Embracing Change with Renee

Renee has been a part of the Mindful Life Practice community for a few years and sober for multiple years! 
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In this session, we will be discussing change in sobriety. There are both challenges and rewards of transformation in sobriety. 
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In this session, we’ll talk about embracing these changes, practices for releasing the old, and welcoming new habits and mindsets.
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You can check out Renee's website at: https://www.reneejernigan.com/

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is Alex McLeod's under my life podcast. And you're listening to the sober yoga girl podcast. I'm a Canadian who moved across the world to the Middle East at age 23, and I'm never with I was sober in 2019, and my member of full-time and bully Indonesia. I've made it my mission to help other women around the world stop drinking, start yoga, and change their lives. Remember online, Sober Girls Yoga Community. You're not alone, and a sober life can be fulfilling. Let me show you. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Sober Yoga Girl Podcast. We're recording this from Sober Girls Club on Sunday morning. And the guest that we have this week, which I'm really excited about, is Renee Jernigan. And Renee has been part of our community for a long, long time. We were actually just chatting about it as before we started recording, but she started out with us a few years ago in the 30-day Sober Girls Yoga Challenge. And now she's gone on to do the 200-hour YBT and several of the advanced courses. She came on the Mexico retreat. And um, it's just been amazing watching her grow and expand and learn over the past few years. And yeah, so welcome, Renee. And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit, give us some context into your sobriety story.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

Yeah, absolutely. I would love to share a little bit about that. Um, I was a drinker for many decades, you know, like most people, it was how I celebrated, how I decompressed, how I, if I had a stressful day, I had a drink. Um and I won't go too much into like how it all started or anything. I'm gonna kind of go more towards um maybe the last 10 years or so, um, maybe the last decade is when I started to think about possibly being alcohol-free. And really it started as like challenges at a gym. I joined like a CrossFit type gym, and we would do these health challenges where we would work out and you know, eat really healthy for like a month. And a lot of times I would quit drinking during that, kind of like a dry January type experience. So I'm just like a 30-day challenge or something. And so I kind of experimented with the alcohol-free lifestyle through that, but I never really thought like I'm gonna go for it and just be completely alcohol-free. Like my whole family drinks, everyone around me drinks, my husband drinks, all my friend drinks. So I never really thought like it could be a lifestyle for me. It just didn't even really cross my mind that that would be the case. So I continued like that for a few years. Um, just doing like, you know, dry Januaries, just real quick stints of alcohol-free living. Um, and I felt, you know, I felt really good during that period. I felt so much better when I wasn't drinking. Um, but like I said, you know, never really occurred to me to like let that stick. Um, but then maybe about five or six years ago, my body started to change. You know, I'm in my 40s, and so I hit perimenopause and I started having anxiety and hot flashes, and I developed these food sensitivities that were just really wreaking havoc on my health. And, you know, I wondered, could drinking, you know, not be helping with that? And I'm sure that's the case, you know, but but I didn't really want to address that, you know, it it seemed like such a hard thing to do with everyone around me, you know, continuing to drink. And that's just like how the society is where I live, you know, I live in the states, and and that's just what we do in the in the south, you know. Like I said, we celebrate with a drink, we decompress with a drink, you know, it's just so ingrained in our culture. So I never really considered it like, like, yeah, I'm gonna try to quit, you know, for these reasons or anything. Um, but it was like in the back of my mind. So that was kind of like another little spark there. And then five years ago, my mom passed away, and it was very sudden. Uh, we thought she was in great help, but just so fast. And it just rocked my world. Like my whole world shifted. I was I was talking with someone last night, and I was like, it's like there's a line. It was like before she passed away, and then when she passed away, and like my whole world just changed. And I really started thinking about, you know, through the grief process and going through all the things that you go through when someone super close to you passes away like that. Just, you know, what are we doing here? Like what's what's our purpose here? What am I doing? Am I missing everything by not being present? Am I missing life? Am I missing everything that's happening around me? Is this how I want to be in relationships with people? And just thinking along those lines, you know, I just knew deep in my in my heart, I was like, that's it. I I've gotta I've gotta release this thing that is standing in the way of me being present, is standing in the way of me developing, you know, deep relationships with people and standing in the way of who knows what. Like who, you know, I like I had no idea. Like, is this all there is? You know, I go to work, I you know, I work out, I do the things that I'm supposed to do, but is this is this it? And I think that drinking was just standing in the way of a lot of things. And you know, I went back and forth. I'm not gonna say it was all like easy breezy and you know, sunshine and rainbows to try to cut that out, but you know, I just I did several, you know, back and forth stents of not drinking, and then, you know, very long stents of of or long stents of not drinking and then like little bursts of drinking. And then about two and a half years ago, that was it. I had my last drink and just have been alcohol free since, and it's just completely transformed my life. Like my life looks completely different than it did previously. My health is so much better. Like that is the huge thing. Like, my like I feel better, my health is better, my food sensitivities are better, all the perimenopause symptoms, and of course I'm in menopause now, but all those symptoms are are drastically different and reduced. And just my life looks different. My relationships are better. Um, I connect with people on a different level. I think I thought that I was connecting with people when I was drinking, like I would be more relaxed and more socially, you know, less socially anxious. And so I'll be able to connect with people, but that actually wasn't true. And I don't know, I don't know if you if you can relate to that, but but um it wasn't true for me anyway. I connect with people much on a much deeper level um when I'm actually present with them and I'm able to be present, uh being alcohol-free. So uh I've done so many things since ditching the drink. I have um, you know, joined a lot of your programs, Alex, and and had a lot of fun doing that. I've connected with your community, uh group of just amazing, amazing people. Um I did a 200-hour yoga teacher training, which I never like I always wanted to do, but never thought I had the time for or the headspace for, and I've done that and I've become a yoga teacher, and I have started teaching yoga in my own community this year, and just have really loved that and thrived through that. And just I can't, I can't even like I couldn't even have imagined that this is what my life would look like by just changing this one thing, you know? And I feel like just changing my perspective around that, changing the way I thought around it, um, changing my headspace around it has just completely transformed my life. And it's just so cool.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Amazing. Wow. As you speak, I just think it's so inspiring. And when I think of these people, like people like you who I've only known you really in your sobriety, like even thinking back to a time when you were still drinking, like it just feels like you have um gone on such an upward trajectory and accomplished so many things. Like I can't even imagine you as like a not sober person, you know.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Yeah. Yeah, it's hard for me to imagine myself that way. Even though I I know it very well, you know. Um, but yeah, it's it's been a while now. And um, I mean, two and a half years, it's been it's been a good while that I've been living this way. And it just feels so natural. Yeah. It feels so good.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

So I'm wondering, so you, you know, you you speak about the the change that sparked things, which is like the change of stopping drinking and then all of the changes that kind of came from that. And and our theme this morning, we're talking about the changes in sobriety and embracing change. And I'm just wondering, like, what do you think are some of the biggest barriers that people experience when it comes to change?

SPEAKER_03 9:52

Yeah, so I think I think the thing that creates the most suffering is our resistance to change, right? So wishing things could be different, wishing things didn't have to be that way. Um, when I think about when I quit drinking, like I didn't want, like really want to do that at first. Like I was trying all the ways to to not embrace that. Like I was trying, you know, to moderate different ways and like, okay, I'll only drink on weekends and you know, different kinds of things, and like trying all these things to to get out of that, get out of having to do it. And I but I knew deep down, you know, I just knew in my in my heart, like I was like, I'm gonna have to do this, but I keep doing all these things to resist, and it just created more suffering. I mean, it just prolonged that experience of of suffering, really. I think of a good example is like swimming in a current, like swimming in a river, or I'm from Florida, so I think of like swimming at the beach and getting like caught in a riptide, and you're swimming and struggling and trying to get to the shore. And the more you struggle with that, the more you try and to fight it, you know, the the more chance you're gonna like tire yourself out, you're gonna maybe drown even. But if you can somehow relax into that and go with the flow, even if you're freaking out in your mind, if you can relax your body and just go with it, you'll eventually come to a still space in that river, or you'll get out of that rip current and you can swim to shore safely. Um, so I think that's a good like analogy of like struggling against something so hard that it's that it's just gonna wear you out and tire you out so badly. But if you just went with the flow, it might it might suck, but you know, eventually, eventually it's gonna be good, and you're gonna be able to get out of that and be on the other side of it.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Yeah, I love that analogy. I think that's perfect.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Yeah. So I think the medicine for that is acceptance, right? So embracing, being able to embrace that in some way.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a beautiful, that's a beautiful metaphor and a beautiful um kind of connection to it. I'm uh I'm down at the beach right now, experiencing the ocean waves. So I I connected with that one. Yeah. So I was wondering what the process looks like when it comes to making all these big changes in your life.

SPEAKER_03 12:33

I think you have to not think like I had a hard time thinking about like the whole big picture. Like this is a huge thing. It's a huge lifestyle change. And it can be anything. I mean, we're talking about drinking, but it could be, you know, an illness or diagnosis or dealing with grief or anything like that, you know, any kind of big change in your life. I think you just have to start with just one small step, right? You can't think about the whole thing. There's this saying of like, how do you eat an elephant? And the answer is one bite at a time, right? You can't you can't get too far ahead of yourself. So just one small step. What you know, you identify what you what you know, like deep in your heart, you want to change if it's a situation or a habit, and then identify just one little obstacle that you need to get rid of, and then just take one tiny little step towards getting rid of that, and then repeat, gain confidence. And I think you'll start to believe that you can do this thing, you know, the more and more that you just repeat this tiny little process, and then it's easier to wrap your head around. So I think of like joining one of your challenges, right? For being able to stop drinking. Um, if that's the thing that you know you want to change, maybe you think, okay, my obstacle is I don't have any support. Everyone around me drinks. I was in that situation uh where I had, you know, no friends, no family that didn't drink. I, you know, had I had stopped drinking a little bit before I joined your 30 first 30-day challenge. But then I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to make this, like with no support. So I joined a challenge and I found this beautiful community of people, like-minded people, and got that support. And I just kept taking one more step, just one small step at a time. So I think that's how you how you eat the elephant, right? One little tiny, tiny step towards the change.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

I love that. I've never heard that um the how do you eat an elephant thing, but that's great. And it's so true. It's just like little, little steps, one thing at a time, just doing the next right thing. Um, what practices can support you in in doing all of this?

SPEAKER_03 14:52

I think it's incredibly important to develop a personal practice. I'm a big fan of having a morning practice. I particularly like a morning practice. I think it sets the tone for the day, um, whether that is asana, you know, traditional yoga postures, um, a yoga class, or if it's breath work or meditation, just something in the morning to help set that tone. And if you like, I'm very I'm a very busy person, and a lot of my mornings are kind of chaos and or can be, you know, I have like a weekend routine that I do that is like 20 minutes, and then on a weekday, sometimes I'm struggling to get out the door. So I'm like, well, I I need to do something for a minute, five minutes, you know, chop my chop my routine up into little bite-spice pieces so I can just do something to set the tone for the day. And I think that's incredibly important to develop. You have a lot of great programs that people can join to do yoga and breath work. I know there's a lot of there's a lot of resources that people can can turn to to be able to develop something like that.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

And and Renee is also, as you were talking, I was thinking you're also a Vedic meditator. We did we did mantra meditation training together in January and it didn't absorb yet for me, like I needed more, a bit more hand holding. Um, and so I did ended up doing it um with Rory in September. We did like a I did an in-person training with him, and I think that was what I needed. Um, but I are you still in practice of that type of meditation?

SPEAKER_03 16:33

I am, I am a big fan of it. Um, for my personal practice, that is what I love to do. Um, I love to do that in the morning. I do um a lot of guided meditations for others um and things like that. I have not developed doing mantra meditation for others yet, but uh, it is in my plan to do um to bring that, to bring that to other people because it just is so supportive. It's it it has changed, it's changed my days, like being able to do that. And I'd love to be able to bookend the day with that, like have the morning practice and the afternoon or evening practice. Um, I personally still struggle with the afternoon or evening practice, I will admit. But but yeah, I love, I love a Vedic meditation. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

That's awesome. Amazing. Um okay, well, I was wondering if you could give us um an example of a meditation practice, not Vedic, but some kind of like guided practice that can support um.

SPEAKER_03 17:36

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Cool.

SPEAKER_03 17:38

I would love to, yes. So wherever you are, if you want to come into a comfortable seated shape, just allow the spine to be long. If you are able to close the eyes or settle the gaze, um if you're listening to this while you're driving, that might not be safe. But if you are able to just close down the eyes, just take deep breaths in and out.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Let's just rub the palms together, we'll generate a little bit of heat. And then place the palms directly on the heart's face. Whatever that is, as much detail as you can.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

The palms down the face, down the neck, down the shoulders, down the torso, down the legs, and the arms, just getting that energy of that obstacle away from you. And you want to flick the fingers or shake the hands, it might be good.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Just releasing that energy. And then just bringing the rest of it on the heart's face.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

I invite you to repeat the following affirmations in your head or out loud.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

I inhale love and exhale my fears. I embrace the beauty of growing and learning. I allow myself to focus on one small step at a time. I am excited to try something new.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Release the palms from the heart space, allowing them to settle in a comfortable position in the lap. Just take one more big breath in together. And one more exhale.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

Wow, that was beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

That was such a gift. Thank you so much, Renee. You're such a um such a gifted teacher. And something I share when I'm teaching about leading meditations is that there's a difference between like, you know, people that guide a meditation versus people where you can like really feel their meditative energy. Like you can feel that they're in practice. They're like giving, they're sharing that energy with you and they guide. And that's how I feel about you. Like I can just feel um and connect to the energy that's present in the practice that um that you've committed to. Yeah, it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

So beautiful. Okay, I have one last question for you. Um, what advice would you give to someone who wants to go alcohol-free but hasn't yet started yet?

SPEAKER_03 24:24

Uh, just stay curious. Stay curious about it. Have a have a have a student's mind about it. Just like think of like, what can I learn from this? What can I learn from this opportunity? Um, and just remember to just take one, one little bite at a time, one small step at a time, and then just follow wherever that's leading and just take the next small step and the next small step and the next small step. And just don't think about the whole thing at one time. It's my biggest piece of advice.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

I love that. Renee, this was amazing, such an incredible session. I'm so glad that I know you and I'm connected with you. I find you so inspiring. And um, thank you for sharing all your knowledge with us.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

Thank you, Alex. Thanks for having me, and thank you for building this beautiful community. It has supported me in so many ways. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Hi, friend. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Sober Yoga Girl Podcast. This community would not exist without you. So thank you for being here. It would be massively helpful if you subscribe to this show and leave a review so that we can reach more people. And if we haven't met yet in real life, please come hop on Zoom, the Mindful Life Practice, because the opposite of addiction is connection, sending you love and light wherever you are in the world.