Sport! More sport, until you die…

The young sportswoman has become a woman; she is now in her fifties, and her salt and pepper hair has not erased anything of that disarming smile. She has this habit of bursting into laughter at all times! We feel very close to her, as if appeased. Her blue eyes cannot betray anything, and her loving and grounded presence bears witness to an extraordinary experience…

Who would believe that she was the most decorated athlete at the 1991 Canada Games, which propelled her after a terrible accident at her first Olympic Games in Albertville (the team won gold), that she won a silver medal at the Lillehammer Olympic Games and a bronze in Nagano? Not to mention her medal-winning stint in Beijing, Hamar and eight world championships.

Christine has been doing sports since she was six or seven years old. She has practiced swimming, diving, figure skating, judo, fencing, hockey, gymnastics and even ballet. And there was also music, piano and violin… on the side ! “As far back as I can remember, I have always done sports. Like my twin. My mother finally asked us to choose two: I took figure skating and gymnastics. But I was terrified of the beam! Until one day, my brother came home and said: Christine, you have to try speed skating, it’s hot ! And I fell in love.”

Until the accident. That fateful moment right in the middle of the selection process for the 1991 Canada Games, at the very beginning of her career: she fell, caught her teammate and the sharp blade of her skate split her buttock even as her heart was pumping a hundred miles an hour. “It was like a steak on ice! The skate had cut my buttock. There was blood everywhere. I almost died. I had three blood transfusions and a hundred and twenty-five stitches.”

Learn, discover and get back up

The accident nearly cost her her life, and at the same time had launched her into her first Olympic Games (she would go to Albertville as a substitute). And incredibly, she pulled through. She got back up. Less than a year later in 1993, she won gold with her teammates at the World Sprint Speed Skating Championship!

Then in 1994, it was the Olympics again. But in Lillehammer, she fell again; this time, it was her ego that took a hit. "Falling in front of millions of people... a bad girl comes for my confidence! That medal tasted of guilt for a long time. We could have possibly won gold if I hadn't fallen."

But the athlete still doesn't give up... She won medal after medal at the 3000m relay world championships the same year, and the following ones. And two years later, won bronze at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. She continued her career until 2001.

The least we can say is that Christine has had some tough times to climb! Not feeling sorry for herself, not getting discouraged. Hours and hours of relentless training. She learned that "falling is part of the game ". A lesson that she continues to apply today, because every entrepreneur knows that they will experience failures, and that they will have to learn to get through them.

It was his mental strength that was the strongest. "The public fall at the Olympics made my ego work hard. I wanted to put that behind me. For a long time, I thought I was the one holding the team back. We had Sylvie Daigle with us, but it takes several people to win a relay!"

With the first accident that physically confined me to the hospital bed, I discovered something very precious: the power of self-healing and touch. I would run my hands over my wounds with a specific intention. The doctors just couldn't believe my progress! " Quite a revelation.

Christine always had a little spiritual side, but it was not yet fully assumed. She had been attracted at one point by massage therapy. "With high-level sport, we were lucky to have paid classes and I had followed the training." But it was without knowing that she would really use it years later.

She occasionally gives lectures in schools. One day, friends, gathered in a collective of therapists, offer her to join them as a massage therapist. Christine tries her luck, and falls in love again.

Reborn to oneself

She opened her office, gained clients, by word of mouth. "I never said I had been to the Olympics! In fact, at that point, I really wanted to move on. I knew that my touch had a healing power, and even today, I want to be recognized for the quality of my care, not my past medals."

Her massages are gentle, and often accompanied by channeling, these messages that she hears, transmitted by beings of light. She also sings, and offers sound treatments with her crystal bowls, her drum, her handpan , her Tibetan cymbals, her koshi chime, her crystal xylophone and her didgeridoo. She offers spiritual retreats and does not rule out the possibility of giving conferences in schools or businesses. "The Return to Self" is her favorite theme, the one she fully embodies.

Christine learned to trust herself. “It took all my little change! Sometimes, I doubt and my anxiety kicks in again! But I just have to reconnect with my essence, with who I really am, to start again – because I know that it is my path, the one that I choose consciously.”

In sports as in her business, Christine is ambitious, passionate and courageous. "I love sports, but in fact, I realize that I am not a competitor at heart! I even felt bad about overtaking others in individual races! What I loved most was being surrounded by my teammates, my friends." Today, she continues to preserve the team spirit: "there are several of us therapists together, this bond is important to me, even if I have to learn to show off my strengths alone. And it's funny to say, but I consider that I work as a team with my clients, we walk together, this initiatory journey is done as a pair!" Sport has also taught her to practice a particular muscle, in the service of self-realization: that of daring to challenge yourself and step out of your comfort zone to achieve your dreams.

The ability to persevere and determination have remained anchored in her. Instead of performance, she now leaves room for balance. Despite herself, being better than others often comes back to haunt her: "Performance no longer has a place in my life, but I invariably compare myself, and I often underestimate myself. I remain humble, I continue to learn." Good leaders do that. And even if it is not medals that she collects, it is the well-being of her clients that gives meaning to what she does today.

The most important thing, in business as in sport?