We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christina Daley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Christina, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
I appreciate this question a lot as it brought me back down memory lane trying to pinpoint major influences for how I have developed this quality.
For most of my young life my external world was chaotic, drug and alcohol consumed family unit, emotional and verbal abuse, lack of stability, and lots of moving around. As I moved into my young adult life I found that I mirrored a lot of that upbringing by my own drug and alcohol use, quite a bit of my own romantic/personal relationships that were unhealthy and unsustainable, and my own instability and lack of self love/worth. As I look back on these experiences that I have had, and the life I co-created for myself then and now, I realize that there was a part of me that never gave up hope. I’ve always had this innate ability to see the good in everyone (including myself), even if the outward appearance/actions were saying otherwise. I believe in seeing that beauty has always gifted me the strength to hold on and continue forward.
The idea of being resilient I believe resides in us all. We have to dig deep to find it, and we have to see the world as friendly rather than unfriendly. When we are living in a mindset of the world not being friendly it is easy to give up, feel defeated, or believe we are victims. If we can see the world as friendly, which I know can be so challenging especially when you are facing unfavorable conditions, we catch little glimmers, we realize nothing is being done to us yet FOR us, and we realize we can choose to learn from any situation. That little mindset hack has been an immensely powerful tool for me as I have grown into my adult years. Ultimately I don’t believe that life really ever gets any easier, I believe we just become more well equipped to handle the storms by using all of our experiences as opportunities for growth.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I own Asteya Collective in Encinitas, Ca. I started my company as an online studio during Covid after being laid off from my corporate yoga job. When Covid first happened and the world shut down, a lot of us teachers were live streaming on Instagram, Facebook and Zoom, and one thing I kept hearing from our yoga community is how they wished they could find all of their favorite teachers from the studio online, so I figured why not start an online community with all of their favorite teachers and put together a consistent schedule, and that is how Asteya was born.
The yoga world has brought me a lot of peace and connectedness to myself. I remember when I was really starting to crack open and release a lot of stored trauma in the body, I was crying at the end of every yoga class in savasana. As I explored that and took a deeper look at what was happening I realized how incredibly dim I was inside. I decided to do my 200 hour teacher training and as I started teaching I remember thinking if I could gift even one person the feeling that yoga gave to me then I would feel complete, and it truly inspired my teaching career to be very heartfelt and personal.
I believe we all have our own very unique light within us, a light that is meant to be shared. When we are not sharing our light, whether due to insecurities, external noise, or whatever it may be, I believe we are stealing from both ourselves and the world around us. Hence how Asteya (non-stealing in Hindu) came to be born. I wanted to create a community where people came in to practice, felt seen and heard, hugged in, and ultimately felt inspired to share their light.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
One thing that was really supportive to me was to not take anything personal. People will always have an opinion and sometimes its supportive and sometimes its not. A lot of peoples words and actions toward us are projections of their own internal world and while it’s great to acknowledge, it doesn’t need to hold weight over you. One way I lean into this is when someone is sharing unsolicited advice or giving random feedback I just say thank you and that’s it. Then I take my own time to go back and revisit what they said when I am not in a reactive state. Helps me to see things much more clear and figure out if there is merit behind what was said or if i can just move on.
One thing I had to learn along the way and I am sooo glad I did is I can’t do everything myself. I am a true Virgo when it comes to drive and work ethic, and sometimes I can be of the mindset I need to do it all myself if I want it done how I want it. I have realized to appreciate you can get things done in more ways than one, and it is so empowering for both myself and others to allow the support. My advice, if you have a hard time asking for help, just start practicing. Start with small stuff, then the big. It’s like a muscle, needs practice that’s all.
Last thing I would say is people will always remember how you made them feel. Always. That has been such a big help for me in building the community. The people have always come first, and ensuring they feel good is top priority. Sometimes that means just listening, sometimes that means lots of hugs, whatever it may be. You can find yoga in Encinitas anywhere, people want to feel a part of something greater and that vibe has always been my mission. I treat every single person like family, and that has been the backbone of Asteya. My advice on how to do this is just remember we are all human and ultimately everyone is doing the best they can. In business sometimes you can start to see people as numbers or dollars, but if you can see them as humans, and nurture that relationship, all of the business stuff starts to fall into place.
Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
When I feel overwhelmed I stop everything I am doing, I gift myself a break. The work, the to do lists, the stressors of life will always be there. That will never go away. I find it important to separate myself when I’m bogged down, go take a walk, put my feet in the sand, take a yoga class, whatever it is that allows my mind to detach for a bit, and I do that. When I feel clear again, I start wherever I left off.
We all have things that help us drop out of our minds and into our bodies. I recommend doing that as much as you can, but at least every time you feel overwhelmed. Our minds are beautiful processors, but not always the best at handling stress, so best to move our bodies to shake up the energy and let it settle.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.asteya.live/
- Instagram: xtinarose14 or asteya.live
Image Credits
Shane Fellows
Jen Brown
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