I am Tanya Lynn, CEO of Sistership Circle.
Coach, trainer, speaker, writer and leader.
I have been through the dark and the light. I’ve gained tremendous wisdom through my experiences and training. I am a leader who walks my talk and is always looking at where I can be responsible for my impact on the world.
I am passionate.
I am a dreamer.
I am a stand for truth.
And I am committed.
People come to me because they are inspired by my vision and moved by my conviction. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They want to be part of the movement I’ve started because it allows them to see that they can play a bigger game.
I’ve coached top business professionals in Mumbai. I’ve led over a dozen Tribal Truth leaders in starting their own tribe. I’ve led masterminds where women have come out six-figure earners in less than a year. I’ve built stages where speakers have walked away with tens of thousands of dollars in their pocket.
I love standing for someone to have a breakthrough. I love brainstorming for new business strategies. I love creating 90 day plans that help someone take a huge step forward in their life and business.
I speak, sell and write from my heart. I listen for what matters and what will make a difference.
I get underneath someone’s skin and make them feel really uncomfortable so they can see the truth and breakthrough their limited beliefs. And other times, I softly ask someone to share and when they cry, I cry with her because I feel her pain. I am sensitive as much as I am tough.
I am a big visionary who sees beyond the limitations and I take fast, inspired action. I make things happen. I am a catalyst. I inspire the truth to arise from the depths of the heart.
My Story
When I was 26 years old, I made a declaration that I was going to make a global difference. At the time, I was moved by this realization that this is why I was brought here on this planet. This is what my heart ached for. I had no idea how I was going to make a huge impact, but I longed for it.
From that moment forward, I searched for my truth. What vehicle would I use? What was my legacy going to be? How could I utilize my talents?
I looked back at my life and here is what I discovered about my commitments:
I have always been committed to wellness. I played sports since I was five years old and in my 20s, had a passion for running, basketball and yoga.
I have always been committed to education. I loved school. I loved to learn. I loved to read and write. I could devour a book in a day because I wanted to soak in knowledge. I was a truth seeker, looking to be my best self by learning from others and going through my own journey.
I have always been committed to travel. I’ve been to over 25 countries and have a fascination with culture. I love to travel not to see history, but to meet the people. I’ve traveled extensively on my own and lived abroad in China, Japan and Spain for a deeper immersion into the culture. I’d experienced everything from severe illness in Peru to my bags being stolen in Chile to death of a student in Japan to having servants in India. I embrace all of it, even the times I felt ostracized and alone in Japan when people would move away from me on the train because I was white.
I have always been committed to family. My parents have been together since they were 16 years old and still happily in love, doing personal development work together. My brother just had a baby and I have fallen hard in love with my niece, Lennox. We have family dinners on Sunday and I’ve lived for extensive periods with my parents as an adult because I want to spend that quality time with them. We drink wine at lunch and my mom forces me to stop working to watch Dancing With The Stars with her. We talk about everything in the jacuzzi under the stars and “swipe” my brother’s two mini Dachshund, Bu and Dash every chance we get.
Discovering myself in this way – by looking at what I’m committed to – allowed me to start to define the work I do in the world.
It started as a Health Counselor in NYC with a certificate from Institute For Integrative Nutrition in 2007.
It morphed into becoming the Executive Director at Play 4 Life, Inc. a non-profit I started to bring wellness to schools in the Bronx.
It moved across the country, back home to San Diego in January 2009 to become Women 4 Wellness, events that I selfishly put on for myself to meet new, like-minded women to befriend.
It evolved into Tribal Truth in January 2010 when I partnered with Novalena Betancourt and we created a new structure to empower women in fulfilling their dreams.
Since that launch, I’ve had the opportunity to explore the meaning of “tribe” and “truth.” I’ve been on a journey that can be best described as a roller coaster, both scary and exhilarating, where I’ve lost my stomach and my mind and found it again on the top looking down.
I’ve learned above all that the truth will set us free. The more I can speak the facts, my feelings and look under the hood of the car — the more I can be present with what’s right there in front of me — the deeper I can go in intimacy with others, the more I can love myself, and the more I experience joy.
There are four defining moments of the journey since January 2010 that I’d like to highlight because of their deep meaning and teachings:
** Partnership dissolution with Novalena: April 25, 2011 **
I punished myself for over a year for what I considered my biggest mistake in how I handled the split in our partnership as co-founders of Tribal Truth. I wasn’t happy and didn’t have the tools at the time to shift it. I felt like I sold myself short. Again. It was yet another time in my life where I resented someone because I compromised myself out of not owning my value and self-worth. This pattern had continued to repeat itself over and over again in my life; for the first time in 2012, I felt that I had drawn the line in the sand as I really looked deep within at why I kept doing this to myself and took a stand to end it.
Here’s what I learned: nothing is a mistake, nothing is a failure. If I can see the beauty in the most ugly situation, I can learn the lesson and fully let go. I can only see that beauty by telling the truth about the ugliness I feel about it. I can only let go when I forgive myself. I can love again and feel the love from the other person in the moment of ultimate forgiveness.
Novalena is a beautiful soul who came up with the name “Tribal Truth.” She helped birth the baby. For this I am forever grateful. She was divinely placed on the path with me at the perfect time. I fully own that — all parts of it — and celebrate all the lessons.
** India trip: Dec 28 2011 – Feb 13 2012 **
When I left for India, I felt like my whole life had fallen apart. I felt broken and needed a spiritual journey. I had almost gone to India in the Summer of 2008, but wasn’t ready then. Now was the time.
Two things occurred on this trip that had a lasting impact: the first was riding in the back of a car with a man whom I was coaching who cried to me about his project that he felt was about to crash; he was building apartments for slum dwellers and his team was backing out. I asked him to surrender to the coaching program he was in and trust that the answers would come. He was in the program because he didn’t know how to handle the situation, but the more he resisted the more it would persist. In that moment, I got the power of tribe.
The second happened in Goa when I faced the fact that Tribal Truth’s leadership team had disintegrated and I almost waved the white flag to quit. However, the white flag was actually a sign of me surrendering to something else that wanted to come through. Once I told the truth to the people around me, everything started to shift, miracles started to appear. In that moment, I got the power of truth telling.
** Long Dance: Sept 2012 **
I was sent to a Native American ceremony in September called Long Dance. 125 women danced around a fire and performed rituals for healing from sunset to sunrise. 18 men guarded the perimeter of the sacred site so that the women could do their deep work. The site was surrounded by hills. A drum beat started the ceremony at sunset and continued without pause until sunrise.
As the sun peaked over the ridge top to the east, the drum beat stopped. Everyone stopped and turned to face the sun. Shadow outlines of the men started to appear. The leader blew a conch shell and the men began to chant a Native American morning song to the women.
My heart expanded and I choked up with emotion. What touched me was the act of selfless service that these men provided us so that we could do our deep work. It took courage and strength to dance around the fire the entire night. Many women experienced profound healing and let go of past traumas during the ceremonies. We felt safe, we felt supported, we felt protected by the men.
I imagined for a moment what the world would look like if men and women gave this kind of love and support for one another. If we honored one another’s process. If we unconditionally loved one another in a way that held space for the other.
At that moment, I realized that Tribal Truth could no longer exist as a “women’s only” organization. We cannot do it alone. We need to include our men. We need to embrace the masculine as our partner, not an enemy. The world does not work with an imbalance of masculine and feminine energy.
As I shared this story with the empowered men in my life, I learned how much men wanted to be part of the work we have been doing. Many men shed tears, moved by the feminine honoring of the masculine. Every man said YES, I’m in.
But I didn’t know how and I didn’t feel ready. I was still operating from the old model of men and women as separate, so I needed a man to lead the men.
Then in January, it came to me. Four women would hold the space to empower and inspire the masculine.
When the four of us gathered, we all came to the same conclusion: we will not assume. We will ask questions. We will listen. We will honor what the masculine has to say.
And on February 24, 2013, we held the first co-ed event.
As I edit this at the end of 2013, I look back at the thousands of people impacted by Tribal Truth. It truly has been a container to birth new businesses, relationships, and communities. It has been a catalyst. It continues to live on in people’s hearts. It will continue to exist in new forms in the future. It has brought together “soul” groups, people who were destined to meet in this lifetime. To this, I am grateful. To this, I feel fulfilled. To this, mission accomplished. And yet the journey continues … I look forward to meeting you somewhere along the way.
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