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August 20, 2025 17 mins

Calm isn’t just a mood—it’s the baseline your body must return to if you want to break free from the cycle of drinking. When you’re stuck in overwhelm—overthinking, overworking, and over-giving—your nervous system never resets. That constant stress is exactly what makes pouring a glass of wine at the end of the day feel so tempting.

Here’s the truth most sobriety methods miss: alcohol was never the problem. It was just your body’s quick fix for a frazzled nervous system. The deeper issue is self-abandonment—constantly outsourcing your energy, trying to hold everything together with willpower, and disconnecting from your feminine wisdom. That’s what fuels the decision fatigue, the mental load, and the endless responsibilities that make you want to check out.

The feminine way flips the script. Instead of piling on more rules, tools, and self-improvement hacks, what if you simply learned to generate calm from within? A few small shifts—like softening your breath, feeling the support of your back body, and asking, “How would my Calm Queen respond here?”—create the safety your brain has been chasing in a bottle.

Key Takeaways from this episode:

  • Calm is your true superpower—it dissolves the urge to numb.
  • Alcohol is not the root problem—it’s a nervous system coping mechanism.
  • The feminine way isn’t about doing more, it’s about feeling safe enough to do less.
  • Simple daily practices can rewire your body to choose calm over craving.

When you feel safe in your own skin, you don’t need a drink to take the edge off—you have a the CALM codes with in you. 

👉 Ready to test this out in real life? Download my free guide “60 Seconds to Calm” in the show notes. It works faster than a drink—and it actually gives you your power back.

DISCLAIMER: This podcast and its contents are not a substitute for rehabilitation, medical treatment or advice. It is for educational and inspirational purposes. I am not a therapist or doctor. The views here are expressed a personal opinion and based on first hand experience. Please consult a doctor if your mental or physical health is at risk.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stop Drinking and Start Living the
Feminine Way.
I'm your hostess, mary Wagstaff, holistic Alcohol Coach and
Feminine Embodiment Guide, hereto help you effortlessly release
alcohol by reclaiming yourfeminine essence.
Sobriety isn't just aboutquitting drinking.
It's about removing thedistortions that keep you

(00:25):
disconnected, overwhelmed andstuck in cycles of numbing.
Each week, I'll share powerfultools, new perspectives that
transform, and deeply relatablestories to help you step into
the power, pleasure and purposethat it is to be a woman.
This is your next evolution ofawakened empowerment.

(00:46):
Welcome to the Feminine Way.
I'm so glad you're here.
We are at the start of abeautiful series.
We are going to be talkingabout reset to calm.
Why calm I love saying thatword.
Say it 10 times fast Calm.
Why calm is your superpower andwhy it feels so hard to keep.

(01:09):
So this is what I know about theincredible, amazing, beautiful
women that I have had thepleasure and privilege of
calling into my life.
That includes you, if you arehere.
We are a frequency match.
I say this all the time, but Ibelieve it, and if you've been
staying and this is resonatingwith you and the wonderful women
that I have come into contactwith that have stayed here in my

(01:32):
new community is that we arealways wanting to grow to do it
better.
The feminine is creative.
She always knows that there'smore to be had and this doesn't
mean a lack of satisfaction, andin fact, most of the women I

(01:57):
know are extremely grateful.
They have so much gratitudethey can really recognize and
appreciate the abundance that isaround them.
But sometimes that can fall tothe wayside or get overshadowed
by the mental load that we hold.
So if you're here to supportyour alcohol consumption, I want

(02:21):
you to know every single thingthat I talk about on this
podcast is what is the realproblem to your over drinking,
to the reason that you can'trelease alcohol, why alcohol is
no longer working for you atthis stage in your life.
I can give you mocktail recipes.

(02:42):
I could talk about life.
I can give you mocktail recipes.
I could talk about things tosay to people, places not to go,
but in the end, what I want youto come away with is thinking
about the one problem in yourlife right now and how this
applies.
I want you to think about theplace in your life where you are

(03:03):
the least calm, where there'sthe most upset, where you keep
coming back again and again, andalcohol is potentially a result
of that.
Now I hear a lot of people saywell, alcohol is just a habit
and there's nothing else reallywrong.
And I really want to call BS onthat, because if you were
regulated, your nervous systemwas regulated, you knew how to

(03:25):
manage your mind, you could seeproblems through the lens of
shifting perspectives.
Then you would be able to shiftyour habitual relationship with
alcohol.
There's always something tolearn and chances are you just
know that.
So the woman who is doing allof the right things quote

(03:47):
unquote right is you, is me, isall of us right.
We're never just like screwingoff on purpose into a state of
apathy where we are overwhelmedand the only thing to do just

(04:10):
seems to be to avoid it.
And that could have somethingto do with the phase that you're
in in your cycle, or you'vejust been trying and you keep
hitting the same wall over andover and over again and you just
say screw it.
What is consistent with everysingle woman that I've ever
worked with, and probably withyou as well, is you are seeking

(04:33):
to educate yourself, and you'reprobably even educating yourself
about other people.
You are listening to podcasts,you are reading self-development
books, you are going to the gym, are going to the gym, you are
trying new classes, right, youare looking at healthy recipes
for your family, but why is itnot sticking?
Why does it feel so hard whenreally all you want is peace and

(04:57):
all you want is calm?
Well, when you keep adding moreto your plate, adding more to
the pile, that creates even moremental overload, it creates
more decision fatigue, itcreates more responsibility of
things that you have to juggle.

(05:17):
And then you know you'vepromised yourself that you know
you're not going to micromanage,that you're going to stay on
your own paper, that you'regoing to stay on your own page.
Let everyone in your life be alittle bit sovereign, really
work on yourself.
But then, because you're at thisheightened experience and

(05:39):
you're never really getting tocalm, because you're trying so
hard, when someone questions youor says, hey, it sounds like
you're having a bad day, yousnap.
Or when you don't get theanswer that you want, or you ask
for help and someone's notdoing it in the right way, right
, you lose your cool, you loseyour integrity.

(06:01):
Now, we are human.
This happens to everyone,including myself.
Or you lean on having a drink,you go scrolling, you go check
out so you sip, scroll or snap,right, this is like the three
things that happen, or someversion of that, and what's

(06:22):
happening is that your nervoussystem doesn't feel safe Because
if we look at, say, a scale ofone to 10, of being, you know,
in a triggered fight, flight orfreeze moment of a nervous
system response where ourcortisol is pumping, we've been
in a big transition.
You, you know, you might snap,you might be at a 10 or over a

(06:44):
10, but you're never gettingback to zero, you're never fully
dysregulating, you're excuse me, you're never fully regulating.
You're never really in thatcalm place and your body cannot
fake safety.
And to be calm means to findsafety, which is one of the
precepts of the feminine wayContainment, creating

(07:09):
self-containment and safety foryourself and self-abandonment is
the biggest issue with thisoverwhelm, this overdoing this
over trying to fix it all.
And typically this is a styleof anxious attachment.

(07:31):
And from my research aboutattachment styles and we'll talk
more about them in a futureepisode is that what I've
noticed and there are women thatare avoidant attachment, but
most of the women that have cometo me are their insecure
attachment style is anxiousattachment.
Now, what I want you to take inwith all of this is you don't

(07:54):
need to feel called out.
This is just how we learn to besafe.
This is how we learn to surviveas babies, as children.
So we have to be willing tolook at oh shit, and there's a
lot of really funny YouTubevideos.
I should put a link in the shownotes.
There's a couple of people onYouTube that are talking about

(08:15):
attachment style and they act itout and it's just so spot on.
And if we can't laugh at theneuroses and the ridiculousness
sometimes that it is to be human, then we're doing it wrong.
So we can't take ourselves tooseriously because these are the
stereotypes.
But they stereotypes exist fora reason, because they are real.

(08:38):
We don't want to be defined bythem, but we also need to be
able to laugh at ourselves.
We cannot take ourselves tooseriously or none of this will
work, even alcohol, even asdestructive as it can be.
I mean, I can look back andfortunately I'm safe and I know
a lot of people aren't safe fromalcohol.
But some of the things I did andthought when I thought I was

(09:00):
crazy, sexy, cool are prettyhilarious, looking at my eyes
rolled back in my head and mypuffy face and barely you know,
probably able to walk a straightline.
And I've told the story aboutwriting Matthew a love song for
Christmas.
That's for another episode.
It was not sexy, right?
So what's happening when we'regoing outside of ourselves all

(09:22):
of the time to look for ways tobe better essentially and I
think that this is a lot of theconditioning, a lot of the time
to look for ways to be betteressentially and I think that
this is a lot of theconditioning, a lot of the
programming that comes fromchildhood, and I won't say
society, because we are society,and when no one really feels
that way, it's like who's evensaying this anymore?
Right, it's just these oldconditioned beliefs.
If you can tell me who quoteunquote society is, I would love

(09:42):
to know.
A lot of it's marketing, a lotof it's old family values, a lot
of it comes from religion,which is society.
But I just hate that blanketterm because most of the time
it's just the thoughts that youare thinking about, the way you
think other people think youshould be, and when you act
differently, it's like then yourealize well, no one, a lot of

(10:04):
people aren't buying into that.
But because we keep sayingsociety.
The marketing feeds off of that.
So the reason that women, Ibelieve, are more interested in
fixing their self, it reallydoes come from more the way we
are raised, which, again, issociety.
But I think it's good to getreally specific.

(10:25):
Instead of this blanket termbeing better, do we need to
prove our worth through action,through being the best version
of ourselves, through being good, through helping out, being a
good helper.
I know I was praised, I lovedit, I was a good helper, I was
mommy's good helper, right.
And you know, my partner on theother side of that completely

(10:50):
rebelled against any and allauthority and he now feels safer
, like being alone, doing italone.
He has an avoidant attachmentstyle.
Again, we'll get into thatlater.
But what's really happeningwhen we're trying to be good and
fix everything around us is weabandon ourselves.

(11:11):
And when we abandon ourselves,we do not feel safe.
And when we do not feel safe,we cannot be calm, because
calmness is the prerequisite forcreativity, for clarity and for
consistency, and this is what Iwant to teach you about the
feminine way.
This is what I want to teach youabout your necessary reset to

(11:36):
calm, because I will have aconversation with anyone who
tells me I am as calm as acucumber, but I still wanna have
a drink.
I do not buy that at all,because if you are calm and your
nervous system is regulated andyou feel so good, you aren't
getting triggered.
There's nothing that's bumpingup against you.
You have very little resistancein your life.

(11:56):
We should have a conversation.
So good, you aren't gettingtriggered.
There's nothing that's bumpingup against you.
You have very little resistancein your life.
We should have a conversationbecause, in my view and my
experience, why would you needto drink that?
Why would you even want todrink if you feel so good in
your body?
So the first thing I want totalk to you about, with this

(12:18):
idea of calm in this series, isthat you can generate calm on
your own right now, withoutanything needing to change.
What I would love for you to dois lean back into the seat
you're in.
If you're walking, or if you'redriving, make sure you keep

(12:39):
your eyes open, but just leanback.
If you're walking, just take amoment to stop, take a big
breath in through your nose,exhale out through your mouth
and I just want you to say theword calm, safe Calm is

(13:03):
available to me right now.
I am calm because I choose tobe.

(13:32):
And your homework for the weekor your inquiry for the week,
when you go to try to dosomething new a download,
another podcast, even amasterclass, a book, anything I
want you to stop.
And the only thing I want youto do for the week is to ask

(13:52):
yourself every morning and writeit down how did I create more
calm today?
And you want to decide thatahead of time.
I'm calling myself the calmqueen.
How did I step into the titleof the calm queen today?
And one of the things that Iwrote down was I don't wake up,

(14:17):
I rise right, and then you cancheck back in with that all day.
Every day, because the practiceof calm and settling into calm
and asking yourself how does acalm queen respond to this all
day, every day, is going to giveus the foundation that you need

(14:38):
to be able to look at yourthoughts, to be able to look and
examine your beliefs thataren't serving you, because that
can be triggering alone,because they have created your
identity, your breath, your owntouch and the last thing.
So it's going to be the threethings relaxing, softening,

(15:05):
breathing and just saying theword calm.
It's a powerful word, askingyourself every morning how did I
create calm today and decidingdifferent than yesterday.
And I've been doing this at theend of the night and asking how
am I going to do it differently?
Where was I not calm today andhow will I do it differently
tomorrow?
And then I want you to have aconversation.

(15:28):
Look at the world, lead, walk,drive, see your eyes through the
back of your body.
I had a beautiful conversationwith a client and she said I'm
speaking from my feet.
It's like how do I know thatI'm present, as I'm speaking
from my feet when I'm calm?

(15:49):
So from the soles of your feetall the way up your back body,
your heels, to the back of yourhead, and move your energy from
there.
This is going to be thecontainment of safety that you
need to embody.
This isn't just a mindset game,this isn't just an action game.

(16:10):
This is a somatic experience.
We experience the world throughour senses, ladies, that is why
this is a holistic practice.
So currently I am offeringprivate one-on-one reset to calm

(16:30):
sessions.
The link is in the show notes.
I would love to support you inpracticing this, because you
don't need help, because you'vegot it.
You've got wisdom, you've gottools, but you do need support
to navigate through all of thethings to get crystal clear on
the one thing that would makethe biggest impact.

(16:50):
I hope you have a beautifulweek and I'll talk to you soon,
hey?
So before go, I've got somethingfor you that works faster than
pouring a drink and it actuallygives you your power back.
It's called 60 seconds to calm,and inside I share six quick,
in the moment phrases to helpyou end the mental tug of war,

(17:11):
soothe any emotion or urge andcome back to yourself without
overthinking.
So, whether your habit is winescrolling or snapping, this is
going to get you back in yourbody, and under a minute.
And it's all free and it works.
I also added, for being such anamazing listener to the show, a
couple of surprise bonuses, sograb it right here with the link

(17:33):
in the show notes or head overto marywagstaffcoachcom.
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