SAMIA: Hello, Salam, Shalom, Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Aloha, Holah, Ciao, Bonjour and Buna!It's so amazing to be with you again today and I'm so happy you're joining us and you know what I am extra excited today because I have a very very special guest with me today Uzma Naqvi who is a Holistic Transformational Life Coach and I'm so so excited to have you with me sister Uzma welcome...

UZMA: Jazakallah Khair…great to be here thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to be with you today… 

SAMIA: Oh it's absolutely my pleasure and even more than that my happiness... I'm so so excited about connecting with you I know when we talked before it was just so… like I felt an immediate like soul connection with you and so I'm so excited to get to share our conversation with all of our amazing listeners… 

UZMA: It's an honor to be here and it was such an amazing conversation so it's definitely a pleasure to be expanding on that definitely… 

SAMIA: Awesome… So I'll actually have us jump right in by asking you to tell us more about who you are and what you do… 

UZMA: Okay... So it's a very long story but to cut it as short as I possibly can I'm a Holistic Transformational Life Coach and that means that I help people women specifically to heal on the inside… my signature program that I deliver over the course of a year is called the Universe Is Within You... it kind of does deep inside of a human our makeup who we are why we are the way we are what we came here to do how we get lost along the way how do we find our path back into the alignment and be who we came to be and strive to perfect that as much as we possibly can… So it started the journey of my own self which was a journey of up and down and up and down more downs than up… quite a painful journey and a lot of different experiences which led me to want to know why it was the way it was and it set me off on a quest to really kind of figure it all out and know more about myself and heal internally... So that's essentially where the journey began… 

SAMIA: Yeah and you know I relate to that so much because even though the details of what we have experienced in and over the course of our journey are different the overall motivation for why we are doing the work that we're doing today is the same… you know I also experienced some traumas in my early life but the good that came out of it was that experience of suffering and trauma became my motivation to learn everything that I could about how to live with inner peace and happiness and then eventually begin to realize that hey it's actually part of my purpose you know to actually share that learning with others and it's actually also such a huge part of my healing process and how to get deeper and further so I so appreciate where you're coming from… 

UZMA: Thank you so much I know that the very first time we spoke I was in awe of you just because of how much like you had been through and how you came out the other end and it's just amazing and this is why it's so important to share the journey share the learnings along the way because there are many more who are still trapped in a lot of ways so it's really an empowerment that if we can get out of it surely there is some good in it inshallah… 

SAMIA: Indeed... You know talking about empowering ourselves achieving inner peace success happiness in our lives... but then you know also we have traumas in our life and we have difficulties and challenges that we have faced in our lives and I know part of my tendency when I first experienced the trauma and actually for the first so many years after I'd experienced my trauma was to not want to deal with the trauma it's like just forget it pretend like it never happened and just move on to do other things that I thought I needed to do to create a happy successful life... but is that possible… is that even wise because I've I found that actually impossible to do… 

UZMA: Yeah...

SAMIA: So what are your thoughts and perspectives on that… 

UZMA: Yeah it's a stunning question actually and you know sadly 99.9% of the people deal with it like that... because we're still living we're surviving we're eating sleeping we're having relationships we're having careers we're doing life and so for the most part we're continuing the process of life and it feels like okay something happened it wasn't good it shouldn't have happened but it happened and now we can just you know pretend our way out of it kind of thing the trouble with that though... is that how we deal with something what happens with us... the emotion of it still very much lives within us… this whole concept and notion of forgive and forget the forget part doesn't exist it's actually not real you cannot forget it's a part of your makeup it's who you are it's what you lived through so it's in you it's in your built up it's in your system we are energy as a whole and that energy and the emotions that happened at the time of this trauma that took place is embedded within us it's turned into our flesh it's all of us... And so when we carry that it plays a major role in our everyday life we are tremendously triggered in our lives because of what we carry that we haven't processed and we haven't dealt with... so it's still very much within us so when we can pretend and say I've forgiven and forgotten the forgiving is just a byproduct of being able to self-heal it happens naturally when we heal on the inside because we understand the essence of healing and forgiveness just naturally happens as a result of that but the forgetting bit cannot happen so when if we are pretending our way through it we are still carrying the hurt without really knowing it it's deeply at a subconscious level but it is driving our life today everything we are doing all the decisions we are making all the triggers that we have in our lives the way we deal with our children we were basically doing it with that blueprint that we carry on the inside of us so it's very very very essential that we... sorry that we understand the impact  of what happens to us previously And another very quick point before we move on from this... is that when something happens in our life particularly traumatic experiences but any any emotionally impactful matters they create we vibrate at a certain frequency energetically and that vibration of the actual trauma gets stuck in us and until we can understand that understand like where we are vibrationally we only attract the very thing that we're vibrating at we can only get the same thing we can't ever elevate to a higher higher thing so it's so pivotal and so important and just... I can't even emphasize how important it is to heal and really deal with it… 

SAMIA: Can you share an example of what it might look like for someone who's sort of stuck at that vibrational level of trauma and how they keep attracting more of that in their lives…

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UZMA: Sure absolutely... So if someone has let's say as a child was abused and the vibration that's stuck within them at a very very young age is that they're filthy they're not good enough they don't deserve a relationship they can't be loved they're only there to be used so on and so forth... Vibrationally it's a very low self-esteem vibration right...That is the reality of that vibration at the time so that frequency is where you're at when the event takes place if we don't deal with that and if we don't understand that is what's happened that is how I feel and I haven't dealt with that I haven't processed that emotion then that emotion plays a part in our lives for the rest of our lives and when we grow older and let's say that we do get married or that we're looking for a partner or life is happening we end up behaving our whole demeanor our whole life our every experience ends up being something that matches that same vibration… so we have a very low self-esteem we don't really believe in ourselves we don't really have the confidence to have a good relationship and even if we get a good person which is unlikely because we're vibrating at a low frequency and will only attract the same type of people but even if we manage to do that we will we will sabotage it very quickly because we can't keep hold of it we will drag that down to where we are… so without healing that it plays out in our life so you know in the form of arguments in the form of the hurt people hurt people like passing on the generational hurt of from ourselves to our children it manifests in so many different ways that you know just dealing with everyday life is just a bit of a nightmare and overwhelming...

SAMIA: Yeah... you know what you're sharing made me think about... Well I'm not married so I don't have a life partner so to speak but I have other relationships in my life like my parents and my brother and my sister and other people in my life who are amazing people and who love me with all of their heart and soul... And I just remember when I was stuck in my trauma I could not receive their love I literally remember days when you know my mom would try to love me in different ways by giving me a hug or a kiss or make something that she thought I would love to eat and I could not accept…

UZMA: Yeah… 

SAMIA: The... I just could not accept the love I would literally run away from her hugs and kisses...I would you know just dismiss all her other gestures of trying to make me feel better and a lot of that just had to do with like either I was thinking I don't deserve this just as you were mentioning or I couldn't believe that it was real that… I was like real in the sense that I was like if my mom knew or the other people in my life knew what I was really like on the inside filled with so much darkness they would not be able to love me and... so the love that they're showing is not real in the sense that it's not they're not really loving the real me they're just loving this fake me that I'm projecting you know and so it was actually seriously heartbreaking to just to think and to feel that the real me couldn't be loved… 

UZMA: Yes yeah... yes and that's exactly the the vibrational frequency I'm talking about a lot of people who lack confidence can't really understand why they lack confidence because you know they have a lot of attributes and you know I mean when we're talking about confidence I think it's really important to mention that there is not a single soul in this on this earth that is like... like you... you were built and designed to be very very unique and what you have no one else has and so when we can learn to harness that and really own that with the connection of the divine and understanding how lovingly he made me and how much he wanted me to contribute to this society like I'm a very important cog within this whole machine of life that is working and I'm something or somebody who makes it run and function in a better way… So we can't believe that we can't harness that if we're not healed... So you know it's a big part of it and when we do lack confidence when we do have a less low self-esteem or when we do feel unworthy... these are really important questions to ask because sometimes you know what the trauma sits within us but we don't even know that there is a trauma to deal with… you know often we put traumas down to rape and you know domestic abuse and violence and things like that… they're not the only traumas like not being able to emotionally process your environment and not being able to hold space to be able to be emotionally unstable and for somebody not to be able to allow that processing and validation to take place is also a trauma in its own self... So I think it's really important to understand that it's not necessarily like big massive traumatic experiences where the house burnt down somebody burgled your house or someone killed someone you know… these are major of course their traumas but then the other aspects just in general everyday life where you feel neglected where there's a separation whether somebody you know passed away or whatever you know all these different things also are under the same remit like you know it's the emotion that hasn't been able to process...

SAMIA: Yeah... It actually makes me think of this video that I was watching that was trying to explain racism and why it's so harmful or how it's so harmful and they made this analogy of imagine every time you experience a racist microaggression… you know so that's a tiny little thing like maybe someone just says something or gives you a look or you know some something relatively small like that it's not a big deal on its own… but if you're living in a racist society in a racist culture you're experiencing these kinds of micro aggressions micro traumas every day maybe multiple times a day… and so in this video that I was watching the analogy that they made was that was so brilliant was to say... imagine every microaggression every micro trauma that you experience is like a mosquito bite… if you have just one mosquito bite no big deal you can totally deal with that move on with your life no problem but now imagine you have 10 mosquito bites 100 mosquito bites… every day If you have to struggle with having multiple mosquito bites and the fear of mosquito bites... you know how will that impact your life and change your life and so you know even if you haven't had one big thing happen to you that's very traumatic even if you're experiencing a lot of little things that are traumatizing in seemingly small ways... over time the impact adds up and this is true for if you're experiencing racism or sexism or homophobia or you there's so much out there in the world… you know different reasons that we have created because of which we hate each other or fight with each other…

UZMA: Yes... yeah Absolutely... and fundamentally we were created to be in harmony with each other that's our makeup we were never supposed to be against each other…Borders are created by humans the you know beyond our physicality there is no color there is no race there is nothing... it's all one we are all one… and I think a lot of people really really fail to understand that point and that's where the segregation comes in that's where you know people look at you very differently because of a garment that you wear or because of the color you are because of the belief you hold and these things are you know they cause distress because they're not our regular way of living Allah Subhanawatalla created us to be together to learn from one another and the whole point of tribes was that how you do things might be different to how I do things... but then I can learn so much from you and you can learn so much from me and it was supposed to be a very transactional peaceful cohabiting kind of an environment... but it's gone quite... it's very you know the way that things are these days and alhumdulillah the things are improving to some extent… 

SAMIA: Yeah... 

UZMA: But then in other ways they're not the subtleties and you know you feel it you know it when you're not a part or wherever you know whatever's going on... So at its core the differences are because of people not understanding their uniqueness and other people's uniqueness and not being able to be compassionate and empathize and understand another person's point of view… 

SAMIA: Yeah... I think… what you just shared actually made me think back of what you were saying when you introduced yourself you said your signature program is called "The Universe Is Inside Of You"... 

UZMA: "The Universe Within You"... yeah... 

SAMIA: Oh... The Universe Is Within You... does that have something to do with this recognition that you're talking about as being all connected all being one… 

UZMA: Absolutely... yes it's a very big part of what I teach... So there's a whole year's program so it's a very step-by-step systematic learned program where we you know we talk about the mind and we talk about the power of the mind and how we can shift and the traumas and the reprogramming aspect and all that… then you know we go into the inner healing and that's where we talk about the emotional intelligence and the emotions I've never been able to process and really kind of doing the deep intuitive work that you know we have within us and all of that is connected with spirituality... and spirituality is where we basically really understand the concept of unconditional love the concept of the oneness of everything the togetherness of everything… we talk about you know as a human how important how amazing we are and also connects it to the head and the heart coherence… this is where the misfit happens where the mind saying something else the heart is saying completely something else and we're born you know between the two so there's a lot of parts work really understanding why there's a difference and how do we bring them to alignment you know... bringing these two to alignment is basically opening up the doors to so many other opportunities... So there is a very systematic way of kind of understanding that and it's called… that's one of the main messages and as well as understanding the concept of surrendering in its truest form and really being able to let go and be one with what is... and allowing that to take place in life as it's supposed to be rather than resisting and fighting and trying to make something else happen that wasn't supposed to happen… 

SAMIA: Yeah... Oh my gosh... you just raised so many excellent points I think the one that I would love to follow up with you the most on is to talk more about the heart... because I know you know it's very common in our culture to make various references to the heart talk about following the heart and listening to your heart but I also find that most people don't actually know what that really means and how to actually connect with their hearts and what role our heart plays in the process of healing especially… can you tell us more about that… 

UZMA: Yeah... It's a beautiful question... it's one of my favorite segments within the whole program actually when we're talking about the alignment of mind and heart... You know the heart is where Allah subhanawatalla talks to us… In the holy Quran he never says I'm speaking to your mind he talks to your “Qulb” the heart and there is a this is the pathway it's a portal to our soul and so when it is such an important piece of this flesh that we have within us it's way beyond that and the there is a need for us to understand how it functions so when I teach it it's very much backed by a lot of scientific evidences as well as sort of the spiritual connections as well as the understanding of the divine communicating through it and then our system and how it works at a human level how we can make it coherent... so it's a really it's I mean... it's something that I do over several weeks so it's a very deep subject but as an overview I would say that the heart is very much you know they stopped calling it's basically an organ it's a something that has the ability to be able to think and to be able to feel just the same way that your mind is and it's where we hold so much more than just you know a beating heart that flesh the blood in our system and helps us live it helps our soul live and keep us alive within this world...So really understanding the coherence of that and how you regulate that is so valuable so so very important and a lot of that is really calming yourself and understanding how it functions… it would be so hard to like really give the proper context because it takes a long time to like get there but essentially it's in our control essentially it is something that we must learn about that we must set aside time if it's not something you know in general like even when we pray it's like you know we sit there and do the rituals and this is the thing in Islam there is so much beauty but a lot of the times we're told what to do we're never told how to do it and that why is the missing piece... The why is what I really want to connect with people really understand that there is way beyond than just saying some ritualistic words which have so much power but they don't feel very powerful because we're not putting the power in them... they just feel like words that we are turning off we go in our everyday lives and just do what we do but then there is so much more depth to really understand them and wear them and bring them to life… 

SAMIA: Yes... And the word feeling... Oh my gosh... and talking about you know using rituals or you know any practice really that theoretically is amazing and supposed to help you but you give it a try and it seems to not work and oftentimes like prayer for example is a beautiful wonderful example of this and I find that so much of the problem it's not that prayer doesn't work or it's not a good way to seek healing or help… but it's that we have never been taught how to feel what we are praying and when we are praying… like to how to cultivate and the feelings that we need to feel in order to feel and so forth… 

UZMA: Yeah 100%... I mean the feeling is the pathway you know to awaken yourself you cannot make your... you cannot go through anything without feeling into it… 

SAMIA: Yes… 

UZMA: Otherwise it's a very superficial going through... you're not going through you're just going over… 

SAMIA: Yeah… 

UZMA: To go through one has to feel... and that feeling requires connection and connection requires introspection and introspection requires a pathway to be able to actually do it in a coherent way... And I think it's a need for every everyone for us to understand our ourselves better because when we understand ourselves better we connect better to the divine and live our life's purpose in a much more profound way than just exist and then die…

SAMIA: Yes... Can you give people just one tip on how they can begin the process of going down that pathway of introspection and ultimately you know being able to feel those feelings that they need to feel… 

UZMA: Yeah yeah… beautiful question... So I think one of the first things that I would you know usually whenever I'm on a podcast to try to... I try to say this because it's so important for people to realize you know because when we're doing life we're just passing through each day we're just getting this one day done and then we're you know we'll be ready once we've had a bit of rest... And in the midst of all this we never really feel into what we're feeling… we bypass and bulldoze a lot and so one of the quickest ways to really get into this way of starting to live is that... you understand what it is that you're when you have a feeling when you have a stress when you have an overwhelm when you feel sad when you feel anxious when you have worry when you're devastated when you're disappointed when all of these things are happening… to me there are opportunities there are beautiful messages in your body wisdom communicating with you just say... hey I need your attention in this area of your life I need you to wake up and do something and this is what connects really beautifully to the law of attraction which is again a very very deep deep topic.... which I can't open the can of worms of because it's something I can talk for on hours and then but essentially when we feel hurt when we feel whatever we feel it's there to wake us up from slumber... it's there to aid to something and usually we're trying to run away from it as fast as we can because the emotion is something we don't understand we don't know why it's coming to us it's there and it hurts and because it hurts it's uncomfortable and we want to get away from it as much as possible …but what we do need to do is go the opposite direction sit with it and allow it to do what it wants to do so you can get to know why it's there… The whole process of this you know things repeating in your life constantly like whether it's relationships not working out career not working out you know children whatever else there could be hundreds of things that just not that happening again and again and again... this is a constant message coming to you to say you really need to start waking up about this particular part of your life where you need to understand why it's happening… so you know the quickest pathway is to feel into your feelings not run away from them stay with them…

SAMIA: Okay... So we won't open the can of worms around the law of attraction then... I guess another question that is sort of like coming to my mind... is just sort of I guess going back to the idea of prayer and using the power of prayer... We talked a little bit about why a lot of us may not be able to feel into the feelings and connect to the power of prayer... is there anything you can share with us about how to actually use it in a more effective effective way… 

UZMA: Yeah sure... you know one of the fundamental things to understand is that... and there's no need to go into a lot of science although I do back it up in my teachings just so people really get and the penny really drops and you understand why you do what you do… but essentially your mind is functioning at certain again frequencies like the level of your brain with activity that happens your way of understanding and of what you're doing how connected you are on the inside depends on how what your brain is doing at the time… so when we can you know when they say coherence of the mind and the heart is we're bringing it into synchronization and slowing both down to a point where you are really truly deeply internally connected… usually the reason the prayers don't work is we're very much thinking about where I put my key... oh my child is crying... oh somebody's that parcel was supposed to come and it didn't arrive and all of the things that we forget are usually remembered during a prayer and so our mind is very much elsewhere and we're not able to really have the focus and have the connectedness and really feel into the you know the essence of the names the words of the prayers and feel that power of them… let that seep through in a very powerful way by bringing your mind and the heart into cohesion and creating that harmony between the two so that you could the message can exchange and really go through your entire being rather than just superficially saying a few words and running off to what your parents are… 

SAMIA: So maybe doing anything you can to calm your mind… 

UZMA: Yeah… 

SAMIA: Before you even begin the prayer process… that... Yeah… I know there's like so much wisdom in our tradition around that actually you know for example in the Islamic tradition for people who are not familiar... when we perform ritual prayers there's actually rituals that we are taught to perform even before you get into ritual prayer... So for example we have a ritual cleansing process that we are asked to go through where you know you go and you wash your face and your hands and feet and so forth... and I think one of the reasons why we are asked and guided to engage in this process is because it's like one way that we can begin to shift our mindset from okay I've just been so busy with my life and just been doing this thing or just woken up from deep sleep or you know whatever the activity might have been and then you're wanting to shift into prayer you know but how do you actually begin to make that shift so you can be focused and present to your feelings during prayer... And so by going through a process like a ritual cleansing you can begin to create that mindset shift… 

UZMA: Exactly and one other aspect I mean that's beautifully put but the other aspect as well is also that water itself it's just the power of what it holds and how it is connected to the divine and how it you know you can literally look at water talk to water it's almost like having its own consciousness and how you can utilize that to awaken your senses and how that becomes light like the mirror that we want it to be that comes into us and how it changes our mind with how we live generally and how we look at things and it really changes... So all of this can only happen with some depth right... essentially what we're saying is you can break anything down and you can really look at it in a microscopic way and why not ourselves you know… 

SAMIA: Yeah… 

UZMA: It connects us to ourselves but then it connects us to our purpose in life... it's beyond just a prayer it's beyond just understanding emotions it's our existence we came into this world for a reason even if an ant wasn't made without reason how can we all the beings that are able to think and are you know greatest of creation how can we be without a reason and if we're living a life that doesn't feel meaningful and it doesn't feel like we're connected enough and it doesn't feel like I don't know what I'm doing where I'm going what my purpose is then this is a really good fundamental questions to ask so that you can start to head that way and the beauty about asking these questions is that when you ask the questions some door just ends up opening that you didn't even know existed… it's one of those pathways that you were kind of guided to and then once you're guided to it just keeps opening and opening and opening and it's a pathway that just doesn't have an end... So it's a beautiful way of living and being you know we are human beings but we mostly are doing human doings and we're stuck in that aspect of just doing doing doing and never really being... so you know connecting with yourself you finally become you get to be… 

SAMIA: Yes... oh my gosh... I want to ask you so many more questions and we also have to begin to wrap up... but I think I'll ask you just one last question for today… So we've been talking about healing and a particular pathway to healing that you use to help your people with and I love it I love your pathway and I was just wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about how this pathway is different from you know the more traditional approach for example with therapy and so forth… 

UZMA: Yeah... So that's a great question thank you so much for asking it... So what I think is different is that when we go to a GP to let them know that we're not well usually in under 10 minutes we've prescribed antidepressants and then we're on them… for some people for many many years if not a lifetime because as the emotions are coming it feels like we have no idea what to do with them and then to take this medication they're quite written down they're no longer speaking to us they don't give us the information that we actually need for us to evolve... but the other aspect so that's one aspect where you're shutting down the emotions which is not necessarily a… I mean I can't I'm not asking anybody not to see medication but I'm just saying that the whole purpose is to shut down the emotions so that they no longer communicate with you… but it is these very emotions that we use in order to evolve and grow as a human because there is healing that needs to take place so we're not dealing with the core the blueprint but you're dealing with the higher aspect of oh I feel pain and I just want that to get rid of like I need to get rid of that aspect of it… so that's one part... but the second part is that in therapy generally like talking therapies... It deals with a lot of the power of the mind which is amazing I think it's obviously it does have some shift and it does have you know we can focus our mind to anything if I asked you right now to think back to when you went to college something will come into your mind like the building of the people or the teachers or the subjects or whatever… your mind can be focused to anything at any point we can shift that at one point so it's a very powerful thing to think... however the thing that I feel the traditional therapies are missing is the spirit aspect of ourselves you know it deals with the mind but we're not just the mind it deals with our physical but we're not just the physical there is another aspect to us that is entirely missing when it comes to those therapies this is why when people even if they've had years of therapy they still feel like there is something hugely missing and it just doesn't make sense… like I've gone to therapy I've taken medication I've spoken to so many people I've done this and I've done that and after doing all of this I still feel I am lost I still feel something is not connecting and that's because we've ignored the one aspect of us that is the most important aspect and it's the non-physical aspect to ourselves... you know we have to believe that we are more than just the physical beings and that is the aspect that we end up neglecting when it comes to traditional therapies and it's something that we absolutely need to incorporate so that we can have a very holistic approach to healing internally and externally both… 

SAMIA: Awesome... On that note... On that thought of going for holistic… going for a holistic approach to healing we'll wrap up and I'll wrap up by just reminding all our dear listeners to please check the show notes because I’m going to add Uzman's links in the show notes so you can connect with her and get help and support if and when you're ready for it...I'll also add my links if you'd like to get in touch with me... and yeah until we connect next time I just wish you lots and lots of peace and joy...