Speaker 1 0:03
If the only bit that's a little bit clunky is I have to make sure that I've gone live in Instagram as well. Hello. Hello. There we go getting them press go live. Yay. So hopefully, now we are live. And I think that looks really good. Awesome. We've done it the technology way. Thank you so much Haley for coming on to talk to our beautiful group of humans here today I invited Haley on because Haley was one of the participants in our Five Days to Freedom Virtual Retreat last year, and then joined us in the Great Aussie Alcohol Experiment. And she posted recently on a post that I had talking about the new version of that, that I'm running on the 19th of February, saying that it had changed her life. And I thought, well, that's pretty exciting. Thank you, Haley for saying that you made my day. So I wanted to get Haley to come and have a chat with us about that, so that she can share what her experience was. And give some insight for other people who might be thinking about coming along and doing it. So first of all, without further ado, I will just introduce you to my friend Haley. Haley, would you be kind enough to tell the audience a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 1 1:33
Yes. So thank you for having me. Yeah, so I'm very passionate about getting this out there as well, helping other people who are possibly struggling like I was in the past. So yeah, I am just a normal person. I have three boys. I'm a single mom, I've run my own business. And yeah, that's, that's about it.
Speaker 2 2:02
Amazing. So you take and this is what I love. And Haley and I were having a giggle about this before we came on live. And just saying it's, it's so funny, because there's such a myth around why people might be wanting to change their relationship with alcohol, there's this whole sort of global gas lighting that we have, that alcohol is a problem just for some people. And those people are never allowed to have alcohol again. And they are, you know, it's very sad for them. And but but they will never be allowed to have it again. But there's just those people over there in the corner and the rest of us, you know, we're all fine and dandy. And the truth of the matter is that and it's gonna get more and more publicity. But the World Health Organization, the Lancet, Cancer Council, are coming out and saying, there is no safe amount of alcohol for anybody to drink. Regardless, you know, it's not about just those people who are alcoholics in the corner, which is what we used to kind of thing. But Haley and myself, that's not our experience isn't that we weren't feeling like we were those kinds of people. We were just or even, like, I feel bad now even saying those kinds of people, because it's like, implying that those kinds of people don't fit. It's just like, that's, it's just a big lie. That's reason people come to wanting to change their relationship with alcohol is not necessarily and yes, this might be the case is not necessarily that they've lost their homes, or they're having a terrible relationship, or everything's going wrong in their life, or they've, you know, they're on the streets. And whilst that can be the case, for most of us, it's something quite different. So Haley, would you be kind enough to explain what was happening for you when you decided that you wanted to come and join the five days to freedom retreat?
Speaker 1 3:45
No, absolutely. So just in adding to that, as well, as a girlfriend of mine, she said, she just doesn't drink she does, has never liked it. And, and we, when we both go out, and she's a great person to now go out, it's because I don't drink as often eaten up. But she said, as soon as you say it, people just think there's something wrong with you. And you've had this horrible, hard time. Like, you're an alcoholic in the past. And it's like, I just don't drink and I said, I get it, like people just judge you, you know, so, but I was just a normal, what I would say and normal person had been brought up with alcohol around me every single day. So it was just so normal for me to think that at the end of the day, I'd got through the day, my kids were alive, everyone was happy. It was it was my reward to have a glass of wine. And you know, and then eventually it would it would end up 1234 glasses of wine, you know, like, so. That was a really hard habit for me to kick. And yeah, having just been bought out with that for 40 something years. everyone around me was doing the same thing. My parents had always done that it was a really hard thing to kick so. And like I said, Before, I have done so much self development in the past couple of years. But nothing, nothing could help me shift this one thing that I couldn't control. So it was just incredible.
Speaker 2 5:23
Yeah, and there's such a it's so interesting when you say it's one thing I couldn't control. And I felt exactly the same way. It was like, I've got all this other stuff going on in my life. I'm really quite a together person. People came across me, they'd be like, Oh, she seems like she's got her shit together. She's, she runs she has a career she is, you know, relatively, you know, she seems like somebody who's got this quite competent in life. And yeah, I'd have that what you were saying? It's just one thing i where I'd be like, why when I say I want to have one glass of wine, or I don't want to have any glass of wine tonight. Why? Am I ending up having it when I didn't want to? And why when I only wanted to have one? Um, I ended up drinking a bottle. And what's wrong with me? Why, you know, there must be something faulty send this one back to the shop. She's, she's, she's faulty. Because there's this snap. Myself. That's exactly. That's exactly it. And I was talking to another lady recently. We were saying the very worst thing about drinking more than you want to. Is the self recrimination. And how many was yourself? Yeah. Can you tell that
Speaker 1 6:54
so mean to myself? Yeah. So. So it keeps cutting out a little bit. So I grew up hearing words here and there, but not That's it? Yeah. So I would have this battle with myself pretty much every day, you know, and then I would, you know, drink the wine. I would then wake up the next day. And just hate myself. You know, put myself down. I actually. Like, I realize now that I've pretty much felt like a fraud my whole life. Like, you know, I go to work every day and like these, these people have no idea. Like, you know, they all think I'm this great, you know, good workers. Great, mom. I just felt like a fraud every day. It was it was it's a shame. It's really horrible.
Speaker 2 7:49
Yeah, it is. And it's, it's interesting, because I was talking to another I'm wondering if my internet's not very good. Should I? We might freeze for a second. If I change internet. Let me see if it makes it better. Bear with me, we might freeze it might all go to two pence. Let's give it a go.
Speaker 2 8:32
Yay. And are you still with me? Can you hear me? Brilliant? That's great. And we're still on histogram. It's all really good. Look at that. If amazing. And this is sound a bit better. It's a bit better. Is it a bit better? Haley?
Speaker 1 8:57
i Yeah. It's still a little bit. Yes, like a little bit.
Speaker 2 9:03
Sorry about that. annoying, isn't it? Um, so you were just talking about that sort of feeling where you're, you're feeling like a Ford. And you're like, if only like, if people really knew what was happening? What would they think? Because I am this person who seems to be on the surface, really in control. But underneath. It's all a bit messy. And I don't feel like I'm actually in control.
Unknown Speaker 9:29
Yeah, absolutely.
Unknown Speaker 9:31
Is that your experience?
Speaker 1 9:34
Yes, yeah. That's exactly how I felt most days. Yeah, it just feels so good to feel free to, like not be controlled by something anymore. It's just a whole new world and that the other thing that I experienced a lot was that the anxiety my anxiety was a lot worse with alcohol and also my confidence Like, I had no confidence, like I had been wanting to run a women's circle for so long, but something was holding me back. And you get you get rid of that. Alcohol and that, that anxious, just feeling in that, like my confidence just has grown so much. So I can confidently go on and do something like that now without feeling. So
Speaker 2 10:25
that is huge. And I think that was a really big piece for me too. It's like, you don't realize how small our cars actually keeping you. And then you stop drinking. And you're like, it's so interesting, because you think you'd go into stopping drinking, thinking, right, I'm going to, I'm going to lose weight, I'm going to be more productive, I'm going to, you know, I don't know what the other things might be. But you think all these things, and then what you come out with is something that's so much more profound, which is that you, you reconnect with your heart, your actual self, and you start to build a relationship. And then you start to do things you never imagined you would ever do. Or you'd have the confidence to do and then you do. Tell me a bit about that from your perspective.
Unknown Speaker 11:30
Yeah, what was the question? Sorry, I just missed.
Speaker 2 11:33
So it's amazing, isn't it that we start with, we think that it's gonna give us a load of other stuff, but actually, what it gives us is selves back, and our confidence in ourselves. So before joining, when you joined the five days to freedom, virtual treat, what was happening for you, what made you sign up?
Speaker 1 11:58
Um, well, like I said, I've done a heap of, of work, like self development, and I was still just struggling with this one thing, and everything else was feeling amazing. Like, you know, I felt, yeah, it was just one little piece that I needed to fix, you know. And I just saw, just randomly came up, I don't know how I found you on on Facebook or Instagram, but I thought, Oh, wow. This sounds amazing. So I joined up and, and just the fact that you've got, because the first week of anything is hard, right? When you're trying to change. So having that support every single day, those calls with other women going through the same thing. And, and you also asking us the questions that we, we need to ask, it was just incredible. And it got me through that first week, without drinking. And, and it just made it so much easier. And you know, the biggest thing that that came from that was, I'm not the only one experiencing is there's so many other women and people experiencing the same thing. And it's not my fault. You know, so it was just, it was it was such an eye opener that first week and then to join the next program was just amazing. To have that support every walk was every day,
Speaker 2 13:26
every day, which is unusual, I know. But I think it's really helpful to people especially at that time of night, we do it sort of like usually about seven o'clock in the evening most nights and then I think at the weekends, I usually get about five o'clock or something like that. And the idea being that it's for you know, when you've got that witching hour that sort of what you potentially would have in your routine have decided that would be the time you'd have a drink that you've got somewhere else to find someone else to talk to and to connect with and share your experience but I think what you were saying here is so huge, because we do like so many things in life isn't it we sit there thinking we're on our own with this stuff. And it's us we're the problem is like that Taylor Swift like I'm from Italy, it's like actually do you know what it's not? You're not the problem.
Speaker 1 14:15
No. Yeah. That is great. And yeah, and just having that those other women to to talk to and to support each other was just that was
Unknown Speaker 14:31
Yeah. Go On you go.
Speaker 1 14:35
I was just gonna say and like even my own you know, stories in my head was like, wow, these women are all just normal people that they're successful at, like, you know, beautiful successful normal moms and like with that, yeah, like it's not you know, people just laying in the gutter that that have this problem. Um, so that was that was really great, too. That's it.
Speaker 2 15:03
And I think that's such an important thing to say, because we do. And I can sometimes see people in personal development or in my sort of business work, kind of, sort of creep away from me when they know what my work is. Because they're like, oh, no, this isn't for me. This those people, you know, those people with a problem, this is their stuff, I'm not going to associate with that small, not for me. And yet, it's so interesting that we're still having all these conversations about wellness and mental health and well being. And we're still including alcohol in that as if alcohol was some form of self care as if alcohol was some form of an additional, you know, tool in our toolkit for wellness, which is such a big lie. It's such a big untruth. And this, this, this whole, and I know, we talked about a lot during our work together, we talk about the sort of, like, rebellious side of us then. And I know looking at the way that marketing works is there's so much marketeers in alcohol know that people who drink tend to think of themselves as a little bit cool, a little bit unusual, you know, because it's like, do you remember, like, I always remember watching Greece when I was about nine years old, and like, Danny had come on in his sunglasses. And then Sandy came on with her cigarette and her, you know. And drinking in striking became like, that's what the cool people do, right. And yet, the reality of the situation is that drinking is what everybody does. And the unusual thing to do is not to drink. And so this sort of more rebellious thing to do is not to drink. But yet, we're still bought into this idea that we're being countercultural, and we're being a little bit rebellious by drinking, but actually, as you know, it controls you. And so you're not being rebellious at all, because what's happening is your life just gets smaller and smaller, right.
Speaker 1 17:07
Yeah. Interesting how people react to, to saying you don't drink anymore? Yeah,
Speaker 2 17:14
tell me tell me a bit about what your experience of that has been?
Speaker 1 17:18
Oh, I think like you said, a few people have sort of stepped back a little bit like, oh, no, I don't want to be judged. Because I, you know, because I'm still going to have to enclose that's nobody else's business. If you want to drink your drink, you know. Some, really, I, I've surrounded myself with some really amazing people. So I don't have anyone pressuring me or anything like that. And I will say, as well, my, my journey has not been perfect. I, my plan was after finishing up with you to go alcohol free for 12 months, and I wasn't able to do it. But in saying that, I feel like I've got a lot more control over it. And I don't, if I if I do choose to drink, I don't hate myself the next day and give myself all that crap that I was before. So I know I made that decision. And
Speaker 2 18:18
you. That's the difference, isn't it? And I love that you say that Haley, because it's about it being intentional. Because a lot of the time we're doing all this stuff, we're doing it unconsciously, we've got no idea. We're like, we think we're drinking to relieve our stress, or we think we're drinking to celebrate, or we think we're drinking to make us anxious. So all these things which aren't true. But in reality, we all take risks with everything we do in our life, right? Don't we always like everyone takes risks. But for me, it was about it's more about being conscious. If we decide we're going to do something, knowing what we've done it and then an understanding why we've done it. And doing it without thinking. This is just funny law. Mummy juice is like I'm making a decision to do this. I understand why I'm not going to be a dick about it myself for myself the next day. And I'm just going to use it as another stepping stone on my journey of a test net, and it's just that being mean to ourselves is so harmful, isn't it? is everywhere. Yeah.
Speaker 1 19:31
And one of the things that you taught us to do with asking what our teenage self would need right now or, you know, that made a huge difference to me as well because just I've got two teenage boys and you know, when you have a tough day at work, or whenever I come home and like what what would my son need right now or what would little teenagers really need right now and it's definitely not a problem of wine. I've never never say that to my 716 year old son. But that was that was really great and helpful through the whole process. And it still is.
Speaker 2 20:12
I'm really glad you mentioned that because I think one of the things that's slightly different about the way that I work with the humans that I worked with, is we do, it's not really about sort of come in here are the top 10 tips and we move on, it's much more like, why are we drinking? Let's learn how to notice when our nervous systems are dysregulated, and be there for ourselves. And I kind of like hold our little hands as we navigate the world as grown ups. It's quite a different approach, I think, than some of the other stuff that's out there. And I hope it sounds like it's, it's had a bit of an impact on you. So thank you for sharing that ad. Or anything else that you took away? Was there any other the practices that we did in there that you remember, and it was quite a long time ago? So
Speaker 1 21:06
probably the biggest convenience, helpful things that I took away from it was that well, what would I need right now. The other one, we're gonna say are the other the other thing that was really difficult for me to get to move. From my, you know, the stories in my head was that it's a reward. And, you know, at the end of the day of getting through the day, and that was, that was something we spoke about a lot, I think, because it's probably the case for a lot of people, it's that reward at the end of the day. So that was one that was really helpful to to be able to talk about that and change the way we think about alcohol as being Definitely not.
Speaker 2 21:50
That's right. That's why it's so interesting, isn't it, and I love doing that work with you. And I love doing that work with groups, because it's like, the, the incredible way that our brains have been conditioned to think about alcohol is in almost every case, the opposite is the truth. And so it then opens up in terms of personal development. Once you start getting into that stuff, it actually opens up so much other stuff in your world as well, because it's like, Well, if that's not true, then what else? Am I telling myself? That's a complete big hairy lie. Yeah, yeah, I think that's been a big one for me. And tell me a little bit so you loved and I know that it's the point of difference, I think, in the great in the greater Seattle experiment is that we meet on a daily basis. And we go with whatever's happening with the humans that are in the group on that particular day. You don't have to meet on a daily basis. It's literally like, drop in dropout, do what you want to do. But the opportunity is there to be there seven days a week for 30 days, if that's what you want. What could you describe if your memory goes back that far? What What was that like what, what's happened in those meetings, the sort of things that we talked about.
Speaker 1 23:10
I think it just got me through that first difficult stage of getting out of that hovel. So that was a knowing that I had someone to be accountable, not not accountable to but I had someone to, to share my experience with every night that was definitely helpful. To the breakout rooms to do,
Speaker 2 23:34
yeah, we take the breakout rooms grounding and then like getting to know how you're feeling your body and your
Speaker 1 23:42
Yeah, so that was great as well, being able to have a meaningful, you know, a deep conversation with one or two of the other people doing it. That was really great. On again, just realizing how amazing all these people were, you know, that was nice. And, like, I just remember driving in the car, sometimes on my way home from work on the coals and I just, I just felt it just felt like being part of something not Not, not struggling on your own, you know, being a part of something. So
Speaker 2 24:17
I am so glad. And you know what Haley's taught me so much as well. Like, and this is the amazing thing about group and I love this why I love group work so much is because it's not about like, you've got a coach and a group of people. It's like, you've got this group of humans and we're all having the experience together. And we're all learning from each other. And I know that Haley was talking to me about are she done, she'd been to see Tony Robbins while she was on the thing. And she was telling me all about this priming. So I started doing priming in the mornings, which Ellie tell us a little bit about that. And then you were talking about something else that you've been doing recently that I thought might be a nice thing to share with the audience as well.
Speaker 1 24:56
Tony Robbins was you Yeah. And I think it was hard for me because I was in a room with I think 1000 people during that time. So it's just, you know, you can Google on YouTube, it's just tiny. And it's just about how to explain it. Write out to other people that you love. And it's just about changing your state. So that's what he taught us a lot is how easy it is to feeling, feeling shit to just go put some good music on or something like that, and just change your state, you know, and, and be happy and be grateful. And, and, and yeah, and the other really powerful thing I learned was her whole pono pono, which is difficult to say that, which is a Hawaiian tradition, which is just so beautiful and gentle. And you, again, you can just look, look that up on YouTube, there's plenty of beautiful songs, and it's, it's just repeating to yourself, either in the mirror or, you know, laying down or if there's someone you're struggling with. And it's just repeating to yourself. I'm sorry, please forgive me, I love you, thank you. And just, you know, just really feeling it, and just sending out that energy to yourself or energy to to whoever. So that's really life changing, as well. So powerful.
Speaker 2 26:30
I will definitely get the links off Paley if I don't have them already. And I'll put them in the comments underneath this live when we finished it in the podcast when it comes out later in the week. But it's so interesting, because I think what you were saying about the Tony Robbins thing, and with this, how do you set
Unknown Speaker 26:53
whole FOMO FOMO. That's
Speaker 2 26:57
a lot of it's a well, it's just about thinking for a moment getting out of all of the frenetic pneus of life. And being a little bit intentional. You know, like, with the Tony Robbins thing, it's like reflecting on things that have happened, things you're grateful for. And then getting a bit intentional about like, how am I going to do my day to day, and similar similar with the what you were just talking about, I can't remember how to pronounce it. But it's like this, like you're, you're emitting an energy and you're free energy to yourself, and you're bringing energy to the outside world. That is, to me that seems it's like about connectedness and about being in the present moment, as opposed to which is what a lot of the time with alcohol is happening as we're trying to escape our present moment. And we're trying to run away from whatever's happening in our lives. And instead of standing next to ourselves, when we're having when we're tired or we're hungry, or we're fed up or we're frustrated or we just want to get away you know, whatever we were using something outside of ourselves to do that to take takes away from the present moment. I think those practices that you talked about are really beautiful in grounding us in where we want to be how we want to be putting our intention and sort of energy that we want to bring into the world. I think you if there was other people who were thinking about joining the search retreats, and were like oh, I don't know. Emma seems a bit odd
Speaker 1 28:39
you're on your farm and funny and real and it was just perfect.
Speaker 2 28:45
Yeah. So it's because it is it's very much a relaxed environment the the the groups that I ran a very like chilled, you can turn up in your jammies, you could be in bed, you can be in the car, it doesn't matter. We're always just so happy to see each other's faces and spend some time together. It's definitely not a judgmental place at all. It's 100
Speaker 1 29:10
No one will kind of get a judgment from anyone doing but
Speaker 2 29:14
no they it's a safe place to be yourself to show up to be vulnerable or to be held in an experience and it's it we
Unknown Speaker 29:27
also have a bit of fun as well it's a bit of a giggle it's not all like Hong Kong Yeah, we we have a bit of fun as well. So
Speaker 2 29:41
yeah, I just wondered if Is there anything else that if somebody was sat on the fence going I don't know. What would you say to them?
Speaker 1 29:55
I would solve online Obviously, if you're looking at doing something like this and questioning whether you should or shouldn't do it, you should probably do it like, an hour a day, just to chat to other amazing women like there's just no reason why you wouldn't do this because there's nothing that can come from the only amazing people's. Yeah, and if you could just change one or two things about your mindset around alcohol, that will change.
Speaker 2 30:33
Huge Yeah. Thank you so much for saying that hate it because that was really yeah 100% I agree. Thank you for being kind enough to come and do this with me. I so appreciate it. Appreciate you.
Unknown Speaker 30:48
No problem.
Speaker 2 30:50
Take care, my dear friend and send me those links and I'll put them in the the comments as the words that I'm trying to find that
Speaker 2 31:04
Thank you, my lovely, I really appreciate it. Take care.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
