We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nia Renee. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nia below.
Nia , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you have a hero? What have you learned from them?
My hero is four-year-old, Nia Renee. I know that might sound a bit vein but it is true. Everything I do, what I do, and who it is for is the four-year-old version of myself. When I was a child I was taught to be seen and not heard. I was taught that I shouldn’t have a voice and speak up about the injustices that I endured. Which ultimately led me to feel silenced, pushed aside, undeserving, and unimportant. When I look back at that child I decided that everything I do in life was going to be for her. To heal her. To make her proud and to be the protector that she always deserved to have. She deserves everything in life. She was so strong and took on so many things she didn’t deserve to before she even knew what life was. And with that she became my hero because she is the person that I sought out to be. So I do everything in life for her because she is my hero and influences all of my decisions.
Nia , 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?
My name is Nia Renee and I founded How to Love A Battered Woman, LLC. in 2018 while I was in a narcissistically abusive relationship, literally trying to teach someone how to love a battered woman. I created HTLABW because I had endured so much trauma in my life and knew what it was like to feel completely alone and misunderstood. My mission when I started was that if I was able to help just one person that would be enough for me. And I have been fortunate enough to help a lot more people than that. It started with me blogging about my childhood trauma and relationships while being in a relationship with someone who also causing me emotional harm. It blossomed into making an instagram and making posts about the trauma I endured and my experiences. In 2019 I had my first of five brain surgeries and began speaking about the correlation between chronic illness and abuse. I have been documenting my journey from abusive to healthy relationships and battling chronic illness and medical gaslighting.
During the pandemic in early 2021 I joined tiktok and began making videos and skits about the dynamics in the relationship that I had left in February 2019. I was very fortunate that those videos started to go viral and I began building the community of my dreams. HTLABW started to become everything I could have ever imagined.
In February 2023 I launched my coaching business to help others gain the tools to either evaluate their relationships with a toxic or narcissistic person in their lives or build the tools to date after abuse. I offer narcissistic abuse recovery relationship coaching as well as specializing in intentional dating which provides the foundation to date confidently after surviving abusive relationships. What I am most proud of is that in April 2023 I launched my very first book, Letters To You. This body of work is a collection of letters that I have written to those who have traumatized me the most in life. I also included creative writing entries and journal entries from the course of my life. I wanted other survivors to read it and see that they are not alone. I wanted the survivors to feel like they were seen and that they can go from feeling hopeless to thriving.
The main thing I want people to know about my brand is that it is a safe space and no matter what their journey looks like they can achieve whatever they put their mind and hearts to.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I began life being a very active young person. I played 3 sports (volleyball, basketball, & track) and was all varsity in them by the time I was sophomore in high school. I was someone that was very active for 25 years of my life until I had my first brain surgery and partial ankle replacement in 2019. After that the whole course of my life changed. I was no longer able to be an athlete and move around the way I used to. I wasn’t the same person I was and had to begin to find new ways to do almost everything. I lost who I was as a person and what I saw was my identify. But the beauty of that was discovering who I was and am now, 5 brain surgeries later and 22 other surgeries since 2019. I had to make a complete 180 but just because I cannot do things the way that I used to, doesn’t mean I can no longer do them. The point of this. is to say that when things change it can be hard and we have to find new ways to do the things we love, life is too short.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I began building my social media presence by telling my story. It began with a small audience that was providing me very valuable feedback which is what gave me a courage to start telling my story more publicly. I then started making skits and reenactments of the abuse I endured during my life, from my mother and father, to exes, and friends. The more vulnerable and transparent that I was being the more people began to relate to what I had endured.
My advice to building your platform is to define your purpose and step into the power of your story because someone can relate to your story. You have a voice and you deserve to use it.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.howtoloveabatteredwoman.com
- Instagram: @howtoloveabatteredwoman
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/howtoloveabatteredwoman
- Twitter: @htlabw
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/howtoloveabatteredwoman
- Other: Scheduling coaching sessions with Coach Nia Renee: calendly.com/howtoloveabatteredwoman Nia Renee amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C38GCDQG
Image Credits
Yohance Parker Ron Cooper