Zeenat Saloojee | Childhood Trauma, Apartheid & Healing Through Writing

In this powerful interview, author Zee shares the deeply personal story behind her contribution to the Women Like Me book The Space Between Before and After. This is an honest conversation about childhood survival, family secrecy, generational trauma, grief, displacement, identity, and the long road to healing through writing.

After the loss of both her parents, one core memory rose to the surface and pushed Zee to finally write the story she had carried for years. She reflects on growing up during apartheid-era South Africa, where political unrest, fear, secrecy, and survival shaped everyday life. Zee explains how her grandparents protected her, how silence affected her body and emotions, and what it means to grow up with both love and abandonment living in the same story.

We also talk about the meaning of samosas as a symbol of culture, sacrifice, scarcity, memory, and healing. What once held fear became part of a grounding, meditative ritual she now shares with her son. This episode explores how writing can uncover hidden truths, create closure, and help us make sense of the past.

If you have lived through family separation, displacement, silence, grief, identity struggles, or generational trauma, this conversation may give language to what you have felt.

In this episode, we discuss:

•  childhood trauma and survival 
•  apartheid South Africa 
•  family secrecy and political activism 
•  grief after losing parents 
•  displacement and belonging 
•  generational trauma and healing 
•  writing as closure and emotional release 
•  memory, food, culture, and identity 
•  the story behind The Space Between Before and After
•  Women Like Me authors and true-life stories 

Connect with Zee:  

holisticsoletosoul.com

https://www.holisticsoletosoul.com/

Facebook ; Holistic Sole to Soul:

https://www.facebook.com/p/Holistic-Sole-to-Soul-61562724601752/
Istagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/holisticwellnesswithzee/reels/?__d=11

Book Mentioned:
The Space Between Before and After
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0GQ1X2WJ1

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I’m Julie Fairhurst, and this is where stories turn into power.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Well, welcome everyone to another episode of Women Like Me Stories and Business. This is the podcast where we talk about the truth behind the story. I'm Julie Fairhurst, and today I have the absolute honor of speaking with one of our authors from our newest Women Like Me book, The Space Between Before and After. And that is the cover there. It is such a good book. Our conversation is going to be tender, but also powerful and unforgettable. My guest story takes us into childhood, family fear, political unrest, secrecy, and survival. It's beautifully written, deeply human, and full of the kind of detail that does not just paint a picture, but it pulls you right into the room. It is such a good story. So please welcome Z La Ju La Guji. La Guji. Salute. Salud G. Oh, sorry. Salud Gi. Got it. Salud G. Got it. Got it. Zee, I'm so happy that you're here. Thank you for being here with us.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

It's an honor to be here, and I'm really excited to be doing this today and to be sharing, be have the opportunity to share my truth. Yeah, thank you for inviting me.

Grief Sparks A Core Memory

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Oh, you're so welcome. And it's such a such a fabulous story. And it's one of those stories that reminds, that reminds people like we meet people day to day, go out through our lives, but we really don't know what's behind them, what stories they've they've dealt with or are dealing with. And and yours is just one of those that I when I first read it, I went, holy smokes. That's quite the story. So let's get into it. Let's start first of all by just finding out why this story. So what made you choose this particular story to write about?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Um, I think it was, it was honestly, it was a little bit random in that when I, you know, my father had passed away. My mom passed away in 2018, my father passed away on the same day a year later in 2019. Wow. And I think as a family, we were mourning and we were grieving, and we were trying to console one another. And the boys, my I've got three sons, and they were asking me, like, tell us about like how do you remember, you know, my they called my father Papa Joe. And so tell us stories about Papa Joe and tell us stories about Grandma, which was my mom. And what's your first, like, what's the one story that you could share that made you realize like what love meant? And it was, it was, I thought about it, and it was that story simply because of the overwhelming feeling that I recall as a child when I first saw my dad in that desert leaning up against the rock with a cigarette in his hand, the cocky suit. Like I it's it's embedded in my memory. It's such a core memory for me. And so when I told a story, I told it as an adult to my children. Like, oh, I remember, and it was just like it was verbatim. It was just like going through the motions of telling the story. But but I think what it did for me is it gave me afterwards when I went back and I was alone, and I went back to visit, revisit that story because as I was telling it, just as I'm telling it now, it was like there was this overwhelm that I pushed down. And I really wanted to see where that was coming from. Like where why was I feeling so vulnerable? And and so I revisited this story and I really went into the details of it as a child, and I wanted to remember it as a child because it was such a core memory for me. So it excavated all of this emotion and and and and really kind of changed it. It it just changed something deep within me that you know you know something, but you don't realize it, if that makes any sense. Yes, it does. And how we carry ourselves and what what we do in our work, like everything as a parent, as a mother, as a friend, everything it impacted.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

And this story really did that. It it showed me that.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Yeah. I love what you said in the beginning about, you know, your of course, not your parents passing, but but you being able to give those stories to your sons. So they have that memory to to because I think it's the same thing. Like I've noticed so much, I've written my personal story, and and some of my family members have been like, well, I didn't even know about that. You know, so I think it's it's I think it's a good, it's a good reminder that, you know, is there stories that we should be sharing with our children and our loved ones that that you know we hold on to, we love, you know, we carry those those deeply. So I I I love that you were able to share those with your boys. When you first began writing it, what emotions came up the most strongly for you?

SPEAKER_00 6:02

I think it was a balance between feeling and knowing how deeply loved I was and feeling and feeling really abandoned at the same time. It was it was such a juxtaposition for me because the abandonment is something that I'd always tossed away and hidden and and not wanted to to really see. But when I when I looked at that little girl inside of me, it was that that feeling of like I'm being abandoned. I'm being left out. Why are they not here? And almost anger, like why why is something else, anything else, more important than being with me and raising me and taking care of me? And I think that the only way that I could forgive my parents was to recognize what it is that I needed to forgive.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Yes, yes, wow. You know, your story is so vivid. When readers, I mean, I found this, and I'm sure others will when they read it. So readers can smell the food, feel the tension, and sense the fear in the room. So did those did those memories come back easily, or did they sort of arrive in pieces for you?

SPEAKER_00 7:30

I think that I think that it was a little bit of both. I think that there was just when I told the story, when I revisited the story, it was just an overwhelm. It was like a wave that like a tsunami that just like you know flooded me with emotion. And it was then about really trying to extract and really carefully understand the uh the nuances of everything. And so I wouldn't say it was this flood of emotion that came back, but then it was like picking it apart and really like digging for for what it is exactly and why was it this? And I remember, I remember the emotion attached to these, you know, very scary big soldiers, and my granny giving them something of something I loved, not understanding the depth of what she was doing at that time, but the emotion for myself was like, why is this happening? And it was it was fear, that's what I was feeling. It was just that I didn't know how to recognize it at that time. Well, you were so young. I was, I was, I was seven.

Apartheid Childhood And Grandparents’ Shield

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Yeah, yes. Wow. Well, being a child in the middle of very adult danger, at what point did your life or did you begin to understand what was really happening around you? Was there a point where you started to actually realize what was going on?

SPEAKER_00 9:12

In this story in particular, I think I was always aware of the danger. There was always conversation about it. There was always, it was all around us. Like it, it's you were in a war-torn area that you lived like I was in this bubble. Around me was war everywhere. There was, you know, chaos all the time. There was the consciousness of knowing that you, as a brown-skinned child, there were certain things that I couldn't, I couldn't do. And it wasn't only for me, it was for all brown people in South Africa at that time during apartheid. And so it there's all there's always a knowing, but it's in understanding that that, you know, and how you live that every day, I think, is is is what really came to fore for me. And I knew all the political songs, I knew the revolutionary songs, I witnessed so much of the struggles that people were facing around me. And even within our own families, my grandmother was always cooking food and taking it to the prisoners that were not actually prisoners, they were more hostages for standing up for something and you know that kind of thing. So it was always something in the sphere of our of our reality. And and I knew that it affected me specifically differently than it did other children because of my my parents' political stance and the fact that they were exiled and couldn't come back into South Africa. And from the moment we I landed in South Africa when my granny came to Canada and got me and brought me to South Africa, and I haven't told those stories. It there was there was chaos, there was mayhem, there was, you know, this this need to protect me from authorities at the time. So wow, wow.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

So your grandparents definitely come through your story extremely strongly. What would you want the readers to understand the most about them and the role that they played in your life?

SPEAKER_00 11:24

I think really that they were my protectors. They loved me unconditionally, like parents should be loving their children unconditionally. They gave me, they filled in that gap that my parents couldn't. And they did it with such honor and with such authenticity and generosity, and and I'm forever grateful and indebted to them for that. Um and they taught me my, I mean, the work that I do now comes from my grandmother. You know, it was she raised me, she showed me the way in a sense. And so they're still in my life, in some, you know, in many respects, in many ways. And to have people in your life that you can absolutely fall back on and and who are there as your pillars of strength, and they don't necessarily have to be your parents, they can be anyone, really. Yeah, absolutely. But that we grow, we I think we grow, we we we look for those gems in our lives, and sometimes they're there for a short period of time, and sometimes they're there for a longer period of time. Yes, but to have those and to be those now, like I feel like that's what I need to be, is that that maternal, that matriarch, that mother to whomever needs it. Yeah, wow.

Border Crossing Secrets And Stolen Food

SPEAKER_01 12:58

So there was so much tension in the border crossing scene. Oh my goodness. So looking back now, what does that moment mean to you as an adult?

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Some not so nice things come up for me. Definitely the sense of being secretive, being almost to the point of deception, just for the sake of being feeling that I need to do that to feel safe. Yeah. Being to a certain extent, hordeful of my food because it was taken, even though it wasn't my food per se, it was to be shared. Yeah, but this the sense of like I need to, I need to keep my cupboards full and I need to like make sure, you know, and and and I recognizing that has helped me to let go of that to a certain extent. Yeah, secrets, secrets all the time, and just like constantly feeling like I need to protect myself, I need to hide, I need to not show my voice and not show my face and not be present in myself because I might put other people at danger, yeah, including myself.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yeah, see, because in that scene that you wrote about, you were you were awake, but you were told to pretend you were sleeping. And why couldn't you have a passport? Was it because it was a Canadian passport? Why did you have to use a neighbor's passport, a neighbor child's passport?

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Right. So, in order for me to own a South African passport, I didn't have a Canadian passport at the time that I'm aware of. I don't, I'm not quite sure, but for me to have a South African, any form of South South African identification would link me to my parents. And my parents were essentially wanted people. Right. Right. And it just it just added that component of danger that my my grandparents weren't willing to risk.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Got it. Oh, I understand. Okay, okay, I got it. I understand now. Yeah. So food, we'll go back to food. Food plays such a powerful role in your story. The samosas are not just food, they become part of survival, culture, comfort, and sacrifice. So, what does that symbolize for you now? The samoside small? Well, just the just, you know, I mean, we talked a little bit about it, but what does that symbolize for you? You know, when you you must never be able to eat a samosis without thinking of that of the border crossing and the guards getting all your food.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

I think that I think that I've I've I've offered myself a different perspective now. I opened a restaurant a couple of years ago on the Sunshine Coast and then in Burnaby for a couple of years. Um, and samusas was the thing that I I focused on, and I made all different styles, all different flavors, and sold it to people that came in but sold it wholesale to different South African stores. And and I think it was about giving and and and feeding my own soul as I feed other people's soul and changing the perspective of fear to one of love and and and and creating something because my granny, when she made those little sumo sales, and they were tiny, they were like just little, like two bites and they're done, with such dedication and love and and detail that I wanted to be able to honor that rather than take the perspective of held on to fear and held on to something that was taken away from me. And so food, samosas in particular, when I make them now, I I make them, I make them almost like as a meditation, I would say. And I'm very, very slow in doing it. And when I wrote, when I fold them, there's there's a meditative component to it. And I love my youngest son now helps me to make them, and I'm teaching him how to make them. And and so we'll sit at the table with our cloths and the same way my granny did, and we'll have music in the background and we'll chat and we'll spend like you know, an hour while we're while we're folding each samosa, sitting and just, you know, just organically conversing. And I I love that I've been able to change that perspective of what it was and what it is today for me.

Samosas As Healing And Home

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Yeah, yeah. Wow, that's a that's a beautiful vision. I love I love that you shared that with us. Thank you. So your story carries themes of exile, separation, and identity. How did how did those early experiences shape your understanding of home and belonging?

SPEAKER_00 18:14

I really struggled with it for a very, very long time. I never felt quite at home anywhere that I was. I think I always felt different from everyone and isolated from from who I was supposed to be, I guess. I, you know, because one foot was in South Africa, the other foot was always in Canada. And I, and even as an ad as a young adult, I went back and forth between the two countries, lugging my kids and my husband along with me. I think we need to be in Canada now. Oh, I think we should go back to South Africa. And and and and not really feeling like any place was really home. And then as an older adult, coming into a place of actually home is just just where I am, right now, right where I am. And I make it with the people that are around me and my family. We make it home just by being who we are and and coming together when we can. And and so again, it's perspective, right? And and and learning to change and be okay to pivot and change my own perspective that I grew up with, I think has has just been monumental in my life today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Well, that kind of leads into my next question. So, how have those early experiences shaped the woman that you've become?

SPEAKER_00 19:46

I mean, it's been a journey. It's been quite a journey, and it's been really sometimes harder than other times. Relationships that I had with my parents when they were alive were, yeah, they were kind of all over the place. You know, we'd go from ebbs and flows of just real tension to bonding and love and and and and just being there for each other. And we've always, you know, it was a difficult journey. It's been a really, really difficult journey, not only in my relationships with my parents, but just my relationships in general as a person. I've always, I think I had to go through these phases of being just this really closed up person. And and also the the the things that happened to me growing up in a place like South Africa that people weren't there to protect me in. Um, and and I haven't spoken, I didn't speak speak about that in in that particular story, but there are many other stories that, you know, that fear of authority was really, really deeply rooted from such a so many core memories of authority overstepping the bounds. And witnessing that not only within myself, but witnessing that with very, very close family members, uh, you know, have seeing my father, sorry, my grandfather being arrested, seeing my grandmother beat, seeing, you know, just those kinds of continuous things. And so really having to to work through it and and and and and come out and share it with within myself first, and acknowledge it, acknowledge the hurt, yeah, acknowledge the rage, acknowledge the silence, all of that has it's it's a continuous journey. It's still becoming.

Reunion Trauma And The Bombing Truth

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yes, yes, for sure. The moment you first saw your father again, that was an incredibly emotional part of your story. So, what was it like to write that scene?

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Was that hard for you or it it it just every time I wrote it, it Brought me to tears. Every time I read it, when I wrote it and I recognized that true emotion, it it sent me to the floor in tears. Yeah. It wow. Yeah, it was it was very emotional.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Yeah. Very, very emotional. Well, what do you remember most deeply about that reunion? Because it wasn't very long. You weren't there for very long because there was an emergency. You had to get out of there. But what do you remember most deeply about that?

SPEAKER_00 22:46

The the memory that I most remember is that moment I saw my father. Yeah. Yeah. It had been three years. And three years in a child's life is like a lifetime, right? We have, we don't have the same perception of time that adults do. And it just, you know, and then there was always taunting and teasing at school. Oh, you know, your parents are dead and your grandparents are just protecting you. And and so always having to like hear these things and and and push away the feelings as a child to just hide them constantly. And then coming to that moment of seeing my dad and seeing and realizing that it was actually him in the flesh was just oh, it was just amazing. I don't even have the I don't have the eloquence to speak it. I don't know how to describe that overwhelming joy that that moment gave me.

unknown 23:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

And then unfortunately, very shortly after that, there was a heartbreaking moment of separation again. So when you wrote that, did anything new surface for you?

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Oh, definitely again, that that feeling of why is this happening? Why, why are you abandoning me? You know, because I I I remember my grandfather literally ripping me off of my dad. Like I remember stepping on his toes, like standing on his feet and like holding him around his legs and saying, No, like I'm coming with you. You can't leave me again. And then my grandfather like pulling me away from that, and just I think it was the feeling of not only abandonment, but a sense of complete loss of control, like a disempowerment within within that little girl in me, where I I couldn't control the narrative. I there was nothing I could do, like it was beyond my control.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

It must have been so overwhelmingly confusing for you as a young child.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Um yeah, I mean, I guess it was confusing. I there again, there were elements that I did understand. Again, from a seven-year-old child's perspective, it's a very different kind of understanding, and it was very confusing in that respect. Yeah, but I knew I knew who my parents were, I knew the work that they did, and I knew the consequences of the work. So there was this reality check that was always there. And I, as a child, the only way that I could really almost survive the separation, the continuous confusion and the continuous violence that was around me was to remind myself of that reality check and then concede to that rather than focus on what it made me feel like. And so constantly just pushing my emotions in, down, down, down, trying to figure out like, how do I contain all this stuff? And it was about just staying in my head and focusing on the reality to get to get through it.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

And so, what did you think? Did like, did you realize the serious danger when I think I was it the next day you found out that the building had been bombed?

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Oh, it was that same day. Like my grandfather drove us out of there within two hours, that house was bombed. Wow. And if my grandfather had not recognized the man in there, everybody in there would have been dead. Wow. Fortunately, everyone scattered and got out, and they probably had you know contingency plans in place, I suppose. But and I I actually as a child, I didn't know that. I learned that speaking to my dad many, many moons later. And he and him and I talking one morning over a cup of coffee, like probably maybe two years before he passed away, and and me telling him, like, I remember that feeling, and I, you know, like really just coming from that place of expression. And he said, Z, do you know what happened after that? And I said, No. And so that piece of that, that was the missing piece of the puzzle for me in a in a sense, right? As an adult, being able to say, whoa, wait a minute, like what just happened? Like, what is this? This is new information. Like, this is like, I think I was really, really, I mean, as a child, I was furious with my grandparents, especially my grandfather. And I was his little pet, and I didn't speak to him for like days, or I don't know how long it was, but I was like really angry with him, and I was so hurt that he had that he had done that. Yeah, because I didn't understand and I didn't have the end result of why he did that until I was a fully fledged adult woman with three grown children. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

It it just listening to you just again just really confirms how important it is to share these stories because there are bits and pieces that people don't understand that they don't know. And they go, they can go years it with having issues or feeling unloved or empty or angry, but and then not but but but not get having that full story for their adult understanding.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Absolutely, and I think it's important from for what for me the takeaway was about sharing and and sharing it with the people that that that created that are that are characters within that story, right? Yeah, and and and getting closure. So I I got closure from my dad for my grandfather and my grandmother and the situation and that anger and rage that I kept for all the years. I got closure from that by understanding the end of that story and why it was so important. And then revisiting it again after my father had passed away gave me a different closure in that I learned to I learned to understand why my parents really did this, and that it wasn't just because they were revolutionaries. It was this it was seeds they were planting for a future that they wouldn't see.

unknown 29:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

And it wasn't for them, it was for the generations to follow. Wow. Wow. So it was deeper, yes, and and deeper than and and bigger than just me and them and and us. And I think that I think that we have to we have to be able to offer grace. And when we when we when we offer grace within ourselves and and for ourselves, then we extract the goodness around us, even from the people that may have harmed us, and that we learn to forgive them for really for ourselves.

Closure Through Sharing And Reframing

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Yes, yes, oh absolutely. So, did you get the closure then from writing the story? Was there closure that came to you for that particular story?

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Absolutely, absolutely there was. There was heartache and rage and brokenness, and at the end of it, a realization that this is part of me. Yes, this experience is part of who I am today, and who I am today is definitely not a perfect person, but someone who stands in her truth and and who who aims to always be authentic in herself. And so it gave me that kind of closure. And I'm I'm so grateful that I that I was able because I remember when we were writing, when I was writing a story, and I remember sending you an email saying, I can't do this, like I I I can't. I just like it's just too much. And you you kept me on track, which I loved, right? Like you just said, nope, just take a breather, take a couple of breaths. Like, yeah, you know, you you you you held me accountable. And I think sometimes what happens is when the grief gets so big and so overwhelming, we we we push it, we push it away. We like I can't, I can't do this. Yes, and I think it's really important for for for all of us to know that when we share, when we push past that and we share that, not only are we freeing ourselves of that, but we're giving other other people who read it the opportunity to to open their book, yes, and to really explore it in all its nuances and essence. And and that's what I love, like the responses that I got from some of the ladies that when they read it, it was just like thank you. It was a thank you.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

And that that was huge for me.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Oh, I got okay, I got the shippers. That's beautiful, you know. That's and that's I mean, that's writing our stories are definitely two parts. We're writing it for ourselves for whatever, whatever reason that is, insight, absolutely, healing, whatever that might be. But then we're also writing it for that person who needs to hear it.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Yeah, yes, and for your sons.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Yes, absolutely. For my sons, for my granddaughters, you know, it's it's it's the kind of it's the kind of vulnerability that the world tells us to hide. Yes, and that we armored ourselves to be so that you don't see those components of us, but really those are the best parts of us. Yeah, don't you think? Like when we experience such utter brokenness, but we're standing here in our own, that's it's because of those things, it's because we've we've surpassed them in some way. And I want I I I hope that for every single person, because the world is it's it's craziness out there, it is crazy out there. It's total craziness, it is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Well, imagine imagine your your grandparents and parents, and that was craziness, what you went through. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess every generation has craziness in the world that we have to to deal with.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Yep, we do, we do, we do every generation, and I think it's that's why, like, you know, the same way that we can carry trauma from previous generations, we can also carry hope. Yes, right, and we can we can we can give that through these little gems, through stories, through art of some form of creative way of expressing the rawness that we all have within us. Yes, and yeah, and and that rawness is our hearts and our souls on on a plate or in our hands. And when we share that, we give like I hope that I have ended the generational trauma of my forefathers and my grandmothers and my mom, and and so that my granddaughters don't have to carry that anymore. Yes, that's what I want them to be free of. They should know it. Yes, it's not that they shouldn't know, they need to know it. Yes, they need to understand it, yes, but they don't need to be it.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

No, and when we don't talk about these things, then there's shame that comes along with that, a family shame with the secrecy. I I just want to mention a a brief, a brief thing that happened in my life. So I wrote my true life story. My mom had had her her issues, quite serious issues. But when I wrote my story, one of I have six stepsisters, and one of my stepsisters bought the book and she read it. And then she contacted me and she said, Why didn't I know about this about mom? And it kind of hit me, and I'm like, Well, I don't know why you didn't know. And then I realized, well, it's because you were younger and it was one of those taboos. Nobody talked about it. And she said to me, I thought she hated me. Wow. And I said, She didn't hate you, she hated herself, but she never hated you. That's generational trauma. That's not talking about it. That's not that's keeping those secrets that don't need to be kept secrets because we don't know how other people are being affected. You know, that my stepsisters in her early 50s to think that she went through, and she that's the first time she's ever said that. So all these years she felt unloved. But it was had nothing to do with her. It had to do with this trauma over here that that she couldn't get over. So, so I I I just love and honor you so much for what you have just done by getting the courage in writing this. And as you say, your granddaughters, your boys are gonna, you know, we don't know what, we don't know what they're feeling. So it's so good to be open and share that so everybody can understand and put it to to bed and realize, oh, okay, it was it this didn't really have anything to do with me, or it didn't really have anything to do with me.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

It affected me, but it didn't have anything to do with me. That's right. And people are allowed allowed their emotion, right? Like, yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

So what do you hope? Well, I think we've kind of talked about this, but I'm gonna I'm gonna ask anyway. What do you hope women have to that who have gone through displacement, fear, separation, or silence can take from your story? Coke.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Hope you are not the pieces of your past. You are you are the pieces of your past, but you don't you get to reframe it in any way that you want today. How you live today is your choice, and you get to change the perspective of the narrative that you've been dished out, or that you even have convinced yourself of. And so rather than being a victim, you can be a survivor, and it's very different from being a victim to being a survivor. A survivor is someone who goes past it, yeah, and and and does what it takes to put the victimhood to to rest. And we see our own ships. We do, we have capacity to do it. It seems sometimes impossible and it seems so hard, but we absolutely can do it. And if anything, I would I would I I I hope that the all the read the readers leave with a sense of of introspection of their own stories and the fact that they can get through it, that they can come out the other side so much bigger and stronger than they have put themselves into if they have.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

Wow, yes.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Right. Like, you know, for so many years I was I I kept myself quiet until I couldn't, and then I'd rage. And it affected my children, it affected my relationships, it affected me the most. And and learning to put that down and to not being a victim anymore, but actually saying and realizing I have survived this. I have actually survived this, and I've and I can continue to survive it with grace and with love and with light within me. And so I've chosen that. And when the feelings come up, I allow them to. Right? Because they're they're part of who I am, yeah. But I find positive ways to to release that feeling. So if it is rage that I am feeling, I sit with it and I ask it, what are we raging? Why are we so angry? And I I I I I've learned to sit with it, and I think it's important that if that, if if it's that, I like the reader needs to take with them whatever they feel will empower them.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Yeah, yes, yeah. Oh, I could just sit here and listen to you. You are so inspiring. I I just appreciate you so much, Z, for being willing to do this and to and to work through the initial fear and anxiety and and and reliving what what you were writing about. I I just I really I appreciate you so much for doing this. Any last words to our oh, just before I say that, I just want you all to know that I will have some information where you can find Dee in the show notes. And I'm gonna have the link to our book as well if you want to read her story, but also the other. I think we've got 11 amazing stories in the book. So, and if I'm not mistaken, I think you're in chapter two. Let me just look here. You're in chapter three, Between Two Borders. Wow, such a such a such such an impactful and and powerful story. So back to my question. Is there anything you'd like to leave our audience with before we close?

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Thank you so much. Just stand in your in your power, in your truth. Don't be afraid to be who you are because you're created out of magic and dust and light and love. And be the impossible.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so much. Thank you everyone for for watching and listening to this episode of Women Like Me Stories in Business. It was a very special one for me to do. And I hope to uh see you all when we do our next one. So take care, everybody. Bye bye. Bye, thank you.