The Crucible:Conversations for the Curious

Hamish Niven (00:01)
Welcome to The Crucible, Conversations for the Curious. I am Hamish, your host. This podcast is for anyone going through awakenings, trying to make sense of life. Whether dark nights are the soul, needing to make life -changing decisions, struggling with addiction or critical illness, or simply realizing that their life as they know it is not aligned to values and purpose. You are not alone. You can get through this, promise you. Life is far more beautiful on the other side.

Hamish (00:29)
Hi everybody, today we are chatting with Gayle. She's a friend of mine, I met her a couple of years ago, and we chat from time to time across the pond and things like that. So, Gayle, thanks for turning up this morning.

Gayle Dillon (00:40)
Well, Hamish, thanks for asking me. I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Hamish (00:44)
Lovely. Well, can you tell me a little bit about your awakening and your journey?

Gayle Dillon (00:49)
Sure. Do you want me to start with the awakening and go backwards or start with the journey to the awakening?

Hamish (00:55)
I think it's always good to start with a little bit of a backstory. So what happened leading up to the awakening? Yeah.

Gayle Dillon (01:01)
Okay, I started using drugs at, to me, a young age. Some people I know started younger. I was probably a freshman in high school. And I always had the sense that I felt like I didn't belong. And then I had a tragedy happen in my life that when something happens in your life and you're young, you make up stories. And so I had a best friend.

who got leukemia and passed away. And her mother, I heard her mother tell my mom that a doctor said that a shock to her system activated this leukemia in her body. And the shock to her system was we were at the ocean together and got on some motorcycles and were riding in the waves having fun. And to me, that triggered at that age that I was responsible for my best friend dying.

And so add that to feeling that I'll never fit in. Alcohol and drugs became kind of my escape and was my escape from that time until I turned 50, so 40 some odd years. And I would consider myself a high functioning addict, alcoholic. I always maintained a job. I always showed up for work.

However, I was also always in highly abusive relationships because I felt like I deserved that, if you will, looking back on it, not in the process of relationships, but my relationships were always abusive. They started out physically and emotionally abusive. And as I got older,

the physical abuse finally went away, but there was still the emotional abuse. I would say spiritual abuse, except at the time I wasn't a spiritual person. So that didn't get into the equation. And then I had a...

a really,

embarrassing, I guess, would be the thing that happened to me. And it kind of shook me to my core. I got really, really drunk with people that were younger than I was. We were all going to University of Phoenix together.

and they had a party and I went and I, when I would get drunk, I'd drink myself into blackouts so I wouldn't remember what I'd done or who I was with. And, you know, that's risky at best, but it shook me to the core. And then I kind of heard this voice that said, you know, if you don't change,

what you're doing, you're gonna die, or you're going to kill somebody. And so it kind of put me on this quest like, maybe I should find some sort of spiritual anchor. I didn't at that time think about giving up drugs and alcohol. But I thought about seeking out some sort of spiritual anchor for whatever reason.

And I found Centers for Spiritual Living at the time it was called Religious Science, which I am now an ordained minister of that organisation. I found that and started taking the classes. And I will say as I was taking the classes, I was still using alcohol, still taking drugs. You know, nothing had really changed except I was showing up.

every day at this organisation and taking classes and being in community. And I went out to, I went out with a friend one night and did my normal behavior, you know, drank too much, danced on tables, literally.

came home, went to bed, and I call it a numinous experience. It's something that is, you can't explain, like what happened from the time I went to bed and passed out to when I woke up. And the first thought I had when I woke up on October 19th of 2002 was, you're done. No more alcohol, no more drugs, no more cigarettes. And...

I have never looked back. And so for me, that was my awakening experience and unexplainable. I mean, you know, people will say, well, you were taking classes, you know, yeah, that was true. But I did not have a conscious thought of, wow, if you quit drinking and using drugs, your life is probably going to change.

drastically. That was not a thought. I was still, although I was scratching the surface of not feeling that I wasn't enough and I was still struggling with belonging, that changed my life when I quit covering everything up with the drugs and the alcohol. You know, I say to people, it's like,

When you're using it's like being on one of those wheels like hamster wheels. You know, you do something you're ashamed of. You drink and use drugs so you don't have to remember. So you can shut up the monkey mind. And then you do something to add to the last embarrassment when it just builds on itself. And once you stop...

Hamish (06:53)
Mm -hmm.

Gayle Dillon (06:56)
then you really have to look at yourself and go, okay, now what?

Hamish (07:02)
Wow. That's, that is something, isn't it? I love the way you, you started to change. You went to that community and you got involved with it, but there was still all the old stuff behind you, the drinking and the drugs and the partying and stuff like that. And it's, we don't sort of see how much we drag with us at all. but going back to that night, have you sort of deconstructed it and worked out what happened or have you, have you given it a story or a name?

Gayle Dillon (07:30)
You know, honestly, no. What happened was I do remember, and interestingly enough, which is kind of confusing, I remember being with a friend. And in my mind, it's a different friend than it actually was. Does that make sense? You know, I have attached to...

nights that I went out and made them kind of one but I but the reads and I know it was this one friend is because we were supposed to go to a concert and I didn't go because once I realised there were going to be no drugs and alcohol in my life then all the fear of being around people I didn't know because that was my courage and you take away the courage and now what?

And so the thing that happened was, you know, she came over, we decided to go out. So we, you know, we used before we went out, we smoked pot, we snorted some coke. You know, we got the courage to go out and be around people. And then we drank. And, you know, I went, we went to two different bars. And I remember having a discussion with a gentleman at one of the bars and,

you know, fortunately, you know, he, he was like, I want to come home with you. And I'm like, you're married, you know, and his, and he said to me, my wife doesn't care. And I said, well, give me her number and I'll call her. And if she really doesn't care, sure. And you know, he wouldn't give me the number, thank God. But so, you know, that is what I remember about the night. And I remember going home.

And then I just remember waking up with this clear thought. I mean, I remember coming downstairs and my friend was downstairs and I sat on the bottom step and I looked at her and I said, I'm not doing this anymore.

You know, and she also not that year, but I think the following year, because we had a long history on and off of, you know, partying to the hilt, even when we were raising our kids. You know, we'd party at home. You know, you think now about.

the influence you have on your kids or the damage that you do to your kids. And our whole thing was keeping our kids safe. So, you know, they they were in the house with us as we're drinking and playing Pac -Man and and things. And so, yeah, so I don't remember a lot about the night. I just remember waking up and just knowing that's done.

Hamish (10:18)
So in one fell swoop you said, right, no more coping strategies, no more coping mechanisms. How did you navigate that? How did you feel? Because when I stopped, it was scary.

Gayle Dillon (10:34)
Yeah, I think, you know, I look back on that and I was either foolish or divinely inspired. And, you know, it could go either way. You know, you're either there's that thin line between sanity and being crazy. And I think that there's that line between being not aware and being divinely inspired.

I think that, and I've shared this with people and it's kind of hard to put into words, what I realized was I was being pulled towards something. And had I known that, I probably would have dug my feet in and said, absolutely not. And so I always say that my higher power, my divine inspiration, whatever people want to call it, tricked me.

along the way. It was never glaring that this is the path you're going to be on. It was always veiled so I would walk through the next door without fear. And so I kept showing up in community. You know, I literally because without the drugs and alcohol, I was, you know, they say that whenever you started, that's how, how emotionally old you are.

So, you know, I am now a 50 year old adult and an emotionally 13 year old child trying to navigate life. And it was it was scary. And it was I'm just going to keep showing up. Yeah, I think that that was I just I signed up for every class they offered. I.

You know, that if you go to AA, they talk about being of service, you know, make the coffee, set up the chairs. I showed up early to everything and volunteered. And so I remember that she's now a very, very good friend of mine. She was the minister at the community I joined. And she used to say, I was her, you know, her golden child volunteer.

because I just did things and got them done, you know, that corporate background. But now I had all of this energy, if you will, that wasn't tapped down by drugs and alcohol and also driven by that fear of what if people find out that I don't, because I still didn't think I belonged. And I think the classes, because they were spiritual classes, helped me.

peel back the onion if you will to get to my true self a lot quicker than if I didn't have

a base of, you know, I, it was a, you know, the thing about.

the community that I belong to and what I'm a minister of is that we teach taking responsibility for your life. So you and I met, I believe in the Canfield organization. And what I teach the community I belong to is everything that Jack teaches, Jack Canfield, everything that he teaches with a very spiritual element to it.

And so it was a huge way to get clean and sober because it gave you not only the community that you get in a 12 -step program, it gave you the psychological opportunity, if you will, all the things you'd get in going to a therapist. You know, how do you...

How do you peel back that onion? How do you let go of all those old beliefs? So I think that helped.

Hamish (14:37)
Brilliant. It is interesting, isn't it? Because AA has a religious aspect to it, which really upsets an awful lot of people now. A couple of things I want to ask you about. Did you sort of question your sanity? Because, I mean, you alluded to that a little bit, but did you question what was going on? Why am I suddenly going spiritual and woo -woo, perhaps? Because it was party, and now this is something completely different.

Gayle Dillon (15:05)
Did I, you know, I probably always questioned my sanity. I think for me, and it's interesting you use the word woo woo, because, you know, for me, what my husband has said, her halo is not on too tight. You know, I still swear like a truck driver. You know, I don't do it if I'm speaking on a Sunday morning, but, you know, I still.

I don't dress up in goddess wear, if you will. I am more of the walk your talk, speak your truth, don't beat people over the head with it. I read something today that it's not about telling people what they need to do, it's about living your life.

to a point that they're like, I want that. I want to know how did you change your life instead of saying, this is it. Because everybody's answer is going to be different. You know, my thing is AA is an amazing organisation and has helped millions of people. It's not the path that I took. And as you know, for people that are true,

or I don't want to use the word militant. I'm trying to think of a word. You know, they're very pro, if you will, AA. You know, even in my organization where people have used the 12 -step program and this to stay clean and sober, when I...

got my, when I became a minister, their thing was, well, what do you mean you didn't use AA? You have to go to AA. And literally said, you know, one of the conditions, if you will, to me becoming a minister, to them saying that, you know, I could go on into the next step of ministry was I needed to start going to AA. And I look back on that now and I did it because I really wanted to be a minister, but...

I look back on it now and I probably had I really been that confident said, no, you know, it works for a lot of people. It's not my path. But instead I went and you know, I did AA for probably a couple of years and then I didn't because it really isn't my path. And so for people who...

find a path to get them clean and sober. All I care about is you're clean and sober. You know, how you do it, as long as you don't pick up a drink or as long as you don't use drugs, I don't care. You know, celebrate the fact that you're not using. And so that didn't answer your question. Did I feel like I was crazy? There's a lot of times that I have felt like,

I don't know, crazy, but not normal. Right? Like, I will look at something literally because I think that alcoholism is a disease. And so when I'm in a situation and I want to react out of my fear or my mental...

acuity as an addict, even though I'm clean and sober, that brain is still there. I will stop and say, and I will pick somebody that I assume is normal, whether they are or not, I don't know. And I'll say, if so -and -so was in this situation, let's say it's you, and I'll say, if Hamish was here, how would he handle this situation? And it gives me an opportunity, just by asking the question, to take a breath.

and really think about how I want to respond because I think that my insanity is I respond by shooting from the hip and that's not always wise and it's not always graceful or filled with grace and so just to take that breath and I think that's the insanity of being an addict.

And, you know, there's a blessing to that also.

Hamish (19:40)
It is it is always that little pause, isn't it? That's when you can change the world. I was talking to someone last week and that's exactly what he said. He said that pause opens up every single potential. I can react. I can shoot them. I can get angry. I can be nice. I can run away. I can do anything.

but I've just got to take that pause and that's where the magic is.

Gayle Dillon (20:01)
It's knowing that we're always a choice.

Hamish (20:04)
Yeah, absolutely.

Gayle Dillon (20:04)
And we forget that. I remember, so before I got clean and sober, as you know, on a path to getting clean and sober, we have little steps where we got clean and sober before, and it didn't take, or we chose to go back out. I remember being in, I was in a recovery group, and the person said to me, because I had,

been arrested and the option was I would go to this counseling for a year. I would stay clean and sober for a year and my record would be expunged. And I was livid. I went in with a chip on my shoulder like I was forced to be here.

And the counselor looked at me and she said, you were at choice. You could have chosen to go to jail. And I'm like, I would never do that. She said, I didn't say you do it, but you have to understand the choices on the table. Because when you don't look at what your choices are, then you assume that you were forced into something. She said, you could have picked up and ran. I'm like,

Again, I couldn't do that. She said, you wouldn't do that, but lots of people do, so there's a choice. Or you could choose to be here in treatment. So even though the court mandated it, you still had a choice. And it was like that breath. Now, at that time, I didn't believe her, but I always remembered what she said, that I'm always a choice. So.

Hamish (21:50)
I think that that is the most powerful thing at all when you realize you do have that choice. And it sounds like you, your choices got more and more limited as things went downhill. Mine certainly did. It got to that point where I have to it's carry on drinking, driving drunk, and who knows what happens or check into rehab. And it is scary, but we always have those choices. We always have two choices. Yeah.

I want to ask you about friends and family. How did they respond to you no longer being the party girl?

Gayle Dillon (22:26)
A couple of different ways. I did lose some friends. I remember having a friend that we'd spent a lot of time together through high school, like we were best friends in high school. And we had been hanging out and partying together and then we hadn't seen each other.

And when we finally saw each other again, she said, yeah, like, what have you been doing? And I said, so I found a spiritual community and I'm not drinking, I'm not using, I'm not smoking. And she looked at me and she said, we can't be friends. And I was crushed. And to this day, I thank her for that because she's right, we couldn't have been friends. I couldn't have made that decision.

And if I had maintained a friendship with her, it probably would have put my sobriety at risk. And so again, I think it's that divine intervention of her making the statement. My mom, and I don't know how I handled it before I met my husband. I probably just said no. But my mom used to evidently...

always offered me wine even after I quit using, you know, you want a glass of wine. Because I think she had a hard time with a daughter that was an alcoholic, knowing that it is a genetic disease in my case and passed down from my family and that she also drank a lot. And...

You know, it was that drinking a lot that was normal to me because I assumed every family came home and had vodka tonics, like, you know, in water glasses, not in short glasses, but in water glasses, you know, two vodka tonics in the afternoon. I thought everybody's parents did that.

and drank wine with dinner. You know, of course they did. Mine did it. Everybody, who knows what goes on behind closed doors. And so, you know, I was that visible mirror for her and it made her uncomfortable. When I met my husband and we went to my parents' house,

And he can be pretty outspoken. We walked in and he still drank because we had the conversation before we started dating about, he said, do you care if I drink? And I said, as long as you don't expect me to drink with you, I have no problem with it. And as long as you never get drunk. If it turns out you're an alcoholic, no, it won't work for me.

And he wasn't because we've been together 22 years now, 20, 22, 22 years, 21. Clean and sober 22, we've been together 21. But he walked in and my mom said to him, to both of us, Paul, do you want a glass of wine? Gayle, do you want a glass of wine? And he literally said to her, what is wrong with you? This is the biggest thing your daughter has ever done.

and you're offering her alcohol. And her response was, it's just wine. So clueless, I would say. And I don't know about you, but I'm the baby in our family. My brother was 12 years older than me. My sister was eight. I got to play the focus, right?

I'm the kid with the problems. I'm the ones that everybody has to like, is she going to be okay? And you pull that out of the family dynamic and people have to start looking at themselves and they don't want to. So they still want to look at you and find out what, you know, they want you to play your part. I guess that's what happened in our family dynamic is when I quit playing a part, when I quit,

allowing them to...

In some cases manipulate me. When that stopped, it severed a lot of relationships.

for anybody out there, because that sounds pretty scary, like, my God, I'm going to lose my family. I'm going to lose my friends. No, you're going to find new friends and you're going to find real friends, not friends that are there because you're drinking and using. And, you know, what I noticed when I look back at.

When I was in my disease, when I look back at being a drug addict alcoholic, I hung out with drug addict alcoholics. I didn't realize it at the time, but people that didn't drink and use certainly weren't the people that I was seeking out, nor were they seeking me out. So.

you find a new, you find different friends and stronger relationships and your family shifts to either accepting you or you find a different kind of family.

Hamish (27:40)
that's hard, isn't it? I mean, you, you mentioned that before we, we do play roles. and when you start to change, somebody will, you know, I'm used to you doing this for me. I'm used to manipulating you. I'm used to you jumping when I say how high and that's one of the first things you have to stop doing when you sober up or when you have any awakening, when you start to change and believe in yourself, you, you.

Don't jump when someone says jump. You don't dance to the music they're playing. And it does cause resistance. You know, you've mentioned that with friends and family not finding that comfortable and that girl saying, well, we don't be friends. How would somebody deal with that when they are experiencing it? Because it's very uncomfortable and frightening.

Gayle Dillon (28:29)
It is very uncomfortable and I think that is where AA is so brilliant. The spiritual community that I had is so brilliant. You, I don't believe, I couldn't have done this alone.

And it's not like when I say that, it's not like I had people cheering me on or my husband has always been my number one fan and supporter. And I did have him. However, I think that you need community.

not necessarily community, like I said, not a community necessarily that's going to prevent you from drinking or using, but a community that is going to love you up so much that you're not going to want to. You know, that people that don't, aren't judging you because of your past, but people are looking at you and saying, you know, you go girl, you go guy, you got this, right?

that they're encouraging you always to be the best version of yourself that you can be. I think we need that as humanity. And I think that we forget that and we isolate. I think COVID gave all of us such an opportunity to isolate that to get back out into community is scary.

You know, I moved after COVID in 2021. I moved to a very small town on the ocean because I wanted to live on the ocean. And what I realized, I don't know about you, but whenever I do a big shift in my life, I do it and I've got my reasons. And then when I look back on it, I went, that's why I did it.

Again, it's that divine inspiration telling me to do something, but not saying, and this is why you're gonna go there, because if I knew the why, I wouldn't go. For me, I needed the last couple of years to sit and really reflect on my path as a minister, my path as a clean and sober person.

Like what do I have my path now that I'm 72 years old? Like what do I have to offer the world? And it gave me time to just be without.

kind of the noise, you know, because I got clean and sober and I got clean and sober where I needed to get clean and sober. It was in a spiritual community and I took all the classes and I became a practitioner and I became a minister and I started a church and it was a different hamster wheel, right? And I needed to step off and take a breath.

and look at everything I'd learned and everything I did really well and everything I'd want to do differently to reset. And so, you know, one of the things that I became really aware of is I love being at the ocean. My spiritual community isn't here.

And so we're putting our house on the market and moving to a place where there's, I have a lot of opportunity to be around my spiritual community because that's a real hole in my life.

And so I think that that's one of the things that some of the things you do as a sober person that you'd never do as a drug addict alcoholic, right? You'd never take time to just reflect.

Hamish (32:26)
It's incredibly important, isn't it? And I'm very aware, I'm not good at it. It's not something I enjoy doing, but when I do it, it's that's when synchronicities start to happen because I realise I should be doing this or that makes sense. So I absolutely hear you there. You joined a spiritual community. Do you think people are inherently spiritual?

Gayle Dillon (32:54)
Yes, I do. It's what I teach. So different from, I don't want to say normal religion, different from the very, very popular religions, if you will. What I teach is that...

God is in and through and as each and every one of us. So that's, we are inherently spiritual because we have that divine essence within us, a soul that goes on and on forever and ever. And so, you know, if you think about that, then this experience on earth is like a nanosecond in time if we really knew how to define being infinite. And I lost my train of thought. Give me a second.

And I don't believe in heaven and hell. I think it's a construct that we create here. And we are, I believe we're here to love everybody, to be kind to everybody. When I say that, people go, well, what about so -and -so?

So I will take an ex -husband who was physically abusive. And you know, the question that was asked of me is, so you still want to be married to him, huh? And I was like, what? Why would you say that? And she said, well, you won't forgive him. So if you don't forgive him, his dirty little feet are walking across your mind all the time. So you know, it's that.

I can now love the essence of who he is knowing that the who he has shown up as on earth as a as an abusive person is because of what he learned here as a human not how he was born into being human if that makes sense so he came he came

whole, complete and perfect. And he was taught to be angry and to be hateful. I don't think those qualities are inherent in us. I think those are things we learn. And so to forgive him and to love the essence of him, that place in him that is divine.

released me from my anger and my hurt and gives him, I think, a little laser of opening to shift and change if he chooses. But again, his choice, not mine.

Hamish (35:47)
I absolutely love that because that brings in ancestral beliefs. I'm going to go on a limb here. Let's assume that his parents passed on that knowledge. Maybe his mum and dad were abusive, aggressive, and it just goes back and...

Gayle Dillon (36:03)
Mm -hmm.

Hamish (36:05)
You what you've done there, you've chosen to believe you've chosen to make your life easier by believing he's not inherently horrible. It was just behavior. and it's not him. It's just how he's shown up. And I think that's a really wise way of looking at things. Cause when I do that, when I realized throwing empty bottles out of my car window while driving is just bad behavior. If I apologise and don't do it again.

that is okay for me. That's the best I can do. And you're doing the same thing. You're saying it's just bad behavior. He didn't know better. It's all he was capable of doing. I forgive him as who he is and I'm not going to drag all that baggage with me and put that on my next relationship. And you can't do that. You can't presume that the next person you're going to go out with, marry, talk to is going to be like that previous person because that's just foolish. It's understandable, scary, but it's foolish.

Gayle Dillon (36:38)
Mm -hmm.

Right.

And I will say every relationship up till this one I was carrying my baggage with me. So every relationship was the same just in a different body. Right? Because I was still attracting to me because I was showing up as that I'm not competent, I deserve to be harmed because I'm not good enough.

You know, all of those things. And for people that, you know, it's, it's, you never want to blame the person that's being abused, right? I don't want people out there to go, my God, she thinks that, that, you know, battered women, it's their fault. No. And, right, there's that juxtaposition, if you will. No and.

You need to take responsibility. Even as a battered woman. If you are a battered woman, there are ways to get out of relationships like that. And if you can extricate yourself from bad relationship and then put yourself somewhere and change your behavior, then you're not going to attract that person into your life anymore. And you will, or at least I did.

So I've got this, I consider him perfect husband that I met that was 180 degrees from anybody I'd ever been with in my entire life. And I would run stories in my head about what, you know, like, my God, he's gonna, you know, he's gonna do this. And instead of running the story and making a movie,

and then making it happen because I would build up the big movie until I could make something explode. I would just go and say, okay, we need to have a discussion. This is what's going on in my head and you have to understand it's not about you. It's about all of that back there, but this is what's going on and so tell me what's really happening. You know, why did you do this? He's like,

You know, first of all, sometimes it was like, I did what? What did I do? So, you know, it's that, that gets me into like the four agreements. Don't assume anything. You know, you have to have the courage to ask.

Hamish (39:41)
Utterly beautiful. I love that. That is such an awareness. I'm going to guess here, but that only came when you sobered up. That only came when you started to change. Presumably, what did your self -care change? Did you start looking after yourself better? Did you start respecting yourself a bit more? How did that change?

Gayle Dillon (39:54)
Yeah, I didn't.

totally, totally. So I started a spiritual practice, which I'd never had before, which meant that I was, you know, reading books like The Four Agreements, reading books like How to Change Your Life, you know, just kind of being a sponge, you know, because I had all of this spare time now where I was awake and aware.

So, you know, I could literally sit down with a book and read it and kind of absorb what I was reading, which was a new experience. Taking, I took a lot of classes and all of the classes that we teach, and I say we because not like I said, I'm a minister in the organization now. All of the classes we teach are about discovering who you are. Right. And so I was taking all of those classes and was really

hungry and at the time I remember saying to people when I would talk about it if somebody had said you need to take the penny and roll it with your nose for a mile and that'll change your life I would have done it because I was desperate to you know it was like okay if I'm if I'm gonna do this I'm all in but what do I need to do and so you know I just

It was about feeding my soul. And when I changed, then surprisingly, my friends changed and I attracted my husband into my life. And we both agree, if we had met before I got clean and sober, we wouldn't have even seen each other. He would have been too kind and I wouldn't have deserved that. And...

I would have been too drunk. So, you know, quite frankly, I laugh, but that's who I was. So.

Hamish (42:14)
Yeah, that's just the way it is, isn't it? We attract what we're used to, what we're familiar with. And I mean, I love the way you phrased it about the battered women. We have to change our perspective, how we view the world. We have to start being kind to ourselves. And it is difficult. It really, really is. I was not kind to myself. But as I went through my awakening, it became important.

What would you suggest to people to do to start going through that awakening? What can they do to make sense of where they are and try and sort of build a foundation to get to sort of move, make sense of what they're doing and move through it?

Gayle Dillon (42:59)
So are you asking me as a person who is clean and sober and so they've had an awakening and they're moving forward, how do they move through that?

Hamish (43:08)
could be that or it could be they're watching this and they're going yeah or there's there's something they're tapping on their shoulder and they're going like bugger off I don't want you but knowing that they've got a change

Gayle Dillon (43:10)
that they want in awakening.

Okay, right there. Right there is a good point. So you've got that tapping on your shoulder and you're going bugger off, I don't want to listen to you. Listen to it. Right? Because that is to me, that's that internal wisdom that is saying, you know,

It's time. I think we all have it. And I think a lot of people don't listen to their intuition because they don't think that they're intuitive. We're all intuitive. It's just a matter of us practicing and listening. If.

I was always intuitive, but if I am drinking and using, my intuition is so far down on the spectrum of what my reality is, I don't think I'm intuitive. And then when you stop, then you've got the monkey mind going. And so you can't hear your intuition because you've got this loud speaker that basically is...

doing that to get you to go back to your old behaviors because for whatever reason and I I don't know because I'm not a neuroscientist our subconscious mind is very comfortable where it is whether that's good bad or indifferent it likes where it is it doesn't like change and so you kind of have to fool it.

right? So that it doesn't get scared and try to make you go back to, okay, we're just going to be comfortable. So for me, one of the things that I think is brilliant, you know, we talk about using affirmations or Jack Canfield, and I learned that when I was in the organisation that I'm in, we teach affirmations. But the problem with an affirmation is if I say,

I am a, I am a healthy, fit, flexible 125 pounds. My subconscious mind is going to go, did you look at the scale this morning? Because I don't think it said 125 pounds. However, our subconscious mind does like to solve problems. So instead of saying I am, say what if. What if...

I'm a fit, flexible, healthy, 125 pounds. And the subconscious mind will go, I don't know. What if? So if you're a person who wants to get clean and sober and you're not, just ask yourself every day, what if I quit drinking? What if I quit using? And just kind of open up the opportunity.

Find a community, whether it's a spiritual community, whether it's an AA community. You know, the wonderful thing about AA that I found when I did go was you can tell stories there that would shock your family and friends, and everybody in a room will laugh out loud.

because they have either got a similar story or a story that will make yours look like, my God, you're just a beginner. So, you know, find a community that is gonna support you on your transition because you're not meant to do it alone. I'm not saying you can't do it alone.

Because we can do whatever we want to do. You know, we can power through anything. But if you want to do it easy, find a community that's going to support you. Because it's going to make a huge difference in your life. You want cheerleaders. You don't want people who are going to say, come on, just one glass of wine isn't going to hurt you. Or, you know, I had somebody ask me recently.

because I guess they thought 21 years was a magic number. Do you think you could have a glass of wine now? I was like, yeah, I could. But the problem is the glass of wine would end up being a bottle and then the bottle would turn into tequila. And it's a slippery slope because I've been there. I have...

I had before this time tried different ways to be clean and sober, if you will. And so I think that just, you know, first of all, stop for a day and find out what that feels like and it will be uncomfortable. But, you know, maybe one day I'll turn into two.

Hamish (48:21)
Yeah.

Gayle Dillon (48:22)
I think community is probably the biggest thing.

Hamish (48:25)
I think so too. I think it is. Why can't we make our lives easier? Why can't we find tools to make our lives easier? Why can't we find communities? Why can't we change beliefs and stories to make our lives easier? Surely it makes sense if, you know, that's why we have a car. So we don't have to carry all our stuff back from the shops. So we don't have to walk to work. Why can't we find ways to make our lives easier? Is that

Is that wrong? Is that making life easy when it really should be hard?

Gayle Dillon (49:01)
It's see that's that's the thing I I You hear people say, you know, marriage is hard. No, it's not. Marriage is work. No, I have a job. You know, marriage is communication. Are you always going to make each other happy? No. However, and marriage to me, relationship, whatever. It's about communication. It's about being honest. It's and that's

I think we are so conditioned to protect ourselves because we're afraid, well, if I say something, they won't like me or I'll hurt their feelings or whatever. However, we've been conditioned. We've all been conditioned to build these walls. And by building these walls, what we're doing is we're shutting out.

everything because if I and I truly believe God is in and through and as everything when I build a wall who am I really shutting out? I'm shutting out the essence of the divine that is Hamish right so yeah it's it's it's really conditioning out of fear and you have fear and you have love and most of us

Most of us, I think, go through life letting fear be the driver without even knowing it.

Hamish (50:28)
Yep, absolutely. Did you have to question a lot of your stories and beliefs and patterns when you sobered up, when you joined that community?

Gayle Dillon (50:44)
I had to stop thinking that I wasn't enough. That was huge. I, you know, I don't know, I had to really listen to how I talked about myself. So I evidently would say things like, I'm stupid, or I, you know,

I always do this or I never do that. And I had a minister who would say, when I would say something negative about myself, she would say, and so it is, because I believe our words are powerful. So if I say, I'm stupid, then the universe is saying, okay, so we'll prove to her that she's stupid, you know?

And so she would say to me, and so it is, because it would make me stop and think, am I saying things that are positive about myself?

which we don't do because we're raised to believe, I think, or I was, don't be too grand dose. Don't go around saying, you know, people will think you're a snob or think people will think you're you think you're better than everybody else. And so then we conditioned ourselves to think negative about ourselves, that we're not good enough, that we don't fit in that, you know. And so I had to recondition and relearn.

how to think and how to talk about myself. And that was huge. And that was not something that just went, okay, now she's gonna change how she talks and thinks about herself and life's gonna become easy. It was a process that is still a process because something can happen in my life today.

and you look at 50 years of one behavior and 20 years of another behavior, if I am in a situation where I'm responding from fear, which behavior is going to win? This one. It's still there, right?

it's a conditioning that's still there. It's just that I have a choice to behave differently. And that's, we get, you know, kind of come full circle getting back to taking that breath and making a choice to respond from the new behavior. So for me, I had to recondition every aspect of my life, how I think, how I speak.

you know about myself, how I respond to others instead of responding out of being timid or responding with what I think they want to hear. You know just responding if I'm going to be truthful if somebody wants the truth then taking that breath how do I do this in the kindest way possible and how do I make my response my response and not about

them. So if somebody says to me, did I hurt your feelings? Instead of saying, yes, you hurt my feelings, saying, well, when you said this, this is how I interpreted it and how it made me feel. Because you can't hurt my feelings. My feelings are mine and so you can just push some button.

if you know I hope that makes sense so yeah I had to change everything about me how about you?

Hamish (54:30)
Absolutely. And it's very tiring. And I think, I think that is something that must be really explained to people that certainly early recovery from addiction, from alcohol. in fact, changing anything is tiring. So allow yourself to sleep. I mean, I still put myself to bed three days a week in the afternoon because I'm just exhausted. and you know, I've been clean five and a half years and that's, it's.

Gayle Dillon (54:32)
Thank you.

Mm -hmm.

Hamish (54:59)
I don't know why it is, but it's, it is tiring, changing, checking everything about yourself. Just is that story true? Is that story true? Is that story true? Because usually it's not, as you said, it's got 50 years of, of looking at it one way. And now we're trying to improve ourselves, trying to sort of be more aligned with who we are. So it is tiring and it is uncomfortable, but I guess it's also really worth it.

Gayle Dillon (55:27)
It's empowering and it does get easier. I think that what happens, I was trying to go back to five and a half, when I was cleaning sober five and a half years and there was a lot more of checking in with, and now it's more automatic. So the behaviors, the new behaviors have become more of the norm, but you have to be careful.

Because it is, you know, the in AA, they say, HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, are four triggers for anybody that has addiction. And if you have any of those things going on in your life, then what's gonna happen is the addictive behavior is gonna wanna respond instead of the new behavior. And so you just have to be, that's when you have to do the check and balance. You know, have I got enough sleep? Have I eaten healthy food?

Am I isolating from people? You know, am I getting enough sleep? All of that really is important to everybody, but as addictive personalities, we tend to do everything full out. And so we don't eat when we're hungry because we don't know we're hungry. And then when we eat, it's usually sugar because that's the replacement for the alcohol, right?

And so we isolate and and when we isolate then we feel lonely and when we feel lonely then we think there's something wrong with us. Nothing wrong with us. What's wrong with us? We haven't opened up the door and said to somebody hey come on in I need to talk to somebody. So yeah it does get easier it just never goes away.

you know? And so I think that there is a cure for us and it's learning how to love ourselves.

Hamish (57:27)
Fabulous. Right. Gayle, where can people find out a little bit more about you?

Gayle Dillon (57:35)
So there is a website for, I have an online center. I don't have a physical building. I teach classes online and I do coaching via Zoom. So it's practical everyday wisdom. CSL .org is the website. We also have a Facebook page called Practical Everyday Wisdom.

I released all other social media. I just stuck with Facebook. I know it's old school. I'm an older person, so it works well for me. It just got too many things to manage. I was just like, kind of just step back a little bit. And if they just want to reach out, there's always revgayle @ gmail .com. And they can email me and...

We can, you know, I always do, I do do coaching. However, if you just need to talk to somebody, I also do that. And that's just a gift. I also do RevGayle wake up calls, which is an affirmation. It's a quote by somebody, not me, but a quote. And then I write an affirmation to that quote and I send that out.

text message to anybody that's interested and that is also a free service. So if you're interested in that, they could email me and or text me and I will add them to the list.

Hamish (59:11)
Wonderful, thank you very much. That's super. Right, and then the last question. What is the gift that you got from your awakening?

Gayle Dillon (59:20)
I know you asked me this before and I gave some brilliant answer, but the answer that comes to me right now is myself. I really, really found the essence of who I am and I'm comfortable with that for the first time in my life. I like myself most of the time. I'm not perfect. I don't do everything right and I'm okay with that now. We're all going to make mistakes.

And so that is, you know, me being clean and sober was the biggest gift I could give to myself. And the biggest gift I could give to the planet or humanity is the fact that I'm awake and aware and willing to share my gifts with others.

Hamish (1:00:12)
That is lovely. That's exactly what you told me last time, but a little bit more concise. Thank you. Thank you ever so much for your time, sharing your story, sharing that wisdom. And I know that there have been some people who've been listening to this and watching this and going, I really need to hear that today. I'm going to start liking myself a bit more. So thank you ever so much.

Gayle Dillon (1:00:35)
Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Always good to spend time with you.

Hamish Niven (1:00:39)
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Crucible: Conversations for the Curious. If these powerful stories of transformation resonated with you, be sure to like, subscribe and share this show with anyone who you think could do with a dose of inspiration for their own journey. I would really appreciate it if you could make any comments on your favourite podcast platform as well, that helps me reach more people. All the important links and information are in the show notes below. Thank you very much for listening and catch up with you soon.