Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Belle.
Alex, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
It all started in 2017. This was one of my toughest years. I was greatly depressed and didn’t know how to properly articulate how I felt. I consistently suppressed all of my thoughts and emotions. I’ve always been the type of person to avoid confrontation, so I never spoke up about how I really felt about things. Refraining from openly communicating my feelings to those around me lead to me experiencing a deeper sense of insecurity, worry, frustration, and confusion. I also felt like my voice didn’t matter.
As time progressed, I hit boiling points over and over again which lead me to speak up. It was scary, uncomfortable, and didn’t completely heal me in that moment, but as I started to open up more consistently, I felt a positive change in my mood. I then realized that as I expressed my feelings to people, I wasn’t alone. Others related. That’s when “Spill It” came to mind. I was driven to help those who not only feel like their voices don’t matter but also find it difficult to articulate how they feel emotionally – this in itself is a stigma that I want to destroy.
A year later after coming up with the idea of “Spill It” and putting together a presentation for it – not really knowing what to do next – I told my friends Heather Balenger and Nigisty Lulu about it. They took action and called a meeting. They really put the battery in my back to get this idea off the ground. We all shared our ideas on how to build Spill It in 2018, and here we are a year later!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There have been a lot of things put on hold with Spill It because we all have jobs and don’t have a big enough team. It’s just me, Heather, and Nigisty managing the organization, so that’s been the main struggle.
We’d love to hear more about your organization.
Our objective is to demystify and remove the stigma surrounding healthy dialogue on depression and the importance of mental wellbeing. We’ve starting this organization by having an interactive panel discussion. We plan to have more panel discussions involving different topics surrounding mental health in 2020 as well as forums, health and wellness events, and ultimately we want to have a Spill It Conference. Not only do we have events, but currently, we have a podcast moderated by me (Alex Belle). We also have a YouTube series that we just started called “Speak your Truth” where we invite people from all walks of life to openly express something they’ve gone through and overcame.
Our community outreach makes us different. We also do this thing called “Overcome Sunday” where we reach out to people to record personal videos of themselves expressing something they’ve overcome during the week and we post them on our social media every Sunday. That allows our audience members to connect with each other and bring together a sense of community.
I’d say we’re most proud of actually making this happen: from a wine down with just us three to this! We’ve put our ideas on paper and made it happen.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I personally don’t believe in luck, I believe in blessings and divine order. I believe that all things work together for the good of not only me but the people around me as long as faith is present. Everything falls into place when you take that one leap of faith.
Contact Info:
- Website: spillit.org
- Email: hello@spillit.org
- Instagram: instagram.com/spillitorg
- Facebook: facebook.com/spillitorg
- Other: soundcl0ud.com/spillitorg
Image Credit:
Wildy Civil (@nikonpapi)
Suggest a story: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
