Name: Ms. Rukh-Shana Namuyimba Kitaka
Role: : Chief of Operations Audersity & Newscaster
QN: What does wellness mean to you ?
As a wife, mother, career woman and spiritual leader wellness, for me, is about finding the harmony that’s healthy enough for me to be at my best spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically when I show up in the different spaces I exist. Now this is easier said than done and honestly I am still on the journey to finding my harmony. It takes being deliberate and it will often call for me to cut myself some slack when and where I fall short! The important thing is to keep at it and not give up on myself! Alot of people are counting on me and I am counting on me so I can’t afford to give up on me!
QN: Are you currently prioritizing your well being? Why? If Yes, how?
It took me a while to realise how out of harmony I was mostly because I seemed to be flourishing career-wise. I knew something was off but didn’t think too much of it. Actually I always made excuses for why my life was in as much a beautiful mess as it was. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic I spent some time evaluating my life using the Wheel of Life, a simple but powerful tool that helps you visualize all the important areas of your life at once. Looking at a grossly distorted wheel representing how out of balance my life was was really sad. When you come to this kind of reality, you quickly realise that you at your best and give your best in all areas of your life when you are well rounded because we were created to be balanced. We are wheels. When we are out of shape, we are essentially useless.
Now I am more deliberate. I specifically apportion time for everything and I try to give that 90% focus. I go the health club twice a week (but I would certainly like to do more), I have a minimum of 1 hour daily devoted to my spiritual growth. Infact I start my day with 1hr in fellowship with a prayer alter group. Because I work from home, it’s easy for me to now take time out of the day to actually nap – something I never used to do so I was always physically and mentally exhausted given the late nights and early mornings. I am learning to try and and stick to the routine of spending bursts of time with our 9yr old daughter. I deliberately cut back on the time spent on social media and TV and now cherry pick what kind of content I consume..both for my spiritual and mental wellbeing. And as a busy woman with a very young marriage (less than 5 months), setting aside time to plug in and have retrospectives with my husband helps make sure our marriage and spiritual walk is healthy.
QN: What can we do to make wellness a priority?
Raise more awareness on how important it is and have candid conversations on the downside to not focusing on your wellbeing. A friend once said to me, “there is no trophy for killing yourself with work,” and my husband keeps reminding me how I need to learn to delegate more so I can free up time for the things that matter the most. So let’s not tire talking about it and sharing stories on how we can practically achieve it.
It’s also important to remind women that when all is said and done, it has to be a personal decision. We are all responsible for our wellness. You have to be honest with yourself, take a good long look at your wheel of life and assess how balanced it is. Be honest about how satisfied you are with all the areas of your life and fix it and fix it fast! You owe it to yourself, your family and society to be your best spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically when you show up in the different spaces you exist.
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Biography:
Rukh-Shana Namuyimba Kitaka is a Communications and Reputation management Specialist, who loves telling stories and working with brands that really care about what others think about them and how they feel about them. MTN Uganda, East African Breweries (Uganda), Vodafone Uganda and more recently dfcu Bank are some of the brands in Uganda that have entrusted her with managing their internal and external reputation over the last fifteen years.
She is currently a co-director with Audersity – a Ugandan tech start-up company whose mission is to be the gateway to the new world, a world of limitless opportunity where “all dreams are valid regardless of geographical location”.
Outside of Africa, she has lent her communications expertise to James Associates and Partners – a Canadian based Immigration and Settlement Legal practice.
Rukh-Shana provides Media & Public relations, Stakeholder management, Reputational risk management, Crisis management, Technical writing, Events management services and training. Her educational background as a Communications (major), Literature and English language (minor) in addition to her experience as a broadcast journalist over the last 20 years gives her an edge in effectively gathering and delivering information across platforms. She especially enjoys writing for persuasion and social influence.
A member of the Public Relations Association of Uganda (PRAU), Rukh-Shana is also a mentor with the project Girls for Girls supporting the next generation of women leaders and a celebrated journalist and newscaster. She is a two-time winner of the RTV Academy Award in the category of Best English Anchor and two-time winner of the Media Challenge Initiative ‘Rosemary Nankabirwa Award’.
She is a passionate advocate for alternative child care and deinstitutionalization whose personal mantra is that until you help others rise above you, you remain significantly insignificant.
I love Rukh-Shana, she is passionate, principled and just so brilliant. I look up to her. I worked with her during the Ugandans Adopt campaign and our career paths continue to cross occasionally. She is an inspiration.
Finding balance, the constant mind gym indeed, i do relate because this year i had to come to some personal decisions to rebuild self and how refreshing it is to control of my emotions and core values….eeeh, not easy but certainly worth it. You do bless me with your subtle encouragements, thank you for sharing Rukh.