Alyson DeMaso is a Holistic Life Coach, Energy Healer and Advisor for Conscious Leadership and the founder of Raising Beauty.
She is a former fortune 500 beauty executive-turned champion for well-being. She’s also the founder of Raising Beauty LLC, a company dedicated to helping overachievers stop burning out on life by reconnecting with the one they almost forgot to live, After suffering burnout by her early 40’s, Alyson has dedicated the past several years to integrating the practice of well-being into her life and leadership. Her expertise from her 25+ year business career, leadership, certifications, and personal journey of holistic healing and energy work are uniquely woven together in the way she connects others to their inner beauty and highest expression of life, love, joy and prosperity.
Alyson believes living as the most empowered version of you leads others to do the same, collectively igniting an energy that changes lives, the workplace, and ultimately the world.
This is a concept she calls Raising Beauty.
Please share about your early upbringing mindsets learnings that you picked up from your environment:
In the 1980’s, I went to a Catholic grammar school. On report card day, our principal, a nun who could instill fear in you with one glance, would read our grades out loud for the whole class to hear.
“D is for DISGRACE” was one of her favorite announcements to make. Everyone in that room prayed to the high heavens it wasn’t their grades she was reading. My heart would be in my throat watching those poor souls collect their progress reports in shame.
The message? Failure is humiliating.
I carried that belief with me for over 30 years. I don’t deny even making small mistakes still sends a pang of embarrassment right through my veins.
From one perspective, that belief fueled me with the drive to succeed academically and professionally. It gave me the stamina to not give up when faced with a problem. Fear of failure kept me on a winning streak that lasted until I was 40.
Fear of failure also sent me down a path of extreme perfectionism that left me depleted, stressed, angry, unhealthy, and ironically ill-equipped to handle the explosion of challenges that were about to unfold in my personal life.
What has been your most challenging experience and how did you overcome it?
During the summer of 2019, my father spent 50 days in the hospital that led to his passing. My mother, brother and I spent that time closely with him.
Fear brings out the worst in people. It breeds mistrust, anger, confusion, paranoia, control, and worse. We watched the medical team like hawks, we challenged their decisions, we interrupted them with questions, we sought after them for constant answers.
Our behavior merely brought more exhaustion, anger, and defensiveness to an already stressful situation.
And then I had a thought. What if we brought everyone together as a team? What if we used empathy and inspiration to help us collaborate in my father’s best interest?
We created a wall of inspiration filled with fun facts about my dad and happy messages from friends and family. We wrote a manifesto in support of my dad’s life and invited everyone from the medical team to be part of upholding it with our family.
I believe the energy that came from those efforts gave my dad the boost he needed to live the rest of his days as the greatest version of himself. Even in his frail condition, I never saw him with such power, patience, and grace.
We flipped fear on its head and chose to embrace love turning a time of grief into a time of courage, resilience, and strength.
Imagine having the courage to shine as your greatest self every day. What would change in your heart, your relationships, your workplace, the world?
You speak of “experiencing burnout which seems to be happening to many women”. Please share your experience.
I was 41 years old, a corporate executive trying to meet the demands of a high-performing global enterprise, disengaged from my authentic self, and leading a standard of success that never fully aligned with my soul in the first place.
I was navigating a tremendous amount of personal stress that included divorce, my father’s long-term illness, a sudden death of a family friend, and my own recurring health issues.
I was working on overdrive and practicing perfection at everything I did until I spread myself so thin, I inevitably burned out.
Because I refused to listen to my inner wisdom, I kept carrying exhaustion like a badge of honor. That was until my then 6 year old daughter said, “Mom, I don’t want to have your life when I grow up.”
How ironic. The person who feared failure was beginning to fail at everything, all at once.
I immediately put myself in therapy.
My decision to seek help sent me on a path of truth seeking I never imagined for myself. It revealed a level of personal development that superseded any leadership certification or degree I ever completed. My deep journey into well-being and energy healing helped me discover what it means to be a powerful, spiritual being living a human experience. That philosophy led to becoming the best I’d ever been in my life. That growth is never-ending.
That’s why I founded Raising Beauty. I felt called to guide people from burning out to leading bold, beautiful, meaning-filled lives – ones that are rich with joy that light their souls and change the world.
I’ve taken the best of my 25+ year business career, executive skill, and leadership certifications and married it to my deep study and practice of Reiki Healing, well-being, and spirituality to expertly guide others through the following…
A deepened self-awareness that cracks open limiting beliefs putting them in the spotlight to be relinquished so big visions and possibilities have space to unfold.
A renewed sense of strength that comes from reconnecting with your inner wisdom, purpose, values, talent, and most importantly, voice. Living authentically fosters a level of confidence and courage turning you into the superpower you are meant to be in this world.
Shifting from a scarcity to an abundant mindset that is felt from creating more energy, time, and creativity to welcome in love, connection, and happiness from the playfulness and richness of life.
Living with an effortless flow of giving, receiving and celebration from staying present with joy. How to recognize it, savor it, offer it, receive it. Every. Single. Day.
I’ve come to learn that living as the most beautiful version of you inspires others to do the same and radiates an energy so strong it changes lives and the world.
This is a concept I call Raising Beauty.
Based on your experience, what seems to be a recurring limiting belief women have?
The common theme among the successful women I work with is the struggle to be perfect at everything they do and feeling selfish when they focus on themselves.
Beliefs dictate everything we choose in our lives. The person who subconsciously believes it is selfish to focus on themselves will always decide to place the needs of others before their own needs, and they will feel guilty when they don’t.
When I once asked a client of mine if she did something that day to light her heart, her response to me was “I can’t do everything little thing my heart wants to do.”
Imagine the implication of leading the rest of your life with that mindset? Imagine the choices you would continue to make and the unnecessary heaviness you would create for yourself, your relationships, and your work. Think of the message you would send to your children, your employees, and anyone else who interacts with you.
Freeing yourself to lead a life filled with joy requires exploring what you believe, where it came from, how it has helped you, and more importantly, how it has kept you restrained.
You get to decide if you wish to keep that belief, change it, or let it go. That’s the secret to elevating yourself and unleashing your inner power.
What are you most grateful for?
I am grateful for all my successes, all my struggles, and the chance to start new every day.
Each day, I step further into my mission of guiding people from burning out to learning secrets that unlock something extraordinary from their lives.
There is no comparison to the joy I feel from helping someone…
- Feel happiness after years of exhausting themselves for success
- Connect to their life purpose so they can live with greater authenticity and meaning
- Build courage to make changes they dream about without fear of failure
- Reclaim their livelihood after years of neglecting their mental, emotional, and physical health
- Savor joy they’ve unknowingly deprived themselves from feeling
- Break free from the limitations of weakness and utilize everything that makes them strong, bold, and unique
- Expand from a very one-dimensional way of living to unapologetically creating something by their own design and becoming the CEO of their life
I love nothing more than working with courageous, motivated, and curious people who know there is something more magical to life and won’t spend one more minute wasting their time by not living it.
How do people keep themselves small?
Every time you don’t behave with authenticity, you keep yourself small.
How many times have you:
- Stayed silent when you felt offended?
- Discounted your ideas?
- Put someone else’s feelings ahead of yours?
- Denied yourself the permission to speak up?
- Talked yourself out of dreaming?
How often do you:
- Ignore your intuition?
- Keep quiet in workplace meetings?
- Disregard your emotions?
- Tell yourself something isn’t possible?
- My grandmother used to say, “the truth will set you free.”
When we silence ourselves, we silence our truth, telling others and most importantly ourselves, that we don’t matter.
The last thing this earth needs right now, or ever, is a bunch of people roaming around feeling and acting like they don’t matter.
From your experience, why do people keep themselves small?
The universal emotion that keeps us safe, small, and contained in a little box we sometimes call life is FEAR.
We fear rejection, retaliation, failure, confrontation, hurt feelings, appearing foolish, ridicule, danger, decision-making, responsibility, punishment, losing control, saying no, saying yes, and so much more.
What we really fear is ourselves and our ability to live without limits. Limits keep us safe and protected. They sometimes keep us suffocated. It’s important to know the difference.
Every pang of discomfort is a whisper from our inner wisdom inviting us to explore the boundaries we created. Most of the time, there is a limiting belief behind the boundaries of fear.
See it, evaluate it, decide what to do with it.
You are big, you are powerful, you are not meant to live your life by staying small. The most powerful tool you have is your voice.
Don’t ever forget it.
What has been the most fulfilling moment in your life so far?
I feel so happy that I connected with my purpose at a point in my life where I am still capable of making a significant difference.
I have found so much joy in becoming a better parent, a better friend, a better love, and a better leader.
Before I was an accomplished woman exhausting herself to maintain success. Now I am an enlightened woman who is sharing the secrets of happiness and success on a level so high it transcends everything we know about achievement.
As a former beauty executive, I like to say, “I spent the first half of my career helping people LOOK beautiful. I am excited to spend the rest of my career helping people BE beautiful.”
What’s next for you?
People are craving happiness that comes from more adventure, more playfulness, better health, stronger energy, deeper connection to nature, love and each other, and relief from an unforgiving lifestyle that robs them of true joy.
My dream is to engage every one of those joy seekers with experiences that set them free to embrace something magical from their lives.
I am actively working on the elements of a book that will reveal real life lessons of well-being never learned in school or the workplace, but only within the relatable stories of personal awakening, challenge, and triumph.
Longer-term, my heart soars when I imagine a Raising Beauty retreat destination. This will be an oasis to disconnect from daily stress and find respite in a natural setting that awakens mindfulness, energy, connectedness, inner beauty, and peace. This transformational experience will inspire a new lifestyle for conscious and joy-filled living.
Today, I continue to light souls and help elevate the world through Raising Beauty’s private 12 week wellness program, 4 week wellness masterclass, and free monthly workshops for those who know their lives are meant for something more meaningful and have decided to stop conforming to an exhausting version of success.
What next for others? Reaching me directly to talk about how to reclaim their well-being.
