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Truly Kristi

Creative Alchemy by Kristi Casey

My mission: Help people be their best selves, do their best work, and live their best lives. I’m a creative alchemist, transmuting pain into the power to change.

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Featured Post

Are you a fish trying to climb a tree?

Hey Reader! I’ve always loved learning about how other cultures approach things we take for granted. Take, for example, school. In America, we often get siloed into tracks of learning and a mindset that focuses on what we can’t do. Oh, I’m bad at math. I can’t spell. I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket . . . Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned about an educational approach in Japan that emphasized the opposite. If you were strong in verbal skills and weaker in math, they might put you...

6 days ago • 1 min read

Hey Reader! At dinner tonight, a friend asked us what we wanted to be when we were little. I thought I'd be the only one who could say I still do now what I wanted when I was seven: make art, write books, sing, and act. But I was wrong. "I wanted to do disaster relief," my friend said. "And in a way, I still do." No, she doesn't work for FEMA, she's an events team leader. We all laughed but had to agree there were similarities. Anyone who's worked a show knows there's plenty of...

13 days ago • 1 min read

Hey Reader! As I prepare the table for Passover Seder, my mind mulls over the story we will tell later tonight: Once upon a time, there was a pharaoh who enslaved and tried to eradicate the Jewish people. Eventually, his tyranny was overthrown. We escaped from Egypt and were sustained by miraculous means until we found our way home. My family likes to joke that Jewish celebrations often go like this: Someone tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat! But beneath the joke, there’s a deeper...

21 days ago • 1 min read

Hey Reader! It's never easy to feel like you're on the outside looking in. They say there's strength in numbers, but what happens when members of your community turn against you? I don't remember the first time a girl chose to attack me rather than support me, but it was a common enough occurrence that by high school I preferred hanging out with boys. It was years before I realized what was happening. And even longer before I realized how much I valued being in the company of other women. But...

27 days ago • 2 min read

Hey Reader! When I was a kid, I wanted to graduate high school at 15, win my first Oscar by 18, and then spend my adulthood winning a Nobel prize, publishing some novels and maybe curing cancer in my spare time. I wasn’t afraid to dream big. But somewhere along the way, probably the first time someone laughed at my ambitions, I started feeling like maybe I shouldn’t dream so large. “Be realistic,” said a lot of well-meaning folks. And so, over the years, my dreams got small. But here’s the...

about 1 month ago • 1 min read

Hey Reader! Last year, I went on a leadership retreat that combined difficult physical challenges with philosophical discussions. The lengths to which people went out of their way to help each other through the physical and mental obstacles touched me deeply. I enjoyed the work, the group and what I learned about myself. However, I noticed a disconnect between the stated aims of the retreat and what the leader chose for us to read and discuss around the campfire every night. As we hiked out,...

about 1 month ago • 2 min read

Hey Reader! This morning began with an interview. A creativity explorer wanted to learn about my creative process. He peppered me with questions: But what is it mean to get unstuck? How does it feel? What is the benefit of this practice? I’d never thought about creativity in this way. I liked the challenge of figuring out how to articulate it. Creativity is bigger than ‘flow,’ because there is a constancy to it. It connects me to my source of inspiration. It moves through me, illuminating and...

about 2 months ago • 2 min read

Hey Reader! It’s so easy to get caught up in the rhythm of doing things at a pace that’s out of synch with our normal rhythms or require a drastic shift of priorities. Like when loved ones make plans without telling us . . . Family members fall ill . . . Kids forget to bring things they need at school . . . Bosses require reports on things we haven’t started . . . There are a million last-minute wrenches we may be asked to field during the course of a week. Saying ‘no’ to most of these...

about 2 months ago • 1 min read

Hey Reader! The jonquils and cherry blossoms triumphantly assure us an end to winter is near. They brave the fluctuating temperatures, and without letting frost or heavy rains diminish them, they punctuate the sky, asserting their will to live. So, too, do seeds we’ve planted burst forth. Just as we think we’ll never see a break in the storm, something vital emerges from the casing of our soul to reach skyward. As the creative sap rises within us, we birth beauty and joy. In this way, we...

2 months ago • 1 min read

Hey Reader! I think something must be in the air. If I gave chapters of my life titles, the past two weeks should be known as A Comedy of Errors. It all started when I lost the only key to my car. A kind neighbor drove me and my kid to school so they wouldn’t be late. Just in case I couldn’t find my keys before school ended, I packed their chorus clothes and arranged for a friend to drive them to their evening concert. When the keys failed to reveal themselves, she drove my kid home. The next...

2 months ago • 5 min read
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