Real Skills Workshop - Community Event
Boost Your Value with Emotional Skills
Real Skills Workshop: Thriving Lifestyle
Hosts: Rick Wilkes (@Rick) and Cathy Vartuli (@Cathy)
Recorded Sun Apr 30 2023
Replay is below
Boost Your Value (Internally)
I had this weird, “normal” notion: my value was determined by others. How much was I paid? How “in demand” was I…? How many people wanted to be my friend?!
Part of me understood this. Isn’t life about status? YES! Just ask my primitive brain. It knows all about status! It’s known all that since the time my ancestors were hairy and naked.
But there was a turning point for me, when I took active steps to go within. Listen to what mattered to ME. Get clear on the kind of world I would VALUE… and put life force into those values.
Yeah, I can’t say “the world” much less “the many” are raving fans. I don’t really have “followers” on social media.
You know what? I don’t value “followers.” I value co-creators! I do have those. I’ve put energy into co-creative relationships and have that value as a guiding direction in my choices.
By focusing on my inner values, my actions in the world I know are congruent (mostly). When they are not, I have skill now with potent tools like EFT Tapping to bring me back, to re-connect me with my values and my value, and go forward.
Since I value acceptance and the spectrum of diversity, I recognize that my inner-ness isn’t how some people are oriented.
I’ve just noticed that even those far more “extroverted” on the spectrum benefit immensely from being skillful with What Matters to them, knowing what they truly value, feeling that in their core, and Source action from that knowing.
Without that, even the most “confident” extroverts and “stars” can be… quite lost and untethered indeed.
The Real Skills journey includes this awareness: to be more emotionally savvy asks of us to know ourselves and what we value of our gifts and capacities.
Then we work. We USE these skills to craft our life experiences and our connection with others. This differentiates the Heartist at Work from the just-getting-by folk.
Cathy and I will be exploring this together with those of you that would like to co-create more awareness and savvy with emotional skills. You are invited!
We look forward to boosting you!
With smiles and love,
Rick & Cathy
Your Emotional Freedom Coaches
Schedule Private, Gliding Scale Coaching Sessions Here
P.S. Adira says, “I’m ready! Look, I crawled through the dark tunnel and into the light! (That’s Da-Da’s translation of my simple YAY!)”
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Is it Rejection… or Divine Filtering?
If it doesn’t work out, does it mean you were REJECTED!?! Or there is something WRONG with you?!? Or that you’re NOT ENOUGH?!?
Dang, all those perspectives hurt. I say… they are supposed to hurt.
“Supposed to” in the same way that testing whether a pan is hot with your finger and repeatedly getting burned is “supposed to” hurt. It’s not skillful.
If you value presence of the flavor sobriety allows, and someone else values pleasurable-for-them, altered states of the kind drugs and alcohol induce, is it rejection for there to be clarity that the two are not compatible lifestyles?
Some value ease and comfort over adventure. Some value certainty more than growth (and the courage that growth exercises).
It’s a real skill to recognize those differences and “not take it personally” – meaning, redirect it from hammering on our primitive brain insecurities.
It’s also a skill to know yourself, to be in touch with your values… and feel – really FEEL – the innate valuableness in what YOU value.
Such clarity does indeed make us less malleable. We boost our steel when we boost our knowing of what matters to us.
A long time back, I asked Source for a different way of perceiving rejection. I was given the concept of Divine Filtering. You can read more about it here.
Diving filtering says that clarity will, indeed, filter out options, opportunities, and people from our life. It also asserts that this is a good thing. Divine even!
There’s an intelligence to the unease we feel at the prospect of certain options. Some of that can be a limiting belief on our part. Some of that can be trauma rearing up to be cleared first. I’m grateful to be engaged with a community that “gets this.”
So I look forward to this next workshop Sunday with eagerness to re-affirm that your values, my values… they are Intimate Treasure. What matters in our core nourishes our creativity. What matters to us shows us, sometimes starkly, WHAT cannot be our YES… Even WHO cannot be our YES.
And WHAT and WHO IS INDEED OUR YES!
We’ll be exploring this Sunday. You’re invited! Consider whether it is your YES, and join us if it is. We won’t take it personally if it isn’t.
We look forward to boosting you!
With smiles and love,
Rick & Cathy
Your Emotional Freedom Coaches
Schedule Private, Gliding Scale Coaching Sessions Here
P.S. Adira says, “You mean there are people who don’t LOVE dandelions?!?! Divine filtering!!”
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Boost Your Value with Emotional Skills - Workshop Recording
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Boost Your Value with Emotional Skills
[00:00:00] Boost your value with emotional skills. This is a real skills workshop. I am Rick from Thriving Now, and I’m here with Cathy Vartuli from Thriving Now and the Intimacy Dojo. , Cathy, we’ve done about 50 of these real Skills workshops. It’s pretty easy building time. I’m, I’m so excited about the fact that we’ve had a chance to engage around so many different aspects of emotional skills.
[00:00:25] And this is an opportunity for us and the community of which, , that co-create this with us. Yes. To come together again and ground it around, you know, what does it mean to do emotional skills and how does that add value to our life? Because I think that value is a measure. Of, um, our own inner experience of something, our external experience of ourselves and, um, the feedback that we get from the world.
[00:00:54] Um, and I, you and I had a chance to sync up a little bit before. Would you like to get us started with. With this? Sure. Um, I think that value is important to most people in different ways. Value tells us what’s important in a contributory way towards our life, whether it brings us more pleasure or makes us feel more competent.
[00:01:15] And everyone has different things. Like I was just before we started this recording, I was talking about being on a marketing, uh, seminar where everyone was jumping up and down and very excited and they really value enthusiasm. And I could step into that and be there cuz they’re very authentic. They’re not hypey.
[00:01:31] Um, but different groups and different people will have different things they value. And one of the things that Rick and I were talking about has how important it is to know what we internally value. Um, We, we are social animals. We care about what people around us, uh, think about our primitive brain, thinks about, cares about what everybody around us thinks about until we, we educate it.
[00:01:55] But as we’re moving forward, I think it’s the more we know each other, know ourselves and the people we’re close to, the more more we can tune into those values and make choices. What about our time and our energy and our money? What, where, how we’re prioritizing things around us and there is value. We tend to prioritize things.
[00:02:14] There are certain people I prioritize. Like if Rick calls, I always, unless I’m in the middle of some, um, business meeting, I’m gonna answer the phone call. Cuz he’s very high priority. He’s very high value for me. He adds so much to my world. So I think that when we look at value, we’re kind of looking at like, what do I want to put my attention on?
[00:02:34] What do I wanna focus on? Um, and when we’re talking about our own internal value, like our value to ourselves, Often we were kind of put, we, we were taught to put that aside. For many of us, I grew up where I just thought it was better not to value myself because then when people stopped on my boundaries, it didn’t really matter so much.
[00:02:57] It wasn’t really like, I was like, oh yeah, but that doesn’t matter. I’m not important. So it was a way to tolerate being treated in ways that weren’t as well as what I would’ve liked. Um, so I think what, when we start valuing ourselves, we can start setting better boundaries, making better choices and flowing in our lives in a way that’s authentic to us.
[00:03:19] And to do that, we have to have our own values, not someone else’s. Does that resonate for you, Rick? It does. I’ve been thinking about,
[00:03:31] I’ve been aware, uh, for a long time, since I started coaching that, um, there’s a, a very tender area, like you said, like someone who was. In a unsafe unsupported, um, didn’t get to develop your own clarity about what, what matters to you growing up. You end up being very, staying very externally referenced.
[00:03:57] That’s the technical term. And I was like, what does that mean? Well, like the difference between enjoying, pleasing people, which is an inner value of me. Like I love to be in a relationship where my presence and my engagement and even my humor is pleasing. Doesn’t have to be all the time. Like there’s a quality.
[00:04:19] I value flexibility and consent and, you know, everybody has their range. But I, I value, I value in being in pleasing relationships. That’s different than when I was a people pleaser. We did a session on that, like people pleasing is like, I need to tune myself to what other people are giving me and morph myself to be pleasing to them.
[00:04:49] Can we all feel how, um, one is, is a survival oriented, like, I, I must, I must please my boss, or else there’s a quality of like, ah, for me, I, I want to have clients and community that are pleased with what they get, that they’re spending their life and their money to be in this relationship and I want it to be pleasing to them.
[00:05:17] But there’s not that same kind of, of vibe of have to. Um, and so I believe that the more that we do with emotional skills particularly, we’re coming off of that series of be what matters, where you got to tune into something that. That you value. And now here we are, we’re looking at how do we boost our value?
[00:05:42] And again, like I’m, I am coming back in my own life, like, oh, you know, if I’m really more and more aware of what I value inside of myself, um, I feel more solid. I feel more calm, I feel more confident when someone has a different value set. It’s less that I have to adapt and more like, oh, well that’s their set of values and, and these are mine and I treasure mine.
[00:06:12] Treasure value, feel the energy of that. Um, and I. We’re both very tender that we didn’t come from a place where our values were ever asked about. Like, I don’t remember anyone asking, what do you really value? I was told and, and projected that what I needed to do was build a very successful company. I needed to be, uh, I needed to move up the socio economic ladder.
[00:06:40] You know, there were all kinds of like external values that were laid upon me, and that made me miserable and sick until I started really being attuned to what matters in, in my core. Mm-hmm. As that and that awareness. I think there’s a contrast and I’m wondering if, if you’d like to write in the chat what, how you were brought up.
[00:07:05] When I was being brought up, it was just assumed that I was gonna have the same perspective as my mother and father and that I didn’t have different values from them. Ah, and I watched Rick and, and his, his partner with, with Aira this little two, and she’s two and a half today. Um, and she has very distinct opinions and very, like, strong.
[00:07:24] Like we had a long no discussion last night when I was talking to her. She did not want me to get off the, the phone. She was like, she was very clear and I don’t remember being clear like that. I remember like having realized and maybe I was more than I real, you know, it’s hard to remember when you were two and a half, but.
[00:07:42] I, I remember thinking, oh, I need to conform to these people. And I remember feeling very confused on my internal reference, wasn’t their reference. And they just acted kind of like, oh, this is, this is how it is. This is the perspective, this is the experience. Of course you like this cuz we like this. Of course you believe this cuz I believe this.
[00:08:04] Someone shared, I was brought up to match my parents’ values. Totally. And I think what kinda conformity mm-hmm is, you know, we’re, here’s part of an emotional freedom circle, you know, uh, conformity probably is not our sweet spot or you wouldn’t probably be here. So I’m making some assumptions there.
[00:08:26] But, um, yeah. Well freedom is, is, is. A very different value from conformity. Uh, freedom of choice and consent is different from obligation. Um, they’re, they’re felt differently and they’re valued differently. And if you’re, if you’re going counter to how you were raised and counter to maybe parts of your culture or even people that are around you now, um, it takes skill and it takes work.
[00:08:59] Mm-hmm. It takes skillful application of some things that we’ve been doing together. Yeah. Um, go ahead. I think, oh, I wonder, someone shared, I was spooked by my family’s values. Strong contrast. And I think it’s important to notice that if we were brought up in a tie in a place where we didn’t kind of match, we could have, like, it could be easier to give up our own beliefs, or maybe we kind of fought them or just felt a little bit like we didn’t fit into the world and.
[00:09:26] For many of us, I think that there was, um, I think a lot of the people that are here, our family may have met a lot of trauma, which very na much narrows the, the viewpoint. Yeah. People that are traumatized do not have the energy or the, the focus to look from different perspectives. They tend to just dive into the one that they know.
[00:09:44] Um, and I also know that like I was brought up in upstate New York, it was very rural. There wasn’t a lot of exposure to anything else. And so like when I went to, I went overseas a as a rotary, as as rotary exchange student, it was like the shock to see like how different people lived. And then depending on where we were brought up, we might have had more or less access to like, oh, is this okay to think differently?
[00:10:07] Or everybody thinks the same and we, we, there’s something wrong that we don’t have that same, um, we don’t conform to that. Um, I grew up hearing why, uh, I didn’t raise you, I didn’t raise you that way. I think that’s what it says. And I was. I was, we didn’t raise you that way. Yeah. Yeah. And that someone else that was brought up in a culture to respect elders, but I think that came with the assumptions and baggage.
[00:10:32] Yeah. Just, well, even something like respect, um, you know, there’s a difference between respect that, that requires conformity and, and, um, authoritarian hierarchy. Mm-hmm. And respect of the person as a human being who’s had experiences. And if it’s not, like, I don’t consider a situation where the respect isn’t, um, mutually shared, that there’s not an energy of that to be a respectful space.
[00:11:02] It’s something different than, than that. I’m, I’m curious, um, if, is there a value that, that you hold, um, love to hear it in the chat. Is there a value that you hold that you find difficult to. To hold that value. It doesn’t necessarily feel okay to have that value. Um, based upon your past, based upon some noise.
[00:11:31] What is it that comes up for you? If there’s a value that, um, you have a challenge, a challenge with that you’d like a little boost to that sense of it being okay, someone shared, I was brought up that all are equal until I brought home a friend who apparently wasn’t. And they have, I think I’ve had experience with that too, where, oh, it’s fine.
[00:11:55] Oh wait, you’re dating an Asian person? Like, oh, that’s not like, why are you dating? The person said, why are you dating a brownie? And I didn’t even know what that meant. Um, I was like, what? Because he is a really cool guy, like, why wouldn’t I date him? Um, but it can be shocking for our ecosystem when people are like, wait, that’s not okay.
[00:12:19] Um, the values of lovingness and kindness being okay.
[00:12:28] Yeah. Um, do you wanna do some tapping together on It’s okay to have value, to be aware of our values, to, to boost our value? Would you like to lead us in that? Yeah. Yeah. So I’m just invite you to take a deep breath. You can blend in lovingness and kindness, which are Yeah. A challenge. We’ll start here, and I, I would like to go in a little more about where, where we’re allowed to value ourselves as a separate.
[00:12:56] Yeah, this is just about permission to be different from people that are around us. So I invite you if you can, you know, let the Facebook cats be quiet for now. Like they’ll be there when you come back. Just let your attention come to this circle of all these people that are really awesome and considering like how they can increase their value.
[00:13:15] How can they look at things in a different way? That’s pretty amazing to have this many people gathering together to look at something that, you know, a lot of people, a lot of people that I grew up with be like, what are you doing? Like, you know, clean the car, take out the trash. Like, you know, why are you wasting your time on that stuff?
[00:13:32] But I think it really matters when we can be conscious of all this. So if you can just let yourself come here, and now with all these people, let yourself kind of sink into your body if that feels safe to you. Wiggle your butt in the chair, if that feels all right. Take a nice, slow, deep breath.
[00:13:52] Karate tap. Even though I wasn’t really encouraged to know my own values, even though I wasn’t really encouraged to know my own values, they didn’t even consider that I might have something different from them. They didn’t even consider that I might have something different from them. I like that somehow I innately knew that some things go ahead.
[00:14:16] I like that somehow I innately knew that some of the things they valued weren’t for me. That some of the things they valued were not for me. I think that says something kind of awesome about me. Ah, I think that says something kind of awesome about me. My little being knew that there was something off in their beliefs.
[00:14:38] My little being knew there was something off in their beliefs. At least for my internal reference, or at least for my internal reference, top of the head. I really believe in loving and lovingness and kindness. I really believe in lovingness and kindness eyebrow. And I’m really curious and I’m really curious side of the eye.
[00:14:59] I wanted to know more. I wanted to know more under the eye. I didn’t wanna conform. I didn’t want to conform and no, some part of my little being said, no, no, no. Some part of my little being said, no, no, no, no, no, no. I love that. I rebelled is that small child. I love that. I kept my rebellion alive, collarbone, even if I had to hide it back then, even though I did have to hide it back then and there, there is a part of me that really knows what’s important to me.
[00:15:33] There’s a part of me that really does know what’s important to me, top of the head, and I love that that part of me exists. Oh, and I love that that part of me exists. I’d like to get to know that part of me better today, and I’d like to get to know that part of me better today and just take a breath. And I really do think it’s awesome that, you know, each of us here had, I would imagine every one of us here had some kind of, part of you is like going, no, that doesn’t feel right.
[00:16:06] That’s not quite, like we didn’t, we were never broken enough that we just lost our sense of self, our sense of what was good and right. And that’s really, really lovely. Um, I think it’s important. Um, so it, it can be really helpful when you’re, um, in a process like this to take a look at the. The dark side of it.
[00:16:33] Mm-hmm. Like when you imagine, oh, I’m walking around and I really feel solid in my value, I can, I can boost my sense of it, I can glow with it. I can really be very clear about myself and what matters to me. Is there anything that doesn’t feel okay about that we’d love to hear? Well, I think we actually already have, um, I’d love to address, there’s a couple that are really important, but I’d like to start with the issue around money.
[00:17:06] Um, so someone shared, I have a value that money is in everything, but I feel in conflict with that sometimes because I don’t want to be poor again. Um, so. I think that what we often make things very black and white, very binary, um, good or bad, especially when we’ve had trauma around us, certain things. So for many of us, we’ve had trauma around money.
[00:17:31] We got that very legitimately from our parents who had no idea our skills and they had no emotional skills around money. Um, so a lot of, I, I work with a lot of people that feel like money is the root of evil. We shouldn’t rely on it. Or they, you know, just like, oh, I want it, but I don’t feel like I deserve it or I shouldn’t have it, cuz other people don’t have it.
[00:17:53] There’s a lot of conflicting feelings around it and yet we do live in a society where money is a very convenient way to get around and it can make our lives so much better. So, I think that we can, we can have some conflict about, like we may have conflict about everything. Something we may not feel like we wanna make it our sole focus in life and we can still want it.
[00:18:18] For instance, I love chocolate cake. I know silly, silly, silly example, but I love chocolate cake. I don’t want it to be everything for me. I don’t want it to be like, oh, I’m not gonna talk to Rick cuz I’m gonna eat chocolate cake. I’m gonna like just buy chocolate cake and just have chocolate cake all the time, like for every meal.
[00:18:34] And yet I think life would be sad cuz like on my birthday, I love having chocolate cake. I feel very special when I have chocolate cake on my birthday. So I don’t know if that silly analogy helps, but it’s like, what if we’re aware that we wanna have balance around money, that we wanna have enough that we have, we’re comfortable, we have abundance.
[00:18:54] It adds that ease to our lives. And we’re also aware that we don’t wanna make it the sole focus of our lives where we ignore other people. We forget about love, kindness, integrity. Um, So what if that feeling of conflict is actually just a desire for balance? And maybe there’s some more traumas or beliefs that could be tapped on and cleared, but what if it’s just like, oh, part of me thinks I should really have balance around this and not let it become something I chase all the time?
[00:19:24] You know, it’s tapped tapp on that. Um, I have more to say, but let’s tap on. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. Um hmm. Even though money is a big deal in the world, even though money is a big deal in the, it touches everything, it really does touch everything. It’s a thing. It’s a thing. What are my values around money? What are my values around money?
[00:19:56] Top of the head. I don’t want to be poor. I don’t wanna be poor eyebrow, I don’t wanna be poor, I don’t wanna be poor side of the eye. And money is a confusing energy, and money is a confusing energy outta the eye. But what are my values? What are my values? What are my values? What are my values? Chin. It’s not really about the money.
[00:20:21] It’s not really about the money, hold on. But money facilitates things. Money does facilitate things. I want to be clear and boost my values around money. I wanna be clear and boost my values around money. Top head. So as I relate to money, I’m clearer on its value. So as I relate to money, I’m clearer on its value and I infuse the energy of money with my values.
[00:20:46] And I infuse, infuse the energy of money with my values. Deep breath.
[00:20:55] So, Um, what I meant by the, by that is like, I value being generous. If, if my family’s money supply drops below. Survival, being generous is a heroic act. Okay? If I have enough resource stored away, it’s a bit like if there’s only one hamburger for four people, um, that feels different than having four hamburgers for four people.
[00:21:28] And it feels a lot different to have six hamburgers for four people, right? And money is one of those things that is translated. So like one of my values is generosity. If I have sufficient flow so that that part of me that I value gets to be exercised, that feels good to me. I also like to be a steward.
[00:21:54] It’s a word that kind of came back into me, and as soon as I like, you know, I really like stewarding for the future. Um, that’s different from like saving and protecting and kind of those survival oriented things, right? Hoarding, like stewarding for the future, um, feels different to me. So like, if I put a certain amount away for the future and I’m stewarding it, I’m tending to it for the future.
[00:22:22] It’s a bit like if I put hamburger in the freezer right for the future when, you know, I may want a hamburger and not have it in the refrigerator. And so, When I think about money, I value exchange. I value consensual exchange. That’s why I choose gliding. Scale for me is that that feels good to me. It, it means that my relationships that are gliding scale, there’s a congruence that I feel that that part of it is important to me right now.
[00:22:56] So like, oh, congruence and, um, generosity and stewardship. As long as my relation, anytime I bring money into it, um, I’m grounding it in those values. And I also know that money can be just like a thing, like, all right. Yeah. You know? And, um, part of boosting our value, especially since there’s so much energy around money.
[00:23:29] Um, like I. I value work. I don’t value struggle as much. Like I feel like we, we should be savvy enough to be able to shift from struggle into something. But I do value work. Like we’re here and we’re working. I’m showing up to work. This is skill development. This is skill practice. I’m bringing my professional self and my personal self, and by vulnerability it’s work.
[00:23:57] And so what I’m going to do is I, some of the money that comes in, I take and I steward it so that I can be generous with myself in the future, my family and others that I hold dear. You see? So there’s an energetic boost that happens when we’re connected to, well, why does this matter to me to make money as part of this?
[00:24:20] Yeah. And I think that when you have people that are very attuned to, um, the generosity and the spiritual purpose and other things, If money’s involved, I believe that there’s the potential to boost the value as long as you’re connecting it to things that actually matter to you, not what you’re being told outside.
[00:24:42] For example, one of the most confusing things I ever had to process was you need to be, um, if you don’t make a certain amount of money, you’re not being paid what you’re worth, what you’re valued. And that was very disorienting to me until I was like, you know, Hmm. That’s actually like, you can’t buy an hour of my time for, for me to do something that I don’t want to do.
[00:25:11] Yeah. Right. Cuz I value consent. Sorry, but I’ll pay you a hundred thousand dollars to No, no, not, not that it violates my values. Sorry. Um. Okay. Yeah, no, I think it’s, I I think what you’re, what you’re, what you’re saying was the flung the thoughts that I think we have archetypes in our society where it’s like, if you want money, you must focus solely on money and drive yourself to get the money in that.
[00:25:39] Or you’re someone who’s kind of like, you know, the grass grasshopper and the an different stories where you’re either not chasing it or you’re like, that’s all you do. Versus what if we can be in somewhere in the middle and find, like, this feels okay to me. I, I like the abundance that’s coming in. This doesn’t feel okay to me.
[00:25:57] I’m going to, you know, say no to it. Yeah. Um, and find a balance in our lives with the other things we value. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. I love the next You hear what’s coming up for people too. Yeah. As we go forward, um, should we move on to the next, next? Yeah, I think so. Okay, so I love this one. Um, the value of wanting to have a healthy sexual relationship versus shame stuff around that quote unquote, and I think that’s, it’s just such an important topic because I don’t, I work in a, with a lot of people that do sex education and talk about how to be more intimate with the partners, and yet, I still, I would, I don’t think I could ever say I met anyone without any shame around sexuality.
[00:26:41] Our society is just, and it’s gotten, I think, even more negative in the last few years where people feel embarrassed or scared to talk about it. Versus pleasure is something our body is, you know, like it’s part of our desires and it’s lovely to have pleasure and to have sexual pleasure, whether it’s with someone else or by ourselves.
[00:27:01] Um, so I think it’s, it’s lovely that someone, I’m glad that people felt safe enough to bring it up here. Um, And I just kind of want to normalize that. I don’t know that, you know, there’s, I don’t think there’s anyone that’s completely without shame, just cuz of the way we’re brought up around it. What are your thoughts, Rick?
[00:27:23] Um,
[00:27:33] well, someone said, I, you know, I have a value to grow in relationships, which has meant I’ve had many partners all my life. This is in contrast to my family’s value to pick one person for life. Um,
[00:27:50] I, I believe that when we have shame, it is certainly a powerful call. The emotional skill of how we are with shame, um, is life transforming and it’s also very challenging for me if I feel shame. Um, dropping into, do I feel the shame because I’m violating one of my values, my actual values, and am I gonna, I’m not gonna look at that.
[00:28:21] Or am I, Val, am I violating a societal value that I actually don’t hold? But our primitive brain is designed to, um,
[00:28:37] attune us to ways that we could be unsafe and, and going outside of a family norm. A, a societal norm, a tribal norm is a big deal for it. And if, if your nervous system, your psychology tends to go toward shame, um, that does not mean that you are actually doing something shameful. Now, if I value consent and I am going outside of consent at all, guess what?
[00:29:08] The shame is a call for me to recognize that I’m outside. Yeah. Of my own integrity. The, I believe this is where the skill comes in, discerning without like the reflexive defensiveness, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, can we do a little tapping on the shame? Because I think, I love the discernment you were talking about.
[00:29:31] Is this internal or is it external? And I think sometimes it’s very hard when we have intense shame to look at anything that clearly. Yeah. Um, so karate chop, even though I have a lot of shame around pleasure and partners, even though I have a lot of shame around pleasure and partners, I want to be more curious.
[00:29:51] I want to be more curious, and I’d love to find this playful, and I’d love to find this playful. It’s really hard to find this playful right now. It’s really hard to find this playful right now. I don’t know how to explore and discover what I like. I don’t know how to explore and discover how, what I like, because there’s so much shame here because there’s so much shame here.
[00:30:16] Top of the head. My system is clogged with shame. My system can get clogged with shame. I eyebrow, I learned this shame from my parents. I learned this shame from my parents and others. Yeah. Side of the eye in society and society under the eye. That person under the nose, they don’t feel confident around sexuality.
[00:30:42] They don’t feel what? Confident around sexuality. Yeah. They don’t feel confident or even safe and um, uh, anyway, Sharon, they don’t have any skills around sexuality. They don’t have the skills I need around sexuality. Collarbone. They may touch people in a certain way. They may touch people in a certain way.
[00:31:05] Under the arm, but they don’t know how to really explore. They don’t know how to really explore top of the head. The shame clogs their system too. Their the shame clogs their system too. Ira, what if there’s nothing wrong with exploring consensually? What if there’s nothing wrong with exploring consensually side of the eye?
[00:31:26] What if I can notice the shame and then invite it to move to the side? What if I can notice the shame and invite it to move to the side under the eye? This is my body. This is my body under the nose. I’m an adult. I’m an adult chin. I can consensually explore with myself and others. I can consensually explore with my consent with myself and others.
[00:31:49] Tell mom and I can notice this old shame that doesn’t really belong to me, and I can notice any shame that doesn’t belong to me. I can build the muscles of allowing myself to play anyway. I can build the muscles of allowing myself to play anyway, top of the head with other partners that wanna play with me, with other partners that wanna play with me and just take a deep breath.
[00:32:15] Kinda added that in cause about the relationships, um, having many partners in their life. Like that’s very, also very similar, brought up, very rigid and I have no problem. I, I happen to, I date multiple people at the same time. If that’s good. If that happens to be working out for everybody, um, it’s informed, it’s not sneaky.
[00:32:35] Um, and I have no problem with people that are monogamous, especially when they’ve thought about it and considered it for themselves and decided that versus mom and dad said this, the church said this and this is what we’re gonna do. So I love it. People like, yeah, I tried it out or I thought about it and it doesn’t feel like a good fit for me.
[00:32:53] I’m like, great. Love that for you. Um, But I think there’s a lot more fun when we can let life be more about curiosity and exploring and deciding like, oh, that didn’t feel so good. I don’t think I wanna do that again. Or, I’m not sure if this is that person or not. So maybe I’ll test it out. Um, we just get to like broaden things out in terms of possibility.
[00:33:16] We don’t ever have to do anything we don’t want to. But just to kind of let go of some of the shame in their Bridget have tos and become someone that’s like, oh, I feel playful today. How do I wanna explore this, this aspect of my life. Mm-hmm. Um, for those of us that are energy sensitive, you know, we may have been involved in abusive experiences where shame, the energy of shame was there.
[00:33:42] Um, but it doesn’t necessarily mean because we picked up on it that we did anything shameful. Um, so again, like I believe that one of the things that boosts. My sense of value is to know when I feel shame or when I felt shame, what values were, um, were not being recognized, were, were not being honored, were not even being asked about, or that I couldn’t even assert myself to support my own values, the things that mattered to me.
[00:34:18] Um, that was certainly true as a teenager. Um, and, you know, I can look at like, oh, and you know what? That really kind of distorted my sense of value that those were when we’ve had our values crushed by, um, by trauma, uh, or by experiences or just a world that we lived in for a while. Um, can be a long while.
[00:34:42] Um, we can, it takes a little while to recalibrate. And I, I believe some of that happens by default as we’re in a different environment being supported by other people. Um, if I didn’t believe that it was also a skill that we can say, Hey, you know, I’m feeling a little bit down about my, what, my worthiness, um, um,
[00:35:10] what would it look like if I walked as a worthy person, as somebody who knew their values and could radiate that. Um, well, it might require being okay with those. Um, there’s some work around that, um, that, et cetera. Yeah. Well, I just, I think someone shared, I think that kind of flows from what you were saying.
[00:35:33] Someone shared that they were raised earlier in, in the, this, in the 19 hundreds. Um, and they didn’t, weren’t able to learn what they wanted in sexuality. Um, and is kind of overwhelming to that. They feel like maybe they’re not monogamous. Um, and I think that that’s okay to declare ourselves what we are.
[00:35:52] Like I’ve been, I cons, I consider myself polyamorous, so I, I will on I, if I’m in multiple relationships, I want everyone to know each other and I want it to be love based. I have very much, I’m very con like a deep connection that works really well for me. That, and I’ve also been, during that time, I’ve dated one person when I was just not dating other people.
[00:36:14] Um, and that person was, you know, like we, we discussed it, we talked about it. So wherever you are, I think you, you can. You can declare yourself, you can identify yourself as non-monogamous, even if in your, in a monogamous relationship, like your, that’s your identity. Um, and I think that that can give us some freedom just to declare, like, this is who I am, even if I never get a chance to explore it in this lifetime, or maybe I will.
[00:36:43] But I, I am declaring who I am for myself and living in alignment, at least in my identity of, of who I am. And I think there’s, um, I know for myself when I, I first started dating women as well, I, um, I found that there was a freedom, a release inside myself when I was just, Nope, I’m supposed to be heterosexual.
[00:37:08] This is all there is. I will ignore any other feelings. And when I declared, oh, I, you know, I like, I like to date people in general, not just, I don’t care so much about gender. Um, I felt more aligned with myself and I felt like there was more gentle energy flow on my body. Mm-hmm. Like, I felt good about myself.
[00:37:28] So around monogamy or non-monogamy, um, whoev, what genders we date, I think that, you know, like what, what kind of food we like. Just being able to break out and be aware that, hey, even though I was fed these rules, these rigid rules, or I, I thought that was how things were. It was either this or this. Um, being able to consciously choose, gives us a lot of freedom.
[00:37:52] Yeah. Top of the head. These rigid rules, these rigid rules, and how they’ve confused me and how they’ve confused me. Eyebrow, all the rigid rules, all the rigid rules side of the eye. All the rigid rules, all the rigid rules under the eye. What matters to me. What matters to me under the nose if there weren’t those rules?
[00:38:22] If there weren’t those rules, Jen, what would matter to me? What would matter to me Call, what would be my choice? What would be my choice? The arm. If I had emotional freedom here, what would I choose? If I had emotional freedom here, what would I choose? What feels right in my core? What feels right in my core?
[00:38:55] Yeah, just don’t tell them that I’m considering it. If there’s a them, um, part. I believe that there’s emotional skill and um, I. Cultivating within yourself and with, with people that can resonate and accept, um, anyone knows someone who is accepting of other people’s values at like less than a three. You know, like, um, they’re pretty rigid and pretty, they’re very rigid.
[00:39:30] If, if somebody looks at the world their way, then they’re fine, but they really aren’t very high on the acceptance of other nuanced viewpoints and things like that. I know so many. Yeah, I know a few. Um, those are not the people necessarily that we engage with in order to cultivate acceptance and, um, other things.
[00:39:55] And that’s part of, um, another aspect of valuing, um, boosting the value of emotional skills. I value acceptance. I can accept that people that. Really are more, I’m using a term rigid. Um, steel is rigid. That doesn’t make it bad. It makes a terrible trampoline, by the way, especially, you know, um, every material we have is useful for different things, and we have people that are, uh, oriented differently.
[00:40:29] Some people really hold a culture together through re through, um, rules and authority. I understand that it doesn’t fit with my freedom essential nature. Um, but like if I’m, if I’m in a dynamic with somebody who holds a different value around something that’s as core as acceptance, um, I want to be aware that I value those in my life who hold that and practice it.
[00:41:04] Practicing acceptance is, uh, Challenging. Um, it, it asks of us and it’s a, and a core aspect of Vft tapping, which we’ve been using. The standard saying, which when I started tapping, that’s really all people said was I deeply and completely accept myself. Uh, I’d be like, I don’t, and I don’t accept them. Like, what?
[00:41:31] Talking about myself, forget not even a. I do value acceptance, but I can’t get there. I love it. I talked, I, you know, and, and by cultivating acceptance for 30 years, um, I’m better at it now and I’m still working at it. Um, because it matters to me so much. It’s a boost to me to know how much acceptance matters to me.
[00:41:59] And I like a world that has more of it, rather than, um, a world where there’s less of it. And so I’m bringing that value out into the world, um, in my relationships and my work in, um, my attitudes. Uh, best I can. Um, I think it’s, and I, I feel a boost in my value by knowing that about myself. You do that? Yeah.
[00:42:22] And it sometimes can feel a little scary. Like, I was feeling someone just about me sharing about my sexuality and my identity. I was feeling a little insecure. I don’t know everyone on these calls. And I was like, oh, I hope I don’t make anyone. I hate making people uncomfortable. Um, and I also think it’s really important for people to know they’re, they can be accepted whatever their gender identity, their sexual identity, their relationship identity.
[00:42:47] I want everyone to feel comfortable here. So I make it a policy to try to speak up what it’s, I think it’s appropriate to the conversation. And a couple people said that they appreciated me sharing that. So like, I, I try to use my courage to model that it’s okay and safe to be whoever you are here. And other people modeled their courage by, you know, letting me know they’ve, that they were appreciating that.
[00:43:10] So there’s like a. A support we can do. And also when we’re breaking some of these rules, we can feel insecure. And sometimes we take insecurity to mean that we’re doing something wrong versus this is new and I don’t have really strong muscles yet. So I think that that, that discernment to like, if we start feeling a little insecure, like, oh, did I do a bad thing?
[00:43:33] Like taking a breath. And saying, did this fit my, my, does this mo fit the values I have? Which it really did. And we can ask people that are we care about, and then if they say, yeah, I really support you, like, that can help too. We don’t have to be just internally referenced. We just be selective about who we externally reference to.
[00:43:53] Um, and just notice that, oh, sometimes I feel insecure when I’m doing something that I don’t know everyone here and I’m not, you know, I, I want every, I want everyone to feel safe in the circle. That’s really important to me too. Mm-hmm. So, um, If we’re starting to try to break down some walls for ourselves, it can take a little bit of energy and a little bit of like, oh, okay, this is a little scary.
[00:44:16] And we can ask a friend, like Rick and I have talked many times and he is always encouraged me to be open about who I am. Mm-hmm. So that, that definitely helps and we kind of build the muscles for courage around that. Acceptance, inclusion and um mm-hmm. There’s the quality too, of asking those that you are close to what you, what do you value here?
[00:44:39] Especially if they’re confronting something. Um, I asked a, I asked a colleague, um, well, what do you really value here? Cuz I was a little lost. And just by getting what they value, I was able to reflect. Um, that to other people in a way that they were like, oh, that explains everything. Which surprised me, like how dramatic it was.
[00:45:15] But we often think that what someone, someone’s being unreasonable. Okay. Well, they may not be coming from their reasoning part of them. Yeah. They might, they may be coming from their values that, that are being bumped up against or that are confused in that moment. Um, why they might be scared out of their mind.
[00:45:38] Yeah. They could be in their primitive brain. Um, I’m, I’m, I’m inviting us as we want to boost our value. If you value like knowing someone, I value connection and asking what someone values. I’m looking for resonance and I’m looking for ways to support them. In that, wow, what a difference that makes in the vibe between us when we know like, what do you value here?
[00:46:08] Especially if someone’s really going through a hard time. Um, I think it’s, I can support someone better if I know what they, what they value, what matters to them, um, than if I guess, and if I help them get clarity, that’s, that’s even better. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that I, I would like to just go into a little bit of like, do we allow ourselves to have value?
[00:46:40] Like we talked about this a little bit. Um, again, if we grew up where there was just like, oh, people are, are making me do things I don’t like, or I’m having to live in a world where I don’t fit. It’s easier to kind of like displace our values or feel valueless. And I think that, um, If you, if you are feeling guilty for having opinions about other people that can be one or sha ashamed for having, uh, values that are different.
[00:47:06] I think around the sexuality too, like we’re brought up around, we’re supposed to not really think about it or talk about it. We’re just supposed to be really good at it, but not too good at it. And we should, we should like it a lot, but not too much. And we should only like it with a certain kind of people at a certain time, preferably in a dark bedroom.
[00:47:24] Like, you know, when no one’s around, like there’s so many like unspoken rules, like, dear Lord, no wonder I have trouble with this thing. Um, and there may be the shame may fill up so much space. It’s hard to let ourselves really notice what we like so, I think that when we’re, I, I’d love to do a little tapping on this too, but I think that when we’re first learning value our own values about someplace in a topic that we feel very agitated or ashamed about, or we feel guilty about it, um, one of the things I recommend for clients when I’m working with like, what do I like sexually?
[00:47:59] I don’t even know, um, is research night. Like just set, set aside a time. You can do this with a partner or without a partner. Um, there’s a couple different things. Is it okay for me to share this example Rick? Sure. Um, uh, we’re coming up on our break time. Okay. Well, so I’ll, we’ll, I’ll just, if it’s okay, I’ll wrap.
[00:48:19] We’ll, I’ll just give a couple examples so we can go Sure. To break and ponder this. You can, you can interpret this for other things too, if you’re dealing with money or whatever, but around sexuality, um, whether it you’re by yourself or with a, in a couple or threesome or whatever you have, uh, you can get the same book.
[00:48:38] Um, and one thing we do is, uh, we, you can go through and highlight like a racy book with some, some exciting scenes in there. Um, when, when I’m with work with couples, I have them, um, each have a different color and you highlight the scenes that are really racy and maybe put a would never do a cross next to the ones you would never want to do, but you’re trying to discover what’s like, erotic to your brain and.
[00:49:04] What’s also central to your body? Like, does your body think this is a good idea? Do you actually like to have it or do you wanna just whisper the fantasy in your ear? So that’s erotic versus in your body fantasy, want it actually to happen to your body, if that makes sense. Um, both people highlight them and the ones that they both highlight.
[00:49:25] I see your, I’m not sure whether other people are seeing this. Your, um, your video just locked up for me. Anyone else seeing that? Or maybe it’s on my side. Kathy, are you still there?
[00:49:46] Well, Am I back? You’re back. Yeah. I don’t know. It just went poop. So, so much energy. Boom, boom, boom. I was like, oh no, I can’t handle this. But just exploring. And it could be as simple as like, how do I wanna be touched? Do I wanna be, you know, like what if you’re lying in bed? Light some candles, whether you’re by yourself or not.
[00:50:07] Just exploring different kind of touches. Do I like my just nails along with the my skin? Do I like a little more firm touch? Just learning that most people don’t know. Most people have never taken the time to figure it out. And when you discover that for yourself or with, and or with a partner or partners partner, life gets really interesting cuz then you can say, remember that touch you did with me with your nails?
[00:50:32] Could you do that on my back? Oh my God, that feels so good. Okay, but don’t do that here. Like, you start learning each other rather than having to guess. And a lot of shame goes away when we have knowledge. When we’ve had the experience with the knowledge shame, it’s harder to feel ashamed of something, you know, brings delight and pleasure to yourself or your partner.
[00:50:51] Um, so I just wanted to share that cuz I think it’s a, a useful way for people to counter things. And the same can be about money. Like what are some skills I can do to, to manage my money or to feel less shameful around it? What feels good to me when someone shared, I found an awful lot of these loaded topics, too complicated to really understand what I value.
[00:51:11] So I end up keeping things very simple, not just sexuality, many things, other things as well. To me, a value, um, like what you just described energetically, there’s a lot of different aspects to that. It’s a, it’s an experience and for me also, like, um, if I come back to, I value deep intimacy and connection with.
[00:51:38] Someone I care about. Mm-hmm. Well, that grounds that whole thing in a different place. That’s true for me. Yeah. So, um,
[00:51:53] that’s, that’s something that I didn’t, that, that I’m glad we’re getting a chance to share is that we, if you, if there’s something that’s chaotic and confusing, is there a value that you do know about yourself mm-hmm. That, that can be grounded into. Um, and if so, let it sit there for a little bit to see what evolves or doesn’t from it.
[00:52:22] Um, anyway. Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s, um, we’re gonna take a, we’re gonna take a seven minute break. We’ll be back at the top of the hour. Um, yeah. And, uh, I really appreciate all of you coming on this ride with us and exploring like it’s a tough topic and you’re a rock. I can’t wait to see him back to go further.
[00:52:42] Yeah. Welcome back.
[00:52:53] Where do you feel wrong to go with us? Um,
[00:53:00] I was wondering about doing some tapping and I just realized I replied to the wrong direct method message. So if your mess my message to you doesn’t make sense, I’ll get, I’ll fix it in a minute. I replied to the wrong person. Um, I would love to just maybe do some tapping, inviting us to get, have more clarity to let our values come back to us, um, and for us to have clarity, if that feels okay.
[00:53:23] Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, so invite you if, if you’re, you know, just let yourself be here. Let the outside world kind of drift away and just be here with us now and just take a nice, slow, deep breath. Let yourself drop into your body, fill your toes on the floor, button the chair, pr each up. Chap, even though there wasn’t a lot of room for my values growing up, even though there wasn’t a lot of room for my values growing up, and there wasn’t a lot of Val room in Soci from society anyway, there wasn’t a lot of room in society anyway, for me to have my own personal values, to have me, my own personal values.
[00:54:09] I am making room for my values now. I am actively making room for my values now, and I invite all those displaced values and I invite all those displaced values. The ones that feel really good to me, the ones that feel really good to me to come back home, to come back home, top of the head. They belong in my heart.
[00:54:32] They belong in my heart eyebrow. They belong in my mind. They belong in my mind side of the eye. I didn’t get to practice having these values when I was growing up. I didn’t get to practice having clearer values growing up under the eye, and I’m ready to practice in baby steps and I’m ready to practice in baby steps under the nose, in the right times, and situations for me in the right times and situations for me.
[00:55:00] Chin. I can be smart about this. I can be smart about this collarbone, and I can own my own identity and I can own my own identity. Whether it’s safe to be open about that or not, whether it’s safe to be open about that or not. Top of head. I welcome these values back home. I welcome these values back home and I release the shame and I release the shame.
[00:55:29] Nice deep breath.
[00:55:38] Hmm.
[00:55:48] I wonder if, um, one thought I had was if we had our values, if we had, we let ourselves feel valuable and valued around our values. Can you just imagine, just now for a moment now, if you let yourself just kind of own. Your own identity, your own what matters to you. How would you feel inside and how might you walk differently in the world?
[00:56:14] I know that when I’m trying to conform to other people’s values, I’m certainly not confident because people’s values change. And when I’m with different groups, different values matter, and I’m like, Ooh, what, what am I doing it right? Versus when I’m like, oh, I’m gonna, I’m gonna honor who I am. I can be smart.
[00:56:31] I’m not gonna go to the middle of a k Ku clicks plan meeting and say Black Lives Matter. Um, I can stand up for, for that value in other ways that is less dangerous. Um, and some people, you know, however people fight, that is their own choice. Um, But I, I do think that we can, we walk differently when we’re holding our identity to ourselves at the very least.
[00:56:54] Like, oh, I am this person. I value this, I express myself this, I prefer to express myself this way. So if you’d like to share in the chat, you’re most, you’re most welcome to. So, someone, um, brought up that they were asked to list their top five values and, you know, been overwhelmed a bit by Googling it. Um, I, I’m not a hierarchy person, so if you ask me what my top five values are, uh, I value an awareness of a spectrum.
[00:57:28] And a circle. So what are the top five spots on a circle or in an ecosystem? I can’t do it. So like, um, the overwhelm in that case isn’t necessarily about being, uh, it, it just doesn’t fit what I value. Now, if I was asked to do that within a relationship, if my partner says, well, what’s, what’s alive for you right now?
[00:57:51] What are, um, what’s a value or five that you’d like to share with me to help me tune to your inner world? Well, that’s, that’s not asking me to, to rank order them, but I could say, um,
[00:58:18] you know, savvy. It’s a weird one. It’s one that hasn’t been alive in me in a long time, but there’s a quality of being in the infinite game and like they’re saying, oh, there’s uncertainty. Well, I know how to be with uncertainty. Oh, there’s stresses. I know how to be with stresses. Oh, there’s sickness. I know how to be with sickness.
[00:58:38] Oh, like so if you wanted, you all now know that right now, savvy is one of the things. It’s a reminder of some skill that I’ve cultivated over the decades that allow me to do that. And so it’s an invitation sometimes when we’re, when we’re put on the spot and something is feeling overwhelming, you can ask, well, is there a value of mine?
[00:59:04] Something that matters to me that, um, this feels, it goes counter or sideways to it could be like there’s a pressure to reveal where, you know, what you really want is to reveal what’s a choice. Like I, transparency is something I value, but consent I value as well. And so unless they go together, if you ask, if you demand that I be transparent, we got a problem because I have other values that will kick in to say, and, and so I can say, well, I value transparency and I also value consent.
[00:59:44] And, and I also. Value that body guidance that gives me the yes that says, um, this is what I’m wanting to share into this space. Um, and just that, um, well, I think too, if we Google values and you Google values, you’re gonna come up with a list of hundreds of different things that are somewhat similar too to each other, some of them.
[01:00:13] Um, I think if, if we can look at just our lives, like I spent part of this afternoon, even though I was in a, a workshop all day, um, helping my mom with something on our computer. And I value kindness. I value supporting other people. Like, what, where are we making either making certain, like sacrifice in the sense that I really would’ve liked to have been away from a computer for that time, um, or.
[01:00:39] Where are we stretching ourselves to be someplace or do something like that might help us see our values a little bit, especially if it’s not something n no one was telling me I had to. Mm-hmm. It was just I didn’t want her to be, um, worried about it overnight. So like, where can you, that, that would be a way to find your, to look at what you value in a more organic way, rather than looking at the list of hundreds of things that are, you know, very heady.
[01:01:04] Like, huh, I really value people having choice, or I value people being ex self-expressed, or whatever it might, that might help narrowed it down. Mm-hmm.
[01:01:16] Um, yeah. Just, sorry, just checking on the messages. Um, All right. We wanna talk about some of the emotional skills. I think it’s really important because it’s very ha hard to have our own, like we’re talking about owning our own values and, and being self-expressed. And if we’re around someone who’s in primitive brain, um, or who is not respecting boundaries or is freaking out, um, that’s very, very hard to own that.
[01:01:45] And it’s, it’s especially hard if it’s our own self that’s like, oh my God, I’m gonna talk about sexuality. Oh my God, oh my God. Like it’s there. Discernment and calm and centered and thoughtful. Those all go out the window and we’re, when primitive brain or lack of boundaries or lack of skill, like we wanna have the skills with the, with, with the drive, if that makes sense.
[01:02:07] It does. Um, I’m also looking forward over the next, the next years, um, what emotional skills do you want us to focus on? So whether it’s now or anytime in the future. I’d love to hear from you. Uh, if you email support thriving now.com, it comes to both Kathy and I. Um, if you could let us know, Hey, the, this is an emotional skill.
[01:02:33] It, it’s one that if I could take it to the next level, it would be, it would be really useful for me. It would be really helpful for me. It would help, it would support my thriving life to have this emotional skill. Uh, Kathy and I started with like, reprogramming the primitive brain. Like, to me, that’s a real skill.
[01:02:53] Um, reprogramming, the primitive brain says, what’s a primitive brain? How do I know? Fight, flight, freeze is kind of the shortcut of it. Um, what do I do? How do I, how did it get, like, how do I want us to, what I really want to be and how I want to live? Um, we, we have a program reprogram Your Primitive Grain.
[01:03:15] Um, thriving now.com/primitive dash. Brain. Um, and a lot of these other real skills are, uh, the other aspects of the ecosystem. They all touch on the primitive brain because, you know, we have one, it has its own attitudes toward everything. Um, when Kathy was talking about pleasure, your primitive brain probably has, uh, some noise about that or some assertions.
[01:03:45] Um, when I think about being, um, savvy, my primitive brain goes, yeah, but don’t be arrogant. And I, I’m like, uh, that’s, that’s the, so like, it can feel like an electric cattle prod and you’re like, oh, I’m not gonna do anything at all. Now I’m just gonna be really quiet. Like, so one of the things about emotional skills is recognizing, oh yeah, if it matters to me, there’s gonna be noise.
[01:04:14] Mm-hmm. And what do I do with that noise? Um, So like, as soon as it came out of my mouth, I’m savvy, which is one of the ways to test, you know, I’m eager, I’m savvy, and I was like, oh God, I hope, I’m glad no one’s here to hear that. Right. Like that. That’s a what? It’s a flight. It’s a flight from something that I am, I am savvy.
[01:04:42] Um, and even as I say that, I start getting a little red in the cheeks. Good. As part of me developing the skill and part of this, the skill. Like I, I’ve been using, I’m sorry, as, as, as a like a, a emergency outlet. Um, like I say it still a lot, I say it to God like, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Like if, and my guidance is guiding me to say I’m savvy.
[01:05:15] And see what happens to the energy with that. Now, I hope you find that weird. I think a lot of emotional work is weird. I believe that it blends our spiritual connection and our emotional, um, life. Um, I believe that it is part of the freedom is to explore things that feel weird and uncomfortable. Um, and I just know from a foundational level, the life-changing effect of recognizing when I’m in my primitive brain, recognizing when my partner is in their primitive brain, when my children are in their primitive brain, when the person replying on Twitter is in their primitive brain.
[01:06:07] Um, when like, wow. That is so useful. And instead of labeling it as defensiveness, it becomes more like, oh, okay, well I’m talking to their monkey mind or their lizard self. Um, you know, we’re right up against that. And that, that’s part of boosting, um, my own sense that I’m developing a skill, and this is, this is part of the tracking.
[01:06:37] We talk about baby steps. Um, emotional skill work is typically not just like a big cure. Now sometimes there’s a place where like, oh, I was like this and all of a sudden I am mostly over here. That feels great. That’s not the end point. To me, emotional skills are like wisdom. Um, there’s no cap. Um, If you, if you value how you feel as you develop a sense of your own energy, emotional skill is energy and motion, um, your own skill with your own energy.
[01:07:17] And that feels good to you. Noticing like, oh, I actually understand the primitive brain and how it works in me. Oh, I tend to go toward flight. So like that awareness. Some people go toward fight, some people go toward flight, um, around certain things. I used to go toward freeze. Um, what’s great about that is that when you’re in a situation and you go to that, go-to, you know, oh, I’m in my primitive brain.
[01:07:44] I’m not gonna make a decision right yet. Um, it’s not an emergency. If it is, you’ll make the decision without even being aware of it. Um, and that’s. It’s an invitation that, um, how life changes when we start noticing the humanity and the range of humanity, including in ourselves. Um,
[01:08:13] and a lot of what? A lot of what? Um, well, when other people are in their primitive brain, I, I believe that there’s a lot of things. If you value safety, you can say, right now I value safety and I’m gonna give you some space. I’m gonna take some space. Um, I can, I can, I can hold up a hand, Hey, this is not okay for me.
[01:08:42] Mm-hmm. And I’m going to dot, dot do. Um, I think that’s sometimes hard for people that have, uh, I’m gonna say I think society acculturate, uh, women identified people a little bit more this way. But I think it’s for all of us that when we’ve not been allowed to have our own values and we’ve come up with someone who’s not, they’re either they’re not respecting our boundaries, or they have something very different belief wise, or they’re very upset, we tend to lose our center of gravity.
[01:09:12] Sure. Um, and I’ve been doing a, um, again, radical honesty. Uh, some of it I like, some of I don’t, they talk about the split screen. Where can I be with my own feelings about this and my own beliefs, and can I also be aware of this other person? And they’re like, maybe they’re, um, really upset about this topic.
[01:09:30] Or they’re really uncomfortable and they can be. Yes. And it’s not like, oh, they’re upset I have to let go of all my beliefs. Um, or they’re, they’re very angry. I have to like, agree with them. It’s like, I, I think that was, I. Kinda like you can, oh yeah. You, I can have my beliefs, you can have your reaction and we both can be okay.
[01:09:52] And I think our primitive brain gets really agitated when we start doing this. The muscles are very weak. Someone said, I’d like to get better at being, um, present in a helpful place when someone needs to open up about something that’s difficult or painful, knowing how to stand in a place that’s good for them and me too.
[01:10:10] And I think that’s like our primitive brain will freak out because maybe we haven’t practiced this very much. So we can just take it in baby steps and go, oh, I’m gonna tolerate this feeling of yes. And for just a few seconds. They don’t agree with me, I’m actually safe. I can still have my beliefs. Okay, I can now I can just go back to what I normally do.
[01:10:33] But to flex those muscles a little bit, to find that balance of, and it, I think it really depends on how safe I feel. So if I’m with a boss that I don’t feel that safe with, I’m certainly gonna err towards appearing to conform more. Yeah. Versus if I’m with a good friend where I’m like, you know, I really, I’d like to talk about this more cuz I don’t really agree with it and I’m curious if you know where is this coming from cuz it doesn’t match what I know of you.
[01:10:58] Mm-hmm. So we get to find the balance, but practicing those muscles and tolerating the discomfort that comes up can really build muscles where we can split screen that, if that makes sense. Where we can like, oh. Here’s my beliefs. I, this is who I am and you’re not dealing with it well. Um, and I get to decide how I can still be with me and decide how much to share.
[01:11:22] Does that make sense? It does. I think this the skill of tolerating discomfort, um, not as a lifestyle choice, but as a moment of building that muscle. Um, I think about the, you know, building muscle in the gym. There is definitely moments of discomfort. Discomfort, um, that you’re tolerating for a purpose, for a reason, for something that you value.
[01:11:46] Um, yeah. Interesting. Um, anyone else have something that they would like to, where they would like to go? We have about 11 minutes, 10 minutes, some aspect of this exploration that you’d like us to touch on.
[01:12:09] So, yes, Anne reminds me, reminds of defensive states and the nervous system and the tolerance of am ambiguity. Yeah. People don’t deal with ambiguity really well, especially if they have trauma or their, their brains are not as flexible. They haven’t really exposed themselves to different perspectives and different ideas.
[01:12:29] It tends to be very rigid. Mm-hmm. Someone asked about how do our values, um, blend with our desires and needs. Mm-hmm. Um, what’s fascinating to me is I’m such an emotional being that if I’m focused on being eager, I’m gonna desire things and have certain needs than if I’m focused on comfort or ease. If I’m, if I, if I value, um, acceptance.
[01:13:05] I’m gonna have a different attunement than if I’m, I’m valuing, um,
[01:13:17] holding a space which I do value. They may not be big differences, but, um, and this is, this is where I’m, I’m leaning as we go forward, like, how do you blend values consciously? So I value being calm and confident. I am far from perfect, but if I, if I wake up in the morning or if I’m distressed in some way, and I say calm and confident.
[01:13:47] I have a value of walking in the world that way if I blend calm and confident with eager, I’m gonna have some different desires and needs, um, that I’m gonna try to get from the universe and with the universe and with the people around me than if I’m calm and confident and competent. Oh, I love being competent.
[01:14:11] If I want to be competent, I’m gonna pick something that I’m gonna feel competent about. Um, if I want to feel useful, calm and confident, uh, oh, my desires and needs are gonna flow from that a bit differently. If I’m in my primitive brain, I just want it to stop. If it, my needs are going to be like, I want the pain to stop.
[01:14:33] I want the pain to stop. I want the pain to stop. Now, what do I have to do to stop the pain? Um, I can be in pain and calm and confident and be curious or listening. I value listening. I can listen to my body’s guidance. It’s like, oh yeah, I want the, I want the pain to stop. Thank you permitted brain. And my listening is there are layers of frustration in that tissue.
[01:15:00] Okay. Ah. Well, I think if I can just go, I, I love what you shared and I wanted to share it from a slightly different perspective. Great. I think that when our, our values and our desires seem to be in conflict, there may be something out of balance. So I was really brought up, I love to work hard. It’s just part of who I am.
[01:15:20] I’m like, it just feels good to get a lot done. Um, that was very, very much encouraged in my life and in corporate world that’s like, yes, give her more. She can handle it. Um, so that got really outta balance with a part of me that loves to sit quietly in the backyard and hear the birds and just sit there and stare at the gr the grass growing or whatever.
[01:15:41] Um, so I would feel the desire to be quiet. And I would feel like that was in conflict with the desire to get a lot done. They felt like there were direct conflict, but really, I have both. And I, when I can recognize I have both, and if I start feel really strong longing for something, maybe it’s because I’m, I think our desires often point towards what our values are.
[01:16:05] Um, and so my val, you know, it was not giving myself enough knowledge, you know, acknowledgement of like, oh, I do need some downtime. I actually work much better. I get more done in a shorter time when I’m well rested. And I’ve had time watching the birds. I’ve also had that with eating. I’ve eaten in, uh, I abuse history.
[01:16:25] Food was the way I felt comfort, and there was like conflict. Like I value being in, you know, fit and feeling good about my body. And here I am eating food that I don’t want. The, the need for safety was so, I, I didn’t. I think I had had so little safety sometimes that I didn’t even acknowledge it as something I valued, so I couldn’t see.
[01:16:46] That was one of the things I was looking at. So if you have a conflict, I ask, I’d invite you to dig a little deeper because I don’t think our true desires and our true values are ever in conflict unless we’re out of balance and ignoring one of those values, if that makes sense. I think that there are what we desire and what we value when we’re, we’ve cleared out traumas and we have good balance, I believe that they would be truly aligned with each other.
[01:17:11] Mm-hmm. Which fits, you know, my, my model of the emotional world is an ecosystem that, um, I value hard work. I value, um, replenishment. I, I value, um, generosity I value. Rep replenishment. Um, so like there’s, there, if you think of your emotional world and these values as an ecosystem, there’s less of a, oh, they have to be, they have to fit all the time.
[01:17:43] Um hmm. It, it’s sunny part of the day, it’s not part of the day. Um, you can be really eager for a moment and really useful for a moment or really appreciating for a moment or really just basting and savoring for a moment. I love that basting. Yes. It’s a great word. So that’s, that’s part of the beautiful thing about what we’re doing with real skills is, um, we’re touching on a lot of different aspects and that’s, that’s why I’ve got a 30 year notion about this rather than, uh, oh, we’re just gonna get this done.
[01:18:25] Um, um, And we do invite your wisdom. We invite the things that you’re noticing in your world that, um, particularly if your world is calling forth skill, that that is, it matters to you. I would love to know. Um, it helps me to know what’s going on in people’s worlds. We cover the planet, um, across our whole community of thousands of people.
[01:18:54] Um, and there’s a core group that shows up for these that helps co-create them through your feedback, through your energy, through your attention. I know that I value my attention. What I put my attention on, I change. And I can feel from each of your names, even if your video is not off. The attention that you bring the questions that arise is the contrast that you pull away from the closeness that you give to certain ideas changes.
[01:19:21] This for Kathy and I, it ev evokes things and, um, that’s. A profound part of crafting a, an emotional world where we each get to know our values, share what we value with one another, and then make it more easeful and fun and pleasurable and all the good things to walk. As a human who has our unique set of values, um, to me, all of our artistry, uh, all of my artistry rises from my values.
[01:19:54] Whether they’re, I’m consciously aware of it or not, the more conscious I’ve become through this work and through engagement with you all as a coach, uh, the more that I get to feel the richness when, when I recognize, oh, there’s, there’s somebody that, that has this value. Oh, so glad you exist in the world.
[01:20:17] Thank you. And thank you for having the value of doing this and being. Being here together with us, it’s made a huge difference. Um, yeah, if I would, I’d just love for you for just a moment to tune into yourself and realize one of your values is exploring values or you wouldn’t have spent an hour and a half on a Sunday afternoon doing it or whatever time of the day it is for you.
[01:20:44] So I think that’s really awesome. I think it’s amazing and I like, I want more people like you around. So if you can thank yourself for being the kind of person that wanted to show up for this kind of a call, which most people are like, you’re gonna do what? Crazy. Like let’s have a barbecue. Well, we can have a barbecue, but we can be there present with what our values and desires are.
[01:21:05] So, um, I just, I just think you’re amazing and I just wanna acknowledge the, I appreciate your c curiosity and your willingness to look at these really tough subjects. So thank you very much. Ah, thank you. And thank you for the feedback. Um, this,
[01:21:26] I remember the first client that I had for tapping and they said, I feel worthless. And we tapped and we cried cuz I hadn’t healed my own at that point, they feel worthless, felt really like close to the bone for both of us. And some divine guidance had us start talking about what matters to us. And, um, And it was a big shift for both of us.
[01:22:06] And I, I appreciate you all being here and I, I came to understand I deeply value co-creation and tapping for me is, is a profound one. We say something and you say what? We said, do you modify it? You say, no thanks. That’s co-creating at its fineness for me. So bless you. Thank you. Thank you Kathy for all these co-creating pleasure, love that you brought this together.
[01:22:37] Yeah, have a awesome rest of the weekend and amazing week. Yeah, we’ll be back with you soon. Bye.
[01:22:45]
We covered…
- When we know our inner values, external values can be checked against our own inner awareness of what matters to us.
- Most of us were not raised to discover our own values – especially if they contradicted our parents or the part of the culture they identified with. That can leave us “trying to please” (people pleasing) or feeling we don’t have worth and value.
- When adopting fresh values that resonate with us, expect the primitive brain to flinch or resist. It’s normal! Tapping helps to reaffirm what matters to us and tune into core values that work for our nature and intentions.
- Emotional skills help us bring more of ourselves into all our relationships, including the precious one with ourselves.
- What emotional skills do you want to cultivate and boost in the months and years ahead? We’d love to hear from you!
Resources Mentioned
Great to have you on this journey with us!
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