We’re looking forward to introducing you to Achea Redd. Check out our conversation below.
Good morning Achea, it’s such a great way to kick off the day – I think our readers will love hearing your stories, experiences and about how you think about life and work. Let’s jump right in? What are you most proud of building — that nobody sees?
A safe emotional container and self care routine that is grounded
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Achea Redd—author, mental health advocate, and founder of Rooted with Redd Coaching. My work centers on helping women and leaders come home to themselves through awareness, emotional honesty, and grounded spiritual growth. Through my books, including The Precipice of Mental Health and my forthcoming Divorcing Religion, Finding God, and through my coaching practice, I offer tools for healing lifelong conditioning and creating a life that feels aligned and true. Everything I create is shaped by lived experience, deep training, and a commitment to authenticity.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
The part of me that has served its purpose and must now be released is the version of myself that believed survival required shrinking. She was formed in rooms where compliance equaled safety, where duty was confused with love, and where my worth was measured by how well I carried other people’s expectations. She protected me when I had no other tools. But her vigilance has become a cage.
Releasing her is not abandonment; it’s graduation. She did her job. I no longer live in the world she was built for. And to step fully into the woman I am becoming, I have to loosen my grip on the part of me that only knew how to endure, so I can expand into the part of me that knows how to live.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
The defining wounds of my life have been the wounds of silencing, responsibility, and belonging. I grew up in environments where emotion was managed through discipline, where compliance was praised, and where love was often intertwined with duty and performance. Those early dynamics shaped patterns that later evolved into high-functioning anxiety, people-pleasing, and a deep fear of disappointing others. They were wounds that taught me to shrink, to endure, and to carry more than was ever mine to carry.
Healing them has not been a single moment but a layered, long-term reclamation. Through therapy, Gestalt work, spiritual re-grounding, writing, and the Four A’s that anchor my coaching practice, I began to see those wounds not as personal failures but as survival strategies that once served me. Awareness allowed me to name them. Acknowledgment helped me understand how deeply they shaped my choices. Acceptance allowed me to stop fighting my own history. And Action gave me the tools to build new patterns rooted in self-trust, emotional honesty, and embodied presence.
The healing is ongoing, but the difference now is this: I no longer move through the world trying to prove my worth. I move through the world remembering it.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What truths are so foundational in your life that you rarely articulate them?
One of the most foundational truths in my life is that I have always known when something was out of alignment, even when I didn’t yet have the language—or the permission—to name it. Since I was young, my body told the truth long before my mind could keep up. I learned to override that instinct for the sake of duty, belonging, and keeping the peace, but the truth itself never left.
Another truth I rarely articulate is that freedom has always mattered to me as much as love. I grew up believing that sacrifice was proof of loyalty, but internally I have always known that love without freedom becomes confinement. This truth guided every evolution in my adulthood, even when I didn’t consciously recognize it.
And perhaps the deepest unspoken truth is that I have always been my own safest place. Long before I had tools or frameworks, there was a quiet inner wisdom that stayed intact—steady, patient, waiting for me to return. The more I heal, the more I realize that the homecoming was never about becoming someone new. It was about remembering who I’ve been all along.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. If immortality were real, what would you build?
If immortality were real, I would build a legacy of spaces—both physical and internal—where people learn to return to themselves. I would create sanctuaries that outlive cultural cycles and generational wounds: places where truth-telling is normal, where emotional and spiritual safety are taught like literacy, and where people learn to anchor themselves in consciousness rather than fear.
I would build a global network of healing centers rooted in the principles I teach now—awareness, acknowledgment, acceptance, and action—spaces where future generations can learn to regulate, reconnect, and root. I would expand Ink & Ivy into a constellation of bookstores, studios, and gathering places that function as modern temples for growth. I would document the human experience through writing, research, and storytelling so that no one feels alone in their becoming.
Immortality wouldn’t change my purpose; it would only give me more centuries to build what I’m already creating now: pathways that help people live with more freedom, more presence, and more truth.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://achearedd.com
- Instagram: @achearedd
- Linkedin: Achea Redd
- Facebook: A. Redd and Real Girls F.A.R.T
- Other: Substack: Achea Redd, The Authenticity Coach
Image Credits
Brandan Jones
Brooke Nicole Creative
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
