It’s easy to assign fear to death. It’s unknown, mysterious with no second chances. I’ve faced death. More than once. And here is what I learned. It’s not death that I feared. It was life. Mortality is the excuse to avoiding life, because it’s so out of control. I don’t think it has anything to do with mortality. I don’t think we fear mortality. Perhaps we think we do. We fear living. We fear living, because we are unresolved in our soul. And to resolve it is too painful. To resolve it means to live. Christina Helena is a speaker, performer, writer and self-responsibility revolutionary based in New York City. She is redefining and modernizing the stigma behind trauma and pain with one simple thought: Your scar is the sexiest thing about you.

At nineteen years old, she became one of the youngest Pancreatic Cancer survivors in the world and four months later she graduated with her Bachelor’s degree in Communication Arts from Marymount Manhattan College. Christina knows the physical and emotional toll that our scars have on our self-worth and ability to love ourselves. Given six months to live Christina asked herself: “What do you want more, your potential or to run away from the pain?” Christina trained at LAMDA, The London Academy of Music & Drama where she earned a Master’s in Classical Performance. A couple years later, she studied philosophy and theology at the University of Philosophical Research earning a Master’s degree in Consciousness Studies. With a Master’s degree in Consciousness Studies, she offers a refreshing and captivating take on the soul and consciousness from a philosophical perspective. Her two Master’s degrees birthed SCAR, an autobiographical solo show currently in development for an off-Broadway production, to be directed by the award-winning director Larry Moss.

SCAR is about redemption, against all odds she trusted her intuition. It saved her life. Thirty-eight characters. One woman. One stage. Most recently she played the lead role of Girl, in Petrol Station at the Kennedy Center in D.C., a story about the violent reality of surviving a civil war. In the fall of 2019, Christina will play Teresa in the John Patrick Shanley production of Italian American Reconciliation in an off-Broadway production in New York City. As a highly sought-after speaker on personal development and identity, she is helping others re-shape their mindset so they can become so cemented into their truth that no one can knock them over. Her empowerment blog, My SCAR is Sexy is a bi-weekly reminder that we are human. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx