86. Moments of bliss

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Hello, darling heart. Welcome to the drink less, live better podcast.

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This is the podcast that helps you to see that drinking less doesn't need to be stressful, lonely, or boring.

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I'm your host, Sarah Williamson, and I decided to have a year alcohol free as a little life experiment and haven't looked back.

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With my experience and training, I now help other people with their alcohol free or drink less adventures.

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You can find out more and sign up to my 5 day drink less challenge at drink less live better dot com.

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I'm here to tell you that you can relax, connect, and have fun without alcohol in your life.

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Join me here each week to find out how.

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Today, we're going to talk about moments of bliss, but that comes in a moment.

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I think we've put a high expectation on ourselves to be happy and also perhaps a high expectation on other people around us to be happy.

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How often have you heard those words?

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Oh, I just want my kids to be happy.' Let's say it again, 'I just want my kids to be happy.

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Saying the word just makes it seem as if it's a really simple thing to want and the word happy well sometimes that's a really big ask too.

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It's a big ask for people around us and it can be an enormous ask for ourselves.

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I've come to realise that happiness for me is a really elevated feeling.

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I spend a lot of my life being content which is my very favourite feeling.

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I'd also describe it as feeling okay, feeling fine, feeling middling, all of this I'm so delighted with.

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Happiness is something that I experience in really short bursts it could be when I'm sitting at the table with friends and

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family in that moment where somebody shares a joke and we all laugh, or it could be a shared connection with a friend on a

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dog walk, all sorts of different things make me feel happy, but I recognize that happiness is quite a short lived feeling

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and most of the time I'm not living my life feeling happy, and do you know what? I'm fine with that.

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I think that knowing my favourite feeling is contentment has bought me a lot of peace.

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It's taken me a while to come round to figure this out.

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I think for a while I saw contentment as being too close to boredom or fed up but in fact it isn't that at all and boredom

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and feeling a bit fed up are actually getting more and more comfortable for me the further along I go in my sobriety. So anyway, moments of bliss.

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I've got 2 different moments of bliss that I'd like to tell you about today.

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The first one struck me completely out of the blue.

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It was towards the end of last summer, I'd say it was probably late August time, maybe even early September.

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My boys were playing football on the field in their team having a normal match.

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I can't even remember whether the score was going our way or not.

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They were towards the opposite side of the pitch from where I was sitting, and I was sitting on the grass.

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Baxter, my dog, was curled up, around my leg.

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I had a coffee, in a takeaway mug that I had bought from home, and I was wearing a really colorful pair of leggings.

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The sky was that gorgeous, gorgeous gorgeous late summer bright blue with not a cloud in sight. The temperature was warmish.

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I do remember I was wearing a t shirt and a sweater and and a scarf, so it wasn't hot.

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I remember turning my face towards the sun and suddenly feeling this enormous whoosh, this feeling that washed completely

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up and over me and it stayed for a while.

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I had my eyes open but I closed them.

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I took a really deep breath in and a breath out and I opened my eyes again and I looked around at this perfect moment, the

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feeling probably lasted for about 30 seconds, and I enjoyed it whilst I was in it.

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And I knew it was gonna slip away again.

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But in that moment, it was pure lightness and pleasure.

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And in that moment, I thought I'm always going to remember this moment.

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I did take a photo of Baxter, of the football field, of my leggings.

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I'm gonna scroll back through my phone and see if I can find it and, post it in Instagram with the cover of this podcast.

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It was a moment that I think of now as shorthand when I go to, what does bliss feel like? That is what bliss feels like.

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I had another experience of a moment of bliss, about 8 weeks or so ago.

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I went somewhere for the night by myself, and had a really lovely stay.

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And the next morning after I'd had breakfast, I had walked into the lounge, and there were some lovely books out on the bookshelves,

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and I had the book I was reading in my hand, and there was an armchair facing a window in a sunbeam, and I made a beeline

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over to this armchair, and I sat down in it, and I put my book on the floor, and I just closed my eyes and I felt that sunshine beating on my eyelids.

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For a moment, I stared really hard at the insides of my eyelids, and I looked at all of the different colors, and I slowed

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my breathing down, and I was just there in that moment by myself experiencing another amazing moment.

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Took a photo of that chair as well.

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I'll try and find that in my thousands of pictures on my phone and post that in the same place.

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Those are 2 of my moments of bliss, both experienced in the last year, both experienced by myself, both experienced where

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sunshine featured, both where colour was a feature and both where the sounds around me were happy noises of children, birdsong, silence.

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In those moments, I felt 100% everything that I was supposed to feel, and it was lovely.

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This time of year there are so many elevated feelings both positive and feelings that we might regard as negative or perhaps uncomfortable and that is okay.

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Be on the lookout for the last bit of this year and in 2023 2024 for your moments of bliss. See if you can catch them.

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They might be fleeting, but see if you can, in the moment, hold on to them so that you can remember them going forward.

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Check out the show notes on this podcast or any other episode.

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You'll find details about the drink less, live better 2023 retreat.

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You'll see the link to a hidden podcast episode to help you with your 5 PM cravings, and you'll be able to read about my one to one coaching program.

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I'd love it if you could follow and download the podcast.

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And if you feel inclined to leave a review, that'd be