Writer Archives - Page 2 of 2

Connect to the Power of Your Story

January 27, 2016

When you were a kid did you have a lock and key, gold leaf five year journal? Kind of palm size, perfect for someone under twelve? Did you write KEEP OUT all over it? Did it have a button latch with a key hole across the front? Did you write threatening things inside so that just in case someone dared to crack open your precious life story book that would know the depths of your seriousness? There would be dire consequences to pay.

Did you have one?

Did you know that journaling has been linked to healing?

How the act of writing about stressful things not only makes things better but can prevent them from getting worse?

Did you know about mental health and the power of creative journaling?

Catch a glimpse of Nicolle Nattrass, Live Your Best Story’s – Story Coach and counselor, she knows of what she speaks.

xxT

Want to Live Your Best Story too? You can work with Nicolle by registering for our upcoming retreat here.

Don’t Die Living Someone Else’s Story

January 26, 2016

I was insanely nervous. No kidding. I had decided to show up and speak from the stage fully alive and semi-prepared. Well, not true, I was fully prepared and by choice, only semi rehearsed.

I had an idea of what the beginning would be and I had a thought about how how the story would end, after all, I was connecting the dots between various moments in my own life plus, I understand the structure of a great ending: it has to be surprising but inevitable (thank you Roger Larry for your film-making tip that stuck).

Surprising but inevitable…

Well, how just like life that is isn’t it? It always makes sense when you track it back from the end. That’s easy. Ha ha… but did you know that everything makes sense as it unfolds too – only that’s the hard part because it requires trusting the process.

Watch this clip about how I came to trust my own living story as I shared a powHERtalk with an audience.

If only I had remembered to breathe at the beginning, perhaps my voice wouldn’t have dropped quite so far. Ah well, if that had happened, sure I would’ve ”sounded” better, but that’s not how this piece wanted to live.

Hello again Hello…

Why die living someone else’s story? How about living yours instead. Click here for our upcoming workshop.

xxT

Tina Overbury is the founder of the Live Your Best Story weekend Retreat and facilitates the Living Story portion of the weekend.

Is Your Knowledge on Ice?

January 16, 2016

Ignorance on fire is better than knowledge on ice, or so they say. This success strategy has served me well for a long time but has cost me dearly for an even longer one.

My whole life I’ve been a dive into the unknown kinda gal. I do my best work in anything and everything I do when I know the least. I race to the top in whatever I do and faster than most because I am very comfortable wearing Steve Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field and keeping my head down, my eye on the prize and look only at what I’m doing.

When I don’t know what I don’t know, there’s nothing to tell me that I can’t leaving only possibility. This has been a brilliant results oriented success system for me. From the outside everything looks great: I do, I achieve, I am applauded, and then I move on. Wait a minute… that’s the kicker right? The trap of this kind of success formula is that there’s little desire further the work once I’ve nailed the goal. Why? Because I’m no longer ignorance on fire. I’m now knowledge on ice, with no motivation to get warm. And then it gets cold, freaking cold, like anxiety driven, worry filled night kinda cold as I sort out:

What do I do now that I know what I know?

How do I feed this success animal I’ve built on ignorance when my eyes are open to the whole picture now?

You may have heard this before too because I didn’t come up with it, and the person who taught it to me probably didn’t either:

Stage one = Uninformed optimism Stage two = Informed

Stage three is usually = Informed pessimism.

Why usually? Because it takes walking the double edge sword of all things in order to get to informed optimism. It takes converting informed on both the positive and the negative side of it to give you wisdom. Most of us just want the shortcut. We don’t want wisdom. We want results. We serve the bottomline or the adrenaline of achievement, or the satisfaction of belonging because we’re ‘worthy’ due to our accomplishment. Come on now, ‘fess up. Why do you go for challenges and incentives? Why do you take risks? What is usually your motivation for diving into the unknown?

You might say: Because I’m curious Tina. I’m a life-long learner.

I say: Cool. Then what? How do you let that learning LIVE?

For most of my professional life (up until now), I’ve been happily doing and achieving as ignorance on fire. Wow… what a rush. There’s always something new to learn, the excitement of the unknown and then the reward of figuring shit out. You could feed me this recipe for breakfast, lunch and dinner and all deserts and drinks too. I EAT THIS UP!

But then I get a stomach ache. I’m frozen by what I’ve learned. I can see the pot holes, the areas of growth that are needed, the dark corners and the stinky stuff that if cleaned up would make things even better. Oh mannnn why do that when ignorance on fire has such a higher return? Why implement anything I’ve learned when I can just go on learning new stuff?

I’m in the network marketing industry and this is a slogan that is thrown around at every ‘getting started’ training out there. As organization builders in a sales and recruitment based business, our bottomline and our team’s confidence go up when we have new people starting their business with us. We WANT FRESH FACES because it reminds us that this opportunity rocks, and you know what – it freaking does rock. Ten years in, with all the knowledge I have and very little ignorance left, I can say without a shred of holding back, this is the best industry going out there if:

you wanna make lots of money with low risk or overhead.
you wanna work part time.
you like people
you’re a life long learner.

But here’s the deal: You gotta let go of the ignorance on fire thing and ditch the knowledge on ice thing too if you really want to enjoy the fruit. Malcolm Gladwell talks about 10,000 hours to mastery. Well, that’s about 7 years in a 15 hour/week network marketing business. You sure as heck ain’t gonna be ignorance on fire for seven years.

Like any long term venture be it business, friendship, marriage, career, personal growth, whatever… the TRUTH of that story will always out over time and that means that the veil of ignorance will lift and knowledge with set in. Nothing is without dark corners. Nothing is without improvement needed. Nothing is perfect and that’s what makes the whole darn thing worth investing in.

So… if you buy this whole Ignorance on Fire is Better than Knowledge on Ice thing, I challenge you to step into WISDOM and see what kind of satisfaction, freedom and true wealth lives there instead.

My wish for you is true freedom, is peace, is long term success and feeling good about what you do.

What to check out my network marketing business? You totally can. Click here for an electronic business pack. Why not? You’re ignorance on fire for such a short time… wink.

xxT

Even my Resistance Resists

January 15, 2016

This is not a deep post. It’s brief and to the point.

Do you ever resist yourself?

Imagine making a soulful decision. Drawing an honest line in the sand. Answering a quest whole-heartedly. Doing the 100% thing and really stating what your mission is. Putting some guts into it. Knowing what you know and saying it like you know it. Setting your course. Being totally ready to rock it.

All you have to do is show up.

But you don’t.

Has that ever happened to you?

Me too.

Sometimes even my resistance resists.

Oh well, at least there is another undecided moment after this one. What will you and I do now?

xxT

I Love You – She said Quietly

January 14, 2016

So I’m reading Olympic Medalist Clara Hughes’ book Open Heart Open Mind this morning at 4:30am and something interesting happened. I’m up that early because I’m a hockey mom and I gotta get the boys sorted as they hit the rink before school: put something in their tummy for breakfast, pack a lunch for school, and throw in all the stuff into their pack that they’ll likely forget about. This is the to do list of a forever in training mom for sure. Our youngest is still in bed – he’s not a hockey kid yet. I’m crossing my fingers that he falls head over heels in love with the arts so we can skip the third round of early morning family insanity. We shall see. Passion is as passion does.

The boys and their dad are off by 5:30am and by then I’m too awake to sleep but not quite ready to take on the day, probably because it’s Thursday and I’ve already put in three mom mornings this week so I crawl back into bed and crack open Clara’s book. My husband bought Open Heart, Open Mind for me for my birthday, probably because her story is coloured with dark corners, her triumphs have sharp edges and her drive is fueled by fire, unstoppable, wild, raw, and almost retchingly honest fire. Okay so honesty can’t retch, but maybe that’s why writers have been known to say things like: I just gotta barf it out first, get it on the page, get into the guts of it…

Thank you Clara. You clearly got into the guts of it and that’s why it’s carrying me away.

I’m only half way through the book but if I had to sum up your message so far I’d say it’s all about ‘self-love’ instead of ‘self-loathing’ right? Hmmm… such a universal quest to heal the scars of so many. It’s almost as if getting to that place requires understanding your own Escape Room: an insane past time where people are willing to be pushed, screamed at, and even terrified as they scramble to escape simulated life-threatening situations. The crazy part about escape rooms is that we get locked into them knowing there is always a way out. What makes it so intoxicatingly addictive is the adrenaline pumping through our veins as we question whether or not we’ll actually find it. The self-loathing to self-love conundrum is just like that. The only way to rewire our brains out of self-loathing is to step into our darkest blindspot: self-love.

That’s the thing about blind-spots, they’re bloody obvious once we see them and then they vanish as if they were never there at all.

So there I was at 6am, about a half an hour in to Clara’s book , when, as I’m all curled up and warm, out of my mouth tumbles: I love you Tina.

I love you Tina.

I’m like: What?

I love you Tina.

Oh. I thought that came from you.

Okay so I’m no stranger to the self-help world. I’ve read Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life. I’ve affirmed my way into a happier disposition, I know how to talk to myself when I need to pull my sorry behind out of a crap load of poor me, or a give my brain an etch a sketch shake and redraw a nasty perspective into a positive one. Oh yes, I get the whole self-talk thing but that’s not what happened. I wasn’t standing in front of the mirror talking into my own eyes, or reading a magic yellow affirmation sticky, or even writing in my gratitude journal (I don’t have a gratitude journal shhhh..). Nope, I was in the fetal position, feet tucked under the covers, ankles crossed with one fist under my right cheek and the other cupping the edges of the book. I was in lala land and then out of nowhere, my inner me, the one who feels the same now at 45yrs as it did at 7yrs blurted out I Love You Tina just so I could hear it. It tumbled easily out of my mouth, and out loud.

My next thought was: ‘uhhhh… how did that happen? Ohhhh… and I do this to my kids all the time. I tell them I love them just ’cause. It’s not a daily do, or an affirmation, or a mindset reset at all, it’s just because it’s true. I love them.’

So Clara – that may not have been the goal for your readers by page 112, but that’s what happened to me.

I love you Tina, I said to myself without any agenda at all. I love you – probably because it’s true. I do.

How about you?

p.s. I’m at the top of chapter 14 – Salt Lake City Olympics are next. Mmmm… can’t wait.

xxT

January 1st – Ten Reasons Why

January 2, 2016

What have I done? Did I really decide to share my life with you every day? Doesn’t that require writing? A commitment? You see, I have this issue with ‘have to’s’, even when they start out as a ‘want to’. No kidding. Oh no… and then there’s that grammar and spelling thing. I’m a pretty good speller but I’m not a detail gal. Damnit, I’m going to have crazy ass mistakes out there for the world to see. Okay, well, the world is a big place so, correct that: I’m writing a blog post every day for the next 365 days for a lot of people to see.

Yes I do care if it’s read.

Yes I do care if it grows.

Yes I do care if there’s an audience for this.

Come on now, if I wanted to write for myself, I’d write in my journal or I’d go for a hike and talk to myself (and yes I do these things too). This is for you as much as it is for me. So here goes: I am writing a post to you, sharing my life with you, my insights, my stumbles, my FU’s, my ridiculousness and depth for the next 365 days because:

TEN REASONS WHY…

#1 – Having the world as an audience means there’s nowhere to hide, and with that, the gift of honesty continues to give generously – and likely more to me than to you.

#2 – I know that I can’t say that I actually KNOW anything, as in for sure, as in take it to my grave, and I’m so tired of the expert industry – of the insanity of people thinking they know what’s best for people they don’t even know. I mean, really? As if they could. Yeeeeesh. Nope. This blog is an invitation for you to come on in and engage with what I think, what I notice, what I want to put public. There’s freedom in being seen, and I hope my style stirs up a sense of wildness inside of you.

#3 – I do my best thinking when I’m not. Writing, speaking and doing gets me out of my head so that what I think can just show up. You’re my open stage for words to find my experiences. Thank you for listening.

#4 – Okay, that’s the fluffy truthful stuff, now on to the crap that dogs my trail: it’s a monstrous challenge for me to commit to any kind of a daily action. Yes I brush my teeth and sleep daily too, but even these I try to negotiate at times (spank me now). Hands down, I’m a gold medal champion at resistance. I even resist my resistance. This bloody blog is going to bring all the stuckness in my resistance story up to the surface. Blech. At newly 45 years old though, it’s probably about time. I wonder what I’ll find.

#5 – Chopping wood and carrying water is and has always been my most fulfilling accomplishment – because it isn’t one. Do you know what I mean or have I lost you? Chopping wood – like showing up simply because it’s what needed. Carrying water – like doing the do because it’s what’s asked for. It never occurred to me that I could set a goal (I hate goals) to chop wood and carry water. The adrenalin that goes with setting, striving and reaching goals has cost me dearly in my life. Sure I have a long list of accomplishments but who cares when there’s been little fulfillment. 365 days of blogging will become my daily practice. I might even be re-writing my story about goals by living them in a new way.

#6 – Inspiration is exhausting, but fulfillment is not. I’m not even exactly sure why this is on the list, I just know it needed to be said.

#7 – I like to write. Correction: I love to write. I love to listen to the words that come out of my fingertips. That’s joyful for me.

#8 – Words matter, and this is my way of saying so do I, so do you, so do we. Our stories are our past and our future. Oh boy, did I just say that I matter? I did didn’t I? That’s the name of my first book.

#9 – I am very comfortable being ‘seen’ in glimpses, you know through photographs or on stage etc…, but over time, not so much. Being seen is very different than being known. What would my life be like if I was known?

#10 – After 365 days of being in my own witness protection program: I suspect I’ll be more of who I came here as, and more of whom I designed to be. That’s cool. That’s really cool to me.

Here’s to 365 days of Joy. Oh wait a minute, I’m ahead of myself. That’s for today. Yes I am writing yesterday’s post today. Yesterday was January 1st, a holiday and I don’t believe in working on holidays. I need downtime too. So this list of Ten Reasons Why is for yesterday, today. Today I will also write today’s.

Still with me? Awesome. Stay.

xxT

You can’t stop the truth

December 9, 2015