No Woman Left Behind

Do you ever feel like you're out growing alcohol, that you are longing for a deeper connection to life? If alcohol is keeping you playing small and feels like the one area you just can't figure out, you are in the right place. Hi, my name is Mary Wagstaff. I'm a holistic alcohol coach who ended a 20-year relationship to alcohol without labels, counting days or ever making excuses. Now I help powerful women just like you eliminate their desire to drink on their own terms. In this podcast, we will explore the revolutionary approach of my proven five-shifts process that gets alcohol out of your way by breaking all of the rules, and the profound experience that it is to rediscover who you are on the other side of alcohol. I am so thrilled to be your guide. Welcome to your journey of awakening. Welcome back to the show, my beautiful listeners. Wow, another week. Here we are, and I have to say it's been quite a week over here myself. Transitions are such a huge trigger for so many people and, although that's not necessarily the topic of our discussion today, I wanted to let you all know and this is in real time. So, if you are listening to this, in December of 2023, you are invited for free to the first ever 40-day alcohol transformation challenge. You may have heard it in one of the messages here in the podcast, so if you go to the description in this show, you will see the link to sign up. It is completely free to you to register. I decided that I wanted anyone who wanted to be there to have access to being there. No woman left behind on my time. The challenge is really going to be about what first of all, what we're going to also talk about today, but how to show up for yourself during times of transition, even if something that is happening to us all day, every day and I have a whole podcast episode on it there's little ones, there's big ones, and during this time of year, there's a lot of transitions. We're transitioning into a new season where we are in the darkest of all of the dark days. You're transitioning in your own personal cycles and rhythms. You are transitioning from into a new year, even just fiscally, in the way that you look at the trajectory of your life, and there's always this recap of the way that things went down and planning of new possibilities and new potential. And so transitions are not something that are innate inside of our Western culture. Inside of our society, we have this linear achievement model that is really a masculine-driven A to Z, and we do not live that way. If you look outside of your window, everything that you see is cyclical, and so, of course, we feel disconnected, of course we feel lack when the way that we are as nature is not mirrored in the way that we live our lives. We don't give grace for that, and something that I have learned through my journey on the Priestess path and something that I teach my clients through their own spiritual awakening and going beyond alcohol, is how to honor their own cyclical life and how to recognize that it is true, it is the only true thing, it is the only real thing, that you are a part of nature. So back to the 40-day challenge, and there's no excuse for not coming If you're listening to this, no matter where you are in your relationship to alcohol, because it is about if you are even on the other side of alcohol. I know I have a lot of listeners that are sober listeners. This is about creating a life intention, which is something I do every single year, so I will be doing it right, along with you, and living your life intention, one of the five shifts of the five shifts process is committing versus quitting. Quitting is a myth of drinking, of quitting alcohol, is a myth. It does not work. We don't just stop a habit. We have to commit to living a new way. And the life intention is one of the tools I use inside of my program, inside of the Stop Drinking and Start Living program and with my private one-on-one clients that we use to make decisions from, so that you no longer need willpower, but that there is more of a sense of connection and conviction that keeps you going with inspiration. It is a game changer. It changes everything. It is how I quit drinking and I'm offering it to you for free, with five weeks of live coaching. So every week when we kick off and we will have an hour call that will be recorded and shared, with a practice for that week specifically, and you will have this very specific practice where you are going to focus your mind with one thing, and every week it will change until we have this culmination of your beautiful life intention that you have embodied and that you have been kicking off the year with. It's going to be so powerful. I'm so excited to be offering it. I would share it with all of your friends and just decide let's do this together, because it's going to be fire and it's going to be really fun too. So you're going to have support, you're going to have accountability, you're going to have something to look forward to, you are going to be in a space with other women that are going to be in the same frequency that you are. There is no shame, there is no judgment. This is about next leveling our life. This is about awakening beyond alcohol. This is about stepping into self authorship, taking personal responsibility for your life. And so you will have to ask yourself why wouldn't I sign up? Because if you're here listening and you want to create change, the next step is to take new action, and the reason you think you can't is the reason you need to. So if you're a hell yes, get on over there and you can start. You will have to create your life intention. To start, you need your life intention in the video, and the process for doing that is available to you right now on demand. So do not hesitate, because you can use it for your advantage through this holiday season. I'm going to transition now into the kind of the second part. I mean, it's all part of the same thing, but is no woman left behind, right? And I'm kind of saying this for myself. And this challenge is that I want everyone to show up because more feminine female leadership through the lens, female leadership through the lens of the feminine is how we are going to change the world. Men have been in charge for a long time, forever, and look at the state of affairs that we're in. We have got to have more feminine leadership, and I'm not saying men can't lead through the feminine, of course they can, but we need a shift in the dynamic of the way that we function as a global culture, as a society. And you know, there is a lot of heavy-heartedness right now on the planet, and my heart goes out to you because we do feel a collective imprint, and my heart goes out to in prayers to so many people that are experiencing complete devastation, and I do think it's important for us to remember that we are a global community and everything that happens has like we are all connected, right, and to remind ourselves that we're not living in a bubble really for me, puts my life and my problems into perspective, right, it's like what am I worried about? You know nothing. Like there's just nothing that I can even come close to being worried about. When I see the you know, the day-to-day of what some people are having to live through, and it is the both, and it's like we can be soft and sensitive for our own traumas and our own transitions and our own depression and our own anxiety and, you know, kind of still put things into perspective without shaming ourselves. And this really is the power of the five shifts and this really is the power of the priestess path, which is what I offer my clients. Right, I'm a holistic alcohol coach and a spiritual mentor. I do it through the lens of combining both the recognition of our soul, self in this earth, walk in this human body, that they are not separate. You know, and so many people, women, that come to me recognize that, wow, there are all these stories that I've been engaging in, that I've been, you know, that have been dictating the story of my life, that I realize are optional and that they're not true and it's kind of like, you know, your mind is blown. The story about alcohol when you, when you really flip the switch on alcohol, it's like wow, like your whole world completely, completely opens up when you realize the power you have of self authorship. And then it's the. It's the integration. How do I integrate that into my everyday life, into a society that that does function on and linearly on achievement? And that is where this work comes in, where we don't one of the things that so many people want to do, and I hear it on Instagram all the time. It's like when I get drunk I'm like this, like crazy bitch or whatever you know and like, or you know like I want to like, leave her behind. She doesn't serve me. I want that part of me to die and go away. And what makes the biggest change is the integration of all parts of us. When we shame and belittle and want to bypass or ignore any part of of of who you are, any part inside of you from the past, there becomes a disconnection of your whole self. So going beyond alcohol is a reclamation of your wholeness, and what that means is being able to tap into your higher self, into your wisdom self, into your self that has access to the collective field of consciousness, and to see that younger version of you who maybe started drinking when she was 12, 13, 14, or you know, or even didn't start drinking until later in life. But there is some connection, some some emotional tie to a younger version of yourself, something that you didn't learn or a way that you didn't, you know, show up for yourself or haven't met your own needs. There's that version of you that is wise, that can see beyond that motherly, that grandmotherly wisdom, to look back and see this part of you that is scared, that is struggling, that wants to drink and hold her hand and bring her with you. We do not leave her behind and this is the biggest game changer. This is truly the only thing that matters. Out of all of the things that I teach my clients, out of all of the work that I've done for myself, the thing that has the biggest impact is the way that we talk to ourselves when we're by ourselves. So it's not, if you can imagine, that you're of two minds, right, and there's this imprinted, habitual version of you. And then there is this part of you that can kind of hover over you as the witness consciousness and see your little human self running around scared and sad and crying. Right, that's the part of you that says honey, you have nothing to worry about, it's okay. I understand so that that younger version of you, or that version of you that is kind of stuck in the past or hasn't learned the emotional intelligence skills can soften, can still be sad, but be witnessed, be heard, know that it's not a problem and it's not the part of you that's sad and scared and terrified saying get your shit together, you have nothing to worry about. What are you doing? There's so many things more that you should be grateful. Right, it's not that and it is such a subtle distinction, but I want you to really see it, I want you to really understand it, and one of the best ways to do it is to think about what you would say to a child. Or think about what you would say to your best friend or your sister. Right Now. Pick a person that you have a good relationship with and that you would go to bat for right. Like where it's. Like oh no honey. Right, like I am not going to let so-and-so get away with that. Like you are going to protect that person against all odds. Right, think about how you would show up for that person. Or even a stranger Sometimes we treat strangers better than we treat people that we love and ourselves. Right. Or if you see, if you saw, you know a struggling person, a mother with a bunch of children who was down on our luck, right? Like what would you say to her? You would say it's okay, I understand. Right, we always want to start with validation and understanding, because how we feel in the present moment is real. Now the reason we, like I was just saying, like I do like to take a shift in perspective, sometimes in a global view, so that I can kind of take a step back and get out of my own story sometimes. But over the weekend I was shifting and transitioning into my, you know, from one cycle into the next. I was at the end of my cycle and beginning a new one and I had had kind of stronger PMS symptoms and I usually do physically and, yeah, I kind of was a little depressed. But I've done this work so much with my life intention that I know what my truth is. I know that when my thoughts are negative or fearful, that they're not really my own. I know that, and so I'm able to recognize that now. And what I told myself is you don't have to make any decisions today, right? Because what happens in those moments is your brain gets very overwhelmed, your body is working on, you know, shedding like an egg and there's like there's a lot, a lot of stuff happening, you know, inside of your body. So my body is already focused on something else and it doesn't have the hormones to support really thinking about a lot of other stuff, right? So Sometimes it does. So in this moment I just said you have to, you have, don't have to make any decisions, don't worry about it. What's the best way that? What's the best energy that you want to create in your environment? And I kind of put on a smile. I told myself I didn't have to make any decisions today and to wait to see how I feel tomorrow. And it helped. It helped so, so much, and this is what is possible with the life intention, and so I don't shame that version of myself who needs a little extra support. I show up for her. No woman left behind, no part of you left behind. And when you're triggered by something in the external world that maybe doesn't, isn't when, in retrospect, have a lot of significance or you know I could have responded differently there is still a part of you that did respond with reactivity, right, because we don't always react to every thing. So, whatever that connection is to that trigger, whatever that emotional connection is to that trigger. You want to show up for that version of you and say it's okay, I understand, of course you're sad, of course that's frustrating, it's okay, you are doing a lot of work, because oftentimes what we're focused on is all the things we're not doing, versus the things that we are doing and the relationship that you build with yourself. That needs to become second nature in order for you to make alcohol unimportant. I cannot emphasize this enough, ladies. It is the clincher, and I thought I. I always thought like oh, I have good self-esteem, I think of myself highly right, and the truth is, is I have been pursuing what I want. When I want, I don't? I've never really had a lot of self-talk that was like, oh, you can't do that. I've always felt like, oh, of course I can do that, right, but that was different. That was really kind of through that, that masculine lens of achievement. But it didn't account for the times when I felt like I couldn't do it right, because of course that showed up, or when I was sad, or when I did need someone to hold my hand, or when I was scared and not processing emotions right, because even if I can feel fear and do it anyway. Well, there's still that fear, and so what is that part of me need to hear right, so that it can still be recognized and validated? Then this isn't about being, you know, placating yourself. This isn't about playing a victim. This isn't about any of that. This is about learning to have your own back and literally being your own best friend, because you, the relationship you have with yourself, is the most important relationship you have and it is what creates every result you have in your life. It is what impacts everything that you have, every other relationship that you have. So if you have a killer relationship with yourself, the way you pursue intimacy with your partner, the way you show up for your children, how you feel like resentful, right, all of that stuff changes. When you learn how to take care of your own needs and your own self, and all of the layers of you and all of the versions of you that impact you today, then you do not reach to external validation for support. Now, does that feel good? Is that something that we want? Of course, and there's nothing wrong with that. But when we only ever look to external stimuli and external resources to solve our problems and validate us. We will always be searching for meaning outside of ourselves, right, and then you look to alcohol to solve a problem, but it never solves it, it just postpones it and then, frankly, of course, makes everything bigger. I mean, alcohol literally never solves any problems and you know, I've talked about this so much recently. It's like the baseline of the baseline of you wanting to change your relationship to alcohol is that it's addictive. So you can try to bargain with it, all you want, but you're going to lose. Right, and I watch, I see these posts on Instagram all the time and they just make me laugh because it's, you know, there's and I really like give so many props to sober influencers and stuff because they do support people. People look at them and they feel like there's hope, they're inspired, they know that they're having a good time. But even sometimes the sober influencers can perpetuate this, this version of I can't handle it, like I can't handle one drink, and it's like, oh, when I think about me thinking I can just have one drink, and then it's like, oh, and then. But then I remember that I can't just have one and I turn into like a psycho or whatever and I'm like, yeah, but even just one is addictive. Even just one is habit for me. It's not even about that, so it kind of it makes a joke of it, but it skips past the whole point that, yes, do some people respond to alcohol differently than others? Absolutely right, of course they do. But even someone who's of super passive when they drink can still get addicted to alcohol, right, even someone who can have two drinks and go to bed can still get addicted to alcohol. That's not the problem and the problem, you know the the the whole thing about my. My offering is do you want to have to manage your mind around alcohol? Is alcohol important enough to you that, even with one or two drinks, even if you could stop at one, but then there's sometimes that you don't do you want to have to clean that up, or would you just rather make it unimportant all together? And and what we're talking about today is an and what's the opportunity underneath that? Even one or two drinks, right? What are you not addressing? What are what state? What authentic state of yourself are you altering when you have that one or two drinks that we, we have decided is a normal way to drink? And I just had this conversation with a client yesterday about the difference between normal versus natural, and that's why I use the term natural sobriety because alcohol may be normal in our culture, but it is not natural. You are not born a drinker and alcohol is not your natural state right, the alcohol in your body. But sobriety is. Sobriety is our natural state. So, although alcohol may be a norm, there's a lot of things that are norms, that are weird, that are not Healthy. If you look at the standard American diet, if you look at our obsession with social media, and you know our norms are changing all the time and in the western world our norms are really Creating a lot of disease and our norms I mean it's a like there's a lot of mental health right like Reprocussions from the way that we function, as our norms. Like mental health isn't just a given, it is a product. Right now, depression and anxiety are two very natural emotions, very natural emotions, but because of the norm that we live in, we are experiencing these things on a heightened level and for women, we're looking and searching for meaning in a in a society, in a culture that was not built for us or by us and Does not represent our natural state of being. So it is your job and this is what I'm teaching you here, and this is why I'm inviting you into the stop drinking and start living course and to work with me, because when we search for meaning in the meaningless right like I mean, I'm not saying that there's no value there, I'm just saying when you search for meaning In something that does not create real meaning, that is not the connection to your natural state, you will always create a deficit, always. So you, it is your job to pursue creating meaning in your life and you get to decide what that is. And this is a caveat for the life intention. This is why this work is so, so awesome is because it is not cookie cutter. You are creating your life intention. I'm not creating it for you. This is about what is important to you now, right, and what you want to work towards. It's not like you know you, you have values that are already ingrained into your lifestyle the way you show up for your children, the way you show your work ethic, like there are things that you already are a boss at. It's the things that are going that that you need, that you are important to you, but you want to integrate more into your life, and those are the things we pursue. So it's gonna have real Meaning for you. Like you, we are gonna co create this experience together and that's everything that's inside of the stop drinking and start living course is about. And I just want to make a distinction I had said that this 40 day challenge was gonna be only available to people inside of the course, and I changed my mind. So the course is still available for you. Right now. It is at an introductory price. It is going to change in the new year. It is at $249 for a lifetime access. I mean, it's literally the value of the year. So you probably should get in there now because it is going. It's going to be what is going to continue to integrate this process as you're learning to leave no woman behind, right? But the 40 day challenge is free and available to everyone, so invite your girlfriends, bring them along. I would absolutely love if you would go on to my instagram and share. There's Plenty of posts up there that invite people to the 40 day challenge. That would be amazing. We want all women. Know woman left behind. We want everyone. So this opportunity Is your first step into what I'm talking about for you on you know this more micro scale of leaving no woman behind. This is all the layers of you really working with Building the muscle of compassion and self care and letting this be your second nature of how you're responding to yourself, how you respond to transitions. Transitions are a part of our life that you have to just really look at ahead of time. Even coming back from a trip, it's going to be a transition. So one of the things I work with my clients about all the time is how do we integrate? What are you going to need for yourself? How do you carve out time For this transition? What's the mindset you want to have? Because it makes a difference versus just throwing yourself back into the day to day and then, at the end of your first day back from a trip, you're like, oh my god, I'm so stressed out, I want to drink and that you, you know it's like, oh, I just want that part of me to go away. Like that version of me, I just want to go away. No, she needs to learn something. She has a need that's not being met. What does she need to hear? We don't want that part of you to go away. That's what you've been doing with alcohol. Every single time you have a drink, you tell that part of you that has a need that's not being met to go away. You silence her. You quiet her and we want to hold her hand. Come with me, I'm going to show you the way. Doesn't that feel better than she just needs to go away? That doesn't serve me anymore. No, come over here, let me show you. I know it's scary and, yes, is it a little odd to talk to ourselves in this way? Maybe, but we're saying shit to ourselves all day, every day. That isn't very nice, right, when we maybe even subconsciously we look in the mirror. Oh, I can't believe. There's that? This, all the things that we say to ourselves about the way we look, about the way we aren't, about the way we respond, about the guilt you know the mom guilt for yelling at your kid, right, it's all the things. And it's like, yeah, that is frustrating, I've got to do it all the time. I've got a hellion over here Like I mean, that's a thought, but he gives me a run for my money, like I've got to tell myself all the time yeah, it is frustrating, of course, it really like wreaks havoc on my nervous system. Right, of course you're a human too, it's okay. What's a new way you want to respond that would really support you and him? Right? This has been the work that I've been doing for almost eight years now, because I want a parent in a certain way, but then sometimes it's like my nervous system gets worse. Sometimes it's like my nervous system gets overwhelmed. How do I take care of myself? What do I need? No woman left behind and there is a younger version of me, even in that, right that didn't necessarily learn, like my anger management or how to be frustrated in a healthy way, or that maybe being frustrated wasn't safe, or maybe that it wasn't even accepted that I shouldn't feel that way, right, or even someone, maybe telling me I had a bad temper and thinking that that was wrong and being shamed for that. So what do I need to say to her? Life's frustrating. Of course let's go for a walk and just take some deep breaths. So the 40 day challenge is going to have these practices that are going to integrate with your life intention. It's going to be so powerful. It's going to be a way that you have never shown up for yourself before and you are going to crush it. And the reason that we're starting before new year is very intentional. And the 40 days is also very intentional. So the yogis say that 40 days is the time that we need not only to unlearn a new habit, but integrate a new habit. Right, so you will be going through a full lunar cycle, some phases of it and some? Right, because it's like we want to get through every phase. And in a full lunar cycle or in a full menstrual cycle, you go through every season. Right, we go through every season. We experience that inside of our hormones. Are you experienced that with the way that the energies of the lunar cycle? But we want the end, then some, because we want to see how to integrate it. Right, if you have ever practiced Kundalini yoga, it's a 40 day Kriya. There's other. You know there's some other implications of what the number 40 is about, but that is very intentional. And the reason that we're starting before new year is because I want you to set your intention, not that you're not drinking, but I want you to set your intention that, yes, I am going to to learn a new way, and it's about committing. I'm going to commit to a new way I'm going to commit to, to living in alignment with my values and my life intention, so that I can let that lead Right. I'm going to commit to see where it, what it looks like when I don't and where I'm not, because you might not even know, it's not obvious until you bring it into your awareness. Because I want you to be able to see even through the weekend of the new year. I want you to be able to see through that lens. So it's very important that you get in now so that you have the time to create your life intention ahead of time. Now, that's only going to take you like 30 minutes, but I do encourage people to make it a ritual project, to sit down and have some fun with it, and you can even make a, a repress, a physical representation of it, like into kind of a vision board. I just had a client that made a really beautiful one. She printed out the whole thing and found a beautiful picture and put it on a little board. It was so sweet and cute and I really encourage people to do that, because this is the time of year that people make vision boards and but it's like it's not a positive affirmation this is your life, this is what you believe, this is how you show up in the world and other areas, and you're going to use your bad assness, that you already have the woman, the version that you already are, underneath all of your beliefs about alcohol or all of your limiting beliefs, and we're going to bring her to the surface and we're going to let her lead. But when all of that stuff stays buried all because alcohol buries all of the best parts of you then it just goes unrecognized, right. So this is it, ladies. We're doing it and I am so excited to be here with you and pursuing this and if you can come live, the energy is going to be so much more powerful and there is going to be an opportunity to get coached. Live, also, to ask questions. I'm going to teach you about the process. We're going to go over it. There'll be an opportunity to share, like you're in good company. This is there's no shame here. I mean, frankly, like everyone drinks and doing, like doing it in this way with me is there is. This is about a hell. Yes, this is about the next leveling of our lives, right, and lots of people take breaks from from alcohol as well, right, and so I know that sometimes it can feel it's like it's vulnerable to expose yourself, but I just want you to know you're in good company, you belong. If you're here, everyone else that's here gets it. We are all women awakening beyond alcohol. We are all spiritual women who are pursuing, want to pursue life through the lens of spirit and devotion and connection with nature and with, with celebration and ceremony, in a way that creates A deeper meaning and understanding right in it can. It creates this deeper connection inside, and what that means is practice. Because our human brains are so efficient. They are so, so, so efficient At learning habitual ways of being, at becoming conditioned. That is one of their other superpowers, so we don't have to keep re learning things. So when you're conditioned by external information that's reinforced, you have to intentionally shift it. You have to intentionally want to do something new. So if you make this your priority for 40 days, what's possible? And you get to decide right now, this is it. This, this opportunity is going to make the change for me, and it's going to make the change in every area of your life, because there will be people in here doing this that are have already quit drinking. That's like. There's this going beyond alcohol part, and that's what I teach my clients. It's the before, during and after and, like I said, I'm going to be doing the life intention rate with you. I'm going to be sharing with you my life intention, and I haven't been drinking for five years, so this is about continuously pursuing this. No woman left behind because I'm not there. I always. There's always versions of myself that show up, that need more support. I want to bring into the future that I don't want to leave behind. I want to. We have to integrate all of us into a current timeline. So today, sign up for the 40 day challenge. Show up for yourself like you meet it and when you have a big emotion, when you have an urge, when you have a trigger, remind yourself no woman left behind. This version of me. She's coming along. What does she need to know to feel safe enough to do that? All right, you guys, I will see you on December 30. We have so much other beautiful content coming your way over the next couple of weeks amazing interviews that are going to inspire you. You're going to love it. I wish you so many beautiful blessings. You are always in my heart and my prayers and I'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much for being a part of our circle here on the podcast, and if you are really resonating with this work and it's starting to open up and shift new perspectives and possibilities for you, I want to invite you to come on over to check out the stop drinking, start living portal of empowerment. It is where we take all of the concepts from the show and not quit alcohol, but commit to a new lifestyle and learning a new way, so that you can develop a new self concept that goes beyond alcohol, so that you can create a life that does not need alteration. We take a deeper look at the concepts here and then you actually start to apply them to your life, showing up confident and proud as an example of what's possible. Visit my website, marywagstaffcoachcom and learn how you can become a lifetime member of the portal of empowerment today. I'll see you there.