Beauty & Self Love: Interview with Paula Marie Davis
Welcome back to The Work In, and today's bonus episode we are celebrating this month of love with self care as self love in the face of a beauty diet and fitness culture that survives, and thrives on messages of not enough.
I want to introduce you to an extraordinary woman today, who is on a mission to redefine beauty and help women navigate a world of wellness with compassion, and self love. Paula, Marie Davis is a 55 year young wife of nearly 30 years and mother of five. She's a health coach, entrepreneur, raw food chef, flying Yogi, natural beauty advocate, change maker and so very much more.
Paula created her company Beauty Detangled to be an in person and online community to help women detangle themselves from the destructive messages of not good enough, not pretty enough not smart enough not thin enough, just not enough. We talk about self care rituals, how simple things that we already do everyday can become acts of self love how important connection and community is and how we can become our own guru and find freedom from the chains imposed by the beauty and diet culture.
Please enjoy my interview with Paula Marie Davis.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Transcript
Hey everyone welcome back to the work in I'm your host Ericka Thomas and I have a really special guest today. Her name is Paula Davis, and she is a great friend of mine. I couldn't think of anyone better to talk to this month when we are discussing Ahimsa and self love and self care, than Paula, how are you Paula welcome to the program.
Paula Davis 2:06
I'm doing great Ericka thank you so much for this opportunity to speak with you I love talking with you and getting to know your people a little bit better.
Ericka Thomas 2:14
Wonderful. Well I'm super excited to talk about this topic. February of course is a month of love, Valentine's Day is coming up and to get started today, I wanted to ask you a little bit of a personal question before we dive into our topic, just so that everyone can get to know you a little bit and I was curious about what your favorite vacation was.
Paula Davis 2:44
So recently I was in Guffey Colorado and up in the mountain top I really felt like I was as close as I could get to God. And it was the most freeing and expansive feeling that I think I've ever had. I’d never been that high up in the mountains. I've been to lots of beautiful places, I have a large family and so we travel, you know with sports and things and so I've been to beautiful places, out of the country as well. But being on the mountaintop, being able to feel like I could touch the clouds. that to me was an experience that I will go back to now time and time again.
I go there in prayer, I go there in meditation. And I, I find myself longing for my next trip to the mountains of Colorado. So that to me was just, I loved it. And I was by myself, which for a, you know, an over a 50 year old woman with five kids that was huge. And that mattered to me a lot and that it took decades, to be able to have the confidence to be able to do something like that. And it touched me in so many different ways so right now I would say that that is my most favorite vacation memory and it happened prior to the start of all of this, that we're dealing with right now not being able to travel. so it was really extra special it gave me. It gave me fuel to kind of go through that next year, when traveling would be limited.
Ericka Thomas 4:18
Wow, so that vacation, you took on your own.
Paula Davis 4:24
Yeah, so for me that was huge. That was a really, really big deal to have the confidence to be able to say hey, I need this. Because, you know, as a mama with five kids, even though my kids aren’t babies. They still need you, they still want things. My husband you know still wanted me around. So it was it was challenging a little bit and a little unnerving. But once I got there I, I had that quiet time that I really longed for for a long time.
Ericka Thomas 4:52
What was it that made you want to take that solo vacation.
Paula Davis 4:58
Well, there were a couple of things. A friend of mine had recently moved out to the area and it was someone that I was really close to personally, professionally and so I was kind of longing for that connection with her first and foremost. But it was also kind of reaching a place in my life where I was having some, you know, what is my purpose, what am I supposed to do you know. What is my life supposed to look like. And I was with all the chatter and the commotion and the, the everyday life around me I wasn't able to really find those answers and up in those mountain tops, I didn't find every answer. I did find some of the answers that I was looking for. And of course we never find them all, but it was a start and it was something that really, it was, it was great.
Ericka Thomas 5:58
That is amazing. Actually, I may just add that to my bucket list. That kind of brings me to really kind of an opening question because. Can you tell us Paula, you are an entrepreneur, you're a health coach and a business owner yourself and your focus really is kind of on beauty, but not in a way that we typically think of as the beauty industry. So can you tell us a little bit about the journey that brought you to this area of wellness.
Paula Davis 6:42
Absolutely. So I'm, I became a health and wellness coach about 10 years ago, and my focus initially was on, my friend that I mentioned out in Colorado has been very active in the natural cancer world helping women and men, you know anyone deal with cancer, through natural methods. And so I learned, I worked with her she had a facility in our local area I learned to become a raw food chef my focus was a really, really focused on nutrition and and helping people heal their bodies.
As my children grew, they were athletes they played sports so then nutrition kind of carried over into performance, how do I help them be performed better on the court or on the ice, feel better, sleep better, heal better from the intense exercises and movement, they were doing. And as my children got a little bit older, and I said, I have two boys and three girls. So as I watch these girls kind of navigating and I say this I don't mean it in a negative way I say it as a descriptor. In the Kardashian world of beauty.
And so I'm raising these three girls and I have brown bottles all over my cabinets I make my cleansers I make my moisturizers I do all of these things. And they were like okay that's you know that's my weird mom. And I want the beautiful package with that great promise on it, it's going to automatically in 24 hours give you the best gift of my life, and I want with my girlfriend tab. I want to see the beautiful packages the beautiful bottles on the counter. And I also started to notice that through social media. And the way that they looked at themselves the filters that they wanted to use so that they could look better or they in their eyes better that their skin could be clearer their teeth could be wider their eyes could be a different size, you know, they really started doing all of this. And I thought, you know, I've been fighting for the wellness of my family for so long we've done this since they were little we've always been a very holistic and natural practicing family. And I was like this is just all of a sudden they're they're going in a completely different direction. How do I get them to kind of see the way I see things and you know not to change them but just to give them that perspective. And I made this radical decision to stop coloring my hair.
And I was like okay if I go to the beauty salon and I'm coloring and I'm highlighting and I'm doing all of these things then they're going to want to do it too. And even though I was using natural ingredients and organic colors I was you know paying attention to the ingredients to everything I was placing on my head. I wasn't thinking about the picture that I was representing. So, I decided to not color my hair anymore, to show them that I felt beautiful no matter what my hair color was that my hair didn't define me.
And as I went down that journey. I met more and more women in my health club and my health and wellness practice, who were saying that they just didn't feel good enough like it's okay for you to not color your hair but they didn't feel like the confidence to do that and I'm like why not. And we started talking and the more we I've a yoga studio, and the more they would come in and the more we would work together, the conversation, always led to I'm not pretty enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not skinny enough I'm not busty enough I'm not something enough. And that's where my idea of beauty that all, all of us are beautiful. We're all we define beauty in a different way, but we're all beautiful and I wanted women to have that confidence.
I wanted them to stop looking for gurus in packages. That if they bought this package or they bought that product they if they signed up for this diet that they would get the beauty that they always wanted. And I was like no you have control of that.
You are your guru you know what your body needs you know what you need to do. You need to believe it.
I wanted that for my daughter's. I wanted that for myself. Because of course you know sometimes my muffin top after five pregnancies kind of makes me feel not so beautiful, you know. And I wanted that confidence in myself too.
So it just seemed like that if you could if women could believe that they were beautiful women would be happier, stronger, more successful, that it would impact all areas of their life. And so Beauty Detangled, that's the name of the company, is called Beauty Detangled I wasn't quite sure how it was going to morph or what it was going to look like, but I knew we were going to detangle the beauty messages.
And it didn't matter if you were young or old, because we have women this you know in their 50s and 60s who still do not feel good enough. It is not something you grow out of it's not a teenage thing that women eventually surpass.
And then they bring their own wounds, and they kind of pass them on to their daughters, and their girlfriends. And so, beauty detangled not only was it about redefining beauty, but it was also about healing, those not pretty enough not good enough. So guess that's a little winded but that's how it came to be.
Ericka Thomas 12:33
That's beautiful. I love what you said about looking for a guru in a package and and becoming your own guru, but the pathway to get there can be fraught with all kinds of landmines along the way. And how do you even begin to dig those out. How do you coach people to be able to look at their past and their present, and even into their future without those colored glasses from whatever their past experiences are? Especially when they step in front of the mirror and it's just them one on one.
Paula Davis 13:27
Well one of the things that I always begin with. And it's fairly simple but complicated at the same time, I really believe that beauty is simply a reflection of wellness.
And most people that people that I've worked with I'm sure people you've worked with if you said to them, what are three things that you could do better. That would help you feel better, feel well, feel happier, feel, whatever it is that you wanted to feel what are these three things they can think and list them off right away. They know what they are.
So, I tell them right away that see you do know what you need. You don't need me, you don't need someone else you do know what you need. So, how do we begin with three things that really matter to them. And how do we bring looking at solving or improving. a solving is not necessarily a great word but improving those three items that they have selected themselves with wellness practices.
And what's really important to me is that I don't I'm not talking about habits. It's not about you have to work out this many minutes a day and you're going to solve that problem. We brush our teeth, we don't think about it. It's unconscious. And I want them to bring three things in that are ritual. That something that really brings calming to them, that they feel good when they do it. That it's not a habit that they resent or something they think they have to do that they don't want to do because society says, in order to feel this way you have to do X, Y and Z.
So I think it's so important in that first connection in the very beginning to look at what would really matter to you deep in your heart and in your soul. You know it's not about losing a couple pounds. That, you know I always tell people when you find the sweet spot, the weight. You know I hate saying the weight falls off because we hear that so much when it comes to promises that are not kept in the wellness and in the diet culture.
But when you're when your body is working properly when there is when there's harmony in your body, you find that you know weight isn't an issue. I don't know about you but I'm not like striving to, you know, have six pack abs on the cover of a magazine. I want health and vitality and, and I want to glow from the inside and out. Those are simple, it's just starts with simple practices on a morning ritual is something that's really important to me.
And it's been hard being a mom of five and a husband is like okay I used to get out of bed and immediately everything was about everybody else. And so finding that ritual that that sacred for me is a cup of coffee. I know that there's people that say coffee is good and bad. But we're talking, you know, eight ounces, and I backed it up with my collagen powder. And I, that is part of and helping my digestive system. I'm helping my, my nails and my hair in my skin. I'm feeding my body a protein that it really needs that helps my brain. But I do it in a way where I'm present. And it's prayerful, and you know there's movement, I mean I could go on and on but just a few simple things in one practice one ritual. But get away from the habits of society like this is what wellness looks like this is what diet looks like because none of that in my opinion serves us for the long term.
Ericka Thomas 17:19
I love that. It sounds to me like what you're talking about is shifting your intention behind what it is that you're choosing to do. And I will speak from experience. You can do all of those things you can check the boxes you can bust your ass in the gym. In my own story, I was at one point, training, like five hours a day. And even that wasn't enough. That word enough keeps coming up, because when I would look at myself in the mirror I would only see the things that were not enough. It wasn't what was already there.
And just a little story, I hate shopping. I hate shopping for clothes. And I would go stores I would bring my husband with me, and I would try things on, and he would like everything. And I would be like, no, because every time I buy something I only like it in the mirror in the store and then I get home and hate it.
And so I started taking pictures of myself on my phone because I couldn't tell what it would look like with my own eyes. I'd have to leave the store and look back at the photograph, to see if that was good enough. If it looked right. And then go back and buy it.
I swear my husband thought there was something wrong with my brain. And honestly, he's probably right. There’s something seriously wrong with that behavior. And even to this day when I look back on photographs from that time I'm like why didn't I buy that dress? Because I still have those pictures on my hoarder phone right of all those photographs. And I'm like why didn’t I buy that dress? Because the perspective from now looking back is so much different than it was in that moment and it was never good enough. Like there was not enough calories burned.
And, you know, I look back at that and I'm just like, why didn't I just enjoy my time in that body that I had in that moment. I couldn't do it. And so I think I'm not alone in that. It's frustrating to see that type of behavior reinforced, and our diet culture in, in our beauty culture, for women, yes, but you know I think everyone I think men as well. You know we we expect to be a certain way or or look a certain way at certain times in our life, and I feel like a lot of us are just fighting that, and in turn fighting ourselves, instead of finding that balance that beautiful harmony, that we're looking for.
So how do we how do we proceed if we can acknowledge that this is an issue. And it's not necessarily coming from inside of ourselves, that is just where it sort of percolates. But how do we kind of step out of that culture into something new and something better, more peaceful.
Paula Davis 20:28
Well that's kind of a complicated question and it's something that I'm, I'm paying attention to daily right now because it's one thing to say that we have these not good enough wounds and that we want to heal them. But as you mentioned the beauty culture and the diet culture are still bombarding us daily with these messages that are telling us that okay well, you know, you're not good enough and, like you mentioned that person in the dressing room. You know we have different phases of our life where you know in one phase you might be worried about your body and another phase you might be worried about your confidence and another stage of life, you might not feel like you have the opinions worthy of sharing you know it all kind of comes back together.
And so I think it's really important to find a community of women who are on the same journey as you. That they have made a decision that they are you know they're in charge. That I want a community of women that are, that feel that you know that strength and health and empowerment and passion that is what they want more than living up to the expectations of influencers and product manufacturers.
Let's come together and say, Enough is enough. Like we're done - this war is over. We won't be held captive by it anymore.
And we're going to do that, you know, it would be hard for me to do that alone like if I said, I'm, I'm putting up my. I don't know what the flag and not a surrender but you know the war's over I'm taking my position back and this is what I want. I want to be strong and I want to be healthy and I want to be passionate and want to be empowered. Yet every time I'll walk out my door or listen to a particular podcast or see what's trending, you know, and the New York Times bestseller, it, it may not match that. So if I can find women to support me, that they too want to be on this journey.
Ericka Thomas 22:40
Yes, I think it's great i think community and connection is huge. And it's very difficult now, right, with the pandemic because we can't get together we can't have the girls night out, we can't we can't hang with the hood, you know, it's just not not possible to do it as easily as it was, you know, a year and a half ago. But, I think you're, you're, you're absolutely right, Paula about finding your tribe, finding your community, that have like minded women.
If your community doesn't have those women in it yet. How do we go about influencing those people? Because what we're talking about here is the strong, powerful influence of culture on individuals. So how do we turn that around to make it so that individuals can become more powerful influencers of other individuals.? Is it a boycott of these things? Is it leading by example? Is it just staying within your family? Because I know you have three daughters so I mean here's your opportunity to, you know, work with them about how the world sees them and you're a guide yourself. So how do you coach and guide your community, to better be able to navigate that beauty culture in a way that that supports supports us all.
Paula Davis 24:26
So one of the things we hear a lot in the women's empowerment movement is that some women are standing up to be changemakers. They want to see change in their community and their world and their families and their relationships, and that that is, that's kind of where I started this idea of who wants to be a change maker in the beauty and the diet culture. And for me, I say yes Hands up, I want to be a Changemaker in that community so of course I reach out to women like you, and other women that I know want to be changemakers in that community.
When it comes to a woman who comes to me that's a client that's, you know, hanging in, I do trapeze yoga, and she’s on the trapeze and says, I think what you're doing is really interesting. You know I would like that but I don't know how to start. One of the simplest things that I do is, is pull out cleansers. And I say, Okay. Have you ever washed your face with just foil. So let's take one product I don't care if you're faking it. If you're using you're doing fake nails you're doing the eyelashes you're doing all the things let's take one product one aspect of your beauty routine cleansing. And let me show you how simple and how easy and inexpensive, it can be to cleanse your face.
You don't want to give up your wonder eye cream yet, you know, but you might try a cleanser and I think that they're amazed at how easy it is, how wonderfully the skin absorbs it and you glow and your skin looks great and it's got you know all these antibacterial and antimicrobial and all these qualities that help heal the skin if you have pimples or wrinkles or you know just need hydration. And they're like, wow, that that was really simple and you know I've been spending $35 every four weeks on a fancy cleanser in a fancy package that hasn't really been living up to its promises on that package but you know I didn't want my skin to get any worse I thought it was okay so they continue. So a little bit of showing them the other side of the beauty industry the things that the beauty industry isn't telling them that isn't sharing with them that isn't letting them know that you can easily cleanse your skin remove makeup diminish wrinkles. Take care of imperfections like you know acne and rosacea and things of those nature and and correct them.
Ericka Thomas 27:10
First of all I love essential oils for skin care. But also, you know, when we look at, you know, we all we only see the outside of folks but what you look like on the outside what our skin looks like is so tied to how we take care of ourselves on the inside with our nutrition. We are exposed to so many toxins just in what we put on our plate, and food sensitivities and things like that and people really misunderstand or miss the connection between your plate and how your skin looks. And so we are trying to cover up this surface, issues of things that we feel like are surface issues that really aren't. They are coming from, you know how our body is pulling nutrients out of the food or not pulling nutrients out of the food and. And then there's that connection with our autonomic nervous system just our stress response in general, and then being able to get a good night's sleep and then our exposure to chronic I elevated levels of stress on a day to day basis…And finding that connection I know you're talking about connections with other people but finding that connection within the body to just start to move towards a little bit more of that balance can often show up on your skin. Right. I mean, we want to glow from the inside out, we need to work on that fire that glow that's on the inside too.
Paula Davis 29:00
I totally agree and what's interesting is you know is this the woman who gives up the cleanser and start cleansing with oil and she'll come to me and she'll say well you know it looks better but I still have this issue this inflammation on my cheeks and I can be like, Well, have you ever tried giving up dairy. I have found with a lot of my clients that if they give up dairy, that little bit of blotchiness that they have on their cheeks dissipates.
And then they give up dairy, and they say wow you know my skin really really looks good but you know I have these dark circles under my eyes and I really rely on this really expensive couple $100 cream and it sort of works. And we start talking about digestion we start talking about sleep, we start talking about these other ways these, these practice I don't say practices but these, what's the word I'm looking for just other methods that will help you know reduce the inflammation around the eyes soften lines around the eyes. And if it's how you live your life it's the stress it's the cortisol in the body it's, are you finding time to quiet to to be centered to to really nourish your body with the food you eat the breath you take. And then the moment you sit in quiet, that impacts the skin, way more than that.
Ericka Thomas 30:30
Absolutely. And that kind of brings us into this idea of self care and self love. And I think for so many women we are, we either are last on the list or not we don't even make the list, and depending on the time the stage of life, we're in. I mean, the idea of self care to me when my kids were teenagers was non existent I didn't even understand what that meant. And I know a lot of women are like that as well. Whether they have kids at home or not.
There's just so many other things that that rise above themselves as a priority things to get done. And really, it is about changing the mind. You and I are both yoga instructors. And we often say that the hardest part of a pose is to change the mind. That is the most challenging place to begin, it's often the last place we get to from the mat, but it is a challenge to change the mind about how we see what we do for ourselves as a self care as self love. And so, you know, I love what you said earlier about finding that ritual in your day. And we can make pretty much anything, a ritual. Right?
Paula Davis 32:04
Yeah, I think, self love is so important. I actually created what I call the beauty self love Manifesto. I had heard, just recently, somebody, and I can't remember it might have been Elizabeth Lesser who made the comment that we we care about the things that we love.
If you think about your children, you know you would do anything for your children you would do anything for your spouse you would do anything for the people that you love. If you don't love yourself, then you're not, there's not an inner drive this call to love is a call to care for yourself.
It's just not there so self love to me is, is just so, so important and it's taken me 54-55 years I'm almost 55 to actually be able to say that out loud without laughing without making it sound like it was you know put the oxygen mask on yourself before you try to take care of you know before you put it on your kid. And it's like yeah yeah yeah but I have these things I need to do and I need to take care of these people that I love and because loving myself was so far down on the list. It never did never the checkboxes would take up my time before I got to the bottom of that list where I happen to sit.
So, um, I really believe that self love, there's a couple of things that really stand out for me. That self love is a NOW, not a when, which I think is huge. I think it's transparent and it's simple. We try to complicate self love complicate rituals and all you know I need to have a half an hour to be able to do this ritual. No, four minutes. Four minutes centered. Four minutes it's not you know and if you have the ability to grow to a 30 minute practice more power to you, but don't not have a practice because you only have two or four minutes.
That it's, it's the hunger for the divine you know I said that we care for what we love. Well, beauty is something whether like I believe in my Creator, if you turn to the universe or Mother Nature however you, whatever your theology, your you know your religion however you define that it's up to you.
For me, I know my Creator made everything beautiful. So it's not surprising that I want to be beautiful like a flower. It's not surprising that I want to be beautiful like you know like art, and that the women painted in the photographs that I want that, that beauty.
We're called to beauty. We just have to remember that beauty is ours to hold that beauty is defined by us and that brings us back to that self love.
Again I mean I could, I could go on and on. I have like 12 different principles for self love but it is about just starting now. Knowing that you're worthy, knowing that wanting beauty in your life is something that your your your call to we, We can't walk past a beautiful flower without acknowledging it without wanting to sit in it and see it and and be a part of it, we should want that for ourselves as well.
Ericka Thomas 35:15
That, that in itself is really beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that that was, that was amazing. So where can people go if they want to read more about your, your Beauty Manifesto.
Paula Davis 35:35
So my beauty manifesto is on my website. It's really simple, you just go to WWW.beautydetangled.com and you can take a look at my, it's called Beauty Self Love Manifesto. And, you know, take bits and pieces of it. This is my definition. Your definition, how you look at it might be different. But take a few of my pieces and figure out a little bit of what self love would look like for you, and create your own manifesto and then find a few minutes each day to to go back to it and to to sit on it and whether it's prayer, or whether it's meditation, whether it's action.
Because you know sometimes for me, it's something I want to do with my body for self love it's not just something that I think about. I have to put it into action. I like movement I like feeling my body and, you know, just create it for yourself.
I think the thing that's so most important to me is I have this these programs and I have courses and have the, you know, all of these outside resources for women. But ultimately you are capable of doing this for yourself and making yourself a priority in defining it for you. And then finding women if it's not my community, it might be three women that have been your best friends who feel the same way, since kindergarten you guys have always been talking about this so instead of talking about it, put it into practice. Maybe it's women from church or from a community that you participate in where you're like minded. Grab them together say you want to join me. That's awesome. But I'm, I'm just one, I don't know, just one piece of the pie there's so many opportunities.
Women, you know like, Ericka your group, you could form a group within your community that says hey you know what we're going to make self love a priority. And this is how we're going to do it. I don't think you need a guru I really I'll say that over and over and over again.
We were given what we need in ourselves to be whole and to be complete, and to be happy, and to be beautiful. It's just a matter of connecting mind, body and soul, as one unit.
And it's as simple yes you might need accountability partner you might somebody to you know a girlfriend that kick you that kiester when you start, you know, not feeling confident, or saying things like I could never wear that or I could never be that or worse yet, and this is the hardest for me. I could never stand up for that.
That comes back to beauty again because when you feel good when you feel confident when you're that that flower is not wilting it's strong and the stem is is holding that beautiful those petals up high and strong and towards the light towards, you know, creativity towards inspiration towards everything that makes us whole. And, that is something that as my girls ages I am like you know that's the kind of life I want and I'm not there.
I can't say oh yeah I wake up every day and I just feel awesome. If life hits you there's there's experiences and, and I have a family member right now who's sick and requiring a lot for my family, and a lot for me. And my practices went out the door. It happens, then you find yourself back and for me you know it was just one thing it was bringing the mat to the house where I'm caring so that I had my mat next to my bed and every day I looked at that mat and even if it was just five minutes. I got on that mat a couple times a day.
Ericka Thomas 39:17
That is beautiful Paula I can just listen to you talk about that forever You are so passionate about that and it's just, it really is a beautiful thing. And you are standing up for this. I hope that our conversation today can really touch some, some lives and want to know what is happening with beauty detangled and what's next for your company, and then maybe you can let people know if people, if they wanted to work with you how they could get in touch with you to help themselves, get started on this process.
Paula Davis 39:57
I've had a wellness platform both in person and online. So in person I have 1000 square foot studio with unique pieces of equipment I have a trapeze I have several trapeze rigs for yoga so inversion therapy. I have a power plate which is an amazing we could do a whole show on the benefits of vibration training. And then I have an infrared sauna.
So, what how I work with people in the studio is helping them create practices and rituals for themselves. That would mimic these unique pieces of equipment that I have in my home so that in a few months time, they, they don't come to the studio anymore they have their practices at the house and and you know in their environment and if they want to pick me up at the sauna or they want to hop on the you know the trapeze or the play they can, but it's not it's not necessary. So that's the health coaching aspect, how do you create practices for yourself.
And we use, it's always fun to try something new and exciting so my, my modalities that I have in my studio are a way to make wellness kind of fun and exciting and inviting. But yeah, we really talk about okay at home you have a mat or at home you have this so how could we take what we did on the rig. And now put it on your mat. So that's one piece of it.
The other part is an online community. And I have to say that I, I've been quiet in the sense that I was bringing what I was doing in the studio on the mat. And I'm changing that now so I am in a bit of a metamorphosis. You know, I'm evolution, I guess.
I want to provide a service, a community to women. That is as economical as a Starbucks coffee, where they start making their beauty and healing those wounds, and wanting to be like you mentioned earlier this reflection for other women. You know, how do we become change makers and the beauty and in the diet industry in the cultures? We do it by doing it differently, and showing other women that you know it's working for you in the way that you're doing it and if they want to learn how they can figure out how to personalize it and customize it so it fits in their life. That they would be able to do that as well.
And so I'm in the infancy stage of this, and I. The doors are not gonna open for that community until April, so you're not going to see a lot of information for it right now. Come March, you know, I will start on kind of opening the door a little bit and letting people know that this community will look like. And I'm really excited because, um, you know, back, circling back to my daughters, I, I want to mirror for them but I also want to mirror for my friends, and for other young women, older women, I want this to be a community that's not defined by age, that's not defined by your size of your skinny jeans it's not defined by your social influence, it's it's just women who value themselves, and want to be changemakers in the beauty and the diet culture. That we, I want to I want to kick it to ass. I mean, for lack of a better way to say it, that's what that's what's coming in my future.
So I'll still be working with clients on a one to one basis because accountability is necessary and lots of times, people have particular, you know, areas that are right now, bringing pain into the body that, um, that you know, their digestive system might not be working great and it's not that you can't just talk about it you got to look at what you're eating and how you're eating it and all the nuances of of health and wellness, of course that's a separate part of the business. But that that community that culture.
I struggled for decades to love who I am. I loved everyone else around me. And I thought that that would make me a good person, and that loving myself really didn't matter. And because of, you know, experiences as a kid, and as I grew up, one of the things that I could control through it was a lot of craziness going on. The thing that I could control is food. And I thought that was the way that I would have a voice. The way that I would be accepted the way that I would be successful in the business world. I have a, I was more I was a Director of Marketing Communications and, you know, agency work and doing that kind of stuff was how I looked. And so so much was tied into that.
I was exceptionally thin when I was in college, enough to require assistance, you know, family members, my parents were worried. And I covered that up with bulimia for a decade in my teens and 20s. So, I get this, I know what this feels like. And I also know what it can feel like at the other end.
And I won't say that there is a cure for it or a fix for it. There's always going to be times in your life where you don't feel good enough. And you need to be able to have the thought and say okay that's not my thought that society telling me that I'm not good enough. And what am I going to do to move forward and step out of that thought.
And, and that's why I tell the young girls, and people that I work with that you know this is this is a journey, it's a practice we live in a world who tells women all the time that they're not good enough and until there's enough of us to stomp that out. We have to look at ways to walk through it, to hold our head high, and then to show the younger people around us, that, you know, back to the Kardashians I mean if you want to be.
I tell my daughters all the time, you want to put on false eyelashes for a dance, and you you want to put on that you contour the makeup and do all the things. Great. But just know that that is like kind of a costume that you're putting on that you could go there. Just you and have just as much fun and be just as vibrant. And I like to say even more so because I think when the true you authentic you, when you're authentically you and you're present, and you believe in your beauty, then you know that you have value in worth, I think, hands down you just glow.
You take over the room. And you're there, you're present and, and you're warm and you're receiving and and people around you want to know who you are and they want to know what's important to you and they want to know what your fights are and and they want to stand behind you. Light gathers light.
So if we glow from the inside out, if we take care. If we look at beauty beyond what culture tells us beauty is. If beauty comes from the inside out. If the beauty is a reflection of the soul and of the body, and of the mind. Well then, your options you're there, unlimited. You can do anything, you can be anything. And people will listen.
Because you're listening to you we all, one of my biggest things is that, how do I expect people to listen to me if I don't listen to me. And that's, you know, this new community this this journey that I'm on. I am just like every other woman who's stepping into an area that's new and wondering if I'm an imposter wondering if I'm good enough. Wondering if I have the knowledge, wondering if you know if I got that speaking engagement, you know what I look okay stage I mean it always still comes back to it. But now I have these practices and these rituals to carry me through it.
Ericka Thomas 13:33
That's fantastic so. So if someone wanted to step into your light, Paula , if they were interested in joining this future community, how can they get on your list, how can they get that information?
Paula Davis 13:50
So the easiest way would be to go to my website www. Beautydetangled.com and join our mailing list.
Ericka Thomas 14:02
Perfect. Wonderful. Oh my gosh this has been a fantastic conversation I am so glad we had the opportunity to chat and I want to thank you, Paula, for sharing everything about your experience with your business and where you're coming from, I just think it is. Well, we've said this a lot, but I think it's beautiful. So I hope that it has helped some of our listeners I know it's helped me and I'm super excited to put this out to the world.
Paula Davis 14:35
Thank you. I love this opportunity, and I love talking about beauty. And I love finding change makers that, you know, want to kind of go with me against the beauty and the diet culture. And, of course, Valentine's is coming up, and, you know, what better opportunity to focus on beauty than on the day of love
Ericka Thomas 14:59
thank you so much Paula.
I’m Ericka
Whether your fight is on the frontline or the home front, past or present, personal or professional... chronic stress & stress injury can be a debilitating enemy.
Join me as we explore natural balanced ways to work through the body to re-establish safety in the body and find recovery for lasting resilience to all sources of stress, tension & anxiety.
I offer online, on demand private sessions, courses & memberships for individuals, small groups and corporate clients looking to build resilience and recover from stress injury.