Replay is below
Can you leave?
Their answer was a meak “no.”
Is it a surprise the situation made them anxious? Scared? Terrified even?
Whether it’s work, family, love, or what-should-be-pleasure… if we cannot leave, our primitive brain will behave like it is trapped.
A trapped human is not thriving.
It’s why savvy exit strategies allow us to feel free to go, free to stay, and free to leave. Ahhh… sweet freedom.
[Avoidance is different. Avoidance says I don’t have choice, so I will avoid being trapped – no matter how much I’d like to have the experience. ]
Sometimes the exits are logisitical. Do you have a way to get home if things go sideways?
What I know is that many times the exits are blocked by emotional reasons. “What would they think? What if they get mad? I’d be too embarrassed! I couldn’t take their pressure to stay.”
These are emotional limits… addressing those within ourselves takes skill. It is also useful to have help.
You may not believe it yet… but you COULD leave…
If there are situations where you don’t feel free to leave, or not go at all, Cathy and I invite you to join us for this workshop.
Replay is belowA Real Skills Workshop for: Savvy Relating and Engaging
Appreciate You! Our inbox is open!
With love,
Rick & Cathy ~ ThrivingNow
Your Emotional Freedom Coaches
Schedule private sessions here
P.S. Adira says, “Sometimes an exit is awkward… still good to have, I say.”
Thank you everyone who joined in! Love co-creating with you!
Trying to process the video but the tools I use are not working! I think I’ll take an exit and process the replay another time…
Later: Working now…
We welcome your insights, ah-ha’s, and sharing. Please! Click [Reply]
[00:00:00] Choose to Stay, Free to Go: Savvy Exit Strategies
[00:00:04] I’m Rick from Thriving Now, and this is a Real Skills Workshop. And my co creator Cathy is not available today. She’s taking care of her well being. And so we send her our love and our best. And, that’s part of a savvy strategy is, hey, what do we do when surprise things come up and things that we Can anticipate, we’ve been around the block and we’re, we can anticipate that things can happen.
[00:00:36] How do we be savvy about that? How do we make it so that don’t feel trapped for me? I’m starting to tap and we use EFT tapping to. What we exit out of the trend toward me getting more anxious toward being more grounded. So the first exit strategy can be like, Oh, I’ve got this nervous system and it sometimes grabs a hold of me.
[00:01:02] And what do I do with it? The first exit strategy for me, when I found tapping, it was like, Oh, wow, I’ve got something at my fingertips, regardless of where I am. That I can use and I can use it to start shifting to move my energy from being on a a rocket or a slide. I can use it to create more of a neutral.
[00:01:32] And so if you’re not familiar with EFT tapping, Ooh, I’m so excited for you. Thriving now. com slash tapping is where you can get our free guide. Trapped, freedom oriented people, sensitive people. We do not like to be trapped. I don’t think I haven’t noticed too many animals that like to be trapped.
[00:01:55] I had a German shepherd. Her name was Kaya, and she’s been on my mind a lot today. And she used to really feel comfortable in her crate. That’s a nice word for cage. And I’d say, Kaya, go to your crate, and she’d go off to her crate. And if I closed the door… She would just settle in and be like a sigh.
[00:02:21] Oh, here’s where I am. I’m okay. Yeah, unless she really wanted to get out, in which case you could tell an another animal part of her kicked in, it was like, let me out. And it would go from being like. Let me out the fight reflex to a freeze like you could see her like start and her freeze was accompanied with some whining, my
[00:02:56] buddy, we had similar kinds of things And so when I look at and work with and consider what would help all of us to relate and engage in a more savvy way, acknowledging that humans really don’t enjoy being trapped. The animal part of us goes, oh. And, the interesting thing about humans is that we can fantasize about all kinds of things that could go wrong that would leave us trapped, which is if you do so much of that, you’re actually trapped in the phobia of it.
[00:03:34] And again, EFT tapping is helpful for that. So today is part of the real skill. I’m going to share some stories and some possibilities and we’re going to go. Those of you that are here. The chat is open. Appreciate you being here. Cathy and I are going to also revisit this again because she and I’ve been working on this for 20 years.
[00:03:57] And I, I don’t think that she would mind me sharing that early on we had developed a lot of trust and she said, I’m going to this place a family event. And I feel trapped, and it makes me just because I feel trapped once I get there, I am terrified of getting on the airplane, and I don’t want to go, and she was about to cancel, and so we started doing some tapping around it I wonder, and this is the type of thing that you can do, and I do it I wonder if there is an exit what Part of this really makes me feel trapped.
[00:04:33] What part of it really, like my body says, no, I can’t tolerate that. Ah, Oh yeah. So I’m not going to give all the backstory. Cathy may choose to do that, but I will say that we got her energy down. So she was looking at it from a distance, looking at it what might help me feel less trapped?
[00:05:03] nUmber one was don’t have them pick you up from the airport. Get your own rental car. And she was like, Oh, that’s so much better. Oh, and you could tell now that there was a strategy for having a vehicle, something else came up and this is really normal. This is part of the process. It’s a beautiful part of the process.
[00:05:26] If you’re aware of it, and if you’re not, guess what you can be like. Why am I so scared? What makes you know? I this just my family. Why am I, I should be over this by now. I should, yeah. See the shoulds part of Savvy Exit Strategies is if a should comes up, recognize That’s gonna be like in your face.
[00:05:50] It’s gonna be like, I can’t see past the should. And so we might tap on something like this. Even though I should be calm and confident, I’m not. I feel trapped.
[00:06:12] Breath. I wonder what my intuition is asking for.
[00:06:23] Is there an exit here? Eyebrow. Doesn’t feel like it. hA. Side of the eye. No wonder I feel trapped. ha. There’s no exit. I’m trapped, aren’t I? Ah. I wonder if there is an exit. If there was an absurd exit, what might it be?
[00:06:50] Oh, maybe the aliens would free me. You throw in something absurd, right? I don’t want to be there so much. I’ll sprout wings and fly away. What are we saying to our primitive brain here with something silly like this? Absurd? We’re saying, hey, we’re idea creating. We’re exploring possibilities. And even something that feels ridiculous and unobtainable.
[00:07:20] I wonder what else feels ridiculous that actually might help me. An eject button. Yeah. The transporter. Okay.
[00:07:36] So then, you look at the situation. Okay. You’ve got your rental car. You arrive there. That feels good, right? Everybody’s greeting, et cetera, et cetera. What creates that? That freeze or the bracing, it’s actually can be like a bracing. And in this case, Oh, at that house, I always put my keys by the door.
[00:08:07] There, it was a tight driveway. So everyone kept their keys and in the, in a bowl by the door. I’m not going to do that. I don’t always have to do it their way.
[00:08:23] I thought I always had to do it their way. Makes me shudder to think I have to do it their way. I’m being creative. I am coming up with ways that work for me and I want to choose. I want a menu of choices. Savvy. Menu of choices,
[00:08:50] starting to feel like keeping the keys with me would be a great idea. I can’t even pretend like I forgot.
[00:09:06] Okay. That felt better. So like now we’re working through a situation. Okay. Okay. So imagine. You’re there and it’s okay. But what do you think might happen where you really want to take an exit? What are the conditions where you want to feel? Like it’s right for me to go, okay.
[00:09:36] Now that starts getting into a deeper meat of the situation and, compassion to all of us, there are situations where the people that live in the situation and are used to the situation, they are not actually bothered all that much, even by something that is really dysregulated. If everything was calm and.
[00:10:03] And relaxed and peaceful. They’d be like, there’s something wrong here. Let’s drop some dishes.
[00:10:08] But you look at Hey well, if I start feeling like physically sick, let’s say that’s an option I would actually. Considering how people have treated me when I was sick, I’d actually be better making an excuse to go stay at a hotel. Oh, okay. If they dysregulate in that particular way, I know it’s not going to get any better and it’s going to go on into the night and it’s going to feel really horrible to me.
[00:10:40] And I would really like to take an exit, but in those situations I start feeling like I can’t. Ah, when you land on a situation where it feels like you can’t. This is the exploration that I do. And as what I teach is if the place was on fire, could you leave?
[00:11:02] You’d think the answer to that is always yes, but it isn’t. There are cases where the primal situation is so intense with a family or my job or whatever, that you don’t feel like you could even. There’s smoke here. I’m out of here. Hey, I think there was a fire. I’m leaving, no, I have to go down with the ship or I just I couldn’t leave.
[00:11:27] I would freeze in that circumstance. eVen if the kitchen’s on fire, but if you could leave, if it’s on fire, you look at, okay what do I think is going to happen?
[00:11:54] I think it’s useful. For those that write to put it down. If I’ve noticed that if I’m doing a session with someone around a situation where they want a savvy exit strategy, that if we can stay focused on what they think would happen, rather than going off and tapping on the first one that comes up, because the first one that comes up often, isn’t the one that has the most intensity.
[00:12:20] So it might be like I’ll face an inquisitor. Where are you going? What are you doing? I thought you were staying. What do you like? Okay. I might fake face pressure, someone else in the family might go, it’s late. Don’t you do you, you can’t leave right now. Bop bop. Okay. That’s there.
[00:12:50] When you drop in, often the one that would really keep you is the down, something downstream. Now, any of those, like those are, if they’re there and you’re worried about how you would respond to that, a savvy exit strategy takes those into account. The deeper one can be something like, my mother uses the silent treatment and she won’t talk to me for three months. How does that make you feel? Right now it makes me feel horrible because it reminds me of all those times when she did that to me in the past. This was not Cathy’s situation, particularly, just to let you know.
[00:13:39] But these are ones that I’ve seen over and over again. Someone said my mother turned my pictures to the wall when she got mad at me. So if you think about being at a family event and all the things, That could make mother mad. Are you okay? That being her strategy, but not stopping you from making an exit.
[00:14:13] Let me take a minute to look at the chat.
[00:14:30] This is great. Thank you.
[00:14:31] After Cathy and I made this list and we started working through it. I went back to well, imagine you’re there and now you’ve got some exit strategies. And maybe they don’t feel like at your fingertips. You’ve never done them before, but they feel possible. What’s a situation that doesn’t feel possible?
[00:14:59] Oh, I’m up in my bedroom at night and I hear and I don’t feel like I, I can get downstairs without. Walking through the midst of it. And we went back to the ridiculous things. And I said how about if I send you an exit ladder? One of those fire exit ladders, what’s your address?
[00:15:22] And she started laughing, picturing herself like, Oh, this is so much better to risk life and limb going out the window, actually walking through the family. Stuff. And I was like, yeah, I get that. There’s a quality of yeah keep the options open.
[00:15:44] My hope is that you can start feeling that the process is an it’s a deep awareness of what are, what do I know and where, what can I be prepared for? What can I. What can I be prepared for with some strategies, a menu of strategies, as well as prepared for, in terms of how do I make an exit, graceful or otherwise.
[00:16:41] Someone wrote in the chat, I’ve been starting to realize that some people have explosive personalities and they need to just release their energy and it’d be okay for me to still be present with them, but exit at the same time. So this is a, this is another fertile. Excuse me. Fertile ground for exploration, because
[00:17:04] I think we can all feel the wisdom in that, that who hasn’t run across people that their energy, their chi builds up and then it finds release. Okay. And
[00:17:19] I’m drawn to do a tapping that’s a little crude, but I’ve used it. I’m going to use the V word. Even though some people feel they need to emotionally vomit.
[00:17:34] I don’t want it to land on me and that’s okay. I give myself permission to have right distance and I may choose to stay in the room and I may choose to give them space.
[00:17:56] Oh, and I want that choice.
[00:18:03] But I’ve felt trapped before. Eyebrow. As a child, I was often trapped. Ah, side of the eye. But I want an exit strategy that works for me.
[00:18:23] Under the eye. So I can stay, if that’s my yes.
[00:18:32] And I can make a graceful exit. If that’s my yes, I can even pause and maybe use the restroom
[00:18:49] alone. I wish they knew how to use the emotional restroom
[00:18:55] instead of the living room.
[00:19:01] A lot of people don’t know what to do with that energy,
[00:19:09] and I want to be able to choose to stay. Or be free to go as is right for me in that moment.
[00:19:21] So what comes up for people, if you, if there’s anything that particular tapping brought up.
[00:19:35] So the same person said, I also noticed that they don’t even make eye contact with me during those times. So an interesting aspect of that is, Hey, I know that if that situation arises, my Habitual. Feeling of being trapped is if they’re not making eye contact, I have to repair the situation or the relationship before I leave.
[00:20:03] That’s one possibility.
[00:20:06] Another is hey, what are some possible ways that I might choose to stay? That’s the choose to stay. If I’m free to leave, I want to choose to stay by what? Maybe sitting and regulating myself, whether I tap on my body or tap in my mind or ground myself. So that’s an option to stay. They’re not making eye contact.
[00:20:35] Maybe I take a powerful pause. I close my eyes. I take the attention off of them and bring my energy in. I could choose to stay with myself for a moment here. Until that feels right um, I might choose to stay in the container that we’re sharing, but maybe go to another room. I might go get, I need, I might choose to say, I’m gonna go get some water.
[00:21:05] I’m gonna go use the bathroom. I need a breath of fresh air, but I’ll be back. That’s a choosing to stay. It’s not like I’m gone. We’ll maybe connect again. It’s saying, Hey um, my partner gave me an example. You’re stuck in the car with a screaming toddler. You actually could find a place to pull over and get out of the car and cry on the hood of the car.
[00:21:38] That, I keep that available as an option. I haven’t had to use that one. I have had to get out and just ground myself. But guess what? I could choose to stay with earplugs in. But oh, well, it’d probably be helpful to have earplugs. I have earplugs right there in the center console. So she has a whole jar.
[00:22:03] We’re both auditory sensitive. So we have earplugs almost everywhere. I have noise canceling ones that I could even put on music. Yeah, why? Because we learned that, as someone says there, there are situations when it’s impossible to exit. I believe that if you look at it physically, that may be true, but if you look at your energy space, a savvy exit can be like, we’re engaging.
[00:22:40] I’m leaving the conversation to go within me. I don’t, if you’re still vomiting, flatulating and everything else or whatever, unless you’re physically hurting me, right? There is an emotional withdrawal that’s a form of exit. Does that make sense? So they’re soft ones, which are like, Hey, I’m going to get some water.
[00:23:07] Yeah.
[00:23:13] And they’re ones that are more forceful, pull over and let me out.
[00:23:23] You can’t guarantee that someone is going to pull over and let you out in a safe way. But I have worked with people who couldn’t imagine saying that. And so what is the emotional thing? If you have a situation where you can’t imagine that there’s no exit from it. Okay. Working with somebody who’s regulated around it, not, and it’s not just looking at the strategy.
[00:23:50] It’s, can it come out of your mouth? What stops you from it coming out of your mouth? I can’t ask to be. leT out of the car. So I worked with a client. She was terrified of being in a car with certain people. And couldn’t imagine like asking to be, let out of the car.
[00:24:12] iF things were that terrifying, she knew her body was going to go into a freeze. So what did we do? We looked at what are some things that you’re going to say? What are possible things? And we started with primal. I’m getting sick to my stomach. It helped that she would feel nauseous. If she felt trapped, I’m going to throw up.
[00:24:39] Guess what? Most people that are driving are going to want to get you over to the side of the road. You get out of the car and you move. So that’s a dramatic situation. That’s one where, survival is being called out. I need to go to the bathroom now. Okay. I’m just going to poop in your car then.
[00:25:05] Okay. We’re animals, right? And if somebody else is in their primitive brain, animal needs will tend to get through to them. I have had people that have used these things as escape mechanisms. I wish I lived in a world where that would never be necessary, but that’s not the world I live in. And so I give them.
[00:25:32] Myself permission to use those myself. So if you’re sitting here and you go I could never do that. How safe do you feel making Xs? Maybe you have so much resource and resilience. You can’t imagine having to resort to something like I’m going to throw up, pull over. Okay. I feel a lot safer in situations now.
[00:25:58] That I tapped on, I would be so embarrassing and I don’t like to lie. Oh, I don’t like to lie well to make an escape. Is it okay to lie? Yeah, at that point, that’s the free to go in a survival situation. What is okay to do, say in a survival situation.
[00:26:26] And when you get to a place where you really do feel free to use the more primal escapes, including, nails, Any kind of self defense you have guess what you’re building up a level of resilience.
[00:26:45] Our primitive brain wants to know that we’re not guaranteed safety and escape. Like I, the animal part of me knows that’s not what life is about, but it also wants to know that freeze is unlike less likely to be my answer, because if you look at. If I look at what stops people from enjoying life or enjoying family, it’s like I’m going to freeze and I’m going to feel trapped.
[00:27:12] I’m going to spend hours feeling like I can’t leave. I can’t escape. That feeling, it’s so powerful it can make someone sick. It’s so powerful it can make them chronically sick. I asked someone who has been sick for 10 years, if you weren’t sick, what would you have to do? I’d have to go and take care of my mother.
[00:27:45] And that’s the clue that this exploration can give us, is what do I’m aware of that really makes me feel trapped? That I want to avoid. And is there a way to do that differently?
[00:27:58] When my mother gives me the shutdown silent treatment, I used to immediately take it very personally and go into desperation and fix it mode. Explain, energetically beg for her to change her mind. Now I know that it isn’t my fault. But I become enraged the moment at seeing her behavior and being reminded of the years of abuse and imbalanced demands.
[00:28:33] Today I have emotional difficulty walking away with peace. Yeah, as someone else said, yes, big progress to go from being like looking at. Oh, this is something I need to fix as an I believe that there’s life force in the rage, the fire comes up and this is coming up for a lot of people right now.
[00:28:59] They don’t know exactly what to do with it.
[00:29:04] And uh, we’re, this is a subject for another real skills workshop, but if energy’s coming up and as you walk away, you say what really matters to me? Connection reliability repair that we don’t use silence to punish if we’re going to go silent, we signal each other Oh, I need to take a moment to regulate myself, right?
[00:29:28] I value giving space. If I’m outraged at someone’s behavior and I go what really matters to me is I’m going to go take space to, to do that. And if my mother, when she was dysregulated, went and took space, gosh, how that would have been different for me. So I’m going to model that right now.
[00:29:48] That’s really hard. If we’ve had a lot of trauma those try to get in, but that’s what I think where some of the rage is useful. It’s a lot of life force. It’s fire. There’s an expression fired up, right? How do you want to use your fire? Now, savvy exit strategy is If the conversation goes in that direction, I’m going to get angry.
[00:30:15] And what do I do with that anger? Thanksgiving’s coming, at least in the United States. There are conversations sometimes where um, people avoid going to Thanksgiving, or they’re not themselves, because if a certain topic comes up. Which is almost guaranteed by their, by history. They’re going to feel their face get red and everything else.
[00:30:38] What do you do with that chi? It’s designed to fight, but maybe you don’t want bloodshed, wHat do you do with that chi? Again I’m fired up because this matters to me. We did a whole series on Be What Matters. So if if kindness and inclusion and acceptance really matter to me, and that’s not what’s on the table, it’s like I want to be, I want to bring that energy back in.
[00:31:05] I am exiting the debate. I’m still sitting there at the table. I might, you might notice that I, you can’t see it, but I might put my hand on my belly. Look, we’re not eating this. No stuffing. People like stuffing. I don’t like stuffing. No stuffing and none of that other stuff that’s being handed around right now.
[00:31:30] What matters to me is are those things I exit that and
[00:31:40] that’s a strategy. It allows people to feel that they can choose to stay.
[00:31:49] Now, to me, that’s a very empowered, like if you think about fired up, fired in, we get stronger if we keep our chi around what matters to us there may be something that you feel that you need to say, maybe that’s part of your exit strategy. If it gets to the place where I feel like it’s time for me to leave, what would I like to say?
[00:32:17] You’re a jerk. You’re, maybe that’s on the menu, right? It’s on the menu! Not my favorite one on the menu, but it’s in my menu, you can probably tell. I went to that one first. That’s oh, okay, I could do that, right? And I, like, there’s an, there’s a quality of exits that if you tap on and you’re aware, okay.
[00:32:44] This matters a lot to me. How do I want to be with it? What are some choices? It can be that I say, excuse me for a minute. I, compassion really matters to me. And I’m just going to take some time, um, to go for a quick walk.
[00:33:06] It could be that I really am saying, Hey, I, this is not, this is not a meal, emotional meal that I can, I’m actually intolerant, gluten intolerant. This doesn’t work for me. So I love you all. And I’m going to, I’m going to head out now. All of us can imagine that there’s downstream effects.
[00:33:25] I’m not diminishing that, but if you feel like you’re going to have to shove down food. While you’re feeling trapped, um, the impact on our emotional body and our physical body is really profound. It’s, and most of us are wise enough to Newton to have noticed that. So just to reiterate, if you’re feeling into, Hey, if I chose to stay, what would feel more empowered than how I usually am
[00:34:07] like putting my hand over my heart and being clear about what matters to me. That helps me so much. Hey, there’s, there are things like TV on a station that really makes you go cuckoo. What are some strategies?
[00:34:28] The first strategy for me is how intensely do I feel my I hate the fact that the TV is going to be on that station. We’re trying to eat. Okay. And it would be like, even though I hate that I hate it so much, I don’t even want to go
[00:34:55] and there’s, there are people that matter to me,
[00:35:01] but they do some things I hate.
[00:35:06] I wonder how I could adapt or ask them to adapt,
[00:35:14] but I hate that. I really hate that.
[00:35:21] Not what I want around me. Ever. Ah, I hate that. Makes me feel trapped imagining being there. What if I’m not actually trapped?
[00:35:45] If I go, aren’t I signing on for everything that happens? No. Freedom matters too much to me.
[00:36:00] I’m wondering about what options I have.
[00:36:10] So the TV is one that I’ve done. One of those things is, I was having a conversation and I said, Hey, can we turn off the TV? Cause I. I can’t hear two things at the same time, or could we go to the other room to talk option one? Hey would it be okay if we turned off the TV during dinner?
[00:36:29] The vibe that’s coming, there’s a sauce that I don’t think goes well with my meal.
[00:36:34] Earplugs uh, choosing the spot on the table, which doesn’t attract my visual attention. I’m sitting next to somebody that I really want to talk to that I haven’t had a chance to talk to. And making that the focal point of eating and talking and sharing. Do you notice how just by offering those I’ve gone from, I am trapped sitting there for Thanksgiving with this thing on the TV and I’m,
[00:37:17] there’s some other options that these are more ninja strategies. Hey, I’m looking forward to coming to Thanksgiving, but I’m realizing I, I am so noise and energy sensitive. It is my work or I’ve done a lot of work around my energy. I’m wondering if for the period that I’m there that we don’t watch this.
[00:37:41] But that’s not what’s on the television. Is that something that’s possible? Hey, sometimes what’s on the TV is really unsettling to my stomach. How would you feel if I said, Hey I need more quiet in order to enjoy eating. I’m going to take my plate outside. I’m going to take my plate into the other room if anyone would like to join me.
[00:38:04] bUt I’m okay and I’ll be back. Ooh. I have done that. Not a Thanksgiving. I haven’t had to, because some of these other strategies of talking and asking for what I want and seeing if I’m in a place where I hate what’s happening. When I ask, guess what’s going to happen. If I hate what someone is doing and I ask, Hey, could we turn this off?
[00:38:33] It’s gonna come out sounding more Could we turn that off?
[00:38:39] What are they gonna do? That’s their station. That’s their musac. That’s what they have on all the time. What are they gonna feel? Defensive, of course, they’re human. I’ve just said, I hate what you’re doing, which most people here is. I hate you. I don’t respect you. I judge you, et cetera, but it’s actually like mostly for me, it’s I’m Hey I’m having, I want to hear what’s being said around the table.
[00:39:07] Could we quiet the background noise, maybe turn off the television? If the hate’s at an eight, I cannot speak that way. If the hate’s at a oh, I really wish that wasn’t happening, um, that’s a two, and it will come across different. That’s why this is a skill. The emotional skill of quieting my primitive brain down so I can feel into options and then choose the one in the moment that feels savvy and right.
[00:39:34] For me, and if the answer is no,
[00:39:41] what’s my strategy, it can be, Hey, I love you guys. I want to share dinner with you, but I can’t eat, um, and hear about those things at the same time. Okay. So would you rather that I, took my plate out to my car and ate and come back? Would you rather that I, I make an exit and say goodbye before dinner?
[00:40:04] What worked? Yeah. But this is important to me. This is really important to me.
[00:40:12] I, I have noticed that the more preparation that I do around, um, exits as a savvy approach rather than exits as an escape hatch um, eyebrow. I like to know where the emergency exit is maybe two. I
[00:40:56] like to know where the emergency exits are.
[00:41:01] And I don’t want to have to use them. And it’s good to know where the emergency exits are. What other exits are there? What are other adaptations?
[00:41:25] I had a client whose husband used to get upset and drive cuckoo dangerously. Okay. And we tapped on how scary that was, how freezing it was, how
[00:41:37] how terrifying we tapped on some specific back. Past experiences, and as those started trending down toward he has a problem that which is an unwanted reality. But look, he has a problem. What rose in her. I said what are some ways that, knowing that what works for you and I, she said, look, I know him and I love him.
[00:42:10] And I can always tell when we’re heading toward that. And what if I kept the keys? And I just didn’t get in the car with him. What’s he going to do? He’s going to be like, give me the keys. And I’ll be like, no. So if she wasn’t in the terrified passenger seat, there was actually some power there.
[00:42:36] And I said what about the times that you have been in that situation? She said sometimes he does get into those situations that mood because of what another driver does or a taxi skits, or, I don’t like him texting and stuff, but he’ll get a text. I said what’s, what makes you feel trapped?
[00:42:54] I have no other way to get home.
[00:42:59] She started carrying 250 in cash in her wallet at all times. She installed Uber and Lyft apps and had the local. Taxi company. So she had freedom in terms of resource, always with her. Always with her plus her credit cards and other things but there was something tangible about this cash is here as my escape And one of the things that was interesting is that I heard, years later That she said interestingly, he doesn’t do that anymore
[00:43:42] That’s not always true. Sometimes that’s not true. Sometimes you need to use the escape key
[00:43:53] but she said one time I said Oh, I need to go to the bank and he pulled into the bank. She did not have to go to the bank. Bold face lie. She’s not a liar. Bold face lie. She got out of the car and said, listen, I’m going to get a ride home unless you give me the keys and you sit here quietly. We’ll put on some music.
[00:44:18] And he made all kinds of flatulence noises, really stinky. And she was like, okay, so I’m going to, she started to close the door and then he got out and handed her the keys and she put on some music and he closed his eyes and he re regulated.
[00:44:42] And I believe if I didn’t have so many examples of when we learn to be in the choose to stay free to go space as a walk in the world, the best we can, like there are situations which are really hard, um,
[00:45:02] if we do that, then. We gift everyone connected to us similar freedom. Look, if you need to drive crazy, at least know that if you harm yourself or hurt yourself, I, you won’t also harm me. I’ll be safe. I’m gonna get a ride from a from somebody else. So that’s the energy of it, right? If you’re gonna do this, I’m not going along for that ride.
[00:45:32] That changes it. So we’re going to take a seven minute break. I’ll get a chance to catch up on the chat and please feel free during this break to also add your thoughts situations, things like that. And if you’re watching the replay, thank you. Thank you for being here. Anywhere that the replay is posted, you can reply.
[00:45:58] And we believe that these real skills workshops are designed to, to last for a long time that these are things that show up for people. So if you reply, we’ll. We’ll get back to you and sharing your wisdom, sharing your experiences for the exits that you’ve crafted the menus choices and things like that.
[00:46:22] We’ll be back in seven minutes.
[00:46:26] Come back.
[00:46:31] It was shared in the chat. It sounds. Wait, let me get the word.
[00:46:47] It all sounds like too much effort. Thank you for saying that.
[00:46:54] And
[00:47:01] it’s a lot of effort. It’s a lot of effort to build this skill. I wish my parents could have taught me. They taught me I was trapped.
[00:47:19] Not how to get out of it. Not how to avoid it, not how to have strategies.
[00:47:29] They weren’t savvy about this and it’s a, and it’s different. And it does take effort to develop the skill until it becomes something that’s more second nature.
[00:47:59] A clue I had was that I was avoiding things that I knew I wanted to do.
[00:48:10] Things that mattered to me, relationships that mattered to me physical activity that I wanted to do, places I wanted to see.
[00:48:22] And my primitive brain would shortcut it, say, I just don’t want to. That’s too much effort.
[00:48:31] My brain is really clever. It won’t necessarily say. If I do that the way I’m imagining it, I’ll feel trapped and that means I’m I’ll be like, nah, it’s just not that important to me. I don’t want to. I
[00:48:50] started noticing that I was doing that around things that, that not wanting to was a lie. It wasn’t true. I really would like to. I’d love to do that. If only. And the, if only often started showing that there was something in the imagined journey that felt like I was trapped
[00:49:13] uh, my brother is having his his birthday in December. I really want to see him. He came down for my big birthday. Surprise. It was really nice. I miss the brother. I have lots of step half brothers, stepbrother, stepsister. There are eight kids in my dad’s collection. But my full brother that I really grew up with, he’s a dear soul.
[00:49:46] We don’t have much that brings us together, but a birthday, a 60th birthday to me feels pretty good. Like an opportunity, even though it would only be a that I would be there and be four days, right? Driving and
[00:50:02] and I’m going to, so there’s the, I want to, but then there’s the the resistance. So if I want to go and I want to stay, I need to know that I’m, I’ve set the stage for an exit. For example, I said to my mother, who’s organizing it, I put it on my calendar. I’ve reserved the time and. I may need to say no at the last minute.
[00:50:39] Now my mom says something may be necessary for the family, et cetera, et cetera. Those are true, right? So I’ve set that stage. But there’s more also am I safe to drive that distance?
[00:50:59] I like driving about three hours, not seven, eight. What’s the weather like? No, I’ve already pre framed an exit that I don’t have to do a lot of work to just activate the exit before I even get in the car.
[00:51:20] Let’s say I’m three quarters of the way there, and my guidance says, Hey, we’ve driven enough today. Oh, but we’re only two hours more drive. I don’t want to waste the money on the hotel room. Oh, things are tight right now. Why would I spend, and I don’t even know where I would stay. I would.
[00:51:44] Do you notice what I’m doing? I’m setting myself up to not be free to follow my guidance, to take care of myself. That’s enough to get me to not go.
[00:51:59] So as I play out the drive, coming to a place where if it is right for me to pause and get a hotel, that is a good use of money. Maybe not one I want, but it is something that is good. My I matter to my family. And so my wellbeing matters. Yeah there’s, there’s a whole line of things that are part of a journey.
[00:52:30] And for those of us that are empathetic and also have a capacity to see the future, sometimes we see the things that are unlikely to happen, but if they did, that would be really hard for us. I need to keep my body from saying, ah, we can’t survive that and getting all anxious because then I will. I just won’t go.
[00:52:54] It’s too much work. Oh, it’s just too much. That’s too far. If I tend to it differently, then I stay in a calm, confident place. Yeah. And sometimes the answer is no. And you take the exit before you even get started because you’re aware that something is more likely to happen than what you can be with, or that’s a yes for you.
[00:53:23] Survival stuff. And then What would be depleting, diminishing harmful to me. These are all part of the skill set. And I believe that it goes into tapping works really well for this because it says, even though I’m aware of, even though I’m aware of the distance and I like driving, but not that far.
[00:53:47] I’m attuning myself to taking care of myself during the journey. So I don’t have to use a hotel and having the resources already allocated. Yeah, this is my, like that 250 in the I, I actually have. A little cash envelope that I take with me in such cases would be like, Hey, it was interestingly enough.
[00:54:12] It was given to me by my mother. So you prepare yourself and then there’s an ease. It’s Oh, you know what else comes to me? Having snacks. One of the things that often depletes me is I don’t have food that’s great for me or things to drink that are good for me. Music that’s good for me, make sure that the playlist’s down.
[00:54:34] Oh, I can even ask AI to give me, um, along that trip, find a place that’s nourishing and natural that I could pull over every hour. So Oh, there’s a park here. There’s a park there. There’s a park there. If I have those kind of as waypoints, I’m already feeling better. You notice it’s Oh. I’m prepaving.
[00:54:58] Abraham Hicks talks about prepaving and prepaving for me can’t be like, I’m going to have just a wonderful trip. And it like, yeah, that’s the ecstasy part of it. I like to get there. But part of it is like. Yeah, it’s December, and the weather may be frightful. And even though I have four wheel drive and stuff like that.
[00:55:20] People aren’t driving so good. So if the weather looks frightful, um, yeah, I’m gonna, I’m going to express my regrets and figure out another time to go up and see him. Ah, but I’ll be sad. I won’t see my son. I won’t see my mom. I have already tapped on that, so it doesn’t necessarily feel to you all there’s a lot of there.
[00:55:46] But when I first. Was looking at that.
[00:55:54] Yeah, having a, like music, audio book healthy snacks, all the things. Is that work? Yeah, it definitely is. And I think of a thriving lifestyle where you get to do the things that you want to do when they’re really a yes for you to show up for them and be able to stay even if it’s not perfect. You don’t have to have your primitive brain bounce you off of everything.
[00:56:30] tHere’s a quality of nourishment and options that allow me to be myself. Otherwise the trip is in my primitive brain. And when I get back, I’m. I’m likely to get sick, and I’m likely to need time to recover. Gone four days, recover four days. If I do the trip in my primitive brain as willpower, cause I have to, or I should anything I do for have to, and should you can count on me having needing.
[00:57:07] And not everyone’s like that. Some people really do live on half twos and shoulds. They’re it’s their diet. It’s I was even, born from one that has a lot of have tos and shoulds. And so I’ve needed and want, I’ve wanted to, I needed to adapt enough, um, and then I choose to continue to develop the skill and share it as a possibility for folks.
[00:57:41] Yeah.
[00:57:45] Yeah. Someone said, that’s why I’ve always gotten a cold after doing a have to or should trip. Yeah, the, when we’re in primitive brain, our body is holding us in there’s no rest and digest. There’s no replenishment time. And so we’re using our chi, our life force to get through it, to get through it, to get through it.
[00:58:07] Some people can do that for years, decades. I, yeah. I did it for nine years. And then my body collapsed and that was 30 years ago. And I, a lot of what I’m sharing today is based upon Hey um, I remember a trip to Italy that, um, I talked about. Like the conditions and other things that would make it a yes.
[00:58:38] And what would make it not really a yes, that there was a B a bigger, yes. Brother always got sick on vacation. See that a lot that when I was in my. profound stress. Every time we went someplace, I would get sick have to take an antibiotic. Why? Because my body would finally, Oh, I’m lying on the beach.
[00:59:01] I’m floating in the water. Boom. Everything that my body had been just like doing so much to hold myself together, it would quiet down and boom, it’s, it is so human. Bless us all for whatever patterns we have, um, this conscious approach is a way, I believe, to keep us, from exiting. It keeps it so that we can exit our primitive brain and then figure out, like, where are we, what do we want to do, and what situations work for us.
[00:59:45] And someone shared I remembered wondering if I could go to my mother’s funeral in New Jersey. I lived in Florida at the time. My friend said, if you could stop in Disney World, your mother would understand. It really helped. And I did get to the funeral. And that there’s, I believe it’s part of SavvyX’s strategies to no, that if we’re on a journey, what would replenish us?
[01:00:13] So just there’s an exit off the highway. What’s off that exit. If you know that what’s off that exit is the meal that you have or this place you want to see then we’re also tuning our body to that as a rest stop, an energy replenishment time. Sometimes just seeing. Oh, if I get to see this person or these people along the way, that would feel different.
[01:00:44] That would give me something. But if I’m, if somebody is in their primitive brain, they typically will see A to B, but not Oh, there’s, there are all these options along the way. Again, like that’s a clue for me.
[01:00:59] When I used to travel out to Portland every six weeks, I used to, I used to almost always fly through Denver because there was a seated massage place that was right there. That was part of my hey. I can do this journey if I break it up, I got a nice two, I would get an extended layover, never a rush layover, two to three hours, get a meal, get a massage, 15, 20 minutes.
[01:01:33] Yeah,
[01:01:45] just being aware that I have limited energy helps me. I will say that it was great to use that as an excuse for a long time. Because what it did is it got me good. Let me complete that. I got really good at using my limited energy or my headaches and other things as a reason to say no. When it was a note that I was clear, like it’s better for me to stay home.
[01:02:13] It’s better for me to do this. I don’t have the energy for that. It was really helpful now. I have a lot of energy. And guess what? It’s really limited. It’s so when I say, I, yeah, I don’t feel like I have the energy for that. That’s my come from is I don’t have the energy for that.
[01:02:39] It’s not that I couldn’t. And you can use this, we’re going to be talking about money boundaries. You can like, yeah I don’t have the, I don’t have the resource for that. It’s the same thing. Energy, our life, our time, our time is precious. fInding ways to be able to express that.
[01:02:57] Now, if I’m repulsing something like, look, I just don’t have the time and energy for that. I don’t have the energy for that. That feels very different. Oh
[01:03:06] um, Yeah I feel like I want, I need to want to choose to put my time and energy here during that time instead of anything else. Right now. I share these words because for me, a lot of times I was as wordy as I am, as you can tell. I didn’t have words that I felt could come out of my mouth.
[01:03:37] And so I would tap and why, because tapping to me. Okay. I’m practicing keeping my chi moving. If your energy field, if the channels in you are moving, it’s yeah, no, I,
[01:03:57] I I’m, I’m going to be going there instead. Thanks. He just said, no, I’m going to be staying home, reading a book, rubbing my feet, taking a hot shower. I hope you have a great time. They just said, no, they just took an exit from the invitation or the event. Hey, just letting you know, I’m going to be doing something else.
[01:04:26] That’s an exit. That’s a really high vibration exit. I love having people that I can share those types of things. And on the spectrum, what you can what I notice is that as I, I feel certain people, it’s yeah, I can speak like that. A lot of you on the call, I get totally I know we’re scheduled for a session and it really feels like I’m going to read with my daughter during that time.
[01:04:55] Let’s reschedule. I put a paragraph at the bottom of every client schedule that says things come up and sometimes they’re sacred moments. This is a sacred moment. My daughter is in a place where I want to be with her. That’s my yes.
[01:05:14] I think I’ve rescheduled like one person for that type of thing in three years, but I leave myself freedom to do that. Why? Because Otherwise, I would feel trapped. I tell people, you can cancel in the first 10 minutes, you can cancel in the first, a minute before the session.
[01:05:38] Why do I give that freedom? Because one, I want to model it. And two I, the same freedom is there for me. As we’re getting started today, I don’t feel present. Or I. I, my, my energy is elsewhere and I want to be here present with you. I’m feeling that rescheduling is what’s right now. Are there going to be repercussions?
[01:06:00] Yeah, someone, I had someone schedule and I had to reschedule and they never came back. And. Good. I want people to find people that are a good fit and my freedom around cancellations can feel shaky for someone who needs someone who’s absolutely going to show up even if they’re nearly dying. There are people out there in the world that, say, the funeral home’s coming to pick me up in an , so we better get started. , than my last hurrah from the way I’m feeling. And , I make fun of, I make light of it.
[01:06:43] Someone’s shared. A family member disturbs me while I’m eating by talking incessantly and provoking an argument. How can I deal with that? Yeah, someone said sometimes I excuse myself to rest to the restroom when it gets bad. And someone, and they said, that’s my last resort strategy.
[01:07:08] In the interest of thriving, one of the options is
[01:07:19] writing down. So when I eat and you stay on your side, I’ve noticed for myself that when I eat, I. I need quiet. It’s best for me. It allows me to stay present and really enjoy the food. if I don’t do that, then I’m left unsatisfied, even if I’m full of food. whAtever’s true for you. This is true for me.
[01:07:48] And I wanted to, for you to consider I, I can imagine sharing a meal with you where we both are really savoring and making happy noises about how good the food is. But talking constantly the way that my brain works and where my body works, that just is no longer working for me. And also, if.
[01:08:13] If it leads to an argument, it’s a bit like
[01:08:20] pouring goo on the food. And now I got to eat it with goo on it. Like now some people will say poo instead of goo. Some people will say I can’t handle spicy. It’s like pouring liquid jalapeno goo all over my food. And now when I’m eating it, I’m like so, what works for you?
[01:08:41] Should we eat separately? Or can we reach an agreement that we can talk afterwards. Now that’s one option. The other option is if somebody’s talking incessantly earplugs,
[01:08:58] I wouldn’t, I would find it hard to do that. Without communicating. I give one of my options is always, I, if I need to escapes an energy that is really detrimental to me, I give myself permission to lie, say, I’ve got a migraine, I need some food, I’m going to put these headphones on and I hope that, I hope we can just enjoy, I’m not going to be able to talk right now.
[01:09:26] I’m a big believer that if I’m not in my primitive brain, and the tapping would be, I can’t believe that she does that over and over again, and it’s really so hard on me, and I wish you would just get the clue, I hate it, I hate arguing, it makes my digestion do this, it makes me want to avoid eating, I feel mean toward her, whatever it is that’s alive for you tap, And I’m wondering how, what are some choices that I could have?
[01:10:00] I work with a client deer woman, very much the same kind of situation where food is really precious. She’s an, she’s, she wants, she makes the meal and she wants to enjoy the meal. And the people that she was inviting to share her meal, family members, We’re talking about all their challenges and all the problem.
[01:10:26] And we tapped on. It’s like they’re bringing a big pile of horse manure in and serving it with every bite! Oh my god, I can’t stand it! Ah! Ah! Ah! I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it! I feel trapped! I feel trapped! I can’t leave! It’s my house! It’s my food! I spent all afternoon on it! Bah! Today, she…
[01:10:53] They’re not invited to the meal. She had a conversation. There were like five or six options that she tried the conversation about let how can we keep this as a mindful space that did not work. They don’t have the app for mindfulness. Like the mindfulness app doesn’t install, error 27.
[01:11:11] What does that mean? It’s just error 27. They do not have the app for mindful eating, nor are they interested. And developing that app or the skill. And so now she’ll make her meals and make it available to them. So she still cooks the food, but gives it to them and as meals that they can heat up and eat on their own at times.
[01:11:39] And she said, I’m just, I’m digesting so much better. My body feels better. I feel nourished. My chi doesn’t have to be like quiet. Don’t like that is a kind of exit from a habit that no longer serves. And again, just to repeat the strategy, it is acknowledging the emotional noise.
[01:12:06] It could be a fear, scared. angry, resentful. soMetimes there are some past things. For a lot of people, their relationship with family members can have so much noise going back eons even generations that when it comes to this particular skill of choosing to stay free to go um, stay with what’s in the now.
[01:12:36] What matters to me now? Mindful eating matters to me now. Being present with those that I care about, even if it’s only for a couple of hours, matters to me now. I wonder how I can help craft or co create. And if I can’t co create, I give myself permission, invitation, and clarity, and the energy to do it to make a graceful exit.
[01:13:02] And if I can’t make a graceful exit,
[01:13:09] I’ll make another kind of exit.
[01:13:15] For people that are loud and rambunctious, I have a very energetic ten year old. So what I do is when I find myself triggered, I will take a right distance. I move away, and I’ve noticed that if I tap on, he’s having fun. My primitive brain goes, yeah that’s a siren noise, but it’s not actually anyone who’s dying.
[01:13:40] Oh, okay. Oh, he’s having fun. Oh, that particular noise goes right through our nervous system. We can ask him to, Hey that noise never works for me. thEre are a couple of noises that he’s really good at making. Like he can sound like a human kazoo. That particular noise doesn’t work for me.
[01:13:58] So I say Hey buddy, that noise doesn’t. Ever work for me and he’ll go. Oh, okay. Because it’s about me. It’s not like judging him. There are situations where we know we’re going to be face to face, whether it’s a someone mentioned an eating disorder over Thanksgiving. Any kind of disorder or dysregulation if I know I’m going to be exposed to it.
[01:14:24] I need to pre pave, even though that eating disorder really bothers me. It makes me feel uh, there’s something wrong here. Yeah. And she lives with it all the time and the people that are close to her live with it all the time. And I don’t need to change that. I don’t need to judge it. I wonder what it would be like if I just accepted that’s something that she’s coping with.
[01:14:49] And it’s okay. It’s not about me. It’s not something that I need to parent around or do anything with. I
[01:15:00] wonder what position in the table would be best for me. Across, side, whatever. Ah, I wonder if there’s some adaptations there. Ah, it’s so unpleasant. And, yeah, it’s okay.
[01:15:18] That may not be enough. If I really, once I quiet down my repulsion and my judgment and my own body react, like I get, if I’m around any kind of dysfunction, I pick it up. Like you don’t, it doesn’t even have to be active. I can see someone at the bus station. I’m like, Oh dear.
[01:15:40] They’re not coming for Thanksgiving. That’s the gift. And to me, the skill of it is, can I stay? Is there an option where I can actually be, use My other skills of regulation and acceptance really matters to me, and understanding that everybody’s got dysfunctions, including the guy in the mirror and can I hold space?
[01:16:07] Can I be with? What is if I can do that, then I can choose to stay. I can also make sure that if my nervous system regular dysregulated to the point where I have to take a pause or take, a walk or take a Uber, then I’m prepared for that too, and even so yeah I’ve had to cultivate this because if I didn’t I would just stay in my nest.
[01:16:38] I wouldn’t have this relationship with you all either. Because even though I’m here in my very Rick office here in my home
[01:16:47] I need to know that in the middle of this, if it was my yes to exit that I could,
[01:16:57] it has mean that it meant that I crafted my life, that my boss is also the guy in the mirror. And so like any repercussions or loss of business, I accept as part of. The freedom that also comes with having that. I encourage people to take care of themselves whenever someone cancels or something like that, I build up a react, a response of, Hey, thank you for taking care of yourself.
[01:17:27] I want to live in a world where, you know, and, and Cathy said it to me. I could be there today. I said, I know. And what matters to me is that this person I care about is tending to what’s the yes place for them when we’re reinforcing that and even offering people easeful exits. Even offering people easeful exits as a strategy for just making the world like, Oh, there’s a sweet exit there.
[01:18:04] When I invite someone over for dinner, I say, Hey, even at the last minute, if this ends up not being a yes for you, or you need to leave early or anything, feel free. That’s what I want in our relationship. Reaffirm that.
[01:18:25] On the other side, when you find one person and then two people and three people who understand about savvy exits um, you can do so much more. Cries for help don’t strike you as a failure. They’re more like, oh, they need an exit from where they are in their nervous system. Parenting is different.
[01:18:55] Relating to others being in business. It’s so different when you recognize that, Oh, that’s their primitive brain exit, and I am going to have to clean up the vomit on that they left over there smudge, and it’s okay. They took the exit that was available to them. I’m practicing more and more savvy exits.
[01:19:17] Thank goodness. I like that about myself. I like it about you all too. Thank you. Bless you for being here and engaging this way. Ah,
[01:19:34] thank you. Appreciate that. Okay. Until next time. Bye.
Great to have you on this journey with us!
Thanks for this gem, Rick! Your words definitely sparked some recognition in me - when you asked ‘could I leave in the event of fire or smoke?’ that brought me to realize that my poor trading exits are basically me staying through a fire when I have the inkling to get out as soon as I see smoke - yet I stay… .it brought me to realize that I am perhaps recreating the feeling of being trapped when I was a child. Lots to tap on here - thank you!
And that is why trading is often called a personal improvement program with a compensation plan attached. 
Exit on fire. Exit on smoke. Exit on a sick smell. Exit on vibe “off”.
Each of these levels indicates more freedom to choose BEFORE we get burned (or sick or have a bigger loss). Yes, trauma like being “conditioned” to being “okay” feeling trapped – that’s the growth edge. You now recognize it, which means it is already shifting.
Good morning, wow… .just wow… . I’ve been mulling this over since I saw your reply… You have so completely completely hit the nail on the head here about my being conditioned to being OK when feeling trapped, and yes, it surely is a growth edge as I don’t think I will ever look at the situation in the same way again! Definitely progress! I am open to your suggestions on how to best tap on this! I am free to come to your Monday circle 
Yes, let’s do some aspcts on the Monday circle. If you want to record just your session part, you’re welcome to if on a desktop (can’t use a phone or pad).
Acclimating is a survival superpower. Upgraded it looks like adapting and choosing what feels savvy and free.
Rick
Perfect, thanks!
