Phoenix Entertainment and Development

Phoenix Entertainment and Development

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Pamina Mullins Interview Part 1

Welcome everyone to another great week of the Writer's Revolution.  I am your host, the author of The Phoenix BladeAndrew Hess.  This week we have an intriguing and inspirational guest, the author of Why MePamina Mullins




Tell me a little about yourself.

I am a writer, speaker, stress buster, life coach, problem solver, people empowerer, laughter lover, dedicated saboteur disarmer, hypnotherapist, inspiration generator, insight seeker and genius finder, with an incurable sense of humor and love for life. I have walked every step of my talk, which lends empathy and authenticity to my writing and coaching. I have lived an interesting and eventful life—most of it in Africa, which has by necessity instilled compassion, resilience, resourcefulness and a love for sunshine and wide open spaces in every cell. I am passionate about helping people to empower themselves through adapting their belief frames.

Wow, that was a mouthful.  Quite a few interesting adjectives/occupations listed there.  Before we go into the writing, I would like to touch upon a couple of them; mostly the life coach, hypnotherapist, and living in Africa.  Can you shed some light on those?

I have lived in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa (as well as the UK) at various times. I came relatively late to my “calling.” I had been a single parent for many years when my 16 year old daughter died—and my stress levels understandably, went ballistic. I urgently needed to find a way to cope, and that’s how I stumbled upon stress management. It enabled me to not only heal myself but others too. The profound impact of this so impressed me that I went on to become a life coach. Life coaching principles integrate well and add power to stress management strategies. Looking for ever more powerful, effective healing tools then led me to hypnotherapy, which has the capacity to change all manner of self defeating beliefs and habits.  
Although the concept of coaching and hypnotherapy were almost unknown in Zimbabwe at the time, my strengths were the fact that I walked the talk and my ability to adapt these principles so they were relevant to this environment—one in which the annual inflation rate in 2008 was a record breaking 231million percent! No, that is not a typo. Add to this no social security system whatsoever, a chronically overloaded and under resourced health delivery system, fuel and food shortages, a notoriously inefficient and unreliable communications system, frequent power outages, lengthy disruptions in water supply, and driving conditions that would make the Dalai Lama incoherent with anxiety, to name but a few, and you might begin to understand the relevance of stress management training.
The ripple effect continues to have a profound impact on people’s lives in a multitude of ways. For many the logistics of daily life can seem like climbing Everest on a daily basis—trying to keep your head above water, your business afloat, your kids in school and your sanity relatively intact! Some words (like pension or retirement for instance) simply don’t exist here….

What inspired you to write?  What type of genre do you write?

Having experienced the awesome sense of freedom and achievement that come from making profound paradigm shifts, writing was the obvious way to share this with a wider audience. Writing for me started as therapy and snowballed from there. I write about personal growth and coaching topics with liberal doses of self-deprecating humor. I have read so many wonderful books that have helped me so much on my journey, but found that there weren’t many in this genre that used humor to deliver their message. My experiences and those of my coaching clients, combined with an irreverent sense of humor, drive me to write in this way. The ridiculous habits and reactions and coping strategies we all exhibit when stressed are tailor made for humor. I also find humor a fast track to personal change. If we feel we are being criticized or judged, we instinctively build walls. If we’re laughing together at how silly we’re being, the changes come voluntarily and naturally.

I never thought about it like that.  I think humor is the best way to cope with life and bad situations, but never thought of it as a way to make change happen easier.

Tell us about your book.

Why Me? is a powerful, humorous roller coaster of a book that blows the assumption that stress essentially bad—or inevitable out of the water and offers explanations and prescriptions (with the help of case histories) for:
  • putting a stop to energy bankruptcy
  • making peace with your body
  • turning the stress response into a laughter impulse
  • starting a love affair with wealth and success
  • building personal boundaries
  • transforming relationships
  • employing anger productively
  • dumping beliefs that have passed their sell by date
  • embracing change
  • becoming immune to the chaos around you and
  • BEING the change you want to see - at any age!

I think there are many out there that could benefit from learning these techniques.  I can see a few in there about myself as well.

Is your book based on anyone specifically?

The themes rather than characters are built on my experiences and those of all the people I’ve worked with over the past 15 years. I am heavily influenced by the tumultuous history of my homeland and its people. The way they adapt to dealing daily with the kind of challenges that would make others catatonic with stress are a constant inspiration.

What inspired you to write this book?

To honor my own journey of discovery and those of the people I work with, many of whom live and work under truly extraordinary circumstances in a unique environment. And I felt there was a need to approach this subject in a simple, entertaining way to make even those who would ordinarily resist reading personal growth books, want to read it—even if just for the entertainment value. The insights are then absorbed unconsciously while being entertained.

I can safely say your description of, Why Me?, has my attention.

What other books or blogs have you written?

Please see http://www.paminamullins.com/publications.phpas well as guest blogs, short stories and articles

Were your other books self-published or traditionally published?

The publications page (link above) explains this

Who is your greatest writing inspiration?


My reading tastes are eclectic and I have been a bookworm all my life; so I draw inspiration from a multitude of sources. I am endlessly fascinated by the many faces of the human condition, particularly under pressure—our resilience, courage in adversity and the complex behavior patterns and beliefs that drive these; our ability to love and learn, adapt and survive, and find something of value in the most extraordinary experiences. 

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