August 2016 - TinaOLife

That Money Thang #2 No Peace for me Today

August 20, 2016

I woke up feeling mad and trapped this morning. Lets be honest, as I have almost every morning this week (minus the two days I had a friend over and was so happy to be distracted with her awesomeness and her bright eyed kids), and geeze louise, it’s because I’ve finally answered the door and let the money monster in.

‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ as they say. No, money isn’t my enemy and all of you know it all money peeps who are prone to spout off all kinds of positive affirmation sound bytes can just relax. I know: money is just energy and it takes on whatever meaning we give it.

I get it.

What I’m really saying is that I’ve had an ‘if I ignore you long enough maybe you’ll just go away’ relationship with money for a long time and guess what? It did. Well, the dollars did, but the relationship didn’t.

Have you ever been the kid who pretends to be playing hide and seek? You know, the kid who hides wayyyyyyyyyy far away because she doesn’t want to play, doesn’t want to be found but also doesn’t want to say no to your game invitation either? That’s me. I’ve been in the money game forever but just pretending to play, slowly grumbling and sometimes even seething in the bushes.

That said, I have also been the all flashing teeth, bright eyes and POSITIVE mindset kid running running running and playing the game – one might even say I have WON a number of rounds of good ole hide and seek.

But that has never been sustainable for me. I always end up slipping away back to the bushes.

Interestingly enough, the kid I’ve never been is the one who is actually engaged in the game. You know, the kid who has chosen to play because she frickin’ loves the rules, loves the game, loves the win and can let loose in laughter when she loses. Oh my goodness, how many times have we heard, “it’s not about who wins or who loses, it’s about how you play the game”? – the secret sauce ain’t much of a secret is it? You gotta play, and more importantly, you gotta play like you wanna play, and when you do, sometimes you’ll win and sometimes you’ll lose but you’ll sure have a heck of a good time PLAYING…

Playing.

So that’s been my issue.

I don’t play. I’d really just rather not.

And when I do, I’m usually the reluctant player, and then worse, a judgemental player, and then worse than that – a resentful player.

Crap.

No wonder I woke up mad.

Ever feel like that???

The good news is, waking up to anything you’ve been hiding from will bring on all of the stages you’ve been avoiding. That’s called MOVING FORWARD. It’s just a blechhhhy part. No wonder I’ve been ignoring this whole mess.

Who wants to feel like this? Yet here it is.

So the deal is:

If I can overcome cancer, dehydration, radiation sickness and burn blisters in my throat, then grow through methodically building the muscle and endurance required to swim, bike and run a triathlon,

I guess I can walk through this fire too.

Oh boy, I guess I have a new mantra don’t I? But who wants to repeat that all the time? So instead, how about when you hear me say… “I can overcome…” – suffice it to say that I’m finishing the long windy proof in the pudding sentence in my head.

…I can do this too.

Even when I’m mad.

Today I’ll accept that being mad is just kinda like living out the feelings of being blistered.

Here are my musings – in the moment. Don’t worry, I’m rather contained. I gave the worst of it to Todd on our daily Saturday morning drive to the boat.

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 and with her Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers Coaching Program, she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.

That Money Thang #1 – Enough is Enough

August 16, 2016

Enough is Enough I said.

So this is where it all begins, or continues. I don’t know anymore. Oh mannnn my relationship with money is like a best selling romance novel – there’s hot and steamy sexy bits with page upon page of anticipation only to be dashed into sleepless nights and heartbreak in the end. It seems drama has kept me coming back for more every single time. How like a twenty-something I am, except I’m 45.

It’s not like I was raised with victim-ish helplessness around paying the bills. There was no yelling or tears or even deathly silence over our dinner table, but rather the clear unavoidable acceptance of just goin’ with the flow, accepting that what we have is all we need and bloody hell, we’ll survive just fine thanks. It’s those debilitating don’t ask don’t tell claws that have messed with my financial psyche. In our house both awesomely good and stupidly nasty surprises like: layoffs, dying cars, bad gambles and winning the legion meat draw happened, so our rag tag bunch of mis-matched sibling (eleven of us, some kids, some not), all pretty much learned not to invest in anything too deeply. Listen, our sandcastle got built up and kicked down daily in an exploding second. What’s to invest in? Why bother? It’s going to be all good right? It all finds its way? It all works out in the end…? Right?

Maybe.

So today, at 45yrs old, after growing up blue-collar broke, then saddled with theatre school student loan debt in my twenties, claiming bankruptcy after a failed marriage in my pre-thirties, making ‘gangsta’ big cash in my forties in the network marketing industry and now starting all over again after a career change, cancer and just plain craziness, it’s time to take on my money story. I think it’s probably a good idea to get that handled before I’m a half century old.

It’s time to step into my story as the main character instead of watching it unfold like a jaded audience member. Now there’s a frickin’ journey I have wished would just happen without me needing to be involved. Wouldn’t that be nice? Mmmmm imagine if financial freedom was as simple as picking a box full of donuts.

Apparently it doesn’t work like that.

So, here’s where it begins.

Champagne was needed.

If this speaks to you, follow along. I’ll be introducing you to my four financial avengers and support team in the weeks to come. They’ll be lifting my confused head out of my own ahemmmmm… you know what, for the next while.

They’re really cool. I think I’m going to buy them each an avenger cape with all the money I save over the next year. I’m sure they won’t let me be so frivolous.

You see, I have a big hairy audacious goal.

I want to buy a house in the Lower Mainland in the next two years. We have no savings, lots of debt, and a double income that adds up to just a single one – currently, but it looks like I’m going to change that. Remember that gangsta money I earned once before? Well, if I can do it once, I can do it again.

I think I just had to GIVE UP first. Clearly what I was doing wasn’t sustainable, and broken dreams cost more than unrealized ones.

So here’s to financial freedom. To what it really means, and not the lip service everyone seems to give it. I’ll write more about that later.

Come with…They say financial empowerment feels pretty good. I’m up for that.

xxT

Five Love Languages to Super-Coupledom

August 10, 2016

It seems to me that in our relationships, it can seem like we’re all speaking different languages and missing our connections. We can feel alone, even when we’re surrounded by people who completely adore us because we are looking to be loved in a way that makes sense to us, but the same is true for every single person and there are many ways in which we love—these ways aren’t necessarily the same for everyone.

And so allow me to introduce Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages

I spent the last week camping along the West Coast Trail with a dear friend of mine, and as we set up our home in the woods each evening and found the necessities of water, shelter and food, I noticed that he spoke the same Love Language as I did; we both performed Acts of Service for one another and it made for a pretty harmonious week. If he had been someone whose language was Words of Affirmation, we may have had some hiccups when I didn’t acknowledge him with praise and compliments. I was always very grateful for all he did to keep me safe and comfortable in the woods, obviously, but because that wasn’t the way he shows love, he wasn’t waiting for that from me.

In any case, this is an easy component to explore on the

way to SuperCouple-dom and provides an almost-guide to helping you and your partner to feel loved and seen by one another. I invite you to take the quiz with your partner and let me know what you notice about the love you feel you are receiving.

Here is the link to my video this week:

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.