You are listening to the Take a Break podcast with Rachel Hart episode 284.

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.

Hello my friends, we are going to be talking about what derails change. So I talk a lot about the

skills that you need to master. The skills that people start learning and practicing and working

with me when they join the Take a Break membership and they start that 30 day challenge. The skills

of learning how to set a commitment and follow through and what happens when you don't follow through

and learning how to fail well on purpose because perfection is not the secret to change. In fact,

if you think that being perfect is how you're going to change the habit and how you're going to change

your relationship to alcohol, you are sorely mistaken. It doesn't work that way.

I talk about the skill of really learning how to manage your mind. Sometimes I talk about it like

a toddler versus a parent. Your lower brain is a toddler. The parent is your higher brain. They're

always going to be in conflict. I am always in conflict with my three year old soon to be four

year old. Right. He has a lot of ideas about what he wants and what he likes and how he wants to do

things. It's my job as a parent to supervise him and he throws a lot of fits. He stomps his feet a

lot and he gets really angry and he says, Mom, I'm so red. We read this book called The Color Monster

which I love by the way where they talk about your feelings as colors. That's the one that he always,

Mom, I'm so red. I'm so red. I said, it's okay to be red. It's okay to be red but we don't

hit and kick people when we feel this way. You can stump and you can be angry but we don't do this.

So you're going to have that kind of tension between the toddler and the parent inside of you.

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