Speaker 1 0:00
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of midlife as this week we're going to be talking about whether or not how cold is exciting but many of my clients say to me one of the reasons that they enjoy drinking is because of the it helps with that feeling of excitement you know when they're gonna go getting ready for a night out or just the very idea of it is exciting. Want to discuss it and see what you think do you do for free to please you know send me a message afterwards if you if you have any thoughts on it. I'm really interested to hear your perspective over to me
Speaker 2 0:44
if you're a woman in midlife has intuition is telling you that giving booze the elbow might be the next right move. Their midlife AF is the podcast for you. Join counselor psychotherapist this naked mind and gray area drinking alcohol coach Emma 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 group without booze.
Speaker 2 1:34
I lovingly acknowledged the Bruner and 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 nice to be here with you all the while you're so sweet, thanks, Mercy. We've been moving house this week. And it's been crazy. Like, it's a horrible experience. We had to kind of be forced into doing it. Oh, hi, Nikki, we had to be forced into doing it. Because otherwise I would never have done it. But now we're almost there. I feel like it's I feel like it's a good thing to have done. So it's been quite interesting, in terms of sort of saying goodbye to the old and bringing in the new, and you know, some of the fear that comes with, you know, when you're making changes. Yeah. And I know when we stopped drinking, this is a big change. Last night was the second is the second to last night. And my great was the alcohol experiment. And last night, we were talking about the belief coming to the end of the 30 days, and you know, people starting to get too excited again about the possibility potential of drinking alcohol again. And so we worked into it a little bit.
Unknown Speaker 3:43
We were talking about all the different reasons why it might make us feel excited.
Speaker 2 3:49
And I guess it some so we looked up first of all what was exciting. What did exciting mean? I should look it up again. But I can't remember. But it was it was basically kind of it was a feeling of anticipation. And it was let me just look it up. Now quickly. While we do this, let's make this it's good to have the actual definition. My brain is just so fried from everything. Excited. So there are a few things that lay into the belief and it's quite nuanced actually. is so very enthusiastic and eager. Or an energy state higher than normal or ground state. Oh, that's interesting.
Unknown Speaker 4:37
So that's excited.
Speaker 2 4:41
Then then there is to feel very enthusiastic and eager is excite around someone sexually and give rise to a feeling reaction. This is a really interesting produce a state of increased energy or activity. Yeah, because there's So many different pieces to this. So first of all we talked about my experience working with and my group we're confirming their experiences of this is, often if we don't want to go and do something, so often, the way our brain will convince us that alcohol is exciting is we don't actually want to go and do something. But what we do is we drink some alcohol, and it allows us to almost override our nervous system. So that we just get back on to Facebook as well. So oh, I just done that. It's like, okay, or override our nervous system. And it's quite interesting as well, because they say that anxiety and, and excitement are very, they feel the same in the body. We feel them in the same places. And sometimes we in particularly children, it's difficult to determine which is which is it anxiety? Or is it excitement. And so this is one of the things that was particularly interesting. And again, guys, if you've got anything to say on this, I really welcome your thoughts. It's a really interesting topic. The other thing we talked about, and some of the people in the group were talking and saying, you know, and I think this is an identity thing, too, is it we're talking about specifically about the excitement of buying, you know, something that you perceive to have an exquisite test, or to be rare, or to be expensive, we all have value, and then potentially sharing that with somebody else. And so we were talking about this, that as a form of excitement. And I'm sort of thinking about that. And, you know, the what does it mean about us, for example, that we have, you know, this particular taste
Unknown Speaker 6:50
that we have procured this particular
Speaker 2 6:54
alcohol, it could be anything, really, but they think there's something in there around the identity of somebody who either provides themselves or provides the group with a something that's considered valuable or rare. And I think that different is definitely something in it. So I'm playing with my cord while I talk. There's definitely something in that. And I think it's an identity thing. And this is where we were sort of thinking, Well, what does it mean about me if I don't do that, because that will probably be what the nervous system or the part of us inside that created the identity that we were X, Y, and Z person, in order to be safe in the world. Because this is the very interesting thing about personality, we think we have a personality that personality traits, but in reality, the personality is a construct. So it's something that was constructed at very young age to keep us safe. In our environment, it's our mask. Yeah, it's how we were created a mask to be in the world. And so our personality, identity, anything we're holding on to in that way, it's really worth considering what might be what might the baby but the benefits to us of being the person who brings the expensive, valuable rare treat to the table, or also even just has it, you know, possesses it, consumes it through injury. Interesting. Another piece to the nuance of excitement is very much I think, connected to the idea of restriction, and to do with
Unknown Speaker 8:32
the pursuit of pleasure.
Speaker 2 8:34
And if you like I've worked with with training under Gabor Ma Tei. And some of the things that we talked about there is absolutely natural, right? It's absolutely perfectly fine, that us as human beings should want to pursue feeling vibrant and alive. And one of the things the problems with alcohol is, is we use, like so many things that we look at, and we look for outside of ourselves. And this is one of the things I was saying to the to the guys last night. It's like so if we're looking for excitement, from alcohol, what does it mean about the experience that we're having without alcohol? And what does that look like? So if we were like, I want to have the excitement of alcohol it's because because of why what's the what would be your answers to those questions. I'd love to hear if anyone's there let me just write something in the comments on Facebook. What would your experience be without it? Because it's that generally that you'll be running away from and of course you know, of course we all want to be and I talked about so much we want to feel vital, we want to feel alive, but it's kind of connected to the theory of holes, which is this kind of concept that as young children we you know, we certain things about us certain parts of us. We've got made got made wrong or bad you know Somebody might have said, you're no good at this, or when you do this or made us feel uncomfortable, or made us feel shy or made us feel silly or humiliated by something we did, you know, it might be that we were sensitive to something, it might be that we were very emotional, you know, I once had a client and it really sad, you know, beautiful human. And she would only drink when she was in times of joy. And the reason for that was because when she was young, and she used to get really excited, and she got told off for being excited, she got excluded from the group and put in a space that she had to sit outside and away from the rest of her class. Because when she got excited, she was so effervescent with joy and vitality, that she wasn't in and that wasn't welcome. So because it was disruptive to everybody else. And so the and often with these things, with with emotional behaviors that we have we do as children, that were inconvenient for adults. So for example, if we were noisy in class, because we're excited about something that was inconvenient for the teacher, if we were so excited about seeing a butterfly, and we were going on and on and on about it, and we're like, yeah, look at that butterfly mom, and she's trying to have a phone call with somebody else or deal with something else. And she's just like, Can you just stop it, you know, internally as a child will be like, Oh, okay, that behavior wasn't welcome. And as children, you know, our primary, you know, part of our primary survival skills is doing the things that's going to mean that our parents approve of us, you know, again, it's going back to primeval times, it's going back to times of cavemen, where, you know, it's absolutely vital that we kept the connection, the attachment to our parents, in order that we stayed alive, we were fed, we were loved, we were sheltered, you know. And so, you know, we build these personalities as adults that we formed as children in order for us to be safe in the world. And one of the things that we do in my groups is you, we try and work with those parts, try and understand those parts that come in to keep us safe.
Unknown Speaker 12:10
That created what we believe to be our personality.
Speaker 2 12:16
And we work with them to understand your work, why are they there? What's their purpose, their purpose is always going to be good, always going to be there trying to help us to try to keep us safe. But the problem with them is, is they're formed when we were very, very young. And so you know, we talk about human beings wandering around, as you know, we're all these these big babies wandering around and seeing the world through the lens of our, our own experiences, rather than the actual situation that we find ourselves in. And I you know, I see myself doing that all the time still is so it's such a work in progress for me. But you know, the identity that we are a person who buys expensive, rare, good quality, unusual. Alcohol is an interesting thing for us to look at, right? What does it mean? And what would it mean if we didn't do that anymore? And then in terms of the vibrancy, the vitality, you know, if we experienced a hole, which basically said, Your vibrancy is not welcome here.
Unknown Speaker 13:32
We're going to look for it elsewhere.
Unknown Speaker 13:35
We're going to look for in all the other places.
Speaker 2 13:39
But and this is why I always say the magnificent except obsession, the most wonderful endeavor is building that relationship with ourselves so that we can bring our own vibrancy, vitality, because there's nothing wrong with us wanting vibrancy or vitality. The problem is that we're seeking it from a substance that is the opposite. And again, with alcohol, it the opposite is always the truth. If we think it's giving us excitement, it's actually making us slaves. It's actually detracting from our incredible vibrance because it's making us messy and slur our words and not be able to think properly which is a menopausal Peri menopausal midlife women Yes. You know we could we can barely see a man I could barely string a sentence together as half the time barely have any memory you know don't even know I left I left facecloth in the fridge
Speaker 3 14:45
Where's his face clock or flannel? My husband is like it in the fridge.
Unknown Speaker 14:52
But that's that's what it's like being a parent menopausal
Unknown Speaker 14:57
woman, particularly one who has ADHD To
Unknown Speaker 15:01
do this, the
Speaker 2 15:03
last thing we need is to have our coconut cognizance and our vibrance and our vitality dumbed down by alcohol. And one of the reasons I genuinely believe that as teenagers, we, for me, I have this, it's gonna sound really Woo and a bit weird. I went dancing I was I was really into ecstatic dancing last year. And I wish I did more of it this year. And in fact, maybe my my thing to myself this year is that I'm gonna go and start doing ecstatic dance again on a Friday night, because I really want to do and I'm actually going off I don't know, if I told you guys this, but I'm going to
Unknown Speaker 15:43
the desert in September,
Speaker 2 15:47
up, it's a couple of hours out of Alice Springs, to be with a DJ, who's also a healer, like nature eco.
Unknown Speaker 15:58
She's a therapist as well, I think.
Speaker 2 16:01
She's an amazing ecstatic dance DJ, called Rivkah. And she's holding a experience for 20 women
Unknown Speaker 16:11
up in the, in the desert, in the northern territories,
Speaker 2 16:16
dancing for five days, and when I went when I when I went regularly, I'd say at least what you know, least once a month, if not twice a month. And maybe even more at some points, I was being able to process my emotions in a really, really useful way. And I was also getting quite a lot of intuitive kind of guidance, which again, is gonna sound a bit woowoo. But one of the things that I had this memory and it was almost like I was with my dad was about 69, probably 18. And I'd you know, it was my 80th birthday party, I'd got drunk, I was beautiful. I had beautiful, curly, long, beautiful hair, which would never have thought so at the time, of course. And I was I drive I got really, really drunk on my 18th birthday, fell asleep in the afternoon.
Unknown Speaker 17:12
But it was almost like
Speaker 2 17:16
I had this incredible vibrancy. But it was too much. Like my power, my, my vitality. My and I think this is the same for a lot of women, particularly neurodivergent women is that we're born with so much incredible illness. And the world can barely cope with women. Let alone women who are like full of energy and vibrancy in creative wonder and excitement and jubilance, which you know, naturally we are right.
Unknown Speaker 18:05
This is what we were born on the world to be.
Speaker 2 18:08
And slowly but surely society creates these holes in us where it knocks us about and tells us that we're not good enough. And this isn't good enough. And we shouldn't be so excited when we see a butterfly and we shouldn't go and I remember my son who I just love so much. When he was little he didn't understand as a twist autistic ADHD as well. He just didn't understand those kinds of the rules that were there. And at school, they weren't allowed to go outside in the playground and dance and dance and we were allowed to go outside in the rain. And my son didn't understand this. And so one day he went out and it was raining and he went out he was dancing in the rain and he was like, This is amazing. And he got into trouble. Anyway, he ended up going to the thinking chair, the principal's office because the deputy principal was like, you know, it's not okay, but and this is the sort of thing right as as children, we get told that these things, this exuberance, this vibrancy, this vitality is not acceptable.
Unknown Speaker 19:06
And so we get rid of it.
Speaker 2 19:09
We take it out, it becomes a whole and the thing is it never we've never got rid of these things. We can always bring them back. And that is the basis of the whole theory if you're interested. It's by a guy called ALMAZ ah Elmas and he wrote some of his work is called the diamond approach. And it's what Gabor Ma Tei Gabor Ma Tei calls it as a source for his work along with the presence process and a few other
Unknown Speaker 19:45
bits and pieces as well.
Speaker 2 19:49
But basic this theory is that, you know, the world comes along knocks about a bit creates holes, and then as children rather than believing that The world is a dangerous place and the people who are supposed to be in charge of us don't know what the hell they're doing. What the child does is it internalizes the fault as their own, which is why we all go around thinking that we're broken and that we need fixing, when in reality, the whole was created by somebody. The whole should never have been created. Like we were never, there was nothing wrong with us to begin with. And we're trying to fix something that wasn't asked to fix, you know, the people who hurt and created the holes. They're the ones who should be but won't be held accountable, but also, to a certain extent, they're also not accountable, which is why, you know, when we talk about what happened in our past, often people like, oh, I don't want to blame people. It's like, it's not about blaming people, it's about your interpretation of your experience, your body's interpretation of your experience, your mind is interpretation of your experience. It's actually nothing to do with the other person, because they will have had their own intergenerational trauma, their own experience of life, their own holes, you know, that they're acting through the lens. So yeah, it's just, it's very, very interesting work. But I think this excitement is we're searching for all of these things outside of ourselves. And the answer is to create the vibrancy within ourselves. Because this false vibrancy is never going to give us what we're actually looking for. And then the second part to it. Sorry, the third part to it. And my brain is just got is also a deprivation thing. So we're excited because if we feel like we've been in deprivation, I'm not allowed to have this thing. Because and when I'm being good, and not having this thing, and choosing to do that. I'm in restriction. And even though I might be managing to stay alcohol free, I'm actually not choosing to be a recovery, I am
Unknown Speaker 22:12
reluctant ly alcohol free.
Speaker 2 22:18
And, you know, that is fine in and of itself. But often we'll find the reasons why we're wanting to get back to drinking, or because other things around fitting in things around, you know, false beliefs around connection, believing that alcohol connects us to other people, when in reality, it doesn't. It does the opposite, as always, is the case with alcohol.
Unknown Speaker 22:45
But
Speaker 2 22:50
the fear that underlies particularly those of us who've had some kind of trauma, we're Nora divergent, we potentially had, you know, it had parents who smacked us all that kind of stuff that was just very normal in those in the days when we grew up, you know, this still, that's still a form of trauma, you know, we still get trauma from these things. Whether or not it was, you know, as acceptable at the time doesn't mean it was the right thing to happen to us. So this is what it's like, it's not about blaming the other person. They're the product of the civilization and time that they live in. But it's about acknowledging that our experience was less than ideal, that it was frightening that we might have got smacked with things that we didn't do. You know,
Unknown Speaker 23:38
that happened to me, I
Speaker 2 23:39
got a sister, my sister used to bless her lover loved her sister, but she was a bit of a monkey, and she'd like, do something naughty to me. And then she'd scream, and then my dad would come in and give me a slack. And, you know, we laugh about it. And it was definitely part of that time. But it was still tricky. You know, it's
Unknown Speaker 23:59
so traumatic.
Speaker 2 24:00
And you're serious. So, so many different things that happened to us when we're children. Everyone's like, oh, you know, suck it up. No, that's not the message that we want to be giving out to people. It's not suck it up. It's let's understand why you might not feel that you can behave in a certain way. But you know, a lot of the time when we're going back to drinking, we go back to drinking, and we're thinking it's exciting to go back to drinking, we've got lots of beliefs to work on. But we've also got to create this sense of safety in ourselves, that, you know, if we feel like we're going to be rejected by the group, how do we hold ourselves through that? How do we because a lot of the time when these younger parts of us are in control, which they are most of the time, until we start doing this work, you know, they really are in control of us. Then we're going to be we're basically acting as if we're children, when in reality we have agency for example, I was talking to another client right? I has this thing about being sneaky, and, and getting away with things and, you know, potentially lying. And because that was one area, as a child, that person felt like they had some control to give her a confront a very volatile or controlling parent, you know, the sneakiness, that we were even talking about how, you know, being able to even buy an alcoholic drink almost allows that nervous system that grounding. Even you don't even even necessarily having the drink just buying it. But, but it's this idea that I have control, I'm in charge, I have freedom, when the opposite is actually true. And this is the same with all of the stuff around alcohol, the opposite is always true. Because the freedom that we think that we're getting from alcohol isn't freedom. It's a lie. We're actually becoming enslaved to an alcoholic substance, an addictive substance that is so harmful that the World Health Organization, the Cancer Council, and the Heart Foundation, say there's no safe amount to drink. You know, it's very interesting. It's a very nuanced thing. But I think if we still feeling excited, there's more work to be done. And nine times out of 10 You know, we know all the stuff the issue is our nervous system, our home inside ourselves isn't safe yet. And so the more we can work on not beating ourselves up for having a drink not being an asshole to ourselves, if we have a slip up, and the more we can try and work with so what what was that giving me what did I need? What was I too afraid to be with? What was the experience that I was having that felt so unbearable, that I had to self harm without a car in order to keep myself safe, and the work that we're doing isn't about stopping drinking. It's about creating safety in ourselves in our in our home environment, and looking for that which we seek outside of ourselves and creating it inside of ourselves.
Unknown Speaker 27:26
That's all for today friends,
Unknown Speaker 27:27
I hope that was useful. Take care lots of love.
Unknown Speaker 27:31
I'm gonna go and do some more house packing up.
Unknown Speaker 27:34
All right, bye, my darlings.
Speaker 2 27:42
Thanks for tuning in to 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 cuddle to you and yours for me and mine and remember to keep choosing you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
