August 26, 2022 • 45 mins
Divorce. Arranged marriage. Leaving financial comfort for the unknown + becoming your own boss.
This episode will light you up with feel good vibes, and make you feel empowered to get out of your head and on your yoga mat.
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Host @Lisahayim
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Edited by Houston Tilley
Intro Jingle by Alyssa Chase aka @findyoursails
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Truthias Life, fam. I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
The Truth Is Life is actually on a season break,
but that doesn't mean that I'm done serving you up.
There are good reminders about life and how we're in
this together. Although I'm currently on a break, this podcast
lives on playing some of my favorite episodes from the
past year. We'll pick back up mid September with fresh
new content, new voices, new stories, new experts, and new
(00:23):
conversations to keep you living authentically and radically. You're amazing
truth of yourself. I'll see you here soon. Enjoy today's episode.
I No, i'the right. Even when times gutheart and feel
you're in the dark. Cutsye, just how beautiful if can
(00:48):
be When you soph in your heart you can findly
start to see is lie. Welcome back to The Truthiest
Life everyone. I'm so excited for you to meet today's guest,
a good friend of mine. I guess is the world
(01:11):
I'll go with Mimi, Hi, Mimi, Hi, I love. We're
recording this at around two o'clock Eastern time, but my
biggest regret for this interview is that we didn't do
it at like seven am. So I could start my
day with your vibrant energy and smile on your face,
which you always have. Thank you, my love, No regrets,
(01:31):
no regrets. It's always a good time, no matter what time.
I tell my students all the time, good morning, even
if at six pm I opened up with good mornings,
so it's all good. I love that well. As you
can see, she Mimi is an amazing yoga teacher. If
you didn't pick up on that, and it's no secret
(01:51):
that she's one of Miami's most popular teachers. That's where
I met Mimi Evan and I strolled into her class
at sol Yoga, I don't know, three years ago, and
we were instantly smitten with her energy. What you're picking
up on already, and I have been really lucky to
(02:12):
follow you online for a bunch of years now and
get some of that radiance even though I'm not a
student in your physical class right now. Thank you. First
of all, thank you for having me. Second of all,
the feeling is mutual. I feel exactly the same towards you,
and it's just incredible how you and I we don't
see each other so much, but from the first time
(02:33):
we met and we clicked, we immediately had this amazing connection.
And you've always supported me, loved me, and and been
just an amazing person. So thank you, and I'm honored
to call you my friend. Thank you, thank you. And
you're one of the few people who have witnessed me
in a yoga class. I don't know if you remember
(02:54):
what I do in yoga classes, but it's usually not
what everybody else is doing. I remember one class I
was in Chevasan at the entire time. You were in
Chavasan at the whole time, right after your wedding. The
truth is, this is the beauty about yoga is listening
to your body, giving your body exactly what it needs
because it's the mature way to practice yoga. It's not
(03:18):
a competition. Stepping on your max is enough. So I
respect that you're so right. When I used to show
up to yoga in the beginning of my practice and
it really hadn't all clicked for me. Things were starting
to click, but I was starting to like learn the
positions and I was finding strength. I really brought a
lot of ego to the mat when it came to
(03:41):
you know how much I could do or how impressive
my positions were. And that's what I love so much
about yoga is that we continue to show up and
that ego just becomes more obvious and it's easier to
like step away and just really honor whatever you need films.
So grateful to you teachers who facilitate such beautiful transformation.
(04:04):
Thank you. Yes, it's a practice, my love. It's not
easy to step out of your ego, but it is
a daily, daily practice. It's it's just like practicing the breath,
like practice practicing the post, you practice stepping out of
your ego. It's the same thing. So let's back up
a little bit. I think everyone's picking up on your
accent a little bit. What is your exact background? So
(04:27):
I am a mix of everything. I was born in France,
I am not French. My parents both my parents are
from Lebanon, Lebanese, so from the Middle East. I never
lived in Lebanon, did not grow up in Lebanon. I
grew up in Saudi Arabia, which is in the Gulf.
And yeah, I lived in Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia from
(04:50):
when I was two years old up to seven years ago,
thirty years old. And obviously English is not my first language.
So so do you wait, so what is your first
language Arabic? Arabic? And do you do you think in Arabic?
Like are the voices the words in your head in Arabic? Yes? Interesting.
I'm so fascinated by people who come here and they
(05:14):
do so much with their voice. So like when I
was a registered dietitian, I had so many of my
colleagues English was their second language. And then to learn
nutrition like this other thing. And then so for you
to learn yoga, this this other science, if you will,
and then translate that to your students. Is like, it's
not easy, but you know, we can do hard things.
(05:35):
You make it look very easy. I did not realize
that it was only seven years ago that you moved here. Yes, well,
I sp I grew up and like speak like we
spoke English. It's not like we didn't speak English. But
English was not our first language. Arabic was the first
language in the house. But I studied English and school,
so that's and then we traveled every year we came
(05:57):
to the U S, we went to Europe, so English
was always there. But obviously I do have an accent
and Arabic is my first language. Yes, so what drew
you to the US or what brought you here. So
seven years ago, I had no choice but to move
to the US because my daughter is Hala, who you know,
(06:17):
you met Halla, you met? So Hala is nine years
old and I moved to the US for her. She
suffers muscle condition and unfortunately where I was living in
Saudi Arabia, they did not have the care that she needs,
no medical care for her disease, and um no special
(06:39):
schools and all that stuff. So I just had to
make that decision with like in one day, I decided
to just stay here. I came for the summer in
to Miami and then one day I was like, I'm
not going back. I'm staying here, and it's just the
right thing to do. So you were married and you
have a son too, Yes, I was married at the time.
(07:01):
I just got I just recently got my divorce. In November,
I finalized my divorce. I was married since two thousand
and one, so I was married for nineteen years. Lisa.
So how old were you when you I was seventeen
and my son is sixteen. He lives with his father
now in Saudi Arabia. I lived, Yes, I live in
(07:24):
the US with Hala and life is good. You know,
life teaches you that when you make hard decisions you
your life. It doesn't become easy, but it becomes easier,
easier life. And if you take the easy decisions, then
you live a harder life, at least in my personal experience. Yeah, wow,
(07:46):
that was really profound. When you make the easy decisions,
you live a harder life that hits it's things a little,
but it really it settles for a little. I didn't really.
I mean I know that, you know, like the stinging
that you get is what makes it worth it. I
knew that a lot had happened for you this year
has a lot happened for a lot of people, but
I didn't realize such a cosmic shift. So when you
(08:08):
moved here originally, did your previous has been come with you? Yes? Yes,
your ex husband as my previous husband, your ex husband.
I don't know why I said and moved with me.
He was here with me, and he was here for
like close to four years, and I mean I've been
here seven years, so close to four years. He was
back and forth, but I would say eighty percent of
(08:31):
his time was in the US. He was not involved
so his presence was like his non presence, you know.
Oh I didn't Yes, he was not involved at all
at all at all. And um. And then last year,
as you said, a lot of a lot of big
changes happened to a lot of people. And I was
(08:54):
in Saudi Arabia and last Marching hosting a teacher training,
and that's when, you know, we started to hear COVID, COVID, COVID.
Everything's gonna start to close, Everything's gonna start to shut down.
People my friends here in Miami would tell me, Mimi, like,
don't come back. The studios are going to close. And
I'm like, no, I need to come back, Like my
daughter cannot stay in Saudi Arabia. So I took the
(09:15):
last flight out Lisa on March fifteen. In I took
the last flight out. Something this voice told me, Mimi,
get on this flight and get out, Just get out.
And I came to the US. Not that the US
was open or anything. Everything was just shutting down minute
(09:35):
by minute, you know. And it was not an easy decision,
but it made my life so much easier. I went
through my divorce. That's when I filed for a divorce.
That's when I moved out of my big house. That's
when I gave up a lot of things that we're
just temporary, Lisa, you know, because really the permanent is
(09:58):
not is not what you see. It's not the big house,
it's not the stuff that we have, it's not this
is all extra. It's here, it's inside. Like, are you
really happy? You know? You need to look inside. So
even though you were married for the last nineteen years,
and since you moved to us, you were doing a
lot on your own with Halla and your son as well. Yes, okay,
(10:21):
So is it hard for to have your son so
far away, especially in times of COVID. Of course it's hard.
It's hard. It's it's hard on any mother to to
live away from her children. But he's happy. He's very happy.
He's a teenager. He gets along with his father. They're
very much alike, which is great, you know, And and
(10:43):
he has a lot of cousins living in Saudi Arabia.
You have to like when I when I moved to
the U s seven years ago, my son was almost
ten years old, so he was traumatized. We just left
everything there and started a new life in the US.
He was trauma ties he missed his cousins, he missed
his friends, he missed his room, his toys, all of
(11:04):
that stuff. So he's very happy to be there. So
as long as he's happy, I'm happy. Do I miss him?
I miss him every every day, of course, but thank
God for FaceTime. That's true. It really does feel a
really big voin and it's not the same as in person,
but it does help a lot. So when you met
your husband and you were you said, seventeen or when
(11:25):
you got married. I met him at seventeen and married
him at seventeen. My marriage was an arranged marriage. I see, Okay,
And who were you then? That's a great question. I
don't know. I don't remember who I was. I was
a young teen. I can I can come up with
the words now. I was a young teen that thought
(11:49):
I was doing the right taking the right choice or
the right decision, you know. But was it your choice? Stuff?
I mean, it was arranged, but I also had a choice.
I did, And I was like, I was like, why not?
You know, he's eight years older than me, he's educated,
he has his own business. He's going to take me
to Miami seventeen years old? What are you thinking? At
(12:12):
that age, I didn't really want to go to college.
You know, I just graduated high school. I I took
the easy, the easy, and then I paid the price.
I had a hard, hard life. Did you did? Was
yoga part of your life always? Or not at all?
I started yoga at thirty at thirty, Yes, I started
yoga when I moved to the US. Oh my gosh.
(12:35):
If you asked me at twenty nine, do you want
to go to a yoga class? I would tell you
what is yoga? I don't know what yogas. I don't
know if everyone knows this about you, even your students.
Your students now that I mean, they're they're they're they're
finding out every single day like what I'm like. Yeah,
I've been teaching three and a half years, almost four years,
(12:56):
and I've been practicing seven years. Wow, it's amazing because,
like I said, you're such a gift as a teacher.
You play the what's the instrument called again? That I
love cardium? Yes, that it is my drug, Lisa, Teaching
teaching has become it is. It is my drug. It's
my daily drug. Practicing not so much, by the way,
(13:18):
it's the teaching. So practicing doesn't do for you what
teaching does not not at all. Why do you think
that is? You know, there's something about making people feel
good and helping people. There's this this feeling that's so
hard to explain, but it's very rewarding. You know, it's
not about you when you teach, it's about others. And
(13:42):
and you know, I feel that you you discover yourself
and you get to know yourself even more when you
when you are in service. Yoga is is a service.
It's labor of love. Yes, I have a business and
I do teach your trainings and retreats and all that,
you know, going to the studio every day or teaching
(14:03):
on mimi yoga dot com every day. This is it's
all labor of love. Very interesting. You have had such
a profound shift. And I think the most interesting thing
about you for me as I continue to learn more,
is that you kind of arrived to the US, which
is not where you're from. You learn yoga, you start
(14:24):
teaching yoga. You have a really challenging home life that
you know. I used to follow you and see you
in your big house and all of that, and I
never would have thought that. I thought you were just
private about your home life, not that there was you know,
really big struggles or what those are my words not yours.
I never knew any of that. And yet when you
(14:44):
emerge on your Instagram stories or in person or in
a yoga class, you possess confidence like I've never seen
you know, I would have thought that you've been teaching
yoga for twenty years. Where does the confidence come from? Faith?
A lot of faith in yourself and God and in myself.
(15:06):
And uh, you know, I respect the word God, but
I don't use the word God as much. I I
do believe in a higher power. And and yes, faith,
I pray, I ask for help. It's faith. Well, when
making big decisions, like you said to come to the US,
you made it in a second for hall, for your daughter. Yes,
(15:37):
when it came to making a big decision for you,
like leaving a seemingly comfortable life and marriage, it took
many years, Lisa, so you didn't have as much confidence
there to write flow out. But I knew, I knew
that this was the only chance I had to make
(15:57):
that decision. Because let me go back a little bit.
He when when I came back to the US in March,
he called me like a week later and my ex
husband and he said, and and mind you, we are separated,
like we have no life together nothing. He's just a
husband on on paper, on contract and a provider. I
have to I have to give it to him. He
(16:18):
was an incredible provider. And he called me and he said, listen,
I think you need to pack up and and come
back to Saudi Arabia. And I said, what are you
talking about, Like, there's no way I'm going to come
back to Saudi Arabia. Bob, like his nickname is Bob,
And he's like, no, you do need to come back.
I cannot keep a house in in the US and
(16:39):
a house in in Saudi Arabia. Like you need to
pack and come back. There's there's a pandemic going on.
And now we know what to do with Halla. We
can do the therapy at home. I said, absolutely not.
We don't know what to do with Halla. She has
like six people working on her on a weekly basis,
speech therapy, occupational therapy, PETE, her teachers, all that stuff,
(17:02):
the school. I said no, like it's not gonna happen.
And he's like, you're using this as an excuse blah,
blah blah. And he said very hurtful things to me,
like I I don't want I can't even repeat them,
to be honest, I'm so ashamed to repeat them here.
But he was so abusive with the way he spoke
to me, and it just like the switch came up, Lisa,
(17:26):
and I'm like he and he told me he threatened me.
He said, you come back or I am cutting you off.
I said, okay, cut me off. It's over. It Just
it sounds very parental in that way. I'm like, no
more that. I put my foot on the ground and
I said, I don't care anymore. Take your house, take
(17:46):
your cars, take everything. Just you know, there's freedom has
a cost. You know. Were you scared in that moment
to leave some of your comfort? Very scared, very scared.
I'm not gonna lie to you. I was very care
and I didn't sleep for days. I cried. I you know,
I started selling stuff like panic mode, you know, like
(18:07):
called the real real come take my watch, take my
take my back, take like I I went into this
panic mode and then I calmed down after I took
advice from lawyers. To be honest, I I was like,
I need to go see a lawyer, and my lawyer said, listen, like,
it doesn't work that way. This is the USA, this
is not Saudi Arabia. You know, like, you've been married
(18:29):
in Florida, you've been married nineteen years. You have a
lot of rights. Women like relax. So yeah, so, and
and then we started community. Him and I were communicating
through family members. One of his sisters is just incredible,
and I told her, you know, I don't want to
have a war with him, but he needs to. He
(18:52):
needs to do the right thing. You know, I'm not
here to go after his company or his house or nothing.
He needs to at least pay Hella bills. That's it.
I can work, I can take care of myself, although
he has to give me something. But I was like,
I don't want it. Just pay my daughter's bills, that's it.
And we came to an agreement and he's been he's
(19:14):
been good. So I'm working. And you know, the best
thing any woman or any human can do is is
to be independent and then no one It's it's so true,
and it's so easy to you know, have a provider
and allow them to provide, and especially when it comes
(19:36):
from some sort of a loving place. Even was there
some love in the beginning between him and I? Lisa, no, yeah, okay, no,
no a friendship or no, not I wish not even
a friendship, not like some of my friends would tell me, Oh,
you're like roommates. I'm like, not even roommates. Like we
we we never talked. We It was always like, what's
(19:57):
for lunch? Where is my shoe, where's my belt? Did
you pay the bill? You know, you're the personal assistant
in someone. That's it to me When I'm teaching a
yoga class and tell me tell the housekeeper to put
my lunch on the table. I'm like, you're at home
to tell her I'm about to start teaching a class. Now.
(20:19):
Yoga empowered me so much, Lisa, Like, at the moment
I started to practice yoga and go to my teachers class,
I don't know what happened. It's like you come home
and you're like, with all these problems, with all his abuse,
You're like, I don't care, it's it has nothing to
do with me. It's him, you know. But it took me.
It took me a good twelve thirteen years to figure
(20:41):
that out. Well, it sounds like yoga was your savior
in so many ways and still still is. Yeah, of
course it continues to teach, but I mean to have
that healing every day. It's like a drop of medicine
every day to what sounds like, you know, a burn
at home, not physically, just you know, somebody, somebody's saying
(21:04):
you're not that you're worthless, but perhaps just making you
feel like you're worth less, telling you to just He
made me and told me I am worthless. He made
me feel and told me many times I'm worthless, and um,
I don't know what I'm doing. Why are you doing
your teacher training? What you want to become a yoga
teacher now? And I'm like, yes, it's it's even even
moving to the US empowered me. I started to know
(21:26):
and understand and figure out that he cannot do anything
to me here, you know what I'm saying. And I
got my U s citizenship in seventeen thanks to him.
It's the best thing he gave me, to be honest,
because he was he is a citizen and through marriage
you you become a citizen. And Lisa, it was like
the most beautiful, amazing day of my life when I
(21:49):
got my citizenship on life, freedom. Yeah, and and so
a lot of people, you know, and especially in the
past year, specially young people, don't understand the freedoms that
we have, even though we've got a lot of work
to do, like any other country, like any other place.
But like my American American friends tell me, I don't
(22:09):
know what you like about the US, and I'm like, yeah,
go to Lebanon or Saudi Arabia and then come to
come tell me that, right, No, it's the land of
the free. I don't care what anybody says. So not
all men in Saudi Arabia, I would imagine, are similar
to this. I mean, I remember I met your dad
and he seemed my dad is my best friend, right, yeah,
(22:31):
is he with you here in the States, Yes, he
is my dad. My dad moved to the US two
and a half years ago. For me, he knew I
was suffering, but he he was in a in a
very hard position himself. He was going through his own
problems financially, work, all that stuff, and he was not
able to help me, and it just broke his heart
(22:52):
so much, so he told me I'm just gonna leave
everything and come and live in the US. And he
lived with me and my big house at the time
for one full year and he worked for me, like
he was taking the kids to school, he was going
to the grocery store and all that stuff. Until he
managed to save up some some money and he rented
(23:13):
himself a tiny little place and now he works for
Instat cart he's an instat car driver. Oh my gosh,
it's amazing. And is does he live near you now?
You're living in an apartment. Yes, I moved to an
apartment in Brickles. So he's in the gay bus. So
we're like ten minutes ten minutes from each other. Is
your mom and my my mom? No? No, my mom
(23:35):
is in the picture. But she's back and forth from
Miami and Lebanon because she has to go check on
my brother who suffers from the schizophrenia and he's institutionalized
in Lebanon. So she, you know, a mother, so she's
she's like, I just can't abandon him and stay here,
so she comes back and forth. She's like fifty in
(23:56):
in the US, fifty percent in Lebanon. Are your mom
and dad the married, Yeah, there's they've been married for
like forty two years. And you know, it's like she
lives her life, he lives his life. But when they're together, Lisa,
they are like best friends. Right, Well, that's what I
was kind of saying, Like when they are physically together,
did you see a relationship that was different than the
(24:16):
one that you had so you knew what to look for?
Like like my dad, when my dad moved today today
US two years ago, he he was hearing from my
mom because my mom would come and visit me and
she would go back and tell him like, I don't know,
but this is so weird, like Mimi's husband is just weird,
like this is not normal. And my dad was like,
(24:37):
he's like until I came and I lived in your
house that I was like, this is not normal. So
no one knew your reality for fifteen seventeen years. No,
I would not complain to them, Lisa, because I don't
want them to hate him and I don't want them
to worry about me constantly, so I would not. I
(24:58):
would not say a word. My mom would just come
and see, you know, but I never complained ever. So
coming here and you know your French Arabic, I guess
more Arabic, no Saudi? What is it? Was it your nationality?
(25:21):
Middle Eastern, Middle Eastern American. Please, I'm an American American, Yes,
you're in American. Well, I'm just you know, like like
your son who came when he was ten and left
his culture behind, which is so steep in lots of
cousins and all the different things that you have that
are different than here. Have you had an easy time
or a hard time finding a community of friends who
(25:43):
you relate to? You mean in the US. Yes, the
first year and a half was very difficult to find,
like just real people. You know, they're specially in Miami.
You know a lot of people tell me, oh, Miami, Miami.
I think artificial communities are everywhere, you know, the velvet
society and the artificial communities and the gossip, and it's
(26:06):
it's everywhere. Honestly, it's Saudi Arabia, it's here, It's everywhere.
So in the beginning, yes, I was struggling a lot,
like I'm like, where where am I gonna go? Like
I need this this good community. Where am I going
to find this good community? Because I'm a very social person,
But don't put me with people that are not authentic
or or fake or gossipy, you know, like my mantra
(26:30):
is mind your own business. So the last thing I
want to be is around people that gossip all day
and go to lunches and dinners and and shopping seven Like.
I love to shop, but that's not what I want
to be surrounded with. So the truth is, Lisa, for
a year and a half, I was lonely. I was
very lonely. I had I had I would like get
(26:51):
to know people and then leave them alone, and then
get to know other people and then leave them alone.
I just didn't find my people until I went into yoga.
Oh all of my community today, My best best friends
are my yoga community. And so you didn't need to
find people with a shared religion or same background. You
just had to find people that show up at all.
(27:13):
No religion, no culture, all of these things I did
not look for. Just I needed to find my safety net.
You know, we are nothing without a community and community
that's positive, that moves forward together. That's real. You know,
that's that's real, that that's going through ship like you are,
that's all that. It's amazing you really are at home here,
(27:35):
and it's so interesting because you kind of just arrived
here just seven years ago, and yet this is this
is your place. I'm glad that you feel so welcomed here.
I feel so welcomed. Nobody has ever made me feel
unwelcomed or because of my accent. Well also, you know,
Miami helps because nobody really is from the US and right,
(27:57):
you know. But but still, I've been to Boston, I've
been to California, I've been to New York, and it's
just always amazing, to be honest, always never had an issue. Yeah,
I mean, I love to learn about your culture and
instead of make you feel like you need to completely
like conform to it. Right, So this year was huge
(28:18):
for another big reason. Like I said, I met Mimi
at so Yoga in Miami, which is an amazing studio
with these infrared panels, and I guess that's back up
and running now, right, it's back up and running with
masks and and and limited capacity, but it's it's it's there.
I was there this morning. It's really the most beautiful
(28:38):
studio in Miami and every like, I've never been to
a studio that's that beautiful anywhere, to be honest, it
really is. It just is pristine and has great energy
and it brings the heat to the practice, which I
personally love, but you don't lose the spiritual aspect that
(28:59):
sometimes the heated community, which people associate with like intensity,
like that, the physical practice becomes prioritized, but not the spiritual.
So it really is a beautiful blend. So this year
you launched Mimi Yoga. Yes, I launched mem Yoga in July,
actually July, since it's amazing. I had another Mimian who
(29:20):
does not yoga but something else, and she launched her
online platform this summer too, and the two of you,
it's like the Year of the Mimi because the two
of you have exploded. Mind you, not just since June,
you know, eight months ago or whatever that was, but
in the middle of a pandemic. So what is Mimi Yoga?
(29:41):
How did you make this leap? And tell us everything? Honestly,
it started in March, Lisa, it started. I didn't launch
it in March, but it all started in March when
I was like, Okay, I am not gonna sit here depressed,
crying all day thinking about how I'm gonna move where
I'm gonna move. I'm going to start teaching online. I'm
(30:01):
gonna post on my Instagram and my Instagram is my
best friend. It's you know, it's the window to the world.
So I posted, I said, I'm teaching a free class.
Everybody's welcome. Uh, this is the Zoom link. I posted
the zoom link and boom. The next day, I go
into Zoom and I get eighty one people on my
(30:22):
room and I'm like, holy, you know, and I just
didn't stop. I kept I kept doing the the free
class every week for like two or three weeks, and
then I started to charge people. But I would say
in in the message, I would say, you know, it's
ten dollars a class. If payment is hard, because a
lot of people, you know, we're going through a lot
(30:44):
of financial hard times. If payment is hard, classes on me.
So yeah, people kept showing up and showing up, and
it just kept growing and growing, and I would get
people from Mexico, from Guatemala, from Venezuela, from Miami, from Saudia, Abia,
from Dubai London, like I have forty seven countries on
(31:05):
my platform today. And then when I filed for a divorce,
I spoke to a good a friend of mine and
I told him, I said, I said, I have two choices.
I either have to start something like I have to
start like monetizing my yoga properly, or I have to
go back to Saudi Arabia, like I have I need.
(31:26):
I need to figure this out. And he said, you're
not going back to Saudi Arabia and you are starting
mi yoga dot com. And he supported me so much. Uh,
he even invested in my company. And he just made
it happen to be honest. All right, hold on, so
let's back up for one second. Previously, before online yoga
(31:46):
was your thing, you would show up and teach how
many people in a room? So I would teach My
maximum in the room would be forty five people, right,
so you're like an online class of eight people is
one people. It's like, wow, the opportunity. I never thought
about it. I never thought I could have started online
yoga like two years ago and access all these countries.
(32:09):
But I never thought about it until we quarantined. And
what was it like to have somebody invest in you?
I mean, now you're telling me you didn't really work
for a while. You were a mom, then you were
a yoga teacher, and then all of a sudden you're
a businesswoman. What is that like to have somebody invest
(32:30):
in something that you have to create something that doesn't
even exist. It's scary, you know, it's scary, and at
the same time, it felt so good to have someone
believe in me. You know, he told me, he said,
I believe, I believe in you. So he's my student
to be honest, and like, I've been coming to your
class for three years and you are the greatest yoga
(32:52):
teacher for for me. For him, he's like, nobody has
the ability to make me feel the way you you
make me feel. And he goes to a lot of
other classes, so he's like, I believe in you, I
trust you, and I want to support you, and we
got this. We're gonna do it. And I'm it was
not easy, Lisa, it was hard. It was so hard.
It's a lot more to learn than people realize. It's
(33:14):
a lot what happens in the back end, and you know,
and and it's just me, me, It's not like there's
like five or ten instructors teaching on the platform. It's
just it's me. It's a one man show. So it's
a lot of energy. I want to show up for
every for my students, for everyone, in the best form
ever you know what I'm saying, and it's hard. It's
(33:35):
hard to show up the way I show up with
all the stuff going on in the back. So was
he somebody that knew how to take the first step
to develop the brand visually too? He's he's I can
I can say his name? His name is. His name
is Christopher Yurich. He's a he's a co co owner,
(33:57):
co founder of a tech company. So he's a tech guys.
That company is called BBT very big things. So they
build like like Airbnb and these apps, like big apps.
He did not build the platform. He told me, like,
your platform is too small for me to build. But yeah,
(34:18):
he knew the infrastructure like that, because again, you were
just your work before was you'd get in your car,
drive to yoga, teach an our class, come home. Now
you're dealing with email less promotions, photo shoots, membership membership support,
teacher training, brigreats. It's like it's like a whole you know, umbrella. Yeah, wow, Wow.
(34:39):
Are there moments where you have what a lot of
people call impostor syndrome where it's like I shouldn't be
doing this, but I need to pretend like I know
what I'm doing or your confidence is just still real.
Thank God, I'm very I use the word god, but yes,
I'm very confident. I'm confident. I love what I do,
(35:03):
and I do it with so much passion. I don't
look at it as a as a as a job,
to be honest, I look at it as you know, passion,
like like it's my fuel. But I've had moments, Lisa,
from launch up till today, I've had moments where I
just wanted to give up. That's it. I felt so
depleted to the point where I was just not thinking
(35:26):
right to be honest, like it's very draining. What I
do is draining. And it's also because I do too much.
And and like my my manager and the people that
work with me tell me, like me, MEI you need
to take a break. You need to teach less classes,
that's all. You need to take care of yourself, go
(35:49):
to the beach, get a massage, all that stuff, and
stop taking all these privates Like why why are you
doing that? And I'm like, I don't know. I want
to keep going, and they're like no, so so yeah,
I do feel depleted, and I feel like I just
don't want to do anything anymore, nothing and just for
audience reference. When I met Mimi, you had over a
hundred thousand Instagram followers to begin with, so you never
(36:12):
had to do all of it, like you could have
just been an influencer. I don't even know if you
know this. You know and posted about your lifestyle or
whatever it was whatever and or are all that stuff.
It started like that, Lisa, Oh, it did did start
when when we met, I was me malicious on Instagram, remember,
and it was passion and all and then it just
(36:34):
didn't It didn't satisfy me. It didn't like I was like,
it's not what I want to do. It's not I
don't want to be on And I'm not judging the influencers.
There's amazing influencers that I follow, passion influencers, crush, but
I don't want to be posting a shoe and telling
people swipe up and buy the shoe, and it's it's
it's not what I want. You know, you're just so
(36:56):
in alignment of who you are. So I mean, if
that was an alignment of who you are, no problem.
But for you, when you do this work of showing
up to the mat every day and you see yourself
as you are. It's very hard to then step off
the mat and be something that doesn't feel right. It
is amazing again, though, that here you are now with
Mimi Yoga. You're in forty six countries. You could easily
(37:17):
stop doing private teaching. Its soul. You know all the
things that you do, and yet you're still doing it all.
I mean, you're obviously a natural born healer. But I
think when people say you do too much, it sounds
like you give too much. How do you receive? It's
hard for me to receive. I'm learning, I'm learning what
(37:39):
fills you up, even if it doesn't happen often. I'm
just curious being around good friends, laughing, going going out
to to eat with with good friends. Do you like
you like food right? You like a good meal food.
I love my tequila, You love your cheetos. You always
laugh about it. You know me too well. Yes, Traveling
(38:02):
like I love to travel to islands or anywhere where
there's like like beach, you know, I love I love
the sun. So this is my self care to be honest,
But it's hard for me to receive, Like like when
when people want to take me out or invite me
or like my best friends or even my students. When
they want to buy me something, I'm like, no, no, no,
(38:24):
I'll buy Going out for a juice with a with
a student is hard for me to receive. One of
my best friends, she's like a sister, Joanna her name.
She told me, Mimi, you you have to receive. You
give so much, you have to receive. So I'm you know,
I'm training my working. Yeah, I'm working on it. Like Mimi,
it's okay, it's okay, get take the juice, take them
(38:46):
at uh. Let this person carry your harmony in your car?
What's the big deal? You know, Like, it's okay. Well,
you've been taking care of your world since you were seventeen,
and I don't know what life was like before that,
but it is an abrupt shift to now trust that
somebody else is gonna, you know, catch whatever you drop,
so to speak. So it's it's a beautiful way to
(39:08):
be learning and growing. And you showed up today with
such um an open heart. I wasn't sure how much
you were going to share. I didn't know any of
this stuff that have you experienced a relationship or love
in any new ways that have opened your eyes to
what you were perhaps missing. Yes, I am in a relationship.
You know, I've been learning a lot because I'm just
(39:30):
not used to being in in such a loving relationship
and being loved so much by someone and cared and
and all that. So, and I have my triggers. They
do come out every once in a while. Working on that.
I I don't want to blame my ex for anything.
I I feel that I am also responsible for for
(39:51):
allowing myself and allowing him to mistreat me for such
a long time and basically brainwash me. I am responsible, book,
And we have a choice in life. We do have
a choice, But as I said, sometimes we we choose
the easy way because we want the easy way out,
you know, like we want I want the money, I
(40:12):
want the big house, I want to travel, I want
I want to be comfortable, blah blah blah. But deep inside,
I was not comfortable and I was not happy. I
was miserable. So to go back to my relationship. He's amazing,
he takes amazing care of me, He loves, loves, loves
my daughter, my daughter, and she is obsessed with him,
(40:33):
and we don't live together. I think it's I just
I'm trying, Lisa, Honestly, I'm trying to live the moment.
I'm trying to be as present as possible and just
enjoy this moment. Like when I told my dad that
I'm seeing someone, he was like, thank thank God, I'm
so happy for you. You deserve it. I want someone
(40:54):
to touch you, I want someone to feel you. I
want someone to make you feel loved and special. And
then the next and he said, he's like, so, what's
the what's the future plan? I said, no, that we're
not going there, like like it's not happening. There's no plan.
I'm not thinking of the future. I am thinking of now.
That's it. Do you feel like a teenager learning all
(41:15):
this relationship stuff almost for the first time? Yes, I do,
to be honest. And he's five years younger than me, Lisa,
and he me so much. And it's just because his
journey was different, you know, his path is different than
my path, and and he has so much love and compassion,
so much patience with me that sometimes I feel like
(41:39):
like I feel I feel bad, you know, like, are
you able to receive love from him? Now? Yes? I
am good. I'm glad. You deserve it. My last question
is Is there any part of your journey that you change? No.
I think I think the if the journey I had,
and the journey and the path come on is what
(42:01):
led me to be here today. And I wouldn't change
this for anything, like living in the States and Miami,
having the boyfriend I have, you know, and and the
yoga community. I would not change. The one thing I
would change maybe is I wish I started to practice
(42:21):
yoga at a younger age. I mean, you yeah, your
whole life is just really amazing for me to watch.
I love to pop into your Mimi Yoga classes online,
the live ones, you know. I love to surprise you.
It surprise. I'm like, no way, and I can't believe
the community that you've built. And then I saw you
(42:42):
posting about going on a retreat and I'm like, who's
going on a retreat right now? Like who has the money,
the time? And then I continue to watch your story
the next day and there's thirty of you jumping into
a lake together or maybe right, but it was so
beautiful to see that people living and you know, obviously
(43:03):
done safely, I'm sure, but I was just like, Wow,
what you've created to get thirty people to go on
a retreat, and I mean, I hope you really understand
what you've created. And I'm coming on the next retreat
with a baby possibly but Amy retreat. But I am
coming on that next retreat. Evan's gonna come. It would
(43:24):
it would be an honor to have you do men go.
You know. The first retreat I did was in November.
Lisa was in two rooms. I had this November. Yeah,
last November wasn't. Yeah. That was the first Miyoga retreat.
We had twenty seven people and five of them were men.
This retreat, I had one guy. Did he have fun?
(43:47):
He had the best time, the best time. He's he's
he's a student. He does privates with me on like
regular basis. And he brought two of his girlfriends, like
like his best friends. He invited two of his restaurants,
so they shared a room. And yeah, it was it
was amazing. Well, I'm coming on that next retreat, and
I'm so proud of what you've created and it just
(44:09):
comes from your heart and the world received it. And
I only hope that you spend more of this year
receiving whatever that is, whether it's a massage or time
at the beach or or a bag of Cheetos. I
just want you to receive because you truly do give
so much to the universe. Even in this interview, I think,
like just the way you showed up, oh my gosh,
(44:31):
there was just nothing not on the table. From everything
you said, it's just must be. You're living so fearlessly
and it's awesome. Thank you, Lisa, Thank you, my love.
I'm gonna put all of Mimi's information below. You can
check out Mimi Yoga online. You can follow her on Instagram.
I know you're gonna want to and we'll see you soon. Mimi,
thank you, thank you,
Hey, Truthias Life, fam. I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
The Truth Is Life is actually on a season break,
but that doesn't mean that I'm done serving you up.
There are good reminders about life and how we're in
this together. Although I'm currently on a break, this podcast
lives on playing some of my favorite episodes from the
past year. We'll pick back up mid September with fresh
new content, new voices, new stories, new experts, and new
(00:23):
conversations to keep you living authentically and radically. You're amazing
truth of yourself. I'll see you here soon. Enjoy today's episode.
I No, i'the right. Even when times gutheart and feel
you're in the dark. Cutsye, just how beautiful if can
(00:48):
be When you soph in your heart you can findly
start to see is lie. Welcome back to The Truthiest
Life everyone. I'm so excited for you to meet today's guest,
a good friend of mine. I guess is the world
(01:11):
I'll go with Mimi, Hi, Mimi, Hi, I love. We're
recording this at around two o'clock Eastern time, but my
biggest regret for this interview is that we didn't do
it at like seven am. So I could start my
day with your vibrant energy and smile on your face,
which you always have. Thank you, my love, No regrets,
(01:31):
no regrets. It's always a good time, no matter what time.
I tell my students all the time, good morning, even
if at six pm I opened up with good mornings,
so it's all good. I love that well. As you
can see, she Mimi is an amazing yoga teacher. If
you didn't pick up on that, and it's no secret
(01:51):
that she's one of Miami's most popular teachers. That's where
I met Mimi Evan and I strolled into her class
at sol Yoga, I don't know, three years ago, and
we were instantly smitten with her energy. What you're picking
up on already, and I have been really lucky to
(02:12):
follow you online for a bunch of years now and
get some of that radiance even though I'm not a
student in your physical class right now. Thank you. First
of all, thank you for having me. Second of all,
the feeling is mutual. I feel exactly the same towards you,
and it's just incredible how you and I we don't
see each other so much, but from the first time
(02:33):
we met and we clicked, we immediately had this amazing connection.
And you've always supported me, loved me, and and been
just an amazing person. So thank you, and I'm honored
to call you my friend. Thank you, thank you. And
you're one of the few people who have witnessed me
in a yoga class. I don't know if you remember
(02:54):
what I do in yoga classes, but it's usually not
what everybody else is doing. I remember one class I
was in Chevasan at the entire time. You were in
Chavasan at the whole time, right after your wedding. The
truth is, this is the beauty about yoga is listening
to your body, giving your body exactly what it needs
because it's the mature way to practice yoga. It's not
(03:18):
a competition. Stepping on your max is enough. So I
respect that you're so right. When I used to show
up to yoga in the beginning of my practice and
it really hadn't all clicked for me. Things were starting
to click, but I was starting to like learn the
positions and I was finding strength. I really brought a
lot of ego to the mat when it came to
(03:41):
you know how much I could do or how impressive
my positions were. And that's what I love so much
about yoga is that we continue to show up and
that ego just becomes more obvious and it's easier to
like step away and just really honor whatever you need films.
So grateful to you teachers who facilitate such beautiful transformation.
(04:04):
Thank you. Yes, it's a practice, my love. It's not
easy to step out of your ego, but it is
a daily, daily practice. It's it's just like practicing the breath,
like practice practicing the post, you practice stepping out of
your ego. It's the same thing. So let's back up
a little bit. I think everyone's picking up on your
accent a little bit. What is your exact background? So
(04:27):
I am a mix of everything. I was born in France,
I am not French. My parents both my parents are
from Lebanon, Lebanese, so from the Middle East. I never
lived in Lebanon, did not grow up in Lebanon. I
grew up in Saudi Arabia, which is in the Gulf.
And yeah, I lived in Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia from
(04:50):
when I was two years old up to seven years ago,
thirty years old. And obviously English is not my first language.
So so do you wait, so what is your first
language Arabic? Arabic? And do you do you think in Arabic?
Like are the voices the words in your head in Arabic? Yes? Interesting.
I'm so fascinated by people who come here and they
(05:14):
do so much with their voice. So like when I
was a registered dietitian, I had so many of my
colleagues English was their second language. And then to learn
nutrition like this other thing. And then so for you
to learn yoga, this this other science, if you will,
and then translate that to your students. Is like, it's
not easy, but you know, we can do hard things.
(05:35):
You make it look very easy. I did not realize
that it was only seven years ago that you moved here. Yes, well,
I sp I grew up and like speak like we
spoke English. It's not like we didn't speak English. But
English was not our first language. Arabic was the first
language in the house. But I studied English and school,
so that's and then we traveled every year we came
(05:57):
to the U S, we went to Europe, so English
was always there. But obviously I do have an accent
and Arabic is my first language. Yes, so what drew
you to the US or what brought you here. So
seven years ago, I had no choice but to move
to the US because my daughter is Hala, who you know,
(06:17):
you met Halla, you met? So Hala is nine years
old and I moved to the US for her. She
suffers muscle condition and unfortunately where I was living in
Saudi Arabia, they did not have the care that she needs,
no medical care for her disease, and um no special
(06:39):
schools and all that stuff. So I just had to
make that decision with like in one day, I decided
to just stay here. I came for the summer in
to Miami and then one day I was like, I'm
not going back. I'm staying here, and it's just the
right thing to do. So you were married and you
have a son too, Yes, I was married at the time.
(07:01):
I just got I just recently got my divorce. In November,
I finalized my divorce. I was married since two thousand
and one, so I was married for nineteen years. Lisa.
So how old were you when you I was seventeen
and my son is sixteen. He lives with his father
now in Saudi Arabia. I lived, Yes, I live in
(07:24):
the US with Hala and life is good. You know,
life teaches you that when you make hard decisions you
your life. It doesn't become easy, but it becomes easier,
easier life. And if you take the easy decisions, then
you live a harder life, at least in my personal experience. Yeah, wow,
(07:46):
that was really profound. When you make the easy decisions,
you live a harder life that hits it's things a little,
but it really it settles for a little. I didn't really.
I mean I know that, you know, like the stinging
that you get is what makes it worth it. I
knew that a lot had happened for you this year
has a lot happened for a lot of people, but
I didn't realize such a cosmic shift. So when you
(08:08):
moved here originally, did your previous has been come with you? Yes? Yes,
your ex husband as my previous husband, your ex husband.
I don't know why I said and moved with me.
He was here with me, and he was here for
like close to four years, and I mean I've been
here seven years, so close to four years. He was
back and forth, but I would say eighty percent of
(08:31):
his time was in the US. He was not involved
so his presence was like his non presence, you know.
Oh I didn't Yes, he was not involved at all
at all at all. And um. And then last year,
as you said, a lot of a lot of big
changes happened to a lot of people. And I was
(08:54):
in Saudi Arabia and last Marching hosting a teacher training,
and that's when, you know, we started to hear COVID, COVID, COVID.
Everything's gonna start to close, Everything's gonna start to shut down.
People my friends here in Miami would tell me, Mimi, like,
don't come back. The studios are going to close. And
I'm like, no, I need to come back, Like my
daughter cannot stay in Saudi Arabia. So I took the
(09:15):
last flight out Lisa on March fifteen. In I took
the last flight out. Something this voice told me, Mimi,
get on this flight and get out, Just get out.
And I came to the US. Not that the US
was open or anything. Everything was just shutting down minute
(09:35):
by minute, you know. And it was not an easy decision,
but it made my life so much easier. I went
through my divorce. That's when I filed for a divorce.
That's when I moved out of my big house. That's
when I gave up a lot of things that we're
just temporary, Lisa, you know, because really the permanent is
(09:58):
not is not what you see. It's not the big house,
it's not the stuff that we have, it's not this
is all extra. It's here, it's inside. Like, are you
really happy? You know? You need to look inside. So
even though you were married for the last nineteen years,
and since you moved to us, you were doing a
lot on your own with Halla and your son as well. Yes, okay,
(10:21):
So is it hard for to have your son so
far away, especially in times of COVID. Of course it's hard.
It's hard. It's it's hard on any mother to to
live away from her children. But he's happy. He's very happy.
He's a teenager. He gets along with his father. They're
very much alike, which is great, you know, And and
(10:43):
he has a lot of cousins living in Saudi Arabia.
You have to like when I when I moved to
the U s seven years ago, my son was almost
ten years old, so he was traumatized. We just left
everything there and started a new life in the US.
He was trauma ties he missed his cousins, he missed
his friends, he missed his room, his toys, all of
(11:04):
that stuff. So he's very happy to be there. So
as long as he's happy, I'm happy. Do I miss him?
I miss him every every day, of course, but thank
God for FaceTime. That's true. It really does feel a
really big voin and it's not the same as in person,
but it does help a lot. So when you met
your husband and you were you said, seventeen or when
(11:25):
you got married. I met him at seventeen and married
him at seventeen. My marriage was an arranged marriage. I see, Okay,
And who were you then? That's a great question. I
don't know. I don't remember who I was. I was
a young teen. I can I can come up with
the words now. I was a young teen that thought
(11:49):
I was doing the right taking the right choice or
the right decision, you know. But was it your choice? Stuff?
I mean, it was arranged, but I also had a choice.
I did, And I was like, I was like, why not?
You know, he's eight years older than me, he's educated,
he has his own business. He's going to take me
to Miami seventeen years old? What are you thinking? At
(12:12):
that age, I didn't really want to go to college.
You know, I just graduated high school. I I took
the easy, the easy, and then I paid the price.
I had a hard, hard life. Did you did? Was
yoga part of your life always? Or not at all?
I started yoga at thirty at thirty, Yes, I started
yoga when I moved to the US. Oh my gosh.
(12:35):
If you asked me at twenty nine, do you want
to go to a yoga class? I would tell you
what is yoga? I don't know what yogas. I don't
know if everyone knows this about you, even your students.
Your students now that I mean, they're they're they're they're
finding out every single day like what I'm like. Yeah,
I've been teaching three and a half years, almost four years,
(12:56):
and I've been practicing seven years. Wow, it's amazing because,
like I said, you're such a gift as a teacher.
You play the what's the instrument called again? That I
love cardium? Yes, that it is my drug, Lisa, Teaching
teaching has become it is. It is my drug. It's
my daily drug. Practicing not so much, by the way,
(13:18):
it's the teaching. So practicing doesn't do for you what
teaching does not not at all. Why do you think
that is? You know, there's something about making people feel
good and helping people. There's this this feeling that's so
hard to explain, but it's very rewarding. You know, it's
not about you when you teach, it's about others. And
(13:42):
and you know, I feel that you you discover yourself
and you get to know yourself even more when you
when you are in service. Yoga is is a service.
It's labor of love. Yes, I have a business and
I do teach your trainings and retreats and all that,
you know, going to the studio every day or teaching
(14:03):
on mimi yoga dot com every day. This is it's
all labor of love. Very interesting. You have had such
a profound shift. And I think the most interesting thing
about you for me as I continue to learn more,
is that you kind of arrived to the US, which
is not where you're from. You learn yoga, you start
(14:24):
teaching yoga. You have a really challenging home life that
you know. I used to follow you and see you
in your big house and all of that, and I
never would have thought that. I thought you were just
private about your home life, not that there was you know,
really big struggles or what those are my words not yours.
I never knew any of that. And yet when you
(14:44):
emerge on your Instagram stories or in person or in
a yoga class, you possess confidence like I've never seen
you know, I would have thought that you've been teaching
yoga for twenty years. Where does the confidence come from? Faith?
A lot of faith in yourself and God and in myself.
(15:06):
And uh, you know, I respect the word God, but
I don't use the word God as much. I I
do believe in a higher power. And and yes, faith,
I pray, I ask for help. It's faith. Well, when
making big decisions, like you said to come to the US,
you made it in a second for hall, for your daughter. Yes,
(15:37):
when it came to making a big decision for you,
like leaving a seemingly comfortable life and marriage, it took
many years, Lisa, so you didn't have as much confidence
there to write flow out. But I knew, I knew
that this was the only chance I had to make
(15:57):
that decision. Because let me go back a little bit.
He when when I came back to the US in March,
he called me like a week later and my ex
husband and he said, and and mind you, we are separated,
like we have no life together nothing. He's just a
husband on on paper, on contract and a provider. I
have to I have to give it to him. He
(16:18):
was an incredible provider. And he called me and he said, listen,
I think you need to pack up and and come
back to Saudi Arabia. And I said, what are you
talking about, Like, there's no way I'm going to come
back to Saudi Arabia. Bob, like his nickname is Bob,
And he's like, no, you do need to come back.
I cannot keep a house in in the US and
(16:39):
a house in in Saudi Arabia. Like you need to
pack and come back. There's there's a pandemic going on.
And now we know what to do with Halla. We
can do the therapy at home. I said, absolutely not.
We don't know what to do with Halla. She has
like six people working on her on a weekly basis,
speech therapy, occupational therapy, PETE, her teachers, all that stuff,
(17:02):
the school. I said no, like it's not gonna happen.
And he's like, you're using this as an excuse blah,
blah blah. And he said very hurtful things to me,
like I I don't want I can't even repeat them,
to be honest, I'm so ashamed to repeat them here.
But he was so abusive with the way he spoke
to me, and it just like the switch came up, Lisa,
(17:26):
and I'm like he and he told me he threatened me.
He said, you come back or I am cutting you off.
I said, okay, cut me off. It's over. It Just
it sounds very parental in that way. I'm like, no
more that. I put my foot on the ground and
I said, I don't care anymore. Take your house, take
(17:46):
your cars, take everything. Just you know, there's freedom has
a cost. You know. Were you scared in that moment
to leave some of your comfort? Very scared, very scared.
I'm not gonna lie to you. I was very care
and I didn't sleep for days. I cried. I you know,
I started selling stuff like panic mode, you know, like
(18:07):
called the real real come take my watch, take my
take my back, take like I I went into this
panic mode and then I calmed down after I took
advice from lawyers. To be honest, I I was like,
I need to go see a lawyer, and my lawyer said, listen, like,
it doesn't work that way. This is the USA, this
is not Saudi Arabia. You know, like, you've been married
(18:29):
in Florida, you've been married nineteen years. You have a
lot of rights. Women like relax. So yeah, so, and
and then we started community. Him and I were communicating
through family members. One of his sisters is just incredible,
and I told her, you know, I don't want to
have a war with him, but he needs to. He
(18:52):
needs to do the right thing. You know, I'm not
here to go after his company or his house or nothing.
He needs to at least pay Hella bills. That's it.
I can work, I can take care of myself, although
he has to give me something. But I was like,
I don't want it. Just pay my daughter's bills, that's it.
And we came to an agreement and he's been he's
(19:14):
been good. So I'm working. And you know, the best
thing any woman or any human can do is is
to be independent and then no one It's it's so true,
and it's so easy to you know, have a provider
and allow them to provide, and especially when it comes
(19:36):
from some sort of a loving place. Even was there
some love in the beginning between him and I? Lisa, no, yeah, okay, no,
no a friendship or no, not I wish not even
a friendship, not like some of my friends would tell me, Oh,
you're like roommates. I'm like, not even roommates. Like we
we we never talked. We It was always like, what's
(19:57):
for lunch? Where is my shoe, where's my belt? Did
you pay the bill? You know, you're the personal assistant
in someone. That's it to me When I'm teaching a
yoga class and tell me tell the housekeeper to put
my lunch on the table. I'm like, you're at home
to tell her I'm about to start teaching a class. Now.
(20:19):
Yoga empowered me so much, Lisa, Like, at the moment
I started to practice yoga and go to my teachers class,
I don't know what happened. It's like you come home
and you're like, with all these problems, with all his abuse,
You're like, I don't care, it's it has nothing to
do with me. It's him, you know. But it took me.
It took me a good twelve thirteen years to figure
(20:41):
that out. Well, it sounds like yoga was your savior
in so many ways and still still is. Yeah, of
course it continues to teach, but I mean to have
that healing every day. It's like a drop of medicine
every day to what sounds like, you know, a burn
at home, not physically, just you know, somebody, somebody's saying
(21:04):
you're not that you're worthless, but perhaps just making you
feel like you're worth less, telling you to just He
made me and told me I am worthless. He made
me feel and told me many times I'm worthless, and um,
I don't know what I'm doing. Why are you doing
your teacher training? What you want to become a yoga
teacher now? And I'm like, yes, it's it's even even
moving to the US empowered me. I started to know
(21:26):
and understand and figure out that he cannot do anything
to me here, you know what I'm saying. And I
got my U s citizenship in seventeen thanks to him.
It's the best thing he gave me, to be honest,
because he was he is a citizen and through marriage
you you become a citizen. And Lisa, it was like
the most beautiful, amazing day of my life when I
(21:49):
got my citizenship on life, freedom. Yeah, and and so
a lot of people, you know, and especially in the
past year, specially young people, don't understand the freedoms that
we have, even though we've got a lot of work
to do, like any other country, like any other place.
But like my American American friends tell me, I don't
(22:09):
know what you like about the US, and I'm like, yeah,
go to Lebanon or Saudi Arabia and then come to
come tell me that, right, No, it's the land of
the free. I don't care what anybody says. So not
all men in Saudi Arabia, I would imagine, are similar
to this. I mean, I remember I met your dad
and he seemed my dad is my best friend, right, yeah,
(22:31):
is he with you here in the States, Yes, he
is my dad. My dad moved to the US two
and a half years ago. For me, he knew I
was suffering, but he he was in a in a
very hard position himself. He was going through his own
problems financially, work, all that stuff, and he was not
able to help me, and it just broke his heart
(22:52):
so much, so he told me I'm just gonna leave
everything and come and live in the US. And he
lived with me and my big house at the time
for one full year and he worked for me, like
he was taking the kids to school, he was going
to the grocery store and all that stuff. Until he
managed to save up some some money and he rented
(23:13):
himself a tiny little place and now he works for
Instat cart he's an instat car driver. Oh my gosh,
it's amazing. And is does he live near you now?
You're living in an apartment. Yes, I moved to an
apartment in Brickles. So he's in the gay bus. So
we're like ten minutes ten minutes from each other. Is
your mom and my my mom? No? No, my mom
(23:35):
is in the picture. But she's back and forth from
Miami and Lebanon because she has to go check on
my brother who suffers from the schizophrenia and he's institutionalized
in Lebanon. So she, you know, a mother, so she's
she's like, I just can't abandon him and stay here,
so she comes back and forth. She's like fifty in
(23:56):
in the US, fifty percent in Lebanon. Are your mom
and dad the married, Yeah, there's they've been married for
like forty two years. And you know, it's like she
lives her life, he lives his life. But when they're together, Lisa,
they are like best friends. Right, Well, that's what I
was kind of saying, Like when they are physically together,
did you see a relationship that was different than the
(24:16):
one that you had so you knew what to look for?
Like like my dad, when my dad moved today today
US two years ago, he he was hearing from my
mom because my mom would come and visit me and
she would go back and tell him like, I don't know,
but this is so weird, like Mimi's husband is just weird,
like this is not normal. And my dad was like,
(24:37):
he's like until I came and I lived in your
house that I was like, this is not normal. So
no one knew your reality for fifteen seventeen years. No,
I would not complain to them, Lisa, because I don't
want them to hate him and I don't want them
to worry about me constantly, so I would not. I
(24:58):
would not say a word. My mom would just come
and see, you know, but I never complained ever. So
coming here and you know your French Arabic, I guess
more Arabic, no Saudi? What is it? Was it your nationality?
(25:21):
Middle Eastern, Middle Eastern American. Please, I'm an American American, Yes,
you're in American. Well, I'm just you know, like like
your son who came when he was ten and left
his culture behind, which is so steep in lots of
cousins and all the different things that you have that
are different than here. Have you had an easy time
or a hard time finding a community of friends who
(25:43):
you relate to? You mean in the US. Yes, the
first year and a half was very difficult to find,
like just real people. You know, they're specially in Miami.
You know a lot of people tell me, oh, Miami, Miami.
I think artificial communities are everywhere, you know, the velvet
society and the artificial communities and the gossip, and it's
(26:06):
it's everywhere. Honestly, it's Saudi Arabia, it's here, It's everywhere.
So in the beginning, yes, I was struggling a lot,
like I'm like, where where am I gonna go? Like
I need this this good community. Where am I going
to find this good community? Because I'm a very social person,
But don't put me with people that are not authentic
or or fake or gossipy, you know, like my mantra
(26:30):
is mind your own business. So the last thing I
want to be is around people that gossip all day
and go to lunches and dinners and and shopping seven Like.
I love to shop, but that's not what I want
to be surrounded with. So the truth is, Lisa, for
a year and a half, I was lonely. I was
very lonely. I had I had I would like get
(26:51):
to know people and then leave them alone, and then
get to know other people and then leave them alone.
I just didn't find my people until I went into yoga.
Oh all of my community today, My best best friends
are my yoga community. And so you didn't need to
find people with a shared religion or same background. You
just had to find people that show up at all.
(27:13):
No religion, no culture, all of these things I did
not look for. Just I needed to find my safety net.
You know, we are nothing without a community and community
that's positive, that moves forward together. That's real. You know,
that's that's real, that that's going through ship like you are,
that's all that. It's amazing you really are at home here,
(27:35):
and it's so interesting because you kind of just arrived
here just seven years ago, and yet this is this
is your place. I'm glad that you feel so welcomed here.
I feel so welcomed. Nobody has ever made me feel
unwelcomed or because of my accent. Well also, you know,
Miami helps because nobody really is from the US and right,
(27:57):
you know. But but still, I've been to Boston, I've
been to California, I've been to New York, and it's
just always amazing, to be honest, always never had an issue. Yeah,
I mean, I love to learn about your culture and
instead of make you feel like you need to completely
like conform to it. Right, So this year was huge
(28:18):
for another big reason. Like I said, I met Mimi
at so Yoga in Miami, which is an amazing studio
with these infrared panels, and I guess that's back up
and running now, right, it's back up and running with
masks and and and limited capacity, but it's it's it's there.
I was there this morning. It's really the most beautiful
(28:38):
studio in Miami and every like, I've never been to
a studio that's that beautiful anywhere, to be honest, it
really is. It just is pristine and has great energy
and it brings the heat to the practice, which I
personally love, but you don't lose the spiritual aspect that
(28:59):
sometimes the heated community, which people associate with like intensity,
like that, the physical practice becomes prioritized, but not the spiritual.
So it really is a beautiful blend. So this year
you launched Mimi Yoga. Yes, I launched mem Yoga in July,
actually July, since it's amazing. I had another Mimian who
(29:20):
does not yoga but something else, and she launched her
online platform this summer too, and the two of you,
it's like the Year of the Mimi because the two
of you have exploded. Mind you, not just since June,
you know, eight months ago or whatever that was, but
in the middle of a pandemic. So what is Mimi Yoga?
(29:41):
How did you make this leap? And tell us everything? Honestly,
it started in March, Lisa, it started. I didn't launch
it in March, but it all started in March when
I was like, Okay, I am not gonna sit here depressed,
crying all day thinking about how I'm gonna move where
I'm gonna move. I'm going to start teaching online. I'm
(30:01):
gonna post on my Instagram and my Instagram is my
best friend. It's you know, it's the window to the world.
So I posted, I said, I'm teaching a free class.
Everybody's welcome. Uh, this is the Zoom link. I posted
the zoom link and boom. The next day, I go
into Zoom and I get eighty one people on my
(30:22):
room and I'm like, holy, you know, and I just
didn't stop. I kept I kept doing the the free
class every week for like two or three weeks, and
then I started to charge people. But I would say
in in the message, I would say, you know, it's
ten dollars a class. If payment is hard, because a
lot of people, you know, we're going through a lot
(30:44):
of financial hard times. If payment is hard, classes on me.
So yeah, people kept showing up and showing up, and
it just kept growing and growing, and I would get
people from Mexico, from Guatemala, from Venezuela, from Miami, from Saudia, Abia,
from Dubai London, like I have forty seven countries on
(31:05):
my platform today. And then when I filed for a divorce,
I spoke to a good a friend of mine and
I told him, I said, I said, I have two choices.
I either have to start something like I have to
start like monetizing my yoga properly, or I have to
go back to Saudi Arabia, like I have I need.
(31:26):
I need to figure this out. And he said, you're
not going back to Saudi Arabia and you are starting
mi yoga dot com. And he supported me so much. Uh,
he even invested in my company. And he just made
it happen to be honest. All right, hold on, so
let's back up for one second. Previously, before online yoga
(31:46):
was your thing, you would show up and teach how
many people in a room? So I would teach My
maximum in the room would be forty five people, right,
so you're like an online class of eight people is
one people. It's like, wow, the opportunity. I never thought
about it. I never thought I could have started online
yoga like two years ago and access all these countries.
(32:09):
But I never thought about it until we quarantined. And
what was it like to have somebody invest in you?
I mean, now you're telling me you didn't really work
for a while. You were a mom, then you were
a yoga teacher, and then all of a sudden you're
a businesswoman. What is that like to have somebody invest
(32:30):
in something that you have to create something that doesn't
even exist. It's scary, you know, it's scary, and at
the same time, it felt so good to have someone
believe in me. You know, he told me, he said,
I believe, I believe in you. So he's my student
to be honest, and like, I've been coming to your
class for three years and you are the greatest yoga
(32:52):
teacher for for me. For him, he's like, nobody has
the ability to make me feel the way you you
make me feel. And he goes to a lot of
other classes, so he's like, I believe in you, I
trust you, and I want to support you, and we
got this. We're gonna do it. And I'm it was
not easy, Lisa, it was hard. It was so hard.
It's a lot more to learn than people realize. It's
(33:14):
a lot what happens in the back end, and you know,
and and it's just me, me, It's not like there's
like five or ten instructors teaching on the platform. It's
just it's me. It's a one man show. So it's
a lot of energy. I want to show up for
every for my students, for everyone, in the best form
ever you know what I'm saying, and it's hard. It's
(33:35):
hard to show up the way I show up with
all the stuff going on in the back. So was
he somebody that knew how to take the first step
to develop the brand visually too? He's he's I can
I can say his name? His name is. His name
is Christopher Yurich. He's a he's a co co owner,
(33:57):
co founder of a tech company. So he's a tech guys.
That company is called BBT very big things. So they
build like like Airbnb and these apps, like big apps.
He did not build the platform. He told me, like,
your platform is too small for me to build. But yeah,
(34:18):
he knew the infrastructure like that, because again, you were
just your work before was you'd get in your car,
drive to yoga, teach an our class, come home. Now
you're dealing with email less promotions, photo shoots, membership membership support,
teacher training, brigreats. It's like it's like a whole you know, umbrella. Yeah, wow, Wow.
(34:39):
Are there moments where you have what a lot of
people call impostor syndrome where it's like I shouldn't be
doing this, but I need to pretend like I know
what I'm doing or your confidence is just still real.
Thank God, I'm very I use the word god, but yes,
I'm very confident. I'm confident. I love what I do,
(35:03):
and I do it with so much passion. I don't
look at it as a as a as a job,
to be honest, I look at it as you know, passion,
like like it's my fuel. But I've had moments, Lisa,
from launch up till today, I've had moments where I
just wanted to give up. That's it. I felt so
depleted to the point where I was just not thinking
(35:26):
right to be honest, like it's very draining. What I
do is draining. And it's also because I do too much.
And and like my my manager and the people that
work with me tell me, like me, MEI you need
to take a break. You need to teach less classes,
that's all. You need to take care of yourself, go
(35:49):
to the beach, get a massage, all that stuff, and
stop taking all these privates Like why why are you
doing that? And I'm like, I don't know. I want
to keep going, and they're like no, so so yeah,
I do feel depleted, and I feel like I just
don't want to do anything anymore, nothing and just for
audience reference. When I met Mimi, you had over a
hundred thousand Instagram followers to begin with, so you never
(36:12):
had to do all of it, like you could have
just been an influencer. I don't even know if you
know this. You know and posted about your lifestyle or
whatever it was whatever and or are all that stuff.
It started like that, Lisa, Oh, it did did start
when when we met, I was me malicious on Instagram, remember,
and it was passion and all and then it just
(36:34):
didn't It didn't satisfy me. It didn't like I was like,
it's not what I want to do. It's not I
don't want to be on And I'm not judging the influencers.
There's amazing influencers that I follow, passion influencers, crush, but
I don't want to be posting a shoe and telling
people swipe up and buy the shoe, and it's it's
it's not what I want. You know, you're just so
(36:56):
in alignment of who you are. So I mean, if
that was an alignment of who you are, no problem.
But for you, when you do this work of showing
up to the mat every day and you see yourself
as you are. It's very hard to then step off
the mat and be something that doesn't feel right. It
is amazing again, though, that here you are now with
Mimi Yoga. You're in forty six countries. You could easily
(37:17):
stop doing private teaching. Its soul. You know all the
things that you do, and yet you're still doing it all.
I mean, you're obviously a natural born healer. But I
think when people say you do too much, it sounds
like you give too much. How do you receive? It's
hard for me to receive. I'm learning, I'm learning what
(37:39):
fills you up, even if it doesn't happen often. I'm
just curious being around good friends, laughing, going going out
to to eat with with good friends. Do you like
you like food right? You like a good meal food.
I love my tequila, You love your cheetos. You always
laugh about it. You know me too well. Yes, Traveling
(38:02):
like I love to travel to islands or anywhere where
there's like like beach, you know, I love I love
the sun. So this is my self care to be honest,
But it's hard for me to receive, Like like when
when people want to take me out or invite me
or like my best friends or even my students. When
they want to buy me something, I'm like, no, no, no,
(38:24):
I'll buy Going out for a juice with a with
a student is hard for me to receive. One of
my best friends, she's like a sister, Joanna her name.
She told me, Mimi, you you have to receive. You
give so much, you have to receive. So I'm you know,
I'm training my working. Yeah, I'm working on it. Like Mimi,
it's okay, it's okay, get take the juice, take them
(38:46):
at uh. Let this person carry your harmony in your car?
What's the big deal? You know, Like, it's okay. Well,
you've been taking care of your world since you were seventeen,
and I don't know what life was like before that,
but it is an abrupt shift to now trust that
somebody else is gonna, you know, catch whatever you drop,
so to speak. So it's it's a beautiful way to
(39:08):
be learning and growing. And you showed up today with
such um an open heart. I wasn't sure how much
you were going to share. I didn't know any of
this stuff that have you experienced a relationship or love
in any new ways that have opened your eyes to
what you were perhaps missing. Yes, I am in a relationship.
You know, I've been learning a lot because I'm just
(39:30):
not used to being in in such a loving relationship
and being loved so much by someone and cared and
and all that. So, and I have my triggers. They
do come out every once in a while. Working on that.
I I don't want to blame my ex for anything.
I I feel that I am also responsible for for
(39:51):
allowing myself and allowing him to mistreat me for such
a long time and basically brainwash me. I am responsible, book,
And we have a choice in life. We do have
a choice, But as I said, sometimes we we choose
the easy way because we want the easy way out,
you know, like we want I want the money, I
(40:12):
want the big house, I want to travel, I want
I want to be comfortable, blah blah blah. But deep inside,
I was not comfortable and I was not happy. I
was miserable. So to go back to my relationship. He's amazing,
he takes amazing care of me, He loves, loves, loves
my daughter, my daughter, and she is obsessed with him,
(40:33):
and we don't live together. I think it's I just
I'm trying, Lisa, Honestly, I'm trying to live the moment.
I'm trying to be as present as possible and just
enjoy this moment. Like when I told my dad that
I'm seeing someone, he was like, thank thank God, I'm
so happy for you. You deserve it. I want someone
(40:54):
to touch you, I want someone to feel you. I
want someone to make you feel loved and special. And
then the next and he said, he's like, so, what's
the what's the future plan? I said, no, that we're
not going there, like like it's not happening. There's no plan.
I'm not thinking of the future. I am thinking of now.
That's it. Do you feel like a teenager learning all
(41:15):
this relationship stuff almost for the first time? Yes, I do,
to be honest. And he's five years younger than me, Lisa,
and he me so much. And it's just because his
journey was different, you know, his path is different than
my path, and and he has so much love and compassion,
so much patience with me that sometimes I feel like
(41:39):
like I feel I feel bad, you know, like, are
you able to receive love from him? Now? Yes? I
am good. I'm glad. You deserve it. My last question
is Is there any part of your journey that you change? No.
I think I think the if the journey I had,
and the journey and the path come on is what
(42:01):
led me to be here today. And I wouldn't change
this for anything, like living in the States and Miami,
having the boyfriend I have, you know, and and the
yoga community. I would not change. The one thing I
would change maybe is I wish I started to practice
(42:21):
yoga at a younger age. I mean, you yeah, your
whole life is just really amazing for me to watch.
I love to pop into your Mimi Yoga classes online,
the live ones, you know. I love to surprise you.
It surprise. I'm like, no way, and I can't believe
the community that you've built. And then I saw you
(42:42):
posting about going on a retreat and I'm like, who's
going on a retreat right now? Like who has the money,
the time? And then I continue to watch your story
the next day and there's thirty of you jumping into
a lake together or maybe right, but it was so
beautiful to see that people living and you know, obviously
(43:03):
done safely, I'm sure, but I was just like, Wow,
what you've created to get thirty people to go on
a retreat, and I mean, I hope you really understand
what you've created. And I'm coming on the next retreat
with a baby possibly but Amy retreat. But I am
coming on that next retreat. Evan's gonna come. It would
(43:24):
it would be an honor to have you do men go.
You know. The first retreat I did was in November.
Lisa was in two rooms. I had this November. Yeah,
last November wasn't. Yeah. That was the first Miyoga retreat.
We had twenty seven people and five of them were men.
This retreat, I had one guy. Did he have fun?
(43:47):
He had the best time, the best time. He's he's
he's a student. He does privates with me on like
regular basis. And he brought two of his girlfriends, like
like his best friends. He invited two of his restaurants,
so they shared a room. And yeah, it was it
was amazing. Well, I'm coming on that next retreat, and
I'm so proud of what you've created and it just
(44:09):
comes from your heart and the world received it. And
I only hope that you spend more of this year
receiving whatever that is, whether it's a massage or time
at the beach or or a bag of Cheetos. I
just want you to receive because you truly do give
so much to the universe. Even in this interview, I think,
like just the way you showed up, oh my gosh,
(44:31):
there was just nothing not on the table. From everything
you said, it's just must be. You're living so fearlessly
and it's awesome. Thank you, Lisa, Thank you, my love.
I'm gonna put all of Mimi's information below. You can
check out Mimi Yoga online. You can follow her on Instagram.
I know you're gonna want to and we'll see you soon. Mimi,
thank you, thank you,
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