I need to change this up a little bit. I just do. In light of the world and the constant evolution of the story I serve, I need to be in service of the emerging story in front of me. I am a story coach, keeper, tracker and a story listener. These Stories from the Car started out as a way to unpack words because of the energy they carry.
I’m feeling reeeeeeeeeeeeeally compelled to jump into the space of myth these days. I want to talk about the state of being when we’re there – and make no mistake, this is exactly where we are right now. Myth is the state following the path of what we think we don’t know. It is both comfort and discomfort. It is the walking in ultimate faith and trust, yet still unknown, and it can’t be known, ever in its entirety. That’s not how myth works.
I’ve done a lot of listening these days and we are so addicted to safety. I get it. We are hardwired for safety. This is not a shame thing about clambering for knowledge. It is the way we are made, and in the biological state of needing to know in order to feel safe, the invitation is to remind ourselves that we live in the ultimate unknown…
I invite us all to remember grace…
To find out more about TinaO’s upcoming book: Story Stones and performances of her solo show O MY God, click here.
Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s weekly online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
If you would like to know more about Tina’s approach to story, click here.
Yes. This. I walk with this daily. It’s my latest companion, as is friendship. They came as a package. As I let my heart soften, let the broken bits through, and came apart a number of times over the last four months, I also landed in some amazing laps of friendship.
Grief and Friendship came as a package deal for me this year.
What is your word for 2020? Mine is Devotion… every week I get why that word chose me a little bit more.
Feel
Breathe
Cry
Feel your feet in the earth.
Every day:
Earth
Water
Fire
Sky (stone).
We are always home.
Xt
Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s weekly online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
If you would like to know more about Tina’s approach to story, click here.
These stories from the car are a listening in to one particular word we really want to dive into and today the word is VALUE.
Truthfully, I get hits on things when a word just rumbles in and doesn’t want to leave me.
So this word of value is what I invite us into today.
Even as I say value, it seems kind of mundane. Kind of boring. I have this box of chicken strips and two tubes of ground beef in the back of my car, and I am fortunate enough during this pandemic that the local pub has agreed to place orders on behalf of us islanders to offset the pressure on the general store, but also to keep us from having to go into the city to shop.
That is value.
But I’m also a single mom to three kids and I need to get value for my money. That’s a different kind of value. But it’s always an in and an out. Isn’t it?
Or is it?
Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
If you would like to know more about Tina’s approach to story, click here.
It’s supposed to be until you see the pieces which want to be heard.
Some of us hear.
Some see.
Some feel.
Others sense.
And still others just know.
And then there are those who can’t speak because there are no words or senses of this ‘plane’ – and they follow.
I’m serious.
And totally not crazy.
Some people hear without any communication at all.
I get you.
I get the blur.
Story speaks in our language not yours.
Listen
Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s weekly online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.
If you would like to know more about Tina’s approach to story, click here.
I’m TinaO from TinaOLife and this is Story Stones, an hour of deep listening and learning together.
I am a storyteller, a listener, and a holder of spaces where we can connect with the Story of Us.
My work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the Christian Tradition.
Myth and story as the guide.
Mysticism as the path.
And the Christian Tradition as the living footsteps.
I’m an artist, a writer, a mom, a runner, and a poet. My faith is in the space between us, where two or more are gathered, my trust is in the Mystery and my practice is listening and communicating from there.
That’s me.
Okay… so what happens in this hour?
Every week we listen in to a word, and it is a listening. It’s not a telling. I’m not here to tell you anything. That’s not my job. The word becomes the invitation and the gateway which you can open with your softening, to hear in the way in which you hear, and be nourished, in the way you are nourished by your connection, and it’s the connection which is the practice we are building together.
And it’s your connection to an understanding of what you may call God, or the divine, or consciousness, or the universe, or the cosmos… I suggest the ‘name’ isn’t important, and the connection is. The name: God can be gateway IN for some, as an understanding of love and safety and home, and for others, a gateway OUT because alot of pain and suffering has happened in the name of God, and I don’t want to pretend that isn’t true.
And I invite you to remember that the name of God isn’t the same as an experience of God which is the divine Mystery. An experience with that mystery is the connection point where we feel met.
In this space I try to be inclusive by using language that is as broad as possible because I’m not attached to a name, I am anchoring this hour together to an experience of a God-connection. That is the pointy end of my ‘ship’ as it cuts us through the water.
And I invite you to use your ‘word’ for God, or to try on this acronym of GOD as the Good Ole I Dunno, or The Mystery if it feels safer for you, because faith doesn’t happen in what we know, it happens in what we don’t know and yet can feel rested within.
This is a weekly practice of our connection through the gateway of a word, or a story stone I choose through the readings of my week. That is all we do here.
This week the story stone is promise.
There is music:
This week it’s a piece by Antoine Bradford called promises, and a classic by John Denver. I have a story stones playlist on Spotify so you can find it later too.
There is a kid’s conversation and reading:
This week we’re taking a peek at an Inuktitut story, originally held in an oral history, or library, and now in a kid’s book by Michael Arvarrluk Kusugak and Robert Munsch called A Promise is a Promise.
There is a bible reading:
This week we’re listening into Matthew 5 – from The Message, pieces from the Sermon on the Mount.
There is a Buddhist perspective from Pema Chodron’s book: The Wisdom of No Escape.
And a beautiful poem by Sara Teasdale called: Since There is No Escape
All of this is crafted as an invitation and exploration of the word: promise.
So… shall we begin.
SOUP
Get comfortable, grab a glass of water or tea, or a bowl of soup, this soup happens to be: a blend of red pepper and tomato soup by Pacific Foods, to which I’ve added some spinach, some cumin and for the non-veggies out there, some sausage. Yummmm yummmm yummmm….
Let’s settle in.
I light this candle to remind us that no matter where we are, or what the story is inside our heads, or the story we are currently living, we are never alone. The mystery of our being and how we are held in this space and time, is always with us. We are loved.
INVITATION TO LISTEN:
Let the story of your morning go. It is not of this moment. Let the story of what you think this is going to be go… it is not of this moment. And let yourself be. Listen beyond the words in your head. Open up to listening to the space itself.
MUSIC
I invite you to listen to the words of Antoine Bradford: Promises on Spotify.
The story stone we are listening into today is the word: Promise.
What is a promise? Why do we promise things? What is the heaviness and the weightlessness of that word? What are we invited to experience within a promise?
Let’s start with something a little interesting: something kids might understand:
FOR THE KIDS
This comes from Michael Arvaarluk Kusugak with Robert Munsch
Kusugak is a celebrated storyteller and author who grew up in Repulse Bay, NWT which is now known as Nunavut. He grew up living a traditional Inuit lifestyle and is the author of twelve children’s books.
This book A Promise is a Promise is kind of a scary book, to me. It’s the story of a little girl who is warned not to go fishing between the cracks in the ice in the ocean because a creature Qallupilluit lives under the ice.
Do you think that’s true?
So why would that story be told? Let’s read a little?
You can listen to the whole recording of A Promise is a Promise by Robert Munsch and Michael Kusugak from a readers theatre performance of the story here:
This is one form of a promise. If you do this… I promise you this could happen… It’s a warning. Where does it come from?
My favourite scene in this story is the part where Allashua is tucked in bed with her parents and getting warmed up after falling in the ice and she says… I went to the cracks in the sea ice and her dad says: Ah, ah, not so smart. I called the Qallupilluit nasty names… and her dad says: “ah, ah, not so smart at all…’
There she is with frozen lips, crying and feeling pretty bad because a promise is a promise and she broke her promise: she did go to the ice on the ocean. She even challenged the promise her parents warned her about, called it names, and basically dared it to come out… doubting her parents. There she is, probably feeling really awful about what she’s done, and what do her parents do?
Take her to bed, make her some tea, hold her and say ‘ah, ah… yes, that wasn’t so smart was it?’. As you read on in the book, they don’t lecture her. They don’t blame her. They don’t cast her away or make her feel really bad – No… they help her, and there’s this great scene where the mom and the dad dance for Qualliliput, even invite them into their house and feed them…
Now it’s a myth, and as in all myths, there’s always all sides of a story. The ‘darker’ sides the ‘lighter’ sides, and everything in between, and this is a story just like that.
Life is never as simple as a one-sided promise.
This Inuit story of Qallupilluit is two-sided. It teaches us about the promise of being loved unconditionally, and the promise that there is danger out there. As the book says on the last page:
A Qallupilluq is an imaginary Inuit creature, somewhat like a troll, that lives in Hudson Bay. It wears a woman’s parka made of loon feathers and reportedly grabs children when they come too near cracks in the ice.
The Inuit traditionally spend a lot of time on the sea ice, so the Qallupilluit were clearly invented as a means to help keep small children away from dangerous crevices.
What promises make you feel like Allalusha or like her parents all tucked up in bed, safe and warm and protected together?
Here’s the thing about listening to a reading, or a story: in the words of mythologist Dr. Martin Shaw, who says: you can’t trap a story, you can only track the. I invite you to listen… to let the words of each reading wash over you and let what is speaking to you speak… no more, no less.
READING
Empty Promises
Matthew 5 33-37 “And don’t say anything you don’t mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and never doing it, or saying, ‘God be with you,’ and not meaning it. You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong”
Love Your Enemies
Matthew 5 43-47 “You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.48 “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”
Pema Chodra’s: The Wisdom of No Escape This next reading comes from Buddhist teacher, author, nun and mother, Pema Chodron, an American born Tibetan Buddhist and ordained nun who has written several dozen books and is a teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia. This excerpt comes from her very first book: The Wisdom of No Escape.
“There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly. Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.”
SERMON
Creator…. God…. Universe… Mystery… As I move forward into the story of PROMISE today, I thank you for complexity, for individuality, for the promise of acceptance, for the one-ness of us, and the place where we can all meet.
I acknowledge the story of us that was here before we got here and the story that of us that will be here long after we’re gone. May the words of my mouth hold your mystery well and be in service to the unfolding of the story of you in us.
The reading from Matthew comes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Even if you’ve never read the bible, you’ve heard about the sermon on the mount. Okay… so it’s probably a pretty big deal?
Why?
Within the Sermon on the Mount, at the very beginning we hear the Beautitudes. Ahhh I just love that word: Beautitudes. Lots of oooooh sounds in it. And sounds matter. Just as the Om sound is considered one of the oldest vocal sounds in existence and is considered to be the original, primordial sound, or a mantra of creation. In some sacred circles, the oooh or HU sound said to lead one to transcendence—to God realization and enlightenment.
Last week we listened into the words bless or blessed and blessing which came from the beautitudes. This week we go further into the Sermon on the Mount to listen as Jesus completely changes the rules of morality as they were once known.
He takes on the commandments and humanizes them. He digs under the narratives we have put on top of them, and instead says: listen ‘When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.’, he says: ‘You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.’ And then he says, after challenging us to love our enemies, and reminding us that God (creator, source, universe) gives the sun to warm and the rain to nourish everyone, regardless: if good/bad, nice/nasy; to Grow up. Jesus says: You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity.
He takes the promise of fear which happens when we’re commanded to do something, because what usually happens after a commandment… The Or Else statement.
Do this or else…
Going back to Allashua in A Promise is A Promise “Don’t fish through the cracks in the ocean… or else Qallupilluit will get you”.
Jesus takes away the fear from the commandments and instead simply says: Grow Up. You are kingdom subjects. You do not need fear or consequences to motivate you, simply live as the God-created identity you are.
The sermon on the mount challenges the usual ‘or else’ promise and offers us a new one: ‘you are loved’, just like Allashua’s parents when they’re all tucked in bed together.
The hardest line for me in this Matthew reading is: When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.
How many times have you had the experience of having your ‘words twisted around’, or maybe even had your ‘words used against you’, or worse had an experience where you sat in silence where only ‘part of the story’ was being told.
Yuck right?
Okay, so I get it.
And there are times when this happens by mistake, where the person recounting the story simply misunderstood the situation, or had their own version of events which was true for them, just not true for you. That’s the easy peasy application of this piece of scripture, especially where Jesus tells us to ‘love our enemies’. Well that’s easy if we just assume they were having a different experience, and so we’ll just give them some grace and be done with it. But that’s not what I hear in this scripture. I hear the last line: GROW UP. Live the way God lives towards you.
Live the way nature lives towards you.
All of these examples feel like and ick.
So let’s take the hierarchical structure out of the God statement and see what happens.
Live the way consciousness lives towards you.
Live the way love lives towards you.
Does nature manipulate?
Does consciousness manipulate?
Does the energetic frequency of love manipulate?
No.
We do.
Because we get freaked out. We get hurt. We get angry. We get protective. We get defensive. We get offensive. We get tactical. We go unconscious with our pain and we manipulate.
There is no faith in manipulation.
There is no faith in control.
The only true control is faith.
For some of us it’s what we talked about last week when I offered: laying it down. For others it looks like co-creation, and group vs. individual connection or consciousness, still others, faith is a complete surrender or submission.
None of these are wrong, or more right than the others, because the one thing they all have in common is acting on the promise of the action of faith.
And yet most of us are Allashua, standing on the shore, ‘testing the waters’. She throws insults out to the mystical Qallupilluit to see if it comes, and when it doesn’t, she thinks, ahhhh… see…my parents’ promise was wrong.
Their ‘or else’ was wrong.
And don’t we do that all the time? Oh we human beings. We are wired for short cuts aren’t we?
Maybe I don’t have to get 8 hours of sleep.
Maybe they’re wrong and I can eat that processed… whatever.
We even head out there sometimes and search for new promises so that we can have what we want.
You know, like those stories of “My aunt Vera lived to be 102 and she smoked and drank for her whole life…”
We start living by the promises we acquire so we can have what we want.
Those kinds of promises usually sound like: ‘yeah… but that doesn’t apply to me because…’
It’s a slippery slope.
In Matthew, we are challenged, we are called, we are seen and told to grow up. Oh mannnn easier said than done.
The only promise I know for sure for sure, so it’s truly a promise I can count on is:
We are born – LIFE
We die – DEATH
So this third promise in this promise triangle that we keep hearing about, and yet testing consistently is the promise of LOVE.
That’s the third side of the promise triangle.
The promise that we are loved.
The promise of who we feel when we live from love.
The promise of the abundance of love.
And yet… you can’t prove it.
You can’t measure it.
You can’t count on it happening.
Unless you remember it, and build a life practice around it.
And for this, I bring us back to Pema Chodra’s offering of: What if there is no escape? What if the only thing we know is that we live and we die. What then?
Her story talks about the tigers above and the tigers below, and clinging to a vine which a mouse is gnawing at. She is going down. And yet she looks over and sees a beautiful bunch of strawberries. Then just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly. She suggests: this might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.
There IS no escape.
When we grab the strawberries, not as a way to hide from the tigers, or bargain with them, or control them, or pretend they aren’t there, but simply to enjoy a strawberry… that is also as true as the tigers – we are in the moment, and in that moment, we are the parents cuddled up around Allashua saying: “yes… I see the tigers, and yes, I am here with you”.
There is no escape.
There is DEATH.
There is LIFE.
And there is LOVE.
I recently had a pretty nasty experience where I felt very insignificant, crushed even.
There were tigers above and tigers below and the only way I could find the strawberries was the whisper to myself:
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you
And this is the practice I offer you.
Simply find a place in your day that is super insignificant, and something you do all the time, like pee… yep… pee… why? Because you do it at least 3x a day, and probably 6-8x per day.
Here’s the radical invitation:
Every time you pee, as you’re washing your hand, I want you to look in the mirror and say to yourself: I love you, I love you, I love you.
That’s it.
And I know it sounds weird… but that moment I had a few weeks ago where I literally felt like I was nothing… I went to the bathroom, and without even thinking about it, I said to myself: I love you, I love you, I love you. And in that moment, I came back into my body, and I found the strength I needed to take the next step.
There are three parts to the promise triangle.
I promise you are alive.
I promise you will die.
I promise you can love you.
I want to promise that you are loved by the mystery, by God, by the Good Ole I Dunno… and I will, but in the moments where you are drifting, one of the ways you can come back is by reminding yourself of the love you have within you.
And you do.
From there, the Good Ole I Dunno connection happens.
You stay soft.
Your heart is soft.
Your thoughts are soft.
You are the child in the adult in the wisdom.
You are growing up.
So let’s talk about the third point of the Promise Triangle, and for that, let’s listen to Sara Teasdale: an American lyric poet with a confessional style of writing. She died in 1933 and most of her work deals with love and death and the spiritual beauty of the natural world.
This is Sara Teasdale’s poem: Since there is no Escape
Since there is no escape, since at the end
My body will be utterly destroyed,
This hand I love as I have loved a friend,
This body I tended, wept with and enjoyed;
Since there is no escape even for me
Who love life with a love too sharp to bear:
The scent of orchards in the rain, the sea
And hours alone too still and sure for prayer—
Since darkness waits for me, then all the more
Let me go down as waves sweep to the shore
In pride, and let me sing with my last breath;
In these few hours of light I lift my head;
Life is my lover—I shall leave the dead
If there is any way to baffle death.
What do you hear?
“Life is my lover… there is no way to baffle death”
And there isn’t.
We are promised this one life, on this human plane.
We are promised this one death, on this human plane of existence.
Is there more than what we see here?
Maybe. Probably.
But the only promise we’ve been given is right now, in this place, by this ocean, on this earth, under this sky, with these people.
This is the only promise we’ve been given to do with how we will.
We can be motivated by fear and the ‘or else’ statements.
We can be motivated by love and the promise of unconditional love.
We can be motivated by no escape and the invitation of the strawberries.
What I know for sure for sure, is the promise of this one beautiful lifetime and the love we all have access to, always and forever.
A love we can feed to ourselves:
as nourishment instead of dessert,
as gentleness instead of armour,
as faith instead of proof…
Then a promise really is a promise, and we can be Allashua, and always come in from the cold where we are loved, held and cared for.
And may it be so.
I will close on a song that always reminds me of my mom, who wore Chantilly perfume and one day after our mom had passed, as I was listening to this song with my sister Edna, she looked at me and said… Do you smell that? It smells like mom.
Love knows no time, no plane of existence, no boundaries. Love is the promise.
The song was:
Sunshine on my shoulders
looks so lovely
Sunshine in my eyes
can make me cry
Sunshine on the water
looks so lovely
Sunshine
Almost all the time
Makes me high….
MUSIC
I invite you to listen to the words of John Denver: Sunshine on my Shoulders by John Denver on Spotify.
BENEDICTION…
You are loved by the mystery.
You are held by the mystery.
And you are known by the mystery.
Listen
Listen
Listen
Let no mystery confound you into the conclusion that mystery cannot be yours.….
See you next Sunday at 2pm…
This is TinaO’s Ministry of Story. She is a sacred-listener in a divisive time, cultivating safe containers for real change-based connecting and conversation. She is a Storyteller rooted in Myth, Mysticism and the Christian Tradition. To Tina, communication is a spiritual practice of listening and following the living story of us.
Her faith is in the space between us, where two or more are gathered, her trust is in the Mystery and her practice is listening and communicating from there.
If you would like to receive her weekly Story Stones Sessions in your inbox, click here to have it sent to you.
Welcome to Story Stones, an hour of deep listening and learning together.
I am a storyteller, a listener, and a holder of spaces where we can connect with the Story of Us.
My work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the Christian Tradition.
I’m an artist, a writer, a mom, a runner, and a poet. My faith is in the space between us where two or more are gathered, my trust is in the mystery and my practice is listening and communicating from there.
That’s me.
Okay… so how does this hour work?
There will be some readings, some sacred text and scripture, and poetry.
These are the pieces I’ve been praying into all week and have then crafted a message of sorts from. There will also be moments where I invite you into deep listening between you and your understanding of what I call God, or you might call the Divine, or maybe even your guidance or inner wisdom.
In some practices this is prayer or meditation, but I call it deep listening. Let’s settle in.
GRATITUDE CANDLE
I light a gratitude story candle to remind us no matter where we are, or what the story is inside our heads, or the story we are currently living, we are never alone. The mystery of our being and how we are held in this space and time, is always with us. We are LOVED. The mystery of us is always with us.
INVITATION TO LISTEN
This is time you’ve carved out to be with you, to be with your understanding of the sacred, to be with God and the Mystery of us. Take a breath. Take a minute to drop in, close your eyes and just get here. Let the story of your morning go. It is not of this moment. Let the story of what you think this is going to be go, it is not of this moment. Let yourself be.
Listen beyond the words in your head. Open up to listening to the space itself.
MUSIC
I invite you to listen to the words of Kyle Church: SLOW DOWN on Spotify.
The story stone we are listening into today is the word: BLESSING and BLESSED. What does it mean to be blessed? Or when we say: that’s such a blessing. What does that even mean? And how do we live that? This is the word we are listening into today.
FOR THE KIDS
Let’s start with something really easy, something kids might understand:
This comes from Shel Silverstein’s book: Where the Sidewalk Ends
Shel Silverstein (September 25, 1930 – May 10, 1999) was an American writer known for his cartoons, songs, and children’s books. I grew up having them read to me and I have read them to my boys.
By playing what we’ve got…
KIDS READING
Hmmm…. boredom, imagination, making something out of nothing. Because the nothing is the blessing.
LISTEN
Let us LISTEN
I invite you to close your eyes and listen in to the phrase of ‘what is the nothing you feel blessed by?What does your NOTHING want to say to you today?
Breathe and be.
Be and Breathe.
Let the story of blessed by no-thing be with you.
What do you hear?
We’re going to move into three readings,
One from the Bible, from Matthew 5, and Psalm 15 and another from a Rumi poem.
MATTHEW 5 1:12
You’re Blessed
5 1-2 When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:
3 “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
4 “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
5 “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.
6 “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.
7 “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.
8 “You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
9 “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.
10 “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.
11-12 “Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.
I love that… My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.
Take a moment to notice what is still with you?
What is speaking to you? What do you hear?
LISTEN.
Psalm 15
God, who gets invited
to dinner at your place?
How do we get on your guest list?
“Walk straight,
act right,
tell the truth.
“Don’t hurt your friend,
don’t blame your neighbor;
despise the despicable.
“Keep your word even when it costs you,
make an honest living,
never take a bribe.
“You’ll never get
blacklisted
if you live like this.”
SERMON
Creator…. God…. Universe… Mystery… I acknowledge the story of us that was here before we got here and the story that of us that will be here long after we’re gone. May the words of my mouth hold your hearts well and be in service to the unfolding of the story of us all.
“You’ll never get blacklisted when you live like this”. Have you ever felt like that? Like you must be on the ‘naughty’ list. If you’ve seen Elf over the holidays you’re already laughing. But how about blacklisted? As in, the red rope of entry is closed to you, or worse, you feel like you are on the list of bad, doomed even. Or maybe you feel like you must be a target, as in a magnet for awful things.
Have you ever felt like that?
If you’re fortunate, you haven’t. Or maybe you’re lucky and this experience hasn’t happened to you. Maybe you’re one of the rare ones and you have no scars. But I doubt it. Because we are all blessed.
And that’s the WORD we are listening into today: BLESSED.
You will notice everything I do, every story I tell, every place I invite us into, I bring what I call the double edge sword of story to it. I am most interested in the wholeness of story, because it is where the wisdom lives. There is no wisdom in what we might call light only.
There is light… sure! Totally! Awesome! I Love it. I just posted on Facebook… Dear God… can the rain please stop? I’ve had a few dark days this month and the rain and dreariness is kicking my ass. I love light. But the wisdom of story doesn’t happen on one side of the sword. It happens on all three. Yes three sides.
What we might call light
What we might call dark
And then the edge between.
In Story listening, our invitation is to listen from the edge, so integration can happen.
We can’t hear integration.
We can’t hear transformative steps in a puzzle already done.
We hear in the individual pieces.
And today’s piece, or Story Stone is the stone of blessed. We are blessed.
So let’s jump into this notion I just threw at you about being blacklisted, or on the naughty list, or the experience that we might be bad or something.
From Matthew we hear:
10 “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.
Okay, before we go any further, since this is my first story stones episode, let’s deal with the God issue. For those of you who balk at the word God – I get it. A lot has been done in the name of God that hurts. A lot has been done in the name of God that can’t be undone.
Remember though: in the name of God, not as God. But then many of you don’t believe in God. Cool. I get that too.
I don’t know who I believe in, as in holding a pronoun he, she, or they. I don’t have some big image of a person or celestial being called God in my head.
I don’t know what I believe in, as in holding a static picture like: wind, or energy, or the ocean. I can’t say for sure what God is.
God is a mystery.
And the mystery happens in the space between us, when we connect, when we have opened our hearts a little, when we are shields down, and in that space, an experience of God or spirit as a ‘carrier’ of God happens.
Have you ever heard: ‘where two or more are gathered…’ – That’s what I’m talking about.
You might say then, that what I believe in for sure for sure for sure is experiences of God – because it’s happened to all of us. That deep look into someone’s eyes and there’s an unmistakable – otherworldly connection. Those moments when you’re with someone and all the hairs on the back of your neck go up. Or those moments when you’re with nature and the beauty of the place takes your breath away, or as my dear friend Jillian Rutledge (a breath coach) says, when you are awestruck.
To me… those are the universal experiences of God. We know exactly what they are when we have them. As to who or what is God? That’s not for me to say for you. But I believe in it. In the great unknown and the love we find in those places. So when I say God, for those of you who are carrying pain from that word, or cognitive reasoning disbelief with that word, please hear an acronym of God as the ‘Good Ole I Dunno” – because nobody does.
And that’s the point.
I think that’s the most beautiful invitation of all. To experience God and not be able to describe it. And I am devoted to that.
So back to the scripture from MATTHEW where we heard ‘You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution’.
In a literal sense, that sounds awful. Commitment to God provokes persecution… yikes. Right… kinda like marriage to some: til death do us part… you mean, I gotta die to get out of this one?
But that’s not what I hear. I don’t hear ball and chain marriage. I don’t hear die for my faith. I don’t hear suffering for enlightenment. Or the suffering of enlightenment. I hear freedom.
I’ve had a few dark days in my life as I know you have too. In those dark moments, when my belief in all the big things crash like:
Love and being loved: I don’t believe in anything. I am empty. I can actually convince myself that I am never going to be loved by anyone ever….
Abundance and having enough: I am convinced I will struggle forever.
God itself and being supported: I am thoroughly convinced, like I know, I am all alone here, and no one but me will get me through this…
Or even my very existence, and mattering at all. In those times I hear in my head I was a mistake.
Yup. I’m normal like that. I have pain too. Do you ever spiral away like that?
I do – still. Sometimes a lot.
It usually happens when I’ve been side-swiped by a life-experience, or I’ve had a series of bad happenings occur in a row. A person can doubt herself, or slide into a mental health spiral, or worse, ride a big wave of depression. None of us are beyond that happens. It’s one of the signs we are human.
However, in those moments, as I’m positive you have had them too – we are experiencing life as we step away from God. We are forgetting the God moments of our life.
We are empty.
We are feeling persecuted.
And what is the only way out of those things?
All the woo woo books say the same thing. It’s not just the bible or the koran or the Buddhist Sutras or Yoga… They all say the same thing: surrender, or lay it down, or accept, or let it go.
When we lay it down, or in my story language, honour the story of the pain and the persecution, we come closer to God, because the next step, if we’ve truly laid it down and reminded ourselves: we are not the pain we are feeling, and we are . not the persecution which is happening… The next thing that happens is we rest. We have our tears, we empty our buckets and in that empty place, we rest in being blessed that we can… rest.
And we can.
The container for that rest, for the emptying for those tears is the blessing . of God. Or the Good Ole I Dunno. The Mystery.
We are blessed.
PRACTICE
In the moments of my greatest pain, where I am up against my deepest scarring of beliefs which are not true but feel true, I have a practice of sentences I say to myself to help me remember I am blessed. Saying them helps me rewire the circuits in my brain for those moments.
It sounds like this:
I won’t give up my ___________
to ____________
because I already ___________.
For example:
Love – as a single person who experiences stretches of loneliness, and experiences of bad choices, and yes, rejection, I can be faced with the unloveable monster, and can experience what I call clutchy… you might call it desperate… weak… or needy…
These are also very very very very human feels, so no judgement here. And I know when I’m in this place, I forget I am blessed, and I’m at risk of doing anything or trading something to have what might be love, but probably isn’t… You know what I’m talking about.
So this is the phrase I use (following the example above), and I whisper it to myself over and over and over again to calm myself.
I wont give up my SELF
to feel LOVED
because the truth is I am LOVED
(or BLESSED)
Let’s try FAITH:
This is one I used just recently, and it was really, really challenging, but nourished me and brought me closer to my understanding of God:
I won’t give up my FAITH
to belong,
because the truth is, I already belong.
(I am BLESSED)
How about ABUNDANCE:
And to understand this one, many a time I’ve been in a crossroads between the safety of a job, and my integrity as a child of God, and a follower of Mystery. Each of these crossroads were turning points, and catalysts of destruction and rebirth. Here are three examples:
Once upon a time my mom said to me in answer to a crumbling marriage and an impending financial disaster coming: Christina… you just need to get a job.
I remember thinking: You must not understand me.
Another time I was in a leadership tussle within an organization so I asked for guidance from a senior leader and her answer was: Tina… just do what you’re told.
I remember thinking: You must not have heard me.
And recently I was in a job I felt called to and I heard: Tina…you don’t know what you don’t know and you just can’t do that.
And I remember thinking: I’m not motivated by rules, you must not know me. Which lead to: I love you enough to leave.
This is what I say to myself when I feel myself lean sideways, off my path, off my call, away from my knowing of being blessed.
I won’t give up my calling
to feel safe,
because the truth is, in this moment, I am safe.
What I offer to you is to hold the understanding you are already blessed, and you can rest in that. Craft a guiding sentence which takes the persecution you are experiencing, and the sacredness you are holding within you, and cushion it with the blessing of knowing what is really true.
I won’t give up my SELF/FAITH/SAFETY to BELONG/FEEL WANTED/FEEL SAFE – Because the truth is…. I already…. (insert the blessing of truth).
Okay… so you heard my big three ‘curses’ I tell myself sometimes. These are the three that take me out at the knees… What are yours? What takes you out? What takes you to your knees?
You know what I love about that image? It’s the universal body position of surrender, and the invitation for prayer, or sacred time with your connection to God.
Where we lay it down.
At the end of Psalm 15 we hear:
“Keep your word even when it costs you,
make an honest living,
never take a bribe.
“You’ll never get
blacklisted”
Never take a bribe. That is worth repeating.
Or we go back to the words of Shel Silverstein:
And though there may be orchestras
That sound a little better
With their fancy shiny instruments
That cost an awful lot-
Hey we’re making music twice as good
By playing what we’ve got
Hold on to your sovereignty
Hold on to the blessing of you
To remember you are blessed and you’ll never get blacklisted.
And then what happens…?
Well, now we can bring Rumi into this beautiful conversation…
LISTEN:
Don’t hide
The site of your face
Is a blessing
Wherever you place your foot
There rests a blessing
Look,
Every falling leaf is a blessing.
All of nature swings in unison
Singing without tongues
Listening without ears
What a Blessing.
O Soul
The four elements are your face
Water, wind, fire, and earth
Each one is a blessing
Once the seed of faith takes root,
It cannot be blown away
Even by the strongest wind
Now that’s a blessing.
I bow to you
For the dust of your feet
Is the crown on my head
And as I walk towards you
Every step I take is a blessing
-Rumi
Okay… so now you remember you are blessed, and you can source yourself back to that… but what about the big stuff? – right?
You know what I’m talking about… Fires in Australia, Koalas and Kangaroos and other soft padded foot animals burning in the heat. The divisiveness on our planet right now. The fighting we saw in China this year. The innocent people, doctors who couldn’t get to student activists bleeding. The shootings in classrooms of our children. Violence, and I haven’t even begun to talk about disease. We probably don’t need to go there. We have all been touched by cancer already. Someone we know and love has struggled through it, or been claimed by it. Why?
We’ll never truly know.
We are not God.
We are not the Universe.
We are not the intelligence of the cosmos in this one breath, body and brain.
We are not. Some might disagree with me.
So here is what I will suggest:
When we remember, truly remember and practice feeling, knowing, and choosing the understanding that we are blessed, we are developing a practice of treasuring.
And what we treasure we lovingly protect, we don’t put in harm’s way.
What we treasure we honour.
When we are in the act of treasuring, we make different choices.
The fires may still burn, but they wouldn’t be happening by the hands of us, and there wouldn’t be a global climate change due to us.
We wouldn’t be fighting as much. We would protect our values and beliefs differently. We would honour them, and treasure them, and in doing so, we might…. just might…. Be able to see that the person we are talking to across from us is just trying to treasure their stuff too.
Oh mannnnn it’s not like we don’t know this stuff.
Love thy neighbour as you love yourself.
Treasure yourself, and remember they are treasuring themself too.
Remember you are blessed.
They are blessed.
This world is a blessing
And treasure it.
We are treasure.
We are gold.
We are love, belonging, and abundance, and enough, and worthy, and chosen, and and and and and… we ARE.
We are that treasure.
We are that treasured, by God.
The Good Ole I Dunno.
We come in that way, and we go out that way.
We can count our blessings and begin to live as if we are them and are blessed by them:
From Irving Berlin we hear:
When I’m worried and I can’t sleep
I count my blessings instead of sheep
And I fall asleep counting my blessings
Now Rosemary Clooney I am not,
Yet, I am blessed just the same.
And may it be so…
MUSIC:
I invite you to listen to the message of Irving Berlin and the gift of love that is the voice of Diana Krall as she sings: COUNT YOUR BLESSING, on Spotify. COUNTING YOUR BLESSING.
BENEDICTION
As you close your time with the sacred, I invite you to remember that you are loved by the mystery. You are held by the mystery. You are known by the mystery.
Let no mystery confound you into the conclusion, that mystery cannot be yours.*
Thank you for listening…
xxT
*a quote from Mark Helprin’s book: Soldier of the Great War
This is TinaO’s Ministry of Story. She is a sacred-listener in a divisive time, cultivating safe containers for real change-based connecting and conversation. She is a Storyteller rooted in Myth, Mysticism and the Christian Tradition. To Tina, communication is a spiritual practice of listening and following the living story of us.
Her faith is in the space between us, where two or more are gathered, her trust is in the Mystery and her practice is listening and communicating from there.
If you would like to receive her weekly Story Stones Sessions in your inbox, click here to have it sent to you.
I dream, sure. I have bucket lists. I have visions of places I want to go, people I want to see, and moments I want to create. I was in a highly successful business for years where the entire motivation to grow was fueled by one catch phrase: dare to dream, so I did, and it worked. But I think I kinda did it wrong because I didn’t really want what I had.
Can you dream the wrong way?
I remember the stickiness of change in that business when things I could only dream about were starting to happen. I was travelling and staying in beautiful hotels with gifts left for me on the bed. I ate the most delicious things in five star restaurants, had fireside chats in great-rooms overlooking the desert and I was blessed to spend a week in Hawaii every year. This is what I never dreamed about but thought I was supposed to, so I did, and it happened.
It felt a lot like being in a space ship which is why I’m wrestling with the whole dreaming thing right now. I had to leave the roots of my life behind in order to ‘lift off’. I dreamt, I affirmed and I created. I remember walking down wide hotel hallways, stunningly dressed, on my way to attend another evening gala. I don’t remember feeling my feet touch the floor.
We say this about dreaming: ‘as if my feet never touched the ground’.
Today things are different yet I am living a dream for sure. Things are simpler. I live by the ocean in a beautiful home surrounded by nature. I wake up to the sound of birds and I fall asleep to the glow of the moon and stars. I am self-employed. I am blessed to make a living doing what I love. I am passionate about it. I am nourished spiritually by it. I create my schedule. My boys are healthy, happy and ridiculously funny. We eat on a long table outside on the deck in the summer and we snuggle up by the fire in the winter. This is a dream I never made a goal, though I felt my through to this experience since I was a little girl. I did not visualize this. I did not create affirmations either, I simply followed a feeling of home inside me. Sounds pretty good right? Yes, but I still think what I’m doing isn’t quite right because I can’t help but notice how much effort it takes to keep this dream floating. I have many agreements, exchanges and structures within this dream.
We say this about dreaming: ‘there are no limits’.
As a child I would wake up to an orchestra of stories in my head. If thoughts were words, were music, were water, were warmth, were colour, that’s what I’m talking about. I woke up to inspiration all at once. Some days I still do. I experience speckles of hope, fragments of beauty, shards of mystery and particles of fireworks in each moment. This ignites the impulses to move me forward. This is the dreaming that happens effortlessly. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, it’s just weird.
I’ve been called flighty, impulsive, frivolous, unbalanced, wild and, wait for it… a dreamer…
We say this about dreaming: ‘a dream is a wish your heart makes’
I’m approaching 50 and as part of my #thisis50 series I am looking at a lot of things. Last Saturday I went to bed feeling quite sad and lonely. I had been moved during a film festival and had no one special to share my shards of inspiration with. But this is 50 (almost) so I didn’t go to the bar and try to meet someone. Nor did I go on a two hour walk in the dark to cry. I didn’t binge with a bag of cheesies and watch netflix, I didn’t do a lot of things I would’ve done in my 20s and 30s – not that this list is bad (no shame here), they just don’t change anything and neither does dreaming.
I went home. I felt sad. I layed in bed (kids were at their dad’s), and instead, started asking…
What do I want?
What do I see in that want?
What do I feel in that want?
How do I see me in that want?
What is this want?
All of this because earlier last week a friend told me a story about his mother asking him directly: What do you really want? -as if he could simply order it off the menu from the universe and it would be delivered. I noticed I never ask that of myself. I never ask what do you want?, because if I want something, I go get it so I rarely feel want, I just feel get instead. I think this might be the gap in dreaming I’m not doing right. This idea of asking for what I truly want feels foreign to me. I want that piece of cake or I want my son to be happy is not the same as I want to travel to New York and fall into the magic of theatre every year and get paid for it. While theatre season may mean nothing to you, to me it makes me want to laugh, cry and love at the same time, and that’s just ONE thing on my want list.
This is what I think:
A want is not a dream, but a dream without a want is just a wish.
And that’s what Cinderella does. Remember… she’s fiction.
We say this about dreaming: Dreams don’t work unless you do.
So again, this mantra about effort, work, results and dreaming. Where is the sweet spot?
I’m three years from fifty and all I know is, it’s time to trust my kaleidescope approach to dreaming, the way I did before I knew what it was. As a child I would just see things inside first as I wanted them. I would feel things before I knew what they were, I’d follow that feeling and what I wanted appeared. I would hear words before the story arrived and solving the mystery would manifest the very thing I wanted.
I’m beginning to believe that dreaming is allowing myself to want something. Really really want something.
So from this place of really wanting, this is what I know so far:
I want to cycle in Europe, sleep in little Inns and drink wine at night.
I want to travel to cultural birthplaces and listen to the stories that live there.
I want to go to New York, London and drop in to Niagara annually for Theatre Season, like it’s just what I do. It’s not a trip, it’s my life.
I want to touch spiritual symbols and listen to them.
I want a home, maybe a few.
I want to meet as many beaches as I can.
I want to own and drive a jeep. I know, it’s kinda cliché but I really want that.
I want to Christmas with my family forever – as if Christmas is a verb and not a day on the calendar.
I want to swim the way I run – like my body just knows how to do it.
I’m sure there is more, but this is the list I’m starting with. Don’t ask me about love and relationships yet. I have no idea. None. Zip. Zilch. I got nuthin’. Well, that’s not true. I’m just not ready to say them out loud yet. I’ll get there. Beauty, Love, Art, Adventure, Home, Health, and God. That’s all I know right now.
I think dreaming is wanting from the essence of how you are designed, and that’s another Story from the Core conversation.
So now it’s your turn. What do you want?
Thanks for listening.
As we say here in Storyland, Listening is Loving.
#thisis50
xxT
TinaO is a Writer, Story Coach, and Host of the TinaOShow, collecting and telling Stories from the Core. She’s the co-owner of The LEAP Learning Lab with Gina Best, and the other half of The Writer’s Compass with Meribeth Deen. She says: Stories are like toddlers, they will follow you around, tugging, hanging off of you until you listen to them. TinaO is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening using writing, storytelling, nature, nourishment, art and connection as a way to listen to the personal story within. The retreat is held in various locations around the world, and is always offered 3x/year in British Columbia where she lives. All are welcome.
As always… let me know your thoughts. They’re always welcome.
This is the feeling we all avoid: dangling. Caught between two worlds. Transitions. Good-byes. There’s something about shifting from one world to the next that causes us all (and yes, I am going to be so bold as to say ALL) of us to go unconscious, like taking your eyes of the road to change the channel. In that brief second anything can happen, and it does.
Think about it. There’s a reason we can’t find our keys, our phone, or where we took off our shoes. Copious amounts of books have been written about how to be ‘present’. Why? Because transitioning is a challenge on multiple levels:
THE BRAIN. Our circuitry doesn’t do blended thinking. We’re not a margarita, we’re a seven layer dip. We stack one thought on top of another, piled onto another one. We may have multiple thoughts all at once, but it’s seriously, despite what you may think, our brain doesn’t mash together like pastry dough. You can’t gently knead it from one form into another. It doesn’t work that way. Did you know your capacity to have a ‘mix’ of multiple thoughts isn’t even physically possible until you’re five to seven old? Seriously… so all of us parents have to chill out a bit with our Kindergarten expectations. Our kid’s brains can’t hold two thoughts at the same time for awhile. Those of us seven years old and up reading this, barely can too. We don’t blend our thinking, we switch tracks. _____________________________________
OUR FEELINGS. Enough said. While feelings are also a bi-product of our physical body in connection to the imprints and neuro-pathways we’ve created in our brain, they have been known to swoop in, dive bomb us with mini explosions, sometimes flooding us with a challenge to learn how to swim in the waves. They feel all mixed up. They do not seem like a seven layer dip, they feel like the aftermath mess of a holiday party. _____________________________________
OUR EXPECTATIONS. We arrive home. In one moment we are turning our car off. In the next moment we are reaching to remove the keys from the ignition and we already have a thought in our head. Right? It’s probably something like: Did anyone think about dinner or do I have to? or Damn, I forgot to…, or Yay!!! I’m home!!! I’m so tired… or Okay, don’t forget to do this… this… and this… before you go to bed. There are other, harder thoughts you may be having too. This thing called life is one long list of to do’s and measure-ups and our expectations keep us moving. It’s not just our body which is tired when we hit the pillow, our brain is too.
These are the everyday reasons why transitions can challenge us, and there are bigger, more dramatic ones too:
Grief
Anxiety
Exhaustion
Detachment
Panic
Despair
Emptiness
and many more.
There are multiple reasons why we choose to slip away from one moment into the void of a next one without acknowledging the micro-transition we are in, and that’s what change is, a series of micro-transitions.
One breath to the next.
One feeling to the next.
One noticing to the next.
One pang.
One swell.
One wink.
One tear.
One thought.
One impulse.
One step.
One one one one one – on to another – one one one one one – to another one one one one one. That’s what change is.
Some days like New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Week, we enter a forced transition. One year closes and within a micro-transition we are thrust into the fireworks of a new one. Some of us don’t like being told what to do so time becomes a ‘construct’, others of us love structure and in light of the New Year, we’re on the hunt for the best day-timer ever, some of us choose to not invest at all, in any of it and we just go to the party.
Not right.
Not wrong.
Not attached, nor detached.
It’s something that happens every year on this human plane called our life – two stories collide called New Year’s Eve (and week) and some of us get lost in it for very personal and logical reasons.
Here’s what I want you to know: You’re okay. You’re good. You’ve got this. You are not your feelings, or time, or your thoughts. You are YOU, and there’s a hell of a lot of shit going on inside of you during a transition.
I got you right now, which means you got you too.
Happy New Year.
Because given a choice between saying: Shitty New Year! or Unconscious New Year! or Scary New Year! I am choosing, in this micro-transition to wish you a HAPPY one.
I got you.
xxTinaO
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TinaO is a Writer, Story Coach, and Host of the TinaOShow, collecting and telling Stories from the Core. She’s the co-owner of The LEAP Learning Lab with Gina Best, and the other half of The Writer’s Compass with Meribeth Deen. She says: Stories are like toddlers, they will follow you around, tugging, hanging off of you until you listen to them.
Let’s keep this really simple. Meribeth and I write because it’s how we connect with ourselves, with you, and with the world. Language is like oxygen for us. Writing is Breathing. Writing is your birthright.
Seriously, it is.
Here are some thoughts we shared under an umbrella on a rainy day on the West Coast. We’re a little pixelated because this started out as a Facebook Live so it’s been downloaded and uploaded a few times… but hey, it’s not about how we look, it’s about the message right?
What is important for you to claim, to understand, to share, to experience, to love, to deepen with?
Here’s to YOU and YOUR WRITING…
with support,
TinaO & Meribeth
TinaO and Meribeth Deen are the creators of The Writer’s Compass, a method of writing that encourages being lost as a way to create, connect and deliver writing from the core. Want to join in our online writing group? Check out our Private Facebook Group: Core Story Writers here. You can also find our programs: WRITE and PUBLISH on The Leap Learning Lab.
I didn’t get to where I am in life by doing all of the heavy lifting myself. The truth is, almost every significant experience, and I do mean life changing, has come to me through a leg up. I have rarely, if ever had a breakthrough in my professional or personal life getting there on my own. For real.
Sometimes my social conditioning gets the better of me and I can feel embarrassed about it. I too hear things in my head like:
If it’s meant to be it’s up to me.
Raise the bar.
or this ugly one, raise the bar – trim the fat.
The cream will rise to the top
Your only limit is you
I can and I will
It never gets easier, you just get better
But my experience has always been this:
If it’s meant to be, ask for help
Raise your bar by receiving the gifts coming your way
Raise the bar of humanity by allowing everybody in
Your only limitation is your unwillingness to lift and be lifted
I can because we will
Community makes things easier
I grew up in rental housing. My dad fell apart after our mom died and when he was laid off in his 50s he never recovered emotionally or financially, leaving the many of us (blended family of 11 – some at home, some not) to get by on my step-mom’s slightly above minimum wage bakery lady pay. The only reason I did, or had anything was because one, I worked for it and two, people helped me and three, I understood what it felt like to be grateful.
I somehow missed the pride gene around this stuff because I didn’t seem to care when someone bought me lunch, I said thank you instead. I wasn’t ashamed to wear my sister’s hand-me-downs. Are you kidding? I was thrilled to wear her grown up stuff! I learned how to get by on busfare in my pocket, and if I didn’t have that, how to walk and read at the same time (and walk I did!). My practice was: yes please, thank you and what can I do to help?
And I didn’t feel like a charity case either.
Weird right?
Well, not to me.
The first act of kindness I remember learning from was just after my mom passed. I’m pretty sure it had happened only weeks before and my grade three class was going to Stanley Park. The field trip was really kinda no big deal but the student teacher, Ms. Soleil was. She was the first one to show me what lifting others looks like. After a long day at the beach and hanging with the geese, we were on our way back on the public bus when one of my classmates, Sukvinder was targeted. He was only eight years old, and two young men flipped his melting icecream cup over on his head because of his ethnicity. Our South Vancouver neighbourhood was changing and the once uuber white community was rapidly welcoming an influx of East Indian and Asian families. You know what I remember about my childhood? I didn’t see skin colour. I didn’t notice hair texture. I didn’t register differences. I had friends. That’s it that’s all. So when Sukvinder was picked on by a bunch of teenagers, I couldn’t make sense of it. I was shocked and totally spellbound by Ms. Soleil’s response. She stood up like a super-hero with a furrowed brow and laser eyes, and with fierce, active indignation, she marched those racist boys off the bus so fast they didn’t know what was happening. She was awesome, and her protection of Sukvinder’s self-esteem left a lasting impression on me.
Her action said to me We are all worthy.
She’s also the teacher who sent me home with a photo from that day with a note on the back saying “what a pleasure you are to teach and I’m so sorry about the passing of your mom”. She was the only teacher who said anything. I remembered that. She wasn’t afraid to acknowledge, or to lift.
Because of this and so many more countless situations where I was the kid, or the grown up who couldn’t figure out how to make it work – and yet was still offered an opportunity to rise up, I’ve never really had an attachment to the belief of CAN or CAN’T. I won’t say I’m an eternal optimist, because trust me, I’m not. I’m wicked skeptical. I don’t believe in rules though I do recognize them. I don’t follow deadlines, though I’m aware of them. When someone says you’re not allowed, I think, really? We’ll see.
It’s not that I’m cocky (though I can be),
or that I’m irresponsible (though trust me, I can be that too).
It’s not that I’m contrary (though it can look like that),
or that I refuse to follow the rules (I just don’t sometimes).
It’s not that I think I’m above it or that I live in some kind of Steve Jobs reality distortion field (I wish!).
It’s just that my experience has always been LIFE MOVES when WE DO.
Sometimes, there’s a way.
Sometimes, there’s a hand.
Sometimes, you can even when it looks like you can’t.
That’s been my experience.
For this reason, Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat reconnecting you back to your own voice of timeless wisdom has always been made accessible to anyone who wants to come. The weekend, created and facilitated by Nicolle Nattrass, Carolyn Nesbitt and I, and held at Xenia Retreat Centre on Bowen Island is now starting it’s fifth year. As such, we’re ready to make our accessible pricing official.
#1 PAY WHAT YOU CAN (with a $100 non refundable deposit)
or #2 PAY IT FORWARD ($695)
and yes… you can pay what you can now and pay it forward later.
Here is how it works: for as little as a $100 non-refundable deposit or as much as $695, (and anything in between) you can book one of our 36 spots/year (we hold the retreat 3x with 12 participants in each weekend Oct/Feb/May).
I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor and here’s what I know about me, neither financial position was a reflection of whether I deserved something or not. Afford it? Maybe, maybe not, but deserve? No.
And I’m going to rattle a few cages here. The whole conversation about ‘if you want it you’ll find the money to make it happen’– is part of an old paradigm which no longer serves us. While it’s original intention was to EMPOWER people to raise their head, square their shoulders and keep bravely stepping forward, it’s now become a way to price based on perceived worth or even worse, fear of not being worthy. The price points for work meant to help people is beginning to divide us. There are those who can afford personal development, and those who cannot. Or worse, there are those who are empowered enough to attract money into their lives, and those who are not. Yikes… stretch the concept a bit farther and we can get into the whole winner/loser perspective. I’m speaking with broad strokes here of course, but I think you follow me. Here’s a prime example (and I usually like Brian Tracy):
Who wants to be a part of that kind of divisive and disempowering conversation? The way I see it, we’re the ones throwing ice cream now – only our target is the loser who is choosing not to ‘start’.
Here’s what I see… some people sell stuff at a price more than my mortgage or monthly grocery bill for a family of five. It’s not that their product isn’t WORTH the price – it’s not about worthiness at all. It’s about accessibility, and as someone who values deeply those who have lifted me, I’d like to fan the flames on that kind of practice.
BTW – Accessibility is not about charity, it’s offering a hand.
and it’s not about rescuing either, it’s about creating a space.
Because time and time again I’ve been on the receiving end of such grace and as such, I get it. Now it’s my turn.
On Friday night at Live Your Best Story we always open with “and my wish for you this weekend is…”, and so today, my wish for all of us is to offer more accessibility in our pricing out there. What if we started asking: How can I help more? How can I serve more? How can I offer what I do in a way that honours as many people as possible AND myself.
Now that’s abundance: many, more, all – not just some. There’s no scarcity thinking here.
Imagine if our pricing wasn’t a reflection of ”worth”, but rather of our humanity.
That sounds pretty worthy to me.
You?
Want to check out REGISTRATION DETAILS for Live Your Best Story? We only host the retreat three times per year with a maximum of 12 spots per retreat or 36 spots/year.
TinaO is a Core Story Specialist and a Program Director of PUBLISH with Meribeth Deen for The LEAP Learning Lab. She’s a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub to Live, Give and Be Your Story, plus the deep listening weekend retreat Live Your Best Story. She’s been in the PR and Marketing world since she could put words together and has been a professional network marketer for over twelve years. She teaches: selling isn’t slimey, marketing isn’t make-believe and writing won’t give you an aneurysm (it’s not hard). You can be yourself in all that you do. In fact, that’s what the world is waiting for.
TinaO is a Writer,
TinaO is a Writer, Story Coach, and Host of the TinaOShow, collecting and telling Stories from the Core. She’s the co-owner of
TinaO is a