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Ep36 – Kristina Rogers

Tina: You are listening to the InKinship podcast. I am your host, Tina Vandenberg. The InKinship podcast is a podcast for makers, makers who crave a vibrant, joy filled, lit up life on their own terms. Today I have the pleasure of talking with Christina Rogers. Christina, welcome.

Thank you. Welcome. I’m glad to be here. Oh, good. I’m so glad to have you. Christina is currently calling us from San Miguel, Mexico. Um, she is an expat in Mexico. So I think that I’m really excited to talk to her about that, what that feels like to live in a different culture. Something I dream of, um, once my little guy is not eight.

Although I know people do that with little ones, but, um, It’d be interesting to, to hear about the challenges and the beauty of that. Cause I imagine there’s a bit of both. Also, Christina has an online business where she works with heart centered intuitives and healing from the inside out, working with intuition, spirit guides, energy management and healing in general.

And so I’m excited to chat with you today, specifically a couple of months ago, Maybe a year ago. I’m not even sure. I put out an email, um, about how I had this decision to make, but I wasn’t sure how to like, I couldn’t quite get clarity on what direction I wanted to go in. I couldn’t get set and how I wanted to do this.

And so I decided to make a dress. So, and I didn’t do this purposely. Like my, this is just like inner wisdom that is not even at the surface. Cause I just decided I’m going to make a dress just because I can’t think about this problem anymore. So I made a dress. I had a wonderful time. And while I was making the dress, the clarity I needed, the decision, poof, just came right into my mindset.

And I wrote this whole email to the, to the folks on my email list. sharing this experience and saying, like, isn’t it amazing how you go for a walk, you take a shower, you do the dishes, I don’t know, you do these different things. And all of a sudden the answer is just come into your brain. And we spend so much time worrying about trying to solve it, trying to figure it out.

And when I just let go, it just came to me and Christina responded with this beautiful response and a nice little. Audio voicemail, actually, which I thought was really fun. And one of the things she said to me is that, um, my intuitional, my intuic state is feeling. And so when I get hits, it’s when I’m doing something physical, which completely resonated with me.

And she said, you know, I would love. If we could talk about this in the podcast, like, Oh, you so much fun. So Christina, it’s kind of a long introduction, but here we are today. I can’t wait to talk about intuition, but before we do that, I want to talk more about, um, the life you’re living and kind of how you got to that point.

And I just want to. Thank you for being here and give you a moment to respond to any of that. Thank you. 

Kristina: Lovely. So, um, about 12 years ago, I was an acupuncturist my whole life. So over 30 years I did acupuncture, but I was always very intuitive. I was doing acupuncture, but I would see people’s past lives above me, and I would touch them and know things.

And then I would have people come in, they talk about their husband who had passed, and he was standing right there. I could see him. So I was having these experiences, and I thought everybody had these experiences. I didn’t know I was. And then later I hired these people to work on me. I had to work with me to work for me.

I always said later I worked for them, but they were so intuitive. And so really I began to study and develop it more through these beautiful women who actually, um, were my office help for a while, or in one of them rented space for me and all that. So I was in Prescott, Arizona, and then Everything changed.

It was time to change my life. And now I know I was in my second Saturn return. So that’s a time where you might change your life, the end of your fifties. And, um, I couldn’t find a place to move to. It all felt like, um, that old expression of throwing the mat over your head. So I was going to do the same thing somewhere else.

Yeah. And so someone said to me, why don’t you call an astro cartographer? What’s that? And so that’s Yeah, so it’s astrology of location. So I ended up with this woman who was just so dear and she said to me, well, look, There’s a big area in Mexico. You do really well. And I went, Oh, well, okay. I’ll probably go to San Miguel because I grew up in Texas and my mother had always gone there.

We always went to the beaches because we were going for vacation, but to live for the whole year, you need someplace where the weather’s, you know, the beaches, it gets too hot. So I, um, took a trip to San Miguel and I did some things. And so eventually I moved here and, um, yeah, it’s just been this amazingly beautiful journey.

I remember that people said to me. So in the beginning, I walked everywhere. It’s a very walkable town. And they said, wow, you’re always smiling. I was so happy to have this different life. So I lived in an apartment and, you know, the houses are all different colors and, you know, Um, just the Mexican people are so lovely and it’s such a heartfelt community.

And I rode the buses and all that sort of thing. And now it’s 12 years and now I live outside of town, have a different life, but it’s very heartfelt. It’s very easy to meet people and there’s something kind of magical about it. 

Tina: Yeah. Okay. I have so many thoughts. I’ll just get into mine. I had no idea there was such a thing as an astrological astro cartography, cartography, astro cartography, I had no idea there was such a thing.

When I was 21, I moved to Alaska, and I lived there for three years. And I absolutely adored it. Like I just felt like I came into my own humanness in Alaska, but all of my family is in Michigan. And shortly, um, so in that third year that I was there, my brother and his wife had a baby and I just felt really disconnected from my family.

And so I decided to move back home, but I told, Pretty much everyone that I talked to, like, if I was an orphan, I would live in Alaska. I would live in this little town, Seward, that I absolutely adored for the rest of my life. I absolutely adored it. And I spent a lot of my twenties trying to figure out how to find the peace and joy that I had in that town.

And I kept saying to myself, you know, Joy cannot be location based. It just cannot. Right. So I actually convinced myself that that is the case to some degree. I mean, I do believe that, you know, we find places that resonate with us for whatever reason, but I had no idea. You just blew my mind wide open.

Yeah. 

Kristina: Yeah. It’s, um, do you know, we have, um, in our charts, we have the different, uh, planets. And so those lines go on to the planetary map. And so an astro cartographer, and I work with two of them now that I refer my clients out because I think it’s really important when clients come to me and you’re trying to figure out where to live.

Often they need a small consult to make sure that that’s the right place or a big consult to talk about all the places they’re thinking of, but you want to be somewhere where those energies line up and you feel good and you’re successful in whatever it is you want to do with your life. 

Tina: Yeah, that is amazing.

I, I really, you have blown my mind. You can see my face so you know that I’m like, what on earth? Because I intuitively, we’re going to talk about intuition in a minute here, but I intuitively would tell everyone and I would, in frustration, be like, I cannot be That I can only be that kind of at peace and at joy in a certain location, like it cannot, that cannot be the case, which, you know, I do believe that we can, we can have joy and peace in any circumstances that we have, but it makes sense that there, it was just.

in alignment in a certain particular way. And now I want to talk to somebody and I just am curious if that place is, if my intuition is right. But of course we know that my intuition was right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So my second thought that I had when you were talking, and this is from your website, which is one of the reasons I really wanted to talk about your Mexico living and the fact that in Mexico, as you describe it as gentle, slower, and more alive.

In Mexico, the the just the act of living there. Can you tell us more about that? 

Kristina: Yeah, I have a couple of stories. So where we live in Mexico, it’s very much of an art town. So there’s lots of, um, uh, there’s artists, there’s music a lot. So there’s street music, and there’s parades all the time. And then there’s bodas, which is a wedding.

And after the wedding, then they parade with these giant puppets called molly gangas, and, um, they, parade all the people that are in the, that came to the wedding to wherever the reception is going to be. So one time when I first lived here and you know, it’s the first year I was a little lonely or whatever.

I was a little depressed. So I go out and I walk up towards this park and all of a sudden here comes a horse drawn carriage with the bride and groom and there’s the trumpet players and you know, the drums and the guitar and they’re singing and all these people behind and the wife has given all the Women flip flops because we have cobblestone roads, so they’re in their flip flops holding their high heels hanging on to their partner and coming up the road and I just want to talk to you ever be depressed here.

You just couldn’t. So, there’s something about it and the other thing is that because we’re an expat community. In the old days there’s many more people here now but we knew we all knew each other. And we always had time to chat and have a cup of tea and we got together and there wasn’t that pressure that you make a date for a long period in front of you, you’d run into someone say yeah let’s let’s go have lunch let’s go have tea.

There’s a story that people used to tell, like, how long does it take to go get some eggs. Well, the first tienda you get to, they’re out of eggs. Okay. So you’re on the way to your second tienda and you run into a friend and it would be rude not to have tea. So then you have tea and then you have to go back to a tienda.

So it’s two hours. 

Tina: I love that. 

Kristina: Yeah. 

Tina: So in San Miguel, it is an expat community and an artist community, as you mentioned earlier to me, I think before we started the podcast, but, um, what kind of mix is there between expats and native Mexicans? 

Kristina: Well, we’re a small, small group. I mean, I couldn’t tell you those numbers actually, but yeah, but how does it feel?

Well, how it feels is there certain parts of town where you see lots of expats and you see a lot of tourists. You see people who don’t live there, but are coming for a visit. And there are many, many Mexicans who own homes here from Mexico City and a big town nearby us called Peretro. So, um, It’s a real attraction because it’s known for being tranquilo, for being calm and peaceful.

But those of us who live here, what we know is there’s always action. There’s unexpected parades, there’s these mojigangas, there’s the Native Americans who are all dressed in their feathers, dancing in these parades. I mean, it’s amazing and colors everywhere and art everywhere. And then I like to dance.

It’s so cool. We dance on rooftops. We there’s always a band. We can always go hear some music. The early years. Oh my God. We just danced our brains out. I did. Oh, 

Tina: I love that. I love that. That is really beautiful. And then before we started the podcast, you also shared with me that you have this really, you have found this really beautiful blend.

This is my paraphrasing. This is not quite what you said, uh, being in San Miguel and then spending a couple of months at the beach. Can you share a story? Share that kind of. 

Kristina: Yeah, I had lived in town for a long, long time. And, um, I’m really a country person. I’m not really a town person. And so, and, and so I wanted to go to the beach and I had this place I like to go.

I’d go for a week here and there. It’s a place called Trunconas, which is, um, north of the big town of Zihuataneo. So, um, I had this idea I would rent something. So I go over there and it was right as COVID was beginning. We were there. I was with her with a girlfriend. And I was looking for a place to rent for the next fall because the way you would do it would be fall through spring, like November, December through maybe March or April.

And I did find something and I went back for longer, but over the years now I go for two months and I The thing about San Miguel is our houses are not heated in general, and people go but it’s so temperate, but the building style it holds the cold. So you have to have little heaters and you get outside to get warm really but it can be kind of chilly and I’m not a person who loves that.

So I have this lifestyle. Now that I go. Mid December back to the beach and I have a great place I stay at now and now I have a dog I take my dog with me. And then I stay until sometime in February and come back. And I’m also I do something called dances of universal peace, people notice Sufi dancing. So, By the end of January, beginning of February, we host two big retreats and people come in from Central America for the first one, dance leaders.

And it’s just amazing. And then for the second one, people come in from, uh, North America mostly. Um, and so, yeah, and I have good friends there. And, and again, we dance there outside. I mean, we go to restaurants where there’s music. We always good music. And, and so it’s lovely. 

Tina: Oh, that is lovely. I love it. I also love to dance and I just came back from, um, there’s a music festival in near my town called Bliss Fest.

It’s like 10, 000 people and it’s been going for 40 years and there is generally a Dance for Universal Peace there. There was not this year, but there generally is that you can go in and participate in, which is really fun. It’s a lovely thing. That is so fun. Do you ever see yourself moving back to the U.

S.? 

Kristina: No, I don’t. And, and people ask me that a lot. There’s something about where we live. And now I live in the country. So I live, um, there’s only a few of us gringos who live there. I live in a compound with somebody else and there’s a man across the street and then a couple down the way, but it’s so sweet and so innocent and so slow.

And when I go back to the States, it’s a little bit, The pace is faster and there feels like there’s more pressure and somehow I’m really comfortable in this lifestyle. I mean, I know a lot of people, there’s certain things they don’t like about it, but I grew up in Texas. I went to Mexico my whole life.

Right. Right. Yeah. And people say, Oh, well, you must speak Spanish really well. And I go, well, and I’m back to taking lessons again and I’m better and I get around, but um, I work at it. But I love being here and I, and Mexico has so much, it’s so broad, so many places to visit, like we all love to go to Mexico City.

In the beginning I was afraid of, but now we found these certain areas and you go and there’s all these trees, because where I live it’s high desert. So we have some trees, but you go to Mexico City, there’s trees everywhere. There’s museums, there’s amazing restaurants. It’s, 

Tina: it’s just quite lovely. That is amazing.

I, um, in my twenties, I owned a bookstore for a bit of time. And when I had the bookstore, I met, um, people who turned out to be really good friends of mine, uh, Ken and Priscilla. And they, There’s a lot of stories I can tell about Ken and Priscilla, but let’s stay focused here. They would go to Oaxaca every, like, for several months, every winter.

And, um, she would do textile classes and things like that in the, in Oaxaca. They went to a specific, like, school. And I think Ken would do a different, like, cooking classes and things and then they would just visit and be there and I think they always stayed with the family and just, I always thought that would be so fun.

Kristina: Oaxaca is a really beautiful, beautiful city and it’s um, also high and highland desert and then the, They’ve now made a new road to get down to the beach there. People love those beaches, but Oaxaca is known for the textiles and for the food, and all of these places have great schools, and many people come to go, like where we live, there’s something called the Instituto, and that happened in the 50s, and people who came out of the war could go and take all these art classes, all these different classes there, and there were some gringos that started the whole thing here, but so, yes, many people come for art and for cooking and To paint whatever they want to do.

Tina: Yeah, that’s so beautiful. Someday I’m gonna spend some time in Mexico. I definitely, um, you know, I’m in Michigan, so we’re quite a ways from Mexico, and I’ve never been to Mexico. I’ve never even been to Texas. I’ve been north, as you know, as you hear. I’ve been, I lived in Alaska. I definitely melt in the heat, so I’m not sure how that will work exactly, but certainly if you were to talk to probably 50 people that I know.

And about going to Mexico, probably two thirds of them would say that it was too dangerous. Do you have any insights into that? 

Kristina: Well, there’s a lot of, I’m going to use the word propaganda, but particularly in the United States, people talk about that. I don’t think it’s any more dangerous than the cities in, um, in the United States.

In fact, I think it’s less dangerous most places. We do have, you know, people know about the cartel and all that. You just have to know about what’s going on in different places. And you’re careful. We always say, you just don’t be stupid. But generally it’s, it’s very safe for us, but there are certain places you don’t go.

And, you know, Um, even here, like, I don’t walk, I used to walk at 11 at night in the city, I don’t do that anymore, I don’t walk at midnight or 1 in the city here, but you wouldn’t do that anywhere. Right. So, I think mostly, if you just have some common sense, then you’re fine. Right. 

Tina: Right. I love it. Thank you.

Thank you so much for itching my scratch to have a little cultural, um, conversation and I love the idea that you, um, that you are living a life that feels Like it is a fit for you. Not only, and I love, again, I love that I found out about the, wow, I’ve lost it again. The astro cartography, you knew what I was trying to get to the astro cartographer.

I love that you had the intentionality to find what it was that would really suit you and your temperament and where you wanted to go in life. Not even just where you are right now, but who you want to be in this life. I think that is so beautiful. And I love exploring how people live different lives that are, um, on their own terms, right?

So, thank you for that. Will you share with us now, um, about the work that you do online? And then I would love to talk a little bit about the intuition and the ways that intuition can show up in people’s lives, like how you shared with me that I, and then to my intuitive state is a feeling state, which just completely resonated the moment that you said that.

And that when I’m doing something, I get hits. That’s exactly how it happens. But I’m guessing there are lots of other ways that people exist in their natural state. So, yes. 

Kristina: So, um, All those years I did acupuncture, I was very intuitive. And, um, over that time I developed it. These days I work a lot on Zoom.

I have a lot of clients in the United States. I have clients kind of all over the world and some in person as well here. But I work with people who maybe have life questions and are looking for higher guidance. And I work with my spirit guides. So I have advisors on the other side that talk to me. I even channel.

So they come through me and I channel them. Mostly though, I work with people who have life questions. I work with people who want to talk with someone who’s passed over. I work with a lot of people who have healing issues that nothing’s working for. And then we look behind the issue and find what’s off energetically.

So we clear past lives. We clear, um, if there’s a family of origin problem, or sometimes we do inner child work. Can I tell a story? Is that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I have this one client is just, just so, so, so dear. And she had, she’s quite an athlete. She’s quite active and always in her life. She had motion sickness.

So she came to me and we started working on it and she had three past lives where there was a lot of motion, uh, uncomfortable motion while there was trauma. So we cleared those lives. I, I honestly, I don’t always remember these things, but in that one of those lives, she She got thrown off a horse and was pulled so she was bumping along behind the horse, you know, and you can think so that was the motion sickness.

And one she was in a ship as I recall and there was something some trauma there. So anyway, we clear the trauma out of these past lives. And, um, She took surfing lessons. She surfs now. She’s so excited. Yeah. So you just, you never know what’s going to work. And the other thing that I do a lot. So I teach a lot.

I have a lot of students, healers that come to work with their energies, to learn how to manage their energies with their clients, people who come who want to learn about their intuition. But I also, um, I teach or I clear homes. So we all have these homes that have energies in them. And we also, from my perspective, we have a spirit of the house and I get in touch with the spirit of the house and talk to that being and lots of different things happen that way.

But I, many times, People have renters and they leave energy in the house and I clear those out or people leave energies in the house and we clear them out. Those are the things I do. 

Tina: That is so interesting. There’s so much, um, I’m always struck by how much there is that we don’t know in the world, right?

I’m always struck by how much we don’t know about past lives or how much we don’t know, whatever that means, about energy and how it works. I was sharing with you before we started the podcast that I had this autoimmune thing two years ago that really, really like physically knocked the legs right out from underneath me.

And it just was very debilitating. And I just happened to meet up with a friend that I haven’t seen in five years. And she’s a massage therapist. And I mentioned how The other day I was lifting this little toddler friend that I had onto my shoulders and I had this massive pain and I was like laid out for the next week and I thought what on earth?

Like it’s very discouraging because I felt like I was regressing in some way or like something was wrong with me. And we were talking about how the moment before I picked up this little girl I had a pause and I thought is this going to hurt? And I, because I’ve been kind of, you know, Uncertain since this happened.

Like, what can I do? What can I do? And I have to keep pushing past those boundaries and keep like Now I have the story that, oh, I can’t do that. And I’m like, is that true still? Can I really not do that still? So she was sharing how the body is in such a protective mode. And it was such a beautiful way that she shared it.

This is so different than what you’re saying, but it does have a common thread, I think. Um, That the body has a protective mode. And so my body saw that as dangerous. And so it gave me the potentially it gave me the pain, whether I needed the pain or not, whether it was actually causing pain, because it was like, this is dangerous.

We need to not do this because we’ve had this experience. And I, I was so, so in awe. I’m like, you know, as somebody, who goes deep into these things and who is spiritual and has a belief in so many different things. It was such a beautiful reminder that there are so many aspects and there are so many ways that the world works in this magical way that, um, you know,

That we, as we truck along in our lives may not acknowledge or know about. Does that make sense? 

Kristina: Absolutely. I mean, there’s just so much in the unseen world and even in our own bodies that we don’t understand or know about and how the body gives us cues and we miss them sometimes. 

Tina: Oh, yeah. I’m like my inner, my higher self.

generally has to use a baseball hat when it comes to me. Cause I’m like, I sure this is what you meant. Like, I’m definitely one of those humans that pulls a card. Cause I really love Oracle cards for the way that they give me clarity in my body. I’ll pull a card and it will be like, The most obvious card on the planet and I’m like, that’s too obvious.

Let me pull another one just to make sure that’s what it meant. So like, this is, yeah, I definitely have that aspect to me. 

Kristina: Right. 

Tina: I’m not listening. 

Kristina: As we develop our intuition. So what happened with you? I love that you were doing things. Something. So really with intuition, I have a free intuition test on my site, but there’s four main types of intuition.

So it comes through feeling and the feelers, they feel people in the room, but their best when they’re doing something like I have a friend who’s quite a feeler, and he, um, He’s a gardener. So when you go to visit him, you might sit with his partner and he and I would talk, but he’s doing something he, and then he’ll pop in, but he doesn’t sit still well.

And he’s a feeler. So he gets his intuition by moving. And that’s how, um, feelers will know things while they’re moving. I talked to a young woman, a daughter, a friend of mine once, and she’s quite a runner. And I said, uh, do you know things when you’re exercising? And she said, yes, when I’m running, when I’m moving, all of a sudden I get a hit.

This is the answer. 

Tina: Yeah, 

Kristina: so that’s the feelers. Yeah. So then there’s the visual people through through sight. And those people might have dreams, or they might see something like a cloud and that meant something to them and that brought the answer to their question, or they might see a bird and the bird does something and that brings an answer to their question.

So there’s the feelers the seers. Then there’s a huge group of people who know, and the people who know the answer just kind of drops in their head, and they have to discriminate between what just comes to them, and they’re thinking, right. Yeah, so that’s a big one and the knowers tend to be more analytical, so they’re more in their brains in general but they will tell you yes I know things, and it’s very different.

So those are the knowers. And then the last one is, um, sound. So they hear things. And so we all have a little voice in our head and some, so for a lot of people who hear, they hear that voice or for myself, I, I hear that voice, but also I’ll hear music or I’ll hear sounds. And then there’s often something behind it that, that, that.

That I’m hearing that answers something for me. So each one of us is different. And the more we do it, the more all of them come in. But the more that we, but I tell my students is to pause. Know what, know what your main way you receive things are. And then create little pockets of time of stillness in your day where you just have a cup of tea or you take a walk, but you quiet your mind.

And then you just see what comes to you, because it’s in the beginning intuition is so small. It’s like a dream. And so you have to capture it whether you put it in your phone you make a voice or you write it down. And the more you do it and you get a hit, like you said, you get a hit. I was called, if it comes hot and fast, it’s a hit.

You get this hit and you stop and then you go, thank you, spirit. You go, thank you for getting this. That roots it. and then begin to trust it. So it’s a practice of trusting it.

Tina: I wonder where you think intuition comes from. Like, I have my own belief around that, where that comes from, but I wonder if you would share what your belief is. What is that knowing? Where is that coming from? 

Kristina: Well, very much from our higher selves, you know, our higher selves, it’s more in the realm of the spirit realm, the energy realm, often it’s trying to get information to us.

So our higher self knows in a bigger, broader way than we do in our physical mind. And I would say that, um, we’re so mind driven in our cultures and these Western cultures, and the more that we drop into our heart, we are more attuned to it. But I think it is coming from other parts of our own selves. And I do believe in spirit guides and things like that, but really it’s from our own selves.

Right. 

Tina: I have a belief too. I believe that same thing, but I also believe, which I think is what you’re saying as well, um, that our higher selves are connected to the greater world. Right. Good or God or the universe, whatever your definition you want to put on to it. So I feel like that higher self aspect is there.

And so the higher self I often imagine for myself, and I think it’s just because it makes me laugh. It brings me some sort of strange joy because I often imagine my higher self being like, Oh, What are you doing? Like, here’s the answer. And I’m like, I’m not going to look at that right now. I’m going to do this.

Like, I definitely have these personas of my higher self and my, I guess, probably ego self is probably the other person or entity, if you will. But I, I often enjoy what I imagine is the banter between the two. And definitely my higher self would be the, um, that higher wisdom that, that I know I’m going to get to, but sometimes I have to work through all the little hoops that I’ve decided to jump through first before I get to that.

Kristina: Yeah. Right. I think that, um, the more that we ask for help from the other realms, then the more they bring these intuitional hits to us, or this intuitional feeling or knowing. And, um, then it’s this thing of being willing to surrender our control to get in a way that doesn’t feel quite the same as our mind making it up.

But I also always tell all my clients to really sit with it and see how it is for you. And if it feels right. If it feels like a match vibrationally, then great, go for it. And if it doesn’t, don’t. And the other thing is just for some of us, I mean, for me, when I’m trying to figure something out, I say to the team I work, I go, okay, I got this question.

I don’t really know, but I’m going to bed now and I’m going to know in the morning. So you guys help me so that when I wake up, I’m going to have the answer to my question. And that works for me. That’s very fun. Yeah, 

Tina: I love that. I love that. You know, often on the podcast, I’ll talk with people about like those moments when you follow or you trust, right, which it would be the intuition, but you, you follow something or you just trust that it’s the right decision and it turns out to be the most best decision.

Just beautiful thing. Or like perhaps it’s not right in that moment. Cause you, you don’t know what the bigger picture of it is yet until you get through it. And then you realize, wow, that was the best thing that could have happened to me. Um, I have several instances where I’ve just in my life. I’ve been like, this is what I need to do, and there’s not really a great reason for it.

There’s not really any clear idea of why I should do this or that. And sometimes, more often probably than not, I can talk myself out of it. I can talk myself like, that’s not really what I should be doing or this or that. But when I follow it, and I have several anchors in my life that I can touch back on, the most beautiful things have occurred.

Yes. And I, in my life, um,

definitely what I am sort of working on in this next phase of my life is, is following those hits, but with more trust than I have in the past, without understanding why I’m saying no to something or, or not having the fear around, um, if I do this, how is it going to work out or having to know how it’s going to occur down the road, right?

Like just trusting that it’s going to be a beautiful. Beautiful path. So I think 

Kristina: many people get, especially with the feelers, of course, it’s that gut feeling that everybody talks about with this gut feeling. And you just get that feeling and you know that’s the thing to do. You don’t know why. But the other thing about that is when it’s so true, so many people, people will say that I did this thing.

I didn’t know why. Wow. It just felt weird and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. What I always say also. You just take one step into it and see if that feels right. You don’t change your whole life. Like we all think that we have to make some decisions are like that, but many decisions, you just do the next thing that feels right.

And then you’ll find the next and the next. So it doesn’t have to be surrendering. It’s just like what feel what’s right now. 

Tina: Yeah. I am always struck that the deeper I go into my own healing, the deeper I go into my own growth, the more, um, the answer always seems to be that.

However you’re doing this life, however you’re approaching it, when it’s with intention and you’re as awoke as you can be, um, or as alive, I guess, as you can be, is exactly how you’re supposed to be, right? So like there’s so many ways in which knowing that I’m a feeler with my intuition sort of gives me permission to like, Oh, this is what I’m supposed to be listening to.

And I think there’s a beauty to that. But I also, the more I go into such veins, I’m, I’m under, I understand more and more that like, Whoever we are right this minute is exactly who we’re supposed to be. So those things that we beat ourselves up about the things of like, wanting to do this or having to do that, like, that’s just, it’s all okay.

And like, having that acceptance of who we are is Um,

as the answer, whatever that 

Kristina: means. Well, what I hear you saying is that trusting yourself and trusting your life and making it all okay, brings this quality that is, um, really heartfelt and alive. And you can make it really rich. And then it brings all this, um, sweetness to you. So you’re not in your mind, worrying or wondering or anxious about it.

Right. And so, um, what I work with people a lot is about living from the heart instead of from the mind. And so what feels right in your heart and what’s satisfying in your heart. And I want to comment on one other thing, like we’ve all made mistakes. We’ve made mistakes. We’ve done things that we say were failures or the biggest mistake in my life.

But here’s the thing. If you look back, you made the best decision you could make at that time, knowing what you did then. And what I practice is going back and loving myself at that time, but she was doing the best she could do. And you just have to really love her. And many times what we consider our failures.

drive us into a new part of life that is the best thing that could have happened to us. So if we develop this trust that, okay, spirit, I’m going to just trust I’m in the right place. Now I’m going to trust that I’m on my path, even though it feels weird. It feels odd. It feels difficult. Like, I don’t know what I’m doing.

I’m okay. And that changes the quality of 

Tina: your life. It does. You’re absolutely right. You said it so eloquently. That is exactly what I was trying to share with that, that idea of like, whatever we’re doing is, and however we’re behaving in the ways that we wish were different, in the ways that we are grateful are, whatever it is, like all of it, we’re good, just like we are.

Kristina: Yeah. I have this practice for my, well, I use it myself and I give it to my students and clients that when we have something we don’t like in our life that we’re really struggling with, and we always have certain things we’re struggling with, but when we have that are just nattering all the time in our minds, I say, okay, so, cause I use gratitude a lot.

So I’m always thanking spirit for wow. Amazing. This is how great because the more you give gratitude, the more it raises your vibration and the more peace and joy and happiness that you feel is my experience. But when you give gratitude for what doesn’t work and you say, okay, I realize this is serving me, if it’s happening, it’s serving me.

And I tell my people, don’t be nice. Say, okay, spirit, I can’t stand this. I’m really mad. I hate this, but I realized there’s something in it for me. Give me the blessing. Tell me how it’s serving me. So I’m giving thanks. Thank you for this, but let me know what it is. And then that changes it because your mind can’t keep thinking the same story when you’re saying, okay, thank you for this.

I don’t get it, but thank you. And then you understand, and it can change. Very nice. 

Tina: Yeah. Very nice. That is beautiful. I have two more questions for you before we end our call today, which, um, one of them is kind of a practical question, I guess, if you will, but in your day to day life, let me back up. I’ll give a little, Context for this.

So one of the other things we’d like to explore in the podcast are ways that we can bring joy into our lives, no matter our circumstances. It’s all about how I believe it’s all about how we experience what we have going on. Right. And we get, we have control over that. Um, we don’t necessarily have control over the actual events that are occurring, but we have control over how we experience them, which is what you’re just sharing.

Um, What are the things so as I like to discuss, to talk about that and to work through that and to think about the ways different people bringing them in, I think it’s really fun for other people to hear how other people bring in joy. So, all of that, without further ado, my question to you is, what do you do on a daily basis to bring joy and peace into your life?

Kristina: Oh, such a great question. Um, Well, for me, I’m very much a nature person. So I try to walk most days, um, through the trees, down through the fields, along the river with my dog. So I get a lot of joy. I didn’t have a dog. I grew up with dogs, but this dog is what we call a compo dog. I mean, it’s a country dog and it wasn’t being fed and things happen.

Anyway, she became my dog. So I get a lot of joy being in nature. So that’s one thing, seeing the joy of my dog, I mean, it’s ridiculous, but it makes me so happy. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. And the other thing is that I try to sit still sometime during the day. I have a deck that looks out and I can see really far because I’m up high, goes down to the river and I look at the beauty.

I look at the sky. I look at the birds. I might, and I grow a lot of plants. So maybe I just look at the flowers or the vegetable. I feel it’s connection to spirit and I feel my heart open up and I feel gratitude. So I try to. Feel gratitude and connect with something bigger every day. Nice. 

Tina: I love that.

Thank you for that. Hmm. I wonder if you might share something that hits your heart maybe right this moment. What do you wish people knew deeper in their hearts that you think maybe they don’t? Two things. I had an answer, but when 

Kristina: you ask it, I have two, two answers. Um, one is that they’re okay. No matter what, they’re okay.

Like, um, I was reading a book and, um, there was a beautiful little segment about how a father helped his daughter get through cancer treatments. And so they would, they would focus on the beauty and the calm, they would go down to the beach or somewhere. So it’s like in the midst of everything, if you can find that yeah.

Beautiful. Like, Oh, okay. I’m okay. In this moment. Yeah. Just fine. In this moment. So that’s one thing. But the other part of that is that we can always connect with something greater than ourselves. So whether it’s spirit, spirit guides, angels, that there’s always, so I believe that we’re here. And then on the other side of the veil, there’s this whole world and that on that other side, they are just ready to help us.

And all you have to do is say. Okay, I’m having trouble here. Could you help me? So, you know, we ask for help and we can always ask for it and always feel their presence or know they’re there. Again, this is where you use your intuition. So you would. You know, know or feel or see or, or hear your guides or angels or just a presence.

And then, you know, you’re not alone. You’re a spirit that, you know, you’re okay. And there’s going to be a way out of this, even if you don’t. And the other thing I do when I get crazy, you know, my mind is going crazy as I, I jump around and make a lot of movement and I make sound and I just like shake it out of me and try to get my mind to let go.

Yeah. So there’s always a way to find some sort of peace, but you got to like get bigger than just the thinking. 

Tina: I love that. Thank you. Christina, this has been such a lovely conversation. I do want to open it up to anyone who’s here with us today who might want to talk to you. You can, if you’re here and you want to chat, go ahead.

Feel free to unmute yourself and show your video if you want to or not. We’d love to talk with you that way, or you can leave any questions you might have or just insights that you had, um, wisdom you want to share, whatever that may be in the chat as well. I’m going to keep talking while you guys think about if you want to put anything in there, so there’s no, there’s no, Added pressure of silence.

So while we’re waiting to see if anyone wants to talk with us today, Christina, what does the rest of your day today look like? Oh, 

Kristina: today, um, Yes, today I well, where I live, we have great organic food. You know, I love organic food. And so we have this beautiful grower who comes in just twice a week. And so I’m going to go and buy vegetables from her and that crowd.

And I have a Spanish lesson later in the afternoon. And I will probably see some friends at some point so that and I promised my dog I would take her for a walk. So, and I have a little, my internet was out at home so I have a little work to do but yeah, yeah I’ll see clients tomorrow and I have different things I do each day and I teach a lot but in the summer we quiet down.

I am going to teach a live class in San Miguel here in a couple of weeks which is really exciting for me because I haven’t really taught live since, since the COVID since 2020. Yeah, I’m excited. I’m going to teach them energy medicine. So I’m going to teach them how to put their boundaries up so that they’re not being bombarded by all the energies and how to work with when they feel like.

A lot of times when, um, we’re too open, we feel other people’s energies and what they think and feel. And so I teach people how to move those energies out and there’s some other techniques so that they can really feel their own feelings or know what’s true for them and not be so impacted by other people.

We’re going to have to talk after this, Kyle. I tell you the highly sensitive people, it’s like the backside of it is that we feel or know everybody and we, and we have to learn how to work with that. 

Tina: Yeah. The tricks. Yep. I appreciate that very much. So you said that you will leave out of town in about 15 minutes.

Is that a walk or is that a drive? No, that’s a drive. That’s a drive. 

Kristina: Yeah. But it’s an easy drive because there’s, um, there’s one road out of town that’s really busy because it goes to this big city, but the way I live, it’s very sweet. And right now we’re in rainy season, so everything’s very green and it rains mostly in the afternoons, the evenings, and not every day, although sometimes I wake up in the morning, it’s raining, but it’s just gorgeous right now with all the green.

Tina: Right. 

Kristina: And town’s quiet. This is our, so we have a seasonal kind of thing where a lot of people, um, expats come and live for the winter and then go back to their home in the States during the summer. So it’s a, it’s a nice quiet time. 

Tina: That makes a lot of sense. So you know that typically in this podcast, as pear makers.

And sometimes I, I break the rules of that, but I don’t know if I have here or not. Do you consider yourself a maker? Do you? Definitely. And I 

Kristina: was going to say something to you when you were talking about sewing that dress. Yeah. I, um, do you know how we have these, um, goals or vision? Remember how they do dream boards?

Yeah. So recently, um, we’re at the six month mark and I’d finished a lot of things and I was thinking, so what do I want to do? And I decided that instead of I used to would draw pictures or make big colorful things. I would sew it because I love to sew and I’m a person who likes to use multimedia so I use a lot of I collect a lot of natural things.

I have yarns I cut out. I love to sew paper onto fabric. And so I made three flags, and I have to finish them and hang them, but I put. You know, feathers and I had some stuff I had created gotten and and I put, um, well, I also and I put a lot of yarn on it. Anyway, so I am a maker and there’s a funny story in my family.

I have a couple of sisters and a brother. I used to always make all the Christmas presents. Yeah. And so I would make all wild stuff. I heard my I overheard my brother saying, well, you never know what you’ll get from her, but it’ll be interesting. You know, they got bird feeders and they got pictures, uh, you know, collages with their pictures, you know, all kinds of things.

So 

Tina: I love that, but so fun, but for the longest time I would make all of my Christmas gifts for everyone as well. My life has, has taken a busy, a busy ness turn that I don’t feel like I have the space for that. And also there are people who love handmade things and there are people who have some sort of, um, Belief around handmade, that’s just different than my belief around handmade.

And so I don’t always do handmade gifts anywhere because. I mean, I do for the people that I know for sure are going to love it because you know there’s so much energy and love that goes into something that you make by hand and obviously you’re trying your best to create something that they’re going to adore and sometimes that works sometimes it doesn’t but um, but to know that they just appreciate the time you put into it is like that’s, that’s amazing.

Those are the people that you want to spend that handmade energy on. If you can. 

Kristina: Yeah, absolutely. That’s true. 

Tina: I have a little studio mate. Can you see in my mirror back there? I see. I see you. Is that your son? Yes. Beautiful. That’s great.

Anybody here want to chat with us today? You don’t have to, there’s no pressure to, but if you want to, where we don’t fight, I promise.

Speaking of biting, that did make me think of something. So several. Before I had my little boy, so probably about a decade ago, his dad and I went out west and we traveled for three months, three and a half months, and we spent quite a bit of time in Utah in the Moab area. And I’m a northern Michigan kind of girl, like I’ve spent time in Alaska, as I mentioned, we went to Ireland a few years back.

I have done a little bit of Central American travel, but not that much. Um, but I’d never been any place that was quite so, uh, sharp as Utah, right? I mean, like in the cactus and the sort of like, all the plants kind of want to bite you, that kind of thing. So I wonder, what is the vegetation? You said it was high desert, but what is the vegetation like?

In the area that you’re in is it because you do speak of a softness of Mexico where you are and so like is the environment soft as well, or is the environment different. 

Kristina: I think both exists. So, um, we have very tall Nopales cactus and some different kinds that are very sharp, but in this season.

Everything green is growing up down below all the weeds. And so we have huge morning glories by the end of September. They’ll be filling all these different places and lots of greenery. So, and then where I live, I actually have to walk down through like some trees. We have mesquite and we have some chaparral and different things.

Now some of those still have prickly, but they have a softness to, there’s a roundness to it. So both exist. 

Tina: Nice. Very nice. I love to, I love to imagine what your environment looks like. That’s very nice. 

Kristina: And I would say the other thing is we have lots and lots of flowers. So we have the bougainvillea that spreads on the walls.

It’s a bright fuchsia or a purple or a pink or white. Yeah. So lots and lots of flowers. 

Tina: Very nice. Very nice. All right. Before I let you go here, um, and a totally off the wall side question here, but are you reading anything right now? 

Kristina: Oh, well, I’ve had trouble. I’m a huge reader. So last night when I couldn’t sleep, I don’t know, it’s just an odd night.

I got back on to, um, um, my favorite author is Barbara O’Neill, and I reread, um, something is called, uh, uh, the dream, oh, the dream buffet or something, but I’m waiting. Her new book comes out the end of next week. So I’m always, I, I have this thing, I read a lot. And I don’t like to fill my mind with certain things that are rough.

And so my favorite book I just finished was called Crow Talk. Crow Talk. Wow. An amazing book about a woman and what she learned from the crows. And she’s a scientist and it’s set up in the Pacific Northwest. So Crow Talk was beautiful. And when I have trouble with myself, I just reread something of Barbara O’Neill’s.

Yeah. And so we’re talking fiction, correct? Yeah. Yeah. Yes, and then this morning and then sometimes like I did pick up a book recently about a family who traveled around the world on a sailboat. So sometimes I read that I read memoir. And yeah, I’m a person who’s, I like fiction but I like it to be deep and meaningful.

Tina: I could see that. 

Kristina: What are you reading? Can I ask you? Oh, I’m like, I hope she doesn’t ask me. 

Tina: Um, what have I just been reading? I cannot recall the author, but it was the all souls trilogy. So I tend to really enjoy, um, fantasy. If I’m going to read fiction, I read a lot of nonfiction. If I’m going to read fiction, I tend to enjoy a lot of fantasy with, um, A little bit of magic to hide in and a bit of, uh, but I like it to have depth and I like the author to have written it, uh, with a lot of skill, if that makes sense.

Like, I’m not, I’m not really into this. I, I need it to be compelling. I need the characters to be raw and vulnerable and all of those things. And so I really enjoyed that trilogy. Um,

I’m trying to think of what I was reading recently that was nonfiction. Oh, you know what it was? I, I have a job other than my business here at Kinchip where I work for Charm Patterns, which is, um, if you’re familiar with Gertie, she’s, uh, been around in as an independent sewing pattern designer for probably at least 15, 16, 17 years, something like that.

I don’t know. But she wrote a book called The Charmed, oh, I’m going to butcher the name. The Gertie’s charmed studio, I think is what it was. And she really goes in deep. I do. I also love depth as well. So she really goes in deep into her intention with certain patterns that she’s created and what she was hoping for.

And I, one of the things I’ve been so impressed with, with working for her, I do graphic design for her, but, um, is the intention that she puts behind everything that she’s creating and she creates such a fantastical experience that you are really. I think so many people are purchasing the patterns, one, because they’re really well done, but also because she’s created this whole feeling, right, that you’re stepping into when you purchase one of her patterns, or that like, that you’re stepping into in part of her community.

And so she shares that in the book, and I just found it to be really, as an artist, and as somebody who has my own business, I found it to be really inspirational. Beautiful, really. 

Kristina: Yeah, 

Tina: super fun. All right. I have been so grateful to have you here today. I thank you for your time. I thank you for your wisdom.

And thank you. 

Kristina: Thank you. What a so lovely to be here with you. I so appreciate the work you’re doing. And it was just really great to have this conversation with you. 

Tina: Thank you. We have a comment from Lisa Lisa also says thank you both. And big letters. I appreciate that Lisa. That’s super fun. All right.

All of you have the most beautiful day. Um, I do want to, I should say real quick, a little bit of housekeeping. I am going to take a break from the podcast until September. So you won’t see another live podcast until September. I think that’s probably how this is going to go. I love doing it live. I love having the folks that want to come and be part of it, even if, um, You’re a silent partner in this.

I love that as well. I think it’s beautiful to have your energy here. Um, but there will be breaks like this, um, just to, to recalibrate and live life. And so back in, we’ll be back in September with a podcast. 

Kristina: All right. Thank you. All right. Summer have a great month off. 

Tina: Thanks. Thanks. I, I hope you thoroughly enjoy your day and your, and without sounding real, like your intentional life that you’ve built.

I just love that. again. All right, everyone. Have a great day. Hasta luego.