SHOW TRANSCRIPTION
#03 - Midlife AF Podcast - Why the body matters
INTRO
Emma
In this episode of midlife, if we're going to meet the Queen, the thought leader, the godmother of grey area drinking coaching Jolene Park. Jolene’s amazing.
She's had a TED talk, which I'll put in the show notes, which has had over 300,000 downloads. And she teaches coaches like me, the importance of nourishing our neurotransmitters, and supporting our nervous systems when we are looking to change our relationship with alcohol.
It's really different from a lot of the other coaching methodologies around people who are wanting to become alcohol free or take a break from alcohol, because it's all about the body. And it really emphasises how important working from the bottom up of the body, and working with the physiology is for clients being able to have a successful ongoing alcohol free life.
Jolene’s training helped me understand that when my clients and myself were trying to escape our nervous system - which is why a lot of people drink - when we've been triggered by people and when we're feeling either really extremely joyful or we're feeling incredibly anxious. The things that we can do, instead of drinking to calm down, shut down, escape, in order to calm our nervous systems in a way that moves us towards our goal of not drinking.
So without further ado, I will introduce you to Jolene Park, and she will explain how the nervous system works. She'll do a little bit of grounding with us which is so important and something I use all the time to bring myself back away from my thoughts and into my body. And she will also explain exactly what grey area drinking is.
Emma
So everybody, this is so exciting. This is Jolene Park. So Jolene is,I want to say the godmother of grey area drinking, she's like the Guru, the thought leader. If you think of grey area drinking, and somebody who knows about it, Jolene would be the person. I've trained under Jolene. I did her coaching course back last year, I think it was last year. And then I've been in her mastermind group since then learning from this incredible woman. And so I'm so excited that she's joined us to talk about why the body matters in what we do, as coaches working with our clients and why the body matters for our clients. For me, as I said, when before Jolene came on, this was the missing piece for me, as a coach, once I did Jolene's course, I felt that I was whole in terms of my coaching for grey area drinking. So I'll introduce you to Jolene, she's going to talk a little bit about physiology, why the body is so important in this work and in our journey, as alcohol free people or people who are examining their relationship with alcohol. And then we're going to do a little demonstration that you guys can join in with, especially for you guys who have just got your kids to school, I know that for certainly those in Australia, there's probably a lot of people who've been rushing and feel like they've done several hours of work already. And it's only 9:30am in the morning. So we're just going to take a few minutes to do that. And then we'll talk a little bit more about grey area drinking and Jolene's business as well. So handing over to Jolene to introduce herself. Thank you for being here.
Jolene
Thanks for having me, Emma. And hi to everyone who's joining live and watching the recording. I'm excited for this conversation. So yeah, just a little bit of an intro about myself. So I am a functional nutritionist. I'm also a health coach. I've been in the wellness industry for 20 years. Before I stopped drinking. I taught corporate wellness classes around the US. So training facilitating teaching classes has always been, you know, my work and my love and I drank like most women around me drink, even loving wellness and teaching wellness and in 2014 after many back and forth times, you know over the years, I made the decision very quietly and very personally that I'm just done.
I don't want to keep, you know, stopping drinking, saying oh I can be a social drinker and going back to drinking. I'd done that groundhog day over and over and over. In 2014 I decided to stop for good. And about a year and a half, about two years into not drinking personally, I started talking more about it professionally. And unbeknownst to me, I wasn't really looking at it as you know, a business, I was just really interested in the neurotransmitters, the physiology and said, You know, I think there's these, I was listening to some podcasts, and there's still this missing piece of the physiology. And when I started connecting my story with the physiology, out of the woodwork came so many people, especially women 35 to 55, saying, “This is my story, I identify, this is how I drink, you know, I function, I don't have a stereotypical rock bottom. But you know, I'm worried about my drinking.
So they were identifying, they were resonating, and also really hungry for it. Not only identified with, with the story of this grey area, where it's not an extreme, you know, rock bottom, but not drinking every now and again, but also really resonated with this physiology piece.
Because my clients who I work with, the coaches who I train are very, you know, very savvy women who are interested in health, just like I, you know, was and still am. And listen to the podcasts, read the books, try different things, along with drinking too much alcohol. And so there's always been that resonance with my audience of wanting that physiology. Because it makes sense. There's an innate kind of intuition like, yes, this, this resonates, this makes a lot of sense.
And there's this also knowing that this is the missing piece, like you've said, you know, going through the coach training, as a coach that those missing pieces really come together. And so that's the work that I do, training and coaching others.
Emma
That's awesome. Thank you so much, Jolene. And it really has been such a changer for all of us. There's a whole cohort of us coaches who trained under Jolene and you know, they're all superb coaches, because they've got that background as well. And they now really understand why sometimes it's not just about our psychology. And, you know, sometimes the reasons that we drink are very related to our nervous system and our coping mechanisms that have been set up, you know, from years, and especially if we've been drinking for a long time, even like Jolene says, and we'll come on to describe grey area drinking a little bit more later on. But even what most people would consider not very much drinking can really impact our nervous system. And what we, what I find certainly with a lot of clients is like they know the science, they get all the psychology. And there's still times where they feel like they're driven. As if somebody else takes over their body, and they're not in control, they don't feel like they're in control of what's happening. And they don't understand why. And they can look at all the data about it, you know what's happening, but they don't know what to do to choose a different form of self regulation.
And I think that's the work that Jolene does. So I thought we would kick off with a little bit of a demonstration, so that we can kind of get back to our bodies and really be present, and just demonstrate a little bit of, of some of the, you know, very simple things that we talked about with regards to regulating the nervous system.
Would that be alright, Jolene? You're right to lead us in a little quick grounding session?
Jolene
Absolutely, yeah, let's experience it. And then we'll talk through kind of what's happening physiologically.
So those of you who are here with us live and watching later on the recording either way, and if it's possible to put both feet on the ground, I would invite you to do that if it feels good to do it. And again, if it's accessible, if it's not, then if you're sitting, then just notice the chair under your bones that you're sitting on. But if you can put both feet on the ground like if they're crossed, if you can uncross them and just whatever ground is under you right now, so for me there is carpet, but some of you there might be tile or wood floor or if you're outside on the grass or sand.
So notice - whether you have shoes on or not - just notice the surface that's under your feet right now. So carpet will feel different than grass, grass will feel different than hardwood. Notice the surface that's under your toes, under the arches of your feet, under your heels.
And notice the sensation of that surface. And then notice if there's any tingling. Maybe in the middle part of your foot, there's some tingling or not, just notice. And notice, if there's a temperature shift on one part of your foot versus the other. Maybe one part feels more warm or more cool. So just notice sensations as your feet touch the ground beneath you.
And then if something's clenching in your body, as you're bringing your mental attention to your feet, like just notice that as well, are your legs clenched, or your belly, or your lower back?
And if you notice that, see if you can let that kind of wiggle out a bit. And just discharge down your legs, any tension, maybe in your neck or your jaw.
Let that go as you notice the floor under your feet, which is the ground.
And so we'll say this language, often, you know, somebody's not grounded or needing to be more grounded. It's not an esoteric thing. It's not a theoretical thing. Literally how we ground our body, is we notice what's the surface of the ground under us at any given time.
And the way you notice that surface, you notice the sensation. Tingling, temperature change, more soft, more hard, like grass or hardwood floor, just notice the surface.
And as you mentally notice that, when the body notices the ground, then the body can start to feel more grounded. Again, it's not kind of this esoteric thing, it's a very practical thing to just bring your mental attention to the ground.
And then notice, those of you who are doing that along with us right now, just notice what might be shifting in your body as you hold your attention on the ground under your feet.
And if your eyes are closed, go ahead and open your eyes and come back here to the screen.
When the body feels grounded, the message travels up the muscles of the spinal cord to the brain and it gives the message to the brain. We're being held and we're anchored to the grounds underneath us.
We're okay.
So the body wants to feel grounded. But we can't like Emma, if I say to you, “well just ground yourself, you just need to be more grounded”. Mentally, that doesn't work, we have to physically feel the ground. And when the body can physically feel the ground, the message travels to the brain. And when the body feels grounded, the brain then can start to feel more calm.
So if anyone has been following along, if you want to put in the chat, just what you noticed. And what surface was underneath you I'd be curious too if you just want to comment, I'd love to hear what you notice when you bring your attention to the ground.
Emma
I definitely felt a big breath happening for me. Like, suddenly my shoulders went back and I took a deep breath and it came out that this was my experience. I just love that practice so much.
Jolene
When we reach for alcohol and sugar, they run the same two pathways in the brain. And often the body is not feeling grounded. And we're swirling up in our head and it doesn't feel good. It's kind of like you know, we're dangling. And we want that anchored, tethered feeling. And so after the first drink after a couple of cookies, there's kind of a lethargy, a heaviness that starts to happen like what you just described, and the muscles relax a bit like you can take a fuller deeper breath. And so, often we're the bodies looking to have that grounding sensation through a drink, through sugary food. And we can mentally just start to train our, you know, mental mind to bring the attention down to the ground and when the body feels grounded, that’s some of that somatic work some of that nervous system work, that we're reaching for in alcohol but we can learn to do it in other ways that, pretty quickly, we can feel a shift in a really positive way, just bringing the attention to the ground.
Emma
I felt that shift this morning, because I was quite flibberty gibbety. It is because I knew I had this this morning, I was really excited about seeing you and sharing your wisdom with everybody. And I would love to hear if anyone else can. Because it's an awesome practice. And it does make such a difference, doesn't it. What I was finding recently with my daughter, she struggles with regulating herself. And we have discovered that actually just like massaging her feet, is a way that she just almost purs. It's really interesting. So those come from the work that we do.
Jolene
My first year of not drinking, I did regular reflexology. I had a really good foot massage person who did reflexology. And I would almost fall asleep in the chair. And it's very grounding to massage the feet to very consciously connect the feet on the earth, there is an electron charge that happens when the feet are on sand or grass or dirt. And massage is very, very calming, and very powerful. Because it brings that mental energy again, we want to, you know, bring that energy in the body down to the feet to slow the mind down, which again, we're trying to do with alcohol. But there are these other ways to do it as well.
Emma
And I love what we've learned with your work is all about, you know, everybody's different, right? Where there's not one way, we've all got different ways to regulate our nervous system. So Jolene’s just saying: “I agree I use foot massage with my kids. And they still ask for it as young adults”. Isn't that interesting?
Jolene
Yeah. Yeah. And what you're saying about it? Was there another comment?
Emma
Yeah, hi, Leslie. (Leslie says - I've just been scuba diving for 10 days, I now appreciate the somatic grounding of the ocean for me. And breathing is like meditation.)
I 100% agree. I've told you Jolene before because I swim in the sea. And that is my, that's when I feel like I reconnect to my body when I get into the water. And I suddenly just drop into myself. And it's extraordinary. So I really resonate, Leslie.
Jolene
Yeah, so saltwater is very grounding in, in and of itself being in the ocean. One of the reasons I moved here close to the ocean last year, because I love it. Yeah.
But Emma, you mentioned something you know about everybody's individuality. And so that's why we wanted to start with talking about this tonight of having the experience because we can talk about it. And we all love to be in our heads, which is part of the problem. Because we're not in our body. And then when we drink, there's an initial coming back into the body. That's that initial positive effect for the first 10 to 20 minutes of drinking. And so we can talk about this stuff and talk about the theory till the cows come home, you know, for 20 years, but we want to have the experience of the body. So, you know, with this, if you're watching and trying this, I'm just noticing the surface under your feet, you might have been like, I don't really get it, like I didn't really notice anything, that’s totally fine, totally fine.
Or you might have, you know, put your feet on the ground, and perhaps felt more agitated or just didn't like it at all - also totally fine. So all of these pieces, it's all data about your biochemical individuality. And the body's constantly giving us feedback. And I think we get very hung up on things like, well, “I should do this”, or “I need to do this, or “I saw Angelina talking about this, so I have to do it”. And I'm always clueing people back to what did you notice when you did it? And if what you noticed was agitation, or a dislike that's really important data that you know, we don't want to suppress it and push it down and be like, “Oh, I shouldn't feel this way” that you absolutely should feel exactly how you feel.
Because then that's good to know. Now we let's actually try this. Let's point in this direction and see then the experience and the feedback that your body gives from that so we're always, as grey area drinking coaches who train under me. We're always working with what are you the client noticing in your body because those are really good clues then to customise for your nervous system. It's not about everybody needing to do grounding or whatever the practice or the supplement is, it's when you do it what happens with your nervous system. And that's how we start to customise and regulate individual practices that sustain and maintain and, you know, make a difference for people long term.
Emma
Totally, totally. And it's just, for me the experience of trying different things out, that is what Jolene kind of opened up for me and I, I know I don't, I'm not uncommon in that people who've been drinking for a long time, we're not very aware of our bodies we're not very aware. It takes a while to tune back into what's going on with us, because we have been suppressing our introspective awareness, which is like our interoceptive ness. It's like our, you know, our awareness of what's going on within us. And that's the same for, you know, eating or drinking for anything, where you're using something to kind of provide you with that dopamine or, you know, to change how you're feeling in the moment because you're not comfortable with the discomfort. And I wondered Joleen, if you would be able to talk a little bit about the nervous system. And I know, we don't have a massive amount of time, and it's a very complex subject. But I wondered whether you'd be able to share a little bit about the nervous system and why learning to regulate and finding these different routes to regulate our nervous system is so important in this journey.
Jolene
Yeah, well, our nervous system is here to protect us, as its number one job. And so it's always reading the environment, reading interactions, you know, with, with people or physical environments that we're in to protect us.
And it's like, you know, is this something that we want to move ahead with? Is this safe, or is there danger here. And the nervous system knows how to stay in balance, it knows innately how to do that. The problem is often we suppress it, we push it down, we, you know, drink on top of it, which is very dysregulating. And so we interfere with what the nervous system innately knows, knows how to do.
So at different times, you know, through the day, sometimes we can feel more collapsed, or we can feel more like in a fight response, depending on what we might see online or a conversation we're having. And none of those things are bad, that all it's just the nervous system adapting to the environment at different times.
But the piece is, that we don't want to stay in some of those states. Because when we stay there, in a really hyper vigilant state or a collapsed state, it doesn't feel good. And so that's then when we bring in substances to try to medicate, when we're really needing to regulate.
And so when we can start to understand that and track a bit of “Ooh, I came out of, kind of that homeostatic, you know, place” and being able to notice that, and then knowing what feels good to bring the body back to, you know, where it habitually wants to be.
And we just haven't been taught that we haven't been modelled how to do that, and so that's so much of what my work is, is learning it. And it's not a hierarchy. It's not like I've arrived, and I've figured all this out, and I do it perfectly. So now I teach everyone else it's a constant, it's an ongoing evolution, I don't, I guess I don't want to say constant. But there's always you know, evolves and, and knowing how to track and kind of notice your own system, so that we don't get stuck in these states. Where then, you know, we're bringing in more excess things to try to deal with the states.
And so that's, that's kind of the connection with, you know, the alcohol comes and works specifically with the nervous system, not as much as the cognition where historically traditionally, we've worked. Because it's like, we want to go back to the logical brain. People know the logic, they know the information. Yeah, but the logical brain moves slower than the physiological nervous system.
So our body is responding in milliseconds, much faster than that cognitive brain. So that's why when people say, “I know this stuff, why can’t I stick with it?” And it's because it's not a cognitive piece. It's a physiological piece. So we have to and this is neuroscience. This is if anyone's read the Body Keeps the Score by Vesser Vander Kolk, the author of that book talks about “bottom up not top down” and what he means by that is, we work with the body but you know, below the neck what's ‘The bottom’. And when we learn how to regulate and navigate and communicate with our body, then the message goes up the spinal cord to the brain.
Emma
Such great information and so, so important, certainly for me and my work on myself personally, knowing this is just it's changed everything in terms of how I feel in my body. Another thing I just wanted to ask you to give us quickly, was just your definition of grey area drinking, because I know that for some people, that is just “what does that mean grey area drinking?”.
Jolene
So grey area drinking is the space between the two extremes.
And so the one extreme as what we've thought of traditionally, stereotypically - and everybody has a different image of what that kind of the wheels fall off stage drinking. You know, again, whatever, maybe a Hollywood movie, the image of somebody on a park bench drinking out of a brown paper bag, you know, what that kind of end stage is, that is not a grey area drinker.
The other extreme is, people who drink every now and again, literally, like a couple times a year, they have a drink, they can stop at a drink, they don't think about when they're going to have another drink, they don't have this internal dialogue of like, oh, you know, “I'm drinking too fast”, or, you know, “this event is so stressful, so I need the drink”, there are truly people who just that they have a drink, and there's not this big conversation around the emotions, the event are they going to drink again, they have that drink that spirals them into a binge, they just drink every now and again, they have a drink, they don't you know, a couple months later, they have another drink.
So those are the two extremes, every now and again drinkers and, end stage drinkers. But in between those, there are people who live in both those extremes. But where most people live is between those two extremes. And historically, we've just turned a blind eye and ignored that. And that's where the majority of people drink, in this grey area.
They don't need medical support to stop drinking, but they're not drinking every now and again. And they're in this grey area. It's absolutely problematic. They know it in their heart of hearts and in their gut. They know that it's problematic. But it looks like most of how society drinks. It's, you know, it's normal, in a sense, but it's not healthy drinking.
And you know, often many people will say to grey drinkers, friends and family and medical professionals will say, “Oh, you're not that bad. You're just worrying too much”. Which is confusing and keeps grey area drinkers drinking often for many years. Because there isn't that external kind of proof and circumstance that something really bad has happened. So it's this grey area that hasn't, there hasn't been a voice given to it. Although in the last couple of years, there's so many of us now talking about it. And so many people identify with this type of drinking.
Emma
Yeah, totally. And that was my drinking. And I think that's probably most of my clients drinking, to be honest. And you know, occasionally I'll get a client or a couple of clients who they barely drink at all. But when they do drink, it's unconscious, and they don't have control over it. And sometimes we work in that area as well. It's like, “I know, there's something that's driving me that isn't, it still doesn't sit right, I don't want to be drinking, and there's something unconscious, there's something in there that I need to understand”. And so we work on that. So it's quite a wide range, isn't it?
And I know Jolene and I really wanted to because I know that we have coaches here and we have people who are considering their relationship with alcohol. My experience of you has been so wonderful and you have been so life changing to me, for my coaching practice and for my personal life. And I think this work is always as much about drinking as about how you know how we function in the world as human beings, regardless of whether we drink or not. And I wondered, Where can people find you? And what programs do you run? Because your work is amazing.
I can't recommend Jolene enough. She's incredibly intelligent and she literally is the leader, the thought leader in this area. So, Jolene, please share with the world what your contact details are and what your courses are all about.
Jolene
Wonderful. Thank you, Emma. So all my info is on my website greyareadrinkers.com and I am interviewing right now for my 11th coach training. I've been training other coaches for four years. Now, if you are a coach or a licensed health care practitioner who wants to learn more about supporting your clients who are grey area drinkers and learning 100% of the physiology, the nervous system, my training is not cognitive based. And you can go to my website and fill out an application if you're interested in that. And then I also have some self directed courses, the sober choice for people who are in their first 30 days of not drinking and a lot of the common stumbling blocks around craving sugar and social things and anxiety, you know, natural, anti anxiety relief. And so that's all part of that course.
And then I also have a Sober AF Bundle once you've stopped drinking, but the different things that come up, like cravings and anxiety and just harnessing your creativity are kind of what's next in designing your life. And so those are all audios of I teach some, but I've also interviewed a lot of my favourite practitioners too. So all of that set greyareadrinkers.com.
Emma
Oh, that sounds amazing. And I think you've got that wonderful quoya loved lady in your collection, haven't you? I absolutely love that lady today. Quoya dancing has been fantastic. Jolene introduced me to it. And the most amazing thing I found for my, my nervous system. Those courses just sound so good. Everything I've done with journaling has been amazing. I highly recommend it. And I thank you for joining so, so much for giving us your time because I know it's late, where you are in the beautiful South Carolina. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Jolene
Oh, thanks for having me. Um, it was fun to talk with you and to be with you. I'm excited for your alcohol free, the aussie alcohol free experiment.
Emma
Aussie Aussie alcohol experiment. So it's my version of this naked mind. It's endorsed by Annie and Scott. And it's an Aussie version of the timeline with an Aussie coach.
