Build Your Emotional Resilience - Workshop Session Recording
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Build Your Emotional Resilience
[00:00:00] Build your emotional resilience.
[00:00:02] This is a real skills workshop and my name is Rick from Thriving Now, and I’ve been a technologist since the first time I used a teletype, which carbon dates me, but I needed something to help me with my emotions, my emotional capacity, the ability for me to be in life, engaged with people running a business, being a dad and a partner.
[00:00:35] I needed some technology to help me boost whatever nature had given me, um, in resilience, and that’s what attracted me to EFT tapping. It was a tool for emotional self-management, which today sounds a little flat compared to Wow. It has really made a difference. It has allowed me to be with, um, people I care about with all the things that can happen with human beings.
[00:01:16] And it’s a, it allows for a resilience in being in life and in love with people that are your, your kin, your co-creators, and you know, one of those people that has really been there with me, um, and helping me with my emotional resilience, which I think is a part of it because like doing it all on my own is not been sufficient.
[00:01:44] Kathy Tuli, um, And I have been supporting each other’s emotional resilience through all the things that happen. , lots of experience, lot of things on both of our sides. If we made a list to be like, wow, you guys are really human. Um, and, uh, so it’s our, it’s our pleasure and honor to be here to facilitate a circle where we get to explore, um, what is emotional resilience, what awarenesses support that, how we can be with feelings and even tolerate the things that are hard, and then direct our energy.
[00:02:31] So it actually builds a kind of inner core strength that, um, allows us to be emotionally resilient, um, with all the things that happen in, in the human experience. Kathy, welcome. Oh, thanks Rick. I, I love this technology. I think that it, it just gives the power back to the person. So I did many years, decades of therapy where I’d go to the office and I would feel a little better.
[00:03:00] They had all the skills. I would come in and try to partake of them, but I would go home and between sessions, there was nothing for me to do other than try to like self care as best I knew. And it often things life would come up or emotions would come up and I would feel way laid by them. I would feel like I was ambushed by life way too often.
[00:03:19] And, Life still happens. There are a lot of things in life that ambush us, but when we can start developing these skills we have, so technology, we have a way to help treat our, our, the response in our system, our survival brain, which really kind of overwhelms us at times. It takes over and starts running with the ball and we’re like, but I didn’t wanna go that way.
[00:03:43] I wanted to go that way. Um, it helps us start training that and building it. It doesn’t mean we’ll always do it right, it doesn’t mean we’ll always do it first, but it means we’re starting to build that muscle and build that response so that we have a little more control. We have a little more ease in our life and.
[00:04:01] Even just getting a little doorway into that was huge for me because I’d felt so much like, like things were taking over and I was like at the whim of them. Versus, I really don’t wanna be the kind of person that, I have people in my family that respond to stress by screaming or blaming or yelling at each other.
[00:04:20] My glasses refused to stay on my head today. Um, but I didn’t wanna be that person. I wanted to be the person that was calling kind and loving, and could set calm boundaries with people and. I didn’t know how to get from here to here. Like, that was like an impossible mission. Or like, I, I’d see people responding the way I wanted to and I’m like, how, how do you do that?
[00:04:42] And a lot of them had very different upbringings than I had different modeling, but they also had learned a different kind of ability to train their system. And I love that you’re here. Like I know it’s late for a lot of you, and I just really appreciate you investing in yourself this way. I’m honored.
[00:05:01] There are more people out there in the world that wanna create that emotional resiliency, create the skills in themselves where they can take care of themselves and kind of direct their life, you know, turn the, the trajectory of their life in a different way. And I really am just honored that you’re here tonight.
[00:05:18] Mm, thank you. So if you look up resilience, Um, it’s the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, a kind of toughness, but I like spring back into shape, kind of an elasticity. Um, and emotional resilience. You know, for me, one of the things I look at is, um, as I look at the arc of my life doing this work, there were things that, um, would come up and they would, they would trigger me.
[00:05:54] Okay? They would, I would be in my primitive brain, I would be anxious, even panicked. Um, uh, really upset, kind of looking around like I don’t know what to do. Um, it could be like a credit card bill that I had forgotten that I had bought new tires and it was gonna be a lot larger than I expected. Very human right?
[00:06:21] Um, As I look at the arc, it, there was an, there’s an older Rick who didn’t do this work, who would take a week or more with a lot of cogitating on it, um, before I would recover and kind of get back to being okay. Um, I did get a credit card email last week where I forgot $1,200 for tires, right? I’m like, why is it this much now?
[00:06:59] The intensity was much lower. It was more of a, a, uh, like, ah, what? Oh, the new shoes for max. My car’s name’s Max . Um, and just a little bit of tapping, and now I’m. Already bouncing back into shape, get some water, kind of ground myself. And it’s like, okay, yeah, that’s what that is. Now that may not seem like a big deal, um, to some people who don’t have, um, that relationship with surprise as I do.
[00:07:45] Um, negative surprises. Even good surprises are not like easy on my nervous system. But I’ll say that, um, if resilience means that I can bounce back in a day instead of a month or an hour instead of a day or 20 minutes instead of an hour, well that’s huge for me. And if it would be huge for you, I, I want to again, redefine, add to the definition that resilience is something that we have a certain amount of natural resilience, but it is something that can go up by 10 x a hundred x.
[00:08:36] You can make orders of magnitude changes in your resilience over a period of years by taking small steps that feel pretty darn good in the moment. And as you, as you look at that arc, which I think is the same arc for physical vitality, the same arc for, uh, clarity and expressiveness. Little small steps over an extended period of time applied with skill.
[00:09:08] Wow. Um, in the same way we can lose resilience and I sometimes we lose resilience through something as huge as. The pandemic and all the impacts and, and changes that, um, were there. Sometimes it’s an accident, sometimes it’s, you know, anything. But the good news is, is that humans do show this capacity to develop resilience.
[00:09:37] And emotional resilience to me is where it starts. If I have emotional resilience around finances, well then I’m going to not spend as much time in primitive brain. I can be more proactive and curious in relationships. If somebody does someone something that triggers me, I don’t have to stay out of love with them being pissed off for a month or a week like some people I know still do.
[00:10:03] Um, and I can bounce back in a short time and then repair and reconnect. Um, so. Yeah, I think it’s, I think it, one thing to point out is that when we, when we kind of react strongly, there’s a sense in our survival brain that we can’t handle whatever we’re seeing that surprise, and many of us have learned that from when we were very little, where we had surprises happen.
[00:10:31] There are more than our little systems in our little brains and our experience could handle, and we learned that, hey, this kind of surprise is, it feels awful to our body. We don’t know how to handle it is in effect a trauma. A trauma is something that we don’t know how to handle, we don’t think we have the resources to handle.
[00:10:49] Right. When we’re really little, a lot of things can seem traumatic and many of us are raised in environments where we can’t easily heal those old traumas, so we carry them forward. Then we have that response to a bill or something else where we are like, there’s that literal panic in our. Which is very hard on our system.
[00:11:09] Yeah. It, it we’re getting a flood of adrenaline and cortisol and a bunch of other hormones that we can literally get addicted to that high and low that up and down. Um, and it, it’s hard, it’s a rollercoaster for our body. Our body is meant to have an occasional high like that, like run really fast from a tiger, but it’s not supposed to happen 15 times a day.
[00:11:31] Generally, our systems are not set up for that. So it can be very aging, it can make people feel very achy, exhausted. It’s tiring that surge of adrenaline. It sucks up a lot of our psychic energy. And then we’re, why am I so tired all the time? Well, my body feels like it’s run from lion 15 times today. And no wonder I don’t wanna take the trash.
[00:11:53] So if when we start doing this work, what we’re literally doing is going in tapping. They don’t quite understand how it works, but we know that it makes the prefrontal cortex and the survival brain communicate. It helps them integrate old traumas so they’re no longer traumatic. There’s no longer that same feeling in our system.
[00:12:14] So when we get the bill the next time, maybe it’s gone down 10% or 15 or a hundred. It doesn’t, you know, depends on the person and how many different traumas fit in it. But even a small shift down let’s our, our system respond in a different way. And when there’s a little bit of air, I call it. So if it goes from a hundred like this, World chattering.
[00:12:34] The world is gonna end to 99. All of a sudden air can get in there, so to speak. Our cognitive brain has space to get in there and start helping us solve the problem much faster. And it starts healing the trauma in, in other ways as well. Mm-hmm. so we can start clearing out this, this very reactive system.
[00:12:54] And we don’t respond like a lion’s like, oh. And instead of seeing feeling like a lion’s about to bite me, I’m like, oh, there might be a lion on the hill. Or maybe there’s a lion on the other side of the hill. Like, we’re like, oh, I feel some alertness and I can calm down. And that’s so much easier on our body and our, our nervous system and a lot easier on people around us as well.
[00:13:16] So we’re building this, um, arc of awareness. It’s an awareness that, you know, both Cathy and I w have said, gosh, I wish I knew that 20 years earlier. Um, I thought there was a defect in me if I got triggered. Well, I know now. That I’ve had trauma and also that I’m a sensitive person. And so a noise, uh, uh, an energy something, my body’s going to react.
[00:13:48] Now, resilience doesn’t say you’re never going to react, but what it will feel like more the kinesthetic feeling is, oh, I’m reacting, not I’m reacting. And I’m like, I’m cascading up. You know? And so that’s kind of the, the, it allows you to be more an unaware person, and as soon as you can do that, then it goes into response.
[00:14:20] As Kathy said, the prefrontal court text in, in essence, more of you comes online after the. Reaction, your thinking brain starts engaging. And your heart and your gut and the things that matter, and part of emotional resilience is gonna be building and strengthening those so that your primitive brain knows it’s actually better for you to go toward response.
[00:14:46] There’s also the cascading down. So there’s the cascading up. You know, I’m, I’m reacting and I’m going up, up, you know, more and more anxious. There’s also the cascade going down, kind of like the roller coaster, and if you’re, it’s really. Human to. If you go way up to also then come way down. Uh, what goes up must come down.
[00:15:11] There’s, there’s some truth in that in our energy field too. And, and again, part of this emotional resilience is not that you’re not gonna find yourself going down. Um, it’s going to give you a sense that, ah, when I start going down here is, here are some things that I know I can do to soften that to a place of resilience.
[00:15:41] Just, okay, so I’m starting to feel very helpless. What can I do? What can I be now for me, I start tapping my collarbone point. Because there’s, there’s so much that’s out of our control, the external world so much, right? But even sometimes in our own home, I’ve got a two year old big feelings, powerful, big feelings.
[00:16:08] And when she goes down, she can like the look on her face and I can feel very much like, oh, I don’t, nothing. You know, she’s not responding to me. And I had to build a resilience. So it was like, I feel helpless. I feel helpless, I feel helpless, and I choose to feel present. I am helpless. I can still be present.
[00:16:42] So the awareness is, uh, you’re going to notice your energy system doing certain things and you’re going to give it a place that feels you like, for, for some people being present is not what they want to do. I want to feel, and I am free to go do something else, I am free to, to take some space, for example.
[00:17:08] And that’s part of the real skill that we’ll be exploring. But this, we’ve defined it, the awareness, your things are up and down. If you look at your heart rate, um, I’ve got a really cool app on my, my watch and my phone. Um, just, just going for a walk. You see these, all these ups and downs of my heart rate.
[00:17:28] Guess what my biochemistry’s doing, that my nervous system is doing all of that. My emotions are doing all of that. Um, I’m pretty sure the other day when I saw something that was just so beautiful, it was a beautiful sky and the sun was coming through, I’m pretty sure that it showed on my watch that that was a peak experience for me.
[00:17:50] It’s like, whoa. And then it settled down. Well, that’s, you know, If you’re used to criticizing yourself and that’s depleting your resilience, we hope that Kathy, and I really hope that you hear that we’re human. You’re human. We have these things, and with with these skills, you can make it feel more natural rather than artificially amplified or crash.
[00:18:23] I’d like to go, you were talking about the, the amped up and the coming down. I’d like to just slow that down a little bit and go through what happens. Um, because I think understanding, once I understood what was happening, I slowed it down a little bit. It gave me something to grab onto. So maybe we get a, a bill that doesn’t, we weren’t expecting.
[00:18:42] There’s some kind of surprise. Yeah. And. You know, we’re surprised that does, that’s not great. Like for most people, like we’ve associated that with not a pleasant feeling. There’s a judgment about it. But we have that phys, that physical reaction to surprise. And then because we’ve been taught over time that having that kind of, many of us were not raised in families where someone says, oh, you’re having a trauma response.
[00:19:08] This is, you know, this is normal. It’s okay, let’s be together. . It was like, I mean in my family it was like, I’ll give you something to cry about. Like you wanna keep that up, you know, like there was a lot of criticism. So there tends to be, when we feel some kind of physical reaction that we associate with negative emotion, like surprise, shock, anger, you know, betrayal, whatever it is, we tend to amp it like we judge ourselves and we.
[00:19:35] We treat it kind of like a snake that someone, we’ve learned that that’s a bad thing, it’s gonna feel awful and we’re bad for bad for having it. So there’s all this other stuff that’s coming in, all these thoughts and judgments that are coming in. On top of the initial, there’s the initial reaction, which is maybe not great, but then we pile all these other stuff not even consciously onto it.
[00:19:57] We’re having, it’s almost like someone dumped a basket load of snakes in our lab. It’s like, ah. Like we, we react to the reaction and we ran. We ramp up and up and up. And then when we finally exhaust ourselves, often we come back down and it’s usually not a calming down, it’s a negative. Like how could you do that?
[00:20:18] I’m exhausted, like beating ourselves up, suppression a suppression depression versus calming ourselves down gently. So one of the best things we can do for this whole process is to realize. It, it, it’s a lot to take in at first because often it’s happening subconsciously, and it’s happening really to all together.
[00:20:38] So we don’t notice the steps in it. But when we can break it down and just go, oh, I’m having a human reaction. My nervous system is still untrained. I’m training it differently now, and we, we can calm ourselves down rather than depress or suppress ourselves down. We start treating, we start building in different, different responses, and if we can catch some of the thoughts we give ourselves as we’re amping up, oh my God, I’ve screwed up again.
[00:21:06] How they’re gonna judge me. They’re gonna, I’m gonna lose the house. I’m gonna go to jail. Like whatever, like, Often those thoughts are, and those, those ideas are very conflated. They’re very big. Like, oh, I got a bill that was twice the amount, it was 200 instead of a hundred dollars. Oh my God, I can’t handle money.
[00:21:24] I shouldn’t be given money. People are gonna take my house away. Like whatever that is, we amp it up versus Oh, I’m surprised right now. So I just wanted to break that down a little bit for you because a lot of people don’t under, they’re not aware of what’s happening. And once you have that, once someone points, when some someone pointed out to me and I’m like, Oh, and I started noticing it, catching it, and going, oh, I don’t really need to say those things to myself.
[00:21:51] And I could start tapping on, oh, even though I’m beating myself up for having this reaction, which is making it worse, I’m still okay. So I could kind of tap on the individual steps. But while they’re all mushed together and this just subconscious reaction, there’s not really anything to grab onto. It’s just happening to us.
[00:22:08] We’re on the rollercoaster riding in the lung without any sense of steering or brakes. This is the catching those thoughts. Mm-hmm. is one of the skills. Yes. Because those are really useful signals cuz you can then start hearing yourself. So like you, oh, I should have like, that’s a thought, a should have thought.
[00:22:36] You’re shooting on yourself if you want right now. Take a moment. And around something that you want to be more emotionally resilient as you start getting amped up, what is one of the thoughts that comes to you? And it probably won’t feel good . Your body will be like, uh, you may start getting amped up.
[00:23:09] That’s why we, I’m tapping the collarbone point. So just to share this in a tap, you could. So the other day, and I’d like, like you to do some tapping for Yes. This catch I was the other day I was talking with Aira Rick’s little one, um, who I adore. We were on FaceTime and we were having a great time. She was showing me her books and something.
[00:23:32] She was coloring and I had to leave. I had another call and. I said I have to go. And her little face collapsed like she did not want me to leave. And she’s like, I saw that and I was, I went through my, oh, I’m letting down someone I love. That’s like, I’ve been kind of. That had been one of the hooks. People used to manipulate me when I was younger, so I was like, oh, I’m letting down this little bean.
[00:23:55] And I started getting upset and I started ju like all the judgements that I’ve tried very hard not to let through, started flooding in and I was like, oh, I’ll cancel my appointment. Let me get, which is not really good either. She shouldn’t be able to like control everybody around her can outfit though.
[00:24:13] She’s cute enough. But like there was this cascade, like the, while she, she looked very sad. She, she said no, and I started beating myself up. So there was the initial, oh, I’m so sad. She’s sad. But then the beat up that I added on top was made me feel much more intense. So, okay. So I’d love to invite, I’m letting down someone I love.
[00:24:35] Yeah. That may be something that some people might use or feel, uh, whether it’s. Spoken or not. We use EFT tapping. We have a whole course now on learn learning, EFT tapping. If you go to thriving now.com/tapping, you can sign up, um, if you’re new to it. Um, and Kathy is going, we’re not gonna teach tapping, but you can learn about it there and follow along.
[00:25:06] Um, and you’ll probably get a sense for. energy and rhythm, and you’re welcome to put in some of the things you tell yourself in the chat. We won’t read anybody’s name with their associated words, but just getting them down in a group can help release some of the shame. So often shame breeds and darkness, and if it’s in our head kind of spinning around by itself, it’s a lot harder to release it.
[00:25:33] So if you wanna sh you share, someone shared I’m stupid or I’m hopeless. Our words that they share with themselves, just getting them out in front of this loving group. This is a very safe space here. Uh, anything that’s in the chat is not shared on YouTube or any place else. And if we read it, we, we just read.
[00:25:52] We, we anonymize it somewhat and don’t share the person’s name. So if you’d like to, that’s a great way to start clearing some of your stuff. Mm-hmm. . So, okay. You like to lead us in a tapping round? Yeah. I’m gonna invite, can we invite you to tap along, if that feels good? Yeah. You’re all muted so you can speak out loud.
[00:26:09] And you’re welcome to change the words if they feel different, if you want different words. So I’m gonna invite you, if it feels good to your body, take a nice deep breath and just let yourself come here. And now, if you’re worried about the wash or the laundry, like whatever’s going on in your life, just let yourself be here in this container for this amount of time you’re here for yourself.
[00:26:30] And if you can feel your butt on the chair, your feet on the floor, your your body is here. And another gentle, deep breath
[00:26:41] karate chop. Even though I’m really good at amping myself up, even though I am really good at amping myself up and I didn’t even realize I was doing it. And I didn’t even realize I was doing it. I was blaming the initial response. I was blaming the initial response. The reaction. Yeah. But I can see that maybe I’m piling some stuff on there right now, just might be piling some stuff on there.
[00:27:10] And I don’t know that that actually helps. And I don’t know that that actually helps. I’m curious if I can stop piling quite so much on, I’m really curious if I can start, stop piling quite so much on oof top of the head. There is that initial reaction. There is that initial reaction. Hi bro. That’s okay.
[00:27:35] And that is okay. Side of the eye. I was surprised. I was surprised under the eye. I was disappointed. I was disappointed under the nose. I had some kind of feeling. I had some kind of feeling chin, but then I judged myself a lot about it, and I. Then I judge myself a lot about it, color bone. Then I judge myself for judging myself, and then I definitely judge myself for judging myself under the arm.
[00:28:05] And then I judge myself for that reaction, and then I judge myself for that reaction. Top of that. No wonder it got so intense. No wonder it got so intense eyebrow. And it’s really amazing that I’m recognizing this now, and it’s really amazing and useful that I’m recognizing this right now. Side of the eye.
[00:28:25] What a gift I gave myself. What a gift I gave myself under vi. Just recognizing that gives me control. Just recognizing that gives me some control under the nose. It doesn’t mean I’ll stop immediately, it does not mean I’ll stop immediately, Jim. But I’m recognizing it now. I’m recognizing it now.
[00:28:46] Collarbone and I can general generally moderate things I recognize and I can generally moderate things I recognize under the arm. I’m really glad I gave myself that opportunity. I’m really glad I gave myself that opportunity top of head. And I’m curious how I can moderate this as I go forward. And I’m curious how I can moderate this as I go forward.
[00:29:10] I want to be more resilient. Yeah, just take a nice deep breath if that feels good. And I saw a couple people yawning when we were going through that. Yawns are great. We’re leasing energy. That’s we, Rick and I, like some people like leading different things. Might be upset if people yawn. We’re like, yes, it’s clearing.
[00:29:27] That’s great. So we’ve had people also that hiccup or burp. So any of those kind of releases of energy are really good. What’s interesting here is I look at the comments, uh, you know, we started off with, I’m. Stupid. I’m hopeless. There’s, then I’ve really lost my way. I’m a fool. It’s my fault I’ll be taken advantage of.
[00:29:50] I’m not good enough. It’s all my fault. Now. Um, this kind of reaction is really common with sensitive people, um, where we internalize it and, um, instead of blaming other people Yeah, instead of blaming other people or attacking other people. So for example, the energy of it’s all my fault, instead of being clear, well, How did they contribute?
[00:30:21] How did I contribute? What’s the dynamic that’s actually happened here? Um, that’s a resourceful, resilient place for me. Uh, but it’s all, my fault is used to be one of my go-tos because that was the way out. As long as I look like and spoke the word as well, it’s all, and sometimes I would speak it angrily in that particular relationship.
[00:30:44] Well, fine. It’s all my fault. It was my way of saying, I, I don’t, I feel helpless. I’m getting amped up. It’s all my fault was part of the. Lowering the energy. Now these things actually have some resilience. It’s primitive brain resilience. It’s, it’s, it’s not like thriving resilience. It, it allows you to shut down in the face of, let’s say violence or threat or, um, someone who is going to amp up their attack.
[00:31:21] So in a, in a, in one primitive brain attacking another, um, these things smart survival tactic, it’s not my fault. I’m a fool. That’s, you’re right. I’m a fool. It allows you to kind of shut down your energy and it’s very expensive. And so what we’re looking at for resilience is, okay, well what if you’re not a fool?
[00:31:43] And what if you’re not? It’s not all your fault. Where,
[00:31:52] what’s a more. Grounded reality about it. Like for example, oh, well there’s, there’s, uh, I see it one way. They see it another, or even like, if we didn’t do something just saying, I might have made a mistake. I think it’s much smaller than, oh, everything is my fault. It’s all my fault. Fault is a, like a bigger word where it’s like, I’ve doomed us somehow versus, oh, I made a, I might have made a mistake here, or I did make a mistake here.
[00:32:30] It seems a little like to my brain at least, it’s a little bit smaller and not so encompassing of like the whole situation was my muck up. Right? So in this, in this dynamic, if you’ve noticed yourself feeling like it’s all my fault, that’s your, oh, you just caught it and there’s an opportunity. And maybe it’s a couple times a day.
[00:32:55] May or hundreds, a hun. Well, again, like, I don’t know how often this comes up for you. Um, each of us have our own, you know, ecosystem of these things. I just, I really know from professional experience and personal and personal embodiment of this, that if I take one of these things that I catch just one of them and I do a round or two on it, that I’m building resilience.
[00:33:27] Mm-hmm. , as Kathy said, when we share it as you all, some of you so bravely have, um, that’s an aspect, but, and also when I share it myself, with myself, this is how, you know, I shifted some of the, it’s all my fault. Okay. I’m just gonna see if I can remember what that was like. And you’re welcome to tap along.
[00:33:52] Um, even though it’s all my fault, even though it’s all my fault, just ask them. Just ask them.
[00:34:04] Oh,
[00:34:07] I’m open to accepting myself anyway. I’m open to accepting myself anyway, even though it must be all my fault, even though it must be all my fault. They’re so sure. They’re so sure, and a part of me is so sure, and a part of me is so sure
[00:34:29] that feels a little black and white to me, that feels a little black and white to me.
[00:34:41] When I’m open to the possibility, it’s not all my fault, , and I’m open to the possibility it’s not all my fault. All the time. All the time. It’s all, it’s all my fault. It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault. Back at the eye. Just ask them. Just ask them. It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault. Huh? It’s all my fault.
[00:35:14] It’s all my fault. Of course, it’s my fault. Of course it’s my fault. Hold on. What if it’s not? What if it’s not? No. Uh oh. Uh oh.
[00:35:28] I’m starting to realize privately that it’s not all my fault. You’re starting to realize privately that it’s not all my fault, even though I may not open my mouth about it, even though I may not open my mouth about it.
[00:35:44] So what did I do there? I, I exaggerated a bit and not like it was a big deal for me. And, but I, I put a, an, an extra bit on it. All my fault all the time. And when you’re doing it and tapping, you may notice. And I started to notice after I had been doing that for a little while, that there was a part of me that was going, Hey buddy, not all your fault.
[00:36:14] Um, Hey buddy. Yeah. What you said was really . That was a, that was a, that was not what you want to be saying. And, um, There’s a lot of heightened emotions here. There’s a lot of, uh, ir there’s some irreconcilable differences. Oh, even though, isn’t it all my fault that there are irreconcilable differences? Mm.
[00:36:39] I accept that that’s an unwanted reality. You notice that you start a, i I am inviting you to be free with, um, what comes up as you, as you state the truth, that, that catch catching, the, catching the truth of what your brain thinks. Like it’s all my fault. And seeing where it goes, playing with it, where you can frying with it, where.
[00:37:08] That’s helpful. Um, I feel drawn, just to add to, there’s a hook with the, my fault thing that I, I’ve found for myself was, it was really hard for me to like, go of it being my all my fault. And I realized that because it, I, when I felt like it was my fault, I had some power. I could learn how to do it differently.
[00:37:26] I could learn, I could change it in the future versus if it wasn’t my fault. Even things that were blatantly not my fault. There was no hope, I had no power, no ability to steer. So if you, if you do find that it’s really hard to let go of things that are, cause since several people said, it’s all my fault or it’s my fault.
[00:37:43] If you have trouble letting go of that, realize your younger self might have felt very powerless at that time. And some inner child tapping or some tapping on the original incident when, when you first learned is that that hook to like, oh, at least I can blame myself and try to make myself different or better so that it doesn’t happen again.
[00:38:03] Yeah. Um. Something to try on, even though at least I can blame myself, even though at least I can blame myself. And that gives me a sort of perverse hope. And that gives me sort of perverse hope. Uh, I want to be more resilient. I want to be more resilient and clearer about what’s actually going on and clearer about what’s actually going on.
[00:38:26] Maybe I can tolerate this. Maybe I can tolerate this top of the head. If it’s all my fault, at least I can change. If it’s all my fault, at least I can change eyebrow. It gives me a perverse kind of hope. It gives me a perverse kind of hope side of the eye. And that has been really essential and that has been really essential.
[00:38:47] The eye in certain situations that has been essential in certain situations that has been essential under the nose. And I am more resilient now, and I am more resilient now.
[00:39:04] And I’m really tired of the blame. I am really tired of the blame all alone. I don’t wanna blame anyone. I don’t wanna blame anyone. I wanna be grounded in what’s, what’s really happening. I wanna be grounded in what’s really happening. Tough head and clear about what my yes is and clear about what my yes is.
[00:39:27] So that notice, like that was a part of my recovery from it’s all my fault. Um, is, um, I wanna be clear about what’s a yes for me. I wanna be clear about what matters to me here. I wanna be clear about my contribution and also my limits. Do you see? I’m putting now those, those evolved over a period of months.
[00:39:57] By the end of six months, I was really responding quite differently. I could say, I hear you, but my and my yes. What matters to me is, and be able to articulate it without saying that the other person had to be different, but also being free to be myself, that was huge. Not having to go on the whole rollercoaster ride first.
[00:40:22] Right. And now there’s still doorways where, um, the question of am am I at fault? You know, cause Kathy said, letting down someone you love. That’s still a doorway I’m working on. In fact, I’m more aware of it, um, from scheduling this workshop and thinking about resilience, like where am I not resilient? Um, but that’s different than landing in that harsh place of it’s all my fault.
[00:40:54] And, um, That’s why, you know, writing it down your catchphrase, doing some work on it, seeing where it comes up, it, you, the good great news about tapping is it can be done retrospectively, which means you may not catch yourself in the morning, but at night when you’re feeling like, oh, it’s so exhausting. Or three days later, , oh, I didn’t actually catch myself when it happened, but I’m aware that I really, I, I, I took the blame, all the blame.
[00:41:25] I took all the fault this morning. No wonder I was dragging my butt even though I was dragging my butt all day. Cause I took the fault. It’s okay. I’m still working on this. And what matters to me is to be what?
[00:41:45] Yeah, I, I love that. You know, like Rick re bringing that in, like it, we can, it doesn’t matter. It could be 10 years ago that we had that reaction. We can still tap on it now and it will help our system moving forward. There, there’s room. We can expand the, the space for ourselves. And is it okay if we go into tolerating a little more?
[00:42:06] Yeah, that was my, um, one of the best ways I found, and I, I think Rick is as well, but finding, doing little doses of tolerating of the emotions that we don’t want to feel. So if we feel we get this. Letter that creates anxiety. And we’ve learned that anxiety is something we can’t handle. It’s too much. It’s horrible.
[00:42:30] It’s gonna feel terrible. It really is. Like someone dumped a box of snakes in our lap, it’s gonna set off a chain reaction. So when we can take just a little dose of that anxiety, that fear that I’m, whatever emotion we feel when I’m not good enough, like hopelessness, whatever it is, if we can, and we don’t wanna take, we, we are not going into the gym and grabbing the 300 pound, uh, bell.
[00:42:54] Like, we don’t wanna do that because that won’t teach our system, that we can handle it. That will actually reinforce that we can’t. So if you can think of a situation where you felt the emotion that you most like to. Me, I hate surprise, like, like Rick does. I also hate disappointing people. So I could choose either one.
[00:43:13] Like what do I feel in my bo? How do I notice what sensations are there in my body? But we wanna pick something that is not a 10 out of, you know, zero to 10. We wanna pick something like the two or three or four. And if you, if you can identify that and just see not only the thoughts in your head, but the actual sensations in your body.
[00:43:32] So I get, when I think of disappointing Aira, there’s a heaviness in my heart and kind of a tension in my chest. See if you can get into the sensations and we’re just gonna do that together for a moment. So we’re only gonna do it for 20 seconds. See if you can identify that sensation and bring it forward.
[00:43:49] Feel it in your body and breathe. And I’m gonna tell you when 20 seconds are up. So we can start now and just breathe into that feeling. We’re okay. We’re here together. We’re just noticing this feeling. You’re doing great.
[00:44:11] And we have now accomplished 20 seconds of tolerating that you can kinda shake it out, breathe whatever you like, and that really pause for a second. If we could ground yourself for a moment, like look around your room, feel yourself in the chair. Let gravity work a little bit on you, and also your bones lift you.
[00:44:33] So gravity settles, bones provide structure, and they’re living, our bones are living. Oh, and it can really help to also appreciate yourself. You just tolerated a feeling that you normally run away from. So if you can just like give yourself like, Hey, I showed up. I could have been watching TV curled up on the couch somewhere.
[00:44:59] Pizza, whatever. I showed up to this call and not only did we deal a bunch of tapping and stuff, but I actually tolerated this feeling that I thought I couldn’t, I didn’t wanna feel. We are often, we learn when we are little, what emotions mean. And when we’re little, we don’t often have the skills or the experience and often not the support to work through emotions.
[00:45:21] Like little kids learn about disappointment when Santa doesn’t ring the pony when they’re three and they’re devastated because they don’t have the pony. I have promised to dear many ponies, I have not yet gotten to deliver them. Rick has said no ponies in their rented house. Um, so if she’s disappointed, it’s not my fault.
[00:45:41] Um, but we learned that like little kids, that disappointment is devastating. It’s just like, I have no control of my world. I’m not getting the things I think I need. Like, it’s, it’s awful. It’s a terrible feeling. And most families don’t sit down and go, oh, honey, You get to feel disappointed and you’ll be okay.
[00:46:00] I’m here with you. Rick does that with a deer and I love it. Most families are like, pull yourself together. Stop being so selfish. I’ll give you something to cry about, whatever it is. So we anchor that. That feeling is awful. So for just 20 seconds, you tolerated some feeling that you had learned early on, likely that it’s really hard to deal with it, your system can’t deal with it, and you just helped your survival brain realize, huh, well maybe I can tolerate small doses of this.
[00:46:29] And as we give it small doses over time. Ground and then celebrate afterwards. We start getting this like, huh, yeah, I’m kind of a rockstar around disappointment. I can handle it. Yeah. And then we don’t go into that like cycle, like we’re like, oh, we have a little more space, a little more breathing room around the feeling.
[00:46:48] So I encourage you if you feel able to, and if you need a coach to do this, if you have old traumas or a lot of big intense feelings, get a coach to help you. But if you’re, if you’re in a space where you can feel the twos and threes and just kind of like, oh, this sucks, but I can just breathe with this for a, you know, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, maybe even a minute, you’re starting to gently build up the muscle of like, oh, these feelings, like when I was little, they were devastating, but as an.
[00:47:16] For the smaller ones, at least I’ve got it. And for the bigger ones, I can call somebody and say, Hey, I need help with this, which is totally okay. I do that Rick and I call each other all the time. Like, I need to co-regulate for a minute. I’m, I’m having some emotions come up. I got this bill that I wasn’t expecting or whatever.
[00:47:34] Well, I really appreciate you bringing this, um, as part of our, our workshop because I’m, it puts, you know, the word tolerate to me, um, on its own felt like, like putting up with, in the context of resilience, it’s saying this isn’t, this is something I can be with. So I, I look at the example of ad’s disappointment, which impacts me.
[00:48:11] Like I want to be the kind of dad that’s aware when. One of my kids is disappointed. My partner’s disappointed. And if, if I find that intolerable in my nervous system to be, to have that awareness. If I can’t be with it for 20 seconds, and as someone said, it helps to soften the body while tolerating a small dose, I believe that my own personal experience is that, um, it doesn’t take a whole lot of tapping, you know, sometimes it’s, it’s, it’s just like I put my hand on, on my collarbone points.
[00:48:56] And if I can tolerate where someone is emotionally for 20 seconds, not dis. If I need to dissociate, fine, but if I can actually tolerate, as Kathy said, oh, I’m aware that there’s this feeling like I, my, my face feels, um, like on the edge of tears or, um, I’m noticing this kind of, oh, I wish it was different.
[00:49:28] If I can be with that feeling for 20 seconds, maybe a minute, um, the environment is going to change. One, I’m offering co-regulation. I’m with a powerful feeling, including my own, and I’m regulating it. Doesn’t mean I like it. Regulation does not mean we like it. It’s that we are with it and we’re dropping out of our primitive brain into a greater body awareness.
[00:49:57] If I’m doing that, that sends a, a, a. Powerful signal to every other primitive brain in the area about what is okay tolerable. Um, I realize that now that we’ve put words to it, um, I’m auditorily sensitive. Part of my neurodiversity is a kind of auditory sensitivity, which can really help me hear and, and pick up a lot of energy and meaning.
[00:50:28] And, um, you know, I hear spirit, I hear all kinds of things, but like really loud shrieking, acop, like children is a lot of signal. And what I noticed was I was starting to get just the first bits of. And reacting by trying to stop it. That’s not resilience for me. I was putting a lot of reactive energy into, um, the trying to stop it because it was intolerable and I, when it wasn’t right in my face, I’d be in like the kitchen.
[00:51:10] I would just start tapping and being with the noise and just seeing where it goes, seeing what happens in my body. And sometimes the words out of my mouth 30 seconds later would be, Hey, buddy, that’s too much sound energy for me. Now that’s that not judging him, not that’s very different than like a knee-jerk reaction, which is you need to stop that.
[00:51:37] Oh, you can’t shut up. Because, because I’m trying to protect my nervous system. So in this emotional resilience practices, We’re, we’re not saying tolerate it as a chronic condition, but the first step of saying, taking something that doesn’t like this is, this is intolerable. Well, maybe, but let’s see how it is for 20 seconds being with the feelings.
[00:52:08] Um, I’ve done that with, uh, with news stories that like struck me as being intolerable and like, what am I actually feeling? I’m feeling I’m, I’m feeling just such deep sadness or like really like No, or sometimes I misread the headline and I’m making up a whole story on its own . Well, and. And for me, like if I’m with the feeling for a little bit and then I tap on something that feels the sticky part of it, like even though I wish it wasn’t like this, it is.
[00:52:49] Can we do, that’s a useful tapping. Can we just go through that? You want me to do it or you want me to? Okay. You started. You’re welcome. Oh, you’re, yeah.
[00:53:04] Even though I wish, wish it was different, even though I wish it was different, and I’m reacting to this and I’m reacting to this. This is an unwanted reality, . This is an unwanted reality. I’m choosing to calm and confidence myself. I’m choosing to calm and confidence myself anyway. Even though this feels intolerable, even though this feels intolerable, this is so unwanted.
[00:53:31] This is so unwanted. I am strong enough to be with this for a little bit here. I am strong enough to be with this for a little bit here. Top of the head. This feels intolerable. This feels intolerable eyebrow. It’s so unwanted. It’s so unwanted side of the eye. It is so unwanted. It’s so unwanted. Under the eye.
[00:53:54] It feels intolerable. It feels intolerable. My knee jerk reaction is that it’s intolerable. My knee jerk reaction is that it’s intolerable. Jen, what if I tolerate it for 10 seconds? , what if I tolerate it for 10 seconds? How might it change? How might it change?
[00:54:18] Hold on, but this is such a shitty, dirty diaper. This is just a shitty, dirty diaper. The smell is intolerable. The smell is intolerable.
[00:54:36] Oh, and I can tolerate it for a little bit, and I can tolerate it for a little bit and just, and notice how it changes inside me and notice how it changes inside me. Yeah, I love that. I think there’s such a gift when we can tolerate and maybe even accept that we have feelings. I think so many of us, like we just naturally wanna chase the positive feelings, and we are, we start treating the negative feelings, like they’re proof that we’re bad, not enough.
[00:55:08] It’s our fault versus their data. Their data the universe is giving us, and our body is, is saying, I don’t like this. If we can calm down and tolerate them for a minute, there’s a lot of information in there. So it might, it might be that people would, with no, people like Rick who had that intolerable.
[00:55:26] Noise thing might decide they hate kids versus, wow, I need to take care of myself when I’m around children, or I need to wear earplug. Like there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of nuance and a lot of information in the, if we slow down and can be with that quote unquote negative feeling, there’s information in there.
[00:55:44] And we’re not saying that we wanna dwell in that we we’re not saying to wallow in it, but if we can slow down and be with that, if we don’t reject the part of us that has those negative, negative feelings, there’s a lot of data and information and ways we can support ourselves. Do better self care versus avoiding so many of us, and I, I’m pointing fingers back at myself early on, the way I learned to self care was to avoid the situations that made me feel bad.
[00:56:10] But then my world started getting kind of small and constrained and I, oh no, I don’t ever do that. Versus, huh, I’d like to try that. I might decide it, I wanna leave early. Or some, you know, kind of exploring and letting the world kind of get bigger and, and have more adventures. Mm-hmm. . So I think there’s a big gift that you, for all of you that did that exercise, you just gave yourself a beautiful gift.
[00:56:31] I believe. So, um, we’re gonna take a seven minute break, um, and if you’re watching on the recording, we invite you to do the same. Um, whatever. Follow, it’s a moment to come back into your own energy and see what’s right for you. If you’re here and it’s right for you to take what we’ve done so far and, and take an exit to pause, uh, come back to the recording later or not.
[00:57:01] Um, you’re invited to follow your guidance system dive. My invitation is that if during when you come back from the break, there is something that around emotional resilience, something that you came here for and we haven’t touched on it or you’d like us to go deeper on it, please, um, uh, feel free to post that in the chat.
[00:57:26] Yeah. Or you also raise your hand if you wanna step forward and be, um, film. So, okay. I’m gonna pause the recording. Welcome back. Yes. So we, we looked at the definition of resilience and emotional resilience in particular that we’re seeing that we, um, We’re human, we’re going to get sensory input sometimes even from our own organs.
[00:57:58] Internally. , right? Yes. Headache. A sprayed muscle. Yeah. Um, fluctuations and blood sugar can activate a thought or a, uh, feeling sensation. Um, and that emotional resilience is as a skill to be able to observe, to catch, ah, this sensation come up. There’s the thought. Um, and to be able to, so that’s the awareness part of it, and then to be able to tolerate it.
[00:58:35] Not again, like, oh, I’m always gonna be tolerating this, that I can’t stand that. That’s not the intention, but it is to create. A few more extra milliseconds between the stimulation and a reaction. It’s astounding that if we can tolerate something for 20 seconds, our primitive brain, when it gets the sensation down, down the road, can go, Hey, do you want do your tapping thing about this
[00:59:12] Cause otherwise I’ll just go off and do what I’m, you know what? I’ve got . I got great spiel that I use, but this not always fun. I can bark at this, I can, I can do other stuff. I can run and hide under the bed. I can, you know, go grab the ice cream. But, um, since we’ve been showing ourselves that we can be with it, and then we do some things, um, we create, and this is, this is described differently in the neuro, um, The neurological context, but there is a pathway, um, between stimulus and the choice between a reaction or a response.
[00:59:58] There’s, there’s a choice, and you have, and, and by cultivating this as a skill, our primitive brain will, will actually lean toward, slowly lean toward something that is more thriving for us. Especially if we’ve said, you know, this, this noise thing, this um, this financial thing, this relationship thing, this child’s.
[01:00:25] Um, uh, yeah. Survival Brain wants to use the least amount of energy possible, and doing the roller coaster thing is a lot of energy, right? So as we kind of teach it, okay, there’s a little bit of a pause, and now we can, we can actually choose different things, like our survival brain will naturally lean. We, we have to show it a few times, but it’s like, oh, that’s a lot less energy.
[01:00:48] I’m not, nearly exhaust is exhausted. If a tiger chases me after I go on this roller coaster, I might be lying food, but if I, you know, calm quickly, that’s better. So it’s going to choose the more healthy choice. Yeah. And that short distance between people that are, are addicts, there’s almost no space between the input and our, our reaction.
[01:01:11] There’s like, it’s like people will, they, they talk about like their, their, the alcohol’s in their hand. They don’t even realize how they got it there or the, the foods in their, you know, their mouth. But when we can put a little space, there’s choice and choice is so valuable. Mm-hmm. . And part of creating a powerful choice is to get clear, um, um, before the session was having an email exchange and uh, someone brought up anger.
[01:01:44] I, I love that because anger’s fire, it’s got a lot of ooph to it. Um, we did a workshop around turning anger into Ooph. If you are, uh, if anger is one of the things that you’re looking for, for being savvy with that workshop would be great. Um, in this case, it’s a good example because if you have fire, what do you want to do?
[01:02:09] Well, the reaction could be to, to burn someone, right? Like, get away, you know, I’ve got all this, um, get it to stop, use that ooph That way could be to destroy something. It could be the fire that is like a rocket engine that gets you out. Like, I am so angry. I am gone , um, the, you know, flight, the SpaceX version of flight.
[01:02:36] You know, it’s like I’m, I’m out of here. And those are things that your primitive brain, um, we can get so angry we freeze too, as part of the skill here. It’s like, oh, okay, I get fired up and what do I want to do with that energy? And to me that’s, I call it a sacred exploration, a sacred choice. Um, you may get an initial reaction, you may get an initial guidance.
[01:03:13] Um, for me, like I wanna take anger and direct it toward something that matters to me. So, um, I saw someone on Twitter bully, someone else called him, uh, stupid. Um, and. My perimeter brain is like, jump in, defend whatever. Um, I have, what matters to me is safety, respect, and freedom. And so in being there and looking at that message, tolerating it, and then tapping on, you know, I, what matters to me is safety, you know, uh, and, um, you know, I’ve called people stupid.
[01:04:18] It’s not, I know how that feels and where it comes from for me, but I’m angry and I wanna put this someplace. Where do I want to direct it? I want to direct it into co-creating. Spaces safer. I want to, I want to, I wanna direct it into, um, cultivating the communities that I’m in. And that’s, I went and I, I replied to a couple people who, um, had emailed me about something.
[01:04:58] And when I came back to open up that tab where Twitter was, I just quietly unfollowed this person. I’d been noticing that their way of, of being with the world was really not compatible with mine. There were some few things that are, were useful, but really it was, um, their energy’s jarring for my nervous system.
[01:05:21] I’m glad that they act. I, I’m, I’m not happy. It’s still, I still feel some anger, um, that we can’t have civil conversations sometimes without calling names. Um, but I, I directed the energy, my anxiety, I directed toward calm confidence. Mm-hmm. . You know, even though I, I’m worried about this, I’ve decided to be, you know, surprisingly calm and confident.
[01:05:50] That’s what I mean by directing. You’re giving and tapping. We set, we set it up and we direct it someplace toward acceptance, toward calm, confidence toward what is right for you with a particular energy. I think just to contrast that is if we’re in a reactive state, we immediately jump off the handle depending on what our, our patterns are, our neurological, what we’ve practiced a lot, we might start beating ourselves up.
[01:06:17] Like either we turn the anger on ourselves and like we beat ourselves up for either not replying in a way that we thought we should, or we, we, I, I’m not perfect either. Whatever it is, we, the beat up for ourselves is actually, it’s a, it may sound strong, but I think it’s a form of self abuse in a way.
[01:06:35] Like that constant, and I’ve done it, I still do it sometimes, but it’s like it’s, we’re attacking ourselves. Or we might turn around and attack the other person. If we just go on that reactive lightning rod thing, it’s either gonna come to us or it’s gonna probably go to the other person and we’re just gonna blast them.
[01:06:51] Versus Rick said, oh, I wanna create a world where this doesn’t happen. I’m gonna use the energy mostly for my community, but I’m also just gonna quietly unfollow. And maybe he, you know, his choice might have been different, you know, like, and depending on what was written, he might have replied back or done something, but there’s no really right or wrong.
[01:07:10] It’s like, but we’re making that conscious, thoughtful, present choice and that something we can feel good about. Like it’s fr it’s not from a reactive state. It’s like, oh, I have this anger, I have this. Where can I direct it that’s useful to the world? What that fits my values and so that fits my values.
[01:07:30] Yeah. Yeah. So I think that’s, I think that’s really powerful. Um, so someone shared, I wanna direct my anger towards boundary making. Does that make sense? Um, of course. I need to know more deep, look more deeply into it. Think more so. So I, I’d like to answer this one cuz I’ve been, um, and you’re, everybody is welcome to their perspective on this.
[01:07:51] Um, emotional resilience for me comes from being internally referenced. So if I get a reaction from the outside that has evoked anger, it is extremely useful for my resilience to know what matters to me, because then the boundary is being held, not to try to stop me from having these experiences that make me angry.
[01:08:19] The boundary is, Safety, respect and freedom are core values of mine, and that is not what I’m getting from you in this situation. That leaves me with clarity that we’re gonna have more distance, we’re gonna end this conversation. It’s a different come from, it’s coming from the resilient part, which is strengthened by um, what matters.
[01:08:51] And at first when you, like the first time I tapped on and I’ve decided to be calm and confident anyway, I, I felt calm at a 0.01 and confident at a slightly less than that . But you know, when you keep saying, and I’ve decided because it matters to me to be calm and confident here in this situation with this, um,
[01:09:19] That’s my, that’s my come from, that matters to me. I am not perfect at it. Um, we embrace our imperfection, uh, is imperfection is a concept for thriving, but I at least know where to go with the energy. Um, when I get angry and I, and I’m still angry and I’m not clear about what matters to me, the boundaries that I set are war, like, or defensive.
[01:09:51] Like they look, they, they feel less like where I, where I need to be in relation to someone else in order for me to feel good. It feels more like we’re at war. Does that make sense? More aggressive than like, say a fence. It would be a healthy event. Like, and there are times when we need to turn up the volume and be like, I, like Rick talks about like we can just turn up the volume until people hear us sometimes, like, I’d really like you not to do that in my space.
[01:10:25] I’d really like you not to do that in my space. I really need you to stop doing that in my space. Um, you have to leave the space. So we can’t tell. Boundaries are important to notice that I can control things that are mine. Like I can control access to my attention, my presence. If we’re in a shared space, then there’s some negotiation that might go on.
[01:10:47] But I can’t tell someone else, like on Twitter, I can’t tell someone else that they can’t use the word stupid. That’s like, that’s a public space where they get to do it, but I don’t have to be there with 'em. And setting a boundary might be like, Hey, I noticed who you’ve used the word stupid a lot. That doesn’t match with my internal values.
[01:11:07] I would like you to stop using it. If not, I’m gonna unfollow you. But it’s letting them know that you’re setting the boundaries so they can make a choice. And if they don’t wanna do that, then it’s like, okay, what can I do in my power? So sometimes people think boundaries are like, you have to stop, you get to tell the other person to stop doing something.
[01:11:26] And that’s true in some, in some, if they’re in your, if someone’s in my home, I can tell them, if you wanna do that, you have to leave. Mm-hmm. . Um, but we don’t always get to control other people’s actions. And I think that’s, it’s a nuance about boundaries that I don’t know that everybody, it’s boundaries are very new to many people.
[01:11:43] They are. And I’ll, I’ll add a a, um, cause you, we, we were talking about this public venue. He wasn’t calling me stupid. Right. He was calling someone else. Um, and. To me, if I’m in emotional, if I want to be emotionally resilient, I want at least 3, 4, 5 boundary changes that I can do that don’t require me to communicate or get them to change at all.
[01:12:17] And it’s a, for me, it was a trauma response for me to try to control other people’s behavior in order for me to be emotional, more emotionally resilient. Um, so like, oh, I can ignore it. I can unfollow because I’m seeing too much of this person in my timeline. I can mute them, I can block them, I can add a filter word.
[01:12:47] So if the word stupid is in a, in a tweet, I never even see. There’s lots of choice there. Yeah. I, and, and if I had a relationship with this person, I might privately say, Hey, I’ve noticed your style has become, um, more, and this is a tweet that I saw and, uh, I really, I wanna stay connected to you, but this kind of thing is something going on or is this, is this a conscious choice that, that this is the way that you’re gonna go about this?
[01:13:20] You notice how that’s leaving open the possibility for exchange of information, um, between people. And I find that for me, that’s useful. Yeah, I agree. Um, someone asked if, if they live in your home, um, and that’s, that’s more tricky. Like there, you know, is it your home and they’re living there, are they renting?
[01:13:44] What’s the agreement that you have about the shared space? There’s a lot of nuances there. Um, if it is your home and they’re staying there, you know, like not paying something or whatever, or even if they’re renting, you can, you can talk to them and say, this is, this doesn’t feel safe to me in my home. Or depending on what level of escalation you need, but talking to them and saying, this is what I notice when you do this, I’m requesting you not do that.
[01:14:11] If you continue to do that, I’m gonna have to figure out like how I take care of myself. And that might include asking you to leave this house. Um, so like kinda setting like this is what I’m feeling and noticing. You know this, I don’t want to have this happen. Here’s what I would like you to do. And if you can’t do that, then we’re gonna have to have a discussion.
[01:14:34] It’s hard without a little more nuance without, without a little more of the details to, to help a little more detail. More like you might wanna go to a circle call and ask for help with that on one of the team calls, um, because with more details, um, those calls are not recorded or posted. So, um, I think a wonderful elder who teaches around this languaging and, and how to do a set a boundary from your side of the net, uh, Susan Campbell and her series of different series of books, I’ve learned a lot about, um, how to do that, um, and to be able to express.
[01:15:11] And it is a different kind of language, um, than I was raised with. And I’ve noticed that even if I do it awkwardly, it still feels good to me to say, to own my part of it, say, you know, it doesn’t feel good in my heart. And I noticed myself closing off. Yeah. When, when this is happening, telling the consequence of what’s happening, like I’m pulling away, I’m pulling away, I find myself, um, with less energy to do things that are, um, for the we space that we share.
[01:15:49] Um, Uh, I’m going to need to, I’m, I’m, I’m realizing that if that continues, I’m gonna need to, to put more energy into my own, uh, self care and other things, and that’ll leave less time and energy for, for these other things. Yeah. And when you’re married, if, if you’re in a married situation, that can be even more complicated because sometimes if there’s a lot of built up anger, that person may actually do it just because it’s getting a reaction and getting some support to work through that kind of thing.
[01:16:20] It’s hard when it’s hard when the other person, uh, is not respecting your needs. And, and, and here in, in for this real skills workshop, which is coming to a close here, um, how do you apply emotional resilience? Well, you become aware of the reaction that you have. Is it to withdraw whatever. You maybe go to a safer place in the, in the house and you, and you tolerate the feelings and you tune into it.
[01:16:50] Like, oh, I’m really feeling withdrawn. I’m combining withdrawal and anger, um, resentment. There’s this resentment in my gut, and things like that. And how would you like to feel? Not what you’d like to do or say. You can tap on that too, but what would be resilient for you? And I believe that that, go ahead.
[01:17:16] Oh, I was gonna say like someone had shared about feeling judged. I’ve learned when I can tolerate the feeling a little bit, I can actually call it out and say, Hmm, I notice I’m feeling really judged by you. Like maybe they’re saying something back and forth to other people or they’re saying it to you.
[01:17:31] It’s like, I can, when I’m not tolerating, I get really angry and our react versus when I’m like feeling it, I can tolerate a little bit. I’m like, wow, I’m feeling really judged by that statement. It doesn’t feel good at all. I don’t feel close to you and I wanna, I wanna remove myself from knows how different that is than pointing and saying, you’re judging me.
[01:17:53] Because people can argue that that might argue that you shouldn’t feel a certain way, but that’s a different kind of pathology that we’ll probably touch on in a future workshop. Um, again, like I believe that coming back to what matters, so I feel these things, what matters to me.
[01:18:16] What matters to me. And if I had that, how would I feel? And I want my clarity about what, how to be with myself and how to be, um, in my, in what matters to me, to direct my energy in the, in toward what matters to me. And, um, that, that to me is a place of, you know, catching ourselves from the hurt, which is really so human.
[01:18:52] If someone was doing that to me, it would hurt. I wanna catch myself in my own way, maybe reach out to, um, a person or a community that I know supports me, not to get them on my side, but to hold. Um, for, to not feel alone. Our survival brain, especially if it’s a group of people that are feeling, that are acting judgy towards you, our survival brain can feel really overwhelmed.
[01:19:17] So getting some loving support outside of that can help you feel like, I’m not alone. I’m not attacked by the whole world. And then your guidance will come from a place of resilience. You’ll have more confidence in your capacity to, um, just be with what is and see how you want to influence and evolve it.
[01:19:41] And set and boundaries are dynamic. Um, you know, so. Thank you, Kathy. Thank you all for being here. This is amazing. Um, please know these seeds, like the, the thoughts we’ve shared with you, and once you’ve let in, those are planted, they’re, you’re gonna just notice them at different times popping up, and you can encourage them by celebrating and appreciating yourself when you notice.
[01:20:06] So my tendency is like, oh my goodness, I didn’t notice that for three whole weeks. Damn. Versus, oh my God, thank you so much. This popped up like we wanna water the seeds with appreciation. So like we, these thoughts are there percolating your survival brains going, I’m suspicious about this, but I might be willing to try it on.
[01:20:25] If you can set aside the time to tolerate for 20 seconds a day, even do a little tapping and really appreciate yourself. When you notice yourself stepping out, that’s gonna change the trajectory of your life in such profound ways. And I just really appreciate the courage and, and the willingness and curiosity that brought you here tonight.
[01:20:47] But you rock. This is amazing. I see some questions, including ones like, what does tapping actually do? If you go to Thriving now.com/tapping or thriving now.com/courses, you’ll see the Learn EFT Tapping course. We, we have a full ebook on that, what it does, what we think it does, um, the results that, uh, and the mechanisms.
[01:21:11] Um, and@thrivingnow.center, we have a community center where you can ask, um, specific questions and members of our community and myself, um, will, um, engage with you there. Uh, we really appreciate your, um, participation and yeah, we’re definitely open to feedback, suggestions, and the ahas and celebrations that you might want to have too.
[01:21:41] So, yeah. Thank you, Cathy. Great work everyone. Thanks so much, Rick.
[01:21:45] Goodnight.
We covered…
- Resilience is a capacity to recover quickly and withstand discomfort long enough to be responsive in ways that serve us and our well-being
- Awareness helps us understand human reactions and how they play in our body. It helps us CATCH the thoughts and reactions before they escalate or deplete us (making recovery longer and more “expensive”).
- Tolerating is a practice of being with the sensations and feelings for a short while (20 seconds even) so we reprogram our primitive brain to know that these sensations don’t require an immediate, uncontrolled reaction.
- Directing is when we know where we are and direct our energy towards what REALLY matters to us… how we would like to feel… and putting our attention and focus on that.
Resources Mentioned
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Free EFT Tapping Guide - Free Course
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Thriving Now Emotional Freedom Circle - Group Coaching Program
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Susan Campbell, Getting Real - Book
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Turn Anger into Oomph - Real Skills Workshop
Great to have you on this journey with us!