#201 – Episode 201 – Love Your Sober Year with Kate Baily and Mandy Manners

VeronicaValli

Mandy Manners and Kate Baily have a new book, Love Your Sober Year, where they guide women through the rhythms of life.

We discuss how we have different needs at different times and the need to honor what the seasons tell us. By doing that, we can become more reflective, and intuitive and support our sobriety as we allow ourselves to flow into, not resist, changes.

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about this episode

About Kate Baily & Mandy Manners

Kate Baily is an ICF Accredited trauma-informed Sobriety & Behavioural Health and Life Coach specialising in holistic well-being for women, midlife, perimenopause transition and stress management. She is the co- author of two books ‘Love Yourself Sober’ and ‘Love Your Sober Year’. Kate was a finalist in The International Coaching Awards in 2019 for her service in the field of Alcohol Use Disorder. She is a Specialist Coach Trainer for The Coaching Academy in Addictive Behaviours & Habit Change. She also holds certificates in The Science of Happiness Theory and Facilitation, the Neurobiology of Stress, Counseling & Menopause Support. Kate has been on the sober path for 9 years and lives in West Sussex with her husband, two children, dog, guinea pigs, and chickens.

Mandy Manners is an ICF-accredited trauma-informed sobriety and wellbeing coach running her private practice to help women thrive in their sobriety and lives. She is a professional trainer co-creating and facilitating The Addictive Behaviours Coaching programme for The Coaching Academy, a public speaker and co-author of two books – Love Yourself Sober (Published 2020 by Trigger) and Love Your Sober Year (Published 2022 by Welbeck). Originally from the UK, fluent in English and French, Mandy has lived with her husband, two kids, dog and cat in France for the past 16 years.

Love Sober was co-founded by Mandy and Kate as a platform to support women and carers who are struggling with alcohol use disorder both by raising awareness in the podcast and books and through community connection. Love Sober is proud to be a Community Interest Company and to collaborate with The Coaching Academy, ARCO, Social Enterprise Association, and She Recovers.

key highlights

Transitions & Seasons

Our lives are marked by cycles, seasons, and transitions. A time for energetic action and a time for rest: the rhythm of life.

For both Kate and Mandy, life’s seasons hold a lot of significance. The big transition into motherhood was when their drinking escalated and became problematic. Then, as they got older, they contemplated the transition into perimenopause and menopause.

Our recovery journeys also have seasons; there are these moments of peace alongside moments where we need to go back into the cave for a little to come out stronger. The recognition of this seasonality and the rituals around the seasons of our lives inspired Kate and Mandy to frame Love Yourself Sober in a similar pattern.

As you shift through the seasons, make time for gentle inquiry with yourself to figure out what you need and update your sober toolkit.

 

Boundaries and Resentment

Healthy boundaries are a crucial part of sustainable sobriety.

As someone new to sobriety, you may feel like it’s harder than ever to keep your life organized. Sobriety can be overwhelming in the beginning, but there are things you can do so you don’t feel so out of control – like managing your time.

One of the most important things you can do is create space around time. You could look at it in terms of time management; you could take the urgent or important matrix and decide what you need to shelve or what you need to keep and in what priority order.

Boundaries are important because they allow us to focus our energy on the things that matter most. When we live without boundaries, we get distracted easily by things that aren’t important, and end up wasting our time doing things that don’t matter.

 

Managing expectations

Expectations are great. They’re what make us feel excited, and they’re what help us get motivated to do things. But they can also be a source of resentment.

That’s why it’s crucial for us to manage our expectations.

Think about it, when you expect something will happen, and then it doesn’t happen, how do you feel? Probably pretty let down.

We all want things to go perfectly, but inevitably there are times when things go wrong. It might not even be your fault but still, the pressure is on because we have high expectations of ourselves to be perfect hosts, friends, or partners, so we take these failures on as if they’re our fault.

Managing your and other people’s expectations of you can be challenging but it’s also extremely important. When we find a way to manage expectations in a way that’s healthy and realistic, we don’t have to worry about resentment.

 

Sustainable sobriety

Sustainability is the backbone of this movement.

Not just with your physical body, but also with your thoughts and actions. Journaling prompts are a great way to keep track of that progress and can become a routine that creates time to reflect on what you’re doing and how it’s working for you and help you to keep it going.

The more you can maintain the momentum, the more likely you’ll keep going in the direction you want to go.

Take time each day or week to reflect on what has happened and where you want to go next.

resources mentioned

Connect with Kate Baily & Mandy Manners

 

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