This Life-Changing Conversation Will Help You Make Peace With Who You Are

Mon Rovîa (00:00:06):

Life is full of suffering, but it doesn't take away from you belonging in it. Talking about my stories and the music, all I do it for is for you to know that your time here is meant crooked the road,

Mel Robbins (00:00:20):

His name is Mon Rovîa. You and I are going to be swept away not only by his story, but by his humility, his compassion, and the message that he is here to tell you today. It's a message that's going to leave you feeling loved, empowered, and clear man's life story sounds like a movie, and every bit of it is true. How do you process the survivor guilt?

Mon Rovîa (00:00:45):

Move from a place of blame to a place of, I think claiming this opportunity. It was a gift. If you stop now, you'll never know the groups of people that are waiting to bring you into that fold or the lives that you're going to impact in this life on this journey. And so I believe that you're meant to be here, and I hope you continue.

Mel Robbins (00:01:11):

I'm so proud of you.

Mon Rovîa (00:01:13):

Thank you.

Mel Robbins (00:01:14):

I don't know why I'm going to cry, but I'm so proud of you. Hey, it's friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am on the edge of my seat. I am so excited for our conversation today. I'm excited that you're here. It is always such an honor to spend this time together, but today, the fact that I get to meet somebody that I've admired at the same moment you get to meet them, that is just a thrill. And if you're new to the podcast, I wanted to personally take a moment and welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. I'm so glad that you're here with me right now. And because you made the time to listen to this particular episode today, here's what I know about you. First of all, I know that you value your time, so it means a lot to me that you made the decision to hit play and you're going to be so happy that you did because something magical is about to happen.

(00:02:11):

And if you're listening right now because someone shared this conversation with you, it's because I was right. Something magical did happen in this episode and they wanted you to experience it too. And so does my incredible guest today, Mon Rovîa Mon Rovîa is a phenomenon, a one of a kind musician from Tennessee who has carved out time from a busy touring schedule to be here for this special conversation. You and I are going to be swept away not only by his story, but by his humility, his compassion, and the message that he is here to tell you today. It's a message that's going to leave you feeling loved, empowered, and clear's. Life story sounds like a movie, and every of it is true. Mon grew up carrying a history and feelings that he couldn't fully explain until he found music. And now his music is finding people all over the world.

(00:03:11):

I mean, just look at his TikTok. His videos have 17 million likes and a bunch of them, they're from me. And what he's creating doesn't just cross genres. It crosses continents, generations, and life experiences. Man blends his Afro Appalachian roots with raw personal storytelling, a sound so distinct, so grounding and folksy singer songwriter. It earned him a spot on Spotify's 2024 Juniper artist to watch list. He now reaches over 1.5 million monthly listeners on the platform, proof that his voice is resonating way beyond the stage and a Mon Rovîa concert that is something to behold. He's sold out every headline show he's ever played. He's taken the stage of Bonnaroo Austin City Limits and the legendary Newport Folk Festival This year. This rising star is going global with a sold out European tour that he just completed, and us appearances at major festivals, including Boston calling and a return to Newport. I mean, this guy is a rising star, but more importantly, there is so much wisdom not only in his music, but in his life story and what he wants to share with you today that you can take whatever has happened to you in the past and make something beautiful out of it. So please help me welcome Mon Rovîa to the Mel Robbins podcast. Mon Rovîa, I am so excited to meet you in person. Thank you for jumping on a plane. Thank you for being here. Congratulations on all your success. I'm so excited to talk to you.

Mon Rovîa (00:04:48):

Oh, it's a complete honor, and yeah, I'm really just stoked to be in this place with you right now. So thank you so much for giving me space to tell my story.

Mel Robbins (00:04:59):

I would love to start by having you speak to the person who is with us right now. This is somebody who doesn't have a lot of time, but they have hit play. They're making the time to learn from your story, to learn from your wisdom. What might they experience that could be different about their life if they truly take to heart all of the wisdom and lessons that you're about to teach us from your own life journey?

Mon Rovîa (00:05:27):

Yeah, I think something that I hope for, just that one person is to know that life is full of suffering, but it doesn't take away from you belonging in it that you have such an amazing part to play in the scheme of things. So yeah, I mean, talking about my stories and the music, all I do it for is for you to know that your time here is meant.

Mel Robbins (00:05:54):

How do you cultivate that belief? And I'm sure we're going to get into it. If you're in a place in your life where you are really suffering, how do you get yourself to believe that you're meant to be here and that there's something bigger for you?

Mon Rovîa (00:06:11):

I think it comes back to memory, and if you can think of your life and the things you've already come through and you're still standing regardless if you're on the floor, you're still here present with us, and memory is an important part of the art of continuation. Knowing that you've come through things already and believing that you will again until you get to that place where maybe you're more fulfilled and strengthened is the ways I've kept myself going forward.

Mel Robbins (00:06:42):

For somebody who is just meeting you for the first time, I was introduced to you through a very, very dear friend of mine. I have been following you online for 18 months. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. Your music does feel like waking up from a dream. It immediately makes my shoulders drop. I'm so excited to see you exploding in terms of popularity and the recognition for your music. But for the person who hasn't heard you sing, has not heard your music, does not know your story, how would you describe the music that you create and the kind of artistry that you're putting into the world?

Mon Rovîa (00:07:26):

Yeah, the music I create, I think for one is peaceful. When when that song comes on, my hope for you is to have you lose anxiety, for you to be able to sink in and think about, I think the importance of one yourself. And I hope my music takes people into that realm and that they can then, I would say, understand just how important they are. So that's kind of the main purpose of the music. Yeah.

Mel Robbins (00:08:01):

Did you always know you wanted to be a musician?

Mon Rovîa (00:08:05):

No. No, not at all. Yeah, I think I had this gift of making music, but I was a very shy person. I was really quiet growing up. I mean, I've come from a lot. I had gone through a lot of things at a young age already, and so to assimilate as well in America, I think a lot of my life I was watchful trying to see what my place was and how to act as in African American in a white household in more of a middle class space, private school. So a lot of my life was watchful. I wanted to play the part well, and I think that was something that just became what I was early on.

Mel Robbins (00:08:44):

I love that word watchful. It's so relatable because regardless of where you come from or who you are or what family you're in, I think we've all had those experiences where we enter a space or we enter a group of people or we enter a chapter of our life and we say, I'm not sure I belong, or I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. And this idea of stepping back and watching, wow, I really get that about you. And I can think of moments in my life where I felt that way too. And I think it's something that we do when we also feel lost. And it's probably a part of how you figure out how to find your way and find yourself.

Mon Rovîa (00:09:28):

Yeah. And it also protects you from, at the time, from saying things maybe that you shouldn't say or maybe social cues that you don't understand coming from different places or things like this. So it was definitely a protection mechanism for me as well.

Mel Robbins (00:09:42):

You know you mentioned that one of the things that you hope people feel is peace when they listen to your music.

Mon Rovîa (00:09:48):

Yeah.

Mel Robbins (00:09:48):

But one of the big themes that you have is you talk a lot about healing. In fact, the tour that you're on right now heal with others, and I've also seen you use the quote Healing out loud, and your mission to me is clearly more than just making music and going on tour, and that stuff is all incredible. But can you talk a little bit more about why healing with others and the sense of creating and cultivating peace within yourself is such an important thing for you?

Mon Rovîa (00:10:21):

Yeah, it's important to me because I suffered a lot alone, even being surrounded by a lot of people, I had that feeling, and that's not just known to me. There's people like that all the time. You work big jobs, you're in a place where you're surrounding people, but you still go home and you're like, wow, no one understands me or what I'm going through. And music for me was that journal, that outlet where I could be honest with my feelings. And when I kind of started to do music a little bit more full time, I saw that how this could relate to other people as well. And so I think the mission was birthed from one be seeing how successful it was on myself trying to form a community that way. So it's been amazing just to see it do what it's done.

Mel Robbins (00:11:15):

You and I are about to get into your remarkable life story, and you're young. I mean, I'm like a grandma compared to,

Mon Rovîa (00:11:23):

no, you're not. Stop. Time is time. What is time?

Mel Robbins (00:11:26):

What is time? But you literally, when I think about the extraordinary number of experiences ranging from war to adoption, to moving to another country, to now finding yourself on stages around the world and being laser focused on this message of peace. And what does it say to you that your music and your story is resonating with millions of people around the world?

Mon Rovîa (00:12:03):

Well, I think it's a needed thing. And I don't think enough people are sinking into that space where you give someone the space to really have quiet and an intimate time with themselves. The world is fast moving, it's loud, and that's why having the ukulele, or we didn't even have drums for a while, and a lot of my sets right, people were still into just the sound and the experience and the words and the storytelling, and it brought them back to situations and moments in their own life where they can really look at it clearly, look at the mirror, one that we all try to run away from all the time. And so it says a lot to me. It says that it's important, the work I'm doing, and I just hope to continue in it as best I can.

Mel Robbins (00:12:52):

Well, there's no doubt you're going to.

Mon Rovîa (00:12:54):

Well, yeah, it's hard. It's not easy.

Mel Robbins (00:12:56):

What's hard about it?

Mon Rovîa (00:12:59):

I think it's so much easier to pour and pour things that are detrimental, like anger and selfishness and sink that into the earth Instead, the outpouring of love is hard and the outpouring of grace and forgiveness, it doesn't come easily to us as humans. And so I think for me personally, as the artist, it can weigh on you at times the giving of it if you don't have a place to be refilled. And so that's also why community is so important. It goes back to that because to do the work that must be done for good, you have to have also that mooring of people that you know can go back and get replenished to go again.

Mel Robbins (00:13:50):

When I first heard you, somebody sent me your Instagram account and I hit play on one of your songs, and I'm like, who is this guy? This is, I hate to even be refer. I'm like, is this Cat Stevens or is this Yusef Nado? What is happening here? That's sweet. And you have this incredible, it's like you defy the category that people want to put you in. You call yourself in terms of the music, I've heard it called Appalachia folk.

Mon Rovîa (00:14:28):

Yeah, Afro Appalachian.

Mel Robbins (00:14:30):

What does that mean?

Mon Rovîa (00:14:31):

I mean, I live in Appalachia, so that tail end down in Tennessee, and I'm from West Africa, Liberia, capital city, Mon Rovîa, and there's a lot of history in Appalachia with the slaves that came over, the Irish, the Scots, and the mountains writing these songs together, all these things mixing together in culture. And I didn't even know a lot of this living in Tennessee, to be honest. I learned this history as people started to say things like you like, oh, you're cats, you're this. I didn't know the lore of the history of folk and everything like this, but in the space of being in Tennessee and seeing the correlation of how this is history, I dunno, it is been a powerful thing to have it revealed to me this way because I wasn't trying to be, I don't think anything with Ara Appalachia or I just made music that I thought would help me on the journey of my life. Yeah.

Mon Rovîa (00:15:49):

Absolutely. So my mom, she's a working woman, and so she's had a couple kids along the way. A lot of them passed away during the war. So me, my brother Timothy, my sister Tik bla, who we call Jacqueline, because the other name's just super hard to say, us three, we lived and she kept us and raised us as best she could. She passed away in childbirth with our other brother. And so it was just my grandmother taking care of us at this time. And it was hard during the war, there was nothing. And this missionary family that had been working in Mon Rovîa had been doing things in the community, and one of my aunts decided to go and literally just bring me to them. There was no, I mean, it could have been my sister or it could have my other brother that was chosen, but she picked me up and said, you're going to go live with this family.

(00:16:45):

So from that day on, I lived with them just in Liberia, and we lived through the war before we went back to the States for a little bit. And I don't think when I became older, I realized how much it did to my mind. I think being pulled from your land, the language similarity of people didn't have the words for it then. No, I didn't speak. I was quiet for a long time. Yeah, my adopted family tells me this all the time. They're like, yeah, you didn't say a word to us. We thought something was wrong with you. I was like, yeah, probably there was something wrong with me. I didn't know who you were. These were these white people.

Mel Robbins (00:17:30):

Did you have a sense when you said goodbye to your grandmother that

Mon Rovîa (00:17:33):

No, I didn't know it was goodbye, I don't think,

Mel Robbins (00:17:36):

Have you seen your brothers and sisters since this?

Mon Rovîa (00:17:39):

Man such a tale to get to that, but recently I did make contact with my sister after a long time of really not paying attention to anything about it. So it's been a very hard, very hard thing to come to terms with.

Mel Robbins (00:18:02):

I would imagine.

Mon Rovîa (00:18:03):

Yeah.

Mel Robbins (00:18:04):

And I'm sure you'll continue to come to terms with it for your whole life. I think that's how something that dramatic actually works.

Mon Rovîa (00:18:12):

Yeah. It is something that I wasn't ready for most of my life to look at as I lived the American experience. I think it's so easy to feel ashamed of where you're from, even if it's you had no parts of play in it. So I try to just bury a lot of those things and forget.

Mel Robbins (00:18:41):

And how is that working?

Mon Rovîa (00:18:45):

The fast is always in the undertow and the choices that you make. And it never left until I looked at it and was ready to accept the truth.

Mel Robbins (00:18:55):

What do you remember about what your life was like before this happened? Being a kid growing up in the middle of this really violent war in Liberia, because in case the person listening doesn't understand, one of the things that was happening is they were taking young boys like you and turning them into soldiers.

Mon Rovîa (00:19:16):

Yeah, yeah. My two brothers Saturday and Emmanuel, they fought in the war ages five to 10. And I grew up, I was born in the midst of the fighting already, so all I would've known is chaos and violence. But before that, Liberia was a very beautiful place. I mean some of the friendliest people, and there was a lot of good going on. There was a dictator that came in bringing child soldiers from neighboring countries into Liberia, overthrowing the government, and from there kind of descending the country into chaos. It destroyed everything. I mean, even to this day, Liberia is still trying to recover, but there's no law. And you're obeying five-year-olds with AKs and RPGs telling you, get on the ground, will take your sister, and you have to listen. It's actually kind of insane to wrap your head around that. That's possible.

Mon Rovîa (00:20:58):

Yeah, no, that's a really good question. I mean, for me, and I can only say it from I think from my own standpoint, but I would tell you that there's so much more, I would say beyond, beyond the past. And you can't let the past hold you and take you out of the world that you are meant to be a part of. And it did that to me for a very long time. And I sat and wallowed wilting, just blaming myself for a lot of things. And it's such an easy thing to do as Mel said. But I hope the beauty of knowing that life is long and every step leads you somewhere beyond the things that want to capture you and take you back. And the past is this, a lot to all of us. And I would just hope that you always make it up your hills and around your corners. You just never know when good comes, but it takes continuing,

Mel Robbins (00:22:20):

Continuing. What does that word mean to you?

Mon Rovîa (00:22:27):

That word to me, I mean, I think that's my whole life has been that word actually. It means finding another day for me, there was so many times I wanted to quit and lay down and say, yeah, yeah, I can't do this. I can't overcome the survivor's guilt. I can't overcome the truth of the feelings I have with my mother and things like this. And I would tell myself through the gray, find another day, another day to quit, and it helped me to make it through. Each day I'd be like, not today, I'll find another day. And though I continued again, find another day, I continued again until as choices come, I started to make better ones. I started to see how far I had gone from my suffering into the day, into this beautiful experience of life into where I am now. And it wouldn't have happened if I didn't keep finding another day to do it.

Mel Robbins (00:23:40):

I want to make sure that the person listening really gets that. Because when you first said it, I didn't quite get it. And then I saw the genius in it. And so let me try to unpack this and play this back to you to see if I'm interpreting this the right way. Okay?

Mon Rovîa (00:23:54):

Yeah, sure.

Mel Robbins (00:23:55):

So when you said find another day, right? So nobody would blame you by the way, if you're like, this is all just too much. I just can't handle this anymore. The genius in what you did to coach yourself through that, I want to make sure that the person listening really gets is when you said find another day. If Mel Robbins said it, he would have this tinge of positivity. You actually had this genius thread through it, which nope, nope. I'm going to find another day to quit. Meaning today's not the day I quit, but I'm giving myself permission to quit on another day if I want to. And there's so much truth and acknowledgement of how difficult the experience was, and maybe some days still is to reconcile everything that's happened to you.

Mon Rovîa (00:24:51):

It's true.

Mel Robbins (00:24:52):

And to give yourself permission to feel what you need to feel. But when you say, not today, I'm going to find another day to quit, but today is not the day I quit.

Mon Rovîa (00:25:03):

Yeah. Today is not the day.

Mel Robbins (00:25:04):

Right?

Mon Rovîa (00:25:05):

Yeah, absolutely.

Mel Robbins (00:25:06):

There's something in the brutal honesty of that that I think makes it profoundly powerful.

Mel Robbins (00:26:03):

I want to be very clear to repeat back something that I heard, which is I don't hear you blaming your parents that adopted you. In fact, you have talked about the fact that this was an incredible gift. What I hear is you acknowledging the truth about how complicated an experience it can be for people who are being adopted because you have this huge range of emotions. You feel grateful for the fact that somebody has taken you into their family, but you also feel confusion, confusion as to whether or not you were wanted by your family. And if you were the only one adopted and you have siblings that are still somewhere else, you wonder why was it you? And then on top of that, I would imagine that if you're coming from another country that adds a whole host of other feelings that you may have about whether or not you belong, none of which is the fault of the adoptive parents. And I'm sure if you're listening now and you've either been adopted or you're an adoptive parent, you know that this is true, but perhaps you don't quite know how to create a space for all of those complicated feelings to be okay and to be talked about without somebody feeling bad. I think that's what you're saying.

Mon Rovîa (00:27:23):

Yeah. There's so many feelings wrapped up in it. One, you watch your siblings, you see where they get certain traits from. And again, I have characteristics of mine do because I was young, so I do have things, characteristics of my dad, my adopted dad, adopted mom. But you watch and see the gate of their walk or a certain smile that comes across their face that looks like their mom or dad. And you wonder, you start to wonder, can I have the song that I wrote about it called Whose Face Am I? And you start to wonder whose face am I? What is my history? What is my story? I just think for anybody that adopts, yes, it's a beautiful experience and you're doing an amazing work giving kids, I think an opportunity to live and also find themselves. But I hope that as well, you never let them go through without telling them. I think the truth of their starting point, even if it's a hard story, and there's something that will give them a lot of, I think, identity in hearing where they've come from, regardless of how hard it is.

Mel Robbins (00:28:35):

Is that something that was kept from you for a while?

Mon Rovîa (00:28:37):

I wouldn't say, I dunno. Kept is interesting. I don't know if it was kept really, but we didn't really talk about it. And so when I tell you how I reached my sister and I have now come back together, I was in a place to ask a lot of different things about my story. And honestly, that's kind of healed me the most throughout my entire time.

Mel Robbins (00:29:02):

What were some of the most surprising or reassuring things that you learned about your story that helped you heal?

Mon Rovîa (00:29:10):

Well, I learned a lot about my mother. And I think the root of my suffering, which is an important piece, is it always been around her and not knowing her and not knowing the feelings that maybe she had or if I had come into this world based on love or based on other things. And so it was tough because I found out some other things about just what she had to do during the war to survive. And some of those things were really heavy for me to hear, but I also found out in the middle of that that she loved me very much. She decided to keep us think about the sacrifice of a woman deciding to have a child in war, being like, I am going to try to take care of them in this experience. It made me feel very, very loved.

Mel Robbins (00:30:10):

Can I ask you a really personal question? And we can edit this out, but I'm just curious about this. So as part of your concern that you were conceived because of sexual violence that was happening during the war?

Mon Rovîa (00:30:22):

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And actually that doesn't bother me one bit. It's the truth of the matter. And that was something as a kid that I was always afraid to ask to wonder. I didn't want to wonder about that.

Mel Robbins (00:30:39):

Is that what happened?

Mon Rovîa (00:30:41):

Yeah. Yeah. And so growing up, I mean, people will say many things and say maybe I was a bastard and things like this. I thought about this at a young age. I was already pretty in tune about just a lot of the world. So I wondered a lot and maybe very, I felt very alone

(00:31:04):

Thinking about this. And I remember speaking to my sister, and I'll tell you the story. I was driving with my manager, two, my managers coming from a tour and I'm speaking to my sister, listening. I have my headphones in. She's telling me this story. And I was like, so tell me about my mom. And she says, oh, her mom, she was so beautiful, kind, hilarious. She remember she's older than me, so she remembers a lot more. And I was like, well, so what about my dad? And she tells a story of how things went down, and I remember I sat in the back and I just wept. Yeah, I cried. Those tears that I had held in for a very long time when it came to that part of my story faced it, accepted it that from violence, still beautiful things can come. And I think that is what brought me a lot of peace there. The love afterwards I think meant that she kept me meant the most ever. So I mean, I wouldn't be here without that.

Mel Robbins (00:32:24):

What's your mother's name?

Mon Rovîa (00:32:25):

Her name is Maria. Yeah, man,

Mel Robbins (00:32:31):

Thank you for sharing that.

Mon Rovîa (00:32:32):

Absolutely. Yeah.

Mel Robbins (00:32:33):

Where your manager's like, dude, what's going on back there? The hell's going on.

Mon Rovîa (00:32:39):

Yeah.

Mel Robbins (00:32:39):

You just sold out that show. Why are you bawling like a baby back there?

Mon Rovîa (00:32:43):

They were, man. I remember they looked back and they gave me peace though. They looked back and they just kept forward. I don't think they knew. They just let me, but they let me have that space to just pour out things that I needed to. And they didn't really ask. It was awesome. They just let me do it and we went on. There was no weirdness about it. And that's a beautiful thing, man. Crying is super important in life.

Mel Robbins (00:33:04):

Well, that's one of the most important things to point out, that you gave yourself the space.

Mon Rovîa (00:33:08):

Yes. Yeah.

Mel Robbins (00:33:09):

I would love to have you, since you seem to have made peace with the truth about how you were conceived and the circumstances that you were born into, and you have really been able to tell a different story about the love that Maria had in choosing to keep you and love you and cherish you. And a lot of people don't do that.

Mon Rovîa (00:34:12):

I think finding a place where you feel safe is the number one step into one, possibly accepting the truth or coming to terms with it. And for me, music was the safe space. So I would tell that person, if you have somewhere where the world is quiet, where you can look at it clearly and take the time, give yourself that time. Because it wasn't something that I did when I was 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. I mean, no, this was years. And I think accepting that when it comes, it will come, but you also have to create the spaces that are not in the loudness of the world for you to be able to sit still and really look at the truth. So whatever that space is for them, that I think there is where acceptance will be found.

Mel Robbins (00:35:20):

Do you remember the first time you felt safe?

Mon Rovîa (00:35:23):

First time I felt safe. It's an interesting question because I was safe, but I remember still dreams followed me. I mean most of my life, even until now, I have dreams of being chased by child soldiers or guns to my head and things like this. So safety in my mind is something that I still search for. But bodily safety, I mean, when I left Liberia, I think that was when I was like, okay, yeah, I don't think anything's really going to happen to me here.

Mel Robbins (00:35:55):

Well, you got the question, right? Because the question wasn't about whether or not you were safe because I think there's a sense for all of us that we can busy ourselves and we can know that we are okay,

(00:36:07):

But as we are out running or denying or not allowing ourselves to process what we need to process or to be honest about the things that we're struggling with, we don't feel safe. And I read that since you weren't thinking, okay, I'm just going to write music about my pain and that's what I'm going to do with my life. And that's what you were literally seeking space to be able to process the experiences of your life. And I read that you started journaling and that became the early entry point for you to start writing music. Can you talk about the power of journaling and how it helped you?

Mon Rovîa (00:36:43):

Yeah, I could never say, I wouldn't say I was the best speaker in my family. I had a hard time always trying to convey what I wanted to say to my parents or mainly my parents. I remember when I fell in love with just words when I started to write, and it was just a place where it could be me. It was just me and me. That was the first safe space in the journaling. And I didn't intend to really have that go into song to be honest. But kind of as time went on, I was able to turn a lot of my writings and things into melodic kind of flows and things like this, and it became that way. And now as I am older and things like that, that's kind of how I write my lyrics is most of the time it starts with me thinking about things that I have a hard time saying or things I think about the world and I'm writing them down and then they come back to me weeks, months, years later into a song kind of just, yeah. And that's the downloading from the source. I don't think about it, but when it presents itself again and reappears these lyrics and then it just turns into something that can help another person.

Mel Robbins (00:38:09):

One thing I want to validate, because I noticed you said I wasn't the best speaker, and I think for me, and the person that's with us right now are like, no, you're a pretty good speaker. Actually. I think the accurate thing, and I'm just going to say this and you tell me if this feels right to you, is you didn't feel safe saying what you needed to say.

Mon Rovîa (00:38:37):

That is accurate.

Mel Robbins (00:38:38):

And it goes back to that sense of being a watcher in life.

Mon Rovîa (00:38:42):

Yes.

Mel Robbins (00:38:43):

That I think we've all had an experience where we're stepping back and we're in a mode of protecting and not wanting to hurt anybody, not wanting to say the wrong thing. And I say that because I look at the various things that people write in about that listen from around the world. And maybe as you're listening, you've said yourself, I'm not really good at communicating. I'm not really the best speaker.

Mon Rovîa (00:39:07):

Yeah, true.

Mel Robbins (00:39:08):

I would have you ask yourself, is that it? Or are you more concerned about making sure everyone around you is not upset or confronted by what you actually are feeling and want to say? And so I love this takeaway that journaling became a space that you created for yourself.

Mon Rovîa (00:39:42):

It became something I thought I deserved. And so in that I accepted that exact thing that I'm meant to suffer and a lot of people do that. I for one, easily did that. When it came to anything that I went through, I said, I deserve this because I would look at my life and the choices I made, and it all goes back to Liberia for me because I wanted to forget them. I wanted to pay them no mind to not even respect the lives of the people lost there. I just wanted to be America. I just wanted to go to college, go to play. My sports, have all these things in life. And when I was in college, it came to a head. My mind literally shattered.

(00:40:39):

I was so depressed and had no course. And so I said, you know what? I'm I'll just suffer. This is my penance. Because of all the time I wasted in America not utilizing the gift of having an opportunity to do something, I put everything of that on myself, my mother dying. I put that maybe if Timothy or my sister Jacqueline were here, maybe one of them would've been a doctor to do something even more useful, maybe one of them would've done something that where they could give so much back to Liberia or whatever. I didn't think of anything, became American happy and did my thing. And when it came, and when I realized this, when I was older looking back, I said, wow, I wasted a lot of time doing absolutely nothing for what my story deserves.

Mel Robbins (00:41:41):

And I know the person listening either knows somebody like this or they are that person, I deserve bad things.

Mon Rovîa (00:41:48):

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Mel Robbins (00:41:49):

Wow. How did you turn this around? Talk to the person that's with us and just share a little bit with what was the epiphany? How did you turn this around and go, wait a minute, I don't have to do life this way.

Mon Rovîa (00:42:03):

Yeah. I mean, I was on Lookout Mountain, Georgia. I was up there with some roommates and I was doing drugs, drinking like crazy, couldn't pay my rent, doing odd jobs and just not caring about anything. Everything that I had went to alcohol. And I woke up one morning knowing that I wasn't going to be able to make my rent anything like this. I was borrowing money from all my dad's, Fred's people that he'd know. I was texting them, can I have somebody just to pay my rent? But it was always going back to other things. And of course it got back to him one day and he calls me up, my father and he's son, I want you to come to. And he'd asked me times before, and this brings me back to just speaking to that person. There are people in your life that have stayed,

(00:42:59):

Whether you see it or not or want to see it, there are those that have stayed and they're the ones that have been there for you in the dark night, have whispered to you. Don't say that about yourself. No, no, you don't deserve that. And when you fall in love with your suffering is when you decide not to hear those people anymore.

(00:43:19):

And so for some reason, I was at such a low point in my life, I remember I said, I have nothing else. And so I took this hand that was extended from my father and I left Tennessee. I said, dad, I have nothing else. I'll come. I don't know what this is going to do. I dunno. So I went to California and all I did was build this house with my father, me and him. He was building the house in Dana Point, California. And some days he would leave and go to the church and I would just be home by myself for hours, tearing down the house, taking out the nails, breaking down walls. And that alone time, it's what healed me. I saw the correlation of the destruction of this home to rebuild something new. And I thought, can I do the same thing to myself? And it was just a powerful thing to me to be working with my hands on this house and making it beautiful at the same time, working on inward things. But I would say to the listener, notice the hands that are extended towards you at all times, the ones that are going to help you come out of that place. I don't think it's something you can really do alone, to be honest. The need for each other is, the only way I think the world continues is to know that we rely on each other for moments such as that.

Mel Robbins (00:44:57):

Talk to me about the name, because your name was John Jay, is that right?

Mon Rovîa (00:45:01):

Yeah, it's my birth name.

Mel Robbins (00:45:02):

Okay. And so you changed your name though to Mon Rovîa, which is the capital of Liberia.

Mon Rovîa (00:45:08):

Yeah.

Mel Robbins (00:45:09):

When did that happen and why did you choose to do that?

Mon Rovîa (00:45:12):

Happened after I went to California. Yeah. In the building process, music finds me again because at this point before that, I wasn't really doing much music, I was just trying to live and overcome. But when I got back to California, started to really dive into these things, I started to fall in love with music again and writing the truth. And I remembered, I said, if anything came from this, it can't be about me anymore at all. And I said, I need to remember my people and where I'm from to keep me on course to keep me grounded. And so Mon Rovîa was the choice name. It's a reminder to me of everything.

Mel Robbins (00:45:54):

How long ago did you do that?

Mon Rovîa (00:45:56):

That would be 2019.

Mel Robbins (00:45:59):

Wow.

Mon Rovîa (00:46:00):

Yeah.

Mel Robbins (00:46:01):

I mean, this is kind of amazing because we're talking just six years ago, five years ago, you weren't even writing music then?

Mon Rovîa (00:46:10):

No, not before that. I was not doing anything with music.

Mel Robbins (00:46:14):

That's kind of incredible. How have you processed the survivor guilt? Because you've talked about the fact that you were the one that was chosen. It could have been your older sister or your brother, and they might have made more of the opportunity. And you've beaten yourself up about this.