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Warmth When It’s Dark & Cold Emotionally
[00:00:00] Warm when it’s dark and cold emotionally. Hmm. This is a real skills workshop, which is here because we believe that there are things that we can do with mindfulness and consciousness, and by sharing wisdom amongst each other that can bring warmth when it is dark and cold emotionally. And for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it was 28 degrees this morning.
[00:00:30] Oh yeah. It was, and I did not walk the trail, uh, naked. I, I, I both wore a hat that had been handmade for me and that fact was not lost on me. And I did a bunch of other things too that helped my body and my. My soul warm up, and so I’m delighted to be here. I’m Ricket from Thriving Now, and I’m here with Kathy Tui from Thriving Now and The Intimacy Dojo.
[00:01:03] Hi Cathy. Hi Rick. It’s a pleasure to be here and I love the fact that we’re here as a group looking at things that a lot of people try to avoid. They, you know, it’s like cold and dark. Why would I look at it in the middle of winter? Like, why would I look at that? And yet when we look at it, we start making things conscious that are just kind of otherwise floating around and we can make better choices for ourselves.
[00:01:26] So if you’re here, can you just like. Acknowledge yourself that you made a choice. We have free will. You could be doing a lot of other things. You made the choice to be here and to look at these and ask yourself some questions and clear some energy. And that’s a gift you’re giving yourself and everyone around you.
[00:01:43] So if you would just, you know, kind of pat yourself on the back, let yourself be a, you know, feel some appreciation because you are, you’re making choices. I value very much. And I just, I judge that. That’s a lovely way to spend an afternoon or early evening together. So thank you.
[00:02:03] Um, I, I like this time of year and I can feel the energetic change. Mm-hmm. , uh, was much warmer the other day and I came across, uh, probably sick on the same trail, same exact trail. Um, six dogs. Walking their humans, . And, um, the dogs were happy and the humans were happy, and there was an exchange of energy.
[00:02:34] And today it was just me out there, weirdly enough. Um,
[00:02:42] I, our first exploration here, not only just acknowledging that we appreciate and feel connected to you, those of us who are willing to, to do this and look at it, um, we’d, we want to acknowledge that with, with that awareness and that willingness can come. Um, sometimes a bit of a, gosh, why don’t I have this down already?
[00:03:14] You know, like, I’ve been working on this for decades. Why do I sometimes feel cold and not always warm? Why does sometimes I feel, uh, Lonely amidst even a group of people. Um, are there times when, you know, I just, I don’t have what I crave mm-hmm. and what do I do with it? I feel, I don’t feel warm. I feel a little dark.
[00:03:44] I feel cold. What do I do? And, um, you know, we as a culture have often, um, asserted that if you’re down, if you’re not happy, if you’re not feeling joyful, um, that you should just, you know, suck it up, pull yourself up, pull yourself up. Um, and yeah. And as somebody who was raised as a, there were, I was raised as a man, you know, to be a man.
[00:04:18] And that meant not crying. , and it definitely meant that if you reached out, you might reach out to go for a beer with someone, but you didn’t reach out for, for like, Hey, um, dark clouds are coming through my brain and my heart feels just like shivery buddy. Can you, can you spare a, what a kind word. Can you remind me of something that I, I did that you value?
[00:04:53] Can you tell me, you’d miss me the comforting side of it for people. I decided to swim to Africa, you know, like, would, would you miss me? And, um, like I, there’s no part of that dialogue, which any man that I’m aware of in my ancestry or in my world would’ve ever, ever spoken to. Um, and yet, , what did they do?
[00:05:22] They drank, they smoked, they cored, they did things that really violated what they may have also been teaching as part of their integrity. Um, you know, a man tells the truth, but I’m gonna go off and do these other things that violate that. So we, my long-winded way of, of saying that I know within me, and I’ve, I’ve been blessed to engage with lots of people across the diversity spectrum.
[00:05:54] That as humans we have these, um, dark clouds that come through just like in the mountains. Um, in our soul, we can get, have really tough times and if we can as a community and as individuals, Get to a place where, um, we can say, you know, I’ve got soul shivers. . Yeah, yeah. What would you like? If we can get to that place where that’s normalized, and that’s not, not something that we feel a lot of resistance and much less shame about having, well then we’re healing our ourselves and the people that we’re connected to by getting past this is something that, that is a defect or a deficiency or a diminishment of what it means to be a powerful human.
[00:06:41] Yeah. And I think if we even take it back earlier to our younger cells, like what everything you said is, is, um, on target when we’re very little. It’s impossible for little children. I think less than three to think of. Anything that’s happening is not being about themselves. So it is just their, their, their brain development.
[00:07:02] They just think anything that happens is about them. So if we’re little kids growing up in a family where our parents are maybe not very efficient or very good at taking care of us, or they’re overwhelmed or they’re having a bad day, if we feel a lack of comfort, if we feel alone and cold, if we feel like things are kind of dark, there’s a sense that it’s because of us.
[00:07:24] We can’t, it’s just how our brain works. There’s no way we could overcome that. So there’s often a sense of, I did something wrong. I am something wrong, that my parents weren’t giving me this comfort, that I didn’t get this comfort. And so these little kids may make decisions about this. Like, this is something I.
[00:07:42] There’s something wrong with me. It, so when we feel the lack of comfort and warmth, there may be a kind of a freeze mechanism in our body. A collapse. Like this is just what happens. I have no way to overcome that. And a sense of shame. So even early, like when we’re trying as an adult to comfort ourselves or take care of ourselves, we may be fighting that early trend of that freeze collapse.
[00:08:06] Like, I don’t know how to comfort myself, I’m too little. Mm-hmm. And the people around me that are supposed to take care of me aren’t doing that. So it must be about me. And I’d love to do, just do a little tapping on that, if it’s okay. Yeah. So we, we use an emotional technology, a skill that we can all practice.
[00:08:24] It’s called EFT tapping. We have a free course, um, thriving now, dot com slash tapping. You can sign up for, for that. Um, we’re not gonna be teaching tapping today, but if you’d like, just listen, tap along and, and we repeat, um, what the person share, uh, what the person is offering. And you’re free always to change it for yourself.
[00:08:49] Yeah. We also have a book on Amazon if you’d like to, if you’d like to hold a book. Um, if you’re one of, I like to hold papers sometimes still, so invite you to just take a nice deep breath and let yourself come here. And now, like we’ve often had a lot of things going on. We had to create space to be here, so just invite yourself to kind of sink into your body.
[00:09:11] Notice that we have this circle of people that are really friendly and, and wanting to do the same thing. So if you can take a nice, gentle, deep breath, if that feels good to your body, let your feel, let yourself feel your butt and your seat, your feet on the floor. , if you can make yourself 5% more comfortable in whatever you’re sitting in, just like how could you shift your body to care for yourself a little?
[00:09:34] How could you add a little comfort there? And we’ll just start tapping Karate chap. Even though part of me thinks I might deserve this cold, lonely feeling,
[00:09:49] oh, you’re muted, and I think I’m not hearing you. Me. Oh, now I can hear you. Yep. I don’t . You jump right in. Uh,
[00:10:01] even though part of me thinks I might deserve this cold and lonely feeling, and that makes me feel more ashamed, and that fa makes me feel more ashamed and more cold and alone and more cold and isolated. Yeah. What if it was never about anything I did wrong? What if it was never about anything I did wrong?
[00:10:26] even though I have trouble believing that sometimes, even though I don’t believe that sometimes, I do know that my caregivers weren’t always perfect. Yeah, my caregivers were far from perfect. They might have been doing their best, they might have been doing their best, but there were certainly gaps in the care.
[00:10:45] There were certainly gaps from in the care top of the head. I send love back to my younger self. I send love back to my younger self eyebrow. That little me that was trying so hard to take care of themselves, that little me that was trying so hard to take care of themselves, side of the eye, and who just didn’t know how to self comfort yet and did not know how to self comfort.
[00:11:11] Yet under the eye, it’s physically impossible for little kids to self comfort. It’s literally impossible for little kids to self comfort under the nose and pardon of me froze. . Mm-hmm. , part of me froze chin. Part of me decided I didn’t deserve more comfort. Part of me felt I didn’t deserve more comfort.
[00:11:37] There was no more comfort available. collarbone, part of me felt deeply ashamed that I wanted the comfort part of me felt deeply ashamed that I wanted, needed comfort under the arm. And as an adult, I’m realizing that humans do need comfort. As an adult, I know that humans need comfort top of the head from themselves and from others, from themselves, and from others.
[00:12:07] And I’m gonna start practicing that. And I’m gonna continue practicing that. Yeah. And just take a nice breath and notice what what’s coming up. And it may feel like part of you may feel curious about this and some of you may have feeling the shame, getting a little more intense. Sometimes things will burrow up to the surface before they get cleared.
[00:12:27] There’s nothing wrong. Um, and it really is, there’s, that’s, this is scientific fact when they, you know, tell when people used to teach their, put the kid there, let them cry. They learned to sell sooth when they were six months or a year. Literally. That kid could not do that. All that was happening is a kid was giving up, it was going into clap, submit, and okay, mom and dad didn’t have to listen to the kid cry anymore, but the kid was actually going into trauma.
[00:12:54] And we can clear those old traumas out by tapping and, and Bean is part of a group and healing this together, uh, side of the head. Mm-hmm. , even though I’m really aware of. Times in my past, even though I’m really aware of times in my past when I didn’t get warmth. When I didn’t get warmth, I didn’t get comfort.
[00:13:16] I didn’t get comfort, and the attention was cold and dark and the attention was cold and dark. I’m here right now. I’m here right now and there’s love present and there’s love present here. There’s compassion present here. There’s compassion present here. There’s shared experience present here. Shared.
[00:13:41] There’s shared experience present here, the head. I’ve had cold and dark experiences. I have had cold and dark experiences eyebrow. I’m aware of that. I’m aware of that. It’s outta the eye and it’s not all of who I am, and it is not all of who I am under the eye. I can bring warmth. I can bring warmth on the nose.
[00:14:08] I can bring warmth. I can bring warmth. Jen, I am bringing warmth. I am bringing warmth. And so is everyone else here and so is everyone else here.
[00:14:28] We’ve shared cold, dark experiences. We’ve shared cold, dark experiences, even if we were alone and isolated at the time, even if we were alone and isolated at the time. Mm. I’m open to feeling my connection. I’m open to feeling my connection. Mm-hmm. and the warmth in each each of. And the warmth in each of us, at least 98.6 , at least 98.6
[00:15:05] So I, I invite you just to take a breath. I know for many, many years I thought it was indulgent to want comfort. I was brought up in a family where you just pull you. If you you’re crying, I’ll give you something to cry about. Was one of my dad’s favorite lions. Alright. Um, you were supposed to just pull yourself up if you were indulgent.
[00:15:23] That was a sign of weakness and it was very hard for me to learn to comfort myself and to allow myself to be soft with myself. So I’d love to just do a tapping, because I imagine if I have that experience, some of you have had that as well. Yeah. So karate shop, even though it’s indulgent to tap or to, to comfort myself, no.
[00:15:44] It’s indulgent to comfort myself. And I shouldn’t bother with that. I shouldn’t bother with that. . What if that’s a silly story from when I was younger? Hmm. What if that’s a really silly story from when I was younger and in that book I read in the movie I watched and from parents that didn’t have a lot of comfort to spare
[00:16:12] What if it’s okay to comfort myself? Now? What if it’s okay to comfort myself Now, top of that, I’m not sure it’s okay to comfort myself. Yeah, I’m not sure it’s okay to comfort myself. Shouldn’t I be like the Spartans? Shouldn’t I be like the Spartan side of the eye sleeping outdoors and on the hard ground, sleeping outdoors on the hard ground under the eye?
[00:16:38] I don’t really wanna sleep on the hard ground. I do not want to be that, that uncomfortable under the nose. I really like my soft bed. I really like my soft bed. And when I do allow comfort, I have more to give.
[00:16:57] We lost your sound again. Rick
[00:17:01] lost your sound. Rick. Can’t hear you right now. Mm-hmm.
[00:17:09] We try that. Yep. Now I can hear you again. Okay. Collarbone. I can still take action when it’s useful. I can still take action when it’s useful under the arm and sometimes that action is comfort. And sometimes that action is actually comfort top of the head. What if I let go of some of those old messages?
[00:17:29] What if I let go of some of those old messages and help create comfort and love in my life and help create comfort and love in my life? Just take a breath. Notice what’s coming up with thoughts and images, and um, if you’re new to tapping or just as a reminder too, um, so as, as we’re tapping, sometimes you can feel that the statement is maybe too raw from where you are.
[00:18:00] There’s a little bit of truth, but not a whole lot. And sometimes you’ll say something that might, I might be saying very lighthearted because it’s not a big deal for me. And for you, it’s like, that’s one of the reasons that we come together in these, uh, these gatherings, is to allow each other to get clarity.
[00:18:26] So when I, you’ll notice I changed it when Kathy said, and I’m gonna start, it felt warmer and more acknowledging to my, my, my practice to change that to, and I’m going to continue to do this. Um, so that’s one of the things about tapping is that you can say something and in the gap as you’re pausing, maybe before you say it back, you’ll notice I do that sometimes.
[00:19:02] As you feel like, where’s the truth in this for me as a, as a kinesthetic experience, not just like, what do I think about that statement? Um, allowing your body to guide this as well. Um, yeah. So is there anything that you wanted to Well, I, uh, people are sharing that they, the self comfort is something that they really struggled with and I appreciate you sharing.
[00:19:29] Uh, one person said that they’re in their seventies and just learning in the last couple of years. Thank God you found it. Um, we, we always wish we’d found something sooner. Like I wish I had e f T back before it existed cuz it would’ve made my life so different. And I still love the fact we can find it whenever we, wherever we are, we can take action because that means.
[00:19:51] We’ve changed the trajectory of our life and we get to live whatever years, decades left of our lives. Like what you’re learning right now is going to change your life, right? For the rest of your life. There’ll be residuals of this that will be in your system, that will help you move forward and change that.
[00:20:08] And if we’re bad at self soothing, it’s, it’s a sign probably that we weren’t taught. It wasn’t modeled. I watch Rick and and Gem with, with Aira, she’s two and they teach her, they’re like, honey, it’s okay to be sad. Are you feeling sad? Oh, you’re in that pose. Does that feel comforting? I see them talk to her and sometimes they will distract her.
[00:20:29] That’s fine. We can sometimes distract her. Distraction is comforting sometimes. Sometimes we don’t wanna distract. Sometimes boys, sometimes. Yeah. Right. But like crunchy, sweet. You know, we look at all the ways that we comfort. . You know, some people find something that, that their psyche allows. Um, they might not feel good about it.
[00:20:49] Hol whole wholeheartedly good about it, but there’s something that’s like, oh, there’s something coming up for me. Not even like, they get the feeling about it and they’ll have a comfort and we, we hold a lot of, uh, shame or judgment toward the person who watches you. 37 episodes of a show on, on Netflix, uh, in a row.
[00:21:19] okay, I’ve done that Long weekend binge watch. Well, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a difference between, to me being excited and in it and the yourself, the, just the, so our second point here is, is looking at whether we confront or comfort, and maybe we do both and we do it in a different sequence. Part of this is if you do something that brings you warmth, um, I am, I feel blessed that you have found something that does.
[00:21:58] Um, I wish I could have had a conversation with my dad that was like, you know, when you get home or, or when you, when you’re driving in the car leaving work and you’re sucking down the beers, I know that that’s providing comfort to you. Cuz I can feel that what you need is something, and you found something that gave you a little bit.
[00:22:23] And, um, you know, one of the other things that would give him comfort is like grabbing me by the leg and, and, you know, roughhousing with me a little bit in the car in a way that I did not enjoy at all, but I could tell it really gave him, um, something that he needed. If we get to a place like, oh, what am I?
[00:22:44] Where am I right now? Well, it’s dark and cold and which feels better for me, right? First comfort or to be with confront, confront says, I’ve got these feelings. Can I be with it for seven seconds, 30 seconds? Can I, can I acknowledge that? That’s where I am. And that’s one of the things that tapping did for me.
[00:23:11] Um, because of the way that this tech, this technique, and this technology is structured, you can find yourself saying, I have no friends. I have no friends. I have no friends. I have no friends. That was, what, four seconds. Right Now what I’m actually saying is I feel isolated and disconnected from people who matter to me.
[00:23:35] That’s the shortcut version of it. My thought of, I have no friends. I have no friends, I have no friends. I have no friends. That used to be like something inside me. I had family. The next birthday party I had, there were 90 people there like. But when we, when we acknowledge and like, that’s what we mean by confront.
[00:24:00] It’s like, what am I feeling? Oh, this dark cold is, I have no friends. What does that act? Oh, I, I feel disconnected. Part of the skill here that we’re inviting is to take something that feels kind of habitual or dark and cold and it, it, it feels like you’re not making movement on it. And we’ve normalized, we said, well, I feel ashamed about it stops me, you know, oh, it’s connected to my past patterns of how I had to cope and maladaptive rather than be in warmth and connection.
[00:24:38] How does that show up for me? Well, even to this day, it’s much quieter, but 20 years later, after I really use tapping around this mantra of mine of, I have no friends, um, And it’s not, it was never true, but it felt like true. Yeah. When it comes up, what is it saying to me? It is saying, you know, it is really time for connection to people that matter.
[00:25:11] And by confronting it there, it’s great. Now I’m reremember remembering, like getting in my car and feeling teary. That kind of cold, um, and that I have no friends was coming to me and walking now and nature has become a comfort. Okay. Not a confrontation. And so as I went out and walked in nature, um, I was looking for comfort.
[00:25:45] So what did I do? Well, I didn’t, I, as soon as my body’s blood, you know, got pumping a little bit more, I actively would look for things that were pleasing to me. Simple uplifts, things that were warming. And you can do this when it’s really cold out. There is probably, and again, like you, I was someone that could have walked from A to B and not noticed 2000 different works of natural art.
[00:26:16] And now this morning I walked around a corner and there’s this beautiful dead tree, like it, it was a, it was this color and it had been eaten and it was still standing. There was still like, ah, and there was something on today that was really warming to me. About life and death and resilience and value and what we leave behind and how what can be appreciated.
[00:26:48] And I didn’t have to search for it too much because I was tuned to, what am I noticing? That is comforting to me. And it can be weird. It can be like that dead leaf, you know, that bit of lichen, um, the water coming out of the drainage tube from the draining from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Um, it was sparkling.
[00:27:15] Wow. Now when I do things like that, I’m bringing active warmth, even though I didn’t meet, there were no dogs, there were no people. Um, I’m looking for comfort. So yeah, I think there’s a clearing we can do around our blocks. And one of the things that I found more recently was I cleared a lot of the voices in my head that were very loud, the very judgmental, shameful voices.
[00:27:41] I’d had those for years. Like, you’re a piece of shit. No one’s gonna love you. Like, I cleared those out, but I’d still find myself slumping sometimes. And one of, um, someone I’m working with had this insight. He’s like, I think you’re getting things just below the level of consciousness. I think you’re having some.
[00:27:59] Some thoughts and patterns and I started doing more meditation and slowing down and noticing. I’m like, oh, this is reminding me of a time, like the holidays, we grew up very poor, so we were very cold. Often the house was very cold, um, and people were struggling for money. So the holidays could bring up a lot of stress.
[00:28:17] So there could be things that are triggering memories of it or yeah, thought patterns that are just below the consciousness, or they may be in the conscious level. So when we choose to confront things, it doesn’t mean we have to go face first into it. We can ask for help. We can wrap ourselves in a warm blanket while we do it.
[00:28:34] We can, we don’t have to do either or necessarily, but sometimes we’ll use comfort. I, I’ve certainly done it where I’m like hiding from something and I can tell in my soul, it’s like you’re just hiding and comforting yourself. You really wanna face this. And I sometimes indulge for a little while and then I come out of it.
[00:28:53] But when we start clearing those old traumas, we start clearing those old messages. It’s like, oh. We can take action faster. We can find ways to comfort ourselves better when we’re stuck in freeze or or collapse, submit. It’s very hard to see options. It’s like nobody loves me. No one’s gonna be there for me.
[00:29:12] Oh, well, why don’t I zoom with someone? Why don’t I make a phone call? Why don’t I find a pet? Um, one way that people that are, that are healthy and know how to take care of themselves, we can also turn to memories of times where we felt connected. We can remember like last night when I got to zoom with a deer, I got to see her.
[00:29:31] She was cooking. She is some lovely toys that I wish I’d had when I was little. She made soup. She fed it to the video camera from me. Like I can remember that time that I felt connected and used that as a way to kind of comfort myself. So we get, we have more options available for comforting and I really think.
[00:29:49] wisdom is dis is knowing how far to confront versus how much to comfort. What are my resources right now? How raw is this? And we don’t always get it right. I certainly feel this often. We’re like, oh, that was a little too intense. I am completely worn out right now. Or, I didn’t really quite push myself as hard as I could have.
[00:30:07] I would’ve loved to have, you know, use some of the energy I had. We don’t have to get it perfect, but we keep learning. If we, if we’re conscious and we notice it, we start learning and learning and we direct ourselves and our paths better and we’re like, oh, I’m really depleted now. I’m recognizing that feeling.
[00:30:22] I’m going to just, I’m gonna gently close down the confronting and it. Clearing out stuff, and I’m gonna go more into the comfort and asking people to kind of be there for me. Does that make sense to folks? Like finding that balance is a, is a, it’s constantly evolving. We get stronger as we go, but also there’s times when big stuff comes up.
[00:30:43] I think our systems really know what we’re capable of. So when we’re first starting out, the things that verbal to the top are not gonna be as big as like when we’re months or years down the road and we’ve built up a lot of muscles. Our system knows like, oh, you can handle this now I’m gonna give you the bigger piece of cement that you need to clear out.
[00:31:03] Um, so. . It’s a constant learning and growing, and I think when we’re dancing with ourselves and being mindful and adjusting as we go, we can dance much more gracefully. We can find a better balance. We can take care of ourselves so much more profoundly. Um, and I, I just think that’s a lovely gift to give ourselves and we kind of notice, oh, I think I did a little too much.
[00:31:25] I need to adjust a little bit down, or, Hmm. I think I could have gone, I could have looked a little bit harder at that. I think that there’s a little more energy there that would love to clear. So just kind of dancing with ourselves in that, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. . Uh, chat is open for questions, and if you’re watching the replay, uh, we do, um, look at replies and comments and mm-hmm.
[00:31:49] I put in the chat, there’s a book I’m reading right now, adult Children of Immature Parents, and I have highlighted over half the Danging book and I send it my, my sister’s reading as well. Now, it’s really powerful for me because it talks about, I imagine everyone here has at least some time when, or someone around them that was immature because we hear people talking about comforting their parents taking care of things.
[00:32:14] Um, and we’re pretty much thoughtful people that want to grow. Um, so it’s if you had parents that weren’t there for you as much as you would’ve liked or you suspect there might be something there, it can be, it’s an easy read, but there’s a lot of, I keep going, oh, , it’s, um, and he talks about how, um, , if we’re around immature, our parents were immature or one or both of them.
[00:32:40] We can often feel alone. We’re not seen and like children need to be seen and witnessed. And if we’re not really seen at the level we wanna be seen, there’s a sense of isolation and loneliness that we carry. And there’s a sense of, there’s something wrong with me. Yeah. Because I feel this and we carry it forward in our life feeling like I just don’t quite fit with people versus, oh, my parents were just not able to see what I see me as I needed to be seen.
[00:33:09] And now I can find people that are able to. So I just, I really, I’m really loving the book. I thought I’d share that cuz it kind of fits with us. Oh. Can we do some tapping on comfort versus confrontation? Would you like to lead or would you like me to? Sure. Oh, are you feeling drawn too or would you I’m glad to, but I’m also glad I’m, I asked the, I, I asked an open-ended either way.
[00:33:36] Okay. Yeah. Karate chap, even though it’s sometimes hard to decide whether to comfort myself or confront these old issues, even though at times it’s hard to decide whether to comfort myself or confront these old issues, maybe I can do both. Maybe I can do both. I can wrap myself in a warm blanket. I can wrap myself in a warm blanket, get some nice warm tea, get some nice warm tea.
[00:34:06] Maybe even light a candle. Maybe even light a candle, and then I can see what in my soul wants tending, and then I can see what in my soul wants tending. Top of the head. I like that word tendon. Yeah. Top, top of the head. Part of me wants to run away and just comfort myself. Part of me wants to run away and just comfort myself eyebrow, and that’s okay sometimes, and that’s okay.
[00:34:33] Sometimes side of the eye. And sometimes it’s good to clear out some of these old beliefs, and sometimes it’s good to be with some of these old beliefs under the eye to create an easier path. As I move forward to create an easier path as I move forward under the nose, I can just try a little bit of both.
[00:34:55] I can try a little bit of both chin and notice what feels best to my soul in this moment, and notice what feels best to my soul in this moment. Callone, I don’t have to decide forever and ever. I’m in. Oh, I do not have to decide forever and ever. I’m in just for the next five minutes. Just for the next five minutes, top of the head, we’re 50 or 50 seconds.
[00:35:25] We’re 50 seconds. Yeah. I get to adjust what I’m giving my body. I get to adjust what I’m giving my body, and I get to dance with my being and I get to dance with my being. Just take a breath and see if that lands for you, if you have resistance. Again, I was brought up in a family where you just push through.
[00:35:45] If you’re in pain, just push harder, like get her done. And so it’s sometimes really hard for me to be gentle with myself and there are times when that’s the, the most challenging thing I can do is to be soft and gentle and those muscles to, to be soft and gentle with myself are not as well developed as some of the others.
[00:36:03] So again, notice. What would be challenging in a good way for you, is it to practice being just a little bit like, I call it indulgent when I’m in my negative voice, like you’re just indulging yourself, get out of bed and get stuffed on, you know, I can hear my parents’ voices and sometimes it’s like, no, I need to just acknowledge those voices are there and turn, you know, say like, I don’t have to listen to you right now and I’m gonna curl up in bed for an extra half hour, or whatever it is that my system is needing.
[00:36:31] So sometimes being indulgent can be really challenging to our system and sometimes it’s like, okay, there is something there that I’d love to clear, so I don’t have to have to, I don’t have to have this keep coming up and kind of biting me in the butt all the time. Mm-hmm. , I, I, I get the image of, um, you know, the yin yang, the balance of.
[00:36:55] Approaches. Um, I sometimes work with clients who’ve been working on themselves with a lot of young, they go after it, after, after, after, after, after, after, after. Um, and that’s great. That can be a superpower, um, to be able to have that kind of courage and, and drive. Um, if that’s your nature, I’m going to suggest that when you need some warmth that you look at what might be yin nourishing, like, you know, I’ve been tapping for three hours.
[00:37:32] what? Little black and blue marks I should stop. Yeah, yeah. I’ve got, I’ve got, I’ve got callouses on the pads of my fingers from the last three months. I wonder, I wonder what my, my belly would find warming. What would be soft if I go after things hard. If, if I’m willing and able to do the hard things, am I willing and able to do the soft things?
[00:38:01] So, for example, someone wrote, you know, um, I found a number of people who see me, and yet I have a hard time believing or feeling it. Now I know this person’s courage, their capacity to continue to be with. What comes up even really hard things. And I know that, you know, I love Kathy and Kathy’s capacity to be courageous and go after it in things.
[00:38:32] Um, I feel good about the fact that, you know, I, I started inviting her to like, what would be soft for you? Um, things like lighting candles and really dropping in and, you know, this was a long time ago and now she teaches and reminds me of the same things. Um, we, we support and help each other. Um, you know, we need young in the world and we need people that are very powerfully yen with their capacity to be responsive and, and, um, to hold space and to be, create containers for energy and experience and all of these things.
[00:39:15] But it, it, as you’re looking at warmth, , if your tendency is to be like withdrawn and very, um, like not movement. One of the things I like about tapping is that it’s got some movement to it. For me, my tendency when I get cold and dark is to become sedentary isn’t quite the word. That’s sort of the physicalness of it.
[00:39:44] My chi, if you were to look at it, would be, um,
[00:39:51] heavier. Mm-hmm. , right? I would tend to heavy myself into, um, uh, a space, an energy space. So for me, a balancing replenishing is something that’s more physical, which is why my morning mile, even if it happens at three o’clock in the afternoon, That’s something that’s very, um, balancing for me. I know people that run miles a day that they haven’t had a day where they’ve walked less than 10,000 steps even when they had just gotten outta surgery, you know, like that.
[00:40:31] That’s the level of push. And for warmth though, if we’re pushing to the place where we start feeling cold mm-hmm. , that’s a bit like the athlete who’s, who’s pushing, pushing, pushing, and the energy starts being withdrawn from their, their limbs, their extremities, and something that would be warming. Um, a pause, a powerful pause could be really helpful.
[00:40:59] Pause and comfort. Um, food is comfort. Activities can be comfort. Warm blanket can be comfort. Holding your heart feeling for your core, your. Even feeling like my hands are a little cold. My room’s a little cold here. Um, and I’m gonna turn up the heat here when we take a break. But the feeling like my hand, my fingers are, are colder than the side of my neck.
[00:41:32] So feeling for areas of you that have physical warmth, hardiness, some energy moving or, or radiating, um, these, these can be profoundly reconnecting and I think we’ll get into some of the, you know, the getting help, uh, on our with, uh, do it on our own or get help and do some tapping on that. After, after our break, is there anything that you want to set this tone for, for arguing?
[00:42:08] I would love, just because I think it’s up. If it’s okay, I would just like to do a quick tapping on when I, if we push too far, like the forgiveness for ourselves, because sometimes we can make it worse and someone shared that in the chat. Sure. So if it’s okay, karate Tap. Even though I pushed too far, even though I pushed too far and I might have made myself worse and I might have made myself worse, I’m so frustrated with myself.
[00:42:33] I’m so frustrated with myself. I might someday be able to forgive myself. I might someday be able to forgive and understand myself, , even though I push too hard. Even though I push too hard. I really wanna be better. I really wanted to be better and I went too far and I went too far and I set myself back and I set myself back.
[00:42:59] Maybe I can be okay with that anyway. Maybe I can be okay and allow myself to recover anyway. Top of the head, I’m not so sure. I’m not so sure. I bro, I’m pretty mad at myself. I’m pretty mad at myself side of the eye. I set myself back. I set myself back under the eye when I meant to go forward. When I meant to go forward under the nose and I did the best I knew how and I did the best.
[00:43:28] I know how Chin. Maybe I can forgive myself. Maybe I can forgive myself collarbone, and use this as a learning experience and use this as a learning experience arm. I might need to take more pauses as I move ahead. I may want to take more pauses as I move ahead, tough head, or get some support to help me see things more realistically or get some support.
[00:43:53] Help me feel, see things more realistically. Yeah, just take a breath. I noticed that we all do this. The other, I did this back in September. I was feeling really good. I pushed myself too hard walking. My knee has hurt since then and I’m think I’m made some progress, but it’s like, ugh. Every time my knee hurts, there’s a little bit of like, you know, if I hadn’t pushed that, I might have been fine.
[00:44:15] And I did the best I knew how at that moment. So if we, you know, when we’re stuck in the self-recrimination, it’s really hard to take wisdom out of the experience. But if we can do some tapping and some clearing, then we’re like, oh, I’ve noticed that. I get really excited when I’m making good progress and that’s the time I need to say, Hey Rick, do you think it’d be a good idea to double my, my, uh, exercise today?
[00:44:39] And you can say, no, Kathy, I don’t think that’s a good idea, . Um, so, you know, we can take wisdom out of it a lot more and we can allow ourselves to move forward better when we’ve done so forgiveness, and we can like, oh, I was really doing my best. I was excited, I was really happy that things were happening.
[00:44:57] So, um, Someone offered to support me. Yeah. I think we all need some realistic, someone to say, wow, you’re making good progress, but maybe you don’t have to push yourself exponentially today. Like, can you pause and celebrate the game that you made and see how your body responds to that little increase versus like, doubling something.
[00:45:17] Well, and you use the term celebrate, like celebrate as a, you know, it gonna mean something to different people. But in me, celebration is a young experience, right? We’re celebrating a birthday, we’re celebrating a win, we’re celebrating. Um, and, uh, to balance out my nature, if I’m pushing, if I’m doing something, if I, if I, uh, uh, if I complete something savoring mm-hmm.
[00:45:47] so like, we’re, we’re talking about warmth more than heat, like generating power and heat. Today’s is about like, okay. When it’s dark and cold, what do I do? Um, well, we can generate warmth. You can get dark and cold and being, you know, and being Dr. Driving yourself through the so snowstorm. Right. And that’s kind of your, your, your metaphor for where you are and what you, what would benefit would be coming into a nice warm place, maybe having some hot cocoa and, uh, a sauna with friends.
[00:46:23] Um, and just savoring where you were and where you are now. Um, so that’s, I, I find my, I’m speaking to myself, which is why I’m a little awkward sometimes in this because, um, if I, if I push to get, um, the kitchen clean and I don’t pause and savor mm-hmm. , so I made, I made the family breakfast. Mom was getting some very needed sleep.
[00:46:54] We had a, the three of us, um, Uh, Emerald and, um, Aira and I, we had a sweet time. Um, if I didn’t stop to savor breakfast and the feeling after breakfast, if I had just gone back to the doing part of it, it and I, there was a part of me that wanted to, wanted to just get everything cleaned up and cook the potatoes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:47:17] I started to feel cold, like my body started to, to feel cold. I didn’t feel warm. And this is part of body guidance. It’s a little advanced, but if you notice like, do I have ooph for this? Do I have energy? Do I have vitality and chi for this? If I don’t, it may, what am I? Okay, so I don’t have the energy.
[00:47:41] What is it? Oh, I was pushing or wanting to push. Okay, so the. The opposing force or the yin balance, you know, the balancing is saver, comfort, saver. Be with, tune to things that are warming to your soul. Oh, well I, I am, I was feeling cold cuz I was just kind of like, just scrolling social media and I’m feeling really like cold and, ah, what’s the, what’s the balancing some movement, oh, I’m gonna put on some music and I’m gonna spend three minutes and decorate or clean, clean up or something like that.
[00:48:29] Um, this is energy is meant to, uh, find a, Not a static balance of like happy, warm, and happy all the time. And that would be like saying your heartbeat’s gonna always be 72 beats a minute. No. Sometimes 172 beats a minute might be perfect for what you’re doing running after Aira down the hall or, or like really chilling and you’re just like, boom, boom, boom, boom.
[00:49:02] You know it. This is the emotional freedom, uh, allows for more range and savvy within the range. It’s cold and dark. What is that for me? Oh, I’m wanting more chi. I’m running too much chi. My body’s like, eh, I comfort myself. Uh, I’m confronting my laziness, uh, , you know, like my, my energy system is decided that, uh, you know, today I’d rather not go for a walk outside.
[00:49:37] Okay. Do I need movement? Yes. And then you come up. Something else that gives you a variety of the chi that your chi, nourishment, warming, that your being needs. We don’t do well when our chi drops below a certain point, um, that’s the cold, dark. It starts hitting places that are familiar in that, uh, they’re part of our makeup.
[00:50:06] They were part of our raising and maybe even part of our incubation inside of our mother. They were part of the culture that we’ve been in and are in. When our, when our chi drops below a certain point in that cold, dark, what are you gonna find? It’s gonna be what’s in your crawl space. Um, and in that place, I, I, I’m, I’m so blessed to have people like Kathy and you all, there’s so many familiar faces and some new ones, um, in my life because it’s, it’s an opportunity for me to connect to what matters to people like us, people that, um, you know, been there, done that.
[00:50:55] We’ll do it again. How can we bring a more, a little more savvy, a little more skill, compassion, comfort to that? Yeah. And we’re gonna, I think we’re gonna take a break, but we’re gonna come back and talk about, we’re trying to brighten the darkness. Do we do it with our own candle or other people? We have other people help.
[00:51:13] So, and if you, someone wants to do some tapping with us, we’re glad for you to raise your hand and bring you forward. So, mm-hmm. . All right. All right. We’ll be back in, um, seven. Let’s, uh, yeah, seven minutes.
[00:51:28] Welcome back, and if you were watching this on the recording and you didn’t take a break right then invite you to do so. Um, so my daughter, Aira, which you all know, through the newsletter, um, they’re, they were just heading out to go caroling in the neighborhood and it’s, it’s cold out . And, uh, mom was wanting to get her into her snowsuit, which is beautiful and red, uncomfortable, and, uh, she was not having it.
[00:52:03] Um, and got her in the suit. And now that she knows how to zip an unzip, uh, she would get zipped up and then start zipping it down and then zipped up and start zipping it down. And it wasn’t until mom actually took her by the hand and said, Hey, let’s go out and see how cold it is outside. And she’s like, Oh, and then she zipped it up and standing there on the front steps saying, ha ha, that’s her favorite word.
[00:52:31] Bye bye . Um, so like where we’re talking about resistance to warmth, um, even from well-meaning people, I think that’s a good l lead in to, you know, uh, it’s, she’s two years old and she resists even well-meaning warming up. Um, you know, she’s definitely been known to push my hand away when I give her a, a comforting hand on the back when she’s upset.
[00:53:02] Um, and I, I’m totally okay with that, even though it sometimes, you know, there’s a jolt to my nervous system. Um, From, from the earliest stages, we get this notion in our being about what’s right for us and what isn’t, and that can be, um, hard to navigate later on. And so, um, part of emotional freedom is for me, like, okay, if I have a knee jerk reaction, uh, if I have a knee jerk negative reaction to someone offering to help me with something.
[00:53:48] If I know myself and I’m out raking leaves and some guy comes along and says, Hey, would you like some help? And my knee jerk reaction is, no, I’m good. That’s my knee jerk reaction. That’s not an actual answer about whether it would be not only helpful, but actually maybe warm my heart to have somebody else helping me tend to, uh, something.
[00:54:13] Um, so noticing your knee-jerk reactions could be a knee-jerk reaction. Like, whoa, I need to get somebody else. I need to talk. I need, what I need to do is talk to somebody else. Um, there’s, you know, for a while I had a knee-jerk reaction that what I needed to do was journal. So, um, Whatever you’re, and, and that can be good for us.
[00:54:38] It can be good for, for to be able to wipe your own butt. It can also be good to be able to, you know, break your own leaves. But if it’s your knee-jerk reaction, I don’t want to start off with, you know, like my daughter’s knee-jerk reaction is that if she starts feeling like she’s being forced to do something that isn’t what she wants to be doing.
[00:54:57] Her knee-jerk reaction is to, to say no to it and to fight it. Not all the time, but I think that’s really good. I, like, I that’s an impulse. Like I don’t want her to be forcible easily , you know, I’m not looking for, well, looking for just compliance, uh, for the sake of it. Um, and it’s, it’s, it’s information for the skills skill part of this workshop.
[00:55:25] Like, oh, um, as we enter this exploration of, you know, do I light my own candle, um, or do I. Get help we share. Kathy, you had some, some things you wanted to touch on. Um, well, I think that there are times when, so we, we, for feeling like it’s dark, we can bring our own light inside. We can like turn up our own energy and there’s times when I have that to do and there’s times when it feels like I’m dredging the bottom of the barrel and trying to turn up that light is like, I just don’t have any fuel and humans are social creatures.
[00:56:05] I was really brought up that you’re supposed to be self-sustaining. You’re supposed to be able to spark your own fire, all that. And it really can be helpful to know. There’s times when I can kind of turn it up. Rick’s not available. I can use memories of times when I’m connected. I can reach out for different people.
[00:56:22] But there’s really something incredibly sweet reaching out to someone that’s known and trusted and asking for a little support. Um, I think when we notice, If we notice that we have resistance to allowing that in, that’s a great thing to confront to kind of like, why am I not letting this in? When did I learn that it’s not safe to let this in?
[00:56:42] And having compassion for ourselves, because we may have learned it that, um, for instance, my mother can be very generous, but often there’s um, uh, gotcha at the end. Like if you accept what she gave you, then there’s a suddenly like you owe her something. So my sisters and I tend to be leery if someone is generous and kind to us because we grew up in an environment where you accepted this thing you wanted and then you found out you owed her for the rest of the world.
[00:57:08] It wasn’t generosity, it was, uh, a look borrowing from the mafia. Certainly . Exactly, yes. The mama mafia . So 10 years later, do you remember that thing I did for you? You’re like, oh,
[00:57:25] your mother, you owe me a favor. Yeah, so it was when Rick first, we were working together and he was so generous and kind, it was kind of like there was this lee, this like, well, what does he want? And then I think it’s okay to take baby steps of people. We don’t have to like jump in and say, gimme everything.
[00:57:41] We’re like, oh, well let me accept this little bit of kindness and see how it goes. How does it feel to mind digestive system and how do they act afterwards? Um, but as we go forward, it can be really beautiful to say, Hey, you know what? My candle needs a boost. Either I’m, I need another can. If you’ve ever seen, like, if you put a match near an a flame that’s kind of struggling, that flame can get bigger.
[00:58:04] Like the warmth, it can help combustion. Yeah. or sometimes I’m like, honey, I just need someone to spark. Like I’m, I’m out my candle’s cold . Can you, can I borrow some, some my wick got cut off. I need, yeah. I need to dig in some fire from you. melting. Yeah, and I think it’s, we get to decide, just like with the other, where we’re like, am I doing this solo?
[00:58:29] Am I doing it? Am I asking for someone to do it or am I, are we collaborating on this? And humans are social animals. We do get comfort from support from other people and that actually helps us get ahead of. , some of the more primitive animals don’t know how to comfort. They just, they’re, they’re reactive to their environment.
[00:58:51] They don’t know how to comfort as a group. And as animals started forming herds and collectives, that’s when they started to be more successful. When they could self, they could soothe as a group, they could comfort and protect as a group. And humans have that ability. When we’re, when we have healthy upbringing and we have good coping skills around us, that’s one of our best skills.
[00:59:13] We can say, okay, we can comfort each other. We can heal old things together. So knowing how to find that balance. I know that there’s times when I’m too much on my, on my, like I’m gonna do it on myself and I feel kind of depleted. Or there’s times I’m leaning too much on friends and I can feel almost like I’ve had too much rich food.
[00:59:32] It’s kind of the energy of like, I’ve had a lot of support. I think I need to flex my own muscles a little more. So everybody’s body may, may tell you that in different ways, but when we’re quiet and calm with these sensations, we start picking up the signals a lot more subtly. We don’t have to wait till we have major indigestion, cuz we’ve asked for way too much rich food.
[00:59:54] We can go, oh, I think I’m gonna stop there. That last bite was a lot and I feel good about like, you know, moving on to something else. So as we follow the stance, like how do we bring brightness to our darkness? what I was watching, I was having a kind of a down morning today and talked to Rick a little bit.
[01:00:14] Aira was not available for pick me up. She’s the best antidepressant ever. Um, but she was not available. And I was watching just a silly show on TV that was very, I felt much lighter. It was this kid overcoming like the, the popular kids and forming your own thing and making new friends. And I was like, oh, this is perfect.
[01:00:33] So how do we wanna brighten up our space? What is feel what will feel good to us?
[01:00:41] So it would feel, it would, I’m anyone wanna share on the chat some things that you do when you’re feeling, um, like you could, you’d like to lighten things up for yourself. Yeah. What are some ideas? Okay. Um, we had someone who private messaged me that would like to step forward, I think. Okay. Um, rewatching Gilmore Girls.
[01:01:10] Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that kind of interplay dynamic. Really, really powerful. Um, all right. So, um, if you, the person that messaged me about volunteering, it’s not quite on this, I don’t deserve comfort, but I’d love to, to do a little tapping. It’s on very much in the topic of this. Is that okay if we Yep, go ahead.
[01:01:33] Yeah. And if you’re, if you’re a yes, the person that messaged me, you can go ahead and unmute. Um, I don’t know if you wanna use a name nickname, or if you wanna use your, um, I’ll, I’ll just be my real name. Okay. Hey, Margo, how are you? Hi, Kathy. I love that you wanna step forward for this. So you were talking earlier about how like it’s hard for your younger self to, it’s hard to be nice to your younger self if it feels foreign to have comfort.
[01:02:05] Is, is that still what feels most awake for you? Yeah, I’ll actually like, I’ll be trying to be nice to my younger self and then I’ll just push her off a cliff. Okay, great. I love that you have that awareness. Not that I would actually do that to someone’s child, but it’s like, I just can’t deal with this, just go away outta my sight because I don’t know what to do with you.
[01:02:22] Okay. And was that something you had role modeled when you were little, being pushed off a clip, well just like, go away, I can’t deal with you kind of thing. No, J it was just like, because there was just, to me it’s just this huge blank spot, like somebody being kind to me or even talking to me, it’s like it doesn’t really exist for me.
[01:02:42] So trying to do that when I never had that modeled in any way is just like, I don’t even know where to start. Yeah, so if, let’s just try some tapping and feel free to, to modify it as, as you like. Okay. Okay. We’ll check in Karate Chop, even though it feels so uncomfortable to comfort myself, no, it feels so foreign to comfort myself.
[01:03:03] I’d really like to learn the skill. I’d really like to learn the skill, even though I have very little experience with this, even though I still feel like I might not deserve it, and I have no experience with it, , and it feels so uncomfortable to comfort myself. It feels really just weird to comfort myself.
[01:03:23] I, I’m not sure how to move forward. I really feel stuck. Cure. Yeah. Top of that, I feel really stuck. I feel really stuck. I, bro, and I like that. I’m aware that I’m stuck. I like that. I’m aware I’m stuck, sun of the eye, but it’s not fun being stuck. It’s not fun being stuck though under the eye. I don’t think I deserve comfort.
[01:03:45] I don’t think I, I, I consciously know I deserve comfort, but I don’t feel that I do under the nose. Part of me is resisting. Part of me is resisting chin intellectually. I know I deserve comfort intellectually. I know I deserve comfort collarbone, but my subconscious is like, no, no, no. But it’s really a body.
[01:04:05] No, for me, yeah, under the arm. And I honor that. I have this much self-awareness. I honor that I’ve worked my butt off so that I have this much self-awareness. , top of the head. Hey, subconscious. Hey, subconscious eyebrow. I know this is really new. I know this is really new side of the eye, and we didn’t get a lot of this when we were little.
[01:04:28] We didn’t get any that I can remember when we were little under the eyes. So we’re building from scratch and we’re starting from scratch under the nose. It’s okay to take baby steps here. It’s okay to take baby steps here. And just because it’s uncomfortable and just because it’s not comfortable collarbone and feels really foreign, feels really foreign.
[01:04:52] And that doesn’t mean it’s bad for us, doesn’t mean it’s bad for us. That part of me thinks it’s bad for us. Part of me thinks it’s, I don’t know, not bad, just there’s just confusion. Yeah. I eyebrow feel really confused, feel really confused side of the eye. And confusion is the first step towards wisdom.
[01:05:16] Confusion is the first step towards wisdom. Under the eye. I’m gonna be so wise, I’m so confused. I must be really wise soon. Or at some point under the nose. What if it’s okay to feel confused? What if it’s okay to feel confused and draw a blank? Yeah. Chin. I can just practice baby steps with us can practice really small baby steps.
[01:05:42] Collarbone and I have some resistance to practicing these baby steps. Oh hell, I have resistance practicing these baby steps. Where, where in your body do you feel the resistance? Oh, just, I just kind of feel, I guess my solar plexus. Yeah. Under the arm. I don’t know who I’d be if I actually took care of myself.
[01:06:01] I don’t know who I’d be if I actually took care of myself. Top of the head, emotional comfort is self-care. Emotional comfort is self-care. I’m Robert. It’s a foreign language to me, but it’s foreign language, and I’m angry that I have to learn to speak it by myself. side of the eye. I do have to learn it for myself.
[01:06:24] You have to learn it for myself under the eye, but maybe I don’t have to learn it by myself. Maybe I don’t have to learn it by myself. Under the, under the nose, there’s a bunch of us here all practicing this. A bunch of us here all practicing this and I hope somebody knows what I’m talking about besides me.
[01:06:42] chin. This feels very foreign. This feels really awful. And foreign collarbone and tying my shoes felt really foreign probably when I was five. Tying my shoes to feel really foreign too under the arm. Now it’s pretty normal. Yeah, it’s pretty now. I wear slip bones,
[01:07:04] but I still know how to tie my shoes and I still know how to tie my shoes. It might be okay to take baby steps here. It’d be okay to take baby steps here and just take a breath and notice what’s coming up for you. I just feel kinda sick, like, okay, where do you, in your stomach or it’s like, it’s like more like dread I guess.
[01:07:25] Cause I don’t have that sick in the stomach feeling. It’s higher up. Like just, just been punched. Okay. And I’m almost, I’m, I won’t say I’m hyperventilating, but I a little. Karate chop. Even though I’m having a strong reaction, even though I’m having a really strong reaction, part of me is scared. Part of me is scared and it feels kind of fake to try to do this stuff feels fake to try to do this stuff.
[01:07:50] Maybe I’m okay anyway. Maybe I’m okay anyway. Tub that I feel sick to my stomach. I feel sick to my stomach eyebrow. I’m breathing fast, I’m breathing fast. Side of the eye, my body is reacting as if I’m in danger. My body is reacting as if I’m in danger under the eye. There might be something a little more deep here.
[01:08:12] Oh, dare I ask for comfort? Yeah, under the nose. How dare I ask for comfort? Dare I ask for comfort Chin? My survival brain is afraid of asking for comfort. My survival brain knows better than to ask for comfort collarbone. I don’t dare ask for comfort. I don’t dare ask for comfort. Under the arm. I didn’t dare ask for comfort.
[01:08:35] I didn’t dare ask for comfort top of the head. What if I’m allowed to have comfort now as an adult? What if I’m allowed to have comfort now as an adult then I did deserve it as a child too. Yeah, just take the breath and notice, see if you can it. It may or may not be able to, but I just wanna invite you to try cuz sometimes the trying is part of building the muscles.
[01:08:57] Imagine a split screen where you have your adult self on one side that knows it’s probably okay to have comfort and this child that didn’t dare ask for it. See if you can be present with both of them at the same time and just breathe into that.
[01:09:17] What are you noticing in your body? Um, Just that same kind of feeling in my slower plexus, like she’s just confused. Okay. Karate chap, I’m sending love to that confused part of me. I’m sending love to that confused part of me. This is really hard. This is extremely hard and it might be core to changing.
[01:09:41] Some of the things I wanna change might be core to changing. Well, I know it’s core to changing some of the things I wanna change top of the head. My survival brain thinks it’s dangerous to have comfort. My survival brain thinks it’s dangerous to want comfort. I bro, and it probably was at one point, I’m quite sure it was at one point Side of the eye.
[01:10:03] I learned this lesson very well. You learned this lesson very well under the eye, and it might be okay to unlearn it now. I know it’s okay to unlearn it now. Under the Nose Survival Brain, thank you for keeping me safe all that time. Survival Brain, thank you for keeping me safe all that time. Chin, we’re in a very different condition now.
[01:10:28] We’re in a whole different planet now. Yeah. Collarbone. I love to practice comfort with you. I’d love to practice comfort with you under the arm. And we only have to do it for 10 seconds at a time. We only have to do it for two seconds at a time. . Okay. Top of the head and then we’ll take plenty of breaks.
[01:10:49] we’ll take lots of breaks, like three hours in between each two seconds. Just take a breath and be with that for a minute. I know that like you were kind of laughing, so I imagine like part of you is like, oh, that’s such a small thing, but that two seconds, even if it’s three hours in between, that’s more than you’ve ever done before.
[01:11:07] I’m laughing because like that’s all I can tolerate. , right, but, but the fact that you can tolerate two seconds and that you’re willing to give it the tries sometimes that’s huge. That’s pure care, courage in my book, and that’s, that’s how we transform a life. It’s when we say you’re the part of our brain, that that’s so little.
[01:11:27] That’s not enough. It’s not gonna matter when we say, I hear all that and I’m still gonna do the two seconds, because two seconds will turn into four seconds and maybe five, and then your life is already on a different track. Does that make sense? Yeah. And if you can, what, one thing that struck me is how much your survival brain is like, no, this is not safe.
[01:11:54] You learn that from some. Oh, I know, I know where I learned it. Okay. So if you can, like, sometimes I can use that, like when you’re swimming, when you push off the wall, you go further. If I use that person that taught me that as kind of a, like, no, I don’t want that as a wall to push off of that can give me some courage to keep going.
[01:12:15] I could push them off the cliff instead. I, I love it. You’re more than welcome to metaphorically push people off this . As long as we’re not doing real people, it’s fun. They’re already dead anyway, so it wouldn’t matter. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I love that you shared that and I really am touched by the courage you brought to this.
[01:12:31] Thanks guys. I hope it helps. Yeah. Nice job, Margo. Go ahead and mute you. Thank you. Yeah. Beautiful. You know, we were, we were socialized. Every single one of us was socialized into, um, what do we get to do and how do we cope? When it’s cold, when it’s dark, um, for ourselves personally and, and how to do that when that’s our, we space, the space that we share with the people that are closest to us.
[01:13:04] If it’s cold and dark, and maybe it’s like the house is burning down with a lot of emotional energy, , um, and we, we had to learn how to cope there too. Um, uh, I’m, I’m remembering, um, my cat, uh, rug who was a stray. And, uh, one of the things that that rug taught me was, uh, when you want to be pet, you come and jump on the desk.
[01:13:36] put yourself right there, and it’s okay if you get, if you’re tossed off every once in a while, um, you know, I wasn’t like tossing as in mean, Um, but he, you know, rug, rug taught me those things about asking for what you want, and it wasn’t something that was, um, inherent in me. Um, and you know, I th I think that for those of us that do have animals in our past, um, they’ve offered me a doorway, for example.
[01:14:13] Um, when you’re riding a thousand pound animal and they get scared, you learn to either be, be stupid, I’ll use that term, and get scared and upset yourself, . Or you learn to like, let gravity work, drop into the saddle and lower your tone. It’s like, it’s okay. It’s okay. Yep. That’s just a frog, you know, . I had a, I had a horse, Desi, that used to, like, when we went past a pond or something, and a frog jumped in end of the world, it’s the dinosaurs coming to meet us,
[01:14:54] And, um, you know, my initial rides with him were defying because I didn’t understand about grounding. And somebody said, you know, well if your, if your German Shepherd is scared, what do you do? Oh, I get really calm, , right? And here you’re riding this horse and you’re getting flustered. It goes right into their nervous system.
[01:15:21] If you get calm, guess what? If you get understanding, like, um, you know, Desi took me on adventures. I never would’ve gotten to go on without his strength and capacity. Um, I feel warm inside. Remembering not only what I had to learn to be in a relationship with him, but also the things that came from my understanding that the way he had been socialized by the male writers was not kind and grounded and other things.
[01:15:56] And yet he came into my life and I, I learned and I grew. Um, so when we think about like doing it together, , if you’ve ever provided comfort to an animal or been comforted by an animal, I think there’s a lot of savvy in there. We are animals, . We get socialized. We get domesticated for better or worse into certain patterns.
[01:16:25] And yeah, it’s a bigger deal if you’re, if, if a, if a puppy grows up in, is isolated and doesn’t get what he needs or she needs, um, to, to get used to what it means to be in, um, a good relationship. It takes more energy downstream. But the kind of persistence and courage and ing, um, I, I believe a lot of what can come over from those relationships that we’ve had with our furry friends.
[01:17:01] Um, I don’t have any, any furry friends in my, my world, uh, in the house, and yet, When I feel, um, like done for the day, , you know, I was like, that was a lot . That was, that was so much, um, allowing the, the memories of like rug jumping up on my belly at those moments. And he would use his pause and give me a massage in my third chakra.
[01:17:43] be like, cat a practic, you know, and sometimes little catter, you know, to go along with it. Oh, please stop even now, like I can, you know, I can, I can, I. I can’t feel his body temperature. I miss that. But I can feel the essence of him. And to be able to remember and take that in from those beings and, and furry friends and um, spirit buddies that we have had in our lives, um, to me is an essential access when I need warmth.
[01:18:18] Um, . Yeah. Yeah. I, I do, I also think that, just talking about this, it opens our brain up, like our survival brain is always looking for, is it safe to look at this? And because we’re here as a group and our survival brain knows there’s other people looking at this and Margo’s sharing and the people sharing in the chat, it helps our survival brain relax a little bit and like, oh, well a lot of people don’t talk about this subject.
[01:18:49] It’s almost like, oh, I can’t admit that I feel cold or lonely or, or things feel dark. This kind of opens the door and new ideas can start perking up. So I, I encourage you, I try to keep a pen and paper near me afterwards cuz for the next 24 to 48 hours, um, our brain, brain is kind of chewing on this and different ideas might pop up depending on what we’re exposed to, where we can suddenly have access to new solutions that we didn’t have before.
[01:19:17] Their, our brain will actually integrate them as opposed to like, theoretically there’s a lot of things I theoretically know I could do, but they don’t feel very accessible to me. They’re not something that comes top of mind when I’m in stress. So as we integrate those things and we practice them, We have, we create a pathway that’s smoother for ourselves and we start getting better at it.
[01:19:39] And we more quickly judge, oh, I think I’m pushing myself too far, or I’m, maybe I could push, I could gently invite myself to address things a little more. Right now, we start getting the feel for that and we’re, we start doing that dance much more gracefully so we don’t have to stay in the cold in the dark very long.
[01:19:57] We can, and we can say, oh, I’m noticing, I’m feeling ashamed about that. We tapped on that the other day. I can do a little more tapping. I can, I don’t have to hold onto this shame about this. I can take care of myself and comfort myself. So the skills, just, just being here and, and seeing people talk about it when people share, that’s opening doorways for.
[01:20:18] Your brain. And I think that’s such a gift to give yourself. Mm-hmm. As we come to the holiday season where lots of gifts are being exchanged, I think the gift you gave yourself by being with us for the last hour and a half and your willingness to participate and, and tap along and share, that’s a gift that’s gonna continue giving to you for many, many decades.
[01:20:40] It’s gonna, there’ll be a residue of this in your system where you’re like, oh, I’m not alone with this. I’m not the only one who struggles with this. There were, I remember that person suggested this. Maybe I’ll go watch the Gilmore Girls and light a candle, or maybe I’ll reach out to the circle and the center and see what’s right for me.
[01:20:58] So if you can, again, I invited you at the. , one of the ways we can most warm ourselves up is by gentle appreciation, whether it’s appreciation for ourselves or things around us for the fact that we lit a candle for the fact that we reached out, even if that person’s, you know, may not be available. When we start adding appreciation, it just kind of warms the flame up a little bit more.
[01:21:22] It lets us feel a little bit more connected with ourselves and with the universe. So that’s, uh, I invite you to use that spice as you, as you go through, like sprinkle some cinnamon and vanilla and some appreciation and gratitude over things, um, that can really make a difference in terms of how you move through these kinds of experiences.
[01:21:44] Hmm. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. Um, someone, someone offered that, uh, This has helped me realize that it’s okay to relax once in a while. I have a lot to do to prepare for the end, and even though I decide I want to plan to live. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And um, we have, we have a little nook of the internet. I wish there was a thriving now dot nook, um, , but we call it thriving now, dot center.
[01:22:20] It’s a community center. Um, but it’s our nook where those that are drawn to it, um, share and have a place to be witnessed. Offer some gifts and questions, the gifts and questions. So please keep that in mind. Thriving now center and, um, if you’re not a circle member and you’re wanting more of a sense of connection, Um, at a size that feels right to you.
[01:22:56] If a, if, if, if you like. What we’ve been doing here, um, in the circle, there’s interaction. We don’t record those, um, circle sessions. Um, and there’s an opportunity for you to cultivate connections, um, with yourself, with the emotional world that we share and with each other in a way that, um, you know, I,
[01:23:27] the people that many of the people on the call and those of you that I’m getting to know, I value presence, courage, realness, and the circle gives me that. And so even on days when there’s not a call, there’s a. A resonance, I’ll call it a warm resonance of people that have shared things in their lives with me and with each other.
[01:23:58] And that matters to me, and it helps me feel connected to, um, this world, this earth we share in a way that, um, yeah, you’re invited, thriving now, dot com slash circle. Um, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I feel much warmer being on this call with all of you. Thank you. Mm-hmm. , um, appreciate each of you warm tea or whatever your favorite is to each.
[01:24:29] Bye.
Replay is below
