A Bermudian foundation executive has delivered a motivational talk on the power of stepping beyond your comfort zone on the popular TEDx talk platform.

Myra Virgil, the chief executive and managing director of the Bermuda Foundation, gave the presentation in Montreal this month.

In her talk — titled From Elves to Epiphanies: Embracing The Fantastical To Redefine Purpose — Dr Virgil explained that she felt her life lacked direction after her children had grown up and left home two years ago but that three consecutive events changed her mindset.

She said: “I had followed all the rules — go to school, get a good degree, get a good job, work hard, climb the ladder, raise your family. This is what success is supposed to look like and your job is done.”

Dr Virgil said that she had begun writing stories about family and friends but wondered if “there's something else out there for me”.

“Finding my passion, refining my purpose, was becoming my challenge,” she said.

By chance, she listened to a podcast entitled Why I Write About Elves, and realised that the author had a compulsion to write.

She said: “This man can't imagine doing anything else. That continued to resonate with me as I kept watching the talk again and again.

“The point is, your ‘why’, my ‘why’, has to involve doing something because you cannot imagine doing anything else. You feel compelled.”

Dr Virgil said she began to find writing an empowering and healing experience. She still found time to write during the pandemic when she was working extensive hours.

She said: “I could no longer imagine a life without some form of creative writing in it. I felt compelled to write.

“This man's talk was placed in front of me about a time that was perfect for me to get that message but it couldn't have been farther away from my essence.

“This talk was way out of my ordinary and I almost missed it. It made me wonder what else do I miss because something seems too far outside of my ordinary.”

Dr Virgil said that shortly after this incident she met a friend in Montreal — a self-proclaimed witch — who suggested that they take some hallucinogenic mushrooms.

She said: ”I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. I am as square as can be. Out loud I said I would be terrified, I'd be scared to death.

“But as she talked more about the process and what I might get out of it, I became less frightened, less sceptical and pretty much ready to take on the challenge.

“Why the change up in approach and character? Because everything I had been trying to resolve this question of my ‘why’ had not been working.

“So I imagine that I was more open to this suggestion of a journey than at any other stage in my life.

“I would later describe this journey as both mythical and transcendent. For those of you who don't fancy the fantastical, I get it. I would simply say it was like having a deep conversation with oneself.

“I am am not advocating the use of psilocybins. I'm not endorsing them, but I share this story because it shows how my thinking was started starting to change. My mindset was starting to change. I was becoming a proponent of doing things a little differently, shaking things up, taking a cisgender semi-spiritual Black woman's equivalent to a midlife rumspringa.

“I believe I listen and hear people in a different and deeper way. I believe I am in tune to a sense that I can't name or explain. I'm starting to write with more focus and more clarity of intent, and I owe this focus and clarity of intent to having taken a journey with that witch.“

Her third milestone happened shortly after, when her mother began telling anecdotes of her childhood in the US shortly before her death.

Dr Virgil said that she had never listened to these stories before but chose to now.

She said: “Normally, I would have blown her off until some time that might never have happened.

“But on this particular day I said, ‘OK, Mom, I'd like to hear your stories and I'll record them.’

“Boy, was I lucky, because she gifted me with her most powerful memories. When she was seven or eight years old she had witnessed a lynching in St Petersburg, Florida and she had kept that memory for 70 years but somehow found a way to put it aside in pursuit of living a culturally rich life with racially diverse friendships.

“It was extraordinary that she should find her voice and gift those stories at exactly the time when I was open and ready to hear them.

“And then she died and I was left to make sense of that — why did she wait so long to tell these stories? And this is how I've made sense of it. If you have a story to tell, if you have something to say, you should not wait. Don't wait, but when you do decide to tell your stories, it may be the perfect time for somebody who needs to hear them. They will be open and ready to hear them.”

Dr Virgil closed out her presentation with some words of advice.

“If the way that you traditionally relate to the world is not providing you with the answers that you seek, watch something out of character. It may not be a man who talks about elves, but it may be a story that is similarly off-piste for you and will resonate.”

She added: “Seek the company of that friend who is different from you and holds usual spaces and perspectives. It may not be a witch, but you may have your own witch or witchlike equivalent. That person has been put in your path because the way that they see the world is different.

“And that different perspective may prove a lifeline for you. Listen out for signs and messages, perhaps from people who have had influence on your life and on your thinking. An offering may be made, and you want to be open and ready to hear it.

“I promise you, if nothing else, you will go on a world of adventures — unexpected, weird, fantastical, transcendent. And through these adventures you may discover, like me, your purpose.”

Dr Virgil’s first book, I Thought You’d Never Ask: Becoming a Black Canadian and the Rendering of Other Superpowers, tells the story of growing up Black in modern-day Western Canada, and weaves anecdotes with cultural analysis.

Her next work, My Lunch Fell Off My Bike, recounts Dr Virgil’s experiences coming to Bermuda with her young family.

The collection of interconnected stories explains “how to become Bermudian and all the things you have to know to reconcile”.

Speaking to The Royal Gazette yesterday, Dr Virgil said that she decided to give the TEDx talk as a way to promote her work.

She said: “You have to be really flexible about how you get your stories out into the world. Getting a literary agent is difficult.”

Becoming a published author is yet another way in which Dr Virgil has stepped out of her comfort zone.

“I’m not one who enjoys being in the limelight,” she added.