#18: Taking a Break From Alcohol with Rachel Hart

Rachel:
It's time to stop being the victim of your over-scheduled life and become the most powerful version of yourself. Welcome to, she's got power. Today we are cracking open the topic of alcohol, how much we drank, why we drink, and how to approach our consumption in a healthier way, and I want you to keep an ear open for when the conversation turns to accessing our feminine side and feeling sexy. It's fascinating stuff and not exactly where I thought we were going to go with this conversation, but I'm so, so glad that we did. Now we realize this can be a somewhat polarizing and potentially uncomfortable topic, so if you find yourself bristling at any of the ideas presented in this episode, you know what? That's okay. Just see if you can be with that and keep listening for the parts that resonate with you. The most important thing that I want to say is that drinking alcohol is not bad. It's not inherently bad and you are certainly not bad. If you love your wine.

Michelle:
If you know me in real life, you would know that I drink on occasion sometimes more than on occasion. I love beer, I love wine. Although I cannot sleep well after drinking red wine and that is actually really common among women. So maybe you know what I'm talking about. And my recent drink of choice is Tito's vodka soda with lime. So there you go. This is definitely not an episode about shaming. It's an episode meant to inspire your personal growth and evolution into the woman that you want to be. And to do that, I invited Rachel Hart to help us out. Rachel is a master life coach. She's host of the take of break podcast and author of the book. Why can't I drank like everyone else, a step by step guide to understanding why you drank and how to take a break. Let's hit it.

Michelle:
Hey Rachel, thank you so much for joining us today.

Rachel:
Thank you so much for having me. Michelle.

Michelle:
I wanted to talk about this topic on the podcast for a long time and I was going to do it by myself, but then I was like, I know a woman who'd be the perfect person to have this conversation with, so I'm just thrilled that you were able to be here.

Rachel:
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Michelle:
You know, the big thing that comes up when I'm working with my clients is, you know, okay, yeah, how much alcohol are we drinking? You know, let's really try to get clear about that and why are we drinking? But I find that there's a lot of tension between am I drinking too much? Maybe I'm drinking too much, and what qualifies as like an alcoholic? Like at what level should we be concerned? So I wanted you to maybe address that first, like that whole spectrum of how much we drink.

Rachel:
Yeah. This is a huge thing that I really want women to understand. I think we have it very backwards. The way that we talk about alcohol consumption and what's problematic consumption and what is quote unquote normal consumption. I'm always asking women not to focus on the number because when you are connected or only connecting to a number, well you know I had, I only had two drinks and the surgeon general says this, or the CDC says that about what is the appropriate amount of alcohol to consume. You're disconnecting from your body because the fact of the matter is is that we can look at all the guidelines that are out there and that doesn't mean that it's going to be the right amount for you. And that what feels good for you, what feels good for your body. And that's something that I think if we can change the conversation about that so it doesn't become okay, well I had, you know, I had a glass of wine every night, but it's just one glass and you know, the surgeon general says, that's fine, then I should be fine.

Rachel:
Because what happens is that you actually don't ever register how it feels for you and what drinking is like for you. And, and that's a huge piece of it. So you know that there's no kind of magic number, which is what people are always searching for. I'm always asking, Hey, how does it feel? How does it feel when you come home and you feel like you just make a beeline for the fridge and get out the bottle of wine? How does it feel sometimes when you're drinking and maybe you feel like there's a little bit more of a pull or a little bit more of a hook that you kind of notice that you're drinking might look a lot like the way you overeat. So I'm always wanting women to connect to that rather than focus on a number and focus on a label.

Michelle:
I was going to say, it sounds a lot like also how we eat and why we eat and this need to get away from maybe calorie counting or counting our macros or whatever. Eating off a meal plan and when I'm always talking to my clients about is same thing. How does it make you feel? What is the result when you eat this type of food or that type of food or this quantity of food. So that's interesting that you're approaching it in the same way. I love that.

Rachel:
That's, you know, to me a huge part of why people develop a habit around drinking that isn't serving them is the same reason that we develop habits around food that aren't serving us because we inadvertently get disconnected from our body. So we don't realize that we're using food or using alcohol to solve a problem, like solve anxiety or stress or overwhelm, using it as a way to kind of signal, Hey, I'm done for the day. Right? Like this is my putting the, I'm putting the iPhone down, I'm not checking my email anymore cause I get to pick up the glass of wine.

Rachel:
So we don't realize that we're using it that way. And also don't realize that, you know, it becomes a habit because it is solving a problem for you. Right. And, and my, my clients will often say like, Rachel, you know, I, I'm not drinking because I feel unhappy all the time and, and I'm always trying to explain, no, no, no, that's not what's going on. Sometimes the problem that it's solving is you just don't like feeling deprived and no one's ever shown you why you feel deprived and or how to cope with that. Or the problem that it could be solving is you don't know how to carve out me time for yourself and how to set those boundaries for yourself. And so pouring a glass of wine has become a stand in for it. So that's another big misconception that I think people have is it's like, Oh, well if you're drinking too much and if you want to change your drinking, if you think you might need a break from drinking, there must be some sort of big serious heavy thing going on.

Rachel:
And it's like, yeah or not, right. I mean, maybe that's possible, but maybe also it's just possible that you have fallen into a trap because you find it hard to set boundaries for yourself and, and carve out time for yourself. Right. So many of the women that I work with use pouring glass of wine to signal, like, hey, I'm done for the day, I'm off the clock, leave me alone. I've got a wineglass and I always say, well, if you don't, if you don't pour that glass of wine, what happens? And then they just, they tell me like, what? I don't know how to be off then. And then that's the real issue that you're working on. It's just that your alcohol consumption and how you use wine or beer or whatever ends up being kind of the pathway into understanding that for yourself.

Michelle:
Oh, I love what you just said about not knowing how to be off. That is a common refrain from women who are, well, I mean we're just go, go, go stress about this, stress about that. Got the to do list, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang all day long. And how do we turn off? And often we're just stuck in our stress response. And so of course that bottle of line is going to be the obvious solution to solve this problem.

Rachel:
Right? And, and, and here's the thing, it's why so many of, you know, with myself and also with the, you know, the hundreds of women that I've worked with, why they notice that they're on this pendulum between overeating and overdrinking. Right? And why those two habits, although culturally we don't talk about these habits as if they are the same thing. I believe that they are. And I think that's why so many women kind of swing back and forth on that pendulum in between, you know, I'm maybe drinking a little bit more than I want now.

Rachel:
I'm eating a little bit more than I want, but we talk about them as if they're these two totally separate things when at the root of it is not knowing how to cope with certain feelings or in you know, the thoughts that you have about like, Oh, I gotta respond. I gotta make sure everybody has what they need. I gotta make sure that everything's checked off my to do list. And I think understanding that it so many women that I work with, it's like a light bulb goes off and they're like, Oh, I get this. Because they see how these two habits are so connected.

Michelle:
So I love this idea that our habits and our cravings are potentially a very good thing. So if any of our listeners are like, Oh my God, this is so me and now I'm starting to feel shame about it, like stop it. Like it's a really good thing to have cravings because even if you're craving is for the, you know, pinot noir right now or for the Oreos, like that doesn't matter. The point is like you have this craving, you're noticing it and it's an opportunity to investigate like exactly what you just said, Rachel. Like what's going on? What are you really trying to solve?

Rachel:
Yeah, I think it's an opportunity, but also we are in this modern world where we have instant gratification all around us all the time and that kind of, it's not just alcohol, right? It's food, it's social media. It's, it's one click of buying. I mean we have the ability to just get, you know, dopamine hits all the time and one of the things that I talk about so much is listen, you might be craving pleasure and that's okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel:
Like it's okay to want pleasure, pleasure is a good thing. We certainly like, I don't want an aesthetic life. I don't want to, it's partly like why, you know, I don't drink anymore, but it's why I also don't identify with the, the word sober and it's not something that I use because I'm like, well that number sound very fun or appealing to me. But I think so many women want more pleasure and it's like, well how can you access pleasure and create pleasure that isn't the pleasure that you get from drinking or from eating a sleeve of Oreos or from going on, you know, like the sale page and putting a bunch of things in your shopping cart. I think that's what we aren't taught how to do. I, I think there's more pleasure in my life now than when I was drinking. And I want that to be true for my clients.

Rachel:
No matter where they are in their own life is how can you create pleasure that isn't this kind of false pleasure and not a pleasure that has these kind of negative consequences for you. But how can you create pleasure that is just purely enjoyable without any, any repercussions of that I think is a huge piece that's missing to the conversation.

Rachel:
Rachel, are you suggesting that we as women are allowed to experience pleasure, no strings attached, no obligations attached? We are just allowed to have this thing in our life.

Rachel:
Yes. And we sh like we needed. It's so, I mean, humans are designed to experience pleasure and this is, I always think about, you know, I talk with my clients a lot about all of the senses that we have, the sense of smell and touch and taste and sight and sound. I mean, there's so much pleasure available to us and it's totally okay for us to have it and to want more of it.

Rachel:
And to actually try to cultivate it. I mean, that's something that I tried to do in my own life is how can I create more pleasure, how I access it and if I'm struggling, what is getting in the way? What is preventing you from accessing that pleasure? Because for a long time, for me, pleasure was, well, I'm just gonna put my nose to the grindstone and work really hard and get everything checked off on my to do list and make sure that everybody's needs are met. And then after I exhaust myself doing that pleasure was just, what can I eat? What can I drink? Can I have a cigarette? Like what can I purchase? It was all about even more disconnecting from myself when the seed of pleasure is inside of you, right? The more you disconnect from yourself, the less that you can access your own pleasure.

Michelle:
Ooh, I love where this is going, I feel like there's a whole conversation to be had about women and sex and I'm in cigarettes and like there's so many ways that this can access into our lives. But let me ask you this. How do you think drinking is different for women than for men?

Rachel:
I think that it's different in in that I see it glamorized quite like so much with women in a way that I don't see it as much with men. This kind of, if you want to be sexy and carefree and it has this kind of, we get this kind of story and image and appeal that like this is how we get to access this part of ourselves where I think a lot of times with men it's just like, yeah, like watch a game and have fun. Right? Where I feel like with women sometimes it's, it's put out there as like this is how I step into a different identity.

Rachel:
This is how I get to be like the fun, sexy, carefree version of myself. I know that I, I definitely used it that way. I mean I, I felt like I was so obsessed with doing everything right and getting everything done and checking everything off my to do list and never making a mistake. And so for me, what I didn't realize is that I used drinking as a way to access as part of me that was a little more wild and a little more carefree and wasn't so obsessed with the rules and wasn't so hung up in what I looked like or my body. Right. I felt like, you know, getting ready, I remember this quite a bit, you know, I would get ready to go out and I would often be like, Oh, maybe I could like start the glass of wine now. Because when I was getting ready to go out, I was like, Ugh, I don't like how this looks and I don't like how the dress fits.

Rachel:
And, and it was shutting off that kind of inner critic in my head and I didn't know how to do that. And I, I think that alcohol is a lot of times for women painted as this is this like way to like take off the shackles and access his version of yourself. But it's like, well, what if we could just do that without a drink? And then what if we then if we felt like we could do all of that without a drink, then we'd probably make very different decisions around how we consume alcohol and why we consume alcohol.

Michelle:
Agreed. Oh my gosh. Have so much to say about all of this, but what I really hear you saying is that we are using alcohol in many, many ways to access our femininity. That's, I mean, carefree, sexy, go with the flow.

Rachel:
I think so. I mean, listen, the number of women that I talk to that tell me, I just, I just want to be able to unwind. Like I just want to be able to get to the end of my day and take the edge off and not be so kind of uptight, not, not be so caught up in my head and not be so focused on everything that needs to happen tomorrow. I just want to kind of be in that present moment and be able to be like a little quicker to laugh and a little bit more fun and have that moment of pleasure. I think that that's a big thing for so many women and why then it can become a habit. Because certainly in my instance, nobody was showing me how to access that part of myself. I had no idea. And so I knew that I wanted more of it.

Rachel:
I knew I wanted to be more of that woman, but the only way I knew how to get there, I was like, well, like let's get a buzz going. And, and I think that's such a hurdle for so many women.

Michelle:
And we live in a very masculine world, right? Rules and to do's and checking off all the things that we have to get done. And if you want to get ahead at work, you know you have to take the very, very minimum maternity leave and get right back in there. And I think maybe we're up against an extra challenge in that way of really accessing that feminine part of ourselves. It makes so much sense to me that just to get ready to go out for the night, the glass of wine is going to help you go, Oh yeah. Actually, I look pretty good in this dress and I'm going to go strut my stuff and feel good about it.

Rachel:
Where otherwise you're just all tied up and like, ah, I need another pair of Spanx. I mean it's like we're given so many images and stories and I'm talking about through magazines and through advertising and frankly your social media feed and what we see in movies. And it's like, you know, women are supposed to be able to do everything right? And, and I think that this idea of, well, you're supposed to look a certain way and still be very sexual and you know, we get this so much around like never age, never go gray, never, never always be youthful. Right? So we have this kind of impossible ideal with our body. And then for most women, I think that that inner conflict with your body is something that is a struggle. I mean, it started as a struggle for me when I was in elementary school.

Rachel:
So it's that struggle that you have with your body and then it's also like, make sure everything's perfect and you don't upset anybody. And still be ambitious, but don't be a bitch and be a mom and make sure you're doing everything right there, but make sure you're doing everything right at work and it's kind of impossible. We've created this kind of impossible idea of what a woman should be and how she should look and how she should be in the world. And you know, of course we're looking for relief at the end of the day, of course we need a glass of wine after all of that. Oh my right. I, and I think that, you know, if you don't figure out new ways to give yourself relief, if you don't figure out new ways to challenge the inner critic in your head, if you don't figure out ways to set boundaries for yourself, and if you don't, if you don't just say like, you know what?

Rachel:
Why is it that I really need to have a glass of wine when I'm cooking dinner? What's going on here? Is it, is it really just that I love the taste? Or how does it feel when I don't have it? If you're just willing to be curious about that. And not have the kind of judgment and shame and Oh dear, what this could mean. And it's like, yeah, maybe it just means that like this is the world that we live in and this is how so many of us have been socialized and, and starting to just challenge all of that. I think. I think most women that I work with start to see anything that they consume in a totally different light. It becomes so much less about the alcohol, so much less about the food and you start to see how it's really like that's, that's not the problem. That's the symptom.

Rachel:
Bingo. So I think the question that's Holly coming to everyone's minds, it's certainly coming to my mind is how else can we take off these shackles if it's not with a glass of wine health, can we relax? How else can we access that feminine side of ourselves amidst a world that wants us to keep going and producing and dah, dah, dah, dah. And I'm thinking of these African dance classes that I've been taking on the weekend and it is so much fun and you're so on your body and it's sexy and it's like the drums are just beating and I love nothing more than a class like that or even like a really luxurious yoga flow class. I can really get me in that same state. So like I'm leaning towards a lot of physical movement, but what else do you recommend for women to be able to access the side of themselves?

Rachel:
Well, it's really interesting that you mentioned that because I will, I'll tell you that when I work with women, one of the concepts that I introduced to them is this idea of numbing, right? And the idea that we use all of these things, not just alcohol, but we use alcohol and food and overwork and perfectionism. We use all of these things to try to numb how we're feeling. And of course we feel our emotions in our body. So numbing is a way of disconnecting from your body. And so I love how you talk about the piece about dance and movement because one of the things that I have women do is start to actually practice moving their body and practice a being in their body. And that, I'll tell you, when I started doing that work, it felt intensely uncomfortable at first because I just always wanted to get out of my body, right?

Rachel:
I was like, Oh, I don't want to be in here. Like this is the place where I feel awkward and insecure and you know, like I'm doing something wrong and but to, to learn the skills to actually be in your body. I think that piece is so essential and often very, very overlooked. I think it is also overlooked because you know, we don't talk about, we have kind of like a masculine way of, of thinking about change and habit change and self-improvement and you know, the idea of like, well why would you dance? Why would you just move your body? That seems kind of silly and irrational. I think that piece, it gets stigmatized in a way as if it's not serious. But I think if you want to change your relationship with anything that you feel like you're consuming too much of starting in your body is huge.

Rachel:
So that's one thing. The other thing that that is so important is really just starting to understand the stories and the thoughts that you have about yourself and what you're required to do and why is it that you have to meet everyone's needs? Why is it that you hate it when your husband is upset with you, your boss is upset with you? Why is it that you find yourself thinking that you can't make a mistake? I mean, really starting to see that those stories are there and learning how to challenge them. That's one of the things that I teach my clients is how do you start to challenge these stories outside of just the realm of positive thinking? I think you've got to have both, so it's like bringing the mind and the body together to me is how you really create that, that sustained change.

Michelle:
So there are some good journaling prompts for everybody. Why must they meet everybody's needs? Let's journal on that for a little bit today or why can't I make a mistake? Why is that not allowed? I mean, we could probably feel books and books and books between all of us.

Rachel:
Yeah. And then it's just like, am I willing to question it? Am I willing to question the idea that I have to do everything perfectly to feel good about myself? Am I willing to question the belief that if someone's upset with me that it means I've done something wrong or that it's my fault? I mean, that to me is the power of this work. I think it's the power of liberating yourself from your mind, deliberating yourself. Many times from messages that we as women have gotten from a very young age, you know, this idea of like, well, just, you know, make sure everybody's happy.

Rachel:
Don't, don't stand out too much. Like, don't be bitchy. Right? We pile more. Yeah. We've gotten these messages from such a young age and so then it's like, okay, can I, can I liberate myself from it? Can I actually just decide on purpose what I want to think about who I am? And, and my role in the world and my relationship to other people and my relationship to work rather than assuming you know, the, the banner of all of the thoughts and beliefs and ideas that we've gotten from the time we were little girls.

Michelle:
So Rachel, you've mentioned a little bit about your story that there was drinking and now there's not drinking and how you feel about that. So was there a time that you kind of went through this change yourself and thought, boy I need to take a break or how did you get into this whole specialty area and tell us a little bit about the work you're doing now.

Rachel:
Sure. I mean I, I mean I'll tell you just, I started drinking when I was in college. I was 17 and it was really the first way that I was like, Oh, like this is how you get to access a fund. Rachel. Like I've been looking for her and here she is. And I understood kind of early on that I felt like if I didn't have it in social situations, it started to kind of socially for me. If I didn't have it in those social situations, I just didn't know what to do with my anxiety or my awkwardness or my insecurities. And so, you know, in college it became a little like a GoTo way for me to have fun. And of course like I was at a [inaudible], you know, very intense, a women's college where everybody was just like work, work, work, work, work and academics were really stressed.

Rachel:
And I had also no idea how to deal with my perfectionism and my judgment and my insecurity. And this was like the only way I knew how to blow off steam. It became more, I think in my, in my twenties when I was working in New York city and I, you know, I was working at these amazing organizations and having incredible opportunities and given a ton of responsibility and I, I had no way or no knowhow in terms of how do I, how do I actually have a boundary from work? You know, like drinking was one of the few times for me that I was like, okay, well I definitely don't have to respond to this email. But otherwise I was just like, I w I remember, you know, I don't think anybody uses blackberries anymore, but I remember kind of waking up, I worked at an organization that I was in their communications department and it was international.

Rachel:
And so my boss would always say like, well, the news is always happening somewhere. So I would, I would wake up and I would look at my phone, look at my Blackberry and start doing email from in bed, right. And then I'd be, I'm responding to email all day long, right from before I even got to work. And then I'd come home and I usually work late, but I'd come home and I'd usually still be responding to work. And, and drinking was a way for me to be like, okay, can I finally say no? And so I knew, I think I knew pretty early on that I had a relationship with alcohol that I didn't like, but everything out there that I could find, it didn't resonate with me. It didn't, I didn't resonate with idea of being powerless. I didn't resonate with idea of I needed to wear a label for the rest of my life and declare that I had a disease.

Rachel:
I just, I felt very stuck because I knew that I didn't like how I was consuming alcohol, but I also felt like I didn't have any other options out there to help me look at it differently. And I'll say at the time I couldn't really understand it, but I noticed that I kind of ate the way that I drank, which was quickly and a lot, and like kind of an erase with myself and I didn't understand why that was either. You know, at the time I didn't understand how these habits really are, you know, they have the same root cause. And so I went through a lot of trial and error in my twenties where I was trying to figure this out and figure out how to change the relationship. And it wasn't until I was in my early thirties and I said, you know what? I'm going to take a break from drinking and I'm not gonna, I'm not swearing it off of it forever.

Rachel:
I'm not saying I'm never going to drink again, but I know that I know that I feel like I need it in a way that I don't like sometimes and I'm going to figure out how to solve that problem on my own. I'm going to figure out how to, how can I be more carefree? How can I be more fun? How can I have more pleasure? How can I feel more confident? How can I set boundaries with work? And that's what I told myself that I was going to do. And it was through learning those skills and realizing like, Oh, I don't need a drink to do that. That ultimately like really helped me, totally changed my desire and get to a point where I was like, shockingly, shockingly, I feel like better and happier and my moods are more stable and I'm more able to cope when there's a crisis and I'm more able to cope with the kind of day to day stress when I'm not always using alcohol.

Rachel:
I'm not always using the bottle of wine as my like, well at least I get to go home and do that. So that was my journey and I just still feel like there's so many, so many women out there that are looking for something similar. And that's why I became a coach. That's why I started doing this work because there really isn't a lot that takes an approach other than, you know, if you're, if you drink more than you want, it's because you have a disease and you need to admit that you're powerless and you need to admit, you know, all of your character defects and all of your wrongs and make amends. And I was like, you know what? I shamed myself so much. Right. Get another shame approach. Like I knew that I knew, like that is not it, it wasn't the right fit for me and I, and I think that that's, that's a disservice in the sense that I think there should be a lot of options out there for anyone who wants to change any habit, whether it's drinking or eating or it doesn't matter. But that's how I ended up doing this work.

Michelle:
Wow. So you mentioned that started to feel happier and more able to cope. And that's what I'm curious about. When you are working with women on and taking a break, what do you see and how it impacts their health and their overall lives?

Rachel:
So, you know, one of the things that I do recommend, especially at first is to just take a break, right? Like give yourself, you know, I really recommend a 30 day break because I think giving your mind and body a break from alcohol, especially if it's something that your your body is dealing with on a pretty regular basis, that alone can be pretty transformative. I mean, women will talk to me about noticing how they, their, their skin and their face is kind of less puffy. The whites of their eyes get whiter, their digestion improves, they have better sleep, they, a lot of women will lose weight just because they're not consuming all the empty calories from alcohol and then all the additional calories when our inhibitions are lowered that then we kind of say like, Oh well maybe I'll eat that cupcake too.

Rachel:
Or maybe I'll order a pizza. So there's a lot of just on like the health, the health piece that can be huge for people, especially anxiety. This is a thing that I think a lot of people don't really understand how alcohol is very connected to sometimes feeling next day anxiety, right? Because your brain is getting kind of an influx of of dopamine is getting an influx,uof what at the moment feels good, but then it has to kind of deal with it the next day. And it's why so many women realize like, Oh I, I feel a little bit more anxious and I have a little bit more of the like what I would call like the next day blues after drinking, even if it's not a big vendor, right? Even if it's just a couple of glasses of wine. Like that mood piece is really huge. And, and I think when you take a break, it has the benefit of can you get off that kind of cycle of like, okay, I'm just going to have one glass tonight.

Rachel:
Right? Like you get off that kind of piece of counting and the amount and just really as being able to connect with yourself and ask yourself, okay, well what is happening when I am cooking dinner for my kids and I don't have the glass of wine or what's happening when I'm sitting next to my partner on the couch and he's drinking or she's drinking and I'm not right. Like what happens when I'm going out with friends or I'm meeting colleagues after work or I'm at a networking event. It's just like, it's like it lifts a veil for you to just question everything. And that's what I think is so powerful.

Michelle:
Wow. And I'm sure everyone's listening to this going, well that sounds really great cause I'd like to have more even moods and I don't need the extra anxiety. And by the way, I have totally, totally felt that in my own life. Waking up in the morning and just this surge of like, Oh no, I did something wrong. Or maybe I shouldn't have said that, or what was I doing? Or what am I doing with my life? And just like this extra anxiety after having had a couple of drinks. So it sounds really delightful and to lose some weights perhaps, and to reduce the puffiness in our faces, but Oh my God, how do we go about this? And what do you recommend for someone? I know you have a free five day reset that could help. Is that like a good first step?

Rachel:
Yeah, I think so. I mean, and I think that's one of the powerful things is that, listen, you're not doing this forever, right? It's... alcohol has been with humans for 5,000 years. It's not going anywhere, right? It's just about can I press a reset button?

Rachel:
So that's one thing that I have a five day reset where women can just take a break and they'll do it with me for five days. It's totally free. They get videos and emails from me every day just to start to think about drinking and the habit and why it is you have desire for it and how you handle urges and how you experience and create fun in your life. That's what I'm really want women to discover over those five days. It's not just like, Hey, let's grit our teeth for five days and see if we can make it through. Because listen, most people can do that. Like it's not that it's can I use that time to create a little white space and to start to examine this relationship that I have in a totally different way?

Michelle:
That sounds fabulous. And where can our listeners go to get that five day reset?

Rachel:
So if you want to check it out, just go to RachelHart.com/slash challenge.

Michelle:
Okay, terrific. I know everyone's going to go run into that because you have really painted a picture that feels aspirational and and light and like how we want to feel and not a picture of like sobriety period.

Rachel:
It's going to be all doom and gloom, right? Like that was my big fear because I think culturally that's how we talk about, it's like, Oh well that person's not drinking. Like they're the buzzkill. Like nobody wants to be that. But this is the thing that's so it's still kind of blows my mind as I'm like, my life is so much more fun, so much more. There's so much more pleasure in it than there previously was. It's so much a bigger, I dream bigger and I think in large part is because it's not just about, Oh well because I'm not drinking.

Rachel:
It's because of like who I had to become and what I had to question about my life and how I was showing up. And so I always think that like looking at the habit, like it's just the, it's just your doorway in, it's just the path for you to head down towards a version of yourself that you think like, huh. Like maybe I could be that woman who feels totally confident and it doesn't matter what's in my glass. Like maybe I could be that woman who knows how to set boundaries and knows how to say like, no to work or no to my partner, no to my kids and, and create me time for myself. And it doesn't have to be because I went and opened up a bottle of Rose. I, there's so much there and I'm always saying like, listen, life gets bigger.

Rachel:
It gets better and it doesn't have to be if you never drink again. It can just be like I have a lot of clients who just decide like, Oh, I just want to have alcohol in my life in a totally different way and now I know what that looks like because now that I'm not stuck in the habit, I can make a conscious and considered choice.

Michelle:
Yes, maybe I can be that woman. Maybe we can all be that woman I want. That sounds like the woman that we all want to be. I can be confident. I can say no. I can set boundaries like yes. Yeah, so if it takes up the taking a break from alcohol to get there, then that sounds like the right way to go. Oh my gosh. Rachel, thank you so much for sharing all of this with us. I just love the energy that you bring to this topic and I feel like we are very much in need of this messaging because the whole, like it's wine O clock and whatever, you know, there's like artwork for the walls and that every little chotsky you can imagine talking about how women need to drink wine. And I think we are doing ourselves a huge disservice. So thank you.

Rachel:
You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

Michelle:
I love that conversation with Rachel. I hope you did too because there's so many parallels between food and alcohol consumption, first of all. And then there's all these connections between drinking and our desire to access our more relaxed, easygoing, feminine, you know, more Egan energy in a world that demands us to compete and be aggressive in order to get ahead, leaving us frankly really exhausted and worn out. So I feel this is a topic that we just cannot ignore. If you're feeling like your alcohol consumption is serving as some sort of short term solution to your stress and you want to get to the root cause of your overwhelm and your desire to pour that glass of wine and eat chocolate at night and sort of all the health fallout from being in a chronically stressed mode, your next step is to take my free stress assessment quiz. It's on my website and it takes three minutes and you can find it at, shesgotpower.com/free cheers everyone. I'll see you next week.