Forgive me.
When I’m in new social situations, I often overshare, so you’re welcome for this trail of fun facts that you may not have wanted to learn.
I ’m Tara.
My pronouns of choice are she/her. I am, among other things, a counsellor, a writer, a mom, and a wife. I have been working with people on their life-actualizing stuff since 2008.
I am old enough to remember phones with cords and the dawn of answering machines. Our family was one of the first to get a microwave and it was a big monster that complied with radiation standards set in 1972.
I live just outside Kamloops, BC with my partner, Bill, our young son, our dog, and my parents (they live in the suite of my house.) I lived in the Lower Mainland of BC for more than 17 years, and before that, I was on Vancouver Island, and before that I was in a tiny hamlet in the Bulkley Valley. Kamloops feels like a big small town, and I love it here.
My favourite thing about my sleepy rural neighbourhood is the horses I can visit, and we have named them Pony Soprano and Martin Horcese. My goal in life is to smooch as many animals as I can.
I love dogs. All of them. Please tell yours that I say Hi. Cats are also okay.
my three greatest challenges
have given me advantages in life:
Having ADHD has given me a huge wheelhouse; I know a lot about a whole lot of things. I’ve worked in many industries in a lot of roles. I’ve designed marketing campaigns, traveled with journalists, supported labouring parents, coached hundreds of individuals and couples, and I’ve even worn a mascot costume to road safety events for an insurance company.
1
Being introverted used to bring me shame when I just couldn’t bring myself to go to parties and talk to strangers, but now it lends itself to wildly delicious and incredible sessions with clients and fiercely safeguarding my own energy.
2
My initial aversion to university has given way to a life of learning and experience-gathering and an organic return to the classroom as I near the second half of my life. Instead of completing degrees, I chose to jump into practical experience, and now I collect grades with the seasoning of a mature student.
3
I fell asleep during nearly every one of the Lord of the Rings movies when the battle scenes started; relationships are all I am ever interested in.
I even claim that’s why I watch the Real Housewives of the OC and can’t seem to stop. I am particularly interested in the intersection of where our relationships meet grief.
I consider myself to be a Grief Collector. In the same way my mom collected bells and displayed them in our home, I lovingly collect grief. It has, in fact, become somewhat the love of my life. There is no grief I cannot be with, and no emotion I cannot witness. Try me. I love to work with people to help them to discover themselves in the context of whatever has happened to them.
In 2015, four big losses, including my ex-husband’s suicide, led me to what I think of as a baptism into grief, and the rest, as someone said, is history.