“September. It’s like time clicks over from molasses to wine.”
So true, isn’t it?
I had a glorious summer of working when I wanted to, on things that resonated with me, and now it’s time to hit-the-ground with it all and put things back into action. I have re-stocked the pantry for cooking and nesting and making out with my slow-cooker, I have hauled out the winter boots and sweaters and I’ve made a pot of tea almost every afternoon to keep me company as I write.
And I am not alone in my Sprint September ways, am I? I hear from clients that kids are back in school, and it’s already mayhem. Some are juggling businesses, and gaining parents, and epic exhaustion as the light seems to fade earlier and earlier as we tumble toward the shortest day of the year in just a few months.
I have been offering some simple solutions all week in these calls, and so I am here to share them with you, too. (You don’t even have to be working with me—aren’t you lucky?)
I hope you are easing into the transition to fall, and as always, if I can support you in any way, you know where to find me.
Until next week,
Tara
Get Real, Sexy Real.
Tara
Tara Caffelle is a Relationship and Communication coach. She is passionate about creating connected, almost-uncomfortable-to-watch relationships that are based in Sexy Communication and Big Lives worth rolling around in.
Tara is based in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver and offers custom-designed coaching programs. To claim your free 90+ minutes and see what might be possible for your own super coupledom (or persondom), find a time here.
Have a question for Tara? Have an idea for a Hump Day conversation? How about just some thoughts about this thing called life? Let us know here. We’ll answer back. We promise.
I woke up feeling mad and trapped this morning. Lets be honest, as I have almost every morning this week (minus the two days I had a friend over and was so happy to be distracted with her awesomeness and her bright eyed kids), and geeze louise, it’s because I’ve finally answered the door and let the money monster in.
‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ as they say. No, money isn’t my enemy and all of you know it all money peeps who are prone to spout off all kinds of positive affirmation sound bytes can just relax. I know: money is just energy and it takes on whatever meaning we give it.
I get it.
What I’m really saying is that I’ve had an ‘if I ignore you long enough maybe you’ll just go away’ relationship with money for a long time and guess what? It did. Well, the dollars did, but the relationship didn’t.
Have you ever been the kid who pretends to be playing hide and seek? You know, the kid who hides wayyyyyyyyyy far away because she doesn’t want to play, doesn’t want to be found but also doesn’t want to say no to your game invitation either? That’s me. I’ve been in the money game forever but just pretending to play, slowly grumbling and sometimes even seething in the bushes.
That said, I have also been the all flashing teeth, bright eyes and POSITIVE mindset kid running running running and playing the game – one might even say I have WON a number of rounds of good ole hide and seek.
But that has never been sustainable for me. I always end up slipping away back to the bushes.
Interestingly enough, the kid I’ve never been is the one who is actually engaged in the game. You know, the kid who has chosen to play because she frickin’ loves the rules, loves the game, loves the win and can let loose in laughter when she loses. Oh my goodness, how many times have we heard, “it’s not about who wins or who loses, it’s about how you play the game”? – the secret sauce ain’t much of a secret is it? You gotta play, and more importantly, you gotta play like you wanna play, and when you do, sometimes you’ll win and sometimes you’ll lose but you’ll sure have a heck of a good time PLAYING…
Playing.
So that’s been my issue.
I don’t play. I’d really just rather not.
And when I do, I’m usually the reluctant player, and then worse, a judgemental player, and then worse than that – a resentful player.
Crap.
No wonder I woke up mad.
Ever feel like that???
The good news is, waking up to anything you’ve been hiding from will bring on all of the stages you’ve been avoiding. That’s called MOVING FORWARD. It’s just a blechhhhy part. No wonder I’ve been ignoring this whole mess.
Who wants to feel like this? Yet here it is.
So the deal is:
If I can overcome cancer, dehydration, radiation sickness and burn blisters in my throat, then grow through methodically building the muscle and endurance required to swim, bike and run a triathlon,
I guess I can walk through this fire too.
Oh boy, I guess I have a new mantra don’t I? But who wants to repeat that all the time? So instead, how about when you hear me say… “I can overcome…” – suffice it to say that I’m finishing the long windy proof in the pudding sentence in my head.
…I can do this too.
Even when I’m mad.
Today I’ll accept that being mad is just kinda like living out the feelings of being blistered.
Here are my musings – in the moment. Don’t worry, I’m rather contained. I gave the worst of it to Todd on our daily Saturday morning drive to the boat.
So this is where it all begins, or continues. I don’t know anymore. Oh mannnn my relationship with money is like a best selling romance novel – there’s hot and steamy sexy bits with page upon page of anticipation only to be dashed into sleepless nights and heartbreak in the end. It seems drama has kept me coming back for more every single time. How like a twenty-something I am, except I’m 45.
It’s not like I was raised with victim-ish helplessness around paying the bills. There was no yelling or tears or even deathly silence over our dinner table, but rather the clear unavoidable acceptance of just goin’ with the flow, accepting that what we have is all we needand bloody hell, we’ll survive just fine thanks. It’s those debilitating don’t ask don’t tell claws that have messed with my financial psyche. In our house both awesomely good and stupidly nasty surprises like: layoffs, dying cars, bad gambles and winning the legion meat draw happened, so our rag tag bunch of mis-matched sibling (eleven of us, some kids, some not), all pretty much learned not to invest in anything too deeply. Listen, our sandcastle got built up and kicked down daily in an exploding second. What’s to invest in? Why bother? It’s going to be all good right? It all finds its way? It all works out in the end…? Right?
Maybe.
So today, at 45yrs old, after growing up blue-collar broke, then saddled with theatre school student loan debt in my twenties, claiming bankruptcy after a failed marriage in my pre-thirties, making ‘gangsta’ big cash in my forties in the network marketing industry and now starting all over again after a career change, cancer and just plain craziness, it’s time to take on my money story. I think it’s probably a good idea to get that handled before I’m a half century old.
It’s time to step into my story as the main character instead of watching it unfold like a jaded audience member. Now there’s a frickin’ journey I have wished would just happen without me needing to be involved. Wouldn’t that be nice? Mmmmm imagine if financial freedom was as simple as picking a box full of donuts.
Apparently it doesn’t work like that.
So, here’s where it begins.
Champagne was needed.
If this speaks to you, follow along. I’ll be introducing you to my four financial avengers and support team in the weeks to come. They’ll be lifting my confused head out of my own ahemmmmm… you know what, for the next while.
They’re really cool. I think I’m going to buy them each an avenger cape with all the money I save over the next year. I’m sure they won’t let me be so frivolous.
You see, I have a big hairy audacious goal.
I want to buy a house in the Lower Mainland in the next two years. We have no savings, lots of debt, and a double income that adds up to just a single one – currently, but it looks like I’m going to change that. Remember that gangsta money I earned once before? Well, if I can do it once, I can do it again.
I think I just had to GIVE UP first. Clearly what I was doing wasn’t sustainable, and broken dreams cost more than unrealized ones.
So here’s to financial freedom. To what it really means, and not the lip service everyone seems to give it. I’ll write more about that later.
Come with…They say financial empowerment feels pretty good. I’m up for that.
It seems to me that in our relationships, it can seem like we’re all speaking different languages and missing our connections. We can feel alone, even when we’re surrounded by people who completely adore us because we are looking to be loved in a way that makes sense to us, but the same is true for every single person and there are many ways in which we love—these ways aren’t necessarily the same for everyone.
I spent the last week camping along the West Coast Trail with a dear friend of mine, and as we set up our home in the woods each evening and found the necessities of water, shelter and food, I noticed that he spoke the same Love Language as I did; we both performed Acts of Service for one another and it made for a pretty harmonious week. If he had been someone whose language was Words of Affirmation, we may have had some hiccups when I didn’t acknowledge him with praise and compliments. I was always very grateful for all he did to keep me safe and comfortable in the woods, obviously, but because that wasn’t the way he shows love, he wasn’t waiting for that from me.
In any case, this is an easy component to explore on the
way to SuperCouple-dom and provides an almost-guide to helping you and your partner to feel loved and seen by one another. I invite you to take the quiz with your partner and let me know what you notice about the love you feel you are receiving.
Here is the link to my video this week:
Get Real, Sexy Real.
Tara
Tara Caffelle is a Relationship and Communication coach. She is passionate about creating connected, almost-uncomfortable-to-watch relationships that are based in Sexy Communication and Big Lives worth rolling around in.
Tara is based in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver and offers custom-designed coaching programs. To claim your free 90+ minutes and see what might be possible for your own super coupledom (or persondom), find a time here.
Have a question for Tara? Have an idea for a Hump Day conversation? How about just some thoughts about this thing called life? Let us know here. We’ll answer back. We promise.
I thought this was about how I matter, and it is, but… so? Yes I’ve read all of the same books that you have and I get it, everything starts with me. Right? Nothing has the juice of connection until there’s a me in the center of my own picture and until we’re rooted in the me that is mine there is no hook that can reach out and in to you authentically.
Oh gawd that word, the A word: authentic.
I bet when those three syllables resurface in another ten years I may like them again, but for now, the A-word feels like it might be part of the problem.
Why?
Because we’ve named it and now it exists like a destination, or a flag if you will. We have a word for the missing it – it’s become the ingredient we’re all hoping will bring us an audience, or a tribe, or inner peace, that our authentic self will lead us to the next step, the next place that will lead us home so we can finally arrive.
We want authenticity now, and thats why there’s all this I-engine revving going on.
Who am I?
What do I want?
Where am I going?
What do I have to offer?
Can you hear it? The I that lives in the My?
What is My purpose?
What is My gift?
Who is My tribe?
And yes… I know, like I really know, because I teach this stuff too and I can spend a lot of time spouting off about this very subject, in fact here’s what I say in Live Your Best Story on Friday night: “You can’t get there from there, you can only get there from here, and tonight, all we are doing is experiencing what it feels like to stand in our here.” These I’s and My’s are all about owning what is HERE, our here, right here, no where else but here. It’s our dot on the page, our own personal Google beacon so we can see ourselves and be seen from space. We do all of this work on our I and our My because we’ve grown into master escape artists. The last thing any of us want to do is actually BE HERE, or even harder, BE HERE TOGETHER.
So we sign up for I courses, Me weekends and My workshops. We begin to get comfortable in our ability to take up space, let our voice me known, and have an opinion. We might even roar a bit. Wooooo that’s risky. We buy into the idea that if we’re not ‘pissing anybody off, we’re not taking any risks either’. We bite into our I am sandwich, and then we keep on eating.
Why then are we still hungry and/or just a little bit sick?
What’s that about?
Because I and Me and My and Mine may be perfect, but it’s not whole. It’s only half of the story right? That would seem logical wouldn’t it? But even that isn’t accurate because I, Me and My is in fact only a third, and if you’re still with me, actually only 1/4 of the whole. Ready?
Here’s what it is:
I
You
little we
BIG WE
Following the top three, we can ask: Does this serve me? Does this serve you? Does this serve us? It’s pretty simple to stand in each of those perspectives and know what to do. It’s even easier when we can recognize that each of us has a default position that we auto-pilot. Clearly, for those of you who have followed me for awhile, know that I have a very strong and habitual “I” position. How do you know that? How many selfies do I take??? Yup… lots. I’m suuuuuuper comfortable in the I position. My back-up pilot is the ‘little we’ position as in, I remember that when I post a ‘selfie’ about me, I do it in service of the ‘little we’ – here’s where I suggest the 4th option, or a 3B if that’s easier…
I call it the big ‘WE’ (and yes I’m totally riffing on David Brook’s idea of the big and little me in his book The Road to Character which I LOVE btw).
You still with me?
See, there’s a difference between the little we and thebig weand here it is:
Little we: Your team, your tribe, your community, your audience, your network, your connections.
What is the common denominator here? YOU as in ME, or I, as if we own it, or are the central character.
Here’s the BIG WE: Us, the planet, all, ever-after. What’s the common denominator? ALL, there’s no differentiation between you or me or we. There is no separation, or BOX to put us in because we ARE THE BOX.
as my husband would say: Dynamite BOOOOOOOOM! Kablammo – now what?
I’m working on a book called You Matter and so do I – and this is the theme I’m exploring. I’m taking a look at concepts like:
It doesn’t matter because I already do.
Who am I without words to describe me?
Where does resilience come from?
Finding freedom at the bottom.
What landing in your groove feels like and why.
How detachment might be a form of attachment to the BIG WE.
You matter because you are breathing, because you arrived, because you are here.
You matter and so do I is what I’m working on for delivery to all of you by October 29th 2016. There. It matters because it, as in the story that is coming, can now breathe too.
Big thank you to Meribeth Deen for nailing my thoughts to squiggles on a page. She helps me find words when I can’t see them or hear them yet.
xxT
TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and with her Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers Coaching Program, she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
I’m not going to think about this too much because if I do, I won’t write it. 20 minutes tops… here goes:
This letter is not a letter but a rant, a rub, a flag. It’s graffiti across my 40 something belly, ragged in permanent marker so it fades slowly, my shriek with no parachute, sprawled wide, turbulent and free, the dark velvet of Guiness spilling across the bar.
Bartender smiles.
He’s seen this before.
He knows what day it is.
Truth time. The moment after. The glance back when wisdom hasn’t arrived yet. Someone sits down and tries to chat but all you can do is the no-talk-small-talk, either that or ignore him completely. I pick up my pen and flip to a new page.
Strangers think writers are mysterious but probably crazy. Sexy too, but only …over there.
Bartender smirks knowingly at the stranger, then tosses a soft smile to you.
Dear twenty something,
you write.
Dear lost and jumbled, frenetic and free, torn up and trying… so much trying…
Listen, this tearing wildness that screams through you is worth it. All your hunger and heart break and panic for knowledge, to be sure, to contain, to fret, to flee, to love, and crush and blame and run, to transform and drift… just drift, drift
to claim drama by colouring with pastels, breaking them when pushing too hard and then scratching a new image with your fingers. The purple, red and golden lines beneath your nails say it was worth it.
To plunge into the breathless race of belonging, head spinning, drunk with clamoring still – somewhere anywhere.
To recognize how little you truly know. Claiming THIS IS HONEST at 4:30am.
Oh my but you are such a beautiful idiot.
You run.
every day.
Searching for knowledge, to land, to decide to follow through, to stand for something that doesn’t change in the next second. To be anything but what you are, this beautiful…
idiot.
So beautiful.
And you just don’t know it yet.
Dear twenty something, never stop. Running. Fling yourself forever. Press on. This mess. Love. Fucking Love. Risk sounding like a crazy poet jumping rope with yarn of seaweed, be the child woman with sand in her hair.
Dear 20 something – because you’ll never know.
And that’s just so…
idiotic. yes. and beautiful too.
xxT
On July 23rd on beautiful Bowen Island, just outside of Vancouver, BC at Rivendell Retreat Centre, I am offering Writing as Witness, a one day retreat into the story and/or wisdom inside of you that wants to be heard.
The day includes: Walking meditation, Writing, baring Witness to others, and witnessing our own wisdom. The retreat time will be as private or as connected as you want it to be, which means, you needn’t share your writing or insights if it doesn’t feel right.
There will be a few ‘how to’s and offered best practices’, but mostly, the day is a guided conversation with your-self and the ‘practice’ is in the following of how and what you are wanting to have heard.
Journals are provided. Snacks are also offered however, please bring a picnic lunch to enjoy outside (weather permitting).
July 23rd 2016, 10am-4pm, maximum 16 participants.
Cost is $79 for the day.
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TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and with her Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers Coaching Program, she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
In this week’s VLOG we’re talking about your biggest, craziest, wildest dreams and how you might make them come true – the secret *might* just be telling your partner what it is…
And here is the video:
WHAT ARE YOUR WILDEST DESIRES…?
Tara Caffelle is a Relationship and Communication coach. She is passionate about creating connected, almost-uncomfortable-to-watch relationships that are based in Sexy Communication and Big Lives worth rolling around in.
Tara is based in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver and offers custom-designed coaching programs. To claim your free 90+ minutes and see what might be possible for your own super coupledom (or persondom), find a time here.
Have a question for Tara? Have an idea for a Hump Day conversation? How about just some thoughts about this thing called life? Let us know here. We’ll answer back. We promise.
Years ago, I painted a giant acrylic canvas and was never quite happy with it. It sat on my easel wanting attention until I moved, when it was tucked beside a pile of books in a storage unit. I pulled it out more than a year later when I was finally ready to complete it. On the swirling backgrounds of plums, creams, and greys, I painted this quote by Julia Child: “Cooking is like love; it should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”
And I still didn’t like it. I wanted to paint over it, but was hesitant. While I waited for inspiration to strike again, I hung it in the entry of my house.
When I was visiting my parents at their mega-RV- mansion in Arizona last December, I was discussing art with my mom. I told her about this painting that I was never really happy with. I flipped through the hundreds of photos in my phone to find a shot of the painting to show her.
Expecting the obligatory mom response of “Oh, honey! It’s beautiful!”, I was puzzled when she looked at the photo and remained silent.
“Well?” I prompted.
“Um. Yeah. It’s pretty bad, honey.”
Well, at least she called me “honey.”
Earlier this year, I was at a retreat and nabbed some alone time with an actual professional artist who had been telling us about the “Love Sandwich.” That’s where we request feedback to be snuggled in love by asking first what works about a piece, then asking what doesn’t work, and then asking for more feedback of what is great about it. We’re all human and feedback can be hard to take. This seemed like a nice approach.
I told her about my mom and the Julia Child painting and she visibly cringed. She reminded me about The Love Sandwich method and invited me to use it next time I was asking for someone’s thoughts about something I had made.
Armed with this sandwich idea, I continued on with my work, and wouldn’t you know it, over the course of one week three clients were struggling to have difficult conversations with well-meaning loved ones. And thus the Conversation Sandwichwas born!
The principle is the same, but instead of asking for feedback it’s about asking for what we need in relationship.
The Conversation Sandwich – Top
We start our sandwich, the bread and mayo, if you will, with delicious acknowledgment:
I am so touched that you want to spend time with our newborn and support us…
I have missed you so much and it hurts me that we haven’t talked very much…
You are such an special part of my life and it’s really important to me that we spend time together…
The Conversation Sandwich – Middle
And then we add the meat, which is the request we have of the situation so that it be different:
…and I would love your support in giving us time as a newborn family before we let the world in.
Can we talk about that…?
…And even though I’ve moved to a different city, I would love to find ways for us to stay in touch. Do you ever use Skype…?
…And it feels like we’ve both been really preoccupied. I would love it if we could make a plan to go for a walk…
The Conversation Sandwich – Bottom
The sandwich is complete when we add the lettuce (let us!) and the second piece of bread:
…Our baby is so lucky to have you as a grandmother and I’m so lucky to have you in my corner on this!
…I would feel so much less homesick if I could have regular chats with you about what I’m missing back home…we could even enjoy some wine and make a date of it!
…I have some time next week and I have been dying to ask you about your kitchen renovation!
See? Easy. Acknowledge/spackle on some sincere flattery, make a request, and throw in some sweetness. Done.
Happy conversatin’! I so love sharing these thoughts with you each week and I invite you to let me know about your riotous success as you ask for what you want. Your healthy communication is really important to me. (See what I did there? SANDWICH.)
Get Real, Sexy Real
Tara Caffelle
Tara Caffelle is a Relationship and Communication coach. She is passionate about creating connected, almost-uncomfortable-to-watch relationships that are based in Sexy Communication and Big Lives worth rolling around in.
Tara is based in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver and offers custom-designed coaching programs. To claim your free 90+ minutes and see what might be possible for your own super coupledom (or persondom), find a time here.
Have a question for Tara? Have an idea for a Hump Day conversation? How about just some thoughts about this thing called life? Let us know here. We’ll answer back. We promise.
I’m intuitive and that doesn’t make me special or any different from you. I write to listen to what I already know but can’t hear.
It started last summer after a cancer diagnosis. I don’t call it ‘my cancer’, because I don’t choose to personalize it that way. It never belonged to me, nor do I take ownership of the creation of it. I may have ‘asked’ for a shift, or ‘attracted’ a change, but I most certainly did not ask for cancer.
That said, a black sticky-outy thingy arrived as the messenger for my particular ‘asked for’ shift.
In processing this I began to write in a way I hadn’t before. I’ve always had a journal… yawwwnnnnnnnn and as you can see, I had become rather tired of that. I’ve written poetry forever, but somehow that felt too dark, almost too intimate. Frankly too indulgent really. I’ve also written opinion pieces when I’m wrestling with things as a way to figure them out. Here’s one of my favourites, only because the sheer writing of it filled me up when I’d been feeling empty. But writing that way seemed far too daunting and frankly too cerebral a process for what I was aching for.
Nothing fit. At that time in my life, I had been ready to roll out my own life’s red-carpet and reallllly get shit done. At the time of the diagnosis, my business had just started to rebound after a self-enforced, four year hibernation, my husband and I had finally closed a painful chapter in our marriage – together, and our children were growing up. Life was ready for a new growth stage. I was standing on the precipice of right now, in the clearing, ready to act, to start, to begin again, and a stranger broke into my house. My body. My throat. Full stop.
The last bloody thing I wanted to do was write about it. I didn’t want to listen to my own self-reflecting. I didn’t want to ‘make friends’ with the cancer. I didn’t want to fight it, to ‘kick it’, to give IT any more of my life-force energy than it was already attempting to gobble up. I didn’t want to be in my own skin, let alone go into the depths of more self-discovery or listen to the words in my head. Good gawd. I’m a blabber mouth, blab blab blab blab blab. All I ever do is talk, and wonder, and question and press further to understand. Do you ever feel like you just don’t want to learn anymore?
It’s that place where entering one rabbit hole opens up another to lead to again more and more and then still more. How exhausting. I was empty. I know now, that’s how the cancer got in. I had left my post. I was too tired and forgot to lock the door. I probably didn’t even care really, if I’m truly honest. The door was abandoned open and the gate was swinging wide on it’s hinge. I did not have the energy to learn anything else. Instead,
I wanted to land.
I wanted to come home.
I wanted answers.
So I began to ask questions. I asked about the cancer, about being tired, about love, about soul mates, about purpose and work. I asked about my career and whether I had one, about being an artist, about my skills, about heaviness and healing. I asked and asked and I still ask today.
Sometimes the answers are deep like this one:
Dear Tina, what are the parts of my life that I must release to finish the journey?
…you are asked to release doubt. Between you and your call on your soul is doubt. Tina this circle is complete when the mask of doubt is dropped and transforms into the essence of what it truly is: curiosity, intrigue, fascination, perplexed, passion, drive. Tina there is shame around your curiosity and it has become doubt…
Sometimes they are informative:
Dear Tina, how are you today?
…Well you haven’t been taking great care of me these last few days. You haven’t been outside. You haven’t cooked anything and you haven’t written. These three things are your life blood and without them you will get sick, remain sick and everything else is just a measure to balance the toxicity instead of simply saying no to it. …saying no to what is not your life-force and saying yes to what is your life-force.
Sometimes it’s challenging.
Dear Tina, What is the story of this anger?
…Oh Tina, it’s before you – it’s young, it’s so young. When you are ready to go there you will.
Today, I woke up in a fog and with a headache. I went back to bed to try to sleep it off. I woke up still heavy with it. I went to my desk. I pulled out my ‘to do’ list. I cracked it open pretending this is what I was supposed to do. Then I looked over at my Dear Tina Journal and knew that was the call for me. Today’s message was so ridiculously banal and perfect. Here it is:
Dear Tina, Something is wrong. What is it? Tina something is wrong. What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it?
Tina you are chasing again. Chasing the money. Chasing the life. Chasing the body. You are acting out and holding back.
My tummy is upset. Why?
Because of restaurant food. That is all.
I have a headache. Why?
Because you’ve been wrapping your body up in knots.
I’m in a fog. What do I do?
You do what needs to be done. You sleep.
Why does everything seem so stupid?
Your period is coming.
Oh right. That’s what it is.
You are chasing the money. Chasing the body. Chasing the peace. You are still fighting the shift Tina.
No coffee. No, low, No, low wine. No sugar. More gardening and veggies. This fog you are in is self induced. We wouldn’t want a fog for you. You have everything you need. Your children are happy. Your marriage is strong. Your network is with you. You can rest in your Arbonne business. You have everything you need. Simply show up and do. You needn’t push. When you push, you get angry and push back. Pushing for you is counter productive.
Find the groove Tina.
Live in the groove of it all.
You got this.
This one made my laugh. You got this? Ha! Has my higher self just entered into today’s date. Who am I to judge?
The message was clear.
#1 – my period is coming. Let go of high intensity today. How ridiculously simple is that?
#2 – the insight is that I’m chasing again and it’s taking me away from my centre. It’s a familiar feeling so when it landed I knew exactly what it meant.
#3 – the take away, because there is always a take-away, ‘pushing for me is counter productive, find the groove instead.’
Why do I share all of this with you? For lots of reasons. It’s part of what I’m designed to do. I write to share and in the sharing, you all become part of my own ‘witness protection program’. When you witness me, I can hear my own voice. So thank you for being my witness today. I also do this because I want you to see how accessible your inner-wisdom is to you. I want you to see how, with just a few breaths and patience you can come home to yourself, for yourself. For some this practice becomes their prayer, for others it’s their meditation and still more, simply, their listening.
All of us are intuitive. All of us are more than our five senses. All of us can listen our way out of a fog as I did today.
On July 23rd on beautiful Bowen Island, just outside of Vancouver, BC at Rivendell Retreat Centre, I am offering Writing as Witness, a one day retreat into the story and/or wisdom inside of you that wants to be heard.
The day includes: Walking meditation, Writing, baring Witness to others, and witnessing our own wisdom. The retreat time will be as private or as connected as you want it to be, which means, you needn’t share your writing or insights if it doesn’t feel right.
There will be a few ‘how to’s and offered best practices’, but mostly, the day is a guided conversation with your-self and the ‘practice’ is in the following of how and what you are wanting to have heard.
Journals are provided. Snacks are also offered however, please bring a picnic lunch to enjoy outside (weather permitting).
The great folks at the Good Mother Project got me thinking, when they posted an article about “Flashbangs”: the events in life that ROCK you and change life as you know it. The obvious one is the arrival of a baby and the transition into motherhood, but what else can challenge a marriage and create shifts no one could have ever predicted?
I know, right?
GOOD QUESTION.
This stuff is work talking about, before it happens, ideally.
I would love to know:
What rocked you?
How did you grow into it?
Did you grow into it, or did it leave a part of your relationship just a little fractured?
Time to spill, darling, because this is where relationship gets real, remember?
Get Real,
Sexy Real
Tara
Tara Caffelle is a Relationship and Communication coach. She is passionate about creating connected, almost-uncomfortable-to-watch relationships that are based in Sexy Communication and Big Lives worth rolling around in.
Tara is based in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver and offers custom-designed coaching programs. To claim your free 90+ minutes and see what might be possible for your own super coupledom (or persondom), find a time here.
Have a question for Tara? Have an idea for a Hump Day conversation? How about just some thoughts about this thing called life? Let us know here. We’ll answer back. We promise.
xxT
Enough is Enough I said. 
It seems to me that in our relationships, it can seem like we’re all speaking different languages and missing our connections. We can feel alone, even when we’re surrounded by people who completely adore us because we are looking to be loved in a way that makes sense to us, but the same is true for every single person and there are many ways in which we love—these ways aren’t necessarily the same for everyone.
