185 How To Live Your Life By Design And Not By Default With Donna Tashjian

Our guest today is all about vibrant living. She is all about helping you to

design your life for greatness. And she has a knack for helping people

she works with turn fear to excitement,

and exposing lives we might tell ourselves so that the truth can shine through.

Her name is Donna Tashjian. And she comes to us from ivibrantliving.com

Welcome to Beyond Adversity.

Thank you, Brad, it is a pleasure to be here today.

Well, that is awesome to have you, you got a lot of

fascinating things on your website and your coaching programs and your

the resources that you offer. And to help people to break out of

whatever situation they are in, and to live a more great life. But you

seem to be in a pretty good place in your life now. But I, I got a feeling it's not

always been the case for you. Would you just share with us a little bit about

your story, Donna about maybe a time in your life when you had

adversity in your life and felt compelled to then to eventually do something about it?

Yes, I would be happy to. My story starts in my childhood where

some adversity arose, I guess you could say. I grew up in a blended family, my

biological father really didn't have anything to do with me. For those of you

who know, whenever that happens, there's abandonment issues and

different feelings that arise and especially to me and a little girl. But in the

blended family, it was a little bit rough and making some adjustment as

my mother remarried. And but at the age of, I guess I would have been

14, someone that we knew hurt me and I became pregnant. And at 15 I

was a mom. It wasn't the way that I thought things were gonna

go. To me one of the hardest things about adversity is when it's when

it didn't go the way we thought it would. And we get stuck in that

disappointment loop of this is not what I plan. This is not the way

I thought it would be. This is not the way it's supposed to be.

I have a program that I called Turning your baggage into luggage.

So that then you can live the life you've always dreamed.

And when I talk about baggage thinking is we carry the

labels that were placed on me at that time to say that those years

were hard, I raised my little girl. It there's no adjectives to describe

the shame that was I grew up in a religious family where no matter

what the cause it wasn't okay. And learning how to finish high

school, how to all of a sudden take care of a child. And when

I should be going to the prom. I should be in my mind.

Completely well.

It was completely there was just nothing and nothing the same.

And so by the time I'm 18, I have a three year old. You know, just to

give you an idea, you know, where were you when you were 18 it was

just like, um, and so none of it when I turned 16. And none of all

of those memories are like I thought they would go and it can cause I

anger. You know what, this isn't fair, this isn't right, this

isn't just. Somebody should pay, but nobody's paying. And then

there's silence where you can't tell anybody. You can't tell

anybody this happened. You can't tell anybody anything about it,

and you're just trying to figure out how to make it. So

luggage thinking, on the other hand, is I it took me a while

to get here, but I'm not gonna let what they said define

me. And I am going to use this to grow and to become the best me I can be.

Well, let's talk for a second about what some of those things were.

You talked about changing your baggage into luggage and a

profound story of, you know, blended family and the dynamics of

the family were not necessarily healthy there was you know,

some dysfunction there, obviously. And then whatever

happened that led you you know, the hurt that you said

someone hurt you and you end up being a teen mom, a

child having a child, you know, doing that and that process

had so all the It's hard enough to be it's hard to have both of you a

teenager alone and to be a mother alone and single mom, I

think you were all that at once. I mean, and you had all that

at once what a massive, massive amount of baggage did you say, in order to

turn that into luggage, you had to take some action, you

had to do some things, you had to break some mindset or

something along that line. So tell us a little bit about

like, back then and how that translates into what you

do now, what are some of the actions that you took

Donna to break that pattern?

The main, the main thing I was kind of alluding to as changing

my baggage for luggage thinking is changing the way I

look at things. And even a little bit of, I'm going to prove them

wrong attitude. But the core of the reason why I am the woman

that I am today was at a very young age, I had faith in God. And

without it, I don't know where I had that I would have been, I

would have been another statistic of moms having you

know, having multiple kids out of wedlock, you know, not

being married, I would have all followed out that if I had not had my

relationship with God. And there were most of the there was a

good period of years. Had I because of the code of silence that is a corrupted

around these kinds of events that occur. There wasn't anybody I could

talk to but him. And so that was the other thing is, is I could

have chosen to turn away from Him and blame God. But I didn't. And

one of the things I can say it's been quite a few years since that

occurred is God has never failed me. And so to me, that was the key and

me changing my thinking was my faith is beginning to say, I don't

know how this is going to work out. But we're going to get through

this, we're going to come out on top. I don't know all the

answers, yes. And lots of tears, lots of crying out my heart, a lot of

grief of writing in my journals about the things that I've lost a lot of

processing that and I don't know that. I mean, a few years

back, something occurred that made me feel that young girl

again. And so sometimes there's just deeper healing through it

all. But the biggest thing for me was to begin to change what I was

speaking and change what I was thinking and begin to create a

vision for where I wanted to go, as opposed to it just can be

really but just wallowing in the pain.

I've heard so you say several things here now that I consider

Ray, very profound action steps that that you took, even in the

context and correct me if I'm wrong, did you you said you turn

to faith, and that is awesome. I'm a man of faith myself, but

even the context of some people who would proclaim

themselves as faith people, church folks, whatever you want to

say, may have been a part of your pain if I understood some of

what we said earlier. So expectations and understanding or

lack of understanding, or lack of really a true what I would

call a a grace filled approach, which is the foundation of

faith, but you took your faith action. But you also did a lot in that

process. And I believe this is a faith thing to you know, you did some

journaling work, you process some things you did some self

talk, you did some journaling, I understand. So that sound like

some of the things that you did to help them to embrace your

faith, whereas a lot of folks, whatever rejected a faith

approach, given your experience is that anywhere accurate

to some of the things that you took upon yourself.

it is accurate, and I anyone out there that's faced some of

those dark moments, it is choosing if sometimes the

religious God that we see in some places aren't isn't the God

that I experienced in that moment. Or in those moments, it

was a God of love. And you know, in there, we this isn't a

debate about the condition of faith. But knowing

some of your experience. So in

my experience,

the framework of your experience, I had this religion say

well, as a kind of some distinction of the faith.

Yes, exactly.

religious context, which is a part of some of the hurt that

you experience. And so it will get dissolved in that and take off

I easily could have. But i i For me, I got into the Bible and to

say what what is what is the faith that my parents said? And

what is it really say in here and found it for myself? That was part

of my process, and it was more than self talk? I was I called

I was speaking with God, God said about me instead of what I felt

about me, affirmations, declarations, whatever word you want

to say he said I was precious. He said I was pure, he said I was

beautiful. He said all the things I never felt. And so beginning to

recognize and see myself the way the Creator God does, was part

of my whole process. And the steps I took was journaling, and

declarations and prayer, and all of those kinds. And there

was a lot of movement in. I mean, I was full time employed

at the age of 18 going to college part time raising a daughter, all by myself.

I did a lot of just had to do sound like that.

So I was determined not to be what they said I might be.

I'm sorry, go ahead, finish your thought there.

No, that's okay.

It sounds like you really had a connecting moment with a higher

power with your faith moment. Whereas you could, you know, we

sometimes we have these defining moments, Donna, where we

can choose one pathway that can lead us into a ditch or we

can choose another pathway, which leads us to the biblical

metaphor, maybe to the Promised Land, you know, you get

through the wilderness to the, to the promised land. And so

I believe, you know, we have to take physical action, you know, just

choosing and self talk and all of the things we've talked about

already, but also you have to make a connection to a higher

power, something greater. Not often kind of leads us to some sort of a

Aha, or I could add a V eight moment. But did you have any kind

of moment was really transitional transformative to you in

your inner life, you know, that was important to you, that really

kind of flipped a switch for you.

I can't remember a specific you know, flipping of

my switch, if you say one person called me when I was telling

my story recently, Donna, you're a walking miracle. And I smiled politely

and said, Thank you. But I'm thinking man, this miracle was one big

hard choice after one after another after another after another

and doesn't mean that I did everything right during that

time, not alluding to that at all. There were still mistakes that I

made, I was a little girl along the way through it all. But it was

getting up again, if you made a mistake and moving forward. And

I don't think it was any magic moment, it was just having the

tenacity to when I fell down to keep up to go when it didn't go

the way I thought again, keep going. Until I, well, then I met

my husband. So you know, and my future husband, and the things

begin to move a little bit better from that point on. But those

earlier years were really, really a lot of just putting one foot in front

of the other. And I had a child to take care of. And there's something

about that, that pulls us out of the bed, you know, and so having

a child was one a wonderful thing in that respect is because it kept she

kept me going. She was the one making me smile and laugh. She

was the one discovering the world and all brand new ways, like any child does. And so

That is all true, of course. But what a tremendous responsibility and the pressure that comes.

Absolutely.

And you know, I've, in my ministry, I've worked with lots of folks, both

the young women and young men who have had children and

they're involved with things and it's always a drama that is

exceedingly, exceedingly trot. And you You did that and that

that's a great thing. And I love what you said there about

you just put one foot in front of the other. You kept being tenacious

about it. You were not going to give up. Maybe it was having a

little girl was gonna kept you going, but so be it.

That's how God works sometimes.

And not everybody does keep going you we know you and I both had

the stories where women didn't even know they had kids. And so

only thing that I can give it to is is that I was very tenacious about

my faith and determined, they absolutely determined to be able

to have if I was to word it today, turn my baggage into luggage

so that now I am impacting women and helping women all around the world.

That is awesome. That is awesome. And part of this process then

you have chosen then to serve other women particularly but you

have developed a sense of relationship with other people

that has, as you say, take the baggage and turn it into

luggage, meaning you develop positive relationships where be

so easy to dissolve into bitterness or rejection

Absolutely

any of the negative nonsense that can just drag us down. So told me

a little bit, you know, on the physical, which is the action

piece, the spiritual, which is that inner life, but also the

emotional, which has to do with our relationships. Tell me

a little bit about how relationships helped you and how

what you do helps others in positive ways that might be

mentors, or teachers, it might be your, your husband, it

might be other folks in your life who came into play, or

counseling or accountability groups, or even I think, tell me

about relationships, which were helpful to you in this

process to get you through this adversity.

Um, there were some a few relationships before I met my

husband. But majority of those younger years, if I will, beginning

years, it was me by myself. I had some relationship with some

family members, but those were positive and negative kind

of a situation. Not all of them were

forced to go with their own baggage.

Yeah, there was a lot of stuff attached to people that are close to you.

But when I met my husband, I remember the first time he told me he

loved me. We were dating. And I looked at him and said, that's

nice. And he told me later he goes, I felt like I had just dropped a

lead balloon. It's like, there was nothing. And I'm like, and I

told him later, you know, how many men told me they

loved me?

Yeah,

I'm like,

That's it.

It didn't mean anything.

What I thought in my head was we'll see. We'll see. If you do love me.

And your daughter was about how old at that time. I'm just curious about that. Because

then when we met, she was just about to turn three.

Okay. I only asked because I factor and how things play

out in relationships after your child's in the picture.

Yeah.

And because then, you know, everyone's agenda shifts a little

bit when another person comes in. So, well, that's great. So your

husband then became a source of emotional bond, which was

helpful to you and what? What ways? So he kind of started

off, kind of one down if you well, you know, he had to get up to evan.

And he knew that, and he knew the whole story. So he understood

that kind of concept. But he wasn't, he wasn't that much

older than me. So it was it was a little bit to handle a ready

made family. Um, and all of that. But he has,

Did he have children at the time?

No, he did not.

Yeah. Some of the things that he did, and you did to break pattern

there to go forward, because you are wanting whatever he's

got going on. But he did some things here, didn't he?

Yes, one of the things that we did early in our marriage

is is that he would tell me, he what he loved me. And I would

say what? Or he would tell me I was beautiful or pretty today, one

of those kinds of things. And I would say what and my spot,

my reasoning for that is because he would have to say it

again. And so and it became it's now quite a you know, quite a

humorous kind of joke over the years. Next week, we will have

been married 37 years.

Oh, that is so.

But I would say what if I was

having a hard day and he said, I love you. And I go what? And

he would know that I was having a hard day. And so he

would do things to be able to make me know, because I

didn't believe I could be loved.

Really? You said I'm just curious. Now, I'm like a little different

than one question. We said, what were you just to

hear? Or kind of?

Yes.

What was the question? Mark? 10?

It was it was like, like I would you say?

Yeah.

Kind of a thing, you know, so that he would say it again?

Yeah.

Um, but I'm not sure how that exactly transpired where it happened. But it

became a thing.

Yeah.

Um, so that he understood that I was struggling with

believing I'm like, I'm like, so in my head. I'm like, Yeah,

I don't believe you. Or whatever.

Information from him,

I wanted it and gave it to me. And he gave it to me. And so,

So, I think that's big lesson, right. Affrmation from. You had yourself

affirmations you talked about, and your self belief in turn of faith

and your Bible study and all that. But you formation from your husband?

Yes.

And that is so awesome. And then, in turn, I have to believe there

was a time when you transformed yourself and you believed him.

Yeah.

You bought him? A 37 years is pretty good. He was gone for 37 years.

No, we don't do If we do it if I happen to do it once in a

while, it's a joke now, but no, it's not anywhere. The other thing

that was difficult is, is back in the day when we got married,

sometimes the word were the wife would obey their husband was

in the vows. And I told him, I go, I'm not promising to obey you.

Yeah.

Because I didn't trust enough, even though I believed he loved

me, I really did. And then I loved him, I was still so insecure, in

through that whole process. And so trust is something that grows,

and we were willing to be honest and talk things through, we did a

lot of marriage seminars together, we did a lot of books, we,

anytime our church would handhold, something like that, we

would go and get tuneups, if you will, because every good

relationship takes effort. And this doesn't just happen. And

Within the work that you put in,

the church that we were involved in was

another place of relationships that were helpful in supporting us

early in our marriage. And, but most of the things were centered

around faith that brought us grew, that was the how to

how to parent how to do all of that was, you know, parenting was

another thing that of course, you have to work through, he

already doesn't have an infant he has, well, when we were

married, five and a half year old.

Right.

Um, and so it's a different different kind of learning

how to walk through all of that.

like I can relate to a little bit Donna, my, I come from a

My family has a blended family where my wife and I, when

we got married, I had a five and a half year old. So I can relate

to that from my prior marriage. And so it comes with its

dynamics, and we've been married over 30 years now. So I can

appreciate where you're coming from and resonate with that. But

somewhere along the line, you had this transition yourself,

but also now, you've also had another transition. Another

transformation, if you if you allow me to go here. Where you now,

what you've experienced, I believe you have the love and the care

and the concern to share what you've experienced and what you've

learned with other people. And so not everybody does

that, you know, I mean, not everybody has to do, you've

done the work for yourself. That is pretty good. That's

awesome. But you've gone another another step and

you've created your website, ivibrantliving.com, and you

have I just want to know what led you to have this transition

to want to share with others what you've learned in?

Well, I'm always from an earlier age anyway, it was always the girl

people would be talking through is usually through some

volunteer organizations, nonprofits, and as well as the church

I was involved in, where women would be sitting and telling

me things and they're like, I can't believe I'm telling you this. And then

I would be assisting them through their pain points. So it's

been something that I have been doing, as long as I can

remember just about that I have been mentoring, encouraging,

advising in church discipling, all of those kinds of words, for many years,

and but I never really looked at it as something that I was good

at. You know how you can miss things that you're actually good at. And

so a few years, well, I guess it's been about 10 years ago, now.

I took a job at a non-profit, thinking it was going to be that place,

that passion place. It was kind of like I needed I know there's

something more I'm supposed to do was one of those kinds of things. And

anyway, it didn't work out. I was let go. That's a whole another

story that I won't get into. And it was it was when I picked myself

off the ground, which you know, I've been there before. And I'm like, What

am I want to do now that I'm all grown up? My kids are married, I have

grandkids it's like what do I, God, what are you have for me? And he

showed me this red thread was the visual I had going through

my life where I was always had a component of sitting with

women helping them through their pain points in their life.

Sometimes, like how do I do that? So I had lost this job.

So finances were tighter but but my husband and I prayed

about it and I went to school to get my coaching certifications,

to learn how to do what I was inherently gifted at. Even

better since then I've also been ordained and so learning

how to do what I'm doing and take it and make it in a teachable

step by step program that people can walk through. Rather

than before, just sitting and talking about it. Now I have action

steps to be able to walk people through. So that's how I got here.

Well, and now that you're here, let's talk about what you're

doing about it, because you cared enough to go to your, your

schooling and get your certification and to serve other people.

So let's just say that there is a kind of a young single mom now, and

who has her life is in disarray, to say the least. And if she is told

by somebody in her life, that hey, check out this website,

check out this person, Donna, maybe she can be helpful.

What does that young woman going to find with you that

could be helpful in her life?

Well, there's a lot of resources that are available there for people

to take advantage of. So there's free books, there's my podcast,

there's other resources, I've written four books. So there's other

ones there too, that are available for people. I blog, I do

videos, all of that kind of stuff is available just to get to know

me. Want to, remember how I talked about trusting. And so it's

the same thing as a coach when I helping women is they need

to get to know me a little bit so that they can understand and

begin to trust that I know what I'm talking about. I'm there for

them. I have been called one of the most intuitive and

compassionate women on the planet. So you will get a

cheerleader, you will get someone who understands and

can walk through those pain points with you, to be able to

actually have the life you would really dream.

But that is awesome. And just to be kind of specific or a minute,

you have at least three workshops that you have. And

you've mentioned one already about these are the type

of things people are going to find, just maybe take one of those

guests give us a short synopsis of one of your least three

workshops that you have. So people get an example of

what they're going to find.

The turning your baggage into luggage is two different ways. It's a group

coaching program as well as an individual depending upon

what the person prefers. And we go through content on discovering

what you really want out of life, how to repackage to unpack my

baggage and actually deal with it, and then repack it into luggage, if

you will, using my analogy on that. That's the first program.

The second one that follows that one is called life by design,

not by default. Most of us have lived life, just feeling like we're

buffeted by life and circumstances, at least I did. And learning

how to be able to take that so that I can then create a life by

design not by default is my next program. So now that I've

repacked my baggage, I don't know where I want to go. And so

our program helps us figure out the destination that that would

want to go and both of those are available in groups as well as

well, that's awesome. Really what I love about that Don is

it gives people a process to follow. And that's what I love to

do here at Beyond Adversity, you get beyond your adversity by

following a pathway, a promise a pathway to a promise life,

I like to call it peace, prosperity and purpose. But you got

to get on that road and you give us some map or guide to

help people to do that. And people can can find that at your website,

which is ivibrantliving.com

Yes

For the connection to that on our

website, drbradmiller.com. One more thing for you,

Donna, before we let you go, tell us about you know, we

gave you kind of the hypothetical of a person who would

come to you and see what they could find. If you will be so kind to

maybe share with us about person who did find you or find you

and about how you were part of or you saw some transformation

take place. Do you mind sharing a testimonial story?

Sure. Um, one woman came to me and the initial thing that

she was talking to me about was she had she had lost her

husband. I think when she met with me it was three years prior when

we first met. He had they had had an argument and he had gone out

for milk if you will and didn't come home. There's a car accident and

he didn't come home. And her response was her mom had told

her well God didn't give you more than you can bear. And I

was in a doing a live workshop and I asked for people's

feedback. And and one woman said, Well, God was there for

me. And she replied, Well, he wasn't there for me. And but, you

know, she used that that quote, and I said to her, Do you

realize that actual quote isn't in the Bible, that God didn't say

he was the giving of the problems. And so we entered into

a coaching relationship with us. And she, I've soon found out

she had an abusive childhood. Very religious, very difficult.

She had been married before, this was her second marriage.

And she was full of fear and self, and really not liking herself

that well, and lacking of trust and deeper relationships, when

we began. And so she has been working with me for a while.

She, excuse me. And you would not know that it was the same

day, the same person. She used to walk around like a rain cloud.

And now she looks like the sunshine. And she is making choices

for her life and discovering what she would really like out of life

and reframing that she is full of joy and anticipation. And I asked

her the other day, so do you like yourself? And she goes, yes.

It's so great. And so learning how to, and part of that process

was forgiveness and all kinds of things as part of that process

to be able to move from the rain cloud to like you're walking

in the sunshine. And so that's my story

That is so awesome. I love that imagery of walking from the rain

cloud, to the sunshine and when we're when we're any part of

that process for someone there's really nothing better