How I quit alcohol to reinvent myself, EP. 25

[00:00:00] Hi friends, shifting your identity is the key to transforming your life. But how do you do it? In today's episode I'm going to give you four steps that turn my tired overwork self into a powerhouse of energy and vitality.

[00:00:14] I'm going to share the secret sauce that helped me kick a lifelong habit. Yes we're talking about overcoming the stronghold of alcohol. Intrigued? Well if you're new here I'm Kate Wilder and this is The WilderTalk Show. Buckle up for these four tips and my bonus content.

[00:00:29] I've been asked to go deeper into the how-tos of transforming and reinventing yourself on one or more levels. So I'm going to use a couple examples today and also give you the techniques that have worked for me.

[00:00:42] Your personality and how you identify yourself is unique and is made up of three things – how you feel, how you think and how you behave. And these three aspects dictate the direction of your life. Since that's the case that also means you have the opportunity to alter any

[00:00:58] and all aspects and become someone different from what your current experience is of yourself at this time, it's as though you can bend your reality of who you are while the core of you is still there. How that happens is different for everybody.

[00:01:13] It's almost an epiphany at times. It's almost like something shot through you and just all of a sudden you decided to make that change. On the other hand there are occasions when you know you want to change something

[00:01:25] but you're not sure exactly where to start or what it is. So I'm going to show you in these steps how to first get in touch with those things. When you're not sure where to start, let's begin at the beginning. Step number one – start where you are.

[00:01:39] The first thing is to take stock of where you're at right at this moment. Let's break this down. Feeling. How I was feeling before I made some big transformations was I wasn't feeling good enough. I was overthinking, I had anxiety and I often felt rejection.

[00:01:55] The thinking part of my personality goes like this – I was comparing myself to others, thinking that others were out to get me. I wasn't good enough. So how was I behaving? I was overworking, I was drinking, I was eating a diet with processed foods

[00:02:10] and I was often tired. There was no consistency in my personal life as far as my habits were concerned. So an action step – I asked myself this – what are you fed up with in your life? How are you currently feeling? How are you currently thinking?

[00:02:25] How are you currently behaving? When I took a chance to see this on paper, some things jumped out at me. It's not that I didn't know, but it helped to clarify. This is an important step because in the process of writing, the brain is activated

[00:02:39] to help you discover deeper truths than you can have just by thinking. Ask yourself these questions. Are you tired of being tired? Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Are you tired of your job? Are you tired of not making enough money?

[00:02:54] Are you fed up with being treated badly by somebody? Are you tired of drinking? Are you tired of eating the wrong foods or feeling the way that you do? And you want a change. So you discover those answers. What is it that's no longer serving you?

[00:03:07] Something you might have outgrown or something you need a break from. But if you're taking a conscious approach to figuring this out, once you've looked honestly at yourself, then you've done a very challenging part of the process. Now from here change takes courage, but you have courage.

[00:03:24] I know that you have courage reserves. The second step is to create the picture of the new person you wish to become. For simplicity's sake, I like to think of this as my old self, new self, or my old person, my ideal person.

[00:03:38] The point here is that you do need to envision yourself in your ideal life, your ideal self, as though you're already in the future, your future self. And the more you can describe the details and feel about this, the faster you're going to get there.

[00:03:52] Whether it's change like quitting drinking or quitting something or a big life change or career change, ending a marriage, what really big things, whatever it is. So for example, last year when I took a look at my current state of my lifestyle

[00:04:06] and did a quick inventory like I just told you to do, what I realized was I was actually tired of drinking alcohol and having it as part of my diet. So I'm going to give you bonus content here about how I did stop drinking alcoholic beverages.

[00:04:19] If this doesn't interest you, that's fine. But this is just an example of how to do these steps. I'm including it here though, because I think it's important to show you how one of these more difficult challenges can be won over by using simple

[00:04:31] steps after you've made this decision. Here's part of my story. I've been someone who since my teenage years drank alcohol. Rarely, if ever, to my 60 years on this planet have I stopped drinking on a regular basis or none at all because drinking was part of my social life.

[00:04:49] And it is part of the fabric of who I was as the skin color that I carry. It was just inherently part of my life. So it isn't like something bad happened that made me want to take a break from it.

[00:05:01] I was as surprised as everyone who knows me that I would come to this decision. I never saw myself as a non-drinker. But this time, when I made this decision, huh, I just don't feel as good as I know I can. I'm going to stop.

[00:05:13] I just want to stop for a while or forever. I didn't know and I didn't care. I didn't put that limitation on myself to make it a temptation that I could fail with. I just decided to do it.

[00:05:24] When I looked at my notes on what I wrote down in that first step, like I'm telling you to do, I realized that part of my fatigue, part of weighing more than I wished I did, some past behaviors

[00:05:35] and the money it was costing me and the general contribution to not feeling well. That gave me incentive to do this. The one thing that was important to do was to create a new me as a non-drinker. I was scared of this, honestly.

[00:05:50] You know, I no longer want to be drinking, but I also didn't want to be thinking of myself as a non-drinker because I didn't want to slap a label on myself, drinker, non-drinker. But what I did was created a new vision of myself.

[00:06:05] I decided I'm going to go ahead and see myself in my future self as I wish to be with these great qualities that I want to become and have and be and do. I also stopped to imagine all of the situations that I would encounter

[00:06:20] without alcohol and make up my mind about how I was going to act, feel and behave when those same situations came up, those in which I used to drink. How would my friends feel about me? Would I lose friends?

[00:06:34] Would they stop inviting me out if I made them uncomfortable? How could I do this and not make my friends feel bad? All of this and more went into creating this new version of myself as though I was already doing it.

[00:06:46] I was preparing for it, getting ready and anticipating what was life going to be like now. So asking myself those questions really helped me drill down and get prepared to actually be in this new self, to step into it even before I quit drinking.

[00:07:03] So as I created this new picture of myself and included the things that would come up, the good things, the bad things, all the changes I imagined everything I could think of that would pop up on my path so that I wouldn't get blindsided and easily quit.

[00:07:18] I took time to look in this vision and see it all as though it already was happening, putting myself in those situations, working on myself. And then when I felt that I had as much of the picture as I could create at that time,

[00:07:32] I got busy working on becoming that new person in that new reality. The next set of thinking that I needed to take a look at was how was I going to view this? Was this going to be a sacrifice in my life?

[00:07:45] Was I going to have FOMO, Fear of Missing Out? Was I going to be sad about this decision as though something big was taken away from me? I made the choice that was not going to happen,

[00:07:56] that I would take the word sacrifice and I would turn that into, rather than depriving myself of enjoyment. I chose to look at it in a new way to change the perspective about this so I adopted a new perspective.

[00:08:10] Not only this isn't a sacrifice, but this is a benefit. What I'm going to receive is going to outweigh what used to be. That's what I focused on, that actually made this process very simple. Aside from the rock solid decision where we can waver sometimes,

[00:08:27] that really helped a lot to not look at sacrifice in the same way. I did start and I made checkboxes in a journal on starting this new journey. After four days, I had a drink. Okay, what do you do with that?

[00:08:41] You recommit to your dream or your goal or your new self. You just do it. You recommit and you start again the next day. You don't beat up on yourself, you just keep going and go, well, that's okay. That's part of the process. Let's start again.

[00:08:54] So you start back at the first day again. So steps along the way of any of these journeys, you'll need to recommit at times. We're human. You might fall down. You might make mistakes. That's part of it.

[00:09:04] Another four days after that time, my sister and I went out. We were going to a comedy show and we had dinner ahead of time. She had a glass of wine and I made the conscious decision at that point. Well, you know what?

[00:09:15] I'm going to have a glass of wine with her since I'm not going to be drinking after this. I'll make this my last time. So I enjoyed that glass of wine with her and we had a really nice time. And then it was May 22nd.

[00:09:27] And since then, I have not had a drink of alcohol. And I furthermore have not had any interest or desire in it whatsoever either. It's as though once I got started with this, my subconscious mind took over the heavy lifting. I had to do the initial lifting.

[00:09:44] But once once I got on the roll here, got past the first seven days and 14 days and 30 days. After that, I was feeling terrific and I really didn't have to try. It was really odd. The energy from my conscious mind to my subconscious mind began happening

[00:10:02] sort of in the background by itself. Years and years of this habit began to unravel in its own way that I didn't even need to understand or pay attention to. And so reframing all of this made this very easy.

[00:10:17] And even if I were fighting against the temptation of alcohol, I still would be doing the same thing, reminding myself this isn't a sacrifice. This is a choice. And do you want this choice or don't you? At any point in time, I could go backwards.

[00:10:33] No one's holding a gun to my head. So there's freedom in all of this. Any hard change that you might be willing or wanting to make. They're all very similar to this. Your mind, your subconscious is going to fight you on some of it.

[00:10:46] It's going to start telling you you can't do it and owed this and that. But, you know, it's very odd though. Once you keep going and get through these initial periods, something magical does sort of start happening. Our brain starts telling our bodies something a little different.

[00:11:02] There's a story going on and we don't even have to work so hard at it. No, I'm not saying this is simple for everybody or it's going to be as easy for you. But I am just giving you the tools that I've honestly used

[00:11:15] not just for quitting drinking, but all everything in my life. From my business to getting over traumas to catastrophes that have happened when I was young to terrible things that have happened in my life. Just like everybody.

[00:11:27] But we've our families had our share of like really dramatic losses and very difficult challenges. And all of these things have helped me. These steps I'm telling you have brought me back. Have brought me back to become a better person and go from here

[00:11:41] and start to grow again from this platform, from where I am right now. Wherever that was all along the journey of life. So have I as I have reframed these choices, I've experienced such great power that I never anticipated.

[00:11:56] I believe this happens in part because our subconscious minds have been interrupted from old patterns. That old identity in my case that I had was still way down there. But I don't see it now.

[00:12:08] I don't really feel it now and I don't really miss that part of me either. So I'm all I'm totally OK in every situation with friendships and social engagements to it's like no big deal. It's a freedom of choice and that continues cementing the fact

[00:12:21] that this is a good decision, no matter what it is that you're working on. Can you see the power in that approach and what I've said so far? The third step in shifting your identity in order to reinvent your life is reprogramming your mind.

[00:12:34] So when you shift within you to make that decision, what happens energetically change begins. Your brain starts to send a different signal to your body. It's an interrupt. If we if you put your hand on a hot stove,

[00:12:46] your hands going to immediately pop up the stove to save itself from burning. That's your subconscious automatic response. Likewise, when you pick up a pan, put water in it, turn on the burner and start to boil water. Every one of those thoughts are your conscious thoughts.

[00:13:01] You decided to do this. So what happens with our our habits, good or bad ones is many of those signals reside deep in the subconscious mind and they were put there through years of history, repetition, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, behaviors, values. All of that resides there under the surface.

[00:13:20] The great news is though that we can and do have our God given ability to alter our subconscious mind. Thank goodness. That's also what manifesting and creating the life you want has at its very foundation to the same as reinventing some part of yourself. It starts here.

[00:13:36] You can also use things like hypnosis and meditation to accelerate change and get to even deeper rooted subconscious patterns. Stick with me. I've got something else to share with you on this when you're willing to actually change your mind and make a new decision about who you are.

[00:13:51] You can change anything. I promise you. And if you're willing how to handle the roadblocks and obstacles that your subconscious is going to throw at you and persevere through those changes, recommit each time, you will get what you want.

[00:14:05] It's in the quitting or that making the decision not to go forward. That's assured failure. You need to hack your mind. Let's call it your ideal person, your second person, who I want to become.

[00:14:17] I have to keep imagining that I am already that person when I am first starting out on a big change. It can take a lot of repetition for you to get where you want to go because it took a lot of repetition to get where you are now.

[00:14:31] So you have to be patient with yourself when we're intentional and we're conscious about this. You can consider methods that will assist you, like I mentioned, hypnosis, meditation, but also journaling or integrative breathwork, retreats and workshops, coaching sessions.

[00:14:45] I've actually done all of these plus many more all through my life. There's a lot of ways to get there. And there's a method for everyone. Science shows we all have different learning styles and sensory experiences. So there's no one path to this auditory, visual, etc.

[00:15:00] All these methods have their place. What matters is that you gravitate toward working on your subconscious mind or shadow work in the way that feels right to you. Let's get onto this bonus step number four. Do this for 30 days over and over again every day and track it.

[00:15:18] What am I saying? Break things down to seven day increments at first. What are you going to do? You're going to take that decision you made about just one thing that you want to change and reinvent. You're going to track it every day. And the reason is this.

[00:15:32] This will help your brain, your mind to keep it active in your day. When you forget and you don't write it down or you don't focus on it for that few minutes, few seconds every day, you're going to forget, especially when you're starting out.

[00:15:47] So first work on seven days. If you don't make it through the first seven days like I didn't, I fell back at day four. Okay, I started day one again. I'm going to let that happen. Be okay with that. Start again at day one.

[00:16:01] Start checking off each day that I took action on being my new self in this new way that I want to be in the world. Acting as if doing it, taking action. As you get past the second week, you'll begin to feel as if a little bit more.

[00:16:17] If you fall down again in the second week, you lose your focus or you forget or you get lazy or what have you. Just go ahead and recommit again. Keep going. Keep going as many times as necessary because your brain is learning.

[00:16:32] And every time you pattern interrupt this and you start again and you say, no, I'm doing this, you give yourself that much more of a solid chance to succeed. So once you get to that 30 days in a row, I promise you, my friends,

[00:16:47] you're going to have some new feelings about yourself. Now, maybe it's not everything permanently all the time, but you are going to be well under your way to where your brain has started sending new signals as this change takes hold.

[00:17:01] After a bit of time, you no longer have to work so hard at it consciously because it's now become you. That's what I meant by how easy it's been for me. It'll be hard for you if you tell yourself it'll be hard.

[00:17:13] Once you achieve this first 30 days of this new behavior, this new life, this new pattern, you're going to feel like maybe there's something else you might want to do to improve. It might take a little longer than that, but your psyche, your subconscious

[00:17:27] mind has now interrupted old patterns enough that it's starting to take hold and you're starting to actually become now what is in your picture, that view you had. You're teaching your mind, hey, this is who I am now. And the other thing about self-improvement that I have found

[00:17:42] interesting through my life is I have learned that the subconscious mind, not only does it not take a joke. It believes anything you feed it. The second part of the subconscious mind is that it'll begin showing

[00:17:55] you things that you are now ready to see, that you were not previously ready to see. And sometimes this happens abruptly. Sometimes it's subtle, but it's interrupting your old ways of being. You're not shown or dealt a hand that you're not ready yet to heal,

[00:18:12] to improve or to make better. Which sometimes is why when you start out on a goal, you don't really stick with it because perhaps it really wasn't the right time or you didn't have the right oomph, you know, the right fortitude yet to

[00:18:26] make that solid decision that made it an easy change. That's the big difference. So whether this is your first time hearing these concepts I'm telling you or the thousandth time, I can attest to the power of what I'm telling you that changes lives because it has changed mine.

[00:18:42] I am just here to support you on your journey and give you these ideas wherever you're starting. So I want you to start with step one right where you are and go through these steps as you work along your path to this first 30 days.

[00:18:54] Consider supplementing your process with mindfulness techniques. I've used so many methods on my journey, but whatever works for you is all that matters. If it helps you, I will be rolling out some more guided meditations that go along with some of these videos.

[00:19:09] Following this about 24 to 48 hours later, I'm going to have the next video that accompanies this. That's a guided meditation to walk you through these four steps and uncover some of these blocks just like we're talking about here

[00:19:21] that might help you to take that first step or that next step depending where you're starting. I'm here because I want to keep sharing my ideas with you. This is my path. This is my journey.

[00:19:32] I've taught for a long time and took a break for a long time. I encourage you to watch out in the next couple of days for the guided meditation, hit the notifications if you haven't yet

[00:19:42] or the subscribe so that it will come into your feed as soon as it's published. If that's something you're interested in. Thank you so much for watching my channel and feel free to pose a question in the comments. Share a thought.

[00:19:55] Would you like me to do a video on a certain subject or I'm here for you? This has been the Wilder Talk Show. If you're new here and I'm Kate Wilder, your host, look for the next video and keep on manifesting. Keep on reinventing yourself.

[00:20:07] Keep on getting better because there's a whole world out there that's ready for you to live and deliver your dreams and goals. Thank you my friends.