E339 Moureen Richard

Hello. My name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother. She is really my superhero. That's why it's important for me to support women to share their uniqueness, their personalities, perspectives, and emotions about life. Too many women in this world feel alone. They worry about the judgment of others and they struggle with their mental health. But when they listen to the Rare Girls podcast where empowered women share their voices and tell their stories, many women will feel inspired to live a life of freedom and overcome all insecurities. They will feel it is a safe space to find their confidence, to remember their unique beauty and to feel their self-worth, and they will connect with the sisterhood of rare girls who encourage their success and support their dreams. That's what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Maureen Richard. Maureen is currently living in Turkey and studying business administration. Originally from Tanzania, Maureen enjoys modeling and she loves swimming and trying new restaurants. Most of all, movies are her greatest company. Maureen, how are you today? I'm fine, thank you. It's such an honor to be in this podcast. I've really waited for this moment. Me too. I'm excited, happy to have you here and looking forward to know more about you as a person and as a woman. So I'll begin with this nice first question, which is Maureen, if your friends and the people who love you and know you best could describe your personality, what would they say about you? I believe that they would really, first of all, they would really love my charisma. I'm a very kind person and very caring. That could be a little bit stubborn, but yeah, they would describe me as a kind and caring person and a loving one. I love that. It seems though that charisma has been either lost or diminished after a loss. Too many people have been in social isolation in the pandemic, if you could give like a few tips to some of the women who are listening or maybe some teenage girls who have lived too many of their teenage years under the pandemic, how do you work on your charisma? What does it mean? How do you do it? Tell us more. So basically it's really been hard finding someone's charisma lately, as you said, ever since the pandemic. But how do we find it back? You know there's always one question that comes around your mind once you speak about your charisma. You get to understand that sometimes it all starts with you and how you forward it towards other people. Like recently I was speaking to my friend and he was telling me every time he speaks to me all he feels is the charisma that I bring, the energy that I bring towards him that makes him forget like there are other things in life that needs to be pushed through. And I'm like, oh, really, I actually thought my charisma faded as well. But then he reminded me, like, no, no, no, it's still alive. So all you have to do is encourage yourself, embrace yourself, feel yourself, understand that there is that charisma, there is that energy within you that you bring towards others. I want more. There are a lot of women nowadays who may be worried too much or struggle with anxiety, and therefore they stop and block their energy. How do you let your energy flow? How do you cultivate it? And how does that process work? I would say I'm one of those women who let their... You know, there are times when things get pretty much intense. There are times when you feel like there is no one listening, even at the times that you want to be listened to. There are times you feel like, what should I do? Am I supposed just to sit down, relax? But there is one thing that I find comforting. I find comfort in praying. I find comfort in seeking God's attention. So the best thing that I normally do, I sit back and relax. I pray. Then afterwards I tell myself, you know what Maureen, you've got this. You've got to do everything positive. You've got to do everything possible to get out there and shine. Because I believe that in every room that I walk to and the charm in that room, there's nothing that would always go less than that. So it's all about giving yourself strength, encourage yourself, because if you can't encourage yourself, there's no one else would encourage you. In this life, in this world today, everyone thinks of themselves. Everyone just wants to be entitled to their own opinions and thoughts. We have gotten to a point that we forget that everyone's opinion, everyone's option is relevant to whatever the concept is based on. So sit out there, encourage yourself that, you know, whatever path you walk through, first seek God, second, know that your opinion is always right, no matter what others would always say. Push yourself through. If you feel so low, at least get out, have a walk, embrace nature, think things over, Like, get to brainstorm your mind and let it think of things beyond the box and tell yourself, you're gonna do it. There are times when you reach, you're like, I'm stuck somewhere. I don't know what to do. What should I do? You feel like you wanna get back into that dark box. It's not gonna help you. Like, it's not gonna lead you to anywhere. Like they say, fear is your greatest, greatest enemy. And it's true. I've been so much, so much embraced by fear, but I reached the time I'm like, oh, it's the fear that's really making me even sleep the entire day and not do anything until I faced my own fear and I decided to get out of the box and decided to empower myself. And that's how I'd listed out there. I'm at peace, I'm happy, and I'm really, really enjoying my life. I love that. That was really, really inspiring. and you spoke about religion and that you pray every time you need the strength. I'm wondering, how does religion for you help you connect and find your strength? Does it remind your family and maybe growing up and all the bonds and connections that you're far away from? Is it because you feel God is protecting you and therefore you have some level of feeling fearless and invincible or is it for you something that you feel you recharge your energy with or what role does religion play within your life and the way you approach your growth as a woman? I'm born in a Christian family, raised in one, went to Christian Catholic schools so I've Well, when you mention about family, I've not really had, I'll definitely say I've not really had a smooth family background. So one of the things that really got me into getting or gaining my strength again was through religion and through my prayers and reuniting myself with God, because I found myself lost some time behind. Well, it reached a point I said, is there really a religion that I need to be basically on? Because everyone has got their own beliefs on religion. Everyone has got their own ways on seeing how things should go in their lives. Well, with me, I find strength in God because sometimes I'll sit down and try to believe on my own instincts and end up failing. But it reached a time I'm like, why am I even believing in myself while I understand that there's one person on earth that can always listen to me and lead me through a certain path in life and that's God. So I find religion so comforting for me because it leads me out of different dark places. I've been going through literally a lot of family issues, it really got me depressed, it got me so much loss, so much anxieties. But then I was reminded of one thing, I need to pray. I always, that's the only way I can vent. That's the only way I can be able to reach and understand that there's space for me out there, even if I may not have fully, I mean support from my family, but God will always hold me through. So I find comforts and courage and relief through praying and seeking God's guidance. I love that. And I love that you're sharing how your journey was on your mental health development. And a lot of women have this, that they're silently struggling with their mental health. Maybe every one of them tries to pretend to be confident and then each one feels alone, like, oh, maybe it's only me who is struggling with this. What's your advice to them in addition to praying? Let's say, like you said, there is a woman, she spends her free time in bed because she cannot get the energy to do anything. What are some things that she can do to deal even more with her anxiety and maybe slight depression? How can someone who's within that cycle, who maybe doesn't have your Christian background, let's say, so it's not like just them praying is not the first step. What would you suggest? Would you say just go and start some activities to meet some new people? Do you tell them like delete social media so that you don't compare yourself, stop listening to the news? How is it? As I said, I've been through that path and that's not even quite far. I'll say three months ago, not even three, two months ago, I was in that state, I was so depressed, had so much anxiety. I literally didn't believe in myself. I went around because basically I'm in Turkey for studies. As I said, I'm doing my bachelor. And when the earthquake happens, they shifted the studies to online for the past semester. And I was like, will I really just be doing online classes, stay at home, sleep, wake up, get online? It's gonna be a boring life. And it really got me bored because that's where it got depressed and had so much anxieties. I sat seeking for jobs here and there. And guess what? I did almost five interviews and they all turned me down. I really got so much more depressed. I was like, what should I do? Is it that I can't find something to do? Is it that I can't seek help from someone who would really want to see me shine out there? And at this time, I really didn't have friends to talk to. And I'm the type of person that I'll just confine myself and talk to myself. As I said, I'll get through prayers. And even back then before, when I was going through depression, I wasn't praying. I was just there, just going with life as how it wants me to go with. And I did one thing actually. The most thing that I used to do was go for movies, sit down, go for movies, either watch movies at home or go to the cinema, watch movies, eat and get back at home, sleep, wake up, sleep, wake up. That's literally what I used to do. When I reached the time I used to go through motivational quotes and all these motivational TikToks, then I had an insight that sometimes you go through a very tough moment in life. Basically, you don't, some people don't believe God. Some people quite believe in God, but they can't find their path through it. Some people tend to understand that, okay, God is there, he's just going to do everything for me, me without praying or not. But there's always one thing that's really going to make you move out of that position you're in, make you move out of the depression. And when I talk about depression, not just likely, even the deepest times that you've sunk deep down into depression. I was talking to my colleague last week about depression and asked him one question. Do you really think that you can get depressed? And he told me one thing he said, I don't believe in depression. I was like, Are you serious? He's like, Yes, I don't believe in depression. And he said, once you get depressed, it's your body that's letting you get depressed. Well, it's clicked for a moment. Because he said, it's your body being weak, and you're letting it with and psychologically gets all the way to your mind and you feel oh I'm depressed I can't do anything even when father and sage especially if you're a man you can't get depressed men are born to be strong I'm like women are born to be strong as well it's not like we're not supposed to get depressed it's like it's true but at the same time you need to work on yourself and not let yourself get depressed so I did at this moment do you know what I decided to do I was surprised. I said to apply, I mean, go seek for a new membership, a gym membership around me. I searched for a gym because I love, I love working, I forgot to mention that I actually love working out. So I searched for a nearby gym and signed it for my membership and they said put into the energy in the gym. I saw working out morning and evening, workout and workout and it really gave me some space to relieve the depression and anxiety. And one thing I also find comforting is pets. I currently don't have a pet, but I love cats a lot, like a lot. So one of the things that really gets, I would advise someone, if you're a pet person, try get a cat. Cats are really loving and caring. And they actually kind of understand us in a way that we never see coming forth into our lives, not only cats, but also dogs. So if you're struggling with depression, if you're struggling with anxieties, try to do something new. Try find what something new that you can do that would create an add value in your life. It could be going to the gym. It could be finding yourself a bed. It could be painting. It could be going for a walk. It could be walking around the city to find something new. It could be content creating, but you need to push yourself, you know, because once you're depressed, trust me, everything, your entire body feels so weak. Your minds feel so, so down, but you need to push yourself to stand up, tell yourself every morning, I am strong. I am worth of everything that comes along in my life. Stand up, get up, take a shower, walk out of your room, Walk out of your house, even if you have to do just a 10-minute walk, brainstorm your mind, make your mind be a little bit active. If you do this at least in the next five days, you're going to wake up the next sixth day and find something to do 100%. It may not be something quite more positive, but imagine all this time you've been sleeping and waking up, sleeping and waking up for the past two weeks. But one day you wake up and decide that they want to go to, I want to go to the cinemas in the movies, like in the mall to watch a movie. It's a progress. It's a great progress. From there you get to meet new people. Well with me, I love meeting new people, but at the same time, the life that I'm pursuing right now, I've kept myself a distance out of people because I want to see myself first. I want to deal with my own personality. I want to deal with myself. I want to see myself succeed. And I believe I've given out so much love to a lot of people that have shown me either love back or they have actually taken an advantage of the love that I gave to. So I reached a point I'm like, you know what? You need to love yourself first, Maureen. You need to let your love embrace you. Get your energy within you before you take it out to someone else. So try embrace yourself. If I'm to advise any woman to get out of an anxiety or depression, try love yourself so much hard, as much as you can, so that you'll be able to extend it to anyone else once someone pops up into your life. Get out, go to fancy restaurants. It doesn't have to be expensive. Just any fancy restaurants, have yourself a nice meal, eat, and explore how people get into the restaurants in and out. Some of them will get in with their companions happy, laughing, embrace it, get back at home, tell yourself, I'm worth of everything that's along my path, I'm the chairman in my life, I'm gonna be successful. If you get to do that at least twice a week, brainstorm, it's really gonna get you somewhere very, very, very far. Because I understand some of us have backgrounds that really don't support us. Well, for me, I'm really grateful. My mom has been always there for me. She has made me see the world in a different way. If it wasn't for my mom, I would have not been going around the world studying in different countries because I stay in China, then the pandemic happened. I had to go back at home. I went to Cyprus and Cyprus was so, so devastating. I couldn't keep up with the life there. I moved to Cyprus, I came to Turkey. And not only within these three countries, I've gone to other countries that my mom has made me go to. So typically she's my role model because she makes me believe that even if how hard life could get, You can't stop moving out of your comfort zone. You need to move out of it, see something new and try to do it, whether you have the little knowledge or much knowledge to do with it. Thank you. That was really, really wise. And it makes me want to know a bit more related to something that currently is messing with many women's self-esteem. social media and Instagram, when they compare themselves to other women who might be photoshopped or showing the highlights of their lives. Some teenagers or even younger 20s or women of any age could think, oh wow, my life is not as exciting, I don't look as good, I must be ugly. How can women feel and believe in their unique beauty and trust themselves and have high self-esteem in a time where they're seeing only the higher light reels from the lives and looks of other women. I'll tell them one thing. I'll actually give them one song to listen to. There is this song called Scars to Your Beauty, Scars to Your Beautiful by Alicia. It's a really nice song. She gives a very nice theme out of the song. She says, we always have scars, We always have scars either born by family, friends, relationships, life, education. But there is always beauty within that scar. There's always beauty because we always know the scar will always heal. No matter how long it takes, it will always heal. We tend to see people on Instagram going to fancy places and we'll tell ourselves, oh, I want this life or I want to be like this one. but I can't be like this lady because she has probably, she has a fancy life and my life is just so doomed. But trust me, people out there fake their lives just to look like someone else. People out there fake their smiles just to make everyone believe that I'm happy. People out there pretend to have a genuine love, but deep down, they don't even get one. They can't embrace themselves. all I want to do is look like someone else. But if you come to think of, have you ever thought of just trying to nourish your inner self and make people see who you are for who you are, people don't understand that. People don't understand that we don't live based on Instagram, we don't live based on TikTok, we don't live based on Snapchat. All of these are just platforms to either make you feel you're worthless or to add worth to your value. And we don't get to classify ourselves based on social media. No, we don't find our value out of social media. Rather, we only add it by listening to either some people that really, really show their actual life out there on social media. But most of them, you can get someone to tell you, I'm going out to Bali, I'm having a new toy, they show their phones, I'm having a new car. Some of them have all those cars only because they were able to get a loan that they can't even pay for. See, life out there is really, really unrealistic. Life out there is so depressing. If you decide to follow a celebrity's life right now, you end up wanting to dig your own grave. So I wouldn't advise people to live their life based on social media because it's all a scam. When I used to live in Cyprus, in Cyprus there are lots of Nigerians there. Lots of Nigerians men in Cyprus are those type of men that only want to be seen for what they can have. They'll literally go down and become broke by only driving a Mercedes, a rental Mercedes. I was like, how can you really live such type of a life? You from renting a Mercedes, you can't even have money to keep gas in your car only because you want to live that fancy life. You want to attract women though only finish your money in a second and deep down you end up being broke. So I was like, no, this is not the type of life that any woman or any man should live with, especially women, because I believe most of women out there these days are materialistic. All they want is to feel like that queen. Of course, we are born to be the queens in this world. We are born to be the most beautiful living creatures in the world, but live out of your own truth. Live out of your own understandings. Live out of your own nourishment. And nourish yourself out of all this social media. For me, it reached a time I wanted to ignore Snapchat, I wanted to ignore Instagram, because all I could see was different women trying to fake life out there. But then I get to understand, I got to tell myself, why am I even looking at these people? Why am I even judging my life according to all these people? I have a very beautiful life. The background may not be so outstanding, but I'm grateful that I passed through all those roads behind there because until where I've reached right now, I've seen lots of women that I wish I was like them. I've seen lots of billionaires and millionaires that I want to be like them, but life doesn't happen in a second like that. You need to work for it. You need to work for your own beauty. You need to work for your own instincts. direct yourself, direct your mind, direct your body, direct your soul into what you find it fits. Not into what someone else will tell you to do. Not into what someone else would come and tell you, Maureen, you don't look fancy. Go buy some fancies. No, if I look luggage, let me look luggage so long I know deep inside I have that purest heart that always nourish no matter my looks, No matter how someone will tell me I look different, no matter how someone will want me to change, to look like how they look like, no. That's not how we're driven to. We're driven to our own self beauty. We're driven to our own self innermost part of our hearts. Once we find comfort in whatever we do, no one else can tell us what to do. No one can tell us. Look at the best example. Look at Black China right now. how she regretted having her life, doing all those surgeries, and now she's back into basics. I even saw her post yesterday, she said six months of being totally, totally out of all this social media and all these degrading and outrageous social media as that really, really make us get so depressed. So all you have to do is let it click in your mind that social media is not the life. Your life that you're living right now is the ultimate life that you need to embrace. If you're living in a small little house, going to work every day, getting to study, that's how your life, that's how you're building your life. Don't let a person that's of your same age, who is way further, think or make you believe that you need to be like that Now, the pressure is going to just depress you so much. Once you live by that pressure, thinking that, I have a certain friend who is in states right now. She's living her life. I want to be like her. You're going to get depressed in a second. So social media is not the way of our lives. We need to move our own goals by our own self, by our own hearts. Nourish yourself. Take care of yourself. Go out. Do what you think is most beautiful for your soul. Take good care of your skin. Take good care of your body. Go out. Work out. Do what your mind is telling you to do, not basically what someone on social media is going to tell you to do. Thank you so much. That was absolutely beautifully said, Maureen. I appreciate you sharing your voice, your wise perspective and participating in this podcast. I wish you peace of mind. I wish you connection. Even though you are in Turkey, I wish you to keep inspiring and sharing your charisma with the world. Thank you again. Thank you so much.