Tara Wagner is a writer, speaker, circle facilitator, life coach and the creator of the Digging Deep process and the Organic Tribe. She offers the coaching, tools and tribes of support to organically overcome obstacles and barriers in yourself, your family relationships, and your dreams. Because you deserve to experience what it’s like to truly thrive.
She travels full-time with her husband and teen son living and sharing the message of organically thriving…not just physically, but in our spirits and relationships.
Her life, her blog, and her coaching revolves around the idea that conventional wisdom is spiritual pesticide and to truly thrive we need to Be Organic: organically moving in all we do from that place deep within ourselves, that wisdom we inherently have about Who We Are and what we’re about and what that gets to look like for us.
Because Life isn’t about fighting against it or yourself; it’s about coming back to your real self, your Organic Wisdom, and falling in love with what you get to create.
Q1. What does wellness and health mean to you?
For me it means alignment between the physical, the emotional, the mental and the spiritual. The physical part has always come harder to me, having several physical problems since childhood. I tend to spend so much time in the nonphysical aspects that I neglect that my body is still a physical, organic organism needing two feet on the ground.
I practice all of this by living with as small a footprint as possible, eating organic foods and living without chemicals, as well as creating time to DIG IN to life or challenges, connect to the earth, practice peace and compassion, and honoring my authenticity.
Q2. What is the #1 wellness practice you live by?
That I am the only person responsible for how I feel, what I create, or how I experience my body, my relationships, or my world. As often as I practice it, I resist it! It’s easier to shift blame or accountability, than it is for me to step up and act out of love for myself and others. Hence, it’s my *practice*, as in I keep practicing.
Q3. Thinking back, what were your earliest influences regarding living a healthy and balanced life?
I didn’t have many. Like many others, the women in my family have struggled with deep, meaningful self-care. I remember things just “making sense”, like green living or compost or organic food. But it wasn’t until recent years that I really had the chance to peel back the layers of my own barriers to self-care. It’s been hard to not have that foundation, but at the same time deeply satisfying to create it and inspire it in the women I love.
Q4. What has your journey been like over the last couple of years to get you where you are today?
Hard. Full of resistance. And spurts of rockin’ it mixed in with a giant middle finger to the Universe when it kept reminding me it’s up to me to love myself.
Q5. Looking back what was the most challenging aspect of your journey and what did you learn from it?
When I spent some time with my resistance to self-care I really discovered this deep fear that if I was well and vibrant, I wouldn’t receive love and care from others. Being unwell was the only way I knew how to ask for love. I’ve learned (am still learning) that I can ask for love from myself, that I can ask for love by having the ability to actually give love to others (not being too worn out to bring my best self to relationships), that it’s no one else’s job to meet my needs.
Q6. What is the #1 healthy food you love? The #1 indulgence you give into once in a while?
Right now, cherries are my favorite food! I crave them and can go through several pounds a week, easy. My indulgences aren’t many, since the food I eat really influences my body and my mood. So dates (bacon wrapped dates – OMG), natural potato chips, coconut milk ice cream and every so often a root beer will really hit the spot.
Q7. To get you through challenging moments in life, what is the one mantra or quote that you live by?
“I trust the process of Life.” For me this means trusting where I am, Who I Am, my intuition and that my mistakes are okay. It means trusting the timing and trusting the pace of things, and trusting that our needs are always met, that things always work out in the big picture. Trusting myself has allowed me to just “let go” and making a step forward at a time in loving myself or my body.
Q8. You’ve accomplished so much so far, what’s something you are most proud of?
Really examining my fears. I don’t want to spend all my energy pushing through them, but I avoided them altogether for a long time. When I finally stopped to DIG IN and release them my whole world took a giant leap forward. My relationships grew deeper and more loving, my work expanded, and my spirit took a giant breath in. It was hard and scary and I’m damn proud of it.
Q9. What’s your advice to those struggling with finding their own path to health and happiness?
Mmm, trust yourself. Listen deeper to the voices happening behind your conscious thoughts and spend the time to examine them. Choose to be radical authentic in speaking your mind and sharing with others what feels wonderful to you and what doesn’t. And stop making excuses for meeting your needs. You’re just as valid a human being as they are and you deserve to unapologetically meet those legitimate human needs.
Q10. Finally, what are your plans for 2012?
I’m still working on finding the right foods for my body and although I was hoping to have it figured out by now, I’m pretty sure that’s going to be a longer journey than just this year. We’re going to continue traveling full-time, but are spending several months on a beach in Florida.
We’re looking forward slowing down as a family (literally and figuratively) for the fall and into winter and tune into the earth and where Life wants to take us next year.
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