Self-worth and women – the unique challenges we face and how to overcome (part 2)

It is rare you have an opportunity for such a vulnerable and deeply meaningful conversation about an important issue like self-worth. Self-worth is a fundamental belief that you have value in the world, and yet throughout the trials and tribulations of life, many lose it and never get it back. When you lack self-worth across a lifetime, life is a struggle, because you never believe you have value. Well we are determined to make sure our listeners know they can break free, because it’s time to rise and shine ladies. 

In part two of this podcast series, we are focused on women and our challenges with self-worth. Featuring three incredible ladies - Avni Martin, Yasmine Khater and Kat van Zutphen - Cathy Johnson and I (Andrea Edwards) knew they would be amazing, but they were more than amazing, they were incredible. A truly powerful conversation we hope women all over the world will listen to and take heart from.

In this series of self-worth podcasts, we are planning many different focus areas, however we wanted to do an early focus on women, because we believe women are the answer to solving the world’s biggest challenges. So ensuring our sisterhood is strong is vital as we move forward into a very challenging time for the world. 

Please listen and if you loved this conversation, don’t keep it to yourself. Pass it on so we can influence more women to step into their voice and their power. We need women everywhere reaching their fullest potential, and rejecting any narrative that disempowers them from achieving it. We are strong, worthy, powerful and very much needed in this world.  

#UncommonCourage #SelfWorth 

 Avni Martin ICF MCC

Website https://martinccs.com/ 

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/avni-martin-rewriting-past-present-and-future/ 

Yasmine Khater

Website https://yasminekhater.com/ 

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/thesalesstoryteller/ 

Kat van Zutphen

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/katvanzutphen/ 

Cathy Johnson

Website https://cathy-johnson.com/ 

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachcathyjohnson/ 

To get in touch with me, Andrea Edwards

Websites https://andreatedwards.com/ and https://uncommon-courage.com/ 

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreatedwards/ 

My book Uncommon Courage, An Invitation mybook.to/UncommonCourage

And the workbook mybook.to/UncommonCourageAction

And my Facebook Group Uncommon Courage https://www.facebook.com/groups/442905877003333 

To get in touch with me, all of my contact details are here https://linktr.ee/andreatedwards

My book Uncommon Courage, an invitation, is here https://mybook.to/UncommonCourage

My book 18 Steps to an All-Star LinkedIn Profile, is here https://mybook.to/18stepstoanallstar

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Hello, my lovelies. It's Andrea Edwards. Welcome to Uncommon courage. And today we are going to talk about self worth and how women can regain their self worth if they've lost it for whatever reason in their lives. And of course, I'm doing it with my buddy, my partner in crime. Kathy Johnson. Welcome, Dolly. Thank you, darling. Hi, I'm Kathy Johnson. I'm happy to be a part of this podcast with you, Andrea. And we have three wonderful women with us today, all friends of ours and people who who are bringing something their perspective about self worth. We've already done one podcast on this topic before. And this is our very second one. So I'm looking forward to it. I will just move to Anthony, and ask you to just introduce yourself briefly. Hi, Andrea. Hi, Kathy. Nice to be here. Thanks for inviting me of me, Martin. I was born in Gujarat, I lived in India for 14 years. And then I migrated to UK with my family where I did my school, college university, married, you know, the love of my life and angel that I met at the university. We have three kids, and we've been in Singapore since about 10 years. I'm now a coach and inner child integration therapist, and I run an ICF accredited coach training school where I help people become certified professional coaches, internationally. So that's a little bit about myself. I didn't know about the inner child Integration Specialist. Cool. We're gonna hear some more about that. I hope. All right, man. All right, well, I'm so happy to be here with everyone. So I'm actually a child psychologist by background. I've been in politics Integration Specialist, and I wanted to help kids. But then I realized that I was focusing, I wanted to study and work with kids who have been sexually violated and abused. And same time, my dad unfortunately passed away of cancer. And I had to realize that the choice of work that I do, isn't, in fact, how I feel. And that was something that was for me quite dark. So I ended up shifting very far from that world, though, working with children issues, I do that more in the environment with senior leaders, as well as sales team do that a lot of times when we're having any kind of blocks. It comes from the first seven years of when we were born, and the traumas that we feel normally experienced. So it is a perfect timing for this conversation as well, because it's really something that I really care about, as a therapist, my background, and we'll have a chat with you. And also just to share, my aha is along the journey as well. No, cut, everybody. I'm Kat van Zutphen. I am an American living in Asia. I've been in Singapore for almost 18 years. I was born and raised in the States. And I'm an engineer by training and I've been building stuff all my life from huge mobile networks to now you know, building concepts in innovation Sprint's and the company that I work for us. Kathy, do you want to give a bit of a background on you? Sure. I'm also originally from the US. I've lived in Singapore for 23 years. My background is in the business world. But about 14 years ago, I left the company that I was working for my last corporate job to do what I do. Now, I'm a certified professional coach, I also teach a coach certification course people want to become certified as coaches. I'm also a facilitator of leadership programs and programs that help people to connect with who they are inside really to develop their own ability to step into the world in a bigger way. Put it that way. And I'm also a speaker. But I also, you know, as what was said in our first podcast, I also grew up as a young girl in the US with a family that is Southern Baptist, living in the southern part of us, which is a particular flavor that cat will know about. Others may as well. So I've survived that in a much bigger place. But fundamentally, I help people develop themselves so that they can be bigger in the world and have less suffering. That's sort of my focus. And Andrea. Yeah, because some of your friends, listen, they don't know me. So my name is Andrew Edwards, the digital conversationalist. My background is all marketing, communications, content marketing. But in the last sort of decade or so I've been very much focused on helping business leaders and the employees of large global organizations become social leaders. And that's having a voice on an issue that they care about on social media, because I really believe that we all need to step into our voice. I think a lot of people are stepping away because they don't like what's going on there. But what that means is that we're disengaging from the global conversation and we're letting the people who divide us win and I am going to fight until the last breath in my body to make sure that those people who are pushing us towards a dystopia do not win. So that's my mission in the world at the moment it's going to be yes, when you didn't mention where you grew up and where you came from, because you've got an interesting background. Yeah, so my parents My mom is Singaporean, my dad's Egyptian, they met in Saudi Arabia, as all love stories again, and a middle of barbecue party back in the 70s. And after my dad quit my mother for a few years I was born, made in Korea for random. But it was interesting because I growing up in that backgrounds where there's a lot of conflict, because the communication, there's no, like, it makes sense. Now, looking back why I got interested in this world. Because what we see around what we struggle with in our home environments is how we show up and how we become as well. I've lived now in eight countries been to a quarter of the world, so seen a very different flavor of different things. Where was your father controlling? No, my father actually was wonderful, wonderful, supportive, very typical Arab man in the sense that like, didn't, never got trained to express his emotions, but really give her and like really serving. So for him, he worked to provide for us and give us an incredible life that we could. But actually, a lot of times when it comes to worth, people mistake it as the father's role, but over the work that I've done over the years, it's actually the mother's role in this whole conversation that, in fact, are worth the mother's role where, you know, as mothers who doubt themselves, then the kids pick up on that doubt, too. And that's actually one of the biggest trigger points when it comes to work. Because we are in that environment where you're struggling. And my mother was hard, like, you know, she was working, and then she was forced to quit because she was pregnant. Because back then you could fire someone because they were pregnant. And all sudden, she had a different role, and different environments. And I father became the breadwinner, because that was just how it was. And in the end, my father lost his job. So can you imagine for her going from a country, like having bringing income no longer being allowed to bring income because of the work environment, not her choice and my father's choice, and then eventually going to a different country, which is Egypt at the time, where she was clearly not welcomed into that environment. My grandmother was not a very nice person in that prospective, because she didn't want to why am I that marry a foreign woman? Even though we were born, we are three of us. My grandmother had to make something that so you can imagine my mother, she had to go through a lot of things. So I look back and reflect on how, why she was the way she was, I understand it. But then my worst stories come from that component where she was obviously pretty struggling yourself. Yeah, got even more pressure on women. Alright, so the first time we did the self worth podcast, Katina was sort of talking about some of the moments in our life where our self worth was really sort of challenged, and how we dealt with it. And you know, it can be small things, it can be big things. But we did a bit of a survey, and we had over 90 responses. And the two periods of time when self worth is challenged is below 14, and then the next big group with 30, to basically 60 or 50. If my memory serves me correctly, I'd say I see both of them as two very different things in different stages of life. But there's a lot of damage is done when people have children. Right. So just just for you guys, would you be willing to share a story where, you know, your self worth was really challenged? And if you were able to overcome it as well? Would you guys, are you happy to share? Yeah. Did you want to go first? Yeah, sure, absolutely. So actually, when we talk about when it was challenged, I had two specific stages. Interestingly, Andrea, so my self worth was first challenged. Or in fact, it was demolished from the moment I was born, or even before because my parents tried to abort me twice. unsuccessfully, clearly, because I am here. So I was born into a very unwanted world. And I don't blame them. I don't judge them for that, because they did have their reasons for that. And probably at that time, it was wisest thing that they could have tried to abort me. And I'm still here, they tried it. Third time doctor said we can't do it the time, too late. So I came into a world where there was immense amount of neglect by everyone, first and foremost by my mom, because she was herself highly abused every single day that she could barely take care of herself, let alone me. And then as a little girl growing up, all I saw was hurt anger violence rejection, as my dad was a full on alcoholic and that too, in a state in good Rath, in a city in Gujarat, where it was illegal to drink alcohol, right? So it was a taboo. Right? So it was a very conservative society where my dad was openly an alcoholic, violent person. So naturally, other parents would keep their children away from me saying that, you know, you can't include apni in birthday parties or any invites or any kind of functions or events, festivals, whatever's happening dance competitions, because if you're seeing with her, then no I'm going to marry you, basically. So girls would basically keep themselves away from me. And so essentially, I feel that I can't say that my self worth was impacted because it never existed. I was literally as a baby and a little girl growing up, I fully accepted from the first moment that I'm unwanted, unworthy, unloved, right. And I don't deserve any care or attention. So it's like, it's like a frog in a hot water, the frog doesn't know that the water is hot. So I fully accepted it. And that became a reality. And if anybody walked all over me or treated me, like, you know, treated me like dirt or didn't, it was just not nice. I will be like, yeah, business as usual. That's fine. Right, there was no difference of no distinguishing. And then, of course, I went to UK and I got a whole new life. And to be quite honest, I blocked all of my past memories. And it was like being born again, completely fresh society, fresh people. None of my past stories. My dad, you know, wasn't in UK with me. For the first few years, we were alone, there was a new identity, really. And I literally forgot all about my past and started a new life. And I became a new person, right? And how old were you then? I was 14 at that time. Yeah. So now I find it really shocking and surprising as to how I became a new person and out. And I think the only way I could have done that, and the only way I did do that is because I blocked everything out, literally blocked it out. Like it doesn't exist, I develop new friends, new life, you know, and new set of confidence and all of that. And then I came to Singapore, in my sort of mid to late 30s, about mid 30s. And I think universal energy or life really wanted me to and I'm grateful for it now wanted me to face my childhood pains, so that I can I guess, develop more peace and power through it. And it can somehow brought a certain social circle to me a few people only who behaved in such a way to me through lying, gossiping, hurting me that it completely burst my bubble of what I thought was confidence and a normal life. Right, they did certain things in such a way that I literally went flat. That's when, as an adult for the first time, I realized that I had zero self confidence, self love, self worth self expression for myself. So at that time, I realized that holy crap, I was actually in a lot of hot water. And I didn't even know that it's when the bubble bursts. It's like there was a whole contrast. And that's when I started looking into, you know, coaching therapy, did a lot of therapeutic work. And that's when I came across inner child therapy, loved it, fell in love with it became an inner child therapist, and did a lot of self healing, to move past it, right and start to build my self love, self expression and self worth inside. These were the three mandates given to my therapist, and I said to them point blank, I'm categorically missing these three things. And my mandate for myself, and my mission is to develop them fully. And I started my journey there. But yeah, just realizing that I was utterly missing, it was a true blessing for me. And those people who hurt me the most, I thank them deep inside. I'm grateful to them. In every Thanksgiving Day. I actually thank them deep in my heart that thanks for being such horrible people. Because honestly, if they were not, I could have easily had two or three more decades in my whole life. In my happy little bubble, not knowing that I have to build so much of myself that so much was so many building blocks are missing. Looking at the person you are today. You're incredible. I admire you even more, but with your husband, that would have been an unbelievably challenging thing to go through with him because he, the girl that he met was hiding all these truths from herself. Right. So was he I'm sure he was wonderful. Yeah, Jeff is he my mom calls him a flourish Stein. I think some people who know this word might recognize it. Barista means an angel. And he is he is an angel. He is so patient. He is like, I mean, He's amazing. He's loving, kind, completely forgiving, just relaxed, and he just gives me that space to be make mistakes, and just discover myself and yeah, totally, totally crazy about him. And he's, he's really amazing. And I could have not, could have not done it without him. And I do feel that people need for a reason and I could have not done it without them. I really don't think so. You know, so I think we make good jobs. Two sides of the aisle, we make a good point together, I think I'm really grateful for him. Feel free to ask questions everyone, are we all just sitting here in shock, I just want to say how powerful it is to just have these conversations and speaking from the heart about the truth of our lives, we spend so much time talking superficially, right about what's happening in places that really are not deep and met and meaningful like this. So as thank you for sharing my pleasure. And, and you know, before sharing this, I actually had a conversation with a good friend of mine, and I said, I'm about to share this on a podcast. And this is not something I've really shared about myself. So publicly in the sense and is it okay for me to do so. And all this, you know, I was, I was concerned if it's okay or not. And it was really helpful to talk to her because it brought my energy to a very key point, which is the purpose of sharing, right, which is the purpose of sharing is not to get the violin out at all, the purpose of sharing is that no matter where we are, and no matter where we begin our journey of self worth, we can build and uplift ourselves. So this is why I said, I'm going to be sharing some really dark things about my past. And, you know, so I thought, yeah, the bottom line is that the purpose of sharing is to really help us uplift ourselves and actually see that there is a gradient and anyone who go through that gradient, I think another really important part of sharing is too many people presume too much about the people that they meet, and they don't know their stories. And we don't give people the space to have a story we we go into judgment first with versus saying what's wrong, what's happened, who hurt you, you know, and because all of us have been hurt, but the other thing I really loved about what you said was the forgiveness. So I remember my dad apologized for my parents getting divorced about five or six years afterwards, it was a pretty horrible divorce and very ugly time. And I was very angry for a long time. And then when he finally said, Sorry, I just said, you don't have to say sorry, I am who I am, because of all of the pieces that happened. And I like who I am. So you don't ever have to say sorry. And that was because so many people struggle with the forgiveness paid, right. And if you can look at it from different eyes, I think that also release, it sets you free, right? When you can forgive people because they gave you a gift. It wasn't necessarily a gift that made you smile when you opened it, but it was it was still a gift. Yeah. And the journey to forgiveness of my dad is another one altogether. Like he also said that, you know, please forgive me, and I really, really hurt you. And I said, Papa, you know, first of all, you hurt me because of your pains, as well. And I know his story of how he lived his life. And what made him the man he became. So for me, it was like, I'm going through an inner transformation journey. I'm going through a lot of self work, and I invite you to go on that same journey with me. And, you know, to some extent, and to quite an extent he did. He was here for three months when he came for three weeks. And he ended up staying for three months. And I would say that every day was like a long therapeutic session when there was not a single day he didn't cry, and grief grieved over his lost childhood. And the man he came when he came to Singapore and the man that left were two different people. So yeah, my my family often joke what happens to people that come to Singapore, they get kidnapped by, you know, aliens or something. Because that happened to my dad and another person. You know, I would just add in when we share stories like what you just shared that night, that our stories about what challenges we've gone through that are deeper kinds of stories. I think another thing benefit of that is that people get to hear something different from what we tend to assume when we're talking to people. And we don't go deep as you were saying cat. And we don't really understand where people have come from. Very often we assume this relates to self worth that other people have better lives than I do, because I had all this stuff. And just it's so important to share, which is part of why we're doing this podcast. It's really learning other people's challenges as well. Alright, Yasmin, are you ready to go? Yeah, so I'm not sure start at the middle of the beginning or the end. Because like I've had to learn and because very much like Anthony, I wasn't aware that I had an issue with self worth until I was at a sound healing retreat in Bali. And I didn't want to go but the woman who was running the retreat was like, oh, you should go is like a nice worst case. So like you have a nap will be very relaxing for you. But it wasn't relaxing at all because I experienced two very strong sensations. I felt in my stomach, this massive pain and then I was going through like reaching out and like got so high the whole time I felt like super high and so much pain at the same time. That the end of the session by chance To the universe, I had a friend visiting with his wife on their honeymoon, who also came for the class. And I was like Matias, this is so strange. I don't understand what was going on. And he looks at me is like, do you know about chakras? And I looked at him, I was like, Oh my gosh, eyes roll like you. The German man knows about chakras, like, what is this like? And he was like, what you're talking about is the solar plexus, which is, and your heart, you know, like your crown chakra. And the solar plexus is the one linked to competence, and worth. And I remember thinking, I'm confident, and he's like, Well, there's different kinds of confidence. And I realized then that I started just crying and crying because I realized that although I had an external confidence internally, I had all these dilemmas and these question marks, and, like, just confused about things, because it didn't make sense for what I was going through. And for me, like, my mom didn't want children. Like my father basically gave her the ultimatum, you either we either break up, or we have kids. So it was like, okay, so then she didn't want them. And then she has having them late. So she had to back to back. So I was born and my brother was born less than 14 months after. So, I already got the cue that I didn't deserve to feel sad. I didn't deserve to feel what I felt because she was going through this pain of having two children. And I was reminded all the time, that she was sacrificed himself to give us a life, which I thought was just something that was normal until I got older. And I realized that like, I didn't choose to be born, like I didn't choose for you guys to do what you did to create me. And then to constantly reminded of that, and because she was going through her own pain, she was just not kind because she was struggling with their own self. And also in the context of where I grew up in the Arab world, where as a woman, your role is also to not, it's more to be like subservient, in a sense. So I just thought that was like normal. Like, I didn't know anything different until I remember going up where I'm exchanger to Canada and realizing, Wait goes up, guys, it can be the same. Like, I can say no, just for saying no, because where I was growing up, you couldn't, you had no choice. And one of the things that was really difficult is in Egypt, sexual harassment is very, very common. So I just thought, like, well, if I was worthy, I wouldn't be harassed. And I had made a squee Association about those things. And it got to the point that when I was 25, a good friend of mine tried to rape me. And that was just for me, a tiny factor is like, Well, clearly, I'm not worthy. Because if I was worthy, I would be given space, I'd be given time, I would then given love unconditionally, but I didn't have those things. And similar to Abney, through all sorts of healing methodologies, I realized that like, I'm just a wounded girl, who all she wanted to do was have love. But then I was trying to get love from people around me who didn't ever experience love themselves. So at one point, you start to realize on the spectrum of, of emotions is either shame or guilt or bad to unforgiveness. And living in shame and guilt, which I did for a long time was more painful than shifting over to grad forgiveness and to realize that we all go through different things. But essentially, everything that everyone wants is to feel like they are loving it, that they are enough. And once you start to see it like that, it becomes quite different. To realize that we're living in a world where people have so much pain, especially now that all that we need to do to change it is actually just to give people the space to feel like you are love just because you are allowed with no expectation. You know, one of the things that you're talking about this, this idea that you were responsible for what was happening to you. Yeah, is that you? Is it cultural, you know, like I remember going to Egypt in 1992. And I was constantly fighting off men trying to rape me in tombs and just grabbing me everywhere I went, it was just I'd never first country I ever went to outside of Australia. So after that, I could go anywhere. I was tough. I was punching guys that left, right and center. But that idea that women are responsible for that attention on us. I don't know if that's, is it everywhere? Do you guys think it's everywhere? I mean, I think to an extent it is right? I can see from a different lens other than the land that I grew up in, but in the Middle East, like literally the comments that you get are, well, look what what you were wearing. What do you expect, look how you showed up? And I'm just like, like, I'm responsible for your shitty ass behavior. Like, let's get real about that. And then the problem is what everyone accepts it as the truth, you see as truth as well. Yeah. And that's the same in every court case in all over the world. What was what was she wearing, right? You know, we've got this world and I think it's some parts of that Old, it's more extreme than others. But we've got this world where we've never addressed the fact that women are not responsible for men's bad behavior. Men are responsible for men's fan behavior. And, and we don't seem to get the point that we got to change that way of thinking. Right? We just don't. But I think that was really interesting as a university. I have this professor, I still remember her Dr. Sawyer Turkey, she was a Saudi professor, the first in her family of seven girls to get educated, get a degree and become a doctor, like everyone else was married by time 1314 15, I think last one before her like 18. And she asked that question class, she said, Who is responsible for the way women are treated in the Middle East? And I remember thinking, everyone for the handling, oh, obviously the man, right. And she said something that was the till today, quite Pivotal, because she said, let's think about it in the households. When somebody comes over who brings a drinks, who washes the plates, who is responsible for doing these duties, and who is getting the cues, and it's the mother. And the mother is the one that says you are the way you are because they're putting you in that role. And at least in my household, I said that a lot. And my brother had very bad behavior. He had, unfortunately, a poor coping mechanism that led him to do drugs. And somehow it was my fault that he did drugs, and we were dealing with his abuse issues. That's not my issue. That's his, but somehow it's as woman were responsible for that. And you should have been better sister. If he wants to drugs, no matter what I do. That's not on me to own. It is disjoint that he has chosen for his own path. I use food as my abuse, right? I use food to take care of my emotions. He used drugs, we all had different advice. But somehow I had the extra pressure and responsibility because I am a woman and because I'm Arab, that it's your responsibility as well as me. You have something to share. And yeah, so about that people groping people. So in I was brought up in Baroda, and I don't know what the reality is, like in Mumbai and Delhi and cities like that. But in Baroda, it was terrible about you know, 40 years ago, I had a continual experience where anywhere and everywhere people felt okay, that it was it's okay to grope women. Yeah. So I would be on a because in India, I was allowed to ride scooters earlier on. Okay, so I was only about 12 When I was on my scooter already, like, I'm going on my scooter, sometimes bicycle. And people will actually try and grow me whilst I'm on the scooter. So I'm just giggling because I was in India with the I made I made this really great friend, American girl called Michelle Jaya Musa. And she had big, big boobs to read. And so I taught her how to walk with a fist in front of her boobs. And if anyone touched her, she punched him and kept walking. That was that was my way, right? Because I actually found men and especially in the Middle East and in India, they couldn't cope with a woman that did that. Because they they just did never experienced it before. So they, before they even could come to terms with what had happened. You already gone right. And when she was she was in a rickshaw in front of me. I'm behind this guy. He's on a motorbike comes up beside the rickshaw stands up on the motorbike reaches over and grabs a boob while she's in the rickshaw and, and I was laughing my ass off. She was so angry. She was like standing up screaming and pumping have this but obviously the funniest thing I've ever seen, but of course, it's not funny. Of course, it's not. Yeah, I mean, as a 12 year old, I was petrified. And I didn't even have any boobs at that time. You know, it's I don't know what they were trying to grow bad, really. But, but yeah, it was horrible. It was horrible. You know, you never felt safe anywhere. And I didn't. And so for me going to UK was like, Wow, I'm invisible. And this is great. You know, nobody cares, you know, which is really good. And there was another incident where it was holy, you know, the Holi the festival where people colors on each other. So there I am playing holi you know, with a few neighbors at that time. And suddenly, a whole bunch of eight or 10 big guys, possibly late teens, early 20s surrounded me, right? And I basically, they were all putting their hands trying to put their hands absolutely everywhere, okay, and I basically slipped between the legs and escaped. Okay. And this is the part which I might have to ask you to cut off later. But basically, I slipped between the legs I ran away. And the complaint I got when I got home, and I got a complaint about that about me when I got home is what were you doing there? And why were you seen in the middle of 10 men? Oh my gosh, I've heard that before. Abney. Horrible, horrible, I will never forgive the person. Okay, luckily you don't have to cut out because I will not tell you who that person was okay. Somebody close to me complains to me, okay, that my friend saw you escaping or you know, coming out of his legs, right? What were you doing there? Right and why? Were you caught like this? So what were you up to? Right? And I was like, I cannot believe that you would blame me for this. Yeah. And what was your friend doing telling you and complaining to you? Why the hell wasn't your friend there to help me? You know, why didn't he come and even talk to me and say, Hey, honey, are you okay? Yeah. Can I give you a lift home? Right? I'm a child, after all, and this friend is older. Right? So yeah. Anyway, so I was so glad. You just can't believe I was so glad to get out of India. I really I was. Yeah, and I know, other people in India do not have this experience. I think many will be shocked to hear that I've only had such a terrible life there. But I just want to say, if you don't do that, it feels like you are saying, Yeah, this was my bad experience. And other people may not have had it had it, but honor what it was because the rest of us have had it. It's not just India, it's everywhere. Honor it because it's real. It happened and the experience is valuable, and who it's made you be today, and the sharing of it is important to everybody. So don't don't feel the need to diminish it. Right? Because it deserves its voice, the voice that you've given it, and it's necessary to have these conversations. Absolutely, yeah. And I think if any man is listening to this, then I would say that you know, that when your child or your brother or your sister or somebody else, they go through theirs, don't blame them, right? For the fact that I got blamed, you know, so that creates like, double whatever you call it, right? So double hurt, really don't blame the person who's going through this report and be there for them. Talk to them. You know, one of the things I'm noticing from what you just shared about Yasmin and having a book as well, is the responses we get from people around us have an impact on our own sense of self worth. So when men or boys are doing something that is invading our own space, or treating us as if we're just we're nobody totally disrespecting any kind of being trying to rape or trying to touch another person's body without any kind of consent. And especially when we're little, there's something that has an impact where we're thinking, you know, I am not a value, I don't have a sense of self worth. And similar kinds of things happen when we see parents being kinder to our brothers than them to us because we're girls, as you said, Yes, man, you are. It was your fault that your brother, you know, was doing what he was doing. It's just, it's things that really have an impact on our self worth that responses or reactions of other people around us. Just it's part of what how we get there to having less self worth. Really? Sure, I would say the first time I remember my self worth being challenged, I was six years old. And you know, every refers to being born into an unwanted world. I was born into conflict, African American, and I was growing up during the it doesn't even feel right to say the latter years of the civil rights movement in the US, because I feel like it's still going. It's not done yet. Why? Why are we still talking about this? At that time, the school systems were still largely segregated. The African Americans went to school in their neighborhoods, the white, the Caucasian Americans went to schools and their neighborhoods. And so there was an effort to integrate the school systems. And you know, it sounds like a great thing, right. But in practice, what that meant was you had all of these kids coming together in a huge bus interchange in the mornings to get on their buses and go out to all these different districts. And then the afternoons coming home from school, getting off the buses, and the buses leaving and then all of these different kids are there. And that's when all the name calling all the fighting, all the stuff happened. I was six years old. And I remember wondering, why do they hate us? Why do they hate us? I couldn't understand. And I remember, my parents have my very first purse was not about having a purse to carry my lunch money to school. It was about having a purse that I could stick. First, the idea was rocks in so that I could fight and defend myself. We realized that was too much. And then my father went through the effort of figuring out what's the right role of coins to put into my purse that I could swing and and hurt someone just enough that I could get away and run. And I remember the day getting off the bus and I had two older older brothers and they were really in the midst of all the fights. I remember my brother telling me cat run. And I was like What do you mean run run because we're about To have a fight, I'm not leaving you and I'm crying, right? I'm the six year old girl, I'm not leaving my brother and I knew all the stuff that happened. And he said, cat, you have to run, because I'm about to hit this guy and run, and you can't run fast enough, you know, and so, and I had to run, but I couldn't stop crying. And, you know, to this day, it impacts me to this day. You know, I remember that so vividly. And, you know, to this day, I do not carry bags that are not functional. I don't, I don't have any fashion bags, my bags are things that carry things, and I don't run, I don't run, I fight. And for, for good or for bad. I take stuff on. And I just, you know, I never and, you know, thank God, I've not been in such a crazy situation where somebody had a gun or a knife or something like that, where I really needed to, but it has shaped me in that way. Not necessarily a good thing. Because when things started to change for me, I remember, I was so angry, I raged against any thing, even before it looked like it was about to happen. And I remember a stranger ran into me in the street and said, Why are you so hateful, and I thought to myself, I'm not, I'm not a hateful person. And that was the beginning of you know how sometimes it's that it's the stranger in the street that holds a mirror up to you and reflects yourself enough for you to see that glimpse that makes you transform. And that was it for me, I realized that I allowed the worst of my context to shake me. And that instead of allowing myself to, from the inside, decide who I am, I allowed all the bad stuff around me to, to determine my behaviors, and how I showed up in the world. And you know, and that was the difference. I had a family that created nothing but positivity in this, they nothing but praise, I could do no wrong. My mother was my biggest fan is nothing but support, believed I could do anything in the world. So much so that I don't trust what she says to me to this day. So I had no problem in the home of people giving us a sense of who we are and what our identity is and what we are capable of. But there was this sort of, I don't know if you could call it sort of cognitive dissonance that the moment I stepped outside of my home, and started facing people that thought I was less than because of the color of my skin, or for whatever reason, whatever they log locked into, that had to do with my differences, whether it was from being a woman or whatever. That was where I couldn't make sense of it. No matter how strong you believe that you have a sense of self worth. That external world still impacted me. I love that. And I love very much how you said that it was like, you chose that context. Right? The same story can happen. But when we choose a different context, we see it so differently. And, of course, it affects so many aspects of our life as well. I just think how lucky you were to have a loving home using it the amount of children who wouldn't have had that home that century the safety right. And so your parents, you know, awesome job, right. But, you know, as a white person growing up in Australia, I mean, the town I grew up in was so white. For the longest time, it's become more more mixed now. But like, I can't even imagine what it was like to be to grow up in a world like that, you know, you know, the Ruby Bridges when she went to school. In America, there's some footage was released just a couple of years ago, did you any of you guys see it? She was that little tiny, little tiny black girl that went to school in America. And the scene that really, really struck me was all of these white families lined up just spewing this absolute rage. At this tiny little top. What was more alarming was the children standing with their parents looking up at their parents, his parents faces and just learning that anger, you know, learning that feeling. And I often wonder how many of those children were able to break free of that bias. Right? Because, you know, parents is so important in a child's life and we've all spoken about parents in different ways, right? And the role of parents and like, I can't I can't imagine what it was like for you just can't. Yeah, and cat as I was hearing you and listening to you. It takes me to that whole world of when our inner self worth gets done. alleged, then, you know, it shapes how we see things doesn't, you know, our our inner perspective gets damaged about ourselves and we respond to it, we react to it, and then we become somebody who we are not. And we would have otherwise never chosen to be, but for good or bad, right. And, and so I feel that I feel like everyone deserves a gift of healing their pain and literally looking at every single incident that happened in the childhood and processing it. Like every incident that happened in the childhood actually going back. And being there, like this is the process I went through, like going back and being there for my six year old, right? When I was left out, to sit by myself where everybody else is dancing together. For example, go back and spend time with that little six year old and be there for her and have a conversation with her and support and nurture in a way that I can, yeah, heal, and fix and process and give that child what that child needed at that time. And so that's actually the little bit of the process of the inner child work. But point being, when things in life like this breakers, whether it's because of family or society or other circumstances, I think we owe it to ourselves and our generations to come to really process and heal ourselves so that we're not carrying that pain within ourselves. So just moving on to the next question, because I think we can expand on the stories that you've shared as well. Like, I actually think we've got a global pandemic of low self worth amongst women. And I see it in teenage girls, I see it in growing women, I said, I said, it's always a you can always tell when a person doesn't feel a strong sense of self worth, even if they're covering it with a shield. You can. I'm one of those people that can always say, and because I actually believe if we could, if we could solve the self worth challenge for women, we could actually really change the world. Why do you think there's such a problem? And I mean, is it is it historic, religious, cultural, because it's everywhere. It's not just, you know, probably, you know, probably Singapore is one of the countries that I felt, were women more encouraged to to step forward. There's more women in senior leadership roles. They're not one of the best in the world, but they do well, with the Nordic countries, they obviously do a good job. But why have we got this problem? Why have we got this heritage? And why came? You know, what do you guys think? I think for me, I think it boils down to, I guess, we helped me recently in the past few years, is looking at, like personal power. And I think I didn't realize how much I had for myself. And that, I think is also because like, at least for me, personally, I wasn't being integral with my word. So I didn't do that. There's something to believe in. So therefore all the doubts that people were having, I believed, and then I gave my power to people around me. And then I blamed everyone, I blamed, you know, my mother, I blamed a bad boss, I blame the men I was dating. Because that way, it was just passing on that thing versus realizing Wait, I have the power to also create. I think right now in the middle of the pandemic, people are in this place where they spend so much time blaming, versus actually looking inwards and looking at actually, first of all, like, where are you making yourself? question yourself? Where are you creating doubt in your life every single day, whatever it may be, whether it's you committing to go for a walk everyday or not, whether you're committing to not watch four hours of Netflix, but you still do, and that all those things are just there to create that small bit of doubt. And doubt is all we need to actually question our work. I think too many people benefit from the subjugation of women, whether it's personal pleasure, or whatever you call it. But you know, if you have half the world that are males that are getting off on all the little games that they play with women, and we I believe we all have our stories that have stories of fighting in the street in day time, people driving by and I am fighting with an ex boyfriend that was angry that I left him and we are physically fighting, I'm crying, I'm screaming, and people will slow down and look in their cars and nobody would stop. And there are just too many people that want to have women in certain ways, in certain places. And we all know a powerful self confident woman is not an easy thing to have to confront in your world. You know, when you were trying to have things your way only, and so it takes a certain kind of person that is confident themselves. I think men have their own issues of self worth, you know, that are just perpetrated in different ways, and that they have a problem dealing with women that are that have a healthy sense of self worth themselves. And so I think they just they benefit from it in too many ways. And we have too many bystanders just letting it continue. Do you think lack of self worth attracts lack of self worth? What do you mean by that, Andrea the couple's when you know, when you've got a couple together, and if she doesn't have strong self worth, and he doesn't have strong self worth, I think a lot of you know, a lot of the problems that we see in relationships could probably be tied back to that. And so, you know, when we talk about a lot of men benefit from it, right. But actually, societies don't benefit from it. Businesses don't benefit societies don't benefit, you know, give women the right to choose to have an abortion, to be educated to do whatever they want to do, the societies flourish. And more, you know, the more women that are involved in leadership positions in government roles, the more activity happens around the climate and maintaining the environment. So to me, it's like when you make space for women to flourish, everybody flourishes. So anyone who holds women back, is actually holding themselves back. And that's always something that's always like, what can we get that basic truth out, but I think kind of going back to the point is there's short term and long term, and I think the discomfort is in the short term. So they don't look at that from a, like, macro level, they're looking at it as like, this is uncomfortable. For me, this is an awkward situation. So therefore, I will say, and then even going back to your point of like, you know, self worth self worth, I also think it's like, so I run a WhatsApp group called love sex and dating, right? started off talking about dating and figuring out this whole relationship world. And it was interesting, because at the very beginning, I realized some people would come in, they come in, they'll have cliques run into our events. And what would happen is, if a woman had a negative self story, both acceptable relationship, and her friends typically has same story, and because of lupus are different. We're having competitions that were like, actually, you deserve better than this, you know, but because all her friends were like that she thought she was like, that was good. So I also feel like when we're when we are in a space of self worth, we even choose friends that make us feel comfortable in that prison as well. So I look at it also from like, not only just man and woman, but also woman and woman and the rule of law experts of a feather flock together, right? People can feel comfortable around people who confirm what they think like confirmation bias. So I think to some extent, why women have more self worth challenges than men, I think it is cultural and historical women across most regions across the world were marginalized. Or were I'm saying still are, in many cases, there are few cultures where women are actually regarded much more highly than men in some cultures. But generally speaking, they were marginalized, and women have had to fight their way through and really stand their ground. So to some extent, it is cultural. But I don't know why maybe because I have got, you know, kids who are men and women both have good boys and girls, I see people as people, and I feel equal amount of empathy for any human being that lacks in self worth, and I work with people who lack self worth, who are men and women, and a lot of men really lack self worth as well. So I think, you know, you're asking, Where does that originate from? And I think ultimately, every man, woman and child when we are born, of course, you know, we are whole and complete. And we have we are incredible in our capabilities of infinite love, joy, growth and contribution to the society, we can do so much, right? So this thing called self worth, if we really look at it our worth, what are we worth, right? If we aren't completely whole and complete when we are born, and we can do infinite amount of things, then our self worth is actually infinite. And so I think if we can all bring up our kids to know that they're capable of infinite amount of good stuff and capable of infinite amount of feeling good stuff, and their self worth is infinite literally, then I think that's a great start. And looking at how it then gets damaged is when anyone or anything, or any circumstance in life, makes us feel less than who we really are. And just to build on that. I'm really clear that I'm with you. We're all build born with huge amounts of self worth. We're that's how we come into the world. But we come into this world that historically throughout history, men have been given advantages and part of the line is that women need to women are the ones who have kids, they need to just be in the home at Take care of kids and and the men will do that everything else the work and the fighting and all of that. But what also comes with that, which is sort of screwed up to begin with. The fundamental thing is that society gives less freedom to women. And when we think about self worth, really, I can tell you a teeny weeny little thing that that happened to me when I was little, I must have been five or six My father loved to do to build stuff, even though he was a lawyer. He'd love to build, I don't know anything like carpentry stuff. And he built this little Go Kart for the little teenage boys like 1415 13 year old boys in our neighborhood and it had a motor he put the motor on and you could drive it. And I love that and I was out there with him we would lived in Florida was hot, hotter than Hades. And all the boys it was in the summertime all boys had their shirts off. And I was hired. And I thought, okay, great. So I took my shirt off. And I'll never forget, my mother called me kitty, great young. And I just learned and I'm just like, what they have done is put their boys, it's like it's it's like I'm starting to start a photography little study, because I always see men and women going out to dinner together. And guess what, the woman is dressed to the freakin nines and looks like she should be on a catwalk somewhere model. And the guy's got ripped jeans and a T shirt. Now, in this society, how we hold our bodies. For women, I'm just going to say it's restrictive. You cannot sit if you felt comfortable to sit with your legs brand that was comfortable. You can't do that in public, if you're a woman, because people will I mean, you could, but people will look at you differently. If you walk even for a woman to stand and then really have a power past. Don't accept that so much how we hold our bodies, how we how we what we wear, what we're allowed to do. I mean, really, we've we are living in a world that favors men, I'm totally with you, boys and men have problems with their own self esteem sometime, or their self worth. But fundamentally, the big underlying message in our world is boys are better. There's so many studies, like even as little kids, we give them the benefit of the doubt, you know, forever is if there's been this phrase, boys will be boys. You can delete that. But what's really interesting that like, the one thing that comes up for me as a story is like as a kid, I did not like spaghetti bolognaise. And my mom made it all the time because my brothers loved it. And her answer was a tree because your brothers love it. And I'm just like, Okay, right, that's just how it is. And then also in the Arab world, when woman when like people die, women get less than a man. And that historically was there for a reason, because a woman would go to her partner's house or the brother take care of the woman. But those things have changed. And still, you have households where think, yeah, of course, like you get less. And it's just like, the fact that this is normal and normalized, or even more cused systemically that will mention it less. Yeah. And then also like back to even the minority lens that we talked about at the beginning with also with cat is like you think about like woman having also money that also impact your decision making, woman being in environments where the domestically abused, also decision making. And even like I was on a panel once years ago that I was so shocked by talking about women and money. And then afterwards, we went for drinks, the panelists and Duma are talking about how they got pushed over from stock options. And they were getting paid less than their men colleagues. And I'm like, How can you want to talk about it on a panel and advocate for this stuff. And even you yourself? Don't have the shit sorted. And for me, I was like, the fact that you are the leaders who are the MDS or some of these companies. And it's really because of worth not really because of the skill because the skill is there. It's interesting, I always felt like I had a reverse parenting. So my mum worked full time and my dad stayed at home and he was an artist. Eventually, he had to go back to work because he wasn't making any money because he didn't know how to sell. I've inherited he's used qualities on on that. But the other thing that happened in our family was his two girls, two boys, and my sister and I were raised. We were the children that were focused on whereas my brothers didn't get the focus. So we actually had reversed upbringings as children as well. And it was mainly because my dad's family hadn't had a female born into into their family for generations. So the female focus and you know, like, we're all good musicians, but my sister and I excelled and and it was never financial support. Because mom and dad didn't have any money. It was belief support, like you know, just go you know, go for it. We went to better schools, we got scholarships at a school where's my brother's that's one of my brothers had to go to a horrible local public school that really just was in fights every single day and he had to wear shorts in the winter which is something my dad did when he was a kid. And then he just got picked on all the time. And it was horrible for him, you know. And as the daughters in the family, we were raised to be strong. And I think I mean, I don't have daughters, I wish I had a daughter, I would have, she would be the gutsiest brought in town. Because I make sure of it. But yeah, teaching our daughters strength, I think is in strength in all ways. Like if I if I had a daughter, she'd be doing martial arts. And you know, he could take care of yourself physically as well. But the physical presence thing, like getting less, but also taking up less space in public. You know, my, one of my one of my boys was turning into a bit of a man spreader. Do you think do you guys know what that means? Yes, they basically sit down and spread their legs, you know, you get on a train sometimes, and some guy will sit there and spread his legs. And so you sit next to him, and you kind of have to sort of hunched up because he's taking up your space. There's a lot of men in the world that take up a lot of physical space, and they're not aware of their impact. And I find that really, really fascinating. But, but we also tend to shrink, and then what you were saying about dressing up, so we shrink physically and in the physical world. But we also, you know, we're like peacocks as well, right? With the way we dress and the fashion and, you know, all this sort of stuff. So with the world of interesting contradiction, isn't it? I was raised to be the lady like, by the way, it didn't work. But that's what my mother wanted. I wasn't. I rebelled because she tried so hard, but was interesting, even like, talking about the space, is I grew two centimeters over the past year. And I don't think I grew, I think I've always been this height. But I've shrugged my shoulders down to make sure that I didn't take up too much space. And I actually got really emotional, I discovered that I was just like, I got, like, I'm not 170 it 160 891 70. And like, I was always that tall. But because I was just so told not to do it, that I was just, you know, hiding. And like, although men are men's brothers, I knew that for me, I was emotionally eating and gaining weight, so that people would not see me, because that way, I wouldn't get attention. Because I had wrapped in abuse multiple times in my life, which is also really messed up. Because it's like, I don't have my legs up to the world to be that I can also just shy away and hide that by packing up pants, right. So it's just very fascinating how we, we hide, but not always the same way as a man will do. I love this idea of taking up space, I've actually used it as a countermeasure, when I working in a technology field, you know, I often will run into people that will talk down to me, and using that condescending tone. And I started wearing four inch heels when I knew I was going to be in meetings with these guys. And I would I would spread my legs in the meeting, when they would start to go there, I would sit in my power pose and you know, spread my legs. And then when they're at the board talking and talking down to me, I would stand up and stand in their space and tower over them. I'm a tall person just to have impact. That is great. You know, I wanted to add to a couple of things that Kathy shared, you know, and all of you shared is that when people don't give, we can still ask and take and stand up for ourselves. Right? So yes, there is a culture of not being given as much attention as much space or as much right or voice. But we can I think women have got the ability to stand up and ask for and take and say what they need. Because I think this is something I'd really like anyone who's listening to really think about because when people are suppressed, they feel like a victim. And when they feel like a victim, some part of them accepts it, and they don't stand up and think this is how it is. And oh no, you know, call me so to speak. But actually, every single person no matter where and no matter how much of a terrible situation they could be in actually can stand up. And yeah, it takes a lot of courage and it can be riskier. Sometimes some people will be risking their lives, literally, because they stood up, right? They would be risking their life sometimes. But it's worth doing that because then it gives courage to other people to then stand up as well. And I watched my mom stand up for herself at the age of 65, right. And she left my dad at the age of 65. She said, You know, you're on your own now. And she moved out for about six years, right? And then eventually she moved into the family home because my little brother wanted her. And everything was different by this point. My dad had changed and things were different. And they could live together under the same roof as companions and now they continue to do so. But for six years, she moved out and you know that enough is enough. Right? So I think if my 65 year old mom can do it after having an abusive life or you know, 40 years anyone can. But I think when we share stories like that, you start to think that I She has a possibility. And, and I think also technology even though it's been very stressful, it's also so powerful, because you have more of these channels that are being shared. And then you realize, Wait, I don't need to take the shit. I can literally walk away. People have a choice. It's just that people have a choice, and they need courage to really execute that choice. It does take a lot of courage and support, but people do have a choice. So no matter where we are, we can stand up. There is another thing I wanted to add about dressing up and being peacocks. I feel that women, yes, women, sometimes women dress up because they feel like they have to write please, etc. And if that's happening, yes, we don't want to go there. And we don't want to we have want to work on ourselves. What's that? We don't do that. But I love dressing up. Because I like nice materials. I like colors. I like colors. I like materials. I like the feel of good clothes, you know, and it's like, I love painting and decorating. Similarly, I like painting and decorating, and, and loving my body for what it is. So I'm one of those women who might sometimes dress really nicely and my husband would be like, I can't be bothered to dress up. Can I Can I please turn up in T shirt and jeans? 70. And I'm like, Yeah, suit yourself, you know, but I want to, I want to wear something nice. Don't forget, I was the one that turned up with dressed up as the Queen one night. So I'm not against. I'm not against it. I'm just saying there is a freedom. You went out avenue to a nice restaurant, your husband dresses up really well. But you don't Oh, yeah, it was. Okay. And let's say you both go out looking like what your husband is looking like, yeah, no, it will not be okay. But it's what tends to happen. I'm not kidding, we're gonna look at all the time, a woman will be absolutely like, drop dead gorgeous. Man, it's like, I can't be bothered to to go out sort of looking like we're going to the same place. It's just, it's another thing of respect. But women don't have the freedom will tell me at a time that you've ever seen. I haven't seen this. You're right, a couple going out where the man is just dressed in a nice suit, you know, looks great. And the woman is, you know, and you know, ratty jeans and a T shirt. It just doesn't happen. Can I just said, you know, we haven't touched on religion. And I know most people are reluctant to do so. I was raised in the Catholic Church and my mum's very strong lady. And I always saw this contradiction between who she was in life and who she was in the church. So she became a lay priest, which meant she could give communion a church to those who were not Catholic and don't understand the tradition. And I used to say to her, how can you support a church that doesn't give you the right to be up there? And how can you do it? And she just, we used to have these conversations all the time about it. But for me the role of religion in holding women back? And I don't think all religions are the same. But But I think it's a big part of it. And you know, and I think culturally, you know, I mean, obviously, depending on which country you come from, there's different cultural aspects to holding women back, you know, Australia has got that reputation. You know, it's a hard men sort of country, it's not the country I grew up in when people talk about Australia that way, because it's not the family, or the community I grew up in. So, you know, I think there's, there's some big aspects that we've got to look at. I know, for me, it's interesting, because like, Islam is a beautiful religion. And there's a lot like it was the first religion in the world to give women rights, like alimony and all sorts of things. But there's also some things that like, as a kid, not understanding was really confusing. And like, for example, you go to the mosque, and the woman prays behind the man. And like, initially, the answer I got told, I was like, why do we pray behind the answer I got told it so that men don't look at your butts. And then they break their intention of that prayer. And I'm like, what? And I was a little kid, and like, maybe like less than 10. Thinking like, Okay, I thought that was normal. But it's like is that I'm sure there's a business reason behind it. But culturally, that was the stories that are being circulated, that have been there. And I think back in the day, probably, I'm assuming that men were the ones working, so they had to rush out. So they were there, and then they'll go off to whatever they were doing the farms or whatever. But the story that culturally today is because that man will check out your butt. And it's just like, that's not like, as a kid hearing those cues. It's a bit weird. Yeah, I can imagine. Alright, so looking at the time. So let's, let's just get around one by one, or just as you feel inspired with an idea, how can women develop their self worth? Who wants to go first? I'll go first on that one. I feel that if we can engage ourselves in deep reflective inquiry, whatever that may be, whether it's coaching, counseling, therapy, inner child therapy, any of those modalities to deeply reflect on what does it take for us to build our self worth because a lot of the times our self worth was damaged or written or rewritten in some time in the past, in our childhood memories locked, right, we can go back and love those memories, whenever that happened, whether it happened in our 30s or 20s, or, you know, when we were five years old, we can go back, unlock those memories, be there for ourselves and rewrite our perspective, we don't rewrite what happened. But we can rewrite our perspectives about how we see ourselves because that's what got damaged, right? What is lack of self worth is, we have written a wrong perspective about ourselves. So we can just go back and rewrite our own perspective about ourselves. And then self worth is restored. So we can be the parent or we can be the guardian that we never had, in our childhood, go back and help ourselves in that cellular memory at a very deep rooted level, rather than at a cognitive level, actually, at the physical level, and then our self worth can be restored. And, you know, I'm speaking from personal experience, that's the kind of work that I did, like no amount of cognitive conversation would have helped me, or did help me. So for me, it was like, I had to go back and rewrite my rewrite my childhood self at that level. And for me, that worked. So just wanted to share that. Yeah, I would say I love that I've knew, and I would say that, that mine kind of builds on that, that you that rewriting it, but sort of speaking it aloud. So for me, it's called a thing of thing. Say whatever you need to say aloud, it's almost like positive affirmations, but in real life in real time as the stuff is happening. So for me, it may be like, please stop interrupting me, if you'll allow me to finish my thought, you know, that's the third time you've called me so and so my name is such and such, or, you know, it kind of feels like you're starting to mansplain. You know, just calling it out. And saying it aloud helps me reinforce my own existence and the right to be in that space. And think what I think, feel what I feel and be fully expressed no matter what anybody else thinks, love that have that as an add on to this tool, because I actually think it's obviously Motsepe, at least for me multi dimensional. And I think there is a component of going back in the past, and choosing to look at our history from a different focus lens. So that's the first thing. The second thing is really about. Having that language at that key talked about another elaborate even further, but even having the courage to speak up. And the last thing is actually just our bodies, like how we show up how we move, and that for me a big part of getting self worth and actually doing sports, you do sports, you fail, and then you fail. And then eventually you get better. And somehow you're much better. And it's a reminder that just like anything in life, we can start from a very small place no matter how much it is, and we can grow it. And I think once we realize that we see it in a different area of our life, we think about how can it apply it to my work? How can I apply it to the impact other than applying all these different aspects, and I find them together. They're very powerful. So it's really nice that you both have shared different points of it, by looking at it as a trifecta of how we show up and how we could actually become a bigger lights that we were actually born to be like, I think God created us, it's all his lights. But somehow throughout the time, we've been dumbed down from our choices of perspective, language, as well as what we thought was possible for us, Kathy, I love all that you all have said it's really really beautiful actions we can take, I would suggest really focusing on taking care of ourselves actually stepping into doing things for ourselves that we might not do otherwise like taking care of our body. For example, I asked people as since we're focusing that on this podcast on women self worth doing things for ourselves that we might not otherwise do I work with lots of women who when I ask them what do you do to take care of you? It's like a blank stare like they don't even know what that means. And sometimes they'll say What do you mean what take care of me but they're taking care of everybody else around them so you know have a massage some time. Do something to keep fit. Yeah, like you're saying you has been exercise eat food that you love, but body is part of it. Our mind read was one of the things we talked about is we live in a culture that says we are not so valuable if you read some things, for example, that talks about history where women actually discovered some things but because they were women they couldn't be given that in some man took credit for it and it's in history with it. He took credit she didn't do it and do some reflections also self reflection. versus working with the mind read that lots of books to help us to understand ourselves more, and do some self reflections and emotions, really being able to sit with our emotions, which actually all of you have referred to in this in this podcast, sitting with them and actually noticing, you know, I'm feeling really freaking angry that he has just said this, to sit with them until you really get it, what the emotion is that you're having. And so that you can respond and say something that actually is something that the other person can hear. But he's actually saying what is true for you? So that's my suggestion, take consciously take care of yourself and all of those areas. Andrea, what is your suggestion? So listening to everybody in what you've all been saying? I think one of the most important things and it's one of the themes in my book is external influence, and the amount of goodness, as well as damage that can be done by the people around you, the institutions that you grow up in, or that you're part of today. And I think what you were saying happening, I think, we need to create silence in our lives, to be able to go inside and listen to our own inner wisdom, we know the answers to our questions, we know, we've got to ask, we've got to go and identify that we've got problems or that we've got challenges or that we like self worth, right. But we can't do that in this noisy world. So we've got to create the silence, but then really spend some time looking around at the external influences. The mother and father influence the priest or you know, your friends, the circle of people around you, are they lifting you up? Are they pushing you down. And then the other thing is, if you're sitting in a victim mindset, and I think a lot of people don't like to recognize that they're a victim, if everything is somebody else's fault, then you're sitting in a victims mindset. And that, to me, it's the simple thing, like so many people, every time I catch up with them, there's somebody else has done something to them that's causing them harm. But the only consistent thing in that process is them. The victim mindset is a very, very disempowering mindset, because you're just giving all your power away to everybody else, really. So that's probably probably one of the areas I'd say, focus on. If it's somebody else's fault, you've really got to do some self reflection, because you're in control. If I can add one more thing, it would be get yourself a girl network. There's nothing like the support that you get from solid girlfriends, not just anybody, but solid citizens, that will tell you that will listen to you. And the energy that I that I get from those kinds of networks, you know, is supportive, like nothing else, it's a different kind of energy that you get from your male friends or from your husband or from anywhere else. So that has been magic for me. Yes, I really want to echo that, because we were going through a tunnel recently, and my child was asking why are all tunnels the circle? Okay, and my husband shares the science behind that. And he says that, when you have a circle, a circle is a strongest shape that could ever be because when there is pressure on a circle, the pressure is then dissipated, it actually goes through the curve. Okay, and it flows through and that's why a circle is least likely to crush under pressure than perhaps a square would. Right. So let's get a great circle of friends because the circle makes it strong. So yeah, just wanted to really add that that scientific analogy came to my mind as you share that tab. All right, does anyone got anything that they want to add? Wonderful conversation? Yeah, thank you. Thank you all really really true sharing. I hope it helps everyone out there and you know, there's some amazing women here if you want to reach out through me to get in touch with them to book appointments or whatever give me a yell. They're all amazing and yeah, we just hope it helps and we need women to step into their voices to step into their power to get this world on track. We really do So ladies, we can't wait for the men to do it. They've got us where we are so now we need to lead and get us out all right. No pressure thank you thank you thank you all i Bye let's talk about this duck to say all of this stuff that's uncommon courage to be everywhere. Common courage common