Transformational Force Behind Habit Change, Healing, and Generational Breakthrough

Dr. Vi Nedd is a global change agent in health, wellness, and habit transformation. She is an International #1 Bestselling Author, a sought‑after transformational speaker, a community nutrition expert, an accredited mental health coach, and a dynamic voice for healing and generational change. With more than forty years of experience and over thirty thousand lives impacted worldwide, Dr. Vi brings a rare blend of science, soul, and lived wisdom to every stage she steps onto.

Her journey is rooted in deep service. Dr. Vi has volunteered with TEDx Oak Park Women, Impact Church, and the Chicago Food Depository, and she continues to pour into communities with compassion and purpose. She is also a blooming commercial model, a global entrepreneur, and an ordained evangelist whose presence lights up every room.

Dr. Vi’s academic foundation is as rich as her heart for people. She holds a Bachelor’s in Family and Consumer Sciences from Andrews University, a Bachelor’s in Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of the Southern Caribbean, a Master’s in Food Safety and Quality Assurance from the University of the West Indies, a Master’s in Nutrition from Dominican University, and completed 1200 hours of Dietetic Internship at Dominican University. She also holds an Honorary Doctorate from Trinity International University of Ambassadors.

Her career spans decades of service as a community nutrition educator, international presenter, and transformational speaker. She has shared her expertise in Grenada, Antigua, Trinidad and Tobago, and across the United States, delivering workshops at colleges, universities, churches, women’s groups, nonprofits, and countless community spaces.

Beyond her professional achievements, Dr. Vi has lived many lives — caregiver, chef, customer service representative, food and nutrition tutor, lab technician, freelance photographer, and preacher. Each chapter adds depth to her message and authenticity to her mission.

She is also the cofounder of the Family Healing & Deliverance Center, where she guides families through healing modalities designed to break generational cycles, restore clarity and confidence, and help individuals step into generational blessing and forward movement.

Dr. Vi’s voice is powerful because it comes from truth.
Her message resonates because it comes from experience.
Her impact endures because it comes from the heart.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen, my amazing rasters, I give to you Dr. Vyned.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hey, hey, hey.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Thank you so much, Ra. And I must say, and um, thanks to all the speakers that preceded. Also, Ra, you look amazing. I haven't seen you for a couple years, but you look amazing. You have to give me the secret. They're looking so refreshed. Okay. So August Friday, August 28th, 2015. I was sound asleep. Actually, it was a sweet sleep, almost entering the REM sleep. And then I heard a loud noise. I bumped my head. And it choked me. And I thought, oh, it's an earthquake. And they started looking around, I was so scared. And then I heard, welcome to Chicago, ladies and gentlemen. The time is now 2:05 a.m. I've landed in Chicago. So I came to Chicago 15 years, no, no, 10 years ago as a student. Nutrition and dietetics. How did all this happen? All my friends said, why you choose Chicago? I didn't choose Chicago. Chicago chose me. And the director of the school I attended, which is Dominican University in River Forest, she came to our country, Trinidad and Tobago, introduced the program Nutrition and Dietetics to the university I attended. And out of over 4,000 students, I was one of two students that was selected. Yes, you heard right. One of two. Was it that I was a bride person? No. So I came here, I did my internship in nutrition and dietetics. But before coming to the US, I want you to understand the backstory. At age 16, I left high school and I didn't have any papers. I didn't have anything to show that I had a formal education. Because our country, we were educated under the British system. And you had to have five O levels in order to get what we say a good job. Or anybody would say a government job. Or here in Chicago, you said to work with the city. And I didn't have none of that. For years, everything passed me by. I would get letters for an interview the day after the interview. And it was always some sad story. And then one day my friend and I we went for an interview. I told her about it, about the job. We went for an interview, she was selected, and I was pushed aside. And that went on for some years. And one day I got to a crossroad. And I said, Vi, there has to be more in life than just this. What was happening? And I rose up and I said, you know what? I would go back to school. Because in those days, you have to be in one of two categories. You either have to be rich or you have to be, as we say, bright. Or they say smart. And I didn't fit any of those two portfolios. Because I grew up in a family, people look at us as poor and ugly. My parents had 10 girls and two boys, and we were labeled early. Nobody liked us, they call us poor and ugly, and they push us aside. But I kept pushing. And I said to myself, okay, I'll go back to night school. So I started night school in 2000. And I kept studying, I kept going, and I kept going. Now I didn't do math in um for exam in high school because they dropped it, they took it away from me when I was entering form four because they said um I couldn't do it. So I wasn't smart in maths. Okay. So after maybe around 20 something years, I had the challenge. I had to sit maths. So I started night school, and I started night school with two school-age kids. One was 12, is my son, and my daughter, she was five years old. And I finished my job during the day eight to four, and I would sit there because the night school was in the same. I was working in a school, the night school was in the same school. And I would wait until six o'clock. Well, my daughter was going to the school next door, and my son was going to the same school. So they came, it's like coming home. Imagine I'm working, and it's like the kids coming home, and I would make sure they have dinner, make sure they have their homework done, and then I go down to night school at 6 p.m. And that is 6 to 9. And then we had to take public transport to go home. And then when I get home, the cycle starts again. I have to try to get them to the bed early, and I would get um preparation for the next day, breakfast, lunch, dinner for my family. I was married, have a husband, and these two kids, and then do my assignments for the next day as well. So that went on for some years, about four years. I was in night school. And when I was in the class doing math, I decided, why? You don't have time to play now. Because remember, I said I left school about 20 years ago, and I decided I have to give this my best. So I was in four different math classes at the same time. And I was paying for them because I was so determined I had to get this match. But in the class, they were the students in the class, most of them, they sat math five times, six times, four times, three times, and one guy looked at me and he said, How many times you did match? I say, I never did it. And he looked at me like he already labeled me, you wouldn't make it. And I sat there and I was determined. So I'm saying to you, forget the self-talk, don't let anything distract you. You be you, you do you, as a friend always say, you do you, boo. And when the result came out, guess what? I met him in the grocery one evening, and he was so excited he wanted to hear the sad story, and I gave him a success story. I see I passed him out, and he was so happy, he hugged me up and he um complimented me. And when I was finished now, I had my six subjects. Math, English, a science is like the STEM here in the US, the STEM subjects, and two, any other two. And you can get a government job, you can go to the university and all of that. But that was not my card. I just wanted to know I get these subjects. And my friend in the school, she's a teacher, she said to me, What are you doing with those subjects? I said, Nothing. I just was happy I could get it because they told me I couldn't make it. And and and I got it. She's and she introduced me to a university, and I couldn't understand anything on the phone more than I had to pay about$12,000 or something like that per semester. And I stuck the um paper in my cupboard at work. And soon after that, things changed. And the government in my country started offering free tertiary education. That's what we see. At the education system here in the US is different. We um we have primary, secondary, and tertiary. Tertiary is um university. Primary is like um what they would say, elementary, and you would know the situation better than me, but it's from kids 5 to 12, and from 12 years you sit on the exam, 12 to around 16, 17, you go to um secondary school. Here they consider high school and all of that. And so I started. I signed up for university in 2020. And I in four years I completed my first degree. I did an overload of credit as a part-time student. I did 16 credits, and we are supposed to do only 12. And the head of department called me in and I begged her. I said, please give me a chance. And I make sure and I studied so hard that that um course she did she was preventing me from doing. I um I passed it, I got an A, and she said, Okay, you're lucky. And but I don't believe in luck, right? I believe in purpose. And so I did an overload, so that is why I finished in four years, and success felt so good. I kept going. I was like the energizer bunny. I kept going and going and going. And at the end of it, I have four degrees, right? No, five, sorry, two bachelor's, two masters, and a PhD. Okay, so why am I saying that people look at me and think, well, I'm showing off for something. I am not. There was a struggle, I didn't get there like that. So I came here and I did my um programs here and I graduated. And when I was to go back home, I packed my suitcase and everything to go back home because my time was up. And then I got an offer. The school called me and said, you know what? We have this new program called, it's the first time they were offering it's a master's in nutrition. And they said, because you did the internship, you would only have to do about six credits or so. I said, okay, that sounds doable. I applied and I got through. And my friend, the other person who came, she applied and she was not uh accepted. So that's why I'm still here in the US. So I'm saying to someone today, never give up on your dream. Never give up. It doesn't matter what people say, it doesn't matter what comes your way, always believe that you can do it. Because all those stories that was told to me, all the things I was hearing, and then I heard it so much that I began to believe those stories for myself as though it was my truth. I believed those stories that I wasn't good enough, I wasn't pretty enough, I wasn't educated enough, and all the um not enough stuff. I believed it. And what it got me nowhere until I started to see the other side, you know. Um, I think it was yesterday this lady was saying to me, you know, you when you look at the other side of the coin, then you would start to see a different view, and it's only when I began to change my mindset then my life began to change forward, and now I use my story to help those who are sitting in the trenches, like how I did, to help those who are sitting in a dark place because I was in a dark place, you know. I came from a dark place, and in that dark place, let me tell you what I saw down in that dark place: physical abuse, mental abuse, psychological abuse, financial abuse, all those were the stuff done in that dark place where I was sitting. This is not a poly story. This is a story of resilience, this is a story of fortitude. This is a story of plasticity, so I'm here to encourage someone. Sometimes people look at me and say, You just laugh too much, you just smile too much. So sometimes I don't know how to be because one minute um I'm told you're too serious, the next minute I'm told you're laughing too much. It's not a joke, but you know something? I remember the days when I cry myself to sleep. It was every night I would cry myself to sleep because I was in a dark place, so now I choose joy over sorrow. So don't be mad at me, please. When you see I'm smiling or laughing, there's so much negative negative energy around, as someone was talking about this morning. There's so much negative energy, but we were born into a world of negativity because here what when you were born, what happened? We have a nurse here, Dr. Dr. Name Fu. We have a nurse here, and she would know when the babies are born. Come on, you begin with abuse, pow, you have to cry, or else what you didn't pass that agar test, right? So we were born into negativity, and generally, life is there's a neg downward negative pull. So every morning you get up, I'm saying to you now, you have to make a conscious decision that I would create a day of positive, you creating your own day. So when you you you look at all what is presented, because when I get up on mornings, everything is there, you know, negative problems, you know, everything, hate, everything, everything negative is there, and everything positive is there, but you know what? I do my shopping. I said I'm going to choose joy, I'm going to choose happiness, I'm going to choose gratitude, you know. I'm going to choose love over hate.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

I'm going to choose pretty over ugly.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Because there is so much negativity, and sometimes, as my mentor said, some people are so negative, you put them in a dark room, and they will begin to develop. I remember just during the week here at my job, one of my co-workers was so mean to me, and I said to her, Thank you so much for your kind words, and you know what? She almost fell to the floor laughing. So I defused it right there because she was looking for confrontation, you know, to make me upset and sour, and I had a client waiting there for me. So I defused that. So I'm just saying to you, there's negative, we we are in a negative environment. But I'm saying to you, choose, you choose and create your day. Okay, so I don't want to take any much more of your time. And this was not the story I was going to share, but um, somehow I was just diverted and I just wanted to be obedient and share that side of me. So another time you would hear the other um story that I prepared. Thank you very much, Ra, for giving me this platform to share who I am.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

So there's many times on this platform that you speak of, which branches into trauma talk Thursdays, mental health bites, and different conferences. I have said I met a friend who I supposed to take her story in 2019, but the pandemic hit. Then I had emergency back surgery, and one particular night, this stranger who speaks to me that I had never met, I was in so much of pain, and she called and I told her I was in pain, and she says, Ra, let me pray for you. And I always say, Accept genuine prayer from people, and this soul prayed for me using her positive energy, and my pain stopped. And I always tell this story, Vi. Now, Vi. Another thing is I have interviewed you in 2021, it's 2026.

unknown 19:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

This is the truth. She makes me cry. Listen, how proud I am of you. You will believe it. And I talk about you all the time. In 2021, she finally gives me this interview, this dramatic interview. People all over saw this interview. Vi drop down on the ground showing me how she was crying in her own piti party, how she was there, and then now all of a sudden, I'm like, in my brain, I have to see all this because this is who Rai is. But while I'm doing that, I'm looking at this person in front of me, how strong she is. And I'm like, in my head, nah, she's she that couldn't be that woman she's telling me the story of. These are two different people, and from guess what? We spoke about this March in 2023, was our very first mental health conference. And guess what? Dr. Vined was one of them who shared her story, traveled from Chicago to New York City on that stage to share her story. These are the people that started me. They took a chance on me, they stepped up for me because they believed in themselves. And I always want to tell you from then to now, you have grown, you have become Dr. Vynad. Congratulations on all your accomplishments. And listen to me, you are right. When you smile, don't let anybody take that away, darling. Just like I tell you when you're on that runway, when you're on that runway, I saw her. I host red carpet events with her. And let me tell you, when she's on that runway, or she's on that red carpet, you better walk aside. My girl is shining. So everybody wants to ask you something. Let me bring