Hidden Rooms

October 8, 2021

Oh the worlds we never see. Infinitely surprising.  Devastatingly never ours. Some of them, impossibly foreign.  Further than our physical bodies can get to.  But also vaster than the confines of our minds.  There is so much safety in staying inside the same world.  But with so much unknown loss in it.  Unknown because we could have not imagined ourselves living another life.  I realized that no matter what has happened to us, however lost we are, we are in pain.  In tragic sorrows, we can enter a different life, even if it is inside the one we are living.  Sometimes this stance gets me in trouble.  Especially with those who do not share the belief that we can defy our current circumstances. Even for an evening.  I was one of those people. The pain of loss blinded me and took away every key to any room that I could have escaped to. But just imagine this, for just the length of this letter.  What if there are mini lives waiting to be lived inside the one you are in?  Like, hidden rooms in a house.  I promise you they are there, and they come with new feelings and emotions.  If only you dared to go into them.  If only you believed they were worthy.  Plentiful.  For a little while.  For a moment’s solace.  And then for more. Yes, for more.  Once you start occupying these rooms they grow on you like a new book you didn’t expect to like. Like a museum you never thought you would get lost in.  Like a desert you never believed could comfort you.  I live inside many rooms.  I draw and paint in one. I write books in another.  I teach in the main living room. And help people in the kitchen.  I go to space in the hallway, and raise my daughters in the library.  But of course, some of them are dark and heavy and I renovated them to lead to hallways full of stars.  And so it goes. And so it is. You have to not stay in one room.  If you did, you may as well live in a mansion and only use the first floor.  With no views. Or the balcony with the evening breeze.  To bring this to a close, just remember you are here to live more than one life.  To love more than the people you already do.  And to do it all, all at the same time.  Not after. Not later. Not one day.  Now, in the midst of your hard day.  In the middle of your ok job.  In the day after your break up. Your mom’s passing.  Your brother’s accident. Your sister’s meltdown.  While your bank account is empty.  Especially then. Go on.  Find that library room in your house, and look for a story that will take you so far away, you would forget your last name.    With hidden rooms,  Christina P.S. I just did a talk at an online conference called BRAIN SUMMIT: 20+ global experts (including myself!) have come together to teach us how to empower our emotions, stop overthinking, and reclaim our brain from trauma and fear. You can sign up for it here, and it is free  HERE.

Read More
0 Comments.

Five Cupcakes On a Tray

October 1, 2021

Be yourself.  Be you, they say.  Live your life however you want.  But that is the thing.  Who the heck are you?  What kind of life do you want to live? The old life is not ever coming back. I checked.  A thousand times. This is about the versions of the future you get to choose from.  Often, we don’t even know there is a choice.  Nobody told us.  By the time we let ourselves believe that we have options, we have already missed our chance a few dozen times.  Let me explain this a little more.  Imagine someone walking up to you with 5 cupcakes on a tray, all different flavors.  They offer you one.  You ask if they have your favorite kind.  And they say no, they don’t.  What do you do next?  Do you have one of the 5 cupcakes left on the tray? Do you say thank you and have none?  Or do you ask if the kitchen at the back would make you the kind you want?  Oh I know, I know what you are thinking.  Come on, Christina. Who asks for that?  Well let me tell you, there are some people who do.  And sometimes, the answer they get is, yes sure.  What kind would you like?  But let’s go back to the tray with the five cupcakes.  Here’s what you didn’t know.  The tray started out with 50 cupcakes of different kinds.  The five left were just leftovers.  Dark Chocolate Bacon.  Sweet Potato Cider Cupcake,  Licorice and Peppermint.  And a milk chocolate avocado.  You were getting ready to choose one of them. Or say no thank you.  Weren’t you?  Imagine now this was about your life choices.  The Life Tray.  Would you bother to find out if there are more options available to you?  Would you even think it was possible?  We live in a world that by the time the tray gets to us most of the things we wanted were taken by others.  We see them walking around living the lives we wish we had.  But what if this time, the tray comes, you smile and say:  These look great but I would much rather have something else.  Can you make a vanilla, cherry, and burnt marshmallow cupcake?  BOOM. Specific. Detailed.  Crystal clear about the kind of cupcake you want.  Honestly, it took me a while to find myself here.  Or find her here.  You see, it is no longer me who is showing up when the tray of cupcakes comes by.  It is someone else.  Someone I have never met before.  She arrived a few days ago.  And to my surprise.  She came with her own cupcakes.  Lemon cream flavor.  Who knew?  I certainly didn’t.  Whoever you’ve been. Whoever you are.  Be ready for who you could be.  There is a version of you, you could have never imagined waiting her turn.   With a lot more than 5 cupcakes,  Christina P.S. If you have lost a spouse. Listen in to this week’s podcast. It has already been loved by many. LISTEN HERE.

Read More
0 Comments.

The Partial Truth of Virtual Relationships

September 24, 2021

Every friend and every relative, lives a whole other life inside our minds.  There, they occupy worlds that have nothing to do with reality.  These worlds are not play pretend, or unreal.  They just appear more real to us. They inhabit an intimate interaction with ourselves.  We can hear their whispers.  We ‘know’ their thoughts. We often believe our mental version of them more than their real physical counterparts.  But when the two versions come face to face in physical reality, we question which version is more real. I just spent a week physically living with 5 friends.  Prior to this week, the versions of them inside my head were more frequent visitors than their physical reality ones due to the pandemic isolation.  I had created very different impressions of them since I only had virtual data available to me before this week.   When the two came together I could not believe their differences.  My inner versions of them were at best partial.  Normally these versions get adjusted often, but since we have been isolated in the last year there had not been any recent adjustments.  The inner versions evolved without any real data, or real connection and interaction.  I gave them my own narrative, I wrote their words out, I came up with what they must be thinking. These women were so much larger, smarter, kinder, complex and brilliant than I ever imagined them to be inside my mind.  The version I was getting from the zoom calls was not enough. But it was enough to feel like it was all there was.  My dear friend, we have lost so much more than connection throughout this pandemic period of our lives.  We have been inside a part time adventure in relationships that can only go so far.  I don’t know how you will do this, but you must find a way to the physical counterpart of the mental version of the people in your life.  You must interact with both, but mostly with the physical one.  The mental version of your family and friends is influenced by either your fears or your dream versions of who you want them to be.  But they are never accurate, or true. The pandemic didn’t just take away our connection with the people we love or want to love, but their true version of them.  There was an imbalance that was invisible to us all. What a loss.  Even if it is with a mask, 6 feet apart, go and be a part of the physical world and experience people outside of the digital reality as much and as often as you can.  The loss you experience when this doesn't happen often enough, is so much bigger than you can imagine.  I am already planning my next adventure, in close quarters with some of my new best friends.    I hope you are too.  With physical proximity, Christina

Read More
1 Comment.

The Loss of Living A Singular Life

September 17, 2021

Where should I start from?  Where does the beginning sit in a new story?  Is the beginning at the start of the new experience, or at the end of it.  I have been away inside new adventures for the last few weeks.  I swam in turquoise waters in Greece.  I witnessed a rocket blasting off to space at Cape Canaveral with a friend inside of it.  My eyes going from one world to another, adjusting to the new view.  Something happens when you change reality dramatically.  Where nothing is left the same.  People. Places. Streets. Words. You.  Skies.  All speaking a new language.  Your inner compass becomes turbulent. Until it stabilizes. But the beginning is not here yet. I can’t find it.  The beginning is not inside the adventure. I looked.  Maybe there will never be a beginning to think about again, because I will not need to begin again.  Is that possible even?  We seek new beginnings because wherever we are, is no longer needed, wanted, chosen. But what if you made your life exist inside many realities, where you leap from one to another. A new beginning would become irrelevant.  Wouldn’t it? Loss would be minimized.  Love would become everything, everywhere, everyone.  You won’t have time to not love, as something new will always show up ready to be loved by you.  In the last few weeks I met people from all over the world, living lives I have never seen before.  Wanting things I have never wanted, because I didn’t know they existed.  Living in a singular world creates immense loss.  I am just realizing that a monogamous relationship with life is not healthy.  We have created the concept of a new beginning because living a linear existence meant that we had to end one world to begin another.  What if we don’t have to?  What if we exist in many streets, and homes, and places, and most importantly inside many stories. All at the same time.  I don’t want to end my adventures.  I don’t want to begin anything else.  I just want to continue whatever this is.  Because this right here, feels like coming home.    With no beginnings, and no endings, Christina

Read More
0 Comments.

Sign up to receive Christina’s Second Firsts Letter every Friday