TC Currie (Takes the Easy Path

TC Currie leads a delightfully eclectic life as a writer, speaker, poet, transformational leader, body positivity activist, and occasional lingerie model. Her upcoming book, Take the Easy Path: 10 #GroundingGuidelines for a Better You, explores how you can create lasting change with self-love. She can be found at www.tccurrie.com

Q. Thanks for interviewing with us tell everyone who you are and what you do.

A. I am a Transformation Leader, lighting the path for others on their own journeys to becoming their authentic selves.

My personal essays have been included in two Chicken Soup for the Soul books: The Power of Gratitude and Be You: 101 Stories of Affirmation, Determination, and Female Empowerment (newly published in 2021), and these essays have also won the Solas Travel award.

In the last few years, I started my transformational poetry workshops, which are about being on the path to becoming your authentic self, in your writing.

My newest book and workshop series, Take the Easy Path: 10 #GroundingGuidelines for a Better You, is a conversation about the life-changing lessons learned on my own journey to health while dumping diet culture along the way. Remember, “If you’re not having fun, you’re not doing it right!”

Q. How was your experience being in the “Be You” book?

A. It was an honor and a delight. Chicken Soup for the Soul press publishes twelve books a year and so the process is very streamlined. All of the people I dealt with were kind and helpful. On the author call a week before the book launch, they said they had over 12,000 submissions for the book. They quickly whittled it down to 1,200 (most of the essays were not up to professional standards), and then haggled amongst themselves to get it down to the final 100 essays that would be included in the book.

Even though the essay I submitted was run through a writer’s group for feedback and then professionally edited before I submitted it, they still made some edits and sent it back to me for approval. They also provide a lot of support in terms of suggesting how to leverage the book launch among our own social media followings, so more people can find out about these important stories.

Q. What are 5 ways to leverage the power of gratitude?

A. My relationship with gratitude started back in 2008, after my husband passed and the economy crashed. I’d lost my home, then the storage rooms with the vast majority of my possessions. I wrote about the journey in my essay, “The Gratefuls,” published in Chicken Soup for the Soul’s The Power of Gratitude (published in 2016). For me, gratitude is a practice, something I do in the midst of everyday life. From my upcoming book in 2022, The Grateful Game, here are 5 ways to leverage its awesome power:

1. Start Small. When I first started my daily practice of listing 10 things to be grateful for, I was unemployed and living in an unheated cabin on someone else’s property. I didn’t think there was much to be grateful for, but I realized that I was grateful for my sight. For the ability to walk through the trees.

For the trees themselves and so on. Since then, whenever life has thrown more stuff at me than I thought I could handle, I’d go back to basics. I’m super happy that I have my sight. I’m grateful

I have a home I’ve lived in for 10 years now. So, start small and get back to basics. 2. Be Gentle with

Yourself Looking for the good takes practice. You are literally laying down new neural pathways in your brain and it will take a while to build those trails.

What you do not want to do is start beating yourself up because you missed a day. 3. Connect to the Feeling. It’s not just enough to run through a list, especially if it’s the same list every day. Husband, house, car, kids, dog, check, grateful for all that. Nope. For each thing that goes on the list, pause and connect to the feeling of gratitude for that item. I made a rule that I couldn’t put the same thing on the list two days in a row. I had to look for new things for which to be grateful. This becomes its own reward because

I started being more creative while looking for things to put on the list. 4. Be Grateful for What You

Already Have. If you hit a grateful block and sit down to write a list and can’t come up with anything, look around your physical space. Is there art on the walls? Look at the art. There was a point in time when you had to have that piece. You bought it and brought it into your life. Are there books on your shelves? Do you have a favorite novel among them? Be grateful for that. Be grateful for the author who created the story and the way it swept you away and the fact that you can come back to that story.

Where did your rug come from?

You get the idea.

5. Make It a Game. Coming back from a blissful week away, we ran into nasty traffic, and

I started fuming. My dude jumped in and said ok, let’s play a game like the “I Spy” game we played when we were kids, but with gratitude. What are you grateful for that begins with the letter A? Um, apples? And we started going back and forth tossing out things we liked with the letter A, then started moving down the alphabet, and things got silly, and we started jumping around and the letters got mixed up, and we were laughing and decided that the only rule in the

Grateful Game is that you are saying something that makes you feel happy. The traffic hadn’t changed, but we were having fun and I was squirreling away ideas for the letter’s “X” and “Z,” but I never got to use them, because by the time we got to “T,” the traffic had eased, and we were home! And instead of arriving angry and blowing away the bliss of the vacation, we arrived happy because we had filled the car with gratitude.

Q. Let’s talk about your book Take the Easy Path: 10 Grounding Guidelines for a Better You. What was the motivation behind the book?

A. During a routine doctor visit, I was shocked to find that my blood sugar, cholesterol, and blood pressure were all way over target. It was clear that drastic measures were needed, but I was definitely NOT doing another diet of cramming denial and shame down my throat until I hit some number on a scale. These changes needed to be sustainable, which diets never are. Defiantly, I decided to find a way to get healthy without going on a diet of denial. But how?

It occurred to me that I knew a lot about what didn’t work, since all my previous attempts had led me to this sorry state. I needed to get healthy, but in a slow, steady, restof-my-life kind of way.

I’ve been a software developer for 25 years, so naturally went to that skillset. I thought, “What if the system I need to redesign is me?” I decided to reboot my own system and give it an upgrade. Could I make it easy? Make it fun?

I broke down every attempt I’d made at getting healthy - what worked and what did not. In that process, I came up with the Grounding Guidelines to help me get through the changes, with little bits of help throughout my day. These guidelines open with “No Shaming,” and move through “Celebrate Every Little Step Toward Health,” “I Decide that Today is a Good Day (not the number on the scale)” and “No Comparisons.” The last one “If You’re Not Having Fun, You’re Not Doing It Right” was tossed on at the end, but as I started carving my own Easy Path, it’s become one of the most important. Fun offsets stress, which studies have shown to wreak havoc on health.

When I later returned to the doctor’s office to check my progress, 100 days into my new life, I saw significant improvement. All of my numbers were down, I was eating better, and I had more energy. After a year of following my own guidelines, my blood sugar dropped by 100 points, my blood pressure had dropped by 40 points, and I had lost 60 pounds. That was when I knew without a doubt that I needed to share this journey with others who were trying to follow the ups and downs of the trends in diet culture - and they were losing, just like I had been. These #GroundingGuidelines free us up to make decisions that make us healthier, but they keep us happier and more stress-free than the systems diet culture commonly promotes.

Q. Where do you see yourself in the next three years?

A. OMG, I have so many plans! My first workshop: Grounding Guidelines is scheduled for a February 2022 launch. That will be followed by Building Your Own Easy Path, in both workshop and workbook form later in 2022, which breaks down the process I went through to create the Guidelines and shows you how to apply that process to your own life.

I’m re-recording my poem collection Ode to Cookie Dough as an audio book. Oh! and I’m one final edit away from finishing my mystery novel Runaway Rembrandt. The workshops take precedent, but I’m definitely planning on having that published in three years.

Q. Can you share one of your short poems with us?

A. Of course, thank you for asking! A couple of quick notes. This is from my Ode to Cookie Dough series, which is transformational poetry, all about the process of becoming your authentic self. Next, please take a moment to read this out loud. Poetry is meant to be heard, not just read in your head.

Did it hurt, little one? In your dark cocoon, where an earthbound creature transformed herself into beauty with wings? Because I am trapped inside my own shadowy cocoon with only myself and transformation. I am in pain, shedding my skin, new things growing, my insides coming out. It is safe beneath the silken threads but unfamiliar, and I am scared. I want to know, little butterfly, because I want to hope. For if you felt pain in your cocoon, then my pain will become to me a symbol of my future flight.

If you want to listen to me read Ode to Cookie Dough, you can do so here.

Q. Are you working on any workshops or events?

A. OMG YES! My first workshop: Grounding Guidelines is being scheduled for a February 2022 Launch. I hope to have the book published by then. The Building Your Own Easy Path Workshops will follow later next year.

I’m hoping to bring back my Poetry Workshop series, which is a fun afternoon of hearing a poem, then breaking into dyads to discuss what it means to you and how you might apply it to your own life.

Q. What does building a community look like to you?

A. In this crazy world we live in, my foremost concern for those working on transforming into the best versions of themselves is safety. I have clear guidelines for both the Facebook group and for the workshops around sharing and not tearing (down). That is critical for allowing the space for people to share their own experiences. As I learned with my poetry, the deeply personal is also universal, so hearing other’s stories is so empowering. Last, it needs to be fun (Grounding Guideline #10 is: If You’re Not Having Fun, You’re Not Doing It Right). My Facebook Transformational Leader feed is not just about the Grounding Guidelines, Body Positivity, and Death to Diet Culture, as one might expect. You’ll also find posts about kindness in the world (which happens all the time, but you never see it in the news), and my Squeeeeeee! Animals - mostly adorable baby animals from zoos across the world.

I was criticized years ago for posting cute animal pictures because there is so much work to be done and it’s precisely because there is so much darkness in the world that I post them. There is beauty and joy in the world and one of the ways I cope is to be reminded of the happiness of seeing a young tiger cub seeing water for the first time.

Q. Who are some of your favorite authors?

A. The Trance of Scarcity, by Victoria Castle is about how the stories we tell ourselves impact our lives. As a writer, and a teller of other people’s stories, this message touched me on a very deep level. Ms. Castle writes that the stories we tell ourselves can be very limiting - and they are just stories. When we start telling ourselves new stories, our lives can change. As I started doing the exercises and realizing how many limiting stories I had in my brain, I changed the narrative and started seeing my dreams come true. Other books that have been pivotal are The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. They are so simple, yet so powerful and can be touchstones as one goes throughout their day. I hope people use the Grounding Guidelines in the same way - something to grab for when things start slipping. Also, I would recommend pretty much anything by Brene Brown.

Diana Gabaldon is much on my mind these days, as the 9th book in her Outlander series is dropping in *checks watch* 10 days. Her books are an excellent example of great storytelling and are their own Masterclass in fiction writing. Also on the fiction side, I love Alice Walker, Amy Tan, and of course Tony Morrison, who all have expanded my world view.

Q. Where can readers follow you?

A. First and foremost, my web page: www.tccurrie.com where you can find out more about me and sign up for the inaugural newsletter (once a month containing a deep dive into that month’s Grounding Guideline, an interview with a body positivity activist, and some tools to help you make it through the month).

I can also be found across social media:

FB: TaketheEasyPath IG: tccurrie Twitter: tccurrie LinkedIn: tccurrie