Another challenge I found was “compromise” some of the mistakes I made in the industry that I believe I should have reacted better or treated life differently or had a different approach, I compromised so many times because I thought that was how things where done, people mistake being kind, or rather what I mean by compromise is that when the world fine tunes you in certain way where you think you can not do certain things ,you end up compromising, I compromised on so many things that channeled my path into a wrong direction and I believe as a musician, as a person as someone who had a dream it is very important to stick to your principles, because I had my principles when I was starting my career but I kept losing them one by one because the entertainment industry dictated otherwise and I felt like I needed to go by that, so I ended up compromising lowing my standard and all that and fell into so many of the enemy’s traps and I made so many mistakes, grave mistakes, but in the invent of those mistakes over the years as a mother, one thing I believe we are human beings who are…we make mistakes but those mistakes do not define us.
So I knew my mistakes don’t define who I am and they should not come in between me and my child so I said to my self, I have to raise a better product better than I and one of the things I have done for the most part is to talk to my daughter over and over again, when I make a mistake I know she will one day read about it, even when she was young I knew some day she would read about it, because these are things that are on the internet, I knew she would be told ,because we live in a digital era, she might not see it physically but someone may talk about ,students might talk about it so I made sure I sit down quite often to discuss certain things with her and I would tell her
‘I am human I make mistakes but it doesn’t define me and I wish you well and I love you so much and you don’t have to behave like I do, your life is your life and my life is mine’
I thank God he gave me quite an understanding daughter very understanding…I don’t know even the word..I don’t think I have described her the best way, she is just amazingly understanding, she never judges me no matter what happens. She is very respectful and very God fearing and those virtues would make it easier for me to sit and have a chat with her from time to time.
I caution parents to talk to their children, it’s one the things I encourage parents to do, they should bridge the gap between them and their children. It saves a lot! If I had not taken the time to talk to my daughter she could have been badly affected. YES, at some point she was affected but it’s the talks that helped, they helped to the point that yes words where always thrown at her, something I pray doesn’t happen now that she is mature but I know if it was not for the talks, I would have lost her!
At some point my words played a very big part because everything I told her she took it and I was open. I would tell her ‘yes, this I did it but am sorry it was a mistake’ what I did not do I would tell her this I did not do but you know it’s the price am paying because am in the limelight, I would tell her an open book of my life.
Parents should stop lying to their children because they know; we grew up in a world where our parents often lied to us to make it seem like their lives where perfect. They where always the first in class, they never made mistakes, which is impossible. Parents need to stop that! Come clean with your children. It helps a lot with helping them be better than we. I think that’s a better approach than trying to prove your life has been good you’ve been the best in class, you didn’t make any wrongs which is impossible.
I have always been an open book with my child, a very open book I must say to date it’s an open book no matter how embarrassing it is because I know in there ,it also helps me to shape my self to get better because if I tell my child she shouldn’t make a mistake twice or more because it ceases to be a mistake and then I do the same thing, then am not giving her a good example. It helps me too to shape my self because I wouldn’t want to go back to her over the same mistake.
And that’s how we have been dealing with all the challenges that come with being a celebrity…
2014 I had a nudity scandal which to me was one of those things that happen to someone and you just have no words to explain your self because to date I can’t find the right words to explain how I went through it, how I felt, I can only say it has been God, it was God and it has been God all through.
My daughter was I think 12 years in 2014 and she was bullied at school. I changed her school thrice in a space of like 1 year, because of the impact of that scandal. I remembrance I used to go to her school almost every morning and she would cry when am leaving.
She would literally hold onto my outfit…no mother would want to see her child go through that, by the time a child wails and holds onto your dress, then you know something major is happening in the school and it was nothing but me!
I wished I could wake up and it’s all gone but there is no way.
One thing I learnt through it all, is to face every challenge that comes. To accept and face it. When you accept it, it helps you to face it. When you face it, you find the right ways to go through it. When you live in denial you can’t get out of it. First, the self pity, then you are blaming someone else and you can’t change when you have self pity, you can’t grow, you can’t move on literally.
So, to me one of the things that has helped me over come challenges is facing them. Because it’s in these challenges that I got to know God and they say and I always tell people, “until you meet a crisis you can’t see Christ on the other side”, because then you’re very comfortable. You become very comfortable, so to me the challenges helped me find God they helped me grow, they helped me see life a certain way… when I was a celebrity…
At the beginning of my music career, everything happened so fast. At 21, you’re getting lots of money, I remember I had a couple of 1,000s of dollars ($) on my account and I just did not know what to do when I was 21 and I just…I think I was about 22, 23, I did not know what to do with this money, first I had shut out all my family, because I didn’t know what I was doing, so I didn’t have a mentor, I was just living life, and all this money was wasted, I was wasted! I was making mistakes after mistakes because I didn’t have a counsel in my life, I didn’t have God in my life, now when you don’t have God, you definitely can’t survive in such a world. I learnt to always have a voice that listen to… first the voice of God and a mentor, if someone does not have those two; you’re bound to make mistakes.