SAMIA: Hello, Salam, Shalom, Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Aloha, Holah, Ciao, Bonjour and Buna!That's a new greeting I learned from one of my friends in Romania... I'm so excited about my list of greetings growing it's really wonderful anyway I am also super excited and happy to be with you today and we have a very special guest and our guest today is Courtney Edwards who is a hypnotherapist and an emotional wellness coach I'm so happy you're with us Courtney welcome…

COURTNEY: Thank you I'm so happy to be here Samia thank you so much for having me…

SAMIA: It's absolutely my pleasure and I'm going to have us jump right in by inviting you to tell us more about who you are what you do how you got into this work...

COURTNEY: Okay who I am... I am somebody who has decided to create my own path in life…

SAMIA: I love that…

COURTNEY: Yeah so I'm somebody who had rough beginnings you know born to teenage parents witnessed lots of violence and abuse I myself was neglected on almost every level you know as a child and so... but all of that is empowering right so all of us and we just dig right into the deep stuff right... but I say all of that to say that... all of that kind of helped me to decide that if I was going to have you know different things or different experiences I was going to have to create that for myself and if I was going to help anybody I was going to have to be the one to show them what was possible…

SAMIA: Yeah... that makes a lot of sense to me thank you for sharing that about yourself I really appreciate that you know I am also very open about sharing that I'm a survivor of child sexual abuse and you know because of that I mean I was traumatized and I went through like literally decades of my life where I was like feeling the sense of suffering and feeling the sense of really having things be really out of control in my life but just like you said that experience actually is what became my motivation too… to not only first of all help myself because at first that's all I honestly cared about I only cared about helping myself but over time I got to a point in my healing and my... just my life journey where I realized oh it's... I actually want to help other people too like I want to share with other people what I've learned you know and the more I do that the more I feel like I'm helping myself also and it's just really wonderful…

COURTNEY: Yeah so that's... it's funny that you say that because I resonate like truly but... for me it was the opposite you know I saw so much suffering and in my parents and the people I loved and I just wanted to fix it for them for some reason I thought I could you know being little and so I just tried to be everything that I thought they needed you know to be better to feel better and I just kept getting so... let down you know so heartbroken that no matter what I did no matter how much I gave no matter how much I bent over backwards and tried to be everything I wasn't to help them... they weren't getting better…

SAMIA: Yeah…

COURTNEY: And then I realized oh it doesn't work like that…

How does it work... 

COURTNEY: I just have to... Yeah it's good question so like I was saying I had to figure out what I wanted... for myself and what that would take and be that for myself and then I realized oh this is how I help them this is how I... cuz it's almost like changing the reflection right so if they could see that change was possible you know then at least they would know because I can only walk my own pathway but then at least they would know that change is possible for them because we're coming from the same background the same circumstances you know…

SAMIA: Yeah I hear you I hear you and I think that's for sure one of the toughest lessons that I also had to learn where I... you know to realize that I can ultimately only really help myself and when it comes to other people they have to choose... you know they have to choose their own path they have to choose when they want to receive help they have to choose what kind of help they want to receive they have to choose who they want to receive help from and you know just the other day I was reflecting with my sister on this issue of especially when it comes to like people who are really close to us like our family and close friends we have like so much attachment you know we have like so much like an extra layer of wanting them to do really well and to be really happy and to be really peaceful and so you then want to do in some ways even more to help them and in whatever way you can but it's like even if they want help maybe they don't want my help…

COURTNEY: Yeah…

SAMIA: ..and so then that sometimes feels a little like I have to work on myself because I'm like it's okay Samia it's okay if they don't want my help they have a right to choose who they're even going to get help with because I didn't always want help from the people who are closest to me…

COURTNEY: Yeah... yeah there is that attachment and it's almost like you know I know the way just listen to me but you know your way is your way it's not everybody's way the point is that there is a way you know there's a way... do you want it like... yeah and we want things for people that maybe that's not what they want for their self for or not their priority you know everybody has their own values and when we want things for other people it's almost like we're putting our values on them you know and that's not always a service to them…

SAMIA: That's right that's right humm... so when you see somebody who needs help or from your perspective needs help but it seems like they are sort of stuck and struggling to help themselves or struggling to get better like what do you do what do you recommend how does one proceed like if I'm someone who cares about this person or if I'm a coach or some other you know person who feels like they have the knowledge and the wisdom to be able to help them what do you do how do we proceed…

COURTNEY: Good question so through coaching I've kind of learned that the people who still... let me backup… I help people who are ready for help right so I I'm not in the business of convincing people to be ready you know they are when they are and that's when I can step in professionally but if I'm seeing somebody let's say this is somebody I love because I don't coach family I don't coach family I don't coach friends… keep that separate… but if I'm seeing somebody who I love who looks like they could use help I start out by asking them how are you feeling what are you feeling… that… we need to get that out first before we even proceed to what is going to help them you know so... what are you feeling how are you feeling what caused you to feel that way and then how do you prefer to feel what do you think is going to help you feel that way… and then once they can start thinking about what they want to feel how they want to feel what's going to get them to feel that way then we can start introducing okay how can I help with that…

SAMIA: Yes... yes excellent excellent point and I and I so appreciate the distinction you made I mean you made several distinctions like for example first of all helping people who are ready to help the fact that you know we're not in the business of convincing people and even if you're not professional coaches or therapists or whatever even if you're just regular people we shouldn't be in the business of…

COURTNEY: Yeah…

SAMIA: try to convince people in that sort of way So for people who are ready to receive help what is like maybe a major problem that you help people address…

COURTNEY: That's a really good question usually it's... overwhelm… I mean it looks like different things for different people and that's the reason why I'm struggling with that question is because it's really two different answers it's the problem that they're perceiving and the problem that I'm perceiving on my end of it…

SAMIA: Yes…

COURTNEY: So it's kind of multiple answers but it's usually... you know what it is... they are not perceiving themselves as capable of handling the issue that they are perceiving…

SAMIA: Yes... yes that is generally always… I agree with you… even in the way that I work you know just the other day I was doing an interview where I was being interviewed and I was sharing how you know positive psychology research has identified like five pillars of mental-emotional wellness and the first pillar is an empowered mindset like you have to have this belief in yourself and your own ability to create change and help yourself because without that how can you even begin to start to help yourself…

COURTNEY: Right... right right and it's a part of that is like this so this is the thing that most people are not even aware of you know unless they do this work is it's that inner... it's unconscious so it's below the surface right and it's those things that they're telling themselves… and the things that they're telling themselves is kind of made up from different people different experiences that they've had and it's telling them I can't do this this is too big this is... oh god so many things but it's basically already defeating and beating them down and they're not even aware that it's happening…

SAMIA: Right right and it's like you're just sort of feeling bad you're feeling a different kind of negative emotions maybe it's stress maybe it's anger maybe it's sadness or whatever and you don't really realize that it's coming from all this kind of disempowered thinking that you're having…

COURTNEY: Yeah and also that it's not even really their fault but… and that there's something they can do about it…

SAMIA: Yeah so when you say... to realize for someone to realize or recognize it's not really their fault can you tell me more about that like where when you say it's not your fault where are you coming from…

COURTNEY: So... where I'm coming from is that our beliefs about ourselves our beliefs about our problems our beliefs about our circumstances are unconsciously picked up you know through our experiences and how we are perceiving those experiences and also through... so not even just our personal experiences but the places and people that we spend time and energy with you know we don't realize how we create we have more than one subconscious we have our individual subconscious mind and then we are part of collective subconscious you know... subconsciouses you know and so this is really happening without our conscious awareness for the most part for most people and until we decide that we want to take a look in there and see what's going on…

SAMIA: Yeah can you give an example of this thing that you know like a belief or an idea that someone like picked up unconsciously and especially this idea of the collective subconscious it's very very intriguing tell me more…

COURTNEY: Yeah so I can give you... oh there's so... there's so many ideas and I can go like really deep with this or really surface level with this for example I was just thinking about how I had a conversation with my mother-in-law a while back and I was talking about how I was in the habit of doing laundry every single day right and she's like why would you do laundry every single day you're not... you're supposed to wait until you have you know enough laundry to fill the washer… who says that whose rule is that what/ whose belief is that why do you believe that and why do you think I should believe that you know what I mean and that can come from you know our experiences of like what we've seen other people do their norms and we're not looking at their behavior and thinking consciously not usually oh that's how it's done it literally... it's happening because our conscious mind can only pay attention to so many things at a time right it's very limited…

SAMIA: Yeah…

COURTNEY: But our subconscious is paying attention to everything right and so we might be you know paying attention to something else but then but our subconscious is like oh well you know this person is waiting until they have lots of laundry and so that's probably the way it should be done and then so that's just what you start doing…

SAMIA: Yeah... yeah…

COURTNEY: Yeah and then one day you get older and you have laundry piled up and piled up and then you think why don't I just do it you know as it... accumulates... why don't I just stay on top of it what's wrong with that you know what I mean and that's just a an example of how we create... absorb really we're just absorbing these beliefs rather than accepting them…

SAMIA: Yes yes you're raising an excellent point and it makes me think about how... well in my younger life I mean days the first 18 years of my life my family moved around a bit so we actually made three international moves… started out life in India and then you know we moved to the Middle East then we moved to Pakistan and then we ended up in America… since I've come to America I've not moved out of the country I've only moved around Los Angeles a few times… but the very first international move that we made from India to the Middle East it was like this huge like shock to my system because there were just all kinds of little-big things that I just totally taken for granted in my life including you know like beliefs about you know even how you live and like even in the… like one of the big areas I think where I really felt it was in the context of my identity as a Muslim person because when I lived in India you know we had been living in a relatively small town and you know like I understood Islam in one way and I thought of Muslims in one way like there were all the people like my friends my family were basically all Indian Muslims we practiced Islam and we thought about Islam in a similar way well when we moved to the middle east we were actually in the United Arab Emirates and 80 percent of the population there is immigrants and they are immigrants from all over the world including all over the Muslim world so that was like my first time interacting with Muslims from like literally… like Africa different parts of Asia and I don't even know where else you know and it was just like even basic things like how I prayed… like specific postures that I had been used to taking in prayer and I thought that was just the way it was turned out no I just learned one of the many ways that Muslims practice...

COURTNEY: Wow…

SAMIA: and believe you know and it was like so so like just transformative for me to experience that and then when you look at all the other areas of my life in terms of for example gender roles my gosh that was like a huge revelation also because like again I was used to a certain way of thinking about you know how women live and you know what we are able to do and not do in our lives and... but then you know you move to an international modern state like Dubai and you know it's like such a different environment than a small town in India and you see women playing all these different kinds of roles and dressing differently and you know like all these things and you're like wow…

COURTNEY: Yeah it's like your life just like expands right kind of just like explodes and now all of these other things are possible right…

SAMIA: Yes and then to think that you can choose you can choose what kind of a woman you want to be you can choose what kind of a Muslim you want to be you can choose what kind of a daughter you want to be just what kind of a person you want to be…

COURTNEY: Yeah yeah what an experience 80% immigrants how awesome is that…

SAMIA: Well in some ways it's very awesome and then it also comes with its own set of challenges…

COURTNEY: Yeah…

SAMIA: You know just a huge immense level of diversity you know it's like well how do we get to know each other how do we learn to get along with each other and there's like a lot of like language barriers over there... at least like in my case what happened was I only spoke my languages that I'd learned in India really well which was Hindi and Urdu and I had very bad English when I first moved there and the national language was Arabic which I basically didn't know how to speak or understand either and so for the first several years of our living there we were basically restricted to moving around with other south Asians from India and Pakistan who could speak our language… well my dad and my mom thankfully knew fluent English so and over time thankfully because I was young enough I was able to learn English so then my scope of interactions sort of expanded beyond just the south Asian community to anyone that I could speak in English with but even then like I was sort of not able to learn a lot of Arabic and so I was still like sort of cut out from that part of the community that you know didn't speak English or didn't speak my other languages that I knew so it's interesting you know the challenges that you can deal with but with every challenge there is an opportunity like you were saying…

COURTNEY: Yeah... Yeah… that's I mean that's what it sounded like to me like an opportunity to really to explore and to be curious and to learn you know about how other people you know do things… I came from well I would say my background is very diverse I was raised by people who are from a different race… a different well... I wouldn't say culture because culture for me is more about like it erases influence but the culture like because I'm from phoenix right so the culture is very very influenced by Hispanics you know and I was raised by a Mexican family so I did get a very different experience growing up you know than I think people imagined that I had… I was kind of like the... the one that didn't fit in I was the pink elephant or the little peach girl but yeah I appreciate those experiences even though I felt like a complete outcast most of the time…

SAMIA: Yeah it's… can be tough when you are in that kind of a situation because on the one hand you know you definitely belong to everywhere that you are that you are but then in some ways you also feel like that outsider and it can be a little challenging to get to that point where you're like no I am who I am and it's cool I don't have to be the same as everyone else...

COURTNEY: Yeah…

SAMIA: You know…

COURTNEY: I don't have to be the same and also imagine you know what kind of... what that might challenge somebody to think okay so oh I just had it and I just lost my train of thought... but like no it's so who am I right those questions who am I where do I belong and those are really expansive questions that some people don't have those kind of opportunities… those initiating opportunities you know to start asking questions because if they always feel like they belong then why would they question that…

SAMIA: Right that's right yeah if you're a part of the dominant culture and you're not... I mean I'm sure there's for everyone if you really think about it there will always be some ways in which you can realize that oh in this aspect of my life I'm not a part of the dominant culture but generally we don't really think about that some... unless it's like forced upon our consciousness you know maybe because if the identity that you have that's not part of the dominant culture if it's being suppressed or oppressed or you know face… you're facing discrimination because of that aspect of your identity then it becomes really present for you in your consciousness but otherwise I think human tendency may be to just sort of... because we want to stay in our comfort zones and we like being comfortable that we just focus on those aspects of our identity that you know we are comfortable being and usually that those are the parts of our identity that are part of the dominant cultural experience…

COURTNEY: Yeah well expansion and comfort don't usually go together…

SAMIA: How do you help people expand beyond their comfort zone…

COURTNEY: I'm like an expert in that well personally right… somebody once told me that I am... I don't know if you're familiar with tarot at all I'm not very but somebody once told me that I am the tower card personified…

SAMIA: Okay…

COURTNEY: The tower card is like is destruction right but it's destruction for the purpose of creating something new so it's destroying the old like intentionally to create space like to… like a fire right so you're burning something but then that ash becomes very fertile like the soil right it fertilizes the soil so how do I help other people do that though... well… I think that I give them... I hold this space for them in where they kind of feel like I'm being their strength but I'm not… they are their own strength but I create a space that feels safe enough that if they crumble they're gonna have somebody there to put it back together so that's what I do for them well part of it but I mean... but think about it… if somebody needs to fall apart so that they can be put back together what's going to encourage them to do that other than unbearable pain you know because you people usually don't allow themselves to be uncomfortable unless the discomfort of change is less than the discomfort of staying the same you know…

SAMIA: Yeah I hear you and I mean one thing that I'm learning is that it doesn't have to be that way but so often it is…

COURTNEY: So... okay it doesn't have to be that way… what could it be like..

SAMIA: So this is coming from a place of like a deeper spiritual perspective and this is a lesson I've been actually learning more recently myself honestly… this idea that God doesn't... like one of my teachers this is how my teacher said it so I'll just say it like that…

COURTNEY: Yeah…

SAMIA: The teacher said God doesn't want us to suffer…

COURTNEY: Right…

SAMIA: God just wants us to surrender… Surrender to God's love to being love to being more loving ourselves right and so... you know if… once I there was something about that idea that you know God doesn't want us to suffer God just want us to surrender to being loved… loved by God and being more loving ourselves that just really hit my heart and I was like yeah so like why am I suffering… and if all I need... and so you know the deeper another layer to this teaching was that really the solution to all suffering is you just surrender to the love to being loved more and being more loving yourself and that literally is the answer to everything in terms of whenever you're suffering you know that's how you end suffering is just wooh open yourself up to being loved more and it's like why wouldn't I want that… why would I want to keep suffering you know… and when you like just open yourself up to being loved I mean it's only you know I mean it's just so wonderful it's so beautiful like when you are being loved who doesn't want to be loved who doesn't love being loved you know when you're actually experiencing being loved that's just so awesome so it but you know it's the thing that holds us back is the fear of surrender you know so it's like oh I'm too scared to let go of whatever it is I'm holding on to and so you know you don't let go of what you're holding on to and you're not surrendering to the love… but once you realize that that's all you need to do is you like literally all you need to do is surrender to being loved more… like for me it's changed my perspective like completely like I don't feel like I need to suffer and make… have things get so bad before I do something to change… I'm like no I want to be loved more and I want to be more loving also and I'm just going to do that I'm just going to make that choice and be that way like right now to the best of my ability and so now my favorite prayer every day is to just like… God help me surrender more and more to your love and to being loved and being more loving you know and it can be like that easy…

COURTNEY: Yes so when you said that like to surrender to love oh my I just felt myself like just to release because I'm like yes yes and we have that available to us all the time every moment it is available to us that is what your essence is… is that unconditional love and when you're feeling that suffering you're resisting that's what the suffering is resistance to love right and so when we're surrendering to being loved I was so I just wanted to make a clarification I don't know that that means it feels easy I don't know that means it feels comfortable what I know that it means is it feels like support it feels like love it feels possible it feels... it might be uncomfortable a little bit but it just feels like there's like it's for a purpose you know what I mean... like it's not… what am I trying to say… like because there's this there's this resistance where you feel like you are either pulling a 10 ton weight or you're pushing against it you know and when you drop that it doesn't mean all of a sudden you become more comfortable but it just feels lighter…

SAMIA: Yes... yeah it feels lighter… and we carry like so many layers of burdens you know and these weights and so the more we let go the lighter and lighter you feel and actually the easier and easier it begins to feel… It's like you let go and that's like just one layer of what you have let go and then if you're still feeling stress or tension it just means there's another layer another little something that you're holding on to… let go again… still feeling a little something in there not quite right something more to let go of you know so you just keep going through that process of letting go more and more deeply… and it's just like sometimes you know we're not ready to let go and that's okay you know and that's part of the beauty of the love is that it never forces you know it's like unconditional it just loves you just as you are wherever you are at and so if there's something you really want to hold on to that's okay that's all right…

COURTNEY: Yeah yeah... you just said it never forces and I was just tying that back into the beginning of our conversation when we were talking about wanting to help other people and sometimes the most help we can be is to hold that space for them you know of them accepting… of them surrendering to love…

SAMIA: That's right…

COURTNEY: Yeah…

SAMIA: That's right that's right so whenever you're ready... yeah…

COURTNEY: Oh huh that reminds me of an intention I set recently I'd like to set that intention again… I want to become aware of all of the love… all of the love... that I'm not currently acknowledging because I think sometimes people are pouring out love to us… there's love that's got our name on it and it's just like in the atmosphere and we just won't let it in…

SAMIA: yes… 

COURTNEY: because for whatever reason because we believe that... I don't know that something is hard or whatever but whatever our beliefs our perceptions are is just blocking ourselves from receiving it you know…

SAMIA: Yes... yes I love that intention Courtney… I really truly do… you know I'm feeling really complete right now… is there anything else that you want to share for right now...

COURTNEY: No…

SAMIA: Awesome cool okay… so I think the last thing I'll say just to wrap up the episode isfor everyone who's listening I will be adding Courtney's links so you can contact her in the show notes I'll also have my links… please reach out for help and support whenever you're ready for it and whenever you want it… we'll be so happy to connect with you and love you and support you in whatever ways we can… so until then wishing you just lots and lots of peace and joy…