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Improvising and Uncertainty
[00:00:00] Rick: Improvising and Uncertainty. This is a real skills workshop. And the third time’s the charm. The first time we scheduled this, um, was it the first time Rebecca broke her ankle or what? Yep. So the first time my oldest daughter broke her ankle coming off a ginormous horse, uh, over 18 hands tall. And so I left to drive to be with her and see her through her surgery the next time we were getting an ice store.
[00:00:34] And, um, yeah, that just didn’t feel like a yes. Um, and then we tried to reschedule it and then a snowstorm was coming and we decided not to challenge that snowstorm. And here we are, third time’s the charm. And I do believe that, um, improvisation is a core part of. Thriving. And it is a skill that’s often blocked, a skill and an experience that’s often blocked by perfectionism.
[00:01:05] Just like uncertainty is often blocked by all kinds of things. Right? Or our embrace of uncertainty. What is that blocked by Kathy, you, Cathy from TheIntimacyDojo and ThrivingNow. Yeah.
[00:01:20] Cathy: It’s delightful to be here. I think this is just a really important topic because um, we don’t like to feel uncertain in general, and I think.
[00:01:30] Rick, this group tends to be a lot of people that have faced trauma uncertainty as a child. And we have aversion to it. Like our bodies are like, Ooh, I associate that with bad things. Um, and so we tend to be more, more avoidant of it, um, because it can be really scary to us. Our nervous system is like, uncertainty is the same as, um, being overwhelmed and being a small child and not having enough information or whatever, or skills.
[00:01:56] So I think that we tend to have aversion to it and we don’t. Things that we have aversion to, we don’t often get more experiences with. We avoid them. We like, Nope, not that I’m going to go a different way. Um, so we don’t really build up the muscles or the capability of just being with that uncertainty.
[00:02:12] Like, that very feeling is like a, I consider it like two north magnets. When you try to put them together, there’s like a breaking effect and you don’t wanna go there. Um, but if we can’t be uncertain, we can’t really be with now. We can’t be with what reality as it is we’re planning for what we think we wanna have and then trying to steer things to what we think would be a good outcome rather than what is here right now.
[00:02:39] So I think it can really take away a lot of the joy of life, the, um, the flow of life. And it can also prevent us from like, I, I don’t know about you. I’m curious what people think. I have a an aversion to uncertainty and I will commit to something and I will, I’m gonna do it no matter what because I’ve said I don’t wanna create uncertainty for other people.
[00:02:59] I really wanna, like, make this thing happen that I’ve spent hours planning for. My brain is thought of all the different iterations, like I’ve invested so much, I just wanna make it happen. Um, and that’s not always good for me. It can be really like, I could be sick or I could be tired, or it just isn’t a good and I’ll try to make it happen.
[00:03:18] And that isn’t, I wanna be more responsive to life as it is. And how I am as I am, rather than trying to force things to conform to whatever map or picture I made in my own head. So I’m curious if other people have a similar experiences. If you wanna share in the chat, we’d love to hear what comes up for you when we’re talking about this.
[00:03:38] Rick: Mm-hmm. Well, I wanna honor that like a lot of the things that you and I have worked through around reprogramming your primitive brain
[00:03:47] Cathy: mm-hmm.
[00:03:47] Rick: To me, you’re the kind of person that can make things happen, right? Yeah. Like if, if, uh, if bad weather is coming
[00:04:01] Cathy: mm-hmm.
[00:04:02] Rick: You’re the type of person that would see and be able to sort out, what do we need to pull together Right this minute?
[00:04:09] Cathy: Yeah.
[00:04:09] Rick: You’re to get through this.
[00:04:10] Cathy: Yeah.
[00:04:11] Rick: Right?
[00:04:12] Cathy: Yep.
[00:04:12] Rick: Now, you know, we’re, our ancestors are the ones that survived.
[00:04:19] Cathy: The ones
[00:04:19] Rick: that planned
[00:04:20] Cathy: ahead, usually
[00:04:21] Rick: they were like, oh, the ones that didn’t survive were like, oh, there’s wood all around here. We don’t need to collect any and keep it dry. And they froze to death.
[00:04:33] Right. And so like the certainty about not freezing to death in the mountains is one of those things that, guess what? When the ice storm was coming, I saw a head, oh you great. I’m in Hurricane Helene territory. There’s a lot of trauma here from people that were caught unawares, 10,000 year storm, you know, once every 10,000 year storms will do that.
[00:05:00] Cathy: Yeah.
[00:05:01] Rick: And so I ordered my little propane bottles for the space heater, um, five or six days in advance, um, when I went the day before to, um, to the Home Depot. Uh, there was nothing. Now I was, everybody’s, I was going just to see if they happened to have any like rock salt or anything. We had some already.
[00:05:29] Cathy: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:30] Rick: Um, but they, they brought out, you know, a hundred generators that had just arrived on the truck. And by the time I had walked down an aisle and walked around and come back, the other one, there were two left, and then they were gone. Oh, wow. A hundred generators. A less than 24 hours. Now, I, you know, the amazing thing to me is that our ancestors did learn that we needed to provide for shelter, we needed to provide for food, we needed to provide for care in order to get through the hard times.
[00:06:11] And so my primitive brain is not going to give up on that if I try to, to tap on. Uncertainty related to survival and putting some energy toward it. Conscientiously, um, uh, my, my primitive brain wants to keep some, what it considers a sweet spot. But here’s the thing. A, I did a lot of tapping around my own trauma around Helene and the preparedness and lack of preparedness.
[00:06:43] Um, and so I was pretty diligent, but not stressed. I didn’t have that haunted look in my face.
[00:06:55] Cathy: Yeah. When
[00:06:55] Rick: I was in Home Depot and I looked around, I could see that person is haunted by the past, and you can tell by what they’re, they’re just throwing things into their cart. Everything, graphics, anything that could possibly be survival oriented.
[00:07:11] And, you know, I started tapping again for myself because a part of me goes, oh, don’t I have to do that too? Right. Our primitive brains resonate with others in our tribe and in that we’re connected to.
[00:07:25] Cathy: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:25] Rick: And so if the uncertainty that’s in your, if some of the uncertainty in your life is really related to, uh, life itself, survival of, of you or someone you love, the, the kind of tapping I do, which I’m gonna model here is, uh, something that honors my primitive brain, but also tries to invite myself, my whole self into being skillful in this situation.
[00:07:59] Does that make sense?
[00:08:01] Cathy: Yeah. And I think that, I mean, you tapped, I saw you, you were here during Helene and you were tapping and talking it through and you know, it just, it was very stressful and I think it would’ve been, might’ve been more tapping neat. Required if you’d been there during the
[00:08:16] Rick: process. No question.
[00:08:17] Cathy: Yeah,
[00:08:18] Rick: no, I would’ve signed up for sessions with you to, to go through the sound, the sounds and shock and other things. So for each of us, our traumas are unique and how they flow into what’s happening in our world now, or some of the uncertainties that are, uh, you know, getting us to, to pay attention to.
[00:08:42] So
[00:08:46] if, if I’m doing this for myself, I will pick, I will try to see if my brain will pick one uncertainty. Okay. Uh, there’s a big one in my family. And I am that one’s, that one feels okay because I do, I do tapping on it regularly. It’s um, but if it feels too big for you to do in a group right now, maybe pick something that is, uh, a little less intense.
[00:09:21] I’m gonna leave that up to you. Of course. Please take care of yourself.
[00:09:25] Cathy: But we do encourage you to pick something and have it in your mind. Maybe jot it down on a, on a post-it note that can help you stay focused. And that’s one of the reasons that being able to stay with the one thing and kind of tapping it through a little bit can be much more effective than just kind of letting our mind wander.
[00:09:40] Our brain wants to stay away from things that it thinks are difficult or painful. And when we can stay a little bit focused with that and tap, we’re helping our nervous system clear and also learn that it, Hey, this isn’t so bad. I can handle this. And it’s often the fear of the feeling that causes the most distress and the most.
[00:09:59] Issues in our lives. 'cause we’re running away from something when we can learn that, hey, you know, it doesn’t feel great, but I’m fine, then we can start handling like Rick being in the Home Depot, if he wasn’t feel, if he hadn’t learned how to just, oh, I’m scared and uncomfortable, but I’m, I know how to plan for this.
[00:10:17] He might have been someone just going down the shelves and pulling things in, spending a lot of money, having to store a lot of things that didn’t fit and not having some of the things he really needed. So the more we can teach our nervous system, Hey, it’s okay to feel this. We got it. Um, just feels a little uncomfortable.
[00:10:34] We’re training it, we’re building muscles for feeling this and for dealing with it better. So.
[00:10:40] Rick: So we start tapping at the Side of the Hand:, sometimes called the Karate Chop: point. We’re not teaching tapping in this workshop. I put now com slash tapping.
[00:10:49] Cathy: Yep.
[00:10:50] Rick: Is where you can get a free guide.
[00:10:52] Cathy: Yep.
[00:10:53] Rick: Even though this uncertainty feels just way too much,
[00:10:56] Cathy: even though this uncertainty feels just way too much,
[00:10:59] Rick: and a part of me wants to hide from it
[00:11:01] Cathy: and a part of me wants to hide from it,
[00:11:03] Rick: and a part of me wants to push, push, push.
[00:11:06] Cathy: And a part of me wants to push, push, push.
[00:11:08] Rick: I acknowledge there’s an uncertainty here.
[00:11:11] Cathy: I acknowledge there’s an uncertainty here,
[00:11:13] Rick: and it’s a big one.
[00:11:14] Cathy: And it’s a big one.
[00:11:16] Rick: It may even involve life and death.
[00:11:19] Cathy: Mm. It may even involve life or death.
[00:11:22] Rick: Top of the Head:. This is just so big.
[00:11:25] Cathy: This is so big.
[00:11:27] Rick: Eyebrow: such a huge uncertainty,
[00:11:29] Cathy: such a huge uncertainty
[00:11:31] Rick: Side of the Eye:.
[00:11:33] It’s almost impossible to cope with.
[00:11:36] Cathy: It’s almost impossible to cope with
[00:11:38] Rick: Under the Eye:. And I’m elected.
[00:11:41] Cathy: And I’m elected.
[00:11:46] Rick: This uncertainty is mine.
[00:11:48] Cathy: This uncertainty is mine.
[00:11:50] Rick: Jen and I might share it with others,
[00:11:53] Cathy: and I share it with others,
[00:11:57] Rick: and I want to feel what? How would you all, like, how would you like to feel?
[00:12:06] Cathy: I’d like to feel calmly confident.
[00:12:08] Rick: Yeah. I’d like to feel real and optimistic.
[00:12:14] Cathy: Feel optimistic. That’s a lovely way to feel.
[00:12:16] Yeah.
[00:12:17] Rick: I’d like to feel real.
[00:12:19] Cathy: I’d like to feel real.
[00:12:20] Rick: There’s an uncertainty here.
[00:12:22] Cathy: There is an uncertainty here.
[00:12:24] Rick: And I, I suck at pretending,
[00:12:27] Cathy: and I suck at pretending.
[00:12:30] Rick: And I wanna be optimistic too.
[00:12:33] Cathy: And I wanna be optimistic too,
[00:12:35] Rick: and sufficiently prepared
[00:12:37] Cathy: and sufficiently prepared.
[00:12:42] Rick: Now, when I say sufficiently prepared, like a cascade of things come up. If that, if that was true for you, you can pick one that, um, like there’s some possibilities that I actually can’t prepare for. Okay. I can, I can ground myself, I can be, um, I can keep myself strong as I can emotionally keep my relationship strong.
[00:13:15] Keep. Mm-hmm. And, and there’s a possibility that it just doesn’t, it feels like, well. I will just have to be in that if that’s what happens.
[00:13:24] Cathy: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:24] Rick: Right. There’s, there are qualities of preparation, you know, but the actual one possibility life or death possibility is just feels so big that if I try to be prepared,
[00:13:43] I just kind of know that I’ll need to do a lot of praying, even though some possibilities are just too much.
[00:13:53] Cathy: Even though some possibilities are just too much.
[00:13:56] Rick: I’ll just have to live with it, live through it.
[00:14:00] Cathy: I’ll just have to live through it.
[00:14:04] Rick: It’s not the only possibility.
[00:14:06] Cathy: It’s not the only possibility.
[00:14:08] Rick: Top of the Head:. It’s the worst possibility.
[00:14:11] Cathy: It’s the worst possibility.
[00:14:13] Rick: Eyebrow: and some things you don’t prepare for
[00:14:16] Cathy: and some things you don’t prepare for.
[00:14:18] Rick: Side of the Eye:? Well, not directly.
[00:14:22] Cathy: Not directly
[00:14:23] Rick: Under the Eye:. I, I can What, what can you do feel into what’s true for who you are? If there’s an uncertainty that’s like horrible, um, for me, we
[00:14:40] Cathy: can still line up resources and, and clear whatever we can.
[00:14:44] I,
[00:14:45] Rick: I can keep my love strong.
[00:14:47] Cathy: I can keep my love strong
[00:14:49] Rick: and my prayers stronger
[00:14:51] Cathy: and my is stronger,
[00:14:55] Rick: and keep my heart of optimism
[00:14:57] Cathy: and keep my heart at optimism.
[00:15:07] Rick: Because I, I want to embrace my capacity to improvise.
[00:15:11] Cathy: I wanna embrace my capacity to improvise
[00:15:14] Rick: Top of the Head:. The truth is, I’ve lived through some shit.
[00:15:18] Cathy: The truth is I’ve lived through some shit
[00:15:23] Rick: and I bet I’ve, I’ve developed some powers there
[00:15:27] Cathy: and I have developed some powers there.
[00:15:35] So I invite you to notice what’s going on in your body and your mind as we’re doing this tapping. Um, one of the more recent models they have of how human consciousness works, how the brain works, is that we’re kind of, our brain is kind of a prediction machine based on our knowledge and experience. Um, we, we kind of predict what’s gonna happen next, and that’s not, and it’s adjusting as it goes.
[00:15:58] So, um, that’s great. I mean, that’s very useful. Um. And I think that people that have experienced, uh, struggles when they were younger, and I think most people here have, you know, more sensitive people are more aware of what’s going on. And some of us have faced abuse or trauma of other kinds. Um, instead of planning for the three or four things that are pretty likely, we start planning for the a hundred things that could go.
[00:16:24] We, we kinda like, okay, I have, yes, I’ll plan for the power going out, but what if the power goes out and there’s a flood and someone’s sick? Like we, we kind of go, we spread it out and it’s very tiring. I’ve noticed. I kind watch my brain. It’s like the CPUs are going real fast and trying to calculate everything and then I kind of wanna plan for everything.
[00:16:46] And that’s now my nervous system is like, oh my god, these, all these things that could go wrong. Um, and I’m, you know, like I’m focused more on the negative than probably as. Reasonable given my current life situation. Um, and, you know, modern technology and everything, but our brains don’t always update from when we were young, when we were really overwhelmed and we saw bad things happen more often than probably the average person has.
[00:17:13] So our brains like, our, our prediction is off. Our calibration is skewed because we’re like, oh my goodness, I have to plan for bad things all the time. And I’m curious if anyone’s noticing that in your brains.
[00:17:27] Rick: Let’s do, would you lead us in some tapping?
[00:17:29] Cathy: Yeah. So I invite you to take a nice deep breath if it feels good to you.
[00:17:35] Karate, Chop:. Even though I do like to plan for things,
[00:17:40] Rick: even though I do like to plan for things and that’s not gonna change.
[00:17:43] Cathy: Yeah, I’m pretty good at predicting some outcomes.
[00:17:48] Rick: I’m pretty good at predicting some outcomes.
[00:17:50] Cathy: I might spend a little too much time and energy on this.
[00:17:55] Rick: I might spend way too much time and energy on the negative possibilities.
[00:18:04] Cathy: It takes a lot outta my life.
[00:18:06] Rick: It takes so much out of my life.
[00:18:08] Cathy: It’s harder to be present with the people I love.
[00:18:11] Rick: It’s harder to be present with the people I love
[00:18:14] Cathy: and my actual life.
[00:18:15] Rick: And my actual life.
[00:18:18] Cathy: Top of the Head:, I invite my brain to recalibrate.
[00:18:21] Rick: I invite my brain to recalibrate.
[00:18:25] Cathy: I know when I was little, some of these things seemed really dastardly
[00:18:29] Rick: when I was little.
[00:18:30] Some of these things were really dastardly
[00:18:33] Cathy: Side of the Eye:, so I learned at that age that things could be really bad.
[00:18:38] Rick: I learned at that age things could be really bad
[00:18:41] Cathy: Under the Eye: more often than is probably real
[00:18:46] Rick: more often than is probably real.
[00:18:48] Cathy: Under the Nose:. At least now.
[00:18:50] Rick: At least Now
[00:18:51] Cathy: Jen, I live in a different world from back then.
[00:18:54] Rick: I live in a different world from back then
[00:18:57] Cathy: Collarbone:. But my brain hasn’t really recalibrated yet.
[00:19:01] Rick: My brain is still recalibrating.
[00:19:04] Cathy: Yeah. And I invite it to notice there’s, there’s a lot of good in this life
[00:19:09] Rick: and I invited to notice there’s a lot of good in this life,
[00:19:12] Cathy: Top of the Head: and do planning appropriate for the situation
[00:19:16] Rick: and do planning appropriate for the situation.
[00:19:19] Cathy: Just take a breath. See that feels actually good for me. I can kind of feel my brain like, oh, I don’t have to plan for things that are like the 0.01% of an a bad thing happening. I can kind of bring it in. Like these are really the likely things to happen. The others are very unusual and not likely to happen unless aliens land or something.
[00:19:38] You know, I don’t have to actually plan for that. Mm-hmm. Um, so I think when we. Part of what happens, at least from my experience, I’m curious about yours. Um, if I’m planning for all those things, I’m kind of wearing myself out. I’m not getting fulfillment of the current day life and what’s going on. Um, so I’m kind of already exhausted.
[00:19:59] And then if something happens that I didn’t think to plan for, I beat myself up. And I kind of panicked because I didn’t, I pe spent a lot of my energy in the planning. I don’t have as much energy to dance with what is met here and now.
[00:20:13] Rick: Yeah.
[00:20:19] And that’s, you know, part of the, the skillset here isn’t always, uh, we touch on the big deals because we know the trauma throws us out of being resourceful, being guided. We’re looking for the external stuff that could go wrong. And again, my ancestors are like. Damn straight
[00:20:44] Cathy: go wrong.
[00:20:45] Rick: Don’t fail me now. Um, and where’s the skill actually built up?
[00:20:52] I believe that in the uncertainties of an individual day, there’s a lot of opportunity. Um, so I didn’t know that it was gonna rain. It was a prediction that the weather people said, where I am that it likely to rain today. They were right. I I know that right now it is certain because I’ve lived through the day and I can look out and yeah, it’s, it’s got rain there.
[00:21:19] Um, but what are we gonna do as a family? I, I didn’t know when people were going to get up. Mm-hmm. Now. When you’re teaching a workshop around uncertainty and improvisation, guess what? These things heighten for you. Yes, I’ll share. Yes. You really turn into them very well. So I’ll share that at, you know, seven 30 in the morning.
[00:21:42] I’m like, I don’t know what, I don’t know what this day’s got. Only thing I know is that I’ve got a workshop and I hope that it’s gonna happen anyway. And, um, so if I, if I notice where that level of uncertainty hits my body mm-hmm.
[00:22:06] Cathy: Like,
[00:22:06] Rick: as I’m remembering this morning, the tapping I did was like this feeling of uncertainty in my throat.
[00:22:13] You can maybe even hear that my voice is getting a little, as I tune into uncertainty about, well, what’s gonna happen? What are we like right now? I don’t know what the family’s going to eat. I’m usually the one that does it. We have plenty for them to eat, but I don’t know what they’re going to eat. Now if I get wrapped up in that, it’s intense enough in my body, not life or death, but it’s intense enough in my body because it is related to something that we need.
[00:22:45] We need food, right? We need rest. We need certain things. And so the tapping I I did this morning was even though it’s uncertain what we’re gonna do today,
[00:22:58] Cathy: even though it’s uncertain what we’re gonna do today,
[00:23:02] Rick: uh, part of me finds that uncomfortable,
[00:23:04] Cathy: part of me finds that really uncomfortable.
[00:23:07] Rick: I guess it’s time to improvise.
[00:23:09] Cathy: I guess it’s time to improvise.
[00:23:11] Rick: And that’s okay.
[00:23:12] Cathy: And that’s okay.
[00:23:13] Rick: Might even be joyful.
[00:23:15] Cathy: It might even be joyful and fun.
[00:23:18] Rick: Yeah, Top of the Head:, but I don’t like uncertainty.
[00:23:21] Cathy: I don’t like uncertainty.
[00:23:24] Rick: I am certain I woke up at five 30.
[00:23:27] Cathy: I’m certain I woke up at five 30.
[00:23:29] Rick: That’s already happened.
[00:23:30] Cathy: That’s already happened.
[00:23:33] Rick: But I’m uncertain what time. I’ll take a nap.
[00:23:35] Cathy: I’m uncertain what time. I’ll take a nap.
[00:23:37] Rick: Or even if I will,
[00:23:39] Cathy: or even if I will.
[00:23:40] Rick: I really want a shower.
[00:23:42] Cathy: I really wanna shower.
[00:23:43] Rick: But it’s not on the schedule.
[00:23:45] Cathy: It’s not on the schedule.
[00:23:47] Rick: But it might happen.
[00:23:49] Cathy: But it might happen.
[00:23:50] Rick: I predict it’s gonna happen.
[00:23:51] Cathy: I predict it’s gonna happen.
[00:23:53] Rick: And if it doesn’t, the people on Zoom won’t even smell me.
[00:23:58] Cathy: If it doesn’t be on Zoom, won’t even,
[00:24:00] Rick: Hey primitive brain, this is all okay.
[00:24:04] Cathy: Hey primitive brain, this is all okay.
[00:24:07] Rick: Ah, take a breath. So what did I do? I took things that were irritating because they were uncertain, but they weren’t life and death, which meant that I could play with it a bit.
[00:24:18] Yeah, right. Um. Uh, notice I was using improvisation. That wasn’t exactly the tapping that I did. I was kind of going freeform. Mm-hmm. But that’s the thing about, um, you know, I remember when I started off, people kept asking, well, well, what’s the tapping script for that? What’s the tapping script for that?
[00:24:39] Yeah. I remember when I would first do it, I was like, if there has right words, no, can, can you give me the right words? In one of the first articles I wrote was No wrong words.
[00:24:48] Cathy: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:48] Rick: Um, and that turned off a lot of people just saying thank you for being here. Um, I, I get the best benefit myself from tapping where I let it go, and I also tap in with other people, um, that are also improvising and it’s helpful to me.
[00:25:10] Um, but by taking uncertainties that are.
[00:25:22] Ones that are showing up in your daily life, and if you were to rate them on a life or death scale
[00:25:30] Cathy: mm-hmm.
[00:25:30] Rick: They’re, they’re down in the less than a five.
[00:25:34] Yeah.
[00:25:34] Rick: Okay. Um, I even did this this last week as we were heading into this, uh, thing. My, my back did a thing.
[00:25:43] Cathy: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:44] Rick: Um, it’s done it a number of times over the last, you know, 30 years.
[00:25:49] Um, and I was having a hard time pip sitting, moving, standing up, cooking, working myself. Yeah. Right. Like, ah, and um, so that was painful, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t gonna kill me. Um, I just needed to let it heal and get some support, which I did. But the uncertainty about like when it was gonna ease up whether this Aleve was gonna do anything for me or not, I just tapped on the little annoyances that there’s not a certainty about a treatment or a movement.
[00:26:34] There’s certain stretches and movements I’ve done that have sometimes just been miraculous at relieving my back pain.
[00:26:41] Cathy: None of
[00:26:42] Rick: those were doing anything. Well, and your chiropractors away. My chiropractor was away. The one I went to made it worse. Uh, and the uncertainty of not knowing that even though my chiropractor was on the schedule for Thursday, whether he was actually gonna be there or I was gonna be safe enough to drive, is this life or death?
[00:27:03] No. But it was up at that edge of like, this feels so important. And so those are things that I tapped on and. I noticed that usually when I get a head cold, my daughter likes to share. She’s so genetic, not her brownie. She does like to share her sicknesses with her dad. Um, we share the same lack of immunity to anything, uh, that, that she gets.
[00:27:37] So when I, when I woke up, um, with this huge head cold and headache, I noticed something. This tapping I did on the uncertainty over the last week related to my back pain meant that my attitude mm-hmm. Toward my, my sinuses and my head cold was dramatically more relaxed. I could go from yes to, yes to yes.
[00:28:07] Ah, it’s time to take a shower. Hmm. It is time to ask Gem what herbs she took when she had it. That might be helpful. I did. Um, why, so The skill really does have a compounding
[00:28:25] Cathy: it. Oh, it definitely does.
[00:28:26] Rick: It compounds for us because we’re not sure when we’re
[00:28:28] Cathy: sick. How sick are we gonna get? How long will it be?
[00:28:31] How bad am I gonna feel? What do I need? There’s a lot of tending to ourselves in the moment, and that can be very scary. I’m like, oh no, not that sickness again. Um,
[00:28:42] Rick: and so like the uncertainty around, uh, Rebecca’s recovery from the broken ankle. She got a great surgery. Um, she’s, she’s visiting the barn again.
[00:28:53] Uh, not gonna be on a horse for a long, long time. Yeah. Um, but she said, she said to me, she’s starting to feel more like herself. Yeah. Um, the big uncertainty that I’ve been, I’m tapping on here during the workshop. Um, any work that I do on littler uncertainties, that, that just annoy me or frustrate or block me or feel like I must be missing something here.
[00:29:22] B, BB, tap, tap. I must be missing something here. 'cause otherwise it would be certain, yeah. I can be delusional too. Um, what it’s done is the pain of the uncertainty is. Is dropping. Yeah. And what’s rising is a kind of realness, a presence with what is. Mm-hmm. But not a, like,
[00:29:54] it’s a presence that includes the beautiful aspects too. Mm-hmm. It includes an awareness of the support that we have as a family, as, um, uh, within our family and around our family. It’s, and that’s what I, I, I have noticed with people that are, the uncertainty is just a, a bit too much. Is that if we treat it as Okay.
[00:30:26] Yeah, it is. My perimeter brain doesn’t like uncertainty and I want to feel what Coleman confident, um, um. Ridiculously present with what is. Anyway.
[00:30:43] Cathy: Yeah, I love that. Ridiculous. Just this. What is here? Yeah,
[00:30:47] Rick: what is here,
[00:30:48] Cathy: what is here?
[00:30:49] Rick: What is actually here right now?
[00:30:51] Cathy: What is actually here versus what I think I’d like to see,
[00:30:55] Rick: what am I certain about from the last three minutes?
[00:30:58] Cathy: What am I, what am I certain about? From the last three minutes,
[00:31:01] Rick: Uhhuh, uh, I have survived.
[00:31:07] Cathy: I have survived.
[00:31:09] Rick: And this workshop is happening.
[00:31:11] Cathy: This workshop is finally happening.
[00:31:14] Rick: Yeah. Ah, there’s my certainty. It’s now,
[00:31:18] Cathy: there’s my certainty here and now,
[00:31:21] Rick: but I don’t know. About five minutes from now.
[00:31:23] Cathy: I don’t know, about five minutes from now.
[00:31:25] Rick: And that’s not a defect.
[00:31:27] Cathy: That’s not a defect.
[00:31:29] Rick: That’s not because I’m not smart.
[00:31:31] Cathy: It’s not 'cause I’m not smart
[00:31:33] Rick: or prepared
[00:31:34] Cathy: or prepared
[00:31:35] Rick: or savvy.
[00:31:36] Cathy: Or savvy.
[00:31:39] Rick: And I’ve judged myself in the past
[00:31:42] Cathy: and I’ve judged myself in the past
[00:31:45] Rick: for not having it all figured out in advance
[00:31:48] Cathy: for not having all figured out in the past.
[00:31:51] Yeah, I resonate with that.
[00:31:53] Rick: Yeah. And I should totally be able to know what the lottery numbers are this coming week. I
[00:31:58] Cathy: should totally know what the lottery numbers are this week
[00:32:03] Rick: and when my time is up on the planet
[00:32:05] Cathy: and when my time is up on the planet.
[00:32:07] Rick: But I don’t know either,
[00:32:08] Cathy: but I don’t know either.
[00:32:10] Rick: And I don’t know anyone else’s either.
[00:32:12] Cathy: And I don’t know anyone else’s either. I think part of it can come if we have parents that are pretty depleted or low resourced, there tends to be, if, if anything uncertain comes up, there just tend to be a deflection of blaming. It’s very easy to blame someone else.
[00:32:29] You should have been more prepared. You should have known that. That’s something my family would often do. And it could have been something that no one had a way of knowing, but there was still that, hey, you know, you should have, it’s your fault that you weren’t more prepared or more aware. So when I don’t know something, I tend to kind of panic and go, oh, I not guess.
[00:32:47] I’m not as smart as I thought. I, I do, well, I, beating myself up does not help me improvise. It does not help me deal with anything. But it’s, there’s a kind of knee jerk reaction in there.
[00:32:58] Rick: You wanna, you wanna lead a tapping on
[00:32:59] Cathy: that one? I’d to, I think it looks
[00:33:00] Rick: like it’s resonating with some people. Yeah.
[00:33:02] More with me.
[00:33:03] Cathy: All right. So again, nice deep breath. If you kind of helps you ground,
[00:33:07] Rick: I’d like you to weave in the word unpredicted because we were talking about prediction machines. Like Yeah. Even though that was unpredicted.
[00:33:15] Cathy: Yeah. ’
[00:33:15] Rick: cause I do have a ju I like there’s this,
[00:33:18] Cathy: I should have predicted.
[00:33:19] Rick: I should known.
[00:33:19] I should have predicted it. That’s, that’s a should for me.
[00:33:22] Cathy: Karate Chop:. Even though I should have known,
[00:33:25] Rick: even though I should have known,
[00:33:26] Cathy: I should have been able to predict this.
[00:33:28] Rick: I should have been able to predict it
[00:33:30] Cathy: and I failed.
[00:33:32] Rick: And I failed
[00:33:33] Cathy: again.
[00:33:36] Rick: Oh. Ouch. Again,
[00:33:40] Cathy: maybe I’m okay.
[00:33:41] Rick: I’m getting hot fleshes.
[00:33:45] Copy up a fur ball of judgment.
[00:33:48] Cathy: Maybe I’m okay.
[00:33:51] Rick: I hope I’m okay.
[00:33:53] Cathy: Even though they blamed me for not predicting accurately,
[00:33:56] Rick: even though they blamed me for not predicting accurately,
[00:34:00] Cathy: and even for them not predicting accurately,
[00:34:02] Rick: and even for them not predicting accurately,
[00:34:05] Cathy: I did a good job.
[00:34:07] Rick: Oh, Kathy says I did a good job.
[00:34:10] Cathy: I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.
[00:34:13] Rick: I wouldn’t be here if I, if I didn’t
[00:34:15] Cathy: top of head. I can’t predict a hundred percent accurately.
[00:34:19] Rick: I cannot predict 70% accurately.
[00:34:24] Cathy: I, well, low resource people demand that we predict a hundred percent accurately.
[00:34:29] Rick: Yeah. Low resource people really demand a hundred percent accuracy
[00:34:33] Cathy: Side of the Eye:.
[00:34:34] Sometimes I’m that low resource person
[00:34:37] Rick: sometimes. Sometimes I am that low resourced person
[00:34:43] Cathy: Under the Eye: and I have all their voices from when I was little. And
[00:34:46] Rick: I have all their voices from when they were little. Un
[00:34:50] Cathy: no. It was just deflection.
[00:34:53] Rick: It was just deflection.
[00:34:54] Cathy: And they didn’t wanna face reality.
[00:34:57] Rick: They didn’t wanna face reality
[00:34:58] Cathy: Collarbone:. It felt like too much for them.
[00:35:01] Rick: Yeah. Uncertainty was way too much for them
[00:35:04] Cathy: under them. So they blamed whoever was nearby.
[00:35:08] Rick: They blamed whoever was nearby.
[00:35:10] Cathy: Top of the Head:. That was me.
[00:35:12] Rick: That was me. I
[00:35:14] Cathy: don’t have to take that blame anymore.
[00:35:16] Rick: I do not have to take that blame anymore.
[00:35:19] Cathy: And I don’t have to blame myself,
[00:35:21] Rick: and I don’t have to blame myself.
[00:35:23] Cathy: And I just invite you to take a breath. Hmm, and just be, if we, with reality as it is, we can never, there’s no way to predict, like just, this is one of the Buddhist sayings that I really love. Just what’s here with uncertainty, anxiety, joy, and frustration.
[00:35:42] Just this right here and now. Is what is. And if I can just be with what is, I have so much more power and leverage to create something different if I want to. But if I’m denying it, I’m kinda saying, no, no, no, I’m gonna just play with part of reality that I can face. We’re not, you know, I think of it as I, when I was learning to swim, I learned if you pushed off the side of the wall, a good strong wall, I could go so much faster.
[00:36:07] When I swam, I felt much more powerful, like when I was turning around. Um, but if I don’t push off that wall, I kind of fumble and flail around a little bit. And I think when we’re similar to that, when we don’t face reality as it is, we’re not seeing all the components that are there and we can’t adjust as well.
[00:36:26] So that the more we can train our system that, okay, we’re gonna try to be with reality as best we can. And that’s one of the things I love about, I, like I’ve shared before, I’ve studied Buddhism there, it’s often about like, we’re not gonna get perfect. I’m studying the precepts. We’re kind of like the 10 Commandments, but they’re like, you’re never gonna achieve what we’re saying.
[00:36:47] You just won’t, but you just try anyway. So the more we can try to be with reality, the closer we can get, the more power we have to create the world we wanna live in, and the more easily we adapt. If I’m ignoring things, I can’t really improvise or adapt really well. I’m leaving out part of reality and part of the improv is about playing off of something and using this, the resources that are here.
[00:37:10] If I’m not even noticing some of the resources or the facts of what’s happening, there’s gonna be something off in my improv, if that makes sense. And I won’t have that power.
[00:37:20] Rick: Hmm.
[00:37:25] I I so appreciate that we got to explore this because, you know, I,
[00:37:33] we’ve tapped about uncertainty before. We’ve had workshops on uncertainty before. There’s this, and as we’re evolving this together as a community, there’s an interesting thing that I look at.
[00:37:54] If I’m not in my primitive brain and I’m right now with what is there, are, there are options that open. Mm-hmm. That’s the improvisation that I’m gonna talk about it in a minute. If I’m trying to find certainty about something, especially the further away it gets and the more variables that are involved.
[00:38:20] I’m really writing a story. I’m not living, I’m trying to write a story where I end up being okay. Or the, the one who saw what was going to happen, right?
[00:38:36] Cathy: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:37] Rick: And. We look at where people really get sideways, um, there’s something called confirmation bias.
[00:38:51] Cathy: I was just thinking that I wanted to bring that up.
[00:38:53] That’s perfect. I’m gonna remember the times I predicted correctly. I told you so. But we forget the times. We didn’t get it right.
[00:39:01] Rick: Right. And, and so the challenge with confirmation bias is, is that it is something we can do. It isn’t totally unuseful. Mm-hmm. We’re looking for things that confirm something that we’re predicting, right?
[00:39:19] Like, I, oh, I have this prediction of what’s gonna happen to this thing, or this person, or this, um, situation. And, uh, I start getting attached to the prediction. I start like orienting my life around the prediction. And as the energy moves. Improvisationally,
[00:39:42] my prediction starts falling away as the likelihood. Now, am I going to keep trying to get there? We can, we can, we can slice and ignore, um, real, real, you know, the things that are actually showing up.
[00:40:05] But when we do, we’re, we end up being pretty far away from now, pretty far away from what is, and, and honestly, a as I see people who have been in like a confirmation bias for a decade or more around, uh, something, um, it’s almost devastating.
[00:40:32] Cathy: Mm-hmm.
[00:40:33] Rick: When they have to like, oh. This person actually does not care about me, even though I convinced myself for decades.
[00:40:43] They, they actually, this company is not going to go outta business by 2024. That was two years ago. But I was so certain that they were, you know, or, um, whatever it is for emotional freedom purposes. Like, oh, even though that feels, so this is what I’ll do if I have a prediction that is really optimistic.
[00:41:16] You know,
[00:41:17] Cathy: stock is gonna go up 3000,
[00:41:19] Rick: oh, it’s gonna, it’s gonna go up 10000% by next week or within 10 years or whatever. Um, what I can feel is like, oh, even though for me this prediction feels true and accurate. Um, and I’m not trying to doubt. I want to be able to move with what actually evolves here.
[00:41:45] Cathy: I wanna be able to move with what actually evolves here.
[00:41:48] Rick: I wanna be able to move freely with what is actually evolving.
[00:41:52] Cathy: I wanna be able to move freely with what actually is evolving,
[00:41:55] Rick: including my long-term view,
[00:41:57] Cathy: including my long-term view.
[00:41:59] Rick: And my, now
[00:42:01] Cathy: my, now
[00:42:02] Rick: I’m stewarding my future self,
[00:42:04] Cathy: stewarding my future self.
[00:42:06] Rick: I want them to show up in a good life.
[00:42:09] Cathy: I want them to show up in a good life.
[00:42:11] Rick: And there are things to tend to now.
[00:42:13] Cathy: And there are things to tend to now
[00:42:16] Rick: and trends that might also happen,
[00:42:18] Cathy: and trends that might actually hap uh, also happen.
[00:42:22] Rick: I don’t have to be locked into my predictions.
[00:42:26] Cathy: I don’t have to be locked into my predictions,
[00:42:29] Rick: and that frees me from having to fret about them too,
[00:42:33] Cathy: that me from having to fret about them too.
[00:42:38] When you’re talking about that, I’m really, I kept thinking about how, my belief about growing up, my belief was kind of the family belief was if I wanted something from you, I just gave a lot to you and hoped you guess what I needed and that that was the correct way to interact with humans. And there was kind of a doubling down, like, oh, I didn’t get what I needed.
[00:42:59] I must not have given enough or given the right stuff. Or it was always like, I need to tweak this, versus maybe this theory is full of shit. Um, it took a lot to let go of that. Um, but it gave me a huge, huge amount of freedom once I, it was like, oh, some people just are never gonna give me anything. And even the people that are generous and wanna help me, it really helps if I say, Hey, I would really like this.
[00:43:23] Is that a possibility? Um, so like, I had to let go, that that worldview I had was flawed and I was holding so tight to it and doubling down and investing more to try to make it real. Um, and sometimes we have to say, oh, maybe that’s not correct. And that takes courage and it takes the muscle to be able to look at reality as it is versus how we were kind of framed and taught.
[00:43:46] And there’s that, you know, I put so much energy into this belief and trying to make it work. I don’t wanna let go. I wanna hold onto that. So it can be really hard to let go of, of belief that we’ve had really deeply held.
[00:43:58] Rick: Mm-hmm.
[00:43:59] Cathy: So,
[00:44:00] Rick: well, and, and what’s interesting is when you start playing around with this for me is, uh, I can, so a prediction that I’m holding certainty around, um, I, I can tap on that and say, you know, e even though it feels good to me to be certain,
[00:44:19] Cathy: even though it feels good to me to be certain,
[00:44:22] Rick: I’m open to being resilient, even if that’s not the way it goes,
[00:44:25] Cathy: I am open to being resilient, even if that’s not how it goes.
[00:44:29] Rick: Even though that’s what I want to be certain,
[00:44:31] Cathy: even though that’s what I want to be certain,
[00:44:34] Rick: and I’m putting almost all my energy there
[00:44:37] Cathy: and I’m putting almost all my energy there,
[00:44:40] Rick: I wanna stay nimble enough if it doesn’t work out exactly that way.
[00:44:44] Cathy: Yeah. I wanna stay nimble enough so it doesn’t work. If it doesn’t work out, I’m okay.
[00:44:48] Rick: Yeah. I wanna be okay. Even if it doesn’t go that way,
[00:44:51] Cathy: I wanna be okay even if it doesn’t go okay that way.
[00:44:54] Rick: But I wanna be certain about it.
[00:44:56] Cathy: I wanna be certain about it.
[00:44:58] Rick: It would be such relief to be certain about it
[00:45:01] Cathy: be, it was such relief to be certain about it.
[00:45:03] Rick: I could count on it, then
[00:45:05] Cathy: I could count on it then.
[00:45:07] Rick: And part of me is just not that silly.
[00:45:10] Cathy: And a part of me is just not that silly.
[00:45:13] Rick: And that creates a tension
[00:45:15] Cathy: and that creates a.
[00:45:21] Rick: It’s okay to highly intend something.
[00:45:23] Cathy: It’s okay to highly intend something
[00:45:25] Rick: while still saying, staying nimble and resilient,
[00:45:28] Cathy: while still saying nimble and resilient.
[00:45:31] Rick: Because I do wanna be okay
[00:45:33] Cathy: because I do wanna be okay.
[00:45:35] Rick: Even better than okay.
[00:45:37] Cathy: Even better than, okay.
[00:45:38] Rick: No matter what.
[00:45:39] Cathy: No matter what. I’d also like to point out, like when you were talking about this, like I, I had this belief for a long time that if I could, if things would just go as I predicted and planned for, everything would be fine.
[00:45:53] I would be able to relax. But that was just a delusion on my part because things could be going perfect and I would be more nervous sometimes than when things didn’t go right. 'cause I’d be like, what’s gonna happen next? Oh my God, it’s going too well. There was never a, oh my goodness, now I can relax thing.
[00:46:09] So I think that, you know, it’s really nice to hold on, you know, like it’s a kind of fun illusion to hold onto. Like, I can just relax if. The universe would behave the way I wanted to, or people would behave the way I wanted to, but it’s not really how things happen. And so improv is kind of being able to dance with what is there and choose resources and use them in ways that aren’t exactly perfectly planned.
[00:46:33] And you know, maybe it’s like, oh, I’m gonna use a marshmallow to stick that painting on the wall right now for short term or something like that. But it can be kind of fun and creative and it helps us expand our world. So the more we try to have things under our control and avoid uncertainty, our world can get very small.
[00:46:51] And our, while our primitive brain, the scared part of our primitive brain, really craves certainty. There’s also part of us that really craves change and challenge and new experiences, and I love the saying magic that happens outside your comfort zone. Now, I think it doesn’t happen necessarily in the trauma zone, like where I’m so distressed about the changes.
[00:47:12] That’s not necessarily magic that it might be just like I’m gonna cope with it. But when we, we train our systems to step a little bit outside our comfort zones and kind of dance with that, we often discover parts of ourselves and experiences we would never get to see otherwise. And I just think that’s really beautiful.
[00:47:30] But we, we do have to build up that muscle to like, okay, I can dance there. I’m not gonna panic or run and hide under the bed or in the back of the closet. I’m actually gonna be able to dance here.
[00:47:41] Rick: Well, someone shared, and, and I get this, this is a, this is a. I’d like to do a tapping and then take our, uh, seven minute break.
[00:47:49] Uh, I wanna be able to count on it. Well, yeah, I, reliability is incredibly useful in people in internet, in applications, in love, in food delivery, in, you know, we had a friend say, Hey, I, I’m gonna drop by some chicken soup for you guys on Thursday. So sweet. Oh, and it, it, she brought it today. It’s not Thursday is it?
[00:48:23] Cathy: No,
[00:48:24] Rick: Sunday. Sunday. Now, somebody else said that they would be dropping off some miso soup for us at three o’clock and it arrived at five 15.
[00:48:35] Cathy: A little harder to plan, especially with small children.
[00:48:38] Rick: Well, I. I, I wanna be able to count on people to come through when they say they’re going to come through, and I can make myself incredibly fucking miserable.
[00:48:51] And soon as I hold onto that, like, if you want to make Rick miserable, get him to focus on all the unreliability, like I could, I could definitely take the rest of our time together to point out all the things that are unreliable, that annoy, that could, and they right now are annoying the snot out of me.
[00:49:18] And as a sick person, that’s, I got a lot to work with. So even though I want to be able to count on them.
[00:49:27] Cathy: Even though I want to be able to count on them,
[00:49:30] Rick: I really want to be able to count on them. I
[00:49:33] Cathy: really want to even need to count on
[00:49:35] Rick: them. Reliability is a core value for me.
[00:49:38] Cathy: Reliability is a core value for me,
[00:49:40] Rick: and I hate it when things aren’t reliable.
[00:49:43] Cathy: I hate it when things are not reliable
[00:49:47] Rick: and as much as I would like to expect, reliability,
[00:49:50] Cathy: and as much as I would like to expect, reliability,
[00:49:53] Rick: uh, life has taught me otherwise,
[00:49:55] Cathy: life has taught me otherwise.
[00:49:58] Rick: It doesn’t mean that it’s totally unreliable.
[00:50:02] Cathy: It doesn’t mean that it’s totally unreliable.
[00:50:04] Rick: Reliability is a spectrum.
[00:50:06] Cathy: Reliability is a spectrum.
[00:50:11] Rick: And that’s hard for part of me,
[00:50:14] Cathy: and that’s hard for part of me to face
[00:50:16] Rick: because I’m reliable on a spectrum too.
[00:50:19] Cathy: I’m reliable on a spectrum too. I don’t like to look at that.
[00:50:23] Rick: How many times did I cancel this workshop?
[00:50:26] Cathy: How many times did I cancel this workshop
[00:50:28] Rick: at the last minute?
[00:50:30] Cathy: At the last minute?
[00:50:32] Rick: Um, yeah. Reliability is a spectrum.
[00:50:37] Cathy: Reliability is a spectrum
[00:50:39] Rick: with me,
[00:50:41] Cathy: with me,
[00:50:42] Rick: with my kids,
[00:50:43] Cathy: with my kids,
[00:50:45] Rick: with technology,
[00:50:46] Cathy: with technology.
[00:50:50] Rick: And the alternative is not gonna be no expectations and no plans.
[00:50:56] Cathy: The alternative is not gonna be no expectations,
[00:50:58] Rick: except for maybe in certain moments,
[00:51:00] Cathy: except for in certain moments
[00:51:01] Rick: where I’m improvisationally free.
[00:51:04] Cathy: Where I’m improvisationally free,
[00:51:06] Rick: I love to improvise.
[00:51:08] Cathy: I’d love to improvise
[00:51:10] Rick: without expectations,
[00:51:11] Cathy: without expectations,
[00:51:14] Rick: without a plan, and a choreography,
[00:51:16] Cathy: without a plan or choreography.
[00:51:19] Rick: It is definitely a part of my nature.
[00:51:21] Cathy: It is definitely part of my nature.
[00:51:24] Rick: And sometimes we have plans
[00:51:26] Cathy: and sometimes we have plans.
[00:51:28] Rick: How do I wanna be with that?
[00:51:30] Cathy: How do I wanna be with that?
[00:51:38] Rick: So I, I count on uncertainty. I count on it. I count on uncertainty, and I count on the fact that uncertainties bring options. Mm-hmm. I did not have a choreography. Um, when Kathy and I did our first workshop together, she gave me a 2020 page printed out guideline of what we were going to cover in order.
[00:52:09] Cathy: I was
[00:52:09] Rick: very nervous.
[00:52:10] Yes. This is our preparation, which you can’t see, but it’s a few sentences. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. So like the uncertainty allows us to go with what is what. Um, I was uncertain whether anyone was gonna say anything in the chat. We’ve had chats where nobody said anything. Yeah. They’re like, ooh, you know, after awake.
[00:52:36] Right. Like, I, I wanna be able to count on people putting something in the chat. Can you imagine the pressure I would start putting on if we didn’t? But the uncertainty allows me to say, yeah, someone may put something really just right in the chat and here it is. I wanna be able to count on it. Yeah. That wouldn’t have come in probably if this person hadn’t shared.
[00:52:59] So thank you. And that’s the exciting thing to me about, um. Acknowledging that there’s a part of me that ancestrally knows that for survival, if something feels at a certain level of uncertainty, it probably is calling for some attention. But not desperate, clawing unless whether I’m gonna be able to take a nap.
[00:53:26] Another breath is what’s uncertain. Yeah. Um, and when we, when we get into the spectrum of it, uncertainty, when blended with an improvisational heart and attitude. Now we see that every uncertainty leads to possibilities, which lead to possibilities, which lead to possibilities. And so we
[00:53:49] Cathy: get back from it just like that long pages of, of notes.
[00:53:52] We didn’t have room to, to tune into what people wanted in the class. And Rick and I, now, when we jump on, we’re like, even if you don’t share in the chat, which we do love, but I, we can see people’s faces, we can see how they respond. Like there’s a definitely tuning into the audience that is here, the people that are here.
[00:54:10] So there. Some planning is useful, but sometimes we can plan ourselves out of the actual experience that we wanna create.
[00:54:18] Rick: Yeah. So I’m gonna go ahead and pause. We’ll be back in seven minutes. The chat is open and if you’re joining us for a replay, um, yeah, chat below the video. Uh, send us your thoughts and questions and um, yeah, so if there’s something you wanna make sure we couldn’t cover, but I’m gonna start off when we return around improvisational dance, the energy of improvisation and how we can bring that in in a life of, with so much uncertainty.
[00:54:49] Cathy: Love it.
[00:54:50] Rick: So we’re back. Look at all the uncertainty that we, uh, just embraced. I. Was reasonably reliable on the seven minutes I did set a timer. Um, but, you know, I went downstairs and the kids wanted to show me their fort and, um, we were discussing what we were gonna have for dinner. There’s a chance I might not have made it back on time, or that the internet would’ve dropped and everything else.
[00:55:25] And, you know, just feel in for a moment if, if Kathy and Rick just didn’t return to the workshop, right. And we were all just, you all were just sitting there and, well, how would you handle that uncertainty
[00:55:44] now? For me, I would be, um, initially annoyed. So my first tapping would be, this is annoying. Where are they? This is
[00:55:55] Cathy: annoying.
[00:55:56] Rick: Where are they? They’re always reliable. They start on time. Usually,
[00:56:01] Cathy: where are they?
[00:56:02] Rick: They say, seven minutes. It’s gonna be seven minutes. Come on. This is really annoying me. Uhoh. Now it’s been nine minutes.
[00:56:09] I’m getting worried.
[00:56:10] Cathy: Uhoh. Now I’m getting worried.
[00:56:12] Rick: I get worried with uncertainty.
[00:56:14] Cathy: I get worried with uncertainty.
[00:56:17] Rick: Oh, what if I just took a pause?
[00:56:21] Cathy: What if I just took a pause?
[00:56:23] Rick: Built into my options?
[00:56:26] Cathy: Built into my options?
[00:56:27] Rick: How do I want to move?
[00:56:30] Cathy: How do I want to be moving?
[00:56:33] Rick: How do I want to be with this reality?
[00:56:37] Cathy: How do I want to be with this reality?
[00:56:41] Rick: And maybe I can’t.
[00:56:43] Cathy: Maybe I can’t,
[00:56:44] Rick: but how would I like to be?
[00:56:46] Cathy: How would I like to be?
[00:56:53] Rick: So there were, for much of my life, um, if something wasn’t reliable, it was offensive to me. Still can be. Um, but I’m, I’m cultivating a skill of reacting with a pause that says, okay. Alright, so this isn’t going the way I, I predicted to use that word.
[00:57:18] Cathy: Mm-hmm.
[00:57:19] Rick: Um, how would I like to be here? Oh, I can, I can sit and breathe for a few minutes.
[00:57:26] Okay. Ah, yeah. And, uh, yeah, I’m feeling like it’s time for me to end the meeting for me and, uh, you know, I don’t even feel like putting a message in the chat. I’m glad I have that freedom. Or I wanna say something in the chat. Or not, or, um, I
[00:57:50] Cathy: don’t know if it’s helpful, but I, I han often talks about when we hear the bell, we come back to ourselves.
[00:57:57] It’s an invitation. If we hear a bell or a chime, we can come back to ourselves. Um, and then he also talks about how if something interrupts something or there’s something that, like a loud noise or like, I was on a zoom call with someone the other day and it went away. Treat that like a bell. It’s just an invitation, an interruption for the normal flow of the pattern.
[00:58:19] It’s just the universe inviting you to come back to yourself. And I found that so helpful. Like the zoom went off and I’m like, ah, I don’t know if he’s coming back, what’s going on? And I’m just like, come back to myself. Pause. And then it came right back. But it was just like, I’ve been trying to treat any kind of disruption as a, just an invitation to take a breath and come back to myself.
[00:58:39] So in case that’s useful.
[00:58:41] Rick: Mm-hmm. Absolutely because we are building and evolving for modern times.
[00:58:47] Cathy: Mm-hmm.
[00:58:47] Rick: Um, both interweaving the wisdom of the ages of our ancestors who also know that life is going to happen and there will be interruptions. Um, you know, Rebecca’s interruption was a, a really big one.
[00:59:05] It was a, a very serious injury. Um, she broke all three of the bones in her ankle. You know, the, it was called a tri malleolar fracture. And, um,
[00:59:21] that’s an intense experience and as I talk about contact improvisation and an improvisational attitude, um, keep in mind that that. Also is a situation where improvisation applies. It doesn’t have to be just in the, um, the playful moment. So in, you may never want to do contact improv dance. I don’t know you, I, I well enough to assert for any other person whether, um, showing up in a space and, um, taking off your shoes, walking out on the floor.
[01:00:09] There’s no music in most of the cases. So your first dance partner is gravity and the floor, and you’re walking on it, but you don’t have to walk on it. You want to crawl. That’s allowed. I’m trying, do you wanna roll over on your back and put your feet and arms up in the air? That’s allowed. It is. Contact improv is a dance form that are, that rose during the wild and free seventies.
[01:00:50] A lot of dancers were getting tired of just being constrained with choreography. Uh, even professional dancers, they were tired of being told how to move their body after this. You do this and when the music does this, you do this and that. And it felt very, um, uh, unfree.
[01:01:11] Cathy: Mm-hmm.
[01:01:12] Rick: And so some people got together and they, they started saying, well.
[01:01:19] What if we shared a center of gravity? I call it co-creating in the energy space, but in contact improv it might be. There’s Tom and I, we both move just on our own. We start moving sideways. Instead of walking to each other, we just kind of hop or wiggle sideways. One of us is doing one weird thing, another one is doing another.
[01:01:41] And when we meet, we meet shoulder to shoulder. It’s not high, it’s not a hug, it’s shoulder to shoulder. And then we start leaning on each other and Tom’s strong too. And we just start, like now the center of gravity is a shared center of gravity. If he leaves, I’m going to the ground, which happens because some, everyone in contact improv, if his back were to start to hurt or he needed to move away, he’s not responsible for me.
[01:02:17] And we are also responsive to each other. He doesn’t want me to fall to the ground and hurt myself. And so he’s probably, because Tom’s a good guy, gonna be looking for ways to move if he’s done with our dance to move into a different dance that I might stay with or I might move away, I might slide down his leg, which I’ve done.
[01:02:43] Imagine Big Rick sliding down this guy’s outer leg and ending on the floor and looking up at the ceiling going, oh, I don’t really,
[01:02:54] Cathy: hi.
[01:02:55] Rick: I work in this office a lot, and I don’t really look at the ceiling all that often. It’s kind of interesting at the shadows. And then I might roll over under my belly, which again, how many times do you get to roll over on your belly where you’re not in a ritual, but it’s free form.
[01:03:14] And one of the things that these people, um, Nancy, uh, stark Smith, um, I think that’s her name, she’s passed now, but she, having observed thousands of these experiences, started making notes on cards about some of the things that she noticed that really led to an experience for everyone. That was an interesting, neurologically, interesting, energetically interesting, playful, rich, deep.
[01:03:45] And she, she started coming up with things, and I’m not gonna try to share all 20 with you, but one of the things that really worked for me was telescoping awareness. Telescoping awareness. Imagine you come up to somebody and you put your hand out and they put their hand on yours. Now I could telescope to look across the room, right?
[01:04:13] Or I could magnify and come right in and really see for the first time, oh, this person’s hand, my hand. Notice how my body’s moving. We move in response to where we’re paying attention, including the movement to stillness. And when, when I think of imp improv improvisation, um, and I apply it in the dance, telescoping awareness is one of those things.
[01:04:48] Guess what also is one of them? Attraction. Oh, it’s Tom Repulsion. Oh, it’s that guy. Woo. I move away, I dance away. I flourish away. I beast away. Like it. You’re allowed to beat your chest in contact. Improv. You’re not required to be a certain way. We do ask that you not swing your body around with your eyes closed, where it might whack someone.
[01:05:20] Uh, don’t yank on people’s neck. Uh, don’t leap on someone who hasn’t clearly invited you that, yep, I’m ready for you to go right up on my shoulder. And they have the skill to be able to do that with reasonable safety. There are things that are a part of the we space that allow it to occur with, with good and reasonable safety.
[01:05:44] Traction repulsion, like touching and, and leaving. Like you could come in, lean against someone for three seconds and then be off. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not rejection, it’s not that you did anything wrong, it might mess with your mind. Like, oh, I was really having such a, I was so looking forward to that dance and I, we were pretending to, to hug and they ducked right under my arms and went over to the other side of the room and lay on the floor and rolled and then was a table for someone else.
[01:06:16] And yeah, it, it, that experience of contact, improv dance taught me a lot about, um, you know, you can, you can run parallel to people. You can intersect and interweave, you can, um, explore different tensions and release. And when, when I look at that. If I look at parenting my five-year-old through that lens, I am, I’m much more myself because just like in contact improv, there isn’t a choreography that she is supposed to follow except for the one in my head if I try to be the director.
[01:07:06] She
[01:07:06] Cathy: doesn’t like being directed very much.
[01:07:09] Rick: No. Super Aunt Kathy’s figured that one out. Um, she reminds me of it regularly when I fall, try to fall into that now. Yeah. There are times when it’s like, I need you to get in the car and I will carry you if necessary so that we can get to the airplane on time, um, or to your school before, at the time that they have said they really want all the students to be there by this time, but it’s not the end of the world.
[01:07:37] And if I’m doing it in an improvisational way. The cool thing about contact improv is I could be as deep and serious and earnest and mindful, or present, or frilly or playful. It’s not a conversational space. It’s a place where you take what? What is it you feel into? Well, how does my body and my mind and my heart wanna move with what just showed up three milliseconds ago?
[01:08:12] And now that we’re dancing Pinky to Pinky and they’re going down to the ground, I just feel like waving at them and swirling away. Now, I could have done a hundred thousand trillion other movements, but it’s okay because now what I did was certain, and we’re all left with uncertainty. What’s next? And that’s where it wasn’t improvising with uncertainty.
[01:08:43] It’s saying uncertainty is, and how do I wanna be in that dance, that movement you play with, how, how, you know, you can be, try to be controlling. But one of the things in contact improv, you don’t get to grab someone else’s body unless it’s very clearly consensual. You don’t run along and grab someone, you, when they’re, when I’m a table, the table doesn’t grab the other person.
[01:09:16] The other person is rolling and moving on top of you on all fours. And if they fall off, you can protect your neck and protect your ankles. Um, but you’re not responsible for catching them, if that makes sense. We’re, we’re trying to co-create something together and sometimes it’s messy and sometimes you get banged up.
[01:09:41] You know, my first contact improv big, you know, five day event, I separated a rib the first, first night. But guess what? Some of the people that have been doing it a long time said, you know, just move really subtle and don’t get into the mix of things. But do find your dance. Find your dance. This workshop will end in about 11 minutes or so.
[01:10:07] Someone asked. So that’s to me is there’s an attitude of there’s, we, we want to protect each other and be safe. So there’s like, what, what is physically and emotionally safe, um, for our children, for ourselves, um, and to be looking at that. My perimeter brain really wants that. When ADRA is doing some wild thing, she uses the elliptical trainer like it’s a dance partner.
[01:10:37] And sometimes when she’s swinging on that starts heading toward the window, I’m like, no, no, that move, we’re not gonna do that one. Um, and she doesn’t always agree
[01:10:46] Cathy: with you on it, but
[01:10:47] Rick: Right. Um, so that this, this is the energy of it is uncertain what’s going to show up if it happens in a group of people that are dancing together that have a lot of freedom.
[01:11:04] It’s gonna show up everywhere with people that have as much freedom as they want to try to grab. And there are times when you say, Hey, stop. Ouch. No, nothing. Those are the words that are allowed. Uh, they’re more, you know, if you need to communicate, but mostly contact improv is done without words. Sounds, yes.
[01:11:28] You know. And when you look at, um, and I invite you to look on YouTube, if you see, a lot of times the videos often show, you know, really talented dancers who really get into the art form and it looks pretty sophisticated. Um, my own dance was, was often playful simple. It, as you get to know, uh, as you it, those of you who know me, I was that rick on the dance floor just without using words.
[01:12:00] So questions are welcome Kathy. Your thoughts?
[01:12:04] Cathy: Yeah. Um. I, I’d like you if you’re willing to notice that you came here today, and I imagine that most people that follow ThrivingNow have some resistance. So I think people that are sensitive and pick up on things around them, and that’s generally the kind of people intelligence sensitive people end up here.
[01:12:23] Um, that means we’re picking up on nuances when we were kids picking up on a lot of different information than, you know, there’s some people that just kind of like. Blindly go forward, and they seem to make it most of the time. Um, but for people that really picked up on people, other people’s distress and things weren’t going right, that sort of thing, we’re really tuned in.
[01:12:44] And there can be a lot of avoidance to uncertainty. The fact that you’re here is just a testament to your courage and your willingness to make your life better. And I think that’s just something to notice. Um, when we were talking about this, I, I, I kept being reminded of a fable. I was told when I was a little kid about the, the grasshopper in the ant and the grasshopper just wanted to play all the time, and he didn’t wanna work very hard.
[01:13:10] And I, I think there was very much like, you should be an aunt, you should work very hard all the time and store all this stuff away in case there’s a bad emergency. Um. I think there’s actually some room for both. I, I think as we get older, there’s nuance where we can be, um, planning and working hard, but also being present with life, enjoying it, being a little more improvisational.
[01:13:35] And, um, I just invite you to notice that you’re doing something really powerful for yourself. You’re exploring something by being here and starting to build muscles and seeing other people doing it. Our survival brain is very scared to do anything different until it sees other people doing it and succeeding, um, or at least exploring it.
[01:13:55] So by being here today, you’ve created something really pretty wonderful for yourself. And I think that’s, I, I don’t think we. Pause often enough and say, oh, I did do something pretty nice for myself, my my 10, my tendency is like, I should have done more, I should have tapped longer. I should have paid a hundred percent attention the whole time through.
[01:14:17] Versus like, Hey, I did do something good. I exposed myself to something. I tried some stuff on, I did some tapping. I got to hang out with some pretty awesome people. Um, so if you’re willing to, you know, kind of improv in this moment, like what do you appreciate about what you did today? What did you face or feel that you might not have otherwise, and you’re kind of giving yourself a skill for the future?
[01:14:42] Um, we have talked about uncertainty before, but never quite from this perspective and, and this approach. So, um, I just, I just am always very touched that people are wanting to make a difference here and then we start making a difference for other people because we’re modeling that their mirror neurons are going, oh, that’s something different.
[01:15:00] I have not considered that before. That person is embodying that change. So I just think it’s really important to take a moment to say, Hey, if you want to give yourself a pat, pat in the back, um, and, you know, kinda see how it, you know, how you feel about saying, Hey, nice job buddy. Nice job being, for being here.
[01:15:22] Rick: Hmm.
[01:15:30] When, um, I remember when I, when I first started working with people, um, that feeling like I always wanted to show up and like a lot of things that we, we talk about with ThrivingNow, there is a real solidness that comes from being somebody that has oriented themselves so that if they schedule something that it is likely, it’s predictable, but not certain.
[01:16:12] And I remember when I started communicating, I had someone who canceled a session, a massage session. This was early in my work. And, um, she felt terrible like.
[01:16:32] If I had asked for a cord of blood in return for her cancellation, she, she would’ve figured out a way to do that. That’s how much she was bleeding into the phone with apologetic ness. And you know, at some point she paused and I said, you know, I’m gonna go for a horseback ride and it’s a beautiful day and I was looking forward to being with you, but right now I’m gonna go for a horseback ride.
[01:17:06] And my daughter Rebecca, and I went for a horseback ride. And I started with that getting clarity that I wanted people who scheduled with me to know that if it went from being a yes to a yes, but not right this minute. Mm-hmm. Or it was a yes and now it’s a no. That’s why I have a refund policy. And then like most things that have a spiritual component to it for me, uh, the guidance was, and for you, Rick, what about for you?
[01:17:46] And I started communicating that I, in, in my history, I am a reliable person. I consider myself reliable, but that doesn’t mean that it’s certain that I’m gonna be in the right place, the rights or the technology isn’t gonna stop or something like that. And so I even lay that out when people schedule with me that I reserve for me and for them the right to end.
[01:18:14] Like I reserve the right to end early on a workshop. Do we, we have a couple times out of. A hundred workshops like this, not very often,
[01:18:25] Cathy: but yeah,
[01:18:25] Rick: we, we don’t very often don’t cancel very often. Two in a row is pretty rare.
[01:18:31] Cathy: It’s the third
[01:18:31] Rick: time is
[01:18:32] Cathy: the charm in this
[01:18:32] Rick: case. Yeah. And I, I will say that when, when you, for me, when I got the call from Rebecca’s phone and it wasn’t her voice,
[01:18:52] the practice of like, okay, gravity’s still working. Yeah. Alright, so I’m, I can stand here, I can, I can, I can be present with whatever is here. And her, her friend communicated what was going on. And all of a sudden I could feel the resilience and flexibility that was, that I have cultivated in my life. And then I, I know many of you have too, it’s the capacity to say my yes is now suddenly something very different going someplace else.
[01:19:31] Cathy: Yeah.
[01:19:32] Rick: And I, I trust the people that know me to adapt to that. Well, right now, for example, I’m much less, there’s much less certainty than there, there are sometimes, but it’s still, uh, going back to what someone had shared. When we want reliability, we want things to count on and people to count on. But like in contact improv, I could count on Tom most of the time wanting to share weight and having the strength because at the time he was, you know, a stock clerk at a grocery store.
[01:20:08] You know, he was. 10 years older than me, but twice as strong. Right? Because he carried boxes around all the time. I could count on him most of the time wanting to share weight. There were things I could do with Tom that were really amazing dance wise, and sometimes he was not up for it. Does that make him unreliable?
[01:20:31] I rely, I say it’s unreliable. If someone is doing something that isn’t actually a yes for them, pretending that it is, that is unreliable to me. But someone staying reliably in their Yes. Even if it means they’re more unpredictable, then they’re reliably unpredictable. Yeah. They don’t have their schedule down like I do.
[01:20:55] It’s okay if it becomes an issue. I told one client after they’d rescheduled four or five times, they said, Hey, why don’t we do a last minute thing if you want to, if you want an appointment. Here’s my number, my, you can text me. Do you have anything today? When you know that you’re available that day with much more certainty.
[01:21:16] You see how improv allows us to be in our work and in our family, and in our, in our life. So it is, it ceases to be something that’s judgmental, that, oh, I plan to do this and I’m not doing that. It’s, you know, life’s an improv dance. And as long as I’m staying in my yes, at least I’m reliably in my yes.
[01:21:41] Cathy: Well, and one thing we can learn always, I think we can work on being resilient. We can work on being reliably there for ourselves, even if it means pivoting what we’re doing. A lot of that’s learning to tolerate discomfort. Learning to say, oh, I’m disappointed and I’m still okay, and just practicing this.
[01:22:00] So what you’re doing here is actually creating more reliability for yourself. Maybe not on this person’s always gonna do this, or this is always gonna work that way, but I can handle what comes up. I can be reliably there for myself. And that’s, I think that’s a beautiful thing to create for yourself.
[01:22:17] Rick: Thank you all. Yeah, very much. Thank you. Onwards. And, um, yeah, our inbox is open support at ThrivingNow dot com. Anytime you wanna share something that comes to you right after the session or, uh, downstream. Um, yeah. Thank you Kathy. Bye everyone.
[01:22:37] Cathy: Yeah, it such a pleasure everyone.
[01:22:38]
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