Improvising and Uncertainty

Real Skills Workshops
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Real Skills Workshop - Community Event

RS 2026-01-11 Improvising
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Improvising and Uncertainty

Real Skills Workshop: Energy Savvy

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

NEW DATE: Sun Jan 25 2026 at 5pm EST / 2pm PST (90 mins with a 7 min break)

We hope you’ll join us, and bring a guest!

:point_right: Click Here to Register

  • You are welcome to attend as our guest, Free!

If you are able, your financial support is needed… and greatly appreciated! :purple_heart:

  • You can support this specific workshop on a gliding scale. Thank you!

  • We’re now offering our full Circle Membership for a gliding scale 1-Time Fee. You get all the Real Skills Workshops, Circle coaching sessions, 8 self-paced coaching programs, and more. Gliding scale. We hope you’ll join us!

Our primitive brain craves certainty. And this can lead us into a desperate search for how to control the outcome, plan for ALL the possible unexpecteds… and even feel anxious that there is “not enough” (and we’re “not enough”) — even though we actually are.

Improvising is the skill of being responsive in the Now to What Is. It frees us not to have to know (or delude ourselves that we have certainty) what the future holds specifically. We get to be in it, with it, and go with the flow — but not like a leaf on a stream but rather as a powerful participant. Co-Creating.

If you look at the kid in the image, you see a human making something interesting out of a MESS. Speaking from painful experience, sometimes the mess of life offers moments of deep focus, growth, and heartistry that times of ease do not call forth.

We certainly would never wish a mess on a person or community, but we do embrace that heart-centered improvisation can lead to surprising moments of delight and long term thriving. We hope you’ll join us for this exploration together.

Explore this with Rick’s AI here if you’d like…

:point_right: Click Here to Register

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It’s simple… and surprisingly hard. Uncertainty is. Accepting that reality takes skill.

The craving for “certainty,” though, jabs our primitive brain. We want to escape uncertainty, and that can drive us to take heroic action (or drive us crazy).

But there are other approaches. Savvy ones.

If we allow ourselves to accept uncertainties, we get to move with them differently. Without needing to overthink or pretend that over-planning will keep us safe and secure, we can connect with what is here NOW… and move.

Take our next step. Be in our Next Yes. Sense the response to our action… and flow towards Yes.

Improvising is an attitude that frees us. Its a way to let go of the strain of seeking a master script to follow, a choreography to memorize, and the fear that there’s a “right way and wrong way” (and we HAVE TO get it right or else).

Admittedly, control-oriented Rick of my youth would have hated hearing this! Trauma does that to a human. Eliminating uncertainty felt so… required of him. Like he’d be a failure otherwise. Nearly killed him with stress.

Improvising recognizes that most plans — even a family’s weekly schedule — are fantasies crafted from hopeful intentions that are uncertain to come to pass. I speak from acute experience in this. I can’t remember a day that went “as planned.”

How do we be Thriving Anyway then? For me it is allowing a blend of intentional space and improvisational dance with what shows up. Being responsive to and present with: What Is.

What if we actively choose to embrace that heart-centered improvisation can lead to surprising moments of delight and long term thriving? We hope you’ll join us for this exploration together.

Explore this with Rick’s AI here if you’d like…