Tina Murray has been designing lives for over 30 years.
A commercial interior designer, speaker, mentor, and author of the book ‘Design You: Create the Life You Want’, like you ‘Tina has experienced love and loss.
Like many of us, she spent her 20s and 30s doing all the things we ‘should’ do: climbing the proverbial career ladder, marrying, taking out a mortgage, traveling far and wide, developing close friendships, and caring for her family.
With a divorce, redundancy, failed IVF, unfulfilling relationships, and being shaken by her Mum’s failing health and the death of 2 of her close friends, ‘Tina transformed her life from the treadmill of ‘shoulds’ to the freedom of living by design. ‘Tina now uses her positivity, perception, a wealth of experience, and practical insights to help individuals and companies design lives and experiences in true alignment with their values, desires, dreams, and purpose. Honest, authentic, and real,
‘Tina walks her talk and shows us that it is possible to find our unique purpose and design a genuine, fulfilling life where happiness and fulfillment are achievable. To go from where you are now to where you want to be, Design You.
To find out more about Tina go to www.tinamurray.com
Transcription:
Intro 0:04
Recovery After Stroke podcast. Helping you go from where you are to where you’d rather be.
Bill 0:14
Welcome everyone to another episode of the Recovery After Stroke podcast. Today’s guest is Tina Marie and Tina has been designing lives for over 30 years. I commercial interior designer, speaker, mentor, and author. Like you, Tina has experienced love and loss. Like many of us, she has spent her 20s and 30s doing all the things we should do.
Bill 0:37
Climbing off the proverbial career ladder, marrying taking out a mortgage, traveling far and wide developing close friendships, and caring for her family. All right, that sounds like me. With my boss, yeah, divorce, redundancy, failed IVF unfulfilling relationships, and being shaken by her mom’s failing health and the death of To close friends, Tina transformed her life from the treadmill of shoulds.
Bill 1:05
To the freedom of living by design, Tina now uses her positivity, positivity, perception, wealth of experience, and practical insights to help individuals and companies design lives and experiences in true alignment with their values, desires, dreams, and purpose. Welcome, Tina.
Tina Murray 1:27
Thank you, Bill. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I’m really excited about this.
Bill 1:31
Oh, it’s gonna be fun. I’m a pretty good host so you’re in good hands. Don’t worry.
Tina Murray 1:38
Good. I’m relaxed.
Bill 1:41
You know, that bio, it could be anyone’s bio it really couldn’t it.
Tina Murray 1:49
I think that’s what I want. Because most people experience love and loss most people have to go through a lot of people go through divorce. 50% of marriages fail. A lot of people in my age group 40s and 50s, your parents getting sick. So all of us have things that we come up against that we need to move through. And it’s about having clarity as you’re doing that about what’s best for your family you in those situations and how you can see your way out of those
Bill 2:16
The clarity in hindsight, right?
Tina Murray 2:19
Absolutely, hindsight can be good to teach you lessons. So you can do it better than next time and learn more about who you are. But no, absolutely. If you’ve got clarity beforehand about what’s important to you, it actually makes it really easy to say what it is you should be doing in each situation that’s going to work to the best that you can for your advantage.
Bill 2:37
Yeah, you know, you know, the marriage thing that 50% of marriages end up failing. I’m interested I want to sort of get into that. I want to talk about that because a lot of people say as a really dramatic and bad thing. Okay, so it’s dramatic, but they see it as a terrible thing. It might you know, I was married now. Not always Things happen. Is there a possibility that ending a marriage is not a bad thing in that? Sure, you know, there’s a lot of stuff that happens in the periphery. There are things that go wrong. There are arguments, there’s stuff, you’ve got to sort out. There’s lawyers, all that kind of stuff. But I can’t imagine how it can always be a bad thing to end the marriage. What was your experience, like?
Tina Murray 3:22
I’m really lucky. I’m still very close friends with my ex-husband. In fact, two of his children have come and stayed with me from interstate while they’ve been studying. And I’ve got so much benefit out of that. And people are some people hear bad stories about people who are going through a horrible breakup and they’re not talking to each other.
Tina Murray 3:40
But there’s a number of people I speak to who actually do have good relationships with their ex so it shows it can be done, but it probably does take a little bit of maturity and it does take putting, taking some of your ego out of the situation when you’re going through it and working especially if kids are involved. what is best for the kids. If someone hurt you.
Tina Murray 4:00
It’s hard not to have an ego response to that. But especially if there are kids involved, but even just for our own benefit, we need to step past that and say, Okay, how can we move forward in this and find a way to get through it, which is going to be less hurtful, because, at the end of the day, we don’t need to hurt each other if we can possibly help it.
Tina Murray 4:23
And working with a lot of people who have gone through divorce, they actually say divorce is one of the hardest things in life. Facing someone passing away is a horrible experience too. But there’s a finality to that. And that doesn’t necessarily make it good during the time. But the thing with a divorce is you’ve still got a relationship you may have to maintain with that person because you’ve got kids or you’ve got other family members who are associated with it. So it hasn’t stopped. There’s still stuff that’s going on that might need to continue.
Tina Murray 4:55
So it’s how can you do that in the best possible way for yourself and your family and for your own mental To health and your own spiritual health, how you can actually turn that around. And from my point of view, it was such a good learning experience for me when my ex and I broke up, we went to counseling and learned so much about ourselves and so much about what we need in relationships. And I’ve been able to use that I know he has, he’s married to a wonderful woman. We’ve been able to use that to use those, you’re talking about hindsight, but using what we learned from those experiences to go forward and see what it is and what the rest of our life should look like in relationships and other parts of our lives.
Tina Murray 5:40
And I’m, in my age group, there’s a number of my close friends who have married for the second time and you never know what goes on completely in someone’s marriage, but they really look like they’ve stepped up into a relationship that they are really passionate about. And because they know themselves and they know what they want, and their partner that’s coming to what it’s done. The same I’ve met as people who are adults who are sharing lives. They’re not actually being codependent on each other, which sometimes is what we do when we’re younger and we mate and we’re growing and learning together.
Bill 6:12
You reckon you got married too early, not too young or anything but just too early in your, in your life cycle?
Tina Murray 6:22
No, I think it was the right time for me then. But we grow and we grow apart. And the big thing for me is we’d met in Sydney and we’d moved to Melbourne and when we moved to Sydney, I had a very big network of friends. And when we moved to Melbourne, my ex-husband’s family was there. So we automatically became part of that group. And then he worked for a big company and I worked for a company with two people.
Tina Murray 6:46
So I had a very small network having come from a really big one and I became, in my case more dependent on him, which for me, wasn’t how a relationship works to my best advantage because I’m fairly independent. If I went through that situation, again, I’d use strategies to try and find out, you know how I can make my own network of friends. So I could bring that together. But essentially, we grow apart. And I don’t think whatever I would have married would have mattered with that particular instance.
Tina Murray 7:26
I think the other thing that was important going through the counseling, is that you start to learn what it is you need to express, I bring that now to my relationships. And one regret I do have is I didn’t know how to say what was wrong, I couldn’t actually verbalize it myself back, you know, 15 years ago, whereas now I can pull out but I can easily visualize what it is that we need to talk about in our relationships. So when we’re coming down to maturity, I didn’t have that maturity back then, but I’ve learned to grow into it.
Bill 7:57
You got to learn from your mistakes. I mean, fully understand that and believe that I mean, how else are you going to learn that something doesn’t work for you? If it doesn’t fail, so to speak, or if it doesn’t go bad? Oh, well, okay, that didn’t work again, I’ll look back and go, what can I do to change that? How can I fix that? or How can I not experience that again? or How can I make my experience slightly better next time? So I see what your game I completely agree with you. I’m gonna ask you now, we’re going to generalize a little bit or at least I am. Do you reckon it’s more women that are codependent to the men or more men that are codependent to their women? Just your experience? And let’s generalize just for the sake of a conversation.
Tina Murray 8:42
To be honest, I think people are codependent in different ways. So in one relationship, it is probably symbiotic. So one person is dependent in one way, and another person might be dependent in another way. So it sort of melds together. Now. If that works for you, it becomes both of your strengths and it becomes a strength Through a relationship, that’s great. And look, everyone wants to be as independent as I do, too. So it’s also about acknowledging what your own needs are.
Tina Murray 9:10
And I’m not saying that there’s a problem with having a dependent relationship is about depending on each other and trusting and caring for each other. It’s better about making sure though, that you’re still getting for yourself what it is that you need to grow. And ideally, you’re doing that in an environment where you can share together and you can help each other to grow and encourage.
Bill 9:30
What did you depend on him for? What were those things that you dependent on him for that you look back on later and said, Oh, my God, I really am depending on somebody else for this?
Tina Murray 9:43
I think it’s all those little things I’m having. When I moved out there were things that he did for me that I didn’t even notice and that go there were the stereotypical ones where he could fix my car. I don’t know how to fix the car and I have to trust now that my mechanic is going to tell me the truth and do it. What my car needs and doesn’t spin me a whole lot of stuff. I don’t know, I’ll never know because it’s not my forte. So there’s all those practical things that we don’t even consider when we’re in a relationship that the other person just picks up.
Tina Murray 10:14
And obviously, you do the same for them that you don’t even notice. And I often hear of people, especially when someone’s passed away in a family where one partner has been the main one involved with looking at the money and the other one doesn’t know how to actually take that loss. So and it works when the relationships work. But what I’ve learned from it is that to be able to depend on myself, and so there are times when I’ve had to step up for my own site because there’s no one else to do it. And it’s given me the strength to understand that I can do that whenever I have to, or I can know where to go and ask for it, which is a skill that we all need to have. It doesn’t mean we need to be, you know, so independent that way firing off everybody. It’s about knowing when you need to ask for help and when you don’t.
Bill 11:07
Yeah, right. It’s not about knowing how to fix every nicknack or you know, do all the things. It’s just about knowing, okay, also where to go to and get help, because a lot of people sort of get stuck in. I don’t know how to do it. The person that uses or forms is not around, what do I do now? Where do I go to get help? How do I even start that process? And some people are even afraid to ask, they’re even afraid to ask for help. Right? So that’s one thing about being dependent on somebody else. I think he’s great. It’s great to depend on somebody you know what when you’ve got a call, then you want a chicken suit.
Bill 11:42
Or, you know, let’s depend on somebody else to make that chicken soup for me right now at that moment. But if I couldn’t get my chicken soup, how do I get one when that person decides that they’re not going to be around or circumstances make it impossible for that person to bring you the to consume? So I, I don’t like the term. I don’t like dependence may as well. I don’t like being dependent on other people like you. But at the same time, I don’t want to know everything. I don’t want to know how to do everything. I mean, that’s too much effort. It’s tiring. It’s tiring. We sho
Tina Murray 12:22
didn’t say. Yeah, that’s the whole point. We have things we’re good at. We have parts of our personality where we’re strong, and we need to accept that and as you said, know when to ask for help and to be brave enough for us to help as you just said, a lot of people are too scared to ask because it might make them look silly. Or, you know, maybe they won’t think I’m as good as I, as I think that I think I am. So it’s understanding that it’s not a weight to ask for. For Hill. Yeah, no, it’s th
Bill 12:51
strength. Yeah, absolutely. You know, when you guys we’re going through your relationship. He was working for a big company in Sydney and another Place, did you get stuck into your work to kind of help you? I’m not sure what it is to come to terms with the changes. And was that focused on work affecting your relationship the two of you? Or you know, did you see signs that work was getting involved in the relationship, I suppose is th
Tina Murray 13:20
question. Probably not for me, they’re coming back to take a positive spin on everything. When I was 27. One of my best friends died of cancer. She’s been sick for about three years. And it was one of those things that happened that I was working ridiculous hours I was working in a major department store as a buyer and we were expected to work seven days a week and I was getting really tired and I don’t cope well with being tired. And if the particular day, I was so tired as I went across the road, I just didn’t take notice and I stepped out in front of a car. And obviously, that jolted me awake and what went through my head is My gosh, I almost got killed because I’m so tired just from working too much.
Tina Murray 14:06
And my best friend is in hospital dying of cancer. And it gave me perspective. So like, what am I doing? I am 27 years old, where’s the balance in my life and so from then The really great thing that came out of my darling friend Cheryl passing away was that experience taught me that you need to live every day and you need to have to balance your life. So it was a really great life lesson for me to experience that. So even though I work very hard, I’ve got a really strong work ethic. I also make sure that I take time out to reinvigorate myself to spend time with family and friends to do all that stuff to bring more warmth and more character into my life. So for me, work hasn’t dominated it by any means, which has been which has been
Bill 14:56
blessing. Yeah, my work dominated my life. The good part of it and I was working, you know, the 1617 hours a day doing the whole thing and everyone seems to think what do you mean you work 1617 hours there? How’s that possible when there are only 24 hours a day? Well, when you wake up at six in the morning, and you go to, you know, the paint store to pick up supplies for the day’s job, then you sit the guys up and you work for another eight or nine hours and then you drive home and you pass past the paint shop to pick up more stuff because you ran out of stuff during the day.
Bill 15:30
Then you get home and then you sit down and you have a meal and that happens, you know, in about an hour and a half, two hours and you’re rushing everybody in your tenant gets to hurry up and sit down and let’s say and let’s finish and we’ve got stuff to do and then and then you spend you know an hour and a half screaming at everybody all excited. And then they sit down to do paperwork and to do quotes and to do tech stuff. And before you know it you’re in bed at around 11 3012 o’clock and you’ve got to get up at six the next morning and you’ve done 17 hours or 16 hours of work.
Tina Murray 15:59
. Yeah, so and how having your stroke was what I’ve assumed where you had that, that lightbulb moment where you’re like.
Bill 16:08
That’s it. But that’s exactly the point. I was gonna say I was gonna get to thanks for saying that. So having the blade in the brain, the first one wasn’t enough to stop me from doing that, again, because I went back and I attempted to continue to do that. Basically, when I look back, I can understand that the reason was because you can’t write when I say you can’t obviously, possibly people can, but I couldn’t stop.
Bill 16:39
Oh my God, this terrible thing has happened. I couldn’t stop today. And then tomorrow, I was gonna reflect on everything and change my ways. overnight. How long did it take for you after your friend, unfortunately, passed away and you nearly got hit by a car? Did it take for you to find your way into a more balanced version of yourself, how long did it take for you to
Tina Murray 17:03
get there? it actually wasn’t that long. It was such a clear moment for me that not long after I quit that job, and I took another job. And for me, that was the only way I could get out because the company I was working for it was the culture it was expected that that was what we did. And it’s difficult. I see it all the time. It’s difficult for people to get past that some of the techniques I use with people now when they are caught in that right is to start setting some expectations about when they’re going home because I know a lot of people won’t let down their friends or family so I say okay if you’re used to staying into the office till eight o’clock, but you actually want to change that.
Tina Murray 17:46
You need to let people in the office later. That’s not going to be your normality and sort of wane out of it. So one of the ways to do it is to make appointments a couple of nights a week to catch up with people who you will not cancel on because you respect them enough to do So it means you have to leave the office at that time and in time, it becomes more of your normality that you’re moving out.
Tina Murray 18:08
And you don’t need to necessarily be so stringent about setting those appointments because it becomes your norm that you’re starting to pull back that people usually need something that makes them go home, or do something else to get them out of the office, because it is really hard when the culture of the company is can expect that I think a lot of companies are getting better. But there are definitely still companies that have that sort of behavior as a norm, and they’re not getting the better their people. After 45 hours. People are not working any more efficiently. In fact, they’re working less efficiently.
Bill 18:46
But just turn up and they just make it possible for you to see them that they’re in the office and they could be playing solitaire.
Bill 18:53
Exactly. That was kind of the state that I used to get it You know, after the five or six days of just smashing myself, you know, you get to the point where you turn up and the client is talking to you, you know, your hearing is blah blah blah blah, you cannot function and you haven’t had a life you haven’t enjoyed yourself or I hadn’t enjoyed myself for a week, you know, many times, I want to go out, have some fun with some friends, by the time you unwind and get over all of the, you know, stuff. It just became a real problem and I didn’t realize that it was sort of eroding my health in a way, you know, that was difficult for me to say because it was happening slowly.
Bill 19:40
And then when it finally happened, you know, when it finally had had the blade at 37 in my head, it was kind of like, okay, things are not as good as they appeared in the on the outside my body felt fine, I was going to the gym, I was exercising, I was doing all those things that a healthy person does. was eating pretty well, you know, or I smoked occasional cigarettes and I drink too much occasionally but you know, it’s pretty good.
Bill 20:07
And what’s interesting is how far along how quickly the body can deteriorate when you’ve given it years and years of abuse. And even if the abuse is on a mild level, it’s cumulative, right add up, you go from being well, to well, you’re still well, but you’re doing little things that are accumulating and as they accumulate, they start to chip away and for some people that happens on their body, for some people happens mentally, what happens to their mental health and some people happens to their emotional health. How, how are your emotions at the time what was happening to you and how are you managing your emotions at the time?
Tina Murray 20:52
Okay, well, as I said, it was back 15 years ago now, but I can remember there was excitement because I had Left alone, by no means telling it really their partners. because ideally, if you can work it out, you can work it out. But for me, I’d spent a year bit by bit, feeling like I needed to leave. And so by the time I’d made the decision, and it was my decision, which, in hindsight, I should have brought him along in the process.
Tina Murray 21:20
But again, I didn’t know how to do it back then. When we did break up, there was some excitement about this new life because I’d spent a year knowing that I wanted to get out of this relationship. So I was excited about the new life. And one thing I did embrace is I’ve had a bucket list there for a long time and there were a whole lot of things on there that I hadn’t done because it was stuff that he wasn’t interested in doing. And I didn’t think that I could perhaps go out and do them on my own I don’t know why.
Tina Murray 21:56
You just get so used to doing things as a partnership. Yeah. And so I think Start to go out and do some of those things. And that was, again, when I started to get more votes for life because it’s like, I can do what I want to do. And I can contribute, and I don’t need to hold myself back. And it was me. It wasn’t, it was never my ex-husband holding me back. It was me. And it took that for me to realize it.
Bill 22:24
I had a similar experience with my wife, Christine, she loves she had this idea in her head that New York was the place where she has to be. And she had an opportunity to go to work. And I was I didn’t want to go I had no desire to go to New York. And it’s not because of any reason. It’s just not wasn’t a bucket list item of mine and it wasn’t the first place I’d go to visit. I’d rather go to Tasmania and spend time in a river.
Bill 22:51
She wants to go to a city you know. So I remember when she had the opportunity. All she had to do was come up with a phase and a combination and all that Was sorted. That was a really good opportunity. And it was really difficult for her to make the decision to go without me and without the kids. And at the time, I was like, go, go, go, go go. And we spoke about it and even argued about it for months for me to convince her to go.
Bill 23:18
And as a mom, I could I get why it was difficult for her to let go of that scenario. Whereas you know what, I’m a mom, I look after children, I do these things. I do those things. And it was really difficult for her. And also, she probably thought something along the lines of you know, I’m a wife, I don’t go without my husband, you know, who does those types of things, and all that kind of stuff was going on in her head.
Bill 23:43
Well, she went and she had the absolute best time ever. But yeah, it was really difficult to convince her that it’s okay to experience something on her own. Mm-hmm. So, several years later, I went because I was the hero I thought, you know, you know, convince her to go, she’ll be right. You know, several years later, I had the opportunity to go to Greece on my own. And I couldn’t do it. Because in the beginning, I was doing the whole Oh my God, I’m not gonna go with my wife and my kids who do that kind of thing, and I did exactly the same thing.
Bill 24:21
And eventually, I convinced my youngest son to come with me. Otherwise, it was a good chance that I wasn’t going to go so. So it becomes an identity that we attach ourselves to these four people in these four walls. And it’s very difficult for people to see an identity outside of that. And we can identify as being a person who does the for children and for walls thing, but also is a person who can occasionally do something on your own. And that’s a good thing, right? Because of our periods of grace, she got to experience new york And you got to experience some amazing countries. Tell us about where you went.
Tina Murray 25:07
Well, the big one for me was I’d always wanted to ride a bike through Asia to deliver what I ended up doing was riding a bike for a month from the south of Vietnam up to the north of Vietnam. And it was awesome, like silly places that you wouldn’t normally say. And so yeah, that was just an amazing experience a really slow way to travel, but a fantastic way to travel. skydiving was one and so the first time I did it, it didn’t scare me. And so I didn’t again to keep on going What’s wrong with me? He’s scaring me. So skydiving, same thing, some of the big ones for me was going to Antarctica, which has been a bucket list thing since I was about 18.
Tina Murray 25:50
And I never thought I’d go because it was very expensive. But I’ve done it and so now I’m on my second bucket list. Because I actually think right off the right everything. off my first bucket list so, and it’s not about necessarily having to take stuff off your bucket list. It’s about what you learn through that process. What’s drawing you to something? So who is in you that your wife with New York? What is it really in her? That makes New York appeal to her. And she said you want to be in a river in Tasmania? What is that about being out in nature that appeals to you?
Tina Murray 26:23
And again, it’s about recognizing what’s important in you like who you are as a person. One thing I want to ask you though, is we see identity thing, coming back to when you’re in the hospital, and after the first play that you then came back and you started, you had to get back into your routine of working. Do you feel that part of that was because as a breadwinner, am I Oh, it was your business. It was you taking care of your family feel that that was part of what was the role that you thought you needed to play.
Bill 26:55
Until death do us part that was that was my role I was going to be the breadwinner, bring home the bacon, I was going to do all that kind of stuff. And my identity was so caught up in that my wife is a home stay-at-home mom who works part-time and contributes to the family via the children because that’s the default situation. That’s what happened when she became a mom, she was at home, with the baby and then the next one.
Bill 27:25
And we I got stuck into that and also the stuff that I’ve, you know, downloaded from my ancestors for thousands and thousands of years, you know, the Greek ancestry which is all about, you know, the male being the head of the family and all that kind of stuff. Like there has to be a head like I didn’t get that. And I didn’t get it now. And the identity for me to shift from that to a stay-at-home dad, recovering from a stroke was really, really difficult. I struggled to accept that I was no longer working full time and being able to grow my business and do all these things.
Bill 28:08
And I was like, really angry about it and always concerned that I would have to make my wife, the main breadwinner, and all these types of things like it was a big issue. And I struggled with it and I struggled with it because I was wondering how other people would perceive me. And, you know, how all the people around me who lived the male, patriarchal sort of system would, how I would fit in, like, you know how that would work. But what’s interesting is when you’re forced into something, kicking and screaming, and you stop for a moment, you just take a breath you reflect on Okay, where did I come from? How was I before? How am I now? What are the benefits? And what are the things that I’ve experienced that I didn’t expect?
Bill 29:05
And what happens is you start to look at it and go, Oh my god, how good would it be if Christine was at work five days a week, working full time, and I was at home, cooking dinner, picking up the kids and doing all that kind of stuff. It became a really fulfilling part of my life because now I got to experience what she loved about being at home, you know, most days of the week, and what she loved about being a mom, I got to experience that and I got to pick up the kids, but also help the kids with their dads, okay, you know, he’s still around, he’s still picking us up, and he’s still doing all these things.
Bill 29:43
So there were a lot of benefits. But even while I was in the hospital, I was doing the things that I was so used to doing and I was telling the doctors do this and then again, you can’t do that at the moment like you have to stop you have to take Brady, you have to look after your house, you can’t do anything strenuous. So, I’ve since learned about that identity thing that I used to call myself and this is what I love about the work that you’re doing because I can relate to you a lot. And like I said, You’re a normal person, do all the things that we have already listed the things that normal people go through every single day. But what happened to me was, I used to call myself a painter. So if you came to me and you said, Hey, Bill, what do you do? I’m a painter.
Bill 30:34
All right, well, so you’re gonna say, well, what’s the big deal? So Europeans? What’s bad about that? Well, nothing really, except that when I call myself a painter, I put myself in a little box. And somebody comes to me and says, Can you help me out with some electrical work? I say no. And what that does is that stops me from having an opportunity to interact with another client for another service. Even though I’m not licensed, I could get somebody in to do that job. And I can be the person that they go to, for more than just one thing.
Bill 31:08
And that will bring a certain kind of experience that breaks the day up in the monotony of painting and doing the same thing every day that breaks it up, right? So the only way I learned that was when I was unwell. One of my clients, one of my big clients says, we’ve got a job. Basically, it’s yours, except you can be called a painting company. I’m not sure what you mean, I can’t be called a painting company. He said, Well, you need to be called a maintenance company.
Bill 31:36
Right? Oh my god, that change in those words. What they did to my business was that I was at work half the hours. And now in the next three years after my first stroke, the turnover doubled and I was doing less work. Because now we are tiling window cleaning, gardening. We were doing all these things and it was like, Where did all this stuff come from? And I was now seen as the go-to person but everything on these buildings that we were working on not just painting.
Bill 32:18
Hello, what an awesome analogy. That’s exactly what I had done right? And then, and then as that business identity shifted from a painter to a maintenance company, it allowed for personal shifts to occur from a person who works and is the main breadwinner to a person who can also stay at home and pick up the kids. Yeah, cook a meal, clean up the vacuum, whatever. And, and I didn’t realize the significance of that at the time, but that’s what it was.
Bill 32:51
So I know that you’re being you’re allowing yourself to have these experiences stop you from being just the person who was meant I read that worked 16 hours a day. And then that opened up the next experience and the next experience. And I also assume you can we can chat about this. I assume it helps you get through things like IVF. That didn’t work out. Absolutely. Because you didn’t have to be a mum, you could be another version of yourself that can do other things.
Tina Murray 33:25
Yeah. Obviously, obvious a very difficult thing, obviously, to go through so many people go through it and don’t talk about it. But for me, it was when I didn’t work. It was I had to give up the dreams I had, I’d always expected I would have children and then I would be a mom and I would still work I would do because I knew it was going to be hard because I was going through IVF on my own as a single woman and I that I’d started to get a support network you were going to help me with looking after my children. And when it didn’t work when it eventually got to the point where it just would never go to work. I had to face those realizations, and I had to reprogram what I had always imagined for my future. And that’s a really difficult thing for us to do.
Tina Murray 34:13
Because, like you said, we have these ideas in our mind about what life is meant to be, and what it’s meant to be for us. And we’re just in my case, I just assumed, oh, get kids down the track, it’ll be fine. Everyone else does it, and I’ll be able to, but I left it too late and it didn’t work for me. And there was a real-time. I’m not usually a jealous person. But there were times in that when I was trying so hard and giving everything to go through the idea if I gave up everything I put everything I could that I knew for myself into it.
Tina Murray 34:47
And when other people would get pregnant, I’d be happy for them, but they’d be a part of me going, but why you and not me? So even that I had to face some parts of myself which I hadn’t had as hadn’t experienced before. And I’m happy to say now that jealousy is gone because I’ve got that acceptance that that wasn’t meant to be. And now thankfully, I can look at where my life is now and if his children were a part of that life, I would be on a completely different trajectory. So I feel like it’s been meant to be that that hasn’t happened to me.
Tina Murray 35:22
But there was such a valuable experience going through that because I learned so much about myself, but I also again, really short-sighted about what is it that people expect from their life? And are they realistic expectations? And do we reprogram what that is and what would reprogramming that look like? Just because we can’t have this doesn’t mean something else might open up which is better for us. So yeah, so is that they know the really valuable experience. But part of what I think you’re saying too, is having gone through my divorce and learning that I can do things on my own. I tell you what goes into it. Being on your own teaches you, even more, about how strong you you really are. Because you have to call on yourself sometimes to get through it.
Bill 36:07
Yeah, I can’t imagine what it’s like. And I know that when we label ourselves as I did as a painter, and when people see themselves as a mom or a mom to be, or I want to be a mom, and I have to be a mom, like it, I think we create we can, if we’re not careful, create the environment where we put ourselves through a lot of pain and suffering, that’s unnecessary. And if you could just do that if it will be a thing, and then give it your best shot.
Bill 36:35
And then if it’s not, well, let’s go on to the next thing and see if that will be. I think it’s a better way to go about it. And I used to love putting myself through pain. I wasn’t aware of it. I still love punishing myself and I wasn’t aware of it. And I said I love doing seven days a week and saying to people, what do you mean like we’ve had an opportunity to make money? Now if we don’t do this seventh day, we might not get the opportunity to make that money, another time.
Bill 37:00
So it might take a while we can. It’s kind of like, Alright, there is some validity to that. But at the same time, at what expense you know, what expense? Are you going to stick to IVF physical, mental, and financial expenses, so that you can get an outcome struggle for that outcome, pain, and suffering? And then if you don’t get it, you know, then you sort of start at zero again, what have you done? Like you’ve just given yourself a whole lot of pain and grief. Now, I’m not saying don’t go for the things that you want in life that you need or your desire.
Bill 37:32
But, you know, know when to draw the line. And I think, again, it’s not easy to know where to draw the line. But sometimes you’ll get to sort of step back and try and do the third person and observe yourself and going through this process and wonder, oh, my God, like, Am I really doing that to myself? Can I do something different? That’s helped me a lot. that’s helped me a lot. dipping out and looking back at what I’m doing and wondering whether or not that’s beneficial or not.
Bill 38:06
It’s not been an easy skill. I haven’t learned that skill hasn’t been didn’t come to me. It was something that I had to learn to do. And it was other people that helped me Go go through that path. So I just love the way that you’ve kind of given everything that you had to these things and then decided, I’m going to give everything I have to the next thing, and then as you changed over the years, and you’ve evolved and you’ve grown, you’ve shifted what giving everything means.
Tina Murray 38:42
Economists a little bit less Does that sound right? But it doesn’t mean giving everything completely. I think it depends on the situation. It is about having clarity about what’s important to you. And so for instance, when my mom was seriously or for eight years and it means I kind of had I don’t live in the same city as her. So I had to work out well, how can I take care of her, and also still be able to do it in a way where I am giving without me getting to the point where I’m resentful, or all those things that people who are in caring situations can get themselves into so talking about sitting and looking at like, Okay, well what is important?
Tina Murray 39:24
What do I need to do that it’s gonna be best, right? You know, so my mom and what I can contribute for her but also what is going to work for me too, because there’s no point me getting it like you’re talking about in the past thing at the dinner table screaming and yelling at your kids. That’s not being present. It’s not going to be helping. So if I come over and visit my family, when when I’m sick, and I’m resentful and tired and blah blah, there’s no point me being they’re moving.
Tina Murray 39:51
They’re not going to be helping my sick mom. So it’s about saying, Yeah, I need to do things to help a situation What does that look like? And you’re right in different situations, it’s different. Sometimes it might look like one thing and another situation because your needs and what you value are different. It might look like something completely different. So it’s about having that clarity and everything. That’s the one thing through it all. It’s having that clarity about what’s important for you.
Tina Murray 40:18
And I have a monopoly to have designs I, what will it matter in 50 years? What will matter in 50 years, I’ve turned that around where I actually talk to people about doing a lot of plans but you start at 50 years because doing the five-year plan so you’re looking at where you are now you too caught up in now. So step outside of that, look in 50 years. What is it that I want? And for someone my age, it means really, what’s my deathbed gonna look like?
Tina Murray 40:49
Am I gonna look back and go, yeah, I loved all that. And that comes down normally to one or two sentences for people about what they really want and that’s what they really value in their life. So Then if you go from the 50 years and you start coming back down to today, what does that look like in 20 years?
Tina Murray 38:48
What does that look like in 10? Five, to down to what does that look like this week, you’ve got rid of all that periphery, you’ve got rid of the fact that your neighbor is annoying you because he’s having a party every Saturday night. That’s not important in the scheme of your life, the right analogy. And so it gives you perspective about what is really important to you and it comes back to you start to have that thing on your shoulder looking over again, this is why in 50 years I want my life to have looks like it’s two things maybe for most people, it’s one or two things and then everything else disappears.
Tina Murray 41:13
For didn’t have that clarity. So thank you, you approach everything every day. Checking back does that work for my plan or does it not?
Bill 41:50
Yeah. I like that. I like that trying to instead of trying to predict next week in five years, I you know, the classic I want to have your job In five years, you know, yeah, it’s like, I think I’d rather be able to predict what’s going to happen on my deathbed, then what’s gonna happen? You know, in five years if I get the guy’s job or not.
Tina Murray 42:13
I mean, that’s nuts. Yeah. And how often? How often do we aspire to take that person’s job? And it might be one day with a job? That’s right for us. It might not make us happy. So what’s the point? Just because it makes today doesn’t mean it’s what you make, because it might work for one person doesn’t mean it’s working for you. So again, it’s that clarity about what works for you.
Bill 42:34
Yeah. You know, you, you’re an interior designer. And I know that in life, we do things and we have different jobs and different experiences, and a lot of those skills that we pick up in the job that we just did, or we’re in very, very, very often transferable into another job. There are different ways that we can apply the skills that we learned to different aspects of our life. Tell me, how do you become? How do you do interior designing and then find that those skills are applicable to designing a life? How does that work?
Tina Murray 43:14
To me, it’s so easy. Because if you think about it, and it number one interior design, to me, has always been about the psychology of space. So it’s how we make people think and feel and react in a space. And the classic example is, if you want people in an office to talk to each other, you don’t put them all individual offices, easy example.
Tina Murray 43:36
So when my clients are coming to me that coming to me with a brief about what environment they’re trying to create, and it doesn’t mean it has blue paint color, what it means is, this is the sort of culture we’re trying to create. So we’re getting a really in-depth brief and really, going down into Okay, this is where you’re at now, what parts of that you want to keep, what is it that you’re trying To get to, but then amongst that the beauty of interior design brief is it’s complex because we’ve got all these aspirations. But then we’ve got the laws of the country or the state that we need to adhere to as well. So just because someone wants something doesn’t mean they can have it, if it doesn’t apply to Australian standards, for instance, we also need to work with electrical engineers, structural engineers, and all these different people.
Tina Murray 44:25
And we’ve got all these different needs coming in to create this one space. In the end, that becomes a holistic space. But there’s been a lot of compromises throughout there, or there’s been a lot of discussions about how you can make this work better. You can’t put something there because the structure needs to be there.
Tina Murray 44:41
Okay, can we move it over to here? So it can if you think about what our last slide, if we have a brief, a 50-year plan for what our life is like, and it’s complex, it has people coming and going, it has some things that we have to do that we can’t escape from the laws of you know, the Land, but it also has our own, what do we need? What do we want?
Tina Murray 45:05
And then so that’s just the bracing process. But as you can probably imagine, as you move into designing it, there’s a whole lot of ideas that you’re throwing out. And then you pick the ones which work, then you adapt them and put them into plans, which means you’re starting to put them into concrete. So literally down the track, when you’re building, that, you’re actually trying to communicate to a builder how you want this space to be built.
Tina Murray 45:31
And again, in our life, if we have come from this brace, with worked out, played around a bit with what that idea of our life could look like, and then start to document what it is that we want. We’ve started to have real clarity, which means we can communicate not just to ourselves, but to someone else about what our life looks like. And then, of course, we start to build it. And while we’re building it, life happens as we’ve been discussing shit happen. That’s just the way life is But you’ve got these plans that you can work to, and you might need to adjust them.
Tina Murray 46:03
Because in building something like carbon fiber that you hadn’t expected, Simon our life, things happen, we don’t expect it. But we find a way to work around it or work with it. And because we’ve got a really clear idea of what it is that we’re designing, once it’s been built, and part of the interior design process is a defects period. And part of that is to go through and correct some things that the Buddha might not have built correctly.
Tina Murray 46:31
So again, in our life, let’s correct some of the things that we can, that there might be some adjustments where we go, you know what, we actually didn’t do that, right? And the client group needs this, this, and this to be better. They hadn’t seen it through the way it’s worked out differently. So okay, what can we do now to get that rectified, so that they can move in and it’s a space that works for them?
Tina Murray 46:54
So the beauty of an end designer is I’m never designing for me, it’s never ever about me. It’s about the end users and what they’ve briefed me and what we’ve come up with, that they are looking to create. And then you move through that process, still, with everything comes back to that brief, but it might adjust a little bit. And that’s what we do every day in our lives.
Bill 47:15
Sounds like a coaching process that people go through, when they’re getting some life coaching or some kind of coaching towards, you know, improving themselves or changing, and if I had a brief now that you said that, if I had a brief that I was able to give to somebody, and then they were able to come back and work with me about how I get to my deathbed, and what that looks like in between and what I’ve experienced, and I’ve got an actual plan that steps that out and I can see what I’m going to do next and how we’re going to get there rather than what I got to get sidetracked by or what, you know what I’ve got to get stuck on or that kind of stuff.
Bill 48:01
I just say that as an amazing if that was a book or a brief or a document, that would be amazing. I could turn it in at any time. And notice, oh my god, like, this is what the outcome is. And we know that whatever you focus on, you get. Okay. So, I love that idea. I love the idea of treating it like treating a life like a brief for an outcome that’s 50 years away. That all you do is find the things that help you get there and have the experiences that you want to experience.
Tina Murray 48:35
And you have fun along the way.
Bill 48:36
Yeah. That’s great. What are the type of people you work with? Now? Who do you work with these days?
Tina Murray 48:44
A lot of people that I work with are closer to my age. There seem to be people who had yeah, that’s right. Thanks. I love you. A lot of people who probably are 35 I’m saying more in the 40s and 50s I’ve done all the things you’ve meant to have done. I got married. Yeah, I had kids, I’ve worked my way up the corporate ladder. And now my, what now? Because just because as we said, it’s a process that people go through doesn’t mean it’s the right process for you, and so on finding this, most of the people who are coming to me are people who are at that point where I’ve gone, I don’t know, I’ve done all the right things.
Tina Murray 49:24
I don’t understand why I’m still not enjoying life. And I meant to be, you know, loving it now. So there’s a big segment that there are more women that I’m speaking with than men, but there are a lot of men who, who are definitely open to it. But one of my favorite people I mentored was a young lady and I didn’t charge her I just, she needed some help. And we worked together for a year and she was in her early 20s. And it really changed her life and I just love to be able to do more of that work because it’s set her up now, to fit her future.
Tina Murray 49:59
She’s got some other tools that we all wish that we had back when we were younger. And it was just simple things like I remember, we, part of what I do in my book is I take people to get to understand their values and their needs. And really early on, we did that in the process. And she got came to me one day she goes, You know what, I was talking to my friend the other day, and I was saying, I didn’t want to go out with this guy because he just didn’t suit. I knew I’m wasting his time and my time.
Tina Murray 50:30
And her friends are like, but how do you know that you haven’t even been out with them? And she’s saying, Tina, I know this stuff now because I know myself. And it’s not to judge the guy. He’s just not right for me. But her friends, like normal people in their early 20s, couldn’t get it and they thought she was afraid because she could just go he’s not right for me. I’m not I don’t need to be in a relationship. I am happy on my own. I’m looking for the right person who’s going to suit me. So that’s what a skill to have when you’re younger is really exciting. And she thinks moved overseas, she’d had this dream to move overseas. And so we really unpacked that and we made it happen. I’m so excited for her. Yeah. So it’s Yeah,
Bill 51:14
It’s been great. I like that. There is definitely there is a big need for people in our age group. So 40 Plus, to get support. I encourage people to get coaching and counseling psychology. I don’t care what just do something gets on it. And the reason I say that is because I’ve experienced life, and I have seen how doing the things that I’m saying that I’m telling them to do, has benefited me right now. I get it, that everyone’s going to benefit in the same way that I did. But I know with females, especially those mums, who have children and get to that age where their children are no longer dependent on them.
Bill 51:59
Don’t want to be a part of anything that we do like teenagers. I just don’t want to know us anymore. I don’t know why the dad jokes I thought were awesome. So what happens is, again, that identity that we spoke about so many times today starts to shift again. And it’s like, oh my god, they’re not letting me be a dad anymore. They’re not letting me be a mom. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to be? Yeah, and that can be a sense of real challenge for a lot of people getting to that sort of empty nester situation.
Bill 52:39
And what I think helps a lot and our awesome friend Bridget mentioned this to me, while we were doing a Facebook post thing she said, the reason why she’s not experiencing that a lot of people some people don’t experience of that kind of thing is because they have so stuff to do outside of their home environment or outside of their mum role that keeps them occupied and happy and healthy and interacting with other people. So I would encourage everybody that is going through a change to get some guidance, get somebody like Tina to help out, and help out by just being the person to bounce things off. We don’t give you the answers, right? We don’t tell people what to do. We just help people bounce things around and evolve what it is that they want to do what they desire.
Bill 53:34
I’m going through that because I had kids early, and my son’s 20 and 16. And I’m 42. They’re going to be out of the house real quick. And I’ve struggled with Oh my god, like these guys. They aren’t going to be around what am I going to do? How am I going to be? And my wife and I started going away on our own now. And that’s been a real learning curve because we used to go with the family. So it’s a different type of going away that we haven’t done in 20 years.
Bill 54:07
Yeah. So we’re really we’re rediscovering each other, you know, we’re learning about the quirky things that we don’t like about each other again. And when we’re working with him to overcome them. Now, I like the fact I would love to have a blueprint of yours that gets me from where I am to where I’d rather be. And that does the whole 50-year plan. And I know that you did something. You got a smaller version of that for people who haven’t interacted with you in the form of a book, right? You’ve written a book about it. Did you get a copy there?
Tina Murray 54:53
So it’s called design you and this one is about getting in touch with who you are as a person. So It’s really about drilling down to what your values and needs are. And so getting to know yourself from the inside out, so that you can start to apply some of these techniques because having that clarity really does help people to be able to move to where they want to be. But this year, in the next couple of weeks, all the dates for my workshops throughout the year are about to be released, where we got to go into more of the processes, about how you can actually design where you are now to the life that you want to create. So it’s really exciting.
Tina Murray 55:34
Isn’t it exciting is everyone’s experience is different because we’ve all got different names and different values? So it’s never going to be the same even though the process is the same. The outcome is going to be different for everybody, which is awesome.
Bill 55:44
Yeah, it’s a tailor-made outcome. I love it. It’s not your outcome. It’s the person’s outcome. Absolutely, yeah. Where can people find out more about you? Where can they go to get in touch with you and to find out more about your courses when they come up?
Tina Murray 56:00
Sure, TinaMurray.com. Everything’s on there. You can find the book, you’ll be able to find the workshops in the next couple of weeks, as I said, they’ll be up and running. And yeah, the more information there and you can easily email me through their website as well. Tinamurray.com
Bill 56:14
Tinamurray.com isn’t it? Awesome. Tina, it’s been really awesome. Getting to chat with you and having an opportunity to learn about how, you know, how you’ve gone through your, your journey, your journey so far, how you’ve overcome stuff, how you’re also a normal human being that goes through things and has trouble, troubles and, and, and suffers and does all these things. All right. So it’s all good. It’s all normal. I really, really appreciate your time.
Tina Murray 56:45
No, it’s been wonderful. Thanks so much, Bill. I really appreciate it. And I just love that you’re taking people to where they want to go. So we’re on the same path I can’t wait.
Bill 56:52
I know I saw your little. You know, you’re what’s it called that thing? It’s a tagline, right? Yeah, like it’s like I saw that and then I saw something else as well that’s something in your bio that I didn’t read because it was at the very bottom and unlike reading 15-page BIOS at your yours wasn’t 15 pages. But it was that you had the same tagline and so you’re gonna how do we get people to where they’d want to be? And that’s such a good thing you know, and I had to learn. I had to learn the hard way. I’ve got a bit of a thick head, I always say, and it’s okay to learn the hard way as well, right?
Bill 57:35
It’s no big deal. Don’t be so hard on each other. Love yourself, you know, be compassionate towards yourself. Apologize to yourself. We could talk forever.
Intro 57:52
The presenters and special guests of this podcast intend to provide accurate and helpful information to their listeners. These podcasts cannot take into consideration individual circumstances and are not intended to be a substitute for independent medical advice from a qualified health professional. You should always seek advice from a qualified health professional before acting on any of the information provided by any of the Recovery After Stroke podcasts. This has been a production of https://recoveryafterstroke.com/ Check out our page on Facebook and start a conversation by leaving a comment https://www.instagram.com/recoveryafterstroke/. Subscribe to the show on iTunes and check us out on Twitter.
