 Ya ya ya. So many things are happening. So how do you handle, once you're trying to compose yourself, how do you deal with people who don't understand what you're going to do? The thing about therapy is, I'm the one who's going through therapy, no one else is. So when I come out into the world, every week after my session, every two weeks after my session, when I leave that session, I'm the one who's worked on myself, the world hasn't. So the world will be just the way it was before I went in. I am the change. That's so smart. Of course, it's not that every single time I handle myself now with grace and poise, I'm just gliding around. I still have my struggles, I still have my pain points. I also still have traumas that I am yet to discuss, that I don't even know that I have yet. I still have whys that I don't know yet. So of course, they're still trigger points. But now I know I'm on the journey of learning. And these days also, I'm able to see myself walking into a trap of my own emotion better than I was before. Because before sometimes you just stumble and you don't even know what staggered you. So now at least I'm more aware. But the thing about it is you've got to be aware that you're the one who's doing the work. The world is still going to be the same way. If it changes well and good, but you can't have that expectation, you've just got to work on yourself and how you handle things. And recently there's a course I'm doing by a lovely lady called Dr. Patricia Muragami. It's called Breakthrough Leadership Transformation. And they have this thing called the teaching us about the six second rule. So whenever you're walking into something that you know is going to lead to some form of outburst from you or you can see someone is going to trigger you or something someone says or someone does going to trigger you, take six seconds of just silence. Whether you need to walk away, whether you need to put some water in your mouth, do whatever you need to do to take six seconds, just compose yourself and then figure out okay, how do I want to respond to this. And I think that's also one of the amazing ways that you can help yourself just you know do better and be better. There are a lot of things that I want to say the younger generation but it's not like that, it's not like that. Hashtags are in the morning. But there's a lot of I don't even know. I keep bringing up that a lot of the rate of suicide has increased in Kenya and it's mostly the boy child. I was trying to have a conversation with some gentlemen and trying to figure out what's going on and they're telling me maybe it's a hassle. They're trying to, I don't know, win over Shore. Shore is being bought a Range Rover and all he can do is promise her love or things like that. Or even other things you know like you're struggling much culture maybe for example when do a kwanza kwenuko graduate. There are all those types of expectations. You graduate, the first thing they want is a job. You don't have a job yet you yourself. All you have done is graduated. There's so many little pressures, pressures of being a first born, pressures of being a last born, pressures of being black and female as if to na layam toto siwote or pressures of being male and African and not having a family. There's just so much going on. How do you balance, how do you and it's a daily struggle when you marry lalajana siwote amkaleo. Yeah, that's a deep question. That's a big question. The thing about even the African experience the particular pressures that we have that are different for the longest time people thought the therapy was a western thing. So all we knew about therapy was how they handled western issues. African issues are also different. So the particular pressures that we have as Africans that are different and unique to the African experience then this on top of that is the female and the first born and the male and the first born and the first of his name or the first of her lineage and getting married and all these other pressures it's not easy. There's no actually get better quick scheme that I can even give. I still have those struggles. Now I'm in my thirties. Now the question is okay. What's the plan? I'm counting down to 40. Every single day I woke up and he was telling me it's closer than it was. But what I'm trying to do is also live. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day and I was telling him that the best we can do with this life is live it because nothing is guaranteed. You can be trying everything running around health as well just trying to get this done or that done but then in that you lose life you lose the living. It's that saying that people say that the older someone gets and people ask older people about what they wish when they were younger, they said they wish they just need to live. Just live your life. Your only competition is who you were yesterday. That's your biggest and best competition who you were yesterday in comparison to who you wanted to be today and taking it at a time also and breathing. Sometimes you're running around in your mind but you don't even give yourself a moment to breathe. Before you know it, it's usiku, the next day it's the morning you're running to the weekend. The weekend is two days which by the way someone needs to fix that. We need a day between Sunday and Monday. How is it possible that you work five days then you have two days and sometimes a day and a half if you work half day on Saturday. In all that just remember to breathe and live and just take a day at a time. It's the best you can do. Why is mental health so important living life? Why is mental health so important to call yourself for a meeting? There's a video of Rasta he says why are you so all up in your head? Why are you beating yourself up every day? Why are you being your own worst enemy? Don't worry, there are people who will help you do that. You need to be your best friend. How do you forgive yourself if someone pissed you off and that six seconds became two and before you could hold it how do you walk through living and loving yourself because again sometimes we think that we need a partner or we need a special kind of job or we need to live somewhere or we need to have a car to feel like we fulfilled but if all that was taken away all of that how do we make sure mental health is balanced? For one to begin with the importance of mental health is because it runs everything it's puppet master of everything in your life you may think it's everything else but it's not, it's what's going on up here that runs how you handle day to day activities a lot of times how you feel when you first wake up in the morning and what they say about the first hour after you wake up and what you do within that hour will dictate how the entire day goes it's the same with what happens at the building blocks of your life a lot of the times it takes how you act as an adult it's really important to be able to work through these things to be able to live in your fullness so that's the importance of mental health because it really does run everything behind the scenes and without dealing with the mental health issues which by the way as a country we're also doing quite a lot right now there's a lot of talk out there about mental health there's a lot of people on social media who are doing such beautiful work around mental health this Edgar or the Ambo Jamle who does amazing work talking about men when it comes to the mental health sphere this Dr. Wundi who's handling something called the wellness clinic she's a wellness doctor and she just speaks about mental health from a doctor's perspective so there's so many people out there who are having those conversations now and I think it really shows the importance of it I think some people might think that it's an issue that we're discussing now but it's something that's been there all through it's just that now we're really having those discussions now we're having more reports of young people committing suicide within this season of COVID we've had a lot of deaths around suicide of young people who are giving up and are done and exhausted and a lot of people are saying I never knew right and that's the question that we're trying to avoid with the mental health conversation I never knew conversation let people have a space where they can talk things out they can have a safe space where they can get into the tough topics so that things can be easier how would you talk to someone who maybe is trying to reach out and they're being told you're seeking attention you're seeking attention how do you just even deal with that what if you discovered maybe someone kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa but let me tell you the thing about the release is it almost feels better than the pain yeah so from a personal standpoint I really understand the appeal within the self harm when you're in it you feel like that's the only way out I completely get that but I'm here to tell people that it gets better and there are better ways to handle it and if you have someone who's telling you that you're seeking attention you're talking to the wrong person you're definitely talking to the wrong person and it's okay and it's going to be okay you just need to be able to find the right places to let out that emotion the right people to talk to who can guide you to places where you can get help I don't know if it's the therapy but you came in here in like 10 seconds you were just friendly with everyone you would even crack like 5 jokes like we were friends all of us despite other people not knowing who you are is that something still linked to mental health because you're so at peace like you're so chill you know the thing is not every day is the same yesterday was a bad day for me yesterday I wasn't feeling very balanced I was low my spirit was feeling low but as I said it's a day to time I woke up and I was like you know what so I have the opportunity today to go on TV and be able to have a great conversation about something I'm very passionate about take this moment if the next moment once I live here is a low moment then I'll get through that moment sometimes I even take it moment by moment live alone day by day sometimes I take this moment and embrace it and if the next moment is a bad one then it's a bad one but it doesn't mean that I think I've been able to understand also that this is not the entirety of my story this one bad moment or this one bad phase is not the entirety of my story the next moment might be better so sometimes the best way to get out is to just get through that's deep baby we've not even gotten to how wonderful you are as a plus side give you that kakarage because we don't see many of those around and you will kill it and then you sayimone venyamum gas and it's always true what got you on that boat wow my plus side is also just an interesting one for me as well I struggled for a very long time with my body and I struggled a lot with finding things to wear feeling sexy, feeling pretty, feeling hot and I listened a lot to the outside voices and that is what give me the validation but as of last year 2019 a friend of mine called Yvette told me you know what just start documenting you love clothes you love looking pretty you love getting dolled up and get dressed up so every time you have a reason to take a photo and put it on Instagram what's the worst that would happen and then I started on my friend Alexia's birthday last year my first Instagram post and from there I think also just getting the love out there and hearing people who would ask where can I get that because they were struggling themselves figuring out where to get where to get pieces they were struggling to figure out where to get pieces for themselves they were struggling with feeling pretty and feeling hot and then feeling like I was also allowing them to have a voice almost by just putting up my photos and saying where I got the clothes that also give me confidence in itself so a lot of people think that I walked into social media with the confidence of a thousand people it's you guys on social media who gass me up who built my confidence as well it's grown as you guys have watched and also with that I also have bad days there days I wake up and nothing is fitting there days I just have bloated there days just nothing works the eyeliner refuses to cut the eyebrows are not sisters they're not cousins there just is nothing is working but I think I'm also seeing my beauty externally as well as much as I'm working on the internal I'm seeing a beauty and I'm appreciating it so that journey it's been an interesting journey I had started off as just a plus size influencer and plus size fashion influencer and I'm trying to expand myself on social media as well because there's more to me than just plus size fashion and Jason J. Takapik is actually the one who told me don't feature yourself in a box when you're more than just that one box so I guess these conversations are my attempt at expanding myself in this space and then just seeing where I can make a whom my favourite thing about what you've just said is you're learning to see your beauty I can relate because we did that things about me it's taken me so long just to embrace and then sometimes I meet people who now think niku na mazingo alai sasa juna ji it's just fantastic it's fantastic because now you're judging me for something that's taken me so long to love about myself and then on this other side I see someone who is just not loving themselves at all and I won't tell them who is Shwitki who is Shwitki who are you waiting to love you who just love yourself love everything about you because even if you want to subject yourself to change which is fine it's okay I do things that enhance myself a bit but it started from I love this maybe let's make it better how would you tell somebody who's a plus side Shwitki but it's just confused because now TV has said if you don't have flasthoma nowadays you have to be flasthoma and now I think we have to be short also if we are tall it's okay we have to be a little bit light skin not so much so how would you just shure it don't be influence out here especially when you're a teenager when you're home on zoop how would you talk to someone like that wow there's one thing I hold true in my life based on even practice so that I keep on saying a lot of the things I'm saying so that I do them perfectly the most conversations you have in a day are with yourself the least you can be kind it's the least you can do you spend so much time talking to yourself and all you talk is negative and even what you take in is negative sometimes we just look at your Instagram feed if you're a plus side girl I would tell you Han you need to stop following just Kim Kardashian's shaped women look for plus side women and there are so many beautiful amazing plus side women out there in fashion, in mental health in fitness even there's an amazing plus side woman who is Ayogi don't sure this can do things I can't even do and they are fantastic there even plus side women who are really diligent in their fitness so both of what you feed yourself if you're constantly just on social media all you follow are people who look a particular way you're a beautiful dark skin girl but you don't follow a Lekwek on Instagram you're just following every single light skin person you can find you're also doing a disservice to yourself and then how you speak about yourself to yourself that's also really important and by those steps we even find that the people you surround yourself with you're careful that you're not surrounding yourself with people who speak negatively to you about you because sometimes when you're wallowing in your own self-pity you surround yourself with people who make you feel worse about yourself you look cute but you're pretty for a plus side girl you're cute for a dark skin girl there's always those backhanded compliments but you surround yourself with people who are giving you those things because that's how you're feeling about yourself so the journey to love your body is not a one day journey but it's a possible journey you just need people to surround yourself with things that enhance that you don't have to love makeup to be the most beautiful girl in the room the thing about it is I think a lot of people think that you have to be into wigs you have to be into waves you have to be into heels you have to be into makeup you can also be pretty and beautiful just the way you are that's a Taras really song actually it's parted immediately when you said it there's no also you don't have to not wear makeup because you think that's what beauty standards are because some guy told you that he doesn't like babes with makeup like if you love makeup hand buy all the palettes all of them every rainbow color you can think of if he thinks that naturally your eyelids are blue then that's his problem exactly if wear that waterproof mascara do what it is that makes you happy if you want to be bald recently my friend cut off her hair and I think she looks amazing right now I know that doesn't work because my head shape those two things don't go together because I tried cutting my hair do what works for you find what works for you don't always try going with the mold figure out what you think and go with that especially for the plus says girls out there I want to tell you you are beautiful you are so beautiful let me tell you what confidence sexiness is confidence it's just confidence the way you give that look like a camera it doesn't care whether you're pear shape apple dream it doesn't matter it's all in the attitude hopefully my last question how do we be part of helping a society become a place where girls don't fight girls just because you like makeup I hate makeup even those girls who just wear makeup it's you're doing this or you're prospering why can't we just grow together how do you think a garden grows guys it's not one flower it's different in one space how can we be helping our sisters how do we give them that confidence and just joy and respect to live with their own sisters without kumima kitu if for example maybe you were working and I want to be happy for you until I get my time to shine because life is about seasons how do we do that I think first we need to stop that line for women at their worst enemies we need to stop saying it because the more you say something the more you live it the more it becomes true like we always say the worst enemies enemies each other the people who talk the worst about women the women who will hold you back in the workspace I think one of the biggest fears when you start working is to have a female boss because you all know that if your boss is female you can't dress her because she will pinpoint you out she won't like you so you have to be simple because you don't want yourself there are so many lies that people tell each other about women and it's women who see them so we need to stop saying it we need to start believing the opposite that we are our biggest cheerleaders we are our biggest supporters because I think if there is something we are seeing right now in the world it's that women are really cheering women on of course out there you will have one to people who will be your nesias quote unquote haters I think that is a gender based thing you might have even men who think that you're not worth anything or you're not as big as you seem to be or who try to put you down so it's important to first of all start speaking differently and then start being differently be that change you want to see literally if you are in the workspace and there is someone who you see who's traveling with one, two, three things a young lady help her out it's a list you can do if you see if you're somewhere and you see a young lady maybe for example she's her fly is open for her genes let her know cover another woman's nakedness love on other women on social media when you see her in something cute and something pretty don't just like the guys' photos without their shots you'll see her be able to hear in a costume like it, comment show love I think once we start speaking differently then we start being differently then that is it we will have changed the entire cost of everything and for the younger women I think it's a given there's a lot of things we can learn from them if it's something I'm realizing about the younger generation they are very confident there's something about their confidence there's nothing that's towards them I've had conversations with young ladies who know themselves they know things of course they have their struggles so much more self aware than we were at their age at the ages of 19, 2021 and it's such a beautiful thing to see I mean all most of the time and where we can fill the gaps for them let's do that with love not with Ujwaji for I know better than you it's for I'm here to help you if you need someone, if you need a hand to hold I've met some amazing young ladies on social media especially after my story and I'm loving walking with them and the journey of just getting to know them the struggles they are going through and then looking back and saying things that my mum used to say at that age and seeing myself in that same scenario years ago and helping them walk through where can but yeah being a big sister even being a small sister to older ladies where you can assist them there are a lot of things that they are learning now especially in technology right, you're also a small sister to someone you can, this value in that itself whether you're helping them in technology when it comes to work things or you're helping them in life things just by telling them lessons that you have learnt now that maybe they are still learning in their older age you can reach out across the board I love that you love yourself first and then you go forward and love others there's a picture where someone is wearing a battery alafu anajimalizia it's at red like they are done but they are giving it to someone else who is almost full so basically what we are saying is don't finish yourself just to help someone just don't do it okay we gotta leave now, we gotta go because time has told us too but maybe your last remarks and how again we can find you and support you actually that last thing you said is true your cup has to run it over your cup is supposed to be yours what flows out is supposed to be for people you're not supposed to give from your cup I think that's what leads to resentment if you're constantly giving what's supposed to be yours to other people the greatest commandment said love your neighbor as you love yourself so you're supposed to be loving yourself and you will find it very hard to love your neighbor if you do not love yourself or you'll expect your neighbor to love you the way you should be loving yourself love starts in once and moves out so um it's dushikuri on instagram wild underscore succulent on twitter and I've really enjoyed this thank you for coming thank you for coming, I'm sure you've changed someone's life we once talked about suicide and that same day someone said they almost committed suicide you never know who you're talking to you never know who you're talking to so I really hope if you were about to give up please don't do it we still need you here, where are you going where are you running hashtag is my in the morning it's at white by phone, facebook, white by 4 channel and twitter please do not go away we're about to engage in another conversation before we wrap it up