German / French / Dutch | Cameroonian

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I was born with jejunal atresia (blockage in the intestine) which was surgically repaired quickly after birth. I had many health issues as I grew up, but I am happy to report that today I am in optimal health and have grown to a place of gratitude for the scar on my stomach that saved my life.

I have Cameroonian, German, French, and Dutch heritage and was born in the United States of America. I was raised Catholic and now identify as spiritual. I identify as bisexual. My Mother was born in Michigan, USA, and is 7th generation German, French, and Dutch. My Father was born in Cameroon and came to the United States when he was 17 on a full scholarship for academics and to play D3 soccer at Washington University in St. Louis. We have origins before Cameroon somewhere in North Africa, presumably Egypt.

My parents both worked in a hospital in downtown Chicago. They were both working night shifts at the time, my Mom as a nurse and my Dad as a lab tech. A group of their colleagues made plans to go to a diner after a shift for breakfast and that's how they met! I've had the opportunity to go to the very diner they met at and sat in the same booth they had breakfast at all those years ago. It was such a cool yet strange experience, to know if they hadn't sat in that booth, I wouldn't be alive!

Thankfully I have not experienced discrimination in my family. My Mother's parents were very welcoming to my Father. From what I experienced of my Grandparents, they were fairly liberal and open-minded. They lived outside of Detroit and my Grandfather worked for Ford Motor Company. My Mom has told me stories of how she wasn't permitted to go into Detroit for her own safety, around the times of the Detroit Riots.

I lost my Father-in-law a year ago. I had less than 2 years with him and only met him once, the summer when my husband and I met. I cherish that month I spent with the whole family in Italy. He had blood cancer, and it spread to his vital organs. He passed in November 2021. I was unable to be with him leading up to his passing because the home office still had not given me a decision on my status here in the UK. My husband and I got married in April 2021 and with COVID and Brexit, everything was so backed up. If I chose to leave the UK, there was a chance I would not be able to re-enter. My husband, Luca, and I have two kids (from his previous marriage), a dog, and a family coffee company we run together. Not being able to return to my life was not an option. This meant I was alone for several months, starting at the end of September and ending in January 2022. I became severely depressed and just miserable. Due to COVID, my family in Chicago could not come to visit and I could not go to Italy. I slowly started picking myself up with the help of the Spring weather in April 2022 and by the end of the summer was feeling like myself again. I really dove into my spiritual practices, calling in my ancestors and angels for support in healing my heart and soul. I began to practice sound healing with crystal singing bowls and vocal toning. I taught myself how to use sound to heal my emotional wounds. This was huge for me as well as rewarding, because I was able to use a newfound passion to heal myself! It was also a way for me to connect to those I have lost over the years. I have never had a good relationship with death, so my Father-in-law passing presented an opportunity for me to not only heal his loss but my Grandmother and a couple friends before. Sound is so powerful and can go beyond the mind and heal us on a deep level. It can move hidden emotions in the body and show us things we didn’t even know were there. Through this healing journey I also learned how to better communicate my needs and desires. Life is full of ups and downs, and I chose to accept that. I was ready to surrender, stop fighting, and instead ride the waves of life.

The last time I cried was the 1 year anniversary of my Father-in-law's passing. There were so many emotions around his death. The tears poured out because I missed him, but they were also for me. I cried tears of joy, for all the work I had put into myself and for having a moment to look back on everything that I overcame. Losing someone is even tougher when you lose yourself in the process. Thankfully there was a reward at the end of this process. I found a new version of myself that I am beyond grateful for.

I wouldn't say I've hidden part of my identity but more so denied part of my identity. I didn't really feel like I had any connection to my Cameroonian side other than the few trips to visit throughout my life. We didn't grow up with extended family near us so it would be the once-a-year holiday spent with my Dad's side. I would say it was for this reason I over attached myself to my White side. From what I've observed over the years, it seems a lot of one's heritage and history is passed down from the maternal side. My Mom raised me well, but there weren't many if any family traditions passed down to me. My Mom’s Mom was an artist, so it made sense my brother did graphic art and myself dance. My Mom is an oncology nurse and has her MBA. I have a bachelor’s in dance and psychology.

I honestly don't feel like I have one role model. I have people in my life that have influenced and inspired me. I guess my parents have been the biggest inspiration to me, through their strength, triumphs, and trials. They have done an amazing job raising my brother and I and I am grateful for all they have passed down to us.

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me ‘what are you’, I would be a millionaire. Also, ‘can I touch your hair’ or ‘is it yours/is it a perm?’. It felt horrible. My identity was constantly in question. Sometimes my answers were not satisfactory to the person asking, ‘you know what I mean’, they would say. It got to a point, when I was living in the Netherlands, that I started answering, ‘do you want to know where I was born, where my parents are from, or where my ancestors are from’, because I was so fed up. Fed up but also still trying to be nice and help them realize they are not being specific in their questioning. I was hoping that just maybe they would see how messed up their questions were. Sometimes a person would say ‘oh I thought you were definitely - insert random country’. I guess I didn’t realize how deeply all of these insensitive questions impacted me until recently.

I was also bullied as a kid, and it really damaged my spirit. If being unsure of my identity as a mixed-race girl wasn’t enough, girls would make fun of me for not being able to pronounce the difference between ‘specific’ and ‘pacific’ and this one boy made fun of my curly hair, amongst many other instances throughout childhood and my teenage years. I wouldn’t speak up about it either, because I wanted to avoid any more trouble.

These moments in time have stuck with me over the years, but now I see it was their own insecurities being projected onto me. I was a happy, bubbly, and kindhearted child who loved so deeply, and that was too much for some. It made them uncomfortable. It triggered them and I thought it was my fault. It has taken me the last 10 years to really step into my identity and to shed the layers of other’s judgments and labels. Layer by layer I started to see myself, started to appreciate all aspects of who I am and was excited to see who I would become. I didn’t let the way I was treated harden me and for that and many other reasons, I am so very proud of myself. What happens to us doesn’t have to define us. It can build us up and tear us down, but we have a choice to take it on or not. Sometimes we need to break down to rebuild stronger and better than ever. Life is a series of lessons and learnings, challenges, and heartaches. I believe this is what makes us human. This is the human experience, to feel all the emotions, to engage with others in good and bad ways, to experience all that life has to offer, to shape us and to transform us. I am so very grateful to be alive and cherish every day I get to wake up and shine my light.

I've never really felt like I fit in. I didn't grow up seeing myself represented in the media. In the 90's, you only saw Black or White on tv and in magazines. I was the only mixed-race woman in my sorority in university, out of 100 girls living in the house, it was me and a woman of Chinese heritage. Representation really does matter, and nowadays we understand this, and it is evident.

I can't say I grew up feeling proud to be mixed-race. Thankfully, today that is much different because being mixed-race is more common and well represented. I do remember a time I was proud to say my Dad was from Cameroon and that I’ve traveled to visit family there, but the sparkle of sharing this faded with every time someone asked, ‘what are you?’.

I left Chicago in 2015 and moved to the Netherlands and in 2020 moved to the UK. There have been many challenges being so far away from my brother and parents, but it feels right in my heart. I knew from a young age that I wanted to live abroad. Having family around the world and a Father who traveled quite a lot for work meant that we were able to travel as young kids into adulthood. I have loads of family in the UK on my Father’s side. It’s been so special to spend more time with them over the years I’ve lived in the Netherlands and now the UK. Since moving away from the USA, I feel I’ve grown more confident and prouder in my mixed background. I found my sense of belonging by leaving what I know (what I knew was clearly not resonating with me).

I have almost always been the only mixed-race person in the places I've worked, so mostly White spaces (minus the work with my Father). Workplace discrimination thankfully was never a thing for me and as much as I would have loved to see more mixed races represented, I grew used to being the only one. I opened my own yoga, meditation, and healing company in 2018 and then a coffee roasting company, importing coffee from Cameroon, with my husband in 2020 so I have created spaces where I feel held and make sure that I work with people of all socio-economic backgrounds.

I honor my ancestors and do a lot of spiritual work with them. I listen to Cameroonian music and West African music quite a lot. I guess you could say the company my husband and I own, Kribi Coffee UK, is a continuation of our family’s traditions. My Father grew up on a coffee farm in Cameroon and on his summer holidays would help the farmers dry the beans after harvest. Coffee is a big part of our family’s story. It is such a great honor to have a role in creating our generation’s part of the family’s legacy. My Dad started the company in Chicago, and I worked for him for several years before moving to London and starting Kribi Coffee here. We work with over 600 small crop farmers within our own cooperative, paying them 2-3x the commodity price. It is our commitment to eventually hire a talented and diverse team to assist with the roasting and running the café, but for now, our team consists of my Italian husband, my Cameroonian Aunt, and my Dutch and British friend and colleague.

I now live in London, and I find myself finally making strong friendships with mixed-race females that understand what it was like growing up in a mixed body. I am beyond grateful for this. It’s helped with healing the last bits of trauma from my childhood and teenage and young adult years. Spending time with them helps me stand in my power and see how beautiful I am, because we are! Embracing our curls, embracing our skin, embracing the in between worlds we find ourselves positioned in. We empower each other. We share stories that are all too similar. We cry together, we laugh together, we celebrate together, we cheer each other on. It’s a whole new world that we’ve created for ourselves in between the two worlds. It is truly a blessing. Having social media has helped us mixed folk unite as well, like YouTube videos for Moms not knowing what to do with their kid’s curly hair. This is a big one for me, that has a story tied to it. I was lucky enough to have made it 3 years in a row into the children’s cast of the Joffrey Ballet’s Nutcracker. One year, I was cast as a tree angel in the snow scene. We had to wear these white wigs and of course to anchor the wigs down, we were asked to come in two French braids. Now my Mother never really braided my hair. My beautiful Godmother and nanny, Evelyn, was with us from birth till middle school. She was a beautiful Black woman who had worked as a nurse and helped with me when I was sick as a baby and beyond. She was family. She was in charge of doing my hair. I am so grateful to have had her for this reason so at least for those years I had a bit of understanding and love for my hair, thanks to her. But when it came time to French braid my hair, my Mom did not have YouTube. I was in the shower washing my hair to prepare for the braiding and came to find out there was no conditioner left. So having just shampooed, I came out of the shower with my hair feeling like straw. My Mom truly did her best, but I burst into tears and through the crying I decided that I would teach myself- and I did. All the girls at rehearsal had perfect French braids. Looking back at it, it was quite heavy for me, but I laugh now because at the end of the day the braids were being hidden under a wig on stage! It was a pride thing, I wanted to be proud of my braids. I didn’t really ever get this during this experience.

My high school, Oak Park River Forest, is regarded as one of the most diverse schools in the suburbs of Chicago. There was a whole documentary that came out of our high school, called ‘America to Me’, that clearly shows diversity does not equal equality. In high school there were about 5 of us mixed girls (half Black, half White) in my year. I was one of the two whose Mother was White. That was definitely a whole thing. We were all mistaken for each other, even though we all really did not look anything alike. We were also compared to mixed-race actresses that also didn’t really resemble us at all. On one occasion, a group of Black girls in my study hall asked me when I decided to ‘act White’.

At the time, I had no idea how to respond to this. I mean I was trying to be ‘White’, so they weren’t wrong. It seemed so much easier to have White haiR. I was straightening my hair, wearing clothes associated with White culture; Abercrombie & Fitch, Limited Too, American Eagle, etc., hanging out with all White friends. I mean mind you, not only was my Mom White, where I learned most of my style and self-care practices from, but my Dad was also not African-American, born in the city of Chicago. He was born in Cameroon and came to the states when he was 17. So, he didn’t speak in AAVE or Ebonics. I didn’t grow up in a ‘Black’ home as most people would think of. There definitely was a bit of hatred I harbored towards how I looked, how curly my hair was, how I didn’t ever really feel like I belonged to one specific group of people. I did have my dance family and that was there for me beyond graduating from high school and going to college. That environment was also quite White, I was the only mixed girl years above and below me. Luckily, I had my two dearest friends that I still am in touch with today, and they are Black. I think the lack of color in our dance academy was due to the cost of attendance. We received well-rounded dance educations, and that school shaped me to be the dancer and instructor for dance and yoga I am today. There was some beauty in the support I got from my fellow mixed brothers (not related) in high school, we would throw up an M with our hands which represented ‘mulatto’. This was a form of unity that made us feel seen by each other. I guess I didn’t realize how much that small interaction in the hallways of crazy high school had such a great impact on me.

Things got a little heavier in college when I was literally the only mixed girl in the whole dance department. I went to the University of Iowa, and I don’t think I have to look up their diversity statistics to tell you it isn’t the most diverse in the states, at least at the time (2009-2014). Let’s just say growing up half Black, half White in the USA feels different from elsewhere in the world, mainly because of the country’s history of slavery, racism, hate crimes, and segregation.

I started my company Mind Body Shalo back in 2018, knowing that I wanted to share my love and passion for yoga and meditation with as many people as possible. My spiritual journey started in 2012, when I first discovered the more spiritual side of yoga and traveled to India for a month. I studied the music, dance, and culture of India, visiting temples and learned about the classical dances and music.I knew there was something more to life, so I committed myself to uncovering it. I studied dance and psychology in university and did my master’s in contemporary theatre, dance, and dramaturgy. I became a certified yoga instructor in 2015. Soon after my yoga teacher training, I moved to the Netherlands where I would live for 5 years. I traveled to many countries during my time in Europe, worked as an au pair, worked on my master’s degree, and started my business, Mind Body Shalo. I went through a bad breakup at the end of 2018 which led to my first Dark Night of the Soul. That painfully lasted till the 25th of June 2020, when I moved to London. I chose myself that day. I chose to live. My higher self spoke to me, ‘You have a choice, Anne. You can keep going down this road, but it will lead to death. Or you can choose yourself, to see your worth and live in your purpose. We both know you have big things to do on Earth. So what’s it going to be?’. I chose myself that day. I believed in myself, knowing deep down I could do anything I put my mind too and I was done holding myself back. I was done dimming my light. I was done living in the shadows, afraid to outshine anyone I encountered. I had a purpose and I was ready to walk my path.

This has all led me to love what I do. I love talking with people. I love hearing their stories and sharing my own. I love connecting. It is my purpose to provide people with tools to heal themselves, based on my own experiences, in this lifetime and those past. Sound is a big part of what I do. From sound healing with crystal singing bowls to vocal toning to singing to expressing Light Language- it all serves the highest good for myself and those who resonate. The work I do can vary from intuitive guidance to sound healing and sound baths to offering channeled messages. I share my gifts and shine my light knowing that it has the power to help people see their own gifts and their own unique light. I have experienced grief on many different levels, heavy drug use, hidden eating disorders.

I have tried to unalive myself a few times and thought about my absence from this world on several occasions. I have hit rock bottom and then dug deeper. I have scraped the bottom of the barrel. I have let people walk all over me and tell me what I am and what I am not. I have people pleased and let just about anybody into my sacred spaces. I have experienced sexual assault. I’m sharing all of this because I have used these life experiences to shape who I am today. I no longer let what happened to me define me. In a way you could say these events happened for me. Life can and does get better. The suffering is there for a reason; to help us grow, to help us learn, to show us what it means to be human. To experience as many different ways to interact with people, places, and things. To slowly shape the reality we resonate with. What brings us joy. What lifts us up. What makes us vibrate at a higher frequency. What allows us to feel love and bliss. What allows us to feel good and bad and see the purpose of both. I am here to share my experiences through different modalities in order for those to see that it can be better. That you can heal yourself. That there is always another option. That life is worth living and there is so much beauty out there!

Know that I love you as you are and if you feel called to work with me, it would be an honor. Let’s see what magic you can create! I hold safe spaces where everyone is welcomed - inclusivity is key in the work I do.