Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This
is played forward, real people, real stories. The Struggle to
Play it Forward. Episode number six forty one is with
Teresa Contexas, the author of the book The Littlest Sailboat,
A Journey of the Soul.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good morning, it's Teresa.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
How are you doing, Teresa? I love your energy.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I'm so sorry. I'm calling late. I got lost on
the piano. I played the piano, and I just.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I got lost in there.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I'm okay with that. My mother played the piano. I
would sit there for hours and just listen to her
play the piano. Oh, I'm totally into this.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
You know.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
And when I had stopped for years just because my
piano was in the basement. We didn't have room for
it in the main floor, and I hated the sound. Well,
now that we just moved, I love it. And I say,
I'm going to play an hour next thing. I know
it's two hours.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
But that's what creativity is all about.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I know. And I'm just I didn't realize how much
I've missed it. O.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Man, that's so special, because it means so much to
me that that you tap into that level because it's
a journey. And I think that's one of the things
that you talk about inside your book The Littlest Sailboat,
is that you've got to be able to sail on
that open water.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, and you can't be rigid about it either.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
How do you stay away from that?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Stay away from what?
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, the rigidness? Yeah, because look at this world. Oh
my god.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
One of the things I do is I don't listen
to the news that often. I'll read what's going on,
but I try not to watch it because they use
scare tactics instead of just reporting it. They want you
to be fearful, and in a world with so much fear,
the last thing we need to do is add to it.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
What they need to do is they need to add
this book to their lifestyle. And I do mean that
because I walk this path and I understand what you're
sharing inside this book.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
It's actually it actually is my own personal journey. However,
it's everybody's journey.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, the name's changed, but that's it.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
How did you gain the courage to be able to
do that? Because I'm a daily writer, and I remember
that before I even wrote my first book, it came
from my pages as well, but it took a lot
of courage and guts to be able to say, Okay,
it doesn't really belong to me.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I've always felt that way.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I guess even when I was in school before any
of this started, because it didn't happen early in life.
I always had no problems asking questions in class because
I always felt, well, if I don't know something, or
if I don't understand something, somebody else might not either,
and everybody's too afraid to ask, So I'll ask.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
That's why I created a podcast called it's called The
Vocal d Frag and what it is it's asking yourself
the questions, then questioning the answers. We have to teach
people to ask themselves the questions to know.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
This was a study done and I don't ask me
where it was from because I don't remember things like that,
but I'll remember contexts. And I thought it was interesting.
They did a study and they decided found out the
difference between somebody that goes to an IVY League school
and somebody who goes, like to.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
A community college.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
It's the question asking yes, not being afraid to ask
the questions.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah, you admit inside this book, and I wish that
more people would understand it. We are all healers.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
We are.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
When you go to a grocery store and you smile
at somebody and they smile back, and before you know it,
the more you do it, the more things start happening.
I'll get people come up to me and go, your
eyes are beautiful. But it's not that they're so beautiful.
It's as much as the light that's shining through it
that they see, so it touches that part of them
in themselves. It's the same part of me.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I just love where your heart is. You're so giving
in the way of sharing it in the most simplest way,
because people try to complicate the matters when it comes
to making a little shift in their lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
You know, I was journaling this morning and I, as everybody,
I have some bad habits that I want to work on.
But my my mini me or I call her screaming Mimi.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
My ego doesn't want to do it. Yep.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
So what I got today in journaling is and I
got this also from a retreat that's where this started from,
is talk to your screaming Mimi, Talk to your little Mimi.
And talk with her from you know, sort of parent
to child. And so I asked, what are you willing
to change this week? Let's just find one little thing
(04:43):
that you're willing to move forward and you know where
I want to go in the long run. But where
are we going to start? And today's was very simple.
I'm a junk food junkie, very bad one, and.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
A picker.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
I don't necessarily suffer meal, I'll put all day. And
I very clearly heard myself say, Okay, I'm willing to
go and eat a meal and not pick.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I thought, okay, that's where we'll start.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
See it's the little intentions like that that really do
build a better platform and a better day.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, and I think one of my problems is I
always set myself up to fail.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I wanted to change everything right now, and.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
That's the ego that's not your higher self, you know,
the higher self gets we want to do this, and
I want to become this, becoming enlightened, becoming awakened. Awakened
is you know the beginning of it, but it takes
time because you have to work. We're divine first, but
our human selves. It's the human condition and we all
(05:50):
have it, so don't get mad. And I think that's
another problem. We get so mad at ourselves when you're
on this journey that I should have done this, or
I could have done that, and why didn't I do this?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
But no, it is the human condition and just go Okay,
we're going to try that her next time.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yeah. Yeah, well you talk about that, you talk about
that there's no such thing as a failure and you
can learn from that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
I actually did that with my kids growing up. When
they came home and they did really poorly on the test,
I said, you know why, and they said, yes, I
didn't study enough, or yes I didn't understand what I
thought I did. I said, okay, good, now you've subpeted
in learning something.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
The book we're talking about is The Littlest Sailboat. I
have to ask a question, what is your birth month?
Are you a cancer?
Speaker 3 (06:37):
No, I'm a Libra and I am definitely a Libra.
I can drive people crazy constantly trying to balance.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
When you spoke of the writing retreat right and you
talked about doing the journaling, I instantly because I'm a
student of Julia Cameron. Are you part of this, No,
I have not. I don't get the opportunity to talk
to so many people about their journaling because people don't journal.
And so I've spent all my life here trying to
get people to do exactly what you're promoting. Journal have balance,
(07:12):
get it, you know, talk to that person on the inside.
That's why this book is so important right now.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Thank you so much. You know it was written, I know,
I know.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
It was divine didance fast and even coming up with
the idea happened so fast I was becoming a reverge.
Our final paper is what is if you had all
the money in the world to work with?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
What is your mission? What? What do you know? What
are you going to do?
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And I thought, that's not me. I'm not doing this
to run a church or do anything like that. I
just believe in all faiths, in that every every every
religion has some truths in it, and no religion has
all truths in it, and that you use religion to
catapcault yourself outside of religion into who you really are.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
That's fascinating that you share this with me, because that's
been my life. After I turn thirty years old, I
started studying every form of spiritual belief and there is
something there, and you know, it's like in martial arts,
they teach us it's the fist, it's the fist foot way,
and it's the way that we're supposed to be doing.
And my Sobbernin would tell me all the time. He says,
I don't teach the way, and I go, why not?
(08:24):
He says, you have to find the way. Find the way.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
I think that's really true.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
And you could dabble in a lot of things for
a long time and some people find it instantly, but
they it's not instantly because they have somehow connected all along,
whether it was through nature or through.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
The martial arts, they are.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Connecting and then one day they go, Okay, there's more,
and I think that there's more.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Ever ends that's right, that's right. Are you going to
set up a podcast? Because there's so much to these
pages that it's like, it's like I want to hear
your voice. I want to hear your pitch vault and
tone and the attitude of really setting somebody's thoughts straight.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Oh, I wouldn't even know where to begin with the podcast,
but I don't figure it.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Out because you're so truth filled with what you're sharing.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Well, thank you, And I have no problem because I
don't want to be a person who says do as
I do, not as I say, so I have no
problem saying, Okay, I know what I am doing is
not the right thing right now.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Or I walked away for a little while, but that's okay.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Now I'm back, and hopefully next time I walk away,
it's not for one week. It's for one day. Yeah,
and then maybe I walk away. But the whole point,
you know, I used to when I read the Bible,
the line that Paul says, pray without ceasing. That really
confused me. How can you pray without ceasing? And I
(09:54):
now understand it's because you've become and you are a
living prayer.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I gotta ask you a personal question about your journaling.
I've been a daily writer for thirty years and we're
all growing into that place of transition. My wife wants
to get rid of the books. But what are you
going to do with your books? I don't think they're
for this generation. I think that journaling is for the
next generation and those that follow them. What are you
doing with your journals?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I get rid of them?
Speaker 1 (10:21):
You do.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
My reasoning is.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I might start keeping them, but when the kids were young,
I got rid of them because I didn't want them
to read.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Where can people go to find out more about you
this book and everything that you're part of.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I have a website that I write a lot. It's
teresakantaxis dot com. You could also put in the Littlest
Sailboat and it should pop up and I have writings
in there. It started that came about starting. That started
because of the beginning of the Ukraine War. Yes, I
(11:00):
wrote about what that meant and how to look at
it because my heritage is.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
From Poland, and I lived in Poland when Russia was there.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
So and my father lived in Poland when Russia took
over and he, at the age of ten, was sent
to a concentration camp. Oh man, okay, and so so
it's near and dear to me was what was happening
there and that for people to not understanding what they
said is right. We're the first line of defense.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Like I said in the beginning, I love where your
heart is. We need to have another conversation in the future.
I love sharing a conversation with you.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Please read some of my writings on teresakontaxis dot com.
It's I have to start writing again. I stopped probably
for about a year now between moving and everything, but
there was something else going on.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
I will not write if it's not simple.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
God, life is simple. It doesn't mean it's easy, but
it is very simple. And what I'm learning right now
I couldn't write simple yet I'm getting there.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
I'm ready. Well, you have yourself a beautiful, brilliant day today.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Okay, okay, thank you so much for spending time with me.