We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lanexa Neal. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lanexa below.
Lanexa , thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Throughout life, many of us have heard many times over the phrase “It takes a village to raise a child”, but I don’t think many of us truly understand how significant it is. Gratefully for me, I am aware and I understand because I am the product of the love, support, and encouragement of many strong women and supportive men. The seeds that were planted as a child, cultivated the resilience that the world gets to experience in me.
My life has not been the perfect glitz and glam that we’d like to imagine, however, it wasn’t all bad either. As a baby born with health conditions, I came into this world ready to overcome obstacles. It was no secret of my grandmother’s love and presence that I would fight alone.
At the very young age of 3 and 4, I was always affirmed that I was beautiful, talented, and capable of accomplishing so many great things. At this time, there were mainly women around me assisting in the cultivation of my spirit and growth. Whenever my mom wasn’t present, there were positive, uplifting women pouring into me, doing their best to ensure that I was safe and succeeding. Not only was there an abundance of love but also an abundance of presence, interaction, and intention. Resilience and tenacity were instilled in me at a very young age because of the people in my village.
When I was 7 years old, I experienced a fire the day after Christmas and lost everything I owned. The house burned down to the ground and all that I had physically were the clothes on my back. This was the first year I actually received everything I wanted, just to lose it all the next day. As a child, it was devasting losing those sketchers with the pop-out wheels on them, but there was one thing I had that couldn’t be replaced and that was my family.
My mother was safe, my sister was safe and I was safe and we had each other, which was enough. I remember the trials and tribulations that my family experienced during that time of relocating and re-establishing safety and security. I remember how my mother did her best to stay strong and push through that time in life. I remember the evil that tried to come in and defeat my mother’s spirit and I also remember the beautiful love that came in to build her back up. With the help of the local news and the American red cross, we gained everything we lost back, twice!
This was a very awakening moment for me because I got to see the power of unity, the power of love, and community service. The way that people poured into me and my family was overwhelming and that simple act changed my life. It opened my heart to want to be the same love that had been given to me. It showed me clearly the important things in life and the power I had to overcome great things.
As I continued growing up, many cycles in life would reflect similar obstacles of loss, changes, challenges, and transformations. The conditions I’ve experienced in health and life could be very limiting and deterring to many but because of the support that was given to me as a child, I feel that I was prepared to handle it. Because of the village of lessons, teachers, and blessings, I feel it cultivated a woman who leads with love, compassion, and in service but also one who is prepared mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually for whatever life may bring no matter how extreme and that has helped make me resilient.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
When people ask me what I do, I always smile because I live, I love, I learn. I awaken things in people that they didn’t know what was dormant. I get to use self-expression, creativity, and my hands to communicate what it is God, Spirit, and The Universe wants the world to experience. I have the pleasure of serving as a traveling wholistic health and wellness practitioner, licensed massage therapist, licensed barber, loctician, model, and actress. My business is known as “The Nexxperience” and what I find most special about is it that it is a multitude of skills, passions, and interests of mine cultivated into different services. Many of my services follow a wholistic approach in incorporating all aspects of the self. (Mind Body Spirit, Light & Dark) . I love that I am able to bring awareness to what’s going on internally by cutting hair, or retwisting locs. I appreciate that when I am doing bodywork, I am able to connect a discomfort in the body to a discomfort that exists in daily life. I enjoy being able to provide women with customized waist beads and yoni steams because it allows them space to tap back into their divine selves and just be who they naturally are. Being able to use the many skills and talents I’ve accumulated over the years has created a beautiful and powerful experience that continues to evolve to the Next Level. I am excited to add “author” to my list as I will be launching an affirmation workbook for Children 3+ in mid-July! Being able to pour back into people in the ways that have been poured into me over the years is one of the WHYs of my business.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Looking back on my journey, if I had to say three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in my journey, I’ll give you one of each. The most impactful quality I believe I possessed was resilience because that alone got me through so many traumatic and challenging moments in life and throughout my business journey. It hasn’t been all love and light but it has been what I needed to come out stronger and able to keep going. A skill that I have found most impactful is the skill of discernment. Being able to see things clearly, make conscious decisions, and move accordingly can make a world of difference when relating with people in business and in life. It can save you from hopefully running into some things that could’ve been avoided if your emotional intelligence had otherwise been active. I learned some of the hardest lessons due to a lack of discernment. An area of knowledge that has been most impactful in my journey has been ethics. Having values instilled in you and learning how to treat people, how to manage things, knowing what good business looks like, having examples of bad business exposed to you, and being able to differentiate between right and wrong in the world have been so impactful. So many people get into businesses where they are dependent upon people to succeed and don’t know how to communicate or relate. This alone can be very detrimental to your business. Knowing the whys and what you desire to have as an outcome for your business helps create good ethics for you.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
OMG YES! Collaboration would so love! We a movement by ourselves, but a force when we are together! It has been a desire of mine to come out of hiding with my services and get more connected with like-minded individuals who host retreats domestically and internationally! I have had the pleasure for the last two years of creating space for massage and bodywork for wellness retreats and every time, I feel so alive and full of gratitude for the experiences. I have been setting an intention to become more expressive in sharing the desire to become more involved in travel retreat services but have been running in circles overthinking where to start.
I am also open to collaborating with any creatives who have looks or ideas they’d like to bring to life artistically as my model, actress, and curator passions are active and ready!
Honestly, I’m not opposed to any ideas of collaboration. If you have an idea, let’s see how we can support one another in making it happen. All of the competition and comparing are old and outdated. There’s so much greatness happening at the top with those who are open to collaborating, giving, and receiving without ill intention and fear. I am open to co-creating greatness and a community of mutual love and effort in life and business and welcome you to connect with me!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lanexa.squarespace.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lanexadenise/?hl=en
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lanexa
Image Credits
-MaxRes Photography – Claudia Ray Mat – Sean King – The King Image
