Episode 10: How to Embody and Befriend Your Nervous System, with Danni Carr + Special Announcement
In this episode, Ash welcomes Danni Carr for a heartfelt conversation about nervous system regulation, personal growth, and their upcoming workshops and retreats. They discuss the importance of understanding one's nervous system, the benefits of practices like yoga nidra, and how these tools can enhance relationships and overall well-being. Danni shares her journey of sobriety and the insights gained from her experiences, emphasising the significance of self-awareness and emotional regulation. The episode concludes with an exciting announcement about their upcoming retreat in Bali and the release of Danni’s new book, 'How I Quit Alcohol.'
The episode highlights are:
00:00 Introduction to The Unedited Woman Podcast
02:34 Exploring the Nervous System Workshops
07:55 Danni's Journey to Nervous System Regulation
12:39 The Importance of Body Awareness
18:06 Yoga Nidra: A Path to Inner Peace
19:56 Who Can Benefit from Nervous System Workshops?
26:01 The Impact of Nervous System Regulation on Relationships
31:45 Announcing the Nervous System Reset Retreat
33:10 Dann’s Book Release: How I Quit Alcohol
You can connect with Danni Carr on Instagram here. https://www.instagram.com/howiquitalcohol/
To access your free guided meditations, head to the Freebie Page on Ash’s website https://www.ashbutterss.com/free-resources
Follow and connect with Ash on:
Transcript
Ash Butterss (00:00.812)
Welcome to the Unedited Woman, where you'll hear candid conversations to improve your everyday life.
Ash Butterss (00:12.622)
Hello everyone and welcome back to The Unedited Woman here in the studio with me today. I have the incredible Dani Carr who I'm so happy to now call a friend. Dani, I absolutely adore you. And we are here to, well, this is the first time we've actually recorded a podcast together in the flesh, which is really cool. We've done a few online before because of course you live just north of Byron Bay, but you're here in Melbourne, which is super exciting. And we really wanted to take the opportunity to get together
to record this episode because, number one, you haven't been on my new show yet. And number two, we've got some exciting things to share. So, Dani, welcome to The Unedited Woman. How are you today? Thanks, Ash. It's really great to be here and to see you in the flesh is always a beautiful gift. So I'm really happy to be here and I'm really good. It's a beautiful Melbourne day. Yeah, what's not to love? I love that. What brings you down this time? Well, my husband's here playing shows. He's a musician. So we're here. He's just doing some shows. So we're just down for that.
I love it. Awesome. And you heading to Bali next week? Bali next week, running a retreat. how delicious. I know. I can't wait actually. I'm really looking forward to it. That'll be beautiful. I'm so glad that we got to steal away this precious moment of time to have a bit of a chat today. Now, for those of you who don't know, Dani and I first met because I reached out to Dani to have her on my old podcast, Behind the Smile.
And Danny then returned the favor and invited me onto her podcast, How I Quit Alcohol, which I've now been a guest on twice, which has been such a pleasure. And through the podcasting world, we just started to form a bit of a connection. I think that you just know when you have this sole connection and alignment with specific people. And I know that that's definitely how I feel whenever I'm around you, whether that be virtually or physically. And
It's kind of just blossomed from there and we've done some really cool things since getting to know each other. One of which was our nervous system workshop that we ran in Melbourne. my goodness, when was that now? Gosh, was it? A few months ago. don't even remember what month it was. We're both so busy. It's kind of just crazy, right? Yeah. But we had such a good time and we're to talk about that a little bit today. But off the back of that, we decided to
Ash Butterss (02:34.391)
do an Australian tour, which we're also going to talk about today. I'm so excited. Going on tour. We're going on tour. We're going on tour. is going to be incredible. And the tour is almost sold out. I was going to ask. I thought that might be the case. There was a couple of spots left for free. last time we checked. Yeah, there was, I think maybe there's three spots left for free mantle. Awesome. A few in Sydney, a few in Brisbane.
Incredible. So I'll make sure I pop the dates for those workshops in the episode show notes today. Actually, I've got them written down here. Brisbane is Sunday, the 10th of November. Sydney is Sunday, the 24th of November. And Perth is Saturday, the 30th. Sorry, not Perth, Frio. Frio. Yes. I always do that too. I always say Perth. I know. But I've had a few, Western Australians? Yes. Correcting me. Yes. Which is fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. So...
Let's talk about these workshops then. What can people expect when they attend the Befriend Your Nervous System workshop? Well, was interesting because we didn't quite know, like we had an idea of what we were going to do at the workshop, but you and I kind of seem to work well just by kind of, let's wing this. We're very intuitive. Okay, we'll call it that. And, but it was beautiful, wasn't it? I mean, I opened it because...
at the start of that, everyone was in the foyer kind of talking nervously and you could see some people on their own. was like, and I could relate to that, you know, feeling of feeling a bit uncomfortable. So when we open up, it's like hands up, it feels a bit awkward right now. And everyone put their hand up. And we did too. So we started straight away with that, just being honest. And I think that's a great way of also regulating your nervous system, just by dropping into honesty straight away. And yeah, and then I was so cool. And then where we, yeah,
Gosh, I can't even really remember what happened, we just talked, you know, I did a bit of a talk around the nervous system. Polyvagal theory, which I think is so fascinating. Yeah, I'm just briefly touching on those things. And then, of course, Ashleigh took us through really awesome little asana practice, which was cool. And a little bit, I was like, whoa, she's really going in.
Ash Butterss (04:44.045)
It was funny, wasn't it? Because you had never witnessed me teach before. And for those of you who have been to one of my vinyasa classes, I do like to create a little bit of chi, a little bit of energy, a little bit of heat in the flow. And you can definitely modify, particularly if you're somebody who is maybe
not super familiar with having a personal yoga practice. That's the one thing I love about yoga is that you, really meets you where you're at. If you just tune into your body. But for those who were wanting to come along for the ride, yeah, we did create a little bit of heat and energy and was great. up regulate the nervous system, right? Which was the whole purpose of that part of the workshop. And then we had that beautiful yin practice towards the end to down regulate, drop back in. It's beautiful. And the yoga nidra at the end. And so it was, so I guess what
trying to do also is like you said, like talk about upregulation, because there's a lot of talk around downregulation, but it's also important to, know, especially if we're a bit more on the dorsal vagal side of things, if we're a bit more slower. Yeah, sometimes some people need that. My husband's like that. He needs a bit more upregulating. We're on the opposite. I need to downregulate always. yeah, it was great. So just to cover all those bases, to give people tools, talking about
the window of tolerance, where we are on that scale of things. And to be able to recognize where we are in that window of tolerance model and then recognize in what we need. So do I need to down regulate or do I need to up regulate? And so hopefully giving people tools to walk away with just firstly being able to have awareness. But then secondly, with some tools to be able to get themselves where they need to be. Yeah, it's good. I really love this.
movement that I'm starting to see around nervous system regulation and awareness. Because for me, when I can tune into my own nervous system, I am allowed to firstly, just take a moment to be with myself because I think we are so often living outside of our own physical body, the energy is always outward rather than inward. So having that opportunity to turn my awareness inward, to actually check in and go, how am I feeling right now? And what do I need?
Ash Butterss (06:57.323)
And in doing so, it's quite empowering because you go from being somebody who is almost like, I've just got this visual of like being thrown around in the wind and being, you know, just allowing life to kind of pull you in and then spit you out again. And it's almost like this really kind of disruptive energy to taking, I don't want to say control, cause I actually think that the more we can let go control in life, the easier life becomes. But having that, like you said,
that awareness, which can then open you up to be more intuitive. And that then allows you to live more in a flow state. And when we're in our flow state, of course, things just happen. Things are easier. I know for me, when I'm in a state of flow, I'm a lot more pleasant to be around. I'm a lot kinder to myself. Like there's so many benefits to this practice. Dani, I want to know what led you down the path of wanting to do this work around nervous system regulation? Cause I know you had the opportunity to
work with Gopal Maté, was that part of your journey? How did it all unfold? I think just part of my own journey and exploration of where I was at and my own healing journey, it's been quite big. I don't know, I guess just reading books, doing the Compassionate Inquiry course, of course, got me a little more educated around the Polyvagal theory and things like that. And then just being curious and realizing, hmm,
It took me a while to realize if my nervous system's not okay, I'm not okay. And so I did a big, deep dive onto that. And I think into that. And I think that part of the, if everyone could learn more about their nervous system, you don't need things externally to make you better. I think we're often reaching for things outside of ourselves, whether it be alcohol or drugs or food or sex or love from other people, acknowledgement, all those things that we, which is fine.
But if we're needing someone else to make us feel okay inside, then something's up. So if we can first learn to tune into our nervous system, then I think we're in a much better place to make better decisions for ourselves. And oftentimes when we are reaching for something as a reactive thing, know, when you're not even thinking about it, you're just doing it. It's usually because our nervous system is a bit out of whack and we just want to get back to that window of tolerance where we feel good, when we feel in that flow.
Ash Butterss (09:20.619)
So the more that we can learn about this stuff, you can never stop learning. Like I'll go to any workshop, anything really. I'll do courses on like the Course Queen, because I've just got this thirst to know more and more because the more I know and educate myself, the better off I become. So I started to notice, I started this dailies kind of check-in, like where am I at? Because I run really hot. I run really, my mind's busy. Definitely more of that ADD kind of.
although I've never been formally diagnosed with that, I'd say that, you know, definitely like that, you know, very busy, very quick, very boom, boom, boom, boom. Couldn't stand meditation. Like when I first, it used to make me angry. Yeah. So uncomfortable when you first start meditating, I think. was like, what is this shit? Now I love it. I can't do a day without it, right? And, but I started to realize, okay, where am I at? What's going on for me? Especially when I quit alcohol.
So I haven't had a drink for six and a half years. yeah, taking out alcohol was a big leap forward into starting to realize, A, that I was working, I was using it to regulate myself without knowing it. Because did you find that you had a noisy head and that that would, yeah, I was the same. All self doubt stuff. Very busy with the self doubt and I'm not good enough. No one loves me story. Yes. Yeah. So.
when you've got that running around in your mind and you're just trying to do everything to get loved to be loved, you know, it's exhausting. And you're not conscious to it. Yet for me, it manifested like this hole in my soul. Like I just felt this constant emptiness. And then when I was drinking alcohol, that would light me up for a period of time. But then all of the consequences came with that because I don't have a healthy relationship with alcohol. can't, I don't drink like a normal temperate drinker. So that's not an option for me.
And then all of sudden you remove the solution and you're stuck with this noisy head. So there's work to do, right? Right. That's when the work starts. So I don't know if I've gone off track here. So it was basically a progression of one thing to the next to the next. And I started to realize the more I tune into that, the better off I'm feeling within myself. And it's not to say that I'm always in that window of tolerance. I'm not, I'm up and down quite often, but I don't get stuck up.
Ash Butterss (11:43.725)
so often, you I'm not so up in my head all the time. I can bring myself back down into my body and to ask like what you said, meeting myself, saying hello to myself and just, you know, I was saying to you at start, this podcast have been extremely busy. So part of my practice at the moment now is to just stop in the morning and just go, hello, there you are. Just to actually say hello to myself. And I instantly, feel connected and I feel my nervous system.
So it's yeah, it's really amazing. But I think that there'd be a whole lot less suffering in the world if we could learn to understand our nervous system, to understand the signals that's sending us. It's just there to say, hey, we're not okay right now. And so we need something. Yeah. Well, the body was designed far more intelligently than I think we give it credit for.
And my experience, particularly since getting sober has been that I'm becoming more attuned to the messages that my body is sending me on a daily basis. However, if I'm not doing practices that help me to regulate my nervous system, then I can start to disregard or totally block out those messages again. But you know, it's like the book I often talk about, and I know you love it too, Bessel van der Kog's The Body Keeps the Score.
we have issues in our tissues, there is always this feedback loop that is constantly going and it's just whether or not you're willing to listen to it. A nervous system regulation isn't just about becoming a more Zen person or a more balanced person. It impacts every single area of your life. It impacts your ability to progress in your work life. It impacts the relationship you have both intimately with family members, with colleagues.
It impacts the relationship you have with yourself. It's seriously the foundation to everything that we do in life. And yet we spend very little time nurturing it. we spend a lot of time ignoring it. know, it's just like, it's sending us the signals. saying, Hey, we're not okay. But we go, shh, or I'll drink that away. Or a drink on it. eat it away. Or go buy a new bag. Shop it away. And then it's still there. It's still niggling away. Yeah. So God, it's just been such a huge transformation.
Ash Butterss (14:05.921)
for me and of course I'm not perfect and I still have my moments but they're for a lot less time perhaps than they were. So I don't get stuck in a state and yeah, I'm able to regulate myself and bring myself down. I'm able to recognize it a lot easier now. So something that I've been doing lately is actually a morning body scan and so
I'm finding that when I wake up in the morning, don't know if it was, I got back from Bali and I was just feeling a bit meh. You know, it's still pretty cold down here in Melbourne and I don't know. just, well, I didn't have that natural zest when I was waking up and I thought, okay, I'm going to implement a practice that allows me just to really connect to my body before I start the day.
And so this is a very simple practice that anybody at home can try, but you wake up and before you get out of bed, maybe even before you open your eyes, you just take an internal body scan, starting from the tips of your toes. And I just check in with each area of my body. So I'll start with my toes and the soles of my feet, and then I move up towards my calves and my shins, my knees, my thighs. And I just check in and it's almost like checking in with a friend. Hey, how are you doing? How are you feeling? And a lot of the time there won't be much feedback.
in most parts of my body, but then I will get to a section. Generally, you know, it might be like my hips where we store a lot of our emotions, depending on what time of the month it is, it might be a little bit higher up. And I check in and I notice, is there any energy that feels a little bit sticky that might need to be moved? And then I just take a couple of nice deep breaths into that area because we can create space with the exhalation and create a softening. And then I continue moving all the way up.
It takes five minutes. It's so simple, but that has made a huge difference to how I then show up for the rest of my day. Beautiful, Ash. Like if we could all do that, gosh, if we could even do it a couple of times a day, wow, you know, to bookend your day with that kind of practice. nurturing and it's so attentive. Yeah. It's beautiful. Yeah.
Ash Butterss (16:12.181)
And it's funny, you even this morning you mentioned your meditation practice and I have to be honest because I'm all about being realistic here. I have fallen off my meditation practice recently and I started, I picked it up again about a week ago. And then this morning when I woke up, I did my body scan and then I thought to myself, you should meditate now because if you don't do it now, you won't do it. And then the next little voice came up and said,
That's okay, just go to the gym. Danny's coming over at 10. You've got plenty of time to meditate before Danny gets here. It's not going to happen. Like I, and yet I let myself believe the lie. And so I'm still getting, you know, I think for me personally, having that discipline around my morning routine is essential because I'm someone that if it doesn't happen in the morning, it doesn't happen. Yeah, totally. It's funny the negotiator that fits in. But also I'd just like to add that the body scan is a meditation. For sure. You know, I think
That's a beautiful practice to do. And yes, think that is a meditation. Yes. No, you're absolutely right. It is. And even just creating, even if you're listening here today and maybe the idea of sitting down for a 10 minute guided meditation makes you feel, I don't want to do that. Then just creating those mindful moments, you know, totally while you're in the shower, before you get out of bed. What are some practices that have been really game changing for you in your, in you developing a closer relationship with your nervous system?
120 % it's yoga nidra. I, What? Let's hang on a minute. For those who don't know, what is yoga nidra? So yoga nidra is a, like a guided meditation. I won't go too deeply into it because it'll take me too long to explain, but it basically yoga nidra means yogic sleep. And so basically it's sort of all the meditations in one where we firstly, we tune in, we become aware of the senses. Perhaps we all might.
tune into what we can hear, what we can feel. We're lying down usually to do yoga nidra. And then basically sense withdrawal. And then we get into a space, the yoga nidra space where there's just nothingness for a bit. But we also use a body scan, just like what you were talking about Ash, but where we generally start from the right thumb in what I studied anyway. And it just creates a beautiful space of stillness.
Ash Butterss (18:33.517)
full connection to the body. It's great for the nervous system. It's great for dopamine also. And I just love yoga nidra so much. Just gives me clarity. It gives me a little boost of energy as well if I need it in the day. I usually tend to fall asleep, which you're not meant to, but I generally do have to admit it. But yes, basically in essence what it is guided meditation. It's so beautiful. And as you mentioned earlier, this is something that you facilitate
during the workshops that we run, which is really beautiful. It's actually one of the last things that we do before we get together for a closing circle, which is so delicious. So I get to enjoy that as well, which I love. Yeah, it's gorgeous. I love yoga nidra and you know, you can do it for 40 minutes if you want to, or you can do a 10 minute one. So it's just beautiful. And I often just jump onto insight timer.
Yeah, well, you've got recordings on Insight Timer, don't you? If people want to try out your yoga nidra. I do. I've got a 15 and a 23 minute one. But there's loads on there. You could just literally do a 10 minute one if you want. There's so many. Yeah, beautiful. Okay, Dani, if somebody is listening along and they're thinking, think I want to do one of these nervous system workshops with Ash and Dani, but I'm just not really sure if it's for me.
Who is the person that would benefit most from attending this workshop? well, I think anyone. think teenagers, men, although we didn't see any men at the last one. No, but I do think we have a husband who's being brought along in Sydney. I've been told. Good on him. Love, love that. That's right. So I think anyone, busy people, like anyone, just you need to connect to yourself. you're having a struggle, it's anyone, absolutely anyone.
I love what you said just then about it's great for busy people because one thing that I come across a lot when I'm running my corporate wellness workshops is busy people saying, I don't have the time. And what I'll often try to explain is that when you take time out of your day to slow down, you actually increase your productivity for the rest of the day. It is, it's feels counterintuitive.
Ash Butterss (20:53.085)
But when you can learn these tools to just take like I find and again if you're working and you're stuck if you if you are blocked creatively I actually get myself up away from my desk and I either go and meditate or I go and ground myself in trying to my feet in the grass for 10 minutes the sun on my skin and Melbourne's having a sunny day and
The difference that makes in how I then come back into the environment and the energy and creativity that flows thereafter is so potent and so powerful. Yet if I'd continued to just push, push, push, I probably would have gotten half of the work done. Well, your little nervous, your little nervous system is going to get dysregulated. That's right. So we want to keep on being able to check in and it doesn't have to be a full meditation. It could just be learning to just check in. am I doing right now? Or taking one big mindful breath.
to, but to be able to become aware of what's happening inside us and we're going to be more productive. 100%. Yeah, we're all busy, but you know, like I was saying to you at the start, I'm just crazy busy at the moment, but I have to carve out time even when I don't want to. And this is interesting. A few weeks ago, I was just slammed with work and just so much was going on and I wasn't doing my yoga nidra in the afternoon and I noticed
And that was only within about four days, Ash. And my daughter, I've got a teenage daughter. We've got two, one's 11, one's 15, nearly 16. Quite eye rolly. And I snapped at her, but really snapped at her. And I hate to admit it, but, and it was interesting. And I apologize to her. She was pushing my buttons for sure. But normally I'm able to cope and able to see what's going on and just either laugh at her or just, know. But this time I really snapped.
And yeah, so I lost my shit a bit at her and just probably yelled more than I should have. And yeah, I really hate even admitting this, but I'm all about being honest. And I was talking to her about it later and said, I'm really sorry about that. And, I recognized within myself, I thought what's different. And straight away I thought you haven't been doing yoga nidra practice. You're really, really busy. Cause that's, you know, I want to be kind to myself also. Of course.
Ash Butterss (23:08.545)
But I don't want to walk around being an asshole and abusing my daughter all the time who's just being a normal teenager. It was like, what's missing? Of course, my Yoganitra practice. And like I said at the start, I have to do my practice. I just have to. It's just like, that's for me, that will be for me for the rest of my life. I just have to do that to feel good within myself and to be a nice human. And so I started, know, started it again, picked it up again. Just like you said, sometimes we...
it's not at the forefront because life happens. And I'm a much nicer person to be around. you know, and I'm back to able to see she's still eye rolling, but I'm just like going. How beautiful though, that you as a mother can apologize and own when you're wrong or when you make a mistake, because you're modeling that behavior then to her. Yeah. It's also, you don't want to have the story going on. Well, she shouldn't do, do, do.
I have to be the adult and I have to show her good ways in which to show up in the world. And we don't get it right all the time, of course. I'm definitely not the best parent in the world. But yeah, if there's some rupture, this is one thing Gabor Matei always talks about, it's fine for there to be rupture as long as there's repair at the end of that. And as long as we're modeling, yeah, sometimes we fuck up, sometimes we're not perfect, but I'm able to show up with some vulnerability and apologize and it helps.
Good learning for all of us, right? Yeah. And again, another benefit of nervous system regulation, your ability to parent. mean, I don't have the experience, but yeah, when I hear you talk about that, I just think how beautiful it is rather than because what could have happened in that situation is you guys have a blow up and you've both got this, well, she was wrong mentality. And then there's this horrible tension created in the household, which then affects your husband and your other daughter.
And you don't talk to each other for a couple of days. Like who wants to live like that? I remember being young and having blow ups with my mum and us not talking to each other for weeks. Yep. I mean, what horrible tension like talk about nervous, even talking about it makes me feel yuck. Yeah. And the level of unsafety that then creates and my God, there's so many reasons why I had a similar experience with the environment that I grew up in. I was always walking on eggshells and you could cut the tension.
Ash Butterss (25:32.941)
with a knife and that was the energy between my parents. I wasn't even involved in a lot of that, but we're energetic beings. We pick up on this stuff. And you think about your little nervous system at that age. It's probably on, you know, it was probably pretty dysregulated pretty early. Yeah. my God. And that's what I love as well about these workshops is that we do give you a lot of education, which I think is really important. You and I are both, you know, like you said, you love doing courses and learning and I'm the same.
but then we also provide the tools to be able to either, well, firstly, to recognise the nervous system and to befriend the nervous system, but then to know, well, if I'm feeling this way, then I can use this toolkit or this tool for my toolkit. And if I'm feeling this way, well, then I'll use this one. So it's not just a one size fits all approach and you and I are both very,
gentle, I believe, in our approach to this work. It's not like you have to do this and you have to do this. So I think it's just unrealistic. But I know that the feedback that I've had from the women that attended the previous workshop has been that they've been able to apply these tools now into their daily life. And it's made a really big difference, which is so beautiful to hear. It's so great. And also recognizing that we're just human beings, you know, and we're doing our best and we all make mistakes. And I think that's one thing that you and I have in common. We're both
able to put our hand up and say, not, you know, we're not perfect either, but we're on the path. You know, we're on a path of doing our best. And yeah, it's yeah. What about the, sorry, just thinking about mothers and daughters, there was a mother and daughter at the Melbourne one. That was beautiful to see. So beautiful. Yeah. And I remember the daughter saying how she was really grateful that she had been exposed to these tools at such a young age. Yeah. Which was beautiful to hear.
Yeah, so hopefully we'll see a couple more mother and daughter duos, maybe some friends, but it's also, like you said, a beautiful experience to do on your own. Yeah. I've been doing a lot more of this. I actually just booked to go on a retreat next year by myself. Normally I'd always take a friend or try and rope someone in and I was just like, no, I just want to, you know, there is so much self-discovery and self-inquiry that occurs when you're alone. Yeah.
Ash Butterss (27:51.469)
Absolutely. And if you, especially if you're on retreat and you're doing some deeper work, depending on what the retreat is. but any retreat really, just having some space on your own to just do, yeah, to marinate with yourself. Yeah. It's so beautiful. talking about retreats, I didn't think we were going to do this, but I feel like we should maybe share a little surprise that we have. What do you think? Yes, do it. Okay. So.
Guys, we've got a little bit of surprise to share with you, to announce with you. We haven't announced this yet. Dani and I are running a nervous system reset retreat next year in Bali. Yay. So excited. We both love Bali more than words could describe. And just knowing how much I enjoy working with you when we run these workshops to have, how many days is it?
Five, five nights. Five nights. Hosting this retreat is going to be incredible. So it's September 1st, isn't it? September 1st to the 6th. Excellent. And it's over in Bali. All of the details are on my website and your website. So I'll make sure that I link that info below. I think we're doing an early bird rate. Yeah, there's an early bird rate at the moment before January, before January 1st. Fantastic. So if you want to join us for that.
That's gonna be beautiful. And it's the same space in Bali where I run my current retreats. And it's beautiful. The accommodation is beautiful. The food is exquisite. It's all organic, locally grown food. The chefs there are beautiful. Any dietary requirements, there's no problem. And everyone that I've taken to this space has just been like, it's just complete reset, complete drop in. Yeah, it's absolutely stunning. Gorgeous.
There is something so powerful about going on retreat. It's even just committing to something like this and saying to yourself, I'm worthy of carving out five nights for myself. There is so much power and unconscious messaging that is stored in the body when you choose to prioritize yourself that way. Absolutely. And you'd know yourself Ash with the retreats that you run that by the end of something like that,
Ash Butterss (30:18.061)
There's something that just happens inside a person when they've been so attentive to themselves in that time. They haven't had to cook and clean. They've just been looked after. But also that they've done this work on themselves. They've probably been meditating quite a bit throughout that time and the practices that come along with it and the self-realization that happens is really profound for lot of people. I just see people have like come in as one person and leave as another. And often,
they're going into life and still maintaining those practices. absolutely. It's amazing. I've had people come on retreats and they're doing like some of them are doing their fourth retreat with me now. Yeah. And to me that speaks volumes. It's like this, you know, it works for them. And I've had one lady like totally like all of her friends and family like what has happened? You know, it's like, you know, it's not big naming. It's not big noting myself. I think you'd probably get that on any retreat.
where you go and it's held well, it's facilitated well. Yeah, well, and of course there are retreats that probably don't create that energy in that space, but that's something that you and I are both really passionate about is holding the space for people to do the inner work. Whatever that needs to be, you meet yourself where you're at. It's just, it brings me to tears all the time when I just think about being in that space with people and doing the work. know, obviously we do do bit of work in the group work as well.
It's just beautiful. It's beautiful. It's beautiful for us too as well as facilitators. Yeah, absolutely. well, hopefully, I mean, I know it's going to sell out. So if this is something that sounds like it's resonating with you, if you've never done this for yourself before, or maybe you're a retreat junkie like me, then check it out because it's going to be really, really special. Really, really special. so, yeah, I mean, there's a whole year away and we could do payment plans as well if people...
Yeah, definitely want to make sure it's accessible for people as well. It's be amazing. Yes. Yay. my gosh. Yes. was like popping a pimple. Yeah. That wasn't the image I had, but now I do. thanks, Denny. I'm not the most eloquent. know that. It's okay. I think more than anything, we're just going to laugh. There's going to be a lot of laughter on that retreat, which will be beautiful as well.
Ash Butterss (32:40.969)
Now the last thing that I wanted to chat about today, cause I know that you've got to go get back to touring and the life that you're living at the moment, which is incredible is you brought something along here today. the book. But that doesn't matter. yeah, no, yeah. Ash, my husband, Ash Grunwald and I have finally released our book, which we've been working on for a couple of years now. Yes. And it's titled how I quit alcohol. as the podcast. Awesome.
Yes. And it's just, it's great. You know, it's a bit of a memoir. It's both of our stories a little bit. It's sort of mixed up with a bit of how to. It's pretty different to some of the quick lead out there, I'd say, but I've already getting some great feedback with people just saying, wow, you know, just a great read. And it's, already found it really helpful. So yeah, I'm just really glad. We're both really glad to just get it done, get it out there. That's so awesome. I think
I'm sure I've told you this before, but your podcast was the first sobriety podcast that I had ever found. And this was very early on in my journey. And I connected with you straight away, but also hearing Ash and hearing your story and how you've navigated this together. So even just the fact that there's that element to the book, but then you've also got all of these tangible tips. think like, what a great raid.
Yeah, and there's some pretty juicy stories in there too. I can't wait to get into a fight outside of a brothel and also there's some stories in there he didn't want to put in like, know, he was just like, Xavier Rudd telling him they were on tour in America and spoiler. So he's on tour with Xavier Rudd in America. They're on the tour bus and then Xavier, they go out for a run in the morning and they're all getting pretty debauched of a night time. And then Xavier saying to him, dude, it's all well and good to get drunk at night, but you're
His is so damn loud. cause Ash has got this really big, he's got quite a decent sized cranium and a big barrel chest and he's a very loud singer. Like he's so loud and he's got quite a booming voice anyway. And so then when he would drink, he would just be so loud. that's not a big, like that's not a huge spoiler thing. I guess it's not like it's, what would we say? Sorry Ash.
Ash Butterss (35:04.403)
in my words here. It's not like scandalous. But for Ash, little things like that he gets very embarrassed by. He's very private. So to have his wife who's a complete oversharer as well. Pulling these stories out of him. Come on. But there is other stories in there that were quite interesting. And then he's like, I don't want to put that out there. Like, I don't want to just like, it's okay, you know. And so yeah, there's some good stories in there. It. Yeah. And just to be to Vaughn.
to be vulnerable enough to share some of those stories, but it's not really either. It's not like airing all our dirty laundry or. Also with my podcast too, it's finding that balance. I don't really love to talk about drunken things that happen so much, because I don't like to give that too much air. Yeah, absolutely. mean, if you come through the rehab world, it's called negraving. And it's, yeah, it's this whole idea that, and if you go to a 12 step meeting, you can tell a lot of the time,
whether someone's in their early days or whether they've been around a while in reference to how much they talk about the past, because you're exactly right. At the end of the day, we all have the same stories. They might sound a little bit different, but the way, if you were a problematic drinker, then a lot of that stuff's gonna be the same. And what's really interesting is actually how you overcame that and the solution. There's no point living in the past and, you know, thinking about all the good old days, because the reality was they probably weren't.
Yeah, yeah, that's right. We fantasize and you know, but yeah, I agree. thing I think, here's what I think, you know, alcohol is just like you said earlier, it's a symptom. It's a bandaid for something that's going on. There's a discomfort inside of us, whatever it is, whether it's a really big thing that we're trying to deal with, say some trauma that we can't process perhaps, or we're not able to sit with ourselves, or it could just be that little discomfort of
I'm really uncomfortable in this social situation, which was me. So therefore I'll just drink to knock the edge off a bit. And then that felt good. And so I would just keep going and going and going and going. What I had to deal with was that discomfort, the discomfort, sorry, that I would feel around people and learn to be with that. Because when I stopped drinking, that was still there. It was their tenfold.
Ash Butterss (37:25.665)
because it wasn't masking it anymore. So I had to learn to be with that and recognize it and go and I still do. It's not like I go out socially and I suddenly feel amazing. I have all the same self doubt shows up. It's just not as loud anymore and I can go, there it is. That's okay. And I can tell myself what I need to hear in the moment. Depending on the situation, I'm much better now than I was. so alcohol is just a very small component of a whole lot more work that we
hopefully we'll end up doing on ourselves in this beautiful life that we've been given. exactly. it's here to live, not to be squashed down by alcohol. Yeah. You know, totally get it if people are still in it and they're still using it. But maybe even hearing this conversation today, you might recognize within yourself, yeah, maybe I am asking a little bit of discomfort I have within myself. And maybe it is time to, even if we just take it out for a little while.
and start to see what starts to surface and then kind of work on that. Because that's when you can work on it. You can't work on this stuff if you're continuing to mask it. That's been my experience. It wasn't until I fully removed the substance that I started the journey of self discovery and that self love, which I know can sound a little bit, you know, but it's so true. And even though the voice doesn't go away, it does get quieter. It does get quieter. Absolutely.
And it's a beautiful journey. Like it might feel like it seems really heavy and earnest, but it's actually not. It's a beautiful, beautiful discovery, but it is a lifelong thing. Someone said to me the other day, does it stop? Do you stop doing the work? like, no, but I actually don't want to. don't know about you. I'm exactly. I love it. I don't want to stop growing until the day I die. Same. Yeah. Even if I've been an asshole, I want to be able to look at that honestly and do a bit of
I got, I don't know, internal reflection and go, what was that about? What was happening? What was that part of me, you know, that went into to protect a mode perhaps? What did that, you know, what was going on for me there? And to be able to perhaps go back and say, sorry, or whatever it is that have to do, like I said, with my daughter. But that is part of our healing too. When we fuck up, when we do the wrong thing, or we've perhaps been an asshole, whatever it is, there's an opportunity there to, rather than to ignore it,
Ash Butterss (39:43.565)
pretend it didn't happen, but to go, yep, yep. And there's something to learn here and a bit of work to do. And that's the beautiful thing about taking alcohol out. But you can still do the work with it, but you probably won't be able to get as deep with it. I don't think you can get nearly as deep. Yeah, depending on your relationship. If you're a normal healthy drinker who maybe enjoys a glass of red on the weekend, we're not talking about that. We're talking about when you... No, we don't.
Definitely when you're using it as a solution to something that is dysregulated or that dis-ease, that discomfort within yourself. Sure, absolutely. Yeah. So it's so good to be here. Good to be here with you. I'm really grateful for our friendship. Me too. And this beautiful connection that I felt with you really instantly. And I think what it was with you Ash is that you are just very open and wanting to also build other people up.
And I love that about people. not someone that's, you know, I don't like, I love to build people up also. And you can just tell with you, comes from very genuine place and you're wanting to share and help and be of service. And I just, can see that in you so much. And I love that about you. thank you, Dani. Thank you for saying that in me. That means the world. Yeah. Well, it's beautiful. And it's a rarity in this world sometimes too. So when you see that and recognise that in a person you want to.
also build that up. so I'm very grateful for this friendship and the work that we're doing together and hopefully we'll continue to do together. absolutely. The feeling is mutual. Thank you so much for making time to be here with me today. I'm going to make sure that I pop all of that exciting info about the workshops, about the retreat into the episode show notes. I'm going to drop a link for your book as well. Is there anything else that you want to share with everyone before we wrap this up? I just can't wait to go on tour with you. Yeah.
I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I can't wait. I just love hanging out with you. it's. Yeah. Likewise. I think we're going to pull out the guitar in Perth we will say. I hope so. Not at the workshop, just in the Airbnb. For now. never know. The next iteration of 2025 might be us gigging at the start of our. We might be going on a different tour. I just found out that you're a musician. over Ash. Did you guys know this? That is a. A past life. I'm just going to go ahead and say it. She's a, she's a musician and it's not past life.
Ash Butterss (42:11.181)
It's still there. This is true. I'm excited. my goodness. All right, we're to wrap it up there because we could talk forever. I will see you all next week. Bye for now.