Why the Women Who Give the Most Are the Last to Rebuild with Wellness Practitioner, Almeta Brown
Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts | Watch on YouTube
Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts | Watch on YouTube
“When you're picking up heavy weights in life and you make the decision to face that weight, there is a confidence that you build." - Almeta Brown
Almeta Brown is a strength coach, therapist in training, and wellness practitioner. Her work lives at the intersection of trauma-informed care, nervous system regulation, and sustainable strength building.
Her approach begins with a question that reorients the entire conversation around health and performance. Not how much the body can endure — but what it means to feel safe, strong, and supported in your own body.
Through trauma-informed strength training, Almeta helps her clients build physical muscle alongside something less often named: resilience, self-trust, and capacity. Everything she teaches comes from her own experience, including competing in bodybuilding shows, which grounds her practice in something beyond theory. Her framework is rooted in the values of intentionality, rest, love, service, community, and health as a lifelong practice — inviting people to slow down, reconnect with themselves, and build systems that work with their bodies and lives rather than against them.
A central thread in her work is redefining what health looks like, particularly within Black communities, and restoring rest to its rightful place as a tool for regulation and sustenance — not a reward earned after exhaustion. She believes the way we care for our bodies mirrors the way we care for our lives and our communities.
As a therapist in training, Almeta brings a treatment-plan mindset to every client relationship. Through an integrated wellness framework that blends strength training, coaching, and mental health–informed support, she works with clients to build personalized plans grounded in both physical and psychological needs — helping them develop capacity not just in their bodies, but in every area of their lives.
Connect with Almeta
LinkedIn: Almeta Brown
Website: www.mindandbodymoves.com
Instagram: @MindAndBodyMoves
Connect with Naomi
Website: www.naomihaile.com
LinkedIn: Naomi Haile
Instagram: @naomiahaile
This episode is for you if:
You're a giver who has been running on empty and can't quite name why
You want to understand what trauma-informed strength training actually looks like in practice
You're ready to think about rest as a strategy — not a sign of weakness
You're curious about how systemic and historical forces show up in the body and affect health outcomes
You want to build physical strength and self-trust at the same time, not one after the other
You're navigating grief, burnout, or a season of depletion and want a framework for rebuilding capacity
Looking for a specific gem?
03:41 Welcome and introduction to Almeta Brown
04:53 Growing up in a structured home: discipline, joy, and the art of coloring outside the lines
05:45 College, balance, and the expectations instilled early
08:52 From healthcare policy to strength coaching: following the momentum
11:08 Before the health journey: limited beliefs, grief, and feeling empty
11:51 How losing her mother and grandmother became the catalyst for transformation
16:40 The cost of giving without receiving and normalizing pain
19:05 What "doing the research within" actually looks like
25:39 How policy, race, and systems live inside our bodies
26:48 Strength training reversing hypertension — and what that unlocked
31:27 Community, learning basics, and why the endorphins worked
35:29 When the connection isn't happening - blocks, breathing, and belief
41:17 The treatment plan mindset: why, goals, and coaching with intention
44:24 Defining capacity — and the difference between stretching and collapsing
45:59 How to rest in small ways, even when you're being stretched
49:50 What rest looks like for Almeta in this season of her life
52:02 The decision that didn't look right on paper: leaving healthcare out of fury
54:22 An invitation for the next 30 days: connect, move, and rest
56:16 Almeta's greatest hope for Black women: presence over outcomes
Conversation Transcript
Naomi Haile: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Power of Why podcast. My name is Naomi Haile, and today I'm here with the incredible Almeta Brown. Almeta, how are you doing today?
Almeta Brown: I'm great. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Naomi Haile: Thank you for being here. I feel like we've been talking about this episode for over a year, and so the fact that we get to record this together in this season — and specifically in these two weeks where we've both had a lot of beautiful, unexpected things happen — I'm grateful that we're here doing this today. So thank you for making the time.
So for the audience, a little bit of background. Almeta and I actually met in Harlem. This was in 2020 — or 2025, if I'm remembering correctly — at a really awesome spot called Silvana. I remember coming up to you and asking if you were a student, and we were classmates together. You were stunning, wearing your workout gear. We chatted then, and I feel like we became fast friends and have just grown from there.
Almeta, for those listening, is a strength coach, a therapist in training, a wellness practitioner, and her work lives at the intersection of trauma-informed care, nervous system regulation, and sustainable strength building. Her approach really challenges the traditional narrative around health and performance, which I love. Instead of asking, "How much can the body endure?" she asks, "What does it mean to feel safe, strong, and supported in your own body?" Through trauma-informed strength training, she helps clients build physical muscle, of course, but also resilience — to learn how to trust themselves and understand what their capacity looks like and how they can build it.
Her current focus centers on redefining health, especially within Black communities — how rest can function as an essential tool for regulation. She has competed in bodybuilding competitions, and everything she teaches comes from experience and is rooted in real life. So I'm really excited for you all to meet my incredible friend, to learn from her framework and all of the life experience that she brings to the table. Again, welcome. I'd love if you could kick off by sharing a little bit about how you grew up. Were you the kid who colored inside the lines? Were you messy? Were you out here making your own way? What were you like as a child?
Almeta Brown: Well, first, thank you for that introduction, Naomi — that was beautiful. So as a child, I definitely did not color outside of the lines. I grew up in a very structured home, raised by my mother and my grandmother. They were both educators. My grandmother was an educator and administrator, and my mom was an educator as well. So I was witnessing one thing and also experiencing something else in so many ways.
My family taught me how to create joy, and I feel that when you're a Black woman, you can't color inside of the lines when you're creating joy. So I was taught to do what you need to do.
Naomi Haile: If you understand, you understand what she meant. And if you don't, it wasn't for you.
Almeta Brown: I love that. Yeah. So we had to create joy and also create moments of rest, but also get things done — do what you need to do in order to get things done. I remember when I went to college, my mom was like, "Hey, I'm not sending you to college to just sit in books. You're supposed to go have fun and meet people. Come back with experiences. I want you to go and enjoy yourself." So yeah, there's a lot of structure and a lot of discipline that it takes to achieve different things. But when you are navigating this world and it's time to create and take the things that you need, there's no coloring inside of the lines.
Naomi Haile: I wonder how many people got that advice from their parents going to college. There's so much learning to be had outside of the classroom. I feel like my advice was to get an A in every single class and keep your head in the books. But through time, there is so much to live. So did you take that advice to heart? How did that end up playing out in terms of your experience in college and everything that set you up for adulthood?
Almeta Brown: Yeah, so I was 18 when I received that message. So as soon as I got to college, of course, I focused on having fun. And I did not necessarily understand the balance, but it was something I quickly grasped — that awareness of, "Okay, this is what you have to do. These are the expectations." I remember when it was time to graduate, I was questioning whether or not I was graduating with honors, and my mom goes, "I wouldn't graduate without honors. You need to make sure you're graduating with honors." So the expectation was instilled in me very early.
It definitely played out. I had to go through that journey of learning how to balance things once I graduated and continued to work. Of course, I took myself very seriously and got right back into the structure that was instilled in me as a child. And so I had to go through — and still now am going through — those phases of finding balance between rest, creating joy, and making sure I'm doing what I need to do in order to secure the things I need to secure in life.
Naomi Haile: You're such an incredibly disciplined and focused person, and it shows in how you lead your business and how you support your clients. I'm curious — early in your career, you were in academia and you worked in higher ed. I'm wondering what your personal journey was learning about strength and fitness, and setting that foundation up. Did you have that early on in your childhood as you were growing up? Or is this something that you learned on your own?
Almeta Brown: Prior to starting strength training and working in strength training, I had studied Healthcare Management for my Bachelor's, and then I went on to study Health Policy and Management. I like to think there was a foundation being built — I didn't have complete awareness of the steps, but momentum was being made. I just held on to again doing what I needed to do.
My mom had some really good ones — some of the things she would say. But I remember we were talking about having a plan A and a plan B in life, and she told me to secure plan B first, and then go for plan A. I almost felt like that was what was happening for me. I had other dreams and goals of how I wanted my life to feel that I wasn't necessarily sure how to get to, or what exactly that vision was. I just knew things did not necessarily feel the way I wanted them to feel. So I just kept going, kept putting one foot in front of the other, and focused on the goal at hand — which at the time was education, because that was a value and something very important in my home.
Naomi Haile: You talk a lot about capacity and being in tune with your body. I remember when we first grabbed lunch together, you were talking about the mind-body connection and a lot of the research you've been doing — and then experiencing one-on-one, actually doing the work. Before you started your health journey — and that's never-ending, right, you're always on a health journey — what was your relationship with your body? Because I want people to kind of understand where they are in their own health journey and what that can look like. So before you started investing in strength training and learning more about that world: where were you at, how did you move through your days in that season, how did your body feel, and what did you believe was normal about health?
Almeta Brown: Yeah. Well, first — the one thing I always tell people is that I did not have a belief system rooted in what I could achieve when it came to my physical health. And so in a lot of ways, because of those limited beliefs, sometimes I just would not take a step. I didn't get the opportunity to explore those parts of myself.
I was in New York City, working my nine-to-five, hanging out with friends, going to happy hour. My social life was inclusive of alcohol and food that I don't eat right now in my life. And then there was a point where I ended up navigating a great deal of grief. I lost my mother and my grandmother, and I remember feeling very disconnected from myself — blank, empty. It was something I had expressed to a friend who was also navigating a similar experience. We ended up getting invited to a group fitness class, and that is when I started activating different parts of the momentum that led me to where I am right now.
Naomi Haile: Wow. I'm really sorry for your loss, Almeta. You started your story by sharing that you were raised by your mother and your grandmother, so they were clearly huge pillars in your life and in your family's life. It's amazing — in the years of hosting this podcast, how often a moment of loss, grief, and great pain ends up in some way being a part of healing and growth and transformation and uncovering what your purpose is and how you want to serve. So it's amazing to hear how that in some way was like a catalyst for what you're doing today.
Almeta Brown: It was my critical moment. I like to think of that moment as a time when I had collected a lot of energy that did not feel productive or good. I had a lot of love in me, and sorrow. I was carrying a lot of weight — and I like to think of things in terms of weightlifting, muscle building, bodybuilding. I was carrying a lot of weight, and it was sitting inside of me, and I did not know what to do with it.
I did end up getting a therapist, and we were on the phone one day talking about the fact that I had met people who were bodybuilders. In that moment of activation — in those group classes — I had been connected with bodybuilders, because that's what happens when you join wellness groups. They had invited me to do a couple of sessions with them for free. I'm so grateful, because this was the moment that transformed my life in a really, really good way. It also transformed the energy that I was holding.
I was telling the therapist about this, and she said, "Okay, well, we just discussed a lot of things — things that you're holding and carrying. So as you go into these next couple of sessions, as you pick up weight, I want you to think about the weight you're carrying, and leaving it there, and dropping it as you put it down." I still utilize that same tool when I'm bringing other people in. I'm not a therapist, but I am curious about what it is you're dealing with and your why for bringing yourself into this space. I try to make them aware. That's the trauma-informed part of the work — making sure you're aware of what you're carrying and what it is that you're trying to put down in this space.
Naomi Haile: Wow. You're sharing different pieces of advice that you've received over your life at different stages, and you remember every single word and you apply them. That's powerful. At that time in your life — you mentioned feeling blank and empty — what did you believe your body was supposed to push through, no matter the cost?
Almeta Brown: I was raised by people who lived a life of service. I was raised by Black women. The women in my family in particular — I have a large family, but the women in particular are givers: within my family, within their communities, and within the work that they do. They give and give and give. And that was something I had to sit with when I lost my parents. They had given so much. It was hard for me to ignore the fact that I was in a space now where there was this expectation of giving. Like, where is the receiving? What am I doing about the receiving? What am I giving to myself, and what am I giving away?
So I was normalizing the pain of giving, because there was a lot of giving and not a lot of receiving. Not a lot of recollecting of myself — and you do that when you rest. I wasn't resting. I was enduring a lot of pain. I was ignoring things, down to even the micro-aggressions that I would deal with in a workspace. I thought my strength was in how much I could take, and also how much I could give without receiving. The emptiness was due to the giving. The blank feeling was due to the giving, and not knowing how to give to myself, to rest, to sit, and to recollect parts of myself that had been stripped and taken away.
Naomi Haile: Wow. And I think in this season — we talked about what we're both going through right now, and what we're seeing with clients and with our friends. It's an interesting time right now. Understanding how you actually did that over time: how long did it take to learn how to give to yourself? And what does that even mean?
Almeta Brown: It's for sure a process. You don't live for 30-plus years and give for 30-plus years, adopt and inherit values wrapped around those behaviors — and then heal them in two years. That wasn't my experience. It took years. Because, like I said earlier, you first have to believe. You first have to have a belief and a hope that you can be that. And this is one area of life where we don't have evidence of the work we do. Everything else we do, there's evidence — oh, I'm going to college, I'm taking these steps, I'm getting a degree. We don't have that when we're going to the gym. There is no immediate transaction.
But what you can do — and I always think about the process of muscle — is equip yourself with knowledge. Educate yourself. And do the research not just outside of you. There's a research that we need to do within. You start doing that research, and research takes time. I lost my mother and grandmother months apart in 2018. We're now in 2026. It took me about eight years to get to a place where I could speak to these things and work through them. I had to do the research — the trial and error, the failing. It took a lot of failing to get there, and you have to get comfortable with that.
Naomi Haile: When you said the research is not external, it's within — what kept coming up for me was this image of poking. As you go through your day and through various life transitions and moments, things come up that we think we've already worked through that you need to almost interrogate in a kind but firm way. Like: what was that? You're almost having a conversation with yourself. What did that research look like for you specifically, if you're open to sharing? Or what can it look like for people who need a little more specificity?
Almeta Brown: I remember when I first went to therapy, my friend said, "I'm so proud of you" — she had already started her healing journey. "I'm here for you if you need me." And in my mind I was like, she's so serious. What does she mean? I wasn't aware. I did not know how hard it would be. And I love that you said poking, because you will always have to go back to some part of yourself. Small things can trigger a moment — a scent, an interaction with someone. Someone might look like someone you've lost. Someone might also be going through grief and want to discuss it with you.
So you're always in a process that felt like failing to me, because I needed it to work. I needed the therapy session to work. I needed the workout I just did to heal me at that moment. But when you're picking up heavy weights in life and you make the decision to face that weight, there is a confidence that you build. Your nervous system is like, "Oh my God, I'm nervous about this thing" — and then you do it, and you start seeing what you can do. And then in weightlifting and muscle building, you only get there by truly failing. You have to fail in order to reach the next level. That is exactly what that experience was like for me — being comfortable with the fact that this is not a linear journey. You will fail. You will have to pivot. You will have to find another way. And you have to be comfortable with that.
Naomi Haile: Yeah. Or at least sit with it. And you do build that over time. So before we go into more about your practice and your framework and belief systems around strength training, I would love for you to bring us into the heart of your work. Because it's deep, Almeta — every time we connect and chat, whether it's over food or at the cafe, I'm always in awe of how you talk about being connected to self, and how you relate things that the average person doesn't really understand when it comes to fitness. There's a lot of competing advice out there. If you could build a new standard for what health looks like — what would you ask people to let go of, and what would you require us to start celebrating?
Almeta Brown: First, thank you for acknowledging that this work is deep — because it is. It's serious. It's really, really serious because the outcomes of it are sitting right in our faces. And because we are navigating such busy lives and competing with all these external factors, we are not able to sit in the reality of what is happening right now and how it is affecting and impacting us.
I mentioned earlier that I studied healthcare — the policy side, the administrative side. I feel like I know the systems and structures throughout. I studied Healthcare Management in undergrad, Health Policy and Management in grad school. The one thing I always noticed was how those policies and structures determined and managed our outcomes. The numbers are there. We know the maternity death rates for Black women are three times higher in comparison to white women. We also know how chronic diseases affect our Black community. So when you look at policy, when you look at history, when you look at bias, when you look at how those things exist within the healthcare system — it is hard for me not to think about how policy, race, and all those structures sit inside of us.
It's very hard for me not to consider and think about how policy and systems live in our bodies — how they determine our outcomes. And so when I got on this side of it, I started realizing that when you're not painting yourself out of the lines, you also get to create and figure out your own outcomes. You also have power. And I did not have that belief system — but it wasn't by my own decision making. I had been navigating the same role that everyone else has.
It was when I took rest. I took a lot of rest during the pandemic, and that is when I started facing some of my fears. It happened physically by picking up 135 pounds and saying, "Okay, I'm going to lunge this." I had so much anxiety doing that. And I started taking those steps, and I started realizing I could achieve things. Things started changing. I was in my 20s and I had been suffering from hypertension — which is a chronic heart health condition. I strength trained and weight lifted for six weeks, and my blood pressure issue went out the door.
It wasn't a quick transaction, but it was an investment I started putting into myself, and the return started coming. And at the heart of the work is my experience — but it's also the experience of so many Black women. My mom passed when she was 48. I always think about how policy, systems, structures, education, and racism live inside our bodies. As I started having these experiences and improvements and started evolving through this practice, it was something I wanted to give to women who looked like me — because it's not that they're not equipped. They just have yet to receive the knowledge, or the tools. Maybe they don't believe it yet. Maybe no one has shown them.
I wanted to make it accessible, because let's be honest — we know Black women are out here killing it in all areas of life. But that doesn't necessarily make certain healthcare spaces accessible to them. I wanted to find a way to make it inviting, to make it believable, to make it worth the investment. I'm still on a journey of figuring out how to scale those things. But that is what is at the heart of my work. I know what happened behind us. I know what we can control on a daily basis. And I wanted to give that to people who were going through the same thing I was experiencing.
Naomi Haile: Wow. Your why is very strong, Almeta. Thank you. I'm so glad we get to have this conversation, because the work is deep — it's life and death. These are the real circumstances we're talking about. When you mentioned battling hypertension in your 20s — you started strength training on an invitation. When you stayed consistent with it, were you staying because you had realized this is how you're going to reverse what you're navigating health-wise? Or what was your reason for staying with it?
Almeta Brown: When I first started, I met the individuals that brought me into the work — I'm so grateful for them to this day. A couple of things were happening. There was a community aspect where I got into a session surrounded by all these fit, muscular, strong-looking men and women, and that community invited me in. That was a major component.
And then I started moving. I was not a major athlete in school — I was a cheerleader. I'm tall, 5'10", so people assumed I ran track, but I didn't. In those first sessions, I took it very seriously and wanted to truly learn. But I had never lifted that way before. Some of them were bodybuilders and Pilates instructors, so there was a different level of tension, connection, and time that would go into lifting, carrying weight, breathing — all these things.
I remember feeling so good after that first session. I had done group workouts before, but they were fast-paced, and I would hurt myself and not be truly connected. I didn't have time to take my time in those sessions. I didn't have the basics. But once I started learning the basics — and I live for a moment of learning — it felt like I was learning and connecting. I would feel full. Those endorphins worked. I was like, this is real. And that kept me going.
I would feel full, and this is something I've learned over time — how to enter into a space and know what it's giving you when you leave. I would go in, work out, and it would be challenging. I would learn something new about my body. I started thinking about what I had just engaged in order to achieve a particular movement — the stretching and contracting of a particular muscle. That felt invigorating and empowering. We underestimate the level of empowerment that happens in the gym and how it can translate outside of the gym when we're navigating regular life.
Naomi Haile: Such a huge impact. I love that you said the endorphins worked, because the woman you were describing before — feeling empty — that was you finally investing in you, filling your own cup. And through all of that, through feeling good, through investing — you had all of these other results that came from it. And it really is about extending your life too, increasing the quality of it when you are here.
Almeta Brown: It truly is. And I think it requires you to be present, in a way, to understand what that quality of life could truly feel like. For me, I would not take certain risks. I was holding on to a lot of fear. If someone were to ask me the biggest thing I took from this work, it was releasing fear — so that I could understand the quality of life I deserve, so that I could explore those things and feel okay exploring them. I was raised by educators, so I knew how to create joy one day a week. But how do you incorporate that throughout every single day of your life, throughout your purpose, throughout your work?
Naomi Haile: That's the ultimate question. You mentioned how working out helped you release fear and take risks. I remember the first thing I did when I moved to New York was join a boxing studio. Before I even figured out what cafes were near me, I had researched studios in Manhattan, reached out to the trainer on Instagram, and said I'm moving and I want to be a part of this gym. Side by side with starting school, I would go downtown, take my class in the morning, and come back up for class. When you mention how investing in your physical self impacts everything else — it just made me feel so strong. Like I could handle whatever came my way.
And it's the confidence, the self-belief, the empowerment — and the trust. Just trusting that you're going to figure it out physically, and then also in your life when challenges come. With your clients, Almeta — what are some of the patterns you've seen around the emotional shift they undergo even before the physical results start to kick in? What do you see bubbling up in them as they start training with you?
Almeta Brown: That question brings me so much joy, because I just thought of all my clients — I love them. They're amazing. But I love the "ooh"s and "ah"s around awareness — when they start becoming aware of how their body is connected to movement. My favorite thing to say is that nothing happens in isolation. Even when you're putting your finger up, I want you to think about your core. The core is the center. So we dive deep into that. We dive deep into grounding the body. One of the things I coach into is breathing.
It's one thing to see them achieve a max when it comes to carrying load. But when they become aware of how their body is connected — that sparks the belief system. And I know we'll be able to keep going, keep growing, keep evolving. Because it's one thing to move, but when you're being taught how to move with intention, you see it in that space. It's just beautiful. It's not an instant transaction — it's an instant feeling. And they start believing in it. I am amazed by that moment.
Naomi Haile: In your own words, what does it mean for movement to help somebody feel safer in their body?
Almeta Brown: When I think about movement, I think about your nervous system. When I think about safety, I think about confidence, self-trust, and courage. I think both take a level of knowledge, and then also some time to get to that place of safety and trust in your body.
Movement we need — in the gym, you need movement; in life, you need movement. You need momentum. You need energy. You need connection. Those things show you things that you probably can't show yourself in a moment. And when you connect that to the courage and the confidence — it's hard for me not to think about the process of muscle building, and how those things create space, and how you can be in the space of evolution with both of them.
Naomi Haile: When you were describing the results you see with clients early on — before the physical results arrive — when the belief, the sense of empowerment, aren't happening yet: have you seen that before? And if yes, what is stopping it? What's getting in the way of being able to truly connect with your body and build up that capacity?
Almeta Brown: I have seen that before. I will never forget the first time I saw it. It was something I had to find peace with — it was one of my failures. I had to think about that person as a whole, and all that they were navigating in life. It went back to the belief systems and everything they were connected to outside of their body that was playing a more powerful role in how they connected with their body.
One thing I notice in clients who sometimes have a hard time in that space: there is a lack of breathing. They're not breathing while we're moving. They're not breathing during the workout. They're not connecting in that moment. They're not believing in what is happening. A lot is happening outside of them, and they're having a hard time finding evidence for what they're working on. So we're dealing with blocks — mental blocks, emotional blocks, and other blocks they may or may not have inherited.
Naomi Haile: Change is hard. And as a coach — whether you're talking about money, movement, fitness, or any area of life — you're always going to come up against the internal beliefs a person carries. You have to get them through the transformation. So many connective tissue pieces here.
You recently went back to school — I remember the conversation about you deliberating on whether to pursue your MSW. So right now you're a therapist in training. You approach your work with a treatment plan mindset, which is so key. What does this mean for people, and what are the types of questions you hone in on to collaborate on an approach for someone's health plan and what their outcomes can look like?
Almeta Brown: Collaboration is key. The one question I ask before taking a client on is their why. Why are you looking to strength train with me specifically? What is it that you need? Why do you want to change? All of the whys. And then we come together in that first session. I conduct an assessment. We talk about their goals, because everyone has a physical goal — nothing is wrong with that. Beauty and confidence are a byproduct of doing the strength work. But from a treatment plan perspective, in therapeutic settings — as I am learning, because I am not a practicing therapist right now — it is a collaborative thing.
I've been fortunately doing this with my clients for a while. In the first session, I ask different questions about what they're learning: based on how you just did this movement and with the education I've provided, what are you learning about your body? What do you think about that movement? How did that make you feel? I always ask them: how might this show up in other areas of your life? And then we come up with goals — the internal and the external goals they're trying to achieve.
Naomi Haile: And you're asking that during training as well, in the session itself?
Almeta Brown: Every session — from the first session to our ongoing relationship. Every movement should be done with intention. So I'm going to provide you with how I would do this: this is how I would do this lunge, this is how I would engage my core, this is how I would connect with my pelvic floor, this is how I would think about my foot when I'm doing a lunge, this is my breathing pattern. I make sure every single one of my clients incorporates a breathing pattern in every move we do. That's so important — when you're carrying weight in life, you have to breathe.
So I make sure we collaborate. And there are times when my breathing pattern won't work for them. So I ask: how are you breathing now? How are you stepping forward? How are you moving? We come up with a coaching plan together, and then I act as a guide and a motivator.
Naomi Haile: Having consistency and accountability with someone who actually cares is so important. We touched on capacity earlier. You mentioned something to me off camera about how we're being stretched right now, and how we're coming to a touch point around what our capacity looks like — what our limits are. How do you specifically define capacity in your work, outside of aesthetics, body weight, or personal records?
Almeta Brown: When I hear "capacity," I think about the stretching. I think about things we can't control that we might end up being faced with, and whether or not we're equipped to navigate those things. So it takes me back to your belief system first, and having the strength and the courage to actually sit in that moment of discomfort.
When you're building muscle, it requires you to stretch and constrict that muscle — stretch and constrict — in order for it to grow and expand. I think it's a similar approach in life. You will have to constrict, and then you will have to stretch. You need to rest. You need to eat well, feel nourished. The same thing happens in the body — and that is my role in that space: to provide you with the education and the motivation, and to think about how that's happening here and how it's happening in your life.
Naomi Haile: If someone listening feels strong in their life — let's say they've built up capacity through their life experience — but they're tired, worn out: what questions should they ask themselves to understand whether their capacity is stretching, or whether they're getting into depletion territory? How do we tell the difference?
Almeta Brown: Yes — there's a resting that needs to happen. One of the intentions I set for my clients this week was resting in small ways. We use the principle in the gym, but of course I want them to use it outside of the gym too. That is necessary so that you don't collapse. You can call it depletion — I call it collapsing. So how do you find ways to rest in small ways when you're being stretched, when you're contracting?
Ask yourself: when have you truly felt replenished? It's not enough sometimes to just take a day off — I'll speak for myself. Sometimes I have to sit with myself and truly recollect parts of myself that I may have given too much of. So how do you find ways to rest in small ways?
I'm going to go back to reps. I have a client right now who is very strong, super fit, amazing, and super dedicated to her fitness journey. But sometimes we do workouts where I have her stand on an 18-inch box holding heavy weights and breathing. She's fully equipped for this — we've been working together for a long time. But sometimes she has a fear of standing too high on boxes, afraid she's going to fall. One of the things I recognized was that she was rushing to get through each rep. When you're rushing, you're making yourself more fearful, because you're not sitting in the moment. She wasn't finding ways to rest between each step up and down. I told her: just be present and breathe and find ways to rest while you're doing the movement, and you'll get over that hump.
It's a similar principle for life. Find ways to rest in small ways, because you don't want to collapse. The question they should ask themselves is: what did their rest look like? What happened, and how did we get here? And then use that knowledge to create the next point in their journey.
Naomi Haile: Tangibly, Almeta — what does your rest look like? How often are you working out? What does your routine look like right now?
Almeta Brown: I am taking rest very, very seriously right now. I wake up at six and see clients all morning, and I am also a therapist in training, which requires a lot of my time. So there were things on my plate that were not actually in service of the person I am trying to become. I let those things go so I could afford myself more rest.
When it comes to fitness right now, I am doing cardio twice a week and strength training three times a week. In the past, strength training required me to get dressed and go to a huge gym where I had access to all different weights. That's not happening right now. Now I wake up at five and try to incorporate deep breathing and lifting weights in my living room. I can't afford to travel as much because I have to take care of my clientele. And this has been proving to make me more effective and more present in my work.
It was a hard lesson, because I looked back at the last four months of my life and I was taking on so much. I had to learn how to balance a new school schedule while balancing my clients. The one thing I did not balance well was my own fitness regimen. So how can I get my meditation in? How can I get my strength training in? How can I make sure I'm nourishing my body? It requires me to rest more, wake up earlier, and come up with something that truly works for me.
Naomi Haile: I love that. Thank you for sharing that. As we near the end of this conversation — there's a question I've been really loving asking people: what is a decision that you've made in your life that didn't look right on paper, but ended up changing the course of your life and business?
Almeta Brown: So when I first went to grad school, I hated it. I was disconnected from it. Now I understand — I couldn't see myself in it. But it was such an important lesson, because it is exactly why I'm doing the work I'm doing. The only way I saw myself in it was in the health outcomes that outlined how the systems I was being trained to work in were affecting — and benefiting off of — the illness of people who looked like me, who had a similar lived experience.
So a part of my career journey: I left healthcare because I was so infuriated with it. I did not like what I was working in. And it was on paper — at the time I entered that program, it was the number one program for Health Policy and Management in the United States. But now looking back, it definitely served a greater purpose. It's at the foundation of my work. I have to look back to know where I'm going. That theme applies to my decisions, to what I've studied, to my family, to policy. I do this work because policy sits in our bodies. Political decisions manifest in our bodies. And so yeah — I studied health policy. I didn't know it at the time, but I would need it now.
Naomi Haile: Wow. Yeah. And this feels especially timely right now. For people who feel disconnected — and also to Almeta eight years ago — someone who really wants to feel stronger, build their capacity, feel more grounded: what would you invite them to do in the next 30 days?
Almeta Brown: Connect. And in a minute I'll tell you how. But connect, because that builds momentum. That is how you will develop energy, and that's how you'll start to figure it out. But you can only figure it out if you connect first.
I did it through joining a community. That community connected me to my community. I'm in New York, so there are a couple of fitness studios around me. And let me say — connect with the right community. My community needed to be wellness. I needed movement in every sense of the word. The people were in movement. The work we were doing was in movement. We were in momentum. Doors open. We hear these things when we're younger, but because it doesn't show guaranteed evidence, we don't go after it. But being in the right room can do a lot for your future.
The room I needed to be in was a room where people were working on their bodies. So I would take advantage of those spaces — go to fitness classes for the next 30 days. And while doing it, rest in small ways. Rest.
Naomi Haile: That is definitely the highlight of this conversation. And then lastly — what is your greatest hope for Black women, especially those who are carrying that invisible weight you were talking about? What's your greatest hope for people to feel seen, supported, and encouraged to pursue a version of health that really honors their life and lived experience?
Almeta Brown: I want us — when it comes to our bodies and the movement we make with them — I want us to have more presence with what we're feeling, what we're thinking, and how those things are showing up in our bodies and where. I believe there's a lot of power in discerning and knowing when to disconnect from outcomes and give ourselves an opportunity to be very present in what's happening right now with us.
And I think if we can do that, it's very powerful — because it will deepen our awareness of ourselves. We get stuff done. We get it done. And I know that if someone sits with themselves and things surface, they won't just leave it there. I feel that we just haven't had the opportunity to do that, because of all the competing priorities, conditioning, and things that are taking up space that don't serve us. So I want us to disconnect from outcomes and connect to right now. Connect to our present. So we can start our own internal research.
Naomi Haile: Mic drop. Several drops. Thank you. Almeta — such a light. Thank you for doing the work that you do. Thank you for being here and sharing with new people who might not know you in my community. I really encourage you to follow Almeta and the work that she's doing, because she will change your life. If you're in New York, you already know what to do. Thank you again. And thank you to everyone who's taken the time to listen to this episode of The Power of Why podcast. We will catch you in the next one.
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