It seems like the words shouldn’t make a difference, but they do.
Do you quit drinking "forever"? or "for now"?
As a test, we compare quitting drinking to giving up cheese. Do it forever, or for now? And what happens when you frame it as ‘forever’?
I've posted the link below and the audio will be available for 24 hrs. You can click and listen in increments. Nothing to sign up for. Easy to access (free/anonymous).
Sober Podcast 317. Quit Forever, or For Now?
Question: After you listen to the audio, tell me how you think about this question. What kind of thinking works best for you? Post a comment below.
“Heavy drinking is like time travel. Each year of drinking is five years of actual life. It’s why relapses are time-sucking vortices, into which whole decades can be devoured like so many Cool Ranch Doritos. This makes falling off the wagon a much longer trip than the cute aphorism suggests. The wagon is much higher up off the ground than you’d think — if you dismount, you will fall a long, long time before you hit even a high bottom. Claw your way back on. It’s worth it. Because, like quitting smoking, almost everything is easier than the first part of quitting. Once you’ve done it, protect that shit like it’s sacred, because it fucking is.”
Senior Sober Workshop: Worth (and senior just means you’re 200+ days sober) registration begins Tuesday, July 17th small group, live calls, homework, treat box in the mail www.soberlinks.me/worth
I am going to make this full audio available for 24 hours even if you are not a podcast subscriber. You'll want to hear this. Start now, just for a few minutes.
[ link has been removed ]
Sober Podcast 252. Addictive Liquid Poo
You can leave a comment below, anonymous is fine. If you've heard the entire audio, you can tell me if you heard anything new ... To download the entire audio, you can use the link below.
Sign up for the podcast membership (1-2 new full-length audios each week, you can cancel whenever you like ... but you won't. more sober tools = good)
Open to new possibilities. Open minded. Open the door and walk through. You can see the fugure through the sign, too. Sober inspired art thanks to mr.belle, here
see available paintings, pick out one for you > artsober.com
This is an audio clip from Sober Podcast #247 sent to sober podcast members.
Now that we know that the alcohol industry has been funding some of the booze-related research, it just makes me wonder about studies and research in general.
and how most of us (me included) aren't able to determine whether a news article that claims to be based on a study, is actually fact, if it's been skewed, who paid for it, and what is the underlying agenda of the news media writer, or the original researcher.
in this audio, i start off ranting about booze research, and then I think that before i get myself into too much trouble, i will share some of my own biases, thought process, and numbers. how many people had i been penpals with before it was a paid thing? how many people did i interact with, see patterns, offer cheerleading to, before i started talking about what i saw? listen to this and find out.
see if there's something in here that rings true to you. other than the visual of me standing on my balcony with cold feet, wearing my pyjama bottoms and sweater, holding a clip-on microphone to my mouth. I also tell you about the little girl with the yellow raincoat that I see from the window.
I have posted below the ENTIRE 22 minute audio for this podcast, and I will leave this link available for 24 hrs only. Have a listen now. all i ask in return is that you post an anonymous message in the comments. If you’d like to be able to hear this again, you can use the link to sign up at the bottom of the post.
Comments from subscribers:
Inspired (day 606): "I feel the same way about research, critical thinking, agenda behind it and bias. Years ago, wolfie loved hearing research that wine was heart healthy and resveratrol in red wine was good for me. BRING IT ON, he said, we will just moderate drink. This topic reminds me of an interview with Katie Couric, a news anchor, I read a few days ago in the airplane magazine on a flight. She speaks about the difference in reporting on information versus affirmation. Are we only looking to affirm our beliefs in order to empower or strengthen them, or can we allow information in when we may not agree with it completely? Critical thinking and continuing to ask the questions around agendas and bias is important ..."
Jacci2 (day 82; medical professional): "... as a general rule, I ALWAYS take research cited by any journalist with a huge lump of salt. If I really want to know something, I'll go look up the research article myself and read it to discern whether or not it was a good study, whether or not it is generalizable to the public (they often are not, the journalist just extrapolates the data to apply to everyone even though the study group is limited and very specific), and who funded it. This drives me crazy. Journalists are not scientists and they make their own assumptions from the research and feed it to a gullible public. RANT ALERT! I had to do this recently for my boyfriend. His mom was all concerned about some article in a magazine about one of the meds he was taking for heartburn, saying it was going to give him kidney failure. I pulled up the original article, and it turns out the findings were only relevant if you are over the age of 65, are obese, have diabetes, and are already showing signs of kidney failure ..."
If you sign up for the monthly podcast subscription, this audio will be the FIRST one you get, if you sign up today (Tuesday). Then you can listen again. Save the MP3 file. Listen on repeat.
Here’s the link to today’s Tuesday Update message. This is omm260, and it’s a recap of the distribution of these one minute messages, how to send them out the best way.
To hear this tuesday message, play below. nothing to download. just press play.
links mentioned in the audio:
Gumroad: Sign up for these one minute messages on Gumroad to get access to ALL 200+ episodes & the occasional video from paris. there’s a video about a poop truck: https://gum.co/belle-omm/itunes
I have a new Monday update message ready for you. This is omm256. This message summarizes what’s coming up this week including the photography project.
To hear this Monday message, play below. nothing to download. just press play.
and in case you hate listening to audios, here’s the transcript:
This is a slightly longer One Minute Message because it’s Monday and I want to give you a little overview of what this week might look like.
I have been away for the weekend and so I am coming back to a full Inbox of which I have done about 2/3rds today. So, if you’re waiting on an email from me, you may have already heard from me today, you may hear from me tomorrow. We did have crappy weather, thank you for asking. It rained all one day and then the second day it was grey but didn’t pour rain so we could do a lot of walking and not that you care, but thank you for your well wishes.
We did also spend a fair amount of time, as I’m sure you did, following what was happening with the hurricane in Florida. I’ve been getting email updates from my pen pals yesterday and today, letting me know that they’re safe. And so, if you fall into that category, you can also send me an email and let me know that you are well and that your parents got moved and that your dog got moved and that all of the other variables that needed to happen did happen.
If you’re also like me, you probably reached a point where you couldn’t watch the coverage anymore because it was making you feel wound up or that there was a sense of something catastrophic that then, thankfully, eased up in terms of the predictions and then there was this gigantic sigh of relief I’m sure for everybody, not just for me following this.
But, we’ll use this as a preface then to say that this week you will be extra specially kind to yourself because these sorts of things going on in the world, whether you live in Florida or not, there are things that are stressful and have every potential capacity to wind you up. You will watch how much TV you watch. You will read rather than watch videos because they’ll wind you up more. You will turn off the television. You will turn away from things that make you feel wacky. And you will drop your shoulders and breathe a bit and relax a bit and remember to be kinder to yourself, no matter where you are in the world, no matter what’s happening around you. (You could listen to this message any day and it would be the same thing. I might say it every Monday. Should I say it? Every Monday, I’ll turn on the microphone and I’ll say, ‘Please be nice to you today. OK. Goodbye.’)
Coming up this week, there will be 2 new One Minutes Messages in addition to this one, so a total of 3 out of 5 days. There will be at least one new email every day, sometimes two. The new class that I am starting for people who are 200+ days sober about worth has started its registration today. The class begins next Monday. Topics include: different ways that we determine worth, messages that we get from family, how do we construct our own ideas of worth and going forward how do we protect our ideas, how do we make these ideas concrete in our own heads. So, if you’re interested in that, you go to: http://www.soberlinks.me/worth and you can have a look at that for anybody who is 200 days or more.
Otherwise, this week is a relatively regular week I think. You’ll notice that everything that I do seems relatively predictable. Maybe that’s a good thing. I mean launching a new class is not really predictable, but One Minute Messages, you’ll hear my voice as many times as you want to this week. I’ll be sending out 2 podcasts as well to podcast members. So if you want to hear longer things, you want to hear my voice more often, you can do that.
You can read the blog. That’s always free. You can read it online. Oh, and I put up a link to a new photography project, which is a free, fun thing that we do where everybody sends in a photo on a certain theme and then we just post them. It’s not a contest. A contest would imply that there’s a winner. It’s a project. It’s an opportunity to look at our world differently with new eyes. I think I posted it on Friday of last week. You have a 10 day deadline to submit your photo. Anybody can submit a photo. You don’t have to be photographer. You don’t have to be especially talented. It’s more just a … it’s more just a project. It’s not, like I said, it’s not a competition and if you procrastinate too long and you think, ‘oh, I need to wait for the perfect timing’, it won’t happen. So just look at the assignment and go do it and then you’re done. And you’ll see that it’s funner than you think it is. Especially if you don’t fret too much about it.
OK, well that’s it. Anything else you’d like? Any suggestions for what you might like this week? I think the first 3 suggestions I get, I will seriously consider. Send me an email. Talk to you soon. OK, good byyyyeeeee! Happy Monday
Here’s the link to today’s Monday Update message. This is omm253. This message summarizes what’s coming up this week, and i wanted to share an idea with you about Point of View: “what does it MEAN when they say this or that…”
To hear this Monday message, play below. nothing to download. just press play.
and in case you hate listening to audios, here’s the transcript:
(I took the liberty of adding a ‘u’ to Labour Day Weekend. Is that Canadian? Did I get it right? Do I get a cookie? J)
Good Morning. I had an idea to do these Monday morning updates, sort of to set the pace and tone for the week, but also to let you know what happened last week and what’s happening this week. Last week on Friday, I opened a new session of the Sober Jumpstart Class with 25 new spots and I think as of today, Monday morning, there are 9 left (or 8). So if you are interested in doing that, you might want to leap on it now.
The other thing I announced last week was a new class/workshop for anybody who is more than 200 days sober. We’re calling it Sober Seniors, but really it’s more like Sober Champion or Sober Veteran or Sober something. I want you to know also that, this week — and this doesn’t happen all the time, but it definitely happened this week, especially with the message that I sent this Monday, where I said: here’s the thing for people who are new and here’s the thing for people who are 200+ days. Guess what happens? — And the reason I’m sharing this with you is so that you can see the parallel with your life. Guess what happens when you share that you’re going to do this and this? The people who are on Day 1 say “there was too much about the 200 day people.” And the people who are on 200 days say “there’s not enough for me these days, there should be more for senior people.”
Both of those opinions are true. I’m sharing this with you not because you should feel sorry for me, because I don’t feel sorry for me. Because I already know something that I want you to know which is: both of those opinions are true from the point of view of the person speaking. So there’s really no argument, there’s no: ‘No, no you’re wrong’. There’s no: ‘Let me explain’. We try to explain things to people that are TRUE from their point of view.
So you might be one of the people who emailed me and said, “Gee I wish there was more stuff for beginners”. And I’m like, everything’s for beginners. And then you might be someone who says, “I wish there was more stuff for people who are further along”. And I say, all of the early stuff is also applicable to you, just change some of the words. I set myself up that I will be a lighthouse and I will say and do the same thing all the time and that will either appeal to you or it won’t. I’m sharing this with you, not because I think it’s a really interesting story, but because I think it’s a model of something that is happening to you right now in your own life, which is where you feel like (please, I don’t feel like this) — where you feel like, “no matter what I do, somebody’s going to complain.” I don’t feel like that because I actually know what the perspective is. I know that I do the next right thing as far as I can see and that will either resonate with people or it won’t. But from my point of view, this is the right thing to do going forward, which is to have things for both ends of the sober continuum.
In your life, there are some things that you decide to do where some people are supportive and some people aren’t. Some people get it and some people don’t. Perhaps I’m modelling this for you. (You’ll remember that modelling has 2 L’s the same way that travelling last week had 2 L’s. This is Canadian spelling, I’m slowly going to inform you, word by word.) I’m modelling the fact that it doesn’t bother me. In fact, it makes me feel happy because it means that if you’re on Day 1 it’s like: ‘there’s too much about the old people’. And I’m like, OK you know, they’re really getting value out of the stuff I provide especially when it’s tailored right to them. And then if somebody says the same thing: ‘why isn’t there anything more for those…it seems like all you do is for beginning people, don’t you have anything for me’. And I’m thinking, OK what they’re saying is, I don’t want to go away, I want to stay here, can you entice me to stay. Can you provide some content that could be useful for me.
Can you hear the message that is behind the thing that the person is saying? Because our gut reflex is to be defensive to the words. You can’t be defensive to somebody’s words unless you know what the emotion driving it is. What’s behind it? Why are they saying those words? To respond to the words is to misunderstand completely what’s happening. Because there’s always a thing behind the words. Why would they say that? What would they have to be feeling to say that? So, let me tell you about this week. And if you think it’s a good idea or a bad idea, I’m OK with both of them. That’s what I mean when I say I’m okay with you not agreeing with me. I’m okay with it because I know that from your point of view, everything, of course, makes 100% total sense to you from your point of view. Of course it does. As it does from mine.
Here’s my week coming up: I have been working this past weekend which I don’t normally do. I’m not usually online on the weekends, but I have been. Because if you signed up for the Sober Jumpstart Class on Friday, it would be rude if you’re first interaction with me was then an out of the office for a long weekend, 3 days because it’s Labour Day Weekend. So I decided I would work through the weened and that I would take this coming weekend off. So I share that with you in advance so that you know that Friday, Saturday, Sunday I’ll be off line this coming weekend as opposed to having taken Labour Day weekend off. We’re going to the beach, and you will cross your fingers that we get like, I don’t know, one sunny day out of those 3 days because it seems to have turned to be September weather here abruptly. I’m not thrilled with it. Like I have to wear socks again which I’m against. I’m against socks all the time. I’m one of those ‘wear your tags inside out, don’t like stuff to scratch me’…I don’t like socks either.
Also coming up this week, there will be, in addition to this, 2 other One Minute Messages for a total of 3. I will, not everyday, but in some of the days where I don’t put up a new one, I will put up an archived one. Like you might have noticed on the weekend there was one for Julie from the cruse director at The Love Boat. She made a guest appearance/reappearance.
I sent out a new podcast to podcast subscribers about compliance on the weekend, that was on Saturday, and a new one will go out Tuesday or Wednesday, but I am definitely doing 2 new podcasts a week now for people who have the membership for…to get the new podcasts every week as they’re released. It is cheaper to do the membership than it is to buy them individually. But of course you may still choose to pick and choose. You can do that. I did get an email though from somebody who said: “I used to pick and choose the audios until I realized there was something in every audio and that I couldn’t base it on the title,” so I’ll just (it sounds so self-serving) I’ll just share that with you in case that’s helpful.
I will also share with you a little story from my weekend which will be illustrative and will sound like sobriety. Are you ready? I did a month without television, for the month of August. It’s something that I do each year. I don’t suggest this. I’m not recommending this. I’m not saying this is good for early sobriety. I’m simply telling you something that I did. Like quitting drinking, the period of time was short, and so it meant that I watched for the end of it the whole time. Which is why I actually think it’s easier to quit drinking for longer than it is to quit for shorter and there is a One Minute Message about this called Long Haul. I’ll put a link to that in the show notes. But I quit for a month which meant that probably only 3 times or 4 times in the month did I really think, “Fuck I really wish I could just like, zone out and watch a show.” It’s not that I don’t have other ways to zone out, I do. I was just doing an exclusion with the television thing. And then, when it got to the end of the month, of course I got to make a decision about whether or not I continued. I thought, “well I only said I was doing it for a month so.” I still haven’t watched television, yet. So now it’s what day (I don’t even know what the day is) the 4th? But what I did do was I played a video game which was part of the thing that I gave up. I gave up TV and video games for a month.
What I did do on Saturday – this is going to sound familiar – is I said to myself, I’ll just play one game. I’ll just play 2 games. (I’ll just have one drink.) I’ll just do a little bit. I’ve had some time off, I’m sure now I won’t get sucked right back into it.
I loaded the game on my phone, snuggled into bed and thought, “oh this is the thing I’ve been looking for all month. This is the thing I’ve been waiting for. I’ve been yearning for something. So I snuggled into bed on Saturday and I got my phone and I turned on the game and 4½ hours went by. It went from light to dark. I didn’t eat. It’s not even that I really felt like playing the game. It’s that once I started to play the game, I didn’t feel like stopping. It’s not that I was particularly excited to be playing the game. It’s that once I began, I was disinclined to stop. So at the end of that experiment, I uninstalled it from my phone.
I’m sharing it with you as a way of accountability to say the following: the thing that is setting off that part of my brain doesn’t go away by me not doing it for a month. The only way to get that to stop… like I said it came up 3 times in the month where I really thought – yeah, yeah, yeah I want this … if I quit for longer, that 3 times would become 2 and then it would become 1 and then it would stop. I know this is the same for quitting drinking. I share this as a story because if you are near Day 1, you can see directly how this applies to being sober. But if you’re on Day 200, you can see directly how this applies to quitting smoking. You think about it a lot at the beginning and then less and less and then it stops. If we quit for a day, then we’re just waiting to drink again. It’s easier to quit for longer. I suggest quitting for longer only if what you’ve been trying has been working and you’d like to try a new strategy and so, it’s sometimes easier to say 100 days than a week. It’s easier to say a year than 100 days. Because then your brain goes, “OK, well I’m just not going to think about it then, I’m not going to negotiate.” The answer is no. The answer is just no, I’m not going to keep revisiting it going, how about now, what about now, can I do it now. No.”
OK, well this is long for a Monday update, so stuff coming up:
2 x podcasts a week
3 x One Minute Messages this week
Daily emails, sometimes twice a day. Definitely one a day, sometimes two
I’m doing coaching calls this week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
I’ll be away Friday, Saturday, Sunday offline. Not travelling with my laptop. I’ll have my phone for emergencies but I’m offline. And I will be at the beach. Theoretically, not sitting under an umbrella. Well, if it’s umbrella, it better be a sun umbrella.
That’s all I have to say. Happy Monday. Talk to you soon. OK Good Byyyyyeeee.
This is one minute message 251. i recorded this message from bed, with a scratchy throat, very tired, I thought, ok, i’ll record a one minute message … and this is it.
To hear this message, play below. nothing to download. just press play.
If you don’t start, you’re not travelling. and there’s something very special and exciting about being underway. even if it takes a while. even if the changes are small. even if.
QUESTION: If we had to make a bumper stick out of one phrase in this podcast, what would it be? I’ll pick the 11th new comment, and you’ll get an audio bonus gift. New comments are held in moderation, so you won’t know who’s number 11. so submit one now.
and in case you hate listening to audios, here’s the transcript:
Yesterday somebody sent me an email and they said: “I’m always looking through your sober messages for little nuggets on how you problem solve things in regular life.” And I’m like, what? How I do what? I wasn’t even aware that I was doing it, so it means when I’m narrating my life, I’m saying things that are interesting — which of course is always shocking. Because you know how on the inside of your head, stuff just occurs, right? You’ve got a voice in your head, it says things. Some of it we listen to, some of it we don’t. I have a voice in my head that tells me if this doesn’t work then try something else.
It has been very shocking to me in the process of doing the sober work to find that there are people out there who don’t have that same voice that says, “if you can’t find a solution doing it this way, do something else.” And so I started to research it. Because it turns out it’s a thing. It’s sort of like having brown hair or a cleft chin; just don’t have any sense of “what, you don’t hear this?” You know what it’s like over-drinking, you’re like, “what you mean, you don’t hear the voice that says drink now? Fuck, I thought everybody heard it. I thought everybody drank like me.” And then somebody points out some part of your personality and it’s kind of humbling and strange at the same time, because it forces me then to think about how I think, which of course is just exhausting.
I’m actually recording this from bed. It is 9:30 am. I have been awake for 2 hours. I have done nothing. I had a very busy catering day yesterday and today I’m having a coma. Although at least my coma has been coherent, upright, well no, prone, not upright. I’m in bed with my decaf coffee. I know, you want to hear a story about why I drink decaf. You can listen to a podcast about orchids. Because if I have caffeine, the top of my head comes off. And maybe that’s one of those lessons that when shit doesn’t work, you change something. Always trying to tweak and find a better solution, find a better way. How do you get from point A to point B?
The point of this video…video ha ha ha ha…the point of this audio today is to say … yeah I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I’m now trying to tie it all up in a small thing when really I have a lot more to say so now I can’t … that was me just self-editing to decide whether or not I was going to talk for longer or for less. I think I’ll do less … Yeah, I’m still trying to find the way to wind it up in a tight little bundle. You know with something cute and pithy and I’m not coming up with it.
If what you’re trying isn’t working, you try something else. And if that doesn’t seem evident, then you follow somebody else’s lead who has done that exact thing. Because I think this is a skill you can learn obviously or I wouldn’t talk about it everyday. I think it’s entirely possible to learn what other people do and then do it. Not just like learn how somebody runs a marathon and then you do it, but learn how to speak a language, you learn it from somebody else and you can pick up ways of thinking from other people. Like if you go to law school, you learn how to form a certain kind of argument and you learn how to write a certain kind of document. You can learn how to think a certain way.
So is it possible to change your thinking about this idea of I don’t know what to do next? I think, I think, I think there is. People say “oh it’s creativity,” but for me it’s not creativity, it’s desperation. It’s absolute, abject despair. Like, “I don’t want this thing, I want something else. I don’t want this thing, whatever it is, whatever’s happening in my life, whatever it is, I don’t want this debt, I don’t want this unhappiness in my marriage, I don’t want this child with really difficult behaviour, I don’t want this drinking thing to be robbing me of all of my energy.”
I’m only now coming to the realization after 5 years of doing this, when somebody else points it out to me, because I’m a slow learner, that there are two kinds of people in a situation like all the ones that I just described. There’s a person who can look at a situation and say, “OK I don’t like this. I wonder what I can do to change it, even marginally, even incrementally, even slowly. How can I be moving in the direction of changing it.” Or the other point of view is: “well this fucking sucks, this sucks, this fucking sucks, fuck, fuck, this fucking sucks, fuck this sucks, oh my god this sucks.”
Of course, there’s something very noble and proud about saying “this fucking sucks” because you get to stand there and say, “Look my life fucking sucks.” And people go: “oh yeah yeah, you’re right, if fucking sucks.” Nobody ever says to you, “Um what are you doing incrementally, day by day, 1% a day to improve this situation? What are you doing? Like, are you doing one day at a time sober so that at the end of the year, you have 365? And are you incrementally making some other kind of change to evolve in some other kind of way or are you standing around a) waiting to feel like it or b) waiting for some kind of large motivations so that you can change everything all at once because that really never works.”
We lack patience. No shit. But if you were to look ahead and say, “I want this thing in my life,” how do you even head off in that direction?
Because you know what, you’re travelling on a road anyway. You get up every day, you do your day, you make decisions every day about what’s going to happen today. And to some extent, you’re affecting what’s going to happen tomorrow by what you do today. If you’re going to have to get up and live your day every day anyway, what could you be incrementally doing to move some thing in a new direction. I don’t mean moving 10 things at once. And I don’t mean moving one thing ginormously. Because when you’re first sober, just being sober is the goal and that is your change per day to get a new result. But if you’re 200+ days sober, then what are you doing incrementally to build on your sober foundation and create something else.
There’s something that you can have, do, or be when you’re sober that you can’t do as a drinker. But it is very, very, very easy to stand still and say: “fuck, fuck, fuck this fucking shit.” First of all, it eliminates responsibility. It’s you saying “this happens to me.” Instead of you saying “I’m going to do 1% a day to make this different or better or go in a different direction.”
Like, your relationship has some kind of crap in it, so what are you doing 1% a day to move that in a better direction? What are you doing in terms of kindness every day to try to move that in a better direction? What are you doing in terms of, I don’t know, forgiveness or gratitude or making a lunch for somebody or back massages … what do people do for other people? Are you making the bed? Are you doing some of her chores that you always ask her to do or are you just doing some of them? Or are you walking around with a score card keeping score that she didn’t do this, so you’re not going to do that because she didn’t do this? That’s not 1% moving in a better direction.
You write a book a page a day, and you could be sober in a year a day at a time. You can make large, large changes in your life, slowly. But if you’re drinking, you’ve heard me say this before, if you’re drinking, you nail your foot to the floor in a room where you don’t want to be.
So what are you changing?
If the results you’re getting are not working, what are you changing every day, every day, what are you adjusting and changing and improving so that you move in a better direction? “Well, I’m too depressed because I’m too fat and I can’t go out.” Well what are you doing 1% a day. Can you walk from here to the end of the street and then back. And then tomorrow, walk, another block. And your answer then is: “well that will take too long, I need to feel better now.”
And I’m saying: there’s something really special in the process of being on the road to the improvement. Because then you’re underway. You’re taking action. You are deciding what happens next. That’s different than sitting on the couch saying, “this is all happening to me.” What are you doing, small, incrementally, tiny to improve whatever it is? What are you doing?
There’s my One Minute Message and it’s only, you know, ten minutes and thirty seconds. If I’m going to do a daily One Minute Message they really need to be short and sweet. Can I do this in a short and sweet version? OK, here’s the One Minute Message of this message:
If you feel trapped and stuck One thing you can do to make some improvement Is to slowly go in the direction where you want to go And try little things to adjust and move And move forward And move forward.
Because there’s something magical about moving forward Even if it’s not very fast.
And to be obsessed with some magic right day Or some magic right feeling Or to be obsessed with I need to make a dramatic change So I can’t make small change because it won’t add up fast enough. What I say to that is, you get up and you live your day every day anyway. You might as well be making tiny, incremental changes so that you’re going somewhere.
I think this is called living with intention. What do I know? I don’t listen to enough Louise Hay, is that her name? Hay House. So for today, I want you to look around and figure out what is the 1% you can do on that. You can clean one drawer. I know it’s not the whole house, but you can do a drawer. And you can make your wife’s lunch. I know it doesn’t solve all of the marriage problems, but you can make her lunch. And you can do that stack of filing that’s sitting beside your co-worker’s desk. And I know it doesn’t solve all of your animosity and your difficult relationship with her, but it’s a start. It’s a piece. Because you know what, if you don’t start, you’re not travelling.
I deteriorated out of a One Minute Message …
If you don’t start, if you don’t start, you’re not travelling. And if you’re not travelling, you’re not going to the new thing that you want to go to. If you don’t start, you’re not travelling. And I must tell you that ‘travelling’ needs to be spelled with 2 L’s, that’s how Canadians spell it. Sorry, I insist. If you don’t start, you’re not travelling, 2 L’s. I don’t really know why I felt the need to say that, except that I want you to see it in your head the way I see it in my head. How’s that for a One Minute Message. My god. OK. Alright fine. OK good byyyeee!
Today i want to share with you a link to a short Monday Update message. This is omm249. I was walking this morning, and thought i’d tell you about my shit day. AND also update you on what’s coming up this week.
To hear this Monday message, play below. nothing to download. just press play.
p.s. listen and then let me know if this monday update thing works for you as a little kick to begin the week. hugs
and in case you hate listening to audios, here’s the transcript:
Good morning this is Belle speaking. I am recording this while walking on the street. I am on the shady side of the street because it is plenty warm today. I wanted to send a message directly to you to say that even if you’re having a shit day, it’s still OK. You’re here and you’re facing forward and it doesn’t matter if you’re having a shit day. It just doesn’t. And I say this to you because I’m having a shit day and it’s not even noon yet. And I’ve tried to do 3 things this morning that just have not worked, at all, the way that I wanted them to. Including, you know, inviting my husband to join me while I was sitting in the sun having a coffee, trying to change my mood, and he said, no, because you know, he was working. Funny how that is.
I want to give you a head’s up of what’s happening this week. I will be sending out 1 to 2 emails a day for people who are on the email list, which must be you because you’re listening to this. I will have 3 new One Minute Messages this week. I’m opening a new session of the Sober Jumpstart Class on Friday, September 1st. There will be 25 spots open. And I will be working through the Labour Day long weekend to get everybody started and running well. If you’re not on the waiting list, you can do that at www.soberjumpstart.com.
If you are sober longer, like 200+ days (I just crossed to the sunny side of the street). If you are a sober senior — that’s wrong, right — senior’s wrong, because you’re not like 75 years old. Let’s see, if you’re a sober oldie, if you’re a sober … I don’t know, I’ll have to come up with a name for you. If you’re 200+ days, I have a brand new group 4-week class, starting on September 18th, which is a Monday. You must be 200 consecutive days sober in a row to register. No exceptions. It is specifically about the idea of worth (I can’t tell how good this microphone is when I’m walking). It’s specifically about worth, and how to build a life on top of this sober foundation that you have. So you could be 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 years sober, but you must be 200 days continuously, plus. Again, this is the “worth” class — I have to come up with another name for it. The Sober Senior Module 1: Worth. Because, you know what, we get so hung up on, “who am I now that I’ve quit drinking. Like, what kind of a life am I building.” And we forget that, well, I’m not going to give it all away … we forget that there is some worth to us, even now, even still, even before the big thing happens. So we’re going to come at it from a point of strength.
So that’s it. Two things this week, two big things. A bunch of small things of course, all the emails, some One Minute Messages. If you are a podcast subscriber, you will get another podcast. I think you got one on Friday. You’re going to get another one tomorrow. I’ve stepped it up, and you’re definitely getting 2 new podcasts per week now. Lots of new content. Lots of things to listen to while you’re commuting.
And the 2 big things are the Jumpstart Class on Friday, and the Sober Senior Worth workshop, which is a 4-week workshop, which begins September 18. That’s it.
I’ve now turned the corner. There’s a guy on the side of the road here. He’s got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 chairs set up on the side of the road to advertise ebeniste — wood working and reupholstering. So, it’s like a little mini store. It’s just these chairs. I’m going to take a picture of it … He wants to know if I can take the picture with him and the chairs. I’ll do that now and I’ll send this to you. OK, Bye!
So at the end of that, he wanted me to send it to him, but he didn’t have an email address, so he had me take a photograph of his personal ID, which seems like a violation of privacy. And now there’s somebody else taking his picture and for one second I can’t even tell if he works there, or if he’s just a guy standing in front of the guy who works there. OK, doesn’t matter. It still works for a good story, right? I got a good photo.
If you like these Monday morning-get your week started-tell you what’s coming up thing, if this is something you’d like me to do on a regular basis, just drop me a message. Talk to you soon. Bye! OK Bye!
