Today we’d like to introduce you to Mama Swole
Hi Mama Swole, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
During my childhood, I went through a lot of trauma. I was being raised in a toxic environment by alcoholics (my mother & stepfather), harassed daily at school, and a lot more. This all left me feeling powerless. Then once I graduated high school, I moved away to college at Kent State University, and this is where things all started to change. I started seeing how much my childhood left me feeling bad about myself and I wanted to heal from that. I wanted to feel confident and happy with who I was, both mentally and physically. The biggest thing that helped me that was when I started working out and lifting weights. I quickly fell in love with it and felt like I had found my passion. I changed my major from Fashion to Exercise Science, competed and placed in a Bodybuilding competition, and once I graduated I became a Certified Exercise Physiologist. I ended up moving to Italy after I graduated and during my time there I trained Air Force Personnel. After that I finally achieved one of my biggest dreams in life, moving to LA. This is where I finally found that power that was within me all along. I had always wanted to live here since I visited my Aunt that lived here when I was a kid. I just knew it was where I was meant to be and when you know, you just know. My aunt helped further instill that confidence in me that I was searching for all along, while I also started pursuing my career with social media. I started my fitness youtube channel “MamaSwole” and shared all of my knowledge that I learned with my Exercise Science major. Since then I’ve branched out to also posting fitness content on both Instagram and Tik Tok as well. My mission with my social media is to help women & femmes own their power and become the best version of themselves. I want to give them that positive influence & leader that I always wanted when I was a kid.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. After my bodybuilding competition that I mentioned, I developed an eating disorder and had to go to therapy for awhile to heal from it. I was still struggling with it while I lived in Italy and felt very alone while I was there. When I moved to Los Angeles, I started getting healthier and had a much better relationship with food, and developed relationships with people here so I didn’t feel alone anymore, however not all of them were healthy relationships. I had to cut ties with toxic people and learned that people have to earn your trust, ESPECIALLY in LA. I was also diagnosed with an anxiety disorder when I moved here and realized that explained a lot about things I went through both as a child and an adult. As for my social media, it was very difficult at first especially with how many people didn’t support me, laughed at me, didn’t believe in me, and they weren’t shy about verbalizing how much they doubted me. Once my channel and social media started to grow they of course, however, changed their tune. But I learned to not rely on other’s support and just believe in and support myself. Social media is an eternal rollercoaster with things like the algorithm always changing so it can be a huge struggle not letting the downslopes and the numbers get in your head. And when you rely on it financially, it becomes an even bigger struggle when it comes to engagement dropping. And not to mention the other negatives that can come with it such as hate comments, instability, etc. But with every struggle is a lesson and we always grow from challenges, even if we don’t see it right away.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a personal trainer and content creator and I specialize in building muscle/weight loss, and a mixture of entertainment and informative content. I believe I’m known for my more humorous and skit content, but I’m also really proud of how many people I’ve inspired, every message I get from someone telling me that I helped them in some way is the most fulfilling thing for me. I think that’s what sets me apart from others, is that I can be serious and get deep and motivating in my content, but I’m also a lighthearted person that really just loves to have fun and make people laugh.
What matters most to you?
What matters most to me is how many people, especially as I mentioned, women and femmes, that I can impact for the better. We go through SO MUCH in this world and there’s a lot of darkness, so if I can be even the smallest light for another woman and make her life easier, help her feel more confident, help her be able to get stronger both mentally and physically, that’s the MOST important thing to me. What I care about the most is helping other women and femmes own their power, because they already have the power within themselves, nobody and nothing has to give it to them, they just have to own it!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mamaswole.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/mamaswole
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/mamaswole
