We were lucky to catch up with Shanita Brown recently and have shared our conversation below.

Shanita, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?

I really have been an “entrepreneur” my entire life. I’ve always had some invention or idea I felt would be great to implement. But truthfully, it was never about being rich or making a lot of money. It was always about how I could help people see another way to thrive and rise to the occasion of life.

Balanced Well Woman has gone through many iterations because it stemmed from Shanita’s Voice of Reason which was a blog that I created to share any and everything that popped up in my spirit! As I started going through some of my own painful life experiences, the evolution of me began to show up in my business.

I wanted to start talking to people more than I wanted to write so I spun the blog off into something more vocal that became Words From The B Side. That was my passion project for a very long time. I’d sit in my car and record episodes on garage band because in my car was where I was most inspired! Almost daily I would create content in the middle of the night because it was pouring out of my soul. It was coming from the places I was healing through helping other people. I started to really feel that my purpose was being fulfilled as I grew and my desire to coach people grew with that self discovery.

I decided to take it a step further by attaining my coaching certification from The CaPP Institute which was established and created by Valerie Burton. It felt so aligned because on my way to the training in Georgia, I picked up a book she had written and I felt like I was reading my own words. She spoke in such a language that felt more than familiar to me. So for six months I learned the techniques and added tools that would successfully help me build what others see today.

My business has been mostly online as I have provided virtual coaching sessions to all of my clients. This helped me lesson my limitation on clients and the reach I could have for those who truly needed help. As the coaching practice grew, I started to reach for even more that I felt would be useful on anyone’s healing journey. I was always seeking ways to get to a more balanced and centered placed which is how Reiki was introduced to my practice. The transformation I was seeing in myself, how I handled conflict, how I tempered my words, how I was more thoughtful or more grounded…there was no way I could keep it a secret. I found an amazing Reiki Master Teacher in Kierrah Flipping and I began absorbing from her everything it was that I could to be as effective and impactful as she is. It was been a world wind journey since then.

I truly believe everyone’s journey is their own and that all things happen as they are meant to. However, if I had to tell my younger self or others on this journey anything at all, it would be to stay the course and never quit on yourself. The entrepreneurship journey is a difficult one riddled with ups, downs, joys and pains. Some things you feel so passionate about may not work the first five times, but if you believe in yourself, you tweak and continue to press forward. I’ve reset so many times thinking it would spark the growth or growth the way I saw it at that time. But inside I ultimately know that the most important thing is to help people no matter how it looks from the outside to the world or how widely accepted I appear to be on social media. My heart is in it and that is the most important part of my journey. Keep the vision you have inside you clear to you.

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

I started my writing journey long before I knew I was on one! I started a blog that really pushed me towards the larger desire to write on a larger scale so I became the DC Regional Coordinator for Black Bloggers United. I would write for different publications and share words from my heart on platforms I felt people would truly receive them. That was the precursor for me to enter into the online space in a more profound way.

Today I am a Mindset Coach and Reiki Master Teacher. What a transition that has been. It really stemmed from the writing and how the desire to help others was a growing passion brewing on the inside of me. I had started to feel that we didn’t experience life in the ways we did to keep it to ourselves. Everything we go through, no matter how small, can truly help someone else who may not see a way out or a solution to something they may see as an impossible dilemma or problem. That is what has pushed me and often been the fuel needed to reignite the fire when I feel burnt out or uninspired.

Periodically I record episodes of my podcast, Words From the B Side where I am often talking about something that can be an additional tool in life’s tool box. We need more than just one thing to get through life and continue to hold on when we can see a clear way through. I also maintain my TikTok channel where I do quick videos that use my life or something I’ve seen to provide “Today’s Advice For Life”. It allows me a little more freedom to be less structured and give something quick from my heart at the time. I also still write periodically but I am definitely one who doesn’t feel that content should just be posted. In my line of work, I feel it must be meaningful and heartfelt. The reality is, I’m not always motivated or inspired because life is happening for me as well. I never want to force what I put out into the universe so I’m much more methodical in the way that I present. Always!

I do offer coaching services for any client would wants to navigate a particular situation, mindset or just needs to find more ways to gain balance they feel they are lacking. We wear multiple hats as women because we are mothers, friends, sisters, aunts, business women, students and so many more things! Wholeness is so important and there are times my clients just can’t get to center on their own so they use Balanced Well Woman to help them find that happy medium through one of our tailored programs.

Clients can leverage the distance or in person Reiki sessions through the coaching program or as an individual service. There is a small coaching component that typically goes along with the Reiki program because I believe in really making my clients feel safe and talking them through what I feel when I service them energetically. I think it’s only fair. That can lead to additional coaching or additional Reiki! It is so important for me to provide them the flexibility they need as they continue choosing themselves and staying steadfastly on their Holistic Wellness Journey.

BWW was birthed out of my own journey to Purposeful Living and the desire for Balanced Wellness. Our motto is “Helping The Every Day Woman Gather Her Holistic Life” and that is what we strive to do for everyone who enters into our community. It is a safe space for women to heal, grow, become aware of themselves in a real way and find the balance to honor the woman they are becoming. I’m an every day woman myself so being “touchable” and “authentic” is the way I live my life. That will always be the way I show up and represent the BWW brand.

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

This may be a bit around the bin but it is so relevant to the story of me and the brand that has been created around me. Growing up I was a church girl and for me, everything was black and white. I never saw the grey in life because it didn’t fit in to my faith in the way that was sensible. In my younger adult life it really stopped me from being objective and analytical when things would come up for me. Sometimes I would deal with them at all or even consider another person’s perspective because all that mattered was what I had previously seen or was taught earlier on in my more formattable years.

When I started my coaching business, I had to take several deep dives within myself because energetically and spiritually I was being called to. It started to show me that so much of what I had taken on as a part of my identity was only what others had pushed on to me and poured in to me when I hadn’t yet been acquainted with my true self. I took those things with me for so long and the journey to unlearning and rediscovering was one I wasn’t as prepared for as I would have liked to have been. But what a necessary journey! Half of the battle of our lives is unlearning what we thought to be true and resolving that it isn’t.

Accepting yourself becomes easier when you release yourself from the boundaries you put on yourself based on someone else’s perception of what your life should look like through the lens of their own. I had to truly learn that my faith is my own and who God is in my life is completely personal. I had to learn that I can do things differently and not feel bad about it. I had to have peace with the loss of those I felt would always be by my side in life because they weren’t actually meant to be apart of my journey once I truly embraced myself. I truly had to learn to live on my own terms and be okay with whomever didn’t agree with what that looked like for me. Unlearning is the hardest journey because you are truly looking at it as losing yourself when in essence you are really on the path to self discovery.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

I ended up becoming an engineer as apart of my day job. It’s so funny because growing up I wanted to be everything but that! I wanted to be a pediatrician for so long and then I enrolled in college to be a financial advisor. Once I joined the military I changed my degree to Psychology because ultimately I wanted to help young women. That was short lived because my military career didn’t align with that degree plan even though Psychology was where my heart really was.

I believe the path I have been on has always brought me back into alignment with my soul’s purpose…helping people. I appreciate the path I’ve been on because I’ve learned more about myself than I ever would have gong straight into a therapist profession. I’m more well rounded because of it and I would do it all again the exact same way if I had to choose. We can not escape who we become on the journey because the destination is never what defines us.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.balancedwellwoman.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/balanced_wellwoman/
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/balancedww
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/wordsfromthebside