#70 Drink Less, Live Better with Sarah Williamson
Kelly speaks with Sarah Williamson, author of Drink Less, Live Better, about how alcohol impacts our spiritual connection, as well as our physical and emotional wellbeing. Sarah, who has given up alcohol completely, and Kelly, who takes a ‘mindful drinking’ approach, share the profound difference these choices have made in their lives.
In a powerful aha! moment during the conversation, Kelly discovers a fresh, inspiring reason to deepen her commitment to drinking less.
Listen with earphones if you have little ones nearby as the subject of wild drunken sex does come up around the 33 minute mark...
You can find Sarah Williamson at:
https://www.instagram.com/drinklesslivebetter/
https://www.facebook.com/drinklesslivebetter
Book:
https://mybook.to/drinklesslivebetter
Podcast:
https://drinklesslivebetter.captivate.fm/listen
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https://www.kellypietrangeli.com/soulexplorers
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Read the Transcript for this Episode below:
Episode 70 of the Project Me podcast. Hello, it's Kelly here. And today I've recorded a special episode with Sarah Williamson of Drink Less, Live Better. You can listen in on our conversation or watch us on YouTube. My YouTube handle is at Kelly Project Me. Sarah 2018. She's a member of my Soul Explorers community and was in Project We before that.
We connected properly back when Sarah was doing Marie Forleo's B School. I was her mentor when she was looking to pivot in her work. It's been a real joy to be alongside her on her personal and spiritual journey, and to benefit from all she shares now that she's turned her passion project into a thriving career, helping people to drink less and live better.
I had a real aha moment while recording this conversation with Sarah. My feet and legs began tingling. It feels as if my true why for wanting to drink even less is coming through more clearly than ever. I hope you get some body tingling ahas too. Here we go. Episode 70. Hello Sarah. Hi Kelly, lovely to see you.
Good to see you too. I woke up this morning and I felt inspired for some reason to wear my pink sweater today and I'm seeing your hair if anyone's watching the YouTube version versus the audio version. Sarah's got this vibrant beautiful pink hair and so yeah we're kind of matchy matchy today. Perfect match today.
Love it. Yeah. Sarah, you know, I wanted to have you on the podcast because I've been thinking a lot about how alcohol affects our spirituality, our connection to Gus, what I call Gus, as you know, God, universe, source, spirit. And, um, Just thinking a lot about that lately. And then you and I had a bit of a backwards forwards voice messaging to each other on the topic.
And I was like, let's bring this over to the podcast. So on, on that, um, on those voice messages we were doing, you were saying that you believe that spirituality is the missing piece that everyone talks about how alcohol clearly affects our health clearly affects our emotions, our mental state, all of that.
But people don't really. Talk that much about it from a spiritual point of view. And so, yeah, I want to hear what you have to say about that. It's something that I've been thinking about for a really long time now. Um, I first decided that I was going to run a little experiment and do a year without drinking.
And. I, where I was looking for inspiration on the internet, looking perhaps for people like me that I could follow for a bit of inspiration, for some hope, for some encouragement. Um, I could see people talking a lot about the physical benefits and the emotional benefits of stopping drinking and it's almost a sales technique.
You know, people Saying, Oh, you know, when I stopped drinking, I started sleeping so much better. I start, my skin cleared up, my hair turned really shiny. The low level brain fog went, the feeling of anxiety I was dealing with disappeared. And I saw, Oh, great. Yeah. You know, that does all sound lovely. Who's not going to enjoy those benefits, but I was thinking there was more to it.
And a part of that definitely. came out of walking alongside you since 2018, being a part of Project WE and me, and recognizing that I'd been in a place for, for a while, where I was, I guess, addressing some of the turmoil and overwhelm in my outer life. using loads of your practical tools and really following along closely and experimenting with what worked for me, what helped me to get my outer world into, I suppose, a bit more order.
Which then allowed me to step into that place of examining my inner world a bit more closely and definitely that spiritual connection for me once I had stopped drinking in 2019 and started this year's experiment that I decided to do a year alcohol free. That I really, I suppose, first of all embraced my mornings.
In a different way than I had been, allowing myself that beautiful quiet time to journal or to listen to a meditation, all of these things that we talk about such a lot now, um, in your membership group, um, and really starting to recognize what a negative impact alcohol had been having on me. And I hadn't even realized it at the time.
So it was such a gift to realize that that spiritual part was suddenly so much more accessible in, in a way I hadn't realized would be available. That's beautiful. Yeah. If anyone doesn't know your story, you've got a podcast called Drink Less Live Better. You've got a book by the same title, and you share your story about how it was a little life experiment, and you haven't looked back, and You know, and it's, it's, it is really inspiring.
What I've always really loved about your angle, and I can remember when you were questioning this a little bit, when you were just getting started as a, as a sober, um, drinking coach, is that what you call yourself? A sober drinking coach? Sure. And I do say sober coach, but we can have a great conversation about the labels of sober alcohol.
Yeah, let's do that. then. But I just remember that you were toying a little bit with, because I think you were feeling a little bit of pressure from other people that are already were already established in that field of saying drink less as opposed to saying no alcohol. And what really resonated with me was that I am a mindful drinker, and we can talk about what that means, um, for me, but I, and I became much more of a mindful drinker after you moved more into this work.
Um, but I, I was never drawn to the people who were saying, you know, no alcohol, the books that were about living with no alcohol and all of that, because that just wasn't really my, um, I wasn't, wasn't interested in having no alcohol. Um, I have a very, I'm very fortunate. I think that I have a very balanced, I'm not an all or nothing person.
Um, it's not that I, if I have one drink, suddenly it's going to turn into a, you know, whatever, like, it's not like that for me. Um, I'm very, um, conscientious of, of, What I'm what I'm doing. And so, um, for me, when you started saying the drink less live better, you can choose if you want to not drink anything at all.
You could choose that for a period of time like you did initially. Let's just see what would happen in my life if I didn't drink alcohol for a year. Some people do that as for a month. Some people do it, you know, but I think Everybody knows it, even when you stop drinking for a month, that you wake up in the morning earlier, you feel fresher, you've got, you don't have that brain fog, all that kind of stuff.
And like you said, that means that if you are on a spiritual journey, like a lot of us are, that you are able to go deeper into those meditations, you're able to go deeper with your, with your source connection, all of that. Cause you're, you're not. Alcohol definitely affects your vibrational frequency.
Absolutely, it does. Yes. And I think that whole piece around choosing what feels good for you is important. And, you know, a narrative I have running in the back of my mind for a long time before I decided to do my year alcohol free was, but if I stop drinking, I'm going to be lonely, miserable and boring.
And these kind of judgments that A, we put upon ourselves and B, we think other people are thinking about us. All of that stuff was so interesting to, I suppose, navigate for, you know, and really think clearly about for me. And the idea that we, might drink alcohol from a place of huge celebration and weddings and festivals and parties and, and good things versus where we might drink alcohol on a Friday night because we're knackered and we're just sitting on the sofa versus perhaps where we might drink alcohol at a funeral of a loved one.
All of these places, The energy that we start from in the first place is really important to think about and perhaps that margarita that we have at a friend's amazing birthday party and we choose to just have one because that's what the occasion calls for and what feels great is an entirely different place than a party.
Thank you. Let's say a Friday night sitting on the sofa, you've cooked dinner, you're just feeling emotionally depleted, you're overwhelmed by your massive to do list. Nobody ever stops and says, Oh my goodness, Sarah, I really see that what you need right now is someone to deliver you some food for your fridge, someone to run the hoover round for you, a massive cuddle and early to bed off you go.
We're looking for those. Those quick fixes. And, you know, if I use that Friday night on the sofa, for example, perhaps what we actually are is physically tired, actually incredibly hungry. So that, that drink is a quick sugar fix, a quick. energy, energy fix for how we're feeling. And also a numb out from the feelings that we're feeling that perhaps are around depletion, overwhelm.
And, and that experience is entirely different from the experience of, you know, drinking in the first place from a place of joy, excitement, love, celebration. Yeah, that makes sense. I am thinking that If you are completely knackered on a Friday and your option is, um, a glass of wine or a couple glasses of wine because you haven't got somebody who's going to come over to your house and deliver you some food and Hoover and, um, and do all that stuff for you.
So it's kind of like, you know, how do you fill that gap, that feeling that you have with something else? Like, you know what I mean? Like. Yes, and that's such a careful curation, and I think that is part, for me, of the spiritual journey around it. And really asking myself, very consciously and carefully, what is it that I need, or what is it that I want right now?
And those are two very often different answers. And how do we ask for what we want or need if we don't know? What we want or need in the first place and actually front loading some of that stuff into the early part of the day makes that easier. Come the evening. So when we set our intention at the beginning of the day, and and perhaps one of my examples for this would have been.
Um, in the early days when I had just started my year long experiment, I would make a commitment to myself in my journal, you know, on a Friday morning saying in something like instead of pouring a glass of wine at six o'clock this evening, when I'm cooking dinner, I'm going to half prepare dinner at lunchtime, make sure I walk the dog at six o'clock and call my girlfriend for a chat about the day whilst I'm walking the dog.
A certain element of it is around, you know, shorthand way of saying it is preloading in the day, making sure that you're planning, you've got something planned that then you can navigate and follow easily. I love that. Yeah. It's being conscious throughout your day. Um, yeah, not just being like, Oh, I have to make a decision right now.
It's Friday night, I'm knackered and the wine or not the wine, whatever it's, it's, it's living your life more holistically overall. Yeah. Yeah. Um, That's making me think about when I created my project me way before the, it was for the public, you know, 20, 2013 was when I launched the website and the blog and all of that.
But before that, I was doing my own project me and I was doing check ins with my life and all of that. But I used to do these check ins every January. And a big check in in January to reflect over my year gone by, and what do I feel proud of, what are my accomplishments, what went really well, and what didn't.
And, blowing the dust off of this, Sarah, but I've got my, my, um, folder here. And this was my original, the sticker came later because obviously there was no branding on this yet. But it's got all of my, in a tab section, all of my check ins from every year. And I went back and I, because I can remember this happening, but I couldn't remember the year.
There was a year where I did my check in. And I realized now that it was in 2014, and I said, the thing I'm most disappointed in and the thing I really want to change is that I am hungover too many weekends, we had just moved to Madrid with our young kids that will they were preteens, and we were really we were in this amazing social circle that love to get a babysitter on a Friday or Saturday night.
Take a taxi into the center of Madrid and go to go bar hopping, go to restaurant, go bar hopping, whatever. And this was so fun for us. New city, new group of people, really fun. And we were doing this every weekend and. I, back then, I was not a mindful drinker, so I really couldn't have told you the next day how many drinks I'd had.
You know, it was kind of like wine was pouring with dinner, I didn't pay any attention to how many, went to the place, got the margarita, got the next margarita, if I tried to piece the night together of how many drinks I'd had. Anyway, taxi back home, um, amazingly fun but the next day when I had to be on parenting duty It was awful.
And I, so I had no regrets about my, uh, my, my fun nights out, but I had deep regrets and I've written about it here. I was just reading about it again this morning about not feeling like a, like a good parent the next day, letting them, you know, the rules went out the door, they could do whatever they wanted, watch TV, whatever.
I've got no energy to, to enforce anything, no energy to, um, go and do something fun together as a family. You know, it was just. It was just a recovery day, right? And the crazy thing is, like, I did that maybe not every weekend, but maybe two or three weekends a month for sure. And at the end of the year, that year in 2014, I wrote, I need to come up with a solution for this.
And guess what I wrote? Guess what I wrote was my solution. Find a good hangover cure. Yeah, of course. Yeah, never occurred to me. Don't drink less. It was just find a good hangover cure. And I was determined. And I remember going to the health food store. We had a trip to London and I went to like Whole Foods and I was up there looking and this woman was up on a ladder who were there and I said, um, yes, can I help you?
I'm like, yes, I really need like a good hangover cure. And we talked about it together. What would be really good milk thistle or this, or, you know, these different green chlorella, um, tablets and things like that. So that year, the whole of 2015 was me experimenting with, with different hangover cures and I would keep track of it and I would go, that didn't work so well.
What? Yeah, like that's it. So when I did my check in the following year, it was, well, that didn't go so well. And then when if I go through, I don't see anything about it again until 2017. And in 2017, I wrote that, um, that, no, I wrote in my 2018 reflections that 2017 was my year of mindful drinking. And what that meant was, and it still makes me laugh because it's not the mindful drinker I am now.
But the mindful drinking was. I have a little app in my phone, like my notes app and write and keep track of every drink I have. And, um, when I go out in the evening, set myself up, I am only going to have X amount of drinks. So I went into it like with this kind of mentality of, um, I just have to not drink quite so much, you know, so that was it.
And, um, I don't know how well that went, but it really, honestly, hand to my heart was not until. You got into this line of work and began sharing that in our membership and then ultimately launching your podcast and writing your book that I really learned proper strategies for how to be. I don't even know if you call it a mindful drinking.
I don't know what you call it, but it was your, your, your podcast. If anyone goes to the very beginning of your podcast, like the drink less live better podcast, the first episodes are you navigating Um, not drinking and how to handle friends, asking you why you're not drinking and how to handle your own feelings about going to social events and not drinking and alternatives to alcohol, which was really.
eye opening for me. One of your tips I remember is like, you don't have to tell people that you're not drinking. You don't have to arrive at a party and go, hey, I'm not drinking. You know, like, just don't, people don't really care. And they don't really notice. That was a big one for me. And so I began doing that.
I began, okay, I'm just not going to announce it. to the table that I'm not, I'm having, I would have my hand over my glass, I still do it now, hand over my wine glass so that I get filled up once and I'll just take a couple sips of it, but leave it there so that nobody thinks about it. And I'm the quick on the trigger of putting my hand over my glass, like no more.
And I no longer arrive at a party and, um, they've got the platter there It's like, Oh, I have to take that welcome drink. You know, I will actually say, um, do you got anything like got me, you know, something interesting and I love it how these days, really in recent years, more and more you're, you're getting really yummy alternatives and people are thinking more about the people who are at that party who aren't drinking.
And I bring my own, I bring my kombucha, I bring, I bring my own stuff. And so thank you for, it's been a process for me to go from. how I was before, which was definitely drinking too much. And for me, it's the hangovers. It was just the hangovers. Um, and these days I hang over for me doesn't just last one day now that I'm, you know, pushing 60.
Um, I, it, it, it lasts two, three days. I still don't feel I'm so vibrationally aware now that, uh, my vibrations are not in order for several days afterwards. Yeah, I think that, you know, we know we can, we can say you can't wear a hangover the same in your 20s as you can in your 40s, 50s, 60s, for sure. And yet, we're so quick to try and pursue it, to carry on, to persevere, rather than perhaps offering up a bit of surrender to it and accepting that physically, emotionally and spiritually it isn't doing what it used to.
Yeah. I think that piece that you said about when the kids were small and it really enjoying that, you know, bar hopping time, that, that time of great joy that you were spending with your friends. I, I think I have a similar but different story to that around my drinking when my kids were younger. And I don't really hear what you're saying about not regretting the fun, but regretting some of the stuff around the Saturday or Sunday mornings hung over.
And something that I've thought about more and more in recent times is around our communication with our kids. Now, when I say kids, I mean from teeny tiny right the way through up into perhaps their twenties, we can have any conversations with our children around anything in particular. And, and they will listen perhaps to words that we say, but what is really important is what we model for them and showing our young people how to do that.
what we mean with our actions. So I definitely had this conflict when my boys were probably around 12, 13, where I recognized I was drinking more than felt good for me, but that in a short space of time, I was likely to be giving my boys the Some sorts of perhaps warning stories about alcohol and drug use.
And then I thought, this is gonna sound so weird if I'm saying to my kids, maybe don't do some of these things, but here I am in the kitchen, halfway through a bottle of wine. And, and I really enjoy the fact now that my Um, they're young adults now. My boys live in a house where one of us drinks and, uh, my husband still drinks from time to time and one of us doesn't drink.
So they've got a model of what is entirely normal. It is normal for somebody not to have a drink and it is normal for me to not be uncomfortable having a drink. And you're so right, that idea of, um, You know, turning up to places now and got, I think, edging their way out, was about to say gone other days, they're not quite gone, they're still there a bit, but that, that time when the only options might have been a syrupy soda or a warm concentrated orange juice as a choice.
There are now some incredible, you know, cocktails without alcohol, mocktails, really delicious drinks, the kombuchas are fabulous, and so much of these days. nights out this time spent with our loved ones is about the atmosphere, the great company, perhaps the delicious food, the activity that we're doing.
And in the past, we might just have given too much credit to alcohol. We might have given alcohol the credit for the good time, and actually the good time was maybe about other things we just hadn't realized. Yeah, that's a good point. Mm hmm. Um, I wanted to say the, um, mindful drinking piece that, you know, we were talking about, you know, carefully going through a period of, recording what you were drinking and then, um, going out intentionally and thinking about what you were drinking and how that felt to you in the moment and perhaps then also the next morning.
I love now that we can have conversations about people being mindful drinkers or being sober curious, cutting down their drinking, moderating their drinking. I really sit in, I was about to say, The shades of grey, but perhaps actually the shades of technicolour is, is a better description. I really believe that things don't have to be black or white for you to, to make a choice.
And I believe a lot of the judgment comes from the places of black or white. And although for shorthand, I might describe myself as a sober coach, I really just don't love the label sober. I think of the negative connotations. Yeah, I do too. So it's interesting to hear you say that. So what are, what are some alternatives?
Yeah. You've said some of them. Yeah, yeah. We've said some of them, but also, uh, I might, if I'm on a night out with people that perhaps are acquaintances rather than friends, I might just say, Oh, I don't drink. Or I might describe myself as being alcohol free. If somebody was offering glasses of fizz, I might say, Oh, do you have the alcohol free version of that?
I also think that we are becoming, in general, a little bit more open minded, that there was a time when your reasons for not having a drink on a night out might have been that you were pregnant, you were on antibiotics, you were the designated driver, and actually recognizing now that people do care a little bit less.
20 years ago, when I was first vegetarian, people used to say, Oh, you know, is that because of a moral reason or because you don't like meat? And, you know, people used to grill me quite closely. But if I were to say I was a vegetarian, nobody, nobody gives a shit. gives it a second thought and I'd love to think it goes the same way for alcohol in the future that you know, you do you.
We should be doing the thing that feels great for us and not worrying about justifying it for for other people. So I almost kind of want to lean in the direction of, of telling you I'm label free. Now, I'm not really label free because some stuff does need a bit of a descriptor with it, but I'm really casual about the labels and I, I just don't, uh, I suppose the thing where I, Perhaps draw a bit of a line is one around the labels of addiction and alcoholism.
Um, for me, very definitely at the end of what I might call my drinking career, I had had a really long period of really successfully moderating my drinking, never drinking more than two glasses of wine at a time, never having a hangover or anything. No kind of messy rock bottom or anything like that. And I would have I probably wouldn't have had the language for it then, but now I would say to you, I had no kind of physical addiction to alcohol, but I might perhaps have had some lingering emotional addiction that was the one around using alcohol as that shortcut for numbing the feelings of overwhelm or whatever it might have been.
So, I kind of advocate for everyone to find their own addiction. description if they feel like they need one, but also it's okay not to have any kind of description for it. What we drink is such a tiny, tiny part of who we are in the world and what it means to be us and I think it's, Particularly in this midlife period, where I definitely have looked really closely at my nutrition, at how I exercise, you know, going through a long period of, I suppose in the run up to my deciding to stop drinking for a year, I was going in quite hard on the yoga, the green smoothies, the supplements, all the journaling, all the medication, adding lots of stuff in.
And I hadn't realized what a quick win it was to take one thing out. And actually that was a really, really good win to, and to make that choice for myself from a place of. Just choosing, no big deal. I'm just choosing this and seeing how it feels. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I remember you did a podcast episode about, um, adding in rather than, rather than taking, was that?
No, it was me who was taking out. I can't remember. It was something along the lines of that. But yeah, definitely, um, The more we add to our, what I like to call, as you know, high vibe practices and doing those things that are going to raise our vibrational frequency, um, the better, because when you're in a higher vibration, when you're living your general life in a higher frequency, I think that you have less of a need for alcohol.
You know, it has its place, like you said, for some people, um, but it, it, you, you have less of the downward spiral emotions that you're trying to soothe because you're, you're in a higher frequency. Definitely. And I think that is such a brilliant. point for us to talk about, you know, the vibration of, we know everything is energy.
And now, recently, there's been a lot of conversation about ultra processed foods and, you know, around perhaps being a bit more mindful. I'm, I know you, you're, Um, I love when we've shared pictures in the membership about, you know, great snacks that we've been eating, delicious salads in the summer, all the foods that we recognize bring with them great feelings, great energies.
Alcohol is a really low vibration, um, food, uh, something that we put in our bodies. It's really processed. Alcohol is a toxin. Alcohol, you know, Whether you accept it or not, it is a depressant, it is a carcinogen. There's no nutritional benefit to alcohol. And so, are we, you know, when we have conversations about hydrating our bodies really well, being able to move in the way that we want to, choosing how we spend our time outside, and perhaps we're, experimenting with and enjoying some weight training or some yoga or some fabulous walking along the beach.
We need to give our bodies the energy with the highest possible nutrition content we can get and enjoy the balance of the right protein, the right fruit, veg, carbohydrates and These recognizing, I suppose, for ourselves, what gives us the feelings of high energy versus the feelings of low energy and hangover is a perfect example of what we get as a result of drinking alcohol.
And we don't even need to drink loads of it in midlife to experience that hangover, that brain fog. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Were you in on the book club, virtual book club that we did on the map of consciousness explained? Yes, this is a book that is just blew my mind. I don't know about you, but it was all about how, um, the, the, there's different frequencies.
It's been proven that there are different frequencies. We know we're all energy and everything is energy. Our vibrational frequency or emotions, but also. Objects and ideas like everything carries a frequency and this, this book has proven, um, that the different frequencies of everything and with the emotions, the, the freak, the, the emotions at the very bottom of the, of the, the lowest vibrational frequency emotions are shame, guilt.
apathy. So those are all the lowest. And so if you think about how you feel the day after you've had too much to drink, you're feeling like, Oh, you're feeling apathy. You're feeling maybe guilty because like I said, with the parenting, I was always like, Oh, and, um, shame, shame. Definitely. If you did something like really, really silly, wish I hadn't done that.
And I did have to have some of those too. So you have like all that kind of stuff and then on the highest frequency are emotions of courage. No, no, that's not the highest. When, when you move into, um, when you move those lower ones are survival frequency and then you move up through the layers of consciousness and you get more to the emotions that are of, um, courage, willingness, acceptance, reason.
And all of those are above the survival frequency. So suddenly you've got this, you know, these different emotions that you're feeling, and then the highest are, are, um, love, joy, peace. enlightenment, and those are in the spiritual paradigm. So people who are, when we talk about people who have reached higher levels of conscious living and they're, they're, they're, um, consistently living in these higher, higher vibrational frequencies, they are living from the, these mostly these emotions of joy and peace and enlightenment, and not at all having the shame and the guilt and the apathy and all of that.
So I just found that super interesting. Because I feel like I am on a spiritual path. I feel like I'm on an awakening journey. And so, you know, I do have to ask myself, knowing, and this is why I wanted to have this conversation with you, is that knowing this, but I want to know it like on a deeper level. I want to know it, know it.
I want to embody it. Knowing that alcohol has zero benefits on spirituality. And I mean, Zero. There's nothing in alcohol that benefits us spiritually. And if anything, it numbs your senses, lowers your frequency, um, inhibits your intuition, um, inhibits your connection to source, um, Yeah, I read somewhere that it can take 10 days to reach a point where if you've had a drink where your vibrational frequency set point goes back up to like what it was.
And so if you are habitually drinking, um, or drinking many more units than that, if it takes 10 days, To get your frequency back. I used to be like, Oh, it's not worth having a really big drunken night out because I'm not going to feel very well for a couple of days. And now I'm thinking, well, if it takes 10 days to get my frequency back up when I'm always doing things to raise my frequency and to live in this higher vibration, you know, it's really, it's really making me think, um, it's making me think that, um, I want to be even more, who knows, maybe, maybe I will do my own kind of experiment.
I will say that there's one factor that is probably the biggest factor in why I don't drink at all, like you. And that is my husband. And I know that your husband, you said drinks and you don't. Um, and my husband's absolutely fine with us going to a restaurant for lunch and he wants wine and I'm not going to get any, so he'll just get a couple glasses.
He's absolutely fine with, um, he comes home from work and he wants to open up a bottle of wine and I'm there going, you know, I'm not going to have any of that. And so, you know, like, you know, and he's very good. He doesn't drink. He'll have a glass or he'll have two glasses at the most. He'll put the cork in it, whatever.
Um, and he has no problem with pouring wine down the drain. If it's been a couple of days, cause I haven't been helping him drink that bottle and it's now whatever he'll pour it down the drain, I'm always kind of like, Oh, really? That feels like a real waste of money to me, but whatever. Um, but the one thing that I think that he, we, um, might struggle with, and I don't know if you're going to get this and I don't know if it makes any sense, but we have a really fun time when we do decide that we're gonna go out for one of our date nights or go out to a party that we've kind of designated that we're going to get a taxi this time and it's going to be, you know, this kind of a night.
And the idea of never having that with him again, um, yeah, it feels really weird because it's just, it's part of how we really have fun together, not excessively. Not too often, but the idea that we would just never, ever, ever do that again because I've decided that I'm not going to ever drink alcohol, I don't know, that's something that I'm going to see what happens with that.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that is something for you to just bring closer to yourself to think about and to consider, you know, it doesn't have to be a black and white answer, you know, that you give yourself at this moment in time. Mitch. Maybe there's something in there that is around an experiment that is around, you know, what are the alternatives to that?
Are there alternatives to that? There might not be. What does it look like if that's a thing that you do, you know, once in a blue moon versus whenever you feel like it? There are so many questions you could pose to yourself about what that means and what your, what. What are the foundations of your relationship built on whereby that won't matter or whereby that will matter very much?
And I think if, if I were to think to myself about what alcohol has taken away from my relationship with my husband, I think
I don't think it has taken away anything on that front. I, I think the idea that perhaps,
I suppose it's the one around if he goes and has a really big night out with his friends, which is once in a blue moon, I can't bear the smell of him the next day. So I haven't got a story that I can tell you that's one about something that feels like it's really missing in our relationship. I feel like we, if we go out.
together for a date night, he would more often than not, he would probably choose an alcohol free beer because it, it does switch that there is something that, you know, if you're the party who is not drinking, you do see something change ever so slightly in the other person and you either choose to be on the same level vibrational frequency as them or not.
Um, but yes, I suppose that thing of if he's had a big night out. From a physical point of view, I find it, and, and that's not just him, that is anybody who's got a horrible hangover the next day, people just tend not to smell particularly, and maybe I notice it more, maybe I'm more tuned into it, I don't know.
I thought you were going to say, because you were pausing there, and you were thinking, and I'm thinking, is she going to say what I'm thinking? The wild drunken sex. I'll just say it. I'll just say it. You know, something like kind of fun and crazy about coming back after a night out and just like really going for it in a way that you, you know, you're more inhibited.
You're more like, I don't know, there's something about it. Like, do you miss that at all? I think I found a different way to lose my inhibitions. I think, I think, yes, that definitely, maybe in my twenties, that alcohol isn't. Inhibition, loosener, was important and maybe actually in our relationship, you know, married 20 years now, maybe actually, I was perhaps using it as, not an excuse, that wouldn't be the right word, I can get to a place that I need and want to get to, that actually, you know, doesn't have to involve the alcohol anymore.
Um, but yeah, let's not, let's not step away from the realities. Let's talk about the stuff that is really important to us in our relationship. You're darn right that is. Yeah, but it is interesting because even as you're saying that, and even as that was coming out of my mouth, um, I'm thinking about the, the different stages of a marriage.
You know, we've been together for 28 years and, um, and I feel like we're moving into more of maybe a tantra stage, more of like a less of the woohoo, you know, that kind of thing. And maybe more of an, like a spiritual connection. Um, Of lovemaking, you know, so that could go hand in hand with this. I love that.
And what's deeper there, you know, this is to be to be discovered. Yeah, exactly. Cool. I'm so glad I can talk to you about stuff like this.
Love it. Yeah. And then there was one other thing that I wanted to make sure I said, because I don't want to make this episode too long, even though I could talk to you for ages, is that a couple of episodes ago, I had, I don't know if you heard the episode with Ankana. Ankana is, um, the Akashic Records reader and Ankana, um, doesn't drink at all.
And she discovered that when she started having these channeling abilities and this ability to be able to connect to know to the other side and to the Akashic records, if she had any alcohol in her system, it completely messed up the, the, um, the, the frequency, obviously, when you're connecting to higher realms, you're in a higher frequency, and she wasn't having the connection.
So she doesn't drink at all anymore, because it completely impacts her. work and her spiritual abilities. Isn't that amazing? That is so amazing. And when you told me that, I remembered straight away that I'd had a conversation in August, um, with a shaman, and she happened to mention in conversation about not drinking.
And Afterwards, I was having a chat with her and our conversation, not, not by me, funnily enough, but she moved on to, um, talking about, um, how she, she was talking about the cacao ceremonies that she does and being, um, very in tune with Mother Earth and she then went on to talk about alcohol and the toxins.
And her description, she said she wouldn't have any alcohol at all. She said it interfered with her transmissions. And she said, I'm on this planet, I'm in this lifetime right now to be at the place where I think she might have said something like the veil is thinnest for this is how she is able to have the clearest communication to be that channel and alcohol was a such a massive inhibitor.
And in fact, she hadn't in her 60s now hadn't drunk since her 20s because she knew really quickly that. It was just absolutely not going to help her in her life's work and, and I love and I think this is the same, you know, that idea that just recognizing that the fullest expression on our set of ourselves on this earth doesn't need to be I'm going to use this word as, it's not the perfect word, but you know, as a tool for being something other than who we absolutely are.
And perhaps we have to fight a little bit against society's norms and against the massive advertising of alcohol and the pretty labels at Christmas and the limited edition gins and the mulled wine and the fizz and whatever. use this time of year that we're going into to really start running those experiments for ourselves and see, hmm, is this drink good for someone else or is this good for me?
Um, and asking who it is that we want to be, you know, ground ourselves in this earth and find out. what the bigger picture is for us. I'm so glad that there are leaders in the spiritual world who are prepared to make it just no big deal. You know, this just isn't part of who I am and full stop, no further explanation needed.
I love it. I love that. My feet and legs are tingling as you're saying that, which is always this like frequency that I get when like truth is being spoken. So yes, I've been hearing in all different spiritual circles that I dibble dabble in. I keep myself very fluid. I kind of just see what people are talking about.
I'm not really one that kind of jumps into any one camp, but I tell you what, what everybody's talking about is that we are, um, when I say we, I mean society, we are being numbed, numbed, numbed, numbed for like control, um, and that we need to be sovereign. And we need to, um, know what our truth is because there's so much mistruth out there, and we need to hone in on our intuition, our intuitive senses to really discern what is real, what isn't, what is the truth, what is, you know, mistruth, and, um, so when you were saying all that, my feet were tingling, my legs were tingling, because I'm thinking, yeah, I always need to get behind my why for anything.
I have to know my why. I have to be deeply, deeply connected to my why. So my why for drinking less, um, used to be, didn't want to have a hangover. Um, my why now is, is emerging, you know, and I can feel it emerging. And my why now is feeling different than before. It's feeling like everything we just talked about.
Alcohol is a lower vibrational frequency. I want to live in a high vibration. Um, with the work that I'm doing now being a soul plan practitioner, I'm going into people's soul plans. I'm receiving information as I'm doing that. If I have, have, uh, alcohol in my system, is that doing my client's service that I'm going into their soul plan, but I'm not retrieving everything that I need to be retrieving and sharing with them.
You know, so it's, I'm, I'm this conversation. I knew there was a really deep personal reason for myself. I knew I wanted to have you on the podcast to like share your, your, your, Your work with, uh, with, uh, even more people. But I also knew there was going to be some personal reason and I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
And, um, I feel like my why is emerging. So, yeah, thank you very much. Great news. Is there anything else that we missed that you wanted to share or talk about? I think the thing that's good to always wrap up with is around the conversation. I think that's really easy to have. around other people's judgments about alcohol, but keeping that idea close to you about your own judgments.
And perhaps this is neatly tied into just the very things we have just spoken about and recognizing for ourselves that we're allowed to choose better for ourselves, that In the same way, we might constantly be choosing to support our partners or people in our family or our kids and offering people around us great options, great choices, great alternatives, that we're allowed to put ourselves in the centre of that.
And even if, and perhaps especially if, our choice looks or sounds unconventional to other people. That's okay. That's more than okay. And you don't have to make a choice. There is such a massive line in the sand of never again, or, you know, and God knows I told myself that lie, however many squillion hangovers I had had, I'm never doing this again, that it's okay to go into it really gently and to treat it as an experiment.
And not, I would also say, not to ever save an experiment for the first of January or the first of any month. Just today. Today is always a great day to start. Love it, Sarah. I would end there because that sounds such a high, but there was one more thing that I wanted to share with you. And that is that, um, my, one of my, Best friends, soul sisters, Natalie McCarthy, you know, Natalie, because she was a client of yours.
I don't know, a couple of years ago, um, because Natalie reached out to me after me talking all the time about your podcast, your book wasn't out yet. But I remember just shouting from the rooftops about your podcast and on my Instagram and everything. And she saw that and reached out to me. back then and said, I'm really considering having, um, some sessions with Sarah to help me, um, because I really don't want to drink anymore and I just need some support.
And so she became a client of yours. And she, when I told her, uh, the other day, we were doing some backwards and forwards voice messaging and, um, on something else completely. And then I said, Oh, Oh, and I'm having Sarah Williamson on my podcast next week. And, um, if you've got anything that you think would be good for me to think about, like a question to ask her or something to say, and she sent me a voice message back, it was so beautiful that I actually asked her permission.
I said, can I just play that to Sarah on the podcast? And she said, you have my blessing. So I have to mind my phone cause I buried it cause I didn't want it to ring during the. Here it is. Okay. So this is straight out of Natalie's mouth with her permission. Let me bring it up here.
Oh yeah. The reason I was, the reason that we were messaging each other is because I was having all these dreams about her and I was sharing my dreams with her. I've shared that with you too. I, whenever I dream about somebody, I always want to tell them about it. So we're going through all my dreams here.
Here we go. This is Natalie's. Yeah, gosh, I have a lot to say on this topic, off the cuff. But yeah, I mean, I'm 1, 000 billion times better now that I'm not drinking. Um, when I was drinking before, um, whether it was a little or a lot, I would get more irritated. I would get more angry. All of my, like, frustrations would come up, magnified.
Um, all of my also like lust would come, uh, out more magnified. So it was just like, it was a losing game, you know? Um, now I can think and feel and analyze, and it's just like a different world, um, of awareness. Um, and I, I, I think it's one of the best things I've ever done. Um, and thanks to you and connecting me also, um, to Sarah, um, will help me so much because I think it's hard to do this shit on your own, you know?
You need the right framework, you need the right people. None of this stuff can be done in, in solitude and in isolation. It takes a team. Off the cuff answer for you, my dear. I'm in Madrid, as you know, wearing your black leather jacket that, uh, I love. Gosh, I'll have a lot to say at the start of it again.
Oh, that's so lovely to hear. Let me share that with you. Oh, that's just lovely. Thank you very much. You're doing beautiful work in the world, Sarah. Thank you. So nice. Okay. I'll see you over in Soul Explorers. Hear you in Soul Explorers. Thank you for today. Bye. Bye Sarah. Thank you for listening to the Project Me podcast.
Did you get any ah hahs? Sarah and I will love to hear them. I'll create an Instagram and Facebook post to open up conversations around this episode. On Instagram I'm Kelly Project Me and on Facebook Project Me Kelly P. Or you can email me hello at myprojectme. com. Do you know anyone else that might benefit from hearing this episode?
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com. Until next time. Open your mind, open your heart, and stay curious. We all need some space in our lives for the magical and unknown.