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#41 – When you avoid something by doing what you were previously avoiding!

Hey there you are listening to the in kinship podcast. A podcast for makers, makers, who’ve crave a joy filled, vibrant live life on their own terms. And I am your host, Tina Vandenberg. Thanks for being here. Today’s solo podcast. I am exploring the idea. And I’m guessing you have had this experience in your life before. 

Okay. 

You know, when you have something that you’re should be doing, sort of nagging you. It’s that way, all that fun maybe, or maybe you don’t know where to begin, so you just don’t get started. And so you avoid it and you avoid it and it like sits in your little naggy. Things I should have done before. Uh, spot inside your body. Causing you. Mild pain, not so much that you can move on to like eating Oreo cookies or something like that. But like, you know, it’s there and it’s sort of like dragging you down. A little bit. 

Well, you know, we’re strong will persevere through the. The avoidance through the procrastination and then all of a sudden. You go. And you know, something else you needed to do. And you’re like, you know what? I need to do that thing I’ve been avoiding doing, I need to do it right now. And all of a sudden you do this thing that you’ve been avoiding for. 

Gosh knows how long. 

Instead of doing the thing that you now need to do. The new thing that you’re avoiding. Do you do that as well? So earlier this week, I went to the grocery store. Anyway at Hungary, which. She’s never a great option, right? Like we all know better than to do that, but I went hungry. And I. Purchased so many things. I had done some grocery. Or some meal planning beforehand. 

I had decided I was going to make all of these rather in tons of meals. And I internally, I was like, Tina, what are you doing? Like, you don’t have the time for that. You have some online classes or teaching at night, you have some things going on and you’ve got your little boy, like, whew, let’s just simmer down a little bit on some of this. 

But instead I made a plan for all these different meals because it was just the right thing to do. Right. And I made a grocery list and I get there. I get all of the fresh food for these. Into intensive, intricate meals. And then I also decide, you know, what I’ve been wanting to pressure can some meals. 

So I’m going to pressure. Can. Uh, some salsa Verde that I’m going to do from scratch. And. 

Put that with some pork. Because that’s going to save me time later. I’m going to do that. I’m going to do a Turkey meal. All these different things I bought this new cookbook actually is called. Um, Meals and jars or something like that. I can’t remember the name of it, but I’ll put it in the show notes. And pressure canning meals and jars. 

I have been craving. Having that in my pantry, I haven’t thinking it would be really nice for those busy days. To be able to just open up a meal that I cooked myself from scratch and serve it for my son at night. And not have it be a great big thing. Like I find so often, like so many of us in this world, Struggling to get all of the things that I needed to get done. 

And I feel like I’m not spending as much quality time or as much present time as I want to with my little boy. Especially since I share him with his dad a second and a half the time. So I thought this is a great idea. I’m going to do all of these things. So I buy all the ingredients for that. I mean like nine pounds of pork and. Four pounds of Turkey, just all of this stuff, right? 

In my little shopping cart, you know what I’m talking about? I had run those little bit of shopping cards, which I absolutely adore. Is overloaded. And so I go and I go to the checkout. And it’s way more than once it’s put into a bag can go back into that car. So I have to go get another cart. And how all of this out to my car. 

And you know, that I work from home as I set my own hours. 

So all of this is right, right after I dropped my little boy off at school. Like, this is really, this is like taking two hours of my time. Two hours at normally I would have started working by now. And so I’m already feeling this kind of pinch of like, you have a lot of things on the agenda that you wanted to get accomplished this week. And now you’ve all these groceries to take care of. 

Right? Like this is my internal dialogue. As I drive home. So then I get home. And I look in the pantry and I look in the fridge and I live in this little tiny house. I actually have like a little apartment size fridge. A little bitty freezer. And I’m like, This is not all going to fame here. I have to do something with this. So I proceed to pull every single thing out of my pantry. Clean it all up. Get rid of everything. 

That’s outdated. Get rid of everything and donate the things that are not outdated, but that I no longer eating cause I’ve changed my diet. Um, all of these things I get sorted out. Then I move on to the fridge and I pull everything out of the fridge. I wash it all down. I get all the gunk out of underneath the crisper drawer. 

I, you know, All the catch up. They got spells somehow all the things that happened in the fridge. I don’t really understand. It’s all cleaned out. And then I clean up the freezer cause I’m like, well, I have a little bit of freezer space. I need to put this and this in there because I’m not going to actually get to that till the weekend. 

So like all of us, right. It takes me almost all day until I had to pick up my little bar. And then I get all the groceries that. I just bought, what am I. And yes, I had a giant sense of satisfaction. I had this giant sense of who look what I have accomplished today. Right. And a sense of soothing and a sense of ease. While at the same time, having this mass of like, Sort of panic in the back of my body that says, yeah, but look what you didn’t get done today. 

Like, I didn’t get any work done. To move my business along or for the company that I worked, for which to be fair. There’s I’m not under a deadline. Like all of that can be done anytime, but like I had planned to do it this day. I hadn’t done any of the things that I was scheduled to do that I was planning to do. Instead I did this project. And. Well, that was on Tuesday. This is now Friday, then I’m recording this podcast. So that entire time I had sort of this guilt setting in the back of my body of like, look at that waste a day that you had on Tuesday. And, you know, to be fair when we look at it, it wasn’t exactly wasted, like cleaning out the pantry feels really good. And making space for it feels really good. 

But then Wednesday night. I had a can, one of the meals. And that took until 11 o’clock at night. Cause it doesn’t begin, you know, like. Many of you who are canners, you know, it takes hours. Ours to can something. And the salsa Verde pork that I was planning to cook, which I’d done. Was intensive. I had a roast, all the Toma, Tia. I had to make the salsa. I had a brown all of the park, but first I had to cut it all off the bone because it was on big rows. And I had to process it. And then I had to take and process it through the canner and it was like, Um, The whole time, I’m thinking what. In the hell am I doing like. Not only do I have a lot of work to accomplish. But it’s also. Nearly Thanksgiving. 

I have things I want to make for Thanksgiving dinner. And. 

My Christmas gift list has gotten huge and out of control early need to color back to be like, Whew. You need to bring this back down. Right. And part of it is. I know that you can probably relate to this too. This is totally a side note here, but when I make something for someone it’s such an act of love, That buying something for them. Doesn’t have the same depth for me, unless I know for certain it’s something they want very, very badly. 

Right. Then, if I’m buying them something that I just think might be kind of cool and that they might kind of like. The satisfaction that I get as the gift giver out of that is so much. Uh, less vibrant than I get when I make something for them. Even if they both are sort of simple things, right. It’s just that there’s so much care and love that goes into something that’s handmade. That it feels really good to make stuff for the people that I love. 

Ambient. I don’t really have a lot of time. To do all of that. Right. Like the gift making should have started back in July, to be honest. Cause this gotten quite large, the list has. And so. 

I’m not entirely certain at this point. Why on earth? I would choose. To add on a whole pantry clean. 

Intensive meals just to eat during the week and two different canyon projects for this week. And it’s like, and not to mention, um, the amount of in dating. As a hunter and he got a deer. And so we’ll be processing that deer on Sunday as well. So I’m like, 

What is that? And there’s a part of me that when I do this to myself, I do get this sort of giddy. Laughter. That’s like, oh, Tina Marie. What are you doing? You know, better than this, I admire you like this, right? And there’s another part of me that when I look at it and I start to think about it, I think. 

All right. So obviously I was feeling a sense of being out of control. And taking the time. It’s clean the pantry and to clean out the fridge and to get everything really organized, felt like a very soothing act for me. One, I got to finish and start something completely, and I have a lot of projects. In general in my life that are up in the air that are moving around. That I don’t know how they’re going to turn out. 

I know that they’re going to be beautiful. Well, I don’t know what kind of response is going to be to it. Like there’s a lot, that’s unknown in my life and in my business because that’s the nature of it. Right. 

So I that’s probably where that was coming from. Is that. If you look at the newsletter that I just sent out recently, and this is a November, 2024. I put out a lot of information about the programs I’m doing in the coming year, which feels great to have some really clear details on what it is I want to provide. But I also am putting a lot of energy out there. 

And I think that cleaning the pantry gave me this sense of security. Or maybe more of a sense of. Control. And order. And having something finished, right. Because I have so many things that are out there that are unfinished and it won’t be, um, I won’t really know how they’re going to turn out until months from now. 

So there’s that. 

And then I started to think more about it and I thought, all right, so why am I choosing on these kidney projects? Like why right now, like none of that is timely as far as. I bought the ingredients from the grocery store. They’re going to be there in January, in February when I arguably might have more time for such things. Y right now, what I choose to do a canyon project or three. 

And I thought, all right, it’s probably the security of it, right? 

Like I always feel really secure and sort of rich in a way. When I have, um, when I first get wood delivered as an example, I don’t generally cut down my own. I get it delivered and I split it myself. Um, And while I no longer Rick will rely a hundred percent on what he, I do still really love having a wood fire. And in the woodstove and it’s something that I find very cozy and comforting and like a very secure kind of thing. Which is kind of crazy cause um, I know some people find. 

Wood stoves to be scary because of the fire factor. And I, in my life, I’ve been in three. Chimney fires. And the homes that I lived in as a child, there was three different fires. And so it’s intriguing to me that that did not scare me about more. I still find a lot of security and safety around a wood-fire. I think it’s because if everything fell apart, I know that I could find wood. 

I could cut it down. I have an ax. I could do what I needed to do and I could. Take care of the basics. On some level for my family. So I think it hits on that security level for me. So canning food does the same thing for me. It gives me that same feeling of richness and security that comes from having a full. Uh, A full woodshed. I don’t have a woodshed yet, but you know what I mean? That same kind of concept. So if I think about it, if I really am gracious with myself, instead of being like, are you an idiot? I think about all right. What was I trying to achieve by this and not consciously, this is all very subconscious. 

Like I did not conscious of going into that grocery store. And plan. To do. Much of that. I say much of that because I did know what ingredients I needed. So it actually, it didn’t begin at the grocery store. It began when I did the meal planning, it began when I was making the grocery list. That’s when I started. The wheels started to turn and I started to decide I was going to do all of these projects right now. But it wasn’t conscious and I didn’t consciously like step back long enough to be like, all right. 

But do you really have the time right this minute or the energy? Right. I just went for it. And. I think those times in our life are just powerful. Messages. To us that something’s out of balance because we’re trying to right. That balance. Right. We’re trying to Sue with ourselves in that moment. So for me, In this epic Tuesday. I think they’re like three elements to it. 

One is. I was feeling out of control. And like I had a lot going out without any knowing of what was going to happen with it. 

I felt probably insecure in that because it is my livelihood. And so there is that essence of like, I want this to work out and I want to be able to serve people. And I know that it’s going to be a beautiful product, but. Am I in front of the right people. Are they going to want to join me in this adventure? So there’s uncertainty in there. And then, so then that kind of brings in that insecurity aspect as well. 

Right? And so obviously for me, I chose. 

Cleaning and organizing. And canning food and preparing really delicious meals for my family. I intensive meals. Um, As a ways to bring security. And order. And control into my life. And. 

I believe that we are always trying to get our needs met for a very long time. I studied nonviolent communication. You’re unfamiliar with that. It’s just a beautiful practice. Um, And one of the premises of nonviolent communication is that every human has the same basic needs, and we’re all attempting to get them at some in more costly ways than others. And while this wasn’t like horribly costly, there can be much more costly ways of doing things. This is somewhat costly, right? 

Like, honestly, The beauty of life as I continually get to readjust. And you know, if you’ve listening for any length of time, You know that I’m constantly. In valence and feeling amazing. And then to. I tip out of balance. And I rewrite myself like that as a constant. Rhythm of life. And I don’t think that’s just unique to me. 

I think that’s. I believe that’s how we all behave. Actually. That’s how we all interact with the world is that where we’re moving along and we’re going to balance and everything feels really. At flow and beautiful. And then something tips out of balance. And we get triggers that, Hey, something’s not quite right. 

And we rewrite it and bring it back into a center space. And I think we do that over and over and over again in life. I think that, um, there’s a beauty to that actually. I also for a long time in my thirties, I was a human resources manager at a natural food. Co-op. I had like 60 employees or something. 

And while I was there. My boss said something to me that I have never forgotten. And he was talking about. You know, those human interaction that we have. So when you’re an employee you’re working for somebody else and you are exchanging your time. And energy and expertise for cash. Or benefits, whatever they might be. 

So there’s an exchange. There’s always an exchange. And he was mentioning that F and employee does not feel like they are being fairly compensated and that doesn’t necessarily have to mean they’re not making as much money as they feel like they should. Can mean that they’re working more hours and I think is fair. 

It could mean that, um, they don’t get as much respect from somebody that they feel like they should be getting respect from. Could even be something outside of the company. Right. But if somebody has a feeling that they are not. Receiving a fair compensation for what they’re giving. They’ll sort of write it themselves. They fail. Hm. Be less productive at work. 

Take more breaks. Maybe they’ll pad their hours a little bit, like, you know, there’s some question about where ethics come into this, but ultimately we, as humans are self writing. Creatures. And so we will try to bring things into a balance that feels like it’s safe for us. And sometimes that’s more costly, not even just say it, but it feels like. It’s fair, I guess. So sometimes that can be more costly than others. 

But the reason that he brought that out to me was because as a human resources manager, Um, one of my goals was to have that communication between. Um, someone’s boss and themselves, and try to bring that relationship into balance because. That would bring so much more satisfaction. To both the employee and the employer, and it would allow everyone to shine. Right. 

Cause when we feel like we are valued, We shine. So that’s my little side note, but I found that statement to be so profound. And I think about it a lot. I think about it in my own life, in the ways that I will attempt to write. My ship. When it feels like it’s off. Like. Seeking security and control. And order. Bye. Bringing it into my pantry. And then to my canning pot. Right. And so then I get this opportunity when to like, have some grace with myself and maybe. A little smile and a little teeny Murray. 

What are you doing? And then maybe I have a chance to see. All right, well, what ways then? Can I bring more security? More. Order. And a little more control into my life that is not as costly as taking the whole day. It’s cleaned the pantry. And add a bunch of projects onto my list that I don’t really have the time. Energy for right this minute. I love that. 

I love that when we listen to what’s happening in our experience. We get the opportunity to hear what’s behind it. In fact, this was really intriguing as I started to write my newsletter today. And I didn’t even, I hadn’t really even sat down with this shit and thought about why I had out of this. I was still in that phase of like, Where are you thinking it kind of phase, right? 

This. It’s like background of like, why did I add this stress to my life? And then I started to write my newsletter and it became evident to me. And like, I know exactly why I did this. And so I guess I’m advocating. And reminding myself. For having those deep mindful practices that let you go into all right. 

Why. Why have I done this thing? In this way. And what was I trying to achieve by that? And then I try to do that with my son too. Right. Like, all right. So my son has been really angsty. I can’t think of a better word for it, but he’s, he’s nine and he’s dust. Um, His emotions feel more adult than they have in a lot, like well ever really they feel more mature, I guess. And as such, they’re a little more scratchy if you know, They just feel more, um, Complex, I guess, than they used to. For a mom from the outside, looking in. And so. 

Often his responses to me this week have been really short. Or frustrated, and that immediately triggers me. And I don’t always respond the way I want it to when I’m in the middle of that. And so I stop. And I’m trying to actually say I’m trying to stop and think about and consider RA. 

Well, why is my sweet, loving little human. Um, Reacting this way to me over a simple question or this or that. Right? And I try to ask him that. And I know he doesn’t have all of the words just yet to respond to it, but sometimes he does. And so I’m attempting to be more present and just hear what he has to say, but also have the grace to understand that. We. 

Do things that don’t always make sense because they’re not always a direct correlation, right? 

Like, Deciding to can a couple of meals. Which makes it sound small. It’s not small. This is a giant project. It’s not that big, but you know, But deciding to can. A couple of meals and clean out the whole pantry. Um, Doesn’t seem like it’s related to feeling a bit of stress over putting things out into the world without knowing what was going to happen. Right. 

That isn’t a direct correlation until I go deep inside of it. And I figure out, oh, that’s what’s going on in my life right now. There are probably some other aspects to that too. And I find it really intriguing to think about it. But I try to bring it into my relationship with my little boy as much as I can. You know, The days that I don’t behave, like, um, A grizzly bear. And stuff. And then even when I’m over here looking at grizzly bear, then I get that opportunity to be like, buddy. I’m sorry. 

I responded that way. That’s not how I wanted to respond. And we get an opportunity to try again. Because we get to continually. Right. The ship and we get to continually work towards things. 

So that’s what’s on my mind this week. 

I’m also really excited. About the projects I have coming out about the second season of where the is Sophia in the newsletter. You’ll see that. I’m dreaming of the projects we’re going to work on. And I have some other really fun parts of it that I’m, um, scheming on and very excited for. And. I’m planning out the guest speakers for the second edition of break, the rules of sowings. 

And if you listened to that series, we’re going to have a second season of that in January. I think it’s going to live in January from now on. So hopefully it goes on. Year after year. It was such a beautiful experience. So I’m excited for all of that. Like all these things I’m putting out into the world, lemons extremely excited for. 

I’ve been really fine tuning the details for my spring retreat and my fall retreat. I think in the spring retreat, we’re going to do some brown making or bralette my cane. Rather, and I think we’re going to do a different location, a location that has a little more intimate. All inclusive. So we’ll have a chef that comes in and cooks for us and we’ll be in a retreat lounge just for us, that kind of thing. It’s going to be kind of exciting to see how that feels and how that goes. And then the fall retreat is coming a Macedon still cause like that’s just so much fun to be on Mackinac island and to ride our bikes around the island and to do our dance movements and our morning circles. And that retreat by popular demand. From retreat people in the fast. Is going to be a, bring your own project, kind of a trait. So it’s going to be mid focused. As far as like sewing knit garments focused, not knitting. And there’ll be some small bite size lessons. Involved in it. 

And you’re going to have expert help to help you get the project exactly how you want it. I was like, well, how do you want it to fit? Exactly the kind of style and design you want it so people can bring their projects that they want to draft from scratch. They can bring other patterns that they want to work through. 

That feel really challenging. Whatever they want. It’s going to be so much fun. So that’s going to be on October. I believe the spring retreat will be in may. And so I’m excited for all of that. All that feels really amazing. And isn’t it also intriguing how we can be both excited for something and it can cause us a little bit of stress. As far as the unknown of it. And trust and putting that out into the future and that knowing like financially how that’s going to turn out or how it’s going to be received, is that the right kind of thing? 

Like all of those things. It’s just amazing how nuanced life is and how many, um, Emotions, anyone thinking very often us. And so, yeah. What are you working on? I hope it’s something amazing. And I should say too, I do have a sale going on right now and it’s very timely. So it is from right this moment, moment, Friday, November 22nd until December 3rd, 20% off of all the workshops I have. 

So you can actually get in on the width is season two, which doesn’t begin until February, but you can get it now for 20% off. So. How exciting. All right. Thank you for listening. I hope you had the most wonderful day and. 

If you have a moment. Will you share this podcast with a friend? Or, and jump on to your favorite podcast app and subscribe and leave us a review. That’s going to let other people who might find this interesting. Um, find us. So. All right. Thank you so much and have the best today.