The Eight Awarenesses That Will Transform How You Drink w/ Cecily Mak
Welcome back to journey to the Sunnyside. I'm your host, Mike Hardinbrook. And today we're continuing our conversation with Cecily Mack. She's the creator of the clear life movement. And in our last episode, Cecily shared her personal journey and gave us a look into how she views habits versus addiction.
Speaker 1:And today we're diving in deeper with her eight awarenesses framework, which helps people transform their habits, whether it's alcohol or other behaviors. So let's get right into it with Cecily Mac. Cecily, thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's so good to be here. Thanks for continuing the conversation.
Speaker 1:It's going be exciting and really valuable for anybody listening. So the 12 steps have been around forever as a go to for so many people. Why did you feel that it's important to create the eight awarenesses as an alternative, and what makes this approach different?
Speaker 2:Sure. So first of all, it's very important to note, I have deep and high regard for Alcoholics Anonymous in the 12 steps. I am well aware that it has helped millions of people. It will continue to help millions of people, and it is its own, you know, kind of brilliant and fascinating community of support. When I myself took a break from drinking in February, it was a very confusing time for me.
Speaker 2:I didn't really know where to go, what to read, who to talk to about the experience that I was having and discovering what it was like to not drink anymore. I was going through my own personal discovery, noticing I had more energy. My walks had turned into runs. I was sleeping on a different schedule. My diet changed with all this kind of physical stuff was happening.
Speaker 2:And then emotionally, personally, other things were shifting as well. I was felt a little bit more present and clear and direct and honest in my relationships very quickly, like in that first thirty, sixty days. But, socially, it was awkward because as was pointed out to me, not everybody around me drinks or not I should say, not everybody drinks. I had just surrounded myself with people who drink. And so when I wanted to do something social on a weekend or plan a gathering or event, I found that the the expectation was that it would be around alcohol, but I wasn't drinking anymore.
Speaker 2:So I didn't know who my people were, where to go, or how to connect. And one of the one of my good friends, he had started his own alcohol free journey about a year prior to me, and I reached out to him. We had a coffee, and he is a huge fan and success story of Alcoholics Anonymous. And so he encouraged me to go to a handful of meetings and suggested the ones that he thought I might like, and I did. And I went in with an open mind and an open heart.
Speaker 2:I was actually quite curious and fascinated to be in a room with people who are also in this alcohol free space in my community here in Northern California. And there were parts of that that worked for me, but then there were parts that also didn't really work for me. And it's not my job to break down or tear apart the 12 steps other than to note that it didn't feel like a great fit for what I was looking for at that time in my life. And so I went home after one of these meetings, and I took the 12 steps of AA, copied it off of the website, and put it into a Word document. And I started editing and shifting some of the statements of the steps to better reflect what I was experiencing in shifting my relationship with alcohol and the discovery journey that accompanies something like that.
Speaker 2:And it was over years. I every once in a while, I would open it up. I'd tinker with a sentence. I would do a little reading and do a little writing and then close the document, sometimes for a week, sometimes for six months. It was it was a long process.
Speaker 2:And, eventually, by around, I would have to say, late twenty twenty two, so it's four years or so, it stopped shifting. It sort of stabilized into these eight statements. And I refer to them as the eight awarenesses, and they're really the awarenesses that I use to frame and understand my own relationship with various dimmers, various tendencies. I have not had alcohol for seven years now. However, I still have complicated relationships with other dimmers.
Speaker 2:And so I myself use the eight awarenesses to help me understand why I reach for certain things and how I can transform my relationship with certain patterns or habits or tendencies. And so that is how the that's how the aid awarenesses, came about. And as I've continued to write about and share this, I discovered that it was it's a resonant formula for other people as well. And so I've been quite open primarily through my substack and now with a book that will be published in early twenty twenty six, on how to use these awarenesses to transform our relationship with something that is standing between us and our best life.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I love that story. So it sounds like it started from a place of basically without sounding cheesy, you were kind of a new you. You were being reborn into this way that you weren't really quite sure how to be, and you realized that you needed to take a step further than not just changing the habit, but you needed to go at a deeper level.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No. Absolutely. I mean, I think one of one of the really transformative moments for me in my own process and journey was realizing that everybody who has a habit or a dependency on something that softens discomfort is worthy of our empathy and compassion first. So we all have people in our lives who have a heavy leaning into whether it's drinking or certain prescription drugs or, complicated disordered food relationship or workaholism or porn addiction or social media addiction.
Speaker 2:I mean, the list goes on and on. Instead of looking at people who have these patterns and behaviors, including ourselves, let's start with ourselves, with disdain or judgment, the first inquiry should be, wow. What what are what's making you suffer? How are you hurting? What is the source of your discomfort that is making you want to soften that experience with this habit or this substance or whatever it might be?
Speaker 2:So if we start from a place of curiosity and compassion, then we can better understand why we do certain things. And so that's really what the eight awareness is is about is instead of looking outside of ourselves to be saved and healed, it really turns the lens and the focus back inward to what is it within me that I may better understand or listen to or abide by that if I do, I won't want to escape as much. I won't want to dim out life experience as much. I'll be more drawn to a place of clarity and full presence in every minute of my life. I mean, we hear all the time, you know, stopping drinking isn't so much about, controlling the urge to drink.
Speaker 2:It's actually changing your life into a life that you don't want to experience dimmed out or dulled out or with edges softened. I mean, who doesn't want the Technicolor life if it's if it's aligned with our our values in in a way that we wanna be living?
Speaker 1:Well, I want the Technicolor light.
Speaker 2:It's not always fun. I gotta say. I mean, it's I I have this one friend, Jennifer Petit. She's one of the guests on my own, Undimmed podcast. And, you know, she she talks about how when she stopped drinking, she she noticed that not only had she been dulling out some of the pain that she had been living with for decades, but she'd also been dimming and dulling out some of the exquisite outrageous joy of prior years.
Speaker 2:So when we kinda take out these softeners, you open up a much wider aperture to the human experience, and that means intense pleasure and joy as well as much more intense experience of difficulty and pain. I just went through this recently where I you know, for the first time since losing my own mother in 02/2011, when I was not living in ClearLife, I drank three strong cocktails the night before she died and probably three that day that she did pass away. This I lost somebody very close to me about a month ago in this place of real abundant clarity and presence. And I think it's the first time in my adult life I fully experienced grief, like real grief. And it was hard, and I cried, and I mourned, and I kinda pudged around for, you know, a while navigating all these feelings.
Speaker 2:But at the end of the day, it's absolutely beautiful that I could be in full presence of that experience where before I might have kind of kept it at the surface or glossed over it and moved on. It would have come up and reared its head in some other way down the down the road. So getting getting clear involves both ends of the spectrum.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Getting clear on some of life's most important moments is is so important. There's a time, if you're moderating, to have a drink and it should be pouring it over a celebration. It shouldn't be pouring it over stress or mourning or sadness or you know, whatever is not in a positive light. So I don't wanna prolong it too much because I know people are on their edge of the seat to wonder what the eight awarenesses are.
Speaker 1:So can you start walking us through that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. So so they they go in a bit of a cycle. So if you could envision them in a circle, and it this is not something that you kind of start and make it your way through the eight awarenesses and put it away and carry on with the rest of your life. The invitation is to really use these at different times for different reasons, for different purposes, and consider them like toolbox that you can carry around with you.
Speaker 2:So the first awareness is my life is better clear. And this is really a reference to the fact that nobody else is going to make the choice to change our behaviors other than us. I unfortunately learned this the hard way, both with my mother and in other relationships. The choice has to come from within. So some people might wanna spend months or years settling into this awareness, And it's an inquiry.
Speaker 2:Is my life better clear? At some point, we're gonna realize, yes. Life is better when we're present, when we're fully shown up for it. The second awareness is also one of my favorites, and I refer to this every single day myself, and I know many people who do as well, which is around choice. And the statement is I choose what I consume.
Speaker 2:Not only do you lift a glass to your lips, what apps do you open on your phone? Do you turn on Netflix every night? Who do you agree to have a coffee with? What do you do with your discretionary time? All of these things come into our systems, and the the invitation is to realize that we actually get to decide, in most cases, what we put into our systems, into our bodies, into our energetic or awareness fields.
Speaker 2:So that's the second really, really important foundational one. And if you think about it, we use the second awareness an infinite number of times a day. Every every minute of every day, we're deciding what we're gonna be consuming or bringing in or not. It has to do with boundaries work. It goes on and on and on.
Speaker 2:The third one is really about tapping into intuition. I don't know if you had this experience in your own, journey with alcohol, but our intuition is a wonderful messenger and source of wisdom for us. And many people drink or use drugs or other dimmers because they don't want to hear their intuition. Your intuition is telling us or telling you to get out of that relationship or resign from that job or move from that toxic environment or stop doing the thing, whatever it is. And we we tend to wanna maybe shove it aside or turn the volume down on that.
Speaker 2:And the the awareness around intuition is allowing inviting intuition to define our priorities, really trusting ourselves and our own own inner guidance. The fourth one
Speaker 1:to jump in on that one because Jeez. You know, a lot of people will look for labels right away. You know? Am I in this category? Am I this or that?
Speaker 1:Or, you know, try to answer all these questions. But really deep down, it's just what's right for you? What's a problem for you? And that really comes down to your intuition telling you that answer.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And it's important to have a set of tools that we can use to access it too, frankly. For some of some of us, myself included, honestly, a walk by myself outside most of the time will kind of reconnect me with my intuition if I'm caught in a a wheel of overactivity or too much up in my head and not in my heart. So time in nature, time alone, time outside.
Speaker 2:For so many people, it's meditation or, you know, a day in solitude or a cup of tea, just sitting still with a cup of tea, which, by the way, funny side story. I worked with a therapist for a while at the beginning of all this, and his homework to me was at least once a week, make yourself a cup of tea, sit down on a chair or sofa, and drink it. Nothing else. Don't read anything. Don't talk to anyone.
Speaker 2:Don't create anything. Don't plan anything. Just kind of be with yourself. And that's really a lot of what this this third awareness is about.
Speaker 1:Those little things can change your life. I mean, one of the biggest impacts in my life, I journal every single morning. I don't do electronics for the first, you know, usually an hour, but and I don't commit to an hour of journaling, but at least fifteen minutes. And if somebody says, like, what's the one thing you can do to change your life? That would be it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No. Absolutely. Absolutely. My my thing, you know, as far as mornings go these days is I every single day, I have a little altar set up in our living room.
Speaker 2:Every single day, I go and light a candle. And sometimes it's just one intentional breath. Sometimes I can sit for twenty minutes. Depends on what it is, but just that kind of regrounding. And I actually visualize connecting to my own inner wisdom and, you know, something bigger and outside of myself.
Speaker 2:We can call it whatever we want. But that little grounding and invitation, it gives us access to it throughout the day. So when we are in a moment of intensity and dramatic choice and freak out and this just happened, we have this resource to reach into to rebalance and reset. And oftentimes, you know, when people are starting a journey of changing their relationship with alcohol, this is one of the first things they become aware of because you're waking up at two or three in the morning, and you're just bummed about what happened the night before. You're regretting that conversation, the thing you said, the text you fired off before you went to sleep.
Speaker 2:We we we hear this voice in our head saying, you're not really being true to yourself. And it's good to find ways and spaces to listen to that. So that's the third awareness. The fourth one is really about this commitment to understanding our trauma or our pain, what it is that compelled us to dim in the first place, but not making it our identity. This is a really important piece because the invitation is to, again, really look upon ourselves with compassion.
Speaker 2:Don't judge yourself. Don't shame yourself for what's in the rearview mirror. Look. We're here where we are for a whole myriad of reasons. We did the best we could in every single step and circumstance with the tools we had.
Speaker 2:It really does not help us all to go back and kinda relive through would have, could have, should have all of these decisions and choices throughout our lives. But most of us have something that we are trying to run away from or escape from or feel less, and it could be something really dramatic like a like an extreme childhood experience of poverty or abuse or abandonment, or it could be something, you know, more seemingly benign like a a work frustration or an embarrassment about something in our physical bodies or who knows what it is. But we most of us, if we're using something to escape or dim, we have some difficulty that we're trying to soften in ourselves. And part of whether it's an Alcoholics Anonymous journey or it is a clear life journey, whatever approach you wanna use, at some point, the invitation is for us to take a look at what that is and have have empathy and understanding and then do what we need to do to make peace with it and hopefully move forward without creating a whole identity around it. I was super humbled by this as recently as earlier this year.
Speaker 2:I thought I was all far along in my clear life journey, and I got this all going on, and I figured out the awareness is and whatever. And I realized that I had been clinging to this statement. I am the daughter of a deceased alcoholic. It was even in my bio for public speaking and other publications. I had attached this identity to myself, and I and I was using it to kind of cloak myself in this quasi victim survivor identity.
Speaker 2:That's actually totally counter to this work. That that's actually taking us backwards, not forwards. So the invitation of the fourth awareness is to understand with empathy and compassion, but then move forward.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Don't let it stick to us too much. The fifth awareness is around forgiveness, and this is one that actually differentiates quite explicitly from the 12 steps. So it was a couple of steps that I that I combined together to come up with this awareness, which is that we all have certain complicated relationships in our past, particularly if we've made a change, like choosing to stop drinking alcohol for the rest of our lives or for a defined period of time. And the 12 steps of AA, you know, have a very helpful for many people schema of making amends. You make a list of people.
Speaker 2:You hold yourself accountable. You reach out to them. You make amends. You heal. You move forward.
Speaker 2:This one is a little bit more about forgiveness and letting go as steps on a path to liberation and freedom and accepting that we may not want to or need to make amends with everybody. In fact, we may not want to have contact with people that we've had difficult relationships with. The work is inside of ourselves. When we forgive people and we let go of resentment and bitterness, we ourselves are liberated. It's an inside job.
Speaker 2:Now that doesn't mean don't go resolve friction with people if you need and want to or heal relationships where it would be a benefit to at least one, ideally both. But the invitation is a little bit more about the inner work and being willing and able to kind of let things go and not carry them as weights as we move forward in a relationships arena.
Speaker 1:An inside job, I love that because Yeah.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:Arts, and that's where it continues.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And if we're bitter and we're resentful, frankly, the person that suffers is us, not necessarily the subject of our bitterness or our resentment. So let's do that inside first. And then they might feel liberated as well.
Speaker 2:I mean, I there's a whole another podcast episode, but this was a big part of my own clear life journey. I mean, I was very upset with and bitter with my mom when she passed. I had a lot of anger and agita with my ex husband when we divorced. And in resolving and healing and forgiving both of those relationships, I had a huge release and transformation, which not only affects my day to day life, but how my children understand their grandmother, how my children see and experience my relationship with their father. There's love there.
Speaker 2:There's levity. It's not weighted. So the ripple effect of these things can be massive, and we might not see it might be three generations down the line where this is still, you know, kind of shifting the way that people, relate and see each other. So that's super important.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:The sixth awareness is around nonjudgment, choosing not to judge others. I also refer to it as do you. And this is super important in the making a change in our relationship with alcohol arena in particular. It's so easy to, you know, complete your challenge or complete your year, and you just feel awesome, and you're so proud of yourself. You kinda want everyone around you to get on the bus and, you know,
Speaker 1:you Give me my know talks right now.
Speaker 2:Totally. Like, I mean, I remember being at a friend's house and seeing, you know, empty bottles of wine and their recycling and just judging. Like, oh, they must not feel good today. They're still drinking a lot. I used to do that.
Speaker 2:I mean, luckily, that phase didn't last very long. It is not a healthy way to live. We have no idea what other people's journeys are like. They are entirely up to them. These are, again, back to the inside job, personal choices, personal decisions, personal journeys.
Speaker 2:And the best thing that we can do is just self govern based on our own values and our own choices and let everybody else do them. I mean, this is this is really not we're not in a in a prophesizing, you know, role here. And so the invitation, again, is really kind of focused on our own our own journey. Fun side story on this. I developed this awareness driving one of my kids when he was quite young through town, and he saw someone smoking a cigarette on the corner.
Speaker 2:And he said, mom, if I am the president of The United States, I'm going to ban smoking. It's gross. It's unhealthy, and it's bad for people, And I would just wanna make it illegal. And I realized so immediately that his orientation that way, being so judgmental, was actually coming from me. Because at that time, I had some of those feelings about
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Other people's habits in our family. And, man, that that's been a great awareness. And it's one that we can all kind
Speaker 1:of I think anybody can relate to that. But, you know, I used to have that same response. And at some point, and I don't know what happened, I just started feeling bad for people. Like, it must be awful. They can't like the taste of that.
Speaker 1:They can't like that they have this addiction. So I think there are ways that you can, even though it is gross or, you know, something that you don't like to see or don't align with, but I think, like, flipping it from judging to compassion, it frees yourself. That's for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And, you know, being very thoughtful about even going to compassion because there can be judgment in compassion. Right? You don't wanna you don't wanna
Speaker 1:wrong with somebody to be compassionate
Speaker 2:with them. Yeah. Like, let them do them. Like, we don't know. I I I actually took a really profound Buddhist teacher out to dinner once in San Francisco about a decade ago, and he ordered three really strong beers and drank them back to back.
Speaker 2:And I asked him about it the next day. I was like, what is that about? It's like, I was really consciously and intentionally examining that physical experience for myself because I have students that I work with who do this every night. He said, I haven't had a drink in fifteen years, but I knew I was with you and you're safe to drive and I was staying in your home and I I was consciously and intentionally doing this thing. Right?
Speaker 1:So Wait. Can I just get back? Did you say a Buddhist monk Yes. Drinking strong beers together? Yes.
Speaker 1:Not together, but you guys were together?
Speaker 2:Yes. He was I just don't want I would say his
Speaker 1:over real quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No. I don't I wouldn't want I won't won't refer him or I would not refer to him as a monk, but as a Buddhist teacher.
Speaker 1:Okay. And Close enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, his lot of his work is working with people in their twenties and thirties and a lot of people who have struggled with addiction. And he has this incredible ability to kind of go into certain states from a very mindful and intentional place. Also interesting that evening, I never saw him exhibit drunkenness. He actually stayed very kind of present and controlled in his in his persona throughout the evening, which is fascinating.
Speaker 2:But, again, another podcast for another day. So interesting. The seventh awareness is about time and really revering time is our most precious currency. And, again, this comes from a lot of work and conversations with people who, when they do get clear or pause a habit, they have a lot of regret for how much they missed. This is particularly true for parents.
Speaker 2:I hear this a lot who maybe were a little bit buzzed through the first decade or so of parenthood, and they feel a lot of remorse and shame for missing a lot. I know myself, I recall skipping pages in the bedtime story, reading to my kids, just trying to kinda wrap it up and get back to the living room where I was socializing with my then husband or guests or whatever. It's so easy to get sucked into this kind of shame loop. And instead, the invitation is realized time now. We have no idea how much we have left.
Speaker 2:We cannot buy or negotiate for more. Once it's spent, it's it's spent forever. But really in starting from right now, how do we wanna spend our time? What do we want to do with the days, hours we have? And there's a there's a great kind of social cultural awakening around this right now, being thoughtful about how many summers we have left, for example.
Speaker 2:But the invitation in the in the awareness is really being thoughtful about how do we spend what we do have. Saying yes to your your buddy asking if you wanna play backgammon, taking the afternoon off of work and going to beach because it's a gorgeous day, choosing to make eye contact with the person at the grocery store and meaningfully thanking them for bagging your groceries for you, whatever it might be. Just that kind of presence and awareness of how do we want to spend the moments we have.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I love that so much. And I could say that as a parent, you know, I've had those regrets. And I just kind of said to myself at some point, that's related to what you're saying here with time is, first of all, I did the best I knew how when it went in the moment. And so, you know, I can't live in that in that period.
Speaker 1:And not only that, I'm missing the present right now sitting back in the past with regret. Like, what is that doing? Nothing.
Speaker 2:Nothing. Yeah. So, again, inside job. Right? Like, we get to make these choices.
Speaker 2:How do we wanna relate to these things? And it's such a gift. I mean, this is also one of the more transformative things about living, you know, what I refer to as a clear life or an undimmed light. You you actually have the spaciousness to listen to your intuition, forgive yourself and others for what's in the rearview mirror, and identify what are the most important things. Is it relationships?
Speaker 2:Is it hobbies? Is it a project or purpose you want to advance in the world? Is it an awareness you wanna bring to a particular issue? Is it just maybe spending more time with your four favorite people on the planet? Whatever it is.
Speaker 2:But doing that from a place of intentionality, there's nothing like going to sleep at night, you know, hand on heart and knowing, like, I did I did a day that was true to me today. That's that's really a gift. The eighth awareness is service. The eighth awareness is about giving back. The eighth awareness is about offering what we have to others when they are themselves in a place of need and informed by the other seven awarenesses, not from a judgmental place, maintaining inquiry and curiosity and compassion as core values.
Speaker 2:What does somebody around us maybe need or want? How can we be of service and generous with where we are and what we have? And that kind of closes the eight awareness's loop and that we we kind of fill our cup. And when it's full, we have a little bit to share. And then in our times of need, we're also a little bit more comfortable receiving support and being the ones who others can be of service to.
Speaker 2:A lot of people who are in the grips of some type of addiction or dimming, We're not that great at accepting help. We're kind of in the survivor, I got it arena of life. So part of a clear life journey is just a softening and actually recognizing when we can be the on the receiving end of support and then in turn learning how to be of that type of service and generosity to those around us from in an unagended way when they need it. Well, that's the eight awarenesses. Thank you so much for the great questions.
Speaker 1:They're so good. And, actually, actually, before we move on, because I think the eighth one is probably the most foreign to a lot of people. I know it was for me, you know? Some people grow up being always in service, through their church or their community or their school. That wasn't me.
Speaker 1:I didn't do a whole lot of that. I was always a generous person, but I'd really be curious at like, you know, what are some examples of people being at service? What are like, you know, I think that there are small ones, but I'd be interested to know how you approach it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I would first I would first not think of gestures or acts of service or kindness as big or small. Very simple acts of thoughtfulness can be deeply transformative for people.
Speaker 1:Oh, you definitely came out with that Buddhist teacher a lot because that was
Speaker 2:Well, no. I I my all of my work is very much informed by Buddhism, so I don't want that to be behind the curtain.
Speaker 1:On your own. I just make
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. No.
Speaker 2:It's true. You know, I I actually find the little things the most meaningful to folks. And, of course, it's wonderful if you're part of an organization or you can volunteer at a school or you can volunteer at a community group or whatever it might be and give of your give of your time and energy. There's definitely a need in place for that. But often, it's just you have five minutes handwriting somebody a note when letting them know that you think about them.
Speaker 2:Or, you know, one one tool that I've been using occasionally is a voice memo on a phone. I was walking through New York City last week, and I saw this mom daughter adult mom, adult daughter sitting, talking. And they reminded me of a of a friend of mine, and I just picked up my phone and voice memoed her kinda where I was and what I was doing and why those people made me think of her. And just like a and I wasn't trying to be nice or trying to be thoughtful in the moment. It was just a like a I have energy and all this.
Speaker 2:I'm in this place of beauty and appreciation, and I wanna spill it over a little bit. I had an inclination to spill it over a little bit. And so sent a voice memo with no expectation of anything back or in return or anything to come back. It's just those little things really add up. I know that in the in the clear life circles and realm of living in an undimmed way, sometimes our acts of service are just being honest, just being really vulnerable and truthful with people about what's hard and letting them know that you are a safe place to then share what's hard for them.
Speaker 2:That could be an enormous act of service. And that might be telling somebody who we see struggling, hey. I just want you to know I'm here as your friend if you ever need a friend, and you could never mention this again, or you can call me up tonight, and I'm here for you. But nonjudgment, no agenda, no opinion, and extreme confidentiality. I'm here for you if you need anything.
Speaker 2:That kind of thing means a lot to people, and it's not a big grandiose act. Yes. And you don't need to be part of an organization or even spend any money or time. Those things really make a big impact. I know they did for me.
Speaker 2:I I had a number of people along my path early on in my ClearLife expirations just let me know. Like, hey. I get it. This is weird. This is gonna be hard.
Speaker 2:You can have all these awkward conversations and, you know, give me a call or buzz or text as things come up. And I I did my best to take advantage of those things as I was shedding my own armor of toughness, and I got it all by myself. Every once in a while, I was able to actually accept that gesture of kindness, And it really helped me soften and then be a more present person for others in in similar moments.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And and it does so much for you as well. It feeds the soul when you do things like that. I know that I started, you know how we all like will be sitting there and then somebody will pop into your head that you haven't thought about or you're wondering what they're doing? I act on that every single time now.
Speaker 1:I'll write, you know what I was thinking about you this morning, and maybe I haven't even heard from that person or talked to them in years.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But if you write something, a good memory or some quality about them that you really adore and enjoy and think is unique to them and just send it to them, it feels great. And and they really love it too. So it doesn't have to be these big things.
Speaker 2:No. I know. It could be as simple as three words. I mean, one thing that happened in my family over the last seven years was that we started saying, I love you. And there's something about, like, the tough stock of my father and his father that we didn't end phone calls or dinners or hellos or goodbyes with I love you.
Speaker 2:And as I got really soupy and soft in my other ClearLife explorations, I started saying I love you to people who I could tell were uncomfortable with those words. Not because they weren't loving people. It's just not really the way that they communicated and not the way that they were raised. And over time, they started being the ones to say, I love you first. It took years.
Speaker 2:And we've talked about it a couple of us now. Like, it's interesting that we can do that now, and it's a it's a really transformative thing. I I actually just this morning, I was so touched. I have a I have a 17 year old son at home and a 13 year old son at home. So I'm I'm cherishing these last months before my older one goes to college presumably by this time next year.
Speaker 2:And we had a, you know, typical morning avocado toast, you know, jabbing each other, agreeing on the plan for the afternoon, who's getting warehouse, blah blah blah. And then the older one, you know, ran out the door, get up to his car, and go to school. And he said, goodbye, mom. Love you. I said that to him, then there was another goodbye.
Speaker 2:And his little brother wasn't within earshot when he was walking out and going up the steps. Thirty seconds later, the door opened again, and my kid came in and said, hey, Tee. Love you. Have a great day, and slammed the door. And I I almost fell apart right there.
Speaker 2:Like, I I don't care what your grades are, dude. Like, I don't care college you get into, you know, what what climbing feet you pulled off yesterday afternoon. Like, if you're stopping in your tracks and coming back down to the house to make sure that your little brother heard you say, I love you, we're good. We're good. Like, something is working.
Speaker 2:Everything is gonna be okay. And so and that's something that, you know, my journey started, like, five or six years ago, and it it's it's we see these little ripple effects. And, hopefully, they tell their kids that you know, teach their kids to do the same thing. So that those are the acts of service that just break my heart of joy.
Speaker 1:Well, it's an absolutely beautiful story. And if this entire interview and everything you've gone through and everything you've accomplished and everything you continue to build isn't a testament to what you're trying to build and that you that the clear life actually works. I don't know what is. So I think it's a great place for us to end here. If everyone heard every single one of these eight awarenesses and wants to learn more, I think the best thing is to let them know where they can go.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you. You can find everything through my website, CecilyMac.com. I also really get enormous joy after or out of, my weekly Substack. So you can find that under my name, Cecily Mac. It's TGIF ClearLife.
Speaker 2:And, of course, my IG at ClearLifeJourney as well. And I love hearing from people. I love hearing your questions. I love the feedback. I will love hearing your stories.
Speaker 2:So please don't be shy about, outreach. I try to read everything that comes in. So thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:No. This has been amazing. So I'm gonna put you on the spotlight and say, there any parting words you wanna leave before we cut the mic?
Speaker 2:Mm-mm. I mean, my big one for everyone and myself all the time is listen to yourself. Just listen to yourself.
Speaker 1:That's it for today's episode on Journey to the Sunny Side. A big thank you to Cecily Mack for walking us through the eight awarenesses, showing us how this framework can create lasting change. I know that I personally enjoyed the time that we spent together. And if you're ready to take a deeper look into your own habits, head on over to sunnyside.co and take our three minute quiz to start your mindful drinking journey today. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram at join sunnyside for more tips, success stories, and inspiration.
Speaker 1:If you've enjoyed today's episode, hit that subscribe button so you never miss an update. Until next time, let's keep moving towards a clear, more intentional life.
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