Dennis Berry - Host of The Funky Brain Podcast

Hello Loves,

 

Thank you for downloading the podcast, my name is Arlina, and I’ll be your host. 

 

Today, my guest is Dennis Berry, Author of “the funky brain” and the podcast with the same name. He is a Life Mastery Coach and has been working with people worldwide for over 15 years and he has been sober since April 8, 2003.

 

We talk a lot about different solutions and ideas that will hopefully help you on your recovery journey. I would love love love to hear what you found helpful, so shoot me an email at arlina@odaatchat.com or leave a comment on the one day at a time facebook page! (links to both on the website).

 

 

This episode is brought to you by Sober Life School. In case you didn’t know, I offer private coaching to focus on recovery, relationships and self-esteem. If you’d like to find out more about how I can help, you can set up a free strategy call by visiting: http://www.soberlifeschool.com

 

So there ya have it, please enjoy this wide ranging conversation, with Dennis!

 

Transcript:

 

Arlina Allen  0:09  

Okay, well, Dennis, welcome back to the podcast.

 

Unknown Speaker  0:12  

Thank you Arlina. My, my big young sister.

 

Arlina Allen  0:18  

Sister. Yes, I mean, I'm tiny in stature. I'm only like 5'3", but yes, a big and personality.

 

Unknown Speaker  0:24  

You are, I think we both have that

 

Arlina Allen  0:26  

you are too. Yeah, definitely cut from the same cloth. I am excited to have you back because we're going to focus this time on lots of solutions. You are a recovery coach, Life Mastery school, per your logo up there in the corner. For those of you who are not watching this on YouTube, Dennis has a logo. So we're going to talk about we're gonna I'm gonna ask you the lightning round. And then we're going to give a recap on your story, because you were on before. And I will leave a link from your previous interview. But I enjoy talking to you so much. I'm so glad that you're you're back. But we're going to talk about some solutions in regards to maybe some of the things that might be holding you back if you haven't yet gotten sober. How is that?

 

Unknown Speaker  1:22  

I love that. That's great.

 

Arlina Allen  1:24  

Yeah, it'll be fun. I don't know fun. But yeah, let's do some fun because most of these podcasts are so heavy. You and I were kind of giggling before that. We need to infuse some fun into this too, right?

 

Unknown Speaker  1:36  

I love fun. I'm I'm outgoing, fun person.

 

Arlina Allen  1:39  

You are fun.

 

Unknown Speaker  1:40  

I am like we are not a lot. Why me up? Let me go. I'll take it.

 

Arlina Allen  1:47  

Well, that's what we'll do. And I am gonna ask you what you do for fun, but for as far as a lightning round questions go. When you first got sober. What was maybe like one of the most impactful books that you read?

 

Unknown Speaker  2:01  

Hmm. Wow. That's a that's a loaded question. whitesville many were like the world was just opening up. I was just starting to understand life. So everything I read was like, wow, wow. Oh, my God, don't wait. So it was all like, really exciting and interesting. But, you know, I think like, the big book was exciting, because I was like, all the lights and stuff were going off. But, you know, the 12 and 12, the 12 steps. It really made things make a lot more sense. And so it was really informative to me. And outside of that of the, you know, a approved literature I really liked read and there was a book it was there is about it's called as a man thinketh

 

Arlina Allen  2:42  

Oh, that's a good one. Victor. Is that Viktor Frankl?

 

Unknown Speaker  2:45  

No, it's James Allen. I think James Allen. That's right. It was written in like 1902, like over 100 years ago, and almost 120 years ago. And it's a you know, a lot of that came out of that came like science of mine law of attraction, the secret and positive thinking and stuff like that. And it's like, what you think about you attract into your life. And that's really where a lot of that came from? And then you know what? That came from the Bible too. So I mean, all this stuff is millennials old. We didn't invent any of this shit. So yeah, no,

 

Arlina Allen  3:15  

I mean, those ideas, not only the Bible, but it's in like all the ancient traditions. Yeah, right. Yeah, he's it. None of these ideas are new. But every generation sort of has like this free discovery. So yeah, as a man thinketh is an amazing book. And the bid book is sort of the nickname for the book called Alcoholics Anonymous for those who are new. And the 12 and 12. Did you know that the 12 and 12 was written after? was it? It was bill right, wrote that comment? Well, yeah,

 

Unknown Speaker  3:46  

I'm sure a little ones like 1213 years later.

 

Arlina Allen  3:50  

Wow. Yeah, he did it after a little silicided experiment.

 

Unknown Speaker  3:54  

Yes. Yeah. And a few relapses, like he didn't hear Yeah, like everybody's like, Bill. Oh, he busted had like, 50 years of sobriety, I think, yeah, I only had like, I think teens.

 

Arlina Allen  4:06  

I don't know, that will be a good thing to look up. Like, how long did he have money passed away? Yeah, our founding fathers wrote some interesting stuff. So those are really good books. Thank you for those. Do you have sort of a go to mantra or quote that you live by?

 

Unknown Speaker  4:26  

Now you're throwing these at me? I wasn't prepared.

 

Arlina Allen  4:28  

I just told you them.

 

Unknown Speaker  4:31  

Three minutes ago, and then we talked about other stuff.

 

Arlina Allen  4:35  

Okay, I'll do I'll help you. I'll help you out with Well, no.

 

Unknown Speaker  4:39  

Oh, yeah. Well, you know, and I, yes, I there's one that I live by, and not live by, but it helps propel me. And that is, and it's an ancient, not ancient. It's a old philosopher, but he said all of man's problems and women come from our inability to sit quietly in a room. alone. And that's one of my favorites. because it reminds me that we're always out like doing something we have to always be going and doing and making money and buying things and talking to people. And we can't sit still. And stillness and mindfulness have really become, you know, an integral to my, which I think is one of the next questions coming up. integral to like my daily living, you know, sitting in stillness. You know, when I get overwhelmed and stressed out and full of fear, in my old solution was to go do something or drink something or smoke something or go scroll or make a strong sense phone calls for no reason. Hey, what are you doing? I don't know. What are you doing? Oh, I'm sitting in traffic. Oh, what? Like, those are just avoiding what's going on in your life? So sometimes the answer is just to sit still. So I love

 

Unknown Speaker  5:49  

that quote, hard.

 

Unknown Speaker  5:51  

It is hard. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz it goes against our nature.

 

Arlina Allen  5:54  

Oh, for sure. No, I mean, I grew up. I'm an achievement junkie. Like I'm an you know, like home and my my inner default is that Home Depot. More doing?

 

Unknown Speaker  6:08  

Yeah, go buy something and build something and do something.

 

Arlina Allen  6:13  

And listen, man, truth be told, there's nothing wrong with that. But my knee jerk is to distract. And in my mind, the purpose of obsession is distraction. Right. It's like, but what are we distracting from? And for me, that's why sitting is so hard. But yes, you're right. What a great reminder. You know, that's a great saying, I don't know if that's a quote Exactly. But I love that idea. That that reminder of we need to, you know, be still and know that Oh, God.

 

Unknown Speaker  6:41  

Yeah, there are great quotes that I can't because I'm on the spot. I can usually spit out all kinds of quotes, but because I'm on the spot, I'm like, No, but I want that deer

 

Arlina Allen  6:51  

in the headlight. I love that. Yeah. Um, no worries. If you think of something brilliant that you want to share, you just feel free to interrupt me and we'll include that. Okay. Okay. Do you have a regular recovery routine or self care practice?

 

Unknown Speaker  7:07  

Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, I am, its body, mind. And spirit is like my, and that could be like the quote, you know, body, mind and spirit, I have to always be working on those three, it's really hard to have all three in perfect alignment all the time. But I work on that all the time. And when I wake up in the morning, I, you know, we have a choice of how we want our day to go. So I can wake up and look at the news and watch politics and get stressed out and worried that that's the way my day goes. But the way I wake up is I wake up and I read something productive. That's going to set my mind in the right direction. And I meditate, and I drink lots of water. And I exercise. And then I you know, I look at my calendar afterwards, with clear direction. And that's the way my day goes. So if I wake up with a clear mind moving in the right direction, then my day goes in the right direction. So yeah, I stick to that. That's pretty much the way I roll and I have my whole life is like a life of service. That's why I do what I do.

 

Arlina Allen  8:08  

Yeah. And stop messing around with that on your desk.

 

Unknown Speaker  8:12  

I don't know what you're doing. Oh.

 

Unknown Speaker  8:14  

Did I make

 

Arlina Allen  8:16  

a podcast or you want to know better?

 

Unknown Speaker  8:17  

I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

 

Unknown Speaker  8:20  

Just dizzy. You know, I

 

Unknown Speaker  8:22  

know. It's my nail clippers because I have a hangnail.

 

Arlina Allen  8:25  

Oh, dear. Well, I'm so sorry to hear about that. Yeah. Okay, so read something positive meditate water, exercise calendar. And you do like, I know you're in good shape. You exercise a lot. And can you share with me your meditation practice? Because I think a lot of people are really confused about what meditation is, especially early in recovery. What I hear from people is that I can't meditate. But maybe you can just kind of break break down what meditation really is.

 

Unknown Speaker  8:57  

Absolutely. So there's a You're right, there's a common misconception that you have to be like in a sit in in robes sitting in the Himalayas, in a cave, somewhere, have zero box, yes, to meditate. And that's not true at all. You can meditate on the toilet, you can meditate at a red light. You know, the idea is stillness and mindfulness. When I'm still and mindful. The answers can come in, you know, there's room, there's space in my head for the answers to come in. Like if I'm listening to loud music, or jumping into, you know, Facebook, or whatever it is what I'm doing, you know, I'm probably thinking about my problems and the music that's on. But if I could sit in silence, you know, I'm going to think about my problems. But there's space for the solutions and the answers to come in. So when I meditate, it's almost always in silence. Nowadays, I used to do a lot of guided meditation and with my clients, I'm like, you know what, if you really can't sell for more than five minutes, let's pull up let's do like a progressive muscle relaxation or a body scan or other something else like humans. by the waves crashing on the beach or raindrops or birds chirping. Just make a start somewhere. And then eventually I want to move into silence where that's where I calm down. And, you know if i 20 for me, 20 is the magic number,

 

Unknown Speaker  10:15  

right? In my notes.

 

Unknown Speaker  10:16  

Yeah, if I meditate for five or 10 minutes, it definitely slows things down, and I feel okay. But if I can hit 2025, for some reason, when I open my eyes afterwards, 20 plus minute meditation, all my senses are heightened, I could see better hear better, I could feel better, my touches better everything. So really, for me, it's stillness. And, you know, there's a bunch of different techniques that we could talk about, probably another time, but, you know, really focusing on your breathing and focusing on being present.

 

Arlina Allen  10:49  

Focus on breathing and being present. Yeah, I hear a lot of times when people say I can't meditate, what they're saying is that I can't clear my mind a thought, is usually what ends up coming out. And so my, my response to that is usually, that is not the goal. The goal isn't to clear my head to not have any thoughts. I mean, your brains job is to think so for me, like what you said about just focusing on your breath. And then once you catch your mind thinking, you just notice it, and then gently, gently bring it back to the present moment. Because, you know, even now, sometimes I go back, I'm not I'm thinking again, you know, but it's like, No, no, this there doesn't have to be any hostility about notice. Notice what I'm thinking, it's just like, oh, bring it back to the breath. And if I my mind strays, 1000 times, I just bring it back. 1000 times, that's all.

 

Unknown Speaker  11:50  

Yes. I mean, can I share? Here's a great quote, actually, if you want to use this as the quote, okay. And that is the idea of meditation. It's not to control your mind. It's to not let your mind control you. Oh, that's a good one.

 

Arlina Allen  12:07  

Yeah, like your mind. And that is the thing, right? Like, Holy moly, the whole thing about addiction is that your mind is in control?

 

Unknown Speaker  12:17  

Yes, we have on average, 60 to 80,000 thoughts every day. If those are all awesome, useful, productive thoughts? How great would that be, but most of them are, like useless or harmful thinking. So if we cannot let those take over our lives and drive our our daily activities, then we have a better chance of hitting our goals of being successful, healthy, happy, and overcoming our addictions? Absolutely. Yeah, there

 

Arlina Allen  12:43  

is a National Science Foundation, said 60, that we have 60 to 80 thought 1000 thoughts per day, 85% of those thoughts are negative. And 95% of those thoughts are the same as the day before. Isn't that interesting? So we are actually and then we make decisions and take actions based on those thoughts. And then we are basically in a loop. So we're literally living in the residual of all of yesterday's decisions and thoughts and actions, right? So it's grown on day. So if you, if you find yourself asking, How did I get here? Again? It's all based on thoughts. So I love the process that you offer for meditation, because that's where the change can happen.

 

Unknown Speaker  13:32  

Yeah, and there needs to be changed. Like, you know, like, one of the bumper sticker things we hear all the time is like, nothing changes, if nothing changes. So if I'm stuck in that loop every day, and I'm wondering, why am I hitting my financial goals, and my relationship continues to suck and why I can't get sober. 30 pounds, I'm can't get sober. Because I'm stuck in that loop. So great point. Wow, wow, we're really solving a lot of the world's stuff. And it's only been five

 

Arlina Allen  14:00  

years or so. Right? Gosh, and we haven't even gotten to be this is one of my favorite questions. What would you tell younger dentists? What would you what's the one thing you wish you knew when you first got sober?

 

Unknown Speaker  14:14  

I would have to say,

 

Unknown Speaker  14:17  

ask for help.

 

Unknown Speaker  14:20  

You know, we're taught that asking for help is a sign of weakness, but it's not. It's actually a sign of strength, you know, reaching out saying and, you know, with humility being like, you know, I don't understand this. I can't figure this out on my own, otherwise, I would have by now, right? And so reaching out to somebody who is on the other side of the addiction, or just is doing better in life, or whatever you define is better or just somebody that has something you want is how we used to say in tough stuff, and it's like, reach out and be like, hey, how did you get there? You know, I can't figure this out. Can you maybe you can guide me through this. Because I was by myself, I'm stuck with my 80,000 thoughts from yesterday that are negative, and I can't figure it out. So ask for help. That's my big one.

 

Arlina Allen  15:10  

I love that. I love what you said about if I could have done it. If I could have done it already, I would have. Yeah. Yeah, ask for help. It is a sign of strength. Our society, you know, sees that as weakness, but it takes a lot of courage to be able ask for help. And the thing is, there's so many people who are willing to give it. Everybody loves giving free advice. Are you kidding me?

 

Unknown Speaker  15:35  

They just don't follow their own advice. They just give it up.

 

Arlina Allen  15:38  

Yeah, give it up smooth. Yeah, but

 

Unknown Speaker  15:40  

you know what, like, one of the things I tell my clients all the time, too, is like, yes, we want to ask for help. But we also want to learn, we want to become independent, too. And we want to learn things on our own too. So I can't just sit here, if we're in a session and give you all the answers, I want you to figure some stuff out, too. So you know, if you're stuck, I can't figure this out. definitely ask for help, and then start googling stuff. Google has the answers to pretty much anything in the world. So I can't figure this out. Like what store? Should I go by this? How can I meditate? Okay, just Google it.

 

Arlina Allen  16:15  

here's, here's the problem. A lack of information is not the issue. It's applying it. And I think that's why it's so important to have somebody like you in life, right for the fellows, you know, I still sort of kind of, I know, I know, you help a lot, a lot of the men, you know, apply the information. It's about applying. So you're all about the action and applying the information. The information is all out there. But we don't do it for a reason. Right? And we'll talk about that later. I do want to ask you about your recovery journey. But we're going to talk in this episode about how to uncover and identify some limiting beliefs. And they prevent us from applying that information. So I guess that's like a teaser? I don't know. I don't usually do that. But I need to know what you do for fun these days. Because we are not a glum lot. We like having fun. What do you do for fun these days?

 

Unknown Speaker  17:14  

Well, I'm in the process of moving to the beach, and the beach is my happy place. So right now is a kind of a strange time in my life. But it's good because I can handle it because I'm sober. And I and I actively live a life of sobriety and self improvement so I can handle it. And I'm doing all this while working and I'm selling everything I own. I'm moving to a minimalist lifestyle. It's quite interesting to find all the stuff that I used to have that I I can't say I've never been a very materialistic person. But the stuff that I had that I thought made me happy. And you know, some of it definitely imparts some joy or whatever I don't like. The example I'm going to give right now is like, last week, this woman came and picked up my whole living room set. And I had a cool little living room. It was like a beautiful, yeah, I remember. Yeah. And she took it away. And I was like, and it was like, empty, and there was like, echoes again. And I was like, Oh, my God, and I set up my folding chairs in my living room. And I'm like, I love this. It was free. It was empty. There's elbow room. And there's a space to walk through the whole living room. And I was like, I love it. And my whole house is emptying out. So I love that. And so at the end in the next like, four to six weeks, all I'm gonna have left is my four suitcases that I'm bringing to Mexico. So for fun right now. I mean, I always for me, fun is the beach. But I exercise a lot. And I swim a lot I walk a lot jog, I would say running except them. I call it middle age running, which is really like a fast walk or jog sometimes. And I like lifting weights and I you know, that gives me energy. And I like eating well and drinking lots of water. These things that used to be such a chore that people are like, you should do this and you'll feel better and stuff. They've become the way that I live now. So I enjoy that.

 

Arlina Allen  19:13  

I hate that word should because yeah, without knowing it, it actually creates resistance.

 

Unknown Speaker  19:19  

Mm hmm.

 

Arlina Allen  19:20  

Man eliminate that shit out of your life. Don't ever say Should I here's, here's what I found is that when you give someone permission to keep doing the bad behavior, they make the choice themselves to do something better.

 

Unknown Speaker  19:34  

Yeah, we're resilient by nature. Yeah, yeah. If you tell me I usually do. Like when I was drunk, you know, years ago, I would sit on the barstool. And I would say you should do this and you should do that. And they would all look at me like, well, your life kind of sucks. So if I do what you're telling me I should do I'm gonna end up like you. I don't do that anymore.

 

Arlina Allen  19:54  

Yeah. As I say, not as I do. That's like the worst parenting. Approach ever Sure, we learn by example. Okay, so that I love that minimal lifestyle moving to Mexico to live by the beach. I mean that you're talking about, like spending time in nature and that is so like rejuvenating. Yeah, just getting return to nature. It's, um, okay, so how about you tell me I'm so curious. Always. And I don't know that I read, I hear a lot of stories about people's sort of like turning points. It's like, okay, it's like we develop these addictions. I know, you had a pretty crazy story. You don't have to rehash the whole thing. But, you know, maybe a little bit about what it was like. But I'm really so curious about what was the pivotal moment for you when you decided to quit drinking, because it's the decision that really fascinates me.

 

Unknown Speaker  20:55  

Yeah, great point. That was the 32nd version. I was a crazy maniac, ski racer party ski bum chef guy for 10 years. And that was up in northeast Vermont. And then I moved out here to Colorado 21 years, 22 years ago now. And, and I kind of kept it going, but I stopped skiing. So then I was living in suburbia, living that lazy drunken lifestyle. And then I started eating fast food and stuff, and I stopped skiing. So I didn't have the activity. So I put on a bunch of weight. And I was just like, the fat drunken dude, who you see now is not the man that I once was. And

 

Arlina Allen  21:34  

you're Mr. Fit now. Yeah.

 

Unknown Speaker  21:36  

And that also, that all came to a head. And in 2003, I lost the job I was proud of, and I, my I spent all the money use all the resources in my life. We're all spent, I couldn't turn to family or anybody anymore for money or help or anything. And that was my pivotal moment. And I ended up in a 30 day rehab center, and I just kind of latched on it's funny, I was just doing a podcast with somebody else a couple hours ago. And they asked a similar question. But you know, I got there, and they're, you know, in rehab, you can go and there's a lot of people that are like bouncing in and out of rehabs and that are there for the wife or the husband or the the law or their job or whatever. But I was there because I needed to change. Like I, I remember there was a group, there was a small group, like the rehab I was in it was like 50 people. So we had like these big meetings with with everybody. And then they had a small group where there was like six or seven of us. And people were going around the room that were there longer than me. And it was only like my first or second day. And it came out they were and they were talking about different things in their lives. And they came to me and I just started crying. And I said, I can't stop drinking. Like people were talking about resentment and fear, and insecurities and heartache and financial problems, like all this stuff. And I was like, I didn't know, those were the reasons I couldn't stop drinking that I needed to work on life. But I just started crying. I can't stop drinking. And I don't know what to do. And this is sad to say. So if you're listening and you can't stop drinking, I understand. And I know Arlina does, too. And that's the hardest. The hardest thing you know, we look at people on the outside. This is why I think it's important to work with people who know what it's like to be drunk and not be able to stop. It's like, I can look at you, you could tell me your story. And there's nothing that we haven't heard before, or done before. And you could tell me that story. And to you it's like the biggest thing in the world. And to me, I'm like, Oh, yeah, I've heard that before. We're gonna get through it. It's okay. You know, because I've done that. And so I latched on to people that that were doing the work that we call now. And they were they were praying and meditating, talking to people writing things down reading exercise, they do it all the things you asked me what do I do? Not much has changed in the last 18 years. You know, I

 

Arlina Allen  24:07  

everything

 

Unknown Speaker  24:08  

except everything. And I just do it at a deeper level. Now, you know, they say, you know, like, when people talk about diets, and they're like, well, I tried that diet, it didn't work. But it did work. You go on the diet, you do what it says you stop eating crap, and then you exercise more, you lose 20 pounds. So you start eating cheesecake again, and you get fat again, and you're like, well, what happened? I tried that diet. It didn't work, but it did you stop doing the things that it told you to do. So it's the same as sobriety. It's like you come in, life's falling apart. We're like here, why don't you try this and you're like, Okay, I'm hurting, I'm gonna do that. And then a month later, or a week later, or whatever, you stop doing that stuff because you stopped drinking, but we haven't changed anything else. So a week later or a month later, we stopped drinking and we stopped doing the things that helped us stop drinking. And then we end up drinking because we don't know how to handle life. That's the real problem like thinking, we haven't changed our thinking. We haven't worked on the real reasons why we drink. So once we start doing that, then we can handle life as it comes at us. Because it continues to come at you. It's what's our reaction to it, when that happens?

 

Arlina Allen  25:21  

Absolutely. And we have evidence that other people are experiencing those same circumstances, and they don't drink. So what's the difference? Right, and, and it feels to me like it's the practice that you described that self care practice that that helps us cope and do the emotion management stuff.

 

Unknown Speaker  25:44  

But I think you said a big word there,

 

Unknown Speaker  25:46  

the emotion management, I love that emotional sobriety that we talked about. That's really the goal. You know, this isn't a not drinking contests, it's about growing up and looking at the world in the eye, and living a life of integrity and honesty, and helping people.

 

Arlina Allen  26:01  

Thank you for saying that. It's not a not whatever you said, um, but not not not drinking content. funny, because we do give accolades to people who don't drink for long periods of time. But it's been my experience that those people can be as batshit crazy or sick as people who are continuing to drink. So this is not a not drinking contest. It's about personal evolution, because we are always evolving. So we're either evolving or devolving

 

Unknown Speaker  26:37  

sounds

 

Arlina Allen  26:38  

like a muscle, it's like you, you know, you you stay in shape, because you continue to exercise, right? And so you're, in my mind, like sobriety is like that, too. Like, my brain has this default. And I have to exercise it to get out of that default. And when I stop exercising, I go back to default. Absolute.

 

Unknown Speaker  26:57  

Yeah, I was taught we always want to be pushing uphill, right. And if we're not pushing uphill, we're sliding downhill. There's no planing out. There's no like hanging out, because, but the differences and people think that pushing uphill means struggling, it doesn't have to mean struggle. It just means trying to be better than I was yesterday.

 

Unknown Speaker  27:16  

Yeah.

 

Unknown Speaker  27:17  

That's already yesterday.

 

Unknown Speaker  27:18  

So what did I do yesterday? That worked? Let's do more of that. And let's try to keep going. What did I do that didn't work? Let's stop doing that. Let's try to become better. That's all.

 

Arlina Allen  27:29  

Yeah. And I think that's so important. You know, this is why it's so important to have like a mentor, like a sponsor, or a coach or something to help you sort of stay in balance, because I mean, recovery seems to be full of paradoxes, right? It's like, we have to do all this work. But then we have to, you know, stay in peace, and we have another day, then we have to do growing pains. And it's the whole thing. So it's nice to have somebody but it is just what like my whole thing is one day at a time. Right, which we just have to do today. You know, and it's nice to have friends and an environment, you know, set up to support that. So,

 

Unknown Speaker  28:06  

yes, well, I know why you need a coat. I know why you need a coat. Because we all do.

 

Unknown Speaker  28:12  

I know I have one. Isn't that great? Like coach, I

 

Arlina Allen  28:15  

have a sponsor, I have their bus.

 

Unknown Speaker  28:18  

Yes. So I was taught and I'm sure if we talked about this before, but it's like I was taught have an expert in every area of your life. So I'm not a doctor, if I get sick, I need to go to the doctor. If I have to go to court, I need a lawyer. If I hate doing taxes, I hate it hate it. So I needed an accountant every year to help me do that. And apparently I can't get sober on my own. And apparently I have a hard time achieving all my goals on my own. So let's get back to what we said 10 minutes ago. Ask for help somebody who's not emotionally attached to my shirt who can see it from out here instead of me going oh my god, this is how my life's go and say well what if we just look at it from here instead? Oh, wow, I didn't think of that. Your first thought because you're emotionally attached right now to your crap and you you can't see through it

 

Arlina Allen  29:09  

can't see that. Yeah, I always say that like emotion colors my perspective I can't see clearly and, and I do I do need somebody who's objective. Are you gonna write that down?

 

Unknown Speaker  29:20  

Yes. Your

 

Arlina Allen  29:23  

emotion colors my perspective? Yeah, I can't see clearly. I mean, rose colored glasses, right? That's beautiful, positive thing, but I don't know if that's positive all the time.

 

Unknown Speaker  29:36  

I'm gonna have to write Arlina Allen underneath.

 

Arlina Allen  29:39  

I'm full of it.

 

Unknown Speaker  29:40  

give you all the credit your fault for something, follow them all kinds of things. Yeah,

 

Arlina Allen  29:46  

I'm an obsessive learner. Sorry, try to fill fill this look good things. But no, I love that idea of having an expert in every area of your life, which includes like sobriety, you know, goal achievement. All that stuff, I love it. But this is actually a good segue into, you know, maybe let's just start at the beginning. Like if you're struggling to quit drinking, you know, maybe we can start to talk a little bit about what are some of the beliefs that may be the negative limiting beliefs that we have about quitting drinking, a lot of people are afraid to quit drinking, pick a date or that they're going to start stopping. My son says A is for quitters. I think that's hilarious. But some people are really afraid. It's, it's really there's a lot of socializing that happens with alcohol present, there's, you know, you know, some people that I talked to you, they're like, everybody I know, drinks. And I'm like, guess what? Nobody that I know, drinks? Hardly anybody?

 

Unknown Speaker  30:55  

It's not. So I did. Well, maybe you did

 

Arlina Allen  31:01  

seem crazy. But it's like, No, we choose people. We choose people to be in our life. You know, there's that saying that if you ordered a shit sandwich, chances are you ordered it. Like we choose the shitty people. And it's not funny. It's not a I didn't say it. But um, so socializing is probably a big area. And then I thought maybe we would also sort of dive into a little bit of what of your partner's still drinking and you want to quit? Those are a couple of tricky ones. So how, what do you what do you see as some of the limiting beliefs around, you know, not drinking as a, as it relates to socializing.

 

Unknown Speaker  31:44  

This is great limiting beliefs, beliefs, and behaviors, those harmful beliefs and behaviors that we've had, in most cases for decades. You know,

 

Unknown Speaker  31:53  

what's up,

 

Arlina Allen  31:54  

unexamined beliefs,

 

Unknown Speaker  31:56  

unexamined? And, you know, maybe we saw dad yelling at mom, or hitting mom, or maybe we saw something that our friends that years, maybe were five years old, and we're like, I don't know how to handle that. But I find a way through it. And then I carry that behavior, whether it's healthy or not into my whole life, right? That behavior and those beliefs into my whole life, I'm not good enough, I'm not worth it. Although I'm funny enough, smart enough, good looking enough. And we carry those all the way through. And then in my case, like, I had those when I was five years old, then I start drinking when I'm 15. And that took away some of that pain, and then I was, then I was good enough, and I could talk and then I could dance better, and all that stuff. But I never really learned how to cope with those in a healthy way. So a lot of people fail in sobriety because they fail to work through these limiting beliefs. So this is a great, great topic. Because when I start with new clients, the first thing we do is we talk about our beliefs about ourselves, and like about our body, about our relationships, or family and sexual romantic relationships, our career, our finances, and our spiritual life, like those pretty much cover life, those areas right there. And let's find all of the limiting beliefs in all those areas, write them down, and then let's start chipping away at those. Because without, like, if we're just thinking about it with our other 80,000 harmful thoughts every day, that we're never going to find a solution. So we would need to like work through those. And when we write them down, I take my thoughts, which are running all over the place, my funky brain, and now I put them on paper. And now I have something to work on something tangible, that I can take action on and say, Wow, I I believe this. Well, that's a bunch of bullshit. Well, so I can get rid of that one quick. But this one, this goes deep. How can I work on, like debunking that harmful belief? Well, is it really true how let's look at areas in our life where that's actually bullshit. So I actually have a technical term, it's called bullshit stories we tell ourselves, it's, it's a clinical term, bullshit stories. So we look at those things and be like, I'm not good enough well, or are successful, or whatever it is, say, well, let's see, you've you've had this job, you're making six figures, you're fairly healthy, you have a relationship with your wife or your husband. So that we just proved that wrong. So there's ways to go about doing this and look at the things that we believe and then debunk those bullshit stories that we're telling ourselves,

 

Arlina Allen  34:36  

get somebody to, is there a process for that? Like, like, you know, I, you know, I do a class and the way we sort of do it is what is it that you want, and why don't you have it and the Why don't you have it as the BS story that you're telling yourself? Do you have a process for that? Or is it more sort of like you talk it through how do you get how do you how people identify their story.

 

Unknown Speaker  35:04  

Well, I mean, like, kinda like I just said, Well, these areas like that's a specific exercise, how I start with a lot of the reason, remember the drinking and the drugs and the food and the porn and the shopping and the Netflix, the scrolling, like all that talking

 

Arlina Allen  35:21  

about Netflix, that's not a problem.

 

Unknown Speaker  35:26  

I need my Netflix

 

Unknown Speaker  35:28  

for me. Right.

 

Unknown Speaker  35:30  

But those things like those aren't the problem. That's what I'm using to cope with the real problem, which is your actions? Yes. Those are distractions. Even the drinking now the drinking is twofold problem because, you know, that gets into those physical things. And, you know,

 

Arlina Allen  35:47  

that's a physical addiction as opposed to a process addiction.

 

Unknown Speaker  35:50  

Well, I mean, that it is an addiction, and but it is still just a distraction. At the end of the day. Yes, you know, and then we have to watch for cross addictions, like I quit drinking, but I'm going to smoke weed, or I'll quit smoking weed, but I'm going to eat a pizza every day. And I'm going to quit eating pizza belly to pound a chocolate every day, but but I'm going to get keeps smoke cigarettes are

 

Arlina Allen  36:13  

all distraction,

 

Unknown Speaker  36:14  

all distractions from feeling and from dealing with our limiting beliefs.

 

Arlina Allen  36:18  

Whether Okay,

 

Unknown Speaker  36:19  

yeah, so when we identify those, okay, write them down. Now we can work write them say, Alright, well, this has been going on my life for 30 years. So it's probably going to take a little bit of time. But let's, let's create some new healthy habits, some new ways of doing things that are going to help me become successful. And then we want to define some goals. So okay, let's say that, let's say, Alright, here's how I believe about my body. And this is how my health is. And but I want it to be like this. Now we have a goal. And this is how my finances are. But this is how I want my finances to be. Now we have a goal. So when we, we say, these are my beliefs about myself and all those areas. And then there's where I want to go, and then let's work on one at a time. Because not all of them. Because this is another reason people get overwhelmed. And then they do things like drink, because New Year's resolutions. Well, every new year, I'm going to write a book, lose 20 pounds, fix my relationship, make a million dollars and do all this stuff. And two weeks later, you're like, Oh, my God, I can't handle this. So I start drinking again and eat chocolate and and the next New Year's, it's the same five new year's resolution

 

Unknown Speaker  37:31  

vicious.

 

Unknown Speaker  37:32  

So what we need to do is focus on one goal, the one that's going to change your life the most probably the one that you've been putting off for 10 years, right. And then let's create specific steps to get that goal done at a high level. And then you don't need to drink. Like you start feeling building confidence. And you start feeling good about yourself. And you walk out into the row with your chin up and look in the world in the eye. And that's when we want to do and there's no space then for drinking or getting stoned or whatever your harmful behavior is.

 

Arlina Allen  38:01  

Right now. That's beautiful. I love that. Um, talk to me a little bit, how would you help somebody who has problems? quitting drinking? Because their partner still drinks? How do you address that? That's a tough one. Right? Well, yeah, I

 

Unknown Speaker  38:19  

mean, that that has layers. So it depends. Is the other person an alcoholic? Are they just drinking socially and don't want to quit? Do you have the hard talk with them? Maybe they will stop with you, you know. So? I mean, there's a lot of different ways to approach it, is it? Is it causing you to have cravings and causing you to relapse, then, then maybe we need to talk about boundaries. Maybe we say if you can't stop drinking, then I'm gonna have to leave for a little while or indefinite or whatever. Because you have to take care of you remember, self love, self care, self respect, and having people around that are going to continue to cause me to cause damage to my own health and well being. That's not self love. That's not self care and self respect. So, you know, these are the hard things to do. And this is why it's important to have somebody in your life because it's not easy to say to your husband or wife. If you can't stop drinking, I am going to leave. So you have to leave, or you have to leave Yeah, something like that. Because that those are the hard talks, but it's a paradise. The most successful relationships in the world are two independent people, not codependent people who have the hard talks and do the hard things. And they get through those things.

 

Arlina Allen  39:38  

Yeah, no, that's really good. Is it there it is. It is multifaceted and every it seems like every situation is different. And that is why it's important to have like an objective third party to help process through all these there's so many questions, right but you I feel like hit the nail on the head by saying that You know, the self care and the self love has to come first. And what you're really talking about is priorities. Like, if you're when you're quitting drinking, sobriety has to be your number one priority before your kids before your husband before your job, which, you know, strikes at the heart of fear of some people, because their financial security, you know, emotional security, personal security, you know, is tied to relationships and jobs and things like that, but, but if you are really struggling with alcohol, then it is gonna cost you everything that it is that you say is important to you.

 

Unknown Speaker  40:44  

Yeah, you know, that self love, self care and self respect people. There's a another misconception. And that is, if I'm doing those things, I'm being selfish. And there's a difference between being selfish and taking care of yourself. And it's kind of like, you know, this is a, maybe you people have heard this before, but it's like, you know, when the oxygen comes down in the airplane, I need to put it over my face my nose first, because if I'm not breathing, I can't help anybody else. So it's the same thing with everything, I need to take care of me if my health is failing, because I can't stop drinking, that I need to start taking care of my health. And if somebody is in the way of that, then we have to stop the amount of time or reduce the amount of time that I spend with them. Because I need to take care of me.

 

Unknown Speaker  41:31  

Yeah,

 

Unknown Speaker  41:32  

yeah. And that gets lost that well. And that's something we have to build in sobriety is, we have to take some of the shame and the guilt away, which is why we talk about those things. And, and be become humble. And but take care of yourself.

 

Unknown Speaker  41:47  

And yeah, that means

 

Unknown Speaker  41:49  

diet, exercise, meditation, reading, things that are going to be productive. You know, when I was drinking, I didn't do any of those things. There wasn't any space for that. So I need to add healthy habits into my life that are gonna distract me from the distraction of drinking.

 

Arlina Allen  42:07  

You said something that really caught my attention, take away guilt and shame. Because I feel like the guilt and shame is what prevents us from the self love and making ourselves a priority. And we tie so much guilt and shame to alcoholism or addiction. Because we do shitty things when we're drunk or higher. In our loss and our addiction. When we're lost in our addiction, we behaved badly. And we ended so we have evidence that says I'm a shitty person. So maybe that's a negative limiting belief, right? That this guilt and shame is your identity. Right? And it's important to separate Don't you find that it's important to separate that? guilt and shame? How do you help people take that away?

 

Unknown Speaker  43:00  

Well, yeah, all the all of the the regret. or worrying about what I've done in the past, all the guilt and the shame can change one moment of the past. So we really need to learn to let that fee in the past, and now and we need to forgive ourselves. And you know, in the 12 step program, it's the fourth step. It's about like going in and finding your, your, you know, where your resentments where your fears are all those things, and then moving all through the work and you get up to where you go make amends to people and then putting the past in the past. That's the idea of all that. Yeah,

 

Unknown Speaker  43:42  

that's a great process.

 

Unknown Speaker  43:44  

It's an incredible process. Yes. And then I we go even further, it's like continuing the growth, but it's important. And an important amends to make apology to me, whatever you want to call it is to yourself, there needs to we need to forgive ourselves. And one of the one of the processes I do is I have a four step forgiveness process where we work through and the first part is, is getting all the anger out, because you can't be angry, resentful, and love at the same time. Right? So we need anger out. And this comes in the form of letters. So I write letters to my parents, my ex my friends have screwed me over the president, all these people like that we hate and we're mad at. So we write letters, saying, you know, I hate you, I can't believe you did this. Fuck you, you screwed my life up, blah, blah, blah. We got to get all that anger out. And that process could take. I have one woman who I work with she was raped twice. And, you know, going through a forgiveness process. There's a lot of anger in there from 30 years ago. So we we worked on this for months of getting anger out. And then on to the next letter where You know what, I forgive you, I know that you were just doing the best you can. And, you know, I hope that that we're both able to move on. And I wish you well.

 

Arlina Allen  45:11  

The second letter is a letter of compassion.

 

Unknown Speaker  45:14  

Yes. Yeah. A letter of love, forgiveness, compassion. Now, while you're doing that letter, you're like, I forgive you. But fuck you. I still can't believe each other. But that means all the anger is down now. So we need to go back to the beginning and continue to get the anger out.

 

Arlina Allen  45:30  

Are they reading these letters to you?

 

Unknown Speaker  45:33  

Oh, yes. To me.

 

Unknown Speaker  45:35  

I'm sorry for anybody. All

 

Arlina Allen  45:36  

right, no, I get that. Okay. So what you're talking about is validating, in my mind, like people just can't move on until their feelings are acknowledged and validated.

 

Unknown Speaker  45:51  

Mm hmm.

 

Arlina Allen  45:52  

Yeah. And then, yeah, and that's what you're describing is. You hold space for them to you hear God's sometimes people just want to be heard. Right? Like, nobody's listening. like everyone's talking. nobody's listening. So you hold this safe space of listening. And you hear and see and feel with your heart. Yes, that sucked. I agree with you. I hear you. That must have been horrible, right? And there's almost something de escalates. Something, just that validation. In my mind. People cannot move on until they're seen, heard and validated. And then they can move to compassion and forgiveness, like,

 

Unknown Speaker  46:41  

yeah, yeah. And it takes time, remember, a lot of stuff, you know, we're deal a lot of this stuff we deal with, is unresolved emotion, it's unresolved things from the past, whatever it was, and these things can be decades old. And it's gonna take longer than a week or a month to, to undo these, these beliefs, behaviors, habits, ways of living that have been keeping us sick. It's gonna take a while to undo that. And take us but you know, the painful process helps us have sustained growth. Right? Like, that's

 

Unknown Speaker  47:19  

what I said.

 

Arlina Allen  47:19  

Sorry to interrupt you, but if I don't say it now I'm gonna forget. Cuz I'm old. No, it does take time to undo because and this is sort of an interesting point. Have you ever heard that? That saying that time heals all wounds? Such a lie?

 

Unknown Speaker  47:37  

And time to action?

 

Arlina Allen  47:40  

Ah, yeah, time with action heals wounds. I love that. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt. No, no

 

Unknown Speaker  47:46  

calm.

 

Arlina Allen  47:49  

What were you saying? I forgot.

 

Unknown Speaker  47:54  

Sorry.

 

Arlina Allen  47:56  

Okay, okay. So, get the anger out through the letters, it takes time with action.

 

Unknown Speaker  48:02  

Yeah. And then at the end, ultimately, we want to forgive ourselves, forgive ourselves to get to the place where you know, I love I love you. I love you. Arlina I love you, Dennis. I love you, me, I love me. And, you know, we all make mistakes. And ultimately, that's where we want to get. And, you know, it takes a little time to get there. And sometimes it doesn't it sometimes some something silly, you know, like rape is a horrible, like one of the worst things that could ever happen in your life. So that one tastes a little more work. Sometimes it's smaller things. But you know, we just have to be willing to do the work. And once we start doing the work, then change happens. But if we continue to stay in our 80,000, stagnant thoughts from yesterday that are keeping us stuck? Not going to grow out of it? Well,

 

Arlina Allen  48:48  

there's, you know, the shadow side of all this is like we do it because it serves us in some way. Right. Thank you. Does we think it does. Yeah, we think it does. And I feel like that's like subconscious minds job is to sort of keep you in this little comfort zone. Because that's, you know, we develop like the default mode network, this this way of thinking this operating system and then your subconscious mind to conserve energy will try to keep you there. Right? Let it doesn't ultimately serve you because it's like, you have all this pain that you're not dealing with, and that's what's causing you to drink or behave in a destructive way. So I love this forgiveness process. And, and so, gosh, I I could talk to you all day, but I realized I want to be sensitive to your time. Okay, so

 

Unknown Speaker  49:38  

I'm all yours.

 

Arlina Allen  49:40  

Oh, you're so sweet. Okay, so the fruit, okay, so we ultimately forgive ourselves. And so my belief is that we cannot escape the same measuring stick that we judge others by. So if we're going to write that one down, that's right. So the VI The reason To forgive, in my mind, is that Have you ever heard that idea that anger is like our resentments? Like, like, anger damages the vessel that carries it right? It's like acid like that anger just poisons us. Right. But we hold on to this resentment because we're holding these other people to this standard. That may or may not be. Well, I don't know. It's like not serving anybody really. But

 

Unknown Speaker  50:31  

well know that. You know, that resentment holding up the anger. You know what that is? What? That's another distraction.

 

Unknown Speaker  50:39  

Oh, yeah, that's

 

Unknown Speaker  50:41  

exactly what that is. So having, drinking, getting stone, the I won't say Netflix anymore. But scrolling, the eating chick fil a at three in the afternoon, and holding resentments. Those are all distractions, feeling and growing. That's what they are. It's the same thing.

 

Arlina Allen  51:00  

You are healing the world today.

 

Unknown Speaker  51:04  

That's the truth. I mean, this is huge thinking. going deep. And most people aren't even willing to go this deep because it's painful. It's part of

 

Arlina Allen  51:13  

growing pains, though, right. And the thing is, is life is painful anyway, so you're going to experience pain, so me as well be intentional about it and process the pain to resolution rather than continue our distracting behaviors.

 

Unknown Speaker  51:32  

Master role,

 

Arlina Allen  51:33  

and you are? Well, thank you. And you are such a great facilitator for people. How How do people find you and work with you? If if you do indeed have your calendar is full. But if you could squeeze one or two people in how would somebody go about reaching out to you,

 

Unknown Speaker  51:57  

there's always room to help people. So it's Dennis berry.com. And you can schedule a free session on there. And we'll have a chat. And if you like it, we'll try some more. And if not, I understand. And from there, you can buy my book, and you can get to my podcast and the Life Mastery school you were talking about is I'm creating a series of free videos. And the current one that's up there now is addiction recovery. And there's like 15 or 20 videos there. And then

 

Arlina Allen  52:25  

I'm 10 or 20.

 

Unknown Speaker  52:26  

Yeah, so they're all free to watch. And then there's different topics within there. And I did love and relationships. There's about 10 or 15. There. I'm working on mindfulness and meditation, which we were just talking about, and health and wellness. So it's just it's Life Mastery school by Dennis Berry. And you just come in, you can watch all the classes you want for free.

 

Arlina Allen  52:48  

Life Mastery school by Dennis berry.com. No, it's on my website. Everything's on Dennisberry.com

 

Unknown Speaker  52:56  

Yeah, everything's right there, Life Mastery school mastery on Dennisberry.com. website. Hopefully that wasn't confusing. Just go to Dennis Berry, just

 

Arlina Allen  53:05  

just go to Dennis berry calm. I'll leave a link. If you're driving while listening to this. I will leave a link per usual. in the show notes. I will also include and the forgiveness process that was intense. Thank you so much for sharing that.

 

Unknown Speaker  53:20  

Yeah. And if anybody reaches out via this, then I'll just send him a free copy a PDF copy of my book.

 

Arlina Allen  53:27  

Oh, nice. What's the name of your book?

 

Unknown Speaker  53:29  

funky wisdom A Practical Guide to Life.

 

Arlina Allen  53:31  

Love that. So good. Um, okay. Yeah. So I will leave links to the books. I'll have the quotes in there. There was a lot of quotes, actually, you see a great quotes. And I'll leave a link to your website, podcast and Bach. Yay,

 

Unknown Speaker  53:54  

has a lot of stuff. You're the best. I love you.

 

Unknown Speaker  53:56  

I love you.

 

Arlina Allen  53:57  

You're my brother from another mother, for sure. Thank you so much for all the work that you do. I know that you your whole purpose. Like you're living your purpose, as am I now? Yeah. It feels really good to be of service and turn that in service, I would say that service is probably one of the fastest way to improve your self esteem if, if you're struggling with guilt and shame, start getting into service because that will help mitigate that as well.

 

Unknown Speaker  54:26  

So powerful. So, so, so true. You know, I said all the time, but you know, are you worried or stressed out or resentful or angry or whatever your feeling is? Did you help anybody today? Yeah. And it's sometimes it could be a big thing. And sometimes it could be just holding the door open for somebody but just stop doing it with?

 

Arlina Allen  54:47  

Yes. with intention. I love that. Well, Dennis, thank you so much for being so awesome. All the time. Thank

 

Unknown Speaker  54:55  

you.

 

Arlina Allen  54:58  

Good luck with your move to Mexico. I look forward to seeing all the pictures on all your socials. I'll leave links to that. Thank you so much for your time today.

 

Unknown Speaker  55:09  

Thank you. I mean, I appreciate you.

 

Arlina Allen  55:11  

I appreciate you too. We'll talk again soon.