Resilient Minds, Flourishing Lives

Hello, I’m Cristina—a wife, mother, and attorney who calls San Antonio, Texas home, though my childhood was shaped by the vibrant cultures of Caracas, Venezuela, Baghdad, Iraq, and Algiers, Algeria. After two decades of practicing family law, I began to notice less wellness and more disease in my own body. For 18 years, I’ve lived with lupus, and in recent years, I’ve also faced diagnoses of chronic kidney disease and coronary artery disease. While I am deeply grateful for my profession, I realized it was slowly taking a toll on my health, and I reached a turning point: I saw that I was no longer thriving, but merely surviving. Always curious and a lifelong learner, I turned to research and discovered the world of Applied Positive Psychology. Needless to say, It wasn’t the path I imagined for myself —but with my natural optimism and sense of humor (because, really, could lawyering and positive psychology be any more different?), I decided to dive in. Today, my goal is to live a joyful, grateful life, and my purpose is to help you unlock your innate resilience—so that you don’t have to resign yourself to survival, but can fully embrace joy, perseverance, grit, and your own character strengths to learn how to “struggle well” throughout your life journey.