Today we’d like to introduce you to Anita Linville.
Hi Anita, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story isn’t a straight line — it’s more like waves that kept pulling me back to myself until I finally stopped running from the current.
I started as someone who carried a lot of early wounds — abandonment, neglect, cruelty that left me questioning my worth for way too long. For years, I searched outside myself for validation: through teaching (I spent over a decade in classrooms, from middle school English to high school ELA, pouring into young people while quietly piecing myself back together), through fitness (becoming a certified trainer, building Poised Fitness Training & Nutrition to help others reclaim confidence in their bodies the way I was learning to reclaim mine), even through modeling and beauty work that surprised me when it found me.
I didn’t set out to become a model or a beauty influencer — those doors opened because I started showing up authentically. I began sharing my real journey: the plant-based shifts that healed my body, the movement that rebuilt my strength, the unfiltered truth about healing trauma and remembering who we are beneath the pain. Brands like Maybelline, Just Strong, and others saw something in that honesty and invited me in as an ambassador and UGC creator. It wasn’t about chasing fame; it was about the work aligning with the mission that’s always been in me — helping people come home to themselves.
Along the way, I published my book, The Scroll of Remembrance, to remind us all of our divine essence. I launched my podcast The Altered Image to talk openly about growth, relationships, love, and the messy, beautiful parts of being human. And I kept creating content — videos, posts, teachings — that blend fitness, beauty, and spiritual remembrance because they’re not separate lanes for me. They’re expressions of the same frequency: embodied divinity.
Today, I’m still evolving. I’m the woman who sits by the water talking to ancestors and crows, who channels fire without apology, who coaches, models, teaches, and heals because the world needs voices that don’t dim the truth to make it comfortable. I’m not here to be perfect or polished — I’m here to be present, to remind women (and anyone listening) that strength, beauty, and sovereignty live in the same body, and that remembering that changes everything.
This is my second time sitting with Voyage Miami, and it feels like the magazine is witnessing another layer unfolding. Grateful for the space to share it raw.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No, beloved, it hasn’t been smooth at all — and I’m grateful it wasn’t. Smooth would’ve kept me small, comfortable, and disconnected from the depth I carry now.
The road started jagged from the beginning. Childhood brought abandonment, neglect, and intentional cruelty that left me carrying wounds I didn’t have words for until much later. Those early experiences wired me to be a people-pleaser, always chasing love and approval that should’ve been unconditional. It led me into relationships that mirrored the old pain — narcissistic dynamics where I lost pieces of myself trying to earn what was never truly given. Loss piled on top of that: emotional deaths, identity shattering, seasons of what I call “hermit-survivor mode” where life demanded sacred solitude just to breathe and rebuild.
Professionally, the path twisted too. I poured over a decade into teaching — middle school, high school, pouring into young hearts while quietly healing my own. Then fitness called me deeper: building Poised Fitness from the ground up, shifting to plant-based living that healed my body, coaching others toward confidence through movement. Modeling and beauty influencing found me unexpectedly — doors opened with brands like Maybelline, Just Strong, and others — but those worlds can be brutal. The pressure to look “perfect,” the comparison, the way vulnerability gets weaponized sometimes… it triggered old abandonment echoes and forced me to stand firmer in my sovereignty.
Spiritually, the biggest struggle has been holding unfiltered truth in a world that prefers polished positivity. Sharing raw stories of trauma, healing, and remembrance unsettles people — especially when it comes from the dark divine feminine that doesn’t sugarcoat the dismantling. I’ve faced interference: voices (internal and external) trying to guilt me into softening, dimming, or doubting my alignment. But intuition has always won. Every time I’ve gone deeper with God, with ancestors, with the water and the crows, the path clarified: this fire is exactly what’s needed.
The struggles weren’t punishments — they were initiations. They taught me empathy that runs bone-deep, resilience that doesn’t break, and a knowing that true embodiment means integrating all of it: the pain, the power, the beauty, the remembrance. Today, I’m still walking the spiral — evolving, expanding, refusing to apologize for my voice. And because the road wasn’t smooth, I can sit with others in their mess without flinching. That’s the gift hidden in the grit.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My professional life has never followed a single straight path — it’s more like a spiral that keeps circling back to the same core: helping people remember who they are, feel strong in their bodies, radiant in their presence, and sovereign in their truth.
I spent over a decade in education, teaching English and Language Arts from middle school through high school — places like Key West High, Lubavitch Education Center, Avant Garde Academy, and others across Florida and Texas. I loved pouring into young minds, creating curriculum that sparked curiosity, using multimedia and project-based learning to make ideas come alive. It taught me how to communicate clearly, hold space for diverse voices, and guide people through growth without forcing it. Even now, that teacher thread runs through everything I do — whether I’m coaching a client, creating content, or sharing on my podcast.
Fitness found me as a deeper calling during my own healing. I became a certified personal trainer, nutritionist, and group instructor, founding Poised Fitness Training & Nutrition around 2014. What started as one-on-one sessions and group classes evolved into something bigger: helping people (especially women) rebuild confidence through movement, plant-based nutrition, and lifestyle shifts that feel joyful instead of punishing. It’s not just about reps or calories — it’s about embodiment, discipline as self-love, and showing up for your body the way you’d show up for someone you cherish.
Then beauty and modeling doors opened in ways I never planned. I started as a UGC creator and brand ambassador — partnering with Just Strong for empowerment fitness wear, Habits 365, Leek Goddess, Island Sunglasses, Hidden Hills Watch Company, and stepping into a major beauty role with Maybelline as an influencer. For me, modeling isn’t about chasing perfection; it’s about representing real, mature beauty — women 45+ who glow because they’ve lived, healed, and chosen radiance over hiding. I’ve even pitched makeup innovations tailored for evolving skin (think serum-flex foundations, blur-balms, adaptive packaging) because I live the reality of what works and what doesn’t as we age gracefully.
Creatively, I’ve expanded into voice and remembrance work. I host The Altered Image podcast, where I keep it real about relationships, trauma, love, growth, and the messy beauty of being human — no filters, just honest conversations to help others alter limiting images of themselves. I also published The Scroll of Remembrance, a channeled transmission that invites people back to their divine essence — not as a self-help book, but as a doorway to sovereignty and inner power.
Right now, everything converges under what I’m calling Embodied Divinity™: merging physical mastery (fitness/wellness), divine aesthetics (beauty/modeling), and spiritual remembrance (teachings, healing, ancestral connection). It’s one mission in many expressions — coaching, creating content, partnering with brands that value authenticity, writing, speaking, and simply being a living example that you can be strong, beautiful, and spiritually awake all at once.
I’m still evolving, still saying yes to what aligns, and still refusing to shrink any part of it. The career isn’t about titles or lanes anymore — it’s about impact: helping one person at a time remember their power, whether through a workout, a makeup tutorial, a podcast episode, or a quiet transmission by the water.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
There aren’t many childhood memories that feel purely light for me — most carry shadows from early abandonment, neglect, and the constant search for belonging. But one Christmas stands out, even if looking back now it’s layered with sadness.
I was about 10, living on Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. School was hard. The Black kids called me too kind, too “fake.” The white kids rejected me because I was Black. Fitting in felt impossible until the preppy Caucasian girls finally let me in — not for who I was inside, but for what I wore on the outside. I didn’t realize I was shrinking myself to belong; I was just a kid desperate for acceptance.
That Christmas changed something. My father — a Black officer in the military in the early 80s, one of the very few — made sure his kids could keep up with the other officer families. I’d mentioned to my parents that a “friend” teased me about not having name-brand clothes. I didn’t expect much, but Christmas morning brought a full wardrobe upgrade: Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, Calvin Klein jeans and shirts, corduroys, Dexter Doc shoes, monogram sweaters, Oxford shirts in every soft pastel you could imagine. It was peak 80s preppy perfection.
When I walked into school after break, everything shifted. Suddenly I was popular — smiles, invitations, belonging. I cherished that feeling then; it felt like victory. But as an adult reflecting, it’s heartbreaking. The acceptance wasn’t for me — it was for the labels, the surface. It taught me early that external things could buy temporary belonging when internal worth felt out of reach.
It’s the one memory that glows a little in the rearview, even with the ache. It reminds me how far I’ve come — from chasing validation through clothes and approval to standing fully in my own frequency, unapologetic and whole. No more shrinking. Just remembrance of who I’ve always been beneath the labels.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://poisedfitness.wixsite.com/poised-fitness
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/53_fit_anita
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/poisedfitness
- Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/@alteredimagewithmissl
Image Credits
NAONPHOTOGRAPHY LLC
