Meeting the Moment with Tanya Geisler

Feb 6

How are you meeting the moment? What’s your joy recipe?

In this episode, Danielle Cohen sits down with Tanya Geisler to explore what it means to meet life’s inflection points with grace and intention. Tanya, a leadership coach, speaker, and expert in the Imposter Complex, which she’s renamed Trailblazer Syndrome, opens up about her personal and professional evolution.

The two discuss Tanya’s framework for navigating hard times, her joy recipe (and why everyone needs one), and the lessons she’s learned about seeking advice while staying true to her own voice. Whether you’re looking for inspiration, tools for personal growth, or just an honest conversation about life’s complexities, this episode delivers.

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Transcript:

Visibility Medicine: Meeting The Moment with Tanya Geisler

[00:01:46] Danielle: I am sitting down today with someone who I love very much, both in terms of who you are in the world, the medicine and the magic, and the gifts that you bring to so many for so long.

[00:01:59] Danielle: but one of the many ways that you are so generous is, the letters that you write to your daughter every year for her birthday and that you share them with the world. It makes me teary just thinking about how many people get to feel what it might be like to be mothered and loved in that way, since we know so many haven't been anyway, welcome Tanya Geisler.

[00:02:24] Danielle: Here you are.

[00:02:25] Tanya: Thank you. Thank you. So deeply received. Like I just, I walked into your home and you handed me a cashmere shawl and a tea and a just in place glass of wine and a bouquet. Like, thank you. Thank you. I feel so, I'm so honored to get to be your friend. And how excited I have [00:02:46] been.

[00:02:46] Tanya: I'm telling you, weeks leading up to this, it's been a really,big time for me. And knowing that we had this conversation, I've been so excited about all that's to come.

[00:02:58] Danielle: Yeah, you have been in a really, really, really busy season. So just to kind of set the tone for our conversation, I have been thinking about the topic of evolving.

[00:03:09] Danielle: And specifically wanted to call in beloveds and colleagues who have been out here doing a thing for a long period of time, because there's a lot of evolving that happens with that, right? We've lived through seasons of collective change, collective turmoil, collective upheaval, while simultaneously going through our own Personal changes, personal turmoil at times and our ambitions and our joys and our wishes and the complexities that we hold.

[00:03:41] Danielle: And I just think it's so valuable and useful for,For folks to get to hear [00:03:46] some of those stories and some of those truths, and I'm having this meta moment because I put my glasses on and then a moment or two later, I see you putting your glasses on and I'm thinking, you know, the first time we met on zoom, we didn't have these glasses.

[00:04:00] Danielle: We

[00:04:00] Tanya: most certainly did not. We most certainly did not. Yeah, we most certainly did not. So even that right now we do, and how amazing do we look with our glasses?

[00:04:12] Danielle: We didn't know. Oh my gosh. We're so amazing.

[00:04:14] Tanya: We didn't know. We didn't know. This is what we had to look forward to because look how good we look.

[00:04:21] Danielle: But it is right. It's the passing of time and it's the ways that we shift and change. So I'm holding that and I'm interested in hearing what you want to share about that. And I'm also curious about. In this moment, what is the moment that you are meeting? We are certainly in another collective moment. and maybe we start there.

[00:04:40] Danielle: Tell me about now. what is the moment you in your business, in your [00:04:46] body. in your body of work, in the world, what's the moment you're meeting?

[00:04:49] Tanya: You give that question to a generator and you expect me to pick a lane, a Libran generator at that. You know, we're both Libran generators. I know. I know, which is why you should know better.

[00:05:06] Tanya: What is the moment that I'm meeting right now? Okay, well, let me just say that of all of the doorways that you have offered for me to walk through, all of them being more luscious and more delicious than the last, you know, I think about my body of work wants to talk about evolution. That's what it wants.

[00:05:25] Tanya: I have a framework that I talk about that is, that feels, stitched into it as evolution. So we can come back to that. The moment though, there's a lot of hard. There's a lot of hard. there's a lot of hard and I am doing my damnedest to stay as resourced [00:05:46] and as present and not hiding. and Holding as much as I possibly can.

[00:05:53] Tanya: And what's interesting about that, that doesn't feel distinct, right? We're always meeting a moment.

[00:05:58] Danielle: Yep. Yes.

[00:05:59] Tanya: I had a really interesting experience the last week. and so we're having this conversation. A week after the results of the US election, and I'm in Canada and a Canadian and a Canadian. Yes.

[00:06:14] Tanya: I'm a Canadian in Canada and I had a really interesting experience. and I don't know if this is where we want to go, but this is sure. It's all

[00:06:23] Danielle: yes.

[00:06:24] Tanya: My husband's parents are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. Wow. And we went, up to meet them. they live now three hours North of Toronto, which is where we live.

[00:06:37] Tanya: And, and we drove up my daughter and my niece. So my daughter's 20 and, my niece is, I guess she just turned. Let me do the [00:06:46] math. Let me do the math. 20.

[00:06:47] Tanya: And so we had a conversation about life and what was on their minds and what their hearts were holding and what their concerns were. And, and one of the things, and it was just the most beautiful three and a half hour drive. Okay. we don't have that opportunity with my very busy niece and I have been very busy.

[00:07:08] Tanya: My daughter is very busy. My head. We're all very busy and we just it was this beautiful moment of three and a half hours and there were lots of tears and there was a lot of disagreement and there was not a lot, but there was disagreement. That's a big one. There was hand wringing and there was despair and there was optimism and there was a resolution and we left the car, all of us making a promise to each other that we were not going to get sucked into any kind of, Canadian exceptionalism that can run rampant when there's stuff [00:07:46] happening south of the border,because we've got our own work to do.

[00:07:48] Tanya: And so the moment. And it was such a specific moment,that I will, that will change, I feel like it will have changed me that one drive up to the cottage. And then there was this interesting, so with all of that and like, and just, we just, you know, our hearts grew three sizes that day and we felt so much closer than we've ever felt.

[00:08:09] Tanya: And I can only speak for myself, but I kind of feel like I'm speaking for everybody else too. And that, we went into that. Anniversary party and my husband's family and everybody had words about what 60 years of being together meant and everybody talked about love and care and community and I will be transparent that there have there has been some fraughtness in the family system and but to have people kind of come back to center to What theoretically matters, there was more emotion in that room.

[00:08:40] Tanya: And as my son said, there's more emotion in that room than there had been in 50 years. And so it was a [00:08:46] really big, big day in lots of different ways. and I'm still, as you mentioned, it's a big time. I've been doing a ton of travel. I've been doing a ton of speaking. It's been some of the most thrilling work I've done in my entire career.

[00:08:59] Tanya: Yet that like, that's the. what are we going to do about this moment right now was how we left that car and after that party. That was what my husband said. What am I going to do with my family now, given what I saw today. And To answer your question, what do I do with this moment now, is the thought that I'm having.

[00:09:20] Tanya: What do I do with this moment now, given what I know, given what I've seen, given what has transformed newly, given what is freshly integrated, what do I do now? That's on my mind.

[00:09:32] Danielle: Mm. Mm. So good. I'm hearing this in this way. Tell me if this is correct, that really there is a sitting with the question or just bringing the question alongside [00:09:46] as you are in the moment.

[00:09:48] Danielle: And of course there isn't the moment it's moment after moment after moment. And we might certainly feel, a marking of such by certain events when they happen you. Collectively, or when they happen personally, but that right now for you, the question of how in one way or another, how am I going to meet this moment is how you're meeting the moment,

[00:10:11] Tanya: correct?

[00:10:11] Danielle: Yeah,

[00:10:12] Tanya: it's yes, the beautiful, beautifully, of course, reflected. It's life is, it feels like life is. But a series of inflection points, right? Yes. All day, every day. It's a new inflection point. It's a new inflection point. And I love being able to mark a moment and go, Oh, that's when we started to zig when we thought we were going to zig.

[00:10:36] Danielle: Mm hmm.

[00:10:36] Tanya: Mm hmm. Okay, given that now what, given that now what, and so, yeah, that's where I am.

[00:10:43] Danielle: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There were [00:10:46] a couple of other things in there that I feel like I just want to, I mean, there's so many things, right? I feel like I, I gave you here are the doors you can walk through and then you brought us into a palace and I'm like, now we can go in here, here,you mentioned the Canadian exceptionalism.

[00:11:01] Danielle: Just even in that conceptually, I think, you know, in my work and maybe you as well, I'll talk often about it's both our significance and our insignificance that actually brings us forward, right? We need both. We need to be able to feel our specialness and our mundane ness. The we're no better than anyone else and we are also incredibly amazing.

[00:11:26] Danielle: We have something truly, truly, truly essential to bring to the world. And also we're just a drop in the ocean of the waters. and this tendency with our identities. And just for orientation, I'm a Canadian who lives in the U. S. and has spent most of my life in the U. S. but that [00:11:46] wherever we sit within the, within our geography, our identities, all of the things, there can be these inroads to exceptionalism or inroads to less than ism.

[00:11:59] Danielle: What's the word for that? That's what I got there, and it's all a lie. I think anytime we're hanging our hat on any one of those, we can see it and remember that, oh, right, that's actually not the whole truth. There might be a piece of it. I might be really spectacular in this one kind of way.

[00:12:16] Danielle: Canada does have some ways in which it's exceptional. And to your point, there's loads of work to do, right? Anyway, feels worthwhile, to name that.

[00:12:28] Tanya: So my work is about talking about, well, my work is about a lot of things, but one of the inroads that people generally find me is through the lens of the imposter complex, which I'm now talking about as the trailblazer complex and many years ago, I,

[00:12:43] Tanya: Drilled the experience down to [00:12:46] 12 really specific lies line number three being you are all or nothing, which I know back then that that is, you know, one of the, most hallmark pieces of white supremacy culture, right? This binary thinking, didn't know it at the time. In word, new to experience, but yes, you know, you are all or nothing is line number three.

[00:13:05] Tanya: John Lennon famously said, part of me thinks I am a complete loser. And the other part of me thinks I'm God almighty. And I feel like so much of. there are times that both can feel true. the way I, as, again, as a lead writer to live in those in between places generally, right? Is it this or is it that?

[00:13:23] Tanya: It's both. it's both. and also there's a world that lives. between all of that. And if I were to sit at a, at a dinner party next to somebody who spoke with such competence extremities, I'd probably get up and move, after a challenge with like, really, it's all or nothing, complete loser or God almighty.

[00:13:39] Tanya: There's nothing in between. yeah. So yes, both and

[00:13:44] Danielle: both. And, and I [00:13:46] hear you talking also about. What I hear as that tension between I'm having this spectacular moment in my work. I'm having this incredible moment with my family. And then also things are really, really, really hard.

[00:14:00] Tanya: Really, really, really hard.

[00:14:02] Danielle: And again, I think it's worth underlying that because I do think so many of us Very often, even this moment, we could say a spectacular in its significance and is also just more of life as we know it. and so that is such a common tension that can create personal collapse sometimes, especially when it's read as it's something wrong.

[00:14:27] Tanya: That's right. Exactly.

[00:14:29] Danielle: Yeah. Our ability to be able to tolerate that, like. I'm having this incredible experience and that's okay, even while this tragedy travesty difficulty is happening. And that doesn't mean that I don't do what I can [00:14:46] do to bring healing and hope and help where I can bring healing and hope and help.

[00:14:50] Tanya: Yes. so I'm going to go back to Canadian exceptionalism for a moment because, the, what you just said, it was. when things are really hard, that will motivate you, but but in this moment, if we give in to Canadian exceptionalism, then.

[00:15:06] Tanya: That means that we get to hide and not doing anything.

[00:15:10] Danielle: Yes,

[00:15:11] Tanya: right. or we hide in fighting one specific thing without nuance, without context, without analysis. And so just very specifically again, talking to a 20 year old and a 23 year old and a 53 year old and myself,we have our own election coming up.

[00:15:32] Tanya: What are we gonna do about that? What are we going to do about that? How long are we going to sit in the halcyon haze of not here, right?

[00:15:42] Danielle: yeah,

[00:15:43] Tanya: boots, like boots to the ground now. Should we have [00:15:46] had boots to the ground a year and a half ago, two years ago, three years ago, 20 years ago, obviously, and we're here in this moment.

[00:15:52] Tanya: What do we do? What do we do? What do we learn? What do we, what, what do we do now? and so that was the promise made, sitting with it. And also when we have find ourselves in these conversations,with our loved ones, with our housemates, with our neighbors,even the ones that, we love like deeply and dearly.

[00:16:10] Tanya: what's your plan? What's the plan?

[00:16:13] Danielle: Yeah. How will you meet this moment?

[00:16:15] Tanya: How will you meet this moment?

[00:16:16] Danielle: Yeah. And that weight of, I should have been this.

[00:16:22] Tanya: What's this guy? The dreamer? Yeah.

[00:16:24] Danielle: the dreamer of tomes, right? The planner. Yeah. Yeah. But that experience of recognizing, when there are those moments of awakening, when awareness comes, there can be so much that, and so much of what we're talking about has, is so scalable, right?

[00:16:41] Danielle: We can look at this through the lens of what's happening in our collective, which is [00:16:46] getting a lot of our attention, even in this conversation, but we can. Look at it in ourselves too. We've all, many of us, if we've done personal development work or healing work or whatnot, have had those moments of what I would have done then if I knew this, I mean, especially as we.

[00:17:04] Danielle: spend more time on this planet, or if we've been mothers, I know this is such a frequent thing, right? We think, Oh, I didn't know about this part of how my parenting affects things. I would go back and do that differently. those things can really sink us in our businesses, right? How many things would you go back and do differently?

[00:17:25] Tanya: Can I tell you right now? That is not a question I have ever asked myself.

[00:17:31] Danielle: Okay, so I'm gonna be really, really basic about it. I'm talking about things like where you spend hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars on a certain kind of support or tech platform only to realize it was a complete waste of time [00:17:46] and that actually you really don't need that.

[00:17:47] Danielle: I think it is impossible to have, to be in business for any length of time and to not have moments. And oftentimes it's in those areas, but the thing is, is for many people that can also become an, I'm not good at this. I'm just going to quit. Right. So you, it is, I do think that this is the difference between there's a couple of things that I feel like are what creates success.

[00:18:12] Danielle: And one is just staying. If you just stay long enough, you will like success is almost inevitable. And you, especially if you can hold a perspective and find that place of like, I actually don't look back and see anything I would have different done differently because. It's all of it has taken me to this moment.

[00:18:32] Danielle: This moment is pretty amazing. Yeah. The other thing, of course, is support.

[00:18:37] Tanya: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. In terms

[00:18:39] Danielle: of success. We don't get, we don't get there without it.

[00:18:42] Tanya: Weirdly. I want to go back to something that you had said before too, because I think [00:18:46] that, actually it's not weird at all. That's just what a conversation is.

[00:18:49] Tanya: That's a conversation with us. yeah. Yeah. They. Exceptionalism, you know, what did you said? The specialness and the mundaneness. You made me think last this time last year, I had, do you remember when I went to Oslo?

[00:19:05] Danielle: Oh my gosh, yes. I remember the

[00:19:07] Tanya: gown. And I spoke, I had a gown, I had a gown and two gowns. I spoke two nights.

[00:19:13] Tanya: and I was at where they have the dinner for the Nobel Peace Prize. Oh yes. So fancy. So, and I talked about this imposter complex as I tend to, and I shared these 12 specific lies that I talk about, and it was so much fun, such an interesting group, both nights, and they told me about something called Jante Loven, which is Jante's laws.

[00:19:36] Danielle: And it

[00:19:37] Tanya: was a book written by somebody. I can't remember. I really love to attribute the teachers, but this is sort of, it was a satirical book about basically,these [00:19:46] mores,for Scandinavian culture. I think it was actually a Dane who wrote it. But anyway, and it was basically, you are not better than anybody else.

[00:19:53] Tanya: There is nothing unique about you. There is nothing special about you. There is nothing. And it's, collectivism above all else. So yes, and yay. and also boo and hiss, right? And I think that when you talk about the specialness of mundane, I definitely recognize where our work and work of people who are devoted to helping people step into the magnificence that is theirs.

[00:20:19] Tanya: It's a lot of edge walking, right? So if you are, if you show up to every moment of like, I am the most special, well, what's the edge of not special, right? Yes. Everything I do is mundane. Well, what's the edge of very special. And I think that, I think that in part of meeting this moment is facing our own binary assumptions that everything is for us when not everything is for us and [00:20:46] our job is to figure out our own operating system and discern what is ours.

[00:20:49] Tanya: So they're strange. For instance, some of the, if I have any regret, I think about my business. I think it's the edge of figuring it out on my own. I'm a full time asker of help. Ooh, I can ask for help from anybody, anytime, and I'm happy to pay for it because I, you know, and I can, because I've prioritized that.

[00:21:11] Tanya: So ask any of the accountants or finance, they'll always say, wow. you make decent bank and you spend decent bank too. I will happily spend on getting excellent support, excellent care. That's an edge for me doing it myself. And so when I talk to people and they say, well, I have a really hard time asking for help, I'm going to be very transparent.

[00:21:32] Tanya: That is not my edge, but my edge is do I. Can I trust in my own knowledge? My own understanding? My edge isn't perfectionism, but it is people pleasing. and I think that we have to understand what our edges are. [00:21:46] do I tend to ride the crest of special all the time? I just think that that's what we need to be doing is, Clearly, not everything is for me.

[00:21:55] Tanya: Clearly, not everything is for, not everything that I say is for everybody. Of course not. I'm a big fan of probably not your teacher. I mean, I'm not a big fan. I thought I'd love to be everybody's teacher, but most certainly not. and my job then is, of course, to make sure that if somebody shows up to my space, Who is somebody that I can lovingly hand them off to, that is going to be able to meet them in that place.

[00:22:18] Tanya: anyway, I just think about that a lot too, where we, where it's neither this nor that. It's about understanding what can be optimal about that place and then stretching ourselves beyond into the other direction as well.

[00:22:31] Tanya: Yeah, not all medicine is medicine, depending on what you need in the moment and the dosing.

[00:22:38] Tanya:

[00:22:38] Tanya: Then, like Danielle Cohen would.

[00:22:41] Danielle: you have a quote. Let's see if I have it right. Mm-Hmm. . [00:22:46] It's something around, if everyone knew their own unique recipe for personal joy, they'd hold the key to shining in their life and work. Is that sounds about right. Close. Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. What's in your joy recipe right now?

[00:22:58] Tanya: Well, it is a recipe that has been handed down since time immemorial.

[00:23:03] Tanya: And first of all, it creates joy. So this is my mother. Don't postpone joy. Yeah. so that is, an enduring gift that my mother left for me as her legacy, but joy's big word. What does that even mean? What does that look like? So understanding what I call your brand of joy is seminal to my work.

[00:23:24] Tanya: So for me to experience what I call joy, I need to feel connection. I need to feel gratitude and I need to feel generosity. And that is like the pierogi filling. Of the Geisler like that hasn't changed. It just hasn't changed in all the years. I mean, I've added kale to that pierogi recipe, but like, for the most part, it doesn't [00:23:46] change.

[00:23:47] Tanya: So that means that I can experience joy inside of profound grief as long as I find my way to generosity and gratitude and connection. I will experience, my version of joy. So for other folks and what I would, I can't remember what exactly what my own quote is there, but understanding your own unique recipes.

[00:24:11] Tanya: So I help people. One of the things I'll do, again, right off the bat is, what I call joy, somebody else might call freedom. you know, creativity, my call, success, my call, peace, vitality, whatever it is. But that, that, that sense of what I experience of joy is this sense of wholeness. and then so for folks to figure out what.

[00:24:34] Tanya: needs to be present for them to experience that. That's it. it's hard work, right? Because really what it underscores is maybe how few places we're experiencing it. You know, when people [00:24:46] are, maybe they're in a job or in a relationship or in a space that doesn't foster that, then they think that there's something,fundamentally wrong.

[00:24:54] Tanya: but it's just,it's a guidepost, if you're moving towards it or away from it.

[00:24:59] Danielle: I love your ingredients and I'm thinking about generosity and generosity is such an interesting one to me because it really does. well, again, what I call generosity might mean something different. So I think it's always worthwhile to define what we're talking about.

[00:25:17] Danielle: So let's just start there. Actually. Tell me what you mean by generosity.

[00:25:22] Tanya: See me looking frantically over here, not, I wouldn't call this frantic.

[00:25:26] Danielle: I actually have

[00:25:27] Tanya: a

[00:25:27] Danielle: constellation. Very, very, very gentle frantic.

[00:25:30] Tanya: Like a swan. I actually have a constellation chart where it starts with joy and I do sort of drill down what each of these aspects mean.

[00:25:39] Tanya: for me to experience generosity, generosity. there is a sense [00:25:46] of, abundance, which can come back around to, to gratitude. So like, so the two of them will be a little bit linked, recognizing some synergy

[00:25:57] Danielle: there. So

[00:25:59] Tanya: there's abundance and then there's resourcing and then there's, then there's power and that sits under generosity.

[00:26:07] Tanya: For me, that'll, again, that'll look very different for other folks. So if I'm not feeling generous, then where am I feeling disempowered? Where am I not feeling abundant and where am I not tending to or mindful of resources? That are here.

[00:26:26] Danielle: Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. . Beautiful. So now can, and I'm curious, can we go the other way and tell us how do you, tend to the resources, like just give us a taste of each of those things in practice.

[00:26:40] Danielle: What does it look like to resource yourself to [00:26:46] get out of disempowerment into a more empowered place?

[00:26:49] Danielle: and to connect with abundance.

[00:26:51] Tanya: so I've been doing a lot of travel, and you, the very first thing that you asked was, how are you attending?

[00:26:58] Tanya: How's your body doing? I heard how are you attending to your resources? That's what I believe. And so in this particular case,I, sometimes it's also really helpful to understand when you feel not generous and feeling deeply stingy, and that's usually because I'm feeling tired, hungry, lonely, all of those.

[00:27:19] Tanya: responses as halt responses. so usually it's about getting enough sleep. this place, my order with the Ontario government to get some more CBD gummies for good sleep. so there's that there, the resourcing is quite,in terms of my body and how well it's responding and how achy it is or isn't.

[00:27:40] Tanya: so that's I would say, I wouldn't say across the board that's bodywork, but generally, that's the first. [00:27:46] That's how I know how I'm doing. or when he said, your skin's looking good, good. I'm hydrating enough, but I'm doing all the other things that I want to do. So resourcing really is mostly body.

[00:27:59] Tanya: also making sure that I'm having touch points with my people. Yes. That sounds like connection, but, it is about being in community. So that's Very important for my resourcing. power. What is mine? What is not mine? What is mine? What is not mine? that's always going to help me because again, so I'll just say this also for me, a lot of boundary work.

[00:28:20] Tanya: sits in the land of generosity. I talk about in my work about,wow, so much here, these six behavioral traits that we go to, to avoid feeling like the imposter and leaky boundaries can be one of them. And for me, the golden shadow that sits inside of leaky boundaries is You have a beautiful value of generosity.

[00:28:42] Tanya: there's also when you have leaky [00:28:46] boundaries and you know this, and we've had these conversations, a lot of times there can be a quality of disempowerment. So power looks like what's mine and what's not mine. And that helps me delineate more clearly, what is mine to give and what is mine to not give.

[00:28:59] Tanya: Right. so that power will help me there and abundance is,

[00:29:04] Tanya: it sits like I said, in sometimes in tandem with gratitude, but it really is often a, I feel a little shy about this. That's the truth of it. but really looking and taking good stock ofwhat's in the tank, what's in the tank and, being grateful for what's in the tank, looking at how I've cultivated what's in the tank and just being super aware of what's there and what can you be

[00:29:27] Danielle: even 1 step more literal around?

[00:29:30] Danielle: Like, what's the tank? What are you looking at? Are you looking at your bank account? Are you looking at your.

[00:29:34] Tanya: I'm looking at my gratitudes and I, it feels silly about it because I have a whole separate section for gratitude, but I wake up in the morning and I always feel a little shy about this because people get so annoyed when I tell them about this because [00:29:46] I can't do that, which is how I felt when I watched the Martha documentary, but whatever, here it is.

[00:29:51] Tanya: This is why I feel shy about it. I get up every single morning and I count off 108 things that I'm grateful for. There, I've said it. There it is before I even get out of bed. It is. but it is, it's less of a gratitude and more of the water in the faucet, the peace in my heart, the snuggly sleeping man next to me, the kittens, like it's like the it's that, and yes, there's gratitude inside of that, but I, that is important for me to.

[00:30:18] Tanya: Yeah, do a little due diligence where, how the stocks are doing of my own being, not actual stocks. We don't have any stocks. Now you know that too.

[00:30:26] Danielle: I am so curious. I think that it's so sweet and so beautiful. Not only that you just shared that, but the way you shared it. I'm curious about the shyness.

[00:30:35] Tanya: I have, I have scores of privilege, like scores. of privilege. And,and I do. And so [00:30:46] often, when I speak with people again, I can't do 108 gratitudes first thing out of bed. I have, you know, my bladder won't let me, or, you know, like whatever it is. So I'm really mindful of that, that it's not available to everyone.

[00:31:00] Tanya: And I feel shy about that. And that's just the truth of it. And you know what? I have no desire to change that about me. I have none, no desire. I don't have any, I have no. I'm not confused about the fact that both sit. I'm extremely grateful for what I have. I do my very best or I do some work towards making sure that I can be as generous as possible with others, whether it's, with my time, my energy, my resources, my ideas to help them tap into what their own quality of generosity.

[00:31:33] Tanya: If it's not 108 gratitudes, is it three? can we start there? and I just, you know, this is something that I've had my whole life.

[00:31:41] Danielle: I think, you know, there's a sweetness to shyness [00:31:46] and I think it also can live on the same spectrum of shame.

[00:31:51] Danielle: At times.

[00:31:51] Tanya: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:31:53] Danielle: But it, but there's, it's, there's a warmth and a sweetness to it. And I think when we can name that and recognize it in ourselves, it, cause Shane, you know, it's one thing to talk about how we're meeting the moment. It's another thing to talk about. When we can't meet the moment, which is very often when we're in some kind of personal collapse or shut down, or overwhelm and which is usually connected to shame.

[00:32:18] Danielle: Right? And I'm always interested in which then creates free. So we want to look for warmth. How do we create warmth? So for someone else, that feeling of,It wouldn't be shyness that shows up. It would be shame and they would have maybe not even mentioned it. And I have no doubt that more people who hear about this gratitude practice that you have will be inspired.

[00:32:40] Danielle: More people will be inspired than will be, you know, I could never do. I mean, [00:32:46] here's what my offer would be. If you hear this and you have the, I could never do that. I want to remind us all that this practice of opening our eyes and orienting towards gratitude is multicultural. It's, it is ancient, right?

[00:33:02] Danielle: there's a Jewish prayer and do not quote me on anything official here, but I know that it starts with Modayani and I know that there is a way in which what it is saying is thank you for letting me have opened my eyes. Thank you for the sun rising again, right? Thank you that I'm still here. And then I think if I remember correctly, it goes into a whole set of prayers that basically starts with the body and says something to the effect of,uh, thank you for having everything.

[00:33:34] Danielle: That's. It's supposed to be open, be open and everything that's supposed to be closed, be closed. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't be standing here. it's literally talking about like the vessels and valves [00:33:46] of our being. It's a very, very old and again, I'm, I could be paraphrasing incorrectly here, but that is the gist of it, right?

[00:33:54] Danielle: And this thing that we have done as people forever, it's also in a larger way, kind of where so many of our. Winter celebrations come from when we go into those places sleep for so many is thought of so many cultures is thought of as like a little death. Right. We die every night, which is why we also often will have prayers of protect me while I'm sleeping.

[00:34:19] Danielle: keep my body and soul safe type of thing. And so to wake and orient towards a sense of even though so many of us biologically wake up with anxiety, whether that's because of mental things or biochemical things, especially for those of us in perimenopause Or who have blood sugar things that happen through the night, which will just cause these cortisol things.

[00:34:39] Danielle: I want to name all of this in kind of a Smattering, because I think that we can unshame this, [00:34:46] right? And invite us all to be able to meet the moment with whatever warmth we can. So for you, it's 108. And like you said, for someone else, maybe it's one, maybe it's one thing as you hurry to the bathroom to have that pee, if you've got a, a very active bladder that requires that.

[00:35:05] Danielle: Cool. Tap into the feet because at the end of the day, it's really about creating a state change inside, right? That felt sense of the gratitude or of, yeah, I went through a period of time in my life where I really, really struggled with the concept of gratitude practices. And it was way back during like the, did you ever read any Sarah, Sarah band Brennick, I think is her name.

[00:35:31] Danielle: And she wrote a book called. Simple Abundance in the nine. I think it was in the nineties. Okay. Anyway, she wrote this book. It was really, it was beautiful and I would love it, but I also found it. I couldn't get there. I couldn't meet the moment in that way. And it made me feel [00:35:46] horrible. I like couldn't access gratitude, but you know what the inroad for me was to think about things I love.

[00:35:52] Danielle: It's the same thing, but for some reason, accessing gratitude felt performative and forced and I couldn't like generate a feeling, but I could list for days things that I love and I could let that feeling kind of bubble up and savor that.

[00:36:11] Tanya: That was the genesis of my gratitude practice. It was actually, I had written something inspired by an author named Ilan Morgan.

[00:36:21] Tanya: And,I did that and it was Lalisa of the Valley. and it was very informed by my mother, not postponing joy. I think I might've even done it for her birthday or whatever. And that was the genesis of my gratitude practice as well.

[00:36:34] Tanya: and you know, When I had that moment where you saw me go into my head and check safety or whatever it was that I was doing, [00:36:46] and it wasn't safety, it was more, appropriate and all of the rumors that I have in my internal workings, I went back to an email that I received earlier this morning, somebody in one of my, communities was thanking me for that hundred and eight, Practice.

[00:37:02] Tanya: she had done work with me probably three years ago and she said, you know, I did not care for it at the time and what a life line it's been. And it's like, well, you don't, we don't hoard our good shit, right? We don't hold like antithesis of generosity. So I will always, myself always, but generally speaking, if I have a thing to give, even if there is some shyness, it's probably going to be yours.

[00:37:27] Tanya: Because I think that that's what we're here for too. It's not always about discomfort. It's not the same with lack of safety. It's just not. It's just not. But

[00:37:35] Danielle: there is risk. You are taking risk. Yeah. You're taking risk.

[00:37:39] Tanya: And the risk is people are going to not resonate with me and I'm not their teacher and that's okay.[00:37:46]

[00:37:46] Danielle: Yeah, that's okay. There's so much circularity here. Is that a word? Circularity? Let's go with that, right? Because the risk is also connected to the resource. That's right. The ability to recognize,discomfort versus safety, is also related to resource. And another huge thing. So I feel like we're, I feel like this is such a, A conversation of layers and spirals and of course, because Libra and generator and length of time, and similarities and differences in our work and all of those things, but there is this really almost like I would say a thread, but I feel like it's almost like a rope through line in this conversation.

[00:38:26] Danielle: And that is discernment. discernment, right? What's mine? What's not mine? How do I meet this moment? Am I meeting this moment? What do I need? What is my brand of joy? And is it brand of joy or freedom? There's so many pieces here.

[00:38:41] Tanya: And what's the moment,

[00:38:42] Danielle: right?

[00:38:42] Tanya: We're talking about the

[00:38:43] Danielle: moment, right? As if we're all having the same [00:38:46] moment, which is also a problematic approach, right?

[00:38:49] Danielle: Ding, ding,

[00:38:50] Tanya: ding.

[00:38:51] Danielle: Yeah. We're not all having the same moment. and there's no assumption. Other than the ones that are biased and baked in, but there's no conscious assumption here about that. and you bring so much care, Tanya. Like when you said, you know, that I see you going into your, the filing cabinets of your mind to sort and sift and discern what I actually see.

[00:39:13] Danielle: I don't see,grasping for. safety zone because I, I can't, or I'm not willing to take risk in this moment. What I see is care. I see the, and I've known you a long time. I know how much you have, I probably don't know all, but I have a sense. And I certainly have been, alongside for the level of care that you bring to.

[00:39:37] Danielle: How you hold the position that you hold in the world, the position of power, the position of privilege, the position of possibility. It's not something that [00:39:46] you,there's a lot of wholeness and a lot of integrity in the way you do that.

[00:39:50] Tanya: Thank you.

[00:39:52] Danielle: Thank you. Okay. So as we wrap up, I'm curious, tell me about hope in this moment. I can't believe I just said that as if you're going to be able to,

[00:40:01] Danielle: we're going to keep this to a few minutes. Tell me about.

[00:40:04] Tanya: Girl,

[00:40:05] Tanya: okay. First of all, I feel like I have to acknowledge the desiccated elephant in the room that is my gardenia over here. Oh, I brought her in too soon. and I feel like there's a really fantastic metaphor in there about not hardening off. And then she sits right next to my very healthy, very happy monstera as if to be like, okay, you got this.

[00:40:31] Tanya: just stick with us. Tanya's got your back. Like we're going to be cool. We're going to be cool. She might've wronged you. She brought you in without a lot of thought and a lot of that, a lot of care, which is what really my life has been for the last six weeks. It's been a,travel thing that like, So I [00:40:46] have been a little bit careless and it's an interesting time to be, just making sure that all the balls that sort of bounced away are like coming back in.

[00:40:54] Tanya: And what maybe is no longer my ball. So, anyway, I just feel like there's like this conversation between these 2 plants that's happening over here that might be linked to hope. But I was thinking about this this morning because somebody, I had a different conversation this morning about hope and I found myself saying, and it feels a tiny bit trite and, you know, Okay, be that as it may, I was thinking about hope being like,here in Canada, you know, we got a long winter.

[00:41:22] Tanya: We got a long winter. and so hope often that smell, that first smell of spring, and it can be like, You know, in the depths of February or usually sort of in the beginning of March, right? It's like just that little tiny little earthy sniff that you get in. There's a tiny bit of warmth on your nose. you just get it.

[00:41:43] Tanya: And, Now you would be [00:41:46] fully remiss if you decided to turn off your furnace at the moment, or , or put away, right? Or you still gotta heat your damn home or your space. You gotta stay warm. That, that breeze isn't, that's not everything, but it is a reminder of what should be coming.

[00:42:03] Tanya: Right. What is to come? and I guess you could probably say that about most seasons, but in particular spring feels. And that, but it's a fuel though. Okay. All right. Yes. I've got a bunch more shovels in me. I can do this. It's coming. It's coming. So I feel like. My hope, my sense of hope ends up with a happy story.

[00:42:26] Tanya: And I know that that's not always the case, but what it also comes with is it's a snack. It's not the meal, right? you need to work towards the thing that you say that you want. And in this case, that might be warmth. That might be, All sorts of different things. But, when I think about that sort of spring breeze metaphor and we can't [00:42:46] make ourselves wrong for feeling the delight that we feel when that spring breeze comes along, whether we ask for it to or not, but staying open to it and like getting and experiencing that,it's a good thing.

[00:42:58] Tanya: Don't

[00:42:58] Danielle: postpone your joy.

[00:42:59] Danielle: Take the hope where you can get it and don't let it fool you into all has arrived and also continue to be resourced by it and orient towards it and get it where you can.

[00:43:11] Tanya: What about you?

[00:43:13] Danielle: What about me? Which? Yeah. Ask me anything.

[00:43:16] Tanya: Yeah. What is hope? What does hope mean for you?

[00:43:20] Danielle: In this moment, I have a way I would have answered this differently at different times in my life. But I would say at this moment, it's very, very similar.I think of the young sunflower actually is the what I'll usually think of when I think of hope. And I think of the way that, the young sunflower continues to orient towards the sun.

[00:43:37] Danielle: It literally turns its face towards the sun and the warmth and the light. And my only tricky thing with these kind of metaphors [00:43:46] is that they're a little bit, the light dark, languaging, I feel like can be problematic. And I actually think the dark is, we know, we know, we know, even if we're thinking in, these,earth based metaphors, we, the dark, the depth, and even the cold and the freeze are all such an essential part, right?

[00:44:04] Danielle: Of the growing of the ecosystem of the thriving, all of that. so there's that. And there is a way in which hope is just that orienting towards where life is right. And having that sense of,it's just a little sparks. It's little sparks. I think we need them.

[00:44:23] Tanya: It's a long winter ahead.

[00:44:25] Danielle: It's a long, it's a long winter. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm just up the road in Vermont. It's no, no warmer here, for sure.

[00:44:33] Tanya: It's a long winter. We need to get through that and then continue to find whatever we can inside of that winter. because it's a long time before that smell of spring will be coming.

[00:44:43] Tanya: So how do we, what do we do in that? [00:44:46] And all of those moments.

[00:44:47] Danielle: Yeah.

[00:44:49] Tanya: Yeah.

[00:44:50] Danielle: And I almost want to move it out of metaphor because again, I think that there's a way in which metaphor can be so helpful and useful. And I also think, at times more often than not. I think metaphor brings us closer.

[00:45:01] Danielle: And I think also at times it can,poetically miss something. Yeah. Poetically miss something. So I think if I were to ask myself, what is a less metaphorical way that I am being about hope in this moment, it would be this, it would be connection. It would be being in,meaningful conversation and taking meaningful action.

[00:45:28] Danielle: And that is how, and actually another thing is singing for me, like singing, creating art and doing those things that, are like those primary satisfactions. Things that are just pull humans out of any timeline and all of history. And there are certain things [00:45:46] that we have done to connect with hope, to connect with joy, right.

[00:45:50] Danielle: To connect with being alive, dancing, singing, having sex, or some kind of other, you know, Physical touch that is right for us. It's not always actually sex, but it does often have a sense of eros, right? Like that quality is there, singing, dancing, body pleasure.

[00:46:09] Danielle: praying in, again, for one person that might be making a wish for another person that might be stomping your feet and, demanding that all the seen and unseen forces get behind you and support you in this moment, or it might be lamenting, it might be grieving and sobbing, right? But those things and,having solitude, but not isolation, right?

[00:46:34] Tanya: So would you say, and thank you so much for that, for the specificity of it, would you say that those are hope fostering activities or those grounding opportunities,activities that [00:46:46] keep you centered when there may or may not be hope?

[00:46:50] Danielle: I think they can be both. I think it's one of, I think that is one of those things where it's medicine. And the dosing and the quality of it and when and how I need it is different or how it hits is different. So last night, Tuesday night is dancing night, and it's this really sweet thing because my oldest son is the swing dance teacher, which started way back when I was on a swing dance team, and he was 10 years old and he wanted to join.

[00:47:16] Danielle: So I had a choice to make, he stayed, I left, and now he's on the board here and running it. And there's a lot of. Growth happening. It's really beautiful. And so it's a full thing. I bring my daughter, we go and we dance. And I was, and this particular community has been it there. there was a lot of nerves last Tuesday.

[00:47:38] Danielle: There was a lot of anxiousness last Tuesday. but still I would look around and it's Lindy hop. So it also [00:47:46] has a particular vibration, right? I would look around and I would just see these smiles. But last night I felt, even though there were quite a few people who had had tears, who had had, worries, and the smiles were even bigger.

[00:48:03] Danielle: The dancing was even more energized. There was this, like, we refuse to not dance. Be fully seen, fully present, fully here, or maybe it was just a giving over to the music even more. Maybe it was just the body needing to do what it needed to do that for me, just not the dancing itself was super fun, but the watching the observing, I felt myself, I felt.

[00:48:32] Danielle: It was nothing. There was nothing intellectual. Nobody was fixing anything. There was no problem being solved, but there was this sense of goodness of life Ness.

[00:48:42] Danielle: Yeah.

[00:48:43] Tanya: What you have me realize is that. That [00:48:46] conversation that I had with my niece and daughter and husband,was deeply hopeful. Yes. For me, that's what that was. It was,pretty darn low stakes, right? Like nobody's getting ejected from that car. Clearly we have this period of time, but,and again, you know, very low stakes, but being in the conversation and having space for grief and despair and hope and quiet and our own thought it was

[00:49:19] Tanya: without putting the onus or burden of responsibility on the kids and also not. Assuming that we have the answers, there was something deeply hopeful and cathartic about that. and knowing that we all have our own sense of what we need to do the conversations that we need to have to. Turn this around.

[00:49:45] Tanya: I don't think that's [00:49:46] that. But I think it's about meeting the moment. that gave me a significant amount of hope. Yeah. For real. Yeah. For real. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's that. That's and thank you for those for sharing what your medicine has been and the dosage that has been appropriate for you.

[00:50:02] Danielle: Yeah. Yeah. And I will say, like, I'm doing some higher stakes things. And those lower stakes resourcing moments. Are deeply important and help me to be able to do the higher stakes

[00:50:16] Tanya: work,

[00:50:17] Danielle: right? To be resourced. Yeah.

[00:50:20] Tanya: Yeah.

[00:50:21] Danielle: Yeah.

[00:50:22] Tanya: Absolutely.

[00:50:22] Danielle: I'm so grateful for you, my friend. Is there anything else that you would like to share about your work, point people to or anything, anything that would feel great in completing?

[00:50:34] Tanya: I mean I think I will just say that this is, we are at an inflection point and we've always been at varying degrees of inflection points [00:50:46] and. understanding our own medicines, our own dosing, our own capacity, our own operating systems, means that we have more to give to others. and we're going to need it.

[00:51:01] Tanya: We're going to need it. and I just, I love you and I love our time together and I love what you prioritize. And I feel very grateful to be in community with you. And, Thank you.

[00:51:12] Danielle: Same, same, same, same, same. This too gives me hope. Big time. Yeah. I love

[00:51:18] Tanya: you.

[00:51:19] Danielle: I

[00:51:19] Tanya: love you.

Time Stamps:

[00:01:46] Welcome & Tanya’s Annual Letters to Her Daughter: Danielle introduces Tanya Geisler and reflects on her tradition of writing letters to her daughter, sharing them with the world as an act of generosity and love.

[00:03:09] Evolving Through Life & Business: Danielle and Tanya discuss the nature of evolution in both personal and professional life, touching on how change happens amidst collective and individual challenges.

[00:05:25] Meeting the Moment: Tanya shares how she navigates difficult seasons by staying present, resourced, and engaged with what’s happening in the world and in her work.

[00:12:00] The Tension Between Extremes: Tanya quotes John Lennon: “Part of me thinks I’m a complete loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God almighty.” She reflects on the tension between extremes in life, business, and leadership, and the importance of seeking support rather than trying to figure everything out alone.

[00:19:05] Jante Law & The Balance of Specialness vs. Mundaneness: Tanya shares insights on Janteloven (Jante’s Law), a Scandinavian concept emphasizing humility and collectivism, and how it contrasts with the need for recognizing one’s unique contributions.

[00:28:00] Boundaries, Power & Abundance in Generosity: Tanya explores how generosity is deeply tied to boundaries, power, and abundance. She discusses recognizing what’s yours to give and what is not, as well as how resourcing yourself leads to sustainable generosity.

[00:36:21] Tanya’s 108 Gratitude Practice: Tanya shares her personal daily practice of listing 108 things she’s grateful for every morning and reflects on how gratitude shapes her outlook.

[00:39:00] Hope as a Snack, Not the Meal: Tanya reflects on the nature of hope: “Hope is a snack, not the meal. It reminds us of what’s to come, but we still need to do the work.” She compares it to the first breath of spring air after a long winter—encouraging but not a reason to stop taking action.

[00:45:01] Hope in Action: Connection, Creativity & Grounding Practices: Danielle expands on hope, discussing how grounding practices like dancing, singing, creating, and connecting with others can help sustain hope during challenging times.

[00:50:34] Meeting the Moment With Our Own Medicines: Tanya emphasizes the importance of knowing our own operating systems, finding what resources us, and bringing our unique strengths forward in difficult times.