Talking to someone about our hurting experience does a lot of good to our healing. Lady Gaga shares to Oprah Winfrey in an interview tagged ‘2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus’ about her mental health struggles. She talked about being raped repeatedly at 19.

The singer revealed that she did not have a therapist, or doctor to help with her trauma. And so it got worse because, it was there all along. At the peak of her career all she could do was travel all over the world. “I never dealt with it and then all of a sudden, I started to experience this incredible pain throughout my entire body that mimicked, actually, the illness I felt after I was raped,” she said.

The pain was a ‘trauma response’ according to her. She has also had struggles with fibromyalgia, which she described as a chronic pain condition which makes your body hurt through your brain. “What’s interesting about it is that I’ve found through neuropsych research and my relationship with my doctors that fibromyalgia can be treated through mental health therapy. And mental health should be treated as a medical condition. It should not be ignored.”

She perfectly understands now the importance of accessing a mental health care. “Not everyone has the access to these things and not everybody has money for these things and i want the money for it, I want the best doctors in the world,” she shared. “Mental health is a crisis”.

Although she has perfectly accepted everything that has happen to her, and believes it all happened for a reason.”And i think it happened because God was saying to me, I’m going to show you pain and then you’re going to help other people who are in pain because you’re going to understand it”. She added, Now I’m in problem solving mode!.”

Talking to someone about our hurting experience does a lot of good to our healing. Lady Gaga shares to Oprah Winfrey in an interview tagged ‘2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus’ about her mental health struggles. She talked about being raped repeatedly at 19.

Watch this adorable of them both:

View this post on Instagram

Fort Lauderdale, thank you for your warmth and fantastic generosity. And @ladygaga: Your willingness to ‘go there’ with your vulnerability opened all our hearts today. Watch our full interview this Wednesday 1/8 on @ww.now’s IGTV. #BigBiteOfBravery

A post shared by Oprah (@oprah) on Jan 5, 2020 at 8:08am PST

Whatever sexual assaults we have had, through will do us better if we speak out and let it go out of our soul. Keeping it in, eats deep into us. We can use wise words and counsel from therapists to counter the effects.

Abimbola talks about her resolution for the new  year and how she is set to make the best out of it. ‘If you don’t like something about yourself in 2020 fix it’ she said. The media personality listed some positive thoughts to live by for a more productive year.

Indeed, 2020 is a year to be intentional about. She wants us to know how important our mental health is.

You should get yourself some self love because you deserve it. She said ‘I would take time out to get a massage if i want to’.  Enjoy the vblog below of all she has spoken:

DEFINE what success looks like personally. Set goals and monitor how you are doing. Take concrete actions to achieve them daily, monthly and yearly.

REMEMBER that your values are the foundations of life. Use them as your compass. My values are integrity, compassion and empathy.

TAKE complete responsibility for your life. Jim Rohn reminds us that you have to do your push-ups yourself.

EXCELLENCE should always be your mantra. It is one way to eliminate biases.

INVEST in yourself. Most successful people are voracious readers. Curious minds, and live a life of learning everyday.

COURAGE is key. When women take risks, they are usually well thought out. Do it even if you are afraid.

SEEK help early and expand your network

A POSITIVE ATTITUDE is key. Enjoy life, Have fun and be passionate. Keep your perspective even when you feel that things are not working out as they should.

FAIL FORWARD In fact, I have learnt what people consider a failure is usually a ‘a course correction’ in order to catapult you to greater success.

PAY IT FORWARD There is so much to do to make the world a better place. Your generosity and contribution to society should be your legacy.

Aruna Oteh was the former Vice President and Treasurer World Bank, prior to joining the bank she was the Directir Deneral of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), in Nigeria from 2010-2015.

She has served in several governmental institutions, and is known for her ability to deliver excellently well. She was also recently named the 2018 Ai Global Instituional Investment Personality of the Year.

She is currently an academic scholar at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University, and an executive-in-residence at Said Business School.

Truly, she is a woman of excellence with a quest for modern knowledge.

Despite being born into slavery and enduring over a century of discrimination, Mary Hardway Walker managed to accomplish an extraordinary feat. At 116 years old, she learned to read.

Walker was born in Union Springs, Alabama, in 1848 and lived in bondage until she was freed at the age of 15 following the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. By age 20, she was married and had her first child. By age 68, she had worked several jobs, including cooking, cleaning, babysitting, and selling sandwiches to raise money for her church. Then in 1917, Walker and her family moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee. By 114, all three of her children and husband died. She, however, kept on living.

In 1963, she enrolled in the Chattanooga Area Literacy Movement (CALM) where she was taught by a volunteer teacher named Helen Kelly. She attended a one-hour class two nights a week for more than a year, where she learned to read, write, add, and subtract, reported WRCB-TV.

Walker’s perseverance and determination earned her a number of honors and accolades, including the key to the city of Chattanooga. She was also certified as the nation’s oldest student by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and named as Chattanooga’s Ambassador of Goodwill twice. Furthermore, she received recognition from two U.S. presidents, dignitaries from across the country and Canada, and even an airplane ride in 1966. Following her passing in 1969, the city of Chattanooga renamed her retirement home after her and erected a memorial to commemorate her life.

Walker’s remarkable story is detailed in a new children’s book titled The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read (Schwartz and Wade Books), written by Rita Lorraine Hubbard and illustrated by Oge Mora. Geared toward children between ages 4 and 8, the book highlights her inspirational life, which spanned from the Civil War to the civil rights movement.

“I learned about Mary Walker on a class field trip when I was in 4th or 5th grade, and I always wondered why she waited so long to learn to read,” Hubbard told BLACK ENTERPRISE in an email. Years later, Hubbard rediscovered Walker while researching for her first book, African Americans of Chattanooga (The History Press, 2008). “I began some in-depth research. I discovered some interesting tidbits,” she continued. “The more I learned about Mary, the more I felt that children and adults could benefit from reading about someone who believed ‘it’s never too late to pursue your dreams’.”

Hubbard, who has penned award-winning books for both children and adults, said that she wanted to tell Walker’s story in picture book form in order to engage young readers with history. However, she also aims to inspire people of all ages “who think it’s too late” to pursue a dream. “if Mary could do it at age 114 (and succeed at age 116), so can they,” she said.

According to her website, Hubbard originally wrote The Oldest Student in 2016 before it was acquired by Random House. The book is slated for publication Jan. 7, 2020.

Credit : Black Enterprise