I was with a client last week and he said to me: We’re in Shaman time. I said What? He says that’s when we bend time, when it could be 3pm or 3am, when the construct of a ticking clock drops away and so does our relationship to it.
Oh, I said.
That’s what listening feels like to me. That’s how I know when I’m in it instead of doing it.
I’m a core story specialist, at least that’s what I put on my business card so people can ‘get’ it, but really, if I lived in a small village where we were named by what we do as the integration of who we are, people would call me: Story Tracker. That makes me chuckle. We’re just so weird aren’t we? I’ll own that. I’m weird. Damn weird. Perfect weird. I can see me as a character in a film: I’m a little bit witchy, probably old and wrinkled and the director has probably given me only one eye to accentuate my story scars. I’d have a long crooked stick that I poke at you as your story unfolds in front of us… Relax, I have two eyes and I don’t carry a stick, though I might be a bit witchy… One could make a case.
Life would be a lot easier if we didn’t feel the need to separate who we are from what we do because they really are one in the same. Well, that is, when we’re doing what we innately are, thus all the book stores bursting at the seams with volumes about how to achieve being, as if being has a goal post attached to it.
It’s not about doing nothing in order to be, it’s about being so that our doing feels like nothing, or as my client calls it: Shaman Time.
At some point in a Story Day with me we usually end up out at the wildest part of the island where I live because there the wind howls, the waves crash and the trees bend and grow sideways. I take people there because it’s the closest I can come to being in Tofino without actually having to make the trek to get there myself. My brood of a family have camped on the wild wet west coast every summer for the last fifteen years, and it’s where I go to feel small, witnessed. My favourite time of the day is just as the sun is setting when there’s a loud heaviness of silence sitting above those of us standing on the beach. I can feel my own story being tracked, but this time not by me.
When I’m walking with my clients, I ask them about the word Mystery. What makes a good one? I ask.
They say: It’s thrilling, it’s kinda scary, it’s unknown, it’s a story; until I ask: What makes it NOT a horror? Not a cliff hanger? And how come we feel compelled to watch or read them all the way to the end?
Because we want to know what happens, they say. Like duhhhhh… they implore, respectfully looking at me as if I missed something.
Why? I ask.
Because we know that it will end, it will resolve and when it does, it makes sense.
The quote that has run my adult life comes from Mark Helprin’s novel, Soldier of the Great War about Alessandro Giuliani, an aged World War 1 Vet who goes on a pilgrimage and befriends a young boy on the way. As the two of them walk for days together, he recounts his life asking again and again in multiples of ways: Why did they die and I live? Why did my life matter? In the randomness of pain and beauty, where is the purpose of my choices? of my life? and the quote from his book that I have had pinned to my wall for years which has become the message that is now my life’s work is:
“Let no mystery confound you into the conclusion, that mystery cannot be yours”.
Mystery.
Witness.
Story.
Time.
See, time turns into mist and then disappears when I’m listening to people because that’s how mystery, like home, shows up for me, and in that space of witnessing it’s as if God reaches in through our story and says Yes.
And we both can hear it.
November 25th – 27th on Bowen Island, BC Canada (20 minutes outside of Vancouver) at Xenia Retreat Centre, TinaO is hosting Live Your Best Story, a weekend about Listening to your story so as to Lead your life.
If you’d like to talk to TinaO to find out if this weekend retreat is a good fit for you, send her a message below or at tina@liveyourbeststory.com to book a complimentary core story phone session. Living Your Best Story is a weekend designed just for you. It’s gentle. It’s honouring. It’s introspective and it feels like coming home.
xxT
TinaO is a Core Story Specialist, a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, and the workshop Live Your Best Story. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
Tell me about tired because it’s a constant I see on me, and on other people.
Tired, Tina is a place to live in, a land to visit, a place to put up camp, a place to build shop, a home for dead relationships, a cemetery of sorts that we choose to walk on.
When you are tired Tina, you are walking on dead things and disturbing their rest so their hands reach up to grab you to remind you to move on.
We are dead, we are your past, we are yesterday. This is not your home it is ours. Move on from here. Your life is not in this pasture.
Dead tired is the title of that story.
Tired that is physical is very different. It’s the home you live in telling you its boards are creaking and needs to be warmed up, loved and cared for.
It’s the cold air in your home saying, we need you. We are lonely and so we are cold. You are abandoning me and so we are cold.
It is the door frames of your home sagging sagging sagging from the weight of holding holding holding, and the doors begin to want to stay closed and not open anymore.
A physical tired needs rest, needs care, needs attention, needs you to hold it.
The tired of weary is the tired of the trekker, the tired of the quest, the tired of the road, the journey of not seeing the shore.
The weary tired is a tired of transformation, it’s not tired at all, it’s masked as tired, it’s fear of the unknown telling you I’m afraid we’re going nowhere – it’s asking you to listen to the feet on the path, listen to the ground or the water or the air touching your feet.
Listen intently. Listen deeply. Listen as there are choices to be made from the stories you are ignoring.
Tired is a story with so much information in it.
Xxt
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TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and with her Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers Coaching Program, she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
Yesterday I announced that Soul Interpreter, Chris Dierkes will be sharing a regular post here on TinaOLife. If you missed it, here is what I’m so thrilled about.
Today we launch Chris’ column “Dear Soul Dude” and he’s chosen to nail a biggie: the soul and your life’s purpose. Oh boy. How many sleepless nights have you had rolling that question around over and over and over and over and over…? It makes my stomach flip just thinking about it. A few years ago I would wake up between 3am and 4am almost every night just twitching with this question. I would sedate myself with netflix in order to go back to sleep, usually by 6am, just when my ‘duties’ as mom was starting.
I love that we’re opening up Chris’ column with this delicious topic. Have a read. What are your thoughts? What are your questions? We’ll be sure to respond just as quickly as time allows. Ready? Let’s dive in!
I want you to help me find my purpose.
I want to discover my purpose in life.
When I talk to individuals considering entering into a soul work process this is the most common complaint and desire they bring with them.
I empathize with the sincere desire that underlies the statement. I think framing the the issue as finding or discovering one’s purpose is causing people huge amounts of unnecessary suffering and pain.
I believe wanting to discover your purpose in life is really problematic. But please hear what I am and am not saying in that statement. Undoubtedly the desire to express your soul is genuine. Conceiving of and framing that desire as finding or discovering your purpose is very bad.
Why? Seems sorta nuts to oppose people finding their purpose in life no? It might be a foolhardy quest but I’m going to try to persuade you that trying to find your purpose is an unhelpful approach to life. In order to get there however we first need a little background on the nature of the soul and its desires. Once we do that I hope you’ll understand why I’m arguing against looking to discover or find your purpose in life.
Be Careful (How You Frame) What You Wish For
The soul works through irresistible impulse, deep desire, and profound pull. The soul is a kind of generative germinator, a locus of longing. The soul is tidal; it’s energies build and gather intensity like the ocean’s waves. The passions of a soul incite it to movement and motivate it to action. The soul’s surge is an impulsion; it is kinetic, charged, dynamic.
Impulsion, drive, longing, these are the urges and surges of the soul.
Now the next step is to learn the fine art of creatively and judiciously beginning to ride those tidal impulses of the soul, to put those soul impulsions into concrete language. This path involves giving voice to these deep urges of the soul by letting them coalesce into intentions.
Intentions act as frames, as containers for these deeper-than-words groanings of the soul. Intentions give shape, consistency, and meaning to the soul’s sighs.
Intentions then are crucially important. There is a sweet spot where an intention has enough concreteness to give tangible shape and profile to a soul longing and yet is not so dense that it flattens the soul’s desire. This process of moulding a soul’s instincts into a life-giving intention is an art not a science. In other words, not all intentions are created equal. Some intentions, some containers are more congruent to the subtlety and power of a soul desire. Some less so.
The soul is more like an inclination. Soul longings incline in certain directions. They incline away from other directions. But these inclinations, these urges are not yet to be so narrowly defined as to efface the multiple ways that these longings can be practically realized and expressed.
The soul is more like an inclination.
As it comes to this particular topic of life path, the deep longing, the primordial urging of a soul, is to express its true nature, to irradiate the world with its singular light. This is universally the case for all souls.
That impulse is deeply felt by people. It’s a beautiful one. It’s very real.
Here then comes the mistake (in my view). That beautiful impulse of a soul is then interpreted and framed as needing to “find my purpose in life.” In naming the deep soul longing as such the person has inadvertently already begun to lose touch with the deeper impulse. They accurately sensed it but they have unfortunately mislabeled it and badly framed it.
The impulse is valid. The framework of interpretation is not. The latter distorts the former. What is needed then is the felt sense of the underlying tidal surging of the soul AND a more adequate frame to understand it, to seek to concretely surf it.
Finding Means Something Is Lost
If you begin with the proposition that you want to find your purpose you are describing your purpose as lost. When people say to me “they are looking for their purpose in life”, I’ll point my eyes up to the ceiling or look out the window or under the chair I’m sitting on. Looking for your purpose? Where? Where would a soul’s purpose happen to be?
I hear people describe finding their soul’s purpose or locating it like it was a buried pirate treasure. Unfortunately far too many practitioners (in my experience) play into this problematic dynamic. They sell themselves as helping someone “locate” their lost purpose as if it were indeed some kind of buried treasure. Practitioners will even claim they have some special map to their client’s purpose, complete with an X to mark the spot of the (other) soul’s inherent desires. Once someone becomes the expert on locating your lost soul purpose, they can immediately sell you this fanciful dream (or is it a nightmare?).
Looking for your purpose? Where? Where would a soul’s purpose happen to be?
The central error here is that the purpose of a soul is intrinsic to the soul itself.
The purpose is not somewhere else. Consequently you do not need to go on a journey to locate your supposedly lost soul purpose. You need not look outside yourself. There’s no reason for you to adopt some formulaic three, four, five, or ten step formula to activating your soul’s growth, potential, and purpose.
There’s the old saying of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” In this case it would be “if it ain’t lost don’t find it.”
Your soul’s purpose is not lost. It’s inherent to the soul of you, to the soul of anything or anyone. The philosopher Aristotle described the soul as the animating principle, the essential mover of a being. In other words, that deep generative longing. That is inherent to you as an incarnate soul.
So there is no need to bring in some outside set of actions in order to “locate” your soul’s purpose. All that needs to happen is to let your soul out. What people call their purpose is really just the unfolding of their soul.
Consequently there’s no reason to abdicate your soul’s sovereignty to someone else, to some expert (self-proclaimed, valid or otherwise). All that is needed is learning to attend to the generative impulses of your soul that are always already motivating you from the depths. And then from there learning how to let them move, form, and solidify into life-giving, creative, loving action.
If you say you are looking to find your soul purpose then you will seek outwardly in vain. You will seek elsewhere than directly where you need to, namely the core animating tides of your soul. I use words like tides, urges, impulsions to describe this mysterious quality of soul because they speak to the subtle nature of the soul, to the soul’s fluidity.
Looking for your soul’s purpose is disempowering. It’s meant to be empowering but sadly it’s the exact opposite.
That’s the main reason I believe looking for your purpose is well-intentioned but nevertheless flawed. There are a few other major reasons as well, which I want to mention just briefly.
Such as, the soul is not bound by a or any purpose.
The soul doesn’t have a purpose. The soul is purposeful.
The key is to express the nature of your soul as it is. That is intrinsically meaningful, purposeful, and creative. It is so much simpler and more heartfelt than “finding your soul’s purpose.”
Peace, Chris
Chris is a long time spiritual practitioner and teacher. Raised in the Roman Catholic tradition, he has had a lifelong love affair with the Christian mystical tradition, however he is also well versed in a diverse range of lineages and teachings. He’s a strong advocate for shamanic forms of healing work and consciousness, as well as being a Reiki Master in three lineages of Reiki.
He works with with clients from a variety of backgrounds: from different religious traditions, spiritual but not religious folks, agnostics, seekers, and atheists.
He spent four years living as a monk in his twenties and later worked for three years as an Anglican priest in Vancouver.
He is a soul interpreter and an energy healer.
Chris lives in Vancouver with his beloved wife Chloe (a doula) and their daughter Sage.
Have a question for Chris?Want to check out his blog? Want to find out more? Check out his website and be sure to leave him a message below okay?
Let’s just open this right up by letting y’all know that I self-identify as a Christian. I’ll also let you know that I truly have no idea what that means, other than I’m a Canadian white girl (like as white bread as they come: German, English, Irish and Scottish) who grew up in a neighbourhood with five churches within a ten block radius and from 9-14yrs old I went to the United Church, and loved it, therefore, I think that makes me a Christian-yes?
Almost 30 years later, although married to a self-identifying atheist, I decided to go back again, taking up a seat in the back at our neighbourhood’s Little Red Church. On my way home from my first visit, I cried and cried and cried big wet tears as I rode my bike down the trail to my driveway. No words. No understanding. No story, just gratitude for a place to rest.
Was that religion?
My parents didn’t go to church, my brothers didn’t pray, and most of my friends were the children of first or second generation immigrant families. Every now and then we could catch a glimpse into each other’s family’s wildly different and colourful customs and practices. We were a gaggle of Italian, Filipino and Chinese Roman Catholic, East Indian Hindu with some Sikh, East African Muslim and all of that peppered with a few tried-and-true good-ole-white-bread-Christians. We were like a religious omelette of Vancouver leftovers.
Yet here’s the thing: None of us were confused. None of us were outraged. None of us needed to change each other. In fact, most of us were wildly curious about the customs of our friends. We saw Mendhi for the first time, touched a rosary, received a red envelope, breathed in incense, smelled curry and drank real chai… these are the gifts of a multi-cultural childhood and teenage life. None of us assumed we were ‘right’ about our beliefs (let’s be honest, we didn’t even know what we believed in or why yet). None of us challenged each other’s life-practices. None of us understood faith, we simply lived, and we enjoyed the wonder of it all.
Mendhi
I think I was 9 years old when I decided to go to church with my new bestie who lived across the street. We were the same age, born on the same day, and we both LOVED to sing. Cheryl’s family went to church every Sunday, so one day, I decided to join them, and I loved it. My favourite part was singing in the choir (of course) and having hot tea with milk and sugar after service (sugar cubes are so fancy). I became part of a community who smiled more often than they frowned and I loved that.
I can still hear the comforting sound of my one precious little 25 cent piece drop and hit the felt bottomed collection plate as it was passed around.
And then there was Easter Sunday. The truth is, I had no idea what on earth we were doing, what the story was about, and why on this particular day women wore hats and men wore suits. What I did know is that once upon a time a long long long long long time ago, there was this guy who had been nailed to a cross to die because he said crazy things that scared people. Then he was laid to rest, only to miraculously go MIA after his massive stone was rolled away. Some lookieloos wanted to check in on him you know.
Who rolled the stone? Was that the Easter Bunny? Is that how the rabbit thing ties in?
But wait then this guy named Jesus shows up again neither as a ghost nor man yet he can speak with his friends. How does that work? But Wow… I mean… wow… That’s a super awesome story. I remember thinking: ‘Do my Italian, Filipino, East Indian, Chinese and African friends know about this?’. But you know how it is, it just never came up in conversation.
So what of this Easter Bunny?
Seems kinda nuts doesn’t it? And I’m not slagging it, or religion either.
But what of it?
and why for it?
I mean a dead guy lives?
a bunny poops eggs?
What? Yup. That’s right. A guy in a robe died so we shall live, and a bunny brings us chocolate eggs. And Yes, we believe in them both.
Why?
Because it’s not about religion, it’s about ritual.
It’s not about believing, it’s about loving.
It’s not about Jesus, Buddha, Shiva, Krishna, Muhammad, Yahweh, Jehovah, Elohim, Allah, Shakti, Zeus, Eostra, the Universe, Source… or anyone else, it’s about belonging.
It’s not about the Easter Bunny, it’s celebration.
What if we didn’t have to choose? What if it wasn’t about some but rather all? Here’s what I think:
We don’t have to choose between God or the Easter Bunny, fact or fiction, belief or ignorance, we can choose the power of ritual, of connection, of meaning instead.
Even typing those words makes me want to groan. Connection… blechhhh it sounds so new-agey and trite doesn’t it? I know, let’s all chomp off some chocolate bunny ears, feet and heads and then hold hands ’cause we’re all ‘c o n n e c t e d’ -k?
As if.
Yet, there I was this past weekend with my family, doing what we do, and fifteen years into a familydom, Easter like most holidays now runs like clockwork: Bunny shows up around 5:30am, hidesthe eggs before the house wakes, leaves funny limerick riddles leading the boys to their appropriately sugar stacked chocolate baskets, followed by mama cleaning up with a quick wipe of the bathrooms, then a fast sweep/vacuum/dust, switch gears to placing the mighty lemon themed desserts into the oven, pull out the china, set the table, pour my first glass of wine and…wait until the family arrives.
And then we catch up. We talk about the state of the world (and with the upcoming election in the USA – there’s been a lot to talk about), we cook and then we eat.
Every Easter in our house we start dinner with the great egg smash and if you ask any of the kids at the table what their favourite part of Easter is, I gonna bet they’d say The Smash even before they’d say chocolate. Why? Because it’s fun, it’s silly and it’s a ritual. Everyone counts on it happening every year.
My dad who is not my father nor my daddy but is my dad, is American (long story which I won’t explain today) and he often works during these kinds of holidays but when he’s not he brings his American-ism to the table offering a very traditional grace, blessing our food, each other and thanking God for the bounty before us. It’s a lovely practice for each of us as we all bow our head out of respect following our intrinsic Canadian politeness of doing the right thing, and saying grace out of love for me because I’m the one who usually asks.
This year papa was working so there was no ‘grace’ (I suck at that kinda stuff because it’s not authentic for me yet not false either – confusion leads me no where) so as a result, while the ritual of the egg smash did take place, the deeper meaning of the day never really took hold, well, for me anyway.
Not that religion = depth and smashing eggs = superficial (I suppose you could argue that), but rather our chosen go-to-family-activity didn’t invite us to ‘be’ together: to see and be seen by one another. Too much touchy feely stuff I guess.
I tried.
I always think about Todd’s mom on Easter. I’m not sure why. She passed away in the month of February so that’s not it, but man oh man that lady LOVED FOOD and any CELEBRATION around it, and on this particular Easter I missed her. I raised my glass and toasted the moms in our life, the grandmas, the mommy’s, the mamas and hands that hold us. It was an invitation to start a deeper sense of story before we all chowed down, but it just didn’t take. Sometimes it’s just what the day wants.
I missed it. It felt like I ate cake for dinner instead of meal.
I said to Todd as we were debriefing the day later that night:
I don’t think I know what Easter is all about for me. I mean I get Christmas. Even the biblical story of the baby Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Wise Men and the Star of Bethlehem touches on the same themes that Hallmark and marketing does: joy, togetherness, celebration, light, and possibility. Thanksgiving is similarly tied (albeit not a religious holiday), our ritual of feasting and gratitude is rooted in the story of the pilgrims and Indians gathering together. The Indian people taught the pilgrims how to grow corn and to fish, and so the pilgrims honoured them with a feast to show their gratitude. But what of Easter? What is the modern day, accessible story of Easter that has roots that we can all understand?
Surely it’s not chocolate, egg smashing and hunting.
Surely there’s more.
I go back to my roots of religion to find my own answer. I turn to the power of story, to meaning, to symbols, to make sense of it all. I said to Todd as we were laying there and I was clearly wrestling with my own disappointment that this Easter we as a family just didn’t ‘get there’, nor was it particularly desired this time. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t seem to invite a deeper meaning to the table, because frankly, I didn’t know what exactly it was that was important to me. I said to him:
This resurrection story thingy is not about a dead guy dying for our sins and it’s not about a bunny pooping eggs either. While both of those interpretations are ‘true’, those stories both honour birth and rebirth. Maybe it’s the story of Spring, of overcoming the deadness of winter and inviting the newness to live again. Are we celebrating life as we acknowledge and honour the reality of death?
Hmmm… that feels honest. That feels inclusive.
So if Christmas = Joy
and Thanksgiving = Gratitude
then Easter can = Growth
Right?
Here’s how the Easter table could’ve gone this year had I figured this out before Sunday:
Tina (Mama of the table):Happy Easter everyone. Today is a day of honouring our growth, acknowledging what we’ve overcome and celebrating what we’re stepping in to. If anyone has anything they’d like to acknowledge, I invite you to do that here. I’ll start:
Me: This is has been a very complex year as Todd and I find each other again, as I heal my body post cancer treatment, as the big boys get step into teenager life, and I decide that I am indeed a writer. I’d like to acknowledge my own courage and patience this year because I’m not someone who walks slowly and methodically and mindfully forward, yet today I am.
Cedar (6 yrs old):Ummmm…. I’d just like to say, I like the sunshine. I like the chocolate. And I fought with Angus about the playstation, but we like each other now.
Connolly (14 yrs old): Yeah, well, ahhh… Just wanna say I scored a hat trick last night and I’ve been working hard at ahhh showing up more on the ice. I doing better with Math too, and ahhh yes, I want to win the Egg Smash. Thanks.
Angus: (12 yrs old): I’m good. I’m good mom. I don’t have anything to say. Yeah. I’m good.
Todd (my husband, and daddy to the boys): I just want to say how proud I am of our family and all we’ve done together this past year. To my wife who is stronger today than yesterday and to all of you, we’re so glad you’re all here. Tomorrow hasn’t happened yet, so let’s raise a glass to tomorrow because we can.
Annnnnd on to the EGG SMASH! May the best egg win!
I strive to have my table be a place where everyone is welcome. I really do search for language that includes, rituals that invite and practices that welcome widely. I still go to my Little Red Church when I can. Mostly in the summer as the long hockey season really trips that up, and funny, just like the house I grew up in, I live in a home where I’m likely the only believer. And that’s okay because we’re all speaking the same language, just not the living the same stories and rituals.
Some of my elementary school friends
When I think back to my circle of childhood and teenage friends, many of whom are still an active part of my 45 year old life, I remember that to us, we weren’t ‘multi-cultural’, we were a gaggle of sneaker wearing, ripped jean sporting and song singing kids. That’s it, that’s all. We created our own community not because we knew the rules or the symbols, we just did it because it felt good.
The rules and absolutes that can be found in religion often divide us, but the rituals we inhabit from their stories are what unite us.
There’s room for both.
Happy Easter – be that the story of resurrection, wabbit ears or something entirely different.
xxT
TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and in her Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers Coaching Program, she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
It’s a funny thing this Dear Tina practice of mine. I do it for me, but I see now, that I also write them for you.
Dr. Gordon Neufeld speaks of emergent energy and the importance of cultivating time for that in our children’s lives. He suggests that we find out who we are when we’re doing what we do for no other reason than the sheer pleasure of being in the doing of it.
It’s when our doing has no ego.
For example, my strongest memory of this was when I was filling time as a 10 years old one pre-supper time afternoon. I gave myself ninety minutes worth of full on dancing – frolicking really, because I had time to kill before I was to be called in. See I grew up in a rather tumultuous home and going inside to that noise was always the last thing I ever wanted to do, so on that particular day, I decided to… dance. I found wacky ways to wind myself up the old chipped cement steps, entangle my willowy body up and over the black enameled 70’s style railing, roll my arms across the glass bottle stucko, and leap back and forth across our paved walk dotted by my mom’s spring favourites: orange marigolds. Oh yes I did. I can only imagine what our city neighbours thought about this curly haired wild child dancing like a fairy in her front yard. But I learned something about myself that day – though I didn’t know what.
Flash ahead a few months and now I’m running at full tilt down Fraser Street, 49th ave all the way down to 60th to visit some friend of mine (no idea who – clearly didn’t matter). It was summer. I had on lemon yellow shorts, a halter top and too small sneakers but I was on an adventure. Time stood still and I was running. Again, I learned something yet didn’t know what.
And the hours of walking, walking, and still walking, back and forth to my best friend and boyfriend’s house after school. I seemed to never have enough bus fare, so I walked, sometimes for two hours – and that’s a lot of alone time for a 14 year old. I loved it. Again I learned something, still I didn’t know what.
But now, at 45 years old, I do. I know what I was learning.
Dr. Neufeld suggests that it’s in these silent times of doing ‘nothing’ but ‘doing’ for the sheer enjoyment of the ‘do’ – while no one watching, or praising, or noticing – when there is no audience but ourselves that we become fueled by our very own emergent energy, and in doing so, we can listen to the story that is who we are.
We can hear who we are.
This Dear Tina practice that I do – is just that. It’s tapping in to the story that wants to tell me, to the wisdom that is timeless and to the emergent energy that fires up the effortless listening we all have access to.
I’ll write another post about what I didn’t know I was learning later, but if you want a glimpse into that now, here’s a piece I wrote a few years back as I was wrestling with being in my 40s, unsure of my purpose and feeling time tick tick tick. It answers the beginning questions of mine behind whom I’ve always been.
Welcome to Dear Tina #2. If you’re just tuning in to this thread and want a bit more context to what this Dear Tina thing is all about, click here for Dear Tina #1. Bottomline: This is how I listen to what I call my innate wisdom, or soul.
May 2014 – Dear Tina
Your hands needn’t feel small for you have access to the mother of all.
Whichever piece of me you need today – I am here – as father, as mother, as girlfriend, as daughter, as mentor.
I am all for you at all times. Step into my heart beat inside you and let your colours be seen – you are all that is needed. There is no need to impress, simply be. Be in your body, in your stomach that shakes – give of yourself as you always do. Give of you – dear one – you are needed today.
Step into my heart and together we can give it all away.
Happy Easter all. While I’m a woman of spirit, religion isn’t really my thing. Stories that are given as absolutes seem to divide us, but wisdom from those same words and the rituals they create do bring us together.
May you be blessed, warm, colourful, and funnnnnnnnnnn. Smile and tilt your face to the sun. You belong. You are loved.
xxT
TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and in her Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers Coaching Program, she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.
Sending LOVE to those who have walked the path, still run against time, or are now at rest.
There is LIFE after cancer.
Pledging $20+ in the name of your loved one supporting:
Goal #1 $1000 for Can Too (Vancouver Triathlon)
Goal #2 $2500 for the Ride to Conquer Cancer
As a survivor, I swim, bike and run for them, because I still can.
I’m a cancer survivor.
Truth is, I hate that term, but it’s a story people relate to plus, it’s true. In April 2015 I was diagnosed with stage 3 tonsil cancer, HPV p16 immunostaining. Highly cure-able, yet grueling in treatment. I was warned by my doc, my ear nose and throat doc and the oncologist about all that was coming so I was prepared. It was a disgusting process for sure (I won’t get into that now, but if you want to know more I’ll share my story here later). In July 2015 we finished our final treatment and I’m humbled to say that we all made it, and I’m not just talking about ‘not dying’, I’m talking about, we’re all still ‘living’. Me and my family of five, my friends of many, and my community of plenty made it through together and we’re all just that little bit more inspired to be ALIVE today, thus TinaOLife was born.
This 100 Love campaign marks the beginning of my ‘cancer as life-catalyst story’ that found me. I often say, to whom much is given, much is expected, and unfortunately, sometimes what we’re given isn’t always the ‘good’ stuff.
I was given a lot:
To welcome fear to the table, to acknowledge disease as a guest, to choke down the very humanness of treatment, stare into the eyes of helplessness from those who love you the most, choosing to show up in action-yet surrendering to the process, to question: why me? To feel guilty, experiencing survivor remorse as one who seems to have side-stepped the destruction, and to carry on as a survivor (I still feel like I don’t deserve to say that), and knowing that I am so much more than the survivor label because I can still DO something.
So now I am giving back.
I’m 8 months out of treatment with an ‘all-clear’ petscan, everything presenting that we got it all and a stellar prognosis on the horizon, and so today I am choosing to celebrate this awesome body of mine that came back from being broken to celebrate what it can do PLUS pay it forward.
Today I am honouring those who have come before me: your family members, your friends, and your loved ones who have walked this cancer path, those who continue to race against time with their care providers and specialists doing their utmost to keep them alive, and those who are now at rest. This is a pledge page. This summer I will SWIM, BIKE AND RUN in their honour, and I’masking you: Whose names can I carry with me? as I train for two big physical events that promise to push my physical and psychological limits. I’m alive and I am celebrating that.
Here’s how it works:
No pledge is too small, and every $20 (Can Too) / $25 (Ride to Conquer Cancer) pledge with an honouree attached will be celebrated during each event and after. I will run, ride and swim in their name.
You can choose which event you would like to pledge:
EVENT #1 The Vancouver 5i50 Ironman Triathlon July 10th. It’s an olympic distance tri. Oh boy… I can thank my dear friend Adrian for this one.
It’s a 1.5km swim, 40km bike and finishing off with a 10km run.
p.s. the first time I swam with my face in the water I was 28yrs old and I haven’t done it since… I’m 45 yrs old now. This is my biggest challenge.
I am raising $1000 under the Can Too banner an organization that raises funds for cancer research in exchange for a triathlon training program and volunteer coaches to help me along the way. Haven’t heard about Can Too yet? Well, that’s because they’re not technically in Canada yet, (though cross your fingers for the future okay?) however, I can still work with them from a distance.
Can Too is an Australian organization that engages and inspires individuals to achieve personal health, well-being and altruistic goals. Beginners and experienced athletes alike are given professional coaching as part of a team to run, ride or swim in endurance events- including 10km, half-marathon and marathon runs, ocean swims and triathlons.
All pledges raised go towards innovation in the prevention, care and control of cancer through Cure Cancer Australia and Cancer Council NSW.
Today I run, I ride, I swim and I celebrate what this body can do, for me, and for you.
Why? Because I can, and that’s worth sweating for.
EVENT #2The Ride to Conquer Cancer August 27/28th
The Ride to Conquer Cancerbenefiting the BC Cancer Foundation is an epic, two-day cycling event spanning over 200 kilometres through picturesque scenery! Their vision is clear – A World Free From Cancer.
With some highschool (Patrick Phang) and elementary school friends (David Tam) behind me (yes, it’s true), I’ve decided to cycle 200km over two days. Thanks to Spin Cycle Bike Store in Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast, I have a new LIV bike to the ride too. They rock and I’m thrilled to have them on my ‘tri’ and ‘ride’ team. Whewwwwf!
Doing this ride post cancer treatment myself, I get to reclaim the cyclist in me who used to love the freedom of cycling before having children. Once again I’ll feel the strength in my legs and feel the wind in my hair. I’m soooooo looking forward to this ride!
The money you pledge for The Ride to Conquer Cancerwill benefit BC Cancer Foundation and support leading clinicians, scientists, and researchers whose search for new discoveries and improved patient outcomes will have a real impact in our communities throughout the province, across Canada, and around the world.
Each week I will update our list of honourees. Please know that once you PLEDGE to either cause, I will followup with an email to you confirming the name of your loved one and if you’d like to send me a photo, I’ll use that too in my 100 person square that will look something like this only with 100 faces:
Today, this is where it all begins. I have just three names on my list so far and I wish it could stay that way because that would mean we’ve found the solution. For now, we begin where we are and we move forward from here.
Here’s to the people you love.
and here’s to you for making a difference.
xxT
FOR TODAY, MARCH 23rd, I train for:
My mom, Peggy Overbury
My dad, Norman Overbury (while not cancer, emphyzema instead, he died from years of smoking and I have no doubt that cancer would’ve come quickly).
and My mother in law, Barb Ingram
xxT
Make your pledge to CAN TOO – supporting my very first triathlon by clicking here.
Make your pledge to the RIDE TO CONQUER CANCER – supporting my August ride by clicking here.
Want to join the team? Run? Bike? Swim? with me? Send me a message here and we’ll connect okay?
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 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’.
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
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.
A naturopath I once saw said to me that the definition of intimacy is not knowing what is on the other side of this very moment, and sharing that with someone else. How do you define intimacy and why is being comfortable with it so important to our well-being?
There are so many ways to look at intimacy—that’s one of the things I really love about it. It can be as deep as the fondness and trust we feel with the people closest to us, and it can be a glimmer of “we’re in this together” among strangers who are all stuck on the same elevator.
In my world, intimacy all comes down to one word: Connection.
What I know for sure is that we are not meant to exist only on the surface. It would be like only ever talking about the weather. Forever. Right? That very thought makes me want to jab a fork into my own eye and twist it around like I’m swirling spaghetti.
Intimacy is a leap—knowing the deepest, darkest places of ourselves, and then trusting our fellow humans to hold those pieces and not hurt us with them. A client said it beautifully: “It was like he asked to see the most awful, dark and scary parts of me so that he could hold them for me and love them, and give them back in a way that didn’t hurt me as badly. No matter what I threw at him from my dark spaces, it never scared him away.”
In my world, intimacy all comes down to one word: Connection.
I cannot stress enough: when we are intimate with other human beings, it makes our life and our existence take up more space. We are here to touch and be touched and to reach new levels of knowing ourselves through others. And yes, it’s difficult sometimes, so let’s get that out on the table. It’s not always easy, but I promise it’s worth it.
I remember a few years ago I ventured up to my hometown and attended my 20th high school reunion. It was interesting in many ways. As I sat with people who no longer knew me in the day-to-day, I felt the most known I had in a long time: these were the people who watched me grow up and knew the very essence of me. There was no hiding, in the best possible way. Later in the weekend, when I had a meltdown about still being single when all the others seemed to be happy and attached and raising families, I landed at my friends’ home, where I was staying.
…knowing the deepest, darkest places of ourselves, and then trusting our fellow humans to hold those pieces and not hurt us with them.
My best friend of more than 20+ years was actually out of town at a funeral, and her husband was holding down the fort and caring for the four kids. And me, apparently. I have known him just as long as his lovely wife, and he greeted me with a hug and said all the right things. He then invited me to lie on the trampoline, in the dark, to look at the stars. He brought out the iPad, and we identified all the constellations, and it struck me: without it being at all about sex, it was perhaps one of the most intimate moments of my life. I cracked open, he held my broken bits, and squeezed them back together as we looked at the sky, side-by-side in the dark.
And this is what I want people to know and for our kids to grow up watching: intimacy and connection. Seeing people around us, and having what they say matter deeply to us.
When kids see and know the adults in their lives more intimately, including the failings and joys, they are given permission to enjoy a similar connection as they grow with everyone around them. We get to change how the world works, starting with our children. If that isn’t exciting, I don’t know what is.
Intimate connection can be uncomfortable, but it doesn’t have to be too hard to even start. The first step is to be curious and interested. I invite you to try it tonight. Instead of asking your partner or the kids “How was your day?” (to which they will probably reply, “good”), pose a different sort of question:
What was your favourite part of today?
How did you know that I love you today?
How can this day end end in the best possible way?
Yes, it will feel weird at the beginning, but try. And if you get an “I dunno” in response, do what I do with clients and tell them to make something up and then see where it goes.
And I would invite you to branch out and try this with other people in your life, too. Get curious and interested about people who interact with you each day; challenge yourself to relate on a slightly more intimate level with one person at a time and pretty soon you too, will be bored by surface talk about the weather, and crave to know more.
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.
Yesterday I announced that Soul Interpreter, Chris Dierkes will be sharing a regular post here on TinaOLife. If you missed it, 
