Today's episode is a live recording of Cathy & Alex's live from this week in the Sober Girls Yoga Facebook group! In this episode Alex and Cathy chat about what they learned in their Sober Summers. If you'd like to join Cathy & Alex for their regular lives, join the Sober Girls Yoga Facebook Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sober... . Alex & Cathy go live every Monday at 6am Bali time / 6pm Eastern Standard Time.
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Follow me on Instagram @alexmcrobs and check out my offerings in yoga, meditation and coaching at http://themindfullifepractice.com/.
Transcript
Alex: Hi friend this is Alex McRobbs founder of the Mindful Life Practice 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 never went back. I got sober in 2019 and I now live full-time in Bali, Indonesia. I've made it my mission to help other women around the world stop drinking, start yoga and change their lives through my online sober girls yoga Community. You're not alone and a sober life can be fun and fulfilling, let me show you how.
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Alex: Okay, good morning everyone! We're now officially live. Um, I'm so sorry for our delay. I was having issues um trying to live stream and then I got locked out of my Facebook account and then I couldn't get in on Safari. I had to reset the password. Cathy's sitting here waiting. Um anyway, so have a new Facebook password. We're in, it's 6 a.m in Bali. Um so, Cathy, how are you doing today?
Cathy: I'm good it's 6:15 here in Cleveland, Ohio. Which is Toronto time as I say to people in MLPC. They're like, what time is that? I'm like Toronto time. So, yes. So I have had, I worked today and was back in school. Well I've been back a couple of days so, yeah.
Alex: Are there are the students back yet or is it just um teachers.
Cathy: They come back next week um, in like in shifts. And so I need to know what day is the official day so I know what day to get my nails done for and my hair and they're the first day outfit because I can't have four like different days. This is my issue right now.
Alex: I totally get that. I completely get that. Oh, first day outfits. That's so fun.
Cathy: Right, right? I mean that's my joy but I can't have four first day outfits. My co-workers were like, oh my Gosh you are hilarious today. I need to know when to get hair therapy and when to get my nails done.
Alex: I love it. So, we have about 10 people watching, this is amazing. So everyone that's watching, let us know in the comments where you're joining from? If you have questions for us. Um anything that you want to share and um Carolyn and Mimi say hi. Mimi's watching while she eats dinner, amazing. Carolyn, I think it must be really late for you. I think it's like, late night in the UK. But anyway, all right so we're gonna start off our live this morning with some sober news. And Cathy has some sober news for you. So, I'm going to um pass it over for her.
Cathy: All right, so um today at 11 Toronto time um, Eastern Standard Time, The Sober in the City which I think is like, I don't know what number Sober in the City it is maybe the third. Went live for the tickets in Austin, Texas and they were sold out, almost sold out um within two hours.
Alex: Woow.
Cathy: Yay, oh my Gosh to the sober community. I am so excited. So, we are I you know. Um, “at the table” as I would call it. We are one of the events to do um that's over in the City in Austin. So, I'm very excited for us and um there are still some general tickets. So the VIP tickets were like a like a mocktail happy hour with Chris Marshall who has really um Chris has taken the elk. He basically or he opened up a sober bar in Austin. He was a former bartender and he has made like um like international news and what he's doing and like companies really vet like alcohol free companies bet. Um, a lot of things through Chris. He's doing pop-ups, he was just in New York City this past weekend so he is going to be the VIP and be the bartender for that event. Um so I'm really really excited about that and the opportunity to network and the whole um Susie who um is your biggest fan. Um I hate to let everybody know um but she just said from zero proof she um she I think she's the one that created this event. And her whole goal is to teach us how to go and teach cities how to host sober events, going into restaurants, hotels, all of that coffee shops, and then um so teaching cities what to do to have people and then teaching us that we can go and we can have fun and we can be safe traveling and have getaways and things like that. So, I'm really excited for us and um I will put it in the um chat the Facebook chat right now, um the actual ticket information if anybody's still interested.
Alex: Yeah.
Cathy: They even got people coming from Canada down to Austin, Texas. It's really exciting. So.
Alex: That's incredible. We're actually going to tell everyone, what you're going to be doing at Sober in the City.
Cathy: Okay, so, um, it's uh Friday, Saturday and then you can stay Sunday for some events as well. Um, Friday I'm going to be a panelist representing um the Sober Yoga Girl community. It's super Girls Yoga community. And um, Peggy Cooney who has a community called This Side of Alcohol, I think there's 17,000 people on her um on her Facebook page and she wrote a book. Um, she's gonna be the moderator and just asking different people about their, their journey but their health journey and things like that. Then we are gonna host um some yoga events. So you can come and have yoga events live and also we are going to be like on the menu for things to do on Saturday morning. So, if you have a group of friends with you and you're like okay well I want to have coffee in the park but want to do yoga, you can like register with me and I like lead your group in yoga too.
Alex: That's amazing.
Cathy: So, different cool stuff they're gonna like, they're doing some like they're gonna have a um what is it called like a disco dance. Like um like a disco dance thing on Friday night and there's gonna be like all sorts of like cool like sober events. I'm pretty excited, I think they are like, like an alcohol and they're gonna do an alcohol-free event at a cowboy bar and country music. I'm going to that. Um so, just all sorts of and then Austin has one of the, I guess biggest bookstores in the US. That a lot of like authors hit there first and bring their and so we're going to be going there. Um, and there's going to be quitlets um books out and Peggy will be moderating things from there too.
Alex: That’s incredible.
Cathy: So, it's. I know, really like I know I'm really really excited.
Alex: Uh, I you know. I have to say I'm so jealous over here in Bali. Like I love where I live, but I just feel like the sober social scene in, there's two places it's happening in London and in North America. It is like blowing up. There's all the events people are getting together. It seems like it's so fun I'm very jealous. So anyone who's over in North America if you want to go meet Cathy hang out with Cathy for a weekend, check out Sobe in the City Austin.
Cathy: People and I'm getting, I'm trying to talk and find because I don't know how to put it on our thing. So, I'm trying to find the, um I'm getting the event information out.
Alex: Awesome, and then also after the um live you could probably go on and put it as a comment in the Facebook page too.
Cathy: Oh yeah, very true. So to me that's one of the most exciting things. I think like I just think.
Alex: That's huge.
Cathy: They're gonna be like, there's gonna be another one in January in Long Beach, California. I don't know, you know.
Alex: I want you to come.
Cathy: to one of these. and I want to Alex, so they always have a dinner like a formal dinner Saturday night. We'll do the mocktail thing, the happy hour then there's a formal dinner and there's a guest speaker. This time it's um Jen from Sober Sis. I want Alex to be up next so you know I'm working on that.
Alex: Manifesting it. You know what, I actually think I'm gonna be in North America around that time anyway. Um, I don't normally do Christmas in Canada but I think I've uh, succumbed to it. My grandma um, it's like come home for Christmas and I might be making it happen. So maybe that might be a realistic thing.
Cathy: So exciting.
Alex: Other, other sober news that we have. We were just trying before, we're like what's the sober news and the big one is the launch of our next group of programs. So, we are about halfway through our current group of 30 Day Challengers, 60 Day Challengers, 180 Day Challengers and our Seva Program which is our um volunteering program as part of Sober Girls Yoga. And the community has just been amazing. The engagement has been huge. People are loving it and we are getting ready. People are already asking about starting the next cohort. So, our next cohort group is going to be starting at the start of September and just to remind you, all of the different kind of offerings and the different things. So, the 30 Day Challenge is generally for people in initial sobriety. However, we have people up to we have someone who's six and a half years sober who's in the 30 Day Challenge right now. So, it can really be any point um she just really wanted to do the whole program from start to finish. So, I said yeah why don't you sign up for the 30 Day Challenge. But, it could be any point but the 30 Day Challenge is generally the initial sobriety. The first sober days getting through that and then the 180 Day program is where people would join in and Cathy leads that part and that's for people that are a little bit further along the sober journey generally. Like we say around anywhere from like two months to maybe six months that would be the place for you to join the 108. And then we have the Seva Program, which might be having a little bit of a reorganization slash rebrand which I'm currently working on and that is for people that are about a year or more sober or you've been part of the Mind Life Practice Sober Girls yoga for a long time. Ideally you have done the 30 Day and the 108 and it's a leadership program and so there's going to be leadership training and volunteer opportunities and yeah we're getting super excited about the next group.
Cathy: Well a couple of cool things about the next group is, it starts in September. So October, November, December you are getting ready yourself. Ready for the holidays. You know, all those big events that come up and New Year's resolutions. You're already ready if you're making some New Year's resolutions. Um, the other thing I would say like the 108 Day for example, we say that you should be a little further along but what that really means to me is you have tried the journey out a little bit you know.
Alex: Mm-hmm.
Cathy: Like it doesn't have to be alcohol you know you you just have to be curious. So maybe you have like been practicing many times, I call it practicing now. I used to call it you know slipping or whatever but um you've been practicing but you want to go deeper with like what why why why you know. And so this you know, I feel like any of that like a woman in there who is six years, I think like you know I had said to Alex she's been using in some of her classes um a phrase called ember to fire and I feel like that explains where you know the ember in us to the fire. And so just finding that fire within you.
Alex: It's so true, that's so true. That amber to fire thing by the way, I got that from Ram Dass. I definitely didn't come up with that myself.
Cathy: You've been using that a lot lately you know. And you're right like but like I just think like you've been using it a lot with like different things. You've been doing in a positive way. It first struck me because I think you, when we were in Mexico and we were around the fire and we were talking about it so it always stuck with me and then you know that that visual has stuck with me. And I just think like the beginning of putting down the drink to you know, now both of us over three years of sobriety. Um, you know I feel like there's this fire. You know, that we are the
Alex: Yeah.
Cathy: bonfire now you know. and it's cool.
Alex: I love that, and that Ram Dass um song well it's like a little spoken word. He did that's put to an east for a song. But, I need to post it in the comments of this below because he has some beautiful lines in there. Like, he says the real work is to do inside your own heart and I think it really the whole thing really resonates with what we're doing. But yeah, I love that the fire to ember program it's beautiful or no amber to fire.
Cathy: I was like, did I see it wrong. I thought I said it wrong. I'm like oh no.
Alex: You said it right amber to fire. It's it's 6:00 am in Bali.
Cathy: It's early in the morning for you and I you know I've had gallons of caffeine at this point so.
Alex: So, I just realized it's almost 6:30 by the way. We were late getting on this live because um of my technical difficulties. Which hopefully will be sorted for next time. Um, but in our last few minutes what we want to share about is some of the things that we learned in our sober summers. Cathy had a beautiful metaphor as she always does, um that she wanted to share with all of you.
Cathy: Well, I took to gardening this summer and that's a strong word. There were like things in buckets on my patio and so I have plants and I had I took my chance at um having some vegetables. I had a strawberry plant and I did not know what the heck I was doing and I just knew you're supposed to water them. That's all I knew, so some days I watered a lot, right? But we you know, we went to Mexico for I think I was gone like eight-ish days. So, I had my daughter in charge of it and she did okay. Um, but you know, I had times where the sun include, we the sun in Cleveland like killed some things like off and then I would water it again and things would come back to life. Um, we had some storms where they washed things away but I would come back you know and empty things and do things and there were some days I just forgot. Like, I just or I just didn't feel like doing it. I don't know why. Um, and it was funny like the day before school I went back to school so I'm off for the summer the day before I went back to school, a green pepper like I don't know how it like huge green pepper and I was like oh my Gosh? Should I have jalapeno peppers and I had had a strawberry but it got eaten by a creature I let nate you know nature. I want gonna fight it whatever. That creature needs. Um, but it was just so interesting because I'm like, I haven't been really good about doing this and now I have this big green pepper so I cut it up and brought it to work with me and I was thinking the next day, but so that was Wednesday. Thursday I wake up and I am not a morning person but I get myself up, some most days first day back to school especially well I woke up before the alarm went off. I did stretches and did affirmations as I was doing my yoga stretches I went for a walk on the way to work. I was doing chanting and I'm like who am I? What have I done? And I'm like I didn't get a lot accomplished this summer. I was beating myself up a lot of the time. Like, oh I should have been doing this, I should have been should have you know, I should, should have all over myself and I was like but all that watering I did. All that listening to myself just kind of like the plants. I didn't know what I was doing but I just knew I had to do something to nurture it and I was nurturing myself and I didn't realize and it brought this energy to me on the first day back to school and I'm still carrying it with me you know. It's not very long back into school so you got to remind me this in February. Um, but I love it because we need to make sure that we're nurturing our own garden and I think that's really important. Um, that it's okay if we're not doing all the things on the list. But just find a way to nurture yourself daily because it will pay off. Was what I learned this summer.
Alex: I love that and I love that idea of like you don't have to do it all perfectly and you don't have to hit every single thing on the checklist and you still have this beautiful garden.
Cathy: Yeah. It was just I mean it was incredible and I just feel like this garden is just, I've never had anything and I didn't read books on it I didn't you know I just tuned in.
Alex: Yeah.
Cathy: I tuned into the you know like, oh it looks like it needs a little water and I have to say there were days where I was like I'm just going to take a nap. I'm just going to do this and it was the same way I was, I never realized but I was nurturing my own personal garden. I wasn't like getting the checklist, what does this mean? Like I'm a little tired, did I just kept doing what felt natural and tuning in. Yeah.
Alex: and I'm so impressed that you have green pepper. That's amazing.
Cathy: It was so cool. And I don't even like green peppers. I made it, I got it for my daughter who loves green peppers but she she didn't she left for college the next day and never got it so I was like, I am eating this green pepper. So I can't really tell you if the green pepper was good or not because I don't like but it was fresh.
Alex: How did that feel eating your own like a vegetable that you've grown in your own garden?
Cathy: Was so amazing, it was so like wow I did this and I feel like sometimes that's how I feel about like this this alcohol-free journey, this self-discovery, this health journey. It's the same thing like oh my Gosh, I reached you know, so many days oh I'm going to Sober in the City. Oh, I'm Teaching yoga, oh my Gosh I'm meeting the most beautiful people on this journey you know, like Mexico. Like just and like doing the 108 the Challenge like the way people like share you know in this community of this like like the garden you know like it's like a community garden in our like in our community and everybody's just watering you know either their own plants and helping each other out and we just. I don't know we're blossoming together and it's so it sounds so cheesy and so and I had shared this with the 108 group but I just really felt that way.
Alex: That's so, oh I love that. That's so beautiful, well unfortunately it's just about 6:30 a.m and I have a I have a Yoga Teacher Training starting in a couple minutes. Um, what did I learn about my sober summer? What if I, what did I learn about myself during this sober summer? I would say, my biggest lesson learning this summer was about the importance of community and the value of community and and why we need to lean on community. And it started off this summer with the Mexico retreat and with me being sick and having Covid and being in quarantine and the whole community coming together and kind of like collectively organizing and running that retreat. Um, despite me being sick and then just the value of like when you and I teamed up the way this program elevated so much and I feel like I just learned the importance of community and the importance of relying on each other and supporting each other and now we have such a rich program because we have so many people involved like we have assistant facilitators in every group and we have so many people leading this thing and I just feel like we have to come together and support each other and that was like my biggest takeaway from this summer.
Cathy: You can't carry it alone. Wow, that's beautiful I love it and I see it I see it you know. That's awesome, you're letting us help water.
Alex: Yes, we're all watering the garden. Although, I've definitely never grown my own vegetables. I'm like I'm so impressed. I'm stuck on that, I'm like, how did you get a green pepper. So.
Cathy: I had a friend help me set up just so you know. Like my friend Moira is a miracle and she like made me take pictures a week after we did it. She didn't believe that anything was like still alive because she knows how I'm 50 years old and had never tried before. So, you got another 20 years to go. You're good.
Alex: And you know what I am in the place where I if I wanted to grow a garden, Bali is I think the place to grow garden. So it's uh maybe it'll be on my list of things to do this year.
Cathy: yay awesome well..
Alex: All right.
Cathy: thank you Alex, to everyone and I look forward to doing this Monday thing. If anybody has topics shoot them to us you know. Like send them on over, we'll uh we love ideas or questions you have and somebody asked about Sober in the City click, the link it'll tell you all about it but we will be there. I will be there live um representing Sober um Girls Yoga so.
Alex: Yes, and we will be back on live next week. Hopefully we will be on earlier. Um hopefully all the tech stuff will be sorted out and yeah we're looking forward to seeing you then.
Cathy: All right, bye see you later.
Alex: Bye.
Alex: Hi friend, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Sober Yoga Girl podcast. This community wouldn't exist without you here. So thank you. It would be massively helpful if you could subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast so it can reach more people. If we haven't met yet in real life please come get your one week free trial of the Sober Girls Yoga membership and see what we're all about sending you love and light wherever you are in the world.
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