Sober Not Somber Hour: Freedom From Expectations

So Bernat somber hour is starting. Come on into the live stream. I'm just gonna crack open a n a beverage as I always do. Been waiting for this. It's been a long day. It's been one of those days where up at 5 and I just decided just to like get the day started. Like my alarm was set to go off at 6:30 but my brain had other intentions. It seem to be wired just to get up and start working. So end of day I'm doing a little. Isn't this beautiful? It is a phony negroni, phony espresso negroni with like a little bit of a caffeinated kick which is awesome.

So excited to be talking to you Today we're going to dive into some deep content around expectations and I expect number one to start with this beverage is going to be awesome. It's so bitter. If you've ever had a negroni. I feel like it's an acquired taste. Not everyone loves it but having you know, been making sober choices for 10 years. Hi Jennifer. I feel like my taste buds have evolved and I actually love the taste of this. Yeah, it's award winning. Based out of Brooklyn, New York, St. Agrestis is the maker.

Anyway, yeah I today feels a little heavy. I'm approaching 11 years of sobriety next Monday and I expect that I'm going to make it one more week with drinking without drinking alcohol. True to my recovery journey. A healthy expectation. So today I want to talk about different expectations around sobriety and having 11, almost 11 years. The expectations around drinking in our culture today we all know, you know that it's a little bit of an expectation if you are going to be social and for me it was if I'm going to be the life of the party.

In my marketing and events role I was in, in corporate it was expected of others, by others that I would drink. It just is such a social thing. So that expectation and also not being able to break free of that kept me in active addiction for 20 some years and I would actually expect that the night would probably go a certain way. And even knowing a poor like the poor choices I was making and the outcomes I would expect that yeah I would have too much to drink at some point and I expected that I would be hungover.

Yet all of these things around drinking still kept me out of recognizing that there was a different path, a different choice that I didn't have to accept that expectation placed upon me by society. How's everyone feeling today? Please comment in the chat. Amar Alex awesome welcome in Carrie. Oh, yeah. What is Negroni? Oh, it's bitter. It's like an aperitif. It's Italian based. And if you've never had one, again, it's very bitter. Not everyone loves it, but it has like different elements that really engage different parts of your taste buds.

So it's a completely separate category for beverage. Yeah. And I never really drank Negroni, the alcoholic version, before becoming sober. So it is a completely new and acquired taste. Yeah. So how when like, if you're looking at things that are happening in your life that might have a certain expectation around them, whatever that looks like, is it a healthy one? Right. There can be healthy expectations, but if it's something that your behavior that you're doing that feels harmful, then how do you kind of address what that expectation means in your life?

How do you look at is, you know, my drinking to keep others expectations in line, is that healthy for me? And when I decided to get sober, I realized that I would be disrupting everyone else's expectations of who I was and my identity. And that was hard. That was hard. I think as humans, we sort of have a baseline of how we expect people show up in our lives. And once that's disrupted, it can be a little uncomfortable. And I've shared many times where I had to like essentially recreate my friend groups and deal with those expectations of others and actually just push those aside so I could learn and develop healthy things that I expected of myself in sobriety.

So I think that shift was huge. I don't know if any of you have felt that. And in order to move forward, and we were talking a lot about breaking things down this month in astrology and like, you know, sort of burning things to the ground to build them back up again, but releasing some of those expectations so other elements can kind of come into that and shape a new expectation and around what you know is really healthy for you. So another evolution of that type of expectation and sobriety was so many expect or may expect life to somehow look a certain way in early sobriety.

And for me, that was totally new territory. I didn't know what to expect. And I knew it would be hard. I would knew it would feel almost impossible, but I didn't know how to sit with the idea of it could look different. Like I had no expectations of it. I just thought, you know, this is going to have to be my own path. And so setting aside some of the expectations or non knowing about what that could look like was a huge part in early sobriety. You know, I'm Jen, I'm an alcoholic and came into those rooms with the expectation that I would never return to use.

And I did have two returns to use. And so I didn't expect any of that to happen. I was fully expecting that I would get it right the first time, and I did not. So I had to let go of those expectations. And a lot of that, you know, was set by the AA program and model that is very hard and fast around, you know, just being hard and fast around the idea that you would not return to use once you are committed and doing the work in the rooms. So then the idea that I would not have any struggles with alcohol at a certain point in my life, I thought, you know, at a year, I'll be happily alcohol free.

And I had to let go of some of those expectations because rebuilding a life without that and having that as my core identity was not easy. And it took longer than I expected. It took longer for others to appreciate, I guess, and be understanding of my choice to not drink. Surprisingly enough. Right. You would think people would be like, sweet, yeah, Jen doesn't need to drink anymore. Carrie says I had to let go of what other people wanted me to be. To people pleaser. Yep. Oh, 100%. 100%. I was like, oh, my husband's not gonna like it if I'm not drinking.

My co workers won't like it. I won't belong. All of those expectations, for sure. So, yeah, I'm thinking too, to control. We want to control an outcome so we have an expectation and if anything, more very, very intentionally. This last week have been going through a relationship transition and sitting with the idea that I had expectations of things going in a certain direction, and they just did not. They did not go the way that I expected. And so I'm digging deep to learn, you know, what is in that failed expectation.

Yeah, Nikki. Oh, Nikki's chiming in. So helpful to hear all this. Yeah. Oh, we had a good Nikki and Rick. Chris Pram had an amazing session. I think it was last Tuesday that I chimed into. Oh, it was so good. Go back and give that a listen. I think it was on July 15, around three kind of tools to become resilient. So I used those, I applied those directly, and it helped me change my expectations around the outcome of kind of going through this relationship transition. Yeah. Carrie says, definitely have to be willing to stand alone in a crowd.

Yeah. And I didn't have that voice for myself in sobriety until about three years in, where I finally was like, you know what, I'm actually really proud of my sobriety and I'm not going to hide the fact that I live a sober lifestyle. So that takes confidence and time and also releasing of others expectations of a reaction to you. You know, it's, that is a learned experience that we need to test out in social if we're going to be kind of in our confidence and in our space. So freedom from expectations.

And there's been so much great content on the Cadre sphere this whole month. I'm definitely sitting in that right now. And I have so much uncertainty in my life and my career, my relationships, my living situation that I literally am having to like release expectations and control around so many things. And it's, it's a humbling practice. But if anyone wants to share any areas of their life where they're trying to sort of release expectations that you maybe know are not healthy or even potentially harmful, drop those in the chat.

It could be, could be relationship, it could be work wise. Are you, you know, what situations do you have too many expectations around that have. Dang, that's good. Yeah. Suspected of myself that I would show up today as I'm feeling and share a part of my story and history in the sober space with you, but also, you know, prompt those hard questions about around expectations for this week for you and what would it look like to let go of those a little bit and be in the uncertainty and be open to something new that can be shown to you.

I am here for it. I'm here for it. Thank you all. Have a wonderful Tuesday. And yeah, sober, not somber hour. Appreciate y' all tuning in. Have a great evening.