The Mental Well Community Connections: Christina Aston

In 3-5 sentences, tell us a little about you and your background. What is your name, where did you grow up, where are you now, any hobbies or other things about you that you’d like to share?

My name is Christina Aston and I work at a software company in the learning and development department. In my free time, I volunteer in the military community and write about mental wellness and sobriety. I’m currently living in England, UK and absolutely love traveling with my husband around the island and to the various countries around me. I take adult gymnastic classes once a week, yoga, bouldering, and any outdoor activity that includes my senior dog, Bailey to join me (i.e., walking, hiking).

Do you prefer the mountains or beach? Why? 

Although I grew up around small and large beaches, I do prefer the mountains. I like to go to national parks and see beautiful open scenery. One of my favorite trips before moving to England was living in a tiny house and hiking in the Shenandoah Mountains with Bailey and my husband. It was so nice to disconnect from technology for a weekend. Since we’ve lived in England, we’ve seen some fantastic places like the White Cliffs of Dover, Seven Sisters, Lake District, Bath, and Stonehenge. While they are not mountains, they have been my “speechless” experiences. We also made our way up to Edinburgh, Scotland and explored Holyrood Park that overlooked Edinburgh and stayed at an Airbnb that viewed the Edinburgh Castle. A lot of castles are on hills!

I did also camp with a group of friends at Assateague Island and that was such a fun experience! We cooked together over the fire, walked the beach, played card games, and saw ponies! It ended up raining on us in the early morning of our last day of the trip, but it was worth it.

What is a really good book you’ve read or movie you’ve seen recently?

I’m wrapping up listening to “How to Win Friends & Influence People” by Dale Carnegie on audible. I found it interesting to hear ways to make people like you but also influencing people you work with or are around. Each chapter focuses on examples and lists ways to win friends like 1) become genuinely interested in other people 2) smile 3) remember a person’s name 4) be a good listener 5) talk in terms of the other person’s interests and 6) make the other people feel important and do it sincerely. I’ve tried to use these approaches when I meet new people at work and outside of work.

Who do you look up to in your life and, if they were to read this, is there anything you would like to tell them? 

I would have to say Lady Gaga because she’s overcome so many critiques about how she looks (i.e., Super Bowl performance), bullying, and sexual assault and yet she appears to be such a gentle person. She wants equality for all and expresses herself without caring about what other people think of her. She’s a huge supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and has been a trailblazer for using controversy to bring attention to various issues. I would want to tell Lady Gaga that she’s an incredible human being and I couldn’t see a world without Gaga in it.

What is it about “mental health” that you are passionate about? Why? Any experience you’d like to share that brought this passion out?  

As someone who has suffered from depression and anxiety most of my life, I am a huge advocate for mental health and talking about various issues openly. Talking about anxiety, depression, sobriety, infertility, grief, and sexual assault not only feels like therapy for me, but I also do it so I can at least resonate with one other person who could be going through similar situations. I want to help at least one person with my writing or speeches. A lot of people suffer alone because they don’t know of other people who are going through the same thing. Mental wellness is very important to everyday life.

It wasn’t until I got sober over four years ago that I really started talking about my feelings and experiences and sharing them with others.

What's a difficult situation you survived/came through/found resilience in? What did the experience teach you about yourself? 

This is very fresh as it occurred a few weeks ago---I was at physical therapy and the male doctor touched me inappropriately. At first, it was in shock that it happened and didn’t want to believe that it made me feel so uncomfortable. I had an hour drive home to think about what happened over and over again. When I got home, I explained to my husband what happened and asked if I was making a big deal about it. In fact, I was justifying his actions by saying “Well maybe he didn’t mean to do it…he apologized after it happened…”. The more I spoke to my husband about it the more I realized it really bothered me and made me feel extremely uncomfortable. The next day, I told my psychologist what happened and had a breakdown as the situation that happened at physical therapy brought up PTSD from other incidents of sexual assault that happened in the past that I never told anyone about. Me saying it out loud to my psychologist made it factual that it happened to me. It has been an emotional past few weeks to say the least, but the more I talk about it, the more in control I feel about it. We are taking healthy steps every week to overcome it. I keep having flashbacks of prior incidents and I realize it feels so fresh because I never processed it or dealt with it. This experience has taught me that trauma builds on trauma and when it’s not resolved it can implode

If you could tell your younger self something, what would it be and why? 

There are going to be many situations that will happen to you throughout your life that will be very sad and hurtful. There will be people who will take advantage of your kindness and try to break your soul, but you don’t allow it. You may be deemed as the “happy girl”, but you’re allowed to show different feelings of unhappiness, and that’s okay. You will find the love of your life that loves all of you, unconditionally, for your past and present.

I would tell my younger self this because there have been times when I would say “Why is this happening to me” or “Why can’t I have a normal life like everyone else”. Everyone is on their own timeline and journey and sometimes it’s messy and sometimes it’s really fun.

What is one of your favorite quotes and why? 

“One day at a time” --- I heard this in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and wanted to get a tattoo of this saying. It truly reminds me to take everything one day at a time, at hours even. I get too overwhelmed with to do lists and when that happens, I push things to the following day or week and worry about it then. I prioritize what I can get done in that day and if it really NEEDS to get done. I also make sure I always get enough sleep, work out, eat healthy, try to meditate, drink water, walk, and stretch!

Do you have any aspirations for yourself over the next year or two and how do you plan to reach those goals? 

I’ve been saying this for years now that I want to start a podcast to talk about sobriety.  I have not started the material for it, just the idea.  I feel like I need that push from someone or tag team with someone else to bounce ideas off.  I’ve been prioritizing traveling as we do have three years still here in England, but this past year went by so quickly I get anxious we aren’t making the best out of the time we have here. This year, I hope to travel to different countries outside the island! I’ve been planning out a new country every month, or every other month. Sometimes when we plan to go to countries in Europe, we try to get 2-3 at a time since they are close together. This weekend we are going to Wales! I mentioned we’ve been to Scotland and hope to go to Ireland maybe in June. Once I’m back in the states, I can focus on my podcast 😊 for now, I will continue to write.

Another goal of mine for this year is to sit and pass my Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

Mental health priorities evolve with age and experience, what are one or two important pillars that make up the foundation of who you are today? 

When I was younger, I was dancing 5-6 times a week and didn’t really understand the important of exercise until I stopped dancing all together in college. I started slowly gaining weight over the years and saw how weight gain also impacted me. I began to run and participate in fun races like the color run, or mug races. I started practicing yoga as well but honestly, I don’t really enjoy going to the gym. When I work out, I want it to be fun, like gymnastics or hiking. Going for a walk everyday has really been helpful, even if it’s raining. It’s good to move around when I sit all day for work. Once I started exercising again regularly, I noticed I sleep better. And since I work hard everyday to be active, I usually make healthy nutrition choices as well. Before I started exercising, my periods were arriving on time, and sometimes I would even skip a couple months. I knew this was correlated to me making healthier choices, and it all started with exercising and moving. So, in summary, I would say one important pillar of mental health that’s my foundation of who I am today is exercise as for me, it helps my sleep pattern and nutrition as well, like a domino effect.

How do you manage your mental health? 

I go for 1-3 mile walks every day, usually after lunch or dinner with my dog Bailey and I try to make health nutritional choices. I try to stay away from gluten as it makes me tired, bloated, and brain fog. I do enjoy sweets and look forward to some dessert after dinner. I go to therapy once a week and physical therapy twice a week. I try to go to the gym 1-2 times a week, and gymnastics once a week. I also try to climb once a week (as I mentioned I don’t really like to workout unless it’s fun). Whenever my husband and I travel, we hike a lot. On top of all that, I manage a work life balance and be kind to myself. Stretching really helps me since I sit most of the day working from home. Working from home has really allowed me this beautiful balance. This is all new for me because I will say two years ago, my life was not like this at all when I commuted to work.

In terms of “self-care” what do you do that a reader may be able to easily adopt into their life? 

I make sure I do one thing I want to do everyday for myself---so whether that’s watching my trash TV, learning a new language on Duolingo, playing Wordle, scrolling on TikTok, or playing Animal Crossing on my switch, I do something for myself that I know brings me joy.

It’s important to be supported, but how do you offer support to the people in your life? 

I do weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly check-ins with my friends and family if I haven’t heard from them in a while, especially since I live 5-8 hours ahead of where most of my friends and family live. It takes two to make a relationship work, so I try to balance it all out. If I keep not hearing from a friend when I keep reaching out, I take a step back. If I know a friend is struggling, I reach out extra times.

Anything else you’d like to tell our readers? 

One thing I learned during my resilience training that I try to also do on a regular basis is gratitude. I say one thing I’m thankful for but also reflect on why I’m thankful. If there is no reflection throughout the gratitude process, then it’s just being thankful. For example, I am thankful for coffee because it’s something I look forward to starting my day with. It gives me comfort and makes me happy. I’m grateful for the coffee beans, the mug I drink from, the syrups, and the oat milk.