Owning your power with Kemi Nekvapil

0:02 A listener production. This is Crappita Happy and I am your host Castunn. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher and of course, author of the Crappita Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. When was the last time you felt truly powerful? In fact, how do you even define powerful? If you sometimes struggle to access your own personal power? You are going to love my conversation with today's guest coach, Kemmy Neckvipil. As a black child raised by five sets of white foster parents, can we learned from a young age what it is like to feel powerless?

0:55 That experience led to a lifelong passion for helping women connect with and embrace their personal sense of power. She has now written a book on the topic called Power, A Woman's Guide to Living and Leading Without Apology, where she talks through the key qualities of power as she sees them. Presence, ownership, wisdom, equality, and responsibility. If you have ever. Felt small or less than in your life, you are going to love this chat. Here is my conversation with Kemmy, Kemmy, thank you so much for joining me on the Crappit a Happy podcast today. I'm very happy to be here, CAAs I. Was saying to you a fair that I first experienced you when you toured around with Marie Folio a few years ago. So you've been on my radar and you've written a book now called Power, which is very intriguing to me. Before we get to that, can you start by telling me a little bit of the Chemi Neckopel story.

1:52 Oh, there's so much of the story, as I think we all are when we get to midlife. I'm forty seven now, so there's a lot of the story. I was born in England. I was a child that from the beginning, I mean, I took me a long time to actually earn or take ownership for myself that I am a creator. And so I'm someone that has created from a very young age. I'm still someone now that I knit and I bake, and I plant gardens and all those sorts of beautiful things. And so I grew up in the countryside and I loved school. I loved the structure of school and I went from school into bakery college, from bakery into chefing, from chefing into acting, from acting into yoga teaching, then into acting again and then back to chefing. And here I am in Australia.

2:39 I met my Australian husband in Thailand many years ago and I was working there as a chef and he was on holiday. And my son has just turned eighteen and my youngest has just turned sixteen. They identified as non binary. So I'm very much one of those parents who is on that beautiful journey with a group of children and a generation that is really taking ownership of who they are without some of the systems and paradigms that some of us have been led to believe are the only ways to navigate the world. What an interesting personal history that you have. I love it when you hear people's stories of their personal history and there's this thread that weaves right through and you introduce that perfectly by saying I'm a creator and then everything that you said was something creative. But for the last ten years you've been coaching, how did that come about?

3:27 Well, it's interesting. I think what I now know about myself was that when I look at all of the professions that I've had, especially the yoga teaching, and also when I came to Australia, I started a business. It was around food and around raw food, and you know, I would share within those live workshops that I would do, I would say it was mainly women occasion, there'd be a few guys, but it was mainly women. And I would say, this is not about address science, this isn't about dieting. I'm an anti diet advocate. This is about fueling your body with food that gives you the energy to do what you want to do in your life. And yet I'd find that quite a few women would come up to me at the end of those workshops and say, but how many calories does a cucumber have compared to celery? And at the beginning I found it funny, like it was humorous, like ha ha ha. I don't know that was it. But then I realize, oh, no, there's something in this. This is part of women believing that we are broken and that we need to keep fixing ourselves and one of the best ways to fix ourselves is to be the perfect dress size. Whatever that was.

4:28 I said that in inverted commas, and that kind of me being finding it kind of funny turned actually to anger because it made me realize that so many women are putting off living their lives until they have lost the five kilos. So that was when I knew, I don't I want to move at this space with food because it's so complex for so many women. What I want to do is to create a space to look at, regardless of your dress size, how do you want to live? What do you want to create? Who you want to be? What does a life that honors and nourishes you look like? And that was when I stepped into coaching. I started running retreats in Bali and in Australia and then from there decided, okay, I want to be a credentialed coach.

5:13 So I'm an International Coach Federation credentialed coach and it's very important to me to have that credential because it means that I have an ethical, you know, governing body behind me and my work. Kemy. So let's talk about then power. Because you've moved into the coaching space, you're supporting. Is it predominantly women that you work with? Then yes, occasionally a few good men will come my way, and you know, and if there's an alignment there and I'm the right coach for them, one percent, yep. But generally, yeah, I would say ninety nine percent of the people that I work with are women because I am one, and because I live in the same world as those of us identify it as women, and there are certain similarities that we have to navigate every single day. And being a woman of color as well, that's another complexity into that. So, yes, predominantly I work with women. And it's funny, Cass that you asked me, because you'd be surprised how many people say to me, but why don't you work with men?

6:09 And I often wonder, I wonder how many men get asked when they work predominantly with men, why don't you work with women? It's an interesting question that women are always ask when we choose where we're going to focus that it's always questioned. Yes, it is power. What is your definition of power? You've written a whole book on the topic. Yes, Kenny, and I completely agree. This is this is an area that really could Yes, men and women all. You know, it's relevant to everybody, but I think women especially have a trouble owning their power. So let's just start with your definition of power. Well, there's my definition in terms of my lived experience. So as a child, I grew up always as the only black girl at school. I was fostered to white parents growing up, and so my sense of powerlessness not came from my gender, but also from my race. And I was told within some of the foster families that I lived in, either you know, overtly or subtly, that I was less than that I had no power, I had no identity, and that I should focus on being good.

7:14 And I believe that. Why would I not believe that? In fact, I wore that as a badge of honor. I know I'm going to be good. Maybe my goodness will trump my blackness. And then if I can somehow kind of have this smoke and mirror of goodness, I'll be allowed in places, I will be seen as a human within my own right. So I have that lived experience, and then I have the experience of being a coach and working with women at different levels in their careers, whether they're CEOs of companies, whether they're successful entrepreneurs, whether they're stay at home mums, whether a combination of all three, because as we know, we can hold a lot. Not saying that we always should, but we can. I realize that so many of us apologize in different ways for being in the world, or using our voices or takeing up space, which kind of goes back to the whole diet culture thing, like the smaller a woman is, the better she is. Like, for goodness sake, do not take up space. And so what I wanted to do is look at this idea of power as someone who lived feeling powerless all the time, and then seeing it mirrored in my clients, regardless of their age, their background, socio economic background, ethnicity. I was like, there's a thread. There's a thread here, and it's the same sort of thread that I picked up for my second book, The Gift of Asking, that women struggle to ask for what we need and want because we have been told that we should always be available to other people, and therefore we feel that our asking is a burden and so with power.

8:37 And it's interesting how you ask what my definition is, because being English, I went straight to the Oxford Dictionary definition. I was like, gods it is. I was like, what is the actual definition of this word. So the Oxford Dictionary definition of power is the capacity or ability to do something in a particular way. That's all it is, which means then that we all have power. So there's a lot in that story, Kemy, and it sounds like a lot of your journey has been reclaiming your own power. So can you talk me through that? And I preface this by saying, I think that you're right that this is an issue that a lot of women, obviously especially black women, marginalized groups, will all struggle with.

9:22 But in order to teach or to talk about power, clearly there's a huge internal process that you have gone through to step up and claim your own Can you talk me through that? Yes? And I'm still claiming it every single day. You know, one thing I talk about in the book is that this isn't a quick fix. This is a book that names what it is to feel powerless in terms of our language, in terms of how we identify, in terms of our stories, in terms of our trauma, in terms of our ambition. That there are so many different ways. And so I would say that for all of us were stepping in and out of our power all the time. What I have done with the word power is created an acronym, and it also outlines my experience of building recognizing that I do have power, and then being able to build that power up. So the first one is present, So breaking the word power into an acronym presence, ownership, wisdom, equality, and responsibility. So presence very much being about we have to be present to what is working and is not working in our lives, and that allows us to be present to other people what is and what is not working in their lives from a place of humanity. Ownership is about owning our stories. You know that there are certain parts of our stories that either we shame ourselves into silence or we are shamed into silence. So I didn't used to share that often that I was fostered because I just felt that that kind of ensue, this kind of pity or poor you or something like that,

10:53 and so I would keep that out of my story. But what I now know is that one of the reasons that I coach the way that I coach, why I'm good at my job as a coach is because I can stand outside of a situation and look into it objectively. And the reason I can do that is because I was placed in these families that I did not know, and I had to stand outside of them and work out what is going on here, what is being said and what is not being said, and how do I fit in this? And then there's wisdom that I believe that we all have an innate wisdom, and yet it's trained out of us from a very young age. And what we tend to do is that we outsource our lives to other people. And one thing I always talking about being a coach is that I don't give advice because I think it disempowers other people. If somebody asks me for advice, I will give them advice if I know them by a friend or my husband or my child, But my teenagers are never going to ask me.

11:45 But otherwise that we have an innate wisdom, and yet we don't always trust that. And then there is equality that I'm sure a lot of the listeners are very aware of the global inequalities and are contributing to those in the ways that we can. But I think sometimes we miss the internal inequality that we sometimes feel for ourselves. That there are certain women that feel that they can't be in certain spaces because they're not equal I remember doing a retreat a few years ago and there was a woman that was in a larger body. That was how she defined herself. And she said that every time she was in a room with women, she would always walk into a room and check who was bigger than was there anyone bigger than her? And if she was the biggest woman in the room and she didn't speak, she would not speak because she did not want to be seen. And so for her, part of her journey is looking at how can I be equal in the body that I have? And then finally is responsibility. You know, I learned from a young age that no one is coming to save me and that I had to relign myself.

12:41 There's a shadow side to that as well, for those of us that are survivors, that we have to learn how to ask for help and how to realize it. Actually we don't have to do life alone. But that when we take responsibility for our life, our successes as well as our PC failures, that is when we get to live and lead without apology. So that's the acronym of power, and that is definitely what I step into all of the time, and that is what I've outlined in the book. So Kenmi, let's go back. I love an acronym. I think that's beautiful. Let's start with presence. I think that is so important what I have found. I don't know if you find this too, just that realization of showing up and being fully present to what is not working or to how our patterns of behavior and these things, especially the dieting or whether it's perfectionism or being you know, the very best parent that you can be and doing juggling all of the jobs and recognizing that these are potentially strategies that we use to avoid being judged or criticized as opposed to those being you know.

13:51 Like really good positive qualities. Do you find that in the work that you do, like just helping women to recognize and get present to what is actually going on here? Yeah, what is actually going on? And that is actually one of the quotes that's resonated with so many readers in the book is the world doesn't need more busy women. It needs present and powerful women. And I think one of the most socially acceptable ways for women, especially to numb ourselves is to be busy. You know, if I'm constantly on the go and I'm constantly moving on. My to do list is really really long, and I'm constantly overwhelmed. I do not have the space to be present to how I feel about myself, to how I feel about my parenting, or maybe how I feel about my partner or my work. So it takes courage to be present to one's life. And I remember when I was at home with two young children, and I remember thinking, what sort of a mum do I want to be like?

14:47 I knew I didn't need to be the best mum. I didn't want to be a perfect mum. I had no interest in that whatsoever. I felt exhausting just thinking about that. But I thought, I want to be a present mum. So how I made that tangible was there when I'm with my children, And it's the same now they're eighteen and sixteen. When I am with them, i am with them one hundred percent. There is nothing else pulling my attention. But when I'm not with them, I'm not with them. So I have created a business that I love where I get to travel a lot. When I'm away I'm at work, and I say to my husband if they need me, text me and just say, oh, they could do a bit of a call or a bit of a check in, But otherwise I was away being present in the other place, not checking in on them, not checking in on my husband to check he was doing a job that I thought he should be doing better or in a different way. And I would say to my children, you know, they might say mom, mum, and I say, I just need to finish what I'm doing for ten minutes and then I'll be one hundred percent present to you. And I think we can only work out how we want to be present to other people if we take the time and we have to work out how to be present for ourselves, possibly before we could even do that.

15:53 Yeah, I'd so agree. What are some of the other ways that you see women giving away their power? We are very smart, you know, so we give away our power in so many ways. We give it away in terms of not using our voice. I talk in the book the power of Words. So there's every print, there's the power of principles, the acronym, and then there are chapters and it's always the power of So in the Power of Words, I talk about how we give away our power in our language. So you know, there are certain things that we know as women because we know because it's coming, it's our lived experience, or it's because we are an expert in our field and we have experience there. And yet we will say constantly I think, I think, I know, I do it too. There you go and one of my ones, Even though I know this and this is my work, I default to does that make sense? So I can share something about my lived experience that I know makes sense because I lived it, and then I end, and I end what I've said with does that make sense? So I talk about what are the diminished the words that we use to diminish ourselves, to diminish our expertise, to diminish our wisdom. And we also do it to each other consciously and unconsciously. So that is a place, I feel that is a very small place for us to start looking at. Where do I give away power in my language? Because all of this work is a practice, you know, for me as a coach, I never want my clients to feel overwhelmed.

17:16 We're always looking at you know, what is the action that you can take right now that is reasonable in the life that you're currently living in the responsibilities that you currently have, And they set actions from that place as opposed to you know, busy, busy, busy, got to go, go, go, got to have an action, got to have an action, got to have a goal, got to have a goal. Because that's not powerful, that's overwhelmed. That's very different. Yeah, it is very different. I think that definition that distinction is so helpful, isn't it? Like? Is this powerful? Does this? Does this make me feel powerful? How does this make me feel? I'm curious to know you mentioned yoga teacher training. I didn't you became a yoga teacher. Sorry, I did yoga teacher training last year as a more of a personal development thing. Really, how important is that practice, the yoga and the meditation for you in kind of staying in that power?

18:07 Definitely for me. When I first started yoga twenty five years ago, I remember I was actually I was in London and you're about to go to London, and I was in a yoga studio that was sibaan and a yoga, which isn't a form of yoga that's necessarily made it kind of you know, on the big stages, as it were, because it's a very grounded, kind of old school, you know, it has meditation and breathing. It's not just the assinas. And I just remember after doing a nineteen minute practice just how I felt with myself in my body. And after doing that for a year or so, I thought, I want to share this feeding with other people, which is why I then went to India and trained as a teacher. So for me, the physical aspect of yoga is about being in my like being present to myself in my body. And then for me, meditation isn't at orange robes reaching enlightenment. I'm not sure i'd want to hang out with an enlightened person. To be honest, I'm not sure they'd have the humor that I want. I don't know. I just it must be quite serious. But anyway, for me, meditation and I meditate daily is about being present to what is going on for me in that moment.

19:18 How do I feel this morning? Like? Are there people I need to avoid? Do I need to change my schedule around because I'm at a part of my cycle or because of a conversation I had yesterday that drained me? Do I need to be in nature today? Do I need to? It just allows me to tap into what is really going on for me, and then I can take actions aligned with my meditation practice that day. God, I love everything about that and that in itself, isn't it connecting with yourself and asking yourself what do I need today, and then being willing to do that, to take action on that, even if it disappoints other people.

20:02 Letting go of all of that pressure of what other people think that you should be doing. That's power. That's life changing. That is when we have been socialized to believe that our only currency as women is either to look good or be available to other people all the time. It is a revolutionary act to ask oneself what is it that I need first, so that I can then give If I choose to give, that I can give and I can serve, and I can contribute in a way that is sustainable that brings me joy and not resentment. Because that is one thing that I know for myself, I never ever ever want to be standing on a stage as a professional speaker or coaching working with a client ever feeling resentful. And the only way that I don't do that is to make sure that my cup is full, that I have as much going into me, probably even more going into me, so that then when I give, it is for a place of absolute privilege and joy and gratitude.

21:04 Absolutely, and that to me all connects beautifully with your third principle, which is wisdom, and that ability to connect with your inner wisdom instead of all of this overthinking, stressing, second guessing that women do constantly. Would you say that the yoga in the meditation is a really fundamental part of the wisdom practice. Yes, I think it is that one hundred percent. I also think because in some ways I grew up to believe that I couldn't really count on anyone else, And you know I didn't as a child. I don't think you think, well, maybe unconsciously, maybe I thought everything around me is so chaotic. Iured land with different foster families at different times. I had no idea when it was happening, Like, I just didn't have this kind of grounded sense of security.

21:49 And I think I just knew I need to make sure I can trust myself. I can trust myself, so I'm going to listen to myself. I can't trust everything going on outside of me, but I can trust me. So I think there is a part of that that some of us will have that innately because we have that kind of survivor in us. Then there are certain practices obviously that bring that, But I also feel that as women we have been so powerful in our intuition and our wisdom that we were burnt at the stake. You know that it has been. We are so scared to trust because there is that kind of passing down of knowledge and women still are not necessarily well. Actually in some countries we know, awful things happen to women still if they step into any kind of intuitive space or do the thing that they feel is the right thing to do for them. But for those of us that are in the Western world, how it happens is in terms of trolling and misogyny and sexes and that kind of stain in your place. Do not use your voice.

22:45 We do not want to hear from you. So it takes power for women to use our voice. And for those of us in Australia, you know, we had the incredible leader, young woman Grace Tame, and her moment of power, her innate wisdom was to not smile while standing next to a person that has been granted the most powerful title in this country. And yet I think the power that had the most impact was her tapping into what power felt like for her, which is I'm going to speak my truth and I'm going to speak it by not smiling. Incredibly powerful. And look and look at the vitreol that came back to her for that, I know, because she wasn't a good girl. She wasn't a good girl, she didn't do what was expected of her.

23:27 Wasn't it a perfect example? And I think so many people didn't even see the irony in attacking her for not being pleasant and smiling as a survivor of child sex abuse. Yeah, yeah, And her words talk about ownership, you know, looking at you know, my definition of ownership within the book is taking ownership of our stories, those we have lived, those we have been told, those we have experienced, and those we have believed. And you have to be present to start to pick apart those stories, what is true, what have I made up? What have I been told? And what she shared very much in her press club speech was I was told by a man that if I use my voice, he would lose his career. And that is exactly what has just happened within this parliamentary sphere right now. And so as women as well, we have internalized patriarchy. I talk about that in the book.

24:20 I am a Black woman and I have had to unpick my internalized racism. And part of our power comes from owning that, Owning that we judge other people by the way that they look, owning our prejudices, owning our biases, because the only way that we're going to shift that and create the world that most of us want to live in is to own that we have those things in the first place. As opposed to no, but I'm kind, But I'm a kind person. I don't see other people's difference. And I remember used to people used to say to me, I don't see your color. And at the time when I first heard that, I didn't know why that grated with me. I sort of thought, I know that's coming from a good, pure intention, but there's something about that that doesn't sit right. I now know if you don't see my color, you don't see me, because as a black woman, I have to navigate the world in a very different way that you may have to as an Anglo woman. And then I also know that as an able bodied woman, I navigate the world in a very different way as someone living with a disability. And someone that's funny because I say in the book, I talk about privilege, and I say I have privileges. I have socioeconomic privilege, I have an education privilege. There are certain privileges that I have, and yet they are trumped by my gender and my race within where I live. If I lived in Nigeria, my heritage country, my race would not be the issue. But that's not where I live.

25:41 And so once again being present to our privileges and using them in a really powerful way. When I get to stand on stages, I know that every person of color or every marginalized person that sees me speak there, if they want to speak, suddenly they're like, oh, oh, if she's doing it, maybe I get to do it. That's the power of the mirror. And I talk about the power of the mirror that we either are that mirror for other people or we get to create being that mirror for others. I hope that you're enjoying this conversation and realizing the benefits of positivity in your own life. If you are enjoying the show, please be sure to like and subscribe so that you get notified when you epps drop and head on over to Apple podcasts or wherever you listen and leave us a rating and review. You said right at the beginning, can me when I said, you know, how did you come to reclaim your power? And you said, well, look, it's an ongoing process. I think that's a really important point to make too. This is not a one and done where there's a finish line, and it's a constant process.

26:51 Isn't it of checking in with ourselves? How does that kind of look for you and your life or even with the clients that you work with. Well, and I would say, and you know, let's circle back to yoga. You know, I remember one of my teachers saying to me many years ago, it's not called yoga done, it's yoga practice, you know. And the school is yoga that I trained in. We were always told, you know, there were sort of eighteen postures within the actual sequence that we would do that, but we were told there are eighty four thousand variations of each of those postures. And so the moment when you would think, oh i'm done, i'm good, I'm good, I've got the posture, you know, so the egos like I've got it, I've got it, I've got it. The teacher would come and adjust you half a millimeter and suddenly you were on the floor. And I love that about yoga, that it's not done, that you are constantly practicing. For me, power is the same. So the book came out, and you know, that was a wonderful and great and the feedback's been incredible.

27:47 But I remember about maybe three or four weeks after, I found myself in a situation with a group of people, so parents that I've grown up with because we met in the school playground kind of scenario, and there was a conversation that ensued that ended up in this sphere of race. It was very uncomfortable. I was the only person of color there. I've known these people for ten years and a few things were said by and I'm married to a middle class, cisgendered, heterosexual, white male. So this isn't about, you know, white men as the evil hashtag, not all men, but this was how this guy identified. He said a couple of offensive things to me, and I held my power in that moment. I felt very blessed.

28:28 I had two friends, another white, middle class hetero cisman there who is a very good friend of mine and was kind of able to speak on my behalf. I didn't have to kind of defend myself the whole time, or just my point of view and another woman as well, and that was fine. And he said, oh, I didn't mean to offend you butt, And I said, look, the great thing is actually, although this is an uncomfortable conversation, we've never had a conversation about race in the ten years that we've known each other. Like for me, that's progress, you know, like this is comfortable, it's sticky, it is uncomfortable for all of us, and yet at least we're willing to go here. And it kind of ended okay. But then as I walked out of that house, I burst into tears and cried for the next five hours, like I was so thrown And I think, and that for me is that idea of we will have our power taken away again and again and again, and we will give it away again and again and again, and yet we can have the tools. And I hope this is this is what power is the book that I've written.

29:30 We now have a set of tools in which we can rebuild our power again and again. And if we can't do it for ourselves, we have created a community of people around us that are happy to help us build our power back up again. I feel like self compassion is so important in those moments as well. I feel like when you have those moments when you are thrown, Let's say, if you had a different response in that meeting and you didn't, you know, you smiled and slung away and then thought, oh god, I wish I had said that, or I wish I'd done something different. Just that capacity to also be really kind to ourselves. Yeah. One, and to me, to be honest, power in that moment was having the conversation, because I wouldn't have had that conversation before. I wouldn't have wanted to make the white people around me uncomfortable or feel like the angry black Not that I got angry in this conversation at all, but you know, I would have so been weighed down by society's pressures on me that I would not have spoken. I would have just swallowed it down again, swallowed it down again. But the fact that I was like, no, let's okay, this is really uncomfortable, let's go there, let's do this, and the other the other sort of thing, that sort of juxtaposition of that, which some of the listeners may also resonate with, is that I also have teenagers.

30:43 I feel like I'm losing power all the time. Put you in your place. Oh my gosh, just the eye roll. I'm like, oh my gosh, like I'm floundering here. So then for me, it's a case of just being present, you know, just like, Okay, what I need to be present to right now is that these young people are trying to identify who they are they are going to and I want them to question and throw everything that me and my husband their father has given them that is developmentally appropriate. So then what do I need right now? I might have just been wounded by that comment or by that, you know, by that. My children have never kind of shattered to me I hate you or slam the door on me, and and that's good. I think that's nice. But you know, I'll get that I'm talking to them and the door will slowly close, you know, like as what I'm doing, and I feel that kind of slight and I'm just like, Okay, what do I need right now? And I'm a big garden. That's another thing I talk about in the book about being present.

31:36 I go out to the garden. You know, it's like, Okay, they don't need me, that is fine. My power actually comes as a mother. I'm not a mom that needs to be needed all the time. I'm an introvert. I would find that quite oppressive that my value came from my children needing me all the time. But at least I can go out and right now at spring in Melbourne, so I'm planting a lot of spring bulbs and that allows me to ground my self and to be present and know they are exactly where they need to be. I may have been wounded by that comment, but actually this is what teenagers look like. This is what I was like, and it feels great that they are able to explore who they are in their home. That is perfect. I was just going to say, listening to you talk HEMI, there's just so much self awareness and capacity for emotional regulation, which I wish more people had. And obviously that is what you are trying to support people to have, and it's the work that I do as well, because how often do people not even realize that their reaction is coming from a place where they've been triggered by something that's back in their past that they haven't yet healed.

32:42 And it's part of that owning their story, isn't it and taking the responsibility. It's all in your power, accurate acrony. It is. I know it's and it is. And that's the thing. It's there's so much power in owning where our wounded are. Yeah, there's just so much power in that. You know. I have a husband. He's a barrister. He's a human rights and environmental law barrister, and he loves his work and I love that he loves his work, and he's doing the hard things. You know, he's doing the hard things. And sometimes because he's in law, he's in court. You know, in the early days, he would kind of Oh, I'm not coming home now, or I'm going to be later, I'm going to be and that completely triggered my childhood thing around security and safety and what is going on? And I thought you were coming home and now you're not. So he would come home and he'd be like, Hi, I'm home, and I was just like a wall. I was straight into protection. You cannot get me, you have let me down. And I would not get and he'd be like, what is going on?

33:42 And it took me a few years to work out. Oh I'm reacting to something that happened all those years ago, and I feel very blessed. I've actually married someone that can meet my childhood trauma, you know, doesn't kind of exacerbate it, and for me to just know and he knows, and even my kids know, this is where this is where I come from, this is what I have, this is where I get wounded, and where my children can also say, oh, this is what is going on for me, or my husband can say, you know, this is what is going on for me. So our power comes from not ignoring our stories, not ignoring our triggers and our wounds, but having the courage to face them and then possibly use them in some way to heal either ourselves or to create a space of healing for others, because then it becomes a gift. Not that any of us want to give our wounds to anyone else or have that happen to anyone else, but it can be transformed into something that is useful.

34:28 Yeah. Absolutely, we live in this world where all of the expressions of power are that very patriarchal, misogynistic. You know, look at the men running the world. What's happening right now at the time of recording this, they're about to overturn that roversus Wade law in the US. How do we continue to It's like, go do we push back against that? You know, like this is what the world says power is, this is what we're up against. How do we continue to tap into this internal power and use that for good in the context of what is going on around us?

35:09 Well, we have to keep tapping into that internal power because of what is going on around us. You know, when you think about the demonstration of one particular man bear chested on his horse, that form of power that is, first of all, look at me, Look how powerful I am. You would only have to demonstrate power if you actually had an internal question about your power. Otherwise while you've been chested on a horse. That's how I choose to look at it. A good point. Yeah, And this form of power that is scarcity. You know, Brene has a dare to lead facilitator and training with doctor Brene Brown. She talks about power over So that is that form of power that we're seeing now, that I will dominate you, that I will shame you, that I will take from you, and that form of power is scarce, and I will do anything that I can to hold on to it because I'm so scared of losing it. What we get to create as women is a form of power that is abundant that if I have it, I can create a space for you to have it. I can build it for myself and I can build it for you.

36:09 And it is in those very little moments that we've spoken about already to look at our internalized patriarchy. So when we see a woman owning her voice, or when we see a woman dressing a certain way or not dressing a certain way, or see a woman saying a certain thing, and we have that internal thing if she shouldn't do that, she shouldn't say that, that's inappropriate, that's our internalized patriarchy. When we can start to unpick and we all have it, when we can start to be honest about that and start to have conversations with each other about that, that is when we get to stand in our power as a collective. And look, I'll be honest. I'm an optimist. I believe in hope. I think one of the reasons, as you say, roe versus weighed, if that passes half of the American States are going to make abortion illegal. I believe there is this groundswell in this old form of power because they actually know that the world is changing and it's scary one hundred percent.

37:05 And yet we definitely definitely have the ability to create a form of power that most people know that they can own that favors more of us and creates a new world for us to stand in without apology. I really hope that. I feel like the whole paradigm needs to shift. I think you're right. I think hopefully it is shifting. I don't know if it's going to happen in my lifetime, but I just sometimes imagine I live in hope of what the world could be if we could shift to that. Yeah, And I think the thing is that I think the scariest thing is people's apathy and complacency, because one thing we have to look at is how far we have come. How far we have come, but it's not enough, you know, So we have to keep going, but not in a place as women like we can't do all the things. I have certain organizations that I support because I know that's where I can be present to and I can give freely and with joy, and because I believe in those organizations, I can't give to everything. I can't be a voice for everything, and I don't think anyone should expect anyone to do that. And anyone that I have found that kind of has their activism in that way generally kind of has to step out of the space because they're burnt out. Their mental health starts taking a toll. So we have to do what we can do when we're present to what about this matters to me? And what are the actions that I can take to really live my value? I talk about the power values in the book. How can I live my values in the world in a way that supports not only my power, but power for the people around me that maybe don't feel that they have any because the

38:36 reality is that not everyone does. So those of us that live in countries where we're safe, where we have our food, where we have our basic needs met, we have an opportunity, not a duty. Some people say duty. I don't think it's a duty. I think you can do whatever you want with your resources, to be honest, but we have the opportunity. We have the opportunity to create space for more people to stand in their power and use their voice. Yes, kemmy, thank you so much for the work that you do, for sharing your story to benefit other people that I should have acknowledged. You said earlier that you have difficulties sometimes you used to not talk about your being fostered, and it takes courage to share your personal story for the benefit of other people. So I appreciate that you have done that all of the work that you do, and thank you so much for your time Todaykas.

39:26 It's been an absolute delight to speak with you today. Thank you for having me. And where can people connect with you to work with you? We'll put details in the show notes, but could you tell people how they can get in touch. Well, they can get in touch with me through my website, so I am me dot comcminextfield dot com. They can get in touch with me on Instagram, and I'm also on LinkedIn. Please say sort of where you heard me on LinkedIn. Otherwise I am someone. If I don't know where the person's coming from, I'm just just delete. Sorry, don't take it personally your same, Yeah, exactly. It was like I don't know who you are. And also people might want to check in my podcast as well to Shift series. So that's another way for people to sort of have that self coaching because I believe in self coaching. I'm sure you do that a lot where you're asking questions to your clients so they can work out for themselves.

40:06 So I think self coaching is as powerful, or it's a powerful tool septart to having a coach, but it is a tool, and there's you know, there are some resources around my podcast as well. Amazing, amazing, Thankskemy, and obviously book available right now in all good bookstores. Wonderful or as I had another author say the other day, also in all bad bookstores. Probably perfect. You can find Chemi's book Power at all bookstores now. There is a link to order it online in the show notes, as well as a link to Chemis's website where you can find out more about how to work with her. In other very exciting news, my brand new podcast, The Confidence Coach with cast Done is out now on listener.

40:50 I would love for you to check it out and share your feedback. You can listen on Apple or Spotify. You can also submit your own confidence question via the form on my website cast done dot com, or shoot me a voice message by DM and we may use your submission in an upcoming episode of The Confidence Coach. Thank you so much for listening, and as always, I look forward to catching you on the next episode of Crappy to Happy listener,