Author: tinaoverbury

VIDEO – Story Stones 1 – Blessing

February 17, 2020
https://youtu.be/v5lEW4nhO0M

TRANSCRIPTION of Story Stones 1 – Blessing

Welcome to Story Stones, an hour of deep listening and learning together.

I am a storyteller, a listener, and a holder of spaces where we can connect with the Story of Us.

My work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the Christian Tradition.

I’m an artist, a writer, a mom, a runner, and a poet. My faith is in the space between us where two or more are gathered, my trust is in the mystery and my practice is listening and communicating from there. 

That’s me. 

Okay… so how does this hour work?

There will be some readings, some sacred text and scripture, and poetry.

These are the pieces I’ve been praying into all week and have then crafted a message of sorts from. There will also be moments where I invite you into deep listening between you and your understanding of what I call God, or you might call the Divine, or maybe even your guidance or inner wisdom.

In some practices this is prayer or meditation, but I call it deep listening.
Let’s settle in.

GRATITUDE CANDLE

I light a gratitude story candle to remind us no matter where we are, or what the story is inside our heads, or the story we are currently living, we are never alone. The mystery of our being and how we are held in this space and time, is always with us. We are LOVED. The mystery of us is always with us.

INVITATION TO LISTEN

This is time you’ve carved out to be with you, to be with your understanding of the sacred, to be with God and the Mystery of us. Take a breath. Take a minute to drop in, close your eyes and just get here. 
Let the story of your morning go. It is not of this moment. Let the story of what you think this is going to be go, it is not of this moment. Let yourself be. 

Listen beyond the words in your head. Open up to listening to the space itself. 

MUSIC

I invite you to listen to the words of Kyle Church: SLOW DOWN on Spotify. 

The story stone we are listening into today is the word: BLESSING and BLESSED. What does it mean to be blessed? Or when we say: that’s such a blessing. What does that even mean? And how do we live that?  This is the word we are listening into today. 

FOR THE KIDS

Let’s start with something really easy, something kids might understand: 

This comes from Shel Silverstein’s book: Where the Sidewalk Ends

Shel Silverstein (September 25, 1930 – May 10, 1999) was an American writer known for his cartoons, songs, and children’s books. I grew up having them read to me and I have read them to my boys. 

By playing what we’ve got…

KIDS  READING 

Hmmm…. boredom, imagination, making something out of nothing. Because the nothing is the blessing.

LISTEN

Let us LISTEN

I invite you to close your eyes and listen in to the phrase of ‘what is the nothing you feel blessed by? What does your NOTHING want to say to you today? 

Breathe and be.

Be and Breathe.

Let the story of blessed by no-thing be with you. 

What do you hear?

We’re going to move into three readings,

One from the Bible, from Matthew 5, and Psalm 15 and another from a Rumi poem. 

MATTHEW  5 1:12

You’re Blessed

5 1-2 When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:

3 “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

4 “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

5 “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

6 “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.

7 “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.

8 “You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

9 “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.

10 “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.

11-12 “Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.

I love that… My prophets and witnesses have always  gotten into this kind of trouble. 

Take a moment to notice what is still with you?

What is speaking to you? What do you hear?

LISTEN.

Psalm 15

God, who gets invited

    to dinner at your place?

How do we get on your guest list?

“Walk straight,

    act right,

        tell the truth.

“Don’t hurt your friend,

    don’t blame your neighbor;

        despise the despicable.

“Keep your word even when it costs you,

    make an honest living,

        never take a bribe.

“You’ll never get

blacklisted

if you live like this.”

SERMON

Creator…. God…. Universe… Mystery…
I acknowledge the story of us that was here before we got here and the story that of us that will be here long after we’re gone. May the words of my mouth hold your hearts well and be in service to the unfolding of the story of us all.  

“You’ll never get blacklisted when you live like this”. Have you ever felt like that? Like you must be on the ‘naughty’ list. If you’ve seen Elf over the holidays you’re already laughing. But how about blacklisted? As in, the red rope of entry is closed to you, or worse, you feel like you are on the list of bad, doomed even. Or maybe you feel like you must be a target, as in a magnet for awful things. 

Have you ever felt like that? 

If you’re fortunate, you haven’t. Or maybe you’re lucky and this experience hasn’t happened to you. Maybe you’re one of the rare ones and you have no scars. But I doubt it. Because we are all blessed. 

And that’s the WORD we are listening into today:  BLESSED.  

You will notice everything I do, every story I tell, every place I invite us into, I bring what I call the double edge sword of story to it. I am most interested  in the wholeness of story, because it is where the wisdom lives. There is no wisdom in what we might call light only.

There is light…  sure! Totally! Awesome!  I Love it.  I just posted on Facebook…  Dear God… can the rain please stop?   I’ve had a few dark days this month and the rain and dreariness is kicking my ass. I love light.
But the wisdom of story doesn’t happen on one side of the sword. It happens on all three. Yes three sides.

What we might call light

What we might call dark

And then the edge between. 

In  Story listening, our invitation is to listen from the edge, so integration can happen.  

We can’t hear integration. 

We can’t hear transformative steps in a puzzle already done.  

We hear in the individual  pieces.

And today’s piece, or Story Stone is the stone of blessed.  We are blessed.

So let’s jump into this notion I just threw at you about being blacklisted, or on the naughty list, or the experience that we might be bad or something.

From Matthew we hear:  

10 “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.

Okay, before we go any further, since this is my first story stones episode, let’s deal with the God issue. For  those of you who balk at the word God – I get it. A lot has been done in the name of God that hurts. A lot has been done in the name of God that can’t be undone.  

Remember though: in the name of God, not as God. But then many of you don’t believe in God. Cool. I get that too. 

I don’t know who I believe in, as in holding a pronoun he, she, or they. I don’t have some big image of a person or celestial being called God in my head.

I  don’t know what I believe in, as in holding a static picture like: wind, or energy, or the ocean. I can’t say for sure what God is.

God is a mystery.

And the mystery happens in the space between us, when we connect, when we have opened our hearts a little, when we are shields down, and in that space, an experience of God or spirit as a ‘carrier’ of God happens.

Have you ever heard:  ‘where two or more are gathered…’ – That’s what I’m talking about. 

You might say then, that what I believe in for sure for sure for sure is experiences of God – because it’s happened to all of us. That deep look into someone’s eyes and there’s an unmistakable – otherworldly connection. Those moments when you’re  with someone and all the hairs on the back of your neck go up. Or those moments when you’re with nature and the beauty of the place takes your breath away, or as my dear friend Jillian Rutledge (a breath coach) says, when you are awestruck.

To me… those are the universal experiences of God. We  know exactly what they are when we have them. As to who or what is God? That’s not for me to say for you. But I believe in it. In the great unknown and the love we find in those places. So when I say God, for those of  you who are carrying pain from that word, or cognitive reasoning disbelief with that word, please hear an acronym of God as the ‘Good Ole I  Dunno” – because nobody does.   

And that’s the point. 

I think that’s the most beautiful invitation of all. To experience God and not be able to describe it. And I am devoted to that.

So back to the scripture from MATTHEW where we heard ‘You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution’. 

In a literal sense, that sounds awful. Commitment to God provokes  persecution… yikes.  Right…  kinda like marriage to some: til death do us part… you mean, I gotta die to get out of this one?

But that’s not what I hear.  I don’t hear ball and chain marriage. I don’t hear die for my faith. I don’t hear suffering for enlightenment. Or the suffering of enlightenment. I hear freedom. 

I’ve had a few dark days in my life as I know you have too. In those dark moments, when my belief in all the big things crash like:

Love and being loved: I don’t believe in anything. I am empty. I can actually convince myself that I am never going to be loved by anyone ever….

Abundance and having enough: I am convinced I will struggle forever.

God itself and being supported: I am thoroughly convinced, like I know, I am all alone here, and no one but me will get me through this… 

Or even my very existence, and mattering at all. In those times I hear in my head I was a mistake.  

Yup. I’m normal like that. I have pain too. Do you ever spiral away like that?

I do – still. Sometimes a lot. 

It usually happens when I’ve been side-swiped by a life-experience, or I’ve had a series of bad happenings occur in a row. A person can doubt herself, or slide into a mental health spiral, or worse, ride a big wave of depression. None of us are beyond that happens. It’s one of the signs we are human.

However, in those moments, as I’m positive you have had them too – we are experiencing life as we step away from God. We are forgetting the God moments of our life. 

We are empty.

We are feeling persecuted.

And what is the only way out of those things? 

All the woo woo books say the same thing. It’s not just the bible or the koran or the Buddhist Sutras or Yoga… They all say the same thing: surrender, or lay it down, or accept, or let it go.

When we lay it down, or in my story language, honour the story of the pain and the persecution, we come closer to God, because the next step, if we’ve truly laid it down and reminded ourselves: we are not the pain we are feeling, and we are . not the persecution which is happening… The next thing that happens is we rest. We have our tears, we empty our buckets and in that empty place, we rest in being blessed that we can… rest.

And we can. 

The container for that rest, for the emptying for those tears is the blessing . of God. Or the Good Ole I Dunno. The Mystery.

We are blessed. 

PRACTICE

In the moments of my greatest pain, where I am up against my deepest scarring of beliefs which are not true but feel true, I have a practice of sentences I say to myself to help me remember I am blessed. Saying them helps me rewire the circuits in my brain for those moments. 

It sounds like this: 

I won’t give  up my ___________

to ____________

because I already ___________.

For example: 

Love – as a  single person who experiences stretches of loneliness, and experiences of bad choices, and yes, rejection, I can be faced with the unloveable monster, and can experience what I call clutchy… you might call it desperate… weak… or needy…

These are also very  very very very human feels, so no judgement here. And I know when I’m in this place, I forget I am blessed, and I’m at risk of doing anything or trading something to have what might be love, but probably isn’t… You know what I’m talking about. 

So this is the phrase I use (following the example above), and I whisper it to myself over and over and over again to calm myself. 

I wont give up my SELF

to feel LOVED

because the truth is I am LOVED

(or BLESSED)

Let’s try FAITH:

This is one I used just recently, and it was really, really challenging, but nourished me and brought me closer to my understanding of God:

I  won’t give up my FAITH

to belong,

because the truth is, I already belong. 

(I am BLESSED)

How about ABUNDANCE:

And to understand this one, many a time I’ve been in a crossroads between the safety of a job, and my integrity as a child of God, and a follower of Mystery. Each of these crossroads were turning points, and catalysts of destruction and rebirth. Here are three examples:

Once upon a time my mom said to me in answer to a crumbling marriage and an impending financial disaster coming: Christina… you just need to get a job.

I remember thinking: You must not understand me.

Another time I was in a leadership tussle within an organization so I asked for guidance from a senior leader and her answer was: Tina… just do what you’re told.

I remember thinking: You must not have heard me.

And recently I was in a job I felt called to and I heard: Tina…you don’t know what you don’t know and you just can’t do that.

And I remember thinking: I’m not motivated by rules, you must not know me.
Which lead to: I love you enough to leave.

This is what I say to myself when I feel myself lean sideways, off my path, off my call, away from my knowing of being blessed.

I won’t give up my calling

to feel safe,

because the truth is, in this moment, I am safe. 

What I offer to you is to hold the understanding you are already blessed, and you can rest in that. Craft a guiding sentence which takes the persecution you are experiencing, and the sacredness you are holding within you, and cushion it with the blessing of knowing what is really true. 

I won’t give up my SELF/FAITH/SAFETY to BELONG/FEEL WANTED/FEEL SAFE – Because the truth is…. I already…. (insert the blessing of truth). 

Okay… so you heard my big three ‘curses’ I tell myself sometimes. These are the three that take me out at the knees… What are yours? What takes you out? What takes you to your knees?

You know what I love about that image? It’s the universal  body position of surrender, and the invitation for prayer, or sacred time with your connection to God.

Where we lay it down.

At the end of Psalm 15  we hear:

“Keep your word even when it costs you,

    make an honest living,

        never take a bribe.

“You’ll never get

blacklisted”

Never take a bribe. That is worth repeating.

Or we go back to the words of Shel Silverstein:

And though there may be orchestras

That sound a little better

With their fancy shiny instruments

That cost an awful lot-

Hey we’re making music twice as good

By playing what we’ve got

Hold on to your sovereignty

Hold on to the blessing of you

To remember you are blessed and you’ll never get blacklisted. 

And then what happens…?

Well, now we can bring Rumi into this beautiful conversation… 

LISTEN: 

Don’t hide

The site of your face

Is a blessing

Wherever you place your foot

There rests a blessing

Look,

Every falling leaf is a blessing.

All  of nature swings in unison

Singing without tongues

Listening without ears

What a Blessing.

O Soul

The four elements are your face

Water, wind, fire, and earth

Each one is a blessing

Once the seed of faith takes root,

It cannot be blown away

Even by the strongest wind

Now that’s a blessing.

I bow to you

For  the dust of your feet

Is the crown on my head

And as I walk towards you

Every step I take is a blessing

-Rumi

Okay… so now you remember you are blessed, and you can source yourself back to that… but what about the big stuff? – right? 

You know what I’m talking about… Fires in Australia, Koalas and Kangaroos and other soft padded foot animals burning in the heat. The divisiveness on our planet right now. The fighting we saw in China this year. The innocent people, doctors who couldn’t get to student activists bleeding. The shootings in classrooms of our children. Violence, and I haven’t even begun to talk about disease. We probably don’t need to go there. We have all been touched by cancer already. Someone we know and love has struggled through it, or been claimed by it. Why? 

We’ll never truly know. 

We are not God.

We are not the Universe.

We are not the intelligence of the cosmos in this one breath, body and brain. 

We are not.  Some might disagree with me.  

So here is what I will suggest:

When we remember, truly remember and practice feeling, knowing, and choosing the understanding that we are blessed, we are developing a practice of treasuring.

And what we treasure we lovingly protect, we don’t put in harm’s way.

What we treasure we honour.

When we are in the act of treasuring, we make different choices.

The fires may still burn, but they wouldn’t be happening by the hands of us, and there wouldn’t be a global climate change due to us. 

We wouldn’t be fighting as much.  We would protect our values and beliefs differently. We would honour them, and treasure them, and in doing so, we might…. just might…. Be able to see that the person we are talking to across from us is just trying to treasure their stuff too.

Oh mannnnn it’s not like we don’t know this stuff. 

Love thy neighbour as you love yourself.

Treasure yourself, and remember they are treasuring themself too.

Remember you are blessed.

They are blessed.

This world is a blessing

And treasure it.

We are treasure.

We are gold.

We are love, belonging, and abundance, and enough, and worthy, and chosen, and and and and and… we ARE. 

We are that treasure.

We are that treasured, by God.

The Good Ole I  Dunno.

We come in that way, and we go out that way. 

We can count our blessings and begin to live as if we are them and are blessed by them: 

From Irving Berlin we hear: 

When I’m worried and I can’t sleep

I count my blessings instead of sheep

And I fall asleep counting my blessings

Now Rosemary Clooney I am not,

Yet, I am blessed just the same.  

And may it be so…

MUSIC:

I invite you to listen to the message of Irving Berlin and the gift of love that is the voice of Diana Krall as she sings: COUNT YOUR BLESSING, on Spotify. 
COUNTING YOUR BLESSING.

BENEDICTION

As you close your time with the sacred, I invite you to remember that you are loved by the mystery. You are held by the mystery. You are known by the mystery.

Let no mystery confound you into the conclusion, that mystery cannot be yours.*

Thank you for listening…

xxT

*a quote from Mark Helprin’s book: Soldier of the Great War

This is TinaO’s Ministry of Story. She is a sacred-listener in a divisive time, cultivating safe containers for real change-based connecting and conversation. She is a Storyteller rooted in Myth, Mysticism and the Christian Tradition. To Tina, communication is a spiritual practice of listening and following the living story of us.

Her faith is in the space between us, where two or more are gathered, her trust is in the Mystery and her practice is listening and communicating from there. 

If you would like to receive her weekly Story Stones Sessions in your inbox, click here to have it sent to you.

 


Can You Dream the Wrong Way?

May 29, 2018

What does dreaming actually do?

I dream, sure. I have bucket lists. I have visions of places I want to go, people I want to see, and moments I want to create. I was in a highly successful business for years where the entire motivation to grow was fueled by one catch phrase: dare to dream, so I did, and it worked. But I think I kinda did it wrong because I didn’t really want what I had.

Can you dream the wrong way?

I remember the stickiness of change in that business when things I could only dream about were starting to happen. I was travelling and staying in beautiful hotels with gifts left for me on the bed. I ate the most delicious things in five star restaurants, had fireside chats in great-rooms overlooking the desert and I was blessed to spend a week in Hawaii every year. This is what I never dreamed about but thought I was supposed to, so I did, and it happened.

It felt a lot like being in a space ship which is why I’m wrestling with the whole dreaming thing right now. I had to leave the roots of my life behind in order to ‘lift off’. I dreamt, I affirmed and I created. I remember walking down wide hotel hallways, stunningly dressed, on my way to attend another evening gala. I don’t remember feeling my feet touch the floor.

We say this about dreaming: ‘as if my feet never touched the ground’.

Today things are different yet I am living a dream for sure. Things are simpler. I live by the ocean in a beautiful home surrounded by nature. I wake up to the sound of birds and I fall asleep to the glow of the moon and stars. I am self-employed. I am blessed to make a living doing what I love. I am passionate about it. I am nourished spiritually by it. I create my schedule. My boys are healthy, happy and ridiculously funny. We eat on a long table outside on the deck in the summer and we snuggle up by the fire in the winter. This is a dream I never made a goal, though I felt my through to this experience since I was a little girl. I did not visualize this. I did not create affirmations either, I simply followed a feeling of home inside me. Sounds pretty good right? Yes, but I still think what I’m doing isn’t quite right because I can’t help but  notice how much effort it takes to keep this dream floating. I have many agreements, exchanges and structures within this dream.

We say this about dreaming: ‘there are no limits’.

As a child I would wake up to an orchestra of stories in my head. If thoughts were words, were music, were water, were warmth, were colour, that’s what I’m talking about. I woke up to inspiration all at once.  Some days I still do. I experience speckles of hope, fragments of beauty, shards of mystery and particles of fireworks in each moment. This ignites the impulses to move me forward. This is the dreaming that happens effortlessly. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, it’s just weird.

I’ve been called flighty, impulsive, frivolous, unbalanced, wild and, wait for it… a dreamer…

We say this about dreaming:  ‘a dream is a wish your heart makes’

I’m approaching 50 and as part of my #thisis50 series I am looking at a lot of things. Last Saturday I went to bed feeling quite sad and lonely. I had been moved during a film festival and had no one special to share my shards of inspiration with. But this is 50 (almost) so I didn’t go to the bar and try to meet someone. Nor did I go on a two hour walk in the dark to cry. I didn’t binge with a bag of cheesies and watch netflix, I didn’t do a lot of things I would’ve done in my 20s and 30s – not that this list is bad (no shame here), they just don’t change anything and neither does dreaming.

I went home. I felt sad. I layed in bed (kids were at their dad’s), and instead, started asking…

What do I want?

What do I see in that want?

What do I feel in that want?

How do I see me in that want?

What is this want?

All of this because earlier last week a friend told me a story about his mother asking him directly: What do you really want? -as if he could simply order it off the menu from the universe and it would be delivered. I noticed I never ask that of myself. I never ask what do you want?, because if I want something, I go get it so I rarely feel want, I just feel get instead. I think this might be the gap in dreaming I’m not doing right. This idea of asking for what I truly want feels foreign to me. I want that piece of cake or I want my son to be happy is not the same as I want to travel to New York and fall into the magic of theatre every year and get paid for it. While theatre season may mean nothing to you, to me it makes me want to laugh, cry and love at the same time, and that’s just ONE thing on my want list.

This is what I think:

A want is not a dream, but a dream without a want is just a wish. 

And that’s what Cinderella does. Remember… she’s fiction.

We say this about dreaming: Dreams don’t work unless you do.

So again, this mantra about effort, work, results and dreaming. Where is the sweet spot?

I’m three years from fifty and all I know is, it’s time to trust my kaleidescope approach to dreaming, the way I did before I knew what it was. As a child I would just see things inside first as I wanted them. I would feel things before I knew what they were, I’d follow that feeling and what I wanted appeared. I would hear words before the story arrived and solving the mystery would manifest the very thing I wanted.

I’m beginning to believe that dreaming is allowing myself to want something. Really really want something.

So from this place of really wanting, this is what I know so far:

I want to cycle in Europe, sleep in little Inns and drink wine at night. 

I want to travel to cultural birthplaces and listen to the stories that live there.   

I want to go to New York, London and drop in to Niagara annually for Theatre Season, like it’s just what I do. It’s not a trip, it’s my life. 

I want to touch spiritual symbols and listen to them.

I want a home, maybe a few. 

I want to meet as many beaches as I can. 

I want to own and drive a jeep. I know, it’s kinda cliché but I really want that. 

I want to Christmas with my family forever – as if Christmas is a verb and not a day on the calendar.

I want to swim the way I run – like my body just knows how to do it. 

I’m sure there is more, but this is the list I’m starting with. Don’t ask me about love and relationships yet. I have no idea. None. Zip. Zilch. I got nuthin’. Well, that’s not true. I’m just not ready to say them out loud yet. I’ll get there. Beauty, Love, Art, Adventure, Home, Health, and God. That’s all I know right now.

I think dreaming is wanting from the essence of how you are designed, and that’s another Story from the Core conversation.

So now it’s your turn. What do you want? 

Thanks for listening.

As we say here in Storyland, Listening is Loving. 

#thisis50

xxT

TinaO is a Writer, Story Coach, and Host of the TinaOShow, collecting and telling Stories from the Core. She’s the co-owner of The LEAP Learning Lab with Gina Best, and the other half of The Writer’s Compass with Meribeth Deen. She says: Stories are like toddlers, they will follow you around, tugging, hanging off of you until you listen to them.  TinaO is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening using writing, storytelling, nature, nourishment, art and connection as a way to listen to the personal story within. The retreat is held in various locations around the world, and is always offered 3x/year in British Columbia where she lives. All are welcome.
As always… let me know your thoughts. They’re always welcome.

This is Fifty with TinaO

May 27, 2018

This is 50. But I’m not quite there. I’m 47 and like every milestone, their whisperings begin around the 7 mark: 17 begins 20, 27 begins 30, 37 to 40 and now this, fifty. A half century.

I’m already blessed because I have made it this far.  In 1962 the average life expectancy was 65 which means a whole lot of people in my circle (even me) could’ve been dead by now fifty five years ago. In 2018, our average life expectancy for women in Canada is 83. I wonder what it will be in twenty years. I’m guessing closer to 95. If that’s the case, right now, (if all goes well) I’m probably at the half way point. In these moments I wonder… good gawd, what on earth am I going to live through next?

I suspect everyone has an approaching 50 list. Here’s mine:

At almost fifty I am:

  • Shocked to be soon divorced.
  • Overwhelmed by how many more years I am willingly and yes lovingly carrying my children as a single parent (another decade).
  • Aware, grateful and still a bit raw about a journey through cancer.
  • Kind of ashamed by the financial collapse of my life, now twice, both post a marital breakdown.
  • I forgot that part, I’m soon to be divorced twice. Ugh. Twice. I’m a statistic too.
  • Almost 50 and I’m pretty awed by my psychological and physical constitution. I have endured many stories and I still smile, just not all the time.
  • Appreciative of this body of mine which carried me through my first triathlon months post cancer (seriously, what was I thinking?). I’m astounded by what this body can do, and how I can recover.
  • I am kind of disssociated from the achievement because I don’t really understand how it all happened and where the motivation came from. Have you ever felt like that?
  • Heartbroken by the randomness of loss I know to be part of this thing called life.
  • Lost in my own romanticism of possibility.
  • Drowning while still breathing my almost-50 yearnings.
  • Blown and breathless by the mystery that is Love, Art and God.
  • Clear that I never need to be ‘saved’ by any one person again.
  • Solid to be my own hero yet deeply aware and moved by the knowing none of us are here to do this or be alone.
  • I am almost fifty.
  • I am my own hero, my own sunflower, my own carpet of magic, and my own story stone in the ocean.

And still,

Life kicks my ass sometimes, cracks my heart open so wide I swear my heartbeat meshes with the pulse of the sun, and life and all it’s messiness can bring me to my knees in utter helpless, and hopeless beauty.

This is 50.

If you’re familiar with my writing you’ll know ‘this’ is what I do. Something wild this way comes and ‘this’ is what it looks like when my story tells me. After coffee and scrolling through travel adventures online, followed by deliciously facebook messaging a dear friend across the globe with my findings, I began to scribble some thoughts on a big hunk of paper.

This is 50. I wrote.

And then ‘that’ impulse came. Gahhhhh the familiar nudge, push and shove forward I know so well. That feeling launched my first vlog series which tracked my journey post cancer through to the Vancouver 5i50 triathlon in 2016. I turned my computer on.

Welcome to my next series on TinaOLife.

This is 50.

I’m three years out from five-oh and closing an old story. In the work I do as a story coach, I call this swimming between ripples.

The visual I use is this: it’s as if we come in to this world as a story stone and are dropped into the water and who we are, or our story ripples out. Every circle is the next, expanded version of the first one. Every ring another layer of who we are.

Swimming between ripples is letting go of one to follow the ease of the next. I’m going to share this next journey with you. I’ll be posting regularly here.  This is 50 with TinaO.

As always…

Thanks for listening.

In storyland, listening is loving.

xxT.

TinaO is a Writer, Story Coach, and Host of the TinaOShow, collecting and telling Stories from the Core. She’s the co-owner of The LEAP Learning Lab with Gina Best, and the other half of The Writer’s Compass with Meribeth Deen. She says: Stories are like toddlers, they will follow you around, tugging, hanging off of you until you listen to them.  TinaO is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening using writing, storytelling, nature, nourishment, art and connection as a way to listen to the personal story within. The retreat is held in various locations around the world, and is always offered 3x/year in British Columbia where she lives. All are welcome.
As always… let me know your thoughts. They’re always welcome.

The Writer’s Compass – No Chores Allowed- BLOG

April 11, 2018

NO CHORES ALLOWED

I don’t like vacuuming, and I particularly don’t enjoy vacuuming stairs. In order to do it well, I have to change the nozel, plug and unplug the vacuum, position the vacuum itself sideways across each step so it doesn’t fall off as I move up or down, and no matter what I try, I always end up banging or nicking the wall along the way.  Ugggggghhhh it’s just too much work. Vacuuming stairs is totally a chore.

I don’t mind doing the dishes. Yes, I have to give up twenty minutes of my life. Yes, I’m often cleaning up someone else’s jam, or scraping macaroni and cheese off someone else’s lunch pot, but it’s not so bad. Doing dishes may be work, but it doesn’t feel like a chore to me.

I don’t really have an opinion about laundry anymore. It’s not work or a chore, it’s a habit. If I grumbled every time I unballed a dirty sock or folded a towel, laundry would be pretty obnoxious for me. I just do it. It’s not work. It’s not a chore. It’s become a practice.

Here’s a Zen Proverb I love because it sums up chores/work/practices and writing beautifully:

Before enlightenment;

chop wood carry water.

After enlightenment;

chop wood carry water. 

You’re likely writing something or you wouldn’t be reading this post. You’re probably hoping to find a tip to make your writing process easier, more efficient and maybe even more joyful.

So here it is: Don’t make writing a chore.

That’s it. That’s all. Make writing a choice by building a practice around it. Simply write and keep writing, and as you write, explore new ways to show up to the page again and again and again until the process becomes your practice and it feels like coming home.

Here are some tips to developing your writing practice:

  • Notice when words come easy for you. Is it when you’re the most awake with more thinking power? Is it when it’s late and there’s less energy to resist? Is it something else?
  • Try commiting to a small daily word count. Some people do their best work in a sustainable way with a 300-500 daily word count. Did you know Stephen King follows a 3000/day word count and some days he’s done before 11:30am? (BTW… if this makes you groan, you’re in good company. This is not my process).
  • Try linking writing with a regular activity. E.G. everytime you’re on the bus, write 300 words in your notebook.
  • Try using writing prompts by finishing a sentence which then becomes a paragraph. Set a timer for three minutes.
  • Try blocking out one, three to four day weekend per month and create a writing retreat around it. BTW…this is how I write in a non-chore, non-work way. I call myself an immersive writer.

These are just a few ideas to play with and there are oodles more out there. We’ll talk about many of them here.

Here’s the bottomline:  Don’t make writing a chore or you’ll be vacumming stairs all day, and who wants to do that? Bleccchhhhh…. not me, and Meribeth and I certainly don’t want that for you.

We want to help you write, finish and deliver your book… repeat.

Here’s to your writing adventure,

Much love,

TinaO

TinaO is a Writer, Story Coach and the other half of The Writer’s Compass with Meribeth Deen. She is the host of the TinaOShow, collecting and telling Stories from the Core and the co-owner with Gina Best of The Leap Learning Lab. The Writer’s Compass encourages writers to get off the beaten path and create impactful stories from the core. We teach: writing isn’t precious, it’s a practice. 
Want to join our online writing group? Check out our private Facebook Group: Core Story Writers here.

I Needed a Voice to Remind me I Exist – VIDEO

April 3, 2018
I’ve just come out of a pretty raw weekend.
There is so much moving through me these days I’m reminded of my dear friend Miel Bernstein‘s approach to emotions. She says: Feelings are like the weather, storms will come. They will blow through. We don’t control the weather, nor do we become the weather. We simply adjust and wait for it to blow through. My marriage ended this year and it has rocked me through to my very core. I know it’s supposed to. A friend said to me as the undeniable end was coming and I was desperate to hang on: when a marriage ends, a tearing happens. It feels like you’re being ripped apart. She’s right, and the edges are jagged.
 
I wasn’t sure I would ever share this video because the moment is so personal. What you don’t know is minutes before, I had been gasping and crying so hard I stopped breathing and threw up. It was the first time in my adult life, the pain took me out so far I couldn’t find the surface and I was drowning. I couldn’t feel my life or my body. I knew I was in trouble so I just kept dialing until someone picked up. My friend Liz Powers was heading out on a roadtrip that day. She had a car full of women with her and while it wasn’t the best time to talk, something told her to pick up – so she did. I’m eternally grateful.
 
I needed to hear another voice to remind myself that I exist, that I was more than the pain I was feeling, that I was here – in my body – on this beach. She didn’t tell me things would get better. She didn’t tell me I was going to be okay. She didn’t tell me her own story of pain, of her marriage ending too. She just stayed with me repeating: I hear you. I got you. I see you. This is hard. This is so hard, and I got you. She stayed with me until I came back into my body and could see my feet on the sand again.

I hear you. I got you. I see you. This is hard. This is so hard, and I got you.

 
I wasn’t sure if I would ever share this video (I captured this moment last July 2017). I just knew I needed to shoot it because if I didn’t, you might think because I have a website about ”life”, and a workshop about ”living your best story”, and a calling I am following, that I am different than you.
 
I’m not.
 
This Easter I think I got a bit more about the Jesus story, his death and his resurrection. And I don’t think you have to follow a religious path to be touched by the power of that story. We all die at different times in our life, and what a blessing it is to be able to live again. Something about this moment on the beach from last summer makes more sense to me now and I’m not afraid to share it, in fact, I think it’s even more important to.
 

 
Please know you’re not alone. No matter how dark your moment is, how far from the surface you may feel, or how isolated you think you may be, as long as you have breath in your body, inspiration is still moving with you. Jillian Rutledge I owe that last line to you my friend.
Much love…
xxT
TinaO is a Writer, Story Coach, and Host of the TinaOShow, collecting and telling Stories from the Core. She’s the co-owner of The LEAP Learning Lab with Gina Best, and the other half of The Writer’s Compass with Meribeth Deen. She says: Stories are like toddlers, they will follow you around, tugging, hanging off of you until you listen to them.  TinaO is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening using writing, storytelling, nature, nourishment, art and connection as a way to listen to the personal story within. The retreat is held in various locations around the world, and is always offered 3x/year in British Columbia where she lives. All are welcome.
As always… let me know your thoughts. They’re always welcome.

Two Stories Collide – VIDEO

January 4, 2018

This is the feeling we all avoid: dangling. Caught between two worlds. Transitions. Good-byes. There’s something about shifting from one world to the next that causes us all (and yes, I am going to be so bold as to say ALL) of us to go unconscious, like taking your eyes of the road to change the channel. In that brief second anything can happen, and it does.

Think about it. There’s a reason we can’t find our keys, our phone, or where we took off our shoes. Copious amounts of books have been written about how to be ‘present’.  Why? Because transitioning is a challenge on multiple levels:

  1. THE BRAIN. Our circuitry doesn’t do blended thinking. We’re not a margarita, we’re a seven layer dip. We stack one thought on top of another, piled onto another one. We may have multiple thoughts all at once, but it’s seriously, despite what you may think, our brain doesn’t mash together like pastry dough. You can’t gently knead it from one form into another. It doesn’t work that way. Did you know your capacity to have a ‘mix’ of multiple thoughts isn’t even physically possible until you’re five to seven old? Seriously… so all of us parents have to chill out a bit with our Kindergarten expectations. Our kid’s brains can’t hold two thoughts at the same time for awhile.  Those of us seven years old and up reading this, barely can too. We don’t blend our thinking, we switch tracks.  _____________________________________
  2. OUR FEELINGS. Enough said. While feelings are also a bi-product of our physical body in connection to the imprints and neuro-pathways we’ve created in our brain, they have been known to swoop in, dive bomb us with mini explosions, sometimes flooding us with a challenge to learn how to swim in the waves. They feel all mixed up. They do not seem like a seven layer dip, they feel like the aftermath mess of a holiday party. _____________________________________
  3. OUR EXPECTATIONS. We arrive home. In one moment we are turning our car off. In the next moment we are reaching to remove the keys from the ignition and we already have a thought in our head. Right? It’s probably something like: Did anyone think about dinner or do I have to? or Damn, I forgot to…, or Yay!!! I’m home!!! I’m so tired… or Okay, don’t forget to do this… this… and this… before you go to bed.  There are other, harder thoughts you may be having too. This thing called life is one long list of to do’s and measure-ups and our expectations keep us moving. It’s not just our body which is tired when we hit the pillow, our brain is too.

These are the everyday reasons why transitions can challenge us, and there are bigger, more dramatic ones too:

  • Grief
  • Anxiety
  • Exhaustion
  • Detachment
  • Panic
  • Despair
  • Emptiness
  • and many more.

There are multiple reasons why we choose to slip away from one moment into the void of a next one without acknowledging the micro-transition we are in, and that’s what change is, a series of micro-transitions.

One breath to the next.

One feeling to the next.

One noticing to the next.

One pang.

One swell.

One wink.

One tear.

One thought.

One impulse.

One step.

One one one one one – on to another – one one one one one – to another one one one one one. That’s what change is.

Some days like New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Week, we enter a forced transition. One year closes and within a micro-transition we are thrust into the fireworks of a new one. Some of us don’t like being told what to do so  time becomes a ‘construct’, others of us love structure and in light of the New Year, we’re on the hunt for the best day-timer ever, some of us choose to not invest at all, in any of it and we just go to the party.

Not right.

Not wrong.

Not attached, nor detached.

It’s something that happens every year on this human plane called our life – two stories collide called New Year’s Eve (and week) and some of us get lost in it for very personal and logical reasons.

Here’s what I want you to know: You’re okay. You’re good. You’ve got this. You are not your feelings, or time, or your thoughts. You are YOU, and there’s a hell of a lot of shit going on inside of you during a transition.

I got you right now, which means you got you too.

Happy New Year.

Because given a choice between saying:  Shitty New Year! or Unconscious New Year! or Scary New Year! I am choosing, in this micro-transition to wish you a HAPPY one.

I got you.

xxTinaO

Want more of the TinaOShow? Subscribe and come on in.

TinaO is a Writer, Story Coach, and Host of the TinaOShow, collecting and telling Stories from the Core. She’s the co-owner of The LEAP Learning Lab with Gina Best, and the other half of The Writer’s Compass with Meribeth Deen. She says: Stories are like toddlers, they will follow you around, tugging, hanging off of you until you listen to them. 

Why Write? – VIDEO

September 18, 2017

Do you write for the love of language?

Do you write to learn?

To fall in?

To discover?

Why do you write?

Let’s keep this really simple. Meribeth and I write because it’s how we connect with ourselves, with you, and with the world. Language is like oxygen for us. Writing is Breathing. Writing is your birthright.

Seriously, it is.

Here are some thoughts we shared under an umbrella on a rainy day on the West Coast. We’re a little pixelated because this started out as a Facebook Live so it’s been downloaded and uploaded a few times… but hey, it’s not about how we look, it’s about the message right?

What is important for you to claim, to understand, to share, to experience, to love, to deepen with?

Here’s to YOU and YOUR WRITING…

with support,

TinaO & Meribeth

TinaO and Meribeth Deen are the creators of The Writer’s Compass, a method of writing that encourages being lost as a way to create, connect and deliver writing from the core. Want to join in our online writing group? Check out our Private Facebook Group: Core Story Writers here. You can also find our programs: WRITE and PUBLISH on The Leap Learning Lab.

Pay What You Can and Pay it Forward to Live Your Best Story – VIDEO

July 21, 2017

 

I didn’t get to where I am in life by doing all of the heavy lifting myself. The truth is, almost every significant experience, and I do mean life changing, has come to me through a leg up. I have rarely, if ever had a breakthrough in my professional or personal life getting there on my own. For real.

Sometimes my social conditioning gets the better of me and I can feel embarrassed about it. I too hear things in my head like:

  • If it’s meant to be it’s up to me.

  • Raise the bar.

  • or this ugly one, raise the bar – trim the fat.

  • The cream will rise to the top

  • Your only limit is you

  • I can and I will

  • It never gets easier, you just get better

But my experience has always been this:

  • If it’s meant to be, ask for help

  • Raise your bar by receiving the gifts coming your way

  • Raise the bar of humanity by allowing everybody in

  • Your only limitation is your unwillingness to lift and be lifted

  • I can because we will

  • Community makes things easier

 

Live Your Best Story

I grew up in rental housing. My dad fell apart after our mom died and when he was laid off in his 50s he never recovered emotionally or financially, leaving the many of us (blended family of 11 – some at home, some not) to get by on my step-mom’s slightly above minimum wage bakery lady pay. The only reason I did, or had anything was because one, I worked for it and two, people helped me and three, I understood what it felt like to be grateful.

I somehow missed the pride gene around this stuff because I didn’t seem to care when someone bought me lunch, I said thank you instead. I wasn’t ashamed to wear my sister’s hand-me-downs. Are you kidding? I was thrilled to wear her grown up stuff!  I learned how to get by on busfare in my pocket, and if I didn’t have that, how to walk and read at the same time (and walk I did!). My practice was: yes please, thank you and what can I do to help?

And I didn’t feel like a charity case either.

Weird right?

Well, not to me.

The first act of kindness I remember learning from was just after my mom passed.  I’m pretty sure it had happened only weeks before and my grade three class was going to Stanley Park. The field trip was really kinda no big deal but the student teacher, Ms. Soleil was. She was the first one to show me what lifting others looks like. After a long day at the beach and hanging with the geese, we were on our way back on the public bus when one of my classmates, Sukvinder was targeted. He was only eight years old, and two young men flipped his melting icecream cup over on his head because of his ethnicity. Our South Vancouver neighbourhood was changing and the once uuber white community was rapidly welcoming an influx of East Indian and Asian families. You know what I remember about my childhood? I didn’t see skin colour. I didn’t notice hair texture. I didn’t register differences. I had friends. That’s it that’s all. So when Sukvinder was picked on by a bunch of teenagers, I couldn’t make sense of it. I was shocked and totally spellbound by Ms. Soleil’s response. She stood up like a super-hero with a furrowed brow and laser eyes, and with fierce, active indignation, she marched those racist boys off the bus so fast they didn’t know what was happening. She was awesome, and her protection of Sukvinder’s self-esteem left a lasting impression on me.

Her action said to me We are all worthy.

She’s also the teacher who sent me home with a photo from that day with a note on the back saying “what a pleasure you are to teach and I’m so sorry about the passing of your mom”.  She was the only teacher who said anything. I remembered that. She wasn’t afraid to acknowledge, or to lift.

Live Your Best Story

Because of this and so many more countless situations where I was the kid, or the grown up who couldn’t figure out how to make it work – and yet was still offered an opportunity to rise up, I’ve never really had an attachment to the belief of CAN or CAN’T.  I won’t say I’m an eternal optimist, because trust me, I’m not. I’m wicked skeptical. I don’t believe in rules though I do recognize them. I don’t follow deadlines, though I’m aware of them. When someone says you’re not allowed, I think, really? We’ll see.

It’s not that I’m cocky (though I can be),

or that I’m irresponsible (though trust me, I can be that too).

It’s not that I’m contrary (though it can look like that),

or that I refuse to follow the rules (I just don’t sometimes).

It’s not that I think I’m above it or that I live in some kind of Steve Jobs reality distortion field (I wish!).

It’s just that my experience has always been LIFE MOVES when WE DO.

Sometimes, there’s a way.

Sometimes, there’s a hand.

Sometimes, you can even when it looks like you can’t.

That’s been my experience.

For this reason, Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat reconnecting you back to your own voice of timeless wisdom has always been made accessible to anyone who wants to come. The weekend, created and facilitated by Nicolle Nattrass, Carolyn Nesbitt and I, and held at Xenia Retreat Centre on Bowen Island is now starting it’s fifth year.  As such, we’re ready to make our accessible pricing official.

New Pricing for Live Your Best Story

#1 PAY WHAT YOU CAN (with a $100 non refundable deposit)

or #2 PAY IT FORWARD ($695)

and yes… you can pay what you can now and pay it forward later. 

 

Here is how it works: for as little as a $100 non-refundable deposit or as much as $695, (and anything in between) you can book one of our 36 spots/year (we hold the retreat 3x with 12 participants in each weekend Oct/Feb/May).

I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor and here’s what I know about me, neither financial position was a reflection of whether I deserved something or not. Afford it? Maybe, maybe not, but deserve? No.

And I’m going to rattle a few cages here. The whole conversation about ‘if you want it you’ll find the money to make it happen’ – is part of an old paradigm which no longer serves us. While it’s original intention was to EMPOWER people to raise their head, square their shoulders and keep bravely stepping forward, it’s now become a way to price based on perceived worth or even worse, fear of not being worthy. The price points for work meant to help people is beginning to divide us. There are those who can afford personal development, and those who cannot. Or worse, there are those who are empowered enough to attract money into their lives, and those who are not. Yikes… stretch the concept a bit farther and we can get into the whole winner/loser perspective. I’m speaking with broad strokes here of course, but I think you follow me. Here’s a prime example (and I usually like Brian Tracy): 

Live Your Best Story

 

Who wants to be a part of that kind of divisive and disempowering conversation?  The way I see it, we’re the ones throwing ice cream now – only our target is the loser who is choosing not to ‘start’.

Here’s what I see… some people sell stuff at a price more than my mortgage or monthly grocery bill for a family of five. It’s not that their product isn’t WORTH the price – it’s not about worthiness at all. It’s about accessibility, and as someone who values deeply those who have lifted me, I’d like to fan the flames on that kind of practice.

BTW – Accessibility is not about charity, it’s offering a hand.

and it’s not about rescuing either, it’s about creating a space.

Because time and time again I’ve been on the receiving end of such grace and as such, I get it. Now it’s my turn.

On Friday night at Live Your Best Story we always open with “and my wish for you this weekend is…”, and so today, my wish for all of us is to offer more accessibility in our pricing out there. What if we started asking:  How can I help more? How can I serve more? How can I offer what I do in a way that honours as many people as possible AND myself.  

Now that’s abundance:  many, more, all – not just some. There’s no scarcity thinking here.

Imagine if our pricing wasn’t a reflection of ”worth”, but rather of our humanity.

That sounds pretty worthy to me.

You?

Live Your Best Story

Want to check out REGISTRATION DETAILS for Live Your Best Story? We only host the retreat three times per year with a maximum of 12 spots per retreat or 36 spots/year.

You can place your $100 deposit now and choose your dates later!  Click here for more about the weekend, and click here to register. 

 

TinaO is a Core Story Specialist and a Program Director of PUBLISH with Meribeth Deen for The LEAP Learning Lab. She’s a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub to Live, Give and Be Your Story, plus the deep listening weekend retreat Live Your Best Story. She’s been in the PR and Marketing world since she could put words together and has been a professional network marketer for over twelve years. She teaches: selling isn’t slimey, marketing isn’t make-believe and writing won’t give you an aneurysm (it’s not hard). You can be yourself in all that you do. In fact, that’s what the world is waiting for. 

Why I Love Jake Hassel-Gren a TinaO List to Love – BLOG

May 14, 2017

We make some people harder to love because they defy our societal and cultural norms. They’re pure. They don’t mince expectations with filtered down possibilities so everyone else is comfortable. They don’t stop to give you their spot in the sun because they know we all have one.  They think: Why create shade when there’s enough heat for all?

That’s Jake.

She’s highly misunderstood, and it’s precisely what I love about her. What you see is who she is and what she wants for you is everything.  Tricky to believe these days: someone who actually wants the best for you because she understands what it is.

And therein lies the rub.

Her standards are high.

She comes by it honestly. She was raised that way (but that’s next week’s story). Here’s a glimpse though. I can’t help myself.

“My parents are truly incredible human beings. They exposed me to life across it’s multiple landscapes. I had it all. During the week, life in a fine home with velvet curtains and stunning design and then weekends running barefoot in the grass with scads of artists and hippies. There  was no room for judgement in my life, only experiences. My parents gave us and showed us what the best truly is: a full and confident life.”

No wonder I liked her immediately even though I wasn’t sure I should.  She challenged me right from the get-go.  There was no nicey-nicey dumbing it down small-talk. She asked what I did. I told her I’m a Core Story Specialist. I help people articulate exactly who they are and intrinsically, why they do what they do.

And she got it.

“Cool”, she said.  And that was it.

I liked that.

She didn’t offer any polite ‘filler’ conversation. She just moved on to what was next.

What you see is who she is and what she wants for you is everything.

I’ll come completely clean on this one, we work together now and I offered to write this article because I feel lucky to know her. Holy Hannah and mutha of all that is F-bomb sacred, Jake Hassel-Gren has a MASSIVE VISION for female entrepreneurs. She (and I) can drop more F-bombs than a bus load of 14 year olds on Dorritos. The difference is kids do it ’cause they can, and she does it ’cause sometimes it’s called for.  Some moments deserve a capital F in the front with a big ole K at the back.

The truth is though, as much as I send her up now, I completely couldn’t figure her out when we first met.  “I’ll connect you with my friend Jake”, said Charlene SanJenko of PowHERhouse Women’s Media Group to me last August. “She’s the woman behind The LEAP Learning Lab. You two can talk about building a program to help women bring their book from concept to publish-ready.  Jake is as tired as you and I are of seeing women continue to work in silos. We have to change how we do things and Jake’s LEAP Learning Lab is all about that.”

Where does she live? I asked.

“Toronto”, said Charlene.

Oh gawd I thought, not another perfectly coiffed Toronto woman to snicker at my hippy hair and make snide comments about my closet full of Crocs.  Sure… let’s talk. I thought. We’ll see. 

We got on a video chat in September and in perfect post summer form, I had sun-fried frizzy hippy hair and was still bumbling around with beach brain struggling to finish complete thoughts and sentences as we shared big ideas about what would make the lives of female entrepreneur’s easier AND more powHERful.  Jake, once upon a time a VP in the banking world, now an entrepreneur on a mission to create a global, world class online Community of Practice for women and set a platinum standard for online learning, showed up exactly as she is: stunning, primed and ready for anything.

I’m going to write another piece about Jake next week. This is just the beginning.  It’s going to take a lot more than one article to capture this woman’s story. I spent a few hours on the phone with her doing what I do best, which is pulling together who she is at the Core so I can understand why she cares so deeply about women taking their spot, as she calls it.

For today though, my focus is on WHY Jake rather than WHO is Jake. I want you to know why I decided to hitch my online learning wagon to LEAP, and you know me, my reasons always have less to do with business and everything to do with the person.  A long time ago, in an entrepreneurial class I took in my early twenties, the teacher at the front of the room said “never do business with someone you wouldn’t have over for dinner”.  That truth has stayed with me.  So here’s a bit about Jake and why I think she’s pretty dang spectacular.

TinaO’s Top Ten Reasons Why I Love Jake Hassel-Gren.

Do women even say that about women anymore? I do.

#1 – She’s wicked, and every other totally awesome and righteous word I used in the 80’s. Remember how the 80’s defied logic? There was only one direction, and it was UP.  That’s how it feels to work beside Jake. We’re going somewhere and it’s gonna be florescent green, Madonna awesome.

#2 – She likes dogs. Seriously, her dogs have matching winter jackets and she’d never treat them like an accessory though they will look fantastic.  She’s a ‘small dog’ parent and yes she does post funny dog videos on Facebook.

#3 – She speaks artist. Okay, I’m stretching the truth a little (maybe a lot). She doesn’t actually SPEAK artist, but she FEELS artist which is harder and far more vulnerable to do.  I couldn’t hang with this chick if we didn’t connect in this way.

#4 – She wears red lipstick like it’s a signature. Red is primary. It isn’t made from something else by anything else. Perfect.

BTW, it’s Chanel. I asked.

#5 – She can flip you the bird while screaming your praises. Expression is like that. It’s a full contact sport. Jake does life out loud and what she doesn’t say with her words, she’ll tell you with her eyes.

#6 – It took less than 3 seconds for my phone to ring when I told her about my sister passing. Not a text. She phoned. Who calls anyone anymore? Jake.

#7 – She asks “How are you?” at least twice a week. In her world of ‘best’, of ‘do’, of ‘be’ she still finds the time to connect with those she cares about. She says things like “I was thinking about you today. How did your doctor’s appointment go?”, or “How are you holding up?”, and “Do you need anything?”.  Again, I ask you, how many people do you have in your life who do that regularly?

#8 – She calls me out on my greatness and I’m not talkin’ blowing sunshine up my butt. It’s not about compliments, it’s about saying what is so. She’s the first to say “You know that. You do that. You are that.” – When she says it, I believe it. When I say it, I talk myself out of it. I’d rather listen to her.

#9 – She loves football. Okay, so I grew up with too many brothers and I can’t stand watching sports on tv or in an arena, but I frickin’ love that she’s over-the-top, beyond-all-understanding, geeked-out C R A Z Y about The New England Patriots. I gotta respect that kinda passion you know?

#10 – When I asked her what is ‘home’ for her, and what is her greatest medicine? She said LOVE. 

Jake is a big game of life player.  She gets up every morning and asks: How can I be of service today? Some of us are harder to understand because our whole package doesn’t match the stories set up and made-up by others on the outside. Jake is like that.

I thought she was tough. She is.

I thought she was an uncompromising high achiever. She is.

I thought she was opinionated, driven and sharp. She is that too.

I thought she cared about success. She does.

Yours.

and Hers.

and Mine.

Because in Jake’s world, you don’t have to step into the shade to give someone else a piece of the sun.

The best is meant for all of us, and a woman need only stand and claim her spot to know that for herself.

This is PART ONE of TinaO’s Exclusive on Jake Hassel-Gren. Watch for Jake’s Core Story in PART TWO coming out next week. For more about Jake’s LEAP Learning Lab, you can visit her site. 

TinaO is a Core Story Specialist and a Program Director of PUBLISH with Meribeth Deen for The LEAP Learning Lab. She’s a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub to Live, Give and Be Your Story, plus the deep listening weekend retreat Live Your Best Story. She’s been in the PR and Marketing world since she could put words together and has been a professional network marketer for over twelve years. She teaches: selling isn’t slimey, marketing isn’t make-believe and writing won’t give you an aneurysm (it’s not hard). You can be yourself in all that you do. In fact, that’s what the world is waiting for. 

Core Story Writing Prompt – Where the Wild Things Are – VIDEO

April 20, 2017

Our communication is only ever as powerful as the core we’re willing to plug into.  It’s kind of like saying a team is only as strong as it’s weakest link or, the strength of how you start ‘off the block’ often sets up the fire of how you finish. Writing from the core is like being powered straight from the source. It takes courage and muscle and a lot of practice. Using writing prompts can help with that.

Every week in my Core Story Club (which I run with my writing partner Meribeth Deen), we post a weekly writing prompt. Today’s is inspired by Maurice Sendak’s book, Where the Wild Things Are which I read as a child and loved so much so that I had to find it and read it to my three boys as they grew up.

Remember this?

I swear I can still smell the carpet in the library I first heard this in.

 

Sendak’s book won multiple awards including the 1964 Caldecott Medal, the most Notable Children’s Books of 1940-1970 (ALA), the 1981 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Illustration, the 1963 & 1982 Fanfare Honor List (The Horn Book), the Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 1963, 1982 (NYT), and the 1964 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award. It was later made into a stunningly evocative film in 2009 by the celebrated director Spike Jonze. I frickin’ love it.

Today, I’m asking you, if you were in the land of Where the Wild Things Are…

What would you do?

How would you live?

What might you say?

Where might you say it?

When might you care the most?

Who would you let yourself be?

Why would you roar?

 

Set your timer for 3 minutes and finish this sentence:  Where the Wild Things Are I…

Keep going – do not cross out

Keep writing – do not erase

Keep breathing – do not crumple up

What does your story want to tell you today?

 

Here’s the thing… I never post without doing it myself, so here is mine.

I’m setting the timer now.

Ready… Set… now I Go…

Where the wild things are I write like a demon. Words spill out of me and I don’t hold back. Where the wild things are I can see full colour and I say the things that my heart wants to sing. The truth is, I feel like I live where the wild things are anyway. I kinda am a wild thing. Okay, so I’m not kinda a wild thing, I am one. I’m afraid of that sometimes. Truly. I wear red because it reminds me that I am that. I wear red because it has a beginning, a middle and an end and the world understands it. Okay, so true that people have opinions about women who wear red. Lady in Red. Revlon Red. Red nails. Oh my goodness that makes me think of Cheap Trick and that album cover with the red leather pants. I was only nine years old when that album came out.  I had lots of opinions about women and men who wear red. I’m a wild thing and I hold on to my red purse, remember my red dock martins, eat red tomatoes and colour my hair red (well sometimes) when I’m brave enough to let the world know how wild I am.  I like primary red. I like that you can’t blend it to make it. It just is. It’s red, wild and wonderful. I’m a wild thing – what can I say?

What do I learn from this?

RED is an expression of my core story even if it’s a secretive part for me. It’s how I share my wild self in a contained kind of way.

How might I use this?

Well… look at my logo.  Interesting right?

Here’s another way to use these prompts.  Our stories come through us in different ways.  How I share my story as a writer is different than how I share as a speaker. I did this writing prompt as a vlog too.  I still timed it. I still did the stream of consciousness thingy without filtering.

JOIN IN THE CORE STORY CLUB HERE

 

TinaO is a Core Story Specialist and a Program Director of PUBLISH with Meribeth Deen for The LEAP Learning Lab. She’s a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub to Live, Give and Be Your Story, plus the deep listening weekend retreat Live Your Best Story. She’s been in the PR and Marketing world since she could put words together and has been a professional network marketer for over twelve years. She teaches: selling isn’t slimey, marketing isn’t make-believe and writing won’t give you an aneurysm (it’s not hard). You can be yourself in all that you do. In fact, that’s what the world is waiting for.