MEET KRISTA

Hello – I’m Krista O’Reilly-Davi-Digui (she/her). Welcome to my corner of the noisy internet!

A synopsis of some of the lived experience I bring to my work:

1. Highly sensitive, strongly introverted, and wholly affirming mom of 3 beautiful + creative humans, 2 of whom are/were members of the LGBTQ+ community. My kids have taught me so much and have helped me heal, even as I love and support them, and become a far wiser and kinder person.
2. Lost my son to suicide/severe depression; lived experience with PTSD, severe anxiety, depression, suicidality, disordered eating, Hashimoto’s, chronic pain, and a vicious inner critic. I care deeply about helping to build a kinder, safer world for those who fall through the cracks, who don’t fit into the narrow box of prescribed “success” and can’t keep up with hustle/more is better culture so feel like they’re never “enough”, those who struggle and question and forget that they (we) are loved, beautiful, gifted, and needed. I want to break down barriers, shift paradigms, expand the tent.
3. Interracial marriage, biracial kids, married 27 years to a kind, hard-working, and loving man from West-Africa. Our relationship has involved hard work, joy, and consciously moving toward each other through traumatic loss. I’m grateful we get to navigate life together.
4. Come from a motley family of 14 + love my gorgeous multicultural extended family. I may have a bias for brown babies;)
5. Left evangelicalism (where I never fit) and have come back home to my roots of justice, equity, and a soul-sustaining way of being in the world. I enjoy working with people for whom faith or spirituality matters but are untangling themselves from unhealthy beliefs and conditioning, breaking chains, and finding their way to freedom.
6. Studied education, homeschooled 16 years and raised a family (dream no.1), returned to school + started my business in my 40s to help other women befriend themselves and feel safe and at home in their bodies and their lives (dream no.2), and signed a contract for my first book which has yet to be written (dream no.3). I get goose bumps when my clients begin loving the fullness of their messy + beautiful selves and tell the truth about what they want and need for wholeness and joy.
7. At 50, in spite of learning to live without my son and still healing emotionally and physically, I’m the strongest, most honest, and integrated version of myself that I’ve ever been. And I am PROUD of myself for all the hard work it’s taken to get here. We are all always in progress and it is a great privilege to come alongside other brave, curious, and weary humans as they journey to healing and freedom.

And if you’re up for the longer version:

I’m mama to 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 question the 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.

My work is for the freedom-seeker, truth-teller, stubborn questioner, anxious, highly sensitive, non-hustler, or brave + weary human ready to befriend yourself and exchange judgment for curiosity, shame for self-compassion, and fear for agency.

I choose to keep my work add-free so that it’s a calmer and more enjoyable experience for you. As a highly sensitive human, my nervous system appreciates and I feel most at home in uncluttered and calm (albeit creative) spaces.

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 is in progress. I’m collaborating with my friend, Kathy Escobar, on Grief Has No Rules, a book to support parents through child loss; we lost our sons to suicide in 2019, just 5 days apart from each other (publication 2022). 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.

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 most weekly letters to you.

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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

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 consciously choose to live every single day.

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.

Honouring Our Wiring to Build a Kinder World

My background is in French Immersion Education, I spent years homeschooling and raising a strong & stubborn family, and then in my 40s returned to school and built a business. Today I build brave community and serve clients from around the globe as a Writer, Holistic Health + Embodiment Coach, 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 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, strength, 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. Anxious and curious.

Not if you lose 50 pounds, when you get your anxiety under control, you never wrestle with comparison or self-doubt, when your life is Instagram-perfect, or some magical day when life feels perfectly pulled together. You matter right now in the middle of the storm.

From one brave, weary, and curious human to another, you are welcome here.

Krista xo

NOW WHAT? I invite you to The HOPE Map, a weekly sprinkle of hope and encouragement to help nourish you from the roots up.

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