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

April 20, 2017

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

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

Remember this?

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

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

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

What would you do?

How would you live?

What might you say?

Where might you say it?

When might you care the most?

Who would you let yourself be?

Why would you roar?

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

Keep going – do not cross out

Keep writing – do not erase

Keep breathing – do not crumple up

What does your story want to tell you today?

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

I’m setting the timer now.

Ready… Set… now I Go…

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

What do I learn from this?

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

How might I use this?

Well… look at my logo. Interesting right?

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

JOIN IN THE CORE STORY CLUB HERE

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

After Trump – TinaO’s Kind of Love – BLOG

November 10, 2016

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.

That Money Thang #5 – VIDEO

November 1, 2016

Money, it’s been my silent partner for years.

Avoidance, there’s another one who has been taking up space as a stow-away and not so quiet friend of mine.

Worth, yuck, yup, that one is here too, she lives in my shoe laces because then I can hear two voices. On one foot I hear awesomeness, I know it, I own it, I rock it, and I celebrate it. When that lace speaks I’m totally there holding hands and stepping forward, but then there’s the other shoe…

You see, it depends on the subject I’m lacing up.

Have you ever put skates on a kid? I’m a hockey mom and while my husband has been running the sports department in our house for the last decade, we’re now out-numbered with our third getting on the ice this year so I’m the one in his locker room doing my darndest to keep his ankles from rolling in. Let’s just say that I’m doing a better job with his alternate foot than I am with mine.

I totally wobble with my self-worth in certain areas, specifically my resource of which we all have three: Our time, our money and our energy. I’ve been on a self-avoidance spending tare for years.

That Money Thang is my latest journey through this thing called life because as I’m sure you’ve heard me say before (and I didn’t come up with it), we’re here for two reasons: to LOVE and to LEARN and isn’t it fortunate that the very things we need to learn also deliver us the self-love required to make a radical shift in the icky sticky stuckness of our life.

This week’s That Money Thang sees me celebrating because after eight years of procrastinating over two overstuffed bags of contacts and long over due follow-up to and from business dealings I’ve had, I poured seven hours into cleaning them up. It’s kinda shocking that eight years of hiding and tolerating which btw is a total of 70,080 hours can be tidied up in only seven. I realize that I may have been sleeping for 50% of those hours but let’s be honest about that too – that kind of procrastination does not generate deep slumber. My body did get cancer remember? Hmmm… right, an immune system shut down with invitation for disease to move in, how did lack of sleep not contribute to that?

Never again.

Procrastination = Worry = Sleepless nights = Recycled self-loathing = Empty self-worth = Panic = Procrastination = Worry = Sleepless nights = …disease.

Never again.

Here’s my jubilant walk with my pup as I celebrate rockin’ my own value, and yes that pun was totally intended.

Are you getting my drift here? This thing called self-worth and procrastination and stuffing it and and and… it’s all connected.

Do you want to feel more value in your life?

Maybe you want to join me and eleven others with a similar experience for Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat nestled in an ecological sanctuary just twenty minutes away from Horseshoe Bay, West Vancouver.

Three times per year I host LYBS a weekend retreat on Bowen Island for those who want to do just that: LIVE their BEST Story. We spend 36 hours together listening to the story within you that wants to be known, loved and honoured.

Nothing can move from a rocky shore until a King (or Queen) Tide comes in, and that tide is you and your self-love.

If this sounds intriguing or delicious to you, why not send me a message below or at tina@liveyourbeststory.com and we’ll set up a free inquiry call to find out more.

I believe in you.

I know you have love inside of you.

xxT

Five in Five – How to Create a Magical Connection – BLOG

October 6, 2016

five-in-five

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.

September is SMOOTH like Peanut Butter

September 14, 2016

I heard a great expression today:

“September. It’s like time clicks over from molasses to wine.”

So true, isn’t it?

I had a glorious summer of working when I wanted to, on things that resonated with me, and now it’s time to hit-the-ground with it all and put things back into action. I have re-stocked the pantry for cooking and nesting and making out with my slow-cooker, I have hauled out the winter boots and sweaters and I’ve made a pot of tea almost every afternoon to keep me company as I write.

And I am not alone in my Sprint September ways, am I? I hear from clients that kids are back in school, and it’s already mayhem. Some are juggling businesses, and gaining parents, and epic exhaustion as the light seems to fade earlier and earlier as we tumble toward the shortest day of the year in just a few months.

I have been offering some simple solutions all week in these calls, and so I am here to share them with you, too. (You don’t even have to be working with me—aren’t you lucky?)

I hope you are easing into the transition to fall, and as always, if I can support you in any way, you know where to find me.

Until next week,

Tara

Get Real, Sexy Real.

Tara

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.

Tara VLOG #4 – What are your Wildest Desires?

June 30, 2016

In this week’s VLOG we’re talking about your biggest, craziest, wildest dreams and how you might make them come true – the secret *might* just be telling your partner what it is…

And here is the video:

WHAT ARE YOUR WILDEST DESIRES…?

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.