Real Skills Workshop - Community Event
Struggling to Relax? Clearing Blocks to Resting and Renewing
Real Skills Workshop: Be Calm and Confident
Hosts: Rick Wilkes (@Rick) and Cathy Vartuli (@Cathy)
Recorded Tue Jan 25 2022
Replay is below
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Relax??? No way…
Do you ever find it difficult to relax? Painful even?
Yeah, that primitive brain has its own ideas about when it is okay to let down our guard. Sometimes… it’s convinced it is never okay!
That’s hard on our body-mind. Humans are not designed to be Ever Vigilant. We’re designed to react, sure, but we’re also designed to shift into another mode… a state where we let go, unwind, relax, and renew. Whew!
Some people do this with ease.
Not me.
I had to learn how to consciously take my energy system by the hand and guide myself to shift. I remember painful times when it felt like my head would explode from resistance.
NO! I needed to worry! Keep worrying! Work more and harder and longer!
If you’re in a place where relaxing would help you thrive, spend 90 minutes on Tuesday with us… to tap on the resistance, to practice moving through energy portals towards relaxing, and exploring how being more calm can help us take more confident actions when we’re “on.” Cathy and I hope you’ll join us. 
We do offer an option for financial support when you sign up, both sharing support with us and receiving support as our gift to you if that is what your yes is. Blessings to us all.
Let’s consciously relax… together.
Rick & Cathy
Your Emotional Freedom Coaches
P.S. Adira says, “Relax? RELAX?!?! I took my mittens off and now my hands are freezing, I have a black eye from the stairs, and what are these things on my feeeeet?!?!?”
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That picture of Adira is so perfect…I can’t stop laughing…it tickles my nervous system… …the willingness to seek adventure…the intensity of playfulness…the black eye…it’s all perfect.
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And her resiliency!! 
Black eye, frozen fingers and booted feet aren’t going to stop her from playing!!
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I Can’t Relax Until…
Pro tip: ask yourself open-ended questions. For example, if you’re having difficulty unwinding and feeling calm, use some intensity and say out loud:
“No!!! I can’t relax until…”
What is your “until” right now?
I just did this, and I got “until this is written!!!” So guess what that told me? It told me I am using more stress right now to “push myself” to do this writing than actually is necessary.
What good news!
(pause to tap) (pause to breathe) (pause to let gravity work)
Oh, that’s better. My hand are softer on the keyboard. My eyes feel more relaxed in my head. I’m stretching my jaw and yawning… all while still writing to you.
What I hope you experience for yourself, when you ask your body-mind why it assumes it cannot relax right now, is how ridiculous some of the reasons are! I say that with empathy and love. When I do this practice, it’s rarely true that I can’t relax a bit. It’s almost never true that I can’t unwind tension from an 8 to a 6 to a 4 and still do excellent work.
Indeed, stress depletes confidence even while it blocks calm.
I wish our culture supported more natural calm confidence. It rarely does. So… guess what?!? We are left to learn the skill of relaxing… but we don’t have to do that alone.
Co-regulation is a sweet practice. That’s what we’ll be doing together for 90 minutes on Tuesday. We’ll tap on the resistance to relaxing. And if we’re lucky… and we’re usually lucky … we’ll together experience fresh patterns that let us be a bit more calm and confident no matter what. Cathy and I hope you’ll join us.
We do offer an option for financial support when you sign up, both sharing support with us and receiving support as our gift to you if that is what your yes is. Blessings to us all.
Let’s consciously relax… together.
Rick & Cathy
Your Emotional Freedom Coaches
P.S. Adira says, “In a box not of your choosing? Me too!! And yet how relaxed can I be, here in the sunshine? Mmmm…”
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Struggling to Relax? Clearing Blocks to Resting and Renewing - Workshop Session Replay
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Struggling to Relax? Clearing Blocks to Resting and Renewing
[00:00:00] I’m struggling to relax. Tonight’s real skills workshop is for clearing blocks to resting and renewing. And it’s definitely something that I’m going to find useful. Um, I feel like our January, uh, workshops are ones that are designed to support me and my wellbeing. I hope it does the same for you and my co-creator Kathy.
[00:00:33] Tuli from the intimacy dojo and thriving. Now I Cathy. Hey Rick. Hey everyone. Yeah. I actually propose this topic because I have a lot going on in my life and I noticed that I was having trouble relaxing and I love diving in and using that. And Rick, obviously the email he sent about, I can’t relax until it was very inspiring.
[00:00:57] So I’m really glad you’re here. I love when people are willing to look at these things that everyone seems to take for granted that we know how to do, but they don’t know how to do, and we can kind of reverse engineer it and figure out ways that will help you in moments when you feel stressed, part of the emotional freedom processes, awareness, it’s one of the leading things.
[00:01:20] And that’s why offering these workshops like, oh, am I actually struggling to relax? And I, it’s one of the curious things about like trying on this as a skill is that, you know, whether it’s a struggle or I have to do it consciously, there’s, there’s a switch between being in daily action. Especially hard action, especially the things that humans were designed to do.
[00:01:58] We were designed to do hard things. Um, really our physiology, our biochemistry is designed to be able to, um, both defend and acquire, acquire, uh, shelter, build it, acquire, um, heat, uh, or, you know, a place to call home that is protected from the elements as well as any predators. We were, we can climb mountains.
[00:02:27] I’ve, I’ve watched humans climb the 14 highest peaks in what was it, seven months, you know, less than a year. Um, it’s extraordinary what the human body is designed to do. And I think that, um, One of the first things is once you’re aware that, okay, relaxation, maybe isn’t something that comes as naturally to me anymore.
[00:02:54] My life isn’t a primal life. Um, and maybe that creates some dynamics. Maybe I become aware of things, not just because the earth rumbles, but because I watch it on television or I read about it, maybe, um, the stresses I have land in that I need to do this or else kind of part of our brain, our primitive brain when they’re not the same as well.
[00:03:24] Yeah. I need to make sure that I have a source of water or else, and I really can’t relax until I have a source of water. That’s that’s really crucial. I made it back to my cave or my home site or relaxation is just to recover enough to keep going. And so one of the things that we want to do is to start with that awareness and the acceptance.
[00:03:50] So, um, I’m curious, and if you want to participate in the chat, it’s, it’s open. Um, and Cathy, we’ll just, um, not refer to people by name so that you can, you can say something and, and we’re not going to put you on the recording, um, from what you share in the chat. Um, other than the words, uh, how much do you struggle with relaxing and, um, what’s your theory?
[00:04:23] What, what, what’s your. Block to accepting that you need to do something a little differently, or you want to stay at state it a little differently, Kathy, but I’d love for people to, one of the things we love to do on these calls is normalized. So you’re not alone facing this. Right. And I do think like for myself, I’ve done so much healing over the years when I, and I’ve had new things come into my life that are very, very stressful.
[00:04:49] So I’ve been having trouble relaxing. There’s a sense of shame. Like I should know how to do this. Like, I don’t want to tell people I’m having trouble with stress or relax, not relaxing while I want to like, no, I’m fine. Um, so if you’re willing to share. You know, where are you having trouble? Like for me, a lot of times, I’m fine.
[00:05:09] During the day I have a moderate, I feel stressed, but not too bad. But when I go to lay down to go to sleep, it just washes over me because now I can really like, I’m trying to get myself to relax. And I think when we see other people that are sharing things, either the cause of it or what they’re experiencing in their body, there’s a sense of, oh, I’m not alone.
[00:05:29] I’m not alone with this. And that alone is very healing for our survival brain does not want to be the only one struggling because then, you know, the rest of the community is going to be like, oh, look at that outlier. We don’t want to drag that dead weight with us so we can see, oh, a lot of people struggle with there’s people saying my jaw says I struggle.
[00:05:50] Um, someone else said it’s hard to relax on the weekends when it’s time to kind of wind down. That’s the best time to let doubt to let down. Um, Uh, if someone says arrest, then I’m sick. Um, Rick shared, I have a hard time letting go of the day to day days to do list. I do that too. It’s like, oh, so many things that didn’t get done.
[00:06:12] Um, someone said my mind does not like to relax. It makes me want to numb out and I’m trouble being content with where I’ve what I have and what I would like to, I feel like I need to fix something or strive for the next thing. Yeah. I’d never been content here. Someone else shared, I struggle my blocks, the to-do list, caretaking of loved ones and need a bit of the OCD feeling like they can’t stop getting things done.
[00:06:35] Another person waking up and sometimes having difficult, getting back to sleep. I also have TMJ Anwar nightguard um, some someone said, yeah, my night guard at night. At night tells me I struggled to relax. It’s worn down mine too. Like it gets teeth marks in it. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. Um, the busy worried mind is usually gets me up in the morning job, Pete as well for someone else.
[00:06:59] So like for a lot of us, like there’s two different ways we can carry a stress that I’m I noticed is either my body, a tension in my body and muscles jaw, like my face, um, low back sometimes will get me or my mind. And it can feel like I’m on that hamster wheel. I have a friend read Mahaka that talks about the, that it’s a bad neighborhood up here.
[00:07:21] The hamsters are running wild on the hamster wheel and I’m like, that’s exactly how it feels. They will not get off their hamster wheel. And one of the things I’ve found is more, I beat myself up about my, about it, or shame myself, or try to like stop doing that. The less relaxed I am. It’s not like beating myself up is not going to help.
[00:07:44] We use, um, energy tapping the Ft tapping. If you’re not familiar with that, we have a free guide@thrivingnow.com slash tapping T a P P I N G. Um, and you can just watch, listen and repeat what we say, change the words. Um, we tap on natural comfort points on the body and I’d love it to Kathy, if you would lead us.
[00:08:07] And, uh, you know, even though I, I beat myself up about being stressed and that’s very stressful. Yeah. So I invite you, take a nice gentle breath. It doesn’t even have to be a deep breath. Just notice the breath going into your body. And now, and again, if you can, and notice your feet on the floor, your button, the chair, and I’m just trying to bring us back.
[00:08:28] We’ve been talking about stress, which kind of is disassociating a lot. Like we can get kind of numb to it. It’s a good way to escape it. It’s not really be connected with our bodies and we have much less power when we’re not connected with our bodies. When we can get here in this moment with all that stress and, and the pain in our bodies, that’s actually where we have the more leverage, deeper leverage to do something.
[00:08:52] So I’m going to invite you in this space with this support, let yourself be in your body and actually feel what you’re feeling. Stress feels awful, but there’s no acute damage. It’s like the chronic part of it. That’s hard on our bodies, but it’s not. Well, sometimes I have worried that my job was going to break from stress.
[00:09:11] It has not yet done that. So I think we’re okay. Karate chop, even though I have all this stress in my life, And I have all this stress in my body body makes it very hard to relax and it makes it very hard to relax. I’d really like to find a better way. I’d really like to find a better way, even though my best way so far has been to yell at myself about it, even though my best highway so far has been to yell at myself about it.
[00:09:41] That’s not actually working. That’s not actually working. In fact, it sometimes makes me more stressed. In fact, it’s sometimes makes me more stressed and I’d really like to find a way to work with my body and mind. I’d really like to find a way to work with my body and mind so that we can relax and renew so where we can relax and renew.
[00:10:05] I can’t relax. I can’t relax. It’s not safe. It’s not safe to relax inside of the eye. I really want to relax. Pardon me really wants to relax under the I, but I can’t relax. I can’t relax under the nose. I can’t even make myself relax. I can’t even make my golf relax. 10. I keep trying to make myself relax. I keep trying to make myself relax.
[00:10:35] Collarbone doesn’t work that has not worked. What if I under the arm? What if I just started with where I am right now? Wow. What if I started with where I am right now? Head all the feelings in my body, all the feelings in my body and just let myself relax and let myself relax and just take a breath and notice what’s coming out.
[00:11:06] I think part of this normalization that we talk about almost every call is one scene that we’re not alone with it. And then just being with what’s actually there, as long as we’re shitting on ourselves or pushing ourselves or pretending around ourselves or all the things we do to avoid ourselves in the present, we don’t really have the power or the insight to make a difference.
[00:11:31] And if we can allow ourselves to feel safe enough in a group like this, or when we see beautiful vulnerable shares from a lot of people, so we can kind of like, oh, I’m here with these other people that are willing to admit this. And I have some support. Maybe I can actually feel what’s going on. That’s when we start getting more insights and awarenesses that we can make a difference.
[00:11:52] So I really appreciate everybody being willing to at least try that on.
[00:12:00] There’s a different way to relax during a vacation. Then in the middle of a busy day, I need to bypass my resistance to relaxing in different ways, depending on the situation. Yeah. And that’s part of what I want to touch on today is being able to view relaxation as something that is, um, more in a bio rhythm, a rhythm, you know, the type of rhythm that our bodies were designed to be in another shared.
[00:12:27] I, I struggle with feeling that I haven’t done enough, especially since I’m retired and I certainly had the time. Yeah. Like what, where I go to with that, because it’s true for me too. Um, my biology was designed not to have an easy day, not to have a day where I wasn’t up at Dawn and working my ass off in order to survive.
[00:12:51] Like there, the period that we’re in retirement was not something. That anyone talked about until at least the 19 hundreds that I’m aware, like you worked, worked, worked, worked, worked, worked, died, or was incapacitated and died. Like what does retired mean? Like you have enough resource that can come to you.
[00:13:20] And so like part of normalizing, this is to recognize that my body was designed for much more physical, demanding labor, regardless of my age, as long as I was in the tribe, I was expected to be doing things, focus on things pretty much, much more than, than like some of those zoom, like we’re, we’re working here, we’re working our emotions, but it’s not the same as like hauling in enough wood to keep from freezing to.
[00:13:54] It’s just not the same. And so I believe that the kind of conscious thing that we’re doing is to say, Hey,
[00:14:06] the struggle to relax. We don’t get the same kind of physical. Like I’m done. The sun has set it’s time for us to go to, for me to recover, um, that, you know, maybe our ancestors did, and maybe our ancestors were more fulfilled because they were doing things together. And I don’t believe that we were designed to have to work all the time yet our systems, no animal.
[00:14:32] Well, very few animals do all the time. Constant restless needed to be doing something. And like, why do we need to be, why do we need to do enough? Like I often felt that way. If I worked myself to exhaustion, I deserve to relax. Let’s because that’s a common one. Um, even though a part of me is expecting exhaustion, even though part of me is expecting exhaustion, like really working it and really working it as a sign that it’s okay to relax has a sign is okay to relax.
[00:15:08] And that’s not actually my thriving lifestyle. That is not actually my thrive and lifestyle. Pop ahead. Do I have to always be doing, do I have to always be doing eyebrows? I have proven that I do not have proven that I do not. I do not always have to work to survive. I do not always have to work to survive under the eye.
[00:15:28] A part of me does not get this does not get this under the nose. And it often tells me I haven’t done enough. It often tells me I haven’t done it yet. You can’t relax. You haven’t done enough. You haven’t, you can’t relax. You haven’t done enough.
[00:15:49] I acknowledge that there may be a part of me that does that. I know there may be a part of me that does that on the garden. I’m very aware of the part of me that does that. I’m very aware of the part of me that does that. And that’s not actually a signal that I can’t relax and that’s not actually a signal.
[00:16:07] I can’t relax. It’s okay to relax. Anyway. It’s okay to relax. Anyway, I do like to add that our society there’s a whole. Value associated with doing in our society. The industrial complex gets wants people that are driven all the time that are never shutting down because they get more for their, you know, like if I hire you and you’re always a dealer you’re running and pushing yourself all the time, there’s more value than someone who’s like, you know, it’s my lunch hour.
[00:16:38] I’m not going to work through lunch. And I fingers pointing back at me cause I’m the person that works for lunch all the time. But there’s, there’s like cultural gravitational pull on that too. Like never shut down, never put it down. There’s Facebook, there’s TV, there’s stuff coming at us all the time.
[00:16:55] And our poor system is overwhelmed. It’s like this, this community I live in has very strict rules and really pushes. We’ve got to, got to keep up for versus I know that when I relax, like when Rick comes to visit me, I allow myself to relax deeply. And after a day or two of that, I was so creative. I’m like ideas spouting out everywhere and he’s like, hold on, let’s read them down.
[00:17:18] It’s I actually create more better when I’m relaxed, when I allow myself to. And then, so I’d just invite you to try that on. Is it okay for you to like let your system recharge and be creating and doing out of fulfillment and abundance and rested? It was food space versus often I would be running on fumes trying to push myself that last little bit.
[00:17:42] It’s not how I want to live my life, but one of the awarenesses, can I go to number two? So one of our, one of the awarenesses that came to me when I was meditating on this was well, no, I, I can’t relax until dot, dot dot. If you read the email, I don’t know whether any of you did that exercise. I have been.
[00:18:09] Rather I’ll use a gob smacked by some of the reasons surprise, um, that I’m not allowed to relax until. So I invite us now to
[00:18:28] see if you imagine yourself in a, in a normal situation where you’re just having a hard time relaxing and then ask yourself, you know, fill in the blank. No, I can’t relax until, and if you want to share it in the chat
[00:18:55] and I think it’s really important if you’re thinking it’s too odd to share, that’s probably the best ones. The illogical ones are ones. Our brain can’t think it’s way. So like I have this thing, like my house has to be perfectly tidy. Like the spices have to be alphabetized before I can relax, which is silly because one, I don’t cook very often.
[00:19:16] And two who cares if they’re organized, they’re alphabetized, but like, I I’ll keep raising the bar to just get the house more tiny, but like it’s not logical. So my brain can’t really figure a way out of that. So we’ll do some tapping and clear it, but if you want to share that helps other people also, um, and someone said, um, what does relaxation actually feel like?
[00:19:41] They feel like their brain is always spinning. Their muscles are always tense. And I think it’s a beautiful question because we often, some of us have never even felt that. Um, and I want to share my thoughts. I reckon I’d love to hear yours too, but when I’m truly relaxed, I’m very much here and now.
[00:20:02] Almost meditative like it’s right. Um, I’m not wandering off into the future. And the past, my brain is just here noticing what’s happening around me. And it’s very fulfilling. I feel like a warm, my muscles are relaxed. My brain is quiet. I often feel like beauty from things that are very simple. Um, like last night I was, for some reason, very relaxed for about an hour.
[00:20:25] And I was seeing the Moonlight Glint off of, I had a, my hummingbird feeder has a little plastic hook, but the light was glinting off of it. And just such a pretty way. And the wind was blowing gently in the Palm leaves. I could see the shadows moving. I was really present with it and it felt so nurturing and loving.
[00:20:44] And I felt like just like content, I didn’t have to do anything or do anything differently. Um, so if we can get ourselves to a space where we can really let ourselves be in the moment, I feel like it’s very nourished. That we get fulfilled and filled up and have a lot more for our, like, we can just be there for ourselves and for others, if we choose to what do you, what do you think when you think of being really relaxed?
[00:21:10] What is it your experience? Right. I’m a licensed massage therapist. And one of the things that I would look at is like, what’s your muscle tone? So people have talked about jaw and shoulders. So for example, notice how tight your jaw feels right now and then make it a little tighter, just a little tighter, put your teeth together or wherever your tightness comes from.
[00:21:48] Like, you’ll notice my, my mouth isn’t moving the same. Right? I’ve made it tighter. Not anything in the direction of less muscle tension is in the direction of relaxing. So just if you can relax the extra tension that you put on there, and then imagine if you would put gravity, letting your jaw be pulled a little bit by gravity
[00:22:27] and let your tongue, which also is a muscle that holds tension. Let your tongue rest in your jaw. Like it was a friend on vacation in a hammock. Uh, feels funny. It feels funny because one we’re actively engaged.
[00:22:57] But that’s relaxation is on a spectrum. And the trend here is our friend. So I would say for someone that has chronic jaw tension, if you look at it, you could say, well, your body is putting more tension, energy into your jaw than is necessary to speak, to chew and to sleep.
[00:23:33] And if you do this, relax in the hammock thing, maybe after you sip a little bit of something,
[00:23:43] you let gravity work, we have to resist gravity, or we’re a puddle on the floor, right. Or we don’t have. Grip and brace. When we do that, you may notice feelings come up. You may notice resistance, shoulders. Like I can tell my shoulders are not up at my ears, but they’re way elevated compared to what is necessary to be here with you all.
[00:24:16] And so relaxing can be like, oh, there’s my shoulders. I just move them up a centimeter, you know, maybe like a little more tension. And then on an exhale don’t force them. Just let gravity lower them down. Hello. Wow.
[00:24:41] I don’t know where, I mean, they feel like they dropped a foot. I’m pretty sure they didn’t. I would look really funny on zoom. But that’s relaxing.
[00:24:55] So I’ve had people on a massage table who could not relax. Like if you rubbed their muscles, they would make their muscles tighter. If you, if you like held their head, they would like keep trying to hold it up even more. They, they didn’t release into. So relaxation is a release into, into gravity into a different level of tone in your muscles, in your sinews, in your tissues,
[00:25:30] your diaphragm, the controls, the diaphragm and rib muscles, the upper scalings and the like that control breathing. Why is so many are so many relaxation exercises breathing based because breathing is something we can kind of tell. How tight our breathing is.
[00:25:53] Like, I felt it a lot up here. And if you let again, like, as you breathe in, just let gravity, which poles, let gravity deepen your breath a bit, just a bit.
[00:26:15] You can do that with your wind. You can do that with every part of your body there’s there’s exercises called progressive relaxation. If you’re so wound up by a chronic neurological state, um, trauma freeze response and the like, and you, you just never have had the experience of relaxing. That would be really useful to get coaching and guidance from someone.
[00:26:43] Who knows how to help you our mind also the same kind of thing. It gets like tenser and tenser and tenser. We can feel it like that’s the hamster wheel is that things go kind of chaotic. That’s a form of neurological tension. Our, our actual brain tissues become more tense. That’s a lot of times why we not just our muscles, but the actual tissues of the brain, um, start creating a tension to them.
[00:27:13] And that’s where meditation and the like, like for me, I was killing myself with worry. It was eating up my whole body and I needed to learn how to meditate. I hated it. Like, I hated the idea of sitting and doing nothing. I meditate every day now. Um, but even there were. You say, picture your brain, maybe a little tight it’s floating and fluid.
[00:27:43] And just imagine again, like, okay. Brain it’s all right for you to just kind of float a little bit more instead of like swimming hard, just stop from, again, a tongue in the hammock, rude floating, and the salty sea, if you like that, shoulders, gravity.
[00:28:13] And like, these are really natural things that if you watch indigenous people who are attuned to their level of effort, they go off and do effort and then they unwind. If you watch them, they don’t hold tension. The way that we do. They know how to unwind their bodies unwind in a natural way, the way that they sit, move and the, like we’re trying to restore that.
[00:28:42] And I appreciate all the people that, that shared here. Um, like some of the reasons would you like to share some of the, I can’t, I can’t relax until they’re wonderful. I really appreciate them. And I invite you, especially if they’re not yours to listen with fresh ears, there’s something I noticed about a lot of them.
[00:29:02] So someone said everything in my life. I can’t relax until everything in my life is perfect. Um, uh, everyone is okay. I think we can. How about we pause just for a moment for like, oh, until everything is perfect and just feel into how true does that feel for you? Does that really contribute to your until.
[00:29:28] Resistance to relaxing like that doesn’t always apply, but some days it’s like an eight. So you could just write down like an perfect eight and for many people, perfectionism trauma response, when we had so little control when we’re small or as adults, there’s times in our lives where we’ve had very little control, we think if we can just get everything just right, will somehow be safe.
[00:29:58] It’s often when he felt so out of control, we could never that we didn’t have any control over it. We thought if I just done this better or right. It would be safe. So please notice that perfect is often a trap. There’s no way there’s, it’s, there’s no goal. Like how do you know, how would you actually know if you got it?
[00:30:18] Perfect. So, um, I can’t relax until everyone is okay. Several people mentioned this one, just breathe into that and notice it in your body.
[00:30:36] And one of the things they teach us a lot in like corporate, we took a lot of these classes, but I think some of the information is useful if you have a goal, okay. This goal is I need to have, make sure everyone is okay or everything is perfect. We need to know how we would know if we reached it and everyone being okay.
[00:30:57] That seems like a deer that lives in a beautiful home with loving parents. But there’s times she’d probably doesn’t feel okay when she loses her toy or she fought she a little to Mueller’s coming in. She’s both hands in her mouth crying. Not always, she was really smiling at Kathy, but like that rises.
[00:31:22] But if I have that feeling of like, I need everyone, I love to be okay. Like there’s no, a lot of pressure that won’t happen. And then also is a trauma response. A lot of people, we attract a lot of people that were prone to fight as children or young adults. We are trying to take care of people that should have been taking care of us.
[00:31:44] So there’s a feeling we’re responsible for everyone around us. And I’m just trying to give your logical brain something to try on. It’s not our responsibility to take care of everyone around us. They get to have responsibility too, but that’s something that takes a little bit of work to get to sometimes.
[00:32:01] Um, I can’t relax until I figured out what I’m going to do with my life. I love that one because I’m still figuring it out. I think we’re. There’s, it’s hard to figure out where we’ll want what we’ll want 10 years from now. Like, well, well, I don’t know. So that’s a, it’s a very vague, a lot of these have like, um, a lot of intensity.
[00:32:22] I think people are sharing. Like, it seems like people really are holding onto them, but how would you do that? How would you figure out what you’re going to do for the rest of your life? I, you know, when I was five, I thought I was going to ride horses for life, for a living. It turns out you can’t earn a lot of money unless you’re like really, really good at it.
[00:32:41] So that didn’t work. But anyway, our life plans change. Um, I can’t relax until I finished everything, everything in caps. Um, and I get everything set for my house until I get everything set for my husband. Um, someone else I can’t relax until everyone is okay. I’ll never get there. Um, I can’t relax until I’m done.
[00:33:04] I don’t even know what that means. And we often have these stories in our head that we’re holding on. But we don’t know what they mean. We don’t know how well, how we’d reach it or how we know for each it, um, someone shared, I don’t, I feel worthless when I’m not doing stuff. Another person’s head. I can’t relax until there’s nothing to worry about.
[00:33:24] So I, I’m not laughing at you. I’m just like, oh yeah, I know that feeling. Um, so people are saying they need a massage, so that’s, that’s definitely, I could use a shadows. Um, so someone was going to be a Jackie. That’s what I was too. And then I realized I was already too tall at five four. So I was like, uh, um, and too big obviously.
[00:33:48] But, um, so just as you’re noticing other people’s you might get more awareness of yours and I just think it’s important. I love Rick’s article about like, I can’t relax until. I think that one of the things I’ll do. And I think Rick kind of put this in the articles. We have some main ones. We have everyone in the world has to be safe, good, and happy and warm and content and showered.
[00:34:10] And their hair has to be sound right or whatever it is. But we’ll also have small ones. I can’t I’ll do this during the day. I can’t relax until I’ve gotten these five emails sent. But as soon as those five emails are sent, I don’t relax. There’s something else I have to get done. They’re little, like touched points through the day where I’m like a hamster chasing them on the wheel so we can have small ones and big ones kind of woven together.
[00:34:35] And there’s never really an okay, now it’s okay to relax. There’s no point where we’re like, oh, now I’ve earned this or now I just get to let my body and myself. And the honest truth is I do work better when I’m relaxed. I don’t have to be driven to do work. What if I could just slip my being, do the, do what I’m getting done without the.
[00:35:02] Thank you. Um, thank you all so much. Um, there’s a lot in my energy field right now. What I’ve been doing is
[00:35:16] just saying out loud, if I can, or in my head, I can’t relax until, and I just say a very matter of fact way. Like I can’t relax until the laundry is put away. It’s 10 30 at night. The laundry is still drying, but that came up the other night. I’m lying in bed. Like I can’t relax until the laundry to put away.
[00:35:38] That was an open loop in my energy field. And so I imagined tapping myself like eyebrow. I refuse to relax until the laundry’s put away. I refused to relax until the laundry is put away. I refuse to relax until the laundry’s put away. I refuse to relax. The letters put away, takes care of the rebellion, right?
[00:36:02] You could, if you’ve got a lot of rebellion in you, you can keep typing, tapping on that one. I can’t relax until the laundry’s put away. I can’t relax into the laundries. I can’t relax until I can’t relax until what is true for you is what comes up for you. So for one thing, for me is like, I don’t, because I’m dealing with some life experiences that are causing a lot of stress.
[00:36:29] I feel like I can’t relax until that’s done. So, because it’s not done, I can’t relax. I can’t relax until that’s done. I can’t relax. Even though I wasn’t designed to hold that much tension, I was not, even though I was not designed to hold that much. Hold on. I can’t relax until that’s done. I can’t relax until that’s done, but now we introduced.
[00:36:51] So we’ve acknowledged it. Like that’s the truth and our energy. What, what
[00:37:00] bring in some question who’s really necessary is that really necessary highbrow. It’s really natural to relax. It’s really natural to relax. It’s really essential to relax the tension. It’s really essential to relax the tension. I even work better if I relax the tension, I even work better for relaxed attention.
[00:37:23] No, I can’t relax until I can’t relax until June. What if that’s not true? What if that’s not true?
[00:37:39] I’m open to relaxing anywhere. I’m open to relaxing anyway.
[00:37:47] That would be doing something that would be doing something that’d be pretty bad ass. That’d be pretty bad ass, sort of relax. Anyway. Anyway, now I just threw that in there because that’s what came to me. And you see that there’s a certain amount of spontaneous. Like, no, I don’t get to relax until, and I might do three or four rounds on that.
[00:38:10] Like I did one on a walk. I said like, I am tense. I am not noticing anywhere where I’m going. I’m just kind of like in it. I am not relaxing into this walk because even if I’m active, like walking, you don’t have to carry that much tension in your body mind again, like you need to keep enough tension in your muscles, not to collapse on the floor or in the chair.
[00:38:35] If you’re walking, you want to keep it. To be stable and fluid, but you don’t need quite that same rigidity. And I said, no, I can’t relax until the idiocy ends. Now you’re in trouble. I can’t relax until they idiocy. And until the idiocy ends. Oh, I’m fucked. I am never going to get to relax again. The spider it’s okay to relax, even if there’s out there and if there’s idiocy and even enjoy this walk.
[00:39:18] So if you notice that the struggle to relax is actually interfering with you doing something that matters to you. Not just sleeping, not just unwinding for the day, but in the moment. See, as Kathy said, like, if. I had some overdue emails today and I wasn’t getting them done. I was staring at them, but I wasn’t getting them done.
[00:39:46] Very nice of the university gave me this example. Uh, I think there were four of them, but I said, I can’t, no, I can’t relax until I get these done, but I couldn’t get them done because they were emotional ones. There were people, you know, that there was an emotional response, not just an administrative response.
[00:40:07] Sounds like, even though I can’t relax, I can’t relax until I get these done until I get these done and I can’t get these done. I can’t get these until I relax. Uh, I acknowledge where I am and how I feel. I acknowledge where I am and high. Probably I can’t get these done. I can’t get these done until I relax until I relax, but I can’t relax until I get them done.
[00:40:36] I can’t relax until I get them done. Oh, this is fun. This is fun. Under the eye, this feels very familiar. This feels very familiar. So I’m going to let gravity do some, uh, some other work I’m going to let gravity do some of the work and just let my body respond to that. I let my body respond to that. I do want to do the emails.
[00:41:03] I do want to do the emails and it’s okay to relax enough, to be able to do that. It’s okay to relax, not to be able to do that. Even sensible it’s even sensible
[00:41:20] just to like, I can’t relax until the idiocy ends. I’m guessing that if that came out of your mouth, you might feel the intensity of it. But also like it’s not sensible until everyone. Yeah. There were some people that, that I’m saying that because some people said, oh my until is never going to happen.
[00:41:45] Right. And so that’s a clue for me that, um, this is, this is a block and tapping on it as a way to shift your energy. It’s a releasing, it releases the energy that holds the, I can’t relax until, okay. And in this example, too, remembering that if you’re not able to do something and you’re carrying a lot of stress, it can be that you just need to, I needed to relax in order to do the thing that was causing me, the stress that’s that kind of loop that we can get into.
[00:42:26] Yeah. And I, someone shared, um, I worry that I I’ve, if I relax, I’ll forget about the laundry. And I, that reminds me of my mother, does this may have some friends that are, do this where they’ll continually knack. Like if I’m visiting my mother and she’s like, don’t forget, don’t forget. And there’s so much energy and intensity that I don’t want to remember.
[00:42:46] And I’m also like, okay, so how am I just from a cross benefit analysis is like the amount of stress and energy that you’re putting into this. If I forget the laundry, what’s like, what’s actually gonna happen. Like our brains generally do remind things. Are I love post-it notes. I leave myself a note, but the amount of stress and energy that goes into it, it’s like life or death when really?
[00:43:10] Okay. So I forgot the laundry. Like the worst that happens, it gets a little smelly and I have to run it again because it was closed up in the lawn, in the dry, the wished a washing machine, but like that constant, I do it to myself sometimes at haranguing. And my true self to say like, okay, what’s the worst that can happen.
[00:43:28] I can leave myself a note. And if I forget it, I’m actually letting my cells in my body renew and, and feel healthier and more alive. And I’m letting go like that’s might be more important than letting the dryer sit there for an extra few hours or so. And I, someone else shared that there’s a feeling of weirdness of death as a block for me to relax.
[00:43:55] I can’t relax because I don’t have the time got a cart BDM. And to me, that’s a sign that maybe there’s been a lot of lack in that, you know, in our lives, there’s a limiting belief about like how much we have to, we have to grab what we can and when we can, we have to create, versus I do know that there’s times when I’ve been more relaxed and refreshed, the things I created, I felt would have a bigger impact.
[00:44:22] And they were coming from a place of wholeness and fulfillment rather than I’m scraping the bottom of the ball, trying to get enough to put onto this thing. Um, I just invite you to try on that maybe that sense of having to seize the time. Um, it’s kinda like the sponge and water analogy, the more tightly you hold it, maybe the less that we actually have and experience.
[00:44:46] So just an idea to try on do all of these are pleased. If you don’t like them key or take, take what you like and toss the rest away. The state of being, I talked about the physical ones, sort of the emotional energetic one might be like savoring. So when I hear, you know, see the day, there’s a certain kind of, um, uh, to that.
[00:45:14] And what I’ve noticed is that, um, what. Approach what Kathy said in a slightly different way. Um, if I make my morning cappuccino and after the first step, I take a moment to unwind a bit. I would call that relaxing and tuning in and becoming more present.
[00:45:50] And I saver this afternoon. I drank my coffee a little fast and I really hadn’t. I hadn’t been present with it, but the good news is, is that we have the capacity to pause and I will call a re you know, to pause. And like I was with the empty mug, right? No more coffee. And I relaxed into it. Seven seconds.
[00:46:29] Wow. What a difference now? I I’ve watched people not take any savoring at all, going from thing to thing, to thing, to thing, to thing, to thing to thing. And I’ve never heard a client who did that pattern, including myself at the end of the day, feel like I have lived today, right? Yeah. Versus taking that sip and really noticing how it nourishes your body.
[00:47:01] And this is icy cold. I feel it in my fingers,
[00:47:08] noticing that a little lemon, a little sweetness. Now this, this goes to the workshop we did on simple comfort. Which, which takes us to our, our, our third point. And we’re going to be taking a break here in a moment. Um, well, we’ve already been interweaving. Like how do you go from a struggle to relax, to taking it deeper?
[00:47:34] And so I’m struggling to relax. Can I unwind my physical body at all? Can I let gravity just do a little bit of the work that’s relaxation, you’re relaxing tissues in your body,
[00:47:51] your, your, your nervous system, your endocrine system. It’s different from like stretching because you’re uncomfortable or like shifting. It’s like, oh, I’m actually able to relax my tissues. Oh, bring me a pina colada in my tongue hammock way. That wasn’t very long. It’s not like we don’t have time. We can tap on the block.
[00:48:25] I can’t relax until, and maybe it’s true that you can’t let go and saver or go do something else that might be nourishing, like go for a walk until you’ve done those emails. That’s fine. Maybe legit, like, you know, no, I, I can’t relax until the child who has taking a bowl and, and, and, and, you know, holding it up at me has been fed like, no, I can’t just go off and do my own thing, but there’s a, the bio rhythm of us is designed to do an unwind and do an unwind.
[00:49:08] You look at every single animal they unwell. That’s part of their pattern. We there’s a brief spurt of intensity and then chill and hang out. Yeah. And we can weaken, we’re capable of being intense for longer periods of time, like 15 minutes maybe, which is about how long we’ve been doing this. And then we’re going to take a seven minute break here.
[00:49:36] So feel into what we’ve touched on. And if you’re feeling drawn, like, okay, this is an area that matters to me. And I’d like to focus in on one of these things. Please feel free to raise your hand. It’s under the participants, uh, under reactions, there’s a raise hand. Um, if you’re on a smartphone or the like hunter dot, dot dot, um, yeah.
[00:50:02] Um, let’s do some tapping together when we get back. So I’m going to pause the recording if you’re watching the recording. Hi. Um, I invite you to take about a seven minute break to just, to let your body communicate with you. All right. And I’ll be checking.
[00:50:22] Um, oh, what are you noticing? Well, we’ve had some shares in the chat. Okay. Yeah. Um, I love talking about this. I think just talking about it is really useful because it’s, sometimes it’s simple things, no one ever talks about that. They don’t notice that there’s someplace to grow. So, um, we do have a hand raised, I don’t know if you saw that.
[00:50:53] Yeah.
[00:50:58] Uh, Covey. Hi, Kathy. Great to see you. Good to see you too. Hi, Rick. Gosh. Well, I just raised my hand because, um, something came to light during the break and I can’t relax because I feel like I’m kind of always being watched. Um, and this comes from, I’m an entrepreneur, so I have my own business. There’s always stuff to do.
[00:51:28] You know, there’s always a social media post or an email. And so when I’m like not in my working hours and I’m like supposed to be with my family time and I’m like looking at my phone or I’m working on my computer, they assume I’m doing. My business stuff, where sometimes I’m doing bookkeeping stuff or family stuff or ordering groceries, but it’s like, you’re not supposed to be doing that kind of thing.
[00:51:57] And that may be just of course a whole, my own thing. Right. Um, that I’m making that up. But, um, I feel like I said anything to them, um, don’t have I said anything to them? They complained about that. There’s sometimes my daughter will say something, um, where it’s like, um, uh, something like you’re working again, or, you know, like I can’t have your, I feel like I am supposed to be.
[00:52:28] Um, out of tension for other people. Um, and so that’s, I think part of why I can’t relax and it’s, so it’s hard for me on the weekend because I feel like I’m not supposed to do business stuff, but I have a ton of crap to do for the household, you know? So it’s like, when do I let down again? Yeah. So where do you feel that when you think about that, like constantly being watched and judged and needing to do more, like where do you feel that in your body?
[00:52:58] In my chest. Okay. And what’s that feeling? Just what, what’s the flavor of that Bonilla? No.
[00:53:08] Is it adult acreage attention or she feels like a heaviness, like a really dense kind of heaviness. Okay. Um, not enjoyable. Yeah. Put your hand there and just notice that feeling. Yeah. Like of course it’s right on my heart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. All right. Just take a nice breath.
[00:53:35] And can you ask that heaviness? What it would like to say?
[00:53:43] I can look at, I say it out loud. It’s fuck off. Excellent. I love swearing. It’s perfect. And does it want to say to you fuck off to you or to all the people you feel are judging you? What’s what were the people that I feel are judging me? Yeah. Yeah. Karate chop, even though there’s no way I can relax, even though there’s no way I can relax.
[00:54:05] All these people are watching me. All these people are watching me and they’re judging me and they’re judging me and they’re thinking I got it wrong. And they they’re thinking I got it wrong. That’s a lot of pressure. That’s a lot of pressure. And I feel that Dennis having a summer. And I feel that dense heaviness in my heart, even though there is no way to relax, even though there’s no way to relax.
[00:54:27] Even my downtime is hard work. Even my downtime as hard work, I’m trying to keep this family going. I’m trying to keep this frigging family going and they judge me for what I’m doing and they judge me for what I’m doing. And I want to tell them to fuck off. And I want to tell them to fuck off top of that.
[00:54:46] This dense heaviness in my chest, this dense heaviness in my chest eyebrow. I want to tell them to fuck off. I want to tell them to fuck off side of the, I just want to relax a little bit. I just want to relax a little bit under the, yeah, this is supposed to be my downtime. This is supposed to be my downtime under the nose.
[00:55:04] It does not feel like downtime. It doesn’t feel quite downtime. 10. I’m taking care of a lot of things for this family. I’m taking care of a lot of things for this family. Collarbone F I’m not a detention for. If I’m not had attention for them under the, and we don’t feel like I’m taking time from work. I don’t know what that is.
[00:55:27] I, they don’t. What did you say? They don’t think I’m taking time from work. They don’t think I’m taking time for work, even when I’m on Tik TOK for the head some time for me, I want some time for me. I bro, I don’t want some time that isn’t about them. I want some time that isn’t about them side of the, I want a time when I can just chill.
[00:55:49] I want a time when I can just chill under the eye and somehow I don’t get the impression they think I’m entitled to. Somehow I get the impression. They don’t think I’m entitled to that under the nose. What if I told them to fuck off? I told him to fuck off. They’re not small children anymore. They’re not small children anymore.
[00:56:08] Even though they act like it, maybe they should order their own groceries. Maybe they should order their own groceries under the arm. I really need some time just for me. I really need some time. Just for me, top of the head, they don’t approve. They don’t approve, but I don’t allow myself to have it either.
[00:56:29] I don’t allow myself to have it either. Just take a breath and see what’s coming up. You know, it’s true.
[00:56:40] When you say, yeah, what are you feeling in your body? It’s my choice. Isn’t it? It there’s social pressure grout. There’s a gravitational pull to it. That is really hard to resist and we can build the muscle. No, this is not what I’m going to do. And I imagine you’ve done that around other things in your life.
[00:57:00] I think you’ve carved a life for yourself. That’s really beautiful. Thank you. So you have the skill set. You just need to apply it here and just like anything it’s baby steps and meaning communication. It’s like, if I want to check my business on my weekend, I should be able to it’s my life. Right? If I don’t want to give you quality time right now, that’s okay.
[00:57:22] If you want quality time, you can request. You don’t get to do the little jazz side jabs or the passive aggressive or the judgmental thing. Right. And part of that’s just sometimes when I’m first doing it, it’s like the next day I noticed that I have to go back and I’m like, I know this seems silly, but yesterday when you said that I really felt judged or please don’t do that.
[00:57:44] But then I start catching it quicker and I’m like, oh, that really hurt. When he said that this is my weekend, not your weekend. It’s my weekend. You take your weekend and you take care of yourself. And if you want to be with me, you could ask for that. How does that feel if you think about trying that, um, it feels a little bit.
[00:58:02] Um, I’m still kind of, I’m in my little, in my communication diapers. So I’m kinda learning how to, how to communicate effectively. And, um, I’m getting better at it. Thanks to you and Rick. Um, Rick’s amazing. So karate, even each other, I’m scared to do this. I’m scared to do this. I not sure. I’m okay. Not taking care of.
[00:58:31] I’m not sure. I’m okay. Not taking care of them. I’ve always taken care of them. I’ve always taken care of them. I’ve always met their expectations. I’ve always met their expectations. What if it’s okay for me to meet my own experts? What if it’s okay for me? Oh, man. Meet my own expectations. What are you noticing in your body?
[00:58:51] I am stay on top of that. All this sadness, sadness. I really haven’t had time for me before. I have time for me before side of the eye. And this feels pretty intense and this feels really intense under the eye, but it’s an amazing breakthrough. Oh, it’s an amazing breakthrough. I’m noticing. I’m sad that I don’t have time for me.
[00:59:17] I’m noticing I’m sad that I don’t have time for me. 10. It’s really good to notice that it’s really good to notice that collarbone. I honor that grief. I honor that grief under the eye and I allow it to help guide me as I go forward and I allow him to guide me as I move forward. Top of the head is okay to have time for me.
[00:59:40] It’s okay to have time. And take a breath and just tell me what you noticed in your body.
[00:59:52] Like the heaviness is gone, right? Good intuition here. I brought Kleenex tears. Laughter as well. Geez. I feel lighter. Um, it feels better. It feels doable. It’s just baby steps. You don’t have to do it all at once and you can just let people know, like, Hey, I noticed I haven’t been taking time for myself on the weekends and I’m going to do what I feel like doing on the weekends war he wants, you know, just informing them that the parameters have changed and if an email’s easier or something like that, then people aren’t surprised as much like, oh, that’s right.
[01:00:31] So do you think you’d be able to baby step that a little bit? This. Yeah, I think so. I love it. Thank you so much for bringing this forward. Thank you for the crying.
[01:00:44] Wonderful. I’ll go ahead and mute you again.
[01:00:50] Um, so like creating the container for us to relax is like, oh, I can come up on that. I don’t get to relax until, um, I appreciate the reminder and finding something that is a container that feels like, well, of course, that would be helpful for me. Um, Taking a daily walk is something that, of course that would be helpful for me, but I ran into all of these don’t get too.
[01:01:34] I don’t, I don’t get to relax and, and go do these things directly. As a result of finding a container that I felt really like, oh, this would be relaxing for me, relaxing in the sense of unwinding tensions, getting to use my body in a more physical way, getting to like, like relaxing is getting to use our, our being ness and experience things.
[01:02:00] And not just the ways that our habitual.
[01:02:06] And I created a container that I could assert myself into, which wasn’t a whole weekend or a whole day, like that would have felt like a bridge too far for me, but 460, some days ago, I, I decided, I think it’s 460, maybe four 20, um, you know, while it’s amazing because this is, this is that benefit. You have to start kind of where you are and be able to, to choose something that you could say, well, yeah, this would be relaxing for me, unwinding for me, nourishing for me, replenishing for me.
[01:02:47] And yeah, I stand for this. Like, I stand for this for my family too. Like I’m not expecting them to not get a chance to, to, to do these things. I’ll make space for them to do that. Um, yeah, so that’s, that’s the, the, and I believe that when we do this work, we’re asserting not just for ourselves, but also like what we stand for for others.
[01:03:17] Like I want, I want people to not feel like they’re always needing to be responding to other people’s needs we’re role modeling as well. And for those of us that are parents and partners and human beings in community, um, you know, um, I think that’s, that is another doorway to allow us to do this Beth.
[01:03:48] And I know we’re, we’re coming down to the last 15 minutes, so we’ll probably want to focus in pretty quickly here. Okay. Can, can you do something? I just feel guilty. 'cause, I don’t really know how to relax that don’t and so even when I say I’m just going to rest, my mind just goes, and then I feel like I should be
[01:04:18] is there’s just a lot of guilt about all this stuff I haven’t done. So, yeah, even though, even though I have all this guilt
[01:04:31] and it feels like what on your body?
[01:04:37] It feels like bricks on my shoulder, my shoulder just been so tight. I have so many bricks of guilt on my shoulders. Bricks of guilt on my shoulder and this pillow behind my head is not sufficient to spill a in my head is not sufficient. I love that. I have so many heavy bricks of guilt. I have so many heavy Briggs of gowns eyebrow course.
[01:05:07] I can’t relax. Of course I can’t relax. I have to BI part of me feels so guilty or to me feels so guilty under guy. There’s always more to do. There’s always more to do that. I’m not doing anyway.
[01:05:29] Well, at least I’m at least I’m a brick layer.
[01:05:36] I’ve got a cathedral worth of guilt bricks. I’ve got a good,
[01:05:43] what if I left that off to the side for a chain? What if I left that off to the side port chain, even for five minutes, even for five minutes, ah,
[01:06:01] I’m really done with driving my life with guilt. I’m really done, but driving my life, food guilt,
[01:06:12] what does that feel?
[01:06:20] Yeah, that felt better. No. Other than your position where you are, can you, can you imagine that the bricks, we just stack them up for some other purpose, right? Like nice bacon. Right now you got all these bricks there, but they’re not on your shoulders,
[01:06:51] your shoulders forward. How do your shoulders want to move right now?
[01:07:01] Yeah, they side to side. Um, or we can join Beth and letting her, letting our shoulders move side to side, or like mine sorta want to do a S a weird little figure, 80 kind of thing. I’m not even sure what it is. It’s a bit like, you know, my 15 month old drawing with a pen, you know, kind of like, oh, that’s so pretty.
[01:07:34] Don’t know what it is. I have no idea what it is. That kind of thing.
[01:07:41] And now let’s let gravity work a little bit more just to relax. You unwind you you’ve had to been fighting the energy of the heavy bricks, right? Like that requires tension and just allow your shoulders to do something different with gravity. Just doing all the, ah, thinking
[01:08:12] a trick for folks that are sitting in chairs can be like, you’ll notice that your butt muscles are resisting, sinking into the chair. The way that we maintain balance, just let yourself feel a bit heavier in this. You’ll notice that when you do, you may sense that your spine stacks a little differently, it which it does by physically, when you let yourself not be quite so tight ass,
[01:08:48] um, that your spine actually stacks differently and your head can bobblehead differently, little trick, relaxation. How’s that feel to you, Beth? That’s better. Can every time somebody mentions meditation or it’s like, I, it stresses me out
[01:09:20] then don’t meditate. Um, I have found that my meditation is different now. It used to be a sitting meditation taught to me by a Buddhist, non. Okay. And I had to do her meditation in order to go and work with her. That is not my meditation today. When you just did the, take the bricks and put them in the vacant lot for the cathedral builders to work with, um, that’s a meditation, it’s a visualization.
[01:09:52] Visualization is a kind of meditation, letting your tongue be on the hammock is a meditation for some people, chopping vegetables is a meditation. Um, it is something where you’re changing your, your state of being to one where you’re more present. Um, we, I use gravity. I use breathing. I use. Like that weird sort of drawing that my shoulders do when they’re unwinding from, I just did a tapping well on guilt, like who doesn’t I, I do.
[01:10:36] There’s a part of me that sort of wishes. I was sometimes one of those people that didn’t feel guilt, but that wouldn’t be Rick. So I do, doesn’t usually make sense. Your guilt, I’m guessing if you looked at every brick, I’m guessing that most of them are inherited or not really what you stand for. Would you say that that’s true.
[01:10:59] Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. All right, my friend. Thank you.
[01:11:11] That’d be alright. Um, shall I go ahead and yeah, let’s mark. Hey mark. I’m asking. MI, hello. I know this works because if I use the microphone, um, the thing that you put in there about being, um, defensive it’s like undefensive in the, uh, with nothing to be defensive about, which is inner, it’s an inner feeling or an inner, uh, grinding.
[01:11:47] Okay. And did you learn that when you were, did you start that when you were young? No, not as much. No. That’s been recent. That was a good, a good pattern. A good way to go. I don’t know, but I guess I would like to think I decided, well, subconsciously we, this there’s like, oh, we evaluate like, oh, this feels safe.
[01:12:09] I’m going to take this pattern on it may actually, it may have always been there, but I learned to avoid, avoid. Um, things that would trigger it, but it’s gotten to be chronic.
[01:12:24] And I wanted to say that I don’t know if anybody’s doing it, but the engineer nerd in me is watching the space telescope, like going, you know, going through the, but the live feed of it, the music they play in the background is really nice. It really, um, it’s very calming. All right, well, let’s just do a little, we have only a few minutes left in the call, so I love that you’re watching the space telescope as well.
[01:12:48] I think it’s amazing. And just starting, just starting the karate chop and Hey survival brain, I get that you decided that being defended is important inside of that being defensive is important. And I love that you’re trying to protect me and I love that. You’re trying to protect me. This defense mechanism is really tiring.
[01:13:16] This defense mechanism is really tiring and I’d love to find a new way of being around this. And I love to find a new way of being normal around this, around this. Yeah. Top of the head. Yeah. Thank you for caring about me. Thank you for caring about me. I, Ralph, thank you for trying to protect me. Thank you for trying to protect me side of the eye.
[01:13:41] I’ve been avoiding things that might cause pain. I had been avoiding things that might cause pain under the eye, and that’s a logical thing to do the logical thing to do under the nose, but I’ve gotten some avoiding so many things I missed that I gotten. So I’m avoiding so many things. Yes. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m avoiding so many things.
[01:14:04] 10. I’m not really living my life and I’m not really living my life. However, there are some things we want to have. There are some things I want to avoid. Um, but some things we can really handle now,
[01:14:21] some things we probably can handle. Now, some things I can really handle now top of the head, and I’d like to let go of some of this defensiveness and I would really like to let go of some of this defensiveness, just take a breath and notice how your body feels at that thought. Uh,
[01:14:43] it’s very, um, relieved, relieved, almost have an urge to go all the talk about walking.
[01:14:56] That’s beautiful. If you can notice, just noticing the defensiveness, someone shared in the chat, they noticed that they were feeling, uh, they wanted to avoid certain things or distance. Just the noticing of that is a big step forward. Our subconscious is very powerful and when he doesn’t want us to see something, it can make it so we won’t even notice for avoiding it.
[01:15:18] So the fact that you’re able to notice the avoiding or the distancing is really powerful. It means your system thinks you’re healthy enough to at least notice the defense pattern parameters there. Once we start noticing there’s the ability to make gentle changes, you don’t have to go do something really scary for your brain.
[01:15:37] You can do a gentle baby steps and build those muscles up like a short walk. You don’t have to go for a walk, you know, 10 miles from your house. You can make a walk around your house around the block. If that feels. And then really notice that you did something different congratulate yourself. We don’t often do much appreciation.
[01:15:56] I’m one of those people. Well, I should have been doing this all along that wasn’t so hard, which isn’t very helpful and I’m like, thank God it, wow. That was great. I did it. Good job, buddy. Good job brain. It’s much more likely that I’ll do it again. Does that make sense? So you’re just reading patterning and the fact that you’re noticing is a very powerful and really great.
[01:16:18] Well, thank you. Yeah. Thank you, mark. Thanks. Go ahead and meat chicken. Thank you, mark. Because it reminds us that the thing that we’re relaxing are not binary they’re on a spectrum. So like I want a part of me to be aware of protection and the capacity to defend, but you know, Right now, I feel pretty soft.
[01:16:48] That part of me is not gone. Just like my muscle tone. I’m more relaxed right now than I was at the beginning. We’ve done a lot. I buy this practice. Real skills of being calm and confident are a practice. And so the capacity to say, oh, I’m feeling defensive at a nine for my walk around the block. Maybe a five or six would be good.
[01:17:14] Oh, even though I’m feeling like I must be defensive. Oh. Or going some other place, what we do is we bring down, we unwind the tension level until it finds a sweeter equilibrium. A lot of people had jaw stuff. I invite you like, oh right now my jaw is at a seven. I actually could, I could be a four and just fine.
[01:17:43] I don’t, I don’t need to hold this much. Bracing. You start getting savvy with the level of tone we need to be toned are our primitive brain doesn’t it can get overwhelmed and can start checking out. Can freeze because it just doesn’t know what else to do, but a good, healthy primitive brain is working with us.
[01:18:05] It’s got sensors out, but it’s pretty confident and chill most of the time, you know? Cause we live without as much threat. Um, When we notice something that gets us, you know, tight in our physical body or our mental, mental asking this question. Well, I know I can’t relax until and see what comes from your subconscious or from that place in you.
[01:18:32] It may be obvious because it’s what you’ve been focused on, but maybe something that’s just in your energy field. When we, when we unwind this way, it allows us to pass through one state of being into another. It’s an energy portal, an energy portal and emotional energy portal says, you know, I was feeling defensive.
[01:18:55] Like that’s the label I would put on myself. And now I am feeling like feeling like. Journaling or I’m feeling like writing those emails. I’m feeling like having a sip of water I’m attuned to my body. Um, we are meant to do this gritty automatically in the same way that we’re not meant to sit still. The way we were told to some of us were told to as kids, we were not meant to hold that much tension to stay still.
[01:19:39] Staying still is not what animals do except for when and unless they’re in freeze or pounds. Okay. Um, we don’t, you know, so that’s part of our normalizing, which we did. I can’t relax until, and the deepening is. That awareness that starts building like a capacity to, you know, I can call myself, I can also confidence myself.
[01:20:13] I can calm myself down. I can relax. And having, like, I noticed that when I let go of these things, I sleep more confidently. I don’t know if that makes sense, but if I’m still worried about the laundry, I’m not sleeping confidently. It’s not like you have to get up and do the laundry. It means you can. It does not mean that the pattern I put the grounding exercises in the chat, I love it.
[01:20:44] Driving now.com/grounding. Um, changing our focus from our survival brain is always looking for where is there danger and there’s part of our brain always answering that to what can we notice what’s safe for good or comforting around. I think that’s just, that can be a profound way to relax. Like I will often list the potential dangerous thinking.
[01:21:06] I’ll feel safer when I know them all, but that just really makes me like someone could burst through the front door. Like, I don’t know, but, well, I do have four beautiful walls and like, you know, the door is locked and I’m kind of cozy and I have bread, that’s rising and I’m going to cook after this call.
[01:21:23] And like, can we notice the good things that are in our lives that can help us relax? And I think that’s cultivating that muscle. And that awareness is just a really powerful way to do good for our body and give us energy to go out there and create what is really aligned with, for ourselves, you all. And this engagement, this discussion, this development and cultivation of real skills continues.
[01:21:49] One of our places we do this is that on our community center, thriving now.center, you are welcome to join us and, um, Uh, and be participant or just take in the energy or not, there’s, we’d like you to be relaxed about it, but also feel deeply invited to be a part of our community in that way. So, um, we’ll be sending out an email about our next real skills workshops and thank you for being here and participating.
[01:22:20] Thank you, Kathy Shane. Thank you, Rick. It was so fun. I’m much more relaxed. Bye for now.
We covered…
- Stress is normal. We’re designed to work hard! We’re also designed to unwind, to relax, as core to our well-being
- II can’t relax UNTIL… (let’s tap on those!)
- Deeper into relaxation
Resources Mentioned
Great to have you on this journey with us!
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Ahh… Cathy sounds a little soft in the recording…!
My own reflection notes:…
I can’t relax until…
- Everyone in this world likes and approves me of who I am and what I do, so that I don’t have to look out for running the risk of being shamed again.
- I’m better than people in the skills that matter to me so that I don’t have to face shame of being left behind.
- My parents are no longer in this world so that I don’t have to think about the next blowup that might happen in my home.
- The world is friendly and kind and genuine and not arrogant about their lives so that I wouldn’t have to worry about being taken advantaged of or be 1-uped again.
Huh, reminds me of the contrast concept!
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Yes, I’ll get with her and see if we can get the volume up. There’s a mic positioning/shadow issue we’re trying to navigate on her side.
I appreciate your sharing the “until…” list. Interesting that other than #3 which may or may not happen before it si your time (not being morbid, just saying that sometimes people do not outlive their parents)… the rest are impossible.
At least the way I see the world.
- “Everyone” – never going to happen.
- “than people” – there’s always someone ______'er than us. Even the olympic gold medalist will lose again and again if they continue competing.
- Blow-ups happen. If not with the adults, with the kids.
- I wish for that, work towards that, and while we find pockets of beings more an more kind and genuine, assuming 10%+ of the world will never be seems “mature and sane” to me to use as a reality filter.
Ouch. I know.
The good news as I hope you got from the session is like my own “until…” – the idiocy ends! Hahahahahahaha. I so appreciated that I got that clarity because, ain’t no way that idiocy will ever end.
We were designed to relax anyway… idiocy, and shamers, and blow-up people… I do believe that if we notice with this practice that most of the issue are external, it comes back to acceptance, resilience, and adapting our approach to be more congruent with what is… while cultivating what we want as well.
How does that feel to you?
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Alright, that’ll be great!
And true enough, until the idiocy ends! As I ponder and keep on tapping after the session. I looked at my list, and I tapped, and sure enough, the claims and statements that I’ve made on my list is ridiculous, absurd and impossible…! And that triggers a feeling of sadness…, knowing that it’s impossible for me to fulfill them.
I think my thought is that even though these claims are impossible to fulfill, I’m should still be allowed to vent, voice and put them all out, and allow the universe to give me an answer to them eventually.
These things have stopped me from resting, but at what cost? Trauma, pain from childhood, and the things that I valued being broken before my eyes. A broken marriage that I wished never happened, childhood crushes that I wish had never ended horribly, bullying experiences from my brother and school that I wish I could at least, find some safety in…
Yet, as I grow older, I had to push these wishes down, just because it’s “not” going to happen realistically. Shame, and pain for hoping and wishing.
Oh,…I wish I could simply be naive, dream and wish for the betterment and deep meaning of my life, even if that is only in the safe haven of my mind…
Yet, hoping created more hurt because of empty visual promises, the insensitivity of people’s actions… such that hoping became dangerous…
That’s where I am.
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I’ve gotten some of my most crucial inner-guidance spiritual visions after the most potent venting in my journal. So right there with ya!
This is really coming up for me with the H.O.P.E. workshop on Sunday. It’s HARD for me to be vanilla-optimistic for example. For me optimism needs to be grounded in what matters to my heart, an awareness of “reality” and optimizing myself and my we-spaces in ways that lead towards what matters.
That is excruciatingly hard for me at times. My brain will tend to see the impossible as a call to shut down and hide. It’s when I go within after that, tend to what matters, notice seeds and signs and fellow co-creators of even pockets of what matters that I can… persistently engage.
A part of me would have gladly just been a part of an emotional freedom circle without having to create it myself. But what I needed didn’t exist, so I co-created it and persist in co-creating it.
Perhaps your band of mutual lifter-uppers and we-spacers is something you will find… or something you will “need to” co-create. I don’t know.
I do believe while no one can make everyone in the world not shame them, we can become WELL-protected against shaming by those we hold near, whose opinions of us are well-formed from knowing and loving us. My parents were never those people. They don’t know me even as much as you do! I choose to work and be with people who want to know me “enough” to really appreciate my gifts and understand that my gaps are not a failure.
I find you friendly and kind and genuine. I could more easily right now, I think, find 5 people who are not those qualities right now than find “another” Jun Rong. It’s okay. I don’t feel either of us are at all interested in 1-upping or taking advantage of the other. THAT gives me hope there are others, and whatdoyaknow, there are!
Just not everyone…
So I devote my heart to persisting. To engage in ways that I have HOPE in expanding our community in ways that are more and more akin to the energy you speak of wanting in your world.
Appreciate you!
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This is wonderful, Rick! Always refreshing and revitalising to hear your words, insights and affirmations!
And yes, I really thank you for following what matters to you…, so that people like us who saw what matters, can follow suit on this journey from the path that has been paved by you and many others as well!
These are valuable thoughts, thank you…! I hope to work towards these as well!
And yes, will definitely look into watching the HOPE workshop replay!!
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