Speaker 1 0:00
Hello. The big reveal. Let's see if we get a few more people joining. Hi Alison, Hi Helen, Hi Jess, Oh, Hi Jess, good to see you, honey. Hi Lisa, hi reigns. Lovely to have you here if you need to change if you want to change your names for any reason, in the you go into the participants part, you right, click on your name, you should be able to change it.
Unknown Speaker 0:30
I just wanted to fly
Speaker 2 0:32
so close. I knew that was going to happen. You've been going around my room,
Speaker 1 0:38
all right. I'm conscious that we only have an hour, and I've got to be off on the dot because I am running group at seven. So let's get started. So here we are. Great work. It is the first day, one of the three day end of Jan alcohol, reset the the
Unknown Speaker 1:08
title just slips off the toe. But
Speaker 1 1:12
basically I I presented this back in which in between Christmas and New Year. So it's the same presentation. So if any of you see it, saw that it's the same presentation. I'm just gonna bring some new stuff to it. I'm really talking to this particular time of year. Excuse me a second.
Speaker 3 1:33
Because this is kind of for a lot of us, the end of Jan has got a lot of kind of connotations, especially in Australia, that doesn't necessarily have everywhere else. With you know, if you have young kids or kids going back to school, it's the kind of week of kids going back to school. Often, I find here in Oz, we don't have the same fervor as for the January kind of change groups, as the rest of the world has, because the rest of the world gets back to work after Christmas, whereas a lot of us are in kind of like mid summer holidays for children, and we're still kind a lot of US are with families more than we would be. And that pressure of socializing and being with, you know, family and friends and lots and lots of celebrations and beach time and outside time and all that kind of stuff can mean that we tend to like, not really want to have a look at some of the things that are bothering us, and why I wanted to take this moment at this particular time before we go into February is I think it's a really good time to kind of stop reflect and think, Okay, well, let's take A minute and let's give ourselves a minute to think about how we want to be for the year going forward.
Unknown Speaker 3:09
Excuse me, that flies still there.
Speaker 3 3:14
And if we don't take a minute, what will happen is we'll end up, you know, it'll be July, and we haven't had a chance to kind of reassess where we are in our relationship with alcohol in this particular tent. So I thought it was a really nice time to do it in the lead up to February as well. So welcome all of you. The first section, the first day's work we're going to do is all about reconnection, and this is such an important part in our relationship with alcohol. So just double checking, who here came to did any of you guys come to my presentation? You're not able to hear anything. Alison, can everyone else hear Can you
Unknown Speaker 4:00
guys let me know, just in the chat, that if everyone else can
Speaker 3 4:06
hear, yeah, okay, all right. Well, Alistair, so I hate that when it happens, it's so frustrating, isn't
Unknown Speaker 4:13
it, but sometimes, what
Speaker 3 4:17
can be bloody fly, um, sometimes it can be that your that your microphone on your or your sorry, your speakers on Zoom might automatically connect to a phone or a watch or some Bluetooth speakers or something like that. So what I recommend that you do is you have a look at your zoom features, like in the Zoom piece, and just make sure that the microphone is going and the speakers are going where you want them to go. And unfortunately, that's probably all I can give you in terms of tech support. Otherwise, I won't be able to get through the presentation in. Time. But if it's too difficult, we can Yeah, so everyone else can hear it, yes. So if it's too difficult, there will be a recording, a replay of this, that will go up into the hub, which I will give you the details of if you don't already have it. Here we go, and that should be up there. Bear with me a sec if that's going to work. So that's the link to the heart. Oh no, it's not working. I don't know why that's not working. Can you guys see at the top I've posted something? Let me just see if I can do it here copy. There we go. Let's see if that works. Okay, cool. So this is all the links I'm going to talk about today. That first one at the top is for the hub, and that will have the replay of this. So if you can't hear the sound on your computer now, then I encourage you to watch the replay.
Speaker 1 6:01
So sound should be fine. Okay, alright, so let's get started.
Speaker 3 6:06
So celebrating you, and I always say this to people in my groups, is it's only about 10% of people who ever look under the cover, so to speak, about what's happening for them and what they're doing, what their behaviors are doing most of us, most humans, spend their life blissfully unaware
Unknown Speaker 6:29
and not at all interested in
Speaker 3 6:33
looking and changing and thinking about change and thinking about what we might do differently. And so you know, huge kudos to you for being part of that small percentage of people, right, and for being here and taking that time for yourself. So and welcome everybody as well. I noticed some people have joined since we started. So welcome. Lovely to have you all here. So what I'm going to talk to you about is what I call the third way of being around alcohol, and it's a really different way than the traditional kind of recovery world, or, you know, places where you might go and take, like, a 30 day challenge or something like that's a very different mentality. And I always have this picture of my friend's dog, Ruby on my presentations. And the reason that I have those is her. I have her there is because she's little. She's a little puppy there, right? And the way we treat ourselves around alcohol, and our relationship with alcohol is often really harsh, and what I'm going to be talking to is starting to treat ourselves more like we might treat somebody like Ruby or puppy like Ruby when she has done something that she maybe shouldn't have done because she hasn't learned how to do something yet, and we treat her with kindness, and we treat her with understanding, and we treat her with consideration, and that's kind of going to be a theme to this reconnect part of The presentation.
Unknown Speaker 8:20
I'm just keeping an eye on the chat as well.
Speaker 3 8:24
So the third way, what I call my third way, is, is, is very different. It's the, you know, we we led to believe there are two ways to be around drinking. And my experience is very different to that we're led to believe that they you either are
Unknown Speaker 8:46
kind of miserably sober
Unknown Speaker 8:49
or you are
Speaker 3 8:53
happily drinking, but you've got that kind of regret, you've got that, you know that we've got that other side to it, So we're drinking too much, a lot of time feeling bad about ourselves, and just like taking breaks and getting back on and taking breaks and getting back on, and it's kind of like that, almost miserably sober as well. And again, I don't use words like sober in my work, but I'm just using that because that's kind of like in the vernacular of our culture. And so we've been led to believe there's these kind of two options, really, unless you can what, you know, quote, unquote, Drink responsibly, or, you know, be able to have what we've been told is the normal amount of alcohol, which is like for most people, it's like one or two glasses of wine, or whatever your tipple is. And if we can't do that, then we've either got to put up with these two really shit options. And what I'm here to teach, and what I my whole method is about, is that there's a third way. It doesn't have to be like that, because those two ideas sounded hideous to me. So the way that I teach is there's no struggle. There's no battle, right? So we're not in willpower, we're not in white knuckling. We're not fighting what is we're not in fear. We're not worried about tomorrow's hangover. Yeah, we're not in fear, we're not bracing ourselves, or we can't not look at alcohol. You know, it's like, it's a very different approach, and it starts with learning
Unknown Speaker 10:23
and then listening and then becoming,
Speaker 3 10:28
yeah, so we learn new things. We feel differently because we've listened to some of the things that we never imagined we'd be listening to. Like we open our brains to a different way of thinking, and then we start to be different, because that's what happens really okay. So this is me. My name is Emma. For those of you who don't know me and I work with women in midlife who are looking to find their groove. Now, when I say without booze, it's not really necessarily without booze, but it's like that we that booze isn't really taking up all that space for us. It's not defining our lives. It's not in our brains as much. So it's really about, how do we find our grooves? We've really letting go of that kind of like gripping on to or being controlled by alcohol. So you can see, I've got lots and lots of qualifications. I've just actually finished my certification as an intuitive eating coach as well. So I work in various different ways, but they're all really connected. I'm a counselor and psychotherapist. I'm registered with pacfa, and I've been that for quite a long time now. I'm a this naked mind senior coach. I've qualified in the snake in minds liminal Psychology program. I've qualified, I've qualified in a gray area drinking program under Jolene Park. So there's lots and lots of qualifications there. I also haven't got on there, I don't think, but I've trained for a year under Gabor Mate in trauma and substance use. So I've got a lot a lot of qualifications, but that isn't what I think qualifies me to be here in this room. Zoom Room with you guys. What I think qualifies me to be in the Zoom Room with you guys is that I have changed my relationship with alcohol to a take it or leave it relationship with alcohol, one where alcohol has no pull, has no draw. It's a non issue for me. And when I say that, what I'm talking to is, for example, probably six months ago, some friends came around to our house. They had oysters. So I don't drink. That's my choice, but I'm not here to push not drinking. I absolutely think there's a million different ways to be around alcohol, right? My choice for me, it's easier for me not to drink because I've gone to a place where I don't want to do it anymore. So it's just of No, no interest to me. I was gonna, I was writing a post recently. It's like, it's like a cheese sandwich, right? It's like, it like, it doesn't have any more draw for me than that, which is very different to how it was. And this is why I think I'm here. But his friends brought around some oysters, and they brought around a really fancy botanical gin and and some lemons. And they were like, Hey, we're going to try this really fancy botanical gym with these oysters. It's supposed to be brilliant. And they were like, you won't have that, will you, because you don't drink. I'm like, of course, I'm happy to try it. No problem. So I tried the botanical gym. I tried the lemons. I preferred the lemons, and I carried on with the rest of my day. It was a non issue. It's not something I'm scared of. It's not something I can't have, and that's what I want, that's what I learned, and that's what I wanted to teach other people, right? That makes sense. Okay? So my story. So this is so you might think, Oh, well, she sounds like she's the right old teetotaler. Well, no, so I started drinking when I was probably at 13, and drinking is very much part of my life. And I drank excessively from a very young age, like I remember being at school and being at a school play and being really drunk and wondering why no one casts me again to be in the, you know, I'd have all kinds of incidents. You know, I'd end up in like I'd fall asleep on the top of busses in London and, you know, wake up in a phone box back in the days. I mean, I was a, I was a little wild one. I worked in SoHo in London. I worked in media, and it was a very much a drinking and drugs culture. It's like work, hard, play, hard culture, and I was very much part of that. And. Um, and then I moved to Australia, and things started to get a bit more difficult. So I, sort of, just before I turned 40, moved to Australia, trying to get work. It was really hard to get work here, and I could only get, like, contract work, which meant for someone like me. And I didn't know at the time that I am an ADHD autistic person, but I didn't know at the time
Unknown Speaker 15:23
the kind of idea of contracting
Speaker 3 15:27
was quite tough for someone like me, because I'm always in that kind of pick me, pick me, pick me mode. And that did that to me on steroids, because I'd go and work somewhere for six months, and the whole time through that six months, I would be trying to be picked for the permanent role, which meant that I'd be working crazy hours. I also had very little kids, and I didn't know my kids were neurodivergent as well, which meant, like, I couldn't understand why they couldn't sleep, and I couldn't understand why getting out the house in the morning was so hard. And I was working five days a week. I was feeling like a crap mom. I was feeling like a crap wife, and yeah, shit at my job. I seem to be getting into trouble for everything I was doing, wherever I turned. And of course, I had that, you know, waking up at 3am feeling shit about myself. Now you'll see this before picture, and you know, I've struggled with the disordered eating all my life, and I think it's very much in quite often connected struggling with alcohol and or drinking too much more than we want. But it's also very common in neurodivergent humans. And so you'll see me there, and I look very fit and healthy. So I just run a half marathon in the before picture. And yeah, I look and this is the thing for a lot of us, it's like to the outside world, we seem totally fine, you know, but inside we're not, and at home, we're not, and behind closed doors, we're not. And for me, I knew in my heart that something wasn't right, and it just took a while for me to kind of like, follow that trial and look, this is not some look fake. You know, I'm amazing. Life's brilliant. It's not life's really hard. We've had sometimes we've had, like, with the kids and not being able to go to school. My youngest was in bed for two, three years with chronic fatigue. We've had a terrible neighbor. We had to move house twice because the neighbor was awful and was being like a stalker. We had to get through so life is not perfect. Don't get me wrong. Life is human. Life is shitty sometimes. But I'm so glad for me that alcohol doesn't have that draw that it used to have, which was every time something was hard or good, that that would be my go to and that's kind of what I want to share with you guys. So I am happily alcohol free. This is my choice, and that's, again, not what I'm trying. I'm not trying to push alcohol being alcohol free on anyone, absolutely not. And anyone who's worked in my programs, and I know some of the people who have will know that that's not my the way I work, because I don't think it's got anything to do with alcohol. And I'll talk about that in a minute. About that in a minute, but I'm learning to be at peace with me, and that's a forever job. I'm sleeping like a baby. I really am, and I'm able to be the calm space in my world, because what I found most in even on a 30 day break, the difference in terms of my reactivity and having two kids who are autistic and ADHD, their nervous systems are very heightened, and they're very sensitive to what's going on in the world. So it's really important that I can help co regulate them as a parent, and so I feel like that's something I am able to do. So that's why I'm here. I and
Speaker 3 18:47
so this is kind of where we're going to start with the real, kind of, like, crux of this presentation, and why that's connected to reconnecting with self, is that preparation. You know, I didn't change my relationship with alcohol to take it or leave it one by stopping drinking. I talk I the thing that made the biggest difference for me was something quite different, which is something that we call the pause. And I'll talk about this a bit more in a minute, but it can be really helpful. And I've just finished. I'm just finishing up working in the January alcohol experiment with my group, and there are people within that group who are absolutely doing this at this stage, because it's the right thing to do. So why keeping drinking when you start working on your relationship with booze can be really helpful. And actually, it's funny, I was reflecting on one of the participants in the January Aussie Alka experiment, was saying to me, one of the things she wishes she'd had was what we call a data point, which is when you have a slip up with alcohol, because she wanted to be able to do the work in. Group around why that had happened, so we could work out what might be causing that to happen and how to meet that need in a resourceful way. So this is what we're talking about here. So why keeping drinking when you start working with your relationship with alcohol? Can be really helpful. So first of all, before we get into the nitty gritty of it, I would love to hear from you, and if you can write in the chat for me, that would be fantastic. Oops, I've gone to the wrong slide. What your relationship with alcohol is right now and how it makes you feel. So if you guys can write in the chat, that would be amazing. I have a quick sip of my drink, get rid of the fly in my throat.
Speaker 3 20:59
I can't see anybody writing is and is nobody writing? Oh, there we go. Perfect. Let's see. Yay. Jess says the full stop at the end of a hard day, Therese says, I feel it still has a hold on me. Absolutely, yeah, still has a hold on you. And it takes a while for it not to as well, because often it's meeting very, useful needs anyone else. So relationship with alcohol now and how it makes you feel. And I know it might feel a bit scary, but I think weary relationship, yeah, it's a weary bit. It's a bit so it's a little bit fearful, a little bit like, oh gosh, my way to relax. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And so it's very interesting, isn't it, and is anyone able to share what how that relationship is making them feel? So Kim says, I love drinking, and the idea of drinking, but often results in the big regrets the next day. That's the conundrum, isn't it? That's the conundrum. It's like this love hate relationship. Tanya says having a drink is like my time, yes. So here that so often, right? Lisa says I'd like to make a choice rather than saying yes to the champagne I'm offered. Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, exactly. So I'd like to be in choice around it, rather than in obligation or Yeah, I don't want to say no to somebody. I don't want to upset somebody. I want to, you know, because often that's involved as well, isn't it? That can make it very difficult for us. Great work, everybody. Thank you for sharing. I know it's a bit nerve wracking sharing as well, but it makes it so much better for us as a group when we can kind of interact with each other a little bit more, we'll get the most out of it if we do that. So yeah, brilliant work. Okay, so I'm just going to check in, you know, if you feel like you're in the right place. So basically, this was me, and I just, I'm assuming there's quite a few of you, but let's have some check ins around that. So for me, it was I felt like everything would improve if I could get this one thing under control. I was waking up at three o'clock in the morning and being horrible to myself, and I felt like wine was the only way I could relax, and I didn't feel comfortable. And I'm sure not all of you will be parents, but for me, my kid was 11 when he said to me, I was coming in to put him to bed. And I came into the London and I always used to come in with glass of wine, because I found putting the kids to bed quite hard. And he said, Mum, please don't bring in the wine into the bedroom, because it's making me feel anxious. And that was like my kids are getting to age. I need to start thinking about this a bit more.
Unknown Speaker 23:53
Yeah. So agreeing to everything.
Speaker 3 23:59
So yes. So Jackie said, Yes, I agree to everything. Yeah, exactly. So let me know. You know, if that sounds familiar to you, and this is, I guess, a really important question as well, which is, What would change if you were able to get alcohol back under your control, and how would that feel? It's really important that we talk about the feeling part of it, because human beings move away from pain and towards pleasure. And said, Freedom, I will let you down. I always have to have a little little but anyway, it's like a George Michaels comes on to something. Yes, rains, absolutely brilliant, freedom. Yeah, it's such an interesting thing, isn't it, because so often, and one of the things we're going to talk in the Aussie alcohol experiment group tonight is about a little bit about rebelling. And it's so interesting. How you know how complex that concept of freedom is. Has anyone else got any thoughts around if they were able to change their relationship with alcohol? So it's under their control how they feel? Because I think you know feeling into these feelings is really helpful as well, in terms of moving us towards our destination. They'll wait and see if anyone else puts anything and move through a little bit. So bear with me. I think there's a bit of a delay, so my apologies.
Speaker 3 25:39
Okay, so let's Yeah, Theresa, I feel scared because I'll have to deal with all the things I didn't deal with well while drinking. Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is really important to hold space for that, you know, because it might not be the right time yet. And there's nothing wrong with that, because there's a lot of things that we can do to prepare ourselves for the right time when it's not the right time yet. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, the Jess says starting the day feeling rested rather than foggy and disordered would be so helpful for the day ahead. Yeah. So lean into that Jess and reigns. Lean into the freedom and Theresa would hold yourself gently in the scared and just say, Yeah, of course, it's scary. And Kim says, no hangover. Feel like I would achieve so much more. I would be proud. And I love that Kim, because that was the I think I remember, and I don't even think it was when I stopped, when I took the I took a year off, and that was my journey before I stopped, and my intention was never to stop. That wasn't it would never have been if I thought I was going to stop, I would never have started, which is kind of funny, isn't it, but that I remember in that first that one, one of the 30 days I took before the 30 days I took, which changed everything for me, I remember that feeling of pride, of being able to go and pick my son up from something he couldn't like. He was exhausted. He was somewhere he shouldn't be. Somewhere shouldn't be. And then he called me and said, Can you come pick me up? And I was thinking to myself, do you know? What? If this was a normal Saturday, sort of late afternoon, it would have been a No way, Jose. I'll be coming in a cab, you know? And that feeling of like, Oh, I feel like a bit, I feel like I'm kind of like a reasonable person,
Unknown Speaker 27:27
which is, you know, again, a bit judgmental of self. But
Speaker 3 27:33
I'm going to say black all. I hope that you don't mind me using that, because that's the only name I can see. But I want to feel like in the control version of me that used to be able to have a drink and make dinner and do all the fantastic things I used to be able to do. I want to feel like myself, Oh my gosh. I love that you said that so much down to my fluffy hands. Yes, says Blackie. I've always got your Blackie or black or sorry, I'm not very anyway, enough, but yeah, because I want to feel like myself again, and this is really important. So we're talking about reconnection. Blackie is fine. Oh, cool. Okay, cool. I can do Blackie. And then otherwise I get a bit confused. Yes. So this is really important, so I would encourage you to type yes in the chat if you're ready to get alcohol back under your control. And if you're not yet, that's fine as well, right? If you're not quite ready to get it back under, back under our control, I'm not talking about stopping drinking here, right? That is absolutely not the point of this reset. And in this reset, it's perfectly okay to drink while we're doing this, and absolutely, you know, if you haven't stopped, I encourage you to continue. If you have stopped, don't go back, because it's harder to it's harder to stop again if you start, if you know what I mean. But if you're still in that kind of like I'm drinking some time, just let yourself be let it be okay where you are. And that's an important part of what I'm going to talk to you about tonight. I was going to keep an eye on the time. Yes, everyone says so I want to get it under control.
Unknown Speaker 29:14
Sorry. Bit like for today, but
Speaker 3 29:19
yeah for sure. And it just is such is, I hate being controlled. I always talk about this in my groups. I have a, like, very strong rebellious nature. I have a real strong desire for autonomy. I don't like being told what to do. And so something controlling me is a different is it is a problem for me. Okay, so I just want to let you guys know about something as well. So I am running this three free day alcohol reset. Over the next three days, you will get so much great information from it. You will also get journaling prompts that are in the hub that I just put in that link. So. So I encourage you to go there. You will get so much from me. It is a standalone program. However, I am going to talk to at the very end my February Great Aussie alcohol experiment. Because for some people, it will be the right next move. For others, it won't, and that is completely fine. So I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to do that. I don't want to be not transparent about it. And you know, if you could just let me know again in the chat, if that is okay. So I hope that you will get, in fact, I know that you will get heaps of great information from me, that it will be the payoff will be it. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 30:42
Raina, appreciate that. All right,
Speaker 3 30:47
thanks, Helen. I appreciate that so much. Thank you everybody. I appreciate that so much. A girl's got to earn a living, right?
Unknown Speaker 30:55
Or 52 year old woman.
Speaker 3 30:58
All right, my lovelies. So let's begin. So this is what we're going to talk about over the next three days, and today is what we're calling the pause, which is taking a break from taking a break. And again, like I said, if you've already stopped drinking, which is often the case as well, don't go back to drinking just because I'm like, do the pause, because you can still do the pause when you are drinking as well. But if you're not, if you haven't take like if you're thinking, I'm going to do fit fast or something like that, I encourage you just to stay where you are right now and try and take the judgment meanness about what you're doing away and apply some of this stuff that I'm going to talk you through tonight. Okay, so then tomorrow, we're going to talk about rewiring our brains, and we're going to do some exercises about that, so we can actually start to rewire some of that conditioning that we have around what things are, and we know that beliefs are the way that we see the world. You know that it's the lens through which we see the world, and it's the lens through which we see ourselves as well. So we're going to do some practical stuff. So really encourage everybody to come along, if you can live is so good. Otherwise, of course, you can do it in the replay. And then what we're going to do in the third day, and this is why I say what I present to you, regardless of whether I'm actually selling a program at the end, is the essential information of exactly what to do next. And so whether you come and do work with me, or whether you go on your own, or whatever you choose to do, or you choose to just go on your merry way and go, that's not for me. Thank you very much. You will get, like, a very clear plan for what your next step should be in order to because what we're looking for here is a take it or leave it. Relationship with alcohol. Yeah, we're not looking to be in this kind of we're not looking to move one lot of control alcohol, controlling us to another lot of control us, controlling ourselves. In fact, what we're saying is, let's not do all of this control business because it's really bloody hard and it's making everything so much harder. But I'll get into the detail of that as we go. So let's begin. And by the way, I just, just before I came online, this is totally ADHD person. I decided to change the complete color
Speaker 2 33:13
of this presentation. And I when I did it, I was like, a bit much. So forgive the colors, I kind of embarked on something a little bit close to the deadline. And yeah, it's not exactly how I like it.
Speaker 3 33:31
But why keeping drinking when you start working on your relationship with booze can be helpful. The reasons, and this is about our connection to self, right? And self, right? And self, connection to self is so important. Gabon Monday talks about the deepest sadness, the deepest tragedy of our human life, is that at some point very early in our lives we lost connection to self. Yeah, we're disconnected from self and any kind of coping skill, be it alcohol, be it obsessive, tidying, be it excessive, weight loss, be it porn, be it Doom, scrolling, be it whatever we use right to escape ourselves is a disconnection from self, right? Because if we didn't, if we weren't disconnected from self, we would be okay to stay? Does that make sense? So we're going to go through self trust. We're going to go through self awareness, and which can be challenging, and then probably the most important thing that you can take away from this self compassion and the absolute opposite of what almost everybody else teaches around alcohol, and how our brains naturally work around our relationship with alcohol. So first of all, trust. I'm just like shocked by the color every time it comes up taking a break from taking a break. So, and this is. Very much part of I trained with this naked mind in 2020 I was the first Australian, this naked mind alcohol coach to qualify. And I worked in this naked minds programs with big international groups. The first one I joined was the one I joined, where I was a participant had 2500 people, primarily from the US, and a lot from the UK as well. But it was huge. It was absolutely huge. And the thing when I started working, I worked for them in their programs, and they have a one year program called the pause, and three months of that one year program is about the literally the pause, which is we continue drinking if we haven't stopped, and we learn and we observe and we get curious. You know, it's kind of like the concept of the idea of sober curious, we start to get curious. And you'll be surprised, what changes can happen just from doing that, starting to notice. Yeah. So rebuilding our trust with ourselves is really important. And I think when I look back now at the change for me, when it kind of clicked into place, which was probably, I think I reckon, I spent a good many years, at least five years, trying to stop or change my really, I never wanted to stop, actually trying to take breaks and moderate right? And then when it worked for me, it was, I decided to take a year, and it was, it was a really big decision. And the first thing, the biggest thing, for me, was I told my kids, and that kind of was like, really scary accountability, because I was like, if I tell them, and I can't do it then, and it felt, for me a year, felt safe, because I was like, my friends won't think I'm strange, because they were all kind of into their fitness and stuff at that time, and it felt like something I could say, I just want to see if I could go through all the seasons and different experiences and see what it's like, and get those kind of like experiences under my belt, of Christmas, Mother's Day and all that kind of stuff. But I remember I can talk about all different reasons. So when I first was looking to cut down, moderate. It was all around, you know, I wanted to lose weight, I wanted to be more productive, I wanted to, you know, all of these things. But in reality, I think what it really was was I was I knew that the way that I was being with myself after I'd had a night of drinking was not okay like i was i There's something in my intuition knew that being horrible to myself and hating myself a little bit wasn't okay. And I think in my heart of hearts, it was breaking my heart, actually. And this is why I think it's so important that that we start here, because it's usually a lot of the reasons why we drink. Yeah, there's loads of external factors as well, but a lot of the reasons why we drink is because it's not nice necessarily to stay with ourselves. So sometimes it's our situation, but it's also, you know, with there's a lot of judgment, there's a lot of guilt, there's a lot of, you know, self talk, there's a lot of busy brain all those things, right? And so if we want to change our relationship with our core to a take it or leave it relationship, we have to start building a relationship with ourselves. Because the problem is, we're so mean to ourselves. And then, you know, it's every time we're mean to ourselves, we just regulate our nervous system. It's like we're in a we're in an abusive relationship with ourselves. And that the problem with that is it, it dysregulates us. And so the problem with that is that when we're dysregulated we drink. So does that make sense? So the solution is we take a break from taking a break, so we stop. So let's say you guys, if you guys are drinking, and we say, right, I'm going to stop worrying about it for three days. This three days we're on together. If not, we just reflect on our if we've already started. And I encourage you, please don't go back to drink if you have, because it's so much harder to to stop again. But if you, if you will play my just let it be okay, and let's start coming, moving out of judgment and into curiosity, because everything we need is inside ourselves. But we don't believe yet that we have the capacity. And in my groups, a lot of the work we do, you know, we'll the guys who are in there as well. We'll let you know. But basically, we do kind of work around, what does it feel like when we've got a craving? How does that make us feel in a physical sensation in our bodies? And then what would it be like if we were to have that drink? What would be the physical, somatic experience for us of having that drink? And then sometimes we can see. See that, you know, we can create the feeling that we are looking for from something outside of ourselves, internally, and that's really a piece of transformational kind of felt sense, physical sensation, awareness. But we don't believe it, because a lot of us have very strong beliefs around, I'm not worthy. I don't deserve. I'm not acceptable, like me. I'm an I'm I'm an unacceptable, and I'm a I'm bad and wrong. You know, we've all got these, like I was talking about it last night in group, we've got like, 13 to 17 negative core beliefs that everybody in the world kind of, that there's so much research on this kind of holds that at least two or three of them and they colored the way we see the world. And so if we, for example, aren't worthy, if we're not good enough, if we're not acceptable, if we're bad or wrong, then we're always going to judge ourselves to be bad or wrong, until we kind of work with that belief. And so we're never going to think we're okay. And so we're always going to be mean to ourselves. So it's really important if we can take a break from that and just go, hey, hey, I know this part of me that's being mean to me. You think you're helping me by, you know, giving me a kick up the ass, but actually you're making me more distressed. And so I want to, I need to try and do something a little bit different, because this isn't working, because I don't know about you, but I tried all of that self flagellation for years, recrimination, and it didn't change my relationship with alcohol one iota, but it did make me desperately, desperately unhappy. And if, as we go through, if anyone else relates to this, please do let me know in the chat, and if anyone wants to say anything as well or ask any questions, please do. I'll try and keep my eye on it. So in the next part is cultivating awareness. So everything we need is on the other side of awareness. Everything changes on the other side of awareness. So, and again, a lot of the time in my group, what we're doing is we're starting to notice how we think, feel and behave around when we when we're feeling like we've got a craving, or, you know, when we feel like that unconscious part of us has taken over and suddenly, you know, like you walk in the door and then somehow or other, you've got a glass of wine in your hands, and you've drunk half of it, and you don't even know how that happened. It's like that unconscious behavior, what we're learning to do in my work and in the work with people who work with me as we're learning to understand what's happening when we lose ourselves, when our unconscious patterns take over the unconscious part of us that's trying to take away our discomfort or enable us to push through and do something that you know, maybe we're not we're not, we're not that keen on doing. Yeah, I hope that makes sense. Any questions, please type in the chat. So cultivating awareness. So the problem is, we're so busy beating ourselves and focusing on the behavior is we and this is the thing that all these alcohol programs are all about alcohol and to me, and in my training with Gabor, with everybody else that I've trained with, the issue isn't alcohol. Like alcohol is the solution to the problem. It is not the problem. The problem is the reason why we are using alcohol, yeah, to change our states, change our mood. And so when we can understand what that is, then like having a take it or relationship, believe it, relationship with alcohol actually becomes quite easy.
Speaker 3 43:29
But at the moment, if it's fulfilling a need, a deep need for us, like the need to continue doing things when we are exhausted, or the need to show up socially when we feel awkward, or the need to get some space when we feel like we've got nothing, the need to look after our sensory experience of being in the world, you know? I hope that makes sense, so the solution is to get curious, right? Because if we instead of going, I'm an asshole because I drank last night. We went, That's interesting. And I was like, anyone who works with like, that's Oh, that's interesting. Oh, great. And people like, What do you mean? It's great that I had this horrible experience and it made me want to go back. No, no, no. It's interesting, because now we can understand what the pattern is here and what feels not safe enough for your nervous system to stay with as it is, yeah. So it's getting curious. It's so much more interesting business all that self recrimination brings so much drama and panic to our brains, and we get into this kind of like, of course, and then we're going to drink again, because we're in this kind of really heightened state just created by our own judgment and self recurring nation. So the solution is that we get curious and we start to notice and track our thoughts and feelings and routine around alcohol. And in order to change, we have to understand we can't just be cross with ourselves about it. That doesn't work to ask me how I know and everything. That we do is for a reason. This is what I always saying to my groups as well. You know, this is, this is about starting to believe that we are doing the best we can. Yeah, we are not crap, we are not incapable. We are not, we don't we're not weak. We don't have poor willpower. It's coming from the position that we're doing the best we can now, if we come from that position, it's like, well, everything we do is for a reason. There's a very, usually a very good reason why we're drinking more than we want to. Let's find out what, and then we can change it, right? Whereas, if we're in the middle of like, I'm such an idiot, oh god, there's no information there for us. We're just completely activated. Does that make sense?
Unknown Speaker 45:41
Okay? So I
Speaker 3 45:46
in the hub, which I'm just go up to the top of the thing, see if I can get the I have. And some of you may already have downloaded them, the awareness worksheets. They are brilliant. And I encourage you to start if you're wanting to do a Feb fast or a I've had clients who literally have changed their relationship with alcohol just by doing these, generally people whose relationship with alcohol is more around the substance and less around the self, and I'll talk about that a bit more tomorrow.
Unknown Speaker 46:25
But here are the here's the link to the awareness worksheets.
Speaker 3 46:29
Bear with me. I'm a one man band, so I don't have anyone to help me do the links. So please excuse me. It's a bit clunky. There you go. So there's a link to the awareness worksheets, or go into the hub for the replays and download them. And so what we do with the awareness worksheets, and this is really kind of like a mindful practice with drinking. And again, you know, we can do this if you're not drinking as well, because you just start reflecting on what you look back at the last time you drank, and do this process. And then if you have a slip up or a data point, as those who work with me know, is what we call them in my world, you can use this process to go through that data point and analyze what was going on and how not to do it again, which is so much more helpful than just going, I'm not going to talk about it. I'm going back to day one, and I was just an idiot, and it's like, well, that's all just so much drama and fuss and understanding why we have that, because that's how we've been culturally conditioned to behave with ourselves. That's how our parents behaved with us, that's how our society behaves with us. But it's not helpful in terms of creating change, and there's so many research as who tell this so it starts, it's kind of like three days worth of programming. You don't have to do it over three days, but it's like, think waking up, when do I start thinking about Booz? And you'd be surprised often when it starts coming into your brain. And then there's lots of questions around that, and then, what are my routines and rituals about booze? And then, you know, the final part, what the after effects? So I always describe this, which is why it's got little aliens all over it. And spacemen is like imagining that you are a space man, space man, and a Martian or whatever, and you're coming down to earth, and you're investigating the human that you are, and so you're not judging, you're just gathering the data. So I encourage you very much to do to download these. And I've, like I said, I've got clients who this is 100% change their relationship with alcohols. You know, if they're people who are looking to moderate and they would just want to reduce their drinking, just just putting some attention on it can really help, like, things that are really important as well. It's like, when you're drinking, like, notice that this is what like routine noticed, you know, when you when you put it in your mouth, what it tastes like, what it does to your tongue, what it does to the inside of your mouth? Is it as good as you thought it was going to be, or not? And it doesn't matter either way. It's just we're gathering data. Yeah. When do you feel your body relax? What does it feel like? That sort of thing, right? Okay, so then the last part, and probably the most important part, and I've just got to keep an eye on the time, is self compassion. So this is the heart of sustainable change. And I really It's in everything I do. Every you know, my coaching, my counseling, is self compassionate. Because self compassion is the antidote to shame, and a lot of the reasons that we drink is because we feel bad about something. So it's not just like often if we're lonely, it's not just because we're lonely, it's because we feel bad about being lonely. You know, it's, it's we judge ourselves for being lonely, or, well, if I'm lonely, this must mean this about me, you know. And similarly, you know, if we have a sad emotion, or we're feeling like, you know, we're exhausted and we don't have the energy to do things, and we're so sort of, like hard with ourselves, you know, I used to be able to do this, and I'm just weak, and if you just, you know, all this kind of stuff, but self compassion, the reason we do that is because our society tells us that we. Have to be productivity driven, and our value comes from what we do, not who we are. And, you know, self compassion is, you know, that's something that would have been told to us as children, and if we were not compliant as children, or if we got over excited, or if we were crying, it's like, suck it up buttercup and all that kind of stuff. And so this is really about breaking that conditioning, because that conditioning, the sort of conditioning of, you know, you get, what you get, and you don't get upset, and children should be seen and not heard. Not only do we have the experience of being sad or being excited or being, you know, different, you know, uncompliant to whatever it was that our parents and teachers were trying to get us to do, but then they make us feel bad for having had those needs in the first place and so and again, that's like you get what you get when you don't get upset. It's like, like getting upset means that you are bad or wrong kind of thing. And so we internalize that as children. And so we get a sense of shame if I'm feeling sad, if I'm crying, if I'm upset, if you know I shouldn't be feeling like that. And so that's the shame part. And so self compassion is 100% the antidote of shame. And so it's really what we need to be able to do this. And self compassion doesn't mean giving ourselves a leave pass, because self compassion can be incredibly fierce. And self compassion when it's fierce is about caring about ourselves so much that we do the thing that's going to make things better for us. Yeah, it's not about we have this idea that if we leave left to our own devices, we'll be sat on the floor eating Doritos and chugging beer and doing nothing. It's not true at all. Human beings are born to, you know, human beings do well if they can, if we're not doing well at something, it's because there's a problem, right? Yeah, and the problem is not us. The problem is this is something that we need to solve rather than be mean to ourselves about. So self compassion comes in three elements. It starts with self kindness versus self judgment. And this can be really tricky for us. And so, you know, in my work, I do a lot of work around parts, work, you know, inner child work, and working out where those judgmental parts come from and how to kind of bring them back into the fold. So there's a lovely and I'll put it in the Facebook group. And again, if you guys don't have the Facebook group, let me make sure that I've got that for you as well. It's midlife AF, which is kind of like my community group. And I'll put some I'll put some processes and some bits of information around some of this stuff in there as well. Let me just get the Facebook group for you. Oh, maybe I haven't got it.
Speaker 3 52:52
Oh, no, I don't. Sorry guys. So it is in the hub, though. But Elizabeth Gilbert, Bert Gilbert, who wrote Big Magic, and she wrote, eat, play and love. But that's not why I, I follow her. She talks about this idea of, you know, you know, really judgment. Self judgment is fear, you know, self judgment is trying to get things right. And she talks about, you know, coming back to the place where, where, you know, we kind of re embody ourselves. And you know, someone at the beginning was saying, you know, about coming home to myself, remembering who I really am, is like coming home to self and stopping fear. You know, being in charge. Excuse me, so we start with self kindness. So, you know, noticing, you know, being aware, like this is suffering. I'm having a hard time now. I think I need to finish doing all these jobs, and I'm really tired. I'm having to listen to my husband or this other person banging on in my ear, and I just don't want to hear what they have to say. I don't feel like I've got any space. I don't think I've got any time. My children are behaving awfully, and they It's making my heart hurt or whatever. Yeah, so it's like, this is suffering. This is a hard time. We're allowed to have the experience. And then the next part is common humanity. And this, again, is not about dismissing ourselves and saying like we often do, you know, you know you shouldn't, if you shouldn't be complaining, because, you know, think about like for me it was to think about starving children in Africa, you know, that sort of thing that's very much like, you know, we, I can't think of the right word now, but it's like we, we dismiss ourselves, you know. And so common humanity is like understanding, like, with the however many billion people in the world, we know that at least most of them have at least of those kind of, like, core negative beliefs that I talked about with you, like, you know, I'm unacceptable and I'm not worthy. We know that most people have about three of those at least, that are coloring the way they see the world. So what we know is, in you know, we're not alone. And this is one of the beautiful things about being in community and being in group with other people, is starting to realize. That we think this is an us problem, and it's really not. It's actually a cultural issue and a conditioning issue, so common humanity. So you know, you're not alone in this. There are other people who are going through the same thing. Yeah. And then finally, it's like the mild mindfulness over versus over identification. So over identification is that whole, like, I'm in the eye of the storm with my emotions. I am, like, part of it, it's me. We're having this awful time, and we're getting catastrophizing. We carry on like this. It's going to be like this, and we're all going to end up dead in a park with no house. And that's kind of like where the brain goes, because the brain loves to catastrophize, and we get more and more heightened. Then, of course, we want to trick so, but mindfulness is about noticing or Okay, so I'm noticing I'm getting I've got a craving. I'm noticing I'm getting triggered. So where am I feeling that? Like, what's the physical sensation of that? What does it make me want to do? You know? So that's kind of like the three kind of core bits of self compassion. So the problem is, we've got all this negative talk. We're punishing ourselves into change, and it never works. We're hating ourselves for drinking. But the solution is we start to understand how our thoughts work and how to shift them, and how to start to cultivate a growth mentality, as in, you know, with Ruby, so it's, you know, like you're playing a game of chess. A computer doesn't kind of beat itself up if it makes the wrong move, it goes, Oh, that's interesting. I'll get that. I'll get that right next time, because I'll do something different. And that's what we're trying to look for, right being soft place to land for us. So a lot of us drink, because being inside our brains is is abuse, an abusive relationship. And so this is what we're trying to change. It's like, how do we become the soft place for us to land? So the world outside US may do whatever it does, but at least we're not, you know, being horrible to ourselves. And one of the things that I have in the beginning of all of my programs is, you know, the kind of words that you are not your thoughts. You're the thinker of your thoughts. And equally, we could say the same about feelings and emotions, right? Important ones, remember? Okay, so I'm not going to go through these with you now, but they are that I'm going to load them when I finish in group this after this evening at eight, I will load these questions into the Facebook group midlife AF, which you can find in the hub. I highly encourage you to answer the questions if you can in the Facebook group underneath the post, because what you'll start to see is this kind of idea of community and realizing we're not alone, realizing we're all in together, realizing we all have the same experience. And I'm going to talk a bit more about dopamine for you tomorrow. But dopamine is really a wanting hormone or neurotransmitter, and it is something that we go after in or it's something our bodies, evolutionary wise, chase in order to feel, basically, to meet a human need for survival. So, you know, when we have sex, you know, we have an organism, and that gives us state. The search for the the orgasm is the dopamine. That means we procreate. For example, in caveman days, if you found a raspberry, you'd get some dopamine from that situation, because, you know, then nowhere, and you came back that that was the place to get food from and so forth, but alcohol gives you excessive amount of dopamine, and so, you know, way more when you drink than you would get naturally. And again, you know, there's some great pieces of data. Huberman's written a really cool piece on, you know, when we get a level of dopamine from an activity that far outweighs the, you know, the physical exertion that we have to take. That's something we need to be very wary of. So again, I ask you to look at those questions, reflect on them. They'll be in your workbook as well, which you can download from the hub and reflect on them. And if you can reflect on them in the Facebook group, so you can get everybody else to kind of get involved, and it just becomes a lot more of a community experience. And some of you know, a lot of working around alcohol is about realizing we're not alone, because there's so much shame in that. So realizing that everybody's similar to you and they have the same experiences is really cool. And so again, just asking your patients while I talk about my program, so I have the 30 day Great Aussie alkyl experiment. It's a really fantastic program. It's very small. I only have 25 people in my group ever. I never go any bigger, because I am a licensed and registered psychotherapist, and I want to be able to work with people deeply so that we can understand the root cause of what we're doing, because that's where we get change. That's where we get that take it or leave it. Relationship with alcohol. Within the program, you get daily videos. They're very short, they've got suggestions, and they try to challenge. Just the way that you think about the conditioning that we have from our society around alcohol. There's also a downloadable journaling workbook with 30 days worth of journaling prompts which are absolutely invaluable, and then the beautiful community that I create, which is always amazing. The women are always brilliant in it, it's very small, and like I said, it's one of my clients described it as boutique, not Kmart, which I think is priceless, because you're not just a number, you're somebody I know. I know your name, I know what your goals are, because we will sit together and go through them. It's Australian, New Zealand times. It's not us, UK centric, and it's neuro affirming, because, as I said, I'm an autistic ADHD, human, and it's trauma informed. And when I'm talking about trauma, people kind of go, oh, I don't have trauma, but it's impossible to be in our world as a human being without having some kind of trauma. The very fact that we disconnected from self is a trauma. Now, there's different levels we call Big T, little T, but it's important that we come to this from a nervous system and trauma informed perspective, and I'm able to do that. So that is, again, a priceless part of working with me. We're starting on the Monday, the third No, the second of Feb, and I will offer anybody who joins up over this three days a discount of $200 off the upfront payment, which is 700 would make it $797 for the 30 days. And that you'll get 30 days of group coaching with me at in the evening. At varying times, you don't have to go to them, and there are replays of them, but you can come to them, if you desire, and people find that really good. Over a 30 day break to be able to go somewhere in the evening and hang out and talk things through and talk through cravings and learn and change our beliefs. And you also get a one to one session with me, which is absolutely vital, in my opinion, a 30 minute session which is worth $100 and we literally go through and understand your own personal needs around alcohol, where you want to go, and we create a plan. We co create a plan together. So that's my program. I'll just put the details of it in the chat as well. So again, that offers available until end of play Thursday, when we finish this plan together. So I encourage you, like I said, there's only 25 people allowed in the whole thing, and quite a few of the current group are joining. So if you do want to get in. I encourage you to do so. So that's my link.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:46
Any questions? I'm noticing it's 703
Speaker 1 1:02:51
and I think I need to nip off. But does anyone have anything urgent that they want to ask before we finish?
Speaker 3 1:02:58
We're going to do rewiring our brain tomorrow, and that's going to be quite practical. So bring your thinking heads and again, there'll be replays in the hub if you, if you can't make it for any reason, no worries Tanya. No worries Jess, lovely to be with you all. These are my details. If you need to contact me for any reason, definitely reach out in the Facebook group as well. No worries. Blackie, thanks, Kim. Lovely to be with you all. And I'm also going to put it on the podcast as well. So if any of you follow my podcast, it will be there too, probably the day after. Alright, gorgeous ones. Thank you so much. See you tomorrow, and we will do rewiring. And we'll do a bit practical rewiring as well, but I better jump off and get on to my other group. It's been a delight to be with you like I said, reach out if you need anything. All right, my darlings, lots.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
