The Weight of Difference: Inua Ellams on Identity, Abandonment, and Creative Survial

Inua Ellams (00:00)
My fear is we are creating a future where we are completely disconnected from the natural world, from the feeling world, and from the sensorial world.

Shamm Petros (00:14)
Welcome to Stories That Stay, how stories of identity shape us. I'm Shamm Petros—a therapist, learning strategist, refugee, reluctant creative, rebellious first daughter, Eritrean refugee, New Yorker—all those things.

Dwight Dunston (00:32)
And I'm Dwight Dunston—a facilitator, educator, artist, and proud uncle. Stories That Stay is a project of Lion’s Story.

Our guest today is Inua Ellams—a writer, performer, and all-around creative force.

Shamm Petros (00:54)
Born in Jos, Nigeria, he moved to the UK and later to Ireland. With little access to entertainment growing up, he built his own worlds through imagination, art, and storytelling.

Dwight Dunston (01:05)
That creative drive has taken him around the globe as a poet, playwright, screenwriter, and graphic artist. His plays include Barbershop Chronicles, Three Sisters, and The Half-God of Rainfall. His poetry collections include The Actual and Candy-Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars.

He’s been honored as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, awarded an MBE for services to the arts, and continues to create and curate events that blend cultures, disciplines, and voices.

Shamm Petros (01:38)
Inua’s work spans stage, screen, and even the Doctor Who universe. His 2025 adventure for Ncuti Gatwa’s 15th Doctor was set in Nigeria, where he also made a cameo in a bustling Lagos marketplace.

So let’s prepare ourselves for the emotions, feelings, and true cellar merge. We want to take a moment to settle in. Everyone—if you’re joining us walking, driving, resting, wherever—let’s invite you to inhale and exhale at your own rate. In this space, I’ll offer you a box breath. Have you practiced that before?

Inua Ellams (02:18)
No, never.

Shamm Petros (02:30)
All right, I’ll guide you and Dwight through it. We’ll do about four breaths. If you want to close your eyes, feel the back of your chair, your feet on the ground, and your hands somewhere comfortable.

Breathe in—one, two, three, four. Hold—one, two, three, four. Exhale—one, two, three, four. Hold—one, two, three, four.

Inhale again—one, two, three, four. Hold—one, two, three, four. Exhale—one, two, three, four. Hold—one, two, three, four.

Last one—inhale—one, two, three, four. Hold—one, two, three, four. Exhale—one, two, three, four.

Slowly come back to us. Remember, keep breathing.

Inua Ellams (03:45)
Yeah, will do. Thank you. That was lovely.

Shamm Petros (03:49)
How are you arriving today with us?

Inua Ellams (03:51)
How am I arriving today? I indulged in a little retail therapy—I bought a pair of barefoot shoes, which I’m now wearing. I’m arriving after a day of rehearsals. I’m a little bothered by how much we have left to do in a short space of time, but I’m also dog-tired. I want to lie down and watch some anime on Netflix, but I have to do some writing tonight.

So yeah, I’m a mixed bag of emotion—but I’m present.

Shamm Petros (04:34)
We’re grateful for all of it—and your presence here. How do you feel about sharing your story today with us? Is it something that makes you nervous, something you’re used to sharing, or does it bring excitement?

Inua Ellams (04:47)
I think I’ve shared aspects of my stories for quite some time. There were times when the sharing felt performative because of how often I had told the story—and then it felt like I was detaching from myself, because the words I was using had become so boring, so cliché, that I had to shut down.

But then I created again with myself, trying to figure out other ways to tell the truth. Because the truth is a multi-headed beast—it isn’t set in stone. The whole truth requires the points of view and opinions of everyone involved in the incident, right?

So I try to tell my stories from the point of view of my parents, my sisters, my enemies, my frenemies, my friends—just to make the telling interesting to me. Which is a roundabout way of saying: when you ask the questions, I’m not sure which answer you’re going to get.

Shamm Petros (05:58)
Yeah. I love that. And when I say “I love that,” I mean—I love your discernment and your distinction. Being able to do that is very fruitful. I feel like you’re in the right place.

We work with storytellers, and there’s a whole economy around the art of storytelling—but we hope to help it be more generative for you, and for your sake alone, as a process.

So thank you for joining us for this ride. And the researcher in us would also like to ask: on a scale from one to ten, if you had any level of stress related to sharing your story—maybe because of what you just described—where would you place it?

Inua Ellams (06:50)
Stress is very low. Maybe two. Oh—one to ten, right? Then yes, two.

Shamm Petros (07:01)
Yeah, because that would be slightly different! Thank you. I’ll pass it to Dwight to take us through the next part of our time.

Chapter 2 — First Memory of Difference (07:10–15:35)

Dwight Dunston (07:10)
Inua, I’m so grateful to be in space with you. For our listeners, Inua was in Philadelphia when his play The Half-God of Rainfall was performed at the Wilma Theater. I guess that was in the fall through the winter, and we got to be in conversation at that time and make a podcast in relation to that.

So in some ways, for me at least, this feels like a continuation of some of those conversations we had then.

Knowing you already like to tell stories in different ways and through different perspectives, we’re not sure where we’ll go—but we’ll be in this unknown together.

I want to ask you, Inua: what are some of the earliest memories of difference that you recall?

Inua Ellams (08:03)
Huh… I think it’s probably when I went to primary school and found out that my twin sister and I were not going to be placed in the same class.

I threw an unholy tantrum in the hall—on the floor—sobbing, expecting my twin sister to be beside me, sobbing. Instead, she was happy. She just walked away with the other classroom.

And that’s when I thought, Oh my God, I’m only ten minutes older than you. We were born on the same day. We shared the same room for the last, I don’t know, three or four years. I thought you were with me. I thought we were the same—but you’re different.

Literally, she was built different. And that’s the moment I realized: something I assumed was the same was not. Everything else was just life, you know? But there was something I thought we were twinned in—our emotions, our love for each other—but she just wanted to explore the world.

Shamm Petros (09:23)
How old were you?

Inua Ellams (09:26)
I think I was about four—something like that. Four or five.

Shamm Petros (09:30)
And the message there for you—at that moment, as she was walking away—is that the image you’re seeing?

Inua Ellams (09:37)
Yeah, I expected her to be lying on the ground crying with me, demanding, “Give me my twin! Let us be in the same room!”

But that wasn’t her vibe. She just… yeah.

Shamm Petros (09:50)
Okay, when you reflect back on memories of difference, and you recall this one, we often use scales—it helps us get a sense of how intense something felt.

Because saying “sad at a two” is very different than “sad at a ten.” So if you could take yourself there—your four-year-old self being separated from your twin sister—how distressful was that for you on a scale from one to ten?

Inua Ellams (10:22)
Easily a twenty. My world was ending.

It was deeply distressing. In fact, every time I tell this story, I make a joke that this is when my abandonment issues started—when my twin sister walked away from me.

And there’s definitely a sliver of truth in that. It’s a joke I tell, but definitely at the time, I was completely devastated.

I thought, How dare the world do this to me—and with you, no less? It was wild.

Shamm Petros (11:00)
Yeah. You described it as an “unholy tantrum.” But there’s truth in a lot of jokes.

When you said, “low-key, that’s where my abandonment issue starts”—that really connects to the heart of what this podcast is about: Stories That Stay—how stories shape us.

We’ve worked with thousands of people, and it doesn’t matter how deep the trauma or how much sense they’ve made of their lives—some of our earliest memories, often at four, five, six years old, still live in us.

Not in a diagnostic way, but a curious one.

How does that story still remain?

So you said it was a 20 out of 10—complete distress.

Inua Ellams (11:40)
Yeah. My father was a Muslim, my mother was a Christian. We were sort of middle-class Nigerians, and respectability politics when you’re in public was a big thing. You have to represent your family. You have to be proper.

So for me to throw a tantrum because my twin sister wasn’t beside me—it was a big thing.

I was super distressed as a kid.

Shamm Petros (12:04)
I want to break that “20” into smaller pieces, so it’s more tangible—for you and for us as listeners.

You’re good at naming feelings. Could you name them and scale each one as you wish?

Inua Ellams (12:26)
Okay—wow. Frustrated—probably a seven or eight. Angry—definitely a ten. Disappointed—maybe a six. Betrayed—definitely a nine, at least. Confused—another high, maybe seven or so.

Afraid—definitely. Without my rib beside me, I was going to fall down. So yeah—eight, nine at least. All those things were wrapped in that incident.

Shamm Petros (13:12)
Take a breath. Hopefully you can, too.

I’ll recap: frustrated—seven or eight. Angry—ten. Disappointed—six. Betrayed—nine. I believe you said confused was about… three?

Inua Ellams (13:28)
No, I said confusion was probably high—maybe five.

Shamm Petros (13:35)
Right. And our last emotion?

Inua Ellams (13:39)
Afraid—pretty high as well. Yeah.

Shamm Petros (13:42)
Afraid—about a nine.

In our research and our work, we tell people to pay attention to every level—but something seven and above often feels insurmountable. And it does, because our bodies are signaling that.

If you take yourself either to that moment or to where you are now—did your body signal these emotions to you? Did you feel them anywhere? Could you locate them physically?

Inua Ellams (14:19)
Somewhere in the center of my chest, I imagine. Yeah—probably around there.

I also suffer from anxiety, so I think it’s all pooling around that center.

Shamm Petros (14:39)
For folks listening, you’re rubbing the core of your chest—in the middle. Can you describe that feeling? Is it fuzzy, full, sharp—what is it?

Inua Ellams (14:53)
It’s sort of numb and a little cold. A little tickly, but uncomfortable-tickly. It feels heavy, like something is sitting on it.

Like my shirt is sticking to my chest.

Shamm Petros (15:18)
Is that the feeling you feel now—or do you remember feeling it then?

Inua Ellams (15:22)
I think it’s with me now. Then, I just remember feeling angry—all those things—and throwing a tantrum, expecting the world to bend to my will.

Chapter 3 — Cultural Messaging and Family Expectations (15:35–21:29)

Shamm Petros (15:35)
—or your needs. I’m trying to imagine, if you can help me: what did that tantrum look like? What was your body doing? What was the setting? Maybe it’s not even directly related, but what image comes to you?

Inua Ellams (15:49)
I was on the floor—like a kid’s tantrum in a shopping mall who can’t get ice cream.
I was on the floor, pounding, crying, saying, No! Where’s my twin sister? She should be in the same class!
A full-out, stereotypical kid’s tantrum kind of thing.

Shamm Petros (16:10)
The African in me is so proud of you—the four-year-old you—letting it all out.

Inua Ellams (16:16)
Yeah.

Shamm Petros (16:18)
But I know there was a lot of self-talk—messages we tell ourselves, or that have been told to us, probably around this moment. You even said it: to publicly do that in a school setting.
What is some of the messaging around that—whatever comes to you?

Inua Ellams (16:38)
You know, the sort of things that I wouldn’t say to my nephews now, but which you were told then—
You know: “Boys don’t cry.”
“You have to toughen up.”
“You have to be strong.”

I’m the only male child in my family, but being out there meant that I was representing. My father and I have the exact same name—Muhammad Ellams—and you just don’t cause a scene. Those sorts of typical things.

But also, my people—the Hausas—are the most stoic of Nigerians. There’s this general vibe: the Hausas are the calmest, the most put-together, the most regal.

There’s a story my father told me of a Hausa man who got bitten by a snake on his finger.
Rather than crying, he just went up to the nearest tree, laid his finger on it, and hacked it off with a machete—because he knew the venom would kill him.
It wasn’t even fear; it was calculation. Cool as hell.

That’s the Hausa people—they’re just very… composed.
So for me to have thrown a tantrum like that—yeah, it was a no-no.

Shamm Petros (18:04)
There’s a lot of messaging there—religion, culture, your tribe—all of it.
Can you visualize a character who spoke those messages to you, either before or after your tantrum?

Inua Ellams (18:21)
No, I can’t see anyone specific. I can’t see anyone embodied telling me all of this.
I think it was always around us—from my uncles, from my father, from my mother.
None of it was said with malice or threat—it was just the culture we grew up in.

Shamm Petros (18:48)
It was the water.
And not necessarily the sharks—as I sometimes say—it was the water.

You said you felt betrayed, but the betrayal was because of your sister?

Inua Ellams (19:01)
Yeah. I think it’s because I expected her to be my ride-or-die—to stand beside me, and we’d try to beat the world down together and force it to our will. That was the betrayal.

Shamm Petros (19:18)
Did anyone react to you—witnessing this tantrum?

Inua Ellams (19:21)
If I remember correctly, I think there were some teachers who were laughing.
Some who thought it was adorable—“Of course he wants to be beside his twin sister. Why are we even doing this?”
And some who just watched it unfold—it was a spectacle.
I think it was a mixture of all those things.

Shamm Petros (19:43)
But there’s no other prominent character in this experience for you, other than your sister?

Inua Ellams (19:49)
I can’t really see anyone else—and it’s such a long time ago. I’m forty now; it happened when I was four or five. That’s thirty-five years ago.

First we moved from Jos, in the north of Nigeria, to Lagos in the south. Then from Lagos to London, and from London to Ireland—and then back to London again.

I’ve had to say goodbye to so many people, to so many ways of being, and to people with whom I created memories. So there are a lot of things I’ve forgotten—or memories that have been overwritten or superseded by new ones.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember things in clear detail. Then randomly, I’ll meet an old friend who tells me stories about me when I was twelve, because the world didn’t change for them—I was the one who left. They have sharper memories of my youth than I do.

So with that four-year-old memory, I remember the incident—but a lot of detail is blurred.
When I close my eyes, I see feet—people standing—because I was on the ground.
I see sunlight pouring into the room.
I see my sister’s small back walking off into the distance, probably holding a teacher’s hand leading her to her classroom.

And I see adults looking down—just those fragments.

Chapter 4 — Reflection on Memory, Truth, and Creativity (21:29–27:23)

Shamm Petros (21:29)
It’s hard to evoke every detail—but also, how we understand details, right?

If you’re saying something caused you stress at a twenty—disappointment, betrayal—such a high, acute number—then quite literally, our bodies and everything about us change. Our ability to sense, our eyesight, our hearing—everything shifts.

Even when people in high-stress jobs—like police officers or medical professionals—have to make quick decisions, their adrenaline and parasympathetic nervous systems affect what they perceive.

So, what then is the truth?

For us, the truth is the here and now.

Can we be proud of the here and now—your ability to articulate, to see, and to recall what you have thus far—and let that be the full truth?
And can that help new truths emerge?

Because our bodies—if we can communicate with them—they keep unlocking things.

And there’s also the virtue of having witnesses throughout your stories. Maybe not someone who can follow you through all the goodbyes and movement, but someone who can recognize the veteran in you, and give it back to you—to reframe it for you.

All we ever ask people to do is just notice.
We just want to help people notice things more—at different times.

Your ability to share this memory—it already felt like a rainbow. But now it feels like a kaleidoscope: the details, the levels, even the self-talk.

You’ve shared so much. But I wonder—did it mean or sound different in your mother tongue, in the language you grew up hearing?

Also, I hear self-talk. I don’t know, Dwight, if you hear it too.
Sometimes for us, it’s like sayings we hear in our heads.
If I could give a hashtag to this story, it would be something like #Goodbyes or #TheViolenceOfGoodbyes.

So really, all of that is to give you grace—for what we remember and what we don’t—and to trust whatever comes out of your mouth.

Inua Ellams (23:57)
Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if being a poet helps or hinders the process, you know?

Some of it depends on the philosophy of poetry you subscribe to.
There are some who think poetry should just be an unfettered outpouring—a waterfall. Just splash that out—you’re good.

And then there are other schools of poetry that think poetry is about the refinement of emotion—finding the containment to hold all of it and then communicate it. Writing and editing a poem hones the emotion.

But sometimes I wonder—is that a repetitive emotional injury you’re doing to yourself by going over it again and again?

Or is it more like bloodletting—you’re letting it out?
Each time you go over it, you’re controlling it in order to commodify it and sell it. Because, unfortunately, we live in a capitalist world, and each poem becomes a product that can be sold in a book.

Then it gets really complicated.

I wonder if the best thing I should do is not write at all.
Or if I should write.

And then I think about the privilege of even being aware that I can do something with emotion.
I say that in comparison to men who are taught to deny emotion—let alone quantify it, dissect it, and share it.

Dwight Dunston (25:48)
Mm-hmm.

Shamm Petros (25:50)
Yeah. I’m resonating with that. I call myself a “reluctant creative.” That’s not my chosen path at all.

I feel like I purge creativity reluctantly—because I don’t even have a choice.

Something I recognize in your story, and maybe in mine too, is that you don’t have a choice either.

If you were to never write again, I don’t think that would inhibit your poetry in any way. It just spews out of you.

That’s why I love this work—because everyone is creative. Everyone’s a creator. It’s the only way we can survive.

Some of us are bound to it more than others—we’re like the seers of the world—but it’s a sweet suffering to notice, to live fully all in one place.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.
And I’m so glad others like you and Dwight exist—through that sweet suffering.

It’s sad, though—especially in this time and space, in this world—when people don’t notice. I think that’s the greatest crime right now.

People are not willing, or not able, or maybe feel like they don’t have options to interpret.

But to be able to notice, to consume, and maybe even to produce something—it’s the closest thing I can get to God.

I worry about how folks like you—and us—care for ourselves. Because, dang, the world needs us now more than ever, but what the hell is going on here?

How do we sustain ourselves?
It’s really… yeah, it’s a conundrum.

Chapter 5 — Fear, Disconnection, and the Modern World (27:23–32:54)

Inua Ellams (27:23)
Does the world want what we want to offer?
Do they have the attention span to hold it, to receive it, to engage with it, and then see what comes out of it?

As a playwright, as a poet—these are questions I ask myself about how to engage contemporary audiences in a world where poetry is competing with theatre, competing with stories and reels.

We now have growing generations of young people who are politically and socially apathetic, because there’s no space for them to engage with their emotions and connect those emotions to things.

Everything new is just a swipe away.

My fear is that we are creating a future where we are completely disconnected from the natural world, from the feeling world, and from the sensorial world.

Shamm Petros (28:25)
Mm-hmm.

Dwight Dunston (28:28)
If you had to scale that fear, Inua—on a scale from one to ten—where would you put it?

Inua Ellams (28:35)
If I dwell in it, it’s big for me. Easily a ten.

And I think the only reason it isn’t always a ten is because I’m still creating work—and I believe in my work. I think my work is the emotional bridge to these audiences.

Because I’m still focused on the work, I assume it will be successful—because I need that belief to keep creating.

Dwight Dunston (28:42)
Mm-hmm.

Shamm Petros (29:05)
Mm-hmm.

Inua Ellams (29:08)
But if I zoom out and look at what’s more likely to happen, I think I will ultimately fail.

And I say that because I don’t control social media.
I have no power to just flip a switch and turn off Instagram and TikTok and ask the world to sit with their emotions, to take a sheet of paper, doodle, draw, and sink deeper.

Because if we can’t do that, then everything we’re doing—even these podcasts, even these conversations—if people can’t sit and listen to them, we’re throwing a coin into a bottomless well.

Dwight Dunston (29:59)
There’s some heat here that I want us to stay with—as we connect this powerful story you told, this first experience of difference, to what you’re feeling now—being in touch with the emotions as you have been in this podcast.

Inua Ellams (30:14)
In the same way I felt the world had pulled me away from my twin sister and I’d been abandoned by her, I feel like the world is pulling us away from each other—and we are being abandoned by each other because of it.

It feels like there’s nothing we can do to stop it. The forces are too great, too complicated.

Shamm Petros (30:37)
We’d have a tantrum.

Yeah—what would a tantrum for us look like now? Legitimately.

Dwight Dunston (30:42)
And the tantrum being about—you said fear is at a ten. Does it live in that same heart space as your earlier feelings?

Or do you feel that fear, when you look out at our current culture, in a different way? Does it live somewhere else?

Inua Ellams (30:58)
I think I intellectualize it. Maybe it sits a little bit above the heart space—but once the intellect fades and it drops into the heart, it’s bottomless.

The fear is overwhelming—because it affects everything that I do.

I’m an artist. Being an artist is built on the assumption of emotional connection.

If I begin to assume that there can never be an emotional connection, then there’s no point in working. I might as well sit in a room and do nothing.

So it’s huge for me.

It’s huge for me.

And I say this knowing that I don’t live in a country like America, which has a large Black population—where it’s at least possible to assume there will be an audience for my work.

Here in the UK, the Black population is three percent.

If I leave and go to Europe—which is my next-door neighbor, the closest other market for my work—it’s even smaller.

If I can’t connect with my audience here—because theatres only put on my work if they think Black people will buy tickets—and because they don’t believe in Black audiences, they don’t—then if they won’t put on my work, and Europe won’t, then I’m screwed.

This has become an existential threat—and it’s become more real since Trump came into power.

Because once he began talking about burning DEI bridges and all of that, the UK followed suit. We’re still so tied to the U.S. economy—in arts, commerce, and finance.

The pebbles he drops into America become waves that wash through your communities—but they become tsunamis over here.

And I’m just watching it come in, and there’s nothing I can do.

Right? Yeah.

Shamm Petros (32:54)
Well, brother—can I make some observations?

Dwight, I don’t know if you’ve got some you want to chime in with, but I’m really just trying to be a fly on the wall.

On so many fronts, I could have that very technical conversation with you, right?

But a preamble to that was—you said, “I feel it in my head first. I intellectualize it.”
And then we get the factual descriptions.

There are extremes in your language: “There’s nothing I can do,” “It’s a bottomless pit.”

That’s just an observation.

And I want to take us back to the memory, in a way.

If you were to go back to that age—four years old—discovering your twin sister is moving classes and you’ll no longer be with her in that space, you’re having this tantrum…

If you could go back and redo that moment, would you do anything differently?

You could change how you behaved. You could add characters to the scene if you want.

But reacting to that moment—if you got a redo—would you redo it in any different way?

Chapter 6 — Revisiting the Past and the Purpose of Pain (32:54–37:25)

Dwight Dunston (34:04)
And maybe the invitation is—as much as you can—be down in your heart space with what comes.
It might take a few breaths, knowing that fear was living up here at eight or nine, and when it drops down, it feels bottomless.

What would some breaths into a response that comes from that heart space be?

Shamm Petros (34:27)
Maybe touch your heart—or your shirt.

Inua Ellams (34:31)
I’m going to walk you through the thoughts that I had, which is why I was unable to arrive at any sort of clear answer.

I think that traumatic incident prepared me for the journeys I had to take with my family—to become an immigrant, to become displaced, and to live in a world where nothing is certain and everything can be ripped away from me.

I think I’ve been able to survive because of my traumas.

The answer to whether I would change anything is: I would only repair that image if I knew I wouldn’t have been forced to leave the country.

If Nigeria could have remained my cocoon, I would have been safe there.

I wouldn’t have experienced what it meant to be globally displaced. I wouldn’t have experienced Islamophobia. I wouldn’t have experienced migration trauma.

I was on holiday with my girlfriend last year when, in the UK, there were riots across the country—people burning hotels that housed immigrants.

I’ve stayed in a hotel as an immigrant when I didn’t know where to live.

I was triggered. I had to write something to share it.

Even though I was on holiday with my girlfriend, I knew what it meant to be in that space—to suddenly be without a comfort zone, to look out your window and see people standing outside with torches, trying to burn the building you’re in.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that the memory prepared me for this.

It’s become complex and bigger, but something about not being able to trust the world—even the people you love, because the world might tear them away—made me able to carry on doing this work and writing stories about immigrants and migrants.

There are plays I’ve been writing about displaced people. I’ve been doing this work for seven years, trying to get this play on stage.

And all that’s happened is—the world has become more unsafe for immigrants.

One of the reasons I can still do this work is because of those memories—like that one.

Would I take away my trauma?

The answer is: if taking it away would make me a less emotionally sturdy person, then absolutely not—because I need to be here now.

So I guess the answer would be no.

But if I were to stay in Nigeria, then I would take it away—because I’d be in a world where everyone looks and sounds and talks like me.

Ignorance would be the bliss I’ve missed since leaving.

Shamm Petros (37:22)
Oof. Mm.

Inua Ellams (37:25)
Yeah.

Chapter 7 — Integration, Breath, and Closing Reflections (37:25–42:11)

Dwight Dunston (37:30)
I know I need a breath. So this is a good time for our listeners to also take another one of those box breaths—for our guest, Inua; for Shamm; for all the things that came up for you.

We know this happens in our work with stories. Once people start to tell their stories, we feel our connection to our own stories. It gives us courage, it gives us insight, but it also gives us the hardships—the tragedies—along with the triumphs of our own stories.

So that might be happening for our listeners. It’s happening in our space right now.

As is our custom, we’re going to take a breath in.

Inua Ellams (38:13)
Hold.

Dwight Dunston (38:16)
Out.

Let’s do that one more time.
Breath in.

Hold.

Breath out.

Hold.

And Inua—your generosity with your story and your experience, and even the insight to know the redo—right? “I wouldn’t do it differently, knowing how it prepared me for the life I’m living today.”

And if there was any shift you would make, it would be to be there—to be still with family, with culture and language, in a way that shielded you from what has become your reality in so many ways.

That tension—we talk a lot about that in our work. What it means to come to new understandings, new depths of ourselves and our stories—that there will be tension.

There might even be more that we’re asked to sit with and hold that wasn’t there before, or that we hadn’t gotten the chance to be with.

And we know, in our research and through Dr. Stevenson’s work, even the ability to sit with and to name our experiences—the feelings that come up, the ways they live in our bodies, the images, the self-talk—you really modeled that beautifully. It’s practice.

As we move toward the close, we started with your first story—your first story of difference.

If you could give that story a title—the headline of The Inua Times, the Sunday edition—what would it be?

Shamm Petros (40:05)
The Sunday edition.

Inua Ellams (40:20)
I was thinking The First Edge.
Or maybe The First Cliff Face.

Something to hint at the drop of emotion—at the feeling of the world being pulled from under you. So maybe The First Edge. Something like that.

Dwight Dunston (40:38)
The First Edge.

There are even new edges to that story now—edges you’re feeling now that you didn’t feel at the beginning.

As Shamm said, we have a little disclaimer: we don’t promise the stress about the story will go down. But we know there’s healing on the other side—in knowing more of who we are and who we want to become.

Shamm Petros (40:57)
Or who we’ve always been, you know?

Dwight Dunston (40:59)
Who we’ve always been.

Whatever it is, we’re grateful that you brought what you brought to us.

And you know, there are so many folks—twins, family, community, your girlfriend—who also want to be in that story with you as you continue to be with it, to be with that first edge.

Inua Ellams (41:17)
Thank you so much for asking, and for making space for all of that. I haven’t thought about it so deeply in a long time.
Thank you for your searching questions.

Shamm Petros (41:28)
Yeah—the power of our imagination in creating. Maybe it’s just sitting and noticing your body. Thank you for doing that. Deeply appreciate it.

Dwight Dunston (41:37)
Maybe we can all take a closing breath in.

(Exhale.)

An invitation to keep drinking water, hydrating, nourishing—whatever you need—as you turn away from this computer, everybody.

Thank you so much for that. That was so generous and so lovely.

Inua Ellams (41:59)
Thank you, guys.

Dwight Dunston (42:11)
Thank you again, Inua, for your courageous storytelling—so moving, so insightful, tender, heartbreaking, and heart-opening.

And for our listeners, we want to close out with one more breath together. Wherever you are, we invite you to inhale—and exhale.

This work got emotional—it is emotional.
In many ways, that’s our hope and goal: that we get to feel into these emotions in a collective way, in a thoughtful way, in a strategic way—and use the data of our emotions to craft our next stories.

Thank you so much for tuning in to Stories That Stay: How Stories of Identity Shape Us.

This podcast is a project of Lion’s Story. To learn more about Lion’s Story and our work, visit lionsstory.org.

This episode was produced and edited by Peterson Toscano.

Music during our mindful moment comes from Dwight Dunston (yours truly). Other music comes from EpidemicSound.com.

For our listeners—know that we are here to help you build real courage, practical language, and skills to navigate discomfort with clarity and compassion, starting with yourself.

If you found value in today’s episode, please consider leaving a review, subscribing, or sharing this with someone who needs it.

Your support helps us grow our healing community with practical learning resources and training opportunities for individuals and communities that need these tools and skills.

Until next time—keep listening, keep learning, and keep telling your story.

And remember, you are your most important listener.