From have-tos and responsibilities to the constant grind and being "on-call", the weight of adulthood is real (and challenging). It's time to take a step back and embrace a life of wonder and curiosity again and redefine what it means to feel young forever.

Follow these 8 easy steps to turn back the clock and enjoy life again.

#1 Forget what it means to grow up.

Ever wonder if there's more to adulthood than just managing stress?

If your days are held hostage by have-tos and finding a sense of balance or harmony feels like a distant dream, you're not alone. 

The traditional roadmap to growing up—packed with pressure and responsibilities—isn't working for us. 

Is this relentless pace of life leaving you exhausted, too? 

Are you searching for a sense of balance that always seems out of reach? 

I get it. I’ve been there too.  

When I'm in the grips of stress, I become a different version of myself: exhausted, moody, and much more likely to fall victim to unhealthy coping. Recognizing our changes under stress highlights a universal truth we all face. Now, let's focus on understanding the dual nature of stress in our lives.

Take a moment to think about your relationship with stress. How you see it changes how it affects you. Stress is internal and external pressure from your environment and works two ways. When we view stress as an insurmountable obstacle, it becomes one. Seeing stress as a manageable or positive challenge transforms it into a force for growth and resilience.

But some stress, called 'distress,' can really get to us. This happens when the worry becomes too much, and we feel like we can't handle it anymore. It's the bad type of stress from too much rushing around and worrying about things like money or what we wear. When we allow it to take over, it can be a destructive force in our lives.

Your brain and body take their cues from you. In response to distress, they breed more of it and nurture an environment that makes you grow old much faster.

Life can throw us tough stuff, like losing someone we love, getting horrible news, or even silly accidents. It's hard to stay positive in those times, and that's okay.

We all have a limit to how tough we can be in a moment. It's okay not to be okay sometimes, and it’s okay to just be okay, too. You don't have to be strong all the time.

You don’t need to and shouldn’t feel bad if you’re feeling weak, sad, traumatized, overwhelmed, or tired of boredom in adulthood. 

As we grow up, we train our brains by accident based on how we think through the world around us, and sometimes that’s not the best.

Now is the time to start training it on purpose for the better.

The beauty of aging that we don’t talk about enough is that your thinking and actions get sharper, transforming every lesson into a tool for the extraordinary. But you must pay attention and take control, steering your life instead of letting it steer you. 

The first step to feeling young while you age is forgetting everything they told you about growing up.

#BingingSober isn't just about feeling new again. It's a recipe I use and tweak to make every day better, to live in harmony with everything around and inside of me. Join me in living life beyond the traditional ideas of growing up. Let’s go back to staying young and being sober in a world where every mirror is your friend, and liberation outshines abstinence.

To get there, you'll need to think back.

#2 Remember when it didn't matter.

If I close my eyes and focus, I'm eight years old and in my grandfather’s garden: cold soil gathering in the creases between my fingers, the neighbor’s fireplace filling my nose when I breathe in the fall air, and the corduroy of my overalls sticking to my knees as I move around in the dirt.

Back then, even though my parents' relationship was crumbling at home, it didn't matter when I was in my grandfather’s garden. 

In my 30s, After nearly six years of sea time with the world’s greatest Navy and an advanced degree in performance psychology, I've come to refer to the state of mind that the garden nurtured inside me as "Glitter". 

Glitter lives in the same country as Flow, but in different time zones.

The #BingingSober recipe conditions the kind of childlike curiosity that you can only have as an adult. It sparks the desire for healthier escape by training you to sense Glitter, which, like Flow, is closely linked to the quality and meaning you find in your everyday life.

If you think you can't find quality or meaning in your life it's because they aren't found, they are made.

#BingingSober is more than a concept; it's a toolkit for life. It equips you to shift your perspective, embrace the world with renewed wonder, and align your daily actions with your deepest values. Craft a life where every moment is an opportunity for discovery and growth.

But how?

#3 Start with your used tos.

They said I lived in a "broken home," but whatever that was, it didn't get in the way of the awe I recognized as a child.

Our seven acres in the Pinelands of South Jersey cultivated a million different worlds, all fueled by awe. 

A mound of dirt to the side of our garage was a castle, my grandfather's broken old car was the scene of multiple traffic violations, and the creek in the back beyond the field of foxtails was home to centaurs, unicorns, and a lot of average deer. 

Inside our home, Little Colleen's bedroom, the loft bed, the boombox, the clothes in her closet, the books on her desk, you name it, were all covered in a lavender, pink, turquoise color palette that induced more awe. 

When the adoption of Jason was final after months on the Cabbage Patch wait list, awe. 

I had so much awe that when I found out that my dog died while I was on vacation, I balled my eyes out, then got right back to building my city of plain homemade wooden blocks in what seemed like the same moment.

Then, I lost track of the awe somewhere between Little Colleen and Petty Officer Ryan. 

When I found it again, I learned I could go back. 

A decision only someone with the wherewithal of an adult can make.

No matter who you are, you started this life with a sense of wonder. 

Yet, real-life crap eclipses the awe as we slide, crawl, kick, and scream into a version of adulthood where responsibilities and unexpected challenges lead us to put on our cranky pants and doomsday lenses.

#BingingSober invites you to question, shed these jaded views, and rekindle your relationship with bliss and enthusiasm.

That spark for life you felt as a kid? It's still inside you. Whether playing outside or getting lost in your imagination, tapping into those feelings will help you face today's challenges with a lighter heart and a more resilient spirit.

Close your eyes and recapture the wonder. Open yourself to a world where happiness is a state of being, a state of clarity that you nurture within yourself, free of perceptions built by Hollywood and billion-dollar marketing campaigns for alcohol, potato chips, and name-brand shoes.

Consuming activities you used to enjoy is the perfect place to start if you're struggling to connect to your little you.

Recapturing your childlike perspective will transform how you experience and interact with the world.

So, let's stay in our time machine and embrace the unfiltered enthusiasm of our younger selves.

Imagine a life where curiosity turns the mundane into the magical, where every day is a playground of possibilities.

Take a moment and imagine it right now.

Imagine who you could be.

#4 Ditch your avatar and share your truth.

For most of us, the weight of what it means to be “normal” and to fit that definition forces us to wear a mask like the one I wore during my teen years to hide my depression.

I used my happy face to avoid talking about the grief of my parent’s divorce and the death of my grandfather.

I kept things to myself, suffering in silence, binging on anything that helped me avoid the truth, and making friends with anyone who made the avoidance easier.

The quest for realness, not “normalness,” is at the core of the #BingingSober movement.

Being boldly honest with yourself and others and reclaiming the expression you once had as a child sounds fantastical, but I promise you can learn to speak and live your truth while being socially appropriate.

It's just about aligning your actions with your beliefs, your time with your passions, and your relationships with your values.

But first, you have to know your truth. For more on this, check this out.

Liberate yourself. You’re the only one who can!

#5 Beat boredom with curiosity to fuel awe.

Are you living the same days, maybe even the same years, over and over again?

Alone, your patterns may not be so obvious because they’re comfortable. 

Your self-talk supports your patterns with the same thoughts and the same beliefs, an echo chamber of it’s not me. It’s them.

It’s hard to admit that when I was 36 years old and in the midst of sabotaging yet another relationship, my patterns finally punched me in the face.

I knew I had to change or lose the only man I let myself love. I started paying attention to the chaos in my mind that was running the show when I wasn’t paying attention.

As children, we pay extra attention.

We have an insatiable desire to learn, explore, and absorb new things through a panoramic lens of wide-eyed wonder. This view blurs as we grow older and routine takes over our lives.

But that lens is yours to clean!

When we live passively in routine, the patterns ingrained during our earliest years cloud what we see.

#BingingSober helps us regain control by approaching life as a research lab for exploration and discovery. A sober mindset helps us manage the escapisms that blur our lens. This prompts us to ask questions, challenge biased viewpoints and beliefs, and helps us explore our inner world through conversations with ourselves, loved ones, or therapists. 

This way of thinking shapes new days and new years with just a little effort.

#6 Embrace the rollercoaster and all of its peaks and valleys.

Let me tell you a story about the first time I knew no one else could save me. 

I’d had way, way too much to drink. An avoidance pattern I’d lived for a decade that got me into a lot of trouble one night. The following day, the part of me that’d been programmed to ‘stop crying’ and ‘rub some dirt on it’ took over. I faced everyone involved and threatened them to keep quiet, then buried the trauma for over fifteen years. 

Of course, it came out in other ways, but that’s a story for another time.

The point is that, as toddlers, society allows us to feel and express ourselves with abandon. Just visit the candy aisle of any grocery store to see this in action.

By doing so, we can navigate the ups and downs of life with more ease, adapting to twists and turns with permission to feel and heal. 

As adults, we are celebrated for our grit, for pushing through, for our ability to quickly ‘recover’ despite the need to repress toxic feelings, aka distress.

Remember, distress makes us older faster.

Feeling things, as scary as that may be to you, saves years of time and energy spent cutting through stigma upon stigma to work through and heal. 

Am I advocating for temper tantrums when you don’t get what you want?

Nope! I’m advocating for a return to feeling and expressing the feelings we need to after we’ve experienced the things that tend to haunt us later because we’re so ‘tough’ when we ‘don’t cry.’

The #BingingSober approach advocates for a superhero mentality under pressure and a teddy bear when the valve is released.

Speaking of pressure, have you ever been a caregiver?

Let’s jump ahead to the future for this next step.

#7 Fast-forward to the end.

When I was 40, my father-in-law, Big Daddy, moved in with my husband, three kids, and me, something we’d wanted for years, but it took real life to make it happen.

He was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer and given just months to live. I decided to leave my team at the University of Texas at Dallas’ Center for BrainHealth to become a caregiver for Big Daddy.

Little did I know how much it would change me.

I’d always heard that we return to being kids at the end, a state where the simplest things bring bliss.

In his last days, Big Daddy insisted on meals of Dr. Pepper and ice cream, and he was overjoyed every time he got them... which was every time he asked. I’d known him for six years and spent his final year with him nearly every day. He was always an eternal optimist; in the end, soda and ice cream brought ecstasy.

It’s so simple and always right there. You just need the right viewpoint to experience it. The viewpoint of a child.

As we scratch our way through adulthood, we overuse and overdo many things, but overthinking simplicity is the most destructive.

We talk about ‘keeping it simple,’ yet its application boggles our minds. 

So, let’s hop in our time machine and trek back again for five, ten, twenty, thirty years… whatever gets you there.

Let’s go back to when your approach to life illuminated the simple things, like soda and ice cream, bringing bliss to the mundane. 

Don’t wait until the end. 

The #BingingSober movement chips away the layers of bullshit that buried your inner child in judgments, envy, greed, and avoidance to rediscover the playground of life.

The practice extends beyond managing mind-numbing, unhealthy habits or ‘escapisms’ and internalizes a lifestyle that values escape in the simplicity of the ordinary world. This leads to a more balanced life in which you are in the lead.

#8 Know now what you knew then.

Ever heard the phrase, "If only I knew then what I know now"?

Have you ever thought or said it yourself?

It's like looking back and wishing you had the wisdom you have today when you were younger. While that may seem impossible, the opposite can be true.

What if you knew now what you knew then?

When I first started #BingingSober, I’d been around the world twice with the Navy, traveling to lands I’d never heard about or dreamed of. I buried myself in their cultures, searching for depth to color my young perspective.

I’d faced death and my mortality through accidents and moral injury multiple times throughout my life. But Big Daddy helped me remember them all differently and tie them together. 

Imagine examining a big painting – you have to look at it from every angle to see all of it, and what you see today will likely change over time as your perspective shifts with life experiences, moods, and more. And the best part? In this way, learning more about yourself is never-ending, and what drives personal progress is applying what you’re learning to your everyday life as you go.

Our inner peace depends on how well all the different parts of ourselves get along. Sometimes, we ignore or avoid certain parts, but they're all valuable. It's like becoming friends with yourself – accepting every piece of who you are.

So, being childlike isn't about acting like a kid again. It's more about staying curious, being real, and always being ready to learn and grow.

Because life's all about those moments where we stop and really think about what's going on even when it sucks.

It seems easier to blame, drown out, hide, or ignore, and that’s much easier with routines laden with mind-numbing unhealthy habits.

How many times have you avoided a life lesson opportunity only to find it smacks you in the face harder the next time it shows up?

Stepping off the merry-go-round.

The constant cycle of real-life lessons is drowned out by routine habits that stunt growth. It’s the merry-go-round of life, and no matter how much you want to avoid these opportunities to learn and grow, eventually, you will have to face them. All you need to do is look at them from a different perspective—a childlike perspective.

Ask your little you what you need to make sense of it all. 

If they had what they needed, could it light the spark of a new life for you?... A realm brimming with new perspectives? A new canvas for a new day where you have another chance to pay attention and rewrite your story?

The #BingingSober movement aspires to recapture your childlike essence, encouraging you to nurture a heart that loves freely and cares deeply, unhindered by the limits you’re holding onto. 

You can let go. You know you can.

Once you know how it works, it’s surprisingly fun to practice.

You’ve just scratched the surface of what #BingingSober can offer.

Are you eager to turn the page from stress and 'have-tos' to a chapter of transformation and enduring youth? 

My 5-Step Guide is your next step to a life bursting with youthfulness, meaning, and wonder. Don't wait for tomorrow; your revival starts now.

I’ll meet you there!