We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Love Atiya a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Love Atiya, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

Thank you so much for having me. Although my name is Love Atiya, it should really be “Risk Atiya” because my life has been FULL of nothing but taking risks and reaping the rewards and lessons from those risks.

It all started when my parents took the greatest risk by unschooling me when I was around 6 years old. This is where they introduced me to interest based learning and positively changed my life forever.

Some of my personal risks include volunteering at a local Day Care at the age of 15 and being hired as a teacher less than a year later.

-Moving to Atlanta when I was 22, having no idea where I’d be living until the week before I moved but knowing I needed to be in Atlanta by a certain date to participate in the Cynthia Bailey Model Search.

-Quitting my job where my mental health was actively deteriorating and committing to running my vegan hair and skin care company “Ethereal By Love Atiya” full time.

-Organizing and hosting 9 protests against the Universoul Circus when I was 19 and then becoming the face of “Circus With Animal Acts Protests” and traveling across the country spreading awareness was definitely a risk.

-Starting a Pleasure Positive Podcast with no previous podcasting experience or training & talking about everything i’ve learned from every sexual experience I’ve ever had.

The list is truly endless but my biggest risk yet has been moving out of the country after quitting my job, learning a new language, starting a production company & working for myself full time.

Putting my mental health first sounded so risky when I first considered it and now that i’ve committed to putting myself first, I see how big the risk would’ve been if I HADN’T taken care of myself mentally and spiritually.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My main inspiration behind everything I do is animal liberation. I’ve been an animal activist since I could first talk. I believe growing up as a sensitive child allowed me to be more aware and compassionate about certain things than your average human.

When I was younger I used to say “I just want to be famous so that I can help save animals, because people listen to celebrities.” I just wanted to have a platform where I could spread awareness and people would listen and care.

Now, I make sure my activism is in everything I do.

On my youtube channel my tagline is “Don’t forget to be kind to yourself and be kind to animals.” which also ties in my passion for radical self love.

I created my vegan and cruelty free hair and skin care line “Ethereal By Love Atiya” as a tool to help me enhance my relationship with self love and self care.

I always felt like if a product wasn’t cruelty free, it meant it undeniably included cruelty somewhere along the creation process and that was something I couldn’t stand for.

I was sure to be very intentional when naming my products such as my “Revitalizing cleanser and glow enhancer” or my “Illuminating and Healing Serum”. I want you to know what my products will do and how they’ll help improve your relationship with yourself.

Ethereal’s goal is to increase the self love of everyone who has the chance to experience one of my many handmade products. Not only is my mission to help my clients love and respect themselves but it’s also to inspire them to reconnect with the earth and all of Its healing properties.

If anyone knows how difficult self love and self care can be, it’s me, that’s one of the reasons I changed my name to LOVE Atiya. I was literally trying to manifest more love into my life.

For me, an imperative part of my self care and self love includes self pleasure, which is where my Pleasure Positivity comes in!

My first viral video was one where I talked about the things I wished I would’ve known before sharing my virginity with a partner at the age of 24. I also shared the story on how my mom buying me my first vibrator when I was 16 helped me create such a positive relationship with self pleasure and self exploration.

When I first started posting my sex positive content, people seemed to want to deem me as a “Sexologist” and a “Sex Expert” which brought on A LOT of pressure and expectations I felt like I couldn’t keep up with.

Another thing that brought me major anxiety was the censorship I was experiencing on social media. Not only were my sex positive posts not being seen but posts about my Black Owned Self Care Business were getting 1-5 views a post.

My journey started with me transparently and authentically sharing lessons I’d learned and creating my podcast “The Love Atiya Experience” really helped me recreate this safe space I felt I had once created on social media.

On my podcast I’m able to freely share about the peaks and the valleys of my life, healing from trauma, lessons I’ve learned though embarrassing moments, hilarious story times and more.

I know that my inner child is so proud of how much I’m stepping back into my unapologeticness. I am actively watching myself grow from being my own worst enemy, to my own best friend.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

A story that illustrates my resilience is definitely the story of the creation of my very first product.

The formula to my first product, my “Ethereal Hair Growth Oil” was created when I was 17 years old and struggling with balding edges. I’d had a traumatic beauty salon experience after having my first weave installed and a chemical creation and malpractice left me edgeless.

I went to the beauty supply store and bought more mini oils than I could imagine. I did extensive research and created a 7 ingredient all natural formula which not only grew my hairline back but also grew my self confidence.

I was in awe of how ingredients from the earth could solve something that could’ve been so detrimental to my self esteem and knew I had to share this same knowledge with others.

A lot of people don’t know this but all of my products are created to heal something that I needed healed or to fulfill a need of a friend or client.

For instance, my brother lost his beard due to a horrible reaction he had to another beard oil. He asked for my help, I created my beard growth oil and after months of testing he tried it and now has a beard that’s fuller than ever.

A similar story is about the day I learned that a facial clay I was using from another brand had lead in it. I did some research and learned about the healing properties of Rhassoul clay and was able to heal my acne that I’d been struggling with for YEARS!

I am so thankful for my trauma because it lead me to having the best relationship with myself, my hair and my skin!

I found that in the natural hair and skin care space the missing element was that a lot of products simply didn’t work. Thanks to months of research and willing human testers I’ve been able to create life changing products as well as promote self love through the realm of self care.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The lesson that I had to unlearn was that there was someone out there who had to give me an opportunity.

This was FAR from the case.

I AM the opportunity!

This reminds me of the time I wasn’t booking any lead roles. I’d moved to Atlanta to act and felt like I wasn’t having any luck getting booked as anything other than an extra. A year and a half after being in Atlanta and being tired of begging people to see my worth, I created a web series “Pure The Series” which is an 85% true story about my love life. I cast myself as the lead and created an entire production company.

The thing that was holding me back the entire time was ME. I wasn’t seeing my light so how could I expect others to? Now I see my light and it’s so ETHEREAL I don’t have the time to care if anyone else sees it because I’m too busy reveling in my own light.

We were taught by society that we have to wait for someone to give us the diamonds but we are the diamonds, we’re the diamond mine, we’re the whole damn EARTH.

Life changed when I started creating the opportunities I thought I needed others to give to me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.loveatiya.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loveatiya/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theloveatiyaexperience/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/love-atiya-134563141/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/iloveatiya
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@iloveatiya/videos
• Other: Podcast: https://theloveatiyaexperience.buzzsprout.com/share Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iloveatiya?lang=en