An Interview with Dr. Lisa Alvarez-Holland: Founder of the Curvy Hustle
Picture this, you are about to start a new business in an industry that is barely understood by mainstream society. That you are also about to start again in a new city. Not only that but there is still a lot of stigma behind it. Imagine what it is like to be someone who doesn't fit the mold for a lot of entrepreneurs. Add on top of that, the fact that you are a Mom and have to take care of your kids, ages 4 and 1.5.
This was the risk that Lissette (or Dr. Lisa) took when she first embarked on the road to prosperity. Courageously, she started her first boutique health brand called the Belly Guru and has since been coined as a family-friendly life path called the Curvy Hustle. As a podcast host, life advisor, social teacher and high impact peer mentor, Dr. Lisa is reframing intersectional conversation to include where science and spirit meet. She has introduced The Curvy Hustle, her unique womanhood friendly ecosystem for reframing gender equity in leadership, relationships and family friendly enterprise designs.
It is at the crossroads of science and spirituality that Lissette sees herself making the most significant impact. By focusing on the micro, she hopes to encourage her clients to own their narrative and make the full-circle decisions needed to succeed. She encourages women to make the choices that will empower them with their wellness journey at the core and moving towards sustainable wealth. By acknowledging that the feminine and the masculine are not innately separate but parts of a whole...we can broaden our horizons and build more sustainable and healthy lives and societies. "When we work in harmony with nature rather than against it...that's where we will see the most impact."
In a recent interview, the founder sat down and discussed her journey as she explored what it was like founding her practice in 2005. This was in a time where it was still heavily stigmatized to associate yourself with any other form of medicine besides the mainstream Western model. Though she was an experienced health professional in Western medicine, it became quickly clear to her that there was something missing in her work.
From a young age, Lissette demonstrated she was a natural leader. As a member of Generation X and a Latina of Puerto Rican descent, she was born and raised in the Bronx, New York City. It was a turbulent time to be a child."My father was a police officer for the NYPD. He was tasked with infiltrating the Black Panthers, since they were active in our communities. It was a dangerous time. He would come home and he would struggle to process the experiences he went through."
From a young age, her leadership was recognized by her parents and her close circles. Dr. Lisa said, "I was the oldest daughter in my family. One of my favorite things to do was play teacher. My younger brother (sometimes reluctantly) would be the student."
Her ability to lead was recognized by her family and members of her peer community. Growing up during 2nd Wave Feminism, a lot of the focus was on being prepared to enter the workforce. It was about breaking down the previous divides such as racism and classism. It was also about putting women in positions of influence.
However, as she got out in the professional world, Dr. Lisa noticed there was a severe disconnect between women and the spaces that they were being taught to assimilate themselves into. The industry she chose to enter– healthcare-- was steeped in patriarchy. The barriers for women in the medical field did not begin or end with the office environment. Though there are few in getting into healthcare, patriarchal ideals and racial biases are prevalent. In particular, the differences in women’s health are often ignored.
Lisa said, “There is still a major lack of understanding of women in healthcare. The research did not even focus on women until 1992 and things like menstrual blood were not studied until two years ago. Doctors would just disregard emotions and womb specific concerns such as menopause or post-partum hormonal recovery or bodily changes. We are making improvements but the progress is surprisingly very slow over the past 30 years.”
Dr. Lisa’s work began to shiftt from treating to coaching women after being inside medical offices in the corporate world. She noticed that the complaints of patients were met with dismissal. Bravely, she began showing women how to deal with the pain of living inside a system never designed to include them, as women, on top of their rehabilitation.
First she started by focusing on authority management for clients to get the health they deserved. She guided women on having medical conversations, as well as getting their domestic partnerships on board or the salaries and family-friendly schedules needed. Dr. Lisa mentored her women’s health and mind-body based rehab peers on how to get to the public directly and expand how they chose to serve women’s health holistically.
She retired clinically when COVID hit. Her next move involved stepping into leadership development and thought leadership. Dr. Lisa’s focus was on moving into end-stage feminism, as intersectional challenges are welcome.
It was during her time working in medical practice that Lissette began to notice that the workplace...especially the medical office...was not designed with women in mind. Oftentimes women were expected to work long hours and to fill only specific roles. On top of that, women patients had concerns that were foregone by the doctors seeing them.
During the interview, Dr. Lisa recalled a true story that she encountered while she was on the floor. Way before she moved into her practice, an experience occurred in the psychiatric ward with an 83-year-old woman in a rehab medicine capacity. It was an occurrence that would profoundly shape her approach to health.
“I was sent with an order of poor balance and gait (walk) training and found [the woman] in this state. Her physician didn’t even send the diagnosis of the Phantom Pregnancy (psuedocyesis). I got it from taking her history from the chart. This is how disconnected a woman’s story is to care planning. That incident made me understand the power of the mind over the body and how powerful women are expressing their deeper needs through it.”
She added, “It made me confirm I wanted to approach rehabilitation, recovery and performance training of humans from the mind and not always just from the body basics.”
When Lissette began her own journey in starting her own family, she was soon experiencing the same stigma as the women patients who came to the clinic. She was enduring postpartum depression. She also felt completely out-of-sync with trying to juggle the responsibilities between career, motherhood, and being a wife. Noticing also that her career was being stalled and stifled because of her experience as a Brown, Puerto Rican woman, she left mainstream medicine. Reeling from her experience as a mother with postpartum…she began a journey of self-discovery that took her down many different avenues of wisdom and understanding.
She said, “The corporate world is not designed with the experience of women in mind. Women’s bodies age and progress in ways that are not compatible with corporate structure. By the time we supposedly reach the height of our careers, that is usually when we reach a cap in our biological development.”
To honor biological rhythms and to build her alternative practice, Lissette pulled from different sources. With her experience in Western medicine under her belt, she expanded. She learned from Tantric and Vedic disciplines and incorporated elements of medicine from Taoist, Confuscian and Buddhist traditions. Honoring the mental and spiritual health of the mother was always important for Lissette. She is convinced that one of many reasons why we struggle with so many mental illnesses is because mothers are not given the proper sustenance they need during their time in pregnancy.
“Our society undermines the value of women at all stages and it begins with the mother. The struggles your Mom endured while she was pregnant with you affects you and your well-being over the course of an entire lifespan. For us to have healthy children we also need to have mothers who are too.”
After the Belly Guru, The Curvy Hustle was born. This is a holistic approach to career and health development. Honoring all aspects of well-being as being a part of wealthiness, Lissette works with her non-personal development and small business clients to build up their whole self and their business framework to make sure the owner is optimizing stress processing and is personally aligned with her services. She helps them navigate the physical complications as well as the mental, emotional, and spiritual challenges that they endure.
The Curvy Hustle was actually named in honor of the understanding of the divine feminine that exists in all things and honors the cyclical nature of life. She said,"Our ancestors understood that everything is curves and spirals. Some of the earliest cave drawings are of spirals and circles. They noticed how life and death were connected."
Much of the wisdom from Indigenous Caribbean culture was not exposed to her until much later in life. From this insight though, she learned how to hold and transmute prosperity. She draws from a variety of disciplines in biology, physiology, and spiritual well-being, based on the client’s experience.
She said, "Taíno culture in Puerto Rico as well as the Native People of America, understood that we are connected to the land. We had rituals that honored the earth. Our people even had ways to conduct combat in less atrocious ways than we do today. Women literally embody and mirror, the seasons of the land, the cycles of the tides and the moons"
She believes a lot of our issues in our modern societies are rooted in the lack of women owning this distinct difference in lifestyle and leadership. Lissette said, "We are being led by a bunch of cowards who do not want to speak to this. We need to move beyond safe spaces and into more brave ones."
Lissette became vocal about her passion not long after she served on a discussion panel made up of business leaders and academics. The program was run by Cornell University in conjunction with Bank of America. The content chose to focus on making women ready for the corporate space by encouraging them to adopt masculine characteristics and roles.
She replied, "I knew then that there was a major disconnect. It is coined as lipstick feminism. Essentially, corporate leaders encourage women to get the suit tailored to fit their bodies. It is not about actually honoring the different lived experiences of women in the workplace."
By addressing lipstick feminism and challenging her clients to move past it...Dr. Lisa aspires to help women lead fulfilling lives that honor their lived experiences. Lissette believes that for women to succeed in the workplace, their contributions need to be recognized as inherently valuable as men's, even if they appear different. She said, "Women are collaborative. Our leadership is rooted in relationships. It challenges the paradigm of individualism. We have to celebrate this if we want to make progress."
When asked what advice she would give to women who endured what she went through, she responded, "Find a mentor. They will guide you on your journey and can be a tremendous asset to your career. Build connections and learn from them."
Starting out on a new entrepreneurial journey is not easy. When we take ownership of our journey though, amazing things happen. Dr. Lisa set out to start anew after growing disenchanted with Western medicine and corporate America. She incorporated the years in experience she had in healthcare, and combined it with spirituality, biology, and physicology. By bringing these together she creates a brave space for her clients to take ownership of their health, well-being, and ambitions.
By bringing together these different disciplines, Lissette made the connection that all these pathways were trying to do the same thing; provide a guide to living a meaningful and fulfilled life. Dr. Lisa does the same by encouraging women to listen to the Truth within their own bodies. Learn more about Lissette "Dr. Lisa" Alvarez-Holland and the Curvy Hustle here. You can also check out her podcast, Owning Her Health, "a show which features women growing creative careers fueled by professional significance and a family-friendly lifestyle."
