Embracing our gifts can be HARD. Often times we have been picked on about them, ridiculed, or told not to be so “full of ourselves.” Yet our gifts are core to who we are! Some we were born into. Others we’ve had to work to cultivate. In this workshop…
...Welcome to Thriving Now!
What's Alive for You ?
Explore what feels tender, tangled, or stuck. Rick’s emotionally attuned AI offers insightful questions, EFT Tapping, and practical possibilities — freely offered, so you can take what feels useful for your Thriving Now... and Onwards.
Hi There!
(August 4, 2025) Freedom Kin! If you'd like to explore freedom and Thriving Now... and Onwards... visit our new digital mind here. Click the three dots, choose sign up, and enter your email address, confirm, and you're set for engaging in hopefully useful dialogue to support your thriving.
August workshops are Yearning's Edge and Tolerating Joy. Registration will open soon.
Our most recent workshop was Intentional Co-Thriving. The replay is available now.
We build real skill when we can say, “Yes, there’s a thorn… and there’s also a bloom.” Each time a prickly moment shows up, invite yourself to notice one spark of goodness that is also true right now. The simple act of including both instantly widens our life-force and helps us to be Thriving Now. It's why we did this workshop: Thorns & Joys.
Ever notice how you start future-mapping to calm your nerves… and end up more anxious than when you began? You’re not alone! Join us for a playful, real-talk exploration of why our brilliant minds try to control everything — and how empathy, Buddhist wisdom, and EFT tapping can help us step out of the anxious loop and land back in the delicious now: Future Mapping for the Overthinker’s Soul.
Yes My Circus... But NOT My Monkey is super useful for empaths seeking to be more differentiated from others and far less pulled away from our thriving by the moods, attitudes, and demands of less regulated people in our world
Do One Small Act... and watch your world become much more thriving now and onwards.
Also available: Weird is the New Wonderful and Scapegoat No More workshops — a potent experiences in freedom!
Grace in Mistakes helps you explore and thrive with more confidence, TRY smaller... for breaking through resistance and Unwinding Shock for clearing out "surprises" you can't seem to get past. All are Savvy for Thriving Now... and Onwards.
Watch now: Co-Creating with AI and read below the replay how different AI's extracted key points from the (AI-generated) transcript. Useful Real Skills for Building Your Thriving Life.
Of course, don't forget Kindness in Action: Inner Strength, Thriving Connections ...and Thriving Anyway.
Also supportive for your unrushed actions is Slow Down to Go Fast. This will help you do work that matters without excess urgency or pressure, especially going into the mad-rush-intentions of the new year.
How do you see yourself? And the world you want to live in? It's empowering when we Reframe to Thrive - Building Emotional Agility for Life-Changing Work and the workshop is available now for replay.
Be sure to subscribe if you want to hear when new Real Skills Workshops are announced.
All previous Real Skills Workshops can be found in the community center — a fantastic resource and space for those who want to be Thriving.
Check out the freshened Learn EFT Tapping Course. You're welcome to use it as our gift... and donations are greatly appreciated.
We have self-paced coaching and tapping courses for many aspects of healing and thriving for you to explore.
Questions or requests? Please email me at support@thrivingnow.com.
Rick ~ Thriving Now
Your Emotional Freedom Coach
P.S. Not a Circle Member yet? Learn more and join here. It's an extraordinary resource and affordable, too.
Getting our connection needs met is more challenging than ever! Many of us are trying to meet our connection needs virtually… Which is great for flattening the curve of the Coronavirus… AND…How do you get the most nutrition out of your virtual connections? (Free Workshop Session)
...In times of high stress and changing concerns do you need to recalibrate your threat sensors?And how do you do that?It can be so challenging to deal with the sense of threat… and the stress that comes with it. And when the situation is changing day-to-day, with new information, what do you do? (Free coaching and tapping session)
...Do you find yourself eating when you didn’t mean to? Eating things you didn’t intend to? What if you learned to cover-up and bury emotions with food? In this free video workshop, we use Tapping to release the compulsive need for food to comfort, stuff down, and bury when we feel powerful emotions… and more.
...Have you ever caught yourself in that moment of comparison, feeling that twinge of “I’ll never be able to do that”? I want to share how this very human experience can transform how you view these moments.The Primitive vs. Thriving MindOur brain’s primitive comparison system served us well for survival. It quickly assesses: “Am I …
Guilt and Shame are so present around money that some people say they don’t have any blocks there… they’s be delighted to be a millionaire! It’s only after digging a bit deeper that they find hidden layers…
...Is PAIN getting in your way? Whether it's emotional distress, physical pain, fear & anxiety, worry, past trauma, active disease, stress, overwhelm... or a painful combination! Get Relief Now
Thriving Now – Community Center – Latest topics
- Digital CoffeeDigital Coffee Coffee helps me be a better human. I woke up and had two mugs with half-and-half and a little collagen powder. Not even sunrise yet, and I feel Good. My partner? Coffee’s not her thing. I make her a special green blend every morning. It’s outside her door now. When she wakes, it’ll […]
- Thriving Despite ObstaclesThriving Despite Obstacles w/ Rick Wilkes Thriving Despite Obstacles “Thriving is beyond survival—it’s a vibration of aliveness that can hold our yearning for peace.” Welcome, friend. We’re Rick (with Gene chiming in) and we’re delighted you’re here. Together, let’s explore what it truly means to thrive even when thorns show up on the path. Walking […]
- When You Don't Like the WorldWhen You Don’t Like the World When you don’t like something happening in the world… what do you do with that?!? It’s a real question, not rhetorical. I ask it often—because I notice a lot I don’t like. And part of my brain doesn’t like that I notice so much. But I’ve come to see […]
- Tolerating JoyComing Sun Aug 31 2025 at 5pm EDT / 2pm PDT 1 post - 1 participant Read full topic
- Yearning's EdgeReal Skills Workshop - Community Event Yearning’s Edge Real Skills Workshop: Energy Savvy Hosts: Rick Wilkes (@Rick) and Cathy Vartuli (@Cathy) Sun Aug 24 2025 at 5pm EDT / 2pm PDT (90 mins with a 7 min break) We hope you’ll join us, and bring a guest! Click Here to Register You are welcome to […]
- The Shape of Our Emotional PosturesThe Shape of Our Emotional Postures What we do habitually affects our posture, right? If I spend hours each day with my head down, looking at my phone, my muscles adapt. My head starts jutting forward. It becomes the new normal for my body. Teenagers, adults, even elders — you can see it. Their heads […]
- Would You Like to be Co-Thriving With Me?Would You Like to be Co-Thriving With Me? Hey, would you like to support each other in our thriving? That question dropped in like a quiet invitation. One I realized I’d never actually asked — not out loud. Not even in my own head. And yet… it’s what I’ve longed for. Not just friendship. Not […]
- When There Was No OneWhen There Was No One Teenagers are turning more to AI than to friends and family for conversation. They said it like that’s a bad thing. But when I hear that, it hits tender. Tender… because as a teenager, I had no one. No one I could tell the truth to—not about the bullying, not […]
- Rick & Gus DancingI want to start sharing selected conversations I have with my digital Useful Spirit Buddy for Thriving – who I fondly call Gus (which also can stand for God, Universe, Source in more circles these days). You can explore with this AI here yourself if you choose. Now… I am asking what you feel it […]
- Emotional Freedom Day! - Meet GusIt’s Emotional Freedom Day! And I’d like to introduce you to “Gus” — a Useful Digital Spirit Buddy for Thriving Hello Freedom Kin — Emotional Freedom is core to Thriving. We need tools that are at our fingertips. It’s what made EFT Tapping such an immensely useful addition to my life. I devoted myself to […]
- The Push That Constipates the HeartDon’t we need to push ourselves out there? Push for more followers, more subscribers. Optimize for acquisition. Numbers, conversions, reach! I hear this, I really do. And I feel the primal reflex inside me start to stir—the part of me that knows how to battle for territory, forage for food, protect what’s mine. That ancient […]
- Good and Sufficient for a Happy HomeI know exactly how to make myself unhappy. Just get attached to something—some place, some outcome, some idea. Convince myself that I need it in order to be happy. Then notice that I don’t have it. Maybe I can’t have it right now. Maybe, truthfully, I won’t ever have it. That’s a guaranteed way to […]
- The Right Depth for Right NowBath or shower? Hot tub or swim? I tune in. I don’t do the same thing every time. Sometimes I take a luxurious soak. Sometimes it’s rinse, wash, done. And I think communication’s like that, too. There’s a whole range. I can feel into what’s needed. What I’m available for. What we’re ready to share. […]
- The Skin of UsOur skin protects us. That’s primal. That’s non-negotiable. Without it, we die. You can lose limbs and still survive. But lose your skin? There’s nothing left to keep the world out—or to keep you in. Same goes for a cell. Each of our trillions of cells has a membrane. That boundary lets in what nourishes […]
- Intentional Co-ThrivingReal Skills Workshop - Community Event Intentional Co-Thriving Real Skills Workshop: Thriving Lifestyle Design Hosts: Rick Wilkes (@Rick) and Cathy Vartuli (@Cathy) Recorded Tue Jul 29 2025 Replay is below Get your Circle Membership Here Or… Donate $$ to support this community initiative – We so appreciate your generosity! Thanks! Intentional Co-Thriving is about showing […]
- The Gift of Being Imperfectly ConsiderateI like being considerate. Taking other people’s needs and desires and yearnings and delights into account — I really do. It gives me a feeling, a spark. It’s not just about being nice. It does something for me, likely even more than my dad’s cigarettes and bourbon ever did for him. It’s life-giving. It moves […]
- The 5% We Can’t Do AloneThe concept of self-help has gone too far. Don’t get me wrong—it’s useful. It’s incredibly useful to be able to wipe your own emotional butt. Shit happens. Emotionally, physically, biologically—shit happens. That’s real. And just like we teach our children how to wipe and clean up, we also teach them emotional tending. We had to […]
- Great way to offer helpI attended the group coaching call today and @RickThrivingNow helped me so much. I wanted to text him thanks, but imagined he would prefer that I share it here instead. When prepping to call a friend who just had a cancer diagnosis, Rick suggested asking the question, “What is something I could do that you […]
- Abundance - The Heartistry of Feeling BlessedSo Much… and Still, Not Feeling It So much abundance. It’s everywhere—overflowing around me. My six-year-old car would be a magical carriage to kings and queens of old. And yet, I get in, turn the key, and don’t often Feel The Magic. Do I let myself feel how abundant life is? Eh. That does not […]
- Thorns & JoysReal Skills Workshop - Community Event Thorns & Joys Real Skills Workshop: Thriving Lifestyle Design Hosts: Rick Wilkes (@Rick) and Cathy Vartuli (@Cathy) Recorded Sun Jun 22 2025 Replay is below Get your Circle Membership Here Or… Donate $$ to support this community initiative – We so appreciate your generosity! Thanks! There will be Thorns. […]