Seeing Inner Peace as Success: A Conversation on Identity, Culture, and Personal Growth

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Welcome to Unapologetically Whole.
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I'm Lola Dada Olley, attorney, advocate, storyteller, and lifetime caregiver.
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This is a space for anyone navigating identity, caregiving, leadership, or the quiet work of becoming.
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Here, we tell the truth, the beautiful parts, the complicated parts, and the parts we're still learning how to name.
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Some episodes are intimate reflections.
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Others are conversations with people whose stories expand our understanding of resilience and wholeness.
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No matter the format, the heart of this show is the same.
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To remind you that your story matters, your voice matters, and you are allowed to be whole without apology.
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Let's begin.
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Welcome to the Unapologetically Whole podcast.
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How are you?
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I am good.
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How are you?
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I'm well, I'm well.
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Thank you so much for being on this pod today.
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We're gonna talk about some very light topics, and I say that very sarcastically.
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But I think you would be you are a wonderful person to interview to talk about what I call the three R's.
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So, as you know, as one of my closest friends in this whole wide, wide, wide world, you know I've been writing a book off and on for the last two and a half years, and it's a memoir that happens to be the same title as this podcast, Unapologetically Whole.
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And in the back of the book, there's an advocacy guide.
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And yes, a lot of my story is about caregiving as it relates to autism and intellectual disability, but a lot of the story is finding one's true self in the midst of so many challenges, including cultural expectations, cultural stigma.
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So there are three R's, right?
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There's recognizing the lane you truly are in.
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So some self-awareness there, redefining what success can now look like within this lane, and then reimagining what it means to thrive.
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So from self-awareness to self-fulfillment and that long journey.
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And the road to whole is a marathon, and we'll just continue walking as long as you're alive, you're still on that road to whole, right?
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There's no completion.
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But I thought you'd be such an interesting person to talk to about this because you, even though we don't share the same walk when it comes to autism caregiving, obviously, but when it comes to thriving, you are at the top of the list.
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You are at the top of the list.
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Uh walking through cultural expectations, sometimes cultural stigma in many, many ways.
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You are an engineer by profession and training.
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You're also an artist.
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You are one of those left brain, right brain folks.
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So I think this conversation will get really interesting really quickly.
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But I want you to talk about, first of all, how do you describe yourself in this season?
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I guess that's the recognizing the lane you now find yourself in.
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I'm in my selfish season.
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I've I for so long, I think I I gave so much of myself.
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Because I I'm very, I'm very, I'm an empath, sometimes to to my own detriment.
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I'm very loyal, sometimes to my detriment.
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I when I say words have meaning, when I say somebody is my friend, I actually literally mean my friend.
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So which means I I embody like if you call me and give me a problem, I take on the problem.
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Like if I am you, it's we, it's us, it's not on me only.
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And so because of that, as I've gone through life, I have, you know, I've given so much of myself that it affected my health mentally, physically, emotionally.
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And uh, you know, when I say I'm in my selfish era, it's like, wow, you know, this is what it is like to put myself first.
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Because I've never really, I wasn't raised to put myself first.
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There was always this, you know how our culture is, it's like the girls are raised to give so much, and then the boys are raised to just be independent, like, you know, they don't sacrifice as much, they don't feel, you know, because that's unfortunately how it is framed.
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That, you know, they they are men, they are supposed to go out there and whatever they want to do, they can do.
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There are no obstacles to the way.
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But as a woman, you are raised to like, yeah, you have all these dreams, but hold back because it's for the greater good, you know, and and unfortunately, that actually did more harm to me than good.
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And it's not that I was a I was gonna be a selfish or an arrogant person, but it made me lose out on or hold back on opportunities because I was trying to, for the greater good, elevate other people, and in the end, I ended up hurting myself.
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So when I say selfisher, I don't mean if people come to me and they need help, I don't help.
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But then I now step back before I offer the help or offer anything and see how much of myself should I get?
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How much help should I get?
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And I weigh the pros and cons of will this set me back as far as I've come?
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I have healed, I have come this far.
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Is this thing going to now take me back?
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You know, like, you know, because that healing process took a long time.
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You know, I'm approaching the other half, second half of my life.
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So you know, I've spent 50 years catering to other people and I've managed to heal to this point.
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How much of a setback am I willing to even?
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And I'm not willing to give one inch, you know, because you know, you know my life.
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I've given so much that I am no longer willing to give an inch.
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So I I am now more, I think more about how I give of myself.
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So when I say selfish, yes, I put myself first more now.
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You know, I am still a work in progress, I'm not yet there, but there's always this, okay, DJ, this thing you're about to do, how is it going to impact you later?
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Is this something you will do and then later regret?
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You know, because we we do a lot of that.
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We offer ourselves and then later it's like, oh, I shouldn't have done that.
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And by then the damage is done, and then you're not trying to recuperate.
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And unfortunately, in our culture, they never give you time to recover because there's yet another one right behind it.
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You almost have age just to even just reset from whatever has happened.
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So, yeah, so I will say I'm in my selfish era, and I'm actually liking it because now if somebody calls me selfish, I am.
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So let's unpack you're in your selfish era.
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So I mentioned earlier you're an engineer, you're an artist, you um are in leadership on in your career.
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What do you mean by you're now in your selfish era?
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So that goes back to recognizing the lane you're in.
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Give our listeners some background as to how you got here.
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Yeah, well, I actually didn't start out as to be an engineer.
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All my life, I actually thought I was gonna be a medical doctor, a neurosurgeon, to be specific.
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So even at a young age, I knew the area of medicine I wanted to be.
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So as far as staying in your lane, everything I did was always tailored towards, you know, the sciences, the things.
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Whenever I was classified, I think the classes they put me in, it was his A class was, I think, purely science, B class was the mix, or so I can't remember the exact, but it was something like that.
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And I was always in the middle.
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So I was an artist, I had the artistic flair, and I also had science.
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I mean, math and science.
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And the science part actually owed to my father because I was more into language, English was my strong point, I hated math.
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And one summer my dad sat me down and made me face my fear.
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Because when I see numbers, I would freeze.
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So it wasn't that I didn't know how to do it.
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I just thought, oh, these things are it's like a language.
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Numbers are like a language.
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I it was just a foreign language I couldn't understand, and I just froze and I shut it out of my mind.
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And my dad was one of those people who was like, you need to face your fears, you can't freeze up.
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So, based on that, and also, you know, influence, my mom was a nurse, so medical stuff was always around me all the time.
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And I had an uncle who was a medical doctor.
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So it was just, it just went without saying, oh, I was gonna go in that direction anyway.
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And of course, as life does, I ended up in civil engineering.
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And it's funny because I had a teacher, a Ghanaian teacher in secondary school.
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Uh, we used to do introduction.
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I didn't like agriculture because that meant I had to be outside and I hated getting dirty and dealing with dirt.
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So I took introduction to technology because it kept me in the classroom.
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And I was one of the few girls that was in that class because I didn't want to do agric.
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And that teacher at the time told my mom she's going to be an engineer.
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Mr.
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Coach, I think we used to call him coach or quarchy or something like that.
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And I was like, ah, this man doesn't know what he's talking about.
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I'm just here because I don't want to be out there in the sun.
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And funny enough, he he was the first person that told me I was going to be an engineer.
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The second person that led me into engineering, she was a black woman.
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Um she taught mathematics at uh Belmont Abbey College when I went through this crisis of, and how I how that crisis came about was I interviewed a bunch of neurosurgeons at Johns Hopkins, because my uncle went to Johns Hopkins and he worked at Johns Hopkins, and I noticed a trend because I'm a I follow trends.
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I noticed patterns, and I noticed that all the women neurosurgeons I talked to were divorced or never married.
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And what I appreciated was their honesty.
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And what they told me is hey, if you're gonna do this thing and be very good at it, don't get married.
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And that's where the cultural angle comes in, because culturally I wanted to have the best of both worlds.
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I wanted to be a neurosurgeon, I wanted to be married with kids.
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So here these people are telling me, if you're gonna be good at this thing, you may have to sacrifice the one thing I thought was the most important thing to me.
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Because even yes, career was important, but having family and creating my own family was also very important.
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And I was so depressed that day, and I walked into her office, I can't remember her name, and she was my advisor at the time.
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And I was so sad.
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I was like, here I have all my life.
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I have worked towards being this doctor.
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I was well on my way, I was in the pre-med program, and boom, all of a sudden, I don't even know if that's what I want to do because there was no plan B for me.
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It was always going to be medical school.
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And she sat me down and she asked me a question that nobody has ever asked me before.
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She said, What do you want to do?
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And nobody's ever asked me that.
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I mean, as liberal and as well-read as my father was.
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My father never asked me, I don't think he ever asked me what I wanted to do.
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He just assumed, hey, I've never told you what to do.
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I'm assuming you're doing what you want to do.
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But the truth is, she asked me, What do you really want to do with your life?
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And that made me sit down and actually reflect.
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When you talk about being in your lane and what does success look to you.
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You know, in Nigeria, you're either a lawyer, doctor, engineer.
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You know what I mean?
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Like that's what success looked like to me.
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That's true.
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Especially during our era.
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We have now reached anti-stage in our in our time.
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It was.
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That was how it was now.
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Nobody had to tell you or sit you down to spell it.
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But I was like, you know, nobody has ever asked me this question.
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And she asked me, okay, what are the things you're good at?
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Nobody ever asked me that either.
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They just assumed that, you know, I was just good at stuff.
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But and I said, Ah, well, I like to draw, I like, you know, I'm good at math, I'm good at this.
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And she goes, and she's going through all this.
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She said, Oh, architectural engineering.
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I said, Ah, but I want to also be actively involved in the building of the thing, you know, like so Shadow, have you thought about civil engineering?
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And I was like, What is that?
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Can you imagine?
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So the so the girl who didn't like to go outside is now out in the field occasionally.
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Even now, I still don't like to go outside.
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But you're out there with that pavement though.
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And I there with my hard hat and vest, and I complain the whole time I'm there because you know, my nails are done, my hair is done, I have to figure out how to fit my hair inside the hard hat, and I'm like, I make this one is too much.
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But it's interesting because she saw in me what at the time I didn't see in myself.
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And that's that's one thing as I've God has been very gracious with me on is that you know, you have to also have the ear to hear when God is talking to you.
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Because sometimes, you know, we we get so caught up in this is what I'm supposed to be doing, but then there's that one thing or one word or one sentence, or somebody will say something that will just ring.
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And that was, and she went, she said civil engineer, and she described the thing to me, and I said, Okay, this civil engineer, oh let me, she goes, Well, you have to change your program for from pre-med to pre-engineering.
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And this is what you know, you won't finish your program here, you get one degree here, and then you have to go to either Georgia Tech, Auburn, Clemson, you know, he she rattled off the schools I had to go to to complete my program.
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So I was like, Oh my, how am I going to call my father in Nigeria to tell my father that that medical school that I've been shouting about since has changed.
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So what happened?
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I said, this is what we're gonna do.
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I changed my nature.
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Nature, I had settled everything first, then I called my dad.
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And I said, Daddy, guess what?
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After a lot of thinking, you know, and I've consulted, I think I'm going to change my neighbor.
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And then my dad is like, you know, what exact, what, what, how, what are you, what do I do want to start?
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I said, I think I want to study civil engineering now.
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And he goes, Is this a phase?
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Like, are you because my dad was that kind of person, he's like, is this something you know, you know, because sometimes he's like, maybe you're reacting to something and then just running away.
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And I was like, no, not really.
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I just think you know, maybe it's not really for me.
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And um, then he goes, How much is this gonna cost me?
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You trust Niger now.
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And I was like, Well, you know, it's similar field.
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And I said, Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.
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He goes, Are you sure you can, you know, deal with you know what's what's gonna come?
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Because you know, you're gonna be a woman in a male field.
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So there are certain things you have to be mentally and emotionally and ready for, like, you know, it's gonna come at you.
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I said, Well, I think I can deal with it.
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So my father had me write, take a do an undertaking.
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We call it an undertaking in Nigeria.
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Here you call it a contract.
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I had to write a contract with my father.
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If my grades got below a certain point, or my GPA went below a certain point, I had to go back to my pre-med.
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So all my life with my dad, you always wrote contracts.
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So I had to learn how to create my own signature.
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Before then, it was a thumbprint, an ink on a signed contract.
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You got the copy, he had the original, you know, that kind of like that was how we dad dealt with us.
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And so I was like, okay, you know, I'm gonna prove to this man that I'm gonna do this thing, you know, like because that was how I felt.
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I was like, you know, my dad was somebody that was like Superman to me.
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So I'm like, no, I'm gonna prove to him I'm gonna do this, it wasn't a waste.
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And as God would have it, I found my calling.
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And the good thing about where I am now is I'm able to use my art, artistic side of my mind, and I'm also able to use the engineering.
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So as far as how I got to engineering, I'll say it's a lot of God, it's a lot of right people in the right place at the right time.
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Because when I went into that lady's office depressed, I didn't expect to come out of there like rejuvenated.
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You know, I just thought I'll go there, I'll cry it on her, and she'll just console me and I'll be back.
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You know, I didn't expect to come out of the counselor's office.
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I wish I knew her name.
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I've been looking for her name.
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I didn't expect to come out of her office with an option.
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I think alternative, it was like a paradigm shift for you.
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Like a complete shift because engineering and yes, you have similar courses you have to take, but there's also and and the timing too, because the time I went there, I was not too far along in med in pre-med, so the courses I had taken could transfer over.
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So I didn't really lose a lot.
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So that's what saved me.
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And I, you know, as a believer, I believe that God had a lot to do with that because the timing was just right go in that direction.
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And there was no, there were no mentors, there was nobody to show me how to go about it.
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You know, I never really saw women, even in college.
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I mean, the female teacher, professor we had was an Indian woman, and she didn't exactly make the profession look attractive because she had her own issues, you know, she had been overlooked for positions she wanted, so she taught the course she taught in his end.
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So she wasn't a good mentor.
00:17:14.559 --> 00:17:21.279
The mentor I had was a structural engineer, and of course, now I thought I was gonna be a structural engineer, that's a whole story for another time.
00:17:21.279 --> 00:17:33.359
But it was a structural engineering professor from the UK that moved to South Carolina, and I just gravitated to him and maybe him to me, because you know, I'm we're Nigerians, former British colony.
00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:40.160
So I could relate to him and he could relate to me, and he for him, it's like, oh my god, I found somebody that thinks like me here.
00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:43.440
And he pretty much he mentored me because of him.
00:17:43.440 --> 00:17:47.279
The civil engineering program at Clemson was very good.
00:17:47.279 --> 00:17:51.200
Like he he gave me the confidence to actually see it through.
00:17:51.200 --> 00:18:02.960
It wasn't an easy program to go through, but without necessarily having female mentors or visuals or females to guide, he was the one that got me pretty much through the program.
00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:08.640
And of course, God did the rest because I didn't end up being a structural engineer, I ended up being a transportation engineer.
00:18:08.799 --> 00:18:09.119
Yeah.
00:18:09.359 --> 00:18:09.599
Yeah.
00:18:09.599 --> 00:18:19.759
So you went from thinking entering college thinking you would end up being a neurosurgeon, instead ended up becoming a civil engineer.
00:18:19.759 --> 00:18:27.119
So you recognize this new lane thanks to this what we think is a God conversation, right?
00:18:27.119 --> 00:18:31.680
Then you redefine what success can now look like.
00:18:31.680 --> 00:18:42.319
And then it was time to reimagine what it could now look like to thrive in this new area that you hadn't even thought of before.
00:18:42.640 --> 00:18:46.640
And there was nobody to even ask, like, oh, so how did you do it?
00:18:46.640 --> 00:18:47.920
So how did you do it?
00:18:47.920 --> 00:18:54.880
I am now the one that the younger people come to and say, or yes, very young female engineers come to and say, So how did you do it?
00:18:54.880 --> 00:18:56.240
Like, how are you doing it?
00:18:56.240 --> 00:18:58.559
Because I'm a woman of color.
00:18:58.559 --> 00:19:03.200
Um I'm African, you know, so obviously I'm not from here.
00:19:03.200 --> 00:19:08.400
People don't realize that there's certain things you go through that are different for everybody.
00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:16.720
So, yes, first thing they see in me, I'm a black woman, and I open my mouth, and then okay, they're like, Okay, she's a black woman, but she's not from here.
00:19:16.720 --> 00:19:19.519
And then my own experiences are different, okay.
00:19:19.519 --> 00:19:22.960
And then I wasn't a refugee, I didn't come here because somebody, you know what I mean?
00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:28.160
Like people just make assumptions when they see about what your experience is.
00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:43.920
So I find myself now being the person, and I've had young people come up to me and say, we look up to you because we see how you present yourself, how you how you handle different situations, you know, because a lot of them are children of illuminants.
00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:56.720
You know, they're people of color too, you know, and a lot of people that come to me to say that that they know they are also navigating, even though they're the next generation, they're navigating the things that I didn't have anybody to mentor me through.
00:19:56.720 --> 00:19:58.240
I had to go through it myself.
00:19:58.240 --> 00:20:03.920
So even as far as promotions, elevations, I had to navigate it myself.
00:20:03.920 --> 00:20:05.839
You know, go through the myself.
00:20:05.839 --> 00:20:10.559
There was nobody that prepped me for interviews or prepping for how I was supposed to look.
00:20:10.559 --> 00:20:13.920
Instead, I always got things like, Oh, don't braid your hair.
00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:17.759
Oh, you have to look away to dress away.
00:20:17.759 --> 00:20:20.880
You know, you can't talking, you keep your mouth shut.
00:20:20.880 --> 00:20:22.720
That's the kind of advice I even got.
00:20:22.720 --> 00:20:26.799
Um, when I first got to Caltrans, uh, my mentor was a black woman.
00:20:26.799 --> 00:20:33.039
I would be honest with you, I wouldn't give her to anybody to mentor because the first thing she told me is you smile too much.
00:20:33.200 --> 00:20:34.160
You're too friendly.
00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:38.160
Sometimes we can only see the world through our own pain.
00:20:38.160 --> 00:20:50.960
Because I I remember an older woman in the workplace when I was a baby lawyer, and she walks up to me and completely unsolicited advice, and she goes, Just so you know you're gonna get old one day.
00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:53.920
And I looked at her and I said, I hope so.
00:20:53.920 --> 00:20:54.799
That's the plan.
00:20:54.799 --> 00:20:56.960
I mean, I'm not trying to die young.
00:20:57.039 --> 00:21:09.920
I mean, like it was a shock to me because you know how in Nigeria you always look at auntie, and that's how I forget that we are, you know, in this work setting, you're supposed to be like an anti-figure, like somebody I can come to and talk to.
00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:18.000
You know, as a mentor, you view those that come before you ideally, as you know, you've been around the block, you could help the younger ones.
00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:19.119
Yeah, ideally, yeah.
00:21:19.599 --> 00:21:26.880
Realize that I was a threat because she had been the only one there, the only female engineer before I came along.
00:21:26.880 --> 00:21:35.680
And you know me, you know how we are bubbly, you know, just you know, I was half my size then, you know, just you know, just identifying.
00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:37.680
The metabolism was metabolizing.
00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:49.279
Metabolizing, I mean, and you know, at that time, you know, the excitement was I had my first job out of college, you know, I'm willing to learn a lot, and all I got was, oh, you're too this, you're to that, you're too this.
00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:52.960
It's almost like the same criticisms I got culturally.
00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:54.880
I was now getting it in the workplace.
00:21:54.880 --> 00:21:57.839
Because you're too you're too, you talk too much.
00:21:57.839 --> 00:22:08.640
Oh, you oh, and but funny enough, those are the Things that helped me elevate to where I was because all that, oh, you talk too much, you speak your mind too much, you do those were the things that helped me to navigate to where I am now.
00:22:08.640 --> 00:22:15.599
Because if I hadn't spoken up, if I hadn't been, I met you aura for aura, you know, that kind of I'm not intimidated.
00:22:15.599 --> 00:22:18.960
Because they try you in even till now in my position.
00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:20.640
I've had people test me.
00:22:20.640 --> 00:22:26.799
Some people still think the only reason why I got my position is because they were trying to fill a quota.
00:22:26.799 --> 00:22:30.720
You know, and I and some of them silently say it behind my back.
00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:33.119
Some of them come to my face and say it to my face.
00:22:33.119 --> 00:22:39.279
And of course, as a Nigerian, I tell them, I say, okay, bring your bring your resume, bring my resume.
00:22:39.279 --> 00:22:40.000
Let's compare.
00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:43.599
And that's when, you know, no, you trust me, I don't, I don't let things like that go.
00:22:43.599 --> 00:22:48.319
And the reason why I don't let things like that go is because I'm thinking of the person coming after me.
00:22:48.319 --> 00:22:54.240
I don't want fellas, my nieces, you know, like I don't want them to go through that.
00:22:54.240 --> 00:22:59.680
I want when people see them in certain environments, it should be normal to see them in those environments.
00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:03.039
I shouldn't, it shouldn't be like, oh my god, you know, you speak so well.
00:23:03.039 --> 00:23:04.960
Why would I not well?
00:23:05.200 --> 00:23:13.359
You don't man, where do we even begin there?
00:23:13.839 --> 00:23:18.000
I mean, it's like when you talk about staying in your lane, which lane exactly am I supposed to stay?
00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:19.519
Who created?
00:23:20.720 --> 00:23:22.799
Yeah, it's true, it's true.
00:23:22.799 --> 00:23:27.039
Staying in the lane and recognizing it, I think, are two different things.
00:23:27.039 --> 00:23:30.880
Recognizing it is what you need to launch off from.
00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:31.839
Correct.
00:23:31.839 --> 00:23:32.960
Yeah, yeah.
00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:54.240
But to your point about people want to keep you in your lane, you said that you dropped a bunch of nuggets, but one I want to kind of revisit is you said ironically when you were younger, the things that you were criticized for are now the things that are considered leadership qualities in your current big girl role, if you will.
00:23:54.240 --> 00:24:08.559
So knowing that, when I give speeches on what it means for me to reimagine what it means to thrive, I talk about reconnecting to who I was at my earliest point, right?
00:24:08.559 --> 00:24:14.720
Of my earliest point of consciousness, like before I became this lifetime caregiver.
00:24:14.720 --> 00:24:21.039
Because if you tap into what's naturally inside you, those tend to be your strengths.
00:24:21.039 --> 00:24:22.319
Those are your strengths.
00:24:22.319 --> 00:24:27.680
That's what helps you thrive in whatever environment once you find the right one for you.
00:24:27.680 --> 00:24:29.440
That's exactly it.
00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:43.119
So you talked about recognizing this lane from neurosurgery to engineering, redefining success, reimagining what it means to thrive, because Lord knows there's a lot of deprogramming and reimagining, right?
00:24:43.440 --> 00:24:49.200
And there's the deep it's it's I don't I think the Nigerian programming is unique.
00:24:49.359 --> 00:24:51.839
Let me Okay, let's let's unpack that.
00:24:51.839 --> 00:24:52.640
Let's unpack that.
00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:54.400
Let's also explain to listeners.
00:24:54.400 --> 00:25:01.119
So for background, for more background, I was born and raised in America to two Nigerian parents.
00:25:01.119 --> 00:25:05.359
But she was born.
00:25:05.359 --> 00:25:06.720
Were you born in Lagos?
00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:08.079
I was born in Benin City.
00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:12.960
Oh, born in Benin City, raised in Lagos, and then came over here when you were preteen, right?
00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:14.079
Like you were young, young.
00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:14.400
Yeah.
00:25:14.400 --> 00:25:19.920
So we do have a view of both Nigeria itself as well as the diaspora.
00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:25.599
So we're kind of have like one foot in each culture in slightly different ways.
00:25:25.599 --> 00:25:27.119
So go ahead.
00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:39.839
And there, and I will not lie, the exceptionalism of Nigerians, even in Africa, because when you say Nigerian, it's the funniest thing, everybody knows in Nigeria.
00:25:39.839 --> 00:25:42.480
Like when you go out there, they're like you're Nigerian, right?
00:25:42.480 --> 00:25:48.160
You didn't go, you're Libyan, you didn't go you're Congo, you just went straight to Nigeria.
00:25:48.160 --> 00:25:55.599
And that thing that makes Nigerians exceptional is also the thing that is like, what's the word?
00:25:55.599 --> 00:26:00.079
We we we are where we we succeed, we excel, you know.
00:26:00.079 --> 00:26:03.599
Success for us is like we just keep like we talk about checking boxes.
00:26:03.599 --> 00:26:05.599
You and I have had this conversation about checking boxes.
00:26:05.599 --> 00:26:07.279
You want to talk about box checkers?
00:26:07.279 --> 00:26:09.440
Nigerians are the best box checkers.
00:26:09.440 --> 00:26:15.279
The problem now happens when you check the box and you have to uncheck the box.
00:26:15.759 --> 00:26:18.319
Do tell you you gotta unpack that.
00:26:18.319 --> 00:26:21.279
You check because uncheck the boxes.
00:26:21.279 --> 00:26:25.759
So let's let's go back again because we gotta make sure everyone's coming along the journey with us.
00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:32.799
So check about box checking for women in Nigerian culture, circa what these 2000s, early 2000s.
00:26:32.799 --> 00:26:44.000
I know these younger ones are making it a lot easier by God's grace, but those of us that are that are now the ancestors, the checklist was you must, and let me switch, let me code switch.
00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:58.400
Your your checklist was you must you must marry, you must bump a king, which means you must have kids, you must have a career, uh yes, you must do all of them at the same time, and you must do it very, very, very, very, very well.
00:26:58.400 --> 00:27:11.680
And then at the same time, you must take care of your husband, take care of your kids, take care of your in-laws, take care of your parents, and stay slim and stay all of the things and things and things and things all at the same time.
00:27:12.079 --> 00:27:14.480
How can a person remain sane in all of that?
00:27:14.640 --> 00:27:16.319
No, I mean, let's be honest.
00:27:16.319 --> 00:27:19.359
Okay.
00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:34.720
The expectations, and I don't even know whether it's it's it's it's implied or it's it doesn't, in fact, even if they don't tell you no.
00:27:35.039 --> 00:27:35.440
Yes.
00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:37.359
I mean that's a great point.
00:27:37.359 --> 00:27:38.559
That's a great point.
00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:40.960
Even if they don't tell you, you know, you do.
00:27:40.960 --> 00:27:42.720
It's it's like osmosis.
00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:44.160
Nobody needs to tell you.
00:27:44.160 --> 00:27:48.480
You just you look around you and you're like, you know, what you what are you talking about?
00:27:48.480 --> 00:27:51.920
When we're in our 20s, you go to a wedding, you're celebrating like everybody else.
00:27:51.920 --> 00:27:56.480
They will say, ah, you yeah, you're here dancing, your mates are married.
00:27:56.480 --> 00:27:57.359
Yes, yes.
00:27:57.680 --> 00:28:05.680
Remember when I told you about my god, there's so much unnecessary verbal abuse in that during that time.
00:28:05.680 --> 00:28:08.720
One auntie pulled me, I was in my 20s, I was at a party.
00:28:08.720 --> 00:28:11.359
I was just like you said, I was dancing, minding my own business.
00:28:11.359 --> 00:28:13.920
She said, Lola, let's go to the bathroom.
00:28:13.920 --> 00:28:15.839
There's something very important I need to tell you.
00:28:15.839 --> 00:28:17.039
I'm thinking, what did I do?
00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:19.200
Is there like, I mean, what's happening?
00:28:19.200 --> 00:28:24.559
I get to the bathroom, she goes, the way your body is shaped, and not careful.
00:28:24.559 --> 00:28:27.839
After you burn the first bikini, you just grow very fat.
00:28:27.839 --> 00:28:29.359
I was like, What?
00:28:29.599 --> 00:28:32.319
That's what you saw me dancing and you thought about.
00:28:32.319 --> 00:28:34.319
Like, what?
00:28:34.319 --> 00:28:36.480
I just graduated from my undergrad.
00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:37.440
You know, I had this break.
00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:38.799
My father wanted me to take a break.
00:28:38.799 --> 00:28:41.440
He was like, You've been in school constantly, you know, take a break.
00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:42.960
Don't be in a hurry to get a job.
00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:45.599
And my mom had an African market at the time.
00:28:45.599 --> 00:28:47.519
So, you know, I, you know, I had nothing else to do.
00:28:47.519 --> 00:28:52.960
I'll sit and this lady walks in, one of my mom's postmas, and right in front of, I'm right next to my mother.
00:28:52.960 --> 00:28:55.200
And she goes, So what's next?
00:28:55.200 --> 00:28:57.359
Is she just going to sit here like this?
00:28:57.359 --> 00:28:59.279
Don't you have prospects for her?
00:28:59.279 --> 00:29:03.039
And my mother looked at this woman like, Come, the girl just finished school.
00:29:03.039 --> 00:29:05.279
The next step for her is to figure herself out.
00:29:05.279 --> 00:29:10.319
The first thing you're coming to talk, and mind you, I don't know this woman from madam, and she's talking like I'm not there.
00:29:10.319 --> 00:29:13.200
Like, so the next step, you need to find husband for her.
00:29:13.200 --> 00:29:16.160
And my mother was like, Thank you very much, but no, thank you.
00:29:16.160 --> 00:29:29.680
I mean, thankfully, I had parents that were at least at that point still, but you know, my parents eventually fell to cultural pressure now because when I got married the first time, because I'm 042, I'm not even gonna lie about it.
00:29:29.680 --> 00:29:42.720
When I got married the first time, it was the pressure, and my dad even admitted it, he said, you know, as much as I raised you to be very independent, I eventually felt pressure to the culture, and I knew that you weren't gonna get married if I didn't tell you to get married.
00:29:42.720 --> 00:29:45.440
And it was when my father told me to get married.
00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:50.799
I had these standards, and you know, in Niger culture, even with the men, on paper, the men look fine.
00:29:50.799 --> 00:29:55.440
When you are now dating them, you'll find out the deficiencies of a lot of these Nigerian guys.
00:29:55.440 --> 00:30:09.519
So when I talk about the complexity of the conditioning, the girls are conditioned to be superhuman, the boys are just conditioned, like they go to school, a lot of them look good on paper, but they have certain character flaws that in our culture is overlooked.
00:30:09.519 --> 00:30:15.839
Then it's not until you start dating these young men that look good on paper you find out what those flaws are.
00:30:15.839 --> 00:30:20.240
And quite honestly, those are flaws that are destroying a lot of Nigerian marriages today.
00:30:20.240 --> 00:30:23.920
Because the divorce rates among my mates is high.
00:30:23.920 --> 00:30:30.000
And those who are married still, you can see the toll it's taking on them to just to keep it together.
00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.079
Because those traits are problematic.
00:30:34.079 --> 00:30:38.319
You know, you can't say sorry, you are not even taking responsibility.
00:30:38.319 --> 00:30:46.880
Like it looks the woman is doing all the work to make the family look cohesive, but he's not really there emotionally, sometimes he's not even there physically.
00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:49.359
That that's actually a good segue.
00:30:49.359 --> 00:30:54.799
So we talked about recognize, redefine, reimagine in the career sense.
00:30:54.799 --> 00:30:58.400
Now, in the personal sense, we've switched to just personal life.
00:30:58.400 --> 00:31:06.960
And especially both of us are first daughters, too, which I also think creates its own interesting dynamic as well.
00:31:07.359 --> 00:31:08.319
Has its own name.
00:31:08.640 --> 00:31:09.680
Has its own name.
00:31:09.680 --> 00:31:14.799
Like in our in another Nigerian ethnic group, the Igbos, they have a whole title for it.
00:31:14.799 --> 00:31:17.279
I mean, there's a reason, like there's so much responsibility.
00:31:17.279 --> 00:31:20.640
The the what they call in an Igbo land, Ada, right?
00:31:20.640 --> 00:31:25.440
It's such a strong, which means it's so powerful, it has its own title on its own, right?
00:31:25.440 --> 00:31:29.519
Because it means the responsibility is so high.
00:31:29.519 --> 00:31:36.000
The expectation level, like you must be excellence, is almost like the floor.
00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:38.480
It's not even the ceiling, it's the floor.
00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:43.920
And then if we're honest with ourselves, some days it feels like the goalpost moves.
00:31:43.920 --> 00:31:48.400
So what you think is excellence at one age is no longer excellence.
00:31:49.279 --> 00:31:50.079
You yourself know.
00:31:50.079 --> 00:31:53.759
There's always that uh, why can't you be like so-so-and-so daughter?
00:31:53.759 --> 00:31:54.559
Exactly.
00:31:54.559 --> 00:31:56.480
I see that they have two heads.
00:31:56.480 --> 00:31:57.440
Exactly.
00:31:57.440 --> 00:32:04.960
I don't know Sotho's daughter, and what she I can only speak for myself.
00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:08.799
So there's always that competition, or you're being pit against people.
00:32:08.799 --> 00:32:13.279
Yes, that it's like, come, I don't, you know, that's that family.
00:32:13.279 --> 00:32:14.960
We don't know what is going on in that family.
00:32:15.279 --> 00:32:21.519
I don't know what's going on, and and that's and also with the culture, there's uh and again, maybe things are getting better.
00:32:21.519 --> 00:32:24.319
I can only go by what I know growing up.
00:32:24.319 --> 00:32:26.319
And parts of this are in my book.
00:32:26.319 --> 00:32:40.319
This need to chase some form of excellence in one my in one's mind's eye that really doesn't even always apply to your actual life circumstances, but you're chasing, chasing, chasing.
00:32:40.319 --> 00:32:43.599
So you don't even recognize the lane you're in.
00:32:43.599 --> 00:32:50.640
You're trying to fulfill some type of societal view of what success is supposed to look like.
00:32:50.640 --> 00:32:58.319
And that goes back to the deprogramming, and it always happens when some type of brick wall presents itself.
00:32:58.319 --> 00:33:15.200
Because when you are the first daughter and you naturally become a type A personality, you're always back to that box checking, you're box checking, you're going to the next goal without really enjoying the achievement of the current one.
00:33:15.200 --> 00:33:18.640
You're constantly like going to the next thing, going to the next thing.
00:33:19.039 --> 00:33:22.640
First one, the next question people ask you is, how about this one?
00:33:23.920 --> 00:33:24.480
This one, yeah.
00:33:24.960 --> 00:33:29.680
Haven't you noticed once you are just like I have just done this great thing?
00:33:29.680 --> 00:33:32.720
The first thing they said to say, this one's uncle.
00:33:32.720 --> 00:33:35.759
Like it's like yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.
00:33:35.759 --> 00:33:36.880
How about these other ones?
00:33:36.880 --> 00:33:42.480
So you never really get to bask in what you have even achieved up till now.
00:33:42.480 --> 00:33:43.039
Right.
00:33:43.039 --> 00:33:52.799
What even when you've gone through difficult trauma or difficult situations, nobody ever allows you to actually take a breather and be like, oh my god.
00:33:53.039 --> 00:33:54.319
And sit in it.
00:33:54.319 --> 00:33:59.359
Because part of healing, you gotta sit in that trauma.
00:33:59.359 --> 00:34:06.960
When that brick wall comes, wasn't it Mike Tyson that says everybody has a plan until you get hit in the face or something like that?
00:34:06.960 --> 00:34:09.199
We all have these grand plans.
00:34:09.199 --> 00:34:17.679
So for me, I had several brick walls, but one of my brick walls is not finding a job directly right out of law school.
00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:31.039
Your brick wall may have come later with marriage, but when the brick wall comes, like you don't really you don't have the coping mechanism to sit in it and like, okay, what does this mean?
00:34:31.039 --> 00:34:33.360
Okay, this is not my full identity.
00:34:33.360 --> 00:34:35.039
How do I work through this?
00:34:35.039 --> 00:34:42.639
Instead, you internalize it and say, okay, if something's not going wrong, there's something very wrong with me.
00:34:42.960 --> 00:34:53.760
Yeah, we never deal with um there are a lot of Nigerians that maybe now with this stigma being taken out of mental health and stuff, a thing in Nigerian culture.
00:34:53.760 --> 00:34:59.760
Like, you know, when you sit back and think about it, like we are never taught to deal with traumatic situations.
00:34:59.760 --> 00:35:05.840
So you have traumatized people raising people that they're traumatizing, and it becomes a generational curse.
00:35:05.840 --> 00:35:10.400
That's what I call we are taught to compartmentalize.
00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:14.400
Like I was a I was a I was what five years old when I was kidnapped.
00:35:14.400 --> 00:35:16.159
I was kidnapped as a child.
00:35:16.159 --> 00:35:25.199
Now, as to whether I've dealt with the kidnapping, I mean my mom goes through the trauma every year because when on the anniversary of it, she looks at me and it's like this child is still alive.
00:35:25.199 --> 00:35:30.480
Because at the time they used to kidnap back then in Nigeria, they used to call it Bomo Bombo, I think that's what they call this.
00:35:30.480 --> 00:35:31.920
But some of the kids didn't come home.
00:35:31.920 --> 00:35:35.840
So when I got kidnapped, I remember my mom crying.
00:35:35.840 --> 00:35:42.320
I remember instances of that day, but somehow or another in my brain, I have compartmentalized that.
00:35:42.320 --> 00:35:45.280
That was a trauma early in my life.
00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:51.280
And but I realize now, fast forward to today, that there's a reason why I don't trust people.
00:35:51.280 --> 00:35:55.199
There's a reason why I'm not comfortable in crowded spaces.
00:35:55.199 --> 00:36:06.239
There's a reason why I'm a certain way, you know, like, you know, like I'm very standoffish at first because I don't trust, I'm always weary, like somebody's gonna do something to me.
00:36:06.239 --> 00:36:14.000
And I when I really, really unpack it, that was that trauma that I never really dealt with as a child.
00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:17.920
You know, my mom talks about it all the time because you know, she it's a she's reliving it.
00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:22.480
And the fact as I'm getting older, she's looking at me like I almost lost this child.
00:36:22.480 --> 00:36:24.000
And I'm an only girl.
00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:25.519
You're an only girl too.
00:36:25.519 --> 00:36:32.239
So you can imagine like somebody retelling you all the time, and it's a trauma that has never been dealt with, like sat down.
00:36:32.239 --> 00:36:35.920
Because in Nigerian culture, they say, ah, don't let the thing bother you too much.
00:36:35.920 --> 00:36:37.519
I beg, just get up and keep moving.
00:36:37.519 --> 00:36:42.880
So, in the process of moving on, you're putting these traumas or these incidents in boxes.
00:36:42.880 --> 00:36:55.360
Then when you see a person flare up, like you said, when you hit that actual wall that finally crashes everything, you are now reacting to so many different things at the same time that people will be like, ah, waiting, do this one.
00:36:55.360 --> 00:36:56.880
Why are you overreacting?
00:36:56.880 --> 00:37:07.679
Why are you not understanding that everything has finally come to its point where it you you may think you're only dealing with the thing that just happened now?
00:37:07.679 --> 00:37:16.800
When you really sit down and sit in it properly, it's a bunch of other things that have been accumulating, accumulating, that you're just like okay, I I can't deal with that right now.
00:37:16.800 --> 00:37:21.280
I have to deal with this other thing, and you just leave that thing, and that thing's been stewing and stewing and stewing.
00:37:21.280 --> 00:37:24.079
Now this the pot of stew is ready to bubble over.
00:37:24.320 --> 00:37:27.039
Yeah, so and it's and it's pepper still.
00:37:27.039 --> 00:37:31.440
It's not like it's not blanced to his pepper, like real pepper.
00:37:32.079 --> 00:37:45.519
People don't realize, and I like I said, I'm hoping that with the tools available now, with counseling and and talking to people, you know, like look, I before my father died, I I had a an what they call it, they call anticipatory grief.
00:37:45.519 --> 00:37:47.760
That it wasn't a thing I didn't know.
00:37:47.760 --> 00:37:57.519
And I went to a grief counselor, and I'll be honest with you, I still think my counselor needed counseling after she was done with me because she said she was like, How are you functioning?
00:37:57.519 --> 00:38:05.039
Because you know, I that was the first time I sat down and I went through every single thing I'd been through up until now I'm losing my father.
00:38:05.039 --> 00:38:12.800
And she just looked at me and she, how are you, how are you able to do, accomplish all these things in the midst of all this?
00:38:12.800 --> 00:38:16.960
Like, even the first one should have made you not okay in the head, you know.
00:38:16.960 --> 00:38:21.440
And I said, in Nigeria, though, what is the alternative?
00:38:21.440 --> 00:38:22.079
Yeah.
00:38:22.079 --> 00:38:30.159
Because I never even had options, or that there was even, you know, like I said, even this counseling, I mean, is because my doctor told me to come here.
00:38:30.159 --> 00:38:32.800
That's, you know, because I was having, you know, you know how it is.
00:38:32.800 --> 00:38:34.639
Now you start having symptoms of stress, you know.
00:38:35.280 --> 00:38:48.639
Your body was starting to show signs of all the previous types of grief because you were sitting in actual grief of your father's passing, but from the time you got kidnapped through your marriages, through the divorces, you never dealt with any of that.
00:38:48.639 --> 00:38:50.400
And then the brick wall, boom.
00:38:51.360 --> 00:38:55.119
That was and my father's death was the ultimate trauma for me.
00:38:55.119 --> 00:38:55.679
Yeah.
00:38:55.679 --> 00:39:02.320
Remember, my dad always told me when I was growing up that when he was a little boy, because my grandfather, my grandfather was a misogynist.
00:39:02.320 --> 00:39:04.639
He didn't believe in educating women.
00:39:04.639 --> 00:39:18.159
So the pain, my father, this trauma, I'm sure he had other traumas, but his biggest trauma was that his sisters, because if you look at all my uncles, my uncles are well highly educated, you know, accomplished, but his sisters were not.
00:39:18.159 --> 00:39:20.480
That was his main trauma.
00:39:20.480 --> 00:39:24.559
And then the overcorrection of that trauma was me.
00:39:24.559 --> 00:39:30.719
Because I told God that I wanted a daughter, and when I had a daughter, I would train her to be like a man.
00:39:30.719 --> 00:39:35.760
And I want her to all the things my sisters couldn't do, she has to go above and beyond.
00:39:35.760 --> 00:39:45.360
So I was like the first cousin, female cousin to do this, spell first to do this, first to graduate college, first, first, first, you know, that kind of like it was now on me with the moistilly name, that is.
00:39:45.360 --> 00:39:48.320
I had to be the one to now be the trailblazer.
00:39:48.320 --> 00:39:50.559
So you can imagine I wasn't even born yet.
00:39:50.559 --> 00:40:00.000
And this, as a little boy or as a young man, he had wheeled me into existence before I came into existence of how I was going to be.
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.079
Then the other side of that is I raised her to be very strong and be like a man.
00:40:04.079 --> 00:40:06.320
Then I also wanted her to marry and become like a man.
00:40:06.320 --> 00:40:14.159
Because I had to unpack that in my for my to think about my divorces, because I was married, but I felt like I was the man and the woman in my mind.
00:40:14.159 --> 00:40:32.159
Because I was taking on roles that I wanted to have my, you know, they say what they call that, what they you girls say soft girl era thing, you can step back, let's when problems came, I couldn't rely on my partners or significant others to take the mantle and let me fall back.
00:40:32.159 --> 00:40:33.199
I have to do it all.
00:40:33.199 --> 00:40:36.239
And my mom recently said, I said, you are too strong.
00:40:36.239 --> 00:40:37.920
We raised you to be too strong.
00:40:37.920 --> 00:40:46.000
And we some I saw she goes, I sometimes wonder if raising you to be strong, we now made you too strong where it was not compatible with marriage.
00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:47.440
Like it wasn't compatible.
00:40:47.440 --> 00:40:49.679
But then again, maybe it's the people I was with.
00:40:49.920 --> 00:41:00.800
Yeah, I don't know if being strong is not compatible for marriage, because I see strength as such an asset for real marriage, not this Instagram marriage we see, because life be lifing.
00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:03.199
You want two strong partners.
00:41:03.840 --> 00:41:07.280
It goes back to this conversation we had about how sons are being raised.
00:41:07.280 --> 00:41:14.960
So we realize I see, and you know, Niger, it's only in marriage you really get to see the real face of the family you're marrying into.
00:41:14.960 --> 00:41:18.000
On the outside, it looks nice.
00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:26.320
When you become a wife and you get into the family, you start to see things that you're like, wait a second, because you know we're very good at cover up in Nigerian culture.
00:41:27.920 --> 00:41:31.039
I think culturally we are very again.
00:41:31.039 --> 00:41:34.000
This is maybe just our era, maybe it's getting better.
00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:40.159
There's a lot of focus on the show, and the substance is maybe secondary.
00:41:40.159 --> 00:41:45.840
So there's a lot of focus on how something looks, and not as much like back to your earlier point.
00:41:45.840 --> 00:41:49.280
No one ever really asked you, how are you doing, really?
00:41:49.280 --> 00:41:53.199
And that goes back to the recognition of your lane.
00:41:53.199 --> 00:41:57.840
Like, how do you really recognize a lane that you're in if you don't even take time out?
00:41:57.840 --> 00:41:59.519
Because you're not even taught to do it.
00:41:59.519 --> 00:42:04.159
It took me a long time to get to a point where I was like, okay, how am I really feeling?
00:42:04.159 --> 00:42:07.440
Like, I'm very good at doing this whole human doing thing.
00:42:07.440 --> 00:42:13.599
A plus, I got a PhD in that human being, it took me a while to get there, you know?
00:42:13.760 --> 00:42:17.119
No, I it's a cult, it's it's a cultural thing.
00:42:17.119 --> 00:42:20.800
I I'm hoping we are the generation it ends with.
00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:21.280
Yeah.
00:42:21.280 --> 00:42:25.519
And the children going into the next generation don't have that kind of burden.
00:42:25.519 --> 00:42:30.719
I actually am very happy that my nieces and my nephews are more into like arts.
00:42:30.719 --> 00:42:32.159
Most of them are more into art.
00:42:32.159 --> 00:42:33.599
I'm actually happy about that.
00:42:33.599 --> 00:42:37.599
But I'm like, good, don't think you have to do what I do.
00:42:37.599 --> 00:42:43.440
Now, if any of you as an engineer, I will guide you, hopefully, you know, so you don't have to go through certain obstacles.
00:42:43.440 --> 00:42:45.920
But if you want to be a dancer, please be a dancer.
00:42:45.920 --> 00:42:48.000
If you want to be a painter, please be a painter.
00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:50.960
We didn't know those were options available to us.
00:42:50.960 --> 00:42:53.440
You know, we're talking about lanes.
00:42:53.440 --> 00:42:56.719
Nobody told us we had several lanes we could stay in.
00:42:56.719 --> 00:43:00.480
We just was the way, and that was the way we were going.
00:43:00.480 --> 00:43:02.320
Could that be goal?
00:43:02.320 --> 00:43:07.039
And then we now had to step back and be like, okay, what I mean, like, what's going on here?
00:43:07.039 --> 00:43:08.400
I was doing everything right.
00:43:08.400 --> 00:43:13.360
And then another thing our family or parents never prepared us for was that life will life you.
00:43:13.679 --> 00:43:18.639
Yeah, we were taught that as long as you work really hard, things will always work out.
00:43:19.119 --> 00:43:23.280
And there was nothing more painful than somebody telling you, oh, it's because you didn't do this.
00:43:23.280 --> 00:43:25.199
Yeah, that's it.
00:43:25.199 --> 00:43:30.159
It's like, come, you want to talk about the person that did everything I was supposed to do, I was the one.
00:43:30.159 --> 00:43:38.320
I was that that when you told me this are the steps, step one, step two, step three, step four, I followed it to the letter.
00:43:38.320 --> 00:43:50.239
So when you know, people who are like that's why I tell people, I say, you should be thanking God that you didn't go through certain things because you are bad, criticize people for the decisions they're making.
00:43:50.239 --> 00:43:54.239
I pray you are never in a position to have to make a decision.
00:43:54.239 --> 00:43:59.360
I might I might like my father said before he died, he said, I asked him, I said, Do you regret any decision you ever made?
00:43:59.360 --> 00:43:59.840
He goes, No.
00:43:59.840 --> 00:44:03.679
Because I made it with the information I had at the time.
00:44:03.679 --> 00:44:04.639
That part.
00:44:04.639 --> 00:44:08.639
It's easy to be in 2020, yo, maybe I could have done it this way.
00:44:08.639 --> 00:44:13.599
But it's a look, if I'm being honest with myself, nobody wanted to make the decision.
00:44:13.599 --> 00:44:14.800
That's the first thing.
00:44:14.800 --> 00:44:21.119
The second the information available to me, the decision had to be made based on that information.
00:44:21.119 --> 00:44:27.280
I made it and I also, and in the same breath that I made the decision, I also accepted the backlash, like the consequence.
00:44:27.280 --> 00:44:32.320
So to sit now, I'll make you said, you know, most people say, Oh, maybe because I'm dying.
00:44:32.320 --> 00:44:33.840
No, he goes, No, I have no regrets.
00:44:33.840 --> 00:44:40.320
Yes, some people may have gotten hurt, seen it a certain way, but a decision had to be made.
00:44:40.320 --> 00:44:42.000
And the same thing with you and I.
00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:47.280
It's like I've learned, I think maybe going through what I've gone through in life makes me not judge other people.
00:44:47.599 --> 00:44:47.760
Yeah.
00:44:48.400 --> 00:45:03.280
Decisions they've had to make in their lives, because I have gone through the experience of having to make decisions that were not favorable, or the world frowned on, or was culturally frowned on, but it was the best decision for me.
00:45:03.280 --> 00:45:15.519
And after I died, I realized that why am I beating myself up for the lane I have now created for myself that did not fit the typical lane based on we talk about lane?
00:45:15.519 --> 00:45:17.119
I got out of that lane.
00:45:17.119 --> 00:45:18.000
That was the first thing.
00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:24.239
Second thing is what did I see now see as success or for myself?
00:45:24.239 --> 00:45:24.559
Yeah.
00:45:24.559 --> 00:45:26.400
And what do you want?
00:45:26.559 --> 00:45:26.960
Yeah.
00:45:27.119 --> 00:45:29.760
Where do you see yourself like now that you are here?
00:45:29.760 --> 00:45:31.760
So do you think so?
00:45:31.840 --> 00:45:34.719
Let me put a bit of that, because I think this is a good segue again.
00:45:34.719 --> 00:45:36.559
Like, how do you now redefine success?
00:45:36.559 --> 00:45:40.800
When your dad first started to get sick, I remember you in the private sector.
00:45:41.039 --> 00:45:41.440
Correct.
00:45:41.599 --> 00:45:46.239
And you made the very important decision to move to the public sector.
00:45:46.239 --> 00:45:51.599
And to some, especially Nigerians, be like, ah, you left all that money?
00:45:51.599 --> 00:45:52.400
Hey.
00:45:52.800 --> 00:45:54.639
So I was I still get told that.
00:45:54.639 --> 00:45:58.159
Like, I you know, you can always go back and make I'm like, you know what?
00:45:58.159 --> 00:46:04.880
I think when my dad got soup, that was when I had to re-reevaluate what my what I considered valuable to me.
00:46:04.880 --> 00:46:17.920
Because I, the supervisor I had at the time, you know, I was on my I was on track to uh, you know, VP, you know all that was it was like, you mean you're gonna step away and you're gonna, you know, you're well on track.
00:46:17.920 --> 00:46:24.239
And I looked at this man, I was like, I said, you do you realize that this my father is the reason why I'm even here?
00:46:24.239 --> 00:46:26.960
And he couldn't understand.
00:46:26.960 --> 00:46:30.880
I said, you do realize that my biggest cheerleader is my father.
00:46:30.880 --> 00:46:36.400
There was no professional decision I ever made in my life that my father was not privy to.
00:46:36.400 --> 00:46:41.760
Any move, even if he didn't agree with me, I always ran it by my father.
00:46:41.760 --> 00:46:44.480
Even mock interviews I ran by my father.
00:46:44.480 --> 00:46:47.039
My father was the kind of person, if I tell him, Oh, I want to go get it.
00:46:47.039 --> 00:46:53.679
He would go on the internet and investigate, like do his research, then come back and say, Hey, I found this, that, that, that, and we'll discuss.
00:46:53.679 --> 00:46:58.800
So here this man was that made it possible for me to even exist as I am.
00:46:58.800 --> 00:47:02.320
And you are telling me that I should not take care of me.
00:47:02.320 --> 00:47:11.760
Because I felt like, and for us, for those of us that have parents that had their own money, had their own career, the least I could do for this man was to take care of me.
00:47:11.760 --> 00:47:12.559
That's how I felt.
00:47:12.559 --> 00:47:24.079
Like I felt that I can't, I can never repay what he has done for me emotionally, you know, and you know when I especially when I got my went through my first divorce, my father was the one that bringed life back into me.
00:47:24.079 --> 00:47:28.800
Yeah, went to I and you, I can say it now, I I was almost suicidal.
00:47:28.800 --> 00:47:38.159
My first was that disappointment, that whole thing of failure and the cultural cultural pressure, I almost tried to kill myself.
00:47:38.159 --> 00:47:42.239
And it was my father that prayed life back into me.
00:47:42.239 --> 00:47:50.400
So for me, that was my chance to repay him because there was nothing else in this world I could do.
00:47:50.400 --> 00:47:55.599
So when they were talking to me, and oh, you're gonna lose money, then I looked at them and said, We're talking about life here.
00:47:56.079 --> 00:47:56.800
Literal life.
00:47:57.039 --> 00:48:05.119
This is my and then and in and that two-year period I spent with my father, I got to really know this man and I got to have closure.
00:48:05.119 --> 00:48:06.960
And I also got to know myself.
00:48:06.960 --> 00:48:07.519
Yeah.
00:48:07.519 --> 00:48:12.239
Such that when I say my value, yes, I'm making significantly less than I've ever made.
00:48:12.400 --> 00:48:17.920
But I'm actually yes, I and the influence you have where you are now.
00:48:17.920 --> 00:48:24.960
I mean, you're a leader in state government, you literally make decisions that are life and death.
00:48:24.960 --> 00:48:27.119
Yeah, I mean roads we build.
00:48:27.119 --> 00:48:29.519
Like I always it's very important work.
00:48:29.760 --> 00:48:32.639
And I always tell you I say you're the Bible that people read.
00:48:32.639 --> 00:48:39.199
Because that may not feel they feel comfortable walking up to you to ask you a question or say anything, but they're constantly watching you.
00:48:39.199 --> 00:48:40.079
Watching you.
00:48:40.079 --> 00:48:41.360
How do you carry yourself?
00:48:41.360 --> 00:48:45.840
Are you somebody there are people that walk up to me to tell me things that I'm like, why are you telling me?
00:48:45.840 --> 00:48:48.400
You have all that tell.
00:48:48.400 --> 00:48:54.320
No, we've I've been watching you, and you are somebody that I feel that if you tell me something, you're gonna tell me the truth.
00:48:54.320 --> 00:49:03.360
You know, and like you said, all those features or character I had that people were like, Oh, you do you two they do this one, you are two this, you are to this.
00:49:03.360 --> 00:49:14.400
And now the characteristics that people look at and they are like, I have had, I told you I just came back, I had young people walk up to me and say, Oh my god, you have piercings in your ears, because not typically Nigerian, red hair.
00:49:14.400 --> 00:49:18.800
And how I got here was a white man in uh South Carolina.
00:49:18.800 --> 00:49:20.719
I saw him with sleeved tattoos.
00:49:20.719 --> 00:49:24.480
I mean, I'm a cow, I don't like tattoos because I'm I'm too scared of the thing.
00:49:24.480 --> 00:49:27.760
And I looked, because I'm an artist.
00:49:27.920 --> 00:49:33.039
Yeah, they signed up that's your artistic expression showing, yeah, for sure.
00:49:33.280 --> 00:49:38.320
And I always was like, I can't do this straight hair, briefcase, skirt suit every day.
00:49:38.320 --> 00:49:39.119
This is not me.
00:49:39.119 --> 00:49:40.559
This me, this is me.
00:49:40.559 --> 00:49:49.039
And these young people, you know, and he was the one that said, get your you know, your time, your time in, prove yourself, then you can be yourself.
00:49:49.039 --> 00:49:52.800
That was the first person that ever told me that.
00:49:52.800 --> 00:49:59.119
And so when I talk to the younger people, and they're like, Oh my god, you know, I first saw you, you know, as you were there, and you were interviewing us.
00:49:59.119 --> 00:50:01.679
And I used to remember even before this, I used to have a mohawk.
00:50:01.760 --> 00:50:02.079
Yeah.
00:50:02.320 --> 00:50:06.639
I was red and everything, and they'd be like, Oh my god, you know, it's so refreshing to see.
00:50:06.639 --> 00:50:10.639
And I keep and I I could give them that advice that was given to me, like, prove yourself first.
00:50:10.639 --> 00:50:12.800
When you're proven yourself, you can do whatever you want.
00:50:12.800 --> 00:50:17.280
Get that, make sure that whatever you're doing, you are true to yourself.
00:50:17.280 --> 00:50:27.840
So that you will now enter your your your evening of your life, or the early afternoon, or late afternoon evening of your life, and be like, uh-huh, this is who I am.
00:50:28.559 --> 00:50:39.679
And that's the deprogram back to the deprogramming, reimagining what it means to thrive, because the social conditioning is success has to look a certain way.
00:50:39.679 --> 00:50:45.199
You have to look a certain way on the road to collecting this conventional success.
00:50:45.440 --> 00:50:50.079
Like, like for us as Nigerian women, I'm supposed to be married, I'm supposed to have kids.
00:50:50.079 --> 00:50:51.840
I've decided I don't want to be married.
00:50:51.840 --> 00:50:55.679
I mean, I've already tried it, and I actually and I'm not really alone.
00:50:55.679 --> 00:50:56.239
I have my friends.
00:50:56.239 --> 00:50:58.079
I have you, like I talk to you almost every day.
00:50:58.079 --> 00:51:00.639
So sometimes I'm why do people think I'm lonely?
00:51:02.320 --> 00:51:02.480
Yeah.
00:51:03.039 --> 00:51:04.800
There's this, oh, you you don't have children.
00:51:04.800 --> 00:51:13.920
And I'm like, I you know, the day I sat down, just like I sat down and realized like this is what makes me happy, or going back to private was not for me.
00:51:13.920 --> 00:51:15.039
It was comfortable.
00:51:15.039 --> 00:51:16.719
Same with children.
00:51:16.719 --> 00:51:18.320
I have gone through IVF.
00:51:18.320 --> 00:51:21.599
It's not because I, for lack of trying, when I was married, I went through that whole process.
00:51:21.599 --> 00:51:23.599
But one day I actually sat down.
00:51:23.599 --> 00:51:30.639
How I knew that I was changing was my last IVF cycle failed, and I was relieved.
00:51:30.639 --> 00:51:39.840
You know, here I'm in a room of women crying, you know, they're giving us all our results, and some people were like in tears all over the place.
00:51:39.840 --> 00:51:41.199
And I was there like, ah, thank God.
00:51:41.199 --> 00:51:46.000
And then I had to ask myself, I said, Come on, Duji, something wrong with you, because that's something I should want.
00:51:46.000 --> 00:51:49.039
And this was the IVF where I could select the sex of my child.
00:51:49.039 --> 00:51:52.239
I had gotten to that point where I could select the sex of my child.
00:51:52.239 --> 00:51:58.000
I sat down one day and I said, Hey, Duji, but honestly speaking, do you even want children?
00:51:58.000 --> 00:52:06.960
Or you have you always just, because everybody says you're nurturing, you have motherly tendencies, you've told yourself that that's what you must do.
00:52:06.960 --> 00:52:07.920
And I really sat down.
00:52:07.920 --> 00:52:09.760
I said, you know, what about my life?
00:52:09.760 --> 00:52:11.519
Had children in it.
00:52:11.519 --> 00:52:14.239
When I was in the private sector, I was constantly traveling.
00:52:14.239 --> 00:52:22.480
I was never, I was, in fact, I was, I, you know, it's like there was nothing that if I had stopped working, we wouldn't have eaten.
00:52:22.480 --> 00:52:24.800
You know, my so where would I have fixed?
00:52:24.800 --> 00:52:32.480
It's not like I had the kind of support system where, okay, if I had a child, okay, somebody will be there taking care of the child while I'm out hustling and getting the money.
00:52:32.480 --> 00:52:35.280
I would have been the one taking care of the child and probably taking care of your husband.
00:52:35.280 --> 00:52:35.920
You know what I mean?
00:52:35.920 --> 00:52:44.719
Like the whole construct and trying to keep everything looking a certain way, which I did for a long time because culturally it couldn't be seen a certain way, like success.
00:52:44.719 --> 00:52:47.280
It had to look good, everything polished.
00:52:47.280 --> 00:52:51.280
And so I sat down and I said, honestly speaking, why even I have children now.
00:52:51.280 --> 00:52:53.039
I've got children all over the place.
00:52:53.039 --> 00:52:54.320
I have nieces and nephews.
00:52:54.320 --> 00:52:55.280
What else am I looking for?
00:52:55.280 --> 00:53:04.800
And I realized that we are also very greedy for things that, and the fact that I didn't get price that, you know, sometimes God is trying to prevent something, and we are the ones pushing and pushing and pushing.
00:53:04.800 --> 00:53:06.079
We want this thing, we want this thing.
00:53:06.079 --> 00:53:15.199
Maybe God's saving my life because I'd already gone through fibroid surgery, you know, all the I was on very heavy drugs that pretty much changed my body.
00:53:15.199 --> 00:53:19.280
Only God knows what the long-term effects eventually will be of the things I put in my body.
00:53:19.519 --> 00:53:21.519
Yeah, good as an IVF, yeah, for sure.
00:53:21.840 --> 00:53:22.639
One child.
00:53:22.639 --> 00:53:27.039
And when I made that decision, that was like it was like the load.
00:53:27.039 --> 00:53:28.639
I don't know what, I can't even explain it.
00:53:28.639 --> 00:53:31.519
It was like one spiritual load off my neck.
00:53:31.519 --> 00:53:35.280
With oh God, I said, God, thank you very much for the chance.
00:53:35.280 --> 00:53:37.440
And I only you know why.
00:53:37.440 --> 00:53:44.639
But and the minute I said that, I felt like a lot of the stress and the strain and all the wahala just went away.
00:53:44.639 --> 00:53:47.679
So even now, when people say, Ah, you want why don't you adopt?
00:53:47.679 --> 00:53:48.960
I just sit there and look at them.
00:53:48.960 --> 00:53:51.519
I'm like, you know, everybody get their own now.
00:53:51.519 --> 00:54:01.039
I like it doesn't bother me as much because before it bothered me not because I was like, Oh, I can't have a it bothered me more unless, like, why is everybody always projecting this thing on me?
00:54:01.039 --> 00:54:03.920
Like, I mean, while the people projecting on none of them is gonna help me.
00:54:04.400 --> 00:54:05.119
That's for sure.
00:54:05.119 --> 00:54:06.239
That's for sure.
00:54:06.480 --> 00:54:18.400
So when I say I'm in my selfish era, circling back to what I said, the latest one is ah, you need to have a child, or you unless you'll be alone, who would all this stuff you are acquiring, who will you give it to?
00:54:18.400 --> 00:54:20.079
There's still that conversation.
00:54:20.079 --> 00:54:22.000
Ah, you don't want to be alone, no.
00:54:22.000 --> 00:54:25.840
And I look at this people, I said, Do you know how many people have children that their children don't talk to them?
00:54:25.840 --> 00:54:28.880
Do you know how many people give all their children are dead?
00:54:28.880 --> 00:54:30.880
In this life is guaranteed, though.
00:54:30.880 --> 00:54:38.400
I said, So I said, when I'm gone now, there are people that I will give it to, but this notion that ah, you can't be alone, you have to get married.
00:54:38.400 --> 00:54:39.599
Ah, you have to.
00:54:39.599 --> 00:54:40.880
I'm like, have to.
00:54:42.079 --> 00:54:42.719
Who says?
00:54:42.719 --> 00:54:43.440
Who says?
00:54:43.440 --> 00:54:52.000
And the truth is back to you know, read redefining what success looks like, reimagining now what it means to thrive.
00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:57.440
You have to get to the point where, okay, this is my new normal.
00:54:57.440 --> 00:55:06.320
You have to mourn the death of whatever previous expectations you had, because if you don't, the world can crush you.
00:55:06.559 --> 00:55:07.199
Oh, yeah.
00:55:07.519 --> 00:55:10.480
And they will yeah, and they will gladly do it.
00:55:10.480 --> 00:55:20.880
I remember a story you told me when you were walking your dog and you were minding your own business, and someone just said something very, very mean to you about not having children.
00:55:21.440 --> 00:55:22.400
He has a dog.
00:55:22.400 --> 00:55:26.000
And in fact, they didn't even say it in English, they said in Idibo.
00:55:26.000 --> 00:55:30.079
It was a friend who heard it that, you know, was got fled up.
00:55:30.079 --> 00:55:32.639
And so, you know, why are you fled?
00:55:32.639 --> 00:55:34.960
It was at a one-year-old child's birthday party, actually.
00:55:34.960 --> 00:55:36.000
We're in a pack.
00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:42.239
And the person that said it, you know, came with a gang of kids that he didn't even look like he was even taking care of his own.
00:55:42.239 --> 00:55:46.320
And the our friend, the family friend, fled up, like, how dare you say such a thing?
00:55:46.320 --> 00:55:47.760
You don't even know what people are going through.
00:55:47.760 --> 00:55:51.519
And I had to calm him down, like, look, those things won't bother me anymore.
00:55:51.519 --> 00:55:56.639
Because even the person, I'm one of those kinds of people, whenever somebody says something, I always look at the person talking.
00:55:56.639 --> 00:56:00.960
Because a lot of it is project, you know, because you know, in our culture, it's projection.
00:56:00.960 --> 00:56:04.880
A lot of people project to you on you what they are going through.
00:56:04.880 --> 00:56:15.760
So that whole you're projecting on me, and I'm looking at your kids that you brought with you, and you don't look like you take care of the ones you even have, and you're worried about me with my dog, I'm the list of your problems, dude.
00:56:15.760 --> 00:56:23.920
There's nothing about your life that I'm envious of, but obviously you seeing me living like this is bothering you.
00:56:23.920 --> 00:56:32.559
And I had to tell my friend, you know, the family friend that, hey, you know, I we get it, you know, you know what we're going through, but don't take it too personally.
00:56:32.559 --> 00:56:42.880
Because, like when I say our people are sociopaths, psychopaths, like the things they say, you can be sick right now, going through chemo, bubble, oh, we're gonna pray for you, it will go away.
00:56:42.880 --> 00:56:43.440
I'm like, come.
00:56:43.440 --> 00:56:45.119
It's the same thing when my dad was dying.
00:56:45.119 --> 00:56:46.239
Oh, we will fast and pray.
00:56:46.239 --> 00:56:47.760
I'm like, look, my father is dying.
00:56:47.760 --> 00:56:50.239
Don't tell me things that don't make sense.
00:56:50.239 --> 00:56:52.000
You know it doesn't make sense.
00:56:52.000 --> 00:56:54.559
It's better for you not to even talk at all.
00:56:54.559 --> 00:56:59.199
Because all that fasting and praying, shouldn't you have been fasting and praying before he got sick?
00:56:59.199 --> 00:57:02.000
What am I gonna do with your fasting and praying?
00:57:02.000 --> 00:57:04.639
Because I mean, yes, they mean well.
00:57:04.639 --> 00:57:08.719
I'm sure he said it, you know, Nigerians sometimes don't think before they talk.
00:57:08.719 --> 00:57:13.119
He said it more or less like, you know, maybe he thought that will, you know, make me go have a kid.
00:57:13.119 --> 00:57:16.719
I don't know what he was thinking, but that is how our people are.
00:57:16.719 --> 00:57:27.679
And when I say I'm in my selfish era, I'm in an era now where things that used to affect me because I'm an empath, you know, they say whatever you hear, it comes, it hits you in the heart when you're an empath.
00:57:27.679 --> 00:57:28.800
It comes straight to me.
00:57:28.800 --> 00:57:31.280
They don't do that to me anymore.
00:57:31.280 --> 00:57:36.960
So even when people call me, oh, ah, you won't go and have a child, go and adopt, or go and do this.
00:57:36.960 --> 00:57:38.800
I just it to me, I just laughed.
00:57:38.800 --> 00:57:40.800
It's like, I mean, what else were you?
00:57:41.360 --> 00:57:46.800
Yeah, for me, it looked like, especially when I had the second child who was on the spectrum.
00:57:46.800 --> 00:57:52.960
I think I told you, and this is in the book, how someone approached me and said that maybe I'm not praying enough.
00:57:52.960 --> 00:57:57.360
That's why my daughter is autistic with intellectual disability.
00:57:57.360 --> 00:57:59.599
So, in other words, it's something I did.
00:57:59.599 --> 00:58:06.800
Yeah, it just came out so I really do think this is a God thing.
00:58:06.800 --> 00:58:12.719
I came out and I said, Okay, maybe instead of you assuming I didn't pray enough, maybe this is my ministry.
00:58:12.719 --> 00:58:14.960
Like, maybe this is my ministry.
00:58:14.960 --> 00:58:16.320
Did you ever think about that?
00:58:16.559 --> 00:58:17.679
Remember, I told you that.
00:58:17.679 --> 00:58:22.480
I said, I said, this, whatever it is, you know, this is going to be your ministry.
00:58:22.480 --> 00:58:35.440
Because culturally, you are helping a lot of people in our culture because dealing with kids with disabilities or or or developmental issues in our culture is they pretend like it doesn't exist.
00:58:35.440 --> 00:58:53.280
And you have a lot of mothers who, you know, maybe their husbands are still there, their husbands left them because they found out the child was autistic or something happening, and they're at their wits' ends, they don't know what resources are available to them, and then culturally, they don't have people to see and say, Hey, I have a question.
00:58:53.280 --> 00:58:54.079
How are you?
00:58:54.079 --> 00:58:55.280
Because it's it's different.
00:58:55.280 --> 00:59:00.159
Like if I go to an American and I ask the question, I'm not gonna get the kind of answer I'm trying to get.
00:59:00.159 --> 00:59:05.039
Because if I ask you as a Nigerian, you know what angle I'm coming from.
00:59:05.119 --> 00:59:05.280
Yeah.
00:59:06.800 --> 00:59:09.840
The culture, Nigeria, we come with culture first.
00:59:10.079 --> 00:59:10.719
Yeah.
00:59:10.960 --> 00:59:12.880
Because it's always culture first.
00:59:12.880 --> 00:59:23.760
So even as educated and as even we that are this generation educated, we too will do some things that would be like, oh my, it's not culture, that culture and how they affect me.
00:59:23.760 --> 00:59:26.880
Like it's the culture that we always come with.
00:59:26.880 --> 00:59:38.159
So when you see a Nigerian doing something that is typically frowned upon or is not usual, for those who are going through it in silence, they they're paying attention.
00:59:38.159 --> 00:59:42.400
They have their eyes are like when I say you are the Bible that people read, they're watching you closely.
00:59:42.400 --> 00:59:54.079
And when I said you are the you are you're what you're doing is a ministry, because you, like you said, you have reimagined what it's like to be a professional woman with two children now in their teens.
00:59:54.079 --> 01:00:00.559
You know, your husband is also working, both of you are navigating your careers, your children, and at different stages.
01:00:00.559 --> 01:00:08.800
But I've watched you from I've known you before you were even married, yeah, to children, all of that.
01:00:08.800 --> 01:00:21.920
And where you are now is like, my God, you know, I I you inspire me too, because it's like, ah, this girl has been through it, and then here she is now in the next phase of what it is.
01:00:21.920 --> 01:00:29.519
Every step of the way, it has not been an easy one, but every step of the way you have re-redefined who you are.
01:00:29.519 --> 01:00:31.039
You you it's still not done.
01:00:31.039 --> 01:00:35.760
You're still re- you know, redefining and redefining, and even for me, it's like, okay, I'm inspired.
01:00:35.760 --> 01:00:37.280
Oh thank you, friend.
01:00:37.280 --> 01:00:37.920
Thank you, sir.
01:00:37.920 --> 01:00:45.199
Why can't you redefine who I am at each step of the way and make it work for me?
01:00:45.199 --> 01:00:58.719
And I've watched you that and and when you know, I call you more like you're like a younger sister to me because I don't have sister, and it's like, wow, if I had a younger sister, that is how I would react to everything.
01:00:58.719 --> 01:01:09.679
And then in my mind, I'm like, okay, as an older sister, how can I inspire my younger sister to keep going, keep going back wherever you want, always be in the mood.
01:01:10.079 --> 01:01:28.960
Yeah, and I think both of us, yes, different journeys and different challenges, but I think what we can both as we walk along this life journey together as very close friends is walking away from the idea of perfection and walking into wholeness.
01:01:28.960 --> 01:01:36.079
It's so important because the goal in life is not to be perfect, it really is to be whole.
01:01:36.079 --> 01:01:49.760
It's one of my favorite quotes, it's from Jane Fonda, and it's so true because the moment you let go of some idea of what perfect is supposed to look like is where the good stuff is, on the other hand.
01:01:49.760 --> 01:01:51.119
It really, really is.
01:01:51.519 --> 01:02:01.119
Because when you realize it's your life, you get to write how it, you know, we didn't get to write how it began, get to write the middle portion of it, but you get to write how it ends.
01:02:01.119 --> 01:02:06.320
And the minute I realize that, I'm like, wait a second, where do you come?
01:02:06.320 --> 01:02:19.840
And I think watching my father die also opened something up in me because I realized like this is somebody who had done so much, you know, he died at 76, but he had done so much, but at the end, he had to face death alone.
01:02:19.840 --> 01:02:30.719
So that means that even after you've done all this stuff, you've met all the when the time comes, you may be surrounded by loved ones.
01:02:30.719 --> 01:02:32.960
Then the question then becomes, How did you live?
01:02:32.960 --> 01:02:35.039
So that's an eye-opener for me.
01:02:35.039 --> 01:02:35.760
Like, you know what?
01:02:35.760 --> 01:02:39.039
I need to do a better job of living.
01:02:39.039 --> 01:02:42.800
So that when that, you know, I can just be like, Okay, I'm good now.
01:02:42.800 --> 01:02:49.760
You know, it doesn't matter how I started, maybe the middle was a little bit choppy, but how I end this thing is me.
01:02:49.760 --> 01:02:55.679
That's why, even as I enter my 50s, I'm like, okay, now I don't I've done the first half.
01:02:55.679 --> 01:03:01.119
I've I've given of myself, I've done everything our daughter is supposed to do.
01:03:01.119 --> 01:03:02.880
La la la, okay, fine, good.
01:03:02.880 --> 01:03:05.679
Now let me do the rest of this.
01:03:05.679 --> 01:03:12.559
And in even in your case, I'm like, I'm seeing you more now, like it's me, my family, this family I created.
01:03:12.559 --> 01:03:13.039
Yeah.
01:03:13.039 --> 01:03:14.960
How do we move this forward?
01:03:14.960 --> 01:03:25.599
And I also see how your son sees you are showing him, you know, and and like like what my father told me, he said, you have to be deliberate.
01:03:25.599 --> 01:03:31.599
So when we talk about your lane, what you see as success, and what you see as you have to be deliberate.
01:03:31.599 --> 01:03:33.599
These are things that you deliberately create.
01:03:33.599 --> 01:03:41.039
Deliberately create the lane you want to see yourself in, you deliberately create what you see as success to you, yeah.
01:03:41.039 --> 01:03:45.039
And then you create where you see, like, where is this going?
01:03:45.039 --> 01:03:56.159
That's your, you know, and we all need to understand and realize that some people do, some people never do, yeah, and some people realize it too late.
01:03:56.159 --> 01:04:05.119
But for those of us that God has given the grace to the awakening, for the awakening to happen, your eyes to be open now, it's like, okay, God, I get it now.
01:04:05.440 --> 01:04:12.320
And self-awareness is such a spiritual gift, it really, really is, and it's also a walk, a continuous walk.
01:04:12.559 --> 01:04:15.760
It is that, and even people's walk with God is different.
01:04:15.920 --> 01:04:16.480
Yeah.
01:04:16.880 --> 01:04:19.199
And I thought that I don't have to go to a church.
01:04:19.199 --> 01:04:26.639
Every all of us have experienced God in different ways that makes us how we are, or whatever you believe in, or whatever that keeps you going.
01:04:26.639 --> 01:04:30.639
I won't even judge anybody on that because you know everybody's experience is different.
01:04:30.639 --> 01:04:38.159
But I will say for those of us who are believers, it deliberates how you're like where we are now is the lane created.
01:04:38.159 --> 01:04:49.119
We've been in several lanes, but now we created the lane that is unique to us, and we are holding on to God that we're going in the direction of how it should go for us.
01:04:49.119 --> 01:04:54.239
So what I'm saying is we're in different lanes from how we started.
01:04:54.239 --> 01:04:58.960
So we started with the conventional, you know, is the box, the what society puts us in.
01:04:58.960 --> 01:05:06.559
And like I said, some of us, by the grace of God, will create our own lane, our own future, our own destiny, everything.
01:05:06.559 --> 01:05:10.800
And then some people will stay in that box because it's comfortable to be in that box.
01:05:10.800 --> 01:05:20.320
It's it's it's you know, it's not easy being who we are because we're constantly having society push back on us, you know, because it's not conventional.
01:05:20.320 --> 01:05:22.960
Like how we look is not conventional.
01:05:22.960 --> 01:05:39.519
You know, and we're we're women, we're black women with natural hair in corporate society, you know, in out there, you know, we're visible, and we don't have the stereotypical, I mean my I'm big, but you know, full-bodied, you know, like I have my African features are very much there.
01:05:39.519 --> 01:05:40.960
I'm not even hiding.
01:05:40.960 --> 01:05:47.599
And then society is telling you every day go back into that box that we put you in, and we are saying no.
01:05:47.599 --> 01:05:59.679
And and we look, we are happier, healthier, because I cannot tell you how your nervous system is significantly affected when you are so.
01:05:59.679 --> 01:06:06.239
Pressing a lot of that, you know, you want to just scream, and then everybody just telling you to keep it in, keep it in.
01:06:06.239 --> 01:06:25.199
And so, and I think our mothers look at us, and there's a bit of envy there because you are living the way they would have wanted to live, but they were so confined by the society, the culture, and everything that they just, you know, you know, I'm looking at my mom now.
01:06:25.199 --> 01:06:34.719
Maybe this is when her free era, because you know, my dad is gone, so she's not constrained by a lot of those societal things, but she's now living, and this is she was married to my dad when she was what, 22?
01:06:34.719 --> 01:06:38.159
And she's 72, 73 now.
01:06:38.159 --> 01:06:38.639
Wow.
01:06:38.639 --> 01:06:45.679
Yeah, is when she's now rediscovering herself after change and all what not.
01:06:45.679 --> 01:06:54.320
There's a level of grace to be given, but also accountability in that okay, fine, but you still need to be held responsible for the things you've done.
01:06:54.320 --> 01:06:59.519
I also am holding myself responsible for the things I'm done and and creating this new lane.
01:06:59.519 --> 01:07:04.239
So, what we talk about what you see as success for yourself, she is redefining for herself.
01:07:04.239 --> 01:07:09.280
Your mom is redefining, like they are redefining because they're the first women we knew.
01:07:09.519 --> 01:07:10.880
Yeah, absolutely.
01:07:11.280 --> 01:07:14.960
If for themselves, what they see as what they their vision now.
01:07:14.960 --> 01:07:36.639
I don't know what that is, but for us in our generation, we are now redefining what success is, hoping that it also for those young ones coming after us, they now see that you can be yourself and you can like, like I said, all those qualities we were told, all the qualities I was told were negative about me are the qualities that are helping me where I am now.
01:07:36.800 --> 01:07:37.199
Oh, yeah.
01:07:37.199 --> 01:07:57.679
It it's funny because obviously you don't think of empathy and authenticity in engineering or lawyering, but it's funny that we're both in leadership positions now, and those are the qualities that get called out now that were viewed once upon a time as not so ideal.
01:07:58.079 --> 01:07:59.039
No, it's not.
01:07:59.039 --> 01:08:05.360
And like I said, as a person of color in some of these spaces, you are expected to just be happy that they let you in.
01:08:05.360 --> 01:08:09.840
When you come in there, you walk in the room, and you know, you you I love color.
01:08:09.840 --> 01:08:15.360
You color, ah, you know, you just say things, and everybody's like, whoa, you're free.
01:08:15.360 --> 01:08:16.560
Yeah, yeah.
01:08:16.560 --> 01:08:20.399
So a lot of people pushing back against you is the I should, you know, why should you be free?
01:08:20.399 --> 01:08:21.600
Why don't you just fit into this?
01:08:21.600 --> 01:08:24.640
And you are like, I'm calm, I'm okay with myself.
01:08:24.640 --> 01:08:36.399
I'm not ashamed of what I've had to go through to even get to this point because this is the real me, this is who I am, and there's more of need to for me to find out about like and discover stuff.
01:08:36.399 --> 01:08:41.039
And your children are seeing that, people around you are seeing it.
01:08:41.039 --> 01:08:43.279
Some people like it, some people don't, but it's okay.
01:08:43.279 --> 01:08:43.840
Yeah.
01:08:43.840 --> 01:08:58.720
But you are yourself, and even among our mates, there are some of them that long to have that level of freedom because you know they've sort of kind of boxed themselves in where they don't even feel they feel that it's too late for them to get out of what they've put themselves into.
01:08:58.720 --> 01:09:01.279
But that's a journey that they have to go through.
01:09:01.600 --> 01:09:08.960
And it's individual for everybody, the deprogramming process to really look around and ask yourself, is this what I really want?
01:09:08.960 --> 01:09:16.000
For me, the pandemic was a stage where it that's when I launched the podcast.
01:09:16.000 --> 01:09:18.000
That's when all of these things happened.
01:09:18.000 --> 01:09:19.680
So I became this lawyer.
01:09:19.680 --> 01:09:20.079
Yeah.
01:09:20.319 --> 01:09:23.439
And the pandemic did two different things for very different people.
01:09:23.439 --> 01:09:29.119
If you were not already honest with yourself, or you didn't already know yourself, the pandemic was helpful.
01:09:29.119 --> 01:09:44.880
But in your case, the pandemic helped you to actually like come out of yourself, like discover other aspects of yourself and and tap into things that you, you know, when you know, when we were always working, working, working five days a week, we never really stopped.
01:09:44.880 --> 01:09:47.199
Yeah, the pandemic was that brick wall.
01:09:47.199 --> 01:09:47.840
Yeah, yeah.
01:09:47.840 --> 01:09:54.239
That a lot of people, you know, recovered from it some and learned what they needed to learn and discover, we discovered themselves.
01:09:54.239 --> 01:10:02.479
Some people that wall hit them so hard, they just never, in fact, they reverted further into whatever it was that they were originally.
01:10:02.479 --> 01:10:07.840
So the older I get, the more I realize that you know what, really, it's it's what you want out of life.
01:10:07.840 --> 01:10:09.920
It's like it's it's still your story to write.
01:10:09.920 --> 01:10:14.800
It's your it's your perspective about this life that you've been put on.
01:10:14.800 --> 01:10:15.039
Yeah.
01:10:15.039 --> 01:10:19.119
So you can make the conscious decision to create your idea of success.
01:10:19.119 --> 01:10:26.720
But for me, when I say my value system change, when I was younger, it was like, oh, money, I'm making money and traveling.
01:10:26.720 --> 01:10:29.279
Now I'm like, I like my house, Joe.
01:10:29.279 --> 01:10:30.560
I like stay.
01:10:30.560 --> 01:10:38.479
I like peace, you know, like peace was the biggest thing for me.
01:10:38.479 --> 01:10:44.640
Like, and peace came for me, came with taking it easy, slowing down significantly.
01:10:44.640 --> 01:10:46.399
It's not like it's not that serious.
01:10:46.399 --> 01:10:49.680
In fact, I've added that to my it's like promo, it's not that serious, right?
01:10:49.680 --> 01:10:51.279
It's not it's not that it's not serious.
01:10:51.279 --> 01:10:52.479
I keep an eye on it.
01:10:52.800 --> 01:10:59.439
Going to get myself worked up and completely back to what you said earlier about a regulated nervous system.
01:10:59.439 --> 01:11:05.199
You get to a certain age, it's like peace of mind and a regulated nervous system is a form of wealth.
01:11:05.199 --> 01:11:06.319
It really is.
01:11:06.640 --> 01:11:18.880
It really, really is healthy now because now we are at the age where family illnesses start showing up that I was a six mile-a-day runner, and then now all of a sudden I'm like, man, where are all these things coming from?
01:11:18.880 --> 01:11:32.319
Like you wake up in the point pain, all these other things, and so your focus now is like, look, look, I don't have the energy for things, I need to be healthy and in the right frame of mind and make sure I take care of you know myself and things around me.
01:11:32.319 --> 01:11:37.840
So my idea of success, yeah, it could change next, but it's okay.
01:11:37.840 --> 01:11:39.600
Yeah, because that's the whole point of it.
01:11:39.600 --> 01:11:42.720
It's like I there's no real it hasn't finished.
01:11:42.720 --> 01:11:44.479
I'm still a work in progress.
01:11:44.479 --> 01:11:46.239
I'm done with the lane.
01:11:46.239 --> 01:11:48.079
That was the first one.
01:11:48.079 --> 01:11:50.399
I I now know what lane I want to be in.
01:11:50.399 --> 01:11:52.800
Um where was the second one?
01:11:52.960 --> 01:11:54.720
What redefining success.
01:11:55.840 --> 01:11:58.079
I have redefined what I consider successful me.
01:11:58.079 --> 01:12:01.520
The third one is where I am right now, and that one is ever changing.
01:12:01.760 --> 01:12:03.920
Yeah, reimagining what it means to thrive.
01:12:04.479 --> 01:12:05.600
What does it mean to thrive for me?
01:12:05.600 --> 01:12:06.079
It's okay.
01:12:06.079 --> 01:12:15.760
Today for me, thriving is my peace of mind, taking a walk, getting my steps in, yeah, looking for thanking God for what God has given me.
01:12:15.760 --> 01:12:20.880
Tomorrow it's maybe something else, and tomorrow something else, but that I'm okay with.
01:12:20.880 --> 01:12:37.520
But the first two I want to believe I used the morning and the afternoon of my life to take care of and maybe those things that I went through and like you you did go through too are what was what prepared me for the third phase of this journey that we're on.
01:12:37.520 --> 01:12:46.800
And I'm very happy where I have because now I'm at a stage where I know who I am, I know what I want, and I now I know what to do to get there.
01:12:46.800 --> 01:12:55.359
It's a process, I guess it may take me a little longer than because some people were lucky to got a head start, some of us learned it later, but it's okay.
01:12:56.239 --> 01:12:57.520
We're all on different journeys.
01:12:57.760 --> 01:12:58.800
Yeah, well, different journeys.
01:12:58.800 --> 01:13:04.880
So I'm at that third stage, and for me, next year is what marks that third stage for me.
01:13:04.880 --> 01:13:12.079
It's like that, you know, is that milestone, like okay, flag in the ground, 50 5-0 baby.
01:13:12.079 --> 01:13:21.520
And you know, and things have happened recently in my family that have you know put in perspective, like um, you know, you nobody is guaranteed forever.
01:13:21.520 --> 01:13:24.560
That's true, whatever you know, time God gives you.
01:13:24.560 --> 01:13:29.439
And like I said, as people of faith, we always move with God first.
01:13:29.439 --> 01:13:37.600
So that's what gives us the comfort, like me personally, that's what gives me the confidence to move because I'm always like, well, God, I'm going in this direction, please leave.
01:13:37.600 --> 01:13:41.279
If it's not that direction, slowly guide towards the direction.
01:13:41.279 --> 01:13:43.199
So far, God has been gracious.
01:13:43.199 --> 01:13:52.479
So, you know, and and I'm learning also to just give everybody their own grace because we're all on different journeys, and what it looks like to everybody is different.
01:13:52.479 --> 01:13:54.399
Where do you want your story to end?
01:13:54.399 --> 01:13:58.000
Like, how do you want your story to be told, and how do you want it to end?
01:13:58.159 --> 01:13:58.800
Yeah.
01:13:59.039 --> 01:14:05.520
That when you are taking your last breath and you're all by yourself, your life is flashing through your eyes.
01:14:05.520 --> 01:14:08.560
Like, can you honestly say, you know what, it was a good one?
01:14:08.560 --> 01:14:23.199
You know, and as women, I think women need to, it's an extra layer to, you know, men have the I don't know anything about what men go through, but as a woman and how we were raised and how we were conditioned, this is a very crucial time to be.
01:14:23.199 --> 01:14:30.399
It's a very crucial time of our lives, and and I think it's very important that we take that into consideration, take a breath.
01:14:30.399 --> 01:14:38.399
Even even, yeah, we will stumble, but I've I've come to embrace stumbling as part of this journey and not beat myself up over a pendulum.
01:14:38.399 --> 01:14:41.279
I'm a I am a perfectionist or a recovering one.
01:14:41.279 --> 01:14:44.880
And I'm learning that there's no such thing.
01:14:44.880 --> 01:14:45.680
There isn't.
01:14:45.680 --> 01:14:50.159
And that it's okay for something to not be perfect, because maybe that's what makes it perfect.
01:14:50.159 --> 01:14:54.880
That is or that it's unique in itself, that it's not what I want it to be.
01:14:55.279 --> 01:15:05.039
I realized how much in my life I had delayed because waiting for something to look like my version of what perfect was supposed to be.
01:15:05.039 --> 01:15:11.840
Yeah, I waited to launch this podcast, I waited to do so many things.
01:15:11.840 --> 01:15:16.640
And this podcast, meaning the previous version of this podcast, not your mama's autism.
01:15:16.640 --> 01:15:23.840
I I waited on a lot of things when I should have just put one little step in front of the other, and I started doing that.
01:15:24.960 --> 01:15:28.800
We were conditioned to be anxious because the not to fail.
01:15:29.039 --> 01:15:29.520
Yeah.
01:15:29.760 --> 01:15:34.319
There was no, I don't even think I knew what it was like not to fail.
01:15:34.319 --> 01:15:37.840
Like that's why when I failed, my first major failure was marriage.
01:15:37.840 --> 01:15:40.560
So when I failed, like you see, I'm using the word failed.
01:15:40.560 --> 01:15:40.880
Yeah.
01:15:40.880 --> 01:15:44.159
But I felt like I had failed.
01:15:44.159 --> 01:15:47.199
I mean, this was something I was supposed to get, you know, it was like open book exam.
01:15:47.199 --> 01:15:48.159
I was supposed to pass.
01:15:48.159 --> 01:15:51.279
So I took it, I embodied that failure like me.
01:15:51.279 --> 01:15:54.560
I have every other thing I've ever done, I've accomplished.
01:15:54.560 --> 01:15:56.800
You know, if I wanted to be first in class, I was first.
01:15:56.800 --> 01:16:00.239
If I wanted to, and then this one thing I failed.
01:16:00.239 --> 01:16:05.439
It was that first failure that allowed me to deal with the second one, so-called failure.
01:16:05.439 --> 01:16:07.840
Because then it was, you know, it happens.
01:16:07.840 --> 01:16:19.039
It's not because it's not about lack of trying, but that was how I handled it, because we were, and so that when that whole anxiety, I was I was always the kind of person that I would measure a thousand times and I still wouldn't curse.
01:16:19.039 --> 01:16:22.640
Because after that cut was the mistake I didn't want to make.
01:16:22.640 --> 01:16:26.079
So rather than try it, I would rather not even touch it at all.
01:16:26.079 --> 01:16:28.640
So I didn't have to deal with failure.
01:16:28.640 --> 01:16:41.600
And our culture sort of kind of conditions us into that mentality where you're too scared to try things because you are scared of failing, and then the backlash that comes from the so-called failure, because what would people say?
01:16:41.600 --> 01:16:50.319
Well, my parents have to deal with the embarrassment, and at the end of the day, you realize my hair so what you know, but you tried it, yeah.
01:16:50.479 --> 01:16:51.199
Yeah, yeah.
01:16:51.199 --> 01:17:03.279
I I had a friend recently give me some interesting type of ultimatum and tell me that now that she's going through a divorce, if I want to stop talking to her, just let her know.
01:17:03.279 --> 01:17:06.319
And I was shocked that she would even bring that up.
01:17:06.319 --> 01:17:16.720
But it just shows the societal pressure on women and marriage and how you internalize it and think it's hold the marriage.
01:17:17.039 --> 01:17:19.680
Don't because you know she might affect your marriage.
01:17:19.680 --> 01:17:21.359
And I'm like, what does that have to do with anything?
01:17:21.359 --> 01:17:28.399
I'm not affecting anybody, I'm living my life, JJ, but you've already said on me things that don't make any sense, or oh, you know, don't not invite me.
01:17:28.399 --> 01:17:30.159
Some people don't invite me to baby showers.
01:17:30.319 --> 01:17:30.800
Yeah.
01:17:31.119 --> 01:17:34.000
Because they think that oh, to make me depressed.
01:17:34.000 --> 01:17:38.319
I'm like, the Bible says rejoice with those who rejoice, cry with yeah.
01:17:38.319 --> 01:17:43.039
It hasn't even gotten into what you've already taught it for me.
01:17:43.039 --> 01:17:44.960
You know, it's like, well, what is wrong with people?
01:17:44.960 --> 01:17:46.800
Like, but then I realized it's the culture.
01:17:46.800 --> 01:17:53.439
I had to undo that anxiety because I I didn't realize that all that was making me anxious.
01:17:53.439 --> 01:17:58.159
I had a lot of anxiety issues because of that cultural pressure.
01:17:58.159 --> 01:18:04.319
Once I got out of my lane and I was like, and I'm gonna take this thing all the way, I no longer cared.
01:18:04.560 --> 01:18:15.199
So much of life is how you metabolize trauma, grief, getting back up again after things you had not planned for.
01:18:15.199 --> 01:18:21.039
And if you never tell your kids that things will come, they won't know.
01:18:21.039 --> 01:18:25.760
Part of this life is helping them cope because it's just a matter of time.
01:18:25.760 --> 01:18:27.760
Everyone goes through something.
01:18:28.079 --> 01:18:29.680
Look, I've been depressed for five years.
01:18:29.680 --> 01:18:30.720
I mean, I told you that.
01:18:30.720 --> 01:18:34.079
I said depression shows up differently for different people.
01:18:34.079 --> 01:18:41.439
I was still functioning, going to work, doing, I would lab, you know, like but until this is the first year.
01:18:41.439 --> 01:18:47.520
Like when I told you, this was the year, the 550 year of my dad's passing that I actually traveled and hung out with friends and everything.
01:18:47.520 --> 01:18:58.960
And I realized, I'm like, wow, I have been depressed, you know, and this is not something anybody prepares you for because I always thought, ah, okay, sadness is one thing, you know, that I just blow it up, you know.
01:18:58.960 --> 01:19:00.880
But yes, I was depressed.
01:19:00.880 --> 01:19:11.279
Constantly not wanting to get out of bed or getting out of bed and just barely being there, you know, checked out emotionally and mentally, and just using, you know, you and I use laughter a lot.
01:19:11.279 --> 01:19:17.439
You know, people just thought we're laughing all the time that everything is well, but that's the only way I know how to deal with situations.
01:19:17.439 --> 01:19:21.920
I just laugh at the situation or the absurdity of the situation or make a joke out of it.
01:19:21.920 --> 01:19:22.399
Yeah.
01:19:22.399 --> 01:19:29.359
It's just laughter has always been the way I've dealt with it.
01:19:29.359 --> 01:19:37.920
There are some things I would say that, you know, they seem funny to people, but anybody who knows me really well is like, okay, Edge is, you know, she's saying something.
01:19:37.920 --> 01:19:42.960
And um it's just I finally realized, oh, so this is what I was going through.
01:19:42.960 --> 01:19:45.199
Because I needed time to process what it was.
01:19:45.199 --> 01:19:51.119
I was grieving, and my grief took longer than than I guess most other people, you know.
01:19:51.119 --> 01:19:52.560
Do you think so though?
01:19:52.560 --> 01:20:00.000
I guess no, well, maybe maybe they'd handle this in different ways from directly linked to the cause of the grief.
01:20:00.239 --> 01:20:07.199
Yeah, because the death of a parent to a present parent, an emotionally available parent, I don't think anyone gets over that.
01:20:07.520 --> 01:20:08.880
You you never get over it.
01:20:08.880 --> 01:20:10.079
I get I have moments.
01:20:10.079 --> 01:20:12.079
I'm still gonna, I'm not moments.
01:20:12.079 --> 01:20:13.760
Come on, you know, my dad died at home.
01:20:13.760 --> 01:20:15.920
So right, um, I have moments.
01:20:15.920 --> 01:20:21.199
Yeah, I mean, there are times even even when somebody will say something and I'll just like my brain will start.
01:20:21.199 --> 01:20:24.800
But my grief now is not as bad as it was early on.
01:20:24.800 --> 01:20:31.199
I mean, like now I I I I have a sense of grief, but there's also a sense of okay, it's okay.
01:20:31.199 --> 01:20:35.119
It's okay to I felt guilty because like you're talking about being a caregiver.
01:20:35.119 --> 01:20:38.640
When you're a life caregiver, like there's still a guilt to everything.
01:20:38.640 --> 01:20:47.920
Because it's always like, oh, maybe if I'd done things, you know, even though yes, you do realize it's not your fault, or the buttons there's always this maybe I could have done more, maybe I could do more.
01:20:47.920 --> 01:20:51.520
Your case, your lifetime caregiving even extends to your brother.
01:20:51.760 --> 01:20:54.720
But it's literally a lifetime, that's why I call it a lifetime caregiver.
01:20:55.359 --> 01:20:58.640
You're still dealing with because you're not even in a position to help.
01:20:58.800 --> 01:20:59.119
Yeah.
01:20:59.119 --> 01:21:01.840
Because most people, it's seasonal caregiving.
01:21:01.840 --> 01:21:03.359
Mine was lifetime.
01:21:03.600 --> 01:21:04.079
Whatever.
01:21:04.079 --> 01:21:11.199
You know, you've been doing it since you were you were young, and then now it became, you know, it's your own children, but you still have your brother.
01:21:11.199 --> 01:21:17.520
So it's like people don't seem to understand it, and that was why you reacted the way you did when it was diagnosing your children.
01:21:17.520 --> 01:21:22.720
Because you you saw what happened with your brother, and you know, it's like is that overcorrection?
01:21:23.039 --> 01:21:24.000
Yeah, yeah.
01:21:24.000 --> 01:21:27.279
I feel like it's a good it's a good, hmm.
01:21:27.279 --> 01:21:30.159
My parents grieved Kunle.
01:21:30.159 --> 01:21:32.239
I grew up with Kunle.
01:21:32.239 --> 01:21:39.199
I think I I grieved an existence where I thought my parents were going to get it together.
01:21:39.199 --> 01:21:58.640
I really, I really, really, really, really thought that they would get it together so that I could be fully present raising my own kids, and I wouldn't have to think about also caring for my brother in the way I will likely have to.
01:21:58.640 --> 01:22:03.119
I think I grieved the way I wanted my parents to be.
01:22:03.119 --> 01:22:12.479
My grief is even though they're both still alive, I'm grieving the parents I thought they were going to grow into, if I'm being honest.
01:22:12.479 --> 01:22:39.920
Instead, it's more of a realization through writing this memoir, through quite frankly, sitting down with a therapist as I was writing it, is how much generational trauma I carried, both the one I was conscious of and the one the generations that came before me that I still don't know what trauma my mom and dad went through, but I know I'm carrying that too because of how they've been acting.
01:22:43.279 --> 01:22:47.119
And I, you know, I have my little thing dedicated to my father in my living room.
01:22:47.119 --> 01:22:52.000
I saw and I'll have a conversation with my father, like, what how was your life?
01:22:52.000 --> 01:22:56.319
How much did you make sure you didn't transfer to us?
01:22:56.319 --> 01:23:03.119
Because I wasn't first cousin when I talk to them and they talk about our parents were supposedly raised together, right?
01:23:03.119 --> 01:23:04.880
They weren't raised the way we were raised.
01:23:04.880 --> 01:23:12.960
And I'm saying to myself, okay, your dad, you know, some of them were like, Oh, their dads were abusive, and they was these are my dad's brothers, and I'm looking at them later, hand on me.
01:23:12.960 --> 01:23:14.239
My dad never called me a name.
01:23:14.239 --> 01:23:18.640
So, how much of his generational stuff did he unload?
01:23:18.880 --> 01:23:19.439
Exactly.
01:23:19.439 --> 01:23:20.880
And we'll never know.
01:23:20.880 --> 01:23:22.960
I was at that's a great point.
01:23:22.960 --> 01:23:25.279
I was talking to Tosa about this recently.
01:23:25.279 --> 01:23:46.000
It's like, I know my dad leapfrogged a lot, I know he did, because you know he leapfrogged poverty because we grew up upper middle class, we never wanted for anything, but my dad, both his parents passed by the time he was 13.
01:23:46.000 --> 01:24:03.039
There's a lot of trauma he's holding that I will never know because he grew up at a time where they don't men don't really talk about those things, and then my mom was the child of divorce, which in Nigeria in the 50s and 60s was like an abomination.
01:24:03.279 --> 01:24:03.439
Wow.
01:24:03.680 --> 01:24:07.680
So I know she carries that shame and guilt.
01:24:07.680 --> 01:24:13.760
So part of her leapfrogging was she thought she had to keep her marriage together no matter what.
01:24:13.760 --> 01:24:26.399
So I know they leapfrog things, and then so when you're raising the next generation, they don't know the gap, they just know the evidence, but they don't know.
01:24:26.399 --> 01:24:33.359
So now, once you now pass the baton, hopefully, if you do this right, there's less of a load.
01:24:33.359 --> 01:24:37.760
You don't want to give them more of a load, you want to give them less.
01:24:37.760 --> 01:24:42.079
Not that they won't carry a load, but it will be less by God's grace.
01:24:42.319 --> 01:24:54.800
Well, that's why being deliberate, and and when I say I'm proud of you, I've watched you deliberately create the life, like you know, you've made conscious decisions to leave what's that trauma is behind.
01:24:54.800 --> 01:24:57.039
Yes, yes, you've gone through some of that trauma.
01:24:57.039 --> 01:25:06.239
Yeah, how you have chosen to deal with it and not transfer it to your children, and also explaining to your children what that was.
01:25:06.399 --> 01:25:06.720
Yeah.
01:25:06.960 --> 01:25:14.319
Because now they like especially he's coming of age, some things now you you can tell him so he better understands.
01:25:14.319 --> 01:25:16.079
This is why mommy is the way she is.
01:25:16.079 --> 01:25:16.319
Yeah.
01:25:16.319 --> 01:25:19.760
This is why daddy and mommy may do things a little differently.
01:25:19.760 --> 01:25:20.000
Yeah.
01:25:20.000 --> 01:25:25.680
This is why, you know, like, you know, so that moving forward, you know, it it doesn't transfer on.
01:25:25.680 --> 01:25:36.319
And even with me, I'm I'm hoping that, you know, when my nieces and nephews get old enough and they start asking questions, I'm in the position to say, okay, now you're ready to know what you want to know.
01:25:36.319 --> 01:25:43.760
And I can tell you um what I know, what I found out when I asked, what this is why things are the way they are.
01:25:43.760 --> 01:25:50.000
But I do I do notice, like, we either take it forward with you or you decide to make it, but it's a deliberate effort.
01:25:50.000 --> 01:25:55.359
And when we talk about talk about breaking generational chains or curses, that's what we're talking about.
01:25:55.359 --> 01:25:56.640
Just because it happened.
01:25:56.640 --> 01:25:58.000
I, you know, I used to watch my dad.
01:25:58.000 --> 01:26:03.359
My dad was very introspective, he was very reserved, he measured his words.
01:26:03.359 --> 01:26:08.319
And I always wondered, and everybody that knew my dad before, we came along, they're like, Oh, your dad was hot and third.
01:26:08.319 --> 01:26:09.760
Your dad was, I couldn't see it.
01:26:09.760 --> 01:26:15.439
I never that man didn't raise his voice, never raised his hand, never did like so.
01:26:15.439 --> 01:26:23.920
For me, it was like everybody that knew you way back says one thing about you, but you made a conscious decision not to be that thing.
01:26:23.920 --> 01:26:26.640
So, and he was always like, You have to be deliberate.
01:26:26.640 --> 01:26:28.560
He always said, He said, You have to be deliberate.
01:26:28.560 --> 01:26:30.720
You can't say, Oh, that's how it's always been.
01:26:30.720 --> 01:26:36.319
This is what you have to now make a conscious decision, is how you want to do this thing.
01:26:36.319 --> 01:26:47.119
I said, and I made a conscious decision that my children, I was not going to abuse you, I was not gonna, they said I breathed life into you, you know, I, you know, I I made it and I told God I wasn't gonna do that.
01:26:47.119 --> 01:26:51.840
I, you know, yes, because I wasn't perfect, but I didn't, I deliberately didn't do that.
01:26:51.840 --> 01:27:06.880
And so even in my own life now, I'm trying to use that same principle of being honest with myself, trying to be as honorable as I can, I'm not perfect, but just being okay and and and being deliberate, everything I do, I'm being deliberate.
01:27:06.880 --> 01:27:14.800
Like I'm being conscious of living like this, I'm being conscious of how I look, how I carry myself, how I speak, like being deliberate.
01:27:14.800 --> 01:27:18.319
And breaking generational curses comes with that.
01:27:18.319 --> 01:27:24.720
It's it's like I'm like when I say I'm proud of you, I'm proud of how because I've I've known you now, what, 20 something, yeah?
01:27:24.720 --> 01:27:29.840
Well, you know, we look back and we laugh now, but there are some times that things were not as easy as they are.
01:27:29.840 --> 01:27:38.239
But where you are now and where I see you being, I'm so proud of you because you know, you have faded your own lane.
01:27:38.239 --> 01:27:44.960
Your you and your husband have created your family, that unit, and how it works for you.
01:27:44.960 --> 01:27:52.000
Consider you don't, you didn't really have proper guidance, but you've created something that works for you.
01:27:52.000 --> 01:27:55.840
And I am always amazed at how you make it work.
01:27:55.840 --> 01:27:59.840
Remember, I told you somebody told me, somebody told me watching you guys, like, you are not a teacher.
01:27:59.840 --> 01:28:02.720
Nigerian households.
01:28:03.760 --> 01:28:06.239
We are very weird, and that's okay.
01:28:06.560 --> 01:28:09.119
Yeah, but you know, it's like when you say Olley Ink.
01:28:09.439 --> 01:28:10.960
Olley Incorporated, baby.
01:28:10.960 --> 01:28:11.920
Ollie Inc.
01:28:12.399 --> 01:28:13.439
Yeah, that makes sense.
01:28:13.439 --> 01:28:14.399
Like it works.
01:28:14.399 --> 01:28:20.880
But you guys have made you've taken the stigma, in my opinion, out of autism as it is.
01:28:20.880 --> 01:28:25.680
Because you are the first person, it was through Kunley, I knew about autism.
01:28:25.680 --> 01:28:26.640
I'll be very honest with you.
01:28:26.640 --> 01:28:30.800
I'd never mostly Nigeria people hide their family members.
01:28:30.800 --> 01:28:39.600
You didn't hide that from me.
01:28:39.600 --> 01:28:41.920
In fact, when I first met you, you were very direct.
01:28:41.920 --> 01:28:43.039
Oh, I have a brother.
01:28:43.039 --> 01:28:44.479
And then it was through you.
01:28:44.479 --> 01:28:49.520
And I started reading up on autism and what it was about, and like, wow, okay, I didn't even know.
01:28:49.520 --> 01:28:52.479
And you're upfront about it, you never hit him.
01:28:52.479 --> 01:28:57.039
When you go on ride, you'll be in the back, and you know, you'll be like DJ Kunle on the ones and twos.
01:28:57.039 --> 01:29:07.039
I mean, like, I after all that, I'm just like, this is so not Nigerian, you know, and even your your your your ministry started then.
01:29:07.039 --> 01:29:14.319
Because even me, when I talk to people about autism, I'm always like, oh, you know, and whatever I learn from you, I'm always like trying to inspire you.
01:29:14.319 --> 01:29:15.600
So think about your ministry.
01:29:15.600 --> 01:29:24.399
You you you don't even know you're educating people who are educating other people, you know, who are educating other people because knowledge is power.
01:29:24.399 --> 01:29:26.800
A lot of people don't know because it's not what they're exposed to.
01:29:26.800 --> 01:29:33.199
And then with your children, I also learned something new with your kids and how you've handled that.
01:29:33.199 --> 01:29:42.720
And I'm just like, wow, okay, you know, this is a ministry that's just growing and growing, and there are a lot of people looking to you and looking at you and saying, How is she doing it?
01:29:42.720 --> 01:29:52.399
And it's not like you're hiding, you're not hiding anything, we're very open with information, but the sacrifices you have made, how many people are willing to do that?
01:29:52.399 --> 01:30:03.920
Because where you end up is depending on what sacrifices you're willing to make, because you can sit here and complain about how life has liked you, but there are certain things you're gonna have to do to get from this point to that point.
01:30:03.920 --> 01:30:06.960
A lot of people are not willing to make those sacrifices.
01:30:06.960 --> 01:30:14.479
Are you willing to sit at home and leave your nice position job to sit at home with your children for like so many years with aggressive therapy?
01:30:14.479 --> 01:30:22.319
Yeah, not earning like after after going through all that to get a job, only to leave the job, leave your house, leave everything.
01:30:22.560 --> 01:30:30.479
And then having to start all, I had to start all over again in a new state, and I was underemployed for a while.
01:30:30.479 --> 01:30:32.159
I was underemployed.
01:30:32.159 --> 01:30:35.199
I had these degrees, I couldn't, it was a journey.
01:30:35.199 --> 01:30:36.159
It was a journey.
01:30:36.479 --> 01:30:38.319
Go through all that, and then you are where you are now.
01:30:38.319 --> 01:30:40.079
You deserve to be where you are now.
01:30:40.079 --> 01:30:43.600
God is now replenishing what you lost.
01:30:43.600 --> 01:30:48.399
So for me, it's like, okay, even when I talk to people, I'm like, okay, are you willing to do all this?
01:30:48.399 --> 01:30:52.079
Because it's one thing and say, Oh, this is the problem when you're talking to me.
01:30:52.079 --> 01:30:55.039
But then it's like, okay, these are all the steps to get to here.
01:30:55.039 --> 01:30:55.520
Are you willing?
01:30:55.520 --> 01:30:57.039
And they're like, ah, that one's too much.
01:30:57.039 --> 01:31:00.720
So it's like, okay, then the truth is you have to do what it takes.
01:31:00.720 --> 01:31:03.439
I said, but I've watched somebody do what it takes.
01:31:03.439 --> 01:31:10.960
And I like you said, in grieving your parents, yeah, you're grieved what they didn't weren't willing to do to get where you have gotten to.
01:31:10.960 --> 01:31:20.720
So it's like if you can't even make the sacrifice, life life's everybody, but you have to make certain sacrifices to go from this point to this point.
01:31:20.720 --> 01:31:28.000
And a lot of people they don't want to make they they complain, yeah, but they don't want to make the necessary changes or the sacrifices to get there.
01:31:28.000 --> 01:31:33.760
Some of them watch you and admire you, and they won't even ask you, hey, what are the resources available to me so that I can take advantage of them?
01:31:33.760 --> 01:31:35.840
They just sit there and they wallow and okay.
01:31:35.840 --> 01:31:38.399
Ministry, they can preach the gospel to you.
01:31:38.399 --> 01:31:41.439
How you take the gospel and use it is all to you now.
01:31:41.439 --> 01:32:00.159
And you know, and how you live your life, and why I'm so proud of you is you are showing people that life does not end because your what you you envisioned, your plan, what you call that success did not happen the way or it didn't come in wrapped in the package you expected it to be wrapped in.
01:32:00.159 --> 01:32:01.840
Now, this is what it is.
01:32:01.840 --> 01:32:03.039
Okay, what next?
01:32:03.039 --> 01:32:04.560
What can that look like?
01:32:04.560 --> 01:32:13.920
And you are showing people what that can look like from your perspective, and then for them to give them the opportunity to create what it should look like in from their perspective.
01:32:13.920 --> 01:32:16.000
So you inspire me.
01:32:16.000 --> 01:32:22.560
I mean, my selfish era, I'm like, okay, big auntie, I've got kids to take care of, auntie needs to make the money.
01:32:22.560 --> 01:32:26.560
So when the children come, you know, it's almost time for university smoothies.
01:32:26.560 --> 01:32:30.479
Okay, where are my kids at?
01:32:30.479 --> 01:32:31.680
What are we doing?
01:32:31.680 --> 01:32:34.319
So keep up what you're doing.
01:32:34.319 --> 01:32:40.159
I believe you're pretty much you're almost at the third third leg of what where you are.
01:32:40.159 --> 01:32:43.359
You know, you've you've carved out your own lane and you've gone far.
01:32:43.359 --> 01:32:45.520
Let's take it back, quite honestly.
01:32:45.520 --> 01:32:49.439
I think that uh you've passed this Lola 2.0.
01:32:50.000 --> 01:32:52.479
Solidly a lola 3.0, at least.
01:32:52.880 --> 01:32:55.520
At least you're quadratic.
01:32:55.520 --> 01:32:58.079
Done a lot.
01:32:58.079 --> 01:33:15.840
Like and and what I like is the self-improvement, you know, how you've you've you've faced your demons and head on, you know, it's not an easy thing, you know, it but you face your demons and you've accepted who you are, where you came from, and how far you've come and where you're going.
01:33:15.920 --> 01:33:19.920
And and the journey continues one day at a time, one day at a time.
01:33:20.079 --> 01:33:27.760
And those children are are blessed to have um proud, proud of my nephew, even my niece.
01:33:27.760 --> 01:33:30.000
My niece surprises me every time.
01:33:30.000 --> 01:33:36.880
Yeah, so just keep up what you're doing, and uh, we'll be here to cheer you on, even in the nursing home.
01:33:36.880 --> 01:33:37.680
Thanks, sis.
01:33:37.680 --> 01:33:40.399
Thanks until next time.
01:33:42.560 --> 01:33:47.600
Thank you for joining me on Unapologetically Whole.
01:33:47.600 --> 01:33:58.560
My hope is that something you heard today offered you some space to breathe, reflect, and feel seen.
01:33:58.560 --> 01:34:07.520
If this episode resonated with you, please take a moment to rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
01:34:07.520 --> 01:34:10.079
It helps this community grow.
01:34:10.079 --> 01:34:37.119
And if you want to stay connected, visit loladadaali.com, l-ol e y dot com to sign up for my monthly newsletter, purchase my upcoming book, Unapologetically Whole, or learn how to bring me to your next event as a speaker.
01:34:37.119 --> 01:34:45.439
Until next time, I'm Lola Dada Ali, and this is Unapologetically Whole.