February 2016 - TinaOLife

Trump – We are Part of the Problem

February 27, 2016

Yes, like you, I have multiple opinions about whether Donald Trump is worth even a second of our consideration… but that is not what this post is about. I appreciate the video below for a number of reasons but in brief, here is why:

I have a real bee in bonnet about selling and the insanity in both the sales/marketing/branding profession and how we interact with it. Part of my focus on TinaOLife is to bring up this conversation again and again, calling out those of us in the sales and marketing industry to get better at what we do. In short, I’m asking if you are willing to fix something that is incredibly broken. We are indeed a blister in the sun. And something tells me we’re about to burst.

A lot of factors are contributing to the rise in popularity of Donald Trump as a contender for the Republican nomination, but I’m only going to address ONE of them – because it’s the one that makes me itchy. Yes I do squirm just a little bit, biting my cheek on the inside and jamming my toes into my shoes trying to keep from screaming. Bwahhhhh Grrrrrrahhhhhhhh!!!! It’s like I want to throw up violently but I can’t.

So I’m going stretch us a little k? I’m connecting the dots between sales, marketing, branding, message and our relentless chasing of the illusion of STATUS (and that’s all it is folks, an illusion).

We as sellers position ourselves and our message to you this way:

I know more than you.

I have more for you.

I sell more than anyone.

You want more.

I’ll give you more than anyone else can.

And then there’s the weird status thing we do around the pricing of our product, and the stories we make up to justify why people do or don’t buy our stuff:

When you say you can’t afford it – it’s not true.

When you say, I’m not sure yet – you’re just hiding.

When you say, I need time to think, – you’re making excuses.

Status. We have such a magnetic pull to it. We want it. You could say I’m doing it now by calling bullshit on sales tactics, and maybe I do. It’s still worth examining don’t you think?

Status. So then we decided that we live in an abundant universe, and that anything we want we can have simply by naming it, writing it down, and ultimately, manifesting it. Therefore, all of the customers who aren’t reaching our pricing structure are the ones who are living in a false reality. It’s their fault, they simply aren’t thinking abundantly enough.

I’m not saying that this perspective is all hooey, and that The Secret, Lisa Nichols, Jack Canfield and all the others are wrong – I’m adding to the equation another question which is: What kind of a charge (like an electric zap in the belly) do you get when you hold that perspective as true? Here’s what I mean:

Wouldn’t it be interesting to get to the place as a seller or a buyer where there is no ‘charge’ at all around a price. It’s neither expensive or inexpensive, it’s just a number. It either fits a budget or it doesn’t. It either matches the buyer/seller’s values or not. What if price wasn’t about STATUS at all? I wonder how much we would be willing to charge and/or pay.

Why am I here when I’m talking about Trump, marketing and selling?

Because money is LOADED with electric charges and then fueled by our stories.

Because how we price our products often informs how we sell, market, and brand them. Here’s a kicker, most products are sold at the price of ‘what the market will bare’.

Yet we are the market.

And we set it by what we’re willing to believe in.

Connect that back to Trump. What are we willing to believe in and why?

So let’s talk about honesty and marketing shall we? We’ve become so ‘skilled’ at positioning, so ‘smart’ at messaging, so ‘strategic’ with our choice of words, colours, audience, timing, logos, hooks, offers, calls to action, reach etc… that when somebody shows up like Trump, and just speaks ‘his truth’ – it staggers us for a second, and we’re drawn to it. It catches us off guard. And then when ‘his truth’ gets louder, with less restraint, and with more Alpha-Dog in him, it comes off kind of refreshing somehow because he’s cutting through the noise – never mind how costly his perspective may be (again, think back to pricing – same story).

We are all so EXHAUSTED from being sold to by slick campaigns with sensational promises that this guy, because he’s ‘not a politician’, because he’s ‘not packaged’, because he IS ‘impulsive’, because he DOES ‘show his true colours’, becomes appealing. This guy has STATUS because he’s being ‘himself’ and lots of people are gobbling it up.

Again, you may ask, what does this have to do with sales and marketing… well, it’s the underpinning of our mistrust because we simply can’t get away from it.

Here’s my suggestion: when people in sales, marketing and branding stop strategizing and start simply TELLING THE STORY of the PRODUCT or the STORY of their SERVICE – by SERVING THE STORY instead of the SALE, then we just may begin to trust voices of ‘reason’ again, and dudes like this won’t be given the time of day.

Imagine if we didn’t ‘sell’ being honest, we just were.

Imagine if we didn’t need to be ‘clever’ to attract an audience but instead, our straight goods became so crystal clear that the ‘right’ people could find us.

Imagine if sales people weren’t trained to overcome objections, if marketers weren’t taught how to ‘get inside the mind of consumer’, if branders didn’t ‘position’ the sale.

Imagine if the products we sold were good enough and our belief in them so deep and strong that we didn’t need to figure out the ‘formula’ to successfully sell them?

When we can all give up the insanity of trying to out play one another, perhaps bombastic, self-serving, opportunists like this guy, Mr. Trump, wouldn’t be so appealing. It’s not funny. It’s not entertaining. It’s not even scary (well, maybe it is), its really quite sad. Our culture has lost touch with it’s humanity, with our heart beat of being seen and known.

It’s time to be courageous, reclaim our power by being honest.

What do you say people in the sales, marketing and the branding industry… you with me? I’m not suggesting that we’re ultimately responsible for people like Trump getting to where he is, but I am suggesting that we’re part of the problem. The truth never needed to be clever. Good products never needed to be louder than everyone else, and consumers shouldn’t have to read between the lines in order to figure out if they can trust you and your brand or not.

Trump, with his blatant, boundary pushing and now rise to popularity is a lesson for all of us. He can cut through the noise because he’s just being him. Like him or not, he’s Trump and he’s pretty darn comfortable being that. If only we were too.

xxT

TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry. She teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.

Four Agreements for Relationships

February 25, 2016

I read the actual Four Agreements book several years ago and vomited in my mouth a little; although quite popular and I’m sure groundbreaking if you are, say, new to the planet, I found it overly simplistic and a complete waste of time—do we really need to be told to act with integrity and not gossip? Do we really need a whole book to illustrate this? And it was written as though this was some magical ancient wisdom being passed down through the centuries when to me, it was simply common sense.

I have found, in the last several years, as I’ve spoken to clients and groups, that a few agreements seem to come up again and again when it comes to relationships: I have piled them together for you here in this tiny little blog post.

This is some of my most cherished wisdom. It might just be your lucky day.

Agreement #1

We all have a right to notice what is happening around us and voice it.

Imagine this scene: you’ve arrived at a dinner party and you notice that your partner is acting quite coldly to the hosts. You are fully aware that your partner doesn’t really like these people, so you assume that he/she is having a lousy time and wants to leave for that reason.

What if, instead of assuming and maybe fuming that your partner was ruining your night, you actually noticed what was happening and voiced it? “Darling, you seem a little off tonight. What’s happening for you?”

Your partner can then explain what is actually going on to make them behave in this way. Maybe they just found out that they are being laid off from work and didn’t want to spoil your evening with the news, or maybe he/she spotted the host sneaking off to a hotel room with a stranger and is uncomfortable. It could be either of these or none of these—you don’t know!

This one is actually a secret intimacy-builder: when we notice and connect with the people around us with our observations, it creates intimacy. Even with strangers, and especially with the people we love the most.

Think about what could have happened in each of these examples:

You notice an overwhelmed mom in the parking lot of the grocery store, juggling a baby and a toddler and a cart full of crazy, and you say, “It looks like you’ve got your hands full—can I help?”

You’re waiting in line to board a plane at the airport and notice that the woman next to you is reading a book that you just finished and hated and you say, “I see you’re reading Fifty Shades of Awful Writing. How are you finding it?”

Your daughter comes home from a school dance and seems quiet and sullen and you say, “You don’t seem to be as excited as you were before the dance started. What was it like?”

We are always allowed to observe, and let’s be honest: we’re all doing it all the time, and we are also making assumptions about what we see. When we voice what we see, we invite other people to be intimate with us. And in case you’re new here, I will remind you that I think that is the name of the whole game.

Agreement #2

We can (and have a responsibility to) ask for what we need.

I remember this really vividly: I was spending the summer with a beloved aunt who lived several hours away from us. I think her work schedule had conflicted one afternoon that I was there, so she asked a friend who ran a daycare to entertain me for the afternoon. I basically just hung out and read while she tended to the little kids in her care.

I remember being absolutely starving and being too shy to ask for something to eat. I assumed that she would eventually offer me something, but she was wrapped up in the daycare duties and didn’t. As the afternoon wore on, and I grew more and more hungry, I was silently feeling really resentful.

When my aunt finally arrived to pick me up and was chatting with her friend, it came up that I hadn’t eaten basically all day. I clearly remember her incredulous question: “Why didn’t you ask for something, love?”

Good question.

Whether we need heat to be turned on because we are cold, or some kind words at the end of a long day, we have the right and responsibility to ask. No one has to give it to us, but we get to ask. And I’ll let you know that most of the time, you get what you ask for. People like to grant wishes like that. Try it.

Agreement #3

No one is here to take care of anyone else.

I have thousands of examples for this one, but it boils down to this: we are all meant to go through life and have our very own experiences of what is happening. When we take care of others and make it easier for them, or shelter them, we are doing no favours. It can be challenging to step back and remind yourself that people can handle their own lives, but it’s worth it, and also worth practicing on an ongoing basis.

When I used to leave my pets with a house sitter, I would haul out this four-page tome of instructions to explain the every nuance of running my 700-square foot home. Seriously. I thank every house sitter I ever had for not smacking me on the face as I went through them all. After a while, and after I started coaching and holding my clients as naturally creative, resourceful and whole, I stopped this nonsense and now I let them know the basic routine of the dog, how much he eats, and how to reach me. No kitchens are particularly mysterious, so I think whomever it is can snoop their way to success in my absence.

I invite you to look at where you might be care-taking and let go. Let the people you love make mistakes and have their very own shiny experiences of life—it’s how we learn.

Agreement #4

We are all just doing our best.

This struck me years ago, when I was taking a course with Landmark Education. The instructor pointed out that no matter how bad of a job our parents did in raising us, their only objective was to keep us alive until we left their care. They were always doing the best that they could with what they knew at the time.

It’s so, so true.

Someone else’s “best” might look like what you would consider your worst, but I encourage you to be your most empathetic and remember that they are trying. Even if they’re cutting you off in traffic. Even if they are breaking your heart. Even if they are not speaking to you at all while you’re trying to have an argument with them. If we all remembered this one thing of the people we encounter, think of how different our everyday interactions would be.

Common sense that changes relationships.

These four agreements are the basis for a lot of the work I do with couples. They’ve helped my clients ensure their own needs are met, while learning how to better understand and appreciate each other, even during the messy times—especially then. I use them as cornerstones in my own relationships, reminding myself of them again and again as I strive to live a big, heart-led life.

I would love for you to try some of them out and let me know what you notice. (I know you didn’t have to read 132 pages to get the wisdom, but I promise it’s still valid.)

Wishing you an agreement-filled week and I would love to hear your comments below.

Get Real, Sexy Real

Tara

Tara Caffelle is a Relationship and Communication coach. She is passionate about creating connected, almost-uncomfortable-to-watch relationships that are based in Sexy Communication and Big Lives worth rolling around in.

Tara is based in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver and offers custom-designed coaching programs. To claim your free 90+ minutes and see what might be possible for your own super coupledom (or persondom), find a time here.

Have a question for Tara? Have an idea for a Hump Day conversation? How about just some thoughts about this thing called life? Let us know here. We’ll answer back. We promise.

It’s not a Career, it’s a Body of Work

February 19, 2016

For the last four years I’ve stumbled when people have asked me what I do.

It’s because I’m an entrepreneur.

It’s because I’m an artist.

It’s because I’m a network marketer.

It’s because I’m a full time mom.

It’s because I’m a body of work, not a career.

xxT

Would I ever go back to Network Marketing again?

February 19, 2016

Not only does Network Marketing have a bad reputation in the minds of many people, while the trash talk may be misinformed, some of the issues have traces of truth to them which has lead me to the following questions: Would I ever leave? Would I ever go back? Would I do it all over again if I could?

Here’s the deal: I’m a decade in. I’ve made it to the top. I’m a pioneer in Canada. My family still lives on my network marketing income. While it was once six figures and gave me trips to Maui, trips all over the United States and Canada, Tiffany jewelry, a luxury car, purses, bags, swag, shiny things and more… I’m not motivated by stuff. That’s all nice and everything but it doesn’t get me out of bed and over my own procrastination or resistance.

Still, after five years of ‘taking a break’ my family of five still lives on the income that my network marketing business pays me. Crazy right? Or is it smart?

Trash Talk: So much promise, so little return.

Truth: You get what you are willing to build. What is worth sweating over to build?

Here’s the thing: I don’t respect ‘follow the leader’ groups (come on now, as if one person could have the answer for everybody), nor do I find any enjoyment in hotel hypey meetings (rah rah rah blah blah blah), and I really cringe when I hear ‘tactics’ for selling that involve ‘overcoming objections’, or ‘facing your fears and doing it anyway’. Why do objections need to be overcome? And surely our fear instinct has a purpose. How about just listening to the objection and being fearful of what is truly dangerous? I got to the ‘top’ of my business without ever having to overcome anybody’s objections or feel my fear and do it anyway. I didn’t do what I was afraid of. I did what challenged me instead, and I listened for the YES that worked for my clients and for me.

Trash Talk: It’s a cult.

Truth: You’re a business owner.

Here’s the dilemma: Business success in network marketing is based on your ability to teach thousands of people how to follow a simple business system over and over and over again – a.k.a. duplication. The truth is, network marketing success is no different than implementing the ideas in Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth. So really, people, calm down, it’s not brainwashing, it’s following a system. That said, without ‘jargon’ and ‘hype’ and ‘rituals’ and ‘a top ten list’ how does motivation and duplication happen? And while we’re here, how do you mass duplicate “just tell the truth and serve the people”.

Trash Talk: I hate those rah rah rah motivational selly things.

Truth: Find your own motivation, you’re not a sheep.

Here’s the challenge: Network Marketing isn’t for everybody (neither is team sports), yet anybody can do it.

Not everyone is going to find fulfillment in the network marketing industry, not everyone is going to generate wealth. Not everyone is going to enjoy the process either yet the doors are always OPEN for ANYONE to join in, and lots do.

I soooooooo respect an open playing field.

I sooooooo champion all-access-opportunities.

I live by ‘all’ is greater than ‘some’.

Trash Talk: Coffee isn’t for every-body

Truth: yet almost everybody drinks it.

Here’s the insight: In today’s wacky world of broken rules, cracked systems and mega-marketing (like who do you believe anymore?), we all need three streams of income to be bulletproof. I learned this from my friend Cat in Toronto. She said to me “we all need three legs to stand on because when (not if) one gets broken, we still have two to stand on”. True right? In the decade that I’ve been in this industry, I’ve had a third baby, almost lost my marriage, let go of my house, had a life-direction breakdown (okay, a mid-life crisis), parented emotional teenagers, lived through a recession, saw friends lose babies, divorce and experience financial ruin, and to top it all off, last year I had CANCER.

Mother Fudrucker. Are you kidding me?

Yes indeed, we all need three legs to stand on because sometimes it takes more than six weeks in a cast to mend a limb. Sometimes the leg is severed and simply needs to be replaced and that takes time. Over the last ten years, my network marketing business has been the only constant revenue our family has had, be it a gangsta paycheque or an average one. I sometimes forget that’s a worthy leg to stand on for sure.

Trash Talk: Why do you need a plan B if you already have a plan A?

Truth: Because you do.

2015-09-19 13.46.01 — Conference feet take a break in Calgary

Here’s what I’ve learned: Nobody wakes up dreaming about building a career in network marketing (well, none that I’ve met anyway), but everyone wakes up needing cash for food, shelter and peace of mind. Some people wake up desperate for a chance to GO FOR SOMETHING BIG, but most simply just want to be happy. Lots of people yearn to be appreciated, to be known, to be part of a community, and a select few decide to create it themselves.

Most of us have ALL that it takes to be successful in network marketing:

like people.
love the product you sell.
learn to communicate.
practice remembering that yes is an answer just as much as no is and that neither is better than the other, nor is it to be taken personally.
be habitual.
be reliable, be kind – and above all else…
LOVE PEOPLE (more than you like them).

Yet… so few think they have what it takes.

Even me sometimes, and I’ve been to the top. I drank the kook-aid. I wore the logos. I cried at the conventions. I even drove (drive) the car.

Trash Talk: So many people fail in network marketing.

Truth: So many people quit.

The truth is: I respect this industry more than any other industry I’ve ever been in because it’s real and there’s nowhere to hide or to pretend. The truth will ALWAYS out in network marketing because it’s a people based business. People have the best ‘sniffer’ I know. They can feel authenticity, they can smell a ‘sell’.

Oh yeah, and really… like come on… where else can I work 15 hours/week like it’s a ‘j.o.b.’ and make gangsta money? Where else can I go to ‘business school’ and get paid to learn how to be an entrepreneur? How else can I make ‘career’ money without having to have a career?

What other business allows you to have all the crazy goodness that comes with a franchise opportunity without having the million dollars you need to buy a frickin’ franchise? I can’t deny that. Just look at the numbers. Truly, don’t listen to the rah-rah-opportunity -this-will-change-your-life-stuff, just look at the bloody numbers. They don’t have ‘spin’ on them.

I’m an artist. I’m a momma. I’m a wife. I’m a writer, I’m an athlete (well, becoming one again), and I’m a coach. I don’t have time for a job. I got shit to do. Big shit. Big loud, fabulous, life-affirming, world tilting shit to do. I’m not here to waste my life pretending to play small when I’m not. No. That’s not me. I have a calling to fulfill, and so do you.

Network Marketing is not my career, yet it encompasses all the things that I’m designed to do: build community, see greatness in people, write, speak, perform, and make a difference in this insane world of lying lying lie lie lie selling. Thank you Jerry Seinfeld – you crack me up. Did you you click the link? Here it is again.

Network Marketing, you are the gift that keeps challenging me to grow up, to ‘fess up, to lift up, and most importantly to SHOW UP. Without you, I wouldn’t know what I know now and I wouldn’t be here on TinaOLife living out the calling that’s been with me since I took my first breath.

So to answer my own questions:

Would I leave?

ummm probably not, that just seems stupid. That’s callous, I know, but really, some things are pretty obvious when you can finally see them.

Would I ever go back?

Well, I’m certainly not working my biz the way I did ten years ago because that was sheer insanity (even though it worked), and technology has changed since then, so I don’t have to. It’s kinda nice to have a global business from the comfort of my bed and in my fuzzy slippers.

Would I do it all over again if I could?

That’s the easy hard one to answer: Yes. Yes I would. It’s kinda like: “if you knew what you know now about marriage and having children, would you do it all over again?” – yes, yes, yes and more yes. It’s frickin’ hard. It’s totally real and it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.

The deeply challenging things that expand us usually are.

xxT

Wanna know about my business? email me. overburynation@gmail.com

What was I Thinking?

February 19, 2016

Another list. Another ridiculous guffaw I frequently have with myself – usually when I’m driving. Sorry gang. I try not to drive after 6pm because I’m too busy laughing at how insane I am to be considered ‘safe’ behind the wheel after six.

Who needs a phone to distract you from driving when you have a list like this? Want to have some fun? Come up with your own top ten – but fair warning, don’t drive when you’re thinking about it.

Here’s how it starts:

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

As I flung my eight year old yelling self over the staircase banister desperate to be heard through the double doors where a boy I was teasing stood. J E N S E N ! ! ! I screeched until I fell ass over tea kettle down two flights of stairs. Cracked my jaw too (just a little but enough that there’s still a bump). Thanks Laverne for dragging my blacked out self to the office that day.

with Laverne 36 years after the banister incident.

As I claimed bankruptcy over $20,000 in debt when I was only 27 years old. Oh gawddddddd… really? If only I knew my own earning potential back then.
As I believed that guy who said he was only sleeping with me. Jeeeeeee Whizzzzzzzzzz.
As I had a freakin’ thirty-something temper tantrum and threw a chair into a wall – yup, the kids and I still laugh full out about that one. …we can still see the legs sticking out of the wall.
As I hung the family Christmas lights without a ladder, without a step stool, without anything but the back of the couch (you know, the really skinny part that’s for BACKS and not FEET?), only to quickly scramble down in order to change a poopy diaper, land on the baby’s ukulele, twist my ankle and not be able to breathe for 30 seconds because of the pain. ‘Don’t touch me I seethed. Just let me lay here for a minute.’
As I believed my college drama teachers who said I wasn’t an actor. I believed them. I actually believed them. Dumb dumb dumb dumb powerless and ahhhhhh done. Sometimes I wonder if they were right only because I believed them. What would’ve happened if I had believed in myself more?
As I made three short films with no budget. Funny how not knowing what can’t be done usually translates into doing it.
As I talked on my cel phone, pumped breast milk and DROVE all at the same time (pre-hands free driving folks just sayin…).
As I pretended that I wasn’t sure if I believe in God because it was easier than having a faith I didn’t understand.
As I almost gave up on being me as if I could ever run that fast or that far.

Here’s to you and being all that you are in whatever form you’re currently showing up as. You’re funny man. Ridiculous even. Welcome to the club.

xxT

Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town

February 18, 2016

Yesterday I introduced you to Rodney DeCroo and what he’s bringing to TinaOLife.

Today, you experience him.

He’s been working a tag line that seems to follow him: Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town. We all have a story and part of Rodney’s is where he comes from.

Here are his lyrics and his song: Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town

She was someone I only dreamed of,
I was too scared to make a stand,
She was all my light,
Yes, she shined so bright,
For a stupid boy in an ugly town.

I’d go stand by the river,
I ‘d watch the barges floating past,
With their coal so black,
The color of all my lack,
I was a stupid boy in an ugly town.

She said Oh did I know you then?
She said Were we ever friends?
I said No, I just hung around,
I was a stupid boy in an ugly town.

I’d get drunk almost every weekend,
Behind the factory with my friends,
Then we’d get in fights,
Just another boring night,
For a stupid boy in an ugly town

watch the music video here.

I’d hear songs on the radio,
With their airbrushed harmonies,
They didn’t sound like me,
They said I’d always be,
A stupid boy in an ugly town.

She said Oh did I know you then?
She said Were we ever friends?
I said No, I just hung around,
I was a stupid boy in an ugly town.

Memories are stories,
They change as they are told,
But a part of me,
Will always be,
A stupid boy in an ugly town.

There’s something hauntingly intimate about embodying our roots, especially when we come from stupid and ugly. We’re all stupid and ugly. We’re all arrestingly, stupid and ugly.

And I’m gonna say it – that’s where stupid and ugly intersects with beautiful. It’s in all of us.

xxT

Rodney.

Rodney DeCroo is a songwriter, poet and playwright. He has released 6 full-length albums, an album of poetry set to music (Allegheny), a book of poetry (Allegheny, BC) and a theatre production (Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town) that received critical acclaim at several Canadian fringe and writers festivals. DeCroo wrestles with regret, loss, aging, love, memory, death, art—always with his own ongoing recovery embedded in the background. DeCroo’s album and performances draw upon his greatest natural resource—his poetry.

Want to buy his music? Find him here on itunes. Want to catch him in concert? Check out his calendar here.

I have a crush. Am I cheating?

February 18, 2016

Hey look! Tara received her first comment on TinaOLife – so she’s going for it. Ready…?This is a touchy subject for a lot of people. Ahhhh she’s totally got this for all of us. Read on.

READER: How about covering crushes and sexual attraction to other people besides your partner? I think it’s unrealistic to assume one will always be attracted only to one’s partner and I’d be interested to hear your take on it.

Tara – Personally, I am a huge fan of The Crush. I love feeling noticed in the world, I love getting to go home and tell my partner that I got hit on, I love sharing the excitement—in the bedroom and really everywhere—that I have a little thing going on. It will go absolutely nowhere but it is still so FUN.

I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again: we are humans and we are meant to have connection—intimate connection—with other humans. Sometimes this happens while we are in fully-committed, happy-as-a-pig-in-shit relationships. But it doesn’t have to threaten that relationship—despite how it might seem on the surface.

Here’s a simple thing to ask yourself: What does it really cost us to allow our partner to have this experience?

Usually nothing. So what’s the problem?

If you are threatened by this, that gives us a place to look. If we see our partner getting attention from someone else and we feel a pang of jealousy, we get to look underneath that and figure out what it actually means. Is it that we don’t feel like we’re getting enough attention from our partner?

Are we resentful that they’ve been away or busy a lot, leaving the bulk of the home responsibilities to us? There is almost always something underneath jealousy to explore (with a coach!). I know it sounds strange, but flirting and crushes and attention from outside our relationship can give us a renewed spring in our step in our relationships.

Trust me.

Think of couples who have a “Celebrity Freebie List”—a list of five or so (unattainable) celebrities that each partner is allowed to have a night of wanton sex night with, no-questions-asked, should the opportunity arise. Think of how fun that is to think about. It’s interesting, it can give you fun ideas for the bedroom (hello? Princess Leia in the gold bikini?), and it recognizes that although you have decided to share the most mundane moments of your life with another person, you are not dead. Even my Gramma used to tell me that although she had chosen her dish, she had no intention putting down the menu.

Years ago, I was with my ex-husband in Safeway and we were getting all the groceries for the week. It was really glamorous. He went to the deli counter, and to his delight, found that the 20-something blonde who said everything as though it were a question was flirting with him like he was a naked fireman. He was at the counter for a long time and when I finally went over to check on him, I noticed what was happening. I asked him something important, like, “Do we need mustard?” and he glanced at me and then blushed, before turning back to blondie.

I shook my head, rolled my eyes, and told him to have fun. I would catch him over by the lettuce when he was done.

It cost me nothing. He was beaming, from ear to ear to…other areas, and at the end of it, we were still committed, still paying the bills, still going home to the unfolded laundry together, right? There is a word I will borrow from the polyamorous community: “compersion”. Compersion is the flip side of jealousy, or the glee of seeing one’s lover falling in love with someone else.

Compersion, in a basic form, is what I was doing when my husband was flirting in Safeway. No, he was not falling in love, but I could definitely feel pleasure from seeing him feel attractive and noticed by a complete stranger. Don’t we all want our beloved to be happy and noticed and valued?

Now, when crushes go a little further and become emotional entanglements (emotional affairs), it’s important to have the wherewithal to recognize what is happening for yourself.

As I have asked MANY clients this over the years who seem confused about whether or not their behaviour could be considered cheating: Does your SPOUSE think this is an affair?

If they do, then it is. Period.

We all have a different threshold for what we consider to be “cheating”. If you have a crush on a co-worker, then the first thing to do—before you make excuses or make it okay, or make yourself wrong because you feel shame or guilt— is to talk to your partner and ask THEM what they think.

In this situation, it is important to measure against the comfort of the relationship and the person we are in it with.

Here’s the quick n’ dirty: we are all meant to live in community. It’s flattering when our partners get noticed (for us and for them), and it costs you nothing to allow this to happen.

And for shit’s sake: talk to your partner about it. If that’s hard, call someone (like me) to help you have that conversation.

I would love for you to give it a try; the next time you see your delicious mate being eyed up, roll your eyes and agree to meet them by the lettuce. Maybe you’ll get to reap the rewards of them feeling noticed and attractive by someone who isn’t you.

Get Real like Sexy Real, Tara.

Tara Caffelle is a Relationship and Communication coach who brings an approachable approach to guiding and inspiring couples and individuals. She is passionate about creating connected, almost-uncomfortable-to-watch relationships that are based in Sexy Communication and Big Lives worth rolling around in. Tara is based in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver and while tickled to talk to anyone (anywhere!) for a tweak n’ tune, she works only by invitation in custom-designed coaching programs. To claim your free 90+ minutes and see what might be possible for your own super coupledom (or persondom), find a time here.

30 Days to Loving Yourself

February 17, 2016

Okay, so February is kinda the new January because those of us who didn’t get on the detox, shed weight, eat clean, sweat more track last month are now looking around at everyone else who is either shakin’ it or have already given up, and thinking… Why didn’t I go for it?

Here’s what I think about that:

30 Days to fitness, 30 Days to health, 30 Days of clean eating, 30 Days of sweating, 30 Days of detox, 30 days of organized living, 30 days of sleep, 30 days of meditation, 30 days of yoga… blahbiddy blahbiddy blah blah blah… WILL NOT STICK for 60/90/120/365 days if it doesn’t start with the seed from which all else grows. Ready? It’s simple. Now don’t cringe all you skeptics and brooders out there (of which I’m one btw). Don’t turn your nose up at this. Don’t skim past it because you think it’s overly simplistic and stupid (again, I’m a mega resister too), and for heaven’s sake, CONSIDER just BREATHING while you READ THESE TWO WORDS.

Ready?

SELF-LOVE.

Here’s the deal, when we throw ourselves into 30 days of anything to ‘better’ ourselves, to ‘escape’ ourselves, to ‘change’ who we are – as if who we are isn’t already ENOUGH, we’re already screwed and we haven’t even begun yet.

The habit you’re working on WILL NOT TAKE – and instead will become that new thing on your list of ‘what didn’t work’ – and it’ll hammer another nail into your coffin called ‘what doesn’t work for me’. Really? Does it not work for you? Really? I’m pretty sure clean eating works for everyone, as does exercise, as does yoga, as does being more organized. Yes, I just fish smacked you a little bit (that’s a cold fish across the face fyi…).

The habit didn’t take because we did it (and I say we because I have done this numerous times myself) because we were trying to fix ourselves as if we were broken.

Nobody’s broken.

We might be off-course, not honouring our body, not loving our psyche, not paying attention to the needs of our body, mind and soul, but we’re not broken.

Here’s what I suggest: Start every 30 day ‘fix it’ program with 30 days of SELF-LOVE first. When we make choices for self-growth from a full cup, guess what happens? We do the do for the betterment of who we are, why we are and what we’re all about. These habits DO stick. These habits are easy to return to when we get off track later on. These habits are infused with EMOTION, which transforms the ‘challenge’ into a ‘choice’. Bottomline: We do what we love.

30 Days Activities — Photo credit Debra Stringfellow

Here are 30 Days of Self Love Activities to start you off:

Make a list of 10 things you love about yourself. Just start writing. Don’t think about it and if you can’t think of anything, consider the compliments that others have given you – start there, or think about what you loved about you as a child, those things don’t leave us you know.
Take a nap – because you want to and without justification to anyone else.
Book off a Sunday afternoon for pleasure – sheer pleasure. This may be foreign to you, which of course is a sign there’s something lovely to learn here.
Spend five minutes in the mirror this morning and compliment yourself. Feels weird, but you’ll soon feel the shift as it lifts your self-esteem.
Go through your day and everything you touch, ask yourself: Does this nourish me? Does this bring me joy? Do I love this? Does this have a purpose that makes my life better or brighter? And if not, consider tossing it.
Pull out a class photo of you from elementary school. How many names can you remember? What playful memories come back?
Choose ONE task in your house that makes you crazy because NO ONE ELSE cares about doing it but you. Then here’s a novel idea, DO IT for YOU. That kinda passive aggressive ‘waiting until someone thinks you’re important enough to do it for you’ kinda thinking eats away at your self-love tank. For heaven’s sake, OWN IT. If it matters to you – do it for you.
Take yourself out on a date. Splurge if you never splurge. Be thrifty if you are never thrifty.
Climb a mountain – okay, go on a hike to some VISTA and throw your arms up in the air toward the sky. Pull them back in as if you are holding the wind, wonder and welcome of the universe in a massive HUG. Exclaim something if you feel brave enough like: I frickin’ rock!!! and I’m loved too!!!!
Lay in the warmest spot in your home with your favourite blanket and/or any other comfort items you may have. Just lay down.
List TEN meals that you drool over. Figure out how to make them. Do it. Love it. Eat it.
Skin on skin. Love. Tingles. Intimacy. Connection. Enough said, do that.
Go to a book store and run your fingers across the spine of many many many books and see what happens. Be conscious to what lights up your mind. Pull out the book(s) that chooses you, sit down for a few minutes and read. Discover what your mind LOVES to devour.
Use the word DELICIOUS ten times today.
Throw away all of your shoes that leak.
Look at the part of your body that frustrates you the most and find three things this part of your body does FOR YOU (like allows you to walk up stairs, lift your children, digest your food) and say thank you.
Use the word DEVOUR ten times today.
Before your coffee touches your lips, open your front door, take 3 steps OUTSIDE and feel the weather on your skin. Breathe. Look up to the sky. Notice the magnitude of it’s reach. Remember that this place called Earth is home. This is your home.
Write the words I BELONG with an erasable felt pen across your bathroom mirror.
Pet an animal. Pet a few. Look into their eyes and put your head on theirs. You are part of their world too.
Write your childhood dream down in the middle of a piece of paper E.G. ‘to be a pilot’. On a scale of 1-10, how true is that dream to you now? If it’s a low number, ask yourself: What does being a pilot REPRESENT to me? E.G. Freedom. If it’s over 8, then simply leave it as is. Then turn the page over and on the back side of your ‘dream’ page, write five things you can do this week to see that dream come true. Listen up, time goes by anyway. The Q is, how do you want to spend that time?
Make your bed. Get back in it – just ’cause you can.
Finish this sentence: When time and money are not an issue for me and I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, the first three things I’m going to do are: ________
Now act as if… How can you start living that LIST today? Maybe you won’t be moving to Hawaii – or maybe you will, but how can you live as if you did…?
Move your body today. Sweat if you can. Breathe deeply if you can’t. Say thank you to your lungs for breathing. Say thank you to your heart for beating. Say thank you to your brain for thinking. This happens without any instruction from you. How cool is that?
Smile at yourself. You look gooooooood!
Finish this sentence: I am proud of myself because _______________.
If you were your own lover, what gift would you give to express your love to yourself? Go out and buy, create, or give that gift to YOU!
Finish this sentence: I need _______________ to feel peaceful. What do you need? Figure out how to give those necessary needs to yourself.
Add this to your vocabulary and say it when you’re in the shower, when you’re driving to work, when you’re driving home and before you go to sleep. You rock (insert your name here) and I love you.

30 Days of self love is the foundation to any other 30 day program you start, including mine which is 30 Days to Healthy Living. Don’t even bother checking this out until you’ve given yourself the self-love list first.

xxT

Announcing Rodney DeCroo – Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town

February 16, 2016

TinaOLife is pleased to announce that Singer, Songwriter, Poet, Actor, Storyteller and Artist Rodney DeCroo will be bringing his passion for living to TinaOLife – and it ain’t what you’re expecting, well, that is at least if you don’t know him.

If you don’t know him – you’re thinking “awesome a life-affirming artist here to breathe sunshine, rainbows and possibility into my days! I’m in!”

And if you do know him, then the truth is you don’t know what’s coming.

You’ll likely expect the grit, the underbelly, the fuck yous, the tenderness, the weeping wildness of his mind, the raw claws of his heartache, and the silliness of those smirking lips of his. You’ll expect his artistic genius. Okay, I’m bias (it’s true, I totally am. The guy wrote poetry about me) – I dated him many moons ago when we were college activists (me by experiment, him on purpose) and I became enamored by his thread-bare army jacket, cowboy boots and his love for Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg and Pablo Neruda. Somehow this kinda square gal hooked up with this firey student union leader and then camped out with him and forty or so others students on the floor of then Premier Mike Harcourt‘s local office for ten days to protest the cut in education funding and support the teacher’s strike. Like I said, it was a special time.

While romantic relationships can fizzle out, or in our story – blow up, what drew me to him in the first place almost 25 years ago (okay, besides his dashingly dark and mischievous good looks), was and is his sacred humanity.

Now what do I mean by that? Sacred humanity?

poets can see.

poets invite us to feel.

poets speak the language of art.

poets embody the spectrum of emotions through words, pauses, breath and in stillness.

Rodney touches all shades and that in itself celebrates life, as he gives words and expression to our sacred humanity.

Welcome Rodney. Here’s his bio taken from his personal website rodneydecroo.com

Rodney DecrooRebecca Blissett Photo — Rodney Decroo Rebecca Blissett Photo

BIO:

Burnt out by seven straight years of touring and recording five albums, Rodney DeCroo walked away from his band and his label after the release of 2010’s Queen Mary Trash. The double album he left behind—urgent, brash, ragged, full of spleen—now looks like a roadmap pointing to the emotional reckoning that lay ahead.

Five years later the contrast is staggering. For his return to the studio as a singer-songwriter, DeCroo has produced something as beautiful on the surface as a dusk-painted reflecting pool, as shadowy below as his own tumultuous psyche. The gap between his inner and outer life has always been slender, but Campfires on the Moon—his debut on new label Tonic Records—gives us DeCroo at his most intimate.

Between then and now, DeCroo devoted the years to therapy and healing as he stepped up a lifelong battle with PTSD. He also threw himself into a more immediately personal trinity of projects, yielding a spoken word album (Allegheny), book of poetry (Allegheny, BC), and a touring stage play (Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town) that expanded both his critical and popular appeal.

Suitably refreshed, DeCroo was ready to follow Queen Mary Trash. With former Convictions bandmate and stage collaborator Mark Haney on double bass, and long time friend Ida Nilsen contributing piano and vocals—DeCroo had been quietly amassing material with Nilsen in mind—DeCroo returned to Brian Barr’s Vancouver studio and produced a record that outstrips even 2008’s Mockingbird Bible for its ferocious vulnerability.

Gradually the album takes on an emotional force all its own, through its combination of quivering intimacy and DeCroo’s greatest natural resource—his poetry. As its 10 songs draw to a close, Haney throws a little discordant shade into “Ashes after Fire”, foreshadowing the envy that grips DeCroo as he visits some old friends at the Railway Club.

“They’re doing well,” he sighs, “their wellness never ends.” But there’s a deep irony at work. Breaking from a past in disarray, Campfires on the Moon strongly suggests that its author’s own wellness has well and truly begun.

Rodney’s pieces (in whatever form they show up) will be shared on Thursdays – the punctuation of the almost weekend. It’s the day past the madness of the middle but not yet into the surrender of a Friday night.

Thursday it is – that day of the week where endings are still beginning. His Thursday posts will fall under his heading of Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town, because underneath it all, in the lonely corners of our day we can all feel a little displaced you know? Yet here we are.

Want to know more about Rodney? Want to find out where he’s playing next? Want to pick up his album? Visit his site here.

Til Thursday…

xxT

Drop in Anytime…

February 16, 2016

Do you have a drop in anytime friend? Perhaps you are one. Awhile back we moved into a townhouse complex in the suburbs on a cold New Year’s Day. Our eldest was two, and our newest was eight months old. It was SLICK that day. I’m in Canada and so, we expect ice.

As a new mama with two chickadees I stayed in the house and pushed boxes around while my husband and friends moved everything in. It was dark by the time we were done. There’s a greenish glow to inside lights when you’ve no curtains for the beams to bounce off of, add that to a familiar echo of new rooms, fresh paint and nothing touching the walls, and everything feels eerily right.

Somehow I remember a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken sitting in this green glow on a half unpacked box. Okay so this was over a decade ago and it’s possible that I’m just nostalgically making this up – but – somehow it rings true. I haven’t eaten KFC with full on gusto since I was a kid. It must’ve been pay day when my parents would bring it home because a bucket of chicken was a lot for our family. Oh my, how I loved those biscuits. I’d slather them up with margarine (yup, that’s how long ago it was. Who eats margarine these days?), then dip them by hand into the gravy. Oh that was nine year old decadence right there.

So there we were, standing amidst the boxes, the KFC, talking through the echo, chowing on drumsticks and cold french fries when a shadow came across the green glow and I turned to the kitchen window.

Our townhouse kitchen was just below ground with the window at eye level to a patch of grass which we later used to track the feet of our kids. For now though, this was still foreign land, so when a pair of snowsuit baby feet appeared as if they were suspended in mid-air at the window, I had to check it out. It was dark out remember? It’s hard to see into the night when you’re in a lit room. It’s a good thing the baby was wearing a light coloured snow suit or I would’ve missed him entirely. As quickly as I looked up, they vanished.

…followed by a knock on the door.

…followed by the creak of the door opening.

…followed by a boisterous HELLO NEIGHBOUR!

This is how I met my new friend Sue. She had her son, an 18 month old Kai strapped to her front in a snuggly type thing. He was a little baby so his feet still kicked and dangled when she moved.

Sue became my Drop In Anytime Friend, because that’s just who she is and that’s who I am. Meeting her reminded me of how much I love that quality in people and how as much as my husband is a private kinda dude, I want to hold on to that part of me.

Drop in anytime friends are:

not appropriate, they’re real.
they leave your favourite food in your fridge because they saw it on sale and thought of you.
they don’t knock, they sing hello through open doors instead.
they always have a hot pot of tea ready for you (or they’ll make one).
sometimes they turn up in your living room before you’re even there. Sometimes they’re already crying and they need you to just sit with them.
they climb through your kitchen window when the door is locked. “You can’t make me wait to meet your new baby Tina. I came in quietly…”
they show up at the best time during the holidays so you can both escape the madness for twenty minutes.
they trade magazines.
they eat your cookies.
they feed your kids.
they buy the slurpees when you won’t.
they kibitz with you about the neighbours who think your collective gaggle of children are too loud.
and they shout back “Play! It’s 10am! Anyone sleeping at this hour needs to get a life!”
they argue with you over the phone and then show up in their sneakers at your door.
their door is always open for you – too, just as yours is open for them.

They are your Drop in Anytime Friend.

Drop In Anytime Sue — Sue, after climbing through my kitchen window, two days after Cedar was born.

I hope you have one, and if you don’t, then I suggest trying on becoming that kind of friend for someone else. It’s usually mutual anyway. A drop in anytime friend reminds you that you belong to someone’s life – that you matter – that you needn’t be anything other than exactly what and who you are in this moment. You are always welcome, and there is always a seat at the table for you. At least, that’s how it feels for me. There’s a quiet, peaceful place for friends of this kind – it’s called HOME.

When we moved out of that complex and away to our ‘dream’ lifestyle on an island by the water, what I missed most was that friend. I missed Sue’s voice coming through the door, her eyeballs looking at me over a cuppa coffee through the kitchen window, the sound of our kid’s feet kicking off their shoes in her narrow hallway, and that feeling of being known, loved and held in the bubble of I’m always here for you. I wouldn’t even say we were best friends, we were a richer kind: one without expectation, or comparison or place. We didn’t have everything in common. We weren’t in the same career. We didn’t share the same opinions – but we had one value in common, and we still do.

Community.

Having a Drop in Anytime Friend is the Living Story of COMMUNITY.

Our families still gather in the summer to camp - well, as much as we still can. — Our families still gather in the summer to camp – well, as much as we still can.

I find as life gets easier, as the kids get older, as the marriages and divorces and hook ups calm down, the finances build, fall, adjust, and build again, and the dramas become the art of our history, somehow transforming into wisdom, my drop in anytime friends are the ones who never age, never leave and will never die.

xxT