Episode 31: You Are Right On Time

In this circle I take you on a personal journey from pain to inspired action. I share it with you in hopes you find freedom in knowing you are exactly where you are meant to be change-maker.

What’s in this episode for you:

• The TV show I’m obsessed with

• The one power we all have access to all the time

• Two Divine messages that may set you free from striving to be somewhere else

• The process to transition from pain to inspired action

Tools for change:

• Ask yourself in what way do you want to leave this earth a little better? This is your commitment - come back to it when you want to release resistance.

• Knowing that you are exactly on time in your journey, what could you let go of? If you let go, what could you be more present to right now?

Poem:

From The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur

my parents never sat us down in the evenings to share stories of their younger days. one was always working. the other too tired. perhaps being an immigrant does that to you.

the cold terrain of the north engulfed them. their bodies were hard at work paying in blood and sweat for their citizenship. perhaps the weight of the new world was too much. and the pain and sorrow of the old was better left buried.

i do wish i had unburied it though. i wish i’d pried their silence apart like a closed envelope. i wish i’d found a small opening at its very edge. pushed a finger inside and gently torn it open. they had an entire life before me which i am a stranger to. it would be my greatest regret to see them leave this place before i even got to know them.

Pick up the talking piece:

What came up for you as you listened to this episode? I'd love to hear your experiences with any of the reflections and exercises. Send me an email at podcast@humconsulting.ca or leave a voicemail (click the voicemail button on the right).

Transcript: (Some words may not be accurately recorded. Please let us know if something seems off.)

AT: Change begins from within. As easy as it is to look outside of ourselves and want the world to change, the truth is it never will if we remain the same. This podcast was created for changemakers like you who want more love and connection in your community. Today, you are going to hear stories that will inspire you and also challenge you to be the change. We are going to go deep, my friend. So, take a deep breath and settle in. My name is Ame-Lia Tamburrini. Welcome to the Circle of Change.

Friend, I have just binge watched One Mississippi. If you have not seen this series on Prime, I highly recommend it. This, for me, is the future of our society. I am so inspired by Tig Notaro and am officially in love with her. Yup. She just blew my mind. Her honesty, the direct vulnerable, witty, non-binary advocate for humanity way that she leads that episode just drew me into her. Yeah, I'm officially in love. The soundtrack is also fantastic. It made me think about how maybe we can start playing music on this show. So, I'm going to chat with my producer about how we could possibly go about doing that, but I think it would be amazing to end our circle with a song. What do you think? Let me know.

Today, I want to get into this beautiful message that I have received so clearly this past week. You are exactly where you are meant to be. And like always, I want to share a story to deepen that dialogue with you. So, let's begin by settling in with a big belly breath. Exhale. And a poem. Feel free to close your eyes and take in these words. This poem is by Rupi Kaur in her book, The Sun and Her Flowers.

My parents never sat us down in the evenings to share stories of their younger days. One was always working. The other too tired. Perhaps being an immigrant does that to you. The cold terrain of the north engulfed them. Their bodies were hard at work. Paying in blood and sweat for their citizenship. Perhaps the weight of the new world was too much, and the pain and sorrow of the old was better left buried. I do wish I had unburied it though. I wish I'd pried their silence apart like a closed envelope. I wish I'd found a small opening at its very edge, pushed a finger inside, and gently torn it open. They had an entire life before me, which I am a stranger to. It would be my greatest regret to see them leave this place before I even got to know them.

Interesting. I'm not sure if this poem is channeling the energy I'm still holding from One Mississippi because I think that whole series really unpacks a lot of Tig Notaro's life and the life of her parents. So, I think there's a bit there and I'm curious to see what nugget is going to infiltrate what I'm about to share with you. This past week has been one of great clarification for me. And if you've ever gone through periods of clarification, you know that doesn't always feel so good. And that was certainly true for me.

So, I have been planning this move out of the town I currently live in for a few months now to transition from a condo into a house surrounded by trees and to be part of a smaller community where there's only one rec center, and everybody knows everybody, and there's forest all around. I got the news this week that I can't actually take on a mortgage beyond what I carry right now, which wouldn't be enough to bring this dream to life in the way I'm currently envisioning it. Okay?  

So, at the same time, I didn't get awarded a few projects that I thought were dream projects of mine and I can say that the price tag was part of the issue regarding the no or the not yet that I received. So, this journey of what to charge for my services has certainly been in the forefront for me this year. I recently had a huge aha in terms of the worth of what I offered the value and felt really aligned with matching my pricing with that value.  

[0:05:08]

And what I'm realizing now is that pricing is actually an art form especially at this stage in my business journey. So, that was the second thing.

The third thing was I created and I launched a new half-day program that I was super excited about. It takes changemakers through this journey of self-discovery so they emerge better able to have difficult conversations and lead at a level they have yet to experience where every breath they take is contributing to being the change. It sounds amazing, doesn't it? And you know, it's so up my alley, but nobody signed up for it. And it was a pretty large investment to get it off the ground. So, those were three big whammies, I will say, all related to finances.

So, with the first news I thought, okay, you know, the house is not the plan right now. And I actually got excited to see when the universe would deliver an even better plan to me at the perfect time. But as the week went on and the news started to accumulate, the pain started to creep in. I really wanted this dream. I really wanted to work with those communities. I really wanted to help change makers lead with more ease and power. And I really wanted it all right now, like right now. And I started to feel sorry for myself. You know, I was disappointed in my finances and my management of them. And I questioned my ability to run a business.

And then from there, it just started to spiral, you know, like “Uh, this would be different if I had a partner. We could split the cost. And man, why are banks so stingy with their lending practices? Why now?” Like “Huh! Oh, boy.” It was a dark hole that I was crawling into with no possibility of good coming from this. I was so familiar with this place of blaming others and situations that are out there for my pain. I spent decades living that life. And the only thing that got me was bitterness, and aloneness, and powerlessness. And that was a cocktail of pain, my friend.

So, after definitely exceeding my chocolate quota for the week, I stopped, and I did what I know I need to do. I felt the pain. In every moment, we have a choice. We can eat the brownie or we can go for a walk. We can call the friend who will join us in complaining or we can call the friend who will help us to see another perspective. We can watch the news and feel overwhelmed or we can pick up the phone and heal a divide in our own lives. The choice is always in our hands. So, this time in this moment, I decided to feel the pain. And I did that with a trusted friend who could really help me go through that process, but there it was, that scratch pad in my throat, and that baseball-sized ache in my heart, and the tears that fell into the space that I had created for them.

But you know what was cool? I didn't die. I didn't stay there forever never to escape. I didn't become a blob and disintegrate into the ether. Now, instead, I felt a great release and then the lightbulb started to turn on when I asked the one question that always leads me to freedom. What is this pain here to teach me? What is this pain here to teach me? You see, I knew what I needed to do for a long time, but I didn't have a strong enough pull to take me to the next step. And we do that sometimes. Right? We ignore, ignore, ignore until that whisper becomes a hammer on the head.

And in this case, I needed the hammer. And I mean not the cancer hammer this time around, thank goodness, but the your business is going to go under if you don't make some hard decisions hammer. And that's really where the clarity came for me. You know, I am clear that I want to move up island. I am clear that I want more time in nature, that I want to work in rural and remote communities, that I want to simplify my life and my business structure, and I want to make an impact, and I want to make it now. So, all of that, set me into inspired action that really aligned with my end goal of creating more love and joy in this world.

[0:10:04

That is my commitment and I'll tell you what those actions are in a minute. But for now, I want to bring this back to the theme of you are right on time. I have been attending this bi-weekly women's group that takes scriptures from the bible and brings them to light in the most uplifting, and supportive, and applicable ways. I love, love, love this group of women. Now, friend, I am not religious. I have avoided saying God all my life, and I still have a wall up around that particular terminology and yet here I am surrounded by Christian ladies quoting the bible.

Like we're getting deep into the bible and I am so out of my element and yet I cannot not be there. It's just this strange pull that I feel that is pulling me toward this discomfort. And I don't know the extent of all, but I just know that I'm in the right place. It's this weird way of being and that I think is for another episode, but what I wanted to share with you is the message of last week, which was wherever we are right now, we are on time. We are right on time.

Wow. With all that was going on in my life, that message was a lightning bolt from the stars directly to my heart. It had this amazing effect of releasing pressure, and I didn't even know I had all that pressure that I had built up, that I had really placed on myself. So, the message that unfolded got deeper than that. Essentially, you and I, we can't see the whole picture and we are not meant to. But at every moment, the creator, the divine goddess, God, the universe, whatever name you want to call it, knows exactly where we are in relation to our dreams. And those dreams were planted there as a way to pull us toward what we are here for in this lifetime.

But we, you and I, we can't see the whole picture. This reminded me of something somebody said to me when I was going through the cancer journey that we are never given anything that we cannot handle. I really took that to heart back then because sometimes it felt like way too much. You know, there were many moments where I questioned how much more I could handle. And I know you might be feeling that too with what's going on in the world today or your life today. Disease, finances, relationships, the war, dysfunctional systems that seem like they are never ever going to change. Whatever it is for you, I know that it can feel like too much sometimes.

But the thing is we don't ever know how close we are to our dreams and we are always in the perfect moment right here right now. Now, that takes trust. I know that. But if that trust gives you relief and freedom to stay in action, then, heck, I am all in. The other message I received from this conversation was that it's not just about this lifetime. It's actually about eternity. Now, this was the part that really opened me up to something different. I often look at my life as this definitive amount of time between birth and death. Everything is supposed to happen in that period, you know, puberty, finding true love, financial abundance, the house, the environment healing, ending wars, famine, and homelessness. Like I have so many dreams for this lifetime.

In this example of last week, it was being in this new town in my new home, working with my dream clients. And I was really feeling that pressure of meeting all of that now. And if I just focus on those end goals and where I think I am in relation to them, which we just learned I really don't know except for what seems real to me in this moment, life can get really depressing. But when I pull myself back and I make life about eternity and my ultimate goal of leaving this earth with a little more love and a little more joy, I'm somehow able to settle into this moment. Life is about the long game.

Wow, that realization helped me settle into this present moment, you know, that in this moment right now I can make a financial decision to buy tea at the coffee shop or to make one at home. I can make a decision to get in an argument or to really see this person in front of me. I can make a decision to watch another episode of One Mississippi or finish reading one of the 20 unfinished books on my chair, but every choice I make is leading me toward more love and joy.

[0:15:01]

You know, if I feel pain afterward, I know that I need a course correction. And if I feel expansive yumminess, then I know I'm more in alignment and that's it. That is my responsibility here on earth in this relatively short amount of time that we are given given that, you know, the world's been around for billions of years. So, that's it. So, this process, in summary, looked like a series of events that eventually led me to feeling a lot of pain. I really felt that pain and acknowledged it in the stories I was telling myself and then I placed all of that in the context of I don't know where I am in relation to any of the goals I set for myself. And this is for the long game, which brought me back to my life purpose, which is to create more love and joy and that I'm in charge of that in every moment.

And that allowed all these ideas to flow in. For example, I got really clear that I'm going to release some of the paid supports that I currently have to help me do all the things and open myself up to receiving other kinds of support. I'm going to let things that don't bring me joy go like strong social media presence. And I'm going to go back to the basics of making relationships, which I actually love doing. I also birthed the kindness circle tour, which is a road trip up island to host conversations with any and all communities, municipalities, indigenous communities that want to bring more love, and kindness, and joy to their community. That gets me into action in doing what I love right now.

And I'm going to camp along the way because I also had this goal this year of 30 days and 30 nights in nature. And I can combine it all together. So, it all feels so good and it's in alignment with who I truly am and my purpose. It also did the thing that I really needed to do, but was avoiding, which was get a handle on my financial health and start living with more integrity in that particular area. So, I have no idea where it's all going to lead me, and I know that that's not my job. It's not my job. So, I want to come back to this poem now.

I guess what I see for myself and for you in this story, in this beautiful poem is that I don't want to get to the end of my life without getting to know myself. and this work that we do of feeling our pain and prying open that envelope to see what's in there is that journey of getting to know ourselves. And by doing that, we can find so much more freedom, so much more love, and connection, and joy. But I would also love to know what you're seeing as the relationship between Rupi’s poem and what we have delved into today.

So, as we leave, I want to leave you with a few questions for the week for you to explore for yourself. In what way do you want to leave this earth a little bit better? That is what we call your commitment. We get into that in our communications master class. And this is the thing that you can come back to when you're really struggling and remind yourself that your only purpose in life is to bring this one thing to life in whatever big or small way that you feel lit up to do that. So, what is that for you? How do you want to leave this earth a little bit better? And if you knew that you were exactly on time wherever you are in your journey, what is it that you can let go of? Like what could you be more present to right now if you weren't occupied with getting to there, wherever there is?

It's a really powerful question. I really hope you found a nugget in this circle conversation. And I do look forward to hearing from you. So, leave us a message, send me an email, phone me, whatever. I would love to hear from you. And in the meantime, go watch One Mississippi, absorb Tig, and have a wonderful Easter weekend. I hope that you are surrounded by yummy food and love, and remember that one of the messages of this weekend is that miracles are all around us. And when we are aligned with love, anything is possible. Ciao!

I'm now passing the talking piece to you. If you feel called to put your voice in the circle, please head to humconsulting.ca/podcast and share your story there. I cannot wait to hear what has come up for you as you have listened to what has been shared here today. I wish you love and joy beyond your wildest imagination. Thank you so much for being here in the Circle of Change.

I also wanna express my gratitude to the following peeps: Circle of Change is recorded on Lekwungen territories and I am so grateful to live on this land. Our opening and closing music was created by the talented Errol Beats. You can find his creations at errolbeats.com. And special thanks to my coach, Mary Chan, of Organized Sound Productions for bringing this podcast to life. Until next time, Ciao!

Gratitude: 

Circle of Change is recorded on lək̓ʷəŋən territories.

Our opening and closing music was created by the talented Errol Beats. You can find his creations at www.erolbeats.com

My fabulous podcast coach, Mary Chan of Organized Sound Productions, brought this podcast to life www.organizedsound.ca