High Sobriety: A Deep Dive into Consciousness and Healing with Rae Leonard

Creating your own reality. Is it possible for me? I am Jennifer K. Hill, the Consciousness Architect, and I am here to tell you that it's not only possible, it's closer than you might think. Welcome to the show. Hello friends, and welcome back for another episode of Regarding Consciousness. I am Jennifer K. Hill, CEO of OptiMatch, Om.app, and host of this show, and so grateful to get search the world to find you top thought leaders, authors, and scientists who we share wisdom on consciousness in all of its different forms. Today we have a special guest with a new book called High Sobriety: A Trip Out of the Bottle and Into Your Intuition. Ray Leonard is an author, intuitive guide, and coach. She draws on several areas of expertise, including vortex healing and conscious learning, conscious language, as well as master cleansing to help people who are ready for post-traumatic growth. Ray combines her coaching practice with frequency work, biofeedback, and transformation to help her clients intentionally change their deeply rooted patterns and unearth a carefully Calibrated Inner Compass. Ray, thank you for being here with us today.

Thank you so much, Jennifer. I'm so excited. I listened to one of your podcasts yesterday and it was a woman who had written a book about the goddess and I enjoyed it so much.

Oh, thank you. Yes, that was Enodia. One of the things I love about hosting this show is I have wonderful publicists like the one who put us together today who are always sending me amazing new books and things to check out. And Odias was wisdom about the goddess within all of us and how to reconnect to our divine essence is really an important topic that I feel like we all need to tap into. And which brings us today and your topic. Let's talk about High Sobriety. Tell us a bit about your path and journey and how this came to be your new book that you wrote.

Okay. I was a latchkey kid in the '70s in the East Village, and my parents split up when we were all very young and I was left to my own devices. Luckily, I had a very strong intuition and my clairsenses, my extrasensory perceptions were very strong. By the way, extrasensory perceptions are not extra. Everyone has them. And these are how our intuition speaks to us. And when you can develop a relationship with them through impulses and clues and messages, you can work from a new language and a new reality. That's what I like to help people do. I was— I had that naturally. And then when I became a teenager, I started drinking and smoking pot with my friends and All of those gifts that I had became repressed. And I didn't realize that alcohol was mass-produced, mass-marketed, socially acceptable, and a very dangerous and addictive drug. And I used to run with it really pretty hard. And I led a dualistic life because I was a yoga teacher and a bit of a health nut. I was a raw foodist for a time. And yet I always said, oh, I'm so lucky I don't have an addictive personality. And I could really drink a lot. And until my mid-40s, when it caught up with me and I found myself hooked on alcohol, I found myself wanting it earlier and earlier during the day. And it was a voice that wasn't mine whispering in my ear. I felt these dark entities around me that kind of had a hold on me and I didn't like it. Luckily, I had skills already in my life. I wasn't young when I became addicted. I'm very grateful for that. And I decided to sneak up on these entities around me. And rather than just say, I quit, that's it, I'm done. I thought I would fail if I did that. So. I doubled down on my skills and I took my whiskey to my yoga mat and I took my whiskey to my Buddhist altar and chanted. And I started listening to sober podcasts while I drank until I felt I was strong enough. And then boom, I snuck up on the booze and quit.

That is amazing. There are so many different ways to look at this. We all have addictions to to some extent or another. If we're listening out there, some of us are addicted to talking, to shopping, to attention, to likes. None of it's good or bad or right or wrong. The only thing that you're pointing out, Ray, which I think is so important regarding our consciousness, is who's in the driver's seat. Is the need for attention in the driver's seat? Is your need for alcohol or whatever it is in the driver's seat? And if it is, it doesn't mean that You are bad or wrong. I grew up with 2 alcoholic parents and learned just love, that you can still love somebody unconditionally and hold healthy boundaries and not engage at certain levels and still allow people to do it. My mom struggled with it most of her life, and I've told her, I was like, Mom, I love you and I will always love you. And if you choose to stop drinking, I'm here to support you with all my heart and soul. And if you choose to keep drinking, I'll still love you. There just might be certain things that I won't do with you because it doesn't honor me.

Wow, Jennifer, what a beautiful place for you to be in.

Loving acceptance. It sounds like that's what you did is you danced with it rather than just trying to shove it out the door. So many of us, we have something that is not good for us in some way, shape, or form that we see cost and impact, and we try to shove it out the door and then it sneaks in the back door and next And now you're doing it again. So talk to us a little bit about how did you use your consciousness after you brought the whiskey to the yoga mat, after you brought it to your practices? How did you then transform and transmute that relationship into something that was lasting relationship that you now felt better about?

Oh, that's a good question. First, I wanted to mention how I clarify addiction. Is a behavior that you repeat over and over again, and it's not getting you what you want in life. Beautiful. You like that?

Very powerful. It's so true. It's— say that one more time. I really want to be present and hear what you're saying.

Addiction is a behavior that you repeat over and over again that is not getting you what you would like in your life.

So before you go any further, I want to ask you, what was it that it was not getting you in your life?

I felt that I was out of control. My health was starting to fail. My relationships were suffering. I wasn't walking the walk of a healthy, conscious cosmic creator. that I know that I am and was coming in stronger and stronger all the time. I like what you said. I wasn't in the driver's seat anymore. And I, I always made jokes. I'm in the driver's seat here while I'm pouring whiskey. I'm in the driver's seat until one day I'm like, ooh, I'm not in the driver's seat anymore. And this doesn't feel good. And I noticed that everything that I had done in my life that I was embarrassed about or that I had shame about Most things, most things I could trace back to, oh, I was using alcohol or drugs at the time.

I get that. I get that. So what, how did that process go? So many people might have an experience where they stopped drinking for a little bit or they stopped using whatever their substance of choice is, but then often they default back to it. So how long has it been since you've last had a drink and How do you recommit to it every single day?

It's been 6 years and my life just transformed very quickly. I'm very blessed. I instantly, I shut the door and other doors open. When you shut a door and if it's shut, you can move on and you can ask for grace. You can ask for tools. I had Young Living essential oils were at my doorstep. I got a Healy frequency device, which helps me, and I'm snowballing in another direction. And I'm, I was gifted the ability of sight to now, actually, when I look at alcohol, when I see people drinking, I see, you remember in Snow White where the queen, when she's making the poison apple and there's that smoke that comes up and makes the skull and crossbones. I see that when I look at alcohol now, my vibration is so different. And that's really one of my messages that it can be that simple, that you can have that transformation. And I already had that experience with many things in my life about it's changing your perception. And how do you do that? I do it through vibrational changes. I do it through taking lots of naps, stress relievers, keeping the stress out of my life, conscious language. What am I saying? What is actually coming out of my mouth? One of my chapters in my book is called Words Are Wands. It's really important. I don't try to do anything. I do things. I don't say I should be doing this. I should quit drinking, or I should exercise more. I say when I think that, because we all think that it's ingrained in our consciousness and our language, I should be doing this. I say, hmm, I'm excited to do this, or I'm excited to be excited about doing that, or I'm excited to do that tomorrow. Possibly I play. I like what you said before. I dance around words and perceptions and keep it light. I'm not a very serious plow-through kind of person. I keep it light and do a dance of words and energy.

I think one thing to piggyback on what you're saying, Raye, is also to have an environment that supports it. I always am a huge advocate when I, whether I'm coaching a CEO or helping a friend or leading a mastermind. One of the step one I always recommend to everybody is have an accountability buddy, have a committed listener. Because yes, we can be our own committed listener. And I'm a huge advocate for every one of us to bring our consciousness to our language, to your point. And sometimes we go completely unconscious about the way we speak about things. A friend of mine often says, I'm threatened or people are threatened by me. And I was just having this conversation with them the other day and I said, Is that what you're committed to? Every word that comes out of our mouth, we have an opportunity to inquire and say, is that what we're committed to? And sometimes if we don't have an accountability buddy who's listening for that commitment, then we might fall into the trap or the unconsciousness of going back into old words that we might use. And what I love about having an accountability buddy, and that person could be somebody you text with, I recommend it's someone you speak with. At least 3 to 5 days a week or more. And then they can call you on it if they hear you saying, it's hard, it's tough, nobody likes me. I'm going to try, but I don't know. And could we all just be that mirror for one another? And in turn, then that provides a mirror to ourselves.

Oh, that's fantastic. It's true, Jennifer. It's a little, it's a little, I'm a bit of a lone wolf and it feels a little lonely sometimes. And I say things to people and I'm trying to Help them with their language sometimes. And they're just looking at me like, okay, crazy lady, what do you know? Why can't I say I should do this or I should do that? So yeah, I like that. Having someone who's right at the same point of growth that you are and can recognize, I don't know, and say, you choose to know. As soon as I say, I, yeah, when I say, oh, I don't know where that is. Oh, I choose to know where that is. Then the universe is reverberating back. Oh, she chooses to know. We better show it to her right now. It always works.

It's so true. So talk to us a little bit more. Let's imagine that somebody is struggling with their own addiction, whatever it might be right now. What is step 1 in your book?

Step 1 is forgive yourself. And keep doing it. Do not try to overcome it. Do not try to muscle through it. Keep doing it and add other practices. Keep drinking and then go running the next morning or whatever you like to do. That's step 1. And then step 2 is forgive yourself because we blame and we put all this pressure on ourselves and we're not a good person because we're still doing that. habit, forgive yourself.

Yeah, so much of it is, uh, self-shame and so forth. In fact, I'm going to pull up here from Louise Hay, one of my favorite websites that I use often for myself.

Oh, me too.

So the one I go to is heartlandhealingarts.com. Has on it emotional and mental causes of illness, the list by Louise Hay. And on the top, so alcohol is meant for It says feelings of futility, guilt, inadequacy, and self-rejection. And addictions, it says running from the self, fear, not knowing how to love the self. So I always cross-check this list and then you ask yourself, okay, what am I afraid of? If it is a fear that's running your addiction, what am I afraid of? As one of my teachers so beautifully taught me years ago, he said, talk to your fears out loud every day. If you have—

What fear?

Fear that I'm not worthy. Fear that I'll never find love. Fear that I'm a bad parent or friend or that I'm a failure. Ask the fear, fear, what are you here to teach me? Talk to it out loud, journal with it, paint with it, dance with it, and then drop the adversarial relationship with it. Fall in love with your fears, and then they're no longer At the effect of you.

Yeah. I also like fear. Uh, all fear can be traced back to the fear of death in some way or another. What are you afraid of? You're afraid of not being liked or not being accepted or, um, being rejected. That's a fear of the tribe in our history ostracizing you, and then you would die. Fear of not making money is a fear of starving to death and being exposed to the elements. And when you, and then, then I think about what am I afraid of? We're all gonna die. So it's just, it's silly. There's no stopping death. What's the point of fear?

Yeah. And to be kind and compassionate about ourselves. When I was very young, I don't think I've ever shared this on the show before. I struggled with bulimia from the ages of 15 to 25, I hated myself so much. And that self-loathing and fear of not belonging and fear of being weird or awkward or whatever you want to call it led me to binge and purge 20 times a day for 10 years straight or more, probably more than that in some cases. And I remember the instance, and I want to take it back to what you began by saying today, Ray, which is this idea of shifting our perspective. I was, I'll paint a picture for you. So here I am, I'd been in a relationship for about maybe a year and a half at that point. He didn't know that I was bulimic and I would hide it very well. Nobody knew. And he, I got rejected because he went to go to his brother's house to go do some sort of high-level spiritual personal development thing. He's, oh, you can't come cuz you're not advanced enough. And so what do I do? Oh, but it wasn't a personal assault against me. It was just what was so of this particular training. But of course, I took it as a personal affront. So what do I do? Pop open a bottle of wine. It's my early 20s. Start drinking wine, eating pizza, ice cream, throwing up, feeling terrible about myself, just beating myself up about how I'm never good enough and will never belong. And 3 hours later, my boyfriend's at his brother's house and says, we need an extra person. Can you come over? We need you to be a part of this. And now I've had 2 glasses of wine at least. Been purging for 2 hours straight. And somehow or another, I'm so lucky that I safely drove myself. It was long before the days of Uber over to their house. And so there are about 4 or 5 people there and his brother's facilitating this. And so I was the extra person and they, he was practicing leading a technique and he takes through the technique where it's like, what's not working in your life as well as you would like? And I was so ashamed. I was so ashamed, Ray. I just wrote down health. I couldn't even bring myself to write down bulimia because I was so ashamed and embarrassed of it. So I wrote down health. And then they took you through an exercise of what's missing that would make a difference. How are you feeling? What are your thoughts, beliefs, actions, inactions around it? Still a technique that I use to this day to help myself 20 years later. And fast forward, I get to the point of what's missing that would have me transform this relationship with my body, my health, and my bulimia. And what hit me like a bolt of lightning was discipline. And the moment that I shifted my perspective and I saw, at least this is what it is for me, I'm not saying it is for you, Ray, or for any of you out there listening or watching. When I hit discipline and then I asked myself, who would I be being if I was being disciplined? What would I be doing? What would I not be doing? What would I be feeling? All of a sudden something shifted and it was like, A new me aligned, and I never threw up again. And that was after 10 years straight. So I do believe in the power of whatever it is we might be battling with addiction-wise or otherwise in our lives. It is the power of our perspective to take it back to what you began with. If we can shift our perspective even one percentage point different, all of a sudden a whole new world becomes available to us. And a new life. Like I can't even recognize the person who I was 15, 20 years ago when I was in that place, as I'm sure you can't. Can you recognize who you were at that point?

No. And I love, thank you so much for sharing that with me. And what I love about what you just said is you said discipline and I don't like to bring that up with clients, like at first, because people are being so hard on themselves anyway. And I love to be like lighter and do the dance and And keep doing that activity that you don't like. And, but of course it is, it's self-discipline as a disciple of the infinite angelic beings that we are rather than be more disciplined, do better. It's being a disciple of yourself, of your true self, really. Right.

Beautifully put. Yes.

And it, it is discipline now that I think about it. I'm an extremely disciplined person because I don't want to put things in my body anymore that are just going to give me like a moment of pleasure. I've taken so much time to really know myself and understand what's good for myself. And I wait until those things are available and I have patience and self-love. That's discipline, right?

And you hit the nail right on the head. I really want to underline, highlight, star, throw sparkles at it. Self-love. That's what it— for me with bulimia, for any time that we're struggling with any sort of addiction or frustration in our life, if we could turn all that energy that we're putting towards the addiction towards loving and accepting ourselves fully and completely, that's when a whole new world emerges. That's when we have capacity for something new. I always, I call it the golden triangle of connection. Connection to self allows for connection to others and connection to purpose. And when we connect deeply to ourselves and treat ourselves as though we were the love of our lives, not in a narcissistic way, but falling in love with ourselves, even with our flaws and quirks, Then all of a sudden, what just dawned on me? I've never said this before, but I was reading a brilliant business book lately called Backable, and in the book they talk about eminent

bankable

backable B A C K A B L E by Sunil Gupta. I think Gupta brilliant one of the best business books I've read, and in the book he says you need to have somebody who is your cheddar. So in Eminem's Eight Mile movie. He has a friend of his who he's about to go on stage and everybody else is cheering on like, you got this, dude, you got this. And there was something about Eminem's girlfriend and his friend, quote unquote friend Cheddar is, yeah, what are you gonna do if they rip you a new one about your girlfriend? And Eminem's, dude, don't be a hater or whatever. And he goes on stage though, and that's what saves Eminem and has him win his battle is he puts himself out there versus, yeah. And for any of you out there thinking about talking about my girlfriend, screw you and blah, blah, blah. So he proactively addresses it. And I think if we all proactively were that person for ourselves, if we pull back the layers and we look at our own opportunities for growth, then when we go out in the world, nobody can do us any harm because we've already recognized that ourselves. And then it's no longer this open wound that others have the capacity to sprinkle salt in. Does that make sense, Ray? I just got that as I said it.

Cheese, Earl Grey, and cheddar.

Yes. Be your own cheddar.

Yes. Yes. I love it. Yes. Yes. That's why I called the book High Sobriety and I'm very open about what was going on for me and what, how I was acting and just put that all out there because we all have our shameful part and that's such a poisonous, insidious element that's Holly,

is there one story or something that I didn't ask you about from the book that you'd love to share with our listeners or viewers that kind of encapsulates what you've learned in this journey you've been in?

One thing that helps me if I start complaining and I find myself thinking something negative or complaining, criticizing, or comparing, Is I turn that around. I recognize, oh, that's a complaint. Oh, that's a criticism of myself or someone else. It's really easy to criticize others. Or I'm complaining about something when, my goodness, I have such a beautiful life and I have so much. I start going on a rampage of appreciation.

I love it.

And it can be from my breath. I'm alive. I am breathing. Number one. And then I'll just go around the room or take a walk and just start appreciating, appreciating. And I get so high, Jennifer, on these red pages. Turning that perception into some— how do you get high and stay there? I love exploring that and I love finding new ways all the time.

Yeah, you reminded me, I'm glad you brought this up, Rayya. I forgot about an exercise you used to do when I would get angry or upset, I would force myself when I had the consciousness to do, if I was noticing I was being a judgy bunny, that's what I like to call it. If I'm being a judgy bunny of myself or others, I will literally force myself to sit down and I'm not allowed to stand up until I've written 100 things I'm grateful for. And by the end of that list, you have completely shifted your perspective and you don't even have the space anymore to be angry, upset, judgy bunny, or whatever you wanna call it.

Wow. You are the ultimate self-disciple of 100 things.

I'm extreme. It's just all or nothing. And it's, I survived. I should have died 100 times between now and when I was growing up. And so I do whatever it takes to keep on living every day. And I think that's what you're saying is that we all have a life worth living. And the more that we've dulled that life, The more we allow the curtains to come between us and ourselves and other people, the less we're able to shine our light. And what I hear you saying is pull back the curtains, let in the light, and be the light that we all are.

What you said. I'll have what you're having, Jennifer.

Samesies. That's my husband and I call it. We're like, samesies. Tell our listeners and viewers, where can they connect with you? Where can they find the book? Where can they connect with your brilliant wisdom? And if they want support on this or coaching, where would they go?

Oh, you can go to my website. It's rayleonard.me. R-A-E-L-E-O-N-A-R-D dot me. I'm also on Instagram. I am Ray Leonard. And the book High Sobriety is also, you can grab it on Amazon and get in touch with me. Just say hi. I love to chat with people. And

thank you, Ray. Thank you for your courage and whatever it took for you to get where you are and to be a shining beacon of light for other people who might be struggling with any sort of own addiction or lack of self-love. For any of you out there listening, watching, whether you struggle with your own addictions or not, may there have been a spark of light in this conversation between Ray and I today that gives you the courage to do whatever it takes to live your best life. And let go of the things that perhaps, you know, perhaps that inner voice is whispering in your ear. It's too late. I'm Jennifer K. Hill, and I thank you for joining us today.