S3Ep29|| Embracing Change As You Grow
Join Cait as she dives deep into embracing change through your sober journey.
In this episode, Cait sits down with you to talk about the changes in sobriety. She talks about how to navigate your sobriety when you're going through a lot of change, and how to accept the change that comes when you get sober. There are all kinds of changes that we can go through in life. Change happens whether you allow it or not. But when it comes to going through change, the labels that we put in the sober community can be really heavy and hard. Sobriety as a label, can really make you shy away from adjusting and pivoting and evolving. You’re changing by becoming sober, but you're evolving past that section of your life. Labels can feel heavier than all of the other things that you may identify with. So, as you start your sober journey, as you continue your journey, or as you pick back up, change is something that is just so important to welcome. Not accept, not be aware of, but to welcome. Join her as she dives deep into embracing change through your sober journey.
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EP 29 - Embracing Change
[00:00:00] Cait: A label in sobriety, even sobriety as a label can really make you shy away from adjusting and pivoting and evolving. Really, what it is is evolving. Like yes, you're changing by becoming sober, but you're evolving past that section of your life. And ugh, that's a whole other episode on just... how I've realized, Whoa, I am a completely different person.
[00:00:26] Cait: Welcome to the Clearheaded podcast, your guide to sober care. I'm your host, Cait. And I'm so glad that you're here. Maybe you're on your way to work or you're ready to wind down for the night, whatever the case may be. I'm really happy to be here with you. All of these episodes drop in on people's moments of clarity surrounding their sobriety.
[00:00:47] Cait: Before we get started on this conversation, I wanna ground each other with a little bit of breath work. Let's start by taking a big deep breath in and out. Okay, let's get Clearheaded.
[00:01:07] Cait: Hi, it's you and it's me. And we're gonna talk about changing. Changing change, change, change, change, change, change. Is that even the lyrics or is it "chain"?
[00:01:19] Cait: I don't know. Anyways, never good with lyrics. Today I really wanna sit down with you and talk about change in your sobriety, how to navigate your sobriety when you're going through a lot of change. And how to accept the change that comes when you get sober. I think I just need to give you like maybe a little bit of a rundown on why exactly I feel like this is a good topic to talk about today.
[00:01:47] Cait: I think because I'm going through change. And, you know, there are all kinds of changes that we can go through in life. If we - I was gonna say if we allow them, but look, change happens whether you allow it or not. So I guess just embrace it. If you choose to be present and aware of the change, we can really go through anything.
[00:02:10] Cait: I mean, I think back to season one, some of our first episodes. And how change was so relevant in the conversations that we had. I mean, we literally did an entire episode called Change and you should listen to it. It's really great. It's about gender identity and coming kind of home to your body and being comfortable with relabeling yourself, how you see fit and not how society has programmed you to be. And not to closely compare the two topics with gender identity and sobriety.
[00:02:45] Cait: But I do think that "labels" in sobriety. And I mean, even last week's episode with Amelia, we touched on it. How a label in sobriety, even sobriety as a label, can really make you shy away from adjusting and pivoting and evolving. Really, what it is is evolving. Like, yes, you're changing by becoming sober, but you're evolving past that section of your life.
[00:03:14] Cait: And ugh, that's a whole other episode on ...just how I've realized, Whoa, I am a completely different person. And I almost don't identify with that version of myself anymore to a point where it really feels like drinking Cait-y was a completely different person. Not even my same body. Anyways, that's maybe another episode for next month.
[00:03:41] Cait: But when it comes to going through change, the labels that we put in the sober community can be really heavy and hard. And I think that, I mean, just taking it back to myself, I was listening to Holly Whitaker's audiobook, Quit Like a Woman, because I really have a hard time reading. And, it's just not how my brain works.
[00:04:06] Cait: I have ADD, ADHD and I can never process what I'm reading. So I have to listen to everything. So I was driving in Los Angeles on Cahuenga, and I remember it because it was so pivotal. I was, you know, one of my real moments of clarity, which we've learned now with all of these guests we've interviewed and I've interviewed and you've sat in on. That it's so many moments, not just one that really gets you to where you wanna be.
[00:04:34] Cait: But, it was one of my many moments of clarity when I heard her reading her book saying that she went through life, she was going through her recovery. And she was with a friend and she called herself an alcoholic and had been calling herself and identifying herself as an alcoholic. And her friend said, You know, you don't have to call yourself that.
[00:05:01] Cait: And it was like the statement that she didn't know she needed to hear. And it was a statement that I didn't know that I needed to hear. And maybe it's a statement you didn't know, you needed to hear. In order for me, it was the green light to really dive into sobriety. I didn't feel like I had to change the way that I saw myself by putting a label that was bigger than...
[00:05:27] Cait: ...the other things that I find that are about myself, like creative actor, comedian, sister, daughter, friend, partner, all of those labels to me are so important. And I think for so long and for so many people. And please tell me your perspective, cuz I do wanna know, alcoholic addict, and even to a lot of people, a sober person.
[00:05:52] Cait: That label feels heavier than all of the other things that they identify with. So when you ask somebody to put that on themselves and to change the way that they see themselves, I think it can be a real deterrent. And when I heard that sentence, it was like the green light. Yeah, the green light to just say, wow, I don't have to say that in order to be sober, be alcohol free, not drink.
[00:06:18] Cait: You know, however, I wanted to word that. And I think what's interesting is that the things that I really held close to myself close to me in the beginning stages of becoming sober, like how I wanted to label it changed over time. So when I first stopped drinking, I didn't even really have a label. I think I was so focused on just, you know, try not to drink.
[00:06:51] Cait: And then I had to label it. I had to say I had a problem with alcohol in order to convey to my partner, Sara, that it was really something that I had to fundamentally change about my lifestyle. And then that label of having a problem probably stuck around for about a year, because that was the way that I, to myself, could label what was going on and why I needed to do that.
[00:07:15] Cait: And also, I think like we've talked about so many times when people ask why you're not drinking. The pressure to either one, just drink so that they stop asking is there. I felt that there was an insane amount of pressure to give a not shocking answer, but a really raw answer that almost they couldn't question.
[00:07:43] Cait: Because the questioning of it. And if you know anybody who's newly sober, they're asking themselves these questions that you're asking on a repeat all the time. Well, why aren't you drinking? Well, can't you just have one. Why can't you just have a glass of wine with me? All of those questions are most likely on repeat 24/7, especially if somebody is really new in their sobriety.
[00:08:08] Cait: So you asking as a friend is not helpful. It is super not helpful. And your own curiosity has to take the back burner when it's somebody that you care about. Again could be a totally different episode, I don't know. This is, by the way, a huge ramble session today. I hope you're in for the... hope you're in for the ride. But the way that I labeled myself changed. And then the way that I coped with not drinking.
[00:08:35] Cait: And the tools that I built, and the system, and the friends, and the home, the comforts that I went to go find also changed. What used to float my boat doesn't honestly - anymore. And I think I'm in a period of really just completely and totally changing the way that I feel good and healthy in order to stay living alcohol-free.
[00:09:04] Cait: So I think that as you start this journey, as you continue this journey, as you pick back up this journey, change is something that is just so important to welcome. Not accept, not be aware of, but to welcome. Now I wanna kind of pivot back cuz I don't wanna get preachy and I don't wanna teach you the ways.
[00:09:34] Cait: But I've really found that that statement is so true in the last week. In my own life, I made the choice to stop doing another project that I've been doing for over a year. And that other project had a lot of really incredible things to offer. But it didn't align with the purpose that I have for my whole... my whole life.
[00:10:03] Cait: And it didn't feel like it could grow. And the one thing I think that I have learned about myself and about what's important in my sobriety is that I cannot stay stagnant. I think because I lived so much of my life stagnant lying to myself, thinking I was growing, changing, evolving, moving forward. That anything that resembles that, really really disrupts my peace. And there is a gray area there it's, you know, and I hope I get there in life and I think I will.
[00:10:46] Cait: And that's why I'm in therapy. And I'm very lucky that I can be in therapy. Because I do think that there are times in life where just like you have to embrace change, you also have to embrace sitting still. But I think I never really had the courage to evolve and to change. And then when I got sober, it was like, wow, look at how much I can do.
[00:11:08] Cait: If you just clean off that shelf in your life of things that are sitting there collecting dust or that are there and they look great, but you never really actually use them. Look at how much other things, how many other things you can put on that shelf. If you just give gratitude and say, thank you, literally like Marie Kondo your life, but with the people, places and things that you're doing.
[00:11:34] Cait: And I think I really am on that kick and that involves so much change, and a lot of trust, and a lot of risk acceptance. I don't even know if that's a term risk acceptance, that seems right. So I made that choice and I had to make it a while ago because of contracts and stuff. And I'm sitting here in the last week of it and I think there's a...there's a very real part of me that's scared.
[00:12:01] Cait: And then I think about, you know, my personal life. And how I just have reached a point where I'm so tired of carrying around any resentment, anger, grief. I'm just so tired of carrying it around because I work really hard to never use it, but it's like, I should probably explain that better.
[00:12:24] Cait: Like I never wanna use anger or resentment that I have for somebody. Ever. So I work really hard to say like, yes, I'm feeling that way, but I'm not going to use it to fuel my decision. But for some reason, even though I'm not using it, like back to this shelf analogy. I have stuff on my shelf, my emotional shelf that doesn't even look good. Nothing looks good about resentment.
[00:12:45] Cait: Nothing looks good about anger. Nothing looks good about judgment. So it sits on my shelf, it doesn't even look good and I never use it. But it's there and it's taking up space. And so I think there's things that I'm realizing I have to do in order to clear it off the shelf. Because things like anger, resentment, judgment aren't just a knick knack on my shelf emotionally.
[00:13:08] Cait: They've like, you know, when you go to like your aunt's house or your grandma's house or your mom's friend's cousin's house, and they have, you know, something on their bathroom counter, and you lift it up. And they're, it's like kind of hard to lift up because it's been sitting there for so long and the dust has somehow turned into this sticky goo at the bottom of the face.
[00:13:32] Cait: And it's hard to take up. And then when you take it up, you realize, oh shoot a little bit of the paint or the tile or the laminate came off with it. And so you just kind of put it back to try to make it so that, ah, your mom's friend's cousin doesn't realize that you've been messing around with her tchotchkes in the bathroom.
[00:13:51] Cait: That's what anger, resentment and judgment feels like on my shelf. It's that it's stuck. It's taken a little bit up with it if I'm moving it. And it's gonna make a difference and it's gonna make an impact. And then I have to tend to those marks on the shelf before I can put it back because that's the best way to keep moving.
[00:14:09] Cait: I could place something else over it, but there would always be that mark, that laminate rip up that dust that turned into sticky stuff. So I think, in my personal life I'm assessing a lot of things that there's a lot of work to be done in order to have change. And then creatively, I just feel so different.
[00:14:33] Cait: I had a really big career moment in my acting world this last month. And it was a huge, huge, huge, huge goal that I didn't even know that I could accomplish. And I don't think I would've accomplished if I hadn't been sober. And so just knowing that other things are attainable like that, and that I actually did it and that it's not just a dream. But it's actually something that I can go and do again and again and again, and then beyond.
[00:15:03] Cait: It has changed the way that I honor my creativity, the way I see myself, the way the confidence that I have when it comes to acting, submitting, auditioning. And that perspective change has been a little shaking, even though it's really great. Wow, it's different. It's like you're playing a video game and you're on a whole new level and...
[00:15:26] Cait: ...there's new players and you got new tools and you have new superpowers and the responsible thing to do is to manage all of that appropriately. And not... fling it around. And study the new tools that you have, and study the new characters, and understand how you can succeed at this level because you wanna go to the next. So that's where I'm at in my career in acting and creatively.
[00:15:55] Cait: So I'm just... if you couldn't tell. I'm a little flustered. I have so much going on. But I'm thankful because I think that it's a good test to getting more and more comfortable with the changes that are, like I said, at the tippy top of this episode. Gonna happen whether we choose to tune in and be present with them or not.
[00:16:20] Cait: So...I don't know. I think what I wanna leave you with, is first, thanks for listening to this whole spiel. I feel like I just completely vented. I hope it makes sense, I hope it connects. And then I also want to ask, what's been changing in your life? Is it just me or is it a community thing? Are a lot of people experiencing these changes throughout?
[00:16:47] Cait: Are they good? Are they bad? And really any advice you have on how to go through those good and bad changes. Because with sobriety, these positive changes and celebrations can even be a trigger on, wow, I wanna celebrate, how do I do that? Hey, I'm really bummed. How do I cope with that?
[00:17:11] Cait: So let me know. Slide into my DMS if you want, or comment on a post. Or email us, go to the website and email us. Okay, that's it. That's all I got for you. I'm gonna let you go about your day. Thank you for listening and I'll see you next week.
[00:17:33] Cait: Do you want to enhance your sober care routine? Head to Clearheaded.co for tips, tricks, tools, and more on this episode.
[00:17:42] Cait: And if you're someone who likes to watch podcasts, we are on YouTube. Clearheaded podcast is sponsored by Free Spirits. Head to drink freespirits.com and use code clearheaded20 for 20% off your first order.
[00:17:56] Cait: This episode was recorded at The Wave podcasting studios and produced by Alexis Archuleta. All the music used was created by honeydu. Oh yeah, we have a Spotify playlist too. There's a lot to check out. Anyways. See you next week.