Sober Not Somber Hour

Foreign welcome to Sober Not Somber Hour. I'm your host, Jen Varale and my dog always seems to know when it's time for me to hop on and give you guys my full attention because here he is, he's a golden doodle. And you'll see me giving him as much attention as I can to just sort of keep him at bay until it's time to go for a W, a L, K or a run. Yeah. Welcome in. I love to share, if you've joined me before, a non alcoholic beverage that I'm loving and usually it has to do with something that I've served at an event recently or just a new flavor profile or something I'm discovering.

So we'll kick off today with Pentier. This is a non alcoholic spirit botanical actually that comes out of England, coastal England. And I want to just share with you calories. And I know that's backwards, but zero calories, how do they do it? It's botanical, it's infused, it's all natural, plant based. So what I'm mixing today is just, I'm going to guess about an ounce and a half of this little botanical spirit. Then my favorite, San Pellegrino club soda for a little bit of bubbly. Sorry, I'm not even showing you guys but you can hear, right?

To me, that is a ritual that sing signals it is time to relax. Wow. Amazing. Amazing. The club soda also has zero calories, so zero calorie nabs, not sugary, just a ritual for end of day. So welcome in. The theme for this month on the Cadre sphere is acceptance. Deep breath. I've been working on this. It's a lot I wanted to share and prompt you all around this idea that acceptance can lead to inner peace and personal growth. But how, how does this actually play out in real life? Last week I talked a little bit about the stages of grief with acceptance being at the end.

And I do think there is some realization that I've had around the topic of trying to fix others, fix things, control things. So today I want to talk about that relationship of trying to fix others or fix things and how letting go of that can open you up to amazing amounts of inner peace and energy. So. Hi Rick. Hi Rachel. Welcome in. So my question for everybody as you're joining. Oh, first of all I want to share this is this necklace. I was at a retreat in Bayfield, Wisconsin, actually wild rice retreat, guiding sauna and doing a mixology class featuring this Bev and I found a lot of inner peace this weekend and it was around the topic of acceptance.

So if you had to name something that you maybe. If you're being objective, that maybe in your life that you're really trying to sort of fix or control right now, are you just not liking how this relationship to this person or thing is going? Do you have that theme in mind? Do you have that person, that thing can put in the chat if you want? Could be a person, could be a relationship with the weather, which this is how I accept that we are in winter season. I constantly wear hats. And for example, I'm not accepting that my running, outdoor running is having to change because I love just in the summer, just being able to get outside and go in the winter.

I have another to accept that there's another layer of hardship to running outdoors and that is the cold. So are you working on anything around just sort of accepting that things are the way they are? And if there's another person or thing in that picture that you're trying to control, what is that? Life in general. Oh, yeah. And if you follow astrology, you know that today is a significant portal and also the beginning of Mercury in retrograde, which begs us all to slow down, sip on an NA beverage, Take.

Take a beat. Yeah. So as I'm asking you to kind of think about an area in your life that you maybe have not accepted or working toward more acceptance around. I will share where I am at in that and in a relationship that I maybe have been trying to control the other person's willingness to see something about either their habits or themselves that they're not ready to see yet and maybe never will be. So acknowledging that I am not, I can't control another person. I can't fix an outcome. I can't put any more energy into that because it's moving me away from inner peace.

It's an energy that's really. I felt pretty strongly over the last few months and at this retreat this last weekend, I was able to release a lot of that and just come to acceptance with that's not mine. That however that person is showing up and acting that way, that's just. There's nothing more that I can do and I need to accept a situation or accept where that person is at. So, yeah, Rachel says it's not anywhere close to what I always imagined. I wouldn't say I'm trying to control it, but I'm finding it hard to accept at the moment.

Life in general. Yeah, that's an important distinction. I'm just taking that in. Rachel, like thinking about, oh, that is really good, actually. Just thinking about, like, letting go of control of something, but then still sort of being in it but not being okay with it. I talked about this last week a little bit too, like, acceptance, the levels, right? So it can mean sort of coming to terms with it, with reality, and logistically, like, accepting that whatever this thing is is how it is. But then there's like, another level of acceptance which might indicate, like, I'm okay with this.

That's fine. I try to tell myself that, but I maybe am in that middle too. Like, I stopped trying to control this other person or their behavior, but I'm still just like, is that really how it's always gonna be for that person or in relationship with me? Is that always? I don't love accepting that. But I think there's maybe another word for, like, the real higher ground beyond acceptance. That is gratitude. Ah, yes, gratitude. Remember gratitude. And that's where the personal growth can come in.

Acceptance, maybe status quo. Like, good, Rachel, Good, Jen. We are at a point of not trying to control something, but we maybe have it, like, move to what might be the next level, which is gratitude for that inability to control and gratitude for whatever that is being out of your control. I think that's like, next level. I sort of came to that this weekend, though. I have to be honest. Like, I've been working at this for months, and I think the gratitude piece, as we know, and I, you know, I sometimes even forget to talk about sobriety in here, but heck, yeah, 11 years of sobriety.

So, you know, figuring out how to tap into purpose a little more, given all the lessons learned in a sober, purposeful life. And gratitude is obviously at. At the core. Ooh, Rick, I like the term objective grace. Yeah. Ooh, I want to hear more about that. Just thinking about gratitude and grace together and grace for not getting it right. Getting whatever has been in your past that you might not have accepted, giving yourself a lot of grace for that others would. Right. A lot of times we say, what would your.

If you were talking to your best friend and she was going through what you're going through, what would they say? Oftentimes we forget to say that to ourselves. So giving ourselves grace and then really leaning into gratitude for whatever that uncontrollable situation is, is huge. And what I also think that does, if anyone's noticed this, is it frees up that energy, at least for me, that I was constantly sort of, you know, when you're in your phone, you're seeing all this stuff, and it would be like, oh, you know, I get caught up in the energy of this other person or thing so easily.

When I really just want peace. I really just want to keep channel all of that back into my personal growth. Yeah. Rachel, as far as other people, my biggest struggle has been more with how others see me. Not always feeling the need to explain why can't I do the things they think I should be able to just because I have in the past or this is socially acceptable. Let's dissect that. Yes. How others see you. Yeah. In just like leaving that, setting that aside and saying, I maybe accept what anyone's perspective or view of me is without placing all of this care and concern on someone else's view of you.

I don't know if I'm hitting that exactly right, but it's liberating. And it also brings inner peace to just accept that maybe not everyone loves you or they may have some sort of weird disapproval of what you're doing because it's not what they think you should do. Which is total bs, Right? Like, let's let go of that. Yeah. Purpose is a big one. So on the the other like side of acceptance, objective grace and higher level gratitude is coming into purpose. And if you have overcome something like this and you're in deep acceptance or inner peace around a subject or something that has happened to you or you've been wronged through it is a huge calling I think, to help others understand that.

And sharing your journey obviously is what we do as Cadre contributors. I mean, that's what I'm doing here. Just sharing, like, here's what I personally I've found. Here's what's really hard, here's a struggle. And just when you think you may have some guidance or have gained traction in some area, the rug can totally get pulled out from under you. Which has happened to me, especially when trying to control other people or other things. How's everyone doing? Yeah. Fixing others. So I think the second part of this prompt is what.

And this is also what helped me was to accept or release control of a situation and move into gratitude about it has opened more ideas for inner peace and also clarity as to how could I help others that are going through this sort of non acceptance and this control of, you know, things that are actually out of our control. How could I do that? And I think it is kind of sharing what I've learned and the openness when I came back from this retreat on Sunday night to like an expansive feeling of oh, what a relief.

I don't like we literally did some exercises and group together on Saturday evening where we were like physically like moving like feeling like we're moving weights off our shoulders. Like what is the weight that you carry around not accepting something and what would that feel like to remove that weight? Because that's energy. And what I loved about the sauna guiding that we also that I did this last weekend was sauna just helps you tap into your body and the physicality of something your mind's may be going through.

Your mind wants to try to solve everything, you know, sit back and be a thinker. But I do love that sauna with the the movement on the the heat and what that does to your state of mind in terms of like coming up against an uncomfortable situation and moving through it. I really think that that heat and that situation allows the mind to let go of some of the usual pathways it would take to try to solve a problem. And I often walk out of the sauna feeling just enlightened, not only physically but mentally and maybe some new solutions.

So core sauna is the answer to everything. And drinking. Great nabs. Rick says to Rachel. Bravo. Find it, live it and you will see amazing things for sure. You all are so inspiring. I appreciate everyone who's logged in, listened in, commented, watch. You know any of the Cadre contributor shares after we're not even halfway through the month. What is it, 11th? Yeah. Oh, so maybe a couple deep breaths here with me. Like I have not even done that today. Wow. I'm wishing grace and gratitude for you all and acceptance of some of those really hard things to move beyond just accepting and to truly dig into how to let that fully go and what that means.

I hope you all find energy this week in something that is that you're confronting or maybe up against. Wishing you well and of course an na. Cheers. We are approaching holiday season. Gosh, it's next week, Thanksgiving notes the week after. Just like holiday season is upon us. So there's a lot of acceptance around family dynamics and heightened expectations. So I hope for you inner peace as we kind of go into this holiday season in a few weeks. And actually I treat this time right now, the in between as a really great time annually to sort of go in and really have find some inner peace before the chaos of the the holidays sets in.

So cheers to you all, Grace and thanks to you both. Haha. Thanks Rick. Thanks Rachel. Happy Tuesday.