Turning 50: Celebrating the Journey, Not Just the Milestones

Cristina Amigoni: “Am I doing things to be accepted or am I doing things because they actually deeply feel right to me?”

Alex Cullimore: Welcome to Uncover the Human where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives.

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that's with our families, coworkers, or even ourselves.

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens.

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni.

Alex Cullimore: This is Alex Cullimore. Let's dive in.

“Authenticity means freedom.”

“Authenticity means going with your gut.”

“Authenticity is bringing 100% of yourself not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.”

“Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.”

“It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.”

“Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.”

“It's transparency, relatability. No frills. No makeup. Just being.”

[EPISODE]

Alex Cullimore: Welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human. It's a bit of a special episode today. I am actually the only host and we're joined with our guest, Cristina.

Cristina Amigoni: If you're watching the video, you may be very confused. After the first few words –

Alex Cullimore: Yes, all three YouTube people were like, “That's not a surprise at all.”

Cristina Amigoni: – she’s here too. She's just going to watch the whole time.

Alex Cullimore: This is really just an audio gag. Everybody on the YouTube channel, all five to six of you, didn't fall for it for a second.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. I have no idea what I'm doing as a guest. So, this is going to be fun. I don’t usually know what I'm doing as a host. So, let’s see how this is going to be any different.

Alex Cullimore: I can't wait to not know what I'm doing from a different side of the microphone.

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly.

Alex Cullimore: Well, we chose to make Cristina the guest today because we are recording on a special day. This is actually Cristina's 50th birthday. So first of all, happy birthday, Cristina.

Cristina Amigoni: Well, thank you. The more I hear it, the older I feel. So, this is fun. 

Alex Cullimore: This is Cristina's [bleep] birthday.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, 29th birthday.

Alex Cullimore: It's a milestone. We'll edit that. Just put a bleep over the 50th.

Cristina Amigoni: We're saying 5-0, not 1-5.

Alex Cullimore: Yes, 5 -0. We're going to turn this into a gag show.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Christina 5-0.

Alex Cullimore: So, I thought it'd be fun to just turn it around a little bit and interview you and let you have a chance to reflect on the wisdom gained and what it means to turn 50 and kind of some of your story. What are some things that you're thinking as you take this milestone birthday, which again, it's like a new year's, like it's just another day. We just, we get to market and it feels like a decade, but it's still exciting to get a chance to go back and think about what this means, think about what has brought you what has brought you here. So, we're going to turn this as if you are the guest and tell us a little about your story.

Cristina Amigoni: Sounds good. I love two words that you've used so far. Wisdom and the assumption that there is wisdom in my presence and being after 50 years. Also, how this is going to be exciting. Oh my God.

Alex Cullimore: I’m excited. I don't know how you are feeling, but it’s going to be fine on this end of the table.

Cristina Amigoni: There's a fine line between anxiety and excitement is in there?

Alex Cullimore: Yes. Apparently, biologically, it's a very similar response. It's both a little bit of an aroused state of being more excitable. And sometimes we can actually channel our anxieties towards excitement by reminding ourselves that we are excited about something when we are anxious about it. 

Cristina Amigoni: And in both cases, I may need to find the brown bag to breathe and hyperventilate. Sounds good. Let's do this.

Alex Cullimore: That would have been a good birthday gift. She just sent you some brown paper bags with 50 written on them.

Cristina Amigoni: Just a pack of 50 brown paper bags.

Alex Cullimore: As is our way, I threw this idea at Cristina right before recording. So, she's trippy.

Cristina Amigoni: I’m fully prepped and scripted.

Alex Cullimore: Yes. This is totally scripted like every one of our episodes.

Cristina Amigoni: Indeed, yes.

Alex Cullimore: So, let's start with like maybe a fun one then, maybe gratitude. What are things you're grateful for?

Cristina Amigoni: What are things that I'm grateful for? Well, I am grateful for all the, of the love and all the birthday messages that I've received just in the last few hours. It is still morning and between the advantage of having friends from all over the world and having grown up in Europe is that you wake up on your birthday and if you've done a decent job at keeping friendships alive and you're a semi-decent human being that people appreciate, you actually get a lot of, or at least a good number of birthday wishes as soon as you wake up.

So, I actually woke up before my alarm this morning. It was one of your things was like, I don't know if I'm excited or not, excited or anxious about today. But I'm up. So, I might as well see, see what happens. Make the day as long as possible.

Alex Cullimore: Something is happening somehow.

Cristina Amigoni: Just in case, if it's a good day, it'll be a really good long day. If it's a bad day, it'll be a really bad long day. That's win-win for somebody, I’m saying here. So yes, I had a lot of messages from my friends in Italy and across the world that had already been up and are at the end of their day. That was really, really grateful to have that. Then as US friends started waking up, I started receiving that. The fun part was the best part and most unexpected part was when I got out of the shower and Alex sent me a text saying, like, “You need to check your Teams’ messages in our client portal.” I checked and there was a video that was created by our clients to wishing me happy birthday, each one of them recording themselves, wishing me happy birthday. So, I started bawling and I had just put face lotion on. Then the lotion started getting into my eyes as I was rubbing them. Then it was just a waterfall to the point where I think I could even hear half the messages. I had to go back and re-watch them because it was just this mess of tears and lotion and yes.

Alex Cullimore: I mean, it's a little cliché but it makes it sound like you're grateful for a lotion in the eye. I think they think we've all been there.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. I did start crying before the lotion got in my eyes. That was just in the rubbing and trying to see the screen because there were so many tears of just emotional gratitude. It was such an unexpected message. And it was so unexpected, my friend Emer actually mentioned this this morning when she wished me happy birthday, how when we open ourselves up to receive love, then we actually get a lot of it. And that's one of those things that I realized, like, “Oh, yes, if we actually don't open ourselves up, it's there, but it hits a wall. It hits a closed door.” So, receiving, feeling on the receiving end of all this love, it's like, at some point, I must have opened up.

Alex Cullimore: It was a very coordinated and high production value video. I was just impressed. They stitched together a lot of people and they all had their own flair on it. It was great.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. And it was so – it was really funny because one of the comments afterwards was we all had a different interpretation of the instructions we were supposed to follow. The irony was that every single one of them showed up as authentically and 100% authentically as it could. I would not have imagined them showing up any different way.

Alex Cullimore: It was a really great message, and it absolutely makes sense to kind of feel some of that emotional gratitude. I know that we've talked a little bit just off the podcast about spending a little more time opening up to some of that appreciation, and I know that you got to do some of that. You've been able to celebrate your birthday with a few different parties, which has been nice. So, what are lessons learned in working to open yourself up more to receiving love from the universe, for people?

Cristina Amigoni: It's definitely a journey. I hope that for people that are not 50 and older yet, they start sooner than this. I'm glad I've gotten here now, but I would definitely recommend doing the work and figuring out how to get there sooner. You get more time, hopefully, in life to receive all that. But I would say that what it takes is it's interesting because it's a little cliché and it's true at the same time. So, there's a component of it that there is some self-reflection. I think that there's a lot of work that needs to be done to love ourselves first and that's why it is cliché, like you have to love yourself first so that other people can love you.

Yes and no. It's not that clear cut, but there is an element of more than loving yourself more. There's an element of uncovering who you truly are and constantly finding the courage to accept that and not give into the judgment, not give in to the outside expectations which we internalize. I love the quote that says we don't have to discover ourselves. When we say search yourself and like, we're not a $10 bill that we left in an old 10 pocket in jeans 10 years ago. We're right here.

So, it’s not about finding ourselves as much as uncovering all the stuff that we start on to this golden statue almost that's at the core of who we are, but we paint over it and then we cement it and then we put decorations and then every limiting belief, every societal pressure, every people pressure, every piece that we bring on just keeps layering on and on and on and we find a way to mold ourselves. We then become the chameleons, because then we try to – I think a lot of people, I know I did, I spent a lot of my life trying to figure out who I'm supposed to be, depending on the situation, so that I could be accepted. It never occurred to me until a few years ago, like, what if I'm just myself, and I don't worry who accepts me or not?

Alex Cullimore: And then the situation becomes what you find rather than finding yourself, rather than finding you are yourself.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. That's well said, that absolutely makes sense. And it might sound cliché, but if you think about the idea of learning to love yourself, that is an intensive process. Love is not an easy word. Love is not a small word. That is not just going mild appreciation. That is not a passing, treating yourself like a colleague that is actually learning to understand and appreciate who you are. That's not an easy journey.

Cristina Amigoni: No, and it's a daily journey and it never ends. It's not a medal. It's not like running the New York City marathon like I've done. I've got the medal of myself. Good. That's the other piece that I've reflected on is the fact that you really start to realize that all these milestones that we think are what the meaning of life, the milestones that we think give life meaning, and when we check them off, we can say we've lived their BS. You get there and you're like, “Okay, I got the job.” You're like, “Okay, nothing's changed.” Now there's the next one. I had the kids because I've always wanted to or thought I had to have kids. And then you have the kids and you're like, “Okay, but I still don't feel like my life is complete.” So, you're constantly chasing the next milestone, whether it's a long-term relationship or a job, or a title, or a house, or a type of car, or whatever it is that we get. We are so conditioned from the outside world to believe that will give us completeness. And then you get there and you're like, “But I'm still not complete.”

So, what if life, again, under cliché, what if it's really about the journey? What if it is about the running, not the getting the medal? What if it is about hiking a 14er? I mean, I've hiked two and what I remember, what I cherish, what's important to me, was not getting to the summit. God, getting to the summit was the worst part of it. I hated being in the summit. I have vertigo and so I would have a headache. My head was spinning. I couldn't see anything. I couldn't appreciate the view because I was just trying to not fall over and tumble down the side of the cliff.

But what I appreciate about that was the journey, was the seven hours of hiking with friends, was the conversations while during the hiking was that doing something that's hard, but it's also very rewarding. The being in nature, that's what the value was. The summit was, “Okay, I'm here. Can we go back down?”

Alex Cullimore: That's a great metaphor and a good example for what that search for completeness looks like and it does remind me of some of the general paradox of life where you're looking for completeness. Essentially, what you end up doing is looking for the things that you are incomplete in, so you can try and “complete them.” But then, your life becomes about incompleteness while you were searching for completeness and that happens with happiness. That happens with so many things where we look for that and in looking for that, we end up finding the gaps of that. Now, we're focused on the gaps and we feel like we never have it. Versus the journey all along being some version we already had, but we just don't see it when we search for and actively try and pursue something more, we look at the gap.

Well, you've already dropped some good wisdom, so you can shove that fear right off. You've got some wisdom dropping. So, with that –

Cristina Amigoni: You call it wisdom, I call it babbling. Potato, potato. 

Alex Cullimore: This is a very fine line.

Cristina Amigoni: Losing my train of thoughts halfway in the middle and then coming up with some story to make my way back somewhere.

Alex Cullimore: I think that's how life works. It's about the journey. Babbling is the journey of wisdom.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Forgetting what the question was to begin with and be like, “I'll just start talking, keep talking until I'm done.”

Alex Cullimore: That's right. Neither of us remember the question.

Cristina Amigoni: Also, a lot like life.

Alex Cullimore: So, you've hinted a little bit at some of this, but I'm curious what advice you would give either to your younger self or to other people you've talked a little bit about wanting to do some of these things earlier in life. But what else would you want to impart to either yourself or others?

Cristina Amigoni: Good question. Here's the thing about the advice to the younger self. And then we can go to others. But let's talk about the advice to the younger self. Here's the thing and I've thought about this quite a bit lately is there's moments where you look at life and you're like, “Oh, I wish” – I have the half thought and then that thought stops. “I wish I were younger for these reasons. Yes, these things that I would like to have or may turn out differently, may have a better chance if I were younger.” And then I don't even finish that thought until I'm like, “Well, actually, no. I actually don't wish that because my younger self wouldn't be where I am. I wouldn't have had the experiences that I've had”, and the experiences that I've had and where I am today and how I look at the world and how I look at myself and how I show up and what motivates me to show up every day is very different from 15 years ago, 20 years ago.

So, there is no desire. What advice would I give to my younger self? Keep going, I guess. The wisdom is going to come, hopefully. But the experiences and everything that is going to make you who you are is going to come when it comes. There's not a whole lot, I guess unless we figure out a way to bring wisdom back to time and not just go back in time. That's where I see the younger self-peace. For others now, there's where, yes, please change your lives. Don’t wait.

Alex Cullimore: So, for you. Please wait. It’ll all be there. For others, change yourselves.

Cristina Amigoni: For others, “What the hell are you doing? Stop wasting your life.”

Alex Cullimore: I feel like there's a paradox in there, but it's subtle.

Cristina Amigoni: I guess it could be for my younger self too. The wisdom, the advice is to really look at what are those milestones that you may be chasing, that we may be chasing. I had tons of them that I was chasing. And find ways to quote Emer again, who is going to be on the podcast in January to talk about her new book. To quote her is really, “How can you choose yourself more at a younger age?” So, why wait until you're 50 or 45 or 55 or never to start choosing yourself, choose yourself more and do the work to understand who yourself is. It's hard to choose yourself if you don't know who yourself is and recognize that all those things that you think may be important and some are important, but all those things, are they all important? What is that list of medals, milestones, accolades, check marks that maybe you feel like you have to chase, but you don't know that it's a have to.

You think that they will give you the completeness that you're looking for and the hard part is that they're not going to give you the completeness. So, what's missing and what's conditioning? Where is that conditioning? I mean, I guess to do the work, I would say if you are done not going to therapy, go to therapy way younger than 50. I waited until I was 49 and a half and after the first session, after the first discovery call with the first therapist, I was like, “Why the hell did I wait 49 and a half years to start therapy?”

I've been a client in coaching like I've had a lot of coaching which has also helped and I would say start that as soon as possible. But that's the thing, it’s we are not – we're just like anything else. Life is the hardest thing we can do. If we think about athletes and how to become a professional athlete and a successful athlete or even just professional athlete, like they hire coaches. They have a team of coaches. I mean, Jannik Sinner, who's the number one tennis player in the world now, from Italy, that's why I'm mentioning him. When he starts thanking his team or you see him with his team, it's like 10, 15, 20 people. He has a team behind him. He's not doing this alone. This is playing tennis we're talking about. Not to minimize it, but it's not living life. It is for him.

But life is much bigger than that. Playing tennis is what a 20-year career if you're successful. So, why do we think that we need to go through life alone? Why is it that getting support to go through life so that life has meaning the whole time, not when you get to 50 or 60 or 70 or you retire or you finally go to that Hawaii vacation or you finally meet that milestone. What if we can find meaning in life the whole time? And for that, we need support. We need somebody to be on with us.

Alex Cullimore: That's a good way of describing both coaching and therapy. It makes me think coaching is a good way of both making your engine run a little faster and helping you give direction, and therapy is a good way of making sure all the parts actually work. All the crap that's built up on your engine is reduced.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. All the loose bolts are actually tightened so that you don't lose the wheels when you're running faster.

Alex Cullimore: Yes. That's a good way of describing it. If you're willing to share, what made you turn towards therapy? You said, you wish you'd done it earlier. What made you make the choice?

Cristina Amigoni: So, I would say it is definitely the upcoming milestone birthday was a big motivator for that because I felt we were in Italy the first half of this year. While I was there and then soon after coming back, I felt that I had a couple of close friendships before I left, and then when I came back, I felt like there was a disconnection. So, part of that self-reflection was, “What the hell is wrong with me? Why can't I not keep friends? And how am I 50 years old, and I still struggle with friendships?” That's where, and again, this is that 11,000th whisper about therapy. It's not the one thing. It's been one of those things that I've thought about. I've received a lot of coaching. I've found a huge benefit from that. I've always kind of thought about some of the coaching topics that have come up over and over and over. Having trained as a coach, I've been able to recognize for myself maybe some of those things are not coaching. The solution is not coaching is therapy because they do keep coming up and that's one of the indication of something keeps coming up then there's something bigger behind it that needs to be explored and that's more – that potentially could be more of a therapy path than a coaching path because it's that, it's that like you've got loose bolts so you can try to run as fast as you know try to ride the car as fast as possible, you're going to lose the wheels.

Or you drive fast and then you hear the squeaking and you stop to tighten the bolts but you don't really tighten them or replace them or do what actually needs to be done so that you don't have to keep stopping to do it again. It's always been kind of there. I've known a lot of people or a good amount of people. Look at the amount of trust, the people that I trust get a lot of benefit out of therapy. Yes, so this summer I just kind of realized like I didn't know why I was holding back. Most likely, the stigma that even though mental health has made a huge progress in awareness and being in therapy and seeking therapy is the norm, there's still something about that that's not completely gone on the stigma.

So, I just kind of got tired. I was like, I'm about to turn 50 and I'm tired of not knowing whether there is something is seriously wrong with me for not being able to keep friendships. So, let's go explore what's wrong with me and can I fix it or resolve it or move past it?

Alex Cullimore: All good emphasis and it sounds like that has already paid off more than some and you already had some friendships given that you were just talking about some of the European messages rolling in just this morning.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. It definitely has. I think when we talked about at the beginning how in order to receive a lot of love. You have to open yourself up for it. Therapy has helped me a ton with that is the opening, opening up for it. The realizing that, yes, there were a lot of things that I've worked on a therapy, especially intensive therapy, and I'm still working on and there isn't something majorly flawed in me that repels friendships.

Alex Cullimore: Always a relief.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, there is a relief. And there just needs, yes, it's just, there's cycles, there's cycles of life and a lot of it is the more you uncover yourself and you get rid of all the layers that you've piled on, the more you become picky, I think. I don't know if picky is the right word, but the more you decide to – you have boundaries around the energy you want to be around. So, it's not a one-way, “Oh, everybody hates you, Cristina. Good luck finding a friend.” It's more of a, is this the energy I want to be around? And if it and then it's not because there's something wrong with me, it's just this is no longer the energy I want to be around.

Alex Cullimore: It makes sense. It sounds like picking, I think is a great word for it, but if you want one that sounds maybe less like picky, then you could say selective. All of that sounds just very choice-oriented, which is always a good thing, a little bit more conscious, a little bit more choosy, a little bit more understanding of why you're making that choice and that kind of goes back to one of your theses about thinking about both yourself and for others. What you would do is knowing yourself, be able to choose yourself as you identified therapy is a good way of starting some of that. What are other ways that have helped you know yourself and or choose yourself?

Cristina Amigoni: I'll mention coaching. So, we've talked about that piece, meditation. I started two daily practices over five years ago. It's 2024, yes, five and a half years ago, this point. One is meditation. So, I have successfully, except for one day, because we were well DIA for 22 hours waiting for the flight to Chicago. So, I've successfully meditated for at least 20 minutes every single day for five and a half years. And that has completely, has definitely jumpstarted the journey on uncovering myself, my own human, to use our podcast name, uncovering my humanity. And that is still very much, now it's like brushing my teeth. I brush my teeth, I meditate, there's no – I'm never not going to do it. The act of sitting with your own thought and it's transcendental meditation, so it's slightly different than focus on the candle or clear your mind, which is actually not possible. Our mind doesn't stop just because we tell it to clear it.

Transcendental meditation actually embraces what's happening in your mind and you become an observer of your thoughts as opposed to be in them. So, then you find the calmness that you transcend by finding the calmness. I love the analogy or the image of you, when you transcend, you are the bottom of the sea and your thoughts are the top like the waves at the top of the sea and so you're just watching them, so you're not trying to stop them because they're not going to stop. You're just kind of watching them and then pick next one, and then the one thought goes away and then the next one starts.

Just being in that for at least 20 minutes a day and just letting everything just thing just go through. It's just something very beneficial and not judging. Because now you're not judging your thoughts, you're not judging your feelings, you're just observing and I'm like, “Ah, that's interesting.” And then you're like the next one, I'm like, “Ah, I wonder how that got connected.” And that's it. So, you're just being with yourself as opposed to running away from yourself.

Alex Cullimore: It makes sense to be with yourself, knowing yourself, shredding some of those other layers you're talking about, societal expectations or whatever else that may be clouding that, maybe less of yourself, be able to observe that. That sounds like a great way of helping to know yourself. One thing I'm curious about is what choosing yourself means to you. What does that look like?

Cristina Amigoni: Pretty sure. I wonder if I answered that question when I did a podcast with Emer, we'll find out when that comes out. Choosing myself, also daily practice. I would say it's a minute-by-minute practice. I think we have the power to choose ourselves and every single decision we make, every single split second. What that means to me, I would say it's living with integrity, integrity being one of my core values, so living with integrity. So, do my words, actions and energy match? Do they align? That's a big thing.

When I think about choosing myself, then it's that conscious choice of making sure that what I'm about to do aligns with what I might have said, even five years ago on a podcast, most likely. But it also aligns with my energy, and all of those have to align with my core values. So, I can't say I have a core value of integrity if then I say one thing and do the opposite. I can't say that I have a core value of human connections if I don't actually make the effort to connect with other humans. So, those are – or if I don't make the effort to connect with my own humanity. So, those are the moments of in this moment, what does choosing myself mean? Am I doing this or not doing this? Saying this or not saying this? Because of an old conditioning or conditioning because this is not what's expected, because right now you know I need to become this other person to be accepted. Am I doing things to be accepted or am I doing things because they actually deeply feel right to me?

Alex Cullimore: Great definition of integrity and a much, much fuller idea of alignment, not just in what you say and you do, but what that really feels like, how that connects to your values. That's one thing we've obviously talked quite a bit about is values and value alignments, thinking about that. What are the things that you feel particularly aligned with and your values in your current life? And we'll have follow-up after that. I was going to ask the second one, but I'm going to stagger this.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, also because I'm going to forget it. So, let's be real on how many questions I can answer all at once.

Alex Cullimore: One at a time.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, exactly. So, what was the question? Because I already forgot it.

Alex Cullimore: Yes, where do you currently feel alignment in your life?

Cristina Amigoni: Definitely at work. So, the work that we do, how it's being received, I mean, besides the emotional, well, not besides, along with just the emotional path, the emotion of receiving the birthday message from our clients. It was beyond that. It was what they said, what they said basically confirmed that the value that I hope to provide and the hope that we provide as a company, we actually do. It's that confirmation. It's not just us putting it out there and keeping our fingers crossed and let's hope. It was actually confirmed. So, that's definitely a huge aspect of the work that we've done and we keep doing for the last now five years, over five years, but especially the last, I would say probably three, four. It's that, having conversations on this podcast, that's how I get to show up. I say things and they're out there and I'm not constantly wondering what should I say here and what's appropriate and how are people going to hear it? And what are they going to think of me? It's that letting go of what are people going to think of me? Am I choosing what's right over what's easy? Am I choosing what's uncomfortable because it needs to be done or said? Or am I choosing comfort because it's easier. It's easier to stay and either hide or mold.

So, those are the opportunities of that. Most recently, I can talk about my personal family life. We were going to celebrate my birthday on Sunday with immediate family and my parents, my in-laws and brother and stuff. My kids were sick, are still sick. Well, one of them is still sick. So, we had to cancel because we didn't want to spread the germs, even though they've being quarantining and he's been quarantining for now, over a week, poor kid. We decided to cancel. In the conversation of trying to figure out a date, a new date, it's the holidays. So, the reason why we scheduled this and put it on the calendar about a month and a half ago is because we know how hard it is to schedule stuff around the holidays if you wait until the last minute.

So, I started feeling all this pressure from part of the family to like schedule it like in the first couple of days or sometime this week. I was like, “No, first of all, no. I don't want to have this in the middle of the week when I'm working and there's other things going on and I guess the old unaligned me would have given in to what other people wanted.” This new me on my birthday is like, it's my birthday. I get to decide when we celebrate. Nobody else does. I don't care what your opinion is. But even saying those things out loud, it is definitely very different from my last 49 years.

Alex Cullimore: Yes, that's a great example. I just recently saw on Instagram, Gabor Maté, Dr. Gabor Maté I don't know, I never know how to say his name, but he was saying about how he would always choose the pain of authenticity over the pain of people pleasing.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Alex Cullimore: Yes, it'll be difficult, it'll be challenging and it'll always be better than the difficulty and pain that is choosing others.

Cristina Amigoni: That's much more 60 in 10, better way to explain what I just explained in some roundabout way for 10 minutes.

Alex Cullimore: I got a much better story too, and I was just –

Cristina Amigoni: There is pain in choosing authenticity, because authenticity comes with rejection.

Alex Cullimore: Yes. I mentioned choosing that discomfort. It's a very much sounded like echoes of stirring and the hunting discomfort movement and the no matter what, and getting and leaning into those things that are painful, that are valuable, valuably painful, not just painful to be painful.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Alex Cullimore: So, those are good examples of kind of feeling some of that alignment and it's a great example all the way up to exactly today of feeling that choosing yourself. So, looking into the next year, what are ways you hope to show that alignment, maybe grow that alignment? What are other ways you want to express and choose yourself?

Cristina Amigoni: I would say it's beyond the next year. It's kind of funny because our friend Ryan sent me a birthday wish and his birthday was like happy birthday, month, year, whatever it is that you're doing with your birthday. I'm like, “Yes, I think it's a lifetime celebration.” So, let's just continue this. It's at least a year, which is why I started celebrating in November because I had to like fit in the month, but then it became more than a month. So, yes, this is going to be a yearlong for this birthday until the next one, and then it continues in that. 

But that's part of it. I would say it wasn't just a joke back. It was truly that. It was like, want to keep celebrating not my birthday, but I want to just keep celebrating life and not just wait until the birthday, especially before Christmas, when you have a December birthday. Good luck. If you haven't had kids yet, please don't have kids that have December birthdays. It is brutal. So, middle of the summer is great, spring is great, even like the beginning of fall is great, not December.

Alex Cullimore: I don't know if they do their own nine-month calculation on that or when they need to start.

Cristina Amigoni: I did. I had a very strict nine-month calculation. I'm like, it's between this day and that day, and if it doesn't happen, we wait a whole year. I will not have kids that are born in December or the beginning of January. Also, I will not be in my third trimester in December. So, I had a lot of restrictions. It's a miracle of kids. It's definitely its own Christmas miracle, given all the requirements.

Alex Cullimore: But not on Christmas.

Cristina Amigoni: Not on Christmas. So now, I forgot what I was saying. Oh, the celebration. So yes, that's one of the things is like to definitely be more actively celebrating, not myself necessarily, but just actively celebrating other people, experiences, what's happening around us, without waiting for the opportunity, without waiting for the milestone, birthday, or without waiting for worse, eulogies. Just like we're here, this is the journey. We don't get out of the car to climb a fourteener, not walk and then walk when you're on the summit. We're walking the whole time. What if celebrating, appreciating, being grateful is walking. It's every step we get to do it the whole time.

So, that's one of them. And the other one is, yes, just continuously choosing myself, being very conscious and deliberate and intentional with, this is the situation. Where does comfort go? And where's just choosing myself go? Sometimes it's the same direction. But most times it's not. So, go there, take the leap. It's almost like you're constantly jumping off a cliff. When you choose yourself over and over and over. Jump, see what happens.

Alex Cullimore: So, not to throw a coaching hat on here, but what are some leaps you're excited to take in the near future?

Cristina Amigoni: Oh, leaps I have to take. Well, I'm mostly curious to see what life will throw at me. I've definitely had the more conscious you are, or at least the more conscious I've become with how I feel the energy that I'm surrounded by, the energy I want to show up with, how it affects me. I've noticed a lot of curveballs that I think they were always there. Curveballs in lives are always there, but they've definitely felt a lot different, a lot more present. And they're all opportunities to then decide, what do I choose here? Do I choose myself? Do I choose what I'm supposed to be doing? Do I choose what I'm supposed to be? Do I choose what people will want to see, which we don't know. People are so wrapped up in their own stuff, they are not paying attention to what we choose.

So, I'm curious. I'm mostly curious on what are going to be the big leaping of cliffs that will come along and we're going to be the small ones and just be ready for whatever jump is needed. Some may be bigger, some may be smaller. I don't know. This year I had some big ones that I didn't expect in the last 12 months. Yes, see what happens.

Alex Cullimore: It's exciting. Some good anticipation, some good curiosity. One exciting one that I'm hoping we will get to share this year is, and this is very niche and local. Well, that one obviously, that one's always there. Fiji always.

Cristina Amigoni: I know.

Alex Cullimore: Fiji forever. Fiji tomorrow. 

Cristina Amigoni: I'm still looking for the cliff into Fiji here.

Alex Cullimore: One closer to home and extremely local and which won't mean much to people who listen to this, but car driver by my house will be opening soon. They haven't given a date, but they are going to come back and they finally said they are coming back. We will do that at some point this year. It will be a much, much more fun leap.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, that's definitely necessary. Well, and actually another one, it's not a leap. It is in a way, actually, I'll take that back. It is a leap because I've tried to figure out what's happening that this year with me. Last year, I hosted quite a few dinners that you were part of, most of them, if not all of them. This year, I haven't. The person that I've noticed that even more was my son, because he actually asked me, he's like, “Hey, when are we going to have people over?” I love when we have people over and it hasn't happened for a very long time. It actually really hasn't happened since we've come back from Italy, I don't think. I can't remember actually hosting maybe – yes, I can't think of any of them.

So, there’s some exploration there. I have to figure out why. That's something that I really like doing and it's one of the experiences that I like to share and be in. I'm not quite sure why it's been a dry year on the hosting. So, there's definitely something deeper than just calendars and scheduling and not thinking about it, because it's not something that I don't think about. I think about it all the time. Why am I not taking the leap? But I would venture to say that there's some fear of rejection, which is not resolved. That's another thing I will be doing.

Alex Cullimore: Given the popularity of those ones, sure that will be an unrealized fear when you say to leap.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. I'm sure it's all tied into why I actually took the leap and got into therapy and we'll be jumping off that cliff. There'll be dinners. There'll be pizza making, especially because we have a great indoor pizza-making oven now, which is, I have been wanting to share how great it is. For some reason, every time I think about it, I'm like, they're going to say no anyway. So, what’s the point?

Alex Cullimore: That'll be an interesting challenge, interesting jump, interesting leap right into this year.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Alex Cullimore: Well, thanks so much for letting me turn the tides on you here and pushing the spotlight with almost no advance warning. But, happy birthday.

Cristina Amigoni: Well, thank you.

Alex Cullimore: I think you came up with a lot of wisdom along the way. I feel like we just kind of continually kept coming up with a lot of nuggets. It's exciting.

Cristina Amigoni: I hope so. If not, this was entertaining.

Alex Cullimore: Well, we had fun anyway.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, exactly. It was entertaining for us. It was entertaining for me. I guess that's what matters. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. Great questions. Definitely questions that I would have thought about, but maybe not explore.

Alex Cullimore: Well, what's birthday for, if not for a fun therapy session? Therapy is great work. It doesn't mean it's easy.

Cristina Amigoni: Another really interestingly placed word, fun therapy session.

Alex Cullimore: Well, I had fun.

Cristina Amigoni: It was fun for me, too.

Alex Cullimore: Must’ve been a real disappointment on this. Takes the tide from you to get a lot of good birthday wishes to get on the podcast, it all turns down. That would have been unfortunate.

Cristina Amigoni: It's not even noon yet. There's a long way to go on this day.

Alex Cullimore: I know you at least have a spot appointment this afternoon. So that will be one good reprieve, regardless of what's coming your way. But I hope it's all good from here on out and I'm glad to hear it's been fun. 

Cristina Amigoni: Talk about choosing myself. That was a big. I'm choosing myself on that.

Alex Cullimore: I hope you had a spot, thank you very much.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. I'll be doing zero talking to anyone. And yes, get some very needed neck and shoulder massages, because good Lord, there's something built up in there. 

Alex Cullimore: Hopefully it's released.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, let's hope.

Alex Cullimore: In an only mildly painful way, but in a large relaxing way.

Cristina Amigoni: She is a really good masseuse, but then she is going to dig and there's something there to dig. So, it'll be great, maybe not the whole time.

Alex Cullimore: Like you said, leading into discomfort. That's the celebration. Some of the celebration is turning into that. In this case, it's in a physical sense.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Life is pain. So, there's your 50th birthday message.

Alex Cullimore: The uplifting button we've been looking for. People don't take that one to the bank. I don't know what they're doing.

Cristina Amigoni: Well, life is the pain that you feel when you're massaging, you get a really good massage and you're unpacking knots. And then you feel fine and then it starts all over again and you go to the next massage.

Alex Cullimore: It's a journey. It's not a destination.

Cristina Amigoni: It's the journey of somebody's kneecap in your shoulder blade.

Alex Cullimore: I think we can all relate. Hopefully, and if not, go book yourself a massage. There's nothing like getting a kneecap in your shoulder blade.

Cristina Amigoni: Hope this inspires you for your next birthday.

Alex Cullimore: I think that'll be the title of this episode, kneecaps and shoulder blades.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, we've gone off the rails.

Alex Cullimore: Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. Thank you for sharing your birthday, and I hope the rest of the day is awesome.

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you. Thank you for great questions. And thank you for listening.

[OUTRO]

Alex Cullimore: Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Uncover the Human. Special thanks to Rachel Sherwood who helped produce our theme and of course our production assistants, Carlee and Nki for whom we could not do this or could not publish this. We get to do basically the fun parts. Thank you to We Edit Podcasts for editing our podcasts. 

Cristina Amigoni: You can find us at podcast@wearesiamo.com. You can find us on LinkedIn. You can find us at Uncover the Human on social media. So, follow us. We Are Siamo is W-E A-R-E S-I-A-M-O.com.

Alex Cullimore: Please feel free to reach out with questions, topics you'd like addressed. If you'd like to be on the show, reach out. We're around. Thank you everybody for listening.

[END]