Replay is below
Looking forward to this workshop 🩵
Many of us (especially sensitive, non-arrogant folk) have a tendency to put ourselves down, often without even realizing it. But here’s the thing: those negative self-thoughts are holding you back from tapping into your strengths.
How do you put yourself down?
If you get any kind of compliment or affirmation, how do you deflect it?
There’s a difference between humility and self-deprecation…
We don’t have to be “arrogant.” We can embrace our strengths and be both calm and confident.
Put-Downs hide our strengths — from others (for safety?) and from ourselves (which hurts). …It’s time to shift these patterns with skill.
If you’ve been catching yourself in negative self-talk lately, this is your chance to break free from that pattern and tap into your true potential. Our Stop Putting Yourself Down: Unlocking Your Hidden Strengths workshop is happening!
We know it’s not always easy to silence that inner critic, but together we can learn to embrace our strengths with calm confidence. No need for arrogance - just a genuine appreciation for all that you are and all that you’re capable of.
We’ll be diving deep into the difference between humility and self-deprecation, and learning how to gracefully acknowledge who we are and what we do.
Replay is below
We welcome your insights, ah-ha’s, and sharing. Please! Click [Reply]
Recognize that self-deprecating thoughts are often deeply ingrained neural pathways formed in childhood as a survival mechanism, but they can be rewired with gentle, consistent effort.
Notice how when you “put yourself down” you put your “status” energy down and keeps you stuck in a primitive, black-and-white mindset. Pause and question if these thoughts are absolutely true for you now.
Understand that self-deprecating thoughts often stem from trying to fit into a family or environment where you felt unseen or misunderstood, like a kitten raised by ducks. But now you can seek out your true “kin” who appreciate your unique qualities.
Be aware that constantly spinning in self put downs releases stress hormones that tax your physical and emotional health. Choosing to gradually change this pattern, even slightly, gives your body more capacity to heal and connect with others.
Interrupt negative self-talk with a humorous “safe word” like Aardvark, or do a simple task you know you can get right. This breaks the perfect wrongness of “I can’t do anything right” thinking.
Recognize that self-judgment often involves projecting your insecurities onto others. Reality-check these fears by vulnerably asking a trusted friend for feedback, like, “I’m worried I’m talking too much. Can you let me know if that’s true?”
Have compassion for your primitive brain that formed these patterns to keep you safe, while also knowing you have the capacity to gently update these beliefs as you grow into new experiences of your worth.
Affirm that even if certain people can’t appreciate your worth, it doesn’t mean you are fundamentally unworthy. You have inherent worth and values, even if you haven’t found your “kin” who reflect that back yet.
Build your capacity to tolerate the discomfort of growing beyond your old identity and beliefs about your limits. You can belong and be wanted as you are.
Reach out for support through journaling, sharing with safe people, tapping, or other modalities to release the charge of self-negating beliefs and strengthen new neural pathways.
Have hope that transformation is possible, even if self-deprecation has been a long-standing pattern. Your brain wants to heal, and by taking small, courageous steps, you make space for positive shifts to occur. You deserve to live from your true worth.
Remember, shifting out of self-deprecation is a gradual process of developing new skills and perspectives. Be patient and kind with yourself as you would a dear friend. With practice, you can unlock the hidden strengths and energy that emerge when you’re not constantly putting yourself down. You’ve got this!
[00:00:00] Stop putting yourself down, unlocking your hidden strengths.
[00:00:05] I’m Rick from Thriving Now, this is a real skills workshop for being calm and confident, and I’m here with Cathy Vartuli from Thriving Now and the Intimacy Dojo, and we so appreciate Members of our community that asked for this, who said, Hey, there’s this self deprecation thing I’m putting myself down and I’m done with it.
[00:00:25] I’m tired of it, but it’s a hard one to just like snap out of. You can’t just say, Hey, I would stop being nice to myself usually. Um, and so tonight we’re going to be exploring the chat is open. This is how we make it a workshop for those of you that are here. So, thank you for participating.
[00:00:46] Cathy, do you want to get us started with your notion about fish and water? Feels appropriate. Yeah, so I think, I mean, the fact that you’re here shows me, like, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think there was something to the self deprecation thing. Most people aren’t even aware they do it. Most people, it’s, you’re a fish in water.
[00:01:12] It’s always there. There’s constant noise in the background. It’s just how I live. I’m just going about my life. This is as good as it gets. Um, you know, whatever. And so I want to just honor you if you’re here, that you’re, you’re aware of your inner dialogue at some level, which is a really brilliant, like, cause a lot of, like, I would guess 95 percent of the population has no idea that it’s like, or they might be vaguely aware, but think nothing can, it’s just, it’s true.
[00:01:37] I used to believe my thoughts. I believed them when they said I was a loser and I screwed everything up and no one wanted to hang out with me and all the stuff that was going on. I believed them. I thought those thoughts had to be true. And it was a huge aha for me to go, Oh, wait, just because it’s loud in my head, or I noticed that my head doesn’t mean it’s true.
[00:01:59] So that was like a, wow, that was like a big aha. So if you’re here, like, Realize that a lot of this, what’s happening is it’s just noise, background noise. And one of the things I was really surprised as I started silencing the louder voices, the ones that were really, that I noticed there was quieter ones underneath.
[00:02:19] And there were some that were right at the level of consciousness. And there’s some that are probably subconscious. And I only noticed like I’ve gotten better at noticing, Oh, my mood just tank. What happened? Like no one is here. I’m sitting here doing my thing and all of a sudden my mood tanked and I can work backwards, but they’re so quiet that I didn’t actually hear it until I noticed the outcome.
[00:02:40] So if you’re here, please realize this is a difficult thing for people to address because it’s, we have neural pathways that formed when we were little and we’re going to talk about why we did this. And what the logic and the survival mechanism is in it. But our neural pathways for this are often so melanated that it moves at the speed of light.
[00:03:02] It’s like a bullet train going through our head. So there’s hard, it’s hard to catch it. It’s hard, you know, to stop it or to notice it. And we can rewire our brains. And then we’re going to go through some ways to help. Demelanate and to create different pathways for yourself, so it doesn’t, your brain doesn’t go in this loop.
[00:03:21] One of the things I’ve been reading a lot about about this process and the melanation, they believe that a lot of anxiety and depression comes because the, um, pathways get so melanated, they go to, they’re called canalized or they’re at the, they’re below subconscious. We don’t need they’re moving so fast.
[00:03:39] We can’t even see them. Um, or notice them. Um, But they pull our mood down or make us feel very unsafe. So they think that there’s belief that, um, by rewiring this, we can actually reduce feelings of anxiety. We can feel our mood can be elevated. Um, and so there’s a lot going on here. It’s very complex and we’re going to break it down for you so that, you know, it’s easier to digest and start making steps to really changing this.
[00:04:07] Because I think it can transform your life. It’s really made a difference for me as I’ve been taking steps forward. I’d love the people that are here live with us, um, to take a chance if you have a chance, if you, and take a chance, um, if you’d like to share, how do you put yourself down? What’s something that, some words that you say?
[00:04:29] Um, it could also be for someone else. So these are things that are just alive in your world, um, that maybe you hear somebody else constantly saying this or you, something that for you personally, this is how you put yourself down. And I encourage you to share if you’re willing to. Seeing other people’s helps us notice others of our, like we may have them too.
[00:04:55] That are a little more subconscious and we see someone else, Oh, I do that too. Or maybe I don’t do quite that, but it can be really inspiring and helpful if you’re willing to share. Um, and also putting them out on paper. That’s one of the techniques that uh, CBT, the behavioral therapy does is writing them out because right now they’re just spinning in our heads and writing them out somehow makes them more solid so we can grab them and look at them a little more objectively.
[00:05:21] Yeah. Thank you. Um, we use a technology, emotional technology called EFT tapping. If you’re new to tapping thriving now. com slash tapping, you can get a free guide and a course to help you get familiar with it. We’re not going to be teaching it in this workshop, um, but it’s. It’s astounding because as Cathy says, there’s a lot that operates below even our subconscious.
[00:05:45] There are things, but it impacts our energy field. The things that happen within us impact our energy field and we can notice it downstream. And one of the things that tapping can do is open up, um, the possibility to look at something, the possibility to consider it being a bit different. And before we get in, I thank you so much.
[00:06:09] I’m seeing some things come through and they’re really helpful. I’m going to use one of them as an example here. So, um, we all have a primitive brain. There are parts of our brain that, uh, sometimes you’ll hear referred to as your lizard brain or your monkey mind. There are parts of our brain that developed earlier on in human evolution, and they are really truly focused on our survival.
[00:06:41] And humans are not solitary animals for the most part. We are social animals. We are primates and mammals. We’re social. And so when we’re born, we have a, a prime directive that we have to fit in and be supported by those people that are those that can support us and help us survive. We cannot survive as infants without human engagement.
[00:07:20] And so a part of us is really open to, am I the prince? Or am I the toilet slave to be?
[00:07:35] Is my parents treat themselves like they are the gods of the family? Or am I, or. Are we, where do we fit as we walk through the world? That status brain is making so many decisions before you know your first word. You’re getting aware of where you fit in a hierarchy, because that is as primitive creature hierarchy.
[00:08:10] Um, they, They say that the hierarchy status parts of our brain fire before we even know who we’ve, who we’re meeting. And it’s made decisions. Accurate? Total horseshit. about where our status is relative to that person. A lot of it can be based upon their vibe that they’re giving off or how they’re dressed or how they walk or the scenario.
[00:08:37] You take somebody and you dress them up in a funny costume and you put them on a golden throne and you everybody else is bowing down. Our primitive brain goes, Oh, Yeah, I get it. I’m bowing down too. Why am I repeating something that we kind of already know? Because the energetic concept of putting ourselves down is a status move.
[00:09:02] It is, this is my theory, it’s what I teach from. When I put myself down, it is to try to maintain a place in status that allows me to survive. In this situation, it feels safer. So if you were raised in an environment where respect your elders really meant do what you’re told and don’t give them any lip.
[00:09:35] The part of you which is actually smart, savvy, and, and other things who might have other preferences and that what they’re telling you to do is not what you want to do with your life has learned certain ways, putting yourself down. to shut down that part of you. And a lot of what you see in quote well behaved children who never talk back to their parents is they’ve internalized a way of putting their energy down.
[00:10:08] Now some of us, it’s really obvious, like someone said, I’m so stupid. Thank you. Knowing you well enough, I think that’s a really ridiculous thing.
[00:10:28] And I excuse me. I appreciate your laughter there. Um, I’m going to mute everyone. And Cathy, you should be able to unmute. I forgot to do that. You know what else? I forgot. Are we recording? Yes, we are. They moved it. Thank you. A lot of juice there. I hate for it to be last. So, but I’m not going to argue with this wonderful person.
[00:10:53] Because that’s a put down. I’m so stupid. And what does it do? So if you’re smarter than the average bear, guess what? Bears have claws. Bears have teeth. Bears are big. So if you’re smarter than the average bear, you might have learned, well, as long as I knock my smarts down a little bit, or maybe a lot, they won’t feel like I’m above them and feel like they need to knock me down.
[00:11:32] Smarter than the average bear. What do they do? Well, they try to knock us down. Now this is primitive brain behavior in action. This is not about thriving. And that’s why we’re, we’re looking at this as a real skill because for thriving, we need to acknowledge, Hey, I’ve got a primitive brain. It’s going to have these reactions.
[00:11:53] I may see some, some person think, wow, that really way too big for their britches, using an old expression. Um, wow, what an arrogant jerk. What am I doing? I’m putting them down because part of me may want to feel superior, to feel safer, to feel like, oh, it’s okay for me to exclude them. They’re not one of me or us.
[00:12:17] This is the status game. It plays out. It was life changing for me to see how. I got sucked into status game and how I was putting myself down. There’s no planet on which I am stupid. And yeah, there’s no, that’s a great mantra. Like, oh, that it’s, I didn’t use it as an identity. Cause that, that wouldn’t work, but being like doing something stupid, like, oh, that was so stupid.
[00:12:48] Oh, I said that. And that was so stupid. What am I doing? I’m putting myself down around something. And, you know, if, if, we all know, the most criticized people on the planet are the most visible, and the ones with a lot of status. Right? I take great delight in criticizing the King of England. I don’t know the dude.
[00:13:14] I’m happy to say, what a ridiculous human. Sorry. In my primitive brain, that’s the truth. In my thriving brain, it’s like, I don’t really care about this. It’s not pertinent to me. I’m not playing that status game. Um, yes, what matters to me is the healthy use of resources. And, uh, certainly if I had that kind of money, I wouldn’t have spent it on a coronation.
[00:13:40] Um, you’ll notice I came back and went to the side. And this is, this is part of the skill set, is to notice when you get sucked in, pulled in, to either playing the status game, but particularly where it put, you put yourself down, and you say, ah, yeah, my primitive brain wants me to be safe. I like to be safe, but is it overreacting here?
[00:14:06] Is this really necessary? Is there a way for me to tune myself to, um, what is useful and savvy? Savvy? Without putting myself down. So can I explain, I’d like to just, what you say about the status, I absolutely agree with. And I think that for some of us, we didn’t recognize it that way, because we weren’t, the status scheme was so embedded, like it’s part of our survival brain.
[00:14:37] But when we were little, and maybe we talked a lot, we loved to talk. And mom and dad were just overwhelmed. And they were like, Oh my God, you talk too much! That was very, like, for small children, knowing your parents, the caregivers, the people that are solely responsible for our food well being, that if they stop taking care of us, our brains, our survival brains, fully aware that if they get that pissed at us, we might be in trouble, we might die, or hyenas might get us, there’s like, something in there, so we internalize the voice.
[00:15:06] And we might say, I always talk too much. We silence ourselves before our parents can. Now that’s very useful for living in the home. At times it can be useful, but we bring that we also tend to bring in not just the words and the meaning, but all the tone and all the like, Oh, I’m at my wit’s end. I want this kid to be quiet.
[00:15:29] And so we’re constantly beating ourselves up with that. And while it serves us when we’re little and probably have less control, our prefrontal cortex is still forming. We haven’t learned to regulate ourselves in social situations. We’re, that can still be there when we’re 50 or 60 or 80, even if we’re being quiet.
[00:15:47] Most of the time we’re hearing, Oh my God, you talk too much. So there is an internalization. It’s a survival mechanism. It’s smart as hell, but we internalize some of the things we’re hearing around us. Or things that we experience. So if we experience being very unsafe, we may say, you know, we may internalize it without someone else actually saying that because we’ve experienced it.
[00:16:09] We’ve had the felt sense of it. So I just wanted to kind of shine at it from a different perspective on how often we internalize these things. And it is about status. Our parents have absolute power over us. When we’re very little, you know, society says they regulate these things, but our little survival brain knows that if they’re not taking care of us, we’re hyena food.
[00:16:29] So, um, we are internalizing a lot of this and we’re carrying it around well past its expiration date, if that makes sense.
[00:16:41] Oh, you’re muted, Rick. I can’t hear you. Thank you. No one wrote. Not worth a darn. Why bother? Just fail anyway. What’s the use of being here? No one listens anyway. Um, I’m not the only one who read what you wrote and feel the tenderness. Um,
[00:17:03] I’m listening. And in our community, I recognize that it is an, a vulnerable act that takes some resilience and skill to post anything in
[00:17:24] a chat.
[00:17:29] I also know. That there are communities that if Cathy and I started talking about this, we’d clear the room.
[00:17:42] You’re here. There are people on the planet that want to explore this together, who want to be around each other as we do it, who recognize, you know, I have had the thought, no one wants me around anyway,
[00:18:07] certainly over a thousand times in my life. I’ve had it a thousand times last week. Love you. When I keep sending you places to buy or rent in Asheville, right? Like this is what put downs can do. I know no one wants me around anyway. Our invitation today is to say, well, what if that’s to keep me safe from what?
[00:18:34] Safe is a very general thing. It’s hard to be around people that don’t vibe with us. It is really hard on our primitive brain. My heart can know like, Hey, there are people that vibe with me and there are people that think I’m an idiot.
[00:18:58] Now, a part of me knows that that is a, a normal thing. Well, when I’m putting myself down, it can be, I just don’t feel that resilient right now. Maybe I need to, if I think no one wants me around, is that actually true?
[00:19:24] Rick just countered that. I don’t want to make a big deal about it, but every person that’s here is shifting and changing what comes out in this workshop. Cathy and I know, know that.
[00:19:40] The concepts of deserving and other things, if, if, if we put ourselves down, then we are not confronted with a reality. Where
[00:19:56] some people are going to be into us, and some people won’t. In fact, most people won’t be into us, and some people will, is the way that I frame it for myself. Um, even the, the humans that love me the most don’t want me around all the time. And, and if I’m feeling kind of grumpy and like, well, no one wants me around anyway, I’m not going to Put myself out there and say, Hey, could you tell me something that you don’t despise about me?
[00:20:31] Which is. You know, a step up from I just hate myself, but it does take a level of vulnerability to be able to do that. And that’s part of, go ahead. Yeah, I think it’s also somewhat self fulfilling. So if I have a lot of shame and like think constantly thinking no one wants me around, I’m so awkward, constantly beating myself up.
[00:20:54] I am giving off pheromones and behaving in a way that kind of conveys my shame to other people. And I don’t know if you’ve been around someone where it’s very shame filled. It’s awkward to be around them. It feels a little uncomfortable. We pick up, there’s something going on. Our survival brain isn’t sure exactly what’s going on.
[00:21:10] We just know this person is trying to hide something because when we have a lot of shame and feel awkward or whatever, we’re usually trying to hide it. And other people can pick up there’s something secretive going on and we want to stay away from that person. So I also want to speak to someone said could we talk a little bit about how looks status is related to looks and how people look and expensive clothes or look younger and our society really is focused on that very heavily.
[00:21:36] We are Looking for the thing that will have status in a given situation. And in our society, that’s often looks, money, uh, yet youthfulness. If we lived in a primitive culture where there wasn’t a lot of resources, and there was someone who was a really good hunter, and another person was really good gatherer, they would have high status, no matter what they looked like.
[00:21:56] We would all be like, oh, you feed us, you are wonderful. We don’t live in that kind of society. And media is constantly trying to sell us things. So they’ve found out that they figured out that if they can make us feel inadequate about our looks, um, or the way we dress or anything, we will spend whatever because we want to feel adequate.
[00:22:16] We want to feel good enough to deserve love, to deserve support. Our survival brain is like, Oh my God, I don’t look like that. And so they, they use that. So the most people in those magazines like Cosmo or whatever, they don’t look like that. They’ve been airbrushed to death. Um, to look like, so these are supermodels that don’t even look like that.
[00:22:39] They set us impossible standards and our brain is like, holy fuck, I don’t fit in. I’m not good enough. Let me, but here’s thousands of dollars. Please do cosmetic surgery or give me the cream or the clothes or whatever it is that will help me climb up that ladder. They’re very intentionally triggering our survival brain, our status brain, and.
[00:23:00] One of the things that I’m realizing more and more is that the people that I care about the most, I don’t care what they look like if I really love them. It’s like, you know, even a deer is like worst day when she’s like screaming and, you know, like, like, Oh, she’s so cute because I love her so much. And I’ve seen her worth our value.
[00:23:22] Um, our survival brain like seems very simple insider, outsider, above me, below me. Um, and so it’s just because we constantly see media. They estimate there are 300, 000 exposures to people being larger, being a negative thing in society, just around weight. We’re basically brainwashed into agreeing with this and to looking just at looks.
[00:23:48] Versus it’s not like, you know, someone could be perfectly good looking, beautiful and be a total snot or be not as smart as I would like to hang out with or not as thoughtful or, you know, like could be, you know, kicking kittens. I don’t know what it is, but we’re not looking at the whole picture. Our brain, as Rick said, it’s trying to make a decision very quickly.
[00:24:08] And it’s like, oh, pretty valuable. Oh, maybe I can ignore them. Um, so that we’re fighting that cultural thing going on. And it’s a fake cultural thing. Our society has created it to try to market to us. And that helps me to remember, I don’t want to help big business. I don’t want to help cosmetic companies.
[00:24:27] So I’m going to try to like fight that a little bit more. If that helps at all. Um, I get very passionate about that because I think we’re so caught up that in their culture. Um, and it really limits our thriving, our ability to enjoy life.
[00:24:43] It feels like a good place to pause and do a little tapping.
[00:24:50] But the idea around tapping on a put down, um,
[00:24:59] first tune into like, if you have a specific one, like, even though I’m stupid, even though I’m ugly, even though I don’t deserve, Don’t matter, I really appreciate the people sharing these are very vulnerable. So thank you for being willing to share them. You check in. How true do they feel?
[00:25:28] I’m ugly. How true does it feel? If it’s a 10, we start off with, even though I’m convinced and tapping, we, we craft a statement and. We say, even though I’m convinced I’m ugly,
[00:25:53] we invite a possibility. And the possibility that we have right now is kind of an entry places. And I’m open to considering that I’m convinced of that because it keeps me safe in some way. If we think we’re too old. Navigate in the past. Yeah, it also helps us say no to things that we feel pressured to by society.
[00:26:19] If I don’t really want to do something, I can say I’m too old or too fat or not in good enough shape or not perfect and I’ll do it some other time and I may never consider that I’m also saying no to things that really matter to me. I’m using that as a stop sign for everything. So it may help me say no to the things I don’t want to do but it’s also rather than just saying I don’t want to do that, it’s, it’s blocking me from a lot of things.
[00:26:47] Even though I’m convinced, even though I’m convinced that this putdown is true, this putdown is true, and I have so much evidence. I have so much evidence. It’s been my mantra for so long. It has been my mantra for so long. I’m convinced of it. I’m convinced of it, and nobody’s going to talk me out of it.
[00:27:09] You cannot talk me out of it.
[00:27:14] I acknowledge that it might be keeping me safe. I acknowledge that it might be keeping me safe. In its own way. In its own way. Top of the head. But I am stupid. But I am stupid. Eyebrow. I am ugly. I am ugly. Eye to the eye. I’m definitely too old. I’m definitely too old. Eye to the eye. I’m not worth it. I’m not worth it.
[00:27:38] Out of the nose. I’m a failure. I’m a failure. Oh, thank goodness someone finally understands me. Thank goodness someone finally understands me. Although, I’m really good at putting myself down. I’m really good at putting myself down. You are. I’m starting to get an inkling. I’m starting to get an inkling.
[00:28:07] That it may be keeping me safe in some way. And it may be keeping me safe in some way.
[00:28:18] I think that part of it is saying it out loud and accepting that it’s there for a reason. So much of the time we’re trying to hide from other people these, this, usually whatever we’re self deprecating about. We want to hide from other people. We want to pretend is not true. And so we’re kind of like, we’re kind of fighting it all the time and trying to prove to other people.
[00:28:38] I am loved. I am like, and it comes off awkward because we’re trying to prove something and they’re like, I never doubted you. Like, I didn’t think you were stupid to begin with. So why are you like really emphasizing how smart you are? Um, just saying out loud and owning that this is a thought we have in our head.
[00:28:55] Can really take it. Just. It gives us something to hold on to, versus it just spinning around in our heads. Would you do a tapping on, even though I have this thought in my head, that it spins round and round? Yeah. Karate chop. Even though I have this thought in my head. Even though I have this thought in my head.
[00:29:15] And it’s been there forever. It’s been there forever. So it must be true. It must be true. It just spins around and around. It spins around and around. And I give it so much importance. And I give it so much importance. I wonder if I could interact in a different way. I’m so ready to interact in a different way.
[00:29:39] That thought just spins around so much. Thought just spins around so much. I know it takes a lot of energy. It takes so much energy. Trying to hide it from everyone else. Trying to hide it from everyone else. And yeah, what if I just acknowledge I have a thought running around my head?
[00:30:04] I acknowledge I do have a thought running in, around in my head. I’m just a nose. I think other people’s thoughts could be untrue. Other people’s thoughts could be untrue, too. I get that they’re not stupid or ugly or worthless. I get that they’re not stupid or ugly or worthless. Collarbone, but I am. Oh, but I am.
[00:30:30] And yeah, this is absolutely true. This is absolutely true. Top of the head. And I’m going to hold on to this for a long time. I am going to hold on to this for a very long time. And just take a breath. And just notice how you feel when you think about holding on to that. Because for many, like, it becomes our identity in so, in some ways, because it’s spun so much and we believed it.
[00:30:54] It’s like, oh, I, who would I be if I let go of this? Like, Oh no, I can’t let this go. It’s my only friend. Cause no one else likes me. Um, I think there’s something when we hold onto these things, they can be, um, really impactful and they’re sneaky too. So we’re talking about one of the things we’ve talked about so far is how we’re talking about thoughts that are very clear.
[00:31:18] Like I am ugly. I am, I’m not worthy. No one wants me. One of the other ways we can do it. I don’t know about how many of you do this. I think a lot of sensitive. Traumatized smart people, like we’ve had whatever we’ve had experiences in our lives. We’re, we’re clever and we figure out other ways to do this so that, you know, we get bored with just like, oh, you’re stupid or you’re not good enough.
[00:31:40] So we spin into the future and anxiety or in the back backwards in like, Putting down or what the things we’ve done in the past. So one of the things I’ve noticed my brain does a lot, especially when I’m stressed, it will jump to the future and imagine the worst outcome that could happen at something that I’m looking forward to or something that’s happening soon.
[00:32:02] Like, Oh, I’m going to get there. For example, I have dinner with a friend tonight. We’re going to, he’s going to pick me up and we’re going for dinner after this call. And if my brain was really nervous, even though he’s very trustworthy, it might be, what if he leaves me there? What if, um, you know, I need to make sure my phone is charged and I have my wallet and like, how do I get back?
[00:32:22] And like, it will go down these, these alleyways, which really is telling my brain, my body, my system, every time I’m unsafe, I can’t trust it. The people around me, even though the person I’m going with is very safe. What if someone breaks into the restaurant and holds everybody at gunpoint? Okay. These are not probable things, but my brain can go down all the rabbit holes to like, what if aliens abduct us tonight while we’re on the way to the restaurant?
[00:32:47] So smart people have lots of those thoughts. And if you’ve had experienced trauma, you’ve learned that the improbable things can happen and have devastating consequences. You’ve learned that the thing that most people don’t talk about, that doesn’t seem like, you know, most people don’t seem to experience this, that can happen to me, and it can feel incredibly awful.
[00:33:12] So, our brain wants to plan, but the, I think there’s nothing wrong with like, looking at common outcomes and figuring out, you know, going through it once and making sure we have a good plan. But when it starts being rumination, like where it’s just churning on itself, that’s just draining our energy and convincing ourselves that we’re not safe.
[00:33:33] And that’s talking like, maybe it might be stemming from, I’m not capable, I don’t know how to deal with things, I’m easily overwhelmed. And some of that comes from when we’re really little. So, small people that experience big traumas, they learn that feelings are overwhelming, and they can’t handle them well.
[00:33:51] So, we can sometimes be self deprecating, or you have the inner internal ridicule, maybe disguised as worries about the future, or chewing on, why did I say that? Why didn’t I say it this way? Why didn’t I do this? You know, kind of, again, it’s not just looking at it and going, oh wow, I could have said that so much better.
[00:34:11] I’m gonna just apologize to the person and maybe I can, you know, learn some new skills and then I’m gonna put it away and be done. It’s the chewing, the constant spinning. It’s like, I’m not good enough. I have to be perfect. I did that wrong. There’s gonna be consequences. So we learned that when we were little, probably that we we’re not safe in the world and we have to be prepared for everything and we have to get it correct.
[00:34:36] So I just wanted to point out those are ways we can put ourselves down because I didn’t even notice that was part of that until I like kind of dug a little bit deeper. I’m like, why am I still chewing on this? Oh, because I feel unsafe. I feel like I can’t handle things. So I have to be super prepared.
[00:34:53] Yeah. Um, I see other people. Benefited from your sharing there. There’s a,
[00:35:04] there’s a quality of, um,
[00:35:12] what you described when I feel in what’s the emotional state. It’s sort of the state of readiness. There’s a quality of readiness that if I picture myself as one of the troops or a surf, um, someone of low status, you’re kind of aware that there’s a Terrible things could happen or things can be commanded at any time, and there’s a quality of confidence, what I’ve called often calm confidence, that feels that it’s actually energetically, it’s a different vibration.
[00:35:55] It’s the vibration of the person that is not as exposed, not as, um, no status, right? Like people with Yeah, in the status game, those with low status. are, um, need to be able to be commanded or have to be able to move out of the way of threats, which are more common. And as you said, this is often a trauma thing, not an actual status thing.
[00:36:30] You see this in people that are, Born in privilege and also had a lot of trauma that they will maintain this kind of vibration of not called confidence and my theory, because I’ve seen as they release the trauma, they can walk more from one place to the next. They can go places with a reduced. Level. Um, the ruminations aren’t quite as sharp.
[00:36:57] It only needs to keep me like on my toes, so to speak. Um, in an unsafe world where calm and confidence can be like, look, I’m resilient. If something happens, I can respond to it. I have the resource to be able to do it. And that’s, that’s part of the skillset is to recognize, Oh, this actually puts my energy down and you know what?
[00:37:24] In my world right now, being calm and confident is actually safer. It’s not that I’m oblivious. I’m not walking around with my head in the clouds, pretending that everything is always going to be fine. And I, someone said, hearing about perceived hierarchy is triggering. Um, I, I hear you. And if you need to take care of yourself, please feel free to, to opt out, um, at any time.
[00:37:54] But that’s, To me, the energetic of, of Putdown is for us to fit in, to be ready to reduce threat, to be ready to respond to threat around, um, the energetics of survival. And the energetics of survival, of thriving are different. And that’s why we’re moving We’re wanting to move more of our energy in from, from being invested in surviving, um, into one of, Hey, um, if I don’t put myself down, what energy does that unlock in me?
[00:38:37] What energies, what potentials, what capacities am I not using in this? Because it, if you’re a smart person and you’re using the, I’m stupid, um, It works. That put down puts us more in our primitive brain, which is like going from being a savvy individual to being a small dog in intelligence. Um, and we can usually bounce back, um, from that, but it uses a lot of energy.
[00:39:17] It reduces our capacity to be in our thriving. I really love someone shared. I mean, I think it’s brilliant. The self put downs also manifest is they think that I’m dot, dot, dot. I figured out that the direct put down is not fashionable. So I noticed looks or attitudes from others and make it about me. I’m a genius, good grief.
[00:39:38] And I absolutely think that we’re. If you’re on this call, you’re probably pretty smart because Rick and I don’t attract people that aren’t pretty smart. Um, but we do like we, we project onto other people, you know, and they can just be walking around going, Oh, I forgot to take out the trash. My wife’s going to be so mad at me.
[00:39:56] Oh my God. And they, we see a look on their face and we decide it’s about us. And so we project that story onto them and use it as a mirror to put ourselves down. So that is another way people can, it’s, we assign it to other people, but they’re often not thinking, they may not even be thinking about us, but we take it as a way to beat ourselves up.
[00:40:16] So I thought that was, thank you for sharing. That was great. Um, and one of the things where I think the hierarchy can be, the status hierarchy can be triggering because a lot of us. It’s especially if we’ve had trauma, trauma from other people is often about someone getting power over us and us feeling out of control.
[00:40:38] Status is often power. I want to be up the food chain versus can we all play together and notice all the benefits we’re bringing. Um, so it can be triggering for that. And I did, someone shared, I had a boss tell me that. You’re on disability. You don’t need work hours, which is bullshit. Sorry. Excuse my French.
[00:40:57] Um, people will sometimes do that because they feel really insecure. They may appear to be very aggressive on the outside, but they, they’re like, I’m putting this other person down so I can feel momentarily better. Um, when I was learning lifeguarding, that’s one of the things they taught us was that a drowning person will push the person rescuing them under.
[00:41:16] So they can breathe for a few seconds and then they both drowned. Um, versus if they were smart, just let someone like build them up. So sometimes when people are putting, you know, if someone tells me I’m too fat for something, I’m like, hi, it sounds like you feel a little insecure about yourself. What’s, you know, what are you, what judgment about yourself are you trying to avoid if you’re putting me down?
[00:41:38] Cause I didn’t go up and try to like make someone do something with me. And just like, they’re just. post on my YouTube channel that I’m too fat to date people and I’m like, huh, what does that say about you? Cause I didn’t ask you out. So like, you’re not in danger of me going after you or whatever. So that helps me sometimes cushion it when other people, cause there are people out in this, in our world that are not very kind, that are very judgmental.
[00:42:05] Um, And it, especially if we have a lot of the neural pathways of like putting ourselves down, it’s tender when someone like reinforces them. We’re already like, ouch. And if I can remember, oh, that’s probably about them, not about me. It helps. It’s like a hard hat. Like, oh, I don’t have to let that in. I can work on what’s in my own head and let them have what’s in theirs.
[00:42:29] Do some more tapping, Rick.
[00:42:36] And is your sense that, that put downs tend to work on us? Most strongly, if we’ve had some kind of external or collected external, um, evidence. I think if we believe if there’s internal beliefs, it doesn’t I don’t know that it has to have a lot of external experiences, but if there’s a tender spot or a belief of fear that I am not good enough, like, I guess I never had anyone really tell me I was stupid.
[00:43:08] But I fear that I’m stupid because I don’t always catch things as fast as I should. I’m shitting on myself. I decided that I should get things faster because my parents were sometimes very impatient with me. They were asking me to do things that were well above my age level, my experience level, and I didn’t get them right away.
[00:43:25] So I have a shame and a fear that I’m not smart, even though I haven’t had a lot of people telling me that. So if someone came up and said, Oh, you’re so stupid, I would be like, Ouch. I think. Because I don’t know if that, I mean, there was an experience of not being fast enough, so maybe there is that external experience that tenderized it to begin with, or created that belief.
[00:43:47] Going back to if you have a put down that you use, how, how would you like to be toward yourself? And, and
[00:44:03] this one can be a bit tricky to land on. Some people try to bypass, I would like to be loving and compassionate to myself in all ways every day. And, uh, you know, if that’s your quick journey, great. That might be perfectionism coming in too, because I don’t think anyone achieves that. And it might be setting yourself up to fail.
[00:44:28] Maybe aim for like, I’ve been trying to like, I want to reduce it to like, 5 percent and I found that I’ve had so much energy and I’ve been much more curious about trying new things because I’m not constantly telling myself I’m a bad person who’s going to fail and be embarrassed in front of everyone.
[00:44:46] Even though I’ve really put myself down. Even though I really put myself down.
[00:44:55] I’m in the process of changing that now. I’m in the process of changing that now. Even just a small increment could reveal hidden strength. Even just a small increment could reveal inner strength, hidden strength. And more energy. And more energy. Top of the head. I, I have put myself down. I have put myself down.
[00:45:21] Eyebrow. I’m aware I’ve put myself down. I am aware that I put myself down. Side of the eye. I accept that that became a pattern. I accept that that became a pattern. Under the eye. I accept that became a pattern. I accept that that became a pattern. Under the nose. And I get it’s got some roots. I get that it’s got some roots.
[00:45:44] Chin. In some ways it’s maybe even kept me safe. In some ways it may have kept me very safe. Although I might not have survived my childhood without this. I might not have survived my childhood without this. I’m looking at it fresh now. I’m looking at it fresh now. Is it really true? Is it really true? Is it really true?
[00:46:11] Is it really true?
[00:46:20] I, I, just to bridge off of that, because I thought that was beautiful, Rick. Um, we often have judgments of other people. That we think are true at a given moment. Like I was really brought up that, you know, because I’m a bigger person, I’m not like glamorous in any way. I really had decided that all pretty people, the traditional pretty people were like the cheerleaders in my high school that constantly picked on me and I didn’t want to deal with them.
[00:46:45] Like I judged them very harshly. And then when I started doing coaching. I wasn’t seeing this is back in the Stoney just here on the phone. We didn’t even have, you know, there was no zoom or video. And I got to know some people and felt very close to them. And then I would see a picture of them. I’m like, they’re one of those people.
[00:47:04] And it really broke down that like, Oh my God, we’re all like, you know, we’re not. I think we can put people in a status box that may be positive, but it still puts them in a box. It doesn’t let them be who they are. Um, so that broke down my judgment of other people. If we can be wrong about other people, could we not be wrong about ourselves as well?
[00:47:24] Um, do we really want to believe something a traumatized, scared child decided about us? and is carrying around like a, like a little teddy bear to hold, to like hold on to. We don’t want to take away the comfort of it, but we do want to like, allow some, just allowing a little bit of question in there. If you go from a 10 truth to a 9.
[00:47:46] 9 truth, for me it’s like there’s oxygen in there and it can start processing, it can breathe, and like, huh, I wonder if this is true. I wonder if this is a, I don’t know, An absolute truth, like the way I’ve been carrying it around. So I just invite you, can I just do a little tapping on that? So I invite you to take a nice deep breath, feel your butt in the chair, feel your feet on the floor.
[00:48:11] Cause this is, I know this is a lot. We’re processing some big, deep feelings. Karate chop, even though I believe this forever. Even though I believe this forever and it was absolutely true and it was absolutely true. I wonder if it’s absolutely true for me. Now,
[00:48:31] I wonder if it’s absolutely true for me now, even though I’ve invested a lot of time and energy in this belief, even though I’ve invested a lot of time and energy in this belief and I’m looking at it. Tone over with television and I’m looking at it with tunnel division and I wonder what else might be true here, too.
[00:48:52] I wonder what else might be true here. Top of the head. What if I’m a little bit smart and a little bit silly sometimes? What if I’m a little bit smart and a little bit silly sometimes? Eyebrow. What if I’m not perfect, but I really care? What if I’m not perfect, but I really do care? Side of the eye. What if I don’t look like a supermodel, but I have really kind hands?
[00:49:19] What if I don’t look like a supermodel, but I have really kind hands? End of the eye. There might be some branches to this neural path. There might be some branches to this neural path. End of the nose. Even though I believe this forever. Even though I believe this forever. And part of me doesn’t want to let it go.
[00:49:39] And part of me does not want to let it go. What if I could try on some different ideas? What if I could try out some different ideas? Under the arm just once in a while. And just once in a while. On top of that, explore what this idea means to me. Explore what this idea means to me. Just take a breath.
[00:50:02] Again, all we’re trying to do is get you from a 10 to a 9. 9. If you can start questioning it, then the melanation on the neural pathway, as soon as you start considering different things, the neural neurons have to do something a little different. They’re not just whizzing along enforcing that belief.
[00:50:18] They’re like, and one of the ways that just to throw this out. One way that I love to do that’s helped me a lot is just to pause the process because it’s like whizzing around. I’m ugly. I’m unsafe. I’m like, you know, it’s whizzing around. You screwed that up. You’re not perfect. No one wants to be. And so I’ve, I’ve used, and you’re welcome to use this word if you like, I love a safe word for myself, and I say aardvark, and I, that to me, I’m training myself to stop the thought pattern when I do that, and at first it was like it would stop it from a half a second because my brain was confused, aardvark what?
[00:50:53] Um, and then, Gradually, now I can pause it a little more, and the more stressed I am, the shorter the time it pauses it, but I’m still building up a neural pathway to stop the thought process from just spinning on itself. So you’re welcome to use Aardvark or whatever other word if that helps you, but it’s a way to just say, I need to pause this for just a second.
[00:51:14] I need to stop the neurons from just going, going nuts, if that, if that makes sense to people. Amen. This is a great place for us to take a seven minute break. We’ll be back at a half past and we’re going to go into taking this foot down and reframing it into a way that you can thrive, that honors what you value.
[00:51:43] And that sounds kind of airy fairy, but it’s actually very practical because that’s what Cathy and I like to do is practical ways of reframing. Finding new new pathways that we can we can rely on. So we’re going to pause the recording and we’ll be back.
[00:52:03] We’re back. Thank you. Um,
[00:52:09] so put downs.
[00:52:19] I needed to hear. I was walking in from the boat where I’d taken some a friend and her family out for a trip around the lake. I used to live, um, on a lake and, um, I do not know what I was going on about, but really putting myself down. And she turned around and she looked at me and said, you be nice to my friend.
[00:52:55] And if, if, if you can hear that from us, I I’m not, but she’s quite the powerful presence. Um, I’m not much on finger pointing and waving, but I really would love you to be nice to yourself. Um, I know. I hear, I’ve, I’ve witnessed over 20 years of doing this work, how worthless and unworthy someone can feel when I don’t, I don’t see them that way.
[00:53:24] That’s not how they exist in my world, um, and even in the interactions and yet it’s a thing. And that was the start for me of taking it to the next level. And the next level was to just to look at what do I say to myself? Is it, I’m worthless. Um, I’m not, I’m not worth it. Those are slightly different energies, you know?
[00:53:51] Um, I never do anything right. And I want to take you through the process that I use just briefly. I had a mantra, um, and it really put down my energy. It made, it diminished me. It, um, there’s a lot of subsidiary aspects, but it was, I have no friends.
[00:54:16] Now, if you were one of my friends at the time, you probably would have been like, what are you consulting me? Um, so why did I have this put down? I have no friends.
[00:54:30] Well, um, it kept me safe as an introvert because it meant that I could always just like pretend that I had no friends. And go off and do things by myself. Cause no one wanted to be around me when now decades later, I recognize, you know, I regenerate when I am by myself and I was not getting that time.
[00:54:58] And so I had new friends. It wasn’t good for me in the, like it would have been, and it is now much clearer that, um, my solitude. And my, my time in, in my own space is precious to me. It’s nourishing. It helps me flourish. Um, but that was a way to get it. It also, um, made me feel unsupported and. By being unsupported, the answer was, if you take your mantra and go, and that kept, keeps me from what?
[00:55:41] It kept me from looking at my marriage and what it was doing to me. I have no, if you have no friends, are you going to leave a marriage? No, you’re gonna feel isolated and alone. You’re gonna feel like I have to be here because at least I have family. I don’t have any friends. You can also, like, for you, I know that was where you were coming from.
[00:56:07] But first, like for me, I’d have been rejected by some people. And so me saying I have no friends, put me in the state where it wouldn’t hurt so much if someone rejected me. So it was like, I was pre rejecting myself. Just living in the constant state of that, that feeling rather than just like experiencing once or twice.
[00:56:27] But I, experiencing from the outside was so scary I was trying to pre reject myself. So I would feel it all the time but be prepared for that awful feeling or be protected from the suddenness of it. So sorry Rick, I just wanted to. No, this, this is, this is non trivial. This is not just tap tap tap and it shifts magically.
[00:56:49] Um,
[00:56:53] I don’t have any friends. When you hear the word friends, what does that mean to you? Well, to me, I had a definition of friend, which included a lot of things, which it was actually true. I, I, I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t have a Cathy in my life. I didn’t, I didn’t have a Carol. I didn’t have a number of other people that function in ways that, um, so in some ways, It was also a cry of my soul, but it had an effect of putting me down, put down my energy.
[00:57:35] And now the skill is when a mantra like that, if, if that comes up for me, like, Oh, I have no friends. It’s ludicrous. I’m grateful. Now I know how ludicrous it is, but it is a call to like, what, Oh, it’s time freshen some connections. It’s time for me to, to remember how important it is. And someone wrote, you know, I can’t handle this is one that comes up for me.
[00:58:03] Um, I would tap on, I can’t handle this, I can’t handle this, I can’t handle this, I can’t handle this. What’s the this? I can’t handle, but I can’t handle this, I can’t handle this. What specifically is the this that I can’t handle? And when I can’t handle it, I get what? Overwhelmed, depressed, what? Now notice that what we’re doing is we’re taking it into more specifics.
[00:58:31] The primitive brain is like, nobody, I have no friends. Notice how black and white that is. Nobody wants to be around me. If it’s black and white, you know that that lives and runs its races. in your primitive brain. I am what? Ugly, stupid. It’s part of the primitive core identity. It’s not your higher self identity.
[00:59:01] It’s not your divine identity. It’s not even logical necessarily. You could probably make the case for it and somebody else could make the case against it. You might even be able to do both. But if where it lands is very black and white, And that’s where you can say, I am ugly when I. What?
[00:59:28] I feel ugly when I tell myself I’m ugly. Oh, isn’t that interesting? I feel so ugly when I tell myself I’m ugly. I, one of the things that when you were talking about that comes up, I often would tell myself I was ugly or stupid or awkward or whatever. Um, I think sometimes if we’re, I use the analogy, if you were a kitten raised by ducks, like you did not fit into your family.
[00:59:58] And your ducks are constantly trying to get you to swim and you’re just like, I don’t like the water. I want to climb the tree. And the ducks are like, no, no, no. You feel like no one sees you. No one understands you, um, that they’re not interested in you. Like you grow up in that. You’re just, but you’re in the wrong crowd.
[01:00:16] Like we don’t choose who, what family we’re born into, but maybe I was uninteresting to them, but I could be really interesting to some other cats if I was just like, but we keep ourselves small and hidden because we feel like no one gets us or we’re just, we’re too something or other. So I think it’s taking the timestamp of this belief is really important too.
[01:00:39] When did I learn this? When did I decide this? Oh, when I was really little. Okay. When I was three, it was too much for me. I couldn’t like go to the local library by myself and try to meet other people, but things have changed a lot since then. I might be able to handle it now. So I just invite you to like, realize we’re not like Rick said earlier, we’re not all interesting to everyone.
[01:01:06] I might be worthless in solving a certain problem at work because it’s not my specialty. I can listen. I maybe offer an idea or two, but I feel worthless. I feel like I’m not contributing in a way that I would love to. But in another situation, I might be the one, the hero, superhero that comes in. And I guess I noticed that because I watched naked and afraid.
[01:01:25] It’s one of my favorite shows. And this one guy was in this group and he was trying to be the superhero for everything. And he was just playing. Pissing everyone off and he wasn’t giving anyone else a place to shine. He was kind of bossing them around and it’s like, Oh, he feels like he has to be perfect and he’s trying to earn his way up the hierarchy when, if he just relaxed and like interacted with people normally, they would have been much more happy with them and he would have fit in better.
[01:01:51] Um, so I just invite you to like, remember, like maybe you are a duck raised by, you know, a kitten raised by ducks. It’s like, and you probably learned some of these things because. you know, you’re trying to adapt and your system is like, this doesn’t work.
[01:02:12] So
[01:02:18] when we put ourselves down and we acknowledge, Hey, I’m really de boosting my, I’m, I’m dropping my energy. I’m literally giving myself a downer. Right. So someone said about being too much, like, even though they were convinced I was too much and I was for them, It was too much for them. That was really too much for them.
[01:02:47] Yeah. But that’s on them, not them, not on me. And I’m savvy enough to tell. And I’m savvy enough to tell. And I can, I can rebalance my energy. I can rebalance my energy. Without putting myself down. Without putting myself down. What if I don’t have to pop a downer? What if I don’t have to pop a downer? In order to retune my energy.
[01:03:15] In order to retune my energy.
[01:03:21] And notice that reframes being too much into, yeah, I have, I have energy, and it is too much for some people. And if If, um, in a certain context, there’s not enough space, there’s not enough room. There’s my energy is, it’s just not a great fit. It’s okay. I’ve danced in places where if I danced the way in that moment, I wanted to, it would have been too much.
[01:03:51] The difference of being a downer rather than, oh, I’m perceiving. The space can’t handle the fullness of me right now, and that’s okay, I can manage that. I’m not three. You can regulate yourself and meet reality. I’m craving the wild and free spaces. of my dreams and uh, it’s okay to be here right now where I am and not have to put myself down and not have to put myself down and that that we’re we’re moving more of our energy to a place of um
[01:04:41] resiliency where this movement is not and it’s more like a sweet, sweeter wave action. And Cathy said, like, sometimes we’re invited to step into a role or step into our power. Those are strengths maybe that we’re very aware of. Like they, they fit our gifts. We’d notice that they get used at times, but what if they’re not being used?
[01:05:07] What if that question that we asked, that Didn’t land instead of like, oh, that was a stupid question downer. Right? Like, oh, okay. I offered, I offered that question. I wonder how that’ll change the energy here. I wonder what that activates in other people. You are then moving into co creating these wave spaces.
[01:05:40] As soon as we start downing ourselves, we’re saying, This is a survival space. I think media, because it’s very black and white, they need to to make people engage. Like, we ask the question, everyone pauses and like turns to us and like in a sitcom like, Oh my God, you solved everything. Like our brain is looking for that feedback versus Maybe no one even says anything, but it triggers a thought or question.
[01:06:09] Like, I think we’re looking for those really black and white signals. Cause that’s what we see in media. A lot of the times it kind of trains our survival brain to like, this is what we’re looking for and we’re not getting it. We’ve done workshops about co creating and co creating is a different kind of engagement.
[01:06:28] It is not competing for the number one spot. It is not competing for power over others. It’s using our power with each other that is co creating. It is power with, and if I’m not feeling particularly like it’s time for me to add my bit, Oh, I should have something to say here, or I’m just not tracking what’s going on here, um, What if that’s my time?
[01:06:59] If I don’t put myself down, say, Oh, I’m noticing great words. Cathy introduced. I’m noticing Cathy introduced me. I’m noticing. I’m not really tracking what’s going on here. Okay. I’m kind of noticing the vibe is like, uh, so I’m going to just settle
[01:07:23] and bring up my strength in a generic way. Just like, Oh,
[01:07:34] go ahead. Oh, I didn’t, do you want to, do you have more of your thought? I don’t want to step on you. Okay. So, there are two things I wanted to say. Um, someone said, Is it possible to address that the thought or the experience of I’m not even on the hierarchy. There’s no hope for safety bottom of the heap because of this and that belonging.
[01:07:57] I don’t know your personal experiences, but I think it is a protective mechanism. I know that I was sexually abused as a child, sometimes feeling like I had no worth. That it made it easier to, these people are doing something to whatever’s worth, this worthless thing. It wasn’t, if I had value, it would have cracked me.
[01:08:18] I think it would have been much more painful to realize that people are forcing themselves on, you know, like there was not, I think it was a protective thing to pretend to put myself in a space where I thought I was worthless. I was worth nothing. So then when this bad thing happened, it was happening to someone that was not worth anything.
[01:08:38] It didn’t have as much value or as much impact. I was able to survive it better. Um, and I don’t know if that’s an experience that other people have been through or, you know, sometimes we adopt something like that because either we’re treated that way or it’s a survival mechanism to Diminish our values so we can maybe we don’t have a choice and we’re receiving some really bad treatment Um, and the person’s how did how do you change that thinking very gently?
[01:09:09] Working through old traumas like work go to some ricks helped me so much. I used to be on all the circle calls and I would be tapping away with everyone, um, tapping on it’s safe to have value now. Like acknowledging that younger self that did not have value because she was so smart. She figured out a way to not have value so she could survive something and now she can allow it.
[01:09:33] Like there’s gentle steps. A lot of this is like gentle steps forward. Um, and I also wanted to emphasize, like we’re talking about changing these patterns and I think sometimes I will do this and I imagine other people could too. I’m like, Oh, I’ll get to it. It’s not so important. And yet I’ve, the more I’ve read about this, not only are we reinforcing neural pathways when we let ourselves just spin on these things, there’s actually, we’re releasing cortisol, releasing hormones in our bodies that are actually very taxing to ourselves.
[01:10:05] And when we get tense, our muscles are actually burning energy. We’re actually running. We’re like taking the energy that we could put towards loving someone else or caring for ourselves or like healing cells. And we’re spending it on these, these old patterns and it’s actually sucking the life out of us.
[01:10:25] That doesn’t mean you’re bad or wrong when these happen, but I think that helped me take it seriously, that I wanted to make a difference, and it wasn’t like, oh, I’ll get to it later. It was like, oh, the sooner I take, start changing this pattern, I don’t have to be perfect, but the sooner I start lowering the stress level that my brain is generating in an attempt to survive.
[01:10:47] The more I can, my body will heal the better. I’ll feel the more energy. I’ll have to look at other things to connect with Adira who wanted to play doctor for 12, you know, 12 hours while I was there. Like I had the energy to play with her because I wasn’t stuck in my head so much about it, you know, she could give me a shot and I could pretend it hurt and like you have this whole game we played but.
[01:11:07] I’d just like to invite you to like, not to beat yourself up, but this has a real impact, not only on your relationships with other people, but your health and how much energy you have to take care of yourself. So it’s literally taking energy, physical, emotional, mental energy from you when this is spinning.
[01:11:26] So that, that gave me some power when I say Aardvark, I mean it. So I just wanted to like offer that to you, not as a way to scare you, but as a, no, I mean this. I am going to change this pattern and even just a slight change gives your body a lot more resiliency. Um, so, okay, yeah, I, so I hopefully answered the question about how do you change the thinking about the feeling worthless.
[01:11:53] Gentle progress. I find also telling someone that these thoughts, either writing them down and journaling them rather than letting them spin or telling someone. I’m noticing I’m having a bad head, a bad head day. There’s a lot of spinning going on. Would you be open to hearing some of the thoughts just so I can get them out of my head?
[01:12:11] Or could you tell me, like, I’m really worrying that you think this about me if you’re projecting onto other people. Could you tell me if it’s true? And I want you to tell me the truth. Like, am I, you know, am I talking too much right now? Could, you know, I’m worrying myself that I’m talking too much. Could you let me know?
[01:12:28] Um, and then taking reality as it is, maybe the person says yes. And we can deal with it.
[01:12:44] Part of me, so praise and wishes and works to make this easier. And I know that a human being walking around. that has the thought, even once a day, much less hundreds of times a day, and I still can’t do anything right. There’s a quality of recognition of an inner suffering, that a part of us is a human.
[01:13:11] It’s a very human part. Um, you can’t have it surgically removed. We don’t survive without our primitive brain.
[01:13:22] And from, from my distance, both in my own healing journey and, and having the experience, I hear the primitive brain in it. I can’t, I still can’t do anything, anything. Any blanket statement. It’s such a blanket statement, and it’s perfect. It’s a statement of perfect wrongness. So if you’re, if you feel like you want to be perfect, that is a, that is the, that is That is the perfect statement of perfect wrongness.
[01:13:54] I can’t do anything right. But if your phone crapped out and you got back on the rejoin, a group of people from around the world, a community, I call it, I call, I call us the freedom kin. And, you know, we want to be free of that kind of signaling that we can’t necessarily avoid, but maybe we can, Aardvark, no, wait a minute.
[01:14:21] One plus one equals two. Hey, I just did that right. Check. A plus. Why would I do something silly to interrupt the pattern? Because that pattern isn’t the truth. It’s just an impactful, it is not just, it is an extremely impactful pattern that is, is kind of, I don’t know, I think we’re still exploring using this technology and group and sharing and, acknowledgement and tears and prayer and meditation and all these things to try to create enough of a pattern interrupt where it’s like, Oh, yeah, anything, right?
[01:15:02] I can’t do anything right, including doing every, you know, doing everything wrong. I can’t even do that. Right. Oh, wait a minute. That’s sort of a circle, isn’t it? Yeah. Uh huh. And I’m, I’m choosing to aardvark my way right now. I’m gonna draw an aardvark. Oh, what a weird looking aardvark. Um, and, and I did it and it’s right for me.
[01:15:25] Oh. And I don’t have any value. Well, I have values. I may not have any value. Joe, Bob, Mary, and, and Federico. I may not. They may not give a flying fuck about me. But you know, I have values. And if I value honesty and transparency, um, where it feels right to me, um, I’m not alone in, in having those values. And I, I choose to value those values, and that’s a good starting point.
[01:16:01] Um, that’s the grounding point for me. Go ahead. I noticed the person that shared that had also shared a number of very vulnerable, thoughtful things that touched me and made a difference in my life, and I imagine for some other people reading too. So like, just that, I can’t do anything right. Well, no. You don’t.
[01:16:18] That person shared some brilliant things in this in the chat and added to the value of this call. So I think even if again, if we can just a little chip in the, in the seal, there’s a little bit of room for that. Our brain can start. It wants to heal. Our brains want to heal. They want to be healthy and safe.
[01:16:36] They took this on when we were little, or maybe when we were adults, if we had a trauma or different experiences, but It’s doing that just to help us survive, but it really wants to heal. So if we can give it a little space, it will start looking at things differently. We want to just kind of pattern interrupt, draw the aardvark, do some math.
[01:16:55] Um, ask a friend like, Hey, I’m having a low, a low mood day. Could you tell me three things you love about me or three things, three ways I’ve added to your life or three things you appreciate, whatever it is. It’s just giving a little fodder for the, for the space and the healing to happen. And. That takes courage.
[01:17:14] It’s easy to stay in the old patterns. They feel safe. Our survival brain is used to them. It uses them as an anchor point so often. And stepping out of it can feel uncomfortable. And for many of us, we’ve been taught that discomfort is something to avoid. I agree for many things like I’m not going to purposely like go put a, a, a fork through, you know, poke myself with the fork.
[01:17:38] It’s not comfortable. It doesn’t add anything, but emotionally growing outside my comfort zone is uncomfortable and a little scary. I can take it in baby steps and start to build up the muscles to it. But I want to just honor the courage it takes to consider that this absolute truth that you carried around and leaned on and built your identity around.
[01:17:58] May not be 100 percent true. Maybe it needs some updating and upgrading. Because then you can be in reality. Oh, that person doesn’t see my worth? Okay, I’m not going to hang out with that person. I’m not going to invest in that person. This person can see it? Let me see if it’s a good fit for me as well.
[01:18:16] We’re dealing with what’s actually happening in the moment, rather than the stories that are spinning in our head. And we’re not trying to protect ourselves from each moment because some beautiful moments are missing if we’re trying to keep ourselves safe from any possibility of pain. So I just, it’s like to me, it’s like stepping into the world.
[01:18:35] I’m going to face the world as it is and see how the world deals with me. I’m going to find the places where I fit really well. And fit is different than status. Yeah.
[01:18:51] When we, when we’re not putting ourselves down, we find a sweeter place where we have awareness of our, what we value, what matters to us and that there is a fit. Maybe we don’t, we’re not physically there, but we can start feeling energetically. You know, I’m not the only one that values consent. I’m not the only one that values co creating.
[01:19:26] Power with is an amazing experience in love and work and sex and anything. Power with, power over, I get it. That’s a different game, you know? Yeah, I don’t have a whole lot of status on the football field. Um, or maybe I’m a corporate giant in my world. My values matter to me and I’m not alone in that. No, I haven’t found my kin, but I haven’t run all through eight billion people yet.
[01:20:09] Who knows who I’m going to meet tomorrow? I think it’s a lot easier to find and attract people that are good fits, our kid, when we’re not caught up in our head. Like we can see them better, or not lost in the haze of like the noise of our head. So, um, yeah, I wish that for all of you. And I hope, you know, I hope that what we shared is helpful.
[01:20:29] Please take what you like and toss the rest. And, you know, you’re welcome to use a safe word of aardvark or make up your own. But sharing in the, in the circle, sharing, getting tapping help with Rick, whatever you can do to start building that, building those muscles and the possibility for something different, you deserve.
[01:20:49] To not be putting yourself down all the time or feeling like everyone else is. You deserve to walk in the world and feel like you belong and that you’re wanted. And I want that for you. Cathy, bless you. Thank you. So this is a really fun call for me. Our inbox is open. Support at thrivingnow. com comes to Cathy and to me.
[01:21:10] We also have a community center. It’s free. Thrivingnow. center where you can comment on the replay, thrivingnow. com. Ask questions, share your own approaches for shifting, the put downs and sharing some hidden strengths that may pop up and grow that you become aware of as you go forward.
[01:21:30] Bye.
Great to have you on this journey with us!
Really appreciated this workshop. Lots of gold inside. Will sit with it and listen again. Lots to work with for me and touches many areas. I notice that, in this moment, I am more open to seeing the alternative pathways available if there’s an incremental decrease in self deprecating thoughts and spinning thoughts and where that might have some deeper truths able to arise somewhere.
Thank you both.
“Go deeper within.”
My first spiritual teacher taught me (as the inner guidance approach that builds on a meditation practice) to “Go within.” I commented that when I went within, the first voice I heard was critical and unkind.
Go deeper.
Find the “more still” in you.
Listen there.
And sure, sometimes self-deprecating noise could be heard in the deep, too, but the Kind and Wise energy is Sourced from deeper, for sure, than the shitty noise we learned to self-generate.
Even better, the “adaptations” from that place of deeper wisdom are for thriving – not “just” surviving. Yes, they include survival, too. The wise voice in me has said things like “Be still. Go along. Move quickly out of here!” for survival in situations.
But if the attitude is a put-down, go deeper. Get quieter. Our inner guide does NOT put us down. It has profound respect for our humanity, integrity, and what matters to us.
Rick
Ok 
when I go inside and hear these voices I will try to remember this and pause and go deeper.