BLOOM [Department] 365 Valentine's Days a Year The moving force behind passion island, which is an important resource for peninsula residents seeking help with relationships, talks about her life and about the vision that drives her work.

Tana Marie

I believe that each of us has a reason for being put on this earth. My purpose has apparently been to help people live in love and to assist them in finding the love of their life. For the past 28 years I've been helping people develop a set of healthy interpersonal relationships and thereby helping them to live life on a level that most people only dream about.

I graduated from the University of Santa Clara with a double degree in Interior Design and Psychology. I loved the Silicon Valley lifestyle and was on a personal mission to change the world one house/office at a time. Two years later, however, everything changed when I enrolled in the four-year UCM (Universal Church of the Master) Ministerial Program. I graduated and was ordained 20 years ago this March.

Counselor and Guide for the Heart

Counseling is my main tool for helping people make their way to the place of love and fulfillment that I wish for them. My avenues for counseling include face to face, with callers on my weekly radio show, one-on-one over the phone, and indirectly with many others through my books as well as my Internet site. My clients are spread across the country and throughout the world.

I really thrive through seeing good things happen to others. The greatest thing in the world is hearing someone I've helped say, "I met Mr. Wonderful!" or "I got past my childhood trauma!" Those things are the hot fudge on the sundae of my life!

At the beginning I mainly drew clients from friends and relatives. However, those people told their friends. The people in that second ring of clients, in turn, told their friends about me. As word-of-mouth continued my business grew exponentially.

I've written several books and five years ago developed my website as a way of replicating my life-changing messages. My Website (www.passionisland.us) is content driven and covers topics having to do with love, romance, and communication.

For the past 18 years I've hosted a weekly radio program called "Love Talk with Tana Marie." I'm currently on KNRY 1240 AM. I took to the radio waves as a natural medium. For one thing, I have the voice for it. Most importantly, radio is an effective way for me to get out my message that we all need to cultivate positive relationships and find true love - and that we can actually do so.

On my show I talk about issues and take calls from listeners. The interactive format enables me to connect with people and really help them. My youngest caller was a 12-year-old girl, pig-tailed and probably holding a teddy bear.

"What does love look like?" she asked.

"Why are you asking me?"

"Because my mom and dad won't let me ask these questions."

I helped her understand some things about how human beings love and experience love. That evening as I was driving home I was struck by the thought that I had possibly changed the course of a person's life in a positive direction. Perhaps I did that with a number of listeners.

I never know who's listening to my shows, nor can I gauge the impact that I might be having.

I've had remarkable experiences helping people with my counseling. I've enjoyed becoming a part of people's lives by baptizing them, blessing them, and especially marrying them. I'm providing a "one stop shop for relationships" and am godmother to the children of several couples that I introduced and then married.

Most fun of all is my Intuitive Match-Making Service. I'm a professional intuitive and perform a service of helping people at any level, time, or place. As a professional intuitive I am able very quickly to cut through such things as hype and ego projection in order to get directly to the source of an issue. One client, for example, had undergone 14 years of traditional psychotherapy. Over the course of three sessions I located her block and assisted her onto the road to recovery.

I've developed my service as an intuitive through both formal training and experience, but the ability itself is a gift. The word "psychic" tends to inappropriately lump together all paranormal activities. In my case, however, the intuitive part is simply being able to sense who a person really is; what his/her heart is like. It's an effective gift for a person like me who naturally loves people and desires to assist them!

Steering People Away from Disaster

When I first started my business I focused on women but my counseling services soon morphed into a wonderful balance. Men are beginning to admit their need for help; I'm getting a lot of male clients who are open to receiving guidance in the safe environment that I provide.

Women usually come in for relationships first, then money, career, etcetera. Guys, on the other hand, come in for help with their career, but then end up working on creating healthy relationships, since almost all problems come down to how people behave toward, and are treated by, the other people in their lives.

I never tell people what they should do. I'm not their mom; I'm their guide and counselor. I tell it the way it is and the truth, of course, is occasionally uncomfortable. In some cases I have to caution people against a relationship. Some clients ignore me and get into difficulty. Later they call me up.

"I should have listened. Now what do I do?" I start where they are and help them sort out whatever mess they've gotten into. I encounter a lot of deserving and self-esteem issues. Left to themselves some people permit atrocities to happen to them because they feel they don't deserve better from life. I helped one client reach a turning point. She had been going from one train wreck of a relationship to the next.

"Do you think he's the one?" she asked of one Mr. Wrong. I told her in several ways why he wasn't the one. She tried to excuse him by an amazing attempt at justification:

"At least when he beats me he doesn't put me in the hospital like my last boyfriend did."

I was able to guide her through an abbreviated version of Deserving 101. I assisted her in coming to realize that she deserved someone who would love her. I told her that she needed to switch her attitude 180 degrees and find a guy who would deserve the things she had to offer. She found a man who was everything I told her to look for.

"I've met him but he's too good for me," she said. I took her back through the deserving issue again. The problem kept reemerging but she listened to what I was saying and finally reversed her life and married a wonderful man whom she really deserved! The two of them are a pair of lovebirds! They have a beautiful little girl.

My Own Story

It would be a strange thing if The Princess of Passion wasn't able, herself, to find true love. I met a great guy, named Robert, at a San Jose Chamber of Commerce meeting. He was one of the Chamber Ambassadors.

"You will like the Chamber," Robert said. "You might meet a soul mate."

The comment really got my attention and the connection between us seemed to happen in an instant. We married three years later to the day. It was fabulous! Still is!

Before we married, I was teaching a course called Life Map, together with a spin-off called Love Map. Robert and I decided to write a book together so we created a set of "driving directions" that people could follow in making their way to the love of their life.

We spent thousands of hours on the project. Our book is called Isle of Fantasies and it was a great trip for the two of us - a journey of dedication and commitment that changed us both and greatly intensified our own relationship.

Robert proposed to me the night we opened the first shipment of our books. I've told people, "First we birthed our baby and then he proposed the marriage." That was ten years ago last June 30. Robert remains my biggest fan and supporter. Through the book he became a partner, as well, in leading people to wholesome relationships.

We began traveling around and presenting a 4-week workshop in which we walked participants through the steps in the book. During our seminars the quieter participants often seemed to experience the most profound changes.

One woman showed up each week during one of the seminars and sat stone-faced in the front row without ever saying a thing. She was an average looking woman who appeared to be about 40 years old. Other members in the group engaged in discussions during the workshop but she never interacted with us whatsoever.

At the end of the program she approached us. "You changed my life," she said. We were dumbfounded.

"In my entire life I never had a relationship. I never even had a date. Last night I went on my first date because of what you had me do. I didn't realize the blocks I had."

Robert and I really believe in the stuff I preach. I'm making him a happy man in many ways, and he's making me a happy woman. One of the highlights of my life this year was winning an award as one of ten "Outstanding Women 2006" by the Monterey County Commission on the Status of Women. Ten of us were selected for this honor from among all the women in the county. As much as I appreciated the honor, I was particularly pleased that I was the only one who had been nominated by her husband.

I've traveled extensively doing a series of seminars and workshops, but we moved here to Monterey about six years ago and I haven't done the circuit thing very much since. Who wants to leave Monterey? The Peninsula has been like a wonderful womb, however, and I'm in the middle of a gestation period that very soon will result in the birth of something wonderful. My heart is still full with the things that I am planning to do.

I'm in love with life! I love my clients and love my soul mate, Robert, above all else. It's a great life! I'm celebrating Valentine's Day 365 days a year. Helping others come to this great place is a wonderful mission!

Focusing on love and loving creates the best of all worlds for me to live in! Life simply couldn't get any better than this!