Weapons, Tools, and Toys: Balancing Surviving and Thriving

In this episode, Coach Chris Rodriguez explores the metaphorical significance of toys, tools, and weapons in our emotional and psychological lives. Chris explains how these elements, learned in childhood and adulthood, help us navigate through survival and thriving.

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• 00:00 Introduction to the Soulfully You Podcast
• 00:44 Understanding Learned Behaviors
• 01:00 The Concept of Toys, Tools, and Weapons
• 02:14 Survival vs. Thriving
• 03:53 Exploring Emotional and Psychological Weapons
• 06:00 Utilizing Tools for Growth
• 06:51 Rediscovering the Importance of Play
• 09:18 Integrating Weapons, Tools, and Toys in Daily Life
• 09:47 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

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0:05

Hey friend. Welcome to the Soulfully You Podcast with Coach Chris Rodriguez. I'm a movement and mindset coach, and I believe in a deeper way of living, a more soulful way of being. Join me each week for conversations about how to put a little more soul. Into our work, our relationships in our everyday lives.

Coach Chris 0:44

When you were young, you learned behaviors that helped you get through life. Some of 'em were directly taught to you. Others you learned subliminally through your environment. For children, we mostly associate their learning to be around. Play creativity and exploration. We're gonna call these practices, their toys for adults, we typically see the way you learn and get through life. It's through work. Working on things, working with people. These practices, we're gonna call 'em tools. In some cases. You might find yourself in an environment where you need to survive under threat, whether physical, emotional, or social. When you experience this mode of life, the equipment that you acquire, we're gonna call those weapons just like there are physical. Toys, tools and weapons. There are also emotional and psychological toys, tools and weapons. Weapons are there to help you survive. Tools are there to help you survive and somewhat thrive, but toys are there to help you. To both survive and thrive Today, I want to talk to you about your tools, your toys, and your weapons that you've acquired. What's their place and how to move from simply surviving to both surviving and thriving. The first thing I have to say about this is there are generally two camps of people. One camp that says it is all about survival. There is nothing more to life than getting through day to day, cutting out threats and making sure you live to die another day. There's this other group of people that they're all about thriving, all about enhancing all about more and extra and surplus and deny the narrative and the story of survival. But let me be clear, both surviving. And thriving are necessary. Survival is essential. Audre Lorde she writes, we were never. Meant to survive. And it's this idea that there can be so many obstacles that come against you. And she's talking about the context of black people, and specifically black women America, and how the system was designed to destroy them. Yet they still survived. And that survival was beautiful. Survival is one half of life. Anytime you experience loss. Pain, tragedy, and you come out on the other side. That's survival, honor, survival, it's beautiful, but we have to learn how to go back and forth in between surviving and hopefully moving to thriving. Now this idea of thriving, there's some seasons in our lives that we're not thriving, that we're surviving honor that season. That season is a blessing. It gives you appreciation for

3:45

when you are in a season of

Coach Chris 3:47

flourishing and thriving, you don't take things for granted when you've survived. So let's break down some things. Let's break down our weapons. Okay. Weapons are to fend off threats. And hand to hand combat what fends off a threat is a jab or a kick. It is a long reach that backs your opponent up so that they don't get close enough to you to attack you. Emotionally and psychologically, the need to back somebody off with a jab, a jab of words, a jab of shortness. You only feel that need when you've successfully been attacked. When you have a wound. Right. So a lot of our weapons, we develop 'em out of wounds. When I think about this idea of weapons, I think about it in the context of boundaries. When I talk to my clients and when I'm talking to teams about boundaries, there are these boundaries that I, I call 'em hard or harsh boundaries, and. A boundary essentially just separates what's mine from yours. But a harsh boundary would be a barbed wire fence, a armed guard, a guard dog, a spiked wall, a an electric fence. These are things that if you come too close, if you trespass beyond this point, you will get harmed. And in our lives, when we put up these harsh boundaries, typically it's because somebody that we trusted overstepped our boundaries, or it's because we gave somebody too much access. Too fast and they couldn't handle the trust that we gave them. So we put up walls, we throw out jabs. And to be clear, you need some of these harsh boundaries in your life. If there is somebody that is a threat to you psychologically, emotionally, and physically. And they don't have the ability to honor your boundaries, honor what you need if they are gonna consistently harm you, you need some harsh boundaries. But we can't live there in every relationship in our lives. So we move from weapons to tools. Tools are how we do our work. Therapy is a tool, right? You're working on something hard. Now. In some therapy you can have play, you can have dance, you can have music, but the idea of getting the work done, yeah, therapy is gonna be a tool. Practices to, relieve your anxiety. Different types of breath work, certain types of meditation. These are gonna be tools. Your calendar is a tool to help you stay on track to help you honor your boundaries. A to-do list, that's a tool. And this moving away from, I am simply surviving to, all right, I am surviving I need the infrastructure in my life to move in the direction to thrive. I need systems in place. I need a framework. This is the work of our tools. But to really move into the thriving, we gotta develop toys. When we get older, we throw away all of our toys. We throw away our our, we throw away our creativity, we throw away our curiosity. I got a whole episode on rediscovering your inner soul child. You can go back and listen to that. Children play and adults lose that. The reason why I say toys help us survive and thrive, it comes from this idea from Stuart Brown. He says the opposite of play is not work, it's depression. And he came up with this idea because the FBI would consult with him. He is a play psychotherapist, and they'd consult with him whenever there was somebody who was a psychopath serial killer. Someone who would do a mass shooting. And what he found in almost all of those profiles was that when you look at their childhood, they had severe play depravity. When we take ourselves too serious, we lose our minds. We lose ourselves. when we can decide to put down the toolbox, close the weapon shed and open the toy box, that is us saying there is a level of safety that I know. There is a level of safety that I've cultivated. I've put systems in place for me to have clear boundaries. I've done the work and continue to do the work, to heal my emotions, to manage my anxiety, and now I wanna move into this world of play, of creativity, of imagination. I wanna imagine my life being better. I want to have a mindset in which I know I am capable of expanding my love. I want to have relationships that. Aren't perfect and don't feel good all the time, but give me a sense of belonging and a sense of joy, and the toy box is gonna be anything that gives you pleasure. It is gonna be anyone that gives you joy. It's gonna be the things that you do intentionally for no outcome. I'm gonna say that again. Your toy box, it's gonna be the things that you do intentionally. Without a desired outcome, there's no productivity involved in play. I do this because I want to, because I enjoy it. One really simple way to. Implement this idea of weapons, tools, and toys throughout your day is at the end of the day, ask yourself how often. Did I pull from my toolbox? How often did I pull from my toybox? How often did I pull from my weapons? At the start of the day, ask yourself, what plan can I make to access my tools and my toys to help me not just survive, but to also thrive? I'll end with this, you don't have to be ashamed about the things that you've acquired along the way to help you survive, recognize why they're there. Let go of the ones that no longer serve you and be in exploration and curiosity around the new tools and the new toys that you can cultivate and develop in your life.

10:07

Thank you for listening to the Soulfully You Podcast with Coach Chris Rodriguez. If you like the show, help others find me by subscribing and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. And don't forget to connect with me on Instagram at Coach underscore Chris Rodriguez. For more episodes along with all of my coaching programs, visit me@www.coach chris rodriguez.com. Special thanks to my team behind the scenes music by Dan Smith. And remember, whatever you do, wherever you find yourself today, make sure you put some soul in it.