Friends… my latest update is out and its full of all things story for us writers out there who are chomping to get words on the page in November which is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

I open with some disclosure about exposure.

I just had to write that… 😉

And then I share with you all the cool things happening over the next 30 or so days: workshops, readings, performances, screenings… all the things…

If you can’t find it in your inbox (email), here’s a direct link where you’ll also find my Story of Exposure.

As always… Thanks for listening.

xT

Tina Overbury is a Storyteller, Facilitator, and Expressive Arts Therapist (in training) who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. While her art centres around harmscapes and the imprints they leave, her work is rooted in the healing power of the Arts.  Tina brings thirty years of storytelling in theatre, film, and workshop facilitation and is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a deep listening retreat held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada.

Hi there, 

My name is Tina Overbury and I’m a writer and storyteller living on Nex̱wlélex̱m (Bowen Island), in British Columbia, Canada.

I need to introduce myself to you because I’ve written and performed a piece that intersects with your story and I wanted you to meet me as a person first, before you hear about me as a storyteller somewhere else. The story that doesn’t belong to me but has found it’s way into my heart and hands is the Mother and Baby Homes across Ireland, and the Tuam babies of County Galway. 

Before I go any further, please let me first say how sorry I am for all that has been done. I’m truly sorry. 
I’m sending you this message to share a few bits and pieces about how this painful part of your history has impacted me, and I’ve attached a few links about the piece I’ve written as part of a social impact project called: ‘Storytelling for Reconciliation’. It’s called OMYGOD about the women we’ve burned, the babies we’ve buried and the Gods we have worshipped. It’s a 97 minute solo-show, and the Tuam story is only one of three story threads in it, but it’s a significant one and it matters to me that you hear from me personally. It’s just what’s right and respectful.

So thank you for listening.

I want to give you a bit of a back-story because I didn’t set out to write about this. It began as a solo-show project to celebrate my 50th birthday, but the more questions asked, the deeper the answers went and as it evolved, it took me in an entirely surprising direction around the forgotten and ‘accepted’ wrongs done to women and children, Indigenous people, and our culture pre-Christianization and colonization. 

It’s not a piece about blaming, it’s about naming, witnessing and holding enough of a container to actually take it in, accept the truth of the atrocity, and be changed by listening to it.  I believe that storytelling and theatre can do that. 

When I started, this show was about exploring why women are self-conscious and why they (me) second guess themselves consistently. I started with a narrative called: ‘the making of a madwoman’.  As I began to unpack that idea more and more and ask why we people (often of the feminine persuasion) do this so much? And where did it all start? It lead to me to a number of unexpected story threads including: 
Indigeneity. Why aren’t there female Gods? Then I stumbled upon The Morrigan & Brigid, which led me to try and figure out the witch burnings, which then challenged my own faith journey.

The last thread to arrive was the story of the Tuam babies. I had been watching the news while folding laundry by the fire in January when I saw all the socks and shoes dangling in the wind on my screen. I thought of my own story of being adopted and losing my mom at eight years old. As a mother to three boys (almost men!), I also remembered what it was like to lose my first child. I kept watching, until I heard what felt to me like a pretty insufficient apology offered by the Irish government and then I just couldn’t shake it. This part of Ireland’s history (and yours) struck a chord with me. 

Here’s a bit more about where this piece called OMYGOD is taking me: 
This might not sound like it intersects but it does. So again… thank you for hanging in this far. I am part of a 100% Indigenous owned organization called PowHERhouse Impact Media group. The founder of the organization is also adopted, is Indigenous and was part of the foster care system for four years before she was adopted by a family.

Where Ireland and Canada’s history intersect is here: In Canada 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families and forced into what we called residential school. 6000 children lost their lives there and countless others were traumatized for life. I understand that in Ireland 56,000 babies were born in Mother and Baby homes, and 9000 children lost their lives. Again… I am so sorry.

Truth and Reconciliation is a big part of Canada’s current awareness and we are all learning how to listen to the wrongs we have done (whether we personally did them or not). My kids are learning about it in school and my middle son just last week talked to me about it. I know this was never something that would’ve come up when I was in school. We can only continue to do better and better with the truths we are made aware of. While doing research for my show I just couldn’t get over the similarities in our collective history. 

I have screened OMYGOD to a small audience already and the feedback has been overwhelmingly encouraging. I have to admit I was quite nervous. The subject matter is quite direct and as a white woman woman of privilege I know these conversations are complex with a lot of pain and trauma wrapped up inside. But what happened really inspired me to keep going. The screening opened up challenging conversations and it seems to invite a space for stories like this to be heard, and that is what this show is all about for me. It’s about reconciliation, truth telling, and humility as we move forward together through the wrongs we’ve done to each other in this really divided time in our history. 

I may have given you way more information than you needed or wanted, but I’m a writer and I come by it honestly, so thank you again for listening. 

If you’ve moved on from this part of your personal history already and would really rather just put it all behind you, I’m sorry for bringing it up. Truly I am. I hope you can hear my heart on this.

On this path of conscious reconciliation, and as an artist, storyteller and mom to three boys, I am stumbling forward here and learning as I go. I keep hearing from the Indigenous elders around me that ‘before we can have reconciliation we must have truth’, and I couldn’t agree more and it takes a long time for that truth to be received. I don’t think of truth as an intellectual exercise of saying the right thing. To me it’s experiential and I notice how uncomfortable I am with how painfully slow it can be. The other thing we keep hearing in the arts world, and I’m working on being in practice of (also a slow process for a western mind and over-achiever like me!) is: ‘not about, without’ – meaning don’t tell someone else’s story for them, and definitely, not without them. 

I recognize, this Tuam story isn’t mine to tell, and I’m not Indigenous to Canada either, yet these two story threads are woven into me, so here I am with an open heart and I’m trying. So thank you for taking the time to hear me out.  

There’s a press conference on the 28th and a screening in three time zones. I hope it goes without saying that you are more than weIcome to be there. I am open to talking more about any and all of this with you as well. I know I’m not going to be able to reach all of the Mother and Baby Home survivors and those affected by what happened,  so if there are people in your circle, will you forward this letter to them? 
Again, I am so sorry for all that has happened. This is a big wound that deserves to be honoured, and at the same time deserves to be laid to rest and heal.

My hope is that my piece: OMYGOD can do a bit of both. 

Sincerely,

Tina Overbury

Mother to four, three with me.

Daughter to two, one with me.

Settler to Canada, grateful to call Nex̱wlélex̱m (Bowen Island) on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations my home.

Tina Overbury is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She is devoted to global reconciliation through the exploration of origin stories, sharing our oral history, land-based knowing, and a continued focus on communication as a sacred practice. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Stories from the Core – her weekly writing and conversation series. She is a proud associate of PowHERhouse Impact Media as a core-communications specialist working with individuals and organizations who feel called.She is a co-host of GATHER for HER, and a PowHERhouse Artist of Impact Amplify Coach helping leaders become artists and artists become leaders.

You know what I love about albums from the seventies? They were unabashedly sentimental. They were also totally dramatic, and there was always something kinda innocent, naive almost in even the heaviest of the songs from that time. My favourite album from the 70’s is Carole King’s Tapestry – released in 1971.

Have you noticed that when artists share their music with us over a long period of time, it’s like we as the listener get to grow up with them.

And that’s what this post is about.

Over the last five years, every substantial pillar and support beam that was my ‘life’ came down.

Finances.

Marriage.

Career.

Health.

Ummm… what else is there? Air?

…Not my department.

And everywhere I fell, stood, stumbled and sang, you came with me. You leaned in as I launched Live Your Best Story (which is really where this chapter of change began) and where the photo above is taken from. You followed along as I turned my camera on and talked about nothing which might be something, and usually was. You sent me words of encouragement, gifts even, during the five months I was in bed pre, during and post cancer treatment, and you cheered me on as I set out on a triathlon eight months later. I was thirty pounds lighter with no fat on my body, and a nervous system screaming high alert! High alert! High alert! over and over to me. You swam with me as I complained and cried my way through every damn training swim I did. You waited for me when my marriage collapsed and I went dark for awhile and new words started to emerge from my lips – more poetic ones, softer somehow but with more grit than I was ever willing to share before.  You stood with me through the God conversation as I chose to follow the sun…

and I still am…

following the sun…

You listened to me.

And you taught me how to listen.

Doesn’t this sound like a Carole King song?

my life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue.

An everlasting vision of the ever-changing view

A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold

A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold

For the next sixteen weeks, I am releasing a Story Hit (vlog) from our last five years together. Some will be favourites of mine, some will be your faves.

Remember the day I finally swam 1000 metres without a kick board and cried with joy telling you about it? Or the unrelenting anger, confusion and sadness the day after Donald Trump got into office? Or how about the lip sync of Carole King’s So Far Away during week one of the covid lockdown?

These are a few of the moments I remember, and they came from these places:

#100 Love – The Triathlon

The Beach Sessions

Story Tuesdays

Sanctuary Sunday

Walk and Talks with Meribeth

 These are my ‘greatest hits’,  and just like a 1970’s album, I’m going to risk being sentimental, dramatic and real. I’m going to tell you a story as I close this book of Where We’ve Been and crack the binding on the next one.

And the new book is literally a book.

My first book, Story Stones will be delivered to the publisher January 31st, and my one woman show: O MY GOD starts rehearsal mid February 2021.

STORY STONES:  The layering of the twelve Core Stories which emerged from hundreds of individual calls, with a corresponding Origin story like: Spider Woman and the Four Creations (Hopi), Let There Be (Judeo Christian), Popul Vuh (Mayan) and more, and pulling these layers together is the saga of my triathlon journey as an injured non-swimmer who is only months out of cancer treatment and on the verge of divorce. This book asks: What if we are not broken? What is the narrative of our individual life force that carries both our divine medicine and our poison. What if we chose to surrender to the story of who we truly are?

O MY GOD: A young girl is haunted by a 15,000 year old giant, a painfully self-conscious witch returns to church, and a Celtic shape-shifting mistress of war explain the purpose of religion while being visited by mythological Gods and Goddesses who offer jokes, warnings and insights about the sacred irrelevance of God.

That’s where we’re going.

But today… let’s celebrate and remember where we’ve been.

Won’t you join me for the next sixteen weeks as we turn on the record player, gently place the needle down, cozy up on the couch and listen to the stories we’ve shared over the last five years?

A story doesn’t let go of us until it’s been fully heard.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for hearing me.

RELEASE #1 – ‘Out of the Water’ will be delivered to you on Saturday, September 13th.

For now… I leave you with this:

See you Saturday.

xxT

Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.

If you’d like to know more about TinaO’s approach to STORY and receive updates about STORY STONES the book, and O MY GOD, her one woman show, click here and you’ll be added to her ‘stay in touch’ list plus she’ll send you a few short intro videos about what story means to her. 

CLICK HERE for TinaO Story stuff.

This isn’t a book about rocks, though my house is filled with them. 

It’s not about divorce either, but like the big jagged stone it is, it’s in here.

I didn’t want to write a cancer comeback story either, but… it happened.

And it’s not about God.

Who am I kidding?

It’s 

always 

about 

God.

We come into the world as a story stone, with a divine narrative of who we are tucked inside. We are made AS something FOR something. As the story stone of our being meets the ocean that is this life, our story ripples out. Each ripple represents a turning point, a time where we ran to or from the story we are made as.

When we can understand our own story and learn how story works through us as an ever evolving, expanding invitation, we can bravely, yet compassionately, step into the myth we are made for.

At this time I have only come across twelve core stories which root the countless expressions of how we live them. There are as many unique expressions as there are people.

These are the twelve stories:

The Enough Story

The Matter Story

The Hope Story

The Power Story

To Be or Not to Be Story

The With Story

The Life Story

The Thing Story

The Belonging Story

The Control Story

The Worthy Story 

The Love Story

Each of us walks with all twelve stories at the same time, but one will always lead. It is the story you can’t run fast enough from or fast enough to. It is the great partner within every major turning point of your life. It is both your poison and your medicine.

I introduce you to these stories through my own Core Story: The Matter Story.

This book is a layering of the twelve Core Stories, corresponding Origin stories, and my own personal experiences as a collection of stories from my core, tracking the ripples as we go.

I’m a poet.

I’m a tracker.

I’m a storyteller.

I am a follower of mystery.

And I am a star.

As are you.

Not only are we a Story Stone, but we are literally made from stardust.

We are a supernova in the making.

next?

December 25th, 2020 – 50 Days of Christmas. I turn 50 this year and in celebration of my half-century I am writing and performing a one-woman show called O MY GOD which will be touring in small venues across BC, Canada March/April/May 2021. Tickets for the show will be available during these fifty days, as will the pre-sale of STORY STONES.

February 14th, 2021 – Staged Reading from both my book: Story Stones, and O MY GOD. This is the official kick-off of the rehearsal process for the tour.

March 1st 2021 – The Birthday Tour of O MY GOD begins.

September 2021 – The Release of STORY STONES the book

If you would like to be kept up to date about Story Stones the book, or O MY GOD and my upcoming tour, click here. 

I’ll also send you some stuff about what Core Story is, how I use it, and why I care so much about it.

Here it is again. 

Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow. 

The age of the artist has begun. It starts here. Now. Feeling beings, receiving beings, action oriented beings from a place of connection. It’s not ‘art’ people – it’s a way of living.

In trust.

In faith.

In love.

In full on RISK.

In courage.

In BOLD, brave action.

Stepping out with our hearts in our mouths, with our soul driving the f*cking bus.

Integrated.

Whole.

Savage courageous love (to borrow a term from my friend Jim).

Courage to take action with the fire in your heart.

Slowing down enough to hear the wisdom and gifting entrusted to you.

We so f*cking got this. As my friend and colleague Charlene SanJenko says… we are MADE for it.

Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s weekly online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow. 

If you would like to know more about Tina’s approach to story, click here.