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Real Talk with Tina and Ann
Tina and Ann met as journalists covering a capital murder trial, 15 years ago. Tina has been a tv and radio personality and has three children. Ann has a master's in counseling and has worked in the jail system, was a director of a battered woman's shelter/rape crisis center, worked as an assistant director at a school for children with autism, worked with abused kids and is currently raising her three children who have autism. She also is autistic and was told would not graduate high school, but as you can see, she has accomplished so much more. The duo share their stories of overcoming and interview people who are making it, despite what has happened. This is more than just two moms sharing their lives. This is two women who have overcome some of life's hardest obstacles. Join us every Wednesday as we go through life's journey together. There is purpose in the pain and hope in the journey.
Real Talk with Tina and Ann
The Power of Positive Thinking: Redirecting Your Thoughts for Success
Ann explores the power of manifesting through intention and action rather than perfectionism, inspired by Halle Berry's insight about focusing on what we want instead of what we don't want.
• Manifesting isn't about magic but about aligning thoughts, beliefs, and actions
• You don't have to be perfectly whole to manifest—you can begin from your messiest places
• Thought stopping techniques can redirect negative thinking patterns
• Your dream life doesn't need a perfect version of you—it needs a present version
• Clarify who you're becoming through vision and soul alignment
• Actions must match intentions—manifestation is movement, not just meditation
• Create boundaries to protect your dreams by saying no to what doesn't align
• Small steps have soul-sized impacts on reaching your goals
• It's never too late to manifest your dreams, regardless of age or past limitations
• Your past may explain you, but it doesn't define you
Take one alignment action today—speak one truth, write down one intention, or act on one goal. You're not just manifesting a life; you're remembering the one you were born to live.
Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. I am Anne. Wait a second. There's no guest. I have nobody to talk to. Oh wait, I'm talking to you. Yeah, I've done this before and it's been a while.
Speaker 1:I came across something on the Drew Barrymore show the other day and I really wanted to touch on it because it was very interesting to me. I honestly, you know what I do believe in manifestation. I do believe in working hard for something and going towards something with everything in your being. Think it, believe it, act on it and it will happen. It was a comment, it was Halle Berry, and I don't remember the exact quote, but she said something along the lines of even when you're thinking about the negative, about what you don't want, or I mean that you're manifesting it. So you need to think what you want instead of think about what you don't want, and that just blew me away. I mean, I have never thought about that before. I spend way too much of my time thinking about what I don't want or what just happened, or the negative, or I do have to say that I work really, really hard to help things get where they need to be, and I would say most of my day is that way and I really believe in if you work hard, you will get there. But her comment made me rethink everything that I've been doing. Yes, continue to do that.
Speaker 1:But one of the things that really touched me when she said that was wait a second. I spend I can't even tell you how much time of my day thinking about the negative parts, pieces that have happened, and how much has that affected the outcome. I bet I bet it's affected a lot of the outcome, and there's a thing called thought stopping and it's something that I have believed in for a very, very long time. I have not been doing it and I need to get back to it. It's where you really literally just stop your thought. I forget how many days it is, I'll just say 21, because that's a good number that I've heard, where you know if you do something for 21 days and you establish a new habit, those kind of things, but your brain automatically takes the course that it's always taken and a thought, it just automatically goes there and that's why it the thought just goes that direction and it takes effort to get your brain to think a different way. So I thought, the more I was thinking about this I'd really like to dive into.
Speaker 1:You know the buzzword of manifesting. Now I know that some of y'all hear that word and immediately roll your eyes. Like girl, I can't manifest myself out of this pile of laundry, let alone a dream life, and I get it because I seriously am there. But I'm not talking about waving a magic wand and poop. Now it would be great. One of my favorite shows and still is is Bewitched. You know, wiggle your Nose or I Dream of Jeannie and those things would be amazing. And I look at my house sometimes and I think, yeah, that would be really great. Just, you know poof. But you know you can't wave a magic wand and your soulmate appears or a six figure salary.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about the real work. I mean the real, the way you think and aligning your beliefs and your actions into something bigger, because manifesting doesn't start when you've got it all together. Let me say that again because I need to hear this. Manifesting doesn't start when you've got it all together. It often starts when your life feels like a beautiful disaster. You know, pink is one of my favorite singers in the world and she has beautiful trauma, the beautiful trauma tour.
Speaker 1:I thought that I would talk a little bit about manifesting from the middle of a mess, and you can use whatever word you want. You can get rid of the word manifesting if you want, Because some people, I think, have a really hard time with that word and, honestly, it's just a call to action so you can kill the myth right here. You don't have to be perfectly whole in any way, because, honestly, are any of us no so but you can manifest while crying in the shower, you can manifest when you're broke. Broken why? Because manifesting isn't about perfection, it's about intention. When I was at my lowest point and I've had quite a few of those, you know, those points where your heart is just cracked open I still whispered to God and he was listening. There's more than this. I don't. I didn't know what it looked like, I didn't know what was coming my way was coming my way, but and I wasn't ready, and that's the thing too I wasn't ready. What's the definition of ready? I think so many times we don't think that we're ready and we're not. But just taking that first step, just getting up off the floor I don't know if anybody out there has literally been on the floor. I mean, when you don't have anything in you to even feel like you can, surrendering really is the only option that you have at that point. Surrendering is not a weakness, it's actually power. And it says I don't know how, but I know that I will, we can start where we are. I mean, that's all we have is to start right where we are. What a gift that is to be able to start where we are.
Speaker 1:Manifesting doesn't ignore the pain. It moves with it. Thank God that even if we are in extreme pain, we can go with it. I just interviewed a man, tony Stewart, who's going to be on, whose wife passed away from cancer and he wrote this amazing book called Carrying the Tiger. I really recommend it. But he learned through his grief to go through the waves and to let the wave take him wherever it went and to be open to wherever he ended up.
Speaker 1:I mean manifesting doesn't ignore the pain. You don't have to fake positivity. I mean manifesting doesn't ignore the pain. You don't have to fake positivity. You just have to believe in possibility, in chance. That is. There is so much there, because lots of times we honestly don't think that there's anything in us to be able to move forward. But I believe. I believe and I know for a fact that if you get up off of that floor, if you take that first step, if you grit and grind and do whatever and think the positive, you don't have to fake the positive. You just have to believe in the possibility.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk about the vision. This isn't a vision board with luxury jets and beaches and that kind of thing. I'm not a beach gal anyway. It's okay, I kind of like going to the beach, but my idea of fun is New York and LA. So there we are. But I'm talking about soul, vision, purpose alignment and who are you becoming? Who am I becoming? That isn't that real. And you're never too old to align your thoughts with what you want to become. It's. It's never too late, because if you don't know where you're headed, how will you know what to say yes to, what to say heck, no to? I mean, I get requests all the time, even on the podcast, and I have to be honest. I always ask myself does this align with our mission, with our vision? So I don't always have everybody on, even if I think that it might lead to something bigger and better. I honestly want to make sure that it aligns with where we are. I have big dreams I really want to manifest, not only for the show, but also for my personal life. I've got my own dreams and visions and I know where I want to be.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I always used to do with my swimmers and this was a big deal I kept coast swimming. For what was it? 12 years or something like that. It was a long time, and one of the things that I would have them do is visualize, stroke by stroke, you know, going off the block, every single stroke, going down, doing the flip turn, going back to the wall and hitting that wall, winning, I mean. And it could have just been a better time, it could have been whatever the winning meant for that person. It could have been fifth place instead of sixth place.
Speaker 1:I just always wanted them to be their best self, to go that one extra. So I always wanted them to close their eyes. I wanted them to close their eyes and imagine the version of who they wanted to be in the water. But if we close our eyes and imagine the version of who we want to be healed, whole, thriving, not perfect, but peaceful, not perfect but peaceful, entire being just chill. I mean I can't even tell you how often I have that. There is so much stress in my life right now I can't even begin to tell you. But there are places that we go, that you go in your life where you actually can feel, feel, where you can feel and, all out, just chill, go over your whole entire body. I'm not talking cold, I'm talking peace, where everything just goes. You just feel better internally. It's just released and imagine the version of you who is healed, you who is whole, whatever that whole might mean in your eyes, and you who is thriving Remember, not perfect, but peaceful.
Speaker 1:What do you believe about yourself? I mean, I actually wrote that down. What do you believe about yourself? I believe I'm an amazing mom. I believe that I give all day long to others. But who am I to me? I don't even know if I could answer that question, but I can tell you what I want to do. I can tell you what I want to give out, and that is positive. I want this show to be positive. I want this show to touch other people and show them. Yes, I've been hurting too. Yes, I've been down and out. I have been on that floor, I have been to parts points in my life where I didn't even feel like I could take that next step, but I did. I took that next step. What do you believe about yourself, and how do you live that out? Do you live that out? What do you want? What do you believe about yourself? Do those measure up? Do your actions lead you to where you're going, where you want to go? If not, then they might need to change.
Speaker 1:How do you walk into a room? I mean, isn't that an interesting question? How do you walk into a room room, I mean, isn't that an interesting question? How do you walk into a room? See, I'm such a real and raw person. I wear my heart on my sleeve when it comes to the podcast and when I help people and when I talk to people about my life and my journey, and that's what this is all about. But I have many. I wear many hats. I think we all do.
Speaker 1:You know there are certain people, certain rooms that I'm going to walk in differently. There's certain rooms of people that I'm not going to share, who I am in my heart, unless you know, I feel led to, and. But you want to ask yourself that question how do you walk into the room? How do you want to be different? How do you want people to see you walk into the room? How do you want to be different? How do you want people to see you? I mean, that's really important. Here's another question, you know, is there something that I need to do that I haven't done yet to reach my goals? Yes, there is. Yes, there is, and Tina and I are talking about it now. And you know what? How come the very thing that we're working really hard at to become is also the very one of the very things that I could be afraid of. How come I know what I need to do? All I need to do is just bam and it's done.
Speaker 1:I think it's the feeling, the feeling of failure. I had a woman on recently Her name was Deborah Weed. That's a good one, too Good episode and she said that she did what she did with her books and musicals and everything. And she got to the point where she did it because she said, what do I have to lose? Did it because she said, what do I have to lose? It's still. Those words have resonated with me since I did that podcast with her. What do I have to lose. So just do it. What do you have to lose?
Speaker 1:If you really want something, if you really want to manifest something, you have to think positive. You have to think positive. Your actions have to align with what your goal is. This is a key. Remove what is in your way. Are there things in your way that's keeping you from reaching your goal that you have, from manifesting what you want? Sometimes it could be yourself. Are you standing in the way? In my case, yes, that is partly, and in the past I have done that. I've worked really hard on that. I think my mind sometimes could stand in the way of what I want or what I believe, and I can talk negatively about myself. It is absolutely something that I have to work on. You know, one of the other things that I used to do with my swimmers is I would give them really positive quotes, and I thought about coming on here with some really positive quotes because that's what we did. But I want our listeners to come up with their own mantras. I don't want to come up with your mantra. Everybody has their own.
Speaker 1:One of mine lately is trust the process and that's pretty cliche, I guess, but I cannot tell you how many times it goes through my head, whether it's something with a family member, something with a podcast, whatever it is in my life, I instantly think. My next thought is trust the process and then for some reason, I'm able to let it go. Whatever is going on, whatever I feel is negative or not working, I feel at that time because I'm hoping that it will go in a different direction I just say trust the process and it instantly, just like that thought, stopping. That's what it does. It makes me my thought go in a different direction and I instantly trust where I am. It doesn't even it might appear to me at that moment. Maybe it's not where I want to be, not where I thought that this was going, but I have to trust where that moment. Maybe it's not where I want to be, not where I thought that this was going, but I have to trust where I am in order to get where I'm going.
Speaker 1:The other part of this and I've touched on this is so many people think that manifesting is just thinking and when I worked in the jail system, I remember a woman and I have talked about this in other podcasts episodes where I said you know, we talked about this type of thing and a woman in the jail said I pray to your God all the time and it doesn't work for me. I don't get where I need to be. And my simple question to her was what are you doing? Because there is. If I could sit here all day long and think what I want that's not what I'm talking about with manifesting me is actually an action. Even my thoughts are positive. They have to be positive, not always, but then I try to change it. They need to. Your thoughts need to be positive. Your actions need to align with your thoughts to reach your goal. It 100% of an action, so it's not just your thought, it is absolutely movement.
Speaker 1:If you want something, you have to do something. If you want connection, you have to reach out. If you want something different, you have to do something different. You want healing. This one is a different kind of action because, like I just said with tony stewart in the podcast that I just the episode that I just did with him, we talked about actually sitting in the pain, allowing the pain to be in order to heal. I mean that's really important, but sometimes an action is an arrest type of situation.
Speaker 1:You want purpose, show up. I say this all the time. I'm just going to keep showing up, even if I'm not ready. Even if I'm not ready, I'm going to keep showing up. If I want something, if I want a job, if I want the podcast on another radio station, if I want whatever it is, I need to show up, even if I'm not ready. I can get as ready as I possibly can and I'm still going to fall short. There's still something that I wasn't ready for. So there was a woman that I had, amy Guber, on one of the podcasts with her mom it was a great Mother's Day podcast and she said she's the kind of person that jumps before the parachutes opened, you know, or before she pulls the string or something along those lines. But you get what I'm talking about. That's you know. We need to jump even before we're ready. You want to reach your dream. You have to jump before you're ready. You want to reach your dream. You have to jump before you're ready. I want to say this your dream life, whatever it is, whatever that vision board, that perfect version of what you want, your dream life doesn't need a perfect version of you. It needs a present version of you. It needs a present version of you.
Speaker 1:I spent way too much time in my life worrying about where I've been my past, whatever it was. I spent way too much time worrying about the things that kept me from being my best self. I worried way too much about the things in the future of how am I going to get there, how am I going to do these things, all the present things that were way too overwhelming Instead of just being in the present, in the moment, being right where I am. I'll tell you if you want to get somewhere positive, get where you want to be. Manifest something from a thought to an action, to a goal. If that's what you want to do, you have to live in the present. You have to. There's a few other things with this Action, like I said, is manifesting in motion, okay, so make sure that there's movement.
Speaker 1:Boundaries are manifestation in protect mode. I mean, there is nothing wrong. Like I said earlier, I don't say yes to everything. So boundaries are good and you need to know what your boundaries are in order to reach the goals that you want, and saying no is clarifying. Saying no is saying yes to your dream. Don't wait to feel ready. Like I said, start moving, because your goals are waiting for you. I promise you that, and they will respond to motion, not just meditation or thinking.
Speaker 1:This week, take one alignment action. That means something that matches the life you're calling the life you want. Do one alignment action. I would do it one a day. I do probably 20, 50 a day, I don't even know how many. I'm constantly checking myself and asking myself is this in alignment with who I am, what I want, where I'm going? Does it reach my goals? If it doesn't do, I need to discard it. I will tell you that is going through my head all the time and I will tell myself things like okay, ann, one of your goals is to write another book. Let's start writing a paragraph every day. Or, you know, make an outline, jot down thoughts.
Speaker 1:I carry a book with me, so, like, if I think something, whether it be for the podcast or for the book or any kind of writing, I write it down, even with my kids. If it's something that I have so much going on in my head and I have ADHD, I have trauma brain lately, I really believe, because of some things that have happened I really think that what we needed, I. So what I do is I carry a book with me and I write it all down. I'm constantly writing oh yeah, I need to call this person. Oh yeah, I need to write this person for the podcast. I got five emails today. I need to check those. I need to write the letters for our sponsorships. Tina and I are working on different things. For that, I mean we need to.
Speaker 1:I need to constantly just write it down because, at the end of the day, sometimes my life is so crazy I don't even know what I did, what my thought was, so I need to see it in writing. It really does help. If it's too overwhelming to do 10 steps, just do one step. This is another thing that I did, because I have a lot of friends and I'll find myself all of a sudden realizing oh my gosh, I've been so busy that I haven't talked to any of them. So this is another thing that I do, and this was really important to me Connection even though I'm autistic, I can tell you that connection is important to autistic people.
Speaker 1:Don't let them, don't let professionals tell you differently. We do need time by ourselves, sometimes more often, but connection is important. So what I find myself doing is and this is another manifestation this goal type thing, where you know, I've established a core people that are really important to me and we all cheer each other on, and they'll be like a week, two weeks, whatever, and I've been so in my stuff that I honestly don't even know, like, how did the time go? It just went. So I have a list of the people that I want to connect with and I will like check it off. Check it off like yes, I did, I talked to this person two days ago. Okay, like yes, I did, I talked to this person two days ago. Okay, I'm good. Oh gosh, I haven't talked to this person in a month. I need to make sure that I text them and I do so. You know, that's really important because I want to manifest, I want to create that thought into an action, into a goal, and keep that relationship going. I think that that's really important. Small steps are soul sized. Small steps are soul-sized, they have a soul-sized impact and if we want connection, if we want that goal, we have to take the small steps to get there.
Speaker 1:I know I don't do this enough, and I could do this pretty often actually, but I have a couple guests that are coming up that are really important guests. Toni Stewart, which I already talked about, is one. Tamara Blue is coming up and she is a brilliant mental health professional who created her own space for mental health and she believes in mental health for everybody, so we will be talking about that. You need to check her website out for mentalhappycom and everything else about Tamar Blue. She's an amazing human, but I wanted to do this this week because I don't get to. I don't get to talk that much. Last week I had Denise Bard on and I did that purposely because I wanted to. While Tina takes her summer break, I wanted to purposely get on and talk.
Speaker 1:I'm always interviewing other people and I love hearing their stories, but I also love to share and I love to take the knowledge and the wisdom that I've gotten along the way and share it with you. Here's what I want to leave with you. Manifesting isn't magic and it takes decades, years, months, minutes, seconds, but you have to do those. You have to do it. It takes a really long time. One thing that I have learned is that I have taken, and I didn't know when I was in college. This is what I wanted to be. I was going to be in communications. I was going to do journalism. I was going to do TV. I was going to do whatever it was. I was going to be in communications. I was going to do journalism. I was going to do TV. I was going to do whatever it was I was going to do. I don't know. I was 20. I didn't know what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1:That changed to social work. I had a lot of problems. I really did have a genuine want to help people, so I went into social work, which led to later a counseling degree to social work, which led to later a counseling degree which led to me working in the helping profession and many different helping professions, landing a great journalism print job which led me to writing a book, which led me to magazines, which led me to being on the radio a couple times, which led to just different things, many different opportunities. And so then you know, you take everything in your life. I took the counseling degrees and I took the writing and the journalism and the hard news and the feature stories that I used to do and the column that I had and everything else. And here we are now. I combined all of that and the experiences that I've had and I'm doing the podcast.
Speaker 1:If you would have asked me when I was 20 if I would be doing this, I would have said no 30s, no 40s. You know, you never know what you're going to end up at. Every single opportunity, open the door and look at it. Look at it, see if it's taking you to where you want to be, because you don't even know. I didn't know that these opportunities would lead me to where I am. But I am loving having these opportunities. I am loving who I am right now, having these chances to be able to talk to all of you, meet people all over the country, help meet people where they are, because that's what I believe in meeting people where they are and us all going on this journey together. So manifesting isn't magic. It's a partnership between your heart and our heart, your relationships, your hustle, whatever divine force you believe in and me. I believe in God and that there is a God and I believe that he's helping me get to where I'm going. It's not too late. I don't care if you're 80. I don't care if you're 90.
Speaker 1:I just did a podcast with a 90-some-year-old lady and she's amazing, amazing. And there's another woman who's 85, 86 years old and she's running an entire program for a bunch of city kids and she's giving them hope and vision. She's almost 90 and she's doing that. It is not too late, I'm telling you. I had Betty Smith on the podcast, the woman I just talked about. She went, I just watched her go down a parade. She walked 2.2 miles and she is an amazing woman. She's a visionary, still at almost 90 years old.
Speaker 1:The other lady that I had on the podcast her name is Gwen Borden and she is reaching so many people Just became an author with her daughter. For the very first time she's going around speaking. She was on this podcast. She's been on many podcasts. She's a visionary. She's still reaching her dreams. She's still living, as if her dream is, you know, 10, 20 years away. She's not going to stop, and maybe it is. She's got so much in her stills. You don't quit living when you're still alive. So, trust me, it is never too late. You're never too broken.
Speaker 1:I have been as broken as it possibly can be. I have been down and out. I have felt like I can't move forward. I was told that I wouldn't graduate high school because of my disabilities. I got a master's degree. I was told that I wouldn't be able to hit a ball because my eyes don't converge, and so I have a lot of vision problems and spatial sense. I hit home runs. Well, I'm going to be honest, I maybe hit one or two, but I did it.
Speaker 1:I was told I wouldn't be able to ride a bike because I was, so you know, I just couldn't figure that out. Anyway, I rode a unicycle in a parade, a six foot unicycle on a parade. I was told that I probably wouldn't be able to drive, and I ended up driving a mail truck on the opposite side. I mean, you know every single thing that they have told me I can't do. I say watch me, and that's all. By manifesting and making things happen. I know that I'm autistic. I know that people could give me a list of things of who I am and what I should not be able to accomplish. I'm going to show you what we can do, what people with autism can do, what people with disabilities can do, what people with executive functioning issues, like I do, can do, and I want to tell you this and I'm going to end here.
Speaker 1:But there's people that if they knew my dreams along the way, they would have said you're crazy, your dreams aren't crazy. Reach for as high as you want to go and don't let anybody tell you that your dreams are crazy. You are not crazy for believing that more is possible. That's brilliant. You're brilliant. You're brave. Your past may explain you, but it doesn't define you, and I say that all the time. Don't let your past define you and don't let other people's definitions of you define you, no way. Your dreams are not silly. Your dreams are sacred. They are yours.
Speaker 1:So today, take a step. Speak one truth, write one, write something down. Act on one of your goals. Act on it, make it into a movement. Take your thought and make it into a movement. You're not just manifesting a life, you're remembering the one you were born to live. You got to remember that. That is so important. You are remembering the one that you were born to live. You're way too important. You're way too important. You can make it happen.
Speaker 1:It's up to you. If you want it, think it. If you want it, think the positive. Don't think the things that are against what you want, because that's what your focus is. Then. Don't think about the roadblocks. Think about the way to get around the roadblocks. I know you can do it because I've done it and I'm doing it every single day. I still have to correct myself, I still have to trust the process, I still have to be okay with where I'm at and start with where I'm at. So there you go. You can too. Well, I'm done, but we'll do this again. Thank you for joining me and at Real Talk with Tina and Anne and I will see you next time. World changers aren't pleasing everybody, they're just not.
