I am Tanya Kan. I am an ethnic Korean born in Uzbekistan (one of 15 Republics of the former Soviet Union).

I worked in financial services and my writing skills were mostly used to create financial reports. A desire to write more and deeper has always been in me.

We are too busy to listen to ourselves and we procrastinate on following what our hearts want, waiting for better moments. As a result, I started actually writing and took writing classes only after coming to Canada.

Now I am trying to improve my writing skills and write, write and write. I am feeling that I am in the flow, which is bringing me to a different level of my life.

September 28, 2019
“Here is a secret nobody knows …”
When people ask me whether I am an introvert or extrovert, I say that I am an introvert but have to become a “forced extrovert”. Every moment of our life we cannot avoid communicating with people and in many aspects of it, success depends on how effectively we can do that. I had to open up and become sociable, had to work on my communication skills, trying to transform myself from being an introvert to an extrovert. In some cases, it was really painful as if you were breaking yourself and constructing again. Even after I could substantially improve my communication skills, I was still enjoying my own company. At that time, I understood that I wanted to write, and that is a secret nobody knows. I wanted to put on a paper everything what I felt, my fears, my doubts, my aha moments and battles. I wanted to write, not to talk it over with somebody, but I just wanted to write as writing to me was something private intimate and sacred. When I understood it the first question that I asked myself was “From what to start?”. Then another question “Do you have enough skills for writing?”, and then another one, “Are you sure that it would be interesting?”, and so on and so forth. It is true when people say that when you want to change something in your life or start something new some parts of you start sabotaging this process through putting negative thoughts into your mind, especially, by asking “WHAT IF” questions. So, I did not start. I was procrastinating waiting when I become more skillful and more interesting for that. However, I was always thinking about writing and waiting for the right moment. Finally, the moment came when I have read that Oprah Winfrey was keeping her gratitude journal. I thought “Why don’t I start from the gratitude journal?” and I started keeping it. Up to now sometimes in the morning but more often in the evening before going to sleep I am writing in the journal my gratitude for all blessings that I had during the day, for all good or bad experiences and lessons that I got, and thanking in advance for all future blessings that will come my way. It changed the way I moved through the world. Now I understand that I should have started writing much earlier when I understood that I needed it.
Oprah Winfrey says that our life is always speaking to us. It speaks in whispers, guiding us to our next right step. The writing classes are the next step in my writing journey. Writing classes help me understand that we do not need to develop some special skills for writing, we just should write, write, and write, and through doing that we change and grow.