Allowing Moms To Stress Less In Life and Motherhood Without Guilt, with Tina Unrue
Allowing Moms To Finally Be Selfish, with Tina Unrue
Helping Moms Stress Less In Life and Motherhood Without Guilt, with Tina Unrue
Ever leave a conversation with someone and you feel like you just got a free therapy session and were able to unpack/unload so many things?? Well, that is what happened with today’s guest, Tina Unrue. Tina is a certified life and mindset coach and the founder of Selfish Mama, which helps moms stress less in life and motherhood by focusing more on themselves w/o the guilt. Tina talks about her desire to spend more time with her daughter while she was working her government job years ago. She was torn between going back to school and becoming a life coach — I loved the way she broke down the back and forth, telling me that going with her gut wasn’t easy, but she knew she had to do it!
She explains what life coaching is (something even she hadn’t heard about until she was being pushed into a different life trajectory). Tina drops some knowledge when talking about how you can’t just project manage your life and sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture, even when you are plugged down in the day to day madness. We finish with her talking about purpose and how to find yours! I legit didn’t even get to half the business questions I had planning to talk with Tina about because we connected so much on all the topics and truth bombs she was giving me.
Make sure to visit Tina’s Instagram, Facebook and site to learn more about her, find out about working with her and gain SO MUCH MORE!
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Selfish Mama was founded from Tina’s struggle with work/life balance and a yearning for more than just going through the motions of daily life. Surprisingly, she found her “more” in the pursuit of herself and now helps other moms cultivate the same purpose-filled life for themselves, not just because they deserve it, but as a model for their kids. She offers 1:1 coaching, energy/mindset assessments, workshops, speaking engagements, and more.
Full Transcript:
Dana: Are you dying at the thought of missing a single one of your babies. First, we have no idea how you give up the security that your nine to five job rings. My name is Dana Graham and I had no clue how to escape that vicious Four Hour Workweek cycle as the wife of a traveling husband and a mom of two tiny humans, terrifying and totally bizarre, from health insurance pensive to successful newborn and family photographer, all of the amazing craziness of a two year old and newborn and I’m not the only one. And I’m so glad you’re joining me as I travel with other moms who took the leap into entrepreneurship and created the ultimate festival. Doing it all Amidst the Chaos
Welcome back everybody to another episode of amidst the chaos I am here with another exciting guests Tina Unrue and she is here to tell us all about her company and her story into parenthood and entrepreneurship. This is going to be a great episode for all of you that are listening that are moms, which is the majority, because her career and her company has very large overlap in the motherhood community so I’m excited for this episode to give you an insight into her career path and how she’s landed, where she is today but also to give you some insight into motherhood and your mindset in general. So Tina welcome. Hey, thanks so much for having me. So Tina tell everybody about your company now and what you do.
Tina: So I created a business called selfish mama, and it is really just my coaching company I’m a life coach, and life and mindset coach for moms, and I pretty much focus on moms because I feel like we are made to feel like being a good mom, means that we have to be a selfless home, and that’s why I named my company selfish mama, because I really want to normalize what it means to pay attention to ourselves and have self regard, while also being a good mom.
Dana: Yeah I think out of balance. We’ve talked before we started recording today and I think that balance is something that’s really hard to find and so many factors go into it, how you were brought up how you generally feel about your life how your kids are how many kids you have I parent literally so many factors that I’m sure have played into this and I love how you’ve named your company I think that’s so incredible. I was going to be my list of questions for today was how you came to that because I think it’s important and it’s hard to change your mindset to say okay, it’s okay to be a little bit selfish right now, and it’s actually going to be better for your kids in the long run, but I think that’s a hard step for most people to take especially if that’s not how you either intended to parent or how you were brought up to parent, and so I am so excited to hear about that mindset shift and how you came to do this. So walk me through how you became your own boss and have your own company and you became a life coach in general this, I think this is something that’s kind of come up to me in the past few years of being, and I don’t know if it’s an age thing for me or entrepreneurship thing or a parenting thing, but I feel like life coaches and coaches in general have really become like a hot button topic in the past few years. And again, I don’t know if that’s just my exposure but it’s exciting to hear from your perspective how you came to be. So, talk me through post school pre kids what your life looked like entering the career field. What did you want to do How did all this come to be.
Tina: So, the 10,000 foot view, is to take you back a bit, is that I did not complete college so right after high school, I had the belief that my parents made too much money so they were middle class, but then I was not going to be able to get student loans. So I didn’t have any money for college, but yet was in that really precarious spot of possibly not being approved, so I thought okay well I guess I’m gonna have to postpone it for now and I’m gonna have to go get a job. So I lived in a really small town outside of DC, DC and so I of course thought Well, the way that I’m going to be able to make money and kind of get myself to college is going to find a job in DC and so that’s what I did. I started out as a government contractor and still wasn’t making a lot of money then. And long story short, didn’t get to college until I was well into my 20s. And so I floated between contracting jobs, and being actually government employee, and took two to three years of college part time while working took some time off. What I thought was going to be temporary time off to play in my wedding because that was a part time job.
Dana: Yes, a wedding is.
Tina: And I was like okay I can’t take all of this, and then I never went back to school. I got married in 2002 I had some elders in my family move in with us so that we can care for them. In the same year that my daughter was born.
Dana: Wow, that’s a lot.
Tina: It was a lot in honor of a lifetime. But a lot. And so long. And between the time that my daughter was born in 2009 and me. At the time I was a government worker I had self contracting. I was an older mom, I was already 35 When I had my daughter. And so it was a long time coming. And there was a very strong desire to spend as much time as I could with her. And I think that’s probably true for every mom right, no matter your age, we all I think, have this inherent thought that we want to spend more time with our kids, but that we also have like somebody saved me, I need some time to myself right.
Dana: Yes, it’s very relatable.
Tina: It’s always balancing right, there’s two sides of that coin, but I think as a working mom, and working, to the extent that everyday felt like Groundhog Day, you know, I felt like I had to wake up early, I had to wake up my kid early to be able to drop off at daycare, to then do the commute into work, to then work my eight or nine hours just to do everything in reverse. It just that, like my kid is getting more time with people at the daycare. Right. And I also remember vividly was a hard decision I had to make one time where she just was a monster, when I had to wake her up early in the morning. She is not a morning person.
Dana: Yeah.
Tina: And I think that that’s a struggle that a lot of moms have to deal with right is that we have to wake up kids on early career that requires I said to you before, you know, like you in photography you may have a certain schedule right where you want to be able to hit a certain time of the day or a certain location right and so you may have to end up waking your kids off and coffee to do it on the regular though, was really painful for me. And it just fade away for a while. And so I had a successful career in government I was making excellent money if I was doing a job that I was really good at, but I just felt as not being home enough, right, and it presented itself, in essence as worthless, it felt like I was able to get as much time as I wanted at home. So think of anything else I would need that your parents for the girl knocking down those issues, right, because it was like okay, I need my job because, again, at the time we don’t take care of our elders like I had to keep working to be able to sustain the lifestyle that we had to be able to support everybody that was slipping with us. And long story short, my job became my enemy.
Dana: That’s so interesting
TIna: because as the thief of the time of times. Yeah, right. And it was easy to kind of point the finger at something to say, This is what’s wrong. This is what’s not working and this is what I need to fix. And as a government employee, things can definitely get very hard. There’s a lot of bureaucracy that you have to deal with. And I had been in the past I’ve had my own company, and so they have. You can pack like snacks and stuff but pretty much. Here we’ll find it. So, like my, my mindset, not a job of mine a bureaucracy. The fact that I needed a different job.
Dana: I think it’s interesting that you said okay I’m going to point the finger at my job and I think that a lot of people fall into that trap really easily because you can see okay it was taking the time and you know you said, Being an older parent doesn’t make your mind set anything different, but it does. I mean it does change it a little bit and regardless of your age though your kids only have a certain amount of time that they’re going to be home. I mean really, that is a finite amount of time that they’ll be here, no matter how old you are as a parent, but from your perspective, I think that that age and those extra few years before you did have kids and it gave you some sort of perspective, and it really does and especially then caring for our family members, that is a whole nother level of perspective that is given to the people who have had to be in that situation, or wanting to be in that situation and I commend you, incredibly for doing one year, first off, because, wow, that is, I can’t even imagine how much that was for you to handle, to have a full time job on top of that with the community is just really remarkable so I just want to acknowledge that. I do want you to give credit to the fact that you were a little bit older and that’s not to say oh that shouldn’t have anything to do with it because it does you have more wisdom and then someone who you know hasn’t spent 10 years in the career field working, and recognizing that time so I appreciate that you were able to see that but having that career and being able to point that finger, how did you then make the shift to say okay, I’m the one that has to decide if it’s going to be the thief of time or not. How did you turn it into okay I’m pointing the finger and I have to have a stroke because I have to support us financially, so there’s nothing that I can do. Where did that mindset flip.
Tina: You know it flipped because of pushing the decision for probably five years.
Dana: Wow,
Tina: I mean I swung between being grateful for what I had and just like, I just need to keep doing this right, I have pledged to have an excellent job and an excellent husband. I’m able to care for, you know our elders. I have a healthy daughter, like all of these things right all of the things that we see externally as like the check marks of success right and what should be happiness like I had climbed the ladder I had done all the things, and I should just be happy for what I have and I swung between. Yes, this is where I am, everything’s wonderful, too. There’s still something missing. Like I don’t exactly know what it is but there’s still something missing. And I kept saying that that was time with my daughter, right the more meaningful time with my daughter and I kept doing that probably for three to five years before I pretty much broke in 2015 and I said something has to change. And at that point it came down to two decisions. One was to go back to school. Because, as everybody knows, most people that have degrees, and most people know that a degree at this point is really just a door opener. Because, you know, in the government, and even in the private sector I hired so many people. And so oftentimes I would hire people who had no experience, really our students a new exam, they didn’t have a degree in the area in which I hired them. Right. And so I thought okay, if I go back to school, then at least it’ll be a door opener for me and I can get out of the government if I want to, right. So that was one option and then the other option was like coaching, and without going into a whole lot of depth about that, it has just kind of entered my periphery, if you will, only a couple of times, but something had kind of drawn me to that as an option. And when I researched it and I found the particular school that I was really really mad when I can’t explain to you how much it called to me. And I was then forced with the decision of Okay Do I do the fear based decision, which is go back to school right that I love education, but I knew that going back to school was checking the box for fear that I wouldn’t be able to get a job that I wanted, right, it wasn’t because I wanted to do that I could pursue education in any way that I wanted without all the debt that school requires right so I knew that that was a fear based decision, Or, I could go with my guide. I can go in the direction that felt good. And that was life coaching. And so that’s what I did. I started in 2015, with all kinds of tears, because I was taking money out of our savings account, I felt guilt, incredible guilt, because I didn’t know if it was going to work out right just all of it the investment in 2016 I feel like I almost died because I was working and I was doing this program which was no short small accomplishment, it, it required incredible time and effort. And I again thought it was gonna break me, well, but I chose that hard right like not the heart that I felt before. With my job, and all of that and I felt that there was really no way out I didn’t feel like I chose that part, even though in that respect they did, but it just didn’t feel like a choice so, so, going from the choice that didn’t feel like a choice, my job to choosing the time investment and the knowledge investment of becoming a life coach and knowing, okay at some point in the future. I feel like there’s that potential for me to change my job change the trajectory of my work life balance opportunities. That was enough to sustain me. And so I finished in 2016.
Dana: That’s amazing such an accomplishment doing all of that at the same time but I think what you’ve said is so crucial for people who are trying to start a business and trying to change their life, it is likely going to be harder before it’s easier, but what makes it so different is that the heart has an end date and it has a purpose that you chose a purpose that doesn’t feel like a necessity to survive, right, it wasn’t something that you said okay I have this government job, and I have to because I have to support our family I have to support, you know, our whole life here, I don’t have a choice with this, when you made this choice yes it got much, much, much more difficult but it was something that you were in control of, and I think that, You know the thought of doing that scares so many people out of becoming an entrepreneur because it’s, you know, and for me it was one of those things when I went to leave my job and I kind of had to decide what am I going to do here. It was okay, do I keep working and start this on the side, or do I just start and get moving and for me, I couldn’t choose to do everything at the same time because I wouldn’t have survived. Like you, I would have been the same place you are where you were like 2016 and almost broke me, it would have been that same exact thing for me and I, and I was very fortunate for stupid one of the two, to be able to make that decision in that way, but a lot of people have to kind of embrace that year or two years or five years of grind and sort of suck. But I do agree that at that point I didn’t have the 2020, you know, hindsight to be able to say, okay this is going to be worth it I know I can do both, just for 18 months or it’s just for a year or however long it’s going to be, and then we’ll be on the other side and I’ll have this work life balance that I want. For me I didn’t recognize that and I think it’s really hard for people to actually recognize how different it’s going to feel when you’re doing something you’re passionate about and really think that’s going to work and really think that’s, you know, going to be put you on the path to change your life, and I think it’s really important to recognize that these things usually do have an end date, and that your mindset really does change when you are doing something to make that end date. Be Where Your life kind of starts looking how you want it to look. Yeah. So Tina, how did you find out about life coaching Where are you getting coached Did you find it on social media, how did you even know about life coaching as a potential career.
Tina: So it’s funny you say that in 2001 / 2002. The lady that I had hired to be my seamstress, for my wedding dress. I was her last client because she was the party in the Virginia area, to move to Florida to become a life coach. Like, what is a life coach, and like who would hire someone to do this right like this was, okay that’s Yes, totally. You know, it was so before its time. And I just remember being profoundly interested in the concept. And really in all of her. I mean the fact that she was giving up a successful business, one that she had invested, 20 to 30 years in to become a life coach to pursue this career that nobody had ever heard of. And in grad I was like, who in the heck would hire me to do this it just, it blew my mind. And so you know I would have discussions with her I always found them really compelling. And then just stuck with me. And then I have a friend of a friend who I had met years after, who was in the pursuit of becoming a life coach, and I was like, how are we hearing about this again hear it. Oh, yeah. And so those were the only two instances. And, and I have to be honest and say that I am very spiritually driven. I have been for a number of years. And I honestly feel that the pull to consider life coaching at such a desperate time for me, like when I definitely knew that I needed some kind of change. I really do feel like it was divine, because there’s no other way, in my opinion, to be able to point to how anything became a consideration, the checking the box. My victory is a very easy one, leaving the government space and knowing that I don’t have kind of quote unquote that safety net of, you know what was my prior grade and, you know, how much had I done and how could I prove my successes within the government sphere right it just doesn’t translate to the private sector. And even though I had worked in the private sector before, and it was, you know, many years earlier, and it was just really easy to see that gap of something that needed to be closed, as a potential, check the box, kind of thing that I had to do. Nobody had even in. I would say the three years prior to me deciding that I had to make a change. Nobody had brought up like coaching. Wow, I can’t. I honestly cannot say anything other than just divine intervention. And it was really up to me to decide. Alright well which one feels good. Right, I know I’m taking risk taking a risk regardless I could spend the money to go get my degree, or I could spend the money doing something that seems like I would love it, and then we’ll go from there, you know?
Dana: and the thing that resonated with what you said about your path, right, is, I think that’s what’s really interesting to me about us in general is that when we start to listen to ourselves, and kind of give ourselves the permission to do what feels right for us. And stop listening to the noise of other people have societal pressures of the limiting beliefs possibly that we grew up with, whether it’s as kids or, you know, Even as early adults when we give ourselves the permission to say, this is what feels right for me. And I don’t have to know the whole path. Right. Kind of like
Tina: yeah, you know, we can have an end date and I always think it’s really awesome to work towards something. But if anything has proven true for me, it is, when I take the next step, then the next step is shown. And it may evolve, away from what I thought the ending was, or what the end goal was right, but the key is to just take that next right step. And, you know for you. Your Work Path look different than, you know what mine did. And for me the decision between going to get my degree and doing life coaching, you know, again, it just came down to what felt best for me. Right. And so I think that’s the key that I really want all moms to really give themselves permission to do is, you know, if you are going to choose to have a business. There is no one right way to do it.
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Yep. And I think that I don’t know what episode this is gonna end up being but it I have not interviewed a single mom, that has the same exact story, or the same story of how their business started or how it came to be or how they thought of the idea for their business or the concept or, you know how for their family was or how long it took them to do it, the whole point of this whole podcast is to show people that their path is going to be different from someone else’s but there are so many possible paths, it’s unreal. And I think you saying that, recognizing that hey, that end date or that end goal is going to change and morph. I think that’s something that’s really hard for people to understand and to be okay with, especially people like me who like a plant, who like things to know when things are happening and how to know how it’s going to look when it does happen and I think that’s a hard, hard pill to swallow. When you have to say okay, like, this is shifting and it’s going to be for the better. Now when I, when I look back and see all what my goals were and my timelines were and I’m like, oh, that actually worked out great, but Hindsight is 2020. And so to have the encouragement you know from you to say hey, like it’s okay for things to shift and to move and, you know, to be aware that that’s how most people’s lives end up being, is that not everything works out how you think it’s going to but it could be a lot better. I think recognizing that that’s a thing is so powerful for sure. Oh my gosh. And can I just be the one to offer that you can choose to believe that at any time. I just how I live my life. I don’t even care what anybody else says, I will choose to believe that every single thing that happens will benefit me in some way, whether now or later.
Dana: Yeah, that is incredibly empowering.
Tina: When I feel like I do not have to worry about how it’s going to look, or what’s going to happen. Right, and I’ll tell you a quick story. My husband works for the government, and we were actually going to have to move overseas in 2020. So
Dana: wow,
Tina: and you can just imagine the struggle that came with that, not just from a logistical standpoint that we would have had to have normally had to deal with all of the moving parts and the check boxes and all the things no matter what year it was, but then of course you’re happy to do so in the middle of a pandemic. Obviously you just added on a whole nother host of issues and I remember catching myself. At one point I was in our kitchen and I was fussing at my husband and I was like why can’t they just do this and do that and why does this process have to wait for this I just remember being very upset. And it almost like, hit me all at once, and I was like, Oh my gosh, I don’t need to wait for them. Even though I really did, emotionally and mentally. I did not have to wait for them. I reminded myself that, as of right now, this is what I know and I will work as if this is the timeline. Until such time I haven’t a timeline, and it just calmed me down.
Dana: Yeah, so I’m going to need you to walk me through that because we found out this weekend, that we are moving, and by the time this episode comes out, everyone will know but we were moving to Ankara Turkey at the end of August.
Tina: Yes.
Tina: So, it’s good, it’s great but also crazy my husband’s still in Africa so he’s been gone since last July, he’s been on this first like solo tour without us and so he’s not even back yet and we’re moving in like eight weeks.
Tina: Oh.
Dana: So I appreciate very very first handedly exactly how you felt in 2020 Because we’ve been waiting for months and months and months to figure out if we were going to be leaving you know later this summer or into the fall because of whatever other reasons and I’ve just been in this horrible limbo of, okay, I don’t know what’s gonna happen, I obviously have a very locally based business, and the plan was for us to eventually move overseas, we were originally supposed to not be going overseas till 2022. And so I had this whole year to build the podcast and do all these other things that I’m doing with my business that aren’t so locally focused and online, and then, you know, this got pushed up, and now it’s being pushed up again and I, you’re right, it became in the last month I had to be like, Okay, I have to just plan with the information that I have and keep going and not worry so much about it, and you’re right it’s been definitely very very freeing. But just getting that final like call like okay this is now actually what’s happening is like I just a huge weight off, and even if it’s not the answer that you were looking for, or if it’s maybe faster than you were looking for, just knowing and being in control of how you feel about the situation because of okay this is, this is the very basic info that I have, but I can be in control of that information and how we’re going to prep for it with what I know and I think that for me. The unknown is horrible. I like to plan I like to know I like to be able to figure out what our path is going to be but you know my husband works for the government. So, this is not something that’s going to go away in the next 10 years this is how our life is going to kind of look so being okay to sit and unknown and to be able to build my life on the back end to be flexible and to be something that can follow the lead of the things that we can’t control has been really important and really kind of eye opening, especially in the last month, for me to sit down and say okay, I can keep moving, I can keep making my own decisions and decide for our family. What we’re going to do with information we have and just be flexible if things change, You know, exactly, I think probably, it will get better as I think with anything, practice makes perfect, you know, and seeing it change and seeing that change happen is, is good and will show you. Okay, the Earth is still spinning the earth is still turning and we’re still here, even without knowing a lot of the things, but that wasn’t without a lot of pain and craziness to get there. So what are your, what are your tips that made you make that shift and made you say okay, like, I just have to be okay with this like what are something that someone could do in the situation that you and I have been in to actually make their mindset shift they’re
Tina: well in the moment, talking it through with my husband is what helped. Right. And I think so many of us moms, carry the mental load of motherhood, so much in our head, because it’s always swirling right like all of our schedules and all of our worries and all of the kids schedules and, you know, just everything. So I think, first of all, it is being able to find someone just to talk it out with right and it doesn’t have to be a coach my husband isn’t a coach. Right. But just being able to talk it out and actually verbalize it can sometimes put us in a different. What I like to call mental state or energetic state, the coaching that I have is actually based upon the premise of something called energy leadership. And so, if you subscribe to, to this structure, it is that there are different energy levels, and when we’re in a space of feeling stuck, it actually can create a lot of stress hormones, and us kind of having almost like tunnel vision, right, like we are very focused hyper focused as if looking through like a telescope, and we can only see what we see with that telescope. Right. And as our energy changes and and shifts, we begin to start to expand the view of that telescope and we can see more we can see the issue or the circumstance, from a more holistic perspective as a client once said, which really resonated with me and tends to resonate a lot with other moms, which is, you know, if you are on the ground level, looking at something you’re very much in the weeds right you’re very much kind of there, and you can only see what you can see, but if you go up to the balcony view, it’s going to look a little different. Right, you’re going to be able to see farther, and you’re going to be able to see broader and so number one, one of the tips is obviously just talking it out with someone, right, getting it out of your head, to be able to see what else you can think of. Another tip is to ask yourself what can I control, because there’s too much, we can’t control. There’s just so much we can’t and so many moms want to control everything. And that is a huge source of stress, a wake up call, we can’t control. Before we try the more stress, we’re going to have right so when we get caught up, and, and even as a coach, I’m admitting that I got caught up right and the way that I can admit that is because I’m human, right, it’s just the human brain works, We all get sucked in to all the things, and, you know, like you were saying was such a short timeline because our timeline was short, too. I was just like, how is this going to get done. And there’s so if this doesn’t happen then I’m investing time over here to pack but I didn’t need to, you know, There’s all these things right and we’re kind of project manager lives. And when we can’t project manage it because we don’t own all the pieces of parts we have all these dependencies right that’s where stuff gets that much more stressful. Yeah, so, you know, asking yourself and reminding yourself. What can I control, I can only control what I can control, and I also have a coach, oftentimes I don’t have one all the time but sometimes I do. And it is incredibly powerful to be able to tap into our own subconscious with the help of someone else. Right, because they are not in our story. They don’t have have the same beliefs that we do sometimes limiting. Right, so they are able to kind of hear what we’re saying and piece things together and kind of probe us and push back, and that was incredibly helpful as well to be able to help bring myself out of, you know, some of the limiting thoughts that I was having about well, this is how it should be working, because it’s not working that way. I want to be angry.
Dana: So much better and faster. Just hit X Y Z because I know so well. Because I know.
Tina: So yeah those are three tips just get it out of your head, remind yourself that you can’t control everything. So ask yourself what you can control. And certainly, you know a friend or someone who’s objective, to help you kind of get out of the muck. I love that types of situations.
Dana: Yeah, I think that it’s hard to see it from that balcony level when you are some of the reason there’s so much to physically do and you’re only one person, and you know, being able to split all that up into Okay, here’s how I need to view things versus literally I don’t have time to view it like that because I have to be getting it done and I think that’s as an entrepreneur, that is something that happens to me, weekly, even right now, we were out of town this weekend and my inbox is absolutely out of control, like it is just out of control and I know that I have to get back to those very quickly, but that is also a weeded situation, like, I also need to be looking at the big picture and saying okay like today is a Tuesday so it’s a podcast release day that also has to happen and what is something that I’m going to be thankful that I did in two weeks with that urgency versus something that could wait until this afternoon, or later tonight. And I think that being able to take a step back in as an entrepreneur as a mom, as a wife is so, so difficult until you practice doing it. And for me, it’s something that I have to consciously say okay I’m taking the time out of the day to back up and look at this from a higher level and see what I’m going to be thankful that I did and I’m thankful for the perspective that I had in two weeks or two months or two years, and I didn’t spend this time, you know, worried about things that I can’t control. Because for me, I’ve lived a lot of my life and that kind of muck of, hey, what’s it going to be like for this what’s the next step going to be and now seeing that like this is kind of going to be really for the next 10 1520 years like I just have to kind of accept it and move on from there because there’s really not much I can do except for control what I can control. So, I think that’s where, where I’ve kind of ended up, but anyway, now that I’ve like had my own little coaching session here on our podcast. Okay, talk to me because I actually was talking to somebody the other day who I was telling that I was interviewing a life coach and she was like, I don’t understand the difference between a life coach and a therapist, like what, what, talk to me about how that’s done because obviously you’re not like licensed therapist, but you do work on very similar techniques of mindset and moving forward and just talking through things so talk to me about the difference and how life coaching for you is different than that.
Tina: Absolutely, and I’m going to try to do this justice because I don’t want to upset any therapists, okay, but I think historically therapists tended to focus on the past. During so let’s find that moment of trauma. Right, and let’s deal with it. And let’s use all of our techniques and skills to be able to you know make peace with it somehow. Right. And, or figure out how to cope, so that that trauma does not continue to stop you from living your life now. Right. And again I say this because of historical or traditional beliefs about therapy. I have never been in therapy right so I just want to kind of make that clear. And so, you know, I would say that therapy in the past had been very much reserved for those who felt like functioning day to day was very difficult. Interesting. Okay. Life Coaching is not intended for people who find functioning difficult right that they have some type of trauma that is literally keeping them stuck, and that they cannot move forward, maybe they can’t get out of bed, right, or something like that they just cannot release negative thoughts really related to a traumatic event, right. So life coaching is very much focused on making functioning, even better. Right, so it is for functioning adults who still have challenges and issues and frustrations and all of those kinds of normal human life issues, right, but yet they want to accelerate their, their efforts, right, or the way that they show up in the world. Now, making those two distinctions right between functioning and non functioning, though those are probably one of the biggest differences between coaching and therapy, that makes total sense. Yeah, but I will say that therapy has changed over the years, and possibly because of the onset of life coaching, I don’t know I can’t say for short, but there are now just new modalities and new techniques that they use that are very similar coaching, and so I can see what people really don’t understand what writing is, I can speak for me as a coach, the type of person like I can’t coach everybody I have unfortunately had to turn people down, because I just don’t feel like coaching is a fit. And so, you know, coaching is meant for at least for me, for those moms who are happy, but they also feel stuck, kind of like I did right like not stuck where I couldn’t get up and do my job. It was just more of that. I can’t make emotional sense of why I feel so kind of unfulfilled, if you will. Right. Yeah, it was just the same thing day after day and I was like somebody needs to show me. I cannot do this anymore, right like something has got to stop and, and I think it was really just the lack of meaning. Right, and even though I loved my daughter I worked, you know, so hard to get pregnant and I had an amazing husband so have an amazing husband, I had an amazing family that we were taking care of, like, there was so much good to be grateful for, right Yes, but yet there was still something missing, right, like I love to work with those women, and that makes you feel guilty because it make you feel so guilty to be like I should just be grateful, I should just be thankful for what I have. Absolutely. That’s just, you have this like in the back of your head like it’s just not enough, you know,
Dana :that’s right. And I’m so glad you said that, thank you for bringing that up because that is why I love to work with those women, because their life is not in a situation where they’re dealing with some type of ematic event right that keeps kind of resonating with them it’s just life. Like how do I make my life better, how do I actually make meaning and fulfillment in the life I have right now.
Tina: Right. And I think that that is the call of our souls, like I actually think, our purpose, we all, everybody gets so caught up in purpose, what is my purpose, what am I here to do right, we’re here to do us. Yes, that’s what we’re here to do. We are here for a souls journey, think of it by the time you pass on. If you believe in a higher power like I do, you are going to kind of have to account for what happened for the choices that you made, or how you showed up for the fear that kept you back from doing the thing you wanted, Right and for how you raised your kids like everything and I don’t want that to feel weighted right it is a lot to think about is, but it can also be incredibly fun, like in the moment, Could you imagine, instead of it being so waited and just be like, Hmm, I wonder what this is supposed to teach me. I wonder what this will look like. Right. I wonder how I could show up in this moment, right, and it gives us such freedom, because we as moms kind of like you said, it makes us feel guilty when we think of all the good we have but yet we know that there’s something else right we want to be more than a mom. Of course we want to know that we’re being good moms right want to know that we’re not setting our kids up for trauma. Later, right, or even coaching for that matter, whatever it may be, but the way that I see it now is you know what I have released so much of the pressure, and I live in the messy middle in a both and, instead of either or environment. It doesn’t have to be that I am either grateful, or I am lacking something. I am both. I am incredibly grateful for what I have. And I want more. I love that.
Dana: I think that is something that so many moms are missing the boat on for me, I’m a very like practical kind of pragmatic person like for me it comes down to time, almost always, almost always, that is my bottom line of, I don’t have the time. I don’t have the time for that. I don’t have the time to be both of those things have to figure out how to make it work and I, and I think that’s probably something that you help moms come to realize that you probably do have the time and here’s how we can make it happen, but what are some of the other outcomes of people I don’t want to call them clients but I guess their clients that you’ve coached do they often, you know, change jobs, are they just more at peace with how their life is are they you know starting new workout routines like what are some of like the most popular outcomes of coaching sessions with you, as a mom.
Tina: Oh my gosh it’s varied a lot range from the practical side of things, kind of like you said, all the way to the spiritual. And again, I love the messy middle, I will do all of it, because I really love playing in that space because it isn’t just one, it’s, it’s everything is compartmentalize things when we need to, right. So, just like you and I are doing this podcast right now, we’re not tending to our kids, hopefully, knock on wood, I’m running it right, but you know we have to compartmentalize our lives in certain respects, right, you go on photoshoots I have coaching sessions like you have to be able to compartmentalize your life in some respects, but, but we tend to do that so much that we lose sight of the bigger picture, Right, so it has to be in a both and situation so my very first client I will never forget her. She was a doctor, and she too was like I want to spend more time with my kids. I’m exhausted at this job she wasn’t happy at the job she was that she had. And so I helped her assess her time, I helped her assess her finances to see if she could really, can you just quit if you can’t just quit can go part time, right, we just kind of figured out all of those types of practical things. I also helped her have hard conversations with her boss, and having hard conversations is actually some kind of superpower of mine so I tend to help people, a lot with that. And so I helped her be able to navigate those really difficult discussions about asking for what she wanted, right, setting up some boundaries, being vulnerable being, saying, This is what I want, this is what I need and I would love to be able to get it here at first, right before I choose to leave. And then she ultimately left, and she loves her job. And it’s part time, so she was working full time and now she’s working part time for a new employer that had everything she wanted and so it all worked out beautifully. I have helped people really assess their limiting beliefs so just recently I had a client that I finished up with that was really holding herself back, and she got very clear on what was holding her back, and it was. She had been out of the workforce for 16 to 20 years. And she was really wanting to craft a new job, but wasn’t taking the steps to get there. And so it was very clear that there was something subconscious stopping her. Right. And she had a breakthrough when she realized she was like, oh my god, I’m just trying to recreate my old life. Wow, instead of creating my new life, because I’ve had six kids 20 years as a mom, right, that counts for something. I am now a different person. Totally different time right, but because of all that I’ve gone through with their own trials and tribulations and the circumstances that come up over two decades of life. Right, right. And are your interests even the same as they used to be, you know, 16 to 20 years ago. So the fact that she had that epiphany, she was just like, oh my god I’m blown away. I need to just kind of pause for a bit, and like really work through that to figure out like, where, what does this mean, what does this even look like Do I even want to create this business that I thought I wanted, right. That’s a powerful stuff. That is because it’s so powerful, because we can check the box, and do the thing. And stay, what I call it a surface level, all our lives, and to be quite frank, I think most of the country at least the US is there. We just live at a surface level, we just kind of keep going and keep checking the box we keep figuring out how to maximize our time how to be more productive, how to get more things done in the short time we have. I want to challenge that for people, there is room for that, it’s, it’s a necessity, right, like, we all have the same 24 hours. But when you look at people who have done incredible things in the same 24 hour period. Something’s different. Right. And it doesn’t mean that we all have to strive to be, you know the Elan musk, or, you know the Donald Trump or Mark Zuckerberg or whoever it is right that you kind of look up to and just wish you could do that thing, right. The point is is that we all have 24 hours. That is something we all share is the same 24 hours, and we get to decide how to show up in those 24 hours we could just decide how we show up for ourselves, for our family. Right, we get to decide what’s important. Are you going to prioritize looking through all those emails right and you always going to where that responsibility. Or maybe you’ll decide at some point, that okay, I have to somehow automate this right, whatever that is, or hire help or somebody is going to help me manage that inbox. Do you see what I’m saying, like, yeah, we get to decide how we manage that time we do not have to do all the things. Right. And so, you know at the end of the day we get to be able to look at our life, not just from the micro level, but also from the macro level, and be able to say, you know, this is what works. This is what doesn’t. This is what I’m drawn to this is what I want, right, and be able to give ourselves permission to really live in that middle space and to be able to say, well, not everything comes down to how productive I can be. Right, so it’s going to come down to. Also, am I choosing self regard. And my, how am I showing up for my kids, right, because that was the other catalyst for me deciding to do something different. I didn’t want my daughter to see what adulting is like the model of adulting that I was doing, which was the constant hustle, the waking her up early. We need to hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry to get from one thing to the next, I was like what, in the crap, am I doing this can’t be what my life is supposed to be like. It can’t. Not to say it’s all supposed to be blissful and, you know, supposed to be
Dana: right, right, they got a grant, all the time that day to day every you know five out of seven days a week example is something that you’re setting that is going to build on the rest of her life forever and ever. I mean, that’s just how it is, I mean the kids pick up on everything, especially something that’s done so often and so regularly, I, I love that you recognize that for her too and that, you know, for some people that’s totally fine, like some people that’s what empowers them is to have that schedule and to have that hustle and to have the, you know that that work grind of hey this is what our day looks like and there are reasons why that matters to them and I think no matter what your reasons are for however you lead your life, showing your kids and explaining to them why you believe it’s important to have whatever life you’re living is so crucial because they may just see it, and they may see you doing it, but have you’ve never had a conversation with them that says hey, like, yes we go from one place to the next really quickly, but here’s why, because it gives me energy. It provides for our family, like here are the reasons why I have chosen this path for our family and I think having that conversation with your kids when they’re old enough to kind of understand is going to help them in the future again, maybe be able to avoid a little of that a little bit of that therapy at least so.
Tina: Right. And it’s, and it’s so crucial that you just brought that up so thank you because I don’t ever want it to come across as if I’m being very judgmental of those who choose that totally I’m the same way. I am the same way. And I was there. Totally others to take care of. So it was a struggle and my daughter was a monster when I woke her up early, right. All I could do was say, I’m really sorry but this is, you know, just something that we have to do, and when I was working, of course, I wanted to be the model of the fact that hey you can do whatever you want. Right, there would be times I would take her into work with me, and she would sit at the head of the table as I have meetings, because I was like, I want you to know what this feels like, yeah, there’s such a lesson in that too and I think so many kids have experienced that through COVID through COVID as well, saying they’re seeing their parents become working.
Dana: So yeah, normalizing whatever feels good for you is what I think we can definitely agree upon right like what feels good for you, definitely pursue that. It’s when it doesn’t feel good. Right, like what happened in my situation, I feel like so many people just want to get rid of negative emotion, people please don’t get rid of negative emotion. It’s not going anywhere. Okay, it’s not going anywhere so don’t wish it away when negative emotion comes up as to what it, what does it teach me. What is this here for, because I swear to you, negative emotion is a diagnose it is there to tell you something is off, and it could just be this moment just sucks, and I’m just supposed to be.
Tina: Right, it doesn’t mean that it has to have some kind of existential compartmentalizing we’ll wait, it could just be a weed moment, but it could be something bigger. Like for me, my, my struggle with work life balance really truly was me wanting to spend more time with my kid. But then that took me on a beautiful journey to not only did I get that, but I actually got the piece. Yes, that I wanted and my life is nowhere near balanced, all the time in air quotes, right, but it feels balanced, like I don’t feel like I am torn between kind of two worlds, I guess, kind of merged them to the way that feels good for me. And I think that that whole pursuit the entire time was defined my path. I was no longer supposed to be following that path. That’s what the negative emotion was supposed to be telling you. I wasn’t supposed to be there anymore because it had worn, its purpose in my life. And it was useful and it provided for my family when it needed to, and it was time for new beginnings. That’s what the breaking was, it was time for new beginning and I had to listen, and you had to listen to you have to act on it and you’ve done this and you’ve built this whole journey and that has to feel so good to to say look back now you’re like Hey, I recognize that I recognize that I needed to make a change and I made it happen. I busted through 2016 and worked through that really hard year and made this happen for myself and I’m sure looking back that gives you such a sense of pride knowing that hey, we made it through and now I’ve built something for myself and for my family that I can really be proud of and excited about anything worthwhile worth doing. It’s so true.
Dana: Well, Tina, thank you so much I have 15 more questions about your business and how you built it that we didn’t even get to and we’re almost at an hour, so maybe we’ll have to do a part two on this at some point but I am so grateful for you coming on here and I know that I’m already like writing the marketing post for this episode because in my head because I just noticed that there like so many amazing nuggets of information you’ve, you’ve shared today with moms that I think are going to be applicable across the board of just regular motherhood and entrepreneurship and all the things so thank you so much for doing this, will you tell everybody where they can find you on social media and your website and all of the things,
Tina: mostly on Instagram that handle is real selfish mama and on Facebook is sufficient.
Dana: And Tina thank you so so much for doing this and I’m excited for everybody to hear it and to share all of your wisdom and your, your journey into entrepreneurship, with the world.
Tina: Thanks so much for having me.
Dana: Of course. Okay great and we will talk to you soon.
I am so honored. He spent many minutes of your day listening to me babble about living this entrepreneurial life amidst the chaos and any mom’s normal day to day. If you love what you’ve heard you need more snippets of knowledge about this mom Boss Life. Our website, at amidstthechaospodcast.com . For show notes and links to anything mentioned in today’s episode. If you’re really feeling inspired to me and my family if you take the time to agree. Thanks for joining me.
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