[00:00:00] Lori Massicot: Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you can miss it. And that is a quote from Ferris Bueller. Don't you love Ferris. Do you feel like this year has gotten away from you that you're not where you said you would be on January 1st on July 1st that it's too late to get to where you wanna be. 

[00:00:20] You'll start fresh in 2023, you said yes to any of those questions. This episode is for you. Today. I am checking in with you friend. So you check in with yourself. I wanna give you a reminder to be kind to yourself and celebrate how far you have come. Not only this year, but in life. So whenever you are listening to this, this is a reminder that you matter, make yourself a priority  

[00:00:46] check in, can bring you reassurance, realignment. And above all else. It's a real opportunity for you to be present in your life and learn about what is happening. Hey, there I am. Lori mascot. If you are [00:01:00] new here I am the host of two 50 and beyond. Hi, I'm so happy that you are here. If you're returning, I'm super grateful to you for coming back two 50 and beyond is for women in midlife and beyond you decide where you are at that stage. 

[00:01:14] If you wanna be 200 and. 85. You're not in midlife yet, but you're still welcomed here. It's always an honor to be here with you. And I never take it for granted, just a heads up for my listeners who listen weekly. I will be coming to you every two weeks for the next month. As I give myself a summer break, which is going to be spent reconnecting to myself and the podcast and interviewing new guests for you to enjoy throughout the end of 2022, I will be back in two weeks from today with an interview with my friend Casey Davidson of the Hello Someday podcast. 

[00:01:46] Where she is talking about gray area drinking. It's a great episode. And I wanna put this out there because I haven't been on social media this year. I have not promoted the episode that I was just recently on with [00:02:00] Casey, where we talked about how to add more. Joy to your life in sobriety, and you can find her podcast in the link in the show notes. 

[00:02:09] A lot of you probably already listened to hello someday. It's a very popular podcast and I'm always honored to be a guest there. Also, before I get started on this episode, the alcohol free habit will launch early enrollment for fall sessions on August 24th. This is my group coaching program that helps you break your drinking patterns and build better habits that help you maintain sobriety. 

[00:02:29] You can join the alcohol free habit spring, wait [email protected] to make sure you are in the loop of when it launches. And the link to the alcohol free habit is always in the show notes below two 50 and beyond exists because the most pivotal moment in my life, the moment where I decided at 45. 

[00:02:49] To check in with myself instead of continuing to check out and drink my life away. It's because of that moment on August 11th, 2013, that [00:03:00] we are here together today. And if you are new, I started drinking at 14 and around 1982, and I did quit drinking in 2013. I was a consistent drinker. I put a lot of effort into drinking. 

[00:03:14] I made drinking the center of my universe and. It wasn't because I like the taste. It wasn't because I like to get drunk, even though I did like both of those things until I did it, it was because I wanted to check out of my life. And so I wrote this little tagline for this episode the other day, while I'm in the shower, where all of my creative thoughts happen, checking in, is in and checking out is so out. 

[00:03:38] Checking out is so 1982. You are a gal you're in the middle of life or beyond. Maybe you're younger than that. And you are ready to be present in your life. You are ready to show up for yourself in a new way. And every day we get the chance and the opportunity to do that. Amid your self check in can really be done at any time of the year, week [00:04:00] or month. 

[00:04:00] It's a simple self care practice that helps you connect to yourself with your thoughts and your feelings and your desires for your future self. And I say that it's self care. It's self love. It's self compassion. It's self respect, all the levels of self, because you're asking yourself what is happening in your life. 

[00:04:19] And I'm gonna give you two simple practices. They're not easy, but you can make them simple. You can make them fun. So maybe just maybe my friend. You can be content with where you are today. That's where I find a lot of comfort in doing this kind of practice because there is so much that I wanna just say I haven't done. 

[00:04:38] It's still there. I have to keep doing it. And checking in with myself, says, wait a minute. Holy shit. I'm really proud of myself. I am making progress. That's what I want you to do here today. I want you to acknowledge how far you've come, so you can gain more clarity on where you want to be. And then also you can be content with where you are, be kind to yourself. 

[00:04:59] You [00:05:00] don't get to where you wanna be by kicking yourself in the booty. I know that we all think that the harder we kick, the further we get, listen, some days I will say in my workouts, especially I do kick my booty. I gotta get myself up. I gotta motivate myself. I gotta put some eye of the tiger on. I gotta listen to some music that go, come on, man. 

[00:05:19] You do it. You get I'm good with that. But not like the way that I used to do it. Like if I didn't do something or I didn't follow through with something's like, see, I told you you're lazy. You can't do anything. You, you. Have no time management skills, like all the things that I could say to myself to beat myself up. 

[00:05:35] I do say I don't have time management skills right now. Oops. That came out. But in the past, I would say you're a loser. You suck. Oh, that makes me just hurt all over. If you're talking to yourself like that, listen, it's normal. Let's just. Just come to that moment. Like, you don't have to fix that. You don't have to go and change it. 

[00:05:57] You don't have to do anything. Like just acknowledge it and [00:06:00] say, you know what? Thanks for the feedback. I choose to be kind to myself today. And you could do that multiple times throughout the day. Be kind to yourself, motivate yourself with kindness, motivate yourself. Like you would've loved one. You're not telling them, you know what? 

[00:06:14] You haven't made any progress in life. You have nothing to celebrate. You're not saying that to the people that you love, you're building them up. This is your time. Build yourself up. Why does checking in with yourself matter? I think for many reasons, I look at it as, especially in the middle of the year. 

[00:06:32] I look at it as time to. Check myself before I wreck myself. I mean, let's go back to the eighties, check yourself before you wreck yourself and not in a way that makes me feel bad about what I have haven't done, but to highlight what I have and to realign with what I wanna do for the remainder of the year. 

[00:06:49] I'm all for goal setting. I'm all for striving and reaching those goals. I. I can be both a striver. And then also somebody who goes with more of the flow. I'm very [00:07:00] much in between the hustle and flow right now. And it's kind of a trip. One day I could be like hustle, hustle, hustle. I'm getting so much done. 

[00:07:06] And the next day I'm like, I don't wanna do Jack shit. And what I'm realizing is that I'm coming to terms with that finally at this stage of my life with it's okay. To hustle and flow. I've talked about this on the podcast before it's okay to be happy and. It's okay. To want more for yourself and to be content. 

[00:07:27] I think that's the key right now, especially at this stage of life that we get that into our mindset and we remind ourself constantly. You don't have to be one way or the other. It's not all or nothing. There's more flexibility now in midlife, there's more flow in midlife and that is where I am. So I do take this time to reflect on what I have done and then realign, I think of it as a way to cut the fluff. 

[00:07:54] If you're like me write a goal down or an idea that you would like to bring to fruition and January, and you look [00:08:00] at it again in June and you think, huh, doesn't he matter anymore? Toss or safer later, put it on the back burner. Maybe you'll revisit in 2024. In case you haven't heard, you can change your mind and reset at any time. 

[00:08:17] Yep. I just learned this about three years ago and it's been life changing. I write out all of my ideas and to-dos on my computer, not in stone and my computer has a backspace and a delete button. And I'm finally cool with using those. You can change your mind. I believe in checking in with yourself, gives you a chance to gain a new perspective on what is really happening in your life. 

[00:08:44] What you think is happening. May not be your circumstance. It may just be this negative, this old story, this old belief that you keep repeating to yourself. Give yourself time to just reflect on man. This is some good stuff going on [00:09:00] right now. Sure. There's some things over here. I wanna work on. I wanna prove on that's your right. 

[00:09:05] If you tend to think you're not doing enough. Good enough. There isn't enough time to do what you. Heck there isn't enough time to figure out what you want to do. First of all, I can totally relate to that. You just have to keep doing the same thing over and over again, until that one day you either fix yourself finally, or you win the lottery and you can quit your job. 

[00:09:26] And then you're gonna have so much time to spend on yourself. You're waiting for that perfect balance in life to fall into place. So you have time to spend on yourself or yourself by yourself to approve upon yourself, to weed out. The priorities in your life or the priority in your life versus having a hundred things on your list. 

[00:09:51] You don't have to wait to put yourself off. And if you're working towards fixing yourself, I want you to ask yourself one thing right now, [00:10:00] ponder this with curiosity. What if there is nothing to fix? What if you are excellent as is I come from the mindset? That I need to fix myself. I love a good self-help aisle in the bookstore. 

[00:10:13] I used to go when I was younger and just look at these books like, oh, what do I wanna fix now about myself? And I spent decades trying to. Lose weight, eliminate my anxiety and, and panic attacks. I work so hard on that, that I just brought them on continuously because I thought if I lost weight and I didn't have anxiety, I would be fixed. 

[00:10:33] And my life would then what be perfect, not even quitting drinking, fixed things. You know what they say? That quote, I've got 99 problems, but drinking isn't one of them anymore. It's like that it didn't fix anything. But what it did do, I will say this, and I've said this multiple times, it gave me an opportunity to, to know, to understand, to learn that I don't need fixing. 

[00:10:59] And I [00:11:00] want to just remind you today. You don't need fixing. I talk about this with women all of the time. Like I'm always feeling like I'm working on something. I think that's. I think it's great. I'm all for self-improvement and that's really what this is all about, but it's hits differently when you say I have to do it versus I get to do it, or I should do it because somebody else is doing it versus I wanna do it because I wanna improve myself. 

[00:11:26] You have every right to wanna better yourself and you don't need fixing, though. I really want you to just ke I wanna linger here for a minute. You don't need fixing. Improving. Yes, there are things I consider wrong about myself and I can choose to improve upon those things or not. I am excellent as is. 

[00:11:46] And so are you, let's say that one out loud together. I'm gonna count to three and I just want you to say I am excellent as is 1, 2, 3. I am excellent as. [00:12:00] Let's say F off to fixing ourselves and hello love or to improving ourselves if you choose, because you always have a choice how to check in with yourself, let's make this really simple. 

[00:12:13] There are two ways I wanna share with you. The first is an edited version that I use in my coaching, my private coaching. And the second is writing a letter to yourself. Really simple letter that you will open up on December 31st, 2022, because we are at mid-year again. You could do this monthly, you could do this weekly. 

[00:12:32] You could do this whenever the hell you want. And these questions I worked through with my clients, my coaching practice is completely personalized, so it's not one program for all, but this is just a general idea. Very much edited down. The ultimate goal in coaching is to really help my client check in with herself. 

[00:12:53] So she doesn't check out and plan each week and break it down daily to help create more structure while working on their [00:13:00] sobriety. And there's so much more that goes into this, but again, this is edited the only rule of this exercise. If you choose to do it, I'm gonna walk you through a list of some questions you can ask yourself is to be an active listener in your. 

[00:13:14] Listen to the feedback you were giving yourself, not with judgment. Okay. What if you're a judge? It's okay, judge. You can't fix that either, but with more kindness than judgment with more. Common humanity than beating yourself up with more acceptance and celebration. Let me put it that way. I learned how to be an active listener first when I started podcasting. 

[00:13:39] And then next, when I started coaching, it's getting dialed in and focused on what you're hearing versus the next thing that you're gonna say, or the next thing that you're going to. Just be there with yourself. If you're a meditator, turn on some light music, sit down, get in that zone first and then walk through these questions [00:14:00] again. 

[00:14:00] They're simple. They're not easy. You could jot them down. Now you could pause this episodes. Repeat the answers out loud. If you want. Do you boo boo. Number one question is what you ask when you're checking in with your loved ones. You say it multiple times to strangers throughout the day. How are you? 

[00:14:21] Number two. How are you feeling today? Number three. What are you celebrating today? Number four. What is working for you right now? And why number five, what isn't working and why? Number six. What do you wanna work on next? Why does that matter? Number seven. Is there anything else? I write these questions down [00:15:00] in my journal and I always pull out something. 

[00:15:03] So for example, and I don't wanna put thoughts into your head. That's why I'm not gonna give you a bunch of examples, but like one thing that I wanna focus on here that's really helpful is for you, like I said, you could do this multiple times throughout the day even is to just check in with yourself and say, what is working in my life right now? 

[00:15:19] Whatever. I feel like I'm stuck or I'm spinning out and I'm thinking. Nothing's working. I will sit down and say, what is working in my life? And then I always come up with what isn't working from that list. And typically I can give you an example. What is it working for me is not highlighting my accomplishments, which is really number three is what are you celebrating? 

[00:15:44] It's highlighting your accomplishments. I don't do that enough. I do it for others. Oh, I love celebrating you. I love celebrating my clients. When I get on group coaching programs. I love celebrating women. That's that's what lights me up. But what doesn't work for me is not celebrating my [00:16:00] accomplishments. 

[00:16:00] Hence, the reason why I started this midyear practice. Especially this year, it's been a kind of a funky year for me. And to go back to, Hey, wait a minute. You've done so many things like the small things. It's not about the big things anymore. For me, it's just the small things that I just wanna say, move onto the next new I wanna linger there. 

[00:16:20] I wanna celebrate myself. So those are just two examples. What is it working for me? Not highlighting my accomplishments. What is working for me? Highlighting my accomplishments. You see, I flipped. So, those are really simple questions, right? You would call up your parents or you would call up your kid, or you would just, you know, call up your best friend Marge and say, Hey, how are you? 

[00:16:45] Call my sister the other day? So how are you? What's going on? What's happening? She's in the middle of a change. How's that going? And then I'm cheering for her and giving her a reassurance. I'm saying, you're gonna figure it out. [00:17:00] Things are gonna work. Talk kindly to yourself, like you would a friend celebrate your accomplishments, the ones that you think they're not that big of a deal. 

[00:17:08] You get to decide that you make, 'em a big deal. You make them a big deal. One of the biggest accomplishments that I have done this year, I'm gonna pat myself on the back right now. It blows my mind daily. I did not set. To do this in January. I talked about this, I believe on my Keystone habits episode that I have grown my nails out. 

[00:17:30] I have been a nail biter since the day I was born. I think I've never had nails. I've never had real nails. And I remember when I said. Recorded that Keystone habits episode that I said, I had baby nails. These are full on legit. These are nails that I am filing daily. I am taking such extreme care of these nails. 

[00:17:51] I had to Google. What is the best practice to take care of cleaning your nails? Cuz that's not one of my things, my favorite things about having nails, that like stuff [00:18:00] getting underneath T. But I'm like legit walking around with, I look at them probably a hundred times a day, like, oh my Lord, I have nails. 

[00:18:10] This is one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life is to stop biting my nails. Like I want to linger there. I want to tell everybody I meet, I have nails. My sister came down. Uh, Memorial day weekend and I hadn't shown her, my nails. I hadn't seen her the last time I had seen her. I was in the process of growing them out and we were standing in line at the San Diego zoo and I was holding my hand up. 

[00:18:32] I was not meaning to, to show her. I was, I was intentional that day. Like, I'm gonna see if she notices cuz she knows that I've always bit my nails. And she's like, like that's the, that's the, uh, response that I want in my life. I wanna shock the hell outta myself. I wanna be in awe of myself, but she was like, Your nails. 

[00:18:51] I said, oh yeah, look at these. Okay. I'm moving on. Cheer for yourself. Like that. Let me be the example. Cause I never used to do stuff like that. And I [00:19:00] know it's like, some of you was like, okay, she's really going on too long. Let yourself go on too long. Be proud of yourself, motivate yourself like that. Give yourself about 10 to 15 minutes to complete this exercise and see what comes up for you. 

[00:19:13] From there, you can choose what to do with this information. Take a couple of days to reflect on what you learned and just be so proud of yourself for taking the time to do it. And the second practice is writing a letter to yourself. I did take a couple of weeks in June to reflect on where I am and where I wanna be at the end of the year to check in with myself and focus on what I have accomplished thus far. 

[00:19:36] Yes, the nails came up and to do that, I sat down and wrote a kind congratulatory letter to myself. Highlighting and focusing on kindness, fully conscious visualizing myself on December 31st, 2022. We may be in the mountains like we did last year. I'm going to be in my pajamas with a cup of coffee. I'm gonna have candles lit. 

[00:19:59] The tree is [00:20:00] lit. Like I'm visualizing this whole place for myself. And I just wanna open this letter that I put in an envelope that said my dearest, Lori, you open it and you start reading it just. I'm I'm proud of you. You're incredible. And I want you to do this for yourself. if you're still here, please do this for yourself. 

[00:20:24] Set aside however long you want to write this letter. This is how I started the letter. So I wanna give you an idea of what I'm talking about. There is explicit language, so I'm gonna warn you. I respect you if you don't like an F bomb. This is how I write to myself sometimes not always. And it just comes out. 

[00:20:41] I'm not, you know, being intentional of adding in enough where it's what flow. Let yourself flow with your thoughts. There's no punctuation in this. There is no perfect writing. It's just you writing to yourself at the end of the year. Dear Lori, happy new year. Congratulations on another year of life in [00:21:00] 2022, you turned 55 and you celebrated nine years. 

[00:21:05] Oh, I get choked up of continuous sobriety. 

[00:21:11] Give me a moment. Can we take a moment to reflect on how fucking incredible you have made this life to be. I don't want you to skip over this part. You have a tendency to celebrate others before yourself, and you also have a tendency to move on to the next thing. Before you give yourself a chance to acknowledge that this life you have built and designed through the most challenging times of your life is way beyond the vision you had for yourself. 

[00:21:35] When you used to dream big while chugging Chardonnay, it's better and more audacious than you ever thought at this moment. Close your eyes and practice gratitude appreciation while you acknowledge fulfillment. This is not a time to visualize what is next for you. This is a time to reflect and be really fucking proud of yourself. 

[00:21:58] Mm I [00:22:00] do get emotional. This is some real stuff, real stuff happening now. This is why I'm gonna leave this emotional piece in here. Wasn't planning. You've listen to the podcast before, you know, it comes up because getting sober, wasn't something that I set out to do to accomplish anything. It was something that I set out to do to take away from my life. 

[00:22:27] And I know that there's so many women out there who listen to this podcast because of sobriety and, and working on sobriety. And the reason that I get emotional, cuz I'll never forget myself on that night. I quit drinking. 

[00:22:43] I didn't think I could do anything. 

[00:22:48] I wasn't kind to myself. I wasn't proud of myself for anything. And so I want you to know, because I know there's a lot of YouTube that are listening, that, you know, set out to get sober at the first of the year. And, and now you're [00:23:00] here in mid-July and you're kicking the shit outta yourself cuz you haven't made it happen. 

[00:23:03] And man, it's hard. Not too hard for you, but it's hard. And the reason that I get so emotional is cuz, oh, I shocked myself with that one, for sure. For sure. I'm so proud of myself. August 11th has become more of a celebration than my actual birthday, because it was a day that. I stepped into who I was born to be definitely. 

[00:23:30] And I know I'm getting way off here, but I just wanted to, to make you understand that when we're connecting to ourselves, as we would a friend or a loved one, we find a different level of appreciation, a different level of kindness, a different level of pride, and it's okay to get emotional. It's okay. To feel emotions. 

[00:23:50] When you feel proud of yourself, it's it's. So I want to help you understand that I find contentment now [00:24:00] in this letter, I don't have to wait to be fulfilled. I'm still reaching and improving, but I'm content with where I am. And it's only because of this. I finally let myself be. I don't have all the things that I want in life. 

[00:24:12] I can be both content and also striving. I may never have the things that I want before I leave this earth. And by things I'm talking more about experiences than tangible things and I'm okay with that to a certain degree, I would love. To experience living in a small, beautiful coastal cozy home within steps of the sands and the waves. 

[00:24:33] And I'm just getting closer and closer to that vision. I'm just saying that's one of the, the big tangible things. It'd be nice, not a big, nice, a small, nice cozy. Beach house. You may look at someone and say they are more successful and they have the perfect life. And that person is doing the same thing. 

[00:24:51] They're looking at someone who has what they want and so on and so on and so on. Let's make our life and our dreams and our [00:25:00] desires and our goals about what we want, not what others have or what we think that they have. And this letter writing, it really did reveal some things that I wanna focus on for the remainder of 2022, which supports the year, my word of the year that I created at the beginning of the year, which was create, for example, I wrote about in this letter, making art for my bare walls in our home that we moved into in February, I wanted to create a new space for my family. 

[00:25:29] I am very much leaning towards and moving towards. Minimalism and simplicity. And we moved to San Diego, which was the biggest goal and the biggest dream, not only of this year, but man, for the past, at least five. I was very intentional in saying, I am gonna linger here. I am not going to move on to the next big thing. 

[00:25:51] I'm going to appreciate this. And that is one of the reasons why I haven't worked on other areas of my life. And I'm cool with that. I'm lingering [00:26:00] here in this place. I wake up every day. I go out on my balcony naked. Good morning, San Diego. Good morning. Hello. I'm here. I'm super happy with that. So I wanna make art, my son and I are going to teach ourselves and, and learn how to paint, to hang things on our space instead of buy things there, weren't a lot of things that came up for me in this letter. 

[00:26:19] And that's what I wanna encourage you to look at. You know, not how far you have to go, how far you have and look at how ideal your life is compared to what you think is ideal. Take time today to focus on what you do in your day. That is ideal. That makes you feel really good about yourself and good in your body and your mind. 

[00:26:48] You don't have to compare like this is my ideal life. This is where I am. You don't have to compare anything, but know that those are both your life. That that's both for you. It's not a comparison. It's not like [00:27:00] it's somebody else's life. It's it's for you. You could choose to start living that life today. 

[00:27:04] Let's say I. Wanna be closer to the beach. I could choose to go to the beach today and let the sand fall underneath my feet and walk around and just visualize this space for myself. I could be by the ocean today because I decided that I wanted to be closer to the ocean. I was 60 minutes away. Now I'm like 10 minutes away. 

[00:27:24] You know what I'm saying? Never go towards something you think that you want in life until you check in with yourself to decide, is this what I want? Is this the direction that I'm heading? And I hope today that you realize that you are heading in that direction, that you realize that you are improving on your life and you always get to decide you get to choose what you want for yourself. 

[00:27:50] Write a letter, ask yourself some questions. How am. How do I feel today? What is working, what isn't working and what can I [00:28:00] celebrate? Remember, you can change your mind about anything you set S do. Nothing is written in stone. If you're beating yourself up about not getting sober this year, highlight how many days you didn't drink out of the last six months. 

[00:28:11] If it was one, celebrate the hell out of yourself and blow your damn mind at how hard that is to do that is a accomplishment beyond accomplishments just for today. My friend, you don't have to worry about tomorrow. Let yourself be content in your excellence. Let yourself be present in your progress. Let yourself dream big and remind yourself that if you want it, you can have it. 

[00:28:35] You can go after it. Just take one small little step every single day, cuz you're always working towards something right. Work towards what you want in life. Check in with yourself often. How do I feel? What is working in my. What isn't working. And when you find things that aren't working, start to shift out of those things and realize that you can't, because it's all up to you, you can do [00:29:00] this. 

[00:29:00] I know that you can't, we can do this together. I'll see you in two weeks of that new episode with Casey Davidson of the hello someday podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and you wish to help me spread the word about two 50 and beyond, I really do appreciate if you take a minute, just to give it a positive rating and a review. 

[00:29:18] You are interested in learning more about myself and my coaching programs, please visit Lori mascot.com. And if you wanna get in the alcohol free habit, my group coaching program in the fall, I would love to meet you. It's a very cool group of women in this program. I door community. I am here for it. Go to the alcohol free habit.com. 

[00:29:38] Get on the wait list today. Take care of yourself in the next two weeks. Enjoy your summertime, if it's summer for you or your fall, whatever season of life you're in. Enjoy yourself. Peace.