Meet Krista Xiomara | Spiritual Entrepreneur & Podcast Host

We had the good fortune of connecting with Krista Xiomara and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Krista, how has your background shaped the person you are today?

I was born in Carlsbad, New Mexico. At the tender age of 1, I was thrust into foster care and shuffled through homes until the age of 5, when I was adopted by a family in El Paso, Texas.

In foster care, I was met with the harsh reality that love was not available to me because I was a rental of sorts. And that since I was something that would eventually go away, I could be used and abused however the foster parents decided.

In my adoptive family, I was quickly indoctrinated into a cultic, zealous, religious experience. There was no discussion for opting out of this experience. It was forced and it was expected.

When I think about where I come from and the impact it had on me, these two starting points feature most prominently in who I became as a fully formed and integrated adult. In many ways my life​, this present moment is an answer to my past, a living and breathing response to my experience growing up.

In my late 20’s, a longing for answers to big questions began to percolate within me.

From the perspective of my religious experience, I began to see cracks in the dogma, the clergy, God, and the community. I was constantly presented with unexplained contradictions, loopholes, and justifications for bad behaviors and poorly presented doctrine. When challenged, I was met with condescension, misogyny, punishment, judgment, and contempt.

​One of the hardest religious teachings I could never grasp was the cultural ​directive of “othering” anyone outside of the religion who posed a perceived threat to doctrine and shared beliefs. I speak often about learning in church, first who to hate and then learning who to love and always in both instances, love should be conditional. I could never reconcile in my mind this directive against what some of the religious text and canon said about love and our shared humanity.

At this same time, questions about the extent of damage that had occurred in my early childhood began to feel urgent to address. I spent ​much of my adulthood suppressing and avoiding having to look at the ​source of the war within me, that I ​knew began partially because of my abusive beginnings.

These two things together solidified my internal separation and self-hatred. As a young child who was abandoned and abused you literally have to separate from reality to survive the horrors of abuse. Whatever shred of self-love and self-connection my five-year-old self had when she was adopted was quickly reclaimed by religion and the idea that we are born inherently sinful, that women cannot be trusted, and that somewhere in the sky exists a punitive trio.

As the big questions and the quest to heal my internal separation began to intersect, I knew I had to leave my religion of origin.

This remains one of the most lonely and isolating experiences I’ve ever endured. The blurred lines that exist between one’s family, friends, and community if they share the same faith practices and beliefs inevitably means you lose everything all at once.

The more technical term when somebody goes outside the bounds of their religious experience is called ​severing, and there could not be a more suitable term to describe ​this feeling.

So, me and my severed-self went in search of a different way of being, with less judgment, rigidity, and separateness.

My journey would take me around the world several times in pursuit of understanding our need to organize and create meaning through religion, philosophy, spirituality, and earth-based practices. I found a lot of universal truths and the truth that many religions have stolen their practices from other cultures and peoples.

Then​, I met the Buddha in text, who gave me a path home to myself through loving-kindness, self-awareness, compassion, tolerance, and acceptance. The Buddha points us back to ourselves and reminds us of our own inner knowing and intelligence. He wants us to be curious, to question, and most importantly not to trust him in his own words but to discover for ourselves what truth lives in us and what truth finds us in the world.

I would come to embrace the idea of alchemy along my healing journey.

With the deep understanding that in order to fully integrate and remove all internal separation nothing could be discarded. That my life experiences, pain, and pleasures had things to teach me that could transform me.

Specifically looking at the painful and negative experiences of my past, I learned there was value in looking back with compassion for the people involved. That we all, in our own ways are limited, flawed, and doing the best we can.

This was not an absolution for how I was harmed, or careless, toxic positivity. It was an exercise in self-love, resiliency, self-respect, and forgiveness.

We are designed with so much power and strength, and some of us encounter these two traits in the midst of painful experiences and we have to trust ourselves so deeply that our internal resources will see us to the other side of our emotional reckoning.

This exercise was also a way to disrupt all the stories I told myself, about the way other people had treated me and how I valued myself​.  Instead of looking externally for validation and value I could now look from within.

At the end of my healing journey, feeling ​deeply empowered. I knew that I wanted to help others find their way home. ​I​ wanted to provide a safe space for people leaving their religion of origin, or discovering spirituality for the first time​. Also, to offer support to anyone with a curious and open mind who was interested in developing in their human journey. I decided to start a podcast called “I’m Awake!” Now What?” The name of the show, a nod to the experience many of us who expand our consciousness and mind, ask after a great awakening.

This show has grown over the last 7 years to welcome some of the great minds of our times in the areas of psychology, spirituality, technology, commerce, early childhood development, film, activism, environmental stewardship, and animal rights.

Everything about my life and how I am choosing to live and navigate the world might feel like it is in direct contrast with my upbringing and where I came from. That would be the one-dimensional view to take.

It is both a contrast and compliment to my past.

I am more because of what I experienced and endured, and because it didn’t break me. It gave me the right kind of fuel to discover and understand myself and humanity better. I wanted to believe that a kinder, more regenerative place existed inside of me despite all the harm and hardship. I wanted to live a soft and peaceful life, never inflicting the same type of pain I experienced because first I would not inflict it upon myself through negative dialogue or perceived internal separation.

Coming through my life experiences, I have become a safe person which is just the person I needed when I was young.

I am who people entrust ​both their pain and their pride, to share intimate and inspiring stories to thousands on a weekly basis. I’ve given voice to a segment of society that I thought only I may be a part of.

I’ve helped honor other people’s ​lives, with my particular brand of compassion, curiosity, and openness that was cultivated in response to my upbringing and in service of my own evolution.

What should our readers know about your business?

I received my BA in Healthcare Administration from Eastern Washington University and quickly found solid footing in the healthcare industry. Part way through career I realized I had a desire to make my own way, entrepreneurially. I started a consulting business to help physician’s build ​ethical and financially profitable research arms of their practices. There were many challenges and learning opportunities that stretched me as ​an individual. I had to solve a lot of problems and I had to find creative solutions to help support my clients and their long term goals. This work exists in a highly regulated environment, which required technical training and education to ensure compliance and quality was always at the forefront of the guidance and direction I was giving.

I would not know it at the time when I started my podcast, but all this experience would lend itself to helping me create my current business.

In 2018 when the podcast first aired, I originally thought it would be a passion project built on having conversations that helped the collective and spark new ideas around our personal development, healing, and spirituality. As I mastered the technical and interviewing aspects of podcasting, I naturally felt inclined to do more and explore how far I could stretch myself. I love learning and I love trying new things.

At the height of the pandemic I founded a media company called LightCasting and began building it out in response to the challenges I faced in podcasting. I wanted to bring advertisers aboard and more widely know and popular guests. Since 2020, I have steadily been creating arms of LightCasting that include marketing, advertising, voice acting, podcast and media consulting, podcasts, and public relations.

The two biggest lesson I’ve learned along the way, were about myself. I discovered 1) My desire to learn drives me more than any other motivating factor and 2) I have an innate and natural inclination to lead and help others, and I do this from a space of integrity, honesty, and curiosity.

What I want people to know about my brand LightCasting is my intention was to cast literal light into world, through creating inspiring content, ideas, and products that add value to to the human experience.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?

I wouldn’t be where I am, without the support and teachings of Yasodhara Ashram that was founded by Swami Radha Sivananda. As for a specific individual who mentored and encouraged me, I would like to credit spiritual psychologist Billy Lee Myers, Jr., He took me under his wing and taught me everything technical about podcasting and we have shared many moments of contemplation on life’s big questions.​ Lastly, to my loving and supportive partner Graham. Who listens to every piece of content I create and enthusiastically supports all my endeavors.

Website: www.iamkristaxiomara.com
www.ianwpodcast.com

Instagram: @iamkristaxiomara, @ianwpodcast, @lightcastingnetwork

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@LightCastingNetwork

Image Credits
Kundalini Photo and Brown top photo: Chelsea Jeter.