You are listening to the Take a Break podcast with Rachel Hart, episode 208.

Whether you want to drink less or stop drinking, this podcast will help you change the habit from the inside out.

We're challenging conventional wisdom about why people drink and why it can be hard to resist temptation.

No labels, no judgment, just practical tools to take control of your desire and stop worrying about your drinking.

Now here's your host, Rachel Hart.

Well, hello everyone. We are talking about what other people think and other people's opinions about your decision to take a break from drinking.

So wherever you fall on the spectrum, I have clients who will say, you know, it really bothers me what people think and I have clients who say, I don't care one bit.

Wherever you fall, this episode is really important for you because the fact of the matter is no one, no one goes through life impervious to other people's opinions of your choices.

We all have to learn how to deal with that and learn how to support the choices that we make regardless of what anyone else thinks.

Understanding the real reason why you care about other people's opinions, that's important.

Most people are very confused on that front and we're going to be talking about that today.

And you also need to know what to do if you're feeling stuck, if you're feeling like you can't move forward, you're delaying, making a decision about taking a break or changing the habit because you're very fixated on worrying about what other people will think.

Everything that I'm going to talk to you in today's podcast is really how you start to change, how you can start to move forward.

Now, I want to start with the real reason why we care about other people's opinions of our choices around alcohol or just other people's opinions in general.

Most people will say, well, I just want to be liked, I just want to be accepted, I just want to have people supportive of whatever I decide to do.

And why not? It feels good. But I really want you to think about this.

Someone liking you or your decisions, it doesn't feel like anything at all. In fact, it does not create any feeling inside of you.

It creates a feeling for the person doing the liking. It creates a feeling for the person having the thought, I like her.

I like her decision. I like what she's doing. The person thinking the thought is the one who experiences the feeling.

You do not experience anything with regard to their thoughts. Someone else's thoughts creates their feelings.

It doesn't feel like anything for you until you make it mean something.

So, let's just take it out of the realm of alcohol for an example. Maybe you've had someone, maybe you found out once that someone liked you and you didn't like them.

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