Real Skills Workshop - Community Event
Everything is So Hard!
Real Skills Workshop: Be Calm and Confident
Hosts: Rick Wilkes (@Rick) and Cathy Vartuli (@Cathy)
Recorded Sun Aug 14 2022
Replay is below
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It really really is so hard for me right now. Things seem to go from bad to worse. I had back pain and sciatica. It was improving. Then something happened and it got worse. Now I’ve had a cortisone injection that was intended to help heal it. Maybe it still will in a week. But now it is worse still. Hospital is being mentioned. I was meant to be telling my kids about our separation today. That cant happen now I’m
In this pain. I was meant to start a new job on Monday. Now I can’t. All I can do is lie down.
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I’m sorry that you are experiencing so many hardships at this moment…
Peace
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It’s really even more a challenge when things cascade, one thing on another on another. Physical pain seems to sap emotional strength, which then makes the physical pain worse so often!
I know part of what this workshop will cover are microsteps, especially when anything “more” can’t happen because of resource. Is there a tiny movement that can help the back feel a tiny bit freer, like it isn’t needing to “freeze.” After my trip my own back was pulled, sciatica, etc., some really sharp pains. So I’m back there, with a gentle squeeze, or a little tiny tiny wag of my “tail” slowly and mindfully – my body will tend to freeze with pain and struggle so anything that moves me towards unwinding makes it feel less like it will never get any easier.
I’m actively holding a Good Thought for you!
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Thank you for that reminder Rick. I am sorry to hear your back was affected by your trip as well.
There have been moments where I was able to connect with the micro connection and movement you’ve described. Yesterday after I posted here I listened to part of one of the RS workshops from 2021 that encouraged the micro steps. I think I will listen to more of it today. This reminder has allowed me to breathe and let out some tears. Thank you
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I appreciate your response Glenn. Thank you
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The word ‘holding’ leapt out at me within the context of pain and the response of freezing/holding…so I’m inspired to write “I’m releasing a Good Thought for you…” or “I’m embracing a Good Thought for you…”
Not a challenge to what you’ve written…just thinking/feeling out loud… 
Nice to have you back Rick… Cheers my friend!!
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Language is so nuanced and impactful isn’t it. Feeling into the blessing of releasing right now Glenn. Thank you
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I can relate to this so much!
Hope I get to make it live. Would love to experience it live in the moment with the community.
It’ll be 10pm U.K. time, so may be doable
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I love the idea of micro steps @Rick and really giving myself permission for these steps to be enough and ok.
Especially when there isn’t an obvious ‘more’ or way, and you feel so immobilised, helpless and stuck.
I’ve felt this way about my life for so long. The constant trying to fix, solve, push on, keep going, find a way is exhausting and for me leads to more controlling, holding, resistance and struggle.
Micro steps with compassion, kindness, acceptance and surrender are often the only way for me. Letting go and be.
I think sometimes I just see things as too big, impossible, lacking the belief that it can change after years of challenges.
One of the conditions I live with is Agoraphobia and I have high levels of avoidance. I actively avoid the uncomfortable feelings of fear and anxiety. Some of this is about safety for me. I find this is compounded by living with several difficult physical illnesses, which are often exasperated by anxiety e.g. Chronic Fatigue. As anxiety is so tiring!
In this instance, I come back to micro steps again.
It can often feel living with chronic illnesses like it’s all an impossible balance to strike! Literally is day by day, moment by moment, and being ok with that to be the measure. In the moments.
Barbs
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Microsteps help me to tune to the non-survival wisdom my body has.
Survival wisdom has its place. But survival wisdom stops being useful for anything “chronic” I believe… because survival energy brings a lot of stress and stress chemicals with it.
BEING-energy is, I’m alive, not going to die right now if I don’t flee, I’ve got choices, and I want to savor this moment in some way.
Did you see the Too Big Too Small Workshop? As the work we did together settles in my body, it really feels that with these microsteps and next yes to next yes approaches, we can be with even really challenging realities and still… be thriving. BEING in a place where what matters to us gets a chance to be expressed.
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I don’t like labels but before I knew what Agoraphobia was I called it “my problem”. It was good to know that I wasn’t alone. I, too, have high levels of avoidance and yes anxiety is so tiring. I do know how it feels. I’ve found tapping has helped me so much. Also learning I can leave or not go someplace if it doesn’t feel right has helped.
I hope you can find ways to be kinder to yourself and I hope tapping helps you too.
Love, Jean
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Everything is So Hard!
Are you feeling like everything is just so hard right now?
We get it. We’ve been there. We might even visit that feeling later today!
When we’re depleted, overwhelmed, or slamming into resistance to doing what we don’t want to do… our body can rebel. It can assert that everything is hard… and it shouldn’t be this hard!
But some situations are hard. Some emotional labors take a lot of heart and courage. Some life changes suck… and yet here we are.
Is it even possible to be calm and confident when things are HARD?!?
Yes. Especially if you mean being a bit more calm than you would be “by default.” And being a bit more confident knowing that you’re not doing anything “wrong” just because it is hard.
Being emotionally free when things are honestly hard is going to flow differently in our body than when things are easy and joyful. Our heart will pump stronger. Our emotional and physical muscles will need to activate and ENGAGE WITH WHAT IS… not what we wish would be.
I know this doesn’t sound great. But if you’re looking for the Airy Fairy, I ain’t them. I have loved ones who have lost their job this month, others being forced to move their home, some facing serious challenges in their love relationships, many struggling to figure out how to navigate high grocery bills and increasing rents… and even some who know their lives are coming to a close – even if they are not sure exactly when.
To be with life and love can truly be hard. The challenges can be intimately ours personally… with loved ones… or “out there” in the world but still impactful to us. Right?
That doesn’t mean we’re powerless. It does mean, to me, that focusing my power skillfully can allow for thriving (or at least sweet moments) each day. It means…
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Acceptance and not “should-ing” on myself that it should be easier.
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Consciously calming anxiety and fears (including ones right in my face and painfully real) in order to activate and protect my precious energy reserves.
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Intentionally building confidence through focusing on what matters and honoring the courage myself and others are bringing.
Is this worth practicing? Is this worth spending time together seeing how this can be applied in your life?
If that’s a YES for you, we invite you to join us for our Everything is So Hard! real skills workshop. This donation based EFT Tapping and Coaching session is 90 minutes long and is designed to help us all be with hard aspects of life with more grace and power!
Replay is below
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)!
We hope you’ll join us!
Rick & Cathy
Your Emotional Freedom Coaches
P.S. Adira says, “Sometimes the shoveling seems like it’s just too hard…”
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But it COULD be Easier! I Know it Could!
You’re right! It could be easier!
But it’s not. It’s HARD.
Harder than you want. Harder than you believe it could be. Harder than it would be if life was different.
If this is the way you think, thank you. Those who are able to see the ways life COULD be easier have, over the centuries, given me air conditioning. And this computer. And my refrigerator. Even grocery delivery is back, and it’s so much easier on my eyes and brain than slogging through the fluorescent-lighted store.
But those of us who do see how things could be easier often suffer greatly in moments that are hard. A part of us yearns so intensely for a better world that, well, we activate! Or get triggered. Ugh. Makes what’s already hard even harder.
This is where Real Skill comes in.
It’s a skill to see what could be better, and accept that right here right now it is hard.
It’s a skill to honor our gift to imagine a better world for us and those we hold dear… without being entrapped by some sweet delusion that it could be or should be easier right now… ’ cuz it ain’t.
It’s a skill to let go of blame-finding (especially self-blame) about why it’s hard right now and either do what it is needed with calm confidence and courage… or adapt in some other way.
Cathy and I are going to be practicing these skills. It feels useful to us to build more emotional muscle right now at being able to be with hard situations and do hard things.
If that’s also true for you, we invite you to join us for our Everything is So Hard! real skills workshop. This 90 minute, gliding-scale fee Zoom session will use EFT Tapping and Coaching to help us all be more calm and confident with hard aspects of life.
Replay is below
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)!
We hope you’ll join us!
Rick & Cathy
Your Emotional Freedom Coaches
P.S. Adira says, “As I navigate my leaky, floating airplane in the cold raging river, I smile and hold tight to a supportive hand. Makes the hard… easier! (Safer, too!)”
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I am sorry for your pain. I do hope it is getting better.
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Adira has hives. Probably activated by the pinkeye shared with her by her playmates. It’s hard on her to be so uncomfortable. It’s hard on Mom, too, up a lot of the night with a miserable loved one.
By “comparison” it’s not nearly as hard on me. Yeah, but it’s still hard.
How hard something is for you, for me, for us sensitive folks… can’t be measured by how hard it is for someone “not us.” So… if you have something that’s hard for you and you’re judging yourself in comparison to anyone else… PAUSE.
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Pause and breathe.
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Pause and tap.
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Pause and consider whether you’d like to be together with us later today as we tap on what’s hard.
It was a breakthrough for me when I respected that emotional labor is still… labor. It can be hard in ways not everyone understands.
When we accept that, we at least stop expending so much energy fighting what is… and can pace and support ourselves and others who are doing the Good and Hard Work of Being Human.
Love to you, and if it’s right for you to be with us at 5pm EDT today (or join us for the recording), let us know here:
This 90-minute, gliding-scale fee Zoom session will use EFT Tapping and Coaching to help us all be more calm and confident with hard aspects of life.
Replay is below
Rick & Cathy
Your Emotional Freedom Coaches
P.S. Adira says, “Dirt. So much dirt. Hard. So much hard.”
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Everything is So Hard! – Session Replay
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Everything is So Hard!
[00:00:00] Welcome everyone today. We’re talking about everything is so hard. Ugh. And I just want, if you’re here, congratulations on being willing to face the issues that come up. I know there’s a lot of people that do lot of attraction and abundance thinking and like, oh no. If I think everything’s hard, it’s gonna be hard.
[00:00:18] It’s. No life is sometimes challenging. Life will, you know, life happens. Let’s figure out how to face that and deal with that. I’m Cathy Vartuli from The Intimacy Dojo and thriving now.com. And I’m here with my amazing co-host. Rick Wilkes from thriving now. Um, and I think for many of us, Rick and I were we’re picking topics for this, for this month.
[00:00:39] And we were just like, a lot of people had been writing in like, things seem hard right now. I was laid off last week. Totally unexpected. Just like do do, do, had talked to my boss. Everyone’s like, oh no, I think you’re fine. Upper management looked at costs and just whacked people without talking to anyone technical, just being decisions.
[00:01:00] And we’re like, okay, that feels really hard. I wasn’t expecting to do that. And I think for a lot of us as we come out of some of the pandemic and we’re starting to go into our lives, Things are not flowing as smoothly as we would love them to. So that’s one of the reasons Rick and I chose this because we know you’re really courageous and we know that walking into the fire, sometimes we can clean things up and make them so that while life may be hard, we’re choosing the hard, some of the hard that, because of things we want.
[00:01:33] We’ll talk about more about that. And there might be ways where we don’t have to hold onto it. Maybe we were thinking that it had to be that way and we’re kind of creating that. Maybe there’s some ways we can relax a little bit and let things be a little more easy. So really just, if you’re here, please take a minute to just see if you can actually tune into yourself and go, wow, that’s pretty cool.
[00:01:55] I am the kind of person that would take a Sunday afternoon or evening or wherever you. I’m the kind of person that would show up for a call like that. That is pretty awesome. I, wow. I might be cooler than I thought so. Yeah. If you can let that in, not just let think it, but feel it that’s really good for ourselves.
[00:02:14] I appreciate that. I I’m showing up cuz I need this um, oh yeah. Poor baby and time over. Well,
[00:02:26] you know, you, people that have read what I’ve shared in the, in the newsletters and the emails and the invitation are, are hearing some of what goes on for. Um, I used to have a belief and you’re gonna, we’re gonna be getting into this, like where it can be sourced from, but that if it wasn’t easy and fun that I was doing something wrong, um, a very natural compulsion inside of me kind of turned sharp and sour and like back on myself.
[00:03:07] And that was really. Add that was really hard. And it added to the hard things that I was doing. And so one of the things that my hope is to share some of what we practice in taking these like, oh, this is hard. Oh. And then I’m stacking other things that are hard, like a belief or an attitude. Like it should be easy if I stack that on top of something, that’s hard.
[00:03:37] it’s a lot harder now. And um, if I then. Stack on some hatred, self hatred and, um, feelings like, okay, I’m not, I’m not getting to it. I’m procrastinating. I’m, I’m, I’m failing at this. It’s not working like now I’m adding even another layer of noise. And I know that if, if I address through tapping EFT, tapping is a tool that we use.
[00:04:09] Um, it, it gives us an opportunity to speak a truth. Like this is hard for me. That’s a truth. And I, if you say that out loud and I invite you to do this, this is hard for me. What’s the, this what comes to like your awareness first? Cause it can be really helpful. The topic of the workshop is everything is so hard.
[00:04:38] Our first real skill is can I let. Parse it down and give myself one thing I’m gonna focus on for this. Yeah. We tend to one way our hum our survival brain tries to deal with things. If it thinks something’s gonna be too hard or we might fail at it, it will suddenly drag us to everything. Cuz then we can’t do anything about it.
[00:05:00] We’ll just, we will just kind of go, oh my God, the whole world, like just stop in our tracks. So if you can pick one thing and I encourage you to write it down because our brains, if we start looking at something that’s tender, they bounce, oh it wasn’t that I’m gonna pick this. I’m gonna pick that. And then we never actually dig deep.
[00:05:19] We never really flex our muscles. So our muscles aren’t getting stronger about clearing this. And then we ne we just kind of always feel weak about dealing with it. So if you can let yourself pick one thing and write it down, even if your brain starts notice, if your brain starts flailing around. Oh, I picked the wrong thing.
[00:05:36] Just they’re there brain we’re. We can listen to this recording later. Again, we can do a different topic later. um, but let’s pick one. Let’s just stay. It’s almost like a meditation for group meditation for an hour. We’re gonna pick one thing and stay with it. I’m gonna choose my job searching. Uh, cuz that’s, what’s really present for me.
[00:05:55] Um, if you want, I’m gonna choose Aira in distress. Like when she’s, um, um, miserable human, um, that comes up and just to remind all of us in the circle right now and I, I view us in a circle, even though we’re on the. Kind of the squares in, in zoom. Um, Cathy and I are facilitating, you are a participant. Um, you’re an engager, you’re a co-creator.
[00:06:28] So the chat is open and you can share there, and that will influence others in the circle. It’ll influence Cathy and I in where we go with this workshop, um, I call 'em a real skill because it is an emotional skill to, to feel honestly like everything is just so hard. Cause that’s, I think just being willing to declare it out loud too, is very like out loud by putting in the chat.
[00:06:53] You’re you’re kind of like I’m, I’m standing with what I said. And so I think that there’s a power in it and it. A real skill is actually just clearing. If you’re willing, you’re allowed to have privacy, but putting in the chat can help you stay present with it. And I think that a lot of the reason our society is so toxic is because we don’t share things.
[00:07:17] We keep them hidden and quiet to ourselves, and then they kind of fester. And if we just put it down and we hear other people sharing too, it’s like, oh, maybe there isn’t something so awful about. So I don’t know if I stepped on you at the end of that. Rick, did you have something? Yeah. Um, I kinda lost it, but it’s okay.
[00:07:37] It’s okay to be, have things that are hard. Um, oh, so real skill. Um, so one of the reasons we’re having you pick one thing is that we know that part of the skill is if I take one thing, chances are it’s gonna also apply to other things. So if you pick something small, that’s hard for small. That’s hard for you or something that’s pervasive big.
[00:08:00] And in your face, that’s hard for you. This process will work its way through your energy field. As we do our tapping, um, thriving now.com/tapping. If you’re not familiar with that. Um, so by doing that and giving it a number, so like how hard does it feel to you when this thing is one of the, everything like Aira in distress is an eight or nine for me.
[00:08:36] I’m gonna put it in the chat for you. Mm-hmm thank you. I can’t type today. Um, yeah. So we’re modeling for people. You said it was nine out of 10, uh, eight or nine. Let’s call it nine today with the hives. It. It feels like a nine. Yeah. Okay. I, oh, I stepped on your already. Once he, um, where do you feel the hardness of it in your body?
[00:09:21] So,
[00:09:26] one of the things about emotional freedom work is that we acknowledge that there’s a lot of useful information in our head. There’s also somatic information. Information and energy in the body. Um, it can be like a lack of energy. Like, Ugh, I just start feeling so heavy and helpless. It can be an anxious energy, like, ah, um, it can be a tension like for me, there’s this emotional.
[00:10:04] Yeah. Like that’s the sound, this energy emotional sound. And it feels really strong. Um, right here in, in my, the base of my throat. Give me just, would you lead some tapping on that? Um, just cuz I think that a lot of times when we feel that somatically it’s like we should, we should do something different.
[00:10:31] We should run away. We should numb it out. Like we don’t wanna be with the feeling, but there’s actually a lot of. wisdom there. Yeah. We started the side of the hand. Um, even though this is hard, even though this is hard, it is truly hard. It is truly hard. I’m acknowledging it’s hard. I’m acknowledging it’s hard.
[00:10:52] And I have my thoughts about it. and I have my thoughts about it, and I have my feelings about it and I have my feelings about it, and my body has an opinion about it. And my body has an opinion about it. I’m in the process of accepting I’m in the process of accepting where I am and how I feel, where I am and how I feel up head.
[00:11:15] This is hard. This is hard eyebrow. This is hard. This is hard side of the eye. I may pretend it’s not, I may pretend it’s not under the eye, but the truth is it’s hard, the truth, but the truth is it’s hard under, under the nose. This is hard. This is hard, Tim, this is hard for me. This is hard for me. Call on.
[00:11:40] This is hard for me and my body has feelings about it. This is hard for me and my body has feelings about it. They are this, this is hard for me. This is hard for me and my body has feelings about it. And my body has feelings about it up the head and hard does not make it bad and hard does not make it bad, even if it feels crappy, even if it feels crappy.
[00:12:09] I think that was a beautiful segue. Rick, one of the things you mentioned earlier when we were talking about this is it’s that I did something wrong. We didn’t put that as a major bullet point, but I think it actually is. Yeah. So I invite you if you, if it’s okay with you, Rick, let’s just, if we can do a little bit to fill in whatever the topic was, and remember go back to your topic, just like a meditation.
[00:12:30] Oh, I’m thinking about these other things. Come back to your topic. Yeah. And think about what you did. Like, is there a sense I did something wrong. I think for a lot of people that follow again, abundance thinking law of attraction, any of those, it’s like, oh, you’re supposed to keep your thoughts on the positive and you should never feel bad.
[00:12:49] And there’s a bunch of, uh, there’s been some of that, the tater field too. You should ne you should always be joyful and full of bliss. And I’m like, no, that’s just shaming people. That’s toxic positivity. We are allowed to like, we have experiences good and bad. And I think that there’s a lot. Cultural, like if you did things right, these bad things wouldn’t happen.
[00:13:13] I still remember being a little kid walking around. I stubbed my toe and I wanted a little sympathy. And my mom’s like, if you’ve been wearing slippers that wouldn’t have happened, cuz she always wanted us to wear slippers. And I’m like, you know what? I think it still would’ve hurt slippers. Aren’t that hard.
[00:13:27] But like there was a, like an implied this, if you’d done something different, if you’d been good or you’d been mindful or if you’d done things right, this wouldn’t happen. And I think for parents, like Rick’s talking about his kid, um, like, you know, could I have done something different or better? Could I have I kept her safer for me?
[00:13:47] Could I have been so outstanding at my job that they wouldn’t, they would never consider laying me off. Like I think there’s a lot, some of a boomerang there and other people will often do that. So they don’t have to be present with our feelings. So, if I tell you it’s your own fault, or I told you, you should have done something different.
[00:14:06] I’m taking this feeling between us, where we’re actually connected and, and intimate, where we’re just being with each other and the feelings, and I’m boomeranging it back at you. I was like your fault. I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna be present with these feelings with you. Okay. I’m I’m in it. So let’s tap
[00:14:23] Are you gonna lead it or you want you gonna lead it? I’m in it. Ty chop, even though part of me is certain I did something wrong, even though a part of me is certain I did something wrong. I wouldn’t feel this bad unless I did something wrong. I wouldn’t feel this bad. If I hadn’t done something wrong, I’d really like to feel better.
[00:14:44] I’d really like to feel better. And maybe me blaming myself as part of the feeling of bad.
[00:14:54] Pretty sure. Blaming myself is part of the feeling of it being bad. Top of head, top of the head, my younger selves want to think everything is black and white. My younger self thinks everything is black and white eyebrow. If I was just good enough, I would never hurt. If I was just good enough, I would never hurt.
[00:15:14] And they would never hurt side of the eye. If I was a good enough person, they would never reject me. If I was a good enough person, they would never reject me under the eye. If I was a good enough person, people I love would never hurt. I was a good enough person. People I love would never hurt or die.
[00:15:35] under the nose. My business would go perfectly. My business would go perfectly. Chin my health would be fine. My health would be fine collarbone. No one would ever be dissatisfied with me. No one would ever be dissatisfied with me under the arm. That’s moving target. that’s a, what an ever moving target.
[00:15:57] That’s a painfully hard moving target top of the head. I don’t think I can ever be that good. I know I can never be that good. I eyebrow. And that just adds a lot of stress to my body. And that’s adding a lot of stress to my body side of the eye. This is already hard. This is already hard under the eye.
[00:16:19] And then I’m saying it’s my own fault. And then I’m saying, it’s my fault under the nose. Maybe there are things I could do differently. I’m guessing there are some things I could do differently. Now, Tim and chin. And sometimes things are just challenging and sometimes things just are challenging.
[00:16:39] Collarbone. What if I didn’t do anything wrong? What if I didn’t do anything wrong? And there are, what if I did do something wrong? What if I did do something wrong top of the head? Do I deserve to be punished more? Do I deserve to punish myself more? Do I need to make this harder? Do I really need to make this harder?
[00:17:03] Just take a breath. It’s hard enough. Yeah. It’s already hard enough. I think that it’s hard when we, the I for, I don’t know, I shouldn’t speak for everyone, but for myself and a lot of people I’ve spoken to that reflex to blame ourselves is so automatic and, and quick it’s like happens really fast. So it’s hard for us to like, even discern that it’s happening.
[00:17:26] Um, yesterday my tooth started hurting. I, I thought I was all cut up with my dental stuff and yesterday my tooth started hurting and I was like, I was beating myself up all day and I felt like awful. And when I finally noticed I was beating myself up and kind of just caught it and did a little tapping on it, I felt a lot better, even though the, the penicillin hadn’t had time to kick in, it was like, oh, when I wasn’t.
[00:17:48] Beating myself on top of the tooth pain, I felt remarkably better. so I just, if you can start parsing that out, it can be really useful. Yeah. So like this little piece of the real skill is am I myself? Am I being hard on myself and adding to the hardness? And if you are well, you’re human. Um, our primitive brain.
[00:18:19] The part of us that is interested in survival has a compulsion. It wants to find things that are the least effort because in animal terms, effort is related to survival. So if you expend too much effort for not enough value, um, guess what you won’t, you won’t make it. You see this with cheetahs really fast, little kiddies, and, you know, they don’t succeed all that often.
[00:18:53] And so there’s this like effort and success. So our Cheeto mind, our lizard brain, our monkey mind, um, they’re all in the primitive brain is involved in this. And so. The thing is, is that the primitive brain can look at something as being too hard when it actually matters to us, it actually matters.
[00:19:21] Someone talked about like holding space for a daughter, who’s going through a sequence of really hard situations and they’re not regulated. Like they can’t hold their regulation, holding space for co-regulation. It’s a, it’s often a parent’s job and it often continues forever because like, if we’re a good hearty person, the people that love and care for us are going to turn to us for co-regulation a, a fancy term for you.
[00:19:56] Help me feel safer, safe enough that I’ve got some of my resource coming back. I’ve got a chance to be clear, and I’ve got a chance to do this hard stuff. Even if I wish I didn’t have it, I have some more resource inside me. I feel your connection and support. So, um, I’d like to lead a tapping on like, acknowledging that this is, this is part of our system.
[00:20:27] Does that feel good to you? Yeah. I’d love that. Side of the hand. E even though part of me, even though part of me doesn’t wanna do hard, doesn’t wanna do hard, has to be convinced. It has to be convinced. Maybe it has to be prodded. Maybe it has to be prodded. Maybe it has to get really hungry. Maybe it has to get really, oh, really scared or really scared, or really guilted or really guilted.
[00:20:58] Some things are hard. Some things are hard and some things are hard and really matter to me. And some things are hard and really matter to me up the head.
[00:21:13] Think about what your, your tune to that’s hard. Does it matter to you? Like it matters for my survival, it matters for my survival eyebrow. It matters for my thriving. It matters for my thriving out of the eye. It matters for the wellbeing of myself and others. It matters for the wellbeing of myself and others under the eye.
[00:21:34] And it’s hard and it’s hard under the nose and it’s hard and it’s hard and hate primitive brain. Hey, permanent brain. How long? Yeah, it’s hard. Yeah. It’s hard under the arm and this is why it matters anyway, and this is why it matters anyway. Love head. Yeah. It’s hard. Yeah. It’s hard. And this is why it matters anyway, and this is why it matters anyway.
[00:22:05] So notice what I like for those of you that are really wanting to develop this as a skill notice what I did there, it’s hard and this is why it matters. Anyway, that’s leaving an open end and I’m gonna invite you to jot down a reason or two. Why does this matter to you? Like for me with Aira I love her and want her relief and wellbeing.
[00:22:36] like tears to my eyes. I want her relief. I want her wellbeing. It matters to me. And it’s really hard, but the hardness, and this is where you, as you write those down, notice if the hardness starts changing in complexion. Yeah. I’d like to anchor something you said earlier. Cause I think it’s really important.
[00:22:59] I. There’s we have different parts of our brain. We have our survival brain that is looking for the easiest way to get the resources we need. That’s its job. It needs to limit the energy we expend because then it has enough energy to run away from a tiger. So if one meadow has really easy to reach berries that are in the middle of authority, Bush, and they’re not, it’s not an easy walk and another meadow has a few berries and it’s a hard walk it’s gonna compare.
[00:23:29] And it’s gonna say, we should always go the easy way. It’s always gonna want the easy way, because it’s just looking at how much we have to expend how much we get in. Um, and then there’s a car prefrontal cortex that likes to plan and do things that are bigger and, and more important. And it’s not just caring about like how many blueberries we get today.
[00:23:51] It’s worried about like, how can I make. Either my life or those I love, or my community or the world a better place. It wants to like leave something behind that’s better. So that’s when it’s, you know, it’s, it’s not just looking at the easiest path, which might be like someone shared about, um, their sister, uh, after they got a big, um, I don’t wanna give too many details away, but this, the person that shared said they got, uh, an, an indicator of their skill in self defense, and then the sister wasn’t feeling safe with them and was all these guilt and grief and, or dis grief, I guess.
[00:24:34] I’m sorry I was reading guilt, but that’s not there. Um, and then a, a injury and pain that comes up. So like the survival brain might be like, let’s just ignore that sister. Or, you know, it just might be hiding and trying to run away from the pain. Versus this is important. I wanna be close to family. Being close to family.
[00:24:53] For me, some of my family is not easy. They’re quite hard. And I want, I care about them. So I want to try to find ways I could be close. And I just wanna, I’m curious about the person who shared that you’re the same person before and after you got the, the belt and for your sister to suddenly have that fear because you got the belt, maybe they’re jealous or insecure about something, but you’re, you didn’t change really.
[00:25:19] You got a belt, but you’re still the same person all the way through for them to suddenly have a response might mean there’s something else going on. Um, around that because yeah, I just was, I was struck with that. So thank you. Mm-hmm um, well, and this is where also we’re checking in with our body. So if sometimes like a knee pain or body pain is just, is not actually connected energetically to what’s of specific thing.
[00:25:47] That’s where it could be though. It could be like, I’m gonna, if I’m injured, I can’t be a threat to anyone, then they don’t have to feel unsafe around me. And that’s part of the skill here is to inquire. So for example, like where does this hard thing. Live in your body now, what are you noticing? Like there’s this?
[00:26:08] Oh, you know, my shoulder’s starting to hurt. And if you, if you put your hand or, or even both hands, if you can, uh, or put your attention on that part of you,
[00:26:27] there, there can be an inquiry.
[00:26:33] What about this is hard for my shoulder. Now, the answer that I get, and I’m gonna pause here as you attune to yourself for a moment.
[00:27:04] Yeah. I wanna protect her from hard things. Hmm. Uh, suddenly the wise part of me goes, oh buddy, I love you. You’re such a, of course you do. And that’s not, you know, gonna be perfectly possible. So, oh, and actually you could probably serve her better by helping her learn how to deal with some of the hard things that come up.
[00:27:28] Right. Um,
[00:27:33] if you get a blank from some part of your body, as you tune to something that’s hard and you’re just aware of a part of your body, but you inquire and you don’t get an answer, I’m going to invite. The possibility that right here, right now, while we’re in circle is not the place for you to get that information, perhaps.
[00:27:54] And that later, um, even tonight or tomorrow tuning back into that part of your body, um, to inquire just a little bit more deeply, sort of like if you’re out and about, and you ask your buddy, who’s got this weird look on his face, Hey, how are you doing? You look, you know, I’m fine. you kinda know that is off.
[00:28:15] That is not necessarily the deeper truth. And later you could say, you know, I, I respect that. You said you’re fine. And you may not wanna add anything more to it, but Hey shoulder, what, is there something you’d like me to know about this hard thing? It could be a trauma, like it just reminds me of dot, dot, dot, or it could be a deeper emotion that is right for you to be with in the, in your solitude.
[00:28:46] Or with connection to your furry friend or less furry friend um, whatever is right for you. Okay. So wanted to share that. Yeah. So if you wanna share, ask yourself, like, if you’re feeling some of that, like I notice when you, we are cheating in, I get a lot of, um, pressure and tension in my solar plexus. So when I was just kind of tuning in, it was like, oh, I’m job hunting.
[00:29:13] What if nobody wants me? Like, I’m pretty well known in the field. I’m like, hoping that I get a job right away. But what if, you know, there’s that fear? What if I’m rejected? What if like, I’m not as good as I thought I was, which is like a fear, a lot of people have when their job hunts, like what if I’m not a good match for something.
[00:29:30] Um, and just noticing it and making it conscious, gives us more leverage with it while it’s just kind of spinning in the background. Maybe just below awareness. It can drive us pretty hard. , but when we otherwise, like I can come up and I’m like, I can call Rick up and say, you know what? I’m feeling insecure.
[00:29:48] I have to send some resumes out. Can we tap for five minutes on this insecurity? I’m afraid no one will want me. And you know, maybe no one will, but at least it’s conscious now. And I can go out there and do my best to find, find a good position. Otherwise it’s just running in the background and I don’t know why I’m running away from this, or like, I’ll keep doing it.
[00:30:07] Like, I’ll do it in 10 minutes and 10 minutes. And then it’s the next day. And I haven’t sent out any resumes. If that makes sense. If, as an example,
[00:30:19] so pausing for a moment as if your body needs some grounding, like I’m noticing my energy’s up. So I’m gonna let gravity work for a moment. That’s a little shortcut skill of letting your letting gravity do a little more of the work. When we sit, we often tighten our muscles, our butt, our. Lift ourselves.
[00:30:43] See, I can lift myself just using my own energy. Well, that happens progressively, as we sometimes are tuning into hard work, hard things, um, and letting gravity do a little more of the work kinda resets our yeah. And someone shared their beginning to disassociate. If that’s happening, you don’t have to push harder.
[00:31:09] It might be that it’s, you know, like as we go forward and you’re not, you’ve tuned yourself there. You’ve noticed you’re you’re feeling. Disassociated, which means probably part of your system feels overwhelmed at looking at this and that’s okay. You’ve already tuned in your subconscious might verbal things up over the next day or two.
[00:31:27] And you don’t have to like, when things are hard, we’ll talk about this a little bit, but there’s ways to break it down and make it easier to baby step it. Um, so while something could be challenging, we may take on something that feels like it’s a big thing and that feels scary. We don’t have to carry, we don’t have to add extra burden and we can actually figure out ways to make the steps seem doable.
[00:31:51] So like we are, we can break it down so that we get stronger and we can do this. And what Rick talked about a minute ago about knowing, why, who do you wanna do this for? Why do you want to do this? We’ll go into that a little more too. That can make a really big, big difference. Um, I’d like to lead a tapping on acceptance.
[00:32:14] Um, cause this is, um, and we’re, I’m drawn to do, um, which is sort of like, yes, no, um, contrast tapping. So you’ll, you’ll notice that, um, you might like it to try if you, and also if your body is telling you I’ve received enough information for right now, and I need to pause, know that this is being recorded so you can pause and come back to it.
[00:32:43] If that’s your yes. We always invite people to take care of themselves and I’m putting in with the grounding exercises. Um, if you start feeling overwhelmed, there’s a link there. Yeah.
[00:32:58] Uh,
[00:33:02] even though this is hard, even though this is hard, I accept that it’s actually hard for me. I accept that. It’s actually hard for me. Explicit. Hold on a second.
[00:33:17] can you say that again?
[00:33:23] even though it’s hard to say anything when she’s listening. No, it’s hard to say anything when she’s listening. No, even though it’s hard, even though it’s hard, I accept myself. I accept myself, even though this shouldn’t be hard, even though this shouldn’t be hard, I refuse to accept myself. I refuse to accept myself, even though it’s hard, even though it’s hard, that’s unacceptable.
[00:33:49] That’s unacceptable. Even though it’s hard, even though it’s hard, it’s even harder for some it’s even harder for some, even though it’s hard. Even though it’s hard. It should be easy for me. It should be easier for me up of the head. It should be easy for me. It should be easy for me, eyebrow. I should be better at this.
[00:34:12] I should be better at this I the eye with my parents. No, I shouldn’t. with my parents. No, I shouldn’t under the eye. I’m really doing well with this. I’m really doing well with this. I still are not. No, I’m not, Jen. It should be easy. It should be easy. Hold on, bitch. Shouldn’t be hard. This shouldn’t be hard.
[00:34:32] Hard. It is hard. It is hard. Tell it. No, it isn’t. No, it isn’t. I’m just making it hard. I’m just making it hard. Eyebrow. Actually, it is hard for me, actually. It is hard for me. Yeah. And I’m in the process of accepting myself and I’m in the process of accepting myself. Yeah. It’s scary to accept myself. It’s scary to accept myself.
[00:34:57] It’s hard to accept myself. It’s hard to accept myself and it’s hard to accept how little I accept myself. Sometimes it’s hard to accept how little I accept myself. Sometimes Coone being human can be really hard. Being human can be really hard under arm. And this thing is hard for me. And this thing is hard for me up ahead.
[00:35:21] And I have some good reasons why it’s hard and I have some good reasons why it’s hard
[00:35:29] now there, and I’m gonna invite you to, I believe that there are qualities of you that you actually embrace and appreciate that. Probably make this hard for you. or, or example, if you’ve worked really hard to change a belief, that things have to be hard, cuz that is a belief. It could be very hard to shift it and you’ve done that.
[00:36:05] Right? And now you’re up against things that are actually hard. It can be hard. I mean, one of the good qualities is I am capable and willing to look at the beliefs and patterns and change them, even though it’s hard. And even though guess what I may have to circle back and back and back you, I, if I was a narcissistic dad who didn’t care about my kids, guess what?
[00:36:34] This would not be a problem. If she’s in distress, it’d. You know, take care of myself, do what’s right for me. Um, but I’m a caring dad. And so it makes it harder. Um, I care about people’s freedom and safety. So when I see things that aren’t freedom and safety, I, I care for love relationships. I think kinships and deep relationships are really important.
[00:37:03] So hearing that sisters are not in loving connection and support that’s, that’s like a, and the emotional labor to be with that is like for me. And I know for, if you don’t care about kinship, it’s like, oh, thank goodness. You know, I’m free of my sister. Um, if you care about kinship, if you care about love, if you care about, um, doing.
[00:37:34] Competent work. There’s emotional labor, emotional energy that you’re going to put into it. and maybe you’re back to maybe your brain, your competency and other things. Those are good. They’re good qualities that you bring to something that’s hard. And it also can be like why it is actually hard for you.
[00:37:59] Mm-hmm well, you know, you’re around someone who’s in distress. It is going to be there’s more information coming into your system than someone who is on the other end of the empath scale. So I could honestly say that there are situations that are hard for me. Doesn’t make 'em bad, but they’re hard for me because I’m auditorily sensitive because I’m sensitive energetically and honoring the, the good qualities that also contribute.
[00:38:31] To not only being hard, but maybe why, why something is important to you. Does that make any, does that make sense? Folks? I’d love to hear in the chat. It makes a lot of sense to me. And I’d love to hear, uh, in the chat, but like one person shared their mother passed away suddenly and they’re dealing with their grief, but they’re also executor of the will and trying to get that motivated.
[00:38:52] I know that sometimes when I, when I was dealing with my dad’s will, I was co-executor there was part of me. I didn’t realize that it took a while for me to realize I didn’t wanna finish because if I, if I got it done, if I started it and got it done, that was a link to him. Somehow I felt like I was less close to him.
[00:39:11] So by having to still do that, having that be like in my to-do list, I felt closer and more connected. And so there was part of me that didn’t wanna give that up. And so I had to tap on the grief and, and clear some things to, to actually be able to move forward more. It was, I was blocking myself cause I didn’t wanna lose.
[00:39:30] A perceived connection to him. And once I realized that that connection was there, whether the, whether I had executive tasks to do or not, it was not so hard. So sometimes we have, can have subconscious beliefs or blocks that if we, if we get this thing done. So it’s something to ask yourself. If I get this hard thing done, or if I fix whatever is hard, what, what will I lose?
[00:39:56] What’s the downside of getting it done and, you know, logically you might not have anything, but if you just can be with yourself for a moment, moment and let yourself just really be honest, you might be surprised there might be something that’s pretty big there. You may not feel safe. You may not feel like you deserve it.
[00:40:15] You may feel like you’ll lose something. That’s important. If you get, if you do this hard thing or, or fix whatever’s hard, it’s a way to stay connected. Um,
[00:40:31] It’ll be taking. Yeah, go ahead. I think someone shared, I thought this was really good. I, I think I’ve made hard, a bad thing when I must, it just may be a natural part of life. And I think it is, I, I, you tried to lead a tapping on. Yeah. Like what if hard is a natural part of life? I thought thought hard meant I wasn’t smart enough.
[00:40:54] I thought hard meant I wasn’t smart enough or maybe strong enough or maybe strong enough. I thought if it was hard, there was something wrong with me. I thought if it was hard, there was something wrong with me. What if the situation? Yeah. Or the situation yet? What if I can choose hard things? No matter how strong, smart, or aligned I am.
[00:41:17] What if I can choose hard things? No matter how smart, strong and aligned I am. What if sometimes hard things occur no matter what? And what if. Hard things occur, no matter what top of the head, I thought it meant that I wasn’t good enough. I thought it meant I wasn’t good enough eyebrow. If I just thought about it a little harder, I just thought about it a little harder side of the eye, or tried a little harder or tried a little harder, a lot harder.
[00:41:49] under the eye. This wouldn’t be so hard. This wouldn’t be so hard under the nose, but some of the things that are really worthwhile in life are challenging. A lot of the things that are worthwhile in life are challenging chin and sometimes life things are challenging and sometimes life things are challenging.
[00:42:10] Collarbone. What if hard is a natural part of life? Sometimes hard is a natural part of life. Sometimes under the arm, I can learn how to make it a little bit easier sometimes. I can learn to make it a little easier sometimes top of the head, and I can also develop the muscles to make it through the hard.
[00:42:31] And I can also develop the muscles to get through the hard times, just like we’re doing right now. Yeah. Nice deep breath.
[00:42:42] This is, um, someone shared, they’re tired of having to go back and forth and back and forth in the same subject and someone else. Yeah. The hard problems have a way of biting me in the butt over and over. I do think that the universe brings things back around when we haven’t cleared something or haven’t acknowledged something and maybe that’s Al thinking.
[00:43:02] But I do like, I, I think that the universe sometimes brings us opportunities to clear things. I’m quote unquote, cuz at the time they don’t feel like opportunities at all. But I do believe we live in a loving universe that sometimes is like, Hey. I know this is important to you. Let me give you another, another way to look at this.
[00:43:23] Let, let me give you another opportunity to clear this old thing from your past so that you can have freedom going forward. It doesn’t mean things won’t be hard, but I think there’s a difference between this is a challenging thing to do on the one hand, or I’m dealing with old traumas and beliefs that are making like there’s cinder blocks that I’m trying, they’re attached to me and I’m like trying to move forward and like it’s, I’m already going up hill cuz the thing was challenging.
[00:43:48] And now I have all these cinder blocks of old trauma that I’m trying to like pull up the hill with me. I, I love that we can use tapping and clearing and sharing here to like go, oh I don’t need that cinder block. Oh I don’t need that cinder block either. Like, oh, I’m just dealing with the hi, the fact we’re going uphill because this thing is something I really wanna achieve.
[00:44:09] So I do, I know that sometimes things come back around and I’m always like, what did I miss? Um, and. I’m not always sure what the answer is, but I do think sometimes there’s something there that we haven’t cleared, or we could look at it in a different way. And I know the universe has had to like get my attention sometimes and more times than I care to admit, um, before I would see something.
[00:44:33] So I don’t know if that’s helpful or not. Right. We’ve done other work around expectations, for example. And if so, one of the, and the, and you pointed to some suffering that can happen. Um, if my variation is right, then everything will be easy. I will be in the vortex. Everything will be fine. Wow. And my cat died now.
[00:44:57] Yeah. You’re a loved friend, family member, animal actor, actress, um, people die. And if. if your expectation is that if I do, if I tune myself this way, then it’ll be easy. Um, to me that is something that can bite us over and over and over again, I’m, I’m giving an example of something and I went through a little bit of that sweet delusion stage because honestly, if you’re tuning your vibration to, um, to places of thriving, you’re, you’re starting to notice things that are pleasing to you and bring you joy and things, and you weren’t before it feels like magic and that continues.
[00:45:51] And then there are things also that are, are hard. And this is part of like the emotional skill of is this, is this hard? Well, it’s hard for me because trauma. So like Kathy said, um, it is, it is dramatically easier for me to have relationships with women than with men. I have an abuse history that involved men, my nervous system is dramatically more, uh, it, like you could say that with, with women, I trust them until they prove themselves to be untrustworthy.
[00:46:33] And with men, I don’t trust them until they prove themselves to be trustworthy, very vulnerable for me to share that. And it makes it hard for me to do develop relationships, um, with. With men now it matters to me cuz I am one and I want to cultivate relationships with men and I do, but it’s harder for me to do that.
[00:47:00] My nervous system. So the work that I’ve done to on the trauma has actually made it possible for me to trust men. And then for me to get to a place where actually I can start feeling into a man’s energy pretty early, like, are they safe and respectful? Are they safe and respectful to the other people in their life?
[00:47:21] Oh actually they are. I start to relax. I start to be more open and calm. I start to go deeper and that right. Distance, right depth. So anything that’s hard for us. I believe that acceptance is really useful and the awareness of like, it’s hard for me. This plays into that trauma. This plays into that beautiful sensitivity, that I’m still trying to figure out how to manage, um, this plays into I’m repulsed by the fact that this situation even exists in the world, because I want to live in a world that’s different than that.
[00:48:03] Um, each of those things gives us an opportunity to move our energy, move our energy through sharing through teaching, through self-reflection, through confidant confidence that can hear our truth, um, that can help us make it a little less hard. So those are that’s some of the dynamics and, and, um, I, as I look at the landscape, um, thunderstorms come through pretty regularly this time of year, um, It’s hard to schedule something outside for a specific time, cuz they’re gonna be thunderstorms.
[00:48:47] And um, that’s, you know, my, my, my ecosystem of thriving includes our capacity to acknowledge that. Yeah, that’s hard. That’s hard for humans. Um, that’s hard for me and there’s an amplifier on it based upon my gifts and sensitivities and my traumas. It makes it hard, but it’s not bad. This is hard because it’s actually bad for me.
[00:49:17] uh, I, I could tell that this does not serve my thriving. Uh, I really want that to change. That’s a different kind of hard and I’m kind of slogging or working through it. Um, so. Yeah, I’d I, I also wanna take our break here, uh, in just a minute. Is there something that you’d like to prepare us for the, for the break I invite you over this time, like let yourself feel what’s coming up.
[00:49:47] Be if you can be mindful, notice what you need, like food, water, bathroom breaks, but also see what’s verbally for you. Like sometimes when we’re not directly focused things pop to the surface and just jotting them down because some of them are elusive. We think we’ll remember. And then two minutes later, we’re like, what that, what was that?
[00:50:07] Jotting them down can help anchor them in their, if they’re in your cognitive brain, we have more leverage and we want you to have leverage on this. So thank you all for your courage. And I love the shares. They’re so powerful. Mm-hmm all right. Do you wanna pause the recording? Oh yeah, that’s right. I’m pausing the recording.
[00:50:27] Zoom. So welcome back everyone I wanted, I think this is really important. Rick wrote, um, I have to be prepared for the other shoe. To me. That is what the primitive brain, it’s a primitive brain wanting to be prepared. The skill is allowing the thriving while honoring the surviving. It is hard to have less power to choose and be free that we crave and muster encouraged to be vulnerable.
[00:50:50] I think that’s just really important because I do have a, when I was surprised when they laid us off, there was a part of me that beat myself up. I there’s a part of me. That’s one of my favorite phrase, favorite phases I should have known. I should have paid attention enough to the environment and things around.
[00:51:07] And it comes from having a time when I was young, when things were surprising, kind of overwhelming, but there’s part of my brain, that things I should have known. So if I, anytime I’m surprised I beat myself up. And I think when things are challenging, often we go to that refrain. That’s a real big one. I should have known.
[00:51:24] I should have been prepared. I should have anticipated this. And our survival brain would love it. If we could always anticipate everything, it does not like negative surprises because it can’t plan and preserve resources for that. So if you can just notice I, for a long time, I thought everyone felt that way.
[00:51:45] And I realized not everybody does. Like it’s okay to be surprised sometimes by negative things, it doesn’t feel good. But if I don’t pile on the judgment, the self judgment that I should have known, I should have been prepared for every possible outcome. When some of them aren’t very likely. Um, we can spend so much resources trying to prepare for any possible negative outcome that we don’t have room.
[00:52:09] As Rick said to be in the thriving in the joy of the day to day, we’re so busy stuffing things into the basement that might preserve us. If the zombie apocalypse comes that we don’t get to enjoy right here and right now. So, um, I just thought that was important. I wanted to share that with what you’d said there.
[00:52:28] Um, And someone said, I’m feeling vulnerable saying this, but when you said the universe brings things back to us to help us let go, I wanna say, fuck the universe or F the universe. I often will tell the universe. I hate it. I’m mad at it. Fuck the universe. Both double fingers, whatever. It’s okay. I think the universe loves us.
[00:52:49] Anyway. I think the universe is just like a very loving parent. That’s like, most many of us didn’t have those kind of parents, but like, okay, you can hate me. I still love you. I’m still gonna be there for you. Um, and Jean, I don’t know if that’s all true. This is my theory on some of these things. So you’re welcome to toss out what you like.
[00:53:12] So, um, and I’ll just say that I,
[00:53:20] I have seen memes that, talk about how something will keep coming back to you until you learn the lesson in it. And there’s a part of me that, um, Gets very reflect like, um, and I, I believe that the there’s a different level of, of wisdom for me, which is that there are certain things that are a part of being human.
[00:53:48] Just like if I’m a tree, wind is gonna be a part of being a tree bugs, eating me, gonna be a part of being a tree. Um, the ground sometimes being so wet that I might even fall over. Um, there are things that are clearly, if I look at my, the arc of my life, there are things that keep coming back over and over again, the loss of loved ones.
[00:54:14] Someone mentioned those that’s really hard. Yeah, really? I don’t, there are segments of our life where we might not have someone that we lose. And there are some people where that is such a repeated thing, health, health challenges. Um, you know, I, Abraham talks about being happy, healthy, happy, healthy, happy, healthy, dead.
[00:54:40] Well, I, I’ve gotta wart on my foot, uh, that I cannot get rid of in any of the normal ways that people recommend. It’s frustrating. It’s hard and it’s a little deal, but it’s still part of my ecosystem. And so as we look at, you know, what is our conceptual framework for thriving and these real skills part of it is, you know, I, I, it feels good to me to believe that the universe isn’t out to get me, like, I, I don’t think that.
[00:55:16] The, the tree that fell down when it was really raining, that, that the rain was out to get it and to inflict, um, harm on it and it fell over and it’s not gonna recover. Obviously it’s big, formally, formerly healthy tree that grew in certain. Um, if I, if I have the expectation that I’m doing something wrong, or I should have, like Kathy said, if you have a reflexive reaction from trauma, I should have seen that coming.
[00:55:51] Uh, I should have known another shoe was gonna drop. And that adds to the hardness. I believe that we can continue to shift that, um, and getting laid off competent people are being laid off every single day. Um, that. You know, I’m not saying that to make anyone scared, but if, if you believe that if I just do everything perfectly and right, and competently that you won’t get laid off, that’s, that’s actually setting yourself up for a really hard situation.
[00:56:27] The same, the same token feeling like it’s your fault adds to it. And this is part of our work is what are humans actually have to have to meaning these are natural things that are part of our emotional weather system, our life and death cycle. Um, what are those things? What’s hard. What do we have to like muster our courage and support and resources to get through?
[00:56:56] Um, what do we, what do we do to support and share the wisdom around survival and share the wisdom around thriving? Those are, those are, those are. I was writing about wisdom today. And I, I believe that our wisdom around survival is like, yeah, expect another shoe. But like, I have two shoes. If I take one off, the other, one’s gonna get taken off tomorrow.
[00:57:20] I’m gonna put 'em back on and guess what? The I’m gonna take one other shoes off. And the next one is gonna drop surely thereafter. I very rarely draw. And so like, yeah, things happen to us as humans being resilient and prepared is I’m. I am taking time to be with the good qualities that I demonstrate by taking on these hard things.
[00:57:43] Um, yeah, I think there’s some people that like, kind of, this is our lot in life. We have to be miserable and I think there’s a difference between hard and miserable. Like we can choose hard things we can, like, we could try to go through our life the easiest way possible, but like, I think that when we face, we can create more of a willing to walk into the hard.
[00:58:06] And yeah, there’s sometimes things are just hard, but we don’t have to suffer the suffering. And the hard are not the same thing we don’t have to. I think we conflate them a lot in our society. And what Rick’s talking about is like, yeah, we can choose hard and sometimes hard will choose us and we can separate the suffering and figure out ways to make the challenging things a little bit easier to step into.
[00:58:33] Am I saying that in a clear way, Rick. Yeah. When you have, when you have a toddler, you realize how often suffering visits a human? Um, who’s not, oh, when I told her she couldn’t draw walls. Oh my God. The, the misery of that small, like she asked very politely and I was like, no. And she asked politely again.
[00:58:56] And I said, no. And she fell on the floor in child. I’ve never seen a child. Good. A child’s pose before collapsed and like sobbing her heart out. I’m like, I’m the world’s worst aunt. Like, it was so hard to be with her because it was so horr horrific for her that she couldn’t have these great, great walls.
[00:59:14] Why wouldn’t you color them? So it does. And I do think that sometimes when we work through things in a very mindful way, we heal things that make thriving harder, the joyful day harder. And I think a lot of us were brought up with people that maybe tried their best, but didn’t have a lot of skills in working through my parents did not know how to deal with sadness or disappointment.
[00:59:42] They’re just like, get over it. I’ll give you something to cry about. Go play. Here’s a cookie. It wasn’t like, oh, wow, that’s a lot. And I watch Rick with the little with Aira and he’s like, it’s okay, honey, you get to feel this. I love you. It’ll get better. Just Fe it’s okay to feel this way. And I’m like, I wish someone said that to me when I was little.
[01:00:04] Um, so a lot of us didn’t have the skills to clear out our system and kind of understand that, oh, these feelings pass. If we can just be with them. If we share them with a friend, they become lighter. So I love the idea of clearing that, making things less, making the hard, less miserable. It is hard to hold space.
[01:00:28] And since that’s my thing that I wrote down, I’m noticing that Aira in distress as you and I have been sharing and we’ve been talking, um, like my throat’s very different. My, my shoulder feels like, of course I wanna protect her. And you know, let’s, we’ll be in balance best we can. And there’s a, another energy rising, which is around like this.
[01:00:55] It is hard to hold space. It’s emotional labor. Um, sometimes we don’t have as much capacity for that as we’d like, I invite you to check in like, how is this thing that you’ve been focused on from the beginning of our workshop? How intense is it now? There’s nothing you haven’t done anything wrong. If it feels more intense, cuz we’ve been engaging with it for me.
[01:01:29] Like I feel more resourced and capable. So whereas it was like nine, um, it’s more like a, okay, it’s a hard six meaning uh, with my nature may not be easy and I feel more solid. You might even notice it in my voice. Like I feel more solid. Yeah, I’m noticing. I don’t feel it’s probably went from like an eight to a, a five or six where just like, oh yeah.
[01:02:05] Some people I’m not gonna be the right fit for some people. And for some people I might be a really good fit and maybe that’s great. Um, well they’re not gonna be a great fit for you, right? So she’s a mutual. No, not this person. She’s gonna wanna talk about stuff. They love you. Oh, we’ve got a chance to get Kathy now.
[01:02:25] Oh my gosh. oh, you have no chance of getting me to work for you.
[01:02:34] So, um, with the time we have the, if you can get something so that it feels hard and the distressed level is really high and you calm the noise enough. That you get down to a place where your body mind is starting to feel like, okay, I actually have a sense of my resource coming back to me from an energy perspective, you’re shifting out of your primitive brain and more into your core resourcefulness.
[01:03:11] You may even find yourself like touching your belly and, um, like your legs. You can kind of push, activate your muscles more. Um, Hard things that are running around in our head only, and not embodied are going to like, your brain is not good at chopping wood, uh, alone, it kind of needs other parts and emotional labor.
[01:03:39] Um, if my brain and my eyes are looking and my ears are taking in all this energy, but my heart and legs and, and hamstrings are, are, are not in the building. Um, it, it’s not gonna feel I’m not gonna feel resourced and it’s at this moment, whereas your body starts shifting and hopefully it is for you too.
[01:04:03] Um, that you can ask a question like, whoa, what could make this a bit more fun and easy or meaningful? Fun easy, meaningful. And please notice that if, if, if you actually have, you’re not feeling better or maybe it feels more intense, you might just be UN disassociating. You might be reassociating with your body.
[01:04:27] Just like if we have a shoe that’s too tight sometimes after a while we numb out and it just kind of gets numb. We’re not really noticing, but when we take off the shoe, it actually can hurt a little more. At first that doesn’t mean you’re going the wrong direction. It actually means you’re being more present with your system.
[01:04:43] And it’s part of the healing process. So I know some people are like, oh, it got a little more intense. Ugh. Am I doing something wrong? No, you’re probably doing things really right. If you need to pause and just keep tapping on the, the things that are like hard about it and what your noise is to calm your energy, please feel free to do that.
[01:05:06] Um, when you ask like, well, what could make this a bit more fun, easy and meaningful. I’ll I’ll give you an example. Um, so Kathy was planning on being here on the east coast, uh, and things plants have changed and that’s hard on like our hearts feel like, uh, like that’s what mine feels like. Yeah. And before.
[01:05:39] The call. Um, we talked about co-working now co-working says we might be both working on some hard things, but just not necessarily the same hard thing. Like, um, and we just get on Skype and we have our video and we can talk, we can share, we can ask a question, we can ask for support. And it’s a way of being in space.
[01:06:00] And yesterday I went for my walk and I was like, oh, I miss her. And I, we just talked while I, I walked, it was really fun and it was really good for both of us. Um, I was feeling like it was really hard for me to take the time out, to go to walk because I was, I there, I needed to get back home. Um, I couldn’t go to the place I wanted to and when I acknowledged like, okay.
[01:06:28] Yeah. And it matters to me to get home, to tend to this. Um, what could make it feel a little bit more fun? Oh, I wonder Kathy’s available to go for a walk. This says I’m doing something, maybe it’s hard and I’m adding this, something that matters to me, this thriving. Um, or even if it’s not thriving, it’s supportive.
[01:06:52] It. It’s like, oh, um, what comes to mind as you all, if you’d like to share, as you think about, you know, your item, what could make it just a bit more fun, easy or meaningful to, and let yourself be creative. It may not. If you think if it doesn’t make logical sense, that’s even better because you’re giving yourself support at a very primal level.
[01:07:26] I think for me, the coworking is really big. Um, someone said being here to participate today is doing that. Um, sometimes if I have to clean my house, I’ll put on angry girl music, like someone pink during her rebellious time, I’ll put that on. And half the time I’m like Jamie, I’m vacuuming, I’m doing all the things.
[01:07:45] And it’s like done. And I’m like, oh, that was, that was not hard. Whereas before it was like, like, so that’s not like a logical thing. I’m not being super mindful, but I’m just like, oh, I gotta clean the dishes. Um, I don’t know, just, I like to think outside the box and let it be co let it be playful.
[01:08:08] If anyone else to share. Um, you’re welcome to.
[01:08:15] Because I think sometimes we see what the other people are doing and we’re like, oh, I didn’t think of that. That’s pretty cool. I could do that. Um, kickboxing well, maybe get one of those, um, blow up. Um, like I, when I was a kid, I had a, a blow up clown with a weighted bottom and you could whack it in the nose and it would go down and then come right back up.
[01:08:37] Yeah. I, I kind of. I, I kind of think I need one of those
[01:08:44] um, I can view my issues as a game and I’m, I’m the main actor in this dreamscape of life. I can be whoever I imagine. Yeah. I love that. Um, some people have talked about like, if you’re trying to walk with more power, imagine you’re a Panther and I do walk different. If I imagine I’m a Panther, like can the Panther vacuum the house?
[01:09:02] Can the Panther do the walking? I just gotta Lord of the rings walking challenge too. Cause I wanna be walking more. So I’m gonna walk across the Shire cuz I love Lord of the rings. Uh, so instead blowing bubbles, someone said, I have that clown I’d need to kick rather than box. Yeah. However you however, feels really good.
[01:09:24] Um, so if you can allow yourself, can we just do a little tapping on your, on this mm-hmm karate chop, even though I often make hard, harder, even though I often make hard. Harder. And part of me wants to hold onto the hardness. And part of me wants to hold onto the hardness. It’s been my buddy for a long time.
[01:09:48] Yeah. It’s been my buddy for a long time. I am open to making the hard, a little bit easier. I am ma I am open to making the hard, a little easier and maybe more fun and maybe more fun top of the head. Can I really allow this? Can I really allow this eyebrow? Can I put on the angry girl music when I clean?
[01:10:10] Can I put on the angry girl music? When I clean side of the eye, can I blow bubbles? Can I blow bubbles under the eye? Can I co-work with someone? Can I co-work with someone under the nose? Can I have regular breaks? Can I have regular breaks policies? Chin, what? Yeah. Chin, what can I do to make this a little easier and more fun?
[01:10:34] What can I do to make this a little easier and more fun collarbone? How can I practice creating this for myself? How can I practice creating this for myself under the arm? Even if it feels a little uncomfortable, even if it feels hard, tough of it. I’m really open to creating more ease and fun for myself.
[01:10:57] I’m really open to creating more ease and fun for myself. Yeah. Just take a breath.
[01:11:08] And see if you can, like, I, again, a lot of us haven’t, we weren’t, this wasn’t modeled for us often when we were kids. It’s like, my school was like, you have to sit still and just tough it through and get it all done. And my mom was like, you can have fun later. She’s one of those you can do it later. And she never gives your it’s never later.
[01:11:26] There’s never, never later that you can just sit and relax. So, you know, we may not have the muscles for this, but if we could build them in. And actually allow our survival brain to do the comparison thing a little bit like, okay, we we’ve chosen to do this thing because of our, why remembering the why we wanna do it can make a difference.
[01:11:47] Um, but we’ve chosen to do it. How can I make, you know, getting from here to there more entertaining, we don’t have to sit in the car upright with Dr. Steel bread and crackers. We can bring fun road food and good music and some games with us. And we can take a break every once in a while and stretch our legs.
[01:12:06] Um, we don’t have to do it all in one fell swoop and muscle our way through it, and then never wanna touch it again. So, and I think also we talked about breaking it up into baby steps. So a lot of times I’ll think of like, I wanna write a book or I wanna get a new job if I just think of it as a block, it’s too big.
[01:12:25] It’s like, ah, I don’t even know. Yes. But if I’m like, okay, I’m gonna pull up my resume. I’m just gonna pull it out and I’m gonna send it to two people I care about to review that know me. Okay. That’s that’s done for now. I’ve completed that step. I can go do something else. I can come back. They’ve sent me some feedback.
[01:12:44] Okay. I’m just gonna incorporate the feedback. And my brain’s automatically thinking, who am I sending this to? I’ll no, no, no. I’m just incorporating the feedback that I think is valid. I break it into steps that I stop. I go do something else. I come back. Can I send it to, can I apply to two jobs or can I do some research for, for two jobs?
[01:13:04] Not all the jobs that ever existed anywhere in the world, which is what my brain wants to do. I’m just gonna do two. um, so if you can breaking it into baby steps and our brain wants to like, get hard done so we can relax, but then we really kind of like it’s too big and too hard often to do that. What’s one step or one thing, one little chunk you can do can really help it seem like if you want, if your goal is to get in shape, you’re not gonna go to the gym and work out until your arms fall off.
[01:13:35] That’s not gonna actually serve you. But if you can just do one little thing that will help someone started breaking the Boulder into small rocks. Yeah. Um, and I, someone else thinking of the fun things I can do today after I get the hard thing done, making new friends, exploring new things, rewards. So reminding yourself the why the positive.
[01:13:57] and then also rewarding yourself. If that feels good to you. I also tend to forget, like when I’m doing something hard, I forget how good I feel when I actually accomplish something. Like my brain erases that until it actually happens. I’m like, oh, if I have knew I’d feel this good, I would’ve done it three days ago.
[01:14:15] Like, you know, but I don’t remember that in the moment, but having actually accomplished something that’s really important to me, there’s a really good dopamine rush that often occurs. And I, my sense of self-esteem my wellbeing go up. I’m like doing the laundry feeling good about myself. Cause I sent out those resumes or whatever.
[01:14:33] Um, if we can remember there’s there is a internal reward when we’ve accomplished something that matters. Um, I I’ll put in my, my vote and encouragement for the, the enhancements. So when I read something or I hear something like thinking of all the fun things I can do today, after I get the hard thing done well, I’m the, I’m the boss of my own schedule for the most part, which means that unless the hard thing is going to cost me so much to not get done.
[01:15:06] And there are these fun things I wanna do. I’ll go directly to the fun things and I won’t get the hard thing done. And so like, I am working on a book. And the enhancement like for the chapter was I’m gonna go to a different space now, why would I choose that? Well, my being, I work from home, the family’s here.
[01:15:30] If I go to a different space, like to go for a walk, I know that my energy changes so that if I go to a coffee shop, um, and also I’ve been missing, like the vibe of a coffee shop all through COVID, didn’t go. Um, hadn’t really found one in my hometown that I really was resonating with. Well, guess what? I found a coffee shop.
[01:15:52] I go to the coffee shop. I get my vanilla cappuccino. I sit down and I use my computer just to draft on the topic that I’ve decided that I’m going to do. Is it still hard? Oh yeah, it’s still hard, but there’s a quality of. It’s hard, but you know, I’m also thriving in it too, in the sense that, um, I’m engaging with something that matters to me, I’m really clear why it matters to me.
[01:16:27] I’m getting to be in a vibe of a business that I’m not having to tend to. I’m a customer. I’m not one of the co-creators. Um, I get to enjoy a taste. That’s different. I get to enjoy people and their vibe is like, there’s there, there were some people across the way. And they were working on a project together.
[01:16:45] And the vibe of that was like, oh, I needed that actually react. Oh, I’m finding it easier to do this. There’s a pillow there that I really like the look of it. I put it behind my back. I don’t necessarily want to own the pillow. I wouldn’t go out and buy it, but it’s, it’s nice. There’s a black leather sofa that I wouldn’t buy, but it’s actually got a good energy for me.
[01:17:08] Do you see what we’re doing here is we’re looking. and I had to go through this process because the, this project, the book project had become so hard that it was a 10 and nothing was happening on it. So I had to look at like, what was making it so hard and there were layers and I took off a brick and took off a big Boulder.
[01:17:34] And I got it down to a place where, yeah, look, it matters to me. If I didn’t care, we may not. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard. Um, but there’s nourishment in it. There’s, there’s a value in doing the hard work and I get to share. So, um, I, I’m not holding the expectation that it’s going to be easy or that, um,
[01:18:11] So where I land is that there’s nothing wrong with this. Having hardness to it. It’s vulnerable, it’s courageous. It requires integration. It requires spiritual connection. Even in the middle of a coffee shop. It, it asks of me to show up in ways that are, are good for me and hard. So I hope that that in encourages.
[01:18:40] And if you, if you have something that’s hard that you’d like to explore that more fully, um, the link where the replay is gonna be it’s out of thriving now.center. Um, we’d love to hear from you and engage with you around this subject. Um, this is the beginning. The continued cultivation of these real skills that contribute to being more calm and confident with what life brings and what we are inspired to take action around.
[01:19:12] Yeah. I really appreciate everybody. If you can just let yourself realize this is a really tough topic to walk into, and you just did this for an hour and a half. And if you can do this for an hour and a half, I bet you could do. Whatever’s challenging for you. If you like clear, maybe do a few minutes of tapping, clearing, figuring out how to make it fun.
[01:19:32] Could you do 10 minutes of the thing that you’ve been avoiding or the thing that’s really hard? And if you do 10 minutes, You start to build confidence and build the muscles. So you don’t have to build up all the muscles at once, but just in little chunks and something that’s super challenging to me, I’ve broken it into 22nd chunks.
[01:19:50] like, literally, I’m gonna look up a phone book, a phone number. I’m gonna write it down. I’m gonna run away and not think about it for the rest of the day, but I did the thing. So if you can give yourself the opportunity to build those muscles, so life can be a lot more fun and creative for yourselves. So thank you for being a part of everyone.
[01:20:09] And, um, we, we love your feedback if that is useful to you and follow up questions and the shared wisdom that rises as you start applying this, um, more consciously in your own life. So, yeah. Thank you, Kathy. Thank you. Thank you, Rick. Thank you everyone. Have a great day.
We covered…
- When EVERYTHING is hard, pick one thing that is hard (first step in this real skill)
- Our primitive brain tries to insist on Least Effort - Most Value. If something feels hard, we need to let the primitive brain know why this matters.
- Comparison to others is something to tap on when it arises. We can also honor the Good Things (as well as traumas) about ourselves that makes it hard for us, even if we imagine it is easier for others. (For example: People who don’t care about others’ feelings won’t find someone else’s emotional distress hard, whereas empathetic people do.)
- Acceptance helps take off layers of hardness.
- Tending to hard-on-ourselves beliefs also reduces overall hardness.
- Knowing why this matters to us – why we’re choosing to do it or get through it – helps clarify our energy and open us to possibilities.
- Co-creating and mutual support may be available in ways you couldn’t consider when the feeling of “It’s too hard” is too high.
- Once the energy starts shifting and the hardness is reducing, ask yourself: “What could make this a bit more fun or easy or meaningful for me?”
Resources Mentioned
Great to have you on this journey with us!
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Thank you all, this call feel much needed.
Something Cathy said made me realize I never rage at the universe…because I fear being punished by the universe making a hard situation even harder. To always be polite and not lose my rag because that will mean even the crumbs i’m hoping for will be taken away.
I then ask myself why do I settle for crumbs - because that’s all there ever is for me? I want the whole bl**dy fresh baked pie of my choice darn it! But f yeah, it’s hard.
I want to rage “tell me what the f the lesson is! How the h can I learn when I don’t know what it is trying to teach me? I’ve tried everything I can think of. I don’t know what else there is.
How about if you (universe) want me to change - just effin tell me, and I can say yes I will, now I get it, or heck No. But this random attempts? I’m done.”
and a few days/hours/weeks I crawl back again, coz nothing else has shown itself, and I got to do something, right?
My guides said Look forward, not backwards. And while I know they are right I don’t know what to do. There are a ton of things to factor in that are out of my control. I’m tired of being judged and I’m tired of judging myself too. I’m tired of being gaslit and feeling life is out of control.
I’m ready for some pleasant surprises to come my way. I think we all are. 
Thank you for reading my rant 
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I totally understand how that feels@Catpaw. I’ve raged too. Just tell me, ok?
I get glimpses but not enough yet.
to you.
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