Alyssa - {Fall 2016}

I met with Alyssa in a local coffee shop for her interview just as the leaves were starting to change. Here at Simply Sisterhood, we are changing the process of our shoots and interviews so as to be able to spend more time with each woman we feature and really get to know her. I just asked Alyssa a few questions about herself and she was so gracious to open up about life, self-image, goals, God and accepting yourself. It was an honor to hear more about her and her heart to help others. 
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Tell me a little bit about where you came from and your background.​

I was a dancer growing up and have always had passion for dance and movement. I started when I was two and danced until about a year ago. I loved it – it taught me some really important things about time management, working together as a team and having tough skin. I really appreciate the lessons I learned through it. It gave me a community and family type of atmosphere and that is something I really love and want to implement into my business, Reverent Fitness. Along the way, around the time I was twelve or thirteen, I started to learn how to compare myself to others and that really manifested in how I compared my body type to the other girls within the studio. I began to feel the struggle of not feeling worthy or good enough, specifically because I was really passionate about ballet and there is a definitive body type that is almost a requirement within the culture of dance to be a ballerina. I was always thinking I would never make it because I didn’t have the right body type. At that time, I had some friends who were struggling through the same things and it was sort of an unhealthy encouragement of each other’s bad decisions regarding health and body image. We would talk about certain parts of our bodies that we didn’t like and if we didn’t eat lunch, we would almost praise ourselves and each other for that. I got into a really unhealthy and terrible mindset of disordered eating. I would feel really guilty for eating certain things and thought it would affect me in a very negative way. I really dealt with those false ideas throughout my teen years and even in college. I remember sitting down with a group of friends for dinner at Dion’s and literally crying at the table because I was so upset that I was eating a slice of pizza. It made me realize how terrible this mindset was and question if it would always be that way. Luckily I’ve been blessed with so many great people in my life that have encouraged me along the way and helped me to sort of tend the weeds in my mind. It is always something I feel attacked with and I don’t think it will go away, but I am learning to notice when those thoughts arise and weed them out as they come.
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I had this idea in my mind of what it was to be fit, or to be healthy or striving towards perfection. And within the community of people I had surrounded myself with; I saw that most of them were also struggling with this same issue. That really struck a chord with me - that this struggle is universal, specifically among women. If we look at how magazines treat celebrities who are out enjoying their lives on the beach, but they catch a candid photo and decide this person has let themselves go, it changes how we perceive beauty and fitness in others and ourselves. 
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All of these struggles have caused me to have a passion to reach out to others and I felt like I had a great outlet to help people. In college, I decided to go the fitness route and I was really blessed to be able to get a job at Sandia Labs in the health and wellness center. And it really gave me this holistic view of health because within their wellness center, they have everything. They have counselors, dieticians, fitness professionals, doctors and nurses, etc. It opened my eyes to the fact that I can combine my passions of movement and fitness with counseling and impact the community around me. It wasn’t until the beginning of this year that I finally had the courage to put my plan into action and start my own business, Reverent Fitness. I knew that it would require me to open up and be vulnerable and it was a little bit scary to put myself out there. I had to battle my perfectionism and accept that I could fail and embrace the uncertainty. My boyfriend and his friend own their own business, and the hard work that they put in and the success they are seeing has been a really big encouragement to me. I had to learn to be okay with setbacks that feel like failure. In the beginning, I had this idea that if I just word vomited about my personal experience, that people would just sort of flock to my business, and that just wasn’t how it happened. I opened the floodgates and it just wasn’t effective and it was discouraging at first. I was hosting some weekend classes to get people interested and some days, I would have a full class and feel super motivated, and some days no one would show up at all. Those days were hard and sometimes I would just sit down with all of my equipment and cry. But those hard moments have shown me that it really can’t be about me. God has really given me this passion to impact other people with my testimony and story and the struggles I have faced. I have to come to realize that this passion is not about me but rather how God chooses to work through me and I need to be patient and let it happen in the right timing. And once I took a step back and let it go a little bit, I started to acquire clients! Reaching out to people and telling them that I care for them and asking them what I can do for them has caused this incredible transformation and is drawing people in that I have really been able to help, which is such a great feeling. I just want to be able to make a difference in people’s lives, even in a small way. I get to come alongside people and say, “making changes in your life is hard and it is going to suck at first, but I am going to work through that with you and it will get better.” 
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​As far as my business goes, my biggest goal is to have my own gym that people can use and come and go as they please. I want to use that to develop more of a community of encouragers. Mostly though, my biggest goal is just to make an impact in the way that God wants me to and help as many people as I can. Through that, I’m sure I will learn so much, struggle and cry sometimes, be vulnerable, etc. but I want to make a difference and that takes hard work over time. I don’t want relationships to be short-lived or meaningless in any way, I want to maintain relationships with my clients even if I only train them for three or six months at a time. I love meeting people and I really believe that knowing people pushes you to develop and grow yourself and my clients definitely do that for me and continue to make me a better person. 

​What are five things you want the SS community to know about you?

1. I'm passionate about transforming lives
2. I love helping people realize their worth, and helping them push themselves past everything they thought they could accomplish.
3. I love the great outdoors, as it is a chance to reset my mind!
4. I am so excited to continue to cultivate a community of wellness!
5. Ultimately, I do all of this to glorify God.

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I have only known Alyssa for a couple of weeks, really. And yet I feel strongly that I can vouch for everything she is saying; she really and truly loves people and has a heart to encourage and impact others. The first time we met (also at a coffee shop), as we were getting ready to pack up and leave, she asked "how can I be helpful to you this week?" and I was so taken aback by her compassion and concern for others. She is truly refreshing to be around and is a bundle of energy. If you would like to learn more about Reverent Fitness or Simply Sisterhood (and are local to Albuquerque), we are hosting a Fall Festival together this Saturday from 2-4pm to talk about our projects, how much we love people and how we plan to build a community or tribe of people that build each other up. Head over to Facebook or Instagram for details.
Alyssa can be found here -

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reverentfitness/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reverentfitnessabq/

Thank you, Alyssa, for sharing your heart and energy with us! You are a true beauty and a wonderful addition to the Simply Sisterhood Tribe!

{All photos are property of Simply Sisterhood and Gonzalez Guillen Photo. 
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