Upbringing

I would like to take you on a journey with me to the future, but for you to understand my future, you need to know where I come from, who I am, well, understand my past.

I am Susan Fatima Josefine Zimmermann.

My mother is from Ghana, and my father is from Switzerland. I grew up in Nepal. These three cultures, have shaped me to be me. It is funny how I define myself by these three cultures so much, but when being placed in either of them, I am not fully integrated. I am watching them from the outside. Filtering them with my lens. Not letting each fully define me, but only taking the bits that I feel belong to me.

I grew up with different realities, different perspectives, different ways of looking at one thing. I cherish this about me because differences are important. I love that I can accept differences. Accept that people are shaped by their surroundings, their upbringing.

My upbringing was surrounded by magic:

• my mother telling me that if I am around when a gecko loses its tail, it will visit me in my dreams and ask me to sew it back on
• Reiki being an activity at school that our parents could sign us up for
• having conversations with a boy in our school, about his reincarnation
• Before moving into a place (we moved a lot) we gave thanks and respect to the spirits of the home by offering them Fanta and gin
• Going to a Buddhist ceremony, where all the monks were humming, and it felt like my body melted and started vibrating to the sound

The list goes on and on and on…

My upbringing was also surrounded by respect:

One rule we always had at home was to respect others. But mind you, if someone disrespected you, you could give it back to them. This idea of respect, and its utter most importance was probably amplified by us living in Lesotho (during an apartheid South Africa) with a white Christian father and a black Muslim mother.

Respect Myself. Respect Others. Respect the land.

I am one out of 8 billion human beings on the planet. And this was part of my upbringing. A microscopic perspective in what feels like my big world.

What the future holds, well, I don’t know. But if you join me on this journey, you will get a glimpse of how I am molding it. Planting little seeds. Planting big seeds.

All in the hope of inspiring a world of dreamers.