemplation, but it really it doesn't present itself as a problem. I don't often have that feeling of like that I am bored and I'm also okay with doing nothing because I do a lot Right. So I really really want you to examine the, the objection of boredom, and that's why you drink, and also in that moment when you're actually physically drinking, that is, the only thing that changes is that you have liquid in a cup that is going into your body and that could be anything, so you're not not bored. You've just erased the thoughts that told you that created the boredom, that created the feeling of lack or insufficiency. So this is your job for the week. What is boredom to me? What does it feel like in my body? What if it was okay to be bored, you know? So what? How could I look at my boredom as relaxation, as the relaxation that I think I'm getting from a drink, without any of the negative consequences? And also, how is this an opportunity for me to tap into my creative potential?

Speaker 1:

Because what alcohol does is it stifles our creativity and it has us continuing to live in the masculine principle, which creates burnout, which creates overwhelm, which creates a dysregulated nervous system. And, instead of optimizing our ideas, our output, mixed with the phase that we're in, we just try to do more. One more thing in this fix it energy, all you ever need to do is have a new thought. All you ever need to do is shift perspectives and, like I talked about before, tap into the version of you that's already got it. Let her lead. Don't let the alcohol version of you lead, but don't shame her either, right? So creativity is a muscle, but it is the muscle that will fill the space that has been filled by alcohol, and when you release alcohol, I can't tell you the flood of cognitive energy that starts flowing through you.

Speaker 1:

So, if you're familiar with the chakra system at all, or Kundalini, right we have. We start at the base of the spine, with the root chakra, and all of the energy centers of the body are associated with different glands, glands and organs that actually do have chemicals in them. So there is an energetic quality in the body that is actually physical as well emotion and that energy. Now, when you're not repressing it and they just talk about like the pink cloud well, I mean, I'm still on the pink cloud right now. Of course, sobriety just becomes like normal. I don't even think about being sober anymore, it's just my life. But there's this energy that moves from the root chakra like up and out, like exploding on top of your head, and it can be.

Speaker 1:

You know, this is like the part of integration that coaching is really powerful was like okay, now what do I do with this energy? And like, why is every, you know, like everyone else is an idiot? No, I'm just joking, um, but you know you're like what am I like? How am I going to hang out with these people anymore? I don't feel like I have anything in common with them. Sometimes you feel like that. So that's the other. That is another piece of the puzzle too is, you know, creating opportunities to be in alignment and this new alignment with your life.

Speaker 1:

And so it's it's this, it's it's it's in the boredom that you find the creative channel that you have to let yourself be in it. You have to let yourself be in the discomfort of relaxation, of receptivity, because you don't think it's discomfort, you think that's what you're going to alcohol for. But if, but, if you weren't uncomfortable in the receptivity and in the relaxation, you would just allow yourself to be there and you wouldn't call it boredom, right? So this is your job to find out what does it feel like in my body to decide that this is relaxation. I'm antsy, I'm uncomfortable, my tongue is swelling. I want to do something with my hands. I don't know what to do. You want to feel all that. You want to breathe. You want to find Anna on YouTube. You want to follow my ritual swap guide and dive in.

Speaker 1:

But it is a muscle you have to build with consistency, and that is the beauty of coaching. That is the beauty of saying I'm going to do something different. I'm going to get support about this because, no matter, no matter what I change in my circumstances, this thing keeps following me around. And now I'm blaming other people in the way they're showing up and when really I need to do a U-turn and go in and ask how am I not showing up and where can I show up for myself?

Speaker 1:

But creativity for women is our life force. It is our basic need. That's why we talk in spirals, that's why this podcast talks in spirals, and I'm okay with it. That's why we can go from one subject to the next when we're having a conversation with our girlfriends. That's why we feel different emotions all the time, and you can have a whole rainbow of emotions in one day and that's why sometimes we change our mind. Now there is consistency. That's really important, but it is the consistency to commit to bravery, to commit to doing something new, to commit to finding out more of you.

Speaker 1:

I'll talk to you soon. Have a great day. The days of white knuckling your way through an urge are over. No more distracting yourself. No more avoiding alcohol, no more resisting, and I am not exaggerating when I say that doing this one thing for five minutes will change not only how successful you are in drinking less, but how much you will love your alcohol-free life. You are going to feel so good. So come on over to my website, or follow the link right here in the show notes, to grab the free urge guide that gives you the exact cheat codes to use to find relief without a drink. And the best part is no deprivation, no missing out required. I'll see you over marywagstaffcoachcom.