#432 Inner work, breaking intergenerational cycles, and redefining leadership for women of colour, with Rohene Bouajram.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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Rohene Bouajram 0:00

I realized I was ready to finally face the things that I know I've always carried, the heaviness that has sat in my heart and my body, and what I didn't know at the time. But now have come to realize about in a work is I was ready to let go, let go the things that were no longer here to serve me and ready to embrace a new way of being in this beautiful way of living.

Agi Keramidas 0:31

You are listening to personal development mastery, the podcast that empowers you with the simple and consistent actions to take that will help you create a life of purpose and fulfillment. I'm your host, Agi Keramidas, and this is episode 432, in today's episode, we unlock the transformative potential of inner work. By listening to today's conversation, you will discover how to break generational cycles and heal intergenerational trauma. You will also hear about self love as a core component of inner work and personal growth. And also we discuss my guest's mission, which is to redefine leadership for women of color, so if you or someone you know falls into this category, listen in and share it with her before we dive in. If you enjoy listening and appreciate what we're doing, the quick favor I'm asking of you is to click the subscribe button to help us make the podcast better for you. Now, let's get started.

Agi Keramidas 1:43

Today, it is my real pleasure to speak with Rohene Bouajram, Rohene, you are an international speaker, writer and advocate with a unique Zimbabwean Canadian perspective. You have over two decades of experience in higher education specialized in strategic program development and transformational systemic change. And you are the host of the podcast unspeakable leadership, where you explore the leadership of women of color. You are on a mission to redefine leadership, particularly for women of color, through the lens of equity, diversity and inclusion. Rohene, I am delighted to speak with you today. Such a pleasure to have you here.

Rohene Bouajram 2:34

Likewise. Aggie, I feel like this has been a moment in time that I've been looking forward to and so grateful to be here in the same sort of liminal space together.

Agi Keramidas 2:46

And so am I, and I also have been looking forward to this I will give as a very brief, let's say, preface here that we met about three months ago in a mastermind group, or group coaching session that was online. And for me, and I will say that before I move on with anything else, from the moment you spoke, I felt a connection, like there was something that I thought, Oh, wow, this is I started taking notes with things that you were saying. So from that time, I thought this would be an exceptional perspective that you bring so I can share it in the podcast. And here we are, about three months later, having this conversation. I just wanted to share that of as my experience of your how I know you. So I don't know if you want to add anything to that before, before I move on.

Rohene Bouajram 3:55

Absolutely, I would love to and to and to share something that I think I shared with you after connecting with you in that mastermind was that it is, it's rare to be in spaces where you can connect with somebody right away. And some people will call that, you know, meeting kindred spirits, or meeting somebody from like, maybe a past life. And there were, there was that connection that I felt with you. And so I want to say thank you, because even in those spaces that I've mentioned, it can for a lot of women of color, can feel very unsafe to be in spaces where we don't know how to show up. And you instantly made that space, along with many others who are in that space safer and so thank you. Thank you for doing that, and I have no doubt you'll continue to do that, even in this podcast interview, for me and for others too.

Agi Keramidas 4:52

That's my pleasure. And when you were saying that, I realized that I have because my partner is C. Is from Zimbabwe, so I have this kind of understanding of you know how important it is to what you were just describing. So rohing Today, they what I would really love to explore with you is this journey of self discovery and inner work, especially as a path to healing trauma. You talk about intergenerational trauma in particular. So what I'm thinking of asking to begin this exploration is asking you about the personal experience, something that your personal experience that shaped this understanding of intergenerational trauma.

Rohene Bouajram 5:52

Yeah, wow. I love that. I love that question. And I love I love how you asked the biggest question first

Unknown Speaker 6:05

no soft questions to start before

Speaker 1 6:08

we started recording it. Besides, as I said, there is this connection, so I don't think we need any. Yes,

Rohene Bouajram 6:16

let's go right. Deep down. I love it. I love it. Well, let me You know, I first want to ground myself because I think that that is often crucial when we're starting off with important and also heavy topics. So I ground myself in recognizing that the land beneath my feet is the ancestral, traditional and unceded territory of the Musqueam cell with tooth and Squamish nations, otherwise known as Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and often when many of us in Canada acknowledge the land, it's not just a mere land acknowledgement. It's a recognition that I myself as somebody who came here in the early 2000s as an uninvited guest and settler that I came to lands that I had no idea of, the history, the trauma, the violence that has impacted indigenous nations, indigenous communities since time immemorial, up until present day, and so over the course of my career and just my personal, you know, development, I really had to sit in this space of tension, of being an uninvited settler on lands that were stolen, On lands that continue to be marked with oppression, and the reason why that's crucial for me is because I myself came from a country that was colonized, and have had to go through experiences of understanding what that did, not only to my Family, but to many communities and stripping away their identity, their culture, their connection to spirituality, under this impression that there was a much more superior, better, dominant way of being. And so when I think of inner work, I think of the experience that I'll draw on is, I think of it was probably around early 2000 so for many of us, we probably recognize right away, early 2000 if you had to think of around April, March, April, early 2000 that was when the pandemic was hitting majority of us, particularly on the North America, but I think also in Europe and definitely in the United Kingdom. And that was a time for me where I had experienced significant change in my life. I had recently separated from my ex husband. Now, ex husband, I was put in a home that we had invested a lot of time to buy. I put it on the market, and I was moving, and I had also started a new job. So talk about sort of this trilogy of 20,000 changes happening all at once. And I knew at that time that all of my coping mechanisms, all of the ways in which I would normally respond and be able to adapt to these changes, they just simply weren't working. And what I had to do is I had I decided I needed to find somebody. I needed to seek support. So I went on this quest for finding a counselor. Now what I have to tell you is, this was not my first time working with a counselor. In fact, this was probably my third or fourth time. But what was different about this time was I had committed that this time I was. Going to be the good patient, you see, that's what I was telling myself. Yeah, I know have to laugh at oneself. That's what I was doing with all of the counselors. Before I would sit, I would talk, I would tell I would listen, I would take in, and I would apply things. And they would be like, Oh my gosh, Rohini, you should responding so well. And I was like, yes, you know, the Gold Star patient and so and so. In early 2020 I said, No, I have to, I have to do this. I really need to do this. And I'll end up on this. Because I think I'm sure I'll get into more and more. But what I want to share is, in finding the right person. It was how they articulated their counseling philosophy that drew me in and made me realize this is the person who I can go down this journey of healing and self discovery with. And what they said is their counseling philosophy is, imagine you come to a home and the first level is beautiful. It's immaculate. It's a home that you want to live in. And what we'll do is we'll go into this home and we'll go to the stairs at the top of the basement, and we'll go down those stairs together. The thing about those stairs is that there's no light, it's dark. You're probably going to question why you're going down there with me, but I will have a torch, and we'll go down each step together. And when we get to the basement, we're going to find things that you've never found. You're going to find things that you've forgotten. We're going to find things that you wish you weren't still in the home, and were going to go through it together. And when they said this to me as the counseling philosophy, I realized I was ready to finally face the things that I know I've always carried, the heaviness that has sat in my heart and my body, and what I didn't know at the time, but now have come to realize about in a work is I was ready to let go, let go the things that were no longer here to serve me, and ready to embrace a new way of being, in this beautiful way of living. What

Agi Keramidas 12:18

you just said about the philosophy actually, when you were describing the metaphor of going down the staircase, the dark staircase in the basement, without knowing what you will find there, because it's long forgotten. Yeah, that's a very powerful the way that I heard you describing it. So let me take a step back right now, because you already mentioned the term inner work quite a few times. I suppose what you already explained is part of it. But when you say inner work, how do you define it? What other components are there?

Rohene Bouajram 12:58

Yeah, for me, when I think of inner work, I think of the paradigms that I had that have shaped how I see the world, and you know, for those who are listening how you see the world, and within those paradigms are the beliefs, The beliefs that we have either been conditioned to believe that this is how things are meant to be, this is how life is, and those beliefs become the the way in which we act, we behave, we think. And so when I think of inner work connection, connected to paradigms, I think of how we can start to interrogate some of those paradigms in a very gentle and kind way that allows us to question, you know, where did this come from? Who told me this was this true? You know, so asking those questions and seeing what the response is, and sometimes the response can be, you know that it's it came from somebody we care about, and it came from somebody we trusted, and no, it's no longer true, even though it came from a caring place. And then move to a place of saying, Does this paradigm, or do these beliefs, serve the person that I want to be, and sometimes that can be a yes, a no or maybe, and to come to a place where either we're keeping or we're Perhaps letting go and replacing those beliefs and the paradigms with something that is much more attuned and aligned with who we are, and I'll sort of share like the person I discovered as a result of doing some of my inner work is I gave her a name, and I call her my peppered perfectionist, because one of the paradigms that i. Subscribed to for a very long time was perfectionism. You know, it was, it was where I got my worth, my value. It was also where I put a lot of energy to get love. So if I was perfect, I would be loved, I would be worthy. And yet, we're human, we are imperfect, so I had to really unsubscribe from perfectionism. Now my pepper perfectionist. She's there. She still shows up from time to time, but what I've done is I've slowly learned to sort of simmer and tell her to temper down her voice at the moments when we are showing up imperfectly. And that, for me, is has been a journey of inner work. I'm, you know, I'm nowhere close to being done or perfect, but I'm certainly on a journey of enjoying life in a much different way that is more stable and more aligned with the kind of person I want to become and continue to grow into,

Agi Keramidas 16:12

with perfectionism. One of my favorite phrases about it is that perfectionism rarely begets perfection. They are too. We might some somehow consider that one leads to the other, but it's rarely the case. Tell me you talked about, you know, the the inner work about, you said, interrogating the paradigms and beliefs and these things, apart from counseling, which you mentioned, is that the foundation in the inner work. Are there other components? Are there other actions or methods or something else? Or is counseling the the way to do it? From your experience?

Rohene Bouajram 17:07

I love that question. AGI. Thank you for asking it, because I, I know counseling is not always going to be the solution if we're going to call it that for everyone. So I'm glad that you're, you're raising that no no counseling is one of multiple methods that people can find themselves on a journey of self discovery, and I often when I'm talking to my students as part of my work that I do, or I'm talking to clients as part of my consulting or Even on my podcast, a big part of what I believe in is that each person needs to find what works for them. So what I have explored in my own journey has been to really look at things that resonate with being in my body. So and what I mean by that is, I've had to, I really needed to find ways that I could meditate. And so for some people, that's going to give them a lot more insight into what is their body telling them versus what their mind might be telling them, because those can be two different messages that can be, as you've mentioned, counterintuitive, right? They can create paradoxes. And so within that paradox that we can understand, Hmm, why is there a difference in this message that's coming through? I think many people also look to faith and spirituality as a way of doing their inner work and connecting with a higher power and with source and so that can also lead down a path of inner work. Others might find that they need something more physical. I know for me, I needed to do a range of holistic treatments at one point in my life to to really be connected to my body, whether that was chiropractor, massage therapy or even neurofeedback, which funny story I my first Neurofeedback session that I went to, I think I had this vision that I was going and going to get a lobotomy, and when I spent with the person who's going to do neurofeedback, they were like, no, what is this the 1950s and I was like, Yeah, but I really didn't know what it was feel like. But for those of you who are like, What is your feedback? You could you could absolutely google it, but essentially it think of little electrodes that are put in your brain that help you rewire the brainwave patterns and the way in which you respond to stimuli. And for me, I was very much in a threat response. And so my Neurofeedback was allowing my body to sort of get to a place where we could recognize that we weren't in a threatening situation. We didn't need to freeze. So those are some some aspects. There are also other aspects that are much. More, I think perhaps on a different edge of comfort, I'll say that, and that could be working with individuals who have spiritual gifts, whether that's through Reiki or psychics or just anything that connects with you. So again, I believe that when anyone makes a commitment to inner work, my two pieces of advice would be, first, find what works for you, and two open yourself to many things that you might not choose right away, because it is sometimes in that discovery of that choice that you start to become connected to something that's a lot bigger than not just who you are, but what you've been searching for, and you didn't know you were

Agi Keramidas 20:55

thank you for this beautiful answer. I will reiterate, because I think it is so important what you said for it to find out what works for them. You know, it's so many times we have seen things that are presented as the ultimate solution, or this will treat or heal or fix or whatever they choose to use. But it's and I'm glad to hear you saying that, because it's actually from my experience that things that work perfectly for someone else, they have not worked for me. There's nothing wrong with them. There's nothing wrong with me. It's just exactly what you said, to find what the method that works for them, and be open to what what happens after that as a result of it. So thank you. This is so important, so important. There is one more thing I wanted to ask in relation to inner work, and that is the connection, or the role, shall we say, that self love has in this journey of inner work.

Rohene Bouajram 22:22

Yeah, I think Self Love is the core of inner work. And so I really appreciate that you're raising it to the surface of our conversation and and I want to share why I believe that that's the case. I'll come back to a question that you had asked me earlier, in terms of intergenerational trauma, I come from a strong, matriarchal line of incredible, strong women of color, my great grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, and I can truly say I've been loved by them. Now the love has been, I would say, shared and expressed in different ways. So I wasn't always hugged as much as maybe others were hugged. I wasn't always told I love you in the same way that others are told that they are loved, but I knew that the way that they were offering their love was their way of loving me. And so in as part of my journey of in a work in discovery, I've had to really wrestle with because I've been so focused on being perfect. What I was being taught by these incredible women was that if you're perfect, you will be accepted, and if you're not perfect, you will not be accepted. And I think that that message shines through for not only a lot of women of color, but likely many other people. And if we think about the generations that have come before us who have lived through centuries of war, places the Great Depression, in some cases civil and liberation, you know, these were people who went through some really significant, traumatizing, horrific catastrophes. And when I look at now, the generation that I'm sort of right now at and I think of future generations, this is where inner work becomes crucial. Because I have made a choice to break that cycle. And when you are making that choice to break that cycle, it's a hard one.

Speaker 2 24:52

It's a hard it's a hard decision, yeah, and I think AGI, you know this, right?

Rohene Bouajram 24:58

Like, yeah, and so every, every day for me, is this tension between the default mode that generationally is within my body, both from a DNA perspective, because we do hold the DNA of our ancestors as well as the conditioning so the tension between that and the tension of this new ideology, new world view, new paradigm that I am still kind of like figuring my way into, and I have to constantly be loving to myself to remind myself that every day I'm not going to be perfect. I will get it right, and sometimes I'll get it wrong, but that I commit that every day is going to be an opportunity to break that cycle. And the more that many of us around the world, and I really believe that this is a global opportunity for each and every one of us to do the inner work, to heal, to confront the unconventional truths within us, and to choose a different way of being that that will have a ripple effect, not only on our leadership, on our workplaces, on our relationships, but it will also have a ripple effect on the next generation, and then that will have a ripple effect on the next generation and so forth. And that is what happens when you make the choice to be the first to do your inner work within your family, and so it's a scary choice, but it's one that will have just insurmountable rewards, not just for us, but for many to come.

Agi Keramidas 26:56

Thank you, and I wrote down a highlight as a phrase. You said that choice to break the cycle, and it is not necessarily an issue on but it's worth it, and it's probably the choice. The only choice that is worth it, once you commit to doing that, is not turning back. You realize that

Unknown Speaker 27:19

how this there is

Agi Keramidas 27:25

Rohene, I will switch gears now it's also I wanted to discuss with you, in particular, you know, with your mission and you are so passionate about redefining the faces of leadership, and your podcast is about that. So I want to ask just to give a little bit more context, perhaps to the listener, or perhaps even more for the listener to identify with what you're about to say, can you tell me some what are some of the key challenges that women of color face in leadership in particular?

Rohene Bouajram 28:09

Yeah, yeah. I I love that. I love that we can ask this question and that there's space for multiple responses, because I can, I can speak to my experience, and then some of the research that I've come across, and to also know that everybody has their own unique experiences. What I what I find are some of the challenges is, first of all, often, when you look at across sectors, across industries, and this, this is, I'm talking the context of sort of North America. However, I think that this would be the case also, if we looked at Europe now, in the global majority, obviously that would be a different conversation that we would be having. But when I think of women of color, I think of indigenous, black, racialized women. First of all, the first challenge is that they're very few in leadership. They're often one of few, which makes it a very isolating experience to be one of you. There's also the burden sometimes of being one of the few, is you carry the weight of what sometimes is referred to as the duality of race and gender. Race in that they there is a weight of needing to now be the voice of every marginalized group, every group that has been historically persistently and systemically oppressed. And then when I think of gender, I think of what has, you know, the changes that have occurred for women over time, but not to the same evolution as they've occurred for men. And so there's this weight. That that a lot of women of color have to carry when they are finally in those leadership roles, and they're not necessarily supported by others who can carry that same weight in the same way. And the third challenge that I would speak to is the labels that are continuously imposed on a number of women of color when they are in those leadership roles and those labels, can sometimes feel positive, right? The label like a superwoman. So they're given this idea that they can do so much with so little. They are creative. They are able to create the innovative things that people would normally not dream of, and they also are able to say the things that others won't say. Sounds great, but it's challenging, and at the heart of the Superwoman schema, and there's research that has been done on that is that it's almost like women of color, and I'll talk specifically about black women, are then almost seen like having these supernatural powers, like they they can do things twice as good they can. They can all of a sudden do the work of three or four people. And that's not true. So that's a label. But there's also other labels that are more on the negative slant, and these are labels that I've experienced, and these are labels like the aggressiveness, that as soon as they speak up and say something or they address something, particularly if it's of a level of injustice, they are deemed aggressive or not a team player. And so those labels are endless, and there are many other tropes that, sadly, are used. But I would say those are the three challenges that I often hear time and time again. And I'll end with what I think is the issue. And this is something that I'm so curious about. It's something I'm still exploring, even in my doctoral journey right now, as I am completing my Eddie in the next couple of years. Is I think the challenge is that the essence of the leadership that women of color bring it hasn't been defined yet. And so when you have the leadership models that have insistent for centuries, which are typically rooted in power, in hierarchy, in dominance, in control, because that was what was required. And I'm putting sort of, you know, commas around those required in order to exert mandates and visions and missions, particularly by men, and particularly white men, that this New Leadership of or way of leading, hasn't been defined or recognized as valuable because it's in the same space as a power dominated controlling leadership. And when we look at systems right now, and we look at every sector that is needing to look to re examine, how do we serve clients? How do we support patients? How do we graduate the next generation of scholars? This is requiring a different type of leadership, not one that's rooted in power, control or hierarchy, but one that's rooted in relationships and connection, and this is why I think women of color are best positioned to provide that leadership alongside other types of leadership, which is something I always need to remind people, whenever a new leadership is introduced or a new way of Thinking is introduced, people automatically think that this is going to take over something it's not. Things can coexist. Things can come together. And so that is why, when I think of the challenges and I think of the opportunities that lay ahead for each and every one of us, that when we start to redefine leadership and redefine the faces of leadership, it actually benefits us all by having that diversity of ways of leading.

Agi Keramidas 34:32

Rohene, what would you say to someone listening right now that recognizes herself as having or having had one or more of those three different kinds of challenges they have in their leadership role. What's one step to start addressing those things? What would you tell her?

Rohene Bouajram 34:54

Yeah, I would tell her relationships are where. Where sometimes the inner work can begin. So whenever I have needed to re examine something that's happened to me, or I face a microaggression, I go to my community and I lose. I use the word community in a loosely defined way, because everybody can, you know, decide that that could be either from a place of identity, racial identity, cultural identity, or it can be a place of interests and joy. And so I would first say, reach out to your community and the relationships that matter to you, so that you can start to ask for support, ask for help, and then that will lead you down the path my hope towards finding what works for You. Because these challenges, they're not actually about us. They're about a system that was created not recognizing that many of us would be part of the system eventually, in that leadership level. And so when these challenges are happening, and I, and this is where I often hold a lot of grace for those who are sort of on the other side of the sort of perpetrator mode is they're just acting in a way that is based out of fear. But it's not my job to educate them, and it's not my job also to help them. They also need to make that choice to help themselves. And so the more that I and the person who might be listening, the more that we commit to our inner work, and when those challenges arise, you will have a different way of responding that is not reactive, and that will keep your Peace of mind as a priority.

Agi Keramidas 37:02

Thank you so much for this answer. And I would say, half jokingly, that you know the inner work, the thing with inner work by definition, no one else can do it for you. It is it is in you are the only one that can do it, commit to do it and do it. So thank you so much for your answer. Rohim, where can our audience, the mastery seekers, learn more about you and continue the journey with you?

Rohene Bouajram 37:32

Absolutely. Thank you, Agi, and I would love anyone to connect with me. So I appreciate that you are offering this special way of connecting Agi. You can find me on my website, rohim bosrum.com you can also find me on LinkedIn. I'm usually active at posting on LinkedIn and again under rohing basram, and my Instagram handle is both at unspeakable leadership as well as rohim bosrum too. So please don't hesitate to connect in with me. DM me. I always love to connect with anyone who is wanting to not only ally and align, but to also support each other down our journey of self discovery.

Agi Keramidas 38:16

Thank you and Rohene. Before we close off today, I have two quick questions, which I always ask my guests on the podcast. And the first one is, what does personal development mean to you? Oh,

Rohene Bouajram 38:36

I love that question. And can I you know what I'm gonna do, something wildly spontaneous. I think I'm reading a book right now. It's called embers, by Richard wagamese. And Richard wagamese is an indigenous scholar, and this book I've been for the last probably two months, every day I just flipped to a page and I and I put a sticky note. I'm like, that's that's the message I'm supposed to receive for the week. And on this, on a specific day, is when I open it. And so this is the first day that I'm going to open this, because I feel like that's the message that I need to share as my answer. And yeah, okay, so this is the message. There are periods when you exist beyond the context of time and fact and reality, moments when memory carries you buoyant beyond all things, and life exists as fragments and shards of being when you see yourself as you were and will be again, sacred, whole and shining. And so I do believe that's the myth. Message that I would like to share, not only with you, but with those listening, is that's what personal development is. And when I think of that quote and offering, I think of how I started our conversation. If you recall Aggie, I said, you know, I'm I'm happy to be here with you in liminal space. And liminal space is about a place of transition. And so I kind of will connect that back in with the quote, which is personal development, is being comfortable with being in that in between stage where you know that whatever the outcome is, you know, and detaching yourself from the outcome. Whatever the outcome is, it will be what's best for you, but it's pretty hard. It's painful to be in that in between stage. But I do believe, the more of us that are in that in between stage, seeing each other, connecting with each other, the less lonely that that liminal space will feel

Agi Keramidas 41:05

beautiful. And a quick hypothetical question, if you could go back in time and meet your 18 year old self, what's one piece of advice you would give her?

Rohene Bouajram 41:18

I would tell her to just to just breathe, like, just breathe and enjoy the moment. Be present, yeah, be present. That's what I would. I would tell her she was, she was so future focused, you know, very goal driven. And, you know, not real surprise there. And, and I would, yeah, I would, I would tell her to just, just be present.

Agi Keramidas 41:47

I want to thank you so much for this conversation we had. I really enjoyed it. I truly hope that the message has been received by those who are attuned to receiving it and they have listened so far, I want to wish you the very best with your mission of redefining the face of leadership, and also with your podcast.

I will leave it to you with any last parting words.

Rohene Bouajram 42:22

I just want to say two last quick things. The first is a huge, huge thank you, AGI for having me on your podcast. I i appreciate the platform that you have created for many others who are on their journey of personal development and mastery and so thank you. Thank you for having me, and thank you for continuing to serve people who are committed to that inner work. And lastly, to those who are listening and those who have been perhaps also watching as well. I just want to say thank you for continuously showing up in the way that you do, because the more that many of us are doing the inner work, the more change we are creating. We might not see it right away, and we might not see the impact of it right away. But I often think of my great, great, great, great grandchild who I may never get to meet, but that's where I always have in my mind, is when I think of my inner work, and my hope is that one day they will say to her, because I've pictured her, that your great, great, great grandmother, she was a cycle breaker. And so it's my hope that you will be the one also to break cycles in your own journey. So thank you.

Agi Keramidas 43:49

And before I end today's episode, if you enjoy this podcast, can you think of one person that would find it useful and share it with them? I'd really appreciate it. It helps the show grow, and you also add value to people you care about. Thank you. And until next time, stand out, don't fit in.