Intentional Living: Threshold Seasons and the Life You Keep Postponing with Tona Restine (Part 2)

Intentional living is not a destination. It is a daily practice of noticing, naming, and tending to what matters most. In this second and final segment of the Reignite Resilience Podcast's conversation with life and business coach Tona Restine, cohosts Natalie Davis and Pamela Cass go deep into the practical, personal, and philosophical framework that has defined Tona's work at Life Imagined for a decade and shaped the lives of every client she has had the privilege to walk alongside. 

This segment picks up with Natalie drawing the throughline between her own coaching journey and Tona's, naming the parallel paths they have run and the shared inflection points that propelled them both into laser focus on what they wanted to create. From there, Tona opens up the full picture of how she works with clients today, who she works with, and what the threshold space, the liminal moment between who you were and who you are becoming, actually looks like from the inside of a coaching relationship. 

Tona and her husband Kevin do an annual September Threshold retreat together, a practice now entering its twentieth year in some form and its second year as a formal Life Imagined offering on September 11th and 18th. She shares what the threshold framework looks like in practice, why September as a season carries a particular kind of readiness for reinvention, and why she believes change that finds you requires just as much intentionality as change you go looking for. 

The conversation then moves into one of the richest threads of the entire episode: Tona's deeply personal morning routine. She shares the four elements she returns to every single morning, the book that changed how she thinks about the first hour of the day, and the coaching client who helped her realize that for some people, midnight is their morning and that is exactly where their sacred space lives. 

In This Episode: 

• Who Tona works with and why she is drawn to clients in liminal spaces, threshold moments, and the messy middle of major transition 
• The annual September Threshold and what Kevin's coaching program "Navigating the Delta" teaches about change that finds you before you find it 
• Why coaching is ultimately about being a friend to someone who needs a friend and asking the questions that lead them to answers they already carry 
• Tona's four-part morning routine and the book that reshaped how she thinks about the first hour of every day 
• The final piece of advice Tona leaves with every listener: get quiet enough to imagine the life you want, then move heaven and earth to create it 

Tona is a featured speaker at Reignite Live 2027 on January 22nd in Loveland, Colorado. Her September Threshold is September 11th and 18th, 11AM Central, virtual and open to all. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 3:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, Natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

So now you have the ER course that we'll roll out Q1 of next year, but you are currently working with individuals when we talk about this life imagined. Give us a little bit of insight for our listeners. If they're maybe if they're at the front door of a new season and they're not sure or they may have fear or hesitation, talk to us about going into or entering into those new seasons as we see them approaching us.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah, yeah. I am doing a lot of one-on-one coaching still. Probably always will. You know, I'll be the girl bringing the locker up to the call. I love it that much. I love it that much.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

Tona, just so you know, there's gonna be a different platform by then, but just we we're there. We're we get it.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Right. So yeah, I mean, I love meeting people in liminal spaces, right? At threshold points in their lives. You are here, you want to go here. Let's do this middle piece well. You know, it's really touted around our circles that this is the messy middle, and it can get super messy. We all know that, but I think it can be beautiful too, and I think it can be soft and strategic, and it needs to be both. And I do work with a lot of clients who are in that transition space because uh like attracts like, I think you guys agree to that. I've been in a lot of transition myself. I understand transition, I know how to do it pretty doggone well, and I know how to come alongside others and help them navigate it by asking. I mean, I really do believe the questions we've already got them, right? I think the coach draws the right questions out that leads you to the answers that are already here. So yeah, I know the questions to ask, I know just it it is that threshold. I mean, it's a big word. Kevin and I are about to do our annual September threshold because we're here, right? Summer's ending, fall is starting. September is a threshold to something new, leaving behind the casual summer. So that threshold space is so clear to me, and we all encounter it, every single one of us, and multiple times in our lives, actually.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

I love the threshold space. So is that something that the you and Kevin do every year?

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Yeah, yeah. This is I've done some semblance of a September something for probably 20 years in my, you know, in my brokerage or here and there. The last two years we've done it together under the Life Imagined umbrella. And this year it's two Fridays, September 11th and 18th. One is focused on life, just life. And the other one is a business focus. You know, I am business owner adjacent all the time. That's really my heartbeat. You guys know that. And um, so this the business one, I've got four of my clients who are in really different seasons of life, geographic, geography, um, just age, tenure in the business, and they're all having uh the best year of their career. So we're diving into that in a market that's arguably hard. Why are these four women blowing the doors off of things? So they're gonna be our guests on the 18th. And then I know it'll be really fun. And then on September 11th, which happens to be mine and Kevin's 44th anniversary, we're gonna talk about resilience, so I'm sure. And he's kind of heading that one up. He's written a coaching program called Navigating the Delta, and it's it's kind of guy speak, really, but I had to look it up. I didn't know that term, navigating the delta. Same, I don't either. It is kind of predicated on the notion that change is inevitable. Sometimes we find change, but sometimes change finds us. And um, we gotta do however we find change, or if it finds us, we gotta do it well. And so that's his baby right now, and so he'll be facilitating the first uh session on the 11th. And I've brought in two incredible friends of mine to be speakers for that.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Yes. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. And so this is a virtual event or is this in-person? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

And it's pretty special to me. Yeah, it is really gonna be great. If if I do say so myself, it's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

Well, Natalie and I both had the honor of being part of courses with you and watching you speak, and you are magical. You just have this way about you that just brings people in and you feel this instant connection with you. Thank you for saying that, Pam.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

I think the same if you we've we've had some fun over the years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

I mean, imagine if we didn't have a little bit of fun. I can't even, I don't even know what that space would look like. Yeah, and you guys are just a space that would not have us there. That's exactly exactly.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Yeah, and listen, you girls are doing big things right now.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Both of you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

I mean, I am follow I'm avid followers. Following, I am following with wonder.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Yeah. It's so fun to watch because there's a there's a few other women that are have been on this journey with us as well, and just watching the progression over the years and where we've all gravitated to and landed, and it's just so inspiring. All business owners, all women of a certain age, we shall say, and all having fun while we're doing it, which I think is I think is the key.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

No, I do too.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

We're pretty darn fortunate when you think of it, you know. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so you've got this two two-day events of the 11th and the 18th. Are people able to still register for that?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Oh, yes. Okay, okay. It's on my website, lifeimagined.info. You know, we're boost we're boosting some ads on social media and all that jazz. You know how it goes. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Yeah, so we'll we'll permit we'll make sure that's in the show notes so that everybody has an opportunity to. So, what else are you working on? Because you said you were working on a few things.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

A few things, yeah. I believe there is room to come back in person. So 100%. I just think we need to give each other some real bugs again. So I'm I am working on something it's gonna be intimate, and maybe even it'll start in my home, honestly. And again, it's it's a first quarter. If I could really get my act together by Christmas, I'd love to do it then. But I'm again, I'm monitoring my own bandwidth. So it will be called attend T-E-N-D, and it is really about attending to what matters most and doing it in a small, safe, warm setting. Zoom has been a game changer. I will forever be grateful for Zoom and the opportunities it affords us. But um, I love that skin to skin. I love sitting across the table, and so I want to do some of that this year, too. So that's running right now. And then we did launch a Substack. I don't know, maybe it's been a year now that I've been writing this Substack, and it's called the Stepping Stone. It's just monthly doses of mindfulness.

SPEAKER_03 12:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Mindfulness for again, those liminal spaces, those spaces in between, and it's getting some wings, you know. It's I'll never be a millionaire because of it. Dog on it, but I'm gonna pause you, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Don't even put that in the existence. You're going to be a millionaire.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

I just want to see thank you. What it is doing, it is giving me, I've always been a writer, but it is giving me some discipline in my writing and some accountability and some boundaries to it. And I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Can you share with the listeners what what it looks like? And are are people able to sign up for it or or absolutely?

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Yeah. I mean, it's it's a it's got a subscription component that I think is, I don't even know. I think it's $8 or $6 or something. And if you do that, it does go a little deeper. You get a a monthly video with some subscriber notes, and it's topical to whatever the article of the month is. Like what I've been doing is really taking a word that means something to me. The word for August was capacity. Really interesting. I fell and broke my arm. This is like I'm supposed to have my cast thing on. Took it off for you girls. My capacity has been challenged this month. So that's kind of interesting. The word of the month we're working off of for September is courage. And so we start, that's a jumping off point. And it's a monthly newsletter, but then each week there's some midweek thoughts, just stuff that's timely, stuff that's on my heart, stuff that's just happening, you know. So we talk about it from that space of mindfulness that is liminal, that is transitional, that is a threshold. It's very sweet. And it's getting some legs. It really, really is. So yeah. No surprise. Substock is called the stepping stone, a monthly dose of mine.

SPEAKER_03 14:18

So you have the complimentary side of the subscription, as Tona mentioned. I'm gonna go ahead and plug it for you, Tona. And then for a monthly fee of $6, if you want to go deeper or annual at $65, you can do so because I'm a subscriber. I just pulled pulled it up. But here's I I want to compliment you on this, Tona, because if it's okay, I feel that it's a safe space between us and the listeners. The advancement of technology is not something that you're passionate about as well. Like that's not your wheelhouse. How many times did I have to text you? But I do want to applaud you because Substack is a newer platform that many people are getting familiar with and getting plugged into. And when you announced that you were dropping your newsletter into Substack, just know that I was cheering you on from here because I thought, you know, Tona, get it. Because I know that it's not native to you in terms of understanding. And so there was probably a learning curve there. Congratulations and kudos to you. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

I had to laugh on I it was literally Wednesday because I do this midweek thing every Wednesday. I'm in their help center like this. I'm sure it's AI. So I really don't think it's a person going, oh my god, really. I really don't think that that's what I'm picturing. I just don't understand. How do I get this on Instagram? And he's like, Well, you know, and you go in the grid, and I'm like, okay, go. Oh, my housekeeper's just got here. He the AI said, go to the grid. And I'm like, um, the grid. That's what I'm saying. Are you referring to? Which grid are you referring to? Right? Oh my goodness. I I have to absolutely yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

Oh gosh, that is hilarious. I would have said the same thing to the AI person. Like, what's the grid?

SPEAKER_03 16:13

What are we talking about? And here's the thing just because I've dabbled with Substack and I I thought I was going to cross post on Substack, I threw the towel in at Q2. I said, I can't do every platform. So I've pulled from Substack, and it's not, okay, Substack, don't come at me. It's not very user-friendly. Like it's not intuitive into how you would think that that it needs to, that you need to post and then share from posting. And there are a lot of background settings that you have to know where to find them. And I just I just said no. So that's why I have much to follow through.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Thank you for that. I receive that like a big girl. I feel really proud of myself. Who works with me? She really handles the lion's share of that. And so hats off to Bonnie, you know, every once in a while. I just say, hey, I'm throwing in the towel tag, you're it, you know. And we managed to get it done, but mostly because of Bonnie.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Oh my gosh. And I've worked. We both work with Bonnie, I think, at some point. So yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

I could not do what I do without Bonnie. And you know, we've got that beautiful tenure. We've worked together enough that she knows what I want almost before I want it. And we kind of created our aesthetic. We know what we want it to look like. And so we're in that really sweet space of working together.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Oh, I love that. That is a good spot to get it.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

It's a nice rhythm to have, right? Where there's someone that's already anticipating what you want or need, and it is actually what you want and need, and it just aligns. That's that synergy, it's a magical spot.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Yeah. And you know, I mean, you guys coach enough business owners. The more we can stay in a routine, the more effective we are. So I really keep myself disciplined. I am a product of my product. I coach people towards daily discipline and routine, and I hold myself to high accountability to it as well. That's probably what keeps Bonnie from pulling her hair out at me.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

Anyway, we've got a good thing going. Tona, talk about that. Like the daily discipline and routine. Talk to our listeners about that. If they've never heard the concept, if they've never had a coach that has helped them in that space, how can they start to dial that in for themselves?

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Oh, it is to me, it is the most essential piece of effectiveness for me personally. I really took, you know, I think it was Darren Hardy in the compound effect a hundred years ago, where he talks about bookending your day. That that became early on in my life pretty non-negotiable. My day starts, you could set your watch by the way my days began. I'm not kidding you. Yeah. And I end them the same too. They don't always end at the same time, but they end the same way. So it's a book-ended day. I have from the time, honestly, when I was 12 years old, my auntie gave me a little pink diary with a key. Oh, and I started writing a letter to God every day. And that has been part of my life passage, my spiritual practice, my daily rhythm, whatever you want to call it, every single day. And so that's that's how my day starts every day. I'm in a I'm a like you, early morning gal. So I'm up really early doing those things. I like to take my time. I don't like to be rushed. So my coaching day starts every day, either at seven or eight, either one. But I'm at my desk always a half hour before whatever my first call time is. Non-negotiable is the letter to God. And now it's not even non-negotiable. I don't even think about it.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

It's like just do it.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

It's just like any other thing I do every day. I write daily affirmations a couple of times, and I write the same ones sometimes for years.

SPEAKER_03 20:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

And then about two or three times a year, I'll really get crazy and I'll start writing something like the four agreements every single day in first person present tense. I'm about probably in the month of September. I just shared this yesterday on social that I'm I'm gonna start writing the prayer of protection again. I do that once a month or so. I mean, once a year for a month. Gratitudes every day. Um, I'm a big note card writer. I still send a couple of notes every single day. I love it. I always want to do that. You know? It's again, it doesn't feel like discipline now, it's just lifestyle. When we were dreaming of life imagined, I was challenged to say, What do you love? And I I love either cooking dinner for Kevin or with Kevin. And I just thought, wouldn't it be neat? Because I'd always worked long hours at the office, you know. And I thought, wouldn't it be neat if I could like kind of button up around three or so and go downstairs and change clothes and cook dinner? And we do that. You know, it's not always three o'clock, but but we do that, and so we really prioritize that, and that really came from envisioning at first. Um so that's part of our day. Kevin and I've gone out on some kind of a date every Thursday night since we were 20 years old, so we still do Thursday nights out to dinner with a little date. A little date.

unknown 21:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

So we've got a lot of those just precious routines that are again, they don't feel like discipline now, it's just lifestyle.

unknown 21:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

And you've just consistently done it for years and years and years.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Years and years. And I I think if if I could attribute a word, one word, you know, I love words, if I could take one word, it would be consistent. I'm really, really consistent. I really love change though, too. But there are things I will I just won't unwind consistency.

unknown 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:19

I think Tona, the way you describe it, how you start your day, how you end your day, the things that are important to you that you're going to keep on your calendar consistently, what it does consistently, what it does not sound like is forced or regimented. There's structure there, but there's ease with the structure that you define. And so I think when people are looking at having this structure or alignment within their day, the first thing that we go to is like, because it's there's a strong presence of it on social media. It's like grit, grind, hustle, go, right? And it's very much forced and it has to happen, and you fit the round peg in the square hold, or vice versa, however that works. You can still have the elements of what is going to create an ideal day for you because you are creating the life. What are the elements that are necessary? And then how can you incorporate that into the day and make them non-compromise? And it's not because it's you're forced to do it, it's because you choose to do so.

unknown 23:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

You are so right. And you know, there's an elegance to that, by the way. Right? We've all had to. I mean, there are times, don't get me wrong, I have to grind and hustle sometimes too. And I do. When you gotta step up to that plate, you do it. Yes. I've learned that's not, I can't sustain that case. It's not good for me, physically. My co, you guys know, you know, guys know Matthew Ferrara. He has helped me a lot by demanding in his oh so Matthew Ferrara way to create a few blocks, literal blocks, where I I'm a paper planner girl where I have white space that's filled with nothing except, I don't know, pet and the dog, sitting, doing a little writing, sitting in the sun. That's not germane to my personality. I had to learn that. And I have learned it, and it's really served me very, very well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Well, and like you said, the consistency. Now you don't even think about the letter to God, the affirmations, the gratitudes. It's just become something that just feels like it's a natural part of your day. And I start my morning the exact same and less the the letter to God, which I I love that that added. But I don't like to be hurried in the morning. Like to me, that is like my sacred space, especially when I know that you know, once we start working, we can get really busy doing a lot. But boy, if I start my morning in that space calm and I'm in control, it just makes for a day that you can you can handle.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Yeah, it changes. Everything, yeah, and and I mean I'm fortunate to be a morning person, I think, you know. Although I will tell you, I had a client years ago, and she just could not get on board with this. So I really we really worked through it, and I'm like, Well, when's your favorite time? She goes, Oh, when my husband and my daughter go to sleep. Oh, and I'm like, That's your morning. That's your time. And she goes, Could I do it then? And I'm like, You must do it then. Yes, that's your time. Yeah, that's just the opposite of my wiring. Yeah, right. But but we've all got some internal clock that makes sense, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:45

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

Tona, if you have one piece of advice for our listeners as they start to explore their life imagined, what would that advice be?

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Gosh, what a good question. You know, Natalie, I would I would probably say just get quiet enough to explore it. You know, if you look at most of us, we're going 90 miles an hour, we're skidding in on two wheels to the next meeting, you know. I mean, but I think as a culture, we've really lost some of the gift in slowing down, you know, the quiet gift, if you will, right? We've lost some of that, and so I really think to be intentional about uh creating space, pausing, going slow, scheduling time to simply think. I mean, I know you guys do that so beautifully with your think week. Our mutual friend Gretchen is taking time routinely to just be alone, you know, to let the creativity begin to flow. And I think we can't uh go confidently in the direction of our dreams and live the life we have imagined if we haven't created the space to imagine it. So I would just say create the space to imagine what you want your life to look like, and then move heaven and earth to create it. And you don't have to do it alone. I mean, that's why join arms with someone who will be your cheerleader, who will be part of either your cheering team or steering team, right? You don't have to do it alone. Get someone who has buy-in to your vision and drag them along with you.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

Tell them to strap in, we're doing it. We're doing it. Buckle up, buckle up, we're going. We're doing it.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

It's really a fun and sweet way to um grow a life and grow a business, you know. And we can't grow a business if it costs us the beautiful life the business is supposed to support. I mean, there's such a disconnect, right? You guys know that as well as anyone. You see it all day, every day. I know you do.

SPEAKER_03 28:13

Tona, this has been absolutely amazing. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your story and so many nuggets for us to take. I definitely learned some things and I am going to apply them, but that's no surprise. I always learn from you. So I appreciate it. Well, also make sure that we put all of your contact information in the show notes as well and direct links to your website so that our listeners can um head over and find you if it's for the ER rollout that happens later this year and next year, and it will be out soon enough for people to sign up for your September threshold. Is that right? Is that what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Yeah, September threshold, and I'll send you. Okay, we got a Bonnie made a cute little flyer and all that. Hey, I have a QR code. There you go. Thank you, thank you, Bonnie. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

We will share the QR code and the flyer. I love it. I'll send it to you. And if people want to see you in person, come to Loveland Colorado in January. January 22nd. That's what you talk about. The skin to skin in person. Yes, in person connection to be in closed.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

I adore you both. Keep doing what you're doing. You're doing such good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

Well, we absolutely adore you. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

So good to see you. It's such a pleasure.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

It worked out perfectly. Worked out perfectly. For our listeners, you all know the deal. If you like this episode or something resonated with you, make sure that you like it, share it with somebody that you know, and check out the full episode in video format on our YouTube channel. And if there's anything that you'd like to hear us discuss in the future, we'd love to hear from you. Just email us at podcast at reigniteresilience.com. Until next time, we'll see y'all soon. Bye, everyone. Hi, girls.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience Podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas to fuel the flames of passion. Please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes, and of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.