Blogs & Insights From Mama Gold
The Jackets of our Lives
It was about five years ago, when I sat shyly at the dining room table of a well-known speaker named Nikki Bush, where she spoke about the jackets of her life and what they represented.
I had heard Nikki speak for the first time after her husband, Simon, had been brutally gunned down in their home in December 2017 in a home invasion.
Nikki stood in a church in Parktown, only 18 months after having lost her husband and told her story of the six seconds that changed her life. The same church where she had married her husband. The same church where her children had been christened.
Second Chances
So many people ask me, “Why don't you retire? Why are you still working? What are you trying to prove? You don't need to prove anything anymore.” And lately, I've had to question myself: Why do I work?
Why do I work?
I work because I'm living a second chance, I believe. A second chance at being a better wife, a better mother, a better leader.
Where do you go to?
Some people, when challenged or triggered, automatically fight back. It's all they knew. It's all they could do to survive back then. It's only when you unpack the anger that you get to the root of the pain. Sometimes fighting back saved our lives.
Taming The Barking Dog
Sometimes, when things are rough, it's easy to default to our old patterns of survival and coping. But when we find a new way forward, even in the depths of our valleys, even in the depths of our despair, we are saying, "I am going to live patterns that protect me, not patterns that might hold short-term comfort but that hold the seed of long-term annihilation."
My Experiment With Visibility
After this Easter period of deep reflection, I have chosen to retreat into a period of thought leadership and writing, focusing on my mental health journey. Being active and in quiet reflection creates a gentle way forward. I am trying to create a road map of learning as I navigate this complex life in my 60s. The visibility this past year for me has been excruciating – being too exposed.
A Different Kind Of War
Right now, the world can feel like an incredibly overwhelming place to be. We've never had world orders disrupted in quite the way we see now. We've never had the models of leadership we are seeing now. So startlingly different to the decades of somewhat more predictable destinies before.
It leaves me with just some quiet questions. No marketing, no funnels, no frenetic planning, no destinations.
Just the journey of today.
