Believe it or not, I used to be a pretty serious weight-lifting sort. You would not know it by looking at me now, but I used to lift very heavy things in tiny, short sets, not caring that involuntary grunts escaped me as I did. I worked with a trainer who accepted absolutely zero bullshit from me, and I sometimes had trouble operating the clutch in my car after my workouts.
I’d arrive at Gold’s gym when they opened at 5am in order to get in my training for the day. At home, I would place my workout gear outside the door of my bathroom,and when the alarm went off, I’d shuffle to the bathroom, climb into my clothes like a little fireman, grab my shake and water from the fridge, and leave. I ate accordingly: egg whites and oatmeal for breakfast, followed by five more very strategic meals throughout the day. I drank 3L of water each day, and went for weeks without consuming alcohol.
The me that did all this would go to the occasional yoga class and scoff at the babies in the class – the people who gathered foam blocks and bolsters to comfort themselves during the class and a blanket with which to keep warm in the final savasana.
My punishing ways continued for years. I somehow tied good exercise to struggle and pain and the rejection of any sort of help. At the same time, I was of the mind that my body was my enemy, something to be fixed so that it looked right and was the proper size (whatever that even is!).
That was then.
This week, I went into my usual candlelight yoga class and as I made my way to a spot by the front window, I took a long, peaceful breath and absorbed the calm atmosphere. I took a sip of my green tea before I unrolled my mat and then went to select two foam blocks, a foam cushion, and a bolster.
As I bent to pick up the foam blocks, the ones that help you to get into some of the yoga poses and give your body a break, I smiled, delighting in what I noticed: I wasn’t hesitating for a moment in gathering these items to make my practice easier. Instead of telling my body “YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN!” I was offering it compassion and comfort and support.
It was a really nice thing to notice in the candlelight.
And, as I always do, I am going to apply this to our relationships (I’ve already done this with nearly every client I’ve spoken to since that yoga class!):
Our habit, in relationship, is often to make it fend for itself. We expect it to roll along with us, supporting our every desire while staying resilient and supportive. We treat it like a body-builder living on egg whites and muscle grunts.
What if we instead felt compassion, and gave our relationships what they needed? What if we grabbed a damn foam block and let it be easier?
The ‘foam block’ gets to be whatever you define it to be. Maybe your relationship would really like some quiet evenings at home, rather than an over-scheduled whir of activity. Maybe it wants more affection, care and kindness. The foam blocks in my relationship are making sure we have lots of snuggling time, planning fun outings outside of the house, and finding things to celebrate as we work hard to realize our dreams. These are the things that nurture us both and allow us to get into some pretty strenuous “poses” with ease. (Stay with me and my yoga analogy.)
The invitation is to see where you are not offering compassion to your partner or your relationship and then, preferably by candlelight and with some green tea, ask what it wants in order to feel supported.
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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.
Tea with Angelyn feels like having a cuppa with a soul whisperer. In her light and enchanting way Angelyn Toth, the owner and founder of Xenia Retreat Centre on Bowen Island in BC, Canada draws out the simple truths that live just beyond our perception of what is possible within us. As for me, every time I’ve sat down or walked the lake with her, it’s as if she pulls out a bright yellow highlighter to illuminate precisely what’s going on inside of me, and how I’m choosing to play small instead of live up to my potential. Today I share her with you.
So put the kettle on and meet your heart centred transformational new friend, Angelyn Toth.
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Over February 10th-12 I am opening Xenia’s doors to host a ‘user-friendly’ silent retreat for those who are ready to unplug in the quiet sanctuary of nature. It seems that there has been a lot of confusion in the study and valuing of silence and I wonder if perhaps it has fallen off course as a religious endeavour. We do not have to be an avid meditator to appreciate and understand the benefits of silent contemplation. We simply have to be willing to make the conscious commitment to allow silence to be the teacher and the teaching. It is simple work and immense in its nature.
“We have to re-educate ourselves about the work of silence, it is deeply misunderstood in our society.”
Deep down inside, there is a natural longing for this space – it is our natural birthright. Deepak Chopra, in his work says that there are characteristics or traits of creative people. The first in they find comfort in and seek out silence. The second is that they enjoy nature. The third is that they trust their feelings.
In the sanctuary of silence, the veil thins and our emptying out process begins, it’s here, that the doorway to our own intuition opens. Did you know that we can communicate without words, and strangely enough, actually hear each other?
In silence, we learn how to trust at a higher level because we tap into the guidance that is forever present but often missed when we’re attached to our busyness, noise, stories, tv, books, phones, appointments and so much more. These days, our list of distracting ‘conveniences’ and go on and on. Without them for awhile, we become an empty container, into which insights, inspiration and messages can pour.
“…allow silence to be the teacher and the teaching.”
In the stillness we can begin to learn from and follow our natural ultradian rhythms freeing ourselves from the attachment to the mind and all of this non-doing delivers greater peace with acceptance of who we are, really, in silence as the result.
Translating that experience into our regular lives when we’re back at work etc… we begin to see how simple it really is to listen, trust and find reverence in all life.
In this Cuppa Tea with Angelyn, I’m asking you if you know who you are in silence. Have you listened to the story of your inner silence lately? Have you touched the centre of all that is inside you to be?
If not, believe me, you can.
While this is an intimate retreat, if you’re interested in attending the February 10th-12th Silent Retreat, please connect with me at xeniacentre@gmail.com or give us a call at 604-947-9816 and we can talk.
“It’s hard to believe that so much can happen in what appears to be nothing at all.”
I look forward to our next cuppa.
with love, Angelyn
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Angelyn Toth is an Author and Speaker and the founder of Xenia Centre. She has spent 22 years in service to the creation of this 38-acre Sanctuary in nature where one can feel safe to be creative. Her passion is to support and guide people who are ready to fulfill their gifts and dreams at any age. Find out more about Angelyn at www.angelyntoth.com
Here’s an excerpt from the first draft of Chapter One of You Matter – Identifying your Core Story that will be complete by December 31st. Follow along if it speaks to you. Big love to Meribeth Deen for being my Story Doula through this process. She said to me once a few months ago: ‘I can see that my challenge with you is going to be when and how to reign you in to a specific focus.’ She was right. But as is true with all my core story work, the focus found me and all I had to do was follow the thread.
Here is an excerpt for you:
I begin every Core Story client with a complimentary inquiry call and while this may shift as my work carries on, here’s why I do it this way: I am creating the best place I know how to let the story tell us and not the other way around. It follows the same belief that we can never run faster than our story and by making the call free, both you and I can step into the ring of ‘what have I got to lose?’ and that’s where permission begins. It’s not a flippant, what have I got to lose? although it can start out that way, usually and very quickly with that kind of freedom between us, I can establish a sense of ‘it’s just you and me here’ so that the story that wants to be known by you can feel safe enough to emerge.
Is my time valuable? Yes, no more than yours. Is my experience worthy of payment, yes, no more than yours. Do I deserve to be paid for my work? Yes, and at this stage of our relationship, only if it’s of value to you. If we decide to move forward together we’re going to be doing some intimate work so we need to choose each other. I like to think of it like dating. Imagine if we charged for that. What would that do to our connectivity? What I’m saying is, we have to authentically decide for it to be real. We don’t kiss the guy or girl at the end of the first date simply because we’re supposed to, or because it’s deserved, we kiss them because we want to, because the desire to be together emerges out of us.
One of my favourite moments with my now husband happened at the end of our second date. We had gone to the movies or something (I totally don’t remember the details), and we both knew that the next day he was going on tour and wouldn’t be back for a week. He walked me up to my door and I let him inside. We had an awkward hug and a peck on the cheek followed by stilted small talk about when he’d be back and how he’d call me when he returned and then I let him out and closed the door. I took a few confused steps down my hallway towards the living room when I heard a gentle knock, and I smiled. I didn’t even have a thought yet, but I somehow knew this was honest. This felt true. I curiously walked back, turned the deadbolt and opened the door. He looked at me, hesitating briefly and trembling just a little and said “If I went on tour without kissing you, and I mean really kissing you I’d have to kick my own ass.” With that he planted one on me and left. His desire to kiss me emerged out of him. It behooved him not to leave without a real, risky, whole-hearted kiss. He could not run faster than the story of that kiss. As for me, I felt confused when he left the first time because I didn’t get it, but I didn’t know what the it was that I didn’t get yet. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t formulaic. It just didn’t feel right, him leaving like that. It wasn’t until he knocked the second time that I kind of understood, and then when he kissed me, I fell, and hard. That was the moment of our connection. Neither one of us needed to take charge of the end of the date, we simply had to follow the thread of the story and then show up and live it out fully.
And that’s why I don’t charge for my inquiry call, I am creating space for what is real to emerge so that the truth can happen without our own alpha-agendas of how things should be or my own story of self-worth getting in the way.
Don’t worry, I won’t be kissing you, but I may knock twice.
By December 31st 2016 the first draft of this book will be done. If you’d like a complimentary digital copy of TinaO’s Identifying your Core Story, pop your name in here and we’ll be sure to send it to you once it’s complete early 2017.
As well, if you are a Canadian woman with a story to tell and would like to be considered for PUBLISH, a book writing program launching in mid January 2017 through powHERhouse Media Group, you may want to consider becoming a Woman we Celebrate so TinaO and Meribeth Deen can support you to get your book written this year.
TinaO is a Core Story Specialist, a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, and the workshop Live Your Best Story. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
By December 31st the first draft of You Matter – Identifying your Core Story will be complete. You can follow along as I share some sneak peeks with you until then. Big thanks to Meribeth Deen for being my Story Doula as I give birth to this word-baby. Did I just say that? Word-baby. Oh boy. I said it again.
We live our life unconsciously as stories with excited beginnings, doubtful mid-way points and then panicked or impending endings. We feel the timing of stories. We are captivated by the unknown because we expect an inevitable resolution. We control our lives to avoid the terror of unnecessary surprises. We get story and because the construct of beginning, middle, end is so ingrained into us, we woe-fully take on the dangerous pretense of being able to write our own story, as if we ultimately can. I’m here to tell you that while that’s possible, yes you can pick up the pen and write your own story, set your own course, and create the life you’ve dreamed of (as the inspirational wall art we buy never stops reminding us), this one-sided alpha position approach to living, while it may bring you short-term confidence, perceived control and seemingly peaceful order, it comes at a high price and that usually means your life, figuratively and sometimes even literally.
Yes you know where you’re going
Yes you may have the means to get there
Yes you may even have full confidence that you can ‘make it happen’
Until one day, you don’t, or unspeakably you can’t, or you simply won’t, and you don’t know why. It’s as if you can’t quite put your finger on it, you just know you can’t do this, whatever this is, anymore.
By December 31st 2016 the first draft of this book will be done. If you’d like a complimentary digital copy of TinaO’s Identifying your Core Story, pop your name in here and we’ll be sure to send it to you once it’s complete early 2017.
As well, if you are a Canadian woman with a story to tell and would like to be considered for PUBLISH, a book writing program through powHERhouse Media Group, you may want to consider becoming a Woman we Celebrate so TinaO and Meribeth Deen can support you to get your book written this year.
TinaO is a Core Story Specialist, a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, and the workshop Live Your Best Story. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
After the election, I needed to hear about Super Couples. It’s been one hell of a week and I do mean hell. To me hell is what happens when our unspoken, sacred rules of humanity are broken. In this case trashed, burned, buried and even mocked but this is not an article about the election and the demise of trust. No really, it’s not. It’s about love, kindness, relationship and Tara Caffelle.
I bordered on becoming a dangerously sad drunk these past seven days and I’m not talking about booze. As a kid I endured sloppy holidays with intoxicated and teary uncles cornering me between the fridge and the chip dip begging me to never give up on my dreams. Go to school, they said, and don’t turn into me, they begged. Guess what? I grasped their drunken despair this week. I drank a few too many glasses of wine and I ate a lot of chip dip. Still, this is not an article about the election but I can’t seem to get away from it. Neither could Tara or I when we spoke earlier this week.
Tara Caffelle, a relationship coach and a good one – great one – balls to the wall – best one. She likens herself to being a couple’s fairy godmother who with her magic wand of good honest work is here to change the world one Super Couple at a time. In unpredictable times such as these, we all could use a fair godmother don’t you think? We can skip the glass slipper/glass ceiling or whatever…, ditch the carriage that goes poof into a pumpkin at midnight, but let’s keep the wand shall we? Tara’s kind of fairy dust teaches us all how to turn toward each other. We need that. She believes that when we turn in to each other we begin a ripple of loving kindness that can be felt by all. Her message is timely.
I needed her this week and badly. Not because my personal relationship was in trouble, rather because my relationship with the world had it’s teeth kicked in and I found myself feeling gobsmacked reading the ‘I left you and btw I took the kids’ on the American electorate kitchen table. We both felt it. How could we not?
Tara – Helloooooooo… How are you?
TinaO – Oh f*ck… I’m okay. I’m recalibrating you know?
Tara – Yeah, me to. Me too.
TinaO – And all the positive spin spin spin on social media out there, we’re all just coping because it’s all we can do right now.
Tara – Mmmm…. yes, we need to make it understandable for ourselves. Last night I read an article and I thought maybe this will be okay. I’m trying to make sense of this, I’m trying to make it be okay but there’s so much shadow between ‘here and it’s okay‘ and I don’t know that I’m ready to do that. I was humming along just fine before all of this, and now what??? It’s exhausting.
We both realized: How like a relationship this is.
I’ve had my fair share of relationship smack-down moments. I’ve been in love many times which means I’ve also been left at the altar so to speak more times than I care to remember or admit. I don’t believe in soulmates. I don’t believe in the Lord of the Rings version of marriage with One Ring to Rule them All. I don’t believe in ’til death do us part’ – What do I have to die to get out of this? And some people do. I believe in love and I believe in freedom. Love is a renewable resource and freedom is the mother who never dies, who never abandons, whom you can always come home to. I’m a sensible Canadian, but even I can hear the Nationalistic pride in my personal values.
USA = the land of the free and home of the brave.
Canada = our charter of rights and freedoms
and then Love = Love knows no bounds
We are fueled by love. We build countries on it.
Tara – I just keep coming back to the only thing I have control over is what I put out to the world and I think compassionate, loving, soft people who feel at home is what is going to save us.
We’re going to be living in a world where we need to be looking out for everyone. To look around and recognize we don’t take for granted anybody’s safety anymore, we actually have to look out for each other now. We are now all together in this. That’s the invitation. It’s the ultimate in self-care.
In the past, when my relationships have blown up, sometimes I’ve been the one holding the detonator and that’s a hard truth to accept. I have pushed the big red button of blame, of sabotage, of distance, of incrimination and justification. I’ve lashed out. I’ve also hidden from love behind the self-care mask and it sounds like this: What is wrong with you? I expect more. You let me down again. How dare you do this to me. Don’t you know how stupid…? I can’t do this anymore, I’m outta here. Sound familiar?
This kind of self-love is actually self-protection and not love at all, but it’s not exactly fear either. It’s the ring of survival where love and fear meet and duke it out until one is laid out against the ropes and going down and then what do we say? I’ll live to fight another day. Why are we fighting?
This is why Tara’s work is so important. I am you and you are me.
When we actually prioritize our relationships, when we care about our relationships like we would ourselves, when we think about self-care (which btw is the most annoying phrase I’ve ever heard in my life), as our own care, being compassionate to ourselves, we have a full cup to give from and when everyone is feeding from that same giant pool of water, there can be enough. It’s only when we focus on the periphery of our lives, that’s our water source gets empty, and it all starts in relationship. I take care of you, and I take care of us to take care of you, to take care of me. I agree to treat you like you are the most precious being in the world, because you are. …That part just makes me cry.
I’m thinking, oh boy, are we talking about fusion here? This is gonna be pretty dang triggering for those in therapy world so I asked her, is this what your definition of relationship is? I am you, you are me? She thought about it for a quick countdown of five seconds. I could hear her wheels processing, feel her scales weighing, and watch her truth-ometer kick in. Yes, she said. Yes, it is.
I’m stealing from Dan Savage here. He calls it the cost of admission. His cost of admission is having a partner who is a slob in the kitchen. It makes him nuts. Everything is everywhere: the bread, the mustard, the entire kitchen blows up but that’s one of his costs of admission to being in relationship with him. We have different prices to pay and our most challenging and triggering cost is just giving your partner what they need. Asking what does your partner require right now? What do they need, that needs you to give it to them? Just give it to them. I know you don’t want to. I don’t care. Do it because they are asking for it.
I can feel my own personal freedom alarms going crazy as I think: where in our marriage vows does it say I agree to give you what you need simply because you ask for it.
Tara responds:
We take things personally. We get triggered. We react. Let’s not collapse and forget that we manage ourselves by asking and staying in charge of our own needs. It’s as if the relationship becomes a third person in your home and for them to feel welcome and safe, sometimes you have to step over your own bullshit, your own triggers, ego, resentment, and get ACTIVATED by saying NO, my relationship needs this from me right now.
After fifteen years of marriage I can honestly say that I have been in places where the resentment was so deep and the pain was too debilitating to know what to do so I asked, what happens when the ‘love tank’ we talked about above is empty, rusted or has a hole in it? What if you can’t find the energy to step over your ego as you say?
Sometimes the cost of admission here is to be really fucking gentle right now, to not get triggered… even though you do feel triggered, to just to AGREE that we are going to be really, really kind to each other. We can ask, how can we be a little more gentle and caring? How can we hold each other? Sometimes it starts with the smallest things like shutting off netflix to cuddle or have a shower together. We can ease into making tiny threads of connection by turning towards each other on our way back to centre.
We riffed on the question, What if your relationship was a guest at a Christmas party, who would they be? The drunk uncle on a soapbox? The clingy girlfriend? Are you sulking in the corner? On the make? Playing an instrument by yourself? Gorging at the buffet? Or are you still standing at the front door waiting to be asked in?
At TinaOLife, Tara writes a regular column called Where Relationships Get Real and there’s no denying that what we witnessed in the USA over the last year and a half was pretty toxic and yet dangerously real. We watched it all and not just the two leaders in survival mode throwing jabs and sucker punches at each other, but we saw a huge section of the population changed sides. They went from silent to outraged, respectful to hate filled, and contained to dangerous. It’s as if the land of the free and the brave left their marriage for the promise of power and domination. So I asked about betrayal. Is this what we do when our needs aren’t being met? Is this how affairs happen?
Yes, we begin to look outward. When needs aren’t being met, when we’re feeling injured, when there’s disconnect, when we feel distanced in some way… It’s so easy for a fracture to turn into a big crack and then grow into a gash between. When the relationship bank account is at bedrock we will look for other ways to fill it.
We can do that for each other, and things don’t have to be ‘hard’ or ‘wrong’ to start. We all need a little extra cushion for these exact reasons and kindness costs us nothing.
That really resonated for me.
Kindness costs nothing.
Kindness costs nothing.
Kindness costs nothing.
Kindness costs nothing.
Kindness costs nothing.
Kindness costs nothing.
There’s a graffiti tag I’d like to see more of.
The bottomline for me is that great functioning relationships ripple out and change the world. I’m here to support those ripples in all the ways I can. I’m an empathic person and I feel all the shit that’s going on in the world, I feel it so heavily, and this is how I can take action, it starts with you and me.
I can hear it again: I am you, you are me.
Tara has a workshop coming up on Nov. 19th for the day (10am-5pm). It’s called The Super Couple Tune Up and let’s be real here – if Barack Obama can meet with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, turn in to him, talk, and then shake his hand, who are we to deny ourselves the deepest most delicious and rewarding connection with the person we continue to choose to be with? For heaven’s sake people, we LOVE our partner. Just get there would ya?
When I asked her what happens there she answered me as the Fairy Godmother that she is:
It’s pretty simple. You’re hanging out with your most beloved for a whole day and getting to learn a few things and have some lightness and sweetness between you. There’s no dancing bears, no walking on coals. It’s a relationship workshop because we know, living in the same house doesn’t make a marriage or a connection. And it’s okay to have conflict, part of the workshop is WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR EACH OTHER? LET’S TALK ABOUT THAT? What do you need from me? How can I actually support that for you? I’m here to serve you as much as you need to, and I hope that after a day with me, you don’t have to come back because sometimes all you need is just a little tune up.
Come as a couple. Come as a pair.
It’s like the Arc you can only get in two by two.
It took one and a half years to bring the divide of the United States to the surface so we can all see and hear the reality of the division. As a Canadian, as a wife, as a mother, as a friend, as a community member, as a person in traffic, someone who orders coffee, shops in stores, signs paperwork, makes agreements, pays bills and spends money, as a human being who lives in an ever constant relationship with the boring and painful, ecstatic and joyful, as a body whose bare feet are in communion with the earth and a spirit who touches the sky, relationship is the only bond we all share, like it or not.
I needed Tara Caffelle this week because my faith and willingness to show up again shook. My marriage with humanity brought me to my knees and I wanted to take my ring off. I believe her. Healing starts at home. When we are blessed with a home where love lives because we nurture it in the face of our own shaking vulnerability and we practice, daily, turning into one another, we show up with the Big S on our chest for Super Couple and we ripple love and sexy kindness out into the world.
You can’t hate, fear or divide from someone when you know them. I am you and you are me. Thank you Tara.
Tara Caffelle is a relationship coach who was married, then married in an open marriage, then divorced, then single, and now is in a happy and fulfilling monogam-ish relationship with a guy she seems to never get tired of. She’s a writer and is currently working on her first book about grief and love and intimacy which she found when she lost her best friend, her dog and 3 other people in the span of one year and 20 days.
She believes that sometimes we have to be brave enough to break our own hearts that our relationships set us free and that good ones, SUPER COUPLE ones, can, and will, change the world.
TinaO is a Core Story Specialist, a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, and the workshop Live Your Best Story. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and she teaches: selling isn’t slimy and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
Today, two days after the election where Trump reigns, I find myself watching the news looking for something, anything. Ridiculous of me really… it’s still shock, not surprise, but shock. The bully won, the media blew it, the oppressed got angry and reacted, the comfortable went further into the bubble, the armchair warriors lathered up their pontificating and the positive thinkers stepped up their affirmations – the deal is, the bully still won. All of our making sense of it is how we cope with what hurts. And this hurts. Our ship of humanity just took a shot across the bow.
We’ve been called to action.
I suggest a different way to love today and it starts with being bravely and gravely honest.
Drop the spin.
It’s time for some mother bear kinda love. It’s lion king time. This kind of love protects their young, their family, their community. This kind of love isn’t violent but it can fight if called to. It does not start a fight nor does it need to. But make no mistake, that bear, that lion has it in them.
This love is active, it’s courageous, it has muscle. This love is conscious, it readies itself, it causes sustainable impact. This love has a voice and uses it. It names a threat as a threat. It calls out the bully. It respects all sides of a situation and that includes the dangerous side.
This kind of love copes by healing the cause of the wounds not just licking them.
I am reading a re-reading Michael Moore’s To Do list particularly #4 & #5 since I’m a Canadian as it’s the only truly fully integrated message I’ve read in the last 24hours helping all of us to know what the F to do when the marbles shatter, so here they are.
#4 Everyone must stop saying they are “stunned” and “shocked.” What you mean to say is that you were in a bubble and weren’t paying attention to your fellow Americans and their despair. YEARS of being neglected by both parties, the anger and the need for revenge against the system only grew. Along came a TV star they liked whose plan was to destroy both parties and tell them all “You’re fired!”
Trump’s victory is no surprise. He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him. He is both a creature and a creation of the media and the media will never own that.
#5 You must say this sentence to everyone you meet today: “HILLARY CLINTON WON THE POPULAR VOTE!” The MAJORITY of our fellow Americans preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Period. Fact. If you woke up this morning thinking you live in an effed-up country, you don’t. The majority of your fellow Americans wanted Hillary, not Trump. The only reason he’s president is because of an arcane, insane, 18th-century idea called the Electoral College. Until we change that, we’ll continue to have presidents we didn’t elect and didn’t want.
You live in a country where a majority of citizens have said they believe there’s climate change, they believe women should be paid the same as men, they want a debt-free college education, they don’t want us invading countries, they want a raise in the minimum wage and they want a single-payer true universal health care system. None of that has changed. We live in a country where the majority agree with the “liberal” position. We just lack the liberal leadership to make that happen. Let’s try to get this all done today.
Thank you Michael Moore… This is what I needed to hear today.
TinaO is a Core Story Specialist, a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, and the workshop Live Your Best Story. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
I met Angela at Vancouver’s powHERtalk in the spring of 2016. This languid, seemingly contained, and sensual blend of both masculine and feminine energy took the stage. In another lifetime I suspect Angela would’ve been a dancer because her body, even in stillness can have a conversation with an audience. She has a compelling resonance and after spending an hour with her on the phone yesterday, now I know why. She is richly connected to her life force energy which she accesses through a daily practice of personal pleasure. Angela masturbates once a day, sometimes twice if she can.
That’s it, I’m hooked, I think.
She says to me as we start our conversation:
“The only thing women want to talk about with me is sex. Seriously, it’s ALL they want to talk about.”
That might seem logical to you when you consider that Angela is a Sexuality Writer, Speaker and Educator, however let’s be real, if she was an accountant I highly doubt she’d be a magnet for conversations about numbers.
She reinforced:
“Women really, really want to talk about sex.”
And I believe her, because I did and I do, just not around men.
I am a child of the 70s which means I am a teen of the 80s which means my sexual identity arrived during a decade of multiple divorces, an economic crisis and then boom, followed by all the naming, blaming and flaming of AIDS, within the constant threat of nuclear war. The 80s were a decade of toxic reactions to terrifying problems. I was nine years old in 1979 when my dad remarried after my mom died and our family of five inherited six new brothers. Sadly they brought a tonne of broken baggage to our brood and together we became a badly injured family of eleven siblings of which eight were boys and three were girls. I was the youngest of them all. My older sisters had long since moved out and the boys ruled the roost. There were eight of them between 10 and 30yrs old. Four of my older brothers lived at home with the other four coming and going as needed. We were a very unhappy, grieving and desperate family, but that is a whole other conversation for another day. A safe, nurturing, soulful passage into womanhood was not in the cards for me, nor had it been for the generations of women who came before me.
You can understand why I’m not comfortable talking about sex in front of guys. As the only girl at home, I became a target for sometimes innocent yet stupidly clumsy and damaging sexual conversations, and the bulls-eye for some not so innocent advances. A lot of the men in my house were fumbling in the dark with their own aggression, grief and testosterone. Add booze to the mix and there isn’t a space big enough for that kind of expression to land. I was rather spirited and would fight back so one could say that ‘I asked for the attention’- not so, but such is this life so far. The mouthier I got, the more teasing and prodding I received. The word ‘slut’ in my house was not uncommon. I was terrified of becoming one. Yes, my sexual imprint which sprouted in the global turmoil of the 80s didn’t have a chance when coupled with the battles at home.
I chose to never, ever be a target. To never let my guard down and certainly not to trust a boy-man. I still don’t talk about sex where I may become the focus of a man’s desire, in fact I usually avoid being the center of any kind of male advancement at all. I can drink beer, swear and be a mouthy little sister, but never the alluring and receptive lover.
“We still live in a patriarchal culture and mindset when it comes to sex. As women, we’re raised to think that sex is for having babies and for pleasing men. I love the show Sex in the City. I love Samantha. She’s a fully sexual woman, but when the closing scene has her with her arms in the air groaning ah ah ah ah ah as a man pounds the shit out of her from behind, I think how many women really find that pleasureable?”
It made me think about my own sexual experiences and the confusing layers of arousal mixed with obligation, dashed with guilt and somehow still intertwined with moments of scintillating pleasure. After giving birth to three children, let’s be honest, most of the time unless I’m ovulating sex just feels like too much of a bother – I mean really, all these mixed feelings, expectations and pressure for a few damn minutes of orgasm? Really? Ugggghhh I’d rather go drink a glass of wine than deal with all of that noise. And that’s why Angela is in the business she’s in.
Many women are giving up their sexual power and missing out on personal pleasure because sex has never been theirs, it’s been in service of someone else, or for something. I can hear fellow women in my head saying things like ‘you know it only takes twenty minutes. How hard is that to do?’.
Once upon a time she and I shared a similar experience. Here is an excerpt from her website’s about page:
“When I began my transition into mid life, the emotions, thoughts, and experiences I was having really took me by storm. From the outside looking in my life looked great. I was in a supportive, loving marriage, had two amazing children, and had a lovely home. However, on the inside there was a huge gap, a dark void, something was seriously missing.
I didn’t feel like I had a purpose, I didn’t know who I was, I didn’t feel good enough as a mother, a partner, or as a woman. I was unhappy with my post baby body, I moved in and out of depression, I had no sexual desire, and I was very aware of the generational patterning I was giving, teaching, and passing on to our children. The guilt I felt for having all of these feelings and emotions was immense. In my mind, what I had, should have been enough, however, it wasn’t, and it was effecting my relationships, my health, and it was keeping me from experiencing a life of true joy, unbridled passion, and authentic expression.
Seeking a more body centered practice, and inspired by my love of dance and movement, I came to discover that our sensual aliveness is not separate from our spiritual journey, or our career success, it is in fact the secret ingredient to creating an abundant, joyful, vibrant life. It is when I took the voyage into the sweet center of my womb that great shifts occurred, clarity became accessible, and my confidence levels soared.
I studied and trained and am certified in The Art of Feminine Presence, Vividly Women Embodiment Coaching, Continuum Movement, The TaoTantric Arts, and Desire Mapping and the essence of my powerful, feminine being now radiates out into all aspects of my succulent life.”
I asked Angela a lot of questions about this seemingly sleeping or snoozing ‘divine feminine’ and how we can gently wake her up. Angela’s go to answer is always to the body. She told me that masturbation expands a woman’s capability for receiving pleasure. Pre-children she will experience spontaneous arousal where the impulse to express herself sexually just happens. After children, all of that seems to change. Angela personally decided to take matters into her own hands, literally.
“I started with masturbation, just once every three days and I began to notice a change in my energy. By the end of three days I could feel my energy dip so I would self-pleasure again, and then I shifted to every two days, and now it’s every day, sometimes twice. I don’t miss a day and now I’m working on building a container to hold the energy that my body creates through orgasm so if I miss a day, I have a reserve to draw from. It’s kind of like having a bank account but there’s only so much you can take out before you need to put some back in.”
It made me think about what women look like when they’re in the courtship phase, when sex is abundant and intimacy is readily exchanged. You really can see it. It happens again when we’re pregnant and while I recognize that the body is creating oxytocin, there’s no mistaking that there’s something much bigger going on there and according to Angela, that’s about the sacred place of the womb.
“Think about our sexual energy as if it’s the sun in our solar system. It is where our life-force energy comes from. Without sex we wouldn’t have life, without life, we wouldn’t have a body for our soul to inhabit. If we are not tending and nurturing our physical fire to burn passionately hot, then our sunlight dims and our fire turns to smoldering embers and then only to smoke.”
I thought about a time when I was pre-cancer and my husband and I were having that age old marital chat about how much, when, where and how often. Hats off to my man, because he can hold a whole lotta feminine outrage. He knows whom he married and while I can be a pretty feisty and expressive lover, I can also turtle up for weeks at a time and resent every advance made in my direction. This particular night I was in the thick of it. I don’t even remember how I was triggered but I was mad. Actually, what I was feeling was stifled and jammed up and totally pissed off at everything and everyone. I was like Jack Nicholson in The Shining when he’s sitting at the typewriter slowly going mad.
I said, “this is my sex, my sexuality, mine. It doesn’t belong to you. It doesn’t belong to anyone but I’ve never had it. Never. I’m so fucking mad I could spit, and not at you. I’m not mad at you (my husband), I’m just so god damn mad that I’m 44 years old and every fucking time I’ve had sex I’ve done it for a man. I don’t even know who I am sexually. I know what I like. I know what I don’t like. I orgasm. Oh yay me, so what? It’s fun for the 6 seconds it lasts and I know I’m one of the lucky ones. I have orgasms. I have multiple orgasms but I don’t give a flying fuck because I, as in me, I never have them, I have them for you.” – I told you I was mad. I also told you what a champion and pillar of strength my husband is for being able to hold my rage, and I was full of it.
I had never owned my own sexual identity. I had healed all kinds of sexual trauma, had learned how to let my body go so I could feel physical pleasure, I even enjoyed (and do enjoy) sex, but I had never initiated because I wanted to, for my own satisfaction, for my own thrill and for my own personal experience. I had always, only ever done it for a man and not because he (or they, yes I’ve had more than one partner) asked me to, but because that’s how my feminine auto-pilot knew how to respond. That’s all I had ever been programmed to do.
No wonder I was having my own personal Here’s Johnny moment, thankfully without an ax. Again, mucho kudos to my husband. He’s a tall drink of water and I was sipping from his rich bank of love for me.
Angela told me that our sexual life is a matter of health and that it’s about more than just incontinence or peeing when you sneeze, more than kegels and protection from uterine prolapse, it’s about filling our own cup. When we give ourselves physical pleasure, we come home and re-engage with the core energy of who we are.
I was perplexed and totally jazzed by her use of the word ‘core’. As a core-story specialist I totally lit up. In the work that I do, I listen to people’s stories so as to find the common thread that is their Living Story. Then through their living story, I can track back to find the exact expression(s) that encapsulates their Core Story or their soulful invitation to really live. So I feel my excitement building and I blurt out to Angela “Oh my God Angela… maybe this is CORE ENERGY work that goes with CORE STORY work that connects the expression of who we are to our SOUL!!!!” I would’ve totally married Angela if I had been into women because just like my husband she can hold big expression like no other. She lightly laughed and said:
“could be and when we put conscious intention into our orgasms, we can harness that energy to manifest other things in our life, even our financial life”.
I told you I was hooked right?
She reminded me that women are a sexual force of nature. We bleed, we take another person’s body inside of ours, we give birth and we have multiple orgasms. We are powerful beyond measure.
She has a standing order for all stressed out women – masturbate, it’s that simple, she says.
“your light inside of you may burn as a 10 watt bulb today, but with a personal pleasure practice, you can light up that energy until it’s as bright as the sun. You can nurture yourself to a higher frequency and heal multiple areas of your life, and yes, you can and will enjoy and even crave sex, but it starts by learning how to please yourself first. Until you know that you can create, receive and relish in your own self-pleasure your life-force energy is in the control of somebody else’s hands. The beauty is, it’s been with you all along and you can claim it today.”
Okay I said, but you have to admit, the sleepers and snoozers of the world just ain’t ready for this kinda crazy sex talk… right? Where would a woman begin if she’s curious to embark on the very beginning steps of her own precious sexual journey?
Start by building a relationship with your body first. These are your fertility organs. Your points of pleasure. Your access to the core of who you are. Start there. Your sexuality will never leave you, she simply may need some coaxing to come out and play.
Myself as a newly self-proclaimed snoozer Angela asks me “Do you have a personal pleasure practice?” to which I reply… “uhhh no, I mean, I know how do it… but… ummm…well, I guess no, I don’t”.
So guess who has homework?
Like Angela, I too would like to shine as bright as the sun. I suspect that the heat will be nice too.
Watch Angela’s PowHERtalk here.
Angela Thurston is a sexuality writer, speaker and educator. She has a personal sexuality coaching practice for women and runs workshops to help reconnect women to their innate feminine life-force energy. You can reach her and purchase her book Erotic by Nature online at angelathurston.com.
TinaO is a Core Story Specialist, a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, and the workshop Live Your Best Story. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
I was with a client last week and he said to me: We’re in Shaman time. I said What? He says that’s when we bend time, when it could be 3pm or 3am, when the construct of a ticking clock drops away and so does our relationship to it.
Oh, I said.
That’s what listening feels like to me. That’s how I know when I’m in it instead of doing it.
I’m a core story specialist, at least that’s what I put on my business card so people can ‘get’ it, but really, if I lived in a small village where we were named by what we do as the integration of who we are, people would call me: Story Tracker. That makes me chuckle. We’re just so weird aren’t we? I’ll own that. I’m weird. Damn weird. Perfect weird. I can see me as a character in a film: I’m a little bit witchy, probably old and wrinkled and the director has probably given me only one eye to accentuate my story scars. I’d have a long crooked stick that I poke at you as your story unfolds in front of us… Relax, I have two eyes and I don’t carry a stick, though I might be a bit witchy… One could make a case.
Life would be a lot easier if we didn’t feel the need to separate who we are from what we do because they really are one in the same. Well, that is, when we’re doing what we innately are, thus all the book stores bursting at the seams with volumes about how to achieve being, as if being has a goal post attached to it.
It’s not about doing nothing in order to be, it’s about being so that our doing feels like nothing, or as my client calls it: Shaman Time.
At some point in a Story Day with me we usually end up out at the wildest part of the island where I live because there the wind howls, the waves crash and the trees bend and grow sideways. I take people there because it’s the closest I can come to being in Tofino without actually having to make the trek to get there myself. My brood of a family have camped on the wild wet west coast every summer for the last fifteen years, and it’s where I go to feel small, witnessed. My favourite time of the day is just as the sun is setting when there’s a loud heaviness of silence sitting above those of us standing on the beach. I can feel my own story being tracked, but this time not by me.
When I’m walking with my clients, I ask them about the word Mystery. What makes a good one? I ask.
They say: It’s thrilling, it’s kinda scary, it’s unknown, it’s a story; until I ask: What makes it NOT a horror? Not a cliff hanger? And how come we feel compelled to watch or read them all the way to the end?
Because we want to know what happens, they say. Like duhhhhh… they implore, respectfully looking at me as if I missed something.
Why? I ask.
Because we know that it will end, it will resolve and when it does, it makes sense.
The quote that has run my adult life comes from Mark Helprin’s novel, Soldier of the Great War about Alessandro Giuliani, an aged World War 1 Vet who goes on a pilgrimage and befriends a young boy on the way. As the two of them walk for days together, he recounts his life asking again and again in multiples of ways: Why did they die and I live? Why did my life matter? In the randomness of pain and beauty, where is the purpose of my choices? of my life? and the quote from his book that I have had pinned to my wall for years which has become the message that is now my life’s work is:
“Let no mystery confound you into the conclusion, that mystery cannot be yours”.
Mystery.
Witness.
Story.
Time.
See, time turns into mist and then disappears when I’m listening to people because that’s how mystery, like home, shows up for me, and in that space of witnessing it’s as if God reaches in through our story and says Yes.
And we both can hear it.
November 25th – 27th on Bowen Island, BC Canada (20 minutes outside of Vancouver) at Xenia Retreat Centre, TinaO is hosting Live Your Best Story, a weekend about Listening to your story so as to Lead your life.
If you’d like to talk to TinaO to find out if this weekend retreat is a good fit for you, send her a message below or at tina@liveyourbeststory.com to book a complimentary core story phone session. Living Your Best Story is a weekend designed just for you. It’s gentle. It’s honouring. It’s introspective and it feels like coming home.
xxT
TinaO is a Core Story Specialist, a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, and the workshop Live Your Best Story. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
When I had Baxter (the basset hound), it would come to that time of the day when I knew he needed to get outside to collect some new smells and waddle around the neighbourhood. I would wrap up the work I was doing and say, “Let’s go on an adventure!”
You see, I could never use the word “walk” without making our departure a little crazy. All hell would break loose, with Baxter pacing in circles, whining, and “following” me by walking ahead and blocking my every step, lest I try to leave the house without him.
Now that Baxter is gone—he passed away in May—I have no need to go outside for a walk each day. But I have come to enjoy thinking of life as a series of adventures. It was easy in the summer as we found endless craft breweries to try out, hikes to hike, and outdoor movies to lie about in a park to watch. Everything was an adventure. Now that it’s fall, we’re settled into being at home, wearing slippers around the house, and launching Netflix marathons. The only adventure is seeing if we can squeeze in another episode of Downton Abbey before one of us drifts off into a slack-jawed slumber.
Perhaps I exaggerate a touch, but it’s partly true. It’s not okay with me that I spend more time at my desk than anywhere else. So I roped The Mister into a brainstorm session to plot out some Everyday Adventures we can enjoy together.
Here’s what we came up with:
Choosing and preparing dinner when we’re both home. Much discussion and Pinterest-referring ensues, followed by a quick scour of available ingredients in the pantry and wine rack. Dinner for two becomes a playful indoor date.
Hiking and biking and other sweaty things. This idea is a win all-around; we get exercise, we get fresh air, and we get to smugly go through the rest of the day in a glorious caloric deficit.
Going to a whole new neighbourhood to grocery shop or sit in a coffee shop. I do this often when I am writing and looking for some fresh inspiration. A change of venue gives me a new perspective or a gentle nudge outside of my comfort zone. I figure it’s a great idea for relationships, too.
Buying tickets for random events in the city. We have many mini-adventures to look forward to where we get to dress up (we are both working from home a fair bit and turning into rather cozy cubicle-mates, so this is always a good thing!) and make a date night of it. In the next few months, we will go see Danny Bhoy, Louis CK, and Interesting Vancouver and we’re having fun researching the before-and-after of the plans.
Planning adventures in other places. We are in the process of booking an escape to somewhere hot when the Vancouver rain is at its most plentiful, and a weekend escape to Jasper. While the trips will be really fun, so much joy comes from the preparation we are doing now.
Thrift store treasure hunting. One of us will get a nutty idea or decide we need something—I am on the lookout for a big, sloppy pair of overalls I can wear when I paint, for instance—so we will make a little outing to a big thrift store and spend a couple of hours goofing off as we look for treasures. Last time, we came across a GIANT teal sombrero and I wore it around the store as I looked through old prom dresses. So fun.
Connecting with old friends and bringing them into the adventurous loop for games, dinners and catching up. Now that summer and all the frantic squeezing-in of outdoor fun has ended, it’s nice to connect again.
When we set the intention that we are here for “adventure” (however tame that might actually look), it helps us to find fun in whatever is going on. So what are your “adventures” going to be this week? How will you be intentional with your time? Tell me, tell me, and maybe I can steal your ideas!
Get Real, Sexy Real
Tara
Tara Caffelle is a Relationship and Communication coach. She is passionate about creating connected, almost-uncomfortable-to-watch relationships that are based in Sexy Communication and Big Lives worth rolling around in.
Tara is based in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver and offers custom-designed coaching programs. To claim your free 90+ minutes and see what might be possible for your own super coupledom (or persondom), find a time here.
Have a question for Tara? Have an idea for a Hump Day conversation? How about just some thoughts about this thing called life? Let us know here. We’ll answer back. We promise.
It only takes five hours per week to maintain a strong, connected relationship. Yes, I did just give you a formula.
You are welcome.
Here’s the in-brief version for all of you scanners out there, but I invite you to watch the video below, because scanning a quick read isn’t doing, and five hours isn’t five minutes.
Get the connection?
Just sayin’
Five Things you can do in your Magical Five Hours of Connection.
1) Parting – spend 2 minutes each work day saying good-bye thoughtfully 2) Reunion – spend 10 minutes connecting at the end of your work day sharing, witnessing and championing each other 3) Admiration and Appreciation – spend 5 minutes each day acknowledging and noticing all that your partner IS and DOES 4) Affection – spend 5 minutes each day (minimum) touching each other and showing affection 5) Date Night – steal away for a minimum of 2 hours each week to nurture the relationship that started your lives together.
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.
As well, if you are a Canadian woman with a story to tell and would like to be considered for PUBLISH, a book writing program launching in mid January 2017 through powHERhouse Media Group, you may want to consider becoming a 
TinaO is a Core Story Specialist, a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, and the workshop Live Your Best Story. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
