We were lucky to catch up with Tabetha Garcia recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Tabetha , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
When I was in the military I remember taking a class on resilience, I think that was the first time I ever heard that word. The instructor led a “death by PowerPoint lecture” but he finished with throwing a tennis ball against the wall and what he said has stuck with me ever since. He squeezed the ball and said, “I can squeeze this ball as hard as I can.” He threw the ball against the wall and then stepped on the ball and said, “even after being stepped on and slammed against the wall, the ball returned to its original form. Be like a tennis ball and bounce back when you hit hard times and don’t allow anything to change your form for more than a short time.” It’s simple but it stuck!
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’m a visionary. I’m a lover. I truly feel God blessed me with the ability to love even the hardest of people to love. My profession is Photography (birth and high fashion) but it has been slowly taken over by something bigger..
When my husband and I chose Tennessee to make our forever home, I was about to give birth to our last child with a 2 and 4yr old in tow. I knew I needed to find my tribe. I searched Facebook for mom groups and I joined a local MOPs (now MOMco) group. I needed more and I felt God pushed me to make a Facebook group. Moms of Lawrence County. I prayed for 25-30 other moms in the area to bring in close and be able to lean on and be there for them to lean on. Fast forward to today! We are at 1700 members and we recently received our nonprofit certificate.
Our first project will be LawCoKids by Moms of Lawrence County. Looks like a kids center where parents can sit and enjoy a play date but we will offer short term childcare and an after school program for ages 12 and up. But wait! When we started working on this we really pushed the mental health gain moms get during a play date and we had multiple mental health professionals reach out wanting to volunteer time. HELLO GROUP THERAPY for moms and kids after school. We quickly added that to the vision. THEN we reached out to the community and we now plan to have classes for moms with CHILDCARE PROVIDED, which is another need in the community. We moms would love to take hobby classes, safety classes, gardening, canning, fitness, all the classes… But we don’t have childcare, but we WILL at LawCoKids. We are at the early stages of LawCoKids with planning fundraisers to get us into a location to show the community what we can offer, once we get out there and people see us we will grow.
Find us on Facebook LawCo Kids Community Center or soon MomsOfLawrenceCounty.org!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Last week I was standing in a group of moms and one said to me, “you’re so easy to talk to and just so genuine, when I see you I just want to cry.” Genuine is all I’ve ever strived to be in my adult life. Being real and transparent in everything I do got me to where I am today. Moms can talk to me. I love moms! Don’t hide behind a perfect social media profile, don’t pretend to be someone you aren’t. When you can accept who you are and share freely, your tribe will come. Surround yourself with people who make you smile. Don’t waste your efforts and energy on people who don’t match the efforts you give them.
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
Mentors. Other people. Other moms. When moms meet in a face to face setting the conversations go all over the place. The good, the bad and the ugly. I’ve learned things from new moms, old moms, foster moms, grandmas… The best advice I’ve gotten was from an older mom with several kids and she said this, “tomorrow’s a new day. They (our kids) aren’t always going to fight bed time, they aren’t always going to wine allllll day, they aren’t always going to not read, they aren’t always going to want to crawl into bed with you at 3am.” I took that and ran with it. Just this week I said to my husband, “she won’t always only want to eat only cheese and tortillas….” Maybe she will but it got me to a better head space saying that out loud.
Networking on a professional and personal level is important. This stands true in my photography business and in opening up a nonprofit.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://RollingHillsPhotography.com
- Instagram: Tabulous_
Image Credits
Rolling Hills Photography, Mid Southern Tennessee.
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
