This week's episode is the second part of my discussion with Rosie Yeung. We talk about racism in the workplace.

This podcast episode summary comes from www.changinglenses.ca/podcast

Rosie Yeung|6/8/2021

“I will always be the Black girl first, before Miriam Njoku. I cannot achieve my way out of being seen with prejudice. That's how they view people like me.”

In this episode, Miriam Njoku changes our lens to reveal the racism she experienced working and living in Canada and Switzerland.

Does that surprise you? These two countries are probably not the first that comes to mind when you think about racism. After all, Canada prides itself on being a haven for many refugees, and Switzerland is a neutral country that hosts the United Nations.

But Miriam, a Master’s graduate from the London School of Economics, who worked at the World Economic Forum and JP Morgan Chase, was still seen as a Black African girl first. She had to overcome significant prejudice to finally be seen as a qualified high calibre professional in banking and international development. When she finally started to be recognized just a little bit, she was told she’s not like the others. It’s as though Miriam was either too African or not African enough. 

So as you listen to Miriam’s personal story, challenge yourself. What’s your immediate visceral reaction? Have you heard similar comments from business colleagues as part of normal small talk? Are you wondering, if everyday comments have no racist intent, can they still be racist? 

If you do have questions, and want to discuss with like-minded people who genuinely want to understand, you’re welcome to join our free Facebook group. It’s a private online community for safe and respectful discussions about justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Contact me and find more JEDI resources at:  https://www.changinglenses.ca/

Full transcript available here. 

In this episode, we talk about:

[06:03] Miriam’s experience as a Black African working in Switzerland.

[10:31] How reporting racism to HR can fail the victim.

[11:27] Ways that workplace abuse can manifest (with or withoutintent).

[16:50] Prejudice at the intersection of racism and sexism.

[19:32] Switzerland’s dark side.

[20:57] White moms racism in Canada.

[25:13] Capitalism: a driving force for exploitation.

[29:00] Creating a safe work environment for people with trauma.

[32:18] When the oppressed try to escape racism by becoming the Model Minority.

Content warning: this episode contains references to sexual harassment, racism, and workplace discrimination which some listeners may find disturbing.

This week, Miriam shares an interview she had with Rosie Yeung and her podcast Changing Lenses podcast.

The following is from Changinglenses.ca/podcast

Have you ever been told you can’t do it, or you’re not good enough for something you really wanted? What if you got that message in your whole life starting from childhood? What if abuse or racism you’ve endured created trauma that affects your work or relationships? How do you heal wounds that you can’t see?

Miriam Njoku knows the struggle all too well. The abuse that she endured as a child and teenager and the racism she experienced at school and at work caused trauma that would cripple ten people, let alone one. Yet somehow, Miriam not only survived all this, but she also found resilience and strength in herself that allowed her to succeed in the world’s eyes. What we couldn’t see was the continued damage from internal wounds that were never healed and led to her shame and even workaholism. Thankfully, Miriam found the healing she needed to be a whole and healthy mom,writer, podcaster, and African woman.

Miriam left a flourishing career in banking and international development with organizations like the United Nations so she could become a trauma-informed coach, helping people free themselves from the burdens of childhood trauma. She’s also working to destigmatize mental health in black communities through activities like her podcast, Overcoming Your Story.

If you’re looking for ways to heal from your past traumas, or if you want to support someone who needs that healing, Miriam shares ways we can do that using her own personal story. 

And if you speak French, finally, I have content for you in your language. Thanks to Miriam’s bilingualism, please stick around to the end because she has a special message for you. 

Content Warning: This episode contains references to childhood abuse and trauma, sexual abuse, and racism. Though not graphic, some listeners may be disturbed by the painful stories. Miriam has endured so much that we had to break it up, and she’ll talk specifically about workplace racism in the next episode.

Full transcript available here.

Contact Rosie and find JEDI resources at:  changinglenses.ca/

In this episode, we talk about:

[01:17] Miriam as a Black African in Cameroon.

[03:13] Miriam as a Black African in Switzerland.

[04:39] Systemic racism in Swiss schools. 

[09:42] Miriam’s traumatic childhood, and what happened to her mother.

[16:28] Her desire for education as a reaction to abuse.

[21:06] Hiding shame beneath a veneer of perfection.

[25:50] How we can help – indications of possible trauma in others.

[28:24] Trauma’s impact on motherhood.

[30:49] Encouraging trauma victims to ask for help.

[33:43] A message of support in French.

This week Miriam shares part 2 of her own story on Ify Bamigboye's podcast: Connecting Stories. We talk about resilience, overcoming childhood and inter-generational trauma, emotional, mental, and sexual abuse. This second part is still full of events happening but also other experiences where I took steps in building the life I want to live. Ify is a guest on this podcast too, episode 8.

KEY TEAKEAWAYS:

• struggle struggle struggle
• something works for me
• the importance of emotional regulation as a parent
• what to do if you want to build your life
• stories are important
• 
  

About Ify Bamigboye

Instagram: @connectingstories

Website: https://connectingstories.co.uk/

Ify Bamigboye

Ify is an Independent Certified Coach, Teacher, Trainer and Speaker with The John Maxwell Team. She founded Connecting Stories London on January 6, 2018. It was birthed from having built lifelong relationships with the many women she encountered while living across 3 continents, Africa, Europe and Asia; subsequently being blessed by the immense support from these relationships during her own struggles and the different significant milestones of her life.

Connecting Stories

Connecting Stories Podcast is a place to explore big topics on life issues that will inspire, educate, motivate and empower everyone who listens. It is a space to sort through the questions we are all trying to answer. A place for meaningful conversations, authenticity, vulnerability and of course we’ll have some laughs along the way.

#connectingstories

#relationshipmatters

#relationshipquotes

#relationshiptalks

#relationshipadvice101

#wivesandmothers

#relationshipstruggles

#marriageproblems

#marriagecoach

#diaryofanaijagirl

#childmarriage

#womenforwomen

#childrights

#childhoodtrauma

#mentalabuse

#sexualabuse

#naijamums

This week Miriam is sharing an interview she had with Ify Bamigboye on her Podcast Connecting Stories. I share my story about overcoming childhood and inter-generational trauma, emotional, mental, and sexual abuse. This is the first time I share my story in full, I tend to rush through my story but Ify has this way of helping her guests tell their story and I thank her for it. Ify is a guest on this podcast too, episode 8.

KEY TEAKEAWAYS:

• the meaning of married at 14
• being abandoned
• moving and moving again
• grief and loss
• how to survive you ask?
• resilience and hardwork

About Ify Bamigboye

Instagram: @connectingstories

Website: https://connectingstories.co.uk/

Ify Bamigboye

Ify is an Independent Certified Coach, Teacher, Trainer and Speaker with The John Maxwell Team. She founded Connecting Stories London on January 6, 2018. It was birthed from having built lifelong relationships with the many women she encountered while living across 3 continents, Africa, Europe and Asia; subsequently being blessed by the immense support from these relationships during her own struggles and the different significant milestones of her life.

Connecting Stories

Connecting Stories Podcast is a place to explore big topics on life issues that will inspire, educate, motivate and empower everyone who listens. It is a space to sort through the questions we are all trying to answer. A place for meaningful conversations, authenticity, vulnerability and of course we’ll have some laughs along the way.

#connectingstories

#relationshipmatters

#relationshipquotes

#relationshiptalks

#relationshipadvice101

#wivesandmothers

#relationshipstruggles

#marriageproblems

#marriagecoach

#diaryofanaijagirl

#childmarriage

#womenforwomen

#childrights

#childhoodtrauma

#mentalabuse

#sexualabuse

#naijamums

Episode 34 - Getting Real With Paula: Managing Personal Traumas over the Holiday Season. Miriam is sharing an episode from the Getting Real With Paula Show on which she was a guest in December, this is a great conversation for the holidays and other gatherings we have in our families.

Key Takeaways:

- I share my story and how I got to coaching

-How do you manage family trauma and drama over the holiday season?

-How I met a therapist who put me on my healing journey

-What the holiday season brings up for people

-Why it is important to stick to routines

-How else to spend the Holidays we don't have family or don't have a family to go to

-All the things you can give yourself permission to do

RESSOURCES

Getting Real With Paula Youtube Channel

Paula Alphonse's website

Instagram: @paula.alphonse

Facebook: Paula Alphonse

ABOUT PAULA ALPHONSE

Effective communication and productive interpersonal relationships are key factors to achieving success and self-mastery in life. 

As an International Speaker, Leadership Educator, she has spoken to audiences as large as 500 people. She has hosted workshops in Canada, Haiti, India and Cameroon to both public governments and nonprofit organizations. 

Her passion and purpose in life is to empower individuals to be confident leaders and effectively reach their full leadership potential. As a result of working with her, clients achieve greater positive impact and the best return on investment not only for themselves but also the organization for which they work. We live in an era where success is too often defined by material things. Instead, she aims to highlight the quantitative and qualitative value of effective interpersonal skills, confidence, effective leadership and relationship management on both the bottom line and the individual’s quality of life.

When you have the opportunity hear her speak, not only will you feel empowered, entertained and inspired but also well-equipped with the tools and structure which generate greater results and higher motivation to take on any challenges in both personal or professional life. 

 ABOUT ME

Miriam is a Certified Trauma Informed Coach, an African, a mom of three daughters, a blogger and writer. After graduating from the London School of Economics, she built her international career in the fields of banking and international development, working for organisations such as the World Economic Forum, Lombard Odier Private Bank, JP Morgan, the Mastercard Foundation and the United Nations. She now uses her passion for psychology and dedicates her time to coaching others to free themselves from the burden of childhood trauma. Her wish to help other women connect to their inner wisdom, love themselves and follow their passion. In her effort to destigmatize mental health and normalize mental health conversations in black communities, she wrote her memoir about surviving childhood and finding her worth. 

#gettingrealwithpaula #trauma #holidayseason #feelingstuck 

Miriam is doing a book review of Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen: The emotional lives of Black Women.

Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen Subtitle: The Emotional lives of Black Women, it came in June 2021 and is written by Dr. Inger Burnett-Zeigler. It is part memoir, part self-help, and part academic nonfiction.

Key Takeaways

• Black women are seen as strong
• Black women suffer from unacknowledged trauma
• Why we need to challenge the tradition of secret-keeping in the black community
• Black women carry so many roles in society that they have to strong
• the consequences for black women not acknowledging their emotions
• What is the path forward, what black women can do

Author:

Dr. Inger Burnett-Zeigler is a licensed clinical psychologist and associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. She has two decades of clinical experience helping people with stress, trauma, mood and anxiety conditions, and interpersonal strain. In her clinical practice, she promotes holistic wellness through mindfulness and compassionate self-care. Inger’s scholarly work focuses on the role that social determinants of health play in mental illness and treatment, particularly in the Black community. She is an advocate for normalizing participation in mental health treatment and assuring that all individuals have access to high-quality, evidence-based mental health care. Inger has written dozens of articles and other publications on trauma and mental health in the Black community and lectures widely on research about barriers to access and engagement in mental health treatment, mindfulness, and strategies to improve mental health treatment participation and outcomes.

Quote:

“If you want to get something done, ask a black woman” 

Black people’s pain is always on a spectrum. There is always someone who has it worse off, and for that we should be grateful.”

Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen: The Emotional Lives of Black Women by Dr. Inger Burnett-Zeigler

Published by Amistad on 29 June 2021

Genres: Christian, Debut, Non-fiction, Self-help, African American, Womanism

Pages: 256

Format: Hardcover

 ABOUT THE HOST

Miriam is a Certified Trauma Informed Coach, an African, a mom of three daughters, a blogger and writer. After graduating from the London School of Economics, she built her international career in the fields of banking and international development, working for organisations such as the World Economic Forum, Lombard Odier Private Bank, JP Morgan, the Mastercard Foundation

Episode 32

This week, Miriam connects with her listeners to wish them a wonderful holiday season, read them and healing prayer and say the episode will take a break and release the next episode on January 12, 2022

Key Takeaways

• Update
• Ancient Prayer read twice
• Holiday Season Wishes

These are words you can write to yourself or read them out loud. (This ancient blessing was created in the Nahuatl language, spoken in Mexico. It deals with forgiveness, affection, detachment, and liberation).

“I release my parents from the feeling that they have failed me.

I release my children from the need to bring pride to me; that they may write their own ways according to their hearts, that whisper all the time in their ears.

I release my partner from the obligation to complete myself. I do not lack anything, I learn with all beings, all the time.

I thank my grandparents and ancestors who have gathered so that I can breathe life today. I release them from past failures and unfulfilled desires, aware that they have done their very best to resolve their situations within the consciousness they had at that moment. I honor you, I love you and I recognize you as innocent.

I am transparent before your eyes, so they know that I do not hide or owe anything other than being true to myself and to my very existence, that walking with the wisdom of the heart, I am aware that I fulfill my life purpose, free from invisible and visible family loyalties that might disturb my Peace and Happiness, which are my only responsibilities.

I renounce the role of savior, of being one who unites or fulfills the expectations of others.

Learning through, and only through, LOVE, I bless my essence, my way of expressing, even though somebody may not understand me.

I understand myself because I alone have lived and experienced my history; because I know myself, I know who I am, what I feel, what I do and why I do it.

I respect and approve of myself.

I honor the Divinity in me and in you.

We are free.”

 ABOUT THE HOST

Miriam is a Certified Trauma Informed Coach, an African, a mom of three daughters, a blogger and writer. After graduating from the London School of Economics, she built her international career in the fields of banking and international development, working for organisations such as the World Economic Forum, Lombard Odier Private Bank, JP Morgan, the Mastercard Foundation and the United Nations. She now uses her passion for psychology and dedicates her time to coaching others to free themselves from the burden of childhood trauma. Her wish to help other women connect to their inner wisdom, love themselves and follow their passion. In her effort to destigmatize mental health and normalize mental health conversations in black communities, she wrote her memoir about surviving childhood and finding her worth. 

CONTACT METHOD

Instagram: @_miriamnjoku/

Facebook 

Linkedin

CLUBHOUSE: @miriamnjoku.

#overcomingyourstory #overcomingyourstorypodcast #family #scapegoat #goldenchild #parentification #control #boundaries #triangulation #awareness #familydynamics #s #familyenmeshment #mentalhealth #mentalhealthwellness #mentalhealthstigma #loyalty #familybond #familydynamics #toxicfamily #narcissisticmother #narcissisticparent #narcissisticmother #guilt #shame #cameroon #individuation #emotionalresilience #healing #traumainformedcoach #coach  

Episode 31 - Invisible Loyalties: Ties That Bind Us

Miriam is doing a Family Dynamics Series and the week’s episode is about Invisible Loyalties, those strong ties that bind us to our family, village, group, country and that hurt us in the long run. This is a fascinating episode especially during this holiday season. The concept was coined by Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy in his book of the same name Invisible Loyalties.

KEY TAKEAWAYS 

• What are invisible loyalties
• What happens to the bond we have to our family in case of trauma and abuse
• Why are family ties so strong?
• Consequences of invisible loyalties
• Self-sabotage and playing small
• Releasing invisible, harmful loyalties and choosing visible ties.
• The courage to choose freedom

RESSOURCES

Article by Miriam Njoku on medium: Invisible Ties That Bind Us

Invisible Loyalties by Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy

 ABOUT THE HOST

Miriam is a Certified Trauma Informed Coach, an African, a mom of three daughters, a blogger and writer. After graduating from the London School of Economics, she built her international career in the fields of banking and international development, working for organisations such as the World Economic Forum, Lombard Odier Private Bank, JP Morgan, the Mastercard Foundation and the United Nations. She now uses her passion for psychology and dedicates her time to coaching others to free themselves from the burden of childhood trauma. Her wish to help other women connect to their inner wisdom, love themselves and follow their passion. In her effort to destigmatize mental health and normalize mental health conversations in black communities, she wrote her memoir about surviving childhood and finding her worth. 

CONTACT METHOD

Instagram: @_miriamnjoku/

Facebook 

Linkedin

• Episode 30: Miriam recently had an experience with implicit bias and she wants us to think about how as a society we can think about overcoming implicit bias. Every human being has implicit bias and often they are unconscious. How do we bring our biases to the conscious realm in order to release them. I have been encountering implicit bias and racism since I was a teenager. How do we bring these biases to the conscious mind, change them and adopt new perspectives that allow the inclusion of members of racial minorities, women and LGBT+ groups. How do we as a society work on our biases because they hurt certain groups who encounter them time and again

KEY TAKEAWAYS 

• How an innocent encounter at the doctor's took a run turn
• Tears! What tears? I don't cry in public!
• "We are going to exceptionally accomodate you!"
• "My colleague convinced herself that it was you"
• Implicit Bias and how they hurt people
• 
  

ABOUT THE HOST

Miriam is a Certified Trauma Informed Coach, an African, a mom of three daughters, a blogger and writer.  After graduating from the London School of Economics, she built her international career in the fields of banking and international development, working for organisations such as the World Economic Forum, Lombard Odier Private Bank, JP Morgan, the Mastercard Foundation and the United Nations. She now uses her passion for psychology and dedicates her time to coaching others to free themselves from the burden of childhood trauma.  Her wish to help other women connect to their inner wisdom, love themselves and follow their passion. In her effort to destigmatize mental health and normalize mental health conversations in black communities, she wrote her memoir about surviving childhood and finding her worth.

CONTACT METHOD

Instagram: @_miriamnjoku/

Facebook 

Linkedin

CLUBHOUSE: @miriamnjoku.

Episode 29 The Golden Child and Scapegoat Dynamic

Miriam is doing a Family Dynamics Series and the week’s episode is about The Golden Child and the Scapegoat in the Family, these are two roles that siblings can take in a dysfunctional family.

KEY TAKEAWAYS 

• Update about your host
• Gold Child and Scapegoat definition
• Characteristics of the Golden Child
• Characteristics of the Scapegoat
• The Relationship between the Golden Child and The Scapegoat
• Triangulation
• The consequences on the adult who grew up as the golden child or as a scapegoat
• How to get out of these roles
• Your host’s experience

 ABOUT THE HOST

Miriam is a Certified Trauma Informed Coach, an African, a mom of three daughters, a blogger and writer. After graduating from the London School of Economics, she built her international career in the fields of banking and international development, working for organisations such as the World Economic Forum, Lombard Odier Private Bank, JP Morgan, the Mastercard Foundation and the United Nations. She now uses her passion for psychology and dedicates her time to coaching others to free themselves from the burden of childhood trauma. Her wish to help other women connect to their inner wisdom, love themselves and follow their passion. In her effort to destigmatize mental health and normalize mental health conversations in black communities, she wrote her memoir about surviving childhood and finding her worth. 

CONTACT METHOD

Instagram: @_miriamnjoku/

Facebook 

Linkedin

CLUBHOUSE: @miriamnjoku.

#overcomingyourstory #overcomingyourstorypodcast #family #scapegoat #goldenchild #parentification #control #boundaries #triangulation #awareness #familydynamics #s #familyenmeshment #mentalhealth #mentalhealthwellness #mentalhealthstigma #loyalty #familybond #familydynamics #toxicfamily #narcissisticmother #narcissisticparent #narcissisticmother #guilt #shame #cameroon #individuation #emotionalresilience #healing #traumainformedcoach #coach