Tag Archives: be free

author, Boys, God, home learning, musings, Parenting, radical sabbatical, Wordsmith

Be Willing to Talk to Anyone at Anytime

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I am a bit of an enigma in my blue crew. I will honestly talk to anyone at anytime. It has become somewhat embarrassing to my lovely teenage boys. My heart in doing this is to help: Help people feel seen and connected to the community around them.

If I walk by something and I feel God prompting me, I will strike up a conversation by saying hi or sharing something I “notice”: A beautiful scarf, something about the environment around us in the moment or recognizing that we may have crossed paths before. 

The other way I have used this choice to talk to anyone at anytime is that I will reach out to friends or friends of friends to help my boys on their journey to learn and find out what their passions are. I believe my job is to expose the boys to as many different situations and people so that they can make the best choices for themselves. This is a benefit of not having to sit six hours per day in a campus school building and is something I don’t take for granted. 

Sidenote: I believe that when you are looking at a career, you need to actually talk to people doing the work you want to do to learn about what it entails and the friction points. Every job has friction and it’s all about deciding if you can deal with the heat it creates.

In our five year home learning journey, the boys have been fortunate to talk to:

A friend’s son who works for SpaceX.

A cousin who is the CEO for a mutual fund company. (I just learned he was a CEO after talking to a random stranger on a plane that ended up working for my cousin. HAHA)

A friend’s brother who is a Conservation Officer in the Yukon. (We even did a field trip to visit him in person.)

Friends who payed off their mortgage early and manage their money very well. Thanks Bubba and Shane for sharing your wealth of knowledge.

A friend who owns an Engineering firm in San Fransisco and does work for Google, Ebay, Stanford, to name a few well known companies.

A friend of a friend of a friend who works as a Conservation Officer alongside his hounds at the head office in Kamloops.

A friend of the above Conversation Officer who works in B.C. Fisheries.

A husband of a colleague that I worked with in Vernon who is a truck driver.

Two friends who are RCMP officers who we currently message frequently.

A Gymnastic/Strength and Conditioning Coach.

Currently, I am talking to people to find someone that works as a mechanic in F1, F2 or F3. I cannot wait to see how this shakes down.

I love how God wants us to be connected.

It’s fun to see who He brings across our paths, especially when we are open to talk to anyone at anytime. Humans have incredible stories to tell and the connections between us are often very deep and sometimes hilarious.

Happy Sunday (and blessed back to school, for those heading back tomorrow). Love what you do!

xoxo Joanna

blogger, Grief, life, love, Self-help

Be Leaning Into Pain and Moving Towards Pleasure

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I have had quite a few lessons in life where I have had to lean into pain. How about you? Any pain coursing through your body and mind these days?

As a 15 year old, I had a very close friend who decided to hangout with older friends that partied, smoked and drank. I had to literally walk away from her as we discovered we no longer had anything in common as I pursued my athletic goals and knew that health was my future. It’s painful to lose people who you have been friends with you for years.

As a 21 year old, I was injured in my third year of university volleyball. Right after I hoisted the cup as the captain of my university team declaring we were the best team in Canada, I had to make a choice. I made a very painful decision to retire from volleyball after deciding not to do a surgery with a questionable outcome.

As a 39 year old, I grieved deeply as we moved from Vernon to Kelowna. I said goodbye to my parents living ten minutes away. We lost the routine of preschool pick-up seeing friends who had known us since before we had kids and having the beautiful Vernon Music School and the “Peanut” park just down the road. No longer could we drive 25 minutes up the hill to be at both world class downhill and cross country skiing.

Now in 2023, I am watching quite a few people in pain around me right now: Dealing with deaths, or divorces or illnesses or poor choices by those around them or …. just plain and simple pain.

What I want to say friends is: LEAN IN! Lean fully into the pain. I don’t believe that ignoring it, drinking it away, binge watching netflix or not fully acknowledging pain helps us as human beings in any way. Denial and distraction don’t really help us move through the pain. These two D’s help us get stuck!

Right now, we are personally having to lean into some pain, some uncomfortableness and a lot of uncertainty. I know that leaning into these feelings will help us move towards pleasure and not make any rash decision based on pain.

Not one single decision based on the pain we have experienced have been good ones.

Lean into the pain, then seek the pleasure and run towards it.

Sit against that wall in the darkness and feel that pain going through your body and then know the sunshine of pleasure will be just around the corner.

I have experienced it.

I know it.

I choose it!

Lean into the pain.

Feel it.

Soak in it.

Feel.

Deal.

Heal.

Then you will be able to truly make a decision based out of pleasure and not pain with the added bonus that you won’t make any rash or “bad” decision based on that pain alone, like we have done in the past!

Now, go have an epic Thursday and love what you do!

xoxo Joanna

Education, March 16, 2020, mindset, positivity, Wordsmith, writing

Be Living Through March 16th, 2020 (3 year “anniversary”)

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What does today bring up for you?

What do you feel when you think of and sit with what happened on March 16th, 2020?

I will forever be grateful for those that walked through March 16th, 2020 and beyond alongside our family:

with kindness

containing no humiliation, damnation nor discrimination.

with an open heart and open mind to those around them

containing no judgement, harsh words or anger.

It wasn’t easy, I know.

My counsellor explained to me that during this initial period starting from the shock of March 16th, 2020 (we were suppose to be in Vancouver at a gymnastics competition), people couldn’t hide anymore. The levels of appreciation for life became stronger or the levels of anger in life also became stronger. There was rarely a middle ground.

To those who study and “know” science and walked uncomfortably through the ENTIRE scientific method while living through what was happening to us as a country, a culture, a world, I am eternally grateful.

(Plus they didn’t simply jump to the “conclusion” step of the scientific method as that is always the most comfortable place to be. I truly take my hat off to you!)

I will always be grateful for those people who know that personal choice, personal story and personal wellness were always an alternative in this world.

I have no opinion, even after three years of looking at the research being obtained from around the world, on what anyone else should have done with their lives on and since March 16th, 2023, but I am sure very, very, very grateful for our own family’s choices.

Living up at Apex Ski Resort until 2021.

Continuing with home learning.

Spending time in nature.

Keeping up with our community of diverse-minded people with Zooms, phone calls and in person visits when we simply wanted to hunker down and hide.

Sharing my love of home learning with people who were pushed it into and even sharing some tips on how to teach over Zoom.

Hugs whenever we could get them.

Not allowing those living in fear and judgement and “conclusion-making” to bump us out of experiencing the greatest scientific experiment of our time. Three years later, we don’t have conclusions, especially in British Columbia and Canada, with what started on March 16th, 2020.

Happy Thursday amazing folks and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

P.S. I have never shared my personal “health status” and I won’t, which has caused many people discomfort. I am not a doctor, virologist, nurse or even remotely involved with the health care system. I will not be sharing my status as I believe, as an Educator, everyone needs to dig in and do their own research, especially right now. The beginning of all knowledge are questions. It is a fascinating time folks and it’s okay if we have been wrong during these last few years of working through this “Science”. I know that I have!

blogger, Family, Goals, mom of boys, musings, radical sabbatical, Wordsmith

Be Moving Back to Vernon

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These last few months, I have been thinking that our family needs to move back to Vernon…. almost ten years here in K-City and, well, I am not sure what to say about it. In the last three months, I have ran into four friends from Vernon at Costco, the ski hill, for walks and I have realized the deepness of these friendships I really miss.

I miss those friends who:

~ knew me before I was a mom

~ knew my own mom

~ I spent time working with and on vacation with

~ walked through years of change involving birth and death

~ did Music classes with me when the boys were in preschool. (Such a sweet season)

Ten years ago we made the decision to move here as Steve was commuting to K-City, 45 minutes away from our house in Vernon, and he was seeing very little of us due to long hours and evening meetings. One day, yup one day, after we moved to K-city my mom was diagnosed with cancer. Five months later she had died.

As I sit down and have a serious conversation with the family about moving back to Vernon, the boys are all a “hard no”. They were 2, 4 and 6 when we moved to K-City and this is really home for them. They have activities they love, a neighbourhood that loves on them and freedom to move around the city with confidence.

And now I remember a story from a wise uncle. Uncle John owned a fabulous apartment near Commercial Drive in Vancouver. He decided that he wanted to live a bit more freely and travel more than he already did. He sold the Commercial Drive apartment and moved into a great rental apartment on Chestnut Street beside the Burrard Street bridge and one block from the beach. His views were incredible and the accessibility to Vancouver was amazing. If I lived in Vancouver, this is the area I would want to live.

Uncle John loved living in this apartment building and weathered the loss of his parents and his sister. His entire family of origin died in a these short few years. Then Uncle John heard that his old apartment was for sale again, after being fully renovated. He jumped at the chance “to go back”. He rebought his old apartment, moved in and realized he had made a terrible mistake. He had bought the apartment “to go back” to a time where his parents and sister were alive. He wanted to truly turn back time. After a few short months, he resold his apartment on Commercial Drive for a second time and again moved back into his amazing rental apartment overlooking the Pacific Ocean. He was really happy and realized that you never can go back.

…and now as I ponder our family moving back to Vernon, his story has become my own. Why do I want “to go back” to Vernon? It is mostly because I want “to go back” to a time when my mom was alive and we had a wonderful circle of support around us. These have been lonely few years that have developed a deep well of resiliency and perseverance on my part raising three young men without that close support and encouragement as a mom. Even today when I receive a compliment on my role as a mother, I am always surprised because it is so rare. It often brings me to tears.

So we won’t be moving back to Vernon. The show must go on in K-City for this mom of three boys now ages, almost 16, 13 and 11. BUT, you never know where we will end up once the boys are graduated and finding their own paths in life.

Have a wonderful Wednesday and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

author, blogger, mindset, Wordsmith

Be Honest

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Honest

Latin word meaning honour.

Sincere.

Straightforward.

Above board.

Free of deceit.

Not concealing truth.

Open.

Honest.

This is the life that I am creating. I am choosing to surround myself with honest people. This quality is paramount. A foundation for my family, my crew of blue.

‘Cause here’s what I know from my place of learning; I haven’t always had honesty around me. I have lived my whole life until the last few years in the great unknown of where I stand with certain people and how to be in relationship with them.

It was confusing growing up.

It was tormenting as a twenty year old.

It was discouraging as a thirty year old.

It is no longer okay as a forty year old.

Until a few years ago, I haven’t had a core group of people who would tell me honestly about their experience of life and be straightforward with their words. Words and actions didn’t match up. I have always always been blessed with a smattering of honest and authentic people dotted here and there throughout my life, but never a solid, unwavering core people holding the value of honesty.

My experience with my old core group was:

People walking out of my life with no explanation.

People not explaining anything when genuinely asked something.

People saying things that are dishonest when you know the truth.

People hiding big things, in the proverbial closet.

Close people.

People that used to have a place of honour in my life.

People that had shaped and molded the old me.

People so dishonest that it became bottled up like a rocket getting ready to explode into space.

This rocket would explode through passive aggressive behaviour such as not responding, pretending everything is okay, and addictive behaviours. This was tricky for me as I didn’t understand that this type of behaviour was a form of aggression towards me and my family.

And the worst behaviour that I found on this dishonesty train was people giving ambiguous, tv commercial words to sell their position, putting on a smiling face to pretend that all was well.

Ouch!

Rejection at its finest.

A place that stings and burns.

Tender deep spots.

And this created an opening for honest people to come into your life.

Boom shakalaka.

The gift of grief and letting go at its finest.

A huge hole existed where honesty could step in, actually jump right in.

And now honesty is on overdrive and I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

Every day people are showing up in my life with with authenticity and messages like these (my words are in blue):

⭐️ Message 1 ⭐️

⭐️ Message 2 ⭐️

People showing up exactly as they are.

Exactly where they are.

Nothing to hide.

Nothings to be ashamed of.

It’s a beautiful thing, honesty.

It’s free.

Honest.

Honouring.

Sincere.

Straightforward.

Above board.

Free of deceit.

Not concealing truth.

Open.

Honest.

Have an epic Sunday and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

author, health & fitness, musings, Wordsmith

Be Radically Healing your Roots

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As I wander through this season and through my days I see and feel roots everywhere.

I look at a tree, I can imagine its strong, gnarly roots spreading underneath the ground beneath me.

I pull out a sunflower plant, I can see its tangled, frail roots flowing freely from the bottom stem.

I find out about anger, shame, guilt, deep depression and can see the loneliness, brokenness and shattered roots within.

I know these roots.

They were my roots.

I was never enough.

I could never do enough.

(Anyone see the reason for the title of this blog?) 

I never felt enough.

Oh man, was I angry.

I was missing whole days in darkness.

I was surrounded by love, yet feeling so alone.

What did I do my friends?

How could one possibly change roots?

Deep down, buried, from your DNA and how you were created: Roots!

How are those possible to change?

Something happened FOR me.

Yup, not TO me.

FIRST, I took 100% responsibility for what was happening around me, not because I was responsible for everything, but because I was responsible to acknowledge and choose how I was going to respond.

I realized I am a powerful person who has the power to choose my actions, who I surround myself with and how I choose to react to what’s happening to me.

Simple, yet means you need to be awake.

NEXT, I started looking at the negative emotions that constantly swirled inside of me.  Those emotions that have just become a habit.  A superhighway in my brain that would only take one word or even one “tone of voice” to send me speeding down into a three car mental pileup down the other end.  I saw that the negative emotions were happening in only certain situations and with certain people.  Most of my negative emotions were linked to my expectations I was placing on the people closest to me and my inability to simply feel good about anything I was doing.

Anger.

Shame.

Guilt.

Depression.

Yup, I was rocking them all, down Highway 97.  Up and down, all day long.  Even when I didn’t want to take the road trip.  Suddenly, I would spiral down into the pileup.

NEXT, after I acknowledge where I was at, took a close look at the metaphorical branches, leaves and fruit that I had created in my life, I looked down into my roots.

What was brewing below these loud and proud negative emotions?

What did I really need to look at within myself?

What had I taken from my family of origin that no longer served me?

And glory to God alone, it became clear.

I was led to the Gottman Institute and this photo.  anger

When I was feeling angry, I was actually feeling something deep in my roots, which for me was actually shame.

I was feeling cornered.

Pressured.

Almost like I was being thrown off a boat.

Alone.

Helpless and scared.

Alone.

Misunderstood.

Trapped and not knowing what to do.

Alone.

My negative emotions that were speedy down that superhighway were speeding down a track that had nothing to do with where I want to go.

They were old roots.

Old stuff.

LASTLY, all I simply did to stop these mental car crashes was by creating new stuff.

I created a vision for the road that I wanted to go along.

I allowed myself to see and feel the negative emotions, but I didn’t stop there.

I looked at the roots, shook them out and started creating new habits, new patterns to grow some stronger, more positive and healthy roots.  I started hanging out more with people doing the same thing, or slightly ahead of me on their root growing. I held myself to these new habits and kept a standard for myself.

These negative roots were going to whither and die.

I had made a decision to upgrade my root system.

New habits.

New patterns.

Growing with others.

New standards.

Healthy roots.

Healthier Joanna.

Have an epic Thursday and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna

friendship, fun, radical sabbatical, words, Wordsmith, writing

Be a Great Pyrenees (Post about Friendships)

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As a dog, I would previously have been seen as a fluffy, golden retriever.

I love human beings and can talk to anyone, anywhere. I have made friends after a 4 hour plane trip and even made a lifelong friend in a checkout line in Nashville. She complimented me on my shoes. We stayed in contact and then I ended up finding her the same pair of shoes and sent them to her.

My boys often ask me to stop “chitty chatting”!

I might be weird as I will talk to anyone, but I won’t be someone’s friend just because our kids do the same activities , our kids are the same age, we teach in the same profession or we live on the same street.

I love every ONE, but my friends are people who are authentic, straightforward, family-oriented and passionate.

These last three years as I grew through deep loneliness and even discrimination as I wouldn’t share or talk about the greatest science experiment our generation has gone through. My golden retriever spirit died. I have happily morphed into the ever-watching guardian dog, the Great Pyrenees.

I still see you, but I am not going to chase you to hangout with you.

Watching.

Looking for what will happen next, but not engaging.

Watching.

Waiting to see who will “see” me back.

Watching.

I have gotten more mellow, more calm and more still.

Moving from an every chasing Golden Retriever to a watchful Great Pyrenees shifts things up in the friendship realm and many of my friendships fell away in the last three years.

I guess when you are doing a lot of chasing, you can think you have lots of friends, but it is truly the friends that will stand with you in the calm and the storms as a Great Pyrenees that are here to stay.

Thank you to my salt of the earth friends from the past and those to come in the future. I love you and I send you a big virtual lick!

Have an epic Friday folks and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna