Navigating Life’s Seasons

Paula: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another episode of Chatting With The Experts where I speak with phenomenal women from Africa, from the Caribbean, and in the diaspora, and they share my mission, which is to educate, empower, and to encourage women globally. Today is no exception, and our show is titled
Every Petal, Dusk, Twilight, Dawn.
My guest, who will join me in a second, says, “Transforming in every season where every or each wave is a gift.” She says, “Let’s unfold with curiosity and wonder.” My guest is a storyteller, a poet and coach, and is a United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland champion for governance, a HBR [00:01:00] advisory council member, a TEDx panelist, and a fellow of the Association for Coaching.
Isn’t she amazing? And with that, I want to welcome Tesse Akpeki to Chatting with the Experts.
Tesse: Hi, Paula.
Paula: Welcome, welcome, welcome, Tesse. I’m blessed that you said yes to being a guest on the show.
Tesse: I’m so glad to be here.
Paula: Absolutely. Today we’re gonna be talking about something that’s special to you, and you titled it Every Petal, the Dusk, the Twilight and the Dawn. Let’s talk about this. Why did you title that, title the show that in the first place?
There’s a reason.
Tesse: Oh, there’s a very deep reason, and the petals [00:02:00] of flowers are very beautiful, and singly they are delicate, fragile, vulnerable, easily destroyed. But when you put every petal together, it becomes a constellation. The beauty of the flower comes from every petal together, and that’s why I called it Every Petal.
In our seasons, in our reasons, in our lifetime, every petal matters. One is not important than the other, and that’s what I’ll be talking about today. But then again, I looked at the different waves of our experience. There’s dusk, there’s the [00:03:00] twilight, and then there’s dawn, and each of those signifies different rhythms.
So with every petal, we’ll be looking at how these different rhythms interact, engage, transform, and every season has a reason. So I hope that these different threads will come together as golden and hopefully speak to every person’s experience.
Paula: Hmm.
So you talked about dusk, twilight, dawn. Which comes first, Tesse?
Tesse: Well, it depends on the way you look at it. But for me, the dusk comes first.
Paula: Mm.
Tesse: Because that’s the darkness. That’s the shade. That’s when you can’t [00:04:00] see things clearly. And in my reasoning, that time of the darkness, of the shade, of the uncertainty, in my experience is what has come first.
When everything that I know becomes uncertain.
Paula: Mm.
Tesse: Every step that I take is shaky because I don’t know where the next rock is. I don’t know what the next step should be. And that’s a time in that place of uncertainty. Often for me it had been sadness and it’s been grief that I don’t know what to do next, and that’s the dusk.
And I think for different people, that [00:05:00] season, that rhythm of dusk will vary. It will change. But for me, it has been traumatic events from being very young till now that when tragedies has struck, the dusk is present very, very strongly.
Paula: Okay. All right. So for you it’s been dusk, tragedy, loss- Mm … sadness.
Tesse: Yeah.
Paula: I’m almost saying ‘Cause we talked about petals, beauty. So from dusk is a twilight. Twilight, okay, let’s talk about twilight. What’s twilight for you?
Tesse: Twilight is, well, twilight is the kind of thing, I mean, in a lot of places a twilight is when the light is beginning to [00:06:00] come through but not quite.
Mm. And in some countries there’s that kind of amber type of glow whereby it’s not quite daylight and it’s not quite night. Mm. And for me that, that’s the twilight thing. it’s where you have this kind, a transition that is not quite dark and not quite light, but it’s quite real. And I would express it as emergence- Mm-hmm
that something is beginning to unfold. Something is beginning to surface, but I’m not quite sure what that is. And for me, during my twilight season, I really had this relationship with the butterfly, and I studied a lot about the butterflies and the butterfly effects. And the [00:07:00] butterfly is not always beautiful.
The butterfly starts as kind of like a maggoty kind of thing, very, very ugly, and then it’s in a kind of um, cocoon, uh, you know, form whereby it’s wrapped with layers of stuff and this kind of fluid inside, and it’s not exactly pretty to look at. And it’s in that form for quite a while, and then it breaks out from that, that cocooning effect type of thing, and it comes out.
And the wings are still wet And this is, this is a creature that is supposed to fly, and the only way it can fly is when it comes out with those wet wings. And the wings begin to move, and it dries, and then it can fly. And then it comes out with all kinds of different colors. And so that twilight season for [00:08:00] me was that kind of season of uncertainty and hurt.
And in that sheltered place of cocooning, there was that protection of being there and learning and relearning and knowing that that protective state was somewhere where I could get some clarity. And that meant that I needed very much that butterfly stage to go through the different stages and to trust the process.
That even though it was a time of protection and being there, there’d be a time when I would break out of that shell, of that shelter, of that comfort and begin to fly. So it was to trust the process and to know that there would be an emergence on the other side, and that’s the twilight. For a lot [00:09:00] of people, that period of discovery, that period of reflection, that period of navigating something that they’re not quite sure what it is, it’s very different.
For some people, it could be a lost job, something that they thought they would have for life, and then all of a sudden they’re let go of. For some people, it might be a partner who gets Alzheimer’s, and the person who they knew is there physically but not there after a while. So you… I can go on and everybody has that twilight situation, but how they actually are in that twilight season will be different.
Remember, it’s not quite dusk, and it’s not quite light, and that makes it even more scary. So there’s a lot of trust needed in, in the process for the twilight. It’s [00:10:00] hard.
Paula: So would you say it’s kinda like the emergence? When you said emergence, so there was the dusk. Now we’re talking about the twilight, which is- Mm … in between. Twilight is in between dusk and dawn.
Tesse: Yes.
Paula: You mentioned.
Tesse: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Paula: And, um, the butterfly effect, as you said, goes from the caterpillar stage when it’s in the cocoon-
Tesse: Yeah.
Paula: Yes … which is kind of protective. Yeah. It’s not really beautiful. Right. But a lot is going on there.
Tesse: Yes, yes.
Paula: And, you know, when we see the cocoon, it looks like it’s so still.
Tesse: Yes.
Paula: But- Yeah … I, I remember reading up about somebody who’s looked at the, um, the caterpillar and the cocoon, and I was like, “I need to help this cocoon.”
I mean, I need to help this caterpillar. Yes. And they went and they tried to help the caterpillar, but what they actually did was not helpful to the caterpillar.
Tesse: Yes.
Paula: Yes. It was detrimental [00:11:00] to the caterpillar because the caterpillar couldn’t emerge. There were so many important things going on-
Tesse: Yeah …
Paula: that was needed.
And you mentioned that during that stage- Mm … as painful as it was, as difficult as it is or was or is ongoing- Mm … something important was happening.
Tesse: Yes.
Paula: In your case, what was happening?
Tesse: Yeah. That’s a beautiful question. And in my case, what was happening in the various traumatic events that I- navigated was actually to look at struggle Not as something that was meant to crush me-
Speaker 3: Mm.
Tesse: but something that I could use to strengthen my wings which were being formed. And that [00:12:00] was very hard because it meant sitting and leaning into discomfort, but also being aware that I probably couldn’t navigate the twilight by myself. Mm. And it meant that I had to make myself vulnerable and know where my limitations are.
It meant that being somebody who has grown up very independent and doing a lot of things for myself, I had to know how to lean on other people for that time, how to research and resource help, how to ask for help, but also how to sit in the struggle without necessarily struggling because the str- [00:13:00] there was no energy to struggle.
There just wasn’t the energy there physically, emotionally. There wasn’t the energy. And there was something about being in that twilight which was about resting in possibility, but also knowing that just like that every petal matters, it was other people’s take on the petal that was important for me to be part of that petal, petal constellation.
And as I said, that’s very hard if you’re used to being independent. It’s about dependent, interdependent and acknowledging that. But also for someone like me that is very high-functioning and high-performing, it’s very easy for me to see myself as a failure and not wanting to fail. But that not wanting to [00:14:00] fail had resulted through my life in sometimes over-performing, being performative, not resting, burning out.
And the twilight for me this time round was to accept and surrender to what was going on in the knowledge that just like the butterfly through the struggle would emerge to be beautiful, I had to trust the process that I could emerge from The pain and the loss and the grief of what I was experiencing, and I could still be beautiful.
I could still be lovely. I had to trust that. I wasn’t seeing it and I definitely wasn’t feeling it. But the twilight was about learning to trust the process and learning to trust the reason for the season [00:15:00] and not fight it, ’cause I didn’t have the energy to fight it.
Paula: Tesse, that’s deep.
Tesse: Yeah.
Paula: That’s very, very deep.
Tesse: Yeah.
Paula: I know that you’ve described yourself as a storyteller.
Tesse: Yeah
Paula: I’m hearing a story, but I’m also hearing a poet- a poetess.
Tesse: Yeah.
Paula: I’m also hearing a coach.
Tesse: Yes.
Paula: Yeah. And so you’re embracing all three, all three in one. Yeah. All three in one.
So… took down some notes here about acceptance and surrendering and… [00:16:00] being dependent and yet realizing that you had to be indi- you considered yourself an independent woman, but understanding that during the twilight zone, you had to be dependent on people in order to…
survive Um, willingly or unwillingly, you had to be dependent
Tesse: Yeah. Yeah …
Paula: because you started seeing in yourself things that maybe being in the cocoon
Enabled you to see more clearly? I, I’m not sure if, well, I’m never been a- Yeah … a person of much words. I, I don’t consider myself- I
Tesse: think I am. Yeah …
Paula: a wordsmith. I’ve always left that to you.
Tesse: Yeah.
Paula: And you’ve done such a … great job. [00:17:00]
Tesse: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I love what you’re saying, to see more clearly, because in the cocoon, because of the blurriness of the situation, it’s very hard to see clearly, and that’s where the trust lies.
That to not see clearly but yet to trust what is going on. And in the cocoon, for me, because of my particular challenges, I needed to get to clarity, but in getting to clarity, to recognize that I wouldn’t understand everything. You know, I’m a lawyer by background, and I’m very cognitive in that legal space, and it’s just like you ask a question and you, you, you expect an answer, and you expect clarity to emerge.
But in the twilight, when you’re dealing with life and life circumstances, that clarity doesn’t always emerge. And so for me, it was about being more intuitive [00:18:00] and connecting with my intuition and my hunches, and also connecting with other people who could help me to stay with the things that made my life uncomfortable or, uh, things that were painful.
So you know one of the things that happened was my beloved brother Tony was killed, and he was a pedestrian going to work. Now, you’d expect that anybody who goes to work would come back home, right? And yet he was minding his own business on the road and someone from nowhere ran into him and left him to die, which he did.
Now, no matter how much my cognitive mind tried to understand that, I couldn’t. So , in that cocoon, I had to accept that there’s some things that I will never understand. And in that cocoon, I had to [00:19:00] accept that somewhere I had to find forgiveness for the woman who did that to my brother, because if I did not forgive her, it would be like me drinking poison and expecting somebody else to die, which is what Nelson Mandela said.
And somewhere I needed to connect with my forgiveness, and forgiving was very hard. So in the cocoon, I had to somehow ask, I have a faith, I had to ask God, my maker and creator, to help me to find it in my heart to forgive this woman, who by the way hadn’t even said sorry, right? Another thing was, for me having a lot of ill health because I didn’t take care of my health and I was burning out and my body screamed and I wouldn’t listen.
So I had illness put me down and I had to go to a lot of operations and [00:20:00] things. So in the cocoon, I had to actually rather than say, “Oh God, you stopped me from working for X number of months, for X number of years,” I had to say, “Lord, how can I use this illness which I’m experiencing? How can I see the gift in it?”
And so in that cocoon, I began to learn how to see the gift in things which were not necessarily positive and not necessarily calming and not necessarily comfortable. How could I see the gift even in bad stuff? And I feel that if I hadn’t been in this kind of twilight place of exploration, of questioning, of curiosity, I probably wouldn’t have got some of the realizations which I am with now.
Now, I’m not saying that where I am now everything’s complete. It never will be ’cause life isn’t like that. But I [00:21:00] sense that I’m much more refined in my acceptance of shade and light now than I ever was, you know, growing up as an optimistic teenager, becoming a 20-year-old and 30-year-old. I, I have more of a sense of peace in this place of, of consciousness, and I suspect that other people who are going through twilight will be wrestling with their own stories and their own situations.
It will be different for everybody.
Paula: Yes, absolutely. So I, I know that you’re, you’re a coach. I know that, correct me in the number of years, I was gonna say two or three years ago you founded, um, Future Focus Wellness and Resilience, Resiliency.
Tesse: Yeah.
Paula: How does [00:22:00] resiliency and hardiness come into play? How can you help someone walk through, ’cause no journey is the same, so walk through, through a similar journey to where you are?
Because I know that is the whole purpose of Future Focus Wellness and Resiliency. Let’s talk a little bit about that. This is Tesse Talks, but I do wanna bring that up because I know that’s your passion these days. It’s not about you. It’s more about helping others because of your journey.
Tesse: You know, Paula, I, I love how you ask the questions, and you’ve moved seamlessly to dawn.
Paula: Yes. You know. We are in dawn.
Tesse: You move very seamlessly to dawn, and, and dawn very much is a new beginning. It’s a fresh start. It’s the light is coming, and the light is shining. So that’s a lot what Future Focus is [00:23:00] about. I, I had founded an earlier, um, version of leadership which was about resiliency for leaders, and that’s what led to Future Focus.
That came at beginning of COVID in 2020, and it was something I always wanted to do. But because I got locked down in West Africa, I, I decided that I would launch that then. And what happened there was that I had expected maybe 20 or 30, 40, um, expressions of interest in connecting with that idea of resiliency for leaders, and actually 2,000 inquiries later in one week, I realized I had hit on something.
You know, It’s one of those things where you, you don’t realize that every- other people are interested, so much so that [00:24:00] that same year in 2020, for the first time I was contacted by a regulator, which is the Charity Commission for England and Wales, and they asked me to ask a question about leaders and the resilience in COVID.
And I was completely and utterly surprised by that. But as a coach, where does this relate to wellbeing and resilience? Where does this relate to the different petals? Coaching, when it’s working, coaching is very much about helping people to consider questions as they form and create their future.
And that’s questions about anything. It could be questions about their business, it could be questions about their personal life, it could be questions about their executive functioning. It could be questions about anything. And a good coach would be the person who trusts their coachee to know [00:25:00] the answers but need the expertise to bring them out.
And so to be able to enter into a new dawn and to see a new day, a good coach will walk alongside the person they are coaching and help them to sit with their curiosity, and help them to be honest in a way that is non-judgmental, in a way that is not about shaming or blaming. And in a way that is an acceptance of that person for themselves, by themselves.
What do I mean by that? A coach needs to accept the coachee, the group that they’re coaching as it is, and actually hold up a mirror to that person, hold up a mirror to that group and help them to see their possibilities, their [00:26:00] probabilities without judgment. So for me, the coach in Dawn is someone who will radiate hope for the person or the group they are coaching, and say, “This is possible.
Do you believe it for yourself?” And then along that journey, walk alongside them side by side and enable them to see those possibilities, those probabilities for themselves, and get the agency, the enablement, the facilitation, and the support to walk their journey by themselves. So I love this saying.
Actually, I heard this saying, and it was by group Peter Block, who is a well-known facilitator, community builder. And the saying was, “Someone walking alongside you, taking your [00:27:00] hand, you taking theirs, and you walk each other home.” So Dawn is about hand in hand in that light, leaving the twilight zone and walking in the possibility and the probability of what can be.
And in that place is a balance and a rhythm between being and doing, because we are human beings, we’re not human doings. And somewhere along the line, we leave the rhythm of being human beings and become human doings. And dawn shines that light, that the butterfly emerges from the cocoon. The butterfly, the wings stride, it’s able to fly.
And then in the dawn, the wings become strong, and he, she, they can fly and [00:28:00] fly away. And guess what? In the daylight, they soar, S-O-A-R. They rise and soar.
Paula: And I’m soaring as I hear that. Thank you, Tesse. You are in the dawn. That’s where I see you as the coach, as the future focus coach. Future focus, oh, wellness and resilience.
I saw you come alive. Once we started talking about that, your smile opened, your face opened up because you are in the dawn. You are the coach for the coachees. I wrote down here the coach holds a mirror, radiates hope, and walks alongside with the coachee, sees the gift even in the bad stuff.
And then the poet, the poet in you came alive. I then write that down, walks hand-in-hand, leaving the twilight [00:29:00] because we are human beings and human doings. That’s you. That’s what you do. That is who you are, and that’s what I know- Yeah … you want people to know about you. Absolutely. You bring hope to those who need hope because you’ve been down there.
You’ve been in the dusk. Yeah. You’ve walked through the twilight, and now as you are in the dawn, you wanna hold the hands of others and let them walk alongside you in the dawn and know that there’s a future out there. Mm. And you don’t have to stay in the dusk. You are walking through the twilight to come into the dawn and know that there is hope.
Yeah. Future focus. That’s why we talk about the future, because it’s ahead of us. We are looking ahead to what next, what is next, and that’s what you do, and that’s what you do so well. So tell us, for those who are looking Those who are not in the audience, those who are [00:30:00] viewing this on Chatting With the Experts YouTube channel or they’re listening to this on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, how can they get in touch with you, Tesse?
Tesse: I am very, very, very active on LinkedIn. And I made it simple, Tesse Akpeki is my handle. I’m very, very active on LinkedIn. Um, my website, Tesse at tesseakpeki.com, um, is there. And I have a private blog which I use to journal with pictures and voice. Mm-hmm. And everybody’s welcome to be on my private blog.
Smiley Tesse. Your IG. Um, private blog in, yeah, in Instagram. Mm-hmm. And thank you for that. In Instagram, and it’s Smiley Tesse. And Smiley Tesse is really somewhere that has helped me to heal, um, with the encouragement of some wonderful young people who you know. Um, I started, um, Smiley Tesse, and it’s been a vehicle for my healing because I’ve been able to- I listen to my own recordings to help [00:31:00] myself.
But really it is, now how am I finding my smile? It’s not denying the pain. It’s not being in unrealistic optimism. It’s actually, can I smile again? And if I can have my inner smile, not just the outer smile, but if I can smile within me, how can I do that? And how can that smile go through the tears and the fears?
And how can it be a smile that warms me up and also connects with other people who want to live life in all its fullness, the ups and its downs, and be in the water flow of life, and shine like gold, but also reflect like diamonds? How can you be that?
Paula: And so folks, I promised you that I’ll always bring to you the best. Women that educate, encourage, and empower others, and that’s [00:32:00] why we had Tesse Akpeki. And if you’d like to be a guest on Chatting With The Experts just as she has been, please reach out to me on my website, which is chattingwiththeexperts.com.
I’m also on LinkedIn, just as she is, and, um, you can visit my business page there, which is Chatting With The Experts, or visit my profile page as Paula Okonneh. On Instagram, my handle there is
@chat_experts_podcast. And we’re on Facebook. My business page there is, I’ve made it simple, Chatting With The Experts, or you can visit my personal page, which is Paula Okonneh. And last but not least, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. There you’ll be able to watch this episode with um, Tesse, and all the other episodes with [00:33:00] just as amazing women who are educating, empowering, and encouraging other women all over the world.
Thank you, Tesse, for this amazing, for this wonderful time. And now we’ll open up the floor for all those who have joined us who can ask you questions about Petals, not the petals on the flowers, of course.
I love it. But what you spoke about is such depth, and I know you touched the heart of so many others who are in the audience. So thank you again.
Tesse: Thank you. Thank you, Podcast Paula. I love chatting with you. You’re an expert. I love being with you.
Paula: You’re the expert. I just bring experts on. Thank you.