“I fought for my marriage when it seemed naive for an executive to do so and live to celebrate not walking away”

My story starts by defining who I am and what I love.

My names are Caroline Zoh Akiy Mbi-njifor. I was born, raised, and molded in Cameroon. I moved to South Africa, Johannesburg when I was 22 and have lived here since then. This has truly become my home.

I am a mother of two powerful daughters, whom I raise to be strong, well-spoken women. I have an amazing husband, with whom I have been for 21years and counting. My passions are ample as I constantly refused to be “boxed”. I am highly versatile woman; a business woman, an executive, a leader in my community, a speaker, a coach, a sister, a daughter and and….I know I am called to teach, build, and equip men and women to navigate this life and transition from one level of consciousness into the highest level possible to their ability.

I believe a truly empowered woman does not live her life restricted by the confines or norms of society and the expectations of others nor does she allow circumstances out of her control to control her. She lives her life beyond circumstances and above societal norms. With this definition in mind, I know I am an empowered woman. What this means to me; just to extrapolate further is, the ability to make decisions irrespective of opinions in the pursuit of a personal and unique definition of happiness.

When I look back at history and what it has shown, the empowered woman has been guided by women who broke gender norms before us and allowed me to step truly into my empowerment. I want to say thank you to the second wave of the feminist who fought for the opportunity for me to be a business woman and an executive. By opposing restrictive norms and liberating levels of education for women.

My mom could only attain primary school education and had to step out so her dad could send her male cousins to school. Although she wanted to continue her education, she was not prioritized by her father due to traditional norms at the time. Due to this injustice in her upbringing, my parents wanted their daughters achieving educational success at the highest level possible.

The fight for education and women empowerment is well intertwined because education creates opportunities and enables an independent thinking and multi-dimensional female. This is one of the simplest yet greatest ways to empower and uplift a woman.

In my life, bold and unconventional decisions have become the norm that define time and space. Most of my life has been a series of momentous decisions, walking out of my paradigms.

In my 44 years of existence, the boldest decision I have ever made was moving to South Africa at the age of 22. A young girl who had never lived away from her parents beyond a month before varsity. This was the first time leaving my parents house for an unknown land. Not only was this bold and independent but the choice of country was equally as courageous and daring. South Africa had just come out of Apartheid and my parents were not keen on their daughter living alone in a foreign and potentially hostile environment. This was compounded by the fact that I knew no one in SA but my mind was made up and nobody could stop me. This was the first very bold decision in my life.

This decision will open my world to a whole new horizon. A few months into my time in South Africa, I worked with disadvantaged kids who were  generally HIV Positive. This job was by far the most emotionally rewarding work I have done   and it opened up a career path for me. I would probably never have embarked on this path back in Cameroon. But more happened, I met a man who badly wanted to call me his wife. And I let him.  Marriage was exciting and fulfilling but it had its twist and turns.

The second bold decision was the decision to fight for my marriage at a time when divorce was the norm and fighting for a marriage with every reason to divorce was deemed irrational and naïve especially for an executive and financially independent woman. In fact, the challenges in my marriage were of the type that my friends thought a senior executive and a financially  independent woman that I was should never put up with. So, I was indeed tempted to end my marriage; but the degree of happiness and harmony I now know and experience and levels of awakening unparallel to many, was born out of the decision to stay, fight and transform to become what we both needed to be to create a family that is rooted in joy and harmony beyond circumstances.

This was especially bold in the era where feminism and women taking back their power led to a spike in divorce. This required that I needed to go over and beyond to change myself and gain the insight, truth and tools required to influence and change others. It is impossible to give others what you do not have. I learnt to influence the change I wanted to see in myself, my relationship – this brought my marriage to a place where I can truly say I make up the 1% of the happiest marriages in the world. This came at a huge sacrifice, and exponential growth, due to the willingness to transform myself at that point so I can transform others.

Of all my bold decisions, the courage to stay married has fulfilled me the most but also the decision to walk boldly according to my highest Christlike beliefs and ability. These decisions are intertwined, as the decision to stay married and not be divorce was enabled by the decision to truly evolve into the most Christlike nature I could be.

My personal pledge as an evolved feminist is the understanding that we are created at a superior creation in life, above animals and plants. However, even nature shows us that everything exists to meet another’s need. A car relies on petrol; rain relies on dust particles; plants rely on good soil and water and the list goes on. Nothing was created for itself and as an entity. Therefore, my pledge is to teach women and girls that to fully be fulfilled is to understand that nothing was created to exist for itself. Everything in creation was to support and enable something else. As an evolved feminist, I believe the highest evolution of a feminist is for every woman to understand that she is here as a solution, an answer to society’s and the world’s problems. She is also an answer to herself, for her wants and desires and she exists to be an answer or an enabler for someone else.

I believe in the principle charity begins at home. Therefore, in the confines of my home, my interaction with my husband, my daughters, those I coach, guide and teach. I drive the importance of fulfillment, living a life of essence. A purpose driven life is what I role model in my home; with my family members. Aligned to the belief that charity must first begin at home. Failing which you are playing a role as an actor and therefore not truly transformed. Even with my siblings, cousins, boardroom, community, business, I am a builder, enabler, coach, mentor. I have a ministry called Daughters of Sarah where I build couples to achieve success in their marriage. I am also a lecturer, a speaker because I believe it is critical to teach but mostly to influence the next generation of feminist, men, and women.

To find true happiness and harmony in society you must first realize that you can only pour out, out of the abundance of what or who you are or have stored up. If you are not truly transformed  into the qualities of what you want to see, or become the person you seek to become it is impossible to truly enable transformation for others and society. My determination is that men and women understand that we are powerful spiritual beings and not just mere humans. And to seek to transform themselves into their greatest level of consciousness and their spiritual self so that we can impact other women to the extent that they want to become what they chose to be and not what we want them to be. Firstly, it’s to determine who you want to be; courageously pursue that with every fiber of your being. This way you find lasting joy and happiness in society and can bring others along.

In my opinion the focus of modern day feminism is to allow every woman irrespective of her race, class or socio-economic level of society to determine what fulfillment looks like for her and not to tell every woman what modern feminism is from the perspective of an educated and sophisticated middle class woman only. Every woman has their standard depending on their culture, belief, race etc therefore should be allowed the dignity, without bigotry, rhetoric’s, stigma or brainwashing to make her own informed choices based on her beliefs, preferences and culture. This is respect and dignity, the essence of feminism.

“Become what you want to be – then help you neighbour become what they aspire to be”

Read more stories of women making involved choices for happiness and harmony @ The Evolved Feminist

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