061 – Mini Musing: Double Binds and Sacred Thirds

Sarah Tacy [00:00:05]:
Hello. Welcome. I’m Sarah Tacy, and this is Threshold Moments, a podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown and the pull feels real. Together, we share our grief, laughter, love, and lifesaving tools. Join us. Welcome to Threshold Moments. This is a mini musing.

Sarah Tacy [00:00:41]:
I would love to welcome back my listeners that have been with me for a while, possibly from the beginning. And for any new listeners, I would love to describe what the Mini Musing is about and what they’re for. So threshold moments in general is taking us through different people’s stories through various thresholds in their life, and sometimes people come on more to share about tools that can help people through thresholds. Often within the story, we’re gonna hear both. On the mini musings, we dive a little bit deeper into my specialty, which is around nervous system support, nervous system recalibration, and healing. And one could say, what is that? What does that have to do with the threshold? Does that on a threshold that’s super normal that we begin to get destabilized? Super normal. And what could be helpful when we find ourselves in a place in between and when we find ourselves in a place that’s unknown is to have things to orient to and to have things to stabilize us. And if you go back through the mini musings, you’ll see that most of the mini musings have to do with these little points, these little tools of stabilization or orientation to help with the nervous system.

Sarah Tacy [00:02:06]:
So if I could describe this upcoming episode a little bit more succinctly than I did as I kind of went off on a tangent of all the different ways that a double bind could present itself. When we look at a double bind as a resource for the nervous system, when we look at the double bind as something that represents a time where we are activated and we feel stuck, then what we’re looking to do is find nuance and choice as a resource. If you were to take your 2 hands and make fists with your hands and you put your knuckles together as if you’re fighting each other and you could push back and forth, then you would say, I want, I must have this in order to survive. I can’t have this because I’m in survival. Right? You see, you could put in anything like I must you’ll hear throughout the episode, many different options, but it could be like, I must relax in order to manifest. I can’t relax because I really need this thing in order to survive. And they’re going to seem really real and really impossible to break. And throughout the episode, you’ll hear how we use these fists together to turning them open and beginning to change the state of our nervous system even just by opening our hands, to notice that both things could be true, to notice that we could actually support both sides.

Sarah Tacy [00:03:48]:
And in doing so, our nervous system may begin to relax and we begin to notice more nuanced options. So I hope this gives you a good feel of what double binds are. And as you go into the episode, you’ll get a few more examples of where they might show up in life. I think that this is a really amazing thing to orient to. Ah, I’m in a double bind. And then to remember what is the resource when I’m in a double bind, you may not always get the very clear Sarah third answer, but if you begin to move into nuances and small pieces that you can work with, then you’re no longer stuck. And when you’re not stuck, you’re less likely to create trauma physiology in the body and more likely to feel empowered as you figured out one more doable thing. So without further ado, that was both an intro as well as a short description of a double bind.

Sarah Tacy [00:04:55]:
Enjoy this episode and feel free to DM me on Instagram with any thoughts you have or even situations in which you’ve experienced the double blind in your life. Thank you so much. Today, I wanted to talk about double binds. This is a huge part of alchemical alignment of somatic exploration of nervous system work in the three directions map, which I have described in an earlier episode, there’s a time when we might get activated and if we don’t soothe or distract, and if we don’t have conditions built in that would help us through the activation, we might go up into a state of looping. And up in that place of looping, we may feel like we’ve lost access to our prefrontal cortex, Our emotions are driving us, and we may find ourselves in this place of a double bind, this place of I must, I can’t. It’s also generally a place of early unmet needs, and the I must, I can’t also is often informed by really early patterns, which make other realities seem simply impossible. Today, I wanted to talk about these double buy ins and give you some examples, both in parenting, within relationships, and with money and business. As you know, this month, I am a proud affiliate partner with Relax Money.

Sarah Tacy [00:06:43]:
It’s the program that I offer nervous system support to every month. And in that program, I believe it was back in December, we went over double buy ins, just like energy. So I’m not starting with finances here. And in this group and in this time, it’s not that I’m guiding the financial part. It’s more that I’m there to help people find a sense of safety and relaxation and grounding and orientation within whatever season of life we’re in so that can be a support as they’re working through their financial decisions. So in December, I brought up how many of us in the Northern Hemisphere are noticing in our bodies a sense of like, I must slow down. The days are getting shorter. The weather is colder.

Sarah Tacy [00:07:37]:
I want to slow down. Then married with that is the, I can’t slow down. We’ve got this holiday, and this celebration, and this work party, and these gifts that must be bought, and these foods that must be prepared. So there’s this, I can’t, I must that can be found in this place. There could also be the opposite of, I want, right, that I want to speed up. I want to be involved. I want to go out to all these things and I can’t find the energy. Still, this double bind, I must, I can’t.

Sarah Tacy [00:08:16]:
And the way that Bridget Vixman taught me, And I find it so helpful is to make fists with your hands and put your hands together so that you can see these 2 absolutes meeting each other. I’ll talk about the physiology of this in a little bit. So you have these 2 must things, can’t things that are meeting. And then what we begin to do is we begin to say, Oh, I see the truth in you. You both exist. And you begin to open 1 palm and look at it. So it could be like, you really feel the slowing of the season. That looks really good.

Sarah Tacy [00:09:10]:
I think you could like some of that. And then you could look up the other one and go, Oh, there are all these events. And I want to partake in many of them, but actually, I don’t want to partake in all of them. And you can look back to the slowing down. What is it I really want to do? Is it that I want a nap all day every day? Or is it, like, I want more tea in life and that I want to go to bed a little earlier? And then you can look back at the other hand. So you start like looking at both hands and then saying like, how can I support this truth in this reality? And eventually when you acknowledge, like, even though this is true, what else is true? And nuance begins to show up. So as you probably heard in the conversation that Kate and I had at the beginning of this month, that as we go back and forth, we’re able to find more nuance, the more regulated our nervous system is. So even when we go from a clenched fist position, if you were to clench your fist right now, and notice what happens to your breath when your fists are clenched.

Sarah Tacy [00:10:36]:
And notice how you feel. And then as you open up one hand and you look at it and maybe even like move it around a little bit, I see you, my 5 fingers, and then you open your other hand and you’re going back and forth and you’re acknowledging truth, but also noticing nuance, then as those hands are open, begin again to notice what happens to your breath. So for me, mine starts to widen. So there’s something that I find value in actually making these hand movements, that there’s a physiological shift that might actually help me to perceive things differently. And so as I go back and forth back to this is holiday inquiry, I might realize like, you know, I just don’t have to go to all of the holidays. And in my house, we don’t do Elf on the Shelf. That’s just a really hard no for me. And so I start might start to notice that there are some no’s in all of the things that I might wanna commit to, Or maybe even within some of the yeses, it’s like, yeah.

Sarah Tacy [00:11:59]:
I am gonna go to that party, but I’m gonna be home by 9:30, and I’m gonna get to bed. And this cozying, I really want you and I’m going to think about what layers of comfort I could add in this this month. And maybe it’s like watching more of my favorite holiday movies and going back and forth. I might be able to find the sacred 3rd. Again, it’s like in the nuance, our range of regulation or range of resonance begins to get greater, or it could be that our range of regulation is getting greater, and therefore, our nuance is getting more detailed and more options start to show up. And then we get to that sacred third. And sometimes the sacred third is literally a very clear third option that did not seem clear or possible when I first had my fist together. And sometimes it’s like a lot of small little choices along the way that begins to open up the, I must, I can’t into choice.

Sarah Tacy [00:13:05]:
So a reminder that trauma physiology happens when we felt isolated and or without choice in a challenging situation. So as we begin to pause and build in choice and look at nuance, we become more empowered, and that is the opposite of trauma physiology. What we’re looking for with the Sarah third is a win win scenario. So sometimes it can feel like compromise, but one of the first Ray Casalino principles is the idea that we could work together and come to a win win solution. In parenting, with a parent child scenario, There are a few examples I could give, and I’ll start with my own children. We had recently canceled our childcare, and we had events coming up that we had planned out months in advance. And one in particular that was was with a couple that we hadn’t been able to get together with for 5 years. And we had had this date planned a a month or 2 in advance at this very fancy And eventually I reached out to a friend and she said, bring your kids over to my house.

Sarah Tacy [00:14:39]:
I’d love to have them. My older child, for whatever stacked reasons in her own body, was not okay with that option. And she really started to breathe, like, hyperventilate in a really massive, dysregulated, big feelings type way. And I really wanted to go to dinner, and Steve really wanted to go to dinner. And I was having these feelings of, like, these are her good friends. Just go to their house. You’re gonna be fine. Like, you’re fine.

Sarah Tacy [00:15:14]:
Because from my perspective, like, you’re fine. You can do this, and we wanna do this. But it was definitely, I I must, I can’t. I want to. It seems impossible. And I told her like, there are only 4 seats at this table, and it’s an adult place, and this can’t happen. But when I was able to step back a little bit and really kind of sit with the possibilities and really kind of go from that double bind, double fist to opening up my hands, I could look at like, well, my other child can still go to this friend’s house. And when I start to look at like, she can’t come to dinner with us and starting to look at, is that true? Under what conditions? So again, looking at like, how could I support this other reality? Under what conditions would it work for her to be with us? And I reached out to our friends.

Sarah Tacy [00:16:13]:
They said, yes, definitely have her come. Told Sofia to get changed, and immediately her panic Sarah. And there were only 4 seats at the table, and it was an adult dinner, but she so happily, like our whole system was so relaxed and she so happily sat in between us. And she had her coloring book and her journal, and she ordered, you know, something that was appropriate for her. And it was probably not her favorite thing to do, but the win in that situation was that she felt really comfortable and really safe in her body. And the win for us was that we got to meet up with this couple that we hadn’t seen in 5 years or hadn’t really had time with. And it was a win win. It was a sacred third.

Sarah Tacy [00:17:02]:
It was a nuance of this, you absolutely can’t come and you must go to this place or we have to cancel because she won’t go to this place. Here’s another one for parenting. This came up with it was in our family too, was our girls were arguing quite a bit. And my husband and I were cleaning up the dishes and trying to get everything put away and kind of just from the other room, you’re like, Hey, please don’t do that. Hey, you know, just yelling out some things that are clearly not changing their state or their actions. And you can hear the tension building and building and building. And, eventually, one of my children closes a door on the other kid’s hand, and it wasn’t necessarily on purpose. And as the mad guy that we work with for parenting would say, like, it’s not even intention versus impact.

Sarah Tacy [00:17:55]:
It is the impulse. And the more heightened our nervous system gets, the less control we have over our impulses. So when I look at this and how could this be a double double buying situation of, like, you you can’t treat your sister like that. And we like, we’re we’re really trying to we told you not to do that, and you did it anyway. And this back and forth was actually working towards, like, the sacred third between you can’t act like that and you act like that anyway. Clearly, that’s something Sarah comparing, was early intervention. This idea that we felt so tired and exhausted from the day that we were just calling from the other room. Please don’t talk to your sister like that.

Sarah Tacy [00:18:50]:
That feels prickly. Could you, Jesus, could you make another choice? So we were trying to conserve our energy and in the end, what ends up happening is a stacking, a stacking, a stacking until there’s less control over inhibitions, and it generally ends bad. So the sacred third in this situation is choosing to more immediately have early intervention of, like, getting on the floor with them and making a connection because that is what was needed. What was needed was actually connection, and making a 10 to 15 second connection or a 10 minute connection even could have reset the whole dynamic of the day so that it wasn’t even necessarily what parenting how do we parent one child or discipline somebody better later on? Is that Sarah third, if this makes sense, would have been and could be because we have many chances to redo this early intervention of making connection. The idea that we’re saving energy. And the first example ends up that we actually use more energy because eventually all of us were in a triggered state. Early intervention that uses a little bit more energy on the forefront helps us all very soon down the road. Within relaxed money, I sometimes have brought up to the group, the double bind of like, I must relax in order to make more money.

Sarah Tacy [00:20:39]:
I can’t relax because I don’t have more money. Right? Or in Kate’s example of, I must relax or I’m going down. I can’t relax because I’m going down. And in these situations and in the practice of relaxed money on top of getting a ton of tools of how to work with debt, how to organize money, how to invest on top of all of these really practical things. There is a nervous system part of how can I feel regulated and safe in my body before the money comes? So I’m going to do my fists again. It helps me think. I must relax to make more money. I can’t relax because I need more money.

Sarah Tacy [00:21:35]:
When I open up my hands. I must relax to make more money. Well, there have been times in my life that have hustled and made more money. So it’s more that I want to relax and draw more money in. I can’t relax because I don’t have any money. Is that true? Well, actually when I was on the phone with my friend, I felt pretty relaxed and although money feels tight, this is the first time that I’ve actually had my own place. So actually I am have more money than I’ve had before. And then going back to the other side, right, I can just keep going back and forth until I start to see these nuanced waves.

Sarah Tacy [00:22:31]:
And sometimes even that nuance, I can say like, Oh, actually, I am more relaxed than I’ve ever been. And if I’m not like, wow, I’m going to try these tools that I’ve tried and I’m not going to over couple it with money right now. But in this moment, because I’m having this double bind, I’m also going to look at the money and notice, wow, I’ve really actually been able to organize my money better than I’ve ever organized it before. So it’s not yet where I want it to be, but I can actually see a little bit of growth that I have. I’m gonna keep going back and forth until I start realizing more and more ways that I do feel relaxed and honor the parts that still don’t feel where they wanna be. And I’m just gonna start to uncouple them a little bit. So I start to live in a world where things that are sometimes overcoupled can become uncoupled. And again, I start to have more choice.

Sarah Tacy [00:23:37]:
And instead of feeling like I’m failing because I’m not relaxed all the time and therefore I’m not going to make more money, I can remember I can make money even when I’m hustling, but I want to relax. I can relax even before I have all the money I want Because I’ve seen myself do it when I watch a TV show, when I’ve taken yoga, just start uncoupling and uncoupling. And the more that I find that I can actually have both and that I do have a little bit more of both possibly than I’ve had in the past, then it doesn’t Tacy, again, like an all or nothing, like a do or die. It seems instead, like, small choices that I can make over time that can be supportive to a reality where there is relaxation and financial stability, and that eventually they really start to feed each other. But they’re not necessarily dependent on each other. Hey, friends. A quick pop in here to highlight and remind you that wide receiver, which is not about football, but is about how we can expand our capacity to receive more of what we actually want, especially with finances, is happening April 23rd through 25th for 1 hour at 12 PM Eastern Daylight Time, and it’s free, completely free. And it’s run by Kate Northrup, who is really amazing at breaking things down.

Sarah Tacy [00:25:25]:
So you know that she’ll be working on mindset, nervous system support, and tips on how to help you heal your relationship with money before you dive into budgets, cash flow, and new investments. She often helps people learn how to grow their money and enjoy what they have. So if this sounds, like, of interest to you, please check out the show notes. There will be a link, and, again, it’s free. And I tend not to miss her free 3 day workshops. They’re always highly useful to me. I hope to see you there. And until then, I’ll see you back at the show.

Sarah Tacy [00:26:10]:
For Dana Myers, with Pleasure. She was one of the podcast episodes. For me, there can be an I must, I can’t, I must have pleasure. Right? This is gonna make me more it’s gonna feel better. It’s gonna make me more abundant. It’s gonna draw more people to me. Joy is magnetic, but I can have pleasure because I have to do the dishes and I have to do the laundry and I have newsletters to write. And as I start to open it up to a sacred third, she brings up transitions and choice.

Sarah Tacy [00:26:48]:
What if you choose a date on the calendar and you put it aside? What if on that day that it’s aside, you start fantasizing early or about things and working with your partner about things. What if you include transition? Oh, you notice that you feel rushed, you notice that you feel more things stacking and that you having pleasure is actually, it feels like another requirement that you need to fulfill for yourself or for someone else. How cool. Like what if we take that pressure off by just being curious about small doable pieces? I loved how she brought in transition because sometimes I skip that part and I wish it were there and it’s like, Oh, thanks for adding in that that’s an important part. In relationships, we might often yell like, oh, it’s your way or it’s my way. I had a therapist who once says, strike it while it’s cold instead of strike it when it’s hot to go back to the heated conversation. And noticing if it’s activated, again, to see if there are nervous system things that we can do, whether it’s literally opening up your hands to go like, oh, wow. I really see your perspective, and I really see my perspective.

Sarah Tacy [00:28:13]:
And just I when I’m doing it, you can’t see me on the mic, but I’m almost looking like it’s one of those old fashioned judgment weights, I imagine. And I’m like or like a seesaw. And as I look at one, I bring that hand down and I give it weight and credence, and then I might look over at the other and look at it and just back and forth. And so I’ve noticed in the past with my husband that we might have a, like, someone’s going to win and someone’s going to lose. So if I go back to finding a sacred third or if I go back to a win win scenario and nuance, then we both get to walk away feeling seen and heard, and possibly even good about the outcome, not just like he always wins or she always wins. So a lot of the Sarah thirds that you’ve heard are not straightforward answers. Like Sofia coming to dinner with me was kind of a straightforward Sarah third. And sometimes it’s actually just like a 100 other small little steps and choices that are so empowering and get us out of our looping.

Sarah Tacy [00:29:29]:
I wanna actually tell the other one about visiting Kate. And she and I wanted to go for a walk, and the kids were there. And Mike was there so he could watch the kids, and maybe even their nanny was there. Like, there’s plenty of support. And one of her kids really didn’t want to stay. Like, she really wanted to be with Kate. And Kate got on the floor and really sat with her daughter as her daughter was having really big feelings about, like, wanting to be with her. And it just kind of seemed like a double bind.

Sarah Tacy [00:30:04]:
We really wanna go. We can’t go. We really wanna go. We can’t go. She really wants Kate to say, we really wanna leave. And then I had this realization. I was like, oh, you know what? We have a stroller. Because the daughter that wanted to be with her was a little bit old, like, wouldn’t need a stroller in general.

Sarah Tacy [00:30:25]:
And and was kind of tired, so wouldn’t wanna walk. And my daughter, who could use a stroller, wanted to stay and play. And so the sacred third, like, when you’re in the situation where it just feels like no one’s gonna be able to get what they want or one person is and the other person loses, there became this beautiful win win, which was great. You can go on the stroller, which she was so psyched about. And we got to go on our walk, and all the other kids got to stay back at their apartment and play. And that is like a really simple Sarah third example, whereas some of the other ones are a little are a little more nuanced. But again, I wanted to add this episode because I hear it so often with client sessions where there feel like there are these 2 things that both exist. And when they’re coupled together, where there is a stuck situation and a stuck situation is where people often loop and often feel disempowered.

Sarah Tacy [00:31:25]:
So I’m inviting you to try using your hands to feel the fists and the tightness of those perspectives, to feel the feeling like they’re stuck together. So all my knuckles touch when I do this and my thumbs are up towards the ceiling. And then the palm is open and the hands start to wiggle back and forth and then start waving back until you realize they’re possibly 2 separate things. And that with those separate things, there are little baby steps and choices that can be made. For the next month, you’re going to hear me do a little promotion just to say again, that this is some of the stuff that we cover when I do the nervous system. It’s called nervous system healing. I like to call it nervous system support in the relaxed money groups. And if you decide to, I would just say that the link in this episode would bring you to the free 3 day training.

Sarah Tacy [00:32:21]:
It’s 1 hour a day. And I just think Kate is one of the most incredible presenters that I’ve ever met. I’ve been working with the nervous system in such a detailed way for so long. And sometimes she puts things in such a simple way that makes it so easy to understand. And there are also money, financial aspects that are not my highest strength point, and there are days that are on that too. So that’s totally free. And if you end up going through my link and you sign up for her full program, then I would offer you a free one on one as well to go along with it. And so that is my little ad.

Sarah Tacy [00:33:04]:
That is my little promotion, And I am promoting it. I had an opportunity to promote it last September, and I didn’t feel like I was in the program long enough to really know it. And now I’ve gotten to hear from people who are in it and see the changes that it’s made in their lives and see the empowerment that they feel in their bodies and in their work. And I’ve gotten to see kind of what my role would be in there and the questions that come up and what’s landing for people. And I also noticed that just by being in the field of the program, the idea of a field is like the energetics of something, that my husband and I have actually sat down and started going through some things. And I felt very adult in the way that we’ve reorganized and I And being in the field of relax money, I believe, really motivated me to look at our own stuff and to get into that. I’ll say that one other thing that I’ve heard a few times from people are like, oh, and then I sat down with my partner. And first, we did a nervous system regulation, and then we talked about taxes, and then we did a nervous system regulation.

Sarah Tacy [00:34:25]:
And it’s just really cool. It’s really cool to include the body as one works through finances, not just the specifics of it, but there’s a whole aspect too on the mental, the mindset around money, which I think is a huge thing for people as well. So there’s mindset, there’s practical, and there’s nervous system. So as this month goes on, you’ll hear little, you know, ads here and there for it, or you’ll hear many musings that will weave in aspects of it. But everything that I offer, my highest hope is that if you’re like, that’s not for me, that there would still be so much here that is for you. And that all of it is really just offered as a gift. And so I will end with a little prayer, the little reticular activating system, wish. And I’ll just remind you that the reticular activating system is that part that’s going to open up our brains to see other possibilities.

Sarah Tacy [00:35:35]:
When I feel like I’m between a rock and a hard place, may I recognize that I’m in a double bind? May recognition be part of the medicine? And if it’s possible in that moment, may I take a breath? May I use my body to help my mind notice that there are more possibilities than 2. May I get curious of what support I can offer both points of view? What acknowledgements need to be made? And along the way, may I find some nuance? May that nuance allow me to make small, empowering decisions along the way, maybe even big empowering decisions. May I be kind and may I be gentle to myself? May I allow myself to be witnessed? May I share this practice with others knowing that again, in the trauma resolution and the freeing of myself, there is a sense of being accompanied and there is a sense of choice. Thank you so much. Thank you for tuning in. It’s been such a pleasure. If you’re looking for added support, I’m offering a program that’s totally free called 21 days of untapped support. It’s pretty awesome.

Sarah Tacy [00:37:37]:
It’s very easy. It’s very helpful. You can find it at Sarah dotcom. And if you love this episode, please subscribe and like. Apparently, it’s wildly useful. So we could just explore what happens when you scroll down to the bottom. Subscribe, rate, maybe say a thing or 2. If you’re not feeling it, don’t do it.

Sarah Tacy [00:37:58]:
It’s totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.