Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Charlotte Louis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Charlotte thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
SenterME has been in the making since I was six years old. It was birthed from the determination of a little girl to create space for love in a world where she didn’t experience a lot of love. I’m absolutely sure I am not the only person in the world who had a tough childhood. However, my imagination was free! I would often imagine that I had a house that was full of children feeling loved and enjoying themselves. As I got older, life did not become kinder and my emotional development was disrupted by recurring traumas of sexual abuse and toxic relationships. Yet, as a young adult, this vision to build a safe space to experience yourself on an intimate level drove me to Charlotte, NC. It was there, alone in a new city that the consequences of emotional unwellness were amplified. In and out of toxic and abusive relationships, people-pleasing, shrinking myself, negative self-love talk, depression, and anxiety. My life was rich in opportunities to truly see myself and expand, heal, and evolve from survival mode in the form of difficult, heavy, and uncomfortable emotions. But the toughest part about knowing what you don’t know, seeing what you’ve never seen, and feeling what you won’t allow yourself to feel is that these opportunities will continue to present themselves over and over again until you decide to embrace them and challenge yourself to journey beyond the conditioned comfort of survival. In my journey, I have witnessed emotional unwellness disconnect my mind from the rest of my body, limit my potential professionally and personally, negatively impact my mental and physical health, and fuel the continuance of generational trauma when I became a mother. A few years ago I found myself in the darkness that is inevitable when you are showing up for everyone but yourself, feeling pressure to be the ‘strong friend’, build a successful career, be a self-sacrificing mother, and still find part of yourself to give to your community. In the depths of darkness, I was somehow inspired to surrender to my light, the unconditional love for self. Prioritizing my emotional wellness has grounded me in the knowing of who I am and my design to express, expand, and evolve. I exist in healthy and supportive relationships, I move from a space of self-preservation and abundance, I am limitless, I am secure, and the trust I have in myself deepens regularly. Emotional wellness is not a luxury, it is a birthright and when I came to know this, I felt the responsibility of purpose to create a clear and easily accessible path to optimal emotional wellness and stress relief for women professionals and entrepreneurs by providing immersive self-love support. This is the story behind the mission of SenterME.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I enjoy life on purpose! I love good music, good food, good people, and advocating for radical self-love. I can re-educate on self-love all day, every day but you can catch me live every weekday at 7a et on Instagram and Facebook doing just that. From Monday Meditation to ME First Friday, SenterME is committed to inspiring women to get creative in self-love and experience greater daily fulfillment. SenterME is a specially curated online wellness center that helps women professionals and entrepreneurs cultivate authenticity, self-compassion, and transformative growth. We offer memberships that give these women access to a community that understands them and a safe space to expand even if that means releasing and uprooting. Burnout, losing yourself, and survival mode become a thing of the past at SenterME as it is our vision to use our innovative wellness approach to reveal self-love as an essential component of professional advancement and entrepreneurial success. You don’t have to be a member to join our weekly and monthly virtual events but our members are rewarded for taking up space. Whether attending a weekly Keep It R.E.A.L. Group Coaching & Journaling session, a class, or 1:1 coaching, SenterME members earn Santi points that they can redeem for incredible rewards such as a free guest pass to a pop-up retreat, a free 1:1 coaching session, or freebies in our Self-Love Bar. We currently working towards expanding our reward system to local small businesses in NC through our Affiliate Partner Program which allows more opportunities for our members to earn points while supporting our small business ecosystem. We inspire our tribe to lead a healthy heart and mind lifestyle. Emotional wellness is crucial for entrepreneurs and other professionals as it directly influences both individual success and community economic growth. Studies consistently show that emotional well-being helps professionals make better decisions under stress, enhances creativity and resilience, and contributes to economic development. At SenterME, we make emotional wellness FUN. Our sessions, classes, and workshops include SenterME exclusive games and activities, music, and good ole sisterhood. We laugh, we celebrate ourselves and each other, and we connect with a common desire to expand and evolve grounded in wellness. So come get this love, Sis!
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
I dropped everything, my first business and who I thought I was to build SenterME. It was scary and the imposter syndrome was really REAL lol But the belief in myself has evolved into a knowing that everything is always happening for my highest good. And it was the experiences that have journeyed through me that helped me evolve in this way. I’m a single mother, my son Caleb is nine and my daughter Zola is four and together we have seen hardship. From not being paid in a timely manner, to not being paid at all, my commitment to leading by example in self-love has opened me up to the infinite ways to receive and attract abundance. As a business owner of a startup in the early stages of business, it can be difficult to keep the vision when your sense of security is threatened. So it is essential to prioritize security in whatever way that means for you to position yourself for receiving. It took me almost two years to learn this after impulsively following my heart as a first-generation entrepreneur. I thought I didn’t have the space to take on another job while building a business and that it would somehow take away from SenterME. But if you are building your business out of scarcity then you will only attract scarcity. I can share many stories of living gig to gig and how this journey has humbled me in a way that I will cherish until my last breath but the defining moment in my entrepreneurial journey was seeing that I was limiting my business’s growth and potential because I was putting unrealistic expectations on it instead of taking my time, nurturing SenterME and trusting the process. So I got a job. The internal work is essential. Focus on this and you’ll learn that excitement will not last, motivation comes and goes, but discipline and community are required for building a successful business. I am learning this more and more every day. Don’t try to do it by yourself and don’t ever give up.
How’d you meet your business partner?
I believe that everything is divinely designed. I was calling around to brick-and-mortar wellness centers to offer my classes to their members when one owner set up a meeting with me and invited Cynthia to join us. Cynthia and I connected almost immediately. We were both in alignment with our visions and missions and wanted to serve in a way that was creative, inspiring, and free. The most important things to me when it comes to building a team, are alignment in values, someone who sees the vision, and someone you can trust. After a few weeks, we made it official and Cynthia is the SenterME Chief of Staff. Partnering with her has been so illuminating and inspiring. The value of having a partner/team is unmatched in business and has led SenterME to more strategic and intentional community and network expansion.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.senterme.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/charlotteclouis/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sentermecoach
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotte-c-louis-6413915b/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@CharlotteCLouis?feature=shared
- Other: https://pin.it/54Dy8oK
Image Credits
Headshot: J “Slim” Robertson Workshop: Jordan Taylor