Transcript
Speaker: What does it take to get beyond the damage of words?
Speaker: I'm Katrina Collier.
Speaker: Join me each week as I explore what it takes to step into a happier future.
Speaker: My guests are sharing their stories of when they realized that they needed help and what it took to take that first step so that you leave inspired and maybe even start on your own path to self-love, care, compassion, and of course, happiness.
Speaker: So without further ado, let's hear their stories.
Speaker: Chantelle Larson, welcome to Beyond the Damage of Words podcast.
Speaker: I'm so excited we finally got here.
Speaker: It has taken a bit.
Speaker: So there is absolutely no preamble on this podcast.
Speaker: We'll just get straight into it.
Speaker: So what led you into healing or changing or seeking help and anything to make you feel better?
Speaker: What led you there?
Speaker: It's a huge question.
Speaker: So it is.
Speaker: So first I think healing is
Speaker: we think of it as sometimes just a physical piece.
Speaker: For many years, for me, it was all about the physical.
Speaker: So I would eat right.
Speaker: I'm a yoga teacher, a trained yoga teacher.
Speaker: But there were circumstances that meant that when we talk about words, I had internalized a lot of words.
Speaker: And that wasn't helping me.
Speaker: So there's the other aspect that I would say, which is the spiritual and mental piece.
Speaker: And how I had absorbed those words meant that across my body had established chronic inflammation.
Speaker: So rash,
Speaker: My right eye had closed up.
Speaker: I lost the ability to walk at one stage.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I had what I didn't know at that point was I had tumors.
Speaker: So this internalization of words, I...
Speaker: went down, knocked on my husband's office door because I couldn't see out of my eye and I was like, I was just a wreck, I wasn't able to sleep.
Speaker: I was like, I think I need to see the doctor.
Speaker: I mean, for anyone else, they probably would have seen the doctor before then and he looked at me, he's like, I'm so proud of you.
Speaker: We were both
Speaker: Is that because you finally asked for help?
Speaker: Is that why?
Speaker: I've been to the doctor for like physical different things.
Speaker: But yeah, finally asking for help in a way that isn't just a mental piece.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And this is going to sound weird to many people, but my husband for certain things comes with me because I get treated differently at the doctor.
Speaker: So we contacted the doctor.
Speaker: It was literally urgent because I wasn't able to sleep.
Speaker: At that point, it was like four or five nights in a row.
Speaker: So also your system is in like this.
Speaker: So my doctor wasn't in.
Speaker: My doctor was on training.
Speaker: So I saw another doctor.
Speaker: You've got to imagine I looked like crap.
Speaker: I don't know if I'm allowed to swear, but anyway, I look like S.H.I.T.
Speaker: And he was there with me and right eye or closed, like I was just a mess.
Speaker: I was explaining to him what had gone on.
Speaker: So several factors had led to that event.
Speaker: One, I had been told not to be visible and I thought I had overcome that and then move role.
Speaker: Well, I got to the new role and it was through, I knew the person in the company, but there was a senior level interview.
Speaker: And in Switzerland, you have your picture on the CV and he was just like, I wouldn't have hired you on paper, but you know, okay.
Speaker: And I just thought my tummy at that point,
Speaker: It was like, oh God, what do I do?
Speaker: Because you often think, okay, I can't jump from CV to CV, but I can't stay where I am because I've been told not to be visible.
Speaker: And there was a lot more.
Speaker: So I thought, okay, well- Can I be really direct on this?
Speaker: Is this a racism thing or is it a- It got worse.
Speaker: Yeah, it got worse.
Speaker: They're not being visible.
Speaker: Yeah, it was then explicitly told this is a white Germanic space.
Speaker: You can't be here.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: Or you can't lead here.
Speaker: So what happened internally for the last... I can't comprehend that people can just... I will never understand how anyone can be like that ever.
Speaker: I'll just... Well, I'll come to that in the therapy session because actually I can.
Speaker: And I think I needed to get there.
Speaker: You had to.
Speaker: That's the worst part, isn't it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it became so racist, but also there was a power dynamic.
Speaker: So in challenging, they made me change my LinkedIn, to remove my LinkedIn education.
Speaker: And if I didn't, it was like, we're going to make your life hell.
Speaker: I was in the garden gardening on a Saturday and we had rescheduled the call.
Speaker: I jumped on the call.
Speaker: My manager wasn't there.
Speaker: It was the executive.
Speaker: And it was all like literally just threatening me.
Speaker: And it got to the stage of everything in my life had always navigated.
Speaker: So when I first moved here, my company, which was great,
Speaker: had found me an apartment, but then because I was black, I couldn't have the apartment.
Speaker: It was everything, but I found a way.
Speaker: I then found a temporary accommodation.
Speaker: And in my mind, it felt like a maze that had actually closed down and I could no longer find a route forward.
Speaker: And I think psychologically that had happened.
Speaker: And then my body started to shut down.
Speaker: And then when I went to the doctor for help, I was asking specifically for therapy.
Speaker: And I had even spoken to
Speaker: One of my friends in my black network for black therapists had gone and he was like, yeah, well, racism just exists.
Speaker: That just happens.
Speaker: I'd never seen my husband get really angry before.
Speaker: And he kind of like thumped his hand, my husband, on the chair.
Speaker: And he actually stood up kind of like alpha man.
Speaker: I had to calm it down.
Speaker: Like, you know, you have someone and I was in pieces really asking you for help.
Speaker: And I just kind of calmed him down, got him to sit down.
Speaker: And I said, well, can I just have some cream for my eye?
Speaker: Which sounds really funny now.
Speaker: So it wasn't even just the racism for me in the workplace and in society.
Speaker: It was even when I was going to get help from the doctor.
Speaker: And is your husband, is he Swiss?
Speaker: Is he white?
Speaker: No, he's Danish and he's white.
Speaker: But he'd never seen...
Speaker: how bad it could get because I was his wife coming to him first of all he was relieved like yeah I think you should have gone ages ago you know in all reality it's not very dangerous sense of humor he was helping me supporting me finally getting help and I was in a sense like it wasn't like oh you know it's nothing you know you should just carry on
Speaker: It's all on your head.
Speaker: He had a migraine that day.
Speaker: And I was like, well, look, he said, how are you so calm?
Speaker: And I just said to him, because I always have to be, you know, I can't come across as the angry black woman was going to achieve nothing.
Speaker: And then I sent an email to my doctor to say, for the first time in my life, I came to you for help.
Speaker: And I try not to cry, but I have came to help.
Speaker: I want to be here for my son and my daughter.
Speaker: She was brilliant.
Speaker: She wrote me off sick, said, I'm not here this week because she was on training.
Speaker: That's why she couldn't see me.
Speaker: She immediately said, look, we have a therapist underneath.
Speaker: Let me put the referral in now.
Speaker: I haven't seen you, but she could just sense because I had never, the thing was my husband always gets sick.
Speaker: I've sick.
Speaker: I had never been sick in my life.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Never.
Speaker: My mum and dad brought me up like, you go, you go to school.
Speaker: I know that's not necessarily the right way, but that's how I was brought up.
Speaker: And I would just like attend virtual calls.
Speaker: You know, I'd be dying with some chicken soup, you know, made in the background and things like that.
Speaker: So I was always turning up and I was always showing up.
Speaker: So actually there was a sense of, I mean, guilt and shame in like, oh my God, going off sick.
Speaker: It wasn't even just the healing.
Speaker: And I think mental health generally as well, there is a shortage of therapists, one, so it's hard to get access.
Speaker: And then in the black community, if I can say anything of your listeners in the black community, we have so much shame about going to a therapist, but my God, if anything,
Speaker: You need it, right?
Speaker: Probably need it more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The microaggressions and the blatant aggressions.
Speaker: I mean, it's just, it's almost like you have to be on defense just for being you, isn't it?
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: She warned me that there was a six-month wait list, but what happened was my lovely therapist, Daniela, she had a cancellation.
Speaker: So there was like an email.
Speaker: Oh, by the way, you know, there's a cancellation.
Speaker: I was like, yes, I can come now.
Speaker: Well, thank you, universe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, in some way the universe was there.
Speaker: Now she wasn't the right fit because she couldn't really understand.
Speaker: So they, because I got rejected for like, oh no, black therapists don't exist.
Speaker: But by the way, there's a, there's a list of, you know, 2025, you know, like here.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But having her, she was my connector to the rest of my needs.
Speaker: And the first having her, the other thing that we're quite suspicious about is any kinds of drugs.
Speaker: But because I couldn't sleep, the first thing I needed to do was sleep.
Speaker: in order to give my system a chance to recover and let me give people an indication of what happens.
Speaker: And when we talk burnout, my son would ask me for, I mean, he cooks as well, but like do a boiled egg.
Speaker: I couldn't even function.
Speaker: I put chopped onions in a pot to boil an egg.
Speaker: So this is coming from someone I've cooked since the age I did Sunday dinner from the age, so kind of full British roast, although I live in Switzerland.
Speaker: I have a British Centrelinian and Caribbean heritage.
Speaker: And so I would cook full on roast.
Speaker: My parents brought me to do everything, multitask and do dinner parties.
Speaker: And then suddenly I couldn't even boil an egg.
Speaker: I mean, we're talking, I mean, Delia Smith kind of teaches you how to do that.
Speaker: We're talking like very basic things I couldn't function.
Speaker: So the first thing was like... You were having a, I mean, they would have called it, they call it burnout now, don't they?
Speaker: But it sounds like you were having the old school breakdown, which I think they now call burnout.
Speaker: I don't know why, maybe it's more an acceptable word.
Speaker: You were clearly... Yeah.
Speaker: So the first thing with her was at least she stabilized me.
Speaker: So I think therapy in a way, depending on how bad you are, I'm just conveying my story was actually really bad.
Speaker: The first thing I think from that point of view of therapy was allowing me to have the condition of one of the most important things you need is sleep to start to even process, you know, what more that you can do.
Speaker: I think that was step one.
Speaker: For me, she wasn't great, although I had her on the rest.
Speaker: So there were two other important connectors.
Speaker: I found a black trauma therapist.
Speaker: She is a gold Olympic medalist.
Speaker: Saved my life.
Speaker: Originally for the Congo, but she won an Olympic medal for Switzerland.
Speaker: And she's really talked to trauma therapy.
Speaker: She works with the body.
Speaker: And she will have experienced what you have experienced in that case.
Speaker: I didn't have to translate everything.
Speaker: And with the other therapist, it was like, oh, really?
Speaker: Does that happen in Switzerland?
Speaker: Which is, you know, really, it's like, it becomes really hard.
Speaker: And by the way, my therapist was in German.
Speaker: So that was another big hurdle for me, the first therapist.
Speaker: It's very hard to convey thoughts, feelings, emotions and process it.
Speaker: And then you're doing it, you know, in another language.
Speaker: In another language.
Speaker: But it was so urgent.
Speaker: It was like, I'll take it.
Speaker: Um, so I had that level, the second level I found, and actually Patricia, my trauma therapist, she said, how the hell did you get better?
Speaker: Like my skin and everything.
Speaker: I turned to Gua Sha.
Speaker: Um, I found that one of the biggest problems of this internal piece was creating a lot of inflammation and I needed to get rid of all this inflammation.
Speaker: And the third piece was, um, eye movement desensitization response.
Speaker: So for trauma, I don't know if you've had experience of that,
Speaker: It was a game changer.
Speaker: And I'll also then explain why in the whole process, which was like two and a half.
Speaker: It's a long process, right?
Speaker: It's a long process.
Speaker: Yeah, it takes years.
Speaker: Yeah, my daughter got diagnosed as being ADHD and actually she's almost finished diagnosed with autism.
Speaker: It's genetic.
Speaker: We then found out and got the diagnosis for me.
Speaker: And what happens when you are neurodivergent
Speaker: And you go through PSD plus basically when we, it's not, there isn't a category defined for racial trauma actually, but a PSD plus.
Speaker: So what I would call complex PTSD, the constant repetitive trauma neglect.
Speaker: It's like microaggressions, isn't it?
Speaker: It's constant little comments that are negative that you're taking on board.
Speaker: Yeah, and it's never going to actually change.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like you're not going to change.
Speaker: You might find this interesting, but Gabor Marte is deeply concerned that people with complex PTSD, which is a healable thing, are being diagnosed as ADHD.
Speaker: You might want to have a look at what he's talking about.
Speaker: Oh, I'm sure.
Speaker: Yeah, because I've cured my complex PTSD.
Speaker: Well, healed it.
Speaker: I can still trigger, but I have healed the constant alert, hypervigilant, like,
Speaker: kind of that, you know, that feeling of like forever being on the lookout, like you're protecting yourself, that side of it.
Speaker: So how about, he's interesting.
Speaker: He's interviewed with the diary of a CEO dude.
Speaker: His name is one out of my head.
Speaker: So you can always be up there, but what happens is you take the massive fool and then it's really hard to get back up.
Speaker: Yeah, because you're overwhelmed.
Speaker: You're overwhelmed, but it's very challenging.
Speaker: So you go into a system of where you're sick.
Speaker: You have an insurance company, which doesn't want you to be sick.
Speaker: They have no category of which to define insurance.
Speaker: Complex PSD, they don't understand racial trauma.
Speaker: They don't believe racial trauma.
Speaker: I go to their doctor.
Speaker: They haven't experienced it.
Speaker: I go to their doctor and we say, you know, you talk about the power of words.
Speaker: Words, first of all, you internalize and you actually do process them so they do have power.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: But actually words have power in the other hand because it can further oppress you.
Speaker: The words, if from a person of power, is oppressive, but there are systems of oppression.
Speaker: So for example, the insurance company, I walk into the doctor's,
Speaker: give them, because my therapist says, take everything.
Speaker: She knows how it works.
Speaker: And I saw her take a whole stack, which is like an encyclopedia.
Speaker: He's like, yeah, yeah, you are really sick.
Speaker: And he said, can I record the meeting?
Speaker: I said, sure, you can record the meeting.
Speaker: I said, so what do you do with the recording?
Speaker: Oh, you can ask for a copy.
Speaker: So at the end of the meeting, he said to me, look, actually, I don't see you getting well.
Speaker: And, you know, it is a long process.
Speaker: Confirming that it was complex PSG.
Speaker: So actually it was really good.
Speaker: And I said, well, can I have a copy of the recording?
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: A week later, I get a letter from the insurance company saying, you're going to be better by next month and you have to do this.
Speaker: And I thought, but that's completely counter to what the insurance company said.
Speaker: So I keep chasing up saying, can I have a copy of the recording?
Speaker: Can I have the copy of the recording?
Speaker: Can I have a copy of the recording?
Speaker: And by this sense, because what's happening is financially, oh my God, you're going to cut off all the money.
Speaker: You're telling me it feels like I'm lying because my words don't matter.
Speaker: Your words do.
Speaker: But I can't have a copy of the recording because they're telling me I can't get through.
Speaker: So I ended up.
Speaker: And this is all adding to the stress that you're already feeling.
Speaker: I ended up bleeding constantly for like, this was like six months of then extra because it affects your hormones, your cortisol and things like that.
Speaker: So then I was like really low on iron.
Speaker: And I ended up trans, the legal company, my legal company, because I also have legal insurance, ends up.
Speaker: saying, well, actually, we have a conflict of interest.
Speaker: No S-H-O-T, Sherlock, as my husband said, because he said, are you sure you don't have conflict of interest?
Speaker: Because their health insurance of the employer was the same as my legal insurance.
Speaker: So they transfer it externally.
Speaker: Then we start to get an answer that says, oh, the transcript actually confirms what you say.
Speaker: So someone actually believes me.
Speaker: And, but then I say, well, can I have a copy of recording?
Speaker: Oh, we deleted it.
Speaker: Cause you didn't ask for it.
Speaker: I was like, well, I've got four emails that I did ask for it, but then nothing, you know, so all, all of this is more stress.
Speaker: So I think words not only internalize some people's words are worth more than others.
Speaker: There's an imbalance of words.
Speaker: I would say not all words, unfortunately are equal.
Speaker: And I think the worst thing is you can then take them on.
Speaker: And I bet this is what your therapist spoke to you about, your trauma therapist, that we take them on and then we're repeating them to ourselves.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So what did, what did is Patricia, what did she do?
Speaker: What was her therapy and how did that help you?
Speaker: Patricia's body therapy was amazing because it allowed me to establish a safe space wherever I am.
Speaker: And in a world of repeated trauma, when you have complex PSD, cause you're not, it's not about the past.
Speaker: You're actually always anxious for the future.
Speaker: I can be anywhere within Switzerland.
Speaker: And I can get racism again, but it's how do I establish my safe space?
Speaker: That's number one.
Speaker: How did you do that?
Speaker: Can we share that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Visually, I always go to it.
Speaker: So it's visually in my body.
Speaker: I go to a place.
Speaker: Then we establish a physical connection of movement of where I go to that place.
Speaker: Then we established actual physical body exercises where it was actually increasing what makes me feel safe and connecting with what empowers me.
Speaker: So for me, this is very much like a huckus dance, by the way, like round.
Speaker: So one of my favorite things I take on board what she says is she said the beginning of hell was I think, therefore I am.
Speaker: because we play too much in our head.
Speaker: We very much have this spiritual connection and we very much have this body connection, which we do not come into.
Speaker: And so we use the body, we use the gut, we use the spirituality, which connects us back with who we are, which brings healing.
Speaker: And through that, a lot of other things started coming to me from ancestors through to connections that I have far beyond Switzerland.
Speaker: And that started to bring part of the answers for me, because for me, it was like, how do I survive?
Speaker: Because actually they have power to take away my income.
Speaker: I will be blacklisted.
Speaker: But it started to come along like, you know what, Chantel, you're bigger than Switzerland.
Speaker: You can actually, if you've,
Speaker: if you start to think within the system that they think of you in, that's your limitation, but actually you are unlimited.
Speaker: You actually have to think differently.
Speaker: So I started to think differently, but when I, when I then combine that with EMDR, which made me, so the difference between, I would say Patricia, not that we didn't go into the trauma we did and she gave me those things, which are absolutely powerful.
Speaker: In EMDR, my God, did we go back into every single trauma?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Many trauma.
Speaker: And release the energy.
Speaker: Release the energy.
Speaker: Lean into them.
Speaker: And when you said, like, it kind of, it made me see it for what it is.
Speaker: So going back into that very first meeting with the executive when he was like, well, maybe, you know, we shouldn't hire you.
Speaker: I wouldn't hire you.
Speaker: Doing that threatening behavior of,
Speaker: of deleting myself, you know, from LinkedIn and all of these things, what it showed me was my very presence as a black woman foreigner to a Swiss system actually was threatening in itself.
Speaker: And it was counter to a system which is predominantly male,
Speaker: predominantly white, predominantly Swiss, how can my excellence, that questions the very being of that system.
Speaker: So it was actually, it was never about me.
Speaker: It was, you know, and actually, in some ways, it's like, yeah, that's your limitation.
Speaker: So I could let go of that.
Speaker: At the same time, it was, you know, going into...
Speaker: the situation where that person said to me, you know, don't be visible.
Speaker: The initial piece, it started off with, it was very interesting, belittling, the person came in and belittled another person
Speaker: The current executive, which I thought, why would you do that?
Speaker: I know my camera's just gone weird, by the way.
Speaker: I think that's playing up.
Speaker: That's okay.
Speaker: It'll be interesting, anyone watching the recording.
Speaker: I think it's playing up.
Speaker: By challenging another, she belittled another executive, which I felt was very interesting.
Speaker: Why would you do that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And she said, I'm not threatened by you, which I felt, well, fraudulent slip.
Speaker: And my stomach at that point, when we go to like always trust your gut,
Speaker: And then I said, and I had just moved company from an amazing company.
Speaker: And I started to cry for the very first time in a company setting, which I felt so much shame until I did the EMDR about like, you know, it was like crying, you know, for that.
Speaker: But there again, it was actually she was threatened.
Speaker: And her only way in which to deal with that was to bring me...
Speaker: down and to tell me not to be visible and don't you know hold go and then there was a whole thing about manoeuvring me not to be visible I definitely think so much as I mean there's so much that's systemic in Switzerland there's no denying that but I genuinely think
Speaker: person to person, it is so much about internal self-hatred that gets projected.
Speaker: So you are amazing.
Speaker: You're dynamic.
Speaker: You're great at what you do.
Speaker: Oh, that's really threatening to me.
Speaker: So I'll hit back with the racism.
Speaker: So for three years, I wasn't visible.
Speaker: For a long time, I haven't been visible, actually.
Speaker: But with therapy, I took the time to heal.
Speaker: Because also, though, when you say that, I could have come from a point of... It's so easy then to come from your own point of self-hatred.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And defend yourself and, you know, hit that.
Speaker: It's much harder to...
Speaker: step out of it and almost look at it and go, wow, look what you're showing me about yourself.
Speaker: Like that takes time to get to that point.
Speaker: Patricia, on her very first meeting, I think we feel like we don't have time.
Speaker: She's like, you've got time, you've got time.
Speaker: And then she said to me, you're imagining it like a kaleidoscope.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Don't think about what you need to want to get to next.
Speaker: We're not going to do that.
Speaker: You need to start and don't just keep absorbing it.
Speaker: And for a very long time, this kaleidoscope opened up about how I wanted to feel, what I want my future to feel like.
Speaker: And I started to see patterns of what I wanted to feel.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: And it's been a long road.
Speaker: It is a long road.
Speaker: I mean, the thing is that we forget that when we start as well, like I started at 40, so I had had 40 years.
Speaker: I mean, I'd had the abuse and then I'd had 20 years of replaying it to myself.
Speaker: So it's like we forget and then we think, oh, we'll go into this and it'll be quick.
Speaker: Well, some of it will be quick, but most of it takes time because you're undoing decades of behaviour.
Speaker: that you've learned and you're replaying in your head.
Speaker: But I could see a pattern basically of me bringing this full power of, which everyone was trying to suppress, of collaboration that supersedes any country to basically transform humans at the different level in a way that brings justice, in a way that brings equity, in a way that brings justice.
Speaker: a quality in a way that brings that and it was my way to supersede anything that
Speaker: would suppress and I could see all these patterns which may would make no sense to anyone else I'm sure today it probably still doesn't but I could see how I could engage at an individual level how I could engage at a company level how could I engage at my board level and how I could engage at a grassroots level I knew I wanted to do more grassroots because I knew that I felt like there wasn't enough support for marginalized people like me so I definitely wanted to do that I knew that I could see so much bull crap
Speaker: At a company level.
Speaker: I love the fact you didn't swear, though.
Speaker: That's hilarious.
Speaker: Yeah, I really tried.
Speaker: You can say bullshit.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: I think you get blacklisted on Apple for the F-bomb, but whatever.
Speaker: At a board level, which is like, why...
Speaker: At BoardDevil, why are we not providing marginalized shadow boards for companies to not give them an excuse of why they've not got that diversity in the board now?
Speaker: If you provide marginalized shadow boards, they have no risk.
Speaker: They have the chance to develop, to have their successes.
Speaker: They can bring that innovation and that innovation.
Speaker: light that they need and lends us to their strategy.
Speaker: Why don't we do that?
Speaker: How do they do a shadow board or set up a shadow board?
Speaker: So that's what's going to, that's one of the things that's going to launch.
Speaker: So I don't want to run over that, but I'm doing that to
Speaker: So you're taking the experience that you've had and you are creating, because I was thinking there's a book brewing here, but you are creating.
Speaker: Oh, there's loads of things brewing.
Speaker: But I'm just touching on some of them.
Speaker: I think the power of therapy is that you... Tell me about this, though.
Speaker: The...
Speaker: So that's one of them.
Speaker: The power of therapy is, is I actually went from fighting to creating like, but creating through collaboration.
Speaker: It was like, you're not a star.
Speaker: You're a constellation.
Speaker: How do I collaborate?
Speaker: So with that, I'm going to, it's a collaboration with Oliver Sanderson.
Speaker: So it's like a collaboration as a charity is a not for profit, which is how do we actually be the answer?
Speaker: Stop talking, stop doing, but we understand there's a big gap and you,
Speaker: Typically, people are losing marginalized people at that kind of second, third career level, but they drop out.
Speaker: of the talent pipe, you know, your own recruitment, right?
Speaker: So they don't have them.
Speaker: So I don't even know if the, oh no, I know on the current trajectory we are and the solutions that we have, you will still not have a diverse and representative board.
Speaker: And by diverse, I don't just mean 50-50 gender, by the way, when I talk marginalized.
Speaker: I mean, let's start looking at it in multiple lenses.
Speaker: And the therapy meant that I knew I didn't want to do something that was just black.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because I didn't want to be the solution, which was the opposite answer.
Speaker: And so I think therapy means that you really look at it from a point of compassion, from a point of empathy and from a point of love.
Speaker: And initially I got asked, like, will you do this for black?
Speaker: I'm like, no, I don't want to do it for black.
Speaker: Not that my black experience doesn't mean that I suffer and have that.
Speaker: But if I come from a point of view of empathy and compassion, I can see so many layers.
Speaker: um, LGBTQ neurodivergent, like all of these different things where I'm, where I very much like, no, I'm fed up.
Speaker: I want to cut ties with the old.
Speaker: And this, it's very, you become very transformational with therapy is the, is the piece that I think.
Speaker: But also perhaps this is,
Speaker: perhaps this is your life calling.
Speaker: Perhaps this is, you've had this experience to lead you to this point.
Speaker: And for you, you know, there are others who are going to do it for the black community.
Speaker: And that's brilliant.
Speaker: I could give names, but I shan't because this is about you.
Speaker: But it's like they're doing that.
Speaker: You can do yours.
Speaker: You can, this is what you're destined to fix.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I, so I think it's part of it.
Speaker: I'm very much portfolio driven now.
Speaker: I think the ability of someone trying to erase me or eradicate me means that
Speaker: I have a whole portfolio.
Speaker: There were some things that I thought I was willing to let go of.
Speaker: So I was willing in the, when, when I was challenged on not being good enough education wise and made to delete it, I said I would do another doctorate.
Speaker: Cause you know, why not just do another doctorate?
Speaker: I'm sorry, I thought they got you to delete it because they were threatened by it because it was so good.
Speaker: Well, the interesting thing was it was do another doctorate, but oh, by the way, you can't announce that you're doing any research.
Speaker: And I was like, well, how can everyone else it?
Speaker: So it was like a bit of hidden figures, do it with your hand behind your back.
Speaker: And I was like, well, and I even said to my colleague, you know, I do pee the same.
Speaker: You know, the quote from Hidden Figures where she said, we pee the same color.
Speaker: So I was like, we do pee the same.
Speaker: So what happened was, um,
Speaker: I ended up contacting Digital Switzerland to say, can you help me?
Speaker: Because I've got, I'm being told, you know, I'm doing this research, but I'm being told I can't announce the research.
Speaker: So they connected me with 12 organizations.
Speaker: I had, but they said, oh, we can't do more for you than we do for anyone else.
Speaker: But they had this facility to have coffee meetings.
Speaker: So literally, like each month, I would take a coffee with a different company.
Speaker: And I went in and I analyzed AI in terms of what made them successful and what made them fail.
Speaker: So
Speaker: was a huge piece yeah very belittled by um the um company so i and trying to then stop me because it ended up to be something amazing but they were still belittling it so i thought you know i'm gonna drop it ended up having a conversation with someone in the tavistock institute and the tavistock institute all about systematic thinking thinking okay maybe i'll do it there and he was
Speaker: It was a half hour conversation, which ended up being an hour and a half.
Speaker: And he says, Chantal, this is game changing.
Speaker: I actually think you should have a call with Oxford and Cambridge.
Speaker: And I remember coming off school, speaking to my mum going, and I'd been through a lot of therapy then.
Speaker: I said, it's really funny.
Speaker: Everything is shining through.
Speaker: I was being suppressed.
Speaker: But actually, I go from this environment to Oxford or Cambridge, mum.
Speaker: And you say that to my mum and dad, their eyes light up, right?
Speaker: I mean, I also think it just, again, goes back to that projected lack of worth.
Speaker: It's that, you know, you were suppressed because they felt threatened by you.
Speaker: They knew that you were shining light.
Speaker: And it's funny because the brighter your light shines, the more people try and drag you down and make you small and...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think therapy allows you to then to shine your light.
Speaker: So next week I will lead 70, 18 to 23 year olds in generative AI and how we can bring ethics, equity and equality, which is my whole mission.
Speaker: Then on the 1st of March, I'll lead a lecture for Cambridge University.
Speaker: That is so amazing.
Speaker: Where you're just, you are able to supersede and you are able to change light.
Speaker: So, but it's not being one therapist.
Speaker: Let's be frank.
Speaker: It's being three.
Speaker: That's okay.
Speaker: I mean, I've written a memoir that has 12 years.
Speaker: There's a lot of people in there.
Speaker: A lot.
Speaker: There's been lots of people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because actually what happens is you do and you will find at some point there'll be somebody new or you might go this way and there'll be somebody new.
Speaker: It's funny because I'm reading, it's like you're fixing what I'm reading.
Speaker: I'm reading The Algorithm.
Speaker: I don't know if you've read that book and it's... No.
Speaker: I'll have to send you...
Speaker: And she's talking about the bias in technology used for recruiting.
Speaker: And it's all about how it's sabotaging, well, employee experience and job search.
Speaker: Well, I'm advising people on that.
Speaker: Yes, it's like you two need to connect.
Speaker: You're doing the fixing of what she's talking about, which is just terrifying.
Speaker: Well, I mean, you have to consider it as one of, as your future workforce, and we are blindly going into it.
Speaker: And if the data is not representative, so we generally have global north data, not global south data, but yet we say, you know, we've got a brick economy growing, right?
Speaker: We have data that is biased.
Speaker: So therefore, though, we are building solutions based on
Speaker: a lack of diversity, a lack of inclusion, a lack of equity, but we have a whole load of E&I statements.
Speaker: We actually need to get ahead of that fast and design that properly.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's... Instead of saying, here's some technology that isn't biased, when you know damn well it is.
Speaker: Anyway, we've gone off topic.
Speaker: But it just shows you, actually, that...
Speaker: You did hit that point.
Speaker: You did hit the, we call it a breakthrough.
Speaker: I think when you're out the other side, it doesn't feel like a breakdown anymore.
Speaker: You've had your breakthrough and here you are doing something absolutely amazing because I think the critical bit was you went, I need help.
Speaker: I think that was your, and it's really tough.
Speaker: I think it's trauma survivors is really tough because you just learn hyper independence, don't ask for help.
Speaker: suck it in and actually it's the most destructive thing we can do to ourselves whereas asking for help I think there was two for me there are two three I need help letting go of fear and shame
Speaker: Fear and shame are dreadfully disgusting.
Speaker: Oh, not disgusting.
Speaker: Oh, my God, what's the word?
Speaker: Destructive.
Speaker: So close.
Speaker: Wrong word.
Speaker: Yeah, and there w as a third, but I've lost it now.
Speaker: Oh, dear.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: That was me.
Speaker: Ask for help, fear and shame, which is destructive, and then, oh, well, we can put that in the show notes.
Speaker: Yeah, we put it in the show notes.
Speaker: I kind of felt critical, but it's okay.
Speaker: But yeah, no, letting go of, oh, I do believe that for me, a part of me died.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And in death, you become fearless.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And I will say, like, people go, you're doing that, you're doing that.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, fearless is the one.
Speaker: There's a bit that you put, you grieve or you put whatever trauma it is, hmm,
Speaker: it allows you to grieve and part of you dies.
Speaker: And in that death, there's a part of rebirth.
Speaker: And I don't know whether it's like a project Phoenix or something like that, that's come up, but you are very different.
Speaker: You are very different person than what you are.
Speaker: So I would say it's those three things to me.
Speaker: I'd agree.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, there is.
Speaker: I love it when people call me fearless.
Speaker: I just look at them and think, well, particularly if they don't know my story.
Speaker: It's like, wow, just to hear that, to be told that it's just I was so riddled with fear.
Speaker: So it's like now, yep, thank you.
Speaker: If people would like to chat to you further, shall I direct them to LinkedIn?
Speaker: Is that the easiest?
Speaker: Just LinkedIn.
Speaker: It's a whole portfolio of stuff.
Speaker: You can never put me in a box, Katrina.
Speaker: I wouldn't dream of putting you in a box.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: I love what you're up to.
Speaker: And anyway, I can champion it.
Speaker: I totally will.
Speaker: I don't like putting anybody in a box.
Speaker: I think we're all bloody weird, you know, and I just love that.
Speaker: So I, I don't know if you saw the podcast with Isabel Gatherer.
Speaker: I mean, we're both absolutely crazy when we start talking spiritual.
Speaker: So, and people probably have me in a recruitment box.
Speaker: I'm like, you should just say there's a whole other box or 10.
Speaker: So anyway, thank you so much.
Speaker: We got there, took a bit, but we got there.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: It was so welcome.
Speaker: You're welcome, darling.
Speaker: Thank you for tuning in to Beyond the Damage of Words.
Speaker: How brave, how vulnerable.
Speaker: All to inspire listeners like you to take a step or inspire others to take a step.
Speaker: Imagine what healing we could create if we normalise this conversation.
Speaker: So please pass this on and of course subscribe so we can do just that.
Speaker: Until next time, thank you.
