127 - What If 75% Was Already Done?
What if more is supporting you than you realize?
In this mini-musing, Sarah reflects on an art installation she encountered over twenty years ago that transformed the way she understands effort, support, and nervous system regulation. Inspired by an assignment asking students to notice what was “75% done without their effort,” this episode becomes an exploration of the unseen forces that sustain us every day. In a world where we are often asked to do more than we feel is possible, widening out to include all that is being done without our effort can be wildly stabilizing.
Through stories of lint in the dryer, changing seasons, organ systems, pregnancy, spring growth, and the intelligence of the natural world, Sarah invites listeners to widen their perspective beyond survival mode and hyper-responsibility.
When we live as though everything depends entirely on us, our nervous systems tighten, our stress increases, and our perception narrows. But when we begin noticing the “unearned majority” — the countless processes already unfolding without our management — something in the body softens.
This episode is a gentle reminder that while responsibility is real, we are not alone in carrying life.
Episode Transcript:
Sarah Tacy: [00:00:00] Hello, Threshold Moment listeners. Welcome to another mini-musing, a space where we take time to drop into orientation and tools that can help us as we live our most authentic lives, as we go from assumptions to cracking open parts of ourselves that may have been sleeping and saying, "Ooh, I can use some more s- support as I go forward in the most authentic way possible."
Sarah Tacy: Today, I wanna start off by telling you a story. Over 20 years ago, I walked into an art building, and I saw these rectangles on the wall. I imagine that perhaps there were 10 rectangles going across and maybe six or eight going down, and they were in a grid. [00:01:00] And they were fuzzy, and they were all slightly different colors.
Sarah Tacy: And as I got closer, I saw that they were lint from inside a washing machine. If you were to have peeled it off perfectly after the drying... excuse me, after it had gone through the dryer, you would get this rectangle. And the variety that was up there was so interesting, and I looked at the space beside it and I saw these tire marks all over pieces of paper arranged in unique and interesting ways.
Sarah Tacy: And when I looked a little further, I saw that these art students had been given an assignment: "Look for something that has been done 75%
Sarah Tacy: without your effort."[00:02:00]
Sarah Tacy: And this really hit me. How many things are happening that are outside of our effort that we miss every day? That our reticular activating system, that partner brainstem that really tries to look at something that would help us to survive or something that is unique and interesting or something that helps us with our bias.
Sarah Tacy: We wouldn't look for the things that are already supporting us because it wouldn't help us necessarily survive, but it might actually help our nervous systems settle. Because when we live in a place where we assume and feel and have evidence that it's all on us, the tension and the stress in our body rises.
Sarah Tacy: The cortisol rises. The amygdala stays a little bit hot. [00:03:00] And our perception of the world changes to see who is against us, why it is really all on me, how it's not fair, and our reticular activating system starts picking up so much evidence to defend how we are alone and how it's all on us. And while it may be very true that the income is dependent on your work, that you are in charge of getting the food and making the doctor's appointments and changing the beds and getting the laundry done and scheduling the kids or your own doctor's appointments or your parents' doctor's appointments.
Sarah Tacy: You may have so many responsibilities that are really yours. And one of the biggest, most beautiful tools in nervous system work that is inclusive of the body, because I believe it affects the body, I see it all the time with my clients, [00:04:00] is beginning to widen our perspective. With nervous system work, we often start, we'll say, "Let's start with health," and then we'll tap into a doable piece of challenge so that as we add layers of support, whether it's through recognition or a cup of tea and a blanket and a pillow and somebody right next to you to listen, we are more able to make better decisions with the responsibilities and challenges we have.
Sarah Tacy: So whenever I see lint, I remind myself, "Hmm, 75% of this laundry that is my responsibility is being done when I am not even paying attention to it. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you." The dishwasher is the same. But perhaps even more beautifully, we could look [00:05:00] at our hearts. We do nothing to earn our heartbeats.
Sarah Tacy: We might make healthy choices. We might exercise. We might do some emotional maintenance that might help our heart or perhaps add extra strain to it. But we do not have to think about each heartbeat. We do not have to think about each breath. Most of us wouldn't be able to locate where our spleen or liver is unless it was hurting, unless an intestine was hurting, unless a kidney was aching.
Sarah Tacy: Otherwise, we don't even notice that there is this organ doing this miraculous thing that scientists who are in labs could not repeat. There is some stat- That I [00:06:00] will not recall precisely, 'cause it's coming to mind now. In a book that was written years ago by Candace, Candace Pert called Molecules of Emotion, where back in the '90s she lists off all of the, uh, neurotransmitters that have been created in a lab in the last 10 years, and how in a matter of moments a single human body will make so many more.
Sarah Tacy: And I wish I could pull up the stats, 'cause they're really impressive. Maybe I could go back and, uh, leave that in the show notes. The point is that there are miracles happening all the time. When I look out right now, when I look out my window, is spring is springing, and I can look at these hostas that are just coming up and go, "Oh my God.
Sarah Tacy: How is something being created from [00:07:00] nothing? How is that happening?" It's like being pregnant. When you have a baby, and you're like, "Okay, well, I can choose to sleep, and I can..." Sometimes. "... and I can choose to eat good food, or I could choose to have a snack, or I could choose to be with friends that help me feel good."
Sarah Tacy: Or, uh, there are things that we might be like, "I would not choose to be in this stressful situation," right? There are things we don't feel like we can choose. No matter our choices, this baby is still forming. No matter what I do with my work here in my office, when I look out the window, the hosta is still forming.
Sarah Tacy: The buds are still budding. The flowers are thinking about blooming. The fox cubs most likely will come out from underneath the shed in a few weeks. They do every year, and it's not my responsibility to schedule them. I don't schedule the seasons. I don't schedule the moon. I [00:08:00] don't schedule the sun. It rises every day on its own, thank goodness.
Sarah Tacy: And for those of you who are feeling like you don't have any control and everything's chaotic, and it doesn't help to hear this, you could say, "I choose to have an exhale. I choose to press my feet into the earth. I choose a glass of water." The truth often is that when we feel dysregulated, we both feel like we don't have choice and it's all on us.
Sarah Tacy: And as we widen our perception to just notice the miracles that are all around us, all the things, the... I would say the unearned majority of things that are actually helping and that are actually working on behalf of the development of life and the cycle of death-[00:09:00]
Sarah Tacy: Thank goodness that's not on us to figure out. There is a field that is unseen, that is already working, that I believe is intelligent. It's the held part. So as I sign off for today,
Sarah Tacy: I would love for you to notice your feet on the ground, your breath. Think of one part of your body that is doing something without you needing to understand how it does it, that scientists still don't understand how it happens, and it's just working this miracle on behalf of a greater [00:10:00] intelligence. And maybe you can look out the window and look at the unearned majority.
Sarah Tacy: You could- perhaps could see or imagine a mountain range or see or imagine the ocean, that we would need to do nothing
Sarah Tacy: in order to earn the benefit, the gift of being able to simply gaze upon them. Everything is handled.
Sarah Tacy: What is your lint? What is your everyday reminder that you're not alone, you're part of something bigger, there's a field that's already working on your [00:11:00] behalf?