Launching Season 2: Remaining in a State of Compassion Amidst Challenging Times

Rose welcomes listeners back to Rahma with Rose for the podcast's second season. She offers an update about her life and struggles and describes her Ramadan 2024 experience. She emphasizes the need to stay empathetic and aware while witnessing the genocide of the people of Gaza.

Rose talks about the difficult but empowering process of unshaming and models why unshaming can be so powerful. She invites listeners to join her on her path towards healing and rahma, or compassion, offering practical strategies for getting closer to their authentic selves.

Transcript

Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim. I'm Dr. Rose Aslan. And I'm a transformational life coach breathwork, teacher, writer, and scholar of religion, who supports helpers, rebels, misfits, marginalized and spiritual and spiritually curious folks. Welcome to raft mirth rose, right? Create a bold space of warmth, understanding and pluralism. In a world that often feels chaotic, polarized and judgmental. You're not alone. And the stories I share here will reinforce this will include thought provoking and heartfelt conversations with Muslim identifying thought leaders, healers, coaches, mental health professionals, and other individuals who are part of the quiet revolution of woman healing around the world. So join me on this podcast exploration as we explore what happens when we allow Reshma or compassion into our lives, one story at a time. Suddenly, come and welcome back to Ramnath rose. Season two, this is the first episode of the season. And I'm really happy to be back for various reasons. The first season naturally ended in December after I got really sick. Basically, a couple of times I got COVID, or something like COVID, and a couple other illnesses. And I was really under the weather. I had a cough that persisted for weeks on end, and I just stopped being able to speak with anyone. And the podcast came to an end or at least season one. And I've been plotting and waiting and anticipating season two, I've been recording interviews with amazing guests. I'm excited to share with you. But I just wanted to make an intro episode and just talk with you and catch you up with what's been going on. So things happen, you know, I thought, oh, yeah, I'll relaunch the season two in February. Well, now we're in April. And I'm just making the first episode to welcome you back. Life happens. And you know what, why am I launching in April, because I decided to give myself a lot of Rama, a lot of compassion. I have had a lot of things on my plate, I've been focused and my energy has been scattered. Well, my energy is scattered, I'm able to give it a while my all. And when I record this podcast, I want to give it my all I want to offer to you really beautiful, inspiring insights. When I engage in with the people I interview, the beautiful woman I interview, I want to be fully present with them so I can engage with them. So that's why we're back. And I'm so excited. Ever since October 7, it's been harder to share. It's been harder to talk this had a big impact on me. It's had a big impact on almost everyone I know, watching a genocide live through my phone through my computer. I'm at a loss for words at this point, the country I'm from where I was born and raised where I've lived for much of my life, about two thirds of my life I've lived in United States has taken such a toxic stance in Denine. What is going on to the people of Gaza. And they're assisting Israel sending weapons and aid so that they can kill civilians in hospitals inside their homes, in essence of billion civilians who just want to stay alive. Every day. This weighs on me and all of us, because people Reza and other Palestinians are suffering so much. What can we do? We can pray. We can send money, we can spread awareness. But apart from that we don't have any political power. At least someone like me doesn't because I have left my country of origin. I no longer am involved with political action. You might say, to be honest, at this point, I feel betrayed. Although I have feel betrayed for a long time. When I graduated high school, I decided to go to university in Canada. And one of the reasons was I already felt betrayed by the United States at that young age. I keep on going back to my family is a threat Friends are it's where I'm from, do I call it home? At this point? Not really. There's a lot of places in this world that feel like home even more than the United States, I feel that all the ideals I was taught in school, but American values, it's all bunch of BS. When people on the left, supposedly Democrats are left not really support genocide, like, what can I do? Now I do see waves of awareness and momentum moving among people in the West, including the US and a lot of people are changing their minds about America's blind support for Israel. Now, I don't want this to be a political podcast, I just want to talk about how this weighs so heavily on my heart, I can't even talk about it regularly. I'm at a loss for words. I'm not a political analysts, I'm not gonna give analysis of what's going on. It's just my heart breaks every time I see those images, I read those stories. And what am I left with is a prayer where in the end of Ramadan, now when I'm recording this episode, of an intense month of beauty, socializing, enjoying Iftar is by myself a lot as well with some friends, while also watching people of Gaza waiting for planes to drop aid from the sky, sometimes boxes killed them, or they drowned trying to retrieve it from the water, watching people taking whatever they can find and making meals out of it. While I have more than enough here in Istanbul. What can I do, to happy. And if you feel similarly, I see you a hair, you acknowledge you, I witness the pain you feel, let's hold space for one another. So that we may continue hold space to keep room in our hearts to keep room so we can have enough empathy, and care and awareness to keep on caring. Even when the media cycle stops looking at fuzzy even when it gets bored and starts looking at the other issues around the world. We need to keep caring. And this goes for all the other places in the world, Sudan and Congo, that Uighur peoples and other communities that are being persecuted around the world. So this season is going to be delightful. I'm really excited to share it with all of you. Something I've been working on have been modeling a lot lately is the process of en and shaming. I am someone who grew up with a lot of shame. What does it mean to feel a lot of shame, it means that things have happened to you things have happened to me. And things happen to all of us. But it means it's gone unwitnessed it means that when you experience something that feels shameful to you, even though it's not even a shameful thing, if it's not been witnessed by someone else, if you not let it out if you keep it bottled up, and it and you keep on building up these negative thoughts about yourself based on whatever happened to you, or whatever happened with you, this spirals into shame. And shame is such a difficult place to be in. And so many of us experience it based on how we were raised and our families based on how we taught about how we should be in this world, from religion from society, all kinds of places. For example, woman, I don't know a single woman who doesn't feel some sort of shame around her body, some pirate body body, her entire body or parts of her body. None of us are able to truly just love her body. It's so hard. So hard. And it's absurd. When I say this out loud, like why can't I love my body? It's part of me, oh, if my body was like this, if I was able to do this to change my body, then I would love my body more. Oh, if I had her baby, which gave me stretch marks, then my body would be more beautiful. It'd be more acceptable when I say this out loud. And probably when you're hearing that she like of course you should love your body. Like why wouldn't you? Right? But I'm alone by myself. I don't think about Pavie my body. I don't think about my body as beautiful. For example, the stretch marks are marks of motherhood are marks of what I went through to carry my son the term. And all the years I've spent with him in the 10 years he's been with me when I think of the stress marks fill me love and compassion because he's in my life. But it's still hard to love those stretch marks. And it seems absurd to go from talking about Palestine to talk about loving my body and its stretch marks. But when you come to Raha throws when you come to this podcast, this podcast is focused on drama, how can we learn to offer ourselves Rapha compassion to ourselves first so that we can start to offer it outside of ourselves. All right. So that's why talking about entertaining ourselves, our bodies, our thoughts is so important because the more Rama, we feel for ourselves because you are a creation of the Divine, you really are. The Divine is a compassionate Creator, and you're a creation of the Divine. You deserve to have and be filled with Rama, rather than hostility toward yourself, rather than criticism turned toward yourself. Imagine if all you had was compassion and love towards yourself. Imagine how that would affect how you see the rest of the world, how you see Palestinians house, your friends and family and others suffering around the world. How would that affect how you interact with people? This is a process that I'm still working on. You know, I've been writing this book about Rama. And I just looked at the very first bit I wrote, I described myself as being a non compassionate child, being someone who's so distant from the idea of Rama of compassion. I don't know if he was a kind person or not, maybe others can tell me if I was I don't think of myself when I was younger, as compassionate. I think of myself as selfish, as shy, quiet. I don't have the most positive attributes, and qualities to describe myself. Unfortunately, I don't remember many good things about myself as a child, perhaps I didn't have many people, I didn't see myself in that beautiful way. You know, other people around me, they grew up in different kinds of family settings. And they were deeply compassionate, generous people from the beginning because of where they are raised the environment in which they came from. I didn't necessarily come from that kind of environment. So this is something I've had to learn throughout my life, especially in my later years, took a long time. And so for me, this is like starting from scratch or you might have been raised in a loving family that comes more naturally, which is something so beautiful, and you can just flourish in filling yourself with compassion with Rafa. For the rest of us. This is a lifelong journey. How can you keep giving yourself more? How do we give ourselves more we start with how do we view ourselves? How do we feel all these things other day, I was at Iftar with a small group of women, friends who I've known for a while, and at the end has a wrapping up, I propose that we all recite the Quran. Now, there's this awkward thing that I'm going to talk about here that I've kind of kept hidden away for a long time. Within me, yes, I have a PhD in Islamic Studies. I did all my degrees in religious and or Islamic Studies and secular, Western oriented universities. I did some traditional studies when I was in Egypt. But I never did. Formally, for example, study Tajweed. When I was in Egypt, I had some opportunities, so 10 lessons with traditional scholars. But I also had gotten married at that time to a man who was very controlling of my whereabouts of who has spend time with of who I was learning with. And while I had a few friends at the university, I could see when I was at the university, I wasn't usually allowed on a quote, to spend time with them outside. Now a lot of these people I knew were spending hours every week in private or group lessons learning to hedge we learning tafsir and all the traditional sciences in a traditional setting. I was not allowed that opportunity. It feels, I don't even know what to say what it feels like to share this with all of you, because I hadn't really spoken about that marriage that I had that lasts of so many years that that define my life for so many years. But because I said in Egypt, My Arabic is quite fluent, I can read the Quran, well, just not with Tajweed or correct recitation of the Quran based on the various rules. And because I became a professor of Islam, hi assumes that people assumed that I was also a Muslim theologian, even though I never claimed to me, but I kind of wanted to be one in a way I wanted to when I was younger, to lead women gatherings to be the one quoting Arabic quotes left and right reciting the Quran beautifully leading the seeker. I never had that ability. I never actually got that fundamental training. I need it. during those formative years, when I was a student, because of my controlling ex husband. I was at home a lot. And I was in Egypt. Yes. When he would leave on the weekend to go back to his family. About an hour or two away from Cairo. Then I would wander around Cairo alone. I got to know the city really well. It was beautiful, but I was often alone, because he knew and I would tell him who I was seen. So I didn't always feel comfortable seeing people even when he wasn't there. He was able to control me. So I lacked that formal training in traditional slam that I I wish I could get, they never did. And I always assumed others were going to judge me if I didn't have it because here I am a PhD in Islamic Studies. And somehow I should be that person. Even though we all know that if you get a PhD in Islamic Studies from an increasingly secular university, I studied at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, it's a public university division. It's not a university with a divinity school. It's a very secular university. So how would someone assume that about me, I don't think people assume that about me. But I've always made those assumptions that I should have those fundamentals. And because I don't have the fundamentals of, for example, tend to read of memorizing passages. My main place where I learned about formula of Islamic Studies was in the university often a lot of it was in my Arabic studies program and my master's degree, which is Arabic and Islamic Studies, and I was able to engage with lobbies, texts, but more in a secular academic setting, not from a theological confessional perspective. And so this shame that I felt for so many years is I shouldn't recite the Quran out loud, because people are going to be so judgmental, that I don't know too much weed well, they're gonna judge me because I don't sound like I could lead a traditional HELOC. Now, I don't claim it if you watch me on social media, or if you watch my YouTube video, I don't claim to be that person. I claim to be a life coach, a writer, a facilitator. I like to hold space. I like to witness people I like to support people through their transformations. But for some reason, this is where shame comes in. It just really deep belief I have about myself, there's something wrong and that I should never recite crying out loud. And yes, I haven't pursued hedge wheat on my own. Because I've been busy pursuing other studies. One day, I would love to say too much wheat, but my priorities have changed over the years. And I haven't prioritized learning to add wheat, for example. But here I am and shaming myself and telling you that maybe I'll start reciting Quran without techy, not reciting just reading the Quran in Arabic, I love to read the Quran in Arabic. What I love about Arabic is that I was able to immerse myself so much in when I was in Egypt, studying so many hours a day, studying this beautiful deep language, that I feel so connected to it until this day, even though I don't speak it very often. I don't read Arabic that often it's still deeply embedded within me. So I read the Quran, it connects me with this language and this religion and traditional culture, that it was so immersed in the past, and I'm still immersed in the religion and tradition is just that I started taking a different approach lately. All this is to say that, I want to tell you, you're watching or listening. When you release the shame, these unspoken negative beliefs and perhaps trauma may speak them out loud, they carry a lot less weight. But I can guarantee you that as you work through the various things you feel shame with, or feel shame about. You will notice a shift within yourself. When you release things from the depths of your mind, the place where both beautiful and ugly thoughts intermingle. But we start releasing the ugly thoughts, the cruel ones, the ones that tell you, you're not good enough, you're not pure. You don't know how to cite your voices bad, all these things, your body is ugly. They start losing their power, we release them from our mind, I like to write them out or speak them out. I use speech to text software so I can then copy them into a document and release them speak to a person. We read them over. We right about them journal about them. They're really do lose their power. What we need to do in this path of healing is to reclaim our power not just empower ourselves, especially as women in a world we where we've been so disempowered, but to reclaim our power back so that people cannot take our power away from us ever again. And when we start feeling drained again, we know how to get our power back. This is beautiful, and of the Creator if Allah man is the most powerful our power is nothing in comparison. So we rely on the divine to fill us with energy fill us with this power we need so we can maintain our state of contentedness our state of love and compassion, what it like to be in a state of Rama most of the time much of the time, instead of in a state of complaining this pleasure, self hate self loathing which so Many of us including myself experienced on the regular just sitting imagine, perhaps when you stop listening to this episode, I'm gonna stay only sit. Close your eyes. Take some deep breaths. Listen, not just to the thoughts you're having, perhaps allow those thoughts to keep on drifting past watch them, observe them. But notice what coming up in your body how do the things I've just spoken about sit with you how they land within your body as it is right this moment as it feel like to be you and then imagine how to feel like if you give yourself rough Ma, if you approach the way you see the world with Rafa, if you imagine yourself a rough math filled human being given to you by Earthman Rahim, the most compassionate, Most Merciful Creator, how would your life be different? This is what I'm working on. If you'd like to join me on this path of living around my field lay up I'm listening. We're going to hear lots more stories during season two from women from around the world with very different life trajectories and how they walked this healing path and what their spiritual journey looks like, and how they find ways to give themselves Rama even when it's hard and welcome to Allah and leave you with the compassion of Allah. Al Hamdulillah Oh, praise be to the one who showers us with Rafa. Thank you for listening until the end of the episode. This podcast is made possible by listeners like you who make small but meaningful donations that enable me to cover podcast production cost, and create a unique compilation of Muslim spiritual and healing journeys. To become a supporter of the show. Please visit the podcast page in the shownotes you can sign up for my mailing list to receive updates about my offers and my inspired writing. You can follow me on instagram and facebook under Dr. Rose Aslan or visit my website compassion flow f l o w.com. If you're walking the healing path, and would like support along the way, I offer intimate, safe spaces in one on one and group settings for people like you to create a life vision that helps you thrive, build new habits. Learn to entertain yourself, build and maintain sacred boundaries. Reclaim spirituality on your own terms, deprogram yourself from being conditioned in a patriarchal society. Connect with your inner knowing and wisdom and more. All with a Rama centered and trauma informed approach.