Let Me introduce myself

As I start writing this, I can’t believe I actually am….writing this. I have dreamed of starting a blog, a podcast, and writing a book about my life, but for so long I thought to myself, who would really care about MY story? And I had that thought 30 years ago! Now I’m 56, so the story is much longer now! And I kept asking myself, where do I even begin?! So, I figured I would just start here. I’m starting my blog, and my podcast will come shortly after and it’s all about re-inventing myself. I have done that so many times without realizing it and when I finally realized that I had re-invented myself in a big way and I was really good at it I thought I needed to share it with you. To the woman or man, who is reading this and wondering what this is all about. To you, who is probably feeling stuck, defeated, overwhelmed and lost and wondering….Is this all there is to my life? Does life ever get better? Or is it this constant state of stress and bewilderment about what to do next? Well, I’m here to tell you it gets better!! I’m here to tell you if you can just hold out and trust, believe in a higher power, your higher power, whoever that may be, that your life can be amazing. Maybe it’s God, Mohammed, the Universe or some other spiritual entity. I don’t care who it is but you need to believe in something. Because I’m here to tell you that your higher power has your back. And if you know how to tap into that, what you want for your future will come. And I don’t mean you can fulfill your dreams by praying for it. You gotta work hard! It won’t be handed to you. But I guarantee that if you are in a tough spot right now believing that you are not alone in this world will drop the stress level enough to help you focus on what you want. And I am here to help you not only survive life but thrive in it. So lets get started by me telling you my story so that you have some background.

My name is Kristina Kinney. I started in this world as Kristina Borglum and later I married and became Kristina Francisco, had 2 children, divorced after 7 years and then after 20 some years of being divorced I met my sweet husband now and so now I am Kristina Kinney. Now seeing that, right off the bat you know I have re-invented myself several times. But that’s just the beginning. I grew up on a farm in upstate NY in the Finger Lakes Region. Its an amazing area if you ever get to travel this way. I highly recommend it!! My upbringing was pretty awesome. My parents raised me in a Lutheran church, and it was a pretty strict household. But I was raised to be a God-fearing child and I was spoiled to a degree, being the youngest of 3 kids. I have a brother who is 8 years older and a sister who is 7 years older. When they went off to college I was basically raised as an only child so my parents were experienced at parenting but tired by this point, so I got away with stuff purely because they didn’t feel like checking into my whereabouts haha. My mom, God rest her soul, she died when I was 30 years old, started talking to me about my weight at a very young age. I think I was 10 years old when I started to realize I was bigger than most kids my age. But it wasn’t all fat. I was sturdy. I was tall. I was solid. But I started to notice that alot of my friends were smaller. They had smaller frames and were skinny. But my mom was obese and she didn’t want me to become that way so she started to talk to me about dieting. I know she did this to protect me and help me but it did so much damage to my self esteem and I’m still recovering from that. She meant well, like most parents do. But later in life it would become a real problem.

As a teenager, I was very active in sports. I had a lot of friends. And I was very social. I was not a very good student though. I probably got mostly 80s but my parents were happy with that. They never really harrassed me about my school work. My sister, who worked hard at school was a straight A student and she complained once that she worked hard for her grades and didn’t get much praise from our parents and then I came along and they would be ecstatic about my Bs. haha I think it was exaggerated but she had a point. I think when the 3rd kid came around they had lowered their expectations out of pure exhaustion. And I was an exhausting child trust me. But in High School the peer pressure became a thing. And it was harsh. I thought I was ugly and fat and not a great student so I didn’t have much going for me except maybe sports. I was a great athlete and very strong and that was where I thrived. But when you do sports your muscles grow and so did I. I was a sprinter, and I threw a shot put on the track team. I was solid muscle and my arms and thighs were bigger than most girls on my team. There wasn’t much fat on me but thats all I saw. So at the age of 16 I became bulemic. It wasn’t all the time that I threw up, but after big meals I made sure I wasn’t far from a bathroom so I could purge and get it back out. And this was very painful. I won’t get into detail about this yet but having food come back up shortly after it went down was self torture and it was on purpose. I eventually got myself away from purging but other things took its place later on. This time was about the time where I started to re-invent myself often but it wasn’t fun. A few traumatic events in high school changed my life and how I saw it forever. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to be around to witness how awful this world could be. It was the first time, in high school, that I thought about taking my own life. I felt I knew that the world would turn on me at some point. And it did later down the road, but somehow I survived. More on this later….

I went off to college and I was excited and nervous. It was a state university and I basically went for liberal arts. I had no idea what I wanted to do but this college was a big sports college and I thought maybe a physical therapist might be a good fit. Previously, in high school I was told I would make a good masseuse, now called a licensed massage therapist, but back in 1985 that profession was looked at in a totally different way and there weren’t really any schools in my area that taught massage that I knew about so that wasn’t an option. I had way too much fun in some ways at college. I experienced some trauma there as well. I felt because I was a naive farm girl thrown into a situation with thousands of other kids that I unknowingly put myself in harm’s way at times. So that experience changed me. But after 1 year of college, I was going to be on academic probation, so I came home and transferred to a local community college. I was there for another year, experiencing yet another traumatic event and after that I thought I was not made for college life. Clearly I was not able to make good choices in certain areas, so I quit college and started working fulltime in a pizza shop. My roommates brother came to visit one night, and I took one look at him and fell in love. He wasn’t really that into me at first but over time we fell in love, and I moved in with him. A decision my parents were not happy about. It was a big sin to live together before marriage. But through some really hard times we got married and had 2 children together. My kids are the absolute best things that ever happened to me and I’m sure their existence saved my life on more than one occasion. When they were 4 years old and 2 years old I declared I wanted a divorce and I took them and we moved out. More on that later.

As a single mom of 2 and not much money I spent over 20 years struggling in every way possible. I was basically growing up in front of my children. I was 27 at the time of my divorce and not many 27 year olds have their shit together. (Side note: I swear once in a while, so I just want to prepare you! It’s who I am.) Anyway, those 20 years were the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’m truly not sure how I survived it. And times were much different then. My kids are now 30 and 32 at the time I am writing this so alot of years have passed and its hard sometimes to look back. But I think my story can help others through some dark times. And maybe I can help you through your darkest times. Because there were times back then, on and off, that I got pretty damn dark. And I had to pull myself out because I wouldn’t really allow anyone to help me. I secretly wanted my knight and shining armor to come and save me, but spoiler alert, no one came. As a matter of fact, most of the men in my story are villains. Most, but not all. But when it mattered the most, when I needed the most help, I found villains. Those years forged me in steel. And when my kids grew up and headed to college, I was living alone for the first time in my life. And all I knew was being a mom. I had NO idea who I was. I was still a mom but now my job as a mom was being transitioned. I was lost. I cried a lot, all the time.

Then there was a day everything changed. My mindset shifted from being a victim to a survivor. It was so subtle that I don’t know how it happened, but it happened. I realized, at the age of 45, my life was going to completely change but I had a lot more time on my hands. What did I want to do with it? Did I make a plan to go to school and better myself? Hell no! I started to have a party in my house every night! An alone celebration! I didn’t have to do the dishes if I didn’t want to! I could watch what I wanted on TV! No one was gonna ask me to do anything, drive them anywhere, or make them food! Being alone was a new trophy/award I had just won. And I partied like it was 1999! I drank alot and I smoked at the time so that habit increased as well and let me tell you I had a good time. I’m so happy I survived that time in my life. But I am a true believer that everything happens for a reason and that means even the bad times. I was truly celebrating that I survived over 20 years of single mom hood!!! And I deserved every celebratory moment because I did good! My kids are amazing humans! But it would be a while before I started to care about my health. All the stress was going to take its toll.

So, I eventually met my now husband, which is a fun story in itself. Shortly after I started seeing him, I ended up in massage school! Thats right! Almost 30 years to the day I enrolled in massage school from when I first had the thought of wanting to be a licensed massage therapist! Craziness truly…..That lead me to being top of my class at graduation, getting engaged and passing my boards. Which was one of the best years of my life. Then I started a home practice and have been fulltime ever since. That lead to becoming a life coach for anyone who felt stuck or needed a boost. And that lead me to here. Writing my first blog!

There is so much more to my story, and I hope you stick around to hear it. I hope this resonates with you in some way. I hope I can inspire you to never give up or to get started on the dream you have that you think is stupid. You are amazing and I’m sure you have a blog, podcast or a book in you as well. We all have a story in us to tell. We all have something to teach others. I know YOU could teach me something! I know not everyone will resonate with me and my story and that’s ok. I’m gonna be me. I’m gonna be genuine. I’m gonna be authentic. And I’m gonna be honest AF! But I want to help you. Because you were meant for more. And so was I. So while I share my truth with you I hope you use it to take the steps, even small tiny ones, to Invent a new you! Lets goooooo!