Meet Christine Barger

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christine Barger a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Christine , thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.

I am a very optimistic person. I don’t think pessimism is productive or helpful, so I have no room for it in my life. When I notice myself feeling pessimistic or complaining about things I try to recognize that is my mindset and change it. If I’m feeling pessimistic about something within my control, I change the situation but if it’s out of my control I allow myself to feel disappointment or grief, but remind myself that the only thing I have control over is my reaction to what other are doing and choose to change my attitude. For example I struggle a lot with negativity in my comments on social media. Sometimes they hit like a dark cloud that makes me feel very negative and question if I should even continue to post online. Then I remind myself that other people’s opinions of me are not my business. I’m definitely making it sound easy and I acknowledge that sometimes it’s challenging. However it’s so important to stay optimistic because we only have a short time in this life and none of it needs to be spent surrounded by a dark cloud if we can help it.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I have been entertaining people since my childhood, which lead me to becoming a professional performer and content creator today. For the past decade I have been posting online as The Haunt Girl sharing my experiences at haunted attractions and escape rooms. A few years ago I got the opportunity to open an escape room of my own with my partner. We designed and created the 13th Basement escape room at Exit Game OC in Anaheim California. It’s a parody of horror escape games we’ve played and loved over the past 10 years. My background in tech theatre and experience blogging about and playing hundreds of escape rooms across the nation were a huge help in the business. Currently I’m still posting across all of my socials and TheHauntGirl.com about local events while running our current game and building the second game. The second escape room at our company will be a family friendly cat themed game, which I am incredibly excited about! I am a cat mom and self proclaimed crazy cat lady, so I love being able to intertwine things that I am passionate about.

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?

My three most impactful skills along my journey have been my ability to stay positive, adapt quickly and be kind to myself and others. All of these skills are a choice in mindset. We choose our attitudes every day. We choose how to treat ourselves and those around us. We choose whether to adapt or stay rigid. Thinking quickly and figuring things out under stress is a developed skill, but it really comes down to staying calm and willing to change. If you can keep that mindset, it is much easier to think quickly under pressure. The more you practice staying kind, positive and willing to adapt to situations, the easier it becomes. If these are things you struggle with I strongly recommend meditation and writing reminder notes to yourself and placing them around your home such as “I am in control of my attitude”. If it’s more than a simple challenge after dedicating yourself to this goal, then therapy may also be something to consider. Having someone to support and help guide you in the journey is an asset if you have access to a therapist.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

When I feel overwhelmed I usually cry. Feeling emotions is healthy. Once I allow myself to feel the emotion, I start to work through what I can do to make the situation less overwhelming. I will break a large task into smaller tasks if possible. I will then think through the situation from a logical perspective and figure out positive steps to take to move away from the overwhelm.

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