Real Skills Workshop - Community Event
Know What Matters to You…
Real Skills Workshop: Be What Matters
Host: Rick Wilkes (@Rick)
Recorded Wed Jan 18 2023
Replay is below
It’s an odd intention… to Be. And even odder to Be What Matters.
Honestly, most of what I was ever taught by others was what to DO and how to DO IT. School (even massage school) was much more about training me as a Human Doing – not helping me cultivate my essential qualities as a Human Being.
I’m all about changing that. I am eager to live in a world where we’re all emotionally free to BE – to experience emotional states of being that help us to feel safe, alive, and thriving.
If you, too, are “odd enough” that emotions are important to you, how about we join together and focus:
Spend the rest of January through the end of March deciding on an emotion that matters to you… and really getting savvy at activating and savoring it.
You could call it a challenge, if you want.
For me it is a challenge! It’s vulnerable to choose, much less share, an emotion that I really want to feel more often.
For me, I want to feel Eager (without being “over” eager!)
It feels humble (in a good way) to be aware of how often I can suppress my vibrancy or disturb my peace unless I actively practice emotional skills. To Be What Matters… takes healthy effort.
Guess you could say… I’m a Human Being, but my “state of being” requires mindful tending. You, too?
We’re starting by getting clear about one emotion that matters to you. Yes, to YOU! I’ve heard over 25 different intentions so far from those who replied to my last email. Wow.
I adore that we are free to choose. I’m excited that this process works regardless of the emotion you personally choose. I’m grateful that working together in workshops and circles and community makes the whole experience both richer and more fun.
Would you like to join us?
I’m calling this a Focus Group. And together we can do this!
Each of the sessions will be 90 minutes long (7 sessions + live unrecorded group coaching and tapping Zoom sessions each month as well). We look forward to engaging with you!
With smiles and love,
Rick & Cathy
Your Emotional Freedom Coaches
Schedule Private, Gliding Scale Coaching Sessions Here
P.S. Adira says, “Be Bold! Take the Leap! (There are cushions. My focus is on Wise Fearlessness…)”
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Your emotions matter. They determine your life experience.
We know this deep in our core.
Do the dishes while feeling resentful… or do the dishes while feeling grateful. Same dishes! Same hot, soapy water. Same work.
Afterward the dishes are done, though, our whole inner soup of chemicals and energy will be utterly different.
I’ve been blessed to work with some people who are dying… and joyful and present. I’ve worked with people who are dying… and tormented. I assert the key difference – whether it’s doing dishes or dying – is how clear and practiced someone is in Being What Matters.
And I don’t mean “HAPPY” !
I mean emotions that you know are a part of your Essential Nature… even if those feelings have been suppressed or not given much attention.
Feel the difference between feeling “happy” and feeling peaceful, confident, or content with yourself. How about “happy” and adventurous, fierce, eager, vibrant, or exuberant?
Thriving to me means we’re free (and competent) at being in rich emotional states that matter to us. This does not happen by accident. In our cultures, we’re likely to have our eagerness suppressed and our peaceful presence distracted away.
So what do we do?!?
We Be. We BE What Matters to us. The first step there is to get clear… and being witnessed in our clarity is supportive, too.
You’re invited to join us.
Anyone who chooses to will have my devotion and the support of our Circle in growing in competence at feeling (being!) what you want to feel.
Let’s be this… Together.
Each of the sessions will be 90 minutes long (7 sessions + live unrecorded group coaching and tapping Zoom sessions each month as well). We look forward to engaging with you!
With smiles and love,
Rick & Cathy
Your Emotional Freedom Coaches
Schedule Private, Gliding Scale Coaching Sessions Here
P.S. Adira says, “Bubbles are so beautiful, Bubbles are so fine! Bubbles help me be… Bubbly!”
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Know What Matters to You… – Session Replay
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Know What Matters to You…
[00:00:00] Know what matters to you.
[00:00:04] To me the essence of emotional freedom is having a sense of what really matters to me in my core, and having enough freedom to be able to feel those things as a part of my life experience.
[00:00:24] To me, across the whole palette of different emotions, there are certain ones that really speak to me, and there are ones that I know are embodied in.
[00:00:34] As I look around the workshop I see people and I know that they embody certain emotional states that aren’t necessarily the ones that are core to me, but together. when we support each other in knowing what matters and getting a chance to express that, to me, that’s the essence of emotional freedom.
[00:00:56] I was talking to my partner, Jem and we were saying that, when you know the things that matter, and as you look at the arc of your day and of your week, you get a chance to be in that state, not perfectly, just like sometimes we drive and we get stuck in traffic, or even the car starts slipping on the ice, or we get even a little lost.
[00:01:18] But if you’re a, let’s say, you know inside of you that being generous is good for you, if you get no opportunity to be generous, that something inside of you is not getting expressed. If you’re somebody who is bold, like bold is not one of my emotional states, but it was really cool to get people who said, the one that I really want to feel is bold.
[00:01:49] Now if three months from now you sit down and you realize that, I’ve gotten a chance to be bold, but not bold like my uncle Bob does. Bold. Like that kind of his bold is not my bold, but I’ve gotten to be my kind of bold, I’ve gotten to, to have that feeling like, oh, yep, that part of me is alive here, and that part of me is a participant.
[00:02:20] My boldness is a participant in what I’m being. And what I’m doing. And so knowing what matters to you, to me is a first step. Now, I also love to that, when I asked the question, some people came back with just a poetic bouquet. If you’ve seen one of those floral bouquets and you look at it and go, wow, I don’t even know the names of all those fla daisies.
[00:02:49] I, I know that one. But you see everything and it’s just, it fits together and it’s just wow, this bouquet of different emotions. For this focus group, the invitation is to get clear about something that, that matters to you. One emotion, not to set the others aside, that they won’t be a part of your life, but to say, Three months from now, three weeks from now, three days from now, if I’m putting some attention on this emotional state for me, if I am learning more deeply what it actually means to me, how it’s gonna express as me, how I want to bring it into the relationships that matter to me.
[00:03:41] If I’m doing that and I’m building out a menu of choices that, ways that I know that are easier for me to get there, that at the end of that stretch, I believe that you’ll be able to say that is definitely an active part of who I am as a human being. That I have reactivated it, I’ve cultivated it, I’ve refined it.
[00:04:09] I’ve gotten some more savvy and skill and that, yes, I have that. And in
[00:04:22] the temptation to say, I want to be this and this and this and this and this and this, there’s
[00:04:28] I don’t know what the right word is. Maybe somebody else has it. It’s not necessarily a distraction, but it says to us that all of these are important and. It doesn’t invite our whole being from head to toe to get enough time and attention and engagement to be able to yes, dilutes our focus.
[00:05:00] And so the invitation is to try this on. We’re gonna be doing seven different workshops. I’m also gonna be doing some short bullet points as reminders as a companion course for this. And I’ll,
[00:05:16] I want to say this. When tapping came along for me, I had a craving. and that craving was that I really didn’t feel like emotionally I was living as Rick, who I knew myself to be. I don’t believe that while I was born to someone who’s very worried, I don’t believe that my mother’s worry is anymore like who she is than it was for me.
[00:05:44] I said, look, I just want to be able to manage my own emotions. But it wasn’t until I got clear that there’s an essential part of me that resonated with calm and confident. You’ve probably noticed that I do a lot of stuff around calm and confident the two going together. Be forever grateful to Dr.
[00:06:08] Patricia Carrington because it was in her choices book. I was looking through all the choices and when I saw calm and confident, I was like, oh, that’s me. And not me . Does that make sense? It was like, oh, that’s me. It’s yeah, that’s me. And totally not the way I was walking in the world.
[00:06:32] Maybe totally not is too strong. I’d been meditating for almost 10 years about seven years at that point. That’s a lot of meditation. So I was able to quiet the noise for periods of time, but not actually walk as someone who was calm and confident. And so I spent six months when anything would come up and I was like even though I’m worried right here, I’m wondering how I could be calm and confident. Anyway, I’ve decided to be calm and confident anyway. I’m curious if I could be calm and confident here. , or I’m open and I’m really asking and praying to be a bit more calm and confident here.
[00:07:14] And what I noticed is that through that focus in my tapping and in my meditation and my journaling, those were skills that I had been practicing that this dropping into what does it mean to me to be calm and confident? What does that look like in the world? And by doing that I started changing the way, just naturally things in my life started to change how I rode the horse.
[00:07:43] We had horses. If I did a tapping round or two or three before I got on the horse. It wasn’t that I was perfectly calm and confident, but the horse could tell my intention. And my tuning was different. I was radiating a different vibe. And that’s also part of this, when we know what matters to us, I believe that people who are empathetic pick that up.
[00:08:11] Oh, maybe they’re being a little grumpy right now, , but I can tell, I can feel their vibe that what matters to them is to be more calm and confident. If I know, as soon as I knew that what I wanted to be was calm and confident, my inner critic, my experience of my inner critic changed. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like, if I know I wanna be calm and confident rather than perfect.
[00:08:43] Then my inner critic doesn’t have the same kind of, go-to. as it did before, and it gave me something that I could tap on very specifically too. So my why and the one I’m inviting for our circle and our group here, our focus group here is if emotional freedom matters to you and there’s something essence in you that you would like to express more, that if you really owned it more deeply and completely, that it would contribute and enhance your thriving.
[00:09:23] That’s one of the intentions for landing on. It may be that you land on something and it refines. That’s perfectly cool. It may be that you have two things that go together. It may be that you decide to do this a bit differently. I, I. Eager, which is my practice for this te period of time. I’m eager, which tonight means profoundly curious where we’re gonna, where we’re gonna go together as a group the group of us.
[00:09:56] So what question comes up for you or what noise comes up for you? Hearing me say that? Feeling the invitation. Is there a contraction, disconnection or, openness, what coming up for you? The chat is open and I’m going to go look at my.
[00:11:00] So one person asked, I want to know more about how the inner critic quiets. Once you have more clarity on what matters to you someone says, I have a hard time figuring out one or two things. I can think of seven. How do I tune into one? Great. We’re gonna be doing that. The big issue for me is feeling pressure to feel larger feelings than I actually feel, which is great cuz that’s the next thing we’re going to
[00:11:23] Thank you. So many years of doing inner work, does it ever stop? It feels like disconnection, confusion for me. And the noise is, I really don’t know. It changes all the time. So integrating those for a moment,
[00:11:42] I am the type of person that resists LA landing on one. So if you want to do a tapp. With me. We could try something here,
[00:11:54] even though this seems hard and confusing in certain ways,
[00:12:05] I’m open to clarity about one thing. One emotion that matters to me right now in my life
[00:12:22] matters to me. It’s not about them.
[00:12:34] Even though my thoughts tend to go right to the negative, it’s okay for me to stop and drop in here.
[00:12:45] My emotions matter to me.
[00:12:51] They’re the soundtrack vibrations of my life,
[00:12:58] and I want to have more savvy with them
[00:13:03] and express the things that matter
[00:13:09] top of the head. But it’s so confusing. Eyebrow. Maybe it’s clarity that I want
[00:13:20] side of the eye. It feels like disconnection to me
[00:13:28] under the eye. Am I asking for more connection or more solitude
[00:13:37] under the nose, but it changes all the time. Chen. Good
[00:13:47] Ah, and it’s okay for me to pick one I want to experience regularly.
[00:14:01] Does the inner work ever stop
[00:14:08] the arm? Maybe I’m asking to feel content with who I am and what I feel right now.
[00:14:19] Top of the head. Don’t I have to be super duper ecstatically, joyful
[00:14:31] eyebrow, ah, what if, what is right for me? Side of the eye doesn’t have to be a big, large feeling.
[00:14:46] Under the eye. I get to decide what it is under the nose and there’s good news, chin. There’s no wrong answer.
[00:15:13] It’s okay for me to get savvy with an emotion.
[00:15:27] Thank you. Take a breath.
[00:15:36] So I want to read what someone shared. Thank. What seems to happen is a never ending buffet of things I want to change. I land on one thing and for a few hours, that seems like it would be nothing that will make the biggest difference. It would solve most things, and then over the course of a few hours, it’s a different thing that becomes the thing that will make everything better for me, this ever revolving list of things goes on incessantly.
[00:16:21] So
[00:16:27] I was looking at my daughter who’s two, and she’s down at the bottom of the stairs and I’m up on the second floor and open stairwell. and it struck me that because there are 16 steps she can actually get to the second floor, even though she’s not really savvy yet with steps or life as a whole.
[00:16:55] She can take small steps. And to me I know that reading these words, every single one of those essential qualities that you want to have, any one of them could be picked and say, this is the thing. Because in that moment it would provide what replenishment, encouragement relief. It could provide all kinds of different things.
[00:17:25] So at any given point in the day, if you asked me is being eager going to solve the thing. And if I’m sitting there with blocked from work, if I said, yeah, if I can tune into my eagerness, that’s gonna get me moving and that’ll make this better. To me, the baby step of giving yourself a, I am going to drop in, not exclusively, but I am going to touch base with my body, mind, and spirit around this emotional state because it happens to be one of the rainbow of ones. And. It’s not about fixing anything, it’s about expressing a part of me and that part of me feels like it is ripe and ready and wanting to be expressed.
[00:18:14] That to me isn’t is the whole landscape. If you’re mapping it out, every time you change, it goes on a card of, look, this matters to me. And if you have seven of them, yeah, all of these matter. And I am not trying to use this to fix my life. What I am doing is honoring. And again, why you do it, that’s up to you to des to determine I, I know.
[00:18:47] Gem decided over the holidays that her focus word, we were doing this thriving in the coming year. and I mentioned it to her and very privately, she decided that savoring it’s something like, whether it’s food or experiences or people or anything like that, really is a core part of who she is.
[00:19:14] And I can tell you that her having that as the touchpoint to come back to changed our holiday, it definitely changed the holidays for her. And so does it fix anything? I don’t view the emotional world as broken. I’m choosing to. Say there’s a part of me that as a young child, was eager about life experiences and that was get is has gotten suppressed un exercised, earnest, competent.
[00:19:59] I was practicing those. Those are good and useful. I need, I want to part have them part of my life, but by tuning to eager, I can use that to change everything. Going to the grocery store with Aira, I can go there as a task that I’m very competent at. I have my list, I know where the things are.
[00:20:23] I can get her out of the car, get her in a cart, whatever. But if I’m eager as a I’m really. Ooh, I’m guessing we’re gonna see something that’s gonna really I wonder what’s gonna catch her eye. I wonder what this experience is gonna be like. It’s not a big yeah. But just by saying, I wonder what I could be eager about.
[00:20:52] As soon as we walked in, she’s she points to the birthday, the, to the balloons, and she’s just got this glow on her face. If I hadn’t tuned to eagerness, I could have turned to curiosity. I could have turned to playfulness. I could have tuned any of those, would’ve worked to change my relationship with going to the grocery store.
[00:21:17] But by tuning to something that really matters to me that I’m working on, meaning working with, it’s an energy. It is. It changed the experience
[00:21:33] someone shared. I love the feeling of contentment and that feels like one for me. Yeah. Contentment can be a relief. It can also be that like, for very young oriented people that are really about producing and putting out there contentment can be like savoring for some other people it’s ah, I wonder, or yeah. I feel the pushing. I’m wondering could I feel contentment here for a minute or two?
[00:22:15] And there’s more.
[00:22:28] Someone said, this is a little hard to express, but I would like to have permission to feel the emotions that I was never allowed to feel. The forbidden emotions, for example, anger. This does not mean it’s a favorite emotion, it just means I wanna be able to feel the whole range of feelings. Yes. So there’s a part if what I’m hearing is, and this is for you to try on.
[00:22:54] Okay, so anger was forbidden.
[00:23:00] So that kind of, to me a forbidden emotion begs the question. , am I feeling is it an emotion that is actually part of my makeup
[00:23:17] know anger’s a pretty primal emotion. So there are people that that part of their primal nature has been suppressed. And so being able to explore, okay, where do I feel this in my body? How, what are a dozen ways that anger I can be with my anger in a way that enhances my clarity, my ooph, my, we did a workshop on turning anger into Ooph.
[00:23:47] That’s one pathway, but there’s so many ways to be with our anger. What does it activate? Like exploring anger? There are, I have had clients. that actually anger is not part of their energetic makeup. It’s if you had an instrument and it didn’t have the anger, Octa, there’s nothing wrong with the instrument.
[00:24:08] It just doesn’t have that octave where they may land is a kind of activation that passion for example, right? So like they just don’t experience anger, but they may experience a kind of passion fire like the fire, like we think of those fire of anger, fire of passion but maybe their passion was suppressed.
[00:24:34] You need to quiet down. There’s, or, you’re not gonna make a difference in the world or whatever it is. Yeah. I know people that were never allowed to grieve that have done this process. where it’s like, okay, I want to understand what grieving authentically looks like to me, I’ve had people say, grieving to me is actually going out in the forest stripping naked and just clawing at the ground.
[00:25:06] And I’ve had people say that when I see people processing their grief in that way, it’s not me. And it’s not like it’s clear. That’s just not their way. So you can pick an emotion like grief and the invitation is gonna be for you to get to a place where you can articulate, at least to yourself.
[00:25:26] Grieving has these tones. To me there’s the, ah, I miss them. There’s the, wow, there’s a hole. and I’m needing to tend to, or there’s a great regret. Again, like I am not suggesting that I am suggesting that the full range, the full palette of emotions are on the table here.
[00:25:57] So if so we’re not, if someone asked, if you’re from a family that was comfortable expressing anger, how to fit oneself into this workshop I’m not sure what, at what point you joined. , we’re exploring what’s an emotion that matters to you? You may have anger, just yeah, we never had a problem with it.
[00:26:15] It’s not something, the part of me which can get angry. I’m not suppressed. I own that, that there’s, that, that’s a range that I can do. There’s this other part of me. Maybe it’s something else.
[00:26:32] Okay. Anything that comes up for people I know some people have landed on some things.
[00:26:46] So someone said, I want to ride out my anxiety by sitting with it. I’m tired of fearing it, even though at its hard
[00:26:54] What would you call that emotional state of being? I’ve got some words that I put to that. It’s okay, if I’m actually riding out my anxiety with, without the fear that I’m used to, what would you call that? State? What’s your word for it?
[00:27:15] The next thing I wanted to touch on I, so we’ve covered like this is a very deeply personal decision To me. There are no wrong choices. That’s the acceptance that we’re bringing to this. We’ve been exploring some emotional options. I wanted to talk about. The personal part of the personal decision.
[00:27:36] I had a client who said let me get the words right.
[00:27:49] Oh, I feel like I need to be more joy, joyful. Hey, the first keywords there for me are need to. And I said what’s up with that? Everyone says that. I don’t smile enough.
[00:28:05] It can be really tempting to land, and I appreciate in some of the dialogues that I’ve had by email with some of you that it’s oh, joyful. I’d be doing that for someone else. That’s not actually what matters to me right now. Again, bringing it back to the intimate, if you’ve landed on something or two or three things, see if you can tune into . Yeah.
[00:28:33] Yeah. People should stop telling other people they don’t smile enough. Are you shitting on me? Oh, that’s always mine. If you pa, let’s pause here. And try on, if you have a couple of choices or you have. That you’re trying on.
[00:28:53] There’s the trying on in your head.
[00:28:59] If you’re in a place where you can speak it aloud, you might try and see how it feels in your throat
[00:29:12] eager,
[00:29:17] and notice what happens in your heart,
[00:29:26] in your gut,
[00:29:31] eager,
[00:29:35] fearless, joyful, appreciative, whatever it is for you.
[00:29:44] Peaceful content with myself, vibrant,
[00:29:55] wise, fearlessness, balanced, adventurous,
[00:30:06] bold, carefree.
[00:30:14] And I’ve shared some other words that any of those and again, like for people that like emotional freedom, chances are a lot of these are like, Ooh ooh, yes. Ah, oh, I want that one. Uhhuh . We’re feeling for the one that is, you’ve got some sense, hopefully not required, but a sense in your. That yes, you’re getting a body.
[00:30:40] Yes. Even if there’s lots of noise.
[00:30:47] And if you’re, if you landed on something like never depressed
[00:30:52] that’s not actually a state of being. It’s like saying, I’m never gonna go to Antarctica. Okay, yeah, upbeat. Now, if you have a problem with a challenge with being depressed the step could be that what is upbeat, what you’re called to be like. For example, if I’m depressed and the beat is the upbeat might be ugh, ugh, ooh, I’m still like a little down, but you could play with that.
[00:31:32] So I’m not saying that upbeat is too far, but this is something that, that I’ve noticed as I’ve explored with with our community. Sometimes their energy could be really well served by something like present, like I get in my head, oh, okay. So what I wanna practice is how could I be present with this?
[00:31:59] How can I be there’s a difference to me between upbeat and uplifted.
[00:32:08] Neither is, it’s a very personal thing, and it’s not just a word. There’s an app, and I’ve mentioned it before. It’s called how we Feel. Just in the, there are four quadrants. They ask you to pick whether you’re low energy, pleasant or low energy. Unpleasant, high energy, pleasant, high energy, unpleasant just in the low, what they call low energy, pleasant.
[00:32:36] There’s two dozen choices. Calm, good, relaxed, mellow, carefree, tranquil, peaceful, comfortable. Chill, compassionate, understanding, supported, supportive content. Grateful, blessed.
[00:33:01] If you’re looking for possibilities to explore that app, if you’re, I think it’s on both iPhone and Android
[00:33:12] tuned in. So like when, oh, I’m the type of person I want to be, I sense in me that this is true for me. That I want to be tuned.
[00:33:32] That’s one that I practice, I call it, it’s drop in and tune to. Which is tuned in two steps for me. So let’s take that as an example. You can look at every transition that, that you go into as, oh as I arrive at my home, I want to tune to what the energy is. As I walk into the house, I want to tune to the ener. Just be attuned, like what’s the vibe? As I go from place to place, as I meet a person, as I leave I tune into the we space the home, the energy, the weather, tuned in and.
[00:34:12] Make that oh, I’m a tuned in person. How does that feel to you? Does that still feel good to you as I describe it? And if it means something different, please describe it. If you’d like.
[00:34:29] It’d be good to have to never have to worry about getting depressed. Imagine if you had an app on your phone that permanently prevented you from falling into a slump. Yeah. Interesting. We’re probably within a generation, people will be getting implants into their brains that might block the, in the same way that you dead, you can take an 88 key keyboard and snip the wires , and now you don’t have an octave.
[00:34:56] and you’re only playing the other octaves. I, depression to me is like happy. They’re really broad. And so for example if you wanted to explore the kind of low, how you are when your energy is low, that could be like low energy and present. Like you could be present with your feelings. And I think most of the time when I’ve, when someone says that they are depressed, when I’ve gone into what are you, what are, what’s some more specific ways that you could, like disengaged is sort.
[00:35:40] A kind of depression, apathetic, helpless, exhausted, lonely, isolated, burned out glu, alienated, excluded, disconnected, lost, insecure, trapped, despondent, hopeless despair depressed as one of the options there morose. I do think that the value in thriving and being emotionally free is to honor that.
[00:36:05] If I am generally morose, , if that’s the word that like, oh God hold on a second. I need to see what that one sad and gloomy is their definition. If I’m really pretty morose, what would be a state that feels true in my core, like that’s where I’m singing, or that’s where my vibe is. What’s a vibration that I could go to?
[00:36:29] That is actually true for me too, that even when I’m arose like I, I’ve worked with like you’re in that kind of down energy state, but it’s very, it’s, you actually feel blessed. Maybe you don’t practice it, maybe you don’t savor it, maybe you don’t get to spend much time feeling that,
[00:36:56] but it’s a core part of who you are. I have a friend that like, that they struggle with the lower energy modes, but their go-to the one that they practice most is feeling blessed and that
[00:37:14] that helps them in every way as a parent and as a human.
[00:37:17] But without the worry in slumps, you can accomplish so many amazing things. So what’s an emotion that is a good look for you? One that you’ve, you just know that it’d be worthwhile to spend three months attuned to that, that would help you feel more yourself and the things that you did from that place would feel more true.
[00:37:45] For example if somebody is trying to accomplish something and they’re marose my word of the day when they accomplish it, they are not going to feel amazing. It could be that if they’re real, if they can go from arose to, I’ve got some competence that I’m prac, I’m just practicing an awareness of my competence, my humanity and I do this thing, it may feel like competence to me can feel amazing.
[00:38:20] If I’m arose, I’m not gonna feel amazing, even if I did exactly the same thing. That’s part of the theory of thriving is that your state of being is
[00:38:36] the way that we
[00:38:43] we’re human beings. We experience life through our state of.
[00:38:48] So someone who wanted to be present and they’re gonna be exploring that could go deeply into what presence is. What are the practices that en enhance presence, mindfulness, there’s oh, hundreds of books podcasts and everything else on mindfulness. I started reading some articles and quotes and other things on eager, some of them like, don’t fit me, and others are like, oh, okay.
[00:39:14] That adds to my repertoire, my, my capacity.
[00:39:19] How about focused? But not activated. , not taken over by focus. Now, I’m not sure what you mean in what your experience of that is. But here’s where if you’re drawn, like I’m a focused person, I know that about me, there’s a, I want to refine it. So like you can know that you capable of focus, but you wanna refine it and refining anything like you.
[00:39:47] A ton of ore and you refine it down and refine it down and you’re left with something very different. Like generosity. I always knew that I was a generous person, but by focusing on generosity for a period of time, I looked at how does it apply to doing acts around the house? How does it apply with friendship?
[00:40:06] How does it apply with my work? How does it apply with how I structure things? What does it actually do for me? Where do I feel it, how do I notice when I’m not that. That’s one of the things that I’m excited about there too, is that you can take something that, you wanna revisit.
[00:40:22] Carol looks gonna be revisiting gratitude in, in February with her community. If you want to be appreciating or appreciative there’s, that’s why, I wanna do seven, seven visits on this, is that as you go deeper in it, it’s oh, what’s, when I’m focused, how can it be more delicious?
[00:40:40] Or how could it be something that nourishes and supports my thriving more? Gratitude is what I focus on. Someone said, and
[00:40:48] To me if my day doesn’t have something,
[00:40:55] I’ll say this, there’s not been a day of my life where there wasn’t something to appreciate, but it doesn’t mean that for big swaths of time, I was so wrapped up in. That I wasn’t experiencing myself as an appreciator, as an appreciative and appreciating person. And so if that’s where you are where, I’m an appreciator, but I don’t actually do it, I don’t actually feel it, I don’t actually get the experience of doing that.
[00:41:28] To me, that makes it ripe here.
[00:41:32] Again, that’s your choice. So we’re gonna take a quick seven minute break here and and then we’ll see where it goes. I’d like you to. To take 10 to yourself. If it’s time for you to exit, please feel free. We will have the recording and I’d love some shares in the chat either during the break or after about what’s coming up for you so that we can help craft together this focus group.
[00:41:59] Welcome back. So if you are listening to the recording, do invite you to have taken a short break to kinda let things integrate, see what questions you have rising. For me, the question that. I need to have an answer for need to, as in it feels essential. It’s essential for me to have answers as to why I’m going to do this work, any change in my behavior. I find it helpful to have the grounding. So I’m gonna do this exercise on my card as you consider what this emotion that you’d like to enhance, have experience, have some savvy with.
[00:42:54] I really can get to that place of being with some art. And when the things that come up that block me and or used to really suppress me. I’ve got those. That are shifting. I’m becoming more clear. I heck, I can focus in my energy for that experience. If you had that emotional experience as a regular thing in your life, what would that do for you?
[00:43:21] Why go to this effort? Why show up here to do this three months from now? Imagine that, I really, I can feel that I can feel it. I know it now more vividly inside of me that’s a part of my world. It’s mine. What would that do for you.
[00:43:43] So someone said two years ago, I would not have chosen fearless, but after making a huge move, that was nowhere near what I had imagined it would be. And two months after that, spending five weeks in the hospital with Covid, I feel contracted and afraid to get out in the world again. and knowing this person being out in the world feeling the beauty of nature and the like, feels, and so you and I we tried on fearless and I had Aira, that wise fearlessness. Feel free to, if it’s helpful to you to modify this with a word that ideally is not a knot word. Nevermind wise fearlessness going together might be a really good fit where there’s fearless.
[00:45:06] Your primitive brain goes, oh, that’s not actually who we are. But to me, like the embodiment of wise fearlessness is, look, I know what matters to me. This matters to me. I’ve evaluated the risk and I am using my clarity to take action rather from my knowing and my oomph than from my fear.
[00:45:32] That’s one way of defining it.
[00:45:39] Yeah. Love life and living fully is important. That fearless
[00:45:43] And the beautiful thing about this. is that you start to develop much more nuance and range
[00:46:00] to go out into the world and just feel the beauty of nature without some kind of force dragging you down. That would be amazing. And so if you’re exploring, oh, okay. Starting with going out in the world and feeling the beauty of nature.
[00:46:18] So that’s a state of, you could call that a state of being, an emotional state of being. I am in nature and I am feeling. For its beauty, I am noticing I’m smelling, I’m looking, I am listening. I am maybe tasting I am using my sensors. I’m feeling my connection to the earth. All of that can be being in nature.
[00:46:51] The beauty of nature now, there’s always a force dragging us down like gravity, , to use the physics one, and I’m not making light of it. Our next workshop is going to be what suppresses you. And this is so common. The things that are really meaningful for us if we’re not experiencing them pretty regularly.
[00:47:17] My guess is that they’ve been suppressed, that you have blocks of beliefs in other things which act as a suppressor on those feelings. Anger’s a kind of obvious one. People’s anger is often suppressed by others. It’s scary. It is. It’s noisy. It’s just for spark. It’s a lot of things. , we’re gonna be exploring like the energy of anger and how to be with that so that it actually gives me a fire for life, for example.
[00:47:48] That could be a why for someone. I want to have more fire for my life. And I feel like knowing that energy, emotional state of anger. No, I’m not gonna express it the way my drunken dad did, but I’m gonna, I’m gonna be with that feeling. . Now, some people might call that feeling the beauty of nature. As I want to be present with things that activate my, my, my sense of beauty.
[00:48:18] So is that a, I don’t know if there’s one word that describes that, but to me that’s an emotional state. Yeah.
[00:48:31] Yeah. In the, one of my, one of the things that I’m trying to do is a lot of times if you’d asked me before I had any emotional skills, , like, how do you wanna feel? I don’t wanna worry all the time. I’m tired of feeling stressed. Like that’s would be my answer. It would be a knot. It’s what I didn’t want.
[00:48:51] That would be so big and hairy and ugly and smelly and putrid right in my face. That, that’s all I could say. And that’s one of the advantages of groups and coaching is that okay, you don’t want to feel that right there with you. What would you call the feeling that is not that? Because they’re hundreds of different like vibes that you could have that are not like, worried and anxious.
[00:49:20] What’s one that you’d like to get the, to practice that if you’re still on the knot, continue to look for the. A companion clear oh yes, that is
[00:49:36] that is something that is not anxious or and it’s also something that is very clear in and of itself. Like playful. My inner experience of being playful doesn’t mean necessarily that I’m rolling around on the floor. It could be, but I have the experience if I’m playful, there’s a little different smile, like I’m already, I’m feeling playful , right?
[00:50:02] My laugh changes. I’m aware of that. And just by inviting oh and for some playful be like, damn it, I never got to play as a child and I’m actually a really playful person. Ah, There’s a, there’s that first, ah reaction of I didn’t get to do that. There may be feelings that come up with that, but the end the movement is, ah, playful is what’s drawing me.
[00:50:27] It is an, it is something that I am, I will turn to somebody else and say, if they say I wanna be more playful. Do you feel like a is there an inner playful person in you?
[00:50:43] No. Okay. What does feel true? I’m not, I enjoy people being playful. Oh, so you’re an enjoy. Yeah. Ah, you feel the difference there. And that’s, you may not land on exactly what’s right for you, but part of diversity, especially neurodiversity, especially , emotional sensor diversity, which we haven’t even, which culturally we haven’t even we, there’s some talk about empaths and highly sensitive people, but if you take someone who’s highly sensitive person, wow, there is such a spectrum of sensor sensory aspects.
[00:51:25] There are people that really are the ones that can take in beauty, but they’re not gonna r necessarily put it out again as poetry or art. But their essential quality is I take it in. I take it in, and I feel it. And if you’ve ever been somebody that has created a work of art It’s often, in my experience, the person that to me, that’s an exquisite quality in the ecosystem.
[00:51:53] The person who can take in beauty even if they can’t articulate it back. And so
[00:52:09] caring.
[00:52:13] Yeah. And as you tune into caring and you’ve imagined yourself walking in the world where
[00:52:23] if there’s a, if there’s a situation that you ask yourself like, oh, what would be caring here and including yourself in that. So caring. Includes the me space and the we space To me energetically now, somebody who really needs, wants to attune to self-caring that like adding the word self-caring would change it for somebody that’s a mom or dad or, like if somebody works in a team, in a business applying, caring is different than if you’re in the process of writing something.
[00:53:12] In solitude, for example.
[00:53:19] Being comfortable with my own anger would mean that I would feel, identify when it arose, and then I’d be able to begin to develop skills in using and handing, handling it as harmlessly as possible. That’s a pretty substantial ask. Yeah. Good. I love substantial ask. I’m right there. I, whatever you’re really wanting to go into, I’m, this matters to me.
[00:53:43] This is my 30 year mission. This is like emotional freedom for all says we start with something that matters to you, and we develop all the different ways so that you can really know that for yourself and experience it to be what matters to you.
[00:54:07] My blood pressure would be lower. That’s a why I encourage encourage continuing to stack those. So my blood pressure would be lower if my blood pressure was lower. I would feel more of a movement toward wellbeing. Oh yeah, there would be a movement toward physical wellbeing that my inner pressures would be more balanced and there would be whatever you get the sense of it.
[00:54:37] Feeling content would allow me to be myself, be present in the moment, more connected and emotionally available in my relationships. I’d be able to help more people in my business and be visible, receive more, help myself and feel more fulfilled. Yeah, I’d also have the abundance and freedom I desire.
[00:55:03] Isn’t it interesting that when we tune to like content, look at the cascade effect and this is where all those other things start lining their way into our thrive, thriving experience? We focus on the one and it holograms out into our whole emotional ecosystem.
[00:55:36] I keep coming back to calm and confident, but it feels like it’s not my words because of how it’s used so commonly here. But that’s what I keep arriving back at. So if I had more consistent access to and more skill with calm confidence, my sense of being grounded and unflappable and more resourceful, less inclined to be negatively affected by others’ views and opinions.
[00:56:00] So in your description there for example, grounded or unflappable resourceful. Resourced that feeling of being resourced. If I’m feeling depleted, it’s hard for me to be calm and confident. So I can go through the door of, I am I am choosing the feeling of resourced to focus on what resources? Me? Oh, this resources me. And when I do this, I feel more resourced.
[00:56:31] And when I do this, eh, my resource goes down. So if I have, if I’m gonna be doing that, I know that to feel more resourced, I’m gonna choose from these other things. So if calm and confident is the The state of being, but it’s not the doorway that’s right for you. Now, you can take all the work that you’ve done on being calm and confident, and if you just take one sliver of it resourced wow.
[00:56:54] You could really go into what does it mean to be resourced for me? What, how do I want to use my resource? Oh, it takes resource to calm. Okay. It takes resource to confident. Yeah. So you’re using calm confidence if you’ve got any of that you’ve practiced and you’re layering something else on it.
[00:57:12] Eager For me, if I didn’t have calm and confident as a foundation would not be ripe.
[00:57:18] Unflappable. So there’s a quality of, okay, what flaps me? , okay, that flaps me. Am I going to change how I am with that? So you could take what flaps me and the intention is unflappable if, I was really designed not to be nu, unflappable in a neutral way, but like to have a kind of skill with my energy that I, it would take really quite something to flap me, and I already have a big dose of that.
[00:57:51] Most people don’t look at me and say, wow, he is so flappable. But I’m want, I’m wanting to take it to the next internal level, not just the level that other people might perceive. So playful. I love playful too. I used, I think I used to be a lot more playful years and years ago. I think I enjoyed it, but I’ve suppressed it. I, I love working with playful. It is so suppressed. , to probably, if I wasn’t working on Eager and that was really my guidance, playful, and you think you’re with your two year old, why aren’t am I playful? Yeah, I have a playful nature. And where does it get suppressed?
[00:58:33] It gets suppressed when I feel like I have to be on the on guard. , right? Or I have to be parenting. So that’s where I start getting flapped, , my playfulness gets suppressed and I’m like, oh, no, be careful there, blah, blah, blah. You Like that’s one of the things. So I can apply eagerness oh, ADIR and I are going to the playground.
[00:58:59] I could like, oh, I wanna be playful at the playground. But eager can be like I wonder what, her body is gonna be interested in. And the dance of other people. And I approached it with eagerness and then she did something that really wasn’t playful. She did the monkey bars at two.
[00:59:21] Now she didn’t go all the way across, but she held herself and she could lift, she could hold herself for 30 seconds or so. And just, she looked so proud and just because I was eager, I was open to noticing something like that. Again, you can go into this, go into it with playful. There’s so much freedom in this take in beauty
[00:59:47] and, can take in beauty. Yes. Without a weight tied to your leg. I, if. If my experience is that when I take in beauty, there’s also noise. I still can practice the emotion of to me an emotion is energy and motion. It’s, it hits my sensors in a certain way. So if I’m taking in beauty and there’s a very loud motorcycle going by, it is not the same experience as if I am like pausing and I see someone’s background picture is a sunrise or sunset.
[01:00:27] And I can take in that beauty even though I have other things that I’m engaged with. I said in one of the letters I have clients that are dying. They know it. They don’t know how long. . And they want to feel like they can still feel something like take in beauty even though there’s a lot of other things, physical pain or logistics or regrets or other things also coming up.
[01:00:54] I believe that the things that are, that we’re talking about here can be done not in denial of other things that are going on in our lives and in the lives of other people. It’s an experience that we can still have access to
[01:01:11] and. If you have doubts and noise coming up about that, we’re gonna address that. Circle calls are a great place for this. People that are joining this program are also getting a circle membership so that you can attend the open circles. They’re not recorded so people feel freer usually to, to share what’s alive for them.
[01:01:33] This is, again, a devotion of mine, not just for me personally, but to have a kind of circle where we can practice taking in beauty. And if it’s like what blocks us, what noise comes up, what beliefs act to suppress us, and then the clever and creative parts of how could I weave this into my day, my moments?
[01:02:04] someone said, my, I would, my smiles would be more frequent. And I also like ease, easily adaptable. So some people they, there’s an emotional experience of being adaptable. It’s a slightly different vibe from being flexible. There’s a vibe of being responsive from a, like to me, the vibe of being responsive is I can hear a request or be aware of it, and I can choose my response in a way that is true and right for me.
[01:02:37] And also being responsive to the other person. So responsive is a, is a.
[01:02:49] Okay. Any closing thoughts? Find the schedule of calls. If you’re a if you just signed up for this workshop, you’ll need to become a circle member. That’s on a gliding scale. You can go to thriving now.com/circle. There are scholarships available full and partial if that’s where you are in your life.
[01:03:08] Yeah, sweet, hot, boundless joy. I would call that like one of those flavor blends. And that’s what I, what we talk about with calm and confident. To me, that’s a single, that is an emotional state. We’re gonna be, we’re gonna be exploring because suppression often hits because we’re trying to keep.
[01:03:28] Like people suppress their anger and get really good at it because they don’t want to go into rage at, into a violent act, into a state of being where their primitive brain is taken over and is just running roughshod over things that matter to them and people that matter to them. And so they suppressed the anger.
[01:03:47] Same way with eagerness , eagerness is not always consensual . I got my own coaching session from someone around that. So yeah. Suppression. Yeah. Thank you for putting that link the member homepage, thriving now.com/um, member that takes you to, that has the schedule further down as well as the courses.
[01:04:08] So anything else from anyone?
[01:04:13] Yeah. If you know you’re a Circle member you can get to that course link that’s there. And also the email support@thrivingnow.com for follow up questions, feedback of a private nature. You’re welcome to. I am actually, my eagerness is a deep and profound desire to, to know that we as humans, amidst everything that’s going on can build a real skill to know that something matters.
[01:04:45] Some expression of us matters to us, and as blocked as it is or as unsupported in other parts of, other compartments of our world that we can craft away together or. With support so that we get to experience that part of us. I call that our artistry. It is what makes us unique. And every one of these word terms for each of us is gonna be a unique emotional experience that I know that runs along, has all these different amplitudes of, from ecstatically, ecstatic level, all the way down to that wisp that you can get that just feels so right in the quiet moments too.
[01:05:34] Inbox is open and we continue. Thank you all. Bless you. Appreciate you. Bye for now.
[01:05:42]
We covered…
- Why knowing what matters to you and focusing on it for an extended period of weeks builds our sense of ourselves (and even quiets/changes the inner critic!)
- Many different emotional states matter to us… this focus on one primary emotion to cultivate and deepen is what can bring profound changes in our sense of our own thriving (and emotional competence)
- It’s a deeply personal decision (with no “wrong” answer). You can focus on wise fearlessness, joy, eagerness, gratitude… or getting savvy with your own Anger!
- Make the choice that is right for YOU… if you sense you might be doing this “for others” pause and go deeper in feeling into your options.
- Stack your Why’s… by writing down key ways you’ll benefit from feeling and living more from this chosen state of being, it gives you multiple paths “back” to the work.
- It can be joyful work! It is… work. Meaning, it’s not going to happen “by accident” or “magically” as a wish fulfillment. This kind of emotional work can (and is designed) to be deeply rewarding to our sense of ourselves as a human BEING with our own unique Heartistry.
Resources Mentioned
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Turn Anger into Oomph - Real Skills Workshop
Great to have you on this journey with us!
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Thanks Rick, what a workshop!
What you explained is so much appreciated.
Knowing that everyone of us finds it difficult to reach to one particular feeling to tend to, is so so relieving. A huge burden got lifted.
when you asked to feel within, surprisingly-i sensed my heart opening. This is very very rare for me.
when you said - its not about fixing. its about -its ripe n ready to be expressed…this has gone deep within me.
I have spent most of the time n energy trying to ‘fix’ - which is probably not wrong but such strong momentum has had got created along with longing to have things fixed, longing for a place of desire to go, longing for peace…how layer by layer it happens in a given direction and thus since long i haven’t been able to feel/make sense of those emotions which are for replenishing…no wonder m out of ‘capacity’ -drained in almost all aspects-physically, mentally, spiritually but emotionally high- laden with heaviness, kind of, enjoying it even though fed up of it. Partially getting clarity yet mostly confused. With your explained example of ‘generosity’ made me realize how i have turned my back towards expressing these values.
Listening about playfulness brought awareness about on going change which m trying to bring within: m trying to laugh at little things, take things lightly, turn an answer humorous.
Fact that it is a …WORK! got reinforced.
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Thank you so much for the generosity in your reflections. It’s harder indeed to do a workshop with just chat to go on. Feeling the experience through your eyes and heart helps me understand how it was received by you… and helps me to be eager again.
Yes, my eagerness seems to benefit greatly from some hearty reflections. Bless you and so good to have you with us on this exploration. ~Rick
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You are a great encourager
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Hey Tanvi,
Thank you for sharing what you did. I felt the same too. Grateful for the space to have everything come up and the range of possibilities out there whilst also being supported to settle on one and let it grow and develop. I too was lit up by some of the expressions, like playfulness!
Rick, I felt really heard and seen and connected when you went through the chat and spoke to each person’s expressions and questions and space, I really appreciate the way we are all connected in this way to work together and support each other.
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Absolutely. Thank you for engaging there!
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This is one perspective on emotional freedom skills. Emotions can arrive… when we invite them and Boost Our Energy in that direction. They can also shift (leave) by practicing returning to calm-confidence or some other neutral state that we practice.
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I had AI summarize this workshop for us. Beautifully imperfect and useful…
- Embrace emotional freedom and understand what matters to you to achieve it.
- Identify your core emotional states, explore your emotions, and allow yourself to feel the full range of emotions.
- Focus on what matters to you and practice positive emotions like gratitude and playfulness.
- Tune into your personal preferences and desires to create a thriving emotional ecosystem.
- Be grounded, resourceful, unflappable, and explore the world with eagerness and openness.
- Use tapping exercises to become more familiar with your emotions.
- Give yourself permission to feel the full range of emotions, even those that were suppressed in the past.
- Be present and attuned to the people, spaces, and situations you enter for emotional freedom.
- Practice mindfulness and focus to refine your emotions and find your true state of being.
- Wise fear is the fear that arises in actual danger, and it differs from worrying or overthinking.
- Be aware of and acknowledge the fear you experience to promote emotional growth.
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Omg!!! This is brilliant! So funny to think that AI summarized this. Maybe AI has feelings, too.
AI to me is where technology has gone out and collected and sampled the art and heartistry of many millions of us and is offering a portal into the ways we express ourselves.
We are just at the forefront of these sets of tools. Like the first iPhone. Useful, with so much potential to come.
Someone I know through NOSTR (an open source protocol where one can build twitter-like and other decentralized tools) created a tool for taking a sketch and turning it into an AI drawing. Instead of it taking him 40 hours as a skilled programmer, this same AI did 7/8ths of the coding! It took him only 5 hours.
The other day I was stuck on the newsletter and asked AI to write a friendly invitation to a workshop on clearing emotional blocks. While I didn’t use what it wrote, it helped tune me and break through a block! Isn’t that interesting…
Here’s the prompt I gave it:
Write a friendly invitation for people with emotional blocks to attend a workshop called Clear Your Blocks
Here’s what it wrote:
Are you feeling stuck or held back by emotional blocks in your life? If so, I would like to invite you to an exciting workshop called Clear Your Blocks.
This workshop is designed to help you identify and release emotional blocks that are preventing you from living your life to the fullest. You will learn powerful techniques to help you break free from negative patterns and beliefs that are keeping you stuck, and to cultivate a more positive and fulfilling outlook on life.
Our experienced facilitators will guide you through a series of exercises and activities designed to help you connect with your emotions and release any pent-up energy that may be holding you back. You will leave the workshop feeling lighter, clearer, and more empowered to create the life you want.
So if you’re ready to take the next step in your personal growth journey and free yourself from emotional blocks, I invite you to join us at Clear Your Blocks. We can’t wait to see you there!
Interesting, isn’t it? When you see that a friendly invitation has certain aspects to it. Reading this helped me feel engaged and eager for the workshop myself!
Eager is something I want – it’s what I know matters to me. Having a tool that I can play with like this frees up energy. It feels like co-creation with many who came before me to explore the art of friendly invitations.
Rick
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That’s lovely. Thanks for sharing Rick.
You inspired me to give open ai a go and I got some great ideas about starting a youtube channel given all my interests and at my beginner level. Actually now Im going to ask about that given I don’t want to face camera for just now. I’m just playing but we’ll see.
I’d really like to contribute somehow, to ‘the conversation’ in my own way. I keep stalling and not doing etc. maybe it just hasn’t been the right time or I haven’t landed on the right ideas that will help me find the trickle, as Cathy put it in our recent skills workshop.
Oo I might put that last para in and see what comes back!! How excitement
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It was good and advice that we know but its good to hear it when you need a reminder. Something slightly different came out of it which was to create something everyday even if really small. I’d been thinking about creating something once a week which sounded like a big ish challenge. Something about this way makes it seem easier. I did more rainbows on the back of it, bad ones but that’s ok 
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I’m getting a bit addicted. Its so nice they made this free for people. I think that’s temporary though, so they get feedback.
Last night I asked about having baked beans for dinner 
I was advised it’s a fine dinner and all the good qualities listed, encouraged then to also add something like a salad. So I did!
Today I’ll need to schedule cooking time!
& I’ve asked about how to get over the idea that I don’t have anything to say (re starting a public channel) It’s such friendly info. Nice programming.
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There’s a Pro version. And Microsoft Bing is incorporating it, too. I believe this style will be available in some ways without charge for long to come.
This is perhaps the most instantly “useful” technology I’ve come across. SO much better than search engines in many ways, although my hope is that it will be easier to go deeper through resources/links as time goes forward with it.
Rick
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Just started the “Know What Matters to You” (Be What Matters) course. Thank you for making this freely available. Decided to focus on feeling “uplifted”. And also exploring “succulent support” (feeling succulently supported). Not sure where all this will lead, but curious to play with these ideas.
Is anyone else playing along / exploring this now too?
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I’m definitely exploring “savvy” as a state of being… feels like when I am calm, confident, accepting and aware of options and dynamics at work… And still lots to practice!
Uplifted is a sweet state of being. I look forward to hearing more as you go forward.
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