Girls Know Nothing - S2 Ep2: Ngozi Casmusshow; How she changed thousands of womens lives breaking trauma, Speaking about overcoming depression & more

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

Welcome back to Girls Know Nothing! 🧡 GKN is a female focused podcast hosted by@SharonNJGaffka Our next guest is @ngozicadmusshow6003 who is a Nigerian British entrepreneur, social worker, psychotherapist and woman of faith. She is the CEO & Founder of Frontline Therapist, the number one multicultural online counselling service in the UK, using her one mental health journey to inspire her. Ngozi overcame depression and thoughts of suicide to become the leading Mental Health & Leadership expert, having helped thousands of women break generational trauma and assisting dozens of women in building businesses. New episodes of Girls Know Nothing 🧡 will be released every Thursday, and will also be available on Spotify, Apple podcasts and wherever you get your podcast fixes! GKN Social Channels: Https://linktr.ee/girlsknownothing  Instagram: @girlsknownothingpod  TikTok: @girlsknownothing

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W-A-T-E-R to 64000. By texting 64000, you agree to receive recurring automated marketing messages from Pocket Hose. Message and data rates may apply. No purchase required. Terms apply. Available at pockethost.com slash terms. Welcome back to another episode of Girls Know Nothing. I have a really amazing guest with me today. This is Ngozi. If you don't know her, I have been stalking her on social media like I do with all of my guests. And I do have to tell them this so they don't think I'm a complete weirdo. But for people that don't know who you are, do you want to give yourself a bit of an introduction? Okay. Hi, everyone. My name is Ngozi Kadmus and I'm a mental health and leadership expert,

a qualified psychotherapist, social worker and business strategist. Yeah, like a woman with so many like strings to her bow, right? I was like, wow. Just a little, just a little. I thought I'd done everything, but this woman has actually done everything um so you know when I was first looking you up on on socials you know um and actually when I was speaking to your people that you are um of Nigerian heritage but you grew up in London and you know I always felt like well for my experience it was a little bit different because I was out of city. But what was it like growing up in London? I loved it overall.

I loved it. I love it. I'm a Londoner. I'm a full-fledged Londoner. Anyone over the M25? You live north of England. I always get from Londoners that I live in Wales. That's why.

I said the M25. I was like, I don't really recognize. What's going on there? No, yeah, no? I live in Wales. That's why. I said the M25. I was like, I don't really recognise. What's going on there? No, I'm a stone cold Londoner, just a stone throw away from where we are right now. But yeah, living in the area that I lived in was very multicultural. Near Dawson.

So in the 90s, it was very multicultural. And I think it still is quite multicultural now. Though it's been gentrified. It is still a very melting pot place to live in. But yeah, I did grow up as a Nigerian British girl. Do you think it was really nice to be able to grow up somewhere that was a melting pot of different cultures? Yeah, I guess it's difficult to say how it would be like anywhere else,

but I do know that a lot of Nigerians are heavily in South London so I went to college in South London so that would have been a different experience if I was brought up in South London or certain parts of South London so I guess it would have maybe shaped me slightly differently so I can't say it's any better because I can't really compare and contrast but I can say that I did enjoy living in between Islington and Hackney and what my mum always says

growing up, if not for like the amenities and adventure playgrounds, she doesn't know how as a single parent she would have survived you know, because after school I would go to an after school place, then she could come back from work at 6 o'clock, whereas you know, now people are trying to run from home at 3 30 to collect the kids like it's

really difficult um but yeah it was hard but she said it would have been really hard if not for all of those local resources that were available do you think that um watching your mum kind of raise you as a single mother and like having those amenities around you inspired you to become a social worker? You know what? In hindsight, most likely, not in... Like subconsciously. Yeah, yeah. Not like I never wanted to be a social worker.

I wanted to be everything. I wanted to be a spy, actually. Oh, yeah, I could see that. Yeah, really. Yeah, oh my God. I actually wanted to be a double agent. I didn't know double agent was actually not a good thing. Like, you know, but I actually wanted to be a double agent. I didn't know double agent was actually not a good thing. Like, you know, but I really wanted to be a double agent.

I loved James Bond. I loved Esplanade. I just didn't know how to become a spy. So it was a really big frustration. So I sat off a second best and became a social worker. Yeah, basically. But yeah, no, when I look back in hindsight, yeah, potentially there's lots of things

that factored into me being a social worker. But no, typical Niger was like I'm going to be a lawyer I'm going to be a doctor I'm going to be an engineer but I realized that yeah I don't like blood I didn't know there were other things you can do as a doctor other than like being a surgeon um then my history teacher I loved history she said it takes about seven years to be a lawyer I said nah I'm not doing university I'm not doing it that long so I switched to history mum was like what are you doing with history because I love history and then I was doing ancient history I said to her I think I'm going to do social work and she was like why are you leaving university I thought mum you'd be happy I'm doing social work

um so I ended up doing social work um and I haven't looked back since actually though I will complete my history degree just because I love history I think it's nice to be fair sometimes when people are at university and they study something that's like I studied law you realise you really hate the subject that you're studying

and you don't actually want to pursue it so I guess it's like nice that you found something that you're passionate about and I don't actually have very much interaction with people that work in social work but I know like at the moment it's very tough to be in that kind of public sector work you know what was the biggest challenge you faced like going into being a social worker good question biggest challenge um oh biggest challenge of social workers we don't get paid

enough well yeah it's preaching to the choir I think with everybody that's yeah I think the oh biggest challenge of social work is we don't get paid enough well yeah it's preaching to the choir I think that everybody that's yeah I think the demand that we have to deal with the supply never meets that demand there's never enough of us to do the work I mean I think the biggest challenge that I had because I didn't come into social work idealistic like a lot of people have these like beautiful aspirations and then when you start working particularly majority of us go into the local authority i went into mental health everyone kind of gets disillusioned and i don't know because my mom wasn't a social worker but she worked in social care i don't i wasn't disillusioned i kind of knew what i was getting

into i think what and i'm kind of still in social work i'm not fully um in social work as much as um i was a couple of years ago, partly for these reasons. I just don't think we're valued enough. Not just by society, that one, definitely not. But we're not valued enough just by the social work profession. I don't think they valued social workers. And it was quite clear during COVID.

I think COVID was my kind of last straw about how I felt we were being treated and being put at risk. So, yeah, I think that's my biggest of last straw about how I felt we were being treated and being put at risk. So, yeah, I think that's my biggest challenge. Not the work. I don't find the work difficult. But I did not like the way as social workers we were treated by our own profession. It's very hard for me to like kind of go down into that a little bit more because I don't really understand understand how social work really works. But did you ever find that other social workers

are going against other groups of social workers in different areas? No, no, no. I never found that. No, no, no. I think as a body, generally speaking, if another social worker came in, said, I'm a social worker.

I'm a social worker too. They're like, ah! There's just like this bond. I think it's the same as a psychotherapist or certain professions you meet people you just get really excited i don't know or maybe i just get excited um so i've never had conflict with other social workers in that way of course you have work relational issues like when you're dealing with cases and you might not agree with a nurse so you may not agree with a psychiatrist or um that's usually what happens we kind of have interpersonal issues with other professions

because they kind of feel, you're the social worker, you should do this, you should do this. It's like, well, no, actually, you think you know our role, but you don't know our role. So when there's kids involved, so I worked in mental health side, for example. So if I'm working for a mother who maybe has bipolar, for example, and maybe she's been three three four years stable hasn't been in hospital

for a long time has a child then we're having a meeting around the child then you have maybe children social workers who you know are doing the best that they can but i maybe are maybe without knowing are being quite stigmatized to the mother saying things like oh i just don't think she's a good parent like what do you mean can you articulate an evidence why she's not good it doesn't always have to be with her mental health it could be just that she hasn't learned good parenting skills it may not be any relation to her bipolar but you get a lot of that like oh her mental is affecting her parenting and it could be but what is that um and that those are some of the challenges that I had so if I did have a challenge with social

workers it was probably from other areas like children children and families who of course they've got to look after the child but my responsibility is my client as well as the duty to the children so those were the issues that sometimes occurred because of different priorities. Yeah I guess with the with being a social worker in mental health your caseload would have been I can imagine, ridiculously huge. Absolutely ridiculous. And I think one of the things I really admired about your profile and you as a person is that you're, you know,

aside from being a social worker and a psychotherapist, is that you're very open about your own mental health experiences and journey. And, you know, did you find that, I'm sorry, was this before you started going into social work? Do you started to experience your own mental health journey? Since I was a child, I've had difficulties with my mental health. But I think this term is becoming more known, high functioning. So you might have heard people say high functioning,

alcoholic, high functioning, depression. Yeah, that's kind of what I experienced. It's more or less that I am highly functioning. A lot of my symptoms are masked or they're in private. You don't see them. It's not the typical, I'm at home with a dark room, not bathing. I'm going to work. I'm doing all those things.

I'm still achieving. But underneath, I'm depressed, unhappy, hating myself,-harm, and all these different things behind that. But I'm more or less functioning to the outside world. So you can't say I have a smile. And also with my type of personality type, because I'm extroverted, I'm the life of the party, right? So, and I have to hold the group together. And if Inger Zee is off, then the whole group is off.

So not now, but when I was younger and into my early 20s, felt like a pressure I couldn't not I couldn't be quiet I couldn't be sad because everybody would be wondering what's going on and then some people would even get irritated because there's a role that you you you you fulfill and if you don't fulfill that role everybody else's role was like what's going on what's going on you know why are you not smiling or happy you know um so it was really difficult to know how to not be performing yeah because that's all I've known you know making sure everyone else is good being a strong friend right looking at um checking out for everybody else and I was also I was the best deflector ever so you could ask me how are you and the next minute you're talking to me about your life.

I guess like as a young person, that's something that you feel like you have to perform to your friends to be able to keep everyone happy. But you also have like your own struggles of being a teenager anyway. And I do find that like,

you know, as a woman, you also feel like, feel the need to take on these like feminine, motherly roles, even to people that you're not a mother to. So do you feel like

that was additional pressure on top of the high-functioning depression? I don't think it was to do with me being a woman. It could be my role. So although I'm an only child. Sometimes it makes you feel lonely though, right? Yes, but it was more that I always had people that were younger than me that I was looking after.

It's like, wait a minute, I'm an only child, but why am I responsible for all these little ruffians? So I didn't have that kind of, because when I work with a lot of people that are older siblings, they have that like second mother, second father type thing. But I had that to a degree because all of my cousins and all of the people that I was always around

were all younger than me, at least one or two years. So I'm the oldest, I'm responsible. So I always had that sense of burden to look after people I think that's where it kind of came from um and I was just aware of you know how my personality can change the environment in a positive way but also the burden can be quite a lot when you just want to be just be you can't be you because there's an expectation that you is always happy always um yeah always happy and I think also to just give credit to us as teenagers we're teenagers you know at 13 14 I'm not expecting my friend to understand my depression I didn't understand my depression I'm not expecting my friends to be able to you know articulate how we could now and like in my

30s um so you kind of realize as a young child you can't really speak to people about it and even your friends you know we're kind of all in our own world aren't we you know and then we're focused on boys and you know teen stuff like dancing and you know that was just when YouTube started coming now YouTube weren't there back in them days what were you watching in the 2000s

it was it was definitely YouTube I think yeah but it was when they used to do that little thing where like the lines

you remember the lines oh yeah yeah those used to give me the itches I'm like the hives oh my god yeah that was oh my god yeah

you're watching a video it buffered for like 10 minutes it would all be it buffered for like 10 minutes you'll be like this waiting for like a three minute video so yeah we weren't doing stuff in school and we should have been listening and stuff we were doing all of these stupid stuff but when I really think about it everyone was going through something and you know that's how when you see now with a lot of the Gen Zs, they kind of start bonding and kind of dangerously start making certain pacts,

you know, because they start feeling their self-harming and their thoughts. I'm kind of thankful that I didn't get into that because that's what was happening in the school. Like later on, everyone says, oh, this happened to me. I was like, oh my God, imagine if I started talking to people

about what I was really going through. Next minute, I might have been doing certain things. I may not be here because of the connections I would have made with people. But there was other things going on. I used to be bullied. So what kind of, I was saying this to another person yesterday, because I was bullied for like 13 years. When I was 13, I got emancipated and like nobody can bully me.

Like I fought these two girls and that was, like, my emancipation, right? I think from there, my hard shell began. So before, I was very, like, much a pushover. Like, if you literally pushed me, I would just fall over. Like, if you told me to move, I'd move. From age 13, that couldn't occur. That couldn't happen anymore. So I think that shell, that hard shell,

kind of became my personality. So it just meant that as well, I wasn't, people weren't able to connect, see my vulnerable side because my persona now was kind of like, you ain't messing with me because all these guys have been bullying. No, no, no, no, no, no.

You can't chat to me anyhow. So I think that as well, part of my personality meant that I was never going to be one that was easily connected to in terms of their emotions. You know, I then became strong and protected the defenceless because I felt like if you, because I was bullied, I identified with anybody that I felt like was being picked on or being bullied.

Yeah, I do remember reading about you as well, is that, you know, you were able to overcome thoughts of no longer wanting to be here anymore? Was that as a result of the hard shell and not being able to connect with your own emotions? Yeah, being bullied, yeah. Being bullied, both physically. I was physically bullied and verbally bullied growing up.

And it was just very pervasive because it was everywhere. The only place that it wasn't was when I was doing performing arts. But, yeah, up until year eight, yeah, being bullied was just terrible because it meant for me, when I think about it now, coming out of my house wasn't safe. The only safe place was my house, really and truly. And my personality has always been how I am now, but was much of a shell of myself because if

you're being bullied by most people you're not going to show yourself right it didn't feel safe so for most people I'm quiet I was just timid those that knew me no I wasn't but for majority of people even my teachers everyone just saw me as quiet ingozy um until yay yay was like the big emancipation um and then no one would ever remember me as the quiet Ingersollie, but I remember that because I remember teachers always saying, oh, you're so quiet, why don't you talk? Why don't you speak to anyone? And then the thoughts, the self-hate. And the thing is, what I would say about being high-functioning

is that it becomes so normal that you just think it's another part of your skin that makes sense. And because you're functioning, I'm coming to school, I'm doing all of the things that you just do as a young person, you don't see it as wrong. You don't see that the person doesn't come in, oh, they're sick. Why are they sick? Oh, they don't feel good today.

Well, I'm still in school. I don't feel good. So you're not connecting with the fact that what you're experiencing isn't normal. Yeah, I think so. Recently, we just had the year anniversary of a role model of mine who is no longer here, suffered with high functioning depression. And I mean, speaking for like,

I was a woman who comes from an Asian heritage, or even my Polish family. You just don't talk about mental health. You know, you're very emotionless. It's a sign of weakness. And part of me does wonder, you know, as she was mixed race whether that that had an impact on her ability to feel like she could come out and speak about

emotions definitely do you ever feel like that was a struggle that you had as well growing up culturally yeah because similar to the asian community and even probably a lot of eastern european community yeah you just don't talk about those things. And it's also, I was saying this the other day, like in Asia and Africa and even parts of Eastern Europe, the word luxury is not the right word, but you do not have the capacity to be in your depression, if that makes sense, when if you don't work, you're not going to eat.

If you don't work, your food is not going to be at the table. If you don't work, you're not going to eat. If you don't work, your food is not going to be on the table. If you don't work, everyone will die. And I think that mindset that our families have kind of passes down because my mum was like that. I think she had high-function, depressed person. She was a single parent. If she didn't go to work, I was not going to eat. And obviously there were times we didn't eat.

When I was really, really small, my mum, she said that she couldn't continue breastfeeding because she wasn't eating. So I wouldn't remember those times. But there were times where she couldn't eat. So she had to give the food to me. So whether you're depressed or not, who's going to pay your bills? And when you come from that mindset, though it is a positive in terms of the hustle mentality, you know, we break through certain barriers the disadvantage of that means that we don't ever sit down and reflect

or we don't allow ourselves to we don't we think it's an excuse um we guilt trip ourselves and think oh my god how can we complain when there's others having it worse right oh my gosh how can we how can we how dare I actually be very grateful right so if you grew up in a family and I think the disconnect between maybe our generation and parents right there's there's a lack of communication because if parents sat down with their children children will understand that they come from a different generation so they're not going to have the verbal equipment to understand you in the same way because if they were living in Poland or living in Indonesia or living in Nigeria nobody would sit down for them so they've not seen it

being modelled so sometimes we're expecting things from our parents that they've never seen before right but our parents are not able to say look I just don't know how to support that so instead of doing that they're going stop crying come on your cousin's back home i'll give you something to cry about exactly yeah i'll give you something to cry exactly i'll give you something to cry about your cousin's back home i'm grateful if we swap them with you you know all of those things and then as children we take it in and we realize that i can't speak to our parents or if you do you try next minute it's all about their struggles and suffering oh you know what happened to me when i came to this country it's like okay this isn't about you or they just they they sit there you cry right in front of them and they go oh what do you want to eat tomorrow they're not able to

connect in that moment it's too hard for them however it happens you feel dismissed yeah i don't think it's something that i ever realized or understood or could respect about my parents until I was much older and even now sometimes when you try to think back to your child and you're like well you just don't get it because children don't so I guess like you know you are a founder and CEO of a mental health organization that helps is it black women black and Asian women black and Asian women be able to connect. Black and Asian people, sorry. Yeah, be able to connect with their mental health. So I guess, did that kind of come as a result of, you know, your own struggles

and realizing that culturally you couldn't speak about your mental health? Yes, and because, yes, definitely. Yes, even though my therapist that I have to this day, eight years, is white, I wanted a black therapist. But then when I met the black therapist, yeah, that didn't work out.

But I knew people, it's important for people to have that choice. Yeah. At least that option, you know. It doesn't always work out. Sometimes the idea you have in your head, sometimes it's just really having somebody who, whatever race they are, understands you you and that's what I found and most importantly my therapist her personality she's um idiosyncratic um and I felt like I had this idea of therapy

to be like you know you know like you're in a room you take your shoes off and you sit down and that was my experience of when I met this black therapist who I felt like this is going to be like I wanted her so badly but when I came into her house she told me to take her shoes off and I said no this is not it and I sat there she just sat there in front of me and she was quiet and I was like this is what I watched in Frasier I'm like this is no so when I met my therapist she sat down with her like she was just so relaxed and she was like, I'm white, you're black, let's talk about it. I was like, I like you, but I'm conflicted.

But I felt that, I know that a lot of people, a lot of Asian people, a lot of black people, a lot of people of mixed heritage, just a lot of people that I guess not mainstream white or not, you know, white British, want somebody who they feel they don't have to over-explain. Yeah. If they talk about, you know, they're Muslim and they wear a hijab,

not, why don't you just take it off? What? You know, I mean, that understands the racial, ethnic, and religious nuances that, you know, you're experiencing. And I think it is really important for people because culture is important to us. Culture is important to us. We're strapped between two cultures the western east

the western african we want to you know remain part of our culture at the same time adopt certain british and western practices and we know that we clash at home with that you don't want to always clash with that in in therapy you kind of want understanding um But I like actually teaching my therapies, my culture. I get something in that, but not everybody has that. I don't want to explain to you why we bow in our culture or why we do this. I'm not subjected. That's just a cultural thing.

That's what we do. You know, so each to their own. But I wanted to create that as an option because I feel like there's a lack of power that we do have when you go into the NHS right now most of the time you won't have choice so you're just grateful for what you're given and we are thankful for that but wouldn't it be nice to say oh can I have a Asian therapist oh my god I can you can request that yeah I think that's something that's really amazing I think I'm very have a therapist, I'm very open about having one.

And I'm very fortunate that I don't have to explain culture to her or certain practices. And I think that's definitely helped me connect with her because I think people don't realize that a therapist isn't just somebody you tell your problems to, it's somebody that you should be able to connect with and feel comfortable and be able to talk to on good days just as much as you can talk to on bad days

and like you know at the moment I'm on like a high and people don't think people forget that even though you're on a high you should still be able to talk about your feelings or still have that somebody that you can go back to to be able to talk to about your lows and you know I have looked you up on YouTube and seen that you do put a lot of content out there. And one thing that I did find very interesting that I think, I always say about men in my own relationships, but that might just be the men that I'm picking to date, but about how you think people should experience

some kind of therapy before entering a relationship. Say that again. I think there's a lot of people that need to take that practice because they're carrying trust issues and baggage from previous relationships and bring it into a new one, which I do understand, you know,

are one of those people. They're having trauma from their childhood. Yeah, exactly. Into their relationship. People are still complaining from their 16-year-old crush that broke their heart and now they're carrying that.

I feel called out. Oh, shots fired. Shots have been fired. But like, I get it and I think that it's only now that I'm coming closer

to my 30s that I'm realising that it isn't, it's a detrimental thing to new relationships, not even just romantic ones, but platonic ones as well. Yes.

Absolutely. I think the reality is, is we carry things from our childhood whether we because everybody i just want to tell your audience that you don't have to have massive traumatic events to feel that you can't go therapy that's first and trauma is a lasting emotional response so i love to always give this example because trauma we know the big t traumas the ours the the abandonment deaths but sometimes there's cumulative trauma so cumulative trauma could be maybe your parent is always at work um so you just don't feel like you get that emotional

availability that is traumatic for you because as a child you're not understanding that the economic pressures is taking your parent out of the house all you don't all you understand is my mother my father's never around me and as a child you're not you haven't got the capacity to understand all of those nuances so what do you take it as something's wrong with me so without knowing you make a childish decision in your mind that I'm never going to be in a situation where somebody's just going to leave me, never be there. And how does that manifest itself out in relationship, the attachment styles?

It means that maybe as soon as you get close to somebody, you either withdraw back or you become too clingy when you're with someone. Then when you go back, the person's like, well, I didn't really go through that much. Well, no, maybe you didn't objectively, but subjectively, your experience of your parent not being consistent in your life

because they had to work for you was very traumatic and made a lasting impression um but what happens is people don't find that out after several broken relationships and then when they come to therapy they've now got more stuff to deal with and um and resolve and if therapy was seen as like a flu jab like in schools that you get you got the bcg you know you had all of those different things and given to children i think there'll be less broken relationships all around less lonely people less isolated people um and less toxicity that we see i think but because it isn't and because it's such a societal thing that yeah explore relationships when you're very young well i don't fully agree with that because then when you're 30 you are scarred potentially damaged

confused and who wants to deal with that who should deal with that who deserves that no one not your kids not another partner so I think if more people and I say this I say it I can be candid say therapy but I also think if not therapy any personal development program whether it's a coach whether it's a group anywhere where you're being challenged anywhere where there's a mirror being held up and your blind spots are being seen and you're teachable and you're being held accountable if you're not going through that after age 16 and you're just going into different relationships and that's i don't mean romantic only different relationships friends um romantic that's why we see what we see on twitter that's why we see what we see between the gender war that's why we see what we're seeing because people are building all of their experiences from the different people what we're seeing because people are building all of their experiences

from the different people that they're interacting with who are also equally damaged. I feel like I needed you when I was like, where were you 10 years ago? No, I was depressed. I was depressed, but you know, superwoman.

I think, do you know what I always say? Like it was something you touched on briefly before. I am, do you know what I always say? Like it was something you touched on briefly before. I am really grateful that I kind of grew up without the pressures of social media. Because like, you know, you were saying, I think it's the same with the way the algorithm works is that, you know, if you're feeling

one particular emotion at a time, you go looking for that type of content. And then once you're in that rabbit hole, it's very, very hard to bring yourself out. And that's why we see the rise of certain types of influencers and like you were saying the gender war and things like that and i feel like you know in in your darkest days if you had social media that would have been quite scary yeah and i think is that something that you're seeing a lot more coming through your doors when you're like talking to other therapists that are out there? Oh yeah, 100%.

Social media, phones. Yeah, all I can say is I'm glad I'm not a Gen Z. That's all I can say. Because the things that I did in school, the stupid things that we did in school, if that was blasted on social media, I wouldn't be here. It would be, it was difficult enough to have the whole school gossip about you, let alone all of South London on Snapchat, seeing your breasts or seeing things that you do, you know,

that, you know, you just, you know, you do things when you're children, right? When you're young, peer pressure and all this different stuff. Can you just imagine? Because when you're in school, that's your whole life. Yeah. If someone said to you don't want in 10 years no one will care you know i can't even think about next week like all i'm thinking about is me walking down the street and me being called a hoe by people in my school let alone there are

literally young girls being forced to do things they get videoed and it goes round yeah and then when it gets online it's not even just your local area that sees it and it doesn't matter once the police gets involved and takes it off somebody's got it on their phone somewhere like the damage that does to that person's self-esteem um and reputation um yeah the way some young people are like what they've got to cope with i think it's a lot now there's positive things we know social media's done a lot in terms of you know building a lot of um economic capital for a lot of people um but i think we have to recognize with the good there is the bad right and i guess it's really important that parents especially us because we're not having kids right some some

people our age have kids that are gen z's the same thing i'm seeing with our generation our parents generation is repeating itself yeah i'm not really seeing much difference between you know our parents generation our generation and I think a lot of it is down to we're not taking responsibility of our own healing we're having kids and we're not being responsible for the people that we're bringing into this world and we can't control the world we can't control social media as it's as this thing but we can enable and equip our children with the right tools and languages but first and foremost we've got to do that with ourselves yeah it's like earlier you were saying about how your home was your only safe place whereas the way that social media works some people some of these people don't have that safe space at home because it follows

you home so i think it's even more important to really listen to yourself and to be able to, well, you can't form a proper relationship with anybody if you don't form a relationship with yourself. And I'm in a position where young teenagers approach me online saying, or, you know, how do I deal with a breakup? How do I deal with like, you know, losing a friend? And I was like, well, you have to focus what you want first before you really decide what the next step is for you and that's the only way

to really deal with it but I can't you know I'm saying that because I know in 10 years time I'll forget about it because I was that person

but like you said when you're in that moment that's your whole world that's everything to you your whole life is just full of you know I don't know if you watched

did you watch Ginny and Georgia I've only just got into it I'm on series 2 i do love it but i get it yeah you see what yeah i just finished it yesterday like the how teenagers can be i know people say it's a bit cringy but that's to a degree how no i wasn't like that fully but you are in your own world and everything breaking up with a guy is like the worst thing ever breaking up with your friends like oh my god like oh my heart like oh my god so but then like 10 years ago i think oh well they're that dramatic was i really that dramatic but yes um i think it's really really hard and i think a lot of young people they're just not equipped with the language because the parents are not equipped

with language the teachers are not equipped with the language because they've got so much they're dealing with they've got to deal with the marking they've got to be language because they've got so much they're dealing with. They've got to deal with the marking. They've got to be safeguarding. They've got to be social workers. On top of not being paid enough. Exactly. And they've got to teach a curriculum. Yeah, it's hard.

I think it's just really hard. I think it's a hard world out there. I think, so another thing as well that I really admire about you, obviously I'm just your number one fan. But you're also an entrepreneur and you help encourage other women to be able to start and build their own businesses make money

starting with their healing first which I think is very important to be able to get yourself into the right headspace because being self-employed by any means is not for the faint hearted tell you that for free there you go, that's your first bit of knowledge. But it's like,

how did that kind of come about and what inspired you to be able to help other female entrepreneurs? I think it always comes a bit similar to the questions you get. People start asking you, how did you do what you did right?

When you're doing something successful, and I say successful because everyone's got their different measures of success. But when you're doing something that people are inspired by, then they want to know how did you do that because the majority of the world are living in their comfort zone comfort zone the majority of the world are living below their potential so the minority of people that are breaking barriers and

doing things that people are oh my god how are you doing that they naturally gravitate and ask you questions so it kind of emerged from there it's like i want us women especially women of color to break barriers because shockingly in my research that i'm also doing my doctorate um i'm reading a book in produced in 1997 and the issues that um black minority ethnic women are facing, so Black and Asian women are facing, hasn't changed in 20-something years. Like, I'm reading this book, and this was literally published in 1997.

She was writing it in 1995, and obviously it took two years to publish. And I'm reading, and I'm like, are you sure this is not 2023? That's when I was, in 1995, when it came out in 1997, I was six years old then. I'm 31.

And these are the same barriers we're still encountering. Come on. This is absolutely crazy. They're absolutely crazy. I do want to read that. But I don't think I do. It does terrify me. But I guess,

I'm trying to like think of like what I was going to ask it's kind of off the top of my head but no I think it's for me what was like the fave like the best like investment that you've helped kind of get off the ground

like what was the best business that you kind of got involved in oh you mean my business or business I've worked with or like what was the as I had the question in my head but it's kind of got involved in? Oh, you mean my business or business I've worked in? Or like, what was the, as, I had the question in my head, but it's kind of gone. Like, you know,

when you help other women set up their own businesses, like what was the biggest achievement that you got to witness helping somebody achieve? Do you know what? It's actually intangible. It's their confidence.

It's their belief in themselves. It's the, you know, seeing somebody who is like adamant i'm never going to post online i'm not going to shame i'm going to hide and the next minute they're doing reels and they're doing videos that's to me the big achievement because that took me four years to be like that like you were talking before the podcast about podcasting and stuff and i've never wanted to be, quote-unquote, an influencer or, quote-unquote, a person in the camera. I've always wanted to be behind the scenes. And for a lot of people like myself,

even though I'm extroverted, to go from wanting to be behind the scenes and actually okay with that, to going in front of the scenes, being in camera, being visible, and given the fact you told me about the things that you go through, like the trolls that you have, it is a big step and a big jump.

And you don't know how psychologically stuck you feel until you actually go on camera and you go, oh my God, I could never have done this four years ago. That's the biggest thing. And I think the biggest thing is hearing, especially young, dark-skinned black girls saying, wow, you inspire me, because I did not think I could ever put myself

and show myself, because I thought I was too ugly to do that. So yeah, things like that. That moves me, because I know what it's like when you don't see representation growing up, and your representation is told to be less than. So when you see people breaking that,

and myself breaking that stereotype or that representation, that image, I think it's powerful. Yeah, I know. Do you know, I completely agree. And I think when I put myself in front of a camera for the first time, and I kind of left away thinking

I wasn't the right representation for my people that I should have been and kind of went on this like long healing journey and found myself here in front of the camera properly as who I am as opposed to how I thought I should be and I guess it was like people like yourself that kind of helped guide me in that way and I think you know that I will have I do have a lot of young black female listeners not even just in the UK but around the world that would probably really resonate with what you're saying and not feeling heard or represented and then listening to you and think actually you know there are people out there that you just have to have to find them. Everyone's got a tribe

everybody's got a tribe and honestly the difference between us and people on the other side listening is just we took action and we were consistent there's nothing better than us there's nothing at all you know people go what is it about you no there's nothing about me it's just that I take consistent action that is the key difference I could decide you know what I'm going to pack it in and not do this but the i have a greater burden you know my faith obviously pushes me along so don't watch i don't want you guys to understand that there's no difference you can sit here and do a podcast um you can sit here and do whatever it is you want it's just about taking consistent action yes it's scary you just got to take a risk and if it doesn't

work then you try again or try something different it's just redirection yeah just pivot like i pivoted like 100 times oh it wouldn't like it's just try again. Or try something different. It's just redirection at the end of the day. I've pivoted like a hundred times. It wouldn't like, it's just the natural part of life, right? But I think, you know, you mentioned briefly about your faith. Sometimes, you know, I come from very religious family members. I personally don't practice the faith, but I feel like my faith had been tested in the past with traumatic events. And do you ever felt like your faith had been tested in the past with traumatic events and do you ever felt like your faith had been pushed to its limits at times not no not in the same way but yes not in

I've ever felt like I've lost my faith just more in sense of yeah not that I lost my faith I've never got a point pushed to the limits of my faith because God doesn't promise you know in the Bible isn't promised it things will be rosy. Yes, he says it'll be harder. It's just like, God, does it have to be this hard? I think it's just believing his promises. So when I'm like, God says, he says in the Bible, there's a scripture that says, ears have not seen,

so ears have not heard and eyes have not seen the promises I have for you. Yeah. When you're going through a storm, you're like, where are these promises, Lord? not seen the promises i have for you yeah when you're going through a storm you're like where are these promises lord where's the promises that's what's hard is believing despite what you're seeing that the promises that he has said to you will come to pass that's what gets tested because because even now i'm still going through different different different things that's why think about life yeah but they always say you're going into the storm you're coming out of the storm um or you just come out of the storm there's always something like that um so it's sometimes just believing that things will get

better that's what that's what i where i get tested and i think we asked me a question off camera about like how has my faith helped my healing and it has helped my healing um but i know for some people it it hasn't helped their healing and I think sometimes it's just you know obviously this is a this is more of a personal thing to different people I've got to talk to different people to understand what did you learn what was the doctrines you grew up with but a lot of it is that there is there's a very beautiful way that faith and mental health complement each other um but I think with our parents we have to also understand that sometimes it's not just faith religion it's cultural

that clashes well so it makes it very confusing growing up when you're when you grow up whether it's in the Muslim household or Christian household and you're just told pray and believe and stuff like that because maybe for them it them, right? It helped them and that's what they knew. But they're limiting God to say that you can't seek help and you can't speak out. Of course you can. Of course you can seek help and speak out. Whatever you believe.

Obviously, I believe that God has created the doctors and the therapists. So I believe that's a useful resource. But if you don't have that belief and that faith, then you're going to be told growing up, don't talk to nobody. No dealing with it yourself. And then you have that comfort

and sometimes that resentment to your faith and to your religion, to your culture, because it's been, rather than an enabler, it's been a bit of a suppressor. And like I said, some people have grown up with that. I didn't grow up with that as such, but I did did go with the cultural thing of you don't tell nobody your business and it's because growing up in the culture that I come from if you do tell people your business it can be used against you so it comes from somewhere so when you get older you understand the cultural

we call it scripting that you learn learn, but the context has changed. And the difficult thing with our parents and what we've got to learn is that they went from one continent to another continent with the same patterns, but they didn't change the environment, right? The environment changed. You can tell somebody that you're struggling

and they're not going to do witchcraft on you. They're not going to come to, do you know what I mean? You're not going to be the talk of the town. You can do that but because they come from that mindset you grow up in just don't tell people your business but that came from a particular location and context that when you did do that you would be the butt of the village because everyone gossiped and talked about you and you were in one conclave whereas you're over here and the person you spoke to is all over across London, and the confidentiality is slightly different as it is here

than it is in Africa and Asia. So I just wanted to say that because I know there'll be lots of people from different backgrounds listening that may have come back from a religious background and might feel angry and upset. So I think it's important if you do go to therapy to speak about that. If you can with your therapist, whether they share your faith or not, be able to talk about that and explore that because that's an important part of your life or was an important part of your life that you need to explore and resolve. I think one thing I've always really admired about

any religious community is that it is a community and there are people around you. They might not be the same as you, but that's the whole point of having community to support you, especially in your dark days is really important. I always end the podcast by asking my guests a very similar question. And it's a long-winded question, but I would like to know what you would say,

well, what would you say to your bully and what would you say to potential doubters in your future that will doubt how you measure success based on the fact you are a young black woman i would say to my bullies i forgive you you're young um and you're probably going through stuff because for whatever reason why you chose to bully me you must have been going through things i'm sorry that you had to go through what you had probably going through stuff. Because for whatever reason why you chose to bully me, you must have been going through things. I'm sorry that you had to go through what you had to go through and then take it out on myself. So I actually don't blame them.

I blame whoever was causing them pain. Because the people that caused them pain, then caused the child caused me pain. And thanks to that, I didn't repeat it. But that could have been a repeated cycle, right? And I'm causing other people pain. And what, I didn't repeat it, but that could have been a repeated cycle, right? And I'm causing other people pain. And what would I say to my future haters? Yeah, or doubters.

Future doubters. Suck your mum, no, I'm joking. That's the soundbite that we wanted right there. I mean, to be fair, I would have left it at that. What would I say to you? Watch this space. So don't hate. You can't hate on greatness. Do you know space so don't hate you can't hate on greatness

do you know what I'm saying you can't hate when they say you can't hate you gotta appreciate I won't say nothing to you just watch it like if you basically

what I would say is that you ain't got nothing better to do with your life if you're hating on me mate because there's other people you can be hating on okay I think it was a really

it was a really mature response that you had in terms of like what you would say to your bullies. I think that that's a lot of thing that people really need to think about is that forgiveness is a really powerful tool. And, you know,

well, whether you believe in God or not, there's always that saying that God will never give you more than you can handle. So you're obviously a very strong person if he could give you all of this and you could take it in your stride. Yeah, Iged my bully i actually hugged my bully and uh a colleague of mine could not believe oh my god she really made it personally i probably would not go that far

that's a you're a bigger woman than me i would not go that far you know what maybe it's because i was bullied up till i was 13 so for me you're children yeah i don't think i would hug the person that bullied me when i was an adult in work. If I saw you, don't have any anger towards you, but you ain't getting no hug. I would definitely cross the street if I saw you. But I really appreciate your honesty and your openness. And I know that a lot of the people that are listening

will as well, because it's not easy to talk about. And especially on a platform where anybody can listen, you've made yourself incredibly vulnerable. And I really appreciate everything you do. And thank you for coming on my podcast thank you I've got time today for any trolls yeah I've got time yeah amazing thank you so much thank you