What if the best part hasn't happened yet?

Howdy! I’m Christina.

A few years ago, I was hit by a truck, lost my sense of who I was, and drove across the country with my dog to figure out what came next.

I didn't find the answers I was looking for.

I found something better.

I had everything I thought I wanted.

A successful business. An apartment in Brooklyn. Incredible friends. A life that looked pretty damn good on paper. And then, one afternoon, I stepped into a crosswalk and got hit by a truck.

Literally.

I survived. But the person I was before the accident? I didn’t know what happened to her. For the better part of a year, I did everything I could to get back to normal. Back to work. Back to my routines. Back to the life I'd built.

The problem was, I wasn't the same person who'd built it. So I did something that made very little sense for someone desperately trying to figure out her life.

I packed up my car, put my dog in the passenger seat, and left.

No plan. No big revelation. No idea what I was looking for. Just one question:

What happens if I go?

Turns out, you can learn a lot by having absolutely no idea what you're doing.

I slept in cabins, on farms, and in my car. I rode horses, swam in glacial lakes, and made friends with strangers in dive bars.

I met a pistachio salesman who performed magic tricks. A woman who believed her buffalo ranch attracted extraterrestrial life. Cowboys who danced like nobody was watching.

My 23-pound dog successfully intimidated three mule deer, which remains one of his greatest accomplishments.

Between the weird roadside stops, conversations with strangers, and mornings spent doing absolutely nothing productive, something started to change.

I stopped trying so hard to figure out my life.

And started actually experiencing it.

For the first time, I was curious about what might happen next. Not because I had a plan. But because I didn't.

You don't have to know what comes next to find out.

Here's what I eventually realized:

I'd spent so much of my life trying to get somewhere. Achieve something. Become someone. Make the right decisions. Figure it all out.

And when everything changed, I tried to solve my way back to the person I used to be.

But what if the answer wasn't to go back?

What if I could become someone I hadn't even imagined yet?

What if I could stop asking, What's the point?

And start asking, What happens if...?

That little shift changed everything.

And it didn't require me to have a five-year plan, find my purpose, or move to a remote cabin in the woods.

It required me to get curious.

A life based more on curiosity than fear.

I believe you get one spin on this big, beautiful, ridiculous ball floating through space. One chance to find out what you love. What you're capable of. What makes you feel alive.

Yet many of us get so busy building, managing, and maintaining our lives that we forget to actually experience them.

We follow the rules. We do what makes sense. We stick with what we know. We tell ourselves we'll do the interesting thing later. When we have more money. More time. More certainty. When we've figured out exactly what we're doing.

But I will be the first one to tell you: later is not promised.

You can experiment anytime.

You can try something new. You can be terrible at it. You can decide you don't like it and try something else. You can reinvent yourself at 30. Or 50. Or 75. You can stop waiting for permission to enjoy the life you're already living.

And you don't have to blow up your entire existence to do it. You just have to be willing to find out what happens when you do things differently.

Oh, and there's actually a science to all of this.

It's called play.

And no, I'm not talking about mandatory office games, forced fun, or pretending we're all six years old again.

I'm talking about curiosity. Exploration. Experimentation. Following your interests without needing to know where they'll lead. Doing something for the experience of doing it, not just for what you'll get out of it.

Turns out, play isn't something we're supposed to grow out of. It's a fundamental part of being human. It helps us learn, connect, create, adapt, and discover new possibilities.

And when I finally found the science behind what I'd experienced on the road, I realized something:

I'd learned the art of play by living it.

Now I wanted to help other people do the same.

So I created Playstate.

Welcome to Playstate.

A place for people who are ready to stop going through the motions and start seeing what else is possible.

For the ones who have done everything they were supposed to do and are wondering what happens now.

For the ones in the messy middle of a big change.

For the ones who feel stuck, burned out, restless, or disconnected from the things that used to light them up.

And for the ones who aren't necessarily unhappy.

They're just curious.

Could life feel even better than this?

I think it's worth finding out.

Less managing your life. More living it.

COME TOGETHER

Group Coaching

A place to get curious, challenge old patterns, try new things, and figure out what you actually want next — alongside other people asking some of the same big questions.

A few ways we can get into this together.

GET OUT THERE

Retreats & Experiences

A change of scenery. New perspectives. Unexpected connections. Experiences designed to get you out of your head and into the world.

BRING ME IN

Speaking & Workshops

Big ideas, real stories, and a fresh perspective on how we experience our lives. I bring the science of play to stages, teams, and communities ready to rethink what's possible.

A few things I believe.

You don't need to know who you're becoming to give yourself permission to become.
Being bad at something is a perfectly good reason to keep doing it.
Your curiosity deserves more attention than your fear.
There's no prize for being the person who has everything figured out.
You can build a beautiful life and still want to experience it differently.
You don't need another self-improvement project. You need a life you're excited to participate in.
It's never too late to surprise yourself.

And perhaps most importantly:

You cannot think your way into a life you haven't lived.

You have to go find out.

So, what happens next?

Maybe you sign up for something.

Maybe you invite me to speak.

Maybe you read my story and start thinking about your own life a little differently.

Or maybe you close this tab and finally go do that thing you've been thinking about for ages.

I'd call any of those a pretty good start.

Because the best part?

It might not have happened yet.