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What happens when your name isn't truly yours? When your cultural heritage is erased? When doctors dismiss your pain? Camilla Balshaw's powerful story tackles these questions with remarkable vulnerability and wisdom.
For the first 24 years of her life, Camilla answered to "Mandy" – a name her Jamaican mother preferred over the Nigerian name her father had chosen. This dual identity became symbolic of a deeper fracture when her parents divorced and her father disappeared from her life for forty years, taking her connection to her Nigerian heritage with him.
The journey to reclaim her birth name became intertwined with reclaiming her complete identity. "I'm my mother and father's daughter," Camilla reflects, describing how she eventually integrated both cultural influences after decades of disconnection. When her father unexpectedly reached out after forty years, she made the conscious choice not just to reconnect, but to embrace her birth name and the Nigerian part of her identity that had been submerged.
Alongside this identity journey, Camilla navigated severe endometriosis that began at age ten. Her experiences highlight the dismissal many women face in healthcare settings – "Women haven't been listened to by the medical establishment for decades," she notes. Rather than surrender to bitterness, she found healing through yoga and meditation practices discovered during five transformative years living in Japan with her husband.
Camilla's memoir "Named: A Story of Reclaiming and Reclaiming Who You Are" weaves these threads together, exploring how names shape identity and belong to larger narratives about race, class, gender, and belonging. Her experience reminds us that reclaiming our authentic selves often means confronting painful histories while remaining open to unexpected healing. As one of her teachers wisely observed: "In life, when you need the most, you'll find the angels."
Join us for this inspiring conversation about identity, healing, and the courage to become fully yourself.

Book Link | Named: A Story of Names and Reclaiming Who We Are

This Podcast is sponsored by Onlinevents