Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Wellness Surge podcast with Dr. Adeola Oke. Each week we discuss our wellness journey with real people like you and me. We have conversations about food, fitness, mental health, financial wellness, and much more. So you can get back to the real you. To make sure that you’re up to date with this and other wellness topics visit wellnesssurge.com. Information presented here is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease. Please do not apply any of the information presented here without first speaking with your primary care provider. Now let’s head on to the show.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:00:37] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Wellness Surge podcast. My name is Dr. Adeola Oke, and today we have with us Aishah Adam.  The awesome Aishah Adams, you’ll know why I call her awesome right now when I give you her full bio. Okay, say hello to everybody.

Aishah Adams: [00:00:54] Hello, everyone. It’s really nice to be here. I am excited for what we have ahead.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:01:00] Awesome. Very good. Alrighty.  Aishah Adams is the  founder of Siddiqah International and the Support lounge. Siddiqah is a personnel and community development organization built to impact the lives of people and communities across the world through support and empowerment of stigmatized groups, such as widows, divorcees and families experiencing extreme poverty. About 1000 families have been supported for the last six years. That’s amazing! She’s also the brain behind My Street Kitchen project, which is a project under the outreach arm of Siddiqah that has catered to over 97,000 people across Nigeria. Wow! My Street Kitchen is a monthly outreach to slums that provides food, clothes, soft skills training, and hands on skills acquisition that can be monetized by the poor to improve their standard of living.

O.M.G, I need to connect with her. This is really amazing. Putting your planning to action. Wow. That’s amazing. That’s not all. Listen.  The Support Lounge on the other hand is a transformational coaching,  training and therapy hub that supports people to uplevel by helping them heal from pain spurt growth, thus using their pain as a footstool to make a lasting impact in their lives and community.

Wow. Alrighty,  there is still more. Hold on.

Aishah is a serial social entrepreneur big on community development projects, people development projects, as well as high impact projects. Aishah is the author of The White Elephant and Rise Irrespective! which was launched on December 1st. Um, is that on audio?

Aishah Adams: [00:02:57] Uh, not yet. Well, I’m working on it.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:03:01] I am an audio book person. I’m reading and I’m doing something else.

I used to do that back in secondary school, but right now audio books, men. If you have 5  children, you need to do what you  what you gotta do.

So in summary, Aishah Adams is an NLP trained  life coach. She’s a Mental Health counselor, Sexual health counselor and, a public health professional,  speaker, a writer, and all shades of awesomeness in one!

Aishah Adams: [00:03:32] You know! You know! You know!

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:03:34] I totally love that! When you first sent me that bio, I was like, the only thing I saw was “all shades of awesomenes in one”.  I’m like, Whoa, I just need to clap for this lady.  You know if you’re good, and you know you’re good, you got flaunt it  because nobody’s going to do it for you. So that’s… AMAZING!

So today we’re going to be talking about “how do you heal from traumatic relationships?” And that’s a really heavy topic okay. Um, so first and foremost, we’re going to talk about what is a traumatic experience in a relationship. So we know what we are going to heal from, right. We need to know what it is. So that, that that’s the big thing, right?

Aishah Adams: [00:04:23] So, yeah, over to me.  Let me warn, um, I like I’m really laid back discussion, so I’m not the serious talk kind of person. So, and even in my writing, in my work, I tend to personalize things. Cause I think that stories give ’em weight to the things  that we say

So, I have suffered trauma in various aspects of my life. And so one will think why, why is she talking about healing? What does she know about healing? What qualifies her to talk about it? It’s beyond my work as an NLP person or a public health professional it’s beyond that. It is because I have also been through the journey.

So it’s beyond the theory. It is more about the practical journey that I took myself and I walked out of.  Traumatic relationships, come up in different forms. They come up as abuse, and abuse is loosely used a lot of the time, but it could be anything. Abuse is relative. You know, so someone can be like, you know what?  I’ve been traumatized and the person will be like, Whoa, what do you mean by traumatized? What have you been through? No, no, no, no, no. It’s relative. You know. What I see as trauma might not be what you see as trauma. And if you feel traumatized, then it is valid. So traumatic  relationships come in form of abuse and it could be anything that would upset your emotional, psychological, sexual, physical state in such a way that you struggled to actually co-exist with people peacefully and you tend to feel like you are not totally together. So I’m not giving you a very theoretical thing. I’m trying to give you something that anyone can relate to. So if you feel any kind of instability in your life in such a way that you feel threatened and you feel not so much at peace with yourself, Or at peace with the people you are living with, then probably you are going through some level of trauma and you need to speak to someone.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:06:25] Okay. Alrighty. So I like to like summarize things, right? Because you, you gave us a very beautiful response. So just break it down. Let me just say it how I understand  it. There are  different types of trauma. There’s the physical, there’s the emotional, there’s the sexual, and it  all relates to how you feel in terms of your co-existence, your relationships with other people. If you don’t feel at peace with this person, based on physical, emotional or sexual co-existence, then you are being traumatized.  Is that it? Awesome ok. 

Aishah Adams: [00:06:57] Yeah, and it’s very relative. It’s quite relative, you know. So I might feel traumatized because I’m living in a space where someone keeps shouting.  Because I find  people, loud people, toxic. Someone else could be like, how can you call her toxic because she’s loud? Well, it’s, it’s traumatic for me. Because that’s not something I accept. It’s not traumatic for you because you are that way. What could be traumatic for you could be someone bringing out a gun.  That might be like, Oh, I wouldn’t even wait till the person brings out a gun.

It’s important that people understand that. As much as we have defined, you know, traumatic relationships with what I have said ,it’s relative. So it’s relative to you. And if you, in any way, shape or form, feel traumatized by an event, then it is valid and you should seek help.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:07:52] Yes. Okay. Very good. So can you give an example of traumatic relationships that people go through like, okay. You kind of said, yeah

Aishah Adams: [00:08:05] Off the top of my head, I’m thinking of three. If you did a quick search on Google, the top three traumatic relationships that would pop up would be marriage, it will be child-parent relationship, and then friendships will also be it. And then it will all budge down to it being toxic, right?

Because for you to call a relationship traumatic, then it will be that there is some level of toxicity that is beyond, acceptable for the people involved.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:08:38] True. True. True. So even before the marriage, sometimes there’s already some trauma right.  Some people are like I’m going to get married to this person, but he’s yelling at me. He’s hitting me.  Should I get married to him? What is                                                                                  the world going to say. They’ve already set the date. Yeah. What is my parents going to say? You know, people do that.

Aishah Adams: [00:09:05] You know, you just struck a chord because that was me. Um, when I talked about this in my book, The White Elephant, right? So The White Elephant is basically a book I wrote as a gift to womanhood. I gave it as a gift to people who are not married and as a gift to people who are going through traumatic marriages to say that it’s okay to acknowledge that you’re in a shitty marriage, sorry, excuse my English.

But that’s what it is. And that it’s okay for you to step out if you have to, because your emotional and mental health will thank you for it. When I was going to get married the first time, the reason why I got married, the person I got married to, because what happen was that I was young. I was whatever .

I was hotcakes, you know, you have set the date. Now what happened was that we had done an introduction, but it was an introduction and an Akita, but I hadn’t moved in. I hadn’t moved in. And I should have. So then we started counseling and sincerely, I think it was the first time I’m actually openly talking about this.

Uh, you know, this is a gift to you.. And when we were going through the counseling period, I think we did that for like a month before the Walimah. Before the date of the wedding. So let’s say we had an engagement and you know, the solemnization has happened. And then we were waiting like, okay, you know what, I’m going to move in after the reception party and the dates have been set, but I was beginning to feel like, I think I made a mistake.

I don’t think this is the right person I should be with. We are not talking like I’m the talky chatty kind of person. If I meet the person that I speak with so if I meet you and I don’t really like you, or we don’t have things in common, I’ll probably not say anything.

You’ll probably think I’m the most queit person ever. Oh my God. Like we will talk all night. Like literally. And so we actually were struggling to talk and I just thought, Okay. maybe it was because we were trying to be very Muslim, you know, we’re trying to stay within the confines of what the religion expected us to do or not go out, you know, and the

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:11:24] you’ve already done the introduction.

Right.

Yeah.

Aishah Adams: [00:11:34] And then they have set the dates. And I was like, and so for me, it’s like, even if you have set the date, I told a friend of mine recently, I said, if a minute before you step into the hall, he does anything that makes you question whether you should continue this journey. I beg you step away because you are going to wish you did that for the rest of your life.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:12:00] Thank you for saying that a lot of people need to hear that, that seriously.

Aishah Adams: [00:12:03] You’re going to wish you did that for the rest of your life. So do yourself that favor. It is better to have a broken engagement, than to have a broken marriage.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:12:17] That’s awesome. So let’s, let’s just be real here. That’s tough, you know, but it is totally worth it.

I’ve not been through it. So I can’t even say, but I’m just imagining people that I love going through that. And then they say, I need to break this thing. It’s hard. Well, you know, sometimes awesomeness happens where you’re uncomfortable. Like things you don’t feel comfortable  doing. That’s where awesomeness lies, right?

And so that’s where we thrive and that’s where you’re happy. And sometimes we need to do things we’re not comfortable doing in terms of making other people unhappy, but makes us happy. We need to be selfish .

Aishah Adams: [00:12:53] Well, you know, in the end you would actually be making them happy. Nobody really wants to have a broken marriage. Like let’s think about it,

Because of so many people are focused on what people would say rather than what works for me. And you see people will talk. If you do the right thing, they will talk. If you do not do the right thing, they will talk. So Darling, do something that makes you happy because. Life is short… life is too short.  For me, I had a choice to have stayed back in that marriage because at the end of the day be marriage ended  because I, I asked for divorce but the thing was this . I asked myself if the rest of my life was worth, throwing away. I had been in the marriage for three years and I thought that…hmm, hmm, Aishah, this was a mistake. Like, you know, six months into the marriage. I knew without a doubt that I had made a mistake. I knew. Wow. So the rest of the two and a half years I gave that marriage was… “I don’t want people to talk.” ” I don’t want them to say this.” ” I don’t want to bring shame to my family.” ” I don’t want the stigma that comes with it.” ” I don’t want this and I don’t want that.” Well, it’s how many years now? I think it’s about 11 years since that decision. Honestly. I don’t regret making that decision.

I think it was one of the best things that I did for myself. It was tough, the period coming after, you know, the divorce I had to go through, which was very traumatic. Um, the experiences that I had, both those things are the things that have formed the foundation of the work that I do now.  I do not shy away from telling you the truth.

The truth is that a broken engagement is way better for you, for him, for everyone involved than a broken marriage. He will come to thank you for it. You’re toying with the rest of someone’s life. I mean, at this moment, you’re not, you don’t have someone with you. You haven’t brought in kids. Yeah, when you then get married you’re going to bring in children and then you’re going to cause more problems for more people.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:15:26] true, true, true, true, true, true.

Wow. Okay. That’s deep. We can keep going … so we know what it is, right. We know what we shouldn’t do. So if you then go through it. You are not brave  enough to say no, right. How can you heal from it? Are there any actionable steps? Like, okay, this is what I do now. This is what I do next. Are there actionable steps?

Aishah Adams: [00:15:56] Oh, definitely. There is always a solution to every problem. I believe, because I’m a hopeless optimist.

And then the first thing I would say is that, so when people make mistakes or when they make decisions that cost them certain things. So it makes them find themselves in places that they don’t want to be. One of the first things that I tend to see with this kind of people. And even myself inclusive is that we tend to lose ourselves. Because in the process of trying to right the wrong you made, to save face to, you know, prevent the stigma that comes with the wrong decisions you made.

You find yourself becoming someone that you would never have thought you would be. And many times this changes happen without you even actually realizing that you’re changing. Your friends say like, you know, “Aishah you’ve changed.” “Oh, Adeola you’re not acting the way I knew you to be. Are you okay?” I had these kind of things a lot. I heard people asking me those questions and I just really didn’t see what they were seeing because I was in the deep of the mess. And so the first thing you do is that you take yourself back to the basics and you rediscover yourself. It’s really important. You need to get back in touch with who you are.

What are your values? Who did you intend to be when you were young? You might need to really go far back as far back as that, because sometimes, it becomes really hazy, but you know, many people, even those who had really tough childhood upbringing tend to find childhood as an easy time to think about.

So you need to really go back in time and say, who was I? And who did I want to be? And for every child, I think the richest place, you know, you will find beautiful dreams are in primary schools because these kids are just full of life. These kids believe in the world. These kids believe that everything is achievable and this means that we all have the belief that in the world, good things are achievable. What just happens is that we allow the conditioning of other people to tweak our idea of the world. And we do not really have to take that idea. And so what we need to do is if you have a very dirty glass, what you need to do is you need to clean it up.

You need to take the first step rediscover, take the next step in your rediscovery journey. Be open to cleaning up and opening every door you have not opened in a long time because you want to let the sun in. Because you want to really let the sun in and you want the sun to get to the core and that’s one of the reasons why I’m very invested.

I actually have one of my trainings. I call it peel the layers. It’s actually a self discovery class, but it is about peeling the layers and getting to the core. Who am I at my roots and who do I want to become?  Who did I want to become as of right now, based on what I know of myself, who do I want to become? And how can I achieve that? I think that it’s always important to stand with the end in mind. And so when you are clear on what’s your vision for your life is you, then, you know, have a plan of how to go about it. And if you’re struggling to get back on track, that’s why you have people, you know, you have coaches and you have therapists who can support you on that journey.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:19:31] That is what I was going to say. When you’re rediscovering that’s when you need people in your life to help you.

Aishah Adams: [00:19:39] To keep you grounded on those goals and saying, you know what, darling…. This is what I tell people, and this is my belief that I have. “If you can dream it, then you can achieve it.”

You will not dream of something that you do not have the resources to achieve. Let me say that again. You will not dream. Your mind will be unable to conceive a dream that you don’t have the skillset to achieve. And so if you can come up with a dream, then it means that you have the skillset to achieve it.

And so if you are not achieving it, it’s not because the dream is not possible. It is because you are not ready to take yourself from the space you are to the space you need to be. To become who you need to be, to achieve the dream that you want.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:20:25] Okay. That was meant for me. That was totally meant for me. It’s not on the trauma, but that thing you  just said that was meant for me.

Seriously. It’s not just on the trauma aspect. You can put it in every aspect of your life. My own problem is always something else, but, “if you can dream it, you can achieve it”.

Like yeah. You have just not put yourself through the steps you need to achieve that goal. That was for me. Thank you. Thank you.

We talked about one actionable step:  rediscovering yourself, right?

Aishah Adams: [00:21:01] We’ve talked about support as well, seeking support,

Seeking support.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:21:05] Okay. Absolutely. That is so important

Aishah Adams: [00:21:08] We’ve talked about believing in the dream because even if you really discover yourself, Even if you get support and you do not believe in the dream and believe in the fact that you can achieve the dream,… the coaches don’t get to do the job for you, they just support you to do the job. So I’ve had different kinds of clients. I have had clients that they came into my office broken. They literally flew out of my office by the end of the work.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:21:37] Wow.

Aishah Adams: [00:21:37] An then, I’ve had people coming into the office, they move, the few steps. But because the things that they are looking for, is the solution  outside of themselves. Well, then God will not test you. I’m  a very faith based person, but, and so if anyone is listening and you are faith based, then this will be for you. Because I believe that you will not be tested with something greater than your shoulder can bear. And so what it is is that the gift is given to you before the test. It’s almost like when we are in school, right?

You are taught the class and then the exams come. So the pain, the test, the trauma has come to test you to strengthen the muscle of yours.  Let’s go for exercise. Right? Well, talking about wellness. And so some part of wellness will be physical exercise. When you are trying to build a muscle, you put that muscle through what? Endurance work!

The, the, the pain, the stress, the trauma is there to strengthen the muscle of yours so that you can use it effectively. And so the pain and trauma, isn’t all bad. It’s just about perspective. So if you look at it from an empowering position, you find that you’re able to work with the trauma and pain and you’re able to use it to produce something awesome.

So the next step is actually believing in your dream, believing it is achievable, and then focusing on that dream. So when you believe in it, the next thing you then do is focus on it and keep your gaze on that goal. As you walk through the mess, you are in. You’ll find it easier to walk out of that mess when you have something optimistic to take you out of that place?

I give an example. I actually heard of an account of a soldier talking about how he survived one of the wars. And he said that what helped him get through the war was a memory of a song that he shared with his wife and the fact that he looked forward to being able to sing her that song began. And when he thought about singing the song to her again, he didn’t totally just think about it. He started to sing the song to himself to encourage himself to believe in the fact that he will be able to sing the song again to his wife. And this was what got him through the war and got him back home. And then he said something funny happened. He remembered getting  back hom, and he had forgotten all about the incident and all about the fact that he was that song that got him through. And suddenly he heard his wife sing the song, and he just burst out crying because that was like a soft spot for him. And he then told her what happened. And then they both, you know, started crying and they just found like, you know. And so a lot of the time it’s actually focusing on the end goal.

And this is what has helped me actually. Um, when I was going through the different pain things that I went through, one of the things that, that stood out for me was, no, this is not your life. This is not your end point. I was very sure that I was going to have a successful marriage. I was going to have a beautiful life.

So you would have heard me say some of the challenges. I’m just going to share two, just with the hope that someone listening, who is going through something similar, doesn’t lose hope. Number one, I have kids now, you know, all thanks to God. Um, but I actually had  a lot of miscarriages.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:25:06] Oh, wow.

Aishah Adams: [00:25:07] Yes. I had a lot of miscarriages before I eventually… I had over six miscarriages. And through it all, I kept believing that I was going to have…

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:25:15] Six miscarriages during that marriage ?

Aishah Adams: [00:25:22] Yes.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:25:23] Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Aishah Adams: [00:25:27] You know, and through it all, I just kept telling myself like, no, don’t worry. I will, I will go and… So when I hear of someone who gives birth, a friend of mine, you know, I would really be happy with them you know, play with the kids and I’ll look at the child. And in my mind, I’ll be like, I’m going to have my kids someday.

I’m going to carry my child. You know, I just knew it in my heart, I did not have any evidence, you know, anything changing. I was doing everything that I needed to do. But I just knew in my heart that, you know, someday I believed in it. I believed in it like, like my life depended on it. When I was going through divorce and, you know, I was like, okay, this was not in the plan. God, I don’t know what is going on here. This was not in the plan. And then I used to say to myself that “Aishah you’re going to have a beautiful life.” I didn’t just say it. I started to write down the things I was going do with that beautiful life, and how I was going to show up in the world, and how I would serve people, and how I was going to be so amazing that even those who laughed at me were going to look at me and say, thank you for showing up.

And that kept me going. So when you are going through tough times like that, and you’re trying to rebuild, you need a beautiful picture to focus on. Beautiful … to keep you motivated.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:27:02] Okay. Alright. So what I’m getting is I’m thinking about, okay, so somebody is going through this. They finally get out. Okay. They finally get out, but I know about people that get out, but they’re still an absolute mess.

I know about people like that, but I can’t even muster the courage to tell them that there’s something… that they’re not who they used to be, you know, because they’re still, I think they’re still in that  trauma. And they have not gotten out of that trauma, but they got a chance to get out of the marriage or the relationship, whatever, but they’re still a mess.

Is there hope for someone like that?

Aishah Adams: [00:27:44] Number one is that you need to engage with gratitude. Off the top of my head, that’s the first thing. So let me, let me paint a scenario for you. Just think about this. So you’ve been through a marriage. It didn’t work. Stepped out, then you remarried. Then you finally get a child and then you get divorced again. How’d you get out of that? So the first thing is that a lot of the time we lose sightof  the blessings we have. In the middle of that mess, we tend to be so focused on the pain and we lose sight of every other beautiful thing we have in our lives. It’s not all misery, trust me… even in the pit of that pain. It’s not all misery, but unfortunately it’s like this, what you focus on expands. So when you are focused on something, you tend to lose sight of every other thing.

And so when you’re focusing on the pain, the pain only expands, it keeps expanding and then you feel the pain even more. When you focus on the beauty, what happens? The pain starts to shrink. It starts to become insignificant to a point that it doesn’t even matter to you anymore. To a point that you don’t even notice that it is even there, but then you need to seek therapy. Because what you just did was shrink it, you did not pick it out and throw it out completely, and therapy would help you seal that deal.

So what people tend to do that they shrink it, but they never really seek therapy. I shrunk it. And I also went for therapy. I did all kinds of therapy to ensure that I was back in check. And then sometimes, you know, you’re a professional, you’re a health professional, you’re in the wellness space and you’re going through this, you’ll  probably tell yourself that lie of you know, I know what to  do… darling, go get help. Take your own pill. You know, you’re, you’re giving other people that same advice of you need therapy. You need to heal, you need to do the work yourself. You know, I like to be very authentic. So I don’t share anything that I don’t do.

So the first thing will be gratitude. Gratitude will take you very far. You know, just wake up in the morning and just be very intentional about the things that you’re thankful for. In my book, Rise, Irrespective! I wrote about something. I said, what if the only things you woke up with today were the things you are thankful for yesterday.

What would you have left with you?  And that was it for me.  It was just in one of those moments that, that came to me. Like, what if you lost everything you did not thank God for today. Tomorrow when you wake up.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:30:45] Oh my gosh…. Oh my gosh… wow!

Aishah Adams: [00:30:50] What would you have with you? What would you have left?  So I found myself thinking. I just said, thank God for my eyes. Cause I can see the beauty of the skies. I can see the beauty of the trees. I can see my children and I am so thankful. And then I go, thank you for the, the roof over my head. You know, thank you for the water that I can drink. So many people, you know, we take drinking water, we take it for granted. There are so many beautiful things that we have. And we do not see them in these moments of extreme pain. I’m not trying to say that you’re not in pain. I’m just saying that there are other beautiful things in your life. And those things, be grateful for them. And gratitude will take you very far. You will be, you’ll be shocked at how well it will help you grow.

And so those are the things I did. I started to become more grateful and not just say it. I actually started to document it on a daily basis. And this has worked for a number of my clients as well. You know, I make them do gratitude exercise. You know, so just start telling me some of the things you’re thankful for. And, you know, just try this out.  Every morning wake up, this is actually part of my morning routine. I have a morning routine. And when I wake up in the morning, I thank God specifically for things, you know, so I pick today, what am I thankful for? I am thankful for the water. I’m thankful for the opportunity to journal. I am thankful for the opportunity to have a discussion with my daughter. I’m thankful for the hugs that I’m able to give my son, you know, those kinds of things that we take for granted.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:32:28] Small things we take for granted…” for the opportunity to give my child a hug.”

Whoa. Okay. All right. Seriously, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Wow.

Wow. Wow. At least now I feel empowered.

Aishah Adams: [00:32:45] Another thing I would say you should do will be to go on a forgiveness journey.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:32:56] What is that?

Aishah Adams: [00:32:56] So we think that we are angry at other people. A lo t of time, when people talk about forgiveness, they talk about forgiveness of the people that hurt us, I’m not saying that I’m talking about forgiving yourself.

Okay.

So you know what, so many times we think, the word there is think, we think that we are angry at the people that hurt us. When in fact we are angry at ourselves for giving them the permission to hurt us.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:33:45] Mmm.

Aishah Adams: [00:33:47] The only things that happened to you are the things that you give the permission to happen. Yeah, there are things that you cannot control. There are things you cannot control, but even those things that you cannot control when they happen, how do you react to them? Your reaction is your fault. The incident is not your fault, but your reaction is on you.

And so what it is is that it is important that you get that. You have a level of control over the things that happen to you. And so rather than go, “Oh, they did that to me,” how about what was my role in this? And then actually taking responsibility for your role and forgiving yourself for the errors you made. With a commitment to do better next time. We have set ourselves up as infalible beings. And this is the problem.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:34:47] Yes, nobody is perfect!

Aishah Adams: [00:34:50] We don’t want to make mistakes. We don’t want to fall short. We want it to be prim and proper, perfect, and all, you know, picture perfect. And you know, those kinds of things, you’re  just setting  yourself on a standard that is unachievable.  You see, perfection is unachievable, so that is setting yourself up for a lower standard. But excellence, is achievable, and that is setting yourself up to, to aim high.

So if you really want to aim high you aim for excellence. Now, excellence is not achieved in a day. It os achieved through repeated consistent efforts, and doing something right. When they call someone a consultant, the person doesn’t become a consultant because they went into school and studied for X number of years. They become consultants in the field because they practice that work. They learned on the job. They went through the motions. They faced the risks associated with the work and they came out…. alive, I’m  sayiing I guess.  So the point is you are not going to get to that point of achieving high, if you do not go through the hurdles.

And so the fact that you fell off the hurdle, you’re falling off the hurdle is not, it is not to say that you are not worthy of achieving the goal you have set. It is to say re-strategize come back stronger. Unfortunately, we take a small fall and we blow it out of proportion. And we use that as our yardstick to say, I think this is the universe saying that I shouldn’t do this.

Everyone trying to tell me that, that or that…  do you believe in what you’re doing? Do you believe that is the right thing. Are you ready to invest what it takes to achieve your dream?, then go for it. So, what I would say is … Gratitude. Forgive yourself. You need to actually sit down and acknowledge that you’re angry at yourself.

When I had to do this, I cried. I cried so much. I didn’t realize how much anger I had. You know, I was actually angry at myself. That I threw away all the fantastic  proposals I had. And I put myself in that space where I was now stigmatized for making a wrong decision. And I did that to myself because I was being a perfectionist.

I was the one dragging myself through pain, nobody was. And the day I acknowledged that was the day that I became born again, like not born again in that perspective. Well, it was like a rebirth for me. I have been the one punishing myself all along. Oh my God. I’m not doing this again. So the thing is that you need to take yourself off the hook. You need to give yourself the opportunity to breathe again. You need to give yourself the permission to heal. Be kind to yourself. Imagine that it was your friend, that you are a friend to yourself, and that, you know, you saw your friend going through pain, what would you say to them? Say it to yourself and be that way with yourself.

And the third thing will be that you need to then recommit to your journey of achieving. When you are in that, you know, last thing you want to do is go back and try again. You, you, you tell us all kinds of things. So I give an example in a relationship that failed, does that mean that the universe or God has given you a sign never to marry. No, it just means that that marriage wasn’t meant for you. It wasn’t going to work there were lesson that you needed to learn. Take the lessons and move on. But don’t then set yourself up for a life of pain. Like, you know, because this has happened, I am never going to experience this.. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Life is too short and it’s too long for you to put yourself through drama because many times it’s actually the drama we put ourselves through. We are the ones that put ourselves in this cage of, “I’m not going to re-marry because of this.”  Because if you give yourself the excuse, your mind  will find a way of bringing it to you.

So what you then need to do is re-commit to living a life that is robust, full, rich and everything that you’ve ever dreamed of. And when you re-commit that way and you are consistently working towards it, you’ll get what you want eventually.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:39:32] Thank you. Thank you. Alrighty. We’ve talked a lot. I’m like, gosh, we can keep going. And this, I really, really… let me just tell you again. I really, really, really learned a lot and I enjoyed a lot. So we’ve said a lot. Right. But what is one thing you want to make sure people take away? Somebody that is hurting right now? What do you want to make sure that they take away from this discussion today?

Aishah Adams: [00:39:55] The pain is not given to you to hurt you. You’re not going through pain because you are not loved or because your life you’re a bad person or because good things are not just meant for people like you. I hear that a lot. There is nothing called “PEOPLE LIKE YOU”. You are given the pain because you are loved… because it is a gift. It is a gift. So let me recoin it this way.  You see as women when we women, because I want to believe men will listen to this, but when a woman is about  to give birth… like we love children. Children are so cute and they’re so beautiful and all of that, but you know, the process of giving birth is not  the nicest of processes. It’s painful. It’s stressful. It’s exciting. It’s scary. It’s all shades of emotions, but there is beauty at the end, lots of beauty. When that child comes out and you just see the face of the child and you’re just like, Oh my God, you just feel this calmness. And you forget everything. And so just like the new baby, your dream, your vision, your life goals and all of that , babies of yours that you need to birth, that only  you can birth  because you have your own unique space in this world. You have those things that are unique to you that only you can bring to the table, and only you can bring to the table in the way that you will bring it to the table.

And so the pain that you have is not intended to push you away from the dream. It Is intended to push you closer to the dream. So rather than focus on the pain, focus on the beauty in the clouds, and you would find that it is packed with all the goodness you need to get you to the promised land.

And so understand that pain is a gift. And if it is well used, it will help you birth your purpose and help you achieve all the dreams that you have always wanted. So believe in yourself,, and never give up until you get your dreams. Okay.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:42:24] Alrighty. Well, thank you so much. So Mrs. Aishah Adams  You’ve just thrown a lot of things at us? Like I’m like, Oh my gosh. You can relate what you said to so many aspects of your life. Like not just trauma. A lot of things are like, I’m like, okay, this was meant for me. This was meant for me. I’m taking this and I’m walking on it. This action, I’m going to take it. This  step, I’m going to take it and do it for me.

So how can people get ahold of you after the show?

Aishah Adams: [00:42:56] Okay. You can check me out. www.Aishahadams.com  and then you can check me up on Instagram @Aishah_Adams . Again, my Aisha has H at the end. And you can check me on Facebook. I am quite active on Facebook and Instagram. Well, I’m trying to have a YouTube channel though I’m not very active there. Yeah. I’m cooking up something. So just watch out. I have a podcast I just have laid back discussions. It’s just that laid back discussions around wellness.

Dr. Adeola Oke: [00:43:49] Oh really? Really? All right. I gotta check that out. Awesome. Thank you so much. It was so wonderful connecting with you. It was so wonderful being in this space wiht you. And I learned a lot today and I hope you did too. So thank you. All of you for tuning in. We’ll see. In the next podcast, have a good day. Have a good week. Bye bye.

Aishah Adams: [00:44:10] Bye. Take care.

Ending: [00:44:13] Thank you for listening and sharing your precious time with us. If you enjoy the show, then follow us and subscribe on iTunes, YouTube, or any app that carries podcasts. Have an awesome week. Best wishes to see you thrive.