Overcoming Alcoholism and Breast Cancer Part 2

Welcome, Bonnie. I'm so happy to have you as part of my podcast launch. And I'm so excited. You're here. Thank you, Rebecca. I'm thrilled that you've chosen me to be here with you. Yeah. So before we start, I just want to tell a little bit about how we met because we met in a group that we're in, and we're both learning to become retreat leaders, right?

And I think you were in the group before I started, right. You're now ending in this group. But so I am this man. Yeah. Yeah. So we met in this and we've met on retreat, although not in person, but on retreats we've met. And so retreat, virtual, yes. These virtual retreats we've been doing, which are super fun. And you've been running some yourself or you have you've just had one, right? Yes, yes, yes. And so this is going to become both of us, like business models are running retreats. And maybe you and I will do it together one of these days, right. Oh, I would love that it would be so much fun. Yes. Yes. So I'm curious. Tell me a little bit about the reason I wanted to have you on my podcast is because you've been through some, like major shifts in your life, right. And I feel like where we learn the most for ourselves and for our clients is through the shifts that we go through. So like, which I know there's a few of you have. So I'll just like, first of all, let you tell me which one you want to talk about, you know, because you've had some major, major shifts in your life, I probably had two major ones. And the first one was getting sober. And, of course, that was the big shift in my life. So I've had 18 years of sobriety.

Congratulations. Thank you. Easy, right? Yeah, it is amazing. When I first got sober, I couldn't even imagine what 18 years would look like.
So one of the big things for me in getting silver was I did attend AA, they talk about believing in a power greater than yourself. And then that higher power can be whatever you want it to be. And I found that to be really freeing, as opposed to some of the ways I have been told my higher power was when I was growing up.
Yes, that's something you and I shared actually in common. Yeah, we had this idea about what we're supposed to believe. Right? exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And what I found is God is just so much bigger than what I was taught as a child. And yeah, and whether people call their higher power God or the universe or spirit, it's To me, it's all the same thing. I just use one God. And so I really felt like when I made the decision to stop drinking, God co created that with me and my cravings went away. I mean, I, I just quit. And it was super easy for me. But I believed that Yeah, I believe that my higher power would help me through that.

And it did. You have like a bigger reason. I was just curious. Was there a bigger reason in the background? You know, how sometimes if we don't have like, a really compelling reason to quit had a compelling reason I did daughter. I had a daughter who had gotten into some drugs that were Yeah, yeah. Christina crystal meth, and really scary.

I mentioned to her that she was going to have to go have an evaluation.

If she was going to come back and live in the house, and she called me out and said, well, you're an alcoholic. And if you don't go have an evaluation, I'm not going to go have an evaluation. And wow, wow. Yeah, amazing. Yeah. And then I was sick for six months.

My six month anniversary of not drinking was the first time I took her to a meeting. So that was pretty powerful for both of us, actually. Yeah. And I grew up with an alcoholic mother. And she had an alcoholic mother.

Getting to stop that generational pattern in our family is the bigger picture of what my sobriety did and my mother's sobriety did. She passed away with 31 years of sobriety. And so she was a good teacher. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we tend to want to teach our children through how we're acting and being not what we say to do, right? It's a better teacher to see like to be an example instead of Yes, you shouldn't. Right. Right. Amazing. Our children are such a mirror, they are for us to see our own things that we will at that point, I was living pretty much unconsciously in my subconscious mind. And I was on, you know, that automatic behavior.
And never really gave much thought to how things could really be different. Like, you know, I just had this mindset that was this way. And when I quit drinking it, it kind of took those blinders off and opened me up to so much more.

Which takes me into my next big shift that I had, which was getting a cancer diagnosis. Wow. Now, how many years in this into your sobriety was the cancer two and a half years? Oh, my gosh, wow.

God allowed me to get sober prior to getting cancer, so that I was able to survive cancer. And I was able to go into this journey, that journey of cancer with a being present, because that's, that's really what happened in that moment, and I would not have been able to even get present if I'd still been drinking. Right? Yeah. So how long did it take you to beat cancer? Do you think, like, to beat cancer to beat it? Or whatever you would say?

Right, I think it took very long. So I found the lump in my breast. And I immediately just knew from my own wisdom, that it was cancer.
I think it was after my first chemo treatment, I was laying down looking out the window. And I was so completely present to the now. Because when death is knocking at your door, and you don't know if you're going to survive this thing called cancer, which I had a very aggressive breast cancer, triple negative.
You all of a sudden are very aware of being even more present. Right? And looking out the window. I could see the energy I know that sounds like I was tripping on drugs, but really, I wasn't. I could see the energy in the leaves that were making the leaf, and I was so just in awe of the beauty outside my window. And, um, I heard in my mind, not audibly.

God says be still and know that I am God, which to me meant I got this and you got this. And I knew in that instant I was going to live. So to survive cancer. I feel like I survived that really early on. surviving the chemo and the radiation was a whole other story that took about a year and a half. Yeah. So is that like, because now you're a coach, right? So I'm curious, like, when did you decide to become a coach?

I was a hairdresser for almost 30 years. And I call myself one of the original life coaches because of course, I was coaching behind the chair. I just didn't know yet what I was doing. And I thought, well, gosh, if I got some I heard about life coaching. I had a few skills and some tools. I might actually be on to something here. So I was halfway through my coaches training program.

Which was a year long when I got my cancer diagnosis. And interestingly enough, I had just been learning about living at the effect of your circumstances or living at cause for your life. And so previously, when I was in my drinking days, I was living as a victim of my circumstances, I was pretty much living as a victim of life. And I got this cancer diagnosis shortly after I learned all this. And it was, as if God said to me, Well, you've just learned a few things here. What do you want to do? Let's let's put into practice. And I decided I was going to be responsible. And I was going to be a cause. And, and I know you're gonna love this, because you're all about joy, too. Yeah. I'm finding joy after tragedy, or hard times.

So I chose joy. I said, I'm choosing joy through this cancer journey. And that was not only for myself, but I had two teenage daughters at the time. And I really wanted them to not be living in so much fear. And for them to see me being joyful through this journey, I think was really so valuable for them.

A few years after I survived my cancer journey, and my girls were with me through this journey, my daughter gave birth to a child who has brain cancer. And she was four and a half months old at the time. So here, my daughter had gone through, watching what living with cancer can look like. And then she got a daughter with brain cancer. And I really feel that was so valuable for her walking into what she was now going to be dealing with. And also for me, because now I'm watching my daughter and my granddaughter go through this, and choosing joy. And the big thing in choosing joy is being so present in the moment. Because you cannot be joyful if you are not present in the moment.

Right, so many of us live our life thinking about the future or the past, right all the time. And when you're young and when you have cancer, or you're looking at your child granddaughter with cancer, yeah, you need to stay present, because going off in the future is just a big old rabbit hole of fear. Right, right, exactly. What a gift. What right, what a gift to give your children to teach them how to live in the present moment. I mean, that's with today's technology and our phones and all this stuff. It's hard sometimes, we're not just present even in any moment.

We're just Yeah, kind of numbed out like, the average adult lives 95% of their day from their subconscious mind. Yeah, exactly. So fascinating. And so the average adult is making decisions from their subconscious mind where their limiting beliefs live, those beliefs that stop them from being who they can be. And not only that, but many of the beliefs that we take on as a child, we don't really question until they stop working for us. Right, right. I just think that's how it is. And so basically, if you were taught one thing about money, for instance, and you're having a hard time in life dealing with money, you just think that's how it's going to be because that's coming from your subconscious mind. But when you can get conscious to oh my gosh, there are many other ways to look at money, or relationships, or love or life or any of that. It's so freeing, because you get to choose, you get to choose how Yeah, exactly.

So what do you do with your clients now that you are a life coach? So what specifically do you help clients with? Well, getting present is a big deal and living present. My ideal client is a woman in her mid life, who is creative and is really looking to have a bold expression of themselves. And so what we do is we look at what is stopping you, we really look at those blocks. And not only do we look at the blocks, but we look at where did they come from?

And do you want to bring those forward in your life? Or is that something you want to release? And then on top of that, we look at who you are at the core of your being your essence, and are you living from there and choosing again to be present and choosing to come from your essence, and not those other beliefs that we have grown up with that maybe don't work for us anymore. But we have to learn what those are, we have to be aware of them in order to change them. And so that's a Yeah. So that's what you help women do is become aware of where they're probably bringing in their limiting beliefs or the blocks, right, yeah, and how they're affecting their life and impacting them, and they don't really understand or know that. Yeah. And sometimes the work can be confronting, but I'm, because I feel like God really works through me when I coach.

There's just this way where I'm able to meet people where they are without judgment or blame. I probably have been in a lot of those positions or thoughts. I'm able to translate, transform them with my presence so that they can see what it's like to be so present.

You have a beautiful way where you just know something. It's weird, right? You just have this knowing about what's going on with somebody. And that's fun. Such a gift. Yes. You have one of my Yeah, for sure. I love that about you. So you're kind of an intuitive coach. Right? Very much. Very, it's very intuitive with you. Yes. Yes. So that's good for people to know, that if you like intuitive coaching, Bonnie is one of those intuitive coaches. Yeah, I just pick up and sometimes I'll say things, Rebecca, and they'll say, Can you say that again? And I'll be like, I'm right. Right. It was just so intuitive. And just came through me that I yeah. I can't remember something I know, which I love. Because also, we've been on calls where I've asked you to look at something I've written. And you just have this way of like, Oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah. And you just say it in like a way that makes so much more sense. And I'm like, Well, yes, that's exactly what I meant to say. But somehow or other, right? You just get to the heart of the problem. Like that's it. So, yes.

I actually have clients who say that, like, yeah, you get it, and can put it into words that I kind of know is there, but I don't know what it is. It really is an emotion. And it's a gift and a wisdom that I've been given. Yeah, and probably earned.

Right. And we talked about it, because now I want to get in a little bit into your human design, because I do help my clients. I use this tool a lot in my business, but we looked at your design and I could see why there was an intuitive thing about you like there's in your chart, I can see a lot of that. But I'm curious, like, how did it help you when you found out that you're a Manifestor? How did that help in your business?

In every and every area of my life, it really helped me understand how I can come up with these visions. And I have these ideas. yet. I'm not a generator. So I don't have the gift of putting things into motion. I don't have the gift of making things happen. And so I know that I have to have a team behind me. I have to have somebody with me that can do the things that I get the vision for, they figure out how it can be done.

I think the bad thing is for Manifestors, right? You're here to manifest it. Right. Yeah. But it also, it also gave me It helped me not feeling bad that I wasn't getting stuff done or wasn't able to, you know, like it explained the front where my frustration was coming from and following through with these things. Yes. Really? Very relieving. Yeah. starting to think, what's wrong? What's wrong? Something's wrong. Yes. Yeah. Cuz that's where we go. Yeah, exactly. From manifestos and projectors, right. Without that sacral energy. It's like, I hear them say, Oh, I always thought something was wrong. Like you're so busy trying to keep up with us generators and manifesting generators.

There must be something wrong. Like, why don't you know, why don't I feel like I have the energy for that. But it's, no, it's perfect. Yeah. Perfect. Because you have so much in there than to, you know, use my manifesting more. Because I know I've got people that are going to come alongside me and generate it out. Right, right. And we're like, we're here to like, see what you're, we're like here to respond to your vision.

I'm a manifesting generator. I'm here to see the Manifestor visions and be like, Okay, and then I'm gonna go build whatever the thing is, you know what I mean? Yeah. So that's like the difference between my role and your role, but is when we're not paying attention to our role. And we're trying to be somebody else's role, right? Like, it's very frustrating. Firstly, it's incredibly interesting. And if you all haven't had your human design done, I highly recommend it. It is so fun. information. It is fun. I talked about it forever. So I have to bring it in on the podcast. I love it. Yes, I love it, too. So Bonnie, where could people find you if they wanted to connect with you or know more about what you're doing or what you're up to like? What's the best way for them to connect with you, they can catch me on Instagram or Facebook. I am Bonnie McPhee on Instagram. And on Facebook, I am also Bonnie McPhee and or salt and pepper coaching. And I currently have a creative soul breakthrough VIP day that I'm offering the month of December, and a very reduced rate. And for all of you creative souls out there that might be stuck are looking to take your business and your creations to another level, you'll get to spend the day with me and we will go through many of the things we talked about earlier today.

I'll help you get unstuck and get you living in your magnificence. Awesome. Thank you so much. The link is in my bio. Yes. Both Instagram and Facebook for that. Yeah, free to breakthrough soul breakthrough. And in the show notes. We'll put that in there too. So. So yes, look in the show notes to connect with Bonnie. And thank you so much for being here today. Bonnie, it's been super fun. It was always great to spend time with you.