S3 Ep7. Don’t Waste This Life: Gifts, Grief and Growth with Myra Lee Virgil, PhD

In this rich and reflective conversation, Myra Lee Virgil joins host Aderonke Bademosi Wilson to explore what it means to live a life rooted in steadfast commitment, deep reflection and reliability. She shares how those three descriptors shape her work as founding CEO and managing director of the Bermuda Foundation, her writing life as a memoirist and her relationships with family, colleagues and community.​

The episode opens with Myra unpacking what it means to be steadfast, reflective and reliable in her life and leadership. She shares the long journey of establishing the Bermuda Foundation over more than a decade, including the late nights, uncertainty and commitment required to stay the course. As an introvert who loves being social so she can observe, she reflects on how she thinks deeply about race, privilege, identity and belonging after everyday interactions, and how that reflective practice shapes the way she shows up in relationships and work. She also shares why reliability matters so much to her and how she holds herself accountable to do what she says she will do.​

Myra speaks candidly about being a Black Bermudian Canadian and what it has meant to navigate belonging in Canada, Bermuda and beyond. She describes her manuscript “I Thought You’d Never Ask,” which explores how challenging it can be to belong even where one is supposed to belong, and how racism in Canada, Bermuda and the United States shows up differently. She shares stories about returning to Bermuda, wrestling with what it means to fit into a small community and how an incident with her lunch falling off her bike turned into a meditation on visibility, respectability and belonging.​

Drawing on ideas she attributes to Brené Brown, Myra talks about the exhausting nature of trying to fit in versus the freedom of seeking true belonging. She describes learning to trust that the spaces where she genuinely belongs will welcome her and giving herself permission to stop overworking to fit into places that are not meant for her.​

Toward the end of the conversation, Myra reflects on what brings her joy: seeing efforts pay off, watching others succeed in their dreams and supporting the people she loves and serves as they pursue their potential. She offers book recommendations including “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “Still Alice” by Lisa Genova, and “The Namesake,” highlighting how these stories have stayed with her.​

In her closing reflections, Myra speaks from the heart about loss, the unsettling nature of current events and the preciousness of life. She urges listeners not to risk or waste their lives, to recognize their own gifts and to understand how deeply they are cared for by the people around them. Her words land as a loving appeal to honor our own lives and use our time and talents in ways that matter.

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Transcript

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (00:01.58)

Welcome to another edition of ABWilson’s Heart of the Matter, a podcast that uses overwhelmingly positive questions to learn about our guests, where every episode uncovers extraordinary stories of triumph, growth, and empowerment. Hi, I’m Aderonke Bademosi Wilson. My guest on today’s show is Dr. Myra Virgil. Myra is steadfast, reflective, reliable.

Myra, welcome to the show.

Myra Lee Virgil (00:33.891)

Thank you for having me. It’s my first podcast, so I’m really excited.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (00:37.486)

Well, I’m excited, first of all, that you said yes, right? And I’m thrilled to be your first podcast host. And I think you’ll be doing many more after this.

Myra Lee Virgil (00:46.383)

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (00:51.192)

So, Myra, you’ve described yourself as steadfast. What does that look like? Describe that for me, please.

Myra Lee Virgil (00:58.009)

For me, what it means is that when I decide on a direction I’m going or a direction we’ve agreed to go together, I’m all in and I will stick with it, potentially until it may not make sense, but I will stick with it or with you until we meet that goal or until I meet my goal. I’m just there. I’m on the path.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:20.31)

Can you give me some examples of where you’ve said, okay, I’m in, I’m all in?

Myra Lee Virgil (01:25.135)

Yep, that’s definitely, yeah. Perhaps even to my own chagrin sometimes. But when it came to working and setting up the Bermuda Foundation, which at the time, this is in 2012, 2013, nobody knew what that was. Nobody knew what it looked like in Bermuda. People were like, is it a community center? Like, what is it? And I said, we’ve got to make this happen.

And it has taken 13 years, but here we are in a good place, established, and there were times where it was really, really hard, where it was like, how much more can we say, what can we do, what’s this going to look like? And it was late nights, lots of hours, but you just had to stay the course.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (02:15.978)

And for people who don’t know, what is the Bermuda Foundation?

Myra Lee Virgil (02:20.655)

So Bermuda Foundation is a public grant-making organization. And when people say, what’s a community foundation, our response, my response is often, well, it’s different things to different people. We manage funds for people who want to give locally, some overseas, but mostly locally. It’s place-based. So we are established in Bermuda, but there are community foundations all over the world, there are about 2,000 of them.​

And really what it is, it’s a collection of donors who agree to invest and pool their funds in an investment vehicle and to spend a percentage of those funds making grants to Bermuda. We also have a grant program that is unrestricted that we, the Bermuda Foundation, use to make grants every year.​

But those grants that the donors make, they’re doing their philanthropy. They’re trying to decide where they want to try to make a difference and they’re using their annual spending amount to make grants. And then we run programs, we do research and that sort of stuff.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (03:22.958)

Hmm.

And tell me about your role.

Myra Lee Virgil (03:27.789)

And so I’m the founding CEO and managing director. And before I took on that role, I was working for a private grant-making organization called the Atlantic Philanthropies. And that’s where I kind of cut my chops. I was in government before that, but I really learned what is philanthropy and how do you manage grant-making programs? How do you manage these standalone institutions that sit between government and the private sector?​

So we always try to find that space in between, because we’re not government, but in some ways we do policy pieces, we do thinking pieces, we do research. But we’re also not a private sector because we’re not for profit. We don’t make a profit on our work and everything that we do, we put back into the organization, into the investment and into the operations, into programs.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (04:17.506)

Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Going back to your second descriptor, reflective. Please share your thoughts on being reflective.

Myra Lee Virgil (04:28.271)

I find myself in situations and I, now that I look back, I’m 56 years old, but now that I look back, I find that I’m first of all an introvert, which I think people would find surprising, but I get my best ways of thinking and ideas from being in quiet space.​

But I do love to be out socially so I can observe. I like to look at people, I like to hear conversations, I like to hear stories. And then I kind of think, let me go think about what that means or what are the implications of that interaction on race. How did privilege play a role in the interaction I’ve had with this person over dinner? How does my socioeconomic status relate to this person and what was the impact of that discussion that we had?

How might that person have left this conversation feeling versus how I felt or what I thought about? Did they ask me about myself? Have you ever had a conversation where you’re at a dinner and you realize that you’ve been helping and promoting the conversation so much that the person doesn’t even know you at all? So it’s just, I always like to think about those things and then I come back and think about it more, or I talk to my husband about it.​

But it’s just really thinking about what has happened and what are the consequences for future relationships.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (05:53.442)

And do you have these thoughts often, after every interaction or particularly long interactions, how does your reflectiveness work?

Myra Lee Virgil (06:05.871)

Pretty much when I’m in a relationship or I’ve had a meeting. I meet a variety of people. Let’s say that we call them largely stakeholders, but between meeting donors who are families and individuals just like us, but sometimes from a whole different world space or worldview, to nonprofits and heads of nonprofits or people working in programs, not as frequently, but the direct recipients of those programs and the benefits of those programs.

Meeting different people. And I’m not trying to politicize this response, but I do end up in many different racialized spaces. And so perhaps more than others, I do tend to think about, what are the consequences of who I am versus who these people are? How would this relationship look differently if I was a white person or a person who was not born away but Bermudian?

So I’m always thinking about identity and belonging. I’m always thinking about those other elements of people and what they’re showing me and what they’re not able to show me and what I’m showing them and what I’m not able to show them. So it does end up being something that I think about a lot and I think about them. So if we’re going to be in relationship, what’s that relationship going to look like?

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (07:29.984)

Hmm, thank you. And reliable.

Myra Lee Virgil (07:35.93)

So I may not always be on time, but if I say I’m going to do something or if I say I’m going to be somewhere, I’m going to do that. And I think people count on me to do what I say I’m going to do. And for me, not doing what I say I’m going to do has consequences that have never worked for me. So procrastinating doesn’t work for me.​

If I say I’m going to deliver and I give a deadline, I really push myself. And it’s only if I really can’t, then I’m kind of straightforward and say, hey, listen, I’ve been unable to do what I committed to. Can I come back to you at a different time or a different date? But I’m reliable even in that, I’d say. And that’s what I find has served me well. Other people seem to be able to get away with more, but for me, it doesn’t work.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (08:27.416)

Thank you. Thank you for sharing your descriptors. I would like our listeners to learn a little bit more about you. Please share three interesting things about yourself that our listeners may not know and your friends will be surprised to learn.

Myra Lee Virgil (08:43.819)

Okay, I’m not so sure my friends will be surprised, as they’ve probably heard me talk about it, but my career, and I would say it’s the career that I root myself in, is that I’m a social worker. In my heart and in my training, I have a bachelor’s degree in social work and a master’s degree in social work.​

And before coming back to Bermuda, I was a youth protection and young offenders supervisor and kind of worker. So when I think about how my profession, how my thinking about the work that I even do now, everything that I learned in social work, I draw on. How to talk to people, how to observe, how to record. I write a lot down. And just some things that, just in terms of how people behave, their intentions. These are things that I learned in social work.

And so for me, that’s like my core. And everything I do, I kind of go back to, thank God I had that training. So that would be the first thing.

And then the other thing is, and I did nuance it already, I kind of hinted, is that I play pickleball. Not always well, to be honest with you, not always well at all. But I do love it.​

And I never thought that I would have a chance to play a sport really again. I’ve got bad knees and stuff like that. But I just didn’t think in my 50s I’d find something sporty that I could enjoy. So I play pickleball with passion. Not great skill, but passion.

And then people mostly know me as connected with the Bermuda Foundation, but in fact, I write memoir. And I write, I’ve come to write a lot. I’ve come to rely on being able to write and to write out stories, different elements of my life, but how they relate to the larger kind of story that I hope people can connect with in their own lives.​

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (10:46.402)

Have you published anything? Have you published any of your memoirs?

Myra Lee Virgil (10:49.935)

I have, and you know, for me, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but writing is tough, right? I had to learn. So what happened was during the pandemic, I have a couple of friends who said, you know what, we should just get together one Sunday morning, we’ll sit outside and let’s just write.

And so one friend said, I’ve got some prompts, and another friend said, I’ve got some snacks. And I said, okay, I’ll bring myself, I’ll try to be entertaining, and I’ll write too, and we’ll do this together. Well, one of the prompts was, what’s the first memory of belonging or something that comes to your mind? And so I wrote this whole story. And I was like, my goodness, I like writing.​

And then, I mean, I love this friend for who she is. She read it and she said, you have to keep writing. She goes, you need to keep writing.

So they had dropped off, never wrote again, those two. But I stuck with it. And then I didn’t even at the time know that what I was doing was called memoir. I thought that autobiographies and biographies were sort of the same thing. You’re writing your life, right? But I learned that actually autobiographies and biographies are the full stories of somebody’s life. Usually that’s the purview of famous people and celebrities, right?​

But memoir is actually a story about a part of your life and bringing meaning to that that might connect with other people. So you can write several memoirs. You can write short story memoirs. You can write long-form memoirs. You can write a whole memoir book like a manuscript. And I just didn’t know that. I didn’t even know properly what the name was until I took a course.​

And so I took this class during the pandemic and I was like, I’m going to be a changed person. I’m going to just keep writing. And by the time I knew it, I was into it. And it’s been three and a half, four years since I started that.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (12:52.888)

So I just want to go back a little. Writing, and the way you’ve described it, I had no idea either, right? I didn’t know. I thought a memoir was basically the way you would think of a biography or autobiography. I thought you sit down, “I was born on this day,” and you soup to nuts your life. But what you’re saying is a memoir is…

Myra Lee Virgil (13:23.322)

Yes.

And you know, it took me a while to come to grips with it, but it does make sense because who’s going to want to read about what I ate for breakfast and where I went to school and all those details, right? You really do have to be a special person. People want to know all those details about you.​

But memoir is storing these elements of life and bringing new meaning to them and hopefully a meaning that can connect with everybody’s story. So if I’m telling my story and I tell it well, then you’re going to see yourself in that story. That’s my goal, is to help find that universal meaning through this one element of a story that will connect with you as well.​

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (14:06.04)

So give me, if you can, a memoir that you’ve written that you feel is really reflective of you and something that you maybe had to dig a little deeper to find.

Myra Lee Virgil (14:29.323)

My goodness, yeah. And you know, it’s funny that you say this because I have not publicized it. I just thought it will sit and be where it is. On my website, there’s a link. And this is a published piece. It’s called “The Penny.” And my mother died in 2022.​

And I spoke at her funeral and I told, because my mother did have a sense of humor, and I told a story about, it’s called “The Penny,” and people who read it will know what the penny is, a little half shirt. But I told the story as if it was funny.​

But in fact, it wasn’t funny. We had had a fight, and it only struck me how much I was grieving her when I thought about that story. And so I decided to tell the story about the penny and about the fight and about how I never felt that we’d fully resolved this relational thing.​

And so it was through the writing of this story that I kind of came to terms with the loss of my mother, but also like, you know, the relationship wasn’t perfect, but I did adore her. And I think she adored me too.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (15:40.91)

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Myra Lee Virgil (15:45.551)

So that’s there, it’s on the site, but I had to dig deep and I had to go through a lot to think about like, you know, she did in the end share so much with me, but at the time when I was 17 or 18, I thought I’d lost her trust. So, yeah.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (16:03.822)

And what is your website so that people can find the story?

Myra Lee Virgil (16:07.851)

It’s myraleevirgil.com. I hope. I should know that off by heart, but it is www.myraleevirgil.com. Yeah.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (16:21.73)

And is there a discipline to your writing? Like, do you sit down every day, once a week? Is there a discipline?

Myra Lee Virgil (16:27.391)

My goodness, Aderonke, I wish. I hear, I read about these people who write 15 minutes every day or they do all those sorts of things. Right now my life doesn’t allow me to be as structured as I would like. So I tend to reserve weekends. I have a writing group.

That’s really, these people, they’re all over. It’s a virtual one. But we read each other’s pieces. We have a teacher. And it’s every second week. They have kept me on the road to just keep going. Do you know what I mean? And they’re thoughtful. They probably know more about me than most. They know a lot.​

But so the routine for me has been making sure I stay in that group. I joined some other groups. I’m part of something called Memoir Nation. I just love the term. I think it’s very amusing, but it’s Memoir Nation. And so on Sunday nights, there’s a “show up and write.” So I attend those sessions and just say, I’m going to work on this piece or that piece.

And then I use the weekends to kind of motivate myself. But I’m not that, I’m not the person who I usually am when it comes to writing because I want to keep enjoying it. I don’t want to turn it into something that I’m not enjoying. Because I do use it to think through things and get stuff down on paper. And I don’t want to turn this into something like a work pursuit or something where I’m very rigid.​

So, you know, there’ve been times where I just haven’t felt I’ve been able to write and I’m like binging on Netflix, stupid stuff. And I’m kind of, I’m like in any other area of my life, I’m like, you know what, that’s okay. I must have needed to binge and just take a break from all of this. And then the writing group will say, yeah, take a break, work on something else. And I’m like, thank you.

So yeah, I don’t have that kind of “must write every day.” I can’t bring myself to do that, but I do try to have at least one day in the weekend where I put five or six hours in.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (18:30.174)

And your memoirs, are they a book? Are they becoming a book? Is that what happens next?

Myra Lee Virgil (18:37.615)

Yeah, so you know what, I will say this so that people will appreciate. It’s not easy. So I started out, first thing is that I started out with that one little story. And then that turned into several little stories. And then all of a sudden, I had a full manuscript. And that first one, which is, I still haven’t figured out what I’m doing with it. It’s been two and a half, almost three years.​

And I keep needing to go back and edit it because I hadn’t taken a course. I didn’t know what I was doing. And now when I keep going back, I’m like, oh, this has got to change. So that one is called “I Thought You’d Never Ask: How to Become a Black Canadian and the Rendering of Other Superpowers.” And it’s actually making the case that it’s not always easy to belong, even when you’re supposed to belong.​

And that sometimes, particularly Black Canadians at the time, because this is going between Black Bermudian and Black Canadian. And I’ve got some stories about my parents. My father’s Bermudian, and him ending up in Canada because of circumstances of Bermuda and how I ended up being born in Canada. But it is this sort of like, what does that look like? Because we tend to hear more about Black Americans. We have Black Bermudians, but the Black Canadian experience is this weird mix.​

You’ve adapted to the whole politeness, kindness, “we’ll make a complaint the proper way” sort of narrative. But then there’s this whole Caribbean piece that gets blended in, but yet you’re such a minority. And again, I don’t want to be very political. But racism in Canada is a very different thing than racism in Bermuda and racism in the States. It’s just a different quantum. It’s more subtle.​

It’s less acknowledged. It’s more acknowledged now, but it was less acknowledged. And you kind of have to be almost told, “Prove it. Prove it,” in Canada, whereas in Bermuda, I remember when I first came back to Bermuda and I was reading the newspapers, because I read them every day. I was reading the Bermuda Sun, which was still open at the time, and the Royal Gazette.

And I remember there was a headline, something like, the premier or one of the government ministers said, “This is racism.” And I thought, my God, I’ve never seen anything like this on a front page of a newspaper. I’d never seen anything like it. That just does not happen in Canada. Nobody calls things out like that. And then I learned all the different nuances about racism in Bermuda. But in the States, even they don’t do it like that. So every place has its own way of how race and race issues show up.​

And I forgot your question, but yeah.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (21:25.848)

You were talking about your manuscript and where it’s going.

Myra Lee Virgil (21:27.937)

Yeah. So that turned out being a manuscript, which is kind of just sitting there and I’m thinking about it. But then I started writing some other little stories, which turned out to be about Bermuda. And it was about coming to Bermuda as a Bermudian Canadian and really wanting to try to figure out what belonging would look like.

And so it’s called, at this point, “My Lunch Fell Off My Bike,” because my lunch really did fall off my bike one day. And I left it on the ground. And then I kept thinking, why did I leave my lunch on the ground?

And then I started spiraling and thinking, well, it’s because of everything I know about living in this community. And it’s all those things between not wanting to be talked about or being talked about, and race and not race, and being this Black woman who’s going back to pick her lunch up around the roundabout. Am I so cheap that I just can’t let that lunch go? There were all these things that then bolted out and turned out to be stories about what it means to try to belong in Bermuda.​

And what I’ve learned from that, and it’s not my original idea, Brené Brown talks about it in one of her podcasts, but the idea is that the challenge is not belonging, it’s trying to fit in. And trying to fit in is so exhausting. So I’m learning not to try to fit in. I’m learning that the spaces that I’m meant to be in, I’m going to be welcomed in those spaces.​

And if I’m not welcome in those spaces, they’re not the right spaces for me.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (23:01.166)

And have you found spaces in Bermuda where you’ve just felt embraced and fully welcomed?

Myra Lee Virgil (23:12.575)

I would say I’ve found friends and relationships where I know that they’re the right friends and relationships. I find there are places I need to be and I certainly know how to fit in, but now I’m so conscious of, I may not be belonging, but I have to make this work. I’m more conscious of it, which then gives me more peace because when you think you’re fitting, you’re belonging, and you’re trying to fit in and you’re not fitting in, that’s stressful.​

That has an impact on your psyche and it makes you feel like you’re wanting and you’re never going to make the grade. And so I’m not sure that I’ve found the perfect spaces, but I certainly found places where I get that sense of belonging and I can kind of push it along and test it to see if this is the right place. But I no longer want to do so much work around fitting in.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (24:06.392)

Thank you. Myra, can you tell us about a recent accomplishment or success that you’re particularly proud of?

Myra Lee Virgil (24:15.215)

I feel like I’ve talked a lot about the writing. I mean, I am happy to have had the career that I’ve had. And I feel like now my job is meant to kind of push that out and bolster it and do more for the community now that I’ve landed.

But personally, on a personal basis, I had a story that got published in The Caribbean Writer, and it’s called “The Forty Thieves’ Friend.”​

And it is the story that will eventually appear in this manuscript, but it’s about my mother and father’s journey. My father from Bermuda going to the States and then ending up in Canada because he wanted to come back and work in Bermuda and it was not possible. I’ll leave that for people to read and make sense of it. And my mother coming from the States and agreeing to go with him to Canada. They didn’t know anybody. They didn’t know what to expect, but Canada wanted them.​

And so it goes back and forth between Canada and Bermuda and making that choice between where they were going to end up. And I think ultimately the meaning of the story is that things might not work out how you think they’re going to work out, but you can find joy, you can create a life that you weren’t expecting.

And that opens you up to all sorts of opportunities and adventures that you may not have ever imagined. My father would never have had a very good friend who was Chinese if he had stayed in Bermuda. That best best friend would not have happened. He wouldn’t have been able to bring some Bermudian culture into Canada if he had only stayed here. So, I don’t think that’s the life that he expected.​

And it’s just how it turns out.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (26:08.055)

Please tell us about a time when you made a difference in another’s life. What were the circumstances? Paint a picture for me.

Myra Lee Virgil (26:23.343)

Okay. And you know, it’s funny, I’m going to go with, in my mind, a Bermuda example. I won’t share the name. And I wonder if this person who watches this would agree.

But we take interns periodically at the Bermuda Foundation. And one year I had a very special intern who I don’t think had ever really worked in an office or anything like that. But I liked this young man.​

And at the very beginning, and because I liked him, I said, we’re going to see this through. But he was late. He just hadn’t worked. I was like, listen. And because he reminded me of one of my own children in a way, I said, listen, you need to be on time. Normally, I’d be like, whatever. But I was just very straight with him. You need to be on time. The friend, the cousin, he can’t be here.​

Got to go. So we would have these very straight up talks. And then eventually he would just start asking me stuff and talking about things. And I said, what do you want to really do? What are you trying to become? And he said, I don’t want to work in an office like this. I want to be a police officer.

Okay. You want to be a police officer? So what is that? How are we going to do this? And so I got really invested in him. We went to the college, his bike had broken down, he’s on the back of my bike. We really rode the show together in a way.​

And it was stops and starts for him. And then at the end of the day, he literally has just become a police officer. I don’t own all of that.​

But when I see him, I’m like, I think we did some of this together. Like, it’s pretty exciting and it’s so exciting to see him. I just saw him when I was in the hospital in his police uniform. I was like, you did this, man, you did this. And I’d like to think I was a little part of that journey. We had some good times and we had some strong talks. So yeah.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (28:23.818)

And so thinking of that story and the young man that you supported on his journey, what were the key strengths and qualities you relied on to make a difference for him?

Myra Lee Virgil (28:37.651)

You know, there was something in him. I liked his kindness and I knew that he hadn’t had some of the advantages. Like I think of myself, for all the struggles that I might describe that I’ve had, I think of myself as quite lucky. And I could see that he hadn’t had that same luck, but that he was a good guy, good person. And I cared, and I like for people to be able to reach their best potential.​

Like, I truly care about that. I feel like if we have a skill or a strength or some possibility, I don’t want to see it go to waste. So yeah, I was steadfast. Let’s do this. Let’s make a list. Let’s do it. What do we need to do? What do we need to gather to get you through this process? So we stuck the course.​

And it didn’t happen in the summer he was with us, but I mean, we still talk. So, you know, he comes to our gatherings, he’s done it. And every time I look, I’m like, you did this, you did this. And it just makes me really happy.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (29:52.056)

Congratulations to both of you.

Myra Lee Virgil (30:00.29)

Thank you.

[Recording break – resumed later]

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (32:53.79)

Okay, I’m back. Okay, so it looks like it capped the recording. So we’ll be able to piece it together. So I think we’ll be good. And you had just finished answering the question. Let me get the question back.

The strengths, you described your strengths and qualities you relied on to make a difference. Okay, so going to the next question. Can you recall a situation where you overcame a challenge that led to personal growth? What did you learn from that experience?

Myra Lee Virgil (33:38.223)

I’m going to answer that question by doing a little loop and coming back. But I would say that in my family and the way that we think about conflict, for example, is when we have a fight, it’s kind of like, the relationship’s done. Oh my gosh, it’s done. And you just walk away and kind of go into your corners. And that’s not great, right?

So I’ve had to learn to kind of deal with conflict and, in the passing of my mother, grief, and sit with it. I’m learning to sit with these uncomfortable emotions and I’ve had to learn to let myself grieve her, but also to accept, and this was my challenge, to accept that relationships can be untidy. And if you want to be in relationship, it can’t be sort of all or nothing.​

And that’s healthy for me. It doesn’t mean that I let bad or negative people stay in my life, but it means that I have just a higher level of tolerance, a little more grace around things that could be relationship-ending in the past. “We’re not going to have anything to do with each other.”

And I think that’s healthy for me, just to sit sometimes in those emotions and think about it more than just kind of saying, this is never going to work.

Myra Lee Virgil (35:12.643)

Yeah, that’s been tough. I kid you not, it’s been tough.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (35:16.864)

Hmm. And how has that helped you to grow and change and navigate the relationships that are meaningful for you?

Myra Lee Virgil (35:27.855)

It means that I think I’ve always been a cheerleader of people. It means that I’ve been even more careful with my words, even more supportive if I can be, but still trying to find a way sometimes to share a truth.​

But not wanting to lose the relationship entirely. That’s what I would say. And you know, kids help with that as well. Because with kids, you want to make sure that they are growing up feeling supported and encouraged. And I just extended what I learned by raising kids out to a larger group of people, to friends, just to having more grace in friendships and ensuring that the ones that I want to keep in my life, I keep them in my life.​

But I also keep them maybe sometimes not as close, like learning how to figure out what to say to who. Everybody’s not going to be in the same proximity. Trying to find a way to keep some people in my life, but not have them be everything in my life, and knowing what to say and when.

That’s a bit of a balance. I’m not saying I go overboard, but as opposed to not being in relationship with some people, it’s just, what kind of relationship will you be in with some people, Myra? So that’s what I’ve learned. And trust when I say it’s not perfect. I’m not even sure if it’s right.

I mean, sometimes I see, like I’m watching TikTok or whatever, and there was this thing where people were writing their parents out of their lives. And I was like, that is so interesting. I get it. I appreciate that perspective. I’m just not sure if I’m landing there yet.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (37:20.524)

Thank you. Thank you for sharing.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (37:25.728)

You are listening to ABWilson’s Heart of the Matter podcast.

Welcome back to ABWilson’s Heart of the Matter. My guest today is Myra Virgil. Myra, we’ve talked about your memoir writing. We’ve talked about the support that you’ve given a young man who ultimately became a police officer. We’ve talked about relationships and conflict. What self-care practices or strategies help you to sustain your energy and motivation while navigating your journey?

Myra Lee Virgil (38:00.641)

Okay, I find this is such an intriguing question. There’s a couple of obvious ones for me. I apparently sleep like a rock and I snore. So there’s that.

And then this might not be popular with some of your listeners or viewers, but I do like a drink at night, one little drink. Like, just keep it there. I like that. I enjoy it. A little Cosmo or a little glass of wine or something. But then, believe it or not, through pickleball, I had to learn my own little form of meditation, especially in competition and that sort of stuff.​

So I was speaking to my physical therapist and she goes, do you meditate? I go, no, I don’t do yoga, none of that, none of it. But she did kind of reinforce the idea in me that taking some time in the morning, when you first wake up, there’s this period of time where you’re not fully up and you’re not fully asleep, and using that time to just reflect on clearing your mind.​

And then, what kind of day do I want to have? What am I going to tell myself? I’m going to approach this day with energy, with calm, with “it’s going to be a great day.” I have a few things that I want to get done. And once those things are done, it’s a great day. And just kind of putting myself in a mindset in that few little minutes between fully waking and not waking. And it’s quiet. So I’ve learned how to do that. And I’m not bad at it in terms of a practice.​

And then writing. I am learning so well how to leave stuff on a page, even walk away from it. Again, not who I am, not who I am at all, but to walk away and come back and then say, okay, this is what this is about. And it’s like getting stuff off and onto the page then allows me to go back and say, so what was the meaning of this story? Because you told a story, but why is it important? What is it that is important about this story?​

And I found myself, particularly in the first book, which is not anywhere yet, I’ve had a lot of declines, by the way, just so we’re clear. But in that first book, I thought I was writing about coming of age, but it turns out I was actually writing about the challenges of relationships with family. And it ended up even talking, I ended up writing a lot about the relationship that I had with my father, which I was not setting out to write.​

But I think having returned to Bermuda and just thinking about and seeing a lot of where he’s come from and learning about the culture and how I now see him in a different way, and being a parent. So all of these things ended up on the page. I was like, my goodness. So that’s what that was about. I wasn’t starting out like that.

So I think writing has also been my way of resolving stuff, even if it doesn’t get published. I know I just don’t care anymore because it’s helping me think through some things that just gives me a different perspective.​

So I would say writing is my self-care, number one, followed by the drink, and then the good sleep, and then the meditation when I wake up.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (40:58.338)

Mm.

And your meditation, do you do it while you’re still in bed or do you get up and move to a different space?

Myra Lee Virgil (41:16.269)

Yes. Yes. Yes. I lay there and I get very intentional about clearing my mind. Yeah. I just stay in bed. I don’t move around because once I start moving around a lot, my mind starts moving around a lot. So I just stay there and I say, okay, it’s quiet.​

It’s not fully light, it’s six in the morning, and I just really empty my mind and then start to put things that I want to focus on. And the way I want to, it’s more, how do I want this day to look? And when I was playing pickleball, this was at this government sports series of workshops and there was a sports psychologist there who was really emphasizing the point around how we approach things like our mental health and our mentality and the mental piece of sport and performance.​

And he said, think of three things that you want to be double in this game or in this tournament or whatever it is. And so now I do, like for pickleball, if it’s something that’s happening in the bed in the morning, I say, okay, you know, I’m all over that ball. I’m fast. I’m coordinated. I’m whatever. So I say these things. This is what this game is going to look like today. And I think it does help with the mindset of the day and how I want to show up. It doesn’t always work, but I like the idea of putting that in my head.​

And I do the same thing sometimes when I want to solve a problem at night. I put the problem there. I say, I want to try to tackle this problem while I sleep. And often I will wake up with some resolution. So I do think this mental thing is real.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (43:03.286)

I used to do that. There’s a power in tackling a problem in your sleep. And I don’t know how else to describe it. I used to, in one of my previous jobs, I used to have to write a lot of speeches. And what I would do, I would do all the research, know the information inside and out, go to sleep with it in my brain.​

And then wake up the next morning, sit down and just start writing and it all comes out. It’s like, as I was sleeping, my brain put things in order and I could just download it.

Myra Lee Virgil (43:34.477)

It’s great. Yep.

Myra Lee Virgil (43:41.025)

Yes, yes, that’s fabulous. Yep.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (43:43.764)

And so there’s definitely a power in that.

Myra Lee Virgil (43:47.583)

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (43:55.062)

Myra, how might sharing your experiences of success and growth create a positive ripple effect in your family, community, the world?

Myra Lee Virgil (44:06.735)

Hmm.

If you don’t mind, let me tell you how I’m taking that question and how I’ll try to answer it in a roundabout way. When I used to work at CURE, the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality, I had a great team. Still love that team, still think of that team all the time. But I was very driven at the time and I was doing a lot. I was probably doing too much.​

And I’m not trying to, that’s not like a bragging thing. It’s just like, I’m just all over the place doing a lot. And somebody, I think one of my supervisors, her name was Brenda, said to me, she goes, you know, you can be a little daunting. It almost looks like you’ve got everything covered. You’re doing everything. And it could potentially be a little daunting. I was like, oh really? Whatever.

I go, but I don’t have it all under control. I’m running around all the time, whatever. And she said, well, maybe you should share that sometimes. And I said, do you know what? I will. So I started telling my team about my struggles or about something I was having difficulty with or that, you know, that things were not going perfectly that day. And I’d start to let them see a little bit more around what wasn’t going well.​

And I do that with my kids as well, my two girls. I’ll say, my gosh, you’d think at 50-something years old, I’d have this solved, but nope, this is what’s going on. And not only does it free me up from not trying to be perfect, but they love it. They love hearing the challenges. They love hearing what’s not always going so well and how is it going to work out and what did you do and I can’t believe it.​

So I would say that part of my growth is in not creating a perfect picture. It’s in sharing and reminding myself that it’s not always going to go perfectly or well and that that has just got to be okay because that’s how it’s going to be. Not trying to kill myself anymore. And I’m not saying that it’s new, but it’s just more, I’m taking it more to heart.​

Because I used to have so much work that I had this thing called “good enough, push on,” and I would just kind of try to get stuff done. So I’m not saying this is a new revelation, but expanding that to my personal life and my professional life and how I show up, that sometimes it’s got to be good enough. And sometimes I’ve just got to push on. And sometimes it’s challenging and it doesn’t always work. And I’m fighting with this person. Who would have thought you’d be fighting over these things?

That is part of life. And I found that part of my success and growth, in ways that I’ve grown up a bit more, is not hiding that. It’s not like it’s all perfect, but just saying, no, this has not been going so well. And even in my 50s, it’s not. I don’t have it all figured out. I don’t have it all figured out. And I’m not sure that we need to have it all figured out, just kind of keep going with the flow. That’s been very helpful for me.​

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (47:10.238)

And it sounds like there’s also a level of vulnerability there as well. Would you agree with that?

Myra Lee Virgil (47:16.975)

I would agree. Somebody once said to me, maybe it’s become commonplace, but that if people don’t know that you need help, they’re not going to offer it. And there were times where I was like, why am I doing this all by myself? Where is everybody? And then I realized, nobody even knew that, hey, it would have been nice to have a little help here, you know?​

I wasn’t giving people the message that, you know, hey, show up, please. So yeah, I’ve forgotten your question, but that’s something, it’s my takeaway.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (47:59.187)

The question was around vulnerability and sharing that you need help.

Myra Lee Virgil (48:02.303)

Yes, yes, yes.

Yes. And I don’t know if it’s a woman thing or a Black thing or whatever, but sometimes it’s hard to ask for help because I think in my life, asking for help in professional settings has looked, or to me felt, like it’s saying, I can’t do this. I’m weak or incapable. And maybe that has been true.

Maybe it has been true that that’s the perception that people have and I wasn’t willing to give it to them. Now I’m just too old to care. I’m tired sometimes. I’m like, you know what? I cannot deal with this today. I’m going to have to come back to this in a couple of days and I’ll deal with you in a couple of days.​

Like, I’m now saying that more and carving out time for myself to say, listen, no, I can’t deliver this to you tomorrow. I cannot. I’ve got too many things on my plate today and I want to be able to be fair to this process, so I’m going to have to push you out until Monday. I would never have said that ten years ago and that wasn’t fair to me and it probably wasn’t fair to other people either.​

So yeah, it is vulnerability. And trying to be both vulnerable and strong and reliable is sometimes really tough.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (49:27.636)

It can be, absolutely. What exciting opportunities do you see on the horizon and how do these opportunities align with your passions and aspirations?

Myra Lee Virgil (49:40.079)

Thank you for that question. I never get to answer these questions, by the way. Nobody ever asks me these sorts of questions. So I’m really like, wow.

So although I’ve talked about the writing and my enjoyment in the writing and all this other stuff, it has been a learning experience. And I can see myself starting to get better. Especially when I look back at the original stuff, I’m like, my goodness, what was that? But the writing world is tough. So I’ve submitted lots of stories to lots of things and I’ve had so many declines.​

More declines and more things that I would have classified as failure than at any time in my earlier life. It’s just shocking to get these declines. “Thank you for your interest in this journal and we’re unable to accept it.” I’m like, my gosh.

And yet, it’s not demoralizing me in the way it might have, because I have those supports and those people and you get to hear how it’s going. But it’s still tough. But as I get better, I’m like, okay, I now know where the kinds of places where I should submit these stories. I see more places where they belong. I just have a better eye for it.​

And I can actually see a time in the future where the stories that I’m going to tell have a place in this world and they’re necessary. I can see it. I haven’t been able to realize it yet, but I’m beginning to see people, I think, need to hear both success and struggle, and some ideas and reflections on race in Bermuda and inequality in Bermuda and our silences sometimes as Black people and our silences around things that are really, to my mind, wrong, and why those silences might be happening.​

So I can see now where there’s going to be space for that. It may not, but what is good for me, I think, is that it may not be tomorrow, it may not be this year. I’ve had to learn this sort of patience and deal with a lot of declines. I’ll be honest, it’s really tough, but you just kind of grow a little bit more strength around hearing no and then saying, well, I’m going to have to just keep persevering and come back to it.​

But I’m excited because I can see it. I can just see how it’s going to go, and the timeline is murky. But that’s okay. That’s important for me to accept that the timeline is going to be murky. That’s not where I would have been five or ten years ago.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (52:21.6)

What guidance would you give to somebody who is a writer who has lots of stories to share or maybe just one book to share with lots of thoughts and reflections? What guidance would you give to them in terms of A, continuing to write, but then B, acknowledging that not everybody is going to accept your work?

Myra Lee Virgil (52:53.199)

So I think part of the answer is in your question, that you have to keep going. You have to continue to write and it’s not all going to be perfect, but getting it down on the page, you’re probably… I read a statistic and I don’t know what it is, but not everybody’s called to be a storyteller or a writer, and you should feel gifted that the creativity and the calling to do it, that’s your gift.​

You’ve been gifted that. It’s not everybody who’s been gifted this opportunity to tell stories. It’s not as common as people think. And so it is hard, and it’s meant to be hard because writers are leaving it all on the table just like other creatives. You’re leaving everything you’ve got to try to help people connect with each other. So that is both the responsibility and the reward.

So it’s to keep going and to just find your place. And earlier in the podcast, I had done a little talk about belonging and fitting in. There’s going to be, I believe that there’s going to be, somebody who reads your writing for what it is and falls in love with it. That’s your reader. And then that’s your group of readers. And when you find that group of readers, they’re going to be passionate and they’re going to love everything that you do. Same with finding the right agent or finding the right publisher.​

It’s about finding where you fit and where you belong. And I’m saying this without knowing what the future looks like for me, but that’s my belief. And so keep going, keep getting better, learn your craft, take classes, meet other writers, get that support group around you and keep going because it is a gift and it is a calling. And not everybody has been called to tell these stories. And so we have to treat that as a manifestation of a larger power that is gifting you to communicate in this way.​

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (54:58.306)

Thank you. Some great words of wisdom there for aspiring writers, or maybe even accomplished writers who must find ways to continue to get their work out into the public. Myra, what brings you joy?

Myra Lee Virgil (55:19.021)

I love it when things work out. I like seeing other people succeed in the ways that they have wanted to and have worked towards. I love that.​

For myself, it’s about having things work out the way I’d hoped for the amount of effort that I put in. It’s hard to quantify, but I’m really happy when it pays off. I really am happy when there’s a payoff. And I like seeing my family and my community and my friends doing well.​

I want them to do well. I want them to pursue the dreams that they’re starting to articulate. And if I can be a support in that, I want to be part of supporting that journey. So that actually brings me joy, to be able to be involved in and in some way supportive of somebody else’s dream.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (56:29.398)

What book recommendation do you have? It can be a book you’ve read recently or something that has stayed with you over the years.

Myra Lee Virgil (56:37.421)

Hmm. I read, I read, I have read my whole life. Yeah, I used to go to the library all the time and I was just at the library yesterday. Those librarians must say, why does this woman keep coming and talking to us? I love a library.

But I loved Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I loved her voice in that novel, a Nigerian woman moving to the States and just her experience of love and relationships and studying and all that. I loved it.​

And then another book, like I always think what’s top of mind. I’ve read so much, but these are the ones I would read again. It’s one called Still Alice by Lisa Genova. And it’s about a woman who was a professor who was diagnosed and had early onset Alzheimer’s.​

It became a movie actually, but I read the book and I only saw the movie later, but the book was just so powerfully written. I could feel every single emotion that this woman was going through as she slowly lost her mind. So well written. And then another one that I always come back to as a favorite, I’m just trying to remember the title.

The Namesake. The Namesake. And it’s set in India and it’s set, the narrator survives a train crash. And then it moves from India into the States and his whole life and children and everything, and he’s trying to mix the two cultures. Something about it has always stuck with me. So those would be my three: Americanah, Still Alice, and The Namesake. Just love the way they were written.​

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (58:32.738)

Hmm.

Thank you. Myra, we’ve come to the end of our conversation. Is there anything else? Do you have any final thoughts?

Myra Lee Virgil (58:45.359)

So I guess what I’ve been reflecting on lately, having seen people I know go through some pretty challenging times, and actually I don’t know if other people are feeling this in Bermuda, and I guess it’s even global, that we’re experiencing the losses of people, young people in particular here.​

And then some of the stuff that’s happening globally, the politics, just feels very unsettling. And the way that I have been thinking through this and just thinking about what’s important for me and for my own is that we all are here for a reason.​

We may not yet know the reason. We all have something to contribute to this world, a gift, let’s call it, or just something we may not have discovered yet. But I kind of implore, implore myself, implore the people around me to not waste the opportunities, not waste your gifts. Don’t, please don’t risk your lives. People care about you and to please not waste this life. Please don’t risk it and please don’t waste it.​

When my daughter and I once, we saw an accident of a young man on a bike who was doing some things and was in an accident. I’ll just never forget feeling like, your parents are going to be distraught when they learn that you’ve hurt yourself. We were roadside, we were there. And I just thought, please, please survive this and please don’t risk your life again. Don’t waste this. You’re precious.​

And I hope people realize that we’re all precious in our own ways and that having this life and in this lifetime to try to use the best of our abilities, to leave everything on the table if you can, and don’t risk it and don’t waste it.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:01:10.848)

Myra, thank you for your time today. Some of the appreciation nuggets I’m taking away from our conversation. The first one is what a memoir is, a series of stories taken from life, not necessarily an autobiography. That is, I learned that from you, thank you.​

If people don’t know you need help, they aren’t going to offer it. And the third nugget is something that you’ve just said. Don’t risk this life. Please don’t waste it.

Myra Virgil, I appreciate you taking the time to join me today on ABWilson’s Heart of the Matter, a podcast dedicated to asking overwhelmingly positive questions as we uncover incredible stories and wisdom of people you may know. Dr. Myra Virgil, thank you so much.​

Myra Lee Virgil (01:02:09.507)

Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.