Month: March 2021

In her sit down, Dr. Saira without holding back, shares her story about her journey with depression the depth and impact of her most recent depressive episode, living through food addiction and how she copes in day-to-day life with it, and how this all showed up in its fullest form after an encounter with her brother who at the time was homeless and suffering through addiction of his own, and disconnected from the family. She shares what it is like to be in denial, what it is like to reach out and accept support from close friends and family, and how she chose to get back in the ‘game’ and getting herself to where she is today. As a therapist and community leader herself, she was tasked with meeting her obligations to her profession while wearing a mask and attending to her own mental health. Her key message to listeners is to: shake the idea that you have to do it alone, because you don’t and you shouldn’t do it alone; it is important to lean on people, so find your people; whatever you are going through, it is not forever, even in the darkest of nights — look for the moon; she has an inspiring mantra which is, “change your story, change your life”.

Guest Bio: Dr. Saira Sabzaali is a Registered Clinical Counsellor with a Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology, and she is certified in Creative Expression and Spiritual Guidance. She specializes in managing depression and anxiety symptoms, increasing family harmony, recovering from burn-out, and repairing relationships between adult children and their parents. With her team at Dragonfly Wellness Centre, Dr. Saira provides mental health support through counselling and coaching, group support, education, and corporate wellness.

Dr. Saira has delivered two TEDx talks and teaches in the counselling program at Stenberg College. Her podcast “Sabzi Life” explores conscious living and her YouTube channel, “Dragonfly Wellness TV” provides free mental health content. Outside of work, Dr. Saira enjoys reading by the fireplace or watching the trees while sitting on the balcony at her home on the mountains in British Columbia.

Passionate about: Bright Line Eating — brightlineeating.com; Canadian Mental Health Association — CMHA.ca; Scouts Canada — www.scouts.ca

Rahim shares and details his intimate experience with coming out to his family and identifying himself as part of the LGBTQ community. He took the time to explain that the journey was a long process, it takes time, there are more parts than he realized that are part of the coming out process. He took the time to walk through several elements of his journey, including the parts where he was questioning if who he was, was wrong.
He identified with feeling displaced and unsafe in social circumstances at school, indicating that he was bullied during his younger years and kept it a secret all along with all the shame mingled together. He talks about what he turned to in order to cope with the emotional pain and what behaviours he displayed — all parts of what needed to be part of his safety net. He shed some light on what changed for him when he explored what the community that he now belongs to was like for him at the time. His key message to listeners is: Remember that it is a process, it takes time, there are no quick fixes; adversity is your greatest strength; struggles faced do shape who you become for the better; there is a silver lining, even if you can’t see it at the start!

Guest Bio: Rahim is a national award-winning Human Resources leader who has many years’ experience working in the hospitality industry. Most recently he has found his purpose in Life Coaching where he guides others to overcome adversity and live their legacy!
Rahim is a proud member of the LGBTQ community and advocates for individuals having difficulty coming out to their families. In his spare time, he loves CrossFit and spending time with his partner Dylan, and fur baby, Winnie. He is extremely approachable and fun to chat with. So, if there is anything more you wish to learn about Rahim, he says — just ask!

Passionate about: Rainbow Railroad, rainbowrailroad.org

Clarity sits down to talk about the depth of dark times in her journey as she shares about having no healthy memories of her childhood, having endured trauma, physical abuse and patriarchy. She talks about how she was desperate for love, affection and attention. She shares how she felt misunderstood and disconnected from her father, brother and sister, and because her mother was the only person in her life who was not an abuser, Clarity idealized her mother and didn’t see the reality of her mother not showing up in a way that protected her. Through this difficult journey, Clarity expresses that she has found the spark in her heart for her inner child. She explains that when she took the time to look at her inner critic, this is when she started to heal, when she took care of her inner child, she was able to feel and experience compassion for herself, and when she allowed herself to expose her wounds, she could actually experience the wound itself and move through it. Her key message to listeners is to: Always have hope; there is always something that we can do; any journey will require strength, and even the little things count — since small things do add up; the inherent innocence of the inner child spark and heart is beyond all experiences; and we are all more powerful than we think.

Guest Bio: Clarity Barton is a High Priestess, teacher of divine feminine spirituality and a women’s empowerment leader. She is the founder of Awakened Priestess, an online school for modern priestesses. Clarity has been organizing women’s circles, workshops and retreats for the past 6 years in the city of Toronto, Central America, Asia and Europe.

Clarity is passionate about creating compassionate sacred spaces where her sisters can feel heard, seen and celebrated for their inherent beauty and wisdom.

Clarity has studied Spiritual Psychotherapy and Spiritual Direction at the Transformational Arts College in Toronto, Canada. With her background in business and marketing, Clarity offers one-on-one business coaching sessions to help her sisters find financial independence and to gain a sense of purpose doing what they love. Clarity also offers individual priestess mentoring programs where she guides and holds space for her sisters with a humble heart and loving intentions. Although she maintains her close ties in Toronto, she has now relocated to Costa Rica and continues to thrive with an international community of women healers.

Passionate about: Wild Woman Awakening Course, an immersive study of the
book: Women who Run with the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes.
https://www.awakenedpriestess.com/wild-woman-awakening.html

Reena talks about what it is like to be diagnosed with a skin condition known as psoriasis from the young age of fourteen, and how it remained unacknowledged for about 17 years. She shares how she lived a life defined with pain, self-hate and denial. Reena shares that for so long, no one knew what she was truly bearing inside of her, she believed that her thoughts were actually just thoughts of vanity and ended up minimizing and invalidating her experienced pain, which remained silenced. Reena shares the life changing experience of attending a silent meditation retreat which she attended with the intention to cure her skin condition. When she arrived at the retreat centre, she quickly learned what it meant to meditate, connect with herself, sit in silence, and be with her thoughts. She learned that by acknowledging her suffering it shifted the pain, softened her as a person, and she gained awareness and insight into how she can choose to live her best life. When she completed her retreat, she walked away embracing all parts of herself and owning all parts of who she is, even the psoriasis. Her key message to listeners is to: Recognize that we are our own best teachers; everything each of us need is right in front of us and within us; things change — so don’t give up on yourself, there’s hope in a new day; you are okay right here right now, as you are.

Guest Bio: Reena is a Mindfulness Junkie, Hope Dealer and Wellness Warrior. She’s on a mission to help people awaken to the present moment so they can feel their best and be their best each and every day! She relates to those who experience the common ‘stressed, tired and overwhelmed by life’, she has created a lifestyle where she shows up as a ‘mindful living guide’, and helps people feel good in all aspects of mind, body and soul.

She is also the voice behind @psoriasis_thoughts, a community that empowers
people living with visible skin conditions love and accept themselves as they are.
She’s been featured in Glamour UK, Women’s Health, & Dove Derma Series to name a few.

Passionate about: Instagram #skinandpsoriasis community

With vulnerability, Farah shares the unimaginable experience of carrying a twin
pregnancy close to full term, learning that one baby passed away and that she had to carry on the pregnancy to keep the other alive. She shares that there is always more to a person’s story than what we may know looking from the outside in. Farah shares her experience of what it was like to connect with her stillborn baby after delivery, and her baby who was quickly taken to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and then unexpectedly, she was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit herself where she was fighting for her life. All these events left her husband on his own to grieve the loss of their twin baby, care for their newborn and keep his faith that Farah would be able to pull through. Farah shares how she had and has been impacted by this stillbirth, along with what she is grateful for encountering on this journey. Farah says that what she wants to remember about this experience is that she is not alone, everyone has their story, she has learned that it is a process and each person’s process with healing looks different. Her key message to listeners is to: Be brave, if you are dealing with something, know that it is okay to talk about it — it doesn’t make you less, weak or wrong; it’s okay to get help or talk to your employer; give yourself permission to talk about it; you don’t know what the other is going through so, be kind, show compassion and cut people some slack, let’s not be quick to judge!

Guest Bio: Farah Nasser is a well-known evening news anchor on global news, she is an award-winning journalist. Farah has covered at every government level including the main 2018 Ontario provincial election debate. She was also on the ground reporting during major events such as the Toronto van attack, the G20 Summit in 2010 and the “Toronto 18” terror trials.

Farah created notable buzz on social media as the force behind ‘First Time I Was Called’ and ‘Living In Colour’, two digital series’ exploring the experiences of marginalized peoples while giving them a voice. Farah is a TEDx speaker, known for her talk titled: “The Power of Intellectual Humility”.

When she is not busy reporting daily news, Farah can be found volunteering in the community. She regularly speaks at community events and has worked with organizations such as Journalists for Human Rights, the Aga Khan Foundation and the Economic Club of Canada.

Passionate about: NICU’s @ Mt. Sinai Hospital and St. Joseph’s Health Centre, Toronto, both helping the littlest and parents every single day.