tinaoverbury, Author at TinaOLife

Still Waters Run Deep

January 13, 2016

This is a pic of my husband. He’s not as public as I am, thank God. Can you imagine if we were both wired to want to share everything? What a mess that would be? Oh boy… I mean really, where would this firecracker of a mouth and mind go to just rest for awhile? And where would his ‘still waters’ go to get all wavy and stuff? We’d be a walking party – the perfect silly string storm. It might be fun for a few weeks but a lifetime? Ummm no. How exhausting.

Why do I tell you this?

Because I want to add a perspective to your ‘I wonder if only I had…’ mindset, and let’s be honest, deep breath, we all do this, as in wonder sometimes.

I wonder if I married the right person?

I wonder if we have anything in common anymore?

I wonder if we’re soul-mates or if I’ll ever have one? Do I even believe in that? I don’t know…

I wonder…?

These are the best and the worst questions. These are the topics that can drive a room full of pajama party women (do men talk about this kinda stuff? As far as I know, most don’t but I suppose it’s possible) into a frenzy of self-doubt, or mild to major panic and even start up some boyfriend/husband envy. We’ve all seen it or experienced it at some point. The first time I got married (whole other story – see I can speak to this topic honestly), during my month of pre-wedding prep, my best friend at the time (this should’ve been my first and last hint to quietly close this friendship) said to me “So, who’s your ONE THAT GOT AWAY?”. Wait a minute, I was getting married – there should be no ‘one that got away’.

Yet there it was and with every question comes an answer whether we consciously do it or not.

Who was my ONE THAT GOT AWAY?

Should I have one?

Shouldn’t I have one?

Am I doing this right?

What if there is one and I don’t know?

What does that mean about my marriage? About my life? About my my my… Oh my now what?

So I answered this ‘best friend’ of mine with the names of two old boyfriends that I still had lingering flickers for. Even saying that ‘flicker thing’ out loud seems weird. Not wrong, just bizarre. They were flickers of unrealized dreams, of stolen moments, of non-replicable touches, gazes, thoughts because they were unique to us, they were pangs of rejection that still had fire in them, zingers of physical attraction, of wonder… that’s all, of just wonder.

Wonder is rapturous.

but Wonder can also be distracting.

You know how I talk about the double edge sword of every single truth? Well, this is what my sword of wonder looks like: rapture and distraction. Two sides. Both are true.

In the world that I live in and the rules that I play by, every layer of the story is welcome to be heard because no layer is more ‘honest’ than the other. Our Living Story is how they all weave together.

Did my first marriage end? Yup. Because of the flickers from the ‘ones that got away’? – Nope. Did I date one of those flickering dudes again? Yup – both of them actually. Did either of them end up being my second husband? Nope.

Why?

Because they were flickers. Fun, fabulous hot flickers but not the right fuel for my life.

Mr. Todd and I (the still water guy in the pic and yes, that’s what I call him) were blissfully married for two years before the veil of marriage lifted and we realized we ‘chose’ each other and that meant for ‘life’. Crap really? Now what do we do? Yes indeed, over the last fifteen years or so we have had our share of marital nastiness, brokenness, detachment, resignation, deep regret for choosing each other and lots and lots of ‘I wonder if…’ questions.

The truth for us didn’t come from simply answering the questions, but rather from hearing the stories that we found in our answers.

Many times I thought my marriage (yes, not our marriage in these moments) should be over. Many times I wondered if I chose the right man.

I used to say to myself “He’s a good man, but maybe not the right man for me. He’s quiet, he’s private, he’s so black and white and he doesn’t really like people all that much. We have nothing in common anymore. What are we doing here together?”.

And he would say to himself: “She’s crazy, I can’t build a life with her. She spends money like there’s always more coming. She’s a dreamer, everything is grey with her, she’s a moving target, she’s public, loud and likes people a lot, sometimes more than me. We have nothing in common. What are we even building?”.

And then, over time, a lot of time we would take on the massive task of answering the real questions with each other. Patiently painful at times, yet always stunningly beautiful at the end of each story. We decided to answer our real questions instead of hold on to our observations.

My question: What are we doing here together?

His question: What are we even building?

And it was in the answers, and yes, note the plural: in our many answers where we found our commonality and our lifetime marital, soul-mate/life-mate connection. The answers surprised us because they often had nothing to do with being married and everything to do with being together. Silly right? We just happen to be married too.

He’s my Mr. Todd and still waters run deep.

I’m probably his – Mrs. T – and crazy hair makes me smile. (okay, so I made that up, but if I had to guess… that’s what I think he would say).

What questions might you be holding on to instead of listening to the stories of truth that live in the answers?

xxT

Thank you Body

January 13, 2016

Photo Credit Debra Stringfellow

Thank you Body

For the years of walking, running, dancing, for toes that look cute with polish.

For the belly, well deeper than that, which held four babies, of which three would breathe outside of you

For the tangles of hair that could do the flirting for me because I sucked at it and still do. It just seems ridiculous to me really. So thank you longish, brownish, redish, curlyish hair for doing for me what I never really understood the purpose of.

For the hands that plunge daily into hot soapy water, twist and scrape cookie dough, change propane tanks, strike matches, hold me upright on a bicycle and know how to love by wandering.

For the mouth that never stops wondering, chatting, chewing, kissing, smiling and welcoming people to this inner circle of mine.

For the brain… oh my brain… oh this wild engine of mystery that calls for me to know more about it though doesn’t need me to at all. For letting me take you for granted for so long, because I can.

For this heart that beats in perfect rhythm, my unique footsteps through time. A heart that doesn’t measure, only beats beats beats. Thank you.

Do I talk about sex here? That feels weird but even more ridiculous to skip it. Okay… thank you … ummmm sexy bits for delight, for words that have no sound, for an invitation an ever constant invitation for more of me of you of we of of of so much.

For this skin that holds me together.

For this skeleton that stands me.

For these eyes that not only sees you, but allows you to really see me. No pretending. No hiding. Sees me.

For wonder. Thank you body for knowing everything while I do not.

Thank you for this. I live because of you.

xxT

Yearnings Ignite, Goals Fade

January 9, 2016

We’ve all done it: Set a goal. Some of us have even reached that goal, but most of us don’t, or we do but it takes longer than it should, or we kinda get there, or when we do get there we wonder: What was all that fuss was about?

I’m a recovering goal setter because I’ve been a firey one for years. Oh man how I love both January and September. Mmmmmm cracking open a fresh journal, plotting out my quiet time to map out what I’m doing next, buying a new pen or finding just the right one with the best tip… oh boy. Who needs sex when you have goals? Truly, it’s weirdly almost that good for me. Did you catch it though? It’s the SETTING of the goal that’s intoxicating, not the doing of it. That’s why it’s knocked out a morning romp or an evening of candlelight for me – oh my poor partner, if he only knew when he married me that he’d be upstaged by a journal and a pen.

Why do we like to set goals more than achieve them? Because they’re fired up by the heat of our yearnings.

Why do we attend conferences and trainings and retreats only to come home and stay the same just different? Because possibility is a re-chargeable battery pack.

Why do we achieve goals, feel happy and then start all over again? What’s with this empty-full-empty-full cycle we all seem to crave? Because we’re feeding our external story instead of being nourished by our internal one.

I say all of this because today (as in right now) I’m in a retreat for my network marketing business and it’s January. Guess what we’re doing tonight? Yup… setting goals except I don’t call them that anymore, they’re targets instead. They’re focal points. They’re intentions. Why? Because goal fatigue kills business, and rah rah rah-ing some people’s pinnacle achievements creates a divisive culture, fractures teams and sabotages the very essence of what makes a team work: a common drive, togetherness and not individual achievements or goals.

Could I be talking semantics here – sure, but words are insanely important to me and I do my best to choose them wisely. The living story of the word goal these days shows up like a ‘line in the sand’, a ‘set point’, a measurement of ‘accountability’ – think the super popular S.M.A.R.T. goals: Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. Everything here is externally motivated. A SMART goal of mine for this blog might be:

It is January 10th 2016 and I am happily celebrating having shared this blog with 100 people.

So let’s say that all of the above happens. I wake up on January 11th, I’ve done my due diligence and I’ve nailed my goal. What happens now? How do I feel now? What is my take away now? What is fueling my next ‘goal’ now?

Well, I’m back at the beginning again aren’t I? I am starting all over. My take away is that I probably feel pretty good about myself for having ‘achieved’ my goal, but now, if I slow down enough to actually feel anything at all, I’m a bit empty, daunted and let down. How come I just achieved that goal and now I’m back at the beginning again? Damn these goals, they’re so elusive. Will I ever get there? So then the fuel for my next goal becomes hope, possibility, and the drive that one day, maybe, just possibly, I will arrive. It will stop because I will reach a celebratory finish line. I will raise my arms in the air, someone will notice this incredible moment other than just me and I’ll be handed a lifetime gold medal of having done ‘my all’ and I never ‘have to’ achieve anything again. I will be done.

As if right? And frankly, how boring and how demeaning to this incredibly complex and beautiful human experience.

Here’s my suggestion. Switch your goals to your yearnings. Focus on the deeper wants, the heart beat that comes without you trying, the dreams that wake you up at night with desire, the fire that never goes out instead. Here’s my example and creation:

Y.E.S. Goal: What is it you YEARN for? Make it your most EXCELLENT of work, and always SITUATE it for SUCCESS (or do-able).

again…

Y.E.S. Goal:

What is it you YEARN for?

Make it your most EXCELLENT of work,

and always SITUATE it for SUCCESS.

Here’s my rewrite: Today I write a passionate and honest blog about goals vs. yearnings and I am personally committed to reaching 100 people by Tuesday January 12th because what I write, I care about, and what I share, I live.

Here’s the original: It is January 10th 2016 and I am happily celebrating having shared this blog with 100 people.

Which one would be worth your heart, effort and energy to achieve? Which one isn’t an achievement at all but rather a compelling decision to live fully?

Here’s to you and all that fires you up.

xxT

A Face, Heart and a Dream

January 8, 2016

Tonight a handful of team members from my network marketing biz are gathering at Xenia Retreat Centre for a Mastermind Retreat away into their business and their lives.

We’ll eat (always). We’ll talk (of course) about how we can live more healthfully and passionately. We’ll dig in (needed) to the areas of our business that are clunky and beg for attention. We’ll get clear about what goals/targets/intentions really matter to us and what we’re willing to truly show up for this year. We’ll sharpen our skills (stretch always) and we’ll take on this live/work balance conundrum that is so personal to each of us. We’ll lift each other up because it’s often easier to see greatness in others before we can see it in ourselves.

It’s just another day at the office – rich and challenging because none of us ‘have’ to go to this work, we choose it instead. Wow, it’s so much easier to procrastinate our way out of that isn’t it? It’s a business of people, as in we get paid when we sell stuff to people and when we nurture and coach people too (which isn’t everybody’s natural skill set and it takes time to learn) – makes it complicated. A lot of us struggle with getting paid when there’s ‘people’ involved! ack! How can that be fair or honest? Here’s the thing I’ve learned over a decade in the industry, it’s actually the most honest work I can do. When there’s a face, a heart, a dream, or a family on the other side of what I do, it is my deep privilege to show up. These are people after-all, not faceless ‘team members and prospects’. Crazyyyy but my best friends have come from this business. These are the people who have walked through personal and professional fires with me and I with them. I don’t need to get paid for that, but wow, what an illogical bonus that I do.

Whatever you do for a living, my wish for every single one of us is that wherever you are Monday to Friday and beyond, that you’re part of a community, you belong, you love and are loved. That’s real wealth.

xxT

Give Your Mind a Shower

January 7, 2016

No doubt about it, my work this year is all around mindset. Okay, so I have more than just that to do: catch up on my taxes (oh gawd again?), sleep more (still), let my guard down (melt melt melt), keep listening, write my books, grow my network marketing business by 20% each month, make love a lot, oh yeah and train for a triathlon. How did taxes, business, sex and a triathlon all end up on the same to do list? Life. It’s awkward isn’t it?

Integration is my thannnnng and so as not to muddle you up, I don’t mean that I throw everything all in together and call it the same. I’m not saying that all roads are the same road and that every path leads to Rome. I’m not suggesting that integration is about being a big pot of stew with old carrots mixed with new potatoes tossed with reaching stalks of celery, rounded bumps of barley, organic garlic and crowned with a dumpling. No. That would suggest that I think our brain is a soft mushy floury globby topping to our perfect mess. Hardly a way to represent the control centre that it is. No, integration to me is identification, puzzle clicking, communication, implementation and then flow. Ultimately, it’s an exercise of living trust.

Why do I say mindset? Because in our four engines of alignment: Mindset, Soulset, Skillset and Body, I tend to lead with the soul which means I follow my instincts. I ask quesitons to the powers that be and then follow what is peaceful. My gut leads instead when my brain thinks it knows the answer (it never does by the way) and I tend to let decisions make me and not the other way around. I certainly haven’t lived most of my life this way, but over the last three to four years I’ve realized that the best steps I’ve ever taken I’ve done this way, and that living by my soul-story is what brought me home to myself again. All that said, when my mindset is locked into some old pattern of fear, let’s be honest, for me it’s wayyyyy bigger than that, it’s more like sheer panic most of the time, my soul story, or what I call my ‘living story’ stumbles. I get bruised. I have to pick myself up more times than is probably necessary and why lay face down in the mud more often that I need to right?

The mind is the control centre of the body. While I am not a brain doctor or specialist and I’m not a master of EMDR (eye movement desensitization and re-processing connecting the right hemisphere and left hemisphere of the brain for re-patterning thoughts and reactions) like my good friend Dr. Carolyn Nesbitt and by no means am I an expert on neuroplasticity like Shad Helmstetter, I have personally experienced the difference that adopting a possibility mindset can make.

I’m a leader in a network marketing business and as my husband says, I’m also become one of this life’s ‘social leaders’ which means that what I say and do matters greatly if only to me – because I bare some responsibility (frankly I think we all do) for how the way I live affects the world. Here’s the thing, while I’m not wired to think ‘negatively’ – truly, I’m probably as deeply, and authentically positive as they come, my life’s experiences have developed a ‘seek and prepare’ or ‘stay alert and rely on no one’ neuropathway that I habitually walk when my auto-pilot runs the show.

The mindset is all about your auto-pilot.

The mindset is the thinking you do when you’re not actually thinking.

The mindset is the tape that you hear to without knowing you’re listening.

When I was going for my final promotion in my network marketing business I had one simple rule in my house: No negative talk – period. No Debbie Downer moaning, I wouldn’t even let Todd tell me that it was raining, or that the toilet was plugged. Oh boy, I was a sunshine and lollipops drill sergeant back then. While putting a taught shiny bubble around my thinking may have been effective for reaching my goals, it drove a wedge between my soul and my expression of it, plus it alienated me from my family – the very people I claim to be myself with. This to the very circle I love and want only for them to be who they fully are.

Positive mindset = good.

Positive mindset at all costs = bad.

Positive mindset that doesn’t have to protect itself from itself = healthy.

I had a nasty reaction to all the sunshine and rainbow messages I lived by because it sliced away my underbelly, my vulnerability and my deep connection to people and to myself. Truly… how could my children feel ‘heard’ or ‘known’ by me if I wasn’t willing to listen to the darker shades of their stories. All the years of attachment parenting just got thrown out the window for a few months of working towards a goal.

I had a positive mindset hangover. I felt guilt and shame and even embarrassment for having shadowy thoughts. I didn’t connect with my circle of achievement based, goal centred happiness friends anymore. I was sick with positivitis.

My mindset needed a shower. And showers are neither positive or negative – just wet and wonderful.

I do my best realizing when I’m in the shower. Truly. There’s something about just hanging out in hot water gushing over my head that wakes me up somehow. It sets me to neutral. It opens up space for my next ‘aha moment’ and connects me back home too.

I’m giving my mindset a shower these days because I know that all the panic driven, alarm bell ringing neuropathways that I habitually walk are of my own making. I can create new ones that are honest, unthreatened by the truth, and serve me as real until that’s not so anymore.

Take a shower. It’s a delicious thing to have clean water and a safe place to reset the control room that runs our auto-pilot. We’re blessed no?

xxT

Come in From the Cold

January 7, 2016

Yes I’m in the network marketing industry but this isn’t a pitch because that would be dumb. You’re way smarter than that. And let’s be straight here – your ‘salesperson sniff test’ would have my offer hung on a hook over your fireplace so fast I wouldn’t even have a chance to squeak out my why story. Let’s be real here. The scent of a seller can be picked up from miles away.

Two of my sons are at that age where career choices shouldn’t even be in their consciousness, but it is. They are fourteen and twelve. Let me ask you, when you were a teenager did you give two licks about how you would want to spend 40-60 hours per week trading time for money? No. You had a dream (if you were lucky), you may have had a whiff of a passion (if you were blessed that way), and you may have even figured out a couple of things that set you apart from your fellow students (if your parents or teachers saw it in you). But honestly, could you foresee that you would be doing what you are doing right now, back then? And would your profession today have made you want to buckle down at fifteen years old to get good grades in order to do it?

For a small percentage of us – the answer might be yes, but it’s complicated isn’t it? Getting to where you are today, even if you are totalllllllly fulfilled and in your ‘Vein of Gold’ as Julia Cameron calls it, was likely not as simple a process as earning As and Bs in grade ten. For a large percentage of us, our j.o.b. has nothing to do with our dreams or our passions, but instead has become that thing we do j.b. (just because).

I think J.O.B.’s are given a bad rap in the network marketing industry. I think running your own direct sales organization, serving clients and supporting new team members to reach the heights of their potential is also a j.o.b. and it’s just as challenging, time consuming, frustrating and as wildly fulfilling (often more so) as it is to go to ‘work’ each day.

I started in this industry over ten years ago and while, just like any j.o.b., I’ve loved it, been frustrated, been enamoured and crushed, felt purposeful and useless, been side-swiped and blessed… this is my j.o.b. and shhhh… listen closely because I’m going to whisper this… selling and recruiting is not my passion. Sometimes I feel like I’m bad-mouthing the industry when I admit that selling isn’t my “it” because there is such a push out there these days to Live Your Passion, to Be Your Genius, to never Sell-Out on your Dreams… Here’s my big aha that smacked me silly a few years back: Why did I ever believe I had to choose? When did having a job = bad, and living a dream = good? What if having them both = peaceful? = happy? Being a network marketer is my skillset and not my soulset. It requires my mindset to flex positively like a muscle I’ve trained to respond, and this j.o.b. asks only of my body that it do what it’s designed to do: eat for fuel, sleep for repair and breathe to live. It’s not romantic or dreamy eyed, yet it’s warm and it’s just as real as any job I’ve ever had.

The network marketing industry isn’t weird, it isn’t a cop-out, and it sure isn’t a short cut either. It’s a j.o.b. just like everything else we can do to earn an income. I love it because it fits me. Would I have chosen this as a profession in grade ten? Ummm absolutely not. Would I have studied for it in college? Are you kidding me? No no no no no… most definitely not. Funny eh? Somehow I ended up here and this overlooked, highly judged and wildly misunderstood industry has grown me up like nothing else I’ve ever done has.

In it’s simplicity, network marketing or direct sales is just another way for people to come in from the cold. I earn a good, honest living, and my needs are being met. I’m peaceful and that’s all that truly matters to me.

xxT

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