Episode 80: Reclaiming Your Story: How Writing the Truth Can Heal Your Body with Cristina Simmons
What if the story you have never told is the very thing standing between you and your own healing?
In this episode, Kathy sits down with Cristina Simmons, an occupational therapist turned publisher, author, and founder of a company that helps everyday people write and self-publish their own books. Cristina shares how twenty years of emotional suppression, a marriage tested by grief and betrayal, and a rare femur tumor eventually became the very material that set her free.
Cristina and Kathy trace the thread from disconnection to embodiment: the difference between a "ground crew" and a "co-pilot" in your life, what it means to finally become pregnant with yourself, and why writing your story down, even if no one else ever reads it, is one of the most healing acts available to you.
This conversation touches on adoption, infertility, forgiveness, and the surprising link between self-devaluation and physical illness. It closes the loop on why reclaiming your story is not an indulgence. It is how you build your new normal.
In this episode, Kathy & Cristina discusses:
Why Cristina describes twenty years of her life as living "underwater," disconnected from her own body
The moment she realized her femur tumor may have been connected to decades of stuffing down her own needs
How her husband’s infidelity became the wake-up call that turned her inward instead of destroying her marriage
The "ground crew vs. co-pilot" distinction for understanding who really knows your backstory
Why she believes ninety-nine percent of people who could write a book never do, and what changes when they finally start
The ripple effect of one woman finding her courage, and how it moved through an entire community
Timestamps:
- 0:00 — The Untold Story
- 0:07 — Meet Christina Simmons
- 0:11 — Grief, Marriage, and Illness
- 0:33 — Publishing as Permission
- 0:56 — Coming Home to Your Body
- 1:12 — Your Invitation to Speak
- 1:19 — Let's Begin
- 1:58 — Intro & catching up with Christina
- 3:00 — Christina's background as an occupational therapist
- 4:00 — Writing her book and starting a publishing company
- 6:00 — Ground crew vs. co-pilots — knowing someone's backstory
- 8:00 — "Becoming pregnant with yourself"
- 9:30 — The moment writing revealed her own strength
- 11:20 — Disassociation, her husband's infidelity, and turning inward
- 16:20 — Attracting love you don't know how to receive
- 19:30 — Creativity as service, not self-expression
- 22:40 — The ripple effect — helping a stranger write his story
- 26:00 — Forgiving her father before he passed
- 30:30 — How to actually start writing your book
- 34:30 — Publisher vs. developmental editor, self-publishing explained
- 39:00 — Writing by hand and the "reclamation" of your story
- 46:30 — Cancer, self-devaluation, and the femur tumor story
- 55:00 — Closing thoughts and the "pill" question
Want me to also add these as chapter markers directly in the composition?
Connect with Cristina Simmons
Cristina P. Simmons is a bestselling author, TEDx speaker, trauma-informed occupational therapist, and publisher. Inspired by her personal journey, she now helps women turn pain into purpose through storytelling. As the founder of Soul Story Collective, she blends clinical expertise and lived experience to guide women in healing, regulating their nervous systems, and sharing their stories with clarity, strength, and impact. She believes every woman’s story holds the power to heal not only herself, but others.
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