I Turned On Temptation Island For A Nap And Got A Life Lesson

In this episode of Life A Blog, Trina reflects on a week that left her physically exhausted and emotionally open—and how an unexpected moment on a reality show sparked a much deeper realization: the bare maximum is the bare minimum.

What starts as background noise turns into something more. A mirror. A reminder of what it actually feels like when people show up with intention versus when they simply exist in your life. Through personal stories, past relationships, and honest self-reflection, Trina unpacks what it means to be chosen—and why being chosen alone is no longer enough.

This episode explores the slow ways we lose ourselves in relationships, the normalization of surface-level effort, and the difference between attachment and true connection. It dives into emotional safety, self-worth, and the clarity that comes when you finally stop accepting what doesn’t feel right.

Referencing her own journey through betrayal, healing, and learning to sit with herself, Trina challenges the idea that love should feel confusing or inconsistent. Instead, she reframes it: love should feel steady, safe, and aligned.

Featuring the song Lose You to Love Me by Selena Gomez, this episode centres on the idea that sometimes losing a relationship is the very thing that brings you back to yourself. That clarity doesn’t come from holding on—it comes from letting go and choosing yourself differently moving forward.

The theme is clear: stop accepting the bare minimum, and start choosing a life—and love—that truly meets you.

If you’ve ever questioned your worth, stayed when something didn’t feel right, or are learning what you actually deserve… this episode is for you. 

Always remember with everything you're going through, every song has a story and every story has a song.

Transcript

Speaker 0:02

So it's been a week. The kind of week where you're running on empty, but you're still showing up. I was in Kitchener and Waterdoo all week at a business show. Long days, constant conversations, being on the whole time, representing the magazine, pouring myself into it, and doing what I love. But by the time I got home, I felt it, not just physically, but mentally too. You know that kind of exha exhaustion where you give so much of yourself that when you stop, everything just catches up with you. Well, that's been me the last two days. So I got home and I did what I think a lot of us do in those moments. I lay like broccoli on the couch, and I put something on that I didn't have to think about just in case I had a nap. The show was Temptation Island. It was on Netflix, it was the big screen when you enter the app. And I thought, meh, what the heck? Because I wasn't looking for depth, I wasn't looking for meaning. I just wanted noise in the background. You know, just something easy. And then I heard this line: the bare maximum is the bare minimum. And I just sat there because it hit me in a way I didn't expect, especially after the week I had just come off of. I figured Temptation Island was just a show with, you know, four guys separating from their four women and going to a mansion and being tempted by hot women and vice versa with the women as well. But it it was it wasn't that, it was a lot more. And this week I had three people show up for me in a way that went beyond what they had to do. They didn't just support me, they chose to. They were intentional, they were present, and they saw me. And when that happens, it shifts something in you because it reminds you of the difference. The difference between someone being around and actually someone showing up. And it made me realize something I don't think we talk about enough. We've normalized the bare minimum. And that's what you see on Temptation Island. Mark Wahlberg, the host, whenever they get at the bonfires, they discuss what they see in a glimpse of what's happening on the other at the other mansion. And they talk about what they see and feel when they look at their significant other doing what they do. And he asks the poignant questions that it's not necessarily about cheating. It's about do they see do they see their significant other growing? Do they see their their significant other addressing and being accountable for the problems that they had as to why they came on the island in the first place? So we've we've normalized the bare minimum in relationships and friendships and business and the way we treat each other. We've gotten so used to surface level level effort that when someone actually shows up fully, it almost surprises us, like, oh, this is what it's supposed to feel like. And you know, that realization doesn't stop there. It brought me into something deeper because we all want to be chosen. And you see that on the show, especially with Scarlet and Cole. She just wants to be chosen and heard so she can trust. Romantically, deeply, we want someone to look at us and say, hey, that's my person. And for a long time, I thought that was enough. Being chosen, that was the goal. 53 years.

Being Chosen isn't The Full Story

Speaker 3:39

But here's what I understand now. Being chosen isn't the full story. Because there are a lot of people out there who will choose you. I'm prime example. But not because it's you, because they're lonely, because they don't want to be alone, because attachment feels safer than doing the work to figure out who they are. And like I said, I know this because that's what I experienced in both of my significant relationships. I was chosen, but I didn't stop to ask why. I didn't question it. I didn't pause and say, hmm, is this intentional? Is this healthy? Is this aligned? Because when you want to be chosen, you don't question it. You accept it, you hold on to it. And if I'm really being honest, in those relations, I relationships, I heard a lot of things about who I was, what I was worth. You know, my ex-husband, probably two weeks into the relationship, when I was 15 years old, he actually looked at me and said, you know, I really didn't think you were good looking when I first met you. Boa, that stayed with me until now. There were other things early in the relationship where he didn't stand up for me. Boah, that's also stays with me until now. What I should accept. I accepted someone being hateful and dishonest and tricky in my last relationship. But he didn't do anything about it. He just sat there because he's normalized abuse. He accepts abuse. And that's okay, but I don't need to accept it. And what was normal? You know, I come from childhood that normal was drinking and fighting and arguing and being angry. And you know, at one point in my relationship, this person said to me, You're just angry. And I would kind of argue that. But now I look at it as I spent some time alone, I realize, yes, I was angry. I was angry because you were so accepted, accepting of being abused, and it made me angry to see it. And that wasn't a partnership we weren't aligned, and I wasn't enough. That in itself and the time spent by myself made me realize that I am enough, but just not for those two people. Because I believed every action on how they showed me and demonstrated my worth. And I know in some way they were true, but it's because I wanted the relationship to work, and the things that they articulated to me wasn't true. They might have been true to me because they stayed with me because they were either lonely or they just accepted whatever they could accept because they didn't want to take the time to heal themselves. Because it felt easier to j adjust myself, really, to be in that relationship than to question what was being said to me. And that's the part that's hard to admit how easy it is to slowly lose yourself when you're trying to hold on to someone else. It doesn't happen all at once. It's subtle. It's the moments where you stay quiet, where you ignore a feeling, where you accept something that doesn't sit right, but you push it down. I've done that so many times in my life, and I just never realized it until, again, sitting with myself alone, talking to people when I want to talk about it, and coming to a conclusion that I'm patient and I'm willing to sit here and wait forever or next lifetime for someone that really does show me that I am enough. And then something shifts. For me, that shift came from doing the work. Again, my healing, sitting with myself and asking harder questions, like who am I outside of these relationships? What do I actually want? What do I deserve? Because at the end of the day, it comes down to this loving yourself enough to know what you deserve, not what you've been told, not what you've accepted, but what is actually true for you. And once you start to see that, everything changes. Because now the bare minimum doesn't feel acceptable anymore. And confusion doesn't feel like love, and inconsistency doesn't feel exciting. You start to understand the difference between someone choosing you and someone choosing you well. And part of that is emotional

Safety Matters in Any Relationship

Speaker 8:47

safety. I didn't understand safety, and I think I've talked about that in previous podcasts. I didn't understand what safety meant until my first separation and the betrayal that came along with it. All the feeling of safety disappeared immediately when I found out that he had been cheating, that he had been lying, that he had compromised my sexual health. All that feeling of safety is just totally left my system. And to be honest with you, I don't think I've ever felt safe since. To try to feel safe, but safety, the feeling of safety is internal. It is not anything materialistic. How much you do and play while you're together. The feeling of safety is just that bond, that feeling of you're my person, you're the one that I need and I want in my life. And you show that to me back, and that's why I feel safe. You show me that I'm number one. You want to spend your time with me. When life is crumbling, you want to be with me all the time. You want to be there for me, you want to comfort me. And I want to do the same for that person. I want to be there all the time for them. I want to say to them, hey, you may not be feeling well or doing well or having a mental moment, but I'm not leaving until you feel that you can safely feel comfortable in being alone for a little while. So if your partner doesn't create an environment where you feel safe, you have to pay attention to that. Because love isn't just what someone says, it's how you feel when you're with them. Do you feel secure? Do you feel respected? Do you feel like you can be yourself without constantly second-guessing? And if the answer is no, that's not something you ignore. At some point you have to love yourself enough to walk away, not out of anger, not to prove a point, but basically staying in something that lacks safety slowly disconnects you from you. And here's the hard truth. Sometimes it's not that they don't see your value. Sometimes they don't have the capacity to meet you there. But either way, you're not being met. And that matters. It I look at myself too in the time that I've spent alone, and I realize there's a lot of negative values towards myself. In my past relationship, I hadn't taken the time to heal myself from my 24-year marriage. I didn't take the time to be by myself, to learn about myself as an individual and not as a couple. So I jumped in without any evaluation, any thought, any care for myself. And yes, in turn, I got angry because I saw stuff. And I think the reason why this relationship had to happen was to show me another way of abuse, to make make sense of what I had experienced, and that it abuse comes in many formats. And I guess a lot of my anger was because, which is totally grammatically incorrect, I needed to see something that related to me as a no-value when it comes to a relationship. And in that my anger surfaced, and I really feel kind of not not even kind, I do feel bad about that because it didn't tear our relationship apart. The abuse and the acceptance of the abuse is what tore us apart. But it tore it it made a it made a friendship go bad because I didn't want that abuse, didn't want to watch that abuse happen if we went into a friendship. And I'm no longer angry, but I still don't want to watch it. And that is the comforting part of the experience, and the experience is well in my heart, because it was an experience that I had to learn from. And that's the beauty of life. Sometimes you have to do the wrong things in order to get to the right spot in life.

Separated and Learning about your Relationship

Speaker 13:45

And another thing that really stood out to me watching Temptation Island wasn't the cheating. Because I think there was only one guy that actually cheated, and one girl that cheated but formulated a relationship that actually took them throughout the show and beyond. It was what people did when they were apart. Because being separated, it gives you space. And what you do with that space says everything, who takes the time to reflect, who is open to hearing other perspectives, who is willing to say, maybe I'm part of the problem too. And who stays the same? Defensive, closed off, unwilling to grow. Because it's not just about whether someone will cheat, it's about whether they're willing to grow. And during the bombfires, Mark Wahlberg really digs into that. You know, once this, I can't remember Shailen saw her boyfriend cheating, she didn't say, Oh my god, he's unfaithful. What she said was, oh my god, what a loser he always has been. And that's what he dove into is what she said in reaction to watching him cheat. And because it's not just about whether someone will cheat, it's about whether they're willing to grow, whether they're willing to understand the issues in the relationship, not just from their own perspective, but from yours too. And watching that, I understand something on a deeper level. Why someone would choose to walk away even without a big betrayal. Because if the other person isn't really even trying, like Cole wasn't, they're not engaging, not reflecting, not growing, then what are you holding on to? And that's why I understood S carlett choosing to go home alone rather than going home with Cole. Not because she didn't love him, not because she could see that he was wallowing in his misery, wanting to be with her. He just wasn't willing to meet her in growth. And that kind of clarity, it's quiet, but it's final. Because at some point you realize love isn't just about staying, it's about evolving. And if one person is growing and the other isn't, you're no longer walking in the same direction. And this whole shift is really significant when I watch it. I like I say I never watch these shows, but it was it was captivating. This whole shift made me realize that it takes two to make a partnership, and it takes a lot of willingness to deep dive within yourself and understanding of your other partner on how to make it work. And it's not always compliance that matters, it's understanding, it's compassion, it's empathy, it's everything like that. You cannot change that other person. You'll never change the other person. But that if that person is willing to change to grow with you, that's what matters. It's their own personal decision. It's not, it has nothing to do with you forcing change because you can't change anybody. And it brings me to this song, Lose You to Love Me by Selena Gomez. There's a line in it, I needed to lose you to love me, and that's it. Sometimes it takes losing the relationship, losing the version of yourself that existed inside of it to finally come back home to who you are, to see clearly, to stop believing things that were never true about you in the first place, and to choose yourself differently moving forward. Because now, being chosen isn't enough. Now, you're waiting for someone who chooses you with intention, with clarity, wholeheartedly deep dive in. And anything less than that just doesn't fit anymore because the bare maximum is the bare minimum, and and you deserve more than that.

Write Your Own Mantra on What You Deserve

Speaker 17:51

So I want to challenge my listeners. I want you to write a mantra on what you deserve. So I wrote one out for myself. I'm an entrepreneur, I am a broken woman with trauma, I'm a hard worker, I love being in the country, I love conversation, I love country music. I own a magazine that is distributed in a large city, but I never want to live in that large city, or I'll go visit for my kids and go to events that are specific to my business, but I really want to live outside of it. And so this is what I wrote about what I deserve. And I'd like you to share it with me on Instagram if you want to. I am allowed to build a life that feels as good as it looks. I am not too much. I just haven't met been met by the right people yet. My past does not disqualify me. My trauma did not break me. It taught me how to see clearly. I am a hard worker, but I am not here to earn love. I'm here to receive it in a way that I deserve. I don't chase, I choose to align. I don't beg, I choose. I deserve conversations that go deeper than the surface. I deserve someone who listens, not just hears. I deserve a love that feels steady and not confusing, safe, not uncertain. I deserve someone who meets my effort, not someone I have to carry. I'm allowed to be strong and soft, ambitious and grounded, a businesswoman who services the city, but a country girl who still believes in real connection. I want that person in my life that I see day after day, but I want them to want that too. I trust myself now. I know what I deserve, and I will not settle for anything less.

Mel Robbins Quote - The Right Person

Speaker 20:12

Mel Robbins has said this quote, you're not meant to convince someone to choose you. The right person will choose you clearly without confusion. Sit and think about that. The right person will choose you clearly without confusion. They won't need to go on their phone and start aligning with other people just in case the relationship doesn't work. They won't have to second guess what they want to do for you on a Friday night. They won't ever make you feel unsafe. They will ensure that your safety is taken care of 24-7. And not just the safety that's criminal or scary, the safety you feel in being in a relationship.

What's Up This Weekend For Trina

Speaker 21:10

And you know, this weekend it's supposed to be rainy. And I have a major flood at the trailer, but we're gonna go and figure that out. We're gonna go get some garlic because the garlic lady is probably giving away free garlic at this time. And I'm just gonna choose me today and the things I need to do to forge ahead. Because life, as we know it, is unpredictable. And while I had a very hard week last week, I am going to try to relax and keep my composure until next Thursday when I have to do deliveries in the magazine. And then we move ahead. We move into the trailer, we start seeing people again on a regular basis. We have our campfires, our laughs, our togetherness, and that I'm looking. Really forward to because I have spent the winter thinking about myself, what I need to change, what I need to do to better myself, how to learn from the relationships from the past. Letting my children go and doing what they need to do has been a struggle, but we're working very hard on it, and it's been great seeing my kids forging ahead. And you know, and looking in these this Temptation Island series, it's funny because they're 25, 26 years old, and it's so great to see a show like that for the younger generation because I've lived my life. I'm 53 years old. I have a lot of things that probably will never change. But at that age, they're malleable. They can change, they can learn and grow from these types of shows, and they can learn what they deserve, how they deserve to be treated, how they treat other people when it comes to relationships. I want to see my daughter and son have the best relationships other out there. And I want them to learn about themselves, but also learn about other people and learn about what they deserve. And you know, my son and my daughter-in-law, they have a child. And at one time I was very adamant that it was like, no, you guys got to stay together. And it's, you know, that's old age thinking. Because while he may be the father of my daughter-in-law's son, and vice versa, they are also partners and they both matter as well. And I think in the past episode, I said, what about me? when it came to the trauma that I had experienced through betrayal. And I don't want any of these three young individuals learning and growing and ever to have to ask, what about me? I want them to have healthy relationships. And somewhat a show like this is good feedback. It's still very much reality TV, but the message that Mark Wahlberg sets out at each bonfire can be taken in any relationship as you grow, whether it's a friendship, whether it's a business relationship, whether it's a romantic relationship, a lot of the things that he says can really be taken and learned from. So I hope you give it a try. I'm not going to try to promote it because it's not typically a show I'd watch, but I'm very impressed with it. I do not ever recommend Love is Blind or I can't remember the other show right now. It escapes me, but whatever. Temptation Island was very good when it comes to learning about relationships and what you deserve. And you know what? Just keep this in mind. The bare maximum is the bare minimum. Say that like a mantra, and don't ever lower your value for anyone else.