Speaker 1 0:00
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of midlife a SBZF Oh my goodness, what an episode. I have been I've been coaching in the Aussie ALCL experiment and you know, a busy mind comes up so often as a reason why women drink or female assigned at birth humans drink. So I thought we'd spend a bit of time on that session on that today. So over to me and busy a chef, I hope you enjoy let me know how you how you feel about it if you can. Send me a message or write a review. All right, my love's take care see you on Saturday. If you're a woman in midlife, his intuition is telling you that giving booze the elbow might be the next right move. There. Midlife AF is the podcast for you. Join counselor psychotherapist this naked mind and gray area drinking alcohol coach Eamon Gilmore for a weekly natter about parenting quirky teens, menopause relationships and navigating this thing called midlife alcohol free. If you're feeling that life could be so much more that you're sick and tired of doing all the things for everyone else. If your intuition is waving her arms manically at you saying it could all be so much easier. We didn't have to keep drinking. Come with me. Together we'll find our groove without booze.
Speaker 1 1:41
I lovingly acknowledge the Buena Ron people of the Kulin nation as the custodians of current Baroque. I share my admiration for the Aboriginal culture I witnessed the connection that they have for each other and the land and their community. As I swim in the waters and walk on the land, I feel the power of this place. I'm grateful for the Aboriginal peoples amazing custodianship, the power, beauty and the healing potential of this place. I wish to pay special respects to the elders of the Buena, wrong people. Their wisdom, guidance and support are exceptional, and felt well beyond the Aboriginal community. I honor that this is Aboriginal land, and that it has never been ceded. I am committed to listening to the Aboriginal community and learning how I can be an active ally in their journey to justice. So the reason I wanted to talk about this was I was I met with group in the Aussie alkyl experiment last night. And it's it's been really interesting. The more I work with women, the more or female assigned at birth humans, the more I become convinced that being alcohol free, living an alcohol free life is a feminist issue. Alcohol is a feminist issue. And I'm gonna do a different podcast on this in a separate live, but what I just want to make sure that I've got your comments. But one of the reasons that I think it's so important that we take a break from alcohol at some point in our lives, be it for longer term, be it short term, is because
Speaker 1 3:56
at the moment, women are using alcohol to manage
Unknown Speaker 4:02
their mental health.
Speaker 1 4:08
And we're doing that because of our societal beliefs and our societal conditioning around what women's role is. And you know, I say this time and time again, but many of us are many women, most women I would suggest who have a problematic relationship with alcohol, as in by that I mean wish they drunk a little bit less than they did or wish. wished they drank a bit less than they did, or wish it didn't have have control over them in some way.
Speaker 1 5:10
My phone's ringing, so apologies. So I'm just getting everything up on my computer so I can see where I'm live. And I can see the comments because I'm not seeing them on stream yard. But I've got everybody now. So that's awesome. So welcome everybody. And we are talking about busy AF. We're talking about busyness here. And the reason we're talking about this is because busyness a busy brain, is the reason why most human beings drink to turn off our busy brain. And there's so many different
Speaker 1 5:54
there are so many different thoughts, points of view on what to do about a busy brain. Now, let's start with the idea. Where does the busy brain come from? So there's a lot of different interpretations of a busy brain. So, I mean, the most common people would say, oh, it's an ADHD thing. Yeah, so. But there's a lot to do with perfectionism in drinking. And there's a lot to do with perfectionism, in being a human being has a lot to do with perfectionism. And being a neurodiverse human being there's a lot to do with perfectionism in being a, you know, we, we call people type A personalities, I would have identified as a type A personality because it's a coping mechanism. And the thing with being a perfectionist, the thing is with be doing all the things always being busy, always, you know, never having a moment. And it's quite an interesting one, actually, because I I was thinking about my dad passed away in April 2011, which is when we moved over here, move over to Australia from the UK and Daisy, my little one was 10 months old, and my big one was two and a half. And it was a massive upheaval moving. So we sold our house, we packed up our belongings, we shipped everything out here. And then we went to Thailand for two weeks. And we went, we went with some friends, we met friends there are just so nice. And we had two weeks in Thailand with two really good friends of ours. Just a beautiful, beautiful experience. But in the middle of that my dad died very suddenly now it wasn't sudden, like dad dying wasn't sudden, it wasn't sudden that he died because dad had a heart condition from being very young, like from before we were born, like he got a very rare thing that came through the infection in his gums. I kind of grew up with an endocarditis that said, and what happened was that infection in his blood, led to his heart valve being damaged. And then from then on. So he had a replacement heart valve, I think, when he was like when he was 21. And then he married my mum, immediately afterwards, I think she was like, they were worried that we're going to lose each other. And he was very sick. And then what really what seemed to happen was that every 10 years, Dad would get really sick again, so he'd be absolutely fine. And then I guess, the piece of material that was keeping his heart going and replacement thing wore out, and he would have another heart attack, he'd be shipped off to England, because we used to live in Africa, and Brazil. And, and so dad being very, very sick was quite a normal part of our growing up. And there was, you know, especially in my 20s and 30s. I remember just mom getting calls from mom, and we'd be at party B wherever. And it would be like, okay, dad's in hospital, everyone comes to the hospital. And so we'd all you know, drop whatever we do and get cab go to wherever dad was, and be with him. And so, in a way we'd been preparing for dad's desk for all of our lives. Which sounds funny. And the reason I'm talking about this is because I want to talk a little bit about how my brain works with regards to suppressing feelings and
Speaker 1 9:59
so expressing feelings and how it copes with difficult stuff. Because for years, and I speak to many of my neuro differential friends, and we, you know, I posted something this week actually on this and it was about you know, whether, because it because a lot of people you hear identifying as intuitive as highly sensitive people as empaths. And what appears to be the I wouldn't symptoms is the wrong word, but what this presents, like what the presentation is, is very, very similar, in my opinion to being neurodivergent. Or, or, and because often those two things go together, having had big or little T trauma. Now, you know, I've often talked about little T trauma, in my work in the podcasts, and really, you know, sort of this concept that
Unknown Speaker 11:12
this concept that
Speaker 1 11:16
really experiencing trauma is part of modern living. The way that the world our civilization has been set up, is such that we cannot help but experience little T trauma, like micro traumas, continuously, it's like our condition. And so it's kind of interesting to me when people get because we tend to get, we tend to blame, you know, it's like, we were talking in the neurodivergent community about trauma and people get very sort of like
Speaker 1 11:58
concerned about the idea that, you know, some people say, which isn't true, when in some ways in some ways not, but that neuro divergence can be. So there's a lot of misunderstanding around so Dr. Gabor Martinez talking about neuro divergence and trauma. And my understanding of working under Dr. Gabor Ma Tei, when I was training under him this year, is that his interpretation is a little bit different to what people kind of people kind of interpret it as he doesn't believe that neuro divergence is a neuro type. He believes it's created by trauma, which isn't my understanding of what his but that's kind of like the headlines. But here's the work that I did study under Gabor Ma Tei. It was very clear that he but he understood he's an ADHD man, he and his children are and they take meds, and he understands that it's genetic, but I think what his perspective is, is that in you know, we, genetics is also impacted by trauma. And, um, and,
Unknown Speaker 13:24
in addition to that. So we have genetics big, so my brain just went blank.
Speaker 1 13:34
And I'm owning it because ADHD, autistic human being in menopause. Just seeing if I can see any comments. Can't see any in midlife AF, let's have a look and see if there's any anywhere else.
Speaker 1 13:54
Let me write something in the comments so that I can say, hey, if anyone comes on, and I can see the comments, because I know sometimes that you can only start to see the comments when you're writing them. So there's often a lot of debate around that. And I kind of think it misses the point because the point isn't. Where does neuro divergence come from? The point is, how do we work as human beings with each other so that we can thrive? In a world that wasn't built for any of us to do that? Because as far as I'm aware, everything my experience has been is that the world isn't created for us to thrive. Anybody neurodivergent or otherwise. And the reason I talk about this is because one of the reasons that women drink is Because of busy braid, and so I wanted to come and talk to us particularly very, very pronounced part of being neurodivergent, as well, particularly ADHD human beings, of which I am one. I'm also autistic, and I have two autistic ADHD children. But regardless of whether or not you're neurodivergent, most certainly female assigned at birth humans drink to stop a busy brain. So let's talk about what a busy brain can present like. So a busy brain can present like, tried to remind us of all the things that we need to do. So we can't go to sleep. A busy brain can present like looking back at all the things that we did over the day, and criticizing them, or looking for ways we could have done the better. This is why it's all linked to perfectionism as well. And I think a lot of the reasons why we drink is due to perfectionism. I was talking about this with Dustin Johnson, as well. And it's linked to diet, culture, productivity, culture is this sort of concept that, and it works very, very well, for the society that we live in. ASEAN, it's short, from a short term productivity perspective, it works very well. And it's also this sort of competition, this idea of, there's only room for one at the top. We're all in competition with each other, which we're not, you know, we're really not and it's, you know, was that zero sum game. perspective, which is basically if somebody else has something, then you don't, it's like, you know, it's, it's, it's somebody having something, it means it's minus that for you. Which, which is just not true, right? There's, there's, there's enough room for everybody. It's a bit like the food thing. It's like, you know, how can we be living in a society where we have such huge abundance, and yet, we've still got people going hungry, and people who have not got places to live. It's, it's nonsensical, it's made up. But But what it does is it keeps us all working, and keeps us all striving and keeps us all having to use coping mechanisms to manage the fact that the way that we live our lives in this modern world is annexed and often bearable for people. And that's the, that's the key to it. It's like in order to live in this modern world, in our lives, we literally have to drink to cope. That's how it works. Now, it doesn't have to be drinking, drinking might not be your thing. It might be something else. It could be obsessive cleaning and tidying. It could be anything really, that's a coping mechanism, obsessive, you know, it really applies just as much to eating disorders, disordered eating, porn, shopping, social media, gambling, anything that you're using, to manage your experience of life, your emotions. Because and, you know, I say this all the time, because we've never been taught how to be with ourselves in our distress. And again, this is why you know, when we're talking about it is inevitable that we will experience trauma, trauma doesn't necessarily have to mean a big T trauma, it doesn't mean necessarily that we have a you know, very serious car crash, it doesn't mean necessarily that we're assaulted. It doesn't mean that you know, we have been in a war zone. It can mean that, but it can also be much smaller. And this is where we talk about things like highly sensitive people gene of sensitivity, humans who are ADHD or autistic. There's this. Our experience of the world is very intense. Now looping back to what I was talking about with my dad passing away is I still haven't and one of the I found it very interesting when I was listening to for Rhonda Cavalli talk about her death, and she wrote the book. So before she's a great coach, she's British. She lives in Canada, I think. I think she lives in Canada. She might live in America, anyway, doesn't matter. But she talks about grieving her dad and not grieving him properly until she stopped drinking. If my memory serves me right now, my experience with my dad has been I remember when he died, mom's calling and I was like, I don't know whether I should go back Home or not mom and my sister were like, No, don't come back home. You've just got there. It's not gonna He's dead. It's not like nothing's gonna change. And I had the babies were very young and everything. And I remember thinking, No, that seems like the right thing. And to be honest with you, I'm still glad that we didn't do that. I think that would have just been, you know, doing stuff to stuff sake. I remember crying and I remember feeling really sad. I remember we went to the beach, and we love plantains for granddad. That's not for my kids. This is before you lynching off lanterns was frowned upon.
Unknown Speaker 20:40
And then I shut it down. Like
Speaker 1 20:42
I really didn't feel much about it. Like for me, Dad, just like, it's almost like he just walked out the room and ever, like, came back. And I remember thinking, and for a long time, I've thought there's something wrong with me, I've not grieved him properly. And now I realized, I think, as an autistic human being as an ADHD, and I think, you know, regardless of your neuro type to a certain extent, being born, assigned a female, female at birth, means that you suppress things. And the reason that you suppress things is because they're either too painful, or because you've been made to feel bad or wrong for being who you really are. This is why it's so relevant to drinking. And so it was really interesting for me, so yesterday, I decided because Dad, dad passed away sort between the 15th and stuff, 13th and 17th. of March. But I hadn't had a chance to think about it properly, so on. I can't remember what it was 17 no ATM, so it must be Monday, I walked by the beach. And I thought about that. And what was really lovely for me, I kept my brain kept trying to struggle, not let me think about him.
Unknown Speaker 22:01
It was like, no, no, let's get on to work.
Unknown Speaker 22:02
This is what remembering it was like, oh, let's do work
Unknown Speaker 22:04
works.
Speaker 1 22:05
Let's put an email together that's said to put an Instagram post together on top of such a great avoidance tactic.
Speaker 1 22:22
But anyhow, I really sort of kind of tried to get myself into like, really feeling and experiencing because dad, mum bought dad's ashes out and put them in, we put them in the, in a seed near where I live, which was such a lovely thing for her to have done. But I remember like my brain was just trying to not let me feel it. But what I did was I put a song on that reminded me of dad, and that actually really helped.
Unknown Speaker 22:49
And I wasn't I have a little
Speaker 1 22:50
cry. And it was just like, Oh, I'm actually feeling this. I'm actually like, grieving dad. And the reason I say that is because sometimes when we talk about things like busy brain, some of us can go I don't have a busy brain. I don't I don't have anything going on in my brain. I don't feel anything. And that's usually like we tend to as neurodivergent humans, we tend to sort of feel things one of two ways. It's either really intense or not at all. And I have quite a firm belief that the not at all is a coping mechanism. That because that's where I sit. And yet my children are very, very sensitive. And a lot of coaches and counselors and things that I've seen have been like, Oh, that's interesting. Mm hmm. Interesting that Bethel children have a highly sensitive and yet you barely feel a thing. Most of the time you're floating off in
Unknown Speaker 23:44
la la land.
Speaker 1 23:48
But I think it's very much a coping mechanism for me. So that's why I always when I work with humans, we work a lot with feelings. From a very neuro affirming perspective. So coming from the fact that some of us don't find it very difficult to feel things. And we don't feel things in a way that other people do. You know, some people feel it in color. Some people feel in pictures. Some people feel in words, some people feel in sensations. Some people don't fit, don't feel like they feel at all. But there's a lot of work that can be done around feelings. It's really important that we do this work, particularly if like me, I have very low hypo, I think it is rather than hyper interoceptive awareness, which is again really important, but also something that women generally or female assigned at birth humans generally have difficulty with. Often because we have suppressed our needs for so long, that it's very difficult for us to feel them when we have them. And that can be because we've not only have we pushed ourselves down and masked ourselves in order to fit in and be acceptable in this society. But also you know, because a lot of us have dieted which is where we just deny our hunger you know, we have to suppress it and then eventually we stop feeling it right sorry thirsty so busy brain back to busy brain. So what can busy brains presents like, busy brains often present with to do lists should I
Unknown Speaker 25:28
wish I hadn't? ruminating. They can be intrusive thoughts, images, that disturbing images, that's my young, my eldest is having a bit of that at the moment.
Speaker 1 25:46
But what is really happening is our mind is creating friction and drama for us. And the reason it's doing that, and I talked about this, if any of you interested in this subject matter, I did a brilliant webinar, not to beat myself up too much. But you know, if you can't like, if you can't fly your own slag, who's going to I did a really good webinar, and it's on my website under Resources on judgment. self judgment, because that inner critic has a lot to answer for. Because what we're the reason why most women drink is because it's an it's safer to drink, than to be in ourselves, and be with ourselves. And many of us drink in order to push through to suppress our actual genuine experience of life, because
Unknown Speaker 26:47
it's hard to
Speaker 1 26:49
know. And we talk about this, you know, we're exhausted nine times out of 10. This is like the latest research just came out of and I've posted this in my so if any of you interested, it's in my Facebook group. And in my Instagram account under in the link tree, there's peace research has just come out I think it's from Latrobe University in Melbourne on might be Yeah. And it's just come out talking about the reason why women women drink so much. And a lot of it is because we've been conditioned to believe that alcohol relieves the stress and guilt of not being able to do all things referring specifically to parenting and work. So this is specifically a piece of qualitative research on Australian working mums. And a because this is a time and you know, masking. I have a strong belief that most people that I work with a neurodivergent because what happens for us is and I had this exact thing for me, so I appeared to be really bloody organized, like I get your she's so organized, she's so reliable, she's so proud. And I had all these strategies I didn't know I was late diagnosed autistic ADHD. And I had all these strategies that helped me be like a regular person, and not just a regular person, a really fucking good person, like really good at my job, person good at life person. But there were so many reasons for being able to do those. And also, I had to work so much harder than regular Joe's, in order to keep this facade this mask going. So I'd be working late, my husband would get across me, why'd you bring work cups? I can do it. And I'm sorry. And it wasn't that, you know, when everyone's like, well, we can't do it at the time, you know, you need to reassess what you're doing. No, I'm neurodivergent my processing skills are slow. It takes me a long time to really really really absorb information. So when I was I've done 43 degrees that I think three three degrees Yeah. Different levels of in a master's, a post grad and a post grad diploma and an MBA and you know, this is another example of what you know neuro asked neuro divergence cuz it can seem really really, really like capable. And then I was and then something happens which, which knocks us or takes us too far. So we've been we've been keeping it all together, running bloody full throttle, all like, you know, on adrenaline, cortisol, booze, caffeine, and then something will come along and it will tip us is too much like so it's impossible for To keep doing the exhausting work of performing ourselves, so that we fit into the world. And so what then happens is, you know, that will either present as us picking up a coping mechanism like alcohol, or starting to use alcohol unhealthily, I started to use alcohol to escape from our experience of life. And usually for women, this comes about when they have children, it starts when we have children, because suddenly, and for me, it really didn't kick in until my teenagers, my kids became teenagers. It was a mixture. For me, it was like a big clusterfuck of stuff that happened. Having bullying at work, and then my children, really, really struggling as they went through puberty and high school. And I was finding out that they were neurodivergent. And it all just got too much. I just couldn't do all this stuff that I'd always been able to do. But I hadn't been able to do it with peace. You know, like, it wasn't a peaceful thing. I was so stressed all the time. But when I talk to other women in group, you know, we talk about
Unknown Speaker 31:21
why we, we constantly
Speaker 1 31:24
have to be doing, we're constantly helping, we're constantly trying, we're constantly putting ourselves last and putting everyone else first suppressing our needs suppressing of needs is like the most biggest reason why women drink. And so just to taking us back to that inner critic as well, it's like, yeah, how you know, you shouldn't be here, you're not good enough. All that stuff, right? So busy mind can consist of all of these things, all of the above some of the above, something completely different. But what is really important to remember is, the busy mind is our mind. It's our body mind. And the reason that it's telling us it's being so harsh with us is because it's trying to save us, it's thinks that we are going to fuck up royally. And the reason that it thinks that is because of the little T microcosm trauma that we all have growing up, because we don't need live in a kind of communal village type scenario. We live with human being parents like us, who are not able to pick us up all the time, who are not able to cuddle us all the time who are not able to attend to our whim, and and reflect our value back in their eyes. And so when we do not have our value reflected back in the eyes of our caregivers, when we are not held, and we are left to cry, and we are not seen. You know, we're told Marie, there are a say, and I love this phrase, I've got it from someone else, it's not mine. You know, this idea of being both too much and not enough at the same time, just breaks my heart there. And then we spend the rest of our lives trying to fix ourselves because we perceive we cannot perceive as a child, that our parents or our caregivers weren't doing a good job of the world was not a great place that we wanted it to be. We cannot we cannot comprehend that as a little child. So what we do is we make ourselves a problem. And that's when we start to get this hole inside ourselves up continuously trying to fail. With validation from external circumstances, external sources, you know, be that alcohol be that human beings, whatever. We're like, Pick Me Pick Me. I'm okay. Am I okay? Am I okay? Am I okay? am okay? Who? Exhausting? Isn't it? really tiring. Other people, it's really hard for other people to be proud of us. It's an inside job. And so what do we do about this busy brain? So there's loads of things that we can do like, you know, having a daily practices that are not reg regimented, you know that or not, like, you know, if I don't do this, I'm a failure, which is how us you know, perfectionist like to think it's all like black and white. It's like binary, it's like we're either in or we're not, we're drinking or we're out. We're Oh, so like, you know, feast or famine. binary thinking, which is just actually not how this stuff works. It's always that and that that, it's like, you know, so you have a data point you slip up with drinking, the reason you slip up with drinking is because you haven't learned how to do something yet, not because you're a failure, and you need to get back to the beginning and have a spank on the bottom for being so naughty. There's like not is training a puppy not going into battle. And this is where we get it so wrong with alcohol, and it causes so many problems. So back to busy brain. So the busy brain is always trying to protect us, it's trying to keep us safe. So if it's trying to keep us safe, the reason that it's doing is doing it completely like, you know, in a nonsensical way, because it's being harsh with us as being a dictatorial parent, because that's what it's learned. It learned from the world around us that when people are coming up to master, we shout at them. And we mean to them. And it thinks that being mean to us is the way to help us but it's not correct. And we think that it's a very powerful, pervasive voice. And this is why so many people drink because it's really scary being in this body and brain that's constantly going on at us all the time and criticizing us and telling us we have not to forget this and that and the other and that we should have done this and that and the other and that we know all this stuff. But what we need to realize is that is just a little part of our brain. And I know that Elizabeth Gilbert wrote that beautiful poem about fear. And I'll post it in the group afterwards. But it's like, I won't, I won't do it cuz I won't do it justice. But what she's basically saying, and this is kind of like, everything to me comes down to fear and love. Fear causes us problems. Love is the way through, right. So instead of being an asshole to ourselves, going into battle with ourselves, it's actually about loving ourselves being kind to ourselves and training a puppy not slaying a dragon. And if we could only approach it this way, we will be far more likely to be successful in our relationship with our colony, all our other copies of coping mechanisms, right. So what we need to do with the busy brain, yes, okay, so get some debt, get some daily practices that help regulate your nervous system, make sure that you're taking breaks in your day, make sure that you are not doing everything for everybody else and leaving yourself exhausted, it is impossible to make good decisions. When you're exhausted. When you're burnt out. When you when you are spent your nervous system is dysregulated what happens is your thinking brain goes completely offline, and then you can't make good decisions. So one of the things that's really important is that you have to matter, you actually have to give a shit about yourself in order to stop drinking. Because you have to start putting things in place to maintain a nervous system that's resilient. So as in you can cope with stuff happening.
Unknown Speaker 38:12
And
Speaker 1 38:15
in order to do that, that means you need to have breaks you need to be able to have fidget you need to be able to you know, do whatever you need to do to calm your nervous system for me it might be singing, it might be having a little dance, it might be going for a walk for me i My kind of like what do you call them? Non negotiables are to go and have a walk and to to have officers police walk outside when it's interesting to have a walk outside and to have a swim. So I get up in the morning I do some breathing. I read a passage from my book called The Presence process, which is a particular type of program that I do. So I do 15 minutes of breath work then I go for a walk then I go for a swim then I walk back home. And anything else that I've managed to do over and above that is amazing. And if I don't manage to do that, I also let myself off
Unknown Speaker 39:18
the hook
Speaker 1 39:26
so those are great things to do. These are the practices that we do yoga is great, you know, whatever, whatever you do, everyone's different. Having bath having a shower otter is amazing. But the other part of it is that we need to stop running away from the busy brain. We need to start a bit like you know meditation meditation is not about getting rid of thoughts. Learning to be with ourselves needing to create a safe home inside ourselves is not about suppressing our thoughts and emotions. It is about learning how to feel them. So what that means is when the inner critic when the judgment voice comes in is like, you should have done that you should have done over all that stuff. You're no good, you're never going to succeed at this look at you, who do you think you are, you know, all that sort of stuff. We need to acknowledge that part, we need to befriend it. Because where it's really coming from as a much, much younger part of us. And it's seen this sort of behavior, this sort of, you know, from teachers, from people, putting people in positions of power from parents, they've seen, we've seen this sort of like dictatorial disciplinarian approach, and it doesn't realize that it's actually hurting us and why it needs to understand we almost need to have like, a little conversation with ourselves and be like, Hey, I get why you're doing this, you're worried. You think I'm gonna fuck up? Yeah, you think if you don't, if you're not kicking me up the bat, I am not going to be able to get this stuff, right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna mess up and everything is gonna go to shit. I need you to know that I appreciate you, I think you, you have really helped me, you know, keep all my stuff in check thus far. But now you're beginning to hurt me because you being so mean to me all the time, is making me drink, because I'm trying to escape from you. And so therefore, I'm self harming and hurting myself by using alcohol in order to escape my own self. So we need to do things a bit differently self. So it really is about building relationship with self, you know, any kind of parts, work parts works really important, it's really important to understand that, you know, we all have lots of different parts that make up our psyche. So, you know, I was trying to think of the name of the particular disorder, so that they, there's multiple personality disorder that we all everything, there's a continuum in mental health. A multiple DISC personality disorder is usually a result of a very serious trauma whereby it was imperative for the human being, to separate. And, but it doesn't mean that in every regular human being, we don't have different parts, protective parts, Savior parts, you know, that's why I always can't call the wine and never call the wine. The person who comes in tells us to, you know, maybe like a glass of wine to escape from this experience, I would never call that a wine which, because to me, it's the wine savior, is coming in to help us. It says in distress, and it thinks it's saving us. But similarly, with judgment with the shirts with the busy brain, she's there. Because she's trying to keep us safe. It's very much a fight or flight. place to be, it's why we find it so difficult to be quiet, to be not doing stuff all the time. Because then we have to be with ourselves. And being with ourselves. It's scary when we don't have a safe home to be in. And so that's what this journey for me is all about actually creating a safe home inside ourselves. It's actually about making ourselves a place we want to be. And that we'd rather stands next to our bossy, misguided judge judgment self and let her know that we appreciate her. But we're doing things differently. Now, we're not doing that mean stuff, because that means stuff was hurting us. Because these protective parts, they only reason for being is to keep us safe. I don't want to they don't want us hurt. They don't want us to be in pain. And so if we can start building relationships with them, and letting them know that what they're doing is hurting us and making us drink making us want to drink to escape from being with them. But they are so unbearable for us. They're worse than whatever it is they're trying to stop us from doing. They'll start to settle down. It was like we're not trying to get rid of you. Like I know that that part of me is a really, really helpful part in some ways. It just needs to do things a little bit differently. And we need to train it to do that so it can look for so instead of being our critic, maybe it's a person who's like going, I'm going to look out for ways that you can build some boundaries. I'm going to look out for ways that you can rest. I'm going to look out for ways that you can spend five minutes sat down with a cup of tea not too doing anything because those are the skills that are going to help you. When you're in a situation that feels really difficult, and that you'd want to escape with wine, because of all the meaning that your brain will start making about whatever it is. But it's about building this relationship with self building relationship with that part of ourselves that is keeping us awake at night. You know, who won't let us go to sleep? In case we forgot to case we, and we forget that we need to. And, you know, it's like, what does that part of us need to know about us for us for it to settle down?
Unknown Speaker 45:39
You know, I am a grown up now. If I don't do that thing, right now, it's still going to be okay. Everything's gonna be okay. I am safe.
Speaker 1 45:50
It is safe for me not to do everything right now. It is safe for me to sit down without having to drink in order for me to feel comfortable to do that. And this is a practice none of this stuff is this stuff is but we have spent years cultivating that inner critic, that judgment voice, that continuous busyness. But the problem is if unless we stop it, unless we start to learn how to live out of fight or flight. We're going to end our lives early. We're going to leave our children, we're going to either
Speaker 2 46:35
kill ourselves with alcohol or kill ourselves from stress.
Speaker 1 46:38
Why not other so we really do need to learn how to do this differently. Alcohol is not an innocuous substance. It is so dangerous. You know, it causes brain damage. It causes strokes, it causes heart disease, it causes cancer. It is a poison a carcinogen. And it wrecks our mental health. I'm not pussyfooting around that anymore because I'm sick of seeing poor human beings thinking it's just an innocuous substance and they're there they're the problem not our CO outcomes the problem not the humans. Humans are amazing, industrious, clever, resourceful, beautiful people.
Unknown Speaker 47:30
It's only trauma that makes it difficult. Anywho that's me today, it's been lovely to spend this 45 minutes with you, I
Speaker 1 47:42
thank you so much. I am doing something really special this for the last couple of weeks in March before leading up to Easter. So it's an opportunity if you want to I know lots of people don't like being in group and really want something private and confidential. So I'm offering what are your normally do which is my VIP elite, which is my self paced 30 Day alcohol experiment, which is 30 days of video recorded content and journaling that's really really brilliant for changing your relationship with alcohol from one where you are, oh, I don't think this is really working for me, I'm not really enjoying this anymore. It's making starting to make me feel a bit sad, my kids are starting to notice I'm not sleeping very well, I'm feeling really anxious to one where you can literally take or leave alcohol and you will generally choose to leave it because you've you've kind of dispelled all the myths in your brain that make you think that it's got something for you, which it doesn't it never does. But in this particular instance, what I'm also going to add in is for one to one sessions with me. So it's a 30 day program. You can start it whenever you want in April. But I wondered if it might be nice for people to actually start before Easter. It's up to you. You can start whenever you want. You have to pay though, by the 31st of March. And I'm only this is a one time offer. I'm never doing it again. But this is particularly for people who might be lurking, who might not want to, you know comment or like anything just because they're worried about the stigma of people thinking that they have a problem with alcohol. And I'm very empathetic to that. So I wanted to give people the opportunity to perhaps do this Easter holidays do this Easter weekend that's coming up alcohol free. And so spending 30 days with me I will literally pull together a plan for you based on your individual beliefs around alcohol and and then we'll meet once For a week, for four weeks, you will also have access to me either on Voxer or Marco Polo 24 hours access, I won't be necessarily responding immediately, but I will be there. And we will talk every day because part of the program is you'll watch the videos, and then you'll do the work. And the work will be a reflection, some examination of your own thoughts and beliefs around alcohol. And in addition to that, we'll also pull together a specific scaffolding plan for you, in order to support your journey. That will just include ways to nourish yourself ways to nurture yourself ways to be mindful ways to
Unknown Speaker 50:45
thought work. Sorry, thirsty again.
Speaker 1 50:50
But basically, it's a complete package. And I'm doing a one off, register before the 31st of March. It's $2,997, which is the price that I normally charge for my VIP elite program. But I'm also adding in for one to one sessions, which are worth 250 $300 each. So I highly recommend if you are interested if but you've just been like lurking and not sure and not wanting to be part of a not wanting to have your name out there not wanting just wanting to be discreet wanting to be private, this might be for you. And also if you want to really, really smash this out, like, get into it, get deep talk about the causes. I mean, for me, I'm never top 10 Tips. I'm never like,
Unknown Speaker 51:47
you know, Lana had nothing to do on our to do list. It's
Speaker 1 51:51
for me, it's like we drink for a reason. And we drink for good reasons. And you know, I work with you on the causality of why you're drinking in order to mean that going forward, you move into a relationship with alcohol, it feels really good to you. So that is everything I have to say today I will be making this into a podcast called busy AF, which will go out next week. I haven't seen too many comments. So let me just double check that I'm not missing anything. No. Beautiful. Okay, my lovelies. Well, there's an Hey, Erin. Good to see you. Beautiful, beautiful to be with you all. And I hope you have an amazing rest of your days. And I will be back Same time, same place next week.
Speaker 2 52:39
Take care, my darlings. Hello beautiful humans, I have something so super exciting for you. It is a one. I've never done this before. So I'm offering five positions to work with me on a one to one basis over a month period. I'm calling it mg in your pocket as it will literally be like having me as a personal alcohol trainer in your pocket. So it's quite intense. It's similar to what I've done before for my VIP package. But this time you get for additional one to one sessions with me. So you get a month of intimate coaching my 30 Day Ozzie alcohol experiment self paced, so four times one to 160 minutes sessions, and then Voxer or Marco Polo connection to me, the in betweens, you can ask me any questions, get support, get unstuck, keep momentum, whatever you need. So it's super intense. I'm offering it to people to sign up before Easter. The reason I'm doing that is I was reflecting on an Easter that I had the last Easter I had full of alcohol before. I stopped in the January of 2020. And now I'm looking at my Easter's and they're so beautiful. One of my favorite times, I still get to spend time with friends. I still get to do beautiful things. But I'm really really present with my kids. And I just remember it was in that sort of year my last year of drinking and it just all felt so overwhelming. And I remember we had people around for lunch and I had this beautiful spread laid out and the only way I could really cope with it all was to drink. I didn't realize this at the time. So I really wanted to offer people the opportunity to do April to do East are alcohol free to be present for your family over the Easter school holidays and during the Easter break from work? If you're up for it, I am 100% up for it. I've only got five spots so I can see one person each day and give them my full divided attention. If you're interested, you can either sign up directly with the link or contact me. Summary there's a link to a 15 minute inquiry call if you want to ask me any questions. But we will 100% hyper focus on all of your limiting beliefs around alcohol. We'll put together a plan a scaffolding for you to support healthy practices in your life, so that you can get to a point where you can take or leave alcohol and you choose to leave it all right, my lovelies. I'll leave that with you lots of love.
Speaker 1 56:11
Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of midlife AF with Emma Gilmore. If you enjoyed it, please share on Instagram for your friends and tag me at hote rising coaching. If you want to help me grow the podcast please review the episodes for me on Apple podcast that really helps. If you would like to work further with me please go to my website www Haute rising coaching.com for my free and paid programs or email me at Emma at Hope rising coaching.com sending a massive catalog to you and yours for me and mine and remember to keep choosing you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
