Empower Your New Year: Join Feel Lit 21 for a Supportive Dry January / Ep. 51

Welcome back to the Feel Lit Alcohol Free Podcast! In today's episode, we're ringing in the New Year and the end of our first season with a special focus on Dry January and our exciting "Feel It 21" program.
 
Join hosts Ruby Williams and Susan Larkin as they delve into a journey of self-compassion and growth, offering daily activities that support you in exploring an alcohol-free lifestyle for 21 days this January. Whether you're looking to cut down or completely eliminate alcohol, this program offers an affordable and flexible way to kickstart your new year with resources like journaling, live coaching, and a supportive community.
 
Tune in to discover Ruby and Susan's personal stories, get inspired by client successes, and embrace the idea of progress over perfection. We'll share practical tips,  and answer a listener's question about overcoming the fear of failure. So grab your dance shoes and join us on this journey to feeling energized and healthier in 2025! Happy New Year!!

Do Dry January the Feel Lit Way, full of curiosity, compassion and fun! Join us here for only $47 which includes daily support and inspiration, a caring community and two live coaching calls each week! Join here. 

Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and ask us any questions you have about breaking free from wine or living an alcohol-free lifestyle. Your question could be the highlight of a future episode!

Join our Feel Lit AF Facebook Community for amazing support and connection!

Watch Episode on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@FeelLitAlcoholFreePodcast/videos

Websites:
Susan Larkin Coaching https://www.susanlarkincoaching.com/
Ruby Williams at Freedom Renegade Coaching https://www.freedomrenegadecoaching.com/

Follow Susan: @drinklesswithsusan
Follow Ruby: @rubywilliamscoaching

It is strongly recommended that you seek professional advice regarding your health before attempting to take a break from alcohol. The creators, hosts, and producers of the The Feel Lit Alcohol Free podcast are not healthcare practitioners and therefore do not give medical, or psychological advice nor do they intend for the podcast, any resource or communication on behalf of the podcast or otherwise to be a substitute for such.

Transcript

Sick and tired of your love-hate relationship with wine?
Welcome to the feel it alcohol free podcast. Hi. I'm coach Ruby Williams. And I'm coach Susan Larkin. We are 2 former wine lovers turned alcohol freedom coaches exposing the lies about alcohol and giving you, our listeners, the tools to break free so you can feel lit. And when you're lit, you'll feel healthier, freer, and more in control of your life. So relax, kick back, and get ready to feel lit alcohol free. And don't forget, grab a copy of our wine free weekend guide after the show.

Join us for dry January with the Feel Lit 21 program. Press your reset button and discover how to feel healthier and freer. What's in it for you? Every day, we bring you actionable advice, heartfelt support, a caring community, and the inspiration you need. The truth is it's about progress, not perfection. What if your goal is 21 out of 31 days dry in January? There's no failure, only exploring and learning, and this is what you want. Right? Your alcohol free adventure starts here. Click the link in the show notes to join us.

Susan [00:01:08]:
Hello. Hello. Welcome back. It's our New Year's Eve episode. Whoo. Happy New Year's Eve. Happy New Year.

Susan [00:01:20]:
Oh my gosh. And it's our final episode of season 1 of our podcast. Oh my gosh. This has been such a wonderful year doing this podcast every week with you, Ruby, and it's been such a spark of joy in my life. Yeah. And to just connect with people and to just promote the idea that living an alcohol free life can be and is lit and to encourage others. I don't know. It's just been it's been probably my favorite thing of 2024, and that's so cool.

Ruby [00:01:55]:
And I love, like, the you know, on, New Year's Eve, like, the end of the year, just, like, thinking back. What was Yeah. Your 2024 like And just reflecting on what you wanna do for 2025. Yeah.

Susan [00:02:11]:
Where are you right now? Yeah. Taking a moment on New Year's Eve to just get quiet, get with yourself, and kind of just get with your heart space, and just find out really what's there. Like, yeah, the gratitude for the things that you're grateful for for the year, and then what what's next? What's next for you for 2025? I can't believe 2025. That's insane. Oh my gosh.

Ruby [00:02:38]:
It sounds like a sci fi movie number. Right?

Susan [00:02:41]:
Like, do

Ruby [00:02:41]:
you remember when we in, like, 1984 was sci fi, and then we're Yeah. It's just crazy. 2025. Shouldn't we be flying cars and Yeah.

Susan [00:02:51]:
Like the Jetsons. Yeah. I guess we do have, like, automatic little Roombas that go around and vacuum your house and That's true. Ring lights and, well, and Teslas and self driving cars even though they're not totally, popular yet. Yeah. We're getting there. We're getting there. Yeah.

Susan [00:03:08]:
It's pretty crazy, though. So as usual, we have a listener's question that we are going to answer, and this week's question is about dry January, which is a super popular thing. If you haven't heard of it, most people have, where people take a break in the month of January from drinking as kind of a fun experiment. And people all over the world do it, so it can be kind of exciting to join that movement. But this question is very interesting, and so I'll we so I'll just read it, and then we'll go about answering it, Ruby and I. So the question from their listener is, I love the concept of dry January, but I'm afraid I can't do a full 30, 31 in January days, alcohol free. I usually get to day 4 or the weekend and end up drinking again. What if I fail again?

Ruby [00:04:05]:
I really relate to that. Yeah. Yeah. And I just wanna start with, I really relate to this listener's question, and I, yeah, I couldn't get past a day, actually. That's where I was. But I wanna just start with, like, this because I think dry January, it's such a great concept. First of all, we make these, like, New Year's resolutions. I think that's kinda where it came from.

Ruby [00:04:30]:
It's the time where people go, okay. I wanna make a change in my life. And and maybe you've also come up with the fact that it's alcohol that's holding you back. I really, really thought that. So I just looked up. It actually started this is a global movement that started in in 2013.

Susan [00:04:49]:
Really?

Ruby [00:04:50]:
Sorry. Yeah. And it encourages folks to ditch alcohol for the month of January, to reset your bodies and minds after the holiday indulgence. Right? If you've I used to drink a lot during the holidays. If you listened to our last few episodes where we talked about Thanksgiving and Christmas and yeah. But people report better health and mental clarity and weight loss and sleep, and you look better, increased energy, so there's so many positive benefits. So yeah. So what I wanna talk about is my story because my story actually involved taking a break like this.

Ruby [00:05:27]:
It was January 1, 2019, and I got a call from or a text from my cousin, and she's like, I'm going to do this you know, take a break from alcohol program, and I hadn't really thought this was a movement. That was the first time I had heard about any of this. I thought I was so alone, you know, trying to figure this out all on my own and making rules and breaking them and not able to really get a day 1 like I just said. You know, it's just always I'll do it tomorrow. I just want I just wanna have this one glass of wine tonight to relieve stress. I'll start again tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Ruby [00:06:05]:
You know, you can say tomorrow for 10 years, and then you've never made a change in your life. So what was really cool and why I wanna bring this up, and Susan's gonna talk about it too, but I I didn't do a full 30 days. So I really relate to this question because I drank the 1st week, but I was aware. Like, I started to be just aware of, like, my drinking and asking questions and why am I drinking? And then I was able, in the middle of January, to get about 14 days in a row. And to me, that was like this, you're not seeing, but big, huge, mind blowing. Like, I felt so much better after 2 weeks. Like, it was crazy how much better I felt. Even after 2 weeks, you don't even need necessarily a full 30 days to start to feel better.

Ruby [00:06:56]:
And I ended up drinking again, and then I had a few more days alcohol free, and I drank again. Like, so the rest of the month kinda went back and forth, and that's okay. But I was just I think it was just knowing that this was what I wanted. Like, I wanted to now figure this out. Like, I I didn't feel cured or anything after the, you know, dry January, but I it was, like, the first step to self compassion and the first step to knowing what I really wanted to feel like. Yeah. What about your story, Susan? What I love that about that is because the

Susan [00:07:33]:
the impetus to keep going is because of how good you felt, and that's what we talk about here on the Feel It podcast is that how do we feel good in our alcohol free life? Like, feeling good is the goal. Right? We and not be deprived. And well, my story starts, I've done I I'm a gray I was a gray area drinker. I had done dry January's for 30 days and been fine for the whole 31 days. I then, you know, drank February 1st or whatever.

Ruby [00:08:03]:
Mhmm. I hear that a lot.

Susan [00:08:05]:
Yeah. But it was really interesting because I don't know. I can't I'm thinking maybe the first time I did it was 2017, and, like, the whole family was in on it. And then 2018, I did it again. And it was interesting because the second time was harder, which is interesting, you know, without, like, doing anything else during the year. You know what I mean? And, like, just, you know, coming to January and, like, everybody's doing it again. And I don't know why it was harder. Maybe because I've already progressed that year further down the trajectory as we talk about, further down the train tracks, further down, you know, an alcohol use disorder shifted over to where it was even more ingrained.

Susan [00:08:44]:
So then the when I really decided to take make a change with my drinking, I did a 21 day program. And, gosh, I remember at the beginning of that being just like, oh my gosh. I don't know. This is gonna be hard. I don't know if I could do 21 days. Like, I get it. 21 days, any amount of days can seem like a lot. It can seem daunting.

Susan [00:09:03]:
I think the thing that helped me with that was community, having other people, having communication with others who are going through the same thing. We talked a lot about mocktails. It was fun. Like, there was a fun aspect to it that helped. And I actually went 40 days. I didn't stop at the 21. I just kept going. And then that was the beginning of my year long exploration where I was continuing to learn a little bit about alcohol, continuing to do 30 days, continuing continuing to try to moderate and go back to drinking, until the next year, June 2020, when I took the leap to completely stop.

Susan [00:09:42]:
But I'd had a lot of experience in 2019 of taking breaks, of drinking, seeing how I felt when I didn't drink so much better, seeing how then when COVID hit and I started drinking again more regularly, like, for about 2 months, I saw how bad I felt. And it was really about the feeling, like, that I just saw the contrast. No. I don't wanna live my life feeling like this. I wanna feel like this. That helped me take the leap. So I love that our both our stories are about, like, we wanted to feel good. Yeah.

Susan [00:10:14]:
And at some point, you know, I woke up. Like, I I think I've I've shared before. I woke up, and I was like, oh, well, who cares? I feel like crap. You know? It was sorta like, I could just so it'll I can keep going down this road. I could keep going down the road of being a gray area drinking drinker, drinking, not drinking, going on that merry-go-round on and off, on and off for years. But I felt so bad, and I just thought but I thought, well, who cares? And then I went, wait a minute. I care. I care.

Susan [00:10:45]:
Yeah.

Ruby [00:10:45]:
I love that when you go, I care about myself. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have an exercise that can help people kind of figure out, you know, how to find the right time. Like, is the time now, like, this fork in the road?

Susan [00:11:00]:
Yeah? Well, I think right now is is a pivotal time, and, you know, last week in the episode, we talked about taking the leap. Yes. You have an opportunity to jump off that train that's only going one direction to a bridge that's out or a brick wall. You know, it only goes one direction. So in another year, if you keep drinking, maybe it will be harder to do a dry January like it was for me. You know, every year, is it gonna be harder? So I'd love to do this exercise. It's sort of a visualization exercise just to take a quick moment, and you can do this with us, of course, if you're driving. Do not close your eyes.

Susan [00:11:35]:
In fact, maybe and we'll put the time stamp for this exercise in the show notes. Maybe, you know, if you're walking, etcetera, listen to the exercise, but maybe take a moment to go back and do this exercise, you know, just sitting in the bathroom. Mhmm. So I'm just gonna walk you through this just brief exercise and maybe do a little journaling afterwards of what comes up for you. So, yeah, I just wanna so take a quick moment just to get comfortable. And if you feel comfortable closing your eyes, of course, once again, if you're driving, obviously, don't do that. And I wanna start with 2 x breath. 2 x breath is where you breathe into the count of 4 and you breathe out to the count of 8 or 36, whichever is more comfortable for you.

Susan [00:12:22]:
So I'm gonna do 4. So just breathe into the count of 4 and breathe out. You can breathe out by pursing your lips and just sort of blowing to the count of 8. You can just open your mouth and let the breath fall out. Let's just do it one more time. Breathe in. 1, 2, 3, 4, and breathe out. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5678.

Susan [00:12:50]:
And then just breathe normally. Continue to breathe as we're doing the exercise. And I just want you to get in touch with your senses. Just feel your butt in your seat. If you're sitting, feel your legs. If you're standing, feel your feet. And if you're sitting or standing, feel your feet connecting with the ground and just ground yourself in this space and time right now. And even if your eyes are closed, look check-in with your sense of sight.

Susan [00:13:21]:
And what do you see? You may see little squiggle lines, you may just see black. You know, sometimes with my eyes closed, I see a little red. Yeah. And just check-in with your sight, check-in with your hearing. This is an exercise called come to your senses. What is the furthest away sound you can hear? And then what is the closest sound you can hear? Maybe my voice, maybe your own breath. Remember to keep breathing. Sometimes we hold our breath.

Susan [00:13:52]:
Maybe check-in with your sense of smells or sense of smell in your space, taste in your mouth, the toothpaste, or maybe what you just ate. And then when you feel comfortable, you can what I want you to do is just think of yourself standing at the fork of the road. I always think of that poem, the road not taken by Robert Frost or the book, the road less traveled by, I think it's, Steven Peck. And just think about yourself standing here, and there's 2 roads, one to the left, one to the right. And first, I want you to concentrate on the road to the left, which is the familiar road, the road that you're already on, or you can continue on that road. So in a year from now, where will you be at this time, 1 year later? How you feel in your body? What do you think your health will look like? What do you think your relationships will look like? Next year, we'll be stepping into 2026. How do you think you're gonna feel if you continue drinking? How you feel in your body? How you feel in your mind about yourself? How do you how do you feel about yourself right now even thinking about just just like I felt? Like, who cares? Just keep on doing what I'm doing. I don't know what else to do.

Susan [00:15:16]:
Then I want you to take a deep breath, deep cleansing breath. Let it out. And then I want you to turn your attention to the road less traveled, the road where we don't know where it's going. It's it's an adventure. Right? Yeah. Yeah. If you choose to leap and take a different road, what does that look like? What does that feel like? You may feel nervous or excited, but what do you think if you make just one tiny step, one tiny baby step in that direction of change, what do you think your life will look or feel like in 1 month? Maybe you won't be perfect. Like Ruby, I like to say, you know, we like to talk about this on the podcast all the time.

Susan [00:16:06]:
It's we say progress, not perfection. I like to also say persistence, not perfection. Mhmm. Right? How you feel joining others who are making a positive, healthy choice to change their drinking. How might you feel in 3 months, in 6 months? How will you feel this time next year? How might it impact your relationships, especially with yourself? How do you wanna feel in 2025? Can you just take a moment to be with your heart space? Like, what would your feeling based goal be? Like, both Ruby and I talked about in our stories, we both I wanted to feel alive. Ruby knew that she felt better when she wasn't drinking, and that kept her going and trying and persisting and saying, I want this change. I wanna feel better. Yeah.

Susan [00:17:02]:
Yeah. We weren't perfect. Neither of us were perfect. Yeah. It's not about perfection.

Ruby [00:17:08]:
It's not about perfection. Yeah. And I have a really fun drawing that I did. If you can watch the YouTube channel, you'll see the drawing, but I'll describe it. You know, you've been going along a path. You've been going along a path. This is the so picture from the bottom of the page drawing a squiggle line up with a circle and a star with 2 roads, the fork and the road going to the left and the right. So it kinda looks like again, like, what does this look like to you? I don't know.

Susan [00:17:38]:
It looks like a map with a little star saying, you are here.

Ruby [00:17:41]:
Yeah. You are here. 2 roads going on. Are here, which means you can make a decision. Yeah. It doesn't even matter how you got here. You know, we all have our own stories, and and that's okay. The point is, and especially as coaches, Susan and I are coaches, it's not your We don't focus on our past so much.

Ruby [00:18:02]:
It's you are here now. You are on the map where the star is now, but what are you gonna do? And this is a time to make a decision, and I love January 1st for a decision. But what trips people up oftentimes is they have this, like, New Year's resolution concept, and then they fail on day 4 or 3, like our our a question from our listener. And it's not about failure. I can't say that enough that it is about experimenting, trying things out, getting curious and aware with self compassion. Yeah. So, okay, you have maybe the cycle of you drink every 3 or 4 days. Okay.

Ruby [00:18:46]:
But now you're gonna do it differently where you have more compassion for yourself and just starting to ask questions. Why did I do that? What's going on? So you can make 20, 25 your year with all of those feeling based goals that Susan like, write them down, whether it's you wanna feel, well, I actually I'm gonna share with you my client, Beth, what she found happened. Okay? This is real from okay. I made up her name. It's a different client.

Susan [00:19:14]:
I was like, but this is no.

Ruby [00:19:17]:
This is real, information though. At 1 month so what I do with clients oftentimes, I'll be like, hey. Like, what are you feeling now at 1 month alcohol free? Yeah. And then when I work with them, like, okay. Now what do you feel at 2 months? So at 1 month, she said improved sleep, my clarity of her mind. She started just feeling overall better, less bloating, and she had much brighter eyes. That's I I hated the oh, and I love when people take a before and after picture. The it's always in the eyes.

Ruby [00:19:48]:
Right, Susan? Like, the eyes are all of a sudden, like, just bright and white and I love it. Then I asked her, well, okay. At 2 months, we're at 60 days alcohol free. I said, okay. Let's do the list again. She said, way less anxiety, fewer headaches, because she was prone to headaches, which we now realize were caused by alcohol, and increased energy. And then at 3 months, she said, oh my gosh. I'm losing weight.

Ruby [00:20:15]:
Just automatically, I started losing weight. She's exercising in the mornings, which is something she's always wanted to do, but when you're drinking every day, you don't end up exercising in the morning, or many people. Right? She's living the life with consistent sleep. The migraines are gone. That was crazy. And she's just looking younger. And most importantly, she's connecting with her kids and husband. Like, that was huge for her.

Ruby [00:20:42]:
Yeah. So if you're having trouble figuring out what your emotion based goal is or or even visualizing in in Susan's exercise, like, that future version of you, I have a special gift to give you. Here we go. So you know you wanna feel your best, and you also know that going all in on yourself will get you there. So just picture this. Your alarm goes off and you don't have to hit snooze, and you jump out of bed and you walk over to the bathroom mirror, and you look at yourself in the mirror, and you give yourself a high five because you're so proud of yourself. There's so much possibility today. Instead of waking and feeling anxious or with headaches, you now wake up energized, ready to go outside.

Ruby [00:21:28]:
You wanna, like, feel the sun on your face or or hear the birds sing, and you just smile because you get to create your mornings. And you did it. You're living alive. You're living alcohol free. You're feeling lit. You're feeling healthy. And it's because you went all in on yourself. So having alcohol just small and irrelevant in your life is what you want.

Ruby [00:21:50]:
Right? Yeah. So what we created is our Feel Lit 21 program. So we took the concepts of, like, my 30 day program, but, like, I got 2 weeks, 3 weeks alcohol free within there and, like, Susan's 21 day program. Like, we want it to be about not perfection, not like I, you know, used willpower and white knuckled and got 30 days. Yeah. People could do that, but this is about compassion first. And and it's okay. Like, the listener who had the cycles again, like, it's okay to join our program and be afraid of that and still join the program and still go all in with curiosity.

Ruby [00:22:32]:
So, yeah, Susan. And, also, our program's gonna be fun. Like, my first word for everything is fun, f u n. Fun. We even have, like, a feel it bingo card. But tell us more, Susan. What's the what's the feel it way?

Susan [00:22:46]:
Yeah. What's the feel it way? Well, as you said, we focus on self compassion, grace, and feeling lit. Like our guest, Martha, she mentioned when we had her on the pod, we wanna give our brain a better offer. We don't wanna leave a void. Our brain doesn't like a void, so we wanna fill it with practices that feel good in our bodies, full of play, noticing nature, all the things we talk about on our pod that help us to feel lit. So that is gonna be the focus, really, of the program.

Ruby [00:23:21]:
And now I'm just gonna explain exactly what's in the program. So, again, it's called feel it 21, and it's 21 days of daily emails with audio coaching in the emails. And we're gonna go deep dives into daily insights, motivational audio coaching, and it'll keep you inspired and on track. And twice weekly, we're gonna have coaching calls on Zoom starting January 10th. So everything does start January 1st for dry January, but for the 1st 9 days, it's it's in our Facebook community. And this is where you start to build community with like minded people. It's a safe place, judgment free, fun. Okay? You get to connect.

Ruby [00:24:03]:
So the opposite of addiction is connection.

Susan [00:24:06]:
It's

Ruby [00:24:06]:
a supportive community. Susan and I are gonna be in there with everyone else, and we we can answer your questions. You're gonna get expert advice from us. So a lot's happening in Facebook, but we're also doing this on Zoom, and we will have the schedule for you. And if you can't make it live, it's recorded. And so it's gonna have step by step guidance, self care recommendations, tips and strategies and resources, and it's only $47. Yeah.

Susan [00:24:34]:
For all of this.

Ruby [00:24:35]:
Yeah.

Susan [00:24:35]:
Yeah. Live coaching calls twice a week for 3 weeks. Pretty amazing. And we're super excited because we wanna be in person to meet you, to be with you, to, yeah, to offer some coaching and to make it really accessible. And what I also wanted to say is if you wanna start January 1st and be alcohol free, go for it. Like, you may be like, dude, I'm ready to jump off. I'm ready now, and I wanna be alcohol free. I wanna go all in, and that's great too.

Susan [00:25:04]:
That's why we start on the first, and then but on 21st, we all wanna leap together. On 10th. Yeah. I mean, sorry. On 10th for 21 days. We wanna leap together. The 10th is a Friday, y'all. Yes.

Susan [00:25:18]:
Whoo. And that's the first call. So I'll be doing that first call on Friday. So we're gonna have a kickoff call or, you know, that'll be the 1st coaching call that Friday. I know it can seem really daunting. Like, oh my gosh. Friday's gonna be the 1st day I don't drink. Yeah.

Susan [00:25:31]:
You're gonna get through that 1st weekend and feel like a complete badass. And and when you go off into the next week, you'd be like, I already got a weekend under my belt. It's gonna

Ruby [00:25:40]:
be amazing. We and you can be alcohol free for any amount of time and still join us because it's gonna be fun. Like like I said, like a feel it bingo card. We also have a a coloring journal for the month of January. And just every day, we have been working on our schedule, and it's so fun. We have something every day, like an exercise or a podcast episode, and it's gonna be a lot of fun. And I just hope you'll join.

Susan [00:26:07]:
Reactions. Yeah. I mean, what I'd love is even if you are alcohol free, we can always go deeper. We can always connect and have more resources. What I would also love is for people to invite a friend. Like, so many times, we say you know, we tell people about our experience being alcohol free, and people go, oh, yeah. I should do that, or I'd love to do that. This is a super accessible way to invite a friend and do the program with them even if you're already alcohol free and to bring a friend in and have them just sort of experience your lit life with you.

Ruby [00:26:40]:
Susan, I just let's do the okay. I'm gonna just do this. Let's if you invite a friend, you get to come on our Feel It 21 program for half off. How about that? Yeah. You'll get a half off. So invite your whole family. Like you said, get your whole family in on it. Remember, Susan, you said that? Yeah.

Susan [00:26:59]:
I was gonna invite my family. I'm not sure if they'll join, but we'll save.

Ruby [00:27:03]:
2. Let's get everyone in there. Maybe your grandkids or your kids, like, anybody. You know, this is a way to learn too. Just learn about alcohol. And even if you so I wanna talk about, like, it's not progress. I mean, it's not perfection, but progress. Like, if you get 0 days alcohol free and you're still learning and getting more in tune with yourself and awareness, that's a success.

Ruby [00:27:27]:
If you get 2 days, if you get I love the concept of, like, 5 out of 7 days alcohol free. Hey. You know, maybe you you give yourself a break in a couple couple times a week, and that's okay because you can learn from that. Right. You see the contrast

Susan [00:27:43]:
Yeah. Which is what I had talked about when I made my decision. You know, I saw the big contrast of many, many alcohol free months, and then when I started drinking again, I saw, oh, god. I feel terrible. And sometimes that contrast, you're just retraining your brain. You're teaching your brain about alcohol. You're teaching your brain new things. Like, oh, this is how it feels not to drink, you know, and challenging our thoughts and beliefs that we have around alcohol, which will have journal questions, just so much fun.

Ruby [00:28:12]:
Yeah. We're gonna have fun. And we're gonna be challenges. And we're gonna be in the Facebook group going live. Pop we're calling them pop ups. So that won't have the schedule, but it'll be more pop ups. Or maybe we'll create a schedule. We'll see.

Ruby [00:28:23]:
But, we'll answer your questions. We'll be in there. It's gonna be fun. Yeah. It's gonna be so fun. Join.

Susan [00:28:30]:
Join us. Excited about the live part, the live coaching or coaching or just gathering. You know? Mhmm. I just love to be with people live. That's my favorite thing is doing live Zoom calls. So, yeah, this is a super accessible, super fun, pretty reasonable, like, you know, the cost of a couple bottles of wine.

Ruby [00:28:48]:
Really reasonable, Susan. Hello. It's

Susan [00:28:51]:
beyond reasonable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Super excited. Yeah. We hope that you join us. Get the whole family in.

Susan [00:28:59]:
Maybe maybe you have a book club,

Ruby [00:29:00]:
and it's all about the wine. Well, maybe you just say, hey, book club friends. I'm gonna try this dry January. Do you wanna do it with me? Yeah. We'd love yeah. We'd love to

Susan [00:29:09]:
see you. You could do I love the book club idea, Ruby. And sometimes 21 days is just less daunting, so people, you know, can join between January 1st January 10th when we start. So we have this on ramp period where it's an on ramp. And when I did the 21 day program, I wished I'd had that. I wished I'd had a time to just sort of observe my drinking, to see why I drink. We're gonna have lots of different prompts just in the Facebook group to be like you know, to just sort of think about your drinking while you're still drinking and then and observe, you know, drinking while you're still drinking and then and observe and then take the leap. Yeah.

Susan [00:29:44]:
And 21 days can seem a lot more accessible for people where they're like, okay. Like, I didn't do dry January for so many years because my anniversary is January 6th. And so it was always like, well, I don't wanna do dry January because I wanted to have, you know, champagne or whatever on my anniversary. Yeah. You know? And so now it's not that bad.

Ruby [00:30:03]:
Because it was all or nothing. Yes. So if you know you're gonna drink on January 6th or any of you, if you know your anniversary's on January 25th and you still haven't figured out, you know, how to wrap your brain around not drinking, say, on a really special day, that's okay in our program. Yeah. That is okay. We we also it's okay if you already are alcohol free or know you want to stop on January 1st. That's okay. Like, you can absolutely have we'd love it.

Ruby [00:30:32]:
31 days alcohol free. That's great too. Or take this on ramp like Susan said. Take this this time to just it's 9 days of being aware, curious, and and building that self compassion muscle. So I'm so excited about our program. Can you tell? Like, it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun. Yeah.

Susan [00:30:52]:
Yeah. It's gonna be fun. So you can find the link in the show notes. If you're on either of our email lists, you'll be getting emails with links. We're gonna be putting things in Facebook on regular Facebook, in our Facebook group. If you're in our group already, if you wanna join our group, there's gonna be plenty of opportunities to find the information. I would love it if you would send the link to a friend and go, hey. Do this 21 day dry January with me.

Susan [00:31:15]:
It's really fun. These 2 gals, crazy gals, Susan and Ruby. And Yeah. So Okay. Do you agree? Yeah. Yeah. Alright. So the So this is the time of the program when we ask each other or our guests.

Susan [00:31:29]:
Today, I'm gonna be asking Ruby, what do you do or what have you been doing lately to feel lit?

Ruby [00:31:37]:
I am so excited to share this one because I do this all the time. It's called a dance party in the kitchen or a dance party in the living room. It really, really makes me feel so good to just turn on, okay, here's my songs. I love ABBA. Makes me happy. I bought the album on, iTunes and I'll pick one of those songs. They're short songs, 2, 3 minutes. You dance around the living room, dance around the kitchen, and maybe I raise my hands in the air and get a little excited.

Ruby [00:32:15]:
It just really boosts my mood quickly, especially if I start to feel like I'm, you know, maybe overwhelmed or especially around the holidays. And then, you know, like, if I'm feeling like like my we call it going below 50%. Like, if I'm feeling maybe sad or overwhelmed or some other feeling and I wanna just boost my mood quickly, dance party. If you're watching the video on YouTube, I am doing my dance party moves.

Susan [00:32:42]:
Like a dork. But yeah. I love it. I remember dancing in the living in the kitchen, and my husband walked into the kitchen and was like, what are you doing? And I'm like you know? Yeah. It's great. I call it the 1 minute dance party when I talk to clients. I'm like, just they say, you know, move a muscle, change a thought. Like Yeah.

Susan [00:33:00]:
Just you can shake. You can shake but shake your booty. You know? Just jump around. Do some jumping jacks. But, yeah, music and moving your body are such a great way to change your mood. I have a happy playlist that I just can put on, and and it's a lot of R and B stuff and songs that just make you feel happy. You know?

Ruby [00:33:19]:
Belt it out. Sing it. Move your body anyway. No one's looking. Dance like no one's looking because no one is.

Susan [00:33:27]:
Or meet your husband. Caught by your husband. Yeah. Okay. That was the Hello.

Ruby [00:33:31]:
Yeah. Or dance with my dog too. He he knows when I'm doing this because all of a sudden

Susan [00:33:36]:
Oh my gosh.

Ruby [00:33:36]:
His eyes light up, my dog, and he runs over to me, and then he jumps up on me. And I hold his paws, and I, like, dance with him.

Susan [00:33:44]:
Oh my gosh. That's so cute. It's really cute. I know young children love it too. Like, if mom's dancing in the kitchen, that's just silly and fun,

Ruby [00:33:51]:
and we

Susan [00:33:52]:
love to get silly. So just be

Ruby [00:33:53]:
silly and fun. So we will be doing dance parties in January for sure. Yeah. That's gonna be on the list. Alright. Good. What a fun episode. So join the Feel It 21 program.

Ruby [00:34:07]:
I really wanna see that. We wanna see you there.

Susan [00:34:09]:
It's gonna be so fun. Don't miss out. Yay.

Ruby [00:34:12]:
Bye bye. Happy New Year.

Susan [00:34:14]:
Happy New Year. Oh my gosh. Yes. Bye.

Ruby [00:34:20]:
Join us for dry January with feel lit 21. Press your reset button and discover how to feel healthier and freer. What's in it for you? Every day, we bring you actionable advice, heartfelt support, a caring community, and the inspiration you need. The truth is it's about progress, not perfection. What if your goal is 21 out of 31 days dry in January? There's no failure, only exploring and learning, and this is what you want. Right? Your alcohol free adventure starts here. Click the link in the show notes to join us.

Thanks so much for listening to the Feel Lit Alcohol Free Podcast. Do you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show? All you need to do is head over to Apple Podcasts and do 2 simple things. Leave a rating and review telling us what you think of the show. And in that review, ask us any questions you have about breaking free from wine or living an alcohol free lifestyle. That's it. Then tune in to hear your question answered live. Don't forget to grab your copy of a wine free weekend at www.feellitpodcast.com
And remember, do something today that will help you feel lit. See you next time!