Episode Transcript
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Bettina M Brown (00:09):
Welcome to the
Friday edition of In the Rising
a health and wellness podcast.
On Fridays, I cover interviewsor short updates on all aspects
of health emotional,psychological, physical and
sometimes even spiritual.
Emotional, psychological,physical and sometimes even
spiritual Resilience is anextraordinary word that
effortlessly rolls off ourtongues, but it truly embodies
(00:31):
the indomitable human spirit andits ability to triumph over
adversity.
In my interview today with DrDaniel Mama, a very renowned and
accomplished psychiatrist andauthor, we delve into resilience
displayed by his incrediblefamily, which became the
inspiration behind his bookentitled as the Rivers Merge.
(00:51):
Dr Mama, who possesses a veryrich heritage bridging two
nations, cultures and races,proudly shares the extraordinary
achievements of his family andthe profound life lessons that
he have imparted on him.
I want to just thank you firstof all for your time.
Good morning.
Dr. Daniel Mamah (01:08):
Good morning
and thank you for inviting me.
Bettina M Brown (01:11):
Absolutely.
You have a list ofaccomplishments you know
physician and fatherCongratulations.
That's a big one.
What prompted you to, on top ofthat, find the time to write
this book?
That's a big deal.
Dr. Daniel Mamah (01:26):
Well, I will
tell you that I didn't know it
was going to take this long towrite.
I first had the idea of writinga book 12 years ago, and the
reason was my wife was pregnantwith my first child, and, since
my parents are no longer with us, I wanted my child to know more
(01:47):
about their grandparents thanthey would if there was no book,
and so writing a book almostfelt like a way to sort of
compensate for not having mychildren's grandparents in their
lives my children, thegrandparents in their lives,
(02:09):
yeah, and with that too, as I'vespoken to people who really
emphasize legacy journaling,trying to incorporate the
stories, you don't just want toleave a house and a car, you
want to leave a history.
Bettina M Brown (02:17):
How much deep
dive did you have to do into
your family?
Dr. Daniel Mamah (02:21):
I had to do a
lot, and you know, the more
research I did, the more Irealized how much I don't know.
I was fortunate, however, tohave access to a lot of letters
that my mother wrote.
She was, she used to write alot, so we had and the good
thing is, I had aunts andgrandparents who used to still
(02:42):
keep everything.
They never threw anything awayand so once they found out that
I was writing a book, theybasically brought hundreds of
letters that they had storedover the past several decades,
some from the 1950s, when my momwas still a little girl, and so
that was a fortunate thing,because it allowed me to really
kind of dive into not just whathappened but how my mom felt,
(03:06):
what her challenges were, whather struggles were.
And similarly, my dad had a lotof documents that he left.
My dad would.
He didn't write as manypersonal letters, but he kept a
lot of his official documents,so his work-related documents.
He had these folders lined upin his bookshelves all the time,
(03:28):
and so, going through that, Iwas able to really put together
their life in a very intricateway.
Then, of course, I did lots ofinterviews and things like that
and historical diving into thehistory of the time to pull
everything together.
Bettina M Brown (03:48):
But that really
allowed me to get a good
picture of things.
Do you feel that it gave yourcurrent life a little more
purpose or a little more oomph Idon't know how else to phrase
that because you knew what yourparents went through and were
able to navigate alone andtogether and were able to
navigate alone and together.
Dr. Daniel Mamah (04:06):
Yeah, I mean,
you know, when you learn about
some of the struggles thatpeople had back in the day, it
definitely puts your life intoperspective and you start to ask
yourself do I really haveproblems?
You know, it's my life, youknow, and so it allows you, at
least for some time, to reallythink about your life and say
well, you know, maybe thingsaren't that bad.
And if my parents could, youknow, could persevere through,
(04:29):
you know, world war andrevolutions and civil wars and
coups and poverty where theydidn't have enough to eat, then
surely there is a possibilitythat I can get through some of
my own struggles.
And so, from that standpoint,it was quite an inspiration.
Bettina M Brown (04:49):
And the word
resilience comes up right and
there's a lot of question,investigation.
Is some resilience genetic andis there something like family
trauma?
We talk about all of thatthat's come about, but no matter
(05:09):
what, just hearing anyone'sstory brings about some
resilience.
How do you feel that you havebeen able to change as a father,
to instill resilience in yourchildren from hearing about your
own parents?
Dr. Daniel Mamah (05:17):
Well, I think
that resilience is something
that we all have.
Sometimes we need to encourageourselves or encourage other
people to be resilient, but Ithink everybody is capable of
being resilient and there aredefinitely life experiences that
(05:39):
make you sort of give up onyour ability to move on.
You sort of give up on yourability to move on.
That's real.
But I really believe that weall have the potential to
persevere through difficultsituations and that's what I try
to instill into my kids is youknow, you can get through things
(06:00):
.
Even though things look likethey may be impossible to solve
or they look like the worstthings ever.
You can get through it.
You have gotten through itbefore.
Other people have gone throughdifficult situations and I think
that sort of mindset I thinkcan be helpful.
Bettina M Brown (06:18):
Yeah, and you
shared as I was reading about
your mom.
It was very interesting to hearabout how, how she viewed like
her childhood compared to yourdad.
Like there were still, like shespoke up about what one of her
uncles did or grandgreat-grandfather did or did not
do, and that there just waslike this resilience from the
(06:41):
beginning.
Very interesting story.
How do you view your mom?
How did your view change ofyour mom now compared to as you
were growing up?
Dr. Daniel Mamah (06:55):
change of your
mom now compared to as you were
growing up.
Well, I didn't know.
I mean, I sort of knew a littlebit about her background, but I
didn't know things asgranularly about exactly how she
struggled, what, why she cried,how much she cried, what her
daily struggles were like.
Because, you know, as parents,we don't always tell our kids
everything about our struggles.
We often try to buffer them, wetry to put a great face on
(07:20):
things and smile when we'restruggling so that they don't
suffer with us.
So while I knew that there werestruggles in her life in terms
of, you know, living throughcommunism and the revolution and
things like that, researchingthis book really allowed me to
understand what that strugglereally means and how it really
(07:42):
affected her and how strong shewas to be able to come from that
background and still be such apositive, loving person.
Bettina M Brown (07:52):
I think that is
a big key to come from that
background and still be such apositive, loving person.
I think that is a big key tocome from that background and
still be positive and loving.
A lot of people will use thatbackground as an excuse to be
mean, be negative, like I didn'thave a victim mentality versus
I can be a victor, maybe not theway I imagined it, but I can
(08:13):
overcome through this, and soyou're.
You also described.
You know your parents followedlove there.
They have, here you are, butthere were struggles just in
that, in that love itself.
Did you feel that youexperienced a lot of that
growing up or did they let inlike the kind of the situations
that they were navigating?
Dr. Daniel Mamah (08:34):
well, I mean,
you know, my parents came from
different cultural backgrounds.
My dad was nigerian, my mom washungarian, so that culture
clash had challenges?
Um, of course there was.
There are people who didn'tquite accept the relationship,
or they questioned therelationship in the 70s when it
was going on.
(08:55):
So there were struggles there.
But as their child, I neverreally understood that.
I mean, they never came to meand said, oh, we had lots of
struggles.
They might have mentioned aline or two here and there, but
you know that was never therunning theme.
So, for example, my grandfatherwas really opposed to the
(09:19):
relationship, right.
But I didn't know mygrandfather to be negative in
any way.
In fact, I love my grandfather.
My grandfather loved us and youknow he gave us so much
grandfather.
My grandfather loved us and youknow he gave us so much, um,
and he also loved my father,right.
So after my parents got married, the relationship between my
grandfather and my dad becamesuper positive, um, and so it
(09:43):
never dawned on me howchallenging the situation must
have been back then, because Inever, I never really
experienced that yeah, you know,as you're writing this book,
you have different cultures,because that's that's a big one,
um.
Bettina M Brown (09:57):
Different
spiritual backgrounds catholic,
protestant, um.
And then you yourself, how haveyou navigated because it's an
interesting phase to navigatetwo cultures and feel that's
normal to you and that's notnecessarily normal to everyone
else.
How do you feel that that has,when you're interacting with
(10:18):
other people, how do you feelthat what you can bring to the
table just because of thecultural background of your
parents?
Dr. Daniel Mamah (10:25):
I mean, I
really, I really view it as a
positive thing.
I think that the more culturesthat you're familiar with, I
think the more you understandthe world, the more you can
relate to people, right, and soI've always found that to be a
really special part of my lifeis that, you know, I have this
(10:46):
Hungarian side and I can relateto Hungarians.
I speak Hungarian.
You know, if I see a Hungarianin the United States or whatever
, I automatically can bondreally easily with that person
because of the mutual background.
But then I can flip around anddo the same thing with a
Nigerian, right, because I alsohave that experience.
(11:08):
And you know, I also lived in inEngland, in Manchester, for a
couple of years and, and youknow that also brought some life
experiences, um, that I thoughtwere really special, and so so
that's kind of how I view thingsis like, the more cultures that
you have that you're familiarwith, um, and it doesn't
necessarily have to be because Iwas born into it, it's, you
(11:30):
know.
Even you know there are peoplewho were born in one country but
they they've lived in manydifferent countries and they
have a similar experience.
There's something very specialabout knowing about different
cultures.
Oh, I think you're on mute.
Bettina M Brown (11:48):
I did, I did, I
did.
Okay, unmute, there we go, sothe other I'll have to look into
this.
The other part is that I wantedto talk about is with your
parents passing away before yourchild, before your children
were born.
(12:08):
What is one thing that youwould like to bring to them that
say, you know, with this book,what would you like them?
There are organic feelings, butwhat would you like them to
feel and know about you and yourbackground?
Dr. Daniel Mamah (12:22):
Well, I, I
mean, the main thing I wanted
them to know is who theirgrandparents were right.
Just to know who they wereright, because I didn't want my
grandparents to just be apicture on the wall to them.
They kind of look like that.
I remember that I wanted themto know what their personalities
were like, like little nuances.
My dad loved to laugh and smileand he was very ambitious, right
(12:44):
.
These are things that you can'treally just talk to somebody
about, right, that you have toexperience that.
And the same thing with my mom.
My mom was selfless, she wasloving, she was very religious,
right, and you know they hadother personality traits.
I wanted to bring that to mychildren so that they know who
(13:04):
these people were, that theyknow the story.
So that's sort of the mainthing.
But, of course, as I'm writingthe book and realizing how much
they've been through and howmuch resilience they had, I also
want my children to know aboutthat, to know that your
grandparents were great people.
(13:25):
They had really.
They have a beautiful story andthey were strong and they kept
going, even in the face ofdifficulties.
Bettina M Brown (13:36):
All right.
One question Are you going towrite your own story for your
children?
Dr. Daniel Mamah (13:40):
You know, I
think there's always a
possibility of that.
If it's going to take 12 years,I probably won't, and if it's
going to take 12 years, Iprobably won't.
But you know, we don't reallyknow what the future brings.
Bettina M Brown (14:01):
It will be nice
at some point to maybe talk a
little bit about my life ormaybe come up with some other
story that people will beinterested in.
What I like to talk about inevery interview at the end is
the one golden nugget that Icame away with, and during our
conversation I felt the wordresilience came up again, with
his own comment of I don't thinkI have any problems.
Maybe, just maybe all the thingsthat we're going through have
(14:26):
their place, but it could be ourchildren or our grandchildren
or some great, great greatgrandchild that realizes all the
things that you went through,all the choices that you went
through, have helped them becomea better person, have helped
them understand their own healthjourney, their own emotional
(14:48):
journey, and so I felt theimpact that we all have is
highlighted in this conversation.
It definitely made my eyebrowsgo up and increase my
self-awareness.
With that, I thank you againfor your time and, if you're so
honored, if you would share thispodcast to the people you feel
whose hands and ears wouldbenefit from this message or any
(15:11):
message on In the Risingpodcast.
I also would welcome afive-star review, because it
does so much to broaden theaudience and our forever-ending
algorithm changes.
Thank you again and until nexttime, let's keep building one
another up.