Arielle Simone, also known across social media as the Holistic Mami,” has gained an audience online for talking about wellness and her holistic approach to health.
Whether she’s advocating for hot yoga or telling people to take their gut health seriously, Simone is always giving us the tea on how to get physically and spiritually aligned. xoNecole spoke with Simone about how to romanticize your life and start your wellness journey as a Holistic Mami too.
xoNecole: Have you always been into wellness and if not what made you want to get into it?
Arielle Simone: I was not always into wellness, but I was always into moving my body. I used to eat whatever whenever. I noticed that my skin was really bad. My balance was really bad. I was consistently bloated and constipated. I was a model originally. I used to model and I was very dehydrated, not taking care of myself. Now my skin is really clear. I take care of my diet. Things have definitely started to get better.
xoNecole: What does an average day look like for you?
AS: I wake up at six A.M. and I pray, journal, meditate, stretch – in that very order. And I read a lot. My morning routine is two hours, I’m gonna be honest it’s a solid two hours. Then I cook or I go to the gym. I get on the computer and do some work. I write some wellness content. I spend time with my snake.
Some days, I don’t eat super super nutritious, but I think it’s important to find a balance between what feels good and what is good.
Arielle Simone
Courtesy of Arielle Simone
xoNecole: In your Vogue interview you spoke about romanticizing your life. What does that look like for you?
AS: I find the luxuries in everything, and I mean everything. Finding the luxury of having time in the morning. The sun started piercing through the window and hitting your skin. Finding the luxury in having more time to journal. Having an able working body that you can massage yourself, wash yourself, brush your teeth. I try to find the luxury in every little thing.
I do want to add that the five love languages, it's important to practice that on yourself. That's a good way that I have been romanticizing my life. So I really like gifts and I really like physical touch. So I'd love to massage myself. I love to touch on myself. I be looking at my little scars and my cuts like, “you gonna be alright; you gonna be fine.” It’s things like that that I find to be very romantic.
xoNecole: You are intentional about directing much of your advice towards Black women, can you talk a bit about that?
AS: Black women are the highest demographic in high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and heart attacks. And that’s alarming. And I feel like because we go through so much on a day-to-day basis, it's hard for us to understand and listen to our bodies. It’s hard when you’re taking care of the family, when we are dealing with work and just dealing with people on a day to day basis, it's hard to check in and see: “Hey, do I have energy? Have you stretched? Maybe I need to spend time in nature. Maybe I need to call my friends.”
Everything feeds us–from the conversations that we have to the music that we listen to, the podcast we get into. Everything we engage in is a part of our diet.
xoNecole: What are the unique barriers you think Black women face when trying to engage in wellness that you see?
AS: Not knowing where to start or not having the resources or not being around a healthy bodega or a healthy food store or not being able to afford to invest into wellness. But I think for sure just not knowing where to start and not seeing people like us talk about [wellness].
xoNecole: What are the ways in which Black women can start their wellness journeys?
AS: I think it’s really important to start off with a morning routine. I’m a big believer in how you start your day is how you start your life. And if we wake up scrambled or we pick up the phone immediately and we’re looking at everybody else’s business before we can even see, like, do my legs work? Can I get up?
So if you have no idea how to start with wellness, I would absolutely start with how you start your day. Waking up a little earlier. Finding out what you need and breaking it down into three small categories like mind, body, soul. What does my mind need right now to be stimulated? Should I be reading or should I be meditating? What does my body need? Do I need to stretch? Do I need some fresh air? Do I need a warm cup of tea? Do I need silence? Should I go on a hike? You can just start the day catering to yourself.
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To help you better understand why this was such a mental awakening for me, I first need to give a bit of my backstory. I’m in my late thirties. I’m an attorneyand a journalist. I own a home and have traveled the world extensively. Essentially, I’ve done everything in life I set out to do. However, when it comes to dating, I struggle. Not because there is anything wrong with me per se, but because my career and “lifestyle” often create problems in my romantic relationships.
View from my hotel room
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I’ve been told everything from, ‘I can’t continue to date you because you seem to choose your career over wanting to settle down and have kids’ by a man after only the second date to ‘Maybe if you just sat down somewhere for a while, I’d actually wife you’ by someone who has honestly never proven themselves to be the settle down type. And these are only a handful of the things I’ve been told over the years.
It’s been frustrating, to say the least, and there have even been seasons where I purposely dimmed my light in hopes that my career wouldn’t push away potential suitors. I know what you’re thinking, “Girl, why would you even consider that? If they’re for you, it won’t matter what you do.” Hey, don’t judge me, but also, I one hundred percent agree.
My hotel bathroom
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That’s why this recent moment in Switzerland was right on time. When I first walked into the hotel to check in, I was blown away by the surrounding beauty. It was a five-star property with one of the world’s most famous thermal bathhouses. Yet, it was something about seeing that 90% of the hotel’s guests were couples, that forced me to sit back for a bit of introspection—while soaking in the thermal spa, of course.
As I went through the mental conversation, there was a battle of sorts. On one hand, I knew that being able to partake in experiences like the one I was having at that moment was important to me. I knew that, at times I actually love being able to dabble in the finer things—after all, I’ve worked hard to be able to afford them. On the other hand, and sadly, I knew that sometimes being a single Black woman that publicly showcases her “luxurious” habits can intimidate men and even scare them off from pursuing you under the guise of them feeling like they “can’t do anything for you, because you have everything.”
My hotel room
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So, what is a girl to do?
Do I minimize/hide the life and experiences that I have? Do I play down the hard work I’ve put in to get where I am professionally? Or, do I risk being single in exchange for being able to have said life, without backlash?
Luckily, the joy that I felt while being at this property won. There was something about taking a full day to simply pamper myself at the bathhouse and in my in-room steam shower and soaker tub, indulging in cuisine from a 2-star Michelin restaurant and doing all of this while surrounded by an amazing group of Black women that reminded me—this is certainly the life I was meant to live and that I deserve. Even if it means that right now, I’ll just have to provide it for myself until the right partner comes along. And honestly, I’m okay with that.
Restaurant at 7132 hotel
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