We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Desiray Marie Stevens a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Desiray Marie, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
I think developing my confidence and self-esteem came from trial and error. Being a domestic and narcissistic abuse survivor I had to rebuild and re-wire my thought process. I have been in active therapy for majority of my life but it wasn’t until I moved to Texas where I really made my mental health a priority. I was tired of the same cycles and the same issues arising. I needed to take control of my life and I then started to realize my true potential. From there I listened to a lot of wellness coaches, podcasts and audiobooks and heavily worked on healing as much trauma and unlearning triggers so I could create a healthy family and support system. In therapy I have learned how to create better/healthier boundaries and also held myself to a higher standard. Once I learned that people in your life are a mere reflection of you – I was able to really put more work into who I wanted to be and what my passion is.
Another huge impact on my life was making fitness a priority in my life as well as nutrition, I cared more about my body, mind, and soul. I have gone through so much trauma throughout my life and The human body goes through so many changes. With change comes grace and wisdom. I wanted my child(ren) to consistently see their mom working out and taking care of their mental health despite what is being said because they will be living their own lives one day and when that day comes – I want them to say “my mom took care of herself and stayed healthy and present”. Being in my third trimester of my third pregnancy following a miscarriage – I have learned to give myself so much Grace and be so thankful for all the work I’ve put in. This is what truly gave me the confidence and help build my self-esteem so that I can continue in helping communities do the same.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
My name is Desiray Marie. I am a young entrepreneur hoping to help communities around the world take control of their life and learn new ways to heal their traumas so they can live the life they deserve. I am a wellness coach, a certified personal trainer and nutritionist.
I launched FITDESS in hopes to help more communities overcome the feelings of being stuck when waiting to heal Precious! traumas. As a domestic violence survivor, I wanted to utilize my stories of overcoming the traumas to help other victims who lost themselves in the process and help create a safe space for them to heal their traumas and take control of their lives.
I moved to Texas in 2019 and although it was the hardest decision I’ve ever made it was the best risk I could take not only for myself but for my son. I was able to really focus on my mental health and make the changes I need to so that I could be the most healthy and present mom for him, and for my future children.
I made fitness a huge priority in my life, I listened to wellness coaches, podcasts, audio books and made going back to therapy a priority so that I could raise my vibration and heal traumas that were holding me back from my own potential. I started studying nutrition as well to go hand in hand with fitness to ensure a healthier lifestyle. Being back in active therapy has also helped me learn more outlets and ways to work through my previous traumas and un learn my triggers to live a healthier life. By doing this I gave me the confidence to utilize my traumas in helping others know that they can also do the same and become a healthier person.
Growing up I was in back to back toxic situations that seemed to repeat themselves and it wasn’t until I truly healed those traumas where I learned to break the cycles. My ultimate goal is to help you do the same.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I think that the three most important quality/skills that heavily impacted me while on my journey was empathy, grace, and compassion.
I have always been a very intuitive and empathetic person but with that comes learning how to create healthier boundaries. Majority of the time empaths get taken advantage of primarily because we have a heart of gold. I had to learn that not everyone gets the pleasure of knowing the healed you and you have the power to still be empathetic and hold high standards to who you allow in your life.
Grace was probably the hardest lesson for me while on my healing journey. Growing up we didn’t know how to regulate our emotions and was taught to “let it go”. With therapy and meditation I learned that our feelings and emotions are valid and in order for us to validate those emotions we need to give ourself grace. A lot of the time we are given situations as a challenge, and the people we meet as lessons. A big lesson I learned was that everyone you meet is a lesson to you. Most of the time people have traumas and triggers – some are able to define these triggers and are able to educate people on that by creating healthy boundaries and others tend to project their triggers. From there it’s up to you to learn to differentiate the two. Projection by definition is when people are showing who they are or how they truly feel by taking it out on you. By doing so you have the choice to either learn within yourself why it’s triggering you and do the work on yourself or you will have a healthy boundary set in which you give yourself grace in knowing that this is a them issue and give yourself grace in knowing they need to work on an internal struggle. This was a huge game changer for me while creating a support system in my life.
Lastly, compassion has been very impactful to my journey because I’ve learned to regulate my emotions I’m not always feeling victimized. Coming from being in a physically and emotionally abusive relationship in my early 20s – I was always stuck in fight or flight. Learning to give myself and others compassion helped me work on those traumas to get out of fight or flight. Sharing my stories and finding my voice allows me to heal more and more and although knowing so many people still actively deal with these unfortunate situations – I have faith that we can all bring more awareness by healing our traumas and sharing our stories.
The biggest piece of advice I could give to anyone wanting to take control of their life is to give themself grace. We are given situations as challenges for a reason and only you have the power to overcome the lessons and be able to turn them into blessings. Also take the time to reflect who is in your life and what Impact are they making with your growth. It’s okay to cut out people and it’s okay to seek help and guidance. It doesn’t mean you’re failing in life – it just means you value the importance of your life and creating healthy boundaries is absolutely okay.
How would you describe your ideal client?
My ideal client is someone that is willing to have an open mind. Healing traumas won’t happen overnight. You are going to be actively healing traumas as you are always going to be a work in progress. No one is ever fully healed and it’s important to know that that is absolutely okay.
I think the most important factor when healing is learning to take accountability in knowing you’ve done your best and now it’s time to learn other ways to help overcome these obstacles and challenges. Learning that it’s okay to not be okay and that you’re not always going to be at 100% everyday is also a huge game changer. There will be days where you will want to stay in bed and wallow but wallowing is still important because you need to reflect on the traumas and reflect on what you could do differently. Letting go doesn’t always mean put a bandaid and move it. It means to reflect, un learn, and overcome.
The power of change is within you and only you. In order to make the change you desire you must put in the work. Feel, believe, and hold yourself to a higher standard. Only then will you attract more love and light and can really chives the peace you desire.
If you are ready to make positive changes in your life, heal your traumas – or not sure where to begin, please email me. You are not alone in your journey!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: FITDESS.Duhhhx
- Facebook: FITDESS.Duhhh
- Linkedin: Desiray Marie Stevens
- Other: TikTok: FITDESS.Duhhh Email: FITDESS.duhhh@gmail.com
