December 19, 2018 • 35 mins
Global change-maker Zainab Salbi challenges us to face and heal inconsistencies between who we are and who we claim to be in order to unleash freedom from within.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's humbling to be in a position of apologizing. You know,
we all as a victim, you always want the other
to apologize to you. But it's so humbling to be
in the other seat, and and and you're shaking and
saying I'm really sorry. I own that. So it creates
more compassion. It created more compassionate in me on how
it's now no longer assam them. It's like I've been
(00:24):
all of us. Welcome to you Turns, the podcast where
we talk about change and how to navigate that in
(00:45):
the best possible way. I am Lisa and I'm Jill Herzig,
And you know, at this podcast we talk a lot
about looking ahead, but today we're really more focused on
looking backward. And um, you know, I think one of
the things that you and I have learned preparing for
today is that it's looking backward that frees you to
(01:07):
actually move at And we've I mean, I had never
talked to you about my teenage years before we were
getting ready for this podcast. I know that this the
book that we read in preparation for this, was really
triggered so many good conversations, Like I feel like, I
know you're so much better talking about the both of
our past, and it wasn't so much. I mean, the
(01:28):
past is a big part of it, but it's also
going and not just temporarily back, but deep inside to
ask yourself those really hard questions like who am I?
Who am I really? What have I done? How? How
can I think about this? And and our guest today,
(01:48):
zeb Salvey is very evolved in this area. She is
the host of um do you say? Hashtag me too
now what? Or just me too now what? The PBS
special hashtag me too Now and her recent book Freedom
is an Inside Job? What do you mean by that?
(02:09):
And why is freedom? And we always think about freedom
is being something that we have to fight for on
the outside, and you've turned that paradigm upside down with
the title, but really with the whole essence of the
book is that it's all about the inside. Can you
talk about that? Well? First of all, what a pleasure
to be here. Thank you for having me. You know,
I my connection or history with freedom is a complex
(02:35):
one because I actually grew up in a country where
it did not have an external freedom. You know, I
grew up in Iraq. There was a dictatorship and we
were afraid of our shadows, you know, for our walls,
I mean, and I'm not exaggerating. And I document all
of that history of that fear um in my memoir
Between Two Worlds, and I was like, when I was
(02:56):
writing it, I was still asking. I was like, how
do I explain to people fear is? You know, It's
just like I don't know, how do you because as
you can't touch it, but you're always afraid. And so
then I came to America at the age of nineteen twenty,
and you know, and it was like for the first
time for me to see and I lived and I
grew up coming to America, but it was living in
(03:17):
America and getting exposure to this freedom and still this
country from you represent that freedom of expression, freedom of being,
and it was like, wow, it's amazing, you know, It's
like it's exciting. And it's because of that. I felt
like it's a privilege to have this freedom, and so
I have to take advantage of it. And it is
(03:40):
because of that I like sort of started my organization
at age of twenty three, whom I forming International, and
I would go around the world and serve and help
women survivors of wars and all this time I have
connect you know, looked at the world as us and
them their oppressor. We are oppressed their good. This is bad,
(04:01):
this is a life is truth, like it's constantly it
was a paradigm of good and bad basically well eventually
over time every you know, like for example, let's just
talk about like, you know, I would you know, spiritual
communities and I would like worship and idealize and I
was like amazing, it's like amazing values. Oh my god,
(04:21):
I would can infatuated. And then I get hurt by
the very like community that I'm idealizing and here because
of you know, I thought it's acclaimed higher values of
yoga and spirituality, and I was like it was confusing
for me, right, It's like no, it doesn't make sense,
you know, like this is good and I'm getting hurt
(04:42):
from the good, and you know, it's like to get
hurt from sad down passane. It's like very clear. But
then it was getting hurt from everywhere around, you know,
and then getting gloved from everywhere around. Long story to
short is that I came eventually to realize the good,
the bad, and the ugly actually exists everywhere, and that
(05:04):
my simplistic dichotomy and dividing the world into us and them,
good and bad actually was wrong. That the good and
the bad and the ugly is and everyone. More importantly,
the good and the bad and the ugly is in me,
and that unless I recognize the good and the bad
and the ugly in me, it's constantly not leading my
(05:27):
life out of control. So I think of it, for example,
as life is like a horse carriage, and there is
a dark horse and a light horse, and I'm only
putting the leash on the light horse because I want
to be good, and I'm like, it's such a good person.
But I have a dark horse and me as everyone does.
And if I don't put the leash on the dark horse,
it still expresses itself. It still goes, you know, takes
(05:49):
me out like you know, and I'm like wait, wait, wait.
So it's like seeing my darkness is putting the leash
on it, is understanding it, is respecting it. It's actually
controlling it's it's not denying it. And that helps me
become more aware of the of the complexities of me,
and that helps me relate to others light and darkness
(06:10):
in a more compassionate way, because I know the light
and the darkness in me. So it's a very long answer,
but the point is I I thought of freedom as
an external because you know, I lived in worlds or
not with no freedom and freedom, and now I realized
the ultimate freedom is only I can Only I can
(06:31):
give it to me, the ultimate freedom from wary and
fear and shame and all of these things that exist everywhere.
You know, only I can give it to me. So
it's I am the cake of my happiness. Everyone in
my life is the cream in it. But I am
the only one who can give myself happiness, and I
(06:52):
am the only one who can take away my happiness
from me. But this required a lot of hard self work.
I mean you you had to turn inward this book.
The writing of this book must have taken a very
long time. And all of it feels like you just
kind of pulling up from the roots these darker forces
(07:13):
in your own personality. You did not have to do this,
do not have to put this out there for everyone
to see. Um, tell us why it's important to do
that inner work. And and I guess I'm also curious,
like you showed it. You you put it out there
for for everyone in the book. So I had to
(07:34):
realize I had to, like I decided to speak and
break my silence. And I thought, I have no story.
I thought my story is frivolous. I thought it's like nothing. Well,
I but I had to tell it because it was
a story that held my shame. It was a story
that held my secrets, my fear, fear of judgment, you know,
which people look down at me, all of these things,
(07:54):
and I and it was really heartbreaking, the story breaking
my son, and it's like for my own pain. I
cry second my family's pressure saying no, no, no, please,
don't do that. That's a family secret. But then as
I told it and I wrote it and I spoke it, Oh,
what I can tell you is there was like a
dark stone in my chest that I had had coexisting
(08:17):
anxiety in me. Right, I couldn't breathe, and that dark
stone became a crystal and I can breathe, And so
I was like, Wow, the taste of freedom is actually delicious.
I just had to go through the very hard journey
of telling it and freeing myself from my fear, which
(08:38):
is of the shame and of the worry of judgment.
So then I start asking, well, where am I not
in truth in my life? And that's how it started.
The journey of freedom is an inside job. So I
start looking at my marriage. Am I in truth or
not in truth in my marriage? I sat looking into
my job and my true or not in truth in
(09:01):
my job. I sat looking into my values, you know,
between the values I preach as a you know and shout, yeah,
you know, do that? Am I actually implementing these values
in my life? And I kept on going anywhere, and
every time I asked a question. Let's say the marriage,
it was really hard. It was struggle. It was like painful.
(09:24):
But then you're like, you know, like there's an anxiety
in here, like no one knows about it except you,
you know, because you were in a marriage that No,
this is a good guys, my second marriage, wonderful man.
It's just wasn't a long relationship and becomes silence, you know,
after a while, and it's like, you know, you stay
in the silence because he's a good man, or you
(09:45):
address it so like this is an example like that,
but I was not in truth and so you dig, dig,
dig deeper. It's like the journey is hard, but then
once you tell it and once you like to say,
that's my truth, and it's like again the crystal feel
incomes again you feel fantastic. So it's sort of addictive almost,
like you know, once you taste being in truth and
(10:08):
one aspect of your life, you want to be in
truth in all aspects of your life. Do you do
you feel like you have to for the people listening
who are struggling and with change and beingcoming more honest
in their lives. Um, in all of our own lives
because we all have stories, right um, And we all
have stories we tell ourselves which possibly aren't the truth.
Do we have to articulate those to someone else we
(10:31):
have to tell that story? Or can we just get
it more clear and honest in our own heads? Is
there a utility in putting it out in the world
rather than just you know, psychoanalyzing it or right? So,
I don't have a judgment on that because everyone has
their story and that that the weight of that story.
(10:53):
Only that individual can judge what that means, whether you
tell it or you don't. All of that, what I
do leave is that so for me, So one is
I don't have a judgment. Do whatever feels right to you. Second,
when you do tell it, even if it's in the
space of your friends or your therapist or whatever, then
(11:15):
it's actually it does something that telling, even to a
group of strangers. You know, first time I told was
my story was I was in a group of retreat
with strangers and I told them my story. It was safe,
you know. So it doesn't matter. But that telling actually
release from the weight of holding it. So there is
a value article, I do think, because it's like sort
(11:36):
of it's taking the heavyweight that you're holding out. But
you don't have to do what I'm doing, which is
like exposed to the whole world. You know. That's just
my choice. And a long time ago I decided that
the way I m have my freedom is actually by
telling the truth and the full truth about myself as
(11:56):
the only way to free myself from my worry. But
that's my dial. No one needs to do it like that,
you know, do it whatever feels right to you, but
do articulated. We're going to take a quick break more
in a moment. The story that you told in that
(12:23):
group that you said the sort of the first one.
I'd love you to tell us more about what that
story was so the story that the secret of my
life for the longest time is that what I grew
up with a family that new Saddam Hussein Um. I
called him uncle all my life. We were very very
close to him, not related to him, but very close
(12:44):
social friendship. UM. And that was the nightmare of my life.
I mean it was not It was a relationship of privilege,
you know, of like material privilege, but fear. I mean,
I grew up with my mom trying to scummit suicide
over and over in and we're all worried and all
afraid of him. We smiled when he smiled, we cried
when he cried, like I need to please him. But
(13:06):
the second story of my shame and and fear for
the longest time is I came here in an arranged marriage.
I came to American and arranged marriage. Now, arranged marriage
back home doesn't mean that you're they're forcing you and
like enslaving you and all of that. It means they
proposed to you your parents. And in my case, I
was like, I don't know, and my mom just cried
(13:27):
the entire time and just said please please accept just
I don't care what you do when you arrive in America,
just accept and just cried the whole time. And at
the end, I just wanted my mother to cry, to
stop crying. Basically, it's like, okay, okay, I'll do whatever
makes you happy. Fine, but you know, but I came.
But there's there's a value judgment of an like. I
(13:48):
felt ashamed that how could I be like this activist
feminist being an arranged mersaure. I didn't want to tell
people about that. And the third story of my shame
is that in that arranged marriage to a guy that
I did not know, I met him once, you know,
you know, I was only again nineteen about to turn twenty.
He was at that time twelve years older than me,
(14:11):
which when you're at that age, it was a bigger
deal for me right then now for example, um, but
but then it was a horrible relationship and he was
sexually violent and I was violated verbally violent. But he
ended up within three months. Basically I felt raped. I mean,
and you you question yourself, when is the marriage? You know,
(14:35):
and it was like is that rape or not? And
I didn't have the language, nor did I had I
did not know the word rape, nor did I know
was a viola. Like all what I knew is my
mom always talked to me about sex. Sexuality is something
to enjoy and it's beautiful as to celebrate, and that
this was not so That's all my point of reference.
I was not like educated in I later studied woman's studies,
(14:58):
but I didn't have the vocabulary. I just knew that
this is wrong. What he's doing to me is wrong.
It doesn't like no, yeah, I don't care if he's
legally my husband or not. And so I had to escape,
and I escaped with like four dollars in my pocket
and I only had like three months been in America.
And that's how I started my life again. I mean
(15:20):
I started with like I moved from the elite of
the elite of Iraq. You know, everyone is afraid of
us because we were set down her Saint's friends to
having four hundred dollars in America. Escaped from an arranged marriage.
My family in Iraq in a war with Kuwait at
that time. This is the first go four and I
end up not seeing my family for nine years. These
were stories of shame as in I didn't want people
(15:43):
to judge me that I knew Saddam that was scary,
or I was an arranged marriage, I was very scary,
Or that I was raped, that was very scary, or
I was abused wife. But there's also a reason that
your mother insisted you married this. In hindsight, yes, And
it took me nine years to see my mother and
my family again, and it was really like, you know,
(16:04):
I mean, you know, I just turned forty nine a
month ago and like for the first time, like you know,
you heal eventually. I do believe it is possible to heal.
And on my mom end up dying. Um. But on
the like, basically within the last year of her life
is when she told me why she did that, and
it was like just to get me out of his
his um. It's still an emotional story, just to get
(16:28):
me out of his eyes, basically because I was becoming
a woman and he was seeing me as a woman
and she was petrified. And so that's what I would
do to you what he had done. So he had
done too so many it doesn't matter they're younger, old.
So many women across the country and so so it's
(16:48):
but you know, you have judgment of that, and it's
like you know, you're you're so all of these things.
So when I told them, and I cried a lot
in the process, and now I can tell you, I
may I tear up a little. But still it's still
like like the residue of just a little bit, you know,
I still deal with some of the trauma that happened
between now and then, but but more or less, I'm okay,
(17:09):
you know. And so like this is a breaking of
the silence, because when you break it, you actually worry
like what people are gonna do, but actually you realize, oh,
I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm saying I'm okay, I'm strong,
I hear. It also gives people a way to connect
to you, because once you've shared that story, they're no
longer afraid to share their story exactly, because when you
(17:30):
have that distance of here I am the privileged person
helping you, and here you are the person that needs help,
there's no way to connect exactly. I mean, that's why
I'm excited about the last year the Me Too movement,
you know, It's because it's sort of it's like when
women are breaking their silence, it's like, uh, yes, we're
all going it's not all but so many of us
are going through. It creates a camaraderie which encourages other
(17:53):
women to say, I'm not alone. And are you hearing
that from the women who share their stories. I mean
essentially they're they're doing you're what you're talking about. They're
going back there, opening these kind of hidden boxes inside
and pulling out some ugly things that have happened to
them and sharing that. Are you finding that they seem freer,
(18:13):
that they that that sort of crystal part of themselves
is emerging or eventually eventually, but it takes a process,
you know, so like you know, if it took me
ten years, so eventually, it depends on where you are
in the spectrum. My theory is you need to do
your work no matter what you know. If you don't,
(18:35):
either you are pre emptive about it and proactive rather
about doing your work on yourself, which is it starts
with telling the story. It doesn't end with telling the story.
That's the whole thing. Like people say, first you break
the story and you cry and you get angry and
all of that. Then eventually you realize, oh, I need
to do my work because the story is a victim
(18:55):
who at first, but then you're like I need to
like really understand myself in here, So you need to
do I I believe every individual need to do their
work on themselves. If you don't do it in your twenties,
you have to do it in your thirties. If you
don't do any thirty and you have to do it
in your nineties. You know, but it will haunt you.
Your story, yourself work will constantly come to you until
(19:18):
you confront it. And so that's why it was like
to do it when you are healthy and you're choosing
to do it, because it actually liberates you faster. Some
of the stories you've talked about, because you said starts
with the victim stories, those, in some ways I think
are easier stories to tell than the ones where we've
been the perpetrator, and I think we all have those.
(19:39):
You shared one where you had to confront your own
darkness with how you would hurt someone else. Those are
the stories we don't really want to share with it
and it was like I was a bad person, yes, yes,
but that's where the real work I think. I think
that's phase two of the work. You know. The place
one is like you're thinking that you're a company, you know,
like great, you know, and go for and we have
(20:00):
to do phase one right. Phase two of the work
is like, oh, where have I been the perpetrator or
the bad guy in here? You know, like have I
treated someone badly? Long story? I found out the women
that worked as made in my family home when I
was young, who was a child, and I was able
(20:20):
to find her back in Iraq and asked and like
finding a refugee camp and like tell her twenty five
years later and say I want to apologize because I
think I treated you badly. And that conversation opened a
huge story of awareness from me. How she resented being
(20:43):
the mayor, how she was saying it's unfair that you
went to school and I didn't how what it felt like.
And to be honestly, up until that moment, you know,
I always thought I'm a progressive woman. My mother told me,
never learned how to co Coklan just because you're you're
you're a woman. No man should expect that of you.
You know. It was like, you know, I am so liberate,
(21:06):
I'm a woman's vis activists. Never up until that moment
did I wonder what happened to the woman who cleaned
and cooked for me, Yeah, I was horse, what's her feelings?
Is she okay? Like? And so that going into my
own shadow, not only I had to own it, but
I learned. I learned from her. And it's humbling to
(21:30):
be up in a position of apologizing. You know, we
all as a victim, you always want the other to
apologize to you. But it's so humbling to be in
the other seat, and and and you're shaking and saying,
I'm really sorry. I own that, you know. So it
creates more compassion. It created more compassion in me on
how I it's now no longer ass in them. It's
(21:52):
like I've been all of us, you know. You know,
it was so interesting reading your book and watching you
sort of swear very fluently and fluently from one side
to the other, from the shadow to the light, and
your ability to express how sorry you were for the
way you heard that girl, even though you were a child,
(22:13):
even though you were within a system that normalized everything
around your juxtaposition with her. It seemed like that enabled
you to understand the mechanism of forgiveness and how powerful
forgiveness is in life. That's sort of a big thing
that I took away from the book was that the
ability to apologize is so liberating and the ability to
forgive so liberating, and they're they're just my faith. I mean, like,
(22:40):
that's the best takeaway I could ask off for because
forgiveness for me and I really believe we need it
in this country right now and and and we need
and I think it's well, it's a concept we talked about.
But I don't know about you, but for me, I
really didn't understand it until I needed to explore it
inside of myself. So I sort of forgiveness as such
(23:01):
a you know, a high value, beautiful value council. Mandela
talked about it. I loved it, all of that, and then,
you know, and I would give speeches about now according
Nelson Mandela, I mean, I'm like, yeah, I look look
at my values. I believe in forgiveness. But the truth
is I never forgave anybody in my life. When you
talk about forgiveness and the forgiveness, I talked, maybe I
(23:24):
forgave my mother for putting me this arrangement, but it's
not a big forgiveness. Until a few years ago, and
Nan I was dating, hurt me, he cheated on me,
and it's really hurt me, really, really really because I
loved him, and here I am giving speeches about forgiveness.
But to be very honest, I couldn't forgive him if nothing.
(23:46):
I mean like, I couldn't forgive him. I was so
hurt and so angry. I could not forgive him. So
then I had to ask, like, so, what's the point
of me like admiring all this? I was that holding
you back? I mean, a lot of consistence I was
in it. I was like a hypocrite basically giving speeches
about forgiveness, but I don't understand what it means. So
(24:07):
it was like I caught myself being a hypocrite. In
other words, I caught myself being like, oh, you know,
I'm not consistent here. I'm just thinking I'm such a
self righteous person with this value. But I wanna like,
if anything, it was the feelings of hurting him rather
than forgiving him that occurred to me, you know what
I mean. So then I had to, like someone asked me,
(24:30):
it's like, well, can you find out where is the
part of you that betrayed you? So I need to
in forgiveness inside myself. And then I asked myself, where
have I betrayed myself. There was a lot of times
I betrayed myself. It's the insecurity that betrays us, our
own insecurities that betrayed us. So in my case, it
was a very insecure girl that wants to be loved
(24:51):
and accepted. And so I would accommodate people just so
I can they you know, they like me. But I
would compromise myself in the process, you because I just
please love me, you know, And that's how I compromise
myself with him. And so then I could feel bad
for her. You know, she's such an insecure girl, and
I forgave her. I automatically forgave him without being asked
(25:16):
for forgiveness. I really believe we can forgive even when
not asked for forgiveness. And now my forgiveness. When I
talk about forgiveness, it is not some mental exercise, a
theory I read about it in a book. It's actually
I understood what it means to be inside my heart
and it has a different energy to advocate for this value.
(25:38):
We've been talking about looking inward. When we come back,
we're going to talk about resetting our journey m So
we've been talking about forgiveness and self forgiveness as part
of our journey towards self now much um and personal transformation.
(26:04):
But you say that we spend too much time celebrating
the outcome, waiting for us to get to that place
of enlightenment when we're good people and we don't acknowledge
just the journey itself. Can we talk a little bit
about relaxing into the journey because we're never going to
be perfect. We can't wait till the day that we
never lie and that we never gossip and that we
never do anything bad before we feel okay about ourselves.
(26:27):
So let's talk about the journey to wholeness while you're
asking all my favorite sit points, you know. But it
is again, I mean, we're judging out like you know,
I love especially in here, you know, like you know,
you brag about how many hours you work, and you
brag about how many less less hours you sleep, and
you bring you know, like it's all about and then
we get attached to outcome like we wanted, we wanted,
(26:49):
we wanted, and we don't surrender into the experience. And
I you know, and for me, it's like living I
studied with the with the angels Arian who is a
social anthropologist. As you said, the rhythm of earth is
slow to medium, and then when we're walking and going
about our life so fast, we miss we miss hearing
(27:11):
and seeing everything around us. You know, It's just like
the because everything goes actually slow to mediums except us
humans and in New York, you know, we go exit.
So I give you an experience. For example, a few
years ago, I got invited to go to a Saudi
Arabia to give a speech, and I wanted to go.
(27:32):
It was one hour from Mecca, and I was like, oh,
it's just one hour. Well I want to go, you know,
And and I was like, you know, my trip got
arranged and I'm going, but I'm anxious, Like you know,
I'm not happy about being in Saudi Arabia. I really
do not like being forced to cover my hair. It's
not exciting for me. I'm scared of the moral police
(27:53):
and the police. They're oppressive and as far as I'm concerned,
Like and if anybody touched me or tell me you
know you're wearing your clothes wrong, where I would have
snapped at him, like you know, like I was like,
so I'm dreading this whole experience, but I'm curious and
I was like, oh, it's just one hour. I want
to really go, you know, but I'm nervous and anyway
(28:17):
that everything about the trip goes wrong. You know, the
driver is supposed to drop me here, throws wrong, and
I get nervous. And because it's not going according to plan?
Are you familiar with that? Mean like the only context
is different, you know, but like it's not going you know,
the guy is supposed to come doesn't show up, is
not going according to plan, and like it's you know,
(28:40):
and I'm like getting more worked out and angry. And
you know, Mecca is the house of God based literally
it means the house of God in Islam, and so
here you are in the house of God and I'm
like just worked out, angry, anxious. Nothing is working out,
and more importantly, I'm scared to that of the Sudi police, right,
(29:00):
So but I have to go to them because I'm
lost and I don't know what to do. So I
go to the police and I was like, I'm scared,
I don't know what to do. I'm lost, and I'm
scared of you because if you're gonna tell me to
cover up differently, I will just nap and just like,
not good. This is not good, and I want I
don't want to confuse you know, anger at you with
anger at God, because I love God and I don't
(29:21):
want And I just like spelled it all out to him,
you know. And this guy in a culture that is like,
you know, oppressive of woman, looks at me in the eyes,
which you're not like culturally you don't look at the
opposite sexes in the eyes. And he said, you can
do it. You don't need a guide. You just go
and you go to it's just right there. You go
(29:43):
and do yourself seven rounds around the house of God,
and you sacrifice a piece of hair and you do
too prayers and that's it. It's very easy. You can
do it. And I swear like all my fear and
projections on this police man, well it was like an
angel as a man. So interesting. The person you feared
(30:03):
the most was the person you finally walked up to. Unbelievable,
let it all out. But then after that I sat
crying and I like, I am zaying up. I have
a love relationship with the divine, you know, I just
I love It's it's just a very personal it's not religious.
It's it's just I don't care which religion I'm born in.
(30:24):
I just love God, you know, That's that's for me,
it most important. And I was just like I was
like I sat crying. I was like, I'm trying to
come here, I'm trying to visit here, and nothing is
working out, and like it's all horrible, bad experience. And
then I just like surrender, like I just like I can't.
I can't, I like, you know, because all the doors
(30:45):
were closed in front of me, and I just like
I give up. I don't, I don't know. And that's
when I could actually experience the feelings. That's when the
call for prayer came. And I start noticing people men
and women in Mecca are actually next to each other.
They're not separated, and they're not segregated. And it's like
all the women wearing black and all the men are
(31:06):
wearing white, and it's like we are ribbons of black
and white because we're just in lines, you know. Everyone.
Imagine millions of people saying um and in the exact
same moment, and I and I don't know who is
the woman next to me. She could be a princess.
She could be a queen or she could be a
made We are all equal in that space. There was
(31:30):
no distinction, you know, between the liberal looking person and
the fundamentalist looking person and the woman who looks what
a color black? White, brown? Everywhere everywheredy ever, and I
just like I started crying the whole experience. And so
the point of the story is I try to be
very controlling about every aspect of it. And you could
(31:53):
be whether that could be an exam, or that could
be a job or whatever. The truth is, you can't
experience it until like prepare, yeah, and then surrender and
then surrender because you can experience that feelings. And I
could only experience that same place, same situation. It's only
I who changed from fear to saying I'm here and
(32:16):
I'm going to experience a feeling. And it was one
of the most profound experiences in my life. So all
of these things constantly I'm learning they change like I thought.
I grew up thinking they changed from within. It's not
an external change. I thought. I grew up thinking I'm ugly.
Finally I meet, honestly a woman from Tibet, you know,
(32:37):
and like, like, this is not not not nothing special,
you know. And she tells me, of course, I'm infatuated
with anybody from Tibet. You know. It's like spirituality. Wow,
you know, it's like teach me something, you know. And
she said, you need to learn how to meditate on
your face in front of the mirror. So I'm like, okay,
I'm like, it's a better woman tells me that I
should really experience that, you know. I go to my
(33:00):
bathroom mirror, not some spiritual retreat, not some yoga retract,
my bathroom mirror. And I tried to meditate on my
face and it's too much, too many features, And I
realized I washed my face every day. You put cream
with women put makeup, but we don't look at ourselves.
We don't see ourselves. At least I didn't see myself,
(33:22):
even though I'm seeing my face, but not seeing myself.
So I then decided to meditate on only one eye
and only one pupil, basically because that's the only thing
you can focus like the smallest thing you can focus on.
And she said, hold your meditation for ten minutes. And
I sat doing it one day after the other until I, oh,
(33:43):
what I can tell you. It was it was like
a moment like oh my god, I'm beautiful, but it
was from my pupil. It's like seeing your soul and
from that your whole my it's like got rewired. It's
the same body I've had all my life. It's the
same mirror I've had for the last fifteen twenty years.
(34:04):
And I look at myself now it's like, oh, it's beautiful.
But that's what change is an inside job, you know,
it's not the outside, it's the inside job. And and
and now my behaviors not that I don't buy. I
just told you that I just got this shirted, you know,
the twitter from Turking. But it's more my my buying change,
(34:25):
which is much more out of love rather than out
of insecurity. Is this loving? Is this loving to earth?
Is it loving to other women? Is it loving? Like fair?
Is this fair? You know? So I said it into
what I call ethical buying, or I try, you know,
I asked, what's the source of this? Is this has
a story? Did you help another woman with this or
another person a man? So it's it changed. So now
(34:48):
I have one third less of everything of my clothes,
but everyone has a story, and it's you know, and
and it and I feel but and my beauty feels
I was shining as opposed to the opposite. Before it
was like compiling it with things, but always an insecure
look feel of my look. Well, your beauty is shining
(35:11):
for them, and we both thank you so much for
being here today so much. I really really appreciate things
and everyone listening. If you want more of Zanab, follow
her on Zanab at Zanab Salvey dot com. So wonderful,
Thank you, thank you, thank you, and reach out to
us at You Turns podcast. Tell us your stories of
(35:33):
discovery of your inner beauty or just going inside whatever
might be there.
It's humbling to be in a position of apologizing. You know,
we all as a victim, you always want the other
to apologize to you. But it's so humbling to be
in the other seat, and and and you're shaking and
saying I'm really sorry. I own that. So it creates
more compassion. It created more compassionate in me on how
it's now no longer assam them. It's like I've been
(00:24):
all of us. Welcome to you Turns, the podcast where
we talk about change and how to navigate that in
(00:45):
the best possible way. I am Lisa and I'm Jill Herzig,
And you know, at this podcast we talk a lot
about looking ahead, but today we're really more focused on
looking backward. And um, you know, I think one of
the things that you and I have learned preparing for
today is that it's looking backward that frees you to
(01:07):
actually move at And we've I mean, I had never
talked to you about my teenage years before we were
getting ready for this podcast. I know that this the
book that we read in preparation for this, was really
triggered so many good conversations, Like I feel like, I
know you're so much better talking about the both of
our past, and it wasn't so much. I mean, the
(01:28):
past is a big part of it, but it's also
going and not just temporarily back, but deep inside to
ask yourself those really hard questions like who am I?
Who am I really? What have I done? How? How
can I think about this? And and our guest today,
(01:48):
zeb Salvey is very evolved in this area. She is
the host of um do you say? Hashtag me too
now what? Or just me too now what? The PBS
special hashtag me too Now and her recent book Freedom
is an Inside Job? What do you mean by that?
(02:09):
And why is freedom? And we always think about freedom
is being something that we have to fight for on
the outside, and you've turned that paradigm upside down with
the title, but really with the whole essence of the
book is that it's all about the inside. Can you
talk about that? Well? First of all, what a pleasure
to be here. Thank you for having me. You know,
I my connection or history with freedom is a complex
(02:35):
one because I actually grew up in a country where
it did not have an external freedom. You know, I
grew up in Iraq. There was a dictatorship and we
were afraid of our shadows, you know, for our walls,
I mean, and I'm not exaggerating. And I document all
of that history of that fear um in my memoir
Between Two Worlds, and I was like, when I was
(02:56):
writing it, I was still asking. I was like, how
do I explain to people fear is? You know, It's
just like I don't know, how do you because as
you can't touch it, but you're always afraid. And so
then I came to America at the age of nineteen twenty,
and you know, and it was like for the first
time for me to see and I lived and I
grew up coming to America, but it was living in
(03:17):
America and getting exposure to this freedom and still this
country from you represent that freedom of expression, freedom of being,
and it was like, wow, it's amazing, you know, It's
like it's exciting. And it's because of that. I felt
like it's a privilege to have this freedom, and so
I have to take advantage of it. And it is
(03:40):
because of that I like sort of started my organization
at age of twenty three, whom I forming International, and
I would go around the world and serve and help
women survivors of wars and all this time I have
connect you know, looked at the world as us and
them their oppressor. We are oppressed their good. This is bad,
(04:01):
this is a life is truth, like it's constantly it
was a paradigm of good and bad basically well eventually
over time every you know, like for example, let's just
talk about like, you know, I would you know, spiritual
communities and I would like worship and idealize and I
was like amazing, it's like amazing values. Oh my god,
(04:21):
I would can infatuated. And then I get hurt by
the very like community that I'm idealizing and here because
of you know, I thought it's acclaimed higher values of
yoga and spirituality, and I was like it was confusing
for me, right, It's like no, it doesn't make sense,
you know, like this is good and I'm getting hurt
(04:42):
from the good, and you know, it's like to get
hurt from sad down passane. It's like very clear. But
then it was getting hurt from everywhere around, you know,
and then getting gloved from everywhere around. Long story to
short is that I came eventually to realize the good,
the bad, and the ugly actually exists everywhere, and that
(05:04):
my simplistic dichotomy and dividing the world into us and them,
good and bad actually was wrong. That the good and
the bad and the ugly is and everyone. More importantly,
the good and the bad and the ugly is in me,
and that unless I recognize the good and the bad
and the ugly in me, it's constantly not leading my
(05:27):
life out of control. So I think of it, for example,
as life is like a horse carriage, and there is
a dark horse and a light horse, and I'm only
putting the leash on the light horse because I want
to be good, and I'm like, it's such a good person.
But I have a dark horse and me as everyone does.
And if I don't put the leash on the dark horse,
it still expresses itself. It still goes, you know, takes
(05:49):
me out like you know, and I'm like wait, wait, wait.
So it's like seeing my darkness is putting the leash
on it, is understanding it, is respecting it. It's actually
controlling it's it's not denying it. And that helps me
become more aware of the of the complexities of me,
and that helps me relate to others light and darkness
(06:10):
in a more compassionate way, because I know the light
and the darkness in me. So it's a very long answer,
but the point is I I thought of freedom as
an external because you know, I lived in worlds or
not with no freedom and freedom, and now I realized
the ultimate freedom is only I can Only I can
(06:31):
give it to me, the ultimate freedom from wary and
fear and shame and all of these things that exist everywhere.
You know, only I can give it to me. So
it's I am the cake of my happiness. Everyone in
my life is the cream in it. But I am
the only one who can give myself happiness, and I
(06:52):
am the only one who can take away my happiness
from me. But this required a lot of hard self work.
I mean you you had to turn inward this book.
The writing of this book must have taken a very
long time. And all of it feels like you just
kind of pulling up from the roots these darker forces
(07:13):
in your own personality. You did not have to do this,
do not have to put this out there for everyone
to see. Um, tell us why it's important to do
that inner work. And and I guess I'm also curious,
like you showed it. You you put it out there
for for everyone in the book. So I had to
(07:34):
realize I had to, like I decided to speak and
break my silence. And I thought, I have no story.
I thought my story is frivolous. I thought it's like nothing. Well,
I but I had to tell it because it was
a story that held my shame. It was a story
that held my secrets, my fear, fear of judgment, you know,
which people look down at me, all of these things,
(07:54):
and I and it was really heartbreaking, the story breaking
my son, and it's like for my own pain. I
cry second my family's pressure saying no, no, no, please,
don't do that. That's a family secret. But then as
I told it and I wrote it and I spoke it, Oh,
what I can tell you is there was like a
dark stone in my chest that I had had coexisting
(08:17):
anxiety in me. Right, I couldn't breathe, and that dark
stone became a crystal and I can breathe, And so
I was like, Wow, the taste of freedom is actually delicious.
I just had to go through the very hard journey
of telling it and freeing myself from my fear, which
(08:38):
is of the shame and of the worry of judgment.
So then I start asking, well, where am I not
in truth in my life? And that's how it started.
The journey of freedom is an inside job. So I
start looking at my marriage. Am I in truth or
not in truth in my marriage? I sat looking into
my job and my true or not in truth in
(09:01):
my job. I sat looking into my values, you know,
between the values I preach as a you know and shout, yeah,
you know, do that? Am I actually implementing these values
in my life? And I kept on going anywhere, and
every time I asked a question. Let's say the marriage,
it was really hard. It was struggle. It was like painful.
(09:24):
But then you're like, you know, like there's an anxiety
in here, like no one knows about it except you,
you know, because you were in a marriage that No,
this is a good guys, my second marriage, wonderful man.
It's just wasn't a long relationship and becomes silence, you know,
after a while, and it's like, you know, you stay
in the silence because he's a good man, or you
(09:45):
address it so like this is an example like that,
but I was not in truth and so you dig, dig,
dig deeper. It's like the journey is hard, but then
once you tell it and once you like to say,
that's my truth, and it's like again the crystal feel
incomes again you feel fantastic. So it's sort of addictive almost,
like you know, once you taste being in truth and
(10:08):
one aspect of your life, you want to be in
truth in all aspects of your life. Do you do
you feel like you have to for the people listening
who are struggling and with change and beingcoming more honest
in their lives. Um, in all of our own lives
because we all have stories, right um, And we all
have stories we tell ourselves which possibly aren't the truth.
Do we have to articulate those to someone else we
(10:31):
have to tell that story? Or can we just get
it more clear and honest in our own heads? Is
there a utility in putting it out in the world
rather than just you know, psychoanalyzing it or right? So,
I don't have a judgment on that because everyone has
their story and that that the weight of that story.
(10:53):
Only that individual can judge what that means, whether you
tell it or you don't. All of that, what I
do leave is that so for me, So one is
I don't have a judgment. Do whatever feels right to you. Second,
when you do tell it, even if it's in the
space of your friends or your therapist or whatever, then
(11:15):
it's actually it does something that telling, even to a
group of strangers. You know, first time I told was
my story was I was in a group of retreat
with strangers and I told them my story. It was safe,
you know. So it doesn't matter. But that telling actually
release from the weight of holding it. So there is
a value article, I do think, because it's like sort
(11:36):
of it's taking the heavyweight that you're holding out. But
you don't have to do what I'm doing, which is
like exposed to the whole world. You know. That's just
my choice. And a long time ago I decided that
the way I m have my freedom is actually by
telling the truth and the full truth about myself as
(11:56):
the only way to free myself from my worry. But
that's my dial. No one needs to do it like that,
you know, do it whatever feels right to you, but
do articulated. We're going to take a quick break more
in a moment. The story that you told in that
(12:23):
group that you said the sort of the first one.
I'd love you to tell us more about what that
story was so the story that the secret of my
life for the longest time is that what I grew
up with a family that new Saddam Hussein Um. I
called him uncle all my life. We were very very
close to him, not related to him, but very close
(12:44):
social friendship. UM. And that was the nightmare of my life.
I mean it was not It was a relationship of privilege,
you know, of like material privilege, but fear. I mean,
I grew up with my mom trying to scummit suicide
over and over in and we're all worried and all
afraid of him. We smiled when he smiled, we cried
when he cried, like I need to please him. But
(13:06):
the second story of my shame and and fear for
the longest time is I came here in an arranged marriage.
I came to American and arranged marriage. Now, arranged marriage
back home doesn't mean that you're they're forcing you and
like enslaving you and all of that. It means they
proposed to you your parents. And in my case, I
was like, I don't know, and my mom just cried
(13:27):
the entire time and just said please please accept just
I don't care what you do when you arrive in America,
just accept and just cried the whole time. And at
the end, I just wanted my mother to cry, to
stop crying. Basically, it's like, okay, okay, I'll do whatever
makes you happy. Fine, but you know, but I came.
But there's there's a value judgment of an like. I
(13:48):
felt ashamed that how could I be like this activist
feminist being an arranged mersaure. I didn't want to tell
people about that. And the third story of my shame
is that in that arranged marriage to a guy that
I did not know, I met him once, you know,
you know, I was only again nineteen about to turn twenty.
He was at that time twelve years older than me,
(14:11):
which when you're at that age, it was a bigger
deal for me right then now for example, um, but
but then it was a horrible relationship and he was
sexually violent and I was violated verbally violent. But he
ended up within three months. Basically I felt raped. I mean,
and you you question yourself, when is the marriage? You know,
(14:35):
and it was like is that rape or not? And
I didn't have the language, nor did I had I
did not know the word rape, nor did I know
was a viola. Like all what I knew is my
mom always talked to me about sex. Sexuality is something
to enjoy and it's beautiful as to celebrate, and that
this was not so That's all my point of reference.
I was not like educated in I later studied woman's studies,
(14:58):
but I didn't have the vocabulary. I just knew that
this is wrong. What he's doing to me is wrong.
It doesn't like no, yeah, I don't care if he's
legally my husband or not. And so I had to escape,
and I escaped with like four dollars in my pocket
and I only had like three months been in America.
And that's how I started my life again. I mean
(15:20):
I started with like I moved from the elite of
the elite of Iraq. You know, everyone is afraid of
us because we were set down her Saint's friends to
having four hundred dollars in America. Escaped from an arranged marriage.
My family in Iraq in a war with Kuwait at
that time. This is the first go four and I
end up not seeing my family for nine years. These
were stories of shame as in I didn't want people
(15:43):
to judge me that I knew Saddam that was scary,
or I was an arranged marriage, I was very scary,
Or that I was raped, that was very scary, or
I was abused wife. But there's also a reason that
your mother insisted you married this. In hindsight, yes, And
it took me nine years to see my mother and
my family again, and it was really like, you know,
(16:04):
I mean, you know, I just turned forty nine a
month ago and like for the first time, like you know,
you heal eventually. I do believe it is possible to heal.
And on my mom end up dying. Um. But on
the like, basically within the last year of her life
is when she told me why she did that, and
it was like just to get me out of his
his um. It's still an emotional story, just to get
(16:28):
me out of his eyes, basically because I was becoming
a woman and he was seeing me as a woman
and she was petrified. And so that's what I would
do to you what he had done. So he had
done too so many it doesn't matter they're younger, old.
So many women across the country and so so it's
(16:48):
but you know, you have judgment of that, and it's
like you know, you're you're so all of these things.
So when I told them, and I cried a lot
in the process, and now I can tell you, I
may I tear up a little. But still it's still
like like the residue of just a little bit, you know,
I still deal with some of the trauma that happened
between now and then, but but more or less, I'm okay,
(17:09):
you know. And so like this is a breaking of
the silence, because when you break it, you actually worry
like what people are gonna do, but actually you realize, oh,
I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm saying I'm okay, I'm strong,
I hear. It also gives people a way to connect
to you, because once you've shared that story, they're no
longer afraid to share their story exactly, because when you
(17:30):
have that distance of here I am the privileged person
helping you, and here you are the person that needs help,
there's no way to connect exactly. I mean, that's why
I'm excited about the last year the Me Too movement,
you know, It's because it's sort of it's like when
women are breaking their silence, it's like, uh, yes, we're
all going it's not all but so many of us
are going through. It creates a camaraderie which encourages other
(17:53):
women to say, I'm not alone. And are you hearing
that from the women who share their stories. I mean
essentially they're they're doing you're what you're talking about. They're
going back there, opening these kind of hidden boxes inside
and pulling out some ugly things that have happened to
them and sharing that. Are you finding that they seem freer,
(18:13):
that they that that sort of crystal part of themselves
is emerging or eventually eventually, but it takes a process,
you know, so like you know, if it took me
ten years, so eventually, it depends on where you are
in the spectrum. My theory is you need to do
your work no matter what you know. If you don't,
(18:35):
either you are pre emptive about it and proactive rather
about doing your work on yourself, which is it starts
with telling the story. It doesn't end with telling the story.
That's the whole thing. Like people say, first you break
the story and you cry and you get angry and
all of that. Then eventually you realize, oh, I need
to do my work because the story is a victim
(18:55):
who at first, but then you're like I need to
like really understand myself in here, So you need to
do I I believe every individual need to do their
work on themselves. If you don't do it in your twenties,
you have to do it in your thirties. If you
don't do any thirty and you have to do it
in your nineties. You know, but it will haunt you.
Your story, yourself work will constantly come to you until
(19:18):
you confront it. And so that's why it was like
to do it when you are healthy and you're choosing
to do it, because it actually liberates you faster. Some
of the stories you've talked about, because you said starts
with the victim stories, those, in some ways I think
are easier stories to tell than the ones where we've
been the perpetrator, and I think we all have those.
(19:39):
You shared one where you had to confront your own
darkness with how you would hurt someone else. Those are
the stories we don't really want to share with it
and it was like I was a bad person, yes, yes,
but that's where the real work I think. I think
that's phase two of the work. You know. The place
one is like you're thinking that you're a company, you know,
like great, you know, and go for and we have
(20:00):
to do phase one right. Phase two of the work
is like, oh, where have I been the perpetrator or
the bad guy in here? You know, like have I
treated someone badly? Long story? I found out the women
that worked as made in my family home when I
was young, who was a child, and I was able
(20:20):
to find her back in Iraq and asked and like
finding a refugee camp and like tell her twenty five
years later and say I want to apologize because I
think I treated you badly. And that conversation opened a
huge story of awareness from me. How she resented being
(20:43):
the mayor, how she was saying it's unfair that you
went to school and I didn't how what it felt like.
And to be honestly, up until that moment, you know,
I always thought I'm a progressive woman. My mother told me,
never learned how to co Coklan just because you're you're
you're a woman. No man should expect that of you.
You know. It was like, you know, I am so liberate,
(21:06):
I'm a woman's vis activists. Never up until that moment
did I wonder what happened to the woman who cleaned
and cooked for me, Yeah, I was horse, what's her feelings?
Is she okay? Like? And so that going into my
own shadow, not only I had to own it, but
I learned. I learned from her. And it's humbling to
(21:30):
be up in a position of apologizing. You know, we
all as a victim, you always want the other to
apologize to you. But it's so humbling to be in
the other seat, and and and you're shaking and saying,
I'm really sorry. I own that, you know. So it
creates more compassion. It created more compassion in me on
how I it's now no longer ass in them. It's
(21:52):
like I've been all of us, you know. You know,
it was so interesting reading your book and watching you
sort of swear very fluently and fluently from one side
to the other, from the shadow to the light, and
your ability to express how sorry you were for the
way you heard that girl, even though you were a child,
(22:13):
even though you were within a system that normalized everything
around your juxtaposition with her. It seemed like that enabled
you to understand the mechanism of forgiveness and how powerful
forgiveness is in life. That's sort of a big thing
that I took away from the book was that the
ability to apologize is so liberating and the ability to
forgive so liberating, and they're they're just my faith. I mean, like,
(22:40):
that's the best takeaway I could ask off for because
forgiveness for me and I really believe we need it
in this country right now and and and we need
and I think it's well, it's a concept we talked about.
But I don't know about you, but for me, I
really didn't understand it until I needed to explore it
inside of myself. So I sort of forgiveness as such
(23:01):
a you know, a high value, beautiful value council. Mandela
talked about it. I loved it, all of that, and then,
you know, and I would give speeches about now according
Nelson Mandela, I mean, I'm like, yeah, I look look
at my values. I believe in forgiveness. But the truth
is I never forgave anybody in my life. When you
talk about forgiveness and the forgiveness, I talked, maybe I
(23:24):
forgave my mother for putting me this arrangement, but it's
not a big forgiveness. Until a few years ago, and
Nan I was dating, hurt me, he cheated on me,
and it's really hurt me, really, really really because I
loved him, and here I am giving speeches about forgiveness.
But to be very honest, I couldn't forgive him if nothing.
(23:46):
I mean like, I couldn't forgive him. I was so
hurt and so angry. I could not forgive him. So
then I had to ask, like, so, what's the point
of me like admiring all this? I was that holding
you back? I mean, a lot of consistence I was
in it. I was like a hypocrite basically giving speeches
about forgiveness, but I don't understand what it means. So
(24:07):
it was like I caught myself being a hypocrite. In
other words, I caught myself being like, oh, you know,
I'm not consistent here. I'm just thinking I'm such a
self righteous person with this value. But I wanna like,
if anything, it was the feelings of hurting him rather
than forgiving him that occurred to me, you know what
I mean. So then I had to, like someone asked me,
(24:30):
it's like, well, can you find out where is the
part of you that betrayed you? So I need to
in forgiveness inside myself. And then I asked myself, where
have I betrayed myself. There was a lot of times
I betrayed myself. It's the insecurity that betrays us, our
own insecurities that betrayed us. So in my case, it
was a very insecure girl that wants to be loved
(24:51):
and accepted. And so I would accommodate people just so
I can they you know, they like me. But I
would compromise myself in the process, you because I just
please love me, you know, And that's how I compromise
myself with him. And so then I could feel bad
for her. You know, she's such an insecure girl, and
I forgave her. I automatically forgave him without being asked
(25:16):
for forgiveness. I really believe we can forgive even when
not asked for forgiveness. And now my forgiveness. When I
talk about forgiveness, it is not some mental exercise, a
theory I read about it in a book. It's actually
I understood what it means to be inside my heart
and it has a different energy to advocate for this value.
(25:38):
We've been talking about looking inward. When we come back,
we're going to talk about resetting our journey m So
we've been talking about forgiveness and self forgiveness as part
of our journey towards self now much um and personal transformation.
(26:04):
But you say that we spend too much time celebrating
the outcome, waiting for us to get to that place
of enlightenment when we're good people and we don't acknowledge
just the journey itself. Can we talk a little bit
about relaxing into the journey because we're never going to
be perfect. We can't wait till the day that we
never lie and that we never gossip and that we
never do anything bad before we feel okay about ourselves.
(26:27):
So let's talk about the journey to wholeness while you're
asking all my favorite sit points, you know. But it
is again, I mean, we're judging out like you know,
I love especially in here, you know, like you know,
you brag about how many hours you work, and you
brag about how many less less hours you sleep, and
you bring you know, like it's all about and then
we get attached to outcome like we wanted, we wanted,
(26:49):
we wanted, and we don't surrender into the experience. And
I you know, and for me, it's like living I
studied with the with the angels Arian who is a
social anthropologist. As you said, the rhythm of earth is
slow to medium, and then when we're walking and going
about our life so fast, we miss we miss hearing
(27:11):
and seeing everything around us. You know, It's just like
the because everything goes actually slow to mediums except us
humans and in New York, you know, we go exit.
So I give you an experience. For example, a few
years ago, I got invited to go to a Saudi
Arabia to give a speech, and I wanted to go.
(27:32):
It was one hour from Mecca, and I was like, oh,
it's just one hour. Well I want to go, you know,
And and I was like, you know, my trip got
arranged and I'm going, but I'm anxious, Like you know,
I'm not happy about being in Saudi Arabia. I really
do not like being forced to cover my hair. It's
not exciting for me. I'm scared of the moral police
(27:53):
and the police. They're oppressive and as far as I'm concerned,
Like and if anybody touched me or tell me you
know you're wearing your clothes wrong, where I would have
snapped at him, like you know, like I was like,
so I'm dreading this whole experience, but I'm curious and
I was like, oh, it's just one hour. I want
to really go, you know, but I'm nervous and anyway
(28:17):
that everything about the trip goes wrong. You know, the
driver is supposed to drop me here, throws wrong, and
I get nervous. And because it's not going according to plan?
Are you familiar with that? Mean like the only context
is different, you know, but like it's not going you know,
the guy is supposed to come doesn't show up, is
not going according to plan, and like it's you know,
(28:40):
and I'm like getting more worked out and angry. And
you know, Mecca is the house of God based literally
it means the house of God in Islam, and so
here you are in the house of God and I'm
like just worked out, angry, anxious. Nothing is working out,
and more importantly, I'm scared to that of the Sudi police, right,
(29:00):
So but I have to go to them because I'm
lost and I don't know what to do. So I
go to the police and I was like, I'm scared,
I don't know what to do. I'm lost, and I'm
scared of you because if you're gonna tell me to
cover up differently, I will just nap and just like,
not good. This is not good, and I want I
don't want to confuse you know, anger at you with
anger at God, because I love God and I don't
(29:21):
want And I just like spelled it all out to him,
you know. And this guy in a culture that is like,
you know, oppressive of woman, looks at me in the eyes,
which you're not like culturally you don't look at the
opposite sexes in the eyes. And he said, you can
do it. You don't need a guide. You just go
and you go to it's just right there. You go
(29:43):
and do yourself seven rounds around the house of God,
and you sacrifice a piece of hair and you do
too prayers and that's it. It's very easy. You can
do it. And I swear like all my fear and
projections on this police man, well it was like an
angel as a man. So interesting. The person you feared
(30:03):
the most was the person you finally walked up to. Unbelievable,
let it all out. But then after that I sat
crying and I like, I am zaying up. I have
a love relationship with the divine, you know, I just
I love It's it's just a very personal it's not religious.
It's it's just I don't care which religion I'm born in.
(30:24):
I just love God, you know, That's that's for me,
it most important. And I was just like I was
like I sat crying. I was like, I'm trying to
come here, I'm trying to visit here, and nothing is
working out, and like it's all horrible, bad experience. And
then I just like surrender, like I just like I can't.
I can't, I like, you know, because all the doors
(30:45):
were closed in front of me, and I just like
I give up. I don't, I don't know. And that's
when I could actually experience the feelings. That's when the
call for prayer came. And I start noticing people men
and women in Mecca are actually next to each other.
They're not separated, and they're not segregated. And it's like
all the women wearing black and all the men are
(31:06):
wearing white, and it's like we are ribbons of black
and white because we're just in lines, you know. Everyone.
Imagine millions of people saying um and in the exact
same moment, and I and I don't know who is
the woman next to me. She could be a princess.
She could be a queen or she could be a
made We are all equal in that space. There was
(31:30):
no distinction, you know, between the liberal looking person and
the fundamentalist looking person and the woman who looks what
a color black? White, brown? Everywhere everywheredy ever, and I
just like I started crying the whole experience. And so
the point of the story is I try to be
very controlling about every aspect of it. And you could
(31:53):
be whether that could be an exam, or that could
be a job or whatever. The truth is, you can't
experience it until like prepare, yeah, and then surrender and
then surrender because you can experience that feelings. And I
could only experience that same place, same situation. It's only
I who changed from fear to saying I'm here and
(32:16):
I'm going to experience a feeling. And it was one
of the most profound experiences in my life. So all
of these things constantly I'm learning they change like I thought.
I grew up thinking they changed from within. It's not
an external change. I thought. I grew up thinking I'm ugly.
Finally I meet, honestly a woman from Tibet, you know,
(32:37):
and like, like, this is not not not nothing special,
you know. And she tells me, of course, I'm infatuated
with anybody from Tibet. You know. It's like spirituality. Wow,
you know, it's like teach me something, you know. And
she said, you need to learn how to meditate on
your face in front of the mirror. So I'm like, okay,
I'm like, it's a better woman tells me that I
should really experience that, you know. I go to my
(33:00):
bathroom mirror, not some spiritual retreat, not some yoga retract,
my bathroom mirror. And I tried to meditate on my
face and it's too much, too many features, And I
realized I washed my face every day. You put cream
with women put makeup, but we don't look at ourselves.
We don't see ourselves. At least I didn't see myself,
(33:22):
even though I'm seeing my face, but not seeing myself.
So I then decided to meditate on only one eye
and only one pupil, basically because that's the only thing
you can focus like the smallest thing you can focus on.
And she said, hold your meditation for ten minutes. And
I sat doing it one day after the other until I, oh,
(33:43):
what I can tell you. It was it was like
a moment like oh my god, I'm beautiful, but it
was from my pupil. It's like seeing your soul and
from that your whole my it's like got rewired. It's
the same body I've had all my life. It's the
same mirror I've had for the last fifteen twenty years.
(34:04):
And I look at myself now it's like, oh, it's beautiful.
But that's what change is an inside job, you know,
it's not the outside, it's the inside job. And and
and now my behaviors not that I don't buy. I
just told you that I just got this shirted, you know,
the twitter from Turking. But it's more my my buying change,
(34:25):
which is much more out of love rather than out
of insecurity. Is this loving? Is this loving to earth?
Is it loving to other women? Is it loving? Like fair?
Is this fair? You know? So I said it into
what I call ethical buying, or I try, you know,
I asked, what's the source of this? Is this has
a story? Did you help another woman with this or
another person a man? So it's it changed. So now
(34:48):
I have one third less of everything of my clothes,
but everyone has a story, and it's you know, and
and it and I feel but and my beauty feels
I was shining as opposed to the opposite. Before it
was like compiling it with things, but always an insecure
look feel of my look. Well, your beauty is shining
(35:11):
for them, and we both thank you so much for
being here today so much. I really really appreciate things
and everyone listening. If you want more of Zanab, follow
her on Zanab at Zanab Salvey dot com. So wonderful,
Thank you, thank you, thank you, and reach out to
us at You Turns podcast. Tell us your stories of
(35:33):
discovery of your inner beauty or just going inside whatever
might be there.
Road to Somewhere News
Hosts And Creators
Lisa Oz
Jill Herzig
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