For Krista Hovsepian, life has never followed a conventional script—nor was it meant to. Shaped by profound near-death experiences and a lifelong trust in intuitive guidance, she’s built a path defined not by plans, but by presence, instinct, and bold leaps into the unknown. Whether navigating creative pursuits or major life transitions, Hovsepian embraces uncertainty as a form of alignment, believing that true clarity, freedom, and purpose emerge when we quiet the noise and follow the inner voice that’s been guiding us all along.
Krista, for readers who are new to your story, can you share how surviving multiple near-death experiences shaped your intuition and the way you now live and create?
Each experience opened me up more deeply to the knowing that I was being guided or led by something bigger than my mind or my conscious concept of self. My intuition sharpened with every traumatic event and I found that it consistently led me to exactly where I needed to be in any given moment. If I just followed the internal nudge, things would work out.
One of my favorite, if not incredibly simple, stories is how in January of 2020 I was browsing the aisles of my local grocery store. I grabbed a cold drink, a dark chocolate bar, did one final scan of the store to see if there was anything that I actually needed, then took a step forward toward the checkout line. I heard, internally, clear as a bell: turn around, go down that aisle. I doubled back. I heard: keep going, to the end. I walked down the aisle. Toilet paper. The voice told me to buy toilet paper. I thought, no way, I have plenty at home. More than enough. I ignored the voice momentarily, but it persisted, so I grabbed a small pack. It said: bigger. I swapped it for the larger option available. And then the voice prompted me to buy two packs. I remember thinking the whole experience was so odd, so specific. I tossed both packs into the trunk of my car and forgot about them. About two months later, it all made sense.
The viral videos circulating of shoppers fighting over toilet paper and endless empty bathroom tissue shelves were genuinely concerning, unsettling even, but I couldn’t help but smile. Spirit, my intuition, the Universe… whatever it was had my back yet again, even in the smallest of ways. Having had similar experiences since childhood… that knowing, that guidance… it changes you. It creates clarity on what you will or will not pursue, tolerate, or are here to create. It gave me the ability, from a very young age, to attune to what is real, what is honest, what is truthful, and what isn’t – and to pursue the former unabashedly. There was no talking “sense” into me, ever. I knew that I wasn’t here to take the safe route, to do anything the way that everyone else was doing, well, anything at all.
Most of all, each NDE made me acutely aware of my, of our, mortality. Carrying that with you since the age of three fosters a sort of intensity that I don’t think can really be forged by any other means. It created this unyielding desire to follow my soul at all costs. To avoid wasting time on things that didn’t matter to me. To go after what lit me up, full throttle. To take risks, to leap and to figure it out after the fact, to trust myself and whatever it is that’s been guiding me, explicitly, above any person, institution, or societal norm.
You’ve trusted intuitive guidance since childhood — when did you first realize this way of moving through life was something truly different or extraordinary?
I don’t think I ever really have had that realization, not fully! I’m still kind of genuinely shocked when I find out that not everyone is experiencing this, that not everyone receives those messages or that guidance, and that not everyone can just… see inside other people, receive their thoughts telepathically, feel every traumatic or painful thing that the other person has been through in their own body as if they had experienced it themselves. I’m still often confused when people claim to not know certain things about me that I think are incredibly obvious, because I truly forget that they can’t just scan my field and gather that information. That I need to explicitly tell it to them, verbally, first. I was selectively non-verbal as a kid and a quiet teenager, for the most part, which people attributed to shyness, but I genuinely just assumed that people were picking up on my thoughts and energy in the same way that I was theirs, which came with a certain kind of pain in and of itself, because I also then assumed that they were just ignoring me or ignoring the information and messages that they were receiving about me, while I was attuning to people’s needs and emotions based on a series of non-verbal cues. Thankfully, I’ve always had a handful of fellow creatives and spiritual mentors in my life who could communicate telepathically, which normalized that aspect of the experience for me early on in my life.
Many of your stories involve taking big leaps without a traditional plan. How has living intuitively influenced your career, creativity, and sense of freedom?
Genuinely, in every way imaginable. I knew from a young age what my soul’s purpose was, but had no idea how to get there. Something in me encouraged me to keep going, despite not having a map or concrete examples of how to get there. Throughout my life, I would find myself receiving that nudged in one direction or another, and I learned that it was best to lean into the nudges instead of ignoring or resisting them.
Eventually, things started unfolding as if divinely orchestrated — I met an actress who suggested that I work with a specific acting coach. That coach offered agent referrals to his students, so I took a few workshops unsure of where it would lead. He invited me to join a masterclass soon after and made a few referrals on my behalf. That first agent sent out an e-blast about a casting director workshop and something in me said, “Check that out too”.
During the second workshop, I met another actress who referred me to a talent development program in LA. The program administrator later referred me to an entertainment attorney specializing in immigration for actors… you get the idea.
Similarly, one random day I wandered into a lighting store in Toronto and began chatting with the sales associate. That weekend, I visited my hometown – over an hour away – and as I was getting out of my car, the woman from the lighting store appeared in the driveway across from my childhood home. We both did a double take. Later, we met up for coffee, then had lunch together a few times. She eventually asked if I wanted to visit her best friend in Spain with her, then rescinded her offer weeks later. I was gutted. I turned on the TV and mindlessly flipped from channel to channel, then stopped on a TV show that I wouldn’t normally watch because the woman on the screen looked exactly like me. She was an artist touring apartments in Berlin, Germany while preparing for a residency program in the city. Something in me told me to google creative opportunities in Berlin and I stumbled upon an Ivy-level graduate program in Visual Anthropology. It was the first link to appear. Something about it spoke to me, despite me having had no aspirations or intentions of pursuing a Master’s degree. The deadline to apply was a week away. I decided to go through the motions, to submit my application package, and was prepared to reapply the following year if it was a “no” but still resonated with my soul. Three weeks later, I received my letter of admittance and took off to Germany.
I truly believe that what is meant for us will always reveal itself, but we have to be willing to trust those nudges and to take those leaps of faith. And there is an immense amount of freedom that comes with deeply trusting that process.
Likewise, I created both of my original episodic series because a friend asked me if I knew of any good psychics in LA. I decided to tag along to her session and then booked one for myself as a spur of the moment decision.
The reader told me explicitly that I needed to “marry the parts of myself that are actress, writer, and producer”. Up until that point, I’d had no desire to focus on anything other than acting, but I recalibrated, focused, and jumped right into the deep end. It felt right. And as it turns out, I love acting in my own projects more than anything and I really enjoy having multiple outlets of and for expression, from creative brainstorming to writing to bringing production elements together, and of course, to acting itself.
If we’re willing to believe in something greater guiding us and to tune out the voices – real or imagined – that are telling us that this isn’t realistic or that isn’t the way it should be done, we begin to see that magic and miracles really do exist.
That’s not to say there won’t be challenges or moments that stretch us or exhaust us along the path, but rather that sometimes following the heard or repeating cycles just because “that’s the way it’s done” blocks what we are truly meant to experience, create, or witness in this life. It’s always been a no-brainer to me to take the proverbial path less followed and I think it’s payed off. More importantly, I wholeheartedly believe that it will continue to.
You’ve created award-winning projects and navigated major life transitions by listening inward. What has intuition taught you about risk, trust, and timing?
That, for me, there’s no other option, There’s no other way. I can’t logic my way into a fulfilling experience or a guaranteed outcome. I can’t follow someone else’s path or guidelines, expecting to have the same or a similar experience because theirs was for them and mine is for me. I don’t know what was guiding them – their head, their heart, something less tangible, even. And it’s none of my business.
My job is to attune to that which pulls me in any particular direction and to honor it. That’s why I’m here. That’s what creates palpable magic that can be experienced and shared.
I’ve had a pretty visceral and violent aversion to taking the conventional path or to even attempting to do what everyone else is doing since birth. Peer pressure never had anything on me. There’s never been a timeline or to-do list in terms of achievement of X at a certain age, just this sort of rolling series of intuitive waves pulling me in one direction or another, and me fully trusting the process along the way.
I’m human though, so of course there have been moments of doubt here and there, but ultimately, the intuitive knowing always wins. It’s bigger than me. It’s bigger than all of us. And I still don’t think anyone fully knows what it is, where it comes from, or how to really put the experiential nature of it into words.
For someone who feels disconnected from their own intuition, what’s one practical way they can begin strengthening that inner voice?
Slow down and breathe. We can’t hear our inner knowing clearly when things feel cluttered or rushed, internally or externally. Starting with small, seemingly frivolous things is ok too. Open up physically through the throat and heart-space, take that deep breath, and ask for guidance in finding a parking space. Notice if you hear, feel, or see indicators or guidance telling you to turn in a specific direction or to pull up in front of a specific store.
Play around with having a trusted partner or a friend hide an object behind another solid object or ask them to think of a color. Take your time attuning to their chosen object or color, then see if you’re able to intuit what it is and share that knowing with them.
Have fun with it. It’s a skill or a muscle like anything else — the more we use it, the easier it becomes to really attune to it during the bigger, more life-altering decisions we’re presented with.
- Website: kristahovsepian.com
- Instagram: @kristahovsepian
