Episode 011: Know your Roots to Grow your Purpose with Chulu Chansa

This week's guest is Chulu Chansa! Chulu is a writer of modern African culture & lifestyle, the host of the Africana Woman podcast, a transformational speaker and mentor.

 

She currently resides in Zambia, is the proud mother of a teenage boy and is at peace. For many years Chulu experienced success in her career, however fell short in her personal life. Eventually she managed to transform her lifestyle and lives by the principle, K.N.O.W. your Roots, Grow your Purpose where KNOW stands for Knowledge, Nourishment, Operate in Obedience, and Weakness.

 

As a result, Chulu is on a mission to ensure African women can create generational wealth from a place of holistic health i.e. mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health.

 

In today’s episode, we cover:

• Forgiving Yourself
• Stop Hiding
• Letting Go of Shame
• Importance of Knowing Your Roots

Relevant links:

• Connect with Chulu on the AfricanaWoman Instagram or on her Instagram
• Visit africanawoman.com for more info
• Chulu’s Squad is vast! Message her if you want to know more!
• Take a look at Prosper In Purpose Merch
• Visit JateyaJones.com for more info
• Take a look at "Who gone check you boo" merch
• Connect with Jateya Instagram
• Connect with Jateya on Facebook:
• Connect with Jateya on LinkedIn

Notable Quotes:

[00:04:28] Your tagline is, “The importance of knowing your roots in order to grow your purpose.” And I absolutely love it 'cause it's so very true. A lot of people get stuck in the past. A lot of people want to ignore and forget the past. But it's very important to know it and not get stuck there but use it to help you grow in your purpose.

[00:08:22] Understanding that whatever negative thing has happened to you, it doesn't define you. It is not the whole summation of you. It doesn't even give a predictor of all the greatness that you can do in the future. It has got nothing to do with all of who you are created to be. I had to come to a point where I said you know what? Yes, these things have happen to me, but they were lessons in them. And when I looked at what I believe I've been called to do and that is to work with African women and create safe spaces, I believe that the experiences that happen to me make me open more empathetic to the women that I work with. So yes, it happened to me, but it happened for a reason. It happens so that I am able to relate more to the the women that I work with. it's not it wasn't great but i feel like you have to come to a place where you you accept and just let it go let it be what it is and let it be in the past but don't keep carrying that luggage.

 

[00:10:02] The thing that stood out the most is that you were like, Okay enough is enough. I feel like a lot of what you were describing are definitely emotions and feelings based on trauma. But that's how multi-passionate people kind of feel in general. We feel the shame, we feel out of place, we feel like we don't know where we belong. And hopefully, fingers, eyes, and toes crossed, we get to a place where we're sick and tired of being sick and tired; and we realize that all the things that happened “to us” happened for us; to equip us to be able to do that thing called purpose. A lot of times people say there's purpose in pain and I'm always like God, yeah I know you have a sense of humor that I don't think it's to funny, but did I really have to learn the lesson that way? Like these are the conversations we have, right? But then hindsight really is 20/20 where I'm like, okay I see what you did there. I still don't think I should have had to go down that path, but I see what you did there.

 

[00:12:03] And then the last thing was acceptance, because you know, for me the ABC’s to Clarity; Accept, Believe, and Connect. Acceptance is a really big and hard pill to swallow. It takes a lot of time. But it's so freeing! In the end when you really truly accept, okay it happened, leave it over there, acknowledge it, learn something from it, and take it with you so that you're not triggered every time that thing may come up, or that person may come around. It allows you to move on to the next phase of believing that you can do something greater.

 

[00:12:59] The things that really helped me was, I heard, the worst thing that you could do to yourself is lie to yourself.  Because a lot of times when something happens, we try to ignore it or pretend it didn't happen and we’re just pushing it in the back of our mind. You know, pushing and pushing and things just keep piling up and we're just pretending it's not there. It's like sweeping dirt under rug, right? And you know, if you just keep doing that for years and years and years, it's a mound now. It's a mountain. Hello, it's still there. So had you have to get to a point where you just say, “You know what. Yes, it happened. Am I happy that it happened? No? But then what can I do better? What can I learn?”

 

[00:14:57] The clarity is in the doing. You kind of have to do to figure it out. There's kind of no way around it really. Taking a misstep sometimes and really like you said, giving yourself grace and maybe even apologizing to yourself. We all know the best apologies are changed behavior. So apologize to yourself. Forgive yourself, don't do it again, if it all possible, learn from it, course correct and go the other way.