Episode 283 Minisode: Why you need small group support
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One of the things I love most about the work that I do is that it’s a co-creation. Everything inside my program, the next chapter, from the strategies we use to the lessons I teach, everything has been shaped by the real women that I work with every single day. And what I’ve learned is this, you can’t outthink a thinking problem and you can’t heal shame in isolation. When you join my program,
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You’re not just signing up to reduce your drinking. You’re learning how to take control and ownership of every area of your life so that you don’t need or want to rely on alcohol to cope with your stress. And the women who grow the fastest, they’re not the ones doing the most homework or listening to the most content. They’re the ones who show up for group calls. They raise their hands for coaching when they get stuck. They are honest and real about the messiness of the middle.
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Growth comes when you let yourself be seen. And in today’s episode, I want to show you why connection isn’t just nice to have. It’s not about making new friends. And the more resistance you have to joining a group, the more you actually probably need it. You got to work through your resistance, not go around it. And connection is essential because it’s the catalyst for real and lasting change.
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So if you’ve been trying to figure it out all by yourself, this one’s for you.
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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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Everything that I am teaching you, I have learned, not just from my own experience, but from working with each one of you, each one of my clients in unique situations, getting into the weeds. I go into the weeds, I help you out of the weeds, I learn something. And the more I learn over time, the easier it gets for me to communicate effectively, design strategies that work better, stronger, and faster.
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Like I perceive that someday I could have a program that instead of saying it takes one year, maybe it’ll take six months. I mean, I also believe the science that says it takes a year to rewire your brain. And I also know that the second half of my program for most women who get in and stay consistent, the second half is a much different experience because now you’re just working on other areas of your life, maybe starting a new business or healing your relationship or getting a divorce or like whatever it is. m
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And you really just need that support, that safety net for when life exceeds your capacity to deal with it and old habits reemerge. And then the habit that you have to change is not that, oh you drank too much. It’s the urge to take away all the credit and all the progress you’ve made and overreact and say, I should be farther along in the program and this shouldn’t be happening to me. I shouldn’t have failed like this. Like, I know better, what is wrong?
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That’s the reason why this program is a year. It’s because there’s 100 % chance you’re gonna make a mistake at some point. And like most people can’t hold their breath for an entire year and be perfect and mindful all of the time, right? So there’s 100 % chance you’re gonna make a mistake. And the mistake that you need to avoid is not drinking too much or getting over served. The mistake you need to avoid is overreacting.
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and allowing the shame response to hijack your brain and send you back into the old thinking patterns that reset the shame cycle and diagnose yourself on a slippery slope back to your old ways. Like that’s the habit that you are in this program to break. And by joining this program, you are literally buying yourself time in that you are purchasing a roadmap and best practices that I have learned.
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and worked with other women, like you get the benefit of learning from our mistakes without having to make those mistakes so that the results that you get are even faster and better and lead to bigger things in your life. Everything that I teach you is a lesson learned from making a mistake, my own and then other women’s as well. And we are constantly working on
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the content and the directives of this program to give you the best practices. Because we are using data and analytics to study what behaviors people adopt when they come into the program that get them the best results, that allow them to make the turn faster. And I can tell you there is one component of the program that is turning out to be the most significant predictor.
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of client success. And for those of you that are active in the accountability groups, that’s what we’re calling them right now, we may change the name because some people don’t like the name, whatever, we’re always like, that’s such an icing on the cake sort of situation. But the feedback that we are getting from the experiences in the accountability groups is proving to be the game changer. And
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Sometimes women come into the program and they want to pick and choose. And I encourage you to do that, right? I say, this is like a buffet. You don’t put everything on your plate. You do you. And while I stand by that, I also would be silly to not say we do have data from women who have gone through the program and the women who get into an accountability group and really get that connection, really.
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make it a priority to get involved, whether it be going to all the calls or most of the calls, or just commenting and talking and participating on Discord. The women who feel like they are part of a group, they have a tribe, those women are getting faster, better, stronger results. And science shows that the fastest way to change your mind, which is what you’re in here to do, the fastest way to change your mind is to join a tribe of like-minded
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people and it’s not enough just to consume all of the content. You already know that the best way to learn something is to teach it to somebody else. I remember I became a teacher. That was my first, that’s my undergrad degree. I was a high school chemistry and biology teacher and I can still remember my student teaching after I’d been in college three years and doing my student teaching and teaching chemistry.
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And the light bulbs coming on, like freaking fireworks show up there. As I prepared lessons and tried to figure out how to articulate what the stuff is in my head and get it to come out of my mouth in a way that somebody else could understand, I remember thinking like, how did I get through college and not understand this basic principle? Like it was all new to me in an exciting, fun way. And so I learned in that moment,
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that the ability to teach something is a critical part of the learning process. And while being active in an accountability group doesn’t make you a teacher, even if you’re a host, you’re welcome to direct people into content or provide reflections and all of that, but you don’t have to. Because simply talking and communicating and exchanging ideas woman to woman.
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This is what I felt. This is what I experienced. This is what worked for me. This is what didn’t work for me. And listening to other women share. And then providing your take, your perspective, your reflection. This is where the magic happens. This is why accountability groups are so important because, you know, just listening to me coach, I mean, you’re welcome. I’m an amazing coach, but I kind of suck the air out of the rooms. That’s why I don’t go to the accountability calls. Plus there’s too many. I couldn’t make it to all of them.
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But just listening to me disseminate all of these ideas and strategies does not make them alive in your own brain. You can’t think and know stuff. Even if I’m telling you stuff and you’re thinking about it and, that’s a great idea and that sounds amazing, you don’t really know it until you do it. This is why I said there’s like the three parts. You gotta hear it, you gotta do it, but then you gotta speak it.
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You gotta share it, you gotta give it, you gotta teach it. Especially when it comes to alcohol use disorder because we’ve defined that as a thinking problem. You gotta get out of your head. You gotta get ideas to get out of your head and come out your mouth for one reason. Because your bullshit detectors are in your ears. You can hear when other people are saying, and they’re telling themselves a story, you can recognize distorted thinking patterns when they come out of someone else’s mouth.
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But everything you think feels true. To you, sounds legit. Literally, we believe 100 % of what we think, and only 60 % on a good day of somebody we trust do we believe what they’re saying. You can’t just listen and consume ideas. They have to become a part of you. You have to anchor them in your body. This is why most of my content being on audio feeds has proven to be so effective as a medium for delivery.
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Because you can listen to what I’m saying while moving your body throughout the world. And that’s just different than sitting and staring at a screen and watching a video and not moving. The more you can move while you listen, the more integrated, I don’t really know how all that works, but it’s science that shows moving as you’re learning helps you remember it. Because you’re kind of a three-dimensional situation. You’re moving around on an axis.
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Body is your subconscious. Your subconscious is just what your body remembers. It’s like you can’t remember the four digit pin code, but you put your hand over the keypad, your body remembers it because it remembers the shape and the movement. Learning is so somatic. It’s not just cerebral. And so getting good results in this program requires you to understand the learning process. You can’t think and know. You can’t listen.
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and learn, you have to move and do, and then also speak and share what you’ve learned. And it goes deeper than that, of course. The number one predictor of longevity is social connection, feeling like you are part of a community. And for many of you who have joined this program, your lives have gotten lonely. I know mine was too. That’s why I built this whole damn program. Welcome to my community of friends that I just
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needed to create because I couldn’t find it anywhere in my life. This program was what I created when I needed emotional and female support as I struggled to heal and grow and evolve as a person with previous history of a drinking problem. This is what I needed. So I’ve created it and I’ve invited you. Welcome. This is a safe place to build friendships.
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And no, it’s not 1985 and we’re not all hanging out after school or seeing each other on the weekends. know, friendships grow and change over our lifetimes as well as the world changes. I don’t have a lot of friends in real life either. And while I’d like more, I do get my needs met by being a part of this community and other community coaching communities that I’m a part of, even though the meetings are on Zoom and even though we’re all talking on Zoom.
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Discord and some of most of you I have never met in real life and may never meet That’s why we’re doing retreats though also because that’s just like let’s do that. But bottom line is we can still have rich supportive loving friendships with each other using the technology that is available to us and It may not be ideal but it is sure as hell better than nothing and as one of the components of alcohol use disorder besides overthinking
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is isolation and loneliness and a lack of connection with people who are talking about the things that are interesting to you, as that is very important. Those are unmet needs that cause us to drink by ourselves. Those needs can be met inside this program. And that is also why. It’s not just part of the learning. It’s also a social and emotional need to see and be seen.
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And that’s part of healing shame as well. It has to be safe to be you. It has to be safe to be where you are, to be struggling where you’re struggling. That’s the only way you can feel good about making progress. There’s no other social circle where you can report your win on a Tuesday morning and be like, yeah, I only had three glasses of wine last night on a Monday night. mean, can a girl get a high five? That is progress, know, sharing your wins.
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and noting your progress, noting the thoughts that occurred to you that you didn’t listen to, but hey, you’re noticing them and you’ll listen to them next time. Like noticing these small wins is also why we have accountability groups so that you have a safe place to share your progress because the motivation to keep going is only fueled by evidence of progress, evidence of failure, and why aren’t you farther along? And you said you weren’t gonna do that and you still did it. Like that’s exactly what keeps you stuck with alcohol use disorder.
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And so I want to lay on the plane with the idea that your accountability group is the puzzle piece that you should not neglect. And there are, of course, exceptions to that. You know who you are. You’re getting great results doing exactly what you’re doing. You know that if you need to join an accountability group, you will. But maybe you’ve got that close friendship or a partnership or the ability to talk about what you’re learning here somewhere else. Like, you do you.
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All I’m saying is that if you are struggling in the program, you are not getting the results that you hoped to get, and you are not an active part of an accountability group, that is your next step. Do not delay. And if you are in accountability group and you’re not loving it, because whatever, it’s not a good fit. There’s the wrong demographic. People are too old. They’re in the wrong business, or they’re too young, or you’re bored, or it’s not a good time. Whatever.
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Book a strategy call or reach out to Stacey and let them know you would like to get into a different accountability group and just start fresh, shake it up. And if you’re one of those people who isn’t in one because you need to protect your privacy or you’re in a profession where you listen to other people all day and going to an accountability group just sounds like nails on chalkboards, get over yourself and get yourself into an accountability group.
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if there’s still room for your growth and you’re not getting your needs met elsewhere. Because I tell you, that is your brain keeping you in the habit loops that feel safe and comfortable. It is not true that you would not enjoy yourself in an accountability group. Your brain is just using that to reroute you. And I wanna leave you with my new favorite analogy. If you are having mental objections to joining an accountability group, here’s your homework. I want you to take a cold shower.
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either if you don’t have a cold plunge or access to that, then I want you to end your next shower with freezing cold water. And right before you turn the knob to cold, I want you to listen to your brain. Your brain is hilarious because it is the whiniest little bitch when it’s time to do something hard. And it will throw out a list of 100 reasons. I know when it’s time for me to turn the knob on my shower, my brain’s like,
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ooh, I think we’re getting sick. I don’t think that’s a good idea for us to do that today. Or I don’t have time for this. You know what I just remembered I need to do like right now? Or you know what? I think before I do that, I should deep condition my hair because I have to stay in here for five more minutes and then my hair will be all glossy. Like it goes on and on and on. The list of reasons why now is not a good time to turn the knob on the shower. And you know what? When I say go, I go. I have trained myself to override the subconscious
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Bullshit where I am a hostage of my brain where my brain throws out all of these legitimate or otherwise ideas as to why now is not a good time to take the uncomfortable action and I just jump and there’s nothing more powerful than becoming a person who when you say go you just go you don’t overthink it overthinking is Under-feeling you’re trying to solve a feeling problem up in your head and that’s not how that works So take an action if you are not
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actively enjoying your accountability group do something about that today so that you can learn the lessons that you have paid to learn and shorten the time of you get moving from point a to point B by Applying those lessons and avoiding the pitfalls and trying to do this by yourself is a pitfall You can’t think your way out of a thinking problem. You can’t heal shame in isolation Get your ass into an accountability group
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I’ll see you there.
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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.