In the previous ‘Talks from the heart’ (read here) I talked about the difference between setting yourself goals or making intentions. You might think these mean the same, but actually there is a slight difference… and that slight difference determines if you feel like you have failed or not…
Now for the month of February I had made the intention of participating with Tournée Minérale. In Belgium, February is the month in which Tournée Minérale is promoted. This is an action which encourages people not to drink alcohol during one month.
The organisers of TournĂ©e MinĂ©rale definitely knew that people where sick and tired of restrictions due to covid, so this time they put the focus on making people aware: aware of the amount of alcohol they drink and aware of their drinking habits. They especially paid attention to the people that had started drinking in the comfort of their own home. Not allowed to go to a pub? Easy peasy, let’s have some beers, wines cocktails at home… cheaper than going out and no need to pay for a taxi!
A lot of people don’t see their drinking habit as problematic. They think they can stop drinking whenever they want to, but they never actually do…
I try to only drink alcohol during the weekends (ok, there are definitely weeks I cheat :-)) and I regularly stop drinking for a couple of weeks. Just before Christmas I didn’t have an alcoholic drink for 4 weeks and in February I decided to participate with TournĂ©e MinĂ©rale and intented to leave the alcoholic drinks aside for a month.
Two weeks ago my daughter visited us and stayed for diner… big challenge… and I must admit I drank some red wine. It tasted so good with the dishes my husband had made. I didn’t feel guilty at all and the day afterwards I immediately continued with TournĂ©e MinĂ©rale.
And now I want to come back to my first alinea… the difference of setting a goal or making an intention: if I would have set it as a goal not to drink alcohol for 4 weeks, I would feel like I had failed big time when I drank wine during that diner night and the next day I probably would have thought ‘oh well… the damage is done now, I might just as well open another bottle of wine’. But actually, I didn’t feel like I failed. I had made the intention not to drink alcohol during 4 weeks, I had some wine on one occasion,, but it made me feel like I could just continue with my intention the next day.
February is (nearly) finished now, but since cutting on alcohol was quite easy, I have now made the intention to only drink alcohol on special occasions during March, like on March 5th when it’s our wedding anniversary. I’m sure that if I choose a couple of occasions on which I allow myself to drink alcohol, it’s much easier to not drink alcohol in between! In the meanwhile, I can only profit from the many advantages drinking less alcohol does to my body 🙂
Love, Kathleen
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