Trauma Healing for Moms: How Losing 4 Babies, Surviving Cancer & Rebuilding Her Marriage Led Cristina Simmons to Help Women Own Their Stories
Featuring Cristina P. Simmons, MS, OTR/L, CTP | Bestselling Author, TEDx Speaker & Founder of Soul Story Collective
Some guests come on a podcast and share great information.
And then there are guests who come on and change something in you.
Cristina P. Simmons is the second kind.
When I came across Cristina’s story, I had to stop and sit with it. Not because it’s heavy — though parts of it are — but because of what she chose to do with it. Because of who she became on the other side.
This is not a story about surviving. This is a story about leading — yourself, your family, your calling — through every single thing life throws at you.
Who Is Cristina P. Simmons?
Cristina P. Simmons, MS, OTR/L, CTP is a bestselling author, TEDx speaker, trauma-informed occupational therapist, and writing coach. She’s the founder of Soul Story Collective — a full-service publishing company that helps women write, heal, and share their stories with the world.
Her book, Eat Your Feelings, hit #1 on Amazon in five categories including Christian Faith, Emotional & Mental Health, and Christian Marriage.
But before any of that — she is a wife of 27 years, a mom of three, and a woman who has walked through more fire than most of us will ever face.
A Story That Starts at the Beginning
Cristina grew up with a verbally abusive father — a childhood that quietly taught her to shrink, to people-please, and to believe her voice simply didn’t matter. She graduated college in December 1998 and married her husband two months later in February 1999.
They were young. They were in love. And they had no idea what was coming.
Early in their marriage, they discovered they carried a rare genetic syndrome that made it nearly impossible to carry healthy pregnancies to term. They lost their first daughter in March of 2002 — she lived for three days. Then a miscarriage. Then a second daughter in May of 2003. Then a third biological child.
Four losses. Devastating, unimaginable grief.
The Christmas Night Miracle
In the middle of that grief, Cristina wanted to cancel Christmas. She didn’t want to go to her husband’s family gathering and watch someone else’s new baby open presents. She was angry. She was exhausted. She was done.
But she went anyway.
And at 10 o’clock that Christmas night, they got the call. Twin girls had been born and were available for adoption.
“I only asked for one baby — and He gave me two.”
Those girls are now 22 years old. Born on Christmas Day. A miracle wrapped in surrender.
When Motherhood Redirected Everything
Four years later, Cristina and her husband adopted a son. At age four, he was diagnosed on the autism spectrum. In 2006, resources were scarce, waiting lists were long, and help was hard to find.
So Cristina did what she always does — she jumped.
At 39 years old, in the middle of raising three children, she went back to school to earn her master’s degree in occupational therapy. She drove an hour each way to Orlando for class, went straight to work, came home to kids and dinner and studying — and made straight A’s.
“I don’t know how I did it,” she laughed. “I have no idea.” But she did. Because her son needed her to. And because she was built for more.
The Body Always Keeps the Score
Before she could even start school, Cristina was diagnosed with a tumor growing from inside her femur bone. She faced the possibility of amputation. She had two major surgeries. She recovered.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it — the grief, the surgeries, the parenting, the graduate degree — her marriage broke. Her husband was unfaithful.
Cristina’s response to that moment is one of the most honest things I’ve ever heard:
“I was not holding up my end of the vows. I was so disassociated for so long. I was stuffing everything down and it was coming out in physical symptoms and sickness and anxiety. I didn’t have the energy for anything.”
— Cristina P. Simmons
She didn’t excuse it. But she owned her part. And they did the work. Twenty-seven years later, she calls their marriage fully restored — not just surviving, but genuinely restored.
What Functioning Depression Actually Feels Like
One of the most powerful moments in this conversation was when Cristina described what functioning depression feels like from the inside.
“It feels like autopilot. Like when you drive somewhere you’ve driven a hundred times and you get home and you don’t remember the drive. That was my life. I was doing all the things — taking the kids to school, making dinner, going to work — but I wasn’t there.”
She described falling asleep in the carpool line. Chronic pain. Brain fog. Destroyed gut health. Pouring everything into work and coming home completely empty.
Sound familiar? If it does — this episode is for you.
3 Things Every Mom Needs to Hear Right Now
Cristina came to Mommas Who LEAD with three specific messages — and none of them are the fluffy kind:
01
You have to take care of yourself before you can take care of anyone else.
Not as a cliché. As a clinical truth. Your nervous system dysregulation is literally contagious to your children. When mom is regulated, the whole room shifts.
02
There is always a lesson in the trials we face — but we have to be open to receive it.
Cristina’s secret? She’s always looking for miracles. “If I’m always looking for miracles, I’m bound to find one.”
03
Speak your truth out loud, the way you want it told.
Because if you don’t — someone else will. And they’ll get it wrong.
Soul Story Collective & Eat Your Feelings
Last year, Cristina wrote her family’s story in her self-help memoir Eat Your Feelings — and it hit #1 on Amazon in five categories. She also launched Soul Story Collective, a full-service publishing company where she helps women write and share their own stories through a trauma-informed, nervous-system-aware process.
She recently delivered a TEDx talk on nonverbal communication and emotional intelligence — a topic that runs through everything she teaches. How the energy you carry into a room is your leadership. How your body communicates before you ever say a word. How becoming aware of that — and regulating it — is what separates leaders who inspire from leaders who exhaust.
“If I can do a TEDx,” she said, “anybody can. I was the girl who would not get up in front of anybody and say anything — probably even 10 years ago.”
The One Message Every Mom Needs to Hear
At the end of our conversation, I asked Cristina what one message she believes more moms need to hear right now.
Her answer was simple. And it will stay with me.
“Self-care is not selfish. You really do need to take time for yourself — because you will be a better mama, and you will lead more powerfully, when you take care of yourself first.”
— Cristina P. Simmons
Listen to the Full Episode
This conversation is one of the most powerful ones we’ve had on Mommas Who LEAD. Cristina doesn’t give you the cleaned-up version of her story. She gives you the real one. And in doing so, she gives every one of us permission to do the same.
🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Connect with Cristina:
- 🌐 Website: cristinapsimmons.com
- 📷 Instagram: @cristinapsimmons
- 📖 Book: Eat Your Feelings on Amazon
- 🌟 Soul Story Collective: cristinapsimmons.com
Keep leading, keep growing, and keep believing in what’s possible.
— Laura Carofino, Mommas Who LEAD
