January 2016 - Page 3 of 3

Truth Tuesday – Listening so as to Be

January 5, 2016

The truth is subjective right? I mean, I have one idea and I KNOW it’s true, but you do too and you KNOW it’s true as well. Okay, so if that’s the case, then which is it? Why all the fuss and fighting about it? And why are we on this incessant pursuit of knowing it? Why the pre-occupation with ‘finding our truth’?

Because we’re unaccustomed to living it.

And that’s perfectly natural.

We are born as itty bitty babies relying on those around us to be there, to take care of us, to make sense of us, to be the bubble that is our world. Our first conscious exposure to our living story is a completely EXTERNAL one. Our truth is based on what others do around us.

We see our mother’s face, feel her touch, hear her voice and that’s how we know we’re not alone. We don’t even know what alone is, we just know that we’re more than one.

We hear, smell, taste and sense our environment and that’s how we know where we are.

We are born without words, without context, without place, yet with a soul story to know and to give away, but we can’t yet because we haven’t developed the tangible tools like language to do it.

It’s as if it’s a set up! Life positions us to meet who we are through how we’re received. Now this is a beautiful opportunity to grow if our ‘truth’ is always reflected back at us which is probably why we call this life thing a magnificent journey. There’s so much to learn. But come on, it sure seems wildly inefficient though. Doesn’t it? That we should come in to the world perfect, whole and living our ‘truth’, only to spend the first 40 years of our life (usually) living on auto-pilot then waking up during a mid-life crisis, or a 20-something existential emptiness, or our 30-something drive to ‘be someone’. And then Some of us just skip it all together by playing the ‘acceptance game’ which isn’t acceptance at all, but rather resignation. Ewwwwww. I’ve seen it and so have you. I’ve even lived it a few times.

When my husband and I couldn’t stand each other for about ten years of our first fifteen together (yup no kidding), the only way I knew how to cope was to say to myself: Okay well I guess he’ll just watch TV and I’ll live in the kitchen (I’m simplifying but you probably get it). No wonder I crash and burned. Resignation ate me up and spit me out.

Here’s the thing, once I took the dangerous step of actually LISTENING for whom I’ve always been, I realized, I’d never actually left. I wasn’t lost, I just wasn’t found.

Did you know that we can’t ditch ourselves? There is no where we can run to lose ourselves either. It’s not like we get to shed our ‘truth’ on the floor as a rumpled outfit as we reach into the closet to wear someone else. We’re not a costume nor a wardrobe. We’re not inter-changeable, well, at least not on the inside.

All the self-help books, personal growth workshops, inspirational wall-art and lit up catch phrases that we devour as a way to ‘find’ our truth is the habitual way we’ve moved through world since we arrived. It makes sense right? We think: I am because you see me, I do because you know me, I say because you hear me, I love because you love me… There’s beauty in this ‘we’, in this interconnectedness. There is. I get that, but it still has nothing to do with the ‘truth’ quest we all end up on.

Today I ask you – Who are you in relation to only you? Who are you beyond what fills your mind all day? Who are you outside of where and how you live? Who are you and who have you always been?

Oh mannnnnn big questions and you’re probably feeling the desire to skip it. I mean, why ask when you can’t ever truly know. There’s no proof, no check mark, no enlightened someone to say: Yes, you’re right, that’s who you are. There’s only you and all you can do is listen for you. Listen to the story that has been telling YOU since you arrived.

A life and business coach I once worked with Isabelle Mercier Turcotte said to me in a day long session together: “That’s not your gig” and she wrote it on a yellow sticky and stuck it to one of the many massive post-it notes on the wall. For months I walked through my life with two imaginary yellow stickies: one that said THAT’S MY GIG, and another that said THAT’S NOT MY GIG and in every single interaction I would figuratively hold up my two stickies and decide which one was true: my gig, or not my gig. If you’re interested, here’s a quick video in my own words that I made for Isabelle about it.

I had a good life five years ago when I was holding up those stickies, in fact, most would’ve thought that I was at the top of my game. I was at the pinnacle of my profession, by all accounts I had a great life: two kids, a house, husband, career, passions and my health. My truth however was that a lot of that good life wasn’t actually mine, I just lived it like it was.

Today, I ask you: What’s your gig? What’s not your gig? The truth will always always always tell you, you need only listen for it.

I challenge you this week to hold up your two yellow stickies and see what answers come back.

Many thanks to Charlene Sanjenko and PowHERhouse women for the opportunity to host and moderate Truth Tuesdays. So cool.

xxT

Really Okay Being Okay Being Okay Being Okay

January 4, 2016

This started out as a little Facebook update and became so much more – so here it is for you.

I’m back in the saddle… This year I choose Joy. This year I work 9am – 3pm only. This year as mama, I nourish the little boy inside my 6 year old who thinks he needs to be 15yrs old to matter. This year I honour the athlete inside of me. Bring on my first real triathlon – and not to reach my absolute pinnacle of best, but rather to enjoy cycling, running and swimming. This year I date my husband. I laugh, I love, I fall into deep gazes without glancing at my to do list. This year I juice and eat slowly at a family table because it feels awesome, not to avoid the c-word, and not because of it either. This year I take on my financial ‘story’ as the main character instead of reading it like it’s ‘happening to me’ – the good stuff and the hard stuff. I’m the main character. This year I write my books… I own my story and I give it away, neither proudly or meekly. I give it away because it’s what I’m designed to do. This year I’m a proud Arbonne consultant and Network Marketer and I make a difference in the world of selling, and home-based entrepreneurs. I care that there is another way for those who don’t do corporate, who aren’t designed to do the education/profession thing, who can’t find peace in the 9-5, who don’t experience joy in the Entrepreneur Game. I care deeply that not everyone fits in this big box of paths and professions that keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger with all the labels that we think is our identity – is what’s safe. Nahhhhh I don’t think my way is any better – it’s simply an alternative and it works for me. What works for you? This year I’m willing to champion that. This year I’m really okay being okay being okay being just okay. This year I am TinaOLife, all connected under one umbrella: Selling isn’t slimey, Marketing isn’t make-believe: Authenticity is the New Spin. Your Life is your Living Story, and the alignment of your Mindset, Soulset, Skillset and Body way to live = a perpetual motion machine. Life isn’t doing, Love isn’t running, and Family isn’t a place to hide-out. This year I stand. This year TinaOLife is what I do because I share who I am as we all do. Come with me. It’s Monday Morning and I’m starting today.

Big Love to the mentors who at various forks in the road stood and simply smiled at me because they saw my story before I did. Chris Dierkes,Carolyn Nesbitt, Cindy Schreyer, Jacqueline Samuda, Shelley Klassen,Andrea Wray, Miel Bernstein, Mary-Jane Mehlenbacher, Nicolle Nattrass,Meribeth Jasmine Deen, Tara Caffelle, Diana Gilbert, Isabelle Mercier Turcotte, Mr. Todd Ingram and more I’m sure. So much more. Today. Here we go.

xxT

The Year of Joy

January 3, 2016

Last year I realized I don’t really get joy or laughter or spontaneous lightness.

Oh crap really?

Yup.

I was pulling up to my home and looking at the big black gate we have to close so our bad ass family dog doesn’t take off. He’s not really bad-ass, he just has a deep bark and uses it to let you know that you are walking/cycling/jogging by his family’s home. How dare you – he says. I’m watching – he says. I digress… I pull up on to our gravel driveway (best sound ever btw), get out to close the gate and I have this thought: For a happy person, you don’t laugh much.

What did I just say?

You don’t laugh much.

Oh. Right.

I’m the happy mom, the positive lady, the person you can count on to find the open door of possibility and not the locked one. I’m a Capricorn born on the cusp of Sagittarius. I’m eternally optimistic while grounded in reality. But I’m a happy person who doesn’t laugh much. Crap. It’s as if I was born with a barrel of sunshine up my bum, butterfly wings on my heart yet an anchor on my soul. I choose joy, or rather I want to. No shit, really I want to.

It’s not that I’m a happy person masking my deep sadness.

I’m not playing pretend so you all like me either.

I don’t smile because it’s easier even when I’d rather not.

I’m just that way. I always have been.

It wasn’t until I had my third child and recognized myself in his sheer delight in waking up every morning that I let myself off the hook for being a genuinely happy person. However, JOY is another subject entirely.

Here is how I know that I don’t embody joy:

spontaneous deep laughter escapes me.
I’m polite by default. Like I’m always just a little bit in check. It’s hard to erupt into anything when you’re governed by politeness.
I wake up with multiple Oh no…. what if…. thoughts. Heavy.
My auto-pilot says ‘what am I preparing for today’ instead of ‘I can’t wait for life to unfold!’
I think a lot.

Now none of these things are bad right? I know a lot of people who could afford to think a little bit more, choose kindness first, step back out of the spotlight so as to give it to someone else first. You know these people too. Having an auto-pilot who is pre-disposed to consider before acting is a very good thing in a world with lots of other people in it.

For me, today, for 2016, I’m choosing to recognize the hole that I fall into again and again and again. That’s all. My dear friend Paula Shaw from The Max (a self-actualization and expression workshop) calls it the trap of ‘the no choice choice’. The choice I have made is to not have the choice to live Joyously.

I have developed a skill of manufactured joy but authentic happiness. Oh gawd. I can even make happiness complicated. See why joy escapes me?

This is my year of joy and I don’t even really know what that means. I suspect we’ll find out together. My first ‘to do’ around this topic is to ‘do nothing’. When I wake up with a long list to do, I’m going to choose a minimum of one hour of ‘not doing’ instead just to see what happens. What do you think?

Choose Joy. mmmm…. I’m in.

xxT

January 1st – Ten Reasons Why

January 2, 2016

What have I done? Did I really decide to share my life with you every day? Doesn’t that require writing? A commitment? You see, I have this issue with ‘have to’s’, even when they start out as a ‘want to’. No kidding. Oh no… and then there’s that grammar and spelling thing. I’m a pretty good speller but I’m not a detail gal. Damnit, I’m going to have crazy ass mistakes out there for the world to see. Okay, well, the world is a big place so, correct that: I’m writing a blog post every day for the next 365 days for a lot of people to see.

Yes I do care if it’s read.

Yes I do care if it grows.

Yes I do care if there’s an audience for this.

Come on now, if I wanted to write for myself, I’d write in my journal or I’d go for a hike and talk to myself (and yes I do these things too). This is for you as much as it is for me. So here goes: I am writing a post to you, sharing my life with you, my insights, my stumbles, my FU’s, my ridiculousness and depth for the next 365 days because:

TEN REASONS WHY…

#1 – Having the world as an audience means there’s nowhere to hide, and with that, the gift of honesty continues to give generously – and likely more to me than to you.

#2 – I know that I can’t say that I actually KNOW anything, as in for sure, as in take it to my grave, and I’m so tired of the expert industry – of the insanity of people thinking they know what’s best for people they don’t even know. I mean, really? As if they could. Yeeeeesh. Nope. This blog is an invitation for you to come on in and engage with what I think, what I notice, what I want to put public. There’s freedom in being seen, and I hope my style stirs up a sense of wildness inside of you.

#3 – I do my best thinking when I’m not. Writing, speaking and doing gets me out of my head so that what I think can just show up. You’re my open stage for words to find my experiences. Thank you for listening.

#4 – Okay, that’s the fluffy truthful stuff, now on to the crap that dogs my trail: it’s a monstrous challenge for me to commit to any kind of a daily action. Yes I brush my teeth and sleep daily too, but even these I try to negotiate at times (spank me now). Hands down, I’m a gold medal champion at resistance. I even resist my resistance. This bloody blog is going to bring all the stuckness in my resistance story up to the surface. Blech. At newly 45 years old though, it’s probably about time. I wonder what I’ll find.

#5 – Chopping wood and carrying water is and has always been my most fulfilling accomplishment – because it isn’t one. Do you know what I mean or have I lost you? Chopping wood – like showing up simply because it’s what needed. Carrying water – like doing the do because it’s what’s asked for. It never occurred to me that I could set a goal (I hate goals) to chop wood and carry water. The adrenalin that goes with setting, striving and reaching goals has cost me dearly in my life. Sure I have a long list of accomplishments but who cares when there’s been little fulfillment. 365 days of blogging will become my daily practice. I might even be re-writing my story about goals by living them in a new way.

#6 – Inspiration is exhausting, but fulfillment is not. I’m not even exactly sure why this is on the list, I just know it needed to be said.

#7 – I like to write. Correction: I love to write. I love to listen to the words that come out of my fingertips. That’s joyful for me.

#8 – Words matter, and this is my way of saying so do I, so do you, so do we. Our stories are our past and our future. Oh boy, did I just say that I matter? I did didn’t I? That’s the name of my first book.

#9 – I am very comfortable being ‘seen’ in glimpses, you know through photographs or on stage etc…, but over time, not so much. Being seen is very different than being known. What would my life be like if I was known?

#10 – After 365 days of being in my own witness protection program: I suspect I’ll be more of who I came here as, and more of whom I designed to be. That’s cool. That’s really cool to me.

Here’s to 365 days of Joy. Oh wait a minute, I’m ahead of myself. That’s for today. Yes I am writing yesterday’s post today. Yesterday was January 1st, a holiday and I don’t believe in working on holidays. I need downtime too. So this list of Ten Reasons Why is for yesterday, today. Today I will also write today’s.

Still with me? Awesome. Stay.

xxT