Soulset Archives - Page 5 of 7

Intimates in Colombia

March 9, 2016

I spent the last week and a half of February in Colombia: I attended a dear friend’s wedding, and then I relaxed at a tiny resort where the biggest decision of my day was choosing a hammock in which to have my afternoon nap. It was glorious. And quiet. In more ways than one.

See, Colombia isn’t a country that speaks a lot of English. And I am not a traveler who speaks a lot of Spanish. You do the math.

What I learned: People in Colombia wanted me to eat, to be safe, to have a good time.

I survived with big smiles, excited clapping, pointing at menus, Google translator (when I had wifi), listening carefully for familiar words, and speaking loudly and slowly. (Oh yes, I did.)

My last morning in Colombia had me feeling stressed; I had complicated transfers beginning at 4 am from a somewhat-remote resort via taxi to the nearby town where I would connect with two different buses before reaching the airport that would take me to a major city for a connecting flight back to Canada.

WHEW!

Add to the stress the fact that I didn’t have quite enough cash to pay my various drivers along the way and would need to find a machine somewhere early on. An English-speaking staff member at the resort had lovingly arranged my entire trip for me, but I knew it was unlikely she would be around at 4 am to translate any further.

I thought ahead: I packed and was ready the night before, set a couple of alarms, and translated phrases I thought I might need into my phone and took screen shots that I could show them along the way.

Here’s what happened: I accidentally ordered a bottle and not a glass of wine at dinner the night before I left, and not wanting to waste it, I drank a lot of it and basically passed out. I woke up in plenty of time for my alarm, in my clothes, with the lights still on. I checked out of the resort with ease, met my driver, showed him my translation that said “Can we go to a cash machine so I can pay you?” and off we went.

I felt completely safe and taken care of. When the first banco machin-o didn’t work for my card, we looked for another, and each time, he stood outside the door and waited for me. We were a team.

Soon, I wasn’t worried about making my connections and even grabbed the tiniest of cat naps once I was safely on the bus.

It’s like I always say: we are in relationship with everyone we interact with.

For those brief moments, with my gruff, Spanish-speaking driver, we shared an intimacy that I am still talking about a week later.

I think that universally there is desire to connect, the same way our bodies want to maintain health. If we shoot Botox into our face, our muscles actually work around it and want to get back to what’s normal. This is why, if you use poison to still your beautiful facial expression lines, you need to repeat the treatment over and over again.

Similarly, we humans crave connection. When we don’t have it, due to language barriers or other zany circumstances, we find our way back to it.

Relationship wants to happen.

Stop fighting it. So many times, we get in conflict with each other and don’t realize that things just want to run smoothly. Rather than get in the way of it all the time, I invite you to consider what you can do and say that will create more intimacy with the people in your life. How can you join with the people around you to become team mates?

Try it and let me know what you discover. You don’t even have to go all the way to Colombia (although you could—they are lovely people and they will be very amused by your excited clapping when you finally decide what you’d like to order for dinner!).

Tara

Get Real, like Sexy Real

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.

There’s a Crack in Everything

March 3, 2016

A lot of my work- and the work of music writers/ journalists / bloggers who’ve been kind enough to write about it- focuses on the hardships I faced as a child, teen and early adult. Why that is isn’t a mystery. Intense situations and struggles are the stuff of drama. They push us past normal and safe where we feel in control into the painful and chaotic realm of trauma, but that’s also where beauty, transformation, love, mystery, compassion and profound connections can swoop in to reveal who we really are and what we’re really capable of. As Leonard Cohen sings:

“There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”

A mentor of mine who passed away ago a few years ago used to say to me “When I need to touch God Rodney I touch you.” He wasn’t referring to me specifically, he meant that reaching out to others, sometimes for help, sometimes to help was where he truly found himself over and over again.

While I had to deal with a lot of pain as a child and an adult, I’ve also been extremely fortunate. I’ve had many generous and gifted people come into my life to guide me. It’s crazy how lucky I’ve been. It’s like in Greek myths how the hero (or in my case the anti-hero) keeps getting helped by mysterious strangers (the gods in disguise) when he or she needs it most. A folksinger I know, Rick Keating, has a lyric in a song that says “I keep on getting saved.” Yep.

GONE
by Rodney DeCroo

My first apartment was a basement suite
near 41st and Oak. The owner Craig,
a drug dealer turned contractor
after a five year stint in Okalla,
rented cheaply to young men
in trouble. I found the place
through an ad on the wall
in the Social Assistance office.
The interview was in his kitchen.

“Come on!” he says “Have something to eat!”
when Diane asked if I was hungry.
I hadn’t eaten for two days
after spending my money getting drunk
at the Cobalt, but I told him
“No, I don’t want anything”.
“Listen,” he said “you’re not leaving this kitchen
until you’ve had one of Diane’s sandwiches.
So what’s it gonna be?”
“Okay, sure.”
“There you go! he shouted smacking the table.
“Are you looking for work?”
“Yes”.
I’m looking for laborers. You want to work for me?”
“Okay.”

As I ate the thick bread and rich meat
and drank the dark coffee offered to me,
I felt the hunger in my stomach,
my unwashed clothes and my shaking hands
as if for the first time. After he left me
in the furnished suite, I stood with my back
against the door looking at the room.
I wondered who’d been here before me
and why they were gone.

FYI… Rodney has two gigs coming up in Vancouver.

Check it out below.

MARCH 6 / House Concert @ Cliff’s House

Catch this intimate solo set from Rodney DeCroo, with support from The Minimalist Jug Band.

Time: Doors 1pm / Show 2-4pm
Where: # 2-868 Cassiar Street East Van ( near PNE )
Cost: Suggested donation of $15. Ticket reservations are recommended by the host as seating is limited.
Contact: kali@tonicrecords.com for reservation details.
Drink: BYOB ( please drink responsibly )
Food: Tasty finger foods provided

Link: http://www.tonicrecords.com/mar-6-house-show-from-rodney–decroo/

MARCH 10 / “A Circle in the Fire” @ The Heatley

Rodney DeCroo will be hosting and performing in the first event of a new monthly series, “A Circle in the Fire”, a songwriters-in-the-round evening. This evening will feature an eclectic mix of local folk songwriters + performers: Doug Andrews, Elise Hall-Meyer, and Caroline Allatt.

Date: Thursday, March 10th

Time: 8:00pm

Where: 696 E Hastings St.

Cost: No cover!

Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/199995010359722/

Rodney DeCroo is a songwriter, poet and playwright. He has released 6 full-length albums, an album of poetry set to music (Allegheny), a book of poetry (Allegheny, BC) and a theatre production (Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town) that received critical acclaim at several Canadian fringe and writers festivals. DeCroo wrestles with regret, loss, aging, love, memory, death, art—always with his own ongoing recovery embedded in the background. DeCroo’s album and performances draw upon his greatest natural resource—his poetry.

Want to buy his music? Find him here on itunes. Want to catch him in concert? Check out his calendar here.

The 100% Lean In

March 3, 2016

I’m always going on and on about how we are in relationship with everyone in our lives, from our barista at Starbucks to whomever we land with in bed at the end of the day, and I also know that each of those relationships can be happily designed. We do this with the 100% lean-in.

Today, I want to focus on Starbucks. Yep, you read that right: it’s a great example of The 100% Lean in, and I think once you understand this, you can apply it all over the place.

Our job, if you will, as a customer at Starbucks, involves the following steps: enter the building (for the sake of argument, let’s not include the drive-through option), walk up to the counter, order our coffee, pay for our coffee, thank the barista, put whatever accoutrements into the coffee, and leave with said coffee. Doing all of these things without any sort of hiccups can be considered showing up for your job at 100%.

The barista’s job is to cheerfully take our order, accept our payment, deliver our beverage to us, and say thank you. Doing all of these things constitutes showing up 100%.

Are you still with me?

What I know is that 100% can look different on different days. I will outline what not-quite 100% looks like and how we can easily adjust to make it so.

Scenario: You get to the counter and realize you have forgotten your wallet in the car and have no way to pay for your beverage. What would make it 100%?: Ask for what you need. Tell the barista what has happened so that your order can be held until you can get your money and the line-up behind you can proceed with their orders.

Scenario: You are in in the middle of an important phone call on your mobile, and while you sincerely wish it would end in time for you to order your coffee, that is not the case, and instead of ordering, you must continue your conversation. (See how I give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not just standing in line, staring at your phone, oblivious to all that is happening around you?). What would make it 100%?: Step aside, ask the person you are on the call with to give you a moment so you can order, or pretend you just went through a tunnel and hang up (it’s the nature of phones that people are able to call us back—cool, right?).

Scenario: You approach the counter and the barista is telling her co-worker about the wicked concert she saw last night, complete with an air guitar impression. What would make it 100%?: Trick question! This one is on the barista. You’re welcome to get the barista’s attention in a respectful way, but this is really up to the barista to make up the difference, and that is by ending her inappropriate conversation and take your order.

Scenario: The barista is nowhere to be seen and you peer over the counter and see that he is kneeling on the floor putting some cups away behind the counter. How to make it 100%: Again, this is up to the barista to make up. All that is needed is a quick “I’ll be right with you!”

Scenario: Hot coffee in hand, you go to the sugar-adding station and you get stuck behind a guy who has his stuff spread all over everywhere. You can’t even get to the sugar. What would make it 100%?: The guy can turn to you and say, well, anything. “So sorry, I’ll get out of your way” or (this is one I use all the time) “Argh! I’m quite a tornado, aren’t I? Can I pass you the cream?”

What this means for more intimate relationships:

In relationships that run a little deeper than coffee, we can apply these ideas; when you notice that you’re showing up less than your 100% ideal, explain why, and then ask for what you need. Conversely, if your partner is failing to show up and meet your expectations in a way that feels like 100% for you, ask (in a caring way) what is happening that you can maybe be more understanding about. (They may not have ready this post and be as in tune with what 100% looks like!).

A few quick examples come to mind:

● You have a deadline coming up at work and know you will be preoccupied all week. So you ask your partner for their patience and understanding

● You suffer from horrendous seasonal allergies, and your partner has planned a full day of fun on the day you have off together. You ask for a little time for your allergy meds to kick in.

● You meet an old friend for dinner and although you would love to really catch up, you can’t stop thinking about how your grandmother is really sick and you aren’t able to fly out see her. You explain to your friend why you are not really present.

Showing up at 100% looks different on any given day.

The good news is it’s really easy to notice when you’re falling short and ask for what you need to make up the difference.

It’s also worth taking a look at how, in our relationships, we sometimes lean in more or less than 100%, which can lead to resentment, and mistrust and a whole host of other things, but I will leave that for another week. Until then, go grab a coffee at Starbucks, and think of me!

Get Real, like Sexy Real

Tara

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.

If it ain’t delicious, why eat it

March 2, 2016

We get offers every day. We listen to sales pitches ad nauseum. We see opportunities every hour. We make decisions every ten seconds (or less!). How do you know what to choose?

We get up, we create a ‘to do’ list. We go to bed, we get on ourselves about our ‘to be’ list. We wander through each second, minute, hour, day, week, year, stage, our freakin’ lifetime like we’re in a field of apples and we haven’t got a clue what to eat, and we’re terrified that we can only carry that which we’re able to hold.

How do you know which ones to pick up? Which ones to keep?

Which ones to sink your teeth into?

Follow what is delicious. That’s what I say. Well, it’s what I say now, but not a few years ago. I heard it from my dear friend of mine, Kiran, Mystic Girl in the City , and the author of Tools for Sanity.

That’s what SHE says.

Do what feels delicious.

One day when I was in the throws of family-mama-pandemonium, I was telling her all of my multiple REASONS WHY everything SUCKED, was FALLING APART and COULD NEVER WORK and WOULD NEVER WORK… and then she lovingly took my entire sucky day apart minute by minute and wove the pieces back together from the perspective of what could’ve happened had I followed my ‘delicious yes’ instead.

I thought she was crazy, or rather, ‘just crazy enough’ as I liked to put it – now it’s sanity man. Following your delicious yes is LIVING SANITY.

She was right. The idea of following your delicious yes is as simple as choosing the fork in the road that you sense is the MOST DELICIOUS.

If it doesn’t look delicious, smell delicious, feel delicious, sound delicious, resonate in your hand as delicious… guess what? It probably ain’t delicious, at least for you, or at least right now.

So don’t eat it.

Put that apple down and walk away. There’s a beautiful ripe, red, shiny one over there – just waiting for you to pick it up because it’s delicious. Devour it.

Thanks Kiran. You changed everything that day.

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. She teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.

Four Agreements for Relationships

February 25, 2016

I read the actual Four Agreements book several years ago and vomited in my mouth a little; although quite popular and I’m sure groundbreaking if you are, say, new to the planet, I found it overly simplistic and a complete waste of time—do we really need to be told to act with integrity and not gossip? Do we really need a whole book to illustrate this? And it was written as though this was some magical ancient wisdom being passed down through the centuries when to me, it was simply common sense.

I have found, in the last several years, as I’ve spoken to clients and groups, that a few agreements seem to come up again and again when it comes to relationships: I have piled them together for you here in this tiny little blog post.

This is some of my most cherished wisdom. It might just be your lucky day.

Agreement #1

We all have a right to notice what is happening around us and voice it.

Imagine this scene: you’ve arrived at a dinner party and you notice that your partner is acting quite coldly to the hosts. You are fully aware that your partner doesn’t really like these people, so you assume that he/she is having a lousy time and wants to leave for that reason.

What if, instead of assuming and maybe fuming that your partner was ruining your night, you actually noticed what was happening and voiced it? “Darling, you seem a little off tonight. What’s happening for you?”

Your partner can then explain what is actually going on to make them behave in this way. Maybe they just found out that they are being laid off from work and didn’t want to spoil your evening with the news, or maybe he/she spotted the host sneaking off to a hotel room with a stranger and is uncomfortable. It could be either of these or none of these—you don’t know!

This one is actually a secret intimacy-builder: when we notice and connect with the people around us with our observations, it creates intimacy. Even with strangers, and especially with the people we love the most.

Think about what could have happened in each of these examples:

You notice an overwhelmed mom in the parking lot of the grocery store, juggling a baby and a toddler and a cart full of crazy, and you say, “It looks like you’ve got your hands full—can I help?”

You’re waiting in line to board a plane at the airport and notice that the woman next to you is reading a book that you just finished and hated and you say, “I see you’re reading Fifty Shades of Awful Writing. How are you finding it?”

Your daughter comes home from a school dance and seems quiet and sullen and you say, “You don’t seem to be as excited as you were before the dance started. What was it like?”

We are always allowed to observe, and let’s be honest: we’re all doing it all the time, and we are also making assumptions about what we see. When we voice what we see, we invite other people to be intimate with us. And in case you’re new here, I will remind you that I think that is the name of the whole game.

Agreement #2

We can (and have a responsibility to) ask for what we need.

I remember this really vividly: I was spending the summer with a beloved aunt who lived several hours away from us. I think her work schedule had conflicted one afternoon that I was there, so she asked a friend who ran a daycare to entertain me for the afternoon. I basically just hung out and read while she tended to the little kids in her care.

I remember being absolutely starving and being too shy to ask for something to eat. I assumed that she would eventually offer me something, but she was wrapped up in the daycare duties and didn’t. As the afternoon wore on, and I grew more and more hungry, I was silently feeling really resentful.

When my aunt finally arrived to pick me up and was chatting with her friend, it came up that I hadn’t eaten basically all day. I clearly remember her incredulous question: “Why didn’t you ask for something, love?”

Good question.

Whether we need heat to be turned on because we are cold, or some kind words at the end of a long day, we have the right and responsibility to ask. No one has to give it to us, but we get to ask. And I’ll let you know that most of the time, you get what you ask for. People like to grant wishes like that. Try it.

Agreement #3

No one is here to take care of anyone else.

I have thousands of examples for this one, but it boils down to this: we are all meant to go through life and have our very own experiences of what is happening. When we take care of others and make it easier for them, or shelter them, we are doing no favours. It can be challenging to step back and remind yourself that people can handle their own lives, but it’s worth it, and also worth practicing on an ongoing basis.

When I used to leave my pets with a house sitter, I would haul out this four-page tome of instructions to explain the every nuance of running my 700-square foot home. Seriously. I thank every house sitter I ever had for not smacking me on the face as I went through them all. After a while, and after I started coaching and holding my clients as naturally creative, resourceful and whole, I stopped this nonsense and now I let them know the basic routine of the dog, how much he eats, and how to reach me. No kitchens are particularly mysterious, so I think whomever it is can snoop their way to success in my absence.

I invite you to look at where you might be care-taking and let go. Let the people you love make mistakes and have their very own shiny experiences of life—it’s how we learn.

Agreement #4

We are all just doing our best.

This struck me years ago, when I was taking a course with Landmark Education. The instructor pointed out that no matter how bad of a job our parents did in raising us, their only objective was to keep us alive until we left their care. They were always doing the best that they could with what they knew at the time.

It’s so, so true.

Someone else’s “best” might look like what you would consider your worst, but I encourage you to be your most empathetic and remember that they are trying. Even if they’re cutting you off in traffic. Even if they are breaking your heart. Even if they are not speaking to you at all while you’re trying to have an argument with them. If we all remembered this one thing of the people we encounter, think of how different our everyday interactions would be.

Common sense that changes relationships.

These four agreements are the basis for a lot of the work I do with couples. They’ve helped my clients ensure their own needs are met, while learning how to better understand and appreciate each other, even during the messy times—especially then. I use them as cornerstones in my own relationships, reminding myself of them again and again as I strive to live a big, heart-led life.

I would love for you to try some of them out and let me know what you notice. (I know you didn’t have to read 132 pages to get the wisdom, but I promise it’s still valid.)

Wishing you an agreement-filled week and I would love to hear your comments below.

Get Real, Sexy Real

Tara

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.

Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town

February 18, 2016

Yesterday I introduced you to Rodney DeCroo and what he’s bringing to TinaOLife.

Today, you experience him.

He’s been working a tag line that seems to follow him: Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town. We all have a story and part of Rodney’s is where he comes from.

Here are his lyrics and his song: Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town

She was someone I only dreamed of,
I was too scared to make a stand,
She was all my light,
Yes, she shined so bright,
For a stupid boy in an ugly town.

I’d go stand by the river,
I ‘d watch the barges floating past,
With their coal so black,
The color of all my lack,
I was a stupid boy in an ugly town.

She said Oh did I know you then?
She said Were we ever friends?
I said No, I just hung around,
I was a stupid boy in an ugly town.

I’d get drunk almost every weekend,
Behind the factory with my friends,
Then we’d get in fights,
Just another boring night,
For a stupid boy in an ugly town

watch the music video here.

I’d hear songs on the radio,
With their airbrushed harmonies,
They didn’t sound like me,
They said I’d always be,
A stupid boy in an ugly town.

She said Oh did I know you then?
She said Were we ever friends?
I said No, I just hung around,
I was a stupid boy in an ugly town.

Memories are stories,
They change as they are told,
But a part of me,
Will always be,
A stupid boy in an ugly town.

There’s something hauntingly intimate about embodying our roots, especially when we come from stupid and ugly. We’re all stupid and ugly. We’re all arrestingly, stupid and ugly.

And I’m gonna say it – that’s where stupid and ugly intersects with beautiful. It’s in all of us.

xxT

Rodney.

Want to buy his music? Find him here on itunes. Want to catch him in concert? Check out his calendar here.

I have a crush. Am I cheating?

February 18, 2016

Hey look! Tara received her first comment on TinaOLife – so she’s going for it. Ready…?This is a touchy subject for a lot of people. Ahhhh she’s totally got this for all of us. Read on.

READER: How about covering crushes and sexual attraction to other people besides your partner? I think it’s unrealistic to assume one will always be attracted only to one’s partner and I’d be interested to hear your take on it.

Tara – Personally, I am a huge fan of The Crush. I love feeling noticed in the world, I love getting to go home and tell my partner that I got hit on, I love sharing the excitement—in the bedroom and really everywhere—that I have a little thing going on. It will go absolutely nowhere but it is still so FUN.

I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again: we are humans and we are meant to have connection—intimate connection—with other humans. Sometimes this happens while we are in fully-committed, happy-as-a-pig-in-shit relationships. But it doesn’t have to threaten that relationship—despite how it might seem on the surface.

Here’s a simple thing to ask yourself: What does it really cost us to allow our partner to have this experience?

Usually nothing. So what’s the problem?

If you are threatened by this, that gives us a place to look. If we see our partner getting attention from someone else and we feel a pang of jealousy, we get to look underneath that and figure out what it actually means. Is it that we don’t feel like we’re getting enough attention from our partner?

Are we resentful that they’ve been away or busy a lot, leaving the bulk of the home responsibilities to us? There is almost always something underneath jealousy to explore (with a coach!). I know it sounds strange, but flirting and crushes and attention from outside our relationship can give us a renewed spring in our step in our relationships.

Trust me.

Think of couples who have a “Celebrity Freebie List”—a list of five or so (unattainable) celebrities that each partner is allowed to have a night of wanton sex night with, no-questions-asked, should the opportunity arise. Think of how fun that is to think about. It’s interesting, it can give you fun ideas for the bedroom (hello? Princess Leia in the gold bikini?), and it recognizes that although you have decided to share the most mundane moments of your life with another person, you are not dead. Even my Gramma used to tell me that although she had chosen her dish, she had no intention putting down the menu.

Years ago, I was with my ex-husband in Safeway and we were getting all the groceries for the week. It was really glamorous. He went to the deli counter, and to his delight, found that the 20-something blonde who said everything as though it were a question was flirting with him like he was a naked fireman. He was at the counter for a long time and when I finally went over to check on him, I noticed what was happening. I asked him something important, like, “Do we need mustard?” and he glanced at me and then blushed, before turning back to blondie.

I shook my head, rolled my eyes, and told him to have fun. I would catch him over by the lettuce when he was done.

It cost me nothing. He was beaming, from ear to ear to…other areas, and at the end of it, we were still committed, still paying the bills, still going home to the unfolded laundry together, right? There is a word I will borrow from the polyamorous community: “compersion”. Compersion is the flip side of jealousy, or the glee of seeing one’s lover falling in love with someone else.

Compersion, in a basic form, is what I was doing when my husband was flirting in Safeway. No, he was not falling in love, but I could definitely feel pleasure from seeing him feel attractive and noticed by a complete stranger. Don’t we all want our beloved to be happy and noticed and valued?

Now, when crushes go a little further and become emotional entanglements (emotional affairs), it’s important to have the wherewithal to recognize what is happening for yourself.

As I have asked MANY clients this over the years who seem confused about whether or not their behaviour could be considered cheating: Does your SPOUSE think this is an affair?

If they do, then it is. Period.

We all have a different threshold for what we consider to be “cheating”. If you have a crush on a co-worker, then the first thing to do—before you make excuses or make it okay, or make yourself wrong because you feel shame or guilt— is to talk to your partner and ask THEM what they think.

In this situation, it is important to measure against the comfort of the relationship and the person we are in it with.

Here’s the quick n’ dirty: we are all meant to live in community. It’s flattering when our partners get noticed (for us and for them), and it costs you nothing to allow this to happen.

And for shit’s sake: talk to your partner about it. If that’s hard, call someone (like me) to help you have that conversation.

I would love for you to give it a try; the next time you see your delicious mate being eyed up, roll your eyes and agree to meet them by the lettuce. Maybe you’ll get to reap the rewards of them feeling noticed and attractive by someone who isn’t you.

Get Real like Sexy Real, Tara.

Tara Caffelle is a Relationship and Communication coach who brings an approachable approach to guiding and inspiring couples and individuals. 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 while tickled to talk to anyone (anywhere!) for a tweak n’ tune, she works only by invitation in 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.

Announcing Rodney DeCroo – Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town

February 16, 2016

TinaOLife is pleased to announce that Singer, Songwriter, Poet, Actor, Storyteller and Artist Rodney DeCroo will be bringing his passion for living to TinaOLife – and it ain’t what you’re expecting, well, that is at least if you don’t know him.

If you don’t know him – you’re thinking “awesome a life-affirming artist here to breathe sunshine, rainbows and possibility into my days! I’m in!”

And if you do know him, then the truth is you don’t know what’s coming.

You’ll likely expect the grit, the underbelly, the fuck yous, the tenderness, the weeping wildness of his mind, the raw claws of his heartache, and the silliness of those smirking lips of his. You’ll expect his artistic genius. Okay, I’m bias (it’s true, I totally am. The guy wrote poetry about me) – I dated him many moons ago when we were college activists (me by experiment, him on purpose) and I became enamored by his thread-bare army jacket, cowboy boots and his love for Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg and Pablo Neruda. Somehow this kinda square gal hooked up with this firey student union leader and then camped out with him and forty or so others students on the floor of then Premier Mike Harcourt‘s local office for ten days to protest the cut in education funding and support the teacher’s strike. Like I said, it was a special time.

While romantic relationships can fizzle out, or in our story – blow up, what drew me to him in the first place almost 25 years ago (okay, besides his dashingly dark and mischievous good looks), was and is his sacred humanity.

Now what do I mean by that? Sacred humanity?

poets can see.

poets invite us to feel.

poets speak the language of art.

poets embody the spectrum of emotions through words, pauses, breath and in stillness.

Rodney touches all shades and that in itself celebrates life, as he gives words and expression to our sacred humanity.

Welcome Rodney. Here’s his bio taken from his personal website rodneydecroo.com

BIO:

Burnt out by seven straight years of touring and recording five albums, Rodney DeCroo walked away from his band and his label after the release of 2010’s Queen Mary Trash. The double album he left behind—urgent, brash, ragged, full of spleen—now looks like a roadmap pointing to the emotional reckoning that lay ahead.

Five years later the contrast is staggering. For his return to the studio as a singer-songwriter, DeCroo has produced something as beautiful on the surface as a dusk-painted reflecting pool, as shadowy below as his own tumultuous psyche. The gap between his inner and outer life has always been slender, but Campfires on the Moon—his debut on new label Tonic Records—gives us DeCroo at his most intimate.

Between then and now, DeCroo devoted the years to therapy and healing as he stepped up a lifelong battle with PTSD. He also threw himself into a more immediately personal trinity of projects, yielding a spoken word album (Allegheny), book of poetry (Allegheny, BC), and a touring stage play (Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town) that expanded both his critical and popular appeal.

Suitably refreshed, DeCroo was ready to follow Queen Mary Trash. With former Convictions bandmate and stage collaborator Mark Haney on double bass, and long time friend Ida Nilsen contributing piano and vocals—DeCroo had been quietly amassing material with Nilsen in mind—DeCroo returned to Brian Barr’s Vancouver studio and produced a record that outstrips even 2008’s Mockingbird Bible for its ferocious vulnerability.

Gradually the album takes on an emotional force all its own, through its combination of quivering intimacy and DeCroo’s greatest natural resource—his poetry. As its 10 songs draw to a close, Haney throws a little discordant shade into “Ashes after Fire”, foreshadowing the envy that grips DeCroo as he visits some old friends at the Railway Club.

“They’re doing well,” he sighs, “their wellness never ends.” But there’s a deep irony at work. Breaking from a past in disarray, Campfires on the Moon strongly suggests that its author’s own wellness has well and truly begun.

Rodney’s pieces (in whatever form they show up) will be shared on Thursdays – the punctuation of the almost weekend. It’s the day past the madness of the middle but not yet into the surrender of a Friday night.

Thursday it is – that day of the week where endings are still beginning. His Thursday posts will fall under his heading of Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town, because underneath it all, in the lonely corners of our day we can all feel a little displaced you know? Yet here we are.

Want to know more about Rodney? Want to find out where he’s playing next? Want to pick up his album? Visit his site here.

Til Thursday…

xxT

Drop in Anytime…

February 16, 2016

Do you have a drop in anytime friend? Perhaps you are one. Awhile back we moved into a townhouse complex in the suburbs on a cold New Year’s Day. Our eldest was two, and our newest was eight months old. It was SLICK that day. I’m in Canada and so, we expect ice.

As a new mama with two chickadees I stayed in the house and pushed boxes around while my husband and friends moved everything in. It was dark by the time we were done. There’s a greenish glow to inside lights when you’ve no curtains for the beams to bounce off of, add that to a familiar echo of new rooms, fresh paint and nothing touching the walls, and everything feels eerily right.

Somehow I remember a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken sitting in this green glow on a half unpacked box. Okay so this was over a decade ago and it’s possible that I’m just nostalgically making this up – but – somehow it rings true. I haven’t eaten KFC with full on gusto since I was a kid. It must’ve been pay day when my parents would bring it home because a bucket of chicken was a lot for our family. Oh my, how I loved those biscuits. I’d slather them up with margarine (yup, that’s how long ago it was. Who eats margarine these days?), then dip them by hand into the gravy. Oh that was nine year old decadence right there.

So there we were, standing amidst the boxes, the KFC, talking through the echo, chowing on drumsticks and cold french fries when a shadow came across the green glow and I turned to the kitchen window.

Our townhouse kitchen was just below ground with the window at eye level to a patch of grass which we later used to track the feet of our kids. For now though, this was still foreign land, so when a pair of snowsuit baby feet appeared as if they were suspended in mid-air at the window, I had to check it out. It was dark out remember? It’s hard to see into the night when you’re in a lit room. It’s a good thing the baby was wearing a light coloured snow suit or I would’ve missed him entirely. As quickly as I looked up, they vanished.

…followed by a knock on the door.

…followed by the creak of the door opening.

…followed by a boisterous HELLO NEIGHBOUR!

This is how I met my new friend Sue. She had her son, an 18 month old Kai strapped to her front in a snuggly type thing. He was a little baby so his feet still kicked and dangled when she moved.

Sue became my Drop In Anytime Friend, because that’s just who she is and that’s who I am. Meeting her reminded me of how much I love that quality in people and how as much as my husband is a private kinda dude, I want to hold on to that part of me.

Drop in anytime friends are:

not appropriate, they’re real.
they leave your favourite food in your fridge because they saw it on sale and thought of you.
they don’t knock, they sing hello through open doors instead.
they always have a hot pot of tea ready for you (or they’ll make one).
sometimes they turn up in your living room before you’re even there. Sometimes they’re already crying and they need you to just sit with them.
they climb through your kitchen window when the door is locked. “You can’t make me wait to meet your new baby Tina. I came in quietly…”
they show up at the best time during the holidays so you can both escape the madness for twenty minutes.
they trade magazines.
they eat your cookies.
they feed your kids.
they buy the slurpees when you won’t.
they kibitz with you about the neighbours who think your collective gaggle of children are too loud.
and they shout back “Play! It’s 10am! Anyone sleeping at this hour needs to get a life!”
they argue with you over the phone and then show up in their sneakers at your door.
their door is always open for you – too, just as yours is open for them.

They are your Drop in Anytime Friend.

Drop In Anytime Sue — Sue, after climbing through my kitchen window, two days after Cedar was born.

I hope you have one, and if you don’t, then I suggest trying on becoming that kind of friend for someone else. It’s usually mutual anyway. A drop in anytime friend reminds you that you belong to someone’s life – that you matter – that you needn’t be anything other than exactly what and who you are in this moment. You are always welcome, and there is always a seat at the table for you. At least, that’s how it feels for me. There’s a quiet, peaceful place for friends of this kind – it’s called HOME.

When we moved out of that complex and away to our ‘dream’ lifestyle on an island by the water, what I missed most was that friend. I missed Sue’s voice coming through the door, her eyeballs looking at me over a cuppa coffee through the kitchen window, the sound of our kid’s feet kicking off their shoes in her narrow hallway, and that feeling of being known, loved and held in the bubble of I’m always here for you. I wouldn’t even say we were best friends, we were a richer kind: one without expectation, or comparison or place. We didn’t have everything in common. We weren’t in the same career. We didn’t share the same opinions – but we had one value in common, and we still do.

Community.

Having a Drop in Anytime Friend is the Living Story of COMMUNITY.

Our families still gather in the summer to camp - well, as much as we still can. — Our families still gather in the summer to camp – well, as much as we still can.

I find as life gets easier, as the kids get older, as the marriages and divorces and hook ups calm down, the finances build, fall, adjust, and build again, and the dramas become the art of our history, somehow transforming into wisdom, my drop in anytime friends are the ones who never age, never leave and will never die.

xxT

The Audacity of Passion

February 15, 2016

There’s something about being around people who act on their passion. It’s as if they shine just a little bit brighter, you can feel their energy through the phone, and they electrify you when you’re around them. People who are plugged in to their source of passion simply zap you into attention. Enter Vancouver’s latest firefly: Suzy Kaitman, founder of Ballet Lounge and the spark behind the new craze of physical movement and expression: Ballet Fit.

You’ve probably heard this, but it’s a keeper:

Do you light up the room when you enter it, or does the room brighten as you leave?

No doubt, Kaitman brings her lightening bolts with her when she enters the room or takes the stage. I caught up with her at this past weekend’s 24th annual Wellness Show in Vancouver.

What is Ballet Fit?

It’s a workout inspired by the principles of classical dance that tones and sculpts your entire body. It includes elements of barre work, cardio, core and flexibility and we offer three levels to choose from.

Who is Suzy Kaitman?

Suzy has been dancing since she could walk. When ballet found her, it was as if a part of her clicked into place and she simply took off. As a young student dancer, she was always the keener, “give me more classes”, she said, “I want to do them all”. As many young dancers who have been claimed by the fire of movement, she immersed herself, upholding visions of a professional future in the form she loved. When her teen years arrived and her body lost its willowy childhood form and she emerged as a young woman of strength with curves and muscle and form, her dream of becoming a professional ballerina was dashed. “I don’t have the perfect ballet body. I’m not all legs with a long neck. My back doesn’t want to flex the way it needs to in order to make it in competitive dance”. She confessed that once she realized that her dream would never be her reality, she was so crushed and her heart so broken that even shows like So you Think you can Dance, were painful to watch.

We know this, but we like to pretend that it’s not true: through the course of our long life most of us will experience intense disappointment, the heart ache of broken dreams, or worse, the resignation of shattered beliefs. It’s unavoidable. Life happens. When we are children we frame anything is possible as if the rules don’t apply to us, only to discover at the tender stage of adolescence that whether we like it or not, sometimes our story is meant to change. It’s in those pivotal moments that our character is formed.

I’m almost finished David Brooks’ book, The Road to Character and it’s filled with centuries worth of history makers who chose character over complacency, their values over comfort, and lived audaciously by their passions. He gives us the story of George Eliot, which was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, a Victorian novelist and poet, to teach us about how character can come through the tumultuous path of love. He introduces us to Jewish psychiatrist, writer and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl to show us how our character reveals itself though the happenings of how we live, and George Marshall, soldier and Nobel Peace Prize recipient whose story of consistent confrontation is what deepened his commitment to self-mastery. All of Brooks’ examples are true tales of adversity where each person’s struggle expanded the reach of their calling and developed layer upon layer of character along the way.

From my perspective, passion is the antidote to emptiness and it is the fuel that drives us to walk (or dance) courageously through our deepest grief. Suzy Kaitman’s journey to Ballet Fit was born out of a broken dream, yet what came next was even better than she could have imagined.

Kaitman was yearning for what ballet brought her so she continued to search for another way to express the passion that fires up her spirit. She kept looking for a career that could challenge and fulfill her the way that ballet did, and as it happens, as if by accident, she stumbled into the world of fitness and studied as a personal trainer and then began teaching. Her background in the often hardcore, serious and highly competitive world of ballet became her personal invitation and inspiration to turn it on it’s ear by breathing FUN into ballet. “When I discovered that I could teach ballet to house music, I would dive in so fully that I felt almost high after. When I’m dancing it’s as if nothing else matters. I’m in the moment and it’s like dance therapy.”

Suzy Kaitman on stage — Suzy Kaitman at Vancouver’s 24th Annual Wellness Show.

With that, Ballet Fit was born, which is different from the now popular barre classes happening around town. Ballet Fit blends a cardio workout with core strength, ballet positions and poses and it focuses on FUN and physical expression – just like dance.

When Ballet Fit clicked into place, Kaitman was living in Calgary, so I asked her what brought her to Vancouver? To which she chuckled and replied “Too many winters in Calgary I guess. Oh yeah, that and love”. Once again passion ruled for Kaitman and lucky for us, she followed her boyfriend here to the wild wet coast of Vancouver. She began teaching her Ballet Fit at the YMCA and quickly filled her first class which turned into three, which then grew to seventeen full classes happening at various venues around town. Figuring out she’d struck a cord in Vancouver, she solidified her decision to open up a new facility, Vancouver’s Ballet Lounge.

only in Vancouver would someone use an umbrella as their 'ballet barre'. — only in Vancouver would someone use an umbrella as their ‘ballet barre’.

She goes on to tell me about how she’s not like those scary ballet people (think Natalie Portman in Black Swan), and after experiencing her in person, I can whole-heartedly vouch for that. At the 24th Annual Wellness Show she inspired a floor full of umbrella wielding wellness enthusiasts. Vancouverites kicked off their shoes and happily followed along bending, reaching and lifting. Kaitman reminds us that in her classes, you’re joining in to her “happy family” where she “celebrates you”. She adds that “people walk in to class so exhausted after a long day but after an hour of music, of oxygen and movement, they leave feeling alive again”.

I asked her what advice she would give someone who may be going through a similar dream-grief experience?

“The universe works in mysterious ways. Time heals all things so take that time as a separation to see your life from a different angle. Maybe there’s another calling for you.”

It takes takes passion to chase a dream.
To be a ballerina
To excel at what you do.

It takes courage to embrace the realities of a situation
To grieve a loss
To give time and space to a shattered dream.

It takes trust to answer a new calling
To try something new
To follow love.

And it takes the audacity of passion to follow the call.

Here’s to you Suzy Kaitman – Danceprenuer and Passion Enthusiast. Happy opening. I can’t wait to get my point and sweat on with you later this month.

xxT