Women discover hidden power in their stories

Stories, they say, shape our perspective to life, and perspective shapes reality. This then accrues power to stories. This power and its attendant effect was the colour that beautified and made memorable The Women With Stories Conference, TWWSCON, at the Landmark Towers, Victoria Island, Lagos.

The conference began on Friday with a cocktail and conversation, and ended on Sunday with a master-class with Atlanta based bestselling authors, Desiree Lee and Robyn Robbins on how women can turn their stories into a bestseller, and enabled them discover the hidden ‘gift’ in their stories, hence the theme “Your Story is Your Gift”.

This year’s conference had fourteen women speak about their unique life stories to all attendants which led to outbursts of emotions.

“We are on a mission to empower women to own their unique stories, find their cure and serve others. We want women to understand that whatever they have gone through and survived has given them a cure and the cure is not just for them. The cure is for them to serve humanity. There is no life without service. Truly living life comes from a place of serving others, and you can only serve others out of the richness of what you have,” said Naomi Osemedua, the convener.

According to Osemedua who is also described as the ‘Chief Story Teller’, one of the promises for the conference was for women to come and find out how to discover the gift in their stories by equipping them with practical tools they can apply.

“I believe so far, with the feedback and all the amazing sessions with the phenomenal speakers both local and international, we’ve done well to a great extent. There has been a lot of light-bulb moment, a lot of eye-opening moments, and a lot of reawakening. We didn’t just want to inspire people or make them feel good, we wanted them to go with practical tools that they can begin to apply in their lives, and that for us is our greatest joy,” she said.

Explaining how women could profit from their stories, she said when a woman owns her story, and discovers that she has a purpose in the pain that she has gone through, then she can begin to help and coach others with it.

“For instance, after one of our speakers had gone through her journey of healing and wholeness, she has gotten to a place now where she is able to help other women struggling with that same thing. From there, she’s created an e-book, an online course and she’s coaching women and they are paying and thanking her for bringing joy back to their marriages. She has discovered that her story is her gift and she’s profiting from it and serving other women,” she told Women’s Hub.

Winnie Mabena, from Zambia who shared her story said women living with HIV could still be all that they want to be. “…one thing I have acknowledged and have lived by is first understanding that life is about choices and decisions. That’s one thing people need to understand, that you have to make a choice whether you want to stay in a cocoon where you feel the pain, and start to believe and embrace it and feel vulnerable for yourself or you want to get to the other side where you utilize the pain to gain experience for the life that you desire. Because most of the things that you go through make you competent for the next level you are about to get to.

“So it is not a coincidence, but the thing that is different between you who is HIV positive and the one who is negative is only a status and that status was told to you by a doctor. That status was only a test that was conducted. So it doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t change your genetics as a human being or anything about you. You still remain and you can still be you even with the status,” she said.

Desmond Okon