From Emotional Abuse to Unshakable Joy: Healing from Trauma and Finding True Happiness with Tamara Zoner

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SPEAKER_02: Well, today's episode, today's conversation, is gonna give you the tools you need to break free and create a life you truly love.

Our guest, Tamara's owner, she was trapped in an emotionally abusive marriage.

She was convinced she would stop until, of course, she made one monumental decision that would change everything.

Today, Tamra is a science-backed happiness coach, proving that pure joy is not just possible, but rather it's a skill that can be learned and mastered.

If you, my friend, are in need of a little bit more joy in your life, some happiness, you can benefit from a masterclass on happiness.

Well, you're exactly where you're meant to be.

This, my friend, is episode 367.

Now, as a quick reminder, if you would love a little help in being sure that this year is indeed the best year of your life, well, you gotta go check out my free resource.

It's called 14 Nuggets of Wisdom for a Better Life.

I've created a free ebook plus an exclusive free podcast episode, all designed to help you make this year the best year of your life.

A link is at the top of today's show notes where you can click to download, or you can also head on over to gritgraceinspiration.com, the website for the podcast, where you will also find a link to access that same resource.

It's just my way of trying to help you make today a little bit better than yesterday.

And of course, this year the best year of your life.

With that said, I hope you enjoyed today's episode.

Here's my interview with Tara Bonough.

Hey, I'm your host, Kevin Love, and you are listening to Great Grace and Inspiration.

What is happening, my friends?

Welcome back to the studios here at Great Grace of Inspiration.

Today, I have the pleasure of being joined by another amazing woman here in the studio with me.

Tamara, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_04: Thank you.

It's a joy to be here.

SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness.

Well, well, Tamara, I've been super excited for us to get to talk today and get to unpack really kind of, I guess I would say both kind of what this personal journey and professional journey that you've been on and all of this around this amazing topic of happiness.

I wanted to ask a question to kick things off today.

When we talk about happiness, do you think of happiness as a destination or is it part of the journey?

SPEAKER_04: It is the journey.

Yeah, I think there's a big problem if we think that it's the destination, because we're never gonna get there.

We're always here.

And so if we can just plant our feet and know that happiness is a moment-to-moment practice, then we'll feel more of it.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Yeah, I love that so much.

Well, then talking about the journey is I always love to kind of go back a little bit.

And so I'll let you decide where we we pick up your story at.

But what I'm curious is is when you look back on this journey you've been on, was there any like person, an event, even maybe just a period of your life that you feel like was really significant on getting you to where you are today?

SPEAKER_04: Yes.

Yes, and yes.

The most significant point in my life where I feel like really where I am today began is about 15 years ago, where I really discovered and admitted to myself that I was not living for me.

I was trying to be someone for someone else.

And that was that was a glimmer.

And then I continued for a few more years in this controlling, emotionally abusive marriage because we had had a third child, and I didn't want to be a single parent.

But as I had tried everything to fix the marriage, to make it better, to be who we wanted, and none of it worked, I finally turned back to myself and was like, well, I feel miserable.

This isn't working for me.

I hate life, I don't like me, and I'm supposed to be happy, right?

Because I'm I've got children and a husband and I'm living in another country.

And like ideally it should be a happy life, but it's not.

And so when I started to kind of dig into what would make me happy, I stopped kind of the lying to myself of like, this will get better, because it it wasn't getting better.

And I instead said, what do I need now?

What would make me feel happy?

And I happened to at the same time meet a woman who was a certified passion test facilitator.

And when we first exchanged business cards, I didn't know what that was.

I'd never heard of it, but something in my whole body knew.

I felt like shivers and chills, like when you just know something is about to change or happen.

That's how I felt when I read those words.

And before I'd even taken what's called the passion test, I had signed up to become a certified facilitator.

And it was really that process that helped me and still helps anybody I work with to identify what I wanted life to look and feel like.

And the interesting thing for me at the time was that you make a list of 10 to 12 things that you want to be, do, feel, or have.

And my family was on that list.

But the process is getting down to the top five.

And my family hit one of those.

And the rest was about me feeling authentic, about me having confidence, about me having my own voice and friends, because I had no friends because controlling husband.

And so it was really awakening for me.

It was eye-opening, it was heart awakening.

Like, oh, I've been living this lie to try to make someone else happy who is never happy and never going to be happy with me.

And now I get to choose something different.

And as, and it's a long story shortish, but as I opened to what made me feel good, and I stepped back into personal development and personal growth and really honoring myself, I was able to gather the courage to walk away from that painful, painful marriage and really step more fully into being who I am and reclaimed or remembered the joyful person that I naturally am.

And so it was quite a process.

But the reason I do this work is because I was desperately unhappy, but I could remember a version of myself with some natural happiness, and it was all about finding her again.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Now, how long were you in this relationship before you really started coming to this kind of awakening?

SPEAKER_04: 12 years and I left at 15 years.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

Now how I don't even know how to frame the question of how were you able to get out of such a relationship?

Because obviously that takes extreme courage and strength on your part.

What was that like for you?

SPEAKER_04: It was so hard, Kevin.

It's so scary to be, especially as a parent, right?

To be a parent of three young children who I had worked on and off, but we had moved from country to country.

My ex-husband is French, so we weren't like he wasn't attached to the United States where I'm from.

And so we had lived in Asia, we had lived in the UK, and I had this recurring thought that I was just stuck because how was I supposed to support three kids on my own?

Where would we even live?

And as I just became clearer and clearer on what I needed to do, which was to gather that courage to do something more for myself, synchronicity played a part.

So I had gained enough confidence and courage to fight for coming home for a visit with my three kids and me, just us, just the four of us.

My ex-still husband at the time stayed in the UK where we were living because he needed to work and couldn't take the time off.

And normally I didn't travel without him.

But I I fought for this one.

I was like, I need to go home.

I need to see my family.

I need to see my friends, the kids need to see their family.

And so he agreed.

So we came back to Michigan, August of 2014.

And after a few days, I noticed myself start to relax.

Like I wasn't constantly bracing for the next outburst or what I was going to be in trouble for.

And I started to relax and think, well, wow, here are these people around me who say they love me and they act like it too.

And I was a brand new passion test facilitator at the time.

So I had just gotten certified as a life coach, as a passion test facilitator.

And so I wanted to practice my new skills on my family and friends who I hadn't seen in years.

And I was giving a workshop, and like any good abused spouse, I had informed my husband exactly what I'd be doing all day long, right?

I'm not going to be answering my phone for three hours because I will be doing this workshop.

So the un unspoken words were so please don't accuse me of things I'm not doing.

But he did.

So during the workshop, he called 24 times.

24 times until one of my friends picked up my phone and said, Damn, I maybe it's an emergency.

I think you might want to call your husband.

And so I did.

I went and I called him and I was like, is everything okay?

And he just went on this rampage.

And I thought to myself, oh my gosh, like, here is the biggest sign.

And if I miss it now, there's no hope for me.

Because he is showing me exactly who he is.

And I am thousands of miles away, and I don't ever have to go back to that.

And so, oh yeah, over the course of a few days, he he demonstrated many ways why I did not need to return to that relationship.

And I was so grateful, you know, as I look back, and of course, in the moment it's all scary, and it's like, what am I gonna do?

And I don't want to go back to that.

And parents, could you please let me stay here for a while in your basement with my three children?

So I am fortunate in the fact that I had family that I could ask for support from.

And I recognize that not every person has that.

And I feel very, very grateful and fortunate that I was able to lean on them and have a safe place for my children and I to stay.

And then, you know, suck up my ego and ask for state assistance for a time because my ex, as soon as I decided to stay, cut me off from our bank accounts.

So I had no money, three kids, and I was not so proud that I wasn't willing to ask for the social assistance that is available to a lot of us.

And sometimes we're too proud.

And so we keep ourselves stuck because we won't ask for help.

But I did, and I got it.

And that helped me get back on my feet and be where I am today, which is in a really amazing place.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Wow.

It's such a powerful story.

And I hope for anyone, man or woman listening to this today, who's in a relationship, as you have described, I hope that this can be that little spark that they need to hear today that they don't have to stay.

SPEAKER_04: Me too.

Because it's only a belief in our mind that we're stuck.

I held it for so long.

I was so attached to the belief that I had to make that marriage work, that I was stuck in it, that I could never leave.

My own parents will celebrate 60 years of marriage in December.

So I thought I had to make this work, that I just had to deal with life, but that's not living.

That's not living.

And so if anybody listening is feeling stuck, like you don't know what to do, you don't have to know how to do it.

You simply have to decide what you want.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: I want it to feel better.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Wow.

Now after that part had ended, and you you separated, you left your husband, you're back at home.

How do you kind of begin to create a new kind of chapter for you, for your kids?

How does that all pan out for you?

SPEAKER_04: One day at a time.

And I really got clear on what I wanted my life to look and feel like.

So I use the very process that I teach.

So, you know, when my life is ideal, I am able to easily support my children in their emotional and physical growth.

When my life is ideal, I am working in a job or a career that I love that makes me feel alive.

And step by step by step, like that.

So I, of course, I had kids to feed, so I did go, I was a brand new coach.

So here I had just begun building my business in the UK, and now I was back here in Michigan, starting over from scratch.

And eventually I was like, gonna stay true to being a coach and not go get a J-O-B.

But then I needed to feed my kids, and my parents were like, What are you doing, Tam?

Are you gonna get a job?

And so I started looking for positions that felt good.

I didn't want to just do anything.

I wanted to, for the first time in my life, to stay true to me, to stay authentic to me, to stay in integrity because I had been out of it for so long.

And so by the time I got a call from a senior community, I didn't even remember what I had applied for.

It had been weeks.

I was living on it, I had state assistance, I had a little bit of savings from a tax return, and I finally got this call, went into a senior community to be interviewed for whatever position they had open, and I ended up in life enrichment and activities, which was a perfect fit for me.

The place was five minutes from my house, so I could still watch my kindergartner get on the bus in the morning, go to work, be on time, even if I left late, and then be home in time for him to get back off of that bus.

So, or have my mother, who I was now living with my parents, meet him at the bus if I couldn't be there.

So it wasn't me working around the clock.

It was me still being able to be a present parent and have my children at home where I actually grew up, which was pretty amazing.

So it's a big 10 acres of land, so they could run and play, and I didn't have to watch them every second, and that was amazing.

And then I still kept coaching and speaking on the side, running workshops here and there, but having fun in senior communities until finally I got another call from a friend who there was a full-time director of life enrichment position available at another senior community, an independent senior community, pretty luxury too.

And so I interviewed for that job and had it within three days.

And that really now I was fully on my own feet.

I was working more, but it was a fun job and it was definitely enriching.

So one of my rules of life is to do things that light me up.

I don't think any of us have to struggle through life.

If we do, that's just our mind lying to us.

And it's really actually so important that we do things that bring us light and joy and love, because that opens up a world of possibilities for us when we're in this energy of love.

Then I think, from my personal perspective, like a spirit or source or whatever you call that big guy in the sky, or don't call it, doesn't matter to me.

Then that greater being responds, like, oh, you're doing good stuff for you.

Here, I'll give you some more of it.

And so life just kept getting more fun and more rich and until COVID hit.

But that's a whole second segment of the story, right?

So I just took one day at a time and really allowed my heart to guide me.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Wow.

Now, when I'm listening to you talk about this, the question I have when when you talk about almost like talking to the person listening today.

And so many times I think we get stuck in in a rut.

Like when you talk about like following what you really like, what you love, your passion is, what likes you love, what is fun.

I think so many times as adults, we get stuck in the thing of well, it's it's it's the it's our job, whether we like it or not.

We go to work, we do the job.

And there's probably not even anything that most people can say that they have as even a hobby that they love or enjoy.

What do you say to that person?

SPEAKER_04: Find that hobby.

Like a lot of people have forgotten because you're right, we're weighed down by all the shoulds of adulthood.

We're supposed to do this, we have this checklist that we're, you know, we have to get a degree or a good job or a career, and then a house, and then a partner, and then a family.

And we think this is this prescribed way of being that we have to do the same.

And so many times, and this is typical of my clients, they get to this point where they say, Tamara, I've checked all the boxes and I'm still not happy.

Well, what is something that used to make you happy?

So here's what I encourage people to tap into.

What used to make you feel happy?

What lights you up?

Maybe you love true crime.

Who cares?

Maybe you love dancing, maybe you love singing.

What that is one thing that I love doing that I had put up on a shelf because my husband told me I was too loud and I should be quiet.

So I stopped singing, which is such a part of me.

And once I left, once in a while, I'd go do karaoke.

And guess what?

I would feel so alive.

I love it.

So, what's one thing?

It can be small, it can be big, but it needs to be accessible so that you can do it on a regular basis that makes you feel alive.

And I really don't care if it's watching funny cat videos on Instagram or taking a walk through the woods for five minutes, or just sitting and remembering what you used to do and really allowing yourself to imagine or remember, because it's the same thing to the brain, what that felt like and feeling yourself come alive just that little bit, and then bonus points if you go do the thing.

It could be laughing with your kids or your grandkids.

I remember one of the first times that I had fun with my kids again after I left my marriage.

We lived up on a hill with my parents where I was raised.

And so we would sled to the bus stop in the winter.

And it was so much fun.

And I remember laughing as the sled was spinning around and around, and the four of us were going down, you know, a few times because we had time while we waited.

And I remember laughing so hard and thinking, oh my God, I'm having fun with my kids.

I hadn't had fun in years.

And it was total abandon and joy.

And we're all meant to experience that at least sometimes.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: To tune in to like, oh, what?

Okay, right now nothing makes me feel alive, but what did?

What did?

What did I put away for the shoulds that maybe I could pull out for five minutes today?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.

I love that so much.

So in this kind of journey that you're taking us on, and I don't know if I'm gonna skip too far ahead with this question, but I'm kind of curious is so when did you become the lady?

On happiness.

SPEAKER_04: So during COVID.

So COVID hit my senior community, and suddenly we were actually the first senior community in Michigan to have a positive COVID case.

And I found out about it the day I went into work.

And so, yeah, I laugh because that's my defense mechanism, right?

So I get to work, we're on lockdown, all the residents who usually it's my job to bring them together in groups are now isolated in their apartments.

And one of them wanders down kind of confused.

It's independent living, but that didn't mean that everybody was like, you know, 100% cognitively functioning.

One of the residents came down, was confused, and he was like, why do I have to be in my apartment?

And so I just said, Let me escort you back to your room and I'll explain it on the way.

And so as I was walking him back to his apartment, you know, we didn't have any personal protection gear yet.

We didn't know much at all about this COVID thing because it was March 17th of 2020, and it was all new, and none of us really knew anything.

And he was coughing.

And so I'm trying to stay six feet away from him, like the news said to.

But I'm walking a resident, you know, up to his apartment.

I have to take an elevator with him because he can't do the stairs to the third floor.

And that was a Monday, and by Friday, I had symptoms.

Two weeks later, that resident passed away.

SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

And because it was so new, of course I didn't go to work.

I didn't know, they weren't giving tests to young, healthy people.

So I had a fever, I wasn't going to work.

So I had some time.

I had still been coaching and doing the passion testing on the side now and then.

And it was still in my heart that that's what I wanted to be doing full-time.

But I was struggling to find a way to make it more accessible to people.

Passion's kind of airy-fairy, and people people think, oh, well, yes, but I'm supposed to be doing this other stuff.

So I have responsibilities.

Passion's a luxury.

That is not true, my friends.

Nevertheless, I honor that belief when it's out there.

But there was this happiness training.

I had read the book, Happy for No Reason, years ago, as I was trying to find my way back to myself and gain that courage and confidence to leave my marriage.

And I had seen Marcy Scheimoff in the movie The Secret, which is really a 101.

Don't take it to heart, people.

It's just a primer about, you know, manifestation and changing your life and creating what you want and all of that.

And her ads kept popping up in my feed and in my email while I was sick from COVID.

So I clicked the links as you do, and there was her training, her happiness, happy for no reason certification training to become a happiness trainer.

And I, it all just made sense to me.

This was a really science-backed approach to happiness, where she had interviewed experts in the field, she had interviewed the happiest people she knew, and then she'd taken all of it, science plus personal stories and put it together in one place with happy for no reason.

So I went through her training and I love it so much because it is really grounded in research.

And I'm a Capricorn and I'm an academic, and I like grounded scientific research and evidence paired with anything is possible, manifestation, we can create what we want.

So I decided to go through that training.

And then I, as we opened up a little bit more and more, and residents, whenever there was no cases of COVID in the building, then I could have small groups together.

I could have up to 10 residents at a time in this large lecture room that we had, all spaced out.

But I couldn't hire anybody.

And one of our pillars was lifelong learning.

And so we I normally I had art lectures and history lectures and all these wonderful things, and people come in, but nobody could come in.

So I started giving happiness lectures.

I thought, why not practice on them to practice my own speaking skills, to really learn this material and the research and then share something that could work.

Why have I been keeping my coaching self so separate from my director of life enrichment self when really it's all me and it's all good for them?

So I started giving these lectures, and almost all of my 130 residents eventually went through it.

I taught it week after week after week after week after week.

And I had multiple residents tell me that I changed their lives.

One specifically who said, you know, Tamara, I've been so depressed and I didn't like the way medicine made me feel.

I didn't like taking the pills.

I couldn't see a way out of my depression, but you gave me a way out through practicing skills of happiness.

And I thought, oh my gosh, I can't just keep this in the doors of the senior community.

It's time for me to go full-time.

And now I felt like I had a tangible way to reach more people.

And I also had another really good tax return.

So I had a little bit of a cushion that would get me through a few months of not having a steady paycheck.

And I took the chance.

I took the chance because I know now that the how is none of my business.

My attention is to be on the what I want to create.

And then I take action toward it, and the how shows up.

That's the inspiration part, right?

I've got the grit.

And then I take inspired action and life unfolds better and better.

And that doesn't mean it's without challenges or hard times or frustrating moments.

But that's why I love this practice of happiness so much.

Because if we simply tap into checking our mindsets, questioning our thoughts, this is huge.

Most people don't.

We have 60,000 thoughts a day on average.

95% of them are repeated day after day after day.

I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I can't, I can't, I can't.

80% of them are negative.

But if we take a breath and create the space to question those thoughts, is that true?

What does that belief serve me?

What are I'm thinking negative, all these negatives, like what are some positives?

What's actually good in my life right now?

And we turn to a little bit of gratitude, we start practicing that.

And slowly we shift toward more authentically positive.

It's not a fake, I don't believe in fake it.

I don't believe in fake or toxic positivity.

I believe that you, every one of us has something good in our lives, no matter how hard it feels right now.

And if we can just put more attention on that, then that's what grows stronger.

That feeling, that open path, that what can I do instead of what can't I do?

That's how we make changes in our lives.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

You reference the term like skill.

Now, do you view happiness itself as a skill, or that there's skills involved to achieve happiness?

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there are skills involved in experiencing happiness.

And I don't think it's anything anyone has to achieve because if you really look at your life, your day, you've had some moments of happiness, right?

It's not someplace to get to.

But there are practical skills that help us build feelings of happiness so that we feel more content, more joy, happier more often than we feel that the stuff we want to avoid, the negatives.

But it's all important, right?

It's all part of this human experience.

And one of the things that I love to teach people is how to actually gently lean into those uncomfortable feelings that we don't want to have and to honor those too, because that's where we can grow.

You know, if we if we tuck everything under the rug, it gets pretty lumpy and suddenly it hurts to walk over that part of the floor.

Eventually we're going to have to do something.

If we are willing and courageous enough to start to gently lean into any uncomfortable emotion, then we never are sweeping stuff under the rug.

There's no big, big cleaning job that needs to happen because we're maintaining.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

I love it so very much.

The whole thing of happiness, I guess the the next thing is as we continue to pick your mind around this whole thing of happiness.

Is we we talked earlier about fun, but what about is there a difference do you feel between say happiness, fun, and joy?

Or are they all one and the same?

SPEAKER_04: I think they're all linked.

I think that they're all variations of happiness or contentedness, right?

So we can be overarchingly happy, but not necessarily feeling big moments of joy every moment.

Or we could feel content, right?

Like the definition that I still use today for happiness comes from Marcy Shimoff's book, Happy for No Reason.

And it is an inner sense of peace and well-being that doesn't depend on circumstances.

So this inner sense of peace and well-being.

And that doesn't mean we're always just like skipping and laughing and having so much fun.

It also means that sometimes we're just neutrally content, like at ease, fulfilled.

And when the harder stuff hits, then we have resources to move through them more easily and efficiently than maybe we used to.

Maybe we used to get stuck in the down, the fear, the scarcity, the lack, the pain.

Now, if we have practiced the skills of happiness, we can move through the hard stuff much more quickly and get back to, oh, I'm okay.

And then when we're in that I'm okay, it's easier to access feelings of joy.

It's easier to lean into having some fun.

If I'm miserable and I'm stuck there and someone invites me to do something fun, I'll probably decline so that I can stay in my misery, right?

But if I'm fluid in my emotional states and willing to pass through and experience all of it, then if someone invites me to something that sounds fun, I'm more likely to say, okay, yeah, I'll try that.

I deserve fun.

I welcome fun.

A lot of us don't even feel like we deserve to be having fun or joy because we should be doing something else.

So I like to say bite-sized chunks are the key to big transformations.

So baby steps create big change.

So if you were feeling like there isn't any fun or you should be doing something responsible, maybe you just take a bite of a little fun.

Maybe you just uh skip through your living room or do I love faulty, I love uh Monty Python.

So I had one client to access his sense of fun.

I invited him every time he had to get up to the, he worked from home.

So every time he had to get up to go to the bathroom or get a cup of water or a snack, he had to do a silly walk.

That was his assignment for the week.

And just something so simple brought him joy in those moments.

Like he's getting up grumbling because his work day is hard, but then he's like, Oh yeah, I have to do a silly walk.

And he does a silly walk as he walks to the kitchen, and now he's laughing.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: It takes no time at all, it's nothing extra.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that.

Now, do you believe that some people are naturally say more happier than others?

And therefore, this whole idea of kind of being happy, having happiness is easier for some than it is for others.

SPEAKER_04: Yes, I actually do.

And also the science backs that up.

So we have uh what's what researchers have started calling a happiness set point.

And, you know, if I set my living room thermostat at 70 degrees, no matter how hot or how cold it gets outside, it's going to stay at 70.

Maybe my happiness set point is the same.

My sister's is lower than mine.

I think I came in with a pretty high happiness set point, which is why I was able to recognize when I was so unhappy and go, wait a second, I wasn't always this way.

So, yes, some people have a lower set point than others.

And it's not fixed.

We can crank it up, we can turn up the happiness heat through the practices and the skills of happiness, through checking your mindset, through opening your heart and forgiving instead of holding on to resentment, through taking care of your physical body with sleep and food and exercise, through all these different seven main areas of happiness.

If we if we give our attention and start taking care of ourselves in those areas, those are the skills we practice, right?

We actually can change our neurology to be happier.

So we create neural pathways every time we do something new, and we strengthen those neural pathways every time we repeat something.

So most of us have really, really strong negative neural pathways, right?

This we've and that served us.

That's why we evolved into this cozy, comfy civilization that most of us experience.

Instead of living in caves and on rocks and running away from saber-toothed tigers, we were aware of the dangers, the brain pays attention to them so we can get away from them fast or avoid them in the future.

Our brain hasn't evolved like civilization has.

So our brain is still reacting as if everything's an emergency.

And if we do nothing, if we just sleepwalk through life like I think a lot of people do, then that's how we'll live.

But if we take action to create more conscious awareness in our lives, in ourselves, then we can say, well, wait, I'm actually going to practice the skill of paying attention to what's good around me.

So I'm gonna stop right now and look around me and find three things that are good.

Three positives, like the dog is sleeping peacefully, the sun is shining through the window, lighting up my plant, and oh look, my plant has new growth.

I love that.

That's great.

Three good things right there: strengthening neural pathways toward the positive.

And what we want to do, and what happier people have done, is exercise the positive neural pathways.

We've worked them to strengthen them.

So now they're stronger than the negative.

SPEAKER_02: Hmm.

Amazing, so powerful.

I guess I'm listening to you and I'm like, wow, I never knew there was so much involved in happiness.

SPEAKER_04: And I love that awareness because that's the problem.

I think most people don't realize it's anything we're supposed to work at, but it really is.

If we want to feel good, we have to put effort forth into feeling good.

I say, and I I made a cute little meme one time about it, that misery is easy.

It's happiness that takes effort.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is.

I agree.

I agree 100%.

Now, with all of this just bomb of knowledge you've dropped in our lap about happiness, tell me what exactly are you doing today?

Kind of fast forwarding in this journey.

We we we talked about the last time that you were still working with the seniors, and then you you realized you had to take this show on the road.

And yeah, so where has it led to?

SPEAKER_04: So today I speak and coach almost full-time, however much I want to.

And I have private clients, group clients, and this year I did my first retreat.

It was amazing.

So I'm repeating it in 2025.

In May 2025, I'll be doing a Radiant Happiness Retreat right here in beautiful pure Michigan.

And it's something I love to do so much is to really help people build the skills to be happier, to be more loving and kind and compassionate to themselves.

And so that's what I do primarily.

I also have recently taken on yoga teacher training.

I'm a meditation teacher already, and I've been doing yoga for the last 30 years.

And I walked into a studio last October.

It's been just a year, and I haven't left since, essentially.

It's around the corner from my house.

I started doing my meetups there.

I run their wellness weekends, so I talk about all of these things in a slightly longer format, a workshop format, and teach people the skills and actions and habits of happiness.

And soon I'll be adding uh yoga to my tool belts for others so that I can teach and guide others in movement as well, because that's such a vital part of our well-being.

I love it so much.

So that's that's how I play, Kevin.

I get to help people tap into what makes them feel alive and then teach them the skills to back it up so that they can actually create a life they love now, not like 10 years in the future, but today.

SPEAKER_02: Well, well, well, thank you for seguing perfectly into my next question because you I guess is it your brand, but it's called a life you love now.

SPEAKER_04: Yes.

SPEAKER_02: And what I wanted to ask when I when I read that is how do you get that?

How do you how do you get a life that you love?

SPEAKER_04: You first have to get clear on what that would look like and feel like for you.

So that's where the passion test comes into play is identifying what would make you feel really good in your life?

Like what do you want your relationships to look like?

Relationships with others and relationships with self.

Most important relationship with self.

What do you want your environment to look like, your career, your spiritual relationship, your health, your well-being, your who do you see in the mirror?

Do you like them or do you want to like them?

So we start there, and in you can love your life now.

This is why I put I put the originally I put the now on the end of that because the create a life you love and a life you love wasn't available as a domain.

So again, I say it's synchronicity at play.

But I added the now, and that is the thing that impacts most people.

They say, I really loved the now part because it made it really present.

Because you can love your life now.

You don't have to love every part of your life now, but there are parts of your life that you probably love now.

And when we are mired in the misery, it's harder to see those and feel those, the good stuff.

And so what I want people to know is that all you have to do is start looking for it.

And you'll start to see it and to feel it.

And so that now means we're not working, we are working on future goals when I work with clients.

And we're experiencing them now.

Right now.

You can smile and you can feel the effects of that right now.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that so much because that is the it's such a simple word, yet it's holds such impact of the word now that that it can happen right now.

And I think if anything, uh I hope for the person listening today uh who's maybe struggling, that maybe that can give them some hope.

Is that it's not something that has to be far off.

It can happen right now.

SPEAKER_03: Yes.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

For somebody who who would love to learn more about you and what you do and and to get plugged in with your world, where can we send them?

What can we tell them?

Give me all the details.

SPEAKER_04: I play a lot on Facebook and Instagram, so you can find me there.

And my name is fairly unique.

I don't think there's all any more than one other TamraZoner in the whole world.

And she puts everything in Spanish, so that's not me.

Um so she probably also pronounces her name differently.

And you can look at TamraZoner.com will take you to my website, alifeulovenow.com, Facebook, meetup if you happen to be local to the Detroit metro area.

I do a lot of in-person events.

I love a good.

Hug.

So we we meet up a lot in person.

And that's how you can get in touch with me.

And I do offer a free 30-minute session to help people kind of get on their pathway to happiness.

And you will walk away with a tool today that will help you access joy, access possibility, access loving your life right now.

If you're open to it, if you're willing.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Amazing.

Well, I have just one last question for you today.

And it's something that I actually thought about while we were talking is say that you're working on this yourself, about focusing on happiness in creating a happier life.

How can somebody try to get their family involved in this also?

So that they're not just doing it alone, whether they're a single mom and it's their kids, or whether it's a couple married and no children, whatever the family dynamic is, is there any advice that you would give to them of how to get everybody possibly involved?

SPEAKER_04: I love that question so much because it is so hard to do it all alone.

So, a couple of different answers.

For the single parent, get your kids involved.

Invite them to be team players.

So when I was in all my misery and really realizing that I needed to change my life, it was because I was yelling at my kids.

That was my big indicator of I am not okay right now.

I'm yelling at these beautiful, precious beings.

And so one of my first decisions was to stop yelling.

And when I learned a little bit more, I put my attention on speaking with loving kindness to my children.

And so I asked them to help me with that.

I said, we're a team, and I am trying to be kinder and to respond slower and not react to you guys when I when something upsets me.

So I'm wondering if you could help me with that.

Here's how you can help.

So I gave them specific information.

Here's how you can help.

You could actually do what I ask you to do.

Right, kids.

You could, if you see me getting frustrated, maybe come and give me a hug.

You know, whatever I knew would work for me.

And my my my oldest was so brilliant at that.

She would see me getting upset with a younger sibling and she would come over and hug me.

And it worked every time.

But if you don't like that, then you give them different directions.

A spouse or a partner or a close friend, like accountability is so vital for us.

This is why coaches are coaches, right?

We know how hard it is.

I know from personal experience how hard it is to make these big changes and stick with them alone.

It's really hard because the brain loves status quo, even if it doesn't feel good.

So it's very important to have an accountability partner.

And if it's your spouse or a close friend or even a colleague, you can say, hey, I'm I'm working on this.

Would you like to work on it together?

But then get specific and make it tangible and measurable.

So if I say I'm working on noticing more good in my life, okay, that's that's great, and that's kind of fluffy.

So here's the action I'd like to take.

Oh, every day at four o'clock, could we meet and share uh three good things from our experience today?

Okay.

So like at my dinner table every night, I ask my family, and now I have a wonderful partner who's healthy, what was the best part of your day?

And sometimes they struggle to come up with something, and sometimes there's an overflow of, oh, how can I choose just one thing?

But the whole point is to simply put their attention on something good in their day.

So we go through reflecting on the day, oh, that was good.

My friend made me laugh, or somebody held the door open for me, or like last night for me, the the gatekeeper at the guard house of my kids when they're with their dad, he flirted with me, and that was super funny and fun.

So, you know, it was like, oh, why haven't I seen you around before?

And I was like, I usually come earlier in the day, and he said, Well, I get off at 10 since you're here late.

And it was so cute and sweet and fun.

So, like just noticing the moments of your day that are good and sharing it with your partner or friend or accountability partner, whoever that is, and deciding together that even if it's just for five minutes a day, you're going to really put your attention on the good stuff in your life.

Or maybe you're at work and you say, Hey, I'd like to have a five-minute dance party every day at 115.

Are you in?

Will you come dance with me?

And you do that.

It can be so easy.

And I really, really feel that the smallest actions are the most sustainable because we don't overwhelm our system with like a big leap.

It's really hard for our brains to sustain big change all at once.

We need to take baby steps to allow our whole nervous system to move along at a pace that's comfortable for the subconscious mind.

Its job is to protect us, and it doesn't always work out the way we want it.

So having a partner in transformation is so important.

So I love that you asked that question.

Just tell them what you want, ask them if they're on board, and then create a daily action together and then hold each other accountable in it.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

And you know, what I picked up on was one of the most simplest things that we could possibly do is change up the way we frame our questions.

Is it's so common when everybody gets home in the evening, you say, Oh, how was your day?

And we default to all the negative bad stuff that happened.

Instead, asking, Hey, what was the best part about your day?

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: It just flips that script in the in the whole conversation and changes the whole mood.

And I just love that.

SPEAKER_04: I love that.

I yeah, that is one of my favorite things.

I'll teach uh people to ask what's good with you instead of how are you?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Yes, I love it.

SPEAKER_04: Immediately framed toward the positive.

And then people are like, What's good with me?

It's great.

SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.

Well, my goodness.

Well, Tamara, it has been an absolute pleasure today to get to hear a little bit about your story, but also just to get to soak up some of your amazing wisdom around a subject that's so simple yet so important of happiness.

And um, it has been an absolute joy to have you.

And uh so thank you.

SPEAKER_04: You're so welcome.

Thanks for having me.

I I truly believe that this feeling of happiness is accessible to everyone.

And sometimes it just takes some practice and someone to like the way and say it's possible for you.

I know it because I've been miserable, and now I'm one of the happiest people I know, and you can be too.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.

Well, for you listening today, if you would love to learn more about this amazing woman, be sure to check out today's show notes where I will leave all the links to everything she mentioned so that you can get plugged into her world.

And hey, if nothing else, I hope you heard today's episode and maybe put a smile on your face.

And maybe try that today.

Walk around with a smile.

People are gonna look at you weird and ask what's wrong with you, but maybe they also will start smiling.

And maybe we can start in kind of uh infecting the world with a little bit of goodness, a little happiness.

I think it would go a long way.

So until next episode, I'm Kevin Lowell.

And of course, this was another episode of Grit Race and Inscripts.