We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Monique Christine. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Monique below.

Monique, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

Before we go any further, I think it important to acknowledge the difference between someone being plugged in as a parent versus someone who simply contributes their DNA to create a new life…

Growing up in a single-parent household, my mother and I were two peas in a pod. Of course, there’s no such thing as a perfect parent, but I can definitely say that my mom is the perfect mother for me. My mother had two main goals/focuses with me as I was growing up: giving me the best possible education and exposing me to as many things as possible so that no one would be able to manipulate me with “shiny, new things” I’d never before seen or experienced.

My mother has also held me accountable, even with the challenges that life can throw our way. She’s always been the one to help me pull myself back together during tough times and look toward the light because everything always works out in my favor in the end, even when it’s going nothing like anything I planned. Professionally, she’s been in leadership roles for as long as I can remember and has worked for several Fortune 500 companies. She is the consummate professional and knows her stuff.

My biological father, on the other hand, did the right thing by disappearing. We really don’t have a relationship, but from what I’ve gathered from his own words, he was fighting his own battles around the time of my birth and beyond. I’m grateful not to have been involved in those experiences or energies.

I consider myself blessed beyond measure because God sent my Dad, my Papa, to me just before I turned two years old, and even though he and my mother didn’t stay married long, he stayed in my life until God called him back home to Heaven in 2020.

My Dad was a bonafide Rockstar. He dedicated his life to facilitating live music performances for some of the most renowned musicians – The Isley Brothers, M.C. Hammer, Kelly Clarkson, Akon, Gwen Stefani, Johnny Gill, Midnight Star, and Janet Jackson, to name a few off the top of my head.

My Dad always took me to concerts and sound checks and introduced me to everyone he knew. Anyone who knew my Dad knew of his daughter, Baby, and eventually her son, Lucky.

What he did right was normalize stardom and celebrity. He showed me that they’re all just regular people with talents who work like the rest of us but in different venues. He showed me that nothing was out of reach if you had the talent or learned the skill and applied yourself. He showed me that believing in yourself sometimes counts way more than talent. My Dad made the extraordinary ordinary and tangible and always encouraged me to be in front of the camera.

He taught me how to connect all sorts of tech and is the foundation of my love for and understanding everything related to tech. He taught me that I can connect anything and make it work if the energy can flow. He showed me that it’s okay to follow your passions and dare to lean into the work that sets your soul on fire.

Thanks to everything I learned from my Dad, I built my entire business, figured out the tech, script, film, and edit all of my projects myself, and I’ve built a beautiful On-Demand Library with a mobile App to match and a growing online presence with upwards of 18.5k followers across platforms.

Because of my mom, I have the study ethic to learn as much as possible and truly enjoy expanding my breadth of knowledge and putting it into practice. I am proud to be a lifelong learner committed to taking in as much of this world as possible for as long as I have left on this plane of existence.

Because of my mom, I have a very solid, professional work ethic, and often hear during my livestreams that I am one of the most organized and professional creators they’ve ever seen. I take that as a huge compliment.

Dad showed me the creative, technical, and entertainment side of things, while Mom showed me the professional, structured, and customer service-oriented side.

With regard to my biological father, I sincerely mean it when I say that he did the right thing by not being around. That’s not to say it wasn’t confusing and heartbreaking, but now, as a woman and mother turning 40 this June, I see the blessings in not having his distractions around.

Monique, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Health and Wellness have been at the forefront of my life for as long as I can remember.

My grandmother always stressed the importance of preparing balanced meals. My Mother was always doing some workout that was too enticing not to join in. And when I was younger, I enjoyed watching surgeries on cable television. I’ve always been fascinated by the human body, how it works, what it can do, and how to keep it healthy and strong. I also remember hearing my Mother talk about the zodiac signs, and I couldn’t ignore her copies of Linda Goodman’s Love Signs on the bookshelf. We even have a medicine man in our lineage on my Mother’s side of the family, so I can honestly say that the work I do now has always been present. It’s genuinely been this beautiful evolution that somehow brought all of my life experiences, passions, and knowledge into the harmonious balance of Lotus Life.

My business started by selling shakes and supplements to help others improve their nutrition and achieve a healthy weight. What I quickly realized was that it didn’t feel harmonious to tell people that they needed these expensive shakes and supplements every month to be healthy when I knew there were better, less costly ways that didn’t involve a bunch of pills, but instead using natural solutions to work with the body versus forcing it.

At the same time, I was studying Health Information Systems Technology online. I realized that I wanted to help people before they got sick and needed to visit the doctor and have their health issues coded in their charts. I wanted to make a difference and hopefully keep them from getting sick, or at least lessen the blow.

This was when I shifted to Complementary and Alternative Health and never looked back! I studied to become a low-impact fitness instructor, Health Coach, Life and Transformation Coach, Wellness Coach, Natural Skincare Consultant, Usui Reiki Master, and I’m currently training to become an NLP Master and Pilates Instructor.

I am blessed and grateful to show up daily as a Healer and Transformation Coach supporting my clients with their Body, Mind, and Spirit balance through low-impact fitness, healthy eating without dieting, spiritual guidance through cartomancy, and intuitive energy healing.

I help my clients clean up their eating habits, create balanced, low-impact fitness practices, and prioritize their mental health and self-love, all while releasing the stale, stagnant energies that no longer serve them or their greatest and highest good.

Because I’ve used these same practices to maintain my health and save my life by embarking on my healing journey, I can truly empathize with my clients and create a warm, safe space for them to learn, grow, and transform.

I offer an On-Demand Library with more than 100 hours of content, including Yin Yoga, Meditations, Healthy Recipe Bundles, Personal Development Talks, and much more. I offer group coaching programs and love working with private clients, whether it’s one-off sessions or personalized coaching programs. We’ve recently revamped our mobile app experience for both Apple and Android users to allow them greater access to the Library, live stream schedule, private services, and community updates. We even have our NamaStay Glow’d Up Podcast to continue with the support when I’m not livestreaming, or they can’t plug into the On-Demand Library.

I’m most proud of the beautiful community of warm and supportive Souls I’ve created who hold space for one another, share their vulnerabilities and challenges, and continue to look toward the light on their healing journeys while finding new ways to enhance their inner light and radiate that out for the whole world to see and become a brighter, more loving, more connected place.

I want potential clients, followers, and fans to know that I will always love you enough to tell you the truth because the truth will always help us move things forward. I will always help you look toward the light while learning from and making peace with the dark. I am never here to judge you or make you feel small. I am only ever here to help you become aware. We cannot change what we are not willing to shine a light upon. I cannot do the work for you, but I will support you the entire way and be your biggest cheerleader until you can fulfill that role. I’m here to help you Glow, Grow, and FLOW into Divine Alignment with Your Highest Self to attract the life you truly desire and deserve.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

Personal experience with challenges and growth.

My work requires me to work closely with clients about some of the most personal aspects of their lives. It takes a lot of trust for them to drop their guards, let me in, and share their worlds with me. It’s my job to make them feel safe enough to let me in.

Of course, clients want someone who knows the facts and information that will help them, not hurt them. But clients also need to know they’re working with someone who can relate to their thoughts and emotions along their journeys.

Someone who knows what it’s like to backslide, struggle with self-love, always put everyone and everything else before themself. Someone who can understand the real struggles and not make them feel judged or alone as they create new habits and release old ones that no longer serve them.

Not only is it essential that the client knows they’re not alone in their experience but they also need proof that what they’re embarking upon is possible. You become their beacon of light and hope, so the more personal experience you have, the better.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Perfectionism is something to strive for.

As I was growing up, my mother always pushed me to be my best. To me, that meant to be perfect. To always strive for 100%. On the surface, this is a great quality to have. But all that glitters is not gold. The dark side of perfection is nothing less than perfect is ever good enough. A 99% might as well be a 30% because it’s not 100%. Thinking back to how often I proudly touted that I was a perfectionist makes me cringe.

The thing about perfection is it just doesn’t exist. We are all bound to make a mistake at some point or another. Perfectionism leaves no room for grace. It leaves no room for growth. There is no room for reality.

Perfectionism may lead to some high moments when things go perfectly according to “plan,” but for the most part, it will leave you feeling low and less than.

I no longer strive for perfection. I strive to embody the perfect imperfection that is Monique Christine fully. I strive to be better each day than I was the day before. I choose to let my best be more than enough because, deep down, I will always have high standards.

The difference now is that I have balance. I have grace. I have love. For myself. From myself. I have become my biggest cheerleader by embracing my mistakes and focusing not on the mistake itself but the lesson(s) it’s teaching me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lotuslifewithmc.com
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LotusLifeWithMC
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@moniquechristineglow Fanbase: https://www.fanbase.app/@moniquechristine Email: [email protected]