Unicorn Boss: Running Towards Bliss and Being Tapped the F*Ck In

By Maimah S. Karmo

We live in a world that teaches us to put on masks from the day we are born. We are taught about labels and are pressured into applying them to everything in our world. We are molded into what we ought to be.

Throughout our lives, we encounter multiple traumas - small ones and large ones, and we learn to pack them away because we are taught to be “bosses”, to “soldier on”; and in the event we expose our truths, vulnerability can be perceived as weakness. And so, we show the world what it wants. We deny our traumas and truths until they demand to be seen. Yet, it is when we face the truth of who we really are that we can stand in our power and our light. Being in our divine truth is where we are really tapped into life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Apr 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781982246365

Maimah S. Karmo

Maimah Karmo is the Founder/CEO of the Tigerlily Foundation and a fourteen-year survivor of breast cancer. As a leader in the women’s health and disparities field, she works with local, national and global health, policy, advocacy organizations to transform the lives of girls and women. Maimah has appeared in USA Today, U.S. News and World Report, Black Enterprise, Oprah Magazine, Essence Magazine, Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Redbook, Women and Cancer, Cure Magazine, Traditional Home Magazine and more. She has also been featured on Fox 5, ABC 7, CBS, the Oprah Winfrey Show, OWN, Good Morning America, the Today Show and more. Her TED talk – “Leading Through Surrender to Soul Purpose” – was powerfully received. She is a life coach, hosts The Pure Bliss podcast and hosts the “Manifest” events to inspire people to live the life they were born to manifest. She has spent the past 15 years studying love, leadership, transformation, vulnerability, empathy and resilience. Maimah is a sought-after speaker. She lives in Virginia with her daughter Noelle and their fur babies, Honey and Sugar. Visit www.maimah.com or www.tigerlilyfoundation.org, or you can find Maimah on Twitter @maimah, on Instagram @maimah and on Facebook @maimahkarmoofficial.

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Copyright © 2020 Maimah S. Karmo.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9822-4635-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-4637-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-4636-5 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 05/22/2020

CONTENTS

Dedication

Foreword

Introduction

A Poem to My Younger Self

1 Stargazing

2 Unicorn Rising

3 Spotting a Unicorn

4 Running Towards Bliss

5 Living the Dream

6 Choosing to Evolve

7 Manifest

8 Hold on my Heart

9 The Shift

10 When It Breaks

11 Again

12 Hotel California

13 My Scary New Normal

14 The Spiral

15 What Hurts the Most

16 Letting Go of Reason to Get to Healing

17 Connecting with Trauma and Triggers

18 The Violence of Cancer

19 Over-Positivity

20 What Being Strong Really Means

21 Courageous Compassion

22 The Cost of Greatness

23 A Different Feeling Story

24 The Zen Boss Toolkit

25 The Soul Purposed Leader: Staying Authentic, Aligned, Zen and Tapped the F*ck In

26 Your Sacred Space

27 Finding Your Zen and Being Tapped the F*ck in.

28 Unicorn Boss Manifesto

DEDICATION

To Michael

You saw me in a way no one else ever has. You cared for me in a way that no other man ever did. You were my love and my friend. You showed me a part of myself that I didn’t know existed. You taught me so much in life, and even in death, you reminded me of who I was born to be. Every day, I am becoming more of who I was born to be because you loved me.

I wish you had told me how much depression hurt. I wish you had told me of your pain. You would never have been a burden. Now, the pain is ours to heal from and to teach us how to truly live.

I thank you for this last message you gave me, You are loved by the greatest love of all; share that love.

I didn’t fully know what that meant at the time. I thought sharing love meant sharing joy, positivity and hope. I now know what love truly means - that no matter how much someone pushes you away, you pull them closer. Love means that when one has given up on life, you sit and hold a space with them as they find their way. Love means seeing things in their pain that you may not understand and adjusting your idea of them. It means seeing a person in their fullness and not just as who you want them to be.

This book is for all the bliss seekers, dreamers, perceivers, manifesters and stargazers. There come times in our journeys when life throws us a lotta shit. In these times, don’t ever stop gazing up towards the stars.

Michael, you were a stargazer, a truth teller. Because of you, in this book, I share some of my most hidden truths that others may have hope, never give up and live. I bare my heart, and some of my deepest pains about the year I almost took my own life. I share my triggers, my climb towards survival, unmasking myself in a world that rewards masks, and the painful process of examining past traumas. I have let go of perceptions of rejection and any judgement I have had of myself, or others may have of me. Instead, I now embrace the me I was destined, to be when my human frailty, my soul and my mind collided. I found God in the unholiest of places. And I will share, in many ways, how you saved me. And, how your mother saved me, as I fought to save my daughter – she shared the lessons she learned as she tried to save you.

In this book, I bare as much as I can, so that no other parent will go through what so many go through alone; and so that no one dealing with unseen illnesses, like chronic health issues, trauma, anxiety and depression feels they are alone.

With this book, I am doing what you asked of me. I am sharing my greatest gift - love - as I walk through my darkest valleys. I am still on this path, but I know now that I want to be here. I can share because I know that in the valley, when I can’t carry myself, God carries me. Because there is something that carries us when we can’t see and are too all encompassed by life.

Now, I understand, and now, I share my love.

I can hear you say it now, You’re…magnificent.

Now, I finally believe it.

I love you always.

FOREWORD

Trauma, pain and fear are drivers within every human. When we leave them unaddressed, they impact our decisions, influence our interactions and hijack our thoughts even while we sleep. I know this because my own journey has been wrought with war, death, tragedies and losses that continue to drive how I operate and view the world around me. I am not alone and Maimah Karmo’s words throughout this book reminded me of this. For that, I am incredibly grateful.

My friendship and sisterhood with Maimah have existed for more than a decade and I can say with certainty that the words you will be reading in this book are the most authentic, honest and painful she has ever shared. It is a testament to her internal strength and her innate desire to support others through their anxiety, depression and pain, even while she is in the midst of surviving her own storms.

Maimah and I both escaped war when we were children. As a teenager, she was placed on a plane to travel alone from Liberia to the United States. At the age of four, I fled with my family on a boat along the Mekong, traveling from Laos towards a refugee camp in Thailand. She and I have experienced the losses of loved ones from suicide. We both have had multiple traumas throughout our lives, some which we have never shared, and we work very hard on healing through our traumas, as our greatest desire is to live our highest truth and to serve. We continue to do so daily. It is apparent that we have walked similar paths and quite frankly, would not have made it to where we are today without faith and the support of others to hold our hands and guide us out of our darkest hours.

This book will resonate with others who have similar backgrounds but more importantly, it has been written for every human being who has ever gone through the trenches of their own battles in life. It is written to remind our fellow brothers and sisters, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, that healing in isolation is not the ideal path. Hiding our pain from the world only feeds the monsters inside our minds with the fuel they need to take over our motivations and trample our desires to thrive and live meaningful, purposeful and fulfilled lives.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States (U.S.), affecting 40 million adults ages 18 and older, or 18.1% of the population every year, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. These numbers could include our family members, friends, neighbors and colleagues but most of us wouldn’t know it because we do not openly discuss mental health in the U.S. For others, like myself and Maimah, we are among those counted in these statistics and yet we haven’t always felt safe enough in our lives to share our struggles, let alone ask for the support and help we needed and still need. It has taken me years to arrive to a place in my own journey where harmony within my body and mind lingers around longer than my anxiety, which once dominated my days and sleepless nights.

Unicorn Boss: Running Towards Bliss and Being Tapped the Fuck In, completely breaks down these barriers and encourages us to step out of isolation when we’re hurting and to step into a world of transparency and truth! Life is not always beautiful! Fear can steal every ounce of our energy! Somedays, we are so exhausted we just want to give it all up! These are truths that we don’t often see going viral on social media, but which are a part of our daily existence. By writing this book, Maimah is telling the world that she is no longer hiding and just being a unicorn and blissful, without sharing the truth about why she is a unicorn and what stumbling towards bliss really means. She also wants to share the heart set that helps her get through struggles and to moments of bliss. This book is about showing up, fully and courageously, however you are, wherever you are in your healing journey. Maimah shares her lessons learned and reminds us to use every single tool possible to stay engaged with life, and do our soul given work. This book is a gift. It calls us to remember that healing is not a destination, it’s a process in our transformation to becoming Unicorn Bosses.

Mali Phonpadith

Founder and CEO

SOAR Community Network

www.soarcommunitynetwork.com

INTRODUCTION

"It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The

wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers

them with scar tissue…but it is never gone." – Rose Kennedy

I didn’t plan to write this book or share my experiences publicly. Franky, my initial goal was to write about being a badass, focusing on leadership and having a boss mindset. In the years