The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

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Tanya Flanagan 0:19
Good morning, and thank you for joining me for the scoop with Tonya 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. Do you.

Tanya Flanagan 0:47
Good morning Las Vegas, and welcome to another Sunday morning with me. Tanya Flanagan, here on KU NV, 91.5 jazz and more, I am delighted and thankful that you've decided to wake up and join me for the scoop. I am always delighted to welcome wonderful people to the studio, and this morning, I'm welcoming back a dear friend, a sorority sister, someone who I admire greatly, because I wanted to have an additional conversation and continue some of the things we discussed when she was here before she is the author of the journey forward, four seasons of reflection for deep healing and transformation, the uncomparable. Dr Tiffany Tyler, Garner Good morning,

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 1:24
good morning, and thank you.

Tanya Flanagan 1:27
Thank you for being here before we started to dive into the show. This morning, she brought up that it is my birthday season, so it's another, I guess, circle around the sun, as people say, journey around the sun. And I don't know, maybe it is apropos as I sit here and realize the book The journey forward four seasons of reflection, I am at the double nickel point in life, 55 and women don't often share age, but I'm going to put that out there. And you asked me a question about what was the question again? What am I reflecting on or

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 2:00
growing as you begin this new chapter having celebrated this milestone birthday. What awarenesses Are you having, or what things are you celebrating? Because there's much to celebrate.

Tanya Flanagan 2:11
And folks, I immediately sit there you go being Dr Tiffany Tyler Garner doctoring me on the show. And I'm like, I'm gonna let you come in here and interview me, but we are gonna do it today. Wow, it and she usually, I'm not the one at a loss. I think just learning to be more centered, learning to pause, and learning to be in the moment, I think I've spent a lot of life revved up, busy running. My niece, child is 40. She'll be 41 in January, and every so often I'll talk with her about boundaries, about taking time, and she'll say to me, well, auntie, you've been working your entire life, giving back doing something. It's okay to sit still. And my father would echo her and say, You don't know how to stay home, or you don't know how to sit down. And my father likes to use one of his tactics, is to use other people to say what he wants to say. Okay, so what he likes to do is accuse my uncle, my godfather, his brother, younger brother, of saying and his name is Robert. Uncle. Robert said it's always,

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 3:22
I almost like that. I'm just asking for a friend that it's

Tanya Flanagan 3:26
exactly that tactic. Uncle Robert said that she'll she'll slow down one day, she's going to sit down one day. And I think that one of the things I've come to value very much is time. Yes, time, and I'm in a space of intentionalness, and so making sure that if I'm talking about something, I'm really thinking about the question asked, I'm really thinking about the audience that's going to receive, and I'm really taking a moment to look at my life and flip through the pages to say, what is it that has occurred in my life that I could share in this moment that will really be valuable and useful to another person. So really being in the moment and being intentional. And it was another one of our we're both members of the wonderful, illustrious Alpha Kappa, Alpha Sorority Incorporated, and another one of our sisters, Dr Carmen Jones, when I was on the campaign trail, somebody said to me, because I always felt like people were busy. They have places to go, and there's all these people on program talking, and she said to me, no, slow down. People want to get to know you, and people want to hear what you have to say, yes. And so that resonated with me, as we all rushed through life, so much to slow down, and then in doing that, to make sure that what I have to say, hopefully, is useful and it's relevant, that it's intentional. So I think that's probably one of the biggest things for me at this point in life.

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 4:49
You are absolutely catalytic in your engagement with other people, even as I think about what you just shared now, in the ways you have me pondering time. Okay and how it might feel or look different, if I really began taking consideration how time works, like the fact that every day I have less of it, or when I say I don't have time for this, but I'm spending time on the very thing I said I don't have time for, but not making time for the things that I need to if I'm going to be around, like my health or my peace, the fact that you are at a place where you're like, I'm going to make sure that as a part of how I account for time or even take it, I am going to be present. I'm going to give myself the space that I need with it, and I'm going to be intentional about where I spent, it is such an important consideration. Just even thinking about the ways in which we may misuse time if we're unclear about the gift that we are, or the gifts that we have, or how time is supposed to be a gift itself.

Tanya Flanagan 5:56
That is why I love talking with you, because it's the way you introduce concepts and ideas that touch on so many different points of our lives that we don't even realize. Just in what you said just now takes me to the place of dating. I don't care if you're a male or a female, the time you spend dating, the time you have for it in your 20s is not the time you have for it in your 40s, right? The time you spend not recognizing your value. So therefore, you give the additional time to a relational space. It doesn't even have to be a love scenario. It can be a friendship. It can be a professional exchange, or what you think is a professional relationship that's supposed to create this back and forth benefit, and the time that we give to it, not to get the return on that investment, or not to have our value seen in that space, and you don't get it back. I mean, there's so much to it. And then even, even just in being healthy, the mental space, the physical space, the spiritual journey. There's so many, so often, we find ourselves wishing we were healthier, getting more exercise, but yet we have these deadlines for work, for family, for children, for community, and so the one thing you push back, and you touched on this, is what you're doing for yourself. So when you should get up and take the walk in the morning. Yes, or you should prioritize going to the gym, because maybe it will help you with your blood pressure issue or your diabetes issue, or your kidney issue, or your heart is whatever it will help you with, right? But yet you move to the bottom of your list because you don't have time, because you have to do all this other stuff. But if you make more time for the exercise, you'd be healthier for all the other stuff. May be happier, may be able to do all the other stuff longer, because you prioritized how important your health is in doing the exercise that you don't have time for. Because you just got to get on this meeting. You just got to finish

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 7:56
and with it, the recognition that time is going to pass, it is. It's not going to ask for our permission. It's not going to coordinate with expectations. And so if it is going to pass, if it has passed, did it pass with you achieving what you wanted to achieve, benefiting in the ways that you could almost like, Hey, I know it takes 45 minutes to bake a cake, but if I put it in the oven, but don't cut it on at the end of that 45 minutes, while I had all of the potential of that moment, or those other investments, because I did not make sure that I brought it all together, I don't have what I want, and so like maybe time is going to Pass, and I've invested in certain relationships or certain initiatives, but maybe I'm not putting the one thing in it that will ensure that I will have what I want at the end of it, things like maybe peace or consistency or choosing from a place of worth, so that I'm not letting time pass in relationships while I won't where I won't have The courage to say no, that's

Tanya Flanagan 9:02
not enough for me. That's maturity. Right. As time passes while we're talking about that, because you've written this book, the journey forward is that type of information, energy assessment, evaluation in this book,

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 9:15
absolutely, not only some discussion about how I am thinking about time, but even thinking about the investment of myself, or the prioritization of different things in my life are part of that journey. Thinking about even this notion of there being four seasons, and that there's a purpose in each of them, if I am not attending to things like, hey, it's fall, and in fall, you shed some things. You literally consciously choose to let things go because you need to make room for your spring, or, Hey, there's a winter. And besides it just being a parent of dormancy, what if you called it rest, as in the place that you take the time to go inward and just be with. You to come out in time enough to have a really great spring and to flower or have bud, all of the new possibilities because you had the courage to have your fall and let some things go. And so not only do I talk about things like this concept of time, including this notion of we assume that we will always have it, and daily we are hearing about how that's not the case, whether it was the passing of Malcolm Jamal Warner this week, who his most recent interview, he said, but I am confident that I have, if I never,

Tanya Flanagan 10:32
yeah, and you don't, because no days, no day is promised, you know, we, we grew up with that biblical saying, No day is promised. And it's very true, you know, and a place of great thankfulness that I have is, and you often hear me talk about my dad, but it's because he's 86 he'll be 87 God willing, in November, which is just a few months away. But not only that, he's 86 in his right mind, able, bodied, upright, living by himself, cooking for himself, driving himself, taking care of his own stuff, looking at his own finances and financial responsibilities and obligations, able to argue, I tell the truth earlier this week, we're talking about something to do with his finances that I needed to do with the bank, and he's very particular that it has to be just so. So I introduced the just so idea, and I refused at me, was right, because I don't want to be wrong. But he didn't introduce a solution that was more streamlined than mine. And I was like, Oh, wait, it's better than my idea. And he said, Why did you take so long to say that? I said, I or to get to the point? And I said, I did. And I introduced the point. You just had lots of questions, because I refused to admit that he got to the point, okay, before I got to the point. Okay? So I just made it sound like he didn't get to the point, or that he didn't, you know, he wasn't listening to me get to the point. But it was nice to have that back and forth exchange with him at his age, and allow him to arrive at his own solution, and have his solution be the more efficient process. And it was nice to and even maybe a few years back, my cousin is a lieutenant commander in the commander, I'm sorry not Lieutenant may not demote him a commander in the United States Navy. And he was talking about some ship that wrecked into something some ocean across the way. But it was the technical components of the conversation. And my father, who didn't actually get to finish high school because he was the oldest of oldest boy of 11 kids in rural Mississippi, but to watch him have this conversation always a numbers person, very technical measure build in the trades follow this technical conversation about seaboards and sideboards and whatever I was like to see that exchange, to appreciate that he still has that ability, in his late 70s 80s, to follow this conversation with my commander cousin, who's six years younger than me. I'm like, that's a mind, right? Yes, and it's the things that we take for granted, I think, in life, and we think we always have more time to be more seasoned, to prepare. But how have you used that time with, how have you used life with whatever you've been given?

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 13:10
And are you using it fully? And if you're not, why? Why aren't you and making sure that you rule out things like, oh, it's some unconscious belief. May be that I don't believe I'm worthy of it. Meanwhile, the world is waiting on your specific solution as a part of that journey, and also this notion of time being something that you should be actively evaluating every day. And so even when we say things like, I don't have time for that, the other question should be, but what am I making time for? And are those the things that align with the vision or the goals that I have, and how do

Tanya Flanagan 13:47
I feel about it when I'm finished with it? Yes, I think that's the real a big question in the space of time. How do I feel? How do I feel? Or how, how do the things that I'm doing make me feel? And if there isn't joy or peace or celebration of some sort. When those activities are done, maybe I need to reevaluate I'm giving what I'm who, and what I'm giving time and energy to. And I'll say another person that's actually also a sore made me look at board service differently because a board an organization asked her to sit on their board, and she made the simple comment, what am I going to contribute? Was the question that I asked myself to this board, and I was like, oh, as simple as that was, it was powerful. And why it's powerful is because oftentimes we get caught up in the excitement that someone has asked you to be a part of something, and it seems ceremonial and it is to be asked to be invited to participate, is ceremonial. But the bigger question is, what value and contribution would you bring that makes it worth the time that you're going to give up to be a part of this board, this activity, and if they're and if they don't know what they want from you, they can't tell you that, and you don't know what you can do. Liver. Is that a match? Just like, Yeah, anything, right? I don't care if it's a relationship and you think you're headed to a marriage if they don't really know what they want, and you're not ready to know what you're going to contribute. Yes, that's anything you're doing business with, right?

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 15:14
Or anything that you spending your time on time. So like you said, if, if I have, at the end of it being miserable the whole time. I got to say I spent my time being miserable. Or it's

Tanya Flanagan 15:25
even if you're in and somebody may be in a job right now listening to this show and thinking about how unfulfilled they are in that job. I'm not saying to you, go quit your job, because if you don't have another when you still have a mortgage or rent or to pay and gas, to put it in your car or whatever, something to pay to the to envy energy so that the lights are on. Yada yada. You know where I'm going, but I am saying maybe it's the fear that's holding you in place that isn't giving you the impetus to evaluate that I don't like this job and that I need to make a change and a shift in my life. And what are you going to do about the time you continue to suspend in this space, not achieving whatever the goal may be, whether it's I need to go back to school to advance further in this in this career space, or I just, I need to apply for something and see what's out there for me.

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 16:13
Yes, like, have the courage to align your actions with your conditions or expectations exactly, and so it's not enough to just want something different. What are you going to do about what steps are you going to

Tanya Flanagan 16:26
take? Folks we're talking with, Dr Tiffany Tyler Garner, author of the journey forward, four seasons of reflection, and what I wanted to have her back on and she's been a guest before, because I just think it's so important to shine the spotlight on your courage to write the book, The purpose behind it, and all the work that you've done through the seasons of your life. So thank you for coming on. If anyone is interested in in the book, how do they get their hands on

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 16:52
it? It's about available through multiple platforms, including www, she rise studios.com/tiffany, Tyler, you can also purchase it through Amazon, Walmart target, or any number of vendors.

Tanya Flanagan 17:07
I like to make sure people have good time to hear that, because there's nothing worse than having a conversation. And then we rush through how you access this information, how you get to know and become part of the community that's engaged with with Tiffany, with Dr Tiffany Tyler Garner, because over the years that I've gotten to know you, I've always been so impressed I love and I said to you before doing the show, hey, I sent you a text. I said I'd like to sit down with you over coffee because I wanted to talk about a fork in the road in my life, and glean from you whatever I could to help with that decision, because I just think that the time that you have spent in your background makes you an excellent person to sit down and have conversations about pivotal points in life. And folks may be saying, well, what is your background? So share a little bit of that, because it will also help people understand what qualifies you, not so much, Mo, any more than the next person, but what has made you capable of being where you would have written this book.

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 18:09
Oh, well, I will say, beyond having a journey of resilience, I'm professionally trained as a psychologist, specifically with a focus on the training of others to be counselors or therapists is a part of the work, and so I would say, beyond my lived experience, that training has given me a specific set of skills or strategies for managing some of the things that pop up in our lives, whether it's The being able to identify when you are being triggered, and unpack why and come up with another strategy or a process for better managing that, or just the work of centering yourself in your own life. You talked about that being a commitment that you've recently made as you begin this new chapter, and oftentimes we don't even realize that we are not the center of our lives as we are centering other people's challenges, problems, the issues of the world. Sometimes we lose sight of ourselves. And so some of the work that I have done is really about helping folks get in touch with not only who they are with some of the things that you talked about. So if you are on a job and you are not working in purpose, rule out some things like, Do we have clarity about what the purpose is here, and is there alignment, or are there other things distracting from that ability? Or is this a cueing that this season has ended for me. Much of my work in my personal and professional life is about helping folks walk down the right road when they find themselves at a crossroad. But that journey really begins with me unpacking that for myself. And so over the course of my professional journey, not only have I been in a. A leadership or over two decades now, in various capacities, oftentimes with a focus on helping others, or the helping profession, where it's a part of that work, if you're doing it with an eye towards sustainability, you are actively monitoring things like compassion fatigue, like, how do I make sure that I'm not burning out while I'm running to the fires or the things that are burning in other people's lives. And so that has also given me a lens for helping folks unpack even those kinds of issues. So whether it's a crossroad in a relationship or a crossroad in how we're relating to ourselves, I have personally had some practice with that, but also had the great benefit of some training over the years to support with it.

Tanya Flanagan 20:47
I have a question for you in that space, because there are times when we avoid our own next steps and challenges, and we do it by focusing on other people's problems or issues or something going on around us or with someone else, we allow ourselves to become consumed with the other person's issue journey. I don't care what that person's issue is, and by doing so, then you don't have to deal with your own

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 21:16
it's almost like a trading, trading wholeness for the superficial high of being able to help others. I don't think we Wow unpack

Tanya Flanagan 21:27
trading wholeness for the superficial high of being able to help others folks. In simple terms, we sometimes call that codependency, yes, but the way you worded it is so powerful, the superficial high, wow.

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 21:39
And so sometimes we say to ourselves, I couldn't get to me or couldn't do anything about that because I was helping everybody else. And we don't ask ourselves, but what am I gaining from this dynamic? Because truthfully, behavior does not exist without some benefit or service. If ever it did not work at every level, then we wouldn't be engaging in it. And so when we are at a place where we're believing that we can't because of others, we got to ask ourselves, What am I gaining for myself? What is it? There must be some benefit

Tanya Flanagan 22:15
and why? And I mean, we have these conversations, and it sounds so simple, and I'm not at all saying that self awareness, redirecting one's self accountability, actions of change after accountability are easy. I'm not saying that. I was in a conversation the other day with Dr Tricia Braxton. She has a new program here on the radio streaming platform. KU m v is such a great resource in the community, against public radio to allow folks to come in and have conversations, to address different issues, to explore different avenues and facets. When we were having a conversation the other day, and she talked about being ready for things, about time and self evaluation, and we just had this really powerful and I got into the space of faith and how faith is at the root of things for me, and how we say, do this or do that. And it's not that easy. And I'm not saying that self evaluation to determine where you're making a wrong term, Wrong Turn is easy. Faith is one of the hardest things that you will exercise, even though, in so many different ways, people will say, just do, just do, just go. It's not that easy to just do for some of us, or just go. It's not even that easy to admit to yourself, to hear yourself admit the thing you don't like about yourself or the thing that makes you feel less accomplished to face it. I always say, if you can speak it in your prayer closet, in your private time when it's just you and there's no one around to hear you say it to judge you, getting it on record can be one of the hardest moments, I think, in life, to face that thing that you are afraid to deal with, but you know, it's there, like the pink elephant in the room issue, right?

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 24:06
And I will say of that oftentimes we assume that if it's the right thing to do, it'll be easy or painless, and rarely is that the case, right? One of my favorite adages is that there is pain and change, and there is pain and remaining the same. So why not choose the one that moves you forward? And so let's acknowledge that it is difficult. It is challenging. There are absolutely going to be days that you begin that journey where you want to check out or you will have doubt about whether or not you're able to get there. What allows you to get there, is walking there, to do the work to get there. And it's about stepping up, pushing through Yes, yes. And so I'm like, I want to disabuse anyone who believes that it's the case, that somehow successful people always felt like they were successful, always knew they were going to be you. Uh, thought that it would be easy, or because they had achieved a certain amount of success, that the rest of the road was going to be light work. That is not the case. Success is painful. It takes work.

Tanya Flanagan 25:14
It's disappointing at times, yeah, or should I say, it comes with lows, right? So it comes with moments when getting to where you are is just disappointing, and then sometimes being there, you see, oh, that, you know. And it can be simple, right? I remember being at the review journal as a reporter, and they had Spanish that we could take, you know, through the job to study Spanish, try and learn to speak it. So we take our first test, and I'm in the class with, I don't know, five or six other people. We take the first test, and of course, I get an A on this first Oh, so now there's all this pressure to continue to perform at this level. I am not an expert at speaking Spanish. I just happen to ace the first test. Maybe it's the remedial portion of the class, because I've studied Spanish in the past, but, you know, it's like you I'd say swimming, but anything, you use it or you lose it. But there's this pressure to stay here right at the starting point, like if you come out the gate and you're just amazing, how do you stay as amazing as you were when you started? And we're getting into the last minute and a half of the show. And it's just always crazy how time flies when you're having a great conversation. And you know, for me to have you, Dr Tiffany Taylor Garner in the studio this morning talking with me, it's just a privilege and a blessing. But, you know, yeah, I guess if I could ask you in the last few minutes of the show, what's the one thing you would say to someone struggling to elevate themselves or just a change,

Dr. Tiffany Tyler-Garner 26:46
one that they're worth it, even when it's painful to persist, don't get caught up in chasing the high. Get focus on mastering the process, because if you master it like Master yourself, you will have the highs of achievement, the highs of peace, the highs of health throughout your life, if you will focus on managing the process. I think sometimes we we will find ourself in a low, even sometimes and assume that we will be there forever because it happened that time, just like when we find ourselves in a high or have an achievement, we we believe that that has to be sustained. Rather, the value is in finding the ways to manage the ebbs and flows of life. Get Greatest Women

Tanya Flanagan 27:31
and I with that. I'm going to leave you with that and say, Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next week. Tiffany, it's been a pleasure to have you here. Folks, take care until next time you want to thank you for tuning in to the scoop with me. Tanya Flanagan and I want to invite you to get social with me. I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My name is my handle, T, a n, y, A F, l, a n, a G, A N. You can also find me on Instagram at Tanya Alma nice Flanagan, and if you have a thought, an opinion or a suggestion, don't hesitate to shoot me an email to tonya.flanagan@unlv.edu Thanks again for joining in. Stay safe and have a great week. You.

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