Here’s an excerpt from the first draft of Chapter One of You Matter – Identifying your Core Story that will be complete by December 31st. Follow along if it speaks to you. Big love to Meribeth Deen for being my Story Doula through this process. She said to me once a few months ago: ‘I can see that my challenge with you is going to be when and how to reign you in to a specific focus.’ She was right. But as is true with all my core story work, the focus found me and all I had to do was follow the thread.
Here is an excerpt for you:
I begin every Core Story client with a complimentary inquiry call and while this may shift as my work carries on, here’s why I do it this way: I am creating the best place I know how to let the story tell us and not the other way around. It follows the same belief that we can never run faster than our story and by making the call free, both you and I can step into the ring of ‘what have I got to lose?’ and that’s where permission begins. It’s not a flippant, what have I got to lose? although it can start out that way, usually and very quickly with that kind of freedom between us, I can establish a sense of ‘it’s just you and me here’ so that the story that wants to be known by you can feel safe enough to emerge.
Is my time valuable? Yes, no more than yours. Is my experience worthy of payment, yes, no more than yours. Do I deserve to be paid for my work? Yes, and at this stage of our relationship, only if it’s of value to you. If we decide to move forward together we’re going to be doing some intimate work so we need to choose each other. I like to think of it like dating. Imagine if we charged for that. What would that do to our connectivity? What I’m saying is, we have to authentically decide for it to be real. We don’t kiss the guy or girl at the end of the first date simply because we’re supposed to, or because it’s deserved, we kiss them because we want to, because the desire to be together emerges out of us.
One of my favourite moments with my now husband happened at the end of our second date. We had gone to the movies or something (I totally don’t remember the details), and we both knew that the next day he was going on tour and wouldn’t be back for a week. He walked me up to my door and I let him inside. We had an awkward hug and a peck on the cheek followed by stilted small talk about when he’d be back and how he’d call me when he returned and then I let him out and closed the door. I took a few confused steps down my hallway towards the living room when I heard a gentle knock, and I smiled. I didn’t even have a thought yet, but I somehow knew this was honest. This felt true. I curiously walked back, turned the deadbolt and opened the door. He looked at me, hesitating briefly and trembling just a little and said “If I went on tour without kissing you, and I mean really kissing you I’d have to kick my own ass.” With that he planted one on me and left. His desire to kiss me emerged out of him. It behooved him not to leave without a real, risky, whole-hearted kiss. He could not run faster than the story of that kiss. As for me, I felt confused when he left the first time because I didn’t get it, but I didn’t know what the it was that I didn’t get yet. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t formulaic. It just didn’t feel right, him leaving like that. It wasn’t until he knocked the second time that I kind of understood, and then when he kissed me, I fell, and hard. That was the moment of our connection. Neither one of us needed to take charge of the end of the date, we simply had to follow the thread of the story and then show up and live it out fully.
And that’s why I don’t charge for my inquiry call, I am creating space for what is real to emerge so that the truth can happen without our own alpha-agendas of how things should be or my own story of self-worth getting in the way.
Don’t worry, I won’t be kissing you, but I may knock twice.
By December 31st 2016 the first draft of this book will be done. If you’d like a complimentary digital copy of TinaO’s Identifying your Core Story, pop your name in here and we’ll be sure to send it to you once it’s complete early 2017.
As well, if you are a Canadian woman with a story to tell and would like to be considered for PUBLISH, a book writing program launching in mid January 2017 through powHERhouse Media Group, you may want to consider becoming a Woman we Celebrate so TinaO and Meribeth Deen can support you to get your book written this year.
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TinaO is a Core Story Specialist, a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, and the workshop Live Your Best Story. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.