Season 3 / Episode 37: Connie Anne's Unveiling: From Homelessness to Purpose

Get ready for a breathtaking journey that will shatter the mundane and thrust you into an invigorating world of transformation. Meet our inspiring guest, Connie Anne, who will share her riveting saga of self-discovery. From being broke and homeless to finding her purpose, Connie reveals how the book 'The Secret' sparked a radical shift in her mindset, setting her on the path to greatness. 

Have you ever felt the urge to question established norms or explore different spiritual paths? Connie did just that, her curiosity leading her through tomes of wisdom from authors like Eckhart Tolle, fueling her understanding of life and alternative thinking. Her story is a testament to the power of resilience and the importance of positive thinking. She walks us through the dark times, her two steps forward, three steps back journey, and how influential figures like Tony Robbins and Bob Proctor helped her take back the reins of her life.

Finally, we delve into Connie's newfound perspective on life, her choice of positivity, and the journey of personal growth. She shares how she moved beyond her 'okay-ish' life to create a life of purpose and happiness. Her inspiring narrative underlines the importance of self-reflection and positive thinking. Tune in, be inspired, and embark on your journey from 'okay-ish' to 'great'. This is not just a podcast episode - it's a beacon of hope for anyone seeking to take control of their lives. Don't miss it!

http://getyourgoat.ca/season-three

Transcript

Peggie Koenig: 0:00

Welcome to. So you Want to Move to the Country and Raise Goats? This is a podcast about change. Change is all around us, and sometimes we're ready for it and sometimes we're not. When it overwhelms us, well, we just want to move to the country and raise goats. This podcast features stories from people who have gone through change. We hope that their insights will help you better understand and deal with the changes in your life.

Catherine Gryba: 0:32

Our guest today is Connie Ann, and Connie Anne describes how she changed her life from being okay-ish to great. Connie Ann worked in sales and then the film industry and this was okay. She had an okay marriage, lived in a home with a white picket fence Again it was okay, but she was not in a good place. At 32 years old, she was standing in her garden one day and said to herself this cannot be it for the next 50 years. She evaluated her life and made some as she describes them self-imploding decisions, leading her to be broke and homeless. She said if I got myself into this mess, then I can get myself out. She discovered the book the Secret. She studied it, read it, contemplated, discovered she was running away from things and not towards something.

Catherine Gryba: 1:36

Join Peggie and I as we learn from Connie Anne what her next steps were, how she took control over her thinking, built connections and moved to changing her life from okay-ish to great. So today our guest is Connie Anne and we're thrilled to have Connie joining us. She lives in British Columbia and Connie is a consultant and a coach and she works with entrepreneurs and corporate teams in applying the law of attraction. But, Connie, it's been quite a journey for you to get here. You haven't always been a consultant and a coach, so how did you get to do what you're doing today?

Connie Anne Toma: 2:25

Well, first of all, thank you for having me. It is an honor and a privilege to be here. Yes, it's been quite a road. I think if I were to start I would have to begin the day I was in my garden and my home and I was about 32 years old and got this dizzying feeling that this can't be it, this can't be all of it, this can't be the rinse and repeat for the next 50 years. So I really had to evaluate my life and in evaluating it I made some not good decisions, some decisions at the time that were very hard. They were life imploding and they led me to being broke and homeless.

Connie Anne Toma: 3:22

A gracious friend of mine emptied out a corner of a spare room in her apartment, which is actually her storage room. We put an air mattress on the floor and I was there for a while, kind of doing a little couch, surfing through the graciousness of my friends and trying to pull it together. At one point, when I was at that first friend's house, I was sitting on the edge of the air mattress, which essentially was sitting on the floor, and saying, wow, how did I get here? I had the house, I had the marriage, I had the white picket fence and all of it. And how did I get from there to here? And started blaming the outside world right, my ex-husband, this and looking back on my childhood and my parents, this, this, this and teachers, and being my sister's little sister, always being in her shadow. So something came up and in asking, how did I get here? Somehow, somewhere, I was enlightened. I guess that everything that led me literally to be sitting on that floor, those were choices that I made.

Connie Anne Toma: 4:51

I chose to not go to work and do the work I was being paid to do. I got fired. I chose to walk out of that house, literally in that relationship, with no plan. I chose all of that stuff. I did that to me. I made these choices. I even chose to marry my first husband. That was my choice. I can't blame him. I did that to me. And as I realized and I started asking for help and knowing that, I got myself in there thinking okay, if I can make this big mess, I wonder if I can do the opposite. What can I do? Because when I was in that garden that day, I thought that was not a good place and it was like the universe said oh, I'll show, you Ask and you shall receive, and there I was, connie.

Catherine Gryba: 5:54

You would have been in the depths of it. As you say, you were couch surfing. No job broke, homeless. How did you have the presence of mind to get to the point where it actually isn't everybody's fault? I need to look in the mirror and that's what got me to where I am today. How long after you were kind of Ouch surfing Did you begin to realize that Because that sounds like that started to become the beginning of your journey out of your depths?

Connie Anne Toma: 6:31

Yeah, yeah, it was. I can't pinpoint that specifically. I do know the fantastic book and subsequent movie, the Secret. The book was bestowed upon me and so I thought, wow, well, maybe there's something to this and when we understand that we can create our future.

Connie Anne Toma: 6:54

that also means that I created that place where I was, and I think that I have to credit Rhonda Byrne for some of that transition and the amazing person that gifted me that book. But in reading and knowing and understanding that, we can manifest, and there is this law, this law of attraction that allows us to create the life we want. If that's the case, then the life I don't want, I must have created it as well, because there is no up without a down. If I can, I am just not responsible for my good life. I am responsible for my bad life. It can't be both, or one or the other.

Peggie Koenig: 7:43

Sorry, Connie, I'd like to go back to that garden for a minute. Were you at a point in your life where you were unhappy, like I'm trying to understand where you were at, because what you did? You made some dramatic change and you say I made some bad decisions. But at that point in the garden was it sort of a culmination of this is not working, or was it something that was growing within you for a while before you made those changes?

Connie Anne Toma: 8:17

It was a slow I guess I would call the term death by a thousand paper cuts. I didn't marry somebody that really knew how to be two people, how to navigate through, sharing all things, and I found myself alone in my marriage and I was a computer widow. When you're dating somebody in hindsight, when we're dating somebody and they love something passionately, that's a one person activity. I think that needs to be addressed. I did not.

Connie Anne Toma: 9:05

I thought it was cool and we started playing online games together, but it actually ended up becoming the wedge between us where I would go to bed alone while the computer game was playing. I'd wake up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water and he'd be at the computer. I would make a gourmet dinner and he would come out and grab a plate of food and go back to the computer and I'd sit at the table. I had sat thinking we would have a nice evening and eat alone, and so, and of course there were many other things and I mean I could go on for a long time, but I won't. And it also became clear to me that I was not going to have children with this person and I was in my late 30s. So I could stay, because now I am not going to have children, too late for me to leave this marriage and go find a suitable father.

Peggie Koenig: 10:14

So when you made those changes, Connie, did you know what you were looking for, or was that not clear in your mind? I mean, was it a risk? Like did you? You jumped in, you knew you had to make the change. How did that all work out?

Connie Anne Toma: 10:33

I I made the at the point, the seemingly mistake of running away from and not running towards. Okay, I was not running towards anything, I was running away from, and so that's how I ended up not really having a plan.

Catherine Gryba: 10:55

Yeah.

Connie Anne Toma: 10:56

All of a sudden, I have a duffel bag full of what felt like to be the right things to take with me at the time. And that was it. And while I'm driving away, I'm calling a friend saying hey, I need a bed, I need a couch. What do you got?

Peggie Koenig: 11:14

I think it's such an important point to make for people who are contemplating change or know that they have to make a change, to actually be running towards something if they can, because that period of time that you went through, I think you showed a lot of resilience. However, as you say, you didn't have a plan. You really have to dig deep on that resilience in order to move forward. So, yeah, very traumatic, I can only imagine. So you were gifted the book the Secret and you watched the movie and that really started your thinking and building, I think, of a philosophy it sounds like, or a core value.

Connie Anne Toma: 12:11

Yeah, it really started me on a journey. Prior to that moment, in the garden, I was already looking for the answers to why am I here if I'm not meant to have children? Why? What is my journey here? What is that thing? And so I was already starting towards and I was looking at being spiritual rather than being religious. I grew up in a Catholic home and First Communion and all these things, and it didn't resonate with me. So I was exploring these alternative ways of thinking back then and the Secret just dropped a piece into place that I guess I was supposed to have, right. I mean, the amazing Eckhart Tolle says you know, you're having the experience you're supposed to have, because it's the experience you're having. So that that book was supposed to come with to me when it did. And I wonder well, I don't wonder too much because I will never go back there If I hadn't been gifted that book, how would have that unfolded? But it's not for me to understand, because that's not what happened. It happened how it did.

Catherine Gryba: 13:28

But you know, I read that you also read a number of books by other authors. Eckhart Tolle was one of them and it sounds like you were. You knew you were searching for more and when I read your background it just seemed to me that you were really exploring. Maybe not quite sure what you were searching for, but there was sounds like there was a lot of knowledge and thinking that you were doing along your process to get you to where you are today. Tell us a little bit about the importance of that stage of change around that exploring piece.

Connie Anne Toma: 14:10

Yeah, it was really my journey of figuring out what now, what Right.

Connie Anne Toma: 14:17

Okay, I ran away from now I've got to figure out what my next steps are and the books, the books I read, went from I arranged from reincarnation to past life, regression to, to, to infrascoping and and astro traveling and all of these things that are possible, right, and to not be shot off to anything.

Connie Anne Toma: 14:47

I think it's so important when, when something comes to you, to just explore it and see if you really do, if there's something for you to have, because I do truly believe that everything comes to us on purpose.

Connie Anne Toma: 15:02

So, if somebody gives me a book, or if I'm, if I'm listening to a podcast or or even overhearing to other people talking at the table next to me, to cafe, and I hear something, I kind of I pay attention, because those little threads, those breadcrumbs, have took taken me to the life I now live in and in doing all of that reading now and that's when I said the perceived mistake I made of running away from instead of running towards that built me up and gave me the knowledge and the strength and and brought me to the books and brought me to the understandings I have today so I can help other people who are where I was navigate through it a little bit better, and people tell me well, thank goodness you didn't have children. Well, I'm not sure that I quite feel that way, but I do know that it gave me some tools to really help other people see that there are other ways to think through situations.

Catherine Gryba: 16:09

So, connie, during this stage of searching and researching, did you build connections with people, and perhaps leaders in some of these fields? Because books is one thing, movies is one thing, but what were your connections with people?

Connie Anne Toma: 16:32

The first person that helped me through it not personally, but through something else that happened in there was I was also starting to have anxiety attacks again. I've had doubts of anxiety attacks throughout my life. Tony Robbins really helped me to understand how to control my mind that way and that I have absolute control over my thinking and that I can control that. The one, the one True person who I really connected with was Bob Proctor. Bob Proctor was, he was amazing. He passed away just over a year ago but he he took everything and anything from Napoleon Hill and Earl Nightingale and Wayne Dyer and Wallace D Waddles and everybody and he put it together in such a way that made so much sense to me and helped me to. Really.

Connie Anne Toma: 17:36

Bob Proctor was the man in the tan suit in the movie the Secret, by the way, so I was led to him a bit through watching that movie and exploring everybody that was in it, because I knew that they knew something that I needed to know and I really gravitated towards him and he just he brought all those puzzles together in all of his teachings and trainings and even his free seminars and webinars, and I actually did end up being trained and taught from his company. I enrolled as as one of his consultants and facilitators with his company Because what he, what he spent his life doing, the legacy he left us is so profound and it's really what launched me from understanding that I had total control over my thoughts, feelings and actions and got me to where I am.

Peggie Koenig: 18:37

So, Connie, how long was the process from sitting at the edge of the air mattress and couch surfing to to where you really got your feet on the ground? How long was that process?

Connie Anne Toma: 18:54

That was approximately two years before I really got my feet underneath me In that process. While I was going through a divorce, my mom passed away as well, so I really I found myself kind of two steps forward, three steps back when that happened, of course, and and so now I don't have any money and don't really have a job to speak of and still still sharing spaces with people, and now I don't even have my mom to lean on.

Connie Anne Toma: 19:36

And, and so a friend of mine when I was I was doing some learning you know one of the other kind of a call things that I was, I was dabbling in she said you can go wherever you want. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You've got to do over right, you have, you have. So I did have, of course, divorce settlement, alien rate settlement for my mom and and she's like, very soon you're going to be able to go, do, be and have whatever you want. And and she pulled me up and that was, that was the final, the final, I don't know the, the, the stake in the railway. That just solidified everything that I can choose.

Connie Anne Toma: 20:23

To look at this completely different, this was entirely a learning lesson for me. This was completely designed for me to have an incredible life, a reboot, a do over, take everything I've learned, knowing that I have full control of the rest of my life this next 50 years. Look out, I'm coming. And that was really the place where I felt like I grew my wings. I had a wings, I had my crown, I had my, my cape, I had it all.

Peggie Koenig: 20:59

So, but what a process, what a process. I can't even imagine the ups and downs and at times perhaps feeling hopeless or just wondering where it was all going to end up. So you're obviously a very resilient person. I'm thinking where do you think that comes from? Do you have you given that some thought? You know that's grit, that's real grit, I think, to hang in there when you're at really at the bottom and to, and like you say, two steps forward, three steps back, I mean that's that can really get you down.

Connie Anne Toma: 21:41

That's a really good question. Um, what choice do we have? What choice was there? I had no choice, right. When you, when you dive into a swimming pool and your feet touch the bottom of the pool, there's nowhere to go but up, and if you stay at the bottom you drown. You gotta, you gotta bend your knees and you gotta, you gotta, push up.

Connie Anne Toma: 22:13

Where did it come from? I think being in the shadow of my sister, and I was always a rebel. My mom would say put nylons on. And I wouldn't. She should have told me don't you dare wear nylons with that dress. And I ran downstairs to my bedroom and put them on. I think I always rebel because if nobody, I felt like I was never really quite heard when I was growing up. So I always just thought you know what I'm going to always show them. I'm not going to be in the shadow. You're right, I'm not like my sister. I am me. I've always felt really defiant and rebellious. That way, nobody's paying attention to me anyway, so I'm going to do whatever I want, watch me, and I feel like that's part of that. That could very well be where that came from. That was a great question. Thank you, Peggie.

Peggie Koenig: 23:12

I'm going to explore that it's such an interesting process to go from sitting on the edge of an ear mattress to and not. I mean, those kinds of changes are never linear, right, they're just, they're all over the place up and down. So, yeah, having that grit, I always think it's a good question to ask people to think about where it came from, because other people going through change that's what they're looking for too, that resilience in that grit.

Connie Anne Toma: 23:48

Yeah, yeah, there's nowhere to go. And I think when we really are on the bottom, then we can bend our knees and spring up. If you jump in, if you use the swimming pool analogy again, and you jump in and you don't jump in quite hard enough and you don't hit the bottom, it's almost harder to get to the top. Sometimes we have to have something that we bend our knees and springboard up from. That's what gets us there.

Catherine Gryba: 24:14

It also sounds like you've found some purpose in your research and your. You know the movies and the people you talk to and the Tony Robbins, and it sounds like that purpose that you found also helped you to spring from the bottom of the pool. Also, I don't know, because I think it's really hard if we're really searching and without purpose, without having a, you know, kind of a clearer path, it's really hard to know where to go. And also we hear often that there is someone in our life that gives us that push that says like, sit up straight and you've got options and you just need to use them. And it sounds like that happened to you also, that you just needed a little bit of a reminder that you had more choice than you thought you did.

Connie Anne Toma: 25:12

Yes, yes, that I do have to give credit to that one friend that you know said what are you doing? Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Yeah, you know, yes, yes, you don't have your mom and you don't have your marriage and you don't have children. But, oh my gosh, you have a car. You could fill it with gas and literally go anywhere.

Catherine Gryba: 25:31

Like anywhere in the world.

Connie Anne Toma: 25:32

I could have moved at that point and gone anywhere. And she really was. She really was the cat, as I've lost touch with her since then. But if she's out there I'm not going to name names, but if she's out there and she recognizes this conversation, I want to say thank you, and that might have been one of the last conversations I had with her. Maybe that was the final piece of our journey together. Was that in? And we do need that person. And Bob Proctor told me right through through trainings and stuff that you can have it all. And you know, stop feeling sorry for yourself and start thinking about what you do want you know, what life do you want to create?

Connie Anne Toma: 26:16

Because the law of attraction is real. It really does work. It is a thing. It's a thing like gravity. You can believe in it or not, but it's doing what it's going to do. So I don't work with it properly and have the life that you are truly here to have. So my, my hope for the rest of my life is to to encourage as many people as I can who are where I was, and even people who aren't where I was, because I truly hope nobody goes through that. But we know the truth of the matter is, in eight million people on the planet, there's probably one or two. But whoever wants help, there's help there for them. They can truly do, be and have it all. They just got to learn how to do it properly.

Peggie Koenig: 27:04

So you have a business now. Am I right, or is or is it?

Connie Anne Toma: 27:08

do you call it a business, or do you call it a practice, or I I call it a business, my government calls it a business, so I'll do that too, I am.

Connie Anne Toma: 27:21

I am my, my number one thing that I do with with my one on one clients is I do take them through Bob Proctor's paradigm shifting program. That is the one thing when, when I healed, when I was healing, when I was feeling stronger and wondering what my true purpose was, and then, and all of these things that came to me while I was healing and deciding what I was running towards, I wanted to help other people have that, the support that that I found in all of these places doing all this research, uh, to like one place to go to do it. And I started designing a um, a program of sorts, outlining it, but realized that Bob Proctor already did it. He spent 60 years researching and studying and putting together the things that I was researching and putting together, um, and, and he is such a powerful, beautiful teacher and and he was such a beautiful human being that um, I think I think I'll just do what he does and cause.

Connie Anne Toma: 28:39

He fixed me, so I'm going to use what he knows to help those who need help as well. So I teach his material, but in between, I also do do my own coaching, um and and for those that can't afford a full coach. I do have a uh, a small monthly subscription fee group on Facebook that I train every week in Um and whoever needs help, at whatever level. Um, I think everybody deserves to have somebody in their corner that will believe in them until they believe in themselves again, or for the first time, for the first time.

Catherine Gryba: 29:15

So, Connie, what advice do you have for people that are standing in their garden saying I'm, I can't do this for 50 years?

Connie Anne Toma: 29:30

You must, you must, you must move on. You. You must look after yourself. Not everybody can. I talk to women all over the world in in first world and and third world countries. Do what you can Look after yourself, be strong. You're not alone. We feel so alone. I felt so isolated. I could have been in a room of 10,000 people and still felt completely alone with who I am. But but you're not. You're absolutely not in. Find support. Find support.

Connie Anne Toma: 30:11

Think of the life you want to have. If you could have it all, if you have anything you want, even if it's when you close your eyes and you think about the future, that you truly, if you could have it all, what would it be? And in your mind, go there, that is. That is the first step to the law of attraction is seeing that and enclosing your eyes and seeing yourself in that place, whatever that is, and be selfish. It's your imagination, it's your mind. Be selfish and go there. Go there as often as you need to and know that there is a place, there is a place. It truly is, and even in your mind, for now, when you visit it in the future, that's exactly the same as a past bad memory. You can have a future good memory. Your subconscious mind does not know the difference between your imagination and reality. And hold on to whatever you can.

Connie Anne Toma: 31:14

Don't talk to people who bring you down. Don't talk to people about negative stuff. Don't spread sadness and madness on social media. Lift up. Lift yourself up. When we talk, think and respond to the negative stuff, we're making more of it in ourselves. Our emotions create the action of our bodies and, as best we can with where we are, we must have hope and the image and the knowledge that tomorrow can be better. I could have got up from that couch or the mattress on the floor and done something completely opposite to what I did, and we wouldn't be having this conversation and I wouldn't have my incredible husband that I have now, who's my best friend. I would have never met Bob Proctor. I would never have been able to change the lives of the men and women whose lives I've already touched and the thousands more who need us to be strong for them until they can be strong for themselves.

Catherine Gryba: 32:35

You know, Connie, I think it's such an incredible message for all of us is that we all have to be on guard and challenge ourselves to move our life from okay-ish to great, and I think what you've really shared with us is that it really starts with how the choices we make and how we look at moving from okay-ish to great. So what a story You've had. Congratulations to you, Connie. Really an inspiration, and I want to thank you very much for being part of our podcast.

Connie Anne Toma: 33:12

Thank you very much.

Peggie Koenig: 33:13

It's been a pleasure, thank you, thank you.