Sober Not Somber Hour

Hi everyone. Welcome in. Welcome to Sober Not Summer Hour. Ooh, the la. Oh, not the last episode. Gosh, the year isn't over yet folks. I will be on next Tuesday which is December 30th. Yeah, so second to last episode. But I'm excited to chat with you today. I'm not sure why the live stream keeps clicking me off, but second attempt. Hi everyone. Jen Barale here. Hi Dr. Leslie Davis. Welcome in. We are in Sober Not Somber Hour where I talk about all things alcohol and substance misuse and we also highlight an NA beverage.

We meaning me. Today my beverage of choice is Utopia Borealis. So this is made in in Northern Minnesota. I speak Wonder, an excellent beverage just with maple syrup and carbonation. 50 calories per can. I like to pour it so you can like listen to the the sound of it signals the ritual of Happy hour. Welcome in. Welcome in. As I was saying, today is the second to last share for 2025 for sober not somber Hour. And I want to share with you today all along the theme of rest and relaxation and reflection and renewal.

That's a lot of ours. But dropping some wisdom and I'm guessing that you maybe all have experienced similar things. I was reflecting on how I used to approach the New Year in years past with the idea of adding more things, always adding, always adding. I want to do this this year and you have like a list of 25 some things that you want to accomplish in the New year. What I neglected to notice until, you know, I was into sobriety quite quite a ways and I would say over the past five years even more so.

Notice the importance of resting and giving some time and space to everything that happened over this last year. And first and foremost before even starting a new to do list for 2026, the importance of reflecting on what did not serve you in 2025. And that's a very long list for me. In fact, my word of the year last year was attraction. And and I think I just burned like every relationship business wise, personally sort of to the ground. Not by essentially my doing, but whatever was going on in the universe was like if your word is attraction, you are currently not with the maybe right people to make some of these things happen.

It was wild. So I was like second guessing do I even create a word for the year? And of course you do. I've created one for the last probably nine years and I have a whole log of them and it's really cool because it helps me like look back and see where I was in life during those moments this is my word of the year for 2026. It's adventure, and there's a lot behind that. But before I even thought of, like, what my word should be, I spent some time reflecting on what I don't want to bring forward from 2025.

And that's essential, I believe. If anyone's done that, let me know in the chat. Have you taken enough time to reflect on what didn't serve you this year? What are you leaving behind? That, to me was first and foremost and creating some time to rest, I would say in the last week or so as. As I've have made time to, has really allowed some interesting new things to flow in. So rather than proactively writing this big to do list, what I'm noticing is as I'm figuring out what to leave behind that I no longer want to carry forward, as I'm kind of mentally doing that and writing that down, things are already opening up in the last, even two to three days.

New opportunities and new paths are being revealed because I have cleared the mental space, the headspace that it's taken to focus on some of the. The energies that I really didn't want to bring forward. So once that's removed, a lot is possible. Tang. That's good. Not too sweet either. It's called Nature's Maple Ale. Sparkling Electrolyte beverage. So there's all sorts of things in here like magnesium, potassium, really great replenishing and hydrating minerals. Gosh, it's really good. And this is crafted by a friend of mine, Melbot Soap, Northern Minnesota.

Yeah. So getting back to the point of rest and reflection, are you taking enough time to just really rest, not be productive for however long of a time frame you can carve out, and then seeing what comes up in terms of energies you need to release, and then not even writing the to do list or the New Year's resolutions, not even writing them, taking a break and being able to maybe see, step into that January 2nd and beyond, for example. I try to just really give space to the closing of a year. And thank goodness we have that.

We have a calendar year. We have seasonal things in place to remind us to pause. And I always find it interesting. I don't know, like, not necessarily. Everyone obviously celebrates the holidays the same way in America or even globally. But when I think about, I do celebrate Christmas, and I think about all the nostalgia and the pause and the reflection happening, you know, around Christmas Day the 25th. And it's odd because almost immediately I have a mental shift on the 26th sometimes I take a break, but I'm already thinking about productivity and getting into the new year and it's like you go from nostalgia and reflection into full forward thinking and planning and that shift can be has been for me pretty quickly.

It's like I have whiplash. Like I'm so ready to be done with the holidays that like let's, let's go 2026. But this year I'm gonna try to intentionally take a little bit more of a pause before I start inviting in the full to do list and intentions for the year. How's everyone else feeling about that? Are you feeling. Yeah, like you're taking a break. Have you practiced the rest piece of it so that you can release things? I'd love to hear it. Drop it in the chat. Even if you're late to the game, I would still love to hear and engage in a conversation.

Thank you Speak Wonder for being here. I appreciate you so much. Happy holidays and cheers to you. We just had a Cadre party for the contributors last week and it was wonderful. So I'm kind of sitting in the the space of reflecting on community and what types of things I want in 2026 and I wish you all well. I'll be back here next Tuesday with the last message of 2025. And yeah, just in gratitude to be able to be part of the community and sharing positivity now and going forward. Thank you all. See you next week.

Have a good Tuesday Eve.