Words and Photos of my Friend Tre of Thought by Thought

Blogging has brought some incredible people into my life, and one of them is my friend  Tresha (TREE-sha) Thorsen of  Thought by Thought. I’m sharing her words and photos of her here because I want all of you to know just why she is so special to me!

It all started in 2007 when she emailed me to say that she had seen the BlogHer ’07 badge on my blog and was also going to be there and would love to meet me. Despite having each other’s cell numbers, she looked for me that Thursday night, all day Friday, and all day Saturday before finally literally standing right in front of me that Saturday night. I had taken a photo of her Friday morning when everyone got up for “speed dating” without even realizing it was her!

It's Tresha!

Look, it's Tre!

Tre is a healer. She works with people to help them learn to push aside those negative, self-doubting inner voices that hold us back and learn to accept ourselves, to treat ourselves with kindness, to live thought by thought if that’s what it takes. Just being around her makes me feel like I’m okay. She radiates this peacefulness from her beautiful blue eyes. And she is 100% genuine.

BlogHer ’08 was in San Francisco, and Tre was there. I took a commuter train from the airport to a stop near the hotel, and as the train doors opened and I stepped out, I almost knocked Tre off her feet. How coincidental is that, that I just happened to be getting off the train as she just happened to be getting on the same car? She was heading to Berkeley to meet friends so she had to run, but we met up during the conference.

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Since then I haven’t seen her in person, but we’ve emailed and gchatted and facebooked. In fact, what prompted me to write this post is her latest Facebook update. It seems like whenever I am having a crisis about something, Tre has a post that says exactly what I need to hear and think about. Like this one from her Facebook wall today:

Ever feel like you react to life and get overwhelmed by it? Or feel you are beat by it or like your life isn’t going how you want? What if it’s not about reacting but creating? Not being impacted by but causing an impact of your intending… Not about never getting where you wanna be but seeing you are there ( the only where) and allowing for that?

That is exactly the problem I’ve been having for a couple of weeks now. Reacting instead of creating. Holding back instead of moving ahead. Living in the past instead of focusing on now. I suspect many of us feel that way at one time or another.

The saying goes that people come into our lives for a reason. Tre came into my life and I am a better person for it, even if I don’t always remember her advice.  I strongly encourage you to visit her blog thoughtbythought.net and read the page “My Healing Practice” first. If you need help NOW, if you need someone to listen, someone to support you even if things are falling apart, please go to Tre’s blog and click the Need Help Now tab.

if I hadn’t started blogging, I would have never met Tre. And that’s why blogging is so amazing, because the day you publish your first post, you become a part of a community, if you want to be. Open yourself up to new people and new experiences.  Learn what makes your fellow bloggers unique and interesting.  Promote them, support them, and by all means, share them with your readers like I’m doing here!

 

 

How A Blogger Named Suebob Changed My Life – Happy Birthday Suebob!

“Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same.”

Today is the birthday of Sue Davis, also known as Suebob, also known as Suebob from Red Stapler, someone a lot of bloggers adore, and when I got an email asking me to post something for her birthday, something that would let her know how special she is to me, I knew exactly what I wanted to post. This is part of the Incredibly True Story of How I Went to BlogHer 2006, and the story starts with Suebob!

On May 16, 2006, I had been blogging for eight months when I got an email that changed everything. Suebob (yes, SueBOB, it’s been her nickname for a long time) from Red Stapler had run a contest to give away a free pass to that summer’s BlogHer conference, and the winner of her contest, IzzyMom, had already purchased her ticket and wanted to give her free pass away to someone else.

Izzy emailed me to see if I wanted her BlogHer ticket, which of course caused me to freak the heck out before emailing back YES and OMG.  When I emailed Suebob to let her know that I was the person getting the ticket and to ask how I went about finding a roommate to split the hotel cost with me, she replied back that she had booked a room and didn’t have a roommate, so how would I like to room with her and not to worry about the cost?

My mind was practically blown out of my head at that point. EIGHT months I had been blogging, I had never been to Sue’s blog, and yet she was fine with me taking this free conference ticket AND was offering to be my roommate AND was excited to meet me.   I didn’t know it then, but my entire life, not just my blogging life but my entire LIFE, was going to change in just a few short months.  Best of all, THIS:

IzzyMom and Suebob at BlogHer

Because Suebob had that contest, because she offered to let me share her room, and because another blogger used her Delta SkyMiles to buy my entire plane ticket and another blogger offered to let me stay at her house Sunday night and would drive me to the airport Monday morning – keep in mind, EIGHT MONTHS Of blogging and having never ever met another blogger in person – because Suebob’s contest set that chain in motion, I am not only the blogger I am today, I am greatly changed as a person today.

Because I went to BlogHer that year, because I listened to Ariana Huffington tell us in the Closing Keynote Address that she was overcoming her fears and starting a new website (HuffingtonPost!), because I grabbed a pen and on the back of one of my business cards I wrote:

1. Find your voice.
2. Stop apologizing. Be proud of who you are and what you do.
3.Stop hesitating. Move yourself forward.
4. You ARE worthy.

When I got home, I bought table4five.net and a hosting package. I bought a Pro Flickr account. Because I went to BlogHer, because Suebob set the wheels in motion, I became the blogger I am today – heck, I became the person that I am today.  I had been trying for years to find my creative outlet.  I had no idea what blogging really could be until I went to BlogHer ’06.

If you’ve been to a BlogHer conference, you’ve probably seen Suebob. She’s the lady with the camera and the red Swingline stapler, asking people to pose.  Go to Flickr and type Red Stapler into the search box and you’ll see what looks like thousands of pictures of people with Suebob’s stapler! I even got one of her with the stapler:

Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday Suebob! You are a beautiful person with an enormous heart and I hope your birthday is as special as you are. I hope you know that I think of you not just as a blog friend, but as a friend friend.

Send birthday greetings to Suebob through her Twitter, Facebook, or blog!