Kristen Thomasino: Investing in Self Love

As individuals, we struggle with many aspects of our daily lives. No matter how talented or how dedicated to the goal you are pursuing, life will spring its challenges and throw crunch moments your way, which will either make or break you. Many of these challenges stem from our own sense of inadequacy, while some are planted by the society around us. Struggle with fears or imperfections are pelted at us by social media these days, creating a mental barrier and leading to exhaustion, self-image problems, depression, and addictions. No matter what the struggle is, the path to personal change begins with conscious effort, which includes persistence, becoming your own guide, and making efforts to move forward. Kristen Thomasino, author, and founder of Thomasino Media, LLC, and Buddytown Consulting, LLC, is passionately helping many create positive outcomes to support their journey through difficult times with grace and ease.    

Challenging Early Life

Kristen Thomasino engaged in industry-leading work as a revenue growth strategist, sales leader, and data scientist for more than 14 years of her career before she found herself on an unprecedented path. She suffered from a severely debilitating condition called Fibromyalgia and met with an unexpected accident when she fell 15 "feet" of stairs in 2016, leaving her struggling in her late 30s. Her life was ridden with full body weakness, pain, and overwhelming brain fog. The doctor told her that the road to recovery would be painful and may take years. Not the one to give up, Kristen battled excruciating pain and setbacks as she embarked on a long journey to restore her strength with the help of physical therapy.  

Around 66 weeks in the clinic and more than 1500 intramuscular stimulation needles later, Kristen was back on her feet. But the most important thing that kept her going through all these adversities was her optimistic mindset and commitment to recovery. Kristen quit her successful career in 2019 to work on a self-funded social-good healthcare advocacy project that focuses on capturing her rehabilitation experience and helping others who are going through the same pain in their lives.   

Chief Buddy Officer

In 2020, Kristen started getting a lot of requests for help from organizations which led her to start Buddytown Consulting, LLC, the next year. Being a business professional for more than two decades, she understands that the choice to change your business processes or make a move to improve your quality of life is a big one. Kristen Thomasino and her team help evaluate the change required to re-engineer your organization or life to achieve success. She wishes to be a “buddy” for people in pain, to hold their hand and eliminate negativity from their lives. She believes knowing the core of a person is the key to creating successful, peaceful, and prosperous communities, and her team generates partnerships through strategic consulting and networking.  

Knowing what is happening inside is important to tackle what is happening on the surface, and Kristen and her team start off by getting to know the client first. Some of the services that the platform offers include Online access to materials Think Tanks that review opportunities for change and suggest ways to take productive actions for positive outcomes, and the Social Good Experiment, which provides tools that enable people to be their own Data Scientists. She draws inspiration from how she led her day-to-day life while dealing with a devastating health crisis and uses those tools to help others. Kristen has been fortunate to be a part of many tours with non-profit organizations that promote social good and believes those experiences can help further her mission.  

Action for Positive Outcomes

Kristen helps others find their path to recovery through her publishing company, Thomasino Media, LLC. The company offers a bouquet of content, including a series on good social art, public speaking engagements, books, and a documentary series that showcases the inspiring story of her healing from a debilitating health condition. With an emphasis on “Peace, Love, Health, and Prosperity”, Kristen has turned her focus towards advocating health and wellness to encourage the fibromyalgia and healthcare communities to act. She has also partnered with the Support Fibromyalgia Network, Looms for Lupus, and other similar organizations to inspire patients and reduce their suffering to improve their quality of life.   

Kristen feels more and more people need to communicate how they feel and be who they are without being bogged down by the fear of judgment. Self-expression and feeling okay in one’s skin are paramount, and that will help the mind focus on important aspects rather than indulging in negativity and hopelessness.    

Power of Words

Kristen engaged in intensive research in the fields of environment and technology in a quest to reduce her suffering and believes her story needs to be told for the greater good. With 20 books under her toe already, Kristen feels there is something for everyone under her umbrella of stories and wishes to put a smile on people. Everybody is a product of their own input and suffers in some way or the other. So, Kristen wants people to get together and help alleviate the pain of others rather than pulling each other down.   

Be Good, Do Good  

It was hard for Kristen to go through a life-altering situation, and she could power through it with the help of her community and the amazing people who held her hand throughout. “Life will always throw challenges your way, but the most important thing is to not cave in and keep moving forward. The biggest thing for humanity is the ability to transform. If we focus on discipline, rigor, accountability, and self-love, we can change the world. Spread awareness to fix problems and support each other to get through tough situations in life,” Kristen said while speaking with WomLEAD Magazine.