Episode 16 - How to prevent generational trauma with Umar Sheikh

(00:10):
Welcome to our next episode ofWay Out of Childhood Trauma,
and today it's here with me,
therapist Hypnotherapist,
RTT therapist and specialist in
neuroscience, Umar Sheikh. So welcome, Umar.
Thank you, Barb. Thanksfor having me here.

(00:31):
So I know that you studied a lot and your
journey to becoming therapists is long and
colourful,
and I will say that that you doingvery important work with many people.
So tell me something about you personally.

(00:52):
What attracted you to become therapist?
Okay. It's funny,
I believe that we all end up doing stuffin life and it's leading us somewhere.
We don't really know alwaysearly enough what it is.
And now that I look back at it,
I personally believe that myjourney began some 22 years ago.

(01:16):
So 22 years ago, 23 years ago,
my wife was in a very serious caraccident. So she suffered a coma,
multiple injuries, and asa result, she'd forgotten.
When she came out of coma, she'd forgottento read, write, speak, forgot me.
So that was a fun month or so,

(01:36):
but that came back soon and now we
fast forward.
Now what happens with brain injury isthat you really don't know what symptom is
going to come about when, And there'sjust not enough knowledge out there.
So now we fast forward andcome to where we are today.
What we started noticing about two anda half years ago is a serious lack in

(01:59):
her ability to remembershort-term memory. And yes,
there were sort of mobilitylimitations as well,
but then there were issues withself-esteem because of course,
even with regards to memory,
when she's not remembering how to dosomething gets to a point where you start
feeling that, Hey, I'm not good enough,I'm not contributing, I'm not capable.

(02:20):
So that hits the self-esteemand then self-esteem,
of course confidence is linked to it.
So multiple number of thingsjust started to come about.
That triggered me to start looking moreinto the mind and the brain and trying
to understand how everything kindof works and how it comes together.
Because we as a family,
there's been very limited guidancein terms of how we can manage it,

(02:43):
and we only get textbook answers.
So we had to sort of dive intoit and deal with it ourselves.
So that kind of triggered me in oneway to start learning more about the
brain itself.
But.
Then on the other side, we've also gotour youngest son who's got down syndrome.
So.
As he was getting older, and now I'mgoing back about four years, he's 15 now,

(03:07):
but about four years ago, I started toget into this sort of feeling of, okay,
you know what? His lifespan isgoing to be possibly around 40, 45,
and his brother and his sister aregoing to go off into their own journeys.
They're going to get married and dotheir own things and whatever it is,
and this guy is going to be by himself.
I.

(03:27):
Want to be able to makesure I outlive him.
So that combined with my wife's
experience took me into a directionwhere I started taking better care of
myself. I started, startedto learn about breath work.
So I started at a very basic level andthen went into meditation and started

(03:47):
doing yoga and then started tolook into different types of
therapies or different modalitiesTherapy.
And what I came across was,
of course you've got the NLP and CBT andall of these different therapies that
are out there,
but what I started to learnis that none of them in
isolation really take youto a result that you want to

(04:11):
have. They're very goodin their own context,
but they're very method driven,not necessarily result driven.
This is my opinion in my experience.So just bear that in mind.
So I started to lookaround to do more things,
which would encompass everything,which would integrate all of these,
because I believe that if webring everything together,

(04:33):
then we'll have a better solution.As for, actually, I came across RTT.
Absolutely. RTT combines themain five forms of therapy.
And from your experience, you will know,
and I can use examples of hundredsof my clients now as well,
where we have managed to get a reallyconclusive result in most cases,
and if not, we've got toget a conclusive result.

(04:54):
We've managed to get to a point whereit's a lot more manageable than it was
before. So that sort of brought me to RTT.
Then I bolted on, went back touniversity at the age of 50,
went back to university to studyneuroscience and psychology
because again, at certain pointswith RTT also, I felt, you know what?

(05:16):
I need to understand, I need to be ableto get behind the eyes of my client.
How.
Do I do that?
And that's where the neuroscience andpsychology masters that I'm doing now
comes into play. So I'm understandinga lot more about triggers,
chemical emotional triggersand how they are stimulated.
So even when I'm doing the therapy,

(05:37):
it's really useful because I amnow better at using better words,
more appropriate words. I know it'sgoing to trigger a certain emotion.
So like I said,
it's a multiple number of things thatkind of came together and brought me to a
point of knowing that, okay, you knowwhat? This is actually what I want to do.
I mean, I'm an entrepreneurand a chef by training,
so this is a major careerchange. That's my journey

(06:02):
as a small of a nutshellthat I could put it.
Yeah, yeah, it is very similar.
We sharing the desire to put it alltogether and understand how it's behind is
it, it's also kind of same thing,
which led me to RTT to push togetherall things I learned before.
So yeah, and as you said, we can seethat in the results of the clients,

(06:24):
but it's working. Soit's really interesting.
You mentioned your children andyou mentioned that your wife
had a car accident, so that wasquite traumatising event for them as
children. And how has affect them,
how we speaking about differentsources of trauma on our podcast?

(06:45):
So this is one of them, isit when our significant.
Events.
And also ongoing issues, is it lack ofability of the one parent? It's always.
What happens in families
in a sort of community,
even what happens is that the personwho's actually suffering their injury ends

(07:05):
up getting a lot of focus and we forgetabout how it's impacting everyone around
them. So for my daughterwho's now 22 for instance,
she at the age of eight or nineended up taking on so much more
responsibility. So atthe age of eight or nine,
we were behaving with heras if she was 14 or 15.

(07:29):
Now within herself,
I feel that up until maybea couple of years ago,
there was still a level of resentmentas into why didn't I was the only child.
And she used to get a lot of attentionfrom everybody amongst our friends.
We were the first to have a child.
It was the first granddaughter grandchildas well. So it was a lot of attention.
Then all of a sudden it's gone.

(07:50):
Child number two comes along andimmediately after child number three
comes along, who's got disabilities?
So while at that time mywife wasn't experiencing as much of the symptoms of the
brain injury, but that timing withthe two younger siblings back to back,
one of them with a disabilitywho took all of our focus,

(08:10):
both my wife and I think thataffected her quite a great deal.
So she became a bit of an introvert.
She's very talented butdoesn't like to show it.
I feel that she restricts herself fromreally pushing the boundaries a little
bit. She is very, very talented, agreat writer, a great photographer.
She's doing journalism right now. But yes,

(08:33):
it has affected her personality. Inhindsight, when I think about it,
I do realise that, oh, hang on a second.
All of a sudden from having all thatattention, we just turned her into
at the age of eight or nine,
turned her into a teenager who wasbabysitting for us and helping around the
house. And so we don'tnotice, and as parents,
we get so absorbed in tryingto put out the fire that we

(08:55):
overlook what our children areactually experiencing. Younger one,
the middle child, and of course theyoungest one, they were too young.
So by the time they got older,
we'd come out the other end almost andlearned a lot more on how to better
manage our environmentand the emotions at home.

(09:15):
So they didn't get it so much, butmy older daughter definitely did.
Yeah,
I can personally relate to that becausemy mom has many know from my story,
my mom had accident when I wasfour years old causing a lot of
issues. And even thoughI was the youngest one,
I was the one who took onresponsibility and it about a lot.

(09:39):
And my brother has all ofissues with dyslexia and other
things. So he get all of that attentionneeded to get help with many things.
So can feel for your daughter how it feels
when that responsibility is taking on,
put on expected, somehow get on.

(10:02):
So do you think that you are not moreequipped to help her or does she allowed
you to help her to? Yeah.
I think it's important as parents and Imean I've worked with quite a few young
adults even at the moment.So when I say young adults,
I'm talking about sort of 17 ish up until
21, 22.

(10:23):
And what I realised and what weended up doing is we actually,
when we realised that thisis what she's experienced,
we started to talk to her aboutit and acknowledged that, hey,
we realised what's going on. Werealise what has happened. And it is,
it's our fault because we didn'tknow how to manage it any better,
but she got the brunt of it. Butnow we're older and she's older,

(10:44):
we were able to rationalise it and talkto her about it and allow her not like,
you don't need to schedulea sit down and have it out.
But over time,
very casually some praiseand complimenting and
building that confidencethat when you were this age,
you were doing this andyou were doing that for us,

(11:04):
and you can't imagine how much ithelped us and so on and so forth.
And we're sorry that we overlookedcertain situations and we sort of
guided our relationship by theemotions of that conversation.
And no, now she's much betteryet she's still an introvert.
She's still on the shy side.I think that's personality is kind of built up now.

(11:29):
But no, we have a very,very good relationship.
She's incredible with her brothers,especially the youngest one.
She's the legal guardian after us.They have a great relationship.
So as a unit now, we are quite strong,
but it is very much forhaving that open dialogue.
Yeah, I see that what I'mtelling you, the family,

(11:49):
families like that, it's reallyimportant people saying, I did my best.
It's like nobody blame youthat you didn't do your best,
but the children still wantto hear that. I am sorry.
You'll be surprised.
What I find with children is thatif they have the opportunity to
express themselves withoutbeing judged, they'll do it.

(12:11):
And that's what we really need fromthem. Give them that opportunity.
And as parents, we can create thatenvironment. And as therapists, yes,
of course when we're engaging with youngadults, we always say to the parent,
it's about the adult, Iappreciate your opinion,
but I've got to give thechild what the child wants.
And that builds confidence and trustbetween us and our client, the child.

(12:36):
But parents can actually also do that.
It may take a little bit more time,But it's about creating the right
environment and having that focusedtime. So for instance, with us,
when all the kids are together,now they're in college and university and stuff,
but when we come together for holidaysand stuff and prior to them going away,
we would always have our dinnerstogether. There's no phones.

(12:59):
It's that conversation, just thatbanter making fun of one another,
creating that safe space and thenbe able to say that, oh, hey,
what did you experience about that andhow did you feel? And so on and so forth.
And I must tell you thatbecoming an RTT practitioner,
I've been doing it for three years now,
has enabled me to be able to have thoseconversations and be able to ask the

(13:20):
right questions and creatingthat safe environment. So yeah,
it is possible and I wouldencourage parents to do that.
Yeah, absolutely. No,
I would agree with that advice becausethe children just want to express any
trauma we carry on isunexpressed emotions.
So recovery is that way of expression. So

(13:46):
when you are workingwith the young adults,
what do you would recommend the parentsif they feel that their children have
the issues, how they shouldapproach even maybe that topic,
that person need help becausesometimes they don't want to go
for therapy or something. So.
What do you feel like useful, how to.

(14:07):
Suggest? The.
Great thing about childrenin young adults is that
when something is up there is quitefrequently very immediate change in
temperament. So as parents,
we just need to be observantand we should always be
open-minded about there being a problembecause a lot of those problems may not

(14:31):
seem real to us because we'readults and we're grown up. Oh,
so what if you've broken up withyour girlfriend or your boyfriend?
So what it happens,
but we've really got to go down totheir level and understand how they're
actually feeling andallowing them to express that
Getting down to their level. There'sa wonderful book. There's a writer,

(14:52):
Thomas Erickson, he's written a wonderfulbook. He's one of my favourites books.
He's a business coach, but this book,I think you should get it as well,
it really applies to us. It'scalled Surrounded by Idiots,
and it's all about communication.
And one of the mostimportant sentences in there,
the most important phrase in there thatI've picked up on is that communication

(15:14):
happens on the terms of the listener.
And that applies to all ages,
all levels of hierarchy inorganisations between spouses.
It happens with everybody.
So although this is very mucha business coaching book,
but it does apply in day-to-day life,
and you can pick up a lot byjust being able to, again,

(15:35):
just creating that environment and givingthem the opportunity to believe you
are willing to get to their levelof understanding And then be able to
communicate with them. So that'salways a very good starting point.
And
we don't sometimes understandwhat trauma is for a child,

(15:58):
a trauma for child can be neglectingthem when they've become hurt
by something. If they've fallen andhurt themselves and we're like, oh,
get back up, you'll be absolutely fine.To them,
it could be a message of, well,I don't care. I'm too busy.
You are not important enough.
We're not understanding how theyare receiving that information,

(16:19):
how they are translating it.
So Trauma doesn't necessarily mean ithas to be something dramatic like child
abuse. It can be the simpler things.
And children are always great to let youknow because they will start behaving
differently.
So if you've got a childwho's generally very happy,

(16:40):
but then all of a sudden theybecome quiet depending on their age,
their level of maturity, if theyall of a sudden become quiet,
there is something going on, you juststart observing, start listening,
and start seeing things.
Try to read between the lines andgradually not suddenly gradually
create an environment where they startfeeling comfortable speaking about it.

(17:04):
Yeah, you are absolutelyright because we all
have trauma. Our reaction,
our own reaction is it everybody hadtheir unique reactions on things.
And one of the things whichis most common happening,
what I see in my life and myclients is that people assuming,
assuming like, oh, that's not so hard,

(17:27):
or my life was worse, orI'm suffering with this,
or what's happening to you, it's not soterrible. So that's not traumatising.
So also a lot of parents can ofcourse through their own trauma,
if it was in their childhoodor if their adulthood,
if it's the socialcultural shock of moving,

(17:47):
if it's the better service,if it's the loss of job,
if it's the strugglingwith the financial issues.
So this is really very important tofind out where we passing it on with
children,
where children are veryaccommodating as the children can
understand if we are willingto explain and express our

(18:09):
emotions so they would understandthat it's not their issue.
I find the most common problem isthat parents hiding things from
children and saying that they would notunderstand that and the children start
just believing that it's somethingwrong with them because the parents not
speaking with them or withdrawingtheir attention, Running so

(18:30):
on male of thoughtsabout financial issues.
But instead of explaining to thechildren, this is situation we are now in,
this is what we are doing for it. They
just getting themselvesclosed off, is it? And.
Without a doubt,
it's very difficult to navigatethrough the process and being able to

(18:54):
use the right language and theright wording. It is difficult.
Even as parents sometimes you get caughtin the moment and you sort of lose your
temper and it happens. So I dofeel for the parents as well,
you are a hundred percent right.
Don't hide it from thembecause they will pick it up.
Children are very intuitive,incredibly intuitive.
And when you are facing, evenif it's financial stress,

(19:17):
they will pick up that energy
and then they will react andthen they'll start to wonder.
And then here's the other thingabout children. As you know,
they have wonderful imaginations.So when they're frightened,
you can imagine where theirimagination is going to take them,
and that's where their trauma beliefsand that's where their belief system

(19:39):
starts to change. Soif it is final stress,
financial stress, sorry,
and you're reacting by gettingangry or getting frustrated and
just losing your temper on the smallestthings, they're going to feel that,
oh, this is how it's supposed to be.

(19:59):
Bring them on board. I'm not saying thatthey should go ahead and say, oh yeah,
you know what? We are aboutto lose the house. Right?
I'm not saying throw it tothem in a big way, but yes.
So I'll give you an example. Let'sjust say I'm broke, I don't have money.
My child wants somethingfrom a store or whatever,
rather than me saying, well, thisis so expensive, what do you think?

(20:23):
Money grows on trees. I know in the backof my mind that I don't have the money,
but now I'm releasing that frustrationby getting angry and saying,
money doesn't grow intrees. What do you know?
You don't have to work for a living. I'mthe one who has to work all the time.
So now that is changing the dynamics.
So rather than going intoa language of that nature

(20:46):
and going into that negativeenergy and that's negative space,
you could quite easily explain tothe children beforehand that, Hey,
by the way, we're making less moneythan we used to, but it's okay.
All we have to do is think onhow to spend it differently.
So instead of going,

(21:08):
even before going to that point of goingout to the store, we can explain that,
look, we are going to have money.Money is not going to be a problem.
We're just going to use itdifferently for a little while.
So instead of having to be ableto go out for dinner four times
a week or three times aweek or once every week,
we'll just go a couple of times a monthbecause the money we're going to save

(21:29):
from there, we're going to put itinto our holiday that we want to take.
So children understand that if there'ssomething missing in one place,
we put it into another place that'sless traumatic and easier for them to
process also doesn't affect theirbelief system because then we
also don't want 'em to growup thinking that, oh hey,

(21:49):
when you are short of money, youhave money problems. That's it.
The world falls apart.
Exactly.
So it is, there are ways to communicatewith them, and you're right,
bring them in, bring them into yourspace, talk to them about it. Of course,
talk to them about it. Remember,
communication happens onthe terms of the listener.
Talk to them about it at theirlevel, but do make them aware.

(22:10):
There's nothing wrong with that. Andchildren really only need two things.
And this is another thing I've noticedworking with children where they start to
build on negative beliefsystems or going into the
side of trauma, which later on resultsin them being rebellious and so forth,

(22:30):
they need two things. They need security.In my experience, they need security,
and they just need love.They don't need big cars,
they don't need private schools,they don't need branded clothing.
That is something we choose todo for them. Don't need it.

(22:51):
But then what happens now, thisis where the trauma begins,
is when we get upset withchildren, then we throw it at them.
I have done so much for you.
I bought you your carwhen you passed your test.
You wanted this one, butI got you a better one.
Yeah, I pay for your birthday parties.I do all of this stuff for you.

(23:15):
And what do you do for me in return?
They're not supposed to doanything for us in return children.
So the first thing is that we sortof become competitive sometimes
we don't need to, because remember,
ultimately whatever we're doing forour children, we're actually doing it.
It makes us feel better as parents.

(23:37):
So we send them to a private schoolbecause we believe that that's what
they need, but we need to stopand ask, do they want this?
I have one child who went to a privateschool and is still in private education
and another one, they bothended up doing equally well,
but each one of them said their ownthing that, yeah, I'd like this.
I don't like this. Okay,fine, as long as you're happy.

(23:58):
Because they just need that.They just need to be happy.
They need to know thatthey're being heard,
they're being loved andthey need security. They'll find their way from there.
Yeah, no, that's absolutelyrelating to that. When people,
children don't have it asnecessarily leading to that result,
which causing that traumaresponse as in adulthood,
is it lack of inner strength, whichis from being afraid as child,

(24:21):
don't feeling safe.
That strength and not build aself love if you don't feel love.
So then people saying Why youdon't care about yourself?
Why are you not pro said, why areyou not building a career? No,
because I was on love. So how am Isupposed to know what self love is?
And I had the one client and hesaid, great answer for his father.

(24:42):
When he was saying it. He's like, Ibought you this and bought you this.
And he's like, I didn't askyou to be born your decision.
So deal with that.
Exactly. That's right. They don'teven ask us to be on this planet.
We decide we want to have thechild. Right, exactly. That's it.
And I mean,
I've had one unfortunatecase very recently where I'm

(25:05):
working with a gentleman,
he's 21 years old and he'sthe oldest child out of three.
And for the past two or three years,
because there's friction between theparents, they're not getting along,
but each time they get into dispute,they bring him into the argument

(25:27):
that's been happening sincehe was about 18 now, 17, 18.
So they've been bringing him to theargument because he is the eldest,
they think that he can handle it. Andwho do you think is right or wrong?
This is what your mother is saying to me,
or this is what your father is sayingto me and they're making him take
sides.

(25:49):
And now that has now sortof caused his trauma.
He's now 21.
He's working with me because he'svery distressed and confused about
himself
and he's become aggressive because hebelieves he needs to be very protective
and take charge and be incontrol. So that's having,

(26:11):
because of that, he's had issues atuniversity and he's been sent back
because he had a girlfriend there.
And not that he was in any wayabusive or anything to a girlfriend,
but he was very possessive. AndHey, I've got to be in control.
I've been treated like anadult. What disputes look like.
This is how it's going to be. Buthe's handling it the wrong way.

(26:32):
But deep down inside, here's the thing,
he's very insecure, Sad, andhe's insecure because one,
he's experiencing, observing,
living in this instabilitybetween his parents.
I remember children need security.
So if they seem too unhappyparents and they're fighting,

(26:53):
the child gets very frightened.And when I say a child,
remember this at 21, you're still a child.
You still haven't developed,
you're not mature enough yetin general you're not okay.
Oh wow. Did you see allthose things happen?
Yeah. Yeah. You havethe hands responses on.

(27:14):
This has kind of happened onZoom. I don't know how to fix it,
so I apologise if it happens again.
I don't know what it's.
Yeah, okay, so I'll keep my handsdown. I use my hands a lot. So yeah.
So we seem to believe we made themistake of treating our 9-year-old like a
teenager.

(27:36):
These guys at the age of 17 starttreating him like an adult who should be
mediating their marital issues.
Yeah, yeah. It's about then that
children's supposed to be childrenand childhood has the role
to have is it is time to find out who they

(27:58):
are and what they want. So they shouldhave the chance to say, I don't like it,
I want this because how else supposedto find who they are as the people,
they'll be different.
And their belief is okay because theyneed to find out who they are as a person.
And if it's all taking away fromthem from any different reasons,
if it is taking onresponsibility or putting on

(28:23):
control, then they losing it.
But what do you wouldsay that is advantage of
having therapy or dealing in that ageso soon? Because some people would say,
oh, let them be, they'll figureit out when they will be older.
Well, I think Bob, you and I bothknow bulk of our clients are adults.

(28:44):
For me, I think the bulkof my clients are plus 40.
And whenever we work with them,the issue does go all the way back.
Of the problem.
Is something that they'vegenerally experienced. I mean,
I've actually had a clientwho managed to learn that they
experienced their trauma whenthey were in their mother's womb.

(29:07):
It can go back that far. Okay.
So we can't just think that, oh, becausethey're young, they'll handle it.
What do they know about life?
Life will teach them theirlessons and they'll grow.
If we are saying that there's obviouslysomething that we also haven't dealt
with yet.

(29:29):
So if we do leave it too late,
it'll come and haunt them and
this whatever theyexperience at a certain age.
And if they're very young andtheir mind can't comprehend it,
it will shut it down.
It stays in the subconsciousjust sitting there brewing,

(29:50):
waiting for something elseto one day trigger it.
That can happen their teens, it canhappen when they have their children,
when they get married. And that iswhen their life becomes difficult.
Absolutely. Because I think that, yeah,
of course we can sometimesfight by ourselves,

(30:11):
but from my experience, I like whenyou're trying to find by yourself,
it take quiet time and thenyou look back and it's like,
why didn't you find this sooner?
So I think that if it is their chanceand people do understand that their
children need help, it'sabout that breaking cycle.
Is it like if we manage totraumatise our children,

(30:31):
we should be responsible enoughto say we need to traumatise them
so they can be fully capable,
functional adults not passinganyone on their children or their
work environment. Stop that passing on.
Yeah, I mean I don't wantto beat up on parents.

(30:52):
In the situation you're in, is it?
Yeah.
But the one thing we do know asparents is that there is no right
way to parent, okay?
Which means we are bound tomake mistakes if we don't take
driving lessons, we arebound to have an accident,

(31:13):
hurt ourselves, possiblyhurt somebody else.
But unfortunately for life and forparenting, there are no lessons.
So.
It's different is it? And we have thedifferent situations and even with,
it's not against actually peoplewith the best situation I was in

(31:33):
situation when I didn'tget to it by my own doing
economic crisis hit absolutely people
around the globe, peoplewas losing the jobs.
Companies was crushing becausesomebody I didn't want created
situation that we will endup in poverty for some time.

(31:55):
And yet that happenedthen. But looking back,
I had to take it responsibility andsay it did happen and did affect my
child.
So how I will help him toget from it and not living
with that on.
So it's more about that.
Or people grew up bythemself in, for example,

(32:18):
abuse and they didn't get the chanceto recover because that opportunity
didn't come to them. Theydidn't even know it's possible.
A lot of people are told and still don'tbelieve that they actually can recover
by themselves.So often people by themselves
goes through recovery realisinghow they affected their

(32:40):
children. And it's notthat they did anything.
They cannot do better becausethey didn't know to do any.
They were traumatised andacting from their own trauma.
So it's not against partner,
but when people do recognisethat their behaviour affected
their children and also each childrendifferent, you can have the children,

(33:03):
which is as you have child which havethe needs and you're going to have super
talented child, the needs of children
worry if you have the more ofthem. It's really hard to juggle.
So I know what my mom was saying,I did my best. I was like,
I know mom that you did your best,but that I'm not blaming you.

(33:23):
I'm just realising that needssometimes wasn't able to fulfil because
just not possible. We.
Shouldn't get defensive whena child needs something.
We shouldn't get defensive becauseyes, you're absolutely right,
we are doing the best we can.
But what I've learnedfrom my children at least,
I mean they've taught me howto see things differently.

(33:47):
So I think the key thing is very much tomake sure to the best of your ability,
create that space for open dialogue.
Be the first to ask.
If your child is someone whoyou feel is shy or may not
open up to you, be thefirst one to ask. So hey,

(34:08):
I noticed you've been talking to thisboy or you've been talking to this girl
more than you usually would.
Do you like them open the door becauseyou know what? It's going to happen.
Why open the door versus them tryingto bang on it or even just walking past
open the door, it is going to happen.
So we shouldn't duck our head inthe sand and just pretend, okay,

(34:32):
everything is okay because itwill happen. So open the door.
So from a young age, starttalking to 'em. Hey, by the way,
if you ever experienced thisbecause of a certain reason,
you know can talk to me because youknow what? I experienced the same
and this happened to me.

(34:53):
I did lose money and I didn't have a job.And look, this is how I dealt with it.
And we all came through half thatopen dialogue. They can handle it.
They can really handleit. Because unlike adults,
children don't overthink a situation.
They don't create all the scenarios.They're very clear in their thinking.

(35:14):
They're very black or white.
They're much more easier forthem to rationalise a situation
provided they've been guided todo that right from the beginning.
So don't hide it from them.
They.
Won't be frightened. Yes, youneed to speak at their language,
at their level, but they'll get it.

(35:35):
And I think we're in a world rightnow, we all are trying to do as adults,
we're all trying to do a variety ofdifferent things for self-help and growth
and self love and selfcare and self, self, self.
And we're doing it at the age of,I'm doing it at the age of 50,
and I've got friends who aredoing it at the age of 40, 50, 60,
even what makes us think thatour children shouldn't start

(35:58):
now. So they don't experiencethat when they're 50.
So it improves their chances of longevity.
Absolutely.
And now that I'm in a situationwhere I can assess both sides,
because I've got parents whoare as stubborn as anything and they don't want to
change because they can'tchange. This is how life is.
And I'm right in the middle thinking,oh, damnit, I better change.

(36:21):
So I'm going to start working myselfright now. And then at the other end,
I've got my kids and I'msaying, Hey guys, by the way,
had I known what I known at your age,I'd be a complete rockstar by now.
So they're picking up.
So we've got to really open thosechannels of communication and share those
experiences and tell them thestories and make it fun for them,

(36:43):
make it fun for them.They'll make it a chore.
That's another challenge I experienced.
And anytime we turn somethinginto a chore, they won't do it.
We've got to get their buy-in.
We've.
Got to get their buy-in from day one.
Believe it or not, all of ourkids love going to school. Why?
Because if they didn't behave well,

(37:06):
the punishment was you'renot going to school
versus you're not going to get.
Grade. My son would say, hooray,I don't have to go to school.
So each is different, is it?
And it's about that finding whatis working for your children.

(37:29):
And I think that the very importantthings is to realise for everybody that
our children are not us.
We all are individualsand we are all unique.
And you can be extrovert andhave the introvert child.
I had to learn that my child is verydifferent in many ways than I am.

(37:49):
And.
He would clearly told me, you likethis, but I don't. You do this.
I would not.
We.
Cannot expect, we need to givethem the chance to speak. So Uma,
it was great to have you on podcastand I hope that you will come again.
A lot of useful forparents and your adults.

(38:11):
So if somebody will feel that maybethey would like to work with you or they
would like youngsters to get some help,
what is the best way to contact you?
Instagram is fantastic,
and my Instagram tag is omar's
therapy uk. That's UMAR therapy uk.

(38:33):
So Instagram is a great wayto reach out. And otherwise,
of course my website,
which I will have tonnesof useful information,
the FAQ section, mywebsite is very helpful.
So anyone who's thinking of divinginto this, it'll be very helpful.
You find lots of useful answers anda couple of great videos there too.
And that's umar's therapy.com.

(38:55):
Amazing.
I will put it also to the description ofepisode for anybody who it's interested
to contact you.
And so what will be lastmessage you would want to
give our listeners on our portfolio?
I believe at any age,
and I mean I have the opportunityof working in a variety of different

(39:17):
countries, different cultures,religious backgrounds. I mean,
I'm from South Asia myself,
so I've got a large client base in theMiddle East and South Asia as well.
What I would say is one,
don't think of therapy as something bad.

(39:37):
Therapy is you don't go to therapy becauseyou're unwell or because you're sick.
You see a therapist just theway you'd go and see a gp.
It's.
As simple as that. But here's the thing,
when you are going tosee somebody for therapy,
especially if it's hypnotherapy or RTT,
there's one thing that we will dovery differently to any doctor,

(40:00):
and I think majority of other therapists,when we're doing RTT or hypnotherapy,
the one thing we do is there's avery important question we ask.
And that question is, what do you want?
So just imagine for a moment thatyou've been experiencing something and
somebody says to you, whatdo you want? Let's fix it.

(40:21):
And you can. So therapy is cool.
Get out there, explore, speakto people. And one other thing,
it can also be very intimidating tofind the right therapist for you.
And we kind of tend to give in.
We don't ask questions when itcomes to even doctors, therapists,
we don't ask questions. Challengethem. Interview your therapist,

(40:42):
make sure you feel completelycomfortable, trusting, collaborate,
interview two or three, seewhich one you feel connected to,
and then go ahead and engage with them.Okay? But therapy is cool, guys, kids,
youngsters, if you are listening,therapy is cool. It is fun,
it is interactive.
You get to really express yourself andyou get to learn so much more about

(41:03):
yourself. And honestly,
anyone who's listening out therewho's in their mid to high teens,
early twenties, honestly,
if I had the access towhat you guys do nowadays,
I would honestly be a complete rockstar.
Thank you for that. Yeah, I agree.And I will encourage everybody.

(41:24):
And our podcast is about hope. Soit's about that. It's possible.
It's possible to have the life youwant wherever you are from whatever age
you are and whatever problem you havebecause it's all possible to change.
We have that tools, we have that options,
and it's your life.

(41:44):
You can twist it and upsidedown with the help of
somebody. So thank youvery much for being.
Can I just add to what you're saying?
Because you said somethingwhich was absolutely beautiful,
and I just want to add to that.
When you were saying that we arein control of changing our life,
here's a question to everybody.Think about this really, really hard,
and I bet you can't find the answer.

(42:05):
When was the last timesomething happened in your life,
which wasn't a result of a decisionyou made? Nothing happens by magic.
You decide on what you want in yourmind's job is to give it to you.
So just to confirm, Barb,what you're saying, yes,
you are in control andyou can make the change.

(42:27):
Thank you very much. Everybodywho listen us on any media,
if it's for being Spotifyor YouTube or hi art video,
leave the message or contact in theDescrip scripture episode will be conducts
for if you want to contacthim and ask if it'll be
right fit for you or your young adults.

(42:50):
And I will see you in the nextepisode. Thank you for coming. Thanks.