Catholic Sobriety Podcast With Sterling Quith

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to the Catholic Sobriety podcast , the go-to resource for women seeking to have a deeper understanding of the role alcohol plays in their lives , women who are looking to drink less or not at all for any reason . I am your host , christy Walker . I'm a wife , mom and a joy-filled Catholic , and I am the Catholic Sobriety coach , and I am so glad you're here . Okay , welcome back everybody . My guest today is Sterling J Quith , and if you are a Catholic mom , you've likely heard her name or are familiar with her work . She just published a new book called Catholic Mom Calm Six Steps to Calm the Chaos in Everyday Life . I mean Six Steps . Does that not sound amazing ? That sounds so attainable .

Speaker 1 0:56

So now , before I introduce , have Sterling introduce herself . I just want to talk a little bit about her . I've known Sterling . I've known of Sterling for many years . We belong to a Catholic Influencers group and almost two years ago I hired her as my business coach and it has transformed my life , like all aspects of my life really , and the reason for that is because she taught me how to invite the Holy Spirit in , and you know , just ask God what he wants from me . So now I'm doing what I'm doing now , and so I just owe her a debt of gratitude , and I just thank you so much . So again , sterling's new book is called Catholic Mom Calm , and I'll have the link in the show notes . Welcome , sterling , I'm so happy to have you here .

Speaker 2 1:51

I'm so happy to be here . I love podcasting . I think podcasting is such a great thing . For moms Like , I think they think it's scary . But I think there's a least amount of technology involved in podcasting . Like building websites is scary to me and even social media stuff can feel overwhelming . But I'm just telling you , guys , you could get a microphone and you don't even need to do the video . You could have like a messy mom bun and film , just record a podcast and just really have a huge impact in people's lives . I love what your podcast is about and it's just so needed .

Speaker 1 2:24

Thank you . Yeah , I think the more voices we can get out there , especially Catholic women , the better . So I would love to see more and more of that , and I'm always in for a new Catholic podcast too . I love it . So go ahead and tell us a little bit more about , tell my audience a little bit more about you and then why you wrote the book .

Speaker 2 2:49

Yeah , so I did not grow up Catholic , I didn't grow up really with any religion , and I my mom ended up having this big Protestant conversion experience when I was away at college so I was a college . I come home and she's like I love Jesus . And I was like no , I am not into that at all . And I was happy for her . She seemed happy , so I wasn't against it , but I was like you seem happy , that seems good for you . And so at the time and I've always been an entrepreneur I was building websites and she said my pastor wants to build a website for the church . Could you help him ? And I thought , yeah , I love websites , I'll go help him . And my mom at this point really had never asked me for anything . She raised me as a single mom and I felt very indebted to her and just grateful for all the sacrifices that she made . And so I was like , yeah , I'll go do this . So I go to the sky's house every Wednesday and I start building a website with him and he and I would like to link it out in his office . And then we'd come out and his wife made dinner for us , so the three of us would then have dinner .

Speaker 2 3:53

So over time and it's a long story , but really I just converted to love Jesus for real with my whole heart and I did not want to have any children or get married up until this point , so really up until 2324 , I had no interest in that . But then when I became Christian I thought , you know , I think I should get married and if I'm going to get married I think I should have two kids . For some reason that was just very like logical to me . And then I met my husband , who was Catholic and I was like , oh , gross Catholic . And I did not think that we could make it work or that we could get on the same page . And I wasn't like an anti Catholic Protestant and I was a baby Protestant really at this point , but really ultimately I prayed . The Protestant pastor taught me to pray and that's just all I do now and we'll talk about how that plays into the book in a minute . But he really taught me how to discern God's will for my life and I really felt like the Holy Spirit was calling me to marry this Catholic man and because I had learned that your husband should be the spiritual leader of your household , I thought all right , lord , if you're calling me to marry this man , you must be calling me to be Catholic . And so I just jumped . I didn't ask a lot of questions , I just said , all right , I'm signing up , I'm going to do all the things .

Speaker 2 5:16

And I knew that we would practice natural family planning . I knew that Catholics didn't use birth control . I guess I just thought that that was easy because I told my husband . I said , listen , I only want two kids . I was like I'm not going to do this Catholic man business , I'm not doing that , and apparently for some people it is not easy .

Speaker 2 5:38

And we had six kids in eight years . So we had these six kids fast and furious . And so here I am , and I didn't even want to have kids . I'm not very maternal , naturally and I was just drowning in all of it and I was so unhappy and life felt so difficult and overwhelming . And that's really when I set out to learn about how to make motherhood better .

Speaker 2 6:06

And this was maybe seven years ago when I started my first podcast and I just thought there have to be tools to make it easier . It can't be this hard . And I found a lot of tools and that was amazing . And I had this podcast and I taught the tools to women and it was very helpful . But then I discovered coaching . I had never heard that word before , really like in the context of moms talking to someone and getting coached . I'd never heard that , but coaching just completely transformed my life and then I knew that I wanted to help moms do that .

Speaker 2 6:40

And really coaching is just seeing the words in your brain and deciding if you want to keep them or not . Right , that's what it is . Therapy is looks back , right , therapy goes oh , you've been through something and we're going to help your brain make sense of it . Coaching a little bit more present and future focus , like what's going on in your brain and is it even true or not ? And so that's what I do now is just help people moms , catholic moms look inside their brains and go are the things I'm thinking even true ? And when we begin to start dropping the things that aren't true , suddenly our life starts feeling so much better . And that's exactly what happened for me , and I've just now seen it happen so many times that I just know it's really the answer so many people are looking for .

Speaker 1 7:32

Yeah , that's beautiful and that's so true , and I think that that's what you've helped me with too . And a lot of times it's like I don't feel worthy . That's that's something that always comes up , like why am I stuck ? Why am I stuck ? I don't , I guess I don't feel worthy , even when you're not like consciously thinking about it . And that's how coaching is so helpful , because you know you you're saying something but you don't always hear what you're saying , because you have that thought loop that's going on in your brain , that's , you know , like kind of clouding it so you can't pull out those things . But a coach can pull out that and then you can look at it and be like , oh , I do feel unworthy , and then you can look at it , address it , and then that helps free you up to move forward . So I love that . And what an interesting conversion story . I've heard you say your conversion story many different times , but I haven't heard you know all of that , some of that information . So , yeah , I love hearing you know like little bits and pieces , because we can't get it all out .

Speaker 1 8:43

There's so much I tell people all the time , like my sobriety journey , my faith journey , is so long . I can't if I just sat here it'd be boring and it'd be like eight hours and you don't want it , yeah , but yeah . So your book , catholic mom calm . So most of my listeners are Catholic moms who have turned to substances like alcohol to cope . First of all , I just want to say this book is so stinking cute . It's really beautiful , it's got lots of questions and like places to write in and I just love it so much it feels so good . But anyway , I digress . So most of my listeners are Catholic moms and they're turning to think substances for my listeners , of course , mom's buffer with all kinds of things right , like food and screen time and you know whatever , shopping , all these different things . And I'm just wondering , in your experience , why do you think that that is such a common issue and is it more prevalent today , do you think , than it was in the past ?

Speaker 2 10:58

Yeah , I think it is , and I think it's because we're living in a really crazy modern society and nobody's saying that it's crazy . So we all just think something's wrong with us . So like , just imagine if you took a person who didn't have any context for war or war time and we just like dropped them into the Great Depression . Right , we dropped them into the Great Depression when people are like rationing things and like squirreling away aluminum foil and like all this weird stuff , right . But you didn't tell the person that that was weird . You were just like , hey , this is the family and you can make a family here and this is how it looks to live . That person would be like this seems really hard or this weird , I don't

Modern Motherhood Challenges Coping

Speaker 2 11:45

know . But if they didn't know what was happening , our brain just automatically tells us that something is wrong with us , right . So that person would just be like I must not be working hard enough . That's probably why I'm not finding a job . Or , you know , I must not be budgeting really well . That's why it seems like my money isn't being stretching for the whole month . Right , and when I say that sounds silly to the rest of us , because we would understand the context of where that person is living . That time period , and first of all , even those people didn't have a word for it , and when they were living through it , we didn't call it the Great Depression , but they knew that the war had happened , they knew that things were hard and that it wouldn't always be like this , and so they kind of rallied together and they coped in ways that only lasted for that time , and then , when things got better , they stopped coping . So right now I think we're living through a really , really difficult time , but we don't have a word for it yet , and I have a feeling in 50 years we'll look back and go oh , that was the blah , blah , blah era . Right , it was so hard . And so what's hard about living right now is the excessive amount of noise that we're all exposed to , the just huge volume of information , particularly conflicting information , and the lack of support . We've never been more isolated than we are now , which feels like it's not true , because we have all the phones and the apps and the things Right . So it seems like we should be more connected , but we're not . We're more disconnected and we're just watching everyone's best moments on the internet . So we think that's how people are living , and even though not one mom thinks that if I grab any mom off the street and I would say , do you think Instagram life is real , she'd be like of course it's not real , we know that intellectually , but when you're scrolling , that goes away Immediately . You're like , no really , everyone's house is prettier than mine and they are all thinner than me and their kids are all getting along . We just think that's how it is .

Speaker 2 13:53

So we are living in an insane , crazy time . You are not crazy , of course . You're turning to things to cope , because if you haven't been told that , you're in a battle for your attention and your nervous system and you're just trying to live , your brain is fritzing out and you're just trying to handle it and you're just trying to handle each day , and so , of course , we're turning to alcohol and food and shopping and scrolling . Scrolling is one of the ways that we just cope , right , and then it makes it worse . We're just like stuck in these cycles where the thing that we're doing to feel better is making it worse . But I do think it's more now , or unique now . That's kind of just like that . Maybe every generation has their own unique things , but I think those are very dark things and we're not talking about it like the Great Depression . Even in the Great Depression , they knew that things were dark . I don't think moms are talking about 2023 like that , but I think it is .

Speaker 1 14:54

Right , yeah , I completely agree with you and I like your take on it , because I am seeing that just so many moms are having these issues and , like you said , we're feeling so isolated and we think we're the only ones . So a lot of my clients there they feel like , well , all my friends are fine , they can drink , they can , you know , do this and that , and it doesn't you know . They don't seem affected by it , they don't seem like it bothers them or like they are wondering if they have a problem with it . It's just me , and so , and I think that that translates through any of those things that you mentioned . So , yeah , and I think that I love what you said that we are living in a time right now that doesn't have a name , like the Great Depression , and I'm wondering like what that would even be .

Speaker 2 15:51

Yeah .

Speaker 1 15:52

I don't know what it'll be , but I just know that it's just really bad .

Speaker 2 15:56

And , first of all , I think the number of moms that are drinking one to two glasses of alcohol every night just to make it through their life is pretty significant , I think we don't know that number right now , but my guess is it's much , much higher than we think that it is , but it's private , we don't see that .

Speaker 2 16:12

And then when we're out with our friends and we have one or two drinks , you know everyone's doing that , but that's in a proper place . I guess like right , but we don't . And so we think oh , then we're the only ones who go home and keep doing that , right . I just want to know , even if it's not alcohol , right , like most moms I know are really struggling with overeating , over drinking , over scrolling , like they are doing some compulsive behavior to cope with their life because they just feel like they're drowning and overwhelmed .

Speaker 1 16:45

Yeah , yeah , and that's so true . So your book offers solutions to kind of calm that , that chaos . So

Coping With Chaos and Stress Strategies

Speaker 1 16:54

can you share ? So you have six strategies . Can you share , like one of your strategies , though , with my listeners ?

Speaker 2 17:02

Yeah , we could probably cover a couple , but I think the first one is just what we said , which is just normalizing where you're at , like whoa , like I just want to grab every woman and be like you are living in a crazy environment , right , like when we put soldiers in war . They know there are more , they know it's crazy , and then we give them tools and we're like , hey , you got to make it buddy , right . And I think that we are living lives like that , really assaultive lives , where the noise of our kids and the television and phones is really assaultive , but we're not describing it like that . So I think step one is just recognizing like , oh , I'm not crazy , this is really hard . Now . I think women are just superheroes and we can do really hard things . Anytime you ask a woman to step up , she's really great at problem solving and getting things done .

Speaker 2 17:54

I just think women aren't getting the message . That's what's needed , and I'm not saying we should add more to their plate . I just mean , like you're in a battle , stop pretending . Like these are the . This is not the war time , this is the war time and we just have to fight against noise business , and really so much of the battle is our own stress and anxiety .

Speaker 2 18:18

And so when I found these tools three years ago , the first thing that happened was I lost 70 pounds . That's crazy . I had never been able to do that before . And as soon as I learned how to calm my body down , I learned how to not need to cope with my life as much . And so I think that that I just wanna give everyone some hope , like the one of course you're drinking , of course you are Like that's what I would say to every woman who's drinking more than she wants to right now Like of course you're doing that . I mean , in Vietnam they did heroin to cope with that , right . And then when we just say , like you're in a battle , this is really hard , of course you're doing something to cope with it . Now let me give you some tools and it's gonna make it feel better and we're just gonna create pockets of safety for you , and then the more pockets of safety you have in your life , the less you will feel the need to drink , eat , shop , whatever it is that we're doing just to cope . Mm-hmm .

Speaker 1 19:22

Yeah , I agree , and I also think it's important to note that just because you're let's say , you are drinking just two glasses of wine every night , let's say , but it's every night and it's something that you look forward to and you're preoccupied with it , and it's taking up brain space and then it's causing chaos because you're feeling anxious about it and you're wondering about it . You don't have to be a quote unquote alcoholic , you don't have to even have hit rock bottom or lost all these things or have difficulty in your relationships . Or for the women that overeat , she may not have like a ton of weight she has to lose , but she's taking up so much brain space like thinking about what she's gonna eat and feeling bad about what she ate and all of these types of things . I think it's really important to recognize that it doesn't have to get to a place where it's a problem or creating even more chaos or problems before you start to address the issues .

Speaker 2 20:31

Yeah , and I just I want us to all stop calling in a willpower problem .

Speaker 1 20:35

You know cause ? That's all we do .

Speaker 2 20:36

We're like oh , it's just a willpower problem . I'm like , really Like , and again , just , we have so much compassion for American soldiers . We have so much compassion for them because of the sacrifice that they make and what they're willing to go overseas and do for us that we would never be like . Let's just imagine one of them smoking , okay , and they weren't really a smoker . But now they're over there and it's stressful to be in Afghanistan and they're smoking .

Speaker 2 21:01

We wouldn't be like , can't you just get it together , man ? Like why didn't you just improve your willpower ? Like you know that smoking is like ? We just be like honey , you do what you gotta do , I love you , and we say it to them because they're kind of , in these temporary environments , I actually think it's harder to be a modern day mom in some ways , because we don't get to break .

Speaker 2 21:23

We're not doing an 18 month tour , you guys . We're like in it for 18 years , you know , and it just is going to be difficult , but you don't lack willpower , okay . I mean , what we have to do is right now your brain is scanning your environment and it just sees like 10 wolves staring at you . I want you to imagine if 10 real life wolves were staring at you and then I tried to , like , teach you algebra . You'd be like I don't even hear any of the words you're saying , sterling , because 10 wolves are staring at me right now , like it's just a gripping feeling and our thinking brain shuts down . But in modern life , your brain is really interpreting a significant number of things in your life like wolves , and so we just don't take a person like that and say , well , you just don't have enough willpower , like that is not the problem . The thing that we wanna do is we wanna get your brain to say , hey , maybe that's not a wolf , maybe it's a German shepherd , right , and so there's still something there , right , but it's not gonna eat your face . Your brain's like it's probably gonna eat my face , but instead we could just be like , yeah , maybe , though it's not as scary . And then when we do that , that's what the work is .

Speaker 2 22:48

The work is looking at all these things and walking through them ,

Navigate Challenges, Create New Habits

Speaker 2 22:53

and let's just use your calendar , for example okay , chrissy , we just signed the boys up for soccer . Okay , we've never done that , not just the boys . We signed five of the six kids up for soccer . And I have two dates Been a mom for 12 and a half years and we've never done any sports , okay . But my husband convinced me and I was like , okay , we're gonna try it .

Speaker 2 23:14

When I open my calendar , okay , and I see Tuesday and Thursday nights now I'm like it feels like wolves , okay , cause the kids are all at different times . They're at least praised God on the same field , they're at the same school , so I have to drive multiple places . But that's an example . It's just a micro example , cause this is new for me . I pull up my calendar and my brain goes , oh , we're gonna die . That's how it feels when I look at those soccer schedules on Tuesdays and Thursdays . And so I just go , hey , brain , I see that this is new . I see that you're really scared right now . Like , it's okay , yes , we're gonna have to do a little juggling and some string cheese in the car and we're gonna have to get kids to where they need to be . And , yes , the eight year old will probably complain in between her other sister's practices while she's hanging out . Like when you begin to tell your brain what it's really scared of and just say , yeah , that's real . I will never tell someone like , oh , it's fine , you're fine . We do that to ourselves all the time . Right , we're very dismissive of the things that we're scared of . I validated it Like , yeah , driving and getting kids to six different practices is a lot , but it's not going to kill us , we can do it . We have a pretty good plan . It's actually going really well .

Speaker 2 24:44

I find that the wolf moment for me is when I look at my calendar and I'm like and then I coach myself and then actually doing it has been just fine .

Speaker 2 24:53

Now I have not had to sit in the rain yet . I don't know what you all do . I don't know how you all handle that , what you have to sit . I haven't had to do that yet . But right now , getting them to practice and feeding them and how it's folded in with our family has actually been just fine . But this is the difference between if I didn't know how to talk to myself and use some of the tools in this book . Those are the days that I would have gone through a drive-through and gotten Wendy's hamburgers and french fries , not because we needed food , but because I was so stressed about the wolves . And now I'm like they're not wolves . Yeah , there's this new thing and it's uncomfortable and I'm adjusting . But I bought string cheese and put that in the car in case I was hungry , the kids were hungry and it just feels so much better , like it just feels so much easier to cope with my life .

Speaker 1 25:57

Yeah , absolutely , and I love what you said about it's not a willpower problem . It's not because if we think about things that we have willpower around , it's like we have willpower . There are things that we can will ourselves . It's really a willingness , like I have , a willingness not to do this I don't want to do that , yeah , and so with other things we don't always .

Speaker 1 26:22

We're not at that stage yet right when we have that willingness not to do it , and that's OK at that time . It's really about like getting curious , coaching yourself through it , like you said , and being able to look at things as they are and recognizing what we're feeling , how we're feeling and why we're feeling that , and then kind of go from there . But so what advice would you have for a mom who is questioning whether or not her drinking is becoming problematic or her eating is Maybe out of control , maybe she's eating for the wrong reasons or shopping for the wrong reasons ?

Speaker 2 27:09

Yeah , I mean , I think one of the best ways to figure it out is either to go a week without it . So I would just be like I mean , it's so scary to tell your brain like we're not going to drink at all , right , but you should be able to say I'm not going to drink Monday through Friday . And if you can't make it Monday through Friday because the urge to drink is so strong , all that's telling us is that you have wired in your brain when I feel unsafe , I drink wine . I'll just pick wine , I drink some wine and then I feel safe and that has worked really , really well . I just want you to know that your drinking has taken care of you . That's how your brain thinks about it . Your brain is like , hey , darling , your life is so crazy . Let me give you a glass of wine to calm you down . Like that is just a really effective tool , and your brain is doing that because it loves you . Now we know that there are these other consequences that come out of it and we may not want those .

Speaker 2 28:08

And so then , if you can't make it five days without drinking , right , I just want you to pay attention , like , oh , I've just wired this in my brain very strongly . I'm just wired it very strongly in my brain . I'm not that into hot dogs , right , but when I go to a baseball game I really want a hot dog , right , we've just been trained when we go to baseball games to want a hot dog . Ok , it's just two things have been wired together . We go to baseball games , we have a hot dog and your brain is just wired . When you feel unsafe and stressed , we drink wine and it calms you down . Ok , that's just totally works . That's the other thing , it really works .

Speaker 2 28:49

And so instead we just want to notice , and first of all , you just try to go two days . It doesn't the number of days that you don't drink doesn't matter . It's when you calm and the best version of yourself say I have made this plan to not drink for X number of days , and then you can't do it . Like , you want to do it but you're not being able to do it . That's where I would just say , oh , I need help rewiring my brain . I need and it's totally possible , by the way , it's totally possible to dissolve those pathways where you actually just don't even want the drink anymore . And obviously I'm biased , but I think coaching is one of the best ways to do that , but therapy and EMDR . There's so many tools now to just help you rewire that connection and it just really is possible .

Speaker 1 29:46

Yeah , I agree . And we get all this messaging right . It's not even just what we've developed . But then we have all this messaging of like you see it on TV , like moms are stressed , they reach for the glass of wine , the bottle of wine , and they drink it . We have all these t-shirts and glasses with these catchy things and phrases . So I mean , it's not even , it's just kind of been worked into our brains that this is acceptable , this is what the world is offering us , like it's okay , here's your comfort , right , here's your comfort .

Speaker 1 30:27

And that's as you say , you know , with made for greatness , your company it's . We were not made for comfort , we were made for greatness . We have these graces , these gifts inside of us that are given to us by virtue of our baptism . We do not do this alone , we do not walk alone and we can always call upon the Lord to strengthen those gifts and to help us . So it doesn't have to be like I have to figure this out on my own . It can be with a coach , it can be with a friend , it can be , you know , with your faith group , it can be talking to a priest , but most of all , sitting with the Lord and saying , lord , what do you have to say about my drinking ? Yeah , what do you think about that ? And just get really curious about what he says and what that means for your life , and then make a plan from there .

Speaker 2 31:31

Yeah , and I think we know it's a problem when we don't feel free . And you don't need to give the definition of freedom . Like you know , when you're a prisoner to something and you don't feel free and some of us are prisoners to anxiety or depression or people pleasing , like sometimes the prison are feelings that we're not willing to feel and sometimes it's , you know , our coping behaviors that we're doing . But I just want to give you guys hope that you can have . You can have done something in your life for decades and then rewire your brand and stop doing it . I mean , like I think the longer the problem exists , the more we think we can't fix it , and that's just not true . As soon as you learn new information , then you can absolutely change it . And here's the other thing when I was learning not to overeat , or learning not to stress eat , or actually now , because I have all of those tools and still sometimes I choose to overeat or eat something that I didn't want to eat or wasn't planning on eating , right , and now I just tell myself the truth . I just say you know what , the discomfort of something in my life right now is so high that I want the dopamine . I'll just use Oreos . I want the dopamine from the Oreos right now and this is going to make me feel better right now and it will create different discomfort for me later . But I just tell myself the whole plain truth about that , because it is uncomfortable to not like your life and to feel stressed out and to not drink . That's very uncomfortable . But also there's discomfort that comes from drinking . So , even though the drinking in the moment really soothes us and it does give us a rush of dopamine and we feel so great , tomorrow you don't feel great , right , you're tired , you don't sleep well , your face is puffy . There's like all these things that come from chronic drinking . And so you can begin to also tell yourself the truth like well , which discomfort do I want to choose ? Do I want to choose the discomfort of sitting here and not drinking ?

Speaker 2 33:34

We call it letting an urge go unanswered . So their urge comes up to drink and we let it go unanswered and that's very , very uncomfortable , like in your body . It feels like ants crawling on your body . Letting the urge go unanswered is very uncomfortable , but so is how you're going to feel the next day if you do drink . And so I think it helps when we just talk about it like that and it just makes it a little less sexy . Is the truth too . We're like it's a little like less sexy to drink when you tell yourself that story , like that's what you're choosing . And sometimes we still do it and that's okay . I want women to just tell themselves the truth .

Speaker 1 34:12

Yeah , absolutely , absolutely . So the last thing I just wanted to touch on you talked about how we are so isolated more isolated than we have been , probably in recent decades and I'm just wondering if you have any advice about how Catholic moms can lean on their faith community for support when they're feeling overwhelmed , when they're feeling , you know , anxious , like they just can't do it , and then they want to turn to some of these other strategies .

Speaker 2 34:51

Yeah , I found and this is interesting , we can all just watch this I have found more support in online groups like Facebook groups or community groups than necessarily in person , and part of that is all of my friends also have a bunch of little kids and are struggling , right , and now I live in Northern Idaho where we live pretty far apart , and so there's no like all just pop over . And so I think all of us would like to be better friends and we would like to support each other more , but like I'm not going to call my friend who has a three month old baby , a two year old and a six year old and be like hey , I'm really struggling , can you come over and have coffee with me ? Right ? Like she's probably a no , even though she would love to do that because we're both , like in this hard situation . So one , I think , just acknowledging again it's so weird how isolated we are now that you don't have people on your street that you can have coffee with . Okay , like how many of you want to have coffee with a woman that's on your street right now ? Very few of us . And so don't feel like something's wrong with you that you have to go online . It is just easier for us to cultivate relationships there , especially if you're just in the phase of life where you have a lot of little kids . But if you're not and I'm starting to get out of that , my youngest is four and I have a little bit more freedom it just takes asking , right , it just takes asking . And that is really uncomfortable . It's really uncomfortable to text your friend and say Do you want to go out to dinner with me tonight ? And I think it comes back to this worthiness thing that you were talking about . Like we don't feel worthy to just go out with our friend for no reason and spend $20 on dinner . Right , like that feels terrible and my brain is like , oh no . And yet I've done it a few times with some of my friends and someone always says yes , by the way , right , like if I asked five people , one person will be like I would love to do that , okay . And then we like go to dinner and we talk and it feels amazing . So I think , just asking for more coffee dates , lunch dates , dinner dates and some play dates Maybe there are moms who do want play dates You'll get a good sense of which friends want that or not . So that's kind of one thing .

Speaker 2 37:07

The next thing is just really try to create a culture of staying after

Creating Community and Connection After Mass

Speaker 2 37:13

mass . Okay , because we've been in a couple of parishes where after mass they've copy and donuts and you walk in the room and it's all retired people , Everyone has silver hair and you're just like they're gonna be annoyed with my kids and I don't wanna sit here by myself . I don't even like donuts that much . Right , like the whole thing is just not designed for modern day moms . And so just like , be a pioneer and be like I'm gonna bring muffins or whatever . First of all eat the donuts . I don't care about that . But like , if you don't wanna eat the donuts , bring whatever and text your friends and say I really want us to try to stay half an hour , one hour after mass . We are literally all in the same building and if you can just get critical mass , then it works .

Speaker 2 38:02

I'm now in a parish where almost all of my friends stay for almost two hours every Sunday . So I go to mass and the kids play and I get to talk to all of my friends . It is amazing , but we fought for that and we had to like , encourage each other , like , of course , we all wanna go home and take our tights off and like have Sunday , and so they're just . It has to be sparkly enough that you're willing to push through your two year old crying a little bit and like pushing nap times . But I'm telling you , if you knew that four of your friends were gonna stay and that the dads would talk to each other and the moms would talk to each other , then you would do it . So just ask yourself , like how could I get the ball rolling on that ? How could I convince people to give it a shot ? Do we need different food ? Maybe not right , but what is it ? And that has just been really helpful for creating community at the parish level for us , yeah .

Speaker 1 39:02

Yeah , I love all of that because I , as you're saying , all of those things those are things that I have done Like I was part of an online community who we were so tight knit , we felt like we were such good friends and it was because we were all having difficulty conceiving and so we talked about it and then , as each person had babies , then pretty soon we started talking about motherhood and all of those . But what was nice about it is it kind of gets you in a group of people who are all kind of we're all talking about the same thing and the same goal , and then two at the parish level . I love that . I say I always tell my family if they're like begrudging because I'm talking so long and the boys are like mom , can we go ? And I'm like you know what ?

Speaker 1 39:54

That's how you build community . We are a family . That's how you get to know people and I will say not only have like my , do my friends stay after Mass , but we've gotten to meet a lot of the older people in the parish . We bless them with our presence there and they bless us with their wisdom , and so it doesn't even have to be just people of your age and your demographic and how many kids you have . It can be such a beautiful family community , multi-generational , and it is so much support and I've gotten so much support from people of all ages within my parish . So I feel like the more you are in it and put into it , the more you get out of it , and then God just blesses it .

Speaker 2 40:44

Yeah , I'm so glad that you said that , because that is totally how it is for us too . We will sit at a table with an older couple and then they want to hear about our kids and the thing is they are really nice and they do look like the kids . They want the noise . I mean I'm sure somewhere there's a begrudging like grumpy old man who doesn't want the kids . But I will just say , for the most part they're so happy and they want to see the kids and , yeah , I think it's the young people that just need to get over their excuses and to just decide that it's gonna be important . My kids also do that sometimes , especially if their friends have left , and my husband and I say this is our time with our friends , this is our time with our friends , like we set up play dates and things for you , but this is when we get to see our friends and we've let them bring books .

Speaker 2 41:31

We'll just have them bring a book in the car and I'm like , go grab a book . You can go read for a little bit , but I'm gonna stay and talk to my friends .

Speaker 1 41:37

Yeah , yeah , that's a great idea , it's so fun . So we are never alone . That is one thing that we'd definitely want to leave you with , because I think that can be part of why we turn to other things is because we feel like we just don't have that community or anybody to talk to , or like it's just us and it's not just us . So , anyway , thank you so much for being here , sterling and sharing some incredible insights and tips that I know are gonna help my audience and for your book . So just go ahead and tell my listeners whatever you want where they can find you and all that good stuff .

Speaker 2 42:16

Yeah well , I wrote the book to be a six week parish study with a mom's group and I really think , like one , you can do it at your parish , during the day or at night , and it's just six weeks . So I want you just to make the time to do it , and I also think you can do it online , like you can have a Facebook group and then go live . You can use Zoom Almost everybody has Zoom now . You can use Google Meet , like you could do it . If it feels too hard for moms to get together for six weeks in person , do it online .

Speaker 2 42:46

But these tools are gonna teach you how to see less wolves in your life and then when you start seeing fewer wolves , then you're not gonna wanna drink as much . I just promise you . I promise when everything quiets down a little bit , you'll be like oh , I actually can handle my life , and it can happen pretty quickly too . I will tell you that Because I think sometimes we think everything's gonna take six to 12 months , and sometimes feeling trauma does . But learning how to let urges go unanswered does not need to take a very long time . So you can find everything at catholicmomcom . It's hard to say those two words together , calm down , and then all my handles are catholicmomcom , so everywhere you can find someone , I'm probably there and this is what we talk about . It's just like how we live in a crazy world , but we can handle it . We really can . God gives us the right tools and he picked us to live in this time , so he has a work for us to do in this time and I think that's really comforting for me .

Speaker 1 43:46

Thank you once again to my guest , sterling Jakewith , for joining me today . I will have a link to her new book Catholic Mom Calm in my show notes , or you can even just go to Amazon and probably type it in there and it should come up for you . Well , that does it for this episode of the Catholic sobriety podcast . I hope you enjoyed this episode and I would invite you to share it with a friend who might also get value from it as well , and make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a thing . I am the Catholic sobriety coach , and if you would like to learn how to work with me or learn more about the coaching that I offer , visit my website , thecatholicsobrietycoachcom . Follow me on Instagram at theCatholicSobrietyCoach . I look forward to speaking to you next time and remember I am here for you , I am praying for you . You are not alone .