Christina Frei
It all started with my beautiful life in the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 2000s, where I had a great job, a dynamic spiritual community, and an ambitious choral group. My days were filled with helping tech companies understand their customers better, doing energy work so people could move forward in their lives, tackling the toughest choral music out there (hello, Poulenc’s Figure Humaine!), and generally having fun.
Within a few months, the sands had shifted entirely. No job, stubborn politics at my spiritual home, and a decision to leave the choral group. With no money coming in and no sense of my career direction, I started having panic attacks, stopped sleeping, developed allergies to 35+ foods, and was generally not being able to function. In a moment of humility, I realized I needed my parents’ help for a while. So I came back East to Connecticut.
Eventually, I recovered my health and was working in marketing, and doing some real estate on the side. I joined a comedy improv troupe, studied the Founding Fathers enough to become an expert speaker for kids, wrote a book about them, got on TV multiple times.
And then it happened again. All sources of income disappeared. The panic started rising. I stopped sleeping as well. I had two choices. First, to collapse into the pit of despair that I knew well. I knew exactly how that would go. Or I could use the one tool, the mindset tool I had created in 2001, that I knew would get me out of any rough spot.
I boarded a plane in Palm Springs to return East and my panic made it difficult to breathe. When I sat down, I decided it was time to lean into the tool I knew would bring me through. I didn’t have a name for it then, but I now call it the Generosity Practice.
This was a way of listening to a higher truth about what you are meant to offer the world, to your loved ones, to anyone today. The core question is What Feels Good to Offer to Life Today? As I flew above Nevada and Colorado, I kept my eyes closed, waiting for the answer to that question. I saw black tiles, piles of sticks, rocks, and other earthy objects. I didn’t get it, but when I offered these gives to life or to the universe, my heart expanded and my body calmed down. I kept giving out things without thinking too much. Something kicked in, a knowing. As I gave without any expectation of getting back, I got calmer and felt a sense of trust in myself again.
When I returned to the East Coast, I knew the three people I needed to talk to for work. Within a month, I had fulfilling, challenging, lucrative projects. The money was coming in and the work was more right-for-me than I expected. I was sleeping well and the panic was gone.
It had such a profound impact so quickly, I asked myself – could I teach it? Would other people without all the meditation and energy work background get it? Would others benefit the way I had?
So I taught it to whomever was willing to try. A small group in a yoga studio, a non-profit office, dozens of individual sessions, larger workshops, and eventually two fields studies across 5 countries. I asked folks to use the practice for 30 days and to report back. How did they use it? What results did they get? Any a-ha moments?
To my pleasant surprise, people were getting it. Really getting it. It became the path of my life to teach this thing. I knew it in my bones. If it could get me out of the worst anxiety and pain that quickly, I wanted to teach it and teach it and teach it some more.
The field studies taught me 2 things: first, that people experienced 21 Things from their 10-Minute daily practice. 21 Results! Second, that entrepreneurs got bolder and kinder in their marketing and sales. That led to my Innate Marketing Genius work. Suffice it to say, every marketing client learns the Generosity Practice before anything else. It opens them up to so much more, it gives them steadiness, it gives them big energy to grow their business. It’s exactly what they need.
