These videos were pre-career change. They were who I had become, and not who I have always been. I share these with you to close one story and open another.
–
This year on December 25th, which is both Christmas Day and my 50th Birthday, I am stepping into a new story…
and I know what I know what I know about how stories work:
Stories won’t let go of you until they’ve been fully heard.
This is release #2 of sixteen weeks of Story Hits (vlog) from as far back as 2013. Some are my favourites, some are yours. If you missed week #1, you can start at the beginning with: Out of the Water here.
I will be writing more about these moments in both my upcoming book: STORY STONES (coming fall 2021, and in my one woman show: O MY GOD (touring spring 2021).
On my 50th Birthday, if you’re on my VIP list, I’ll be sending you 50 Days of Christmas Story Gifts from Dec. 25th to February 12th. If you want some story goodness filled with sneak peeks into the creation and rehearsal process, plus be able to pre-order the book, and order tickets to the show, click here and the let the gifting begin! (You’ll get a bunch of cool story right away)
Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
If you’d like to know more about TinaO’s approach to STORY and receive updates about STORY STONES the book, and O MY GOD, her one woman show, click here and you’ll be added to her ‘stay in touch’ list plus she’ll send you a few short intro videos about what story means to her. CLICK HERE for TinaO Story stuff.
These vlogs bring you back with me to where we’ve been together over the last seven years. I share them to close one story so as to open another.
This year on December 25th, which is both Christmas Day and my 50th Birthday, I am stepping into a new story…and I know what I know what I know about how stories work:
Stories won’t let go until they’ve been fully heard.
For the next sixteen weeks I am releasing a Story Hit (vlog) from our last five years together. Some will be my favourites, some yours.
I will be writing more about these moments in both my upcoming book: STORY STONES (coming fall 2021, and in my one woman show: O MY GOD (touring spring 2021).
On my 50th Birthday, if you’re on my VIP list, I’ll be sending you 50 Days of Christmas Story Gifts from Dec. 25th to February 12th. If you want some story goodness filled with sneak peeks into the creation and rehearsal process, plus be able to pre-order the book, and order tickets to the show, click here and the let the gifting begin! (You’ll get a bunch of cool story right away)
Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
If you’d like to know more about TinaO’s approach to STORY and receive updates about STORY STONES the book, and O MY GOD, her one woman show, click here and you’ll be added to her ‘stay in touch’ list plus she’ll send you a few short intro videos about what story means to her.
You know what I love about albums from the seventies? They were unabashedly sentimental. They were also totally dramatic, and there was always something kinda innocent, naive almost in even the heaviest of the songs from that time. My favourite album from the 70’s is Carole King’s Tapestry – released in 1971.
Have you noticed that when artists share their music with us over a long period of time, it’s like we as the listener get to grow up with them.
And that’s what this post is about.
Over the last five years, every substantial pillar and support beam that was my ‘life’ came down.
Finances.
Marriage.
Career.
Health.
Ummm… what else is there? Air?
…Not my department.
And everywhere I fell, stood, stumbled and sang, you came with me. You leaned in as I launched Live Your Best Story (which is really where this chapter of change began) and where the photo above is taken from. You followed along as I turned my camera on and talked about nothing which might be something, and usually was. You sent me words of encouragement, gifts even, during the five months I was in bed pre, during and post cancer treatment, and you cheered me on as I set out on a triathlon eight months later. I was thirty pounds lighter with no fat on my body, and a nervous system screaming high alert! High alert! High alert! over and over to me. You swam with me as I complained and cried my way through every damn training swim I did. You waited for me when my marriage collapsed and I went dark for awhile and new words started to emerge from my lips – more poetic ones, softer somehow but with more grit than I was ever willing to share before. You stood with me through the God conversation as I chose to follow the sun…
and I still am…
following the sun…
You listened to me.
And you taught me how to listen.
Doesn’t this sound like a Carole King song?
my life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue.
An everlasting vision of the ever-changing view
A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold
For the next sixteen weeks, I am releasing a Story Hit (vlog) from our last five years together. Some will be favourites of mine, some will be your faves.
Remember the day I finally swam 1000 metres without a kick board and cried with joy telling you about it? Or the unrelenting anger, confusion and sadness the day after Donald Trump got into office? Or how about the lip sync of Carole King’s So Far Away during week one of the covid lockdown?
These are a few of the moments I remember, and they came from these places:
#100 Love – The Triathlon
The Beach Sessions
Story Tuesdays
Sanctuary Sunday
Walk and Talks with Meribeth
These are my ‘greatest hits’, and just like a 1970’s album, I’m going to risk being sentimental, dramatic and real. I’m going to tell you a story as I close this book of Where We’ve Been and crack the binding on the next one.
And the new book is literally a book.
My first book, Story Stones will be delivered to the publisher January 31st, and my one woman show: O MY GOD starts rehearsal mid February 2021.
STORY STONES: The layering of the twelve Core Stories which emerged from hundreds of individual calls, with a corresponding Origin story like: Spider Woman and the Four Creations (Hopi), Let There Be (Judeo Christian), Popul Vuh (Mayan) and more, and pulling these layers together is the saga of my triathlon journey as an injured non-swimmer who is only months out of cancer treatment and on the verge of divorce. This book asks: What if we are not broken? What is the narrative of our individual life force that carries both our divine medicine and our poison. What if we chose to surrender to the story of who we truly are?
O MY GOD: A young girl is haunted by a 15,000 year old giant, a painfully self-conscious witch returns to church, and a Celtic shape-shifting mistress of war explain the purpose of religion while being visited by mythological Gods and Goddesses who offer jokes, warnings and insights about the sacred irrelevance of God.
That’s where we’re going.
But today… let’s celebrate and remember where we’ve been.
Won’t you join me for the next sixteen weeks as we turn on the record player, gently place the needle down, cozy up on the couch and listen to the stories we’ve shared over the last five years?
A story doesn’t let go of us until it’s been fully heard.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for hearing me.
RELEASE #1 – ‘Out of the Water’ will be delivered to you on Saturday, September 13th.
For now… I leave you with this:
See you Saturday.
xxT
TinaO 1993
Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
If you’d like to know more about TinaO’s approach to STORY and receive updates about STORY STONES the book, and O MY GOD, her one woman show, click here and you’ll be added to her ‘stay in touch’ list plus she’ll send you a few short intro videos about what story means to her.
Earlier, as many provinces in Canada headed into lockdown, I had the pleasure of diving into a rich conversation with James Gardiner as a guest on his show: Conversations in Courage. Jim is a performance coach, speaker, athlete and performer. He is one of the lead coaches with Leapzone Strategies and is described as a ‘super freak’ processor who helps heart-centred entrepreneurs connect the dots to lead spectacular lives driven by heart and soul. From my lens, I’d say, bam – they got that right.
Here’s a snippet from the first fifteen minutes of our 45 minute conversation. Yep… all this in just fifteen minutes. Yep… that means there’s two more pieces coming to you… For now, this is #1.
Reconnect Inward – Conversations in Courage #1
Jim: Hey there everyone, Jim Gardiner here from Leapzone Strategies and welcome to our first of a series of conversations about courage. Quite frankly, these are conversations for you, the viewer, to add some positivity to the stream of consciousness that is ever-expanding around us in this day and time. I invite you to reconnect-in with these conversations. Today I am joined by one of my dear friends, a colleague, and a peer, Tina Overbury.
Jim: Hey Tina how are you? You’re on Bowen Island, which is a small little island off of the city of Vancouver right?
Tina: I’m great, andyep I’m on Bowen and it’s a bit of paradise for sure. As far as isolation goes, being here, (and not to minimize what we’re in right now), is not so bad. The truth is, I kinda choose to live this way anyway.
Jim: You know, yes, yeah, and I’m living on Vancouver Island which is a huge island yet it’s still an element of being secluded too. I’m in a small town, and it’s the same thing. No matter where we are we can’t hide from what’s in front of us. Before we dive in, why don’t you introduce yourself to those who may not be familiar with your genius. Take it away.
Tina: Cool, thanks Jim. Thanks for having me, and thanks for starting this conversation. It’s a really important time for listening, and that’s what I do, I’m a story coach. When I say that outloud to people, I get: oh that’s interesting, I kind of get it. But if I actually tell you what I do, you might say: that’s a bit weird, but it’s not weird. Not to me. I’m a professional listener, that’s what I do. I work with people who feel called by a communication of some kind. You might have a book you’re writing, or a keynote taking shape, and some people don’t even know the shape of the communication they’re here to give the world and that’s part of my job too. People come to me when they hear in their heads: I might be crazy but… I think I really need to say this, or I’ve had this thought that’s been keeping me up all night for months – what do I do with it?
I’m a collector and sometimes I call what I do story keeping, where I work with people to help them keep the story that’s been entrusted to them. Then I support the structures for that communication to live in the world. Not all of us are made to write a book, and not all of us are made to keynote, but we’re all made to relate and to communicate. My job is to listen to each communicator as the instrument they are and help them align their message. In basic language, I help them write their book, write their keynote, create their blog… but it’s so much more than that.
Jim: We were talking about this a while ago, you take the someday conversation, as in someday I will, someday I want etc. and you turn that into right now. I think that’s why we’re here. Right now. Having this conversation. Right now more than ever, everyone has the chance to stop and look inward and say okay what are those some days I’ve been toying around with and discussing? How can I make that now?
Tina: Come on out the skinny branches with me if you will. In story language, I say to people: stories are like toddlers. They will chase you around, tug on your sleeve, they’ll throw themselves at your feet – all because they simply want a good listening-to. And in this conversation about someday, just like stories, they are waiting for us. Whatever you want to call it, your purpose, your mission – whatever. Someday is today. It starts now. Shake hands with that impulse, that mission and say: I’m in. We have the time. Our someday is right now.
“Shake hands with that impulse and mission and say: I’m in. We have the time. Our someday is right now.”
Jim: Let’s break that down because I know you know that I know, in my community of people, we’re all kind of cut from the same cloth, and many of us recognize, ironically that what we have more of right now IS time. And alternately, time is our only non-renewable resource. It is our constant limitation. It’s always 24/7. Seven days a week, right through, and 365 days a year. The same time. In this time, how can we inspire others to engage in that inward conversation. What is my someday? What is now? And let’s see what we can do to break open our courage, that rock of courage to stimulate this thought pattern and choice.
“Let’s see what we can do to break open our courage”
Tina: I think that’s one of the things I appreciate about your work in the world Jim. It’s the way you know how to break down time, and pull it apart into pieces so that we’re present right now. We are doing something each day which can lead us to the thing we’ve been some-daying about. You are skilled in that time piece, and not just the management of time, but the maximizing of our potential in that time, all in bite-sized pieces. You do the whole strategy piece.
Jim: It is incrementalism and its finest, and whether I’m helping somebody build a business or helping somebody check off a bucket list item, it’s the same methodology. It’s the same principle. It’s breaking things down into incremental steps of growth. I find that time is the one constant which can be played on the macro and micro level. I think that’s why, to do well in high-performance sport, time is how we understand our volume of training. It’s periodization of training on a larger scale, and time becomes the cornerstone of everything.
Tina, what would be a catalyst for people on this to start this journey of time? Because I think this is where you come in. What is the story we want to create for ourselves? Ultimately if it’s a dream or a goal to write your book, or run a marathon, the reality is, we’re already creating that story in our head.Maybe you can shed some light on that.
“It is incrementalism and its finest.”
Tina: You know I think you nailed it already. Just geek out with me a little bit okay? When I’m listening to people, it’s almost as if their words shimmer, and thats how I hear them. They come up to the surface and shine so I can hear them. What you just said about time as the cornerstone – I was like: that’s it, that’s the message, that’s the answer to the catalyst of this time. It’s really asking the question: What is the cornerstone of this time for each of us? What do I want? If I really centred in, and remember, some of us work from the outside in, others from the inside out. My writing partner totally works from the outside in. She writes that way. It’s completely opposite to me who hears, or is peaceful working from the inside out. It doesn’t matter which way you work, neither is better than the other. All I’m trying to say is: when you sit with what is the cornerstone of this time for you? – and just get quiet, or write, or do what you do to connect to you, and just LISTEN to what you want, what do you hear? Jim, are you an internal or external processor?
“What is the cornerstone of this time?”
Jim: yeah yeah yeah I definitely work nucleus out. I use a lot of acting analogies, and I enjoy creating a character from the inside out. Adding those layers upon layers upon layers until it becomes a reality.
In the work that I do, we always say: be clear about what you want, and the how will surface. I think for anyone, this is the point where we take that first step. For those that know me, I talk about stepping into the arena and engaging our warrior mindset. I know some people have reached out because they are kind of hesitating, or paralyzed because they don’t really know what the first move is, and I say: that’s fine, you don’t have to know but remember to take courageand ask what do you want? For some, those answers happen quickly, while others have to really peel back the layers to figure it out.
“Step into the arena and engage your warrior mindset.”
Tina: That’s so what’s cool. You gave us the ‘how’, which is courage. As a story person I process the world and communication through: who what when where why and how, so the ‘what’ of this question, as in what do we do at this time?= cornerstone. The how, which just arrived = courage.
Jim: Hmmmm… this is what I love about this. We’re just having conversations and hopefully inspiring others with some insights, and we’re educating each other too. It is about conversation and it is about connection. With your family, and people who are close. It’s keeping that sense of community alive, and above all, it’s time to elevate ourselves. I think we have a duty. I honestly believe in my heart that we each have a duty to multiply our impact. To figure out what our impact is, and what is our potential, and to step into that. Now is the time.
Tina: Wow I love that. I was just going to ask you, which you kind of answered already but, what do you think this time is about? We’re all talking about it and thinking about it. We’re all having conversations around the topic, but not really. You know? What I heard you say is: understand or get to know your potential and impact. This is the time for that. Did I hear that right?
“We have a duty to multiply our impact.”
Jim: Absolutely. I feel wholeheartedly right now, it is our duty as human beings. We have a duty to ourselves, and each other, to figure this out. I feel we should come out of this time more evolved, whatever that means to you. If people come out of this and don’t change, don’t move the needle forward… it would be sad. It saddens me to think that way. This isn’t about financial means. This isn’t about race, or status positions. This is a horizontal even playing field, and everyone should grow from this experience.
Tina: Wow. Horizontal playing field for all of us. I hear that.
Watch for part #2 & #3, and more about the romance of courage in the coming weeks.
James Gardiner is an Adventurer, Author, Speaker, and Performance Coach with LeapZone Strategies. He works with entrepreneurs and high performers to get in touch with their authentic selves and maximize their business and personal brands in congruence with their life design. As a high performance athlete and accomplished rower and coach he tackles personal and business growth as an athlete, through health and wellness and playing the game to win. I have constructed bodies and minds to perform at peak performance. To James, mindset, is everything.
If you’d like to know more about TinaO’s upcoming book: Story Stones or performance dates about her upcoming show O MY GOD, click here.
Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s weekly online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
If you would like to know more about Tina’s approach to story, click here.
I read THREE posts to my kids over dinner tonight. One from Krista Wallace (current), another from Steve Locke from 2015, and I made them watch a video that has gone viral online about three generations of black men protesting.
We didn’t discuss much.
I wanted them to hear it, watch it, digest it and see where it took them.
Copied from Krista Wallace
The other day I copied and pasted a list of things I can do with impunity because I am white. A lot of people are reposting this list, in reaction to the horrific murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The outrage is justified.
But make no mistake, I have white privilege here in Canada, too, and I am not smugly saying, “Oh, those Americans, why can’t they get their shit together?”
~I can walk down the street, go to the grocery store, buy beer [insert virtually any activity here] without someone blaming me for the coronavirus, and yelling at me, or spitting on me, or tripping me, or any other form of abuse.
~I can do all of the above without anyone telling me to go back where I came from.
~I can do all of the above without anyone questioning or judging me for what I choose to wear on my head.
~I can do all of the above without being called a drunk.
~I have clean water to drink.
~I wasn’t brought up by people who were ripped from their families and put in a residential school, where they were subjected to countless atrocities which would cause massive long-term emotional fallout which would affect my entire family for generations… etc.
I could go on, but I think I have made my point. We should be just as outraged by the racism here in Canada, and fix it.
This is a professor, who has the tools to articulate how this encounter affected him. He also has the age and wisdom that allowed for him to maintain his composure and not lose his life. Now, imagine a YOUNG Black person, who is not equipped with either.
Steve Locke wrote:
“This is what I wore to work today.
On my way to get a burrito before work, I was detained by the police.
I noticed the police car in the public lot behind Centre Street. As I was walking away from my car, the cruiser followed me. I walked down Centre Street and was about to cross over to the burrito place and the officer got out of the car.
“Hey my man,” he said.
He unsnapped the holster of his gun.
I took my hands out of my pockets.
“Yes?” I said.
“Where you coming from?”
“Home.”
Where’s home?”
“Dedham.”
How’d you get here?”
“I drove.”
He was next to me now. Two other police cars pulled up. I was standing in from of the bank across the street from the burrito place. I was going to get lunch before I taught my 1:30 class. There were cops all around me.
I said nothing. I looked at the officer who addressed me. He was white, stocky, bearded.
“You weren’t over there, were you?” He pointed down Centre Street toward Hyde Square.
“No. I came from Dedham.”
“What’s your address?”
I told him.
“We had someone matching your description just try to break into a woman’s house.”
A second police officer stood next to me; white, tall, bearded. Two police cruisers passed and would continue to circle the block for the 35 minutes I was standing across the street from the burrito place.
“You fit the description,” the officer said. “Black male, knit hat, puffy coat. Do you have identification.”
“It’s in my wallet. May I reach into my pocket and get my wallet?”
“Yeah.”
I handed him my license. I told him it did not have my current address. He walked over to a police car. The other cop, taller, wearing sunglasses, told me that I fit the description of someone who broke into a woman’s house. Right down to the knit cap.
Barbara Sullivan made a knit cap for me. She knitted it in pinks and browns and blues and oranges and lime green. No one has a hat like this. It doesn’t fit any description that anyone would have. I looked at the second cop. I clasped my hands in front of me to stop them from shaking.
“For the record,” I said to the second cop, “I’m not a criminal. I’m a college professor.” I was wearing my faculty ID around my neck, clearly visible with my photo.
“You fit the description so we just have to check it out.” The first cop returned and handed me my license.
“We have the victim and we need her to take a look at you to see if you are the person.”
It was at this moment that I knew that I was probably going to die. I am not being dramatic when I say this. I was not going to get into a police car. I was not going to present myself to some victim. I was not going let someone tell the cops that I was not guilty when I already told them that I had nothing to do with any robbery. I was not going to let them take me anywhere because if they did, the chance I was going to be accused of something I did not do rose exponentially. I knew this in my heart. I was not going anywhere with these cops and I was not going to let some white woman decide whether or not I was a criminal, especially after I told them that I was not a criminal. This meant that I was going to resist arrest. This meant that I was not going to let the police put their hands on me.
If you are wondering why people don’t go with the police, I hope this explains it for you.
Something weird happens when you are on the street being detained by the police. People look at you like you are a criminal. The police are detaining you so clearly you must have done something, otherwise they wouldn’t have you. No one made eye contact with me. I was hoping that someone I knew would walk down the street or come out of one of the shops or get off the 39 bus or come out of JP Licks and say to these cops, “That’s Steve Locke. What the F*CK are you detaining him for?”
The cops decided that they would bring the victim to come view me on the street. The asked me to wait. I said nothing. I stood still.
“Thanks for cooperating,” the second cop said. “This is probably nothing, but it’s our job and you do fit the description. 5′ 11″, black male. One-hundred-and-sixty pounds, but you’re a little more than that. Knit hat.”
A little more than 160. Thanks for that, I thought.
An older white woman walked behind me and up to the second cop. She turned and looked at me and then back at him. “You guys sure are busy today.”
I noticed a black woman further down the block. She was small and concerned. She was watching what was going on. I focused on her red coat. I slowed my breathing. I looked at her from time to time.
I thought: Don’t leave, sister. Please don’t leave.
The first cop said, “Where do you teach?”
“Massachusetts College of Art and Design.” I tugged at the lanyard that had my ID.
“How long you been teaching there?”
“Thirteen years.”
We stood in silence for about 10 more minutes.
An unmarked police car pulled up. The first cop went over to talk to the driver. The driver kept looking at me as the cop spoke to him. I looked directly at the driver. He got out of the car.
“I’m Detective Cardoza. I appreciate your cooperation.”
I said nothing.
“I’m sure these officers told you what is going on?”
“They did.”
“Where are you coming from?”
“From my home in Dedham.”
“How did you get here?”
“I drove.”
“Where is your car?”
“It’s in the lot behind Bukhara.” I pointed up Centre Street.
“Okay,” the detective said. “We’re going to let you go. Do you have a car key you can show me?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m going to reach into my pocket and pull out my car key.”
“Okay.”
I showed him the key to my car.
The cops thanked me for my cooperation. I nodded and turned to go.
“Sorry for screwing up your lunch break,” the second cop said.
I walked back toward my car, away from the burrito place. I saw the woman in red.
“Thank you,” I said to her. “Thank you for staying.”
“Are you ok?” She said. Her small beautiful face was lined with concern.
“Not really. I’m really shook up. And I have to get to work.”
“I knew something was wrong. I was watching the whole thing. The way they are treating us now, you have to watch them. ”
“I’m so grateful you were there. I kept thinking to myself, ‘Don’t leave, sister.’ May I give you a hug?”
“Yes,” she said. She held me as I shook. “Are you sure you are ok?”
“No I’m not. I’m going to have a good cry in my car. I have to go teach.”
“You’re at MassArt. My friend is at MassArt.”
“What’s your name?” She told me. I realized we were Facebook friends. I told her this.
“I’ll check in with you on Facebook,” she said.
I put my head down and walked to my car.
My colleague was in our shared office and she was able to calm me down. I had about 45 minutes until my class began and I had to teach. I forgot the lesson I had planned. I forget the schedule. I couldn’t think about how to do my job. I thought about the fact my word counted for nothing, they didn’t believe that I wasn’t a criminal. They had to find out. My word was not enough for them. My ID was not enough for them. My handmade one-of-a-kind knit hat was an object of suspicion. My Ralph Lauren quilted blazer was only a “puffy coat.” That white woman could just walk up to a cop and talk about me like I was an object for regard. I wanted to go back and spit in their faces. The cops were probably deeply satisfied with how they handled the interaction, how they didn’t escalate the situation, how they were respectful and polite.
I imagined sitting in the back of a police car while a white woman decides if I am a criminal or not. If I looked guilty being detained by the cops imagine how vile I become sitting in a cruiser? I knew I could not let that happen to me. I knew if that were to happen, I would be dead.
Nothing I am, nothing I do, nothing I have means anything because I fit the description.
I had to confess to my students that I was a bit out of it today and I asked them to bear with me. I had to teach.
After class I was supposed to go to the openings for First Friday.
I went home.”
~Steve Locke
These are the times we are called to listen.
Listen not just with our ears, but with our ability to hear someone.
Listen not just with our empathy, but with our senses.
Listen not just with our spirit of reconciliation, but with our very being?
First.
What if we didn’t jump to understanding, to coming alongside, to putting ourselves in their shoes, to doing anything?
What if we just let the story of someone’s experience roll over us and into us… wave after wave after wave until the story itself changed us over time?
We move so quickly to make things right, before we’ve even felt what right might be.
I want to meet your story first. Let it have its way with me. Let it change the very cells of me, and from there, I am really with you, and you’ll know it.
What if we approached amends this way – first?
Listen. Listen.
Listen.
Even when it’s hard.
Especially when it’s hard.
If you’d like to know more about TinaO’s upcoming book: Story Stones or performance dates about her upcoming show O MY GOD, click here.
Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s weekly online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
If you would like to know more about Tina’s approach to story, click here.
Last fall I had a particularly hard time. Between September to January I had three emotional surprises, which took me out. Looking back now I can tell myself, they were no big deal: a break-up, a spiritual dumping, and a date gone badly, very badly. In light of what is going on right now, it seems insignificant, but I can tell you, it was not.
I know this zone. I was on the verge of literally coming apart, and I’ve been here before. I started writing letters to an old friend I feel really ‘seen’ by.
This is one of them.
As I read it just a few months into this pandemic, I can’t help but notice how prophetic it sounds. I needed this. Not what happened in the fall. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
But this.
This time we’re in.
This pause which has changed everything.
It has given me what I’d been crying out for.
Dear A,
I’ve begun working again like she’s a lover.
Damn.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy working, I do. Like I really do. Like I’m kind of obsessive about it, but once I finally stop for the day, I can’t help but hear in my head:
‘this was supposed to be the fall-back plan’.
You know?
It’s always been my ‘fall back plan’ but for all the reasons, it keeps becoming my actual plan. If I am honest, which I’m not, not about this anyway. I never wanted this life. I have created it. I’m not complaining. This is the coping that looks like happiness and keeps me away from knowing what love is.
When I was sixteen I had five jobs. I’m not even kidding. How on earth did I ever think that was normal? You’re going to laugh… Wanna know what I did?
I was a birthday party clown on Saturdays at a community centre… seriously.
I was a Saturday morning receptionist at a realty office, for three hours only, 9am to noon, and it took me 90 minutes to get there by bus… seriously again.
I was a late night waitress at a pizza joint. I started at 11pm and worked until 3am, on Friday nights — which comes before the ninety minute commute to my 9am job the next day (see above)…yep, still seriously.
I worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken during the week… not even kidding. I was Miss KFC in the Miss Teen Vancouver Pageant.
And I can’t remember the fifth. Hmmm…what on earth was it? Maybe I was teaching cooking or running a spring break day-camp for kids, or who knows what else. That was me at 16 years old. I worked.
I worked hard.
I still work hard.
Back then, I did all of that and sang in three choirs, and was the lead in the musical, and and and and and and…
Back then I worked because I never wanted to go home and I needed the money. I moved out at seventeen and was making my own way in the world. I work now because I have three kids, I live in a stupidly expensive part of the world, and there’s no one at home to nestle in with but me. Yes, I’m a mom and everything but they’re getting older and who wants to hang out with your mom? And I don’t want that for them either. Go. Get. Your. Life. is what I always say to them.
And this. This. What I’m doing right now. It’s ridiculous really. I woke up at 2am and couldn’t get back to sleep so I started scrolling, then the obsessive thoughts started as they do for me, so I had to shut it down by writing to you, so thanks once again for being the ear I can go to. But this. This isn’t what I want at 2am.
Last fall when I started my Ministry of Story, and I was leading at church, the rhythm of my life was just starting to feel ‘right’, like my true rhythm. I was excited to get up every morning. My timing was slow and my days were full. I do love full days. I want to squeeze every ounce of life out of each beautiful moment. Slow is good, and full is good.
I was beginning to let my guard down.
I was married for 17 years and all I wanted was that rhythm and I did have it briefly when we first met, but it didn’t last. He fell into a massive depression which lasted for years and I filled in the emotional and financial gaps for all of us, by working, baking, crafting, and everything else you do when you are loving on a family. When he left, I had to throw myself back into work again to keep the lights on, and I have been functioning on and off of overdrive for the last three years. I swear I’m sixteen again and working five jobs. I’m never home. I’m clutching my way to get there, and scrambling just as fast to get away.
But that’s the piece I’m craving.
I want to be ‘at home’ somewhere.
When the Ministry work arrived in my life it was if God was saying: Read. Write. Walk. Listen. Share. Rest Tina. Rest.
Rest into this.
I’m not a religious person, and I wrestle with the Minister part of my nature but it’s actually what I want.
I want a contemplative life.
I want a rhythm of love.
I want to drift through my days.
I want time to listen.
But right now, my time is so full. There isn’t a minute in my day when I’m not doing something and I’m scared I will lose another ten years of my life running away from the quietness I crave.
And yet I am starting over and work is required. I don’t own a home and I would like to. I pay my way. I have very little debt. I will be able to pay for my kid’s education — somehow. And I’m building multiple streams of income so I have a retirement plan to move forward with. But hon… it’s still too fucking fast for me, and it’s too much.
That’s the truth I’m afraid to say. I actually don’t have enough space in my life to say it.
It’s too fast.
It’s too full.
And it’s actually not who I am.
I just needed to say that out loud so I can wake the fuck up and stop before it takes over. I know this path and it ramps up slowly. I have lived this cyclical rhythm my entire life. First at 16 to survive. Then in my 20’s to feel worthy. Then in my marriage to feel wanted. And it’s starting again so I can run faster than rejection. Because work doesn’t leave. It’s actually the one part of my life I can hold on to and I won’t be alone there.
That therapist I started seeing last week (she’s lovely btw) did the usual ‘story collecting’ process with me, her pen and her pad of paper to map out my relationship with attachment. I don’t want to spend ten sessions just talking about my past so I blasted her like a fire hose with all of my details in the fifty minutes we had together. I haven’t told my story in awhile. Not like that anyway — all at once, and not in the experience of asking for help.
At one point she looked at me, down at her page, then back up at me again and asked ‘have you ever been in a relationship where you can let guard down?’.
It’s a funny question, because the answer is yes, but then maybe the answer is no.
I know that the way I’m working right now is not sustainable, nor is it going to make me happy. I will get all ‘the things’ I tell myself I need like: a house, a car, no debt, my kids education paid for, a business that pays me… And I do need some of those things, but not at the expense of me.
I don’t want to be an expense. I want to be a treasure.
I don’t know how to do that.
I can self-care. I can therapy. I can consciousness group. I can exercise. I can mastermind. I can wisdom circle. I can pray. I can I can I can I can…
What I want right now, is the I without the can.
I want to let my guard down and rest for awhile. Oh God. I just really want to rest for awhile.
I want the rhythm that started to happen for me last August before everything blew up. Work is not the lover I want, nor the partner, and definitely not the rhythm I am.
There. I said it.
And you heard it.
And now I can hear it too.
I know you work as much as I do. I’m not sure what your story is here, but maybe one day we can just sit for awhile and not talk about it or do anything. I’d like that. You can pull out your kite on the beach. That would be fun.
Thanks for listening. I think I’ll try to go back to sleep now. I made it to 5am.
hahahaha…
Love you.
xxT
p.s. I’m so glad the fires are out over there. My heart my heart my heart.
If you’d like to know more about TinaO’s upcoming book: Story Stones or performance dates about her upcoming show O MY GOD, click here.
TinaO is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse Impact Media Group where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
As part of TinaO’s audience, CLICK HERE to receive a personal message from TinaO about the power, beauty and invitation of Story, and your personal Story from the Core. You will also be able to stay up to date about TinaO’s performances, storytelling events, and upcoming retreats and workshops.
This is from a box of poetry I uncovered in my office as I was tidying up. I can’t help but notice how self-conscious I feel about it now at fifty, like I want to hide my blossoming from the world as if it’s silly.
I am noticing how embarrassed I feel.
So I’m posting it.
I’m a mom, and as I watch my kid’s mortified fascination as they watch obnoxious videos of themselves at eleven or twelve, I can’t help but think of me here.
When my boys shrink back from their fresh-faced ridiculous selves in their young days, I want to hug them.
Because each stage of our life is a discovery.
And we discover who we truly are by our courage.
Courage to be seen.
Courage to be creative.
Courage to be naive.
Courage to be angry.
Courage to blossom.
So… here is a piece I wrote in my early twenties. It makes me want to cringe now, but then, I really felt like I was being bravely feminine.
I grew up with eight pretty rough and tough brothers and being ‘feminine’ made me a target.
When I remember that, this piece fills me with delight.
I WANT
…to wear candy apple
Red toe nail polish and put my hair in braids
…to go topless on a white beach in the Mediterranean.
I want to be held naked in the water
an ocean, or a lake
I want to wear sarongs
orange, turquoise, purple, emerald green
the colours of tropical fish
and walk barefoot in warm places
I want to ride my bike in France with the taste of exotic wines
on my lips
I want to meet a lover while I’m there
have him speak French to me
as we make love in his loft
I want to write
scads and scads of racy, erotic stories
and spread them around the world under a different name
I want one to come back to me
but read by someone else’s lips
I want to taste succulent
tangy, and salty things
fed to me at some ungodly hour with my eyes closed
To find out more about TinaO’s upcoming book: Story Stones and performances of her solo show O MY God, click here.
TinaO is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse Impact Media Group where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
As part of TinaO’s audience, CLICK HERE to receive a personal message from TinaO about the power, beauty and invitation of Story, and your personal Story from the Core. You will also be able to stay up to date about TinaO’s performances, storytelling events, and upcoming retreats and workshops.
I need to change this up a little bit. I just do. In light of the world and the constant evolution of the story I serve, I need to be in service of the emerging story in front of me. I am a story coach, keeper, tracker and a story listener. These Stories from the Car started out as a way to unpack words because of the energy they carry.
I’m feeling reeeeeeeeeeeeeally compelled to jump into the space of myth these days. I want to talk about the state of being when we’re there – and make no mistake, this is exactly where we are right now. Myth is the state following the path of what we think we don’t know. It is both comfort and discomfort. It is the walking in ultimate faith and trust, yet still unknown, and it can’t be known, ever in its entirety. That’s not how myth works.
I’ve done a lot of listening these days and we are so addicted to safety. I get it. We are hardwired for safety. This is not a shame thing about clambering for knowledge. It is the way we are made, and in the biological state of needing to know in order to feel safe, the invitation is to remind ourselves that we live in the ultimate unknown…
I invite us all to remember grace…
To find out more about TinaO’s upcoming book: Story Stones and performances of her solo show O MY God, click here.
Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s weekly online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
If you would like to know more about Tina’s approach to story, click here.
This isn’t a book about rocks, though my house is filled with them.
It’s not about divorce either, but like the big jagged stone it is, it’s in here.
I didn’t want to write a cancer comeback story either, but… it happened.
And it’s not about God.
Who am I kidding?
It’s
always
about
God.
We come into the world as a story stone, with a divine narrative of who we are tucked inside. We are made AS something FOR something. As the story stone of our being meets the ocean that is this life, our story ripples out. Each ripple represents a turning point, a time where we ran to or from the story we are made as.
When we can understand our own story and learn how story works through us as an ever evolving, expanding invitation, we can bravely, yet compassionately, step into the myth we are made for.
At this time I have only come across twelve core stories which root the countless expressions of how we live them. There are as many unique expressions as there are people.
These are the twelve stories:
The Enough Story
The Matter Story
The Hope Story
The Power Story
To Be or Not to Be Story
The With Story
The Life Story
The Thing Story
The Belonging Story
The Control Story
The Worthy Story
The Love Story
Each of us walks with all twelve stories at the same time, but one will always lead. It is the story you can’t run fast enough from or fast enough to. It is the great partner within every major turning point of your life. It is both your poison and your medicine.
I introduce you to these stories through my own Core Story: The Matter Story.
This book is a layering of the twelve Core Stories, corresponding Origin stories, and my own personal experiences as a collection of stories from my core, tracking the ripples as we go.
I’m a poet.
I’m a tracker.
I’m a storyteller.
I am a follower of mystery.
And I am a star.
As are you.
Not only are we a Story Stone, but we are literally made from stardust.
We are a supernova in the making.
next?
December 25th, 2020 – 50 Days of Christmas. I turn 50 this year and in celebration of my half-century I am writing and performing a one-woman show called O MY GOD which will be touring in small venues across BC, Canada March/April/May 2021. Tickets for the show will be available during these fifty days, as will the pre-sale of STORY STONES.
February 14th, 2021 – Staged Reading from both my book: Story Stones, and O MY GOD. This is the official kick-off of the rehearsal process for the tour.
March 1st 2021 – The Birthday Tour of O MY GOD begins.
September 2021 – The Release of STORY STONES the book
If you would like to be kept up to date about Story Stones the book, or O MY GOD and my upcoming tour, click here.
I’ll also send you some stuff about what Core Story is, how I use it, and why I care so much about it.
Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
George Floyd, 46, died on May 25 in Minneapolis while being arrested. He was held down by a police officer’s knee and died while pleading in pain that he ‘can’t breathe’. Eight minutes and 46 seconds later, he shut his eyes and stopped breathing and talking. He was pronounced dead shortly after.
The Black Lives Matter movement was sparked by George Floyd’s death and as a mom to three boys to men, I wanted to open up the conversation at the dinner table. Here is a bit of what I learned from my almost 19, 17 and 10 year old sons and an excerpt from the Facebook Post I shared later that night.
How goes your racism and white privilege conversations at the dinner table…?
I’m not making light of this even a little bit. I seriously want to know what is happening in your home…?
I’ll start… I was surprised by how passionate I was, (frankly how threatening I was) around the concept of the boys watching the ‘news media’ as entertainment. I actually made them say out loud my threat…
‘Mom will personally hunt me down if I EVER watch someone else’s pain as an audience member – my entertainment is NEVER at someone else’s expense’.
Wow.
I am quite surprised by my own passion about this.
Thank you to Kyle Hawke for the Guardian article posted, tracking the 400+ years beginning with the first slave sold on American soil. This showed the magnitude of what is happening and I read it to my boys.
I also read an article about FEAR of any kind of ‘establishment’ and what that can do to a society, and what that means. This of course is a super complex conversation, and tricky.
I tried reallllllllly hard not to judge but instead created a table where people weren’t interrupted or talked down to.
I asked more questions and only gave a few answers.
These conversations are important.
We also talked about apathy – and what it means.
We talked about white privilege and what it means to us today.
We talked about divisive thinking.
We role played the George Floyd incident in all positions.
We talked about empathy.
We talked about the difference between blame and responsibility.
It was a big night at the table over burgers, and it’s our privilege to talk about it from the safety of the white bubble we live in.
The boys very clearly, were passionate about how stupid racism is.
How it makes no sense at all.
How the colour of someone’s skin does not determine their value.
That was easy.
Some of the other pieces took more time and more insistence on my part to ‘stay with it’.
Okay… your turn – GO.
What was easy? What was hard for your household?
And whatever you did… it was a start.
However you handled it, you are trying.
Whatever you know or don’t know, you are offering a possibility for change.
You got this…
Keep going.
Please don’t be a bystander.
And you don’t have to be an activist either.
DO talk about it.
Apathy is entitlement.
Apathy is privilege.
Apathy is part of the problem.
What affects you affects me.
Xxt
Here are some of the responses I received:
No dinner conversations needed here. My better half calls me out when I need to reconsider things that come out of my mouth and rightly so. Racism runs deep, deeper than we know, deeper than it’s comfortable to admit. We watched ‘The Hate U Give’ this afternoon. I cried, a lot. I was rattled by it, angered by it and that is good. Now I consider, where to go from here.
‘White Fragility’ will be in my hands for consumption as soon as my better half is done reading it.
We are talking over here too – my proudest moment was when my eldest said to us – “What can we do?”
We started the day with a video of 3 generations of black men at a demonstration. It is raw and difficult. We discussed why they were there and their different perspectives. Claus and I shed tears. We discussed white privilege, white saviorism, internalized and generational racism. We discussed how Canada thinks we aren’t as bad as the US and how Canada is racist. We discussed what it might be like if their dad were black and the boys were half black vs half German and half Jewish and how it is a privilege to hide their hidden minority. How there are people in the world who would hate them for being half Jewish… So heavy. I started a thread to share resources for white folks to start to dig into these subjects.
My partner is in the process of renouncing his U.S. citizenship to become Canadian, and is going through a lot of major life changes at the moment. So in a way, I was reluctant to bring it up, since he is under lots of stress. But I had made the decision to not remain silent anymore, so I said that I had been reading and watching and learning a lot about what’s happening in regards to racism these days. Even though I know that racism is one of the things that angers him, I noticed how I was a bit afraid to continue. After a few moments, he asked me to tell him more. So I did. About the struggles, and the mixed feelings out there, and the uncertainty of what to do, and that I’m not ok with being a silent anti-racist supporter anymore. That I am trying to find ways to be in action. He was receptive and interested. The biggest takeaway was my reluctance to talk about it. Perhaps it’s from having worked in a federal prison for 15 years and seen enough atrocities to last a lifetime. But that’s what privilege is, isn’t it? I get to choose how much atrocity to let in. They don’t. I will not leave them alone in it anymore.
Thanks for asking this, Tina. Here’s how it went in my household (with a seven year-old). Me: So, hey you know I read you that story that really upset you, that showed how black people escaped from slavery? Him: Uh, yeah. Me: Well look at this picture (photo of protests). This sign held by a kid your age says, “How could we come this far, to only come this far.” And then I go on to tell him about Ahmed Aubrey and George Floyd, and how horrible things like this happen every day, done by white people, to black people. And how here in Canada, most often horrible crimes like that happen to First Nations people most often. And then he said, “Can I go play now?”
Mine’s 11, and ASD, so our conversations aren’t quite as nuanced, yet, but we’re talking.
Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s weekly online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
If you would like to know more about Tina’s approach to story, click here.
Tina Overbury
Tina Overbury
