Embrace What Makes You Unique

(mouse clicking) (gentle music) Headspace Studios. Hi, I'm Dora, and welcome to Radio Headspace and to Friday. Here's to us to making it to the end of the week. So I was reading a book the other night before bed by African shaman Malidoma Some, and he says, "Each person is born with a destiny and he or she is given a name that reflects that destiny." Over the past year, I've been learning more about my own ancestry and lineage. My mom is from Kenya and my dad is from Ghana. They both immigrated to Canada over 30 years ago, but still have held on to certain cultural traditions, and one of those things was the way that they named their children. In Kenya, there's a matromyn and patronym naming system, which means that their children are named after their grandparents as a way to honor our ancestors. Dora means God's gift or gift from God. My middle names Kafura and Amma share the details of when I was born. Kafura means little rain, and when I was born, it was drizzling outside. And Amma means Saturday for the day that I was born. Finally, my last name Kamau means silent warrior and originates from the Mau Mau tribe in Kenya. Growing up with two immigrant parents wanting to create the best life for their children, we had to assimilate. When I was younger, however, I didn't see the value in having such a quote unquote weird name. I grew up in predominantly White settings. We lived in a rural northern area of Canada for a good chunk of my life, and my friends had names like Emily Rose, Jessica Marie, Ashley, Lindsay, you know, normal names. For me, I always felt like I stood out. No matter how much my parents told me to fit in, whether it was my name, my hair, or my skin. (animals chirping) So when I was around eight, my family moved to Vanderhoof, which is a small country town in northern British Columbia. (bell ringing) And on the first day of school, the teacher had asked us to display our first and middle names on our desk as a way to remember our names. And what I did was to change my middle names so they sounded close to my peers. I dropped the Kafura and turned Amma into Emma, and this is something that I started to do for quite some time after that. At the time, it really didn't seem like a big thing, but now when I look back as an adult, my name is what made me unique and is my power. My name is my destiny, and I was given those names as a way to carry on the traditions that also keep my culture alive. As I find my way back to my ancestral roots, I'm unlearning all the things that I was made to feel ashamed about, and it goes beyond names, you know? Maybe there's...