CINCINNATI — Achieving certain goals in life may be a challenge when someone doesn’t have the right tools to succeed, and that’s why a woman is using her story and journey to help others achieve greatness.
What You Need To Know
- Carol Tonge Mack wrote Being Bernadette: From Polite Silence to Finding the Black Girl Magic Within, a personal memoir about overcoming challenges and achieving success
- Tonge Mack used her story to help empower women through her new Ten Commandments for Women Empowerment sessions
- It’s a five-week session where participants come up with 10 commandments or rules that they will live by
- It’s to break the cycle of what society thinks women should do, and instead allows women to make their own choices to achieve success in their life
Carol Tonge Mack tells her story through her book, Being Bernadette: From Polite Silence to Finding the Black Girl Magic Within. It’s named after the saintly name she chose through the Catholic sacrament of confirmation.
She grew up an immigrant dealing with teen pregnancy and overcoming racism in the professional world to find success.
“I’ve learned how to cope and how to use my voice because there are so many women who are not able to use their voice,” said Tonge Mack. “This happens to so many women at the university, at different jobs — racism, trauma, stress, anxious, and sometimes they don’t have a voice.”
That’s why she started the Ten Commandments for Women Empowerment sessions.
It’s all about breaking the cycle of following what society thinks women should do and coming up with a set of commandments/rules they want to follow to achieve their goals.
“As women, there are all of these rules that we continue to follow on an everyday basis and we never stop to think is this what I want for myself,” she said. “Because society has decided women should do ‘X.’”
During five weeks, participants came up with 10 commandments or rules they will stand by. Those rules range from creating a personal board of directors to investing in personal development.
During the last session, the women received a “framed” version of their 10 commandments.
“I hope women know that there is a place for them,” she said. “There’s a place for them regardless of what society says. Whatever place it is, speak up about it. Write your own rules. I want women to know they have to write their own narrative.”
Throwing burdens into the fire was the last activity of the night. One by one, each woman threw a piece of paper representing a burden of theirs into the fire.
Jasmine Burno said she found this activity to be liberating.
“We carry around so many burdens and to have the opportunity to not only acknowledge what those things are in our lives but just kind of fold up it up in a little bit of paper and release those things and kind of grow from there,” said Burno.
As the last session came to a close, the women surprised Tonge Mack with a piece of artwork as a token of appreciation. Not only was she grateful for the art, but for also watching the women grow.
She hopes she may continue to help many more women write the next chapters of their lives.
“The conversation just kind of flowed so well with our commandments and just talking as women about having a space for women that we are going to really not just fulfill our dreams, but actually write our own rules,” she said.
