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Identifying Your Core Story – BLOG

October 4, 2016

Yesterday I started writing my book and if you’ve heard that before from me it’s because I have a few books going – it has been equally as frustrating for me, but you know how I say, “Sometimes the story tells you, and sometimes you tell the story“? – well, this is one of those times. I’ve been looking for the legs to the title of this book for a year or so and every time I thought I found it, it would sink weeks later into the sand and vanish, that is until I stumbled on to this.

My Core Story.

I won’t go into it much because it’s something you kinda just gotta surrender to. To be brief it looks like this. You have two questions to answer, and as much as possible, you have to let yourself answer them as plainly, honestly, and without decoration as possible (which is hard for us mind-centered, or feeling based people because we think we’re so beyond that, ahem… as if we could be). The one thing we all have in common is a primal need to be seen, heard and most importantly known – or as some self-helpers call it: to belong, and we’ll do anything and everything in our power to protect that possibility, including lie to ourselves, or worse, sugar coat it all so that we bare absolutely no responsibility for the possibility that someone in our 360 degree global peripherie ever feels like they might…not…belong.

From my perspective, none of us ever truly belongs and only in allowing the incredibly daunting human truth of that to be so will we ever tumble into the sense of belonging that we’re all scrambling to find. We gotta let it go because there is no proof. We can make some up, throw some names around, some labels, some arrows, some bullet points, share some aha moments and more… but the reality is, the only belonging we can every truly ‘prove’ is our very own personal sense of it, and even then only we, individually, can ever really believe it to the level that it seems real….

How bleak right? Oh gawwwwwd we’re all alone….?

Yep and in that, it’s how we’re totally not. That’s humanity. That’s where our connectedness is. That’s how our sameness shows up. It’s in our fragility matched only by our magnitude that our beauty is realized. How frickin’ gorgeous is that? And damn confusing I might add.

So I have two questions to help us identify how we don’t belong so that we can belong. At this point I’m either making you nuts or you dig my message. Wanna stay for more?

Two questions – that’s it and trust me when I say, they’re ridiculously simple to answer and insanely challenging to be known. I’ve been offering inquiry sessions with people as I develop this work and I can tell you, out of the countless people that I’ve chatted with, only three have been truly willing to answer the questions with all masks down right away and those that did let their core story tell me before their mind could (an example of ‘when the story tells you’). For the rest of us, most of the time we can tickle out some clues over the hour, like breadcrumb words we’re following to get there. Sometimes our core story shows up as expressions first before we can nail the one phrase that gives us goosebumps, or knocks the wind out of us.

It’s truly amazing when it happens. It’s beautiful to witness for sure.

So… now I’m writing a book. Forty five years of this story chasing me and now it’s ready to be given to the world. It’s not an autobiography, though it will be peppered with personal stories.

Okay, but before I do that, you’re thinking: What are the dang questions???? Well here they are, and if you struggle to find an answer, drop me a message below and we can book a complimentary inquiry session okay? I just may be able to help you out with that. Anything you post in the comments below go directly to my email – I don’t publish them. Now, if your core story does reveal itself to you and you don’t know what to do with it, also let me know and we can book a call to follow the thread together.

Here are the questions:

Question #1: What is the one thing you always give people (and the world) no matter what?

Question #2: In your deepest, darkest moments, what is the sentence you have always said to yourself ?

Here’s a clue: They are usually the opposite of each other, but not always. For example, my answers are:

Tina’s Core Story:

Core Love: You matter

Core Pain: I don’t matter, nothing matters, this is stupid, why bother.

I’ll explain more later… but for today, here’s an excerpt from the opening of my book that is all about this work and how it arrived for me:

an excerpt from You Matter – Identifying your Core Story

…So there’s this thing that you run from right? I do. I have most of my life. Even in my forties when I think I’ve stopped running, I forget, Oh yeah, I’m human, I run from everything. I think we’re master escape artists which seems kinda strange doesn’t it? Why would we want to escape the very thing we’re here to live. I suppose none of us had a choice in the matter and somewhere deep down that bugs us. Because we showed up here kicking and screaming, well some of us did, others came into the world all wide eyed and peaceful – I’m sure that I wasn’t one of them. I bet I came into the world fast – like a blow torch afraid I’d lose my flame if someone wasn’t holding me. Foooooosh, scorching the doctor as I came out.

I was premature. My mom was only sixteen when I was born. I joke about it now, well, not really. I joked about it when I was a kid. Adoption is one of those things that isn’t weird or hard, or difficult, it just is. When you’re a kid, it’s just part of the clothing you forget on the bus because it’s truly so irrelevant. When you’re a kid you don’t care how you came into the world, you’re just so damn glad to be here. Wow, look at that tree! It’s HUGE! Holy smokes I think I could climb that! Hey! I got a lemon twist for Easter! Watch me! Wait a minute how come my hair is so twisty and tangled and hers so straight? I like music. I sing all the time. Like all the time. I’m still singing la la la la la… I live between three churches and nobody in my house prays. How come? My dad is French Canadian and he likes to make home-made wine underneath the stairs. Sometimes we have fruit flies… See? Who cares if you’re adopted, you have lots of other things on your mind, at least I did. I used to tell my friends in highschool that I was a ‘back seat baby’ – I mean, where else do you have sex when you’re 15 years old right? I thought nothing of it. Of course, now I’m a mom to three of my own children, and I’m really close to my mom (biological), we’re kinda like sisters and I never, ever, ever blamed, judged or was angry with her about giving me away even when my mom (adopted) died when I was eight… Truly. I actually always knew that I was chosen some how – but still… that’s the mind, not the body. And you know, I still don’t care if I was conceived in the back seat of a car, but I do care about the rest of stuff.

The adoption thing became a traceable pattern. It was the first mirror of how this human experience was giving me exactly what I needed for who I am to expand (but that’s a whole other conversation, we’ll get there later). It was the first time I was experiencing my core story that I don’t really matter. It was the very first time, on a cellular level, that my body wasn’t sure if this place was where I was supposed to be. It was the first time my eyes couldn’t make sense of a moment, of a missing hand, of a warm chest, as I searched for the eyes of my mom, and the scent of her body. Yes I was only six months old and I could totally be making this up, but I’m not. Because we know stuff we don’t want to know. On some level, that’s what was going on for me, I just didn’t have words yet, but I understood that I didn’t matter.

More to come…

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.

That Money Thang #2 No Peace for me Today

August 20, 2016

I woke up feeling mad and trapped this morning. Lets be honest, as I have almost every morning this week (minus the two days I had a friend over and was so happy to be distracted with her awesomeness and her bright eyed kids), and geeze louise, it’s because I’ve finally answered the door and let the money monster in.

‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ as they say. No, money isn’t my enemy and all of you know it all money peeps who are prone to spout off all kinds of positive affirmation sound bytes can just relax. I know: money is just energy and it takes on whatever meaning we give it.

I get it.

What I’m really saying is that I’ve had an ‘if I ignore you long enough maybe you’ll just go away’ relationship with money for a long time and guess what? It did. Well, the dollars did, but the relationship didn’t.

Have you ever been the kid who pretends to be playing hide and seek? You know, the kid who hides wayyyyyyyyyy far away because she doesn’t want to play, doesn’t want to be found but also doesn’t want to say no to your game invitation either? That’s me. I’ve been in the money game forever but just pretending to play, slowly grumbling and sometimes even seething in the bushes.

That said, I have also been the all flashing teeth, bright eyes and POSITIVE mindset kid running running running and playing the game – one might even say I have WON a number of rounds of good ole hide and seek.

But that has never been sustainable for me. I always end up slipping away back to the bushes.

Interestingly enough, the kid I’ve never been is the one who is actually engaged in the game. You know, the kid who has chosen to play because she frickin’ loves the rules, loves the game, loves the win and can let loose in laughter when she loses. Oh my goodness, how many times have we heard, “it’s not about who wins or who loses, it’s about how you play the game”? – the secret sauce ain’t much of a secret is it? You gotta play, and more importantly, you gotta play like you wanna play, and when you do, sometimes you’ll win and sometimes you’ll lose but you’ll sure have a heck of a good time PLAYING…

Playing.

So that’s been my issue.

I don’t play. I’d really just rather not.

And when I do, I’m usually the reluctant player, and then worse, a judgemental player, and then worse than that – a resentful player.

Crap.

No wonder I woke up mad.

Ever feel like that???

The good news is, waking up to anything you’ve been hiding from will bring on all of the stages you’ve been avoiding. That’s called MOVING FORWARD. It’s just a blechhhhy part. No wonder I’ve been ignoring this whole mess.

Who wants to feel like this? Yet here it is.

So the deal is:

If I can overcome cancer, dehydration, radiation sickness and burn blisters in my throat, then grow through methodically building the muscle and endurance required to swim, bike and run a triathlon,

I guess I can walk through this fire too.

Oh boy, I guess I have a new mantra don’t I? But who wants to repeat that all the time? So instead, how about when you hear me say… “I can overcome…” – suffice it to say that I’m finishing the long windy proof in the pudding sentence in my head.

…I can do this too.

Even when I’m mad.

Today I’ll accept that being mad is just kinda like living out the feelings of being blistered.

Here are my musings – in the moment. Don’t worry, I’m rather contained. I gave the worst of it to Todd on our daily Saturday morning drive to the boat.

xxT

TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and with her Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers Coaching Program, she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.

You Matter and So Do I

July 21, 2016

I thought this was about how I matter, and it is, but… so? Yes I’ve read all of the same books that you have and I get it, everything starts with me. Right? Nothing has the juice of connection until there’s a me in the center of my own picture and until we’re rooted in the me that is mine there is no hook that can reach out and in to you authentically.

Oh gawd that word, the A word: authentic.

I bet when those three syllables resurface in another ten years I may like them again, but for now, the A-word feels like it might be part of the problem.

Why?

Because we’ve named it and now it exists like a destination, or a flag if you will. We have a word for the missing it – it’s become the ingredient we’re all hoping will bring us an audience, or a tribe, or inner peace, that our authentic self will lead us to the next step, the next place that will lead us home so we can finally arrive.

We want authenticity now, and thats why there’s all this I-engine revving going on.

Who am I?
What do I want?
Where am I going?
What do I have to offer?

Can you hear it? The I that lives in the My?

What is My purpose?
What is My gift?
Who is My tribe?

And yes… I know, like I really know, because I teach this stuff too and I can spend a lot of time spouting off about this very subject, in fact here’s what I say in Live Your Best Story on Friday night: “You can’t get there from there, you can only get there from here, and tonight, all we are doing is experiencing what it feels like to stand in our here.” These I’s and My’s are all about owning what is HERE, our here, right here, no where else but here. It’s our dot on the page, our own personal Google beacon so we can see ourselves and be seen from space. We do all of this work on our I and our My because we’ve grown into master escape artists. The last thing any of us want to do is actually BE HERE, or even harder, BE HERE TOGETHER.

So we sign up for I courses, Me weekends and My workshops. We begin to get comfortable in our ability to take up space, let our voice me known, and have an opinion. We might even roar a bit. Wooooo that’s risky. We buy into the idea that if we’re not ‘pissing anybody off, we’re not taking any risks either’. We bite into our I am sandwich, and then we keep on eating.

Why then are we still hungry and/or just a little bit sick?

What’s that about?

Because I and Me and My and Mine may be perfect, but it’s not whole. It’s only half of the story right? That would seem logical wouldn’t it? But even that isn’t accurate because I, Me and My is in fact only a third, and if you’re still with me, actually only 1/4 of the whole. Ready?

Here’s what it is:

I
You
little we
BIG WE

Following the top three, we can ask: Does this serve me? Does this serve you? Does this serve us? It’s pretty simple to stand in each of those perspectives and know what to do. It’s even easier when we can recognize that each of us has a default position that we auto-pilot. Clearly, for those of you who have followed me for awhile, know that I have a very strong and habitual “I” position. How do you know that? How many selfies do I take??? Yup… lots. I’m suuuuuuper comfortable in the I position. My back-up pilot is the ‘little we’ position as in, I remember that when I post a ‘selfie’ about me, I do it in service of the ‘little we’ – here’s where I suggest the 4th option, or a 3B if that’s easier…

I call it the big ‘WE’ (and yes I’m totally riffing on David Brook’s idea of the big and little me in his book The Road to Character which I LOVE btw).

You still with me?

See, there’s a difference between the little we and the big we and here it is:

Little we: Your team, your tribe, your community, your audience, your network, your connections.

What is the common denominator here? YOU as in ME, or I, as if we own it, or are the central character.

Here’s the BIG WE: Us, the planet, all, ever-after. What’s the common denominator? ALL, there’s no differentiation between you or me or we. There is no separation, or BOX to put us in because we ARE THE BOX.

as my husband would say: Dynamite BOOOOOOOOM! Kablammo – now what?

I’m working on a book called You Matter and so do I – and this is the theme I’m exploring. I’m taking a look at concepts like:

It doesn’t matter because I already do.
Who am I without words to describe me?
Where does resilience come from?
Finding freedom at the bottom.
What landing in your groove feels like and why.
How detachment might be a form of attachment to the BIG WE.
You matter because you are breathing, because you arrived, because you are here.

You matter and so do I is what I’m working on for delivery to all of you by October 29th 2016. There. It matters because it, as in the story that is coming, can now breathe too.

Big thank you to Meribeth Deen for nailing my thoughts to squiggles on a page. She helps me find words when I can’t see them or hear them yet.

xxT

Beautiful Idiot

July 4, 2016

I’m not going to think about this too much because if I do, I won’t write it. 20 minutes tops… here goes:

This letter is not a letter but a rant, a rub, a flag. It’s graffiti across my 40 something belly, ragged in permanent marker so it fades slowly, my shriek with no parachute, sprawled wide, turbulent and free, the dark velvet of Guiness spilling across the bar.

Bartender smiles.

He’s seen this before.

He knows what day it is.

Truth time. The moment after. The glance back when wisdom hasn’t arrived yet. Someone sits down and tries to chat but all you can do is the no-talk-small-talk, either that or ignore him completely. I pick up my pen and flip to a new page.

Strangers think writers are mysterious but probably crazy. Sexy too, but only …over there.

Bartender smirks knowingly at the stranger, then tosses a soft smile to you.

Dear twenty something,

you write.

Dear lost and jumbled, frenetic and free, torn up and trying… so much trying…

Listen, this tearing wildness that screams through you is worth it. All your hunger and heart break and panic for knowledge, to be sure, to contain, to fret, to flee, to love, and crush and blame and run, to transform and drift… just drift, drift

to claim drama by colouring with pastels, breaking them when pushing too hard and then scratching a new image with your fingers. The purple, red and golden lines beneath your nails say it was worth it.

To plunge into the breathless race of belonging, head spinning, drunk with clamoring still – somewhere anywhere.

To recognize how little you truly know. Claiming THIS IS HONEST at 4:30am.

Oh my but you are such a beautiful idiot.

You run.

every day.

Searching for knowledge, to land, to decide to follow through, to stand for something that doesn’t change in the next second. To be anything but what you are, this beautiful…

idiot.

So beautiful.

And you just don’t know it yet.

Dear twenty something, never stop. Running. Fling yourself forever. Press on. This mess. Love. Fucking Love. Risk sounding like a crazy poet jumping rope with yarn of seaweed, be the child woman with sand in her hair.

Dear 20 something – because you’ll never know.

And that’s just so…

idiotic. yes. and beautiful too.

xxT

On July 23rd on beautiful Bowen Island, just outside of Vancouver, BC at Rivendell Retreat Centre, I am offering Writing as Witness, a one day retreat into the story and/or wisdom inside of you that wants to be heard.

The day includes: Walking meditation, Writing, baring Witness to others, and witnessing our own wisdom. The retreat time will be as private or as connected as you want it to be, which means, you needn’t share your writing or insights if it doesn’t feel right.

There will be a few ‘how to’s and offered best practices’, but mostly, the day is a guided conversation with your-self and the ‘practice’ is in the following of how and what you are wanting to have heard.

Journals are provided. Snacks are also offered however, please bring a picnic lunch to enjoy outside (weather permitting).

July 23rd 2016, 10am-4pm, maximum 16 participants.

Cost is $79 for the day.

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Writing as Witness

June 22, 2016

I’m intuitive and that doesn’t make me special or any different from you. I write to listen to what I already know but can’t hear.

It started last summer after a cancer diagnosis. I don’t call it ‘my cancer’, because I don’t choose to personalize it that way. It never belonged to me, nor do I take ownership of the creation of it. I may have ‘asked’ for a shift, or ‘attracted’ a change, but I most certainly did not ask for cancer.

That said, a black sticky-outy thingy arrived as the messenger for my particular ‘asked for’ shift.

In processing this I began to write in a way I hadn’t before. I’ve always had a journal… yawwwnnnnnnnn and as you can see, I had become rather tired of that. I’ve written poetry forever, but somehow that felt too dark, almost too intimate. Frankly too indulgent really. I’ve also written opinion pieces when I’m wrestling with things as a way to figure them out. Here’s one of my favourites, only because the sheer writing of it filled me up when I’d been feeling empty. But writing that way seemed far too daunting and frankly too cerebral a process for what I was aching for.

Nothing fit. At that time in my life, I had been ready to roll out my own life’s red-carpet and reallllly get shit done. At the time of the diagnosis, my business had just started to rebound after a self-enforced, four year hibernation, my husband and I had finally closed a painful chapter in our marriage – together, and our children were growing up. Life was ready for a new growth stage. I was standing on the precipice of right now, in the clearing, ready to act, to start, to begin again, and a stranger broke into my house. My body. My throat. Full stop.

The last bloody thing I wanted to do was write about it. I didn’t want to listen to my own self-reflecting. I didn’t want to ‘make friends’ with the cancer. I didn’t want to fight it, to ‘kick it’, to give IT any more of my life-force energy than it was already attempting to gobble up. I didn’t want to be in my own skin, let alone go into the depths of more self-discovery or listen to the words in my head. Good gawd. I’m a blabber mouth, blab blab blab blab blab. All I ever do is talk, and wonder, and question and press further to understand. Do you ever feel like you just don’t want to learn anymore?

It’s that place where entering one rabbit hole opens up another to lead to again more and more and then still more. How exhausting. I was empty. I know now, that’s how the cancer got in. I had left my post. I was too tired and forgot to lock the door. I probably didn’t even care really, if I’m truly honest. The door was abandoned open and the gate was swinging wide on it’s hinge. I did not have the energy to learn anything else. Instead,

I wanted to land.

I wanted to come home.

I wanted answers.

So I began to ask questions. I asked about the cancer, about being tired, about love, about soul mates, about purpose and work. I asked about my career and whether I had one, about being an artist, about my skills, about heaviness and healing. I asked and asked and I still ask today.

Sometimes the answers are deep like this one:

Dear Tina, what are the parts of my life that I must release to finish the journey?

…you are asked to release doubt. Between you and your call on your soul is doubt. Tina this circle is complete when the mask of doubt is dropped and transforms into the essence of what it truly is: curiosity, intrigue, fascination, perplexed, passion, drive. Tina there is shame around your curiosity and it has become doubt…

Sometimes they are informative:

Dear Tina, how are you today?

…Well you haven’t been taking great care of me these last few days. You haven’t been outside. You haven’t cooked anything and you haven’t written. These three things are your life blood and without them you will get sick, remain sick and everything else is just a measure to balance the toxicity instead of simply saying no to it. …saying no to what is not your life-force and saying yes to what is your life-force.

Sometimes it’s challenging.

Dear Tina, What is the story of this anger?

…Oh Tina, it’s before you – it’s young, it’s so young. When you are ready to go there you will.

Is it holding me back?

Yes.

This became my Dear Tina practice.

Today, I woke up in a fog and with a headache. I went back to bed to try to sleep it off. I woke up still heavy with it. I went to my desk. I pulled out my ‘to do’ list. I cracked it open pretending this is what I was supposed to do. Then I looked over at my Dear Tina Journal and knew that was the call for me. Today’s message was so ridiculously banal and perfect. Here it is:

Dear Tina, Something is wrong. What is it? Tina something is wrong. What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it?

Tina you are chasing again. Chasing the money. Chasing the life. Chasing the body. You are acting out and holding back.

My tummy is upset. Why?

Because of restaurant food. That is all.

I have a headache. Why?

Because you’ve been wrapping your body up in knots.

I’m in a fog. What do I do?

You do what needs to be done. You sleep.

Why does everything seem so stupid?

Your period is coming.

Oh right. That’s what it is.

You are chasing the money. Chasing the body. Chasing the peace. You are still fighting the shift Tina.

No coffee. No, low, No, low wine. No sugar. More gardening and veggies. This fog you are in is self induced. We wouldn’t want a fog for you. You have everything you need. Your children are happy. Your marriage is strong. Your network is with you. You can rest in your Arbonne business. You have everything you need. Simply show up and do. You needn’t push. When you push, you get angry and push back. Pushing for you is counter productive.

Find the groove Tina.

Live in the groove of it all.

You got this.

This one made my laugh. You got this? Ha! Has my higher self just entered into today’s date. Who am I to judge?

The message was clear.

#1 – my period is coming. Let go of high intensity today. How ridiculously simple is that?

#2 – the insight is that I’m chasing again and it’s taking me away from my centre. It’s a familiar feeling so when it landed I knew exactly what it meant.

#3 – the take away, because there is always a take-away, ‘pushing for me is counter productive, find the groove instead.’

Why do I share all of this with you? For lots of reasons. It’s part of what I’m designed to do. I write to share and in the sharing, you all become part of my own ‘witness protection program’. When you witness me, I can hear my own voice. So thank you for being my witness today. I also do this because I want you to see how accessible your inner-wisdom is to you. I want you to see how, with just a few breaths and patience you can come home to yourself, for yourself. For some this practice becomes their prayer, for others it’s their meditation and still more, simply, their listening.

All of us are intuitive. All of us are more than our five senses. All of us can listen our way out of a fog as I did today.

Journals are provided. Snacks are also offered however, please bring a picnic lunch to enjoy outside (weather permitting).

July 23rd, 10am-4pm, maximum 16 participants.

Cost is $79 for the day.

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Project Bandaloop

June 12, 2016

If I was a dancer, this is whom I would be.

I caught myself wondering this morning, at 45 years old,

post three 10lb baby boys created, built, buoyed and birthed through this body,

almost one year aprés radiation sickness zapping the shit out of tonsil cancer, no bum, no boobs, no breath, no boundaries

one month pre-first-5i50-triathlon, All re:, rebuild, restore, renew, reYes to this body, all mine.

Re-mine

Re-mind

it’s mine

With the scars

I’ve shed

of loneliness, harrowing calls for a fucking hand to grasp on to, curdling sobs of nothing, never, hating to ever ask why, with an empty belly of scraps for answers, lost in existential bullshit truthshit myshit – still lost

no,

I’m not

never have been.

Always found but too poetic to call out

found in the same place I came in.

If I was a dancer, I’d do

This.

I love the muscle, the discipline, the dance.

The ache of yearning to touch the unknowable

Throwing myself wild yet held, trusted, caught.

The throb of music speaking to me through me, threw me as me. In the construct of this body, my home for endless unforgiving beauty, relentless fire of scorching purple, passion, my touch down so tender with each flex, muscled palm, arch, heel

toe, pad pad pad

and fly.

I can fucking fly.

launch wide – out out out still more out

there

curve back, looking up, tumbling every which way my body contorts in partnership with the sky.

with him.

with her.

with them.

I surrender wide, full, brazen

glorious

knowing I am held.

That’s what I would be, if I was a dancer.

Thx to Patti Jo for posting this, it completely changed my morning. I didn’t know I was writing today, but clearly, I was.

xxT

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Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers

June 11, 2016

Well, I’ve been talking about this for awhile – just not publicly. I’m a professional network marketer and have been for over a decade.

I sell stuff.
I ask others if they want to sell stuff too.
Then I teach them how to build, run and grow their own business.
I nurture these professional relationships into an organization of conscious, ethical, heart centered, profit minded, sustainability focused team of business partners.

That’s what I do. That’s my job description, alongside the minute yet crucial daily-do-details of being IN business.

On July 15th I am celebrating eleven years in this industry which has challenged me, grown me up, pissed me off, celebrated me, lifted me, loved on me and taught me everything I need to know about life, business and what success truly means to me. I think:

Success is like spirituality, politics, sex, religion and money. It’s personal. It’s deeply personal and daringly unique to every walking soul out here.

Today I start blogging about what it means to be a Tall Poppy in the Network Marketing Industry. I hope you’ll join me in what I hope to be a vivid and conscious conversation.

More to come.

Because it’s ok to be a tall poppy, especially when you already are one.

xxT

This is my ‘network marketing’ selfie. Funny isn’t it? Same woman, different piece of me.

Instinx with Elinor Meney

May 21, 2016

I’m a difficult student because I don’t hold back and I can be kinda bitchy. No really, I can. When I choose to step in to the ‘student’ role, I can get kinda selfish. I suppose it’s a bi-product of living most of my life in the inspiration space, feeling compelled to do ‘good’ in the world. When it’s my turn, I take it and often I can have a bit of an edge. It’s complicated, because I devour everything I dive in to. I lip smack each morsel of life-changing learning – because for me, that’s what it is. The stakes are high when I step into a ‘classroom’ of sorts. I don’t want to stuff more learning inside of my already at capacity head. What good is that? How does that live?

I’m not interested in becoming a breathing, eating, walking library for one. No thanks. I learn in order to live. Can you feel my edge?

I’m a crappy student because I grumble the entire time I enthusiastically participate.

What?

I grumble on the inside, often putting on a very happy face on the outside, in order to cushion my impact on everyone else. At the same time I wildly gobble up every single piece of information that I’m being fed. I love to learn. I have an insatiable appetite for puzzle pieces. I don’t want to put them all together into a static formation and complete the puzzle. No. I’m not a fan of polished work, or knowing anything. I like knowledge, yes, but knowing? nuh uh. From what I can see, ‘knowing’ can cultivate division rather than connection. Now wondering… and collecting… and listening… and learning… hmmmmm that’s delicious.

Why hang a completed puzzle on the wall? (Okay, I know people do, and no disrespect… I mean, to each their own… but it ain’t me). I’m not interested in admiring how it all fits, because tomorrow it may not. Life is a river that must move. A moving rivers doesn’t freeze.

I collect pieces, not puzzles. They’re like beach glass to me. I play with them, watching how they capture light in different placements.

Oh boy. No wonder I never went to university. How did learning become so complex? My own push and pull that happens inside of me and the rawness of my learning style exhausts both me, and probably my educators too. This is a new thing for me. I wasn’t always like this. I used to be compliant, a good student, polite and reliably kind. I may have been late a lot, flustered and disorganized, but I put my hand up regularly, set an example, and actively withdrew from my bank of joy to get through each class, workshop, or session. Oh gawd, it doesn’t feel like that today.

My bank of joy for learning is now wearing a disguise. I look less like the ‘baby sun’ from Teletubbies and more like the Anonymous Hacker.

So there I was a few weeks ago, sitting with Elinor Meney of Instinx.com, and I was there to learn. My dear friend and founder of Xenia Retreat Centre, Angelyn Toth had invited me to take part in an Instinx workshop with Elinor, and trusting her invitation, I accepted. With a hot cuppa tea in hand, we began.

So what is Instinx?

In brief… Instinx is a personal development and management coaching technique that delivers permanent improvements to performance, competence and ability.

It’s a coaching technique that removes any persistent ceiling or brake on a person’s performance, and increases their energy and ability to tackle and benefit from the opportunities and adversities of every aspect of their life.

Sounds pretty good right?

Enter: My skeptical Hacker, fueled by my Baby Sun of course.

Here’s what I love…

Much like Byron Katie’s The Work changed the way I see situations/problems/obstacles by giving me four tangible questions to ask in order to drain out the drama to find my own ‘truth’, Instinx offers a step by step ‘ladder’ approach of identification and inquiry in order to climb out of ‘stuck’ patterns without talk therapy, cognitive filing of more information, or hours and hours and hours of inquiry. It’s simple.

Ask a few questions. (There’s a specific series of them).
Answer them truthfully with heart and mind.
Identify the ‘rung’ of the ladder you’re on.
Then identify what each ‘rung’ up will do to change your current dilemma of stuckness.
Then let go because once identified, the ‘shift’ is already on the move.
Trust the shift. Watch the next rung of the ladder arrive.

Simple.

I hate simple.

I love simple.

I don’t trust simple. That’s the truth.

The Hacker couldn’t stop laughing and scratching his chin. And my Baby Sun? Well, she was too busy giggling and cooing to register an opinion at all.

But then it happened.

Shift…

After that one session, I spent two weeks immobilized by who knows what. It was like I was walking through a fog, weepy and discombobulated (FYI… I’m sure this doesn’t happen to everyone). What did I choose to work on that created this melting down of my ambitious daily doing-ness?

Flawless Customer Service.

I know. It’s not deep. Not at all. In fact Elinor, the Instinx Coach, said to me after I read out my area of growth: “in my eighteen years in this work, no one has ever chosen Flawless Customer Service”. I guess it’s not really a ‘stuck’ area of life for most people but it sure has been for me.

So what happened? And what changed after I did the Instinx work?

One of the question we must ask when following the Instinx method is: What is the key area of difficulty? After rambling through a bunch of thoughts, I finally rested on blurting out : “If I need to serve others, what’s left for me?”.

Okay, so sidebar: That was a Baby Sun moment. Hackers don’t think like that. Hackers don’t blurt at all. They are shrewd, calculating, guarded, and deliberate. Thank god I have a Baby Sun alive and well inside of me because it was that spontaneous, trusting and bright eyed baby who spoke the innocent truth I needed to hear that day: “what will be left for me?” – that has been the governing fear underneath my stinky customer service practice (or lack of).

“If I need to serve others, what’s left for me?”

Did we go into my past to identify why I think that? How that thought got there? How many experiences I’ve had that has reinforced that belief? Did I tell my ‘what about me?’ story? Did I grieve? Did I cry? (Okay, so I did weep a little). Did I do any of that deep, wrenching, exhausting stuff? Nope. Not at all.

It did however trigger a fog for two weeks after, but by letting the fog be there, it lifted on it’s own, turning into mist and then blowing itself away.

That’s the SHIFT Elinor was talking about. It unleashed the weather, bringing the fog with it, then invited the wind to come in and release it back to nothingness.

What does that mean in terms of PRACTICE?

So today, is my customer service stellar? Not yet. Have I created a system that I follow regularly and enthusiastically? Not yet either. HOWEVER… Today I am consciously serving my clients from an entirely different source. I used to procrastinate my follow up and follow through because it felt like I HAD to, because people might get MAD at me if I didn’t, because my PAYCHEQUE requires it, and in doing so, I hated that part of my business. Blecccccccchhhhhh I H A T E D I T. I endured a laughing and taunting hacker beside and behind me because he could just watch, laugh and point at me. I was the one suffering, not him. Even my Baby Sun couldn’t help because after all, she’s just a baby… Cute as she is, she can’t even talk.

But after the shift… This crazy thing happened: My Hacker went missing, and The Baby Sun moved on. Okay, so I’m not so naive to think that they’re completely gone, I mean, after all, I created them in the first place. They are the characters that I built to serve my life in practical and beneficial ways like: my sense of humour (hacker), my problem solver (hacker), my faith (baby sun) and my mommadom (baby sun). The thing is, those two characters sure as heck should NOT be running my customer service department.

Can you imagine The Hacker running the customer service desk, while Baby Sun fills the orders in the back? Oh geeeeez louise… sorry folks. That’s:

Okay, so after these most awesome insights and 24 hours of sleep, I decided, being the super-student that I am, to take on another subject.

This one was much riskier:

A Happy and Passionate Marriage, which after working with Elinor became much more specific: “To do the things I have to do to maintain the twinkle in my eye for my husband”.

(yes that’s our eldest son photo-bombing in the back – What a turkey!).

We’re 15 years in to our relationship, so this isn’t a statement about my husband, nor a terrible sob story about our disconnection… although there’s been moments of course (years even). Let’s be real, life is long and there’s lots of water under the bridge over that time. However, without going in to all of that… guess what the thought bubble was that was contributing to my ‘stuckness’?

Yup, you guessed it: “What’s left for me?”

Interesting right?

Then guess what happened after I consciously moved up to the next rung of the ladder?

Here’s my facebook post about it. It happened the very next day and WITHOUT a conscious choice to ‘do’ it. It seriously, just spontaneously happened:

In case you can’t read the tiny writing above, here it is:

Too much information or inspiration? Tara Caffelle… I’ll let you chime in! This morning I dropped my boyfriend off at 6:30am. Let’s see, last night he fixed my car, rubbed my cramped up runner’s leg before bed annnnnnd played frisbee with our six year old before dinner. That’s my boyfriend. My husband doesn’t do stuff like that, or so I’ve often told myself. He says to me this morning as I kiss him a few too many times in our big ole pick up truck ‘what’s gotten into you?’ – What? I can’t watch my boyfriend walk on the boat? 16yrs together means we’ve seen a lot of things, done a lot, hurt a lot, resolved, healed, forgave and celebrated a lot. Love you Mr. Todd. Have a beautiful day. I’ll see you from stage tonight after you walk up the hill off the boat. Xxt

For that next morning, and many mornings later, I became his girlfriend, and he my boyfriend. That’s sparkle my friends, and it’s intoxicating.

So this morning, I pull out my Instinx duotang (I love that word – so student-ish) and I try the ladder thing again.

Today I ask about abundance, about money, about peace and having enough. The deal is, I’ve made money – buckets of it. I’ve had no money – empty buckets of it. I spend what I have, and I obsess about what I don’t have all the while believing that I can create anything.

Oh gawd… it’s like I’m the challenged student in the classroom of cash.

Guess what the underlying message was yet again?

There’s never enough at the end.

Slightly different, but exactly the same theme right? It’s just another version of:

What’s left for me?

Wow. It appears as though starting this Instinx journey around the banal conversation of Customer Service has lead me to the central landing spot of my stuckness: ‘what’s left for me?’ or ‘there’s never enough left for me’.

Beautiful right? Says me, the incessant learner.

So where does that leave me? Today, having experienced the shift twice before, I am quietly, knowingly, lovingly, trustingly watching, allowing and waiting for the surprise of change. I am allowing the SHIFT to happen.

I often say this, and it applies here for sure: You can’t push process, but you can move momentum.

I highly recommend the Instinx work. I for one am adding it to my overflowing toolbox of ‘go to’ instruments that I use regularly to clear the cobwebs, tighten the bolts and open up the floodgates of living full out.

I’m keeping this particular tool on the first shelf – easy to access, and simple to use.

Thanks Elinor. I look forward to many more chats together. I think my obstinate student is a result of this very stuck theme don’t you? Hmmmm…. There’s never enough left for me. No wonder I’ve been a pissy yet ‘good’ student.

Want to work with Elinor? You can reach her here: elinor@instinx.com and she works in both Australia and Canada. How nice is that?

xxT

I Give a Damn in 15 Minutes

May 20, 2016

I have fifteen minutes before I have a bunch of mom stuff to do – you know, drop kid #1 here, drop #2 there, pick up #3 as I make sure the dog doesn’t eat the butter off the counter, or dash off with his favourite slipper in his mouth… oi… momdom is sometimes planet stupid.

So I challenged myself to fill 15 minutes with a blog post to you, about LIFE, LIVING and giving a damn.

What do you give a damn about? – sidebar: my dad used to say it: “I don’t give a damn!” – come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard give a damn in the positive… “Tina Overbury, what do you give a damn about?” -never too perfect than the present right?

This is my living story. The uncanned. The unknown. The surrendered. This is what I give a damn about, unfiltered.

My fucking legs. Yes, I’m swearing. Fbombing about my muscled legs. When I was a teenager, I thought I was too big, too bulky, too much for jeans. I could never find a pair of boots that fit because my bloody English calves were too full bodied. Today I love them. They are super woman strong. They carry me, they’ve carried 150lbs of children (I’ve had three of them and gained 50lbs each time). They’ve moved me for hours. They currently pedal my bike, run my feet and kick my torso through the water. I am training for my first triathlon and I wouldn’t be able to say that if I didn’t have, or love my fucking legs.

My heart that beats through my children. Why did that come out that way? I don’t know. I suppose it’s because they come from me, through me and should I die before them (which please God, let that be so), that a piece of the spirit from my heart can fly into theirs giving them even more beats, more blood, more pounding life in their veins. I lost my mom when I was eight and I can still feel her inside my chest.

I give a damn about this fractured planet we’re living in and building on. It’s as if we don’t understand, or we forget that we can’t pour concrete on uneven ground. It’s time for us all to go back and nurture this earth that we’re so madly chasing the dream of building our super life on. There’s just so many things wildly bizarre about that. I wanted to say wrong, but caught myself – who am I to say wrong? As if I’m the expert. But I will say, incessant building, hammering, rising, chasing, shouldering and drag racing our top ten goals day after day after day after day after day on top of this soil that we’ve yet to mend – is really a recipe for silliness. I’d be angry, but I’m not. I’m not even sad or worried, I just don’t get it. But again, I’m not the one who knows am I? I give a damn about unfracturing our fractured foundation.

I give a damn about those who think, believe, and then choose to give up on their life. I deeply damn well, damn do, damn damn damn damn do care about those who don’t…care…anymore. Those who don’t give a… well, you know.

Damn.

I love them. I love them. I do.

I give a damn.

I give a damn about life.

and living.

and loving.

and being.

and doing the work I’m designed to do.

I’m not going to get all preachy on you – because then I’d be hiding from writing.

I just did.

hid that is.

I give a damn and maybe that’s the only thing I needed to say in these 15 minutes that I have two left to fill.

I give

damn.

xxT

Yes Tina the First 20 Minutes do Suck

May 18, 2016

I’m training for my first triathlon and when I decided to actually commit: hook line and sinker it was because the decision made me, and not the other way around. Don’t believe me?

Have you ever done something without knowing why?

When you tell the story about how you met your best friend, or spouse, have you ever said “I just kinda stumbled into him/her…”
When you’re choosing what you’re going to order off the menu, how do you land on what you really want?
Ever commit to something you can’t afford yet somehow make it work?
Have you ever been in the right place at the right time with the right people resulting in the luckiest happenstance ever?

That’s what I’m talking about. See, when the decision makes you and you’re able to tune in to the process, as in, you are able to S L O W down enough to follow each individual impulse: listening to how your mind responds, noticing how your body reacts and then following through with a decisive action rather than just chalking it up to ‘lady luck’, that’s what decisions making you looks like.

You might call it a ‘gut’ choice. Fair enough, now we’re talking semantics yet we’re both on the same page.

That’s how saying YES to my first triathlon happened. A good friend of mine sent me a Facebook post about Vancouver’s first Ironman branded Tri and without skipping a beat, my body said yes and opted not to block the insanity of that decision.

Today I am two months away from the damn thing and I’m in the thick of it. Training and preparing that is. I started with The Vancouver Sun Run last month, nailed it and celebrated. Check.

Next…

Then with the help of the good people at Spin Cycle Bike Store, I acquired Rosebud, my first real road bike and began to train on two tires instead of two legs. This where it gets hard – and not physically difficult (well, okay, yes physically too), but really, it is more about the mental game. Why?

Because hills stink and I live in a place with lots of them. I see cyclists coming off the boat to enjoy my island home, and I think: “Oh Dude… you have no idea. This ain’t Tofino. We’re not all about tourists, offering a cute little bike path along a flat, straight-away with sweet coffee shops dotting the route”, no, that we’re most definitely not. We’re an island for cycling athletes who are super happy sweating and grunting.

That said, when I’m in the right frame of mind, I totally dig it. I have this kinda ‘I’ll show you road‘ mindset. ‘Just watch me fast cars! Take that hill number eight! I am UNSTOPPABLE!’

But when I’m not in the right frame of mind. Oiiiiiiiii. It’s no fun at all. And the really frustrating thing is that I can’t seem to predict which mindset I’m going to be in when I climb on my bike.

But then I had an insight.

You see, I forgot.

The first 20 minutes of doing anything NEW usually sucks.

It’s awkward.
The body freaks out.
The mind goes ballistic. The self-talk ramps up with self-doubt.

Oh yeah… that’s normal.

The invitation for me, for you, for all of us is to stay with it, to grow stronger, to trust the process, to build the engine, to re-frame our thoughts away from doing what is easy, to doing what we feel compelled to do regardless of our skillset.

I felt drawn to say yes to doing my first triathlon only eight months out of radiation treatment from stage 3 tonsil cancer. It makes no logical sense, yet it’s the decision that made me, and it has felt dramatically ‘right’ the whole way.

Today I am in the thick of it and what I’m noticing, is that in this place, is where my reasons for saying yes begin to materialize.

When things are easy, what’s to learn other than ‘look what I can do’? When things are hard, that’s when the real learning kicks in:

Resilience
Courage
Tenacity
Depth of character
Physical and mental strength
New neuro-pathways of yes I can to replace the old ones of no I can’t
Knowing myself beyond whom I’ve believed myself to be

Why did I say yes to my first Triathlon? Well, I have some ideas, but the race hasn’t even happened yet and so there is so much more to come. I’ll be sure to fill you in on all I’ve learned once I cross the finish line on July 10th.

There is gold in them there hills.

Ride ém TinaO. Ride ém.

xxT

Yes you can support me by making a pledge to CAN TOO – supporting my very first triathlon.

Yes you can support my RIDE TO CONQUER CANCER too!