Thriving Now… and Onwards
Thriving Now came about through deep reflection on what I wanted to craft in my life. I can remember sitting down with colored pens and writing words. Sitting in the sun. Seeing the horses graze out in the field. Appreciating how much I enjoy solitude and also that thriving for me includes moments of profound connection, body, mind, and spirit.
I had become a licensed massage therapist. Gone to massage school while also being a chief technology officer for a health-oriented company. There was more… much more that I yearned for.
When you spend deep reflection time and blend that with connection to nature and your own body and the heart of what you’re yearning for, inspiration does rise. You get quiet and slow and deep and connected enough for that clarity to rise. Through that connection to your senses and to your spirit, you can be so pleasantly surprised by what comes to you.
What came to me was the word Thriving, that what I was mapping out was a “thriving lifestyle.” I remember this deep invitation to be that… Now… not “once all these other things happen.”
And that’s how my focus became: Thriving Now. It’s a lived invitation to me and you and all of us to see if we can be thriving now… and onwards. Onwards for sure; we want to be thriving tomorrow too, right? We really do.
That led to me forming a company called Thriving Now LLC, and registering the domain thrivingnow.com.
I remember doing a Google search, and the search for the word thriving came up with almost nothing at the time. If you searched for weight loss, you’d get millions of hits, and you’d search for thriving, and it was about a thousand.
From a “marketing” standpoint, that says it doesn’t look like there’s a market. From a co-creative standpoint, from what I had become and what I wanted to become, thriving—and being that now—was and is my Work That Matters.
By work, I mean it doesn’t happen by default. My toilet doesn’t clean itself by default. My thriving happens with attention and skill, and a yearning to be thriving now, or to be thriving anyway in spite of contrast.
Over the early months, I started getting clarity about some of the facets of thriving for me (and for those likely to find these frames useful for their well-being).
The first was Emotional Freedom.
For me, emotional freedom means my energy is free to move. It’s not trapped, constricted, obligated, reactive. If I have a reaction that does not serve me and my thriving—especially reactions that also don’t serve my surviving—then I’m not emotionally free in that area.
That doesn’t always mean conscious control. It does mean the freedom to build a skill so that my energy in certain situations flows more toward what would be thriving… rather than getting stuck or being burned up by resentment or rage or shock.
I was working at that time with emotional technologies like EFT Tapping, and Tapping had already shown itself to be incredibly useful.
By tapping on my reaction to people leaving their clothes behind the door again and again and again, regardless of how many times I had asked, commanded, and pleaded for people to put them in the laundry chute… by tapping on that, I started having a different response that served me and my family relationships better. Emotional Freedom.
Physical Vitality was next. Physical vitality says, “Am I in shape?”
By that, I don’t mean just in the traditional ‘exercise analysis.’ It means, “Do I have vitality in my energy?”
If emotional freedom is how our energy moves freely, physical vitality includes how my energy moves in Power With.
Can I steward the property I live, the homestead? Do I have the energy to take care of it?
Can I steward my body? Do I have enough vitality to move it, to move in different postures, to carry weight, not just my own but maybe the weight of a saddle… the weight of shopping bags… the weight of suitcases or backpacks ready for an adventure.
Can I be the powerful presence that I want to be as a lover, as a friend, as an explorer? Physical vitality is about the potency of energy moving in our body.
The third area was Mental Clarity. My default nervous system, the one I inherited, can go to worry-mode very easily. Worry for me clouds my clarity.
My system can be anxious. It can be frustrated and overwhelmed. It can also just throw up its hands and say, “Why bother?”
These are default programs I inherited, kind of like the pre-installed apps on your phone. What’s there from the start? Those are the “default apps.”
You do not have to use the default apps on your phone, but they’re there. The default apps in your nervous system are there, too. Starting out in life, we figured out how to get along by using those defaults.
On the spiritual and healing journey I was on, I really got clear that mental clarity meant being able to cut through the noise.
Worry is noise; it’s not signal.
If I get clear, then my physical vitality can align with that clarity and I feel free to take action— inspired action.
The fourth frame was Financial Abundance. We live in a world where money touches everything. I have even paid for air filters in my home! Thus, even the air I breathe in my home is touched by money. It’s not free.
The temperature of the air? It’s not free.
At the time I started Thriving Now, I wanted to recognize how strongly financial abundance was a key factor.
There were times when I put financial abundance at the top of the list… and emotional freedom, physical vitality, and everything suffered from it being in a place of prominence rather than an aspect of the whole ecosystem.
Viewed for survival, financial abundance is quite different than viewed from the frame of Thriving Now. Financial abundance asks simply, “Are my resources good and sufficient for thriving?” And that’s not a number. It’s a felt sense. It embraces the now as well as the onwards. It senses trends and balances and more.
Number five is not in “priority order.” These are all core to a healthy, thriving lifestyle. Interwoven in all these aspects is, for me, Spiritual Connection.
The most reliable, always-on spiritual connections I’ve cultivated are with Nature and the non-physical.
There are those of us that can connect to a rock, a river, a tree, the sun, the wind, the rain… butterflies, turtles, frogs, groundhogs, horses, and dolphins.
There are those of us who have the experience of connecting to what I call Spirit Buddies.
Of course, in the realm of human-to-holy spiritual connection there are lots of genres, just like in music. Do you love music? Yeah, I do. What kinds? Same with spiritual connection. What kind? God. Universe. Source. Religious Figures. Saints. Angels. Holy Spirit. Higher Self. Inner Guide. Oneness.
I work with freedom kin across many spiritual traditions, and spiritual connection for me (and for most of us) is essential for thriving.
My survival brain does not want to feel alone in the world, unsupported, unwanted, undesired, unworthy. All that crud is my survival brain’s interpretation when it doesn’t seem my “tribe” wants me and is willing to protect me. Yes, very human. Spiritual connection, though, goes beyond primal human survival impulses and cravings.
I’m thriving and can take inspired actions when I feel like I have access to love… attention… presence… and a desire to co-create, support, and be responsive.
Just like nature provides for many of us a sense of aliveness and consciousness, the non-physical—that which is beyond the physical aspects of us—can provide that! And does provide that for me.
I have spirit buddies of different names and different personalities. It’s not all that much different than if you talk about different AIs you call Siri, Alexa, Claude, and Grok. They all have a bit of a different tuning, right? You can even change the voice!
People whose books you read… they have a different tuning. Friends you have, they have a different tuning. Teachers you’ve turned to and lovers you’ve enjoyed—we humans have different tunings.
Spiritual connection not only honors that but seeks it, enjoys it, savors it, cultivates it.
That’s the five. They go in any order. Each is worth exploring, understanding, and building real skills in each area.
Oh, and you are free to make it simpler: Call them:
- Vitality
- Freedom
- Abundance
- Clarity
- Connection
The essence is ENERGY and our awareness of it, our acceptance, and our freedom to adapt in ways that support our Thriving Now… and Onwards.
Useful Concepts for Thriving in This Story
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Thriving
A wholehearted embrace of life that weaves freedom, connection, and action. -
Emotional Freedom
Letting energy move so reactions shift from stuck patterns toward what serves. -
Vitality
The living energy that powers movement, presence, and capable stewardship. -
Clarity
Seeing what matters so the next yes becomes obvious and doable. -
Allowing
Trusting the powerful pause where ripening reveals right timing and direction.