We recently connected with Christine Ristaino and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Christine, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
This is an interesting question for me because I have lived with low self-esteem for most of my life. I am the survivor of three traumas—childhood molestation, rape, and an attack in a parking lot. My reaction to violence is not unique. Most women who have been sexually abused, raped, or assaulted lose self-esteem. It took years for me to acknowledge I had low self-esteem, and I did so in my own time, long after I had spoken out loud about the violence I had experienced. It wasn’t until I stopped analyzing why I was the way I was and allowed myself to feel everything–the repercussions of violence, low self-esteem, and rejection by relatives and friends when I told them about the violence. When I stopped feeling ashamed about my self-esteem and acknowledged it to my friends, relatives, and myself, I was finally able to accept myself as I was. I stopped trying to fix myself and a sense of self-compassion replaced the shame I had been carrying. Somewhere in this process I began to understand who I was—warts and all—and began to love that person, something I had been aching to do my entire life. I can’t say the process is over at 56 years old–the painful and beautiful process of healing and self-discovery never quite ends–but this year I love who I see in the mirror and esteem her very much.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am currently the Director of the Emory College Language Center and Professor of Pedagogy of Italian Studies at Emory University. I have been teaching at Emory since 2002. I just spent most of the summer in Bologna, Italy, co-directing a program and teaching two Italian classes. Although there was plenty of work to do, the experience was wonderful for the soul. The streets of Bologna are always full of people, and ultimately, living and being a part of it brought me, my colleagues, and our students into the moment in a way we don’t often experience here in the United States.
Over the years, I have been involved in both academic and creative writing projects. I have been writing articles about transformative teaching and learning–finding ways to to help our students know themselves more profoundly and become citizens of the world, empowered to make positive change within their communities. In 2008, I published an academic book about Lucrezia Marinella, a talented woman author of the Inquisition. In 2019, I published a memoir titled All the Silent Spaces, which is a very personal story that talks about healing. I began writing and speaking about violence after having been attacked in front of my children in a parking lot in September 2007, when they were 3 and 5 years old. My memoir focuses on coming out to my community about violence, especially regarding a long-hidden secret about my grandfather. The book began a gradual unfolding that continues to this day. Last year, after my son almost died from appendicitis and two life-threatening infections, something opened up in me and I was finally able to emotionally feel the trauma I had endured over the course of my lifetime. It was truly life-changing in a way I couldn’t have predicted. I’m currently writing op-eds about our society’s need to change the way we talk about violence so survivors can truly heal. Writing op-eds is a way to create change and I am grateful to have learned this skill via the OpEd Project, a 2-year training program for women and minorities that teaches faculty to share big ideas beyond academia. My big idea involves sharing the human experience–whether it be violence, trauma, illness, racism, death of a loved one–and bearing witness to this sharing without judgment so we can all fully experience our own humanity without shame or guilt. My op-eds have been published in Ms. Magazine, HuffPost, the Guardian, Pacific Standard, the Washington Post, Visible Magazine, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In addition to teaching and writing, I am a social justice advocate. I work with undocumented students, survivors of sexual assault, native and indigenous students, the Young Dems, and many first-generation students. I am passionate about advocating for my students to make sure they have what they need and one of my favorite things to do is have coffee and talk with my students because they inspire me. I have been training to be a life coach, something I feel will enhance my work with students and professionals at Emory.
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?
The three qualities that have impacted me the most are creativity, which was fostered in my family when I was a child, problem-solving and out-of-the box thinking, which I learned as a parent, and empathy, which I always had but further developed as a mother, teacher, and survivor of violence. These qualities have allowed me to experience my and others’ humanity in such a full way. All three of these skills have led to resilience, to loving the world and people in it more deeply, and to discovering openings to become more fully myself.
One piece of advice I have for others is to embody your full self every second of every day. When I first began teaching, I was a teacher in the classroom, a parent at home, a survivor when I was alone, and a professional in the workplace. Now when I teach, I am fully myself. I bring every experience I have had to my classroom, and to every interaction I have, and I’m not afraid to talk about my own challenges and the difficult things that have happened to me. The day I walked into my classroom with a black eye, a broken nose, and a concussion after I had been attacked in the parking lot, everything about teaching changed for me. I had to be open with my students about the attack, rather than hide that part of me away, and I saw the power of truth-telling, bearing witness to others’ stories, and sharing who I really was with my community. During this time, in and out of the classroom, I had to draw on creativity, problem-solving, and empathy in order to find my footing again.
How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?
My son just left for college and I am now an empty nester. When you’re in it, you never think life will be any different, you never imagine it ending. Now that my children are both in college, I can’t believe this beautiful, difficult, all-consuming, challenging, unbelievably hard, definitely worth-it adventure is over. I know I’ll see my kids all the time and they will be part of my life, but what nobody tells you is when they leave, what you mourn is not really their departure, but the end of something important. When I think of my book, All the Silent Spaces, my children remain frozen in time there, but they have grown and are now experiencing their own adult struggles, joys, and humanity. My challenge will be to allow them to unfold and grow into the people they need to be without overwhelming them with my own story and dreams for them.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.christineristaino.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christineristaino/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChristineRistainoAuthor/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-ristaino-6499a04/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChristineRista3
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@pierre1852
- Other: https://pandemicnoodles.wixsite.com/summer2020
Image Credits
Alan Brooks (author image)
