A MESSAGE FROM MY DESK
Hello, my beautiful friend! You are in good hands with me as I walk alongside you on this transformative journey of discovering and living out our life purpose with courage and vibrancy. I teach, coach, and embody the essence of my experiences, and so I thought I’d tell you a little about who I am, and how I became to be who I am. I have also taken this opportunity to teach, because as much as this is my story, it is also about you. Welcome 🌟
Part I: THE CHILD IN ME
One of the biggest takeaways I would love you to take from my story is that: When you yourself know who you are, and you are so connected to that – even if you don’t have words for it as yet, and regardless of what you are or have gone through in life – whatever stems and grows from that deeper knowing, is long lasting in its influence and legacy.
That deeper inner knowing fuels a deep sense of rooted, unwavering self belief, which on the outside looks like effortless strength, but within you, creates an enduring resilience tethered to your dreams, and an emotional groundedness, fully supported in your truth. You, your truth, and who you are inside, do not need permission to exist. You already do. Hold onto that, because that’s how you make your mark in this world.
Here is my story: From a young age, life was an internal and external struggle. I often felt like an outsider, yearning for something greater than my physical and mental circumstances allowed. This confusion stemmed from an incongruence between the world around me and the vibrant life I envisioned for myself.
The disconnect between my inner life and external experiences was perplexing. Those who surrounded me often provided conflicting messages—saying one thing yet behaving differently.
This inconsistency ignited my fascination with human behavior. Meanwhile, childhood trauma and the influence of rigid religious doctrines further complicated my understanding of the world.
Those who were given the roles of protecting, caring and helping me navigate this physical world of ours, were the very ones who took advantage, being physically, emotionally and sexually abusive, and then making me to feel wrong, burdened, ashamed and guilty for their discrepancies.
My nervous system was negatively affected, constricting to both protect me, and to become a shadow of the light that I brought into the world. The result, was a vastly constricted outer worldview. My light went into ‘hiding’ because visibility felt unsafe, because it attracted abuse.
Re-parenting myself, as I grew older, and had the resources, time and ability – has the most loneliest, yet deeply Transformational and Revolutionary journey back to Self, that I have been on. The loneliness helped in the Individuation process of detangling from a mindset that needed to Evolve, and Realign with my True Inner Self.
In the first instance, the journey was tumultuous. It meant revisiting past incidences, ‘re-living through them’, so as to, in the second instance, to re-embrace and re-parent the parts of myself that I had ‘dimmed’ as a way to protect myself. This meant going back in time, to when ‘inner fragmentation’ occurred, so I could compassionately call back all parts of me.
My instinctive response to this turmoil was to retreat inward, becoming observant and introverted, often losing myself in books that allowed me to disconnect from the painful life I was living, books that rather spoke to my inner true self, sparking my curiosity and aligning with my unexpressed zeal.
Reading and studying were the tools I had access to. They fueled my inner curiosity, the inner self-belief I had that I wanted better for my life, that I had a right to it, and even before ll of that, I was made for more.
As an only child for the first nine years of my life, I had the solitude and space to explore both the world around me and the depth of my inner thoughts, feelings and emotions. This increased the volume of my intuition, my inner self. Even at that young age, I knew that that was where my ‘Inner Truth’ was, my true ‘Safety’ and ‘Guide’, to how I would navigate the world.
What I love about this increasingly conscious world we are now living, is how it is beginning to open up to understanding the detrimental effects of trauma to one’s mind, body and spirit; and how these effects hinder the connection to our true selves. With this, are conversations and tools on the different modalities that support healing our inner child, and from that perspective, authentically transform from the inside-out.
As I transitioned into adulthood, I attempted to fit into the mold of those around me, ‘busying myself with the tasks’ of being an adult, crafting a façade that ultimately distanced me from my true self.
As much as I ‘knew’ at every stage that I was much bigger than the situations and scenarios I was in, I could not expand beyond the level of my constricted nervous system. I felt increasingly frustrated, which created distance from my true Inner Self, beliefs and desires. I was working hard on the outside, and yet nowhere near where I really wanted to be. On paper, I was doing well, but inside, I was frustrated and felt behind in my true dreams.
A sense of emptiness loomed over me, and I struggled with deep sadness and depression, compounded by, at that time, the unresolved grief from not only losing my parents at a young age, but not having a support system that had the emotional, spiritual or physical capacity to attend to all my needs as a child.
My emotions got deeply entangled in a web of frustration, anger, and fear; leaving me exasperated by the very thought of a life devoid of excitement, joy and pure unconditional love. Subconsciously, my brain, my nervous system, had, as a form of protection, withdrawn these parts of myself deep down inside of me.
MY INNER VOICE
What always pleasantly surprises me, is that even amidst this turmoil, my inner voice—the intangible essence of who I am—continued to kindle my curiosity about life, leading me to ponder, as a form of engaging me, over profound questions and thoughts such as:
“Surely, there must be another way of living life…otherwise I wouldn’t have this turmoil inside of me. Otherwise, I would just go with the flow like others around me seemed to be doing.
In this way, it remained a steadfast inner guide; a life line, urging me on to remember my true essence, even if I did not know how to articulate it.
I tried having conversations with people around me, people who who were ‘supposed to know better’, but their direction and advice always fell short. In a lot of ways, what they said was different from how they behaved.
The gift was that, this allowed me to continue working on my communication skills, in case they were not really understanding what I was trying to convey. The guidance I needed however, was that inner voice within, my safe space, my guide, my inner truth. And so the questions evolved to:
“How can I clearly Define this inner feeling inside of me, and from that perspective, Design and live an aligned outer life?
Surely there is a reason to the misalignment I have been living, including a reason for all the abuse I have been through. What is the purpose?
What’s the purpose to this thing called life? What is my purpose to it? Why am I here? Why am I even alive? I wonder what is beyond life”. What’s the point of it all?
The above, and other related inquiries propelled me into a broader world of books, studies, and travel, shaping my understanding of existence and fueling my quest to find meaning.
I continue to, and have spent decades in Conscious Devotion to these questions, using my intellect, intuition, and strong observational skills as the point of entry to not only understanding myself and others, but to Design a life that is attuned to what I am learning at any one time. Like all of us, I am constantly evolving.
Because my parents died at the end of the time I was completing my high school, I had to wait a decade to attend university. In between, I needed to work and accumulate enough resources to look after myself, my younger brother, and to be in a position to pay for my university education.
At the age of 16, I was an unprepared parent to my then 7 year old brother. I learnt a lot, and I also failed a lot. I also learnt a lot about the reality of my ‘family,’ compared what I thought it should be and could be. I had to re-Define it in many ways.
Not being able to attend university straight out of high school was really hard for my teenage self. All my peers were starting their university lives, and I felt stuck in this role of being a parent. It was hard. It was painful, and I felt that my life was over, had no meaning, and my purpose was centered on working and providing. That level of responsibility at a young age was crushing and unbearable. And yet life did not offer any other option.
In hindsight however, it was a privilege to enroll in classes at a much older age, once I had saved enough to fund myself, because it meant that I could consciously choose and align with subject areas that addressed the questions I had about life, and later on, deeper topics about conscious leadership and operating conscious businesses.
My studies were and continue to be a tapestry of my pursuance of the purpose of my life and with that, how we can provide psychological safety for the people we have the privilege to serve, look after and lead.
The journey here was to understand the mind; understand culture and values; understand people, leadership and strategy in work spaces; understand the body in relation to the mind and vice versa; and to understand the inner self, spirit or soul.
Each area of study unveiled deeper and deeper layers of understanding human behavior, cultural diversity, and the mechanics of the mind. Each area of study helped to heal my inner and outer wounds, inviting all those parts that had retreated deep within, to come back to the surface.
My initial formal education was in the form of a BA in Health and Community Psychology, an Honors in Sociocultural Anthropology, an MSc in Medical Anthropology, certifications in Counseling, others.
As a form of self study, I read a plethora of related books about the mind, body and spirit. I ventured into personal development, incorporating all that I was learning, and engaging in practices like running, yoga and self-discipline as a self-experiential way to intimately connect to all parts of my inner and outer self.
The insatiable hunger I have always had for deeper knowledge, started to pay off because I was not only taking in the knowledge, but implementing it into my daily life. Until I of course – hit a ceiling. The reason again, came back to my nervous system. Our physical bodies are the containers to all that we experience. If we are t o’heal’ from just mind level, we are falling short of healing the ‘whole’ mind-body unit.
IMBALANCE
Eventually, I realized that accumulating external knowledge felt repetitive. No book or knew information seemed to help anymore. The more I read and studied and adjusted my life, the more it just felt like all the books were saying the same thing – but in different ways.
I found myself on a hamster wheel, contributing to society yet feeling increasingly disconnected from my true essence. The faster I raced, the further away I felt from clarity and satisfaction, fueling my frustration and deepening my mental health struggles.
Despite the accolades and achievements, I grappled with the haunting question of why I was truly here. I could not clarify my purpose, or my true values. I was moving through life using externally motivated values as opposed to my own true inner values. The question was not clear. Something was missing.
As I struggled with the disparity between my public accomplishments and my internal experience, I learned a crucial lesson: my exterior achievements paled in comparison to the whisper of my Authentic Self—my inner guiding voice.
I began to recognize that true fulfillment lay not in external validation but in connecting with the wisdom residing within me. The questions and thoughts I was having deepened:
“So how do I not only ‘hear’ that inner voice, but provide deliberate time, effort and practice to outwardly interpret it in a way that is authentic to its trueness?”
realigning with my truth
Through formal and informal studies, experiences, travel and adventure, I have and continue in the intentional pursuance of what it is to be a human being, why we behave the way we do, why we say one thing and do another, how we have blind-spots to how we are relating to each other; and from that perspective, how we can embrace the things that help us create mutually beneficial agreements.
As I continued on in my studies, I realized that I needed to work on myself even more. It also felt like I had no choice, because I was super curious, and was already committed to understanding my life and my purpose, as the one I was living was not my own, and so with that, felt purposeless, meaningless, redundant. This ‘lack’ felt like I was wasting away, and so I did more research, chasing that deep inner yearning for better.
The first turning point came when I delved down the enriching path of spiritual exploration, introduced to me first through renowned spiritual teachers including Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, and Deepak Chopra. What attracted me to these works was the messaging around the interconnectedness of humanity and the divine essence within us all. This felt right. It sat well within my soul. I had found the actual language and words that helped me articulate and describe the voice and message of my inner voice.
Neil Donald Walsh’s books on Conversations With God, opened me up even more. They re-kindled my questions about God. My inquiry expanded into the realms of quantum physics, consciousness, other religions and related practices, as I searched how different groups of people around the world lived and interacted with their inner and outer worlds.
All this later work, culminated in me pursuing degrees in Metaphysics (BA and MMA), a PhD in Conscious Business Ethics, becoming a Metaphysical Minister, a Neuroscience-Based Coach, a Yoga instructor and a Mindful Medication guide.
Through these experiences, I discovered the power of even deeper inner work, including childhood and shadow work healing and transformation. I got to witness more aspects of my inner and outer-self in real time.
At first it was scary as all parts of myself that I had suppressed started to one by one, and sometimes, all at once, rise up into my conscious mind. No one else around me, had done this level of inner work, and so had no-one to provide support or information. The information from the books I was reading was my support system.
I had the inner nudge to move countries, migrating so I could be in a place with the resources I needed to reconnect with both my spiritual and emotional self, that is, the parts of myself I had, as a form of protection, suppressed inside of me. I was adamant to heal, transform and elevate not only myself, but generational traumas.
My Curiosity, and my Conscious Devotion to my Purpose and my life were my fuel. I did not always have the means at any stage in my life for all the above, but with deliberate intention, I made plans, and when resources were available – whether years later or decades later – I moved to spaces where I could access them, so I could stay on course.
Healing generational traumas and embracing the traditions that serve myself as both an individual and part of a collective, included really understanding where I came from, where I belong and how it translated into everything that I did and would do.
This intentional deep inner spiritual journey has seen me engaging with, and using tools from psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors, different forms of healers, energy workers (spinal energetics), knowledge from my family lineage, and others who had more wisdom than I had of the mind-body-spirit connection. The work was and is not only at mind level, but at body and spiritual level.
This is where the personal development industry has had fallen short until most recently. The work for a long time, only focused on the mind. Yet the mind and body are one unit (psychosomatic unit), and the spirit the container for both. We are spiritual beings living a human life. The personal healing industry has also in the past focused on healing, but not so much the alchemisation of wounds into mind and body transformational containers.
My next turning point
My next level deeper transformation came when I went the route of Jungian Psychology. There was something at this level, that made it ‘safe’ to continue self-exploration of my subconscious mind. The knowledge and the explanations felt like my hand being steadily held toward my soul. Jungian Psychology had the language to further explain even further more parts of my inner Selves.
I allowed this inner wisdom to emerge, carving out deliberate time each day to practices such as thoughtful journaling of what I was learning and more questions I had. Meditation, sitting in silence, self-observation of the inner and outer self, contemplating and other quiet activities felt directed, because now I had the words and descriptions of what I was going through.
The understanding that the chaos of the outside world often mirrors our internal states empowered me, guiding me toward a purposeful existence that resonated with my true nature.
Everything and everyone around me, became a mirror of what was my inner reality. I could now, with inner wisdom, gauge what was the right fit and what wasn’t, whether it was work, social settings and relationships, or even where I lived. My inner wisdom became my guiding tool in all that I did. I now had the chance to tangibly increase the volume of my inner self, and my intuition, in response to what I was seeing and experience on the outside.
The more I did that, the more my inner voice, my purpose and my true values became clearer. I learned to speak my truth earlier, more clearly, and more courageously. It is a continual process of self-love, self-care, self-acknowledging, self-elevation and self-recognition. Sovereignty.
sharing the knowledge
With all this knowledge, I started and continue coaching and teaching others how to embark on this deeply satisfying journey back to Self. Each of us has the answer within us that we are seeking. Each of us know who we are inside of us, even if we may not know the language as yet. or even when we do, but do not know how to translate what we viscerally know inside of us, into everything we do and are on the outside.
This is why I am here, to direct, help and guide you, as you embark on this deep inner journey of continually Defining, then Designing your Life, Leadership and or Businesses from that deep authentic Self inside of you. Instead of being Defined by others, and or by past poor experiences, you become the Definer, rebuilding from the inside out, and remembering all your innate strengths, so you can leverage them as anchors in the work you will do to re-Claim all of who you are, and can be.
What you have gone through or haven’t gone through does not have to Define who you really are. In fact, all your experiences, past, present and future, are ‘fodder’ to fuel the elevation of your inner self. They are your Superpower. You get to Define, Design and Display the life, leadership and business that is attuned to your true inner self. You are the BLUEPRINT of your wonderful life. Only You can Define, Design and Display how you intrinsically know it to be.
I live what I teach, and coach what I teach. All my programs, courses and e-books, deeply and comprehensively curated, help you unpack who you have become over the years, sifting out what no longer serves you, so you can express and re-align all that you do, say and be, with your true inner purpose.
what FINDING & LIVING your PURPOSE looks like
The more I reconnected with my inner voice, increasing the dial of its volume through deliberate practice, the more I initiated a continual process of Defining, Designing, and Displaying a life rich with meaning. This spilled over into my leadership roles and into business.
With my inner voice and purpose as a guiding light to all my decisions, I naturally attracted elements that helped me along this path, and also highlighted elements and areas that I needed to still address. I align all my Decisions, Strategies and Creations to my Inner Truth
Where I have lost my way, or veered off the path consciously (out of experimentation) or unconsciously (because I genuinely did not know any better), I have always found my way back because of the deep inner connection I have and continue to cultivate with the Self within. The higher the volume of that inner voice, through scheduled time with yourself, the easier it is to ‘hear’ it even if the outside world is louder.
You will notice that I keep saying the word Deep. It is because your truth is deep within you. Not outside. Your purpose is not what you do, your social roles or titles, it comes from Deep within you, not what is on the outside.
Over time, my approach to life, led through curiosity and seeking our joyful interactions and environments, have transformed into one of continual awareness and growth, positioning me as a Human Catalyst that encourages others to unlock their inner wisdom to live more purposefully, and with that, more meaningfully.
I have Quiet Deliberate Determination. What others may see as luck, or un-directional, is actual, deliberate, well thought out and intentional devotion to the Inner Self. When you meet me, you would never know my story. Even within this narrative, the depth of my experiences may not be palpable. I have excluded a lot of it. I, like you, am more than the sum of my outer parts. There is a universe within me, just as there is a whole universe within you.
With some of the experiences I have gone through, I could have been easily a bitter, really angry person who holds onto grudges, does not forgive herself or others, going out of my way to intentionally causes pain. But I consciously choose better. And where I don’t; as no-one is perfect; I Self-correct much more quickly, and use that as an opportunity to heal, transform and do better next time.
Self-forgiveness and compassion is important for both myself and for others. This also means, removing myself from situations, environments and people who may be deliberate in their hurtful practices, and are at the same time, also not ready or willing to redirect – especially when they are made aware of how damaging their behaviors may be to myself or others. Every human has a choice to change, but the change has to come from them, when they are ready, not another.
Boundaries are not about ‘shutting people out’, but about aligning our clearly Defined outer actions and environments, with the clearly Defined higher inner versions of ourselves. We get to Design and Display our Life, Leadership, and Business environments.
INNER VS OUTER WORK
We live in a world where inner work is not recognized, or celebrated to the level that outer accolades are; a world where we judge a book by its cover, or where success has been defined only as outer accumulation of resources. And so, the journey into your inner self has never been a popular and at times, a known or comfortable path to take.
The world is however, becoming more conscious to the need for deeper levels of self-awareness through deep self-inquiry. More people have increasing access to even more information, leading them to start seeing the importance of self-knowledge as a precursor to the way they live, lead, run businesses and interact with their world in general.
Where inner work may not be initially tangible in the form of certificates and awards, it does reflect in the trail we leave behind through our daily decisions, and what influences these decisions. This leads us to the topic of Legacy.
Legacy is not about what you live behind when you die, it is the path you are creating when you are alive. I see this when I receive messages like the one below from my niece:
“You are the blueprint for forging your own path when it comes to the women in our family, you are living a life that you chose and that’s admirable. Thank you for living out loud and letting me be part of it. It is lovely to witness.“
In living my truth, I influence others to do the same; and so with that, My purpose is to help you harness and control the power you already have within, to live a life of and on purpose; that is, a life lived from the inside out.
Specific to Business Owners, Founders, Entrepreneurs and Leaders, my purpose for you is to sharpen your conscious leadership skills or higher performance, impact and ROI. Conscious leadership skills help you create actionable strategies, and with that psychologically safe environments for the people you lead, serve and look after, so that they can step in, flourish and contribute at even higher levels.
LET’S TALK ABOUT LEADERSHIP IN THE WORKPLACE.
Why is leadership a topic I have explored in detail? Because I was curious how people who were in power throughout my life, were the very instigators of abuse, not always because they were bad people, because I don’t believe anyone is, but that they are often ill-equipped, and the systems built around the resulting inefficiency were so ingrained in people’s everyday thought processes, that no-one questioned it.
This was super intriguing for me. I was so very curious on why it felt like I was the only one seeing this; and or if there were others who could see and may also have experienced the detrimental effects of power without wisdom, but did not say or do anything. Human behavior fascinates me, and with that, assessing patterns, why and how they present in our everyday lives.
We may put on ‘outer masks’ and act a certain way at work, but our inner selves are still there. Because of deep inner connectedness, my life experiences, constant devotion to our inner selves, and education, I can see beneath the words spoken, behind gestures and the ‘invisible unsaid words. I help others ‘witness’ themselves in action, so they can self-correct as needed, to re-align all they do and say, with their true inner values.
We can only correct what we are aware of. The higher and deeper one’s self-awareness; the higher their emotional intelligence becomes. And the more we connect their emotional intelligence to direct engagement as in the programs and courses I offer, the deeply ingrained emotional agility becomes. Leaders not only Become, but they Embody true Leadership itself.
My introduction to workplaces
My core work ethos has been commitment to simplicity, honesty, and effectiveness. These values not only enhanced my performance but also fostered a sense of accountability and authenticity in all my interactions.
My mantra, which became evidenced in the positive results it imbued, was that, the more we Simplify anything, and are more Honest and Authentic with each other, the more Efficient and Effective we all become toward a shared vision and goals.
Unfortunately, despite my deep genuine efforts, the work environments I encountered, often clashed with my ambitions and values. Not all of them, but those that did, did so in such damaging ways, that I lost myself in a quest to try and fit in to the “restricted boxes”.
As much as I knew that the work place is a microcosm of what was / is happening on a larger community, social, economic and political scale, I had gone in expecting “better” in this professional setting. In different work spaces, I experienced a multitude of poor unconscious leadership. These were in the form of gaslighting, racism, ageism, sexism, narcissistic behaviors aimed toward me and so on.
Even though this journey taught me resilience, caution, stronger communication skills, empathy and the importance of fostering supportive spaces for myself and others; I still really wondered why the leaders I had, often vilified myself and others who genuinely wanted to see everyone – individuals, teams, departments and the whole organization succeed. I was curious.
In many ways, the way they led and interacted, was in direct opposition to the very values of their organization. The outer silence to these disparities was loud. But behind closed doors, in the corridors of the offices, during lunch time, at the end of each month, whispers grew. People were afraid to speak up for fear of reprimand.
The majority of adults spend on average 8 hours at a designated physical work locations. This is not including time to get ready for work in the mornings, the commute and winding down in the evenings. Life becomes work. And if work is uncomfortable, punitive, and unsatisfactory, the definition of life itself, becomes negative.
Psychological Safety: A Catalyst for Change in the Workplace
Psychological safety in the workplace is often an overlooked concept, one that many organizations I have worked with either lacked awareness of or simply did not prioritize. As I did my research around this, I realized that one of the reasons this is so, is that the metrics used to measure productivity in organization has always been aligned with ‘hard skills’ and output, and not so much ‘soft skills’.
What we call ‘soft skills’ for example awareness, emotional intelligence, emotional agility, conscious communication, cultivating psychological safety, creating and sustaining high performing grounded teams and cohesion, and so on, are only gaining traction now – mostly in reaction, and not so much proactivity.
But even with that, we still have a lot of work to do. True long lasting self skills are the result of deep self inner work. ‘True’ soft skills are not something you go to attain, like at a grocery store. They are rather, the result of who you are becoming inside. The industry has often taught us that you can learn emotional intelligence. And perhaps you can, by reading about it. But true emotional intelligence is rather, the result of deep inner work.
And emotional agility, is at first, the result of increasing emotional intelligence; and in the long run, deliberate practice to self-observe yourself throughout the day, and or to reflect on how you were in all situations. With this knowledge, you can then adjust to a way of being that serves your purpose, your values, your principles and of those you have the privilege to serve, lead and look after.
Let’s take a step back into the ‘psychologically-unsafe’ environments that I worked in. It was evident that these organizations were unaware of the critical role psychological safety plays in fostering a productive and fulfilling work environment. The term itself, was non-existent.
Discussions with HR and Management proved unhelpful, as they themselves, frequently operated from a fixed mindset, viewing employees as mere resources rather than dynamic, resourceful beings. It makes sense though, so this is not me indicating that they were wrong. Their very title, i.e. Human Resources, indicates their role.
Seeing humans as resources in its basic form, makes it easy to have profit maximization as their dominant focus. This focus makes it easy to sideline the importance of also paying attention to employee well-being. What was silently communicated was that HR was there for the bottom line at the expense of its people’s wellbeing.
I often found myself lingering in some of these toxic environments far longer than I should have, feeling guilty when I chose to leave. What made me stay were narratives that I had internalized from others. These narratives were: “at least I have a job when others don’t” or “at least I can pay my bills”.
All this made it seem like any concern over my dissatisfaction of how I was treated in these work environments were inconsequential – a viewpoint that ultimately led to further distress as it took away the rightful authorship of my own life.
If I were to also be honest, I was also intrigued. My hyper-curious mind wanted to see how far this went. And so I stayed – to my own detriment in some situations. What drew me in was, the thoughts that said, surely I am not the only person who is seeing that this is not okay. How has this been the status quo? I want to see who else will speak up, and when?
TRAUMAS AND LEADERSHIP DYNAMICS
Contributing to this cycle was the prevalent “top-down, buck stops with me” mentality exhibited by many of the leaders I worked for and with. This approach stifled decision-making and creativity, where no action could be taken without the leaders’ oversight at every turn. This level of micromanagement negatively affected productivity.
Staying in environments and around people, who perhaps of no fault of their own, were abusing power, and or they themselves did not know any better, was in essence, re-traumatizing myself.
On a larger scale, these environments fostered distrust among staff and departments. The fallout from these types of environments manifested in high employee attrition, particularly among high performers, leading to diminished morale among those who remained and eroding overall organizational impact.
Everyone wanted to be seen as ‘good’, and so there was a lot of siloed activity, gossiping, mis-aligned engagement, subpar performance, leading to lowering rates of ROI.
The use of threats like “I am going to fire you” from leaders to staff, became casual, amplifying anxiety and insecurity. Employees lived in fear of reprimand or termination for simply exercising their own judgment—an environment antithetical to the essence of psychological safety.
I witnessed high levels of stress, burnout, and reduced well-being among employees. Poor well-being at work also weakened customer loyalty, because staff’s energy was depleted from always needing to be on guard all the time, ultimately compromising quality of service. And where organizations tried to have wellness activities, these were mere tick boxes to satisfy the quota, as opposed to actually caring. This also meant that they were not sustainable, or helpful.
THE NEED FOR COMPASSIONATE LEADERSHIP
I was shocked to discover this total disregard for people in the workplace, especially having grown up and taught through the school system that leaders were paragons of knowledge and compassion. I was disappointed, and wanted to correct this.
My initial coping mechanism became overextension. I aimed to be super helpful, testing out different ways of being ‘good’, and trying to follow the direction of these leaders. I often took on more than my fair share of work, but I also realized that the direction I was being given was not one that was beneficial for anyone.
Where I tried to offer different more productive ways, this was not allowed. And so I worked on my communication thinking that perhaps that that was the case. Initially, nothing helped.
The benefit of increasing my communication skills was that in seeking information, I also liaised with my colleagues even more. The more I got to know them at human level, the more they got to know me, my intentions and my heart.
This sensitivity unfortunately, led me to absorb the distress of colleagues, positioning myself as the go-to person for any challenges they faced. Now there was nothing wrong with this, I had at the time, not developed ways to hold this energy.
In these talks, however, I came to know that many colleagues felt “trapped” not just in their jobs but in life itself. Life just did not make any sense, but they have always been told – “that’s just how life is, just go along with it”.
I never liked it when people would say this to me, especially as an excuse for their poor behavior. Knowing others were going through this, fueled my determination to create better working environments. I had had a few experiences of really good leadership earlier on in my career, so I knew it was possible.
I turned to deliberate explorative and expressive journaling, conducting research, so I could collect practical evidence on better leadership. The thoughts and questions that guided me were:
“Surely there must be a different way of ‘doing’ leadership’ that I can provide evidence for, and better still, ways in which exemplary leaders can ’embody’ true leadership itself.
What is leadership after all. What misunderstandings do I have about leadership, and what do I know to be true and effective.
What does it mean to lead, take care or look after others? What are the characteristics that make it feasible with the best outcomes?“
One of the really transformational books I read was The Long Walk to Freedom, by Nelson Mandela. It awakened a lot of the traditional ways that the African way of traditional leadership, cultivates a sense of belonging for everyone involved.
Sense of belonging cultivates an inner sense of contribution, and with that innovation. I wondered how a lot of the books I initially had access to, leaned heavily on Western science, with little available that expanded on African Ubuntism.
I was curious, so I researched more. I took my own physical and spiritual journey down my own African family tree from my father’s side, whom I had been out of contact with sine he passed on 4 decades ago, due to unresolved family disputes.
I really wanted to understand leadership traditions, and the deep rooted need of belongingness that creates cohesion within myself as an individual part of a vast lineage, and use that as the basis to contribution to all spaces I was living and working.
I was devoted to also personally mend the gap caused by unresolved family disputes, that I had unknowingly inherited from those who came before me. The journey felt like coming back ‘home’ to my inner Sovereignty.
I belonged somewhere. I could physically see, touch, smell, hear and taste it. Something shifted inside as I connected with my People and I had physical evidence of it, all the way back to the 1800s. There is so much to share here, but will leave that for when we meet.
The journey is in asking, what will be my contribution to my tribe? My family, community, work, country, work, regional and global tribe of humans. What is unique about me, that I can use to elevate all these spaces that I belong?
The leaders who sign up for my Conscious Leadership~Lead from Within program, get to really understand who they themselves are, and what their roots are, so that through this very deep seated knowing, their contribution in all areas they live and lead, is of a grounded deeply connected form.
With my travels to Asia, I also explored Asian presence as a way of leadership, and was intrigued at the many parallels I found there to the African way of life. It also complimented my exploration of the body as the vessel for our mind’s work.
I now use all these in interaction with each other to support expanded leadership from the inside out. Leadership that not only creates conducive environments of engagement, but leadership that sustains lasting results at personal, professional and business level through deep seated levels of belonging.
PRACTICALLY Fostering Clarity and Engagement IN MY WORK AS A LEADER
Using all the work above, continued research and through honest inner, then outer dialogues, I sought clarity from the leaders I worked for, regarding my own work, and those of my team members.
The transformation wasn’t smooth sailing. It revealed a lot of gaps that leaders were not ready to admit and or tackle. Multiple attempts failed when leadership themselves, lacked clear focused strategies, let alone how to communicate their non-existence to their teams.
Short-term goals disconnected from a broader vision caused a ‘stop-start’ paradigm in departments. Where information was available, it was often hoarded as ‘currency,’ leaving staff in the dark on what they were supposed to be doing. In spaces where top-down leadership was rife with all its disadvantages, employees felt small, excluded and in constant fear of doing the wrong thing.
When I myself sought clarity about my own work, I was told that crucial information was reserved for higher management—a situation that stifled my own performance. It was like fumbling in the dark, but expected to come out with excellent scores.
However, with persistent deliberate effort, this all led to significant performance improvements, interdepartmental collaboration, and aligned impact. My stance was to continue asking questions before I engaged with any allocated activity. Asking how each activity was aligned to the purpose, vision, mission and values of the team, department and organization.
I used my foundational values of simplicity, honesty, efficiency, and effectiveness to foster kind and open conversations. The more I asked questions, the more the leaders themselves became clearer on their expectations.
To this day, I use these questions to support leaders and organizations in creating focused and clear strategies that are easily transferable or translatable to all areas of their business and teams. I call the process, the Actionable Strategy. You can read more about it by Clicking Right Here.
As I myself got into leadership roles, I vowed to lead differently, making sure that goals and visions were clear, and continuously seeking to understand how my teams themselves, understood the goals we set together.
I of course did not do well in the beginning, but with commitment and continual adjustment, I got better at it. The more I got better, the more I saw others start to borrow some of my practices.
Productivity aligned to clear expected results increased, and even better the general morale of my departments increased. This contributed to self-managing and self-directing teams moving toward clearly defined goals.
HELPING LEADERS FIND THEIR WAY
The more I engaged in with various leaders, and had deepening layers of conversations with them, getting to know them as individual humans, the more I realized how many of them were also struggling silently, unaware of how to break free from their own life and leadership dissatisfaction.
Despite their positions in society and in the workplace, they felt unfulfilled, often misunderstood, and tragically interpreting their own discontent as personal inadequacy.
Through my own journey of deep inner work, my human centered qualifications, and my now experience having worked with leaders across Africa, Asia, Europe and the USA in the past 2+ decades, I have gained invaluable insights into the intricate dynamics that shape individual and collective experiences.
As a culmination of my expertise, I developed the Lead from Within Mastery Program aimed at executives and business owners.
This program emphasizes that leading consciously and authentically, first of all aligns to leading our own selves from a true, authentic space within; and from there, gaining the ability to create psychological safety – almost as an after effect dependent on how deep one is willing to go within the process.
At the end of the day, Leadership is influence – whether you realize it or not, whether you are doing it intentionally or not.
The more you work on yourself as a leader, the more you positively influence not only yourself and your life, leadership and business journey, but the life, leadership and business journey of all those around you.
The journey to deep self-awareness, results in deeper levels of emotional intelligence and with that deeper emotional agility.
It all starts with deep, intentional levels of self-inquiry, that is, literally questioning everything about who you are, how you came to be, and then charting a path forward that is aligned to your truth.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR HR DEPARTMENTS
In one of my past leadership roles, I recognized the importance of partnering with the HR department, if we were to sustain people centered growth. I proposed a program aimed at helping interns, attachment students and new hires to seamlessly transition into their professional roles.
The benefit was twofold: (i) by investing in the development of interns, attachment students and new hires, the organization experienced higher productivity levels early in their entry into the workplace. (ii) This initiative also attracted the interest of some older employees, who sought access to the resources I had generated, and had not gone through the same diligent process.
This was the birth of helping people define their purpose, linking it up to the organization, and from there creating a growing win win win relationship between individuals, their teams and the organization as a whole.
The more they worked on themselves, the higher their sense of self, and with that the unique ways they could engage toward the growth of the organization through their individual roles.
Neuroscience provides evidence that the brain uses a large amount of energy to ‘prepare’ to protect one in a psychologically unsafe space. It does not know the difference for example, between fear of a saber tooth tiger in front of you, or fear of being reprimanded by another human being. Both situations carry the same amount of preparedness energy to either fight, flee, fawn or freeze.
The more our people feel psychologically safe, the more their brain energy can be used to higher performance, productivity, higher quality of services and products that keep your customers happy, and with that cultivate loyal repeat clientele who also refer those around them. Your bottom line is positively and sustainably impacted. This is proven.
EXPANDING MY REACH
In order to broaden my impact and share my knowledge more widely, I developed a strategic exit plan to establish my own consultancy and coaching business, guiding individuals transitioning from traditional job structures into entrepreneurship.
Through teaching, coaching and mentoring people across the country, region and internationally—on radio, in schools, universities and within organizations—I recognized a shared sense of potential among high performers who, like me, longed to tap into their greater capacities but felt uncertain about how to unlock their full potential.
I have and continue to witness firsthand how organizations are beginning to recognize the detrimental impact of poor leadership practices. They are now being deliberate in cultivating work cultures, through shared beliefs and values, that attract and retain engaged staff.
I have over time, facilitated workshops focusing on growth mindsets, emotional intelligence, self-leadership, and conscious leadership—key areas that empowered organizations to enhance their return on investment in human capital. Not popular topics to begin with, as they have not been traditionally linked to outer versions or metrics of success, but starting to take root around the world.
My own career path has taken me through various sectors, including the tobacco and cigarette manufacturing industry, farming, carpentry, ophthalmic and ophthalmology, leadership training, coaching and development, people management, and organizational transformation.
I have also worked in the fields of mental health, psychosocial support, research, women’s, children’s, and adolescent health, education, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, counseling, and grief and bereavement support.
My experience spans both high and low-income countries, having collaborated with organizations like Plan International, ILO, and UNICEF, as well as community-based organizations, public health entities, and private corporations.
I have contributed to projects and programs across Africa, the USA, Asia, and the UK, working with organizations ranging from small teams to large corporations. My roles have included positions at the Director, Advisor, and Board Member levels.
In all of these positions, having Actionable strategies, having a leadership that is deeply self-aware, and with that, a Leadership that create psychologically safe environments for their People, have all been successful components to my work and leadership.
YOUR HUMAN CATALYST FOR CHANGE
As you come to the end of this page, I would like you to know that you possess the answers you seek within you. You know that popular statement: What you are seeking, is also seeking you…this is what it is about.
My role as your Personal Human Catalyst is to guide you back to that divine inner essence – your true self.
Through the well researched, yet simplified MUTEDZI 3D Protocol, we will together, align every aspect of your life, leadership and business, to your true inner Self. MUTEDZI is my last name, and as a testament to all the work I bring in to the way I coach and all related content; and the 3 Ds stand for:
✔️ Define: We start your journey of figuring out your purpose, your true identity through an intentional, deliberate and guided process of self-inquiry. This is the doorway to Self-Awareness.
✔️ Design: We create actionable life, leadership and or business strategies and roadmaps, that help you take what you have clearly Defined into feasible action. This is the doorway to deepening your Emotional Intelligence.
✔️ Display: We inculcate the actions that help you stay aligned to the roadmaps you have Designed, through your daily actions and decisions. This is the doorway to deepening your Emotional Agility.
You can only lead other people to the level at which you are at emotional, spiritual and psychological level.
WAYS WE CAN WORK TOGETHER:
Click on the Blue Button Below to see ways we can work together, either as:
- As an individual through:
- Self-administered courses,
- One to one coaching calls,
- Long term coaching programs, and
- E-books to help you figure out your purpose, your true values, and or up-level your leadership skills;
- As an Organization for your Leaders and Teams, helping you to:
- Re-humanize, Regenerate, and Sustain Psychological Safety
- Enhance Your People Management Skills
- Develop Conscious, Deeply Aware Leaders who possess high emotional intelligence, emotional agility, and strong communication skills for higher performance, impact & ROI
I look forward to hearing from you!
With love and light. Barbara MUTEDZI 🌟