No need to ask
Astoria resident
publishes debut book
Where to buy the book
BY JANAE EASLON
‘You Don’t Need Permission: Finding your path
to a purely authentic life’ is available to purchase
online at christinaellis.com/book-ydnp.
Astoria resident Christina Ellis wears
many hats.
She is a sculptor, business coach, para-
glider, mother and nature connoisseur. With
the release of her debut book, “You Don’t
Need Permission: Finding your path to a
purely authentic life,” she also is now an
author.
In the book, Ellis shares thoughts she
has gathered based on her life. The book
captures what it means to live through “It,”
and how women are capable of taking back
their time and energy. Ellis takes inspira-
tion from self-help author Brené Brown and
writer Cheryl Strayed, inspiring women
to listen to themselves and pursue their
passions.
“I don’t have degrees to sit on and I
don’t have theories to espouse. But what
I do have is a lot of real life experience,
both mine and people that I talk to all day,
every day,” Ellis said. “Those experiences
became this sort of conversation that I
wanted to have with women to say, ‘Hey,
are you looking at this?’ There’s a real
power in ownership, like owning your deci-
sions and owning your values and standing
up for what you believe in. It may or may
not be right. That’s not for anybody else to
judge but how freeing is it to be able to say,
‘This is me, this is who I am.’”
In the beginning of the book, readers are
taken along Ellis’ journey of “living with
intention,” an ethos that has always stuck
with Ellis, she said.
“Living with intention is not like you
work, work, work, or I should spend less
time on social media,” she said. “That is not
what I talk about. I’m talking about taking a
look at the choice you have to make on how
you want your day to look like and what
you want your life to look like. And then do
those things that will make your life get to
that point. Say you want to be a writer and
you don’t do anything to be a writer. You’re
lying to yourself somewhere along the way.
And what I’m saying is let’s get rid of it.
Let’s dig into that lie. Let’s fi gure out what
that is. And either remove it or decide that
you’re not going to be a writer.”
“But whatever you choose to do, let’s
do it with intentionality,” she continued.
“Most of my clients have kids and I had
kids. People always say, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s
the best time. Don’t let it slip away.’ And
people go, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ And guess
what they do, they let it slip away. And you
can’t get that time back. And so what I’m
saying is be intentional in the beginning so
that you actually live your life the way you
See Page 5
Christina Ellis spends her time doing many activities, including sculpting. Pictured are three sculptures she created.
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Christina Ellis