Chidiogo Akunyili-Parr, I AM BECAUSE WE ARE: An African Mother’s Fight for the Soul of a Nation
[0:01]Hi, this is Vivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
[0:05]Moms don't have time to read books, and speaking of books, I have two of my own books
[0:10]coming out this spring and summer.
[0:12]Princess Charming is a picture book, which debuts on April 19th, and bookends.
[0:17]A memoir of love, loss, and literature comes out on July 1st, and it is truly a labor of love.
[0:24]I hope you'll pre-order, order, and join me on tour as I go across the country.
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[0:38]Enjoy the show!
[0:41]Chidiogo a kunioli par is the author of IM because we are an African mother's fight for
[0:48]the soul of a nation.
[0:49]She is an Nigerian-Canadian author, speaker, and consultant with a passion for human development
[0:54]and connection.
[0:55]She is the founder of She Roars, an organization committing to coaching women of color around
[0:59]the world to connect to their intuition and purpose.
[1:02]Her work is focused on harnessing the power of our interdependence with a foundation
[1:06]in the humanist African philosophy of Ubantu, which celebrates our shared humanity.
[1:11]Chidiogo has lived and worked across four continents and speaks seven languages, including
[1:15]Mandarin, German, Spanish, and French, allowing for an even deeper connection with people.
[1:19]She led the growth and impact of the global shapers community across Africa and the Middle
[1:23]East.
[1:24]Welcome, Chidiogo.
[1:25]Thank you so much for coming on mounds don't have time to read bugs, especially given
[1:30]our little chat of you being a mom of five-month-old, to discuss IM because we are an African
[1:36]mother's fight for the soul of a nation, which is truly amazing.
[1:40]Can you please tell listeners about your beautiful book and your family history?
[1:45]And oh my gosh, thank you for sharing all this and teaching us so much in your book.
[1:53]The book is at the core of the story of my mother, Dora Kunilig.
[1:57]I like the thing that is so much more than her story.
[2:00]It's a story of people, of country, it's a story of what shaped her, what shaped us.
[2:07]And you know, that title of IM because we are really speaks to the how it's a bigger
[2:12]story and her story also feeds into a bigger narrative, specifically how in life she
[2:18]impacted millions, you can see by the helm of the food and drug with late trade agency
[2:25]in the interior in Aftak, and then how does she do that?
[2:28]The country wasn't washed with fake drugs, fake food, stink, infant formula, fake powder
[2:35]and set up something nutritious for your child and it becomes potentially hazardous.
[2:40]So that's what she met when she joined Aftak as a director general and she said, no,
[2:46]this cannot go on.
[2:47]Life is precious and important and we want safeguard the health of the nation.
[2:52]So she fought a war.
[2:53]She titled it a war and she was successful as part of a team that she rallied around
[2:59]her because she really believed in that and that power of going together.
[3:03]And that being said, at the end of her tenure, 80% reduction in the circulation of fake
[3:09]drugs, Nigerian foods, et cetera.
[3:12]And that's in fact she had and her story goes on and on, but maybe at the core, what's
[3:17]interesting to highlight is that she touched people's hearts and there's something about
[3:23]humans that do that, you know, that really people feel like they mourned her when she
[3:29]passed, they hold her dear in their hearts and that's a story worth telling because there's
[3:34]something about her but perhaps even more so there's something to learn and something
[3:39]that can live on in her story and that's why I told it.
[3:44]Wow.
[3:45]And tell us more about how you decided to write it in her voice because that was a great
[3:50]story too.
[3:51]It came to me when the inspirations write the book came, which I feel like was my mom
[3:57]telling me inviting me into that from beyond the invitation was to write in her voice, but
[4:03]I dismissed that very quickly because my mother, if you hear her, we do not sound alive
[4:10]at all.
[4:11]And I thought, I want to spend the whole book imitated and trying to sound like my mother
[4:17]and thinking what she would and how she would say, it's why it's shy away from that
[4:21]and actually wrote the whole book in third person, but there was this distance between
[4:27]the reader and the writing and her.
[4:31]So I went back and finally was able to identify through a beautiful friend and write
[4:36]a friend that it was me, I was always in between telling you about my mother.
[4:43]Sometimes I wasn't even born and I'm telling you about her as a child, et cetera.
[4:48]And now is when I fully decided to step into that initial voice and trust in that a little
[4:55]bit more.
[4:56]And I went back and I visited the whole book and changed it into a voice and then it
[5:02]felt right, but I do come in at the end of the book, also in the beginning, but it's
[5:07]mostly in her voice and it's a memoir, but ultimately feels like it's an also biography.
[5:12]And that feels right because it's what a personality we've done is tell you her story.
[5:19]So beautiful.
[5:20]And it's such a gift to be able to step into her shoes and track the whole thing from
[5:25]her own family history, when obviously you are not even a speck on the horizon, right?
[5:29]And her grandparents, how her family came to be.
[5:33]And of course, that's how we understand who we end up being, right?
[5:36]As if we can track all of the stuff in our history and everything that's inherited, the
[5:41]good, the trauma, all of it.
[5:44]It's like a funnel, right?
[5:45]It all trickles down.
[5:46]And then that's how we come to be and now you're new, baby.
[5:48]It's like all of it.
[5:49]You can't get rid of it.
[5:50]It's like a rainstorm, like a gushing down.
[5:53]Absolutely.
[5:54]You can think of the title of Ubuntu.
[5:57]I am because you are, you are because we are.
[5:59]It's exactly that no one is here or disconnected from the whole.
[6:04]We're all connected to this, those have come before and has happened before what shapes
[6:08]us.
[6:09]And here we are.
[6:10]The scene where her younger sister, who's like a child to her dies of, I'm so sorry to say
[6:18]it even that way.
[6:19]Jumping from what should have been, I completely benign injection, talk about that and
[6:25]how that's really changed the trajectory of everything.
[6:28]If you want to, I don't mean to upset you.
[6:31]Not at all, not at all.
[6:32]I get that when I feel something.
[6:35]So, Margo was like a daughter to my mother and she died in her early 20s of fake insulin.
[6:44]She was diabetic.
[6:46]So, my mother's fight against fake drugs was very personal because she saw experience
[6:53]for herself in her own pain.
[6:55]That senseless loss of lives and millions of others were experiencing around the country
[7:00]for over a different many decades.
[7:03]And so each life that she safeguarded through via her work felt like a personal part of her
[7:10]healing journey of having lost the sister, daughter to her and she felt like a daughter
[7:16]because she was so much younger than my mother and my mother being taken care of her from
[7:20]a very young age.
[7:22]And my mother had this within her family also had that not a complex, but she had stepped
[7:28]into the role of a caregiver after the loss of some of her parents and eventually all of
[7:33]her parents.
[7:34]So, she took it very seriously, her care for Margo and ultimately also felt very deeply
[7:40]that loss.
[7:41]Wow.
[7:42]And her commitment to education and learning and being able to achieve all of this and
[7:47]having children who achieved so much and all of that tell me about that her sort of work
[7:53]ethic and how that all got developed and how you came to be.
[7:58]So, I am Nigerian and I'm also people within Nigeria, some Southeast of Nigeria.
[8:07]We are known to push ourselves and our kids to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, psychatypical
[8:15]joke.
[8:16]Within my family, my siblings are three doctors, the first three in the last three
[8:21]or not, so that kind of gives you a sense of sort of like, we're free, we don't have
[8:25]two doctors.
[8:28]So, my mother was raised by a self-made businessman and part of her story is really interesting
[8:36]because her father was born in swell, but the lost it because he lost his father before
[8:42]him.
[8:43]Then he made his wealth in another part of the country as the Nigeria was just sort of
[8:48]coming into herself, booming hotel, timber industry, and then during the biophore, he
[8:55]lost it all.
[8:57]And when he died, he had nothing, so there's something about that value and I'm highlighting
[9:03]it because he really shaped my mother and her belief that there's so much more to life
[9:08]than money because she learned from someone in there and seen how the relationships you
[9:15]form, the family ties, etc., how that's like how more important.
[9:21]So, within that, my mother also knew that hard work was very powerful part of charting
[9:27]the way forward as our father had done, so she pushed herself also she was down to the
[9:32]war.
[9:33]They had nothing, and I shared earlier she had this belief of having a desire to take care
[9:38]of her siblings after the death of her parents, so she really pushed herself and my extension
[9:46]when she did have us pushed us and my family, you know, within our family, maybe an interesting
[9:53]story, she shared my one sister that broke the chain of doctors to set it to be an
[9:59]artist.
[10:00]to my name is Angie Decca and there was a huge uproar in our family because how an artist,
[10:05]what is that? How are you to feed yourself? What are we going to tell people you are,
[10:11]if not a doctor or engineer or lawyer, etc. And she stopped to work on and that gave the rest of us
[10:18]permission sort of chart on path and also healed. My parents believe that that was the only way to
[10:24]have to be successful in life and my father end up all the leaders saying how happy he was
[10:31]that he was able to allow her to say or not prevent her as a better word from becoming an artist
[10:38]because she went and to become very successful in her own rights. So that's my family driven,
[10:44]a learning from those that came before us we all have and ultimately breaking and healing some
[10:51]of these expectations of the past as my thoughts are will as well and so it goes. It's amazing.
[10:59]You had a really beautiful line when you were talking about when your grandfather or
[11:04]but you of course wrote it as your mom but just got so completely broken and I can't of course
[11:10]find that quote now but just when the war happened and he had recovered and then went down again
[11:16]there was someone like I never knew I could see my father be just so completely broken and I don't
[11:24]know it just it was very powerful saint. It was a strong man. He was known in his village. He helped
[11:33]so many indigens over the years of non cowboys from to go on and to start to go to school to
[11:41]prosper in your business to set up businesses etc as it was a strong in the community and you
[11:48]know within that with a strong personality and it's quite a thing to see a strong personality
[11:55]broken because it takes a lot and that line is sort of capturing that and in many ways my mother
[12:03]not in many ways my mother was certainly took a lot from her father in terms of inheritance or
[12:08]that strength and I also got to see her broken and that was really hard. And even how you paint
[12:15]the picture of of the end of their lives and it's so it's just so moving how you depict everything
[12:22]and we're like in it for the ride with you and oh my gosh anyway you're you're writing is so
[12:29]powerful and strong and then of course we're like rooting for you so much it's it's really
[12:36]amazing because it's not only educating readers about community history Nigeria all the events that
[12:45]led to now many of which I mean I'm not you know it's enough to keep up on US history so yeah
[12:51]and this is a history that's not often taught in in US schools right so it's a interesting
[12:58]way to see it through the eyes of one woman which is of course how we learn the most we empathize
[13:05]we see and then and then we we we mourn along with you and anyway I it's just the way you
[13:13]track the whole life cycle from beginning to end is just amazing. Oh thank you so much it means a lot
[13:22]it's my debut so insecurities and question marks and you know there's a desire to do in this
[13:30]the question on whether or not that desire was fulfilled and I'm really happy by the reception
[13:36]and to know that you know that story is reaching people in different ways but ultimately reaching
[13:42]them you know there's something about feeling a story of feeling a person and that's all I wanted
[13:48]that you could feel this woman because she was quite quite the woman. It's amazing really really
[13:57]inspiring. What was it like for you as you wrote it over and over to go back in her life and
[14:04]did you have to do research like to find some of the stuff and the I mean you just you started
[14:09]off not even knowing that there had been miscarriages before you right so I felt like you were
[14:13]starting from not a blank slate but a lot to a lot to fill in. Indeed it's you know there's a part
[14:20]in the book I'd say that we got it backwards my mother and I in terms of our relationship and
[14:26]that's all right and here I was referring to you know I left home so early I was nine years old
[14:33]and I went to school in Lagos in Nigeria which is not that unusual and it's not a fancy British
[14:40]don't take anything fancy think we get up to a like really hard hard labor students from
[14:48]everything so I was really young and I was thrown out there and I was part of how we you know the
[14:53]intention to give us the best thing get the best for us and that's something that my mother had
[14:58]experienced so this is to say I felt like I lost many of those formative years lost is a big word
[15:04]but yes with my mother because I was nine hours by a road away from the south is where we were
[15:10]living at the time so I would see every other three and every three months here and there
[15:15]and after the audience got to secondary school I went off to university in the state and after
[15:20]went off to my life and never really came home so as you can imagine you know never living at home
[15:27]for nine is a huge distance with your mother and so I felt like it was at death that I really had
[15:34]time to go deep into who she is who she was and to do that I went into my own you know story
[15:46]interview tens of people tons of people coworkers siblings teachers from her secondary school
[15:53]years friends extended family and the list goes on of course my own family and in many ways
[16:00]it was just also it's something really beautiful about seeing how a person is held by you know
[16:06]our memories it really holds a piece of a person a recollection a story and again it goes back to
[16:13]where you're saying earlier about learning through this this my through her life stories are so
[16:18]powerful and I'm so happy I can share this story because you're playing these stories haven't been
[16:24]told necessarily and I'm seeing how powerful they are as we connect and understand each other
[16:31]to know where we're coming from what shaped us but and you know that shared humanity that
[16:36]was born to this is ultimately I'm so blessed by the journey of reconnecting with my mother that
[16:44]was every day holding her story asking her questions even though she was not on this lane like is
[16:52]this is okay who should I talk to what's going on trusting that that connection always is
[16:59]and always being guided in ways that after three or years of being with this book I have no
[17:05]as she was with me every step of the way you're seeing so when she talks to you I'm curious about
[17:12]your beliefs about you know spirits or life after death or signs or all that and I think you
[17:20]believe in all that in your husband right your husband was saying like okay your mom's here
[17:25]like let's listen to her right how do you how do you feel about all of that I feel that it's my
[17:31]truth that we are guided I was raised cap Christian Catholic and this does not remove from that
[17:39]upbringing because in many ways that is rooted and being guided and spirit and and prayers is
[17:46]tapping into that and I believe I think I've seen myself widen that to you know I have such a
[17:55]deep relationship with my inner voice and guidance that is many many years in the making of
[18:01]always asking and listening and seeing how in silence and guidance come in a time that my husband
[18:08]it's how I've moved to Toronto it's like so many stories I go into to share and how when I
[18:15]quiet to listen invariably this invitation comes through this intuition and I've become very
[18:23]good at listening for it and knowing when it comes through it's almost like a language in itself
[18:29]and watching how again and again whenever I trust that sort of inner voice it leads me to something
[18:35]that I could never have achieved or seen or reached on my own and the book is mostly a huge
[18:41]example because that invitation came and I heard it very clearly because I was practicing that
[18:46]year listening that was my big desire that year to be listened and that was the the invitation
[18:52]I had heard was I had to listen more than yet I was I was in my listening and just have always
[18:59]been since then so my relationship is that of a factual experience of guidance that is beyond
[19:12]beyond my own understanding and I don't feel the need to to understand it I know and my
[19:20]practice is to connect with it which I do a lot in writing and journaling day practice which I
[19:26]got from the artist way truly camera and just been morning pages has been with me for over 10 years
[19:33]now she's coming on this podcast soon she has a new book coming out are you serious yes I know I
[19:38]was so excited I got the email and I was like yes I will interview her I cannot wait yeah she has
[19:44]a new book where is it I just picked it well it can't find anything right now but yes it's called I
[19:48]think seeking wisdom wow she is a sick journey to I like she's impacted millions right and answer
[19:57]that's a beautiful thing so it's done
[20:00]he gave me that gift and I've been with that inner practice
[20:03]and inner voice and the healing that comes with it
[20:06]and the knowing and the guidance and the wisdom
[20:08]and so it goes and that ultimately is not the work
[20:11]that I do is support women to connect to that voice
[20:15]and that intuition.
[20:16]So yes, my belief system is that it's there
[20:19]and I believe in my ancestors is being with me.
[20:23]So if they do want to share something with me, of course,
[20:26]like it's really comfortable with you.
[20:29]And it's been a new practice actually with my ancestors
[20:33]because I sort of just thought it's my inner voice,
[20:35]but with my mom and then when I stay
[20:37]writing about her grandmother,
[20:39]then I was sort of like feeling sort of senses
[20:41]of who she was that I had known
[20:44]and I would then call an anti and verify something
[20:47]that had felt or received as a knowing.
[20:51]And so how was an interesting practice?
[20:53]So as I said, the book has really helped me deep in my experiences
[20:58]of listening and tell me more about your life now
[21:03]and your work now aside from the book.
[21:06]My life now, my work now, I have a five month old,
[21:10]I am craving some sun.
[21:13]I mean, to run to and my post-pods and bodies
[21:19]when it's sort of being the sun and the water,
[21:23]on all these things feel the work that I do,
[21:25]which ultimately is, I hold a lot of spaces
[21:29]for people as I shared it earlier too,
[21:31]to feel what's true for them.
[21:33]And I have this clarity of this increasingly clear call
[21:39]to support the connection that can be
[21:43]so that people can connect into your life,
[21:48]you can shine, that's not how it normally speak,
[21:52]but that's what's coming through now.
[21:54]So sort of this to help you feel yourself
[21:58]to feel your truth beyond fear, beyond anxieties,
[22:01]beyond the blocks.
[22:03]And as I have done for myself, everything that I say
[22:07]and share, I do come from my own experience.
[22:10]And I love doing that.
[22:12]It's been something I've been doing for the last five years
[22:16]or so almost since the beginning of the book.
[22:19]And my past lives have been corporate
[22:22]and just I was climbing a corporate ladder
[22:25]and I was doing it beautifully
[22:28]until I had this magical experience.
[22:30]I was on a plant medicine journey
[22:33]and through with nine other women.
[22:36]And there was a moment where I had this revelation
[22:40]of your mental break away from corporate
[22:43]and I literally said no, and that's not happening.
[22:47]I am so invested on becoming whatever that path
[22:54]would have led, you know, diplomat
[22:57]or something that would have been important
[23:00]and very, you know, heady.
[23:03]And I faltered a beautiful guy that said,
[23:06]she was with me and him as a shell
[23:07]that was holding the retreat space.
[23:09]You know, who you are is beyond your fears.
[23:12]Why do you feel like your fear is preventing you
[23:15]from your truth step beyond that?
[23:17]And that was my first invitation to truly know that,
[23:21]you know, if this is a screen, this is to say,
[23:24]it's been a journey.
[23:26]I want a journey.
[23:27]I love supporting people on their journey.
[23:29]This book is part of that.
[23:31]And it is my trust and deep hope that we have an important
[23:38]road ahead and everybody stepping into there.
[23:41]Yes, it's critical for what's to come.
[23:44]Wow. Well, that's beautiful.
[23:46]So if somebody was thinking about trying to do what you did
[23:50]with your book, writing in the voice of someone
[23:54]that they loved, easy, hard.
[23:57]Yes, no, you recommend you don't recommend,
[23:59]but do you think I believe the course
[24:03]to listen to what the book wants to be, you know,
[24:07]and from my head, it was no, this is too hard,
[24:12]but the book when it's be that and that's all of that.
[24:15]So my recommendation would be to, you know,
[24:18]pay attention to what wants to come through and honor that.
[24:22]And trust is that is to be in the first person.
[24:26]And I, you know, you'll probably be,
[24:29]not probably then absolutely listen and trust.
[24:34]And if it's meant to be, then you find a way.
[24:37]But I'll say that the idea was more daunting
[24:39]than the actual reality of doing it.
[24:43]Do you have any other advice for aspiring authors?
[24:45]It's funny that you're interviewing Julie Cameron
[24:48]because she's the person.
[24:49]You use me.
[24:50]The huge tool that has inspired my writing
[24:55]all these years later of getting to know your voice.
[25:00]And I, you know, I was always a little bit intimidated
[25:04]because I'm not as big a reader as I would like to be.
[25:07]I don't think I could actually write
[25:08]because I need to meet so much more.
[25:10]And I've actually found that you need to write so much more.
[25:14]And not just perhaps, you know,
[25:15]all the writing I did all these years
[25:17]before I started writing in a journal
[25:19]would always start on the computer or on a paper maybe,
[25:23]but always with the lens that someone was going to read it.
[25:27]So it would start right always censoring myself
[25:30]because I have that idea that's, okay,
[25:32]does this sound good?
[25:33]What am I saying, right?
[25:35]So I never got to hear my truth, the truth of my voice.
[25:40]And it's purity without the fear or the, you know,
[25:43]just the, the knowing it will be observed.
[25:47]And that's been a gift to connect and in connecting
[25:50]to trust that well and entrusting it,
[25:53]to know that there's something to be shared
[25:56]and then sharing it that that came in form of a book
[25:59]and whatever else is to come.
[26:00]So my advice is find your voice.
[26:03]And she's found in the silence of internal dialogue.
[26:09]She's like, oh, she, where are they?
[26:11]That's beautiful, my gosh.
[26:13]Amazing.
[26:14]Well, thank you.
[26:15]This is like so special.
[26:18]I feel like you are just this, you know,
[26:21]special, soulful, beautiful woman.
[26:23]You're like, I feel like you need to be really famous
[26:27]at some wedding and I hope that, I mean,
[26:29]not that you're not well respected
[26:31]and notable already you are of course,
[26:33]but I don't know.
[26:33]You have such a presence.
[26:35]Yeah, I don't know.
[26:36]It's very special just to talk to you.
[26:37]That's how I feel.
[26:38]So special energy, I'm like, I mean,
[26:41]I got it from my mama.
[26:43]I'm so awesome.
[26:47]Oh, gosh.
[26:49]All right.
[26:50]Well, thank you.
[26:51]I wish you all the best of black with I am because we are.
[26:53]And yeah, I'm just so grateful to have had a few minutes
[26:57]with you today.
[26:58]So thank you.
[26:59]Same here, Sufi.
[27:00]And I'm so excited to know of the interviews to come
[27:04]and really love the work that you do.
[27:06]And really honor that you had me this day.
[27:10]Thank you.
[27:10]Thank you.
[27:11]All right.
[27:12]Good luck with your daughter.
[27:13]Thank you.
[27:14]Have a good time.
[27:16]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[27:18]Don't have time to read books.
[27:19]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[27:22]at Zebioans and at Moms.
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[27:31]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[27:34]for the Sound Editing.
[27:35]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[27:37]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.