travel Archives | Hello Sunday Morning

It doesn’t feel like long ago that I struggled to go just one week without alcohol. So it’s hard to believe that it’s now been two years without a drink. My original goal was to stop drinking for a year. However, after seeing how much my life changed in that year, I decided to stick with the sober life. I haven’t decided that I will never drink again but the longer I stay sober, the more reasons I find to want to stay sober.

Giving up a twenty-year binge-drinking habit has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. The new lifestyle still presents challenges, although it has proven that sometimes the hardest things to do are often the most rewarding.

Last year was tough. I consciously didn’t date anyone all year. I knew it was going to take at least twelve months to adjust to an alcohol-free life and to feel comfortable enough within my new sober skin to go on a first date. I also avoided as many social events as possible. Just the thought of going to a pub or bar, sober, made me feel uncomfortable. A few months into the year I came to the realisation that I not only had social anxiety but most likely always did have, and had been self-medicating with alcohol.

A few months into the sober life I got invited to a party. I knew I had to go because it was for a good friend and I couldn’t avoid parties for the rest of my life. I was dreading the thought of going. I constantly pictured myself at the party being socially awkward. I would keep coming up with excuses in my head of how I could get out of going. However, I knew that to move forward I would have to get over these hurdles. As it turns out, the party wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, nor were the next few parties after that. It’s like anything I guess, the more you do something the easier it becomes. Which is what happened after the first sober date; once I’d jumped that first dreaded hurdle it became easier and easier.

Slowly, I would start to see the benefits of being the sober one. Sure, maybe I wasn’t as loud, or cracking as many jokes, as the people drinking but at least at the end of the night I was coming home with money in my wallet and a clear head. It was a nice change to be able to remember everything that happened on a night out. The biggest benefit was saying goodbye to hangovers. Waking up fresh on the weekends has opened up a whole new world of opportunities. This simple pleasure was something that I’d not really experienced many times before. In my first (and last) blog ‘My twenty-year love-hate relationship with alcohol’, I calculated that I’d roughly wasted three and a half years of my life laying on a couch watching TV, hungover. With hangovers now out of my life, I’ve gained at least one night a week (from not drinking) and one full day (from no hangovers). I now find I have time to do things that I’ve wanted to do for years but never thought I had the time or money.

Another huge benefit of saying goodbye to booze is the amount of money you save. Also, the amount of energy you find you really have. Last year I discovered that with all the extra time, money and energy I had, I could finally start living the life that alcohol was holding me back from living. My thirst for alcohol became a thirst for knowledge. I took a short course in photography, which was something I’d always been interested in. I enjoyed it so much that I ended up doing two more similar courses. I also started up at a guitar-building school and built a bass guitar as well as rebuilding an old bass guitar that I had. I started studying Spanish. Learning another language was always on my bucket list. When alcohol was in my life, the thought of studying anything after work was just not an option. I couldn’t think of anything worse back then. Probably because I spent most of the week tired and recovering from the weekend. When I was drinking I would come home from work exhausted and quite often fall asleep on the couch before dinner. These days, most evenings I feel like doing something productive.

Realising how much more time I had on my hands got me thinking how I could get more hours out of a week to do things I wanted to do. So I slowly cut back on TV, to a point where I don’t really watch any now. I was watching probably three hours a night and maybe ten hours a day on a weekend, if I was really hungover. That’s up to thirty-five hours a week I’m getting back. So now I feel like I’m making up for some of that time I wasted with all those hangovers. I cut back on social media as well. Cutting out roughly an hour a day gives me another seven hours per week.

I love to travel. A big dream of mine was to do a big trip around the world. So now with a clear head, I put together a plan to make it happen. Obviously giving up partying was a huge saving but it also got me thinking of other ways to save money. As the year went on I could almost feel the brain cells grow back and actually started to feel smarter. Well, I was at least thinking a hell of a lot clearer anyway. Even the fact that I’m now writing blogs. The old me would have laughed at the idea of writing. The old me couldn’t have been bothered. My memory has never been great but I think that has improved a bit as well.

So by the end of 2017, after a year of planning and saving hard, I was off on my dream holiday. I travelled to twenty countries over six and a half months and ticked off a bunch of things from the bucket list. Peru and the Inca Trail were at the top of my bucket list. I got to spend seven weeks in Peru and did the Inca Trail. It was as amazing as I hoped it would be. I swam with sharks on the Belize Barrier Reef and snorkeled with a manatee. I went caving in some beautiful caves in Cuba, Belize, and Vietnam. I went to a few NBA games in Canada and the US and went to an NHL game. I went on the biggest zip line in the southern hemisphere, in Costa Rica, Superman style. In Nicaragua I saw flowing lava in a volcano, I climbed volcanos and even boarded down one. I met hundreds of people and made new friends all over the globe.

Living that dream was the best thing I’ve ever done. There is no doubt that it was better than a bunch of nights out at my local pub. That was another one of my reasons for wanting to stop drinking. I figured that I had been drunk so many times and had so many nights out but there were so many countries out there waiting to be explored. So why would I want to live the repetitious life of getting drunk every weekend when that money could be getting spent on something much more rewarding.

I think one appeal of alcohol is that it’s a quick solution to make you feel good. At least, that’s what we think. Is it really making you feel good though? If you are a heavy drinker like I was, there was only really a window of maybe a few hours that you felt good and happy before things started to get blurry and memory loss kicked in. For that few hours of feeling good, I would have to pay. Not just financially but for the next few days whilst I recovered. They say the older you get the worse the hangovers get. I partially agree with that. In my case, the hangovers were not necessarily getting worse but just lasting a lot longer. I don’t believe that it was just because I was getting older though. I think it was because the older I got the more alcohol I could handle and the longer I could drink for. As an adolescent, I maybe drank for two to six hours before vomiting or passing out. As I got older, I practically trained myself to be able to drink all through the day and night. So if your drinking sessions are three to four times longer than when you started out drinking, it makes sense that the hangovers are going to last three to four times longer.

So I eventually realised the hangovers that lasted for days were just not worth the one night (a few hours) of fun. In fact, the nights were no longer even really fun anymore. Rollercoasters are great fun but I imagine if you sat on one for twenty years, the novelty would probably wear off. Not only was drinking no longer as fun as it used to be but it was slowly becoming depressing. I felt like I was walking through a really long tunnel, slowly walking away from the light (the fun times) and into the darkness.

I think a lot of people are under the misconception that a night out with friends was fun because they were drunk. Maybe the night out was fun because you enjoy the company of your friends and they make you laugh. I don’t miss the taste of alcohol or the action of drinking. I do miss hanging out and having a laugh with friends though. It’s just unfortunate that having nights out in our culture, and most Western cultures, usually involves alcohol.

When I went back to work after travelling for the first half of the year, there was a new guy at work. He’s one of the most stereotypical Australians I’ve ever met. A tradie who’s life revolves around football, cricket, gambling, and beer. When he found out I didn’t drink, it was as if I’d just told him I was an alien or something. ‘What’s wrong with ya!?’ he said, in absolute shock. That reaction really annoyed me. I don’t think it was necessarily him I was annoyed at though. I was more annoyed because I felt that statement summed up the mentality of so many Australians. Because the vast majority of Aussies drink, they seem to think there must be something wrong with anyone that doesn’t. Coming home and having to deal with that attitude again was kind of unwelcoming.

People get stuck in loops. If you have a big night every weekend you usually feel pretty run down for a few days. Later in the week, you might feel like you need to get drunk to pick you up again. I think that in itself is a misconception though. Does it really make us feel that good? We might tell ourselves that it makes us feel good because we’ve had so many fun nights with alcohol. But really, there’s nothing fun about drinking alone and it doesn’t really make you feel good either. In fact, if you’re drinking alone, it’s probably making you feel more alone. Some people say they like a drink because it helps them relax. Is it the alcohol making you relaxed though, or the fact that you’re no longer at work and now sitting at home with your feet up. Ask yourself: Why do I drink? Question your relationship with alcohol. Is it really making you happier? I would actually love to hear all your answers.

Other negative loops can be eating too much and having weight issues. I’ve never really been overweight but I can relate to overweight people. Eating fatty or sugary foods is a way to momentarily feel good but then you may have the remorse when you start to put on weight. You might start to get down because of how you look, so you eat something that tastes good to make you feel better again. It’s a snowball effect. Drinking is the same. I enjoyed getting drunk (in the early days anyway) but then would have regrets about wasting money and only having myself to blame for feeling like rubbish for days after. It starts to really beat you down after so many years.

In my last year of drinking, that metaphorical tunnel was getting dark. To my surprise, it continued to get darker after I stopped drinking. Eventually, I stopped, I turned around. Now I’m heading back towards the light end and into a much happier and brighter future. I’m slowly becoming stronger, healthier and wealthier. I now feel like I’m stuck in a positive loop. The healthier I become physically, the healthier I become mentally, so I want to become stronger and healthier physically etc. At thirty-eight years old the thought of turning forty was really getting me down. Not now though; now I’m genuinely excited to see what my future holds and no longer worried about being in my forties.

It’s probably no real big surprise that one of the biggest benefits of getting rid of binge drinking from your life, is the health benefit. I had suffered from headaches and poor digestion as long as I can remember. Now for the first time in my life, my body is functioning the way it should be and coincidentally, no more headaches! For decades I had tried to work out what was causing the headaches. I now believe they were caused by digestive issues which were most likely linked to dehydration from binge drinking. The last few years I was drinking, I also noticed my legs would ache a lot. Sometimes to the point that I couldn’t sleep because my legs were so restless and aching so much. I had read that this could be caused by being dehydrated.

Which made sense, considering I was almost always in a state of dehydration. When I was drinking, I would constantly need water at hand, even all through the week. I was always thirsty. About six months after giving up alcohol, I started to notice that I could survive without having a water bottle constantly attached to my hand. About six to twelve months later, I started to notice my legs weren’t aching as much. There were a couple of times in the years leading up to me giving up alcohol that I had a month off drinking. When my legs still ached after a month sober, I decided that it must have been just from work and because I was getting old. Even though I didn’t think it was quite right to feel like that before I’d even turned forty. As it turns out, it takes longer than one month for your body to fully recover from twenty years of abuse. So, my advice to anyone looking to give up drinking is, don’t give up after a month because you haven’t noticed enough changes. It’s now been two years for me and I’m still discovering new benefits. I’ve never been diagnosed with anxiety but I definitely am an overthinker and occasionally get anxious about things. For example, I would overthink everything I posted on social media. I probably deleted fifty percent of things I posted because I would sit there overthinking what I had posted and wondering what people would think. In the last year, I think I’ve only deleted maybe one or two posts. So obviously my mental health is in a much better place as well.

They say ‘you are what you eat’. I now know what they mean by that. Although, I think the saying should be, ‘you are what you consume’. It’s amazing how much your mental and physical health changes when you stop fueling your body with rubbish and start filling it with decent fuel.

A quick recap of the last two years:

Made peace with who I really am.
Randomly got offered (and accepted) a great job.
Travelled the world for six and a half months.
Swam with sharks.
Hiked the Inca Trail.
Climbed a volcano.
Lowered my anxiety levels.
Became healthier and stronger both physically and mentally.
For the first time in thirteen years, got involved in a serious relationship.

Far too many amazing life-changing events to just be a coincidence that they happened when I stopped drinking. Having said that, I did go through some tough times as I adjusted to a life without alcohol. My tip for anyone considering going down the long and rough road to a sober life (I learned this on my travelling. It’s a bit of a cliche but it’s true): Sometimes the longest and bumpiest roads, lead to the best places.

Anonymous

Written by Zane Pocock

If you’ve decided to forgo alcohol, maintaining a healthy social life is one of the most difficult aspects that many of us are familiar with. This is a complex enough challenge when we stay in the same place; maintaining friendships that have been partially built on drinking, getting through the Christmas season and getting to know yourself again are just the start of the hurdles we face.

But removing yourself completely only makes this change even harder, even if it might initially seem easier to start over. Whether by choice or for work, family or any other reason, sometimes we find ourselves leaving our old lives behind not only behaviourally, but geographically as well. It’s no small undertaking and it can be even more difficult when we’ve already removed a crutch we previously relied on.

I have now moved to an entirely different country twice since I decided to stop drinking. The first time was so difficult that I reflect on those three years with a feeling that I partially wasted a chunk of my mid-20s.

The main realisation is obvious in hindsight but difficult to confront when life is already busy: not all enjoyment, socialising and purpose can come from work and family. No matter where we find ourselves, it’s imperative to build a community. In my case, the easiest way to do this in a new environment would have been to hit the piss and connect with others over painting the town red. Hell, I’m comfortable admitting that I did that the first time I moved and I still have lifelong friends from that time.

But habits change and now I don’t drink. I’m still comfortable and happy about this decision, but it has made life difficult when moving around the world. So what do you do?

Here are some tips I’ve discovered for moving to a new place as a non-drinker. They can probably be applied to all situations, but moving geographically is a particularly difficult challenge to navigate. The key is to follow through on these intentions.

Build your comfort zone

This post is all about getting into social environments and building your sense of community without the help of alcohol. Although it might seem counterintuitive, one of the best things I’ve done is put a lot of effort into making myself feel at home.

For the three years that we were living in Sydney, my wife and I never set up our own place. We moved into a fully furnished apartment because we liked the harbour view, and that was that. But it never once felt like home – it always felt like we were living in someone else’s life, in transit to whatever our ‘permanent’ home was going to be.

This was a mistake. No matter how important it is to get outside and meet people in your new community, it’s equally important to have a home that you feel comfortable in; somewhere that offers respite from a loud, busy world and can function as a home base for all the battles and challenges you’re going to face.

So, what makes a place feel like home for you? For us it meant we needed to buy our own furniture, invest in some resilient house plants, and front up for the wall-repair costs to install some art that we actually wanted to live with. I had forgotten the feeling of walking in the door and feeling the stress drop off as my nest was revealed before me. It’s helped me acclimatise and jump into unknown situations with the knowledge that there’s a comfortable respite waiting to greet me later in the evening.

Join a Meetup group

What are you passionate about? A great hack I’ve found for easing into social situations without the help of a drink, has been to connect with others that are interested in similar things to me. It means the conversation flows relatively seamlessly – in many cases, so effectively that I found it easier than with alcohol.

Meetup is a powerful online tool for this, with in-person gatherings organised by crowds of like-minded people in various group sizes and locations. I was astonished by how many groups I could join when I signed up for the service and I’ve made healthy use of it. I try to get to something every week and my community thus far has essentially grown from this central hub.

There are other options, most of which are facilitated through other virtual or online communities – it all depends on what social channel your people tend to concentrate on. Local Facebook groups will often be very specific and bond over a sense of where you’ve come from. In my case, for example, a group of New Zealanders in New York has been a supportive, thriving community. Or an app like Shapr facilitates one-on-one meetings. This has been great for professional and personal connections alike, in a context that allows for deeper personal relationships to be built.

Join a sports club

This is similar to interest-aligned socialising such as joining Meetups or book clubs, except sport is a particularly helpful exercise (sorry) thanks to the endorphins – locking those good feelings into a connection with the people you’re with and forming incredibly deep, meaningful social bonds. The key thing to realise here is that you don’t have to be any good.

It’s also a great way to get to know a different culture. For me, baseball was a foreign concept, but through engaging with a local club I now feel like a piece of the American puzzle has been filled in for me – while also being a lot of fun.

Show up

When I’m at home before an event, the sun has set and I’m a little tired from the day, I’ve always found it the obvious choice to just stay home. Social environments exhaust me; even more so now that I don’t have a prop to launch me into everyone else’s superhuman social level.

But from my recent experience, Woody Allen seems to be right when he says, “Showing up is 80% of life.” When I moved earlier this year, it didn’t take long to fall into the familiar trap of signing up for things then using every available excuse not to go. I was tired, it was too hot, the commute too long, I had very important work to do … You know them all.

But in the past couple of months I adopted a policy that I had to go to everything I signed up for. This had some great benefits. It forced me to filter the signal from the noise on all the great groups I’d signed up to, through Meetup and the like. For most of us, we’re never going to go out for something every single evening. That is objectively exhausting and it requires being picky about what you sign up for. It means I’ve actually gone to things and now that I’ve met people, not only do they expect to see me again, but I also feel familiar with the environment and more comfortable heading out. It’s a self-reinforcing social cycle.

Keep in touch back home

Life gets busy, and if there’s one thing I know painfully well it’s that international social connections take a lot of effort to maintain, even with the global communications infrastructure we now have at our fingertips. Heck, sometimes it feels difficult enough if people are just in another neighbourhood.

Thing is, when you’re not seeing your friends, family and colleagues as often as you used to, it’s easy for this to escalate into full-blown social isolation – even if you’re doing everything else to establish a new community, perfectly. Home is where the heart is, and no matter how well you set yourself up, you’re likely going to miss everyone you’ve left behind.

Some people I know are really good at managing this, but if you’re not one of them then the solution, unfortunately, is good scheduling. Particularly if you’re managing different time zones, it’s helpful to have a regular recurring catch-up with the people you miss the most – it reduces the cognitive load for everyone involved and the game theory means everyone will give a second thought to cancelling at the last minute – what if you’ve arisen early or passed up another opportunity? Take your pick of medium for this – there are so many services from Skype to Facetime that there’s no point listing any preferred ones.

Challenge yourself to start conversations

In case you can’t tell by now, I’m a ‘textbook’ introvert. Socialising doesn’t come naturally to me and it takes a lot of energy to feel confident without liquid courage.

Are you curious about the place you find yourself in? That curiosity alone is probably enough to fuel an avalanche of questions for any locals you meet. That’s been the case for me. We all know this can be easy if you go down to the local bar, but if that’s difficult to manage then you can try some other tricks. One of my favourites is to skip the supermarket and instead go to the local butcher, baker, farmers’ market and the like. These environments are socially similar to bars as they often become local community hubs and you’ll find the people behind the counter will have sunk deep roots into the local goings-on and way of life.

I also try to make a habit of striking up conversations with taxi- and Uber drivers, people I’m stuck in a queue with, and in any other situation that seems ripe for a chat – with varying success. Pro tip: New Yorkers don’t like talking on the Subway.

Practice self-care

No matter how many times people stress the importance of looking after yourself, it’s always worth being reminded of it and I’m sure many of us have yoga, meditation and exercise goals on our New Year’s resolution lists.

But the amount of noise generated in the name of self-care doesn’t undermine its value. A good diet, for example, is going to substantially change how your mood evolves in the course of a day and have a material impact on how you interact with others while you’re building your community.

Proper self-care brings the disparate pieces of the puzzle together. It means you have routines to get in to the day and unwind at the end of it. Exercise helps you think straight, and consistent sleep cycles help you reinforce things you’ve learned and build good mental models for your new environment. Look after yourself and the rest will follow.

Consider getting a pet

This one might be a bit difficult to manage so it’s certainly an optional suggestion. With that caveat aside, getting a dog is one of the best things I’ve ever done for my sense of community.

Within a few months of our most recent move, my wife and I had adopted a puppy. It’s a blessing in disguise because we’re constantly being forced outside for her toilet breaks, only to meet half the residents in our neighbourhood. Even ‘back home’ I have never felt so connected to a community as I do right now. After all, dogs will be dogs, and when they get together to do their doggy things the only option owners are left with is to get to know each other.

If a pet isn’t appropriate for your situation, just talk to your neighbours! I feel like I’m tapped into this thriving hyper-local network which isn’t exclusive to dog owners – it just helps to have the excuse. Now, when we have 20 police officers gathering in the apartment building hallway (true story) there are enough of us connected to systematically work out what’s happening, despite their tight-lipped approach. It’s deeply rewarding – and even a good safety precaution – to know the people you live amongst.

This list is not exhaustive, but it accurately presents the steps I’ve taken to build a community in a new environment as a non-drinker. What was a daunting task when I first moved, is now an opportunity to slowly construct exactly the life I want to live and the community I want to be surrounded by. If you find yourself in a similar situation, see it for the promise it holds and invest heavily in building your new social life. It makes life fun again. What have you found that works for building your community?

Returning home after a trip around the world has taught me something valuable about self-love. It’s a busy world, and you’ll feel overwhelmed if you don’t know how to communicate with yourself and listen to your needs. Culture means to be connected, but sometimes we lose contact with ourselves when we search for a connection with others. Sometimes you realise that you have never been connected to yourself.

My teenage and young adult years were extremely fun and extremely horrible at the same time. I needed alcohol to feel okay with who I was. Without being drunk I didn’t really allow myself to have fun, and I always wanted to have fun. For me, it wasn’t like I felt great and thought a drink or two could make me feel even better. I felt out of place, lost, unwanted, stiff, and stressed-out unless I was drunk. I couldn’t see the fun in doing things without drinking, and anything was fun if I could only be drunk doing it.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t like I felt great drinking, either. Once I started I only felt content if I had a new drink in my hand or knew that I had access to more. I rarely enjoyed the moment; I only chased getting drunker. And drunker I got, but not happier.

It felt like someone had sucked the soul out of me whenever I woke up from my drunkenness. Days after drinking I still felt like I would never be able to experience joy again.

Why did I allow myself to drink every week if I knew I would feel so rotten for so many days after?

Alcohol was a part of who I believed I was. I didn’t know who I could be without it. I didn’t know how to have fun without alcohol. Honestly, I thought that a life without alcohol wasn’t worth living. Partying was all that kept me searching for more. I didn’t even care what party I went to, as long as it meant that I could get drunk.

As a 27-year-old woman who has been through a lot of psychologists, self-help books, podcasts, and treatments, I know that I have a lot of knowledge and inspiration to share with the world. Sharing is good for those who are struggling themselves and also for parents, teachers and other people related to someone who is struggling. It opens up a gateway through which people can relate, understand and then offer help.

This is why I wrote the book, Free The Girl – A story about (finding) self-love,
and share my experiences with feeling like shit. Our minds are scared of change–that’s why it is hard to break habits–but change is just one decision away.

Hot tips for self-love

If alcohol affects you negatively, here are my tips on self-love and how to work with yourself.

To get a grasp of your own relationship with alcohol, ask yourself, ‘Why do I drink?’. If you answer ‘because it tastes good’ then ask yourself if you would choose a non-alcoholic drink if it tasted exactly the same. If not, then why do you drink?

The point of answering this question is to be truthful with yourself. Our brains love to make up excuses for why we do things, but if you ask yourself and really listen in, you often feel the real truth inside.

If you would like to take a break from drinking but it feels like a long stretch, set a reasonable goal. Start with one month if two feels overwhelming. Put the month into a bigger perspective: what is 30 days of your life without alcohol, really? Isn’t it worth giving your body, liver and head a little rest? A month just to check in and see if you feel different, maybe even better than you currently do. Aren’t you curious about how much energy you might get? Wouldn’t it be great to look back and celebrate that you could do it? At the end of the day, it is just a test to see if your life can improve.

Prepare for your time off alcohol and make a list of things to do instead:

Write a list of positive outcomes. What will you get out of taking a break? Put your list on your fridge and read it every time things get hard.
Check if someone wants to do it with you. In that case, you can hang out together if all your other friends are out clubbing. Or you can both go out with your friends if you feel like you’ll be okay not drinking.
What did you use to do when you were younger, before you started drinking? Is there a hobby you have benched?
Visit your grandparents or other relatives that you don’t see often
Catch up on your reading
Use this time to really pamper yourself. Eat healthy food, get outdoors for some natural sunlight, go to bed on time – view it as a spring clean-out!

If you need more inspiration to get this list going, try to put on a seven-minute timer and write down anything that comes to mind that makes you lose track of time or that you simply enjoy doing.

The most important thing is to be kind to yourself.

Speak to yourself like you would speak to your child or best friend. Cut yourself some slack! Keep in mind that it is okay to not always feel amazing. Allow your mind and body to just be, and say to yourself that it is okay. Right now, what I feel is what I feel, how I am is how I am – and right now, that is okay. Life is so much more than we can describe it in words. Follow your interests, follow your happiness and don’t limit yourself to what you know!

Maya Kiusalaas | www.mymondaylove.com

We’ve all heard of a bucket list (the things you want to do before you kick the bucket), but why should we wait to see the pearly gates on the horizon before we do the things we have always wanted?

What is stopping you from living life right now?

Recently we caught up with Seb Terry, who travels the world helping people tick off their 100 Things list. He is the ultimate guru when it comes to creating your list and choosing to live a more fulfilling life.

Even if people do have a bucket list, not many things on it get ticked off, as day-to-day life tends to get in the way. These reasons and excuses may sound familiar:

Money – “But I don’t have enough; I can’t afford it!”

Failure – “I won’t be able to do it; what if I don’t win?”

Commitments – “I am too busy at work; I already do too much; I have kids and a dog and a partner!”

Opinions – “What would people think?”

Comfort – “I have control over my life at the moment, if I change anything everything will fall out of place.”

Success – “What if I really love it? What if I’m good at it and don’t want to go back to my old job?”

Fear – “I don’t know if I am ready/brave enough.”

Give yourself permission

Sebastian Terry says we choose to do something or to not do something and in the middle sits one word; permission.

The first step in deciding to write or start ticking off the things on your list is to give yourself permission. You’re the only one with the power to allow yourself to think about what you really want to achieve in your life.

Choose

When we’re young we know what we want; we would be able to sit down and write an endless list with no concerns about how to make it happen or whether it’s realistic or not. But we get older and we’re told what to do and how to think by other people. Things are laid out for us by others. By living your own truth you are choosing to empower yourself.

Grow

In order to grow, we have to step out of our comfort zone. Creating and ticking off your list allows you to shape your identity, or redefine your purpose on this earth and revisit your values that may have been shadowed or buried in a pile of work and responsibilities.

Ask

You will never know an answer until you ask and most of the time, you have nothing to lose by asking. Asking if someone wants to join you in your quest, asking for the time off work, asking if someone needs a house sitter in the Canadian Rockies, asking if anyone has a workshop you could rent to start your craft. Passion inspires passion. People generally want to help other people achieve their goals.

Start writing

What is something you care about so much that you don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks?

Write it down.

You just need to know why you don’t need to know how just yet, the how will come. It’s the idea of manifestation = action, know what you want, put it out there by thinking about it, talking about it and looking into it. Before you know it, that dream will start taking shape.

Want to be a part of Hello Sunday Morning’s Experiments Challenge? Join us by ticking something off your list, sharing on social media and tagging #hellosundaymorning #experimentschallenge

How context frames the things we rely on

It’s been three months now of my first ever prolonged alcohol-free experience, so I’ve decided to write down some thoughts about it. The following reflections are not from someone with a dependence, nor from a party animal or binge drinker. It is not a personal alcohol problem that has triggered this alcohol-free experience, but a simple medical treatment. You might think, “well, what’s the big deal then?” — but these three months without a drop of alcohol have made me question how we draw the line on what we call dependence.

Why is it a big deal?

Being a teenager — an average one, I believe — I was avid to break free from adult rules that decided what I could and couldn’t do. Being a not-yet-adult was so confining! Not being able to work and earn your own money, needing permission to go out with friends, not being allowed to drink or smoke (although, of course, most of us did these long before the legal age). Even though I had relatively liberal parents compared to my friends back then, those limitations were everywhere, and it bothered me that I couldn’t decide when I felt responsible enough to do or try certain things. I think a lot about freedom since those teenage times. I praise it, chase it, and even avoid some commitments. The ability to do what I please at any time and make my own decisions is precious to me.

Teenage-hood is arguably the most socially busy time of our lives, and that’s the time when we are finally allowed to drink. It is not a coincidence that social life goes so hand in hand with alcohol and tobacco, the two hugely advertised drugs that mark our breaking free from our repressed childhoods. No more allowing adults to make decisions for us on how to have fun! Besides, it’s from adults that we’d learned to associate alcohol with friends and fun.

The irony is that, although we become free to choose alcohol or cigarettes when we reach the age of independence (which most of us do, as with anything that has been denied to us previously), choosing drugs as social enablers actually leads many of us to the complete opposite of freedom.

“Anyone can see that a child is not free when he desires milk, nor the drunken man when he says things which he later regrets.” — Rudolf Steiner

I love Steiner’s quote as it illustrates very well how, when we are under the effects of alcohol, even at a moderately tipsy level, we lose control of our will. Free will is the capacity to act and decide independently, without influences. As you might guess, being so paranoid about my freedom, I have always been a bit uncomfortable about losing my free will. I believe that’s one of the reasons why I’ve never drunk too much alcohol. Being tipsy is already distressing for me, besides associating it with sickness, which I believe is one of the most terrible natural opponents of freedom.

Still, I’ve never had anything against alcohol itself. I do enjoy a fresh bitter ale at a sunny terrace, and lately, since living in Australia, I love a glass of Shiraz with a tasty local dinner. And I carry the pride of tequila in my veins as a good Mexican, so for over 11 years living abroad, I’ve been pouring my sweet roots to friends from different places around the world, teaching them how a good tequila shouldn’t be drunk as a shot, but rather slowly, tasting it!

A better understanding

For over nine months now, I’ve been listening, reading and following stories, news, and theories about drinking. Funnily enough, my four months of alcohol-free experience comes at a time when empathising with people who want to drink less is part of my daily life. I’ll give you a bit of background on this.

Less than a year ago, my boyfriend and I moved to Australia: the second-ranked of OECD countries on (pure) alcohol consumption per capita, as ranked by the World Health Organization in 2015. Quite a shocking fact when you’ve lived in Finland, thinking that no other country could beat them!

We lived for over a year in Vietnam in between Finland and Australia, where we were fascinated by always having a fridge full of beer at the office (it was an Australian company). The interesting part was not that we had those beers at work, but that it remained full! There was no need to refill with beer very often. Fridays came, when we had a small get-together at the office, and we foreigners were almost always the only ones with beers in our hands. This isn’t to say that Vietnamese wouldn’t ever drink, but local guys would rather play games, ride their scooters back home safely (or relatively safely), and avoid having their wives angry at them. The women, meanwhile, would take care of their figure by avoiding the calories from alcoholic drinks.

When we moved to Sydney, I was already looking forward to becoming a freelancer working on ethical projects. I didn’t want to work any longer for large enterprises where design was a mere tool to increase profit. I had long awaited the opportunity to use my skills for a cause to make this world a better place. Freedom and inspiration were going to be my drivers from now on. After about a month in beautiful Sydney I was dealing with my lack of leadership and contacts to turn my saving-the-world ideas into a living; then, serendipity hit me, and I joined the inspiring team of Hello Sunday Morning, a small charity with a mission to help people change their relationships with alcohol.

The thing that drove me to Hello Sunday Morning was the organisation’s mindset around alcohol and drug consumption. It conveyed a very positive view where openness, motivation, and support were the tools to help people free themselves from habit. The aim was to use state of the art psychology and technology to help people change their habits to healthier ones.

I’ve been learning a lot since becoming part of the team. Listening to my colleagues’ knowledge, plus interviewing very diverse people from our focus groups and reading about addiction, habits, and behaviour change has been renovating my view of alcohol in society.

I didn’t ever suspect that helping people rise above dependence would be my way to make this world a better place. I didn’t ever consider alcohol as something to worry or care much about. I would often avoid drunk people, even family or friends, and sometimes blamed them for not “controlling” themselves. I would ignorantly assume that people with addictions didn’t want nor appreciated help or concern. We tend to generalise, and I had been doing so for many years. When I was still of a young age, wondering about the reasoning behind those strange things adults did, I would see my dad now and then behave in an odd and embarrassing way after a meet up with his friends, and I would only feel pity, shame — and, a few times, even disgust. I had learned to relate alcohol to grumpy, annoying and careless behaviour. In a way, as Ellen J. Langer explains it in her book Mindfulness, I had a limited view of alcohol dependence during my youth and didn’t consider all the different reasons behind alcohol consumption, nor the possibilities to improve things. The truth is, all of us can do a lot to help people free themselves from dependence and habits, and even prevent it to a certain point. We can all do this with a bit of behaviour change.

From my early views about alcohol, you may assume I would reject it and avoid drinking myself, but that was not so. I was always free to choose what I would see as the non-stupid, non-annoying way, of course. But going out with friends to have fun is rarely an alcohol-free situation, and wherever there’s alcohol, especially when you’re young, there’s a good amount of social pressure to drink to a point where you start to lose that sense of free will.

I have indeed chosen stupidity many times. Once or twice as a teenager I drove a bit tipsy, noticing I had drunk more than I meant when my calculations for driving through a narrow space were not good enough (and later lying to a trustful parent who lent me the car). Luckily for me, a small car scratch was as far as it went. I have never drunk to the point that I lost memory of it, nor have I experienced those terrible hangovers one will often hear about from friends. But we don’t usually realise when freedom disappears. Freedom to enjoy a social life with or without alcohol, to decide whether drinking or not when under pressure, to choose when to have the last drink.

We usually understand alcohol dependence as the point when a person cannot stop drinking on a daily or almost daily basis. But on a normal outing with friends, a simple dinner with your partner, or a Christmas festivity, are we really free from depending on alcohol to feel like we fit in or have fun?

Because I currently don’t have the freedom to choose to have a drink, I realise how easy it is to enjoy life without falling to the pressure of having one. Perhaps I will appreciate that freedom of choice even more after I am allowed to drink again, and may understand better the reason behind choosing to have a beer or a glass of wine instead of water and lime. I will probably savour whatever I pick with more delight and decide based on taste and what makes me feel good.

Originally posted on Hello Sunday Morning’s Medium page by our wonderful Design Lead, Brenda.

It’s the start of a new year and generally people will be feeling pretty optimistic about the time ahead. Resolutions have been made, goals have been set and a plan of some sort has been established. Perhaps you’re feeling like you can take on the world!

Here are some tips on how to keep your good vibrations up while getting back into the swing of things.

How to stay optimistic throughout the year

Listen to music

“Music, the combiner, nothing more spiritual, nothing more sensuous, a god, yet completely human, advances, prevails, holds highest place; supplying in certain wants and quarters what nothing else could supply.” Walt Whitman.

Plug that speaker in and let the magic happen. The power of music can do wonders on lifting moods and keeping us feeling good. Check out these 52 songs to cheer you up every time.

Listening to tunes that make you want to shake your hips or tap your feet has been found to lift your energy levels. When music sparks something in us or makes us want to bop our head, our brains release dopamine, a chemical that produces positive feelings. In fact, it has been proven by physiologists that playing music benefits your brain more than any other activity.

Music can also be very therapeutic and has been used as a substitute for sleeping tablets, as a motivational device to ‘move’ out of low moods or depression, as a coping mechanism for various problems, and as a way we connect with others.

Top up your optimism by being spontaneous

Marie Lethbridge, Cognitive Behavioural Therapist at Mind Health Ltd, says that being spontaneous allows us to be mindful and totally immersed in the activity we’re engaging in, which has been linked to an increase in mental wellbeing and happiness:

“Often we behave in a rigid, planned and fixed way because of anxieties and worries we have … Instead of worrying about the future or ruminating about the past, acting instinctively allows us to engage fully in what we’re doing at the time, and focus our whole attention on this.”

But how do you become spontaneous? We have some ideas to add a little spice to your life by mixing it up:

Jump off the bus a few stops earlier and wander back home. Remember to stop and smell the flowers.
Leave a weekend day free to wake up and do whatever you feel like doing.
Be impulsive once in a while; it keeps things exciting.
Just say ‘yes’ and don’t over analyse.

Sustain optimism by getting outside

It’s hard to feel stressed while lying in a fluffy patch of grass with a gentle breeze tingling your skin and the sun shining through gaps in the trees. Spending some quality time with nature can be beneficial for anyone who wants to increase their Outdoorphins or Vitamin G (green).

Richard Ryan, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, has researched how being outdoors can even make us nicer. “In nature,” he says, “we feel more in touch with who we really are and what we want to do.”

And it makes you happier: a study from the University of Essex in the UK found that 30 minutes of walking in a green scene reduced depression in 71 per cent of participants.

To go about the new year walking on sunshine, you first have to get some!

Did you know that by looking directly into the early morning sunlight you increase your serotonin levels, a hormone associated with boosting mood and helping you feel calm and focused? The key here being “early morning” – please don’t look at the sun when it’s too bright.

Without enough sunlight exposure, a person’s serotonin levels can dip low and cause a higher risk of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a form of depression that is triggered by changing seasons.

A little bit of sunlight and exposure to UV-B radiation in the sun’s rays is the best natural source of Vitamin D. Vitamin D is essential for strong bones, muscles and overall health, including decreasing chances of osteoporosis, and assisting in healing skin conditions.

The daily top-up: get enough sleep

We have all heard these before: “sleep tight”; “beauty sleep”; “well rested”. And for good reason. There are many benefits to getting the perfect night’s sleep for your physical, mental and spiritual self. Not getting enough pillow time can lead to irritable moods and a gloomier outlook on life.

Research studies in healthy people have shown that even one night without sleep causes sleepiness, fatigue, irritability and lack of motivation. Sleep loss will make us feel more upset, angry and sad in response to unpleasant events and make us less able to enjoy and be happy about good things in our life. This increases feelings of negativity and negative reactions when something doesn’t go well or as planned.

Give your passions some love

There were probably many people who made a new year resolution to take up something they have always wanted to do. Passion drives you to push limits (limits which you often create for yourself) and it gives you the opportunity to inspire. Like signing up for karate classes or getting into yoga. We all have things that we love doing.

It’s easy to get caught up in work and responsibilities and not make time to do these things we love doing and after a while we can even forget that good feeling that comes over us when we’re pursuing our passion.

It’s important to find the time to fit the passion in to keep the pessimistic attitude out.

Do you ever find yourself trying to come up with things to do on a Saturday night that don’t involve drinking? If you’re willing to try a new experience, do something you wouldn’t normally be into, or are just open to exploring the more interesting side of a city at twilight, then read on!

There’s more to a city’s night life than just pubs and clubs, and we have come up with plenty of alcohol-free (or alcohol-light) activities for a night out in the unique city of Sydney. If you’re unlikely to get there anytime soon, we’ve kept you in mind – it should be easy to adapt our categories for any other city that you find yourself in.

Social salsa dancing

If you’re wanting to move, shake and groove, but not in a boozy club setting, head along to a salsa meet-up at venues all around the city. Many are free and unstructured, however if you’re looking to improve your dancing, others offer classes for as little as $10.

Join a life drawing class

For something a little outside of the box, what’s more exhilarating than drawing a real-life nude person? Here’s a list of Timeout’s top 5 life drawing classes in Sydney, ranging from $10- $50 a class.

Visit a gallery

For the art fans among us, you’re spoilt for choice. Head along to some of Sydney’s best galleries to enjoy talks, documentary screenings, exhibitions, live music and more.

The Art Gallery of NSW

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA)

Aboriginal Art Galleries

Book a food tour

Sydney is home to a few of the world’s best restaurants, and with so many great places to choose from, why stop at just one? Join one of these food tours or create your own!

Taste Tours

Gourmet Safaris

Watch a movie at an old picture theatre

Grab a popcorn and choc-top and sit back to relax in a historic picture theatre. Concrete Playground have come up with a list of the 10 best boutique cinemas around Sydney.

Night markets

There are various night markets all around the city, selling anything from international cuisine to homemade crafts. Explore ChinaTown night markets, Chatswood Mall Market, Liverpool Night Markets or head to Aussie Night Market’s Facebook Page to find out when and where the next one is held.

Twilight sailing and dinner cruises

Getting out on the harbour is an unforgettable way to experience Sydney, from city lights to moonlight ripple reflections, a boat cruise is anyone’s holiday highlight. Book a sail through Sydney By Sail or browse through the deals at Viator for night dinner cruises.

Go to the theatre, darling

Where do we even start? Timeout Sydney has all the info on up-and-coming shows and tickets.

Head along to a live gig

Of course there’s more to live music than the iconic Opera House. Sydney is scattered with venues that include hidden bars and underground sound dens. There’s really something for everyone’s ears. Where To Tonight has put together a list of a few of the best live music venues around the city or get up to date with a local gig and concert guide.

Clap to some slam poetry

For the best slam events around the city, visit Sydney’s very own poetry events page.

And if you do really just want to go out for a drink, try a non-alcoholic bar crawl to find the best mocktails in Sydney

Here’s our top 3 non-alcoholic drinks you must order!

Momofuku Seiobo and their Cloudy T Totaler Earl Grey tea spiked with tea caramel
PS40’s spiced blackstrap ginger craft soda
Bentley Restaurant and Bar’s wattleseed and West Indian spice buttermilk

To find the easiest and fastest way to get around the city, check out the City of Sydney’s website for all info on transport, parking and accessibility. And if you’re unlikely to find yourself at this end of the world anytime soon, have an explore and adapt for your city!

When we think of holidays we usually think of sipping Pina Coladas on the beach somewhere exotic, feeling guilt free for doing absolutely nothing but enjoying some sweet, sweet chill time.

We tend to splurge on fancy accommodation, shopping sprees, food, and for many: plenty of booze to celebrate taking some time out. But what if there were a way to find balance on your holiday? Bring it back to why you’re there in the first place. To unwind? To explore a new place and create experiences?

But why should I lay off the alcohol while on holiday?

Balancing alcohol and travel is possible! And in fact, it is a great way to get the most out of your holiday experience. Here is why you should give it a go:

Holidaying sober means there will be nights you will remember and memories you won’t forget.
You’ll make the early morning pick up in the lobby for a tour you’ve booked and paid for months in advance.
You won’t crave greasy, fast food from overpriced tourist joints all day.
Wake up feeling fresh to get outdoors and explore.
You’ll meet people and make relationships not based on the sharing of tequila shots but on the sharing of stories.

You don’t have to be a ‘booze traveler’! Okay to this all sounds great. But there is one destination most people would completely rule out as a sober holiday…Vegas! We believe you can do Vegas sober and actually have an excellent time!

How to do Vegas sober

Viva Las Vegas, the Holy Grail of alcohol and ‘all you can eat’ buffets.

You may think there’s not much else to do but party and gamble the days away, but Vegas is packed with activities one can enjoy without alcohol.

Check out fun things to do around Sin City (Sober)

There are loads fantastic things to do in Vegas, you just need to do your research! Enjoy all kinds of world famous entertainment from magic shows to burlesque dancing. Enjoy the bright, flashing Vegas strip from rooftop terraces or create a mocktail tour of the grandest hotel pool bars.

See the natural surrounds: get active

Not only is Vegas notorious for strip shows but also the surrounding natural environment.

To keep your figure in shape and deter you from the minibar, there are tons of adventures offered for those who like to stay active while on holiday. Hike one of the many trails or go on a sunrise balloon ride over Grand Canyon, book a driving experience on a vegas race track (wouldn’t want to try that one hungover) or kayak the Hoover Dam. Bonus Active Holiday Tip: While it’s great to have a break from wearing active wear when travelling, wearing exercise clothes really is practical for most activities (and doesn’t take up much room in the suitcase). You can wear your sneakers and tights on the plane, for morning walks and to and from hotel facilities.

For those after something a little more relaxing, why not treat yo’ self!

Check out some of the best day spa’s on the Strip:

Pretty much, if you can do Vegas sober, you can do anywhere sober. Sticking to a balanced holiday will mean you won’t overdo it. Viva Las Vegas!

Grog and Travel have long gone together about as naturally as the other G&T. From beachside beers in Thailand to crowded pub crawls in Prague, alcohol makes an appearance in almost every holiday plan. And to some degree, throwing back a few beers at the hostel bar really can seem like the perfect formula for bonding with fellow travellers. But when drinking becomes the focal point of your travel activities, it can quickly feel like you aren’t making the most of your time away. Not to mention the hangovers, all the more agonising when you have to wake up for that early morning hike.

I just wanna go out … Just one, maybe? Just one?

Tips to cut back as a booze traveler

This week we challenge you to review your travel drinking habits in our latest animation. Making the decision to take it easy with alcohol during your travels, or even taking a break altogether, can be really difficult, but it may well lead you to discovering the perfect Sunday morning. So we’re here to help you make the choice, maximising both time and money to spend on incredible travel experiences.

This is an opportunity to get out of your comfort zone

Say Hello Sunday Morning as a booze traveller even if it means going to another art gallery

Another gallery … I don’t get it. Do I need a drink, to get it?

Try new activities and seek new horizons. Watching the daybreak from a mountain top, hiking through the rainforest or making the most of local museums are just a few examples of rewarding alcohol-free activities to try out.

Focus on learning about regional cuisines

I mean, who doesn’t travel with the intention of eating your weight in local cuisine these days? Just take it up a level!

And while you’re at it, why not get a taster of local non-alcoholic drinks. You could even make your way through a list of national soft drinks. One of our greatest senses is taste. Dive in the deep end and explore the palates of the locals, which comes with the unparalleled opportunity to bond with friends and meet new people. I mean, who doesn’t travel with the intention of eating your weight in local cuisine these days? Just take it up a level!

Tuesday, I swear I ate every pizza in the city. Hello Sunday Morning booze traveler

Why couldn’t I find a good pizza? Didn’t these guys invent it?

Prepare for the day

It may seem obvious, but it’s surprisingly difficult to do. Trust us. A great life-hack for feeling great at the end of a huge day exploring, or, you know, melting away on the beach, is to keep snacks and trusty ol’ H2O in your back pocket. It’ll keep you hydrated and is well known to curb your hankering for a brew or six.

Consider for a minute why we travel in the first place. Be it to relax, learn new things or meet interesting people, alcohol is not really necessary for any of these things.

Bring it back to the present and see how much you can squeeze out of your holiday. Say Hello/Hola/Ni Hao to Sunday morning.