When Life Feels Too Big - Tapping Your Way Back In
Installment 2 of Ruby's Life ~ where you're allowed to say the worst, hardest, most shameful thing
In the first installment of Ruby’s Life, Ruby was feeling afraid… of life. Her life. In today’s installment it gets worse when the fear spirals into helplessness…
What makes me proud of Ruby here is the way she’s putting WORDS to all that horrible stuff going on inside of her. And by doing that she’s getting in touch with the beliefs that go along with the fearful, futile feelings.
Complete belief in “I can’t!”
Counterintuitive though it may seem, saying the worst, most shameful, yucky-feeling thing out loud does not make it more true and forevermore your reality.
No.
For Ruby here saying “I can’t” out loud is a step in the direction of un-stuck-ing herself.
Why?
Because she’s bringing conscious awareness to what’s in her unconscious mind. To what’s influencing her life choices more than anything else. And though it’s not great-feeling stuff to be in touch with, putting words to what’s ‘in there’ puts her in a position to question its validity.
Let’s do that now…..
Is Ruby’s self-talk really TRUE? ALL of it? 100% true? Let’s break it out and down…
Q. Is it true that having a life is a BIG deal?
A. Yes. That part is true. Because what are the chances of being born… at all… let alone as YOU? Very big deal.
Q. Is it true that your life is rich with POTENTIAL?
A. Totally. Human potential is limitless. You’re human, you’re loaded with it.
Q. Is it true that you are SMALL?
A. Welllll, relative to the size of the universe, yes, you are. You are insanely infantesimal in comparison to the size of all that is.
Q. But does that make you small?
A. Mmmm… idk
Q. Is it true that you CAN’T?
A. Partially. Because it is true that you ‘can’t’ some things, but… you also ‘can’ some other things. So CAN’T is not absolutely true.
And THAT last one may be at the crux of what Ruby is dealing with here…
Thinking in “absolutes”
What are absolutes?
Absolutes
Absolutes refer to rigid, all-or-nothing statements that leave no room for nuance or flexibility. They include words like always, never, must, should, can't.
Try noticing if you’re one to use ‘absolutes’ when you talk to yourself.
Do you ever hear yourself saying things like….
"I always mess things up."
"I'll never be good enough."
"I must succeed, or I'm a failure."
"I should be better by now."
"I can't do this."
.
See what filling in these blanks — quickly, right off the top of your head — gives you…
I always ____________
I never ____________
Everyone is so ____________
Nobody ever ____________
Everything always ____________
Nothing will ever ____________
It turns out absolutes come very naturally to us. But it’s worth noticing when we’re using them because…
‘Absolutes’ limit perspective
They limit our perspective because they represent polar opposites. They are extremes. And that’s very limiting because… most of your life? It doesn’t happen at the far ends of the spectrum. It happens somewhere in the middle.
Today when we get to tapping, we’ll tap to loosen up…
The shoulds, the shouldn’ts
The can’ts, the won’ts, the don’ts
The alls, the nevers
The everythings, the nothings
That’s good stuff to loosen up… with tapping.
But before we tap, let’s look for just a minute more at how the act of giving voice to her bleckiest, most scary stuff, opened something up in Ruby. Because right after uttering the ugly “truth“ of I CAN’T, her mind went to something that wasn’t there before…
“IS there a way back in?”
THAT is a question that’s really an answer. A doorway. A direction.
All to say…
Getting in touch with the BELIEFS that go along with the FEELINGS that are stopping you in your tracks is a critical step in un-stuck-ing yourself.
Then we can then take things further with tapping.
TAPPING ON ABSOLUTES
FROM
self-talk that limits you
TO
self-talk that makes you more resourceful
This is a script that my very NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) savvy colleague Natalie Glynn and I crafted for a client who used absolutes like crazy without even realizing it. (Hi, Natatie!!)
In this 7.5 minute audio I will lead you in tapping OUT absolute judgments followed by tapping IN the choosing of more flowing, empowering language.
I’ll tell you where to tap as we tap, but here is a reminder of the tapping points as modeled by Ruby’s bf, Pearl…
audio
In the next installment of “Ruby’s Life”, we’ll look at what a dive back into your life (if you feel like you’ve been on the periphery of it) might ask of you. And how tapping can make it easier to take the plunge.
Or…
…I would love that!
P.S. Want to learn more about tapping? Please enjoy these illustrated posts…