Episode 272 Minisode: Whatever. I Don’t Care

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You know how when you promise yourself you’re gonna change  and you make a plan  and you get really excited about it, it’s gonna be awesome, you’re ready and it’s time, but you get to that moment where you have to make a different decision because you said that you weren’t drinking tonight or you were gonna stop after one glass, whatever it is. And all of a sudden your brain says,  eh, whatever, I don’t care. And suddenly you don’t. And all of the momentum,

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and motivation and energy that you need to make a different choice goes out the window. So I woke up every single morning for 15 years and promised myself it wasn’t gonna happen again. And every single evening for 15 years, I heard the phrase, whatever, I don’t care in my head  right before I broke my promise to myself  again. And if that sounds familiar, you may have a different phrase. It may be, I’ll start tomorrow.

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It doesn’t really matter or I don’t have time to deal with this right now. So  in this mini-sode, I’m gonna show you how to spot that thought, your thought, your phrase in the moment, flip it on its head so you can reconnect with what you really want. And it’s not about willpower or perfection. It’s about learning how to interrupt the trance and redirect yourself.

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again and again like doing bicep curls  until the new path starts to feel natural. So  if you’ve ever caught yourself saying, whatever, I don’t care, this is for you. Because the truth is that you really do care. And that’s exactly why you’re here.

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My name is Colleen and I’m a mindful drinking coach helping high achieving professional women permanently reduce their alcohol consumption by 80%. Join me each week for evidence based holistic strategies  to regulate your nervous system,  balance your dopamine,  and activate the growth mindset that makes you so powerful in other areas of your life  so you can stop worrying about losing control  and trust yourself again.  Get happy, not sober. It’s not about the alcohol.

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Today we’re going to talk about another phrase that I think is actually the most direct phrase that blocks your motivation when it comes to drinking less. Not drinking at all on a sober day  or stopping after one or two or whatever. Like this phrase in your brain instantly sucks the wind out of your sails.  And if this isn’t your phrase,

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then I want you to identify what your phrase is, because you have one. This was actually my phrase. I used it every single day,  and that’s why I drank every day, even though every morning I promised myself not to, and I was going to get up and do things different.  And the phrase is, whatever, I don’t care. And whether that’s your phrase or not, for sure this is a universal phrase. Like just notice the whatever, I don’t care.

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comes out of other people’s mouth, like it’ll be your new pet peeve. Sorry, and you’re welcome. This is the phrase that pops into my head whenever it’s time to do the hard thing  that I said I was going to do, but I don’t really want to do it. Well, it’s not even that I don’t really want to do it. I do want to do it, hence the ambivalence, hence the  pull and the tug of war.  The problem is it is not what I normally do. It is something different. It is a change of habit.

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Hopefully you’re starting to understand that habits  are not easy. They’re just familiar and your brain does them on autopilot. You don’t have to think about your habits. That’s why they feel easier.  But we all know like when it comes to drinking, it’s not actually easier to go through life with a hangover. But like I talked about in yesterday’s episode, your emotions are like the electric dog fence. They are just there to keep you in line. You don’t.

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think about the barriers or the boundaries or the bullshit that you’re telling yourself.  You just let the electrical nudges keep you  on the same path where you’re thinking the same thing, which means you’re going to do the same thing. And I want to give you a different analogy for this. So in yesterday’s episode, we did the dog collar fence. I explained my little pedicure situation and the belief that had formed that I can’t wear sandals.

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And today, I want to use an analogy  of uh a bird’s eye view, except you’re going to be in a plane. I want you to imagine that you’re flying into your favorite vacation spot. So this is a place you’ve been many, many times. Now, normally, you drive. So you’ve never seen it from the air. But for whatever reason, today, you’re flying in. And from the plane, when you look down  as the plane is landing, you see all these cool things.

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that are like really close to where your vacation spot is, your little house that you always go to. Like let’s say it’s a VRBO in the woods, okay? And so you always go to the same little house in the woods and you have never known what’s on the other side of all these woods because you come in directly off a highway and you’ve just never leave the house. The house is awesome. You like being there.  Everything you need is there. You come in with all your groceries in the car. There’s no need to go to the store.  So you actually...

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have no idea what’s all around you  because you drive directly to the house. And today you’re seeing it for the first time and you’re like, holy shit, I’m missing out.  Like, look, there’s outlet malls or there’s rock climbing or like whatever your thing is, uh water parks, ew, uh or hiking or like you just see all this stuff and you’re like, okay, wow, I have got to go out and see some of that. So  you decide, all right, I’m gonna do this vacation different. You land.

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You get the rental car.  And  once you get settled, you head out to try to find some of these places.  No, you do not have GPS in this analogy. You are just heading in the direction that you saw from the plane.  So you head out. And you  keep getting  detour signs. It’ll be a roadblock with a detour. And you keep having to turn off the path away from the direction that you want to go.  And you just never seem to get there. It’s one detour after another.

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And then finally you, you’ve been driving in circles and you end up back at your vacation house. And then you try it again the next day and the same thing happens. And it’s really frustrating.  And you’re like, what the fuck? Well, this  is what happens in your brain. And the detour sign sounds like whatever, I don’t care. This is the thought that is the electric dog fence that sends you back into habitual behavior. Whatever.  I don’t care because I don’t have time.

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I don’t know what I would do different and I’m really struggling to stay on  track, right?  All of these words in your brain are just your emotional guidance system that’s blocking you  from doing something different. Like if you really zoom out, it’s not actually hard or physically painful.  It’s the equivalent of waking yourself up from a dream. Like you have to shake yourself out of it.

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consciously redirect your focus. So  there’s some energy that’s involved and some intention, but it’s not  actually hard and you have to stop saying that what needs to happen is in that moment, you hear yourself say whatever, I don’t care. You need to stop and focus. Okay. I just thought the thought like break it down consciously. I thought the thought

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because my body wants to do this, this is what I always think, and then you have these tools that we are working on, like what are you gonna think instead? I highly recommend that every time you hear yourself say whatever,  I don’t care, you interrupt this regularly scheduled program with an emergency announcement that says, oh, wait a minute,  I actually do fucking care. The only way to break through the trance  of whatever subconscious focus you’re in

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is to learn how to manage your thinking habits that have become the detour signs rerouting you back into familiar, quote unquote safe, safe equals familiar, familiar thinking habits, familiar ways of feeling, familiar ways of being, all of the ways that you exist that create whatever normal you’re stuck in. So I want you to start paying attention and noticing

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the detour signs that pop into your brain. And if it isn’t whatever I don’t care, then come up with whatever it is, identify whatever it is, and trust me, there’s more than one.  But for whatever I don’t care, I want you to hear yourself say that, notice that it came out of your mouth, and stop and say,  actually, I really do fucking care, which is a stop sign.  Stop. Get your head right, set your intention,

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Ask yourself, what do I need in this moment to do the thing that I really care about? And just the words in your brain, I really fucking care. That is reconnecting you with that energy to move in the direction you want to go, to do the hard thing, especially if you put the F word in there. I’m just saying, like that just opens another portal, another layer of energy. I do fucking care. Boom, say it like you mean it.  And that’s going to give you just a little bit of a dopamine hit.

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towards  actions that are gonna move you in that direction. And maybe the action isn’t like a full completion, it’s just you moving out of the path of normal. Maybe you just go and like, this is something I do, I go and lay on my bed and just take a break to reconnect with myself. Get right, get grounded. Because the busier you are in the day, the more your subconscious is running the show. You’re focused on a thousand things.

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and all of the little things that don’t matter. I mean, that’s why we have habits. That’s what our brain does. It puts us into a state of habit. noticing the thought, and then even if you don’t have the energy to completely override and redirect, of course, if it was that easy, you wouldn’t be in this program, but just giving yourself the space to  catch your breath again. And then realize this isn’t one and done. You might take the break.

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recommit and then feel  really positive. Okay, I’m not drinking tonight. I really do fucking care. And then five minutes later, you have to do this whole thing again. Yes,  that is the way it is. Rinse and repeat, because you’ve overridden it with the whatever I don’t care a thousand times. It doesn’t take a thousand times, I promise you that, but it’s not a one and done either. So I want you to pay attention to the mental detours that are keeping you from

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going to new places in your favorite vacation town.  I want you to pay attention to those phrases and I want you to decide what your response phrase is.  Actually, I do fucking care.  Actually, I do have time.  Actually, I do know because I am powerful  and  unfuck with a bull.

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All right, thanks for listening. And if you’re a high achieving, coachable woman who is ready to commit to manifesting your best life, and you’re going to need to reduce your alcohol consumption by about 80%, so that alcohol goes back to being a pleasure instead of a soul sucking problem, get in the show notes and click the link and schedule a discovery call with me or my team.