The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

Unknown Speaker 0:00
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Unknown Speaker 0:26
Good morning, and thank you for joining me for the scoop with Tanya Flanagan. I'm so happy you decided to wake up and start your day with me. Here on the scoop, where we talk about life, joy, funny moments, trending topics, and so much more. We promise to keep you in the know and find out what you know. So let's get started.

Unknown Speaker 0:53
Good morning, and welcome to another Sunday morning on the scoop. Thank you again for getting up and tuning in. Excited to be here for another weekend. Another show have I think an interesting topic this morning for conversation. I'm gonna go ahead and welcome my guest. Lucia Whitmore is here with me this morning, dear friend and a person that I find fascinating, and I hope that you will too. Good morning, Michelle.

Unknown Speaker 1:21
Good morning, Tanya. How are you?

Unknown Speaker 1:23
I am wonderful. This Sunday morning. The weather's changing the season. My favorite season is closing out I love summer, I want to paint the picture of who you are a little bit for the audience today. When I met you, you were advocating for an issue that you were passionate about in the community. And then I found out you were at the time a school teacher and now you have a maple add to that now you have a wellness practice. I'm not gonna call it a beauty service. It is a I guess, would you say holistic wellness practice absolutely,

Unknown Speaker 1:58
absolutely holistic, holistic health and wellness.

Unknown Speaker 2:01
So you are the founder, creator of blissful therapy. Tell, I'd like to talk today about how you took your journey. Because sometimes things are linear. You know, people do one thing, then they do the next thing. And then they do what follows naturally. But like I said, when I started, you were at a community meeting, we were up at Mountain crest. And then I went over to we were teaching at Rainbow dreams Academy. And I went in and I read to your students during Nevada Reading Week. And then you you took a leap of faith and started a business and it has evolved exponentially. So tell us a little bit about your life journey.

Unknown Speaker 2:44
Yeah, so you know, I I am involved in the community, as you are always looking to see what you can be involved in, you know, sometimes you see things that you don't like, and instead of complaining about it looking for an opportunity, what can I do, instead of complaining and you know, looking for problems, let me look for a solution. So I taught school for about 20 years, and in the community, you start to see you know, dealing with your students, the families, you start to see so many things going on. And so working on the historical west side of Las Vegas, I would be involved at the Art Center, the West Las Vegas Library, the theater, and really getting my students involved in anything I could so the spelling bees and the speech competitions and just really involving them and getting them in touch with the community. And so all the walks and the the, you know, whatever community event I could find I was finding myself involved in and oftentimes I will see you there too. So that was awesome. But also, you know, in a classroom, you get an opportunity to show yourself it's not like a corporate space where you kind of have to shift and change, I get to be myself in the classroom. And so I garden that's something that I've loved since since I was a little kid. I like to grow my food, I like to make my own skincare products. I am a person who is a highly sensitive one. And so being highly sensitive, I would make a muscle from scratch, growing it in the backyard and doing things of that nature and it just kind of extends into my life. And so I would be making my juices and my smoothies and my teas and getting into the classroom, you know, sharing with my colleagues that took on a space where people wanted to buy more it wasn't just me bringing my little juice and sharing with the with a co worker they're like hey, can I buy a juice from you and people start losing weight people started healing illnesses, people started getting better skin better hair growing all of that with the juices and the teas. And then also I ended up you know, I was making skincare because I suffered from a number of skin issues, I had eczema. I had psoriasis, my hair wasn't growing and dealing with, you know, hormonal changes. So you got acne, all the things and I was making my own products, just as service myself to take care of myself. And in time, I was able to get rid of those problems. So no longer suffering from eczema, my hairs grow in long. And I actually had a student of mine who who suffer from acne, eczema really bad she was in first grade, I believe. And I had my own little stash of products next to the sink in my classroom, because you know, you're washing your hands throughout the day, you know, with all the activities you do in the classroom. And I gave the young lady some some of my black soap and some of my body most, gave it to her mom and said, you know, give it give it a little sign, and maybe her skin will get better give it a few weeks, like you would anything else give it some time. And three days later, the eczema was gone, like all the wounds, all the cuts, all the things were gone on her skin. And so all the teachers notice, and the parents start talking, and then my business started to take on and grow organically. And so I found myself waking up at four o'clock in the morning making juices and smoothies. And then I find myself after work making products. And so, so far as the products go, it was the skincare, I'm up until 1am making products, people are saying, Hey, do you, you know, can you put it in a different kind of container, so it doesn't melt? Do you have a website so I can share with a friend? Do you have business cards so that I can share your number. And so in time, I just slowly just add on, you know, and so the business is growing in time, and I actually ended up with Imagine me sitting at school and on my lunch breaks, I would have a line of cars on every lunch breaks, you know, waiting in line to buy my products. And so I'm selling CDs on the lunch break, and I'm staying up all hours making product. And I got to that point where it's like, well, I'm not getting any sleep, like I'm not getting any sleep. And so it was kind of a space where I don't want to take away from motherhood, I don't want to take away from what I give to my children what I gave to my family. And so I kind of decided like, it's time to it's time to pick, you know, and so getting up probably got like four to five hours asleep for a couple of years before I'm like, Okay, this is, this is too much. I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to choose, but I would always maintain my teaching license. But I took the leap. And so in 2018 I quit my day job, I decided to put aside enough money to cover my mortgage, I had just bought a house. Just I bought a house, I bought a car I newly newly divorced and I ended up just going for it. And so I took that leap. And here I am 2023. And I'm I haven't gone back. Yeah, I haven't gone back.

Unknown Speaker 8:08
That is a phenomenal story about your journey, and how you, you know how you did it, what and what motivated you? And how having the courage to try something really for yourself. And then the unselfishness to share what you were creating for yourself with another person with other people blossom into what you do now. But we've often chatted about the space you occupy and how it sounds like we're talking about this beauty business where you make juices and teas and body mooses facial wash soaps and stuff like that. But it's really more than that. Because we have had a lot of conversations about how is one thing to put a cream on to solve a problem. But you also really help people get to the root of things. One of the things I was thinking about you as I was getting up to get on this morning, and one of the things I love about you so much is become this and the inspiration. Whenever I talk to you, it always makes me dig a little bit deeper into who I am and to take a look at whatever might be causing me some stress. Taken up just sleep time weighing on me to really look at what's the real root cause. Because sure, I might have moisturize skin but I still don't feel great, right? I had a tea to drink but I still don't feel better. So we always have the conversation about peeling back the layers of the onion, getting in the mirror getting in the closet and really being honest about what's the real root cause of why things are not going well. When we talk about this. It's not just getting a prod is dealing with self. Talk about that with me. How does that? How does that holistic approach work into what you do when you're, you know, servicing clients, right?

Unknown Speaker 10:14
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. Well, when I was going through the process of doing my own healing journey, right, everybody, as we get older, and we start to, like you said, peel back those layers and get back to who you are, I started discovering some things about myself. And so like I said, highly sensitive, I'm empathic. I'm one of those people to dream I see I hear a little more a little more deeply. But it's, it's, it gives me the opportunity to really look at the whole person. And so I am also a holistic life coach. And when I'm working with my clients, it's like, let's get to the actual root of the problem. So like, if you thinking about pretty much anything, everything is energetic, everything is so much deeper and so much more complex than what meets the eye. Right? So let's imagine it was skin, if someone is suffering from acne, and you slap on some motion, and some butters and some washers, okay, is it hormonal? Is it the diet? Is it stress? Like, there's so many reasons to lead to acne? And so if we were talking about it from a skincare perspective, it's more important to find out well, what what is causing the issue. And so when I work with a client, and let's say they're angry, or let's say they have anxiety, or let's say, they have depression, or let's say that we have a physical ailment, we're going to sit down and we're going to touch on the true cause. And the true nature of whatever it is, is going on, because I'm looking for a true solution. Because if it's truly sold, it's not, it's not coming back. It's it's forever gone. Right. And so if I have to continue to treat this thing, it never, it never was healed. It never did go away. And so

Unknown Speaker 12:06
we never got to we never got to the root. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 12:09
yeah, it never went away. And so I may have someone who came with girl fibromyalgia, it could be cancer, it can be multiple sclerosis, it can be anything. When I'm sitting, and I'm, it's almost like, you know, I'm filling them out, I'm sitting in a person is talking, and it's not a traditional therapy session where, you know, we're just talking about childhood and everything else. I'm sitting, and I'm tapping in and I'm connecting, and I'm noticing the patterns. And so sometimes it's like, like, if let's say it's a kidney, let's say it's a kidney issue, kidneys always attribute to anger. And so now we got to tap into well, who is it you haven't forgiven? What is it you haven't let go of? Is there somebody that hurts you a long time ago, these childhood traumas that we hold in our body, that turns into illness that just continued to build and grow and kind of get out of our hands. And so it's a really, it's a holistic approach. And so be it, relationship, be it self care, and how you see yourself self worth the, you know, your career path, we're gonna get all the way down to the nitty gritty and really touch on what's really going on with you. Because you can just say, Caroline's has been sick, or, you know, I've just been down in the dumps.

Unknown Speaker 13:35
That's a real true piece. And we've, we've unpacked this before, but it is just that it's unpacking. Right? So it's being getting quiet enough slowing down your life enough to have hard conversations with yourself. But the courage to have them or the benefit maybe of having them with someone like you, who is neutral, who was objective that can see because it is not the easiest thing is one thing, when you're really in tune to yourself. I always say to people, right, having had the medical journey that I've had in my life, my best advice to people was that no one knows your body more than you do. So if something is wrong, you should be the first person to notice that you aren't feeling well and that something is different, right? So to that point, say it's not an obvious medical problem. It's something else like maybe it is stress, maybe you just feel tired, you feel exhausted, you don't feel like you have energy or your motivation levels just seems so low. What's really going on in life what it's taking the time to be still enough and to be authentic enough with yourself to be unafraid to to be truthful about what you're really feeling. It Are you angry and the point you made earlier about childhood traumas, childhood traumas, I think are really realize the impact of childhood trauma I was probably about in my 30s. I mean, I'm still in my 30s. But those other 30s You know what I mean, I was running an organization and I sat down to have dinner one night with one of the people who was involved in his community outreach program with me, and he said, what's really bothering you? And that's what do you mean? And he was like, What happened that dealing with, I was dealing with a person who was combative. And every time something didn't go right in the project, it was always my fault. And I felt bullied, I felt picked on. And I did not like constantly being this person's Escape Goat, whether I was in the room or not in the room, to defend my position, and what efforts and steps I had taken to ensure the project was successful. Whenever I was around, this individual always made the unrealized undesired outcome had something to do with me when it did not. But what it made in the person was like, why are you giving this much energy to this person? You know, nothing. That being said is true. It didn't matter. And he said, What is it that happened? It won't let you let this go. So put in some more context to it. You know, I have had a cancer history journey. So having had a cancer in my life, in the past, yeah. He's like, you can't even afford to be this worked up over a situation. In that moment, I said, I feel like I'm being bullied. And I do not like it. Because I've always come across so nice, which I am a nice person. But that niceness as a kid made other people think, Oh, you are weak or vulnerable, always subject to attack. And I did not really think about it until I felt like in this space as an adult, this person, whether I'm present or not, is trying to bully me. Yes, into taking a position that's beneficial to him, but not beneficial to me. And my desire was to push back on that. But I was so diplomatic, that I was internalizing it more than I was addressing it with the individual. And it wasn't until he really we were sitting down over dinner, that he said something is happening. It's pulling from a past place your reaction to it in the present. And I was like, Oh, wow,

Unknown Speaker 17:34
that's okay. Okay, that's so good. That, Oh, glad that you had someone watching, though. And listening and paying attention? Because that's so good. It

Unknown Speaker 17:45
was probably one of the turning points. Well, I mean, I've always been, I think a little different, you know, like, in I guess where to your point sensitive sensitivity levels are very good ability to look at things through the lens of human behavior. People might not do what you think they what you hope they do, but their reaction is a very human reaction. And if you have the emotional intelligence to tap into people's typical reactions, then what people do want always surprise you or even disappoint you. Right, and it allows you to allow for your shortcomings and to understand that other people have that we all know we're all flawed, right? Right. Right, right. So how do you respond to the flaws that you have? And how do you respond to the flaws others have, and how they, how those things interact? And mesh or don't.

Unknown Speaker 18:40
So, when you speak of recognizing that something is really bothering you, that's the trigger is sometimes you realize that hey, something like I don't know where this came from. I don't know why this is bugging me so much. What is it? What is it about this thing that bothers me? That's a trigger. And when I think about triggers, I think about an ingrown toenail, right? sounds odd, but hear me out. So if I'm walking around in life, it's normal to stub a toe. It's normal for someone to step on your foot sometimes. And if you're dancing, someone's it's very common, right? But that you would brush it off, someone stepped on your toe, oh my god, sorry, they go on about your business. But if you have an ingrown toenail, it's like you got two hooks in each toe. And so if someone steps on your toe, it may be highly infected. It can be extremely painful. I mean, you don't know what might happen. And so the reaction may be a scream and may be a shock. That may be anger, it may be tears, and the person who did the stepping on the toe may be like, well, wow, what was that? Like? What was that reaction or, or my actions shouldn't have caused such a negative reaction? Is that the spot where you realize, hey, this has nothing to do with you. This is this is a prior injury. This is a prior hurt. This is something that has Nothing to do with you. But now I got to lean into it instead of just walking around avoiding the dance, instead of walking around a boy avoiding walking, kicking up isolating, because I don't want anybody to step on my toes to say I have a prior issue. No, you lean into the problem and you get to the bottom of it, you find out what's wrong. And so if something is bothering you, sometimes it may be, you know, you really heard some tears came out of nowhere, you know, there's unnecessary anger or stress or whatever. In those moments, I'm going to pull out my journal. I'm going to pull out my, my voice recorder on my phone. And I'm like, let me let me see what that was. Let me let me look back. Let me let me find this.

Unknown Speaker 20:42
That's some good. That's good advice for like, self soothing. And we've talked about it before where? Yeah, it can be, like you said, it's the smallest thing. It can be realizing that you don't want to go somewhere. You know, have you ever found yourself getting ready, go to a dinner, go to a luncheon, go to meet someone go to a reception, and you're just like, it's simple enough to hey, you're just your Saturday evening and close this reception or your Saturday afternoon and close this meeting. But you're not really that excited or happy to go. Because in reality, what's really at the root of it is maybe you're overworked, overstressed, overstressed stretched too thin. And the whole issue with that is time, right. So instead of saying, reclaiming that time, and recognizing for your health, and for your well being, you need to push pause, we tend to hunker down, and we push forward. Because we really don't want to disappoint the other person. I learned a really crazy lesson in my 40s. And obviously, my 30s A moment ago, in my 40s, I learned a really crazy lesson, and it was people do what makes them happy. I've always thought of myself who thinks, how will this action affect others, you know, the, do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Right? The faith based Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And it's not even that people always intend to do something that hurts you. But I've learned that people, just like yourself, are searching for their own happy place, state of healthiness. But we have to be honest with ourselves about what are the things that are taking us further and further and further away from that? If it's time, how do you reclaim that time learning that it's okay, if you're a busy person and over committed person, or really active person learning to say no, knowing that you need a minute to be steel, and being okay with being if you have been the Energizer Bunny, where community services concerned or work in even, I'm not gonna say in the church, but just in on, I don't know what it could be in the school, in a group, maybe you just need a ride on it. If for the last 15 or 20 years, you've always been on, maybe you need to take a year and just pause. If it's social media that shifts your energy. Maybe you need to take a minute and pause. Yeah, if family time shifts your energy, and you said, Oh my gosh, I don't want to miss this family event. But every time I leave, I'm having a conversation with this person or this person or this person, I feel this way.

Unknown Speaker 23:33
Right. Right. How what's the advice

Unknown Speaker 23:36
on how you manage those spaces that create negative feelings were to say to someone,

Unknown Speaker 23:44
I am so glad you said that that was something I definitely wanted to touch on. Because there's so many things, there's so many layers to that, right? Because as women especially, but for all of us get pushing past the exhaustion, we get to those points where we want to overextend ourselves, we want to be pushing towards martyrdom, right? It's like, oh, my gosh, I just have to and you give so much of yourself. But what that really is, is where you get to a space where your value is attached to what you do for others. And that's not it. That's not That's not it. So if it's a relationship, if you're in a relationship, and you're thinking like, what am I bringing to the table, and I'm cooking, and I'm cleaning, I'm caring for the kids, and I'm bringing money and everything good conversation, all the things that I show up for. But if I did nothing at all, if I did nothing but show up and be myself, that should be enough to receive love, period, just me existing should be enough to receive love. And so sometimes we tend to give so much to feel valuable, right? And so when you're when you're going and you're giving so much you're really supposed to give from your overflow when you're Getting to the point where I'm exhausted. And I don't want to. And now it's different from being like, Oh, I'm kind of nervous. I'm kind of shy. But when I'm exhausted, and I still push through and fight through, because there is a balance, and sometimes it's like, yeah, you know, you, when you think about a workout, there's a point of I'm going to push through to get this thing done to build the strength to get the body that I desire. But then there's also a point when I have overextended myself, and now I'm bringing up pain, and now there's a possibility of injury, right? Like there's I push, you push yourself to the possibility of injury, and that's called self betrayal. That's self betrayal. There's nothing other than that. That's what it is. And you have to understand and I mean, it can be the most simple thing I heard Tracee Ellis Ross talk about self care being the simplicity of not holding up. It can be that simple as like, if you got to go to the bathroom, and go to the dog gone back to when you thirsty drink water, when you're hungry, go eat, but we will, we

Unknown Speaker 25:59
will try are starting to write,

Unknown Speaker 26:01
take a nap go lay down. And but it's such a shift because we're trying to be everything for everybody. And it's a betrayal for yourself. And there's nothing that anybody else, anybody close to you has to mirror. They're gonna mirror what you've already been to yourself. And so if you have already betrayed yourself, and then someone else shows up and does the same thing go we'd be shocked. But all they are doing is being a mirror to what's going on. And finally,

Unknown Speaker 26:30
this is okay to treat me this way. We are running out of time. Oh my god, we're running out of time. Yes, we're running out of time this morning. But what? That that self betrayal. I'm like, That is a powerful, powerful label for mistreatment of oneself. Oh my gosh, yeah. Oh, my goodness, I wish we had more time to really talk about self love and just powering through. And knowing that your strength is part of your authenticity and tapping into the things that scare you the most will make you the strongest. It might be a hard journey, but and you never stopped discovering. And sometimes you feel like oh, you know, people say Oh, I can't believe you just Oh, and you still trying to find yourself. You're not finding yourself. But I think you are having a continuous discovery because things changes. We evolve interactions and experiences people daily. There are differences like there's a season every year and every year has a different set of of histories that is cataloged. Your life is the same way. But I'll always want to make sure my guests share their socials. So where can people find you? I've had I've used your projects, products, they are wonderful. So if anyone wants to try them, where would they find you? And just, you know, what's the socials out there? How can we find you?

Unknown Speaker 27:53
Absolutely. Well, I am blissful therapy on everything. So you can find me on Facebook, you can find me on Instagram at under blissful therapy. And then also my website is blissful hyphen, therapy.com. And so if you're interested in the product line, my services, there's a link to my services there as well. You can look in the bio on Instagram and get my links as well. And if you're interested in services, my direct my direct website is just Calendly. My calendly.com/blissful therapy is where you can book a session and get an intuitive guidance session. Get in there and tap in and let me let me help you work through your stuff. So yeah, I would love I would love to work with you. I would love to share my things, my favorite things, my favorite items and my favorite services as well.

Unknown Speaker 28:42
Well, I just want to thank you for getting up and spend some time with me this morning and getting my new week off to a fresh start. I often talk about balance on the show. And I think it's so important and it can't be reiterated enough. So I want to say to you have a wonderful rest of your week. Thank you for spending some time with me and to my guests who have tuned in. Again grateful to have Michelle Whitmore with me this morning. I hope you have had a takeaway. And from this you tap into yourself and identify and recognize their self betrayal so that self love and self care is a priority for you as well. And have an awesome week. Thank you for tuning into the scoop here on K human being 91.5 jazz or more. I want to thank you for tuning into the scoop with me Tony Flanagan and I want to invite you to get social with me I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My name is my handle ta en YAFLA na GA N You can also find me on Instagram at Tanya almond eyes Flanagan and if you have a thought and opinion or a suggestion, don't hesitate to shoot me an email to Tanya dad flanagan@unlv.edu. Thanks again for joining in. Stay safe and have a great week.

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