In this episode of the Empower You Podcast Authorship Series, host Kenston Henderson interviews Dr. Wanda Coleman about her self‑published book Taking Off the Makeup: Loving Yourself as God Loves You. Coleman explains that the book uses cosmetic makeup as a metaphor for spiritual barriers that women (and men) hide behind, urging readers to remove those layers to love themselves and God. She recounts how a divine prompting led her to develop a women’s fellowship workshop, which evolved into the book, a live broadcast, and a journey group. While the primary audience is women, she notes that men can also benefit from uncovering their own “makeup.” The biggest obstacle she faced was her own resistance to confronting raw, painful emotions; she overcame this through prayer and God’s insistence. When asked for advice to aspiring self‑publishers, Coleman emphasizes the importance of daily consistency—setting a regular time and space for writing and reflection. Finally, she directs listeners to purchase the book via her website (www.wandamcoleman.org) or Amazon.
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Hello and welcome to the Empower You Podcast Authorship Series, brought to you by Live With Life LLC. In each episode, we interview a self-published author to talk about their journey to becoming an author, their book, and to reveal tips to help future authors release their story to the world. I'm your host, Kenston Henderson, founder and CEO of Live With Life, where I help groups and organizations get unstuck and equip them to achieve their professional development goals through keynote speaking and corporate professional and youth development training services. In today's episode, we have as our featured author Wanda Coleman.
Woo!
Dr. Wanda Coleman is called by God to empower, educate, and equip men and women for life and for service through preaching, teaching, and writing. Wanda has a passion to help others find their voice and to reach their full potential. She, she seeks to encourage women, especially to not only know and build a relationship with Jesus Christ, but to accept and love themselves as beautiful creations of God, precious in his sight. She is the author of Taking Off the Makeup: Loving Yourself as God Loves You. Wanda is married to Robert Coleman Jr., and together they have two adult children, Ambriel and Emmanuel. All right, welcome, Wanda. Welcome. How are you?
I'm doing well, and you pronounced our daughter's name just right.
Yes, thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
No problem, it is truly an honor. So, you know, let's, let's just jump right in. Tell us about Taking Off the Makeup. What is, what is that book about?
Well, Taking Off the Makeup, um, is a book that uses cosmetic makeup as a metaphor of those things that we need to take off from a spiritual perspective. Women are good at beautifying ourselves. We're good at putting makeup on. But we also know that makeup, we can hide behind. And from a spiritual perspective, there are some things that we need to come from behind so that we can heal, that we can progress, so that we can learn to love ourselves and love God and just move forward.
That's good. That's good. Now, now, what inspired you to write this book? Like, was it something personal? Something happened that you was like, I need to write this?
Well, this book came about— God was dealing with me regarding the call of God upon my life. And I couldn't sleep and all of that. And I went to my pastor at the time and was letting her know I was feeling the urge to speak. I was afraid to say preach. But I was letting her know I was feeling this urge. And she challenged me to put together a workshop for a women's fellowship. And when I went and prayed about it, Taking Off the Makeup: Loving Yourself as God Loves You was the title that God gave me. And from there it just grew. I presented the workshop and I was confirmed and affirmed in the gift, and it turned out, um, God had more to say. And I did a class, and then he had more to say, and I ended up, um, actually writing the book. And, um, and he's still speaking, um, as of now. It's turned into a, um, a live broadcast and a journey group. God is still using this book and this concept to impact the lives of women.
That's so awesome. That is so awesome. So continuous impact. Is it— is there a part 2 book coming?
Like, you know, I believe it's something more there. Um, I, I keep feeling, um, you missed the spot. So you, you may, you may hear something in regards to that in the future, but I do believe there's good to it.
That's good. And I, I can just see it going so many different places and again impacting so many people. So that's— that is one Wonderful. So, um, would you say this book is more geared towards women, or could men read this as well?
Now, I wrote the book for women. Women, um, yes, more for women. But the beautiful thing about this is that, uh, a man heard about this, this book and some of the information from the book, and from it he was able to come from behind some stuff that he was dealing with. As a man, you know. So it is for women, we're talking about cosmetic makeup, you know, but I wouldn't deny that when men go through things where they hide behind too, and it may not be makeup, but it may be some other things that they could take off.
Yeah, for sure, for sure. No, I know for sure, you know, as far as ministry goes that, you know, men definitely can have on some different faces, right, some different facades. And when there's really something going on. I remember going through something, time in my life, and it was just like, I was saying I'm blessed and highly favored, but I was going through some hellish things. And so, yeah, so I totally get that. So did you ever face any barriers while going through this process of writing your book?
The main barrier I faced was myself. Um, it took me a long time because I felt like every time I began to write about something that got a little bit too raw for me, um, had me to deal with some stuff I may not want to deal with at the time or dealt with at the time, uh, I would stop. And then it just got to a point where God was like, no, you're gonna stop this start-stop stuff. You go, you're gonna deal with this because you're trying to teach other people, you're trying to teach women how to come from behind it. You got to deal with it yourself. So I was probably the biggest barrier. And once God helped me get past myself, I was able to get it out.
And see, that's a beautiful thing, is knowing that you got to work yourself out in the process of doing what you're supposed to do before you can help other people. And I mean, I think that's how it should be anyway. Uh, but there's a lot of people out here that would love to help people out, uh, before helping themselves out. And, and so, yeah, right.
So you don't want to bleed on the people. I felt like that, that's necessary, you know. So what he had me go through and write was necessary for me in order to help other people.
That's good, that's good. So, you know, there's so many people out here who want to, to be a self-published author, or, you know, they just want to release that, that book, that story within them. And they're struggling to do what you did. And I heard the word follow through. And so what advice, you know, what's a nugget or two that you can give to them that will say, you know what, okay, this is gonna help me follow through with completing this process?
Definitely consistency. That was something that God really worked on me with. We can say all day that we wanna write something, But if we are not consistent in showing up or not even consistent in the organization of a thought, then we're not going to get very far. So definitely be consistent. Be consistent at the time that you wake up to write or finding that time. It may not be morning for some. It may be evening. Find a space, a consistent space where you can go and hear from God, be in silence, and just be with your thoughts and see what's going to come out of that moment. So that's, that's one of the main things I can say.
Awesome, awesome, awesome. Yes, consistency is everything. Consistency. So you heard it, people, be consistent every day. Just write down some tasks and go after them every single day. And, uh, you'll be on your way to being, uh, to completing that book that you need to complete. All right. So, um, you know, lastly, Wanda, where can people find and purchase your book at?
Well, you can go to my website at www.wandamcoleman.org, or you can purchase it from amazon.com. So either one of those, um, methods could, could get you the book.
Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you, Wanda, for spending this time with us, and I wish you the best in all of your endeavors. I know you're going to continue to have an impact locally but I can definitely see it going globally. So be ready for all that success to come through.
I receive that, Kenston Henderson CSP EPIC Experiences Guaranteed. Thank you so much.
