Welcome to my corner of the noisy internet!
I’m Krista O’Reilly-Davi-Digui, mama of three wise, beautiful, and creative kiddos (16, 21, and forever 23). My son ended his life on October 23, 2019 after a brave and ferocious battle with treatment-resistant severe depression and persistent suicidal ideation. I am also a fiercely protective and wholly affirming mama of two children who are/were members of the LGBTQ+ community. Like their mama, they are/were highly sensitive with a leaning toward toward high anxiety, deep thinkers, questioners, creative, and needed. I am a far better person for knowing and sharing life with each of my kids.
28 years ago I met my husband in the laundry room of Université Laval, Québec. He had come from West Africa to continue his studies in Canada and I had journeyed cross-country to study French for non-francophones for the summer. He spoke no English and I knew only super basic high-school level French but within two weeks I knew he would be my husband and we were married the following summer. Many of the most beautiful bits of my life have been the result of trusting my gut and diving in heart-first. My husband and I returned to Alberta and have built an imperfect and beautiful life together in a small community near the Rocky Mountains.
I come from a big, colourful family of 14 and have the utmost respect for my mom and dad (both left this world too young from cancer) who lived humble and simple but purposeful lives, fully aligned with their core values. They taught me how to live with generosity and compassion, to look beyond my own borders and witness our interconnectedness, to fight against status quo, and to hope and work for better.
One of my core motivations is building a kinder, safer world for ALL people, including my children. A world that does a far better job of honouring the beauty of diversity in its varied shapes and forms instead of trying to squish us all into a joy-crushing and sometimes life-threatening box.
I help brave and weary humans, just like me, remember their way to freedom.
➸ Learn How You Can Work With Krista Through Personal Coaching or in a Group Mentoring Environment.
A VALUES ALIGNED-LIFE: Handcrafting a values-aligned life and business matters deeply to me. My core values are freedom, brave and compassionate relationship, integrity, curiosity, and contribution. My work, habits, and the small daily choices I make each ordinary day are rooted in these values.
YOU’RE IN THE RIGHT PLACE IF…
You are in the right place if you are looking for hope + practical encouragement to help you get clear on what “enough” looks, sounds, and feels like for your life or business in this season of life.
You are in the right place if you want to craft a slower, simpler life. One that is intentional, simple, and mindful and has lots of breathing room for meaningful connection and savouring the small gifts of today.
You are in the right place if you’re a non-hustler, HSP, you or a family member live with chronic physical or mental illness or you tend to feel like you don’t “fit” well in this noisy, busy world.
You are in the right place if you’re curious about seasonal living: showing up to life in a way that respects natural rhythms, fertile and fallow times, and honours your unique wiring.
You are definitely in the right place if you are a wrestler, a questioner, weary, or one who struggles and desires a brave space to hang out and be reminded that you are not alone and that you matter.
You are in the right place if you want to live mind-body-heart healthy but you opt-out of fads and care more about loving yourself well than following the crowd.
And you are absolutely in the right place if you are ready to quiet the noise of perfectionism, comparison, and fear, and show up fully to your messy + beautiful life, in every season.
If this sounds and feels like you, I invite you to sign up for my mostly weekly letter to you ⇣⇣⇣
An Unshackled Life
My life has been a journey of learning to love and care for myself well. A journey to freedom.
I used to have an addictive personality and this got me into trouble until I learned to live fully conscious, eyes and heart wide open. I have walked through suicide attempts, anxiety, PTSD and severe panic disorder, intense chronic pain, child loss & deep grief, disordered eating & body shame. Not necessarily in that order.
For most of my life, I did not find living easy. I needed to choose to live.
I was in grade six the first time I drank alcohol and grade seven the first time I used drugs in an attempt to calm my anxiety. Though I dumped alcohol and drugs at 21 years old, I kept moving from one addictive pattern to another because I hadn’t yet learned how to calm the storm inside of me.
I was looking for freedom but kept picking up another set of chains.
Along the way, I’ve learned that joy and pain can coexist and that life does not have to be perfect to be beautiful. That I do not have to be perfect to be beautiful.
I’ve learned to forgive myself for all my struggle and messiness, learned to approve of myself, and realized that I am far stronger, braver and more resilient than I ever understood before. I’ve put down deep, hardy roots of self-awareness and self-compassion and learned to take imperfect action through fear to build the life and business I want. I now help my clients do this life-giving work.
BOOKS IN PROGRESS: Writing and publishing deeper works has been part of my Vision for my work from the start and I’m currently working on several projects. UNSHACKLED: Remembering my Way to Freedom will be available in Spring 2023. I’m collaborating with my friend, Kathy Escobar, on a book about child loss; we lost our sons to suicide in 2019, just 5 days apart from each other (publication TBD). And, I’m delighted to be just one of many contributors to a Simple Living Anthology that will be released by Homebound Publications in autumn 2022.
Honouring Our Wiring to Build a Kinder World
My background is in French Immersion Education (I never completed my final practicum because my anxiety was severe and my ask for help went unheard), I spent years homeschooling and raising a strong & stubborn family (which totally should have earned me a Masters!), and then studied again in natural nutrition and functional health and today serve (primarily) women from around the globe as a Writer, Holistic Health Consultant, and Joyful Living Educator.
I work part-time and constantly walk out the tension between my love of a new learning curve with my need for rest and permission to simply BE. I’m not interested in hustle or constantly striving for more or better. I require ample solitude and calm, an abundance of rest, and swaths of unscheduled time in order to feel body, mind, spirit healthy. I want space in my life to savor, breathe, and connect.
For those of you geeky folk like me, I’m a strong introvert, hopeful reformer, and stubborn questioner with rebel leanings, ISFJ (often mistaken for an IN), a Highly Sensitive Person, and dominant Enneagram 1 living an integrated life these days.
I tried hard for much of my life to quell my fear and pain by ordering my world with rigidity, in searching for the perfect 7 steps to wholeness, in jumping through hoops, following the rules, seeking safety in reason and black and white. It didn’t work. These days, I live rooted, awake, willing, in the messy in-between. I love a good evidence-base and also make room for mystery and not knowing. Our understanding of the world, our bodies, what it means to be human, of science in general is in constant evolution and we only see in part. I refuse to live in a box. My experience does not fit neat and tidy into a box.
I think STORY as much as truth-telling is healing and believe that by sharing our stories we break the power of shame and bravely lift up the light of hope & encouragement for each other. I am changed by story – largely because it is “descriptive, not prescriptive.” It makes space for us to ponder, grapple with, and then find the application to our own life.
As such, although I spend a lot of time in research and distilling big ideas into practical application for my community, my blog is primarily a tool for sharing stories and encouragement to remind you that you are not alone. That you are not the only one who struggles. That there is hope.
I take all my struggle and study and offer it to remind you that you matter. You are worthy of acceptance, compassion, and JOY right now in the full truth of who and how you are: Messy AND beautiful. Weary AND brave.
Not if you lose 50 pounds, when you get your anxiety under control, the day you’re free of your addiction, or some magical day when life feels perfectly pulled together. You matter right now in the middle of the storm.
From one brave and weary human to another, you are welcome here.
Krista xo
NOW WHAT? Learn how we can work together through holistic, evidence-based, compassionate education and coaching or learn about my education. I’d also love to welcome you to The HOPE Map, a weekly sprinkle of hope and encouragement to help nourish you from the roots up.
“I’m so grateful for you in my life. Your wise words that drop into my email like rain during a drought. Thank you.”
One of the beautiful humans on my email list
