Today we’d like to introduce you to Chyna Te’Aira.
Hi Chyna, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Before I ever learned how to support other people through what they were carrying, I was a little girl trying to understand what to do with her own hurt. I’m originally from Poughkeepsie, New York, but Virginia has been home since I was about seven or eight. I was born to a teen mother, and my sperm donor spent most of my life in prison. At 13, I went to live with my godparents. There was a lot happening around me, and just as much happening inside me that I didn’t yet know how to name. I was navigating complicated family dynamics and feelings of abandonment while still being a child who needed love, reassurance, and somewhere to put her questions. Those experiences came with me as I got older, into how I understood love, how I chose relationships, and what I believed I had to do to be worth showing up for. Years later, part of my healing would be learning to listen to that little girl and take her needs seriously.
But I was also a little girl with a whole lot of dreams. A singer, a model, an actress, a ballerina, a writer. I had plans, okay? Somewhere in those plans, I was going to be famous and meet Whitney Houston. I was a dreamer, and I still am.
Reading, writing, and singing gave me somewhere to go. I loved getting lost in a book, meeting the characters and living in their world for a little while. As I got older, I wrote poems and stories to make sense of what was happening inside me. It was often easier to put something on paper than to say it out loud. Looking back, creativity was one of the first ways I learned to care for myself, even though I wouldn’t have called it that then.
Connection mattered to me, too. Supporting people, showing up, being loving, making sure someone felt heard and accepted. I knew what it meant to need that.
Growing up, my mom and my daddy were working, and the Boys & Girls Club was somewhere I could go after school. I had access to activities, resources, and a safe place to spend my time. As I got older, I began to understand what having a place like that meant for a whole family. Parents needed somewhere they could trust their children would be cared for while they worked, and children needed somewhere they could learn, explore, and be supported.
That stayed with me. I started dreaming about opening a community center where children had somewhere to go and parents had support, too. I wanted to offer financial education, parenting classes, access to therapy, and resources families could actually use in their everyday lives. I could picture a parent coming in for something their child needed and finding out there was something there for them, too. That vision was a big part of what eventually drew me toward pursuing my master’s in Counseling.
At Virginia State University, I studied Criminal Justice with a minor in Sociology. Initially, I thought I was going to be a lawyer, but a social work class during my sophomore year opened something up in me. In some of the cases we studied, I recognized parts of my own childhood. With my biological father having spent so much of my life in prison, I felt especially drawn to supporting children affected by a parent’s incarceration. I understood that a child has their own feelings, questions, and needs in that experience. I wanted to create somewhere those things could be heard.
My interest in counseling was personal in other ways, too. Looking back, I believe I needed therapy as a child. There were things I needed help understanding and expressing, but I had also absorbed the idea that therapy was for people who were “crazy.” So even when I needed support, I didn’t necessarily believe therapy was something I could turn to.
And I know I wasn’t the only one growing up with those messages. What happens in this house stays in this house. Take it to God. Pray about it. You don’t need to tell a stranger your business. When those are the things you hear, it can be hard to give yourself permission to say, “I need help, and I need somewhere I can tell the truth about what I’m feeling.”
When I finally gave myself permission to go through that process, I experienced how healing it could be to have support, to speak honestly, and to begin understanding myself. It made me want to have more honest conversations in my community about what therapy actually is and what it can offer. I wanted people to know that needing help didn’t mean something was wrong with who they were, and that having faith didn’t mean they had to go without support.
I also wanted people to have access to someone who looked like them and understood the context of their lives. Someone they could talk to without having to give a whole lesson on being Black before getting to what hurt. The little girl who needed somewhere to go, the teenager who needed room to talk, and the young woman imagining resources for whole families were all part of why I chose this work.
I went on to earn my master’s in Counseling from Norfolk State University and spent more than ten years working in mental health, including intensive in-home services, mental health skill building, and case management. I supported children, young girls, teen parents, individuals, and families, and my work also included supporting the LGBTQ+ community in Washington, D.C. Being in people’s homes and everyday lives deepened what I had begun to understand at the Boys & Girls Club: caring for someone means paying attention to the life they’re living, the support they have, and what they need access to.
Because writing and music had always helped me express things I couldn’t easily say, I was also curious about other ways people could connect with themselves.
On a trip to Amsterdam, I came across a man doing sound healing in the middle of the street. I gravitated toward him, and as he played, I felt like I was levitating. That experience stayed with me. I wanted to understand more about what sound could offer, and over time, I began incorporating sound healing, yoga, and creative expression into my work. In D.C., I created an event called Bag Lady for women of color that brought wellness and art together. I wanted people to have room to explore what wasn’t always easy to put into words, something I understood from my own relationship with writing and singing.
Meanwhile, I was still learning how to give myself the care I wanted other people to have.
I’m the oldest daughter. Taking care of people was familiar long before it became my profession. I knew how to show up, keep going, and consider what somebody else needed. Asking myself what I wanted, and trusting that answer enough to act on it, took practice. I had looked for home in other people and places, and I was beginning to wonder what it would feel like to find some of that safety in myself. There were parts of me I wanted to know beyond being helpful, dependable, or needed. That little girl who wanted to sing and see the world was still in there.
At 30, I moved to Bali. And listen, fear came, too. Fear had questions. Reasonable ones. I just decided, “Well, you’re coming along for the ride, because we’re doing this.”
I lived there for about four and a half years. There was beauty and adventure, and there was also me, having to sit with me. You know how people say, “Wherever you go, there you are”? Well, there I was, across the world with the same feelings and patterns. Apparently, they had passports, too.
Bali asked me to pay attention to how I chose relationships, what I needed, and whether I was willing to honor it. I was creating community while learning how to choose the people I wanted close to me. I was also running through rice fields, learning to ride a bike, dancing, and laughing. Letting myself be a beginner. Letting something be enjoyable without needing to make it productive.
And I was singing. That little girl in me was singing all over Bali. I even went to Singapore to perform. There were moments when I had to stop and think, “Girl, look what we’re doing.” Parts of me that had been waiting for my attention were finally getting it.
“Welcome home, little Black girl” became my mantra. I was learning that I could be someone I trusted. I could listen to my needs, make decisions, and stay connected to myself through uncertainty. For the oldest daughter who knew how to keep going, it meant something to realize, “I get to receive, too. I get to explore. I get to want this simply because it makes me happy.”
While in Bali, I completed my 200-hour yoga teacher training and deepened my practice in meditation, breathwork, sound healing, movement, and voice activation. I continued teaching and facilitating, bringing my mental health background with me while allowing my own experiences to shape how I offered care.
She Remembers Wellness grew from that remembering. My desires, my joy, my voice, and who I was beyond the roles I had become so good at filling. I wanted to walk alongside other women finding their way back to themselves, especially during seasons when life was changing and they were trying to understand who they were becoming.
That’s why I call myself a Life Doula. I walk alongside women through the changes that ask us to get to know ourselves again. Grief, relationships ending or beginning, becoming a mother, or realizing we’ve spent so much time showing up for everybody else that we don’t know what showing up for ourselves looks like anymore. Through individual and group experiences, workshops, and retreats, I bring together sound healing, yoga, meditation, breathwork, voice, movement, and conversation. Sometimes we need somewhere to say the thing out loud. Sometimes we need to move, cry, rest, or remember that we’re allowed to enjoy ourselves. I want women to have room to explore what they need and practice honoring it. I’m also a postpartum doula, supporting women and families after birth, because while everyone is getting to know the baby, the mother is getting to know herself in a new way, too. She needs care in that becoming.
Creating retreats in Bali grew out of that same desire, and my love for a place that had become my second home.I lived in Ubud, whose name comes from the Balinese word for medicine, and that connection feels deeply personal because so much of my own healing happened there. Being amongst the local people, building relationships, and spending time on the land was a gift. I call her Mama Bali because that’s how I experienced her. She held me while I learned how to hold myself. Inviting my sisters there meant welcoming them into a place that had become deeply personal to me, somewhere we could make time for our own healing together.
The Black Woman’s Exhale came from recognizing how much Black women need spaces where we can actually let our shoulders drop. Where we don’t have to walk in wondering how we’ll be received, whether we’ll be judged, or how much of ourselves we need to edit to make other people comfortable. I wanted us to be able to speak how we speak, laugh how we laugh, use our mannerisms, and be understood without having to stop and explain ourselves. You know that feeling when you look at another Black woman and she already knows? There’s relief in that.
And I wanted room for our playfulness, too. For us to be silly, dance, try something new, laugh from our bellies, and remember what we enjoy when we’re not responsible for making sure everybody else is okay. Because we can travel across the world and still be mentally managing everything back home. I wanted us to have time to arrive, let ourselves receive, and get to know the women beside us beyond what we do and who depends on us.
I believe sisterhood is medicine. Being somewhere beautiful, surrounded by women who can hear your truth and make room for your joy, means something. My hope for The Black Woman’s Exhale is that a woman can feel, “I can bring all of me here, and there is care for me, too.” That’s the invitation: Sis, let your shoulders drop. You can exhale here.
Returning to Virginia has been another beginning. My friend Suzanne Burns believed in me and offered me the opportunity to take over Broad Yoga, a studio on Broad Street in Richmond. Being trusted with a space she has cared for means a great deal to me, and I’m grateful to carry its pay-what-you-can model forward.
The studio welcomes people of all genders for yoga, sound healing, meditation, workshops, and opportunities to connect. I want someone to feel comfortable walking through the door even if they’ve never taken a yoga class or have no idea what a sound bath is. You shouldn’t have to already know the language or have extra money in your budget to feel like you belong.
There is so much people are carrying. We’re grieving while working, worried while parenting, overwhelmed and still answering, “I’m good,” because we don’t know where to begin or whether there’s room for the real answer. I want the way we care for people here in Richmond to make room for that answer, and for the laughter, creativity, and connection we need, too.
It brings me back to the little girl at the Boys & Girls Club and the young woman who wanted to create resources for families. The work has taken forms I couldn’t have imagined then, but I recognize what has been guiding me all along. I know what having somewhere to go meant in my own life, and I want to help make that possible for someone else.
And I’m still a dreamer, still singing, still writing, still becoming. Those parts of me get to come with me, too. We spend so much time asking people to keep going. I care about what’s available to them along the way.
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?
Whew, no, it has not been a smooth road. You can love what you do and be good at it, but learning how to run a business is a whole other thing. I had to start treating my business like a business and give the planning, finances, and administrative work the same attention I gave the experiences I was creating. Being in a room with people and supporting them came more naturally to me. Figuring out everything it took to keep that work going? That took some learning, and it still does.
One of the biggest struggles was learning how to charge for my work without feeling bad about my pricing. When you care about people and want them to have access to support, that can be hard. But I had to consider the time, education, preparation, and energy that go into what I offer. People may experience an hour with me, but there’s a lot that goes into making that hour possible. I had to learn how to honor that without feeling like I needed to apologize or explain myself every time I shared a price. I want to serve my community, and I also need to take care of myself. Making room for both has been a real learning process.
Another struggle has been finding balance and not allowing my work to consume every part of my life. When it’s your business, there’s always something to do. An email to answer, something to plan, something to post, another idea you want to bring to life. It can be hard to feel like you’ve done enough for the day. I had to remind myself that I could take a day off. I did not have to work seven days a week to prove that I was serious about what I was building.
And doing wellness work makes that lesson personal, because I also have to make room for the care I encourage other people to give themselves. I need rest. I need time with people I love. I need time when I’m just Chyna, without having to facilitate something or figure out the next thing for my business.
I’m still putting those lessons into practice. Some days it’s easier than others to close the laptop and trust that I’ve done enough. I love this work, and I want to be able to keep doing it for years. But I also want to enjoy my life while I’m building it. The care I’m so committed to making available to other people has to include me, too.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Through She Remembers Wellness, I specialize in supporting women through life transitions and helping them build a relationship with themselves that they can carry into their everyday lives. A lot of that work centers on self-trust, boundaries, grief, emotional expression, and learning how to recognize your own needs before you’ve reached the point of having nothing left to give.
The name speaks to the heart of the work: remembering who we are beneath the conditioning, the voices, and the experiences that have shaped what we believe about ourselves. As women, we hear so much about who we’re supposed to be. Be strong, be agreeable, don’t be too loud, don’t ask for too much, make sure everybody else is taken care of. Over time, those messages can become so familiar that we mistake them for our own voice.
Remembering makes room to ask, “Is this what I believe about myself, or is this something I was taught? Do I want this, or have I gotten really good at being what other people want?” It’s reconnecting with our curiosity, creativity, desires, and ability to trust what we feel. It’s also allowing ourselves to discover who we are now, because we’re allowed to grow beyond the versions of us that other people recognize.
I offer individual sessions, group experiences, sound baths, yoga, workshops, and retreats, bringing different practices together depending on the intention of the space. We might use breath and meditation to slow down and notice what’s present, movement to explore how we’re feeling, or writing and conversation to put words to something we’ve been carrying. With voice activation, I invite women to explore making sound and being heard without worrying about whether they sound “good.” This is not an audition, sis. Your voice has value before anybody claps for it.
And you don’t have to arrive knowing exactly what you need. Sometimes we know what we’re feeling but don’t feel comfortable saying it. Other times, we’ve been moving so fast that we haven’t stopped long enough to ask. “I don’t know, but I know I need something” is somewhere we can begin.
What makes my approach mine is how my mental health background, creativity, and own ongoing practice come together. I bring my education and experience into the room, along with my curiosity about the woman in front of me. What feels comfortable for her? What is she ready to explore? What does she need me to understand?
That’s where my brave space approach comes in. I invite women to come courageously, whatever that looks like for them that day. Sometimes courage is saying something out loud for the first time. Sometimes it’s choosing not to share, asking for what you need, or saying, “I’m not ready for that yet.” Their voice, boundaries, and choices help shape the space we’re in together.
For me, that means supporting women in building a sense of safety within their own bodies and trust in their own experience. I can offer care, listen, and respect their pace, but I don’t get to decide for someone else what feels safe. We make room for her to notice that for herself and honor it. There’s something powerful about realizing, “I can be here with other people and still stay connected to myself. I can try something new, change my mind, and trust that my no will be respected just as much as my yes.”
And there’s going to be some laughter, because I believe joy is revolutionary, especially for Black women. When so much of our lives involves resisting, advocating, protecting ourselves, and figuring out how to keep going, we need spaces where we can let ourselves play. Where that little girl in us gets to come out without being told to settle down, be responsible, or worry about how she looks to everybody else. We can be silly, dance offbeat, try something we’re not good at yet, and laugh until we have to catch our breath. There’s care in making room for that part of ourselves, especially if we had to grow up early. We shouldn’t have to wait until everything stops hurting to experience something that feels good.
I’m proud that I’ve allowed my work to grow beyond the one way I originally imagined helping people. I get to bring together my education, music, writing, movement, and love for community in experiences that feel true to who I am. Building She Remembers Wellness and creating The Black Woman’s Exhale are meaningful accomplishments for me because I’ve taken something I care deeply about and made it something women can actually participate in.
And I care about what happens after our time together. What does listening to yourself look like when you get home? Can you give yourself a pause before saying yes? Ask for help before you’re overwhelmed? Make time for something you enjoy without needing to justify it? Those everyday choices are part of the work, too. I want women to leave with practices they can return to and more trust in their ability to recognize what they need.
We have spent enough time learning how to be who everybody needs. I want a woman to remember that she belongs to herself, that her needs deserve a place in her decisions, and that she gets to want something for her own life. She gets to say, “This is what I need. This is what I love. This is who I am.” And she gets to build a life where those words mean something.
What makes you happy?
So much makes me happy. The sun kissing my skin, a breeze brushing across my face, being near the water and listening to it move while I have nowhere I need to rush off to. Sitting with people I love, our plates almost empty but the conversation still going, laughing so hard we have to pause before anybody can finish the story. Those are the moments I want to linger in, when I feel good in my body, close to my people, and grateful to be right where I am.
Music makes me happy. Singing gives me a way to express things I don’t always know how to say, and I love being able to feel something and give it a voice. Then there’s dancing, hearing a song I cannot sit still through, letting myself get lost in it for a little while. Sometimes I just want to sing, move, and enjoy myself without needing it to become anything else.
And food? I love to eat, okay? I love trying something new, and I love cooking for people I love. The food, the conversation, somebody laughing with a fork still in their hand. Being together and letting the time go by because nobody’s ready to leave yet.
Traveling brings out a part of me I love. The curiosity, the adventure, finding myself somewhere I once only saw in pictures. Sometimes I have to take a minute and think, “Chyna, look where we are.” Some things little Chyna couldn’t have imagined. Other things? Girl, we said we were going to do that. There’s joy in getting to be the grown woman who says yes to those dreams.
And love. Love makes me happy. bell hooks wrote, “Love is an action, never simply a feeling.” I think about that in the ways we show up for each other, make time, listen, and remember the little things. Loving my people and being loved in ways I can actually feel brings me so much joy. And allowing myself to receive that love, without questioning whether I’ve done enough to deserve it. Being able to love who I am, too, and letting that love show up in how I treat myself.
I think so much of my happiness comes from feeling connected to my people, to the world, and to myself. Having the freedom to follow what excites me and give a full-body yes to something I desire. Sometimes that’s getting on a plane, and sometimes it’s dancing in the kitchen while something good is on the stove. I want to enjoy the life I’m living, and I love those moments when I pause long enough to realize that I am.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sherememberswellness.com
- Instagram: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=channel_description&redir_token=QUZZTVljSGJNV3dqOUhuUlBGR3o1cHc1WTNqYXxBTl9pYzRlZ1dJQUR0Z2NoSGtkUzN3Z3JsYi1CaUFoR2x1X3NJOWxRUHFlZ3JBUlREQUd6aXhodVNLU1lvNWRhMmU2SDNZbGhWNlUzS2R0QWUwUXkxUUZfQnR1Sl9uNk5xYng2&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fchynateaira%2F%3Figshid%3DYmMyMTA2M2Y
- Facebook: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=channel_description&redir_token=QUZZTVljRjc3UERIdkRMQmVsaTFnOURrUk44YnxBTl9pYzRkNlk1b0hmRjNEeG5NUHd0ZGhJQnVBbVpGcXBaS1EzeTAwSDc0TTBIUDgxNXVWaDFfOTVneTJickVBX0lEa1dULTh3QnQ4MWdqWVo1Rk1Iakl6YnlQMVlaNWVFd3dZ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fweb.facebook.com%2Fprofile.php%3Fid%3D643771860%26_rdc%3D1%26_rdr
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@chynateaira13
- Other: https://www.broadyoga.com
