We were lucky to catch up with Kiaundra Trotter recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Kiaundra, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
My mission with Spiritually Beaded By Kia LLC. and my store The Spiritual Bar has always been focused on building community and creating a safe, sacred space to guide and help my fellow brothers and sisters on their spiritual journeys to self improvement and overall healing themselves through spirituality.
When Covid-19 first came out in 2020 it put me in a debilitating space mentally. I was battling postpartum depression, body image issues, and then the loss of my new career job. I had hit my rock bottom and was overall fed up. Those emotions consumed me and when I found myself in a tantrum on my bedroom floor crying for a mental break, I knew that I never wanted to feel that way or be in that dark space again. I was willing to try anything to life my spirits and become stable again. I was able to find a self love group that was being created in my community to empower and uplift women during covid. I decided to join and what I didn’t know was that it was going to change my life for the better. While in the group I learned about spirituality, manifestation, crystals, self love, and so much more. This group meeting set me on my spiritual journey and the path to healing myself. While learning about crystals with the women in the group I began making waist beads, crystals bracelets, and anklets for them. Teaching them about the properties and how they can assist them in healing. The women in the group were amazed at my work and the assistance that the crystals were giving them. Unexpected to me, they started to share about it to people outside of the group. This is where I founded Spiritually Beaded By Kia LLC. On this journey of teaching women about crystals I was still on my spiritual journey and learning more about different healing techniques and much more about spirituality in itself.
Sadly, the self love group was very short lived and we only met twice. I found myself seeking more information and guidance to learn more about spirituality. I had no where and no one to turn to so I began to teach myself. The journey has not been and still is not the easiest, but I will say that I continue to keep an open mind and heart making sure that I am always willing to learn. Because it was so hard to teach myself and heal myself at the same time, I vowed to myself that the mission of my business would always be to be the person I needed to guide me when I needed guidance the most. In 3 short years of business I have evolved from making healing jewelry to becoming a spiritualist, reiki practitioner, and and overall healer/wellness coach serving the community who wishes to better themselves and heal through all of their traumas and generational curses.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
My Name is Kiaundra Trotter, I am the founder of Spiritually Beaded By Kia LLC and the owner of The Spiritual Bar.
Spiritually Beaded By Kia was started back in 2020 when I was in a lost, low, dark space as a tired woman, mom, spouse, student, etc. and also in the midst of a pandemic that had turned everything I worked so hard for upside down. I had reached my mental breaking point after suffering with postpartum depression. I just wanted to be back to myself, back to feeling good about myself, and overall back to happiness. I was searching for anything that would help and I joined a group of girls for a self love group. In that meeting I learned so much about spirituality, self healing, crystals, manifestation, and so much more. I became very interested in crystals and how they assisted in the healing progress. I started making crystal infused waist beads and anklets for the women in the group. Before I knew it my work reached more than the ladies in the group. I was able to teach them about different crystals and how they could help them all while helping myself. That lit a fire in me! I was already implementing my spiritual practices personally and was in a much better place than I ever thought I could be.
While being laid off from my career job because of the pandemic, my new found business was my life! I came up with the name Spiritually Beaded By Kia because as I stringed each waist bead and each anklet with beads I felt as though I was helping each women put together the beads of their life and getting them closer to finding their truest self.
My work is my passion and I was able to make it my something that I do every day and truly enjoy every moment of it. Since first starting I have learned, taught, and graduated to doing a lot more than beading. May 1st of 2021 I opened up my very first store front and July 9th, 2022 I was blessed to expand to a larger location with a revamped name. We are now The Spiritual Bar and here we provide spiritual assistance to our community. Whether that be in spiritual jewelry, healing stones, spiritual coaching, reiki healing, holistic body care, or just a listening ear to a friend in need; our arms are open and welcoming everyone who truly wants to heal and grow themselves.
My overall goal is to be the person I needed the most when I was down; for my community. Self growth is more than going to school and learning. It’s about healing the inside parts that affect you every day of your life. Here at The Spiritual Bar our mission is to lead our community into empowerment, stability, happiness, and over all health of the mind, body, and soul.
I am happy to say that I, Kiaundra and The Spiritual Bar provides and hand makes healing jewelry with crystals, holistic body care products, intentional oils, incense, sage, raw and tumbled stones, books, clothing, and most importantly a SAFE, SACRED SPACE.
The thing I am most proud about when it comes to my business is that I have broken many generational curses in not only others’ families, but my own family as well. I am proud to be a black mompreneur who is continuously setting the tone of a healthy life for my own children.
What I feel sets me apart from other businesses in my industry is my overall authenticity, how genuine I am, and the experience that I can give my clients/customers/community. There are many stores selling crystals and holistic/wellness products, but there are not many that can tie them to the spirituality that most customers are seeking and give them the knowledge of self help to heal spiritually.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
Funding a business is not for the weak or faint of heart. 3 years of business and every single dime that has been spent on inventory, ingredients for products, shelvings and decorations for the store, business cards, etc. have all come out of my pockets. I have never applied for a loan or capital. Not that I am too proud or don’t want to, but that I am the very first business owner in my family and have been very uneducated on how to go about getting those things. Along the way I have been teaching myself the do’s and don’ts of capital and it has been very scary. To start my business I worked really hard to save money from being a hair stylist. This still to this day helps me when I need extra funds for business.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
A lesson that I had to unlearn is “Your family and friends should be your biggest supporters!”
Often times when we start something that is very important to us, we want and expect for our closest friends and family members to be our number one supporters and biggest fans. Going into business I had to learn the hard way that it is the complete opposite of our expectations. I had to experience my friends not showing up for me and not purchasing from me and it hurt my feelings and made me angry. I had to change my mindset and the way I saw my family members and friends. I learned that people want to see you do well, but not better than them. I learned that they will purchase from someone else instead of you because they think that they deserve a discount because they are your friends/family. The biggest thing I learned was that strangers will support you more than the people that you see everyday and the best thing for you to do is network with people that are outside of your circle. It will change your life and your business.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.Spirituallybeadedbykia.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/thespiritualbar?r=nametag
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpirituallyBeadedByKia