I used to be the poster child for Monkey Mind. 

If you aren’t familiar with the expression, Monkey Mind is a Buddhist term meaning unsettled, restless, inconstant, confused, indecisive, or uncontrollable.

My mind was always busy. Not busy doing useful things, but continually churning nonetheless. 

I could go into a spin about anything:

Did I say something stupid in that meeting?

Is someone at school being mean to my daughter?

Was it my imagination or did the car engine sound funny

Ugh…I can’t afford a car repair bill right now.

Hours wasted every day ruminating as my monkey mind swung from one worry branch to another.

By the time evening rolled around, I was ready for a glass of wine or three to sedate the monkey. Of course, that had its own consequences, which gave the monkey fresh fodder to run wild with the next day. 

It wasn’t sustainable. I had to figure out a way to keep the monkey from going nuts during the day so I didn’t have to escape it every night.

3 things, in particular, helped me get my monkey in check:

1. I practiced defining whatever was bothering me in factual terms. No opinion. No drama. If I was upset because of an argument with my son, I broke it down to the exact phrases he said. I didn’t define it as “he yelled at me, and he hates me.”

2.  I looked at all the thoughts I was having about the facts. I reminded myself that these thoughts weren’t necessarily “the truth” and that I could keep them or replace them. Instead of “he hates me,” it was just as easy to believe that my son was frustrated that he couldn’t play video games when he wanted to. I just needed to redirect my brain to that explanation.

3. I allowed myself to feel whatever I was feeling instead of trying to avoid it. If I felt sad because I thought my son was mad at me, I let myself feel sad. I didn’t keep feeding it with dramatic thoughts. I just acknowledged it and noticed what it felt like in my body. Paying attention to the physical sensations of a feeling allows it to pass more freely. While unpleasant, we’re built to feel this stuff; it’s not harmful.

If you have a monkey mind driving you to drink, give these tips a try and let me know how it goes. As ever, if you want some help, click here!

Momentum feels fantastic, doesn’t it? Especially when it comes to not drinking.

It’s invigorating to have nights of uninterrupted sleep, mornings with no regrets, and days with the kids where you are present and more patient.

You may even reach a point where you don’t crave a drink anymore, and taking a break feels effortless.

And yet, the thought of never having another drink feels, well…scary. Why is that?

First of all, I’m not suggesting you make promises to yourself about never drinking again. That’s not what I teach. My focus is on understanding why you drink to begin with and then deciding what kind of life you want to create. Nevertheless, it’s a useful exercise to ask yourself why the thought of never drinking again gives you pause. It will point you to where your work is.

When you think about never drinking again, what thoughts does your lower brain offer you? What thoughts about drinking are still knocking around your subconscious masquerading as truth? These are the thoughts that will keep you stuck in a cycle of quitting/restarting. Because as good as not drinking might feel, your brain also thought that alcohol helped you out on some level. And these sneaky little thoughts will keep pulling you back into the habit if you don’t root them out. Maybe they sound like:

I won’t be as much fun.

I’ll miss the buzz.

I’ll have no escape.

People will think I’m weird.

Give it a try. Ask yourself what scares you about never drinking again. Write down the thoughts that come up. Then take them one by one and build a case against them. They seem true because you have thought them repeatedly. They’re familiar. But start to chip away at them. Look for evidence that disproves them. Come up with a believable response and practice that. When your brain starts to offer you the old thought, redirect it.

You’ve got this.

Counting days misses the point.

When you focus on counting the number of consecutive days you’ve gone without drinking, you’re paying attention to the wrong thing; you’re focused on the behavior. 

And who could blame you, that seems like a reasonable place to start, right? 

The problem is that behavior doesn’t take place in a vacuum. It’s always driven by a feeling (desire for alcohol, restlessness, etc.), and the feeling is triggered by a thought. 

When you focus just on the behavior, you’re left relying on will-power, white-knuckling, distraction, or avoidance to get you through your cravings. 

Have you met someone who quit drinking years ago but still thinks about it regularly? It’s likely they changed the behavior, but not the habitual thinking and feeling behind it. They still want alcohol even if they don’t let themselves have it. 

But real freedom happens when you stop wanting alcohol. When you don’t want it, the drama falls away. Not drinking becomes the default. But that doesn’t come from muscling through sober days. It comes from understanding why you drink in the first place and deconditioning the habit by allowing urges peacefully. 

No matter how many times you’ve tried to change your drinking, this is 100% possible for you.

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If this sounds interesting to you, but you aren’t sure how to get started, CLICK HERE for some FREE help. 

I deserve it.

Have those three little words ever convinced you to drink when you had previously decided not to?

If so, what was the “it” you deserved?

Relaxation 

Escape

Relief from your worries

I agree that you deserve all of that, but alcohol isn’t the way to get it. For one thing, it doesn’t provide those things; it merely tricks your brain into thinking it does. 

And what does it leave in its wake? Headaches, disrupted sleep, disappointment, shame—a bunch of stuff you don’t deserve.

So next time that subtle, sweet-sounding excuse offers itself to you while you’re making dinner for your family, or after an argument with your sweetie, or when you’re thinking about how your kids’ school may not open in the fall, pause for a minute to ask yourself what the “it” you deserve actually is. Then challenge your brain to tell you all the ways you can get it without a drink.

You intend not to drink, but you keep slipping up.  

Your brain wants to offer you lots of unhelpful thoughts:

You’ll never be able to do this.

You’re weak-willed. 

What’s the matter with you?

Hear me now, believe me later:

You will be able to do this.

This has nothing to do with weak or strong.

Nothing is the matter with you. Brains are wired to learn habits. You can unlearn a drinking habit.

The skill you need to make the change – allowing urges to go unanswered – is already present in your life in ways you may not even realize. 

Maybe you don’t yell at your kids even when you are frustrated.

Maybe you choose to sleep on the decision to buy an expensive pair of shoes you don’t need and then decide the next day not to buy them.

Maybe you are stuck on a project at work and want to check Instagram, but don’t because you know you’ll lose focus. 

These are examples of you not reacting to the urges of your lower brain. You can borrow this skillset and apply it to your drinking as well. 

What does it feel like to not drink when you want to? Restless. That’s all. It’s uncomfortable, and you can handle it. You do it every day in hundreds of different ways. Give yourself credit. 

Even if you can only identify little seedlings of this ability in your life, notice it, celebrate it. What you focus on, you grow.  

I’m at the Oregon Coast with my kids and life is about as perfect as possible. At the moment I took this picture I could really feel that.  

Shortly after this picture, my mind wanted to return to the litany of worries I cycle through as I go about my day. 

Scanning for the negative can become a habit like anything else. 

We’re wired to search for danger. 

Worrying and complaining can seem productive. 

Sometimes it feels kind of good. 

But we rarely create positive results from a negative space. 

Thankfully, we can retrain our brains to take a more balanced view. 

For me, that looked like giving my brain positive questions to answer:

How is this helping me in the long-term?

What is good in this moment?

What unexpected and wonderful thing will happen today?

At first, answering these questions felt like work. Now it’s fun. Negative thinking is inevitable, but it’s so much easier to redirect my mind now. I feel less fragile. 

It’s not about being a Pollyanna. It’s about shifting perspective ever so slightly to get a different view. 

When my clients practice using questions to shift their perspective this way, they notice that the urge to “take the edge off” at night is fainter. The need for an escape starts to fade. They feel more engaged and excited about their lives. 

Our brains love to answer questions. If you ask it to look for the negative it will find it. If you ask it to find the positive. It will find it. 

What do you want to look for today?

Change gets harder when enthusiasm fades.

I, for one, much prefer to feel motivated, certain, excited, and hopeful.  

But, alas, those fair-weather emotions aren’t always available to us. That’s okay, though, because they aren’t necessary for change. 

There’s one thing we need to be to get us through the current obstacle, set back, or stuck point, and that’s *willing.*

When all else fails, be willing. 

Willing tells you where you’re going.

Willing doesn’t need you to do it perfectly or linearly. 

Willing meets you where you are.

Willing doesn’t have a deadline. 

“I’m willing to believe this is possible.”

“I’m willing to learn from this.”

“I’m willing to keep trying.”

You intend not to drink, but you keep slipping up.  

Your brain wants to offer you lots of unhelpful thoughts:

You’ll never be able to do this.

You’re weak-willed. 

What’s the matter with you?

Hear me now, believe me later:

You will be able to do this.

This has nothing to do with weak or strong.

Nothing is the matter with you. Brains are wired to learn habits. You can unlearn a drinking habit.

The skill you need to make the change – allowing urges to go unanswered – is already present in your life in ways you may not even realize. 

Maybe you don’t yell at your kids even when you are frustrated.

Maybe you choose to sleep on the decision to buy an expensive pair of shoes you don’t need and then decide the next day not to buy them.

Maybe you are stuck on a project at work and want to check Instagram, but don’t because you know you’ll lose focus. 

These are examples of you not reacting to the urges of your lower brain. You can borrow this skillset and apply it to your drinking as well. 

What does it feel like to not drink when you want to? Restless. That’s all. It’s uncomfortable, and you can handle it. You do it every day in hundreds of different ways. Give yourself credit. 

Even if you can only identify little seedlings of this ability in your life, notice it, celebrate it. What you focus on, you grow.  

Years ago I started to take a closer look at my drinking. I didn’t like how it made me feel and I questioned what I was role modeling for my kids. None of the mainstream solutions spoke to me, so I put together my own. Today it’s the framework for my work with clients – allow cravings to go unanswered, investigate and change underlying beliefs about alcohol, and learn to manage your mind. I’m thrilled to be talking about all of it on the latest episode of the Becoming Virtuosa podcast (episode 18)! Please check it out on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify. 

Do you really believe it’s possible to change your drinking? I mean for you. I’m sure you believe it’s possible for others, but do you truly believe it’s possible for you?

If not, it’s likely that you’re waiting for some evidence before you believe. But where does evidence exist? The past. 

So if your past is a string of starts and stops, attempts and giving ups, well…you see the problem. 

The belief that something is possible is a prerequisite for doing it. Otherwise, we’re left living in the land of “I’ll try.” 

So what are you supposed to do?

Practice believing now. Believe without past evidence. You’ll need to borrow the evidence from your future.

As luck would have it, I’ve talked to your future self, and here’s what she wants you to know: 

Eventually, you drop the story that your drinking means something terrible about you. You come to understand that it’s just a learned habit that, with the right tools, is completely unlearnable.

You learn to keep your word to yourself. Not every time at the start, but with thoughtful practice, it becomes as important to you to keep your commitments to yourself as it is to keep them to others. 

You realize that cravings aren’t as unbearable as you thought they were and you learn to watch them come and go until, eventually, they don’t come anymore.

You build up your emotional resilience muscles so that all the big and little things that were getting leaving you wanting to take the edge off at night just become the facts of your day. 

All of that’s available to you. Once you truly believe it’s possible, it’s yours for the taking.