prefer to read the conversation?

ep 45

Tina: Hey, there you are listening to the In Kinship Podcast, A podcast for makers, makers who crave a vibrant, joy filled, lit off life on their own terms. And I am your host, Tina Vandenberg. I am talking to you today after a long weekend spent with my extended family, something I was very much looking forward to.

We left our house in northern Michigan on Thursday, and when we left we still had, oh, I don’t know, a foot and a half of snow or so on the ground, but Friday and Saturday were going to be 70 degree days, you all know if you’ve been following me for any time that I adore winter.

I do. I love it. I love cross country skiing. I like to go winter camping. I like to ice skate. Although, truth be told, I’m a terrible ice skater, but I do love to go ice skating and to be fair. I didn’t learn how to ice skate until I was in my mid twenties. My brother and sister-in-law bought me ice skates for Christmas and my little nephew, who was probably, I dunno, five at the time, and was already on a hockey team in, the upper peninsula of Michigan.

And we all went skiing, skating, excuse me, over Christmas. And so I had never been on ice skates. And I told my little nephew and he and I had this really special bond and I said. Alright buddy, I need you to show me how to ice skate. And he’s like, oh yeah, aunt Tina, 

so we get there, he jumps on the ice and he takes off and I never see him again. And I’m like, hi. So I guess I’m on my own. 

And I do wanna say that later on when I finally caught up to my nephew and I said, Hey, I thought you were gonna teach me how to skate. And he’s like, um, I did it Tina, aren’t you watching? And I’m like, right, yes. I guess there is some truth to that. You did show me how to skate and I realize that maybe the ability to break.

Down, instruction. It just stops. Doesn’t come at five. So my little nephew taught me how to skate and I cannot stop my feet. Maybe this happens to you too, but I cannot stop my feet from aching like crazy. And maybe if I would just do it longer, that would change.

I’ve tried different size skates. I’ve tried using hockey skates versus figure skates. And to be fair, I don’t ever really skate more than once or twice in a season. So I don’t know that I’m ever really gonna give myself the opportunity to get past that. But whoa, do my feet hurt? But this year our neighbor flooded his backyard and made this like homemade Zamboni to clear the ice.

And we went out and we skated in his backyard a couple of times by lantern light, which was so idyllic. It was so much fun. And my feet burned like insanely, but we had a great time. So all of that to say I love winter. It’s one of my favorite seasons, but the moment we get nice, warm weather, like sunny and 70 degrees, I’m like, okay, we’re done.

Bring on spring. I’m certain you can probably relate to that, that idea of like finished. Now go away. If I lived a different life right now and hopefully I can in the future, I would travel for the whole month of March and just get outta Michigan because this like two steps forward, five steps back, one step forward, six steps back of March and off in April.

Honestly. It is not my favorite time of year. So we were excited. We had been downstate where there wasn’t any snow and it was 70 degrees and we went for hikes and we did a little fishing, and it was really fun to be without all of our winter trappings.

And we’re driving back and there’s this terrible snow storm. And so my little boy was so disappointed. He’s like, mom, we have so much snow up here still, because as we were driving, of course there’s more snow and more snow on the ground and also new snow falling. And I’m like, I know, buddy.

It’s so disappointing. And I was thinking about that, that disappointment, right? Because like. I can feel kind of downtrodden in it, and this idea of like, oh, spring is never coming. We’re going to be in the doldrums of March forever, and we’re never going to get, it’s never gonna happen. We’re never going to get nice weather.

We’re never gonna get daffodils, nothing’s ever gonna occur. We’re just gonna be stuck in this mud, ice, snow, cycle.

I totally related to my little boy’s appointment, and I was thinking about that and thinking about how. So much of our suffering in life, and I know you all know this, but so much of our suffering is fighting what is, rather than accepting what is and changing our experience with it.

So you know that one of the premises for the podcast is exploring the idea that we have more control over our experience in life than we give ourselves credit for. We can’t always control, and I would even say like probably never, like I have no control over the, the weather. Nobody’s putting me in charge of what kind of weather we have, sadly.

But I get to control how I react to it. I get to control how I experience it. Oh, this is actually a great story too. So on Sunday. We were driving from a friend’s house to go visit my dad and my little boy and I are in our car alone and I wanted to show him a place I had lived in my early twenties and we were on sort of the backside of it away that I didn’t usually come at that property when I lived there.

Plus it was like, you know, it was almost 30 years ago. So it was like, um, not the freshest memory in my mind. And so we. We are looking for it. I turn on this road and he starts to get a little panicky. ’cause like the unknown of it is, is a little frightening for him. He’s nine years old and he is like, mom, do you even know where you’re going?

And I’m like, yeah, it’s gonna be fine. And then my phone no longer has service, so I can’t access my GPS and so we’re driving and we do not find where I used to live, but we do come outta the road.

That I’m pretty sure was the road I lived on, and to my surprise, we’re in a totally different spot than I thought we were and my little boys. Really like, mom, are you sure this is okay? Are you sure we’re gonna be fine? And I’m like, babe, we’re gonna be fine. We’ve got snacks in the car, we’ve got water in the car.

We have sleeping bags because we had stayed at a friend’s house. Even if we got completely and totally lost, which we’re not going to, but even if we did, we could survive in our car for a long time. And I love the feeling that comes from knowing that I can handle and survive any kinda situation now.

Is that exactly true? Could I survive any situation? No, not exactly, but there’s a lot I could survive and 

I am the kind of person who has a go bag in her car, complete with fire starter and like, I mean like steel and flint because I love knowing that I’m capable and that I can handle the basics. It’s part of why I love sewing clothing. Honestly. It’s part of why I started to sew clothing. Oh, it’s part of it.

One of ’em was that I realized I could make clothes that fit my body and not feel less than because now I had clothes that actually fit the body I have and not trying to fit my body and to clothes that were already in existence. It just made me feel like grip, like those clothes have no right to make me feel bad about my body.

They weren’t made for me. They were made for some average that doesn’t fit really hardly anyone. And so. I love that ability, but I also love the survivalist kind of aspect to it, knowing that if I had to create, if you know, I don’t know, all the electricity went out tomorrow and we were surviving off the land and I had to sew clothing for my family and grow food for my family, I could do that.

There’s always been this like. Joy in having that skillset and this joy in knowing that I’m capable of doing those things. So I wanna instill that in my little boy as much as I can. And so he was quite panicked that we were lost, but I’m like, babe, we totally have this. Even if the worst case scenario happens and we get stranded.

Someplace where we have no idea where we are and there are no houses around and we can’t move ’cause the cars run outta gas or whatever it is. Like we still can survive this. And I like listed all the ways that we can. ’cause that gives me a lot of peace in life knowing that I have the ability to, um, keep myself alive, right?

And maybe not comfortable, but alive. And so we come out of the road. In a place I’m not expecting to come on the road, but someplace I sort of remember and there’s this tiny little gas station with one pump in the middle of nowhere and I say, we’re just gonna stop here and ask for directions. Of course.

Like I am 47 about to be. So asking for directions at the gas station is how I grew up, right? Like this was what you did. I did not grow up with a cell phone or GPS or any of those things. Like we had a map, which. To be fair, I had a map in my car, but it was buried underneath all of our stuff. And so in worst case scenario, I could have unearthed it, but there’s a gas station right here, I can just stop.

We can get a coffee, we can get a little sweet, fun drink for my son and we can make this even more fun as an adventure. So we stopped there and he’s panicking. He is like, you can’t just go in there and ask questions. I’m like, yes you can, babe. And I just think what an interesting world we live in now and how we no longer, and maybe you are different than this, but at least in my world, we no longer just stop over at somebody’s house to visit to say hi. Like definitely that was a thing when I was a kid or even a young adult. People just stop by now you’re calling, you’re verifying their home.

You’re making sure that they’re going to be around, that it’s a convenient time to stop. Like all of these things are part of our every day now. And I’m not saying that’s bad, but it also, I realize and instills this idea in my son that like can’t just stop somewhere and talk to people. And it’s like, we really can.

It’s okay. And so I said when I was a kid or a teen, you know, early twenties. When my car broke down, ’cause I always had some junker car that I could just barely afford. I knocked on lots of doors and we’re like, could I use your phone to call someone to come and help me out? Like that happened several times in my life, and I think those experiences make us so much stronger and more resilient for having happened.

 So we’re at the gas station. We ask directions. They’re of course very happy to help us out, give us landmarks of where to turn and how to get to where, and now I know where I’ll be and we get coffee, we get a drink, and we leave. And my little boy just feels this huge sense of relief and he’s like, mom, this is such an adventure.

And I’m like, it is such an adventure. Honestly, we could be all stressed out when we could be mad or upset that we’re off track or we’re not in the right place, or we don’t know exactly where we are, but we’re gonna be lost either way. We might as well have fun with it.

Especially since the consequences are very slim, right? There’s like hardly any at all. And so we cranked up the music and found our landmarks and he was like super excited to spot them as we’re driving like the copper roof on the farmhouse where we turn right and all of these things. And so we get to my dad’s house and of course we’ve got great stories to tell and he’s, we’re pumped.

And I’m like, you know what we’re gonna do one day buddy. We are going to take and. Shut off the phone and travel someplace we don’t know and get lost and get out the map and figure out how to get back to where we know we, we want to be able, make sure we have got lots of good snacks and drinks and survival things if somehow we needed it.

Which, you know, that chances of that are very slim. I love that we just had a really fun time and he and I were able to have this little adventure because like life is full of adventures, right? If you let them be adventures, if you let yourself be curious whether that’s making something or that’s getting lost on a little bit of road trip or a big road trip or whatever that might be, if we allow ourselves to not be in control and not, I guess, fight the situation we’re in, but rather decide to have control over our experience of it, right? And decide that we are going to have a good experience rather than a negative experience. Because we get to choose that. We get to choose how we respond to something. We might not get to choose how we immediately respond to something.

There might be this sort of knee jerk reaction that we have to work through for a moment, but we have the ability to shift that for ourselves both permanently and also in that moment. To change it. So we’re driving back home and the rows are terrible. They’re just absolutely terrible.

And we’re both a little downtrodden about that, my little boy, because he’s ready to run around in shoes and not snow pants and boots and coats and hats and all the things and it was, it was like, all right, game on spring’s here, we’re ready.

And then we get back home and we have like. Five inches of brand new fresh snow so I’m a fully, as you can tell, settled into the idea of embracing March. March is a hard one for me. Because I wanna be outside because I want something different than what is.

And that doesn’t mean I can’t be outside, right? Like I can, I can bundle up and be out there. I can explore it in different ways. I can find new ways to enjoy March. So if you have good ways of enjoying March, let me know. But I. I was thinking a lot about our expectations and then that got me thinking about manifesting.

’cause you probably know that I love to dream about my life and imagine what I want and bring more joy into my life. One of the whole premises of the podcast is that we have control over our experience. And part of that for me is bringing in and being sure that we are experiencing joy when we can, because life is gonna give you whatever kind of circumstances it’s gonna give you. And we have little to no control over that. Like we don’t have control over whether we have lost somebody, or um, whether it’s raining for seven days in a row. Like we don’t have the ability to control those things.

We have the ability to control our experience one of the ways that I work to try and bring more joy, like as a foundation, as a base into my life, is to have these things that I do on a regular basis. So my morning routine generally includes a meditation or maybe an Oracle card pull or journaling.

It typically involves moving a little bit, so whether that’s a little dance or going for a walk, so if I only have just five or 10 minutes, then I’m just gonna meditate or I’m going to do a card pull and a bit of journaling.

If I have an hour, which is my perfect scenario, then I’m going to do all of those things. I’m going to meditate for 20 minutes or so. I’m gonna go for a 40 minute walk, and then I’m gonna come and make my coffee and get ready for the day and just feel really grounded and settled. So that’s probably the biggest one for me, but also knowing that I need time with my friends to just exist as Tina, the adult, and not the mom and in a non-professional setting, and just to be with my friends.

And I need that to be, in a perfect world, be once a week, but even if it’s every two weeks, that really sustains me. So if I don’t have something on the books, then I’m like, all right, I need to plan something with a friend for this week or next, depending on when I have room. And then I also need to make sure that I am doing something creative for myself, and I also make sure that I’m reading sometimes at night doing some hand work. I’ve picked up knitting again, which feels really amazing. So knitting, right now I’m working on a cape like ly kind of thing. Out of this gorgeous, really dark brown, I think it’s alpaca, maybe an alpaca wool blend, but it has tiny golden specs in it.

And typically I don’t like sort of a heathered look and it’s not quite heathered, but I don’t typically like that. I like, I like my salads solid or very monochromatic. So sometimes I’ll pick up something that’s been dyed by hand, but they’re in the same color family, but the values are different.

So you’ve got that monochromatic lick and that’s actually my favorite way to wear color. Um, but this one has a little golden flex in it and I actually really like it. So I’m excited to see what will happen. ’cause you know, if you’ve been following me again for any length of time, you know that I really advocate for getting to know yourself and sticking with what you love.

But throwing in that magical, those outliers every once in a while is a great way to see if your tastes have changed and see if you’re shifting into something different. ’cause we constantly do that, right, as humans. And, um, and you never know what you might find. I mean, you may go out of your comfort zone and find something, you’re like, yeah, I actually, I’m never going to wear this.

And now you have more information about what it is that you really love to wear, and you can fine tune what you’re actually making for yourself. Or maybe you find that you are shifting and you really love something different. So we’ll see what happens after I spend, you know, 7,000 hours knitting this cow if I actually love wearing it.

’cause it is a little bit of a departure. But that’s exciting. So I was thinking about manifesting back to manifesting. Originally when I would do manifestation kinda stuff, I would paint a picture that was really detailed and it was like, all right, I’m gonna be wearing this thing in a year and I’m gonna have this event and this is gonna be happening and that’s gonna be happening and my business is gonna look like this and this is how I want it to be.

And I’m like putting that out into the universe and I’m gonna work towards that vision. And that’s a really beautiful way to go about it. But I think it’s also limiting, right? Because ultimately I just wanna feel a certain way, and that’s how I go about deciding what I’m gonna sew next or make next is how does it gonna make me feel?

Right? Like, do I feel excited by the idea of this? Do I wanna feel when it comes to clothing, do I wanna feel cozy and comfortable? So I might work on the cozy cowal tunic that I just worked on for my course. Do I wanna feel sort of sultry and lit up by life, then I might work on the date dress or something like that, right?

Like I might pull in elements that are gonna help me feel that way. ’cause clothing has the power to either support who we want to be or sort of drag us down. And I want to show up fully, authentic 

When manifesting, I also want to really focus on how I wanna feel. So I love to do visioning. I love to do meditations to look at the next six months, the next year, the next five years. I will paint the picture.

But what my focus is, is really on how do I feel at that moment? Do I want to feel, supported and loved and connected and vibrant and alive? Then how can I feel that way right now? Right? Because, there’s a beauty in creating this dream for the future and putting that onto the universe or putting that out to God and like truly amazing things happen.

I have too many experiences in my life where something has come into my life that I realize I was sort of asking for maybe six months ago, but I had sort of forgotten it and taken a different path and I’m like, whoa, there’s that thing that I was wanting.

I believe that things are on their way to you. I believe that we can attract the kinda situations we want, but they may not come on our timeline. Right? Like March is still gonna show up and take its time leaving and I have no control over that. Um, but eventually Spring will actually be here.

And so I love the idea that I can. Imagine what my life could be like and if I, if I have the details but I let go of the process, or if I let go of what the actual steps to get there looks like, I think there’s so much more freedom that can happen. So like I have a desire, as an example to finish my house, so I have this little tiny house.

On wheels and I plan to build on my property hopefully this year and so I’ve been doing a lot of sketching, a lot of planning for what that house will look like. And I’ve really kind of gotten caught into this rut of like, this is what it’s going to be. And I do love that plan. So I don’t wanna not love that plan, but it may be outside of my budget.

So I keep thinking, all right, I need to expand my mindset. Like what else would bring me happiness? What else would bring me a beautiful, well made. A home that is full of light and plants and color and natural materials and handmade beauty, like what else could achieve that? Because that’s actually what I want.

I wanna walk in my home and I wanna feel to feel like an oasis. And I want it to feel part of the natural world. I want to see lots of plants. I want to see lots of raw wood or even finished wood, but like. And it’s sort of like rustic, raw ish state. I want stone and brick and tile and I want all of these things that feel like tactile and textural to me.

So I have this idea of what that shape could be, and I’m trying to now release my grip on that, that it has to be this particular design. I’m like, what else is possible? So I’ve been working on that. ’cause obviously when you’re gonna work on building something, you have to have a plan so that you actually build something with some sort of efficiency.

Um, but I am in that planning process and I’m trying to release my grip on how it has to look and let it unfold as it is. So when I’m manifesting, that’s my focus. My focus is in how do I wanna feel and can I let go of what the thing looks like that I’m going to achieve to get there? Can I let go of the journey of it? Can I just put out there, this is how I want to feel, and then can I draw those feelings into my life right now?

Right before I get to whatever end result I’m getting to, and I’m doing ear quotes here. So one of the things that I believe is that we attract from the energy in which we are in. So if I want a home as an example that’s full of sort of sensual beauty in nature, then. I can fill my little house right now with central beauty and nature, and it can feel like what I want that end result to feel.

I mean, granted, it’s a little small for my little boy and I, and also a little small for the county who says we have to have at a certain size. So there’s some parameters on me that I don’t have any control over. So I have to add to the house no matter what, but. I can live in that experience right now and not have to wait for it to achieve itself in a year or two years, whenever that might be.

And that reminds me of March. And it’s like, alright, so. I am excited for spring because it will feel like I can spread my wings and run around outside and have a little more lightness, little less layers, a little less heaviness. An awakening, if you will, in my soul, as it definitely is the energy of spring.

We’re in, in, in bulk right now, but we are about to be, um, coming upon the spring equinox. Um. Is this recording is happening? It’s March 18th, so that’s actually coming in right at the end of the week here. Just a few days. And so just because the weather is not cooperating, how I want it to, doesn’t mean I can’t embrace all of the things.

Doesn’t mean I can’t change up some of the decor in my house to feel more light and spring and full of let air and full of. Fresh newness doesn’t mean I can’t, shift my energy from sort of hunkering in and being cozy and by the fire and shift it into planning new projects and thinking about new things to do, and having that spring energy that like.

My ideas are growing, they’re germinating, and I’m going to unveil them. Doesn’t mean I can’t be in those energies and feel that way, whether it’s snow storming outside or not. And so I was reminded of that and I wanted to share that with you. And I wanted to also share this idea of like, have an adventure, right?

And maybe that’s what we need, because like spring feels like a new adventure. It feels like a fresh awakening. Everything’s. Growing and new, and maybe we just need a little adventure. Maybe that’s a travel, road trip someplace. Maybe that’s that little adventure where my little boy and I put. Our favorite snacks in the car and some good drinks and some emergency gear.

’cause it makes me feel good. Not ’cause we probably need it and we head somewhere we’ve never been and we spend the day getting lost and we spend the rest of the day getting unlost and maybe have dinner in a new place. Maybe that’s exactly the spring energy that we need. To embrace adventure and embrace, the fact that even though we have fresh snow, and that’s so disappointing, spring is coming.

It’s on it way. And why squander the days that we have? I mean, like truly there’s no reason to wish March away. ’cause here it is, and here we are living and here we are existing. So why not embrace. Living and feeling exactly how I want to live and feel in the moment. So those are my thoughts to you. Have an adventure.

Start something new. What ways can you bring Spring energy into your life right now? No matter what your circumstance, whether you actually have spring happening and daffodils are growing in your yard, or you are buried in snow like we are. How can you bring more of what you want into your life, how you want to feel?

So when you’re dreaming about the future, how can you feel that way right now? That’s what I, that’s what I wanna leave you with today. So. All right. Thank you for listening. It’s wonderful to have you here. I can’t wait to continue having our conversations. I’m excited for new guests that are gonna be on the show as we explore more of the ideas of how to bring joy into our lives and how we have control over our experience.

And so thank you dear once and have a wonderful day.