Have you ever felt weighed down by the baggage of your past? Or maybe you've found yourself stuck in a cycle of negative thinking and low self-esteem? Well, in this episode of The Grit Show, our guest shares how to turn your baggage into luggage and live a life by design, not default!

Donna shares her own journey of purpose and how she overcame shame, fear, and societal rejection to become the founder of Vibrant Living International. With over 25 years of experience, she's developed two powerful workshops on her website: "Turn your baggage into luggage" and "Life by design, not by default." These workshops are designed to help you explore your challenges, grow from them, and create a life that reflects your true potential.

Donna also delves into the concept of baggage thinking, which encompasses anger, resentment, fear, and low self-esteem. She encourages us to let go of these negative thoughts and use challenges as stepping stones to success. It's about having grit, persistence, and a belief in ourselves. She also talks about unlocking your superpowers and how using tools like imagination can transform your life.

Get ready to embrace challenges, turn your baggage into luggage, shift your thinking, and create a life by design, not by default.

Donna Tashjian is the visionary founder of Vibrant Living International, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering individuals on their journey to vibrant, purpose-driven lives. 

With over 25 years of experience as a warm, caring, and down-to-earth inspirational speaker and Life Mastery Coach, Donna has touched countless lives, helping individuals around the world accelerate their personal transformation journey. Her mission is to empower you to experience your dreams of abundance, all while maintaining harmony in your life and fostering thriving relationships.

Donna's clients often describe her as a truth-exposurer and fear-buster, capable of transforming trepidation into excitement, allowing the radiant truth to shine forth. Collaborating with Donna is like embarking on a refreshing vacation for your mind, body, and soul—a journey toward your vibrant, purposeful self.

Connect with Donna

Workshop: www.ivibrantliving.com/lbd-workshop-2/

Facebook: Vibrant Living International

Website: www.ivibrantliving.com/

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Do you embrace the power of your imagination? Do you view it as a superpower? Today's guest certainly does. I love that this episode is coming out on Halloween because there are a lot of holidays celebrated around the world. And different people celebrate them for different reasons. And different people like them or dislike them for different reasons. And for me, what I love most about Halloween is that there is imagination that goes into it that goes into coming up with what you're going to dress up as, how you're going to carve your pumpkin, how you're going to decorate. So, for me, Halloween is a perfect representation of imagination, which isn't the case for everyone. But as I look around, I may adult friends and who still loves Halloween is typically my friends who have the best imaginations. Our guest today talks about using imagination in a very different sense. But if you're part of this community, you understand how much we look at the different ways we can use skills, and how we build on those skills and stack them and use them together. And imagination is a skill. Our guest today talks about knowing how to use some of the things we already possess, like our imagination, and limiting the rules around them and about how they work so we can have them as tools to better serve our lives. And make a difference. Sound interesting? Stick around.

Welcome to The Grit Show. Where our focus is growth on purpose. I'm your host, Shawna Rodrigues, and I'm honored to be part of this community as we journey together with our grit intact to learn more about how to thrive and how to get the most out of life. It means a lot that you are here today. As you listen, I encourage you to think of who may appreciate the tidbits of knowledge we are sharing and to take a moment to pass this along to them. Everyone appreciates a friend that thinks of them, and these conversations are meant to be shared and to spark even more connections.

Donna Tashjian is a life mastery coach, helping people with a burning desire to achieve their dreams, yearning for more abundance while maintaining harmony in their life and seeking the patch of prosperity without compromising their health and relationship. She specializes in helping folks unlock the secrets of spiritual intelligence making it easier than ever to empower their dream. We're going to talk a little bit today about how to turn your baggage into luggage, as well as some of the superpowers you already possess that may not be aware of. I am so glad you're here today, Donna. Thank you for joining me.

Thank you, Shawna. It's a pleasure to talk with you today.

I'm going to just jump right into this concept. I love this concept about your baggage being luggage. I love reframing things and having that reframe. So, where did you first start to even think about needing that reframe and come up with this concept to want to reframe our baggage into luggage.

Far as baggage goes, I had some.

Really?

I did. Usually, when we coach on something, we add it, though, just to give you a brief history without getting into a lot of the meat of it, grew up in a blended family. Did not know, I knew who, but not a relationship with my biological father. But at the age of 14, something very traumatic happened. Someone that was close to us, I became pregnant, and it wasn't consensual situation. And so, I am a fifteen-year-old mother. I did raise my daughter, but if you can, remember when we're teenagers, how intensely we feel everything anyway. And so, I grew up in the time frame where that was not accepted at least in the society, you know, I was in. And so, it didn't matter why. And so, my parents hid me. I was pulled out of school. There was shame, embarrassment, absolute terror about my future. And whether I was going to be a horrible mother and all of those kinds of things. So, learning to be able to overcome anger, resentment, low self-confidence, low self-esteem, all of that kind of stuff was something that I have overcome taking that now to a woman who has founded Vibrant Living International and is for over 25 years. I have been speaking and impacting people helping them to live vibrantly. And so, there is a journey there that doesn't, you know, I didn't step into a magic booth and just go presto changeo. Everything's better. So, how do we do that?

That's what people started to ask me is, how did you do that? Which is where my program, Turn Your Baggage into Luggage, came from. The name came from prayer. And so, trying to figure out how do you articulate that? And so, that's where the name, that catchy name came from. And so, I have some steps that when we have been through stuff that's hard, and sometimes it's our fault and sometimes there was nothing we could have done. So, there's a mixture of all of that, and it doesn't matter. We still blame ourselves through that whole process. So, the number one step is, begin to look for the gift in your adversity. That whole process of looking for a gift makes me look down the road, if you will. Because when you're in that much pain and that much stuff, It's the end of my life. My world is over, this is, you know, my grandson who's 3 goes, this is the worst day ever. And that's just because he didn't get a cookie after lunch. And so, we, you know, we feel like it's the worst day ever, and sometimes it is. And so, learning to be able to look for the gift.

One story that I heard to give that analogy; this is not a true story. Is two people were put in a room full of manure. They were each in different rooms. One of them sat down. This was probably me in the beginning and just begin to cry. My whole life stinks. It's hit the fan. All of those kinds of feelings. It's everywhere I look; it just smells awful. There's no hope. All of that. And so, that was one individual. The other individual knocked on the door. I like to say it's a woman. So, knocks on the door and they open it and say, can I get a shovel? Sure. Why do you want a shovel? With this much manure, there's got to be a pony in here somewhere. There is a pony, but we do have to look for it. And it is intentional because the what I state is, baggage thinking is anger, resentment, hopelessness, fear. Low self-esteem is one of the things I like to say I want to stop identity theft. Because all of those things steal who I'm really, really am. And help people then to begin to reformate into, I'm going to use this to grow and to become the best me I could be. I love the word grit. Reminds me of persistence. I got a persistence award once.

Really?

4 of my first nonprofit organization I founded I got a persistence award, which meant I went through some difficulties. We have the power to overcome. But to be overcomers, I had to have something to overcome. Can't triumph without having a battle. But I have learned then shifting a little bit to these gifts you were talking about. How to make it easier? Aren't you just tired of fighting? Aren't you just tired of struggling and everything is hard and why is it always so hard for me and all of that kind of feeling? Well, I found out why. And it took me a while. So, this is the next thing we were going to talk about with. If this is a good transition, unless you have questions.

No. This is a beautiful transition. This is great. Keep going.

I am Christian faith, and so faith is a reason why I'm alive today. That is the core of everything I do. And so, that's where I'm coming from and telling stories, but I wanted to learn how to live from, I call it now spiritual intelligence. Everybody talks about your emotional intelligence or being aware of your body and what your body is telling you. And all of those things are important, but everything stems from the spirit because we're a spirit inhabiting a body. When my body ceases, when this vehicle gets tired and is done, I won't cease. And so, what do we do to live from the spirit out? Not my emotions and its circumstances. How do we do that? And I've discovered and I'm still discovering, but I have discovered some secrets that I will share a little bit about, and then how you can find out more. Does that sound good?

That sounds lovely.

So, what I have discovered that we possess 6 superpowers or gifts. And we all have them. You have them right now, but you're probably not aware. It's like if you had never used a knife before, hand you a knife, and I say, will you cut this apple. If you've never seen it done, you perhaps would turn it the wrong way and you're got the dull side down and you're sawing on that apple. I'm going to get this apple. I'm going to get this apple.

Doesn't work that way.

Yeah. And that's what life is felt like. I'm going to get through this. I'm hitting my head against the wall, but I'm going to make it. And in the process, we probably cut ourself, right, because I've got it the wrong way. And so, when we don't know about these gifts, when we don't know how to use them efficiently and effectively, that's an example. Another one is gravity. If you just walked off a roof and you weren't aware of the law of gravity, and you break your leg. You could be mad at the world, mad at yourself, mad at God. Why did you let this happen to me? But we didn't know about the law. We didn't know about these things that are operating whether we like it or understand it or not. That make sense? So, one example of a gift, we all heard of, but we never really thought about it as a gift is our imagination. And if you think about imagination as a child, we can be anything. Astronaut to a cowboy, to apprentice, to all the things. We can be anything, and we use it for fun and creation, and anything is possible. And about the time we get into school, we're told to stop daydreaming. It gets serious, and it just progresses. And as adults, we use our imagination to terrorize ourself.

We use it for evil enough for good. Yes.

We’re used to thinking of all the things that could go wrong as if especially if we've been had trauma. Especially if I had, I'm trying to prevent it so I'm thinking about all the possibilities. If you grew up in any kind of trauma, you can read people. You are hypersensitive to the possibility of danger, but you're looking for it.

And crossing all the bridges 10 miles away that you might end up bummed because of how things go wrong. Just in case. Yes.

Just in case. And then we wonder why we keep experiencing things that we don't want. Because we're looking for them, imagining them, and creating them.

Magnetizing them. Yes.

Absolutely. So, how do we begin to use our imagination to create what we want instead of what we don't want. And so, the combination of, my turn your baggage into luggage is help you get your luggage ready. I know now an idea what I want. I just don't know how to get there. And then the 6 superpowers are the vehicle to be able to get you there and to take you to the next step. So, that’s a little picture of that.

No. I think that's brilliant. I think imagination is a much-underutilized tool. And people even getting to a place that they know what they want and daring to dream and want those things and having the imagination to even think about they want. Some people get so stuck in where they are that they don't even have the wherewithal to imagine a different way or to know that there can be a different way. And if you don't use your imagination, you can never picture it any differently than it is.

How many times did we ask ourselves, well, what if it doesn't work? And I like to turn that around and say, well, what if it does? What if it does? They feel completely different. You can feel that in your body. What if it doesn't work? You can feel that feeling that's attached to that. It's constrictive. It's hopeless. Its fear based. But what if it does have a little bit of fear, but there's anticipation. Well, what if it would work? What would life be like if it turned out the way you wanted it? One of my favorite declarations that brought me through is my past does not determine my future. Unless I let it.

That's an important thing to add on there. Unless I let it, it can. If I keep adjusting my compass based on my past. That's exactly what it's going to do.

My past could be 5 minutes ago. I messed up on something. I mean, you can use that all the time. My past does not determine what's going to happen in the future unless I choose it. That you actually have a choice to choose whether I want to continue. Life is happening with us, not to us. Everything is created twice. First, it's a thought before it's a thing. Everything that happened to us, we didn't necessarily create, but we can decide what we're creating going forward. What I want to do is help people have vibrant living from ease. Vibrant living from a place of ease means peace inside. It means a confident expectation. It means joy and smiling. And it means that all things work together for good. Like, somehow, this is going to turn around for good for me. It doesn't look great right now, but that doesn't mean that'll stay that way. So, learning, one of the stories I tell is, and when I began to learn these things and really implement them. I was going away and traveling to a conference in Miami. Now I live in Michigan, so Miami is warmer. It's been pretty hot. We've had very hot humid weather, but majority of the time it's cooler in Michigan. I had never really been to Miami, and I'm traveling by myself. And I got to take an Uber and all of the things, you know, and how is everything going to go away and you're just a little heightened in your adrenaline through all of that. So, anyway, so I get to this really nice hotel that I've paid for this room for and everything, and I get up to the checkout counter with my luggage. I've been traveling all day. I'm tired. I want to rest. That, you know, you get the picture. And the lady goes, I'm so sorry. We've overbooked. We don't have any more of your rooms. Now I'm in a city. I know absolutely no one. I’m there for a business conference. And so, I'm like, there's all kinds of things going through my head. And I said, well, then what are we going to do about it? And I just waited, picturing all the things that I'm just saying. This is going to be better for me. This is going to turn out for my good. I wonder what's going to happen. And so, she goes, well, let me talk to the manager. She goes, well, we're going to give you a suite instead. And I had an ordinary room. You know, we're going to give you a suite instead. I'm like, alright. That sounds perfect. So, I get up, now this is Miami, and this suite is in the corner of the hotel, and the 2 walls are glass. One shows the city and the other, the ocean. And that's where I had my week. In this suite that I don't know what the difference in price was, but that's just one example. It keeps happening, and I'm expecting it to keep happening. So, learning these other gifts that are included in that is an offer or something that I have to give away to the listeners today, too.

Oh, wonderful. Well, can we cover some of the other 5 that you have, or is that just the one you want to touch on today?

I can name them. It will take a lot of time, and that's why I have the workshop for people to go through, but another one is intuition and how to utilize that. Use working life from intuition and without it. So, without it is, do you remember computers before they were connected to do the internet? There used to be computers that you had to put floppy drives in to and actually download on the computer what you wanted it to access. And that's life without intuition. Whatever he's been downloaded, is all I can access. And then using my intuition is now I plugged into the internet, and you can ask Google anything. You know, who reads encyclopedia books anymore. Right?

Yes. Exactly.

And so, intuition. Another one is will, and I'm not talking about willpower. And what does that mean to be able to use will in a way where I can hold the image of what I want. A will power is like trying to hold a beach ball in under the water in a swimming pool. Life's felt like that, hasn't it? You're struggling to hold the ball under water, but sooner or later, that pops back up. And so, that's willpower. And that's not what I'm talking about. So, will is another one is how to do that, and I teach about that in the workshop. Reason is another one. And there is actually thinking and then what I call right reasoning or just rehashing events of the past to redetermine things. So, it's thinking in a deeper way. It's actually thinking and creating. And that's why all of these work in harmony, because I can't do that without intuition and imagination. So, they work in harmony as how to use reason. One example I use in the workshop is one president said it would not be prudent for us to send a man to the moon, which is true. It doesn't seem like it would be a prudent idea, does it? And then JFK said, we will send a man to the moon and return him safely to earth before the end of this decade. And we did. But that did not seem like rational thinking. Right?

Final one is, perception. What our perception is, we talked about perceiving danger, even if it may be not be there. When your perception is a low self-esteem, people are not going to like me. All of that kind, I've had all of those things. What you experience is different. So, when you begin to change your perception of you, perception of what you actually receive in the world changes. And how those six things work in harmony together.

Great. And you have an entire training that people can get to dive into all of those different pieces.

With the workbook attached.

Oh, that's lovely. We're definitely going to have to get people hooked up with, find out more about that. So, we're doing that with the piece that you do around turning your baggage into luggage. For doing that, is that a large part of going through that process and using those gifts to be how you do that then?

It depends on where you find yourself. I personally think we all have a bit of luggage. I mean, baggage that's happened to us. And so, just depends on, I also have a workshop available. Both of them on my website. Turn Your Baggage into Luggage workshop, and I call it Life by Design, not by default, is those gifts workshop. Both of those are available on my website. And so, you can do them both. They're both available there. Explore and grow, and that's a resource that and the workshops are 35 minutes or so. So, it's not like it's going to take you a whole entire day. I'm a girl who likes to get to the point. So, I want to make them effective and prorated to what it would be really helpful.

That's wonderful. So, what do you do for yourself maintenance and to take care of yourself on a regular basis?

My biggest thing is something that I've created called a 15-minute miracle. It isn't something that I do for 15 minutes any longer. The time is expanded, but it's those first 15 minutes of the day is the idea. What are you doing in the first 15 minutes? And my first time is getting me, I'm a tea drinker. I get a cup of tea. I get my notebooks, my journals, my bible, all of those kinds of things, and what I do, those first 15 minutes of the day set. Now if I miss that for some reason, it changes the way that I feel throughout the day. And then after that, which is more than 15 minutes at this point, but after that, I do some type of movement. But to me, getting clear on that moment of stillness, one of the things I'll share is, how many years ago, like probably 4 years ago now. So relatively new in my 25 years of doing this kind of thing, I felt like God spoke to my heart to be still and know that he is God. And I was coming to him with a list of, I'm overwhelmed. I'm frustrated. There’s too much to do, that kind of feelings, all of those things. And I was coming in my journal and talking to him about all the things. And, you know, when you had somebody like a coach or someone says something to you, and you're like, wait a minute. That's not I was complaining. I was doing all this stuff. And then you say this. So, I'm like, what does this have to do with this? Do you not help? You see all this stuff? Ugh. So, I talked to my coach about it, and my coach said this, Donna, what if the amount of stillness or rest or fun that you had in your life equaled your income?

And I'm like, well, no. If that is true, no wonder I'm struggling. Because I wasn't taking care of a meeting very well. I guess probably about 5 years ago now. I was doing some, but it's that high level of stress still going on through it all. Anyway, I'm a graph and charter and list maker and all those things. So, I began to do it every day. I'm going to be still and do something. And I remember that first time I set the timer, I'm going to sit here for 10 minutes. And I began to do stuff and, you know, quiet and breathe and mindfulness and all those kinds of stuff. And I looked at my watch, man. It must be 15 minutes. 3 minutes. You know? Anyway, so I charted it for a whole year. And that year, my income doubled. And I was still more. Without those moments of stillness, without the phone going off, we never have our brain quiet hardly. Our phone is going off. There are videos. There's so much more coming at us than ever when I was a child. And so, learning to be able to have those moments where my grandson said, Mama, I want to go camping. I’m like, you do. What do you think you'll do when you're camping? He's 6. And he said, well, we'll do s'mores and a fire and play in the woods and that kind of stuff. And she goes, do you realize that there's no internet when you're camping? He goes, what? I don't want to camp anymore. Oh, so that is mine. Is that daily practice of stillness in the morning.

No. That's great. And I love your story about that awareness of actually taking care of yourself. And if you did more of that, how much it increases you in other areas. That's a beautiful thing to have shared. Thank you for sharing that. So, the other thing we do each episode is we give people something actionable to take away and apply to immediately in their lives. So, what is something you'd like to offer to our guests? That is something that they can take away and apply in the next 24 to 48 hours in their lives.

One of my favorite questions to ask in the morning is, what is one thing I can do today to move me toward the person I want to be? And then when we just ask that question every day, because that action step for you or me might be different. And when we began to ask that type of question, the biggest thing is actually taking action.

Well, thank you so much. So, do you want to let people know what the link is that they can get to your workshops?

Everything is on my website. And my website is the letter Ivibrantliving.com. And on there, there's a tab that says workshop. You can click on that, and you'll find both of them.

Perfect. And we'll definitely have that in the show notes as well so folks can find that. Is there any place online other than your website that's a good place for people to follow you or keep in touch that they want to get to know you better and keep in touch with you?

I am on Facebook the most, but I'm on all the social medias. My name is unusual, so it's easy to find. But, yes, you can check out me there I'm very active on Facebook.

Thank you so much for sharing about those tidbits for folks and giving them a way to find out more about you.

My pleasure, Shawna. Thank you.

Thank you for joining us today. I hope you enjoy this episode. Be sure to jump on over to Instagram and follow us at The.Grit.Show. And if you aren't already following Authentic Connections Podcast Network, at 37by27, you should definitely be doing that as well. Don't forget. You are the only one of you that this world has got, and that means something. I'll be here next Tuesday. I hope you are, too.