Ep 125: Small Shifts Towards Wellness with Megan Swan

What does it look like to experience huge transformation by making small incremental shifts?

Karolina is joined by Megan Swan, a mindset and wellness coach who helps her clients make small shifts through plant-based nutrition, movement, mindfulness and mindset practices. She started her wellness journey by becoming a yoga teacher and that awareness, combined with motherhood, led her to ultimately leave alcohol behind.

In this episode of Euphoric The Podcast, Megan and Karolina talk about the mind boggling normalization of alcohol in the wellness world, daily routines, and how to become magnetic with our energy, confident in our own skin, and make empowered decisions in our lives.

A journey to ditching alcohol

Life is full of surprises! So often we start one journey only to realize years later that it led to so many other transformations. This is exactly what happened for Megan Swan.

Megan started practicing yoga over 15 years ago, and within a couple of years she became a yoga teacher. During the beginning of this journey, she would go out drinking Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, following it up with back to back Vinyasa classes on the weekend.

From Megan’s first pregnancy, through breastfeeding and then her second child, she had a four year window of hardly drinking. She described this season as a gift, but after that she found herself in a cycle of self care in the mornings, followed by wine at night. She shamed herself around parenting and felt an incongruence in her life.

Working with a health coach, Megan started taking better care of herself through meditation and creating a morning routine. After trying mindful drinking for a while and realizing she just needed a break, from there, she never went back.

Megan felt out of control, exhausted, and mildly depressed. She was stuck in a cycle of not feeling like herself and couldn’t see the way out. Have you ever felt like this? You keep getting stuck in the same patterns and feel out of balance? Maybe you already know what needs to change, but it feels really overwhelming.

Like Megan, sometimes shifts in other areas of our life prepare the way to finally make the most important change we need. Megan’s journey ultimately prepared her to quit alcohol and find true balance and alignment in her life.

Yoga by day, alcohol by night?

Megan is no stranger to going on yoga retreats. She recalls one 13 week course that required her to be alcohol-free - a total training wheels moment. She was nourishing herself well, sleeping well, and overall just felt incredible. It was one of the hardest things she ever did, and also one of the best.

Leading up to the final night, her and a friend would daydream about drinking again. There was so much excitement about this night. They had detoxed so much from alcohol, that even one glass of wine is all it would take to disrupt their system.

Interestingly enough, Megan finds that within these spiritual communities, there is an understanding that during the day the focus is on meditation, yoga, self awareness, and grounding, and then with dinner it is normal to have a few glasses of alcohol. It’s almost mind-boggling to me that even in the most healthy, spiritually-focused circles, that alcohol would be present!

How can you truly tune into yourself when you are simultaneously drinking a beverage that numbs you emotionally and keeps you from being present?

Megan sees this as a clear reminder of the deep normalization of alcohol in our culture. Even in communities focused on health and spirituality, alcohol is still present and so ingrained. But Megan does find hope and encouragement in the growing alcohol-free community.

Small, incremental shifts will lead to a big transformation

Have you ever tried to make big changes in your life, but then it doesn’t stick, or fizzles out because it feels so overwhelming?

When working with clients, Megan helps them make powerful micro shifts that they can integrate into their existing lifestyle, based on the six core pillars of wellness in her coaching style.

These include finding balance with sleep, relationships and connections, evaluating the role of movement in a person's life (whether that means tapering down or starting something new), and looking at nutrition. She invites them to look closely at these areas, how they currently may be creating toxicity in their lives, and to consider bringing more awareness and consciousness to their actions.

She explains that, “people tend to make better choices, just by paying attention.”

In her own life, Megan has created routines and practices that have supported her own journey. As a Mom, getting up earlier and having a morning routine has been life changing. She’ll light a candle, do some basic Ayurvedic cleansing, some hygiene practices, then meditation and some sort of stretching.

Discovering the best routine for yourself and those you love takes time. If you tune into your inner knowing, are there some small shifts you could make right now that would support you and the life you want to have?

I love the perspective, tenderness and holistic approaches that Megan shared today. Wellness doesn’t have to be so black and white and there are so many beautiful ways we can improve our lives.

“What is the message that we're sending here? And I think it comes back to just how profound and deep the normalization of alcohol is in our culture, which is why, you know, I'm so optimistic that there's just more and more people like you, events, places… mocktail menus. Everywhere I go, I see little glimpses of hope.” Megan Swan

LINKS/RESOURCES MENTIONED

Discover more about Megan, her wellness coaching, and her upcoming retreat in Tulum through her website. You can also follow her on Instagram and listen to her podcast: Energetically You.

If you're a new alcohol-free or sober coach, learn how to market yourself effectively, build systems to attract potential leads, grow on social media, and break past mindset blocks with Karolina’s Business Coaching.

Karolina’s book is available in hardcover, Kindle, and as an audiobook. Be sure to get your copy of Euphoric: Ditch Alcohol and Gain a Happier, More Confident You today and leave your review.

Follow @euphoric.af on Instagram

And as always, rate, review, and subscribe so we can continue spreading our message far and wide.