When to Calm and When to Listen!

 Real Skills Workshop - Community Event


RS 2022-06-26 Listen

When to Calm and When to Listen!

Real Skills Workshop: Clear & Focused Action

Hosts: Rick Wilkes (@Rick) and Cathy Vartuli (@Cathy)

Recorded Sun Jun 26 2022

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:point_right: Replay is below


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When to Calm and When to Listen!

Ever been told to “calm down”? How did you feel about that?

Ever told yourself you “should” calm down, while knowing this actually IS a big deal for you in ways that need to be acknowledged?

How do we discern between situations where we’re more triggered than is useful… and situations where we’re rightfully activated?

To me – who values emotional freedom – determining that is up to each of us individually. Other people can ask, reflect, and hold space… but the determination is ours to make.

I needed to develop that skill. Indeed, discernment was one of the first skills I needed on my path to healing and resiliency.

Our inner critic and primitive brain are PART of our discernment network. When they get riled up, there is an “intelligence” at work – even if it is the intelligence of a small dog, or overprotective warden.

I’m looking forward to sharing with you, as is Cathy, some of the questions and perspectives we take when getting clear and deciding what actions to take.

Sometimes (often for me) it involves acknowledging fears… and calming them to an appropriate level so that I can still take actions that matter for my well-being and thriving (and not freeze or procrastinate!).

Listening is core: listening for the message behind the fears (even if it is child-like). Bringing compassion more than self-criticism, aware that fears and angers and anxieties are meant to keep us safe in their own (often crude) ways.

If this practice feels like it would be useful to you, too, join us…

:point_right: Replay is below

Being calm and confident is part of the process. Core to that is listening with a wise ear, able to discern between guidance and fearful noise.

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Rick & Cathy
Your Emotional Freedom Coaches

P.S. Adira says, “Do you hear what I hear?”

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But it is NOT okay…

Some situations are simply NOT okay. They violate our core values.

That it is even possible for “this to happen” evokes All The Feelings: Rage and Run, Discouragement and Desperation, Outrage and Overwhelm.

WTF do we do with all those feels, especially when many hit on the same day?!?

I know if I try to “force” myself to be calm, all those feelings go underground but still make me feel sick – in my gut or an overall distress deep inside.

Over the past two and a half years, and yes this week, I’ve heard, seen, and had activated so much! Yet, in order to do my work in the world it requires that I not disassociate… or pretend… or burst into flames.

What has been needed is a strategy:

  1. Calm ENOUGH so that I’m not in primitive brain.

  2. Invest and Respect my core values enough to listen, hear, get clear, and take an inspired action – however small or insignificant that may seem.

  3. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. (So very very often.)

Us sensitive folk who deeply value freedom desire a different emotional world than the one that sometimes intrudes on our well-being like nasty smoke. I believe we can practice, with real skill, ways to filter and refine what we take in so it does less harm and even inspires us with a longer view.

If that kind of skill feels like it would be useful to you, too, join Cathy and me for this real skills workshop!

The world is likely to always offer contrast. That does not mean we’re powerless to influence how we respond and co-create the world to come.

P.S. Our Circle Membership - now available for
a one-time payment on a gliding scale
.
Circle Members get all Real Skills Workshops (and much more)!

:point_right: Replay is below

Rick & Cathy
Your Emotional Freedom Coaches

P.S. Adira says, “Let’s step out into this world with our rain slickers and our water shoes! Together we explore what is… and what could be!”

When to Calm and When to Listen! - Session Recording

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When to Calm and When to Listen!
[00:00:00] When to calm and when to listen. Well, such an important topic, I don’t think people realize how important it is. It’s so. Yeah. I, I, I thought that the more amped up I was, the more important it was and the more important it was, the more I should be amped up about it. Um, little hamster in a wheel. Yeah. And then, you know, you, someone would say just calm down.
[00:00:29] It’s not that big a deal that helps. Thanks so much. Pour some gasoline on my as well.
[00:00:42] You’re going get some of my rage. I’m for thriving. Now here with Kathy, Vartuli from thriving now and the intimacy dojo. Um, and we’re delighted, you’re here for this real skills workshop. Um, so I hope you can hear that the, when to calm is not. Just when somebody else is uncomfortable. Um, we’re going to be exploring, um, our own internal signals and our own, um, bio neurology and how we can use some, some skill with that.
[00:01:20] I was attracted to this work and ended up becoming a professional because I wanted more emotional self management. What I wanted was the capacity to feel more myself. Like more of me was involved in my decisions and my clarity and my action and that. Um, so we’re, that’s our intention is so that, um, we offer things that you can see trial on.
[00:01:47] See if it feels right to you. Yeah. I love this topic cuz I grew up thinking what I felt must be true. If I was upset or triggered, it must be something dire and desperate. I also have a trauma history, so things that would not upset, you know, there’s no real danger now, but there, it reminds me of a danger that happened when I was little.
[00:02:09] Um, it’s still, there’s still times when that surprises me. I’m like, oh, that really upset me. Um, but I can catch it. I’ve learned to, we’ll talk a little more about the split screening that I, that I really like the analogy for me. Um, but. Learning that because I have a feeling doesn’t mean there’s actually danger now and helping myself calm when it’s appropriate and take appropriate action that I don’t think many people talk about this.
[00:02:35] And I think when we take the time, especially as a group and we can crowdsource people are welcome to share in the chat. Um, when we can talk about this and make it conscious for ourselves, we’re giving ourselves anchors to hold onto, to kind of steer our reactions. If it’s all subconscious. And we’re just supposed to know how to handle this.
[00:02:56] And we learn from people that didn’t know how to handle this. Um, we’re still kind of in a skid we’re, we’re still a little bit out of control and we stop when we’re in a reasonably calm space and now analyze this and kind of get some con concepts and we’re gonna do some tapping as well. So if you’d like to tap with us, um, is it okay to do the same as we did last time, Rick, we didn’t talk about that, but just we’d love to cuz we wanna budget the time.
[00:03:20] We’d love working with people. So if you’d like to tap with us, you can message us privately or in the public chat. Give us just a little bit of an idea of what you wanna tap on and then we can kind of moderate how much. One on one, like, well, we’d rather work with people if we can, but we, we wanna make sure we save time for folks that want it, if that’s the case.
[00:03:39] Right. And we, we want people to feel safe and comfortable, and this is being recorded and it’s gonna be available to the community. And so Kathy and I, uh, we elect ourselves to be vulnerable and share. And if that’s something that feels okay to you, um, to be on the recording, you’re welcome to do that. Um, you also can leave your video off and if you go to participants, you can even change your name to a nickname or some other, uh, name that you’d like.
[00:04:07] So I was just vulnerable showing that I can’t even drink coffee. I poured it down the front of me. So on video, you know, it’s, we’re all, this is, this circle is a place I’ll even, I’ll even tag that. So if you wanna watch coffee, perfect. pouring the coffee, not in her mouth, down the side of her mouth. So, um, oh, so, um, why calm?
[00:04:32] Kathy. What? I mean, why in the world, when there’s something that has us really activated and we’ve got all these feelings, why in the world would we calm down at all? I think we wanna do it very D for very different reason than most people want to do it. Most people want to not be with the feelings that are coming up the experience.
[00:04:53] Um, so other people want us to calm down so they don’t have to deal with our upset and we wanna calm down. So we don’t feel like it doesn’t like, it doesn’t necessarily feel nice to be scared or activated or angry or whatever it is that’s coming up. So we wanna get away from those feelings that we haven’t learned how to manage, but that are actually very reason.
[00:05:13] Like humans feel these. , they are something that is part of life. And when we stop running from them, when we can come and be with them, we create a different energy in our lives. So I wanna talk a little bit about the split screen here, if that’s okay. Yeah. Um, because I, this is a powerful concept and I got this from Joe’s John roo from, uh, honesty labs.
[00:05:37] He talks about using a split screen. I like the analogy. We ha we wanna have our feelings. We don’t want to shove them in a closet. Uh, we’ve all learned, you know, the beach ball analogy, the more you try to hold it down, the more effort you’re putting into it, even if it’s subconscious, it really taps our, our, our resources.
[00:05:53] It sucks our life out of us. So we’re not talking about ignoring, which is what a lot of people, when they say calm down, mean, they mean shove it in a closet. Let’s pretend this isn’t happening. I don’t wanna be here. We’re talking about, okay, you have these feelings, these experiences end, you’re gonna have your cognitive brain.
[00:06:12] You’re gonna have the adult part of you also. So we have these, our, our body, our primitive brains, having these feelings and reactions. And then there’s also the adult part of us. And this can be a little awkward at first because most of us weren’t trained. Like we didn’t have a lot of examples around us.
[00:06:30] It was either your calmly rational or your like spinning outta control, at least in my family. That was the story. So to have both my, at first, it was very awkward and I kept flipping, but a little bit of practice and I found it actually. Pretty useful. So we wanna have, we do a lot of this when we do inner child work, here’s the reactive traumatized part and here’s the adult part going back to, to help them.
[00:06:54] So split screen, we wanna just have room for both of them in our system, so we’re not ignoring. We can heal, we can process what’s coming up, but we’re also, um, we have all our resources. Do you wanna talk a little bit more about how, like if the primitive brain is taking up the whole screen, we don’t have as many resources.
[00:07:13] Yeah, we have a very powerful survival mechanism. We call it the primitive brain. It’s not just in the brain, but boy, it is in the brain. It has first crack on all the signals that are coming from anywhere in our gut, in our groin, in our fingertips, in the energy that we feel for, if you’re an empathetic sensitive person, guess what?
[00:07:33] You’ve got sensors that receive an awful lot of information, even from the, the meta existence of what’s going on in the world and wow, your primitive brain, um, looks at that and it can strike the alarm. Now, um, when it strikes the alarm, it’s decided that you have a few choices it’s dire enough that it wants you to fight.
[00:08:08] Or flee or freeze. And maybe if there’s some way that you could fawn your way, like be submissive, be accommodating, um, go along, um, affirm, uh, that, that those are survival strategies. And boy, they are like, you know, if you’re caught in something sometimes fighting yourself free is the way to do it. And sometimes, you know, from, from animals fighting your way free is, is not a good strategy.
[00:08:46] They they’re they’re tive brain. If you’re caught in barbed wire, you don’t wanna struggle and run away. Like you wanna that’s right. Slow down and very carefully pull yourself out. So, um, that’s the primitive brain. And one of the things I loved about tapping was for me, at least tapping on these natural comfort points.
[00:09:03] Um, Helps send a signal, one it’s movement. It’s physical. We’re sending signals into our body. Um, these comfort points are described in our free tapping guide, um, at thriving now.com/tapping. We’re not gonna be teaching it today, but you it’s simple enough that you can probably look and follow. There are certain points.
[00:09:29] We’ll call them out as we go. But what that does for me, once I start getting out of my primitive brain enough, or that I oh, split screen. Oh, Rick is really triggered by what’s going on. What? He just saw, what he just heard, what just happened all come. What he just thought about might happen. If things stay the way they are, um, primitive brain kicks in and.
[00:09:59] The split screen says, oh, reson is perimeter brain. The other part of it says, ah, yeah, those are, he’s got a mix of sensations and things going on that are really intense. It might be really useful to calm that down enough so that we’re more resourced. If the perimeter brain goes, oh, this actually isn’t life or death.
[00:10:22] Right. And one of these strategies, isn’t what we need. It starts to let go a bit by bit. Sometimes it just will let go and we feel, oh gosh, I feel suddenly all better in a lot of situations, especially if it’s real right here right now. Um, mine let’s go in degrees. So I’ll spike. Uhoh eight, nine pause time for me to, to tap and get that down.
[00:10:52] And when I do, as it starts trending the other way at somewhere around a 7, 6, 5, I start feeling more resourced if you’ve ever felt like you’re two separate people. Like when I’m triggered, man, I am not myself. Well, you are. You’re just a sliver. , you’re the, you’re the more primal version of yourself.
[00:11:16] Congratulations. Um, it’s helped you get it where you are, but it doesn’t feel as good to me as having that part alongside, you know, my intuition, my clarity, my what’s in. What my values are that I hold in my core when I have all of those. Oh, the situation looks different, feels different. We make different choices.
[00:11:39] We absolutely make different, instead of it looking black and white war and peace. Yeah. Um, uh, the end of the world, or, you know, something else, it, it, we can hold nuance. We’re actually capable of being an observer with ourselves. Um, so just acknowledging that that’s yeah, that’s what we’ve devoted a lot of our time and energy for, um, in our work together for 14, 15 years now.
[00:12:13] the time flies when having fun is that when we recognize, oh, I’m in my perimeter brain, if we get to that point. Um, and when I notice. Others in their primitive brain, even if I have no direct influence, I’m like, oh, that’s what I’m with right now is a person that’s in their primitive brain. I can also calm myself.
[00:12:37] Right. And our primitive brain is very, very, again, Rick said it has first dips in our resources. It can hijack us. And that’s kind of, I think of it, like if I’m in the water and I wanna get through the ice there’s ice all the way to the edges, there’s no way for me to get around John uses because he uses a split screen.
[00:12:55] He talks about, have you ever had a window that takes up your full screen on your, on your computer and you can’t get out of it? Like, you’re like, how do I, I hit escape. I went up to the top. There’s no like goose window. I was taking it. Yeah. So that’s like. That’s a lot of our time, our, our primitive brain will be there.
[00:13:11] And our primitive brain is so intent on survival. It’ll forget other priorities. If it’s really reactive, it will like, I, I was a junior lifeguard and one of the things they taught me is be very careful. Someone who is panicked, they didn’t have the, we, they didn’t really have trauma informed back then, but if someone’s really panicked thinks they’re gonna die.
[00:13:31] They, if you go into rescue them, they will climb up. You drown you and then they’ll drown themselves when you’re trying to help them, because they’re just so, like, they’re not logical. They’re not bringing in thought patterns. Um, so we often, like if we’re panicking, we’ll make sometimes choices that we would never wanna make another time.
[00:13:50] So, so, um, One of the reasons this is a real skills workshop, is that recognizing your own primitive brain in the moment is, is a skill. Um, it helps if you start practicing it, if you haven’t been, um, before it’s an eight, nine or 10. And the nice thing about tapping is that once it starts coming down on its own, um, either cuz you’re exhausted or, you know, you change states of some reason you can actually tap a bit, but I’d love it.
[00:14:23] If you’d leave us in a tapping with an openness that are, that are being the, um, a bit more savvy with recognizing, oh, I’m in primitive brain. And that that’s an opportunity for me to calm enough to have all my resources, whatever that means in this moment. Yeah. Credit chop, even though I sometimes blame my primitive brain.
[00:14:46] even though I sometimes do blame my primitive brain. It gets so reactive. It gets so reactive. The truth is there are some dangers that ex it experiences. The truth is there are dangers that it experiences and it’s doing its best for me. And it’s doing its best for me. It only has the intelligence of a small dog.
[00:15:10] It only has the intelligence of a small dog. And sometimes my small dog is not very well trained. And sometimes my small dog has not been very well trained. I’m helping train it right now. And I’m helping train it right now. I bra I’m not gonna beat up the small dog. I’m definitely not gonna, I don’t want to beat up the small dog side of the eye.
[00:15:33] That’s not very nice. That’s not very nice. Not gonna make it feel more comfortable. Yeah. Under the eye, that’s not gonna help the dog calm down. That’s not gonna help the dog calm down under the nose, but I can breathe and reassure it. I can breathe and reassure myself, Tim, I can rebuild trust with myself.
[00:15:52] I can rebuild trust with myself collarbone too many times. We, I ignored what my body was saying. And too many times I ignored what my body was saying under the arm. So there’s a lack of trust. Sometimes there is a lack of trust sometimes top of the head, and now I’m learning how to calm myself. And now I’m learning how to calm myself eyebrow in a really authentic and powerful way.
[00:16:18] In a really authentic and powerful way. Mm. Side of the eye. I’m not shoving it all away. I am not shoving it all away or pretending under the eye just to make other people feel comfortable most to make other people feel comfortable under the nose or to avoid those feelings or to avoid those feelings.
[00:16:37] 10 I’m learning how to calm myself. I’m learning how to calm myself collarbone to soothe that primitive brain to soothe it under the arm and to help know when I should really listen to it. and to know when I should really listen to it top of head, cuz there are times it’s really important to hear it.
[00:16:59] Uh, there are definitely times it’s really important to hear it. Just take a deep breath. My just an example. I think that we get a lot of signals. I mean, Rick and I talk about our body guidance. We get a lot of truth through our bodies and our primitive brain is the nerve endings in our bodies as well as our survival, the survival part of our brain, like the brain stem.
[00:17:23] So I have gone out with like, I go to meetings or conferences or some things. I meet a lot of people and there’s been times where like someone just gave me the HEB JB, like, like it’s an intuition. Like there’s like something not quite cool with them. If I can distinguish, are they just reminding me of an old trauma?
[00:17:42] like maybe they have a beard, like the, someone that scared me or, you know, something like is sometimes our primitive brain is reactive because it hasn’t processed the trauma and the cognitive brain hasn’t gone in and filtered what’s really dangerous or not. Um, so is it, is it an old reaction or is there something I’m picking up about this person?
[00:18:04] So I think our intuition is really valid and that comes through the primitive brain often, or a part of that is the, it is the primitive brain. So being able to distinguish this and the more we can, the more ease we’ll have in life. And we’re not avoiding certain circumstances because they remind us of something that’s was dangerous and it’s not dangerous now.
[00:18:23] And we’re also going that person. I do not wanna be alone with that person. There’s some, I’m gonna keep an eye on them. My brain is saying they’re not quite kosher. Um, so I think the more we can distinguish that the more we put energy into the things that are worthwhile. and we’re not spending a lot of energy avoiding things that, oh, he just wears a baseball cap.
[00:18:42] Like my, you know, that, that person that was really mean to me, it did. And I, I haven’t resolved that trauma. So baseball caps are still categorized as scary. Does that make sense to everyone? Well, it does, to me and I find myself aware that, um, part of rebuilding trust was that, um, if I got that signal from my primitive brain, this is not okay.
[00:19:11] Or someone is not okay. That I would give myself enough space. Mm-hmm it could be, excuse me, I gotta run out to the car. Yeah. Run to the restroom car and not come back. I just, yeah, I gotta take care of something in the car. Um, excuse me, I’m gonna use the restroom, um, because. Until I developed the skill more.
[00:19:37] It was because there’s, there’s both for me. Sometimes. Sometimes it’s very clear. Like there, the smell of old spice is a trigger for me, that could be on the Dali Lama and it doesn’t matter. Okay. Like that’s going to trigger. It goes right into a primal part of my brain. Fortunately, it’s not a real popular scent anymore.
[00:20:05] but you know, I have my reasons, I no longer like flashback or lose myself, but there is something untrustworthy signal that comes in there. I’m using that as an example that I’m aware of. But there are times when it’s like, Hmm. Uh, what is this? And if I take, give myself the distance, even just 10 feet, um, oh, I’m gonna get some water.
[00:20:32] Mm-hmm it gives me an opportunity to, to calm down enough, like, okay, I hear you. What’s going on. It reminds me of this. And the energy is actually present. Okay. So like, it reminds me of this. So it’s amplified, right? Like it’s amplify trauma in our past lessons learned the hard way, tend to stay with us with, um, a stronger signal.
[00:21:03] Right. And then there’s the, and this doesn’t feel quite right. So that’s an example of what we’re talking about. The skill of. Okay. I definitely notice I’m, you know, okay. I’m sweating. Oh, excuse me. I’m gonna. Give myself the right distance, if I can, and maybe sooth myself like, and I, I know that my brain doesn’t wanna be told, oh, it’s nothing.
[00:21:34] Oh, they just remind you of, of that person. Um, if the language coming to you is dismissive, that can actually be the primitive brain, not wanting to cause a threat. So like, like my trauma response is often to freeze or be compliant. It’s just me. Love you, Rick. Um, and so like, this is where listening says, oh, I’m being dismissive with myself.
[00:22:11] oh, I’m still in primitive brain. Yeah. Okay. And is it really. Do we have an exit here? Yeah, we do. Oh, thank God we have an exit. Do I want to take the exit? Is that what’s best for me right now? Hmm, no, but we need to be a little more. Aware of a dynamic that’s going on? Is this I like to, yeah. I love that. I’d like to think of, there’s a lot of, lot of information out there right now about attachment styles and types.
[00:22:44] We wanted a, a secure attachment with our survival brain, our primitive brain. We want to like, let it know. We’re not like if you wanted a secure attachment with a small dog, you wouldn’t be like, stop it. You’re being stupid. There’s nothing there. It’s like, oh honey, I know this is scary. I know that you’re remembering that time, this, this thing happened.
[00:23:02] And I’m gonna really honor that maybe we need to remove ourselves from the situation. As we clear more and more traumas. There are fewer things that we feel really reactive about. So what happens when we have a trauma, the survival brain will list everything that it thinks might be associated with danger.
[00:23:20] And I’ve used this example before, if I’m out biking, you know, five year olds biking, so proud of being on the bike for the first time and they fall and really hurt themselves. They can hear a mower, a lawn mower in the distance. They smell the lawn mower, they hear the ice cream truck and they just seen a man with a, a baseball cap.
[00:23:38] All those things get listed in the survival brain as potential dangers. It doesn’t know how to discern danger versus not danger. Yeah. If we had someone come up and hold us, helped us process through that, let us have our cry or whatever we had going on, or we’d come back later and do tapping or other processing to clear it.
[00:23:58] Our cognitive brain can go into that list and say, okay, man, with baseball cap, not scary. Oh, ice cream truck, not scary lawn mowing, not a problem. Crack big crack in the sidewalk. And you going a little fast for your skill level. Those we should watch out for. So like it, it cleans up the list. So we’re not reacted to things that aren’t actually dangerous.
[00:24:19] And many of us like life can be, we, many of us grew up in a time where we didn’t have ways to process traumas, so we may have a stockpile of them. That’s okay. Yeah. Okay. So, um, Chad is open. If anyone wants to share, like what’s coming up for you, any of your thoughts, questions like please do. And if you’re watching the replay, hello, um, where the replay is posted, there’s a place for you to also comment and ask questions.
[00:24:51] Yeah. Um, share what you’re noticing. So one of the things that I’m noticing is that, um, it’s harder to, to calm and listen than I, I think it should be. can we tap on that? Cuz I think that would be really good. I always like, why am I getting so upset? What’s going on? Like that doesn’t help. Even though I’m getting really upset, even though I’m getting really upset and
[00:25:22] I think it should be easier and I think it should be a lot easier. It is what it is. It is what it is. And I am developing skill here and I am developing skill here. Top of the head. The primitive brain is powerful. The primitive brain is powerful eyebrow. It’s really powerful. It’s really powerful side of the eye.
[00:25:46] It’s the only brain that some animals have. , it’s the only brain that some animals have and they do just fine and they do just fine under the eye, but I like all my resources, but I like all my resources. I hate it when I lose all my resources. I hate it when I lose all my resources. Sure. I hate that feeling of it being taken from me.
[00:26:07] I hate that feeling of it being taken from me. Hold on. And sometimes I feel I need to stay and sometimes I feel like I need to stay all activated in Ory. all activated Ory.
[00:26:22] And I’m open to calming just enough. I’m open to calming just enough. So all of my resources are present. So all of my resources are present. Sometimes rage is a resource. Sometimes rage is a resource. Uh, I included that.
[00:26:46] For me, sometimes sensitivity is an incredible resource, sometimes sensitivity. Um, I’m, I’m at a place where there’s so much signal coming in that my sensitivity, um, like it’s it just over bloods my system. And there’s a, there is a part of us that wants to be perfect. Okay. There’s a part of me that wants to be perfect at this.
[00:27:13] I’ve been practicing it for over 20 years. What I will tell you is that the me of 20 years ago would be like, dang, I want to be that good. And the me of now was like, oh, there’s so I really there’s so much more you know, that, that scream in my ear of rage of from a 19 month old. I just want to be like, oh, sweetheart.
[00:27:37] Yeah, I’ve been there, but it’s like, ah, you know, my system gets flooded. My primitive brain is on alert. I’m looking for what’s attacking up. because it, it hit my system. Right? Like that. And this is where, um, as we talk as a community about reaction and response, the primitive brain and how do we, how do we calm ourselves while being AU being real?
[00:28:10] Uh, to, to me that. That, um, one of the things that’s just so different in my parenting, um, like with my older kids, if they were in distress, I felt like I needed to just like make it right. Mm-hmm like, so I was a very attentive parent. Um, I noticed that now I’m more present with, as soon as I call my primitive brain, you don’t have to go fix it.
[00:28:42] You let them have their feelings. Right. And the same goes when, like I get an email, let’s say that I get an email that happens to hit one of my tender points. Um, like I can tell. And I think it’s really useful for us to pause here. And, you know, if you like to write things down, what does your body do when you’re, when you’re activated, when you’re triggered.
[00:29:24] and I’m, I’m also going to invite, like, there’s a couple of things, like what happens to your vision? Like mine becomes very narrow mm-hmm hearing mine becomes really sensitive. It’s it’s like. You’d think that if somebody’s screaming, your, your, your hearing would become less sensitive. My primitive brain goes, if there’s screaming going on, we need to hear the rust in the grass that indicates the direction the leopard is coming from.
[00:29:56] So it turns up the sensitivity mm-hmm . Um, what about your body? What does it do? How does it tense? You know, if I, if I want to flee, like there’s a, a, a vibration that starts coming and if I’ve got it under control, like I’m in a public place or driving a car or something like there’s a tightness that hits in my core.
[00:30:28] What is. Want to throw something. Yeah. So like that’s a, okay. I’ve just been given the energy to be able to defend myself. I want to throw something I’m, I’ve got this energy. It wants to act and that’s um, yeah, some, some people will do that. Thank you. I think one of the things like it’s really important to notice these sensations because a lot of times we just, they happen we’re fish and water where just these are happening to us.
[00:31:03] Um, and the more we can be aware of the sensations and be mindful of them, the quicker we can pick up, we’re starting to fall into that cycle of reactivity. So if we can pick them up. Sometimes, it seems like we’re just flooded, but usually there’s a, there’s some indicators that are like, we at least have a few seconds often or sometimes hours or minutes or days.
[00:31:25] And the quicker we can pick up on some of the subtle signals, like, wow, for me, my collarbones often will start feeling tense or my heart will start getting faster. Or, um, I’ll notice my jaw is really tight. Like if I can start, like what’s going on with me, I feel a little off, oh, something I’m starting to get reactive about something I can often it’s much easier to split screen rather than having the, the survival brain like kind of take over and then having to bring it back.
[00:31:52] I can, if I can catch it before, I also think that there’s it’s one of the things to notice is there’s triggered trauma. Like we we’re reminded of something there’s real danger happening right now. And then there’s also, I think the habit. The fears, like the worries. So like, I will get I’ll lay in bed at night.
[00:32:11] Sometimes if I’ve had a stressful day, especially, or if something comes up, that’s something is coming up, that’s outside my comfort zone and I’ll worry myself about all the things that could go wrong because in my family, I learned that was a way to protect myself. My mother does that as a kind of, I don’t know, um, A superstitious or religious way of like, if I worry enough, it won’t happen.
[00:32:34] So I had a lot of exposure to that. I still do that sometimes. So there’s like, there is a danger right now. There’s a triggered, I’m reminded of an old danger or I’m in this worry cycle. And the worry cycle to me feels a little bit different than an actual, like a trigger or, or real. Like if I feel into my body, I feel a little uncomfortable, a little queasy, I think, cuz my body’s like, this is not real.
[00:32:56] This is like, so I think if you can distinguish those three things, if we’re trying to have a, uh, a, a secure attachment to our, our primitive brain or like real danger right now, Do something together to get it done. Old tri trigger from an old trauma with our, like, they’re, they’re their comfort support.
[00:33:17] I’m with you. I’m not abandoning you. We can clear this. We can take care of whatever we’re doing right now. And then we can clear this trauma. So you’re not so reactive. And then, then the worry one, it’s kind of like a dog that just keeps barking and barking and you’re like, no, that’s not acceptable. Let’s how can I guide you?
[00:33:35] We’re not beating the dog, but we’re like, we can, we can learn to stop that pattern a little and gently guide ourselves somewhere different. But if we don’t notice the body sensations, it’s harder to catch it. It’s harder to know which one we’re in. If that makes sense. So it’s been pointed out in the, in the chat that, you know, sometimes the perimeter brain really does feel like it brings out the inner beast, dragon lion, um, in us.
[00:34:06] And if that was successful at getting us out of situations way to go primitive brain. Yeah. Um, that’s, that’s a very powerful kind of relationship. I like knowing that my primitive brain and there’s a quality of, um, it’s not necessarily a small dog, it has the intelligence just to be clearer. Um, it can feel like St Bernard or an elephant sometimes, and, you know, Um, dogs have sensors that are really powerful.
[00:34:41] Um, how it activates us is like, I’m, I’m a big guy. Like if my primitive brain activates me where I want to throw something, I am not Chihuahua. Okay. At that point, it would be wrong to not realize that I have become in that moment. Someone who’s activated and, and big and potentially really scary. Um, there are there, I can fantasize about times when that would be very useful to have that kind of energy directed.
[00:35:17] Um, and there are many, many, many, many, many, many, many more times where that initial. Jolt of I’m fourth. Beast is actually not like where it’s at. Okay. If somebody honks at me that is not the time to bring out the dragon, um, just not safe for me or the people I hold dear or the community. Um, so that’s in our work with emotional freedom as Cathy.
[00:35:52] I just wanna reiterate it. Um, we don’t call ourselves to, to suppress pretend, avoid, um, avoid, shut down, hide away in this case. The why is because I’m more resourceful and more capable of surviving being okay with. And even finding the resources to adapt. If I have more of myself online, you know, I can share a kind of personal example.
[00:36:26] That’s been coming up for me in the last few days. I’ve been fighting for women’s rights and LGBTQ and other, you know, like I’m, I’m someone who wants people to have rights. Roe versus Wade being overturned was a, I feel very harmed by it. Like I am very upset and scared about our country and I have a lot of rage and fear.
[00:36:46] If I let my, my primitive brain swap me and I’m like, I could just go into a, like, I might go into freeze. I might go into fight and just start wanting to like scream at everybody. Instead, if I can, I can be with my feelings of like, this is real. I am genuinely scared about what choices this country is making and the choices, the rights that are being taken away.
[00:37:08] And how much is effectively marginalized communities. I can be with those feelings. I can tap, I can process, I can talk with friends, but I can also use some of the energy in a very, like, I can use my cognitive brain to figure out how can I help support people that are gonna make a difference? How can I do things so that people that are other people that are scared, feel less scared?
[00:37:30] Like I can use my energy in a much more rational way without having to put my feel, push my feelings down or letting them swamp me. So again, that’s split screen. Mm-hmm
[00:37:44] um, we’re gonna take a break here in about 10 minutes to 15 minutes. Um, should we talk about the question? Oh, go ahead. Yeah, I was thinking, um, do you wanna do the questions or the conflicted energy? Uh, whichever you feel that I’m good either way. Um, Let’s let’s do some questions. Okay. So there’s, if you’re in a situation where you start to feel activated, or this is good to practice, and I encourage you to practice when it’s a one, build the muscle and the trust to do this, and then you’ll start having it when it’s a, when it’s an 8, 9, 10.
[00:38:24] Um, but you don’t have to necessarily pile in and do this the first time when it’s what’s really high. The first thing we wanna do again, we have these different states where we’re activated, where there’s a real danger, where there’s a, a, we’re reminded of an old, an actual H hurt trauma that we had, or when we’re kind of in that Ru you know, rudiment, rudiment, uh, chewing on stuff.
[00:38:45] Um, so the first question is to ask yourself, I feel threatened, or I feel somewhat. I feel like there’s some something wrong. Is it real right now? So we can ask ourselves is, is like, so if, if there was a fire in my living room and I felt scared, I’d be like, okay, don’t worry about tapping on trauma. Don’t worry about telling, oh, you always worry about this stuff.
[00:39:09] No, you get the fire extinguisher. You called 9 1 1. You do whatever you take real action in the moment. Um, so is it real right now? Um, answer to that can be, I’m not clear. Yeah, it can be. Okay. So is it real? And then the next that’s two, two parts, is it now? So real might be, it wa it was real. I, our, our primitive brain, if it had several, especially if it’s a complex trauma or complex PTSD where you’ve had multiple experiences with something, um, if someone had multiple really painful surgeries, if they had multiple times of abuse, our survival brain may be reacting really strongly and, and it may need different care.
[00:39:55] Then, if we’re just menting on something or it’s like, this makes me mildly uncomfortable, we don’t wanna retraumatize ourselves. So if it, if it, if it it’s real and it’s old, how much self care do I need? What do I need to do to take care of myself? Because old things are coming to the surface. I mean, reminded of this real trauma that happened, and then how bad is it here for me now?
[00:40:21] So if it’s real, my boss just yelled at me or, you know, the, my computer went in, start in time for the call. Often we’re reacting. We learned how to react to things. When we were 3, 4, 5 to whatever, 19 months, we, we were learning how to react to things. We didn’t have the same experience, resources, strengths, whatever it is.
[00:40:43] So if you can, if, if you have that reaction, bring in the split screen and like, have the adult look at it, it’s like, oh, I’m 30 seconds late for a call that Rick has totally got. And, you know, he could start without me. It’s okay. Like he won’t be mad at me. He’ll understand. I intended to be here on time.
[00:41:01] The, you know, people, there are pretty kind, they’re probably not gonna be mad at me. I don’t have to freak out. I can be frustrated like, oh, computer, but it’s not like a 10. Um, so like looking at it, like my boss yelled at me when we were little, these people had so much power. Like our parents had a lot of power over us.
[00:41:19] Right now the job market is really good, at least where I am. And it’s like, well, you know, if he was, he didn’t actually seem that mad at me and it was, I’m making this up, cuz my boss is, has not yelled at me and he is pretty awesome. But um, it’s like, you know, how, how affected am I by? Is, is it just, he might have been having a bad day, you know?
[00:41:37] Or is, did he say like you’re in serious trouble. We need to talk on Monday. And you’re like, so putting in perspective with the resources you have now can really help you normalize what’s going on versus letting our primitive brain that may have a lesson that we learned when we were three. That if I can’t make this work, I’m gonna get yelled at.
[00:41:57] I might not. I feel like I won’t survive whatever it is. So is it real? Is it now? And how, how bad is it actu with the resources I have in my, in my disposal right now, those are three questions that can help you. If you can bring them in that can help you kind of distinguish what, where you are. Okay. And, um, I’m drawn to, to just point out something that, you know, when, when I first started tapping often, if you said that, you know, I’m, I’m frustrated and angry, um, people, and I still can do this, like ask, which is bigger so that you focus on one of them.
[00:42:42] Mm-hmm um, and there’s some intelligence in that, for this, for where we’re going right now. I think it’s also useful to know when you’re, when you’re intensely feeling. Do they often come in a pair? For example, if I am outraged, it is really common for me to feel helpless at the same time. So you can imagine somebody who’s really outraged about something that has changed in the world and also feel helpless.
[00:43:21] What does that, if you imagine that kind of energy inside, to me, there’s a very clear kind of, um, emotional conflict, energetic conflict, and I don’t know what to do with. And that’s why we did that workshop on the powerful pause and, um, even acknowledging that, um, I, I, I notice. Um, because I can, I can hold more than one emotion at a time now, um, that like rage and run will often come together.
[00:44:05] Like I’m so angry, I’m just gonna run, but rage is sort of a fight, right. Stay there and tackle the person. Yeah. And, and make it, you know, um, assert and, and run is, you know, get me outta here. So like some of the most intense things, there’s where rage and run are and, and they’ll be, they’ll be competing. So like that becomes like a third screen rage for Rick running Rick.
[00:44:37] Oh, Rick is really like, this is a big deal for him. And. It feels like a big deal and he’s got the resource to be able to like, go through this as Kathy said, like the, how bad is it? Okay. Um, so as we take, um, you know, just a seven minute break to give ourselves a chance to recalibrate 10 to yourself, um, I invite you to look at what are combinations, um, when you feel angry, what do you also feel?
[00:45:14] Um, what, what about discouraged or, um, and, and particularly those things where they come when your, your primitive brain. Active, um, it’s like where calming yourself would be helpful. Um, calming yourself enough that, yeah, that sounds great. Yeah. And if you can just spend a moment looking at that, cuz the more times you dip into it, the easier it’s going to be, you’re actually building the muscles of checking in on yourself and, and, and seeing what you’re feeling.
[00:45:50] So, and we’ll do tapping on, uh, combinations of feelings when we get back. Yeah. Five of, uh, Welcome back. So we’re engaging around conflicted energy. Um, and particularly if where your energy around a situation has been building and you feel like, oh, my primitive brain hasn’t, hasn’t actually let go.
[00:46:19] Especially if you start like pinging between different things. I, I that’s, um, Um, if someone in the chat said, um, it’s unfair and I’m angry and maybe there’s some dissociation that happens or disconnect that happens. And then it’s like, I’m angry and it’s unfair. And then it’s unfair and I’m angry. You know, again, like I said, um, I’m outraged and there’s nothing I can do about it.
[00:46:53] That’s helplessness and I feel helpless. And I’m outraged. Like there’s, um, our energy can, can ping and go back and forth and it can build up a, a kind of a chronic distress. Chronic distress can be like 15 minutes of that. An hour of that. A couple of days of that. Yeah, go ahead. I think some of it is a lot of times we don’t recognize there’s more than one emotion.
[00:47:19] Like our, our culture is pretty unsophisticated around, around emotion. So like, I think we have this Disney picture of, I feel sad only. I feel angry only. I feel like, I feel like no, we can feel both at the same time. And if we don’t distinguish them, uh, someone in the new, uh, uh, new culture was talking about how it’s like basically this pile of spaghetti.
[00:47:43] And if we don’t distinguish them, it’s really hard to like, Be with them or even like process them because there’s just this met tanged mess. But if we can go, I’m sad and I’m angry or I’m grieving and I have rage or whatever, whatever it is, we’re feeling, knowing, being able to tolerate more than one, like just being aware that bodies can feel multiple emotions at the same time and acknowledging I feel this and this.
[00:48:09] Now we have some ability to navigate it better versus like, I don’t, like you said, rec pinging back and forth, or being confused about our response. Because if someone is sad, you wanna Sue them. If someone’s angry, you probably would deal with them in a different way. Like we’re not, we wanna treat our bodies and our survival brain in a way that’s.
[00:48:30] Useful for it. And this, this goes is part of the, the listening process. Right? And it, if you can ask, like what emotions am I feeling? Um, and that means slowing down a little bit to feel them, which means being a little more calm. We have to have that split screen. Cuz if it’s just survival brain primitive brain, there’s not gonna be any slowing down.
[00:48:53] It’s like go as fast as we can to get away from the lion mm-hmm um, yeah. So, um, the chat is open. Um, I’m gonna, I’m gonna start with some that we’ve, we’ve touched on. Um, does that sound good to you? Yeah. We invite you to tap along, feel free to change the words. Um,
[00:49:20] even though I sometimes feel rage, even though I sometimes feel rage and I wanna fight and I wanna fight, I wanna make it D. I wanna make it different. I can also feel run at the same time. I can also feel run at the same time and that’s hard on my system and that’s hard on my system and I acknowledge this conflict and I acknowledge this conflict and I’m open to bringing a little more calm and clarity and I’m open to bringing a little more calm and clarity up of the head.
[00:49:54] This rage I get into this rage I get into, even if I don’t show it, even if I don’t show it eyebrow, it can make me want to what it can make me wanna break things, throw things. Yeah. And it can also make me what it also makes me wanna cry. Yeah. This rage and tears, this rage and tears. This anger and unfairness, this anger and unfairness, Jen, this outrage and overwhelm this outrage and overwhelm call on this outrage and hopeless.
[00:50:35] This outrage and hopelessness. I can feel hopeless. I can feel hopeless and that makes me outraged. And that makes me outraged. and I can feel outraged and I can feel outraged and then feel hopeless and then feel hopeless. Oh, I can really ping. I can really ping. I can really ping between emotions. I can really ping between emotions.
[00:51:00] Yeah. And I’m open to taking a powerful pause and I’m open to taking a powerful pause on those. A pause for me, a pause for me, Jen, for my wellbeing, for my wellbeing call along for my clarity, for my clarity.
[00:51:21] It’s okay to have the emotions I have. It’s okay to have the emotions I have and I even have reasons you may even have reasons and I’m open to a bit more calm and I’m open to a bit more calm, just enough to have my clarity just enough to have my clarity.
[00:51:44] One of the things that I’ve really loved digging into around emotions. And this is something that I’ve learned through the radical honesty work I’ve done, and I’ve heard it before, but they really, they said it in a way that made sense to me, like it really sunk in was if we can slow down and be with a sensation in our body or be with an emotion, it will often pass surprisingly quickly.
[00:52:07] And we’ll often go through that. Like it’s never gonna end it’s too much. Um, but again, we can build up muscles for that. Um, if we can slow down enough to notice we’re already being with them a little bit, we’re already teaching our system that they’re not so terrible. And I like to think that Rick’s daughter ADRA, like she’s growing up with parents that are like, oh honey, you’re so angry.
[00:52:29] Let me just, we’re gonna breathe with you. I’m gonna pet your back. You you’re loved, you’re safe. You don’t get to harm anyone, but you get to have your feelings. Versus I was brought up with a family that was like, let me give you something to really cry about now. Um, and you know, I learned to shut things down really quickly.
[00:52:46] I imagine a deer is gonna grow up in a much more healthy way where she can, you know, she still, everyone will have struggles in life, but if, if she has a feeling, she’ll be like, oh, I remember daddy and mommy pet my back. And I can ask a friend to pet my back. Um, I can ask for a hug and I can take gentle breaths, just like they did when I got upset and I’m okay.
[00:53:09] And then she’s feeling it and it’s passing out of her body, not getting stored in the cells of her body, if that makes sense. And I think that’s just such a gift, Rick, when I watch you and them with that little girl, I just, my heart, I get tears in my eyes sometimes because I. One I’m so glad she gets that.
[00:53:24] And two I’m like why don’t more people get this. And just to be clear when she’s actually really in her primitive brain, she does not want me to pat her back. Yeah. She knocks my hand away. She’s allowed to, which is a, don’t make her take, which is a, which is a signal to me that, um, that’s not the, that’s not the connection that she wants.
[00:53:47] Mm-hmm, , she’s, she’s in a different space. And so you listen to her though, right. And. Um, the same way for me, like, I can want a hug and want to run. I can want connection and like, I don’t wanna be around anyone. Um, I, those things can, can occur at the same time. Both be true. And if, if we’re, if we’re listening at the level that we’re inviting with that kind of skill, I notice that if, as soon as I land on, okay, my, my hands in my face want to just like scream and my heart just wants.
[00:54:33] To hold and comfort. And you know, my, my gut is saying, no, just be with what’s here without needing to do either of those, you know, like yes, those things would be very primal . Uh, but right now the guidance elsewhere in my gut say, um, oh, we, we are every animal, uh, from lizard on up has a primitive brain. Um, a reactive criminal brain is different from a primitive brain, right?
[00:55:15] With the, yeah. A trauma reactive primitive brain. And, um, hon honestly, everything that we, we can find little T trauma, um, everywhere. Just that, that we can’t get the hair out of. The, um, my daughter has a, a, a doll that’s got dreadlocks, like so much yarn. Right. And we’ve already trimmed it a little bit, but if she can’t get the hair out of its face, that can be a little Ty trauma for a child of, of well, and she’d trip the other day, frustra stairs and split her lip that like, we don’t know how she internalizes it.
[00:55:56] Yeah. So we, we as humans both, um, uh, have trauma and heal from trauma. And if it’s done in a trauma-informed way, we become more resilient. Even if it’s decades later, the, the light happens to the light happens, you know, that’s. So there’s a beautiful intelligence at work here. So, um, so I’d like to, um, do you, so I, I just started introducing the listening throughout the body because as we’re, as we’re able to listen, it could be that your head is screaming something and your heart is in a very different place.
[00:56:38] And your gut is in a different place and your right leg is wanting to stomp, you know, um, it’s listening to, and, and then your right arm might be calm and feeling good. And I think that’s also, we wanna listen to our whole body, but I, I listen to trauma therapists, specialists talk all the time and I’m forgetting who, um, I think it is Dr.
[00:57:02] Savage, but, uh, Oser Seager. Um, Dan Seager was talking about, he said, if we, if we in survival times, if we went out like, and we didn’t get a carrot on a given. Something positive. We might be okay. Like we can probably get a carrot another day, but if a lion ate us, we were never gonna get a carrot again. So our survival brain is much more attuned to dangers and pain and threat than it is to positives if like my right ankle, um, Is it’s, there’s some issue with the Achilles tendon.
[00:57:36] It hurts a lot. My brain will focus on that and like, oh, I’m going to die. My life is over. My health is so bad and then I can go, okay, well, how does my left ankle feel? Well, it’s fine. It’s happy. It’s like, if I can kind of normalize that. Well, my, you know, the rest of my body feels okay, it’s not that, you know, it just kind of our survival brain, when we feel pain or threat, it will tend to make it take up the whole screen.
[00:57:59] If I can normalize it and say, this one part of my body that I know about is having an issue I can be with that. I can be aware of that pain. I can do things to clear it. And other parts of me feel fine, or other parts might, I might have some sadness in my heart or whatever it. Aware of the whole system.
[00:58:17] So I just wanted to add that in Rick. Yeah. That, and, and in tapping, we often pay attention to like the pain and the ankle, um, for the kind of listening, it, it can be very helpful to listen to the pain, say what, what message or information is there from a guidance standpoint? Um, the other parts of us. So like if my head is hurting and I, it just can’t find, um, intellectual comfort.
[00:58:50] I might
[00:58:53] I might, I, if, if I get quiet enough, And start listening. I’ll notice like my gut is like, yep. There have been so many times where it looked like things. This was a major turn for the worse and look, actually that things started shifting in a different direction. And my, my spirit can, can offer perspective.
[00:59:21] Um, my, my, my deep belly can be like, well, this does matter to us. Just that feels really clear, like freedom matters to me. and, um, and so, and that’s where, you know, part of our work here. Together on this skill is to be feeling for the parts of you, which are calm enough and listenable enough to to be able to get options choices.
[01:00:08] Mm-hmm perspectives. Does that make sense? Can we, can we just do a practice right now? Just for a minute? Sure. So please always take care of yourself. Getting still in quiet for some people is not good. If there’s a lot of trauma that’s fresh or they’re very depleted if they’re, they’re trying to juggle a lot, but I think in for most of us, most of the time, it’s a lovely thing to do.
[01:00:30] So I’d love for you to just, if you’re willing to close your eyes, if you’re in a safe place to do it, notice your feet on the ground and your, but the chair and take a slow, gentle breath. and see if you can notice the sensations in your body. That’s not the thought you have about the sensations or your interpretation or what you call it.
[01:00:51] It’s like, I feel buzzy here. I feel tension here, hot or cold. See if you can notice in your body what’s going on. And then if you can let your brain slow down a little more, let yourself sink into it. Let yourself slow down enough. You can feel the molecules and just be with the sensation for a moment.
[01:01:19] And if you start noticing yourself going into your head about it, just bring yourself back to the sensation.
[01:01:33] Just breathe gently to that spot.
[01:01:48] All right. And if you notice, you start feeling resistance at the end of that, just realize you probably don’t have really. Your muscles have not built up strength around that. And the more you gently practice that when you’re actually in a calm space, the more you can go there from this space, we can actually process through emotions quite quickly.
[01:02:09] So I’m gonna invite you to come back to here and now gentle breath can open your eyes, wiggle your toes if that helps, but that space, when we can slow down, if we can get there and I sometimes will have trouble doing it by myself and I’ll call Rick or another friend, and like, ah, I’m so upset about the Supreme court.
[01:02:28] Ah, And I may have to vent for a little while, tap for a little while, and then I can start getting quiet when we go to that kind of quiet space or paying attention to the actual sensations. Not the, I love to make fluffy stories about it. Like, I feel somewhat, uh, sad, but then I have some like, uh, disappointment, like I’m making up like lots of fluffy stories so I can stay in my head versus like, oh, I feel like someone, like there’s a, a sharp stabbing pain in my heart.
[01:02:56] And now my fists are so tight and I’m like, my jaw is clenched and I feel hot. Like sensations are true. We make up stories in our head about them. We make up. I’m never, I’m always gonna feel this way. It’s bad to feel this way. If we can get beneath that noise. And get into the sensations in our body.
[01:03:14] That’s where we know the truth. That’s where we can start understanding what’s going on. It’s like, oh, I have anger. I have rage. I have like, I’m frozen. I’m I’m disconnected, whatever it is. So I really encourage you. If you can just practice this, maybe just write a, put a post-it note on your computer to like spend even a minute a day doing that.
[01:03:34] When we start practicing it, we build up the muscles. Our body learns that it’s not our system learns it’s safe to do this. And we F figure out what’s actually happening outside of the noise of the mind and the stories and the fears that get in the way. um, and obviously you want, don’t want to do that in the 0.1% of the time where there’s an actual, real danger.
[01:03:55] Like if there I used the example with Rick or earlier the fire in my living room, I’m not gonna get really quiet and close my eyes and take a nice deep breath. I’m gonna take action. But other for most of us, most of the time we have, like Rick said, I need to get a glass of water. I need to run to my car, sit in the car for a minute, take that deep breath, get into your body.
[01:04:17] Feel the, the emotions it’s a one tapping is a great way to clear old emotions and old feelings. So is this this present scene with, if we just are with them, it just burns through them. They just wanna be felt and witnessed.
[01:04:39] As Kathy said, like when, when you do this and you become aware that there’s there there’s centers and parts of you, which communicate that you can listen to, it makes it easier like Kathy and I have cultivated a relationship, um, so that, you know, whether you call it venting or being witnessed or whatever, there’s an opportunity with us to express something that is building up in our system and in doing so, like I’m recognizing the gift.
[01:05:13] I wrote a few paragraphs today. Um, uh, and when afterwards, what I noticed was a part of me that, um, has capacity and resource. But is very careful about how I. Like my right arm is more go for it. I’ll do that. My left arm is like, um, yeah, I can, we can help with that. We can do things. We can, we can do certain things, but not certain others.
[01:05:52] Um, these, these points under the arm. Um, if you think about somebody that is closed off a bit, you might see them with their hands under their arms. Um, if I’m in a group and I start doing that, my body is, if I’m listening, my body’s saying, oh, we don’t feel safe and open here now. Um, when I thought about going to the dance this morning, this is where my, my hands went right in under my arms.
[01:06:24] And that was my body’s way of saying, you know, today is not the day to be swirling around with the energies of lots of people. Nope. It’s just, that’s not where my nervous system was, was meant to be. And I, so that resource became available for the workshop today, too. Um, so this is when we can practice the listening part.
[01:06:50] When, um, we’re quieter. We can notice when the listening start, when, when those signals start coming up to us at other times, and we can start then recognizing, which I think is the hardest. One of the hardest skills is to actually be in primitive brain and do something to start calming ourselves. Um, good news is, is that the peak part of the primitive brain?
[01:07:16] Actually can’t. Um, the part that hijacks us and takes us completely over. Um, it’s very hard for that to stay running for a long period of time. So there’s usually a dip and in that dip, that’s usually when I notice that I can like tap my collarbones, um, it may come after 10 minutes. It may come after 10 seconds.
[01:07:40] Um, uh, but it’s usually not 10 hours. Um, if we’re noticing that we’re, we’re going back and forth and back and forth between, um, whatever our poles are, they don’t have to be necessarily the north and south pole rage and run those feel like really, um, ripping inside of me. Like I’m, you know, um, there are other ones which is like, what was that again?
[01:08:09] Rage and run. No, the noise you’re making is great. Sorry that what feels inside to me. So I resonated, um, and then there’s, there’s ones where it’s discussed and despair discuss despair. Um, so those when they’re active, it usually. And this is a possibility. What if there’s something deep within you that is asking to be witnessed and to be heard and to be tended to, and to help guide the next, the next right thing, the next right thing for you.
[01:08:58] If we’re in one of these patterns, even habitual ones, what is it that are deep other parts of us that we might listen to, you know, holding, holding our lower belly, you know, moving a bit with it and, and you know, what matters to me here? Freedom, freedom,
[01:09:24] and what’s the next right thing. yeah, I’m gonna show up. I’m gonna show up and do this work. I’m gonna, I’m perhaps gonna make myself more available, um, in some way
[01:09:41] the options start coming in and you you’re coming fr you’re come from for your action will be more inspired rather than trying to find relief to, um, the primitive brain. Um,
[01:10:00] yeah. And I wanna encourage people to just be gentle with us. Like anything new. It can feel a little confusing, especially if you start listening. Some of you’ve been working with us for a long time and maybe the, the work you’ve done and, and some things we might have said shared here, you might go to the next level and might notice like, ah, it feels really awkward.
[01:10:20] I feel like, you know, Rick was saying like, I feel so pulled and there’s more things you might just be tuning into yourself at a deeper level where I don’t think we’re ever completely, like, I think there’s always more levels we can tune to. And when we’re first there, it can almost feel like we’re dropped in China and we don’t know Chinese and we’re like, what’s happening.
[01:10:39] And if you can just notice that this is a sign that you’re doing something new and different, not that there’s anything wrong. I think for many of us, we were brought up if we, if we lived through the eighties, especially, but I think otherwise too, we were kind of top, we should know things we’re supposed to be together and on top of things and you know, like, you know, we’re.
[01:10:59] If we’re not, there’s something wrong with us. We should know these things. So if you can just notice, oh, I feel a little bit confused. Maybe I’ve stepped a step further outside my comfort zone. Maybe I’m going a little bit deeper. So this is just new. It’s not bad. And if I can stick with this feeling a little bit, even though it feels uncomfortable, it’s just uncomfortable.
[01:11:21] It’s not damaging. Um, and I can just, I can be with it in little bits and start getting used to it. And then I’m like, oh, this is no problem. I got this. So I think sometimes we’re, we’re inviting you to take a little bit deeper step into yourself. It will, whatever level you are, it can feel confusing. Real growth helps, helps out happens outside our comfort zone.
[01:11:44] And we don’t wanna stretch so much we’re in the damage region, but like that, that region right outside the comfort zone is where the magic happens, where we start discovering more possibilities, more power, more awareness. Um, and that is often uncomfortable and that’s okay. So I just wanna say that, cuz I think that sometimes when we first like, were like all excited about, I know when I’m like, I’m excited, I learned this new thing and oh wow.
[01:12:07] That doesn’t feel like I thought it was gonna feel at all. And if I could just stick with it, um, I can refine it as long as I’m present with. Please take, take what’s useful explore. Um, we appreciate shared wisdom. We have a community center at thriving now that center and, uh, where the replay is paid, uh, posted, we welcome your ahas feedback and something’s not useful to you feel free to upcycle it, recycle it or compost
[01:12:39] And, um, you know, um, this is we’re exploring together and I so appreciate our community, the thriving now circle thriving now.com/circle, where I get to refine and explore together to hear the shared wisdom and life experiences of the people that, um, are doing this and bringing it into their, their homes and their families and their communities.
[01:13:07] Um, that’s, there’s a, there’s a real. Um, craving in me. And that’s part of what I feel from a lot of what’s happening is the craving in me to engage with people that are capable of, of holding powerful emotions in themselves and with others of, of, of being with that. And also being able to co-create to explore possibilities, to, to look for ways that we can, um, co-create the world that we want to live in.
[01:13:42] And so I appreciate you being a part of that as we’re wrapping up, could we just do a final tapping on like, it might be uncomfortable worthwhile, so I invite you to take a nice deep breath. Fill your butt on the seat, your feet on the floor, karate chop, even though I don’t always wanna feel these feelings, even though I don’t always wanna feel these feelings, it is okay to calm.
[01:14:09] It is okay to calm and it’s okay to be with these sensations. And it’s okay to be with these sensations, even though my primitive brain thinks these sensations are really scary, even though my primitive brain thinks these sensations are really scary and it wants to avoid them, it wants to avoid them.
[01:14:29] That’s because my parents didn’t know how to be with their feelings either. My parents did not know how to be with their feelings and I’d like to do something different. And I’m in the process of doing something very different, tough head. I can feel these feelings. I can feel these feelings. I eyebrow, even if it’s only for 30 seconds at a time, even if only for 30 seconds at a time side of the eye, I can build up the muscles to feel these feelings.
[01:14:59] I can build up the muscles to feel these feelings under the eye. Sometimes it’s tough. Sometimes it’s dark under the nose and I can get help and I can get help. Chin. I can process these feelings. I can process these feelings hall. I need don’t need to stuff them into the cells of my body. What if I don’t have to stuff them into the cells of my body under the arm, and I can let myself make better decisions and I can let myself make better clearer decisions top of head by having all the information at hand, by having all the information in me at hand and the wisdom and just take a deep breath.
[01:15:45] See if you can let that sink into your system. And if you would, I’d like you to just take a moment, because I think a lot of times humans will run off after this. Like I’ve gotta do the dishes and the trashes to go out, blah, blah, blah. I’d like you just to take a moment and notice that you did something really good for yourself.
[01:16:04] You just took an hour and a half to hang with. Really cool people to talk about something. So few people talk about, but that it really can make a difference in our awareness and how we function in a society. That’s pretty stressful. This can make such a difference in your health, your wellbeing, the ways you interact with people, how you feel about yourself.
[01:16:24] So, um, I think that if you can. Taking a moment to appreciate yourself and your courage for being here, your courage at looking at these things, it’s really important to do this. Um, and to notice this, you rock, you did something that as Rick will often say, 99% of the population would never do. Like they would not take a couple hours on a Sunday to be here and process this you did, and that changes the trajectory of your life.
[01:16:55] And that leaves ripples in the world that are really valuable. And we, that’s why we show up because you are amazing and just, you know, that would be sufficient, but we also spread it around. We start people’s mirror neurons, start picking it up from us that something’s a little different. And then the world just starts getting to be a better place.
[01:17:16] So thank you for being here and thank you for being you. Our community center, thriving now.center. And if that’s still at a place where you’re, that’s not true. Yes. Um, Kathy and I can be reached@supportatthrivingnow.com. So by email, thank you all. Have a great, great day. Bye.

We covered…

  • Why calm ourselves (rather than suppress, deny, pretend, or let our emotions run wild)?
  • What is “calm enough” for us to be able to listen?
  • How the primitive brain hijacks our full resources and clarity when it feels threatened… and that’s why calming can help us access our clarity.
  • Sensations… and their uncomfortable qualities and wise qualities
  • Conflicted energy, especially polarities we bound around in and get wrenched by.
  • Listening throughout the body, including parts of us that feel fine!

Resources Mentioned

  1. Free EFT Tapping Guide

  2. Thriving Now Emotional Freedom Circle

Great to have you on this journey with us!

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