Nkechi Nwafor-Robinson

Transcript

and catchy Wafaa Robinson get it out of your head our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure it is our light not our darkness that most finds us that is part of a quote from the book a return to love by Marianne Williamson a book that I was invited to read almost five years ago to this day at a time when my life was so dark and it was fierce and the effort to push through it to show my joy was so exhausting one of the main causes of my darkness was based on one

of the biggest lies I was led to believe growing up I was expected to have children and led to believe that getting pregnant was super easy growing up with African parents in a Catholic household I tried everything I could possibly do to prevent that from happening at the age of 30 soon after the idea was done the pressure began when family members started asking when are you giving us children after 17 years of marriage and over ten years of fertility treatments to fix me operations tens of thousands of dollars and two natural pregnancies the first I found out when I was miscarrying and the second

it gave us hope hope hope that was silenced without even the thought of a grieving period just an almost tossed aside never to be spoken between us again so I stand before you and I tell you that getting pregnant isn't easy and not only is it not easy but no one told me about the pain the shame the frustration the jealousy the envy that would incubate in my womb and with every 28-day period cycle passing the reminder that I was failing as a woman and this pain had me locked up and tied up and tangled up in my mind because I thought that this is

not an experience to give voice to in fact I thought there was a written rule that you don't talk about this so I was alone in the struggle and everyone around me trying to get pregnant or have children made it look so easy so I suffered in silence and the pain in the shame was mine to hold I mean I held the license to hate and blame the universe for why I couldn't get pregnant until that day five years ago reading a return to love when the universe literally said stop it stand still and take time to know who you are so I started to

think about what I was thinking about and I mean I had some crazy thoughts up in my mind but I made a decision that it was time to get the thoughts out of my head to conquer my mind to expose those thoughts as lies that they are I mean I had thoughts of I'm not good enough I'm not desirable as a woman I'm not loved I don't matter and it was that thought that made me fully surrender to the process because it mattered and in my full surrender I got some good orderly Direction also known as g.o.d and what God said was reintroduce yourself to

the world but this time listen to the translation a boom in keachi naira which translated means I am God's gift and if I am God's gift then I am enough and I am desirable and I'm and I matter so I affirm myself out of shame and into my power a return to love became my strategy and you matter became my mantra and on the journey of getting myself to this stage tonight I'm so proud to say that I am pregnant thank you I receive that blessing I am pregnant with hope and I'm pregnant with greatness and I'm pregnant with inspiration and yes why would still

love to be able to bear a child and no longer defines my human I'd conquered that and if there's anything that I want you to take from my story tonight it is that you matter doesn't matter what your human is whatever your experience or circumstances may be you matter so I want you to walk like you matter cuz your swag is fly and talk like you matter cuz your speech is to teach and think like you matter because your thought call your shots but most of all remember you matter

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.

Transcript

yes I am this evenings human energizer and for those of you that don't know me you're soon gonna come to understand that I have enough energy to feed each and every one of you and still have reserve to serve but it has nothing to do with sleep most nights I get like four hours sleep that's it up every morning at 4:00 I am excited to hit the gym and start my day regardless of what time I go to sleep so it has nothing to do with sleep but my energy boundless it is my trademark it identifies me it's power opens doors and places and spaces

invites me in and it's currency then affords me the opportunity to share my truth and then leave you to figure out what to do with it so let me help you understand where it comes from 1978 Montreal Quebec first black family affluent white neighborhood six years old holding my mom's hand first day new school I share my name with the class and the teacher comes and asked me is there an easier name we can call you and I respond no I am in catchy that's what my mommy calls me you see in my early years I leveraged my parents strengths and their identity to hold

firmly in my own I knew I mattered then the detour age 14 first kiss and this is not something guys I share publicly because you see my parents believe my first kiss was in 2002 after the priest told my husband that he may kiss the bride so but it was a party and the game was spin the bottle and Millennials in the room you need to google that later because that game was hot in the 80s and even hotter and Montreal because of French kissing okay so picture this we're in a circle girls are sitting only black girl boys are spinning and the bottles turning

and it lands in front of me finally get up and it's one of the cute boys - so he step into the closet close the door and it's pitch black and before I can say anything he says let's not and say we did and I don't know what he walked out to but I know I walked out pretending joy like I had just been kissed but feeling pain and shamed that I was too ugly to be kissed in a pitch-black closet and nowhere to go because in my home I would get in trouble just experimenting with kissing at that age so I held that shame

and the thing about shame is that once you hold it once it becomes easier to hold it again and again until it becomes your armor and then over the years with passing experiences pain resentment unforgiveness and rage become its playmates and all the while this world thinks I have all this energy but I can't identify with it because it's not I connect it to my spirit because I feel dark and lethargic on the inside I forgot I mattered then the transformation age 42 marriage storm career storm collide and one of my best friends who's here tonight tired of my victim foolishness tip the boat to

teach me how to swim by inviting me to read a return to love by Marianne Williamson she writes about love and hate how babies are born into love and we learn hate and if we learn hate then we can unlearn it also and then about a week and then about a week after hearing that message I heard the you matter message by Eric Thomas and he also quotes the book so the combo of the two energize me in an inexplicable way that I made this hell-bent for glory decision that it was time to become a human energizer simply by returning myself back to love and

a lean hard and start again from there and to do that that means I have to reach in and rip out shame and pain and resentment and unforgiveness and rage out of me and the best thing I knew to do and I still do it is expose it all to light because when you expose what lives in the dark to light and empathy and compassion and love are thrown at it will die and Marian is right we are meant to shine like children do and for me it's a six-year-old girl with pain now turn to purpose you see what I didn't tell them then that

I'm telling you now is that my mom brilliant Nigerian woman named me in Katy Neera which an ebow means God's gift and so I am a gift not a victim and I'm anchored to a very powerful energy source that has no bounds and constantly feeds mine and now with my gift my energy my light I'm on a mission to leave a you matter message everywhere I go and tonight is no exception so it's on god authority that i tell you and remind you that you matter that you are important that you are significant that who you are matters so we need to stop being incarcerated

by pain and shame especially when we hold the you matter key so reach around a lot to door step firmly into your identity and hear me when I say this walk like you matter in fact what does that you matter swag look like and talk like you matter and think like you matter okay and remember share this remember this you matter thank you

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.