Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I'm your host for
Joanne Lockwood: the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I've interviewed a
Joanne Lockwood: number of amazing people who simply had a conversation around the
Joanne Lockwood: subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the
Joanne Lockwood: world a better place for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me
Joanne Lockwood: in the future, then please do drop me a line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk,
Joanne Lockwood: that's S-E-E Change Happen dot co dot uk. You
Joanne Lockwood: can catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify,
Joanne Lockwood: and the usual places. So plug in your headphones,
Joanne Lockwood: grab a kneecap and let's get going.
Joanne Lockwood: Today is episode 36, the
Joanne Lockwood: title, Freeing Women from Being Prisoners of Their
Joanne Lockwood: Pain. I have the absolute honor and privilege to be
Joanne Lockwood: joined by Diksha Chakravarti. Diksha
Joanne Lockwood: describes herself as someone who provides integrated well-being services for
Joanne Lockwood: women. How can they manage their stress, anxiety and
Joanne Lockwood: pain? When I asked Diksha to describe her superpower, she
Joanne Lockwood: says she believes that she can achieve anything that she puts her
Joanne Lockwood: efforts into. Hello, Diksha, welcome to the show.
Diksha Chakravarti: Hello, Joanne. Thank you so very much for having me
Diksha Chakravarti: on your podcast. I feel it's an absolute privilege to be
Diksha Chakravarti: here. Oh, thank you for joining me. We first met probably
Joanne Lockwood: just over a year ago online, right? I produced the #TruInclusion
Joanne Lockwood: Conference and you took part as part of the facilitators. So that's how we met,
Joanne Lockwood: isn't it? That's correct. It was an eye opener. It
Diksha Chakravarti: was made me feel very happy to be part of such an
Diksha Chakravarti: inclusive community that were present over there. So, yeah, it was
Diksha Chakravarti: a wonderful event, well done. And I can't believe it's a
Joanne Lockwood: whole year ago. I know. Yeah. I know. It's been a traumatic year.
Diksha Chakravarti: It's it's it's flowing past in some ways and it's
Diksha Chakravarti: dragged in other ways, you know, but I I can't say that I would
Diksha Chakravarti: be sad to see the path of this. No, for
Joanne Lockwood: sure. So when we were talking earlier, Dixiel, we
Joanne Lockwood: set the thought up to be freeing women from being prisoners of their
Joanne Lockwood: pain. So tell me what that means to you.
Diksha Chakravarti: Okay. So Joanne, I'm using the word pain
Diksha Chakravarti: as a generic term to include,
Diksha Chakravarti: physical, emotional, mental,
Diksha Chakravarti: societal, spiritual pain. So
Diksha Chakravarti: that's how I view pain today.
Diksha Chakravarti: I am essentially a therapist. I have been in practice
Diksha Chakravarti: for 23 years. I started my life as
Diksha Chakravarti: a McTominay practitioner and,
Diksha Chakravarti: I added to my skill sets, so, you know, various different soft tissue
Diksha Chakravarti: techniques, different types of massage, fascial release.
Diksha Chakravarti: I'm also a clinical hypnotherapist and an ergonomist
Diksha Chakravarti: as well. So I added to my
Diksha Chakravarti: skill set as I went along because
Diksha Chakravarti: I qualified and provided help that
Diksha Chakravarti: my my cohort of clients needed me to.
Diksha Chakravarti: And it's when, I decided to train in,
Diksha Chakravarti: clinical hypnotherapy, that's that's the time I made the decision
Diksha Chakravarti: to provide, formally provide I've been doing
Diksha Chakravarti: this informally but formally provide a truly
Diksha Chakravarti: integrated approach to pain management. So my
Diksha Chakravarti: clients now come in to see me for physical pain, for anxiety and stress and
Diksha Chakravarti: I am able to come in to see me for physical pain,
Diksha Chakravarti: for anxiety and stress, and I am able to provide body work for them
Diksha Chakravarti: through mindfulness, we work through calming them and relaxing them.
Diksha Chakravarti: Using hypnotherapy, we deal with, you know, long standing PTSD
Diksha Chakravarti: and demons in the past.
Diksha Chakravarti: So and then when this the coaching part of my work is
Diksha Chakravarti: actually enabling them to actually find out, dig deep within
Diksha Chakravarti: themselves and find the strength that they actually
Diksha Chakravarti: have but haven't been able to access due to societal
Diksha Chakravarti: pressures, due to family pressures.
Diksha Chakravarti: So for me, I see myself as a
Diksha Chakravarti: facilitator more than anything else because I I
Diksha Chakravarti: don't do, I don't use the word cure at all because I don't
Diksha Chakravarti: believe the cure exists. I I don't
Diksha Chakravarti: enable women to find their own
Diksha Chakravarti: strengths. So that actually means
Diksha Chakravarti: looking at the pain, that actually means sitting with the pain, that actually
Diksha Chakravarti: means honouring and embracing the pain. Because
Diksha Chakravarti: unless you go through this dark tunnel, Joanne, you're not gonna find the light at
Diksha Chakravarti: the end of it. And granted, sometimes there's long dark tunnel,
Diksha Chakravarti: trust me, I know, is very long and dark, but there is
Diksha Chakravarti: light at the end of it. So
Diksha Chakravarti: I feel, that if we are able
Diksha Chakravarti: to empower and enable women
Diksha Chakravarti: to get in touch with the pains that they are
Diksha Chakravarti: experiencing, as I said, in whichever front or however
Diksha Chakravarti: many fronts they are challenged by, if we can get them
Diksha Chakravarti: to access it, to face it, to embrace it,
Diksha Chakravarti: to honour it, to work through it, then they can come out
Diksha Chakravarti: to live their true potential and their lives. Now that
Diksha Chakravarti: I'm not saying that every woman should train as a consultant surgeon or go to
Diksha Chakravarti: become a PM of a country, not for a moment at all, but
Diksha Chakravarti: what I they will live their truth rather than
Diksha Chakravarti: living the truth that society forces upon them,
Diksha Chakravarti: they will live their own truths. That's what I
Diksha Chakravarti: mean by freeing women from being prisoners of their pain.
Joanne Lockwood: So picking up on what you're saying there about
Joanne Lockwood: societal pressures, I'm assuming that what
Joanne Lockwood: you're implying there is the way women are often socialized
Joanne Lockwood: from birth through childhood with limiting beliefs,
Joanne Lockwood: expectations of being less than they can be,
Joanne Lockwood: a baby machine, a wife. So
Joanne Lockwood: so how how much responsibility do you think society has to play in this? It
Joanne Lockwood: must be huge, isn't it? It is a a big
Diksha Chakravarti: responsibility. I am not
Diksha Chakravarti: I have to say frankly, I have to say that I have nothing against
Diksha Chakravarti: men, you know, I some of my very good
Diksha Chakravarti: friends are men as well, but there is no discounting, I don't
Diksha Chakravarti: think. There is no discounting that we live in a very patriarchal
Diksha Chakravarti: society. We live in a very hypocritical society,
Diksha Chakravarti: and sadly I also have to say that sometimes women are their
Diksha Chakravarti: own worst enemies. So in leadership
Diksha Chakravarti: roles, I have often heard of my clients,
Diksha Chakravarti: senior women coming in, and the biggest problems they have, the
Diksha Chakravarti: biggest obstacles they have are other women who are
Diksha Chakravarti: trying to keep them down as well. So if you look at it, women,
Diksha Chakravarti: unfortunately, if you look at the whole situation as it
Diksha Chakravarti: is, patriarchy has kept women
Diksha Chakravarti: suppressed for so long. Those who are
Diksha Chakravarti: coming up, they haven't got to the point, some of them, of
Diksha Chakravarti: course, they haven't got to the point where they feel safe
Diksha Chakravarti: enough where they are to actually welcome others in. So
Diksha Chakravarti: it's almost they're in a protective mode at the moment. What happens
Diksha Chakravarti: if she comes in and maybe I'm gonna have to go out? Because we are
Diksha Chakravarti: so new in this role, because women are so new in this role and this
Diksha Chakravarti: situation, I think it's a minimum forces that's
Diksha Chakravarti: gonna take place but hasn't yet taken place.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I I I've heard of these kind of studies and this is phrase, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, the the crabs in the bucket syndrome where a crab tries to
Joanne Lockwood: escape, all the other crabs pull it back down again. And there's
Joanne Lockwood: an author called Margaret Hefferman and she wrote something at the super
Joanne Lockwood: chicken where what happens is a woman in the senior leadership
Joanne Lockwood: role will often peck at the the women coming up, destroying
Joanne Lockwood: their self esteem and credibility and and and
Joanne Lockwood: basically pull their feathers out for one of the better way of putting it. So
Joanne Lockwood: as you say, women are often pushing down other women
Joanne Lockwood: because they're trying to elevate themselves to compete in that world. Absolutely. And
Joanne Lockwood: they will see other women as damaging their brand or damaging their
Joanne Lockwood: credibility, don't they? Exactly, because they're not safe yet. They're
Diksha Chakravarti: not yet safe enough in the position that they are in,
Diksha Chakravarti: and that's where, this is coming reverting back to what
Diksha Chakravarti: I mean by pain and fear
Diksha Chakravarti: is something, Jack Canfield said, everything we want is on
Diksha Chakravarti: the other side of fear. Now fear, for example, with the
Diksha Chakravarti: pandemic right now, I mean, you know, the reason why we are
Diksha Chakravarti: as we are is because we are so fearful of so much that is going
Diksha Chakravarti: on. Some of that is true, of course, it is, but some of that is
Diksha Chakravarti: made believe. Some of that is generated through from our own selves listening to
Diksha Chakravarti: what the media has to say. So fear is
Diksha Chakravarti: something that completely disables us. It completely
Diksha Chakravarti: ruins the balance in ourselves. If we are fearful,
Diksha Chakravarti: we cannot be generous. They are contradictory.
Diksha Chakravarti: So unless we deal with the fear, and that
Diksha Chakravarti: is again sitting with the pain of fear, Unless we sit
Diksha Chakravarti: with the pain of fear and work out where is this coming
Diksha Chakravarti: from, why am I feeling the way that I am and
Diksha Chakravarti: the final step, what can I do about it? Unless we are
Diksha Chakravarti: able to look at our fear in a very honest way,
Diksha Chakravarti: our authentic self will not come out and unless our authentic
Diksha Chakravarti: self comes out, we cannot be confident
Diksha Chakravarti: because we won't be living our truth. We will be living a
Diksha Chakravarti: truth that is not ours. So of course, we're not gonna fit in
Diksha Chakravarti: there. Of course, we're not gonna fit in there.
Joanne Lockwood: I love that soundbite. I'm gonna repeat it because I think it is wonderful. Everything
Joanne Lockwood: we want is on the other side of fear. How
Joanne Lockwood: powerful is that? Jack and feed. Yeah, Jack. Yeah, Jack. Yeah, how
Joanne Lockwood: often does fear of change, fear of going for something,
Joanne Lockwood: fear of grasping that opportunity, fear of being humiliated
Joanne Lockwood: or rejection, how often does that stop us truly embracing
Joanne Lockwood: what we could be? Absolutely. If we could get past it and that
Joanne Lockwood: is a really insightful statement and I love that because I look back at
Joanne Lockwood: my own life and think all the things that held me back and it's
Joanne Lockwood: that. We perceive it to be a 1000 foot drop, but really it
Joanne Lockwood: really is 1 inch step, isn't it? And that's that's what we've got to realize
Joanne Lockwood: is that there is no big huge fall off and there are people there
Joanne Lockwood: to catch and support us. Yes. We're never alone, are we? And that's that's what
Diksha Chakravarti: we have to remember. No. You know Joanne,
Diksha Chakravarti: one thing that society has always looked down upon is
Diksha Chakravarti: vulnerability and it's only really strong,
Diksha Chakravarti: authentic people who can be vulnerable, you know, I mean,
Diksha Chakravarti: you know, how often I'm a member, I'm having coaching by
Diksha Chakravarti: this phenomenal company called Heart Centred Business.
Diksha Chakravarti: It's run by a husband and wife team called Chris and Corinne,
Diksha Chakravarti: and they run this business and they they help therapists
Diksha Chakravarti: elevate to running practitioner businesses because as therapists, we are
Diksha Chakravarti: terrible. We are terrible with money, particularly. Oh my god. I
Diksha Chakravarti: can't charge that much. But I'm in pain I'm in pain relief. Oh my god.
Diksha Chakravarti: I can't charge that much. But what they are teaching us very
Diksha Chakravarti: successfully in a heart centered way is that you can have both.
Diksha Chakravarti: And that comes down to money mindset. What is your money mindset? What is
Diksha Chakravarti: because, you know, I grew up I grew up hearing money is bad. Everybody who
Diksha Chakravarti: makes money is bad because they do it in a bad way, so money is
Diksha Chakravarti: bad, bad, bad, bad. And so if I want to be within conditions a good
Diksha Chakravarti: person, I can't have money, but that's gonna make me a bad person.
Diksha Chakravarti: So they deal with with with all of that. And one of the
Diksha Chakravarti: things that they encourage you, a partial for, one of the encourage they they
Diksha Chakravarti: encourage us to be truly honest and stand up and say, you know what, guys?
Diksha Chakravarti: I'm struggling. You know what, guys? I just got an idea of time. You know,
Diksha Chakravarti: guys, I don't know what to do about it. Now when I started,
Diksha Chakravarti: I'm one of the older, students on there, most of
Diksha Chakravarti: them are half my age, and I thought, oh my god. How can I turn
Diksha Chakravarti: around and tell them that I'm struggling? I'm old enough to be the mother. What
Diksha Chakravarti: kind of what? That fear that fear that
Diksha Chakravarti: I can't say I'm having a shit day, help
Diksha Chakravarti: me, asking for help is that. It's a sign of
Diksha Chakravarti: weakness. But if you embrace our weakness, that's when we become strong.
Diksha Chakravarti: That's when we become strong. I think back to my own
Joanne Lockwood: history and I've probably had 3 or 4
Joanne Lockwood: failed businesses for various reasons over the last 25
Joanne Lockwood: years. And at the time, you feel so much
Joanne Lockwood: shame of admitting you're failing, so much anxiety
Joanne Lockwood: about the unknown and what comes next, so much, it's just
Joanne Lockwood: that internalization of that real sense
Joanne Lockwood: of failure. And I remember hanging on to one
Joanne Lockwood: of the businesses much longer than I should have because
Joanne Lockwood: it fundamentally lost its ability to dig itself out
Joanne Lockwood: of the hole it was in. And I went too far with
Joanne Lockwood: it. And one less I learned is you got to
Joanne Lockwood: grab these moments where
Joanne Lockwood: you're anxious, you have fear and really look on the other side of it and
Joanne Lockwood: go, I have to and I've got to learn that and I've learned about
Joanne Lockwood: not bearing things onto the carpet, not avoiding these conversations.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's a life experience we all know, isn't it? And I think,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, without giving your age away, you're probably a few years old
Joanne Lockwood: older than me and I'm in my mid fifties. So,
Joanne Lockwood: we learn this when we get to a certain age. We've made these mistakes. We've
Joanne Lockwood: learned that the world doesn't stop turning. The sun still comes up in the
Joanne Lockwood: morning and we brush ourselves down and think could be
Joanne Lockwood: good again. But we we have to do that several times in our life
Joanne Lockwood: before we really make sense to Styx, doesn't it? This is it and that's another
Diksha Chakravarti: one of the pains that I was talking about. So for me, that constitutes a
Diksha Chakravarti: pain, That constitutes a a pain of identity.
Diksha Chakravarti: That constitutes a spiritual pain. But, I mean,
Diksha Chakravarti: if one is fearful, like I spoke about my money mindset, if one is
Diksha Chakravarti: fearful of letting go, what's stopping us?
Diksha Chakravarti: You know? What's stopping us? And just like you said,
Diksha Chakravarti: if we sit down and say, why why am I holding on to this business
Diksha Chakravarti: that is failing? Why am I grasping? In Buddhism, it's a temple
Diksha Chakravarti: grasping, and grasping is a reason why we suffer. Yeah.
Diksha Chakravarti: You want to hold on to something like you just saw a little crunchy put.
Diksha Chakravarti: You're holding on to a business that has that is failing to deliver. It's
Diksha Chakravarti: it's past a sell by date and you're still holding on to it.
Diksha Chakravarti: The pain there is why. Why,
Diksha Chakravarti: during, are you holding on to this? And that's the work
Diksha Chakravarti: that needs to to to happen. On in my
Diksha Chakravarti: life I have a very dear friend. I love climbing
Diksha Chakravarti: mountains. I love mountains, they don't love me because every time I try and climb
Diksha Chakravarti: them something happens and, you know, I I sprained my ankle
Diksha Chakravarti: or yeah when I tried to do, Kilimanjaro in
Diksha Chakravarti: the morning of the night they were going to summit, they had to stretch me
Diksha Chakravarti: down. Not only was not
Diksha Chakravarti: only did I have altitude sickness, high DUTI, and bronchitis as well,
Diksha Chakravarti: so I was very sick, very, very sick indeed.
Diksha Chakravarti: But I still went on. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this.
Diksha Chakravarti: I'm going to do this. And, Joanne, for a whole year,
Diksha Chakravarti: I could not forgive myself for not submitting. I could
Diksha Chakravarti: not forgive myself for not submitting. And a
Diksha Chakravarti: very dear friend of mine said to me, she said, Tisha, what is it with
Diksha Chakravarti: this? Because you always want to do big things. Why aren't small things
Diksha Chakravarti: enough? And that is because
Diksha Chakravarti: in my life or a very large part of my life,
Diksha Chakravarti: Joanne, I felt I was a failure. I
Diksha Chakravarti: hadn't succeeded in what I had set out to
Diksha Chakravarti: do. I was a failure.
Diksha Chakravarti: And even as I speak to you right now, it makes me feel quite emotional
Diksha Chakravarti: because I tortured myself for years
Diksha Chakravarti: with thinking I'm a failure. So when one views oneself
Diksha Chakravarti: as a failure, one always tries to achieve
Diksha Chakravarti: bigger things, hoping that that's gonna plug the hole,
Diksha Chakravarti: but it doesn't plug the hole. You're just looking
Diksha Chakravarti: for the next thing to see. Yeah. But that was that. I'm still not satisfied.
Diksha Chakravarti: What else can I go for? You know? And
Diksha Chakravarti: for years, I suffered with global depression because I
Diksha Chakravarti: was, I was walking through treacle. I was constantly
Diksha Chakravarti: walking through treacle and I kept thinking
Diksha Chakravarti: this is going to make it okay. Yeah. I'm a course start. I do
Diksha Chakravarti: so many courses because I'm thinking if I have more letters
Diksha Chakravarti: after my name, that's going to give me credibility. I'm going to become
Diksha Chakravarti: somebody in society. I am going to
Diksha Chakravarti: be respected in society, and I'm Indian. I'm a Bengali.
Diksha Chakravarti: Bengalis tend to be incredibly bright academic
Diksha Chakravarti: people. If I look around my society right now,
Diksha Chakravarti: you know, most Bengali, most Bengalis,
Diksha Chakravarti: all Bengalis are professionals in one way or the other. Yeah,
Diksha Chakravarti: medics galore, you walk into any hospital, you know, you find Bengali doctors,
Diksha Chakravarti: you know, there so achievement was
Diksha Chakravarti: academia. Achievement was academia. Achievement was being
Diksha Chakravarti: a surgeon, being a consultant, you know, being
Diksha Chakravarti: a, a lawyer, a partner in a big city firm,
Diksha Chakravarti: you know, being an accountant with a thriving practice. So that's
Diksha Chakravarti: what I grew up with, that's what expectations of me were
Diksha Chakravarti: but when these expectations sound, they deemed to circumstances,
Diksha Chakravarti: did not come to fruition, there I was, I'm a
Diksha Chakravarti: failure. I'm a failure. So, I've got to achieve big
Diksha Chakravarti: things in order to make myself feel good but guess what, Joanne?
Diksha Chakravarti: It's temporary. Mhmm. It's that fix, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: You get that high Yes. Yeah. Yes. Many years
Diksha Chakravarti: ago, I I caught an episode of Oprah
Diksha Chakravarti: and she was talking to this guy. I don't remember the names. I just
Diksha Chakravarti: find his name. I just remember the details. So this guy was a dentist in
Diksha Chakravarti: America, a thriving dentist.
Diksha Chakravarti: And, he was doing very well. So
Diksha Chakravarti: from one small house became one big house, one big house became 2
Diksha Chakravarti: big house. So from 1 car became 2 cars, then became 3
Diksha Chakravarti: cars, then became 3 expensive cars, then became a yacht, then
Diksha Chakravarti: become a a private play, exquisite jewelry
Diksha Chakravarti: for his wife. He would choose the jewelry she would wear when they went out,
Diksha Chakravarti: etcetera. So she was the door. She was a
Diksha Chakravarti: symbol of his wealth and achievement and position in society.
Diksha Chakravarti: And then she left him. She had had enough.
Diksha Chakravarti: She left him. That was his wake up call.
Diksha Chakravarti: He sold everything he had.
Diksha Chakravarti: And when he came on Oprah, he was a prison
Diksha Chakravarti: dentist living with prisoners, eating their food, and he
Diksha Chakravarti: said, I've never been happier in my life.
Joanne Lockwood: This is kind of size expectations when we're young to get
Joanne Lockwood: on this conveyor belt to success Yeah. To growth.
Joanne Lockwood: We want to acquire assets and property and
Joanne Lockwood: status, don't we? I don't know,
Joanne Lockwood: is that a patriarchal thing? Is that a female trait as well
Joanne Lockwood: do you think or is it a societal pressure fed
Joanne Lockwood: by, if you like, the macho success need? I
Diksha Chakravarti: think it's a macho success need, I think, and I
Diksha Chakravarti: think I could be wrong. There are there might be some
Diksha Chakravarti: women who particularly want that of their own of their own back,
Diksha Chakravarti: which is absolutely fantastic, not a problem. For
Diksha Chakravarti: some women, it could be like my daughters challenge me all the
Diksha Chakravarti: time, Joanne. And my daughters actually did say to
Diksha Chakravarti: my is it that you don't like this is because you can't have it or
Diksha Chakravarti: because you can't afford it? Is it because truly you don't want it? You know,
Diksha Chakravarti: I love I love driving. One of my dreams is to actually
Diksha Chakravarti: take a 4 by 4 and go on safari on really rough terrain things. I
Diksha Chakravarti: love driving. So the question is, would I if I could
Diksha Chakravarti: afford a 4 by 4, and I guess if I wanted it badly enough, I
Diksha Chakravarti: could afford it. Would I want it? My point my question
Diksha Chakravarti: is, yes, I would want it, but not to stand outside on my drive.
Diksha Chakravarti: I would want to take it on safari and use it in that way.
Diksha Chakravarti: So coming back to whether women want it. So some people some women like
Diksha Chakravarti: me would want it, not because it's a status symbol. It's because they really do
Diksha Chakravarti: love it and they want it. And I guess a lot of men are like
Diksha Chakravarti: that as well. They love driving their sports cars and, you know, really enjoy
Diksha Chakravarti: it. So for enjoyment rather than status symbol. But, again, I
Diksha Chakravarti: think a large majority of women, I would say, have
Diksha Chakravarti: have taken on this patriarchal cloak. And
Diksha Chakravarti: so they feel as if they
Diksha Chakravarti: they need all the status symbols to be somebody
Diksha Chakravarti: because that's what they're grown up in, that's what they're grown I mean, you know,
Diksha Chakravarti: it's the the the analogy that I said with with being an
Diksha Chakravarti: academic. I mean, you have to be an academic to be a success.
Diksha Chakravarti: So for me, being an academic
Diksha Chakravarti: is successful. You know?
Diksha Chakravarti: Whether I'm clever or not, whether
Diksha Chakravarti: I have the ability or not, if I'm not, then
Diksha Chakravarti: I'm a failure because I can't be an academic. The same thing I
Diksha Chakravarti: think, the same thing I think applies to material
Diksha Chakravarti: goods as well. Yeah, I think back
Joanne Lockwood: to my life 5 years ago when I sold my
Joanne Lockwood: business, I gender transitioned.
Joanne Lockwood: In that moment, I kind of shed a skin, shed
Joanne Lockwood: everything that I kind of valued because standing on this side of
Joanne Lockwood: fear and the other side of fear was the realization I
Joanne Lockwood: had to let go of all of these accoutrements and
Joanne Lockwood: trappings and statuses that suddenly
Joanne Lockwood: became unimportant in my life and actually the really important thing
Joanne Lockwood: was finding myself. That became worth more
Joanne Lockwood: than everything I'd acquired over my lifetime with the exception to my
Joanne Lockwood: family. Obviously, my family wasn't sacrificing
Joanne Lockwood: those relationships. But I went from
Joanne Lockwood: big house, status symbols, cars,
Joanne Lockwood: BMWs, Audis, lots of they spent lots of money,
Joanne Lockwood: and a lifestyle that was probably beyond my means most of the
Joanne Lockwood: time to a much more simple life where I live on cash.
Joanne Lockwood: I paid for my car outright off of a Facebook ad.
Joanne Lockwood: It's a small mini convertible. It's it's a bit clunky. It's a bit
Joanne Lockwood: rattly. It cost me £2,000 and it cost me about
Joanne Lockwood: 5, £600 a year to keep it on the road. But I love it. And
Joanne Lockwood: it's so simple. And I've never had so much fun driving a car
Joanne Lockwood: as that car had in years, all the BMWs I've spent 1,000
Joanne Lockwood: and 1,000 on and lost huge amounts of money on depreciation.
Joanne Lockwood: And so I really do appreciate now this simpler life, but it
Joanne Lockwood: took me this realization that I
Joanne Lockwood: had to let go. I had to all those expectations, all what
Joanne Lockwood: society told me. I'd set
Joanne Lockwood: myself up to be this person with my friends
Joanne Lockwood: and my peer group to compete. And then I
Joanne Lockwood: realized that it was a false, it was a falsehood, I didn't need it.
Joanne Lockwood: There was anyone who was truly my friend didn't need
Joanne Lockwood: that from me. And once I let go, the people who stayed
Joanne Lockwood: with me in my life are the people who saw me for me,
Joanne Lockwood: not because of what I had and the stateside of the crowd and it's
Joanne Lockwood: listen to you speak. Letting go of that, being a prisoner
Joanne Lockwood: of my own expectations, my own forcing myself into being
Joanne Lockwood: somebody I wasn't. And then once I realized that was
Joanne Lockwood: the freedom of letting that go, just dropping that shell on the floor,
Joanne Lockwood: emerging, okay,
Joanne Lockwood: it's amazingly empowering. And I
Joanne Lockwood: now find that my brain is
Joanne Lockwood: simpler, my thoughts are simpler, I don't have such complication going
Joanne Lockwood: on. I can see clearly now where I'm heading.
Joanne Lockwood: And if I get lost, it doesn't matter. I
Joanne Lockwood: just sit down, have a sandwich, get up and have a walk off somewhere
Joanne Lockwood: else. And I don't have this destination where I must have this, I must
Joanne Lockwood: have that, I must have that. And yeah, listen to you speak and
Joanne Lockwood: that's being I was a prisoner to my needs, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like. It's not necessarily your needs
Diksha Chakravarti: but your wants. Yeah, expectations, right? Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: expectations and I- I feel for myself, yeah. Yes.
Diksha Chakravarti: And and that's the pain. This is another one of the pains
Diksha Chakravarti: that I'm talking about and I
Diksha Chakravarti: and like yourself, I mean, there's been a certain I'm still
Diksha Chakravarti: very much a work in progress, but I'm getting much
Diksha Chakravarti: better, at just being who
Diksha Chakravarti: I am and, not
Diksha Chakravarti: not being fearful of showing my true face
Diksha Chakravarti: to the world and, not being
Diksha Chakravarti: frightened of making mistakes, not being
Diksha Chakravarti: embarrassed to say or do the wrong thing.
Diksha Chakravarti: But the other thing is also quite true, so
Diksha Chakravarti: my money mindset
Diksha Chakravarti: and all my years whilst I was married,
Diksha Chakravarti: it was always we don't have money, we don't have money, we don't have money'.
Diksha Chakravarti: So my spending was very much do I need it? No, I don't, so I'm
Diksha Chakravarti: not going to buy it. So the buying for
Diksha Chakravarti: want just to just because I want to, just
Diksha Chakravarti: because I like it, just because I feel like it, not
Diksha Chakravarti: because someone's pressurizing me. So I have learned to do that
Diksha Chakravarti: with myself. So it's completely the flip of saying
Diksha Chakravarti: I'll only buy what I need, I'm not gonna buy what I want because I
Diksha Chakravarti: can't afford it, even though we could, But the pressure was, no, we can't
Diksha Chakravarti: afford it. The control was such that, no, we can't afford it, so you
Diksha Chakravarti: can't have it. So now it's the the
Diksha Chakravarti: freedom that I have got, Joanne, is just to say, you know what, Dixit, you
Diksha Chakravarti: can afford it, buy it. You can't afford it, but and that
Diksha Chakravarti: freedom to walk in and actually buy something
Diksha Chakravarti: because I like it. It's an impulse buy. I like
Diksha Chakravarti: it, and I'm gonna buy it. It's great. Not that I'd walk in
Diksha Chakravarti: and get a Ferrari for £700,000. That's that's not what I'm talking about,
Diksha Chakravarti: but in my little world, I I am free now
Diksha Chakravarti: because I spend money as I want to rather than as
Diksha Chakravarti: has been imposed upon. See, and that to
Diksha Chakravarti: me is a freeing on the other side for me.
Joanne Lockwood: I love that. So, yeah, I've realized that now
Joanne Lockwood: when I want to buy something, I
Joanne Lockwood: don't have all the other pressures that I'm servicing.
Joanne Lockwood: The money really is free to spend as I wish. Yeah. And
Joanne Lockwood: if I don't have it, I don't spend. If I do have it, I can
Joanne Lockwood: decide to spend it or not. Yeah. And I have more freedom of choice over
Joanne Lockwood: how I purchase because I'm not servicing
Joanne Lockwood: private schools, big house, lots of cars. Basically, I've
Joanne Lockwood: maintained the facade of life that I had for so long.
Joanne Lockwood: And yeah, it's been really empowering. My wife and I,
Joanne Lockwood: we've moved home recently and we have a fantastic home, we love it.
Joanne Lockwood: So we're not poor by any means but we've readjusted
Joanne Lockwood: our whole outlook on life and what we see as necessary and just
Joanne Lockwood: become simpler. And when we spend more time with each other's company,
Joanne Lockwood: then the big statements all the time, which is really powerful.
Joanne Lockwood: I mean, I was looking at your bio and
Joanne Lockwood: you grew up in Uganda. Yeah. At a time
Joanne Lockwood: where it was a different world, I'm assuming the
Joanne Lockwood: culture of the world. And I'll
Joanne Lockwood: let you tell the story, but you left Uganda in
Joanne Lockwood: 1972, which would have been around Idi Amin's time and
Joanne Lockwood: some of the civil war or the atrocities that went on at that
Joanne Lockwood: point in time. So that must have been a really traumatic upbringing
Joanne Lockwood: because you're what, 15 or so at the time.
Joanne Lockwood: Tell tell us a bit about that time of your life.
Diksha Chakravarti: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Uganda is
Diksha Chakravarti: an absolutely beautiful country,
Diksha Chakravarti: beautiful. It's Bangladesh on the equator. We were right
Diksha Chakravarti: on, the banks of Lake Victoria.
Diksha Chakravarti: Beautiful, beautiful country. 3 miles out of the township you are into
Diksha Chakravarti: wilderness. Absolutely gorgeous. So, when I went to
Diksha Chakravarti: Tanzania to climb into my jar room, my daughters
Diksha Chakravarti: asked me, 'Mum, why don't you just hop across the border to Uganda?' because I
Diksha Chakravarti: was just literally a stone's throw from Uganda. I didn't
Diksha Chakravarti: because I feel if I ever go back to Uganda, I'd like to take my
Diksha Chakravarti: daughters with me so they could see where I grew up. So it was really
Diksha Chakravarti: quite, a charmed life we led there,
Diksha Chakravarti: very much so. Unfortunately, I was
Diksha Chakravarti: obviously, you know, I was I was a youngster then,
Diksha Chakravarti: but the Indians and the white people in
Diksha Chakravarti: Uganda lived child lives, but the indigenous
Diksha Chakravarti: people, the African Africans were suppressed
Diksha Chakravarti: and did not have any rights whatsoever.
Diksha Chakravarti: That makes me extremely sad that I was part of the
Diksha Chakravarti: population that made that happen. And one of the reasons
Diksha Chakravarti: why Idi Amin did take the action he did against the Indians,
Diksha Chakravarti: and in my view rightfully so, is
Diksha Chakravarti: that the Indians had monopolised the economy
Diksha Chakravarti: of the country and
Diksha Chakravarti: to unfortunately and disadvantaged the population
Diksha Chakravarti: as, you know, the Africans said.
Diksha Chakravarti: Okay, the way he went about it was totally incorrect, but nonetheless,
Diksha Chakravarti: you could understand the sentiment as to why he did that.
Diksha Chakravarti: So it was a lovely life, you know, we went to school, the weather
Diksha Chakravarti: was phenomenal, during the day we need to get fans on because it was
Diksha Chakravarti: so hot in the evening, we just needed a slight, very light duvet on
Diksha Chakravarti: or a blanket on, so it was a beautiful beautiful life. And then Idi
Diksha Chakravarti: Amin in 1972 gave the Indians 90 days
Diksha Chakravarti: to leave the country. Now my father was a teacher in the local school, local
Diksha Chakravarti: senior school, so as a civil servant he was actually exempt from from
Diksha Chakravarti: the Exodus but it became very dangerous for Indians
Diksha Chakravarti: to to remain there because really, the EDME has given had given
Diksha Chakravarti: carte blanche to the to the army so, you know, they were
Diksha Chakravarti: raping, seething, and pillaging so it was extraordinarily
Diksha Chakravarti: dangerous and of course they were targeting Indians, you know, So
Diksha Chakravarti: so my my, family decided overnight
Diksha Chakravarti: that they I had to leave the country. Now my father was a disabled man,
Diksha Chakravarti: so mother had to stay behind to look after him. And I
Diksha Chakravarti: was 15 at the time, my brother was, Petit Mustase, he was
Diksha Chakravarti: 23. So literally, one Monday I was
Diksha Chakravarti: told that on Saturday I was gonna fly out of the country.
Diksha Chakravarti: And I was sent to India which is where my extended family
Diksha Chakravarti: were. Now I have never ever ever been away
Diksha Chakravarti: from my family. I mean, I've been away for a couple of nights when I
Diksha Chakravarti: go and have Zico was with friends, but I've never left my family to go
Diksha Chakravarti: abroad. I've never been on an airplane before and
Diksha Chakravarti: I was going to have to travel all alone across to India
Diksha Chakravarti: where I'd only been once before. I knew the
Diksha Chakravarti: family but, you know, they weren't family family to me.
Diksha Chakravarti: The journey from home, to the airport was very
Diksha Chakravarti: traumatic because at every kind
Diksha Chakravarti: of checkpoint, the soldiers are usually drunk,
Diksha Chakravarti: and they were assaulting Indians, and they were taking the
Diksha Chakravarti: jewelry, they were taking money off them, they were beating them at the
Diksha Chakravarti: side of the road. So the Indian people had to
Diksha Chakravarti: travel in convoys. Not that they that protected them, at least
Diksha Chakravarti: they felt some security by having, more than
Diksha Chakravarti: just their their only family there. So it
Diksha Chakravarti: was a fearful journey, we were stopped at
Diksha Chakravarti: checkpoints, my brother had some cigarettes
Diksha Chakravarti: that he, you know, just my brother was a people person
Diksha Chakravarti: and he spoke Swahili, the local language, fluently.
Diksha Chakravarti: So as soon as we got to checkpoints, we would jump out in a in
Diksha Chakravarti: a very gregarious manner, say, you know, jumbo wana, how are
Diksha Chakravarti: you doing to the soldiers and all of that and give them cigarettes and
Diksha Chakravarti: all. And somehow we managed to get to the airport
Diksha Chakravarti: quite safely. Our convoy our convoy wasn't
Diksha Chakravarti: assaulted or wasn't attacked in any way. And then we go to the
Diksha Chakravarti: airport, and, before I
Diksha Chakravarti: knew it, I was saying goodbye to my parents and then,
Diksha Chakravarti: my brother just opened one set of double doors and shoved me inside and this
Diksha Chakravarti: was the immigration hall. So I walked into the immigration
Diksha Chakravarti: hall and I just looked around and there was nobody there other
Diksha Chakravarti: than one immigration officer who was sitting in one corner
Diksha Chakravarti: behind, a kind of a glass screen and he was
Diksha Chakravarti: just swinging back and forth on his chair and when he saw
Diksha Chakravarti: me, he kind of beckoned, you know, cocked his finger and beckoned me.
Diksha Chakravarti: I had no idea what to expect. I, you know, I just went along
Diksha Chakravarti: there, I could smell alcohol and just held his hand out
Diksha Chakravarti: and I shouted passport. So I gave him my passport,
Diksha Chakravarti: he looked at it, he leant forward, looked at the picture, looked at me and
Diksha Chakravarti: I was saying he smelled of alcohol. And then he said, why?' He asked
Diksha Chakravarti: me, he said, why are you going?' I've been
Diksha Chakravarti: told by my family to say that my grandmother was ill, I said my grandmother's
Diksha Chakravarti: very ill and she's asking for me. And then he said, when are you
Diksha Chakravarti: coming back? And again, I
Diksha Chakravarti: was I've been tutored to say I'll come back when she gets better.
Diksha Chakravarti: And then he says, okay, when you come back I'll marry you.
Diksha Chakravarti: And, and I just gave kind of a little
Diksha Chakravarti: bit of what I recall now, kind of a hysterical laugh and said,
Diksha Chakravarti: yes, yes, yes, yes, of course, of course, of course. And he gave me
Diksha Chakravarti: a passport back and I turned around and I walked
Diksha Chakravarti: away, and thankfully there were people coming to the
Diksha Chakravarti: immigration hall then. And then as
Diksha Chakravarti: we've made our way to the aeroplane, we had to
Diksha Chakravarti: walk because Entebbe Airport is a very small it's like an aerodrome
Diksha Chakravarti: really and we had to walk and as we walked it
Diksha Chakravarti: was, you know, the these porters were sitting, these African porters were
Diksha Chakravarti: sitting there, they were spitting at us and abusing us
Diksha Chakravarti: and they bought they had bottles of the local liquor that they were kind of,
Diksha Chakravarti: you know, throwing at us,
Diksha Chakravarti: basically mocking us as we left the country. And, again, I can understand why they
Diksha Chakravarti: were doing it. And then when I got to the bottom of the stairs, I
Diksha Chakravarti: thought I turned around and waved goodbye to my family and it was dark. You
Diksha Chakravarti: know, in factorial lights are very dark. As I turned around, John, I
Diksha Chakravarti: was so naive. As I turned around, all I saw was
Diksha Chakravarti: lights of the building, but I couldn't see my parents or my family because it
Diksha Chakravarti: was darkness. So I couldn't even say goodbye to them, you know, kind of thing
Diksha Chakravarti: anyway. It took us a while to to climb the steps
Diksha Chakravarti: to the plane because, you know, Indians, most of us hadn't
Diksha Chakravarti: been on an airplane before. When we traveled to India,
Diksha Chakravarti: as most Indians did, we traveled by steamer.
Diksha Chakravarti: We traveled by, you know, by ship. And in the ship and
Diksha Chakravarti: probably by ship, you have no limit on no luggage, you see?
Diksha Chakravarti: I remember Titanic and Kate Winslet's Hummingbird. Yeah.
Diksha Chakravarti: Exactly. So we used to travel like that as well.
Diksha Chakravarti: And I remember it used to be quite an expedition because mom's
Diksha Chakravarti: friends would come to the house before we traveled and they
Diksha Chakravarti: would cook up all these, snacks, Indian
Diksha Chakravarti: snacks to take on the voyage. Big
Diksha Chakravarti: tins, you know, of of and stuff because, you know, we were
Diksha Chakravarti: not like the food on on on the ship, and so we wouldn't
Diksha Chakravarti: stop for 7 days because that's what it took from Mombasa to Mumbai.
Diksha Chakravarti: So they were used to traveling like that. So, of course, they brought in a
Diksha Chakravarti: lot of luggage, and nobody told them they couldn't. So these first,
Diksha Chakravarti: you know, they were sweating trying to accommodate, and these Indians were holding
Diksha Chakravarti: on to their goods because, good god, they lost so much. I thought, am I
Diksha Chakravarti: going to do this as well? They were very fearful. Anyway,
Diksha Chakravarti: somehow, you know, we got on board and then I arrived in, I arrived in
Diksha Chakravarti: Bombay. Coming was early morning, still very
Diksha Chakravarti: dark, very hot. Didn't know what to do.
Diksha Chakravarti: I just walked up the stairs. I was just following people like sheep and then
Diksha Chakravarti: this lovely stewardess came forward because I was an unaccompanied
Diksha Chakravarti: minor and she called up my name and I just raised my hand as
Diksha Chakravarti: if I was in school, and she took me under her wing,
Diksha Chakravarti: took me, got my immigration thing done and all of that, and
Diksha Chakravarti: then touching my hand, she took me to this bus that was waiting
Diksha Chakravarti: outside. And she said, just wait there and other
Diksha Chakravarti: passengers will come. You'll go to our hotel, and,
Diksha Chakravarti: we'll bring you back when it's time for your connecting flight to Delhi.
Diksha Chakravarti: So I started, Joanne, thinking, oh, okay. Other people are going to come on. And
Diksha Chakravarti: I I can't remember how long I was there. Maybe 5, maybe 10 minutes. And
Diksha Chakravarti: the next thing under, the doors are shut. The driver jumps into the bus and
Diksha Chakravarti: takes off, and I'm the only passenger in the bus. And
Diksha Chakravarti: I'm sitting there shaking away thinking, I'm lost.
Diksha Chakravarti: I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what's happening. Anyway,
Diksha Chakravarti: then he saw them and said, you know, don't worry about it. You're you're home
Diksha Chakravarti: now, betty daughter. We look after you.
Diksha Chakravarti: And then finally I went into I took my connecting plan to Delhi to go
Diksha Chakravarti: and stay with some relatives. So that particular
Diksha Chakravarti: journey out of Uganda was
Diksha Chakravarti: frightening. So you've gone from living
Joanne Lockwood: a privileged life Yeah. As a parents
Joanne Lockwood: who are quite be in society providing education services,
Joanne Lockwood: teaching well respected Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Indian community, holding the power in the in in the country
Joanne Lockwood: to effectively just being ejected out the back door at
Joanne Lockwood: risk of safety, even to the point
Joanne Lockwood: where the the person of immigration was
Joanne Lockwood: inappropriate for the propositioning you as a 15 year old, very
Joanne Lockwood: sheltered life, dumped into another country that you don't even have been there once,
Joanne Lockwood: that that must have been hugely traumatic for you. Absolutely.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And this thing about belonging, I know, like you
Diksha Chakravarti: said, your podcasts about inclusion, belonging and
Diksha Chakravarti: making the world a better place, I never
Diksha Chakravarti: felt I belonged anywhere. When I was in
Diksha Chakravarti: Uganda, they would say,
Diksha Chakravarti: my you know, my friends and family would say, oh, you're a Ugandan?
Diksha Chakravarti: And I didn't like that. I'm not a Ugandan. But I was
Diksha Chakravarti: born in Uganda, so technically, it makes me Ugandan.
Diksha Chakravarti: My family were Bengalis, and there were few
Diksha Chakravarti: Bengali families. Primarily, there were there were a lot of Gujarati families, a
Diksha Chakravarti: lot of Punjabi families. My friends were
Diksha Chakravarti: all Gujaratis, and even though we are all Hindus, they
Diksha Chakravarti: celebrate different things in different ways. At
Diksha Chakravarti: home I had one, you know, I ate one type of
Diksha Chakravarti: food, spoke one language, I stepped
Diksha Chakravarti: out that long I no longer spoke that language, I had to speak
Diksha Chakravarti: various different languages. I mean, it served me well. I speak Hindi, I speak
Diksha Chakravarti: Gujarati, I speak Punjabi.
Diksha Chakravarti: So it it it stood me good in that state, but I remember
Diksha Chakravarti: that when the rest of India celebrates Diwali, Bengalis don't
Diksha Chakravarti: celebrate Diwali quite that way. So I didn't belong. I constantly
Diksha Chakravarti: felt I didn't belong. And then when I went to
Diksha Chakravarti: India, I was this hybrid, you know, I was
Diksha Chakravarti: a Bengali child born of Bengali parents who lived in Africa
Diksha Chakravarti: for 15 years of her life. My father, very
Diksha Chakravarti: strict rule, we have to speak Bengali at home, but, of course, my accent was
Diksha Chakravarti: very foreign, very foreign, and the food was
Diksha Chakravarti: very different. The food was extremely different in India.
Diksha Chakravarti: So and, you know, I had to get used to their ways.
Diksha Chakravarti: Again, I didn't feel I belonged. I went to a
Diksha Chakravarti: school where I didn't understand
Diksha Chakravarti: anything. They did what they called modern maths. I'd only done traditional
Diksha Chakravarti: maths. For someone who was, you know, who's
Diksha Chakravarti: always been used to topping the class, when I start the first test, I came
Diksha Chakravarti: up 3rd from the bottom. And I thought at least I was right at the
Diksha Chakravarti: bottom, there are 2 people who are below me. Yeah. And the girls
Diksha Chakravarti: in the school, I was bullied. I was bullied in the school because I was
Diksha Chakravarti: a foreigner, I was a stranger, I didn't see the language very well, I was
Diksha Chakravarti: ragged, I was bullied. My family though
Diksha Chakravarti: were absolutely fabulous. My aunt, my
Diksha Chakravarti: mother's sister was like my surrogate mom. They
Diksha Chakravarti: they could not have done more to make me feel
Diksha Chakravarti: welcome. I always got the largest piece of fish, I always got the largest
Diksha Chakravarti: piece of meat, there was always something special
Diksha Chakravarti: for me before anybody else got it, so gosh they really went out of
Diksha Chakravarti: the way. But I didn't feel I belonged, I just didn't feel I belonged and
Diksha Chakravarti: then my parents joined me about a year after I'd gone. My
Diksha Chakravarti: father was then a disabled well, he was a disabled man, yeah, his health was
Diksha Chakravarti: failing. We spent 2 years when I was 17 and in
Diksha Chakravarti: 1974 my brother would come to the UK when we had gone to
Diksha Chakravarti: India and by then, set up home and
Diksha Chakravarti: got married, got himself a job in the civil service and he said 'right, come
Diksha Chakravarti: on over and we'll be a family again.'
Diksha Chakravarti: So in 1974, yet again, nobody asked me
Diksha Chakravarti: if I wanted to go I was in my final year, you know, up from
Diksha Chakravarti: India to the UK.
Diksha Chakravarti: Very strange experience. Very strange experience.
Diksha Chakravarti: I've just contributed a chapter to an anthology called The
Diksha Chakravarti: New Woman and it's it's chapters that are
Diksha Chakravarti: written by women who have had difficulty that they've come out of and I've written
Diksha Chakravarti: this particular bit in that in that because I I just the sense
Diksha Chakravarti: of belonging, I've always always been on the
Diksha Chakravarti: outside. And we arrived
Diksha Chakravarti: here, struggled a lot with lots of
Diksha Chakravarti: cultural things. Within a month of coming here my father unfortunately
Diksha Chakravarti: passed away and that was stress that killed him.
Diksha Chakravarti: The stress of the exodus, the fact that he was a sick
Diksha Chakravarti: man anyway, it killed him. And things
Diksha Chakravarti: basically fell apart. I went to University,
Diksha Chakravarti: I was having problems at home as well because, you know, outside I was being
Diksha Chakravarti: told 'have you got a boyfriend?' I was 17 'have you got a boyfriend?'
Diksha Chakravarti: And Indian girls at the age of 17 don't have boyfriends.
Diksha Chakravarti: And whilst I I did have the courage to answer them, I said, no. I'm
Diksha Chakravarti: from India. We don't have boyfriends. I would I would just kind of
Diksha Chakravarti: skulk away, and at home, I wanted to know why I couldn't have a boyfriend.
Diksha Chakravarti: And of course that caused issues, that caused big issues
Diksha Chakravarti: there. And then, you know,
Diksha Chakravarti: things fell apart in a big way for me. So I then,
Diksha Chakravarti: I then got married,
Diksha Chakravarti: and I got married completely on impulse. He was a
Diksha Chakravarti: very good man, but we were not suitable to each other. And guess what?
Diksha Chakravarti: When I arrived at my in laws, yet again, I
Diksha Chakravarti: didn't fit in and didn't belong.
Joanne Lockwood: So the UK must have been a tricky time, 1972.
Joanne Lockwood: So the race relations came in in 1976.
Joanne Lockwood: So there was a lot of racial tension about when there was Enoch
Joanne Lockwood: Powell, Rivers of Blood that between around that time. It was the tail end,
Joanne Lockwood: the Windrush generation. Yes. Lots of racism going on in
Joanne Lockwood: communities and there are lots of people who've who've been bought into the
Joanne Lockwood: country to rebuild Britain after after the war
Joanne Lockwood: were now being seen as the the evil job takers
Joanne Lockwood: and there's a lot of racism on that. So you came here as an
Joanne Lockwood: outsider from an outsider from an outsider into another country
Joanne Lockwood: where you were again an outsider and there was no belonging again,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm I'm assuming? Not at all. My brother, when he first
Diksha Chakravarti: came here, he came with the the influx of
Diksha Chakravarti: Indians directly from Uganda. So they were housed in barracks.
Diksha Chakravarti: He was housed in Kensington Barracks, and, a
Diksha Chakravarti: group of of of of friends would go out in the evening
Diksha Chakravarti: and regularly, they were beaten up by skinheads.
Diksha Chakravarti: Regularly, they were beaten up by skinheads.
Diksha Chakravarti: So it was a very difficult time. I remember I was,
Diksha Chakravarti: walking, one day and these 2 women were
Diksha Chakravarti: talking across fences, you know, as as they did,
Diksha Chakravarti: And I overheard one of them say that, oh, these
Diksha Chakravarti: people, they need to have a bath every day. They
Diksha Chakravarti: waste so much water. Where do they think all this water's
Diksha Chakravarti: coming? Why the hell don't they go back to where they came from? You know?
Diksha Chakravarti: And as I passed, I got the dirtiest of looks from them because
Diksha Chakravarti: we were not welcome. We were not welcome.
Joanne Lockwood: So do you think at the time as a young woman, you suffered
Joanne Lockwood: less racism than the young men or do you think it was fairly
Joanne Lockwood: even? You see,
Diksha Chakravarti: confession time, Joanne. My daughters off have
Diksha Chakravarti: often say to me, ma, if racism hit you in the face, you wouldn't recognize
Diksha Chakravarti: it. I've never had that antenna up.
Diksha Chakravarti: When I reflect back, I now see
Diksha Chakravarti: where it was where it was. Now
Diksha Chakravarti: I've my mother's faced racism as an older
Diksha Chakravarti: Indian woman. The the green grocer would try and
Diksha Chakravarti: pound her off rotten, bananas as it was
Diksha Chakravarti: giving the fresh vegetables she was asking for. I've
Diksha Chakravarti: heard stories of of, Indian women suffering
Diksha Chakravarti: racism. I'm I'm not sure whether women
Diksha Chakravarti: suffered less or whether they spoke about it less,
Diksha Chakravarti: whether it was brought to the attention less. So I
Diksha Chakravarti: can't answer that question with any kind of confidence because I have no evidence
Diksha Chakravarti: to support it. But you were kind of in your own little
Joanne Lockwood: bubble where you didn't really experience it or you weren't conscious
Joanne Lockwood: of it? I wasn't conscious. Yeah. I wasn't conscious and again I
Diksha Chakravarti: would say it was not it was not a lack of consciousness
Diksha Chakravarti: that was healthy, it was an unhealthy,
Diksha Chakravarti: lack of consciousness. And let me explain.
Diksha Chakravarti: So sadly, I grew up in a very violent household.
Diksha Chakravarti: It wasn't towards me, it was towards my brother. My father was very violent
Diksha Chakravarti: towards my brother. So I grew up, from in a very violent,
Diksha Chakravarti: household and with all the traumas that have happened in my life,
Diksha Chakravarti: I've just I've just continued to shut down.
Diksha Chakravarti: Shut down, shut down, totally disconnect. So when you spend your
Diksha Chakravarti: life disconnected, you are not aware of what is
Diksha Chakravarti: going on, you live in your head all the time. I'm a reader, I
Diksha Chakravarti: love reading, that was my paradise, I could lose myself in books. So
Diksha Chakravarti: that was my haven. So the fact that I was unaware
Diksha Chakravarti: is because I was disconnected and therefore not aware.
Diksha Chakravarti: So it wasn't a healthy way of healthy reason for not
Diksha Chakravarti: being aware, it was simply that I just
Diksha Chakravarti: didn't have the wherewithal, I just do not have the awareness to
Diksha Chakravarti: be aware of what was going on around me. I
Joanne Lockwood: noticed when we're talking, Ali, you said that you've had a fair share of traumas
Joanne Lockwood: of your life which you've just, really
Joanne Lockwood: shared with with me and it's been really powerful to listen to. But you've you've
Joanne Lockwood: become resilient because of that. I've knew you've it's made you a stronger
Joanne Lockwood: person. It's allowed you to, in fact, embrace what you do now
Joanne Lockwood: and use your strength and resilience to help others who maybe
Joanne Lockwood: haven't found that in themselves yet. That's how I have that's how I
Diksha Chakravarti: use it but it's been one hell of a wearing
Diksha Chakravarti: journey. It's been one hell of a wearing
Diksha Chakravarti: journey. My spirituality has stood by me,
Diksha Chakravarti: I always know there's a reason for going through whatever we go
Diksha Chakravarti: through and, you
Diksha Chakravarti: know, believe in karma, and I
Diksha Chakravarti: I don't stay down for too long. I have learned not to stay down for
Diksha Chakravarti: too long, and that's when I said my my super strength is I
Diksha Chakravarti: go down I go down and, for many, many years, I was a
Diksha Chakravarti: glass half empty. And, again, I understand why I
Diksha Chakravarti: was glass half empty. So I'm still in as I said, I'm still work
Diksha Chakravarti: in progress. I'm still working on becoming glass
Diksha Chakravarti: half full, I believe, but it has been
Diksha Chakravarti: extraordinarily tiring. And one of the things I didn't ever
Diksha Chakravarti: have growing up was support of any sort. No
Diksha Chakravarti: awareness and no support of any sort. So
Diksha Chakravarti: my mission in life is absolutely to
Diksha Chakravarti: support women who need it and actually to tell
Diksha Chakravarti: them around. It's like Cato's Gray cave. Tell them around and
Diksha Chakravarti: say, there's so much available out there. You've got you don't have to do this
Diksha Chakravarti: alone. You don't have to do this alone. You can become free,
Diksha Chakravarti: but reach out. Reach it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay
Diksha Chakravarti: to be weak. It's okay to say I'm feeling shit. It's okay to say I'm
Diksha Chakravarti: not a single woman. Do not cry and be suitable woman. Take
Diksha Chakravarti: time out. Let's help. Connect with yourself.
Diksha Chakravarti: Look for help around. And that's why I'm so passionate about
Diksha Chakravarti: providing an integrated service rather than go and
Diksha Chakravarti: see this person for this and this person for this and this person for this
Diksha Chakravarti: and you're making all those journeys. You, you know, you're building trying to build
Diksha Chakravarti: rapport with different people. It's it's it's shambolic. Join shambolic.
Diksha Chakravarti: When you build rapport and trust, right, when you build
Diksha Chakravarti: rapport and trust, that's what the the the
Diksha Chakravarti: therapeutic value of having a trusting relationship
Diksha Chakravarti: cannot be overemphasized.
Joanne Lockwood: No. You you yeah. You're right. I think trust is
Joanne Lockwood: fundamental and and we think about when we're in a toxic relationship
Joanne Lockwood: in our family or even a toxic relationship in our work,
Joanne Lockwood: the trust is broken down. We're we're basically going through
Joanne Lockwood: the motions, fearing for the next step,
Joanne Lockwood: not with we're paralyzed by our
Joanne Lockwood: circumstances often, aren't we? We don't know how to break out of that because
Joanne Lockwood: it's again, it's that everything we want is on the other side of fear. What
Joanne Lockwood: we know, what we've been socialized into, we must feel
Joanne Lockwood: that sort of Stockholm Syndrome safeness about it, don't we? Yes, absolutely.
Joanne Lockwood: The other side is going to be better, but there's so much fear to get
Joanne Lockwood: to the other side. We never break loose. No, we never break loose. That's why
Joanne Lockwood: many women, many people stay where
Joanne Lockwood: they are because they don't have that at the tools or the resilience
Joanne Lockwood: to break through that fear barrier? Absolutely. My younger
Diksha Chakravarti: daughter who's had an incredibly challenging life, incredibly
Diksha Chakravarti: challenging life,
Diksha Chakravarti: Maybe you should have her on the podcast. She's, she gave a
Diksha Chakravarti: presentation, about 5 years ago
Diksha Chakravarti: and she spoke about abusive toxic relationships, that's what you
Diksha Chakravarti: mentioned, and how she managed at last to extricate herself
Diksha Chakravarti: from one of those. And there was a woman in the, in the
Diksha Chakravarti: audience who heard her, and she actually went
Diksha Chakravarti: back home and took action. She got out of her toxic relationship
Diksha Chakravarti: just simply hearing my daughter stand up and deliver that
Diksha Chakravarti: presentation and say, you too can do it.
Joanne Lockwood: You too can do it. Yes. Powerful words on there. You
Joanne Lockwood: can do it. Everything you want is on the other side
Joanne Lockwood: of fear. You just gotta open that door, haven't you? Yeah. And you're
Joanne Lockwood: not alone. That's the key thing to remember, isn't it? And finally, I will say,
Diksha Chakravarti: and this is my very favorite saying from Doctor. Wayne
Diksha Chakravarti: Dyer is please don't die with the music
Diksha Chakravarti: still in you. Oh, that's beautiful. I
Joanne Lockwood: mean, it's sad but beautiful, isn't it? It's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: It's it's also good to don't die with money in the bank.
Diksha Chakravarti: Yes. You've earned it, enjoy it. Isn't it? Yeah. Absolutely. And
Diksha Chakravarti: that's my that's my passion in life. I want to say to as many
Diksha Chakravarti: sisters as I can, let's you can do it. Let's do
Diksha Chakravarti: it together. Let's do it together, with
Diksha Chakravarti: support team. Powerful. Very powerful. Thank you. Amazing. What
Joanne Lockwood: a what a conversation and we should keep going, I'm sure.
Joanne Lockwood: Tell us a bit more about how people get in contact with you. Okay.
Diksha Chakravarti: Thanks. So, my my company is called FIXme,
Diksha Chakravarti: F-I-X-M-E. My website is
Diksha Chakravarti: www.fixme.org.uk.
Diksha Chakravarti: And my telephone number is 07878
Diksha Chakravarti: 148229.
Diksha Chakravarti: My email is diksha@fixme.org.uk
Diksha Chakravarti: and people can connect with me on LinkedIn under Diksha Chakravarti
Joanne Lockwood: So you, Diksha, someone to just drop you a line, have a quick
Joanne Lockwood: Zoom chat, see how you can help? Absolutely. With respect
Diksha Chakravarti: to I offer a complimentary discovery call,
Diksha Chakravarti: and if they just email me or pick up the phone and talk to me,
Diksha Chakravarti: I'm here. Please, If there's anybody that's listening
Diksha Chakravarti: and feels they might like a conversation, please don't hesitate,
Diksha Chakravarti: honestly, just pick up the phone and talk, I'd love to hear from
Diksha Chakravarti: them. I can certainly say that, you know, we spoke a
Joanne Lockwood: lot last year for the event and we had a great chat about half an
Joanne Lockwood: hour before we started the podcast. And you're such a a great listener.
Joanne Lockwood: I could feel you unlocking things for the questions and the just
Joanne Lockwood: that gentleness about looking into who I am.
Joanne Lockwood: And, yeah, I felt like I was quite willing to pour my own heart out
Joanne Lockwood: to you at the beginning of those. So you're very easy to talk to, very
Joanne Lockwood: easy. And I feel that empathy and compassion from you despite and and the
Joanne Lockwood: huge smile you've got as well, because you can't tell from the podcast.
Joanne Lockwood: So thank you so much, it's been an hour I thoroughly
Joanne Lockwood: enjoyed spending talking to you, listening to you and
Joanne Lockwood: moved by that story about your early
Joanne Lockwood: life and as some sadness, it took you
Joanne Lockwood: a long time in your life to find that sense of belonging, which
Joanne Lockwood: now you found your passion and purpose. You've got it
Joanne Lockwood: again and you feel like you're right in the middle and This is
Diksha Chakravarti: it. I don't think Joanne, I will not I cannot
Diksha Chakravarti: imagine myself doing anything else. If
Diksha Chakravarti: if I if I could afford to, I can honestly
Diksha Chakravarti: say that's all I would do. I would work with women
Diksha Chakravarti: in refuges, in in, centers like
Diksha Chakravarti: that where I can I can just be there for them? You know,
Diksha Chakravarti: sometimes it's just it's just being there for someone. It's just
Diksha Chakravarti: giving them the hug and say, you know what? I understand. Come, you know, just
Diksha Chakravarti: have a hug. That's, you know, this is it. So this is my life's mission
Diksha Chakravarti: and that's why I like, you know, opportunities for,
Diksha Chakravarti: public speaking, holding workshops on stress management, I'm a stress management
Diksha Chakravarti: trainer, holding workshops for that. But my focus is helping
Diksha Chakravarti: women become free from me, persist to pain.
Diksha Chakravarti: What a pain that is. Even if I can't solve it, I'll find somebody who
Diksha Chakravarti: can. Thank you. Thank you. Thank
Joanne Lockwood: you. So if you've been listening, thank you
Joanne Lockwood: so much for getting to the end for tuning in. Please do
Joanne Lockwood: subscribe and keep updated for future episodes of the Inclusion
Joanne Lockwood: Bites podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S. Please do tell your
Joanne Lockwood: friends and colleagues, share the links. I've a number of other
Joanne Lockwood: exciting guests lined up over the next few weeks months. I'm sure you'll be
Joanne Lockwood: inspired with even more so, who knows.
Joanne Lockwood: So please, please, please, please do subscribe. If you'd like to be a
Joanne Lockwood: guest, if you've got a story, if you've got a passion you'd like to share,
Joanne Lockwood: then please do let me know. And of course, I'd welcome any feedbacks and
Joanne Lockwood: suggestions you may have to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: I've always looked for ways I can improve the show. So finally, my name
Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood. It's been an absolute pleasure to host this
Joanne Lockwood: podcast for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.