Be the River

Truth is only a perception of our current experience.

What we know as true today could be proven as false tomorrow.

“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.”
—Elvis Presley

I want to be like a river, flowing with strength. A force with a soft subtle beauty. Think about it, the power of the current, the constantly changing flow. The river does not conform to a static life, it moves through time effortlessly. Holding more when needed to, come spring when the snow melts and the rain falls. Resting silently under the ice during the winter months, flowing more slowly but still flowing all the same. The river will shrink and grow as needed. It knows its only job is to keep flowing. To offer its abundance to all the life that is so lucky to encounter it. A river does not know its value, does not strive for more, it just is.

If only we could understand our own lives are much the same. If we choose them to be. We have nothing to prove, nothing to strive for, we are absolutely perfect in every way just the way we are. There is nothing to seek, only something to BE.

We are powerful creators. We carry strength in our hearts. When we tap into the deeper truth of our being, underneath all the conditioning, we allow for a greater truth to be whispered in our ear.

We were never supposed to live like this, fighting for scraps, trying to “prove” ourselves, living in shame and guilt because we never feel good enough.

The interesting thing about truth is that when we invite curiosity and do the work to listen for the answers our truths can change in an instant. In fact, all change does happen in an instant. We are told to believe that it takes time to change. That we must work at it and that after years of struggle then maybe if we are lucky, we can change.

We are told that “people never change” and then we internalize this message and believe it to be true.

We believe change is hard, and that if we aren’t trying hard, we aren’t doing it right.

But what if none of that was actually true?

What if you really could change in an instant? Like the snap of your fingers, your monstrous desire for alcohol would just disappear?

Let me ask you, have you ever learned something, and it just transformed your world forever.

There was this new undeniable truth that just IS.

One of mine is the death of a parent. When my mom died, in that instant everything changed, the world as I knew it was gone. The life I imagined was forever altered. I would never see the look on her face when she heard the news that I was pregnant, something I had been waiting my whole life for.

In that moment my truth was changed. I had two choices, I could accept my new truth, or deny it.

When we deny the truth of our hearts it causes horrible pain and suffering. Any time we are suffering is because we are resisting what is now TRUE.

So the work is not to change, but to accept.

To remove the resistance.

To let go of the former truth.

The only way I have learned to do this is transmute it to understanding with grace and loads of self- compassion.

It is trying to keep something the same, the resisting of change that causes us the pain.

Take your relationship with alcohol for example. Where are you holding on to what was?

It might have been fun for you in the past, but is it NOW?

It might have helped relax you in the past, but does it NOW?

It might have made you feel confident, funny and cool, but does it still feel that way right NOW?

We are evolving beings. We are constantly changing, growing and learning.

What if it’s not a bad thing, but the entire purpose of the journey?

I want you to feel at home in your body. I want you to feel freedom in your mind. I want you to feel all the JOY that comes when we let go of the identity of being “a drinker” and start to allow for what is true now.

The journey to freedom is hard to describe, and very different for every person. AND that’s exactly how it is meant to be.

You cannot force freedom. You must accept it. You call it in with curiosity and allowing for your truth to be fluid. Accepting that it is ever changing, and rejoicing in the fact that something true for you yesterday doesn’t have to be true for you today.

It’s your choice. Are you still living in a past version of yourself hoping you can make it true again, holding on to something that is only causing you deep suffering? Or are you willing to be open to changing ideas?

Is your truth static, unchanging, dense? How is that holding you back? Is your opinion of your past more important than the opportunity of your future?

Stop fighting for your limitations! Stop trying to prove to yourself that you can control this thing.

The TRUTH is, ALCOHOL IS A HIGHLY ADDICTIVE DRUG THAT, WITH REPEATED CONSTANT USE CAUSES ADDICTION IN ANY BEING MADE OF FLESH, BLOOD AND BONE.

That’s the cold hard truth.

And if we can move to accept that, to accept that the marketing of this substance is all a lie. That we have been fed this bullshit from every angle for our ENTIRE LIVES…

Then maybe you can begin to feel some peace around the idea that this substance is just NOT WORTH IT.

That YOU actually have the power to change your truth at any time.

Are you the river, flowing with life, creating life. Or are you the rock, trying to hold your position just to say you can.

The reality is, that even the most steadfast boulders will be worn down by the current of the river. The truth of your heart is never going to stop wearing down the truth you are holding onto in your mind.

The easiest way to find freedom. Be the river.

Living with Love – 5 Ways Ahimsa can Help You Control Alcohol

Living with love is the first and foremost teaching when learning about the 8 limbed path of yoga.

Your heart is wide open, vast like the sky, an unending and unconditional expanse of pure love and kindness.

We only “think” we can close our heart but, it is never closed. Think about your deepest points of grief or anger, isn’t there always an element of love under it all?

When we are hurt deeply by another’s actions or our own, aren’t we upset, jaded and angry BECAUSE of the injustice we feel?

Love is an undying emotion. Love never ceases to exist. Love heals all and love IS all.

We all have a deep capacity for love and BEING loving. It is innate. It is within us, and every thought and every action we ever take. When we can learn how to embrace love and enjoy being loving without expectation it opens our world to a new level of living in connection.

Finding JOY is embracing LOVE.

In yoga there are 5 internal guidelines that when practiced change the heart of how we interact within this life. These ancient guidelines are taught in countless texts and have been carried through the centuries. In fact, these sacred teachings are not only in yoga but also found in religion and the traditional spiritual teachings of Indigenous peoples. These internal guidelines are known as the “Yamas.”

Today I am going to talk about one single aspect of the greater 8 limbed path of yoga. But to give context I will first share the 5 internal commitments that one makes when on the path to wholeheartedness. The Yamas are a collection of 5 virtues we can live by. These are what make up the first limb of the 8-limbed path. Some call them the “virtues of personal morality” and in my time studying and integrating these virtues into my life, everything began to transform for the better.

The yamas are the virtues of:
Ahimsa – non-harm,
Satya –truth,
Asteya – non-stealing,
Bramacharya – moderation, and
Aparigraha – non-possessiveness.

When I first learned about Ahimsa, I was very judgmental, mean, cold, often saying rude things and calling people out on their stupidity. A lot of people might agree that I was sometimes not a very nice person.

Ahimsa would be my window to unconditional kindness. I just loved how it felt, I WANTED to be kinder, I wanted to be “nice” … I was just so hurt by my past that I didn’t know how.

Have you ever justified bad behaviour because the person was stupid, wrong, or annoying? Because they didn’t fit into a box that you created for how people should act?

I know I did it a lot more than I would like to admit.

One time I yelled at a young girl in the checkout line at a grocery store. It was so busy, and she was taking forever. When we FINALLY got to the transaction part I paid in cash, and she struggled to figure out my change. She gave me the wrong change multiple times and finally, frustrated, I angrily told her she was a complete idiot and walked away with less than I was owed because it wasn’t worth it to continue trying to explain that I had given her the exact change to receive a bill back. I completely lost my temper and was so harsh I can guess she probably cried.

Have you ever found yourself taking your anger and frustration out on a stranger in a way you would NEVER treat someone you know and love?

I still feel awful about how I treated that girl. To this day I wish I could go back and apologize and be more generous in helping her to stay calm and sort the change properly. I can’t believe I degraded another human being over something so trivial. But I did. I was struggling. And I didn’t have the tools then, that I have now.

Now I do the work to heal and find emotional balance so to never do something like that again.

The first time I learned about the word Ahimsa I learned its meaning was non-harm. Not causing harm seems virtuous enough. Ahimsa’s precept that one living being should “cause no injury” to another living being including one’s deeds, words, and thoughts.

Makes sense, right? Do no harm.

Some people take it as a call to vegetarianism. Some people think it’s just saying to treat others how you would like to be treated. But after years of more investigation, I have decided Ahimsa is explaining something much deeper and richer than simply non-harm. I think it’s the ultimate call to live in our hearts center. THE most important virtue to live by and something that can easily be available to all of us.

During my second 200 hr YTT I learned Ahimsa from the perspective of self. That not only is it to not cause harm to another living being, but to make sure that we include our SELF.

Whoa… this would be life changing. This would be a whole new level integrating Ahimsa into my life. Because even after all the work I did to treat others with fairness and respect, I was still not very kind to myself. I was thinking in ways that caused me pain, I was living in a way that caused me physical harm and more pain. I had taken on this new identity of unconditional kindness to everyone BUT MYSELF! I was still causing myself a lot of unnecessary suffering.

If you want to embrace the virtue of ahimsa completely, it must include how you are treating yourself.

Non-harm. Cause no harm.

How are you causing harm in your own life?

You cannot act fully in the virtue of Ahimsa without recognizing how you treat yourself, speak to yourself, the choices you make, what you put into your body.

So, for me it became less about how I use this in terms of external restraints – “don’t do these” – and more about integrating them as internal imperatives – “do these to LIVE WELL.”

Okay so now how do we swing around and embrace this concept into our journey with controlling alcohol?

Well, this is a multilayered discussion and in order to keep this brief and readable I will just speak about it from my own relationship with alcohol.

Embracing Ahimsa to control alcohol is about learning to love ourselves deeper and bring awareness to the things in our lives causing pain and suffering. Ahimsa is the KEY TO AWARENESS. Where there is judgment there are answers. Learning to love others and love ourselves COMPLETELY is the practice of spirituality. The compassion-based teacher, Danielle Laporte says, “Spirituality is the practice of thinking with Love.” So, if love is spirituality and awareness is key to love, how do we learn to embrace Ahimsa as the highest form of spiritual growth and use it to help us change our relationship with alcohol?

Here are 5 ways to use Ahimsa on your journey to make alcohol small and irrelevant in your life.

Open-mindedness
One could argue that the most important aspect of changing our relationship with alcohol is curiousity. Coming into a space of open-mindedness and allowing for what comes up to just BE. Letting go of judgment of how things “should be” and embracing them AS THEY ARE is the only way to bring truth into how you really feel about alcohol and begin to see how alcohol is really showing up for you, so then you can begin to CHOOSE how YOU WANT your relationship with alcohol to look and feel.

Reflection
Again, referring to finding the truth about how alcohol is really making you feel in your life right now. Not basing it on how your THINK it is helping you but really reflecting on the moments when you drink too much. Is it worth the hangovers, regrets and bad behaviours that come with drinking this mind-altering substance? Start to get comfortable with journalling after a drinking experience, did alcohol help you to show up as your best self? Or did it hide the best parts of yourself behind boisterous confidence and lower your inhibitions to the point of making decisions we wouldn’t normally make? Reflection is based on the past and is necessary to show us the repetitive anguish drinking brings to our lives. What if you could love the past versions of yourself and forgive fully? What could that open for your future?

Compassion
Self-compassion is key to reinventing our relationship with alcohol. It’s easy to blame ourselves or think that if we feel bad enough about our actions that maybe we might not ever do it again. How is this working out for you? I know in my experience that beating myself up only made my drinking worse. I might feel ashamed enough to control it for a while but in the end, alcohol kept coming back in worse ways over time and the choices I made while drunk seemed to also continue to get worse. It was only when I started having compassion for my situation and looking at the why of my drinking that I was able to start moving away from my harmful behaviours towards ones that made me feel strong and in control. It all starts with loving ourselves first.

Radiance
I chose the word radiance because it illuminates the life-force we all have, it points to the very thing we are all made of — LOVE. Love is radiance. Radiance is love. Have you ever looked at a pregnant woman and thought about how much beauty emanates from her changing body? It’s because creating life is literally RADIATING OUT OF HER in a fantastically beautiful way. She is learning a new sense of love, and it’s palpable for all in her presence. Alcohol dims our shine, dulls our glow, darkens our light. Allowing for our radiance to shine through is key to gaining a new perspective on life without alcohol. Moving towards radiance is a form of love, another way to live into Ahimsa. No radiant being is thought of as harmful. It is life, it is a beautiful comforting energy, and it can only be felt when we stop numbing and start living life in its fullness. We are radiant beings; alcohol only dims that.

Contemplation
This might seem like reflection, but for me contemplation is thinking about how things are – it is a forward motion energy, it is less about looking at the past and instead thinking about the present so we can create a new future. We must contemplate how things are, how it feels in our body. In the journey to controlling alcohol contemplation is sitting with discomfort, so we can begin to imagine freedom from it. Contemplating what life will look like in 5 years if things stay the same. Contemplating what life can look like if you decide to change them. Silent contemplation has become my greatest asset, a tool for growth and imagination. Just imagining freedom is the first step to finding it. Contemplation breeds belief. Belief in yourself is a high form of Ahimsa.

If Ahimsa is non-harming and non-violence, it makes a clear argument that this virtue is important for people on the journey to control over alcohol. There are countless examples of the external harm alcohol creates when someone drinks too much. Drunk driving, abuse, sexual assault, harassment, violence, aggression, and the list goes on and on. But internally the violence is mirrored. Self-doubt, hatred, shame, blame, lowered inhibitions, poor judgment, dulled perception, memory loss, vomiting, and again the list goes on and on.

If we want to control alcohol and make it small and irrelevant it’s as simple as changing our perspective of it.

Ahimsa is a valuable tool to living a more heart centered and wholesome life, it is a guideline to help point us towards living with love and love is the basis for life as a human being. Love more fully and we receive more love. Integrating Ahimsa more completely into my life has been THE MOST profoundly liberating experience and I hope to share some of that realization with you.

Practice being more kind, accepting and forgiving of yourself and others. Unconditional kindness.

Let me know what stands out for you.

And as always please know that if you are struggling with your relationship around alcohol, it is so easy to hide away and feel like there is no hope, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You are not alone.

Yoga is Now.

There is so much love for you here,

D. xx

PS. I have a very LOVING offer available until the end of the year.
You can receive a 3 for 1 – 1:1 session package with me for a ridiculously low price. But this price WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE in the new year (and probably never again).

Claim your “Which Way Now” Clarity Container @ https://koalendar.com/e/whichwaynow

How I went from daily drinking for over a decade to peaceful, happy and free!

When I was feeling the worst in my life, uncontrolled anxiety, depression, daily drinking to cope, all I wanted to do was escape. Take a break from feeling so stressed out about my life and relax with a few glasses of wine. But that daily wine habit quickly moved from a glass to a bottle and when I started opening a second bottle on a regular basis, I would just sit numbing my mind watching tv that wasn’t even interesting and waiting to pass out or get drunk enough to go to sleep so I could manage my demanding day at work again tomorrow.

At this point I knew about yoga but had never been to a class. I was never really interested in “working out” and thought that’s really all it was. A fancy wine country style of exercise. At this point in my life, I was balancing 2 homes in 2 cities and travelling back and forth between wine country and work country, running a busy full-service restaurant and balancing family demands with two teenagers.

One day, I don’t know why, but I was walking past a yoga studio and felt the urge to check it out. I went in and pretty much transported to what seemed like a different universe! There was aroma therapy diffusers and a soothing waterfall fountain, a beautiful inviting woman behind a live edge wooden desk asking how she could help. I said, “I honestly don’t know – I have never done yoga before.” She quickly shared the class guide with me and invited me to join a candlelight yin class that would be hosted later that night.

Let me tell you, that class CHANGED MY LIFE.

I didn’t quite know it then, but it would have a profound effect on me and decisions I continue to make even today.

The class was soothing, calming, warm and slow. I felt a little out of place and kinda silly not knowing any of the positions or terminology and having to look around to see if I was doing it right. But it was a SAFE place. And it was probably one of the first times I had ever really connected with my own body in such a meaningful way.

I cried the WHOLE damn time!

I had never had a response like this, so I thought I was crazy and wouldn’t end up going back for many years. But there was always something inside me that was coaxing me towards yoga, telling me to learn more.

Have you ever been curious about yoga? Thinking it seems like a good thing, like it might be relaxing or good for you but then the thought of people doing headstands on IG quickly tells you NO F’in WAY are YOUUU cut out for this kind of thing.

..Or maybe you have done yoga, maybe even a lot, but it has been purely a physical exercise activity and you go more for the vinyasa, flow or power classes that get you amped up and sweaty and often have little to no spiritual value.

I love that yoga has been introduced to the West, I think it’s a wonderful thing, but I know that what the vast majority of people think is yoga, is only a fraction of the tradition in its fullness.

So back to my story, in 2017 after a crazy few years and a heartbreaking breakup with my fiancé, I was called towards yoga once again. This time I would dive a little deeper, straight into an intensive 200 hr YTT. It was nothing short of life changing, I gained a deeper connection to self, I learned so much about the body and anatomy, a bunch of good feeling postures, and met people I really enjoyed being around, while also beginning to find a new voice inside of me and an excitement for teaching.

It was VERY different from the restaurant world I spent most of my time in!

If you have ever done a retreat, or a yoga teacher training (YTT), or maybe even just a really great class, you might know the feeling of being transported to a new and wonderful place and thinking “Wow this is amazing! I want to feel this way FOREVER!”

I know I did.

And I thought I would.

But the truth is, even though I was introduced to this beautiful connection to my body for the first time ever, I didn’t know how to integrate it into my messy life. Over time the benefits and effects started to fade away and before long I was back to feeling depressed, super stressed, out of control and no surprise here – my drinking was at an all-time high.

Here’s the thing. Yoga is a lifestyle. It is a commitment to your self-care and your spiritual journey.

So, let’s fast forward a couple more years, now I am on a journey to finally get my drinking under control. I needed to, it’s not that I really believed that my drinking was a problem, but I just didn’t feel like life should be SO HARD. I didn’t like the person I turned into when I drank too much. I kept screwing up, and it was unfortunately – always – connected to my relationship with alcohol.

Do you ever wish you could be more responsible with your drinking? Like if only you could have one or two and then walk away, then you would be ok? Maybe you wish you could just be a “normal” drinker?

Well just to let you know, drinking responsibly is a total myth. A marketing gimmick, made up by the government and alcohol companies to put the responsibility on the person instead of looking at the substance for what it really is. A highly addictive and TOXIC liquid made by the exact same chemical that helps run your car, ethanol. There is no “normal” …That’s like saying you should be able to “shoot up responsibly!” — NO ONE WOULD EVER SAY THAT! No one thinks you should be able to shoot up heroin and then be responsible with your intake. — But once you know the truth about alcohol, that is the sad reality that we are faced with in society today. We are taught to believe that WE should be the ones being responsible for handling this highly addictive substance and if we don’t, well then, I guess you are just weak willed, or it must run in your family. Let me assure you, neither of these are true.

In my experience, drinking was making me feel miserable but then when I would try to cut back, I was also miserable and feeling totally deprived. I would do ok for a short while, only to eventually wake up one morning after a binge night, asking myself what I did now and having to apologize for my crappy behaviour… Again.

It took me a while, but I finally figured out how much better my life was when I committed to going alcohol free. That was its own journey and a story for another day!

The point of this one is to tell you how I figured out that the journey to freedom from alcohol is absolutely congruent to the path of freedom through yoga.

If you want to feel at peace, cultivate calm, create emotional stability and find happiness for maybe the first time EVER, then I highly recommend finding your way to your yoga mat! But please keep reading because asana (the physical postures the West believes IS yoga) is only a fraction of what yoga has to offer.

Yoga is this beautifully rich tradition that dates back thousands of years, its wisdom being centered on a person’s journey to self-actualization. If you happen to remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs from grade school, you might recall self-actualization being the highest point on the need’s triangle.

To me this means that we all have an innate desire, or need, to BECOME WHOLE. (Based on the current system of things and the belief that we are not in fact whole, the whole time! 😉) The dictionary defines self-actualization as “the realization or fulfillment of one’s talents and potentialities, especially considered as a drive or need present in everyone.” So basically, living into your truth, following your heart’s desires and doing whatever the F makes YOU feel like you are living up to your full potential.

Well beautiful human, the amazing (and super dedicated) souls of ancient India created a step-by-step framework for anyone to follow to be able to experience this very thing in their own lives.

The crazy thing is that it is still the most complete and holistic approach to living well in modern times!

This knowledge is referred to as the “8-limbed Path” or Ashtanga Yoga. (Not to be confused with the specific series of postures developed by Sri K Pattabhi Jois.)

The 8-limbed Path is the classical definition of yoga described in the ancient yoga text of the Yoga Sutras, by mystic Patanjali. This text is a collection of 196 Sutras, or sentences which outline the context of yoga and how to follow the path to liberation from suffering.

The 8 limbs help to categorize and explain the commitment to living a morally disciplined and purposeful life. What I think is great about yoga is that it isn’t a religious or dogmatic teaching, it is simply a structure, or path to follow if you truly want to live a meaningful life.

I am obviously not saying that your life is meaningless if you don’t practice yoga, but I am saying that I have found more happiness, joy, prosperity and fulfillment by integrating these practices into my life in a mindful and meaningful way.

So that brings me to how I found peace, happiness and freedom after over a decade (almost 2) of daily drinking.

It was a beautiful combination of finding This Naked Mind and deepening my spiritual practice through yoga. The two just click, they work together, on one hand I eliminated the psychological DESIRE TO DRINK through the science based and compassion led methodology of This Naked Mind. While I simultaneously traded in my drinking habit and focused on developing my relationship with yoga. I started learning, meditating, moving my body, appreciating myself more and finding more and more to be grateful for.

On New Year’s Eve it will be 3 years since I blacked out for the last time. 3 years since I woke up to find out that I had totally berated my brothers new fiance after the very first time we met. The last time I will ever have to apologize for turning into someone that I HATED, someone that is rude, toxic, and downright hateful. It will be 3 amazing years of growth, healing and reclaiming power over my life. It will be 3 years of learning to love myself and taking the time to figure out what the hell happiness even means. It will be 3 years of me building a beautiful life that I am proud of, of learning to self-regulate, of becoming less angry and more calm, of committing to live in my purpose and be of service to the world. Because I for one believe we (as a whole) can do a whole lot better than we are doing now.

This journey has allowed me to build trust within myself and find freedom from the pieces of my past that hurt so much that I had to numb away all the good and the bad in my life.

When we choose to numb our feelings like stress with a substance like alcohol, we don’t realize that we are putting an invisible cap on our level of happiness at the same time.

You might think alcohol is helping you cope, but in reality, it is stealing any joy you have.

You might feel like it’s relaxing, but it is actually releasing high levels of cortisol into your system which is also known as the stress hormone. The euphoric high of alcohol only lasts 20 minutes before your body counteracts the artificially high spike of dopamine and puts you in a depressive state for the next 3-4 hours.

Do you ever notice that your hangovers last way longer than it takes for your blood alcohol level to return to zero? Well, that’s why.

Is 20 minutes of satiation really worth the uncontrollable urge to drink MORE followed by hours of physical and mental pain and whatever other consequences come with your drinking experience?

I have decided for myself, NO, absolutely not.

But of course, you must make that decision for yourself.

However, if you want to hit the easy button on breaking up with booze and feel happy, confident and at peace, I’m here to tell you, that option is there too.

Onward beauty, to a life you LOVE.

ps. Check back in over the next 8 weeks and I will share more about the 8 limbs of yoga and how I am integrating them into my modern busy life and how I teach people every day how to reinvent their lives, and their relationship with alcohol through the powerful teachings of yoga.

How to NEVER FEAR ALCOHOL AGAIN.

I read comments all the time about people who are “worried” about giving in to the urges of alcohol over time. Personally, I think this is because of the fear-based mentality that is a huge part of AA. There has been this notion (totally inaccurate BTW) throughout the last century that alcohol is something to be feared and that we are powerless to addiction if we have the tendencies within us to become addicted – ie. family history.

Let me just be clear here, there is NO GENE that makes a person more susceptible to addiction. This is not something handed down to us from our parents.

Understand that EVERY HUMAN MADE OF FLESH, BLOOD AND BONE HAS THE PROPENCITY TO BECOME ADDICTED TO A HIGHLY ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCE SUCH AS ALCOHOL.

It’s time we forgot the fear-based drama of AA and call it what it is. Alcohol is an addictive poison that is being marketed through every aspect of society and is extremely harmful to our mental and physical health, as well as the wellbeing of the collective in general.

See, the powers of the matrix don’t want people to know the truth about alcohol because if people claim their power over a mind-numbing substance they might actually wake up and live in their purpose!

Could you imagine the state of the world if we were all living from our heart’s center and creating the life we WANT? Living based on feeling good? Treating each other with kindness and generosity over doing the bidding of the divisive and dare I say EVIL ones that keep the capitalist world turning??

WHOA. That might be a little out there for some people, but more and more humanity is waking up and wants to live in the true freedom of choice.

If we have seen anything over the last couple years, it’s that the powers that “control” us are not acting in our best interest. It’s also clear that there is such BEAUTY in the collective of humanity and when we tune in, we notice just how much we ache to return to the wisdom and simplicity of connection to self, spirit and Mother Earth.

That is why I fell in love with the teachings of This Naked Mind.

That is why I resonate so deeply with our coach manifesto and keep it top of mind in the work I create and put out into the world.

No joke, I have the manifesto on my fridge, printed in my office and I always run my thoughts and ideas through it before I commit to creating anything. Am I living in my values, and am I creating a business that I feel good about and truly believe in?

So here, let me share with you the manifesto:

We live to extend GRACE,
first to ourselves and then to others

WE WALK A NEW PATH
knowing there is another way to change

WE think CONSCIOUSLY
living AWAKE and allowing for all of our experiences

WE ARE POWERFUL
through radical self-awareness and responsibility

We BELEIVE in the impossible
seeing people find freedom every day

WE ARE THIS NAKED MIND

I always ask myself if I am thinking outside of the box societal conditioning would have us believe is real.

One of the reasons that I was drawn to Annie Grace and her work in the first place is that I NEVER FELT POWERLESS OR ADDICTED. I felt out of control for sure, but it never dawned on me the real power that addiction has or how it manifests in our thoughts and behaviours. I had no idea alcohol was hijacking my limbic system and forcing me to drink more and more through a cocktail of hormones, neural transmitters and engrained neural pathways built over 2 decades.

The truth is, I would never have been able to get my drinking under control with the fear-based mentality of AA because I never believed alcohol was my problem.

I thought addicted people were the ones at absolute rock bottom with nothing left to lose.

I never considered the reality of an addicted “grey area drinker”.

I was functioning just fine, building the career I wanted and running 2 high-end restaurants in a beautiful destination hotel. I was happy, living in the mountains with an amazing man and my furry best friends. I was hiking and enjoying river walks on my days off. I thought I had it pretty figured out. And worst of all I thought that screwing up and drinking too much was just “normal” behaviour, because that’s what I grew up with, that’s what my friends were doing, and that’s what I witnessed working in hospitality for almost 20 years.

Unfortunately for me, alcohol had a lot more control over my life than I knew or understood. And eventually my choices around alcohol started to catch up with me. I was choosing alcohol over everything I loved in life. I let it steal my time, I gave it my money, and worst of all I let it erode my trust within myself by making rules and never being able to stick to them.

If you ever feel like your relationship with alcohol is taking too much, it is.

If you feel like you are drinking more than you would like, it’s because alcohol is addictive and has hijacked your brain.

If you don’t consider yourself an alcoholic, you aren’t. (Alcoholic is not even a scientific or medically recognized term anyways!) …but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to have more control over your drinking.

Do you ever wonder what it would feel like to drink less? Would you feel better or worse? What would you GAIN by drinking less? More time, more money, less stress, less guilt?

I opened this conversation around the idea of fear, and how much people come to me worried about not being able to trust themselves to never drink again.

The real way to never have to have that worry, is to make alcohol small and irrelevant.

How would you feel if you could truly go back to a take it, or leave it, drinker?

If you want to have more control over your drinking but you don’t want to be afraid of alcohol doing “pushups in the parking lot” (another annoying way AA instills fear in their followers) then skip rock bottom, skip “alcoholic,” and skip AA….. IMO, their outdated, fear-based mentality needs an upgrade.

Once you follow the proven framework to make alcohol small and irrelevant you will never fear drinking again. Because alcohol will have no power over you. You can literally have ZERO DESIRE TO DRINK!

Imagine the brain space you would have if you eliminated the desire to drink? The time you would get back from never being hungover. The money you would save from never wasting it on toxic poison ever again.

I encourage people every single day to break up with booze.

And by the time we are done working together they are not afraid of the what ifs. They don’t worry about alcohol sneaking up on them. They KNOW IN THEIR HEART that life is better without it. They love themselves again (some for the very first time).

I believed alcohol was necessary like I believe the sky is blue. If I can find freedom and never worry about alcohol having control over me ever again, I know you can too.

Can you have compassion –

Can you learn something new –

Can you allow for what is –

Can you be powerful –

Can you believe –

I think you can. And I KNOW I can show you how.

Never discount your convictions again, live in freedom and CHOOSE your path.

This won’t just help you to never fear alcohol again. It will be a huge step towards never doubting your decisions, knowing what is right for you, being strong enough to stand in your truth, and creating the life you have always wanted, but let fear keep you away from.

Onward to an embodied POWERFUL version of you,
Danielle xx

ps. This is in no way saying that AA doesn’t work for some people. But in my experience, there is so much more to life when we become truly FREE from the substance psychologically. That is the difference between traditional addictions programs that stop at the level of behavior and TNM methodology. I think we owe it to ourselves to upgrade the thinking to move beyond the behaviour change and strive for true psychological freedom.

Not “sober”, YAY!

so·ber
/ˈsōbər/
Adjective

not affected by alcohol

serious, sensible, and solemn.

subdued in tone or color; showing no excessive or extreme qualities of fancy or emotion

One of the questions that people like to ask me is how long I’ve been sober. I have a couple of go-to responses depending on how they ask. But when they ask with a genuine curiousity I am always a little too excited to announce;

“Oh, no, I’m not sober!” (I say with a little extra emphasis on the sooooberrrrr part.)

With a shocked look I then get, “What?! Wait.. So it’s all been a lie? Just some marketing tactic? You mean you still drink? Did you relapse? What happened?!”

Hmm well… no to all of the above. That’s not what I said. But based on the definitions above – I’m still not sober even if I do not drink.

I lump “sober” in there with terms like “alcoholic”. They are just not helpful on my journey to self, and they especially aren’t helpful to anyone choosing to act courageously enough to decline the poisonous substance alcohol!

And here is why I don’t identify as “sober”. Refer to the above definition and let me explain a little further.

1. Not affected by alcohol

Well, the truth is, I am deeply affected by alcohol. I am very aware of what it does to me. Of the impact it has on my health, my relationships, children, society, and so much more. Even if I no longer drink alcohol, I can’t say it does not affect me, and cause me (sometimes intense) pain and suffering. In fact, I feel deeply for those that are still living in the alcohol matrix and blinded by its illusion. But it also affects me in amazing ways that are profound and beautiful. It affects me each day that I’m able to work with others and help them find their own freedom from it. And it gives me great joy to hopefully prevent others from ever being affected by it in the ways that I was.

2. Serious, sensible, and solemn

BAHAHA, well if you know me in person you probably would not use serious, solemn, or sensible to describe me. Oh no. Not me. Not anymore. Not when I am no longer drinking, I had my moments of alcohol induced depression, but I rarely feel any of those things anymore. I mean I can be serious when the occasion calls for it, but most of the time – it’s just not necessary. I am, however, curious, light-hearted, hungry for knowledge, excited for what is ahead – I am all of those things. But this beautiful and alcohol-free life is so much more than serious, sensible, and solemn.

3. Subdued in tone or color; showing no excessive or extreme qualities of fancy or emotion

Are you kidding me? Subdued in tone or color? Showing no excessive emotions?

That is a definition of SOBER?? Because I’m pretty sure that just described what my life was like when I WAS drinking! Sad, but SO TRUE! Someone I was talking to recently compared life while drinking to life after finding freedom from alcohol to that scene in the Wizard of Oz where everything goes from black and white to color. And all I can say is F**K YES!! That is EXACTLY what flipping that switch is like. My life now is more vibrant to say the least.

No longer is everything muted, numbed and overwhelmed by booze soaked everything. Now I get to see, feel, taste, touch and experience everything that I was doing before with more zest, more time and more remembering …ANND I get to experience way MORE because I am clear, never hungover and have so much more energy.

I might not be “sober”, but I am definitely living awake, alive, engaged, amazed, awestruck, grateful, and a plethora of other feelings and emotions.

Letting go of the perceptions that the mass majority of humans have, that you need to drink alcohol to have fun, allows you to open up to the possibilities of choosing to be alcohol free and never having to be “sober”.

So, what are you? Or better yet, what do you WANT to be??

So much love for you here,
Ruby xx

My truth about Truth and Reconciliation.

I would like to speak about reconciliation.

As I sit here in the privilege of 2022 eating my orange sprinkled donut from Tim Horton’s, I am sobbing.

I looked at my daughter today as I drove her to my grandmother’s house, and I started weeping for the love that I have for her and for the deep pain that I feel, caused by colonialism in the “new world”. Although I have white parents, I have grown up in a First Nations home. My brothers and sisters are indigenous peoples, my family, my stepdad, meaningful people that are very close to me, have all been impacted by the generational trauma caused by the residential school system.

My mother’s life work was to heal through social work, and she studied with a native specialization so that she could impact the lives of families within First Nations communities in northern Ontario. I feel such a strong calling to follow along in her path and work to try to reconcile; more deeply than I think the average person understands. You see many white folks just don’t understand the absolute travesty that was created when indigenous children were ripped out of their homes and forced to sit in schools, forced to forget their language, their culture and everything that they knew.

We think it’s enough to have a f*****g sprinkled donut. Hey, I did my part, I bought a f*****g donut.

Honestly, it’s pathetic.

I’m always shocked by what some people of privilege say in terms of the First Nations people. But with my work I am intimately aware of how deeply ancestral trauma can run, it not only changes the lives of generations, but it is carried within our DNA.

I believe that for true reconciliation to take place there needs to be a reclamation of culture. And even though my DNA might say that I am of white descendants, I feel connected deeply, in my heart, to the wisdom and the culture of the Anishinaabe and specifically Ojibwe people that surround me.

I want to take a moment and honor the lands that we live on, the lands that abundantly give us everything we need in this life. Without the connection to the land, we become mechanical, we become disconnected from everything that we are, and from the power that we may create with. I am passionate about teaching people where their food comes from, and I feel after this summer more than ever that I meant to reconcile this relationship to the land in much deeper ways.

I would like to honor those people who had their children stolen from them. I would like to breathe into their pain, I would like to honor their losses of culture and language and purpose. Alcohol was just one of the tools that we offered to dissimilate the family unit and we can all see how that has affected this population as a whole.

Until we can accept the truth of the pain we have caused, there can be no reconciliation.

I hope in my work to honor the lives of people lost. And that could refer to the now living and the dead.

I believe wholeheartedly that the ways of the First Nations people are the healing practices that are important to integrate into life on this landscape even now. If we want our descendants to have any chance at living a full and prosperous and meaningful life we need to learn how to work with the land, how to live in community, and how to honor the food medicines that are provided so readily if we are willing to observe, grow, listen, and honor that these medicines have been offered for our benefit and livelihood.

As a privileged person I want to make clear the damage we’ve done by emphasizing the control that alcohol has on any individual. But more specifically an individual who has no purpose, no real reason for living, no relationship to community. When you take people out of a space of safety, they cannot function as whole and that is when addiction has an opportunity to set in. And this addiction may be carried for generations, in many cases it has become the culture of struggling communities. I think it’s clear that all people of this world are affected by the addictive nature of substances like alcohol, and I truly believe that part of this healing, is understanding that that addiction stems from a loss of deeper purpose. A person can only truly align with their purpose as a human being when they are connected to Mother Earth, connected to their food, connected to their community, and building strong family systems, desiring to be a wholehearted human being and operating from a place of safety, truth and authenticity. When people begin to claim their power as human individuals, they shed the need for a reason to numb, and within that process are able to operate at a higher level of vibration that does not allow for addiction to manifest.

I invite you to take a moment and breathe. Breathe deeply for the pain and suffering of loss. Feel into your body the deepest loss you have experienced within your life. Bring that grief to the surface and just be with it in this moment, accept your grief for what is. Breathing into this grief, letting the pain flow through you. Maybe tears are streaming down your face. Allow yourself to be with the pain and yet still feel held. Allow yourself to feel safe. Create a blanket of rich golden light and surround yourself with this protective blanket, knowing that grief is a valid part of the human experience but is OK to let go of. Everything, including pain, is meant to awaken a deep emotion within our human physical body and when we can be with those emotions and still recognize the element of safety, we can transmute that grief into power. Absorbing the truth of how you feel about the situation and yet having compassion for how you feel.

My heart feels heavy because I know how far we are from any true version of reconciliation.

But I also carry a very valid and deep sense of hope because I know that collectively we can heal these deep wounds.

I think that the best way to honor true reconciliation and the truth of what happened in the residential school system is to feel these injustices within our bodies and offer the space to rest and heal. I think it is having grace and compassion for those people that you may not understand and that many could potentially view as a blight on society because they cannot comprehend the deep emotional trauma that those people have endured over generations. I think choosing to stand in our authentic power as human beings IS reconciling the culture of the native people in a way that surpasses any influence by the government body.

I know that on my own journey to truth over the last few years, for the first time understanding the lies of our culture, our westernized beliefs, our colonial influence, or a capitalistic society, we really have a lot of work to do in order to heal the damage that these systems are creating in the world. For me, truth means taking radical responsibility, and opting out of these oppressive systems in a wholehearted and non-confrontational way! I don’t believe that the people within these systems are necessarily bad people. I believe that they have a perspective that maybe there is no other way. And that this perspective shields them from seeing the truth that these oppressive systems were built upon.

I know when we begin to get curious about how these systems came to be and what they are truly meant to create, only then can we really discern for ourselves what truth we want to live in. When you begin to peel back the layers of influence that have been applied to you throughout your life, you start to uncover your true purpose, and your truth, and discover what you are here to create as a human being. When you’re operating in this truth you are able to heal and reconcile the traumas of the past and whether you are directly influencing any real issues, is not the point. The earth is an intricate system and just like within our human body, there are millions of cells working together to keep a balance, within our body this is called homeostasis, but within our world we have greater influence than we may believe. Because when we truly start to stand in our truth and operate from our true power only then are we able to release the ego and except that we are part of life on earth.

When we disregard our impact, we lessen ourselves as human beings.

In order to stand in your truth, you must let go of this ideology that you are separate from the life system that is this earth. You will choose to take responsibility for your actions, your decisions, and your impact while living out this beautiful life. Every choice that we make has a greater impact, has greater implications, than we can even possibly imagine, and these decisions are being made constantly, all day, every day, throughout our lives.

The journey of reconciliation is not just an ideal for colonialization to give back to the First Nations people.

I believe that the reconciliation that is happening is a call from the earth to heal our relationship to itself, to ourselves, and begin to cultivate a deep respect for the abundance that our Mother Earth provides.

The earth is our mother, she has given us life and continues to nurture our well-being with everything that she has. It is necessary and extremely important that we honor and respect our mother, that we honor and respect the life that thrives around us. That we honor and respect the life that has the ability to thrive within us.

So, for true reconciliation, I believe that taking responsibility for the health and wellness of our body, mind, and spirit while connecting to the earth in deep and meaningful ways is paramount. That growing our own food, knowing where our food comes from, having relationship with the earth and the plants and the trees and the animals that share this space with us, is the healing medicine we all need. That balance and harmony are necessary within our culture and philosophies to allow for deep healing. That we need to honor relationship and community, work to build strong and powerful relationships within our communities and build the strength and resilience of us as people; all uniting with compassion and understanding that we only have one wild and precious life, and to emphasis dedication to the opportunities that we are leaving to the next seven generations.

People of this current system of things are very focused on themselves yet have no relationship with self. Many people are choosing not to have children because of the turmoil and state of the world but those people often are choosing a life that degrades the very life-giving planet that they live on. In order to leave something for our children we need to recognize our own relationships to ourselves to our communities and to the earth, otherwise there will be no soil left for the many beings on this planet to survive.

So, if you believe in truth and reconciliation and you’re still reading I believe that you’re one of the few people that have been given the insight to step outside of the system that is and begin creating paradise anew.

Onward.

101 days

Today is September 22, 2022, and that means you still have 101 days to make 2022 the year you change your life forever!

If you are feeling like you just wish you had more control over your drinking but thinking about the Christmas season and NOT drinking feels totally overwhelming (and HORRIBLE), then my new friend, I GOT YOU.

Here’s the thing. Your choice to take a break and see how you feel doesn’t mean you have to choose forever. It just means you are choosing for now. And it doesn’t mean you have to quit drinking now. It just means you want to take the time to start learning more about how life could FEEL if you weren’t worried about your next drink all the time.

I know how much headspace drinking can take up.. not to mention money, time, energy….

What if taking a break could be fun?

What if taking a break could SAVE YOU MONEY, so you could have a little extra for yourself this year?

What if you could actually feel good about making the rebellious choice to drink less? Because seriously, we both know you are a badass!

What if you spent the next 101 days learning how to put yourself first without all the self judgement and guilt?

Do you truly want to drink less so you can LIVE MORE??

Yesterday was World Gratitude Day, and I can say with clarity and absolute honesty that the one thing I am THE MOST grateful for, IS the decision to make alcohol small and irrelevant in my life.

3 years ago, I was running away from everything, I had moved to a tiny town of 600 people because I needed to get my head on straight. I had spent the previous year moving around the country and trying to find a place to call home. I had finally felt like I found my place and started an amazing job, living in the mountains with the love of my life, until my drinking literally blew up every aspect of my life. I lost my job, couldn’t pay my bills, cheated on my partner and was drinking more than ever to cope with all my bad decisions… all of which stemmed from my drinking in the first place!!

Do you ever feel like you are banging your head against a wall? Like you know you are a good person, but can’t seem to stop making bad decisions when you’re drinking??

I was the type of person that believed alcohol was so necessary, I dedicated my life to hospitality and spent almost 20 years learning about ALL THINGS ALCOHOL. I would have never admitted I thought I had a problem. I would never have identified with a term like “alcoholic”, and you would have never ever got me to step foot in anything resembling an AA meeting.

There was just NO WAY that drinking was my problem.

So, there I was, trying my best to keep my drinking under control, living in the middle of nowhere with no one I knew, and no way I could get myself into trouble, right??

WRONG.

I was starting to find myself in the same old patterns, sneaking drinks at work, taking shots with customers, staying after my shift and drinking with regulars, coming home late and waking up with guilt, regrets and horrible hangovers. Just to do it all again the next night.

Even though I felt like I was moderating, even though I was doing OK at following my “rules”. Even though I was still functioning in the eyes of everyone else (even getting offered promotions!), there was this nagging voice inside of me that was saying, “your drinking is causing you problems. Is this really how you want to spend your life?”

I knew I was meant for more.

I knew I had big dreams inside of me, but I was just feeling so lost and had no idea how to get out ahead of all the shit I kept causing for myself.

And then I found out I was pregnant.

Staying sober for my unborn baby was the hardest thing I ever had to do, but you know what it taught me?

How much better my life was WITHOUT alcohol…

It was like this glimpse into a secret superpower that NO ONE ELSE KNOWS ABOUT!

That year was not easy. The pandemic was starting, my mom died, and I was with a guy I had no intentions on sharing my life with.

I was struggling with alcohol and feeling totally deprived, and honestly a little out of control, that was the first time in 20 years that I wasn’t drinking regularly. It was the first time I was forced to step away from my habits and actually start recognizing how deeply alcohol was engrained in my life. The space pregnancy gave me from alcohol made me realize how much better my life was WITHOUT IT.. and it took a while but once I accepted this choice as the badass, rebellious decision that it is, I started to realize how much better I felt, how much more energy I had, how much better my relationships were. And best of all I was able to start taking back some of the headspace that alcohol was previously taking up!

Alcohol is a giant lie. And we have all been led to believe that its important and necessary, but the truth of it is, it isn’t important. It is NOT necessary. And when you start to shift your beliefs about why you drink, you have this amazing freedom to reclaim POWER over your life.

Do you want to live more?

Do you want to have more time and energy to do the things you really love?

Do you have dreams and plans that year after year you keep pushing further down the road?

Do you keep making plans and never following through?

When I stopped drinking, I was able to put my time and energy into the things that really matter to me. I was able to stop giving valuable headspace to something that never gave back anything it promised. I was able to really start LIVING again.

Now I couldn’t be paid to put that poison into my body! Now I know the truth of how alcohol hijacks our brain and steals everything we love and enjoy from us. Now I am dedicated to helping people, who are questioning the benefits of alcohol, to see the beautiful freedom that is available once we start choosing something different then the masses.

Changing your relationship with alcohol is just one big step towards living the life of your dreams. And there are still 101 days left in this year to make it the year you decide to claim your power and choose to live the life of your dreams with intention and integrity.

I can’t stress enough how much better life is on the other side of alcohol. But what you do with this information is absolutely up to you.

If you want to get a head start on your new year’s resolution of drinking less and living more, don’t hesitate, reach out today. My next 12-week coaching container is getting underway in less than 2 weeks, and I would LOVE to have you there.

Imagine starting the year off feeling free of alcohol and in total control of your life?

with love,
Danielle

5 Reasons to Reconsider Alcohol.

Waiting for rock bottom is a fool’s choice.

There is no better time to reconsider your relationship with alcohol.

You might think that it is providing a benefit to your life – I know I sure did!! But once I was free from the addictive nature of the habit and really claiming my power in life, I realized it was all just a well-orchestrated lie.

My top 5 reasons you might want to reconsider having alcohol in your life;

Health!

I’m not going to give you all the scary statistics and say you are going to die if you have a glass of wine, but the health effects are very real and just like when we all learned that smoking was causing cancer many people decided to kick the habit and never look back. Well, I’m sorry to say that alcohol has been a known carcinogen since 1988 and somehow this knowledge has slipped under the radar. Known to cause over 5 types of cancer and many other health problems, is this something you really want to keep putting into your body on a regular basis?
Happiness!

You might think that alcohol brings you a certain amount of relaxation or happiness but the actual chemical reaction in your body is numbing your senses and depressing your nervous system. Although it can give an illusion of happiness, it is very far from the truth. Over time it will reduce your emotional setpoint to so far below normal that you won’t even know what happiness feels like anymore. Trust me, I would have never believed it until I cut it out of my life, but true joy is available and really is a remarkable thing.
Engagement!

Some of us drink to loosen up and become more social, but often that ends in us being a blubbering mess and crying in the bathroom…. or was that just me?

When you remove alcohol, you gain real self-confidence. You get closer to your inner truth, and you stand in your power. There is nothing more enticing than a captivating conversation about things that light you up with someone who is present and sober.

Presence!

This goes both ways – engaging in delightful conversation, as well as contributing by active listening. But truly being present and aware throughout your life experience allows a deeper connection to self and other. This can enrich your personal relationships with family, friends, your partner, and your children. It is the greatest gift.
Self-love!

This might be an overused buzz word, but I really think it’s worth mentioning. Not only will you be able to achieve a deeper connection to your inner truth, but you will begin to unpack the shitty things you might be wanting to let go of that are causing you pain and suffering. This is only possible when you really start to examine who you are and how you want to show up in the world. Sans alcohol. It also helps to skip all the self-loathing, regret, and shame that’s caused by too many drinks and bad decisions.

The entrance of the road to freedom is disguised by dependence and fear. Remove those obstacles by connecting to your heart’s consciousness, your inner truth, your divine light, your inner being – whatever you want to call it – and start the process of reclaiming your power. Reconsider your relationship with alcohol and you will be well on your way to creating freedom in your life.

Don’t know how you feel about your relationship with alcohol but knowing that SOMETHING needs to shift?? I am offering complimentary coaching sessions to 10 people this month to honour the recent loss of my Uncle, another family member taken too soon by the negative side effects of alcohol.

Email danielle@rootedruby.com with the subject line: Reconsidering Alcohol. No pressure, no sales, just 60 minutes of clarity coaching to see if reconsidering your relationship with alcohol might be a good next step for you.

#freedom #alcoholfree #mysoberlife #health #happiness #engagement #presence #self-love #reconsideralcohol #choosesober #temperenceisavirtue #wellness #yoga #mindfulness #afjourney #5reasons #livehappy #innerguidance #noregrets

Microdosing on Sobriety.

Choose to see things a little differently.

The PAUSE.

In This Naked Mind methodology, we don’t subscribe to the Day 1 thinking that drinking or quitting drinking is an all or nothing commitment. In fact, we don’t really believe in imposing rules at all.

The societal belief is that there are two types of people when it comes to alcohol. That people can drink as much as they want without any repercussions – these are the “good” drinkers, the ones that still function in society and aren’t homeless in a ditch somewhere. And then the alternative is the “drunk” – the person who can’t have just one, that has hit rock bottom, and continually chooses alcohol over a meaningful life.

This belief system is engrained through other 12 step methods that fortify this idea that you are in control of your drinking until you aren’t. That once you “walk through the door” you can never go back. In my opinion, that is why there is so much fear and emphasis on the idea of counting days and tracking how long you have successfully used willpower and avoidance to overcome your lack of control when it comes to drinking. Everyone has heard the old adage – One day at a time.

And for some, that works, but for me – I wanted FREEDOM.

Fortunately, with so much more knowledge and research about how alcohol affects our physiology and what it is actually doing in our bodies we are able to see that there is a little more to the story than we have all been taught.

The truth is, alcohol is an addictive substance, and with repeated use over time any human being is susceptible to addiction. This is great news! It is not a matter of genetics or something that we are allergic to and therefore more likely to fall into the cycle of addiction. It means that we – human beings, made up of flesh, blood and bone – are all likely to develop addictive behaviours around alcohol if we continue to imbibe on this substance regularly.

Perfect example of this is TOLERANCE.

Our bodies build a tolerance to alcohol with repeated use. If you have read anything about addiction, it always talks about the need for increasingly more of the same substance to achieve the desired effect. We see this with food addictions, drug addiction, smoking – and drinking alcohol is absolutely NO DIFFERENT.

Think about when you first started drinking compared to now. Do you drink the same amount of alcohol to get drunk as you did 5 years ago, 10 years ago, or even 20 or 30 years ago? Likely if you are a regular drinker, you can “handle” more. This is your body’s natural tolerance or immunity. Your body knows this toxic substance will be coming along and so with the first sip of alcohol for the day, comes a flood of hormones that work to bring you back to balance as quickly as possible (this is termed homeostasis, and is the natural regulation of the body through chemical processes).

So, what do I teach that is so different?

Well first, I don’t believe that quitting drinking starts with stopping.

Ummmm. Pardon me, can you repeat that – I don’t think I heard you right….. You are telling me that in order to control alcohol, in order to make alcohol small and irrelevant, in order to be able to go back to the “take it or leave it” place I want to be in SOOO BAD, I DON’T have to QUIT??

That is exactly what I’m saying. Kind of..

In my experience, it’s not about quitting drinking the day you decide you need to make a change. It’s about inviting in curiousity around sobriety and what it could mean for you. The people I know that have made lasting transformational change around their relationship with alcohol aren’t touting sobriety, but are more focused on feeling differently about drinking, and that just means getting down to the truth of how alcohol really makes you feel.

I’m sure if you are reading this you might be starting to question your relationship with alcohol. And if your anything like me, you just cannot identify with the word “alcoholic.”

Does this sound familiar??

–> I keep setting rules for myself; like how many, or how often, or what kinds of alcohol are OK. <–

See I too was working so hard thinking about all my rules, and I would be able to keep it up for a while, but eventually there would be a party or event and I would black out yet again and cause myself more pain and grief and I would be left saying, “What is wrong with me, why do I do that to myself, I should know better, I know I can’t say “no” – I know I don’t have an off switch!”

Here’s the thing that I find helps more people in a meaningful way than repeated “day 1’s” and willpower. I like to think of it as micro dosing on sobriety, and it is all about coming to this decision with a bit more self-compassion and grace. I mean we didn’t start having issues with alcohol overnight. For some of us this unhealthy relationship took years or even decades to cultivate. So why on Earth would we think we can just quit in a day with no other changes to help integrate this new choice?!

micro dosing

[ˈmīkrōˌdōsiNG]

NOUN

the action or practice of taking or administering very small amounts of a drug in order to test or benefit from its physiological action while minimizing undesirable side effects

Micro dosing on sobriety is about getting curious and learning what is true for you by experimenting with drinking less in small manageable doses that don’t scare your brain into thinking you are never going to drink again!

Sounds way more fun than beating yourself up and wondering why you are still stuck doesn’t it?

In This Naked Mind methodology Annie has developed the PAUSE. The PAUSE is THE THING that helped her change her relationship with alcohol for good. The PAUSE is why this method is so different from anything that has been available until now. The PAUSE is taking some time to stop trying to quit and start learning what alcohol really does so you can make an educated decision on whether this is something you want to keep putting into your system or not. The PAUSE is when we start drinking mindfully and take the time to find out if drinking is something we enjoy, or if it’s just that our dopamine response has taken control telling us we “really like” this thing.

When we drink mindfully, we are still drinking but we are drinking a little bit differently. We are taking time to bring awareness of how we really feel throughout the drinking experience. We observe and journal about what we are feeling in our bodies, how it is making us feel and if the things we think about drinking are really even true.

Isn’t that what mindfulness is all about? Being fully present in the moment and using our 5 senses to discern what is really happening within us and in our environment.

Something really interesting that I learned on my own journey, was how much an alcohol-free beer helped to curb my cravings for alcohol while I was pregnant. You might know this, but when I originally quit drinking it was because I found out I was pregnant, and what brought me to This Naked Mind was this overwhelming desire to drink even though I KNEW I didn’t want to harm my growing baby. Alcohol was consuming my thoughts and I felt absolutely miserable and deprived.

That is, until I started to LEARN how to make alcohol small and irrelevant. When I learned how alcohol was controlling me, I knew it was time to reclaim my power and say FUCK YOU to booze. Now that I know how much better my life is, I couldn’t even imagine drinking like I used to. Now that I have made alcohol small and irrelevant, I am totally free. I feel absolutely comfortable with my choice in any situation and can be around alcohol and people drinking with no desire to pick up a drink. That is something I never would have thought possible. But that’s because I believed that alcohol was creating a BENEFIT in my life. And now it’s clear to me that it was just a lifetime of societal and familial conditioning that was making me think that.

When I started to get clear on how it was REALLY making me feel and why I thought it was a benefit, I was able to start to unravel these beliefs and see where they came from. And you know what – they weren’t even my beliefs in the first place.

Micro dosing on sobriety can look like choosing an alcohol-free option to bring to the party so you can begin to feel for yourself the difference of being in control or not. It could be taking a PAUSE and choosing to mindfully drink so you can begin to feel for yourself the effects of alcohol in your body. It can be starting to read up on people’s stories and connecting in online groups to see that you are not alone in this struggle. It can be starting to choose yourself first and figuring out how you want to show up in your life moving forward.

Quitting drinking doesn’t need to be painful, and in my experience the most meaningful way to quit is to actually stop trying to quit and just educate yourself on how alcohol is really showing up for you. Unfortunately, what every person I know on this journey figures out, is that alcohol is not the great friend you might think, but actually a devious and insidious addictive poison that hijacks our dopamine response to make us believe we enjoy it.

Micro dosing on sobriety might just be the next step to find everlasting freedom and learn how make that choice for yourself, and then stand in that truth.

No rules, no restrictions, just awareness and learning. Doesn’t that sound like something you can do for yourself?

As always, here for you with so much love,
Danielle

Happy Dependence Day!

Is alcohol stealing your time, energy, thought-space, FREEDOM?

The big business of alcohol runs on two primary ingredients:

Dependence and fear.

The extent to which these are present in your life determines how much control that alcohol can exert upon you.

Dependence is created through the natural hormone cocktail that gets released every time you take a drink. The emotional satisfaction you get when you go to pour yourself a drink after a long day triggers a response that immediately releases a rush of dopamine to signal that this is a pleasant behaviour and you should repeat it.

Only, that artificially high rush of euphoria only lasts about 20 minutes before homeostasis kicks in and works to quickly return your hormone levels to balance. Unfortunately, simultaneously the stimulant effect of alcohol is maxed out and replaced by the depressant action of hormones like cortisol (AKA the STRESS hormone), and that depressive state takes 3-4 hours to clear your system.

This is what happens with EVERY drink you consume.

This is also why your blood alcohol level can register at zero, but you still feel like garbage; that is the compounding depressant affects that are still working their way through your system.

And this is a simplified explanation of how we build dependence on alcohol, some people like to refer to it as tolerance, but I see it for what it really is, and it is creating a need for you to continue to drink more to feel the same effects.

Over time this can be devastating.

On the other hand, we have FEAR, the other driver in the conversation around alcohol. Now this shows up in many forms but most commonly manifests as a fear of missing out, fear I won’t be able to relax, fear I can’t be social, fear I will be judged, ostracized, and rejected by my friends, family, and colleagues, and maybe most dangerous, the fear that I can’t cope without it..

In the absence of these two things, the desire to drink will dissolve and amazingly cease to exist.

Dependence and fear are generated. Neither is your natural state of being.

Dependence is not determined by circumstance; it is created by a state of mind.

Fear is a vibration we generate in response to our perception of the world. If you can learn to choose your response, you can write fear out of the script for your life.

The real work is to come to a place deep in your core where you can actually feel that YOU ARE ENOUGH…NOW.

Many will laugh at such a vague and “impractical” goal. They will chuckle at how silly, woo-woo and weak such an action is in the face of entities like dependence and fear.

This skepticism is the response of those with conditioning so deep that their minds have been severed from a connection with their internal truth. In that situation, the mind weaves stories about reality that fortify the self-made prison of that individual. This is how the alcohol creates consumer-slaves who believe they are free.

These are beings who are so asleep, so traumatized, so energetically scattered, that they are not able to see or feel the connection between their practical life and its source: the invisible inner being that they all have within them.

Freedom is easy to celebrate. It’s far more challenging to live.

LIVING freedom triggers virtually every emotional response installed by a lifetime of conditioning designed to keep humanity asking no questions by creating the illusion of safety in their little conceptual cages.

But my question to you is, are you here to live ALIVE in the fullness of what this magnificent world has to offer?

OR..

Did you come here to be told how to live?
Did you arrive on this plane so your life force could be manipulated for the gain of others?
Are you alive right now simply so you can serve as a meaningless cog in the machinations of the rigged system and its focus on death, disease, and destruction?

If you say FUCK NO, then what does it look like for you to declare the only independence over which you have any control: your own?

Is that what you’re doing?

Or are you waiting? Are you looking around to see who goes first? Are you checking to make sure the way is “safe?” Are you searching for clues that it is OK to be yourself, to show the world the real you, to claim the path for which you were made?

You are either free or you are not free.

There is no such thing as “half free” (….that’s the illusion of moderation).

Should you summon the courage, focus and fortitude to act upon that which is in your heart, you will receive a taste of freedom that will ruin you forever from accepting anything less.

The difference between free and slave does not require a war in the times that are upon us.

It simply requires a choice.

Are you ready to make that choice and live in your fullest capacity, creating the world of your dreams?

Or are you willing to let a few more years pass, waiting for things to get worse than they already are.

There is no better time to reconsider your relationship with alcohol.

The entrance to the road to freedom is disguised by dependance and fear, remove those obstacles by connecting to your heart’s consciousness, your inner truth, your divine light, your inner being – whatever you want to call it.

Start the process of connecting to YOU, and you will be well on your way to creating freedom in your life.