Love Letter takeover: A decade of growth

Hey all,

Brittany here, filling in for Molly while she’s enjoying some well-deserved time off. Today is her super duper badass awesome sauce soberversary as she’s 10 years alcohol and cigarette free! 🥳

That’s a freaking decade, y’all. 
10 years
120 months
520 weeks
3652 days
87,660 hours
5,259,600 minutes
315,576,000 seconds

To celebrate this huge milestone, I’ve pulled together 10 of Molly’s most inspiring quotes. Some hit home for me personally. Others landed beautifully with our community.

If you’re anything like me, you can have all the aha moments in the world and read every self-help book on the shelf, but unless you do something with that wisdom, not much changes.

So, I’ve added a simple action item under each quote—something tangible you can do to integrate the inspiration into your life. These quotes and action steps don’t just apply to people who want to quit drinking or smoking. They are helpful for anyone trying to break a habit and create positive change.

Let’s celebrate Molly’s 10 years of sobriety and put some of her wise words into action. 💛

“It’s up to YOU to change your life because no one else can do it for you.”
✍️ Say that out loud three times right now (change “you” to “me”) and every day until you embody it.

“You’re not starting at the bottom. There is no top to get to. You’re meeting yourself where you’re at today.”
✍️ This is one of my favorite Mollyisms. I like to call this radical acceptance. Meet yourself wherever you are. Are you 55 with estranged kids? 42 and in a massive pile of debt? 67 and haven’t even looked at a raw vegetable in a week? That’s where you are. See it for what it is, bypass the judgment, and tell yourself, “I’m meeting myself where I’m at, and that’s perfectly okay.” Make the next choice a healthy one. That’s your starting line, and you’ll move forward one step at a time, just like everyone else. This is not a race, this is life.

“Embrace the suck.”
✍️ Breaking a habit will suck sometimes. Find a place where you can go and embrace the suck and feel your feelings. Molly had a chair.

“Don’t wait to love and accept your body until you reach your goal. Love and accept your precious body right now, and your goal will be easier to reach.”
✍️ Write down three things you appreciate about your body right now.

“The best part about being an adult is we get to take care of ourselves. The hardest part about being an adult is we have to take care of ourselves.”
✍️ Pick two or more of the following things and do them this weekend:

• Take a 10-minute walk.
• Meditate for 5 minutes.
• Eat a big green salad.
• Take your B12.
• Go to bed a little earlier.

“When we know what we want, and we trust that it's coming, it's easy to see that life happens for us, and not to us.”
✍️Write down one thing you want. When you’re working on quitting something, sometimes our focus is so deep into that thing we forget about the beautiful possibilities ahead.

“Come back to now, keep coming back. It’s all we have, and it’s always here for us.”
✍️Take three deep breaths and name three things you can see, hear, and feel in this moment. When you catch yourself in a craving loop, a pity party (with no one else invited), or spiraling out, come back to now.

“If you keep showing up and doing your best, that’s good enough.”
✍️ Write down two things you did today that were the best you could do in the moment. All too often, we focus on what we did wrong. If beating ourselves up were effective, it would have worked by now. This simple act of recognizing our best efforts helps build a track record of commitment and makes it easier to show ourselves compassion.

“You, my dear, will never be more worthy of love, tenderness, and compassion than you are right now.”
✍️ Hug yourself and tell yourself you’re worthy of love, tenderness, and compassion. Even if you’re hungover AF. Even if you’re carrying extra weight. Even if you’ve broken your promises to yourself or your family, you’re still worthy. I know, it might feel damn cringey. I used to shudder at the word love. But that was just a sign I needed to do this exercise more often.

“It's never going to be the perfect time. You’re never going to have the perfect circumstances. Stop waiting. Declare what you want and start working on it.”
✍️ Write down one goal you've been putting off and identify the very first small step you can take today to move toward it. Then do it. No waiting, just action.

So there you have it. 10 quotes and 10 action items to get you started.

Keep in mind when you quit something that nags at your soul, not only do you find freedom, you also find space to work on something meaningful. The fact is, Clean Food Dirty Girl would not exist as it does today if Molly hadn’t quit drinking and smoking. And by doing so, she’s been able to dedicate the best version of herself to building this community, leading by example, and helping people eat more plants for the past decade.

She recorded a podcast episode about this Dirty decade of sobriety, and it’s a must-listen for anyone considering taking a break from alcohol or stuck in an unwanted habit loop. We’re thinking about doing a sobriety workshop. If you’re sober curious and want to be in the loop, please add your name to the list.

Now let’s raise our Turmeric Lattes and celebrate Molly’s soberversary! 🎉

Brittany