Live Your Best Story Archives - Page 4 of 6

It’s not a Career, it’s a Body of Work

February 19, 2016

For the last four years I’ve stumbled when people have asked me what I do.

It’s because I’m an entrepreneur.

It’s because I’m an artist.

It’s because I’m a network marketer.

It’s because I’m a full time mom.

It’s because I’m a body of work, not a career.

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.

What was I Thinking?

February 19, 2016

Another list. Another ridiculous guffaw I frequently have with myself – usually when I’m driving. Sorry gang. I try not to drive after 6pm because I’m too busy laughing at how insane I am to be considered ‘safe’ behind the wheel after six.

Who needs a phone to distract you from driving when you have a list like this? Want to have some fun? Come up with your own top ten – but fair warning, don’t drive when you’re thinking about it.

Here’s how it starts:

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

As I flung my eight year old yelling self over the staircase banister desperate to be heard through the double doors where a boy I was teasing stood. J E N S E N ! ! ! I screeched until I fell ass over tea kettle down two flights of stairs. Cracked my jaw too (just a little but enough that there’s still a bump). Thanks Laverne for dragging my blacked out self to the office that day.

with Laverne 36 years after the banister incident.

As I claimed bankruptcy over $20,000 in debt when I was only 27 years old. Oh gawddddddd… really? If only I knew my own earning potential back then.
As I believed that guy who said he was only sleeping with me. Jeeeeeee Whizzzzzzzzzz.
As I had a freakin’ thirty-something temper tantrum and threw a chair into a wall – yup, the kids and I still laugh full out about that one. …we can still see the legs sticking out of the wall.
As I hung the family Christmas lights without a ladder, without a step stool, without anything but the back of the couch (you know, the really skinny part that’s for BACKS and not FEET?), only to quickly scramble down in order to change a poopy diaper, land on the baby’s ukulele, twist my ankle and not be able to breathe for 30 seconds because of the pain. ‘Don’t touch me I seethed. Just let me lay here for a minute.’
As I believed my college drama teachers who said I wasn’t an actor. I believed them. I actually believed them. Dumb dumb dumb dumb powerless and ahhhhhh done. Sometimes I wonder if they were right only because I believed them. What would’ve happened if I had believed in myself more?
As I made three short films with no budget. Funny how not knowing what can’t be done usually translates into doing it.
As I talked on my cel phone, pumped breast milk and DROVE all at the same time (pre-hands free driving folks just sayin…).
As I pretended that I wasn’t sure if I believe in God because it was easier than having a faith I didn’t understand.
As I almost gave up on being me as if I could ever run that fast or that far.

Here’s to you and being all that you are in whatever form you’re currently showing up as. You’re funny man. Ridiculous even. Welcome to the club.

xxT

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.

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.

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.

30 Days to Loving Yourself

February 17, 2016

Okay, so February is kinda the new January because those of us who didn’t get on the detox, shed weight, eat clean, sweat more track last month are now looking around at everyone else who is either shakin’ it or have already given up, and thinking… Why didn’t I go for it?

Here’s what I think about that:

30 Days to fitness, 30 Days to health, 30 Days of clean eating, 30 Days of sweating, 30 Days of detox, 30 days of organized living, 30 days of sleep, 30 days of meditation, 30 days of yoga… blahbiddy blahbiddy blah blah blah… WILL NOT STICK for 60/90/120/365 days if it doesn’t start with the seed from which all else grows. Ready? It’s simple. Now don’t cringe all you skeptics and brooders out there (of which I’m one btw). Don’t turn your nose up at this. Don’t skim past it because you think it’s overly simplistic and stupid (again, I’m a mega resister too), and for heaven’s sake, CONSIDER just BREATHING while you READ THESE TWO WORDS.

Ready?

SELF-LOVE.

Here’s the deal, when we throw ourselves into 30 days of anything to ‘better’ ourselves, to ‘escape’ ourselves, to ‘change’ who we are – as if who we are isn’t already ENOUGH, we’re already screwed and we haven’t even begun yet.

The habit you’re working on WILL NOT TAKE – and instead will become that new thing on your list of ‘what didn’t work’ – and it’ll hammer another nail into your coffin called ‘what doesn’t work for me’. Really? Does it not work for you? Really? I’m pretty sure clean eating works for everyone, as does exercise, as does yoga, as does being more organized. Yes, I just fish smacked you a little bit (that’s a cold fish across the face fyi…).

The habit didn’t take because we did it (and I say we because I have done this numerous times myself) because we were trying to fix ourselves as if we were broken.

Nobody’s broken.

We might be off-course, not honouring our body, not loving our psyche, not paying attention to the needs of our body, mind and soul, but we’re not broken.

Here’s what I suggest: Start every 30 day ‘fix it’ program with 30 days of SELF-LOVE first. When we make choices for self-growth from a full cup, guess what happens? We do the do for the betterment of who we are, why we are and what we’re all about. These habits DO stick. These habits are easy to return to when we get off track later on. These habits are infused with EMOTION, which transforms the ‘challenge’ into a ‘choice’. Bottomline: We do what we love.

30 Days Activities — Photo credit Debra Stringfellow

Here are 30 Days of Self Love Activities to start you off:

Make a list of 10 things you love about yourself. Just start writing. Don’t think about it and if you can’t think of anything, consider the compliments that others have given you – start there, or think about what you loved about you as a child, those things don’t leave us you know.
Take a nap – because you want to and without justification to anyone else.
Book off a Sunday afternoon for pleasure – sheer pleasure. This may be foreign to you, which of course is a sign there’s something lovely to learn here.
Spend five minutes in the mirror this morning and compliment yourself. Feels weird, but you’ll soon feel the shift as it lifts your self-esteem.
Go through your day and everything you touch, ask yourself: Does this nourish me? Does this bring me joy? Do I love this? Does this have a purpose that makes my life better or brighter? And if not, consider tossing it.
Pull out a class photo of you from elementary school. How many names can you remember? What playful memories come back?
Choose ONE task in your house that makes you crazy because NO ONE ELSE cares about doing it but you. Then here’s a novel idea, DO IT for YOU. That kinda passive aggressive ‘waiting until someone thinks you’re important enough to do it for you’ kinda thinking eats away at your self-love tank. For heaven’s sake, OWN IT. If it matters to you – do it for you.
Take yourself out on a date. Splurge if you never splurge. Be thrifty if you are never thrifty.
Climb a mountain – okay, go on a hike to some VISTA and throw your arms up in the air toward the sky. Pull them back in as if you are holding the wind, wonder and welcome of the universe in a massive HUG. Exclaim something if you feel brave enough like: I frickin’ rock!!! and I’m loved too!!!!
Lay in the warmest spot in your home with your favourite blanket and/or any other comfort items you may have. Just lay down.
List TEN meals that you drool over. Figure out how to make them. Do it. Love it. Eat it.
Skin on skin. Love. Tingles. Intimacy. Connection. Enough said, do that.
Go to a book store and run your fingers across the spine of many many many books and see what happens. Be conscious to what lights up your mind. Pull out the book(s) that chooses you, sit down for a few minutes and read. Discover what your mind LOVES to devour.
Use the word DELICIOUS ten times today.
Throw away all of your shoes that leak.
Look at the part of your body that frustrates you the most and find three things this part of your body does FOR YOU (like allows you to walk up stairs, lift your children, digest your food) and say thank you.
Use the word DEVOUR ten times today.
Before your coffee touches your lips, open your front door, take 3 steps OUTSIDE and feel the weather on your skin. Breathe. Look up to the sky. Notice the magnitude of it’s reach. Remember that this place called Earth is home. This is your home.
Write the words I BELONG with an erasable felt pen across your bathroom mirror.
Pet an animal. Pet a few. Look into their eyes and put your head on theirs. You are part of their world too.
Write your childhood dream down in the middle of a piece of paper E.G. ‘to be a pilot’. On a scale of 1-10, how true is that dream to you now? If it’s a low number, ask yourself: What does being a pilot REPRESENT to me? E.G. Freedom. If it’s over 8, then simply leave it as is. Then turn the page over and on the back side of your ‘dream’ page, write five things you can do this week to see that dream come true. Listen up, time goes by anyway. The Q is, how do you want to spend that time?
Make your bed. Get back in it – just ’cause you can.
Finish this sentence: When time and money are not an issue for me and I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, the first three things I’m going to do are: ________
Now act as if… How can you start living that LIST today? Maybe you won’t be moving to Hawaii – or maybe you will, but how can you live as if you did…?
Move your body today. Sweat if you can. Breathe deeply if you can’t. Say thank you to your lungs for breathing. Say thank you to your heart for beating. Say thank you to your brain for thinking. This happens without any instruction from you. How cool is that?
Smile at yourself. You look gooooooood!
Finish this sentence: I am proud of myself because _______________.
If you were your own lover, what gift would you give to express your love to yourself? Go out and buy, create, or give that gift to YOU!
Finish this sentence: I need _______________ to feel peaceful. What do you need? Figure out how to give those necessary needs to yourself.
Add this to your vocabulary and say it when you’re in the shower, when you’re driving to work, when you’re driving home and before you go to sleep. You rock (insert your name here) and I love you.

30 Days of self love is the foundation to any other 30 day program you start, including mine which is 30 Days to Healthy Living. Don’t even bother checking this out until you’ve given yourself the self-love list first.

xxT

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

Rodney DecrooRebecca Blissett Photo — Rodney Decroo Rebecca Blissett Photo

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

24th Annual Vancouver Wellness Show

February 12, 2016

Tomorrow I’m attending the 24th annual Wellness Show running today through Sunday at the Vancouver Convention Centre. Why would I do that? Or more importantly, why would YOU do that?

Because you live in a body and you only get one.
Because living IS possibility and as long as you are breathing, you have a shot at fulfilling your gifts.
Because our wellness is a reflection of how aligned we are with our soul, mind, body and action (or what I call skillset).
Because we only know what we know, and as ridiculously simple as this is: we also don’t know what we don’t know – and we can’t think about what we don’t know, because we don’t know anything about it yet.
Because we have no context for the areas of our life that could be more peaceful, or enjoy greater health when we live in the box labeled ‘what I know’ and frankly, we should label it what I think I know instead.
I know a lot, but I don’t know everything.

I’m attending The Wellness Show because it’s BIG! It’s the West Coast’s largest trade show devoted to helping people live a more balanced, holistic and healthy life. As the TinaOLife lady – sharing insights, ideas and possibilities about how to DIG IN AND LIVE… clearly, I need to be there. As well, I’m particularly interested in their theme this year which is Healthy Families.

I’m the momma of a family of five and I’ll tell you, this is the hardest job I’ve ever had. Hands down.

Is laundry hard? No.
The monotony of cooking dinners that kids won’t eat? No.
Having family meetings about challenging subjects? Well, kinda, but even that is not really hard you know?

This is what IS hard:

Talking to my kids about listening for their passions.
Supporting my husband and myself to never leave a dream on the table – to remember we’re people AND parents.
Having family meals in silence when one of us isn’t talking to each other.
Practicing wellness – as our birthright.
Reminding myself and my kids that seeing the world through a ‘sunshine, rainbows and lollipops filter’ doesn’t mean your happy, it means you see the world through sunshine, rainbows and lollipops, which might make you smile more often (might). But that’s it.
Remembering that sometimes your team loses, but PLAYING is the win we all get to go home with.
Teaching my kids about consent as they step into their curious sexual selves.
How to let our undesireable emotions be there: disappointment, grief, confusion and more because they are no more or less important than happy, silly, bliss or excitement and when we sit on the darker colours of our expression the bi-product is often anxiety, depression and resignation. How do I talk about that?

That is hard.

This is why I go to the Wellness Show. I go because I don’t have all of the answers, and I never will.

Come. Join me. We can be students of life together.

p.s. Tomorrow I will sharing a story about Suzy Kaitman, Vancouver’s Ballet Fit instructor who, with over 17 classes happening around the city decided it was time to open up her Ballet Lounge later this month. The piece I’m writing for her is called The Audacity of Passion. Watch for it tomorrow.

The Wellness Show opens its doors from 12 pm to 7 pm on February 12, 10 am to 7 pm on February 13, and 10 am to 6 pm onFebruary 14. The show takes place at the Vancouver Convention Centre East, Exhibit Hall B & C, 999 Canada Place in downtown Vancouver. Tickets are $14.50 General Admission, $12.50 Seniors 65+ / Students with valid ID, $6.00 Children (5 and under free), and $30.00 3 day pass. Tickets will be available online at thewellnessshow.com, or at the door.

Be well.

xxT

What’s your Relationship Story?

February 11, 2016

If you’ve been following along on our Hump Day Wednesdays with Tara Caffelle, Where Relationships Get Real, I’m sure you’ve noticed that I get the conversation started with questions that I’m personally seeking answers to. We’ve looked at: Why is intimacy so important? , What’s the deal with Nookie November? , and What is a Super Couple? So today, it seems only fitting on Love Week… ahem, on the hump of Valentines Day that we get up close and personal with the relationship lady herself. Here’s my question for Tara:

Okay Tara… this is the tell all question. Most of us fall into a passion profession because we’ve been lead there by our own experiences. Come on now… bare all. What’s your ‘relationship’ or ‘intimacy’ story???

Tara: Oh yes. My own experience led me deep into this work—you’ve got me there. I have always, always been interested in relationships. When I was growing up, I’d watch the adults around me and listen quietly as my Mum discussed life events with my aunts and her friends. I probably learned more than I should have, but even then I can remember being able to figure people out. In my twenties, I remember annoying a date when I fell asleep during the epic battle scenes from Lord of the Rings. What can I say? The battles didn’t involve conversation. There wasn’t anything relationshippy for me to entertain myself with. Jeeez.

There’s been one relationship in my life that, even though it has shifted and actually ended, has informed almost every piece of my work and how I hold my clients.

I met my (former) husband when I was 21 at what was the very beginning of what we now know as online dating. (Writing that makes me feel like such a dinosaur! Next I’ll tell you how I had to walk uphill both ways to school in the winter with bearskin shoes!). In any case, we met and fell in love and lived quite happily together for about 14 years.

In 2010 we split up very amicably, even sharing custody of our basset hound. As it happened, at the tail end of our relationship, after YEARS of floundering in various careers and never feeling completely fulfilled, I had (finally) found what I felt I was called to do… That was coaching.

As we navigated separating after such a long time together, we carefully designed how we wanted to be.

In coaching, we say that we “design our alliance,” which means the coach and client decide how it’s going to be when they’re together. We talk about what feels respectful, and what will be the most effective, and we form a team that will help the client reach their outcomes. When my husband and I decided to part ways, I brought a lot of coaching-esque stuff into our conversations: I expressed that I wanted to land in a friendship at some point, and that I didn’t blame him for what was happening. We continually asked for what we needed (space, patience, silence, etc) and were able to transition through a whole lot of grieving into a space where we held on to our friendship.

As we navigated separating after such a long time together, we carefully designed how we wanted to be.

Our friendship, after all, had always been a great part of our life together.

That process showed me, first-hand, how relationships can be, even as they end and especially as they end. Until then, I’d been working primarily as a life coach with individuals (and I still do), but I began to work more specifically with relationships, recognizing that we have them with everyone in our lives (from the barista who gets us our coffee in the morning to the person we land in bed with at the end of the day). I realized they could all be designed and customized to fit the people in them.

This led me to working as a doula, supporting parents who were about to welcome new babies into the world. As I met with those couples, I noticed I was always asking the same questions:

What are you doing for your relationship before this little person arrives?

Have you considered that you will never again be “just a couple” and will forevermore be a “family”?

These conversations were incredibly satisfying; I loved knowing I was having an impact on how the world would greet and care for those sweet little muffins.

From there, I became an educator for The Gottman Institute; I guide couples through both The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work and the Bringing Baby Home programs, and I fold this work into all that I know about sex, communication, relationships, leadership and designing a union that works and lasts.

But along the way I realized I also had some work to do on myself. It would take courage, openness and tremendous strength.

While my ex-husband and I made an excellent Team together (IKEA assembly skills: MASTER) and were the very best of friends, there was a layer of intimacy that was missing between us that I see more clearly now that I am out of it. I know now that there was a fundamental “holding back” between us.

In 2008, before we separated, we went through a bit of a relationship crisis and realized the outcome was uncertain. We actually had a successful open relationship for the last few years of our marriage, and within that there was experimentation, both together and apart. I was introduced to the world of consensual non-monogamy, which has given me an open-minded acceptance that I bring to my work (many of my clients come from non-monogamous relationships and seek support in making them work).

Since our separation in 2010 (and at the time of writing this in February of 2016) I have essentially been mostly single and in a constant journey of growth and exploration . I have learned the difference between physical intimacy (I used to readily hand over my body and think I was allowing someone to get close to me) and emotional intimacy—the In-to-me-see intimacy.

But along the way I realized I also had some work to do on myself. It would take courage, openness and tremendous strength.

The former is no longer satisfying to me, and although the latter challenges me every day to bare my inner layers, I challenge myself to do it because I know it is ultimately a more satisfying way to live.

I no longer tolerate small talk about the weather; I seek Big Conversations that leave my soul touched and my mind fuller.

In late 2014, my beloved ex-husband began to struggle with his mental health quite seriously. In May of 2015, he took his own life.

As someone who knew him for half of my life and loved him as a partner and a friend, it was both an honour and tremendously stressful to support him during the last six months of his life. I speak openly about it so that the stigma around mental health can be brought into the open.

There is not a single moment that he is not with me as I do my work in the world. His life and his death have helped me to zero-in on what is really important: our relationships, our connections, the way our children see us communicating and relating to each other, and the safe place to land that we all deserve.

So yes, Tina, to answer your question: my work comes from the very core of who I am and what I believe to be true in this world. I am humbled by the growth and transformation I get to see in each and every client session.

Get real like 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.