Natalie here. And I hope you're doing well.
Emotional Sovereignty School closes tonight at 11:59pm Pacific.
(So I wanted to reach out again before then...)
Are you starting to see the impact on your life if you had instructions for how to work feelings?
Of being able to go into any situation and be your biggest, shiniest self?
Are you starting to see that it's never too late to rewire your nervous system for greater health, wealth, and relationships?
Especially with the right help?
I remember one of the most powerful phrases I ever heard:
“Want to tell me more?”
At that time, I was a mother of young children. Sitting on our couch at the end of a movie. As soon as the credits started rolling I was ejected from the fantasy land of the movie and slammed back into my reality. I immediately found something I detested about our lives. And called it out.
When Nathan asked me that question, Nathan was really telling me that it was ok to be upset, that I had permission to identify and voice my woes. So I did. I had a whole list.
Sunlight coming through a window, illuminating the corner of a couch, with some dog hair showing.
The ugly pink fleece blanket on my lap
The hair on the couch
The to-do list for tomorrow
The amount in our bank account
And more...
Instead of denying what I was listing was a problem, or getting defensive, or shaming me for not being grateful for our life, or even just changing the subject or trying to cheer me up, Nathan used a piece of our 3-part system that we would teach, several years later, in Emotional Sovereignty School.
I crumpled in tears and feelings, and then...
I flipping bloomed.
That night was a turning point for me. My emotional needs were met at a previously unknown level and my world opened up. That night marked the spot between my life before and my life after Notice, Name, Touch™.
Because of NNT and all the other regulating and processing strategies we teach in Emotional Sovereignty School:
I now only own luxurious, beautiful blankets.
There is no hair on my couch, because I was able to eventually swap our Pier 1 tweed for a high-quality leather.
My to-do list is full of high-level, world-changing things.
We have several bank accounts - including one just for vacation.
And more!
And most importantly...
I now know what to do with my emotions, so I can have whatever else I want in my life– beyond just blankets and couches.
The biggest piece in my turning point is that I was offered help and I went for it.
It was a terrifying moment in some ways. I had to stop being stoic, stop waiting for someone to fix it for me, and stop just praying and wishing for things to be different.
I had to get vulnerable, get help, and devote myself to the new path.
It's time for you to make that decision too.
Aerial view of a group of people floating together in pool in a circle formation, with their legs facing the center and holding each other’s hands, in commraderie.
Emotional Sovereignty School, our foundational course on how to rewire your nervous system for greater health, wealth, and relationships, closes TONIGHT.
There is not yet another institution in the world where you can get this training.
If you're thinking about joining Emotional Sovereignty School to feel more ease, joy, and connection, and less stress, tension, and angst, this email is for you.
If you’ve realized the importance of being able to easily process emotion — and not having to go into Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Appease — then we have one request for you.
All we ask is that you:
Take 3 minutes to read this email.
Take a good strong inhale, and then slowly breathe out, elongating the exhale as much as you can.
Repeat this breath 10 times.
Then make an aligned decision.
(Making a rash decision is a less useful decision.)
(And making no decision is still a decision.)
But for a select few, 6 months from now, making this decision could be the turning point in your life.
If you’ve ever wanted to actually get all the things on your bucket list — to live as your best self, share that with your family, your community, the world, and know just what to do when the waters get choppy — we can show you how.
While Nathan and I were planning out our year:
scheduling NeuroEmotional Coach Training, Certification, masterclasses, and more
organizing a luxury retreat in the US Virgin Islands
raising three inimitable young women
planning trips to see family
and organizing a once-in-a-lifetime celebration weekend with 50 friends and family members
Did we worry that our triggers might ruin the whole thing?
No we did not.
But, it also isn't surprising. We have spent the last 20 years, 16 in active 1:1 practice with our pioneering clients, researching, studying, and supporting others in emotional processing and healing work. Enjoying this type of emotional flexibility and security is exactly why we created the Center for Emotional Education. We wanted to facilitate others in learning how to live, emotionally capacious and resilient, like we do.
It's striking to think about how close we were to just accepting the old way of living – recuperating from one upset while trying desperately to avoid any further upsets.
Like most people, we experienced fear and hesitation around feeling our emotions and getting stuck in the "pit of despair" forever. And we felt such worry and hopelessness around being able to be in charge of our emotional experience, that we almost didn't even try.
But we knew if there was one thing we could do, it was just start. Just get curious.
And we lucked out! Our first baby steps led us into the world of neuropsychology. That's when we realized that figuring out emotions isn't rocket science. It’s brain science!
We also learned something really cool about humans.
All of us have something in our lives that we REALLY want to do — be patient with our children, fall deeply in love, write a novel, learn to do a handstand... We joke about it, we journal about it, pray about it. We read and research and even spend money on it.
But when we are faced with real-life opportunities to live into that dream, we choke. Instead we yell at our kids, run away from the date, procrastinate writing, and tend to other's head wounds instead of our own head stands.
It doesn’t mean we’re broken. It means we accidentally get stuck in a Survival reaction of Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Appease.
3 Common Delusions About Emotional Sovereignty
1. “I do plenty of yoga. So I'm all set.”
Yoga, and other body-focused activities, like: running, meditating, tai-chi, walking, swimming, praying, and pickle ball are excellent for building up our resilience. It's smart to strengthen our bodies and minds for what life has to throw at us.
But when we say, “I do yoga instead of emotional processing", it's like saying "I have this 500 pound weight on my chest so I'm going to build up my muscles. If I'm strong enough I won't even feel this massive weight."
THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!
Emotions come faster than muscles build. And not only do they come quickly, they never stop coming. We will never be strong enough or limber enough to ward off or not feel emotion. Yoga and running and all that good stuff makes it easier to be with emotion, but it does not remove or reduce emotion.
And that's ok! Because, listen, there are tools that do metabolize emotion.
Today you can decide to just keep on working extra hard at your resilience practices and hoping they magically ward off emotional discomfort, or you can invest in a skillset that removes the 500 pound weight from your chest. We'll show you how.
2. "I don't have time."
It's true, life doesn't stop. You have more things on your plate than any human ever should have to. It's not cool that each day is busier than the next.
And... when we don't take the time to develop Emotional Sovereignty we likely waste a lot of time. Acting out from Survival Mode means we typically have to do a lot of clean up.
Fight: We have to make amends after yelling at or being harsh with somebody. That can take hours, even days of our time.
Flight: We have to recreate relationships, structures, and support systems after bailing out rashly or quickly, like when we quit our job on an impulse, or cut out before our lease is up. That can take hours, days, or even months of our time.
Freeze: We have to work overtime, on the weekends, or through the night to make up for any work we missed while we were stuck on the couch, or distracting ourselves with social media and online shopping. We have to spend afternoons at the doctor tending to the damage we've caused by living a more sedentary, numbed out life. This can take hours, days, months, or even years of our time.
Appease: When pleasing others is how we avoid uncomfortable emotion, we dedicate our entire life to serving others and putting others' needs before our own. When this is a common Survival Mode, we can live a whole life where every minute is spent on others.
Successful people, including emotionally successful people, make time to learn time-saving and life-changing skills.
And, one cool thing is that once you learn the skills we teach in Emotional Sovereignty School, they fold seamlessly into your existing life.
Today you can choose to spend more of your hours, days, and weeks cleaning up the messes that your Survival Mode has created, or you can devote 2.5 hours a week for 12 weeks to rewire your nervous system for Emotional Sovereignty.
We can show you how to work Emotional Sovereignty into your daily life.
3. "I can't afford it."
You know what's a major bummer? When we enroll for our NeuroEmotional Coach Training folks sign up easily. Why? Because it's for their business. Our culture supports business investments, but when it comes to investing in one's self? That's not so groovy.
When we teach our students about brain states and we ask them how long they've been stuck in Survival Mode, can you guess what the most common answer is?
ALL MY LIFE.
Many of us spend our entire lives lurching from one emergency to the next, executing all of life's stages: high school, college, child-rearing, relationships, business ownership, etc, from Survival Mode.
Survival Mode is not a money maker!
It wastes money like it wastes time.
Fight: We lash out regularly and then wonder why we don't get new clients, a raise, or a promotion.
Flight: We quit everything we start and then wonder why we don't have regular clientele, or strong references, or long-lasting and profitable connections.
Freeze: We procrastinate projects, or starting our business and then wonder why we get passed up for important, profitable assignments, or wonder why we're still not reaping the rewards of entrepreneurship.
Appease: We spend all of our time being pleasing to others, so we never ask for a raise, never negotiate for a better-paying contract, never quit the low-paying job, and then burn ourselves out to the point we can't work at all. Then we wonder "Where's all the money we should have gotten from all that hard work we put in?"
If we have any hope of ever being able to afford any of the things we really want, we have to get out of Survival Mode.
Today you can choose to continue to place your bet on Survival Mode to get you to a richer place, or you can learn what it takes to get into the mode that makes money easily and effortlessly. (That's Executive Mode by the way!)
Luckily that's precisely what Emotional Sovereignty School is for.
At some point we have to choose ourselves. Invest in ourselves.
Not because we're broken.
Not because we can't hack it.
Not because our exercise regime isn't rigorous enough.
Not because we have a bunch of time laying around, so why not.
Not because we're rich and have "nothing better" to spend our money on.
Everyone who joins Emotional Sovereignty School has their own beautiful and particular reason for joining:
"I wanted to treat my kids gently so they can trust me and want to be with me."
"I wanted to actually enjoy everything I've worked so hard to achieve."
"I wanted to feel okay with "displeasing" others, so that I am able to say what I need and want."
"I wanted to know how to shift out of it when I get nervous and finally get to relax."
"I wanted to feel safe enough to fall in love."
"I wanted to feel confident and consistently motivated to go for my dream of owning a business."
"I wanted to make enough money, easily, so that we could travel around the world."
"I wanted to break old patterns and develop new ones that actually allow me to thrive, not just survive."
What would your life look like if you had more Emotional Sovereignty?
Why will you join Emotional Sovereignty School and re-wire your nervous system?
It's time to choose.
Today — until tonight at 11:59pm Pacific — you have the opportunity to join Emotional Sovereignty School and reap the benefits of our 3-part system. We’ve spent our lives perfecting this curriculum, so now you can get the best emotional education on the planet at the tip of your fingers.
6 months from now, if you don't join Emotional Sovereignty School, where will you be?
The people who don't take the leap? Back to more dissatisfying and destabilizing Survival Mode than they'd like.
Entire lives, and the generations that follow, pivot on a decision like this.
Now it's your turn to decide which way your life and your lineage goes.
Everyone wants to feel and do better...
But what are you DOING about it? What steps are you taking to create that for yourself?
Say YES and start building your new nervous system today.
Or... you could wait. Maybe things will just change on their own...
A year from now you'll be a year older, your old patterns will have had a whole additional year to get cemented further. Do you imagine those patterns will feel any better than they do now? Do you have the sense that they'll be easier to change then?
5 years from now, you could look back at this as one of the most self-loving decisions you ever made...or it might just be another day lost to the blur of mere Survival.
We look forward to hearing your reason for taking the leap and joining Emotional Sovereignty School.
Much love,
Nathan and Natalie