by Coach Tina | Jul 23, 2021 | Empowerment, Encouragement, Focus, Healing, purpose
We often use the word content and complacent interchangeably but there are some subtle differences between the two. One will have you living a life of gratitude while the other can leave you resentful and unfulfilled. One will have you excited about where you are, while the other can have you constantly comparing yourself to someone else. One will have you living free and carefree while the other will have you bond and imprisoned by your own thoughts.
So often people use the scripture Philippians 4:11 –“I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I am in”, as permission to accept whatever is given to them and be satisfied with it. BUT this is NOT what this scripture is saying. It reminds us to be content NOT complacent!
This scripture is using the true definition of content, which means to be happy.
I have learned to seek happiness in whatever circumstance I find myself but to not stop until I like what I see and am pleased with where I am. Being in a state of complacency keeps us stagnant and unfulfilled. It keeps us desiring more but unwilling to pursue more. It keeps us looking at what we don’t have instead of going after what we want. It propels us to see the cup as half empty instead of finding ways to fill it. We are responsible for our own happiness, yet that happiness will always be outside of our reach if we stay in a place of complacency.
I’ve always been transparent about my battle with depression. But I also withheld a lot of information concerning it out of shame and guilt. It wasn’t until I began to unpack my own baggage that I realized there was healing, personal healing, in telling my story. We ALL have a story, and our story can help another sister jump into her own journey of self-discovery. But we will discuss that in another setting.
Another way of looking at these two words are contentment is a state of being happy while complacency is refusing to work to improve your current situation.
Content is loving the skin you are in but getting up and exercising until you feel good about how you view yourself. Complacency is accepting who you are as you are without any desire to make changes even though you are not happy with what you see in the mirror.
Content is loving the people in your life but being confident enough in who you are to let them live the life they desire without needing to control them. Complacency is pointing out the flaws in others while attempting to hide your own.
- Are you content or complacent?
- Are you thriving or just surviving?
- Are you happy or just living?
NO ONE can truly answer those questions except you. NO ONE knows what keeps you up at night and whether you are doing something to fix the problem. It’s time to stop calling it content when in fact you are complacent.
Until Next Time,
by Coach Tina | Jul 6, 2021 | Empowerment, Encouragement, Focus, Healing
Do you find yourself thinking about the past or maybe even the future? Does thinking about the future scare you? Do thinking about the past you make you sad? Or maybe when you think about the old you, you think what happened? Where did I go wrong? Why did I do things that way? Why did I stay engaged in those situations so long? What made me think the way I did? Why didn’t I do this or why didn’t I do that? Do you compare where you are NOW to where you thought you should have been or where someone else is?
PLEASE STOP!
You were doing the best you could with what you had at the moment. Some of us were living in survival mode. We were truly trying to make it to the next day without losing our mind. We were trying to raise a family without instructions. We were trying to navigate a life without a roadmap. We were working jobs to pay the bills not for enjoyment. We were entangled in relationships that we thought would eventually give us a return on our investment. You get the picture. You were doing the best you could at the moment.
One of my favorite quotes is by Maya Angelou – When you know better do better. NOW, you know better. Now you have a better understanding of what you want and what you don’t want. Live in that. Live a life that you can love and stop spending time trying to figure out how to navigate through a life that you no longer want to be a part of. BUT how, Tina? Glad you asked. Decide! Decide that you deserve the life you want. Decide that you will make yourself a priority. That you will put yourself on your to-do list. That you will finally give yourself the love you give so freely to others. Once you live into this practice, you will stop making excuses for why you want something and create a plan to obtain it. No one has the ability to stop your plans but you. Read that again!
There is NOTHING on this earth too good for you. Everything you desire in life is obtainable; if you are willing to put in the work to obtain it.
I have seen clients write goals and once they begin to see them come to light, they run the other way. WHY? Change is scary. Change requires you to jump out of your comfort zone. Change demands you to do things you aren’t used to doing. Change requires you to make decisions. Changes requires you be honest with yourself. Change makes you see yourself differently. Change requires you to see others differently. Change makes you stop blaming others and look at what part you played. Change requires doing something different in order to get what you truly want.
Are you ready for a change? Are you ready to move out of your comfort zone? Are you ready to do better? Are you ready to live a life that YOU created? Are you ready? Are you ready to thrive and stop just surviving? If so, I encourage you to take out your journal and write a declaration to yourself. Write a promise to yourself. Declaring your intentions, brings them to life. Place it somewhere you can see daily. Put it right in front of your face. And each day, decide you will do better than you did yesterday! That’s it…. Just do better than you did yesterday.
If you would like help moving forward in this journey, reach out to me. I know how hard letting go of the past can be, but I also know how liberating letting go of the past is.
Until Next Time,
by Coach Tina | May 20, 2021 | Empowerment, Focus
No Pain, No Gain! Struggle is inevitable! Embrace the pain!
Okay, can we stop normalizing pain? Can we stop making it sound as if we must endure pain to be happy! Can we stop looking for something bad to happen because things are going well? Just stop!
At some point the rain does stop and the sun shines again. But how will you ever enjoy the sun if you are constantly waiting for the next storm? YOU CAN’T!
Let me tell you a hidden truth about me. I was that person. I could not enjoy the good things, the happy moments in my life because I had become so accustomed to the pain. I was constantly waiting for the next “bad” thing to happen. I even got to the point where I would not allow myself to be happy because I felt it would make the bad thing happen faster. WELL, WELL, WELL! What I was doing was setting myself up for failure.
Because remember what you feed is what grows. I was expecting things to go wrong so I began to self-sabotage and look for wrong things. Sometimes I even made things appear bad just to prove myself right. WTH!!
Then one day while strolling the internet, I came across this amazing quote. Changed my whole life!
A man (woman) who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears! Michel de Montaigne
Honey!!! It was the beginning of the beginning for me. I begin to think about all the things I was afraid of and realized I was suffering because of my fears. I was not living my dreams because I was afraid, they would not happen. I was withholding love because I was afraid I it would not be returned. I was rejecting love because I was afraid of being rejected. WTH!!! The things I feared was causing me to suffer. I was so afra
id of being happy that I was dying in misery. I was so afraid of what people would think of me that I was ultimately living a life that I hated.
Here is your brick!
If you walk around avoiding pain, you will find it. You will see it everywhere you walk. Not because it’s there but because you fear it will be. It’s time to push past your fears and live unapologetically without regret. We will all have moments where things hurt. Pain is inevitable but misery is an option! I know me and these darn quotes. But why re-invent the wheel?
If you cut your finger, do you cut your arm off? HECK NO! You put a bandage on your finger and go on about your day. Then why, because one person mishandled you, do you live your life expecting someone else to hurt you? Why do you punish yourself for something someone else did? Why did you stop applying for jobs because you didn’t get the last one? It’s time to get out of your own way. It’s time to live and stop waiting to die.
Where are you allowing pain to run your life? What do you want to accomplish, yet are allowing your past to hold you back? It’s time! Now is the time to do it! What do you have to lose? I guarantee this… you will never accomplish it, if you don’t at least try.
Until Next Time,
by Coach Tina | Apr 12, 2021 | Empowerment, Encouragement, Focus
Change is inevitable but growth is optional! Jack C. Maxwell
Maxwell said it better than I ever could! Change is going to happen whether you like it or not. But everyone will NOT grow through the change. We saw many changes occur during 2020, yet there are still a lot of things that remain the same. We are still battling COVID-19. We are still seeing people mistreated because of the color of their skin. We are still seeing babies left on the side of the road. We are still judging people for who they love and how they use their bodies. We are still seeing women paid significantly lower than their male counterparts. We are still hearing how women are supposed to support their man even when he is toxic. We are still forcing children to have a relationship with people who have mishandled them, neglected them or abused them. We are still seeing women blamed for staying in an abusive relationship instead supported her attempts to leave. We are still shaming women on what they wore instead of punishing the man that raped them. We are still giving a time limit to how someone deals with pain instead of support while they do. But things have changed, right!
Most of my clients are women that have overcome trauma or are struggling with transitioning into a new phase of life because they have been forced into a “change” they did not ask for! They are having to create a new norm. A forced change is harder than a change that you want to happen.
Unfortunately although change is inevitable, growth is not! Many times, we become comfortable in the chaos. We know what to expect and what not to expect. We adjust. We accommodate the pain. We begin to believe this is the best it can be. We avoid disruption. We avoid upsetting the norm at all cost. But can we be honest and say, we are just comfortable! Even though it hurts, it’s our hurt! It’s our pain! It’s part of who we are!
But is pain really what we want? Is pain what we desire? Is the pain worth it? I’m sitting here myself yelling “HELL NO!” while dealing with the fact I have made some adjustments to accommodate things I’m not happy with.
Which leads me to this brick.
Our resistance and unwillingness to step out of our comfort zone is the result of us refusing to do so. It’s hard to swallow; but if we don’t make a change knowing a change is necessary, we are refusing an opportunity to grow! Because if we want significant change, nothing would stop us. If we really wanted the pain to end, we would do whatever it takes to make it stop. The problem is the pain has not become painful enough. When we get tired of being tired. When we are done lying to ourselves and trying to convince ourselves that it’s not that bad, things will change. When we stop sitting around hoping for change instead doing something about it, that’s when the growth will happen. Some things require you losing in order to gain. Change is not enough! In this day and time, we need GROWTH!
Growth requires you to break the bond you have made to being comfortable. Change is going to happen whether we want it to or not. But growth is going to require a little work! No, it’s going to require a LOT of work. It will require you to break the attachment you have with your comfort zone. It will require to create a new norm. It will require you to stop making excuses. It will require you to focus! I will require YOU TO CHANGE!
In order to achieve the goals you truly desire, you must command your mind to align with your aspirations. You cannot achieve anything that your mind cannot see you accomplishing. The change you are looking for, requires you to be uncomfortable. It requires you to not only step out of your comfort zone but destroy the bridge that leads you back to it. It requires you to say YES to yourself and NO to your fears. It requires you to cut ties with anything that caters to person you no longer want to be. It requires you to do the things that scare the hell out of you and reach towards the Eden you desire! You can do this. I believe in you. You can have everything you desire but first you must break the bond you have with comfort!
Until Next Time
As always if you would like more you can always check out the events page to see what’s happening next.
by Coach Tina | Mar 22, 2021 | Empowerment, Encouragement, Focus, Healing
Rejection scared me! I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be loved. In my eyes, rejection equaled failure! That was until I read the quote “Rejection is God’s protection”. It changed my whole life. I no longer saw rejection as a bad thing but more as direction and guidance!
I always thought being rejected was punishment. I thought if I was not accepted, there was something wrong with me. I felt I had not done enough; I had not been enough. What I wanted did not matter. That what they wanted, was more important. That I needed to change how I did things. That I had to change who I was. That I had to be what they wanted me to be. BUT this quote reminded me that God loves me enough to not allow me to have less than I deserved! I hope you catch that!
When you view it from a point of protection and guidance, you realize that what you wanted was less than you deserve. So often we are asking for things that are below what we can have. We are settling. We are living below the standard. Often, we don’t see the potential of what could be or what we could have.
Rejection cannot be taken personal. It will drive you crazy. Ask me how I know!
The thing that seemed to have rejected you was not enough for you. It was NOT what you needed in this season or in the season you are walking into. It may have catered to the person you were then, but it would have never challenged you to become the person you are today.
It’s hard to see rejection as direction or guidance, when we are in the midst of it. But when you begin to change your mindset surrounding NO, you will see it opens the doors for such bigger opportunities and allows you to look at it from a different lens.
I don’t want to come off as someone who does not struggle with being told NO! Girl, it is the last thing I want you to think about me. I HATE BEING TOLD NO! Although I don’t see it as a personal attack anymore, I still see it as someone told me NO. And that little 6-year-old inside of me does not like to be told NO. She is extremely spoiled. But I gently reminder her that we will try again.
BRICK: NO means Next Opportunity! NO means there is something better waiting. NO means I can have better. NO means I haven’t finished growing and what I’m asking for is not going to help me achieve the growth I desire. NO is Never the end!
Apply it: Take a moment and think about something you really wanted but did not get. Now imagine if you had it, what would be different about you? Would you be the person you are now? Would you have been settling? Did you grow from being told NO?
Were the emotions you felt due to the rejection or the thoughts of not getting what you wanted? Most of the time we are more moved by the NO, than not getting what we asked for!
You apply for a job. You do minimal preparation for the interview. The job is NOT your ideal job. It’s NOT the job you want but it will pay your bills, provide you with a sense of accomplishment, and advance your career. It will do for now! Then comes the blow! You get the dreaded “Thank you for applying. We have decided to go with another candidate”. Immediately you feel the sting of rejection. NOT because you really wanted the job, but because you did not get it! Had you got that job, you would have stopped looking for your ideal job. You would have stopped working on your resume. You would have stopped working on your personal development. You would have stopped trying. You would have settled and made yourself content!
Rejections could be the best thing that ever happens to you! Remember mindset is everything! What about this Brick resonated with you the most? I’d love to hear about it
Until next time,
by Coach Tina | Nov 11, 2020 | Empowerment, Focus, purpose, Relationships
Last week we turned back our clocks and although we gained an hour, with all the uncertainties of 2020 it got lost in the shuffle. I don’t know about you, but I have not seen the benefit in gaining that hour. In fact. I feel like I lost several months. OH WAIT! That may have something to do with the Pandemic!
We could sit and think of all the things we’ve lost or missed out on this year. Like is it just me or did it seem like summer didn’t happen? Anyway, we could sit and pout or complain but it will not bring back time. So, what do we do? We put time into what we have before us. We focus on the NOW. We do things that make us happy. We live in the moment. We don’t look at was and we don’t look too far ahead. We enjoy our loved ones and celebrate where we are. It may seem as if time stood still but, TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE!
Sometimes when interacting with clients, I’m reminded of how life seems to drag while your mind goes a million miles a minute. I remember while navigating through my own turbulence, I felt as if I couldn’t make sense of what was going on. I found myself confused, uneasy and extremely disorganized. Does that sound familiar? Is that 
where you are? Can you relate?
It wasn’t until I stopped focusing on what was and fearing what was to come, that i was I able to slow my brain down long enough to embrace where I was. I had to admit the space I was in, was not pretty but it wasn’t as scary as I had allowed myself to believe.
Most of these bricks are geared to women who are triumphing out of an abusive or toxic relationship. This does not altogether mean a romantic relationship. It can be friends, family, work, community – it can even be the relationship you have with yourself. YES, you can be the toxic contributor and need to figure out how to stop. When we are in turbulence life seems uncertain. Each move we make while in a state of turbulence tends to cause more dysfunction. We must be intentional and deliberate with our actions.
But remember time waits for NO ONE! So how do you slow things down? How do you get off the turbo ride? How do you identify the toxicity in your life? How do you get to that place where you can live in the moment? Sounds simple and difficult at the same time but basically YOU STOP! You take a deep breath and stop! You assess your surroundings, give yourself a moment to exhale and decide what you want to do next. You are not required to make any rash decisions. But you are required to decide what your NEXT will look like.
What do you want? What would you like your life to look like? What is standing the way? Who is standing in the way? If we are honest, most of the time WE are the only one standing in the way. We allow fear and uncertainty to keep us from going after the things we truly desire and then we battle the thoughts of regret. It’s time to stop allowing time to control you and begin to enjoy the time you have.
What do you need to focus on this week that will allow you to live in the moment? What have you been putting off because you don’t have a plan? What are you afraid of? The answers to these questions, will give you the blueprint you need to not only gain an hour but regain your life.
I can’t wait to see what you decide is holding back and how you will stop, breath, exhale and move forward. Leave a comment below so I can celebrate your new discovery.
Until Next Time,
