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

Hi Danielle, thanks for joining us today. We love heartwarming stories – do you have a heartwarming story from your career to share?

As a yoga and fitness instructor, I have the privilege of facilitating classes for a diverse audience. One evening during 2020, I had the chance to facilitate a restorative yoga session. I had a Black male student, who was initially hesitant to try yoga, give me great feedback at the end of the practice. He shared that he experienced a great amount of calm and personal connection and he was both amazed and sad. He was amazed at what he was able to experience, and saddened by the fact that he had allowed common narratives in culture to convince him that this practice wasn’t for him. He shared that he had always seen yoga, due to the images that are most common in the US, as being for thin white women. I was grateful for the opportunity to invite him into the truth that yoga is for everyone and to be a part of him connecting with his own body and inner self in such a profound way. So let me sum up his message – Yes! Yoga is for Black men too!

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

Hi! I’m Danielle Anderson, a trauma-informed speaker, wellness advocate and doula. I am passionate about teaching the importance of whole health – caring for yourself mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually – so that we can experience life to the full and become agents of healing in our circles of influence. I find myself in the wellness space as a result of various personal experiences, and I have offerings that relate to each.

As a speaker, I facilitate a variety of wellness workshops. These are a collection of lessons I have learned over the past 10 years in what I call “the school of sorrow.” In 2013, our family was faced with an unimaginable loss; it felt like the bottom fell out. It was in the following days, weeks, months and years of trying to find my footing again that I began to learn about and practice whole health. It’s under this umbrella that I offer customized wellness experiences for groups – like lunch & learns, retreat facilitation, and multi-workshop experiences – and I also offer wellness courses for individuals (both live and self-study).

As a college student at Rice University in Houston, TX, I was introduced to a handful of fitness modalities, and that set me on the trajectory of becoming a yoga and fitness instructor. I offer virtual yoga and fitness classes, and decided to begin using the term Wellness Advocate to capture the wellness coaching that I do as well.

The third set of key experiences occurred between 2009 and 2015. Within that time, I birthed my 4 beautiful sons – all of them in the same bed at a birth center in Denton, TX. My pregnancy and labor experiences led me to want to become a doula. I realized that some of the more negative images we are often shown in the media, and narratives that are common in our culture about pregnancy, labor and birth, don’t have to be our reality. I had amazing, calm, and empowering experiences and I realized that I wanted to help others experience the same. My whole health concepts serve my clients very well as I help them care well for themselves in pregnancy, labor, birth and beyond.

I am most proud that in all my offerings I get to help clients connect with their bodies. The body is amazing to me and I love to learn about our beautiful, intricate and wise design – and invite others to do the same. I want my clients to appreciate, connect with, and be present with their bodies. This is so important because, as Dr. Resmaa Menakem says “90% of healing happens in the body.” We live in a culture that can be very mind-based (and don’t get me wrong, I love mindset work), but I also recognize the importance of being present in our bodies and working well with our nervous system. I count it an honor to be a part of my client’s healing journeys and helping them to befriend their bodies.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn that perfection is the goal. There are several situations I can point to that helped to solidify this unlearning, but I had to change my relationship with mistakes. For most of my life, even as a straight-A student in grade school, perfection was the goal. Perfect grades, perfect attendance. I valued high-performance and still do, but I’ve had to learn that sometimes high-performance and mistakes can occupy the same space. They are not mutually exclusive. In my business I have made several mistakes, and in the beginning these were debilitating – crushing. I would find myself paralyzed in shame, drowning in narratives of self-criticism. For most to my life mistakes were things to be avoided and feared. After talking with other entrepreneurs, and hearing about their own stories, which included mistakes, I now know that mistakes are part of the journey of becoming and unbecoming, learning and unlearning.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

The wellness space is really about caring for people. As I continue to learn and do this work I have come to understand the value and necessity for empathy and vulnerability. I think that it’s part of my job to model and embody those things. I believe it’s imperative for me to learn how to listen to the stories and experiences of others – and simply believe them. There are times when I want to dismiss the experience of another, or I find myself slower to accept it because maybe one part of their story doesn’t mesh with mine. In her HBO Special, Atlas of the Heart, Brene Brown encourages us to believe others. We can’t actually walk in their shoes, but we can believe. And once we believe them, if we want to care for them well, we’re gonna need empathy and vulnerability.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wellwithdanielle.net
• Instagram: @Danielle.l.anderson
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danielle.g.anderson.3/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-anderson-b587087/

Image Credits
Lindsey Brittain – Lindsey Shea Photography